When out for a walk with a friend this week we got chatting about life and where our life has taken us — not as philosophical as it sounds as my friend is going through a bit of a transition at the moment.
She was describing herself as the woman that used to do… because she is moving into a period of her life away from
work.
She wasn’t feeling great about it, as apart from the financial implications when we start to reduce our working hours, if you have been in work all of your life from the age of 16 to when you reach your mid-60s, is a huge change.
We chatted about how we become defined by what we do as a job. It’s almost always what people ask when meeting for the first time Oh what do you do? And then people will start to make a judgement about you.
Sometimes we can be described as Jane the Pilates teacher. It’s almost always about doing rather than being.
As we continued on our walk, we started to change the way we spoke about this time now, and decided that the best way forward is to stop focusing on what she used to do and start to focus on all the different things she would now be able to get involved with, things that she hadn’t had time to do whilst working. We started to talk about all
the challenges and anxieties that her work brought her that she wouldn’t now need to worry about.
It will take time to adjust, but starting to be: be an artist, be at home with family, be with your friends, be in this time now — and by the end of the walk we agreed it was going to be great.
Perhaps you have gone through this transition, perhaps it is something you are facing in the near future, so it might be time to start thinking now about how
you are going to be.
Have a great week folks — keep moving, looking and feeling good.
With love
Jane x
