“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1841-1935
I cannot believe the last week of August 2020 is upon us. This year has been so different and we all have some kind of shift happening in our world. How do we do it? How do we live through such a shift in our lives and come out the other end unchanged?
The answer is ‘we cannot’. We simply, cannot. The quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. is so profound and true. Once we have stretched the mind by new experiences we can never return or go back.
This has been so true in my own personal experience as I have lived the first two trimesters of my life, with the twilight years just ahead of me.
The third trimester is now upon me and I am looking forward. I have realized over the past few years that this milestone of turning 60 is incredibly important and I am being asked spiritually to take notice. What does it mean to be asked spiritually to do something? Let me see if I can put it into words.
To listen to our spirit is to pay attention to the wee small voice that we call intuition, conscience, or a knowing. Over the years, I have been living inside my own head and inside my body just listening.
It has become the only way I know how to live. I have become a “we” and I am my own best friend. We are all the centre of our own universe with no way of actually walking in another’s shoes.
Through our own existence on the earthly plane we experience life through our own lens and via our own faculties.There is no other way. Narcissism is the choice to think our experience is the true and only one that matters or that is the only one that is important. Yet it is only through relationship and traveling with others we are able to see the spiritual journey with new vision or with a changed attitude. This changing of attitude can often be brought on by the darker side of life.
The mistake we make is discounting our own experiences as being less than, or unimportant to, the whole. Just because your experience seems less painful or less dramatic than another does not make it any less important or less painful. How we receive and live through our own experiences is how we grow out of those dark places.
In July, I took on the task of challenging myself to run 200 kilometres to raise money for the #hospiceactivitychallenge. It was a whim of an idea, however, the more I played with it, tossed it around and slept on it the more real it became. Four years ago, the thought of running 200 kilometres would have been completely foreign and dismissed as quickly as it came up.
I have grown to the point where running 200 kilometres is within my grasp. I have pushed, challenged and encouraged myself to believe I can do it and once my mind was stretched by the new experiences of challenge, I was not able to go back.
This week, on Aug. 26, I will push even further. In honour of my 61st birthday this month I am aiming to complete a duathlon that will cover 61 kilometres in one day.
A duathlon is two disciplines, running and cycling. On Wednesday I will run 6 kilometres, cycle two loops of 20 kilometres and then run three loops of 5 kilometres to complete the distance. I will begin at 8 a.m. from the Green Valley Alliance Church parking lot on Simcoe Street in Bradford.
The legs are done back to back with me checking into home base at the completion of each leg. I have been blessed with sponsorships that have overshot the goal of $1,000 and the hospice challenge is the winner here.
I have come to the place of believing in my own ability to grow my imagination and bring my accomplishments along with it. I choose to be more than I can imagine. William Blake, the intuitive poet, wrote this “What is now proved was once only imagined.” When we choose to imagine great things, great things happen. However, it is hard to imagine when we are in the darkness.
I remember over the past few years I had trouble imagining my life without alcohol. It was a dark time. Since I was 15 years old it had been a part of my daily routine. When I could not imagine it, it could not come to be. There was no room.
Once I began believing and imagining my life without alcohol the action began to take hold. I was then able to take the steps toward an alcohol-free life. As I began to imagine it, all the beautiful things that had been waiting to come into my life started to be revealed.
Then one day, after so many tries, it was finally the last day I took a drink, and the great part is my imagination pales to the reality of life without alcohol. I only got a glimpse of what was to be and what was to come, through my imagination, as it is so much better today.
As I complete the 200 kilometres running journey this 61st August of my life, it is with anticipation that I know the best is yet to come. I imagine it to be great.
As I wonder and imagine my way into the twilight of my life it is with hope, love and compassion I witness each day. I walk the dark journey with others, through grief support, holding their hand while they journey, helping them imagine the great things to come, especially when they have trouble seeing it for themselves.
It is through my imagination and living in the darkness I grow. Barbara Brown Taylor writes in her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.”
This 200 kilometres represents my journey to where I am today. Hard work, perseverance and choosing to go into the darkness and imagine great things grow success. This is a great recipe for healthy aging and happy living.
If you try for just one day to imagine something better, you will go the distance and who knows you may just run your first kilometer. You may just have a happier life. It’s not about the distance it’s about the intent because a mind that is stretched by a new experience...well you know.
Cynthia Breadner is a grief specialist, a soul care worker who offers one-on-one homecare for aging adults who choose to age in place. This care includes emotional support, physical care, mental well-being, and spiritual practices to sooth the soul. She is a volunteer at hospice, LTC chaplain and a death doula, assisting with end-of-life for client and family. She is the founder of GriefCafeBradford and practices soul care in the South Simcoe and North York region. She raises awareness how birth and death, each end of life can both be joy-filled and hopeful passages. [email protected] breakingstibah.com
