I DID IT MY WAY

Screaming and crying I ran into the house, my mother a few steps behind. She was trying to make me go to school, and I was not cooperating, just like the day before and many days before that. I was about six years old, and I knew that if I threw a temper tantrum my mother would give in and let me stay home. From the time I first walked into that huge scary building, I knew I did not want to go to school. My mother and my teachers had already had quite a few conversations about my attendance record. My mother had tried everything to get me to go to school, but nothing worked.

I had it figured out, though. I would stay home for a period of time and then, when I knew I had to, I grudgingly went to school. I would do all the assignments that I had missed, then ask the teacher for all the future lessons that she had ready. I completed 10 days of assignments in two days, and then begged for more work. At that point she would tell me to help the students who were falling behind. When I completed all the tasks, she had given me, I decided I would not go to school again. It was a routine I had created and I’m not sure anyone else had it figured out. In spite of not being there most of the time, I easily passed each grade.

WRITING MY OWN RULES

I continued the pattern of missing school through junior high and in high school, minus the tears and screaming. I had it figured out: I was very bored. The subjects that I had to take were of no interest to me, so I dreaded going to school. I asked the Dean of Girls if we could have an art class so I could study sketching and colors, but I was given an emphatic NO. In spite of all this, I maintained very good grades, since this was what my parents and teachers demanded from me. In my senior year I was elected to the National Honor Society.

I remember the time in high school when I decided that if I did not get my homework done in school or in study hall, I would not take it home. I would not use my free time at home to study. I made that rule for myself, even though I knew it had the potential to be self-defeating. It became a challenge. Could I do all my homework assigned to me during my hours at a school, and still pass all the tests?

My parents and teachers did not know what I was doing, the only requirement was to get A’s and B’s, Seeing my report card was all that mattered to them, not the process in reaching that point. Which meant the new rule I had made was perfectly okay.

A LITTLE FIB

I suppose that because my family did not have rules for me, I had to make up my own. On one occasion, my friends and I had been out a little later than we probably should have. The next day they told me they were really in trouble and were grounded for getting home past curfew. I felt left out so I told them a little fib. I told them I was grounded, too. Looking back, I’m not sure why there was such a lack of rules and accountability for me, except that my parents, especially my mother did not associate with any of the other parents. Even though they had raised my sister, who was nine years older than me, they may not have considered what it takes to raise a defiant teenager. My sister was cooperative and compliant, while I was stubborn and independent, somewhat of a spoiled brat and I knew how to manipulate people.

A CONTINUING PATTERN

I continued my pattern of not spending extra time doing homework into my adult world. For instance when I went to class to study for my Real Estate exam, I refused to study at home and I refused to be worried. I would have to comprehend and remember what I learned during class. Did that work for me? I passed a very difficult Real Estate exam the first time.

The exceptions to this rule are my creative activities. I’ve always spent time practicing and rehearsing anything that I feel passionate about, such as writing, dancing, acting, design and decorating, cooking, and voice.

WHAT I LEARNED
 
While still a teenager, I went on a date, and the boy I was with tried to get me to drink flavored vodka. I was angry, appalled that he would think I was that kind of girl. I was afraid I would not be able to handle him if he started drinking. So I made another rule: I was not going to drink, nor would I be forced to drink. I made this rule since my parents did not give me any advice on dating. I was not going to drink nor would I be forced to drink. I did not care what my parents thought or what he thought. This is how I felt.

  

As an adult, I was out with a group of friends at a bar, and they kept ordering rounds of drinks. I was told to drink up. As they drank, they became louder and more forceful, but I refused to succumb. I did not want to drink the beverages that were sitting in front of me. Worse, the man I was with did not support me. In fact, he was angry because I was not being sociable and because I refused to comply.

I’ve noticed that sometimes it is difficult to go against what everyone wants. I’ve also noticed that to be true to me and true to the rules that I set for myself, I am going to make people angry with me. I accept this, and I continue to make my own rules to live by. I find that by making rules that I know will benefit me, I will less likely be swayed by others. By setting my own rules I also have set my standards high and place value on what is important to me. I have no one to answer to but myself.

EXERCISE

• Did you, out of necessity, make new rules for yourself as a child or teenager?
• Do you still use these rules in your life, today?
• Are the patterns plainly visible or do the patterns creep up unexpectedly?
• Is it time to make new rules and patterns?

SO MUCH ALIKE

Choosing not to appear to be better than anyone else, he had selected an office on the same level as all the other brokers. He sat quietly behind his desk when I entered the room, and pointed to the chair in front of him. I sat down. After a few seconds, he looked at me and said, “It’s difficult for a right brain person to make it in this left brain world.” I wasn’t sure where that thought had come from. We talked for a while, discussing what happens when we try to fight and struggle against the rules and control of those who refuse to understand us. And how much we abhor following orders and working in this environment. It was a topic he knew I would understand.

He was known in the company as the ‘maverick manager’. He wore dress pants, a casual shirt and no tie to work and occasionally brought his dog or his guitar into this very professional environment. There were times he felt the sales assistants were not given enough recognition and praise, so to show his appreciation, he would rent a limo for us, bring his guitar (we would all sing while he played) and take us out to dinner or to a baseball game. Yet, he ran a very successful office, which is probably why the higher-ups accepted his idiosyncracies. I didn’t know what he had done on the corporate level that led to such a title, but I liked it. I secretly wished that I could be more open with expressing my own indignation to rules and regulations.

I had my own maverick tendencies. I had been taking time off, with his permission, to do auditions for acting jobs. At least once a week I went after work directly to my acting coach for a class. I did a commercial for a local television station and a small part in an industrial film. Also, several years prior I adopted the practice of being holistic.

Some of my coworkers were curious about my behaviors and asked me questions. Like him, I was different and I didn’t hide this fact. Instead, I was and still am I am proud of who I am.

LIKE A TIGER IN A CAGE

Our conversation that day helped me to understand why I had such a difficult time conforming to the work place. Why I was always searching for something else, but didn’t know exactly what. I just knew that I was bored, and never had the drive or inclination to be an overachiever.

He understood, though, and it was in that instant in his office that I knew I had a choice. It was the fact that the words he said were spoken out loud for both of us to hear. I think up to that point we were hiding in our misery. We were both trying to fit in a place that we did not want to fit in, but felt we had to. How else were we to earn an income working at a job if we didn’t do what they asked?

I quit a short time later, but I couldn’t think of anything that I could do other than getting another job. The time I spent in creative classes, the auditions, the two acting jobs were the beginning of knowing that I wanted to do something creative. Acting would not be it, though. I talked with one of my acting coaches explaining that I had a very difficult time saying the words that someone else wrote and make it sound believable. He said writing would make much more sense since it is my word and not someone else’s.

The Maverick Manager also quit a short time later--packed his guitar, took his dog and moved to a town in the mountains. He was doing what he wanted. He had found his freedom. Me? I got a new job, thinking maybe it would be better, hoping it would give me more freedom and more money. It didn’t.

I still had to figure out what I wanted. I was not as brave as he was, nor did I have a concrete talent to use as a way to make money. The only way I knew to make money was to work for someone else and because of that belief that is where I was stuck. I went right back into working for someone else.

WHICH IS IT?

I've had several jobs in which every day I go to work, or just thinking about going to work I live under the abusive threat of being yelled at or fired.  Why would I want or be willing to work under these circumstances, if not for the fact that how else can I make money? Certainly not because I enjoy performing a miserable and boring job. On the days I am not working I fear not having enough money. Where is the happy medium? By what means do I actualize loving my work and enjoying prosperity and freedom?

The reason I have not been successful in my endeavor to have freedom, and be self-reliant and wealthy is that I remember being scolded for believing in something so ridiculous. Scolded for being a dreamer.

CAN WE HAVE BOTH?

Which is worse, not having money or not having peace and happiness?

I am working part time at a job, gradually phasing it out. Full time though I am writing. The pieces of the puzzle are not quite in the place they need to be, but time is on my side. A practice called determination and focus on my dreams will win out.

EXERCISE

• Did someone in your past make you feel your dreams were not worthwhile?
• Do you ever feel like a caged animal?
• What do you dream of? What work do you really want to do more than anything else?
• Is there a way that you can save enough money to quit your job and work at your dream?

CODE OF SECRECY BROKEN

It was a difficult time. It was the Great Depression and I came into life here at the end of it. My mother, for some reason, decided when I was about 10 or 11 she would divulge a secret that she and my father had been keeping. She very simply and matter-of-fact said the words I will never forget. “We decided to keep you.”

Up to that moment I had no idea that they were thinking of not keeping me, so I was shocked and sad and uncertain. What did that mean? Were they going to throw me away?

It was her way of saying “We really love you a lot.” But, I couldn’t put those two sentences together to make any sense. I tried asking her questions, but she brushed them off telling me that I was too young to understand.

READY FOR THE BIG NEWS

I spent what I thought was a very long time waiting for the right time and the right age, and finally my mother gave in and explained what she meant.

In those days there was no means of safe birth control. A Lysol douche was the most effective and most dangerous, a diaphragm was neither dependable nor a guarantee. The use of a coat hanger was an extreme method. These methods were used immediately after intercourse, with the hope that they would prevent pregnancy. From what she told me, the time between when my sister was born at the beginning of the Depression, and the time at which she became pregnant with me nine years later was a horrendous period. A time during which preventing pregnancy was a dangerous and perilous journey. A man had a choice to keep a woman from getting pregnant. If this choice was not exercised, then the burden was left to the woman.

It was the Great Depression. The depression was a dreadful time. People were out of work, and there was not enough food or shelter. Men lost their jobs, and this was difficult because at that time, men were the breadwinners, men headed the families, and if they did not have a way to make money, to take care of those they loved, they felt shame and disgrace. My father had been out of work for a period of time, and my mother found a job as a banquet service employee, setting tables and serving food. My sister was sent to live with an aunt during the worse of times. It was all my parents could do to take care of even themselves.

I tried to understand what she was telling me, but even in my teens I didn’t fully grasp the reality of what was happening during those years and the way it affected my family.

IN THAT INSTANT

Who could know what would have happened had I not been born? Had they decided not to keep me? But, the way I look at it is, the only way I would not have been born is if I had changed my mind. We choose our parents for the lessons and experiences that we know they will give us.

My mother may have used everything she could to prevent pregnancy at the time of intercourse, but I still would have been born to them. In the instant the decision was made, it was the only decision. I already knew and had decided that these people would be my parents.

I learned that, from their perspective, deciding to keep me meant the same thing as loving me. I was afraid of doing something wrong and of not being perfect all the time, because I figured that if I didn’t live up to what they expected, they wouldn’t love me and could reconsider their decision at any time. It is, of course, impossible to be perfect all the time.

Regardless of the tough lessons and experiences, this is what I needed for this lifetime. I chose them to teach me lessons in freedom and independence, and I am still learning. My parents, my father especially, wanted me to have freedom and not work for someone else. He also wanted me to make a lot of money. Freedom and wealth are what he wanted for himself and could never make it happen. They wanted the best for me in the only way they knew how. It wasn’t until recently that I realized how important this is for me and how I wish I had asked my father more questions about what he thought I should do.

Some of their messages are unusable, and I catch myself still using them (such as, “You don’t have what it takes”), with negative effects. I now take control of my life by reminding myself, when I am doing something I know they would disapprove of, that I do have what it takes to do and be what I want, and even if I don’t, the choice to BE remains with me.

EXERCISES

• Do you know if you were planned or unplanned?
• How does this knowledge affect the way you view your life and your parents?
• How does it affect the way you have planned your own family?
• Do you believe we choose our own parents?

IT WAS ONLY A SIP OF WINE

I stood in the living room next to my aunt and felt my mother come up behind me. Before I knew it, my mother had taken the glass out of my hand and retrieved the bottle of wine from my aunt. She had been watching as my glass emptied my aunt filled it. I’m not sure if my aunt realized that she should not be filling my glass, after all I was only 10 years old. Perhaps she had herself been drinking too much and figured that behind an empty glass was a thirsty person. I heard my mother’s angry voice scolding my aunt and at that point I was feeling a little dizzy. It seemed that this incident was the catalyst in changing my mother’s mind about my being skinny and unhealthy, because I never had to have a sip of wine again and she stopped taking me to doctors.

For some reason my mother had decided that I was too skinny, therefore I must not eat enough and I must be unhealthy. Every doctor she took me to told her I was fine, I was healthy and for her not to worry. That didn’t stop her. She kept on until she finally found a doctor who would agree with her, telling her the way to make me eat more and gain weight was a sip of wine before dinner.

WHOOPS! I STEPPED OUT OF LINE

My mother’s concerns evolved into a pattern in my life. If I did not eat everything on my plate, it became an issue with whomever I was with. I severely upset a man I was dating when we went to a buffet for a meal. He was buying the meal and he told me I was to put plenty on my plate and eat it all, because he was not spending his money on me if I was not going to take advantage of the full meal. As he told me this, standing in the buffet line, he physically pushed me to the point that I lost my balance. He knew from past experiences that I never ate a lot and if there was too much on my plate I didn’t eat it. To him this was wasteful.

Another time, a man I was with became angry because I told him I was not going to drink anymore. People at our table were buying rounds, and I kept saying no even though the drinks were lined up in front of me. I did not conform to their demands even though I knew that when we were alone he would be even more angry with me.

It is frightening to hold my own with people who insist I live my life their way. I get angry when they tell me to eat my food or to consume all the drinks in front of me, but I don’t give in.

I’M HUNGRY

Eventually, these resonating concerns of my mother took hold in my mind in a different way. Now I eat everything I put on my plate due to fear that I might be really hungry later. If there is no food, what will I do? If I don’t have time to eat, what will I do? These thoughts and concerns contribute weight gain. I eat when I don’t need to, I eat too much for fear I will starve, then I feel guilty and console myself by stopping at a fast food drive-in. I do this when I am working at my job, because when I am there, I have no opportunity to eat for as long as six or seven hours. I work from morning until mid-afternoon, and these fears begin at breakfast. I fear I will be hungry, so I overeat. When I get home, I am starving, so I overeat. I know that in a few hours it will be time for dinner and I will force myself to eat even though I am not hungry. This pattern creates havoc with my metabolism and digestive system. There is no way to change the way my job is set up, it is what it is.

To feel good, I make better choices. When I am not at my job, I eat several small meals a day to keep my blood sugar level stable and improve the functioning of my digestive system. I know from experience that my body has to work overtime to digest a large meal, causing me to feel sluggish after I’ve eaten. Instead, I can eat small nourishing meals, which makes me feel good and energetic.

I prefer one drink or none at all. I believe that alcohol tends to mess with one’s mind and I really like having a clear mind at all times.

If I am mindful of what I am doing, I tend to stay healthy both physically and mentally. I follow a to-do list for exercise and healthy food until I get into the habit.

It seems to be difficult for some people to accept me as I am. But, I can choose to ignore their opinions and make better choices by turning the fear-based messages that my mother gave me into positive messages. I’m not “too skinny.” I’m “slender.” There is nothing “wrong with” me. I am who I am.

EXERCISES

• Are there things about you that are different from other people you know?
• Do others make you feel bad for being different? How do you manage their opinions?
• List the times that others have tried to control you.
• List the ways you can start to take back the control of your life.
• Take one step toward taking back control today.

WALKING AN UNPLANNED PATH

I made a new choice very different from what I had intended when I graduated from high school. Rather than the higher education that my Mother and Father wanted for me or the fashion design college that I wanted, I traveled a very different route. A route that I did not research or plan out. I would get a job.

That would not have been so bad, had I fully understood what a job would entail. Up to that point my experience in a job was working part-time in a dime store in my junior and senior years. I never considered it anything other than the way to pay for a car. Yet my boss had me pass over the older women, the ones who had been there far longer than I, to do the bookkeeping in the office and to decorate the windows every week with new sale items. This was hardly the foundation for knowing what it would be like to work at a job for the rest of my life. The only thing I enjoyed was the window decorating. I did not just enjoy it, I loved it. I was so proud of my displays in the window especially as I stood across the street and appraised my work.

Here I was, eighteen years old and trying to figure out a job for the rest of my life. I knew I did not want to work retail anymore. I would, I decided, do work in an office. This was an interesting idea because I had no idea what people in offices did. I just knew that an office would have to be better than a store.
So, off I went trying out a few jobs, not quite happy in any of them, but at least learning and making a little money.

WAS THIS WHAT I WANTED?

I tried to feel good about what I was doing, but finding a job and being happy in the job were two very different things. It seemed I was not going have both at the same time.

Mostly I was bored, the work seemed tedious and repetitious regardless of what I was doing. An office job was not that great and I soon found that being confined five days a week to the inside of a building was depressing. How could anyone be happy looking at four walls, pieces of paper, files and a pen and pencil?

I kept changing jobs looking for some oasis in a desert, and it wasn’t happening.

THIS IS IT

After awhile my outlook changed. I knew this was my chosen path and I would find the best job I could, no matter how many tries I made. I believed I would find the job that would become a career for me. I believed I would be happy in the job I loved. How could that not be true? Here I was ambitious, talented and intelligent and determined to make a successful life for myself. It was a change that I had not made plans for, but it was one in which I knew I would figure it out for myself.

Eventually my inner being, to bring me peace of mind, accepted my role as an employee. It wasn’t that I was happy with my choice of any job, but it was the fact that this was my choice and I knew I had to make the best of it. But why? I knew I wasn’t fulfilled. I could feel that I was missing something, that there was a void in my life. Then I realized that as simply as I made a choice to get a job, I could also make a choice to do what I loved. This shift in energy allowed me to understand that the time has now come to change my choices.

I now look first to what I love to do and there are several things that I not only love, but that I do well. It is a matter of deciding which choice to make and changing my life. I am complete only when I am fulfilled and this is my first consideration when I now make a choice to change the work I do.

EXERCISE

• Have you been on a path that was not only unfamiliar, but uncomfortable, too?
• Decide how you can make this work for you, at least for the time being.
• List ways in which you can change the choices you once made.
• Begin to implement a new choice.

THE SUPPOSED TO BE SYNDROME

This is where you are supposed to be.

This is what you are supposed to be doing.

This is whom you are supposed to be.

I am compressed in this one little package and I have lost my independence.

If you are supposed to be, then how could you be good enough as is?

Having said all this it very simply means that those around us, family, friends, co-workers and even acquaintances, put us in a special package with a tightly secure and knotted rope.

Once this package is securely around us this then is the way we are supposed to live. No surprises. That would never do. This package makes those around us feel comfortable, secure and safe. They know at all times where we are, what we are doing, who we are and what we are thinking. They don’t have to guess. They don’t have to search for us.

Here we are in our neat little package, unable to express ourselves, unable to create, unable to move about. We never dare to speak out and express our opinions. That is completely unheard of in our little world of ‘supposed to’.

AN ATTEMPTED ESCAPE

I was in a, ‘supposed to be’ role with my second husband. I was working at a company in which there was an opportunity to advance into a different position. It meant doing work that had more responsibility, the potential for more money, and eventually a little freedom. To do this I would have to take a test. I told him about this after dinner and in the company of a very good friend of his.

Instead of him feeling excited and supportive he told me that I would never be able to pass the test. This is when his friend became angry and told him, that I could pass the test and he should not speak to me this way. I appreciated what his friend said, and my husband was astonished at his friend taking my side, but the damage was done. That’s how fragile I was. Once I heard his words, I knew I had made a mistake. I had angered him and I had to step back into the ‘supposed to be’ place.

There is no way out, unless we reach out and untie the knot in the rope and make our escape. But this is not so easy. We have been in our, ‘supposed to be’ state for many years, maybe even all our lives. It is very scarey to step out and try something new. We find ourselves returning to our package, retying the rope, even without their help.

MEN I DATED AND THE MEN I MARRIED

The many men in my life all put me in a package of ‘supposed to be’. They left me there to fend for myself, knowing that they held the key to my freedom. If I even so dared to attempt to be me, or express my opinion they let me know exactly how they felt and told me how I was to act and talk. It was many times that I was told to not express my opinion. It made them feel uncomfortable if I were to have an opinion different than theirs.

I had my own values at a very young age. I knew what I would accept, and what I would not. I set the values for myself and did not expect anyone to follow in my footsteps. I also did not expect anyone to try to change me.

WAS HE RIGHT OR. . . . . .

I didn’t believe for a moment that I could not pass the test. I knew that his friend was right and I appreciated that he stood up for me, but it was not the time for gloating. I had stepped out of place. My husband’s ego would not let him accept the fact that I could possibly be equal to him. I would have a chance to leave my, ‘supposed to be’ position and this was not acceptable. It scared him.

My husband was a stockbroker and I was going to take the test to have the same career as his. Not because this was my original plan, but because the opportunity arose. I worked at a brokerage company, not the company he was at, as a sales assistant to five stockbrokers. I took the job because it was a different type of company than any other job I had worked at. I learned after working there that once a year, according to senority, a sales assistant would have the opportunity to study and take the test to be a stockbroker.

I did what he probably hoped for and maybe expected and backed down. I turned down the opportunity and gave up the possibility of changing my way of making money and the amount of money I made. There was no reason to continue working there, no other way for advancement and the money was not enough to entice me to stay. I left the job a few months later. This choice was not necessarily a good one, simply because I did not have another choice in mind. When leaving or ending something having a choice of what you are going to do next and a plan of how you are going to achieve your goal is absolutely mandatory. I did not change my way of working or making money, I simply stayed on the same plane and got another job.

Did what he say affect me? Of course, it did, but the choice I made affected me even more so. When I gave in I, also, gave up. Having someone tell me I can’t, accepting it and giving up and giving in is not a quality in me that I like.

A few months later it seemed that everything wrong with this marriage increased in magnitude. I was angry because I let him manipulate me. I saw him in a different light and I didn’t like what I saw, therefore we separated and I divorced him. My choice was to be single and for me this was a good choice.

Actually I am quite proud that I have opinions and that I am stepping out of my ‘supposed to be’ pattern. In its place I am becoming me and adapting to my new freedom. Gradually I am learning that in stepping out of a ‘supposed to be’ place, I am safe. I am accepting that I can do what I want, regardless of how others feel. Taking this step gives me a feeling of power. Facing the fear and anger directed toward me by the person that feels I’m betraying them, is a big step. The fact I am making the choice to tell a few people that I am writing and not backing down if I hear negative responses, is huge for me. By doing this I am announcing more emphatically that I am a writer and I push forward more focused than ever.

EXERCISE

• Have you found yourself in a, ‘supposed to be’ situation?
• How did you react?
• List the ways in which you can change and gradually break free without upsetting the other individual. Is it really necessary (or possible) to not upset the other person?
• How can you take steps to implement one of these changes today ?

A LESSON IN LETTING GO

I had two choices when I first stepped onto the glimmering hardwood floor. I could be timid, unsure, and probably a bit intimidated, or I could stop thinking those thoughts and give it my all. I wanted to dance so much that I was sure I would not hold back. I knew life would be different, once I let myself do what I wanted. It took courage, but I was determined to do something different with my life, to take a risk.

It was the first time that I took dance classes, the ones usually reserved for those of preschool age until their early twenties. That didn’t stop me. I was the only student over 50, actually probably the only one over the age of 30. The instructor/owner of the studio was only 18, but she was gracious and willing to teach me.

We started out with jazz and ballet—ballet being something I did not particularly think would be what I wanted, but she insisted that it was a good foundation. So we began. She was a professional in every aspect and expected the best from me. She pushed me, made me kick higher, made me do everything better, the result being that she knew I would give her what she asked from me.

IMMERSED IN PLEASURE

I soon discovered that two classes a week were not enough, but I consoled myself since there was to be a dance concert in June. I could manage. Ballet lasted about a month, and then I said no more, although at times I still find myself standing in first position. I wanted something fast. A good rhythm, or hip-hop, maybe, and that wasn’t ballet, but it was jazz.

I discovered that dancing is a form of expressing me, of letting go all that I had been keeping hidden inside me. Dancing was something that I had always enjoyed, although as a child I was exposed to it only briefly, through ballroom dancing lessons at school, and square dancing in my hometown. But, it wasn’t until I took jazz classes that I realized just how much dancing was a major part of who I am.

The following June we readied ourselves for the concert. I remember walking out on stage for the first time, looking at the crowd of over 500 people (standing room only), thinking, “This must be heaven.” I loved dancing on stage more than life itself.

The following year, my instructor asked me if I would do a solo plus the class performance. Of course, I said yes rather enthusiastically, and did my solo to “Hello Dolly.”

Both years, after the last of three performances of the concert, it was such a let down, and maybe even a little depression crept in. Classes took a two-month break, but it was too long for me.

ALIBIS EXIST IN LARGE QUANTITIES

I didn’t return for the third year. Many alibis kept me separated from what I loved. Things like not enough money for classes, not enough time for classes, not enough money to buy costumes for the June concerts. I’m sure I thought of more, and that was enough to stop me.

But, the reality was that doing what I loved, what I wanted to do, was a pleasure that I felt I did not deserve, so I couldn’t go back. I had been told many years ago that you can’t make any money in the artistic fields. I wasn’t in it for the money, but I was doing what I wanted, which I knew was forbidden.

NEVER STOPPING

Being told I cannot do what I want has only made me more determined to succeed. With the help of my instructor, I knew I could go beyond all expectations. I may not have gotten the support I needed from my parents, but support now comes to me from a different source, from my instructors. They are the ones that tell me how good I am, in front the class. I allow them to tell me how good I am and I allow myself to accept the praise graciously.

Even though I am not currently at a studio, being over the age of 50 has its advantages. I can take line dance classes for a minimal fee and as many as six classes a week. They are offered at the various senior recreational centers and I attend as often as I can. The line dances are the usual country western, but also a ballroom line dancing class, consisting of different styles such as cha-cha, salsa, swing, fox trot and any combination. Line dancing eliminates the need for a partner. The instructors give us enough so that we feel it, we sweat, our heartbeats race.

The instructors in these classes have also commented on how good I am, and with this praise I trust in how good I am, and I push to do even better. My greatest achievement is that I dance in step with the instructors.

I used to be ashamed of being better than others, especially those who are much older than I am, but I’ve since learned that there is nothing wrong with showing my good qualities, with being better than I ever thought I could be.

EXERCISES

• What have you done that took you out of your comfort zone? How did it make you feel?
• Did you have an instructor, a mentor, or a friend push you to your limits and beyond?
• If not, think of something you’ve always wanted to do, but never felt you could.
• What steps can you take toward accomplishing that goal?