50 years old, now what?

50 years old, now what?

I’m 50, what do I do now? It is the classic question, the one we naturally ask ourselves at the stroke of this fateful birthday. If we have started a family, the children may have become independent. We celebrated the very last parents’ evening, we overcame the fear of letting them fly alone (hopefully). Those who have not formed a family of their own may have been swallowed up in assisting family members in difficulty. “Since you are alone, you can take care of …”, assuming total availability.

The body has changed, and maybe we haven’t had time to follow it on a path of awareness. There are those who look at pictures from the past with nostalgia. There are those who compare themselves with TV personalities. And those who let themselves succumb to the thought that now there is nothing more to do.

We certainly ran a lot, always under pressure and with a burden of responsibility beyond our strength. Then, suddenly here comes the birthday: I’m 50, and now what do I do?

Look back to be grateful

50 years old, now what? Let’s take the extraordinary opportunity of working on ourselves, to decide to be happy. I want to talk a lot about this point in particular. The choice to be happy, without depending on external elements, is the greatest gift we can give ourselves for our 50th birthday (and not only).

birthday (and not only). It is right to take stock, look back in order to project ourselves into tomorrow with more solid foundations. But I propose a “constructive balance”, leaving aside all wounds, negative experiences, pains for just a moment. In our “constructive balance” we should first of all put all the beautiful things we have done. It sounds simple, but it’s not.

Let’s write down everything that comes to mind, everything we can say to ourselves: “Well done, me! I was good at… ”

Then let’s move on to the list of everything that others have given us, the people who have done us good, the situations in life that have given us so much, the experiences that have moved us.

Soon I will propose you to follow a path on gratitude, on living in a state of gratitude, always on https://liabeltrami.it

50 years old, now what? Reschedule the future

We will realize how rich we are – and maybe we didn’t even know it. We have a real experiential treasure, which no one can ever take away from us. The tendency is always to stop at the wounds, and it is right not to remove but to elaborate. Here, however, we must really feel, almost physically perceive this immense wealth. Let’s replace the list of complaints and negativity with this treasure chest full of precious stones.

50 years old, now what? We will immediately project ourselves onto the future. With the experience we have gained, we can consciously decide where we want to go, who we want to be, what we want to share. Every story and every future will be different. I took advantage of lockdown to take this path and I reprogrammed the future in different areas: body, spirit, work, relationships. I’ve put priorities back. I have re-focused the values. And then I chose to make short-term plans.

I started from the body, because after the pregnancies and various health problems, I had considered it only as an obstacle. On the Internet, I met http: //www.imptrainer.com I decided to start a well-done programme, a lot of effort, and 10 kilos flew away. But we will talk about this later. And I will also tell you about the work projects, the spiritual path and the commitment to the mind.

50, the jubilee of freedom

The greatest gift was a deeper understanding of the meaning of freedom. It had always been a flag of my early youth, but I didn’t understand much about it. The freedom that does not mean doing everything you want, but choosing. Freedom arises from deep awareness, which leads me to make choices without too many conditioning and without depending on the judgment of others.

For my 50th birthday, a dear friend who lives in Jerusalem gave me the Hebrew inscription from the Bible: “The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. ¹² For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.” (Leviticus 25, 11-13)

The fiftieth year is the year of freedom. An ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman, the great Adina Bar Shalom https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adina_bar-Shalom, one day told me: “When I was fifty, I looked back; I saw my family grown up. I told myself that the time had come to do something for society” . Since then, Adina founded the first university for Haredis (a once very closed ultra-Orthodox community) and has since then had more than 30,000 degrees on her personal curriculum. Adina is an activist for women’s rights, for peace and for dialogue. She is part of Women of Faith for Peace https://auroravision.it/2020/08/14/donne-di-fede-per-la-pace-edizioni-speciali/

50 years, now what? I am ready to make my contribution to society.