I feel like I want to have people be aware of Bronnie Ware. (http://bronnieware.com/regrets-of-the-dying/)She writes a book about the regrets of the dying and she says that the regrets of the dying are, "I wish I'd been more connected. I'd wish that I'd been braver and tried more stuff.” I'd like to work towards helping people, and certainly help myself, to live without regrets so that when we're in those dying days we know that we died with our boots on. We died with a empty tank of gas because we used it all up.

Often people at around 50-sort of mark that as a halfway point, and people do a mid-term evaluation and ask questions. Is life all about getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home, having dinner with your family, watching TV, and going to bed, and doing it all again the next day? Are my relationships are rich they want to be? Am I in the right relationships? Am I living my life in alignment with my values? Do I have a legacy? Do I want to leave legacy. What do I want my children to learn?

And some of those things that were so important when you're 20, they're not as important as you're 50. And then you realize that we do move and shift and grow. Now, because we're not getting up in the middle of the night with toddlers, we can be rested and read a book in the evening because we're not as busy chasing our kids to this lesson or that basketball game. It's an opportunity for a really internal, reflective process that can then align our behaviour with our values in ways that I think can move us all forward.

We live in a culture that is fortunate enough to be able to give people options. People aren't sort of stuck in situations and have no choice. Often for some people if their job isn't satisfying, they can make a switch. If their relationship isn't working; Does that mean you have to leave it, or does that mean you want to transform the one you're in? Because often people forget that that's an option-- making the relationship with this partner a different marriage than the one that you're in. We see a lot of people saying, "We're not going to settle. We're looking for transformation in ways that launch us so we're not just putting in time till we die, that we live a rich life." I love when people are awake in their lives and really looking and asking, "Who do I want to be, and how can I get there in a way that benefits me and the people around me?”

In the '60s and '70s, women were socialized to be nice and pretty and pleasant and not to speak too loudly, not to laugh too loudly, to be successful but quietly. And I have been empowered by people around me who care about me to say, "Own who you are and celebrate that. When you speak to this large group of people they have enjoyed you and they got something out of it and don't have to be shy about that or apologize for it or kind of, aw, gee, shucks about it, to just kind of own it." And I didn't know about that at 25. I was quite prepared to be in a more supportive role to my husband rather than to be my own person. Brene Brown (http://brenebrown.com) has this lovely mantra that she uses which is, "Don't puff up. Don't shrink. Stand your sacred ground." And I think a lot of us born in the 60s, we were socialized as women to shrink and we can stand our sacred ground.

Share this Story

A Tedx Winnipeg talk

October 1st, 2019

September 30th, 2019

September 22nd, 2019

March 3rd, 2019

January 2nd, 2019

October 1^st, 2019

September 30^th, 2019

September 22^nd, 2019

March 3^rd, 2019

January 2^nd, 2019