Attitude has been a driving force in my life, and as I approach my fifty-seventh year, it is even more important. I have always believed that aging is a state of mind, and throughout my life, I have held firmly to the belief on each birthday that I was too young to be this old.
My work with becoming Fearless has been the core driving force that has allowed me to explore the deepest places in my psyche and to move beyond the damaged and limited belief systems that kept me bound to my fears, self-doubts, anger and insecurity. It has been a journey fraught with pain and self-delusion, but only by holding to a constant need to know more, to explore and seek the higher good, have I truly come to understand that my life is truly what I make it. I have learned to accept full responsibility for the path I have chosen, and although I continue to have my doubts and my insecurities, but these are old habits, and it’s only a matter of time before these fears dissipate.
I speak about becoming the woman you were meant to be, and as I write this, I realize that I am becoming the woman I was meant to be. I am caring, compassionate, loving, generous and forgiving. This doesn’t mean that I exist in this place at all times, but I try, whenever I am drawn off course, to return to this place. It hasn’t been easy.
But it is the journey of becoming that pulls me forward. I am becoming more than I ever thought I could be, becoming more than I will ever imagine. I am a child of God. I have always believed that, and yet, it has not been a place I came to easily.
As a child, growing up in a physically abusive home with a raging alcoholic, I found my shelter in local churches. My parents were essentially atheistic, although putting a label on them is deceptive, since neither one of them gave much thought to God., at least outwardly. I attended the local Bethel church, a Pentecostal religion that sang hymns and threw oil at the fire of my insecurity by telling me I would be damned to go to hell if I didn’t believe in God, and didn’t follow his Word. I enjoyed the singing, but I wasn’t sure about the hell and damnation part of the sermons. I was already in it, so why would I want to imagine I would end up there.
At Sunday school at the Band of Hope church, I found another God. The gentle caring Jesus stories, and the miracles he created. They fascinated me, and I wanted to know what it would take to create the miracles in my own life. The story of Jacob ascending the ladder to God captured my imagination, and I held that image for many years as I climbed my way out of drug addiction, alcohol abuse, unwanted children, and abusive relationships.
Later, I attended Bible study classes and I was fascinated by the stories, the discussion and the free food. These were my tents of salvation. This was where I had my first glimpse of another world beyond the one I was experiencing. But there was more to this than just the stories. This was a place of intellectual curiosity, which felt alien to me.
I was born into a family of uneducated people. My father left school at 13 and my mother at 14. My father never read books, and my mother trained herself to be a good reader of novels as she matured. They were born into poverty, and poverty was a part of my early training that I would later grow out of. In my parents world, world, there was never enough, and life was all about suffering. They had the wounds of generations to show for it, and they passed them along willingly to their offspring. Books held no interest beyond school for them, but I was always a curious child, and surprisingly, a very bright child, who craved continual stimulation, often in the wrong places.
So my religious seeking was a way to escape and a way to find some connection to something beyond where I was. My discussions in bible class allowed me to express myself with a brain that was hungry for knowledge. I began to see that I had something to contribute, and in my Bethel and Band of Hope churches, I sang to hear my voice, and know that there was a presence I could reach out to. At school, the music teacher encouraged me to sing, told me I had a fine voice that would one day be trained well. It took many years but I did find my voice and used it to sing in praise of God in synagogues in Paris and Amsterdam as a lay-cantor.
As a child, I prayed to God every night, and especially prayed to him when I felt so desperate there was nowhere else to go. These were nights when I cried myself to sleep feeling unloved, unwanted, abused and afraid. I spent many nights afraid. Afraid of being yanked out of bed and beaten because I had done something wrong. Afraid to come home because I was late and I knew he would be waiting for me, ready with his rage and punishing hands.
So God was my savior, and he was my rescue when I was young and eventually, I left that belief behind, except in times of desperation, which, when I look back upon it, was actually quite frequent. “Please God,” was a regular cry.
I started this article talking about Attitude, and I realize that I have veered away from my original idea, but perhaps not. My attitude has always been that there is something bigger, something more expansive, and something more compassionate and caring and forgiving outside of me. It is this place I have made my pleas to, and this place that I believe in my heart of hearts, that I belong to. We are all part of the continuum of this energy, this Life Force we call God or Presence, or Universe, or whatever it is we want to call it.
If we are all part of a greater energy force, all part of the whole, then how can we separate ourselves from that? I have always understood, even in my darkest moments, that there was some protective force in the universe that did not want to cause me any harm. That it couldn’t possibly cause me harm because I was part of it.
At an earlier age, I remember standing on the steps of my house in London arguing with Jehovah’s Witnesses for hours about the nature of God. I said then, without fully understanding it completely, that I was God, and God existed within me. The second part of the argument was easy for them. They believed that also. But the first part was the harder one. How could I possibly say I was God? Did that not mean I was placing myself above God. They missed the point.
My journey began searching for answers, always outside of myself. As I’ve matured, I understood more and more that the answers lie inside of me. Sweeping aside all the limited beliefs, corrupt ideas, negative thoughts that have controlled me, I stand at a crossroads of my life understanding nothing, and yet being open to everything. My attitude of healing the past, of believing in myself, of gratitude for everything that has been, and everything that will be in my life, has been my guide over the last fifteen years. Through this miracle of Attitude I have come back to God. I have come back to that place not to seek shelter, but to participate fully in the generosity of acceptance that I am one with the universe, one with God, and all that I do is a reflection of that divine source.
If I am God, then you are God, and as John Lennon wrote, just like the walrus, I am you and you are me, and we are all together. And if this is the case, everything I am, and everything you are, has an effect on the totality of our worldly experience. EVERYTHING has an effect on everything else, so when you are unhappy, or angry, or hurt, or betrayed, or rejected, or ashamed, or abandoned, then your wounds are my wounds. We have all felt them at some time or another. I have been where you are now.
I also know we can move beyond it.
I know we are all part of that deep unconscious wound of humanity that begs to be healed, so we can heal the world in which we live. So we can make the world a good place for our children, and all future generations to come.
You are waiting for miracles to occur, but the truth of the matter is the miracles are here right now, in front of you, waiting to be recognized. We are all Divine miracles waiting to be seen. But you have to see yourself first before someone else can see you.
That attitude is what makes the difference between growing old and growing wise. Numerically, we are all aging. As each year flies by, and I do think the years go faster. I’m aware that it’s not what is degenerating that is the issue here, but what is generating in my mind that will keep me growing younger each year.
I have never felt more connected to me than at this time of my life. I am creative, vibrant, excited about the future, stepping more into what I am truly capable of becoming, and making no more excuses for what I can’t do, while embracing the possibilities of what I can. I have not yet tapped into my full potential, but you can be sure that before I die, I will have given it my best shot.
Right Attitude is what makes life worth living. When we are in right attitude we are in harmony with ourselves and with the Divine Presence that rules everything. There is no more division, no more “them and us”, there is only US. We share the weight of the world. We share the burden of our own conscious choices, and the responsibility for manifesting them in the world. Blame is an easy escape. When we blame, we refuse responsibility for our own behavior, for our own thinking, for our own choices. That attitude of denial will age you faster than anything else. Clinging to the wounds of the past, the fears for the future, and the denial of the present, will increase your age exponentially.
I refuse to participate in that way of thinking, and struggle daily with the challenge of staying out of its path. It’s my Attitude that you can do anything you want and have anything you want as long as you want it badly enough and are prepared to do the work to bring it about. We are all gifted with tremendous willpower and determination, but you have to be willing. Do not take the lazy route, or the procrastinating route, or the insecure route. You are much more than that if you give yourself time and effort to find out.
Change is dependent on the attitude you approach life with. What makes the difference between surviving and thriving is the ability to see the miracle in each and every day and give thanks generously for all the small ways in which life manifests for you. It is an exhilarating ride this thing called life. I give thanks to God every day for the many generous acts I’ve been blessed with in my life.
We are all capable of changing to become the person we want to be. There are no more excuses unless you want to make them.
So grow old along with me…the best is yet to be.
It’s Not about Age……It is ALL about Attitude!
Jacqueline Wales is considered by many to be The Fearless Lady. Her unique programs have helped women around the globe develop strong personal success, confident communication and clear visions of their goals. She is the author of The Fearless Factor: Thriving Beyond the Jungle of Life: When The Crow Sings, a semi-autobiographical novel, as well as several other compilations. She is also the host of her radio show Fearlessly Speaking on Achieve Radio and the creator of The 10 Healthy Habits of Fun, Fearless People. You can learn more at www.fearlessfifties.com and pick up your first Fearless Habit for free.
