Dr. Toni

Rachel Naomi Remin – spirituality of aging advice

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“What if I never marry or have children?”

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, 67, clinical professor of family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings: “I have encountered two of women’s greatest fears: I’ve been single all my life, and I’ve had Crohn’s disease [a chronic inflammatory bowel disease] for the past 51 years. I always wanted to be a mother. I was one of the girls who played with dolls until I was 12 or 13 years old. I had the names of all my children picked out. Having a family was a major life dream. When I was diagnosed at age 15, it became clear that dream might not play out. Then as the clock ticked down toward 40, it was even more clear I probably wasn’t going to be a mother. Because of my illness, it was very difficult for me to maintain a relationship. Men of my generation were looking for someone to take care of them, and I needed someone to take care of me.

“I hear women say, ‘If it doesn’t turn out the way I planned, what then?’ Life is basically full of broken eggs. The whole art of this thing is finding your own recipe for making sponge cake. My mother’s final words were ‘I am satisfied.’ How do we live so that at the end of our lives we can say those words? I have done that. I have learned that I can be a mother in many different ways. The people who are unhappy are the people who get stuck in one way of doing it. You have to have a sense of possibility. Of course it’s a remarkable, life-altering experience to have your own biological children. As a former pediatrician, I’ve seen people transformed by this profound experience. But you can still grow people, even if they don’t come from your own body. There are so many who haven’t had parenting. You can be a mother to them. For the thousands of medical students I’ve worked with, I have done that.”

Complete Communication

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Complete work also benefits relationships -Learn to give WHOLE or complete messages. This means not leaving things out, not covering up your anger, not squelching your wants. It means giving accurate feedback about what you observe, clearly stating your inferences and conclusions, saying how it all makes you feel, and if you need something or see possibilities for change, making straight-forward requests or suggestions. One of the gifts of aging that I have found is the lessening of concern about what others think about me and the increase of concern of how I communicate with love and clarity at all times.

When you leave something out, it’s a partial message. And these cause confusion and mistrust. People sense something is missing but they don’t know what. They’re turned off when they hear judgments untempered by your feelings and hopes. They resist hearing anger that doesn’t include the story of your hurt or frustration. They are suspicious of conclusions without supporting observations. They are uncomfortable with demands growing from unexpressed feelings and assumptions.

Not every relationship or situation requires whole messages. Effective communication with your garage mechanic probably won’t involve a lot of deep feeling or discussion of your emotional needs. Even with intimates, the majority of messages are informational. But partial messages with important information left out or obscured are always dangerous. They become booby traps when used to express complex issues that are an inevitable part of closeness.

You can test whether you are giving complete messages by asking the following questions:

1. Have I expressed what I actually know to be a fact? Is it based on what I’ve observed, read or heard?
2. Have I expressed and clearly labeled my inferences and conclusions?
3. Have I expressed my feelings without blame or judgment.
4. Have I shared my needs without blame or Judgment?

FIFTH — Importance of doing affirmative prayer till something is complete
I am writing and doing affirmative prayer daily for my perfect life partner… I promise I won’t give up… What will you promise to pray for as well?
How many of us give up after just a short time or when obstacles appear in the way.

Be relentlessly complete in all areas of your life. Make room for the abundance of Good that is simply waiting for space.

The whole point of the affirmative type prayer is not to be interceding with a god out-there but to come to a place where we KNOW — our good is already available to us.. We simply need to provide the openness – the space to receive.

I suggest that, along with things like meditation and tithing, we consider completion as a spiritual practice-
Sometimes we think we have to be in Church to be spiritual – or around “spiritual People” whatever that means…
We are spiritual beings – everything we do is therefore spiritual.

So, let’s look at the spirituality of completion.
On a very practical level it means FINISHING anything that is incomplete.

Before you set out to do this, be sure you have a strong compassion for yourself and don’t use it as a means of putting yourself down. “GET” -that we always do our best, even when we KNOW we aren’t.

Come to see that staying incomplete with someone or something in your past gives you unhealthy energy – and takes energy from the things you want to be accomplishing.

Spirituality of Aging – types of Completion

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TYPES OF COMPLETION:
First – clean up the past – what we did; didn’t do; should have done, did poorly or wrongly.
Confucius once said, “to be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.”

In the 12 step programs, you learn to make a list of anyone you ever harmed – & where practical make amends. This isn’t just advice for 12 steppers…it’s something we all can benefit from. I have studied with many spiritual teachers, and they almost all say some version of:
If there is a good you want to reveal in your life that seems to not be happening – first check your forgiveness…

JOKE:
The tennis courts of an Iowa high school adjoined the grounds of a church rectory. Occasionally, exuberant youngsters whammed a tennis ball over the fence onto the trim lawns. One day, a player, chasing a stray ball, came face to face with a large sign which read: NO TRESPASSING. The sign came down overnight, however, when the tennis club erected its own sign directly opposite. This one read: FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES.

In the Lord’s Prayer, right after GIVE US THIS DAY our daily bread, we find
AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS.
It is recommended that you do this on a daily basis – complete each day – so you won’t ever have to go back to it.

I am coming to believe that the gift of aging, true spirituality of aging, is mostly about letting go of the past in order to live in the present more fully. If we haven’t learned that lesson through midlife, it becomes even harder as we age. Start now to let go on a daily basis, so there is no carry over as you age.

If you cannot forgive in the moment – make a practice to COMPLETE each day with forgiveness. Charles Fillmore, the founder of the Unity Movement said he did this every night of his life. I like to start my day with 5 things I am grateful for and usually can easily find 5 things at the end of the day to seek forgiveness for (mostly with myself these days!)

The SECOND set or types of COMPLETIONS are the tasks around our homes or offices –
If you have to pass an unfinished kitchen – or if you have work on your desk that needed to be done a long time ago – every time you see it – even unconsciously, it takes focus – and what we focus on increases! (EEKS, no wonder papers seem to spawn themselves in my house.) Have you ever cleared out an old pile and wondered why you kept some of those papers? Why not, complete right now. It’s not only a good business practice, it’s a great spiritual practice as well.

BE CAREFUL TO NOT FALL INTO THE TRAP OF BLAME – CELEBRATE EVERY WIN.

Third – DO COMPLETE WORK
Start doing what is called “complete work” in your tasks, in your conversations in your actions.
Complete work means that you handle something or perform a task that will not come back to bite you for at least 5 years. If you are a cabinet maker, that means that the glue you use, the fit of the joints and the hardware would be perfect enough to last 5 years with virtually no maintenance. Of course if you make cars or houses, I hope you’ll extend that 5 years a bit!