Being Just You
JAYNE
Welcome to another episode of Joyous Journeys after 60. I'm Jayne Ray and I'm here with my podcast partner, Andreas Stein. Say hi Andreas.
ANDREAS
Hey. How is everyone doing? Jayne, thank you for being here with me.
JAYNE
Today we're going to tackle a topic that I think is so, so, so important. We are going to call it “being you”. You know, many of us throughout the course of our lifetimes, we have served many roles. We are children and students. We are young adults. We are husbands and wives. We are parents. We are workers. We have different aspects of our careers. When you reach this point of your life after 60, and even after 65, your definition changes. Throughout the course of your lifetime, you've had to prove your worth to yourself, to others. We’ve probably been pretty comfortable with those roles. Now you're just you. I want to take some time today and talk about what that means and kind of peel away the layers of the new you in this joyous journey over 60. So, Andreas let me ask you, how do you define “being just you”?
ANDREAS
This is an exciting discussion. I will use you as an example, Jayne.
You knew how to be Jayne, the entrepreneur who was building businesses. You know how to be Jayne, the inspirational speaker who can motivate many, many, many people. You know how to be Jayne, the mom who is raising kids. You know you know how to be Jayne the spouse. Now there is a point in life where all these layers are peeled back, and now it's just Jayne. Do you know how to be Jayne? Not Jayne, the entrepreneur. Not Jayne the executive. Not Jayne the professional. Just Jayne and nothing else. And is that enough? Our whole life. every single day. We need to prove to others, and we need to prove to ourselves that we are worth keeping. If we are not proving it, we're gone. We lose our job. We lose our career. We may lose a relationship. We lose everything. Now, at that stage in our life, and we are 65 or so, suddenly it's just Jayne. What does that mean? Is that enough? Do I need? 1s There need to be something else. And to find a way to be comfortable. To be okay with just being Jayne. Not Jayne the executive. Not Jayne the professional. Just Jayne. That is a joyful journey after 60. What it is about to get to that point where I no longer need to be Jayne and. But I can just be trained. I can just be me. I don't need to prove to myself. I don't need to prove to anyone else. I don't need to prove to God anything. It is okay to be me and only me. And that is where the journey after 60 can truly be. A journey towards the most beautiful and exciting and fulfilling times in life.
JAYNE
But it can also be confusing. Right. You know all of those different me’s. From our previous episode, I'm happy to share. I've only been retired a year, and I waited a few years after 65 before doing that, because I didn't know what my retirement life would look like. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't have any hobbies other than business. Right. I, I had my family, which really when I wasn't working, that took up a, you know, my head space as well as my time. But I didn't know how to be just me. And I was confused. Would I be able to do this right? Would I suddenly try to take up hobbies that I really wasn't interested in? Would I try to find something that replicated my work life? Because that was how I thought I was getting my personal satisfaction. And for the first year, as I've shared this with you, Andreas my first year of retirement. I woke up every morning. I made a list of what I had to do. I tried to find opportunities for me to apply my expertise, in the field that I was in on a volunteer basis. But I also kind of figured out that had sailed, that ship had sailed. And that chapter in my life was closing, but I didn't know how to fill the next chapter up. And so it is confusing, and it is something that requires some introspection about, because, again, you have all the time in the world to do anything you want, presuming that you have the, the resources to do that. Again, not everything requires financial resources. You have all the time to do anything. And yet you don't know what to do any day.
ANDREAS
I think, Jayne, it is so confusing because when you look back, you don't even remember a time when it was just you. It was Jayne, the high school student. It was Jayne's a college student. It was Jayne, the person who was getting married. It was Jayne, the woman who started the business. It was Jayne and always something else. We so often don't even remember a time in our own lives where it was okay to just be you. So be. We cannot look back to 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago and say, well, that's how I do it. It is a completely new challenge, a completely new environment. And that's scary because we are usually comfortable with doing things that we have had some experience with. We don't have any experience with that challenge. It's okay to just be you. And you know, I'm a pastor. So for me, it's often going back to my faith in God. And for me, this has been very liberating to realize God called me. Now, God didn't call me the person who knows how to speak, the person who knows how to do this, the person who does, and also to do that. God has called me. God has called you not. God has called you as a person who knows how to do all of these amazing things. God has called you because you are God's child, and that's enough. And so to learn how to be comfortable, to embrace just being you and not having to prove to yourself, to anyone, to God. That is the most liberating moment. But it is scary. It is confusing because we have never done it before. And this is the opportunity for the joyous journey after 60. Now you can do it. Now there is. You have the time and the ability just to explore who you actually are. It may be the time in your life, and for the very first time, you fall in love with yourself because you have never known who you really are. Maybe this is the first time after 60 where you find out who you are and say, I love that person. I wonder why I've never met this person before.
JAYNE
Well, if you think about it, the last time you were, you were probably in your preschool ages right before age five, because at that point, you had all the time in the world, right? You. The expectations of your parents were still pretty small. The expectations of the world were still pretty small. Your expectations of yourself, you know, the world was your oyster, right? So, um, so, you know, you're 3 or 4 years old and time has no meaning to you. And, you know, obviously there are rules. And then when you fast forward to this stage after 60, it's not like those roles or those relationships go away. You're still a parent. You are likely still a spouse. Um, and but now your children have grown, and they have lives of their own, and they have children. So now maybe you're a grandparent, which is great, right? Which is great. But again, on a day-to-day basis, you being you is something I think you have to internalize and, and fall in love with yourself as you've, as you said, enjoys fall in love with yourself so that you can take this next chapter and make it amazing, right? And make it amazing. And again, not have to prove to yourself or to somebody else. You know, we talked before we started recording. We also talked about expectations of people that if you're 65 and you're you suddenly are retired and you sit on the couch all day watching soap operas, you're not going to feel so good about yourself, and everybody else around you are going to think you're lazy. Um, if you're 85 and you're sitting around watching soap operas, all day eating chips on the couch, nobody's going to bother you. And you probably feel like you've earned that, right. But there's this funny age in between the two where a lot of people try to fill that time. Um, because they're afraid of being alone with themselves, right? They're afraid of having to get to know themselves. And again, you may still have a partner. You may still have your children nearby; you may have grandchildren nearby. But this is that time to also set aside for you and to get to know yourself and to get to know what you like and maybe what you don't like, and you've never liked. But for whatever reason, because of your circumstance, you had to like. So, it is kind of getting reacquainted with yourself, um, feeling comfortable with what either you're doing or not doing and really not caring what the rest of the world thinks. And again, caring what you think and then being able to build a chapter step by step by step that you're going to feel is joyous. Because joyous is also a very personal feeling. What you feel is joyous, and what I feel is joyous may not be the same thing, but until we know ourselves, we're not going to be able to do that. And
ANDREAS
it is your chapter. It's not the chapter that your customers, your employer, your children, whoever wants to write. It's your chapter and it's only your chapter, I found is also interesting. Jayne. And have I talked to somebody? And sometimes I start the conversation out with, hey, what are you doing? What are you up to? And it's not a thought through questions. That's the way to start conversations. And so many times people respond with almost a sense of defiant, I'm staying busy. I wasn't talking about that. I was almost like this natural reflex I need to prove, at this stage in my life, to you and other people that I'm, that I'm busy, that I'm doing something. Hey, at this stage, it's okay to not be busy. It's okay to be you. This is your chapter now. You don't need to prove to anyone how busy you are. Not busy you are. You don't need to give a count about this to anyone. It's your chapter. You write it. And you may find out that your chapter, this new chapter, will take you into a direction that you could have never imagined, that you could have never envisioned for yourself. And this is why this chapter may be the most amazing chapter in your entire life, because it's going to be the first chapter that you alone wrote that is just about you and not you.
JAYNE
I think, you know, the reason that we're starting this podcast, launching with this topic of you being just you, you getting acquainted with yourself, you being comfortable with this time in your life. This is also going to be the launch pad for not only other topics, but other experiences that you're about to go through - the good and perhaps the not so good - but you have to be comfortable with yourself.
Now that we've identified that everybody has to be comfortable with themselves. How? How do you do that? What are the steps that our listeners can take to really get reacquainted with themselves? And as I said before, I'm kind of going through this myself in trying to figure out, okay, who are you now? Or maybe who have you always been? Um, who? You know, Jayne has to meet Jayne and kind of, you know. Hello, I'm Jayne. Hi. I'm Jayne,and figure it out from there. Any suggestions for, you know, ways that people can really kind of start really getting comfortable with just being you. 3s I think one of the biggest challenge, and there's many practical steps, and we will be exploring a lot of these practical steps in episodes that will follow in the future. One of the big challenges of
ANDREAS
Jayne, me, Jayne. Is that we carry all of these disappointments and wounds and betrayals and everything that was part of our past with us. And they push us. Our past drives us and wants to move us into this direction, wants to move us into that direction. We replay in our heart, our mind at age 65, these battles, these disappointments, these betrayals that happened when we were 35, 45, 55, whenever. And we keep playing it, I think part and one specific challenge of Jayne, me, Jayne, and Do you like Jayne is to find a way to embrace your own past, the things that have shaped and molded you into that person who you are today. If you cannot make peace, if you cannot embrace your past, the good, the bad, the ugly, your past is not going to go away. It will keep haunting you. It will keep driving you. It will keep pushing you into directions you may not want to go. So, you know, one practical challenge of Jayne. Me, Jayne, it's okay to just be you. Jayne means to take maybe a look at these wounds that are still hurting, that are still bleeding. And they may be 25 years ago. You know, if I cut myself with a knife, it stops bleeding. After a few moments, I put a bandage over it. A couple of days, it's like nothing ever happened. Sadly, the wounds that we carry in our heart. Then they don't stop bleeding. They keep bleeding and they can keep bleeding for years and years, for decades and decades. So one practical step has to do. One practical challenge will have to do with embracing our past.
JAYNE
I agree, I think that we are the sum of our experiences the good, the bad and the ugly, as you've said, and embracing the past, particularly the hurtful parts of your past, is difficult because it does resurface every once in a while. But of course, we can't disassociate from it. And I think accepting that all of those experiences made you the amazing person you are today. And so part of it is, is recognizing you cannot go back and change the past. And we don't have time travel, so that doesn't exist. But it's also accepting the fact that the past doesn't have to define the future. And I think that's part of the movement forward. We're going to talk about embracing the past. Yes, in future episodes. I also think the other thing is, is to. Figure out something that you've always wanted to do. Something simple, right? Always wanted to do, but never had the time to do it. And yeah, you're going to say go to the gym or you're going to, you know, they're going to give you all the usual suggestions, but maybe it's taking a book and going to a park and just reading where nobody bothers you. Maybe it's, I told you I just started playing tennis again, which I didn't think I could at this age. And frankly, the reason I'm so excited about it is because I'm not bad at it. I always loved it, but I, you know, I was very intimidated about being bad at it. So maybe go back and, and either revisit something you had a hobby before, or maybe you had to give it up. I think what the message I'm trying to share here is do something for you right now. What everybody tells you should be doing, not what you know, the experts in the field who are all very smart and have great advice, not what they're telling you to do. Do something you want to do, whatever that is, whatever. And again, doesn't have to cost anything, doesn't have to, but something that just makes you happy.
ANDREAS
And you don't need to justify that choice. Exactly. If you just want to sit for three hours in a park bench and read a book and have a cup of coffee in your other hand, then that's it. You don't need to explain to anyone, not even to yourself, why you are doing it. If you want to do whatever else there is, you don't need to give an account. You don't need to justify it. You don't need to explain it. You just do it. And you may find out that you want to do more of it, or you want to find out. Yeah, okay. Never mind. That wasn't it. And that's okay one way or the other. But it takes that courage to I don't need to explain. I don't need to justify. I just do it and we'll see where it takes me. Yeah.
JAYNE
Because there's no expectation. Even if you have a partner, say “I'm going to go sit in the park for an hour and go read a book” or whatever. Just do it. Just do it. Nike had it right, so just do it.
We are out of time. This is a topic that isn't just one episode. I think this theme of “you being you” is something that we're going to carry through future episodes as we talk about other social and emotional aspects of life over 60, because we do want you to have a joyous journey. I want to have a joyous journey. You're going to approach retirement, and we know you are going to have a joyous journey. So
ANDREAS
and I'm looking forward to it.
JAYNE
With that, hopefully, after listening to this episode, you do go something and reacquaint yourself with yourself. I'm Jayne Ray, I'm with Andreas Stein, and this is Joyous Journeys After 60. Thanks.