If you’re a woman in midlife, chances are you have a To-Do list. If you’re anything like me, your to-do list has to-do lists. They endlessly grow and multiply like Triffids (you have to be midlife to get that reference).
Is there anything more deflating than ticking off something on the to do list only to add three more things that come to mind as soon as you’e done it? It’s like me and food shopping. Literally as I’m unpacking the bags on my kitchen counter, I’m starting a new list of things I forgot / ran out in the 43 minutes it took me to leave the house and food shop.
Then there are the ones that have 16 appendixes. Not all To-Do’s are created equally.
Your sensual self
Women in midlife - and I know this from my own life and that of many of my clients - can feel they’ve simply become a To-Do list. We can easily become a series of tasks, responsibilities, expectations, all output and little time, or guilt-free permission to input. One of the reasons sensuality is the first part of my new book I’m writing Midlife Sensuality, Sex & Relationships, redefined is because women can easily lose a sense of self, as they rely on the computer To-Do-ing rather than their bodily being.
So when I read recently on the fabulous Isolation Diaries substack about the lovely idea of creating a To-Feel list, it touched me. (See that I did there?) The developer of this idea is the artist Sky Banyes, who in her prompt for the Isolation Diaries explained how you find the feeling in the doing…
“I embarked on an essential search for meaning. It’s been a deep explorative dive, and what I discovered in the depths of every plunge was feelings. Even in everyday responsibilities such as work and family, I realized that the upstream of every “to-do” was actually a “to-feel”: useful, financially secure, loving, loved. Now, I consciously first focus on my feelings—instead of my doings—and allow them to guide my path. It has challenged the foundation upon which I’m building my life. The experience has been transformative.”
This really speaks to me and the work that I do with women in midlife, to help them separate from becoming the To-DO and remembering to be a To-Be. In my book Midlife, redefined: Better, Bolder, Brighter, I talk about asking a better question of ourselves in midlife. Not just the one we often ask as we launch in adulthood - “What do I want my life to look like?” and then create the Check-list of Life Success (the ultimate To-Do list) that will create the signposts of our life; but the question ‘What do I want my life to feel like?” now that you have lived, loved, lost and laughed a bit more.
But I also wanted to take the concept of a To-Feel list on a simpler note… not just checking in with the feeling you are trying to achieve with your goals and plans, but simply to shift your energy from always doing to also being. To create a literal To-Feel list… in the sensually, sensory sense of touch, and the emotional energy you want to pursue. So essentially, what you want to feel, and how you want to feel.
Touching - what do you want to feel?
What you want to touch? What simple touches make you happy? I wrote last week about the growing experience in many people of being Touch Starvation. And for women who can feel disconnected from their bodies for a variety of reasons, or become such creatures of output, they forget or are too busy for input, this simple act of being intentional about all your senses and in this case, touch, can be a life-line to remembering who you are.
When I talk about sensuality for women I mean it in the broadest form of sense of self and exploration of your senses.
Without even going into the intensity of a brush of human touch, some of mine are the caress of sun on my skin, the cold embrace of plunging into the sea, furry kittens, (my cat has just had kittens and even the gentlest pressure of a tiny paw on my foot is a little jolt of joy), fingers in food, the scratchy comfort of sand under my bare feet as I walk along the beach, the silky slide of oil on the palm of my hand as I rub it around a large new potato, the cool comfort of my face on a silk pillowcase, the feel of my body strengthening in the gym, the stretch of my limbs in a downward dog, the rough feel of exfoliating my skin in the shower and then rubbing in cool cream on the softness: every day reminders that I am alive. I try most mornings (Irish summer monsoons included) of walking into the garden barefoot while my morning kettle boils, to feel the graze of wet grass and cold earth beneath my feet, a few seconds of grounding before the day begins and I clothe myself with layers of fabric and busyness.
What are your favourite feels?
Feeling - how do you want to feel?
When you are driven by a sense of feeling rather than a ticked action on that To-Do list it can really help shape the tone of your life. I often work with women trying to come out of a sense of emergency mode where they may be whizzing through that To-Do list on autopilot, and feel overwhelmed, stressed and often, fucking angry at the unfairness of it all. They want it all to stop so they can catch their breath but then the guilt lands and they think they have to gear up again for another onslaught of breathless disembodiment as do-ers and achievers. They’ve forgotten what it feels like (not looks like, but feels like) to live in their body, to breathe through the chaos, to feel a sense of ownership of their lives, rather than being hostage to it. Trying to locate the desired feeling can often help them course correct. Learning to read our bodies for a full yes, or a full no, instead of rationalising ourselves into people pleasing and perfectionism is something I’m working on at the moment with a client. She is exhausted and resentful from everyone taking from her, but her people pleasing conditioning has so disembodied her from herself that when I asked her how many times she really wanted to do the favour / task she was being asked, especially by her work colleagues, she looked at me blankly. “I’ve never asked myself.” So I asked her to practise holding off giving an answer in the first instance, buying a few moments of time to go and sit quietly for a minute and ask herself if she actually wanted to do the task. Since then she has been practising learning what a full bodied yes and a full bodied no feels like, listening to her body like a foreign language and picking up the off phrase and beginnings of an understanding. The subtle no’s and yes’s are harder but the more we begin to listen to our instincts, the more we will get them right. The key is to direct your energy in the emotion and feeling of your choosing…. directing your body and mind to the desired outcome.
How do you want to feel today? Safe? Calm? Exhilarated? Inspired? Creative? What might it take to feel that way? If I want to feel inspired by a talk I’m attending for example, but spend all my energy on worrying about where to sit, who to talk to, what people will think of my outfit, there won’t be enough emotional bandwidth in my head to engage, listen, relax and allow myself to be inspired.
Where you direct your energy is where you will be emotionally charged.
To-being
The worst thing about To-Do lists is that they never end. Even on holiday, on the last couple of days, I’ve begun my To-Do list for my return, my body still luxuriating in rest but my brain already home and busy. They never end. But neither should our To-Feel lists, so I try very hard - am as intentional as I can be - to keep the feels amid the tasks. When I give talks, I explain the three superpowers of midlife being Curiosity, Intention and an Attitude of Gratitude.
So how can you be more curious about connecting to your senses, and in this instance touch? What simple pleasures would you like to indulge in - or even pay attention to - rather than blaze thorough your day in a haze of hectic busyness?
How can you be more intentional about touching experiences, how can you make touch a touchstone of your morning routine? For me, the yoga stretch, the couple of minutes standing on the grass, my own skin to skin contact as I smooth moisturiser on my arms, the spit of rain on my face on the dang walk, the pause to lay my hand on the bark of my favourite tree in the forest, a stroke of the cat as she brushes past my leg; amid the tornado of thoughts and tasks, these tiny sensual experiences remind me my life is also - as Elizabeth Gilbert puts it, to remind you that life isn’t all about paying bills and taxes, but to experience every day awe and wonder.
In two weeks I’ll be in Donegal, my spiritual home. The first thing I do, before I even unpack, is take my shoes off and walk the sands that have shaped my midlife. I have walked that beach so sad I didn't know how to get to the other side when my mum was ill and then died. I walked out the pain of my marriage breakdown for several summers on that beach. I learned how to overcome the cold and plunge through to the glory of that water and become a mermaid. I have raised my children on this beach.. a place to take them away from the phones and the city and watch them be themselves shivering in wetsuits and playing in the sun, munching on sand-sprinkled sandwiches. I raised myself back up on this sand, leaving footprints that would be washed away by the sea but forever leaving a mark on me as I reinvented and redefined my midlife.
Life is busy and brutal and bountiful and we women have to be proactive in making sure we make it count for ourselves. Feeling that sand on my feet makes so much of it count for me.
And finally the attitude of gratitude for who and where you are right now, including the hardships, the disappointments, the loss. An attitude that you’re still standing, but also feeling, maybe dancing, in this unique and extended midlife for women and although it is hard and although the To-Do lists can feel all-consuming, the simplest touch, the simplest feeling, can remind you who you are.
I’d love to know what would be on your To-Feel, so please join me in the comments below (if you’re reading this in an email, please click on the link below to go through to the website to join the conversation.)
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