Let's Talk About Skills, Talents and Abilities...

Welcome to the Thirteenth Edition of The Midlife Hero’s Journey Newsletter

This twice monthly newsletter takes a Spiritual approach to Midlife and Menopause and shares Tips, Tools and Strategies you need in Midlife to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone, Reclaim Your Magnificence and Create the Results You Really Want.

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In this week's edition we talk about how going back to your childhood skills, talents and abilities can contribute to your journey to reconnecting with your Self. I hope this resonates and helps you with where you are (or have been) on your own Midlife Hero’s Journey.

This Week's Quote

Let's Talk about Skills, Talents and Abilities...

A key pillar of the journey to create the life you really want is Clarity. It’s important to be clear the skills, talents and abilities that will help you achieve your desired outcome. An exercise I do with clients as part of the Create Your LIFE coaching programme is to identify skills, talents and abilities that they had as a child by thinking about what their parents and teachers praised them for and, perversely, what they reprimanded them for, or any negative labelling.

Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words cannot hurt me... (childhood chant)

Sticks and stone can break bones and those bones will heal, but words once uttered can never be taken back and result in creating negative associations that we then carry into the rest of our lives…until we don’t.

The idea of remembering is scary for some people because the negative feedback may have come in the form of physical punishment or verbal assaults and may have led to rejection by those around them. It may also have created a sense of low self-concept which as I’ve said in the past has a direct correlation with the results a person will achieve. The meaning they’ve attached to that can follow them into adulthood so they avoid anything that may trigger past trauma.

I was very curious as a child. I wanted to know the whys and wherefores of everything, I couldn’t take things at face value so I asked a lot of questions. I was then labelled as nosy.

My curiosity, and inquiring mind initially helped me as I created new characters in the plays I was privileged to act in and came into its own in the way I managed staff, volunteers so that when I went on a course to find out more about coaching all those years ago I realised it was something I had been doing in some way or another most of my adult life. This curiosity, this ‘nosiness’ also helped me when it came to writing strategies, reports, sermons, works of fiction or pieces like this.

I was also said to constantly make excuses for others which is another way of saying I’m able to reframe situations or offer a different perspective.

But that may not have been the outcome for me.

The Jesuit saying ‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man’ indicates that our blueprint becomes apparent in our earliest years. The feedback we get from the people closest to us, our parents, teachers and friends is what determines how much of that blueprint we take with us and how much of it we suppress and forget.

Careful the things you say. Children will listen... (Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim).

What is said cannot be unsaid and as children we have very limited frames of references so we believe what we are told if we hear the same thing over and over. As adults we have the power to de-condition ourselves from those old perceptions – if we’re lucky.

?I was able to get enough positive affirmation about those same traits so that I saw my childhood labeling as opinions rather than fact and focusing (without knowing I was doing this) on the friends I was able to support, and the thrill I get when my enquiring helps a client to get to their truth. This may be so for you too.

For some the sting of negative reinforcement led them to bury those gifts way down and with them the confidence to say what they truly want for themselves.

Midlife is a time that almost forces the truth to come to the surface. The Call to Adventure is that feeling within that tells you there is more to you than you’ve shown. That there is a bigger game for you to play, a game you can’t win without acknowledging the real you. A key part of that is reclaiming the parts of you that you buried through fear or necessity.

Now is the time to do it.

Take some time to think back as early as you possibly can and think about the skills, talents and abilities you had as a child. Ask yourself if there is anything that you’re using now (consciously or unconsciously)? If there is, then can you use it in a way that will help you realise your LIFE vision?

Then ask yourself if there are any skills or talents that you no longer use and think about whether or not they might help you, as you journey into your next chapter.

You may decide you need support to work through this and there is no shame in that. Every Hero needs a Guide on their journey. The important thing is to make the decision to stop allowing other people’s words to hold you back from Crossing the Threshold and playing a different role in your life.

If you would like to know more about how I can help you then scan this QR Code to find out about How to Be the HERO in Your Midlife Journey.

MEETING THE MENTOR (or SUPERNATURAL HELP)

There is a saying ‘When the student is ready the teacher appears’.

A key stage of the Hero’s Journey is Meeting the Mentor. ?The Hero has answered the Call to Adventure and attracts the help and support to navigate the journey. The help may come from a teacher or mentor who is someone you know, or someone you follow on TV or social media. It may come in the form of a book or film or even a song that speaks to you. In this section of each edition of the newsletter I will share books, films, songs and people that have helped me through my Midlife Hero’s Journey

Little Voice Mastery by Blair Singer

We all have that voice in our head that encourages us to do some things we want and deters us from doing other things. It usually kicks in when there is a sense of threat and serves as a warning. This voice is useful when there is real danger like walking through a dark alley late at night, on your own, in an area that’s known to be unsafe, but not so useful when the danger is not real. It usually comes up when you’re about to step beyond what is comfortable which, as we know isn’t necessarily unsafe and can therefore be more of a hindrance than help.

Blair Singer calls this voice the Little Voice and this book offers twenty-one different techniques that cane be used to conquer that voice. These techniques range from dealing with the voice in the moment to exercises that serve to build your self-concept so you begin to believe that voice less and less. The aim is not to eliminate that voice, but to understand when it comes into play, how it may manifest itself so that you can manage it in a way that it doesn’t stop you from stretching yourself.

Little Voice Mastery is also available on CD and can be found on Amazon.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Midlife Hero’s Journey Newsletter. I’d love to know what resonated most with you.

?Have a great week

Taiwo x