What would you regret not doing?

Pondering this question, slurping a long noodle, eking out a couple of vegetables tossed in the soup, I had to laugh. Gladys McCarey, MD, 102-year-old author of The Well Lived Life, suggests asking “When life is truly flowing, what gives us juice? Juice – the inner calling, the desire within. How we reconnect with life.”

Oh dear, if we want to live our lives like Gladys, it’s a challenge. 

How do we stay vital in a difficult, weird world? According to Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, the goal-oriented nature of our society starts to suppress our natural play impulses even in childhood. Maybe that’s why we love the holidays. Isn’t it a time of year with anticipated jubilance? 

In Ingrid Lee’s book, Joyful, she describes Ellen DeGenereres in a standup routine: “Each of us has that child that we need to play with everyday. Insomnia was probably the result of a playful inner child who was bored from being cooped up all day.” I can relate to that!

Is this why adults adore grandchildren? All that crawling around, making funny faces, and saying kid-like things without shame. Hey, it’s for the kids, right?

Brown talked about noticing what kind of play we liked as kids as a way of identifying what makes us happy. Well then, I’m in trouble. I just wanted to play “kick the can” constantly. 

Still, life’s not a constant upper. It’s essential to stay concerned about all the suffering in this world – to care about the common good. And we all have heart breaks, setbacks, or loss. Doing taxes in January is enough to make us pull our hair out, if we have any. Oh, I know, it’s a “first world” problem, but hey, doing taxes sucks. Still there’s a lot going on. 

A big bulge of problems is happening in our world. Wars, financial hardships, physical ailments, families full of kerfuffles, and news of many horrors. How to stay revived? 

Francis Weller, psychotherapist, said, “The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much grief can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give.” 

If you’re on the edges of transition, don’t beat yourself up for a few extra calories or having the blues. Most of us aren’t happy every minute, no matter how many berry smoothies we down.

In the end we won’t have empathy without sorrow. The cup that’s emptied can now be filled again. 

Be gentle with yourself, rest or reach out and help somewhere else. Or put a new story in your head. As Gladys would say, instead of ruminating on disappointment, learn from the past and move toward life. She’s a master at telling herself what she learned from loss and how it will empower her moving forward. “When we look for the lessons, we move our attention away from our suffering and direct it back toward life.” 

So, shake the hour glass. Keep taking the next step.

Katy Byrne, MA, LMFT, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the Bay Area for over 35 years. Author, The Power of Being Heard. ConversationswithKaty.com. 707.548.8982