“Contentment has more to do with a heart of joy as life unfolds than it ever will with a life filled with stuff.” ~Kate Summers
Recently, an older friend who was no longer able to attend to life without assistance was placed in a senior care facility. From my observance, she seemed content, and her relatives confirmed that when they visit, they find her awake and alert, propped up in bed or sitting in a chair, peacefully gazing out her window.
One of my immediate thoughts when reflecting on my visit was, we should all be so lucky to enter our final years in a mind space of inner peace and contentment.
The hope to be content in the final years of life is not a new concept, but the idea of a “bucket list” and the quest to achieve it is. The term bucket list was introduced in 1999 and solidified into pop culture with the subsequent release of a movie.
For those who are unfamiliar with the expression, a bucket list consists of a catalog of experiences and adventures that someone wants to have before they kick the bucket, meaning die. The idea is that if someone checks off all the items on their bucket list, their final stage of life will be bearable because they will be satisfied with how they spent their time.
The visit to see my friend put the time I have remaining into perspective. As I approach sixty years old, the truth that in twenty-five years I will be eighty-five is inescapable. The fact that the twenty-five years between thirty-five and sixty had gone by in the relative blink of an eye caused me to pause and think.
What did I want to do and experience before my final stage was upon me?
My mind went immediately to my hobbies and interests, and although I could think of many goals to strive for, nothing seemed important or compelling enough to be considered for my bucket list.
As examples, I enjoy traveling and have a desire to see all the magnificent natural wonders across the globe and walk in the footsteps of ancient cultures, but I do not see myself in my final years upset because I never made it to Victoria Falls or knelt before the Moai of Easter Island. And I thrive on learning, but earning a master’s degree or PhD will not bring me contentment on my deathbed.
And what about my friend? I don’t recall her speaking of a list of experiences she desired to have or tangible targets that she strove to hit before her life was over. Yet, as I witnessed, she had entered her final phase of life with an air of inner peace and contentment.
Throughout our friendship, I observed my friend actively focusing on seeing the glass as half full and consciously concentrating her focus on the bright side of events. She did not cultivate drama within herself, and consequently, she repelled it when others brought it around. And she fostered love for herself and others.
When the realities of individual agendas and manufactured circumstances triggered a need to respond in a heavy-handed way, she delivered the reprimand swiftly and, as best as she could, without the emotion of hate and thoughts of judgement.
And the rare time when she fell completely short of her behavioral standards with her thoughts and emotions sinking deep into a dark muck, I observed her climb out, find her light, and move on. She never berated herself for what she referred to as a “little dip.”
Many times, I asked her how she could rise above the fray of office politics, for example, or shift her focus to what was hopeful and good in an otherwise dreary situation. Her response was unfailingly along the lines of “Why waste time dwelling on unpleasantness?”
Her words came back to me as I pondered what I wanted to experience and accomplish in the next twenty-five years. How could I spend my time in a way that would leave me content in the final stage of my life?
Having already run through my goals and desired escapades and determined they were not the answer to what had become a nagging question for me, I reversed the query and asked, “In what ways is my time wasted?”
My answer came to me the next day. I had just hung up the phone after completing a conversation with a member of my greater social network. Having too little in common to consider her a friend, I find our interactions to be tedious, and we rarely see eye-to-eye.
She views herself as the victim in all situations and thrives on stress and drama. In this conversation, she expressed that she was feeling left out because a group dinner was scheduled for a night on which she was not available.
I spent twenty minutes attempting to reassure her the chosen date was not intended to exclude her, that she was a valued member of the group, and similar proclamations. All of them landing on the unfertile soil of her negative self-image. Nothing short of changing the date could convince her the decision was not personal.
As I terminated the call, I heard myself say, “Well, that was a waste of time.”
A few days later, I found myself involved in an interaction with a co-worker with whom exchanges typically left me feeling shaken and upset. The pace and tone of that afternoon’s conversation were especially triggering. Once at home, even with the co-worker nowhere near me and the interaction several hours in the past, simply thinking about what had transpired caused my body’s fight-or-flight response system to kick in.
With limbs ready to spring into action and breath quick and shallow, I hung suspended in a state of physical limbo, waiting to fight a battle perceived and conceived in my head. It took me close to an hour to calm myself down, and afterward the sense of time wasted was palpable.
At that moment, I committed to not wasting time feeding the unpleasantness created by others and to take responsibility for ways in which I cultivated upset within myself.
After a bit of reflection, I realized that I disrupted my peace of mind and contentment by:
- Taking things personally
- Needing to be right
- Overreacting by magnifying small issues into major problems
- Continuing unproductive conversations in my head with others long after they have concluded in real time
While commitment is the initial action needed for instigating change, practice is the many small steps taken to solidify the habit.
Over time, I developed a practice that involved morning meditation, journaling, and body awareness.
- Meditation cultivates a calm mindset, allowing for heightened self-awareness and control of my thoughts and emotions.
- Journaling gives tangibility to my unpleasant thoughts. By making them visible, I am able to challenge their validity and shift them towards ones that uplift me.
- Body awareness gives way to enhanced intuition. By paying attention to sensations in my gut and noticing the pace of my heart and breath, I can quickly sense when I am shifting from a responsive, cooperative mode to a reactive, fight/flight approach to a person or situation.
If you are interested in cultivating a mindset that brings you inner peace and contentment, below are a few tips to get started.
1. Find a meditation style that works for you.
My practice utilizes mindfulness, focused, and loving-kindness styles of meditation. Mindfulness meditation allows greater access to my thoughts, focused meditation sharpens my ability to keep my brain from wandering, and loving-kindness meditation cultivates compassion and patience for my ego struggles and those of others.
Here is a list of the nine most common forms of meditation. A definition of each can be found here.
- Mindfulness meditation
- Spiritual meditation
- Focused meditation
- Movement meditation
- Mantra meditation
- Transcendental meditation
- Progressive relaxation
- Loving-kindness meditation
- Visualization meditation
2. Write down thoughts and feelings that you struggle with.
My journal is a loose compilation of thoughts and the emotional responses they trigger. By writing them down, I am able to distance myself from my thoughts and see them from an objective point of view. I am then able to explore alternative thoughts and assess their capacity for cultivating pleasant feelings.
According to this article, the benefits of journaling include:
- Stress reduction
- Increased sense of well-being
- Distance from negative thoughts
- Avenue for processing emotions
- Space to figure out your next step
- Opportunity for self-discovery
3. Get in touch with your body.
Whenever I feel my shoulders creeping toward my ears, my breath becoming shallow, or my digestion being disrupted, I take it as a signal to check in with my brain. A quick scan reveals thoughts and conversations happening in the background that might otherwise have gone unnoticed until they transitioned into action.
I achieve and maintain my mind/body connection through a combination of contemplative running and intentional stretching. Both of these allow me to focus on my body and become aware of areas where I am holding tension.
While I chose running and stretching, there are many other methods, such as:
- Yoga
- Tai Chi
- Qi Gong
- Solo Dance
- Intentional cleaning
Above are the ways that I chose to strengthen my commitment to not wasting time wrapped up in someone else’s drama or creating unnecessary turmoil in myself.
I am far from perfect in this practice. I still catch myself rallying against what I view as someone’s agenda or reacting to what I consider a personal affront, but I am able to quickly identify the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in real-time and mitigate the damage to my sense of well-being.
When it comes down to it, the only goal for my life is to cultivate inner peace and contentment. And along the way, connect with and encourage those who, like me, are actively seeking to heal, grow, and live in a space of positivity and love.
About Lynn Crocker
Lynn is a writer and coach who is passionate about empowering others with information on how to drive their brains and create a more purposeful, joyful, and fulfilling life for themselves, one thought at a time. Lynn is an avid reader, and besides writing, she expends her creative energies on gardening, sewing, and doing macramé. Learn more about Lynn lynncrockercoaching.com.
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