Founder Letter: Past-Present-Future Attention

“So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.

And live
your life.”
― Mary Oliver, Red Bird

Dear Rosies,

I’m on the way home from the AASECT conference in St. Louis, where the sex therapists and counselors in attendance shared their insights on everything from reproductive trauma and sex, to cultural differences in intimacy, to kink. I was thrilled to share an hour-long presentation called “Reimagining Menopause and Beyond: A Journey of Empowerment and Clarity” based on the upcoming Nine Lives book.  My goal with this talk was to shake up the way we think about aging and make it more accurate and current. There was a lot of data on everything from peptides to setting expansive intentions for our later years. I’ll share the talk when it goes live, but in today's letter, I’d like to expand on one point: the power of placing our attention. It's one of the top three indicators of happiness, it's free and it just takes practice.

That key is how and where we focus our attention- specifically on the past, present or future, and through what kind of lens. Have a look in your own life and in the life of your friends, does this hold true?

The studies say that the happiest individuals balance their focus among the present, future, and past, with most of the attention on the present.

• In the present, they pay attention to the world around them. They are mindful of their own thoughts and emotions, aware of their body and its sensory experiences. They are often in a flow state, doing things at the right juncture of challenge and skill, where you have to stay alert and not sleep walk.
• When they do think of the past, the happiest people aren’t doing it with regret, rumination, blame, shame or a “glory days” mentality, but rather with a kind of appreciative nostalgia, an acknowledgment of what they learned, what progress they’ve made since then, or for the constancy of identity that comes from the through-line of their experiences.
• When they think of the future, it’s with optimism and the expectation of wonder, not anxiety or worry. They are confident of the future unfolding and emerging in a satisfying (or at least interesting) way. They often set and pursue meaningful future goals.

When I started thinking about the elders in my life, my grandmothers and great-grandmothers in particular, this held true. One of them was full of resentments and had little joy (other than planting trees - when she was fully engaged in that she was like a happy kid, full of energy). As she grew older, she grew more lonely and isolated. The other grandmothers, who had survived wars and extreme loss, talked about the past with love and wonder, and woke up ready to create mischief well into their 90s.

I look at some people my own age, in their 50s and 60s, and they already seem to be anchored looking backward, rather than enjoying the very real current and exciting time of being alive, or what they want to create next, or how they want to serve next. It feels like they are sort of giving up, which isn't right or wrong, just an observation. It’s like the energy focused on the past is this heavy weight stripping them of the agency to move forward.

But we do have agency and choice in all of our life stages, and lifecrafting happens with the conscious placement of attention.

Most of the older women I know today are strong, independent, sexual, generative, vital and joyful.

If we aren’t already doing so, let’s begin to see ourselves and all older women through the lens of power and capacity. As we emphasize older women’s strengths, resilience, and capacity for change, rather than a lens of inevitable decline, we amplify the potential. Our expectations and stereotypes often call things out in others, for better and worse.

We can just be here in this moment, thank the past for all the lessons and imagine our beautiful future- and follow our spark of joy.

If you're celebrating Father's Day today, you might enjoy this podcast I did called Episode #107: Daddy Issues - How Our Fathers Live in Us, Bad Dads, Good Dads and Why We Like to Call Him Daddy

All love, 

Christine

XO

Christine Marie Mason

Founder, Rosebud Woman

Host The Rose Woman Podcast on Love and Liberation