CHAPTER 1

Ground Training Exercises for Midlife Change

Whether you're 44, 64, or 84, you're a survivor. Don'thide away in your house, just watching year afteryear after year slip by. Do something. Be active.There's a reason that you're still here. Live likeit.—Martha Bolton, Cooking with Hot Flashes

An experienced trainer starts a young (or restarts an old) horseby having her learn exercises from the ground; that is, the trainerworks near the horse using a halter, lead rope, and/or driving reinsrather than just throwing on a saddle, tightening the cinch, jumpingon, and hoping for the best. Ground exercises teach a horse to becalmer, more confident, and agile. Horses who learn basic groundexercises in a step-by-step manner usually progress faster, are safercompanions, and exhibit less stress than those who have neverlearned the basic principles of thinking and being in a horse/humanrelationship.

We too would be well-served to explore some basic exercises forchange at midlife. To make the kind of clear-minded change that willallow us to restyle ourselves will require courage and grace, agilityand tenacity. To effect significant and lasting change, we may needto develop some new skills and remind ourselves of the strengthswe already possess.

The following are ways of thinking that are basic to a change ofmind-set. They are not in any particular order, as change is not alinear experience. Just like the ground training exercises for horses,these exercises are not new. Most are common sense and havebeen around in some form for years. It does help to see them alltogether, where their usefulness to you can be evaluated.

Exercise #1: Challenge Your UACs

The concept of Unidentified Automatic Commitments, or UACs,comes from the worlds of coaching and psychology. Being willingto examine our UACs is essential to change. If we don't look at ourunexamined beliefs, we may not even realize that we're in a rut. Weall have UACs, some useful, others outdated or even harmful to ourgrowth and happiness.

UACs are such basic components of our thinking that we seldomquestion whether they are useful. We pick them up from parents,teachers, religious leaders, the media, and life experiences, andwe believe them to be unquestionably true. They are cherishedand unchallenged, our convictions and conclusions about the waythings are. Many women around midlife feel the need to dust offthese automatic commitments and see whether they are still helpfulor merely excess baggage.

William Bridges, in his well-known book Transitions: MakingSense of Life's Changes, talks about this process, stating that "weperiodically reach the point where an attitude, a belief, a style ofresponding to challenges, a goal or a dream for the future, or anassumption about others—that served us well up to that time—simplyisn't what we need for the future." Certainly not having toevaluate our beliefs over and over does save time, but often thoseunquestioned expectations about our lives and especially ourfutures are detrimental to our growth, and we need to reexaminetheir validity.

UACs can have a negative effect on our ability to get unstuckin life. By midlife we've accumulated a head full of thoughts andtheories that would not stand up to a fact check and might even bedestructive. For instance, if a woman thinks midlife equals a sharpdecline in mind and body, she will be much less likely to exerciseor challenge herself intellectually. Based on such a UAC, she mightlogically conclude, "What's the use? I'm never going to be strongor intellectually active again." If she is sure that she is destined topoverty, she will be unlikely to do anything to change her financialstatus. If she considers her riding days to be over, she will certainlynot buy a new pair of riding pants.

Luckily for us midlife is a perfect time for examining our cherishedtheories about the way things are because our brains are uniquelyequipped to handle this kind of rethinking. In The Secret Life ofthe Grown-Up Brain: Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind,Barbara Strauch writes that new studies suggest "it may be the verynature of how our brains age that gives us a broader perspectiveon the world, a capacity to see patterns, connect the dots, even bemore creative." This describes a brain that's ready to challenge itslong-held beliefs and begin to let go of what no longer serves its bestinterests. It does not describe a brain in decline.

An insightful horsewoman and biologist, Devony Lehner, wroteto me that she has observed that we often go through life thinking,We've got everything covered, all wrapped up, no loose ends—untilsomething happens. The good news is we don't have to wait until"something happens" to repack our saddlebags and discover newroutes to our goals.

Getting Started:

• Challenge yourself to take a fresh...