What would 80‑year‑old me say to me right now?

TheThe other day I was waiting on a parcel; it didn’t come. I had bought some soy candles that promised to make the room smell like amazing flowers, dreamy oceans and chai tea on a chilly winter day. I had bought them on purpose, to cheer myself up and reward myself for having worked so hard in the middle of a pandemic and lockdown. They were a self-compassionate treat.

Except they weren’t arriving, and each day passed without a knock at the door. I was becoming very impatient, because I wanted them immediately to help me feel better, so I found myself having a little sooky episode where I decided everything was falling apart because this parcel hadn’t arrived. Nothing right was happening, especially not to me. No amount of tea was fixing the flatness. Does anybody else relate?

I caught up on some continuing professional education I needed to listen to, and heard a very interesting suggestion: think about what the 80-year-old me might say about this pandemic, and about living through this period. I was to imagine an 80-year-old version of myself sharing a cup of tea with someone who wanted to know what living through the pandemic had been like, and what I had learnt from it.

I then had a quiet moment of reflection, wondering whether this could be a time of learning and growth rather than a time of impatience and frustration, although I’m not sure you can get rid of those entirely. If I’m honest, I would rather have gone with the pity party, which seemed slightly fairer in the current state of play. But if you are going to do life in the arena, you can’t refuse to look a good reflection in the face.¹ You take a deep breath and get on with it.

What did I want to learn out of this season? What would I be proud to look back on, and to acknowledge how hard and how trying that growth was in the middle of isolation and uncertainty? So I pulled out my journal, wrote the question at the top of the page, and sat with my 80-year-old self.

I am hearing clients say they are learning they are more resilient than they thought. That some things they believed were important before lockdown aren’t as important any more. It has brought things into clearer focus for some. Some know what they will concentrate on afterwards; others know what they will stop doing and stop chasing when this is sorted. For some it has been about values, for others about friends, jobs and hobbies.

“If you are going to do life in the arena, you can’t refuse to look a good reflection in the face.”

So I’d encourage you to take out your journal, or a piece of paper, or your phone, and answer these:

• What would I want to learn from this season, if the 80-year-old was me?
• What sort of things would I be proud of, in terms of my own growth?
• What would I like to change about myself, or work towards?
• If a miracle happened and I woke up tomorrow all new on the inside, what would have changed?

Are there things this season has made clearer? Are there things you need to remove, or things you need to add?