We can get depressed about the fewer years ahead and the more behind us. About the “if onlys” those awful regrets we regret to have. We look around at everyone being younger than us! (Hey, where’s everyone MY AGE?) There’s a sense that we won’t ever be so many things. Our dreams seems to diminish as our wrinkles and aches and pains grow.  There’s often a sense of hopelessness. And then there’s the reminder in the mirror that we’re on the wrong side of youth…

So what do we do when we go into the funk? Go to Disneyland? or Go deeper into ourselves and just feel the muck, the yuck, the madness of midlife?

As Inner Guide, Mary Hoffman, says, “sometimes you just have to feel it and sit with that feeling to get past it.”

These past weeks I’ve found myself on a daily freak out. I think about my age, (I can’t even write the number here. It’s somewhere between George Clooney and Madonna) and what I’ve accomplished, questioning if it’s enough. Questioning if I’ve made my mark. Then I freak out some more like I’ve just been told I’ve got 6 months to live. And then I remember…I can’t change my age, but I can change my attitude.

As I’ve always said when things get a little rough on the midlife adventure front, “Remember this is where the deliciousness is.” It’s the Universe (or our subconscious or whatever you want to call it) putting a fire under us. Time to take action. Either inner or outer.

Adventure Tip: Take an inner adventure; Sit still. As Gregg Braden says, “Pray from the end.” Whether you pray, visualize or affirm, see it or say it as if it’s already where you want your life to be.

Adventure Tip: Take an outer adventure. Get off the couch, out of bed, and do something. Even a walk. Ideally go to an exciting event or take a mini-vacation, even one night somewhere else to get a new perspective.

Attitude Adjustment Adventure Tips:

•Create an midlife adventure notebook.

•List all your accomplishments to date. (Not just your Oscar or Emmy wins!) List the smallest to the biggest. They ALL count.

•Ask yourself, “Whose lives have I impacted?” These are the REAL accomplishments. That’s where you’ve made your indelible mark.

•List what you want to accomplish. Create visuals for that extra oomph.

•Start adventurizing your life. Right now!

-Tracy Pattin

The movie, Eat, Pray, Love, has sparked a fascination for crossing the globe to find yourself as you find amazing places to visit. They’re Inner-Outer Midlife Adventures. With my innate wanderlust plus the opportunity travel (because of my dad) with my airline passes, I trekked across the world in my 20s. Not sure if I “found myself” but I tested the waters. It was sort of an Eat, Pray, Love journey. Of course I did a lot of eating and yes, there were some hot romances, but the only praying I did was to make it to my next destination, to get past those Algerian Border Guards Algeria, hoping they wouldn’t shoot us and let us pass through. Blank books were the rage then (blogs weren’t even a thought) so I decided to keep travel diaries of every trip. And now, I wrote theYES!book about those adventures, other people’s adventures and ways for you to get inspired to do your own adventurizing. Here’s an excerpt:

“Remember! The rest of the world is not like Saratoga.” I remember, Mom!

Border between Tunisia and Algeria Somewhere in the middle of the Sahara Desert Reminds me of Checkpoint Charlie, East Berlin

In the middle of the perfect nowhere, large beige tents were pitched. Large guards with even larger guns were stationed all around. What were they looking for? When we drove up, they all rushed the bus, suspicious of these “Europeans” trespassing across their nowhere land. Greg, our guide, did all the talking.

Greg had to take us into the customs tent one by one. My heart was beating fast. I felt like the non-rev waiting to get a seat on a plane. Instead I was waiting for my interrogation seat in a scary border tent. The guard questioned me about all my passport stamps. All of his expressions were in his mean, piercing eyes, his face remaining stiff except for a twitchy mouth. I explained about my dad and my airline passes. Then he really got suspicious. He didn’t understand how I could just travel whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted to go, without my family. I wonder what his life is like. Maybe he’s never been on a plane before. Maybe he only knows life in the middle of nowhere. We were all let back on the bus. Two guards with machine guns followed us on. They sauntered down the aisle with their big guns looking underneath the seats and in our luggage. Greg warned us to be very quiet and not make eye contact. They could do whatever they wanted and no one would ever know! We had to play the game. When they walked by me they just stared. Suddenly I was back at Checkpoint Charlie in East Berlin.

They let us off the bus to wait some more. We had to play volleyball in the hot afternoon sun for hours to appease these bored border guards. And we had to let them win. It was all part of the game. Maybe they were just lonely and needed to connect. Finally, they let us through. I hate this. I love this.

Adventure Tip: Being in the middle of nowhere can be somewhere. It all depends on how we look at it.

-Tracy Pattin©2010

Click here to listen to the show.

Adventure Tip: Watch and study other adventurizers to get inspired and to catapult you to a more adventurous life.

-Tracy Pattin

” Take Your Favorite Person to Your Favorite Place in Your Mid-Life”

By Barbara Berg.

`Everything just seemed to fall into place when my amazing 45 year old husband, George, offered to take me to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to celebrate my 57th birthday. (Yes, I plan to live to be 114 years old!)- I was so excited, I couldn’t believe it!

He already knew it was my favorite place in the “Whole Wide World”, and there is barely a conversation between us about the past that doesn’t somehow turn to Jackson. So when George suggested it, I just knew it would be the best trip ever!

I was there 35 years ago when I was 22, because I had gone to be a ski bum, and thought I had what it took to teach skiing on the ski slope in the town of Jackson. As it turned out, the children I had in my classes were all better than I was, and I ended up on the bottom of the hill to find work.

A new hotel was being built, which is still there and is now known as Snow King Resort. I ended up running my own tourist child care program at that hotel back then, called “The Punkin’ Patch”.- It was very dear to me, and after two years, in 1977, when it didn’t snow all winter due to below zero ongoing weather, I packed up my skis and went back east to go back to school.

Interestingly, George realized he had been there about 35 years ago also- when he was 12, as he had been traveling around the country with his family. He had often spoken about that trip as one of his all time favorites, and spoke of how they had gone to Yellowstone and passed through the town of Jackson. Never thinking at the time, that he would ever go back with his future wife and spend 5 incredible days there, this trip turned out to be one of George’s favorite vacations also!- He took me to the very campground where they had stayed near Yellowstone, and we even saw the amphitheatre where he heard a ranger talk about astronomy that influenced him greatly! He also remembered being in the town square of Jackson, and looking up at the slopes of Snow King, wondering what it would be like to ski there, never really thinking that it would really happen.

So here we are, 35 years later, planning a trip to ski in Jackson Hole Wyoming, now realizing that this place has become OUR special place in the universe- at least so far in our travels.

It truly is amazing when you can both share your dreams and experiences with each other, and blend them in such a way that they become a whole new “favorite memory” on which to build. That’s’ what’s so exciting about being in the middle of your life.- Everything can sizzle in a whole new way!

Happy dreams and Happy travels!- Love, George and Barb

Thanks Barb for contributing such a wonderful piece. If you’d like to guest blog for Sizzle in the Middle email me at: Tracy@SizzleintheMiddle.com.

Click here to find out more about Barbara Berg and Ring Shui.

Adventure Tip: Re-purpose nostalgic experiences into present day ones with a loved one (a spouse, significant other or best friend!) and turn them into a great new midlife adventure!

Adventure Tip: Resist the urge to constantly go “Out There” to reinvent yourself. Include an “Inner Adventure” to your adventurizing.

-Tracy Pattin

Email us!
Tracy@SizzleintheMiddle.com
TruthinHand@mac.com

Adventure Tip: Resist the urge to constantly go “Out There” to reinvent yourself. Include an “Inner Adventure” to your adventurizing.

-Tracy Pattin

Click Here For Inner Midlife Adventures Part 4

The movie, Eat, Pray, Love, has sparked a fascination for crossing the globe to find yourself. Sort of an inner-outer adventure. With my innate wanderlust plus the opportunity travel (because of my dad) with my airline passes, I trekked across the world in my 20s. Not sure if I “found myself” but I tested the waters. It was sort of an Eat, Pray, Love journey. Of course I did a lot of eating and yes, there were some hot romances, but the only praying I did was to make it to my next destination, or that the Algerian Border Guards wouldn’t shoot us and would let us into Morocco.Blank books were the rage then (blogs weren’t even a thought) so I decided to keep travel diaries of every trip. And now, I wrote theYES!book about those adventures, other people’s adventures and ways for you to get inspired to do your own adventurizing. Here’s an excerpt:

Sahara Adventure
Adventure Tip: Sometimes an adventure is not about how perfect and fabulous it is. It’s about the experience. This adventure was filled with hot, dirty, lonely days, dysentery, scary moments, depressing towns. Yet, it was the most fascinating experience of my life. Often when we change our attitude about a situation, we discover a great new adventure. Marcel Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Camping across North Africa with Australian travel group San Francisco-London (Then overland across Europe and North Africa) Flight 30, Gate 2B
8 available coach seats 3 paying standbys/5 non-revs (including me)

I can’t miss this flight. Then I’d miss my next adventure—camping across North Africa. Once again, I have to wait for my name to be called. I can’t decide whether I’m special and privileged or just a freak. Seems I always have to not know until the last minute to go anywhere.
Got middle seat, middle row, back of plane.

Adventure Tip: We must allow ourselves to not know so we can get out of the comfort zone that keeps us from knowing ourselves, testing ourselves on a deeper level.

London-North Africa-London Bus #2366 (more like an oversized hippie van than a tour bus) “Reserved” seats 14 Available seats 16 One male Kiwi (New Zealander) 11 female Aussies (Australians) 2 female septics (Aussie nickname for ‘Yanks’ because it rhymes with septic tank=septics=Penny & I) Tunis, Tunisia

Crossing the Sahara

Miles and miles of sand dunes. As we drove along the road, Berbers—nomadic people of the Sahara—strode along on camels, oblivious to the 107-degree weather. I wonder what their lives are like? What do they think about? Women walking with babies on their backs, a man with his head wrapped in white clothwearing a grey robe just sitting on a cow. They move from place to place. Are they happy? I’m not right at this moment. It’s hot, so hot. Not steamy hot but sandy, bristly hot. Rod Stewart’s Maggie May on the tape deck distracts me from this lonely, endless, two-lane highway of hypnotic hotness. I’m so glad I’m not one of those Berbers. But maybe they’re happy being wanderers. Our rest stop breaks up the monotony. We all take dibs on a sand dune to pee, crouching behind the hill so the truck drivers don’t get a glimpse, leaving our stamp of toilet paper flying in the wind like little white kites. I hate this. I love this.

“Remember, the rest of the world is not like Saratoga.” I remember, Mom.
Adventure Tip: When we experience something so different from our daily lives, it makes us look differently at ourselves. Maybe those Berber people were the happiest people on the planet. Adventure opens our eyes to new experiences, whether we’re loving where we are or hating it.

Sfax, Tunisia

Camped in an olive orchard. Why did we pick this trip? It’s so much work. Penny and I were sitting in our tent and suddenly three gypsy women with babies on their backs came right into our tent to look at us. They just stared and smiled. We smiled. In that moment I felt this strange connection. Like we were family. Another old man came by on his wooden cart. Stopped. And stared. What is he thinking? Could it even be translated? Did it need to be? I wonder what their lives are like.

Just think, one month ago I was spinning my dad’s globe. I closed my eyes and stuck out my finger. It landed right on North Africa. Penny and I decided that was our next adventure. A continent so far away. Now, we’re there, right here. The gypsies, the old man on the cart, their lives are as far removed from us as that point on the globe, but meeting them face to face makes me realize that maybe we’re not so far away. I hate this. I love this.

The sun disappearing over the sand dunes painted a peaceful, beautiful sunset. I forgot all about the desolate hotness of the day.

Are we there yet?

Nefta, Tunisia

Went on Oasis Camel Ride. This giant, dusty beast kneeled down so I could hop on its bumpy back. The biting flies were everywhere. I think I’m getting used to them now. The camel lurched forward and stood up. I was 10 feet high on this furry, sandy, smelly, spitting rollercoaster. Camels are known for spitting, just like all the men in my life. Greg, our guide, is now flirting with me outrageously.

En route to Tunisian border into Algeria

Another day of dawn-to-dusk driving down a hot highway framed by miles and miles of sand dunes. The Eagles’ song Hotel California makes me homesick. For a moment. All the windows on this rickety, old bus are open creating a dry, hot draft. Our only air conditioning. I imagine being at the ocean in Santa Cruz with a cool sea breeze. Then I look out the window. The gigantic sea of sand yanks me back to reality. No houses, no people, no animals, no California ocean. Just one straight tarred line of endlessness. Suddenly I long for stoplights, tailgaters, skyscrapers, crowds. So this is what loneliness looks like? I hate this. I love this.

Middle of the Sahara

Gas station (sort of)
Instead of tagging a sand dune, we got to pee in a real toilet! What luxury. It was a 4’x6’ cement room. A prison cell. Solitary confinement. Cockroaches everywhere. And the smell. Where’s the toilet? The sink? At least cells have them. It appeared to be that hole in the corner. As I crouched down with my precious one sheet of toilet paper, suddenly I heard giggles. Five pairs of large, brown eyes stared at me through the little window. I screamed at them. The kids laughed. I screamed again, they laughed harder. Then ran away.
“Remember! The rest of the world is not like Saratoga.” I remember, Mom!

Border between Tunisia and Algeria Somewhere in the middle of the Sahara Desert Reminds me of Checkpoint Charlie, East Berlin

-Tracy Pattin©2010

Stay tuned for part 3