SAN DIEGO – Embracing life’s challenges and every stage of life can either be met with negativity or positively with grace, Embrace the Middle author Shayna Kaufmann said at a launch party for her book on Wednesday, Sept. 25.
Kaufmann started the evening with a meditation that was held at Tifereth Israel Synagogue. It was a very intimate, quiet experience and explored the many aspects of meditation in a nutshell. The session included closing one’s eyes and focusing on one’s breath as Kaufmann discussed quieting the mind and focusing on just the aspect of breathing, the lifeforce of living.
Kaufmann also described techniques for quieting the mind including “shutting the door” with putting thoughts aside and keeping them outside. She encouraged participants to make the movement of opening and closing a door with their hands. The author and meditation leader also urged focusing on sensations by touching one’s chest and feeling the air moving in and out.
Kaufmann is a clinical psychologist, certified mindfulness meditation teacher, decades-long Zen practitioner, and founder of Embrace the Middle, a company dedicated to serving women in midlife. Shayna is also a published researcher, a community leader, popular speaker, and former faculty at Alliant International University and National University. Her column appears in San Diego Jewish World.
Tifereth Israel Synagogue, particularly its chapel, is where so much of her embracing journey began. “In this beautiful space, wrapped in a tallit, surrounded and held by you wonderful minyannaires (our community within a community), where I spent countless hours being present to the sorrow of losing both my parents and my brother Eddie – to my tears, my heartache, and also the palpable love that emanates from grief,” Kaufmann told an audience of approximately 70 people.
Menopause began the process which led to her book, Kaufmann said. “While during a 5-day meditation retreat, it happened,” she recounted. “It was a very hot August day and was settling in to start another 30-minute meditation session. As the timekeeper rang the bell, like clockwork, I felt the rise of an incoming hot flash. My reaction in my mind because I couldn’t talk was “seriously? Now?” This sucks and probably some more choice words. And I couldn’t even move to put my hair up or fan myself – those things I would instinctively do. After a few minutes of self-pity, I remember, ‘oh yeah, I’m supposed to be meditating.’
“When I stopped fighting it, it really wasn’t that big of a deal,” she continued. “It was the thoughts and the wanting it to go away that made it miserable. Accepting the hot flash was downright liberating. And then I had this epiphany, I have all these changes on the horizon that I don’t necessarily want. My parents are aging, and my mom had recently been diagnosed with dementia, my daughters were getting ready to graduate and one was heading to Europe, my eyes and knees were going downhill. These changes were going to happen regardless of my feelings about them.
“I couldn’t choose whether they could happen, but I did have a choice with regards to how I approached these changes. I could fight them, deny them, get angry like I did with the hot flash. I don’t want this, go away, this is terrible, all of which may be true but clinging to those thoughts would only make things worse. Or I could gently accept my inevitable realities. Accepting my mom has dementia and not age-related memory. I accept my knees are bone-on-bone and I need to stop jogging versus I accept that my mom has dementia, and this is hard. I accept I cannot jog anymore and it’s going to be a difficult transition for me. I accept my daughter has to live her life and go to Europe even though I will miss her. It’s replacing anger and self-pity with self-compassion. Nothing about the situation is different other than my response to it. The word that came to me to capture this approach is embracing.”
Universal challenges that accompany midlife, she said, are 1) Physical decline; 2) Death and loss; and 3) Multigenerational demands, including for some switching from caregiving for children to caregiving for parents or a spouse, or even grandchildren.
Kaufmann introduced her audience to the acronym “SOFTT.”
S – slow down and breathe. O – observe your thoughts and feelings. F – feel into your sensations. T – Tenderly place hand to heart: “this is hard …” T – Tune in to your earned wisdom.
Embrace the Middle can be purchased on Amazon.
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Cailin Acosta is the assistant editor of the San Diego Jewish World.
Great article Cailin.