It’s Never Too Late to be What You Might Have Been!

“I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I've written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part.”

                           — Shirley MacLaine  

In the June 2014 issue of O magazine, Suze Orman wrote a column about making age-appropriate financial choices. She gave the example of Kimberly, 48, who wanted to leave her corporate job and start a business as a master cake decorator.

Although she had eight months of savings set aside to get her business up and running, Suze nixed her idea, saying, “If Kimberly were 22, I’d tell her to follow her dream no matter what.

“But at 48… No passion project should jeopardize your earning potential in your 40s and 50s—the make-or-break years when you should shore up your retirement savings.” 

Oh no. 

My little corner of the Facebook universe erupted over that. Marketing coach Kate Beeders wrote, “Too old to live your dream?? This advice seems to be coming from a place of fear—not power. This made me so mad. Thank goodness I didn’t listen to her!” 

Others chimed in with “I agree with you. I was 64 when I started my current company,” “Wow! If 40-something is too old, I’m in BIG trouble,” “Good lordy . . . I am about to go for my dream . . . 40 is still a babe wet behind the ears, I am starting out again at 74 . . . and I will succeed.” 

I loved it. There are so many examples of women becoming successful entrepreneurs after forty: Louise Hay started her publishing business Hay House when she was fifty-eight; Mary Kay Ash started Mary Kay Cosmetics when she was forty-five.

I started my workshop business when I was forty-two, published my first book when I was fifty-four, my second when I was fifty-eight, and my third at sixty-six. 

At 72, facing the Covid lockdowns, I started The Wealthy Spirit Group as a paid subscription group doing daily 10-minute videos from my book. And I’ve never been happier—I feel like I have my own TV show! 

Harry Bernstein, who published his first book at age ninety-six and then three more before passing away at 101, said, “My nineties were the most productive years of my life.” 

If it wasn’t too late for us, it’s not too late for you. 

Retirement is not a goal.

Retire to do what? Lie on the beach?

For how many days will that be interesting?

Ken Dychtwald, PhD, founding president and CEO of Age Wave, a consultancy focused on aging populations, reported that “a lot of people find that they are unhappy and retirement itself is a wasteland. 20 or 30 years of leisure being satisfying is a myth—the average retiree watched 49 hours of television a week last year.” 

What do you really want? Not what you think you should want, or what your parents said you should want, or what your spouse, partner, friend, magazines or television says would be a great thing to want. But what do you want your life to be like? 

Pick a goal. Any goal. Your best guess for today will do.

Don’t wait for the right goal or the perfect goal. It may be around the bend in the road and you can’t see it from where you stand today. Pick an interim goal that will get you in action, give you experience in achieving goals, and one day you’ll find yourself around that bend where your “perfect goal” is within reach after all.

Do you want a job, a career, a profession, or a calling? What moves you, motivates you, inspires you?

What gets you up in the morning with a smile and an “I can hardly wait”? 

Let’s play the Game of Life for all we’re worth. It’s the only game in town, and the only way to lose is not to play, crying, “I don’t know what I want.” 

You are the star of the movie of your life. You write the script and you direct it. You hire the supporting actors, you design the sets and the costumes, you gather the props. You do the location scouting, and you’re in charge of transportation. You are your agent and manager, too: Did you negotiate a big enough salary, bonus, perks?

Now, action! The camera is on you, baby! What do you want “The Story of Your Life” to be about?

Chellie Campbell, Financial Stress Reduction Expert, is the author of bestselling books The Wealthy Spirit, Zero to Zillionaire, and From Worry to Wealthy: A Woman’s Guide to Financial Success Without the Stress. She has been treating Money Disorders like Spending Bulimia and Income Anorexia in her Financial Stress Reduction® Workshops for over 25 years and is still speaking, writing, and teaching workshops—now as Zoom classes and The Wealthy Spirit Group on Facebook—with participants from all over the world. Website: www.chellie.com.

What Are Your Needs & How To Get Them Met?

Sometimes people get very confused because needs are not clear. You really have to know yourself and you have to understand yourself to define what you actually need.

Let's talk more about needs. When I looked up the definition of what a need is, it was really interesting. It talked about goods or services that are required. I thought, “hmm, required.” I think I like that. It's also defined as something you need to survive and be well. When we talk about something you need to survive and be well, we mean food, water, clothing, and shelter, as well as what you need emotionally.

When we think about a need we have to think about it as something we require; it’s not optional. What might be optional is how much we get or in what way we get it. But we do have needs that are requirements for our feeling good about ourselves and about our relationships or feeling good as a person in general.

For example, if you need water to live and you don't get it you will literally die. Let's say you need clothes, shoes, a roof over your head; does that mean it has to be a ten-million-dollar home in Manhattan Beach or the Palisades? Or does that mean as long as you have a roof over your head, that you're wearing clothes, that you have comfortable shoes that are actually satisfying your need? 

Get To Know Your Needs

We also have a need to feel safe. This is a really big one. I don't think many people consider being safe as a need however the need to feel safe is actually a pretty high priority. Since safety is a really big need, then that must mean that when you don't feel safe it doesn't feel good. When we don't feel emotionally safe that is usually signaled by anger, sadness, worry and resentment. That's just to list a few of the things that we experience when we don't feel safe.

As an example, let's just say you must have had one point been either in a closet or in a room that was just pitch black. You really could not see your hand in front of your face. When you stay in that room for even just a few minutes your natural instinct is to feel unsafe. And what happens when we feel unsafe? We start to worry like crazy. If I move will there be a step in front of me? Might I fall into some kind of a hole? Where are the walls? Will I bump into something? Where's the exit? How do I get out of here?

There are all these fears that start coming into our mind when there's nothing there. Our brain is really good at keeping us safe and when there are gaps in what we know, our brain tries really hard to fill those gaps with possibilities so that we can be prepared. If we're thinking “oh there could be something in front of me and I might trip” then we're going to walk carefully to make sure that we don't trip. 

As a safety measure, it's great being fearful; it keeps us safe. However, feeling safe means that you need to know about your surroundings. If you go into that dark room and you know that there's a chair and a table right in front of you, that makes you feel a lot better. You know you can put your hands out. You can feel the table. You can maybe move it out of the way or you can feel your way around it. It significantly reduces the anxiety.

When we are feeling safe and we understand the things that are around us then we know we feel good. Needs are all “known” things in that darkened room. Knowing the table is in front of you. Knowing where the exit might be. Knowing there is someone else in the room with you. Knowing the size of the room. These are all going to be needs to help you emotionally feel safe, so that you can make your way out of that room.

When we are feeling unsafe in our life or in our relationship it's often because we don't quite understand what's in our room. We don’t know what's in our way or what's making us afraid. Knowing yourself is really going to help you determine what your needs are. I can't tell you how many times I sit with clients and we start talking about needs and they mention things that are kind of nice but they're not actually needs. 

A need is something that's going to make you feel safe and comfortable. A need might be to be able to communicate with my partner without yelling. That need might be having someone validate me in a specific way. Our needs are not “I need to get a massage every week” or “I need to live in a better neighborhood because then I'll feel safe” or “I need a new car because my current car isn't the latest model.” These wants are not necessarily going to make your life happier, make you feel safer.

So, know yourself. Figure out what is safe and what is unsafe. What do you like? What do you dislike? What makes you happy and what makes you sad? What upsets you and what calms you down? What makes you uncomfortable and what makes you feel comfortable? These are the things that you need, because if you go through your life without having the thing that needs taking care of, then you're going to feel angry, sad, worried and resentful. But you have to understand what the need is that makes you feel happy. “I feel happy when I'm able to sit down and relax and be with my family without drama” really means your need is for less conflict.

Do you see how identifying the actual need requires some work and introspection? Sometimes we think “okay my need is to be able to sit down and just have a reasonable evening with my family.” But the real need is to have less conflict. It can be challenging to figure out these needs. 

Be Flexible, Communicate and Negotiate

Once you have an idea of what your needs are, then we have to feel safe enough to ask for those needs to be met. One thing for sure is that you’ve got to try to be flexible because if we are not flexible we're never going to get our needs met. Consider going up to someone or someone coming up to you and saying, “I need you to not fight with me anymore.” That person is going to look at you and ask, “What does that exactly mean?”

It is actually kind of unrealistic to say, “I'm never going to fight with you ever again.” Every relationship has conflict. So, what is the real need here? It's being able to communicate assertively and not aggressively. This sounds really different than “I don't want to fight with you anymore” or “my need is for you not to fight with me.” When you try asking to have a need met it's got to be flexible and cannot be a demand. This is always going to be a conversation so avoiding judgment is really important. If you can make other people responsible for your well-being that would be awesome but that's not the way that it works. 

You Are In Charge Of Your Happiness

Other people are not in charge of meeting your needs or making you feel good. An example would be “I'll be happy if you just helped out around the house.” This request sounds simple enough. But then that means you won't ever be happy unless your partner or your child or your teenagers are helping out around the house. I'm not sure that's exactly what your need is. It kind of seems like I'd be happier if we both practice listening to each other and doing what one or the other is asking for. It's really not about the house. It's not about helping out with the work. It's about communication and validation.

Try hard to avoid making the other person in charge of your need and consider what the real need is. It's also important to accept that not everyone is going to see your need as a “reasonable need.” If that is the case, then communication, flexibility and negotiation are really important.

If the need to be validated is very important to you and your partner just doesn't know how to do it then you're never going to get it. Then you have to figure out well what does it mean to validate? How can your partner validate you in a reasonable way? There are many layers to figuring out what your needs are. It's not always easy.

Practicing being open is also going to really help you get your needs met. If you're working on getting your needs met, you have to be open. You're asking other people to be open to you and so you also need to be open to them. Again this kind of goes back to flexibility. If I am inflexible, then why should the other person that I'm dealing with—my partner, my child, my teenager, my boss, my coworker—need to be flexible or even want to be flexible? Practice being open. Nothing is black and white. 

Getting your needs met doesn't mean they get met 100% of the time. So be open. The toughest part is really understanding just what these needs are. You cannot express your needs to someone else if you don't understand what you need. Take some time to understand yourself. Understand what you need, what you desire, what makes you happy, what kind of things you need to have a fulfilled life. That doesn't necessarily mean material things.

The emotional needs are the harder ones to get satisfied. But it's not impossible as long as you really understand what those needs are. Getting needs met is not an easy task. Get to know your needs and really understand what the needs are. Be flexible, negotiate, and communicate with others around you to get those needs met. Don't give up just because it doesn't work one time; try again and eventually you will get your needs met. They'll never get met if you don't know what they are and you don't try to get them met.

Tracy Kovacs Bevington, LMFT, is owner and founder of Pacific Marriage & Family Therapy Network, a group psychotherapy practice with 15 clinicians and offices in Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, and Manhattan Beach. Tracy enjoys working with Adolescents, Families, Couples, and people of all ages struggling with anxiety. As a supervisor, Tracy works with Associate MFTs, and enjoys mentoring these clinicians and others by helping develop their careers. Learn more about Tracy and Pacific MFT Network at www.pacificmft.com.

This article was originally published on the Pacific MFT Network Blog is used with the permission of the author.

LA-CAMFT Diversity Committee
Presents:

Middle Eastern North African (MENA)
Therapists Community Group

Next Meeting:

Monday, April 3, 2023
6:30 pm-7:30 pm (PT)

Online Via Zoom

Free Registration

Middle Eastern North African (MENA)
Therapists Community Group

The MENA Therapists Community Group is a safe place across the Middle Eastern and North African therapist diaspora to build community and a sense of belonging. We hold an inclusive space to process the impact of cultural biases experienced by people of MENA descent and the effect it may have on our work as mental health professionals. Within the process, we will strive to create healing, support, and empowerment. We will collaboratively exchange ideas, experiences and resources while acknowledging cultural differences and shared similarities. As the poet Khalil Gibran states — “The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you.” — our community will create a place to be seen, heard, and understood.

Open to LA-CAMFT Members and Non-Members

First Saturday of Each Month

Location: Zoom Meeting

For more information contact Akiah Robinson Selwa, LMFT at aselwa@sunrisetherapycenter.org.

For:

Licensed Therapists, Associates, and Students

Event Details: 
Friday, April 3, 2023, 6:30 pm-7:30 pm (PT)Time of Check-In: 9:30 am

Where: 
Online Via Zoom
Upon registration for the presentation, you will receive a confirmation email that includes a link to our Zoom meeting.

Cost:
No Charge

Registration is open and available until the group begins.

Questions about Registration? Contact Tyana Tavakol, Perla Hollow, & Tania Osipof at DiversityCommittee@lacamft.org.

Register Here

8 Reasons to Choose Mediation for Divorce

Why Should I Choose Mediation for Divorce?

1. Mediation for divorce lets address your feelings of betrayal.
2. Mediation may help you to better understand your spouse, partner, or significant other.
3. You create your own solution and save the cost, time, and stress of the legal system. You find answers for your needs.
4. Mediation is in your control. You can stop when you wish. You have the final say.
5. There is no public record of what goes on in mediation.
6. Mediation allows you to make your own decisions for a solution that works for everyone.
7. Mediation helps couples to find common ground that can lead them to the answer that works.
8. The court will accept your agreement.

Marvin Whistler, Mediator, guides couples through the unpredictable waters of divorce and helps them resolve their differences in dividing property and debt, planning for the care and parenting of their children, deciding on support and their future relationship as well as other issues that will be important for their future relationship. His mediation practice also covers various types of disputes including but not limited to family, real estate, landlord-tenant, and community. Marvin provides online mediation throughout Southern California, is Treasurer for Southern California Mediation Association and a member of Academy of Professional Mediators and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. Website: MarvinWhistlerMediation.

This article was originally published on the Marvin Whistler Mediation Blog.

LA-CAMFT’s Declaration
of Inclusion, Diversity, and Anti-Racism

Psychotherapy can be transformative in a democratic society, and can open intellectual inquiry that, at its best, influences and results in lasting positive change. In recognition of our shared humanity and concern for our community and world, LA-CAMFT loudly and overtly disavows all racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, classism, ableism, ageism, and hate speech or actions that attempt to silence, threaten, and degrade others. We in LA-CAMFT leadership hereby affirm our solidarity with those individuals and groups most at risk and further declare that embracing diversity and fostering inclusivity are central to the mission of our organization.

As mental health professionals, we value critical reasoning, evidence-based arguments, self-reflection, and the imagination. We hope to inspire empathy, advocate for social and environmental justice, and provide an ethical framework for our clients, our community, and ourselves.

We in LA-CAMFT leadership are committed to:

(1) the recognition, respect, and affirmation of differences among peoples

(2) challenging oppression and structural and procedural inequities that exist in society, generally, and in local therapeutic, agency, and academic settings

(3) offering diverse programming content and presenters throughout our networking event calendar, as well as in our workshops, trainings, and special events

While we traverse the turbulent seas of the important and necessary changes taking place in our country, in order to form a “more perfect union.” we wish to convey our belief that within our community exists an immense capacity for hope. We believe in and have seen how psychotherapy, therapeutic relationships, and mental health professions can be agents of positive change, without ignoring or denying that the practice and business of psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy have historically been the cause of great harm, trauma, and emotional toll, particularly for people of color and other marginalized groups. We are committed to doing our part to help remedy that which we have the position, privilege, and/or resources to do so.

At LA-CAMFT events, all members are welcome regardless of race/ethnicity, gender identities, gender expressions, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, disabilities, religion, regional background, Veteran status, citizenship, status, nationality and other diverse identities that we each bring to our professions. We expect that leadership and members will promote an atmosphere of respect for all members of our community.

In a diverse community, the goal of inclusiveness encourages and appreciates expressions of different ideas, opinions, and beliefs, so that potentially divisive conversations and interactions become opportunities for intellectual and personal growth. LA-CAMFT leadership wants to embrace this opportunity to create and maintain inclusive and safe spaces for all of our members, free of bias, discrimination, and harassment, where people will be treated with respect and dignity and where all individuals are provided equitable opportunity to participate, contribute, and succeed.

We value your voice in this process. If you feel that our leadership or programming falls short of this commitment, we encourage you to get involved, and to begin a dialogue with those in leadership. It is undeniable that the success of LA-CAMFT relies on the participation, support, and understanding of all its members.

Wishing good health to you and yours, may you find yourself centered in feelings of abundance, safety, belonging, and peace.

Standing together,
The LA-CAMFT Board of Directors and Diversity Committee

Voices Publication Guidelines for 2023

Calling all community writers and contributors!

Are you searching for a unique platform to express your passions and showcase your expertise in the Marriage and Family Therapy field? Look no further, as we welcome your input!

Following are the due dates and publication guidelines for submitting articles and ads for the 2023 calendar year to Voices, LA-CAMFT's monthly newsletter:

Upcoming Voices Newsletters	Submission Deadlines
June	May 1
July	June 1
August	July 1
September	August 1
October	September 1
November	October 1
December	November 1

 

 

LA-CAMFT Publishing Guidelines for Voices

• All submissions are DUE by the 1ST of each month.
  • Around the 15th of each month, you will receive the editor’s call for articles for the next edition of VOICES.
  • This editor’s call will allow contributors to have up to 2 weeks to put together all the material for submission by the 1st of the month.
  • Around the 25th of each month, you will receive the editor’s second and last call for articles, reminding contributors to submit completed articles by the first should they wish to be included in VOICES.
  • In this last call for submissions, the editor will include a list of the content planned for the next edition of VOICES. This editorial list will note submissions received as well as submissions expected but not yet received and which must be received by the 1st in order to be included.
  • Any submissions received after the 1st, will be included in the following month's edition of VOICES.
• ARTICLES are 500–1000 word submissions by LA-CAMFT members, sponsors, speakers, or recognized experts in their field. Only universal file formats, like Word (.doc and docx.) will be accepted as submissions. If an article is submitted in a “.pages” format, it will be returned to the submitter.
• HYPERLINKS in articles must be individually typed into the body of the article by the writer and must be included at time of submission. It is the responsibility of each writer to “type in” the hyperlink(s) in their own work when the article is submitted. Putting “LIVE LINK” in the body of an article won't work. When multiple links are being included, this must be made clear by the writer as to where each link is to be featured.
• IMAGES: All personal headshots or images must be attached to an email as either a JPEG, PNG or TIF. Images pasted into an email are not acceptable since the quality of such photos is diminished. Any images received in the body of the email may result in delayed publication of the submission.
• AUTHOR TAGLINES: Author taglines are a short paragraph of 50 to 75 words after the end of the article in which the author is identified. It includes the author's full name, pertinent professional credentials, a short business description, and website address with a HYPERLINK. Email addresses and phone numbers are not included — the only exceptions are lacamft.org emails. All taglines are limited to 75 words, MAXIMUM. This word count includes the author's name and website.
• IMAGES OTHER THAN PERSONAL HEADSHOTS. There is an issue about images. When you submit an image other than a personal headshot, you must provide proof of how you obtained that photo. Following is a link that covers the importance of copyright issues, but especially so when it comes to anything “Internet.” (Sued for Copyright Infringement)
• AN ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN:
  • Helpful tips, strategies, analysis, and other specific useful clinical, educational, business or professional marketing or networking information.
  • A review of literature or arts (reviewer not related to or in business with the creator of the item being reviewed).
• AN ARTICLE MAY NOT CONTAIN:
  • Reference to commercial products or services being sold or distributed by author;
  • Information that is only useful if the author’s book or other materials are purchased
  • Suggestions that the reader attend the author’s workshop, conference or podcast for more information;
  • Any other material that could be construed as an advertisement, rather than an article;
  • Language that could be construed as defamatory, discriminatory, or offensive.