Retirement is one of the words du jours as the Chamber of Commerce is set to soon hold the changing of the guard. As a therapist who specializes in life transitions, I often work with people who are retiring from their careers and, let me tell you, although it sounds like the golden ticket to changra-la…it can actually be a time of fear, grief, and confusion.
Before my therapy practice, I spent seventeen years working on-and-off as a freelance videographer. Facing those daunting unstructured and unfocused days taught me a thing or two about how to thrive during a time when our external environment stops defining our concept of Self.
Since childhood, our life is often structured for us. Parents, schools, jobs, and even our kids’ schedules, tell us when, where and how to be. But what happens when those guardrails no longer exist? Retirement, like freelancing, forces a person to turn inwards and develop a sense of Self, structure, and purpose that they might not have been challenged to develop before.
So when retirement comes knocking on your door, here are three steps (I found helpful as a freelancer) that will help you work through those middle of the night worries:
- TAKE TIME TO GRIEVE
You might already be aware of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. There is merit in her model, but a more modern approach to understanding grief is the Dual Process Model of Coping.
The Dual Process Model of Coping asks us to move back and forth between states of “loss oriented coping” and “restoration coping.” Loss oriented coping involves focusing on what you are losing and what will be changing. Don’t skip this step no matter how uncomfortable it might be! The beach ball that gets pushed down below the surface will eventually pop up and hit you in the face!
Allow yourself to feel the variety of emotions that might emerge during this stage – excitement, anger, sadness, fear, etc. Write down your thoughts and feelings on a piece of paper, rip them up and throw them in the fire. Not only is this cathartic but it is just plain fun.
The second state of the Dual Process Model of Coping is restoration. This is when you radically accept your new stage of life and the shadow and light it brings, and make plans for a future. The next two exercises will help with how to forge ahead.
- VALUE SORT
Luckily value sorting has become somewhat of a therapist cliche and there are a variety of free and paid tools out there to assist in the process. My approach to value sorting involves these five steps:
- One, draw a wheel with spokes and label the spokes according to the aspects of life that are important to you. Spokes might include family, friends, exercise, hobbies, and spirituality. Each person’s wheel is their own. Make sure that the spokes represent what is important to you.
- Two, make a dot on the spoke that corresponds to a zero to ten scale – zero is the inside of the wheel and ten is the outer rim. This dot represents where you perceive your life to be at right now in regards to this aspect of life.
- Three, make a second dot on the spoke that represents where you want to be. You might think that everyone wants to be at a ten for all of their spokes but, surprisingly, I have found that that is not true.
- Four, google “lists of value words,” pick words out of the lists and assign them to the different life spokes. This will provide a deeper understanding as to why and how this spoke is important to you.
- Five, utilize this wheel as a road map and make choices accordingly. For example, if you value a “calm, individual” approach to exercise instead of an “energetic group” activity, Qi Gong versus Zumba might be the decision point.
- SET YOUR SCHEDULE
Once you have a road map for what is important to you and how you want to put those values into action, it is time to set your daily and weekly schedule. The biggest mistake I ever made as a freelancer was to allow my life to be completely unstructured. I thought that the ability to stay up as late as I wanted and sleep in as long as I needed, would bring me a sense of independence, freedom, and joyous rebellion. Instead, all it did was bring confusion, depression and an anxious nervous system that was dysregulated. I didn’t know what I was doing day to day, week to week and it felt horrible being lost in the void.
As unsexy as it sounds, a color-coded calendar is a freelancers, and retirees, best friend. I would advocate that it’s actually everyone’s best friend! But I digress. Your daily and weekly calendar, set every Sunday evening for the week ahead, will provide your nervous system with a sense of structure and scaffolding. As much as people want to be free-wheeling, “going with the flow,” untethered rebels against the system, I hate to break it to you that nature and nurture have programmed you to want consistency and regularity in your life. That doesn’t mean ignoring the spice of life activities (especially for my ADHD leaning friends). Instead, along with the consistency of some activities, schedule in variety.
A color-coded daily and weekly calendar will create a visually pleasing, artificial structure that your mind craves. And, this time, the colors are blocks of time that reflect values and activities you have intentionally chosen and balanced. Too many blue blocks of doctors’ appointments one week? Make sure to schedule a few pink blocks of down time for balance. Not enough purple exercise blocks one week? Try and find time each day for a short five minute stretch, squat set or walk around the block.
When setting your schedule, keep a few rules in mind that will help with your sanity.
- One, get up each morning and have an enjoyable morning ritual that marks the start of the day.
- Two, find time to move your body, ideally daily. I don’t care if you stretch, walk, run or gallop, a stagnant body often leads to a stagnant and possibly depressed or anxious mind.
- Three, find time to connect with people. We are social creatures and taking time to connect with and/or be in communal spaces is important to your mental health. Hang out at the library, local coffee shop or co-work space. If there is no one to talk to, always have a book, magazine or journal on hand.
- Four, think about the themes in your entire life, all the way back to childhood, in regards to what got you excited and brought you joy. Reengage in those! You’ve got the time. Take an acting class, volunteer at the hospital, start a book club.
- Five, set expectations that are appropriate and attainable for your new lifestyle. The pace of life often looks different in retirement than it did in your nine-to-five. Give yourself time to adjust to the new patterns. It’s going to feel uncomfortable at first but, eventually, you will settle in.
- Six, write down your wins for the day. We rarely take time to reflect on what went well and often hyperfocus on what is “wrong.”
- Seven, have an end of day routine that relaxes and grounds your nervous system and gets you to sleep at a fairly consistent and reasonable hour.
IN CONCLUSION
I have never been retired, but the freelance lifestyle taught me how to deal with the overwhelm that comes with an abundance of time and lack of structure and externally dictated purpose. At first, my wheel looked more like one big circle with very few fleshed out spokes. But as I got tired of waking up anxious in the middle of the night, I put time aside to do the exercises I outlined above. I did the work to intentionally create a life I was excited to wake up for. I filled the scary abyss with a sense of Self, purpose and direction. I grieved the past, marked the transition, and focused on each day’s creation of the future. In the immortal words of Anonymous on the internet, “Retirement is when you stop living at work and start working at living.”
About the Author: Sharon Pieczenik is a therapist who helps adults transform stress, anxiety, ADHD challenges, and major life transitions into clarity, focus, and strength. Before becoming a therapist, she built careers as a videographer, coffee entrepreneur, and real estate investor. Drawing on her own experience navigating career and identity shifts, moving to new homes and communities, and developing multiple ventures, she provides a compassionate, mind-body, trauma-informed approach to support clients in cultivating resilience, enhancing emotional well-being, and creating a more fulfilling, focused life. You can find her at https://www.SpireCounseling.com
301-276-5273
info@SpireCounseling.com
Frederick Chamber Insights is a news outlet of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. For more information about membership, programs and initiatives, please visit our website.