The Soulful Leader Podcast
The Soulful Leader Podcast
Retirement as a Regular Practice
What if the skills you’ll need to retire well are also the skills you need to live well? And to lead well?
It turns out, they are. Retirement is not just reserved for a stage late in life when you're not working anymore, it happens throughout our lives on multiple levels. So having some skill with it can literally change your whole world.
Imagine a part of yourself that you’d love to ‘retire’. Maybe you’d love to take the complaining part of you and set it aside, or be done with the part of you that gets anxious? We think about retiring from work or retiring for the evening, and we can apply that concept to letting go of the parts of ourselves that don’t serve us anymore.
The idea that when we retire from something it’s all sunshine and roses is false. In reality, 99% of the time, there’s actually a struggle, a push back and a loss of identity.
Creating a regular ‘retiring’ practice will up-level your life and make the continual ongoing process of growth easier. It will also build a powerful skill set, one that will keep you from getting caught in downward spirals like the trap in which most retirees get caught. Riley Moynes has a great TEDTalk and book that outline the 4 stages of retirement - and they are not all sunshine and roses.
In this week’s insightful podcast, Stephanie and Maren use a ton of great examples to illustrate how we get stuck, AND how to get UNstuck by using the concept of ‘retirement’ as a regular practice.
You will want to share this with your colleagues and teams!
- 00:31 Retiring parts of our ourselves, who would you be without it
- 04:42 Marriage metaphor, lifting the inner veils
- 07:14 Exiting the ‘tired’ trap
- 10:06 If I'm not —--, then who would I be?
- 12:10 5am Club and what works for you
- 14:10 The identity of a people pleaser
- 19:15 You can’t ‘fix’ someone else, what you can do instead
- 21:39 Practical work example
- 26:27 Four Stages of Retirement
LINKS
26:27 Four Stages of Retirement TedX Talk
(“How to Squeeze All the Juice Out of Retirement” - Riley Moynes)
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In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering, is this really it?
Maren Oslac:Deep inside, you know, there's more to life, you're ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper, more meaningful life that's calling you.
Stephanie Allen:That's what we invite you to explore with us. We're your hosts, Stephanie Allen and
Maren Oslac:Maren Oslac. And this is The Soulful Leader Podcast.
Stephanie Allen:Yay!
Maren Oslac:Welcome back to The Soulful Leader Podcast. This is Maren and I'm here with Stephanie. And yesterday in our Co-Creation Circle, which is our mastermind essentially, that we do with some some people each year. We were talking about retiring parts of ourselves. We think about retiring from work, or, you know, we retire for the evening. And it was this concept of letting a part of ourselves go of like saying, you know what, that doesn't serve me anymore. It doesn't suit me anymore. It's no longer who I am. I'm going to go ahead and retire that part of myself. And it was such a fascinating conversation that Stephanie and I said let's continue that on the podcast. So today, we wanted to bring that to our audience and talk about what would it look look like for you to, for all of us to look at a piece of ourselves and go hmm, you know what, that doesn't serve me anymore? Or I'm looking forward to, or I'm working towards, retiring that part of myself.
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, 'cause I think, you know, we have a certain view of what retirement means. I see this a lot like with clients of mine who are looking forward to retirement, only to get there and go now what? You know, and so what they've done is identified their whole identity with their work life. They haven't made space for what's next or what could be next. And I think, as we've seen, like redefining it, it's like, I think there's parts of us, I don't necessarily think that one has to be done with work, especially if it feels like it's a calling to you. Because there's that part of you that you're not quite done with it yet. You're, it's actually evolving you, it's actually nourishing you or growing you. But then there's other parts of ourselves where like, I am so done with this part. Like I'm done with it. And, you know, I can speak to myself and this recently, it's like, I've really been working as a therapist for the last 30 plus years. And unfortunately, that part of me that is, as a therapist gets really identified with rescuing people. Now, I really do still love therapy, because it does evolve me and I want to make a difference in the world. And I love it. So when someone says, hey, when are you ever going to retire? Um, I'm not retiring. But yet I'm quantifying this because there's a part of me that says no, but I'm retiring from rescuing. Because that's a different thing. And it doesn't just happen in my work life. It happens in my relationship with life as well. Even with my cat that I rescue, like, I'm a rescuer. And it's like, I have to ask myself, Why? Why am I so...you know, it's an addiction really. Why am I so addicted to my identity being that? And if I wasn't that, who would I be?
Maren Oslac:I love that. Because you're like when earlier when you're talking about work, we can see clearly that our identity is often related to our work. And there's lots of studies that show people go into, oftentimes go into depression, when they retire, because they lose their identity, they lose their friends, they lose their, you know, whatever. We don't think of that with a part of ourselves. So I love the metaphor of retiring this part of yourself. Because if you don't know what's next, if you don't have a good sense of yourself beyond your job, you will struggle. So it's going to be the same thing is if you say, You know what, I don't want to be a rescuer anymore, or I don't want to be a drama queen anymore, or I don't want to be a whatever, fill in the blank. Do you know, then, what you do want to be?
Stephanie Allen:So this is such a great thing because it doesn't even have to be at work. I think of some of my friends who are getting married. You know, they're retiring being single, but they're not retiring their soul. They're not retiring the essence. They're actually upgrading it. And so they're letting go of that identity of who they were and they're moving into the sacred contract of making vows and partnership agreement of coming together and evolving. And you know what you're saying is like, if you don't know who you want to be, or have a practice... because it is a practice, one needs to practice, like developing that new identity, that new sense. And we can feel really uncertain in that in that transition. This is why like in weddings, traditionally, the bride would wear a gown, because it creates a shape of a bell, which actually anchors you to the earth so that you're transitioning into a new archetype.
Maren Oslac:Oh, that's so cool. I didn't know that.
Stephanie Allen:Yes, and the maid of honor is actually the one who's like the Guardian, that that guards the bride to protect her. So as she transitions into it, and even the veil that comes over one's face, it's that, you know, the masculine. I'm using this as metaphors not as male, female, but as masculine feminine energy. The masculine is the one that lifts the veil, to be able to see beyond what appears to see beneath that, and so...
Maren Oslac:...so within ourselves, the masculine side of ourselves will lift the veil so that we can see what's next. In the mystic traditions, there's 20,000 veils between us and the one who sent us. And so we're constantly peeling back those veils the things that keep us from seeing the next, the next
Stephanie Allen:So that masculine energy is about instead of looking outward to what's next, look inward to what's next. Lift the veil to go inside, into that darkness into that feminine energy to say... okay, what's there, what do I the next. want to cultivate and what needs to be retired and you think of even that word of like, I'm going to retire to bed now. It's like, we're taking that energetic part of ourselves that's been going and doing all day long, to say, I'm going to retire that part. So that I can go in and receive the dreams or the insights or the awareness that are going to be landed in the in the dream state. Yeah. And I mean, you're looking at that we
Maren Oslac:And also to replenish ourselves, we need that downtime that would tie that in. And I think that a lot of people do look forward to, you know, the outward traditional work, retirement because they're tired, they want, they want that space to just be done. So what would it be like, if we did that for ourselves on a regular basis and say... you know what, I'm going to retire for the evening, I'm going to retire away from that part of ourselves that is no have a practice daily to do that, like when we go to bed at longer working, at least for today of saying that I do need that inward space. I need to take some time. nighttime. And how many people do you know that are saying,"Oh, I struggle with sleep at night, I wake up a lot." Because we don't practice that balancing of that masculine and feminine energy within ourselves, or even within our actions and awareness, both outwardly and inwardly, it is a daily practice and in our culture we don't really honor the different rites of passages or practices so that we can build that resonance. We can build that harmony to be able to transition gracefully and beautifully, whatever that might mean, whether that's just gracefully in transitioning from day to night. I really like thinking of it as a practice, because oftentimes, I think in our culture, there's this sense that we're supposed to know what's next. And it's a concrete thing. You mentioned marriage, right? So you know, that you're going from single to not single to being married to being in a sacred contract. And yet, we don't actually know what that means. Even if you've been married before your second marriage, or third marriage won't be like your first one, ideally, right? And so you're growing, you're a different person, you're becoming, and so, do you have a practice of discovery of what that will look like? I think it's important to have an idea of where you're going so that you're not completely lost. You know, we said that at the beginning of most people when they do retire, just think of it as like, I'm just done, and don't think of what's next and then get caught in in a downward spiral with that. So there is that like there does need to be an idea of what's next. In addition to that, there It needs to be a practice of how do I discover what's the ongoing discovery of that?
Stephanie Allen:I often look at with myself, like, if there's something I want to retire, like I was saying, you know, retiring my rescuer mode, and be able to ask the question, well, if I'm not rescuing, then who would I be? What, you know, what would be different? You know, where would I be putting my time and my energy? You know, what's my focus? And do I have a way of practicing that? So that when I'm ready to retire that fully, it's not such a shock to the system. Because I think we get really shocked. And then of course, anytime something happens quickly, there's always a push back. There's like a reactionary part. And I think this is what happens when I talk to married or couples who are going to get married, who are saying, well, we've lived together for, you know, a long time, like, what's the big deal, it's just a contract. And like, it is, and it isn't, it's both, because all of a sudden, you're telling, you know, on an unconscious level that you're retiring being single. And if you haven't really consciously been working at that, and looking at all the things that are standing against it, it's going to come up and rear its ugly head. And this is where people have anxiety, and they say, Oh, it's cold feet, or different things like that. It's like, I think, you we know, we have this belief in our society that if it's meant to be it's meant to be it'll just happen or it'll just unfold naturally. And it actually doesn't, it takes a practice, it takes awareness, but then we don't want to over practice and overwhelm, which becomes anxious. How do we hold that balance, like the like the guitar string, or violin string, where it's just the right amount of tension to play music, but not enough to break it? So it's like, what is that for, and it's going to change because the more you play something, the more it's going to loosen up, or you're gonna have to tighten it or loosen it, you're going to have to adjust it to find that right tone for you that right pitch. And this is it's not a one and done.
Maren Oslac:No, and it's not the same for everybody, either. So it's great to have a you know, an exemplar or a place to start, and then an exploration into what works for me, versus okay, you know, that works for this person. I think of the 5 am Club, for some reason that came up to my head because I, for years, wanted to be a part of the 5 am Club, because that was, in my mind, that was the way to be successful. And I, I do tend to get up early, and that that's an normal thing for me. And I also was in a profession, which was ballroom dancing. And, you know, it's like, we work until 11 o'clock at night, and then we practice until midnight or 1 am. And, and so the 5 am Club was not realistic for me.
Stephanie Allen:It was stressful.
Maren Oslac:It was very stressful. Yeah. So yes, it does work. Did it work for me? No, not for most of my career. Did that mean that I was not going to be successful? No, that's not true. So finding exemplars or examples of things that okay, this is an option for me, at least as a starting place, and then realizing like, okay, it may not be the ideal for me. And the reason I'm kind of bringing that up is because I want to use you as an example because some people might be wondering, okay, well, where do I start? One of the things that I know about you is, in this process of wanting to retire this part of you, it started well, I know it started many years ago. Consciously you made an agreement with yourself that this year was going to be a process of letting go of this part of yourself. Could you speak more to that?
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, I just, you know, I looked at my identity of people pleaser, and, and also, like, you know I got a lot of awards for being a good rescuer. I got a lot of results in the world. But what wasn't sitting with me was that I wasn't taking care of me. It was out of balance. And I was attached to rescuing. So when I wasn't rescuing, then I felt bored. I felt lonely. I felt useless. And I'm like, Okay, this is not working. This is not a healthy way. Like, I want to be more learning how to love and rescue my parts of myself. So here's what I mean by that, is that when I'm in relationship, whether it's with business or a friendship or a partnership of any sort, there are different parts of me that show up. So if you think of like a play, I often think of like a movie, a movie or a play, where there's a bunch of characters on there, and I am all of these characters. And I'm a different person with a different person. So you know how sometimes different people bring out different qualities in you?
Maren Oslac:Sure, so you're, you're one way with me, you're a different way with a boyfriend, you're a different way with your parents, you're a different way at work. Exactly.
Stephanie Allen:Exactly. And sometimes even at a different age. Like sometimes there's a little kid in me that comes out, or there is a kind of a hot mess teenager that comes out that just wants to be rebellious. And I want to grow up. And I also want to wake up, those are two different things. So growing up, meaning to be more loving, and kind and evolved, so that I'm not so attached to the underworld, and then waking up to remember who am I? Why am I here? What is the bigger picture of my story that's calling for me? So again, coming back to that movie, or that play, imagining that you are a witness in the audience, watching the play, or the movie, and watching all of these parts of yourself playing out with different things with different people or different scenarios. And then you're also the director. So you can say, Hmm, is that the most loving and, and noble way of me being in relationship with that situation? Probably not. And without judgment, I'm not saying you know, slam bam, you know, that's it go to the corner kind of thing. I'm saying, huh... what if I could try it a different way? And so I work these things out literally in my imagination. But also I get the chance to try them out in real life with people too. And then reassessing it with myself, instead of taking things personally, to really go huh... like those mistakes, right? Like, sometimes we make mis-takes, and again, going to the movie, you're gonna take one, take two, take three, you keep tweaking it, and trying different things. And to me, that helps me not only wake up, because I'm searching for a more noble, more loving way to be in relationship with life. And I'm also growing up. I'm learning new ways of being, new ways of thinking, new perspectives. And so it allows me to be open and curious and wonder. So the reason, again, that I didn't want to keep doing that is that I just felt like a victim most of the time. Because it's like someone said, you know, we're not solar powered. Meaning we're not, we're not dependent on our energy by the light in the world, we need to find that we are also light inside, and that we can find our own solar energy inside, our solar power. And as long as we keep plugging to, you know, our financial bank account, our job roles, our relationships, and our health and all these things in our outside of ourselves, we're constantly gonna be drained. Instead of going in and say, well, what is it that really sources me? And so when I say I'm retiring from rescuing, I'm retiring from the part that has made my identity of rescuer. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to do therapy anymore. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to care deeply about someone's healing journey. But I'm not going to feel that heavy burden that 'I have to do it', that over responsibility, that 'Oh, my God, it's up to me to help them and I gotta fix it'. I think that's the big fix it mentality we talked about.
Maren Oslac:One of the things that we've also said is, you know, it's like, if I care more for somebody's journey for their health, then they do. I now have put myself in a hero role or a rescuer role.
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, you're setting yourself up to be taken down.
Maren Oslac:They need to, you know, show up to their own healing as well. And most people do, it just is often times as rescuers and a very... an archetype that sits right next to that is that the hero archetype, right? The heroes and rescuers. Often times we do put ourselves in that position of caring more about what somebody else is going through then they are showing up to it.
Stephanie Allen:Yeah... what what you're really saying too, is like not that we're not caring about it, but we have to meet them where they're at. And you can't give them more than what they're willing to give themselves. And I think that's so important.
Maren Oslac:I was just talking to a client about that, who you know, like her husband is, is not in the same place that she is, and she wants to like, get him there. You can't. You can't. He has to want to do it. He is where he is, love him for where he is. And I know she does that. It's just is we want more for, especially the people that we love, right? But - I can see it for them.
Stephanie Allen:You can, but if they're not asking you to show them the way or help them, it doesn't matter. You could tell them everything, you can tell them all the secrets of everything. And they'll just they'll actually hate you for telling them that because they wanted to find it out themselves. And they, you know, it does it, it hurts someone else's self esteem and self worth and self confidence when we actually do it for them, it actually enables them from really stepping up and growing up and waking up.
Maren Oslac:So one of the things that I found for myself is when I find myself in that place of wanting to do for somebody, is I go to what you were talking about earlier of seeing myself as multiple roles in a movie. And I'm like, Okay, where is it in me, that I can actually do that for me, because there's some part of me that can do that for another part of me and not violate somebody else's sanctity.
Stephanie Allen:You know, that is a great witness to. Because yeah, sometimes it you know, if you're trying to rescue or fix or care for somebody else, or, you know, you're really irritated about something that's going on in the news that you just you feel like helpless and hopeless. And if you can turn it towards and say, huh!? I wonder where I do that? like, again, presencing, that movie, right? That there's all these different parts of myself that show up, I wonder where I do that, where I might be out of integrity, or my where I might be pushing away health, or well being, you know, or I'm sabotaging or whatever it is? And then we can do that, again, with love and kindness with ourselves as if we are the witness and the director of our own movie. And then we say, well, what does that part mean. I'll use another example, I had a client who, who needs to get some time off. And she knows, like nine months ahead of time that she needs to have that time off. But in her employment, it says, sorry, this is a written rule, you cannot do that. I said, Good God! You got nine months you could have a baby in that time. Like, there's all kinds of things that can happen. And if you can start to prepare differently, you know what might happen. And I said, "If you went to your employer, do you feel like you are an equal with your employer? Or do you feel like you're a teenager or child?" And she said, "Oh, I feel like I'm a little kid asking a parent for permission." And I said, "As long as we do that, we are going to be a little kid and get sent to her room. And no, you can't have this and go to bed." Or I said "Sometimes you can feel like teenager, like screw you. I'm going to do what I damn well, please. And that's not my problem. It's it's my employer's problem." That's a little bit of a teenager, of course. But what would a loving human being do? How would they work in that relationship, especially when you have nine months to kind of sort it out? Like, I often had a an employer say to me one time, he said... don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions to the problem so that we can work it through together. So I might say, I would go to my employer, and I'd say, hey, this is a problem I've been noticing that's going on, or an issue or a struggle, here are some of my solutions that I have, can we can we work through this together to find out a solution that will work for you and work for me, and that we can kind of move forward. As an employer, if I put myself in the other hand, if someone came to me that way, it's like, oh, my gosh, it's so much a partnership, that way, it's so much easier to work through that. Because, you know, to come together...two heads together, coming together, two hearts coming together, offers so much more possibilities than I am right, you're wrong, I'm good, you're bad, or vice versa. You know, it's like, where's the space to really evolve together?
Maren Oslac:Yeah. And, you know, I mean, to bring it back to, you know, like retiring parts of ourselves, that's a great place to start of, I'm going to retire the piece of me that wants to go into drama.
Stephanie Allen:Right? So retire my inner teenager, I'm gonna retire my inner child. Not shame them, just say I'm gonna just go and take care of them gonna put them to bed, or I'm gonna go let them play in the playground.
Maren Oslac:Or even the part of you that says, you know, oh, poor me. This is what the rule says, and I can't do anything about it. You know, there's, there's many options of like, what we could look at to say, how do I do it differently? And really, this is what it comes down to is, we're always looking for how can I do things? How can I evolve? How can I do things differently? How can I move to the next place? And I guess that's where this, this idea of retiring a part of ourselves became like, yeah, that would be a fun thing to explore. A different way of doing what we're looking to do for ourselves, or with ourselves, on a regular basis. And having maybe an ongoing process, just sort of... alright, this week, what part of myself do I want to work on retiring? What's no longer serving me?
Stephanie Allen:I'm gonna put a caveat in there. Because how will you know when you've retired something?
Maren Oslac:Hmmmm!
Stephanie Allen:Because I know. And here's, here's the thing, you think, oh, when you retired something, there was going to be all sunshine and roses and rainbows and butterflies? And maybe, but I would say, 99% of time, no, it's not going to be like that. It's going to be a push back. And so when all of a sudden you've retired something, you have just moved to a totally different reality. You've moved to a completely different universe, I can guarantee that. And then all of a sudden, the people who were dancing with you before, because you've changed the dance steps are going to be kind of like, what are you doing? Why did you change that dance step? It literally creates a change in that. And that happens in our life that those individuals are either going to have to grow and evolve with you, and learn how to dance the new dance steps, or they will dance right on out of your life into something else. And so I would say, you know, I want to prepare one's heart for that, because that is part of actually the realization that you have let go or retired a part of yourself because the old the old outfit no longer fits. You can't squish your foot into that shoe anymore, Cinderella, it's not gonna fit. You have, you have a new prince, you have a new shoe that's coming.
Maren Oslac:I love that. And it reminds me of there's a gentleman and I can't think of his name. And he's got four stages of retirement. There's a TED talk, he's got a book, I'll find all that information and put it in the show notes. And the four stages of retirement, the first one is like, well who-hoo! I'm retired is the party, right? And then after that, there's actual depression that kicks in and a lot of people get stuck there. And I'm thinking about what you just said, of this is not just our lifetime, of the only place that these four stages actually happen, or when we retire from work, what you were just talking about is, when you retire a part of yourself initially there is that yes, I did it, and then there's the push back. And when that push back happens, there is the loss of identity. There's the loss of potential loss of friends, because they no longer dance the same dance with you. So you're living in a different reality. So, you need to come to terms with that. And that takes you to the third and fourth stages. The third stage that he talks about is discovery of like, start experimenting, what's it like in this new reality? And then the fourth stage is like, Oh! I actually know what I want here. I'm living my life mission, essentially. So I've found my joy again. And, you know, that's where you finally own it...that new stage of life.
Stephanie Allen:And, I can't emphasize enough that having exemplars like whether they're real or imagined or fictional, it doesn't matter. But to have exemplars in your life that have been there, done that got the t shirt, that you can, you can attune to as well as, as friends or coaches that you can help to employ to, to help you. And also, you know, just even a practice that you can start to be kind with yourself as you transition. Just like going back to the bride, you know, that's why she has a maid of honor, who literally will hold space for her as the bride. So the bride transitions into this whole new archetype. But there is a practice and I think we've lost the rituals of practicing transitions.
Maren Oslac:Yeah. This was such a joyful conversation for me. And I think the one of the most important things about it for me is seeing all the levels at which, like, so much of life is a metaphor for the rest of life. You know, it symbolizes this and symbolizes that. We see the same thing on all these different levels. And so often we don't see those. So if nothing else, starting to realize, like, oh, retirement is not just reserved for this stage in life where you're older, and life is, you know, you're not working anymore. Like it happens throughout our lives on multiple levels happening all the time. So becoming aware of it, and having that balance of the going inward, which is literally the retiring and then coming outward of the doing and finding and then retiring and you know what we're talking about earlier.
Stephanie Allen:Then you can say, yeah, that was the old me. I retired that part and I usually kind of throw it behind me. Just as a reminder for myself, it's like yeah, that was the old me. The old me likes to come up and dance again. I'm like, no, that was the old me.
Maren Oslac:Back you go. Thanks.
Stephanie Allen:So that's okay.
Maren Oslac:Well, thanks for sharing that with us. I loved your example of being in your vulnerability. So thanks for sharing that. If you as our listeners have something that you're working on retiring in your own lives, let us know. And if you'd like to work with us in any way you can always find us on our website, TheSoulfulLeaderPodcast.com or our business website, which is www.TSLP.life And we will see you all next week on The Soulful Leader Podcast. Thanks.
Stephanie Allen:And that wraps up another episode of the soulful leader podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen
Maren Oslac:and Maren Oslac. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at the TheSoulfulLeaderPodcast.com
Stephanie Allen:Until next time,