LIVING AGELESSLY- AN INSIDE JOB!

Can You Have Happiness & Success?

Kathy Business, Lifestyle, LIVING AGELESSLY- AN INSIDE JOB!, NEXT CHAPTERS, Self Improvement

Having happiness, success, money, fame… is a DREAM come true!

It’s possible, right? Because it’s being sold as a reality everywhere …& everyone should want it and can get it. And it’s causing a lot of pain and feelings of unworthiness.

It’s My Theory:
We are only being offered a tiny conceptualization slice of what the real “Success PIE” looks like. And assuming that “vision” will work for everyone.

All over the internet… in small sellable how-to lists and courses, you are promised you too can have YOUR pie.

But it’s more complicated than that.

Maybe because there are only 280 characters to express an idea on Twitter or a bit more 2200 on Instagram we’ve become accustomed to getting our information quick and short and in a one-dimensional slice. (Remember the pie analogy?)

(Over the years, this has caused me a lot of suffering in the realm of not succeeding on a grand franchisable scale. )

In the book, The Happiness Equation: He expresses the concept of Success having 3 parts.

One is; Sales Success
You put something out there & it creates sales. Filling your bank account. Everybody’s buying it, everyone is reading it, and everyone wants it. Making so much money that you can barely keep it all in your beautiful green cash.

Then there’s Another; Social Success.
Meaning you’re successful among your peers and other people who look to as a benchmark. Your industry love’s you. The New York Times writes about you. You’re all over the internet, and you’re on the shortlist for whatever award that’s significant in your field.

Lastly; Self Success
It’s only known to you. Self success means you achieve what you set as a goal, dream, desire satisfying you. It can change and grow as you understand yourself better. You’re genuinely proud of your accomplishments, you’re happy with your work, and most importantly, you are deeply satisfied. You want nothing because you are content, and no amount of sales or social success will ever feel the same meaningful way to you.

So before you determine which is the “BEST” or the “should be” desired goal… There’s a CATCH!
It’s impossible to have all three at one time. I’ve rarely seen it. And I’ve spent the last 8 years testing it out … seeing if there is a synergistic flow attainable in passion work.

In this age of “follow your passion” and you will have a great career, money, and success… I’ve only seen it in limited proportions. Unless you quickly & effectively learn how to delegate, are willing to do things that are not your passion, & work unless hours you might find it before you find yourself burned out or losing your passion for it.

(Who hasn’t been in the “I can have it all SUCCESS TRANCE?” It was a gift given to our generation.)

The GOOD News is you can incorporate 2 types. With focus and always prioritizing in the direction of what type of success is most important to you have a career & happiness.

Honestly, if you want all 3… it is so much more possible if you are clear on your definition of success & understand how the economic, social, and self dynamics work in creating that SUCCESS for you. Then you can be more prepared. And have a delegation plan. A financial plan. Timeline goals for results and growth…and “market magic.”

Instead of standing by with a hope and prayer… Kevin Costner-ing it with “Building It & They Will Come.” In the movie Field of Dreams.

Determining the type of success that is right for you is essential for your happiness in your success…

I know because I’ve been there …

and have learned to help provide this kind of clarity to my clients starting their businesses or careers.

What are your thoughts? What does Success mean to you?

Kathy Camp is cultivating her brand of Ageless Living & Next Chapters as a “midlife” strategist based in Madrid, Spain, where she coaches International Clients and hosts Transformational Retreats for Women in Europe. “No More Aimless Wandering Toward Happiness! It’s time to get obsessively specific about what you want & start filling your life with it.”

Age Is Just A Number, Right?

Kathy BODY IMAGE + SELF CARE, LIVING AGELESSLY- AN INSIDE JOB!, NEXT CHAPTERS, Self Improvement, Self Love

Picture this… your HYPED about your own life.

You’re doing work that brings you meaning and adds value to others. You go to bed every night, believing that you are enough. You’re well moisturized, rested, and unstoppable magic fills your bones.
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Because Age Is Just A Number!!
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And then you walk out the door… hear something… read something & something’s SHIFTS. Because everything’s chanced… all that’s good down to the bone feeling is gone.
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The messages we internalize about age.
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Should I be wearing this? Can anyone see my strong, healthy legs’ knees are saggy?

“The question is not size, or shape, or years, or even having two of everything, (for some do not). The issues of the body should solely be… does it FEEL.”
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Even with all our knowing … We STILL CAN fall into the trap of obsession over the SIGNS of aging. As I was reminded by my friend @
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The messages of losing worth and value are bombarding us on every level. And if we’ve always had a soft palette for other people’ opinions, it can leave us feeling we will still never be enough.
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Does anyone see those sagging areas or wrinkles? Have I convinced you, I am worthy of your attention? And if I have at least for a little while, maybe I can be happy.
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I know because I have been there. An endless cycle of trying to improve… to lift & hold it up, concealing, hoping that no one will notice the dreadful signs of my Age.
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The truth is that it’s never been necessary. And this may be our last beautiful opportunity to get that through our skulls. And like so many things throughout our lives … this world can rob you of the joy of the right where you are if you let it. And body/youth image is only one of them.
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Have you been seduced over the years? It’s a bad habit that can start at birth.
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Being Ageless we’ve finally learned that the old “Age-Rule-Book” just another way to lure us into doing something… NOT doing something … or buying something. And as a byproduct… Wasting your valuable time & cultivating HATE.
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“Your BODY is perfect if it…
has the right connection to pleasure? To your heart. To your soul? Does it have happiness, joy? Can it in its own way move, dance, jiggle, sway, thrust? Because that’s where sustainable joy in life is… & nothing else matters.”
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Paraphrased from another piece of Magic…Women Who Run With Wolves by Dr. Estes

Your body has not failed you if you were able to take one more breath in this wonderful life.

… Believe It 🙂

This might be the reason we met.

Kathy LIVING AGELESSLY- AN INSIDE JOB!, NEXT CHAPTERS

There’s a reason we met. A reason that we continue to hang out … or hang on to each’s contact information.

Maybe it’s to be inspired… or to learn if you would like to move to another country. (And for that I’m glad you’re here & would love to support you.)

But what I really feel led to do is to help anyone or everyone of a certain beautiful AGE to discover their own next chapter. To throw age definition to the wind and live without limitations as they dream.

The journey I’ve been on for the last 10 years… has not only been about discovering the European lifestyle but more importantly about self-discovery. … In hopes of crossing the finish line with a well lived & meaningful life.

Exactly what you want … right?

Many of us reach a pivot moment when we realize that there must be more to life than our daily routines. I had one of those moments … I should say I’ve had several of those moments and in each, I surrendered to the temptation to ignore and carry-on.

Even with the first inkling of wanting there are plenty of reasons why our lives are the way they are and right THEN … the timing wasn’t right, or your too busy, & family needs. Etc

BUT what happens when the timing becomes right & we no longer want to wait? That’s what my journey was about.

I arrived at my own turning point about 15 years ago, where I had to decide whether to keep on going with what I was already doing …running a successful interior design biz that had run its course in encompassing all my passions or make a critical turn.

I chose to turn. I dare to dream about an exciting next chapter and then I worked like crazy to make it happen. I’m now living that dream in another country sharing my love of yoga, meditation, wellness and business coaching in my mother tongue with other Expats living in Spain. And now with 3 years under my belt moving forward on my deepest desire which is to inspire other Ageless .. like-minded women as burned out or as confused as I was to change.

Along the way I have encountered many women and men in life & who are in the same place I used to be, who are hungry for tools, ideas and the courage to switch careers, create their own next chapters and seek out a new life.

In each Instagram /blog post, I share concepts & lessons I’ve learned along this road with fascinating and uplifting stories of experiences that have affirmed those lessons.

The evolution of the Getaway/Retreat was natural. Combining my love of beautiful interiors, exotic places, authentic cultural experiences with great locally grown foods & wines. Then layered on top is the deep-diving teachings in the group practices and private journal exercises… based on what was pivotal in jump-starting my most profound growth & change.

In the Getaway/Retreat, I wanted to create a place where we can all meet face to face in an environment of impressive history, disarming smiling inhabitants & language and un-Western daily rituals. Helping us to imagine wandering down on the alternative road more fully.

Everyone’s journey is their own private journey. But hearing the stories and experiences of other like-minded women opens something up in each of us as we share in the retreat over a glass of wine and some beautiful traditional food in a Spanish Palace.

Your idea may be in its infancy. You may not have an idea at all. All are Beautiful seeds that can be planted in the tapestry of the whole where you leave with the start of something new.

This retreat is for people who are asking what comes next for me. For people who have a longing to make a significant change in their lives. But felt they lack time to focus on doing it. For anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to actually live their dream … who has asked what-if?

The women who come to my retreats, in Spain have already done a thing or two. They might be in a job that is thrilling and would love to tweak its growth. Or they may be in a job that they’re feeling like they’re winding down from and wonder what’s next. Or their mothers whose children’s have moved on into their own adventures, and leaving a gap and a whole life ahead of them to live. Others come to my retreat who have achieved the goal they set for themselves, yet find that something is missing now they’re finally reaching the top.

Women turn up who are searching to igniting their passion for living once again. Others find they want to do something good for so much of the need that they see out there.

Trust that you are on the right crossroads. That you don’t wanna keep on moving through the motions anymore without really investing time & space to decide what’s next for you in your Next Chapter.

To feel alive in your gifts and contributions.

So I invite you to come share enjoy dance, journaling, meditate. Open your heart to what is possible for you. With the loving support and communion with other like-minded women.

Love a light my friends in this adventure called life.
Kathy

The Myth Of Having It All.

Kathy LIVING AGELESSLY- AN INSIDE JOB!, NEXT CHAPTERS

…STILL, PINCHING MYSELF.
I can’t believe I’m living in beautiful Spain in a fantastic relationship and a new career.

It’s been eight years since I made my move. To a dream place, I’d fantasized about for years. ( The vision boards and all!)

There is nothing extraordinary about my life that got me here just a realization. A WAKE UP that started me questioning everything I’d believe.

My generation was a part of the generation influenced by the “Charlie Girl” and “fry it up in a pan… never forget he’s a MAN!” advertisements. We opened the doors and walked idealistically into the boardroom thinking we could have it all only later in life thinking we missed something.

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

We thought we would find what was missing in our mother’s lives by blindly following the path of a career whose only reference we had was our father’s (a man’s). Thinking all we had to do was show up and take what was ours. Later to be confusion and exhaustion when we were adding in having or not having children and being the perfect wife.

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard!!

I didn’t lose my job; I didn’t have a traumatic event, or…thank goodness did I become ill to cause me to reflect. I just wanted to see if there could be more to my life than working a pre-prescribed career path while I accumulated things as my reward.

Something that didn’t require me to ignoring or choice from my biological instincts or desires… so I’d be taken seriously.

So what-the-hell is my life about? Wasn’t I suppose to be able to have it all?

I put down my WONDER WOMAN weapons & defenses and became me, a woman vulnerable and real. I did that in Spain. In a culture & environment that I didn’t know and wouldn’t have any expectations of me.

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There’s a conversation that still needs to happen

Among the millions of women are or were affected. Instead of just about the pieces… like sexual harassment, equal pay that come up now and then we need to talk about it all.

In my opinion, we should share, deconstruct and eliminate the myth told to us. Rebuilding women’s past experiences from shared conversations so that unspoken shame, loss or lack are not part of their new lives.

There’s a Life MBA in me and a spiritual seeker.

I desire to share all that I have learned to help other women in my generation understand & reinvent their unique lives with all parts of them… their wombs, the boardrooms, in their relationships in being a mother or not.

To do what they love… what makes them uniquely great all while in balance and whole.

Because the thing is, it’s continuing THE MYTH of being forever beautiful while you have world recognition in a successful career & a happy husband, full-on sex while raising well-adjusted children. It’s in marketing, TV and social media, the market of PERFECTION.

The young women in our lives are tweaking it bit, but it still with this idea of living PERFECTION.

Maybe it’s time for us the generation who freshly remembers and still feels it from decades of not being enough, to become amazing examples and mentors in truth-telling for the girls and young women in our lives. It’s time we live better, happier.

Are you a woman of my same generation? Did you feel the same? What would you tell the young women in your life that might help them?

When Jealousy And Envy Can Be Your BFFS.

Kathy BODY IMAGE + SELF CARE, Lifestyle, LIVING AGELESSLY- AN INSIDE JOB!, NEXT CHAPTERS

Jealousy and envy. How could those nasty feelings ever be a friend to me?

Long before I moved to Spain I am ashamed to say I was wrestling with those feelings, quite a bit.

I think we all have felt them at some point whether we want to admit it or not.

I confess back then; there were many times I’d lost myself in those whirling ugly thoughts.
– Oh, she knows someone, and that is why she has that,
– His family has traveled the world so he must have it easy.

All stories to help me rationalize why it was not me or my life. Then if that wasn’t enough I would beat myself up over having those thoughts.

I would feel guilty and ashamed of myself.

Why I was having those thoughts? After all, I had an excellent career, clothes, money, cars, health and a great home.

I ran across this blog series by Kate Northrup. LINK . I can’t recall what the series was named. But it got me thinking…

-What did I lack in my life that I had to envy another?

-What if I embrace those feelings of jealousy and envy?

First thing I did,
The next time I felt envious or jealous I would take a look, in detail, at what those feelings were focused on. AN OBJECT, LOVE, SEXY, BEAUTY, MONEY and ask myself if I wanted those same things.

What I discovering was that I wanted to be challenged again. I wanted to see who I was out of the context of what I’d created in my job, my life and where I grew up.

I had CHANGED. So when I heard someone talking about their adventures, especially when it challenged everything they knew and I felt alive and intrigued I knew I wanted it for me.

As Lauren Fritsch puts it, In fact, ENVY is a beautiful road sign. It can point you in the direction of your dreams.

As a BONUS when I started to analyze my feelings the anger and frustration that went along with the jealousy and envy went away.

How often we don’t know what we want and if we could just analyzing those ugly feeling of jealousy and envy we might get a clue?

Secondly, what I noticed,

Several years before I moved to Spain. I made some new friends while living in Atlanta. Two or three times a week we would meet early, drink coffee and walk our dogs. They told me stories of living in other parts of the world. One had a job on a private yacht, later serving as a host on a private plane. They traveling everywhere!

Little did I know, at the time, they were giving me glimpses of that HELL YES… I want that too BOLD LIVING in my life.

Once I tamed the Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy (as they say), I realized I had two mentors right in front of me.

They became my teachers. I observed their characters, the way they problem solved, the mistakes and successes they had while lived their lives. As I listened to their stories they gave more and more confidence, to pursue the life I wanted.

Seeing someone who has what you want can be a chance to meet your mentor/ teacher. Just knowing their stories can help you move forward on yours.

My final thought,

Jealousy and envy can be ugly and destructive. Damaging not only to the people or the objects of your desire BUT to YOURSELF! If I didn’t take a hard look at why I was feeling those feelings, and apply a bit of self-love and gratitude, I would still be stuck whirling around in the same place.

What I do know is that I would have missed out on knowing two awesome teachers that helped me on my way and to this day who I still have their love and support.

I heard it discussed in a Ted Talk one morning while I was putting on my make-up for work…If we didn’t feel negative emotions, maybe we would not have enough motivation to do anything to change ourselves.

I found this to be true for me.

See what happens when you catch yourself in those feelings.

Maybe there’s something ready to reveal itself to you.

Then take advantage of that insight!

XX Kathy

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