Pick of the Week: Broken Open

Check out Broken Open written by author Elizabeth Lesser, who recently joined Oprah during her Best Life Week.

The author has written this book on dealing with difficult times, while telling her own mid-life experience, which included her divorce and an affair. During her appearance on the Oprah show, she never mentioned the affair but mainly focused on the changes that occurred during her healing after the divorce. Her point is to focus on the extreme events in our lives that change...some are from our own choices and some are forced upon us. She highlights the grieving process of one family who lost their son in a motorcycle accident.

Strangely enough, this is yet another story of a woman who has acted badly during an MLC, yet comes up victorious in the end. My only question is, if she needed to sacrifice her marriage, by entering in to an affair, which ultimately caused her to be "Broken Open"? Could she have come to the same conclusions without the brokenness? Will this book give women around the world permission to do the same things as she has...only to be broken open also? I don't think so...but at the same time, I see this book's merit...because people are being broken open everywhere nowadays!

A powerful message, secular or New Age perspective. If you want a Christian perspective, please look at Beth Moore's book Get Out of That Pit.

Join us at Women in MLC: A forum for Women in Mid-Life Crisis and for the Men that Love them. You don't have to be Broken Open to change.

Inventing The Rest of Our Lives: EYE CONTACT

Inventing The Rest of Our Lives: EYE CONTACT 

An excellent article by Suzanne Braun Levine, the author of  Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood

Me Braun Levine is one of the top writers in her niche.  She is releasing another book in April called "Fifty is the New Fifty", where she interviewed many women 50, 60, 70 years old about moving in to the second half of their lives.  I am sure she will not disappoint, as all her other books and articles are thoroughly researched giving an up-to-date perspective on mid-life transition.  Her perspective could be categorized as a feminist viewpoint, supported by Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Marlo Thomas and Isabella Rossellini.

"Ten lessons to maximize creativity and happiness in the second half of life

In this inspiring new book, Suzanne Braun Levine follows her groundbreaking Inventing the Rest of Our Lives with fresh insights, research, and practical advice on the challenges and unexpected rewards for women in their fifties and beyond. Rich with anecdotes from the front lines of self-reinvention, this book captures the voices of women who are confronting change, renegotiating their relationships, and discovering who they are now that they are finally grown up. Among the lessons are: “No” is not a four-letter Word, on the energizing power of standing up for what you mean and what you want; Do unto yourself as you have been doing unto others, a new way of getting yourself to the top of the to-do list; and Your marriage can make it, reassurance that changing your outlook doesn’t have to mean walking away from your marriage. Shaped by Levine’s empathetic and lively voice, this book is about wisdom, survival, joy, and camaraderie. It reads like a conversation among women who know what they are talking about and want to share what they have discovered." (From Amazon)

"Eye Contact" is an article about her realization of how people communicate more intimately via the internet and her own struggle with this new found intimacy.   In the end, she has decided that "Eye Contact" is not necessarily needed to understand or feel the emotions that people relay over the internet.  Even Ms Braun-Levine is growing in the second half of her life!

Please join us at Women in MLC, a forum created for women who are in Mid-Life Crisis and for the men who love them.