An Epic Day in The Life of A Thirtysomething

Got up at 4 a.m.

Stood in line at the Managua airport for an hour.

Ran barefoot to my gate while my bag was about to be removed.

Arrived in Miami, FL.

Took a Super Shuttle to Diagnostic Center For Women.

Had my first breast ultrasound and mammogram ever.

(Everything looks “fine”, they can feel the bump, can’t see it on tests, so they say it could be an internal pimple or an inflamed cartilage tissue) 

Walked with my suitcase to a Winn-Dixie on the corner for a banana and a ricotta & spinach pastelito.

Rode the Metrobus to the South Miami Metrorail station.

Rode the Metrorail to Downtown Miami.

Walked three blocks to my sister’s apartment.

Took my car and drove almost an hour to the City of Doral, FL.

Took a Boss Chick Dance Workout class.

From there went to Publix.

Made it “home”.

One more run: Don Glotón Food Truck to satisfy my sister’s Venezuelan food cravings.

Now in bed.

How was your day?

As you can see, mine was EPIC.

Good night,

Laura

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Lessons on Hearing Deeply + Complimentary Coaching Call

For years I longed to become a Certified Coach and develop a combination of professional and personal skills to help others unlock and reach their greatest potential. As I mentioned on one of our June posts, I am currently training to be a Certified Professional Coach with the University of Miami, an Accredited Program by the International Coach Federation (ICF). 

To my surprise, on our first day of Coaching school, I realized I was going to be the one who would benefit the most from this program in my personal life and relationships.

Still, my main goal with this Certification is to share this gift with you.

That is why I am thrilled to tell you my learnings of the first practical module: Hearing Deeply.

What has changed about how I listen to others?

What has changed about how I listen to others is my own awareness of the way I listen. I always thought I was a big listener considering the time that I dedicate to listen to others and their willingness to talk to me, but I never realized I was not a good listener, I was not intentional in my listening.

 

Thanks to this class, I want to listen as I have been listened to, therefore I am working on goals in deep hearing, starting with the following steps to achieve them:

• Stop multi-tasking and immerse myself in the conversation, being quiet and present.

• Being conscious about not interrupting the speakers.

• Observing without judgment, assumptions, and respecting the point of the speaker while honoring them with my whole listening.

• Not bringing up my experiences, offering a shortcut solution or unsolicited advice.

• Allowing silence to be part of the conversation and even embracing it as an answer.

• Becoming an accomplice and confidant in my conversations.

• Understanding that most of the time the person only needs to be heard and that itself helps.

On a positive note, I realize that coming from a place of gratitude, I am developing a sensor that notices opportunities for reinforcement, encouragement, celebration, and triggers mindful questions.

I am looking forward to a new kind of conversation and achieving a real communication exchange, based on the hearing deeply skills that I will continue to practice as a listener.

If you would like to give Coaching a try, I am offering a complimentary 30-minute call to meet and decide if we would be great partners! Please contact me to schedule your call! And if there’s anyone in your life who might benefit from Coaching, please forward them this email. I thank you in advance and they will thank you later!

How do you like to be listened to? Is that how you listen?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Your Coach-to-be,

Laura

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How I Feel About Being in My Thirties

By Sonia Young Yim

Here are some of the things that get better with age: wine, cheese, art piece, and designer handbags.

How about biological age? – I guess you can argue both ways.

Here are some benefits:

You have higher self-respect.

You are wiser in life.

You have a greater sense of well-being (*cough* money *cough*).

Or, perhaps, you are naturally better at things with more experience (sex anyone?).

 

But there are also some drawbacks:

You have more wrinkles.

You don’t lose weight as easily.

You keep on forgetting (what was I saying?…).

Or, perhaps, suddenly reading small print becomes a challenge.

 

So, what does it mean to be in your thirties?

Here’s what I really think — It doesn’t matter.

But this is what aging taught me:

In anything, there’s always a good side and a not-so-good side.

You can’t ever bring back your past no matter how much you delve on it.

You can’t reverse anything that already happened to you.

And, most importantly, if you can’t be happy today, you certainly won’t be happy in the future.

 

“The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.” – Hervey Allen

So, let’s celebrate our thirties to the maximum — Shall we?

 

About Sonia Young Yim:

A wanna-be writer who’s still finding her voice. A once disgruntled employee who’s all about non-conformity. And a minimalist gal who advocates a life of simplicity. Please visit her blog www.startsimplifying.com to know more about her. And it’s her birthday today! Show her some love!

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I Don’t Need New Year’s Resolutions. This Is Why.

This post is an adapted excerpt from our upcoming book, ‘Now That I Am in My Thirties’. I would appreciate your constructive feedback. Stay tuned for the launch!

Years ago, I found myself writing my New Year’s Resolutions. I was twenty-seven, newlywed, trying to position a boutique communications agency. I felt it was the perfect time to put in order all the areas in my life. I wrote a long and explicit list. After reading it over and over for a full year, I realized I was not only planning for a year, I was planning for a decade therefore I didn’t write any resolutions for the following year, and decided to stick to my decade-long plan.

2012 was different, because I was turning thirty. Revising my previous resolutions with the intention of updating them, not to balance them out, I understood I had not only planned for one or two years or a decade, I had planned for a lifetime.

I did have a lot of goals, but surprisingly, they were not exceptionally ambitious, and they didn’t have a deadline. It was not a checklist or a bucket list. Fortunately, most of them were life changing, but within reach: Maintenance for my soul as they were all toward a simpler, better and happier life as a grown up woman.

Therefore, for my thirtieth birthday, the only amendment done was consolidating all my goals, into one: Endeavor myself fully and devote my life to what matters most to me now.

I knew I was not the only one looking at life differently during this time. Friends from all around the world were invited to share their own experiences getting closer to thirty and being 30+/up to thirty-nine. This blog was set up. Research had to be done. Expert Contributors were approached. I never imagined such positive and massive response. Yet a book was not on anybody’s list; it emerged as part of this inspiring collective breakthrough.

This is not a travel blog, but it is a real life road trip “story”. We write nonfiction, even though some of the topics and changes we experience in our thirties sounded like fiction for us not long ago. It’s not biographical even though many true-life stories are told here, including mine and yours. Now that I am a thirtysomething year old, my goal is for us to use this blog and upcoming book as a reference to understand and embrace better what we are going through. I hope you find it somehow informational but I am not trying to persuade you in any way…it’s not a procedure manual…it’s just a pure narrative: Personal experiences running our life all the way to our thirties and beyond!

2016 is in our hands now.

Let’s make it the year that we BECOME our BEST selves.

I am in.

Hope you are too.

Who loves you tons?

Laura

P. S.: What about you? What are your New Year’s Resolutions? We’d love to know and support you all the way!

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2015 in Review

Here it is!

One of my favorite reports of the year!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for “Now That I Am in My Thirties”!

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,500 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thanks for your readership and ongoing support!

Happy 2016!

Always yours,

Laura

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Am I Doing My Best? Or, at least, Am I Doing My Part?

Now that I am in my thirties, I consider one of my personal quests to be slow to judge fellow human beings and their actions. As a result, I frequently abstain myself from giving an opinion, picking a side, incriminating, complaining and/or even celebrating some events, current topics or holidays.

These days, every time a situation or crisis arise and becomes a trending topic in media and offline conversations, I fight the temptation to express my first thoughts.  I do my best to inform myself first about the background of the story, wait until the individual or group in question claims responsibility and then, inspired by Pope Francis’ answer to a delicate question, ask myself:

Who Am I To Judge?

Am I doing my best?

…Or, at least, Am I doing my part to make it better?

…As a daughter?

…As a sister?

…As a friend?

…As a Dominican?

…As a raised Catholic?

…As a woman?

…As a professional?

…As a colleague?

…As an aunt? As a niece? As a granddaughter? As a cousin? 

…As an immigrant? As a Hispanic immigrant? 

…As a wife?

…As a daughter in law?

…As an expat?

…As a blogger?

…As a stranger?

…As a spiritual person? 

…As a privileged human being?

…As a citizen of this world?

Only when I am in peace with my own answers to those questions, I will allow myself to talk.

And the first thing I would like to say is:

How can I help?

Yours In Love & Service,

Laura

Image Credit: Jen B. Peters.

Thanks Jen for creating and authorizing the use of this beautiful image!

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Is a woman “middle-aged” at 30? 40? 50? Japanese men and women give different answers in poll

Stats Show Women Using Abortion More Often as Birth Control to Save Their Careers

By Sarah Zagorski

In the United Kingdom, women in their early thirties are now more likely to have abortions than teenagers, according to a new report from the Department of Health. These women are usually unmarried and aborting because they want to “save” their careers.

The Daily Mail reports that there were 184,571 abortions in England and Wales last year and of these, half were performed on women who already have children. Another commentator, Jill Kirby, said, “It is disturbing that abortion is so high among women who are not just making mistakes or having one-night stands. There are many women who want to have children but then for financial or relationship reasons decide not to.”

However, Ann Furedi from the pro-abortion British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said, “Given that women are fertile for more than 30 years, it is unsurprising that women may experience an unplanned pregnancy or a pregnancy they cannot carry to term on more than one occasion. No form of contraception is 100 per cent effective, and women will always need straightforward access to abortion services as a back-up if they are to plan their lives and families in the way they see fit. Having done so much to improve contraceptive services for younger women, we must also ensure the needs of older women are met.”

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The BPAS added that 51% of all abortions in the United Kingdom are medical abortions, which are abortions that use mifepristone (Abortion Pill, RU-486) and misoprostol drugs to induce miscarriage. Unfortunately, it seems like older women in the United Kingdom are using abortion like a “back-up” form of birth control even though preventing a pregnancy and killing a unique human life are two very different things. These women really need to be informed of the risks associated with abortion, especially as it relates to the dangerous RU-486 abortion regimen.

As LifeNews previously reported, since 2001, 12 women worldwide have been documented to have died from fatal bacterial infections involving toxic shock syndrome, sepsis and gas gangrene after medical abortion with mifepristone and misoprostol. In fact, there have been so many problems with the deadly drug that the makers of RU-386 and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have acknowledged that it poses serious health risks for women.

In 2011, Paul Tully, the general secretary for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in the U.K., said the following about RU486: “Use of RU486/misoprostol may cause any of the following: hemorrhage requiring blood transfusion, severe pain requiring strong pain killers, incomplete abortion, rupture of the uterus, vaginal bleeding, abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, muscle weakness, dizziness, flushing, chills, backache, difficulty in breathing, chest pain, palpitations, rise in temperature and fall in blood pressure,” He added, “The number and diverse nature of the side effects of RU486/ misoprostol point to the fact that these are powerful chemicals.”

INTERNATIONAL   SARAH ZAGORSKI   JUN 10, 2015   |   2:54PM    LONDON, ENGLAND

Link to Source: Stats Show Women Using Abortion More Often as Birth Control to Save Their Careers.

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