How a Seat at the Table Helped Me Lose the Wait

On November 14 2019, I was part of a 3 hour round table discussing the future of health & wellness, sharing the table with MDs, tech execs & officially sanctioned futurists. I was by far the oldest female at the table and, as a self-employed person, the only one who hadn’t had regular access to healthcare as an adult. As I listened to everyone’s intro, wondering how I had come to be sitting at a table so far beyond my vision of myself at that time, I became aware of a growing sense of purpose to the answer to that question.

When I was asked to introduce myself, I took a deep breath, exhaled and said “Clearly I’m the least credentialed person here, but I definitely have some wisdom to share from all my unexpected journeys and wrong turns…”

In that moment I became very grateful for all the mistakes and, more importantly, the courage to own them, reframing the feeling of shame into a new story, making the leap from knowledge to wisdom.

Now that my mind was clear, it was time to take action.

The next day I started walking again, and it was not easy. The body was willing, but my internal voice kept telling me that at 57 in a society in which my age & physical state render me invisible, it really didn’t matter, so why even try? However, once I was able to turn down the volume of the ‘talking’…