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Second Acts that Change Lives

Making a Difference in the World

by Mary Beth Sammons (more about this book and author)

Chapter 2: But What Now?
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One day you discover something is missing in your life  —  like a life.

 Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?

— Fanny Brice

We often hear of people who, when suddenly confronted by a wake-up call  —  a divorce, a company downsizing, a devastating illness, or the unexpected death of a friend or loved one  —  vow from here on to change their priorities and how they live. Wake-up calls are those moments when in the blink of an eye, life’s direction changes suddenly.

Midlife in itself can be a wake-up call. It’s typically a time of profound psychological change that usually occurs between the ages of forty and fifty-five and often results in dramatic life changes. The defining symptom is a sense that
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the beliefs that have guided you up until now no longer hold meaning. Your life seems boring and dull, and there seems to be a void. You may feel like you can’t do anything to change it, to get unstuck.

Suddenly you find yourself asking, Who am I really? What were my dreams? If I’m not fulfilling my dreams, when will I? What would I do differently if confronted with a wake-up call? Would I travel more? Work more? Or, you think, But I don’t have any energy to change. I’m exhausted. I’ve worked so hard, for so long, and this is all I get?

All the obvious questions and anxieties start waking us up in the middle of the night, begging for answers, and they tap into every ounce of our beings, including the spiritual, emotional, and psychological dimensions of our lives. Midlife is a profoundly significant time in our lives.

We find ourselves asking, How do I find my inner voice? How do I reclaim my long-neglected passions? Now is the time to discover our authentic selves and to examine our roles beyond parent, significant other (or not), and career person.

In this chapter, we are inspired by several people who are taking on this rite of passage with spirit and passion. Certainly, they’ve received wake-up calls, but they have chosen to use them as a starting point, a springboard for transformation. They are using their wake-up calls to change direction and embark on lives lead from their hearts.

If you’re stuck in a rut and have decided you can’t do anything about it, or at least that is what it seems like, I hope you will be inspired by these stories. The first step in getting on with your life is listening for your own wake-up call and
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then creating a second act. You need to know when to fold the old one into the new, what to let go of, and what to hold on to in order to move on.

One important thing the stories in this chapter remind us is that reaching for the goal doesn’t always mean knowing what path to take. As you will see, it is more about putting your dreams out there and then staying open to the possibilities.

In interviewing all of these second act reinventors, I learned that they all share the following belief and hope, quoted from Rainer Maria Rilke. My wish is you can too:

And now, let us begin the New Year full of all things that have never been.

Engaging the Soul in Purposeful Acts of Kindness

From one of America’s most feted music industry giants to hospice director, this woman is digging getting paid to be kind.

I am here while you freak out, or grieve, or laugh, or suffer, or sing. It is a ministry of presence. It is showing up with a loving heart. And it is really, really cool.

— Kate Braestrup

Nadine Condon spent a glamorous career in the record industry, building big name celebrities to the top of the record charts. The perks were many:

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backstage tickets, limos, first-class trips to four-star resorts across the globe. . . . But then the wake-up call: two of the people closest to her died suddenly. Almost overnight, her focus shifted. What she would discover is what she never imagined: that she would find the most powerful triumphs of the human spirit in those who were the most frail, those facing their final moments of life.

Nadine Condon, 56, Phoenix, Arizona

Act I: Twenty-five-year music business veteran; called the “Godmother of Rock” in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Act II: Professional hospice worker and director of Mission Hospice of San Mateo County until 2007. Later that year she launched a new patient advocate program for Hospice of the Valley, Phoenix, Arizona.

Act III: In the works. “My dream is to write and teach,” says Nadine.

New Script

Nadine says she discovered life in the powerful experience of a couple she was called on to help through her job as a hospice volunteer. The wife was in her final stages of dementia, and the husband was struggling with his own formidable illness  —  kidney cancer.

The woman could no longer live on her own. The husband could no longer care for her at their home, and instead
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of leaving her alone to be cared for, he moved her, and himself, into the Alzheimer’s ward at a nursing home.

“It was the most selfless act of love I have ever seen,” says Nadine. “I realized that, before, I’d lived such a hedonistic lifestyle. Only when I started listening to God did I find a way to make my life meaningful.”

Life before the Leap

From Jefferson Starship to Smash Mouth, Nadine was instrumental in the success of some of today’s hottest acts. With fourteen gold and platinum records from artists like Stroke 9, Travis Tritt, and Melissa Etheridge, Condon showcased up-and-coming bands like Counting Crows, Third Eye Blind, and Train in the 1990s.

Named as one of the top 100 Californians in the music business, she authored Hot Hits, Cheap Demos: The Real-World Guide to Music Business Success. She was the executive producer of a signature event she created and ran: “Nadine’s Wild Weekend,” Northern California’s sole four-day celebration of music. She was also a consultant to music industry bigwigs: BMI, the world’s largest performing rights society; Atlantic Records, RCA Records, MCA Records; and CBS radio.

To mirror her professional success, she had a devoted husband, making her life complete. Or so she thought.

The Epiphany of Change

Everything was going along exquisitely. Then in 1999, her mother and her closest friend died.
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Nadine felt raw.

“All of a sudden, I was confronted with two people I loved with all my heart who had run out of time,” recalls Nadine. “I realized that I had spent my whole career helping a lot of different artists become rich and successful. But I needed to make my life complete.”

The desperation to live a life that mattered became an urgent calling.

Providence stepped in. A newsletter seeking volunteers for a hospice program arrived in her mailbox. “I wanted to start to build a spiritual base for myself,” says Nadine. “Hospice volunteering seemed perfect. I was at the top of my career. But I found I couldn’t ignore this insistent little voice in my head that kept saying STOP. The voice told me that there is more out there than rock and roll.”

Standing on the Edge

Feeling skeptical, Nadine remembers driving to the meeting white-knuckled and asking God out loud, “Why are you asking me to do this?”

“I have no doubt I was being called,” Nadine remembers. “I mean, I was a cradle-to-college Catholic, and suddenly, I was becoming a menopause-to-death believer.”

She experienced confusion and difficulty absorbing “the calling.” She recalls how terrified she was en route to her first hospice volunteer meeting, then walking into a room packed with other potential hospice volunteers and being greeted by an energy level and passion that was explosive and contagious.
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“I doubted, feared, and freaked out the whole way there, but the second I walked into that room, I knew I had found my people,” says Nadine. “I knew I had found my place. Suddenly, amongst all the others in healing work, I felt at home. I knew this is where I belonged.”

The reality that she needed to change what she was doing set in. “I had to accept that I was smart, creative, and professional and that I could take all that real-world experience and move on to a world that operated on another level, helping people with what lies beneath the surface,” says Nadine. “I knew there was a market for my skills in the business world, but I was about to start dealing with people around end-of-life issues and their spiritual stories as a hospice worker, and that was scary.”

The big questions tugged: “Who am I if I’m not the ‘Godmother of Rock’?” “What’s my job?” “What’s my identity?” “How did I honor the lives of my mother and friend?” Helping others with comfort and dignity seemed right.

Nadine gave up trying to find the answers. For nine months  —  just as if she was pregnant, giving birth to her new self  —  she waited. She prayed. She meditated. She wrote in her journal. In 2005 and 2006, Nadine continued to mentor rock musicians, but took a paid professional position at the Mission Hospice of San Mateo while she continued to mull her options. “It was hospice by day, rock by night,” she recalls.

Then, as if out of the blue, the director at the hospice where she was volunteering quit. Nadine was called in to switch hit, and was named director in 2006.
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Suddenly, her personal mission to help those trying to triumph at the end of life became a reality, and she let go of her work in the rock-and-roll world.

“Seeing people run out of time in their lives, I realized that I was smart and creative just like them and that I need to make the most of every day.” Nadine says she helps people find creative ways to face death. One woman, tired of everyone asking her about her feelings, asked Nadine to help create a sign that said, “I’ve already talked about my feelings today. Let’s talk about you.”

The Liftoff

Another voice was telling her it was time to seize the day and answer the relentless tugging of her soul. Mirroring her gut feeling that she had finally found her place were the words of her mentor and former counselor, Rachel Naomi Remen:

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.

So she took the job as hospice director in California.

The View from the Other Side

Today, Nadine works full time as a hospice director and in 2007 moved to Phoenix to help care for two ailing relatives.
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She never looks back. Her days are spent at the bedsides of people with invasive cancers whom she helps “live toward the end.” These moments have transformed her.

How is she different today?

“I realize there is no time today in life for B.S.,” says Nadine. “And I also found that the end of life can be very special. People think illness or loss or death is contagious, that if you talk about it you will get it. But I find the most exhilarating people and hopeful people I meet are the ones who face illness or the end of life on their own terms and look forward to every day they have.

“The best times in my life now are when I am with the patients,” says Nadine. “I get paid to be kind,” says Nadine. “It’s incredible. I’ve never been happier.”

Words to Inspire

“I changed,” says Nadine. “I realized something. I see broken bodies, people about to die. And what I see are beautiful souls. I am very lucky. I get the honor of relating to and being with people at a very fragile time of their lives. I live a life now that is not about me. It is about them. I am just here to be present to their experience.”

Designing Woman

Moving out of pain, Kathy Simonik celebrates her freedom to create a life she loves and redefine what is possible for the students she inspires.
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It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Kathy Simonik left a job at a high-powered corporate advertising agency and turned her life upside down. Today, as a yoga instructor, she helps others see life differently  —  with their hearts.

Kathy Simonik, 52, Barrington, Illinois

Act I: Graphic designer; owner advertising agency.

Act II: Teacher, Anusara-inspired yoga instructor; certified in scuba diving.

New Script

For all of her success, Kathy was not happy, inside or out. Chronic back pain and the scare of a fourth and fifth back surgery led to many small, dispiriting moments, and a growing knot in her gut that said, It’s time to get unstuck. Her instincts led her to holistic medicine for a back cure and introduced her to the world of yoga. Today, she’s found a life pose that allows her to live each day honoring her body, mind, and spirit. And instead of being imprisoned at her desk meeting client deadlines, she’s guiding a room filled with yoga enthusiasts through 10-minute headstands.

Here, Kathy describes her wake-up call and how she redefined what she’s capable of. She reminds us all to pay

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attention to the wake-up calls, and most important, to know that it is possible to begin again.

Life before the Leap

The thought of spending the next twenty-five years doing the same work she’d been doing was becoming a pain in the neck and her back  —  literally  —  for Kathy. After years of working around-the-clock in the highly competitive, high-rolling world of corporate advertising and running her own freelance graphic design gig, Kathy was exhausted, spiritually and physically. After one stretch glued to the drawing board for ninety unbroken, miserable days, she longed for more days in the garden, where she would flee when the sporadic nature of the freelance biz presented gaping holes in her schedule (and bank account).

Unfortunately, the reality that forces many of us to be stuck —  the overhead needed to support our lifestyles — became a noose. Kathy knew something in her live was missing.

“When it was good, the work was good, but there was always a price to pay,” says Kathy. “The jobs were super-rush. I often worked late hours. I had been working in advertising for twenty-five years and was making great money but was burned out. I really felt the need to do something more meaningful and life enhancing.”

The Epiphany of Change

More alarming was a doctor’s advice to have two more back surgeries (she’d already undergone several). The first would
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be to remove a metal rod that had earlier been run through her spine, and, the second, to replace it with a longer one that would extend into her neck as well. At one point, she had been in a body cast for nine months, and she wore a brace for years.

Standing on the Edge

Seeking alternative medicine, she discovered, not surprisingly, the pain in her back was tension, tension stored up in her spine from years bending over a desk meeting deadlines. “My challenge was to release that tension,” she says. She found an alternative doctor who began treating the tissue surrounding her spine. Her mobility gradually increased, and the intense pain faded. She was able to go off the pain medication she’d taken every day for years.

At her doctor’s suggestion, she began working with her yoga instructor, Chad Satlow, to strengthen her muscles and increase her flexibility. Today, she can do back bends and headstands.

The Liftoff

Like many of us who are forced to suddenly change our course by accident or injury or life’s unexpected moments, Kathy embraced her back injury and transformed it into a blessing. In her fifth decade, she found a gift  —  acceptance of her lack of control, and a peace and joy in following her heart  —  and found a place to ask, What is possible for me, in my life, right now? How can my practice of yoga and meditation help me lead a more satisfying life? These are questions on which every
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spiritual seeker and practitioner of yoga and meditation inevitably must reflect.

Yogawerks, the local yoga studio owned by her teacher, practiced a method of yoga known as Anusara (a-nu-sar-a), which means “flowing with Grace,” “going with the flow,” “following your heart.” It became the perfect haven for Kathy to explore her second act.

Through yoga, Kathy found herself experiencing more of those cherished times she found when the phones weren’t ringing and she could head to the garden to reconnect with the Earth, “and with my soul,” she says.

“It didn’t come easy,” she says. “It’s taken four years. It wasn’t hard to be dedicated, because I was in so much pain. I was willing to do anything to stop it. My instructor says the most motivated student is the one who wants to move out of pain and into freedom. I’m a living example.”

Like many reinventors, Kathy was lucky to find mentoring and encouragement to help make the journey feel less alone and to help her dig deep and tap into the well of strength inside herself. Chad, her yoga instructor, who has grown to be a cherished friend and business partner, pushed her to act skillfully and to not take no for an answer. He continues to be a strong champion and guide for Kathy. She was also blessed to be supported along the way by her husband Jim. “Jim supported me big time and got out of my way while I was trying to transition and figure this out,” she says. “At first he didn’t completely like it, but gave me the space to be my own person. Huge.”
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The View from the Other Side

Says Kathy, “I feel like I do make a difference by helping people remember their inner beauty, to realize that our time here is precious and to make the most of every day,” says Kathy. “That is the message we try to teach students. It’s not just a physical practice  —  far from it. Yes the body benefits greatly, but once you get tuned up physically, you want to go deeper. That’s how I feel anyway, and I can’t help but try to instill that in my students and pass that along.”

These days, Kathy teaches five days a week at Yogawerks. And she works with private clients herself now and helps them avoid surgery or heal afterward. Several times a year, she embarks on more in-depth training with Anusara founder John Friend. She has completed two levels of teacher training, three yoga therapeutic trainings, Anusara master immersion, as well as more than a thousand hours in Anusara studies. Kathy’s teaching style is nurturing and blends her knowledge in therapeutics with a fun, inspiring, and uplifting class. What’s more, her husband Jim, who discovered yoga when he observed his wife pursuing a life she had never dreamed possible, also teaches part-time at Yogawerks. After having years of knee and hamstring tightness from his marathon running and general contracting career, he can now see his toes while balancing on the high beam at a building site, says Kathy.

“He couldn’t figure out why I wanted to spend so much time on training at the studio,” says Kathy. “I think he felt left out. So he started doing yoga and teaches a class now at
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Yogawerks. I think it scared him and he wanted to be in on the transformation. It was a good idea. A lot of people go to yoga and start to transform and the spouse doesn’t get into it and freaks out.”

To let go of the money is hard. “Super hard,” says Kathy. “I’m still trying to figure it out. Right now I’m trying to find a balance in my life. I have begun taking more freelance design again and Jim is doing better with his career. My semi-retiring out of corporate kind of pushed him or motivated him.”

Even though she still works a lot of hours teaching yoga at the studio and helping owner Chad launch a line of yoga clothing, the psychological and spiritual aspects of yoga and teaching others to transform themselves through the practice is what Kathy finds most rewarding. She also designed the studio’s Web site at www.yogawerks.com.

“The cool thing and reason why I’m attracted to it is that it combines my skills with what I love, graphic design and yoga,” says Kathy. “It is a natural blend, and if the money was there or when it is, I will be in heaven no doubt. And even though I don’t make much money, as Chad says ‘I’m rich in spirit.’”

Words to Inspire

“I hope I’m motivating others to work hard to get out of pain,” says Kathy. “Not to be on a self-pity mode, but to realize hard work and dedication lead to health. You have to take action to heal.”
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Getting Started
You want to get unstuck. But how? Here are Kathy’s tips for breaking down the barriers and turning dream into reality.
• Find your inspiration. “Chad was my mentor. He helped me see my inner light despite all the pain I was in. He encouraged me to become a teacher and changed my life completely.” As mentor, Chad also helped Kathy delve deeper into her new calling. “When I started to take private lessons [yoga] from Chad, I instantly felt I wanted more spirituality. I was definitely interested in healing my back, but also felt there was so much more for me.”
• Follow your heart and work hard. “It took a lot of hard, hard work and dedication. Tons of dedication. I practiced yoga all the time to get strong. Soon the pain was leaving and I was getting stronger.”
• Apprentice yourself. Find creative ways to work around financial challenges. “To afford the expensive private lessons, I traded with Chad and worked on his advertising materials and designed his Web site. I built up so much trade over the months that he suggested I use the trade to take his teacher training and go deeper into the practice of yoga. I did and that led to me becoming a teacher.”
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• Forget the maxim “Do what you love and the money will follow.” Instead, embrace the fact that loving what you do can fulfill you in a way a fat paycheck can’t. “Because I was so involved in the yoga, I think the phone stopped ringing in the advertising agency because I was not giving it juice anymore. I had wanted to get out of it years ago and never felt I could walk away from the money. The money was missed, but I felt so much better about myself spiritually and mentally and physically. I was giving back — something I’d wanted to do for a long time.”
• Create a mantra that fuels you. In the moments when you’re not exactly sure where you want to be yet, know that there is a power inside leading you on the adventure. “There’s no place like home,” is a mantra that Kathy holds close to her heart. “It means to me that everything you need is right inside of you all along. You don’t have to go outside yourself to find it.”

Making a Difference Every Day

Suddenly the question What am I going to do with the rest of my life?  looms large. All through our adult lives we have been moving from phase to phase, identity to identity (mom, wife, and executive, volunteer). “Trust your intuition” is the advice we’ve received time and again when we have made these choices.
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Fast-forward to today, as we stand at the threshold of what was and what can be. How do we tap into that inner voice of knowing? How can we make new choices consciously and with courage? No question these moments will be full of confusion and upheaval. But if we rise to the challenge, we will discover the rewards can be amazing.

Step outside the box with these creative ways to try something new and never look back:

1. Find sanctuary. Find a place of retreat, where you can step outside the busyness of your life so that you can better relax and recharge your mind.

2. Find time to take stock. Ask yourself: What is possible for me in my life right now? What is holding me back? What do I want to change? What do I long to do or be?

3. Trust your gut. Following your instincts is more important than ever.

4. Embrace the feelings. Understand that change is scary, but realize that these upsetting feelings indicate that we are redefining our lives and shifting from what we thought we should be to who we authentically are.

Get it started. When you start matters less than that you start.

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