A Triumphant Life
Earlier this week, I celebrated my very first birthday without a living parent on earth. From the moment I woke up, I kept thinking about my mother and father, feeling much gratitude toward them for giving me life, and all the love, time and resources they devoted to raising and supporting me.
Saying a final goodbye to my mother a few months ago has been hugely impactful in so many ways, including catapulting me into my family’s oldest generation. This has been both sobering and galvanizing. There is no time to waste in my journey to heal and grow in ways that allow me to embody my most authentic self and fully enjoy my life.
Words I read so often during my summer visits to Tassajara Zen Mountain monastery keep coming to mind: “Wake Up! Life is transient, Swiftly passing, Be aware, The great matter, Don’t waste time.”
As I begin the elderhood phase of my life, I’m grateful for the example set by my father, Mendek Rubin—a Holocaust survivor who was forced to endure unimaginable pain and loss. My dad managed to fully manifest his deepest intention: to liberate himself from his unrelenting depression and fear, and create a new life—one that overflowed with peace, love and delight. Despite so much suffering, his journey through life was ultimately triumphant.
Forty years ago, when he was my age, my dad wrote, “One day I will die. Before my last breath leaves my body, I expect to ponder the meaning of my life and wonder if it was a journey worth taking. I don’t want to carry my bitterness and venom to the grave, or have regrets and sadness fill my heart because of opportunities I lost along the way. I want to take my departure from this world feeling the satisfaction of a job well done.”
For decades, my inventive father was unrelenting in his quest to heal his emotional wounds. He continually devised new ways to reprogram his mind to focus on the positive, and he was devoted to befriending and soothing his inner child. Every day, my dad spent time meditating, fostering unconditional self-love, and consciously cultivating a deep connection with the Divine—what he called the “eternal sunshine.”
These days—as I’m becoming more aware of my entrenched “good girl” complex and people-pleasing patterns that were so tightly woven into my relationship with my mother—I’ve been particularly impressed by how my father completely overcame his need for outside approval. Unselfconscious about what others thought of him, my dad expressed his creativity without censure. He freely played, laughed, danced and sang with a joy that was so bright and contagious, it lifted up everyone in his orbit.
My father once told me, “It takes bravery to shed all the ways we have held ourselves back—to give ourselves full permission to be exactly who we are without apologizing or feeling the need to forgo or alter anything about ourselves. To completely express our love, light and joy without worrying about other people’s opinions is the biggest gift we can give the world.”
Myra and her father Mendek, circa 1990
My dad continues to teach me that being truly free and joyful requires unlearning countless conscious and unconscious lessons that keep us scared, self-conscious and small. It requires exploring ourselves with curiosity and honesty, compassionately tending to all of our inner wounds, and consistently practicing a new way of being until it becomes second nature.
A triumphant life is about developing a steadfast loyalty to our truest, wisest self—coming full circle to embody the person we always were; a person who we’re finally able to fully see, love, and honor.
