Aging well Expert Voices Today

Have You Been in Your Body Lately?

I like to experiment with being in my body. Sounds simple enough, I realize. Where else would I be but in my body? But, funny thing is, I find myself more often feeling like I'm out in front of my body than in it. My attention, my energy, my sense of being is out there in the future, rushing ahead to the next thing or two I've got planned. If I stop and check in with my body, I feel tension in my shoulders, my belly, my facial muscles. I'm straining to get something done, and my whole body feels the effects. I've recently been making a point to stop often during the day to settle back into my body, paying attention to how this rushing out ahead of myself is affecting me. I enter a state of mindful, compassionate attention. I begin with my feet, noticing how the feeling of life is flowing through them, also noticing the space inside my feet. Then I move my attention to my ankles, noticing and feeling the aliveness and space inside them. And so on, up to my skull. This is a gentle process of noticing without judgment and without the need to change anything. The simple act of noticing - becoming aware - is powerfully transformative by itself. More…

Let's Celebrate Age

Everyone has a personal soapbox, something they feel strongly about and will loudly and passionately speak out if anyone will listen. For over twenty-five years I’ve been talking, writing, and producing public radio programs on a subject that people don’t always want to hear about --- aging. In fact, the reason I originally became interested in the subject was that my friends turning fifty, fifty-five and sixty were finding a dozen ways to avoid, deny, evade, and abort any discussion of their age. Hey, we loved turning twenty-one, it opened new worlds. Why wouldn’t additional years continue to present expanding horizons? More years, more life experience, wider perspective, more knowledge. It looked like a plus to me. More…

Your Story May Touch Someone Else

Time and time again in my writing classes for people over 50, I see how much the class members are touched by each other's stories. Some students think they don't have much to write about or that "I can't write." But once they put something down on paper and read it aloud in the class, something quite remarkable happens. More…

Somebody Needs Your Story

Have you ever told a story about your life and had people say: You should write a book about that!? Or do you have children or grandchildren who want to know more about your earlier days? Or maybe you simply want to get your story on paper for your own satisfaction. Whatever might prompt you to write your life story – your memoir, isn't it time to get started? More…

Late-Life Love: The Final (Blog) Chapter

My publisher sent out a press release last week on my forthcoming book Late Life Love: Romance and New Relationships in the Later Years (Fairview Press, 2006). They announced it as a new book featuring 22 couples, “older adults who have re-mated, reinventing themselves in the process”. For me, this is one of the major points I hoped to emphasize as each couple reveals their personal story. More…

Stop the Insanity!

Author, Body Odyssey: Lessons from the Bones and Belly www.bodyodyssey.biz  In response to a recent blog entry of mine, Yvonne said that her body is making an emphatic plea for attention, but she bemoaned, “Would that I could take time to listen to my body.” Ohhhh, isn't "time" always the obstacle! More…

Loved Into Being

Who were the people who loved you into being?   This question stopped me cold until I thought, of course, we are loved into being.   It's love or the lack of it that shapes who we become.    Only we never think about it until someone's gone. More…

The Gift of Appreciation

Right next to the importance of being noticed is the desire to be appreciated.   William James callled the craving to be appreciated the deepest principle in human nature.   Mother Theresa said “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” More…

What's the Point of Aging?

Why do we age?   What’s the point?   If nature’s first law is the propagation of the species, why do we live long beyond the time of fertility?  Is our purpose only biological?   More…

Whose Body Are You Living In?

Have you ever looked in the mirror and seen the face of your mother or father? Do you have the same vocal inflections as one of your parents? When I laugh loudly, what I hear is my sister's laughter ringing through my vocal chords. More…