Resilience
In his bestseller, 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, Dr. Andrew Weil, formerly a staunch advocate of the power of the mind upon the body, states that in middle age "the cumulative effects of unhealthy habits and patterns of living make themselves known for the first time, as the natural resilience of the body inevitably begins to diminish."
Inevitably? The only thing inevitable about aging is that you're getting closer to moving on to what's next.
But it's not surprising that Dr. Weil has succumbed to the social hypnosis about aging. It's one thing to have faith in your body when you're young and juicy. It's another to keep the faith in the face of age when the message from almost every quarter is that you're on a guaranteed downhill slide.
Despite the dismal popular mythology about aging, there are no disease states specifically associated with age. Even Alzheimer's does not afflict only the old. But there are disease states triggered by fear of aging and unconstructive beliefs about aging.
This means our social assumptions materialize as self-fulfilling prophecies. Looking through the filter of limiting beliefs, all we notice is that age seems to bring with it increasing limitation. The existence of robust, lively and alive people in their 80s and 90s are either edited out of awareness, or displayed as near-miracles, rare as two-headed calves, too anomalous to take seriously.
You'll see your limiting beliefs about aging in the flesh as you pass personal chronological trigger points for abandoning faith in your body. At some point you begin to interpret as signs of age common transient symptoms that you may have experienced all your life. A sore joint when you are younger means you strained it or slept on it wrong. When you are older: arthritis! Forgetfulness as a youth means nothing, but forget something when you're older, and you're having a "senior moment."
Research has repeatedly shown that attention to symptoms increases them. As you succumb to age-related limiting beliefs, you become a living demonstration of this phenomenon. Your shift in focus magnifies and multiplies passing symptoms as you fixate on them as signs of the inevitable: you ARE going downhill!
This expectation of decline is usually combined with a debilitating pessimism that denies any hope of countering the effects of aging. Assuming that your body is becoming too worn and torn to perform as it used to, you expect less of yourself. Because expectation has a powerful influence on the body, you feel less energetic and do less. The less you do, the less you can do, until your body becomes useless from disuse. But your aging body is not the culprit. Your beliefs are.
Instead of retiring your optimistic faith in your body's resilience, start gathering evidence that feeling full of life late in life is as natural as it was when you were a child. Notice how passionate involvement in new interests or the revival of old ones can regenerate physical and mental resilience at any age. And for the ultimate elixir of youth, cultivate the forward-looking optimism expressed by George Dawson, whose book, Life is So Good, was published when he was 101. "Life is good," he said. "And I do believe it's getting better."
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From The Way Toward Health, by Jane Roberts
The thoughts and beliefs that we want to re-arouse are those that were often predominant in childhood... They are spiritual, mental, emotional and biological beliefs that are innately present in the birth of each creature. Children believe not only that there will be a tomorrow, and many tomorrows, but they also believe that each tomorrow will be rewarding and filled with discovery. They feel themselves couched in an overall feeling of security and safety, even in the face of an unpleasant environment or situation. They feel drawn to other people and to other creatures, and left alone they trust their contacts with others. They have an inbred sense of self-satisfaction and self-appreciation, and they instinctively feel that it is natural and good for them to explore and develop their capabilities.
They expect relationships to be rewarding and continuing, and expect each event will have the best possible results. They enjoy communication, the pursuit of knowledge, and they are filled with curiosity.
All of those attitudes provide the strength and mental health that
promotes their physical growth and development. However simple those
ideas may sound to the adult, still they carry within them the needed
power and impetus that fill all of life's parts. Later, conflicting
beliefs often smother such earlier attitudes, so that by the time
children have grown into adults they actually hold almost an opposite
set of hypotheses. These take for granted that any stressful situation
will worsen, that communication with others is dangerous, that
self-fulfillment brings about the envy and vengeance of others, and that
as individuals they live in an unsafe society, set down in the middle of
a natural world that is itself savage, cruel, and caring only for its
own survival at any cost.
Practice
The inevitable continuance of resilience
Imagine you live in a society where people expect to age well. You realize that your skin may wrinkle and you may choose to slow down a bit, but you assume you will stay healthy, active, and fit -- almost all the older people you know do so. Sickness and limitation are not associated with age. Instead, in this society, you expect life to get better as you get older.
In this culture, everyone assumes that with age it is inevitable that:
- You become more flexible as you increase your awareness of your freedom to express yourself.
- You grow stronger as you weather challenges that build your confidence and show you a world filled with opportunity.
- You have plenty of energy because you learn to stay connected with the feeling of well-being.
- Your self-worth grows because you seek opportunities to lift others up with kind words or deeds.
- Your intellect becomes keener as experience expands your mind.
- Your vision gets clearer as you learn to notice beauty everywhere.
- Your hearing becomes sharper because you choose to listen to the good intentions behind what is said.
- Your lungs get stronger because you find so many reasons to laugh.
- Your heart grows stronger because you open it to more appreciation, joy, and love.
Look for these traits in yourself and in others. Reflect on how they can only increase with age. Think about how these attitudes are certain to be reflected beneficially in your body. Whenever you notice a limiting belief about age, substitute one of the above.
Resources
A special thank you and birthday greetings to my gracefully aging father, who suggested George Dawson as an example of health-promoting faith in the ongoing goodness of life. "He is one of my all time heroes," says my Dad.
Make George Dawson your inspiration for healthier beliefs about age (and life) by reading his book, Life is So Good, written after he learned to read at the age of 98.
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