Conscious Aging

Guest post on Mindful Aging

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Mindful Aging
by Lenore Flynn

In two days I will celebrate my 59 birthday. For most of my adult life I have viewed my birthday as a day to rejoice. All the things that have been my life have sprung from that day. I love to think of my parents on that Sunday morning happy at my arrival; my mother always said I gave her the perfect family she wanted, 2 boys and 2 girls. I am sad she is no longer here to wish me a happy day.

Some years it is a day I indulge myself in whatever I want: shopping, a massage, eating something I like, going to the movies. Some years it is a day to reflect. This year it seems like it will be for reflection.

In Buddhist practice there are 5 Recollections recited as part of the daily liturgy. They are a call to be mindful of impermanence. Thinking things will stay the way they are is the path to disappointment.

The first recollection is “I am of the nature to age, I will grow old.” This one is so easy to forget when you are young and healthy. You don’t want to remember it. Our culture rallies against it. I recently subscribed to a health magazine as a favor to a neice and page after page is about how to look younger, fight off the aging process. As if appearence really had anything to do with health and aging; I am going to age no matter how healthy I am or how good I look.

The second recollection is “I am of the nature to be sick, I will grow ill.” This human existence has its price and that is this body will get sick and need care. I bring this one to mind when I get sick and find myself fighting with my illness in anger. This poor body maintains as best it can and cannot escape its nature. We should be compassionate toward our bodies.

The third recollection is “I am of the nature to die, someday I will die.” Pretty grim for most people. The denial of this truth causes so many problems. Not that we need to embrace death ahead of time but to acknowledge its reality and inevitability gives us an impetus to pay attention. The Zen tradition admonishes the practitioner that death comes quickly so don’t squander your life. Today, right now, pay attention. Wake up!

The fourth recollection is “All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will be separated from me.” Nothing is yours, really. No thing and no body will go with you when you pass away from this life. Anyone who has been alive for any time has watch a parade of things and bodies come and go. This is advice against holding on, clinging to things. We cling to ideas, possessions, loved ones, ways of life.

The last is about karma. A popular idea nowadays but a really important one. “I own my karma, I am born from my karma. Whatever I do, for good or ill, of that I will be the heir.” This is the call to mindful in every action, every interaction. This isn’t a tally system (you did this so you get that); it is more about the fact that an action causes a reaction; your actions put things in motion. Generate good.

So on the eve of this year’s birthday, I am recollecting my good fortune to be able to know these things and take them to heart. To appreciate and be grateful for the wonderful, beautiful things I have seen, felt and heard. To appreciate and be grateful that I live in safety, warmth and knowing. I can watch my resistance to some of these recollections; I certainly want to be ageless, healthy, eternal, and never separated from people and things I love. Mindfulness of these recollections is not morbid or depressing unless we make it so. If we make the fact the sun comes up every morning depressing it would be no different; it will still come up. What we can choose is whether the light shines on us or not.

Movies that Reflect on Spiritual Growth in the Process of Aging

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Lately I’ve been watching a lot more movies as a way of relaxing – but, somehow, even movies seem to hold special messages for my life.  So, I decided to find some that YOU might enjoy as part of your reflection on the process of aging.

I’m Not Rappaport (MCA/Universal, 1996)
— This feisty drama revolves around an 81-year-old Jewish radical who is a modern-day Don Quixote fighting injustice. He and his best friend have to stand up for themselves in a society that seems determined to treat elders as if they were invisible.

Men With Guns (Columbia TriStar, 1998)
— A common task in old age is to secure one’s legacy. A wealthy physician in an unnamed Latin American country who is nearing retirement decides to visit the medical students he trained to serve poor villagers in the countryside. His quest opens and softens his heart.

Nobody’s Fool (Paramount, 1995)
— This movie shows that the last stage of life can be one of personal renewal. A crusty and cantankerous handyman in a small town discovers that it is never too late to stir the ashes and light up your life with the glow that comes from love of family and friends.

The Shell Seekers (Republic Pictures, 1994)
— A 63-year-old Englishwoman suffers a heart attack and is compelled to review her life and her view of happiness.

The Straight Story (Walt Disney Home Video, 1999)
— Alvin Straight is a stubborn and highly principled 73-year-old Iowan who sets out on his John Deere lawnmower to visit his estranged brother who has suffered a heart attack in Wisconsin. His deep yearning for reconciliation gives him the energy and strength he needs to fulfill his mission.

Strangers in Good Company. (Touchstone, 1991)
— A group of long-lived women take shelter in an abandoned farmhouse when their tour bus breaks down. While they wait for other transportation, they share the stories of their lives with each other.

Waking Ned Devine (Fox, 1999)
— In this comedy set in a small village in Ireland, two of the town’s elders creatively expand the possibilities for community life.

Shirley MacLaine and The Process of Aging

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Years ago I read everything I could get my hands on by Shirley MacLaine. I was fascinated by the fact that she never tried to hide her spirituality – even though it was considered “out there” by so many others, and especially by the media.  Hollywood seems to have embraced Shirley as she ages. Perhaps, it is because she herself has embraced the aging process. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about successful aging, healthy aging and what I’m more apt to call conscious aging. It seems as if those who have a spiritual outlook on life, age more successfully.  Wait.  Successful is one of those words whose very meaning is in the eyes of the beholder. Aging and all the things that go along with it, can be used as a means of spiritual growth. Think about it.  We can either complain because our joints creek, or we can use a ‘gratitude practice’ to recognize the gift our joints have been and still are.  We can bemoan the loss of certain memory – or we can take it as an opportunity to live in the moment and KNOW that the memories that are important can never be lost.

How are you facing the aging process?  Are you doing it consciously?  What spiritual practices have you found support it?  Do comment below.  I’d love to hear your experience.

In the meantime, here’s what Shirley MacLaine had to say in a recent interview.

GO!: Hollywood seems like such a tough business for women as they age — what is the very best part about getting older?

MacLaine: People laugh at my jokes more readily, they help me in and out of cars. I don’t have to worry so much about makeup and hair. The parts are wonderful — if they’re there. I really enjoy the older parts. I’m enjoying the third act of my life very, very much. I have not experienced some of these heartbreaking events of aging. That hasn’t happened to me, at least not yet.

GO!: What do you like most about the parts written for more mature women?

MacLaine: They’re full of wisdom, full of humor, full of experience, full of drama, full of comedy — all that, because you’ve lived a longer life so therefore the part is richer. In “Steel Magnolias” and “Terms of Endearment,” I think I was rehearsing for my old age.

…….

 

GO!: You’ve written about spirituality quite a bit — has spirituality become more of a focus in your life as you’ve aged, or has it always been there?

MacLaine: I think I’ve been a mystic basically since I was about 10 or 11. I’ve always ruminated on the otherness of things — there’s got to be more than this. That’s one of the reasons I travel. In southeast Asia, in Africa, in the near Middle East, the focus on material, physical dimensions is not as high a priority as it is in the West.

GO!: How has this mysticism played a part in your life’s work?

MacLaine: I’ve written these 13 books — they have been an exploration of these other dimensions. And I think acting is also a kind of mystical approach to expression. We imagine what a character might think, say or act, or have the body movement of. Imagination is considered unreal, at least in the West. So I use mysticism and imagination as (interchangeable) terms. I mean, maybe life itself is show business.

Excerpt from the Monterey County Herald

Learning to Love Growing Old

Posted on by Dr. Toni

I just read an article that I want to share with all ofyou.

It emphasizes that Fear of aging speeds the very decline we dread most.

It looks to me like we have our work cut out for us. To teach a generation of baby boomers to accept the aging process and let go of the fear.  I promise more reflections on this soon.

In the meantime, go read the article

Wisdom – To Celebrate Growing Older

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Written by Regina Brett, 90 years old, of the Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio .

“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most requested column I’ve ever written.

My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short – enjoy it.

4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick.  Your friends and family will.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument.  Stay true to yourself.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God.  He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others.  You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye But don’t worry;  God never blinks.

16.. Take a deep breath.  It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful.  Clutter weighs you down in many ways.

18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It’s never too late to be happy.  But it’s all up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.  Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive but don’t forget.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything.  Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don’t take yourself so seriously.  No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Don’t audit life.  Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time.  Accept what you already have not what you need.

42. The best is yet to come…

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”