What's so great about growing older?

What is so great about growing older? This is a topic I think about often, and since I am giving a talk with that title on February 3rd at the Ashland Library, I've been thinking about it even more, and I've been poring over some of my favorite books on aging for passages to share in my talk.

I visited with a dear friend recently and our conversation turned to how people age, or more specifically how in our society people don't necessarily grow wiser as they grow older.  I was very touched when my friend shared her experience of how elders are treated in Brazil.

"Sometimes you will see them coming down from the hills," she told me, "accompanied by their family members. The family members will each be holding some article that belongs to the elder, and you can see that they are very happy to be given that honor, the honor of accompanying the elder, of holding something for the elder. There's a great feeling of love and respect. Everyone thinks of the elder as wise, and in fact the elder is wise."

I've been thinking of this ever since. Yesterday when I was reading Zalman Schacter-Shalomi's book From Age-ing to Sage-ing, I found something that resonated with our talk. It involved a study done by psychologist Ellen Langer at Harvard University. A group of elders over 75 were encouraged to act as if they were 20 years younger. Study results showed that memory, manual dexterity, muscle strength and flexibility increased while hearing and vision improved.

"In general, our negative expectations make us age faster than nature intended," Schacter-Shalomi writes. In our society, many elders have negative expectations. They get the message that they are over the hill, useless, etc. and they internalize these messages. When we buy into negative self-images about aging, whether consciously or unconsciously, we set the stage for disempowered old people.

We lose many possible sages. It's important to shift social attitudes about aging, both for the sake of elders and for the well-being of society as a whole.

Positive self imaging is very powerful. Positive self-imaging does not deny aging; it does focus on the innate life force, and the powerful quality of our thoughts and emotions, including joy, appreciation and a sense of engagement.

 

Octagenarian blues musician B.B. King

These are some of the things I think are great about growing older.

Maturity -  It comes from Latin word for ripeness. It implies that we have fully developed. Of course there is still more to learn and integrate but if we have been paying attention, we have become mature. Maturity is a great gift, both to oneself and others. It is useful and inspirational, too.

Character - Our character has developed, too. That's one aspect of our maturity. We may be characters, too. We don't care as much about what others think about us. We are not trying to please others the way we were in earlier years. We have the authority of our life experience and what we have learned from it.

Resilience, adaptation, creativity - We have learned resilience and adaptability in the course of life, and if our hearing or eyesight etc. is affected, we learn how to work with it.

Panoramic perspective -The older brain has an integrative capacity that the younger brain does not have.

Contentment, happiness - The majority of older adults are happier in their age than they were earlier in their lives. Paradoxically so.

Spiritual deepening, altruism, transcendence - Psychologists such as Erik Erickson and Carl Jung have written about the natural turning within that occurs in the later years, when we become more reflective, altruistic, and detached.

These are a few of the things I think are great about growing older.

News Flash!

This article  and its accompanying video clip tells about a 93-year old Portland woman, Willa Asbornsen who decided that she wanted to move out of the nursing home where she was living in order to live alone. To reach that goal, she started to work out. Take a look at what she has to say-- she's inspiring and her story offers inspiring evidence of the benefits of exercise, and the truth that it's never too late to start working out.

Love the new look of the blog! Thanks so much to Betsy Lewis Consulting. Betsy is a social media whiz, and I love what she has done to beautify, update and connect this blog.

The Week That Was

Some of the very last roses from the garden

A quiet, cold Sunday punctuated with a few sunny interludes. The golden leaves of the cottonwood tree ornament the yard with a delightful carpet.

Was it just Election Day on Tuesday? It seems so long ago already. I had already voted by mail two weeks before. I felt rather confident that Obama was going to win. He did win, thankfully.

We are in a big enough mess in this country and on this planet without voting in a person more like a replicant than a human being, or a political party with such harsh, antiquated stances as Republicans seem to have right now. Why are they called parties, I wonder. They are hardly party like. I myself could use a good party. That would include good friends, good food, dancing, laughing and singing, and sun would be a bonus.

Yay! Obama won.  On Election Day, I headed for the Enneagram class I've been taking at OLLI (Osher Life Long Learning Institute--do you have one in your community?) I enjoy reflecting on the Enneagram, a system of personality typing that comes out of Sufi teachings, yet the class has left me rather bored. But it is almost over. That's the thing one can count on--things will end. Just as I would like to attend a really excellent party, I would enjoy being in a challenging class. I am looking for both of these items.

On the eve of Election Day, I headed out to Tashi Choling, the Tibetan Buddhist temple that I belong to. It was a holy day and we celebrated with a wonderful puja. I have been practising with this sangha for over 30 years now. Ah, what a fortunate woman I am. When I got home, I found out that Obama had won the election.

The next day, I went to the assisted living facility where my dear friend Kate lives. I presented The Poetry of Aging, a program I will be offering soon at the Ashland Library.  Most of the people who live in that assisted living facility have cognitive impairments. In the group that attended, only one person was cognitively impaired. She was 66. Other people told her that. She didn't remember it herself, though she was quite lively and engaged. There were also 3 people in their 90s, a retired college professor who loves poetry and my friend Kate who is a mythic figure in my book of life--maybe 8 people in all. I read poems from Neruda, Yeats, May Sarton, Anna Swir, A. R. Ammons, Donald Hall and others--all on the subject of aging.  It was quite wonderful. You can convey things by reading poetry that go far beyond ordinary conversation.

Kate told me that I was like the person bringing water to the people in the desert. I have thought a great deal about that, how people can be cared for physically, but suffer because their psyches are neglected. The dumbing-down process, Kate calls it. It pervades our culture, but is especially obvious in the way we care for or relate to older adults. I would like to offer another program there sometime soon, creating a space where people can talk about their inner lives.

Performing poetry is something that I enjoy tremendously. I plan to offer this program through Sage's Play.

An autumn still life in the kitchen

The 93-year old yogini and dancer Tao Porchon-Lynch

I create still lives throughout my dwelling. They change with the seasons or because I feel the urge to shift things around. This is a still life that collected itself in the kitchen near the stove.

This week flew by. I went to a yoga class at the senior center (which could stand some philosophical updating as far as I'm concerned--the senior center, not the yoga class). I love the yoga teacher who is probably in her 70s and is very sensitive to the limitations that many older adults have when doing yoga. She teaches people to pay attention to their bodies and not stress their bodies out to the point of pain.

 Someone posted this wonderful photo of Tao Porchon-Lynch on Facebook the other day. I wrote about her a year or two ago in this blog. She's 93 now. Just look at her vibrant beauty. Tao has been doing yoga since childhood. She has a yoga center on the east coast. I think she is a wonderful example of positive outlook and lifestyle.

This morning, I got to Skype with Ina Albert, one of my Sage-ing friends. Ina lives in Montana, where she teaches Sage-ing classes at the local community college. I love connecting with her. I also connected with Carol Scott-Kassner, who is the current leader of Sage-ing International. She suggested that I might like a creative movement called InterPlay. I went to their website, and boy, it sure sounds like a lot of fun. Like a big party! I plan to get in touch with them and see how I can connect with their very interesting creative work soon.

 I've been working on a new song for our musical revue. It's about Social Security and Medicare.  The title is When I'm 65.  I am nearly done. That was my week, or part of it. I finished reading Rick Moody's book The Five Stages of the Soul and started in on Connie Goldman's book Secrets of the Late Bloomers. I played with my daughter's dog, whose swift and hilarious runs in the yard were quite delightful. I lay in my bed and gazed out the window at the chartreuse striated leaves of the lilac bush and the shiny dark green leaves of the climbing rose and the gray green of the fir tree. I looked at the sky at night. I baked corn muffins. I meditated. I mused about the brevity of life. I thought about my daughter traveling in Europe. I put my hands in the wet earth. I put my face up to the rain.  What about you?