Aging well
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Are you stuck in stubborn habits?
“I need to take an emotional breath, step back, and remind myself who’s actually in charge of my life.” ~Judith M. Knowlton Are you following patterns or routines that aren’t serving you anymore? Creatures of habit, most of us stay on the same-old beaten path, rarely stepping away from our comfort zone. We keep buying the same brand of coffee, hanging out with the same people, walking the same route with the dog, wearing the same clothes, watching the same news station … or continually putting up with the same disrespectful treatment from others. It’s time to shake things up. Time to hit the reset button and reclaim your personal…
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New year, old baggage to unpack
“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.” ~Cesare Pavese Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your holidays. A slightly different version of this column ran previously in The Oakland Press.… Traveling Light in the New Year By the time we reach our wisdom years, most of us have accumulated way too much stuff. We need to weed out or pare down — whether we’re inclined to overpack our suitcases when we travel or stuff our bedroom closets with outdated clothing. It also occurs to me that I’ve been dragging around a trunk-load of pet…
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Reasons to love winter
“What’s the secret to beating back the metaphorical darkness? Accept the inevitable, tend to your physical and mental health, and stack the deck with feel-good activities. Focusing on all that makes you feel great will make the time fly by – and let you win at winter.” ~Frank Lipman, MD There’s a light dusting of snow outside my window this morning. While I hate driving on snowy roads, I try to adapt when Mother Nature gives us the cold shoulder. There’s science to prove that spending time in cold weather slows the aging process and benefits our health in several ways. Being outdoors in cold temperatures “is showing promise as…
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Winter lessons
“Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.” ~Rumi Here in southeast Michigan, it seemed as if our unseasonably warm autumn would last forever. But winter’s chill arrived suddenly, and the leaves are finally down from the trees. The branches outside my office window now form artful silhouettes against December’s pale skies, open and receptive to the next snowfall. Today’s quote from Rumi is a reminder that it’s time for me to shed some things too. One of the beautiful aspects of maturing is that we start to release things that no longer work for us. We can drop our pretenses and surrender the habit of trying to…
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Living in the past?
“Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.” ~Brene Brown Psychologists believe acute nostalgia is a symptom of growing old — but I’m not so sure that’s true. I’ve been nostalgic since I was a kid. I’ve always preferred old houses and items with a history, and I find comfort in rereading passages from favorite novels with nostalgic themes. But I know there’s real danger in viewing the past through rose-colored lenses. We might long for a return to certain periods in history, assuming that life was somehow…
