If we are lucky, we will live a long life and grow old. But as we age we will come up against challenges, grief and loss, and having to learn how to let go. It will help us if we have some ability to change and be flexible.
As we grow older, our bodies cannot work as hard, our memory, hearing, eye sight is not what it use to be, so there is a series of loss and adjustment as we learn to live with these new conditions that keep changing. Family members, friends, co-workers, may get sick and or die and so again we are dealing with grief and loss.
I feel that death is a part of life that needs to be talked about so that we can deal with the difficult feelings that will come up for us. So with all of this, you might think, great, what’s the point of getting older if all of it is going to be such a struggle?
Yes, all of that is going on and hopefully you can get support, talk to good people as you work through the difficulties of aging. But there is an upside to all of this. Growing older also brings us gifts, if we keep growing and learning. Growing older can bring us more free time to do what we want to do, growing older can bring us acceptance of ourselves, we don’t have to struggle so much to get along, keep up, look a certain way.
If we keep up with exercise, good real food and enough sleep, we have a fighting chance to enter our golden years with enjoyment and love.