Many people carry hidden fears about aging; they worry about the pain, scarcity, or weakness that getting older may bring. However, with aging also comes great abundance, growth, and joy. This week, health coach, Cheri Timmons is here to help you become an expert at aging! Cheri Timmons shares her advice on how to change your mindset about aging, invest in your longevity, and embrace the growth that every year brings.
From Cheri:
Although you can’t control your age, you can control your aging.
How?
You can learn to make the most of a longer life when you:
Uncover your hidden messages about aging
Learn to reframe your mindset
Invest in your longevity
Embrace the growth, gratitude and abundance each year offers
As children, we are taught how to become successful adults. However, targeted education and guidance on how to age and thrive as an older adult has not readily been part of the discussion.
The good news is that is changing!
In response to our growing aging population, national and local agencies have designed resources to help older adults live healthy, safe and robust lives.
But to make the most of these great resources, inner work must also be done.
Uncover Your Hidden Messages About Aging:
Without realizing it, you may carry hidden fears or negative messages about aging. Causing you to see getting older through a lens of scarcity, weakness or pain, rather than an experience of abundance, growth and joy.
The thoughts you have about aging impact your feelings, which in turn affect your behaviors, actions and choices.
Messages you heard as a child from grandparents or parents may have contributed to your current aging mindset.
Becoming aware of these hidden messages is a great place to start. Follow these 3 steps:
Step 1: List 5 – 10 feelings that arise when you think of growing older (ex: anxious, excited, overwhelmed, optimistic).
Step 2: Write down the thoughts and images that come to mind when you think about growing older.
Step 3: Pinpoint who in your life has most influenced your thoughts (positively or negatively) on aging.
Master Your Mindset:
Remember that your thoughts impact your feelings, and your feelings impact your actions.
Look back over your hidden messages about aging and decipher the messages that are truly yours, and those that are the voice of someone else.
Learn to let go of the thoughts and beliefs that belong to someone else. For example, you may be carrying around your mother’s fears about aging. However, your life is likely very different from hers. So, it is important to challenge a scarcity mindset and learn to develop a mindset of abundance.
This may mean learning to move away from the thought “I will be alone”, which can create anxious feelings and lead to withdrawing and not trying to meet new people. Then you can learn to shift to thinking “I have a lot of friends”, which brings feelings of gratitude and connection.
Invest in Yourself:
The National Council on Aging (www.ncoa.org) created an amazing program that teaches aging adults how to embrace the gift of longevity. Their Aging Master Program is a “playbook for aging well”.
Consider how you can invest in your wellness as an aging adult by tuning into:
Regular activity
Healthy sleep habits
Hydration
Nutrition
Healthy relationships
Finances
Fall prevention
Advanced planning
Safe medication management
So, where can you start…one small step at a time, to move towards wellness as you age. You will truly be the one to reap the rewards!
“The normal experience of the body and its aging is a conditioned response (a habit of thinking and behavior). By changing your habits of thinking and behavior, you can change the experience of your body and its aging.” -- Deepak Chopra
-Cheri
For more tips, personal coaching and more, email cheri@chericoaching.com
Cheri Timmons is a Greensboro Downtown Parks program partner. The work she does with us is critical to providing FREE wellness programming to our park community. As we make our way through these unprecedented times, consider how you might support local Greensboro non-profits like us, as well as local businesses, artists, entrepreneurs like Cheri, makers, and more. We'll continue to bring you free programming through our digital platforms and look forward to having you join us and Cheri back in the parks soon!