​We would love to hear from you about what connection is for you – is it something you are aware of and actively practise, and if you’ve experienced loneliness, how did you overcome it?    

We know that loneliness has tended to be a significant factor of growing older for many elders and can be the result of situations such as one’s own ill health or that of a partner, or impaired mobility. It can also be a period where the network of family and friends has diminished due to having to manage their own ageing issues. All of which can result in a sense that our world or lifestyle sphere has become smaller, less safe and out of touch with the world outside our door.
 
In her article, Loneliness as We Age, Lynne talks about her mother’s loneliness during the early stages of dementia and how a sense of purpose gave her mother a reprieve, ‘Spending time with this gorgeous old woman, who was always pleased to see her, gave Mum a purpose for her day so she felt better and the depression and loneliness lifted a lot. Within roughly eight weeks, the old lady had died and Mum drifted back into her sadness again and her depression and loneliness came back and she’s not ventured into reaching out to others in that way again.

For some it may involve being in nature or making time to do something you’ve always loved but felt you couldn’t or shouldn’t prioritise. Rosemary has written an article ‘Looking Everywhere to Find Myself’  in which she shares that she chose to write a book about her search for the real meaning of Life.
 
Could it be that to ‘find oneself’ it may be as simple as listening to our own body and allowing the impulses within to guide us with everything we do in life, from the most difficult situations to the mundane everyday tasks such as how to breathe,  what food is most nourishing for our own body,  when and how to exercise and when to rest. Is it possible that by not allowing the mind to override our bodily wisdom we then have more clarity and a deeper sense of who we are?
 
There is, of course, a myriad of paths one can take to truly find the Inner Self.
 
In the May Conversation, Gayle commented,  “…..I've tried many, many, MANY ways of finding myself. Most of the time, it didn't work. And the times that I thought something worked, it didn't really last! I am finally on the right track because every day I feel like I am living more of my True Self. I'm quite dedicated to a journey of evolving and expanding my consciousness in order to find my true self.”
 
We look forward to you posting what finding yourself means to you – was it a life-time search or was it something you delved into in your elder years?
​
Let’s continue this very meaningful and relevant topic that will bring many new insights into our current topic of ‘Finding Myself Within’.

​Accepting or Adapting . . . do these two words conjure up a different meaning for many of us?  Do they necessarily follow on one after the other?

If we understood that everything in our existence is transitory, then we would be able to accept that changes to the way we live and our relationships with family and friends will not remain fixed. Accepting life’s changes is one thing, but is adapting to the change sometimes put in the ‘too-hard’ basket? 
 
What do we mean by being adaptable? Is it just allowing flexibility and a willingness to try a different way, responding with a different attitude, or to solve a problem without any angst or anxiousness? Perhaps you would like to share with us how you have adapted to the changes in your life.
 
In her article, Flexibility and Adaptability to Change, Bernadette expressed: 

Change ushers in the new, it feels like an expansion and a step into the unknown. To be in the flow of life with the changes enables more steadiness and appreciation for whatever each new day brings.
 
Our topic of conversation for this month is an opportunity for our readers to comment on how they have adapted to changes in their lives. We invite you to share your experiences of how adaptability has shaped the way you live, and how you have accepted and responded to changing circumstances in your life.

​There was no waiting for the first day of the first month of the new year to make the changes, they answered their own personal call to do so at the time of their realisations. Everyone knows what is good for them and what is not, simply because we feel when something is wrong, either it is our body displaying some discomfort, illness or disease or it is our moods and troubling thoughts. We cannot escape that knowing, but we can ignore, numb and deny it – but only for a while – because it will inevitably catch up with us.
 
Reading the male perspective of wanting to make changes in their lives is thought provoking, especially as men usually are reticent about acknowledging they feel their life is not as meaningful as they would like it to be.
 
Our Conversation for February is asking our readers to comment on their experiences with coming to the end of a cycle and beginning a new one. You don’t have to post a comment from the male perspective, however, if you do have a story to tell about the man in your life making changes and starting a new cycle, we feel our readers would enjoy reading it.

​In essence everyone knows what is good for them and what is not, simply because we feel when something is wrong, either it is our body displaying some discomfort, illness or disease or it is our moods and troubling thoughts. We cannot escape that knowing but we can ignore, numb and deny it – but only for a while – because it will inevitably catch up with us at some point. 

This first month of the new year is often a time when we are willing to examine ourselves more deeply.
 
We would like to hear from you whether you feel there is something about this first month of the new year that feels more significant? Why is it that many of us are prompted by the ‘New Year’ to take stock and get an overview of our life? Is it because we have  sense of it being the end of a cycle and the beginning of another? If so, why do we wait until the new year to start a cycle when every day, every moment is the opportunity for a new beginning?
​
Our Topic of Conversation for January is asking our readers to comment on their experiences with coming to the end of a cycle and beginning a new one.

​If you are someone who makes New Year’s Resolutions have they worked for you or have you found it hard to carry them through? What has supported you to commit to the changes you felt to make in your life? 

We invite you to share your comments  by clicking on the comments button below.​  ​

If we understood that everything in our existence is transitory then we would be able to accept that changes to the way we live and our relationships with family and friends will not remain fixed in any way. We would then be more open to accepting the changes that signal to us that impermanence is part of the natural flow of life.
 
But how often do we hear the saying, “I hate change . . . I wish things could always stay the same’!
 
When we are not willing to accept change, it may be that we are feeling anxious about the future, or that we are clinging to our need for stability and security.

Do we have an inbuilt trait to want to control life’s happenings?
 
Our topic of conversation for this month is an opportunity for our readers to comment on how we feel about the impermanence of life. We invite you to share your experiences of how impermanence has shaped the way you live, and how you have responded to changing circumstances in your life.

​This month we continue with our topic of conversation  'Our Future, Let’s Celebrate,' and we are keen to hear from our readers what you see there is to celebrate in your Elder Years.

When we were younger celebrating might have been something exciting like a birthday party with all its ‘bells and whistles’, or it might have been any event that was exciting and stimulating – usually needing ‘others’ to join in the celebration. Now in our elder years ‘celebrate’ has taken on a deeper meaning: to honour, observe, recognise, acknowledge and appreciate the beauty of us being in ‘Full Bloom’.

Before posting a comment you may like to read our new  article on the Wisdom of Elders page, 'Beauty in Full Bloom'.

To add to the conversation, please click on the 'Comments link' below the 'Like' Button.

It is really important, as we move into our elder years, to give our life meaning and to stay committed to living a fully engaged life.   

Learning and growing is not just the domain of the young, we are just as capable, if not more, of beginning a new phase in learning and growing in our elder years. This is the time when we can explore more deeply what interests us and all those things that we would have loved to have done that we had previously been too busy to include in our life.  

All of this contributes to us having a beautiful purpose as we age by developing a deeper understanding and realisation of what life has to offer us. 

It is up to us to change the pictures and labels that we may be carrying around ageing, and to alter the reality of how many of the aged are treated, so that we are setting the model for generations coming after us. We invite you to share with us how you are remaining committed to living a fully engaged life.  Perhaps you would like to share how you are learning and growing through exploring more deeply what you had previously been too busy to include in our life. We look forward to reading your comments.

Before posting any comments if you have not already done so, you may also like to read the new article this month 'What Does Our Future Hold Part 3: How Can we Prepare for Our future?'

Whilst longer life spans are on the increase, and though we may celebrate this, is this really a good statistic, or is it that most older people are simply living longer in poor health and needing nursing home care for the later years of their life?
​
How do you feel about this topic, ‘What Does the Future Hold’ for our elder generation and what are your experiences and ponderings as to how you will contribute to changing the present paradigm held by society?

Before posting any comments if you have not already done so, you may also like to read last month's article 'Ageing in Society - What Does our Future Hold?' and the new article this month '​​What Does Our Future Hold?  Part 2: Empowerment for Elders'.

​Some days are really bad and it is challenging for a carer to watch a loved one in distress not knowing if they are going to die today, tonight, in a few months, or in a year’s time. 
 
The carer needs to take great care to support their body because they have to be fit enough to handle these emotional ups and downs as well as being physically fit to do all the necessary tasks.
 
The more carers can support themselves, the more easily they can cope with the challenges each day presents.

​Please join our conversation topic for this month and share any experience where you have  been in the situation of caring for a sick or dying person and if so, how did you cope?

You may also like to read this month's articles 'Good Days and Bad Days' and 'No True Care without Self Care'.

Image has become more and more important not only for women but for men as well. We are often judged by how we look, and we judge ourselves by comparing ourselves with others, and in doing so, many negative and harmful comments can be made, even in jest, that we can have deep reactions to. 
 
Our self-worth should not be influenced by any comment made from others, or even from ourselves, judging us from the outside.
 
Our new topic of conversation is Self-worth and Damning Messages. 

If you have had to live with negative comments from a period earlier in your life that have come back to play on your mind and within your body, this topic provides an opportunity to share your experience. Through expression we have the chance to let go of these hurts and claim that our true beauty lies within our essence.

Please join our conversation topic for this month and share any experience where you have  allowed yourself to be effected by negative comments from others.

​ Is vitality intrinsically linked to our well-being?

The statistics show that as a population, humanity is not doing so great when it comes to well-being, as up to 80% of the top five causes of death can be related to our lifestyle – that means they happen because of how we live. Or to put it another way: how we live and the choices we make every day affect our health and well-being which in turn affects our vitality levels. Does this mean that there is 80% of the population living without a sense of vitality in their daily lives?

These statistics are pointing to a very serious problem if many elders are living with a debilitating lack of vitaliy!

So, what does living with vitality mean to us in our elder years?  Is good vitality the result of us choosing to eat nutritious meals? Is it related to our lifestyle – that it is the result how we live? OR, could our vitality levels be the result of more than just eating and living healthily?  

Could there be a deeper explanation of why some people live with ongoing vitality and others struggle with life and have lesser vitality to enjoy their lives?

Please join our conversation topic for this month and share with us what you feel living with vitality means in your day to day life.

It is being proven that people who have one or more good friends are in better health than those who have only casual acquaintances or no friends. There are many studies showing the positive benefits of friendship on social, emotional and physical well-being. Having a strong circle of friends can be a good boost for ageing hearts and can help the body’s autoimmune system resist disease.

Casual friendships can help, but one very close friend can do so much to help relieve stress and depression as a close friendship provides emotional support as friends are relied on to give comfort, help and to share and inform each other of things that are happening in their lives.

In addition to emotional support, friendship can help enrich a person’s physical, mental and social health and help us adjust to changes through the rewarding and challenging times of life.
​
In our conversation comments this month we would love to hear from you about your experience with a friendship or friendships – are they important and do you have a story to tell?

What are the consequences of the choices we make in life – does the quality of whatever we have chosen to engage with affect other people or do they just affect ourselves personally?  What is the full impact on the many relationships we live with daily if we live irresponsibly?

If responsibility pertains just to the self, are we then responsible for what we choose to associate with, who we choose to surround ourselves with, what we choose to give our attention to, even what we choose to fill our minds with? In honestly looking into how our choices can have a significant effect on the way we express and relate to others, we can see the impact of how the life we lead will impact on all others around us.

There are so many questions for everyone to personally ponder on, with utmost responsibility, we can also ask ourselves the question, does the quality of whatever we have chosen to engage with affect other people?

Very simply, there are two ways we can choose to live responsibly; either we can live with an energy that carries the quality of love, equality and harmony with all, which could be defined as a ‘good’ type of energy, or conversely, an energy that carries the quality of harm, imposition and separation, which could be defined as a ‘bad’ type of energy.
​
Once we get our heads around the truthful fact that how we express, act and think, carries an energetic quality that is either harming or healing, we can begin to understand the enormity of the responsibility that lays with each and every one of us in the way we express in our daily lives.

We invite you to join our conversation and share what responsibility means to you.