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      • Reflections on Living and Dying
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CELEBRATING OUR ELDER YEARS

1/5/2022

9 Comments

 
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Our June Topic of Conversation is the continuation of Celebrating our Elder Years, and we have some beautiful articles for you to read and discover how others celebrate this cycle of life.

To be able to celebrate our elder years, it stands to reason that we must first accept the changes that occur as we age.
 For instance, do you ever find yourself looking in the mirror and missing the youthful face that once looked back at you, or inspecting your arms and thinking they don’t belong to you? “These saggy bits don’t look at all like the arms I’ve lived with for much of my life.” 

​Our body can change shape over the years and not feel or appear to be as lithe or flexible as it used to be, and unless we come to terms with the ageing process and how it unfolds for us, we can find it challenging to celebrate our elder years.


We have a society that is geared toward the young. Most of the images we see in advertising and movies reflect back to us that we have to be youthful to be beautiful. However, have you ever looked into the twinkling eyes of an ageing man or woman who are clearly not fighting the passage of time and you know that there is something else going on there, other than just ageing? They appear to have an inner contentment; they are settled within which allows joy to flow through them enriching all those they meet.

We invite you to share with us on the Conversation page about how you are celebrating your elder years.

9 Comments
Bernadette Curtin
1/5/2022 01:48:50 pm

This topic ‘Celebrating Ageing’ feels like a great opportunity to stop and reflect on the way we are living in our elder years. I appreciate how much I am learning, about life, values, the body, relationships - many things that I took for granted or gave scant attention to as a younger woman. What I am discovering is how we are constantly enriched and expanded when we stay open to what is being offered every day. The daily rituals and/or new experiences, new connections, realisations, offer much to celebrate as we age. As the body registers and notifies us of the changes, the inner life is ageless.

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Gayle
13/5/2022 03:12:19 pm

Bernadette, Your comment is a celebration of ageing. Such wisdom in so few words. Thank you ♥️

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Gill Randall link
2/5/2022 03:41:33 pm

The pictures I had when I was young were that when I aged, I'd stop caring about myself because basically I'd feel past bothering. Nothing can be further from the truth! Ageing gets us to feel how to nurture the body so much more, for example, not to lift something because it's too heavy, or gives us permission to go with whatever we feel to do on any particular day. We may have brought up our children and they've left home so we have more space to focus on ourselves. We can continue engaging in our lives until our very last breath...it's not done until it's done.

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Gayle
13/5/2022 03:10:02 pm

Gill - Thank you for your comment. I just hadn't stopped to put into those words but I totally agree: Ageing gets us to feel how to nurture the body so much more.

In my younger years, I lived in my head, thinking, worrying, thinking some more, never stopping to check in with my body. Oh my, when I look back on it now, I am amazed that my body was able to keep going as it did on so little sleep, working horrendous hours, drinking alcohol, using (what I determined at the time to be safe) re-creation-al drugs, carrying around loads of ideals and beliefs. What an amazing piece of handiwork the human body is! It just keeps on ticking, until it doesn't. And before it quits working completely, we are given the grace of our ageing years, to learn how to self-care, self-nourish, and self-nurture. Taking care of my ageing body feels great and hopefully, living self-love to my last breath, will set the stage for an earlier realisation next lifetime!

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Annie Mack
20/5/2022 02:01:52 pm

One of the things I celebrate as I age, is the fact that I now feel so much freer in my outlook on life. When I was younger I seemed to have so many rules and regulations as to how, when or why things should get done and what they would look like at the end.

It seems the more I age, the more gracious my outlook is on all aspects of my life and others!!

I feel it is so much easier to let go of what used to trap me or should I say trip me up. Instead of the angst that I may have felt, there is now a settlement.

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Sandra Newland
20/5/2022 07:14:10 pm

Annie, I find that too. I am so much more accepting of myself and others and of situations – allowing things to be without trying to control or manipulate things to suit my preference or expectation.
Another thing I appreciate is not having the emotional ups and downs that I had as a younger woman. There is an equilibrium that comes with age – less drama and less emphasis on special moments and more richness derived from simply being.

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Judy Felix
22/5/2022 05:59:51 pm

We tend to think of 'celebrating' as a party, loud voices, noises, the 'bells and whistles' of celebration. But we can celebrate ageing in everyday moments through appreciation – these are the moments of appreciation that I treasure. Appreciation for where we are in our life, appreciation for our health, even if it sometimes demands more attention than when we were youngeer, appreciation for our relationships and the love and connections we have with people every day, saying hello to the people who serve us when we're shopping, the sun on our back and the birds in the sky when we're out walking, and so on. It's those little moments of appreciation that I love and which are so important for our health and wellbeing as we age. We have much to appreciate and it can start by appreciating ourselves.

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Lynne Paull-McLeod
23/5/2022 09:29:50 am

So true Judy, to start by appreciating myself has been a big shift from how I was in my youth. Becoming more accepting of myself as I age brings with it a deep settlement and that is definitely worth celebrating, an appreciation for who I am within.

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Gayle
25/5/2022 01:05:04 pm

I find so much to celebrate as I age. I love being over the drive and push of life, I love being in the repose phase of life. Don't get me wrong, I'm still gardening, still taking care of a big house. I have a more active social life than ever before because I have 'time' to go to lunches and shared dinners. But I'm no longer driven - with ideals and opinions, judgements, conviction, expectations. As Annie says above, we are so much freer as we age.

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