04_16_2018

Do Your Perceptions of Aging Work for You or Against You?

I just finished listening to a meditation guided by Deepak Chopra.  The meditation titled “The Key to Positive Input” pointed out that allowing negative input into our consciousness ultimately has a negative impact on our mind, body, and spirit.

Chopra often points out that the negative impact he is referencing is seldom of a catastrophic nature.  Instead, it’s more frequently a series of smaller items that add up and reach a tipping point that moves the needle of our perceptions to a negative space.

While Chopra didn’t point this out, I would add that  the negative input often originates within each of our internal caches of un-examined or unconscious thoughts and beliefs. For example, we may find ourselves in a setting or situation where our egos engage in the “comparative” mode, ranking some aspect of ourselves with others on a particular topic.  Perhaps having lunch with friends, you observe that everyone else at the table appears thinner than you do.  This observation may lead to awakening those negative chirping choruses that repeatedly remind you that you would look a lot better if you lost 10 pounds.

We all know how these negative voices can add up without our being fully aware of their gaining momentum, and as a result, we can start to feel very negative about our bodies and ourselves.  Wisely Chopra points out, we seldom are successful in effecting change in our lives if our efforts are stemming from negative internal voices.  Instead, the most positive motivation comes from being inspired to bring about change in order to experience more balance in our lives.

A friend of mine introduced me to one of her favorite sayings related to this discussion.  It went something like this:  “I woke up one morning and I felt like I had been hit with the ugly stick.”  Ugh, what a way to start your day and what an awful way to converse with oneself!  Doesn’t it sound more positive and helpful to have a self-conversation along these lines: “Gee, when I stop and think about it, I have become so absorbed in work lately that I haven’t spent much time taking care of myself.    It’s time for a haircut, maybe some new clothes, and some investment in my energy and positive outlook.”

The ego loves to make comparisons of our life with the lives of others.   Comparisons can be helpful if we do them as a way of taking stock of our own lives, BUT we need to be mindful of the way in which we summarize those comparisons.  We are each responsible for the INPUT that we choose to let in.  One of my take aways from this meditation was to spend some time checking my beliefs about the aging process, and then to determine where these beliefs originated.  Here’s my list at this point in time.

Beliefs/Perceptions about Aging

By checking in with my own beliefs about the aging process, I am more easily able to focus on the positive aspects of aging.  Just so you don’t dismiss my outlook as too Pollyanna, I do in fact recognize and experience that there are physical aspects of aging.  But I also recognize that there are things I can do to help slow down these physical issues and in some instances, I may be able to stabilize or reverse some of the physical challenges or possibly find ways to compensate for them.

This Spring as I set about putting down mulch in my garden beds, I purchased multiple bags of mulch from my local garden center.  I’ve always thought the smallest bags (2 cubic feet) were heavy to carry, but this Spring they seemed even heavier to me.  The shape and the packaging don’t help as the bags are extremely awkward to carry.

So, while I found myself tempted to go to the negative space of telling myself that I wouldn’t be able to do this work much longer, I decided to flip my point of view.  I started listing what I could do to both build my upper body strength and what could I do to compensate in the meantime.

Two ideas came to mind:

• Noticing the feeling that the bags were getting heavier – which probably means my upper body strength is decreasing, I decided it was time to make engaging in resistance training at the gym a high priority for the next few months.  Side note – I’ve belonged to the same gym for many years, but I move in and out of the types of activities I engage in.  I need to refresh  or re-engage my liking for resistance training.  I’ve never worked with a personal trainer, but maybe it’s time to get some professional direction on how I can best increase my upper body strength. I’ll let you know how it goes, including the “tricks” or “motivators” I employ to assist me in sustaining my current motivation.
• My other thought was to borrow a wheelbarrow from a friend so that I could wheel the heavy bags to the points where I wanted to spread the mulch. I followed through on this idea, and it definitely made the process easier.

I encourage you to sit quietly and to create your own list about your beliefs about aging.  Send me your list if you are so inclined so that I can share your thoughts with others.  I plan to revisit my list from time to time to see if my beliefs change with time.  Checking in allows us to take charge of the input that we are allowing to influence how we think and feel.  I hope creating your own list proves helpful to you!