Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to The Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host. Today we're going to be exploring secrets to aging gracefully. The beautiful topic I think we'll all enjoy. But before we get started, please consider like sharing and subscribing and also commenting and participating. All of those actions help to get our message out and grow the channel and get other people involved that see the message. And also please consider sharing with your family and friends as well so they can benefit. So today we're talking about secrets to aging gracefully. So the first thing I was thinking about with this is Just like any other place where we want to have transformation, I think it's useful to take a look at what we already think about the topic. So for instance, in terms of aging, what kind of ideas Do I already have about aging before we go there? I just want to say that it's not the typical, you know, I see some people like, well, you know, you just get older and you know, it's fine. Or you see people that are really suffering as they get older, or you see some of the celebrities now coming out, like I'm not getting plastic surgery, I'm going to age, I'm going to age naturally. Sometimes people get plastic surgery for different reasons. Sometimes people really get into health and fitness. Sometimes they don't, sometimes they really suffer. /So one of the things we can do is take a look just for myself. What kind of ideas do I have about aging? How do I feel about my current age? Do I find myself wishing that I was younger? Do I feel like,, I'm happy at my age or do I, am I constantly thinking about body parts and thinking how I'm not happy with them. It's something that we need, we should take a look at because I think that along the way we picked up a lot of habits based on body imaging messages that we received from technology, from media and so forth. Again, I go back to this, the 1800s thing. I don't think anybody in the 1800s was very worried about. wrinkles or anything like that. They were worried about where their meals were coming from,. So I think this is kind of a problem that came, more recently because we don't have as many problems as we had. And so our minds can go off into these different areas. That's not to say it's not valid, but it just to put it in perspective, it's not survival. /Like if I have a wrinkle, it doesn't mean I'm dying, right? So, or if I gain some weight or if I, you know, my hair turns gray or something like that, it doesn't mean I'm dying. It's not a life or death thing, but it is a quality of life thing and it is a, how I feel about myself. I, I do think it's important to be honest about that. So think about the different messages that you have about your body and about aging. Do you think that the body should be a certain shape or should it be bad or thin or whatever it is? And then also about food and about exercise, about health, all the things that you think and also different ages have different requirements, right? In terms of caring for the body. But in this episode, we're talking specifically about getting older. And the second thing I wrote here, are you taking care of your health and what grade would you give yourself in terms of taking care of your health? So the aging, I can't, stop, right? The body has its own timetable and it's going to go through its process. And eventually when it's finished, it, finishes, but, and I can't really do anything about that, but I can do something about the health of the body. I can be cooperative in terms of the health of the body. So what grade would I give myself? in terms of taking care of my health. And the reason that this relates to aging is just like I just mentioned, that different ages have different health requirements, right? So for instance, for myself, I'm 53 years old. And at 53, there are different, you know, after menopause and so forth, as a female, there are different things that are required to pay attention to different metabolic needs, different exercise needs. energy levels, emotions, vitamins, like all kinds of stuff is going on. I have to pay attention to that. Doesn't stop my aging, but part of aging gracefully is to making sure I remain healthy, right? To make sure I remain healthy throughout all the stages of my life. So that's one thing, take a little look and see number one attitudes do I have? So for instance, I'm trying to think of what my attitudes are. I'll tell you what doesn't bother me. So like, you know how women get like, you know, under your arms get a little, you want to say flabby or something like that. That happens because the connective tissue as you age starts to get looser. And for some reason that doesn't bother me, but there would be another part of my body where something does bother me. So like I would be working on that with exercise or whatever, but the point is that it's very individual. Like, one other example is coming to my mind. I used to have, years ago, I used to have like maid service I hired like once a month to come in and clean the house. And I used to tell them put the rag over everything, but when you get to the, the shower, I want you to do like a proper detail. Because for some reason, that shower was going to drive me crazy. if it wasn't perfectly clean. So I think our body is like that in a way that we all have this kind of sensitivity to what, where, what our level of comfort is. And I think we need to be honest about that. If you notice, I haven't gone to the spiritual side of things yet, but what I would like to do is get us talking about the way we feel about our body without judging ourselves about it, without shaming ourselves, without making ourselves feel like it's wrong. It's not wrong. It's how you feel. So maybe take a minute and jot down like how you feel about aging. I don't want to get old. I don't want to get wrinkles. I feel like this. Whatever the feelings are and just write them down so that you know what you're dealing with. Okay. None of it is wrong. None of it is wrong. I recently went through a stage where I was getting my nails done and I never would do that before. I mean, years ago as a teenager, I did it a little bit, but I started getting my nails done. I did it for like a year where I got my nails done and my toenails done and whatever. And I spent the money and normally I wouldn't spend the money on that. And I did it and I did it because I felt like for some reason it was making me feel like I was taking better care of myself. Now somebody might be hearing that and said, how does nails make you feel like it? For some reason it did. And so what I did was I allowed myself to do it. Now I'm not saying go spend money if you don't have it. I had the money so I was able to do it. But then after a year I was like, you know, I don't need this anymore. And as you see, I stopped, right? But what I did do was I took care of myself emotionally. So one thing before we go into the spiritual side of things, I want to say that it's important to give ourselves permission to do whatever feels good to us in terms of caring for myself because that will help me feel better about myself whatever age I am. So let's talk about the spiritual knowledge part of this. Of course we talk about that I'm a soul, right? I'm a spiritual being and the spiritual being does not age, okay? It doesn't have an age. It lives outside of time and space. Now, how does this help us with our aging? Well, it doesn't because the aging happens, but when I keep meditating and keep Thinking to myself, my original nature is peace. My nature is loving. I'm a merciful, benevolent, peaceful being. Then my feelings, I'm beginning to identify myself with feelings of peace and benevolence and mercy and understanding, which then will help me deal with the feelings that I have about aging, right? Specifically the negative pieces, or maybe the times where maybe I feel like I'm struggling with accepting different aspects. I'm talking about body image now, but there are other aspects of aging, maybe family, maybe the kids growing up and leaving, or maybe taking care of elderly parents, maybe health problems, money issues. There's all things that happen during the aging process. I spent a lot of time on the, on the body just now because generally when we say aging gracefully, we're talking about the body. But aging gracefully also involves your life, your whole life, the way you handle your family, your close relationships, your career, the way you deal with your retirement or money and how you live. That's all part of your aging gracefully. The last episode, or a couple of episodes ago, was maintaining my dignity. As I'm growing older, I want to maintain my dignity in all areas. I want to be proud of my whole life. In addition to the paying attention to my, health and my body, I should also be paying attention to these other areas that I'm happy where I live. I'm happy in my relationships. I'm happy, like try to create a holistic, world for yourself that reflects you. I feel like that supports us as we age. You know, I'm reminded of Erickson's stages, the stages of development and he talks about the stage of retirement around that age, getting older is the stage of integrity versus despair. And so I'm going to say integrity in this case would mean that everything about me and everything about my life is reflective of my, of my true self. There's integrity there. Despair would be, it's not the way I want it and I don't feel good about my life. I feel that. If we work on the things that we can manage and can work on, it helps support us when we have to face the things we can't change, right? Like maybe I still feel like right now, I don't, personally, I don't feel that bad about getting older. I feel more important that it's important to stay healthy. Like I would feel worse if I wasn't able to move or take care of myself or things like that. So I'm focused on that right now. But I don't know what happens later. I guess, you know, the body continues to do what it does. But at that time, wouldn't it be good to be able to look at your whole life and look back and say, Yes. I'm happy with that. I'm happy with that. I'm happy with it. It brings peace and contentment to the mind and to the heart, right? So the spiritual knowledge aspect here integrated into that is that number one, I really can't die so that I'm not really aging as a soul. So as part of me, the soul is not aging and I'm watching, I'm watching the body age, right? But we have feelings and we have the mind and we have all these. you want to call them issues, but, but parts of ourselves that aren't quite processed. And as I practice my spiritual practice, my meditation, and I develop this benevolent personality, this benevolent attitude, I can use that benevolent attitude for myself to help me through those rough spots. Because honestly, there is nothing we can do about the body aging, right? I mean, this is something we can't change us. So it's something that can really help us And then I said, balancing old feelings and ideas with the spiritual truth. So how do I balance, okay, I'm a soul and I can't age and my, and I feel like I'm benevolent and I'm a good person and I'm, you know, powerful and, and good and content. How do I balance that with, okay, how am I going to deal with these wrinkles? How am I going to deal with whatever it is that bothers you? Right. Or how am I going to deal with this family member? Or how am I going to deal with this? How do I balance those things? And I'm going to say here, stay authentic, stay authentic. Create a circumstance inside your mind and your life where it's okay for you to tell the truth about how you feel about that thing. It doesn't mean it's always going to be that way. And actually we want it to change, right? We actually want it to change, but I'm going to say that it's not, it's going to be very difficult to change it if you're not honest about it. So even though we're keeping the truth, the real truth over here, the sole truth, it's okay for me to tell the truth about this too. You know, I really need to exercise more because I don't feel good about myself when I'm not healthy and I'm really struggling to work on that. Now the soul doesn't need to exercise. The soul doesn't is, you know, the spiritual side, but, but I want to be peaceful. I want to have integrity. I want to feel good about myself. So I want to work on that. So the balance is be honest about how you feel about these things. Talk to people who can listen to you about it and talk about those things. Give yourself room and take care of your needs. So don't be afraid to take care of those needs as long as it was as long as it's within your means and you're not hurting anybody. Did it hurt anybody that I got my nails done? But it made me feel better. That's just one example. You know, for someone, it might be keeping the house clean for someone. It might be spending more time with grandchildren or spending less time with grandchildren. Not that you would want to spend, but Meaning like maybe there's a boundary to be set or maybe you need to spend more time on your own. So look around and see where is there like a lack of balance? Where am I out of balance? Which area am I? maybe needs to be adjusted so that I can feel really comfortable and good about it. I really feel that living in that way will help us age, help us age gracefully because then I become graceful. Then the body gets to do what it does. And I'm not so focused on it, right? Because my emotional wellbeing is being taken care of. So think about that. The last thing I'm going to add here, I wrote down, always move forward and accept what is. and have gratitude for the body. Gratitude for your body. Just think about that for a minute from a spiritual perspective. The soul is consciousness, like energy, living energy, present, alive, but cannot do anything without a body. Cannot experience, cannot interact, cannot express itself and so forth without a body. So it's like free floating electricity, just an example, like you have free floating electricity and then you have electricity going into a machine. The machine can't work unless the electricity is going into the machine, right? But without electricity, if you unplug the toaster, the toaster isn't going to work, right? The body can't work without the soul. So, and the soul can't express itself without a body. So think about that this week, like, wow, whatever the body looks like, whatever's going on, I can still have gratitude because this body is making it possible for me to live. and interact and express myself and have experiences, right? So if we can work on all those three things at the same time, that would be, I think, ideal. One would be the spiritual thing, like getting to know myself as a soul and my original nature. One is about learning how to balance that life, making sure I'm taking care of myself. And the third is to develop this gratitude, this attitude of respect for the body. And be authentic, I still got to work, I'm not going to lie and say, Oh yeah, the wrinkles are great. I love my wrinkles. No, maybe I don't, but that's okay. I still have gratitude. I'm not going to dismiss the significance and the, of this body just because it's aging just because it's doing what it does. Think about that for a minute, you know, be honest, but also be real also and have gratitude toward the body. So I'll leave it there. I hope that gave a few points to think about maybe a little different than usual. Cause usually we're thinking about. Just the body changes. But I think that if we give a little bit attention to self care, to integrity, creating integrity in my life so that I feel better just generally, and then also having proper gratitude and remembering that spiritual truth and also having gratitude for the body, understanding that I really can't do anything without the body. And thank you. Thank you, body for letting me live here. So I'll leave it there for this time. Remember our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And I hope that this talk was about empowerment, that we achieve a level of contentment about ourself, about our health, about our body, regardless of age. And so thank you so much for joining us until next time, take care. You
