Make this Next Decade Your Best Decade
In Our Prime: How to Age Well
It seems fitting at the year comes to a close to take a deeper, compassionate look at the process of aging and what it means for effectively managing your fibromyalgia.
Let’s consider what it would take for this next decade of your life to be your best decade.
Have you ever felt that your chronic illness makes you invisible, that you are just not seen? Chronic illness can make us feel we have been robbed of our life.
I have noticed that growing older can make us feel invisible also.
It’s like we have reached our expiration date and we are no longer good for much, so we are overlooked and ignored.
If we want to age well it is important to have a plan to do so. Yes, having fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses makes aging more challenging but as my client Sue said, “You can do it if your reach out for help.”
The society in which we live devalues and diminishes the value of older women. It is a great loss indeed for the women themselves and for our culture at large because we are in desperate need of hard-won feminine wisdom.
The archetypal image of the aging crone is off putting to many in its traditional portrayal of a toothless, bent and grasping old woman.
How we need images of older women, vibrant and flourishing, giving and receiving love and wisdom to inspire us and show us the way forward.
As we age, we can draw on our decades of experience, and learning. We have overcome many challenges and we may have the scars to prove it.
As I worked with Sue, we explored strategies to develop her healthcare team, manage stress, to improve her diet, her sleep, her exercise and her mindset. She made a commitment to be active and engaged in a purposeful way in her community, determined to feel her best.
Making healthy lifestyle choices is critical to managing fibromyalgia effectively and living well as we grow older.
Here are some examples of lifestyle choices the women I work with are making for their health and happiness.
- Choosing to retire from a demanding job and to take the time needed to rest and recover.
- Choosing to leave a toxic workplace and find a similar job but with much more supportive management.
- Choosing to give up or greatly reduce intake of alcohol, sugar, dairy and gluten.
- Letting go of toxic relationships. Cultivating healthy relationships through active involvement in community groups. Maintaining old friendships and developing new ones.
- Joining exercise groups/finding a walking buddy. Investing in in home exercise equipment.
- Spending time in nature: meditating, walking, hiking, biking, camping.
- Investing time in creative hobbies of all kinds.
- Seeking therapy to heal from trauma, grief and loss, to recover from anxiety and depression, to improve relationships.
- Moving to another region where the climate supports their overall well-being.
- Becoming a snowbird. Oh, that’s me!
Do some of these choices seem radical to you?! They are.
I am the first to admit how astonished to have a thriving coaching business my later sixties. I too had bought into the attitude that women’s vital years are over as their youth fades.
With women living longer, several women in my family have lived into their nineties. It is within the realm of possibility that I could live another 30 years. Dare I believe that these could be years of growth and productivity?
When I was going through my intensive healing from trauma in my early thirties, I remember telling my therapist that I felt like a weeping willow tree bowed down with sadness and despair that the future would hold anything but hardship.
He chided me for my somewhat melodramatic and pessimistic outlook and challenged me to rethink the type of tree I wanted to identify with.
Shortly thereafter, in an imaginal visioning process, I visualized a tall, broad, abundantly leafed oak tree with deep roots and offering cool and comforting shade.
That still small inner voice of inner wisdom whispered to me, “That’s you. Someday you will be like an oak tree full of shade and strength, for others to rest in and regain their health and well-being and find their purpose.”
Most of the women I work with, but not all, are in their fifties and sixties, some are younger, some are older. Many come to me for guidance and support as they are turning fifty or sixty.
They have a deep internal sense that they want these decades of their life to be ones of significance and purpose. Often, their fibromyalgia is not well managed despite their best efforts, and they know they need to do something different to live the lives they want to live.
Through the coaching process I help them get in touch with their “Big Why”, their motivation to make changes so that they are in charge of their fibromyalgia, rather than letting fibromyalgia take over their lives.
The oldest woman I worked with, a dear lady named Sue, was almost 80 years old during the time she participated in my coaching program.
I asked her, “What would you say to older people who want to feel better?” Without skipping a beat, she said, “If you have a plan and you work it daily, you can do it if you reach out for help. It is too hard to do by yourself.”
Wise words.
Ahh, this potent vision still holds power for me and it has been a guiding light to me over the decades of my life and continues to illuminate my hopes and dreams as I grow older.
Mary Pipher, clinical psychologist and well-known author of Reviving Ophelia, explores the joys and challenges of being a woman in her seventies in her book Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age. Thanks to my client, Kelly, for mentioning this book to me!
She asserts, “A developmental perspective in our sixties and seventies allows for a new openness in our hearts and minds… Yet, in this developmental stage, we are confronted by great challenges. We are unlikely to escape great sorrow for long.”
Pipher continues, “We all suffer, but not all of us grow. Those of us who grow do so by developing our moral imaginations and expanding our carrying capacities for pain and bliss. In fact, this pendulum between joy and despair is what makes old age catalytic for spiritual and emotional growth.” [1]
She also writes in her New York Times article, “The Joy of Being a Woman in Her 70s”:
“We’ve lived through seven decades of our country’s history.”
“By the time we are 70, we have all had more tragedy and more bliss in our lives than we could have foreseen. If we are wise, we realize that we are but one drop in the great river we call life and that it has been a miracle and a privilege to be alive.”
Our happiness is built by attitude and intention. Attitude is not everything, but it’s almost everything.
We may not have control, but we have choices. With intention and focused attention, we can always find a forward path. We discover what we are looking for. If we look for evidence of love in the universe, we will find it. If we seek beauty, it will spill into our lives any moment we wish. If we search for events to appreciate, we discover them to be abundant.
There is an amazing calculus in old age. As much is taken away, we find more to love and appreciate.
Older women have learned the importance of reasonable expectations. We know that all our desires will not be fulfilled, that the world isn’t organized around pleasing us. We know that the joys and sorrows of life are as mixed together as salt and water in the sea. We don’t expect perfection or even relief from suffering.
“The only constant in our lives is change. But if we are growing in wisdom and empathy, we can take the long view.” [2]
Exercises for Making this next Decade Your Best Decade
As you consider how to make the most of this next season of your life, it can be helpful to set aside some time to have a mini-retreat with yourself before the new year, to think about what you want to focus your energy in the coming years.
One of my favorite exercises to gain clarity is called, Past, Present, and Future. Get a blank sheet of paper and divide it into thirds. Title each third with the following headings. Then write a sentence or two in each section and sketch a drawing to illustrate your answer. Ask yourself:
Past: Where Have I Been?
Present: Where Am I Now?
Future: Where am I Going?
What is your main takeaway? What is one small step you can put into action today?
My lovely client, Lisa, from Indiana, had these answers:
Where Have I Been? In a downward spiral with a picture of an arrow pointing down a staircase.
Where Am I Now? On a journey to wellness but feeling stuck and stagnated with a picture of a staircase going up that morphs into a straight line going nowhere in particular.
Where Am I Going? In an upward spiral of flourishing and thriving with a picture of a double staircase going up and up.
Another exercise for your end of the year clarity retreat is to create a Highs and Lows Timeline over the Decades:
This exercise was adapted from an annual examen guide published by Anam Cara, a ministry devoted to spiritual direction. An examen prayer is an ancient practice of the church meant to be a review of where we have experienced God in our days as well as where we might have missed God.[3]
List the decades of your life on the left side of a sheet of paper and then list several highs and lows from each season on the right side of the paper.
After you have completed each decade of your life go back choose a word or an image or a symbol that encapsulates the theme of that decade.
You can do this exercise in a playful way or you can do it from a spiritual perspective by zooming in and asking yourself the following questions: In these past decades for what do I find myself most thankful for? Where have I felt deep joy? What has been unsettling or upsetting? What has been a challenge or a struggle? When did I experience stopping and resting?
Now, zoom out for a broader perspective as you meditate or pray over these questions: What shall my focus be for the upcoming year, for the upcoming decade? Are there blessings or challenges ahead? Are there relationships, habits, learnings that I am being invited to or out of? Perhaps you can use your active imagination to visualize what it would be like to age well and flourish as you manage your chronic illness.
Could you use some help with this? You are welcome to schedule a time with me for a free end of the year mini-clarity retreat. I would be happy to lead you in these exercises and discuss with you whether or not working with a coach like me could help you make this next decade your best decade.
It’s easy to schedule a time to talk HERE.
References:
[1] Pipher, Mary. Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age. 2019. Bloomsbury Publishing. New York, New York.
[2] Pipher, Mary. “The Joy of Being a Woman in Her 70s” January 13, 2019. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/opinion/sunday/women-older-happiness.html
[3] https://anamcara.com/spiritual-direction/
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