Brought to you by the Center for Loss and Life Transition – Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D., Director<\/p>\n
by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWish not so much to live long, but to live well.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Benjamin Franklin<\/em><\/p>\n A simple truth is that from the day we enter into this world, we start to age. To be human means to grow older each day we are on this earth. We begin and we end. However, we have infinite choices about what comes in between.<\/p>\n Our bodies often remind us we are changing long before our minds do (at least that has been the case for me!). Our bodies declare the realities of aging and introduce us to a heightened awareness of our mortality. Even as our bodies speak to us, our contemporary culture\u2019s youth obsession\u00a0screams<\/em>. We worship the idea of perpetual youth, so we struggle against the passage into becoming a \u201csenior citizen.\u201d The huge anti-aging trend reinforces the idea that growing old is to be avoided at all costs\u2014and cost it does!<\/p>\n At our fingertips, we now have Botox shots that paralyze our face muscles so we look more youthful and Restylane injections that fill sags and reduce wrinkles. We have hair-coloring, face-lifting, and teeth-whitening. We have garments that put body parts back where they used to be. We are surrounded by advertising that has us believing we can be \u201cyounger next year\u201d or \u201cregain our youth\u201d or, even better, \u201clive to be 150.\u201d<\/p>\n The result is that ageism is alive and well in North America. Ageism is the term used to describe a societal pattern of widely held devaluative attitudes, beliefs, and stereotypes based on chronological age. If you\u2019re supposed to avoid wrinkles, gray hair, baldness, or anything that suggests you are getting older, how can you embrace the present and grow old gracefully? In a sense, ageism is an attempt to distance oneself from the realities of aging, illness, death, and grief.<\/p>\n Yes, in our culture we tend to avoid the realities of aging, which ultimately leads to the greatest that-which-shall-not-be-named: death. But as long as we internalize and try to live out society\u2019s attempt to go around aging instead of through it, we give up our precious opportunity to have grace and strength in the face of what aging brings into our lives.<\/p>\n I believe that our need to control is what underlies this tendency to \u201cfight\u201d the normal aging process. After all, you don\u2019t have to grieve and mourn if you can stay \u201cin control.\u201d Most North Americans don\u2019t like losing control.<\/p>\n To grieve and mourn the losses of aging<\/strong><\/p>\n Yet even though we struggle for control for as long as we possibly can, aging inexorably brings us loss and grief. We cannot overcome aging and death. As our bodies change, we lose function and, society tells us, beauty. We lose our careers and sometimes our houses, our lifestyles, our finances. Our children grow up and move away. And one by one, our friends and family members begin to take their leave from us here on earth.<\/p>\n Especially in the beginning, the losses of aging can be ambiguous. Many occur over a long duration of time (up to 20 to 30 years or more), go socially unrecognized, and are surrounded by uncertainty. For example, you may have begun to experience short-term memory problems years ago.\u00a0 While these lapses did not radically compromise your ability to function, they may have more subtly affected your ability to communicate with loved ones, participate in social activities, and share intimacy.\u00a0 Relationships and roles, future dreams, and certainly your sense of normalcy may have slowly deteriorated. Or there may have come a time when you could no longer play basketball, run, and do vigorous activities.<\/p>\n You may feel, \u201cI just can\u2019t do so many of the things that I used to be able to do\u201d or \u201cMy mind can no longer work like it used to.\u201d You might feel like you\u2019re not the same person anymore.\u00a0 You may feel like you are still twenty, but your mind may write checks your body cannot cash anymore.\u00a0 What was once normal is now changed.<\/p>\n And so we can\u2019t help but grieve.\u00a0Grief<\/strong>\u00a0is the constellation of\u00a0internal thoughts and feelings<\/em>\u00a0we have when we lose something or someone we love or deeply value. Grief is the anxiety, bewilderment, anger, sadness and other emotions we feel on the inside. We are here to tell you that grief in aging is normal and necessary\u2014so necessary, in fact, that it is only by embracing it that you can go on to live the life you yearn for.\u00a0Mourning<\/strong>\u00a0is this embrace. It is the acknowledgment and\u00a0outward expression of your grief<\/em>.\u00a0 We all grieve as we age, but if we are to live a continued life of confidence, meaning, and grace, we must also mourn.<\/p>\n It is up to you to actively engage in the mourning that aging invites into your life. It is up to you to trust that authentic mourning is how you integrate losses and move through them to what comes next. Then and only then do you have the space for the wisdom that aging urges you to discover and share.<\/p>\n Yes, aging can liberate you from your previous roles and offer you the chance to be authentic, genuine, congruent, and honest. Old age gives you the opportunity to be more of who you\u2019ve always been.<\/p>\n Growing older invites an awareness of your inherent value while recognizing you are so much more than the sum of your accomplishments or your work product. Growing older invites you to remember the gifts you have to offer your family, friends, and the world around you. As your life moves from the \u201cSurf at Waikiki\u201d to \u201cOn Golden Pond,\u201d you have the freedom to befriend your aging, experiment with the 100 ways outlined in this resource, or do nothing at all. While aging is inevitable,\u00a0how<\/em>\u00a0you will age is often largely up to you.<\/p>\n Aging invites you to have\u00a0discernment<\/em>. When you are \u201cdiscerning,\u201d you are using your hard-earned powers of understanding\u2014intellectual, emotional, and spiritual powers\u2014to distinguish what is good for you and what is not; what is helpful versus unhelpful; what is necessary instead of unnecessary. Growing older gives us time to find the natural rhythms that best suit us. Our hope is that this book will help you discern how to re-imagine your final decades not as a time of dismal, depressing decline, but as one of opportunity and fulfillment, one to truly enjoy and even cherish. \u00a0I invite you on this journey to befriend aging to the fullest!<\/p>\n Consider the simple yet profound, words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who reminds all of us:<\/p>\n Age is opportunity no less<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Than youth itself, though in another dress,<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And as the evening twilight fades away<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The sky is filled with<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Stars invisible by day.<\/em><\/p>\n What a gift. I hope this little poem will help you shift your focus away from the mere physical manifestations of aging and toward what cannot be taken away: the love we give and receive from those who have brought meaning and purpose to our lives; the wisdom we have gained as we have grown older; and the capacity to pull back and reflect as we renew our meaning and purpose in each day we have left on this earth.<\/p>\n About the Author<\/strong> Welcome to the Griefwords Online Library Brought to you by the Center for Loss and Life Transition – Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D., Director by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. \u00a0\u201cWish not so much to live long, but to live well.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Benjamin Franklin A simple truth is that from the day we enter into this world, we start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nDr. Alan Wolfelt is a respected author and educator on the topic of healing in grief. He serves as Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition and is on the faculty at the University of Colorado Medical School’s Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Wolfelt has written many compassionate, bestselling books designed to help people mourn well so they can continue to love and live well, including\u00a0Understanding Your Grief<\/em>,\u00a0The Mourner\u2019s Book of Hope<\/em>, and\u00a0Healing Your Grief About Getting Older: 100 Practical Ideas on Aging with Confidence, Meaning, and Grace<\/em>, from which this article was excerpted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Visit www.centerforloss.com to learn more about the natural and necessary process of grief and mourning and to order Dr. Wolfelt\u2019s books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"