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It’s WORKING!!

In July I celebrated the second anniversary of Graceing Agefully™. I launched the website two years ago and began to write monthly articles or blog posts. if you are reading this you are one of my “subscribers” and I am so grateful you are part of this community.

Graceing Agefully™ has a mission to “change the culture of aging”. What that means, if it is not clear, is we are TAUGHT to “get it done” while we’re young. Why? Because we are TAUGHT that 50 is the beginning of the end of the road; any age past that is headed downhill to the end.

I envision a world in which aging, particularly getting OLD is anticipated with hopeful curiosity and wonder.

“I WONDER what I will be like when I’m old?”

“I wonder what I can BE in the second half of life?”

These are the questions in the minds when the “culture of aging” has evolved. These are also questions in the minds of people who know they can live and THRIVE to 100+.

This is not true of our culture today.

However, it is true for me today!

I look ahead with curiosity and wonder.

I look ahead with hope and excitement.

It started with an epiphany at 60, realizing I could live to 120 changed me to think I was only halfway! This epiphany shifted my mindset. I began to think about how I was living and what I had experienced in my first 60 years. I thought about what thoughts and emotions dominated my life and why.

The awareness was cultivated by journaling. “Morning Pages”, the gift of Julia Cameron in “The Artist’s Way” was the key to unlocking the vault of awareness.

I used to wake up with a head full of fear and worry. Before I started journaling “morning pages”, that stew of fear and worry drove my actions each day.

Looking back, I can see a scaffolding of resistance I built by acting on my fears and limiting beliefs. Most of my time was spent preventing and avoiding DISASTER.

This may sound melodramatic, but it is TRUE.

I postulate this is true for many of my peers. We don’t recognize how our behavior, particularly our thoughts, INFECT our actions.

I postulate THIS is the problem in our “culture of aging”.

Two years ago I began to build a new scaffolding for myself. I am calling it living a “Well-Integrated Life™”. I am NOT talking about work/life balance. I AM talking about alignment; some call it FLOW.

I’ve been applying this to my life for two years and IT’S WORKING! My program has retrained me to live each day with ease. It is like riding the waves of life as they come and never getting overwhelmed or overtaken by them.

My word of the year for 2024 is ACCEPT. Now that I am more than halfway through the year, i can say ACCEPT has been the most powerful word in my vocabulary of change.

ACCEPT means, go into the darkness. ACCEPT means embrace what you resist. ACCEPT means love over fear and especially myself. ACCEPT means the opinions of others are only their opinions, they don’t change me. I AM what I AM and no longer hiding. I am uncovering, discovering and shining a light on what has been inside me all along.

This process takes time. I NEED to live longer to excavate this treasure. I continually discover new things that have been buried or imprisoned inside. I am eager to get up and dig for more each day.

What’s working? Practicing living a “Well-Integrated Life™” has opened me to opportunities and miracles that come to me easily. It renders me calm in the face of uncertainty. In a word, it is PEACE.

I hear something over and over in my community: “I just want PEACE”. Whether it’s finances or health or the state of the world, I believe this is what we want in our lives.

If you are curious, I will be sharing this program as it unfolds. I will start here on the Graceing Agefully™ and social media.

Be sure to follow me on Graceing Agefully™, the website, on Facebook and on LinkedIn. That’s all for now! Thanks for reading/listening.