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I often remember the biblical story of the wise man who built his house upon a rock, versus the foolish man, who to save money chose to build his home on sand, without taking into account the consequences of the rains. So when the rains arrived, the house on the rock, because of its solid foundation withstood the lashing and the house on sand came crumbling down.
Based on the truth of the story, its okay to say that the structure or foundation that we set our eating choices and character choices on begins in our youth.
What ingredients are you building your body and mind with?
Throughout our life, we go through phases of likes and dislikes on every front, people, food, conversations, clothes even your hairstyle!
While it’s never too late to begin, as learning ends with your last breath, it’s also very important to balance it all especially as you age as tolerance levels dip rapidly.
It is so easy to get into a conversation about your self, where taboo topics are not affairs or money laundering or scams but, moans and groans that seem to accompany you wherever you go with your ageing body and mind too. These conversations can border on health issues, whiplashing of friends and negative gossip.
We all need to become conscious about what conversations make up the party.
Are they only about your aches and pains?
Is everyone only talking about that and doctors visits the entire meet-up?
Are they around beauty treatments to regress ageing skin and glow?
Are they around exercise routines, spa treatments for a regular R&R experiences?
If you are meeting the same group of friends, or a varied group of friends, to keep yourself uplifted, it is very important to set boundries around the table as to time allotted for conversations that bring the mood of the party down, AKA only discussing aches and pains and what surgery they are planning or recovering from.
You need to call timeout on such conversations
You need to axe them at the right moment without hurting sentiments.
You need to know the art of moving onto lighthearted conversation.
How many of you already observe these rules among your friends?
How do we go about setting these rules or boundaries without offending anyone?
– My friend group has decided on a ten to fifteen minute slot, for everyone to share their aches and pains, ask for doctor recommendations or natural therapies. After the ten minutes, sorry times up! Until we meet again.
It is really important to set boundaries right in the beginning, this way everyone complies.
– It is known that when older adults focus on their aches and pains, they are less likely to share their joys. The sense of gratitude and excitement of living does get pushed to the side if not the back burner. When you see this happening, bring in some humour into the conversation and steer it in another direction, once you get everyone laughing, the drama revolving around aches and pains is axed for the moment at least. You regain your sorry times up! Until we meet again.
– The one thing that does get to older adults once retirement is on the cards is, that life has much less excitement or experiences to talk about everyday. They no longer need to look after their children on a daily basis, the household chores are drastically reduced, so somehow the topic does tend to revolve around doctors visits and less about gratitude. Pipe into those moan-groan conversations with a profound statement, “lets be grateful we are alive today and have made it to the party. Lets celebrate life.” Sorry times up! No more moaning and groaning until we meet again.
In a nut shell —
Know that everyone is lonely and looking to connect.
Everyone does have some ache or pain they are going through, if you have a pain free day or life, uplift someone.
You can be a good listener in private too.
“Touch a heart, Encourage a mind, seek the beautiful things of life and count the blessings of where you are.”
