The Power of Perspective: Attitudes about Aging

Hello and welcome to Hey,Boomer. My name is Wendy Green, and I am your host for Hey, Boomer. And Hey, Boomer is the podcast where we go beyond the surface, sharing real talk about aging well, and today we are going to talk about perceptions around aging. So I want to tell you about an incident that happened a couple weeks ago. I was with some girlfriends, and we were celebrating the 67th birthday of one of my friends. It was a gorgeous spring day, absolutely perfect, translucent blue sky. It was incredible and wonderful for sitting outside.

And eventually the conversation turned to what terms we would use to describe this age of our lives. We all agreed that the term seniors was not one that we liked. That is what our parents were when they joined AARP and when they started getting senior discounts. I remember my dad loved going to McDonald's to get his senior cup of coffee. One of the women at the table didn't like the labels at all. You know, that I call my show hey, Boomer. And we have the boomers, and we have Gen X and millennials and the silent generation. And none of those categories or names made sense to her.

But in reality, those labels really represent demographic data. They represent the years that we were born, and they're used for a lot of analysis about what happened during those years and how the population responded to that. And so they were created, really, by researchers for making sense of those different cohorts. But it is true, as she said, that not all boomers think alike. Not all millennials think alike. So there is some discrepancies in lumping us all together. But anyway, I suggested, what about a term like aging? Nobody liked that. I said, what about older adults? Maybe that was a possibility.

We all were a definite no on being called elderly. But elders felt okay. You know, we kind of associated with elders with being wiser. But the general feeling of the group was that they felt that as they got older, they were more dismissed, talked down to, referred to as honey or sweetie by cashiers. And for those reasons, they did not like the idea of claiming their age or accepting any terms that might indicate that we are getting older. These are my friends, remember? And I talk about embracing our age. I talk about we're never too old. I talk about aging well.

So that inspired me to do this episode today and talk about our perceptions, and not just our, our perceptions of ourselves, but also how we think the rest of the world perceives us. Before I get any further into us, I want to take a quick break to recognize a couple of our sponsors.

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Okay, so let's talk about our perspective on aging and ageism. So I've been involved in the struggles of human rights and women's rights and children's education and voter rights for years.

Taking on ageism was not something that was in my plan. In fact, I was ageist myself without realizing it. When my parents moved into a continuing care community almost 20 years ago, I was uncomfortable. Every time I would go to visit their dining room, I would see older people with walkers. I would see older people in wheelchairs. I would see older people looking frail. And all I could think of was, oh gosh, please don't let that be my future. The thought of being old and disabled made me anxious.

Some people would call that ableist, the fact that I associated disability with being old, but to me it was all the same. I equated old and disabled, and I did not like that picture. Like most of you, I was born in between 1946 and 1964, and we were going to be forever young. As Bob Dylan reminded his song.

May God bless and keep you always. May your wishes all come true. May you always do for others and let others do for you. May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every road. May you stay forever young forever young forever you may you stay forever.

Thank you, Bob Dylan, for being such a beautiful poet and for that song. I also am sure all of you remember our mantra, don't trust anyone over 30. That certainly was part of growing up in the boomer generation. And there was the who. Remember the who? They sang my generation where they said, I hope I die before I get old.

Just because we get around talking about my generation of my generation baby why don't y'all fail when I tear?

Yeah. So it's no wonder with forever young and I hope I die before I get old and never trust anyone over 30. It's no wonder we have internalized the idea that aging equals old, and that is not something that we see or saw in our future. The problem is that we have taken this belief into our fifties, sixties, and seventies, and the belief, the perception of aging is hurting us. Doctor Becca Levy from Yale University has shown that believing negative aging stereotypes can actually harm people's physical and mental health as we get older. These findings suggest that negative age stereotypes undermine people's motivation and undermine their desire to engage in behaviors that can actually optimize healthy aging. On the other hand, Doctor Levy's research also shows that having positive aging beliefs can add up to seven years to your life. This is most demonstrated in countries like Japan, which has the longest lived population in all the world.

In Japan, older people are celebrated and revered. Do you remember Willard Scott, the beloved former weatherman on the Today show? He used to have so much fun recognizing the birthdays of centenarians. You don't see that anymore. We just don't celebrate aging now. And interestingly, ageism has become more prevalent since the pandemic, probably because it affected so many older people. But the good outgrowth of that has been more podcasts and blogs and organizations working to raise awareness about ageism. So what are some of the things that we fear about aging? Well, you know, the commercials all tell us to fear the wrinkles on our faces. We fear pain, illness, cognitive decline, loss, the loss of loved ones, the loss of purpose or meaning, loneliness, or maybe the fear of running out of time.

I was looking back over some things I had written ten years ago, and I came across something I wrote that started out with anxiety about turning 61. This year, I will be turning 71. When I wrote about how I was feeling about turning 61, I saw that I was focusing on things that had not turned out the way I thought they would or the way I thought they should. And I realized that part of our nature is to dwell on the challenges and what is hard and not working. I also realize that the more I focus on those things that are hard and not working, the larger they become in my perception. And so I decided to make a conscious effort to turn this around. And I decided in my 61st year to begin a year of living gratefully. I was going to write every day about things I was grateful for and also notice if focusing on gratitude was helping to turn my perception from challenges to possibilities, from sadness to inner peace.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you and give thanks continuously. He also said, because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude. What? What does he mean that I should focus on and be thankful for things that seem hard and uncomfortable? Well, as I thought about that question and his quote, the answer I came to is yes, the things that are hard or uncomfortable are learning opportunities if we look at them that way. So of course I would be grateful for opportunities to learn even while I was not necessarily enjoying the learning process. So what were some of the gratitudes I wrote down at 61? Well, I wrote that I was grateful for music. When I feel down, I have realized that if I turn on the music, it lifts my spirits. It works every time. I wrote that, I was grateful for good shady parking spots in South Carolina summer.

When you find a shady spot, that is something to be grateful for. I am grateful for learning opportunities. Back when I first wrote about this, I was grateful for all I was learning about coaching, listening, asking good questions, getting my clients to a deeper understanding. Now, as the host of hey Boomer, I'm grateful for all the technology I have learned. I'm grateful for listening and learning and being curious with my guests. I also wrote about confidence and I am grateful to be growing more confident. I really have recognized that this has served me well since I started the show as I have reached out to potential guests that I didn't know and many of them said yes to being on the show. Is that confidence or bravery? Or maybe a bit of both? I wrote about being grateful for time spent with my children and grandchildren.

Those are some of my precious moments. I also wrote about simple things like warm showers and hot coffee, a good book and a glass of wine, and of course, gratitude for my family and my good friends. I didn't make the full year of writing every day, but I still find this practice valuable and useful, especially when I feel fearful or sad or uncertain. In coaching, we have a practice where we ask clients to write down three things a day that they're grateful for anything, big or small. The practice of gratitude will help you shift your perspective. It is not always easy to find something to be grateful for when you're feeling down. You may just realize that you're grateful for not having to think of more than three things. But I promise you, over time it will make difference.

Why not try it? Try it today. Let me know what you think. Let me know what your three things are. I want to switch for a moment and talk about resilience. Resilience is the ability to adapt and bounce back from adversity, and it's a skill that can be cultivated at any age. By this time in our lives, we all have developed some resilience. We have experienced highs and lows of life, and we have recovered to live another day. But I also think that simply recovering may not be fully living.

So I wanted to share a few tools with you to help you nurture your resilience. The first has to do with relationships and cultivating them. We've had several guests talk about the importance of friendships. Remember Joyce Laverde? She wrote the book who will take care of me when I'm old? She reminded us that at some point we may all become solo agers, and the quality of our relationships will be even more important. By then, she said, we hear a lot about technology, right? And everybody's looking at a phone and thinking about getting an app and all that. But I've never seen a robot in a hospital waiting room. Never. We need our friends and our family of choice, and we need them to be there for us.

But this goes both ways. It means that we also need to be there for them. So cultivating relationships is a big part of building your resilience. Practicing gratitude is also important. As I said before, focus on the positives in your life and express gratitude daily. Maybe keep a gratitude journal or just reflect on what you're thankful for. That can definitely shift your perspective. My partner and I share what we're grateful for each evening when we talk.

Some days it's profound, and other days it's a struggle to find something. But the awareness keeps us focused on what we can appreciate about life. Like, for instance, yesterday I realized I was in the shower, warm water running down my back, and I was turning my head from side to side, and I was like, oh, no pain. I was grateful that I was not having any pain in my neck that day, that moment, anyway. So practice gratitude and stay active, engaging in regular physical activity. Even if it's just a daily walk or gentle stretching, exercise boosts your mood, it reduces stress, and it promotes overall well being. Heike Yates, who joined us a couple of episodes ago. She's the health coach and Pilates instructor.

She spoke honestly with us. She said, look, we're getting older. Our bodies, our joints, our muscles, they're starting to break down a little bit. But we can be proactive about doing what we can do to stay active. Heike reminded us that if it doesn't make you happy, what you're doing, and you're going to slug through it, you're not going to want to do it very much. So you, you want to pick something, pick anything. But pick something and start with that and see if that's the one that makes you happy. If not, pick something else.

But stay active, pursuing your passions and finding purpose. Now, you know, we've talked a lot about that on hay boomer over the last four years. Purpose gives meaning to our lives. One of my purposes is to make an impact, to make a difference in people's lives. This is what gets me going every day when I work on the podcast and do my writing. Do you remember our guest, Eric Severson? He was a guest in October last year, and he said, I think it's our mindset, how we look at our reality in front of us. We're going to create exactly the reality that we're picturing. He says, if I'm ready to retire and I'm picturing sitting on a beach for hours on end every single day, that's likely what's going to happen instead.

If I'm picturing writing a book or creating a podcast in my time, after retirement, in my recreation of myself, very likely that will happen, too. And there's no right or wrong. I mean, whatever works for you is what's right. As long as you're maintaining healthliness and finding a purpose and a passion. But he said, from my humble expression experience, I think choosing things that really get us to communicate our passions to other people and to be willing to learn from, from other people, those are two key ingredients to feel excited about waking up every day. And that's important. Having a reason to get up every day is a big part of our resilience as we face some of life's challenges and finally ask for help. So let me share one more story with you.

Okay. All right, so one more story. This story will give you more insight into how asking for help really helped me turn things around. In February 2009, my beloved father passed away. Within two years of that. My second marriage was over. I moved out of my beautiful home. I had sold my business for a loss, and I found myself sitting in a workshop on gratefulness.

Only I could think of nothing that I was grateful for. I was so depressed, so depleted. My heart was so closed, I could not even remember what I liked to do. Nonetheless, what made me happy. But as you know today, that is not my story. So how did I get from there to here? Well, first of all, I had to acknowledge where I was. I had things to grieve. The loss of my father, the loss of my marriage, the loss of my home, the loss of my business.

Those are all major losses. And it's only normal to feel empty and depleted from so much loss. What was getting in my way was trying to power through those losses as though I was immune to pain. And the way I did that was to shut my heart down so I would not feel. But once I started to acknowledge the pain and loss, open to feelings, even the feelings that were not pretty, I was able to start my journey back, and I asked for help. I knew why I was sad, but I did not know how to move forward. I started to work with a coach who guided me through some exercises of self exploration and reflection. At first, it felt kind of contrived, but over time, it became a lot easier.

And like winter shifting into spring, I felt glimmers of smiles. I began to see the reawakening of possibilities, and I started to remember some of the things that made me happy. And I started to change my language. Words are so powerful. My inner dialogue had all been about loss. I felt defeated, alone, tired, empty. All powerful words that were keeping me trapped in a lonely, dark place. As long as I was telling myself I had nothing to look forward to, I had nothing to be happy about, it was all true.

We are masters at finding evidence to support our beliefs. As I started to change my language, my inner dialogue, and the words I wrote in my journal, I began to find new evidence to support new possibilities. So how we think about aging can totally change how we feel about it. At Hay Boomer, we are flipping the script on the perceptions about getting older instead of dreading it like it's the end of the road. We're all about celebrating the awesome potential of our later years. Aging isn't just about our bodies changing. It's a whole mix of feelings, physical, mental, and social stuff. And for a lot of us, shifting from seeing it as a decline to seeing it as a chance for new opportunities can totally breathe fresh life into our later years.

I love chatting with the incredible guests who are rocking it with resilience, energy and gratitude. By sharing their stories, we're reminded that how we look at aging makes all the difference. My goal today was to challenge some negative perceptions about aging and share strategies that can make us stronger, keep us feeling good, and help us appreciate the life we are creating in this next chapter. So let's say goodbye to all those old ideas about aging and change our words into something new. Whether it's trying a new hobby or finding folks who get where you're at or just being grateful for what you've got, there's so much we can do to make our later years awesome. It's all about changing how we see things and taking those first steps towards a future full of endless possibilities. I want to close with a quote from Simon Sinek. He wrote the book start with why? He said, we have no choice, we must all die.

How we live, however, is entirely of our choosing. So May May is right around the corner. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, Lyme Disease Awareness Month, Stroke Awareness month, among other things, and I've found some great people to talk to us about some of these things next week. My guest is Marylou Falcone. Mary Lou is internationally known as a classical music publicist strategist who has 50 years guided the careers of celebrated artists, but she is now an advocate for Lewy body dementia awareness. Her late husband, the illustrator Nikki Zahn, died from Lewy body dementia in 2020. She has a compelling story to tell, and although heartbreaking, it is also empowering. I hope you will join me then.

And don't forget to support our sponsors, check out roadcholar.org/heyboomer and go look at mycarelink360.com/ref/Boomer to stay in touch with those who are loved by you, but not necessarily living close to you. Each episode of Hey,Boomer is an invitation to listen, learn, and apply the wisdom gained from each show to your own life. The path ahead may not always be easy, but it's traveled best with support and shared insights. The Hey, Boomer show is produced by me, Wendy Green, and the music you heard at the beginning was written and performed by Griffin Honrado, a student at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and my grandson. Thank you so much for joining me today and let me know in your comments and your ratings and reviews when you listen to the podcast what you took away from today's episode.