Resilient eldering

Who would argue that resiliency is a key - perhaps THE key - trait in expansive aging?  The ability, whatever our age,  to face each day as a fresh opportunity, to come back stronger from adversity & to regain a firm footing after taking emotional or physical tumbles.

A number of my older friends & clients - including the "oldest of the old" - have embodied resiliency.  As their years slip past, they continue to look forward.  They accept not having the dexterity they enjoyed as a kid of 70 while making the most of off the resources that remain or are available for the first time.  They expect better in their life.

That's the key - expecting better.  So many older people, their loved ones & core supporters seem to expect only less over the years ahead.  It's almost impossible to be resilient if you expect life to get only progressively worse & worse.  More & more challenging - certainly.  And there's no getting around that some things will be diminished.  

Resilient olders accept that their present state isn't some cosmic mistake, that how they are in their present moment - however difficult it might seem - has a purpose.  They look for what is sometimes hidden away from plain sight.

When I look back at olders who seemed to embody resiliency, I recall people who had to deal with frozen joints, with serious heart conditions, with paralysis & dementia & other limiting conditions.  But they didn't let them limit their spirit!  

There are many things that I bring to helping people ease from being an older to an elder, from just aging to s-aging.  One knowing when to turn to others for good advice on topics of personal interest but not expertise.  That's how I found an excellent article on developing resiliency as we age.  I found How do the elderly become more resilient? at KevinMD.com.  I spoke to me - it's short, but seems to sing out with the traits I saw in so many of my elderly friends, especially the "oldest of the old."  

The four traits it spotlights -a sense of belong, creating meaning through personal memories & life reviews, revaluating attitudes about dependence, and an ability to change & adapt - are the very ones I try to encourage in my grannie clients.  Of course, Mom was a best practice model for creating meaning through memories & life reviews, with her Mindwalker1910 e-mails to a devoted dist list,the articles she wrote for an alumni journal about aging, and the answers she gave over her last week to e-mailed questions from a local college Psych 101 class.  And Grandma Rose & Cornelia, Aunt Gay & Mrs. Ridgeway are just a smattering of the olders who radiated those core dimensions of an expansive eldering.

Resilient eldering - how to develop it in ourselves, how to help the significantly older in our lives deepen it in their own lives?  There are things we can do to help the olders in our life be more resilient - How do the elderly become more resilient? and reading Still Here, by Ram Dass, are great starting points - but seems to me, it's an arc, starting when we are young.  

Resilient eldering starts with a resilient childhood, teens & adulthood.  Perhaps the best thing any generation can do to help make their lives happier through the years is develop a stronger sense of resiliency NOW.