How much self-improvement is enough? I’ve been pondering that question a lot since my 69th birthday last month. I have been through a lot of life changes lately and I decided I would focus on personal fitness this year. I set the target to increase my bone strength and increase my muscle, something it is supposed to be hard to do at my age! I will do that with a class called aerial yoga, which I’m a little bit afraid may be too much for me.
I finally got it that it’s not my fear, it’s the collective fear visited on women over menopausal age in this culture. Women are often told that they should not even lean forward when they get the diagnosis of Osteoporosis in case they fracture a vertebrae.
That is absolute insanity IMHO! So I am using this goal as a test mechanism to prove to myself that collective fear can be totally transcended.
This might not be regarded as self-improvement by many of you reading this. You have your own goals. But I think when we stop moving towards growth in some way is when we start on the downhill path to the ghastly old age and death that Western culture is leaning more and more towards.
It was watching my mum die last year that provoked a lot of my desire to encourage myself and others that it didn’t have to be that way. I read about a woman who learned two languages, yoga and trapeze in her 90’s and I was inspired. If one woman can do it then I can at least attempt it – in a careful, well planned out, gentle way.
So next year’s target may be the trapeze, I’ll skip the languages 😉
I will start by adding yoga back into my fitness routine. I have been relying on dance to keep me fit and I seem to have plateaued with that. I think my body needs new challenges. I did yoga years ago and it doesn’t bring me the joy that dance gives, but it did bring me peace and gratitude for my body.
Someone remarked in an email that she would be glad to have the latest information about bones and I realized that I am more interested in helping women use the diagnosis of bone weakening to act as a wake-up call for their whole lives. To look at what serves them in their lives and what doesn’t; for instance to notice their addictions.
I’ve read two new books recently about sugar addiction and how it is destroying our lives and I have kicked sugar out of my life this month completely. It wasn’t easy and I’ll write on that sometime soon.
Most of the blogs about bone research are just repeating information that I had on this site ten years ago. There is no real news. The drug companies are being found out to have lied with fore-knowledge about the consequences of their lies, there are class action suits being fought out in the courts right now and this is not a productive or new thing to keep discussing. Be glad that you didn’t take these drugs and move on to what can actually make your life feel better.
I did promise a stress busting technique and I will do that next time but I was in the middle of the sugar addiction busting this month and too preoccupied to do it 😉
So we usually don’t have much control over many aspects of our lives; the weather, world news, the economy, other people. But by setting a personal target I feel that I am moving towards the lightness of life, the joy of life, and I’m seeing the big picture of my own life. I remember that I’m on my own path to Joy and will find my own way to skip down that path.
May you have huge blessings in your life.
Until next time, Pam