So, you say you want to age healthfully.

but are you willing to do the work?

Hello, my friends! Where do I even begin today? This blog is all about living a soul-based life and my goal is to share how that actually plays out in the real world. My assignments usually bubble up from the inside when I’m walking in the woods, and I do my best to capture these ideas into words. What’s been coming up lately is wellness and healthy aging, and I have a lot to offer.

If you’re looking for miracle creams and pills, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is more of a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-busy post.

My soul lives in this body of mine and shares space with my psyche. She would like us all to live in harmony. The less noise, discomfort, and distraction from pain and disease there is, the better her voice can be heard.

So, here we go on the journey of healthy aging from a soul’s perspective. I don’t know about you, but my soul is interested in correcting imbalances at the source rather than medicating symptoms. Radical, eh? So, I’m going to open up a can of worms today and we’ll see where it goes over time.

The number one factor I see disrupting health in every area you can imagine is a dysregulated nervous system. When fight/flight/freeze takes over and becomes the default state, all our bodily systems suffer. Over time, inflammation and depleted life-force set up the perfect conditions for maladies of all sorts.

When we are living in a survival state, our heart and lungs are constantly stressed and our muscles perpetually tensed. They commandeer energy from the digestive system, robbing our bodies of the capacity to assimilate nutrients, no matter how many superfood smoothies we drink. Detoxification, cellular repair, hormonal regulation, and fertility all go offline. So do creativity, connection, focus, and productivity.

The immune system suffers. No doubt you can agree that having a hearty immune system is essential for healthy aging. This is virtually impossible when we are chronically stressed.

Our minds and bodies cannot function optimally when we are continually poised to defend ourselves or collapsed in the corner. We can fake it pretty well for quite some time, going through the motions, and forcing ourselves to look like we’ve got it all together, but eventually there is a price to be paid.

I think most of us understand this intellectually. And yet, never have I encountered more resistance than when pointing this out to individuals!

What? Not me, I don’t have stress.

This is a curious response. Especially when I’m looking at someone who is carrying stress in their body and displaying a nervous system that is anything but calm. Until we can admit our stress and its debilitating effects, it will continue to sap our energy and eat us up from the inside.

What? Sure, but my job/kids/parents/health create stress, and I can’t avoid it.

Absolutely. Life is freakin’ stressful. We can’t control much of it. It’s not our fault. AND that doesn’t mean we are doomed to live with it. Until we can disown stress as part of our identity, a badge of honor in a messed-up culture, we can’t address the damage it does. Yes, it’s a crazy world AND I’m going to take responsibility for how I navigate this crazy world. I can’t control the weather, but I can take an umbrella when it’s raining so I don’t get soaked.

What? Yeah, but my anxiety/attachment disorder/IBS/ADD/insert diagnosis here is extra stressful.

Totally true. Some of us started off with extra-sensitive systems. However, using this as an excuse to avoid the necessary treatment is bonkers. Yes, it’s hard when you have a disadvantage. Rather than crawling under the covers, it would be so much more effective to admit that we need extra care and that it’s our job to make that happen. To paraphrase Dr. Wayne Dyer: argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.

While my first instinct is to say that the most important thing we can do for ourselves to cultivate optimal health as we age is to regulate our nervous systems, I’ve come to see that there’s a step that comes before this.

It’s to acknowledge that a regulated nervous system is essential for wellness, that very likely we need to make consistent effort to make that happen, and that it is our responsibility to do this work if we wish to enjoy the rewards.

If you’re wondering if you have magically bypassed the state of chronic stress and dysregulation, here’s a test. Sit quietly for five minutes. Be with yourself in this moment. Just sit and breathe and enjoy your own company. Welcome all your thoughts, sensations, and emotions.

If this is a pleasant experience for you, if you feel calm and content, well… congratulations! Your work has paid off. If you never had to do the work, please introduce yourself, because I don’t think we’ve met before.

If, instead of calm, you felt agitated, on edge, uneasy; if you reached for memories of the past or worries about the future; if you wanted to get up and do something, anything; if you were itching for your phone and the instant gratification of distraction; if you wanted a drink or four or a dozen cookies, well… welcome to being human.

I know of only two types of people. Those who are dysregulated and those who have put in the time and effort to grow the capacity to rest in regulation as a default and return to it after upset. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has grown up in the western world who naturally resides in a relaxed state. There are plenty who are dissociated and disembodied and look like they’re calm when they’re really just shut down (this was my specialty!); but none who are truly calm without working for it.

This is a good time to acknowledge how messed up this is. How in this great country of America, we are increasingly unwell despite advances in science and technology and pharmaceuticals. Yet for all of that, this missing link has yet to go mainstream.

Don’t wait for your doctor to prescribe a treatment or expect that the insurance company will pay for it. Nor will the cure be found at a retreat or ashram.

Here’s what I’m suggesting. Can you admit that you would enjoy living a life with a sense of peace and calm, feeling relaxed and ease most of the time, and experiencing the physiological benefits of optimal health? Can you admit that if you are not yet there, that it is your job to start moving in that direction? Can you acknowledge your current position as it actually is so that your GPS can guide you accurately from where you are to where you want to be?

If so, welcome! I have a lot more to say about this topic. I think it’s the foundation of wellness and all the good things.

(Spoiler alert: Reiki is the simplest, easiest, safest, most enjoyable strategy I’ve discovered for getting started on this path. Getting a dose of spiritually-guided life-force is a potent remedy for anything that ails. If you want to cut to the chase, get yourself lots of Reiki.)

As always, I’m eager to hear how this lands with you. If you feel called out by anything I’ve said, well, the more activated you are, the more likely it is that there’s a truth you’re avoiding. We don’t usually get triggered by things that are way off the mark. So, I’ll invite you to sit with this charged emotion and inquire what’s really going on.

You can’t program your GPS until you know your starting point.

This is me, on a snowy walk, making myself available for the download that you’ve just read. :)