This is your time to bloom with Age Esteem!
Flowers are bursting forth with the first hint of warmth and sunshine as Spring becomes reality.
- Plan an activity with others. Include older people and younger ones. Make it intergenerational.
- Make a commitment to volunteer, join a new group or participate in a new activity.
- Encourage friendships with positive people, people who make you feel good. Avoid those who bring a negative energy with them.
- Do something courageous. Push yourself beyond your comfort zones.
- Give thanks for all the blessings of your life, large and small.
Age Esteem is a frame of mind, a way of life. This is your time to bloom with an Age Esteem positive attitude!
Bonnie Fatio
Each day of this new year will bring new opportunities and experiences to be experienced and savored.
Do you look forward to each day?
One of my favorite AgeEsteem mentors and friends was Doris Blunt. Doris was a woman of amazing inner faith and strength. She always seemed to be bubbling over with happiness and interest. Yet she had buried two husbands, both of whom she had accompanied through Alzheimer’s in their last years.
When I asked Doris how she remained so enthusiastic and happy she offered me the following secrets to her happiness.
- When you wake up in the morning you have choices. You can listen to the birds and give thanks for the day as a new blessing and get up to greet the day or you can lie in bed and feel bitter about your aches and pains. She chose the first.
- Remind yourself that whether you have a good day or a bad day depends on you and the attitude that you bring to it. She brought a positive attitude which began when she first awoke.
- Decide what your purpose for the day is. Doris was the sunshine of the home where she lived, so she always put on her sunniest smile when she left her room. She said that although her smile was not always genuine when she put it on, it definitely became real by the time she met another person. In fact her smile became infectious. Others returned it!
These are simple yet powerful pointers for each of us to enhance our age esteem and positive attitudes to live happier lives. Let’s look forward to each day!
Bonnie Fatio
My heart overflows with love and gratitude. Life is truly a blessing. I am ever thankful for the loved ones in my life: a loving husband, daughter, son-in-law, two precious granddaughters, sisters and spouses, cousins, and numerous friends whom I treasure. There is no time for wallowing in complaints or disappointments. We are too busy living, loving and learning with a positive attitude.
Oh yes, lesser experiences and relationships are put in our paths, but that is also part of living, loving and learning. Hurdles are put there to teach us vital lessons and to show us new dimensions of life. They push us to become a better person.
People with Age Esteem know the value of living, loving and learning with a positive attitude. Thank you for sharing your Age Esteem in the way you live, love and learn.
Bonnie Fatio
Rejoice!
Let your voice
Be the clue
To the you
Of your Choice.
Written by Alexandra Taylor after the chapter “Rejoice” in the book
AgeEsteem: Growing A Positive Attitude Toward Aging
by Bonnie Lou Fatio
Bubbles and Kisses!
The ones float away
The others might miss us,
But each in its way
Is Life’s miraculousness
making special each day.
Written for Age Esteem by Alexandra Taylor after the story “Bubbles and Kisses”
in AgeEsteem: Growing A Positive Attitude Toward Aging, book and CD
by Bonnie Lou Fatio
Diane Smith, 53
What is Age Esteem? When I first saw Bonnie Fatio,s book AgeEsteem: Growing A Positive Attitude Toward Aging I thought it was about aging. I thought it’s going to tell me how to age gracefully and this it great!
What I worry most about aging is aches and pains. I’ve never been sick a day in my life, but when I turned 50 I started feeling some aches and pains and that’s one of my concerns. And you know I look in the mirror and I see wrinkles and I start buying eye creams and stuff. I have beauty products to prevent aging. The reason is that it’s probably been on my mind since I was 25. I’m a believer in prevention.
Diane’s tips: I stay active. I have friends. I love working in my garden. I feel good working in the garden. I’m strong enough to do things and have the energy. I feel good. I have a cup of coffee every morning. I read my Bible every day. It gives me inspiration and I look at my life and I look at where I’ve been and where I am now and I’m thankful. I thank God. If God doesn’t bless me with anything else, I’m blessed. Yes, I’m totally blessed. I have a lot of great friends. I have a wonderful husband whose a good friend. That makes it easy. I have a daughter. I have grandchildren. I carry their picture around and when I look at them I think what a wonderful blessing. I’m just thankful for what I have and I don’t worry about what I don’t have.
People with age esteem recognize that they have choices, that they are masters of their own life. They may not be able to control what happens to them all of the time or even most of the time, but they take control over how they act or react to what happens.
Age esteemers know they can choose to see what happens as an opportunity or as a catastrophe. They can choose to be a victim, or they can choose to take action to move beyond the problem, to learn from it and benefit from it.
- Decide that you will become a can do, will do person who takes control.
- Look for the opportunity inside a difficulty.
- Remind yourself that you are in control.
Bonnie Fatio
Do you have an attitude of gratitude?
People with Age Esteem express gratitude. Age Esteemers know the importance of not only feeling thankful, but also expressing appreciation and gratitude for what they have and what others do for them. They choose to recognize the blessings of each day, no matter how great or small.
- Keep a gratitude diary where you record the highlights of each day for which you are grateful.
- Count your blessings when things seem difficult. Remind yourself of all the good that surrounds you while you deal with a problem.
- Express openly to others your gratitude for what they mean to you.
Bonnie Fatio
People with age esteem have a positive attitude. Studies show that people who enjoy life with a positive attitude live longer and happier lives. This is not to say that they don’t have aches and pains like anyone else. They simple choose to take a different view of life. Rather than focus on their pains, they chose to concentrate on what goes well and to develop their interests. They are engaged in living.
Age Esteemers know that when we focus on the brighter side of life, we draw other positive people and opportunities to us.
- Become aware of your thoughts and words. Are they positive or negative.?
- Turn negatives into positives. When you catch yourself complaining or discouraging yourself, change your phrase to make it positive and encouraging.
- Surround yourself with positive people. Drop those who hold you back or put you down. They don’t deserve your time.
Bonnie Fatio
Age Esteem begins when we are children. Research at Yale University and the American Institute on Aging indicate that the attitude that we have towards age and older people as children influences how we ourselves age. Children who are raised with a positive attitude and relationship towards older people age better and more healthfully and tend to live longer.
The relationships we have with older people, the language we hear others use to describe older people, and the images that we see illustrating older people will impact our whole life and even contribute to our longevity.
Age esteemers have a positive attitude toward aging. They embrace it with age esteem. Age esteemers value, admire and respect age and tend to live longer, happier lives.
Bonnie Fatio
