For the last two years I have dyed Easter eggs with our granddaughter, Jessica.  Jessica is now almost three, so it was especially enjoyable dying eggs together this year.  It was so much fun that when I saw her last week she announced, “I want to color eggs today.”

As I opened my mouth to explain that we only color eggs for Easter, I abruptly closed it.  Why shouldn’t we paint eggs at other times of the year?   It is a good example of how we place limits on ourselves and nip creativity and an open mind.  Here I was about to instill a limit on the same child who I want to become confident, setting her sights high knowing that she can do anything she sets her mind to.

It shook me up.  Am I also influencing her age-esteem?

Our AgeEsteem is greatly influenced by limiting thoughts.  Examples abound with messages bombarding us showing us that youth is associated with opportunities  and age with obstacles.  Youth is freedom, age is a burden.  These limiting concepts are cemented into our minds. -  Even though we know these messages are not true.   Who says we shouldn’t travel alone, drive a race car, climb mountains, start a new business…?

Break down your personal limiting barriers.

• Listen to yourself when you speak out loud and to your thoughts.
• Filter your messages.  Are they limiting what you think can be done?
• Ask yourself why you think this way.  Has someone fed you this message often so you now believe it?
• Make a list of these limiting beliefs.
• Act on them.  Just do what you have previously limited yourself to believe you could or should not do.

My granddaughter and I will color eggs again next week.  Sometimes changing a limiting belief  is as simple as that!

Bonnie Grandparenting, Secrets to AgeEsteem age-esteem, AgeEsteem, creativity, Easter, limited thinking, limiting belief, open mind, tradition

Sharing love enhances our age-esteem.

A tradition I have tried to keep over the years is to personally create the Valentine’s cards I send.  They usually are collages with hearts, feathers and papers of varying textures.  Each is a unique labor of love.  I send them through the post in an old fashioned handwritten, stamped envelope.

A year ago I declared a Valentine’s Day each week.  Once a year seems much too limiting for this positive expression of caring.

I caught this idea from Shirley Pollock who made it her job to send a note to someone each day.  Sometimes it was a thank you.  Other times she simply said she was thinking about you or hoped you were feeling better.  She expressed praise for something you had done or reminded you of one of your qualities that she admired.  Her notes were treasured by those who received them.  She made every day a Valentine’s Day!

My original goal was to send at least one special note each week. Over past months this has grown.  I now write several cards each week to let others know how special they are to me.   I find is that  focusing on relationships in this way makes positives excel and negatives disappear.

Why not make every day a Valentine’s Day and fill your heart with love?

Bonnie Holidays age-esteem, heart, love, Shirley Pollock, tradition, Valentine's Day

Every day is a holiday somewhere in our world!

According to EarthCalendar.net the following holidays are being observed today:

Queen’s Name Day, Sweden
Father’s Day, Taiwan
Independence Day, Bhutan
International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, Australia
Peace Day (End of the Iran/Iraq war), Iraq
Peasants’ Day , Tanzania
Universal and International Affinity Day, International
Saint Mary MacKillop Day, Australia

No matter where you are on the globe, these holidays offer an occasion to begin an AgeEsteem inter-generational tradition.

• Choose a holiday for the coming month from a country other than your own.
• Research to discover as much as possible about how that particular holiday is celebrated.
• Find someone from that country to help you if possible.
• With children and friends reproduce that celebration: make costumes and props, cook food associated with that holiday…
• Invite friends of all ages to celebrate the holiday with you.

Bonnie Across-generations AgeEsteem, celebration, holidays, inter-generational, tradition