When You Wake Up
When you wake up in the morning
And the new day is just dawning,
Instead of wasting time by yawning
Decide that it is time to try
To keep your mind from going dry:
(There still are so many fish to fry!)
So up you go, and start by smiling
At whoever’s phone you’re dialing
(It’s NOT hard to be beguiling!)
Life is like a flowing stream
Rippling days with Age Esteem!
Written for AgeEsteem® by Alexandra Taylor
Happy Alone
I have a small magnet “poem”
On the wall of my kitchen:
“To be happy at home
Is the ultimate ambition!”
The message relayed is to be happy alone
Even if your family and friends have all gone.
Life is so filled with activities:
Holidays, Birthday, Festivities…
But they only play just a part of the goal,
The best thing to turn to is your inner soul!
Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®
Thank You For A New Year
Many thanks are in keeping
For the Festive days ahead,
And for all the harvests reaping
The grains for our daily bread.
Thanks for the chance of growing older
And for the blessings in each day.
Thank you for the shine which gets golder,
Brightening spirits, come what may!
Thank you for another new year
Calling us to go ahead, full steam,
And courageously without fear,
Using all we’ve learned from Age Esteem!
Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®
Aging Blues
December!
Remember
The things you have to do.
Next year
(Nearly here!)
a time to start anew.
Be clear
Don’t fear
A kind of “Aging Blues.”
Life’s Dear,
Hear? Hear!
It’s special, just like You.
Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®
Ginger For Healthy Aging
Ginger has been known and used for centuries as a relief for nausea and stomach ailments. Even a ginger snap cookie will be effective in calming motion or morning sickness. Ginger ale helps as well or adding fresh ginger, so delicious, to cooking – especially in Chinese recipes.
In addition to being a miracle cure for all kinds of motion sickness, ginger has many other attributes as well. It is rich in minerals and the B6 vitamin, so necessary for the nervous system. Ginger soothes headaches, helps in easing arthritic pain, stops acidification in the body and strengthens the immune system against colds. It can be consumed through various ways: in cooking, in candy, and in cookies to name a few.
When we eat healthfully it also enhances our age esteem as we have more energy to contribute our talents and experience in meaningful ways.
Grandma Nature
Holly Days With Age Esteem
Jolly is this season’s clue,
As a way to shed the blues.
Decorate your inner “tree”,
Shine with stars, be tinselly!
Give yourself the Gift of Time.
Wrap your days with golden twine.
Oh how festive you will seem. –
Holly days with Age Esteem!
Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®
A RETURN TO LOVE by Marianne Williamson hangs framed on my wall to remind me of my own commitment to shine unabashedly at every age. You will recognize its influence within this Age Esteem Prayer of Thanksgiving.
An Age Esteem Prayer Of Thanksgiving
Dear God, Spirit of Life,
We thank you for the blessings of the enlightened voices you have given us and the experience, talents and wisdom that have grown us into who we are today.
We know that we each have a unique power within us to manifest our light. – That we are powerful beyond measure. We were indeed born to manifest the glory that is within us and to share our voices abundantly.
We are grateful for the freedom to let our lights shine unconsciously as a beacon to others so that they, too, might break through their own barriers of fear and self-consciousness.
Be with each person as she and he steps into her own power of voice and “being” her authentic self, filled with love, laughter, gratitude and commitment to test her voice in new ways as a gift to the world.
Guide us to wash away our fears and self-imposed limits in our thinking and actions.
Shower your blessings upon us as we ripen and mature knowing that the definition of aging and elders depends on how WE choose to live and the examples that we become for generations to follow.
And so it is. Amen.
Written for my interview on Using Your Authentic Voice to Transform the World.
Bonnie Fatio
Thank You!
Thank You, and you, and you, and you,
For friendships old and friendships new,
For those to love in myriad ways,
For lessons learned and festive days,
For Health and Happiness galore,
For Earth’s rich bounty, and much more,
For songs to learn and ones once sung
For growing old while feeling young!
Thanks for having time to live,
Finding verbal gifts to give.
Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®
More Dr. Shigeaki Honohara’s, 101 years, (See blogs Nov. 23 & 24)
Advice for a Long, Healthy Life = Tips for Age Esteem
* To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.
* My inspiration is Robert Browning’s poem “Abt Vogler.” My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.
* Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: We all want to have fun. At St. Luke’s we have music and animal therapies, and art classes.
* Don’t be crazy about amassing material things.Remember: You don’t know when your number is up, and you can’t take it with you to the next place.
* Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors. We designed St. Luke’s so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought I was crazy to prepare for a catastrophe, but on March 20, 1995, I was unfortunately proven right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we lost one person, but we saved 739 lives.
* Science alone can’t cure or help people. Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.
* Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when I was 59 years old, I boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka . It was a beautiful sunny morning, and as Mount Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days handcuffed to my seat in 40-degree heat. As a doctor, I looked at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis.
* Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do. My father went to the United States in 1900 to study at Duke University in North Carolina . He was a pioneer and one of my heroes. Later I found a few more life guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would deal with the problem.
* It’s wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one’s family and to achieve one’s goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of it.
These tips were sent to me in an e-mail concerning Dr. Hinohara. His advice also offers excellent tips for enhancing your age esteem.
Bonnie Fatio
Dr. Shigeaki Hinora’s (See blog Nov. 23, 2013)
Advice for a Long, Healthy Life = Tips for Age Esteem.
Each of the following bits of advice for living a long and healthy life are tips and techniques for promoting your age esteem.
* Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too. It’s best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.
* All people who live long regardless of nationality, race or gender share one thing in common: None are overweight. For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work. Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean meat.
* Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures and my usual hospital work. In 2016 I’ll have some fun, though: I plan to attend the Tokyo Olympics!
* There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65. The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100…
* Share what you know. I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes, standing, to stay strong.
* When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure. Contrary to popular belief, doctors can’t cure everyone. So why cause unnecessary pain with surgery I think music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine.
These were sent to me in an e-mail and are on numerous sites on the internet. There will be the second, and last, installment of his advice tomorrow.
Bonnie Fatio
