A New Day

Today is a new day – a new gift from heaven. What will it bring? How will it unfold? Only time will tell.

You control what your day will be. It will be filled with decisions that you, and you alone, will make to direct its course.

Most important is how you choose to get up and greet the day. Will you do it by staying in bed that extra bit to review your aches and pains? (Yes, you may have many!) Will you create your intentions for the day before stretching and sliding out of bed? Will you spontaneously bound (at your own speed of light) out of bed with excitement for the new day?

This first choice will set the course of your waking hours.

My favorite days are the ones when I give myself extra time. I get up and make a cup of green tea to take back to bed with me. While the tea cools enough to drink, I plop myself in a seated position among the pillows and let my self coast between wakefulness and sleep, setting my mind free.

It is often a time when I write, putting my thoughts on paper. Other times I play my day forward, knowing that it will be wonderful. It is also an opportune time to give thanks for the blessings that I have. Each of these sets my day off to a better start.

As I drink my tea I am peaceful, relaxed, and ready to live my day fully.

Some days I even have a second cup of tea!

How do you begin your day?

Bonnie Fatio

KEEP UP YOUR “AGE ESTEEM”

Does the accumulation of years sometimes get you down?  Then have an injection of positivity from Bonnie Fatio, the Founder of AgeEsteem, an organisation which provides everyone with “the vision and means to live our lives fully at every age with a positive attitude”. 

Based in Switzerland but accessible from anywhere in the world, Bonnie is a highly experienced motivational speaker and coach who decided to tackle the negative views and stereotyping about seniors that abound in society, and which we ourselves absorb to our detriment.  She envisions “a world where age and aging are celebrated and people of all ages are recognized as important, contributing members of society” and works hard to promote this.   Bonnie is a sought-after speaker around the globe, and runs workshops to help people feel good about themselves at any age, as well as contributing her advice and message to other organisations, including the United Nations.

You can read about Bonnie and AgeEsteem on her website  www.ageesteem.com  where you can sign up to receive her zesty newsletters as I do and even receive free e-gifts from this inspirational lady.   Go on, get a regular dose of Age Esteem. It’s all completely free and is equally valid for men and women.

Written by age-esteemer Debbie King, this was first published on her blog, Age With Me. Debbie lives AgeEsteem. She has attended AgeEsteem workshops and models positive aging in all she does. I encourage you to visit her site to learn more.  Thank you, Debbie King! – Bonnie Fatio

Children Cherish “Grandparents”

When I posted the above photo of me with my great-nephews on the AgeEsteem website, I received so many positive comments that I know there are multitudes of you who feel like I do. Children are one of the joys of life.

Children also cherish contact with older people. It is natural for them to gravitate towards us. It is as though they realize that we offer an additional dimension to living. Certainly we are different from their parents in multiple ways, including having time to listen to them.

I listened to a radio interviewer question children of diverse ages on how they would describe their grandparents or whoever they relate to in that way. One of the strongest common characteristics was that a grandparent was someone who listened. Really listened. It was a person who took time to show interest in them by listening to them actively without overt judgement.

What a powerful role this is! Imagine the importance of having someone listen to you without judgement. It means that you are able to truly share your thoughts and to sort out your own thinking by speaking these thoughts and sharing them with another person who you trust.

Bonnie Fatio

A Melody Of Life

Someone wrote “The Silent Spring,”

But I think it bursts with song!

Birds sing out when on the wing. –

The wind whistles all day long.

Crickets chirp and pond frogs burp

And dogs howl at the moon.

Insects have with time, usurped

Their own inherent tune.

 Each one of us has notes to bring

A melody to our lives,

And silently we all can sing

When verbally we strive!

 Written by Alexandra Taylor † for AgeEsteem®

Age With High Esteem

Spring just rang our bell!

“Hello” we said: “Well, well,

We’re ready to grow flowers

And bloom, like them, in bowers.

We hope you’ve brought the sun

To start our sap to run,

And learn to shake our feet

And spread our wings and Tweet!

You’ve come to help us dream

And age with High Esteem!”

 Written by Alexandra Taylor † for AgeEsteem®

Your Beauty Will Unfold

Buds and Blooms and Birds and Bees –

Spring brings every one of these…

Besides the Brightest Skies of Blue

(Best when Broiling Bar-B-Ques!)

By Becoming Brave and Bold

Your Beauty will Spring up = unfold

And Be the Better, in Between

Its Benefactor: Age Esteem!

Written by Alexandra Taylor † for AgeEsteem®

Marie Skripec, Member of Committee and Volunteer of the YWCA Germany

A Thanksgiving Message

My name is Marie Skripec and I come from Germany. I would like to share some thoughts with you that I wrote down on Monday of the World YWCA conference in Bangkok 2015.

Amongst others I was inspired by Bonnie Fatio and the exercise she did with us where people stood up and said what they were imagining, what they were dreaming of.

So this is what I imagine:

 I Imagine

I imagine a world

where there are no more armed conflicts,

no more wars

no more people that have to flee from their countries,

that have to leave their homes and their beloved behind

I imagine people,

 women and men

to stand up

and say that we don’t want people to be killed,

we don’t want to support governments and people

that develop cruel strategies

and initiate conflicts and wars

in beautiful countries.

We don’t want any more people and governments

that are responsible for the death of so many people

only

because they seek for more resources, influence and power

claiming to operate in the name of democracy.

I imagine a near future

where we don’t spend our money on weapons, soldiers and armies

but on the protection of our environment, our nature and the people around us,

on education and the future of our present and following generations,

on mutual exchange and learning from each other

all around the globe.

I imagine my country

to take more responsibility,

a sustainable Germany

ecologically, economically, socially and culturally.

 I imagine people

that consume less

and instead open their eyes

to see all the beautiful things around them

and conserve them:

trees, flowers, birds, butterflies

women, men, girls and boys

neighbours, friends, sisters and brothers.

We often say

that we should see the world

through the eyes of a child

 Well, I imagine

that we seriously ask children for their opinions

and consider it in our decisions we make

locally, regionally, nationally and globally.

I imagine

children in our governments.

Parliaments consisting of

male and female leaders of all ages.

Deciding on our present and future,

learning from and relating to good and bad

practices and experiences in the past.

A flexible parliament

ready to learn permanently,

listening to its people and all its variety.

I imagine

many raindrops

changing the direction of many rivers

heading towards a just and fair world

I imagine

 a world in peace

where we all live as one.

Thank you Marie Skripec for these meaningful words. May we share these thoughts with you as we recognize our blessings on this Thanksgiving 2015.

Happy Thanksgiving from AgeEsteem,

Bonnie Fatio

No More Masks On Halloween

If you are keen

On Halloween

And favor Treats

To tricks,

Then just be seen

With Age Esteem

And no more masks

To fix!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Your Life’s Book

Age Esteem

(This poem’s theme)

Begins at any age.

It’s how to be

Yourself and see

Your Life’s Book page by page

Chapter one

(Already done!)

The Volume grows with Time.

Chapter Three

Begins with glee

Esteemic, like this rhyme.

Chapter Five

You’re still alive

And confident, at last!

Chapter Twelve

It dips and delves

With lessons from the Past.

Chapter Twenty

There’s a-plenty

Pages still in Reams.

The end remains in formament

Rewarded and Esteemed.

Written by Alexandra Taylor † for AgeEsteem®

Growing Pains

“Growing Pains”

That does explain

Our ever-changing moods –

We way and wane

From Bright to Broods

A pattern we entrain.

How to seem

In Harmony

With Age Esteem

And synchrony

Of Painless Qualities?

“No pain, no gain”

a wise refrain!

Just aim for Joy

Don’t get annoyed

With fruitless “frivolities”!

Written by Alexandra Taylor† for AgeEsteem®