Understanding your emotions is another aspect of emotional health. In other words, how are you feeling about the present situation; how are you feeling about your age; how are you feeling about what you are reading here? Understanding your own feelings your own emotions and accepting them for what they are while remaining positive is key to healthy emotions.

• Acknowledge your emotions. It is healthy to express emotion.
• Accept your emotions as the thermometer to how you feel in a particular situation or relationship.
• Strive to remain as positive as possible.

One of the overpowering emotions for many people of all ages during this COVID-19 pandemic is fear. – Fear of the unseen virus and fear of what might happen to you personally or to a loved one. Fear eats away at you until you deal with it directly.

• Sign up for a free copy of “7 Ways to Live Your Life to the Fullest Right Now” on AgeEsteem.com. Chapter 2 teaches you to Tame Your Fears.
• Try putting aside a “worry time” each day. Make this a time when you face your fears and make the rest of the day worry free knowing you will worry at the designated time.
• Journal about your fears. Put your fears down in writing and leave them there.
• Do you have a friend you can speak to about your fears? Sharing your fears can take some of the sting out of them.

I believe we actually are at an advantage as the elders of the world, because we have lived through so much more than the younger generations. We are able to place things into perspective. We have seen enough to know that this too shall pass.

Age esteem is a boost to Emotional Health.

Bonnie Fatio

Compassion for others is another aspect of emotional health as is being able to show your emotions. Especially in these uncertain times, compassion, caring for other people and what is transpiring in the world without becoming negative or fearful, is crucial to your emotional health.  Are you fearful? Use the exercise of transformative language you are testing from the last message. Instead of saying, “I am afraid”, tell yourself, “I am confident all will go well”, “All is fine”, or “Today is full of new opportunities to be creative”. Remember, you do not have to believe what you say; just say it.

Emotional health also ties into your social health and spiritual health in reaching out to others with compassion. No matter how you feel, you still have space for concern for the suffering of others. Ask what you could do to make today easier for someone’s suffering or distress? In other words what is that act of kindness that you wish to show today? Multiple research shows that we are healthier and happier when we are doing something that has a positive influence on the life of another.

Especially during these days of isolation and quarantine there are exceptional opportunities to reach out to others in creative ways. Search for ways to positively touch the lives of others. Some examples were given in the previous blogs under Social Health.

Age-esteemers know that having a purpose that brightens the lives others is key to age-esteem and remaining healthy and vital as you age.

Bonnie Fatio

What can we do to maintain and improve our emotional health during these uncertain times?

Something I learned as a young student with little confidence is that I can change my thoughts by changing my language.

Of prime importance is how you communicate with yourself. What do you tell yourself in your thoughts and when speaking out loud? A powerful exercise that you can begin practicing right now is transformative language. Test it during this COVID-19 pandemic.

• Become aware of the messages you are feeding to yourself. What do you say to yourself? Are your words positive? Become aware of what you tell yourself. In other words when something happens become conscious of your words. Listen to your thoughts. For instance, do you tell yourself, “I don’t feel well” or “Chances are I will catch the virus”? What you are telling your subconscious is that you are sick and you will have the virus; and your subconscious will believe it. So, what happens? Little by little your brain begins to believe that you will get sick so there’s no reason for it to help you feel well.
• As soon as you catch yourself with a negative thought, change it to a positive. Using the example above, tell yourself, “I feel good. I am healthy, happy and well”. If you are able, say this out loud with a smile. Did I hear you say, “But that’s a lie. I don’t feel healthy, happy and well”. It’s okay. You do not have to believe it. Your subconscious believes what you tell it, whether or not you believe it. What is important is too reword anything that you are saying that is not positive so that it becomes positive as in the example above. Even saying something such as “Oh I wish I could do that”, is not positive; because what you are saying is, “I cannot do that”. In this case you might simply tell yourself, “I can do anything I wish”. Test this.
• Use this exercise consciously over the next weeks and see what happens. Using positive language; having a positive attitude is a key to your emotional health. I encourage you to use this exercise even if you are a positive person, because you may find your thoughts and language have changed during this pandemic.

I would love to hear your experiences with this exercise and the influence it has on your emotional health and your age esteem.

Bonnie Fatio

Emotional health is how we feel about ourselves. It’s our self-esteem and our age-esteem. It includes being able to understand our own emotions, as well as our compassion for others.

We cannot talk about health without talking about our emotional health. In fact, an important ingredient of our emotional health is our age esteem. It is how we feel about ourselves at the age we are today every day. It is how we feel about ourselves when all is going well and in times like the present when much is uncertain. It is no longer life as usual.

Winnie the Pooh is a star at emotional health. Every word seems to come out positively. – Even when he says, “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” He also keeps good company with friends like Piglet who says, “I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today”? Generations of readers can be grateful to A.A Milne, the author of Winnie the Pooh.

Winnie the Pooh brings all aspects of emotional health into his adventures which are filled with positive thoughts, humor, multiple friendships, rest, honey, curiosity, learning new things, etc. – And he makes it both entertaining and seemingly simple.

Maybe among the adult books that we read during this COVID-19 epidemic, we should also add a few children’s classics. And while we are doing so, why not read them out loud and record them for children we know?

My favorite AgeEsteem message from Winnie the Pooh during this time of isolation is, “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.”

Bonnie Fatio