The secrets of staying young—Part IV
by Mira and Charles on August 18th, 2010How to remain young at heart: the secrets of eternal emotional youthfulness
The heart is the first thing to go. And so last but not least in our series on staying young forever: how to stay young emotionally. It’s been quite a journey. We started here, with a deep insight into how your mind can keep you young longer than you might ever have thought possible. Then we focused in on how to keep your body functioning and feeling young. And in our previous blog we showed you how to keep your brain at its youthful best. And now the secrets of emotional youth. This is the most important part of all.
Here at The Chestnut Hill Institute we’ve seen people who were in their twenties and thirties, physically active, mentally alert, and yet who were aged emotionally. They were discouraged, negative, drained, indecisive, problem-focused. Their mind and body might be 25, but emotionally they were 97. And this is doubly tragic, because I have know plenty of people in their 80s and 90s who emotionally were as vital and alive as the most buoyant 25 year old.
And that’s where the good news lies. Great news, actually. You can stay young at heart forever. Even if you’re the most young and fit oldster in your circle, bodies and brains eventually show signs of aging. But it is totally realistic to think you could stay young at heart no matter how old you got. I’ve seen it. And I bet you have too.
I know: sounds great, but what do you do about it? Can you do anything about it? That’s where there’s more good news. Staying young emotionally is not about your genes or your luck in the aging lottery. No, staying young emotionally is all about what you do. We’ve studied people who stay young at heart way into their later years, and we’ve found that they stay emotionally young because of what they do, not who they are. And, it turns out, what they do, you can do.
Here are the most powerful, most do-able tips from the eternally emotionally youthful:
Have a project. It’s all about whether or not you embrace the future or give up on it. We suggest you embrace it. And the best way to do that is to do things that connect you with the future. It can be anything. Not just knitting a sweater, but taking orders for more sweaters. Get booked way into next year! Writing your memoirs. Taking an adult-ed class. Planting a garden. Sponsoring a child overseas. Taking on a kid in your city who need mentoring. Planning trips. It’s not just about doing things that matter to you. It’s about doing things that bind you to the future, that give you hopes and expectations.
No problem talk. OK, admittedly this is a hard one. We all like to complain from time to time. On a deeper level, we don’t want to feel invisible. We want the people who care about us to know us, to know how we feel, what going on with us. But—and this is a huge but—wanting to be seen like this comes at a huge price. Too big a price. Before you know it, you’re in the following dynamic: the more you want to be seen, the more you talk about your problems; the more you talk about your problems, the more people pull away from you; the more they pull away, the more you want to talk about your problems. But it get even worse. The more you talk about your problems, the more you see yourself as all about your problems. The whole dynamic robs you of your emotional vitality. The best thing to do is accept that no one is interested in someone who complains. But everyone will love you and welcome you if you’re positive and giving. Save your problems for your doctor. And the cool part is that if you’re positive and giving people will want to listen to your problems, at least a little. Remember: we become the problems we talk about, and that ain’t good.
Gratitude. Every life has ups and downs, gains and losses, pleasures and regrets. But if you want to stay emotionally young forever, you will focus on being grateful for everything. Everything. It is a discipline. But the more you can focus on being grateful for the good things in your life and even for many of the bad things, the more emotionally healthy you will be. This is a two-part discipline. Spend some time every day thinking about the things you’re grateful for. See how long a list of things you can come up of things to be grateful for. The other part is this: whatever comes into your mind, turn it into thoughts of gratitude. The more gratitude in your mind and heart, the younger you will feel. The younger you will seem to others.
Interests. So…what are you interested in? This is really important. Losing interest in life is a precursor of death. On the other hand, the more things you’re interested in, the more youthful you’ll stay in your heart. And what if you don’t feel particularly interested in anything right now? That’s okay. Don’t worry. Just get involved with a variety of things. The more you pursue something, the more interested in it you’ll get.
Stay connected with youth. Don’t let yourself fall into an old-age ghetto. Connect with young people and the things they do. Spend time with them. Let them tell you about their interests and try to keep up yourself. Be the first oldster in your circle to be in on all the most interesting rap artists. The latest social networking fad. Be up do date. Believe me: it will help you connect with young people and it will keep you young.
Give. Of yourself, that is. The world needs you. It really does. It’s easy to start feeling useless, but that is not based on reality. You may not be able to do everything you used to, but you can still tutor a kid, be a foster grandparent for a family, or help people your own age. Yeah, I know: you want people to give to you. So do I! But I promise you: the more you give, the less needy you’ll feel. It’s like a kind of magic.
Don’t think of yourself as aging. As people get older, they start falling into a role. The oldster. They start explaining a lapse of memory or a bit of trouble getting around as having to do with getting older. This is a huge mistake. Please: never do this. Always assume you are a kind of eternal 45, in the prime of your life. Blame any lapse or weakness as just something that can happen to anyone. Which is true. It is actually not even factual that stiffness, soreness, having trouble hearing, or not remembering are signs of aging: they are problems people of all ages deal with. And here’s the cool thing: if you think of yourself as youthful, you’ll act young and you’ll do youthful things, and then you actually will become more youthful.
OK, then, that’s it: a multi-pronged approach to staying youthful for a long, long time. Body, brain, and heart. Everything we’ve talked about here WORKS. If you do it, it will work for you. So please, give yourself the gift of youth. You’ll never lose what wisdom and experience you’ve accumulated. But you can stay young at the same time. Welcome to a wonderful, vital, alive, and healthy future.
And for more help with this, do check out our book The Emotional Energy Factor.
