Retired & Rejuvenated
By Joanne Byrne
Joanne Byrne.
We just started a new year, and if you are anything like me, you are probably happy that 2018 is over and that we are making a fresh start for 2019. Too many difficult and devastating things happened nationwide last year. It is time to move on with a fresh new beginning.
We may not be able to change a lot of things that happen nationally or globally, but perhaps we can change a few things in our personal lives that will, at least, help us feel better. So here are five suggestions that I offer as stepping stones for your own personal path to wellbeing for this New Year.
Accept more. I read this eye-opening insight recently in a newspaper column. The writer said, “Love is 100 percent acceptance.” I am not sure I completely agree with this, as I don’t always accept everything about the people I love, and yet I continue to love them dearly. I value the differences and the little things I can’t bring myself to accept. But I do get the author’s point. We should strive to accept ourselves and others, with all this might involve. When acceptance replaces judgment and you finally decide to accept your life, your body, your inability to play a musical instrument or a sport as well as you would like, it becomes so much easier to achieve things that you never thought possible with less anxiety.
Move more. If you make an effort to add more steps, more reps, more activity to your day, you will get life-enhancing rewards of better health, greater strength, and renewed energy. In this new year, schedule more physical fun for yourself. Take more walks, do yoga, take bike rides, start ballroom dancing, play pickleball, participate in whatever activates your bliss-making chemicals. Stick with it until you are hooked.
Think more. Tie a red bow around your brain to remind yourself to use it more in this new year. Stimulate it with engaging and challenging activities that make you think inside and outside the box. Puzzles of all kinds fit the bill. So does learning a new language or skill. Play bridge or Mahjong, take a cooking course or learn how to crochet. When you stop learning, your synapses shrivel and vital centers of your brain power down, sometimes never to return.
Eat more real food. Aren’t you fed up with diets, pills and supplements that promise quick weight loss and deliver nothing but disappointment? Stop depending so much on processed foods, foods with additives and artificial sweeteners. Start reading labels and seeing the obscene amounts of sugars. There is plenty of delicious, real food out there. Find it, cook it, eat it gratefully and support the people who grow it. Farm-to-table is a good way to eat.
Be more free. How do we define freedom? According to the guru and author, Deepak Chopra, “You know you are free when you feel happy and at ease instead of fearful and anxious…when you are independent of the good and bad opinion of others…when you have relinquished the need to seek approval…when you believe that you are good enough as you are.”
Happy New Year. May 2019 be healthy, happy, and joy filled for each of you.
Joanne Byrne served as Senior Services Coordinator for the Town of Orange. She is now actively and happily retired. Email her at joannebyrne41@gmail.com to share your thoughts on retirement.