OPTIMISM
I tell you trying to stay optimistic seems to get harder and harder. I am going to do it, but maybe we could all help each other. How do YOU do it? We seem to have helpful hints about everything these days, so maybe we all could share with each other how we get thru a difficult day. Just a couple of thoughts from each of you and then we could compile them and have a handy little list of what to do when things get tough.
I will give you a couple of categories and you give me your thoughts.
HEALTH
You, or some member of your family, doesn’t feel well. You go to the Doctor. How do you stay optimistic when they don’t? Everyone knows that you have to be your own advocate and you have to keep searching for the right Doctor and Information, but this isn’t always easy. What helps to keep you going besides wanting “to stay on the right side of the dirt”.
MONEY
You have worked hard, saved a little, and are a bit older, so starting all over isn’t so easy when you have lost a lot of your money. So what helps you to keep a smile on your face?
LOVE
How do you keep going when your husband, your kids, your parents, or your friends don’t seem to respond to you like they once did?
YOUR BODY
Speaking of not responding, what do you do when everything seems to be heading east and west and south?
COOKING
What do you do about cooking when you are tired of doing it?
ACTION and HUMOR are the two things that I try to do in all my difficult situations. But it’s Monday and I have to get thru the day and the week and I could use a little help from my friends. Send me your thoughts.
Claire Callaway, blogger for In the Trenches Productions.Com, The First Entertainment Network for Women Over 40 on the web
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I call myself The Pessimistic Optimist. I always hope for, and believe, that better things will come to me. On the other hand, a thread of pessimism runs through my head at all times, warning me things can always be worse. It’s a good balance.
When things get the best of me and I feel as though I’m going to lose it, I take a good look around… it doesn’t take long before I remember that the very fact that I am walking around on this planet is a good thing. I’ve been through bad times before, lots of them. I always come out the other side. It sounds trite, but I never… ever… sweat the small stuff. And there’s a LOT of small stuff!
Link to: The Pessimistic Optimist:
http://www.healthcentral.com/multiple-sclerosis/c/67078/42707/pessim
I’m not sure what to pinpoint my own similar feelings on, it’s likely a combination of menopause and watching the madness in the world overflowing from newspapers and my computer screen. What do I do? I try to focus on and discover what truly makes me feel good, without any guilty tinges (so while a hot fudge sundae would have some immediate positive effects on my mood it would quickly change not only as my body responded to the assault of sugar and dairy, but as my head began to beat me up for doing it). I feel fortunate in that I have organized my life so that the things that make me feel good surround me. Even though it is a gray day here in Vermont, with rain threatening, the leaves glow yellow and orange on this deary autumn day. The dogs wag their tails and remind me that a walk in the woods is in order, a daily event that gives me at least 45 minutes of pure pleasure. But perhaps the thing that helps me the most is having something to look forward to. On Friday I fly to Arizona where I will meet a group of 17 other women over 40 for a 15 day trip down the Colorado River. I have asked that all the guides be women so that we can cut loose and let our hair down, or just not comb it for a few days. Events like this never fail to recharge my batteries. Being with a group of women is always fun, and being with women who are older than I am helps me keep my perspective on my life and learn something about how they have managed to deal with the divorces, deaths, illnesses, aches, etc., we all experience at some time or another. I am reminded that being happy and upbeat is something that doesn’t just happen for many of us, but is something we can choose and work on. A chiropractor told me once that if you change how you move you change your brain. Ok, so enough sitting here at the computer, got to get those dogs walked!