Synopsis: This love success lesson focuses on – plan ahead
questions; love for health and spirited living; mindset issues; elder
self-love; don’t retire instead encore; age segregation; with love older
better sex.
Plan Ahead Questions
As you grow older what are you going to do about
love? As you grow older what are you going to do about getting loved
and giving love? All kinds of love are to be considered here. So, as
you grow older, and then even more old what do you know about elder
romantic love, sexual love, family love, friendship love, spiritual
love, love of life, healthy self-love and all the other possible
‘loves’?
Whatever your age, what are you doing about loving those
around you who are or may soon be classified as ‘seniors’? What do you
want others to do about you and love? The sooner you have well-informed
answers for these types of questions the better you can build toward a
love rich, elder years life.
Here is another important question. Is there something inside you
that has sort of been telling you that as you become ‘elder’ you have to
give up on love? That is a sort of subtle, societal, subconscious
programming that gets into the heads of a lot of people as they grow
older. A variation of that programming tells us we have to give up on
certain kinds of love. Many have been taught that it is not socially
proper for elders to be interested or active in certain kinds of love or
love with certain people. Especially is that true if anything sexual
might be involved. Gerontology research mostly says – WRONG! It is not
healthy to think this way or abide by this type of thinking.
Love For Health and Spirited Living
The more healthy, real love older people
get and give
the longer they live and the healthier they stay; also the more
spirited is their life. One recent study showed that lonely, less
loved, older adults were 45% more likely to die in any given year than
were seniors who felt meaningfully connected in love relationships with
others.
Being older with one or more meaningful love relationships and having
an active social involvement is related to biological processes that
increase health, improve and keep our physiological systems functioning,
decrease inflammatory difficulties and help people avoid
stress-related, unhealthy hormone development with its resulting
physiological damage. That summarizes the findings to date of an
extensive, on-going, major English research project being conducted in
epidemiology.
In the US it has been found that well loved, meaningful
relationships significantly assist elders to normalize blood pressure
and avoid all the difficulties that go with it. Furthermore,
meaningful, positive love relationships reduce the development of
destructive chemical compounds in the human body that seem to occur more
commonly in the lonely and less loved. Other findings show that more
spirited, zestful, energetic living occurs with more loving. The
‘loveless’ live much more dispirited and the well loved and loving live
much more ‘inspirited’ and ‘inspired’.
So, the message is clear. If – or – when you’re an elder and you
want to live healthy and lively keep putting lots of loving into your
life. To do that you will probably have to examine closely what your
mindset is about age and aging.
Mindset Issues
You may have grown up in a family, or a neighborhood
or a town in which it was common to think certain ways about older
people. In some parts of the world this is very positive and older
people are honored for their wisdom, maturity and the good things they
have offer those younger than themselves. In other areas the general
attitude is disdainful, disparaging, demeaning or even denigrating
toward elders. Possibly you grew up around people who were just
neutral, vague, unconcerned, disinterested and dispassionate about older
folks. Whatever the case, what you grew up around may have given you a
mindset toward your own aging that is not of your own choosing.
Especially important is examining to see if you were programmed to have
negative images and stereotypes about being older because that can have a
‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ effect on your own life as an elder. It
also can greatly affect how you treat older people and how you may block
yourself from receiving their enrichments. Your mindset can have
powerful negative or positive effects on your health and lifestyle. If
your mindset is positive it can assist you to an old-age that is lively,
strong, agile, spirited, healthy and well loved. Especially important
are the following mindset areas.
Elder Self-Love
Coming out of his United Presbyterian Church
Etheridge greeted and in a quite chipper mood conversed with a
surprisingly large number of people. He bragged unabashedly about a
painting he had completed and he unashamedly flirted with females. To
the close friend who had driven him to church that day he said he was
going to walk home because it was such a beautiful day. He declined a
dinner invitation because he had a speech to prepare and because he had a
‘hot date’ to get ready for that night. Then he zestfully set off
walking home which was about half a mile away. Etheridge was 101 years
old.
There is an almost endemic problem with elders living in overly
youth-oriented cultures. It is that in such cultures elderly people
begin to lose healthy, self-love and with it self esteem,
self-confidence, self-respect and a sense of self-worth. In societies
that revere and do well at loving, the older one gets the prouder and
more healthfully self loving one may become. When self-love diminishes
there often is a diminishment of self-care, acceptance of assistance,
increased social isolation, increased sense of inadequacy and increasing
feelings of not being lovable or worthy of love. As noted, when this
happens biological health is negatively affected and illness and
accident proneness also tend to increase.
Those elderly people who ‘own’ a healthy self-love tend not to
experience negative biological effects nearly as strongly as do others.
Their psychological state tends to continue growing, remain strong, and
be what some call healthfully ‘youthful’. So, if you grow older
rejecting any and all societal negative interpretations of your aging
self you probably are doing yourself a big, biological and psychological
flavor.
Don’t Retire – Encore
Another big mindset issue has to do with work and
more exactly retirement. It’s a sad fact that many people after
retirement rapidly deteriorate and die much earlier than they might
have. Retirement seems to trigger a subconscious process in which
people’s thinking about who they are triggers their biological
functioning into dysfunction. Retirement for all too many means
starting to think things like “I’m no longer productive, contributing,
proficient, influential, helpful, important or significant”. Many try a
lot of recreational activities and superficial socializing, and that
helps for a while, but because it’s not seen as of substantial worth its
helpful effect often diminishes after a while.
What to do about this? Start an
encore career or involvement.
Those who move on to encore actions tend not to deteriorate, tend to
live longer, and tend to feel really good about their lives, perhaps
even better than ever. Those who have a purpose, donate themselves to a
worthy endeavor, get intrigued with new learning or working on a
challenge, a major pet project, or a cause do far better than the rest.
Many do this as volunteers giving time and energy to worthy endeavors.
Some do it to bring to life and nurture their long, dormant talents in
the arts. Some join writer’s workshops and begin writing ‘their book’,
articles or blogs.
Still others get into consulting, advising and
teaching in an area they already know. Another group keep their careers
going and never retire because they really love what they’ve been doing
for many years. They may cut down on the amount of work time or
specialize in the most fun part of whatever their career was and leave
the rest alone. All this can be seen as an aspect of healthy, self-love
but it also can involve a person’s love of life.
So, what is your encore involvement going to be? It’s never too late
to start an encore involvement, and probably it’s never too early to
start thinking and planning what it will be.
Age Segregation
When older people allow or cause themselves to be
age segregated they may live too limited and not in ways that are good
for them. There is a teaching in the East that translates something
like “to become mature and wise, associate with your elders. To retain
youthfulness, associate with youth. But to live best, associate with
people of all ages”.
Some social scientists and certain public health theoreticians
suggest being segregated by age groups is anti-natural, quite artificial
and probably a big societal mistake. Learning to be comfortable around
and be enriched by people of all ages is a problem for those who mostly
have been age segregated most of their lives. Those who went to the
type of school that practiced having no age grouped classes, and move
ahead at your own speed education are thought to do better with age
integration. Do you agree that love can flow to and from people of any
age and to live that way is a highly desirable blessing? Do you agree
that to live too age segregated may seem comfortable but it actually may
be too life limiting? Are you going to be sure not to live too age
segregated?
With Love – Older Sex, Better Sex
Lots of older men and women think they have to give
up on sexuality, so they do. Certainly changes often are in order as
one gets older but giving up on sex is totally uncalled for and
decidedly not the healthiest way to go. You see, sex is really good for
you and maybe even better for you as you get older if you go about it
in an age workable way. What do you consider to be sexually normal and
desirable for people of an older age? Are you using standards that are
too much the norms of youth or even middle age? If what you consider to
be sexually normal or desirable actually is more appropriate only for
youth, you’re likely not to do so well.
Men in particular who have been societally programmed to believe sex
is all about ‘penis in vagina’ intercourse and about climaxing have a
particularly hard time adjusting to the rather different, best sexuality
possible for elders. When males learn ‘whole body sex’ and ‘love
centered sex’ they do far better. (See category:
Sex and Love
) Both men and women who think their body has become too unattractive
or too ‘ugly’ could best start doing their sexuality in darker places or
with more sexy clothing.
Women who think they can not lubricate
sufficiently don’t need to believe their sexuality or femininity is lost
but rather is usually just in need of more and longer erotic actions,
plus the use of lubricants. Erotic fantasy sharing, movie watching,
reading, learning to think and act in ‘no pressure to perform or
succeed’ ways, and to have an ‘everything can be enjoyably and okay’
mindset, plus the mindset of ‘there’s lots to enjoy in addition to,
along with, and besides intercourse and orgasm’ – all or some of these
often help people learn new and better ways of how older people can go
about sexuality.
There are cultures in which older people seem to have great sex lives and very few sex problems. Both men and women
who engage in the sacred sex practices of two of the Hindu religion’s
major divisions, the Tantric and the Shakta, tend to keep their bodies
mostly healthy and their sexually functioning quite well every year of
life, no matter how long they live. You might want to investigate
those.
Here’s another aspect of elder love with sex which shocks some,
angers quite a few and delights others. I know a small group of mostly
females mostly in their 20s, 30s and 40s who especially like and seek
sexual experiences with considerably older men and women. People in
that group say things like “older sex partners are more total and
complete, and know a lot more about being loving”, “the mature know what
they’re doing and the rest are just kids – cute but awkward, clumsy,
unsophisticated, ignorant, sometimes stupid and sometimes dismally
arrogant. Who needs that”! A 23-year-old I know bragged about spending
weekends with a couple in their 70s saying it was the best sexuality
and the most loving experience of her life. She also told that the next
week she was traveling with a professor of philosophy in his 80s and
she can’t wait to get him in bed and then to talk and talk and talk.
For older participants who are ‘mixing it up’ with younger adults,
the evidence seems to show outstanding results can occur. Older men and
women having sex with people 20 or more years their junior seem to get
younger physically as well as mentally. (See
Does "Cougar" Love Work?)
The younger participants often get more maturity and wisdom, and often
some finer life experiences, so everyone usually benefits.
Sex and love go together and sometimes bring about what is called a
May/ December romance and even enduring, healthy marriages.
Historically for hundreds of years this used to be the norm. He was
anywhere from 30 to 85 and his bride was anywhere from 13 to 27. Less
of an age difference was seen as shockingly unseemly.
Nowadays, in certain circles, couples who have much of an age
difference are disapproved of or even rejected. However, the evidence
shows in many relationships, of the romantic type, where healthy, real
love is a major component, age similarity is not needed. The more
democratic approach of letting people choose their own love-mates,
irrespective of prejudicial categories of all types, seems to be more in
alignment with nature and what is healthful.
Still another elder love/sex practice not talked about in many
circles is the ancient, even biblical custom of what is sometimes called
partner sharing. Martha makes love, not just has sex, with both her
retired husband and his also retired widower brother. Sometimes all
three go on vacations together. They’re thinking about sharing a house
and expenses together too. Sarah was so thankful to be taken in by her
elder sister and sister’s husband after her own husband passed away from
a long illness. At first they all just cuddled into the night, but
that lead to other things which have been working out quite well for all
of them for quite a few years.
It is to be noted that ‘partner sharing’ among older people mostly is
done very quietly and secretly. It seems to be much more common among
social liberals, often ex-hippies, than among conservatives and
traditionalists. As mentioned, partner sharing is an old custom with
early biblical references. It was for ages a primary way to take care
of the problem of widows and widowers, those who had been abandoned, the
disabled, the infirm and also destitute relatives.
In patriarchal
cultures it was recommended as virtuous for keeping alive family
bloodlines because every female taken in was expected to bear the prime
males of the house at least one child if possible. In today’s world the
practice of partner sharing, especially including romantic love and
sex, seems to benefit a certain number of energetic, lively elder people
who have lost their spouses. Some social scientists think this partner
sharing among lively, older people is likely to slowly keep growing in
popularity because with the help of the health sciences there are more
and more lively elders.
To wrap up then, the importance of lots of love in your life, all
types with lots of different people is vital, healthy and enriching – no
matter how old you are!
As always – Go and Grow with Love
Dr. J. Richard Cookerly
♥ Love Success Question Is your picture of
your own life as an elder full of ‘vim and vigor’, zest, joy, sexiness,
productivity and delight – or more the opposite?
