Self-reflection

Resolution #1 – Positivity

/ Luanne Shernisky / 3 Comments

Negative Positive

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~ Bill Vaughan

With another new year upon us, I’m considering what resolutions I’ll make this time around. It’s easy to fall back on all the old familiar ones:

  • Lose weight
  • Eat more vegetables
  • Cut out sugar
  • Exercise more

However, after giving this some thought, I decided to go a different route.

If you happen to read the news these days you may have noticed how depressing it is. We get a steady diet of violence, crime, poverty, crooked politicians and business people, global warming, etc. I have a tendency to ruminate on the graphic details of gun violence. After the last of many recent mass shootings I had a nightmare; the first one in many years. I wrote a post about it called Scary World, Scary Dreams. 

Happy Sad Faces

It got me thinking about how all this negativity affects our minds and ultimately our moods. During my search on the Internet I found a great article on attn.com called What Negative Thinking Does to Your Brain, written by Kathleen Toohill. It talks about how our brains are wired to have a negativity bias, the effects of negative thinking, and how to shift negative thought patterns. It’s amazing to me that we have the ability to alter the structure of our brains through a process called neuroplasticity. In other words, we can beat the negative bias that evolution programmed into our brains by thinking positive thoughts and participating in positive experiences. Practicing mindfulness, affirmations, meditation, and keeping a gratitude journal are just a few ways to replace negative thoughts with positive ones.

Happy among SadAs I compose a short list of new year’s resolutions for 2016 I’m going to add “practice positivity.” I can’t change or prevent the bad stuff from happening, but I can limit the negativity and focus more on the positive aspects of life. There are many inspirational stories out there; you just have to work a bit harder to find them!

Young at Heart

/ Luanne Shernisky / 12 Comments

Young At Heart

My thoughts on aging seem to have increased in direct proportion to my advancing age. Now in my fifties it’s pretty much a daily thought. Prior to this, I was too damn busy to notice: growing up, going to school, being a kid, a teenager, a young adult and then later, raising a family, working full-time, etc. It was all I could do to keep up with the proverbial rat race!Old car

The average lifespan for a white female living in the United States is 81. So, if I’m lucky enough to live that long, I’m already 15 years beyond the halfway point. Why didn’t I realize that when I turned 40, and could have begun some “preventative maintenance? 

Apparently, I wasn’t paying attention…yet.

The years teach much which the days never knew. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gone are the days when I never thought about growing older. Now those thoughts happen quite often, thanks to various reminders:

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  • Creaky knees
  • Looking in the mirror
  • Stiff legs upon rising in the morning
  • Increasing “senior moments”
  • Looking in the mirror
  • Gray hair
  • Adult children
  • Wrinkles
  • Menopot
  • Looking in the mirror
  • My peer group in the obituary

 

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? ~ Satchel Paige

Despite all these physical signs of aging, I can honestly say that I don’t feel 50-something. Heck, I don’t feel 3o or 40-something. I’m still somewhere back in my twenties when I first “came of age.” That was when I gained the right to vote and drink, after dropping out of college and taking a full-time job, and before marriage and children. 

Coming of age in the 70s lead me to a more liberal, open mind. I wanted to learn about other people and cultures, minus the prejudices and stereotypes that I grew up with. I believed in education, protecting the environment, the free exchange of ideas, and the collective good. Almost 40 years later I still believe in all these things. Why, I haven’t changed much at all!

I forget my age. I want to join in the social gatherings of my children, but then remind myself that when I was their age, I didn’t want to party with my parents. I feel like a twenty-something, trapped in a fifty-something body….sometimes.

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. ~Samuel Ullman

There are definitely times when I show my age:

Old Plymouth

  • Driving within the speed limit
  • Struggling with technology
  • Making small talk with strangers
  • Saying hello to people I walk past
  • Reminiscing about manual typewriters vs copy & paste
  • Complaining about too many usernames & passwords to remember

I believe the art of staying young is to exercise one’s mind and body, eating healthy and avoiding the vices. Keeping up with world and current events and to never stop learning. Remembering the passion of our youth and doing whatever it takes to keep that alive. Growing in all ways possible, each and everyday. That’s what I’m trying to do. Trying… meaning that I enjoy a few drinks, an occasional greasy cheeseburger, and driving over the speed limit…but only when I’m running late!

 

Home For the Holidays

/ Luanne Shernisky / 2 Comments

 

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At Christmas, all roads lead home. ~ Marjorie Holmes

 

As I finish up the Christmas to-do list today, I’m reminded of the holidays of yesteryear and the people who were such an integral part of those celebrations. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, and neighbors, many of whom are gone now. If we live long enough, we begin to lose them one by one.

I was saddened to hear of two families back home in Pennsylvania that lost a family member this past week. One, my former hairdresser, was 52 years old. The other young woman, a close friend of my son, was 32 and fought a tough battle with breast cancer. She leaves a husband and young son. The Christmases of both these families will forever be overshadowed with the devastating loss of loved ones gone too soon.

I continue to make the adjustment to moving 1,000 miles from home and family is on my mind. I talked about this in detail in A New Kind of December. While I’m grateful to be spending Christmas with my oldest son, his wife, and my daughter, I’m missing the rest of the family back home. This is the first Christmas without my dad, who passed away last March. The holidays can be difficult for many people for a variety of reasons. Losing people is at the top of that list. 

While all of these changes have me feeling somewhat blue, I’m grateful for:

  • my family, even if I can’t be with ALL of them for the holiday
  • that everyone is healthy and able to fully enjoy this time of celebration
  • that we have the basic necessities to live a decent life
  • that we have the opportunity to grow and change, when change is necessary.

That’s when it occurred to me: home isn’t so much a place as it is a spiritual connection to our past, memories, and the people who are/were a part of that. We can physically move far away from the place we were born, but the family history and connections always go with us. 

Tonight we’ll call home and everyone will have a chance to chat with the added addition of Facetime on the iPhone and Skype on the computer. I still remember Bell Telephone’s 1964 long distance slogan, “It’s the next best thing to being there.” Times sure have changed, but like all good ideas, they remain relevant throughout the years.

Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!