Guest Post

How I transformed my mindset to maximize healing before, during and after treatment

A central premise of the wonderful Modern Elder Academy (MEA) community is that those of us who’ve lived for a while have wisdom to share and experience to spread with others. By learning from one another, we can make the world a better place.

If you're reading this, chances are you're a Bibliophile, someone who loves books, rather than a Bibliophobe, someone who fears books. Perhaps you're even a Bibliosopher, someone who gains wisdom from books.

Last summer, I started writing a book about living with intention so that I didn’t die with regrets. The book was my motivation for going to MEA, as well as my motivation for getting up each day. My working title: Not Dead Yet.

Last November, I went on a week-long journey to explore my life's purpose in MEA . The workshop was amazing, the most wonderful compadres to sail along. Short of any cliché, the week was life shaking.

In his TED talk about the online curated-discussion experience, Death Over Dinner, Michael Hebb seeks to upgrade how the world manages death by inviting us to engage in “dinner table talk.”

I’d heard about the Modern Elder Academy (MEA) for a few years. A wisdom school for midlife transitions? Sign me up. I’m a few years out from 50 and feeling a deep desire to make the second half of life one for the books.

How do we love Chip? Let us count the ways days! (Three-hundred and sixty-six to be exact.) Wisdom Well readers have been receiving a daily microdose of wisdom online since 2019.

As part of my ongoing learnings, I attended a presentation about generational wealth recently and its importance to society. Generational wealth means passing financial assets to the next generation of your family, giving them a leg up and closing the widening wealth gap in North America. Financial assets include cash, investments like stocks and bonds, real estate and family business.

Ellen Langer challenges the idea that the limits we put on ourselves, as we age, are real. Opening our minds to what’s possible, instead of presuming impossible, can lead to better well-being, at any age. We need to realize that our perspective on aging is often based on old assumptions about aging and that we can cast them aside for real possibilities.