Healthy Practices for Authentic Community

By Holly DelHousaye – Westminster Village Resident

Sales of life extending products have skyrocketed generating billions of dollars of revenue each year. How are you handling aging? Why not make a beneficial decision to go deeper in relationships and friendships for the purpose of enjoying authentic community and finishing strong?

Availability
Show up! Commit to a rich community lifestyle by meeting with others regularly as a priority, both with your schedule and your energy. Celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, exercise together, learn together, ask questions that spur great conversations over a delicious meal together.

Confidentiality
Shut up! Make it a priority not to share with others any identifying details of what is shared confidentially (in a way that is intended to be private or secret) so that you are known to be a reliable source of comfort with a trustworthy reputation.

Curiosity
Dig up! Be gentle yet purposeful in your desire to seek out what is really going on in another individual’s life for the purpose of knowledgably providing thoughtful attention and sensitive encouragement.

Openness and Honesty
Open up! Set an example of healthy relating to others by sharing what is going on “inside you” verses only sharing what is going on “around you” as needed for context. This is the way to reveal you are open and thoughtful about your life as well as making yourself available for creating deep, meaningful, and satisfying relationships with others.

Finishing Strong
Finish up! Aging gracefully means you accept that your physical strength is waning—and you must transfer greater trust to a divine source who has the power to act on your behalf. What does finishing strong look like?

When I accept that death is a natural part of life, I prepare for it. I know a woman who composed a legacy letter to be sent to her family and friends after her passing. She wanted them to know what was important to her—so even in death her life still speaks! How will your life speak after you are gone? What are you leaving as a legacy? Can you do more to finish strong?