I had a realization this morning that arrived very quietly and softly, yet captivating me.
The kind of insight that rearranges something deep inside without fanfare.
It began with healing.
I suddenly saw that one of the reasons we humans struggle to heal—physically, emotionally, spiritually—is because we assume that today is going to be the same as yesterday. We wake up and pull the past over the present like a blanket. We look for the same pain, the same limitation, the same story, and we find it because that is what we are looking through.
Years ago, I heard Dr. Zach Bush say that when we look in the mirror, we don’t see what is there—we see what we expect to see. The familiar image of ourselves overrides the truth of constant renewal. Life changed while we slept, but our perception did not.
I once experienced this directly. I spent a full day immersed in intense body work, and someone took a photo of us at the end. Days later, when I looked at that photo again, I felt shock. I looked younger. Softer. Different. Something had shifted, but at the time I couldn’t see it because I was still perceiving myself as the person from before the day’s work.
The body regenerates at night..
Cells repair.
Hormones rebalance.
The psyche releases what it can.
But if the mind insists on sameness, we miss the healing that is already happening.
This realization opened another door.
I had been contemplating the concept of giving up—especially as we age. A friend recently told me she wasn’t visiting with anyone anymore because she never knew when her health symptoms might flare up. Listening to her, I felt something in my chest sink. It felt like giving up, not in a moral sense, but in an energetic one. The withdrawal from connection. The stepping out of the weave of life.
And that morning, I realized the opposite of giving up.
It isn’t surrender.
It isn’t acceptance.
It is staying connected.
In whatever way is possible.
Even if the way changes.
Giving up is not decline.
Giving up is disconnection.
And elderhood, in its true sense, is the opposite of that.
Elderhood is not the absence of decline;
it is the presence of meaning.
The body may change.
Energy may ebb.
Life may look different than it once did.
But the thread of connection—to life, to others, to ourselves, to meaning—does not have to break.
The insight about healing and the contemplation about giving up are not separate. They are two sides of the same truth:
When we assume that today is the same as yesterday, we cut ourselves off from the possibility of change.
When we remain connected, we allow life to move again.
Healing becomes possible not because the body suddenly becomes perfect, but because we stop insisting that nothing can change.
Staying connected is not heroic.
It is not dramatic.
It is not loud.
It is a quiet “yes” to being here.
A willingness to participate in life as it is today—different, even in the smallest way.
That is the beginning of healing.
That is the essence of elderhood.
And that, perhaps, is where we go from here.
#Elderhood #SoulWisdom #ConsciousAging #Presence #MeaningfulLiving #AwakeningTheElderWithin