Over the years, we have had the good fortune of speaking with wise people from all walks of life. Here are excerpts of our most treasured insights.

Improving Our Life Stories

We all have stories in our minds that play over and over again. They define who we are. In recent years, neuroscience has led us to this powerful understanding that we are quite flexible as human beings. After we become conscious of our stories and how we’re using them in our lives, we can rework and reframe them, and choose to see them in a positive or better light. We can change and grow our stories to become better people with greater well-being.

We do not want to lie to ourselves. We want to know our truth, but there is so much wisdom in what we call “positive illusions”. If we can choose to take a hard story and see it in a very positive way, we can find threads of it that we can weave through our truth, and let that help us grow and make our vision of our story better.

~ Sandra Marinella, author of The Story You Need To Tell

Acknowledging Reality Before Taking Action

Acceptance is not resignation. Acceptance begins with the hard task or practice of seeing things as they are. When we can see things as they are—clearly—then we have real choices. So, if I am afraid and I give over to my fear, then I’m afraid of everything. If I can see things as they are, I can see more clearly exactly what I’m afraid of, and then I have real choices of what my next steps are. Acceptance lets us move forward.

~ Mark Nepo, author of The Book of Soul

Using Illness as an Impetus for Change

Many of my patients say that their diagnosis ended up being a tremendous gift because it allowed them to take stock of their lives and understand their priorities. That’s true for me. If I eat gluten, dairy or eggs, or I’m exposed to too much stress or toxins, my trigeminal neuralgia will turn on and I’ll have horrific facial pain, but I consider it to be a tremendous gift because that’s my barometer for the inflammation levels in my brain, which reminds me to look at my triggers and recommit to my self-care.

~ Dr. Terry Wahls, author of The Wahls Protocol

Embodying Stillness and Motion

Many people think that you have to sit in a certain posture and have no thoughts to meditate, but that isn’t true. We have 60,000 thoughts a day, and we don’t pay attention to most of them. Meditation allows you to slow your thoughts so they’re not as overwhelming and don’t interfere as much. When thoughts slow down and there’s space between them, your body also begins to slow down. Neurotransmitters like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins are released in the brain, and you feel their downstream effect, which we call relaxation.

Motion is synonymous with life. There’s always something moving, even when we’re asleep. Even gentle movement helps the body release endorphins, which elevate our mood, reduce pain and bring us pleasure. We want to bring that flow and fluidity into our lives so that we can tap into it on purpose. Have you ever noticed the less you move, the harder it is to move? Movement needs to be encouraged throughout the lifespan.

~ Dr. Carol Penn, author of Meditation in a Time of Madness

Embracing Our Sexuality at Every Age

Sexual health is important for optimal health. We want to be fully functioning and capable in what we call the second spring of our lives. It’s hard to feel romantic on your dinner date with your husband or boyfriend when you’re hot-flashing or your clothes don’t fit comfortably. Getting your sexy back is about feeling good in your own skin, being healthy, reaching a happy weight, feeling strong and having good energy, all of which come from healthy eating and healthy hormones.

~ Dr. Anna Cabeca, author of The Hormone Fix

Reigniting the Body’s Self-Healing Mechanisms

When the body has what it needs, it will do the healing and repair, which is amazing to think about. Our job is to figure out how do I give my body the safety, the energy, the time, the support that it needs for it to do the healing and repair.

~ Dr. Aimie Apigian, founder of Trauma Healing Accelerated

Championing Kindness Every Day

Physiologically speaking, kindness is the opposite of stress. Where feeling stressed can increase blood pressure, tense the nervous system and suppress the immune system, feelings induced by kindness reduce blood pressure, calm the nervous system and elevate the immune system.

It doesn’t matter what you do. What matters most is that you do it because you mean it; you genuinely have a sense of empathy and want to help someone. All of the physiological benefits of kindness come because the feelings induced by kindness generate what I call kindness hormones, the most important one being oxytocin, which is a female reproductive hormone that also plays a big role in cardiovascular health.

~ David Hamilton, Ph.D., author of How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body

Having a Grateful Heart

Gratitude is one of these micro-behaviors that creates macro-change. When we have gratitude, there are a lot of overall benefits to our health. Research has shown that gratitude can trigger the brain to release hormones and neurotransmitters that are associated with happiness, such as dopamine and serotonin. Having a gratitude practice as a family can even break negative patterns in the family ecosystem, moving toward generational mental health.

~ Roseann Capanna-Hodge, founder of The Global Institute of Children’s Mental Health

Finding Meaning as We Age

The first tenet of spiritual aging is accepting reality as it is while believing that there is meaning and purpose to life. The second is loving yourself no matter what. Spiritual aging treats the process of getting old not as a problem to be solved, but rather as a spiritual experience in and of itself. This is your last chance to embrace all of life and to have the freedom to pick what you want to do because your soul is telling you to do it.

~ Carol Orsborn, author of Spiritual Aging

Earning Wisdom

Wise elders are full of life, steeped in gratitude, eager and excited for new adventures, and able to respond to anything placed before them with wisdom and grace. They face aging and mortality with open eyes and a curious heart. They are self-reflective, committed to personal growth and anxious to invest time and energy into their inner lives. They are also happy to share what they’ve learned about life and aging with others. They make their greatest contribution to society by being a powerful example of what it means to embrace aging and the wisdom it provides.

~ Cheryl Richardson, author of Self-Care for the Wisdom Years

Sandra Yeyati is the national editor of Natural Awakenings.

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