Day 30 Killing Grandma!
- Lisa Glasgow
- Aug 18
- 5 min read
In one of my previous posts, I said that I don’t do age, so this post is all about why.
My Grandmother had spent her life not telling anyone her age – this was not what a ‘lady’ did, and so she never mentioned it and I didn’t think about it. Then when she turned 80, my Dad planned a party for her and from then on, we started having celebrations for her 80th, 85th, 90th.
I remember telling someone that I was going to celebrate my Grandmother’s 80th birthday, and they said something like, “Oh wow, you’d better enjoy her while she’s still here.” Now, I totally got the sentiment but I also saw that this meant my Grandmother’s life was being timed by other people. With her age in mind, people looked at my Grandmother with the thought, “She’ll die soon”, “Not long left”, and to me this seems like they were gently killing her with their well-meaning thoughts.
Now this started when she was 80, and Nan lived until she was 97, so that’s a whole 17 years more, which is fantastic and I did indeed cherish every moment with her, but I couldn’t help but wonder what these ‘death’ thoughts might be doing to her. Could her body feel them? Would she start to agree that it was time she left this mortal coil? Could she have lived even longer if people expected her to live to 120, and when they saw her thought, “I wonder what she’ll get up to next?!”
I was willing my Grandmother to reach her centenary so she would receive the much coveted birthday card from the Queen. I’m sure she could have done. In the photo top left her and I are at my sister's wedding. She is 89, and below it was taken at her 90th birthday dinner. She was fit, of sound mind and strong heart. However 2 years later, my Dad - Nan's oldest son - died and although her health remained good, emotionally her heart was broken, and she started to run out of the will to live. 5 years later, for no particular reason, she died.
It was clear to me that this was less to do with her body failing her than her mind and soul being deeply sad - she was an emotional riot of anger, grief, denial and blame. She couldn't and therefore wouldn't 'allow' my Dad to be ill and this denial probably meant that there were things she wished she'd done differently.
My Grandmother was Irish and she had a super strong will, strong faith and didn't listen to what anybody said about her. So perhaps for her, it wasn't other people's thoughts that affected her decline, but her own.
Me on the other hand, as a former (it's WIP) People Pleaser, and HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), I know I'm not impervious to people's thoughts, so I'm taking precautions! I also know that my own thoughts are the most damaging to how my body behaves, so I keep a firm check on those too. Hence I don’t share my age with most people. Not because it’s “unbecoming as a lady”, but because I don’t want to receive other people’s limiting thoughts associated with it.
Thoughts are energy, we can feel them whether we realise it or not. If someone thinks I am ‘a certain age’ they will start to treat me their idea of that age, and I will feel it. Then I might start to reduce my own expectations of myself.
I might start to say things like “Well, I’m in my X-ties now you know” , whipping it out like a bus pass to get me a free ride on the subject of tummy weight, fitness, aches and pains, tiredness etc.
I remember finishing a game of field hockey in my 30s and totally collapsing at the end of it, unable to lift my legs to get showered and dressed. Did I say “It’s my age”? No. So when I feel exhausted after playing a sport now, I remind myself of this and refuse to let myself blame my age. I’m not saying that there is no increase in pains or tiredness as we get older, but I think we need to be very careful about blaming everything on age, as this is giving ourselves self-limiting beliefs.
By comparison, a friend of mine is 77 years old and she is still playing field hockey. Plus, pickleball and Pilates. She’s just as active – perhaps more so – than she’s ever been. She is belying her age number.
With regards to my diet – my age might be a great excuse for not becoming my desired weight or shape. Other people might think I am “good for my age” and there it is again – someone else’s limiting beliefs about what I can achieve. There’s an enculturated idea of what happens to us at certain ages, and therefore an expectation of decline, but what if the body is following the mind-state? What if our bodies can still regenerate if we think that we have another 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years ahead of us?
A study called “Counterclockwise” by Professor Ellen Langer* of Harvard University and another follow-up study conducted in UK**, took a group of 70 and 80 year olds, and placed them inside a kind of time capsule home for a week. This environment replicated their youth: the décor, music, clothes, all from the 1950s and 1970s respectively. Both these environments were far more challenging than a modern house – shag pile carpet which is easy to trip over, door ridges to navigate and stairs to climb.
However, the participants were instructed to take care of themselves, to carry their own luggage, and maneuver themselves up and down the stairs, even those who felt unsure if they could even make it to the top of a set of stairs! It was far from a holiday This was active and even arduous participation in a filmed experiment that allowed them to live according to their heydays – their minds remembering their former fitness, energy and verve for life, as they moved around their memory-stimulating environment, listening to music and even reading news stories from these past times.
In both studies the results were remarkable: their bodies soon followed their minds and started to behave as if they were indeed 20 years younger!
The UK study noted:
“Half way through the week, Liz Smith took 148 steps with the aid of just one stick. For someone who had not walked without both sticks since her stroke - and who often relied on a wheelchair - it was a real breakthrough. She was no longer willing to be limited by the physical constraints she had imposed on herself.”
“At the end of the week we put our guinea pigs through the same rigorous battery of physical and psychological tests we had at the beginning. Memory, mood, flexibility, stamina and even eye sight had improved in almost all of them….. in some cases they shed up to 20 years in their apparent biological age.”
So, for my little life experiment: I don’t tell people my age. I keep it private. I am a vague number-age that I have in mind – it’s not a fixed digit, it’s a rough area, and I’m expecting my body to follow me.
So far – so good!
By the way Professor Langer is also known as the Mother of Mindfullness, so she has done lots of valuable research in the area of mind and body, or as she says “putting the mind and body back together.”
Links below.
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