Is the Problem Really Aging?

Locker Room Conversations

A woman is sitting on a bench in the locker room at the health club putting on her sneakers.

The locker room is designed with lockers lined up against the walls, each with its own key on a blue plastic spring that fits over a wrist. In front of the rows of lockers are wooden slatted benches. Invariably, when one is ready to change clothes, even if there is only one other person using a locker in that area, it’s a sure bet that they will be using the locker right next to the one you put your things in. We often laugh about this inevitable inconvenient coincidence.

This morning a woman apologized for sitting on the bench to put on her sneakers, aware that doing so blocked someone else’s access to a locker. The woman prefaced her apology with the expression, “at my age, ”implying that her age made it difficult for her to put her sneakers on without sitting down. The irony of this word choice is that she appeared to be easily 15 or 20 years younger than the others of us who were dressing after a water exercise class. I chose to call her on it.

“Please don’t attribute a lack of balance or desire to put your sneakers on while seated to age or for that matter anything else that bothers you,” I admonished. “For one thing, I believe that we can overcome most anything with the right exercise and attitude. Besides that, your body will listen to everything you tell it. If you indicate that you accept a condition like poor balance, and that you attribute it to be a natural part of the aging process, your body won’t feel there is any point to resisting the observed change. There will be no incentive for it to fight the implied gradual deterioration being attributed to the aging process.”

Another woman in the locker room was dubious. “How come,” she began, “I tell my body all kinds of positive things and it doesn’t listen to them.”

I smiled as I responded, “It doesn’t work to cover over our fears and negative ideas with good thoughts. Often limiting beliefs are held at the subconscious level. When they are cultural in nature they are referred to as memes. Ideas about aging fall into that category, and they can be insidious because often we are not aware of them. They don’t originate with us. And they are so extant in the culture that we absorb them without any awareness. Still, the body obeys these ideas as if they were directives we had intentionally directed its way. The good news is that there are many ways to ferret out these negative ideas and address them. That is what many of the processes that form the cutting edge discipline of Energy Psychology are about.

I went on silently thinking, “Surely plenty of problems do surface as we get older. No wonder we have come to attribute them to natural consequences of aging. But no two bodies age in exactly the same way. Clearly there must be something else going on. Aging isn’t a disease. But at the same time, it does make demands that youth does not. Every bodily function takes more time and attention. Many of us can attest to the fact that the expression “use it or lose it” applies. This increased need to exercise all the body functions that are meaningful to us applies to brain capacities, including memory, creativity, and the ability to articulate ideas as well as to muscles. It includes digestion and eye sight, as well as balance. Thus there is no doubt that there is a correlation of increased complaints that accompanies aging. However, the cause of any of this variety of complaints is more complex than age alone. Acknowledging the factors that may play a role increases the potential to explore ways to reverse the effects observed to accompany aging.