The Living to 100 Club and Psychologically Healthy Aging

The Living to 100 Club is a platform dedicated to promoting longevity and vitality among individuals aged 55 and above. It serves as a hub for insights, resources, and community engagement, offering information on successful aging and fostering a mindset that favors living longer, healthier, and happier lives. Through various channels such as podcasts, presentations, coaching sessions, and training programs, the Living to 100 Club equips its members with the tools and knowledge necessary to embrace aging with confidence and optimism.

Principles that Guide Us to a Positive Frame of Mind about Aging
The following tips invite readers to examine their usual thinking patterns about aging and to consider a different perspective on what we can accomplish and expect of ourselves. Download and read all 9 Tips, here.

Starting a New Chapter
Sometimes, it is helpful to look back at our lives and see a series of chapters unfolding. These are a succession of events or milestones that mark our journey, like graduation, marriage, birth of children, promotions, retirement, death of a spouse, and on and on. These milestones serve as chapters in our life story. With each new milestone, we must look at starting a new chapter, whether intended or not, whether pleasant or not, and whether liberating or not. Situations like downsizing to a smaller home, a divorce, giving up the car keys, or experiencing the death of a spouse require us to start a new chapter in our story.

What Color Is Your Setback?
As I get older, I face challenges that are both normal and age-related as well as unexpected physical and mental setbacks. How I view my future has a major impact on how well I manage these challenges.There will always be bumps – no road is well-paved all the way. If we interpret these as just part of the journey and see ourselves as capable and determined to move on, we find a way and we move on. On the other hand, if we say, oh, another setback, another surgery, another friend’s death, I don’t think I can handle another one, we lose our momentum, slow down, and maybe pull off the road.

Where Can Determination Take Us?
I have a vast reservoir of energy and creative spirit inside, and when I dig deep to tap this reservoir of energy, I can re-define myself as strong, resilient, and capable. Each time we dig deep and accomplish something we did not think we were capable of, it builds our confidence and keeps the momentum flowing.
• I never thought I could take 10 steps after my stroke, but I did.
• I never thought I could give up my car keys – driving was always my lifeline.
A single step is so hard, but we try, and we succeed. The best part is that whatever it took to take those extra steps or change an attitude, there is more of that determination inside us, to take on more challenges.

How One Exception Can Lift Our Depression
Depression affects us in many ways, and one thing it does well is narrow our perspective. When someone is depressed, all they see are the failures, the disappointments, everything that has gone wrong. Depression limits us from seeing the whole picture. It is as if it acts as a filter that only lets in the bad and screens out the good.To remove the filter, we need to find the exceptions, even a single exception that something has gone right. Once the exception is found, there is something to build on. Just as someone only sees their physical decline, arthritis, vision, or hearing problems, we look for the strengths, those things that are still intact and we are still good at.

Projecting a New Image on a Blank Screen
There is beauty in being open to a new, positive future. I can create a new definition of myself, as I want it to be, and I do not have to let yesterday define who I am today. There is the story of Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, who was given up for adoption by his birth parents. When he found out about this at an early age, he felt worthless and was sure he would never accomplish anything because he felt so unwanted. Negative self-talk: I am not worthy of others; I am just empty and unlovable. But his adoptive parents explained to him that he was the most beautiful and smartest person in the world, even as an infant, and that was why they adopted him. Positive self-talk: I am lovable and capable, and I have some value as a person after all. Our self-talk can be as pessimistic, or as aspirational as Steve Jobs’ self-talk became. We are not defined by who we were or what we believed in the past. Instead, we can create our own self definition, re-invent ourselves, and look forward to the future.

Closing
The Living to 100 Club is for everyone who will not be slowed down in their advancing years and wants to take control of their own future, regardless of events that get in the way. Club Members commit to moving forward no
matter how many bumps are encountered, adopting lifestyle practices that keep us at our peak, and celebrating aging, not dreading it.

The Living to 100 Club is the creation of Dr. Joe Casciani, a psychologist, who has specialized in older adult mental health care for 40 years, including psychological services, writing, public speaking, and providing training and support
for mental health professionals working in his professional corporations.

Dr. Casciani’s latest publication, Better, Longer & Happier: A Guide to Aging with Purpose and Positivity, is a series of 12 Modules. The series has been developed for activity directors and caregivers to help older adults stay cognitively challenged, engaged with their community, and keep a positive attitude about the future.

If there is an interest in a presentation to your senior community or organization, clinical training, or 1-on-1 consultation, Joe can be reached at Info@Livingto100.Club or 858-272-3992.