Showing posts with label habits relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label habits relationships. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Seniors, divorce or separation while retired

I have witnessed some seniors struggling in retirement because of divorce or separation from their partners.

Divorce or separation can be a difficult and stressful experience at any age, but it can be especially challenging for seniors who may cope with other issues related to aging, such as declining health or financial insecurity. Losing a partner can be emotionally and socially isolating, and it may be difficult to rebuild a sense of security and stability.

One way to get support is by talking to friends, family, or a therapist about your feelings and concerns. It may also be helpful to seek support groups for individuals who are going through divorce or separation, as these groups can provide a sense of community and a safe space to share your experiences and receive support from others who are going through similar challenges.

It is important to take care of your financial well-being during this time. This may involve seeking the advice of a financial advisor or attorney to help you understand your options and make informed decisions about your financial future. You may also want to consider creating a budget and reviewing your financial resources to ensure that you have a plan in place to support yourself financially.

Finally, it’s important to take care of your physical and emotional health during this time. This may involve exercising, eating a healthy diet, and finding healthy ways to cope with stress. It may also be helpful to reach out to a healthcare professional or therapist for additional support and guidance.

 If you know someone who is struggling with divorce or separation in retirement, there are several things you can do to support them:

  • Offer emotional support. Let them know you are there to listen and offer a shoulder to lean on.
  • Help with practical tasks. Offer to run errands, help with housework, or provide transportation to appointments.
  • Connect them with resources. Look into local support groups or counselling services that can help them cope with the challenges of divorce or separation.
  • Encourage self-care. Encourage your friend or loved one to take care of themselves physically, emotionally, and mentally. This may include getting enough sleep, exercising, eating well, and engaging in activities that bring them joy.
  • Keep in touch. Regularly check in with your loved one and offer your support. Even a phone call or a video chat can make a big difference in their emotional well-being.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

Tips to Prevent Loneliness Part 2

The first question to answer is what kinds of friends you are looking for? Once you know, you can choose to engage in activities that will give you an opportunity to meet new people who share your interests. For example, are there political, religious, sports, social or other groups that you could re-engage with? Here are some habits that you could develop that could help you make new friends.
Habit #1 – Go Out, Meet New People Once A Month
If you want to build a social life, you need to constantly be meeting new people. Not everyone you meet will be a good fit for you, and not all your friends will be around forever. This is why you need to be supplying yourself with new faces, but not necessarily more than what you’re comfortable with.
You can dial it up or down, but don’t stop it; people won’t come knocking on your door to meet you.
What I recommend is to commit to helping some sort of social community that has the kind of people you want as friends. When you find a good community or group, go to the organizing team and offer to help, and get involved.
Most of them love to have more people involved, even if they don’t need that much help. They just appreciate your presence and will be grateful. You’ll instantly be in a position of a value-giver.
This works very well for two reasons. First, it’ll be more than easy for you to meet new people; many members of that community will come to you and get to know you, as one of the hosts. Second, this commitment will somewhat force you to go out and attend their social events, which means that you won’t need any more motivation to do it. It’s like beating procrastination before it even starts.
Habit #2 – Do Something Social Once A Week
Again, if you have to remember to be social, you probably won’t do it. This is why I suggest that you focus on building new habits, once and for all.
First, let’s make sure you don’t forget to keep in touch with people. What you do here is make a mark in your calendar an hour of time where you usually don’t do anything important. Block that hour, every week, for reaching out to people, calling, sending texts, etc. Something like Wednesday at 7 pm works great.
When you make that decision, you won’t have to remember to call people, you’ll just do it for one hour and enjoy the week without worrying that maybe you’re ignoring people.
During that hour, contact new and old friends, and try and make plans to meet with some of them. If you have one social activity per week, that’s far better than having no clarity and no consistency.
To make this even easier, start introducing people to each other, even if they’re both new friends. This will create a group effect, and they will start to call and make plans as well, you won’t be the only one doing it.
Friendship takes time, effort and advance planning. Think about the type of person that you’d like to meet and you just might increase your chances of meeting them!
Habit Three Ritualizing your social activities, instead of doing them only when you feel the motivation. Ritualization is the evolutionary process whereby a signal behavior is established or improved in such a way that it becomes a more effective or efficient means of communication. Any attribute-behavioral, physiological, developmental, or morphological traits--can be the basis of a communicative signal. 
The key attribute of the trait is that it in some way conveys information, usually about one individual to another. This information then makes the world of the recipient more predictable, less chaotic.  If your world is more predictable, it is easier to navigate and as an introvert, you will feel more comfortable communicating with others, which is a key to making new friends.
Habit Four Start thinking in terms of groups of friends, instead of individual friends.
Remember that most of the time the group isn't purposely trying to mean and exclusive. They just all know each other and it's easier for them to talk among themselves. They may also be a bit lazy and see getting to know someone new at work when they could just hang out with their buddies instead. Some of the group members may be a bit shy too and feel a bit inhibited about engaging someone unfamiliar. 
Below is some advice on handling these situations.
Take the initiative and throw yourself in there
Since it's easy for the group to benignly overlook you it's important to take the initiative to try to get to know everyone. Basically, whatever the group is doing, put yourself in there and attempt to join their conversation. The biggest barriers to doing this are feeling too shy to put yourself in the middle of things and feeling like you don't know what to say to everyone. 
It can help not to think of throwing yourself into things in Either-Or terms, i.e., you feel you have to be ultra-outgoing or there's no point in trying. Even pushing yourself a little bit more than usual may be all that's needed. Or maybe you'll only take a little initiative one day but go further the next. Another thing you can try to do is find a friendly person or two and try talking to them, and not pressure yourself to make the rounds and chat up every last individual. At a larger gathering that may not be realistic anyway.
Don't feel like you're at an audition
I think a lot of people put too much pressure on themselves when they hang out with a new group the first few times because they feel like they have to show their best side and win everyone over. This sometimes backfires. Act the way you normally would around people. Don't try to be more energetic than usual, or joke around more than you typically would. Basically, if the group is going to like you, they're going to like you. If the group is not going to like you, they are not, accept this fact and move on to a group that likes you.
Don't get discouraged if things don't go perfectly the first time
Another important thing to keep in mind is that the first time you meet everyone usually doesn't make or break you. We often have to hang out with a new person a few times before we know how the relationship is going to develop. Hanging out with someone once, and maybe only getting to actually talk to them for ten minutes, isn't long enough to judge.
You don't have to make everyone love you
Getting along with everyone is something to shoot for, but you can probably hang around a group again even if they all don't want to be lifelong friends after meeting you on a handful of occasions. In many social circles, some people like and hang out with each other more than others. 
Give everyone a chance even if your first impression of them isn't perfect
When you first meet a new group of people you're not going to like everyone instantly. One person might come off as a bit aloof, another may seem too boring, another you don't have much in common with, and so on. Ignore those first impressions and make an effort to be friendly with them all anyway. 
Groups are often quite obvious about what you need to do be accepted
If you pay attention you can often pick up obvious signs of what you need to do for the group to take you in. Signs could be as blatant as someone inviting to join them on a certain activity or mentioning the group often hangs out at a particular place on Friday nights.
Get into a larger group one sub-group at a time
Larger groups naturally take some time to find your place in, and it can be discouraging if you don't realize this. 

Friday, May 4, 2018

Tips to Prevent Loneliness

According to Statistics Canada, as many as 1.4 million elderly Canadians report feeling lonely. And the city, Vancouver, I live in as a reputation for being less than friendly if you believe the media stories. So is loneliness a problem for seniors in Vancouver. I think it is, based on conversations at the many workshops I have given on social connectedness.

The discrepancy between an individual’s loneliness and the number of connections in a social network is well documented, yet little is known about the placement of loneliness within, or the spread of loneliness through, social networks. Results of a number of studies indicated the spread of loneliness was found to be stronger than the spread of perceived social connections, stronger for friends than family members, and stronger for women than for men.

The results advance our understanding of the broad social forces that drive loneliness and suggest that efforts to reduce loneliness in our society may benefit by aggressively targeting the people in the periphery to help repair their social networks and to create a protective barrier against loneliness that can keep the whole network from unraveling. 

There was a study that involved more than 5,000 individuals who were asked to complete a loneliness questionnaire, give a medical history and receive a physical examination every two year to four years over a ten-year period. Participants also indicated who their friends and relatives were, and many of these individuals also took part in the study. By looking at the social networks of the participants and the number of lonely days they experienced each year, researchers were able to see how loneliness spread throughout the groups. The study found that:

·       People feel lonely for approximately 48 days out of each year, on average.
·       People are about 50-percent more likely to experience loneliness if someone they are directly connected to feels lonely.
·       Women report experiencing more loneliness
·       Loneliness is more likely to spread in women's social networks than in men's.
·       Loneliness is more likely to spread in networks of friends, rather than those of family.
Loneliness can be overcome. It does require a conscious effort on your part to make a change. Making a change, in the long run, can make you happier, healthier, and enable you to impact others around you in a positive way.
Here are some ways to prevent loneliness:
·       Recognize that loneliness is a sign that something needs to change.
·       Understand the effects that loneliness has on your life, both physically and mentally.
·       Consider doing community service or another activity that you enjoy. These situations present great opportunities to meet people and cultivate new friendships and social interactions.
·       Focus on developing quality relationships with people who share similar attitudes, interests, and values with you.
·       Expect the best. Lonely people often expect rejection, so instead focus on positive thoughts and attitudes in your social relationships.
Having just three or four close friends is enough to ward off loneliness and reduce the negative health consequences associated with this state of mind.


The problem is that as we age we lose friends for many reasons, and many of us find it hard to make new friends. So tomorrow I will post a few tips on how to make new friends.

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Does it Spark Joy?

Author, Marie Kondo, proposes a very simple selection criterion about what to keep or throw out of your life. She asks the following question: 

"Does it spark joy?"

That's it!  Look at something and ask yourself if that thing sparks a sense of joy in you.  If so - it can stay, if not - it goes.

She says: "Keep only the those things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest." 

So as stumble into fall and the last half of 2015, I suggest you apply this same approach to all areas of your life. Ask yourself honestly if the people, places, things and situations around you spark joy.  If not, start choosing some changes.

I know I can always use more joy in my life, so let's start with Andre Rieu version of Beethoven's work Ode To Joy

Joy, bright spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire-inspired we tread
Thy sanctuary.
Thy magic power re-unites
All that custom has divided,
All men become brothers
Under the sway of thy gentle wings.

Whoever has created
An abiding friendship,
Or has won
A true and loving wife,
All who can call at least one soul theirs,
Join in our song of praise ;
But any who cannot must creep tearfully
Away from our circle.

All creatures drink of joy
At nature's breast.
Just and unjust
Alike taste of her gift ;
She gave us kisses and the fruit of the vine,
A tried friend to the end.
Even the worm can fell contentment,
And the cherub stands before God !

Gladly, like the heavenly bodies
Which He set on their courses
Through the splendour of the firmament ;
Thus, brothers, you should run your race,
As a hero going to conquest.

You millions, I embrace you.
This kiss is for all the world !
Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving Father.
Do you fall in worship, you millions ?
World, do you know your Creator ?
Seek Him in the heavens !
Above the stars must He dwell.