By Joanne A.

When your mind says “YES” and your body says “NO”. 

Chatting with a bunch of older adults the other day as we waited to go into our yoga class we decided that our minds were much more capable than our bodies.

You’ll remember how we were all told throughout our lives that everything we had to do was just putting your mind to it and it was possible.

As older adults many of us have discovered that this saying is no longer true.  The real truth is that for many of us our minds can do more than our bodies.

In our mind’s eye, we can see ourselves doing the things we always did.

Walking around that mall for a couple of hours is a piece of cake. Getting up from that low-slung sofa is easily doable.  And climbing those 84 steps to see a historical site is a matter of pacing yourself.  That’s what you think because your mind is telling you so. Also the old adage of mind over matter is ingrained in our thinking.

As we add more and more birthday candles to our cake, our bodies start rebelling.

No matter how much our minds say “you can do it”, our bodies refuse to cooperate.

And even as our minds spur us on, the possibilities of acting on those thoughts are impossible. And eventually the time comes when we have to listen to our bodies before putting our minds to anything. Recognizing that is the wisdom of  graceful aging.