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Finding Your Purpose at Any Age: Life Lessons from 103-Year-Old Dr Gladys McGarey #460

Jun 11, 2024 1h 33m 23 insights
At the age of 103, not only is today’s guest the oldest I’ve ever welcomed onto my podcast, but she’s also the oldest returning guest, too!   Dr Gladys McGarey is the co-founder of the American Holistic Medical Association and the author of the fantastic book The Well-Lived Life: A 103-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age. She began her medical practice at a time when women couldn’t even own their own bank accounts, and over the past sixty years, she’s pioneered a new way of thinking about disease and health that’s transformed the way we imagine health care and self-care around the world. In this wonderful and uplifting conversation, and with her trademark humour and compassion, Gladys offers profound insights on living with purpose, navigating adversity and finding healing within ourselves.  We explore how to avoid living with regrets, the importance of parents truly listening to and supporting their children and finding your unique purpose that ‘feeds your soul’. We also look at how we can bring a more positive attitude to negative experiences and how Gladys lives by what she calls her "5 Ls" - life, love, laughter, labour and listening. Still thriving at 103, she embodies staying curious, adaptable and active. During our conversation, she shares her views on ageing, believing in ‘ageing into health’ rather than ‘anti-ageing.’ She also stresses the importance of doctors listening to - and loving - their patients but that it’s ultimately us who are responsible for our own healing. Gladys’s century of life experiences has something to offer everyone. Her wisdom will inspire you to reflect on your own purpose, face life's challenges with resilience and make the most of the years ahead. It was an honour to speak to Gladys again and have such a deep and honest conversation with her. I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I did. Her playfulness, humour, and can-do attitude remind us that it's never too late to learn, grow and make a positive impact on the world around us.  Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Thanks to our
Actionable Insights

1. Love Is The Great Healer

Recognize love as the ultimate healing force and infuse it into all interactions and with all things, understanding that a loving essence goes with everything you touch. This approach fosters deep healing and leaves a positive impact.

2. Cultivate Daily Purpose

Develop a strong sense of purpose that makes you eager to engage with each new day. This intrinsic drive is crucial for maintaining overall well-being, mobility, and cognitive sharpness throughout life.

3. Choose Your Life’s Direction

Take personal responsibility to choose your life’s direction and what you pay attention to, rather than allowing others to decide for you. This empowers you to shape your own path and find meaning.

4. Empower Patient’s Inner Healer

As a physician, understand that patients possess their own internal healing capabilities and view them as colleagues in their healing journey. Your role is to facilitate this inner healing through a cooperative, loving relationship, rather than solely ‘fixing’ them.

5. Live By The Five L’s

Integrate ‘Life, Love, Laughter, Labor, and Listening’ into your daily approach to navigate life productively. Ensure life and love grow together, practice laughter with love for joy, engage in labor with love for bliss, and listen with love for true understanding.

6. Process Regrets, Then Move On

When faced with past regrets, choose to ’live through’ them by understanding and processing the experience, rather than dwelling on fixing them. This prevents being held back by negative past events and allows you to go on with your life.

7. Embrace ‘Aging Into Health’

Adopt a positive mindset towards aging, viewing it as ‘aging into health’ by focusing on new capabilities and finding ways to compensate for disabilities, rather than resisting it. This helps maintain a positive outlook and continue engaging with life.

8. Practice Self-Love & Release Negativity

Practice self-love and compassion by acknowledging your own vulnerability and choosing not to internalize negativity. Let hurtful comments go, reserving your energy for positive experiences and accepting yourself.

9. Find Humor in Adversity

Cultivate the ability to find humor in difficult or painful situations, twisting them just enough to elicit laughter. This approach can help navigate adversity, change perspective, and prevent taking offense unnecessarily.

10. Listen to Children’s Innate Purpose

Parents should actively listen to and observe their children, paying attention to their questions and natural inclinations, as children often reveal their innate purpose and dreams from a young age. This helps nourish their natural path rather than suppressing it.

11. Share Healing Knowledge

Share knowledge and insights about healing and loving processes with others, recognizing it as a responsibility to improve collective well-being. If you’ve learned something that’s a healing process, share it.

12. Love Difficult Individuals

When encountering difficult individuals, especially patients, take responsibility for finding a way to love them by identifying acceptable qualities, recognizing they may lack experience with love. This compassionate approach can foster a more healing interaction.

13. Actively Listen to Patients

As a healthcare provider, actively and empathetically listen to patients to truly understand their experiences and needs. This is fundamental to effective care and building trust, as without listening, you cannot know what is truly happening within them.

14. Seize Available Opportunities

When faced with less-than-ideal circumstances or limited opportunities, seize what is available and adapt to it, using it as a stepping stone to move forward. This pragmatic approach helps you progress despite challenges.

15. Adapt to Life Transitions

During life transitions, actively seek out and utilize available resources or opportunities to propel yourself forward, adapting to new circumstances rather than resisting them. This helps navigate change successfully.

16. Allow Purpose to Evolve

Allow your life’s purpose to evolve and grow as you do, recognizing that it is not static but changes with your experiences and personal development. If we’re growing, our purpose grows.

17. Embrace Lifelong Learning

Maintain a lifelong attitude of curiosity and openness to learning, recognizing that personal growth and new insights can occur at any age. This continuous engagement prevents stagnation and fosters wisdom.

18. Find Purpose in Small Acts

Find meaning and purpose in small, everyday acts of care or engagement, as these can provide a profound sense of contribution and understanding of one’s ongoing life purpose. Even a small plant can make a difference.

19. Choose Happiness Daily

Recognize that happiness is a choice and consciously choose to approach life with joy and a positive outlook. This deliberate choice can transform your daily experience.

20. Address Bad Days Proactively

On a bad day, identify the cause and actively seek to correct it or consciously live through it without dwelling on negativity. Try to inject humor into the situation to shift your perspective.

21. Adopt Core Health Practices

Prioritize a fresh, clean diet suitable for your location, ensure adequate water intake, engage in regular movement (e.g., walking with a walker), keep hands active with hobbies like knitting, aim for eight hours of sleep, breathe fresh air, and choose activities that are safe for your body. These practices support overall physical well-being.

22. View Rest as Action

Reframe rest as an active and necessary component of well-being, rather than a waste of time. Allow yourself to rest when needed, understanding it contributes to overall health and is ‘doing something.’

23. Compensate for Disabilities

When facing physical limitations or disabilities, actively seek out and utilize compensatory strategies (e.g., audiobooks for vision loss, assistance from others) to continue engaging with life and achieving goals. This allows you to adapt and keep doing what you can.