Valentine’s Day is over, but if you’re a divorced woman over 50, you may still be struggling with ways to show love for yourself this month and beyond. 

But over my years as a divorce coach for women 50 and better (and as someone who went through a painful divorce myself), I’ve actually discovered some incredible things I can do for myself and others that guarantee February, March, and the spring are full of warmth, love, and fulfillment. 

Donate to a Charity That Empowers Women and Girls in Need

Whether it’s domestic or international, related to girls’ education in the developing world, equal access to reproductive health, providing sanitary products to women experiencing homelessness, or your local Girl Scout troop, there are many incredible organizations that would love (and need!) your time and investment.

Not sure where to begin? And nervous that the money you donate won’t go to those in need? No sweat. I love exploring Charity Navigator’s list for the ladies.

Even when you are going through a lot of pain after you were married for decades, paying it forward by helping other women does two things for you: 

#1 It reaffirms you’re not alone and there’s a community out there that needs you.

#2 It lets you know that even when you’re hurting and stuck, you have the ability to break free from patterns that keep you down. Because you deserve so much happiness… at 50, 60, or any age.

Write a Love Letter to 3 Incredible Women in Your Life

It can be a good friend, a teacher, your mother, aunt, sister, hair stylist, therapist, or the female doctor who found the suspicious lump early and saved your life. 

It doesn’t matter her status. And it doesn’t matter how long the letter is. It can be as simple as sending a text message to her. Or an email. Or finding a beautiful card at the grocery store. Or actually getting out some lovely stationery and composing an old-school (my favorite!) letter.

All that matters is you thank her for what she did for you. And she influenced you in a positive way. 

Romance Yourself in February and Beyond 

As women of a certain age, we are conditioned to take care of others and never put ourselves first, but that silliness stops today. In the spirit of love, I’d encourage you this weekend to actually romance yourself. 

That can look however you want it to. 

It can be soaking in a hot bubble bath with the door closed so nobody can bug you. 

It can be ordering some delicious take-out and watching your favorite show on Netflix (um, Bridgerton anyone?). 

It can be finally ordering that super-soft robe you’ve had your eye on but have felt guilty about buying.

Romancing yourself after divorce has infinite benefits. The most important one is that doing so repeatedly instills an internal sense of self-worth in you, teaching you that you don’t need an external source – not your family’s approval, not a man, nothing – to feel good.

For years, our society has been brainwashing us into believing that the only way we are valid is if we have a husband. But when we put ourselves first, and embrace the worth we have for just being, we take our power back. 

And taking your power back is the greatest act of love of all. 

Do you struggle with showing yourself love after divorce? What steps can you take to start pampering yourself and loving yourself in the way you deserve? 

Can we really stretch our mind during our 60s and beyond so that we can achieve even more out of life? The answer is: Yes. Absolutely!

Mind stretching is the process of teaching the brain a new way of thinking, and in doing so, connecting the right/left brain more effectively. Each hemisphere controls certain functions and movement on the opposite side of your body.

The left brain is more verbal, and the right brain is more creative. However, as with most things relating to the human brain, it’s complicated. While each hemisphere has its strengths, they don’t work in isolation. Both sides contribute something to logical and creative thinking.

The Brain vs the Mind

The science of the mind is complicated. Scientists must decide if our brain is the same as our mind, or is our brain simply a part of the mind.

Are they one and the same or different and separate entities. One entity is identified as neuroscience – the study of the brain, and the other is identified as the mind – considered to be pure vibrating energy.

Another way of looking at the mind is to think of it as the non-physical entity of our being. Scientists and philosophers argue that the mind does not exist without the brain. Brain and mind are both the rocket and fuel of the human being. And they are yoked, inextricably connected to each other by the body.

The mind conducts ‘thought’ faster than the speed of light and retains all experience whether consciously or not. The mind creates, projects and receives thoughts. It expresses emotions and feelings, and it determines the positive or the negative levels in our bodies.

However, most of all, the mind is associated with consciousness, and that being true, the mind can stretch because our consciousness can expand!

The Mind Wants to Know Itself Better

The yogic philosopher Patanjali told us, “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

Mahatma Ghandi said, “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”

Discover the Power of Stretching Your Mind

Expanding your mental processes will initiate the flow of limitless thought and possibilities. As a result, your personal and work life, relationships and happiness quotient will flourish.

Stretch the mind by exploring and understanding how we process a new idea and reframe our thought patterns. Through this process we will ultimately stop limiting ourselves to past references and experiences, thereby eliminating roadblocks to future thought and creativity.

Stretch your mind, and your life will take an importance because you are exploring your nature and environment with an awareness that is like a dance. Stretch, and the idea of a life well lived is attainable. This can happen at any age. How cool is that?

One of the ways I stretch daily is by digging into my human survival kit. My kit is really a goody basket because inside is everything that reflects me.

My experiences, thoughts, desires, needs, ideas, dreams, passions, knowledge – everything I’ve ever done and everything I’ve ever been in my life is inside my goodie basket.

A Diet for Stretching the Mind

The recipe for sustaining and promoting good brain health consists of a diet that includes:

• Olive oil
• Fruits and vegetables high in vitamin E, such as blueberries, broccoli and spinach
• Fruits and vegetables high in beta-carotene, such as spinach, red peppers and sweet potatoes
• Foods rich in antioxidants, such as walnuts and pecans
• Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish – salmon, mackerel and albacore tuna

Part of a healthy regime also includes exercise of all kinds, as well as those brain challenging activities like crossword puzzles, chess, reading and creative hobbies.

Researchers have studied the effects of sleep and brain function. I actually participated in two studies on sleep and memory at the University of Texas, Austin.

It became quite clear that sleep deprivation negatively affects memory, but improves learning and problem-solving skills. In fact, a surprising result is that we can learn new things during sleep!

On a cautionary note, excessive alcohol consumption – as in long term heavy drinking – can lead to serious brain damage because alcohol shrinks the brain.

Alcohol doesn’t actually kill brain cells, but it can cause deficiencies in white matter that resides between the folds or wrinkles of the brain’s landscape. White matter affects learning and brain function and helps manage communication within the nervous system.

Pro-Active Brain Health

I’m sure everyone has a tool kit of essential principles for stretching the mind. Perhaps we are not conscious of our tools, but these tools are nonetheless an integral part of our nature and provide guidance and inspiration for stability, resilience and balance.

Our tools are also responsible for clear thinking, better communication and well-defined relationships.

Stretch your mind – stretch your life. It’s a free and measurable indicator of how joyful your path in life can be during your 60s and beyond.

What healthy habits have you established to help stretch your mind? What tools do you find most useful in maintaining positive brain health in your 60s? Please share your thoughts and observations below!

February is Heart Month, which I never thought would concern me much. I already had a month – October, Breast Cancer Month. I’d had breast cancer in 2002 at age 48, so I thought that earned me a free health pass. And it did for a while.

The week before Thanksgiving 2014, as I ran on the treadmill at my gym, I certainly wasn’t worrying about heart disease or having a heart attack, which were the only adult heart-related afflictions I was aware of.

No, I was anticipating the arrival of my kids and my one-year-old grandson, all coming in for the holiday. I was picturing turkey and mashed potatoes, football and poker, hugs and laughter. I was thinking about – wait, what’s that? Suddenly my heart started pounding hard and fast.

Certainly, I had not been thinking about any chordae tendineae, a chord thingy that attached my mitral valve to my heart. When it ruptured, I probably should have asked someone to take me to the Emergency Room or at least I should have driven myself there.

The event had sent my heart into atrial fibrillation, affectionately known as Afib, and that can cause a stroke. Of course, I didn’t know that.

In the Hospital

Me being me, I stepped off the treadmill, sat down for a bit and decided to “just” do some lifting instead of cardio. After 15 or 20 minutes, the pounding stopped. My heart had gone back into sinus rhythm, a term unfamiliar to me at the time.

But my vocabulary would change. I was about to get a crash course – key word being “crash” – in heart valve repair and replacement.

For eight days, I was in and out of Afib but never out of denial, even though I couldn’t even walk a flight of stairs. Finally, I had to face the facts. It wasn’t a panic attack, as I’d tried to convince myself. It wasn’t a fluke. And just because it hadn’t killed me yet didn’t mean I didn’t need to get it taken care of.

On Thanksgiving Day, I looked down at the outside of my sweater and could see the pronounced beating of my heart. The following day I went to my internist, who walked me next door to the E.R., and I stayed in the hospital for four days.

With my cancer diagnosis, I felt the doctors never could be sure of what was going on. Had the cancer spread? There were no guarantees.

The nice thing about the heart is that between the EKG, MRI and angiogram, doctors get a lot of information. They can watch the heart function in real time and see the regurgitation – just one more word that I learned could relate to the heart.

About the Heart

We all know the heart pumps blood that flows to the rest of the body. Four valves on the heart – the mitral, tricuspid, pulmonary, and aortic – direct that blood toward all the other body parts. Each valve has flaps that open and close once during every heartbeat.

If there’s regurgitation, that means the valve is leaking blood that then could possibly flow backwards into the heart. Of the three levels of regurgitation – mild, moderate and severe – mine was severe. No wonder, when the valve wasn’t even attached anymore! It was sort of flapping in the wind.

After hearing a lot of scary words and seeing concerned faces on the medical staff, I assumed I needed a heart transplant or some other type of emergency heart surgery. But after four days, they sent me home with a referral to a surgeon along with medication to keep my heart in sinus rhythm.

When I met with the surgeon, he told me I could wait a few months if I wanted. I did not. I booked surgery for his first available date, which was about a month later.

Valve Choices

Valves get into trouble, needing replacement or repair, for various reasons, including stenosis and congenital origins. When a valve must be replaced, the patient chooses to have either a mechanical valve or tissue valve inserted. People have a lot of trouble deciding which of these options to select.

The advantage to the mechanical valve is that it lasts a long time, possibly the rest of your life, whereas a pig, cow or human tissue valve lasts maybe 15 years, and not always that long, and then you have to go through the whole surgery again.

But there’s a trade-off. When you have a mechanical valve, you must take the blood thinner warfarin (Coumadin is the brand name) for the rest of your life, and you also may hear constant ticking.

A tissue valve carries neither drawback. A repair, though, carries no aftermath at all – no ticking, warfarin, or followup surgery.

The good news for me was that I was a good candidate for repair. My surgeon planned to attach a ring around the valve and permanently redirect the flow of the blood by performing what’s called a Maze procedure.

He told me he was also a plastic surgeon, so I asked whether he could do a breast lift at the same time. After all, they’re right there! Not only did he turn me down, but he couldn’t even promise that he could achieve the valve repair!

Slow Recovery

Many of these cases can be handled with minimally invasive surgery accessing the valve through a small incision on the side, but my surgeon had to be able to reach a greater area in order to do both the repair and the Maze procedure.

So I had traditional open-heart surgery through an incision in my sternum, and I was placed on a heart-and-lung machine for the duration of the surgery.

If the repair wouldn’t stick, my surgeon had my signed permission to perform a replacement with a mechanical valve, since I didn’t want to have to repeat the surgery in my 70s. But things went well, my surgeon was amazing, and the repair was successful.

Recovery from this surgery is long and typically has setbacks. Upon my diagnosis, a friend who’s a pulmonologist (lung doctor) reassured me by saying, “I see these patients after surgery, and many of them do very, very well.” This was my outcome also.

The early days were not fun, but I gradually improved with the help of 12 weeks of cardiac rehab. My progress stayed on schedule, and by nine months post-surgery, I was competing in my state’s Senior Games track and field races as I’d been doing for a few years.

Find Your Community

Getting through recovery is easier when a group of people are with you every step. I’ve learned much of what I know about this condition from two Facebook groups. One addresses general heart valve surgery, and the other is specific to mitral valve repair.

Everyone has a different story. Some have had valve problems since they were children, and many have had multiple heart surgeries.

The members of these two Facebook groups have restored my faith in humankind. They are gracious and inspiring, and they’re always ready to support the next person newly diagnosed and freaking out.

We all post pics of our telltale chest scars and the heart-shaped pillows we’re given to clutch every time we sneeze at first. We contrast photos taken soon after surgery, when we look wiped out, with more recent shots of ourselves appearing healthy and grinning happy grins. And we’re in good company.

Mick Jagger had aortic valve replacement in 2019 and, according to iData Research, each year about 182,000 people in the U.S. have replacement surgery for one valve or another in addition to the number of valve repair cases.

I’m hoping that October and February are the only months that designate a health issue for me. But I’ve learned one thing: you never know. So be grateful for every day of health, take care of yourself, and live your best life while the living is good.

Have you suffered from heart issues? Did you know anything about heart valves and how they can fail you? Which months mark a health issue for you? What is your story?