Month: July 2025

When I was 16 years old, my mother died of alcoholism. I didn’t know what to do, I was lost and afraid and life felt impossible. So, what did I do? I drank a lot to feel nothing, to numb out. And I also started journaling, every day. I wasn’t sure why, it just felt like something that made sense for me to do, maybe I read about it in Teen Magazine – I can’t remember.

But what I do remember, and believe to this day, is that journaling saved my ass! When I thought that life would be a lot simpler if I just ended it, I wrote that out, and somehow it looked different on paper, and helped me make the decision not to end it. I just wrote about everything on my mind, and the mere fact of writing it out, helped me untangle those tar-coated strands of thoughts.

When I first got clean and sober in 1988, I journaled every day. My mind was such a chaotic mess, that I really needed help getting any kind of clarity. So again, I just wrote out everything that was circling around in an incoherent mess in my head. It helped.

Nowadays, my thoughts are much clearer and more coherent, but I still journal almost every day. And now, at 67 years old, it’s great to note that the science supports my habit!

Seven Benefits of Journaling as We Age

Cognitive Engagement

Studies have shown journaling boosts cognitive function and engages multiple areas of our brain. When we write regularly, it encourages critical thinking and creativity.

Emotional Regulation

Journaling provides an outlet for expressing our feelings, which as we age, can be especially beneficial as we navigate the multiple changes facing us; things like retirement, loss of relationships, or health issues.

Memory Enhancement

As we age, we have all experienced some loss of memory retention. So, it makes sense that journaling daily can help us remember events. And reflecting on past events and writing about them can help reinforce memories and thus improve recall. Studies show that writing reinforces neural connections and improves mental clarity.

Stress Relief

Challenges pop up a lot as we age, from physical limitations to loss of important people in our life, and these challenges often feel overwhelming. Writing about the feelings that arise at these times can serve as a form of emotional release, reducing stress and anxiety by providing a safe space to explore these emotions and stressors.

Self-Reflection

As we age, studies have shown the importance of introspection which fosters a sense of purpose and fulfillment. The role of purpose in life is essential to healthy aging, and journaling gives us the opportunity for this self-reflection.

Improved Mental Health

So many studies have shown that expressive writing has therapeutic effects. As we get older, many of us experience depression and anxiety, and expressive writing has been shown to help our mental health.

Legacy Creation

What better legacy to leave your children and your grandchildren than sharing your life story, with all the wisdom you have gained through your experience. A huge, rather obvious benefit of journal writing is a way to document your life. A way to share your life’s lessons, hard-earned wisdom, and love through your own voice and personal stories.

So, invest in yourself, buy a journal that you love, buy some colored pens, and give yourself time to write a bit every day. And if you are looking for journaling ideas, prompts or help to begin the process, my books can help! The second half of both books offer journaling prompts and ideas to help you journal and explore.

This Way Up: Seven Tools for Unleashing Your Creative Self and Transforming Your Life 

Recovery Road Trip: Finding Purpose and Connection on the Journey Home

If you are interested in more articles about journaling, you can find more on my Website or my Substack Page. I love hearing from people, so please let me know your thoughts about journaling as we age, or any other subject that comes up as you read.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you ever journaled and experienced any of the benefits mentioned in the article? Do you have any blocks that stop you from journaling? Do you struggle to find inspiration about what to write? And if not, where do you find your inspiration?

You’ve seen a lot. You’ve made good choices. You’ve learned from the bad ones. So, when it comes to money, it makes sense to want to feel sure about what you’re doing.

But what if that feeling of certainty is exactly what’s keeping you stuck? And what if that certainty is preventing you from seeing that you’re stuck?

The Problem with Certainty

Certainty feels safe. It feels like control. It can even feel like self-protection. But when it comes to money, especially in a world that’s constantly changing, being too sure can actually work against you.

Certainty might sound like:

• “This is just how I am with money.”
• “I already know what I need to do. I just need to do it.”
• “That won’t work for me.”
• “That doesn’t apply to me.”

These don’t sound like problems… until you realize they shut the door on curiosity, possibility, and growth.

Family therapist Salvador Minuchin once said, “Certainty is the enemy of change.” And no matter how old you are or what you’ve seen in your life, one thing is guaranteed: change will keep knocking.

How It Shows Up

In my work with women in their 60s and beyond, I see certainty show up when:

• They’re navigating retirement and are scared to make a “wrong” move.
• They’ve made sacrifices for others and want to protect what they’ve built.
• They’re trying to help their adult children financially, but aren’t sure if it’s sustainable.
• They’ve tried budgeting or investing before and it “didn’t work,” so now they’ve sworn it off.

Here’s the hard truth: certainty feels like confidence, but it’s often fear in disguise. Sometimes it’s the fear of messing up again. Sometimes it’s the weight of all you’ve already survived.

And sometimes, it’s the story you’ve been carrying for years about what “good” financial decisions are supposed to look like.

A Better Goal Than Certainty: Clarity

Clarity is not about control. It’s about connection. Clarity allows you to ask: What’s really true for me right now?

Not what should be true. Not what was true 10 years ago. Not what your financial advisor – or daughter or neighbor – thinks is true.

Clarity helps you take stock without self-blame. And it helps you honor your past without being bound to it.

Clarity also gives you room to move forward, not out of fear, but out of alignment.

Where certainty protects, clarity invites. It’s the light you turn on in the hallway so you can see where you’re going, without needing to have the whole map yet.

Curiosity: The Bridge to What’s Next

If clarity is the goal, curiosity is the tool that gets us there. But let’s be honest, curiosity takes courage. Especially when you’ve lived through hard things. Especially when the stakes feel high.

Still, curiosity is how we expand.

It’s how we soften the grip of old stories and explore new ways of doing things without throwing everything out. You don’t have to become reckless. Just willing.

Willing to ask:

• “What else might be true?”
• “What would I consider if I wasn’t afraid of being wrong?”
• “Is there another way to feel safe and strong, besides sticking to this plan?”

These are not just questions. They’re tiny doorways.

Try This Instead

When you catch yourself clinging to certainty, try this gentle shift:

Name the Fear Beneath It

 Ask: What am I trying to protect myself from?

 (Disappointment? Shame? Looking foolish?)

Get Curious, Not Critical

 Say: Huh, that’s interesting. I wonder what else is possible here.

Zoom Out Just a Bit

Consider: If I looked at this moment from five years in the future, what might I wish I had asked or tried?

You don’t have to leap. But even a small step toward curiosity can make the ground feel a little more solid.

A Gentle Invitation

You don’t need to abandon everything you’ve built. You don’t need to second-guess your entire life. But when certainty starts to feel tight, brittle, or lonely, that’s your clue.

You deserve more than just safety. You deserve space to grow, room to change, and the kind of clarity that’s strong enough to bend.

Certainty may have helped you survive.

But clarity and curiosity? They’ll help you expand.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

How certain are you about your financial decisions? Do you have clarity guiding you and helping you grow?

When asked about how she stayed fit in her older years, the late Betty White told People Magazine in 2012, “I have a two-story house and a very bad memory.”

Of course, I laughed when I read that. But I also thought that it implied some great advice. At the time, I worked in my home office 16 steps above the main floor, and I was up and down that staircase all day long. Doing laundry would take me down another flight to the basement. Just by going about my normal routine, I was building leg strength and stamina.

Like many women over 60, I have downsized and now live mostly on just one story. My house doesn’t even have a basement. I do have an open-style “bonus room” up an 18-step staircase, but other than changing the sheets on bunk beds after my grandchildren’s visits, I have little need to go up there. So I’ve tried to hack my life in ways that force me to keep moving and stay flexible. I’m not a medical or fitness professional, but maybe you can borrow some of my layman-level strategies.

Climb Whatever Stairs You Have

If you do have stairs, use them. Instead of keeping a separate pair of slippers in the kitchen so you won’t have to go up to your bedroom if your feet get cold, save the money on the spare pair and walk up that flight of stairs to retrieve your slippers. The same applies to your extra sweater. And during any phone conversation, talk and walk!

If you have no upstairs but you have a basement, or if you have a split-level home, keep an item you use every day down on the lower level. Choose something like a watch – not an essential such as your phone or keys. If you live in an apartment or condo, the longstanding rule applies: take the stairs instead of the elevator as much as you can. I do this in hotels.

Hills are a good substitute for stairs. If you like taking walks, try to choose a route that includes some hilly terrain.

The Grocery Store: Easy Fitness Opportunity

As we’ve been advised forever, park toward the back of parking lots and walk from there. This applies to the grocery store, drugstore, library, bank – wherever you go. If you’re visiting a friend, park down the street. You may have to bundle up in wintertime, but walking briskly keeps you warm!

Where you park is not the only way you can turn your grocery store visit into a workout. Instead of doing a weekly grocery run, try going two or three times a week. You won’t need much, so you can grab a handbasket the store offers and challenge your arms to carry your purchases instead of wheeling them in a cart.

Bring two large cloth bags with long straps, one for each shoulder, and walk out carrying your groceries. This means you’ll be doing some decent weight-bearing exercise as you trek the whole way to your car at the edge of the parking lot.

Arrange Your Kitchen to Challenge Yourself

It makes sense to put the plates and glasses you use most frequently at easy reach, right? Maybe on the lowest shelf of the upper cabinet? In your pantry, you probably place your favorite foods at convenient shoulder height. What if you turned that conventional wisdom on its head?

As we age, we tend to avoid bending down and reaching up, but I’ve found that nothing keeps me mobile more than those two body challenges. Of course, we still have to be careful to bend our knees when we’re lifting something from a bottom cabinet, as well as to proceed slowly to avoid pulling a muscle when we’re stretching to take something down from a high shelf. But within those limitations, you probably can come up with lots of ways to make this idea work for you.

If you eat cereal from the same type of bowl every day, stack those bowls on a high shelf so you’ll have to stand on your toes to reach them. If you drink coffee only in the morning, after you wash your coffeepot don’t keep it on the counter for the rest of the day. Put it away on a big bottom shelf in a cabinet. You’ll have to bend to store it down there, and the next day you’ll bend again to retrieve it. There’s your mini-workout. Or store your coffeepot each day in your basement!

You can carry this approach to your bedroom as well. Assign your most frequently worn clothing to the bottom drawer of your chest or dresser while keeping lesser worn items in more accessible spots. Put your socks in a bottom drawer and your favorite purses on a shelf you must stretch a little bit to reach. It’s counterintuitive!

Don’t Plan Ahead

You don’t often get advice to not plan ahead! What I mean is that you should avoid putting everything you need in front of you. Let’s say you’re getting dressed in the morning and planning to go out and run errands a few hours later. As long as you’re at your closet, the most efficient way to plan your day is to take out the shoes, jacket and purse you’ll need for your excursion and put them by the door.

Yeah, don’t do that. Go about your day until you’re ready to leave, and then go back to your closet. This won’t amount to much in terms of counting your walking steps, but it’s better than nothing.

Back to your coffee – if you drink your first cup before starting the rest of your breakfast, don’t also bring out your yogurt so it’s there when you’re ready to eat it. Instead, get up and go to the refrigerator to get the yogurt. That has you getting up off a chair, walking a little back and forth, and sitting back down. It’s movement.

Socialize with Fitness

My friends know that I’m always going to opt for walking together rather than meeting for lunch. Replacing sitting in a restaurant with an hour-long walk will save you money and give you a chance to enjoy nature if you can go outdoors. And you can wear your sweats!

Bargain Yourself into Fitness

I’ve made a deal with myself: I can listen to audio books only when I run. If you enjoy books, I highly recommend rewarding yourself this way, whether it’s during a run, a walk or a lifting and stretching workout. If you enjoy the book – or maybe some music or a podcast – and you really keep your own deal that the only way you get to listen to it is if you exercise, you may find that it’s an easy decision to opt into fitness.

Television can be another earned reward. Choose a show you really like, and permit yourself to watch it only if you lift weights, do leg raises, stretch – any exercise that’s compatible with watching the screen. Then your strength training takes no extra time, because you were going to watch that show anyway.

Clean Your House or Your Car

Housecleaning is not my favorite way to stay active, but I had to include it since we all know that vacuuming, dusting and mopping a floor gets our heart rate up and uses muscles we might otherwise ignore. Even hosing down your own car, along with cleaning the inside, works to keep you flexible.

Really Play with Grandchildren

You may hear yourself saying: “Grandma is too tired to play tag,” or “Let’s do the puzzle at the table. Grandma’s too old to sit on the floor.” Is that how you want your grandchildren to remember you? We grandmas should stop passing up all the opportunities grandkids give us to maintain our agility.

Of course, be careful. Don’t wear out your back walking a 15-pound crying baby back and forth across the floor. Sit on a rocker. But when toddlers and older kids want to play, look at it as a joyful way to get in some movement.

Multitask

You most likely know about the suggestion to stand on one foot while brushing your teeth. That helps us maintain our balance, and you’ll see how much easier it gets for you if you do it twice a day. Your dental health benefits, too, since now you’re brushing for as long as your dentist probably recommends.

If you’re a passenger in a car, or if you’re driving on cruise control, take advantage of the time to keep one leg at a time raised off the seat to challenge your quad muscles. This is another habit you can get into while watching TV.

You probably can come up with more ideas. Your body doesn’t know the difference between setting aside an hour to exercise or just hacking your life.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

How do you insert exercise into your day? Do you make tasks more difficult so they will challenge your muscles?

Is it coming back for another season?

Is it coming back for another season?