Welcome to a new week!
Did you ever read O Magazine? It was a monthly magazine founded by Oprah Winfrey back in 2000. There was always this short editorial piece at the back of the magazine written by Oprah called “What I Know for Sure”. She later published a book that shared the same title - a collection of essays chock full of life lessons and pearls of wisdom.
This came to mind as I sat down to write The LIFT this week after listening to an interview with Dr. Ellen Langer - author of The Mindful Body: Thinking our Way to Chronic Health. She proposes that our minds are incredibly powerful. We don’t realize how much of our health and how we age is tied deeply to our beliefs and biases.
It got me thinking, how often do we limit ourselves by thinking we know something for sure?
Welcome to The LIFT
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BELIEFS
There are SO many studies that show our minds have more power than we realize. For example, the power of suggestion.
Once we anticipate a specific outcome, our subsequent thoughts and behaviors will actually help bring that outcome to fruition.
We can make ourselves sick just by thinking about it.
Have you ever felt symptomatic of an illness after learning you were exposed to it?
Are the symptoms from the exposure itself? Or are they from us thinking about the exposure?
The same goes for healing ourselves. Consider the placebo effect. We can often improve our symptoms by taking a pill even if that pill is nothing but sugar.
Just by believing we are doing something that will heal us, we can heal.
We can also limit ourselves with our beliefs. If we believe something is impossible, it is - until we change our mind. Once we believe it, we can make it happen for ourselves.
We don’t know something is possible until we see someone do it. Like this - did you know THIS was possible?
Before seeing this video, I would have said this maneuver was impossible for me as a 55-year-old woman. But then, here is a woman 10 years older than me doing the thing. Clearly, if I wanted to do this, I could (so could you) - especially if I give myself 10 years to practice.
How much of how we age is caused by how we see aging versus aging itself? How much of health and illness is rooted in our minds? Where does our mind come into play in keeping us healthy or making us sick?
It’s so fascinating to think about.
Once we see something as possible, we can start thinking about how to get there. But, until we have an idea of what’s possible, it doesn’t even exist for us.
We don’t know what we don’t know.
ASSUMPTIONS
We also don’t know what we DO know.
I talk about this a lot in The LIFT - this idea that as we age, we think we know everything. We are so good at projecting and expecting based on our experience. We are so certain about outcomes that we don’t even consider other options.
You reach a certain point in life and you feel like you’ve seen it all. You know with confidence what is going to happen next. You take a lot of things for granted. Then, something happens that snaps you out of your assumption and redefines your truth.
In my lifetime so far, 9/11 and the pandemic were probably the most fundamentally disruptive events to my worldview. These were things I could never see as possible, but once they happened they made me realize how much I take for granted. And how much can change in an instant.
We think we know, but we don’t.
We can’t.
Nothing is absolute. Change is constant. There are no certainties.
We know this, but we forget. Or we try to forget.
The realization that we might not know anything - that nothing is certain - can be very scary, but it can also be incredibly exciting because it opens up so many new possibilities. Maybe the rules and outcomes that seem so absolute…aren’t.
Maybe there is something new to learn. To try. To play with.
If we could accept that maybe all of the things we ‘know’ are just things we suspect, it might change a lot of things for us. Think about it. If we can’t know, then we don’t need to obsess with trying to know it all. We also no longer need to hold tightly to and defend everything we know. We can be more open. More curious. More accepting.
MINDLESS
The bigger problem with ‘knowing’ is the mindlessness that follows.
As soon as we know something, we stop thinking about it.
When you drive a car for the first time, your mind is on high alert. Decades later, you can drive down the road so mindlessly, you don’t even remember how you got there.
Dr. Ellen Langer points out that most of us are living very mindlessly. We don’t even realize we are doing it. We are not fully present, which makes us even more susceptible to the power of suggestion.
What are we creating with our mindless minds?
Are we adding to our life or subtracting from it? Are we asleep at the wheel? Are we assuming things that may no longer be true just because we heard it decades ago? Are we missing out on new possibilities for ourselves?
MINDFUL
We spend a lot of time looking at our health from the outside in…eat this, take this supplement, avoid these things. We don’t spend enough time looking at our health from the inside out.
How are our beliefs or biases influencing our behavior and health - mindlessly?
We separate our mind and body, but they are SO connected.
If we spent more time fully present, mindfully caring for ourselves, filling our tanks, and allowing more discovery and play without all of the automated assumptions and limitations we have fabricated for ourselves…we might just discover we have more agency over our health and well-being than we realize.
There’s so much more to learn. To unlearn. To relearn. To experience. To live.
Our minds will run on auto-pilot for us, but when we allow that to happen, we miss out on the fun of driving and the power we have to affect change from the inside out.
We don’t know as much as think.
The older we get, the more we feel like we should know it all and have it all figured out. But, maybe true wisdom is knowing that we don’t. And, that we never did. And, we never will.
We can change our minds anytime. And, THAT changes everything.
YOUR MISSION:
This week, I invite you to create some moments of mindfulness. Snap out of auto-pilot and put some intentional mind power on something you think you know and the possibility that you might not know it at all.
How?
Take a look at something you think you know well - see if you can find something about it you never noticed before. By practicing this, we can start to see the unseen/unknown in everything. Will you give it a try?
RESOURCES:
LISTEN: Dr. Ellen Langer | Rich Roll Podcast
WATCH: Dr. Ellen Langer | Rich Roll Podcast on YouTube
READ: What if Age is Nothing but a Mindset | New York Times
READ: How to Know that You Know Nothing | The Atlantic
READ: The Mindful Body: Thinking our Way to Chronic Health | Dr. Ellen Langer
IN SUMMARY:
Curiosity and learning are life-affirming. They keep you growing. I love learning and the more I know, the more I don’t know. It’s endless and it’s invigorating to know there is so much more to explore and that we don’t have to get it ‘right’ because it will change. Just have fun giving it a try. You never know what you’ll discover.
See you next week?
Meanwhile, reach out to me anytime!
Karen Friend Smith
Certified Health Coach & Environmental Health Specialist
Specializing in Perimenopause & Menopause
karen@itmaybemenopause.com
www.itMayBeMenopause.com
Instagram: @itmaybemenopause
Hi Karen - such simple thinking, but with an impact! Loved your Lift!! ❤️
Thanks for such a clearly delivered message. I think this is a huge pillar to not only staying healthy and healing through complex conditions.