Happy New Year and Resolutions

Today I am going to Cooper Health near the Cooper River in Cherry Hill for X-Rays to begin my first and foremost Resolution for 2023 which is to improve my fitness with an eye to the future and staying independent in my own home through my old age. On Thursday I begin Physical Therapy to address issues that have arisen recently, as in the last year or two: increasing knee stiffness and inability to bend my leg for basic functions such as putting on socks and tying shoes. Hips issues: I stopped going to the gym in the middle of November because a couple of the machines I was using caused hip pain which I hadn't experienced before. I decided to see my doctor and get physical therapy before I continued at the gym to make sure I am not causing new problems. My spine has been stiffening over a couple of decades since I was diagnosed with desiccated disc disease,which means the little pads between the vertabrae are drying and becoming brittle. I had inured a couple of those discs in my active outdoor life in my 50's, lifting a kayak off a car and that's how I found out about this problem. So Number 1 Resolution - find out how to safely strengthen and increase flexibility so I can ontinue the life I enjoy in the home I love.

The second resolution is one I have been working on for about three years and that is improving and increasing social relationships. As with most people who worked, I had a wide string of friendships created at my job, teaching, and a few groups in which I had membership after retirement: I was a volunteer at a couple of historic sites, and I was an active participant with the Outdoor Club. As age and disabilities increased, I had to let go of these activities and over time, the relationships I had formed, kind of drifted away. In a recent essay based on a Harvard study of happiness that followed nearly a thousand people over 3 generations, it was concluded that social relationships were the number one factor in happiness in life. I decided to do wwhatever I could to increse and improve my own. First, I formed a Seniors group with the help of the mayor of the town where I live. I wrote a proposal to use the Senior Center that had been created in the old firehall and it was presented to Mayor Wolk and then the town council which approved it. I didn't need money or budget, just a place and our Senior Center was PERFECT - handicap accesible, close to my home, and clean and comfortable with a little kitchen. We have been meeting for about 3 or 4 years once a month, though we close down in January and February for weather concerns and then begin again in the Spring. There are about 8 of us who are regulars and a few who drop in to see what we do.

The second thing I did was I joined the Woodbury Friends Meeting. I had been feeling for some time, a need for a spiritual community and spiritual practice and the Woodbury Friends Meeting is less than a 10 minute drive from my home. Here I have found a half dozen new friends with shared values and a chance to develope my spiritual life. Increasingly as we get older, in the modern period, family members move away and there have been numerous articles and even on PBS. last night. a segment on loneliness in America and the negative affect it has on health. A spiritual community is like family in many ways, I find, and the shared values of respect, compassion, kindness and ethical behavior make it a safe space.

Many of the essays go into detail about social relationships and healthy but not as many give actual steps to improve your situation. One that I recieved in e-mail did and I took the first three steps: 1.analyze your existing relationships 2.Make an effort to do an 8 minute phone call with a friend you haven't seen in awhile 3.speak to a stranger. I did all three and the 'stranger' in my case a neighbor, has become a sometime dog walking pal since we began to chat on days when I passed her house walking my dog. Herea re more tips I found:

Make Yourself Available. Building close relationships takes time.

Stay Connected.

Attend Social Activities.

Develop Your Communication Skills.

Build Trust.

Show Up for Others.

Well, this is only the first two weeks of my two big resolutions but I do feel as though I am putting in a good effort and making a good start. All these things take time to develope, like planting a garden, and from time to time, I will post on progress. First I will let you know how my physical therapy experience is going. I am so pleased that I have a caring and proactive general physician, Dr. Deborah Ubele at Cooper Health. When I told her about my incresing proglems with sitting down and standing and other functions, she got right on board with setting a program to address these problems. I feel hopeful.

Have you made resolutions? How are they going? Walking is a great way to begin a fitness effort and my dog helps to keep me on board with that one. My e-mail if you wish to talk about any of these things is: wrightj45@yahoo.com I don't use the comments section on this blog because it is polluted with robo spam and such detritus that it takes too long to delete all of it, and it is too discouraging to see it when I delete it.

Get Going on your Happy Trails! By the way when I write Happy Trails, I still Hear Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing it! Jo Ann