How to Deal with Loneliness

People tend to think that overcoming loneliness is all about building connections with other people. As a result, most of the advice that you will hear when you tell someone that you are feeling lonely can be paraphrased as “what’s the problem? Just get out there and meet more people.” Read More

I want to share a secret with you. Like many women over 60, I am dealing with loneliness. Some days I just feel a little isolated from the world. Other days — well, I don’t like to talk about those days. Let’s just say that there are times when the quiet corridors of my mind are dangerous places to wander.

As I walk, I see doors to little dusty rooms, holding sharp memories. Worse are the big brass doors that hold my fondest memories. These barriers stop me from spending too much time in the past, when every day was filled with my family, friends and laughter. Read More

If you are wondering how to overcome loneliness, you may want to start by looking around your house. It is often said that your home is a reflection of your mind. They say that the choices we make in how we decorate, who we invite into our homes and how we spend our time reflect our personality and values. This is true to an extent, but, did you ever think about the fact that the opposite is also true?

Did you ever consider that the way that you organize your home may be contributing to your feelings of loneliness, or intimacy after 60? Read More

It’s ironic that the winter holidays, which are meant to be filled with relaxation, love and peace, often turn out to be a time of stress and tension. Read More

Loneliness is a terrible emotion. It steals the fun from life, hurts our health and prevents us from following our dreams. Unfortunately, it is also a taboo subject, which few are willing to discuss in public. So, we let it sit quietly in our hearts and convince ourselves that we are alone in our loneliness. I want Sixty and Me to be a part of the solution and, as a first step, I reached out to the members of our community to ask them about their own experiences with loneliness. Read More

Many women have to deal with loneliness in retirement as their personal roles and responsibilities change and evolve. Often predictable routines and support systems that gave life meaning in the past are no longer in place. Read More

Fear is a powerful emotion. It is so strong, instinctual and deeply woven into the way we interact with our world. A lot of spiritual teachers and psychologists say that fear and love are the only real human emotions and that every other emotion comes from them.

Fear is also a primitive emotion. It is the anticipation that something bad is going to happen – like a sabre tooth tiger jumping out of the bushes. These are the things our primitive brain had to worry about. Read More

There is a difference between being alone and feeling lonely. Every woman over 60 understands this. Being alone is something we have all experienced in our lives at one time or another, sometimes by choice, sometimes by circumstances beyond our control. Many women live alone by choice, enjoying their own company and finding lots of things to keep them genuinely happy and busy. Or, even if women live with a family or a partner, there are times when they look forward to time spent alone indulging in their own passions and interests…

What do medieval beguines, communal living apartments, the Golden Girls and Suzanne Braun Levine all have in common? They’re all examples of how women can support one another in dealing with the challenges of getting older. There are many things that today’s women can learn from the idea of shared living communities.  Read More

Women over 60 are entering a new chapter of life. We have lived and loved and recovered from heartbreak and loss, we have strived in the career arena and tended the home fires and (often) nurtured children and cared for aging parents of our own. And as we get older, because of all that we have experienced and surmounted during our lives, many women over 60 find themselves feeling more optimistic about life than ever before. Read More