Building Your Capacity for Flourishing
This photo shows me working on a watercolour painting in my weekly Creativity Group
In some ways I am almost grateful for the health issues I have had since I turned sixty. Up until then I was on a much more ‘look young for your age’ trajectory. Being seriously ill, then shortly afterwards being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis propelled me past my avoidance mechanisms and made me look at where I was. It gradually became less threatening to view my life as being different from my earlier years
As for many of us, Covid was a further marker for changes. The pandemic severely restricted my travelling to give the international workshops that were part of my work at the time. It was a time when the whole possibility of becoming less visible came home to me, not as a theory but an experience. Even more, the focus on the vulnerability of older people, and shadowing that, the potential burden we could become. All these factors were unsettling and challenged my view of myself. It was then that I began to reflect more deeply on my ageing journey and how I wanted to manifest as an older woman.
I have worked hard all my life and continue to do so. I love my work, but it has also been at the cost of less focused dreams. My father was an architect, and in later life, a political cartoonist. Art has always played a big part in our family life but for years it became a ‘maybe one day’ idea in my mind. Now, as I age, it’s become a real adventure to return to seriously trying to develop any skills I may have. Early on, I discovered a textile art from Chile, arpillerawhich is beautiful to work with and opened a new range of ideas and possibilities.
Closer to home I discovered that my local community centre runs a weekly class for people to come and work with a wide range of creative options. For the first time I am working with watercolour in a focused way and I love it! The group is open and relaxed with people of all kinds and all levels of skill working on a range of materials and techniques. The co-ordinator of the class is a marvellous woman who is genuinely interested in enabling people to find their own creative pulse and then to encourage them to nourish it.
Initially, I went along to the group to find some community in my neighbourhood. Travelling so much for so many years had led to my being somewhat distant from my surroundings apart from my home life. Perhaps this is true of many people as they approach retirement and a re-ordering of the structure of their lives. It can exacerbate the feeling of being invisible or disconnected.
In my case, this group has come to fill an important role connecting me to art projects in my area as well as to people who care about them. We recently joined in an exhibition that our teacher put on showcasing the work of all three of her groups that she works with. It was in the local town hall, and the opening was an exciting mixture of people, skills and shared enthusiasm.
I’ve made a few friends there—one woman is also into watercolour and we’re making plans to paint together during the summer holidays. The group contact provides me with an ongoing series of possibilities to test my skills and experiment with new ones. It’s helped me to realise that if we want to flourish as we age, we need to accrue our wellbeing capital as we go along. This means gathering the resources that will become increasingly important to us in our later years as well as discarding what has been getting in our way up till now. Simply put, it comes down to knowing who or where to turn to find things, people, services, inspiration, shelter, support, or help. Being aware of those resources and gaining easy access to them, being able to call upon those networks and being part of them all contribute to your well-being capital.
Do comment and let me know how you are working with accruing your wellbeing capital as you age.
If you want to explore the theme of wellbeing capital check this out on my website.
