Radio Transcript

Susan:
Hello I'm Susan Diamond, they call me Chief of Pray, and I'm one of the women of Prayables.com, an online prayer community for women of all faiths, and I am here with my girlfriend, Debbie Winton.

Debbie:
Hey Susan Diamond.

Susan:
Hey there Debbie. We're going to be talking about aging gracefully and what we can accomplish after 40. You and I are both far beyond the other side of 40, is there anything left to accomplish?

Debbie:
Do you have to stress far beyond the other side of 40? But the answer is a resounding yes. I talked to you before about not thinking in terms of age, and I really do think it makes a difference.

Susan:
Well get in on the conversation, audience. Whether you're listening on the Prayables.com website or on blog talk radio, talk back and we'll respond. To read today's blog, prayer and transcript from the show visit  and you can type in 'getting better' in the search box on the upper right side of the page. We put a book on by Jane Goodall, You're not Getting Older, You're Getting Better, because that's the name of our blog talk today.

Debbie:
And you know I really do feel that you can be young in your heart and young in your spirit without being silly about it. I mean you can be a great age and embrace that age wherever you are. So I'm looking forward to talking about this with you.

Susan:
Well I also have to say anohter way to stay young is to just hang around a lot of older people or people a lot older than you.

Debbie:
It does help, I'm married to a man who is 10 years older and I remind him of it every day.

Susan:
And since your a whole 2 years older than me I'm not going to remind you of it.

Debbie:
Thank you, I appreciate it.

Susan:
Well what I'm going to do is I'm going to share some selections from my blog, we'll talk, and then we'll finish up with a highly motivating prayer and it's called "Machinery" by Abigail Wurdeman and it's just beautiful. So I also want to start with a little bit of a shameless bug and we'll talk about it a little later in the show but I'm really excited about our new book, Personal Peace, so that "Machinery" is one sample of the prayer poetry that you'll find in Personal Peace: Prayers for Women of All Faiths

Debbie:
I have to tell you Susan, I gave that book to somebody as a grab bag in an office Christmas party yesterday, she didn't know that it was from me and she made a comment to the whole group about the incredible gift that she received from her Christmas angel. So I thought I'd share that with you because it really is a great book.

Susan:
Oh you angel! I love that.

Debbie:
I'm happy to share it with you. And I am excited to talk to you about this really interesting topic today, so why don't you share your thoughts from your blog and then we'll chat about it.

Susan:
Okay, well here's the concept; Jane Goodall said she had 40 years of succes, and a lot of what she accomplished she wouldn't have been able to do when she was younger. You know who Jane is; she is that conservationist lady with the chimpanzees.

Debbie:
Yes, lived with the gorillas.

Susan:
Lived with the gorillas, she's my kind of woman. What I wanted to talk about is after 40, with 40 years of succes she accomplished so much after 40 years old. Now tell me what's on your list? Why do you think you're better at 56 than you were at 26?

Debbie:
Well you know I think this is such an interesting concept. I think this original thought came up when I shared with you about somebody who asked me that exact question. I thought that was a really interesting concept and I think what we usually think about is what is limiting to us at a certain age. And when I really sat down to think about, I thought to me it's not necessarily what is limiting, but what I can do now that I couldn't do at a younger age. So some of the things that I shared with you, as I'm doing today, that I can wear my hair curly and I can feel confident, it doesn't upset me like it used to. One of the wonderful things is that I can be clear and honest when I'm communicating, I think I always marked my words and communicated according who I was talking to, and I communicated more clearly and honestly now which I find very freeing.

  On the physical side, I can look in the mirror and think I'm seeing my mom and I'm very happy when I see that, and I'm not talking about my mom at 22 and to me it's a really wonderful vision. And one of the greatest things that I can do now that I couldn't do a number of years ago is I can say no. I was always a person who said yes to everything and I can say no and not give it a second thought afterwards. Those are just a few of my accomplishments at this age. So I think the concept of not thinking of it in a limiting way, but in a growth way, I think that's wonderful.

Susan:
So does that come with maturity? Does it come with, like wearing your hair curly? I mean obviously not because your flat iron is broken, you're wearing your hair curly because you're mature enough?

Debbie:
Yes.

Susan:
Okay.

Debbie:
And because my daughter told me it looked good. That makes it different; I got their approval.

Susan:
Yes as you get older and you've got hip daughters like we do, then they give us the go-ahead also. Or the "Oh mom" and I'm not going to bring up my fanny pack again.

Debbie:
But now would be the time.

Susan:
Well the other thing that I think about is being able to accomplish stuff, now that I'm older, is that it's really kind of just about need. And I don't have kids' lives that I'm running, I just have to worry kind of about me and taking care of my husband, you know, my family is all kind of living on their own, we're all doing our own thing, it's a wonderful life stage.

Debbie:
It is a wondeful life stage. I think you have the good of having healthy parents. I think a lot of people who are at our particular age are in a situation where they're taking care of parents too. But again I do think that it's not a limiting age, I can share a couple of the other things that I put on my list. I put I can withstand conflict that I couldn't withstand before.

Susan:
Wait I have to interrupt.

Debbie:
What?

Susan:
You are such a conflict avoider.

Debbie:
I am a conflict avoider but it doesn't throw me for a loop the way that it did before. Who wants conflict? Nobody looks for it.

Susan:
It's not that you want conflict. It's just that it's kind of funny because usually it happens the other way. Usually people mellow when they get older and my uncle, my cousin always teases, because he had a very explosive temper and as he got older it was like he had a labotomy or something; he just never has conflict with people. So you're not talking about creating or causing conflict, you're just talking about being okay with it.

Debbie:
Oh my gosh, yes. You know it wasn't to long ago, if somebody looked at my cross-eyed, I was on the floor in a heap weeping, so I can deal with conflict better now than I did before. And one of the things that I can say that is when I was growing up, I didn't necessarily always have an easy time proclaiming that I was Jewish, I would kind of mute that fact, but now I honestly think I can proclaim that I'm Jewish and not feel awkward doing it, and it makes me very proud to make that proclomation.

Susan:
Oh that's interesting because I think that's one of the things that I shared too. Kind of the discovery of my own spirituality as an older person, that I did not have the freedom to do as I was younger. I was, I don't know, in a different role, in different relationships, that I couldn't just go out and proclaim 'I'm spiritual, I love God, I love to pray.' I would never have done that before.

Debbie:
Well I don't think you would have gotten to a place where you starte prayables. I mean I think it took you to this age to be able to launch this website, which I think is quite unbelievable.

Susan:
Well thank you, plug for rayables.com coming right here. I do think that's my unconventional accomplishment, because everything I have done, every experience I have done, every job that I have had, and I've had many different jobs and many different careers, but everything has led up to this moment and I just wonder if there's some kind of a divine destiny in this. You know, why was I picked out of the blue somehow to have a job in Jewish philanthropy? And then I got a job in Christian philanthropy and then I realized that 'ah-hah, Jewish, Christian, we're all praying the same way.'

  I mean it's just one successive thing and I have the background in social media and the background in search engine optimization and the background in website development. How did I have all of this experience to be able to do this at my age, at 54 years old, where if I was 24 years old or 34 years old, I could not have done this; I wouldn't have had the background.

Debbie:
I don't think you would have and it's all a matter of perspective. My 102 year old aunt would say '54 years old? Ah, she's a kid!' It's all about perspective.

Susan:
That's why I like hanging out with Aunt Sally, she makes me feel very young.

Debbie:
Susan, share with us Jane Goodall's reflection on faith, because I thought that was very interesting.

Susan:
Jane Goodall says when she was asked if she believed in God and now I'll quote, "I don't have any idea of who or what God is, but I do believe in some great spiritual power. I don't know what to call it, I feel it particularly when I'm at nature. It's just something that's bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it and that is enough for me."

Debbie:
I love it.

Susan:
Wasn't that awesome?

Debbie:
Yes, I really really loved that.

Susan:
So do you believe in God Debbie?

Debbie:
I do believe in God, strongly. I have a strong faith.

Susan:
And do you have, I mean when Jane is saying she feels is particularly in nature?

Debbie:
Well I absolutely do feel it in nature. One of my most spiritual experiences was being in Africa last year. I think we're running short of time and you've got to read us your prayer.

Susan:
Well okay thank you for moving me along and here is a prayer from Prayables.



Debbie:
Amen. I don't know how your writers come up with these amazing, amazing pieces of poetry but I loved it.

Susan:
Well thank you and I enjoyed it too. It's always fast and fun on Prayables Radio and please tune into  and tune into our show next time. Thank you everyone.

Debbie:
Bye!