What Do You Believe About Aging? #156

Most of us have absorbed a story about aging, one that treats decline as a foregone conclusion, for ourselves and for our horses and dogs. But that story leaves out something important.

In this episode, Mary Debono makes a compelling case that how we age is far more within our influence than our culture suggests. The key isn't simply doing more. It's building the kind of underlying movement organization that lets you, your horse, and your dog move through life with greater ease, fewer limitations, and more joy.

If you've ever wondered whether things really have to get harder, or whether there's a smarter path forward for aging well with your animals, this episode is a good place to start.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The cultural narrative around aging often overstates inevitable decline and underestimates our capacity for change
• Improving underlying movement organization, not just increasing physical activity, is the real foundation of aging well
• The Feldenkrais MethodⓇ addresses coordination habits that exercise alone tends to leave untouched, and can reduce unnecessary wear and tear on the body
• Neuroplasticity, the nervous system's ability to adapt and improve through positive sensory experience, is available to us at any age
• "Biological optimism" reflects the idea that as long as we're alive, we have an innate capacity to improve
• The same principles that support your own movement health can help your horse or dog age more comfortably as well

Resources:

Grab your FREE video training to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

💥Learn how the Feldenkrais MethodⓇ can help improve your seat, position, and balance on your horse! Free rider videos masterclass: https://www.marydebono.com/rider 💥

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and does not constitute medical, veterinary, or training advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you, your horse, or dog are unwell or injured.  Always use caution when interacting with horses and dogs.

About the Host:

Mary Debono is a pioneer in animal and human wellness, blending her expertise as an international clinician, best-selling author, and certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner. With over three decades of experience, Mary developed Debono Moves, a groundbreaking approach that enhances the performance, well-being, and partnership of animals and their humans.

Mary's innovative approach draws from the Feldenkrais Method®, tailored specifically for horse and dog enthusiasts.  Her methods have helped animals and humans:

• Improve athletic ability and performance
• Enhance confidence and reduce anxiety
• Reduce physical limitations and discomfort
• Deepen the human-animal bond

Mary's flagship online programs, "Move with Your Horse" and "Easier Movement, Happier Dogs," provide animal enthusiasts with an innovative approach that combines the concepts of Feldenkrais® with her signature hands-on work for horses and dogs (Debono Moves). Through this transformative approach, both people and their animal companions discover greater harmony, ease, and connection.

TRANSCRIPT:

What do you believe about aging, both for yourself as well as for your horse or dog? What. If you really think about it, what do you expect to happen? You know, I. I overheard a conversation recently. So picture this little outdoor cafe. Three women sitting at a small table, and two of the women, I would guess their late 60s, maybe early 70s. Another woman, she was probably early 60s, maybe mid-60s even.

And. But she was definitely a little bit younger than the other two. And one of the older women says to her, let me tell you what happens when you get old. And then she proceeded to tell her all about these horrible things that were going to happen. And she was going on and on about how you're going to fall all the time, you won't be able to maintain your balance and everything's going to hurt, and you won't be able to do half the things you can do right now.

And then the other older woman was also chiming in. She was talking about all the time she's fallen, how hurt she's got, and all kinds of things. And it was such a. You know, it was such a kind of a slap in the face, like, the way they were talking about this inevitability of decline. And. And I was watching the slightly younger woman who was like, her mouth was open, like, oh.

And I'm sure, you know, she's. I'm sure an intelligent woman. She's. She didn't look like she showed up from Mars or any place. So I'm sure she's used to the culture talking like that, like, in general, about aging. She didn't seem naive. However, she. You can tell she was like, yikes. Like, that's what's going to happen. And I thought, no, no, no, it doesn't have to be that way.

It does not have to be that way. But. But here's the thing. Our culture just. Even if you don't have two women kind of shoving it in your face that this is what's going to happen. We're surrounded by the expectation that these are things that are going to happen to us, that there's, you know, inevitability about it. And what I'm going to say is not to at all say, you know, like, be Pollyanna about it and say, no, nothing will change as you get older, and you'll be able to do everything you used to do and nothing will hurt.

I am not, you know, going to say that. However, I'm going to say that there is a lot more under our control than most of us realize, a lot more we have a lot more agency. We can actually guide our own ship, right? At least to a certain degree. And this isn't just about moving more, because you do hear that. Of course you hear that. You know, you, you, you know, any fitness influencer will tell you, well, of course, as you age, you have to move more and you have to lift heavy things and all that.

And that's great advice. Not knocking that at all. However, to me, what's most important is that you address your underlying coordination, your underlying, what we call organization of how you move, your awareness so that you can do these activities, whether it's hiking, running, swimming, lifting weights, or all of the above, riding your horse, hiking with your dog. You can do them from a place of ease and health so that you're not creating additional wear and tear on your body because you can use willpower.

And you could push through. You know, your knee that hurts, or you know, your shoulder that gives you a problem when you lift weights. And you could think, well, no, this is good for me. I need to do it. But what I'm here to offer you is something better. That, you know, the work that I teach, the Feldenkrais method, that's what I teach my human clients, right? And then we have Dibona moves for the horses, dogs, and other animals, but they are.

It's. The Feldenkrais method can help you get that underlying organization squared away to improve that so that you can move through life with greater ease, right? You can improve your balance. You know, there's so many. You can look on YouTube or whatever, that you can get a ton of different balance exercises, and they might be very helpful for you. Again, I'm not knocking any of this, but what I will say is if, for example, you're, you know, standing on one leg for a while and you're doing, you know, the different balance exercises, if you have had a habit, like many people do, of kind of bracing your lower back on one side, you know, bracing through your hip, and you're not quite on the highest point of your hip when you're on that leg.

You might improve how long you stand on that leg, but you might also be creating more difficulty for yourself over time, more potential damage, you know, kind of reinforcing those maladaptive movement habits that, you know, we all have in one way or another. But instead, if you were to slow down and do some Feldenkrais lessons, you would learn how to organize yourself in a healthier way so the, your balance would be improved.

And as you then took up, maybe specific balance exercises. You would do them from a healthy place. You would have more awareness. You could add in your Feldenkrais awareness to whatever activity, hiking, running, weight training, all those things. So you do them from a healthier place. Let me give you an example. Tomorrow, in my move with your horse membership, I'll be teaching a class, Feldenkrais movement lesson class for the humans about waking up the feet.

And it's a wonderful Feldenkrais lesson. And we do all these different kinds of movements with the feet and coordinate them with the rest of the body. And at the end, what people usually feel is that their feet have greater contact with the ground. They have, you know, they're spread a little bit more. They have much more movement in their ankles. And that's a big, big, big thing for balance, by the way.

And not only that, but it can improve the comfort and flexibility of the knees and the hips and even the spine. So it's this whole, you know, connection. We. We work with a coordination and the connection of parts helping them move more harmoniously. And so this is what I mean. So when you hear in our culture, you know, things that, you know, assume you're just going to completely fall apart as you get older and you have no control over whatsoever, I'm here to say you do have more control than you think.

And we can also apply the concepts that you learn with yourself to helping your horses and dogs age more easily as well. Okay, so these are things I teach in my. In my programs, and I have programs for horse lovers as well as dog lovers. And it's something that, again, I'm on such a mission because when I hear people like those women talking at the cafe and just assuming that life is going to get harder and harder and harder, just less happy, I want to push back against that.

I want to say, well, let's think about what we can do. Yes, there's going to be changes, you know, for you, for your horses and your dogs. And I also think how awesome it is that we get to be older, Right? Some people, some horses, some dogs don't get that opportunity to actually experience living in their senior years. Right. So, you know, there's this term we use in the Feldenkrais world a lot, this idea of biological optimism.

And I love it so much because it just basically signifies that we all have this innate desire to improve, that as long as we're alive, we're. We're capable of neuroplasticity, the ability of our nervous systems to adapt, to improve to, to take new sensory experiences and use them to our benefit. So what we can do, you know, as mindful people, is we can use positive sensory experiences, ones like you feel as you experience the Feldenkrais method lessons.

And we can use them to improve our lives. And then we're able to, to do more with our horses and our dogs and to be more joyful and yes, to run, to hike, to lift weights, to do all, to swim more. All of those fun things, right, that help improve our strength and agility and all that. But it needs to come from a base of good organization. And that's again, why I'm on a mission to promote this work so much.

I've seen, you know firsthand what it, what did for me, what it continues to do to help me as I go through my senior years, as well as all the people that I've been able to positively impact over 35 plus years. So. And, and of course, the animals. The animals, right. You know, the Moshe Feldenkrais work strongly informed my creation of De Bono moves. So that's what I want to leave you with, this idea that, you know, we can improve, for example, you, you know, you can improve your proprioception of your feet so that balance is easier for you.

You know, you can improve so many things instead of just using willpower to try to struggle through and assuming things are going to get worse, is that we have an opportunity to improve. So let's go do that and we can help our horses and our dogs improve as well, no matter what age. You know why? Because you and your animals deserve to feel great together. Thank you so much for joining me.

I always love sharing this work with you and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye for now.