I have a confession to make, I sometimes find it hard to be a motivated widow.  I turned 67 this year and wanted to get better physically.  In the past year my back went out and I just got feeling better and I pulled a muscle in my leg.  Although I’m pretty healthy I knew the time had come to take responsibility for my poor aging body. My mother had poor circulation and lost her leg (up to her knee) when she was about my age and I didn’t want that to happen to me.  So, I did what thousands of other widows do, I joined a gym.  I didn’t want to, I didn’t enjoy it, and I seemed to have a reason more often than not to miss a day. But, an odd thing happened to me today.  I was out walking with a friend and it dawned on me that all we seemed to talk about was everyone that we knew who was sick or had an illness.  And I don’t see that changing as we both continue to get older. Once home I thought about how depressing the walk had turned out to be.  I want to talk about what we are doing positively to protect our health, both physically and mentally.  However, instead I complained about how much I hated going to the gym. Then for some reason I thought of my Mom (she passed away a few years after losing her leg) and how she didn’t have the opportunity to go to a gym while living.  She didn’t have the money and later she didn’t have the health.  Why am I complaining, when I’m blessed with the money, car and health to get to the gym? I was not a motivated widow because of my mindset.  I spoke negatively about the gym, using words like “hate” and “dislike”.  It was no wonder my mind didn’t want to get motivated to go.  So this afternoon I had a little chat with myself and said how “blessed” and “fortunate” I was to be able to go to the gym today. What a difference positive self-talk makes!  I not only went to the gym, I enjoyed it.  I did all of the 30 minute machine routines and didn’t once want to take a short cut to get it over with.  I even did another 30 minutes on the treadmill.  I left the gym with a sense of accomplishment, not because I did the exercises, but because I enjoyed the feeling of being blessed instead of being forced to do a chore. Thank you Mom, even now you are still teaching me that I am in control of my life.  That my life “is what it is” and I’m blessed when I am able to make it better.  It is not a chore to make myself healthier, it’s a blessing. Now I know that being a motivated widow will be an up and down journey, but I think I finally understand that my self-talk is where I go wrong.  When I catch myself thinking “hate” and “dislike” when thinking of the gym, I will now force myself to change my mindset by thinking of Mom and how the gym is a “blessing” and how “fortunate” I am to be able to go there.