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The basic concepts of spiritual health emphasize love, joy, peace, sense of purpose, and achieving your full potential. Having spiritual health does not necessarily mean you are religious. You may be spiritual but not identify with any religious group. Religion is a support resource for many elders because it provides hope and meaning to many.

Values formed over time are an extension of your attitude to life. Spiritual health is a process that reflects the intangible aspects of your quality of life. It involves taking a personal inner journey that is different for every person. Discovering or creating life meaning can raise you above pain and loss. In the pursuit of successful aging, spirituality is relevant and compelling.

How to enhance your spiritual well-being

• Be a finisher. Nature operates in such a way that growing and living are nearly synonymous. When one stops, so does the other. Complete that book or tapestry you have been working on for so long.

• Be a goal-setter. Set goals and accept challenges that force you to be active.

• Be creative. Creativity is not confined to the first part of your life. In fact, accumulated knowledge and experience make the later decades more congenial to new accomplishments. Join an art group or a woodworking or calligraphy class.

• Be happy. Maintain your sense of humor. Make each day an opportunity for optimism for yourself and others. A positive mind creates expectations that something good is about to happen and opens doors to new options for success. Learn a new joke every day.

• Be independent. Don’t depend on others for your well-being. A well-developed sense of who you are is the crucial link to a long and meaningful existence. We all need to maintain dignity, autonomy, and independence in our daily lives. Find a place to live where you have access to shopping, the library, your place of worship, and other necessary amenities.

• Be kind to yourself. Make time in your day to meditate, pray, or have quiet moments.

• Be motivated, and see challenges as opportunities for change. Difficulties in your life can be overcome if you regard them as opportunities. Do something to change your situation or emotional mindset. Join the senior’s activity center near you.

• Be necessary and responsible. Live outside yourself. Volunteer your services. See each day as a chance to help someone or something. Associate with other active, involved individuals. Sharpen your sense of duty to preserve your environment, the earth that nurtures everyone. Do some gardening today.

• Be positive. Be willing to see different sides to a situation, and pursue a course of action and thinking that allows for positive changes, or acceptance of what is. Invite that old friend over for tea and mend the rift between you.

It is essential that you maintain balance in your life. Be aware that to be healthy, you need to pay attention to all parts of yourself. Successful aging means your body, mind, and spirit are used to capacity.