Here's another pet peeve for ya. So I'm on the phone yesterday with a colleague and friend, and our dialogue begins moving into the 'health' zone.
He starts to say to me (on the heels of reporting once again, about the various surgeries he's had this past two years), "well, when we get into our 70's..." and I stopped him dead in his tracks.
I told him how far too many people have an expectation of becoming crippled, infirm, sickly, incapacitated, drug-dependent, etc., as they age, BUT IT'S NOT MY REALITY! I went on to explain the mind, body and spirit are intertwined, and if we're neglecting and dissociating from our feelings, unhealed emotional trauma HAS to enter into the physical system, and jam it up!
To be very frank, I know of no emotionally well clinicians. They stay in unfulfilling marriages, they go without a nourishing, sexual bond with their spouse for decades, and it never even occurs to em why they have prostate issues, back problems, and a litany of other physical ailments. Small wonder.
I don't believe I'm invincible. I have injured myself from time to time, but overall, I'm in great physical health AND I INTEND TO STAY THIS WAY, until I decide to cash in my chips, surrender this body, and launch into the next phase of my soul's journey ~and it WON'T BE because I'm too sick to wanna stick around!
I fucking HATE when people throw these dumb narratives at ya. I think it comes under the banner of, misery loves company! My BPD former friend and colleague used to warn me of imminent physical ailments that would befall me, when I turned HER age. She was only 1.5 years older than I, but I was always hearing: "Just wait till you turn 60, 62, or 65," (or whatever) "this'll happen to YOU!" Well, it never did.
The sole reason I've worked so relentlessly on emotional growth and healing, is so that I wouldn't have to HATE my life as I aged. Why be in pain if ya don't have to?! BTW, if I'd kept looking for faults and flaws, and being critical of myself, I'm sure I'd have been sick and needed surgery a long time ago.
Again, if you take really good care of your emotional self, the physical self follows suit. I'm not a health nut, but in terms of my emotional well-being, my goal to remain physically strong, sound and healthy keeps me radically committed to growing more whole and sane every day.