Speaker 1: Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heart Radio podcast.
Speaker 1: This week's Whine About It Thursday Therapy. We've got doctor
Speaker 1: Gladys McGary. So she's one hundred and two years old
Speaker 1: and she has a book out called The Well Lived Life,
Speaker 1: A one hundred two year old Doctor's Six Secrets to
Speaker 1: Health and Happiness at Every Age. It's available now, Let's
Speaker 1: get her on.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Hi, you can hear me, I can hear you, and
Speaker 1: I can see how beautiful you are.
Speaker 2: Oh Hi, nice, you're pretty too.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you. I'm feeling, you know, like a million
Speaker 1: bucks today. I'm pregnant and I'm just like everything kind
Speaker 1: of hurts today, but I feel like I can't complain.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to talk to you, though, because I
Speaker 1: just when I was reading The Rundown, it says it
Speaker 1: says her book The Well Lived Life one hundred and
Speaker 1: two year old Doctor Six Secrets to Health and Happiness
Speaker 1: at Every Age. It's available now, and I was just was,
Speaker 1: you know, reading the Rundown everything that you've done, and
Speaker 1: I'm just it's just I think it's just so beautiful
Speaker 1: and the fact that you are still you know, you're
Speaker 1: you're writing books and just still living such a full
Speaker 1: life is such a beautiful thing. And I'm curious do
Speaker 1: you ever get how do I say this when people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, you look amazing, because it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're one hundred and you're one hundred and two. No
Speaker 1: do you get like, of course, I look, I've taken
Speaker 1: great care of myself or do you kind of get
Speaker 1: like why are you at? Like you know, because people
Speaker 1: always like you're forty years old and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: am I supposed to look older than forty?
Speaker 2: You know? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So it's like it makes you feel old when people
Speaker 1: A'm like, oh my god, you're forty and I'm like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're like I thought you were you know, late or thirties,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, I'm almost forty. But okay, but
Speaker 1: do you how is that for you? Are you like,
Speaker 1: do you like that when people say that?
Speaker 3: Or yeah, people say it all the time. It didn't
Speaker 3: make much sense to me. You look like what you
Speaker 3: look like? You know, what are you going to do
Speaker 3: about it? And you can get a facelift, but that
Speaker 3: doesn't help.
Speaker 2: Any temporary right well.
Speaker 3: It just it doesn't say anything about who you are.
Speaker 3: I have a friend who is a speaker. She speaks
Speaker 3: all around every place. And she told me one time
Speaker 3: that she was in a a doing a talk in Hollywood,
Speaker 3: and when she had people ask questions, she didn't know
Speaker 3: who was asking the question, even if she could see
Speaker 3: their faces, because they all looked alike. They'd had so
Speaker 3: much in the way of facial surgery and so on
Speaker 3: to look like what they should look like. And you know,
Speaker 3: instead of claiming what it is that you actually look
Speaker 3: like when you're this age, I mean, what are you
Speaker 3: going to do about it? When I was seventy having
Speaker 3: my seventieth birthday, by grandson was on the seat beside
Speaker 3: me and he says, how old are you, nanny? And
Speaker 3: I said, I'm seventy and he says, how old is
Speaker 3: that old? And I said, oh, I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: it's older. And he started pushing my face and he says, well,
Speaker 3: what about these ruggles? And I said, don't worry about them.
Speaker 3: They don't worry young. They don't hurt on the inside.
Speaker 3: They look funny on the outside, but they don't hurt
Speaker 3: on the inside. They're all right. I mean, it's that
Speaker 3: kind of accepting who and what you are and making
Speaker 3: it do. I mean, we're not going to do a bit.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I mean that's a that's a good
Speaker 1: perspective on that too. And you know, is there something
Speaker 1: I mean, people obviously are probably like, you know, what's
Speaker 1: your secret?
Speaker 2: What you know?
Speaker 1: And is that why you're like, Okay, I'm writing this
Speaker 1: book because here are my secrets?
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, here am I secret? Here?
Speaker 3: I'm trying to tell you when I've written the book,
Speaker 3: is that this is I don't consider it good or
Speaker 3: bad that a person wants to look different from the
Speaker 3: way they are. I mean, that's all right, that's your choice,
Speaker 3: but for me that unnecessary. You know, it's just a
Speaker 3: waste of time to try and pretend that you look
Speaker 3: different from what you feel like you look like.
Speaker 1: For sure. And I think it's hard too because in
Speaker 1: this era of social media, you you know, having the
Speaker 1: ability to change how your face looks with the tap
Speaker 1: of a little filter switch has been I think the
Speaker 1: most dangerous thing because you know, I've spoken on this
Speaker 1: like I've stopped using the certain filter that I used
Speaker 1: to use because I'm like, that's actually not what my
Speaker 1: nose looks like or what my face looks like. So
Speaker 1: I need to stop that because it's mentally not great.
Speaker 1: Nor would I want my daughter to swipe on something
Speaker 1: that isn't what she looks like, because she's beautiful in
Speaker 1: my eyes, and I wouldn't want that or to promote that. Now. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, it's nice to be able to go, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's a little I don't know if you're on Instagram,
Speaker 1: but like this softens it a little bit and makes
Speaker 1: it look a little better. But so I for you,
Speaker 1: do you think it was maybe easier without the social
Speaker 1: media aspect growing up or having that comparison of things,
Speaker 1: or was that comparison of other people there just not
Speaker 1: on the public platform.
Speaker 2: I think it's what every person wants to do with that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll never look like Marilyn Mineral, I'll never
Speaker 3: look like Elizabeth Taylor. I don't need to look like them.
Speaker 3: I look like me, and they don't need to look
Speaker 3: like me. And so I'm me and you're you, and
Speaker 3: it's wonderful. And life goes on and you're going to
Speaker 3: continue to age properly adequately, and that's that's just fine,
Speaker 3: you know. And you know, in the process of aging,
Speaker 3: my eyes have you know, they well, I can't see
Speaker 3: well enough to read, so I'm listening to audio books
Speaker 3: and getting a lot of really good stuff out of
Speaker 3: audio books. But it's it's my eyesight has diminished. It
Speaker 3: hasn't bothered my insight. In fact, my inside is better
Speaker 3: now when my eyesight is not so good that it
Speaker 3: was when my eyesight was good and I didn't have
Speaker 3: to pay attention to my inside.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is well?
Speaker 3: Because I was busy doing what my eyesight could tell me.
Speaker 3: You know what I was looking for. I was looking
Speaker 3: for whatever it was. I was looking forward that I needed,
Speaker 3: which I'm not complaining about that now. Because I don't
Speaker 3: have my eyesight as good as it was, I can
Speaker 3: actually appreciate the fact that there are things I can
Speaker 3: understand that I didn't understand before because I'm not seeing
Speaker 3: the things that I could see before. It's a sort
Speaker 3: of a juxtaposition of things that are going on life,
Speaker 3: and it's good whichever it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, through your life, is there one thing that you
Speaker 1: can look back and go I took that for granted.
Speaker 3: Oh my, I just the fact that I breathe every day,
Speaker 3: the fact you know that I get up and walk,
Speaker 3: the fact that I used to be able to run
Speaker 3: up my steps, and now I have to just make
Speaker 3: myself walk up my steps. There are lots of things,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't make them worse or better. I'm grateful
Speaker 3: that I can get up my steps.
Speaker 1: For your book, writing it, did you then have did
Speaker 1: you just voice the things you wanted to say and
Speaker 1: then you had someone just kind of write it out
Speaker 1: for you or how did that process work?
Speaker 3: I worked with people, you know, we talked about things
Speaker 3: and disgust and because like I remember one day spending
Speaker 3: two hours trying to express in words what love is,
Speaker 3: and we tried one in try another, and after two
Speaker 3: hours of working with that, we finally realized that, you know,
Speaker 3: there are no words that can explain to a person
Speaker 3: what love is, because all the songs in the world,
Speaker 3: all the paintings in the world, all the stories in
Speaker 3: the world about love don't really allow a person to
Speaker 3: experience love. Just like if a person is born blind
Speaker 3: and you try to explain to them what the color
Speaker 3: green is, if you have never experience instant, you don't
Speaker 3: know what it is. So it's that that ability to
Speaker 3: have things happen and you experience them and you feel them,
Speaker 3: and you allow it to come into yourself and you
Speaker 3: know that that then is a part of you.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. I love that one of your secrets that
Speaker 1: you put in was all life needs to move when
Speaker 1: obviously listeners are going to force them, not importantly, they
Speaker 1: all need this book. So I'm gonna highly encourage What
Speaker 1: do you mean though, by all life needs to move?
Speaker 2: Exactly that? Because if life doesn't move, if it gets
Speaker 2: stuck any place, it dies. If you have rosebud, a
Speaker 2: rose climbing rose, and it gets stuck someplace up the
Speaker 2: trellis and it can't go any farther, it dies. Life
Speaker 2: has to move. We have to take our breath, each
Speaker 2: breath at a time and move in order for life
Speaker 2: to continue. If we didn't, if our blood didn't continue
Speaker 2: to circulate, if our heart didn't continue pump, if things
Speaker 2: didn't tote to continue to move on, we would die, right,
Speaker 2: Just life has to move. Life and movement are part
Speaker 2: of what life is.
Speaker 1: And then you know, being to on the more holistic
Speaker 1: side of medicine, has it been hard for you to
Speaker 1: kind of watch the new wave of things that have
Speaker 1: of medicine today's age, or like, what is your kind
Speaker 1: of take on that and and a second part of
Speaker 1: that is, you know, what is something to be mindful?
Speaker 1: Like I I want to live the fullest, longest, you
Speaker 1: know life that I can and I want to instill
Speaker 1: that into my children too, with you know, health, eating
Speaker 1: and balancing, you know, in therapy and you know working
Speaker 1: out and you know, but is there something that people
Speaker 1: are missing in that that can additionally add to you know,
Speaker 1: is it something holistically or is it you know, not
Speaker 1: having that glass of wine even though it's sometimes really nice? Uh,
Speaker 1: Because you know, I've talked to a doctor amen on
Speaker 1: here and he is just like, alcohol is the worse
Speaker 1: for you? And and I'm like, God, I'm hearing this,
Speaker 1: and I want to live a long life and I
Speaker 1: want to have great brain health, but I really also
Speaker 1: enjoy the glass of wine sometimes at the end of
Speaker 1: the night. And I'm just like, what's the balance.
Speaker 3: I can't tell anybody what it is because it has
Speaker 3: to be personal thing. What works for me doesn't work
Speaker 3: for the next person. I have a son who can't
Speaker 3: eat garlic and onions, and the rest of us eat
Speaker 3: garlic and onions all the time for crying out loud.
Speaker 3: I was growing up in India Garlic onions Center. I
Speaker 3: can't understand this kid who is now a grown person,
Speaker 3: retired and all of that, but he can eat guardians
Speaker 3: and onions, and if I tried to teach him that
Speaker 3: he had to eat garlic and onions. It's like my
Speaker 3: other son who when he was well, I don't know
Speaker 3: about five, told me that eggs gave him us a
Speaker 3: headache in his stomach. You know, well, I didn't make
Speaker 3: him eat eggs. He now eats eggs, but at that point,
Speaker 3: eggs get a headache in his stomach. It's that ability
Speaker 3: of us to understand ourselves and learn to love ourselves.
Speaker 3: There's always one person you can always love, and that's you,
Speaker 3: because that person doesn't get away from you. And it's
Speaker 3: it's only not only, it's as we begin to find
Speaker 3: the the parts of ourselves that we can begin to
Speaker 3: understand and really think, yeah, that's that's good.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 3: I like that, and then incorporate that aspect of ourselves
Speaker 3: into something that makes us sing, makes us. I have
Speaker 3: my five l's. I've told you, have I spoken about this?
Speaker 1: No you haven't. I'd love to hear them that.
Speaker 3: The first one is life, life without love can't go
Speaker 3: any place. It dies, it doesn't even exist. You can
Speaker 3: have a shell, a seed in the pyramid, and it
Speaker 3: has a shell around it has all the life of
Speaker 3: the universe within it, but it can't do anything until love,
Speaker 3: in the form of water and sunlight and that kind
Speaker 3: of thing activates. It breaks the shell, so the life
Speaker 3: can then begin to move. Then life comes back. But
Speaker 3: you see, life without love is nothing, It's just stuck.
Speaker 3: And so in order for life and love to move,
Speaker 3: it's like the sperm and the ovum. The ovum and
Speaker 3: the sperm need to connect in order for a person
Speaker 3: to become a person. It's the reality of that. The
Speaker 3: energy is those two energies which the words life and
Speaker 3: love are the same except for the letter I n oh,
Speaker 3: because the eye is the masculine, the oh is the feminine.
Speaker 3: It's the moving together of those energies that lets us live,
Speaker 3: and we live if we love, so that the words
Speaker 3: themselves can't be real until they actually, you know, become
Speaker 3: the one unit, which is life and love. Anyway, so
Speaker 3: that you start there these five bells, life and love,
Speaker 3: and you have the one that is the two third
Speaker 3: one is laughter. Laughter without love is mean it's cruel.
Speaker 3: It's it. It hurts, it can be very painful. Wars
Speaker 3: are fought be you know. So laughter without love is cruel,
Speaker 3: But laughter with love is joy and happiness. It's the
Speaker 3: same thing, but it's how it's used. It's how how
Speaker 3: we take it in and how we are able to
Speaker 3: let it grow and become part of who we are.
Speaker 3: The fourth l is labor. Labor without love is drudgery.
Speaker 3: You know, I gotta go to work. There are too
Speaker 3: many diapers. This is too hard. I don't like this.
Speaker 3: This is my job.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: That kind of adjust a drudgery. It's just too hard.
Speaker 3: But labor with love is bliss.
Speaker 2: It's why you do what you're doing.
Speaker 3: It's why a paiger does what they paid, a cigare
Speaker 3: does why they say, you know, it's a very essence
Speaker 3: of our being is labor with love. And then the
Speaker 3: fifth one is listening. Listening without love is empty sound.
Speaker 3: It's the calling glaion, an empty sound. It's just it
Speaker 3: doesn't go any place. It's just there. But with love
Speaker 3: is understanding. It allows as you begin to listen to
Speaker 3: what people are saying, and you're beginning to listen to
Speaker 3: what you're saying not just to the world, but to
Speaker 3: yourself that begins and begin to understand it, then you've
Speaker 3: got a really, really something, really important going on within
Speaker 3: you for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that listening piece is that's been something that I've
Speaker 1: had to learn and practice because I think I know
Speaker 1: other Yeah, I know I'm not alone in this, but
Speaker 1: I go quick to defend right instead of and through
Speaker 1: the years of therapy and past couples counseling, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: really listen, you know, because you might not understand it,
Speaker 1: you might not agree with it, but you still should listen,
Speaker 1: and that's gonna then grow. And but that's that's that's
Speaker 1: a hard one.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it is a hard one. But one of the
Speaker 3: privileges of having children is being able to listen to
Speaker 3: what your children are saying. Why my third son, when
Speaker 3: he was four years old, came in one day and uh,
Speaker 3: he says, Mom, I know something, And I said, what's that?
Speaker 2: Bobby? He says, if I make a friend and he
Speaker 2: makes a friend, and he makes a friend, it's going
Speaker 2: to go all around the world to come back to me. So,
Speaker 2: of course he's a psychologist, you know.
Speaker 3: This is where was basically telling me that he was
Speaker 3: going to be working with people and tried to understand
Speaker 3: them and you know that whole process. And then my
Speaker 3: second son, when he was seven, comes in and he says, well,
Speaker 3: he says, I wish Jesus was here. And I said, oh, okay.
Speaker 2: Well so do I. But why do you?
Speaker 3: He says, because I've got questions? And I said, well
Speaker 3: try me. He said, but you don't have the answers.
Speaker 3: And I said, but just try me. See what. So
Speaker 3: he says, okay, how can God be if he never
Speaker 3: got started? And I said, well, you know, I took
Speaker 3: a deep breath and I said, well, maybe it's like
Speaker 3: a circle. It doesn't have a beginning, gir and and
Speaker 3: he says, oh, I knew you didn't have the answers
Speaker 3: at all, because so of course he's a retired president
Speaker 3: and minister. I mean, you know when you listen to
Speaker 3: what people say and you took that away and think,
Speaker 3: well this is interesting, you know, this is really interesting,
Speaker 3: and then watch them grow into that it's it's just
Speaker 3: absolutely it's awesome.
Speaker 1: I love that so much. And I cannot wait to
Speaker 1: read your book because you obviously have so much life
Speaker 1: experience and everything that you know you're I want to
Speaker 1: know the six Secrets to health and happiness, and so
Speaker 1: everybody grab her book, The Well Lived Life one hundred
Speaker 1: and two year old doctors Six Secrets to Health and
Speaker 1: Happiness at every age. It's available now. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: You're certainly welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you, you're a sweetheart. Thank you so much.