The Well-Lived Life Quotes

“What if the longer things take the better they are...what if instead of chasing youth and lost time we could embrace the aging process? Making space for our lives to get better and better as they go along...”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Each of us is a complex ecosystem of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and sensations, all of which play into our state of health. I’m not just interested in relieving my patients’ symptoms; I’m interested in helping them see their current distress in the context of the greater journey their soul is undertaking.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Life reaches for life. Always. That means that when we feel the most stuck, whether physically, emotionally, situationally, or any other way, we need only to look for where things are still moving.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“By showing us where the body is hurt, they show us precisely where the soul needs to work next.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“A true sense of community seems rare in our modern age. Even before the pandemic, many media reports were noting that we are experiencing a crisis of loneliness. Loneliness has been identified as a problem in numerous countries and across a range of demographics.11 This sense of disconnection wreaks havoc on the body. One study at Brigham Young University showed that feeling lonely has the same effect on longevity as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.12 Poor social relationships have been associated with a 29 percent increase in the risk of heart disease and a 32 percent increase in risk of stroke.13”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Buddhist texts, or anitya, which is the more common spelling in Hindu texts, is age old. This concept focuses on impermanence: that life is always changing and that suffering comes when we try to stop its flow.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“In my generation, people had plenty of hobbies. Entertainment was an event that often took place outside the home, so we had to come up with ways to entertain ourselves. Many of us cooked from scratch, worked on our homes and cars, gardened, wrote stories, sang and played musical instruments, or practiced crafts such as knitting, cross-stitching, and painting. Such activities are creative and connect us with our life force. It didn’t matter much whether we were good or bad at what we did—the point was simply to enjoy doing it.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“followed what my parents had done, treating physical health as a single part of a larger ecosystem. I was less focused on killing a disease and more interested in why it was there.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Several analyses of the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study have observed a link between a high sense of purpose and decreased mortality in adults over fifty.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Each of us came here to do something. And as I see it, true health has nothing to do with diagnosing a disease or prolonging life just for the sake of it; it’s about finding out who we are, paying attention to how we’re called to grow and change, and listening to what makes our heart sing.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“You’re forging your own path in life. Your soul is on its own sacred mission, housed in your unique and brilliant body, and only you can direct that process.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Many people live with diseases and even great pain while remaining joyfully connected to their purpose. Others are disease-free and still wake up not wanting to be alive. Health doesn’t require us to live in a problem-free body, just as happiness doesn’t require us to experience a problem-free life. Health and happiness are about being so connected to our own life force that we feel we fit into the world around us.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“The cells of our body know their jobs.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“There are times in life and health when healing can occur only when an actual blockage is removed.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Fear is one of the major reasons we stop moving as a response to pain: we don’t want to hurt more.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“All life needs to move. Life itself is always in movement, so aligning with our life force means that we must always look for the flow within us.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“When we approach people who think very differently from us with curiosity instead of condemnation, we grow.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“According to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the quality of our relationships at age fifty is the greatest predictor of our health and well-being at age eighty.16”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“We’re able to connect with life best when we get juice from multiple places. A puzzle piece doesn’t just click in on one side; it clicks in on two, three, or four. What that looks like varies from person to person.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Constant access to entertainment and devices makes it hard to pursue things that are challenging. With the pressures of modern life, it’s often hard to see the value in pursuits that don’t make money or immediately solve widespread problems.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“outdoor pursuits, activism, artistry, or any number of other activities, even if they aren’t our official “jobs.” In my generation, people had plenty of hobbies. Entertainment was an event that often took place outside the home, so we had to come up with ways to entertain ourselves. Many of us cooked from scratch, worked on our homes and cars, gardened, wrote stories, sang and played musical instruments, or practiced crafts such as knitting, cross-stitching, and painting. Such activities are creative and connect us with our life force.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“like thinking of us as puzzle pieces because it gives us each space to be unique. We’re not supposed to be shaped this way or that; we’re supposed to be shaped precisely as we are, because that way we can fit together. It isn’t anyone’s job to judge the shape of anyone else’s piece, and in the same way, it isn’t useful to try to make ourselves more or less like anyone else or to worry if they judge our shape. Instead, it’s up to each of us to align with our own soul and help others do the same.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“This book includes many remarkable stories of people dramatically turning toward life. But Lilian’s story has always remained close to my heart because most of life isn’t that dramatic. It’s more often day by day, minute by minute, either engaging with the world around us or… not. Many of the most pivotal shifts happen in patients like this one.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“we are souls having a human experience, that some part of us is interconnected with other people, and that we come here as part of a personal and collective mission of growth and healing”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“The word holistic combines whole and holy, not in a specifically religious sense but in a way that deeply respects the perfection of each human soul and sees the body as an instrument that assists the soul in its tasks. Diseases and symptoms—from simple aches and pains to metastatic cancer—are also part of that perfect design. By showing us where the body is hurt, they show us precisely where the soul needs to work next.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“Ware gezondheid gaat over leven met de wereld om ons heen, waarbij je je betrokken voelt en waar je daadwerkelijk aan deelneemt. Het gaat om samenwerking met onze innerlijke levenskracht. Onze wil, ons verlangen om hier te zijn en onze talenten met de wereld te delen. Als we daartoe bereid zijn krijgen we een gevoel van zingeving, en als dat eenmaal binnen handbereik is kan ons lichaam binnen elke situatie gezond zijn.”
― Gladys McGarey, Het goedgeleefde leven

“Young people—and by that I mean anyone under ninety-nine, but especially those in their teens and twenties—need such activities to help release stress, because today’s world is exposing us to every crisis that has ever occurred in real time.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“I often find myself asking patients what they have to live for, because if they can’t answer this question, I can often only relieve their symptoms temporarily.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“We all deserve to feel this way. Each of us is here for a reason, to learn and grow and to give our gifts. When we are able to do so, we’re filled with the creative life energy that I call the “juice.” The juice is our reason for living. It’s our fulfillment, our joy. It’s what happens when life is activated by love. It’s the energy we get from the things that matter and mean something to us. It’s what my parents got from their work with underserved populations, and it’s the first secret I share with you: You are here for a reason. Each of us is here to connect with our unique gifts; this is what activates our desire to be alive.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

“the first secret I share with you: You are here for a reason. Each of us is here to connect with our unique gifts; this is what activates our desire to be alive. Achieving this connection isn’t necessarily the point. The search counts for far more. The process of “finding our juice” keeps us vital.”
― Gladys McGarey, The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age