Category: gated-article

by Ron Pevny

There is a common theme echoed by nearly all those I know who feel called to conscious eldering: the need to be of service to something larger than themselves and to use their gifts, skills, and wisdom developed over many decades to make a real difference in this world. These are people who believe they have a lot of legacy-building yet to do, and they are committed to finding ways to do it. At the same time, realizing the unique opportunity of their elderhood, they want to honor their inner call to a quieter, less goal- oriented way of life where emotional growth and spiritual deepening are priorities. They want to savor life, focusing more on being and less on doing. Learning how to understand doing and being, and what it means to balance these, is a critical task for those seeking to age consciously.

It is natural for the earlier stages of our lives to be heavily focused on doing. We learn much about who we are and what we are capable of by acting in this world. It is through doing that we develop a strong, effective ego and use that ego in service to our career, relationships, and sense of fulfillment. At the same time we also learn much about how others expect us to be. Most of us have internalized these expectations, having learned how to act effectively in the world but losing much awareness of our authentic uniqueness in the process. One of the significant shifts that occurs as we enter life’s later chapters and become increasingly aware of our mortality is an inner call (sometimes heard, sometimes not) to focus on discovering who we are as unique beings. And with this awareness to find how we can best express those gifts (which I call signature or soul gifts) that our authentic inner voice tells us need expression if we are to find fulfillment in our elderhood.

Aging provides an opportunity to choose the kind of person we will be, and to have that define us more than what we will do. This redefinition of ourselves becomes especially important as we experience the inevitable declines of ability and energy that aging brings. Seeking balance between serving and savoring, doing and being, conscious elders become increasingly able to have the doing we choose to engage in be in service to our deepest callings rather than to the needs of our egos.

This seeming dichotomy between doing and being is often spoken of when the subject of conscious aging comes up. It is commonly presented as a dichotomy between doing or not doing, activity or non-activity, which I see as mistaken. Non-activity does not necessarily equate to truly being, to truly savoring life’s precious moments. It is as easy to go numb, to live unconsciously, when we are not doing as when we are heavily engaged in being active. The key is cultivating conscious awareness of what brings us truly alive, of what helps us be fully present in each moment, and what does not. Conscious eldering is a commitment to doing all we can to foster such aliveness.

In an interview I did with the late Bob Atchley, that wise elder and pioneering voice for conscious aging, who wrote the inspiring book Spirituality and Aging, Bob said: “You hear a lot of people saying, ‘What I want to do is cut back on the doing so I can really enjoy the being.’ And I think that doesn’t sit too well with my experience. My experience is that I have had to learn how to be-while-doing. That means to have one foot in the part of me that is connected to my deepest spirituality and one foot in the practicalities of whatever it is that I’m engaged in at that moment in the world…. As you move in the direction of connecting up with the witness consciousness, with real presence, which is the essence of true spirituality, you’re moving in the direction of being while you’re in the act of doing things. And to the extent that you’re doing that, you’re growing into the role of the true Elder, the Wisdom Keeper so needed in today’s world.”

In my own conscious eldering, I am facing a challenge that confronts many people who recognize the importance of their contributions as elders to a world urgently needing their gifts. I am passionately committed to having my Center for Conscious Eldering be a significant force for transformation. I am also very aware of a strong tendency in me to approach my work at the age of seventy-one in the same driven way I approached projects when in my thirties, forties, and even fifties. There were many times back then when I lost touch with my joy and inner balance as I pushed ahead. For that time in my midlife adulthood, such an approach may have been totally appropriate. I needed to learn to push beyond my perceived limits and learn something critical about my drive and passion. That was a time of building a strong, effective ego that could succeed in the world.

Now my growth requires something else. It requires learning to allow my soul and its energies to work through my personality as I give my best to my calling, rather than believing that my personality self has to do it all. I see that I am most effective when I am living and working from my wholeness, balancing the needs of my body, mind, emotions, relationships, and spirit. When I allow myself to get out of balance, my work begins to feel not like my calling but like a big de-energizing “should,” and my well being suffers.

Conscious elders are not martyrs. Older people who become martyrs are not acting with consciousness. When our call to service becomes a “should” or an exercise in ego rather than a balanced outflowing from our whole selves, we run the risk of having our work be compromised by our imbalances, and of burning ourselves out physically and emotionally. Imbalanced people produce imbalanced results, even when their intentions are noble. As I recognize my changing needs at this stage of my life, this means that I may quantitatively accomplish less with my organization than I might prefer. But paradoxically, I believe that what I do accomplish will have a greater impact than would be the case if I pushed myself to do more, because I am aligning my actions with the power of that essence in me that is wiser than my personality self. I am gradually learning to infuse my doing with being.

Service to others as a conscious elder is not defined by how big or visible our actions are. Rather, it is defined by the intention to serve others, presence, self awareness and love— those qualities of Being—that we bring to whatever we feel the need to do. That doing may be volunteer work, working for an income, an avocation, social activism, grandparenting, or spending special time serving as mentor to a young person. Valuable service may not even look like doing, such as engaging in practices to raise the quality of the energy we emanate into the collective by deepening our spiritual life.

Conscious elderhood is about committing to have our lives, whether we are engaged in outer doing or not, be lived with authenticity. There will be times when we feel called to be outwardly active. And times when deepening our inner lives and savoring these precious days of life’s elder chapters are in the forefront. The key is finding the balance that is right for us, a balance that will change as we move deeper into our elderhood, a balance that we can gauge by how alive we feel in both our inner and outer lives.

As I become more reflective during this season that calls all life in the northern hemisphere to quiet down and go within, I look back on a tumultuous, bi-polar year for planet earth.

On one hand, the human community has been inundated with disempowering images of (and for so many people and our non-human relatives direct experience of) violence, greed, cruelty, exploitation, fear and inability or unwillingness to seek a larger vision of the greater good, beyond short-term self-interest.

On the other hand (and much less visible in most media), the creativity, vision, consciousness, passion and compassion of the human spirit are shining brightly amid the darkness, providing hope and dynamic energy for a world perched on a razor’s edge between collapse and transformation.

As I look at 2016, I see two vastly different levels of consciousness driving these two realities: the “leaders” who promote and shape them, and we, the people whose personal and political choices are shaping our collective and personal futures.

As we approach a new year, I would like to share with you some of my thoughts about the importance of being aware and intentional about the consciousness that we who aspire to age well carry into the year.

Do we approach our lives through the lens of survival, or of thrival?

Does our predominant disposition seem to be fear or trust, and which of these do we feed in our daily live.

I define survival consciousness as being primarily focused on safety, holding on to what we are and have against the fear-inducing onslaught of change, threat and uncertainty from the world around us and from the reality of our aging. The survival mentality sees change as inherently dangerous and to be resisted, while stability is the most highly valued goal.

The consciousness of thriving acknowledges the need for safety and takes appropriate steps to support our security, but looks beyond safety to what it means to be truly alive, growing, and expanding. It holds as the highest value aiming high toward fulfilling our potential as beacons of light during these critical times and to trust that we are supported in doing so.

We humans cannot have true wellbeing without continually growing, stretching beyond our perceived limits, shedding old skins that constrict our potential. People cannot remain stable, cannot stay on a plateau for long periods of time. We either grow or stagnate, and we have choice about which path to embrace.  We have a choice as to whether we confront our resistance and fear and expend the effort to grow toward the light of our potential, or allow ourselves to die slowly, to gradually wither and withdraw from life.

The great Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda wrote beautifully of this choice in one of my favorite poems, “You Start Dying Slowly.”  Here are two of the stanzas from this poem:

You start dying slowly

When you become a slave of your habits,

Walking everyday on the same paths…

If you do not change your routine,

If you do not wear different colours

Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.

 

You start dying slowly

If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied

With a job, or with your love,

If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,

If you do not go after a dream,

If you do not allow yourself,

At least once in your lifetime,

To run away from sensible advice.

Perhaps the most important realization along my journey of growth is the huge role fear and trust play in defining how I experience my life. I have seen how easily fear arises in me, and my automatic inclination to expect the worst. When fear reigns, my moods, attitudes, choices and perceptions are colored by it, and I feel disempowered, vulnerable and hopeless.

Survival consciousness reigns supreme. In stark contrast, when trust is strongly present, I am hopeful, I feel strong, and I am in touch with the best in me, so that I can contribute my best to my wellbeing and that of the world around me. Transforming fear has not been easy for me. I am grateful that over many years I have been blessed with experiences of deep, heart-level knowing that I am supported by a loving power much greater than my fearful personality. I imagine that this is true for all of you also, but these experiences are easy to forget when our attention is elsewhere, and especially on safety. My challenge when I am assailed by fear has been to intentionally focus on remembering these experiences of support—remembering how they felt as they stirred my body, mind and spirit.

My most important daily growth practice is to spend a few silent moments each morning, outdoors or at my altar, before engaging in any other activities, remembering and affirming that I am supported in my growing and thriving. I commit to living in trust that day, acknowledging fear when it arises but not giving my power to it. And slowly but surely my tendency toward fear is being replaced by a deep trust in my life and the LIFE I’m part of. Such reprogramming of old, disempowering patterns is possible. It takes commitment and effort, but is crucial if we are to thrive rather than just survive in our later chapters.

Using whatever ways work for us, it is critical that we strive to be aware and intentional of which consciousness in ourselves, survival or thrival, we feed each day. Do we feed ourselves a steady diet of fear and greed-inducing imagery, life-numbing foods, various addictions, and disempowering relationships. Or do we feed ourselves inspiring words, ideas and images, and meaningful relationships that bring out the best in ourselves and others? Do we feed our bodies health promoting foods and plenty of exercise, and feed the spiritual dimension in ourselves from which trust and vision springs? Do we live for ourselves (which feeds only survival) or be of service to others so that together we can all thrive?

I believe it is impossible to truly thrive if our daily consciousness is primarily one of fear and survival. With such consciousness, we will choose “safe” numbness rather than risky aliveness. We will settle for aiming low or not aiming at all, telling ourselves we are OK being less than we can be. But if we want more, if we want to thrive in whatever circumstances life presents, then our starting place needs to be an honest assessment of the filter, the consciousness, through which we view our lives and the world around us, followed by a determination as to whether this consciousness will truly help us create lives of hope, service and fulfillment.

As you look toward the new year, I encourage you to commit to something more important than just a self-improvement resolution or two. Even if you are successful at keeping these, you may accomplish little more than imp   roving who you have been when what you most need is expansion into the new, empowered self you can become. I encourage you to take time to honestly examine the consciousness you are carrying into 2016, because that lens through which you view life will play a major role in shaping how the year unfolds for you. I can think of no more-valuable resolution New Year’s resolution than to do this. If you decide to commit, or recommit, to trusting and thriving, the principles and practices of conscious eldering can offer invaluable support. May you thrive in 2017.

Ron Pevny is Founding Director of the Center for Conscious Eldering He is also a Certified Sage-ing® Leader, is author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging  published by Beyond Words/Atria Books, and serves as the host/interviewer for the  Transforming Aging Summits presented by The Shift Network.

Download a PDF file of this article.

Elders throughout History

For most of recorded history until relatively recent times, the role of elder was an honored one, with the wisdom, skills and personal qualities of elders understood to be critical for the wellbeing of communities. The role of elder was that of mentor to the younger generations in the enduring values that support harmony in the community. Elders initiated the young. They helped adults find and develop the gifts they were to share with the community. Because they had developed the bigger picture understanding of life that sees human wellbeing and that of the earth that supports them a inter-related and inter-dependent, it was the elders whose role it was to serve as the voice for future generations, reminding their community of the importance of making decisions with the sustainability of the culture and the earth in mind.

Unlike the situation in industrialized societies today in which there is no defined and honored role for its older adults, and most seniors live in their own homes or retirement communities, in “traditional” societies throughout history all the generations lived together in family groups. The roles and responsibilities of elders were integrated into the daily life of the community. The elders lived with children and adults in a web of mutual respect for the important roles all had in supporting the life of the family and the community.

Collaboration is Key to Survival

A growing body of research is pointing to a new (to the modern world) understanding of a key dynamic in the survival of both human and non-human communities. The Darwinian model of competition in which the “fittest” survive is being recognized as being a distorted and only partially true depiction of life’s dynamics. 1 This broader understanding shows that all members of communities, whether human or non, must contribute to the health of the larger systems in which they are imbedded if they are to remain healthy. They must continually balance independence with interdependence, cooperating in win-win dynamics that support the wellbeing of all. (1)

In contemporary culture, where older adults are largely seen as having made their contribution to society before retirement, a critical element is missing from this dynamic of cooperation. Seniors are not expected to continue cultivating elder qualities in themselves and to use these in service to the community. A great many seniors have little regular contact with young people, aside from occasional visits with grandchildren. By and large, young people and seniors have little in common, live in vastly different subcultures, cannot understand each other, and find it difficult to bridge the gaps if doing so does feel important to them.

Crisis Can Bring Out the Elder in Us

However, I believe this can change. Already, a rapidly increasing number of people are embracing an empowering vision for their aging. Rather than drifting into a disempowered old age, they are focusing on continual personal growth work to strengthen those qualities and commitments to service that have traditionally defined the role of elder. They recognize the importance of using their passion and talents in service to their communities and the ecosystems that support life. It seems to take crisis to galvanize people into action, and the imminent danger of human-induced climate change may well be the crisis that can bring out the elder in millions more of us as we age, impelling us to begin looking at the legacy we will leave our descendants. The magnitude of this crisis is such that we cannot afford to have millions of older adults and young people standing on the sideline, not interested or not believing they can make a difference. Collaboration between elders and “youngers” can be key to success in dealing with climate change and other crises that loom before us.

Elder-Younger Partnerships Create Synergy

Elders can bring to the table time, money, experience creating change (e.g., the environmental, anti-war and civil rights movements). They can contribute long-term perspective, political and financial clout, and a sense of urgency that time is limited for them to make a difference. Many elders have an experiential understanding of the importance of healthy ecosystems for human physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Elders can also bring an awareness, often not yet reached by younger people, that environmental and social action grounded in hatred and demonization of opponents most likely will only increase polarization, whereas willingness to truly listen to opposing viewpoints and act with an open heart (characteristics of true elders) can bring healing.

Youngers bring energy, idealism, and a wealth of experience with social media and technology in general. They bring concern about their futures and the problems they are inheriting, and anger at the generations ahead of them that created these problems. Elders can show them how to transform this justified anger into passionate commitment and engagement.

As the viewpoints, ideas and skills of different generations are brought together in service to the wellbeing of all, a synergy is created that expands the vision, creativity and effectiveness of any one group. But just as important, such collaboration can result in a long overdue cultural change, in which elders are again honored and needed, and younger people have models for healthy aging whom they can aspire to emulate. Besides helping to create environmental balance, such elder-younger partnerships can help restore social balance within our human community.

1 Sidney Liebes, Elizabet Sahtouris, and Brian Swimme, A Walk Through Time: The Evolution of Life on Earth (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1998), 164 and 166.

Ron Pevny is Founding Director of the Center for Conscious Eldering He is also a Certified Sage-ing® Leader, is author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging  published by Beyond Words/Atria Books, and serves as the host/interviewer for the  Transforming Aging Summits presented by The Shift Network.

Download a PDF file of this article.

Let’s be honest about aging. Most of us do and will suffer losses and diminishments of certain of our capacities as we age. Unfortunately, our culture in general has come to define our elder chapters by these losses and diminishments.  This all-too-narrow understanding of aging relegates older adults to being seen primarily as needy, diminished beings who will likely require expensive care, while no longer having a relevant role to play in society as they live out the ever-increasing number of years after retirement age.  And because it is so pervasive, most of us have internalized these beliefs, and they influence how we deal with our own aging and the aging of others.

But there is another side to this coin of aging, and this has become known as Conscious Aging. This understanding of aging focuses on our great potential for continuing emotional and spiritual growth in life’s later chapters. It focuses less on what we want to do, or can no longer do, as we age and more on who we want to be. The old adage is true that wherever we go and whatever we do, there we are.  Our elder chapters give us a precious opportunity to grow toward a personal wholeness which can infuse whatever we do and whatever we experience with joy, peace, meaning and service. This is a time in life that calls us to grow beyond who we have been into the person we have the potential to be.  It calls us to do the inner exploration and inner work than can keep us alive and thriving in whatever circumstances life presents.

I’d like to share with you what I see as the key tenets of Conscious Aging—the critical foundation of a fulfilled, growthful elderhood.  These can be summed up in five words:  Belief; Baggage; Purpose; Community; and Spirituality.

Belief

A recent study, well publicized in the press, confirmed what many of us have long known, and which lies at the heart of most of the world’s spiritual and growth traditions.  What we believe shapes who we become.  Those who believe they can stay healthy, have fulfillment, enjoy meaningful relationships, and somehow serve others in their elder years do indeed tend to stay healthy (living on average 7.5 years longer), feel more fulfilled, and do find ways to be of service, as contrasted with those who believe it’s all a downhill slide after retirement. We all create lifestyles, make choices and carry attitudes that reflect and support our beliefs, and shape the way we age.

Throughout recorded human history, the role of elder was an honored role, with elders expected to contribute their wisdom and gifts in meaningful ways to their community.  We don’t live in such societies, and our culture revers youth and newness and doesn’t even recognize the role of elder.  But the human psyche doesn’t change just because our society doesn’t see elders as relevant to its wellbeing. There is an elder in each of us that wants to emerge as we age; but we need to believe in our potential for personal growth, meaning and service or that potential may never see the light of day. We have to believe that it is possible for us to aim high, rather than just spending our later years in a holding pattern not aiming for much of anything, as seems to be the case with so many people.

Baggage

Having a positive vision for our elder years is important, but we won’t get very far with making it a reality if we are worn down with lots of emotional baggage accumulated throughout long lives.  We all know many older adults who have lost motivation, joy, energy, passion—and it is often assumed that is the inevitable result of aging.  While we all lose some physical energy as we age, Conscious Aging sees much of the loss of energy and motivation as being due to regrets, resentments, unprocessed grief, and old stories about our lives and worth that so many of us carry into our older years.  We become beaten down by life, with little energy to engage with life and others and to thrive. There is greet value in doing life review work to help us see both the strengths and gifts we can carry forward into our elder years, and those unprocessed drains on our energy that, with some effort, can be healed, freeing up much energy to support our aliveness as we age.  And there are many fine resources to help us do this important inner work.

Purpose

Leading researchers into healthy longevity around the world seem to be in agreement that a critical (perhaps THE most important) correlate of a long and healthy life is purpose; having a reason to get up in the morning that provides meaning for oneself and is bigger than oneself.  I find it a sad fact that so many people in today’s world feel that whatever legacy they will leave has been created by the time they reach retirement age. Many believe that, after working hard all their lives, they deserve to live just for themselves in their final chapters.  With many people living 20 or 30 years after retirement age, that’s a lot of time to live just for oneself. One of the tasks of aging consciously is finding purpose and continuing to create a legacy of service for as long as we live.

Community

All the studies on aging well say that having healthy relationships is crucial to wellbeing.  Those I know who are models of aging well have such relationships, and it’s not just about having a bunch of people in your life.  It’s about having people with whom you can share what is truly meaningful to you, what matters to you—your doubts and fears, your joys and visions for the future—knowing that these others really care about you and you care about them.  It’s about having people in your life who bring out the best in you, rather than draining your energy and optimism.  This is critical so that we have the support we all need to embrace and live a positive vision for our aging. Finding community as we age can be difficult and take us out of our comfort zone, but the results can be life-enhancing, and even life saving.

Spirituality

As we age, most of us experience an inner call, sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic, to deepen our relationship with the spiritual dimension of life and of ourselves.  Issues of meaning, of the value of our lives and of our contributions, of our relationship to something greater than our personality selves call to be attended to. This is a very individual process, and it is the responsibility of those committed to aging consciously to find the path to spiritual deepening that is best able to open their hearts and minds.  It is this spiritual connection that is the source of healing of the past and vision for a future of true fulfillment.  It is the necessary foundation of wholeness.

Downlod a PDF copy of this article.

By Ron Pevny

“Please don’t let me die or lose my health before I have had the opportunity to fulfill what I feel called to do.”  Lying in that hospital bed, assaulted by waves of fear and bouts of irregular heartbeat, this is the prayer that most frequently arose from the depths of my being. Nothing is more likely to provide insight into what we deem most important than facing one’s mortality, and that early-May week in 2007 brought me face-to-face with my mortality for the first time.

“Be careful what you pray for, because you may get it” is an adage that became a reality for me that Springtime. I had been deeply yearning for experiences that would serve for me as an initiation into my elderhood and help me gain a gut and heart-level understanding of the conscious eldering I had been teaching and promoting.  The many gifts from this health crisis have been precious and powerful responses to my yearning.  My experiential understanding of the importance of legacy is one of those gifts.

For several years before this health crisis, which my highly intuitive naturopath called a “healing crisis,” I lived my life torn between seeking “regular” work to earn income I felt obligated to produce for my wife and myself, and making a total commitment to the work my heart has known as my calling for most of my adult life—supporting people in moving through life transitions.  It is no wonder that this ongoing inner conflict resulted in a physical health crisis, with my heart literally beating to two different rhythms.

One night toward the end of this big initiation, as I tried to fall asleep I was filled with despair as I felt my heart again beating irregularly. As I drifted into some kind of a dream state I saw and felt a darkness that felt like death approach and began to envelop me. Knowing there was nothing I could do to fight off this darkness, in an act of total surrender, I cried out to what I call the Great Spirit to save me if there was indeed a purpose I had yet to fulfill.  And at that instant I felt the darkness explode out of me and I awoke knowing a healing had happened.  That was the end of my irregular heart rhythm, and the catalyst for my making the commitment to follow the calling of my heart without reservation, without equivocation, a commitment that resulted in my founding of the Center for Conscious Eldering.

“Calling” and “Legacy”—I see these as two very related words for those committed to a conscious elderhood.  In a modern culture which has no honored role for older adults, a great many people view their legacy as a body of work that is complete by retirement age (whether one is able to retire or not), leaving the years or in many cases decades that remain as a lengthy period of diminished relevance to the world around them.  Conscious elderhood offers an empowering vision of relevance and meaning for these years and decades by reminding us that we will indeed create a legacy in our later chapters, and have a choice as to what that legacy will be. We have the opportunity to serve others by claiming the role of elder, which has been critical to the wellbeing of humanity for most of known human history, and to claim it in a way that has never before been possible in human history. Or we can choose to grow old with our primary focus on ourselves, the dominant paradigm for aging in today’s world.

Elders have always been the ones whose wisdom and big-picture perspective, forged in the fires of experience, have been critical to remind their societies of the importance of making decisions with the wellbeing of descendants the foremost consideration.  Elders have channeled the voices of future generations calling for a healthy world and society in which to live and thrive.  With life expectancies being much shorter, people who lived to  elderhood throughout most of human history were a relative rarity.  In contrast, millions of us around the world are entering our 60s at a unique time in history. By and large we are living long lives; the world needs the wisdom and gifts of all its citizens as we stand on a narrow edge between transformation and collapse; and the inner elder in each of us is seeking expression in a society that provides few structured means for this. This expression is the powerful positive legacy we have the opportunity to leave in our elderhood. And the fullness of this expression is very much related to “calling.”

I believe that at the core we are spiritual beings living within bodies and personalities. Each of us has a gift to give to life, a gift that is grounded in both our outer talents and wisdom, and in the spirit or soul within.  This gift is our calling. Some of us, for whatever reason, have a strong sense of connection to the calling from that deepest, most authentic voice within us.  Many of us, however, especially in a society that doesn’t recognize this dimension of human experience, are not aware of this inner compass or have difficulty accessing it.  Uncovering this source of vision for our later chapters is the opportunity and the work of those committed to aging consciously.  The more we are able to do so, the more likely we are to tap into the sense of purpose and passion that can make all the difference in how we age, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Passion and purpose are the stuff of which elder legacy is made.

There is a common misperception that legacy, purpose, and calling are necessarily equated with large visible projects, actions, commitments. For some of us that is the case.  For others, our elderhood calls us to less visible ways of being and serving.  What is most important are those qualities of presence, open-heartedness, authenticity, trust and peace that we bring to whatever we choose to do, to however we offer our gifts. It is true that the impact we have upon others and what they will remember about us—a good definition for legacy—has much more to do with the kind of person we are than the deeds we do. When we bring these life-enhancing qualities to our days, we are shining a critical light in the darkness. This light can directly touch many, as in social and environmental action.  Or it may directly touch fewer, as in offering our love, wisdom and presence to grandchildren or young people who look to us as mentors, helping them to let their own light shine. What’s most important is that we are shining our elder light, and the combined elder light of ever increasing numbers of us is absolutely necessary to pierce the darkness of unconsciousness in which our world is mired.

A useful way to get in touch with the importance of the legacy you create in your later chapters is engage in an imaginary conversation with those who will be your descendants one hundred years hence, or with a group of children from that era if you will not be a biological ancestor.  Imagine them asking you how you are choosing to age during a time when the world is so full of both danger and opportunity.  Imagine them asking you what legacy you are creating with the unprecedented longevity and resources you are blessed with.  And perhaps, hoping you don’t need an encounter with mortality to provide the answer, ask yourself how you truly want to live the elder chapters of your one, precious life.

Ron Pevny is Director of the Center for Conscious Eldering and author of “Conscious Living, Conscious Aging” published by Beyond Words/Atria Books

Download a copy of this article.

by Ron Pevny

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.   Michelangelo

What do you aim for as you age?  Other related questions:  What does aging mean to me?  How do I deal with my fears of aging?  How can I find fulfillment and dignity as I age?  What is the purpose of my life after retirement?  Such questions of meaning and purpose arise in the quiet hours for many of us but are seldom asked, answered or even acknowledged in public.  Modern culture usually considers only the monetary aspects of aging.  While addressing our financial and physical security is certainly important, it is equally important to address the needs of our emotional and spiritual selves –our needs to thrive as well as survive.

My work is to share with others a vision of aging, often called “conscious aging” or “conscious eldering”, that recognizes and supports all that is life-enhancing and passion-awakening to aim for as we contemplate the later chapters of our lives. These years can be a time of deep fulfillment as we reach the pinnacle of our personal and spiritual growth. They can be an opportunity for the kind of service to community and sharing of wisdom that, throughout most of human history defined the honored role that cultures accorded their elders.  For those inspired by this vision, conscious aging is a path characterized by meaningful goals for our elderhood that spring from our authentic selves (rather than the images of the society around us), and by our use of the power of intention and inner work to make our sense of what is possible a reality.  It is a challenging path that requires the courage to aim high, bringing awareness and intention to our aging, rather than merely drifting into old age with few if any goals that can bring out the best in us.

This is not just about aiming for lofty goals, however.  Our ability to reach our outer goals is very much dependent upon the state of our inner life and the inner development work we do to bring clear, healthy energy to our lives as we age.  We have all heard the old adage, “wherever you go, there you are.”  There is great value in seriously reflecting on the question, “what kind of a self am I bringing to my later life chapters?”

As we move through our lives, all of us suffer the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” We are all wounded by others, by painful experiences, by our own misguided choices and actions.  These woundings often produce lingering, heart-closing resentments and numb our emotional lives.  Many of us harbor regrets and are weakened by disempowering internal stories of ourselves being victims, or inadequate, or unworthy. We have all absorbed and internalized countless messages from the society around us about who we are and what should have meaning for us, and in the process become to a greater or lesser degree estranged from our own authentic selves and our internal guidance for our lives.

All of these realities, largely unconscious for most of us, bind our life energy to emotional baggage, sap our passion, and blind us to our unique potential.  The lack of energy, passion and sense of purpose that so many experience in their senior years is not primarily a function of age, but rather of these life-draining inner dynamics.  Critical to conscious aging is commitment to inner work to free up our energy and passion by healing old wounds, forgiving resentments, transforming regrets, re-writing disempowering old stories, replacing counterproductive habits with conscious choices, and getting in touch with the spiritual dimension in ourselves from which the visions and goals that are authentically ours –that enable us to aim high—can emerge.

Conscious aging is not a path that everyone will resonate with or embrace.  However, a growing number of baby boomers and well as those beyond their sixties are indeed hearing a strong call from within the depths of themselves to age consciously.  Are you one of them?  What do you plan to do with the remaining chapters of your precious life? If you recognize that call within yourself, I encourage you to respond as if your deepest fulfillment depends upon it and as if the wellbeing of the generations to follow you depends upon the choices you and others make. Because they do.

Collectively we can lay the foundation for a healthy world in which our descendents can thrive.  There is no greater legacy we can leave to future generations, and no greater gift we can give to ourselves, than to aim high as we age, ever reaching for our best.  The world needs the wisdom, wholeness, passion and gifts of conscious elders.

Ron Pevny is Director of the Durango, Colorado-based Center for Conscious Eldering and author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: embrace and savor your next chapter published by Beyond Words/Atria Books. 

Download a PDF file of this article.

by Ron Pevny

An important aspect of the inner work that supports us in moving through the transition from mid-life adulthood into the Elder stage of our inner and outer lives is letting go.  It is necessary to consciously shed those elements of our lives that keep us bound to the past when the possibilities of the future require us to travel lightly, carrying only that which will support us in this new life chapter.

Images from the natural world around us can serve as potent reminders that we are natural beings.  We live and grow in the same way as all living beings—death always precedes new life—and this process always requires the death or letting go of what we have been so that we can move to the next stage of our growth. It’s no surprise that indigenous peoples who live close to the land understand this, and their rites of passage are designed to reflect this understanding. For many of us, a beautiful reminder of this dynamic is the image of a snake having to periodically shed its skin, and in many cases become blind and vulnerable for a while, before growing a new skin that is large and healthy enough to contain the snake in its next stage of growth.

In our modern world that has lost touch with understanding of the dynamics of life transition, we too often try to move into a new external life stage without doing the inner work that supports our psyches in making this journey.  We too often give no thought to the reality that, if we are to realize our potentials in our lives after “retirement age”, important changes must be supported in our inner lives.  We can’t take all of who we have been into our next life stage and thrive.  Our old skin will become too constricting, too unhealthy, too rigid to support a being who is growing.  So, conscious eldering requires us to become conscious of and to release those aspects of ourselves that, if we hold on to them, will constrict our energy and won’t serve us moving forward.  This includes attitudes, beliefs, attachments to ways of identifying ourselves, stories about who we are, resentments, regrets, and habits.   Equally important, the path of conscious eldering calls us to become conscious of qualities, attitudes, beliefs, gifts and wisdom that are truly our strengths and that can form the foundation for the new beginnings ahead of us.

Letting go is so often difficult.  Most of have a sense—sometimes a very clear and compelling sense—that there are aspects of our lives that just don’t serve us, and may even be seriously undermining our joy, effectiveness, love.  But the reality is that these aspects often become part of our sense of identity. It feels safer to associate with what is familiar than to open ourselves to the unknown.  And yet, conscious acts of letting go are critical to our growth.

• They are critical because of what we are releasing.
• They are critical because they free up the energy that has been bound to them, so this energy can support the development of new vision and new beginnings.
• And they are critical because of the reality that as we age, we will inevitably experience more and more losses, including our very lives at some point. These losses send many people into long-term hopelessness and bitterness. But we have another option.  As we come to recognize the pain that results from holding on to a past that is no longer possible, and experience the new emotional and spiritual energy that results from letting go, we come to see opportunities for growth no matter what we lose. The more capacity we develop for letting go, and trusting that each time we let go we open the door to some new possibility for LIFE, the more resilience and peace we will have as we age.

There are some important realities to understand about letting go.  First, it is a misconception that letting go is primarily the result of a strong act of will, and that letting go happens in one powerful, dramatic release.  Yes, strong will is necessary but it is usually not sufficient.  For most of us, letting go is a process that happens over time, just as a snake sheds its old skin gradually over hours or days.  Letting go requires ongoing commitment to a process that is like peeling off layers one by one, until finally all that is left is the core, and then that is released as we touch it with the power of our love for ourselves and our commitment.

Much of the time, letting go of something that has felt like a part of us involves some grieving at the same time we may well feel a sense of liberation.  It’s important to allow ourselves to feel grief if it arises as we let go.

Another reality is that we cannot force out of ourselves something that needs to be shed.  There may be a lot of painful emotions attached to what we need to shed, and a sense of revulsion or anger at it, e.g., “I’m sick of you, so I’m throwing you out.  Good riddance. I don’t want to ever see your miserable face again.”  Here’s the reality.  This just does not work.  These things we need to let go have become part of us.  Our energy is attached to them and gives them their life.  Trying to throw them out with revulsion or anger only empowers them as they struggle in our psyches to hold on to their roles in our life. It becomes an unending battle.  It is no more productive than ignoring them in the first place.

So, what is the alternative?  The alternative is approaching them with the transformative energy of love, honoring them for having in some way or other served us in the past, and releasing their energy to serve us in new ways in the future.  We honor their role in our journey of growth.  We express gratitude for what they have taught us and how they have shaped us into the unique individuals we are, with elder wisdom and gifts honed from experiences positive and negative. We don’t try to tear off an old skin, but rather gently release it with trust that our psyches will support us in engaging in this natural process.  Nothing supports this process more than bringing our love and compassion to ourselves and to what needs releasing.

There is also value in working to understand what you intend to replace it with.  For example, if you need to release an old pattern of allowing fear to keep you from doing what you really want to do, you can make a practice of working to develop and nurture trust, fear’s opposite. Throughout this process, know that you are supported in your growth by that spirit in you that calls you to grow and thrive, and that helps you to follow each small death with a new beginning.

You are a hero on a hero’s journey of growth through endings and beginnings, sorrows and joys.  It is a journey whose very nature is change.  Fighting change is futile, and can only result in stagnation.  Courageously facing change brings life and renewal. The essence of our humanity is our ability to choose whether to stagnate or grow, in whatever circumstances life presents us.

Download a PDF file of this article.

A passionate woman in her sixties, feeling she was finally emerging from a difficult passage from her mid-life adulthood into her next life chapter, approached a wise, white-haired elder widely recognized in the community as an exemplar of wisdom. This emerging elder, dedicated to growth and service as she ages, posed questions that were weighing heavily on her heart to the wise elder: “I have within me a beautiful vision, or at least elements of a vision, of becoming like you. I have an inspiring sense of how I can use my best qualities, skills, and gifts to serve our community and be personally fulfilled as I age. At times I have some wonderful experiences of spiritual connection. My creativity seems to be coming to life again after what felt like a long drought. On many days I feel more peace, joy, and optimism than I have in a long time.

“However, I’m also very aware of a whole other side to me. I often feel fear. Sometimes it is fear that I’m just deluding myself about conscious elderhood, and that growing old is really just a drag. Sometimes it’s fear that no matter what visions I have, there’s no way I can achieve them in the real world I live in. Sometimes, it’s just a free-floating fear of the world and my life and the future. I’m also aware that I have so many habits that I can’t seem to change that seem to numb me out.  My passion and optimism seem to fade so easily, and I don’t know why.  My heart feels open one day and closed the next.  It seems there are two selves within me, at war with each other.  How can I resolve this painful conflict?”

The elder looked into her eyes with understanding and compassion and said, “The self in you that will win is the one you feed.”

Can you relate to the aspiring elder in this story, which I have adapted from a teaching story often attributed to the Cherokee wisdom traditions?  A great many of us can.

Most of us who feel the call to age consciously recognize the importance of finding ways to stay intentional and focused when we have received a glimpse of what is possible for us as we age.  We know what a challenge it is, no matter how inspired and motivated we feel at times, to grow into a conscious elderhood in a culture that offers little support for doing so. There are many practices that aid in keeping our hearts and minds open, with meditation, prayer, journaling about our goals, and committing to spiritual disciplines being invaluable for many of us. Such practices are vitally important, but alone are often not sufficient.

Equally important are those things we choose to remove from our lives. Which self will win—whether we are increasingly able to live consciously or not—depends very much upon what self in us we feed. Healthy, conscious bodies, minds, and spirits cannot thrive on a physical, mental, and emotional junk food diet.   

So, I pose these questions for your reflection, as aids in determining whether you are nourishing the self you aspire to embody as you age.

• Do you feed your body healthful, vitalizing foods, most of the time—or artificial foods with no vitality?
• Do you daily feed your mind uplifting food, such as poetry, beautiful music, artwork, inspiring films, and stories of people who are helping to heal the world—or is your diet filled with media-generated images of fear, greed and crassness?
• Do you do your best to spend your time with people who uplift you, support you, bring out the best in you—or do you have many people in your life who drain your joy and energy?
• Do you spend time amid the healing, soul-invoking energies of the natural world—or is your life confined to man-made, often energy-sapping environments and influences?
• Do you feed your spirit with activities and practices that bring you alive and make your heart sing—or are you in a rut, living out of habit, surviving but not thriving?
• Do you feed yourself with the gift of doing your best to live consciously and intentionally in each situation, making a practice of noticing when you are living on automatic or numbing yourself out, so you can make the choice to be more conscious in those moments—or do you primarily live out of habit with little true intentionality?

We all feed ourselves plenty of devitalizing, disempowering, things, images, addictions, and experiences.  It is extremely difficult to experience vision, inspiration, and passion for life when we are filling ourselves with toxins, no matter what spiritual practices we add to our lives. Our visions for a positive elderhood for ourselves and a positive future for our country and planet can only be sustained and supported by the energy of passion.  And passion is sustained and supported by the strength of the life force coursing through us. Mental, emotional and physical toxins diminish our life force, leaving us easy prey to the pervasive energies of fear, doubt, confusion and distraction.

Conscious eldering implies a commitment to doing our very best to increase our awareness of what nurtures our highest potential and of what feeds unconsciousness and spiritual/emotional numbness. And it asks us to make lifestyle decisions that reflect this awareness. A conscious elder is committed to living more and more with intention and less and less out of habit.  What self are you feeding? What self are you willing to feed?

One powerful example of recognizing and acting upon the need for a change in diet comes from a woman who participated on one of our Choosing Conscious Elderhood retreats.  On the retreat she told of her sadness at how the creativity, strong intuition and inspiring night time dreams which used to be a vital part of her life had gradually faded.  On the retreat she had a sense that a possible cause of this loss was the fact that a while back she had placed a television on the night stand next to her bed, and had gotten into the habit of falling asleep to TV news or late night talk shows. She committed to replacing the television set with an altar, and to spending the last few minutes before falling asleep reflecting or praying or giving thanks at this table that would remind her of the best in herself and in life. A couple months after the retreat she enthusiastically emailed our retreat group letting us know that she had replaced the TV with a beautiful altar, and that her creativity, intuition and dreaming had come alive.

What changes are you willing to make so that your body, mind and spirit thrive as you age?  Is there one tangible change you commit to make within the next seven days in what you feed your mind, body or spirit?

Ron Pevny is Founding Director of the Center for Conscious Eldering He is also a Certified Sage-ing® Leader, is author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging  published by Beyond Words/Atria Books, and serves as the host/interviewer for the  Transforming Aging Summits presented by The Shift Network.

Download a PDF file of this article.