— A new paradigm to enhance senior living. Embrace aging as a gift.
By John Ritchie
Conscious Aging: to experience senior aging as more a gift and less a burden, and many burdens as also gifts.
Senior living, with retirement or part-time work, may bring more free time, less work stress and more choices for what you want to do. It can also at times feel lonely, or leave one feeling depressed or anxious because of the loss of work and work community, diminished physical abilities and social contacts, and decreasing accomplishments, recognition, usefulness and felt importance. I see Conscious Aging as a special combination of mutually enhancing experiences and practices uniquely relevant and available to seniors.
Conscious, in this context, means to intentionally be more mindful and present, to enhance our awareness and connections, or open our mind and heart. “Inner Work” is the primary practice and relationships become more important than accomplishments. Through increased exploration, self-reflection and compassion, we can experience a shift in our interests, values and needs, and greater acceptance, appreciation and enjoyment of senior living. Conscious Aging is focused not on what we should believe or externally do, but how to be and experience life.
I am suggesting that our present “successful” aging and “positive” aging models or guidelines for senior living support a paradigm that primarily focuses on external criteria and goals. It is common for seniors to talk about, and identify with, their travels, recreation, fun activities, entertainment interests, past accomplishments and children/grandchildren activities. Focusing on external-based goals, possessions and activities tends to not find fulfillment or happiness beyond short-term pleasure; and avoids directly exploring and finding “positives” from our “negative” senior sufferings, losses and limitations. Successful models were more important and helpful for us when we were young adults and middle age (e.g. finding a good job, spouse and career; and creating a successful family, comfortable home, active social life). These external-based models now tend not to align with our internal senior shifts in interests, values and needs; nor satisfy our increased senior yearnings or utilize natural aging experiences.
I am advocating for what I’m calling “Enhancing Awareness and Connections” as a quality or process of how to focus our attention and effort, to be applied to all components of Conscious Aging. All of senior aging is our curriculum. Conscious Aging has been applied to various components, or “what” to focus our attention and effort on. Some of these components include 1) conscious eldering, 2) bringing closure to life, 3) preparing for dying and death, 4) conscious senior service, 5) Conscious Villages or co-living, and 6) living life’s purpose and meaning.
I. For those of you who are already seniors, see if you resonate with some of the listed common shifts from middle age to senior age in interests, values, needs or roles. These are often due to, or facilitate, “inner work” and increased awareness and connections, that come with senior aging. “Living more from the ‘inside out’ rather than from the ‘outside in’.” “It’s not what happens to us, but our relationship to what happens.”
Doing to Being … Staying Busy to Slowing down … Intensity to Intimacy
Holding On to Letting Go … Past/Future to Present … Seeking Pleasure to Appreciation
Outcomes to Relationships … Competition to Cooperation … Self-Centered to Selflessness
Learning to Understanding … Criticalness to Empathy … Distractions to Presence
Head to Heart … Fairness to Compassion … Accomplishments to Contributions
II. See if you resonate with some of these increased senior “yearnings” as you become more aware of what “pulls” you rather than responding to what has “pushed” you in the past. Yearnings support “inner work” or enhanced understanding and relationships, and Conscious Aging. “We want to know our essential nature or essence, or to go from self to soul to spirit.”—Kathleen Dowling Singh. “The second half of life is about restoring wholeness.”
Find Life’s Meaning … Clarify My Purpose … Understand Spirituality … Know Thy True Self
Become Comfortable With Dying … Want Deeper Relationships … Connect to Everything/Divine
III. See if you resonate with some of these natural senior aging experiences, which support and enhance inner work or greater awareness/understanding and connections/relationships, and thereby Conscious Aging. “Senior aging is not a problem we need to solve, but a stage of life to be fully experienced.”
Slowing Down … Solitude … Silence … Letting Go … Patience … Acceptance
Being in the Present … Calm … Forgiveness … Simplifying … Humility … Vulnerability
Intentional Living … Surrender … Withdrawal … Selflessness … Gratitude … Appreciation
IV. As you will notice, the following intentional “inner work and internal practices” overlap with natural senior aging experiences and what seniors commonly experience as middle-age to senior-age shifts in interests, values, and needs, to further enhance Conscious Aging. “We can’t choose or control the circumstances of our age, but we can choose the quality of awareness we bring to those circumstances.” “Your compassion may or may not change others, but it will certainly change you.” “When life is short, make it broader and deeper.”
Calm, Curious, and Compassionate … Being in the Present … Slowing Down … Silence … Solitude
Inclusion … Receptiveness … Letting Go … Acceptance … Appreciation … Gratitude … Respect
Patience … Selflessness … Seeing Beauty … Vulnerability … Humility … Empathy … Mindfulness
V. We can apply inner work and internal practices to common senior aging negative experiences to access and experience positive thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Our struggles become portals for understanding, growth and healing. “There are some things you can only learn in a storm.” “Until we suffer, we won’t look deeply for something more to learn.”
For example, if you are feeling sad and lonely, frustrated and stuck, or very ill and tired, direct your attention inward and internally slow down in silence to become calm, curious and compassionate. Direct your attention to the present, which will help you let go of future and past attachments or distractions. You will then notice how you can see broader and deeper with greater presence, understanding and loving kindness. This will help you notice what moves you or brings you joy and what you appreciate in the moment or about others and yourself. For example, you’re stuck in bed, and you shift your attention from what you can’t do, to what you can do, enjoy or appreciate, such as sight (notice beauty, watch movie), sound (listen to music, birds outside), or touch (pet your dog, give self a massage). You can shift attention to relationships and initiate or schedule more frequent and closer connections- longer talks, phone calls, Zoom meetings, texting, Facebook, or invitations to visit you. It’s now more about connections, harmony and wholeness, than about individual accomplishments and success.
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