Transforming Your Journey of Aging – Ron Pevny

This session will focus on the emerging, multi-faceted and empowering paradigm of aging (often called “Positive Aging”) and contrast this with the dominant cultural view of aging as a time of diminishment and loss. We will look at why this shift is happening and explore the various approaches that comprise this new paradigm. Then we’ll introduce “Conscious Aging” as a critical foundation for these various approaches – as the inner work that is critical for reaching the full potential of life’s later chapters. And we’ll explore the archetypal role of “Elder” throughout history and the importance of conscious elders in these times of crisis – and great opportunity.

In this module, you’ll learn:

• Much more is possible for your life as you age than mainstream culture recognizes.
• Aging involves loss and decline, but also opens new doors for fulfillment, growth, passion and service.
• How these potentials are best realized through conscious preparation, with the inner work of conscious aging being critical.
• Why it is important to focus on the kind of person you want to be as you look toward what you want to do.
• There is an archetypal call to true elderhood in each of us that is often not heard amid the disempowering images modern culture presents for aging.
• The work of conscious aging helps you respond to this call as you nurture your inner Elder, wisdom and gifts.

As we leave mid-life adulthood (with the key marker often being reaching retirement age), we go through a significant life transition. All life transitions involve a 3-phase dynamic of severance, neutral zone and new beginning. If we support this process of change within, we release disempowering old emotional baggage and enter a new life chapter with a clear vision. Rites of Passage, whether structured or not, have throughout history supported the journey from one life stage to another, and are re-emerging today as important aspects of conscious aging.

In this module, you’ll learn:

• How the journey from mid-life adulthood into life’s later chapters is a significant life transition for your psyche, often heralded by reaching retirement age (whether you retire or not).
• All life transitions involve the 3-stage dynamic of severance (ending), neutral zone (in between who we have been and who we can become), and the emergence of new beginnings.
• You have a choice of whether and how to support this transition in yourself, or to neglect it to our detriment.
• About the dynamics of this transition from rites of passage work, both traditional and contemporary.

If we are going to enter our later chapters with clear vision and vital energy, it is important that we review our lives up to now to see what will serve us moving forward, and to heal our past so we aren’t encumbered by old baggage on the journey ahead. For many of us, regret is a crucial dynamic that calls to be healed. Forgiveness, of others and ourselves, is critical, too. Healing our past is greatly facilitated by examining and rewriting the stories we tell ourselves about the meanings of the events in our lives. The Death Lodge practice is a powerful way to bring healing and closure to our lives and relationships, so we can move forward into elderhood without old baggage and are as ready as possible for our final passage.

In this module, you’ll learn:

• Life review is a foundational element in the work of conscious aging.
• How to fulfill your dreams for the future unencumbered by unhealed wounds, regrets, resentments and disempowering stories about the events
  in your life.
• Forgiveness as a process to free you of toxic attachments to your past.
• How to transform regrets and disempowering personal stories, and discover how the Hero’s Journey can be a powerful catalyst for gaining a transforming soul’s eye and deeper understanding of your life.
• Rituals to support you in letting go of beliefs, attitudes, habits and identifications that will not serve your moving forward.
• The Death Lodge practice, which weaves together several dynamics that can help you heal your past so you can move with clear energy into your future.

As we begin to sever from our identification as mid-life adults, we enter the time between life stages called “liminal time” or “the neutral zone.” This time is characterized by confusion, a sense of being in a foreign land without roadmaps, loss of meaning with no clear vision of a meaningful future. It is also full of potential, as the seeds of new vision and purpose gestate in us. There are practices we can employ that can help us use this in between time to gain the new vision and energy that await us in the elder chapters of our lives.

In this module, you’ll learn:

• How to navigate and understand the neutral zone – that critical time between who you have been and who you can become – so that you can use it well as preparation for your future.
• Ways to access the full potential from this liminal time as the seeds of future vision germinate in you.
• Meaningful approaches for entering this time consciously to access the great value available to become aware of, and nurture, these seeds of vision.
• Solitude and silence are critical during this time.
• How time in the natural world helps you get in touch with the qualities, values and callings that are most authentic in you.
• How synchronicities and dreams can be courted and provide guidance for the path ahead.

This session’s major theme is that the creation of our legacy does not end with retirement. The legacy we create as elders can be one of continual growth and service to our world. We create this legacy by using the power of intention to set goals for our whole selves rather than just the popular “bucket list.” The “Ten Intentions for Ten Years” practice can help us set such goals – and achieve them. It is important that we create lives as elders that reflect the right balance for us between serving and savoring, doing and being.

In this module, you’ll learn:

• Your elder chapters can be an important time for you to create a legacy beyond what you have created so far.
• The key principles of successful intentionality, which has great power and is necessary for you to reach the potential of your elder years. “Ten Intentions for Ten Years” as a powerful practice for helping you grow toward wholeness as you age.
• How to write a legacy letter and/or engaging in oral history work are valuable ways to get in touch with your legacy and to lay the groundwork for the legacy you have yet to create.
• How to find the balance between serving and savoring, doing and being, which can be difficult but crucial for conscious elders.

The major theme of this session is “The Self That Wins Is the Self We Feed.” This session will focus on a variety of practices we can use to feed the self in us committed to aiming high as we age consciously. Equally important are those ways of living that tend to numb our consciousness, feed our fears and sap our energy.

In this module, you’ll learn:

• Practices for aging consciously with commitment to thrive in a largely unconscious world.
• Ways to navigate unconscious sabotage and build a future that is based in clear visions and conscious intentions.
• Several practices to help you stay conscious as you feed your best self.
• Techniques for transforming habits and ways of living that numb your consciousness, feed your fears and sap your energy.

This session will focus on the importance of finding the support of like-minded others if we are to successfully undertake the journey of conscious aging. We will explore the growing variety of organizations creating supportive communities for our elderhood, including Co-Housing, the “Village” model and others.

We will look at programs, such as Elder Wisdom Circle, the IONS Conscious Aging Program, Sage-ing International’s workshops and the Choosing Conscious Elderhood retreats, which enable people to have the support of community as they do their conscious aging work. And we will explore opportunities for conscious elders to engage in the community service and social action that are crucial in helping the world move successfully through The Great Turning. This session will also address themes that come up throughout the course that call for further discussion, amplification or clarification.

In this module, you’ll learn:

• Conscious aging work requires community support to be sustained
  and successful.
• The growing number of models for enabling you to create and have supportive community as you age.
• Why there can be great value in finding support through Elder Wisdom Circles and conscious aging workshops and retreats.
• About opportunities for serving your community and the Earth as a part of your commitment to aging consciously.
• Why the “Great Turning” needs a culture of conscious elders in every nation, and the creation of such a culture requires the building of community.