Our aging is not always as it appears.
Our viewpoint can offer us an opportunity to embrace and accept our aging, rather than fear and deny it. Each day, we can reframe our perspectives about aging to allow the opportunity to consciously choose our responses. It can be powerful to acknowledge the gifts and potential of the aging process.
For example, every day there is weather and we deal with it as it is, or we don’t and resist it. Sometimes the weather is threatening, sometimes lovely, sometimes both. We can’t ‘fix’ the weather. It is prudent to respect the potential consequences of the weather, take precaution, and behave appropriately. We know that beautiful weather can shift to turbulent weather in a matter of hours. How we relate to those changes defines our experience of them and our lives.
Our expectations and perspectives determine our experiences — this is true too with the weather of our lives. If one thinks that life peaks in middle age and then it’s all downhill after that, that’s what they will experience. If one continues to explore their experiences with curiosity and engages in life in a way that encourages growth and transformation, that will also be their experience. Our aging is not something to be ‘fixed,’ but our current cultural perspective would lead us to believe so. William May wrote,
“The question we need to ask about aging is how are we going to behave toward it, not what are we going to do about it?”
In the next IONS Conscious Aging from the Heart session, James Miles and I will facilitate discussion about creating relationships with larger forces in our lives over which we have no control. We will examine two specific HeartMath practices and techniques which can help us create a relationship with those forces, however they manifest in our lives. We will explore choosing how to behave toward those forces. Rather than being victims, we can make our aging, indeed, our lives, more intentional.
We will consider Wabi Sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that appreciates the beauty of impermanence. We will break into small groups, we will journal, we will ponder and co-create. Join us!
Conscious Aging from the Heart:
The Weather of Our Lives
An interactive two-session online workshop
Session 1: Monday, October 25
Session 2: Monday, November 1
Both sessions run from 11:00am to 12:30pm (PDT)
Join IONS Conscious Aging facilitators Marc Blesoff and James Miles as, together, we explore how we can consciously choose our responses to the seeming challenges of growing older.
About the Author
Marc Blesoff says he used to know everything and trust nothing. Now, Marc knows nothing and he has glimpsed trust. Marc used to believe in coincidence, but he doesn’t anymore. For over 30 years, Marc was a criminal defense attorney, then a mediator. Six years ago, he began facilitating the IONS Conscious Aging Workshops and he hasn’t stopped. It has helped him melt the armor that he’d built up. It has helped him get a clue about who he would like to be. Marc is an IONS Conscious Aging Facilitator and a member of A Tribe Called Aging.
