Should We Age Consciously?

Posted on May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 by Dr. Toni

Psychology Today article
Lawrence R. Samuel Ph.D.

Conscious aging not only acknowledges that we get older but celebrates it.

Posted May 14, 2019

You may not have noticed, but a backlash against the negative ways in which aging is perceived in America is in the works. More and more baby boomers are embracing the idea of “conscious aging,” a reaction against the silliness and futility of anti-aging. For the last century or so, we have been a youth-obsessed society in which we have done everything we can to deny the reality of aging (and dying, for that matter). Rather than try to overlook the simple truth that people get older, conscious aging not only acknowledges that fact but celebrates it, turning the whole idea on its head. Conscious aging is not only a positive thing for individuals to do but a means of creating a healthier, less ageist society. By “aging consciously, we will naturally begin to manifest those qualities that our society needs in order to survive,” the spiritual guide Ram Dass wrote in his Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying (a reference to his earlier classic Be Here Now), those qualities being “sustainability, justice, patience and reflection.”

The Conscious Aging Alliance (CAA), a network of several organizations committed to an empowering vision of later life, offers the definitive explanation of the concept: “Conscious aging is a perspective that sees aging as a life stage full of potential for purpose, growth, and service to community, and as a path toward realizing that potential. Our beliefs, about what is possible for us, and the intentions that spring from them, hold great power in shaping who we become. A great many baby boomers, as well as those further along in years, are hearing an inner call to age consciously, and are seeking support in responding to that call.”

As the CAA correctly explains it, conscious aging is steeped in the truism that over the course of thousands of years, many civilizations venerated those who had lived the longest, a practice that was viewed as important to the health of the whole society. Older people were termed “elders”- individuals assigned the key task of serving as mentors to younger people. Elders also were responsible for reciting the narratives that related the story and central beliefs of the society in order to ensure the wellbeing of future generations. Elders were seen as having evolved into a position of individual completeness so that they could act as role models for their community. Despite widespread ageism, the CAA continues, there is nonetheless a primal human drive to permit the “inner elder” to surface. Encouraging this to happen is the essential mission of conscious aging. “This is the work that can lead to wholeness and fulfillment as we age, in whatever circumstances life presents us,” the CAA concludes, a worthwhile effort.

Another organization actively promoting the cause of conscious aging is the Institute of Noetic Sciences (INS). Established by astronaut Edgar Mitchell (after having what he described as a “peak experience” while in space on the Apollo 14 mission), the INS is a “nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting individual and collective transformation through consciousness research, transformative learning, and engaging a global community in the realization of our human potential.” (“Noetic” is Greek for “inner or intuitive knowing.”) The goal of the INS is nothing less than to “create a shift in consciousness worldwide- where people recognize that we are all part of an interconnected whole and are inspired to take action to help humanity and the planet thrive.” Part of the INS’s charter is to train facilitators to lead Conscious Aging Workshops as a means of fostering spiritual, emotional, and psychological growth among those in their third phase of life. To that point, the INS has recognized nine actions to help older individuals fully embrace being alive:

“Reflect on your worldview, beliefs, stereotypes, and assumptions, and ask how might they be limiting you or holding you back
Reframe your inner talk by making internal, critical messages more positive and self-compassionate
Shift your perspective away from the popular media that shape the dominant view of aging and find opportunities to find joy and goodness
Practice mindful attention by bringing your attention toward greater self-awareness
Set intentions by asking yourself, ‘What matters most? and ‘What values do I want to adhere to?’
Build new habits by challenging your brain with new learnings, exploring new activities, or doing something new every day
Find guidance by connecting with others offering a way of living into new patterns and behaviors
Move from I to We in order to add joy and purpose to your actions
Recognize that death makes life possible.”

With getting older as natural and universal experience as can be, conscious aging is destined to gain cultural currency in the years ahead as America and the rest of the world become appreciably grayer.

Carrie Ann Inaba, 51, on Aging: ‘People Do Get More Beautiful as They Get Older’

Posted on May 26, 2019May 26, 2019 by Dr. Toni

“As you get older, the thing that happens is, I’ve noticed I appreciate people’s beauty by what you see in their eyes,” said Carrie Ann Inaba

Natalie Stone April 24, 2019 08:35 PM

While many in Hollywood may be seeking a fountain of youth, Carrie Ann Inaba believes true beauty starts from within.

During Wednesday’s episode of The Talk, the Dancing with the Stars judge, who is featured in PEOPLE’s 2019 Beautiful Issue alongside her cat Mimi, opened up about gracefully aging — and why beauty transcends the exterior.

Sitting alongside her co-hosts and PEOPLE staff editor Melody Chiu, Inaba said that “it’s such an honor to be included in this magazine” as a photo of herself and her cat, which is showcased in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, displayed on the screen.

Carrie Ann Inaba MIKE ROSENTHAL

“The best part though is that’s Mimi. Mimi is the star. She’s my rescue cat. She was found on the streets. Her ears cut off because she was part of one of those feral — you know where they rescue them and put them back on the street and spay them and neuter them?” she shared about the photo with her black feline. “She’s just an amazing cat and it’s such a great honor to be there featuring Mimi. I’m just her background.”

Chiu explained during the table talk that the Beautiful Issue celebrates “inner beauty” and “women who are making an impact in the world,” noting cover star Jennifer Garner.

“What’s so great about this issue is it’s about celebrating the inside beauty as opposed to just the exterior beauty. And I really do believe that,” Inaba said later during the discussion.

For more on Carrie Ann Inaba and her cat Mimi, pick up The Beautiful Issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

“As you get older, the thing that happens is, I’ve noticed I appreciate people’s beauty by what you see in their eyes — like the joy or the courage or the bravery, or when you’re sitting next to them and you feel their compassion or their warmth or their spirit of determination,” she continued.

Added Inaba: “To me that’s beauty, so I think people do get more beautiful as they get older.”

The Talk airs weekdays on CBS

Aging Humor

Posted on May 18, 2019May 18, 2019 by Dr. Toni

https://biggeekdad.com/2013/05/green-side-of-the-grass/#.XOBqkoah_tp.email

What does Aging Mean for Women?

Posted on May 10, 2019August 22, 2024 by Dr. Toni

Gayle King moderates a Milken Institute panel on rethinking what aging means for women

By ELLEN OLIVIERMAY 01, 2019 | 3:05 PM

Appropriately enough, Katy Perry’s song “Roar” could be heard over the speaker system as guests filed out of the panel discussion “Coming of Age: Women Rise to the Top” at the Milken Institute Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton earlier this week.

Moderated by Gayle King, co-host of “CBS This Morning,” the April 29 event during the four-day conference consisted of women who had broken age and gender barriers to achieve powerful positions in a variety of industries and who had come together to talk about the need for society to rethink what age and aging represent.

“How do we feel about the phrase ‘women of a certain age?’” asked King, 64, plunging right into the topic.

“I like, ‘perennials — perennially young,’” said Sherry Lansing, 74, former chairman and chief executive of Paramount Pictures. Lansing said she has no problem revealing her age but hates the phrase “a certain age” and also the descriptors “seniors” and “older.”

“I’ve never felt better and more in tune with myself, more in tune with my business and more connected to the rest of the world,” said Sylvia Rhone, 67, chairman and chief executive of Epic Records.

Anastasia Soare, 61, joked that she still celebrates age 39 every year. Soare is the founder and chief executive of Anastasia Beverly Hills, a cosmetics company that has more than 19 million Instagram followers.

Former congresswoman Jane Harman, currently the director, president, and chief executive of the Wilson Center, speaks during the April 29 panel discussion. (Milken Institute)

Not surprisingly a proponent of makeup, Soare talked about cosmetics’ ability to lend women confidence and give “the power to women to control what they want to look like.”

“You have to look good in order for people to listen to what you have to say,” said former congresswoman Jane Harman, 73, currently director, president and chief executive of the Wilson Center.

Harman said she first became passionate about politics as a young girl after meeting Eleanor Roosevelt and feeling “an aura about her.”

Lansing then suggested that Roosevelt’s beauty came not from outside but from her energy, charisma and substance, and that beauty as women age should also be judged in other than superficial ways.

Anastasia Soare, founder and chief executive of cosmetics company Anastasia Beverly Hills, was among the panelists at the April 29 event. (Milken Institute)

“I thought I’d be dead by 70,” Lansing said. “So instead of thinking that 70 is old or 80 is old or 90 is old, can’t we accept the way it is? I’m too scared to let my hair grow gray. … But if we’re really going to be role models and we’re really going to redefine aging, some of us have to do that.”

Donna Karan, 70, said that although her daughter thinks she should retire, the designer said, “I’m [just] beginning. … I’m an artist. You never give that up. There is no age about it.”

Then, offering a fashion tip, the founder of Urban Zen and Donna Karan International recommended clothes that bare the shoulder. “Your shoulder never gains weight,” she said. “That’s why I did the ‘cold shoulder.’ … The shoulder never gets wrinkled.”

Harman had two more suggestions for success. The first: “Be confident. It’s very hard for women to learn self-confidence,” she said. “When you’re confident, you put yourself out there in ways you wouldn’t otherwise.”

Her second piece of advice: “Be the most qualified person in the room. … Don’t say, ‘Well, I’m the girl’ and ‘Gee, it’s stacked against me.’ … If you’re good, it’s amazing what can happen and what continues to happen even at this ripe ‘young’ age.”

Epic Records’ Rhone said her success came not only from being good at what she does, but also from hard work, surrounding herself with good people and being fearless. “I’m very fearless,” she said, “and that’s what gets me through. There’s not a lot of things that can put me down. And, if there are, it’s just for a moment until I recalibrate, and then I’m back again.”

Former congresswoman Jane Harman, left, listens while former Chairman and Chief Executive of Paramount Pictures Sherry Lansing speaks at the panel discussion “Coming of Age: Women Rise to the Top.” (Milken Institute)

Summarizing the sentiment in the room, King ended the session with a declaration: “70 is the new 50 — I’ll leave you with that.”

The talk about aging didn’t end at the door. In a post-event conversation, Lansing said, “My generation marched for civil rights. We marched for the women’s movement. We marched for gay marriage, and now we have to be the culture to redefine what aging is and what beauty is. I wish I had the courage to let my hair grow gray, but I can’t because there’s a stigma attached to it. Aging can’t be a negative thing. It has to be a positive thing, and every birthday has to be celebrated.”

Of course, for some women, aging naturally may not be realistic and may depend upon a woman’s profession.

“I’m under no illusion that if I were gray-haired, white-haired or 50 pounds overweight with wrinkles on my face, the reality is I would not have a job on television,” King said, just after the session. “I look at that as that’s just the way it is. I don’t run away from aging and I have no hang-ups about telling my age, but if you’re in a business where you have to look good, that’s the reality.”

Ellen Olivier is founder of Society News LA.

Why Age When You Can Sage?

Posted on May 8, 2019May 8, 2019 by Dr. Toni

This expert offers what she calls the three keys to ‘sage-ing’

By Jann E. FreedAuthor, ‘Leading With Wisdom’May 1, 2019

Credit: JDS Malacky | Flickr

When I worked as a professor of business management, my mentor, Elmer Burack, once told me, “The world is full of baby boomers who will be leaving their careers. Once boomers leave the workplace, they won’t know what to do with themselves. You can help them figure it out.”

Elmer sent me the book From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller. Reading it changed my life. Now I blog about “sage-ing” © (becoming an elder) and have a monthly podcast titled Becoming a Sage where I interview thought leaders in the field of positive aging. Because of my involvement in Sage-ing International, I read and watch everything with my “sage-ing lens.” I’ve concluded: Why age when you can sage?

In my workshops, I ask participants to picture someone who is aging and to describe the characteristics. They will shout: bitter, regret, denial, withdrawn, not interested in doing much. Then I ask them to envision someone who is sage-ing and to identify the differences. For a sage, people will say: wise, kind, generous, relevant, engaged.

Everyone says they would prefer to spend time with a Sage.

First Key to Become a Sage: Live Life With Meaning and Purpose

To become a Sage, one of the key components is living life with meaning and purpose. Research shows that people who have a reason for getting up in the morning live longer and healthier lives than those who don’t. (In the Blue Zone of Okinawa, Japan, this is called ikigai.)

As Gregg Levoy, author of Vital Signs: The Nature and Nurture of Passion and Callings: Finding and Following An Authentic Life told me: “Passion and purpose is not a place you get to, but it is a place you come from. It is a skill and a mindset you have or don’t have toward life. In fact, I call it a survival mechanism.”

Second Key to Become a Sage: Embrace Your Mortality

Another way to become a Sage, rather than just age, is by embracing your mortality.

Dr. Timothy Ihrig, who practices palliative medicine (caring for the most vulnerable people) around the world and helps other health care providers improve the care they offer this population told me: “Most people do not fear death as is commonly believed. People fear getting dead. They fear the journey of dying.”

As the late professor Morrie Schwartz, who had ALS, told author Mitch Albom in Tuesdays With Morrie: “When we learn how to die, we learn how to live.”

Embracing death reminds us that our time can end any day, which frees us to live more fully. Sages want to make the most of their time learning, building community and in service to others and to the environment.

Third Key to Become a Sage: Leave a Legacy

Another key aspect of sage-ing is leaving a legacy. Most people want to know their life mattered.

Margaret (Meg) Newhouse, author of Legacies of the Heart: Living a Life that Matters, told me she defines legacy as “the footprint of our lives that lives on after our death and into another generation … But the heart is the key to a more positive legacy rather than ego focused contributions such as look at all that I have done with my life.”

In my workshops, I usually ask: “So when do we leave a legacy?” People will say: When we retire. When we die. When we leave. I ask, “When we leave what?”

We actually leave a legacy all the time every day. I call this “bread crumb legacy,” because we are continually leaving bread crumbs along the way.

We leave part of our legacy when we leave a meeting. When we leave a conversation. When we leave every interaction.

When we think about the legacy we are leaving — positive or negative — we are conscious of what we say, how we behave and how we treat others.

The Path to Sage-ing

If you want to be on the path to sage-ing, rather than aging, my advice is to:

Discover your meaning and purpose. What do you want to do with your time, money and energy? What will get you up and keep you going?
Learn to embrace death. What is your perception about death? How might you embrace it?
Think about the legacy you want to leave. What difference are you making? How do you want to be remembered?

Why age when you can sage? Simple: Everyone wants to be in the company of a Sage.

By Jann E. FreedJann E. Freed is the author of Leading With Wisdom: Sage Advice From 100 Experts. She has over 30 years of experience teaching organizational leadership and development and is a consultant with The Genysys Group.

Psychology Today article Lawrence R. Samuel Ph.D.