Dr. Toni

Recommended Books on Spirituality for Midlife and Aging

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Arrien, Angeles. The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary
Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2005. Offers a collection of teachings, reflections, and stories from around the world to open us to the challenges and deeper mysteries of “the great crossing” at midlife. Mastering these lessons and gifts can help us harvest the meaning and purpose of our life, and come into our spiritual maturity
Highly Recommend this Offer – Get Your Copy NOW

Atchley, Robert C. .Spirituality and Aging Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkin’s University Press, 2009. A spiritual life, one focused on personal growth and deep human experience, is a major focus and motivator for people over the age of forty. This book offers insights into what spirituality is, why it is important, and how it influences the experience of aging

Autry, James. .The Spirit of Retirement : Creating a Life of Meaning and Personal Growth Prima Pub., 200

Buford, Bob. Finishing Well: What People Who “Really Live” Do Differently
. Nashville, TN: Integrity Publishers, 2004. Explores how such ‘trailblazers’ as Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Roger Staubach and Ken Blanchard have gone beyond success to significance in their 40s and beyond. Discusses how anyone can accomplish work that has eternal purpose and meaning .

Rich, Phil, Madway Sampson, Dorothy, and Fetherling, Dale. The Healing Journey Through Retirement: Your Journal of Transition and Transformation (The Healing Journey Series)
. John Wiley, 2000

Chittister, Joan. The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully
. New York, NY: BlueBridge, 2008. Looks at the many dimensions of aging and considers the joys of this special stage of life and the rewards of being open to new experiences and new relationships

Cohen, Gene. The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain
/em>. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2005. Contrary to the long-held belief that our brain power inevitably declines as we age, The Mature Mind argues that there are actually positive changes taking place in our minds, which continue to grow and flourish well into the second half of life.

The Center on Aging, Health & Humanities Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, The. New York, NY: Avon Books, 2000. Offers examples of older people who found new careers, unexpected talents, and success, and disccuses ways to discover one’s own untapped potential for a more satisfying middle and old age www.worldcat.org/oclc/42863229

Corbett, David and Higgins, Richard. Portfolio Life: Portfolio Life: The New Path to Work, Purpose, and Passion After 50 . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007. Turns two simple ideas into a program for life-enrichment: (1) you can create a life expressly for yourself and (2) the so-called retirement years are the best time to do it.

Davidson, Sara. Leap!: What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives?
. New York, NY: Random House, 2007. Explores the choices and challenges facing Baby Boomers and the options available to them.

Dychtwald, Maddy. Cycles: Cycles: How We Will Live, Work and Buy
. New York, NY: Free Press, 2003. Argues that previous generations have had a ‘mid-life crisis’ but Boomers have put a positive spin on the process and ‘reinvented’ themselves. Discusses how Boomers are defying conventional wisdom about growing ol

Englert, Jonathan. The Collar
. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006. Chronicles the spiritual odyssey of five men who chose to leave behind their former lives to pursue the Catholic priesthood, offering a candid study of seminary life, the challenges of the priesthood, and the nature of a spiritual calling.

Fox, Matthew. The Reinvention of Work: New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time,. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. Offers a vision of a work world in which intellect, heart, and health are harmonized, and personal and professional lives are in balance

Gardner, Howard; Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Damon, William. Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet
. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2001. Discusses what it means to carry out ‘good work’ — work that is both excellent in quality and socially responsible. Explores this theme in two different professional fields — genetics (in a self-identified golden age) and journalism (in a self-critical, transitional stage). Concludes that the same “five levers for good work” apply. Discusses how to foster and encourage ‘good work’ in all professions.

Jones, Terry. Elder: A Spiritual Alternative to Being Elderly. Elderhood Institute Books, 2006.

Jones, Terry. The Elder Within: The Source of Mature Masculinity. BookPartners, 2001. Elderhood Institute

Koenig, Harold. Purpose And Power In Retirement (HB): New Opportunities for Meaning and Significance
. Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2002. Traces the history of retirement and presents research on the effects of retirement on the mind, body and spirit. Invites readers to adopt a vocation or purpose instead of the ‘leisure’ retirement model

Laslett, Peter. A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age
. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Argues that the Third Age – beyond the bread-winning and child-rearing years – is that of greatest personal fulfiilment, the apogee of life. Combines social history, sociology and philosophy to provoke new thinking on this changing nature of agin

Leider, Richard and Shapiro, David.  Something to Live For: Finding Your Way in the Second Half of Life. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008. Discusses how to live authentically and wholeheartedly in the second half of life and, in doing so, find ways to both enjoy the world and make a meaningful contribution

Leider, Richard and Shapiro, David. Claiming Your Place at the Fire: Living the Second Half of Your Life on Purpose. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004. Offers guidance in actively undertaking an internal, spiritual search for the purpose of one’s older years, utilizing the wisdom obtained in the first half of life

Levine, Suzanne. Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood
. New York, NY: Viking, 2005. Offers insights into how to render the second half of life a period of accomplishment, passion, and self-discovery

Manheimer, Ronald J. “Older Learner’s Journey to an Ageless Society: Lifelong Learning on the Brink of a Crisis, The” Journal of Transformative Education. v3 n3 (2005): 198-220  www.worldcat.org/oclc/439121779

Moody, Harry R. and Carroll, David L. The Five Stages of the Soul: Charting the Spiritual Passages That Shape Our Lives. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1997. Explores the interest in a spiritual life that most people pursue in their middle years, moving (more or less) through five stages of development: the call, the search, the struggle, the breakthrough, the return.

Nash, Laura and Stevenson, Howard. Just Enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life
. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Discusses how constant striving means perpetual stress and how success, often defined in financial terms alone, actually involves four components: happiness, achievement, significance and legacy. Explains what these different components mean, how to define them, why “going for the max” is dangerous and how to determine one’s own version of enough.

Nussbaum, Paul. Brain Health and Wellness. Word Association, 2003

Nussbaum, Paul. Your Brain Health Lifestyle, 2nd Edition . Tarentum, PA: Word Association Publishers, 2009. Explains how the brain works and what can be done to help it work more effectively — at any age. www.worldcat.org/oclc/313659630

O’Toole, James. Creating the Good Life :Applying Aristotle’s Wisdom to Find Meaning and Happiness
. Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2005. Draws on the wisdom of the ages to help individuals plan for the second half of their life so that it is satisfying, useful, moral, and meaningful. Translates Aristotle’s classical philosophical framework into practical, comprehensible terms for application in our contemporary lives and work

Pierce, Gregory F. Spirituality at Work: 10 Ways to Balance Your Life on the Job . Chicago, IL: Loyola Press, 2005. Examines the spirituality of work in the context of such issues as competition, compensation, and social justice. Discusses how to find meaning in the workplace

Pipher, Mary. Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders. Riverhead Books, 1999

Roszak, Theodore. Longevity Revolution: As Boomers Become Elders. Berkeley Hills Books, 2001

Rowe, John W., & Kahn, Robert L.. Successful Aging. Pantheon Books, 1998

Sadler, William A. The Third Age: Six Principles for Personal Growth and Rejuvenation after Forty
. Perseus Books, 2000

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman and Miller, Ronald. From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Profound New Vision of Growing Older. New York, NY: Warner Books, 1995. Recontextualizes aging as the anticipated fulfillment of life, not its inevitable decline. Recommends meditation and spiritual healing to help individuals enter their later years Also explores our limited perceptions of death and discusses how to embrace ‘conscious’ dying

Schlossberg, Nancy K. Retire Smart, Retire Happy: Finding Your True Path in Life
. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2003. Provides guidance on the psychological and emotional adjustments retirement requires, with tips on coping with its ups and downs. Discusses how individuals can conduct a personal inventory, reinforce relationships, and investigate new roles and activities in order to make this the most fulfilling time of life

Thomas, William H.. What Are Old People For?: How Elders Will Save the World. VanderWyk & Burnham, 2007

Trafford, Abigail. My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life
. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2004. Examines the vital time in life between middle and old age, integrating personal anecdotes with expert opinion, research, and practical advice to explain how to make the most of the opportunities during this crucial period

Vaillant, George E. Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 2002. Argues that individual lifestyle choices play a greater role than genetics, wealth, race, or other factors in determining how happy people are in later life

Whyte, David..The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2009. Encourages a reimagination of how we inhabit the worlds of love, work, and self-understanding. Suggests that separating these “marriages” in order to balance them is to destroy the fabric of happiness itself. Only by understanding the journey involved in each and the stages of their maturation can we understand how to bring them together in one fulfilled life

Whyte, David. Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity
. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2002. Assesses the workplace in terms of opportunities for rediscovering, shaping, and nurturing our personal lives. Applies the stages of a holy pilgrimage to the process of seeking one’s identity through work

Zelinski, Ernie. How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won’t Get from Your Financial Advisor. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2004. Offers advice on how to enjoy an active and satisfying retirement. Suggests that adequate financial resources are not enough but that having interesting leisure activities, creative pursuits, physical well-being, mental well-being, and solid social supports are also crucial.

Do a Life Review and Find Out What’s Important to You

Posted on by Dr. Toni

I’ve been talking lately about Life Review. I’ve been obsessed with the idea ever since I heard Jane Fonda on Oprah and read her new book, Prime Time. I’ve been reminded of how often when I did reflect on my past in a positive way, I found new energy for the present. That’s the only reason to focus on the past. In it, are the seeds of possibility and possibly even the answer to any question you are currently posing.

Today I read an article about people dying and making choices about how they wanted to live the rest of their lives. Of course, the message was, “Why wait until you are dying?”  I believe that a good Life Review tells you about what you once thought was important, and what things, people and ideas still are. How would you spend your last year if it were truly your last one? We never know. Why spend time fussing over what isn’t working? Why not discover what gives you the most Joy and start doing and being more of that. Right now.

I’m talking about real joy – not just eating more chocolate or having better sex. What are the qualities you want to experience in life? Who can you show your love for today? Go ahead, do it now.

Journaling Your Way to A Life Review

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Many years ago, I had the privilege of working with the now late, Ira Progoff and deeply studied and worked with his Intensive Journal Process. This process has been something I have used in various times of my life especially in times of transition to get clarity on what my life was wishing to become.

Since I have been focused on Midlife and in particular on the Life Review Process, I am finding once again that I am turning to this process for guidance.  Along with other techniques and processes that I have learned over the years, this process has grounded me and helped me to see how EVERYTHING in my life has a place and a purpose.
The purpose of my unfolding product, the Life Review, is to support you in doing just that as well.  It will give you the opportunity to reflect on past experience, to clear what needs to be cleared and even more importantly, to discover the potential that still wants to be born.  It will also help provide profound meaning for both the past and the current events of your life.

In the comments below, I’d love to hear what you’d like to see in a course of this kind. I’d also like to hear how you’d like it delivered – privately online; through private or group coaching or in public seminars either live or through the web.  It’s coming soon.

In the meantime, I’d like to introduce you to :

Ira Progoff
Since the 1950’s, Dr. Progoff devoted his life to the exploration of new ways to encourage creativity and to enhance individual growth. He is a leading authority on C.G. Jung, depth psychology and transpersonal psychology as well as journal writing.

The Intensive Journal Process
The Intensive Journal workbook is the basic instrument in which you write about your life. It is a three ring binder containing tabs, each of which covers a specific area of your life. Examples include personal relationships, career and special interests, body and health, events, dreams, and meaning in life.

 

The structure of the Intensive Journal workbook is an active instrument. Each exercise is used with specific procedures that seek to evoke the contents of a persons’s life without engaging in conscious thought processes. Drawing forth your life process stimulates additional inner perceptions and movements. Through the relation of the sections to each other, an inner dynamic is built moving in two directions: outward and inward.

Progoff emphasizes the difference between the Intensive Journal method and diary writing:

“Diary writing usually involves the unstructured, chronological recording of the events of a person’s life….the mere fact of continuously writing entries…is not sufficient in itself to bring about deep changes in a person’s life. To achieve a significant transformation in a personality, strong forces of energy must be generated.”

 For further information on how to find materials or a workshop near you, Click here.

Jane Fonda on Oprah on the Life Review process

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Click these words to – Take a look at a video of Jane Fonda on Oprah where she talks about doing a Life Review

I saw Jane Fonda’s interview on Oprah and I wanted to share it. And, recently I read her new book, Prime Time where she talks more about doing a Life Review when she was 59. I’d like to suggest that while that is as good a time as any, it can be even more powerful to BEGIN the second half of life by doing a review of the first.

Now, you ask, when does the second half begin? And the answer, of course, varies. But, I’d like to suggest that you give it to yourself as a present for your 40th birthday (or anytime after if you’ve already passed your 40th.)

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be telling you more about the way I’ve done a life review process, and for me it has not just been a one-time thing, but an ongoing revelation. Each time I do some of the exercises I’ll be sharing, I find myself going deeper and finding new insights depending on what I am dealing with at the present moment. I believe that the answer to all of our life questions is within us and when we ask the right question and put ourselves in the right frame to hear the answer, our life sometimes brings us back to a memory that has the seed of possibility for the present still waiting to be born.

If you’d like some help doing a life review,  call me at (941) 330 -9922 to set up an appointment for some guidance. I promise it will be the best gift you ever gave yourself.