Journey from Adult to Elder

I didn’t even know there was an elder stage in life until my late 50’s. After reading “From Age-ing to Sage-ing” by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, I realized how distorted my view and our society’s are on aging. Prior to reading this book, I just assumed that I would keep doing what I had always done.

I understood the Spring and Summer of life very well. We went from our parental home to creating our own home that reflected who we were. We developed our personality, our character, what mattered to us, with the friends we made, the relationships we had, falling in love, marrying, raising children. Some of us may not have married, nor had children but made a life focused on other expressions that mattered to us.

We went to work, evolved, and progressed either by changing jobs or careers. Some of us focused on our families and others on our work. We wanted to grow, to be productive, efficient, and effective. We were also developing our relationships, our capacity to connect and relate to others. In general, we were mostly outward focused on producing results, becoming somebody.

Discovering that the Fall of life was a lot different was quite an eye-opener for me. What I started to realize was that Spring and Summer were the growing seasons of life, while Fall was the harvesting season. Like in nature, it is time for us to harvest the fruits of our life. Will we pick out the juiciest ones and give them to someone who will be the fertile ground for them, or will we make pies with our fruits where we create something wonderfully delicious to be savored by many?  Or will we leave them on the ground to rot?

At this stage, we start experiencing a fundamental shift from doing to being. We shift from do, do, do, all focused on activities, productivity, expansion, getting more, to focusing on reflecting, letting go of what no longer serves us, going within to connect to our authentic soul/essence.  Using the tree analogy again, it’s time to recognize our best fruits from the picking from those that either never ripened or were left too long on the ground to be used. Also, where does our tree need to be pruned and dead branches removed to keep it healthy and strong.

Once we have cleared all the dead wood, we become ready to move towards what has meaning, what nourishes our soul/essence. We care more about being authentic, true to who we are now and who we see ourselves becoming, less about what people think or what they expect from us.

Usually, between 50 and 60 and onward, many of us start realizing that not only do we no longer have the energy to go, go, go, but we also no longer have the interest to do so.

It can be a challenge when our love of the excitement of being busy and productive starts to wane. It feels like there is something wrong with us. What exacerbates this is that we live in a society that seems to value this frenetic busyness of doing and producing.

So, what is happening to us? This is what happened to me and what I have observed happening to almost everyone I know, especially after 60:

• Our physical and mental stamina fluctuates; as our energy depletes more easily and takes longer to regenerate, we become more discerning as to where to expend it.
• As we slow down, we start wanting quality rather than quantity.
• Reflection and contemplation on what is meaningful to us becomes more desirable than productivity and busyness for its own sake.

We also start to review our various roles and responsibilities to see what is now no longer viable or relevant as well as our priorities. Some things move into the background while others come to the foreground:

• Work becomes less about proving ourselves, and more about what brings meaning.
• Reassessing our relationships comes to the foreground as our core essence, our needs, interests, or health, change for either ourselves or our loved ones. We may see a role reversal with our parents, reinventing intimate relationships or ending friendships that no longer work.
• Parenting shifts from active caregiving to mentoring our children.
• Our soul/essence come more to the forefront, taking the leadership, and the ego moving more into the background, becoming its servant.
• Bringing authenticity and integrity at center stage.

We start wanting to take the time to:

• Reflect upon and distill the wisdom we have acquired from our life’s lessons, contemplate where we are, what have we learned, who have we become.
• Look at who we are now and see if there are any discrepancies between who we are authentically and what we are manifesting.

As we enter the last stage of our life, now is the time to identify what is left for us to experience, express, and how we will be of service.

As we clear, let go and re-evaluate, many of us experience a higher level of creativity, a deeper expression of who we are within and in the world. We discover aspects of ourselves that were asleep and are reawakening. We uncover talents we never knew we had. We see the world with new eyes. What we create in the outside world is coming from a different place, a deeper quality of being. It is not that we stop doing, but rather what we do comes from a different place.

I personally do not use the word growth at this stage of life because that word is so entrenched in our society with being young and productive. I prefer to say that we continue to evolve, to deepen our connection with our soul/essence which is more of an inward expression. There is a deeper quality to it.

From my own experience and from what I have observed, when we do not do the inner work, it becomes more difficult to be our authentic self. Whether we like it or not, we are moving towards death, and this is our last chance to awaken to who we truly are, learn from our life’s lessons, face our mortality and to decide what is left to experience, express and how we choose to be of service.

I have presented a basic overview of what I’ve experienced and what I’ve seen others face when entering the elder stage of life. We face unique challenges and opportunities at this point in our journey. We all experience it differently and we all make a choice as to what path to follow.

What has been your experience since entering this stage of life?

How has it impacted your life? How have you faced its challenges?

What hidden gems have you discovered?