Second Chance at Your Dream

We are born with possibilities. As we grow, we imagine a great dream for our lives. This dream can get submerged or even derailed by the many challenges of adult life. The second half of life, usually sometime after 50, then may offer a second chance.

When we find the courage to grow emotionally and spiritually after mid-life, a great adventure opens up. A miracle happens. The fully scheduled business person begins to ease off and play more. Grandparenting or connecting with extended families offers the joys of being with young children minus the burdens of career juggling and child-rearing. Vacations and future plans begin to take shape around personal wishes rather than what is most convenient or cost-effective. The personality expands, deepens, strengthens and softens. We begin to return to our goals and ideals with renewed intention.

"I’ll never get old!"

The Greek philosopher Plato observed two great mysteries about humanity: one, no one believes they will ever grow old; and second, no one believes they will ever die. Both beliefs still remain a vast human mystery. Odds are 100 % against both immortality and not growing older. Each year we live does indeed make us older although there seems to be a good bit of denial around the idea of becoming "old." Unless you’re over 90 and very entertaining like Irving Berlin or George Burns, there does not seem to be much humor around aging either.

Few seem to enjoy the second half of life quite as fully as proposed by the media or well-meaning youngsters. The "golden years" are often tarnished by another set of demands or withdrawal from life’s challenges. Negative beliefs about aging coupled with pervasive discouragement and increasingly limited activity characterize the lives of many elders.

American culture avoids discussing the possibility of creative, positive aging. Much fear is associated with the later half of life and its four most discernible tasks:

• Retirement, toward what?
• Becoming a mentor for others, a steward of the environment, and possibly a grandparent.
• Coping with natural changes in the physical body.
• Losing loved ones and facing our own mortality.

Inherent cultural prejudices favoring youth and consumerism readily show when there is the least bit of stress. While other cultures and traditions honor elders and give them special status, the West does its best to deny the presence of elders.

My husband and I were driving up a steep hill on a snowy day. We observed someone weaving across both lanes in front of us. "Drives just like an old codger," Chuck muttered while trying to keep our own car steady in the drifting snow. When we were finally able to pass, the driver was, to our surprise, a pleasant looking thirty- something!

The ensuing discussion became part of the impetus to write this book. I started asking my friends over sixty about their thoughts, beliefs and fears. My thesaurus told me"oldness" is associated with declining: winter, senectitude, ancientry, antiquity, dotage, senility, decay, decrepitude, loneliness, debility, infirmity — all quite depressing. "Longevity" felt a bit more neutral. I tried the book idea with my friends by saying, "I’m planning to write a book on creative longevity." Some were interested but several stated something like, "I don’t want longevity…I don’t want to live long especially if I will be infirm… I just don’t want to get old!" Since there is no known way to stop the clock, I wondered how one could build an innovative lifestyle to stretch beyond cultural norms surrounding aging.

America’s largest power group

A subtle but increasingly evident shift in perceptions about aging began in 2005. This was the year the large demographic bulge known as the "baby boomers," those born in the American population surge after 1945 at the end of WW II, turned 60. Advertising began to show successful seniors generating glamorous lifestyles with all the trimmings of the consumer society –gorgeous homes, fine cars, good face creams and fashionable clothes. At a deeper level, it was becoming less politically correct to deride someone older than oneself or to let prejudices toward the elderly show.

But how many people really look forward to the thirty or fifty years of life’s second half that recent advances in medical have given them ? How many shy away from telling their age for fear they’ll be marginalized? How many are surprised, even irritated, to receive notice they’ve reached 50 making them eligible for AARP? Friends confess they avoid reading AARP’s publications or throw them away. Unfortunately, they also deny the existence of the largest potential power group in America. Accepting aging in the second half of life requires acknowledging our nation’s demographic reality with its gifts and challenges. More than that, it requires a careful look at ourselves to increase self-care and embrace our life’s dream.

AARP is 50 in 2008 as well as celebrities such as Caroline Kennedy, Madonna, Michelle Pfeiffer, Prince and Jamie Lee Curtis. Many offer insights and wisdom to inspire creative elder lifestyles. In an interview, Jamie Lee muses, "Getting older means paring yourself down to an essential version of yourself." In her fun-loving way, she enacts this symbolically by wearing outfit bright ribbon trappings symbolic of her fetters and defenses over her black outfit. Then she sheds them one by one, peeling away the layers until only her essence is left. (1)

Notions of aging are changing. Ten years ago, AARP dropped its original name of American Association of Retired People in favor of just the initials because so many elders actively work, consult, and volunteer in the second half of life. The organization’s mission remains, "To enhance the quality of life for everyone — those already in the second half of life and those headed there." (2)

We have been given the gift of time. It is imperative that we find ways to use it wisely. In 2008, 30% of the population is over 50, life expectancy averages 85.2 years, and AARP has 39 million members. Over 35% of American voters in 2004 were over 55 years old pointing to huge potential power held by the nation’s mature citizens. (3)

Clearly, it’s time for us to look at our lives in positive, hopeful terms. Humankind has an incredible ability to invent new patterns of thinking when they are needed. The creative mind knows how to give birth to new forms. Imagine with me the second half of your life as the most productive, prolific, fertile, original, and imaginative part of your existence. Share the excitement of modulating accepted, limiting thought patterns into images of joy, peace and satisfaction. Because most of us have extra time, we have untold opportunities for creating change within ourselves. And from there, to influence our friends, our communities, our world.

From longevitiy to "fun-gevity"

My personal journey toward the magical time of "threescore and ten" abounds with adventures, opportunities, losses and many lessons. While raising four teenage children I settled into a psychotherapist’s career and directed a large group of colleagues. Several years later I married the brave man who is my present husband. The dream of quiet midlife bliss was shattered one month after the wedding by the tragic death of my football hero oldest son.

These events dramatically shaped the second half of my life. I started asking questions. What did I need to learn? What gift lay in the juxtaposition of these dramatic events? Why was my son’s bounding energy still so strong? I wanted to learn about energetic connections with loved ones beyond the seeming wall of physical death. I recalled how awareness of human energies often had helped me in times of peril. While living in Berlin after the disastrous end of WW II, I sensed light and color around people who were best able to help me after my mother’s death when I was 5. I also learned to gently pass my hands over sick birds to speed their recovery. Later, I chose nursing and planned to use my hands and heart to help those in need as Florence Nightingale seemed to have done. I was somewhat ahead of my time since, until 1970, nursing did not formally acknowledge the possibility of helping patients via the human energy system. But I was in the right profession to learn more about energetic interventions and to blend them with practice as a counseling psychologist later.

Leadership positions with the American Holistic Nurses Association (1981 to 1990) led me to assist in organizing Healing Touch, a program for teaching energy modalities to healthcare professionals. This led to writing several books about the interface between energy concepts and counseling therapies. I became a teacher of counselors and co-founded the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP). Many conferences and travel adventures followed.

At the peak of my professional career as a psychologist and president of ACEP, my husband and I decided we would like to retire to a peaceful, remote part of Oregon. Like many people who retire, we guessed at what we might like rather than really knowing what we wanted. It seemed a good idea to slow down and engage in less stressful activities. My walking had diminished to very short forays around the house because of a hip problem. I began learning about senior centers, yoga, painting groups and started doing some of the things for which I never had time before.

Then, two years ago, I found renewed vitality after receiving a hip replacement. Despite my affection for complementary healing modalities, I deeply appreciate Western medicine’s fabulous gift of new mobility. Not only can I walk with ease, but my life has expanded emotionally. With the help of energy exercises continually developing within ACEP, I gained strength to envision an active and creative longevity. This new phase of life is now "fun-gevity" time.

Retirement of withdrawal into quiet seclusion is no longer an option: the dream of a meaningful second half of life calls out. My husband and I celebrated our lives by moving to a vital community on Washington’s Olympic peninsula. Also, I feel called to empower my seven grandchildren. I want to help address major issues of their lives such as global uncertainty and environmental destruction. They deserve a vital elder who has time and patience to participate in needed social changes needed in our collective consciousness.

I envision a new picture of "audacious aging" (4) in which engaged, passionate elders bring their collective wisdom to our imperiled world. We are the talented and essential beings who, by healing and empowering ourselves, can heal and empower others. We are the ones who bring love of humanity and the natural world to our families and communities. The second half of life is indeed the opportunity to reclaim our life’s dream!

No pills or harmful side-effects here

This book is an invitation to join in the adventure of self-discovery while adding on more birthdays. We’ll explore ways to stay in balance, to release dysfunctional patterns, to change perceptions of difficult situations, to build a sense of hope and positive expectancy, to connect with innate creativity, to align energetically with the soul’s purpose and learn to trust intuition. Unlike thinking suggesting there is some external factor, medication, or device for treating life’s challenges, we’ll explore the resources which are innately yours and readily available.

Within your body resides your vital life force, the quality called Qi (pronounced "chee") discussed in classical Chinese texts for over 5,000 years and the basis of the current practices of acupuncture and acupressure. Directing this Qi, with emotional acupressure via meridian acupoints (no needles!) can assist you in your daily life to resolve internal conflicts, remove blocks to creativity and empower you to live fully.

Contrary to traditional thinking that associates living well with lots of activity, the full-energy life is about connecting to inner wisdom and refining the arrow of intention. This orientation is filled with joy, peacefulness, openness, curiosity, wonder, appreciation, flexibility, exploration, new viewpoints and moving "beyond the box" of traditional thinking about aging.

Fun-gevity is made possible by letting go of stressful issues rapidly so there is available energy for more satisfying choices. For most day-to-day issues, the principles of energetic self-care advanced in this book will give excellent opportunities for refocusing. Care of more deep-seated issues may include seeking outside assistance ideally from a practitioner who is oriented to energy psychology approaches (resources listed in backmatter). Exercises in each chapter will lead you to finding new ways of sustaining energy levels and lightening up inwardly. Energy related interventions offer drug-free paths for relieving anxiety, finding inner harmony and thriving in advancing years.

The book is in four parts. They flow from an explanation of the personal energy system to practical applications in addressing specific issues. The first section is your introduction to a conceptual framework of personal energy for becoming more flexible and resourceful. We’ll explore cross-cultural resources and cite studies supporting ideas of healing to show how these concepts are well within the realm of current scientific knowledge. Epigenetic research, for example, is demonstrating the power of thought to influence emotions as well as the body’s cellular and DNA structures.

The second part is directly practical. We’ll learn releasing maneuvers to use whenever becoming shaken by external events. Transforming difficult issues allows more energy for innovative thinking. We’ll also rethink beliefs that are no longer functional and find methods of installing more desirable, useful beliefs. Celebrating the present with its unique gifts becomes possible as we learn methods to bring life-enhancing awareness into every moment.

The third section addresses numerous ways of establishing yourself as the creative artist of your life. Learning from a self-inventory brings focus to inner wisdom with specific steps for developing intuition as a resource for creativity. Accessing transpersonal, spiritual dimensions is another means of expanding originality and you’ll learn to nurture your own inner artist with hope and protective imagery.

The fourth part considers energetic approaches for two of life’s greatest challenges: dealing with pain and viewing death from a new perspective. The book closes by redefining personal myths and integrating seemingly dissimilar aspects of our lives into a dancing, dynamic whole.

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I invite you to imagine and rehearse the life you really want and to enliven your dream goals. I encourage you to develop your own version of creative fun-gevity by employing the suggestions in these chapters. May the journey be richer and more fulfilling than you ever expected!