Essentials of Elderhood - Fulfilling your potential as an Elder by Richard Clarke - HTML preview

SESSION 2: LIFE REVIEW

OPENING WORDS

Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.

This quote is not from some hippie, it is from Pope Paul VI.

OPENING TALK

Today we start our work on life harvesting, the reaping of what you have sowed over your long life. This starts with an understanding of our stage in life, and then a review of our life so far. One major element of this is looking at your life, and using that advantage of the perspective we have now. This way we are able to see that what we thought we thought were problems and even failures at the time, led to later successes and to who you are today. We will start a process of forgiving and letting go of things in our past that we still cling to. We also will ask ourselves about our unlived life, who we could have been if things had turned out different.

INSTINCTS OF BEGINNING AND COMPLETION

So, what stage are we in in our life right now? As we become “elders,” we certainly are in a position to accept our mortality.

STRUGGLE BETWEEN LIBIDO AND THANATOS, LIFE AND DEATH

An important modern idea about aging is found in Freud’s theory. He talked about libido, the life instinct, and thanatos, the death instinct.

It is a dialogue between the two primordial driving forces of human experience: the outer personality and the inner person. Libido surges with vitality and creative activity; thanatos drives us to the quiet and cessation of all activity. Thanatos is beginning things, thanatos is completing them.

ZALMAN SCHACHTER-SHALOMI’S VIEW OF BEGINNING INSTINCT AND COMPLETING INSTINCT:

In the book, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, Zalman says that a shift in the balance between the libido and thanatos occurs in midlife. Below are the characteristics of these two instincts in two columns.

Beginning Instinct is interested in reproductive energy and establishing itself in the world.

Completing Instinct is interested in closure and meaning.

Youthful libido goes into preserving our genetic endowment through family; Elderhood goes into preserving our legacy through writing, teaching, and creating oral histories.

Beginning Instinct signifies becoming and growing;

Completing Instinct signifies closure with deeper relationships with others and our inner Self.

BEGINNING AND COMPLETING

SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS OF TRANSCENDENCE

LANGUAGE OF BEGINNING/COMPLETION

Other traditions are based on these life conditions. Eastern teachings talk of enlightenment and ego transcendence:

Hindu yogis strive to break attachment with their desires (libido) to attain samadhi, a transcendental state in which self-consciousness, that is, their idea of themselves as an individual, is totally suspended (thanatos). For Hindus, thanatos is EGO death.

Mystic Muslims, Sufis, practice spiritual disciplines that lead to fana, a blissful state in which all traces of the self are annihilated.

Buddhists attempt to extinguish the forces of tanha, the instinctive craving and for life and attachment to things, and enter nirvana, the desireless state of quiescence and equilibrium.

From my understanding and own direct experience these teachings are all talking about the same experience, the same state, just with different language. The highest goal of each path is the dissolution of ego, the end of the sense of existing as an individual. When the sense of the individual is dissolved, then the sense of separation goes with it. If there is no separation, then there are no others. With others, who is there to fear, or hate? This dissolution of ego has been my personal spiritual goal for a long time.

DISCUSSION - THINGS TO PONDER

Imagine you are in conversation with your future self, maybe a vital 100 year-old.

What can you do to open yourself to the learning and growth of this stage of life?
Are there questions your future self can answer, help or instructions they can give you now?
What are some steps that we can take in befriending thanatos, the agent of our completed self?

INTRODUCTION TO LIFE REVIEW

Life Review is about recontextualizing, forgiving, and reclaiming unlived life. These are the three interconnected parts that make up the process of life review.

Recontextualizing -  reinterpret perceived failures into successes
moving beyond blame. The elder perspective makes this
possible.

Forgiving -  requires psychic effort (and time)
but frees the cost of not forgiving
forgiving the self. 9oipens you to lessons not learned)

Reclaiming unlived life -  recover/discover our other ‘parts’
perhaps an ignored inner destiny
living the unlived life - appropriately

Spiritual Eldering involves examining our life experiences and relationships and reworking them toward healing and repair.

DISCUSSION - THINGS TO PONDER

What do you think will be your most challenging life-review work?
Are there things you are afraid of? That you look forward to? That you don’t want to face?

ARC OF LIFE

There are many ways to do life-review work. One technique that is useful is to divide your life into 7-year segments.

This idea of 7-year life cycles is ancient, with its root in astrology; 7 years is the orbital cycle of both Saturn and Uranus, and these have long been held to mark life stage changes. Hippocrates, in ancient Greece talked about 7-year stages of life. The idea was picked up in modern times by Rudolf Steiner, the philosopher.  He offered his own map of life and the important lessons we must master as we develop, and he broke it into 7-year cycles.

Sit and think about each 7-year period. What do you remember from your earliest years? How about your memories as a child from age 8 to 14? For each 7-year period, what stands out to you now? Who were important people in your life? How did your activities then contribute to who you are now?

On the next page you’ll find a worksheet that will get you going on this activity. You’ll find that the more you think about those years, the more you will remember.

In Session 5 of this book, we offer a form that helps you create your Ethical Will. (More about this in chapter 5.) The checklist suggested also can serve as another way into your life-harvesting quest.

Here is one image of these 7 stages.

WORKSHEET: THE ARC OF OUR LIVES - IN A CYCLE OF SEVEN YEARS

Age Events     People    Contribution

0-7

8-14

15-21

22-28

29-35

36-42

43-49

50-56

57- 63

64-70

DISCUSSION - THINGS TO PONDER

What do you think will be your most challenging life-review work?
Are there things you are afraid of? That you look forward to? That you don’t want to face?

GUIDED MEDITATION: FINDING YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE

Begin with the Breath

Begin by finding yourself a comfortable meditation seat and closing your eyes. Feel your breath as you inhale and exhale. Get completely present with your breath.

Take a moment to consider the desires that have driven your life since you first came into being. Really feel into the desires that have motivated you in your life. Notice what this feels like.

Feel into Your Mind's Eye

Now, bring into your mind a desire that you deeply long for. Is it for creative success? Harmony in a certain relationship? A new home? Or something else? Feel the strongest desire occurring in the moment. Can you feel it? There is a desire that’s driving you forward, showing you what your purpose really is. Where does it show up within your body? What kind of thoughts and emotions surround this desire? Really get into the feeling of this particular desire. It’s showing you something about your purpose in life.

Visualize Your Desires

Now bring into consciousness the picture of this desire being totally fulfilled. Visualize your desire manifesting before your eyes. Take a moment to feel the feeling of being in this state of fulfillment. How does your state of being change when you feel into the fulfillment of this desire? Completely allow your body to be full of these sensations.

Now consider for a moment if there is something deeper, beyond that desire. Can you find a desire that rests at the very core of who you are? Once you tap into that desire open to it and experience the feeling of this deep desire. Again, immerse yourself in the sensations that arise out of this desire. Visualize this desire being fulfilled. What does this fulfillment feel like in your body and in your mind? Be present with your feelings of this particular satisfaction.

Dive Deeper

Now we go deeper still. What is your deepest longing? What is it that you most deeply want and need? What does this feel like? What are the thoughts surrounding it? Feel into the feeling of this desire — the deep one that you’ve made the goal of your life. This is your purpose. This is what you most long for, and it’s at the core of all those other desires. It lies at the very heart of every other desire you’ve ever had. Now feel this purpose being totally and perfectly fulfilled.

Imagine this purpose manifest in the material world. See yourself living from this place. Let your entire being feel this purpose. Who are you as you live this purpose? How are you as you live this purpose? Allow yourself to sit with yourself as this person, completely fulfilled in your life’s purpose. This is you. This is who you are, underneath all these desires,

Now Rest

Rest in this place for several more deep inhalations and exhalations. When you’re ready, open your eyes and simply be with the feeling that remains.

LIFE COMPLETION: TURNING POINTS OF YOUR LIFE, SUCCESSES AND FAILURES.

When we were just youngsters, we learned to hold our feelings in. Like when a kid holds his breath. We have continued this all our life: to avoid pain and discomfort, we “hold it in,” we avoid feeling pain. There is a cost to this, though. The cost is your own energy and zest for life.

About 1974 I went to EST, Earhard Seminar Training. EST featured a 60-hour ‘basic training’ intended to bring about transformation and personal growth. It was popular 50 years ago. EST said that there were two kinds of experiences; the ones we have fully experienced, and all the others. What it takes to not fully experience something is “to hold it in.” What life completion is really about is opening our self to all this stuff that for our life we have not finished experiencing.

When we experience it fully, two things happen. The first is that maybe we can finish learning and growing from it. The other is that we are able to let it go; it is finished now, just let it pass.

That really is what this part of the course is about, discovering and bringing up old areas where we have not completed important experiences in our lives. Then we find ways to reframe them, or release them. Then your life energy is no long bound up by these incomplete experiences.

LEGACY

The other part of life completion is legacy: What legacy will you leave those that follow you? Family, friends, and people you don’t even know. Is your legacy of material things? Of stories, of writing or art, of philosophy toward life? Is your legacy the example of a life well lived?  Is it in the smile of a loved one when they remember you?

This is the time in your life to consider this, and maybe to start building your legacy.

DISCUSSION - THINGS TO PONDER:

Turning points of your life –
What have been some of your successes?
What have been some of your failures?

AFTER THE SESSION

READING

● Age-ing to Sage-ing: Chapter 4, pages 79-196

● Buddha’s Brain: Chapter 3, pages 49-66

JOURNALING HOMEWORK, SESSION 2

Who are the significant people in your life: in your family? Your mentors and role models? your friends and companions?

To whom would you like to write a Letter of Appreciation? Write one of those letters.

With whom do you still have regrets or a broken relationship?

What were important successes and failures?

What activities give meaning to your life?

What is your legacy? For whom?

MEDITATION FOR THE WEEK: OVERCOME NEGATIVE THINKING MEDITATION

Here is another easy and rewarding thing you can do each day that uses your brain’s plasticity to give you a happier life.

Before you go do bed, take a few minutes, maybe sitting in a comfortable chair. Reflect on the day. What is there to be grateful for? What were some things that went your way, things that you were happy about? That felt good?

Take some time and really savor the experience. Bring up mental pictures, smells, feelings, body sensations; whatever is involved with your experience of this moment. Take some time, a few seconds, up to maybe 30 seconds.

If you do this every day, as a part of your end of the day routine, you start changing your brain. This starts the opening up of new vistas in your life.

TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

Comments for the week: