Not only accepting but also celebrating getting old, this inspirational and illuminating book looks at the many facets of the aging process, from purposes and challenges to struggles and surprises. Central throughout is a call to cherish the blessing of aging as a natural part of life that is active, productive, and deeply rewarding. Perhaps the most important dimension revealed lies in the awareness that there is a purpose to aging and intention built into every stage of life. Chittister reflects on many key issues, including the temptation towards isolation, the need to stay involved, the importance of health and well-being, what happens when old relationships end or shift, the fear of tomorrow, and the mystery of forever. Readers are encouraged to surmount their fears of getting older and find beauty in aging well.

Dr. Gladys McGarey, a centenarian still-consulting doctor and the mother of holistic medicine, reveals a story that teaches as much as it inspires (Edith Eger, New York Times bestselling author), filled with life-changing secrets for how to live with joy, vitality, and purpose at any age.Dr. Gladys McGarey, cofounder of the American Holistic Medical Association, began her medical practice at a time when women couldn't even have their own bank accounts. Over the past sixty years, she has pioneered a new way of thinking about disease and health that has transformed the way we imagine health care and self-care around the world. On these pages, Dr. McGarey shares her six actionable secrets to enjoying lives that are long, happy, and purpose-driven: -Spend your energy wildly: How to embrace your life fully and feel motivated every day. -All life needs to move: How to move--spiritually, mentally, and physically--to help let go of trauma and other roadblocks. -You are here for a reason: How to find the everyday juice that helps you stay oriented in your life's purpose. -You are never alone: How to build a community that's meaningful to you. -Everything is your teacher: Discover the deep learnings that come from pain and setbacks. -Love is the most powerful medicine: Learn to love yourself--and others--into healing. In a voice that is both practical and inspiring, Dr. McGarey shares her own extraordinary stories and eternal wisdom--from her early childhood in India and a chance encounter with Mahatma Gandhi to her life as a physician and a mother of six, to her survival of both heartbreak and illness. Dr. Gladys shares her inspiring vision for a healthier and more joyful future for us all, filled with rich and complex truths that will resonate with readers' hearts and minds (Dr. Robert Waldinger, New York Times bestselling author).

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The roadmap for finding purpose, meaning, and success as we age, from bestselling author, Harvard professor, and the Atlantic's happiness columnist Arthur Brooks.

Many of us assume that the more successful we are, the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. But the truth is, the greater our achievements and our attachment to them, the more we notice our decline, and the more painful it is when it occurs.

What can we do, starting now, to make our older years a time of happiness, purpose, and yes, success?

At the height of his career at the age of 50, Arthur Brooks embarked on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. From Strength to Strength is the result, a practical roadmap for the rest of your life.

Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on certain priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness.

Read this book and you, too, can go from strength to strength.

RADICALLY REIMAGINE THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE

There can be a certain perverse pleasure, as well as a sense of rightness and beauty, in insisting on flowering just when the world expects you to become quiet and diminish.
-- from the book

For any woman over fifty who has ever asked What now? Who do I want to be? comes a life-changing book showing how your next phase of life may be your most dynamic yet. As mythologist and psychologist Sharon Blackie describes it, midlife is the threshold to decades of opportunity and profound transformation, a time to learn, flourish, and claim the desires and identities that are often limited during earlier life stages. This is a time for gaining new perspectives, challenging and evolving belief systems, exploring callings, uncovering meaning, and ultimately finding healing for accumulated wounds.

Western folklore and mythology are rife with brilliantly creative, fulfilled, feisty, and furious role models for aging women, despite our culture's focus on youthfulness. Blackie explores these archetypes in Hagitude, presenting them in a way sure to appeal to contemporary women. Drawing inspiration from these examples as well as modern mentors, you can reclaim midlife as a liberating, alchemical moment rich with possibility and your elder years as a path to feminine power.

What does it really mean to be a grown up in today's world?

We assume that once we get it together with the right job, marry the right person, have children, and buy a home, all is settled and well. But adulthood presents varying levels of growth, and is rarely the respite of stability we expected. Turbulent emotional shifts can take place anywhere between the age of thirty-five and seventy when we question the choices we've made, realize our limitations, and feel stuck--commonly known as the midlife crisis. Jungian psycho-analyst James Hollis believes it is only in the second half of life that we can truly come to know who we are and thus create a life that has meaning.

In Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Hollis explores the ways we can grow and evolve to fully become ourselves when the traditional roles of adulthood aren't quite working for us, revealing a new way of uncovering and embracing our authentic selves. Offering wisdom to anyone facing a career that no longer seems fulfilling, a long-term relationship that has shifted, or family transitions that raise issues of aging and mortality, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life provides a reassuring message and a crucial bridge across this critical passage of adult development.

A guide to working through the inner obstacles of late life and embracing the spiritual gifts of aging

- 2022 Coalition of Visionary Resources Gold Award

- 2022 Nautilus Gold Award

- Award Winner in the Health: Aging/50+ category of the 2021 Best Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest

- Award Winner in Non-Fiction: Aging and Gerontology category of the 2021 Best Indie Book Award

- Offers shadow-work and many diverse spiritual practices to help you break through denial to awareness, move from self-rejection to self-acceptance, repair the past to be fully present, and allow mortality to be a teacher

- Reveals how to use inner work to uncover and explore the unconscious denial and resistance that erupts around key thresholds of later life

- Includes personal interviews with prominent Elders, including Ken Wilber, Krishna Das, Fr. Thomas Keating, Anna Douglas, James Hollis, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Ashton Applewhite, Roshi Wendy Nakao, Roger Walsh, and Stanislav Grof

With extended longevity comes the opportunity for extended personal growth and spiritual development. You now have the chance to become an Elder, to leave behind past roles, shift from work in the outer world to inner work with the soul, and become authentically who you are. This book is a guide to help get past the inner obstacles and embrace the hidden spiritual gifts of age.

Offering a radical reimagining of age for all generations, psychotherapist and bestselling author Connie Zweig reveals how to use inner work to uncover and explore the unconscious denial and resistance that erupts around key thresholds of later life, attune to your soul's longing, and emerge renewed as an Elder filled with vitality and purpose. She explores the obstacles encountered in the transition to wise Elder and offers psychological shadow-work and diverse spiritual practices to help you break through denial to awareness, move from self-rejection to self-acceptance, repair the past to be fully present, reclaim your creativity, and allow mortality to be a teacher. Sharing contemplative practices for selfreflection, she also reveals how to discover ways to share your talents and wisdom to become a force for change in the lives of others.

Woven throughout with wisdom from prominent Elders, including Ken Wilber, Krishna Das, Father Thomas Keating, Anna Douglas, James Hollis, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Ashton Applewhite, Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, Roger Walsh, and Stanislav Grof, this book offers tools and guidance to help you let go of past roles, expand your identity, deepen self-knowledge, and move through these life passages to a new stage of awareness, choosing to be fully real, transparent, and free to embrace a fulfilling late life.

One of USA Today's Best Self-Help Books of the Year, the national bestseller Rules for Aging from New York Times bestselling author and beloved prize-winning essayist Roger Rosenblatt, is a witty and humorous guide about the trials and tribulations of getting older.

Rosenblatt has commented on most of the trends and events of our time. His columns in Time magazine and his commentaries on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer have made him a household word and a trusted friend of millions.

With a wry sense of humor and inimitable wit, Rosenblatt offers here guidelines for aging that are both easy to understand and, more importantly, easy to implement. More and more in the news today, we are hearing about phenomenal advances in the fight against aging. But what Rosenblatt suggests to combat age is far more valuable than any scientific breakthrough -- he breaks down the hardest part of aging, the mental anguish of growing older with fifty-four gems of funny, brilliant, wise, indispensable advice.

A book to savor, a book to keep, and a book for all ages. This little guide is intended for people who wish to age successfully, or at all.

New York Times bestselling author and co-founder/CEO of The Modern Elder Academy inspires readers to embrace midlife as a time of joy in this clear blueprint for creating the lives we want (Gretchen Rubin)

Named A WSJ Best Book on Aging and Retirement in 2024

The midlife crisis is the butt of so many jokes, but this long-derided life stage has an upside. What if we could reframe our thinking about the natural transition of midlife not as a crisis, but as a chrysalis--a time when something profound awakens in us, as we shed our skin, spread our wings, and pollinate our wisdom to the world?

In Learning to Love Midlife, Chip Conley offers an alternative narrative to the way we commonly think of our 40s, 50s and 60s. Drawing on the latest social science research, inspiring stories, and timeless wisdom, he reveals 12 reasons why life gets better with age. They include:

• The relief of my body doesn't define me: We finally grow comfortable in our own skin
• Stepping off the treadmill: We redefine what a successful life looks like
• The Great Midlife Edit: We let go of our emotional baggage, mindsets, and obligations that no longer serve us
• Growing whole: We begin to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves

No matter where you are in your midlife journey, this perspective-shifting guide will inspire you to find joy, purpose and success in the years that lie ahead--and how those years can be your best ones yet.

Recipient of the 2023 Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Book Award

Yale professor and leading expert on the psychology of successful aging, Dr. Becca Levy, draws on her ground-breaking research to show how age beliefs can be improved so they benefit all aspects of the aging process, including the way genes operate and the extension of life expectancy by 7.5 years.

The often-surprising results of Levy's science offer stunning revelations about the mind-body connection. She demonstrates that many health problems formerly considered to be entirely due to the aging process, such as memory loss, hearing decline, and cardiovascular events, are instead influenced by the negative age beliefs that dominate in the US and other ageist countries. It's time for all of us to rethink aging and Breaking the Age Code shows us how to do just that.

Based on her innovative research, stories that range from pop culture to the corporate boardroom, and her own life, Levy shows how age beliefs shape all aspects of our lives. She also presents a variety of fascinating people who have benefited from positive age beliefs as well as an entire town that has flourished with these beliefs.

Breaking the Age Code is a landmark work, presenting not only easy-to-follow techniques for improving age beliefs so they can contribute to successful aging, but also a blueprint to reduce structural ageism for lasting change and an age-just society.

Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
--T. S. Eliot (Little Gidding) In this classic text on aging wisely, the renowned Jungian analyst Helen M. Luke reflects on the final journeys described in Homer's Odyssey, Shakespeare's King Lear, and T. S. Eliot's Little Gidding, as well as devoting attention to suffering.

In examining some of the great masterpieces of literature produced by writers at the end of their lives, she elucidates the difference between growing old and disintegrating, encouraging the reader to grow emotionally and mentally during the culminating stage of life.

With significant female figures breaking down taboos around menopause and opening the discussion, women are in a stronger position than ever before to insist on a better midlife experience - a real cause for celebration. But while these discussions around menopause are brilliant and empowering, it's vital that we don't let the conversation stop there. Because midlife for women is a multifaceted experience, one in which our changing bodies play an enormous part, but that's far from the only thing going on.

MIDLIFE MATTERS promises to be an all-encompassing guide and manual for midlife women, exploring the five key areas of HEALTH, WELLBEING, RELATIONSHIPS, WORK LIFE, CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES with humour and honesty. Guiding us through, author Katie Taylor's friendly narrative is supported by expert contributions in each chapter, including advice and resources from a world-renowned medical advisory team - and of course the testimonies of real women from the midlife community.

The bestselling author of Work as a Spiritual Practice presents a user's life guide to aging well and making every year fulfilling and transformative.

Everything changes. For Zen Buddhist priest and meditation teacher Lewis Richmond, this fundamental Buddhist tenet is the basis for a new inner road map that emerges in the later years, charting an understanding that can bring new possibilities and a wealth of appreciation and gratitude for the life journey itself.

Aging as a Spiritual Practice is a wise, compassionate book that guides readers through the four key stages of aging--such as Lightning Strikes (the moment we wake up to our aging)--as well as the processes of adapting to change, embracing who we are, and appreciating our unique life chapters. Unlike many philosophical works on aging this one incorporates illuminating facts from scientific researchers, doctors, and psychologists as well as contemplative practices and guided meditations. Breath by breath, moment by moment, Richmond's teachings inspire limitless opportunities for a joy that transcends age.

This impassioned book invites readers to the deep end of life where authentic soul work and human transformation become pressing concerns. --Publishers Weekly

2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medalist in the Aging/Death & Dying Category

From bestselling author Parker J. Palmer comes a brave and beautiful book for all who want to age reflectively, seeking new insights and life-giving ways to engage in the world. Age itself, he says, is no excuse to wade in the shallows. It's a reason to dive deep and take creative risks.

Looking back on eight decades of life--and on his work as a writer, teacher, and activist--Palmer explores what he's learning about self and world, inviting readers to explore their own experience. In prose and poetry--and three downloadable songs written for the book by the gifted Carrie Newcomer--he meditates on the meanings of life, past, present, and future.

With compassion and chutzpah, gravitas and levity, Palmer writes about cultivating a vital inner and outer life, finding meaning in suffering and joy, and forming friendships across the generations that bring new life to young and old alike.

This book is a companion for not merely surviving a fractured world, but embodying--like Parker--the fiercely honest and gracious wholeness that is ours to claim at every stage of life. --Krista Tippett, New York Times-bestselling author of Becoming Wise

A wondrously rich mix of reality and possibility, comfort and story, helpful counsel and poetry, in the voice of a friend . . . This is a book of immense gratitude, consolation, and praise. --Naomi Shihab Nye, National Book Award finalist

Readers seeking a holistic, approachable guide to approaching middle age with verve (Foreword Reviews) will appreciate this comprehensive and chatty guide (Publishers Weekly) with inspiring and practical advice to navigate aging well.

When I was 41, I learned how to wash my face. Turns out I'd been doing it wrong. (Hint: ditch cleansing wipes!) This made me wonder what else I didn't know. Like: Cardio or weights? Why can't I sleep? Is there a trick to ordering good wine? Or buying art? I figured if I still had questions about how to adult and age like a superwoman, maybe you did too.

The Glow Code provides all the answers you need to feel, look, and live better in midlife and beyond. Rich in advice from top scientists, psychologists, makeup artists, fitness and nutrition authorities, and others, this book offers strategies and tips for better fitness, friendships, sex, creative practices, and more. And to make sure it works, I've tested it all--with sometimes hilarious results.

Fun, practical, and inspiring, The Glow Code is the manifesto to aging joyfully. For all of you with minimum free time but maximum ambition to rock this next stage of life, welcome to your cheat sheet.

A definitive guide for navigating cognitive decline using mindfulness and meditation practices that includes practical advice and poignant stories from a Buddhist chaplain diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment.

When Buddhist chaplain Sharon Lukert was diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), she turned to spiritual practice and community to help her adjust to a new and ever-shifting reality. In Until My Memory Fails Me, she shares her hard-won wisdom as a guide for anyone standing at the gateway of cognitive decline.

Through poignant storytelling and practical wisdom, Lukert offers specific ways to build resilience against the emotional swings and existential fear inherent in cognitive decline. The book includes:

• Instructions for more than a dozen mindfulness and meditation exercises, including The Handshake, Just Like Me, Open Awareness Meditation, and Tonglen (Lovingkindness) Meditation
• Practical advice on topics like understanding your diagnosis, how to talk to your medical providers, testing, dealing with bias, how to maintain communication, and managing new symptoms
• Stories, advice, and encouragement from her peers in the MCI community and her dementia ancestors, those she worked with in her decades as a Buddhist chaplain in healthcare settings

With raw vulnerability, Lukert demonstrates how to find courage, acceptance, and compassion even as your sense of self shifts underneath you.

The first mindfulness book written specifically for people with MCI, the practices and lessons Lukert shares are also valuable for anyone experiencing cognitive decline caused by other disorders, as well as for loved ones and caregivers.

Learn to use your later years for awakening and spiritual growth.

Encouraging, inspiring, and practical, The Grace in Aging invites all those who have ever experienced spiritual longing to awaken in their twilight years. Since aging, in and of itself, does not lead to spiritual maturity, The Grace in Aging suggests and explores causes and conditions that we can create in our lives, just as we are living them, to allow awakening to unfold--transforming the predictable sufferings of aging into profound opportunities for growth in clarity, love, compassion, and peace.

Kathleen Dowling Singh streamlines vast and complex teachings into skillful means and wise views. Straightforward language and piercing questions bring Singh's teachings into the sharp focus of our own lives; the contemplative nature of each chapter allows for an uncommon depth of inquiry. Examples from our lives and from the chatter in our own minds touch the reader personally, offering the chance to absorb the implications deeply and do the work of freeing his or her own mind. Ecumenical in spirit, tone, and language, Singh offers wisdom from teachers from a variety of spiritual backgrounds: Chogyam Trungpa, the Apostles, Annie Dillard, and more. Lessening our attachments, decreasing our aversions, unbinding what binds us, we bear witness to the possibility of awakening for all beings.

The Grace in Aging offers guidelines for older individuals of any wisdom tradition who wish to awaken before they die; no need for caves or seven-year retreats. This is spiritual practice for the lives we live.

Inspiring readings for spiritual seekers growing older, wiser, and fiercer

- Presents years of weekly inspiration and practices pointing the way forward through every conceivable mood, opportunity, and stumbling block on the spiritual journey through the second half of life

- Includes quotes and stories by and about mystics, sages, and old souls from ancient through contemporary times who have walked this path before us

- Shares insightful guidance on transforming loneliness to solitude, loss of identity to freedom, anger to self-protection, fear to faith, and envy to love

Many of us navigating the years beyond midlife report high levels of self-acceptance, freedom, and joy, but there can also be bouts of second-guessing and regret as well as the occasional longing to be reminded that you're not in this alone.

Designed to be read weekly in two-year cycles, the 120 timeless readings in this book focus on the issues and concerns that arise among those who view aging as a path to spiritual culmination. Transforming loneliness to solitude, loss of identity to freedom, anger to self-protection, fear to faith, and envy to love, Orsborn's wise and compassionate insights are seasoned by quotes and stories by and about mystics, sages, and old souls from ancient through contemporary times who illuminate the path to living a full life while embracing old age. The connecting thread is the reminder that you have what it takes to shift from reacting with fear to the challenges of aging, instead accepting these challenges in a spirit of gratitude as they help you grow not just old, but whole.

Do you have a plan, a strategy for the final years of your life? A dream of what you want to be in your old age?

Finding no guidebook, Frances Fuller decided that she must figure out for herself how to live wisely through the puzzles and possibilities of aging, and while she learned she wrote. The result is these thirty-eight personal essays, most of them resolves, promises she is making to herself and her family. In them she deals with such issues as grief, loneliness, physical limitations, fears, duties, and with the significance of her own life story. Guided always by her Christian faith, she tries to make sense of her own past and to understand her responsibility to younger generations.

In the process she shares her daily life, enriched with memories from her fascinating experiences. Her stories and her voice--fresh, honest, irresistible--keep the reader eager for more.

Her questions are universal. Her answers create a map through the challenging terrain of old age.

Frances Fuller writes out of the overflow of a long, varied life. A child of the depression, she has earned degrees in journalism, English and religious education, traveled extensively, built a publishing house in the Middle East, survived several wars, and written numerous books (some published only in Arabic), including the triple award-winning In Borrowed Houses. Meanwhile, she was a wife for 63 years, a Bible teacher, and public speaker while raising three sons and two daughters. Her ten grandchildren are her hope for the world.

She wrote the final chapter of this book on her ninetieth birthday.

In this newly revised and updated edition of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging, you will find an empowering guide with practical tools to help live a passionate, fulfilling, growth-oriented life.

The baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age with unprecedented good health and resources, and is no longer satisfied with their parents' approach to aging. Many older adults are seeking an empowering vision for their future but find that hard to come by in a world that glorifies youth and has largely forgotten the gifts that can accompany the life stage of elderhood. With this expanded and updated 10th anniversary edition of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging, you will find a contemporary manual filled with practices and tools to help you navigate your elder years with purpose and clarity.

Ron Pevny's provocative model of conscious eldering opens the door to the rich possibilities of intentionally growing into elderhood, as contrasted with merely growing old. Through advice, practices, and personal stories, this book will help you distill wisdom from your many years of life experience, navigate loss and grief, identify new passions and goals, and remain engaged and relevant as you enter life's later chapters, creating a lasting legacy and a healthier world for the generations to follow. It's time to engage with family, community, your spiritual source, and the world, which needs your talents. Don't just grow old. Aim high and claim the gifts of elderhood.

It's a terrifying diagnosis that nobody wants to hear, especially about themselves: dementia. But now that it's diagnosed, do you simply sit by and watch your life fade away? Not if you're author Sally Faith. In her energetic manner, she takes the bull by the horns and shows you how to LIVE with early dementia. There's much you can do to secure a satisfying life for yourself if you do it now, while you still have the mental capacity to make solid choices for yourself.

Watch as the author absorbs the painful truth, then gets down to business: she sells her house and finds an independent living facility where she can graduate to memory care; she organizes her life, so she can remain independent for as long as possible; she incorporates new and interesting activities that keep her brain active and learning; and she embraces a positive attitude, determined to enjoy herself for the rest of her days.

In I Am Losing my Memory; I'm NOT Losing My Mind, Sally Faith provides an example for those who have early dementia AND those who love them about how to stay positive, embrace change, and live in a state of gratitude and humor.