By Lauren Selman | Bio
"Don't worry
about it, you've got me in your corner." These are the words that make
a child warm inside and feel like they can accomplish anything. My
father said this to me the other day, and when he said it I felt like I
was on top of the world and that I could do anything. I was scared and
intimidated, but that fear lifted when I knew he would be there. Like
Rocky in the ring, I can look back and know that he is there coaching
me on my swing and my strategy. I know that my parents and their
partners are there to support me in the game of life. It is clear that
they are on my team. Now coming from an athletic background, I know
that there is nothing more important than your team.[ Read More]
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By Jim Selman | Bio
I
heard someone remark that the best thing about getting older is they
don’t have to be afraid anymore. While I think that is one of life’s
‘truisms’, it falls into the same category as your mother telling you
“not to worry”—it doesn’t help much to know that when you are worried!
From what I can see, most people get more fearful and anxious as they
age. This anxiety takes various forms: fear of not having enough money,
fear of being homeless, fear of being alone, fear of becoming dependent
or of losing one’s faculties. The list could go on.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Wisdom in Action
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By Jim Selman | Bio
The
1970s in the USA may not have been the ‘Age of Enlightenment’, but it
was certainly the ‘Age of the Pursuit of Enlightenment’. The Esalen
Institute was in its hey day, the est training was blowing everyone’s
mind, and authentic Indian yogis were in demand. We thought the Age of
Aquarius was really here and that peace and love were just a few years
away. Maybe we were naïve, but it was a good time when young people were
trying hard to be better people and when it wasn’t embarrassing to be
idealistic.[ Read More]
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By Shae Hadden | Bio
Believers
in the Law of Attraction, take heed! If you are afraid, don’t try to
resist your fear. If you do, then you will give more power to it and
end up attracting what you are afraid of. I know. I’ve just experienced
my worst fear: of being very sick, alone, and uncertain about what is
happening.[ Read More]
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Over the past couple of years, I have been growing in my appreciation
of just about everything and everyone in my life. I am living most of
the time in an almost sublime state of acceptance and gratitude. Fears
about the future have somehow disappeared. My work is more satisfying
than at any time I can recall and, by all accounts, is more impactful. When I began this inquiry about aging almost 30 years ago, my vision
was that the end of life should have as much possibility as the
beginning—that age didn’t mean anything in terms of the quality of our
lives or what we accomplished. Today that vision, at least for me
personally, has become a reality.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
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I heard someone remark that the best thing about getting older is they
don’t have to be afraid anymore. While I think that is one of life’s
‘truisms’, it falls into the same category as your mother telling you
“not to worry”—it doesn’t help much to know that when you are worried!
From what I can see, most people get more fearful and anxious as they
age. This anxiety takes various forms: fear of not having enough money,
fear of being homeless, fear of being alone, fear of becoming dependent
or of losing one’s faculties. The list could go on. I am not of the opinion that there is nothing to fear.[ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
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By Rick Fullerton | Bio
For
much of my life, I have had a private conversation about dying. It
began as a young child, probably triggered by overhearing my parents
talking about people fighting cancer or other scary diseases. When I
was 12 and our family doctor knocked on the schoolroom door, my first
thought was that he had figured out I was going to die. I was shocked
to discover he had come to tell me my father had died of a heart attack
at just 53. I was devastated![ Read More]
Written by admin at Fearless Aging
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By Kay Costley-White
A
lot is written these days about aging gracefully. As we approach our
senior years, we also become aware of a vague dread: we don’t want to
acknowledge our fear of dying. Evolution, while fitting us
with an urgent will to survive and multiply, also equipped us with a
powerful, instinctive fear of death. It is perfectly normal and natural
to have a strong aversion to anything to do with it. Many people end
their lives without ever addressing the issue. But if we choose to open
up to this part of our genetic makeup, what is it really about? Does it
relate to the course of illness leading to the body’s demise, to the
process of dying itself, or to fear of what comes after? Or is it a
combination of all three, with a host of other unnamed distresses
tagging along?[ Read More]
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I visited my Mother this week. She is 87 and not well. A lifetime of smoking has caught up with her and she is fighting emphysema every day. For the first time in a while, I came face to face with the reality that she is dying. Her comment to me is that “I don’t mind dying but don’t like dying this way”. These thoughts aren’t about not smoking, although as an ex-smoker, it is remarkable how that addiction can warp our judgment. My mother continues smoking to this day—now protesting that it is ‘too late’ and she is probably right. [ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Wisdom in Action
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By Vincent DiBianca Bio
A year or so ago, a few colleagues and I started to write a book
about the second half of life and how people could live a full and
fulfilling life until the day they die. The treatise was that, in many ways, the second half could clearly
surpass the quality of experiences in the first half. I saw in my own
life and those around me profound examples of people 40 and older
reinventing their careers, physical condition and relationships.
Although I ran into some people who had bought into the notion that
life diminishes with age and just “got old”, more often I uncovered the
opposite—inspiring stories of people whose second half was the “time of
their lives”. [ Read More]
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