As a former caregiver for nonagenarian parents, I’ve spent a good deal of energy consulting the experts on what it takes to sustain good physical, mental, and emotional health into old age. I’ve been putting that advice into practice in hopes that it will pay dividends as I continue racking up the years. My latest read dives into the psychology of aging with the intent of giving readers a new way to view and inhabit the journey.

In The Inner Work of Aging: Shifting From Role to Soul, Dr. Connie Zweig provides a process by which one becomes attuned to the soul’s inner longing and emerges as a vibrant spiritual elder. It’s a process of transformation from the inside out through which one confronts denial, resistance, and shadow personas en route to a vital and genuinely meaningful life.

In a highly youth-oriented culture, it’s no surprise that denial and resistance rear their ugly heads. I remember when young folks used to talk about never trusting anyone over thirty (which they now refer to as the “dirty thirty.”) Then there were the funerial decorations that went along with fortieth birthday parties. By 50, the jokes stopped being funny as folks started bumping up against job discrimination. By 60, there was the full-court press to sign up for anti-aging products and procedures that would help keep up youthful appearances. To the extent that we internalize these messages, we lose sight of the inner vibrancy that welcomes advancing years and the wisdom that comes with them.

And what of the shadow personas? Our performance-oriented culture has us believing that we are what we do. So even if retirement becomes an option, we may still be so addicted to appearances that we drive ourselves to be “successful” in the eyes of our peers – perhaps on the volunteer stage, or the wild travel adventures stage, or whatever projects a winning image on social media. We may also be inured to caregiving and allow our unmet needs to go unnoticed.

Dr. Zweig shares three portals through which we can launch our inner journey:

• Shadow awareness helps us remove inner obstacles that block us from finding the treasures of late life. She provides lots of tools and examples to plumb theses depths.
• Pure awareness allows the silent, dispassionate witness to unfold. It is a state of mind that is silent, open, resting, and aware of awareness (a.k.a. mindfulness meditation). It brings us back to an experience of the present moment through the sensory doors.
• Mortality awareness calls us to live fully in the present with a keen awareness that our days are numbered.

Two “divine messengers” may spur us on toward the inner path. Retirement disrupts our habitual patterns and offers the opportunity to explore new ways of being. For some, this newfound freedom may be paralyzing. They’ve become acclimated to their routines and have no idea what to do with themselves. They may profit from the wisdom and guidance of an experience coach. Others use the time to explore longstanding passions as well as new opportunities all the while listening to their inner voices to see what truly resonates.

Illness may also prove disruptive whether experiencing it as the afflicted or the caregiver. It’s a tricky teacher. It can be the doorway to profound lessons and insights so long as the affected individuals do not get stuck in martyr/victim roles. I’ve definitely trafficked in the latter. (It’s easy to do!) A change in attitude does not lessen the burden of an illness, but it can avoid the needless suffering that goes along with it.

Amidst all the thoughts, case studies, and exercise provided in the book, I took away the lesson that one’s elder years can be a deeply fulfilling journey of coming back to oneself and finding deep-seated contentment and purpose. While I haven’t reached the culmination of my inner journey, I can attest to the merits of its pursuit. Per Zweig, the rewards of the journey include:

• Spiritual depth
• Equanimity in the face of challenges
• Openness, rather than judgment and premature closure
• The ability to focus attention here and now
• Clarity unclouded by desire or fear
• Compassion for the suffering of others
• Big-picture knowledge
• Humility beyond ego

The last of Frank Ostaseski’s Five Invitations is to cultivate don’t know mind – i.e., a mind characterized by curiosity, surprise, and wonder. This invitation does not encourage ignorance but rather a sense of exploratory innocence, without attachment to a view or outcome. As Zen Master Susuki Roshi says: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

Ostaseski argues that our culture encourages us to overidentify with the rational, thinking mind. We are afraid of losing control. When threatened, we either recoil, get angry, or become inflexible, believing ourselves, our views, and our memories to be right. And when memories are taken as truth, they go unquestioned. Yet neuroscience tells us that the human memory is neither objective nor truthful. Why not let go and see what new ideas or options might emerge?

Ostaseski encourages us to engage with life right where we are and sit in awareness of our emotions and experiences as they play out. This invitation asks that we let go of our busy-ness and predisposition toward setting agendas. We’re asked to let go of preconceived ideas about what should be happening or how we should be feeling and simply breathe. In a posture of not knowing, we can open up to a fertile boundlessness that transcends form and structure. In deep silence, we can plumb the depths of our basic nature.

“To know the sacred is not to see new things, but rather to see things in a new way. The sacred is not separate or different from all things; it is hidden in all things.”
― Frank Ostaseski, Buddhist hospice worker

“No my soul is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches, its clear eyes open, far-off things, and listens at the shores of the great silence.”
― Antonio Machado, poet

The fourth of Frank Ostaseski’s Five Invitations is to find a place of rest in the middle of things. I have to smile at this one. I’m forever thinking, “Once I get through this [project, deadline, situation, event, et al], then I can relax and enjoy myself.” Ostaseski encourages us to find rest within us no matter what’s going on in our lives.

When we are caught in a scarcity-driven mentality in which we believe there’s not enough time or resources for our needs, we can become trapped in a prison of our thoughts. We fuss and stress and worry and obsess. We treat our lives as something to be passed through. We tumble from one moment to the next. We forget that the cell door was never locked. We can get out any time!

We find rest when we are present for what happens right here, right now rather than let our minds wander the halls of fear and anxiety. It comes when we focus on what is important and not what’s urgent or insistent. It comes when we break the habit of busy-ness and let loose our fear of boredom and addiction to exhaustion. It comes when we give ourselves permission to experience a Sabbath without chastising ourselves for being idle. Rest is not a luxury. It is crucial for our physical, mental, and emotional health.

We cannot force ourselves to rest. That attempt becomes just another task on the “to do” list. But with mindfulness, we can learn to ease up on the thoughts and impulses that obstruct our contact with rest. Ostaseski points out three common poisons:

• Craving (greed) which fuels the false assumption that what we have is not enough
• Aversion (hatred) which proceeds from the mistaken belief that we can separate ourselves from all other life that calls this planet home
• Ignorance (delusion) which serves to disconnect us from reality and from our pain

Mindfulness serves as the antidote to these poisons. It enables us to explore the causes and conditions of our circumstances and respond skillfully to them. Ostaseski asks that we be open to how life unfolds; rest means allowing. Irish priest and philosopher John O’Donahue said it beautifully:

“We need to come home to the temple of our senses. Our bodies know that they belong… it is our minds that make us homeless.”

We come home as we sense the breath’s texture, rhythm, and pace. We give ourselves permission to slow down, to take in our surroundings, and feel our connection to the ground of being. Instead of striving and struggling, we find rest, restoration, and revitalization.

Ostaseski warns that mindfulness is not something to be “achieved.” He does not encourage numbing out as a means of grasping tranquility. Rather, it’s an awareness of what is happening. It welcomes thoughts, strong emotions, and associated energetic patterns without getting ensnared by them. It takes notice and then lets them dissipate on their own volition. Mindfulness is a means of becoming intimate with our inner landscape.

Life is precarious. We are encouraged to sustain a courageous practice when fear comes knocking. We can learn to discern the difference between the feeling of fear and the mental process that riffs off it. With love, we can learn to be steadfast, undefended, and vulnerable in its wake and come out stronger on the other side.

The third of Frank Ostaseski’s Five Invitations is to bring your whole self to the experience – from your best, strongest, and most fully formed self to your most vulnerable, imperfect, inexperienced, and weak self. Bring it all; don’t leave any of it out.

If we’re honest, most of us don’t live that way. We put our best feet forward and hide the parts of ourselves that we deem less desirable or fear that others might find objectionable. We may even go so far as to feel superior to others who display attributes that we’ve stuffed in ourselves. Yet when we’re embodying these personas, we’re inhabiting roles rather than engaging others and the world as our authentic selves. We’re letting those roles define and confine us. Ostaseski says: “Don’t be a role; be a soul.”

It is through our weakness and vulnerability that we are most able to connect with others. We find common ground through the courageous exploration of our shared human experience. We become helpless together and helpers together. We find wholeness by connecting to our innate capacity to heal and reconnecting with what we lost through fear and contraction. And when we reflect wholeness in others, we become a portal to their healing.

The initial steps in this direction involve taming the inner critic. Constant self-judgment diminishes the quality of life. We must address it on the road to self-acceptance and recognize that brokenness is part of wholeness. Brokenness is nothing to fear or avoid. It does not impinge upon our basic goodness. We need simply hold our imperfections with kindness and let wisdom navigate the move from judgment to discernment.

Love sets us free. Acceptance is a loving act of an open heart. It helps us face the critic and the truth of our circumstances and take wise action. It gives us the strength to change what we can and accept our foibles along the way. Love releases us from comparison, assessment, and rejection.

Mindfulness is the spiritual practice that helps us settle into the utter simplicity of being fully ourselves. It creates a presence that opens the heart and engenders compassionate acceptance of where we are. Through mindfulness, we become aware of our inner dramas without getting lost in them. We give ourselves space to be ourselves and curiosity to explore how we show up in the world.

We remain mindful of our pain and that of others and the world. We are exquisitely unique but not separate; we are interdependent. He/she/they are just like we are, and we wish them well. We seek genuine understanding and compassionate companionship. In that state of being, separation falls away. We live in service to one another. Per Rachel Naomi Remen:

“When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole.”

The second of Frank Ostaseski’s Five Invitations is a call to openness, to welcome whatever is happening in the moment – whether pleasant or unpleasant – in a spirit of hospitality. When receptive, we are free to discover, to investigate, to explore options, and to respond skillfully to whatever we encounter. We are liberated from living life reactively. He refers to that posture as a spacious, undefended, non-biased allowing. It renders us open to new life, experiences, opportunities for growth, and a tolerance for the unknown.

By contrast, denial breeds ignorance and fear. When we argue with reality, we lose every time. Like it or not, reality will keep coming back at us, bringing more suffering with each visitation. That being said, accepting reality does not imply resignation. Rather, it acknowledges what is and confers the freedom to develop a response. We retain agency in the conduct of our affairs.

For most of us, it’s especially difficult to turn toward suffering. We seek distractions to keep it at bay or find ways to sidestep it entirely. But such strategies make us live self-protective, small lives. Moreover, our distractions typically only provide temporary relief. For healing to occur, we must be willing to open up to pain and explore its many elements, one of which is our attitude toward it. Pain plus resistance equals suffering.

Pain plays an important role in our lives. It warns us of danger. It pinpoints aspects of our lives that need attention and care. It opens us up to deep connection and empathy with others. As we become adept at dealing with pain, we gain insights about ourselves, others, and the world that enable us to make skillful choices and act. And we can live in a world of change with greater ease.

An openness to pain can lead us toward the healing power of love. We need not be a heat-seeking missile for love. As Irish writer, priest, and philosopher John O’Donahue says: “We do not need to go out and find love; rather, we need to be still and let love discover us.” Such love springs forth from our very source of being. It recognizes and responds to intrinsic goodness. Ostaseski says:

“The sort of fearless openness required to turn toward our suffering is only possible within the spacious receptivity of love… [Love] provides us with a way of approaching life that softens the identification that keeps unskillful habits from hardening into character. Love helps us accept. Loving awareness helps us embrace it all.”

Through my coursework in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, I came across the work of Frank Ostaseski. He’s a Buddhist teacher, a leader in end-of-life care, and founding director of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco. He wrote an engaging book entitled The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully. He notes that life is short and precious. As such, we’re advised to cultivate thoughts and habits that lead to wholeness and steer clear of those that engender separation and suffering. He invites us to consider 5 strategies to do just that (which I’ll cover in individual posts).

The First Invitation: Don’t Wait.

Life is a study of constant change. The breath arises and falls away. Thoughts, emotions, and sensations come and go. Relationships have their ebbs and flows. Mother nature has changing seasons along with unpredictably cataclysmic events. We don’t have the power grasp on to what we enjoy and keep unpleasantness at bay. We receive it all. As such, we are invited to live in harmony with life’s impermanence and experience the wonder and beauty of each moment in gratitude. For each dissolving brings forth an opportunity for becoming.

Don’t wait for permission, encouragement, or the “right” conditions to step fully into life. Don’t sit on the sidelines hoping to rewrite history or secure guarantees for the future. Don’t waste life on meaningless activity.

What does “not waiting” look like for Ostaseski?

It means living in an open, receptive quality of mind. It means allowing objects, experiences, states of mind, and hearts to unfold with neither a penchant for grasping or avoidance. A life lived in openness provides a sense of freedom and an ability to sustain continuous contact with reality.

For the naysayers among us, I’d interject that a state of openness implies neither inaction nor aimless wandering. Living fully demands that we clarify our values, find meaning in the course we set for our lives, and move forward with positive action. We do that with a relaxed and spacious attitude that allows for the revelation of the moment, not wrestling with it. We participate in life’s unfolding.

A substantive player in Ostaseski’s “not waiting” philosophy revolves around forgiveness. Speaking from personal experience, I find forgiveness difficult, especially when the underlying hurt and pain are acute. It takes strength to shine a light on the underlying issues and explore my role in them. And I can get stuck in being right about the matter; forgiveness feels like capitulation.

Ostaseski reminds us that forgiveness is not about forgetting or condoning bad behavior. It’s not about securing acknowledgment or recompense from the party or parties toward whom we feel aggrieved. He says resistance to forgiveness is like grabbing a hot coal and saying, “I’m not going to let go until you apologize and pay for what you did to me.” No! Forgiveness is for forgivers. It releases us from the contraction of bitterness and frees us to rediscover our inner peace. It shakes loose the calcification around our hearts and opens us up to experience more love. Reconciliation need not be part of the equation.

Ostaseski deems forgiveness a form of self-acceptance and self-care. It’s an invaluable tool for releasing pain that only hurts ourselves. He does not want us to wait to do it until we’re knocking on death’s door.