Swedish sociologist Lars Tornstam proposed a theory of gerotranscendence, the notion that with age comes a radically different life outlook reflecting a cosmological shift in perception. Tornstam argued that when activity aging theory eclipsed disengagement theory something of vital importance was lost. Disengagement theorists highlighted an inward reflective tendency emerging in later life that denoted a change in how older people saw the world and their places within it. The problem, said Tornstam, was that these older individuals had limited resources for cultivating the new perspective that was emerging in their lives. (more…)

When we have a very ill loved one, it occupies our thoughts constantly. Our mind has a way of sifting through the information that we hear from their medical providers, rejecting the negative and holding tight to the positive. Even when confronted with the information that our loved one’s situation is dire, we may continue to refuse to see death as a possibility. (more…)

Like most of my boomer friends, I’ve watched my hard-earned money invested in the stock market melt away before my eyes. Down 30 - 40 - now 50%!!!

If I were 25 I wouldn’t be so concerned. There’s lots of time for the market to get bullish again when you are only 25. But as a midlifer, time is not so long-term and it’s likely the market will never give back what it has taken away in the time I have left before my retirement. (more…)

One of the biggest obstacles my clients struggle with is that it may be time to tell their parents what to do. They’ll tell me they’ve asked their parent to do this or suggested they try that and their mother or father hasn’t followed through. They wonder how they should approach it with them now. When I suggest that it may be time to be more direct with their parents, their response is usually, “I can do that?”

There does come a time when you can no longer wait for your parents to act. (more…)

At a certain point, one’s perceptions of aging become inter- twined with perceptions of oneself. In the experience of aging, my credentials get better every day! As a pastoral theologian, I live in a creative tension between the established dogma and practice of my personal faith on the one hand, and the more generic, encompassing spiritual dimension that is presented here without any primary or specific religious connotation on the other hand. (more…)