GRAND Magazine - Fall 2021 - 17

aging
We who have birthed
not just one but two generations
comprise a cohort
of lifelong seekers. We've
grown through many of the
stages of life, drawn forward
by a yearning for something
more. We've navigated crisis
and we've seized opportunity.
We have learned that when
it comes to our children and
grandchildren, the love in our
hearts is all for the good and
can be trusted. And so it is that I
wish us all a safe and easy journey
through the rest of life. But
history, both personal and communal,
reports that not all the
storms are behind us and more
often than not, the sea of life
upon which we and our offspring
set forth will toss us about, waves
lashing first our bow then our
stern.
"
When it comes to transiting into and
through challenges, the losses that
come about with advancing age turn
out to be the very means
of advancement.
17 GRAND Fall 2021
"
Here's the good news.
Growing older has an advantage
and in the sequence
of the life stages represents
an order, an internal logic
and a progression leading
author and mystic John
C. Robinson to refer to
aging as " evolution in slow
motion. " For those of us
who have been lifelong
seekers, we are discovering
a world inhabited by
old souls where things
that once caused you
pain or compulsion no
longer carry the power to
devastate. Amends and
forgiveness, compassion
and expanded perspective
come quicker and
easier and you rarely fall
into the pit of taking
seriously the familiar but
outgrown stories about the
inevitability of worst possible outcomes for long.
There have been many who have endured the
rougher passages of the journey to the world of old
souls and survived to tell the tale, writers and teachers
like Ram Dass, Florida Scott-Maxwell and Joan
Chittister. Not only did they survive, but they emerged
more vital, more integrated, more connected to life's
possibilities, not despite of, but because of having
undergone challenges. What they discovered is that
where your world temporarily seems to fall apart is
also the place where the status quo has the least grip
on you, and where you are most able to let go of old
structures, illusions and outgrown ways of being and
take up the new. When it comes to transiting into
and through challenges, the losses that come about
with advancing age turn out to be the very means of
advancement.
Here, the charge is to confront and then clear away
the debris of regret, victimhood, blame, self-doubt
and all manner of misunderstanding from your path.
Love-for self and those for whom you care-is the
only prerequisite, providing a reliable reservoir of
qualities from which to draw. Patience; compassion
for self, others and the world; generosity and faith.
And finally, however long or short your lifespan, the
number of setbacks and breakthroughs along the
way, there will, at last, be an arrival. None of the facts
of your life needs to change, you will still be you,
and if anything, more so. But that which you have
yearned for all your life will no longer elude you. You
will have not only grown old: You will have grown an
old soul.
Carol Orsborn, Ph.D. is the author
of over 30 critically-acclaimed
books about life stage development
including The Making of an Old
Soul: Aging as the Fulfillment of Life's
Promise and Older, Wiser, Fiercer:
The Wisdom Collection. Dr. Orsborn
received her Doctorate in Religion
from Vanderbilt University. She
blogs at CarolOrsborn.com
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GRAND Magazine - Fall 2021

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