Befriending the Aging Process is a trauma-informed approach to exploring, resolving, and integrating anger and fear about aging.
This trauma-informed approach is especially useful when feeling marginalized and / or isolated because of age.
A trauma-informed approach to aging includes:
Creating and practising thought-and-action habits to support agency and self-efficacy regardless of age and physical condition, and . . .
learning and practising self- and co-regulating techniques to soothe in-the-moment fears in order to identify the gifts and strengths of the aging process.
Befriending the “guardians” that manifest as resistance to addressing our negative expectations about aging means we replace an adversarial approach to resistance for a co-operative approach.
Instead of fighting resistance by denying or cursing it, we work with resistance by becoming friendly and curious.
Asking, in a kindly and concerned way,
“I wonder what purpose this resistance to changing my attitude to and beliefs about aging serves?”
opens us to a world of creative responses.
Keeping track of responses in a journal using a cursive writing practice is an indispensible tool in befriending and transforming the resistance that keeps us fearful or angry about aging.
Here in western culture, we can’t help but absorb the commericial messages emphasizing all the things that can and do affect us as we age. What we see far less frequently are the examples of the resourcefulness many older adults develop to address their aging challenges. Yes, drugs are helpfu in reducing painful joints and high blood pressure and macular degeneration. But so are our intuitive responses to self care.
For example, speaking with painful or deteriorating parts of the body, moving our warm healing hands over these parts, and writing our reflections about this process specifically and becoming an older person generally, support a caring rather than a punitive approach.
This caring approach is similar to the loving and kind responses we show to our Beloved human and animal companions when they are suffering. Seeing the body as a loving companion begins an expansive relationship journey that proves both healing and revelatory.
To learn more tools to bring to the befriending process for aging and any emotionally charged issues, see
Adverse Childhood Experiences, Adult Trauma, and the Return to Wholeness
Order online or through independent bookstores in Canada and the US.
Finally, it helps to remember that in our anti-aging culture, becoming old can be a traumatic experience that reactivates any unhealed traumas we experienced when younger. The tools we learn to support healthy, resourced, and joyful aging, will help to resolve any earlier issues that may ask for our attention.
Should you find Adverse Childhood Experiences . . ., useful for aging and other issues that unsettle, I invite you to share your experiences with me at jane@winterbloom.net
Thanks for visiting Winter Blooms.
If you like the tone and content of Winter Blooms, please share. We all need more creative “work-arounds” as we navigate these very challenging times.
Jane