EFT & Aging

The Optimism of Aging

Aging in a culture that fears death and denies old age presents very real challenges. We often accommodate our culture’s aging expectations by pretending we are in a state of perpetual youth through extremes of diet and exercise, cosmetic surgeries, and total immersion in the “lookism” – Mary Pipher’s contribution to our cultural lexicon – of our current celebrity-obsessed dominant culture; in Pipher’s insightful take on cultural pressures, lookism describes how many people live as if always in front of a hidden camera filming a reality TV show. 

It doesn’t have to be this way, and for many adults who have learned how to focus on the meaning of aging, it is not. After all, aging is considered a rewarding experience in cultures that value insight and wisdom. We North Americans can learn to value our aging bodies and maturing emotional intelligence as unique sources of the knowledge this process bestows on those who surrender to and find value in its tranformational energies. Many of us are already articulating the value of aging in our personal and professional lives. 

Baby Boomers, people born in the years between 1944 and 1964 (the original designation was 1944 to 1953 according to Brainiac Blogger Joshua Glenn) are in the very best place to contribute to positive attitudes about aging. We are millions strong and generally privileged to be well educated, energetic, and, for the most part, in touch with the spiritual dimension of life. This last characteristic primes us to view the aging process not through the lens of loss, but rather through the “What Now?” lens, one of our demographic’s favourite questions. 

When we feel stuck in a depressing view of ourselves as we age, daily use of EFT radically alters our experience of growing older in this tyrannical, looks-obsessed culture. I speak from personal experience when I speak of EFT’s ability to transform aging issues. I, along with my clients, have addressed body image distortions, resistance to exercise, a sense of physical betrayal, financial uncertainty, and many other issues.

EFT doesn’t “manage” our fears about aging; it extinguishes them.  Daily EFT release work leaves us free of the drag of fear that prevents us from enjoying what we do have as older adults – the insight and wisdom that come from decades of experience, the unique experience of power that we sense in the oldest trees in our natural environment, and the juiciness we feel when we are utilizing all our skills, abilities, and passion in our personal, social, community, and work relationships.