Accepting Vulnerability for Conscious Aging - A Personal Account
Dear Friends and Visitors, I am writing today, over a year after I created this site, to explain why there have been no follow ups to your emails and no further blogs. The short answer is that a few weeks after putting up the site and starting a year-long group on Conscious Aging, I injured my lower back so severely that I was laid out flat for two solid months. A combination of intense physical activities within a twenty four hour period reached a critical mass of strain leading to one herniated disk and one bulging disk, L3 and L4. Racking sciatica sent me to the emergency room twice.
It was a long recovery process that fortunately did not require surgery but took all my energy, thus my website fell into oblivion. Couldn’t walk, stand or sit. Was totally dependent upon others for all my basic needs. It gave me a preview of how health challenges in the aging years can bring loss of independence, fear, depression and feelings of helplessness. Over a lengthy period of time and with all kinds of therapy and spiritual work, my back injury did heal but I was faced with accepting the fact that I now have a “vulnerability” which will probably be with me the rest of my life.
When I listen to its guidance about posture while standing, sitting, working, lifting, the balance between exercise and rest, moving and stretching, I do fine - able to resume all my previous activities except running, so I hike instead. This past fall I was able to put on a forty pound backback and lead my yearly vision quest group into the Sierra, listening all the way to the guidance I was getting from my back on how to make it work. When I don’t listen to the guidance my back gives me, when I don’t heed its advice and try to push forward, I get the direct consequence of pain. I learned from pain that I needed to reframe my “vulnerability” from that of an enemy attacking me to instead seeing it as an ally, a helper, working to bring me into greater awareness of how I physically move in the world. This attitudinal shift helps me go forward with my life with a positive energy instead of feeling sorry for myself, angry at my fate, and frustrated that I’m damaged goods.
The year of healing was a journey of exploration and soul searching. At the very beginning of the journey, lying on a hospital bed in the emergency room in agony, I heard a soft inner voice - “There is a wisdom within you that knows how to heal. There is a wisdom available to you that knows how to heal. Your job is to listen to it, learn from it. Let go of schedules and surrender to the process. It will take the time it takes but if you work with it, you will be well again.” It worked! I am back, my back is back, and so is the website with the arrival of this writing.
I believe that the injury and healing process was a gift of grace that took me into deeper understanding of the challenges of aging and how to work with them in a skillful way that brings practical results, like pain relief and peace of mind. I found out what works and what doesn’t.
You can read the whole account of my healing journey by emailing me: tom@anewvisionofaging.com and requesting the article I wrote describing in detail the teachings that came through the experience.
I am excited to bring the fruits of the learning into my New Vision of Aging work. In addition to lectures and workshops on the Five Developmental Steps to Conscious Aging, I now offer a new workshop - “Hardiness Factor Training for Emotional Resilience in Times of Challenge, Crisis and Change”. This training can be offered in a variety of formats - day long, half day, evenings and weekends which allow for greater depth and more intensive information. Participants learn the three key attitudinal attributes of building a hardy, stress-resilient mind-set along with practical behavioral skills and tools to use in daily life. Equipped with the right understanding and a well-stocked tool kit, one can look forward to creating responses to the very real challenges of aging, including our vulnerabilities and losses, that grow us into our fullest potentials for creative expression, for meaningful contributions to society and towards the loving beings that constitute the essence of who we are and our purpose in being here.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about my work and/or to explore how I might be of service to you or your organization helping to empower us all in using the natural process of aging to enrich our lives and make it the most fruitful and meaningful time of all.
Thank you.
Yours’ for Conscious Aging - Dr. Tom Pinkson
PS - My next public presentation will be May 6th at the Jewish Family and Children’s Service Center in San Rafael, CA speaking on “HOW TO WORK WITH THE CHALLENGES OF AGING TO GROW US TO OUR FULLEST POTENTIAL.”
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