How Are You Meeting the Changes That Come With Aging?

Deep dive meditation from Jac's 'Aging Consciously’ retreat. As we age we are given many opportunities to let go and practice non-attachment. Heal your fears around the process of getting old and gain a new perspective on aging.

Transcript

Make sure your body is relaxed,

Your beautiful body is relaxed.

Just do a check.

Face,

Shoulders dropped,

Belly loose.

Hands unclenched,

Feet not curled up.

Back muscles relaxed.

Let your gaze be soft.

Let these words come to you rather than straining your attention.

Let these words come to you.

If your next exhale were to be your last,

How would you do it?

Play for a minute with an exhale as if your spirit has left,

You know you're done,

And it's your last breath.

Play with it for a minute.

How would you do your final exhale?

Because you will have a final exhale,

You will.

Notice if your exhale has a bit of fear,

Contraction,

Or is your exhale loose,

Open,

Free?

Are you dissolving with the exhale?

The air that's going out,

Are you merging with all?

Play with it.

I can see some people yawning,

Which is great,

Because when we're doing this kind of work,

Yawning is about releasing them.

Release.

An authentic exhale.

Not the right way to do it,

But the way that it might really happen if you have that knowing.

This is the last exhale.

Am I letting go?

Am I saying yes to it?

Am I dissolving with it?

It's quite possible that your mind will have one approach to it,

And that your belly will have a different one.

Bring your awareness to your belly to see how the final exhale registers there.

Any tension in your belly,

Because that's where it will be.

Ageing is all body stuff.

See if your belly can be just a little more free and more loose around your final exhale.

Moving on,

Bless the beautiful body,

And shift your internal lens of perception by using the phrase,

I'm not just that body,

I'm more than that body.

Let's try this one.

That body has made experiencing possible,

But I'm not it.

It's my experiencing carbon unit,

And I'm not it.

Notice if you can feel the zone where this is true.

What I really am was before this body existed or was present or was as full and complete before this body.

What I am was before this body.

What I am is,

Even with the distraction of this body and the expression of this body,

And what I am will be when this body dies.

Do your best to dial into where that is true.

Touch,

Taste,

Feel into the frequency of that which is not your body.

That unending continuum infinite.

You can call it isness being formless.

You can call it love,

You can call it energy,

You can call it God.

The experience of it is a lot more important than the label.

Do your best to shift fully into the lens of perception that was here before and is now and will be here after time itself,

After your body.

Untouched by the incarnation of your body.

Stand fully in it and view your body from that lens of perception.

Bless that beautiful body.

Notice if your experience is that you are observing the body objectively,

Or notice if there is a field of love that is coming from that deeper viewpoint towards the body.

Just notice.

The benign observer is the impersonal and when the field of love is holding how you view and the body itself,

Then the heart center is open.

It is a deeper viewing point.

Just know what is happening for you.

Now I'd like you to,

As you're looking at the body,

I'd like you to fast forward a 10 years and assume you'll still be alive.

And have a look at what your body,

As if you're scooting down the timeline 10 years.

If you're young,

No,

Scoot forward to your 90s.

And have a look at how that viewing point presents an image of your body.

What do you look like?

Let's assume you die of old age,

Natural causes.

Let's have an image of you one year before you die of old age.

Now let's see what your mind does with that projection.

A year before you die of old age,

What has your mind lined up for you to experience?

It might be your mind and it might be pure awareness.

At the moment they might be mixed.

A year before you die,

Are you able to walk?

How are your bodily functions?

Can you control peeing and pooping?

Are you upright?

Are you stooped?

Can you cook for yourself?

Can you feed yourself?

Do you recognise friends and family?

How does the image of you a year before you die of old age feel to you right now?

What's the reaction in your present day you to you a year before you die of old age?

How does it feel?

Are you scared of it?

Or is there total acceptance that your body is still with it?

Or are you like,

Nah,

That'll never happen,

I'm just playing a game.

What's going on?

Notice if you're in denial.

Nah,

I'm fit and healthy,

I do yoga continually and I'm like nearly 70 or I'll be fine.

Like,

Just check for denial,

Just check for denial.

You might not be able to control what's in front of you.

Let's go there.

Let whatever image wants to come up,

Let it come up.

This is where our fears are lurking and this is where our unconscious and perhaps conscious conditioning is in bed with our fears.

Let it come up.

In some situations,

You might have family that,

Oh,

They'll be fine,

They'll totally take care of me.

Or,

Yeah,

I'm going to go to nursing care and they'll totally take care of me.

No,

Circumstances change.

Maybe it's not as certain around how and who care will be,

That your care will be managed.

Let that come to.

I want to pull back wherever the controller and the denial mechanism is at play to really see,

OK,

What is going on here?

Be with how it feels.

Do you get the sense that you'll be lonely?

Do you get the sense that you will be disoriented?

Is there a fear of losing your independence?

You get the sense of being dependent.

Are there people there to take that you can be dependent on to take care of you or not?

You get the sense of being dependent on your independence.

My prayer is that every fear be healed.

Every contracted thought.

Be loosened.

Every attachment.

To how we want our.

Most aged experience to roll out.

That we say yes to it.

Whatever it presents,

However it comes,

That we say yes to.

Authentically saying yes to it.

And so my prayer is that.

That each of us allows.

These fears and ideas to be seen,

To be held.

Within this group.

To be held.

In the love that is you.

So that signs of the controller can be dissolved so that fear of aloneness can be seen through.

So that projections.

That serve to.

As a repository,

As a reservoir of.

Fear and denial.

Contraction.

That we can open this together.

And let it go.

So.

Each of you will have had your own experience right now.

And I hope that every one of us has seen.

Oh,

Yeah,

Kind of I'm scared of that.

Oh,

I wonder could that happen or else now.

Watch the denial,

Watch the denial.

So together.

I'm just going to create a field of huge love.

So together,

Let's place our fears,

Our attachments.

Our projections,

The ones that are less than useful.

Let's place them in this reservoir that is held by love.

And let's ask that they be transformed,

Illuminated and released.

Offer them up for healing.

To that which supports all.

Hand over these fears.

Let them go back to where they came from.

Don't stick to them anymore.

Enough already.

See if you feel a little bit different in your body.

Can you send it out there and I'm out of that.

Ideally,

You know that there is a new detachment coming in if you can go,

OK,

OK.

I'm I'm separate from that bundle.

Just notice if you can do that and notice if you can't,

If you're like,

Mm hmm,

No,

That stuff is deep.

I'm going to be a.

A pauper on the side of the street because I haven't planned at all for when I'm not able to work.

Even place that.

And a lot of spiritual people have found themselves in that situation.

Even place that fear.

In the hands of love,

Love itself.

Monitor inside to see if you can feel a little bit of looseness,

A little bit of looseness.

This is the first piece of letting go.

The first piece of surgery,

Of acknowledging.

The first look at where.

Our fears may lie.

So separate a bit.

See if you can feel.

OK.

And bless that.

Bundle of projection into the future.

Bless.

Bless.

Bless.

Because really.

It is what lies within our thinking mind.

And if we heal and see through the contractions of our mind.

What does happen to us?

Which we can't control anyway.

Lens in a different way is experienced in a different way.

Even if you're going to be coming in and out of confused states,

Even if you're going to be,

You know.

Pretty dependent on others.

If you abide in your beingness.

It's actually a total gem.

But we'll get there.

We'll get there to where you're able to say yes to this to.

Freedom lies in saying yes to whatever the heck wants to happen.

Not because you're in denial of the suffering it can cause,

But there's absolute clarity.

Around what it is that is experiencing.

And what it is that is watching the experience and what it is that that is untouched by the experience.

And what is enjoying the experience,

No matter how shitty it is.

What it is that enjoys the divine play.

That's the place I want to take you.

Around your aging body.

That is enjoyed because there's total yes to what is.

To what wants to show up.

We need more of you to be present.

And while your attention is harbouring contractions with fears,

With stories,

What aging.

Presents resistance as to us while your brain is supporting.

And thoughts that are contracting in this way.

There isn't enough capacity within you to enjoy it.

To be in that viewpoint where actually this this kind of just joy all the time,

Phenomenal experiences.

Sure,

It's rough from that perspective,

From the personal perspective,

But that's like that's just such a little tiny part.

I'm not denying it.

It's there.

But heck,

Like that can't throw me at all,

No matter the experience.

It doesn't throw me at all because this is what I am.

Let's clear the fears.

Let's clear the fears.

Be present to anything can happen.

And my worst fear of what my life will be like a year before I die.

If there is the worst fear.

That I can find in my conscious mind or my own conscious mind.

I'm going to say yes to that.

OK,

What's it like to say yes to that?

What is a challenge?

Where is the identification?

Where is their attachment?

So if we clear those layers,

Then we can be present to whatever the heck wants to show up,

Like bring it on,

Bring it on.

I want you to feel that free.

Around aging,

Because then you're conscious,

You're not hiding behind anything.

Identification with the body has that we've unglued sticking spots.

There's no reason why you can't be dignified and incontinent,

Dignified and hunched over with a walking frame.

Dignified and the world has deemed you invisible and voiceless.

That's your perception.

Bless you.

Bless you.

I want you to go to the place of where you don't even notice the perception,

The public perception.

That's where I want you to be,

Where you don't even it doesn't even come into your stratosphere of what other people how other people see you.

But to get there,

You've got to change how you are plugged into public perception,

Which is the way that you might see older people as being vulnerable and helpless and weak.

Sad,

You pity them.

You've got to unplug from that yourself or else you'll always be dancing with that perception.

You'll either be feeding into that perception,

Which most of us are now,

Or,

You know,

You'll be the recipient of that perception.

You've got to break your connection with that collective consciousness.

Society has made us fear aging because society has deemed it a time of you losing power,

You lose,

Lose,

Losing,

Losing.

Pure consciousness doesn't have any problem with whatever comes is going to go.

Vitality comes,

It goes,

Youth comes,

It goes,

Being ambulatory comes,

Goes.

It's absolutely organic,

Like leaves come on the trees,

They fall off.

It's absolutely organic.

But we've bought into the collective consciousness that it's not OK because we believe we are our body and we believe that our identity and our status is all attached to us being capable.

And I want to demolish all of that for you with you.

Living from a place of love is conceptual.

I'm I'm my gig is about bring you bringing you to an embodied awakened state.

The embodied awakened state.

Is very often blocked with fears that we have around aging,

Conscious and unconscious.

Even if we're young,

If you have projections to older people around them being powerless and.

Yes,

Of course,

Of course,

You have.

Judgments there that the present moment isn't doing,

But a conditioned thinking mechanism is doing,

And you will try to avoid being in that position because it's unfavorable.

And so here we're on our thing,

The fear pockets so that we can be present to what is not in a conceptual way.

Then we go to the impersonal,

The impersonal viewpoint of the physical body,

Which is not dissociated,

But it's an impersonal viewpoint.

This is the body that is deliciously inviting all kinds of experiences,

And it might invite the experience of of having,

You know,

Being in content and being having dementia.

And I'm going to say yes to that,

Too.

All right.

As we shift them from the we gouge out our plugging into belief systems,

We shift,

We dissolve fears,

We shift into the impersonal and we go from the impersonal into the absolute.

Live from there.

If we say,

Oh,

That's living from love,

That's not what I'm talking about.

It's an internal shift.

It means that beingness is how you perceive the world and your mind is there to serve what is moving through your form.

That's the awakened state.

And that's my gig is to bring you guys there.

So we're clearing all the crapology that is tied up with the idea of aging,

Which is creating attachment to the body and attachment to fear.

That's the gig.

That's the gig.

It's about living in the awakened state and what does that look like as I age?

Can I abide in the awakened state,

Even if I'm gone dulel?

And even if I'm completely dependent on others.

And by doing that,

There will be,

By consequence,

Love,

There will be dignity.

There will be a role that is being played.

So the consequence of living in the awakened state as you age.

It's love.

Reviews

A novel and punchy meditation. I appreciated the encouragement to face our fears and get granular with those and also the highlighting of how we can show up to whatever comes. I felt a borrowing of some of her openness, strength and acceptance. It helped me realise that some of my current concerns are no need to be concerned about. Thank you.

More of a talk than a meditation but powerful, necessary, freeing message. I sat with it in silence for another 15 minutes after.

what a generous gift of a potent contemplation! all the steps of consideration and invitations to really looking felt supportive and encouraging! As a 58 year old yoga teacher with arthritis, who has had a bit of panic coming up as i look at my future, am SO grateful for the reminder of remaining as Beingness.

Thank you. That was epic. And confronting. And a little jarring at the end, but still so good. I think this meditation is also a little beyond accepting aging and more about accepting death and dying. Which is so relevant. Thank you.