The Inner Work of Age

Shifting from Role to Soul

By: Connie Zweig, Harry R. Moody - foreword

Narrated by: Kristy Gill

• Offers shadow-work and many diverse spiritual practices to help you break through denial to awareness, move from self-rejection to self-acceptance, repair the past to be fully present, and allow mortality to be a teacher
• Reveals how to use inner work to uncover and explore the unconscious denial and resistance that erupts around key thresholds of later life
• Includes personal interviews with prominent Elders, including Ken Wilber, Krishna Das, Fr. Thomas Keating, Anna Douglas, James Hollis, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Ashton Applewhite, Roshi Wendy Nakao, Roger Walsh, and Stanislav Grof

With extended longevity comes the opportunity for extended personal growth and spiritual development. You now have the chance to become an Elder, to leave behind past roles, shift from work in the outer world to inner work with the soul, and become authentically who you are. This book is a guide to help get past the inner obstacles and embrace the hidden spiritual gifts of age.

Offering a radical reimagining of age for all generations, psychotherapist and best-selling author Connie Zweig reveals how to use inner work to uncover and explore the unconscious denial and resistance that erupts around key thresholds of later life, attune to your soul’s longing, and emerge renewed as an Elder filled with vitality and purpose. She explores the obstacles encountered in the transition to wise Elder and offers psychological shadow-work and diverse spiritual practices to help you break through denial to awareness, move from self-rejection to self-acceptance, repair the past to be fully present, reclaim your creativity, and allow mortality to be a teacher. Sharing contemplative practices for self-reflection, she also reveals how to discover ways to share your talents and wisdom to become a force for change in the lives of others.

Woven throughout with wisdom from prominent Elders, including Ken Wilber, Krishna Das, Father Thomas Keating, Anna Douglas, James Hollis, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Ashton Applewhite, Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, Roger Walsh, and Stanislav Grof, this book offers tools and guidance to help you let go of past roles, expand your identity, deepen self-knowledge, and move through these life passages to a new stage of awareness, choosing to be fully real, transparent, and free to embrace a fulfilling late life.

©2021 Connie Zweig. All Rights Reserved. (P)2021 Inner Traditions Audio. All Rights Reserved.

Critic reviews

“As Connie Zweig points out in her deep and comprehensive book, it isn’t easy to age well when a human life is seen as a problem to be solved. In this time of rapid change, we need more of an inner experience. This valuable book will help you sort out what is important in life from what is a distraction. Getting old is a challenge, but it can be a joy.” (Thomas Moore, New York Times best-selling author of Care of the Soul)

“The Inner Work of Age is an inspiring roadmap to uncover our motivations for what we do with our precious long lives. Even after many years of teaching positive aging and activism, this book has me questioning and exploring my inner self to consider my future choices.” (Lynne Iser, president of Elders Action Network)

“We need stories of possibility. This is a rare book distilled from Connie’s deep and broad experience studying the leap from adulthood to elderhood. When I read it, I knew I was in the presence of a wise guide.” (Richard Leider, author of The Power of Purpose)

Could not finish this. Boring and depressing

If you are interested in being lectured to about how best to grow old in a politically woke world, this is the book for you! I found it, depressing, and filled with advice on how to fade into obscurity.

Thought Provoking Resource

This book speaks to the developmental tasks of aging in a way that feels at once therapeutic and accessible. I’ve listened to it on Audible and plan to re-read it in traditional book for so I can pause and spend time in contemplation. I am a true believer that learning is an iterative process and this book invites deeper and deeper exploration. I hope you take away as much as I did from it. I look forward to sharing it with my spouse and friends so we can explore all it has to offer together. Thank you, Connie Zweig, for sharing your thoughts and learnings with us all.

Related

Unfortunately I couldn’t barely listen to the narrator. She had no intonation, didn’t know how to pronounce some of the words, and didn’t pause between chapters. It was difficult to listen.

The woke vibe

Shadow work…. I didn’t finish because if you are coming from Wokeness — the latest trend in shallow sociocultural zeitzeitgeist then you just don’t have much gravitas imo.

What??

I reached where she saw an old lady with wrinkled skin in a cafè and asked herself "what is she doing here?" because it reminded her how much she hated aging. What?? that's just awful. what' kind of person thinks like that? I thought we all see an old person and admire their courage to continue living and want to help them if they're having difficulty walking or pushing trolleys etc. I couldn't read anymore.....felt a little like throwing up.

Read the book - audio narration is painful

The content is timely for me. There are many thoughtful stories and insights in finding who we are as we age. I decided to read it versus listen. The narrator sounds like someone reading 15 hours of phone book listings. She is choppy, halting and devoid of most emotion. I hate to have to write this review but, it is what it is. Sorry. Honestly I've heard robotic voices of late that are easier to listen to.