Image by Gerd Altmann
Watch the video version on YouTube.
Narrated by Marie T. Russell.
InnerSelf's Daily Inspiration
January 9, 2024
The focus for today is:
I re-orient myself to self-acceptance,
self-care, and self-actualization.
Today's inspiration was written by Connie Zweig:
Emphasis on working and doing has a shadow side: it stresses that purpose comes through productivity and doesn’t appear to include more service-oriented doing or more contemplative, spiritual development. Shadow-work, which reorients us to our inner depths, can help us release these past identities and attune to soul.
My friend Steve Wolf likes to point out that shadow characters begin as protectors and end up as saboteurs. Let’s examine this idea. The inner ageist, the part of us that denies aging, protects our identification with the youthful, carefree spirit in us who revels in possibilities. Our inner ageist also may protect us from mortality awareness until we are ready to deal with it.
When we are mature and need to adapt to aging, but we continue to unconsciously identify with the inner ageist, then we are locked into denial—and it sabotages us. In late life, this keeps us from self-acceptance, self-care, and self-actualization. It keeps us in puer aeternus, the eternal youth, who lives in dreams and possibilities, but not in reality.
CONTINUE READING:
Today's inspiration was adapted from the InnerSelf.com article:
Reinventing Yourself in Retirement with a New Life Purpose
Written by Connie Zweig, Ph.D.
Read the complete article here.
This is Marie T. Russell, co-publisher of InnerSelf.com, wishing you a day of self-acceptance, self-care, and self-actualization (today and every day)
Comment from Marie: In a world of doing-doing-and doing more, we would do well to remember the real work of self-actualization : discovering and living from our true self.
Our focus for today: I re-orient myself to self-acceptance, self-care, and self-actualization.
Subscribe here to join me for the next installment of "InnerSelf's Daily Inspiration".
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RELATED BOOK: The Inner Work of Age
The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul
by Connie Zweig PhD.
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 bestselling author Connie Zweig 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.
For more info and/or to order this book, click here. Also available as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow, author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi. Her forthcoming book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, (Sept. 2021), extends shadow-work into late life and teaches aging as a spiritual practice. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for 50 years. She is a wife and grandmother and was initiated as an Elder by Sage-ing International in 2017. After investing in all these roles, she is practicing the shift from role to soul.
Visit the author's website: ConnieZweig.com
