Choices, Growth and Inner Freedom in the Second Half Of Life

Choices, Growth and Inner Freedom in the Second Half Of Life

A One Year Program

It is both my personal and professional experience that most people in our society are extremely ill-equipped to deal with the psychological issues, challenges and potential inherent in the second half of life. The so-called mid-life crisis is both inevitable and necessary. This is so because what is required in the second half of life to experience deep personal meaning, happiness and fulfillment is nearly the mirror opposite of that which is asked of its first half.

The way we form ourselves in life’s morning and afternoon is a response (often an adaptive and ill-serving one) to what our parents, schools, religion, culture and the demands of making it the world have asked of us. It is predominantly a social script. It must answer questions like: “How can I separate from my parents? Enter the world and turn myself into a social identity? Develop a strong and capable ego and create healthy relationships (often a contradiction in terms)? Fashion and advance in a career?” But in order to experience deep and abiding personal happiness and inner peace in life’s later afternoon and evening, the worm turns. The questions that must be successfully answered are all spiritual at their core: “Who am I? Who am I behind the roles I have lived and the expectations I have met? What does my soul or authentic self ask me to be in this life? What is the nature of life and death? Do I have a personal relationship with a Transcendent Force or Spirituality and how can I surrender more and more of myself to its guidance and care?”

Whereas the first half of life is all about (the illusion of) defining personal safety and security by acquiring things – education, material possessions, property, status, reputation and power, in order to experience any real measure of inner safety and security in the second half of life the exact opposite is called for – the gracious, trusting relinquishment of much, and eventually all, of what we have acquired for subjectively-based and inwardly-felt realities and values.

This One Year Program will support you in examining and releasing the blockages to your own personal, authentic spirituality and authority. In regard to spirituality, we will look at and begin to release your aggressive/defensive ego consciousness’s (the part of you that is survival-oriented and fear-based) real beliefs, judgments and accumulated grievances with God as you know of God to be. In the matter of becoming your own personal authority, we will explore how the adaptive and reactive strategies from your childhood and early life still prevent you today from making your own choices on how to be. Healing this will enable you to experience much more inner freedom and release you to live your own life, and no one else’s.

Format:

6 experiential weekend workshops spaced approximately 2 months apart beginning late February, 2011; buddy system; and optional weekly support group meetings (highly recommended)

Requirement:

You will be asked to partake in a spiritual practice of your choice – yoga, meditation, tai-chi, walks in nature, readings, attendance at a formal religious service, etc. throughout the year and Joel will be bringing in the teachings of A Course In Miracles.

Cost:

$1650 + HST + the purchase of two books – Joel’s Healing Your Relationship With Yourself: End Inner Conflict by Developing A Harmonious Inner Family and James Hollis’ What Matters Most: Living A Considered Life

To register:

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