The Inevitability of Aging

As most of you know, I am all about yoga for healthy aging. I love teaching ways yoga can positively influence our quality of life, support our ability to stay active and engaged, and extend our “healthspan” so that we can live longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives.

I also recognize the other side of the aging coin, especially when sharing insights from Yoga for Healthy Aging about cultivating equanimity. Equanimity is helpful when life feels joyful and expansive, but its deepest value often appears when we’re faced with the worrisome, unwanted, or even frightening changes that arise over time—and with increasing regularity as we age.

Having recently passed through that strange doorway into my 65th year, I’ve noticed these challenging changes, both small and large, showing up more often. I imagine many of you are living with similar experiences with each passing month and year. Aging is inevitable, as the Buddha reminded us millennia ago.

So, what do we do when those moments arrive uninvited at our doorstep? Here are a few of my current musings:

• Sit with what arises. Take time to be with the discomfort, fear, and vulnerability of these occasions. Yoga teaches us not to cling to the pleasant or reject the unpleasant, but to sit with what is. Notice whether the experience is fixed or constantly shifting.
  

• Return to equanimity through practice. Turn toward tools that steady you: gentle yoga, vigorous exercise (when appropriate), time in nature, meditation, breathwork, and gratitude practices*.
  

• Acknowledge our humanness. Aging connects us to a universal experience. Realizing that everyone eventually walks this path can sometimes soften the edges and open space for honesty and compassion toward ourselves and others.
  

• Lean on your support network. Reach out to friends, colleagues, or family for candid conversations, shared meals, or walks together. Connection matters.
  

• Pause and reflect. Ask yourself what is truly important now and going forward. Priorities can—and do—change.
  

• Grieve the losses. Whether small or significant, give your losses the time and space they need to be integrated into the fabric of who you are becoming.
  

• Plot a new course. Honor new limitations, and stay curious about new possibilities and pathways not yet explored. Adjust as often as needed.
  

This isn’t a linear checklist, but a collection of options to explore in whatever order feels right for you. I suspect I’ll be revisiting many of them in the coming year. I hope you may find them useful as well. 

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*Check out my post on Gratitude from November, 2024: Thanksgiving and Gratitude: Benefits for Health