Transcendent Aging, Key #1: Meaning-making
[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Transcendent Aging: Transpersonal Psychology ?2023]
On the first page of each new journal, an engagement with my psyche that I began at age 20, I write: “…remember who I am…”. Now a 40-year ritual, I continue to explore my inner life and perceptions of the outer world, and beyond, on that premise: not discovering or developing so much as remembering my authentic selfhood, my core. This, to me, is one salient aspect of meaning.
Our first key to transcendent aging, then, is this: discovering and developing, but even more, revealing the meaning of our lives. In psychology, we call this ‘presence’; self-awareness, along with self-efficacy or a sense of one’s capability, closely relate.
In a sense, humans are not so different from ants in a colony, or bees in a hive, are we? We function within our species and our social structure, humming along day by day, and perhaps overfocused on things like meaning and purpose, our own significance, the very idea of ‘self’.
I’m a product of ‘western’ and thus individualist culture, within which I spent the first 40 years of my life, albeit while studying Eastern psychology, philosophy, and traditional medicine for balance. These past 2 decades, however, I’ve lived in a series of collectivist cultures and have come to understand more deeply that the concept of ‘self’ may well be illusion – or that, at the very least, it may be better sublimated for the greater good. Indeed, this is the transpersonal construct.
So why contemplate meaning? And authenticity, and purpose? Are we stardust, or are we merely specks of dust?
This primary task can in fact be viewed as a sacred process, a critical aspect of wisdom, and a reason for existence. Whether from a more individualist or collectivist culture, more independent or interdependent by nature, we do well to engage in a process not of rumination or even of reminiscence, though the latter has health benefits, but in one of coalescence.
We may have had a sense of meaning and its cousin, purpose, from an early age. If a religious adherent, this may have been specified in detail and preordained. A key task of our thriving in elder years is this process of making sense of our lives, not only in life review or assessment but in a deeply felt sense that we have done our part to contribute to the greater good. It’s also a step toward transcendence, as we must first establish our clear sense of self, life meaning and purpose, in order to then expand outward, beyond the self. We must know the self in order to lose the self into the collective, to connect with ourselves in order to experience interconnectedness.
But more on that soon.
Meaning-making is a task first of coherence, determining how the pieces of our life fit together into one ongoing story. This is coupled with the task of purpose: our goals, aims, and overarching mission, and with significance, or inherent value.
What gives your life meaning – and what do you contribute toward purpose?
This may well be found in one’s religious or spiritual tradition. It may be in humanism, with its love for all humanity including the beauty we create: in art, innovation, ideas, morals. It may be a valuation of life itself – one’s own and that of others, a love for all species, the natural world, our planet and our universe, the Grand Story. We may find meaning in raising children, in teaching others, in altruistic works, in activism and advocacy for a better world.
There are times, in the face of chaos, violence, debilitating illness, loss of a loved one, war, or impending climate collapse, that we find it difficult to access meaning in life. When faced with profound loss or hopelessness, everything may seem meaningless. But the sense of meaning is both situational and global, and while the current situation may have robbed us of our connection to meaning, we can maintain a global view – that the overall story of existence retains its own sense of coherence, separate from daily events however profound.
Having a sense of meaning and purpose in life brings a wealth of benefits to health, wellbeing, and aging. It’s associated with both subjective and psychological wellbeing in terms of higher life satisfaction, happiness, optimism, and positive affect (Basher, 2022; Crego et al., 2020; Kim et al., 2022), lower risk of loneliness (Kim et al., 2022; Weziak-Bialowolska & Bialowolski, 2022), and maintaining one’s sense of identity (Polacsek et al., 2022). Mental health benefits are seen in reduced risk of depression (Basher; Crego et al.; Kim et al.; Polacsek et al.; Weziak-Bialowolska & Bialowolski), aging anxiety (Bergman & Bodner, 2022), and death anxiety (Zhang et al., 2019). Benefits to physical health are seen in decreased insomnia or sleep disturbance, increased health behaviors – and even increase in life expectancy, mortality itself (Kim et al.).
The field of psychology places great emphasis, therefore, on developing and maintaining a sense of meaning and purpose in one’s life. Transpersonal psychology perhaps emphasizes this even more, in its focus on the spiritual and religious, mystical and metaphysical, the very definition of meaning for many.
So, we assess. We assess our own lives for present and past sources of meaning, as this is a fluid, not fixed, construct. And we seek new areas of meaning: perhaps we become engaged for the first time in climate activism, or begin reading to children in an orphanage. Maybe we join a religious or spiritual tradition, not an uncommon occurrence as we reach a stage of life in which a focus on afterlife and the metaphysical becomes increasingly relevant. Perhaps in our desire to leave a legacy, we seek to share all that we’ve learned and experienced, and we begin to mentor others -- or to write books.
Our relationship with meaning and purpose is lifelong. It changes over time, right through our elder years, and we must be on guard against allowing it to become too entrenched. Until that final breath, keep opening your eyes, and your heart: meaning, and purpose, are everywhere.
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Exercises:
First: create a timeline of your life to date, on which you place all major events; review and add as often as others come to mind, as this is an ongoing exercise. This creates a visual for meaning in your life; highlight all those events, achievements, and transitions which you feel were significant and/or reflected your purpose.
Once the previous activity is well underway (for it is never completed, as even more meaningful events can be recalled at any time), add a timeline of your future. Once we’re in our elderhood, this can be a somewhat daunting task as it brings to the surface our very human fears concerning our mortality and time running out. For that reason, it’s also useful, in that we can recognize and greet those fears rather than allowing them to continue lurking in the unconscious – at the same time, not giving them too much oxygen. The timeline of the future includes aspects of meaning already in your life now that you wish to maintain, and any aspects you’d like to include that aren’t already there; for example, perhaps you always wanted to do some volunteer work in another country, but were prohibited due to career and family obligations – and for which now may be the time. This timeline, while surely none of us can predict the future, allows us to set achievable goals and plot a course, thus enhancing our sense of purpose. We are not finished, and life isn’t over nor simply one of pleasure and passing the time, just because we’ve reached retirement; in transcendent aging, our ongoing engagement in a sense of meaning and purpose is essential.
Create a sociogram. Draw a small circle in the center of a blank sheet of paper, into which you write your own name and the names of those in your innermost circle. Around this, draw a ring, and add those names of your close but secondary circle; draw at least two more and do the same. This is a visual of your social support system; it relates to meaning in that, through your connectedness, you affect and are affected by others, who in turn affect others, and on. This represents deep meaning – and also your infinite continuation.
Engage in a 20- to 30-minute contemplative session on the idea of meaning in life, exploring as many facets as come to mind, thinking deeply and broadly. Similarly, you can engage in a meditative session with an introspective focus on sources of meaning in your own life. As a third related exercise, you can engage in a brainstorming session of the mind-mapping style, filling a sheet of paper with everything you can think of regarding this topic and drawing connections among them to better understand their interrelatedness.
Storytelling. Storytelling. And, storytelling. We humans are storytellers – our key form of transmission, especially intergenerational. Now is the perfect time of life to become an engaging storyteller; rather than, “when I was a child,” or even, “there was this time,” learn how to better craft a story and make it engaging – and apply this to as many of your own memories, positive and negative alike, as you can. How can you tell it so your audience, of one or one hundred, is completely absorbed? (How can you compete with all those entertaining devices?) Also consider outlets for your life stories. There are plenty of storytelling websites; you could start a blog or video channel, tell micro-stories via social media, or write books. In the preparation and then sharing of our stories, we ourselves better understand the meaning in our lives.
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References:
Basher E (2022). Relationship between Meaning in life, Psychological Wellbeing, and Depression in Elderly. British Journal of Psychology Research 10:2, 23-30. https://tudr.org/id/eprint/1255/
Bergman YS and Bodner E (2022). Aging anxiety in older adults: The role of self-esteem and meaning in life. GeroPsych: The Journal of Gerontopsychology and Geriatric Psychiatry 35:4, 196-201. https://doi.org/10.1024/1662-9647/a000295
Crego A, Yela JR, Gómez-Martínez M, et al. (2020). The Contribution of Meaningfulness and Mindfulness to Psychological Well-Being and Mental Health: A Structural Equation Model. Journal of Happiness Studies 21, 2827-2850. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00201-y
Kim ES, Chen Y, Nakamura JS et al. (2022). Sense of Purpose in Life and Subsequent Physical, Behavioral, and Psychosocial Health: An Outcome-Wide Approach. American Journal of Health Promotion 36:1, 137-147. https://doi.org/10.1177/08901171211038545
Polacsek M, Boardman GH, and McCann TV (2022). Self-Identity and Meaning in Life as Enablers for Older Adults to Self-Manage Depression. Issues in Mental Health Nursing 43:5, 409-417. https://doi.org/10.1080/01612840.2021.1998263
Weziak-Bialowolska D and Bialowolski P (2022). Bidirectional associations between meaning in life and the health, emotional ill-being and daily life functioning outcomes among older adults. Psychology & Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2022.2105842
Zhang J, Peng J, Gao P, et al. (2019). Relationship between meaning in life and death anxiety in the elderly: self-esteem as a mediator. BMC Geriatrics 19:308. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1316-7