Ron Pevny
Recorded March 25 - May 6, 2015
A powerful opportunity to redesign your elder years as a time of wholeness, fulfillment, meaning and impact – a season for living with joy, energy
and creativity.
Be prepared to open your heart, expand your mind, liberate your soul and deepen your life’s journey – all in a supportive community.
Have you wondered how to approach your elder years in a conscious and fulfilling way?
If so, you’re in the right place.
New bodies of research show that our beliefs about aging affect our longevity, vitality and enthusiastic engagement with life. When we see our elder years primarily as a time of decline, marginalization or loneliness, that is what we’ll tend to create.
In our culture, there is an underlying message that after you reach retirement age, you don’t have a meaningful role. That perhaps the best you can hope for is to spend your days playing golf or spending time with your grandchildren... while letting younger folks step in to make their contributions to our world.
The result of this pervasive attitude? As you age, it can be easy to start to feel irrelevant... that your best days are behind you, and that whatever legacy you were meant to leave should already be in place. Many people also find their passion waning and lose sight of their bigger vision for the next stages of life.
Instead, what if you were to forge a vision for your aging journey that is far more empowering – one in which you approach your later years as a time in which to give some of your greatest gifts, savor the fruits of a lifetime of maturation in skills and serve the deepest needs of our time?
In short, what if you were to look forward to your elder years in the same way that so many people in traditional and indigenous cultures do – as a time in which you harvest the love, joy and wisdom of a lifetime and occupy a place of honor, service and meaning in your family and community?
Such a vision is more empowering, exciting and motivating than simply playing golf or spending time on a beach (as wonderful as these activities might be).
It’s really about living your elder years as a full expression of your human potential.
The great news is that cultures in which elder years are anticipated with excitement often have the longest-lived, most energetic and joyful elders!
Every year now, we hear more amazing stories of elders who are stretching what is possible, from running marathons to writing groundbreaking books to creating new social movements.
Wise, engaged and caring elders are essential for our world. So many of our collective challenges are born of conflict, misunderstanding, greed, unhealed wounds and lack of foresight – all areas that elders are naturally gifted in helping to solve.
In many ways, it is our elders who are most able to create a real shift in our world to one that is healthy, sustainable, peaceful and prosperous. Elders, seen rightly, are our most undervalued and underutilized resource!
Shifting this reality begins with each of us. Are you ready to become a shining example of what is possible in your later years?
What is your story of aging? And how might it be holding you back from thriving and living a vibrant life well into your 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond?
In indigenous cultures, elders are honored as sages who are called upon for counsel because of their wider vision of the world.
Instead, the mainstream media bombards us with the message that we must do all we can to fight “the sands of time.” They make it sound as if between retirement and death our only option is to live in some sort of passive holding pattern.
What IS true is that there are many unique issues that may challenge or confront you in your efforts to “age gracefully,” including:
- Feeling isolated and a lack of community
- A loss of purpose and vision for life
- A loss of meaningful roles
- Lower energy and a lack of passion
- Physical pain and other health problems
- The deaths of friends and loved ones
- The absence of positive role models
- Unresolved emotional issues from the past
- Confusion around how to make a contribution to the world
- A lack of spiritual connection and guidance
Facing these areas with consciousness, love and an optimistic outlook is imperative to help you to see beyond the disempowering stories about aging, navigate your own negative beliefs about this stage of your life and create a truly rewarding phase of your life.
Rewrite Your Script of Aging
In this 7-module program with Ron Pevny, one of the world’s pioneers of conscious aging and eldering, you’ll learn how to rewrite the script on your aging journey so that you can live a longer, healthier and more meaningful life. And, you’ll discover how to cultivate more spiritually enriching and impactful elder years than you thought possible!
It all begins with your consciousness, which helps to shape the perspectives that lead you to thrive in body, heart, mind and soul.
Ron will help you step into a new aging paradigm that gives you a more multidimensional understanding of your potential for meaning and continual growth, as well as helping you tap into reservoirs of joy and vitality.
This multidimensional perspective focuses on clarifying your path of purpose and continual growth, making your later years a time of positive impact.
He’ll share how you can fully embrace the identity shift that being an elder represents and write a new script. In the process, you’ll learn to release unresolved emotional baggage that can sabotage your story of aging, get in touch with your authentic vision for your elderhood and tap into the energy and passion that can make that vision a reality.
As you do this, you’ll transform feelings of isolation and loneliness into an empowered and purposeful community of allies. You’ll be poised to create a legacy of service to support a healthy world for our descendents.
And what could be a more beautiful concluding chapter for your life story than that?
Shine Brightly as You Age Consciously
The great news is that while aging does come with its share of losses, the more multidimensional vision of aging, showcased in Transforming Your Journey of Aging, demonstrates that it can also include vast possibilities for true fulfillment and growth.
Ron will lay out expansive possibilities for the gifts you can contribute to the world with the wisdom of your many years.
Ron is not only an expert in the field of conscious aging, he is also a role model and mentor whom you can look to for inspiration and guidance in living a more meaningful, joyful and purpose-filled elderhood.
During your journey with him, you’ll learn that aging well is about so much more than improving your physical health, mental acuity and longevity (though you’ll gain invaluable knowledge on this, too).
You’ll discover deep wisdom and practices that can help liberate you from unresolved “baggage” you may have accumulated from your past... which, of course, frees up more energy and empowers you to live your purpose with more joie de vivre .
In turn, you’ll also come to see that the more clarity you gain around your visions and goals for the future, the more energy and passion you’ll experience on all levels.
When you join Transforming Your Journey of Aging, you’ll learn the secrets for truly staying “young at heart” – and shining more brightly as you age consciously.
If you’re ready to step out of your comfort zone to experience what’s possible in the later chapters of your life this is the program for you.
What You’ll Discover in These 7 Modules
In this 7-module transformational program, Ron will guide you through the fundamental steps and practices that you’ll need to successfully transform your journey of aging into one of wholeness, joy and deeper meaning.
Each session will build harmoniously upon the next, so that you’ll develop a complete, holistic understanding of the practices, tools and principles you’ll need to sustain your path into a joyful and conscious elderhood.
Module 1: Understanding the New Paradigm of Aging (Recorded March 25)
This session will focus on the emerging, multi-faceted and empowering paradigm of aging (often called “Positive Aging”) and contrast this with the dominant cultural view of aging as a time of diminishment and loss. We will look at why this shift is happening and explore the various approaches that comprise this new paradigm. Then we’ll introduce “Conscious Aging” as a critical foundation for these various approaches – as the inner work that is critical for reaching the full potential of life’s later chapters. And we’ll explore the archetypal role of “Elder” throughout history and the importance of conscious elders in these times of crisis – and great opportunity.
In this module, you’ll learn:
- Much more is possible for your life as you age than mainstream culture recognizes.
- Aging involves loss and decline, but also opens new doors for fulfillment, growth, passion and service.
- How these potentials are best realized through conscious preparation, with the inner work of conscious aging being critical.
- Why it is important to focus on the kind of person you want to be as you look toward what you want to do.
- There is an archetypal call to true elderhood in each of us that is often not heard amid the disempowering images modern culture presents for aging.
- The work of conscious aging helps you respond to this call as you nurture your inner Elder, wisdom and gifts.
Module 2: Entering Elderhood With Grace (Recorded April 1)
As we leave mid-life adulthood (with the key marker often being reaching retirement age), we go through a significant life transition. All life transitions involve a 3-phase dynamic of severance, neutral zone and new beginning. If we support this process of change within, we release disempowering old emotional baggage and enter a new life chapter with a clear vision. Rites of Passage, whether structured or not, have throughout history supported the journey from one life stage to another, and are re-emerging today as important aspects of conscious aging.
In this module, you’ll learn:
- How the journey from mid-life adulthood into life’s later chapters is a significant life transition for your psyche, often heralded by reaching retirement age (whether you retire or not).
- All life transitions involve the 3-stage dynamic of severance (ending), neutral zone (in between who we have been and who we can become), and the emergence of new beginnings.
- You have a choice of whether and how to support this transition in yourself, or to neglect it to our detriment.
- About the dynamics of this transition from rites of passage work, both traditional and contemporary.
Module 3: Healing the Past To Empower
the Future (Recorded April 8)
If we are going to enter our later chapters with clear vision and vital energy, it is important that we review our lives up to now to see what will serve us moving forward, and to heal our past so we aren’t encumbered by old baggage on the journey ahead. For many of us, regret is a crucial dynamic that calls to be healed. Forgiveness, of others and ourselves, is critical, too. Healing our past is greatly facilitated by examining and rewriting the stories we tell ourselves about the meanings of the events in our lives. The Death Lodge practice is a powerful way to bring healing and closure to our lives and relationships, so we can move forward into elderhood without old baggage and are as ready as possible for our final passage.
In this module, you’ll learn:
- Life review is a foundational element in the work of conscious aging.
- How to fulfill your dreams for the future unencumbered by unhealed wounds, regrets, resentments and disempowering stories about the events
in your life. - Forgiveness as a process to free you of toxic attachments to your past.
- How to transform regrets and disempowering personal stories, and discover how the Hero’s Journey can be a powerful catalyst for gaining a transforming soul’s eye and deeper understanding of your life.
- Rituals to support you in letting go of beliefs, attitudes, habits and identifications that will not serve your moving forward.
- The Death Lodge practice, which weaves together several dynamics that can help you heal your past so you can move with clear energy into your future.
Module 4: Living In Between (Recorded April 15)
As we begin to sever from our identification as mid-life adults, we enter the time between life stages called “liminal time” or “the neutral zone.” This time is characterized by confusion, a sense of being in a foreign land without roadmaps, loss of meaning with no clear vision of a meaningful future. It is also full of potential, as the seeds of new vision and purpose gestate in us. There are practices we can employ that can help us use this in between time to gain the new vision and energy that await us in the elder chapters of our lives.
In this module, you’ll learn:
- How to navigate and understand the neutral zone – that critical time between who you have been and who you can become – so that you can use it well as preparation for your future.
- Ways to access the full potential from this liminal time as the seeds of future vision germinate in you.
- Meaningful approaches for entering this time consciously to access the great value available to become aware of, and nurture, these seeds of vision.
- Solitude and silence are critical during this time.
- How time in the natural world helps you get in touch with the qualities, values and callings that are most authentic in you.
- How synchronicities and dreams can be courted and provide guidance for the path ahead.
Module 5: Creating the Legacy of our
Elder Chapters (Recorded April 22)
This session’s major theme is that the creation of our legacy does not end with retirement. The legacy we create as elders can be one of continual growth and service to our world. We create this legacy by using the power of intention to set goals for our whole selves rather than just the popular “bucket list.” The “Ten Intentions for Ten Years” practice can help us set such goals – and achieve them. It is important that we create lives as elders that reflect the right balance for us between serving and savoring, doing and being.
In this module, you’ll learn:
- Your elder chapters can be an important time for you to create a legacy beyond what you have created so far.
- The key principles of successful intentionality, which has great power and is necessary for you to reach the potential of your elder years. “Ten Intentions for Ten Years” as a powerful practice for helping you grow toward wholeness as you age.
- How to write a legacy letter and/or engaging in oral history work are valuable ways to get in touch with your legacy and to lay the groundwork for the legacy you have yet to create.
- How to find the balance between serving and savoring, doing and being, which can be difficult but crucial for conscious elders.
Module 6: Practices for Becoming and Staying Conscious (Recorded April 29)
The major theme of this session is “The Self That Wins Is the Self We Feed.” This session will focus on a variety of practices we can use to feed the self in us committed to aiming high as we age consciously. Equally important are those ways of living that tend to numb our consciousness, feed our fears and sap our energy.
In this module, you’ll learn:
- Practices for aging consciously with commitment to thrive in a largely unconscious world.
- Ways to navigate unconscious sabotage and build a future that is based in clear visions and conscious intentions.
- Several practices to help you stay conscious as you feed your best self.
- Techniques for transforming habits and ways of living that numb your consciousness, feed your fears and sap your energy.
Module 7: Finding Support In Community (Recorded May 6)
This session will focus on the importance of finding the support of like-minded others if we are to successfully undertake the journey of conscious aging. We will explore the growing variety of organizations creating supportive communities for our elderhood, including Co-Housing, the “Village” model and others.
We will look at programs, such as Elder Wisdom Circle, the IONS Conscious Aging Program, Sage-ing International’s workshops and the Choosing Conscious Elderhood retreats, which enable people to have the support of community as they do their conscious aging work. And we will explore opportunities for conscious elders to engage in the community service and social action that are crucial in helping the world move successfully through The Great Turning. This session will also address themes that come up throughout the course that call for further discussion, amplification or clarification.
In this module, you’ll learn:
- Conscious aging work requires community support to be sustained
and successful. - The growing number of models for enabling you to create and have supportive community as you age.
- Why there can be great value in finding support through Elder Wisdom Circles and conscious aging workshops and retreats.
- About opportunities for serving your community and the Earth as a part of your commitment to aging consciously.
- Why the “Great Turning” needs a culture of conscious elders in every nation, and the creation of such a culture requires the building of community.
The Transforming Your Journey of Aging
Bonus Collection
In addition to Ron’s transformative 7-module virtual course, you’ll also receive these powerful training sessions with the world’s leading visionaries and teachers. These bonus sessions are being offered to further complement what you’ll learn in the course – and take your understanding and practice to an even deeper level.
Universal Mayan Wisdom for Becoming an Elder and Serving the Whole
Audio Dialogue with Stephen Dinan and Antonio Oxte
In this very special audio conversation, The Shift Network CEO, Stephen Dinan talks intimately with Abuelo Antonio and his wife Cynthia about what it means to be an elder in today’s world. This audio has a special charm, as it was recorded on location in Yucatan, Mexico, and is translated in the moment as Abuelo Antonio speaks directly from his heart in his native language of Spanish.
Abuelo Antonio Oxte, Guardian of the Mayan Ancient Energy Medical Tradition, was born in the community of Tzucacab, Yucatan, México. He received his first initiations by the hands of his maternal grandmother, parents and family. ​
Abuelo Antonio likes being around souls who want to live in peace and harmony. He practices Maya meditation in action, contemplation and respect for all creation. His philosophy and core values – applied at all times – are peace, faith, harmony, beauty and universal love.
For Abuelo Antonio, to better understand the harmony of life in the awareness of the micro and macro consciousness, is essentially to study science and technology.
A Ritual for Letting Go
With Ron Pevny
In this session, Ron will introduce a ritual that can be instrumental in helping you identify and release beliefs, habits, self-identifications, attitudes and attachments that may (or may not) have served you in the past, but that clearly will not support your conscious aging. The importance of honoring what you are ready to surrender as a critical step in truly letting go will be stressed.
Conscious Eldering:
The Journey to Wholeness As We Age
Chapter 1 of Ron’s book – Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: Embrace & Savor Your Next Chapter
We financially plan for our retirement, but do we plan for our well-being? Here is an empowering guide with practical tools to help you live a passionate, fulfilling second half of life. In his new book, Ron offers advice that helps you identify your goals, contribute to society, remain engaged and relevant, and spend your later years in profound personal development.
The Amazing Aging Summit Package
Interviews and Insights, Featuring 19
Conscious Aging Experts
A Full Package of Downloadable MP3 and Transcripts
Whether you’re a Baby Boomer, an elder or someone who works with older people, The Amazing Aging Package is designed for anyone looking to be empowered in the aging process and is excited by the idea of co-creating a more multidimensional vision for what’s possible as you grow into the later chapters of life.
Featuring John Robbins, Harry R Moody, Wendy Lustbader and
Dr. Karen D. Lincoln
What People Are Saying About Ron Pevny’s work...
Ron Pevny’s spot-on wisdom on the elegance of aging is spiritually relevant and deeply useful. His is an inspiring voice for living in greater mindfulness within each present moment.
– Michael Bernard Beckwith, Author of Life Visioning
Ron Pevny has identified important missing links in our understanding of the social and cultural infrastructure needed to east the transition to wisdom keeper, the traditions role of elders in society.
– Robert C. Atchley, PhD, Author of Spirituality and Aging
Ron Pevny’s book Conscious Living, Conscious Aging is a unique and valuable resource for those seeking purpose, service, and continual growth in the later chapters of their lives. Its uniqueness lies in its weaving together of Sage-ing and other conscious aging practices, deep wisdom about life transitions and rites of passage, and inspiring stories from those who have chosen to engage in this inner work, all with the goal of supporting the development of the conscious elders our world urgently needs.
– Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, Co-author of From Age-ing to Sage-ing
Pevny reminds us that consciously moving into our greater years is a major rite of passage, and he offers skilled guidance through the many questions and challenges, endings and new beginnings, that arise. He also encourages the spaciousness to find one’s own personal story and meaning to embody this phase. Well done.
– Meredith Little, Co-founder of the School of Lost Borders
[H]elps both women and men age purposefully....you will experience aging in a whole new way.
– Richard Leider, Bestselling Author of The Power of Purpose, Repacking Your Bags, & Life Reimagined
For those entering the second half of life, aging can be the great unknown. Ron Pevny’s [work] is a much-needed map of the territory and an exciting picture of what conscious aging can be all about.
– Harry R. Moody, Retired Vice President, AARP and Author of The Five Stages of the Soul
Ron Pevny has articulated the inner adventure available to us all in later life – if we dare. He shows us how to access these realms, without making light of the difficulty that such deep questioning entails. But the rewards are plentiful, and the illustrative stories he provides may just goad you into your most important quest yet.
– Wendy Lustbader, Author of Life Gets Better: The Unexpected Pleasures of Growing Older
Here’s What You’ll Receive
Seven Recorded 90-Minute Class Sessions with Ron Pevny
Experience a rare opportunity to be mentored and learn with conscious eldering leader and teacher Ron Pevny – from the comfort of your own home. Each class session helps you create the specific skills and abilities to deepen your commitment to aging consciously.
Seven PDF Transcripts of Each
Class Session
In addition to the high quality MP3 audios, you’ll also receive the entire class transcription in PDF format after each session is completed. This way you can review, print and highlight the most important insights and practices that you’ll learn.
Exercises and Questions for Each Lesson
After each lesson, you will then have the option to do related exercises and answer questions in order to accelerate your learning and integrate each session.
The Transforming Your Journey of Aging Bonus Collection
- Universal Mayan Wisdom for Becoming an Elder and Serving the Whole
Audio Dialogue with Stephen Dinan and Antonio Oxte
- A Ritual for Letting Go
With Ron Pevny
- Conscious Eldering: The Journey to Wholeness As We Age
Chapter 1 of Ron’s book – Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: Embrace & Savor Your Next Chapter
- The Amazing Aging Summit Package
Interviews and Insights, Featuring 19 Conscious Aging Experts
A Full Package of Downloadable MP3 and Transcripts
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Join the Transforming Your Journey of Aging Virtual Training
We, at The Shift Network, feel deeply honored that Ron Pevny has chosen to partner with us on this exclusive online training. As you may know, this is a rare opportunity to learn directly from a leader in the field of conscious eldering, whose powerful insights and pioneering work are helping us awaken ourselves to the importance of the role true elders can play in the work of global transformation.
Through this powerful online format, you’ll not only save time and money on workshop costs (plus travel, accommodations and meals – which would cost thousands of dollars). But you’ll be able to benefit from Ron and his guests’ incredible teachings and exercises from the comfort of your home – at your own pace!
If you are serious about seeking empowering guidance about preparing for your later chapters, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones – and our world – to take this one-of-a-kind training.
If you’re ready to take the next step in evolving yourself, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Praise from Former Students of Ron Pevny...
I am so grateful for this experience, and even more grateful for the new community of friends and new tools for growth I will carry with me forever.
– Maureen Dobson
I came home, full with the support of the group, motivated to take action, propelled to make constructive changes in my life. What a gift this [program] was!
– Phyllis Eisner
The experience was so valuable to me – a time for me to reflect upon the elder phase of life’s journey that I am entering. It confirmed and opened new perspectives and awareness of many ways to go towards the last third of my life with a sense of refreshed identity, adventure, commitment, self-acknowledgement, gratitude, acceptance and empowerment.
– Penny Dunning
The power of passionate leaders to hold a diverse and supportive community together for authentic growth, which led me to new awareness and transformative action for living the third stage of life.
– Margot Worfolk
I highly recommend the program, which has tremendous depth and support for participants wanting to prepare themselves spiritually and creatively for the "bonus years" during which we might still want to contribute to the greater good, whether or not we’re still "productive" in the traditional sense. This was one of the most meaningful and valuable experiences I’ve had in many years.
– Linda Blachman
I was able to reach some deeply profound and important feelings that needed to be healed so I can continue to move forward on my deepening journey into elderhood. I am deeply, deeply respectful of your knowledge, skills and abilities and your commitment to help others make a conscious choice to embrace elderhood. And I really enjoyed your sense of humor!!!!!
– Helene Aarons
I can’t begin to tell you how much the [program] meant to me. First of all, I was so looking forward to the time and wanted very much to have the experience of jumping off the edge of the “great divide” that has kept me hovering and hesitating over the last few months; I did, indeed, take that jump. Second, you were spectacular in your ability to hold the space for the mystery to unfold. Your passion and commitment for this work was so very clear to me and I’m sure to everyone in the group. The degree to which I felt safe, cared for, looked after and encouraged was exactly what I needed.
– Cathy Carmody
I am grateful for the compassionate, caring and structured methods you utilized to maintain our focus, yet allow space and time for us all to open during the course of our [program]. Thank you for creating an environment for me in which I could experience a rapid unfolding, progression and transition from a place of struggle and depleted spirit to a place of clarity, peace and serenity – a jumping off point into the unknown of the third phase of my life. Thank you for the process, the ceremonies and your passion for conscious eldering.
– Jon Parker
I am changed. The [program] cleared a path for me to break into my eldering journey with intention, allowing the elder within me to emerge into the light of this life... skillfully and compassionately offered a process ripe with beautiful ritual... well balanced between individual reflection, self examination, and supportive group sharing, and infused with wonderful humor that comes only with deep wisdom from their own knowing. The path ahead is now... there is no time, nor desire, to ’go back to sleep’.
– Bob Calhoun
About Ron Penvy
Ron Pevny, M.A., recognized his calling as a wilderness rite of passage guide in 1979 and ever since has been dedicated to assisting people in negotiating life transitions as they create lives of purpose and passion. He is Founding Director of the Center for Conscious Eldering, based in Durango, Colorado, which for more than a decade has presented retreats and workshops to support people in aging consciously. He is also a Certified Sage-ing® Leader with Sage-ing International and is the creator and administrator of the twelve-organization Conscious Aging Alliance. His life coaching practice is focused on individuals over 50 who are committed to aging consciously. He is author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: Embrace and Savor Your Next Chapter, published in 2014 by Beyond Words/Atria Books, as well as numerous articles on conscious aging.
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