Mind Matters - Chadds Ford Live

Ah, youth! We are a youth culture: Botox in, wrinkles out.
Little do we acknowledge, as the great philosophers have, that as soon as we're
born we are aging: we are “beings towards death.” The aging process cannot be
reversed (except if you are Benjamin Button.) However, once we travel past the
childhood yearning, we may begin to fear aging and try desperately to turn back
time. At first, as children, we can't wait until we are older. What 7-year-old
doesn't wish to be 9? What 13-year-old doesn't want to be 16 and driving?

However, once we travel past the childhood yearning, we may
begin to fear aging and try desperately to turn back time. John Welshons,
author of One Soul, One Love, One Heart says, “For many the process of aging
gives rise to a complex of … culturally inspired neuroses.” Our culture has
defined youth and beauty as all important and aging as a catastrophe. We have
foolishly made the assumption that we are happiest and most valuable in our
youth.

Welshons continues, reporting that while we attempt to cling
to the physical appearance of youth, research contraindicates our pursuit.
Ironically, psychological studies point out that we are least happy in our
adolescent and young adult years and most happy in our 60s.

Now in her 60s herself, Harvard professor Sarah
Lawrence-Lightfoot, in an interview with Bill Moyers (Bill Moyers’ Journal,
pbs.org), talks about the “third chapter of life”. Noting that these are
arbitrary boundaries, she characterizes the ages between 50 and 75 as the
penultimate years of adventure and discovery. To support her hypothesis,
Lawrence-Lightfoot set out to talk to forty people who are on this journey. She
relates their stories in her book, The Third Chapter.

Like Welshons, she considers ours to be a youth-obsessed
culture. Perhaps they would both agree that letting go of power and status, or
leaving behind our old roles, may, at first, be terrifying, yet necessary.
Where Welshons may take us aging into quiet wisdom and spiritual reflection,
Lawrence-Lightfoot enjoins us to be seekers of new paths. However, for some,
that unexplored road may well lead to a deeper spirituality. Lawrence-Lightfoot
tells us about a woman who was delighted to transform her busy-ness and allow
herself to slow down, be still, and witness. All this helped her to see things
in a new way.

What Lawrence-Lightfoot found in her interviews was that
people were finding life to be creative and purposeful. She met a laid off
factory worker who, with his wife, frequented flea markets to get by. One day
he noticed some sculptures and thought to himself, “I could do that with
metal.” So he began to sculpture dinosaurs, his love. Eventually, his works
were shown in an art gallery.

Along with a lot of other baby boomers, I am aging. Like it
or not, America is aging. As the American Psychological Association notes:

“Americans living longer and staying increasingly active and
productive is a welcome sign for our nation. However, society's view of old age
has not always kept up with the reality of older Americans’ health or the fact
that while many people over the age of 65 experience some limitations, they
learn to live with them and lead happy and productive lives.”

With Welshons and Lawrence-Lightfoot we can take heart. Even
the APA is in accord: wisdom and creativity can often continue to the very end
of life:

Nah, youth! Ah, the beauty of aging!

* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling
psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes
comments at [email protected]
or 610-388-2888. Past columns are posted to http://www.DrGajdos.com/Articles.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.