Psyche & Soul 56: Post Midlife -XIII AGING GRACEFULLY

Podcast Link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-56-Psyche--Soul--119-e14sa5v

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand (sumedhacentre@gmail.com)  with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

In this edition I present practices that help us age gracefully.

While I was in a neighbouring country for a Workshop I visited a nearby convent where there were a few nuns I knew. While taking tea the Superior of the community told me, “You must visit the youngest member of our community.” I was taken to an upstairs room where I met Sister Gladys (name changed). She had a beaming smile and her entire face had a glow of joy which lit up the room. She engaged me in pleasant conversation. She was 97 years young! She had been lying in her bed for a few months now. She had to be helped on to a wheelchair, for her to move anywhere. Despite her condition she appeared so happy and fulfilled and had the capacity to make others happy. I said to myself, “That’s what means to age gracefully!” My encounter with Sr. Gladys happened more than 20 years ago. But the image of the beaming, joyful sister who had aged so gracefully remains an inedible and delightful memory. There are countless others like Sister Gladys who have been able live happy, graceful lives and enjoy wellbeing even in old age despite many setbacks and limitations.

Post midlife-years can be difficult for a variety of reasons. The slowing down of metabolism and weakening immune system can lead to disabilities and illness. Loss of hearing, impaired vision, and limited motor agility can be particularly frustrating. There can be lack of feelings of self-efficacy for a variety of reasons. The negative attitudes expressed by family/community members, colleagues, and younger people toward the incompetence, dependence, or old-fashioned ways of older people can lead many of them feel quite discouraged about their self-worth.  Despite these challenges it is possible to age gracefully.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Research on aging provides many insights as to what is required to age gracefully.

The MacArthur Foundation Study on Aging was undertaken by group of 16 scientists drawn from biology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, epidemiology, sociology, genetics, psychology, neurology, physiology, and geriatric medicine. Their conclusion on what leads to successful aging:  the ability to maintain three key behaviours or characteristics: a) low risk of disease and disease-related disability; b) high mental and physical function; and c) active engagement with life.

Mills Longitudinal Study compared cohorts of sick and healthy women at ages 41, 51, 61. This study too identified three characteristics of those who age successfully: a) increase in life satisfaction; b) reduced negative affect; c) increase in generative activities. Negative affect refers to emotions as such as anger, guilt, shame and so on. Generative activities refer to actions that express care for and attention to others.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development - “arguably the longest study of aging in the world” - consisted of three separate cohorts of 824 individuals—all selected as teenagers for different facets of mental and physical health nearly a century ago and studied for their entire lives. The first is a sample of 268 socially advantaged Harvard graduates born about 1920—”the longest prospective study of physical and mental health in the world.” The Second,  is a sample of 456 socially disadvantaged Inner City men born about 1930—”the longest prospective study of ‘blue collar’ adult development in the world.” Third is a sample of 90 middle-class, intellectually gifted women born about 1910—”the longest prospective study of women’s development in the world.”  

George Vaillant, a former director of study, writes in Aging Well:  “It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us: it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.” Successful aging is also facilitated by a capacity for gratitude, for forgiveness, and loving and being loved by a particular person. Alcohol abuse consistently predicted unsuccessful aging, in part because alcoholism damaged future social supports. Learning to play and create after retirement and learning to gain younger friends as one loses older ones were also significant contributors. Objective good physical health was less important to successful aging than subjective good health.  What is meant by this is that “it is all right to be ill as long as one does not feel sick.”

The Harvard Study also identified some significant characteristics of those who age gracefully: They care about others, are open to new ideas, and within the limits of physical health maintain usefulness to society and help others. They show cheerful tolerance of the difficulties of old age. They insist on sensible autonomy (doing for themselves and by themselves what they are able to) while willing to acknowledge their dependency needs and gracefully accept the help offered them. When ill, they are patients for whom a doctor enjoys caring. They are optimistic and look at the bright side of life. They maintain hope in life. They retain a sense of humour and a capacity for play. They are able to spend time in the nostalgic reminiscence of the past, yet they remain curious and continue to learn from the next generation. They try to maintain contact with old friends while making new ones.

The Nun Study, directed by David Snowdon and colleagues (originally begun as a study of Alzheimer’s disease) asked “Why do some of the sisters age gracefully, continuing to teach and serve, retaining their mental faculties into their eighties and nineties, even past one hundred? Why do others—who have lived such similar lives—appear to lose themselves, forgetting their closest friends and relatives and, in the end, becoming almost wholly disconnected from the world around them?” (Aging Gracefully, p.2)

The risk of death at any given year after age sixty-five is about 25 percent lower for the School Sisters of Notre Dame the subjects of the Nun Study than it is for the general population of women in the United States. What is it that helped these sisters to live dramatically longer (average age: 89; the youngest was 84; the oldest 106 years), and healthier, lives than their lay counterparts? The study provided the following answers:

1. Exercise: All the walking the sisters had done-- at a time when motorized transport was rarely available at the beginning of the last century—had helped them to live long and healthy. Exercise is one of the most reliable ways to preserve cardiovascular health. Exercise improves blood flow, bringing the brain the oxygen and the nutrients it needs to function well. Exercise reduces the stress hormones and increases the chemicals that nourish the brain cells. These changes help ward off depression and some kinds of damage to the brain tissue.
2. Education: About 85% of the sisters in the Nun study had bachelor’s degrees and about 45 % had master's degrees—“astounding statistics for any age group, let alone for women born in the early part of the [20^th] century.” Not only did the less-educated sisters have higher mortality rates, but their mental and physical abilities were much more limited if they did reach old age. These data are in keeping with earlier findings. As early as the 19^th century, British scientists had discovered a strong link between education and health.
3. Language: Language skills also had a significant impact on health and wellbeing in old age. The data from the Nun Study tended to confirm that healthy subjects were more proficient in sophisticated word use. They were apt at using multisyllabic words, such as particularly, privileged, and quarantined. In contrast, the sisters who later developed Alzheimer's more frequently used monosyllabic words, such as girls, boys, and sick.
4. Nutrition. What mattered was not just the quality of the food, the social environment of the meal also mattered. Snowdon wrote: “What I now know for sure is that nutrition for healthy aging is not just about eating certain foods or downing a certain milligrams of prescribed number of vitamins each day. It also depends on where we eat, whom we eat with, and whether the meal nourishes our heart, mind, and soul as well as our body,”
5. Positive Emotions: A positive outlook, especially early in life, contributed to longevity and wellbeing. In the autobiographies the sisters had written when they were an average age of twenty-two years old, positive emotional content strongly predicted who would live the longest lives. The sisters who scored the lowest number of positive-emotion sentences had twice the risk of death at any age when compared to those who were in the highest group. “This is a most extraordinary finding: A writing sample from early adult life offered a powerful clue as to who would be alive more than six decades later,” Snowdon observed.

Interestingly Snowdon refers to two factors that contributed to longevity and wellbeing which was not tested by the Nun Study design, “and yet after fifteen years of working with the sisters, I believe strongly in their importance” he observed.

6. Deep Spirituality. The first is the deep spirituality that these women shared. Profound faith buffers the sorrows and tragedies that all of us experience, Snowdon wrote. Moreover, evidence is now starting to accumulate from other studies that prayer and contemplation have a positive influence on long-term health and wellbeing. A Stanford Research Institution study, for example, has concluded “that the inner life, rather than externals, is central” to health and happiness.
7. Community. Convincing evidence is accumulating from other research, including those cited earlier in this article, that strong relationships as in marriage, membership in churches, clubs, or other social groups, and regular contact with family and friends all reduce the risk of death from the major killers such as coronary heart disease and stroke and enhance longevity. Community was a significant support system that the sisters shared.

A Summary

Summarising the data from research cited, here is a list of attitudes and behaviours that enable us to age gracefully:  Exercise of body and also of mind (through intellectual pursuits, maintaining curiosity and eagerness to learn), nutrition including a positive eating ambience, maintaining positive emotions, balancing independence and dependence, optimism and hope, sense of humour, thankful living, nostalgic reminiscence, helping others through generative activities, caring for and learning from future generation, healing from negative emotions, forgiveness, deep spirituality, and close relationships and community.

Introspection

• What do the research findings on aging gracefully evoke in you?
• Which of the factors that promote graceful aging are you practising? To which do you need to give greater attention?
• What are the implications for you personally, for your family or community?
• You may be aware persons like Sr. Gladys who have been able to age gracefully. Want van you learn from such persons?

Prayer

The Bible mentions a number of persons who have aged gracefully, remaining active and generative into ripe old age, such as the patriarchs Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and  David, Zechariah and Elizabeth… The Gospel of John (21, 18-19) has a scene in which Jesus describes what will happen to Peter in old age. We could read and stay with this passage or the stories concerning the other figures mentioned above and spend some time talking to God about what is evoked in us through this podcast and our reading and reflections.

Have a blessed and safe weekend.

Thank you for listening.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

\ Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

  

Psyche & Soul 56: Post Midlife -XIII-- AGING GRACEFULLY

 Podcast Link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-56-Psyche--Soul--119-e14sa5v

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand (sumedhacentre@gmail.com)  with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

In this edition I present practices that help us age gracefully.

While I was in a neighbouring country for a Workshop I visited a nearby convent where there were a few nuns I knew. While taking tea the Superior of the community told me, “You must visit the youngest member of our community.” I was taken to an upstairs room where I met Sister Gladys (name changed). She had a beaming smile and her entire face had a glow of joy which lit up the room. She engaged me in pleasant conversation. She was 97 years young! She had been lying in her bed for a few months now. She had to be helped on to a wheelchair, for her to move anywhere. Despite her condition she appeared so happy and fulfilled and had the capacity to make others happy. I said to myself, “That’s what means to age gracefully!” My encounter with Sr. Gladys happened more than 20 years ago. But the image of the beaming, joyful sister who had aged so gracefully remains an inedible and delightful memory. There are countless others like Sister Gladys who have been able live happy, graceful lives and enjoy wellbeing even in old age despite many setbacks and limitations.

Post midlife-years can be difficult for a variety of reasons. The slowing down of metabolism and weakening immune system can lead to disabilities and illness. Loss of hearing, impaired vision, and limited motor agility can be particularly frustrating. There can be lack of feelings of self-efficacy for a variety of reasons. The negative attitudes expressed by family/community members, colleagues, and younger people toward the incompetence, dependence, or old-fashioned ways of older people can lead many of them feel quite discouraged about their self-worth.  Despite these challenges it is possible to age gracefully.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Research on aging provides many insights as to what is required to age gracefully.

The MacArthur Foundation Study on Aging was undertaken by group of 16 scientists drawn from biology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, epidemiology, sociology, genetics, psychology, neurology, physiology, and geriatric medicine. Their conclusion on what leads to successful aging:  the ability to maintain three key behaviours or characteristics: a) low risk of disease and disease-related disability; b) high mental and physical function; and c) active engagement with life.

Mills Longitudinal Study compared cohorts of sick and healthy women at ages 41, 51, 61. This study too identified three characteristics of those who age successfully: a) increase in life satisfaction; b) reduced negative affect; c) increase in generative activities. Negative affect refers to emotions as such as anger, guilt, shame and so on. Generative activities refer to actions that express care for and attention to others.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development - “arguably the longest study of aging in the world” - consisted of three separate cohorts of 824 individuals—all selected as teenagers for different facets of mental and physical health nearly a century ago and studied for their entire lives. The first is a sample of 268 socially advantaged Harvard graduates born about 1920—”the longest prospective study of physical and mental health in the world.” The Second,  is a sample of 456 socially disadvantaged Inner City men born about 1930—”the longest prospective study of ‘blue collar’ adult development in the world.” Third is a sample of 90 middle-class, intellectually gifted women born about 1910—”the longest prospective study of women’s development in the world.”  

George Vaillant, a former director of study, writes in Aging Well:  “It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us: it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.” Successful aging is also facilitated by a capacity for gratitude, for forgiveness, and loving and being loved by a particular person. Alcohol abuse consistently predicted unsuccessful aging, in part because alcoholism damaged future social supports. Learning to play and create after retirement and learning to gain younger friends as one loses older ones were also significant contributors. Objective good physical health was less important to successful aging than subjective good health.  What is meant by this is that “it is all right to be ill as long as one does not feel sick.”

The Harvard Study also identified some significant characteristics of those who age gracefully: They care about others, are open to new ideas, and within the limits of physical health maintain usefulness to society and help others. They show cheerful tolerance of the difficulties of old age. They insist on sensible autonomy (doing for themselves and by themselves what they are able to) while willing to acknowledge their dependency needs and gracefully accept the help offered them. When ill, they are patients for whom a doctor enjoys caring. They are optimistic and look at the bright side of life. They maintain hope in life. They retain a sense of humour and a capacity for play. They are able to spend time in the nostalgic reminiscence of the past, yet they remain curious and continue to learn from the next generation. They try to maintain contact with old friends while making new ones.

The Nun Study, directed by David Snowdon and colleagues (originally begun as a study of Alzheimer’s disease) asked “Why do some of the sisters age gracefully, continuing to teach and serve, retaining their mental faculties into their eighties and nineties, even past one hundred? Why do others—who have lived such similar lives—appear to lose themselves, forgetting their closest friends and relatives and, in the end, becoming almost wholly disconnected from the world around them?” (Aging Gracefully, p.2)

The risk of death at any given year after age sixty-five is about 25 percent lower for the School Sisters of Notre Dame the subjects of the Nun Study than it is for the general population of women in the United States. What is it that helped these sisters to live dramatically longer (average age: 89; the youngest was 84; the oldest 106 years), and healthier, lives than their lay counterparts? The study provided the following answers:

1. Exercise: All the walking the sisters had done-- at a time when motorized transport was rarely available at the beginning of the last century—had helped them to live long and healthy. Exercise is one of the most reliable ways to preserve cardiovascular health. Exercise improves blood flow, bringing the brain the oxygen and the nutrients it needs to function well. Exercise reduces the stress hormones and increases the chemicals that nourish the brain cells. These changes help ward off depression and some kinds of damage to the brain tissue.
2. Education: About 85% of the sisters in the Nun study had bachelor’s degrees and about 45 % had master's degrees—“astounding statistics for any age group, let alone for women born in the early part of the [20^th] century.” Not only did the less-educated sisters have higher mortality rates, but their mental and physical abilities were much more limited if they did reach old age. These data are in keeping with earlier findings. As early as the 19^th century, British scientists had discovered a strong link between education and health.
3. Language: Language skills also had a significant impact on health and wellbeing in old age. The data from the Nun Study tended to confirm that healthy subjects were more proficient in sophisticated word use. They were apt at using multisyllabic words, such as particularly, privileged, and quarantined. In contrast, the sisters who later developed Alzheimer's more frequently used monosyllabic words, such as girls, boys, and sick.
4. Nutrition. What mattered was not just the quality of the food, the social environment of the meal also mattered. Snowdon wrote: “What I now know for sure is that nutrition for healthy aging is not just about eating certain foods or downing a certain milligrams of prescribed number of vitamins each day. It also depends on where we eat, whom we eat with, and whether the meal nourishes our heart, mind, and soul as well as our body,”
5. Positive Emotions: A positive outlook, especially early in life, contributed to longevity and wellbeing. In the autobiographies the sisters had written when they were an average age of twenty-two years old, positive emotional content strongly predicted who would live the longest lives. The sisters who scored the lowest number of positive-emotion sentences had twice the risk of death at any age when compared to those who were in the highest group. “This is a most extraordinary finding: A writing sample from early adult life offered a powerful clue as to who would be alive more than six decades later,” Snowdon observed.

Interestingly Snowdon refers to two factors that contributed to longevity and wellbeing which was not tested by the Nun Study design, “and yet after fifteen years of working with the sisters, I believe strongly in their importance” he observed.

6. Deep Spirituality. The first is the deep spirituality that these women shared. Profound faith buffers the sorrows and tragedies that all of us experience, Snowdon wrote. Moreover, evidence is now starting to accumulate from other studies that prayer and contemplation have a positive influence on long-term health and wellbeing. A Stanford Research Institution study, for example, has concluded “that the inner life, rather than externals, is central” to health and happiness.
7. Community. Convincing evidence is accumulating from other research, including those cited earlier in this article, that strong relationships as in marriage, membership in churches, clubs, or other social groups, and regular contact with family and friends all reduce the risk of death from the major killers such as coronary heart disease and stroke and enhance longevity. Community was a significant support system that the sisters shared.

A Summary

Summarising the data from research cited, here is a list of attitudes and behaviours that enable us to age gracefully:  Exercise of body and also of mind (through intellectual pursuits, maintaining curiosity and eagerness to learn), nutrition including a positive eating ambience, maintaining positive emotions, balancing independence and dependence, optimism and hope, sense of humour, thankful living, nostalgic reminiscence, helping others through generative activities, caring for and learning from future generation, healing from negative emotions, forgiveness, deep spirituality, and close relationships and community.

Introspection

• What do the research findings on aging gracefully evoke in you?
• Which of the factors that promote graceful aging are you practising? To which do you need to give greater attention?
• What are the implications for you personally, for your family or community?
• You may be aware persons like Sr. Gladys who have been able to age gracefully. Want van you learn from such persons?

Prayer

The Bible mentions a number of persons who have aged gracefully, remaining active and generative into ripe old age, such as the patriarchs Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and  David, Zechariah and Elizabeth… The Gospel of John (21, 18-19) has a scene in which Jesus describes what will happen to Peter in old age. We could read and stay with this passage or the stories concerning the other figures mentioned above and spend some time talking to God about what is evoked in us through this podcast and our reading and reflections.

Have a blessed and safe weekend.

Thank you for listening.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

\ Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Psyche & Soul 55: Midlife XII-- ATONEMENT (AT-ONE-MENT)

 Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-55-Psyche--Soul--117-e14h1df

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

In this edition, I present another midlife challenge: atonement.

Integrity that we explored and reflected upon in the previous podcast calls for atonement, understood as at-one-ment, becoming one, becoming whole.

 An essential challenge here is to work through and heal from the painful feelings and experiences we have carried with us into midlife.

 At-one-ment involves reconciliation - making peace with self, with others and may be also God, something that most of us find a real challenge.

 Reconciliation

To experience atonement, we must come to terms first of all with guilt over our own wrong doings. We need to forgive ourselves for our foolish choices and decisions, for messing up our lives, and turning a deaf ear to the deepest longings of our soul.

We need to let go our grievances against others for the real or imagined damage they have done to us. We need to forgive and reconcile with people who we feel put us on the wrong track or stood in the way of fulfilment of our dreams.

In the pursuit of our ambitions and misplaced priorities we might have been unfaithful to our promises to others, to husbands and wives or to God as religious men and women. We are challenged to right these wrongs, forgive ourselves and others, as well as ask forgiveness. We are called to reconcile, to reach out to others and end our alienation.

Reconciliation is a challenge for most of us. Some of us are able to achieve it, some of us do not. Some of us do not want to reconcile, preferring to carry our hurt, anger and resentment, seeing our stubbornness and pride as badges of strength.

Antony and Rajan were very close friends who set up a business together. The business thrived for a few years. Then profits declined, the ledger was showing big losses. After a careful internal auditing it was discovered that Rajan had been siphoning off money on various spurious accounts. Antony was very angry and upset. He angrily confronted Rajan and resigned from the company and decided not to have anything to do with Rajan or his family. This situation went on for a quite a few years. During a spiritual retreat Antony had a conversion experience. The words of the preacher on forgiveness touched him deeply. Though painful, Antony decided to forgive Rajan and reconcile with him.

Sr. Prabha had been the principal of a higher secondary school for several years. She had worked hard to bring the school to a standard of excellence and everyone was very happy with her. Ten years after she had taken over, her Provincial wanted to give her a transfer. Her considerable talents were needed elsewhere. Prabha talked the Provincial out of it.  Another three years passed. There was now a new Provincial who also decided to transfer Prabha, who tried to talk her too out of it. She shared with the new Provincial all the plans she had to take the school to still  greater heights, and that there were a number of works she had initiated that needed her attention. However, the Provincial stuck to her decision. Prabha obeyed and took up her new assignment, angry and resentful. She also stopped talking to her Provincial, and continues to avoid her even now when that Provincial has finished her term of office.

Antony realized the futility of holding on to his anger and was able to let go and make peace. Prabha was unable. She is still holding on to her hurt and resentment which keeps her fragmented, splintered within herself, alienated from others. No reconciliation, no atonement, no integrity.

Acceptance

Atonement is manifest also in the greater acceptance of the paradoxes of life, between good and evil, failure and success; in the giving up of our rigid and unbending opinions, and greater openness to contrary views; in becoming more sober and less impulsive in our judgments and our behaviour; in the willingness to acknowledge and accept more easily that we have been wrong on many matters and in many situations.  

 Atonement is manifest in the capacity to accept and tolerate ambivalence, conflict and failure. We no longer have the compulsion to be always perfect. We become more accepting of our limitations as well as appreciating our strengths and our accomplishments.

Inclusiveness

Atonement also calls for becoming more ‘catholic’- more universal, more inclusive, making space for everything and everyone in our heart, learning to cross narrow boundaries. We exclude nothing and no one, rather we embrace and include all, breaking down walls, broadening our perspectives and expanding our horizons.

 This acceptance and inclusion apply also to parts of our own selves and our personal history that we have despised or rejected.

Mourning

Atonement calls for mourning. Mourning is grief over unrealized dreams and lost opportunities, foolish decisions and roads not taken. It is coming to terms with our mistakes, failures and disappointments, letting go and moving on.

In authentic mourning, we process the past and discover who we are as a result of our experiences. We realise we cannot undo past events or the foolish choices and decisions we made, or the wrongs that others have done to us. We accept them and their consequences for us, who we have become as a result, and move on with life.

 We have to mourn those aspects of our personality we were unable to develop because of past choices or circumstances. We have to deal with the disparity between who we are and who we had dreamed of becoming— that is, mourn the person we have not, and now may never become.

 Shanti was brilliant in school. She had dreamed of becoming a doctor. But when she completed her school finals, she felt a call to become a religious. She felt she could fulfil both her dreams – be a religious nun, as well as a doctor. She became a nun; but her dream of becoming a doctor was never realized. After taking her religious vows, her superiors wanted her to be in education. She was deeply disappointed. But she obeyed, though with some initial resentment. She qualified in the educational field, obtaining a PhD, the only one in her congregation to do so. She has accomplished much as a well-recognized and appreciated educator. She still feels a tinge of sadness when she recalls her unfulfilled dream, but she is also grateful when she recalls how many lives she has touched as an educator.

Mourning is not regret. In regret we remain tied to a non-existent past, revelling in the “If only…” wishing things were different. Historical events cannot be wished away. All our wishing to the contrary will not make an iota of difference to the fact that something happened, however unfortunate it was.  But we can change our attitudes toward what happened. We can accept what has happened as part of our history, as something about which we today can do nothing and move on with our lives focusing on the present and the future. This is mourning. This is what Shanti did.

The Challenge of Atonement

As psychologist Daniel Levinson observes, failure to undertake this challenge of atonement can move us into late adulthood, bitter and resentful about perceived or real injuries, as “angry Martyrs,” our energy sapped by rage and self-righteous indignation. On the other, when we experience atonement we move toward the sunset of our lives enjoying peace and serenity.

I conclude with William Kraft’s description of the challenge of atonement: “…middle agers are challenged to reflect on life and to bring integrity into their relationships with themselves, others, and the world. Out of guilt, they come to forgive themselves and others. Out of depression, they come to a deeper fulfilment. Out of limits, they come to experience the unlimited. Out of resentment, they affirm their dignity and learn to be compassionate and forgiving. Out of anger, they become gentle and touching. This is the age of atonement, the time to become one with self and others. (Spiritual Growth in Adolescence and Adulthood, 1983, p. 21).

Reflection Exercise

·         What aspects of Atonement described here have you engaged in? Which do you still need to engage in? Which of them do you find difficult to engage in? Why?

Prayer

The story of Joseph and his brothers in the Old Testament (Genesis Chapter 42-45) is classic case of atonement – forgiveness and reconciliation and moving on.

The young Joseph is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. Later Joseph becomes the premier of Egypt and when a famine ravages their land his brothers are forced to go to Egypt and beg for grains from Joseph who recognised them. He is able to let go of the cruel injustice they had inflicted on him and treat them with love and affection and given them the grain needed. Not only, he invited them and their father to stay with him in Egypt.

What does this story evoke in us?  We could spend a few moments with our God, talking to God about our challenges related to atonement and seek his help to do the needful, so that we can move into the second half of   life less burdened by resentments and anger, and in serenity and peace.

 Have a blessed, safe and healthy weekend.

Thank you for listening/reading.

Pictures: Courtesy google Images

 Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

Psyche & Soul 54 MIDLIFE –XI: MOVING TOWARD INTEGRITY

 Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-54-Psyche--Soul--115-e145dc1

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

 In this edition, I present another midlife challenge: achieving integrity--that is ability look back over one’s life without regrets and look forward to death without fear.

 Sr. Felicia is in her late 80’s. She is physically frail and bedridden because of a debilitating illness. But her mind is sharp as it was in her twenties when she first came to India as a young missionary. She radiates joy and enjoys telling stories to her visitors – stories of her experiences. “When I first came to India…” she would begin and go on a narrative of her missionary adventures. She would often repeat the same story. Those who have heard her many times, would tell her. “Sister, we have heard that one before. Tell us another.” She would then say, “This I think I have not told you.” And then start something different, but invariably after a while her narrative would go back to the oft repeated stories.

What Sr. Felicia is doing is reminiscing and integrating. In retelling her experiences she brings the bits and pieces of her long life into perspective and endows them with meaning.

In Erikson’s eight-stage developmental scheme, the crucial task of the eighth and last stage is achievement of integrity. The word, as Erikson uses it, does not refer to honesty or authenticity, but to wholeness, in the way The Oxford English Dictionary defines it:  “Wholeness, entireness, completeness... the condition of having no part or element taken away or wanting.”

Integrity consists in seeing one’s life in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile. It is the result of synthesising a life time of experiences, both good and bad, in a way that enables one “to look back over life without regrets and to look forward to death without fear.” Such a stance calls for much soul-searching for the meaning of our life and working through and coming to terms with life’s inevitable disappointments and tragedies, as well as being thankful for its blessings.

              

Reminiscence

The central process that leads to integrity is reminiscence, the repeated nostalgic contemplation and retelling of our life stories. As our life experiences are remembered and retold again and again, a synthesis and integration occurs. The scattered pieces of the puzzle that is our life begins to fall into shape. We begin to see our life in its entirety and accept everything, finding meaning and purpose even in what was considered senseless or tragic.

 Often during reminiscence memories of unresolved issues come into awareness with an invitation to reconcile with them.

 Another important aspect of this reminiscence is the evaluation of our contributions to improve the quality of life for others.

Psychologist Robert Butler describes what happens in the reminiscence:

As the past marches in review, it is surveyed, observed, and reflected upon by the ego. Reconsideration of previous experiences and their meanings occurs, often with concomitant revised or expanded understanding. Such reorganization of past experience may provide a more valid picture, giving new and significant meaning to one’s life; it may also prepare one for death, mitigating one’s fears. (The Life Review, pp. 489-490)

Altruism and Generativity

Those who have been generative, through contributions to culture and society, rather than focused on personal aggrandisement and ego gratification in their earlier years, are the ones who find it easier to move toward integrity. Through these generative and altruistic activities they are able, in psychologist Robert Peck’s words, to “achieve enduring significance” and so be in a better frame of mind to accept the impending end. The efforts made to make life more secure, more meaningful, or happier for the people who will go on after one dies is one of the most important dynamics that enables one to look back without regrets and forward without fear.

 Relationships

The close relationships one has enjoyed also provide for a sense of subjective-wellbeing and satisfaction, and thereby enhances the path toward integrity. This is all the more true if the close relationships are still maintained.

 Maintenance of close, satisfying relationships serves as buffer against the depression and low morale that can ensue from the social deprivations and the physical challenges (deterioration of certain physical capacities, particularly the loss of hearing, impaired vision, and limited motor agility,) that are part and parcel of old age

Despair

The opposite of integrity is despair – the feeling that one’s life was worthless or meaningless, that one had failed to make any contribution to the future of society and wellbeing of others and that it is now too late to make a difference.

This happens especially to those who have lived a very self-centred and selfish life with little regard for the welfare of others. They would now want to make some changes, but there is no time; it is too late. As Erikson observed “Despair expresses the feeling that the time is now short, too short for the attempt to start another life and to try out alternate roads to integrity” (Childhood and Society, p. 269)

According to Robert Butler among those for whom the life review is likely to lead to feeling of despair are those who tended to focus on the future rather than on the present. These had invested heavily in the future, hoping for a rich harvest. But that future never arrived, leading to disillusionment with self and life itself.

Another group that is bound to despair consists of those who deliberately went about injuring others. They are plagued by guilt, but cannot imagine forgiveness and redemption.

Still another group consists of those who have been “characterologically arrogant and prideful,” prone to indulge in “narcissistic self-promotion and derisive dismissal of others” (The Life Review, p. 491).

Unable to accept as ultimate the life cycle drawing to a close, the despairing individual approaches death with fear and disappointment. Evaluating his or her life and accomplishments, the despairing individual feels that life, instead of being a meaningful adventure, has been wasted. The result is bitterness and resentment. The individual wants to achieve something meaningful, but recognise the futility of trying, because there is no time left and death is inevitable and near. Despair arises from this sense of waste and futility: ‘If only I could have…”

 This haunting sense of despair is poignantly illustrated in the life of Warren Schmidt, the lead character in the film About Schmidt. Schmidt (played by Jack Nicholson) had devoted himself totally to advancing his career, neglected his family and had little social connections. After retirement his life goes into downward spiral. His wife dies; his attempt to re-connect with his alienated only daughter is rebuffed. He finds himself totally alone, wanting to connect but not knowing how. He sets off on a long journey in his RV (motor home) alone, revisiting his past, and as he makes an evaluation of his life on that solitary journey, he reaches a sad conclusion: “My life has been a failure. What difference have I made to anyone’s life?” Fortunately, salvation came in the little connectedness he experienced with Ndugu, a six-year old orphan boy in faraway Tanzania whom he had sponsored after retirement. The picture the boy sends him connecting himself with Schmidt with a string moved Schmidt to tears – tears of joy as well as regret, expressing a gamut of emotions. The movie ends with that poignant picture of Schmidt’s face in close-up.

What all this tells us is that how we live the first half of our life matters in terms of a happy ending. Among the things that contributes most to a happy conclusion are close relationships one has cultivated, and the contributions one has made to the wellbeing of others. As psychologist George Vaillant summed up the conclusions of the longest running study of human development, “Happiness is love. Full stop.” Vaillant’s conclusions were corroborated by Robert Waldinger, the current Director of the study: “The good Life – Health and Happiness – is built on good relationships. Period.”

A midlife review in terms of how the above dynamics feature in our lives gives us still time, before it is too late, to make some changes in our lifestyle and priorities so that our end of life reminiscences lead to a sense of satisfaction– to feeling “this has been a good life” rather than to a sense of despair, “what a waste!”

 For introspection:

·         As you look back over your life, how do you feel about it?

·         What is the invitation you hear as to the changes you may need to make to achieve integrity - seeing your life as meaningful and worthwhile, “to look back over life without regrets and to look forward to death without fear.”?

 Prayer

The mystic Hildegaard of Bingen writes: “The greatest problem lies in trying to integrate everything, to invest all with meaning, see it all as part of a larger, more meaningful life.”    

                                                 

We can ask God’s help and guidance to achieve this integrity, this meaningfulness. Our God who is very much interested in our wellbeing, our health and happiness is with us in the here and now, as God has been present in all hat has been happening in our life. Take a few minutes to tell God how we feel about our life at the moment, and ask for inspiration to make it more meaningful and satisfying.

 Have a pleasant weekend. Be safe. Be blessed.

Thank you for listening/reading.

Pictures: Courtesy google Images

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com