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Summary
On episode 310 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Thomas Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Care of the Soul and, most recently, Ageless Soul, a former monk, musician, university professor, and psychotherapist who now writes and lectures on cultivating a mature spiritual life.
Thomas walks through the five phases of aging he lays out in the book, from feeling immortal in early adulthood through the first jolt of noticing you're aging, settling into maturity, a shift toward old age, and finally accepting old age itself, along with the idea that we don't move through these phases in a straight line.
The conversation covers why sadness and melancholy about getting older are natural and even useful emotions, and why aging tends to shift people from a “heroic,” achievement driven mode into a more contemplative one with real advantages of its own.
Links
- https://thomasmooresoul.com
Key Takeaways
- Aging happens in five phases, and not in a straight line. Thomas describes feeling immortal, a first taste of aging, settling into maturity, a shift toward old age, and finally accepting old age, with people moving back and forth between them rather than progressing cleanly.
- Specific events, not the calendar, push us into a new phase. Often it's a physical problem, an illness or injury, that jolts someone into a new stage of awareness, similar to how religious traditions use ritual to mark initiation into a new phase of life.
- We all carry both a young spirit and an old spirit, called puer and senex. Borrowing from psychologist James Hillman, Thomas explains that aging well means keeping the young and old parts of ourselves in conversation rather than letting either one take over completely.
- Sadness and melancholy about aging are natural, not problems to fix. Accepting that sadness, rather than suppressing or dwelling in it, is what frees a person to also feel the other emotions, satisfaction, happiness, that are available at the same time.
- Time in nature helps process the emotional side of aging. You don't need to intellectually understand the lessons nature offers; simply spending time in it helps you recognize yourself as part of a larger, natural cycle.
- Aging shifts people from a “heroic” mode into a more contemplative one. Instead of proving yourself and achieving, you start reflecting more, which Thomas connects to developing a natural spiritual sense simply from watching life happen to yourself and the people around you.
- Getting older comes with a real advantage: having something to give. Younger people can't offer the same depth of experience, and Thomas argues that becoming someone worth knowing, not just accumulating knowledge, is the real substance of aging well.
- Deliberately staying young in ways that fit your older self is healthy. Travel, learning a language, or picking up new interests are good examples; the risk is only in overdoing it or fighting your actual age instead of working with it.
- A deeper appreciation for art, poetry, and history often develops with age. Thomas explains this isn't just about having more free time, contemplative pleasures become satisfying in a way they weren't during the busier, achievement focused years.
“To age well, you have to be profoundly old and profoundly young.”
Thomas Moore