Connie Zweig on Conscious Aging and Aging Well

speaker-0 (00:03.992)
Welcome back everybody. Today we have Connie Zweig, who is a

young in therapist which by the way that’s something I’m gonna ask you what exactly that means Connie it always sounds better coming from the person I’m interviewing as to who they are and what they’re doing so why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself

speaker-1 (00:31.374)
Um, hi, Neil. Thanks for having me on the Transition Network. I’m one of those folks who’s in early retirement, just like some of our listeners, and know the struggles and the opportunities firsthand about this time of life. So how do we, you know, at 77, how do I say who I am?

What most people do is they describe what they’ve done. And when you meet people at a party, the first thing they say is, what do you do? What’s your work? Right? So our culture is very identified with our roles, our work roles, our family roles, what we do, what’s our productivity, what’s our achievement. And I can give you a list of my achievements and the six books that I’ve published.

and all this other stuff and my grandkids. But I think for our purposes, what I want to just begin with about myself is that when I was in my late 60s, after very successful career as a therapist and author, I began to feel disoriented. I kind of heard this soft

whisper, time for something else, time for transition. And I ignored it for a while. And then I realized, this was a deeper part of me, surfacing and calling giving me a calling to make a change. So I began to listen to it. I stopped my clinical practice.

which I’d been doing for 30 years as a psychologist. And I stopped writing and I began to just sit and feel and contemplate and wonder and be curious about the next stage of life. And I started to read because I’m sort of a natural researcher, I started to read about retirement and

speaker-1 (02:57.326)
later life and conscious aging. I took the training of Saging International, which I highly recommend, Saging.org. And it gave me a sense that there is this new phase of life with all the new longevity, with people thriving in their 80s and 90s. There is an opportunity

that’s really not being discussed. What is being discussed and published over and over, housing demographics, healthcare demographics, financial demographics. But what about the inner world of people in our generation? Boomers, older folks, a little bit younger folks. What about the inner lives that we’re experiencing? Our emotional lives, our spiritual lives.

And as I read more and more all the books about conscious aging, I realized that there was an opportunity for me to contribute what I had studied for many years, which was the psychology of Carl Jung, depth psychology, which means orientation to the unconscious, which he called the shadow. And the shadow is that part of us that’s not in the light of awareness.

It’s hidden from us in the dark. Sometimes we get a glimpse of it in our dreams, or we get a glimpse of it when we say something mean or sarcastic and we’re kind of shocked at ourselves, or when we do something that’s very out of character and we feel ashamed. That’s the shadow popping through. And I realized that that quiet voice that was calling to me to make a change

was coming from my shadow, from my deep psyche, was sending a message saying, it’s time. It’s time to let go and cross the threshold into another stage. And that need to let go is hard for people. We might be letting go of a role that has been our identity forever. We might be letting go of a big house that we can’t afford.

speaker-1 (05:23.03)
We might be letting go of our kids who are on their way. We might be letting go of the income that we become so used to. And so that letting go is the first stage. And, you know, as I read more and more, realized nobody was describing the unconscious process of this transition. The so if they wrote about letting go, it was all about where are you going to live? Right?

Or what are you going to do with your leisure time?

speaker-0 (05:55.672)
practical aspects.

speaker-1 (05:57.432)
Yeah, the concrete world. And for me, emotional world and the spiritual world have been primary for so long. I’ve been practicing meditation for 55 years now, and nobody was really writing for me. So I began to kind of organize this book, The Inner Work of Age, and

When I came upon the subtitle, which is by a spiritual teacher named Ram Dass, shifting from role to soul, that was his phrase. And that actually gave me the frame of the book because this transition is from identifying with a role and what we do to identifying with soul, who we really are. And

Each of you who’s listening may have different language for that, right? If you’re Christian, maybe it’s your Christ nature. If you’re agnostic, maybe it’s your energy. You know, if you’re…

some other religion, maybe it’s your higher self or your spirit. And that’s okay. Whatever it is for you, the shift is from identifying with what you do to that, who you really are, your essence. If you’re Buddhist, you could say your true nature or your Buddha nature. And so I wrote this book

with all the familiar topics of age, like illness and caregiving, retirement, activism. I just went to the No Kings March here in San Diego with 60,000 people. And most of them were boomers. There were many more people my age than young people. Yeah. So I wrote all these kind of themes, but from the point of view of the inner life.

speaker-1 (08:12.27)
and interviewed people about what’s the deepest part of you telling you what is going on in your inner world about all these things. So that, and then at the end of each chapter, there are practices. There are psychological practices to work with your shadow and begin to recognize the messages that are encoded in your life that you’re missing.

And there are spiritual practices from every different tradition, all kinds of meditations, all kinds of practices that can help you shift your identity. And there are also interviews with many teachers like father Thomas Keating and Ken Wilbur and many, many people from different traditions. So that became for me, the book became

for me the next stage in my retirement from clinical work. And I taught the inner work of age on Zoom for many hundreds of workshops over the last few years.

speaker-0 (09:28.728)
So just for everybody that’s watching, I will put a link in the description for this video to Connie’s book, The Inner Work of Age, so that you can go see exactly what she’s talking about.

speaker-1 (09:44.396)
Yeah, and there are also videos about it on my website on Connie’s WAG.com. free videos.

speaker-0 (09:51.288)
So you used a couple of terms, actually a number of terms there, that I’d like to get clarification because I grew up in a family where everything was physical, everything was, you know, the Western… there is no spiritual aspects, you know what I So there’s a lot of these terms that I’m not aware of. You mentioned the term Saging. What exactly is Saging?

speaker-1 (10:22.766)
Well, a sage is a wise manner woman, right? That’s a term that’s kind of a perennial term. It may have started with the Chinese culture or it may have started with indigenous cultures. I’m not sure. We don’t use it today very much. But there was a rabbi, Zalman Shakhtar Shalomi, who was one of the first

really co-creators of the conscious aging movement.

Really beautiful man. He wrote a book about aging and he started an organization called Saging International. And it continues. He’s gone now, but it continues and it’s a lovely group of elders who teach workshops, have conferences, build community for elders involved in all kinds of things.

speaker-0 (11:10.382)
Okay.

speaker-1 (11:30.07)
And so I went through their initiation process. It was a one year training and to become a sage. They call it a certified saging leader, but it basically refers to the idea that we can be old without being wise, right? We can become an older rather than an elder. And what does it mean to become an elder or a sage?

So for me, and I write about this extensively, for me, it means we do the inner work to become self-aware, aware of our shadow, aware of our journey by doing a life review, aware of our regrets and mistakes. We repair our relationships wherever possible.

We prepare for death in a conscious way. So we carry mortality awareness, knowing that the time is short. And what do we need to do in that time? In order to die without regret, in order to die peacefully. For some elders, they need to contribute more to society, to social justice and so forth. For others, they need to meditate more.

and be more introspective. It’s a very individual journey. But the idea is that there are a lot of people who grow old without self-reflection and end up bitter and closed down and regretful. And that’s not an elder. You can be 85 and you’re not an elder. Right. So

So, Saging has that as a mission, as a community. There are also other communities that are doing that now, conscious aging work. Elders Action Network is a wonderful one. It’s more for people who are oriented toward activism. So, that’s what I mean by that.

speaker-0 (13:52.174)
Yeah, so just as an aside for everybody that’s watching, don’t forget that we interviewed, I’m trying to, I’m horrible with names, the Elder Action Network, I want to say four weeks ago. So, you used the term conscious aging. And it’s it sounded almost like a term that was used for

speaker-1 (14:09.964)
Okay.

speaker-0 (14:21.782)
an umbrella term for all those various different things. Okay, so it’s basically as you age, be aware that you’re aging and be aware of what you’re going through.

speaker-1 (14:24.844)
Yeah, it is.

speaker-1 (14:34.646)
I would say there’s a conscious aging movement that’s afoot. There are people writing books about aging consciously and what it means for them, holding conferences about it, writing newsletters about it.

building communities about what it means for them.

And there are people who are working on ageism, like Ashton Applewhite. There are people who are working on spirituality and becoming spiritual elders. There are people who are, so there’s all these different dimensions of conscious aging, but the idea is that the old kind of vision,

of growing old was a simple vision of decline, that there were less options, that there was less health, that there was less vitality, less intimacy, and so on. And that that is not true, and it’s no longer the case. And even though there may be some eventual physical decline or cognitive decline,

that for many, people nowadays, the health span stays up with the lifespan and people are thriving. And how do you live those years creatively, vitally, consciously? So my emphasis has been on shadow work and spirituality. That’s not everybody’s emphasis in conscious aging. That’s kind of just been my niche.

speaker-1 (16:27.928)
So for people who want to orient to the unconscious, maybe explore their dreams or their unlived lives, and who want to explore some kind of spiritual practice or belief system, that’s what I’ve focused on for this stage of life. But the conscious aging movement, as you said, is an umbrella. holds a lot of different

parts of this movement.

speaker-0 (17:01.422)
Interesting. Sonia, I interviewed Ashton earlier this week. anybody that’s watching, you should have seen the publication of that interview already. But one of the things she said was that when she first started looking into aging, that her preconceptions about aging were completely off, completely erroneous.

as she learned more and more about that. I would suggest that people aren’t aware of that until they actually get to those points. It’s not a she just because she was researching it and looking into it that she got there earlier.

speaker-1 (17:32.546)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (17:47.82)
Yeah. Well, you know, for me, I had this experience. I told Ashton this when I was sitting in a restaurant one day having lunch. And a woman came and sat next to me and she was very dirty and tattered and she ordered free samples. And she was quite old. And I remember saying to myself, my God, she shouldn’t be here. She’s probably homeless. I hope I’m never like that.

really scary. And because I’ve done shadow work for so many decades, I paid attention to that inner voice. And I recognized that it was ageism. It was also classism, you know, but that’s another subject. But it was ageism in me. And I was totally shocked. Because I have a history, I went to Berkeley in the late 60s. So I fought for racism. And I fought for, you know,

Sexism and I fought for all the and here I was with this ageist inner dialogue and I recognized that as the first shadow character that I wrote about in the book the inner ageist and most people in our culture have an inner ageist. I hear it from people I hear it all the time I would say every week.

I hear someone make a comment they don’t think is age, they’re not even aware that it’s biased because it’s unconscious. It’s an unconscious bias just like racism. know, she has taken on, Ashn has taken this on as a movement. It’s potent what she’s done. But the internal work that’s required to become non-ages, to become aware,

of your own ageism for me requires tuning in to that part of us that’s outside of awareness. You know, that’s whispering quietly at the threshold. we’re not even hearing it. And then what happens is we turn that inner age just against ourselves.

speaker-1 (20:06.114)
So now in my seventies, my God, I’m old. What does that mean? I can’t do this. I can’t do that, right? I’m losing my mind. I’m losing my health. That’s the inner ageist. And there’s a researcher at Yale. I don’t know if she mentioned this, who has found over many decades of research that that inner ageist, our internalized ageism has concrete effects

on our physical health and our mental health and our cognitive health. I mean, it’s amazing how that negative image that we carry about growing old affects our aging process.

So this is, you know, classical Carl Jung psychology, which is that there’s an internalized image and message that has a profound effect, but outside of awareness, it’s in the unconscious, the shadow, but it’s having this profound effect. So, you know.

Conscious aging is an antidote to that. But it needs to deal with the unconscious messages that we’ve all internalized in our culture. And I can remember my father saying ageist things about the neighbors when I was young, or about characters on TV, like all in the family. Remember those characters? I remember my dad talking about. So, you know, we internalize that stuff.

or my mother talking about her mother. So all of that is inside of us at a very subtle level. And if we really want to kind of uproot it, we need to orient differently. We need to orient to our inner worlds.

speaker-0 (22:00.32)
It’s interesting. It starts, it sounds like it starts off being externally focused. And then when you get to the age that your. Your internal clock says now you’re old, then it turns inward.

speaker-1 (22:20.054)
Yeah, I don’t know if it’s quite that linear, but yeah.

speaker-0 (22:24.438)
Yeah, I’m just trying to associate them all, but yeah.

speaker-1 (22:27.278)
Yeah, so we projected out when we’re young, those old people. And then when we’re old, it’s me. I’m one of those old people now, right? it’s, and projection is one of the ways we meet the shadow. So projection is when we unconsciously attribute to somebody else something we don’t wanna see in ourselves.

So if we don’t want it, right, we don’t want to see that we’re lazy, we say, those people are lazy. And that way the psyche gets rid of that trait. And this is the root of war. This is what’s happening all over the world. This is the Israeli-Palestine conflict. This is the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This is the whole world is based on shadow projection and attributing to others

what is difficult to see in ourselves and turning the others into the enemy. This is a source of enemy making. So it could be old people as the enemy. During the pandemic, there were people saying, oh, let them die. They’re old. I don’t know if you remember that, but I was hearing that.

speaker-0 (23:48.392)
I remember that I, to this day, and I don’t want to get into the politics of that. No. I keep thinking back when I think about COVID and the isolation times, I keep thinking about the entire purpose was to try and make sure that it didn’t get spread from one person to the other, as opposed to people were thinking it was their own rights and it was affecting just them without thinking about those around them.

speaker-1 (24:17.836)
Yeah. you know, shadow projection is a root cause of a lot of our problems. leads to enemy thinking, leads to othering and lack of identification and therefore lack of empathy and compassion. So my career has really been about teaching people about their own shadows and how they might project them onto other people and how to detect that.

and how to stop doing it. ageism is just another example yet, another ism. Now the anti-gay stuff is back. Again, homophobia is really back. So we think that we resolve these issues by changing laws, by legislation. But if we don’t actually deal with them in the psyche,

They’re not resolved. They resurface. And we’re seeing all this stuff, all this hatred resurfacing now again.

speaker-0 (25:27.094)
Yeah, hold on one sec.

speaker-0 (25:33.976)
So, it’s interesting. In early February, I interviewed Dr. Helen Labretsky from the UCLA Longevity Center.

speaker-1 (25:43.692)
Yeah, she’s a friend.

speaker-0 (25:44.99)
you know how. Okay. And for those that haven’t seen that interview, Helen focuses on combining the mind, body and soul. Whereas Western medicine typically just focuses on the physical. So what I’m hearing here is a lot of this shadow work and the conscious aging also ties into what she’s doing in terms of living longer, living healthier.

speaker-1 (26:14.062)
Yeah, we’re very aligned. She’s also, you know, very committed to spiritual practice. Yeah, and her yoga work, her yoga practices.

speaker-0 (26:29.068)
One of my other interviews was with Dr. Riley Moines. Now he had written about the four phases of retirement. The first phase is the vacation phase where people think it’s just going to be a great vacation. So they’re off golfing or doing whatever. But when they hit a wall, normally it’s like six months to two years afterwards, they go, is that it? And they don’t know what’s going on. And they enter the phase of loss.

where they realize they’ve lost their purpose, their focus, which their careers have been providing. They had lost their social circle because work was where most of the friends were. And once they get past that and realize they got to figure out what’s going on next, that next phase is that phase of discovery, trying to figure out what their purpose is. So that’s where your shadow work comes in, I would assume.

speaker-1 (27:30.03)
Oh, it’s there at every stage. It’s there at every stage. mean, when people resist retirement, it’s the shadow blocking them. It’s some part of them saying, you know, no, I’m not ready. I can’t let go. And whatever the reason, whether it’s identity or colleagues or money or, you know, purpose,

It’s all good reasons. But the shadow is always involved all day, every day. It’s involved at every stage. So in the chapter on retirement, I describe how a number of clients and people I interviewed were able to uncover where the shadow was sabotaging their deeper need to slow down and find a different rhythm.

and change their lives.

speaker-0 (28:34.806)
One of the things I’ve been hearing common across the common thread across all my conversations is that that sense of purpose is often some core kernel of a person’s personality. It’s not the entire is just some small core. Is that part of parcel of what the shadow work is to try and find out what that particular core is?

speaker-1 (29:01.774)
I would say it a little differently because we all have these multiple voices inside. We all have a committee inside our heads. And what we try to learn, what we try to teach with ShadowWork is who is the voice of the self?

So there’s all these voices of shadow characters, and those are the parts of us that sabotage that purpose or sabotage our deepest intentions. But there is another voice, like I described when I heard that calling, there’s another voice that knows our purpose, that inherently is connected to it. So for me,

You know, the common purpose of every human being is evolution. I would call it evolution of consciousness. In psychology, we call it development, human development, becoming more aware, more related, more…

speaker-1 (30:15.702)
self-conscious, more and less ego driven. So part of what we lose when we retire is all those props for the ego. But that’s what’s supposed to happen. The ego is supposed to be humbled in this stage of life. The purpose of this stage of life is not more ego trip. It’s not to feel more special or more

distinct or more, I would say, even productive. It’s to feel more connected with everything. More of the inter the natural interconnection that’s given that’s imminent. That’s inherent in our lives more connected with other and this is you know, we see the opposite in Trump and what’s happening with his psychology now.

the way that he’s falling apart because the opposite is happening. So, you know, for me, there’s a shared purpose with all of humanity. And then there are individual purposes. Most people are not aware of that shared purpose, right? The deeper evolution of the soul. so they think their purpose is providing for their family or buying more cars.

or doing more creative projects or, you know, having more friends or more golf time or, so there are many levels of purpose, I think, and it’s can be very individual. could be different at different stages of life. You know, there’s a stage where the purpose is education. There’s a stage where the purpose is family, right?

speaker-0 (31:59.502)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (32:14.818)
But for me, the stage of later life, the purpose is evolution. I mean, why have we been given as a species this new longevity?

Instead of living 40 years, we’re living 90 years. Why? What is the purpose of that? It’s the expansion of consciousness in the human species, from my point of view. And that’s why I put all these practices in the book that people can actually use in their own lives to open their hearts and open their minds.

speaker-0 (32:56.462)
I’ll get back to some of those practices just as examples. But I want to tie back that connectedness thought because one of things I’ve heard often is that when you retire, you lose that connection to things. But that’s because their connectedness is through their work to other people, to their social aspects.

People become more isolated when they are retired, that sort of thing. So wouldn’t just the act of retirement be detrimental?

speaker-1 (33:37.314)
that’s not the connection I’m talking about. I’m not talking about communities at work or collegiality, or drinking buddies or social parties. I’m not talking about that level of connection. I’m talking about the unity of life, unity of living things. They’re all connected. They are all made of the same stuff.

whether we call it energy or consciousness, whatever we call it, it’s the same breath that the dinosaurs breathed. Do you know that? It’s the same oxygen molecules. We are all connected at the most essential level. I’m not talking about who we go out to the bars with. So that, you know,

All those distractions of work and socializing are now gone. And we have the time to cultivate these deeper connections, these internal connections.

And I know this is not for everybody, you know, and I know some people feel.

aversion to spirituality, especially if they had fundamentalist upbringings of some kind, you know, they may not be interested in this. And that’s okay. That’s fine, you know. But for me, that’s the purpose of this stage of life.

speaker-0 (35:17.356)
I would actually suggest that you’re… I find most people have the exact same thoughts, regardless of whether they’re Jungian, Christian, whatever, practical people. They just use different terminologies. And once people understand a common language, they actually…

are talking about the same thing, if they can get past the different terminology.

Let’s get back to, okay, so you mentioned that in your book you had a number of different practices, things to do. What would some of those things be? What would the, what, I’m assuming they build on each other. Again, that’s me. You can already tell that I have a very linear mind that you could do A then B then C, that sort of thing. And they’re all going to be parallel.

speaker-1 (36:18.99)
It’s not like that. It’s not a, you know, four steps to enlightenment book. That’s not what it is. Each chapter has shadow work practices. So if you’re dealing with illness or caregiving, for example, what is coming up in your shadow? Meaning, what can you tune into?

that’s just outside of your awareness, but that’s having an impact on you. So if you’re sick, it may be feelings of helplessness, distrusting the doctor, over-trusting the doctor, feeling alone, feeling hopeless. Now, some of these feelings might be conscious, and some of them may not.

Some of them you might share with somebody and some you might not. And the caregiver for that person, what is going on with her? So I’m a caregiver for my husband. And sometimes I really lose my patience. Sometimes I feel resentful about how much of my life is about doing the tasks that he used to do.

Sometimes I can talk to him about it and sometimes I can’t. So what does that mean for our relationship? Because he’s having his own shadow issues about having a degenerative disease and the load that it’s putting on me, right? So who is, where are there books about this? It’s not about who does what, it’s not about roles.

No, it’s not about medical care. It’s not about money. It’s about our inner worlds and how our inner worlds are affected and what we can do about our little subtle thoughts and feelings that are coming up from the unconscious. So I took care of a very close friend who died of cancer a few years ago and

speaker-1 (38:41.844)
We used to talk very openly about what was going on in the process between us. And we both learned so much about ourselves from this process. And I want to share, so I wrote about that. I want to share with people that there are opportunities for growth and for healing.

in these really difficult, challenging situations. I mean, this was a tragic situation, but we, she and I…

speaker-1 (39:28.632)
Like we woke each other up. We use the situation like grist for the mill. And we became more conscious and more loving and more aware beings by going through this together. So that’s the kind of that. So that’s the psychological side of it. And the practices in the book, they’re very specific.

how you work with your shadow in all these different circumstances. And then there’s the spiritual side of it.

Some people might want to learn how to follow their breath so that they can relax, quiet the mind, relax the body a few minutes a day and cultivate an inner silence. Some people have never experienced inner silence. This blows my mind. I mean, I don’t think I would have survived without meditation. I, you know, so I teach people.

Simple practices to quiet your mind, settle your nervous system, calm your body, and how to practice that. Some people are interested in a mantra, which is a word that you repeat to quiet your mind. Other people are interested in…

You know some kind of practice that comes out of a tradition a Jewish practice a Christian practice a Hindu or Buddhist practices. So there are lots of them in there. And if you have if you are part of a particular tradition. It has a mystical lineage that you may or may not know about. So for example, most Christian churches do not talk about meditation.

speaker-1 (41:30.764)
But the Desert Fathers had early mystical practices. And this was picked up by Father Thomas Keating, who brought out Centering Prayer. And Centering Prayer is a very easy practice to learn. He gave me just an exquisite interview, and it turned out, Neil, that it was right before he died. So was really precious.

conversation that we had. And so you can learn Centering Prayer if you feel aligned with that tradition. So there are just lots of experiential parts to the book. It’s not all theory.

speaker-0 (42:18.266)
Interesting, remember a few years ago, so everybody again goes back to what I was saying about everybody being on the same page. Here in Canada, the number of people that are in an organized religion is quite low. Last time I heard, and keep in mind this would have been like five, seven years ago, we were down to something like 13 % of the population.

was part of an actual practicing religion. But the percentage of people that thought of themselves as spiritual was actually quite high.

speaker-0 (43:00.15)
I would suggest that that spirituality aspect is something that we are all in agreement with.

speaker-1 (43:08.758)
Yeah, but you know what, I’d like to say something about that. So that that reporting is about conscious religious beliefs. It’s not about what’s in the shadow.

speaker-0 (43:21.122)
Yes.

Okay.

speaker-1 (43:25.912)
So for people, for example, who are raised in Catholicism or fundamentalist Christian household and then become agnostic or then become spiritual in the unconscious, all that messaging is still there.

the shame and the fear and the self doubt is in the shadow. So I worked with a lot of people who were recovering from fundamentalist messaging and even abuse. Actually, I wrote a whole book about religious abuse. It’s called meeting the shadow on the spiritual path. Because I was so

speaker-0 (44:09.144)
Okay.

speaker-1 (44:15.238)
speaker-1 (44:18.56)
engaged for a long time with this issue that people are carrying these messages from childhood into their adult lives in a way that they’re not aware of, but in a way that then draws them, pulls them into other situations that repeat their childhood so they find a guru.

who starts telling them the same similar thing, only, you know, it’s Hindu instead of Christian, or they join a cult, or they find a different church that in the end ends up being hypocritical and having similar kind of shadow issues. So, you know, again, my sort of little tiny voice

to the world has been, it’s not just what you’re aware of that’s influencing you. Because most of where we live, I mean, look at how many hours we sleep, we’re dreaming. That’s where the shadow is processing what’s happening in your life.

So the shadow is influencing us all the time. And we might say we’re spiritual. I’ll give you an example. I had a client who told me he was a Buddhist when he came in. He was doing Buddhist meditation with a teacher. And for a long time, he insisted on that. And then he told me he was gay. And he really wished he wasn’t gay. He was very ashamed about it.

And then I asked him what was his childhood religion and he said Catholicism. And we started excavating the beliefs that were implanted in him from his Catholic upbringing. And he realized how much that was still influencing his self, his identity that he had basically was using Buddhism just to cover it up.

speaker-1 (46:31.33)
You know, the Buddhism was basically a defense because it wasn’t messaging to him that something was wrong with him. But inside he was still that sinner, that bad boy. So we’re all made of all these layers. And it’s so rich and fulfilling to explore these deeper layers of ourselves. And that’s one of the opportunities.

of later life when we have time. You know, we’re not running around chasing money and power. We have time to really delve into who we are.

speaker-0 (47:21.198)
One of the things I’ve noticed about myself, and I’m going to use myself as an example that leads to the question, is that often when I start something that’s not in where I’ve been,

An opportunity will come back up that tries to pull me back to where I was. So for example, with this podcast, I started working on this podcast and then mid February, I had an opportunity arise to go and do some architecture work in the IT space.

I turned it down for the first time where I turned my back on that side of things because this podcast is taking off. But I’m wondering whether these types of things happen.

And I know that was outside of my control, but it still comes up and becomes aware of it. In the past, I would have turned and taken something like that, as opposed to continuing the path with what I’m doing.

I kind of view it as a test to see is this really what I want to be doing versus going back to that sort of thing. Is that along the lines of the shadow showing up?

speaker-1 (48:39.938)
Well, what do you feel about that decision today?

speaker-0 (48:43.246)
I’m scared, I’ll be honest. I mean, this is a completely new area for me. It’s a new thing that I’m doing. You know, that other thing. Well, the other thing was guaranteed money, whereas this is not. This is growing. This is something I’ve always wanted is something that would grow and build and become something that I could.

look at point out and said I did that. Type thing. But.

This is a longer term vision versus a very tactical short term thing that’s safe for lack of a better term. So safe versus risky.

So, do those things, and I’m just wondering whether those things arise externally, simply because at that time, I’m being tested to make a decision.

speaker-1 (49:47.534)
Yeah, I don’t know if life is that simple. Really, you know, something happens to test us. I think most of our decisions, especially the complicated ones, include our unconscious process, even though we’re not aware of it. You know, that there was some part of you that

wanted the familiarity of that job offer, the certainty, the easiness. And there was another part of you that didn’t. It wanted the novelty and the risk and the new opportunity, the creativity of the new opportunity. So those two parts of you then were in conflict. Some people would make that decision around money.

would make that decision around comfort. Some people would make that decision around most creative. You know, but in all those cases, there are these parts of us that are in dialogue, even if we don’t hear it. These parts of us that are influencing the choices we make.

speaker-0 (51:03.33)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (51:09.966)
especially if we take the time to do it and it’s not an impulsive. Well, even if it’s impulsive, your shadows involve. So, you know, I don’t know you, I don’t know what the fear is about. don’t know. You know, some people in that situation, hypothetical, if they chose the risky outcome, they would be sabotaging their financial security.

Some people, if they chose the safe situation, the familiar financially safe one, they would be sabotaging their creative potential. Because that can be scary too. They can both have fear involved in them, right? They can both have possibilities. So, you know,

My suggestion is that when we make decisions like this, we listen to all the voices inside our heads, the committee, the committee members, and try to see which voice is the wisest, which voice is what Jung called the self, the higher self, the part of us that knows what’s best.

Not only what’s best for us, but what’s best for the larger, for your marriage, for your family, for the larger community, right? What’s best for the whole.

This is not only about you. This podcast is for many people. Yeah. So that’s kind of my suggestion.

speaker-1 (53:01.878)
And to take on that kind of decision-making process can be a big shift for people who aren’t used to doing it that way.

speaker-0 (53:09.793)
is

Is it facing those more difficult questions where the actual shadow, I think you use the term shadow people, shadow voices are? Like if I, there’s an area that is difficult. For example, for me, it’s always been making a sales call.

speaker-1 (53:23.958)
Erdos, yeah?

speaker-0 (53:37.314)
There might be other areas for other people. I had a conversation with somebody yesterday with regards to them starting their own podcast.

speaker-1 (53:45.954)
Mm-hmm.

speaker-0 (53:47.534)
And they had their own resistances. And I’m just wondering whether it’s those difficult questions, regardless of where those difficult questions are, that’s where the shadow work needs to occur.

speaker-1 (54:00.814)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think, you know, making these kind of choices and responding to these internal questions can trigger us, it can trigger a reaction that is maybe an exaggerated emotional response. And then we know that the shadow has been engaged. Right?

So if you add, if you, an internal question comes up and you’re set, say to yourself, I would never do that. my God, that’s horrible. no, I can’t imagine. There’s a shadow issue there because it has so much charge. Right? Should I leave my spouse after 20 years? Right? Big decision, massive implications, many people involved.

How do you make that kind of decision without learning how to attune to yourself? And who is the wisest part of yourself that really knows how to act on your own behalf and on behalf of the people you love?

Right? Is it best to stay in a marriage that’s maybe static and not so happy just so that the status quo can be maintained for all these people? Or is it best to say to your spouse, I think we have to try something else, or we have to try counseling for a while, see if we can shift it or leave? Huge decisions for people.

And know, shadow work can help you with how to make decisions, how to respond to internal questions. Do I retire now or five years from now? Big question. Lots of different impacts on different people. You know, yesterday I went to a workshop on end of life paperwork and a lot of the questions were about

speaker-1 (56:13.176)
Do I want to be resuscitated? Do I want end of life care? Do I want to live no matter what condition I’m in? These are the questions that we face in our stage of life. And there’s really no rationale for putting them off. I mean, we want to make these decisions and get them into legal paperwork and get treated the way we want to be treated.

then you notice there’s a little voice that says, Like that’s the shadow character. Maybe it’s creating doubt with the rational part of you that are in, and then they’re in conflict, right?

So do I move to a retirement community? It’s another big question. Do I sell the house and move to, when do we move to assisted living? The shadow is involved in all these questions.

speaker-0 (57:21.038)
And I can see situations like my dad’s 94. he was in leadership positions his entire life. When he retired, he was the vice president of the college system up here. I can tell the last

speaker-1 (57:25.229)
Mmm, wow.

speaker-0 (57:47.246)
10 years, it’s almost like he doesn’t want to make decisions anymore. He wants other people to make decisions for him.

speaker-1 (57:54.902)
Mm hmm. People lose agency. You know, people can grow more passive, want to be taken care of, they can become dependent. I don’t know his psychology. And, you know, on the other hand, there can be something beautiful about letting go of the power trip and allowing the ego to recede. You know, my husband, I mentioned he’s sick. He’s enjoying that actually.

No, he’s enjoying not being in charge, not having to take care of everything. There’s a way in which he’s relaxing into the truth of the situation. He’s accepting the truth of the situation that I’m making more decisions now that I’m doing more of the work. You know, he’s not struggling against it. He’s accepting it.

speaker-0 (58:24.951)
You

speaker-1 (58:52.878)
I don’t know what’s going on with your dad, but, and you could talk to him about it. You know, ask him, well, you notice that his personality is changing in this way? What’s going on? Is he aware of it? Is it what he wants? Maybe he wants somebody to say, no, you make this decision. Maybe he doesn’t. I don’t know.

speaker-0 (59:19.854)
I suspect. Last comment on this and then… Anyway, I suspect it’s because he’s…

Because he’s always supported others, he’s never thought about for himself what he wants. And that’s an area that’s really hard. In fact, I can, like right now I can tell going into retirement in those ages.

I don’t really know what I want to do. I don’t have my kids that I have to support the way I used to. My wife is independent. So it’s like, what do I do? And I don’t know because I’ve never done that before. And I suspect that’s the case with him.

speaker-1 (59:54.52)
Mm-hmm.

speaker-1 (01:00:12.79)
Mm Well, you know, you want to do the podcast. Because I can see how engaged you are with it. And you light up when you speak about who you’ve been talking to. So that’s something you do know. Right. And that’s something you’ve chosen to make a priority. I think a lot of men who’ve been providers all their lives struggle.

with this time of life. You know, that he may have a fantasy, like you said, of golf and leisure, but that’s not gonna cut it after a while. You know, if they remain healthy, that’s not gonna be enough. My husband has, he’s a psychologist and he works, and he has a lot of older male clients who are wealthy. And you know, they don’t have meaning.

They struggle to find purpose. struggle to, know, buying another house or another boat. It doesn’t cut it after a while. So I’m, just wanting to say to the listeners that there are resources inside of you that you haven’t learned how to tap yet, that you haven’t learned how to explore. Like your question, what do I want now?

Not only what do I want to do, but what do I need? Right? It’s an important question for this moment in life. And it’s all and for some of us, we’ve been trained out of it. Some people are trained to be self-centered, but people who are trained to be other centered, whether it’s a provider or a mother or a teacher or a nurse, right?

It’s tricky to come back to what do I need in this moment. It’s a whole shift in orientation.

speaker-1 (01:02:18.39)
And it’s time to do that. This time of life.

speaker-0 (01:02:24.386)
You know, Connie, think that is a perfect way to wind down the interview. Yeah. I always ask my guests one last one. This last question. If you were to give one piece of advice to people. What would it be? And you’ve given a lot of advice this interview, so I understand, and it might be something that you’ve already said, but if you were to.

I have one piece of advice for people. What would it be?

speaker-1 (01:03:00.366)
Ask yourself, what do I need to do so that I don’t die with regret?

speaker-1 (01:03:09.666)
What, who do I need to repair my relationship with? What do I need to say? What creative project do I need to finish? Whatever it is that will give you completion, resolution, you may need to review your life a bit and go further back in time. It may not be immediate.

For example, I just sent a letter, an email to a Jungian analyst I had many, many years ago to thank her. What can you do that will help you feel complete as you age with awareness and move toward mortality and hopefully, you know, die in peace?

speaker-0 (01:04:08.696)
Perfect.

speaker-1 (01:04:10.391)
Okay, thank you, Neil.

speaker-0 (01:04:12.28)
Thank you, Connie. And anybody that’s watching this video, I will, as I think I said earlier in the recording, I will put links to anything that Connie has in the description. So feel free to take a look at those items. Connie, and don’t forget to click like and subscribe. I always forget to ask people to do that. So please do that. It helps with the algorithm.

Connie, thank you very much. This has been very informative. I much appreciate it.

speaker-1 (01:04:45.678)
Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank I’m going send you the materials.

speaker-0 (01:04:51.394)
Thank you. Bye.

speaker-1 (01:04:53.346)
Bye.