The Reinvention of My Retirement
Crossing the threshold into late life can feel like a high-wire act without a net. As a therapist of 25 years, an author of five books, a wife and grandmother, and a meditation practitioner of 50 years, I live with deep gratitude. Each week, I receive emails from around the world thanking me for my books about shadow-work. And I know that I have touched thousands of lives.
Each week, I share intense intimacy with my clients and guide them where others fear to tread — into the Shadow, the dark cavern of their minds that contains their unconscious thoughts and feelings, forbidden dreams and fantasies. We explore this foreign land and discover the roots of their denial, resistance, self-sabotage, addiction, inner Critic. And I feel privileged to witness them alter deeply-ingrained patterns and overcome persistent obstacles.
But for the past year, as I entered my 69th year of life experience, I noticed a restlessness, a stirring that I had felt several times before at the end of a cycle and the beginning of another. I began to be aware that I was approaching a threshold around work, although no one else in my friendship circle was using the R word. And, according to everything I read, most Baby Boomers either could not afford to or did not want to retire.
But after many years of learning how attune to myself and listen to my inner voices, I…
