Articles

Conscious Aging Women June 2025

Deciding to pursue a path to become more conscious of who we are, what motivates our behavior, what our values are, and to cultivate compassion and forgiveness not only with ourselves but others, is a very rewarding and necessary step in living and thriving in this world.

It helps us to better understand why we and others behave the way we do, and if we are not satisfied with our behavior and our lives, we can begin to make the changes that will lead us to a more satisfying and happy life. However, no matter how conscious and attuned we are to our mind and body and able to make changes when those changes are needed, we live in a world that constantly challenges our balance, our patience, and our ability to feel compassion.

This is such a time. Our present world seems to be more chaotic, cruel, and irrational than usual. It is hard to feel compassion with others who initiate the chaos and cruelty that directly affect others. As a witness to that cruelty and chaos, we are left both angry and heartbroken.

Becoming more conscious while promising ourselves a more balanced, caring and insightful life does not guarantee a stress- free life. Being conscious helps us to weather that stress with more equanimity and understanding ,and perhaps a greater ability to feel compassion with those that are less than conscious, but we can still feel angry, helpless, confused and want society to be different and "better".

But, what the world is experiencing now, is the daily drip of bad news, cruelty that is being perpetrated daily and even hourly, a sense of our world being upended and having no power to end the misery. It seems obvious that anger and cruelty do not solve problems, but people in political power seem to have no clue.

What do we do with our own feelings and sense of purpose? How can we help to foster a more conscious way of being in the world?

There are no really good answers. We can continue to pursue our own conscious goals, spend time with like-minded people, watch less news and allow ourselves to feel the anger and upset, but only for a limited time. Don't wallow in it!

We can also use this time as our own object lesson. We can examine our own behavior and thoughts to understand how our behavior and thoughts affect others and ourselves. Perhaps we can begin a "kindness campaign" in our own lives and community. We can begin to show kindness when it seems to be so lacking in our world.

There is nothing that a caring conscious person can do at this time to become OK with what is going on and not feel some anxiety and fear. But, we can explore ways that keep our agitation to a minimum, lead a loving life, and KNOW that eventually kindness and love will win out, even when it doesn't seem that is possible.