Aging with Agency

Building Resilience, Confronting Challenges, and Navigating Eldercare

An experiential guide to re-orienting our understanding of late adulthood as one of life’s most meaningful and transformative stages

Aging can bring new fears, challenges, and concerns. Loss of career, loved ones, or changing physical and cognitive abilities can leave us feeling isolated and scared. Sandi Peters shows us that growing older need not mean the end of personal growth. In fact, late adulthood can prove to be the most meaningful and transformative period of one’s life. The key, says Peters, is the development of one’s inner life, and with it a shift in one’s relation to the aging process. The book draws on history, philosophy, psychology, gerontology, and spirituality to deepen and expand our understanding of what it means to grow old in the twenty-first century. Peters shares time-tested contemplative practices such as meditation, active imagination, dream work, and creative writing designed to enhance one’s inner worlds and enable us to face life’s inevitable changes with equanimity and insight. She offers practical advice on issues such as assisted living and home care, and a refreshingly new perspective on matters of memory and cognitive change.

ORIGINAL: Drawing from depth psychology, developmental theory and spiritual traditions, Peters reframes the experience of aging from a model of decrepitude and uselessness to one of empowerment and growth. The book is a three-part balance of theory, spirituality, and practical advice.

PRACTICAL: Provides readers with time-tested contemplative practices to enhance one’s ability to address personal fears during challenging times, as well as information for readers to make more informed life choices.

MULTIPLE READERSHIPS: In addition to elder readers, the book is also suitable for family members, care givers, hospice workers, mental health providers, clergy, geriatricians, and gerontologists.