Wise Aging – A New Kesher Group
Learn More about this group on Wednesday, May 27 at 1:30 PM

As we age, we change, and the world changes around us. We face the challenges of becoming older, and different. We experience change in our physical abilities, our mental acuity, and in the depth and quality of our relationships.

How we embody these changes and refine and reframe our roles and purpose can lead to rewards and a renewed sense of contribution as we embrace the opportunities of aging wisely.

Join us on Wednesday, May 27 from 1:30-3:30 pm at TBT, to get a “taste” of what we will be doing and how we will be doing it.
We will then continue monthly, with a group who will meet together from October 2026 through June 2027.

Please register HERE by May 26 so we can prepare our materials. (Or, contact the TBT Office to register.)

WISE AGING - 2026-2027 Session Topics:

·        Expanding our Consciousness – Wise Aging and becoming a Sage- Beginning our INNER Journey; Using images of aging as a way in, we will begin to explore the concept of a Wise Elder and understand the Sage-ing process and identify and explore our own limiting inner ageist feelings.

·        Reviewing our lives - “A human being would certainly not grow to be 70 or 80 years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species to which he belongs. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.” (Carl Jung)

For Jung, the aging process was not one of inescapable decline of body, mind and relevancy, but instead a time of progressive refinement of what is essential. We will begin to examine the concept of being stuck in the BOX of UNLIVED LIFE. The process of looking back and examining key points in our lives is one step in enabling us to live freely and fully and joyfully in the present.

·        Repairing our life and our relationships – Another step in our progressive refinement is reframing key turning points from our past and seeing how they got us to where we are today, regardless of how painful our memories. We will also look at the freeing power of forgiveness, even when we cannot have a conversation with the person that we need to forgive and/or if that person is ourselves.

·        Cultivating Well-Being – To both enhance and support our spiritual journeys we will examine other areas of well-being; physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional. We will augment our reading material with some expert sources in these areas.

·        Caregiving and Being Cared For – Asking for help and providing it can be fraught with unintended emotions and reactions and can be particularly tricky as roles within family systems change and evolve. Change in and of itself, is rarely easy and having a framework to help navigate changing roles can help reduce some of the challenge.

·        Embracing our Mortality – To further free us from THE BOX OF UNLIVED LIFE we must face the impermanence of life and our fears of Mortality. We will examine our own experiences with death and grave illnesses and how those experiences may have informed our current views and beliefs. We will also look at some concrete steps one can take and conversations that may be helpful in this part of your journey.

·        Creating our legacy – What do we want to leave? We will learn how to write legacy letters. This involves examining what we value and how we would like to share that with loved ones and future generations. It can also be writing letters to go with physical items that we bequeath; telling the story of the items, explaining their importance to us and sharing why we are leaving it to the person and finishing with a blessing of our hopes and dreams for them.

·        Sharing our gifts - Rites, rituals, celebrations; integrating Sage-ing into daily life. We are all familiar with and participated in most of the rituals in the Jewish religion; Brit Milah, naming ceremonies, Bnai mitzvot, marriage and Shivah. What other moments, large and small or transitions, especially those from the Second Half of Life would you like to celebrate and create rituals for? What does living the life of a Sage mean to you? How can you share your wisdom, and with whom?

·        Final session - what’s next for us?  What is our focus/priority in our lives. And, for this group going forward? Would we like to go into depth on any of the topics in the next year? Would we like to further our reading and create a Wise Aging book club? Would we like to watch and discuss narrative films with an aging theme? Would we like to continue as a Wisdom Circle, meeting monthly (or more often), checking in on our aging journeys and having more informal discussions about topics of interest? Or are we finished or do we want to create something else altogether?