A Message to Your Future Self
Marking our First SASS Trimester with Our First Perennial Roundtable
Dear SASS members,
As of the end of April, 2025, our tribe of hearty souls has completed our community’s first trimester. We mark this occasion with good news and the opportunity to incorporate a new spiritual practice into your life.
The good news: I am hereby making the commitment to Year Two of the Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group that will take us all the way through 2026 and beyond, with brand new study guides and conversation for each of the weekly reflections in my book Spiritual Aging, along with some wonderful surprises. In addition, SASS will continue to run all our regular, beloved features, such as both favorite and new editions of the Fierce with Age Journal, our Leaders Circle Forum, my personal as well as guest posts and this members-only monthly Roundtable.
As you know, Spiritual Aging was designed to be read weekly in two-year cycles perennially. When we get to the end of Year Two December of 2026, we will loop back to the beginning and revisit on ever-deepening levels all the issues, concerns and hopes that arise among those who view aging as a path to spiritual culmination. This will include the opportunity to review any and all the comments you contributed to the weekly Reflections and Roundtables, reviewing your progress and evolution in real time. And so, as we transit beyond 2025 through 2026 and into 2027, we, too, shall begin anew, deepening both our individual journeys and community of kindred spirits as we go.
Which brings me to the spiritual practice I referenced earlier. Many of us have already done a life review—an in-depth reflection on the trajectory of our journeys through time helping us make sense of our lives as see seek though-lines of progression, evolution and meaning. (For more on this see Life Review below.)
For those of us who have completed life reviews, and those who would like a real-time alternative, I am introducing a new spiritual tool to incorporate into your spiritual aging practice. Many of you have already left comments on our many posts, capturing glimpses of yourself at that point of time. These will be invaluable reference points for you to revisit in the future every time you cycle through. What I’m introducing here today is a more formal opportunity to stop and take stock of who you are on this particular date year after year.
As always, the Roundtable asks of you to capture in words “What’s on Your Mind Today?” Every trimester, starting today there will be a special Perennial Roundtable where you are urged to send a message to your future self that you will be revisiting at this time next year. Over time, as you cycle through year after year, you will have multiple layers of messages to yourself tracking your issues and aspirations over time. This is an exciting new take on the life review process, uniquely suited for a perennial forum such as the one we are co-creating here on Substack. I hope you will take advantage of this new spiritual resource by capturing a snapshot of who you are and what’s on your mind—your concerns and aspirations— on April 23, 2025 as a gift to your future self.
Life Review
Life stage pioneer Erik Erikson introduced the concept of life review as critical to completing the psycho-spiritual tasks of his “Stage Eight”—the life stage associated with old age. By witnessing our journeys through life, we gain what Erikson termed “ego integrity”, the true purpose of aging with all its ups and downs, as an antidote to despair. In spiritual terms, we learn to accept ourselves and reality for what it can’t help being and come to love ourselves and our lives unconditionally. There are many books on conducting your own life review but my favorite is not a how-to but rather pays testimony to how taking on life review as a spiritual practice manifests in the fully-lived life where the pendulum swings from unprocessed regret to fulfilling our life purpose: Legacies of the Heart: Living a Life that Matters by Margaret L. Newhouse.
SASS MEMBERS: You are hereby invited to capture a snapshot of who you are and what’s on your mind—your concerns and aspirations— on March, 26 2025 and every trimester and year hereafter as a gift to your future self. Free Subscribers, now is the perfect time to upgrade to paid so you can join us as we begin sending messages to our future selves.