Join or Start a Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group (SASS)
The Power of Growing Older, Wiser and Fiercer Together
TO JOIN A SPIRITUAL AGING STUDY AND SUPPORT GROUP:
1.) Spiritual Aging Online Support Group Here at Substack
Spiritual Aging is launching a Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group (SASS) that will meet 24/7 right here at Substack. Beginning in January, SASS will become a paid membership with a committed core of fellow travelers growing older, wiser and fiercer together through a private chat room.
Only paid members will receive the Spiritual Aging Study Guide that will be published here at Substack exclusively on a weekly basis starting the first week of January. The subject matter is deep and wide-ranging, from cultivating freedom, finding joy in unexpected circumstances, navigating changing relationships and more. The study guides are based on my new book Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life which is being published December 10 by Inner Traditions, the leading publisher in the field of conscious aging and available for pre-order now HERE.
Joining Elevates and Deepens Your Connection to Equally Committed Members. Starting in January, the online comment and chat function will be available to full members only. Members will be invited to post your response, comments, questions and related issues stimulated by each week’s Study Guide and to engage with one another online at your convenience 24/7. There will also be space to ask one another for wisdom and strength on pressing issues of interest or concern related to aging. These exchanges are by posts only. For those who would like in-person or interaction on Zoom, visit HERE.
Please note: While I will be leading several SASS groups on a monthly basis for leading organizations in the field, this will be my own personal 24/7 online SASS group and I will be joining both as Carol Orsborn and when an issue warrants discretion I will switch to an anonymous name so that I can participate fully. Substack makes it easy to do either.
2.) For a live, interactive Zoom option: Sage-ing International kicks off their immersive study and support group offering with a free December 3 webinar: Intro to Spiritual Aging: Deepening the Conversation. Led by Carol Orsborn, this interactive webinar provides a launching pad for Sage-ing’s new year-long program working with Carol’s book and guide throughout 2025. To register for Dec. 3 click HERE.
3.) For a woman’s only live, interactive Zoom option: Spirit of Sophia, has announced a spiritual aging study and support group for women only called “A Gathering of Old Souls” Other groups are forming spontaneously using a combination book club/support group format, meeting at churches, senior centers and local coffee shops..)
TO START A STUDY AND SUPPORT GROUP: Who are Your Four?
Question:
1.) Who is it amongst your peers that you can talk to about anything?
2.) Who would you like to get to know better?
3.) Who have you lost touch with and would like to reconnect?
4.) Who is it you can tell would like to be friends but you haven’t reciprocated?
Answer: These are Your Four and now the five of you can easily and organically form the basis of a Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group (SASS) and experience, as many did in the early days of women’s liberation, the power of joining together for study and support. Grassroots SASS groups are popping up around the world—both in-person and online—using the study guides I’m posting here to lead the meeting. The subject matter is deep and wide-ranging, from cultivating freedom, finding joy in unexpected circumstances and navigating changing relationships to viewing age-related loss as spiritual practice—and more. We hope you’ll join us!
Which is where this post comes in. tips on getting your own SASS started in August.
Why: Aging is daunting enough in the best of times. But in these fraught days, when negative images of aging bombard us daily, we are in desperate need of an at once reality-based but inspiring vision for growing older that ensures us that aging is a life stage with meaning and purpose of its own. You don’t have to do aging alone!
Getting Started:
1.) Identify Your Four (or more) and share this post with them. Work out a time and place that works for you all, for either in-person or online gatherings. A lot of the grassroots groups enjoy meeting over coffee at a café or in each others’ homes. Others are piggy-backing on existing book club, social and study groups already meeting in religious or community settings. An alternative model would be to meet on Zoom or its equivalent.
2.) Each week, beginning January, paid members will receive a Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group Guide corresponding to that week’s reflection in my new book Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life. (Inner Traditions, December 10, 2024.) The Guide contains a reflection on a particular topic, discussion questions, my additional commentary and/or individual or group spiritual exercise. (For an example, see below.)
Tips on Running a Support Group:
1.) The study guides provide a format and the content for the meeting so anyone can lead the discussion. No preparation is necessary although it would be helpful for that week’s leader to have read the larger original reading upon which that week’s study guide is based to draw upon..
2.) Ideal length is 90 minutes, but one to two hours can work, too.
3.) In larger groups, it’s a good idea to do break-out groups of 2 or 3, 10-15 minutes long periodically during the meeting, then reconvene for the larger group discussion.
Please let me know your plans to start a SASS or how your SASS is doing by emailing me directly at Carol@Carolorsborn.com.
SAMPLE SPIRITUAL AGING STUDY AND SUPPORT GROUP GUIDE
Why Aren’t I Enlightened Yet?
After all these years of spiritual practice, how can I finally get what I came here for?
“You drive yourself through life, hoping to take full advantage of every opportunity to fulfill your potential: coming to understand everything that has eluded you, resolving all your life's issues, mending every relationship and maturing spiritually. You want nothing more than culmination. But your aspirations, even as lofty as these, deplete you and keep you busy striving at a time when what is truly called for is to make space for quiet and peace and let your life flow freely as it will.”
– Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life.
Questions for Journaling or Discussion
· What do you think you “came here for?” and how would you know when you’ve achieved it?
· Can you be whole even if something in your life is incomplete or imperfect?
· What would “making the space for life to flow freely” look like for you? What would you have to sacrifice?
· What can come next, if you’re willing to take the radical leap of faith that you’re already good enough and there’s nothing more you have to do, be or prove?
Carol’s Back Story
I do not regret being a seeker, but I do admit that at times the search for meaning and purpose in my life has been exhausting. Then I read Carl Jung’s definition of life’s primary purpose as “expanding one’s consciousness.” It was a relief when I finally understood that purpose begins with coming to know more about myself and life moment by moment, even or perhaps especially when an honest appraisal causes discomfort. I have learned over time not to automatically push against obstacles but to deepen and expand.
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A Spiritual Aging Exercise
To find the cutting edge of your own growth, and to assist in your discernment, try this exercise.
1. Make a list of all your “If only…then” pairs. For instance: “If only I lived closer to my children…then I would be less anxious about older age.”
2. Now revisit this list, changing every “If only…then” to “Even though…I could be.” So in the example above, you’d rewrite it to read: “Even though I don’t live closer to my children, I could be less anxious about older age.”
You don’t have to know at this point how you are going to bring this about, for enlightenment is a process not a destination. If you find that any one or more of your “Even though…I could be” rewrites are too far a stretch for you right now, you have found the cutting edge of your spiritual growth. Be gentle with yourself as you practice the spiritual principle “progress not perfection.”
Additional Resource
To see this principle in action, and have a fun read along the way, take a look at just about any of Anne Lamott’s books including her recently published Somehow: Thoughts on Love. Anne provides a great role model for accepting one’s imperfection seasoned with equal doses of self-deprecating humor and self-acceptance. In other words, she shows us how to stop trying harder to achieve even our loftiest spiritual goals and give our hearts plenty of space to breathe.
I’ll give the last word to Anne Lamott on this one. “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” To which we respond: Amen, Anne, Amen.