For many, leaving a career and moving into retirement proves to be a - PDF document

For many, leaving a career and moving into retirement proves to be a much more difficult transition than expected. In the past civilisations, to guide and empower those transitioning into a new life stage, tribes throughout the world performed Rites of Passage experiences. This 'journey' reoriented individuals towards successfully adapting to and accepting the responsibilities of their next life stage. The goal of the presentation is to provide a vision of how walking the Camino can transform an individual from a vibrant working life into a retirement of renewed purpose, contribution and vigour. (October 2018) The next stage of evolving this vision is through the creation of a self- use Companion Guide to help the newly retired who plan to walk the Camino as part of their own transition into retirement. The guide is being compiled and plans are now being set for us to walk the full 500 mile Camino Francés between 21st September and 31st October 2019 to pilot its contents . We are now looking to select 12 independent retirement walkers who are walking at the same time and who would be willing to use the Companion Guide to provide feedback. We also plan gatherings at four points along the way for shared ritual, teaching and conversation. Should you wish to apply to take part, please contact Adam Wells on info@discoverthecamino.com . 1

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I want to start with the story of my wonderful mom. She mothered us into adulthood. She was devoted to us. I asked her a few weeks ago “When do you consider the best time of your life?” She instantly replied “When we lived on the farm in Nebraska and you kids were young.” Now she is in a “living center” in Tulsa. She is in relatively good health. My sister lives within blocks and sees her many times a week, I live 4 hours away, and see her 3-4 days a month. My sister in Minnesota gets down at least three times a year, but it’s not enough. She is lonely. She is surrounded by 60 other wonderful residents, but sits in her room alone because she doesn’t know them, and thinks they don’t care that much. She wants her kids. She spends a good amount of time being depressed and wondering why the Good Lord hasn’t taken her home. 3

• After years of looking forward to retirement, you can be surprised and shocked that your retirement expectations aren’t being met. You’re then left wondering if the best, healthiest and happiest years of your life are now over with nothing left to live for. • What does the retirement satisfaction data show? A 2016 Employee Benefit Research Institute report compared earlier studies and they showed: • There are almost always 10% of retirees that are NOT AT ALL SATISFIED with retirement, • just over 40% were MODERATELY SATISFIED in retirement and • just under 50% were VERY SATISFIED with retirement. • But look at the trend, back in 1998, the VERY SATISFIED percentage was 60.5% 4

• This is Maria. • She’s 84 years old and some of you may have already met her. Her house is just by the Camino path as you descend into Logroño. • Each day Maria continues the tradition that her mother, Doña Felisa, started in 1980; that of welcoming passing pilgrims by stamping their Credencials with the beautiful inscription of ‘Higo – agua y amor’. Figs – water and love. Maria demonstrates the other side of retirement – a retirement filled with meaning, purpose and service. 5

• So, if you are going to be lucky enough to live to 90, then you could be spending 20-30 years in retirement. • Unlike childhood, adolescence and adulthood, society today has no road map, no age related norms or structured patterns to guide us through this emerging stage of longevity. • Retirees are stepping into uncharted territory. During your careers, you may have developed extensive skills, assumed outstanding responsibilities, gained huge amounts of knowledge and life experience however the arrival of retirement may for some of you feel like life it is stepping off a cliff and into a bottomless void. • With this extended lifespan, retirement today demands that you try to answer life’s bigger questions if you are to find happiness and fulfilment in this new stage of your life. • If you’re not accustomed to self-reflection, the action of looking within one-self can be a terrifying prospect and a very difficult to do without any help. 6

• If you leave retirement to chance, you most likely will follow somebody else’s retirement journey. • As you get closer to retirement, you may receive your ‘Call to Retirement’. These are the deeper questions that arise from within you about what to do WITH the time you have available in retirement. • Questions like: • how will I organise my life in retirement? • how will I relate to family, friends and the community? • how will I spend my money? • how will I manage my time and talents • This ‘Call to Retirement’ is a reminder that with every ending comes a new beginning. • Retirement is an invitation to step into the next stage of life called ‘Elderhood’. 7

• For thousands of years, Elderhood has had an honoured role in the history of the human family. However, the role of elder, at least in the West, has not been tended to or been supported for centuries. • Today, you don’t automatically see elderhood fully within the defines of the retirement description. • If the elder hasn’t become extinct, at the very least, it has been on the Endangered species list. • What happens to the species when only 6 birds are left • we have to keep them in captivity to protect them. • their migration schedules and routes are disrupted • feeding patterns are lost and predators are forgotten. • How can they return to their full life, when the culture of the flock in the wild is lost or forgotten? • In many respects the Elder and elder energy has been lost in it’s natural state. 8

• The quadrated circle, also known as a mandala, is recognised by many cultures around the world as a symbol of wholeness. In terms of human development, it represents life cycle stages of childhood, early and late adulthood and elderhood. • Every life stage offers its gifts. In childhood, we find learning and play provides the most joy. In adulthood, it’s productivity and reproduction. • What’s elderhood? Because we live in a youth obsessed and ego centric society, you may not even be aware there is a life stage called Elderhood. • We’ve become so accustomed to seeing individuals who are so intimidated by the potential loss of their adult powers and adult privileges that they spend all their energies trying to ‘hang on’ to the status quo when they should have called it a day years ago. • It means that many, many, many people will go to their deaths having never discovered and enjoyed the powers and pleasures found in the Elderhood stage of life. • Becoming an elder means to leave behind adulthood and to live life with levels of maturity that go beyond your adult years. • Elders most enjoy life when they shift their focus and share their knowledge and experience in the form of wisdom. • Just because you have reached a certain age does not mean you will automatically become an Elder. There are 45-year-olds who have the wisdom and comportment of an elder whilst there are 70’s year-old’s still living in adolescence. 9

• The good news is that Elderhood is beginning to emerge from this extended era of dormancy. • With self-awareness and intelligent choice you can become an elder. • You may lack a sense of what Elderhood might look like. • We have guides: • We can turn to isolated communities where a vibrant elderhood is still integral to being human We can study the past when the culture of elderhood was strong. • • We can discern the needs of the human community at this moment in history • We can consider the gifts of old age and seasoned veterans of life • and we can all figure it out together! Elderhood can be resurrected using the ancient patterns and the ways of our forebears. 10

• Transitions between 2 life stages are psychologically traumatic for the individual. It is a death and rebirth experience providing both loss and gain. • I am sure all of you have heard of Rites of Passage to mark transitions between life stages • These were practiced throughout the entire paleolithic world and were remarkably similar in very diverse, isolated human communities. • The rites were shaped to appropriately align the individual within the universe so that individuals passing through transition didn’t get lost, self destruct or waste away. • They made use not just of teaching and conversation (words)but ritual, silence, solitude, art, music and motion. • In the old world, particularly before agriculture and before the urbanization of the human community, the rites of passage facilitated the transition from youth to adulthood. Then, as now, the passage was at least awkward, if not painfully difficult. • For the survival of the individual as well as the tribe, in a wild world, the child must give up the childish ways and become a man or woman. Young people were exposed to danger to wake them up. And some children died. The tribes accepted the tragic loss in light of the huge risks of allowing their children to remain immature in a dynamic and demanding world. • Consider our own familiar tragedies of addiction, violence, suicide. These rites of passage guided young people as they negotiated the pivotal time in their life. 11