SEASON 1 EPISODE 11
February 17th at 10 AM PT/ 7 PM CET
New capacities emerge in our minds as we age
WITH TOM CHRISTENSEN
Tom Christensen has a keen interest in bringing the knowledge about these new possibilities into the world.
He writes:
“My intellectual focus in the field of Human Development has been the effort to define and describe what new capacities emerge in the minds of people far along the path of cognitive maturation. Many of us find we are able to use our minds in new ways as we age. And nowhere else have I read about this state of affairs: New capacities and thus new territory, as we age?”
STREAMED LIVE HERE on February 17th 2017
HEIDI’S INTRODUCTION
Would you have believed when you were young, that new capacities emerge in our minds as we age? The normal way of seeing ageing and older people is through the lens of loss. We see so many elders who have lost interests, memory, physical health, family members, friends, a long list of losses. Some of those losses may be real, others not.
But seldom do we notice the huge gifts and gains which arrive in older age. We often assume that WISDOM arrives in older age – and it sometimes does. What else could we gain?
Instead of guessing, as people in the third half of their lives, let’s look at our own experience. And let’s look also into scientific research which shows that our brains can develop and grow new capacities at ANY age.
We need to first understand that there are new possibilities. Then we need to believe it and embody it, and last but not least act on it.
The emergence of new capacities in older age is not common knowledge and not even of general interest yet. And still the “elderly” tend to see ageing as a negative thing.
ABOUT TOM CHRISTENSEN
Tom Christensen “Tom C.”, is the editor of and one of the authors in two books of Gravesian-Spiral Dynamics case studies. He provides Gravesian trainings and writes often on this topic, and others. Tom has braided his life over the past 40 years with constant strands of business, art including painting, sculpture, poetry and piano, regular engagement in sports & gardening, and raising a family. Tom C. is married, and with Stephanie they have 7 children, and 4 of the most charming grandchildren in the world. In years past, Tom C. served as an orderly, nursing assistant, and the first hospice counselor at UW-Madison Hospitals. This phase left him with a wider and more comfortable appreciation for the extremely wide range of end-of-life experiences for people. This background with dying, combined with an appreciation of the possibility of lifelong learning, has led him to welcome each day of his new, more obvious, aging phase, as another opening for discovery and adventure. “No one has ever lived THIS life before. I wonder what’s next?!”
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