Change

“Midlife chrysalis” is a term we enjoy at MEA and it’s one I unleashed to the world at the TED conference this week in Vancouver. We’ll share the video of the speech when it’s available.

There is no shortage of metaphors to describe midlife, but none have resonated with me quite as profoundly as Leslie Bartlett’s literal and metaphorical ‘new lens on life.’

There are many reasons we chose Baja and Santa Fe to be the locations for our Academies and Regenerative Communities. There's a raw realness to both places where nature is a profound teacher.

In the more than five years we’ve been running MEA, we’ve seen people show up “running on empty.” Society used to assume that we were supposed to fill up our education tanks in early adulthood and run on that same tank of gas for the rest of our careers.

Last week, as I sat watching game shows and eating lousy Chinese takeout in an even lousier airport hotel in Denver, I knew my Modern Elder Academy compatriots were watching whales and enjoying a delicious dinner and delightful conversation without me. I thought about the irony of expertise.

Well-known positive psychologist Martin Seligman has found that there are 3 P’s that can help us to see the light at the end of a dark tunnel of setbacks. For any of you navigating transitions in your life, you might consider these as your seeds of resilience.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Don’t think, just answer. It’s difficult to come up with something other than “about the same as I am now”.

At this time of year, many of us make resolutions, promising ourselves that during the coming year, we’ll stop doing something or start doing something or achieve or acquire some desired outcome or object. We falsely believe that if only we accomplish or acquire this one thing, we’ll be happy and whole: a better person living a better life.

On my first trip to the Modern Elder Academy in Baja, in March 2019, I did what has become a custom: a session with Saul. As we stood on the cliff at sunrise overlooking the ocean, he held my hands. I was on the verge of kidney failure, and he felt my fear.

Parents breathe a sigh of relief and rejoice at their newborns’ first cry. Those silent few seconds after birth are the quintessential liminal experience. The cry marks the start of an independent life and is celebrated like no other birthday. Seldom again does crying bring sheer delight.