Dr. Connie Zweig and Raghu investigate the lifelong process of aging through the lens of ‘shadow awareness’ and ‘shifting from role to soul.’
Connie Zweig, PhD, is a bestselling author who has retired from clinical practice, and has been initiated into Elderhood as a Certified Sage-ing Leader. She is extending her work into late life for Baby Boomers with The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. As co-author of Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature and Romancing the Shadow: Illuminating the Dark Side of the Soul, Dr. Connie has come to be known as a guide who can go where others fear to tread. For more info and to join Dr. Connie’s Wisdom Circle communities, please visit, ConnieZweig.com.
Aging As a Lifelong Process // Grist for the Mill
Welcoming bestselling author, Connie Zweig, to Mindrolling, Raghu invites her to share the inspiration behind her new book on aging: The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. Identifying aging as a lifelong process, Dr. Connie offers insight into how we can rewrite our often negatively internalized relationship with it, as what Ram Dass called ‘grist for the mill of awakening.’ From here, Raghu shares a story of confronting his relationship with aging when meeting the late Indian Saint, ‘The Mother.’
“We’re aging from the moment we’re born. We’re incarnated into an aging body, so age is not only about later life. Different stages of life carry different developmental tasks and different meanings and purposes for us.” – Connie Zweig, PhD
Ram Dass explores the process of aging through the lens of awakening, on Ep. 31 of Here & Now
Romancing the Shadow // Meditation & Loving Awareness (10:08)
Spelunking into the depths of shadow awareness, Dr. Connie and Raghu discuss how modern culture’s judgment of young and strong as good—and old and dependent as bad—forces these “unacceptable traits” beneath the surface to lay dormant as unconscious fears – unprocessed and ready to plague us through the ripening of aging. Through this lens, they point to the combination of meditation and loving awareness as critical ingredients for effective shadow work.
“When these feelings and fears are unconscious, they hold a lot of charge. When we begin to let them out of the box and witness them little by little, they begin to lose their charge. The more that we can do that, the more liberated we become from them, so that we’re no longer so overshadowed that we’re identifying with that voice.” – Connie Zweig, PhD
Raghu & David Chernikoff discuss aging, polarity, & easing into the mystery, on Ep. 423 of Mindrolling
Shifting from Role to Soul (28:01)
Relaying the synchronistic story of how she came to interview Krishna Das—a quick and potent representation of surrender and the Guru—Dr. Connie describes how the path of Bhakti Yoga can help us transcend our minds. Building from this perspective, they investigate the pivotal shift from ‘role to soul.’
“In our culture which so emphasizes doing, success, achievement, and productivity—what happens when that slows down? Or you’re forced into retirement? Or your family roles change and your kids are gone? Whatever circumstance changes, that role that you’ve identified with is done. People tend to have a lot of identity crisis during those times. So this shift from role to soul is about the universal recognition that we are spirit, we are soul, we are loving awareness, we are Buddha Nature.” – Connie Zweig, PhD