Aging Spiritually From the Grassroots Up

Author Carol Orsborn at 76 has been a leading advocate of conscious aging since receiving her doctorate in life stage development at 50 from Vanderbilt University 20 books ago. On the occasion of the publication of her recent critically-acclaimed book: "Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life." I sat down with Orsborn to discuss the global grassroots movement of seekers 50 plus her new book has sparked.

I met Orsborn more than 10 years ago following her keynote address for Sage-ing International, an organization whose mission is to "harvest the wisdom of our lives and finding ways to transmit that wisdom as a legacy to future generations."  Her audience of older adults defy the stereotypes of aging and are inspired by stories about mavericks and visionaries who are forging their own path through midlife and beyond.

As both a scholar and self-avowed mystic, Orsborn is known for helping individuals navigating older age place themselves into a larger historical and cultural context to embrace the broader range of what it means to fulfill the true human potential. The essence of her message: that older age is not primarily a problem to be solved, but is a life stage with meaning and purpose of its own: a time for enjoyment, fulfillment and growth.

Since meeting Orsborn, I have followed her work and interviewed her for my last two books, "Leading with Wisdom: Sage Advice from 100 Experts" and "Breadcrumb Legacy: How Great Leaders Live a Life Worth Remembering."

I am not surprised at the enthusiastic response to her new book. "Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life" is like a strand of wisdom pearls to guide your life. It is a timeless and valuable book that lets you start where you are while realizing the journey never ends. After reading through the two years of weekly reflections, I concluded the shelf life for her book is eternity.

For Orsborn, the concept of spiritual aging finds its roots in the 90s, while earning her doctorate in the areas of life stage and spiritual development. Orsborn discovered the focus of adult development in academia was youth-centric and that any growth beyond midlife was denied or marginalized. She personally encountered ageism while still in her forties. Despite authoring numerous books and articles in the field, she couldn't land an interview for a tenure track position because of her age.  

At the same time, as one of a generation of seekers, Orsborn recognized a "tremendous hunger" for a new vision of aging, looking beyond academia to encounter the works of mystics, elders and sages whose vision of growing old she found to be revolutionary.

Orsborn says, "So many of the self-help books on aging treat it as a problem to solve. But I experience aging to be a spiritual journey. Older age is a life stage with meaning and purpose of its own."

Society tends to emphasize anti-aging practices and external beauty as indicators of growing older gracefully, but she described the beauty in aging by embracing a vision of aging where the focus is on internal work — beauty from the inside out.

According to Orsborn, "It is easier to deny aging and try to stay in mid-life forever. Continue to be ambitious, travel and spend money on materialistic things such as second homes to fill with more stuff. But eventually, try as hard as you may, eventually aging has its way with us." But when aging is viewed as a spiritual practice, the rewards come as a side-product of "not just growing old, but whole." The fulfillment of the human potential we seek tends to emerge by mysterious means beyond our conscious control, as if by magic.

Of course, it's more than magic. Orsborn points out they call it "spiritual practice" for a reason. While individuals can advance spiritually on their own, practicing in groups not only deepens the experience, but teaches us that "we don't have to do aging alone."

I listen to the podcast "Wiser Than Me" hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She interviews women 70 and older — often celebrities. But I heard Louis-Dreyfus interviewed on the podcast "On with Kara Swisher" where she was asked what she has learned about aging, and this was her response. "The collective is the way out … The key is to connect, connect, connect. I don't mean plug your computer in. I mean connect with human beings. There's everything to be said for community and everything not to be said about isolation. And we're in a land of isolation now, which is paralyzing and toxic. So I think there's nothing but value in finding ways to take action to connect with other people in every sense. I think people are desperate for it. Desperate for it."

Orsborn knows the value of connecting and is creating a community to do just that. A growing number of seekers at midlife and beyond are spontaneously coming together to discuss alternative approaches to aging that defy the stereotypes of growing old. They are converting their book clubs into spiritual aging groups, gathering at churches, retreat centers and coffee shops.

In 2025, several online groups took the grassroots movement global inspired by Orsborn's new book of reflections.  

Many of the groups are also following The Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group Study Guide published weekly by Orsborn at SpiritualAging.Substack.Com. Designed to be read weekly in two-year cycles, the 120 readings in the book and accompanying guide view aging as a path to spiritual culmination: from transforming loneliness to solitude, loss of identity to freedom, anger to self-protection, fear to faith, and envy to love.

Says Orsborn: "Veterans of the women's and men's support groups that enhanced our formative years, we are a new generation just now coming into age who understand the power of joining with others."

Sage-ing International, where Orsborn and I met, is among the global organizations offering immersive study and support group offerings for 2025 with their Spiritual Aging: A Year of Reflection meeting the first Tuesday of every month through December 2, 2025. Through study, journaling, and both small and large group discussions, participants are sharing their challenges and discoveries as they apply the subject matter of the readings in the book to their own lives.

People who are in the same life-stage and receptive to aging spiritually share a lot in common. "Age has a spontaneous way of loosening the grip of the ego," says Orsborn. She explains how for most of our life, the competitive ego was driving our behavior of ambition and accumulation and establishing an identity that most of us have already outgrown.

Later in life, all we need to do is look in the mirror to let go of the last remnants of arrogance that stalled our spiritual development, she says with a chuckle. Letting go often includes downsizing and releasing possessions which our adult children often don't want anyway. "Some people don't mind getting older as long as they are in control," says Orsborn. She continues, "But rarely are we in control. That is an illusion that we need to confront."

The two years of weekly reflections in her book help aging become a spiritual practice by overcoming our instinct to deny aging. If we are in denial about aging, which is a common response, Orsborn advises three steps:

1. Tell the truth about reality. Neither deny nor romanticize the challenges that accompany aging. Embracing life as it presents itself, without second-guessing or turning against yourself, is the foundational principle of spiritual aging. Or as philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “Amor fati … ” Love your fate.
2. Learn what it means to be loved unconditionally. Growing older is the perfect time to get beyond pleasing others and working for affirmation to instead answer for yourself Albert Einstein’s pivotal question: “Is this a friendly universe — or not.”
3. Find purpose and meaning in life regardless of your circumstances. Carl Jung found the purpose of life to simply be “expanding your consciousness.” The older you grow, the more life experience you’ve accumulated — the greater the potential for wisdom and compassion.

When I ask Orsborn about her purpose and meaning in this phase of life, she laughed, petting her little dog Winnie the Poodle already seated on her lap. During COVID, she and her husband Dan began fostering old dogs to ensure their best possible life to the very end — having to say good-bye to three dogs during that time.

When they passed, they decided to treat themselves to a puppy with whom to grow old together. Orsborn says, "I discovered it is purpose enough in life to just make one dog happy."

Jann E. Freed Jann E. Freed, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, coach, professor, and leadership development consultant. Her latest book is “Breadcrumb Legacy: How Great Leaders Live a Life Worth Remembering” (Routledge Publishing, 2023). She is a contributor to Forbes.com writing about the non-financial aspects of retirement.


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