Hi and welcome - I’m Jane Duncan Rogers and I am ageing.
Gulp. That is quite the declaration for me.
Of course I’ve always been ageing but now I’ve become a ‘pensioner’, according to the government, it really feels like I’ve stepped into another world.
Despite numerous books about ageing, despite the whole of the internet, despite the evidence of an ageing body demonstrating that I (and you!) are older than we once were…
Nothing beats actually experiencing being older in a society which values youth, speed, immediacy and being online constantly.
It’s not easy facing this, especially when there is such an emphasis in the media about ‘staving off ageing’, or ‘magic creams to decrease wrinkles’, or even insistence that if you don’t take up a gym membership and get your weight training going, you’ll regret it later on.
Not nice.
But although it doesn’t necessarily look like this on the outside, I’ve discovered that nearly everyone muddles through this stage of life. It’s as if you were living in a basket of tangled wool. Why?
Because after a lifetime of playing a role(s), having to earn a living, or ‘feeling important’ (whatever that means for you), when that comes to an end, it’s disconcerting and even discombobulating.
Maybe you’re…
recently retired
changed to working part-time
become a widow/er
are concerned about your future
you just don’t know what to do with yourself, so you’re sitting around and wondering a lot.
feeling guilty, as if you really should be doing something productive
(I was amazed how much the Scottish puritan work ethic had resided in me all these years, and poked it’s little head up everywhere anytime I wasn’t ‘doing’ something I considered worthwhile).
My writing and others offerings are all designed to help you become more at ease with who you are (and are becoming) at this time in your life.
All new subscribers will receive my weekly newsletter, and:
inspiration (to move forward with clarity)
insight (to help shine the light on your particular situation)
information (to help you understand more about what’s what and why)
All paid subscribers will:
Get all the above AND… Access to the Ageing with Gratitude Experiment
I am putting this together right now, and as a paid subscriber you will be the first to hear about it! Over a month, you’ll get:a live call with me at the beginning
30 daily, short emails, with yummy things you can do to increase your gratitude,
a final live call at the end of the Experiment
Plus access to the Chat during that time to engage with me and others taking the Experiment.
Watch out for an email for when the first Experiment starts, and thank you for joining me on this journey :)
Plus, you’ll get a free copy of The Wise-ish Guide to Ageing Wackily and Well, my latest e-book.
Join me, and become part of a community of people who share your interest in ageing consciously and well, in every area of your life.
Want to know more about me?
In 2023 I stepped back from the end of life planning not-for-profit I founded in 2016, after 35 years of being self-employed in the personal growth field. The last year has been about me discovering what it’s like to have more time, and notice the fact that I am ageing. It’s been quite illuminating!
Especially the amount of guilt that arose, and feelings of total identity with my work, which I had no idea were there. Instead of immediately returning to the world of work, I have been experimenting with ‘doing’ less, and ‘being’ more.
Quite something for the person who in 1992, was the first to bring Louise L. Hay’s work to the UK and Europe, running ‘You Can Heal Your Life’® study groups. That led to a career in counselling, training and speaking.
I’ve been a writer since 1997 when I self-published my first book well before that was a ‘thing’. My husband’s death in 2015 when I was 54 and felt too young to be an old widow, but too old to be a young one was a turning point. I wrote about this in Gifted By Grief.
That led to me doing a TedX talk, How to Do a Good Death, founding a not-for-profit,
Before I Go Solutions, and also having a third book taken on by a publisher, Before I Go: The Essential Guide to Creating a Good End of Life Plan.
The company was closed down for various reasons, but the need to plan ahead for a good and healthy ageing process and end of life is still just as important! Hence this newsletter.
Finally - the good news is I married again during lockdown, to a man who had also been widowed, and we have been building a new house as well as a new life together ever since. Here’s a wee pic of us on our wedding day. (Yes, we are both Scottish, living in the Highlands near Inverness).
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