Fearless Aging

Ongoing training group starting January 2025:

LOVE YOUR LIFE POISE:
Pioneering And Mastering Resilience

What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us.”    ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Around 50, a transition from Work-Life-Balance to Love your Life Poise can be anticipated……

As professional Facilitators we offer a fine-tuned process-support with a set of Treasures of Creative Aging and provide space and practical tools for each of the participants for exploring possibility and meaning for their upcoming important lifecycle.

In small group online settings, we …

  • discover the last missing pieces for you to feel accomplished and satisfied
  • re-discover your relevance & (new) contribution in this changing world
  • identify and clear open personal roadblocks and challenges
  • make appropriate adjustments while experiencing your transition
  • find out how to let go of unnecessary stuff
  • invite stillness and grace into your routines
  • improve the quality of relationships with yourself and people around you
  • expand your Field of Awareness
  • (re-)determine your Natural State of Being
  • make Peace with your Self

We will navigate this Poise-Passage together starting with our Introductory Webinar on Sept. 7. Then in January we will offer an ongoing intensive process including masterclasses & workshops accompanied by one-on-0ne sessions with the facilitators.

With the resulting insights participants will be able to make the necessary amendments to their next phase in life. Our ideal focus group is people over 50.  To create an intimate setting, each group will not have more than 12 participants. First come, first served.

Questions we will explore:

WHY?   Setting intentions + defining personal relevance
Based on WHAT? Own your values + find the natural state of being
HOW do we get there?  Life as Inquiry + Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation
WHAT will be different? Self-Awareness + Resilience
HOW does it feel?  Confidence + Inner Peace
WHY does this matter?    Living Poise and Integrity + Healthy Connection to Death (?)

Bettina & Hugh
Who are we?
And why do we feel called to run this Program?

About Bettina:
10 years ago, my life challenged me on levels that were new to me, pushing me into this next life cycle. I was 55. I did not know what the next steps were supposed to be. Did not have a plan. Lost control. And yet – I managed. I solved problems. And at the same time used the learning to further my deep inner work. Created a new life. Found new friends. Went back to university, received an international certification in coaching, found a new home in Germany and started a new business. And when the next life-shocks set in, there was something I finally could count on: an enormous trust in life.

I am out from under and want to give back what I have learned. After having served 500 coaching clients I want to pay my knowledge forward in a new way!

About Hugh:
At 77, I’m fully swimming in the diverse streams of the aging process – some painful & challenging, some rewarding, others ecstatic. I’ve learned over the last few years to vastly deepen empathy for my peers, and feel both humbled & honoured to offer fruits from the garden of my aging journey. Am grateful to have learned beautiful & powerful methods for  emerging consciousness, or more simply – how to be relaxed and happy – approaches necessary and useful applied to the aging phenomenon.

I live in Toronto & have practiced somatic, mindful psychotherapy for 40 years, studying & assisting Ron Kurtz, founder of the Hakomi Method. I’ve developed, since age 8, the Korason Method for Authentic Voice & Dialogue, teaching KM & Hakomi in 10 countries. Living for 5 years among indigenous peoples of Paraguay, I’ve learned the original Guaraní  language of that land.  To relax, I compose wee poems & pieces for jazz piano and sing & dance flamenco. Recently launching a podcast (@hughsmiley) on YouTube, we explore ‘deep & delicious’ themes with remarkable people from around the planet.

Content

  “We can lose physical energy and cognitive skills, we can lose the power and prestige of social position, but symbolic domains remain always accessible, and their rewards remain fresh till the end of life.”  ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (in: Creativity)

Our field, or sphere of influence, our domain can be inexhaustible! It is about staying curious, flexible and allowing ourselves to try things out while letting go of possible or anticipated results.

According to Erik Erikson, the last psychological stage that people confront in their lives is what he called the task of achieving integrity. … This (task) consists in bringing together a meaningful story to our past and present, and in reconciling ourselves with the approaching end of life. (M. C. 1997) = I AM WHAT SURVIVES ME. (E.E.)

“… The bottom line of a well-lived life is not so much success but the certainty we reach, in the most private fibres of our being, that our existence is linked in a meaningful way with the rest of the Universe.” M.C. 1997)

Most of Bettina’s coaching clients, who are facing a new direction on their career path, are stating very clearly that the (new) content has to be evocative, creative – and a meaningful contribution to society! But what is meaningful – and what is “creative?” A Georgetown University psychiatrist, Norman Rosenthal, MD, defines it as “having the ability to make unexpected connections, to see commonplace things in new ways or usual things that escape the attention of others.” Doesn’t this imply that what people really really want is to use their experiences in a broader and inspired way to use all what is available to them and more? Creativeness is resourcefulness that never runs out. 

The fact that the world population is ageing brings about societal challenges, but at the same time creates new opportunities for more creative and meaningful lives at older age. There is a tangible requirement for holistic and relational approaches that address the unhealthy entanglement of social and natural environments with healthy and fearless ageing, an open relationship to dying and death- and with a pioneering LoveLifePoise stance.

From 2016-2021, Hugh & Bettina helped organize and lead the New Andalus Centre for Authentic Dialogue (NACAD), an online experiential group learning and practicing protocols of AD. These skills will be introduced and enhance our time together.

A recent 9 min. interview with Bettina and Hugh: