Let’s say you have retired – willingly or unwillingly – and you now find yourself with a lot of time on your hands that you never had when you were working and raising a family.

After the initial feeling of “being on holiday” has passed, you feel like the days start dragging by, each day the same as the next, your life becoming unstructured and without direction.

This is not unusual for those older adults who stop what they have been doing for years.

The sense of self vanishes and you begin to struggle with who you now are.

But all the sudden extra time can have a silver lining if you are prepared to do what we might call inner work.

In other words, you can discover another side of yourself – or maybe discover your whole self for the first time – and begin to create something brand new in your life.

It all depends on what you think life is - what it appears to be through your eyes or what you want it to be in your mind’s eye.

Our guest this week on The Art 2 Aging is Dr. Paula Petry, PhD, a cognitive psychologist and trained shaman.

She has created a program called Divine Design Activation which is meant to reconnect an individual with their inner self and allow greater clarity of purpose to open up.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that ageism shows up in gyms and fitness classes.

Why wouldn’t it?

Ageism is a prejudice carried in the minds of people. So, if a fitness instructor leans that way, then his or her classes will reflect that in the workout.

“You shouldn’t pick up that big dumbbell. Try the little one, dear.”

Our guest this week on The Art 2 Aging is Erin Eleu, a functional aging specialist, whose mission is to highlight ageism in the fitness world.

But more than that, Erin walks her talk; her own fitness classes for older adults are designed to intentionally challenge internalized ageism, as well.

If you are a regular listener to The Art 2 Aging, then you likely grew up in the 60s, an astonishing time to be young and alive.

First, there was the massive transition in music. Then came the drugs. Alongside the negative aspects of the drug culture, emerged something that we can call New Consciousness, for lack of a better term.

New Consciousness meant exploring the inner depths of one’s self. Transcendental meditation burst into the culture as one popular method and the exploration of the soul was underway.

It was the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” as sung by the Fifth Dimension in 1969.

Transcendental meditation (TM, for short) did not disappear like many of the musical acts from the 60s did; it is still with us along with several other types of meditation.

What this amounts to today is this: a revitalized, even stronger search for the connection between man and God, Source, All That Is – whatever you choose to call it.

TM established scientifically that meditation has profound positive effects on our bodies and minds. The same can be said of all types of meditation.

Our guest this week is James Adams. James is a former broadcast journalist, former Bill Clinton campaign worker and the former V.P. of Marketing for Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Today, James follows a different path and in an open, honest, and forthright way, he explains his past struggles with life and his newfound inner journey with meditation as his companion.

Our regular contributor on our Point of View segments, Dave McCaughan is back this week.

Dave, as you might know, has a wealth of knowledge and experience in advertising and marketing, having worked for McCann, the global giant, in Asia for decades.

He has always had a fascination with aging demographics because it impacted his work in a major way.

Dave is now involved with the Global Wellness Institute, compiling a lengthy report on how aging well is perceived in different countries around the world.

The report is still a work in progress but Dave has a number of interesting observations that his team has already gathered and he shares them with us this week.

As world populations age, there are numerous challenges around how to take care of older adults who need help.

Most often, they surround healthcare systems.

However, one aspect of aging populations may not get the same amount of attention: caregiving.

More and more of us unwittingly become caregivers for a loved one, most often an aging parent.

In December, The Art 2 Aging featured an interview with Debbie Howard, a former caregiver who is working hard to create support in her community in Texas for other caregivers.

All too often, caregivers don’t have community resources that they can access to lessen their burden.

If you are a caregiver, then you know what we’re talking about.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, there is an organization whose mission is to support caregivers. It’s called the Ontario Caregiver Organization (OCO).

OCO recently completed a year end review for 2025 that paints a disturbing picture of caregiving in the province; the strain that caregiving produces is showing up dramatically in the numbers.

This week, A2A speaks with Amy Coupal, the CEO of Ontario Caregiver Organization.

And if you’re a caregiver looking after an older person, perhaps a parent, then you need to hear this.

The world is a frightening place right now. Frankly, there are few times in history when it hasn’t been.

Fear of the future has been ratcheting higher and higher since You-Know-Who entered office for the second time.

But fear lives in the minds of each of us regardless of geopolitics; it’s an emotion that we experience almost more than its opposite, love.

How do we deal with it? Especially if we are older adults with less time in front of us than behind us?

There are many ways and strategies that we can employ to continue to get joy out of our lives, no matter what is going on within or without.

Wayne Lehrer has been a frequent guest on The Art 2 Aging. His books, The Prodigy Within and The Art of Conscious Aging, describe our human experience in ways that open up new possibilities for all of us.

Wayne has become a good friend, so, who better to turn to, I thought, when I wanted to discuss how all of us can live lives free of fear.

We all know that physical activity goes directly to lifespan and, indeed, healthspan - how healthily we are living our lives.

That message has been embraced by those of us who are older adults; we get the connection between being strong and flexible and living a fit life.

That’s why many older adults will happily join a local gym, determined to regain strength or increase it.

Unfortunately, what do many find? Ageism. Not in the workplace this time. But in the fitness class, perhaps the last place they would suspect ageism to lurk.

Erin Eleu is a functional aging specialist and falls resiliency coach who leads and teaches physical activity programs for older adults and who is vehemently opposed to ageism in the gym.

She is also the host of the podcast series, AGEnts of Movement, and is our guest this week on Point of View.

Scott Fulton is an extremely talented individual. He’s a mechanical engineer by training who shifted into home design with older adults in mind, forming a company called Home Ideations. In fact, he custom built his own home in Virginia using the principles from Home Ideations.

He dug deep – and still does – into how to live better as we age.

Scott is well into his 60s, is very active and excels at physical fitness, competing in ironman triathlons and long distance running.

His abiding interest in healthspan and longevity impelled him to dive into a vast trove of health data to answer one simple question: what’s the most important thing people can do for their bodies and brains that can help them live longer?

By crunching many millions of bytes of data from 700 thousand adults, spanning 10 million person years, Scott has answered the question he posed and written a book called Function that lays out his findings.

The answer to the question he posed to himself will surprise you..

Settle in for a fascinating conversation.