The Lost Art of Conscious Aging
Life, Death & The Space Between with Dr. Amy Robbins
Dr. Amy Robbins
4.8 • 582 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are you afraid you're shrinking instead of growing? My conversation today with Ron Pevny will completely change how you see your later years. We’ve been taught to fight aging, but indigenous cultures knew that becoming an elder is a spiritual pinnacle we must prepare for. Ron reveals the difference between just getting older and stepping into the fullness of who you were always meant to be.
00:00 The Lost Art of Conscious Aging
03:17 Defining the Shift from Midlife to Elderhood
06:14 What is the True Elder Archetype?
09:25 How Western Society Lost Its Elders
13:15 The Impact of Family Breakdown on Aging
19:41 The Maori: A 12-Year Training to Become an Elder
25:00 Why Aging Should Feel Exciting, Not Dreadful
29:33 Beyond "Active Aging": The Real Gift of Elderhood
31:50 Spirituality as the Essence of Conscious Aging
35:12 Rites of Passage: Why We Need More Than a Party
40:04 The "Space Between" and Preparing for Death
44:19 Finding Support & Ron's Resources
LEARN MORE ABOUT RON PEVNY:
· Website: [CenterforConsciousEldering.com]
· Book: Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: Claiming the Gifts of Elderhood
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Dr. Amy Robbins and welcome to life, death, and the space between. Today's conversation |
| 0:06.0 | felt like I was interviewing Robert De Niro when he was the intern in that movie, if you've ever |
| 0:11.7 | seen it with Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. It was the most heartfelt and heart-filled conversation. |
| 0:18.8 | So we spend so much time and energy fighting aging, right? |
| 0:23.5 | Hiding the gray, clinging to our younger selves, convinced that getting older is something to |
| 0:27.9 | survive rather than something to step into. But every culture has taught us about this chapter |
| 0:34.8 | in our life, and it's not something that is wrong, but it's costing |
| 0:38.9 | us something irreplaceable. My guest today, Ron Penvey, has spent decades studying what indigenous |
| 0:45.6 | cultures have always known. Becoming an elder isn't something that just happens to you. It's |
| 0:52.7 | something you prepare for. In some traditions, this preparation |
| 0:57.3 | takes 12 years, 12 years of spiritual and psychological development, learning to serve as the |
| 1:05.6 | moral compass and wisdom keeper of an entire community. Contrast that with what we offer to people in the West, |
| 1:13.6 | retirement parties, and a pickleball court. You'll start to understand why Ron believes we've lost so much. |
| 1:23.0 | Today, Ron is here to reintroduce us to the archetype of the true elder, not someone fading |
| 1:29.5 | into the background, but someone finally stepping into the fullness of who they were always meant to be. |
| 1:35.7 | This conversation is about training the performative busyness of midlife for something deeper, |
| 1:42.3 | more soulful, and I believe, more urgent than many of us realize. |
| 1:47.7 | It is a preparation for truly stepping into what's to come. |
| 1:52.3 | With that, I bring you this week's episode of Life, Death and the Space Between with Ron Petby. |
| 1:57.5 | We need at our table of awareness, the logician, but equally we need the intuitive, we |
| 2:03.1 | need the mystic. |
| 2:04.1 | I almost died? |
... |
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