An experiential guide to re-orienting our understanding of late adulthood as one of life's most meaningful and transformative stages Aging can bring new fears, challenges, and concerns. Loss of career, loved ones, or changing physical and cognitive abilities can leave us feeling isolated and scared. Sandi Peters shows us that growing older need not mean the end of personal growth. In fact, late adulthood can prove to be the most meaningful and transformative period of one's life. The key, says Peters, is the development of one's inner life, and with it a shift in one's relation to the aging process. The book draws on history, philosophy, psychology, gerontology, and spirituality to deepen and expand our understanding of what it means to grow old in the twenty-first century. Peters shares time-tested contemplative practices such as meditation, active imagination, dream work, and creative writing designed to enhance one's inner worlds and enable us to face life's inevitable changes with equanimity and insight. She offers practical advice on issues such as assisted living and home care, and a refreshingly new perspective on matters of memory and cognitive change. “We live in a society with elderly people, but very few elders. There just have not been enough guides from the first half to the second half of life. Great elders reveal both a brightness and a sadness. They mirror you rather than asking you to mirror them.  Aging with Agency  is a guide to developing the kind of awareness that moves us from being old to being wise. Through story and example it counsels the reader to ripen rather than decline as the years unfold. It encourages movement toward gratitude and authenticity as the inner work of the second half of life is graciously embraced.” —Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, author of  Falling Upwards: A Spirituality for the Second Half of Life,  and prolific writer on re-visioning Christianity for our time “ Aging with Agency  offers a wise and pragmatic framework for understanding the universal trajectory of aging, illness, and death. In charting how best to navigate the many changes of these life transitions, she highlights the seminal work of Jung, Maslow, and the Ericksons, as well as drawing on her own years of experience working with aging populations. Particularly helpful is her understanding of the challenges, difficulties, and options available at the end-stage of life. This wonderful book is an inspiring wake-up call to explore our own relationship to growing old and to be strong in advocating for truly compassionate care.” —Joseph Goldstein, teacher, cofounder of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and author of  Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening “This remarkable book presents a profound—and profoundly challenging—new paradigm on aging. Drawing on her extensive clinical experience, Peters extends the Jungian view that aging is a time for individuation and spiritual development. She argues that such inner growth continues even with cognitive impairment and dementia—but only if caretakers recognize and foster the process. In losing memory, the elder is not simply disintegrating, but transitioning from ego to Self, as Jungians put it, or more generally, from this world to all worlds.” —Allan B. Chinen, MD, psychiatrist and clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of  In the Ever After: Fairly Tales for the Second Half of Life  and numerous other works using myth and psychology to elucidate various life stages  “This book is actually more thrilling than its title implies. It presents the possibility of an exploration of vibrant and awakening awareness of the inner life that flourishes even as the body is coming toward the end of its viability. I would have called it  Inward Bound. ” —Sylvia Boorstein, Buddhist meditation teacher, storyteller, political activist, mother, and grandmother and author of numerous accessible books on meditation, most notably  It’s Easier Than You Think  and  That’s Funny, You Don’t LOOK Buddhist “ Aging with Agency is the definitive book on aging, why it matters, how to reperceive it, how to experience it positively, and how to support aging friends and family. Drawing on her thirty-plus years of experience with the elderly, Sandi Peters offers primers and perspectives on memory loss, and adds invaluable chapters on activities and practices that can help both the aging and their caregivers to thrive in the ‘afternoon of life.’ She also assesses the various options for living environments and identifies the ‘red flags’ that the elderly and their families must watch for in making arrangements for end-of-life care. Aging with Agency is a book with a triple entendre title: first, aging matters because it is growing phenomenon that families and our society must confront. Secondly, this book draws on the ideas of multiple wisdom fig