The Spirit Of Retirement

Your retirement years should be the best of your life. Free from the burden of making a living, in front of you lies an opportunity for personal development and a time for spiritual growth. These are "your years; it is up to you to embrace them and ensure that you enjoy an enriching journey. "The Spirit of Retirement is your guiding light to creating and sustaining the post-work life you have always envisioned. Bestselling author and retired Fortune 500 executive James A. Autry illuminates a fulfilling path of meaningful endeavors, healthful reflections, and positive outlooks that will help make these years your most treasured. This engaging book highlights many important aspects of your new life, including: -Preparing for the transition -Determining who you want to be for the rest of your life and how to get there -Reconnecting with those you love, appreciating your roots, and reinvigorating friendships -Allowing time to develop your inner self -Plus many other valuable insights Included are moving anecdotes from people whose retirement years are filled with beauty, deep meaning, and purpose. Their stories illustrate the good life and special time that retirement should be and what it can be for you when you follow the guidance and apply the principles presented in this book.

Discover how retirement can lead to new spiritual possibilities. What now? Where do I go from here? In many parts of the world, retirement from the daily workforce is a door you walk through in order to discover your soul. In the last third of life, it is an opportunity to focus on the goals that are most important to you. Creating a Spiritual Retirement invites you to examine your spiritual life and explore ways of making it more meaningful, from three different perspectives: "The Individual Spirit"—Contemplate the possibilities for spiritual growth that come with retirement from the daily workplace "The Great Spirit"—Discover how to look for the sacred in this life, in both ordinary and extraordinary ways "Practical Spirituality"—Create your path to more fully develop a spiritual practice that will provide support, strength, challenge, and comfort in the later years of life.With creative exercises and warm, practical advice, this book is a helpful tool for anyone on their retirement journey. This unusual "guidebook" helps you deepen your relationship with the unseen but no less real presence of spirit in your life. Each chapter focuses on a particular idea for consideration from a spiritual point of view, and concludes with a reflection and questions designed to help you explore your thoughts during this important time in life. "Retirement can be a time rich in understanding of ourselves and others. It is a time to gather the wisdom we have gained through the years and make it our own. It is a time to take care of unfinished business. It is a time to look beyond the surface of our lives to the deeper inner meaning that is a part of each of us. It is truly a time to connect with our own inner spirit or soul and with the Great Spirit that animates all life." —from the Introduction Supportive, insightful, and inspiring, Creating a Spiritual Retirement will help you make the next stage in your life a meaningful one.

"Retirement as Spiritual Pilgrimage: Stories, Scripture, and Practices for the Journey" offers a Christian perspective on the personal dimensions of preparing for and living life beyond full-time work. First-person accounts of retirees, reflections on relevant passages of Scripture, and suggested spiritual practices provide insight and guidance for each phase of this journey. Questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter make this book suitable for use by both individuals and small groups (e.g., adult classes, small group studies.)

Retirement from the daily workforce can be an opportunity to refocus on your soul. Deepen your relationship with the unseen but no less real presence of spirit in your life with fresh spiritual reflections and questions to help you explore this new phase.

AWARDS: Silver Living Now Book Award, Mature Living/Aging 2014 (Silver) If you’re one of the 25 million single women over the age of 45 living in the United States today, AARP’s The Single Woman’s Guide to Retirement is your new best friend. Walking you through the challenges of retired or pre-retired life, from managing your finances to staying healthy in body, mind, and spirit, dealing with divorce, and even looking for love or work, the book covers the issues that really matter to you. Whether you’re looking for a retirement home or planning a cruise, this book is packed with specific details to help take the guesswork out of retirement. Author and retirement expert Jan Cullinane has gathered real-life stories from women just like you to illustrate your options and give you fresh new ideas about how to make the most of your retirement years.

A discerning guide through the ups and downs of retirement The number of people age 65 and older worldwide has more than tripled to nearly half a billion over the last 50 years. Spiritual Wisdom for Successful Retirement is an inspirational guide through the journey that begins in life’s “third stage,” when employment is left behind and uncertainty lies ahead. This encouraging and uplifting book travels beyond the financial and emotional considerations of retirement planning to address the real-life issues retirees face, including the loss of identity after leaving the workplace, managing the clock, calendar, and commitments, how to deal with the blues and the “blahs,” facing the reality of death, adn keeping life in balance. Spiritual Wisdom for Successful Retirement anticipates the changing events and transitions of retirement, focusing on the need to adapt to this “work in progress.” Retirees struggle with real and symbolic losses as they redefine their identities, face uncertain financial futures, adapt to altered living arrangements, and become more aware of their physical limitations. The disappointments, adversity, and suffering retirees face can throw them into spiritual chaos. This powerful book presents real-life stories of people striving to remain engaged in life, open to possibilities, and experiencing intimations of eternity—here and now. Spiritual Wisdom for Successful Retirement examines: the need for a worldview that helps you take major life transitions in stride specific steps into retirement how to manage your time when “every day is Saturday” how to identify indicators of depression how caregivers can attend the needs of retirees how to get help when life “caves in” on you how to live with purpose and courage the significance of family ties the power of relationships, connections, and friendships the dynamics of hope and much more! Spiritual Wisdom for Successful Retirement is essential for anyone living in, or facing, retirement, and for family members of retirees, members of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), and for lay and professional caregivers. It’s also a helpful resource for academics working in gerontology or theology.

This retirement book focuses on the personal dimensions of the move from full-time work to partial or full retirement. Drawing upon conversations with retired professionals from around the country, it identifies some of the key transitions in the first years of retirement, the unique opportunities for personal growth in this phase of life, and the real challenges we must face. Retired engineer Jack Hansen and spiritual formation leader Jerry Haas explore the transitions, opportunities, and challenges of facing retirement through a series of interviews with persons facing and in retirement. It is about the more personal dimensions of the transition from working full time to retirement, including relationships, feelings of self-worth and purpose, and spiritual and intellectual growth. Taken as a whole, the conversations and interactions with retirees suggest an exciting and challenging picture of retirement. This time of life can be one of significant personal growth. It can also be an opportunity for further contribution to one's professional field or the investment of one's talents and experience in volunteer capacities. It is also clear that moving from full-time work to retirement involves important and sometimes painful adjustments in key relationships and in sources of self worth. With some attention and effort, however, these are usually worked through successfully in early retirement years.

Discover Your Unique Gift "Creative aging is a choice.... If we remember that transition always begins with endings, moves on to a wilderness period of testing and trying, and only then do we reach the beginning of something new, then we can embrace this encore period of life with hope and curiosity, remembering always that it is our true nature to be creative, to be always birthing new ways of sharing our planet together." --from the Epilogue In a practical and useful way, Marjory Zoet Bankson explores the spiritual dimensions of retirement and aging. She offers creative ways for you to share your gifts and experience, particularly when retirement leaves you questioning who you are when you are no longer defined by your career. Drawing on stories of people who have reinvented their lives in their older years, Bankson explores the issues you need to address as you move into this generative period of life: Release Letting go of the vocational identity associated with your career or primary work Resistance Feeling stuck, stagnant, resisting change Reclaiming Drawing energy from the past, discovering unused gifts Revelation Forming a new vision of the future Crossing Point Moving from stagnation to generativity Risk Stepping out into the world with new hope Relating Finding or creating new structures for a new kind of work