Aging on Your Own Terms

A Guide to Navigating Change, Loss, and Managing What Comes Next

$45.00

Change doesn’t ask permission — but you can still meet it on your own terms.

Later life often brings compounding, cumulative change — health decline, the loss of a spouse or friends, retirement, shifting roles — arriving faster than most people have the energy or tools to process. Unlike changes in youth, many of these are losses rather than gains, and they often stack on top of one another.

Most people know they’re overwhelmed. Few have a structured way to work through it.

That’s what this course is for.

Each session comes with a substantive handout you work through on your own, at your own pace. The material is honest, practical, and direct — designed for people who are serious about doing this right.

pdf download link provided when your payment is collected.

All materials provided are solely for educational purposes and do not constitute legal or tax advice.

About mary l. flett, phd

Dr. Mary is a psychologist with 30 years of clinical experience in aging and later life. She is the creator of the Five Pillars of Aging framework and shares her knowledge and experience through these self-paced courses, in her long-running blog on aging, and as a national speaker. Now retired from private practice, she consults with non-profits and policy advocates from her home in the Bay Area. Learn more and explore the full range of topics in her Lecture Library at drmaryflett.com

Take a look at what you’ll get . . .

SESSION 1

Understanding Change in Later Life

You’ve been adapting to change all your life, but at this stage of the game, you may need different strategies.

Map the types of change you’ve experienced and anticipate, and learn the psychology of change — from denial and resistance through acceptance and growth.

SESSION 2

Building Resilience and Adaptability

Explore and try out practical tools for maintaining and increasing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual resilience — from cognitive reframing to adapting familiar routines that stabilize you through change — planned or expected!

SESSION 3

Decision-Making During Transitions

Learn to distinguish fear-based from values-based decisions, and use a values-ranking exercise to guide major choices about housing, health, and independence.

SESSION 4

Finding Meaning in New Chapters

Work through identity questions — “who am I if I’m not working, driving, or the strong one” — counter ageist messages, and define your vision for this chapter.

Built Around One Central Question:

Later life doesn’t just take things away — it hands you an old, borrowed script for what that loss is supposed to mean: decline, uselessness, being “done.” The real work is challenging that script and writing your own — integrating each change into who you are rather than mourning a fixed self you think you’ve lost, and insisting, through every stage, that you’re still the one who decides what it means.

That question — who gets to say what this change means about me, and am I answering it myself — runs through every session of this course.