Less Is More: The Gift of Growing Older
Sooner or later, life will bring us to our knees.
Sometimes it happens through loss, illness, disappointment, or circumstances we never would have chosen. Sometimes it happens simply because the body changes, the pace of life changes, and what once felt easy no longer does.
At first, this can feel like forced humility. But really, life is just doing what life does.
One of the great virtues of the heart is humility—the willingness to meet life as it is rather than insisting that it be different. How willing are we to accept life’s changes? How well do we adapt when life asks us to move in a new direction?
Over the last few years, I’ve heard people say, sometimes jokingly and sometimes with real resignation, “Getting old sucks.” A part of me understands. But a much larger part of me—the Tantric part that has been shaped by decades of practice and lived experience—calls bullshit on the idea that getting older is simply a decline.
I don't believe that.
Yoga has taught me to pay attention.
To notice what is happening rather than immediately resisting it. And the more I pay attention, the more I see that resisting change creates far more suffering than the change itself.
This is one of the great teachings of Tantra: Radical Affirmation. Life is not happening to us. Life is happening as us. Every experience becomes an opportunity for awakening, if we are willing to meet it.
Giving Up or Letting Go?
I’ve discovered an important distinction between giving up and letting go. Giving up carries the feeling of failure, shame, and unworthiness. I don't like those words because giving up feels like walking away from life. That isn't who I am.
Letting go, however, feels entirely different. Letting go can be an act of profound self-empowerment. I choose to let go because I want to be free. I choose to do less so I can be more. I choose to stop pushing my body beyond what is healthy because I want to live more fully inside the body I have now. This isn't a cutback. It is a rising up into the wisdom of the next chapter.
My own body has been teaching me this lesson for several years. Right around the time I had my hip surgery in 2018, I noticed that my muscles were generally more sore. I moved more slowly getting out of bed. I began enjoying a short midday nap. It takes longer for my body to recover from strains than it once did. And yes, I still ride my bike, swim, and xc skate-ski. But not as intensely.
I've also changed the way I practice yoga. I no longer feel compelled to do ten drop-backs or push my feet toward my head in Scorpion. The moderate backbends are plenty for me now. I've slowed down. However, I still practice a one-minute handstand and Pincha Mayūrāsana in the middle of the room. But if I don't feel like holding it for a full minute on a particular day, I don't.
And strangely enough, I don't feel like I'm doing less. I feel like I'm doing what is right.
What I'm discovering is that there is tremendous value in growing older. It is called wisdom. In the Tantric tradition, there is a beautiful word: Pratyabhijñā—recognition. It points to a profound recognition of our essential nature, but it also speaks to something I have come to understand through living.
There is a kind of knowing that cannot be acquired simply by reading books or accumulating information. It comes from experience. It comes from living through things, making mistakes, loving, losing, beginning again, practicing, failing, succeeding, and continuing to show up.
Over time, all of those experiences become woven together into a deeper kind of recognition. You know because you have lived it. This is the wisdom of the sage, the priestess, the elder, the wise crone. It is one of the great gifts of age: having something real to offer those who are coming behind us.
I felt this very strongly recently while teaching in Yarmouth, Maine. The students were extraordinary. They listened so deeply to what I was sharing about Tantra and about my own life. Some of the students were younger than me, and I felt privileged to share what I have learned through decades of practice and experience.
At the end of the weekend, many of them came up to thank me. They told me that something had shifted inside them. Some couldn't quite explain what had happened, only that something had opened in their heart, and that answers were beginning to arise where there were once problems. Clouds of fog and confusion were beginning to clear.
That experience touched me deeply. It reminded me that perhaps one of the great gifts of growing older is not what we can do anymore, but what we can see.
When Less Becomes More. This is what I want to explore with you throughout this month's membership classes: less is more. What happens when we slow down? What happens when we stop driving ourselves so hard? What happens when we release the constant need to accomplish, produce, prove, or improve ourselves?
I've been discovering something unexpected. When I slow down, my perception changes. It's almost as if my peripheral vision opens. When I'm rushing, I can only see what's directly in front of me. I focus on the task, the goal, the next thing I need to accomplish. But when I slow down, I begin to see everything around the edges. I notice the trees. I notice the quality of the light. I notice another person's face. I notice my breath. I notice my own thoughts and feelings without immediately needing to do something about them. And somehow, as my peripheral vision expands, my heart expands with it.
I don't simply see more. I am more. There is more room for appreciation. More room for beauty. More room for other people. More room for life itself. Perhaps this is one of the great gifts of growing older. Not that we become less. But that we no longer need to be so narrow in our attention. We begin to see more. We begin to recognize more. We begin to remember who we are.
This, to me, is Tantra.
I don't want to pretend that every change is easy or that the body doesn't have limitations. And I certainly don't want to stop rising to meet life's challenges. What is changing is the way I rise. There is less pushing. Less resistance. Less proving. More listening. More appreciation. More recognition. More being.
I am already whole. So are you.
I can't say that I'm ready for full retirement. But I can feel my soul preparing me, little by little, to become more of who I am rather than what I do. And paradoxically, life is becoming easier. Not because there are fewer challenges, but because I am learning to meet them with less resistance. I keep going. I keep being. I keep learning. I keep becoming more of myself. And you know what? I'm beginning to really like getting older. Getting older doesn't suck. It rocks!
I look forward to seeing you on the mat.
Namaste,
Todd
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