You spend your time wondering where all the years went.

After you thought this stage of life would be full of freedom and happiness.

Now you finally wouldn’t have to answer to a boss or anyone else and you’d finally be calling all the shots. 

Of course, you knew there would be a downside to aging, but you were optimistic that this stage of life would be the reward for how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve been through. Or so you thought…

When you look at yourself today, you feel like you’ve come to a worried, confused place. And sad place. Your life is moving forward, and changes are happening. But it’s extremely hard to feel free when you struggle to maintain your autonomy and understand your purpose. On the worst days, you feel like you’re never going to find meaning in your later life because there’s too much to try to figure out and you don’t want to burden your family.

Well, I’m here to tell you you’re not alone. Aging, and transitioning to this latest phase in life does not mean you have to choose between being isolated or being a burden. You are completely capable of navigating older adulthood and achieving everything you hoped you would throughout your life.

At Coaching Aging Adults there is one thing I know for sure:

Growing older happily, healthfully, and gracefully is possible in any circumstance.

Sometimes things happen that we don’t expect, and it is easier – and less painful – to turn away than to face failing health, shrinking finances, or increasing loneliness. When this happens, older adults can find themselves focusing on the most negative aspects of their later life and forgetting about all the good.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy your next act. It simply means you may have your work to do toward healing wounds, changing ingrained perceptions, and coping with and adapting to your aging body and lifestyle.

Often, when everything you’ve worked hard to build over the years seems to change, it can make you feel like it was all for nothing. Soon, you’re left wondering whether anything you did over the course of your life mattered and where you might go next.

But the truth is, existential crises like these happen. And when they do, it’s normal to wonder about your worth and your contribution. Although the amount of change in your life may leave you feeling lonely, it does not have to keep you from adjusting to growing older. Instead, you can learn to embrace your later years so that you can find freedom, joy and belonging in this new “you’re the boss” stage.

Too often, retirement, downsizing, and losing friends and loved ones can have a profound impact. You’re grieving a lot of loss.

Your purpose and meaning of life come into question. Your start to realize change is inevitable and not all of it is positive in this transition to your next phase.

So, sooner or later you end up retreating, thinking that life is never going to get better or meet the expectations you once had.

You don’t want to be a burden to your family, so you create distance between yourself and your loved ones.

Eventually, your disconnection subverts your confidence and you’re left believing that because you’re older you have nothing left to offer the world and those around you, or you don’t know how to harness your worth in meaningful ways.

Coaching Aging Adults:

is the place for people who want to navigate the twists and turns of growing older with confidence and purpose.  This desire arose directly from my most passionate calling.

The last few years have been a huge growth opportunity for me.

My journey began as I came out of Semi-Retirement after closing down my Psychotherapy Practice that began in 1983.  My initial work was with underachieving adolescents and adults who were struggling with adjusting to school and the challenges of change in the Family Life Cycle.

As I began to raise my own children I shifted my practice to young adults and then adults who were wanting to make their own life changes. Over the years, I developed two Group practices: Colorado EPIC (Effective Professionals in Change) and the Motivational Enhancement Center. The world of mental health and managed care continued to provide an environment of challenge for most psychotherapy practices.

After many years of dealing with Managed Care (and getting into networks), I only wanted out!  I trained to become a Life Coach in 2001 and used my Coaching skills to figure out what I needed to do to decrease my burnout and find ways to re-create my life and my career.

During that time, I closed my practice and my website.  My daily work went in totally different direction from Psychotherapy and Mental Health.  When I decided to move back full-time to Denver, I needed to re-invent my life again.

I had a New Partner.

I was 60 years old.

And I decided to get a JOB.

Working at Neuroscience Associates was supposed to be a short-term thing… Who knew that I was going to fall in love with working with Older Adults?

I became a Supervising Psychologist for LCSW’s and LPC’s in Colorado in Long Term Care.  My experience working with hospital systems, leading Psychologists on medical staffs, and my love of learning nurtured my desire to create my present practice in Coaching Aging Adults.

Working with older adults and training professionals to deal with the multiple problems that aging brings has become my personal mission.

This website is the fruition of my vision.  Coaching Aging Adults has multiple goals. It is ambitious.  I have been gathering information for the last 7 years with the hope of making it accessible and easily organized for clients, clinicians, and other professionals to learn about the complexity and joy of working with older clients. This work can be exciting, rewarding and sometimes time-intensive and draining.