The 7 Steps-
Step 2. Calming Your Mind

Step 4

In order to avoid psychological and emotional debilitation, people in the Third Age need to keep their hearts open by practicing Forgiveness, Acceptance and Compassion. But they often have trouble getting to those emotions and feelings.

We've all been hurt, wounded, betrayed - we've learned to be cautious about how we handle ourselves - we've built defenses against getting hurt again. It's like the scar over a wound. The body builds up a scar for defense. But a scar has no feeling. It's numb. So you make yourself numb to situations that remind you of that which wounded you.

Many people whose professional careers were in organizations of one kind or another have been conditioned to protect themselves in order to achieve their goals. In the Third Age people need to break out of those chains. When their heart fills with Love, their whole experience of other people is transformed.

Having the feeling of love in you opens the heart. They can practice opening their hearts to love in their close relationships - but then it has to spread out from there, and groups appear to be the most effective way to help people get there. A vital task of the Third Age is to learn to love oneself, to love relationships, and to love life. In groups we do exercises to practice forgiveness, compassion and understanding. The resistance to this step is Fortress Heart, a condition of living in a competitive, dog-eat-dog world.