It's just a phase.

I’ve been thinking a lot about “life phases” lately. Our oldest daughter just graduated college, our youngest daughter graduates high school this weekend and is planning to go away to college in the fall, and Rob and I will become empty nesters. All of this has me reflecting back on my own life, as a high school senior, a college student, a newlywed, a mother, and thinking forward to this new phase of empty nesting. I’ve also done a lot of thinking about what’s ahead for my girls in their futures, and the stages and phases they still have to go through.

In the yogic tradition, life is divided into four āśhramas or stages, each with its own focus and responsibilities. The first stage is brahmacarya (ages 0-24), the student stage focused on learning, and discipline. It is a time for education and self-discovery. The second stage is gṛhastha (age 24-48), the householder stage centered around building a career, raising a family, and contributing to society. The third stage is vānaprastha (age 48-72), the retirement stage where individuals gradually detach from material pursuits and start to focus on spiritual practices and passing on wisdom to the next generation. The fourth and final stage is saṃnyāsin (age 72+), the renunciate stage where one fully embraces spiritual pursuits, detachment from worldly possessions, and self-realization. The yogis marked the passage of time in these stages to offer a framework for a life that would be gratifying and fulfilling. Each stage is seen as a natural progression in the journey of life, leading individuals towards spiritual fulfillment and ultimate liberation.

Both the yogic traditions and the āyurvedic traditions emphasize our deep connection to the cyclic rhythms of the natural world. Living in sync with the daily cycles, seasonal cycles, and cosmic cycles brings us the most holistic health and wellbeing. We are creatures of nature and we are meant to live like her. Tatha brahmande, yatha pindande - as in the macrocosm, so in the microcosm.

Unfortunately, our culture and society do not give value to cyclic living. We stay busy long past sunset, fill our spaces with artificial light when it’s supposed to be dark, eat strawberries and tomatoes in the middle of winter. You get the point - we do everything we can to defy nature’s cycles. And we give little to no consideration to the natural phases of life.

With an average retirement age of 65 for men and 63 for women (and the retirement age keeps increasing), we are well into the third stage of life before we even stop working. Once our kids are grown and out on their own, our focus should naturally shift to designing a new life for ourselves, a life that allows us to step out of the fast paced, and outwardly focused householder stage of life, a life that allows us time for self reflection and introspection so that as we move toward our later years we can contribute to our communities from the perspective of a “wise elder”.

In a culture that abhors aging, we fight the transition to the vānaprastha stage of life. When we feel the natural urge to slow down and rest, we force ourselves to keep up the pace. When we feel that natural desire to declutter and simplify our lives, the culture keeps telling us that we need more. And our culture all but demands that we stay in the rat race, trapping us in the gṛhastha stage of life, well beyond what’s natural.

I can’t help but wonder what we might be missing when we ignore these natural phases of life. There’s a lyric from one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs that says “the more that you give, the more it will take, to the thin line beyond which you really can’t fake”. This lyric describes how, caught up in the rat race of life, we give, and give and give of our energy, and the more we give, the more this life will take, until we are so depleted, so worn down, so exhausted, we are almost at that thin line beyond which there’s no real life left, and we can’t even fake that we are really living.

I’ve spent the gṛhastha stage pouring my heart and soul into raising my family, and building a yoga community. Raising a family and running a business are energy intensive endeavors. I was pulled in a million different directions every day. My yoga practices supported me in this phase of life, but I had to adapt my practice to my life - shorter practices, whenever I could fit them in, mostly asana, and for many years with a kid or two talking to me the entire time I was practicing.

When I think about how my life is about to change, what an empty nest is going to be like, I know for sure that I want to lean into this next phase of life just as much as I gave myself to the previous one. I am feeling that pull to create a new life for myself, to share my gifts and talents and live my dharma in a new way. I’m not clear yet on what this new life will look like, and what this “new way” will entail, but I’m committed to figuring it out, and not giving in to the pull of a culture that wants me to ignore this natural transition.

The Sanskrit word vānaprastha means “forest dweller”, and it perfectly describes the life I’m craving as I enter this third phase of my life - a simple, quiet life, in communiion with nature. I’m craving slow, quiet mornings, dedicated practice time, long periods of quiet meditation, more depth of understanding, and a community committed to deep spiritual practice.

It takes courage, and a lot of self-love, as we enter the vānaprastha stage of life to defy our cultural norms, and to admit to ourselves that we’re getting older. Once again I find myself so indebted to the yogic practices, and the paradigms they offer for living a skillful, gratifying, and fulfilling life.

As my entire family heads towards new phases of life, I can only hope that I have been and continue to be a good role model to my kids - my greatest wish for them is that their lives are even more gratifying and fulfilling than my own.

Here’s to a good life for all of us, through every phase.

What’s your life phase?

Brahmacarya (unmarried student - ages 0-24)

The brahmacarya stage is characterized by accumulation of knowledge, growth, and development. Traditionally, in yoga, this is the phase of life where one studies the yogic or religious texts, and has the free time to commit to intense daily practices that help develop a strong spiritual foundation, viewing practice as a challenge that leads to self improvement. In more modern cultures, brahmacarya is the phase in which we begin developing a sense of self and how we relate to the world around us. This is also when we develop our morals and values that will be the foundations for how we live our next phase of life. Ideally, during the brahmacarya stage one learns how to learn and open themselves to receive the wise counsel of those who have successfully moved through this first stage. For those practicing yoga, the brahmacarya phase of life is the time that we are extremely curious about practice, we may seek out a number of teachers, explore a variety of philosophies and styles of practice, and place a strong emphasis on physical practice.

For various reasons one may get stuck in the brahmacarya phase, chronologically aging, but failing to develop emotionally and spiritually.

Gṛhastha (householder - ages 24-48)

The gṛhastha stage is when our focus shifts to worldly responsibilities. In modern times this is when we shift from being a college student into a career, begin to create a family through marriage, and take on more “adult” responsibilities. Much of ones energy and focus during this phase of life is on fulfilling these responsibilities, caring for our families, and building our careers. During this phase of life we learn to be adaptable in our practice. With much of our energy and time dedicated to our worldly pursuits, we must adapt our practice to our lives, where as in the brahmacarya phase we adapted our life to our practice. In the gṛhastha phase of life, the lines between practice and life become more blurred, and we begin to really “live” our yoga just as much as we “practice” our yoga, and our practice evolves into our daily actions - more patience with our family, more awareness of our impact as a consumer, more depth in our relationships, and so on.

This is the phase of life that our culture emphasizes the most - the phase of being a “productive” member of our society, a “worker bee”, if you will. Because this phase is so celebrated in Western (especially American) culture, it’s easy to feel compelled to remain in this phase far beyond what is natural. Money, power, and productivity are status symbols in this culture, and without understanding the yogic path, many never leave this stage of life, literally working themselves to illness and death.

Vānaprastha (forest dweller - ages 48-72)

When we follow the yogic model, and live within the cycles of life, the third phase of life is defined by having fulfilled our duty of raising our family, contributed to our community in a positive way, met our career goals, and hopefully accumulated enough security that we can make this transition to the vānaprastha phase with ease and comfort.

This phase is important to our spiritual fulfillment and ultimate liberation, as this is the time that we can begin to turn away from an outwardly focused life, and spend more time with ourselves. This is often the phase of life when we become most comfortable in our own skin, and care less what others think. In this third stage of life one can really come to truly know oneself, trust oneself, appreciate, love, and care for oneself.

In practice, someone in the vānaprastha stage of life has developed enough skill and knowledge that they can now put full faith in their ability to design and develop a practice that is deeply fulfilling and limitlessly valuable. In this third stage of life ones practice often becomes more slow and introspective, hatha yoga practice may slow down, and poses may be held longer with more integrity and mindfulness. There’s more emphasis on a strong meditation practice during this third phase of life, and more time to contemplate the meaning of life.

Saṃnyāsin (renunciate - ages 72+)

In the saṃnyāsin stage our practice can bear the most fruit, as this is the phase when our practice is truly, 100% out of pure joy and devotion, free from self-interest or ambition. This is the stage of life when we can most enjoy just being.

In the saṃnyāsin phase we have come to accept that death is a natural part of the cycle, and we spend these later years in gratitude for the life experiences we’ve amassed. Our only duty at this phase of life is to share our wisdom as a “wise elder”.

The saṃnyāsins should be revered and celebrated, as they are our wisdom keepers. Yet, in our culture, we under appreciate our elders, shun them, and often isolate them away from the rest of society in nursing homes.

The saṃnyāsins primary means of practice is meditation.