[photo credit: Pasadena Senior Center]
Wayne Lehrer, author of “The Art of Conscious Aging,” will present a virtual talk titled “The Art of Conscious Living” through the Pasadena Senior Center at 10 a.m. on April 9. The event, which requires registration, focuses on what Lehrer calls the “third act” — the stage of life after career and child-rearing when questions of identity, purpose and health take center stage.
Lehrer, who also leads a weekly yoga class at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, has argued that aging demands a fundamental shift in how people see themselves. In a 2024 podcast interview with the USC school, he said the transition into later life is unlike anything most people have prepared for.
“I believe it’s the biggest challenge that anyone’s going to face as they enter into old age, which is learning to redefine themselves by a new operating system,” Lehrer said in the interview.
Before becoming a yoga teacher and aging advocate, Lehrer worked as a World’s Fair and theme park designer and IMAX filmmaker. He has said his varied career ultimately served a single purpose.
“For me, my gift was creating immersive, transformative, spiritually uplifting experiences,” he said in the same USC interview.
His book, subtitled “A Guide to Happiness, Health and Purpose in Life’s Third Act,” draws on what he describes as years of personal research into mindfulness, diet, exercise and the psychology of aging. Lehrer has said that one of the core problems facing older adults is isolation and the tendency to shrink from engagement.
“I believe that one of the biggest problems with aging is people’s worlds get smaller and smaller,” he said in the USC podcast.
The Pasadena Senior Center, a donor-supported nonprofit at 85 E. Holly St., serves more than 10,000 older adults age 50 and above each year, drawing members primarily from Pasadena and Altadena. The center does not receive local, state or federal operating funds. Its programming spans fitness, education, social services and community events.
Thursday’s virtual presentation requires registration. To register, visit the Pasadena Senior Center’s DonorView event page or contact Charmaine Nelson at 626-344-4325 or CharmaineN@pasadenaseniorcenter.org. For general information about the center, call 626-795-4331 or visit pasadenaseniorcenter.org.
Lehrer told USC’s gerontology school that conscious aging starts with accepting what most people spend decades avoiding. “Conscious aging is accepting the fact that it happens for everybody,” he said. “That’s the conscious part of it.”
