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Is This It for the Rest of My Life? Starting Over w/ Denise Taylor, PhD

  1. Is This It for the Rest of My Life? Starting Over w/ Denise Taylor, PhD Jane Leder 31:59

At 60, Denise Taylor began again: downsized, got a Divorce, embraced single living, and set off on a journey that included a vision quest, game ranger training, and time living with a Maasai tribe. At 64, she completed her doctorate exploring how people find meaning after full-time work. That research became the seed for ThriveSpan, one of nine books, a model, a philosophy, and a way of living more consciously in later life.

“I could see the future,” Denise said. “If I were going to make any changes, I’d better make them now.”

Single living was difficult. She realized that she had no friends. Denise and her ex-husband had done everything together. There’d been no room, time, or convenience of friends. But she put in the time and energy and developed enough social contact to make her happy.

But the beauty of being single allowed Denise to make her own decisions. She no longer had to placate her ex. “There was such freedom,” she said. “Every decision is mine.”

You’ll want to listen to Denise talk about her experiences as a vision quester (Is there such a thing?), her time spent with a Masai tribe, and the owner of four acres of woodland. “Nature has influenced me in so many ways; it certainly influences my writing and the connection I feel to Mother Nature.”

https://denisetaylor.co.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/retirement-relevance-question-who-we-without-doing-dr-denise-taylor-9vn1e/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisetaylor/?originalSubdomain=uk

Jane Leder Podcaster & Author

I am an award-winning author of books about teen suicide, siblings, and men and women during WWII. My feature articles have appeared in publications from Psychology Today to the Chicago Sun-Times. I enjoy the journey of writing, the process. But as I celebrated my seventy-seventh birthday, I wanted a change of focus and turned my creative energies into launching "Older Women & Friends," a podcast. The challenge has been exhilarating and will certainly help me make it through the dead of winter in the Midwest.