A New Year as an Elder-in-Training – Why Growing Older Requires New Skills
- Jan 3
- 5 min read
Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, yoga therapist, and thanatologist guiding fellow mindful mortals at the threshold of life, death, devotion, and (r)evolution. His work blends neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration to invite braver ways of being human.
The New Year is often framed as a reset, new goals, new habits, new versions of ourselves. But what if this year isn’t about becoming more? What if it’s about becoming wiser?
As I begin my journey as a contributor to Brainz Magazine, I want to offer an evolved New Year invitation, one rooted not in optimization, but in maturation. Not hustle, but integration. Not fear of aging, but a more honest relationship with it.
I call this stance being an elder in training.
Elderhood is not an age, it’s a skill
Elderhood is often treated as something that arrives automatically with time. In reality, it is a developmental achievement, one traditionally supported by meaningful rites of passage that modern culture has largely forgotten.
An elder in training isn’t someone with all the answers. It’s someone courageous and curious enough to resist rushing toward certainty. Someone practicing how to live in ways that reduce harm, deepen meaning, and leave others steadier for having known them.
This matters now more than ever.
If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’re an adult of some age, early career, midlife, or later years. Wherever you fall, two powerful cultural forces are already shaping how you relate to yourself and your future, ageism and thanatophobia.
How ageism and fear of death shape us at every age
Ageism doesn’t begin in old age. It begins early.
It teaches younger adults to fear irrelevance. Midlife adults to panic about falling behind. Older adults to feel invisible or expendable.
Thanatophobia, the fear of death, runs quietly alongside it.
Together, they produce a culture obsessed with youth, productivity, and speed, while avoiding honest conversations about decline, loss, and mortality.
The result is a kind of chronic urgency:
We rush instead of reflect
We chase relevance instead of meaning
We stay busy to avoid asking harder questions
Ironically, this doesn’t keep us young. It keeps us unprepared. Elder in training practice interrupts this cycle by inviting us to treat aging and mortality not as threats, but as teachers.
A brief introduction
My name is Ken Breniman. I’m a licensed clinical social worker, yoga therapist, grief and death awareness educator, and psychedelic integration guide. For over two decades, I’ve worked at the intersections of mental health, embodiment, mortality, and meaning, often with people navigating transition, loss, and existential questioning.
I’m also a queer man, a longtime student of primate behavior, and someone deeply interested in how humans grow wiser rather than simply older.
I’m genuinely honored to be joining the Brainz contributor community and excited to explore conversations that move beyond surface-level self-improvement toward something more durable, inner maturity that can meet real life.
Gerotranscendence and the wisdom of Joan Erikson
One framework that informs my work is gerotranscendence, a developmental theory suggesting that healthy aging is less about decline and more about a gradual shift in perspective.
Interestingly, this idea echoes the later work of Joan Erikson, who, well into her own elder years, added a crucial ninth stage to the classic psychosocial model she developed alongside her husband, Erik Erikson.
While Erikson’s original model ended with integrity versus despair, Joan Erikson recognized that late life often invites something more nuanced, a deep reckoning with loss, dependence, vulnerability, and meaning. Rather than seeing this as regression, she named it as a final opportunity for growth, a widening of perspective that integrates the whole of life.
Gerotranscendence describes this same arc:
a movement from status toward meaning
from certainty toward humility
from accumulation toward contribution
It is, in many ways, the icing on the cake of human development, an invitation to mature beyond ego without abandoning vitality.
The challenge, of course, is that our culture rewards performance far more than perspective, making this developmental shift harder to access.
Why this matters at the start of a New Year
New Year messaging often implies that something about us is insufficient, that we need to fix, improve, or reinvent ourselves to be worthy of what comes next.
Elder-in-training wisdom offers a quieter, more sustainable alternative. Instead of asking, What do I need to add? We might ask:
What am I ready to release?
What patterns no longer serve who I’m becoming?
What kind of presence do I want to offer others this year?
These aren’t passive questions. They are the questions of mature leadership.
Elderhood as a leadership capacity
In my work, I’ve noticed that many capable leaders are quietly unprepared for moments that cannot be solved. These experiences and incidents involve grief, conflict, moral complexity, or uncertainty.
Elder in training leadership is about developing staying power:
the ability to remain present when there is no clear answer
the willingness to repair rather than withdraw
the discernment to slow urgency in favor of wisdom
These skills are not reserved for later life. They are cultivated over time.
An elder who became an ancestor, Dr. Jane Goodall
One living example of elderhood that has deeply inspired me is Dr. Jane Goodall.
Long before she became a global icon, Goodall modeled something radical, deep listening, humility in the face of the natural world, and a willingness to let relationships, not dominance, guide understanding. In her later years, she stepped even more fully into elderhood, using her voice not to command, but to invite humanity to mature.
When an elder becomes an ancestor, their work doesn’t end. It ripples outward.
Jane Goodall’s example challenged me to step up and amplify my own messages more courageously, about grief, interdependence, care for our fellow primates, human and non-human, and the responsibility we carry to future generations.
Elderhood, at its best, is not about retreat. It’s about responsibility infused with compassion.
A queer note on elder wisdom
Queer communities have often had to develop elder skills outside traditional institutions, through chosen family, grief literacy, mutual care, and resilience under pressure.
This isn’t niche wisdom. It’s transferable wisdom.
In a world marked by fragmentation and loneliness, the ability to create meaning together and face impermanence honestly is essential.
A New Year's invitation
As we begin this year together at Brainz, my invitation is simple:
What if you treated this year not as a performance review, but as a training ground for wisdom? Not, "How can I do more?" But, "How can I live in a way that future me and future generations won’t have to recover from?"
That is the heart of the elder-in-training work.
I’m grateful to be joining the Brainz community and look forward to exploring these questions with you throughout the year, curious, grounded, and very much in training.
Read more from Kenneth J. Breniman
Kenneth J. Breniman, Grief Guide & Mindfully Mortal Therapist
Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, certified yoga therapist, and thanatologist whose work lives at the intersection of mortality, meaning, and transformation. Drawing from neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration, he challenges the myth of human exceptionalism while honoring the precious role each of us plays in the ongoing evolution of our species. Ken is the author of a three-body solution and subversive acts of humanity, and the creator of the See-Soul children’s grief literacy series. Through writing, teaching, and ritual-informed practice, he guides mindful mortals toward deeper humility, resilience, and collective becoming.
