Meaningful Happiness with Dr. Scott Conkright
Meaningful Happiness is a podcast that unpacks the science of emotions, relationships, and personal growth through the lens of Affect Relational Theory (ART), Chronic Shame Syndrome (CSS), and Latalescence—the second act of life where experience, adaptability, and purpose shape our journey forward.
Each episode explores how shame operates beneath the surface, influencing our confidence, connections, and sense of agency. Through deep insights and practical tools, we uncover ways to rewrite our personal narratives, break free from shame-based cycles, and cultivate a life rich in authenticity, curiosity, and joy.
Join me as we dive into the psychological frameworks and real-world applications that help us navigate relationships, self-perception, and the ever-evolving landscape of human experience.
Let’s make happiness meaningful.
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Meaningful Happiness with Dr. Scott Conkright
The Great Age Revolution: Why Everything You Think About Aging Is Wrong
A sleepless night in Washington DC with an aching back became the catalyst for a profound realization: everything we believe about aging might be wrong. As I lay there wrestling with physical discomfort and society's negative scripts about getting older, I experienced a moment of clarity that would transform not just my own perspective, but potentially our collective understanding of adult development.
From this awakening emerged the concept of Latalescence – a revolutionary framework that reimagines the adult life journey as an ongoing process of growth rather than inevitable decline. Built upon three interconnected principles – Lateral movement, Coalescence, and continuous adult development – this new paradigm challenges us to see aging not as a problem to solve but as an opportunity for unprecedented growth and contribution.
We stand at the threshold of what I call the Great Age Revolution. With lifespans extending dramatically, adding what amounts to an entire second adulthood to the human life cycle, traditional models of retirement and productivity are becoming obsolete. By 2030, more people will be over 60 than under 10 worldwide, yet we lack sophisticated frameworks for understanding this extended period of vital adulthood.
At the heart of Latalescence lies the practice of self-authorship – the conscious decision to become the primary creator of your own life story. Many of us discover in midlife that our deepest aspirations and fears aren't fully our own but inherited narratives from parents, teachers, and society. Early Latalescence begins with this awakening and the courage to align our lives more authentically with our values and wisdom.
This developmental journey also embraces body-based wisdom, integrating our biological responses, emotional landscape, and cognitive understanding into a cohesive whole. Through this integration, we can create meaningful happiness – not by avoiding life's challenges, but by thoughtfully and courageously engaging with them.
Whether you're questioning traditional narratives about aging or seeking new ways to contribute your wisdom, Latalescence offers both practical guidance and an inspiring vision for life's second act. Join me in this exploration of what becomes possible when we break free from outdated stories and embrace the full potential of our continued development.
For more information about Scott and his practice, articles, videos, and more: https://linktr.ee/scottconkright
Hi, I'm Dr Scott Conkright and I'm inviting you to something new Each week in Meaningful Happiness Conversations that Change you. I give a short, focused talk about a topic that affects all of us, like shame, boundaries or emotional intimacy. We then talk about it together. It's not group therapy, it's not self-help. It's a space to learn, reflect and connect with yourself and others. Hope you'll join me for the first conversation. Stay tuned.
Speaker 1:The truth about aging didn't hit me in a doctor's office or while celebrating a milestone birthday. It ambushed me at 1 am on a rain-slick night in Washington DC, while I was lying in bed taking inventory of my body's betrayals. Outside my apartment window, the drizzle painted abstract shapes on the sidewalks, blending with the orange glow of street lamps in a way that felt almost mocking in its beauty. Back pain a familiar visitor since my 40s had returned. But tonight something was different. The ache wasn't just physical discomfort. It had an additional message, given in a low whisper, telling me my best days were behind me. I hadn't noticed until that moment how common this message had become over the last few months. I'm sure many of you have had similar moments of shame and fear about aging. I should have known better. After over three decades as a psychologist, I've guided thousands of patients to recognize how their stories and their interpretations of past events strongly informed how they felt. Yet there I was, letting society's scripts about aging run wild in my own mind. Each twinge of pain wasn't just physical discomfort. It included twinges of shame about my inevitable journey towards mental and physical decay and irrelevance. The television was off, but I could envision the anti-aging commercials, their messages, seeping into the quiet. The verdict was clear Aging meant decline, and achy, sleepless nights were a sign of diminished vitality. I had unknowingly internalized these stories so deeply that I was no longer just experiencing insomnia. I was crafting a narrative of inevitable loss.
Speaker 1:Then something shifted. It could be the intimacy of that hour when the world feels distilled to just you and your thoughts. Maybe it was the freedom of being away from home. At the time, I was staying at a friend's furnished rental condo for a month, unmoored from familiar routines. Whatever the catalyst, I suddenly saw the absurdity of my thinking with disquieting clarity. The whispers in my mind weren't truths, they were cultural fiction. This realization sparked a profound shift in my perspective, beginning the process of peeling away years of accumulated assumptions. Beneath them lay something not fully yet articulated, but more accurate. The story I'd been telling myself about aging was fiction.
Speaker 1:I reached for my laptop and began typing before the revelation slipped away. What if everything we believed about aging is just a story, and what if it's the wrong story for our time? The questions tumbled out faster than I could type. Why do we act like learning and growth have an expiration date? How did we turn natural life transitions into pathologies? How did we turn natural life transitions into pathologies? What if aging is not about decline but a new kind of growth, marked by increased wisdom and potential? Memories of my patients flooded my mind Claire, tom, linda, all individuals wrestling with outdated narratives of aging. They weren't exceptions. They were evidence of a larger pattern. We have the longevity, the resources and knowledge to approach this stage consciously, yet we remain tethered to outdated stories from a time when few lived past 50.
Speaker 1:By dawn I had pages of notes. My back still ached, but something had shifted. I could feel the first threads of a different story unspooling. That sleepless night in DC was the birthplace of two new concepts LACENSE and LATELESCENCE was the birthplace of two new concepts LACENs and LATALESCENs.
Speaker 1:Latalescens is a framework for understanding adult development as an ongoing process. At its heart are three key concepts Lateral movement, which represents growth that expands outward rather than upward, like a tree extending its branches to explore new directions rather than simply growing taller. Coalescence, which describes the gradual process of life's experiences and understanding coming together into a cohesive whole, much like separate drops of water merging into a single unified body. Single unified body. And adolescence, which captures the continuous state of maturation and transformation that doesn't end with teenage years but persists throughout adulthood. In essence, Laidalescence offers a fresh narrative about aging, one that recognizes how parents, society and the imagined expectations of others too often script our early life stories. It's about discovering that the narrative that carried us through adolescence and into adulthood doesn't need to define our future chapters. Laidalescence emphasizes that growth, wisdom and meaningful contribution can begin at any point after adolescence, continuing for as long as we have the capacity and desire to shape our story, sometimes until our very last breath.
Speaker 1:The conventional wisdom about preparing for death misses the point. Death will find us regardless of our preparations. While maintaining good health through nutrition, good habits, regular movement, all those things, these are valuable. These practices should enhance our present life rather than ward off the inevitable. The real challenge lies in sustaining the energy and motivation to stay healthy. When your life story becomes a narrative of continuing loss, mourning both past and future, the path forward indeed appears bleak. Forward indeed appears bleak.
Speaker 1:Many adults currently follow a prescribed life map Complete career, training or enter the workforce, find a partner or accept solitude, progress through a career until retirement and then attempt to find contentment in the remaining years. While not universal, this oversimplified trajectory suggests illustrates the passive acceptance of predetermined life scripts many fall into. Yet this rigid path isn't inevitable. Whether you're 24 or 84, you retain the power to question fundamental assumptions about aging and living a meaningful life. Your circumstances may set certain boundaries, but within them lies the freedom to author your own story with whatever agency you possess. There's no wrong time to begin this journey. It's never too early or too late to revise your narrative. Early or too late to revise your narrative. This book serves as a map and invitation, a call to action for those ready to embrace a more dynamic and self-authored approach to adult development. Welcome to Laid-A-Lessons, your next chapter.
Speaker 1:My awakening that night in DC reflected something much larger happening in our society. We are living through what historians may one day call the Great Age Revolution, an unprecedented transformation in human development that's creating entirely new possibilities for how we live, work and grow. This revolution is characterized by a significant increase in life expectancy, a shift towards more flexible and diverse career paths, and a growing recognition of the value of older adults in our communities. It's a revolution that also includes an increasingly large number of younger adults who don't buy into the current guidelines about how life should be lived and who are questioning the values passed down to them about what makes life meaningful and happy. They have an ache to feel more alive. The constant pull of social media and relentless commercialism and the fears that they have sadly worrisome about the future of this planet, are causing a shift in how they see themselves and their place in this world. It's a revolution that's redefining what it means to age and offering new opportunities for growth and contribution. This revolution is the backdrop against which the concepts of latelessence and lacence emerge, as it provides the context and the impetus for rethinking our narratives about aging and embracing new possibilities for growth and contribution in later stages of life.
Speaker 1:For the first time in human history, multiple transformative trends are converging that I've come to recognize as an entirely new stage of life. By 2030, more people will be over 60 than under 10 worldwide. The average lifespan has increased by 30 years in the past century, adding an entire second adulthood to the human life cycle. People are starting new careers, businesses and creative pursuits well into their 60s and 70s, shattering traditional assumptions about age and capability. This demographic revolution coincides with rapid technology and social change, transforming how we learn, work and connect at every age. Traditional retirement models are becoming obsolete as people live, work and contribute longer. More importantly, we're witnessing the emergence of what Laodalescent generation people who refuse to accept outdated narratives about aging and who are pioneering new ways of growing, contributing and finding meaning in life's later chapters.
Speaker 1:The timing of this book is crucial because we face a profound knowledge gap. While we have sophisticated frameworks for understanding early life development, we lack models for this new, extended period of vital adulthood. Our workplaces are transforming, with up to five generations working side by side for the first time in history. Healthcare is evolving from treating age-related decline to promoting vital longevity and, importantly, our social narratives about aging are challenged by new realities of what's possible in later life. Remember, laid-a-lessons isn't about age, but about awareness and potential. You might or might not encounter any of these shifts at any point after achieving adulthood.
Speaker 1:I hope this book isn't just an informative update on the stages of human development, but a path to meaningful transformation. Take time to integrate what you learn, practice the tools that resonate, share your insights with others and, importantly, trust that your journey through Laid-A-Lessons is creating new possibilities, not just for you, but for all who will follow. In the following chapters, we'll explore the psychological, social and practical dimensions of Laodalescence. You'll learn how to recognize and release outdated aging narratives, understand this life stage's unique dynamics and develop valuable tools for navigating its challenges and opportunities. But more than that, you'll join one of the most significant revolutions in human development the conscious engagement with life's richest possible second act. Whether you're just beginning to question traditional narratives about aging, finding your way through significant life transitions or actively seeking to contribute your wisdom and experience in new ways, this book offers practical guidance and a larger vision for what's possible. That night in Washington DC, when insomnia led me to question everything I thought I knew about aging, I could never have imagined where the journey would lead. Now I understand that what felt like a personal crisis was actually an invitation to explore new territory in human development. You hold a similar possibility in your hands right now, whether entering early adolescence, navigating its middle stage or embracing its final chapter. Laid-a-lessons, navigating its middle stage or embracing its final chapter, you can engage with this stage of life with unprecedented consciousness and purpose. The future of human development is being written right now. You were part of that story. Welcome to Laid-A-Lessons. Again, welcome to your vital contribution to human possibility. Let's begin.
Speaker 1:When we observe a master craftsperson at work, we witness more than mere technical skill. We see the embodiment of wisdom gained through years of practice and reflection. The same depth of understanding can be achieved in our inner lives through Laidalescence, the conscious journey towards self-authorship and emotional wisdom. But the wisdom of Laid-A-Lessence goes beyond technical mastery or life experience alone. It is body-based wisdom. The ability to understand and navigate the dynamic interplay of body-based feelings, emotions which are different and drives which are also different, is the interplay of these across a lifetime.
Speaker 1:Latal Essence is not simply a phase of aging. It is a developmental shift towards self-authorship. In Latal Essence, body-based wisdom becomes a guide enabling us to understand not only how our past has shaped us, but also to consciously shape the future of our emotional and relational selves. I've observed this process countless times in my clinical practice. Patients often come to therapy seeking solutions to immediate problems, but they then discover something more profound the ability to read their own inner landscape with the same precision that a craftsperson reads their materials. This self-awareness, this emotional literacy, forms the core of latalescent wisdom.
Speaker 1:Consider how we process any significant life event. There's the event itself, perhaps a career change, a relationship milestone or even a personal loss. But what makes it meaningful isn't just what happened. It's the complex interplay of biological responses, emotional interpretations and physical sensations. Understanding this interplay is crucial, which is why I emphasize the distinct ways our bodies communicate with us, the ways information about our inner and outer worlds are made conscious to us.
Speaker 1:Our body-based feelings which, by the way, scientifically they're known as affects. I'm just going to call them body-based feelings from now on Our raw, unfiltered biological responses to the world around us. Affects, body-based feelings. These are universal human experiences the spark of interest when we encounter something new, the warmth of joy and connection and the heaviness of distress when things go wrong. We don't learn these responses. They're part of our essential human equipment.
Speaker 1:Now the drives. These are the fundamental physical sensations that come from specific places in our bodies. Our body-based feelings are diffuse. If you're tired, you're tired in your body, perhaps a little bit more in your eyes, things like that. But with drives it's specific locations in the body. The physiological needs to eat, drink, have sex, breathe, sleep, urinate, defecate are signals from our bodies that get amplified by body-based feelings, by the affects. Each drive has its own urgency. Some can be delayed longer than others before distress or anger signals an unmet need.
Speaker 1:Now one more category of something to pay attention to is pain, which is distinct from body-based feelings, from drive and from emotion, which I'll get into later. Pain is a separate category of communication. Pain brings essential information about our bodies into awareness and quickly gets linked up with affect, with body-based feelings in the same way, but it's a totally different, separate system in our bodies. Imagine trying to suppress an affective response, a body-based response, to an intense physical need, such as really needing to go pee, for instance, while you're taxiing on a runway, or trying to ignore excruciating pain of a deep cut. These biologically based responses are automatic, preconscious and biologically based. They remind us that our bodies are not just physical support for our minds, allowing them to move around in space, but active participants in our lived experience. They give us information our brains need to know about how our inner and outer worlds work.
Speaker 1:On the other hand, emotions are the conscious experiences of any of the above and their various combinations, all written into storylines, into narratives that can become more complex with time, and they're shaped by memory and more experiences. When we say that we're feeling nostalgic, for instance, we're describing not just a simple feeling but a complex narrative woven from memory, present experience, present context and personal meaning. Memory, present experience, present context and personal meaning. So emotions are a complex interplay of body-based feelings, memory, thoughts and embodiment, allowing us to do something that might be uniquely human storytelling. Our first stories also explain why we feel the way we do in specific places and around certain people.
Speaker 1:A three-year-old may form a primitive story that going to the doctor feels painful or that their parent is in a better mood after their morning coffee. These stories create scripts, predictive models that shape how we interpret future events, so that one evening in DC, when I experienced the profound moment of enlightenment, so to speak, what I call affective awareness with body-based awareness, I was feeling three strong feelings body-based feelings, distress, shame and pain. It was a blend of felt experience that stemmed from my own struggles with aging and societal expectations, as well as a back, which had been slowly deteriorating over the years. That night, I realized how much of my story had been written by others parents, society, culture at large. It was a turning point. I decided to use my cognitive skills, not to suppress these feelings, but to rewrite my story of aging and what things mean for me now, at this period of my life. My story of aging and what things mean for me now, at this period of my life. This act of self-authorship was the beginning of one of many late-adolescent journeys I've been on since my first adolescence.
Speaker 1:Late-adolescent wisdom combines a specific knowledge base understanding how biologically-based feelings affects, understanding how biologically based feelings affects interact with memory, emotion, pain and cognition. With the realization that our first entry into adulthood was based on narratives provided by others, we had no choice. The turning point in late adolescence is when we begin consciously writing our own stories, taking responsibility for where we are in life and shaping our feeling experience in alignment with our deeper values. This is not merely wisdom. It is the practice of self-authorship. Not merely wisdom. It is the practice of self-authorship, the ongoing revision of our internal scripts to create a more fulfilling and coherent life, a more meaningful life. More so than ever.
Speaker 1:We need inclusive, diverse communities of people who can provide mentorship and support for those who are on the same journey. Safe places, safe spaces that offer opportunities to rewrite one's story. Individual insights become part of the living ecosystem of shared knowledge, where each person's growth fuels the collective evolution of understanding. Growth fuels the collective evolution of understanding. The promise of Laidalescence lies in this combination of self-awareness and connection. When we understand our inner world and share that understanding with others, we create the conditions for meaningful happiness, a deep, sustainable sense of fulfillment that comes not from avoiding life's challenges, but from thoughtfully and courageously engaging with them. Wisdom isn't developed in isolation. We need people who reflect our growth teachers, mentors and fellow explorers.
Speaker 1:Laid lessons isn't just a personal journey, it's a communal one, when we share insights, challenge old assumptions and build connections. That's creative, meaningful happiness creation. That's creative, meaningful happiness creation. And, importantly, we need to rid ourselves of any shame for needing to rewrite our stories. This takes others to prop us up and bolster our pride. So Later Lessons is not just about aging well, it's about living fully. So welcome to the revolution, welcome to your next chapter.
Speaker 1:For over a century, psychology has revolved around thought, cognition, drive, the sex drive, for instance for Freud and behavior. Those three have been the primary motivators for human behavior. But what if this is incomplete? What if we have fundamentally misunderstood the core drivers of human experience? What makes us feel, react, suffer and connect? It also drives thinking. This book proposes a plate tectonic shift in psychology, neuroscience and philosophy that reframes the foundation of what it means to be human. By placing affect at the center, by placing the biological basis for feelings, we recognize that our lives are governed not by thoughts but by these raw biological responses to the world. By introducing later lessons, we establish a new developmental stage where individuals consciously rewrite their affective scripts, allowing for a new kind of meaningful happiness, one not rooted in external achievements but in how we experience the world itself.
Speaker 1:One of the most common questions I hear when introducing the concept of late adolescence is where does it begin? Like many aspects of human development, the answer isn't about reaching a particular birthday. Instead, late adolescence emerges through a profound shift in understanding ourselves and our relationship with growth. Let me explain this through the lens of early late adolescence. The first stage of this journey, early later lessons, emerges not through the simple passage of time, but through an awakening that typically arrives after our mid-twenties at the very earliest, usually, but through an awakening that typically arrives somewhere after mid-twenties, with the disruptive realization that many of our deepest aspirations and most haunting fears aren't fully our own. They're inherited narratives borrowed from parents, teachers and society at large. We're basically analogy-wise having to wear someone else's clothes, we're adopting other people's dreams and anxieties and depressions that never really fit us. They bind in some places and hang loose in others, constraining our authentic movement throughout our life, while failing to provide the protection we thought they would.
Speaker 1:I remember working with a gifted musician in his late 20s who came to therapy because he felt oddly empty, despite his success playing in prestigious orchestras. Through our work together, he realized that his entire relationship with music had been shaped by his parents' ambitions and his conservatory training. His technical mastery was impressive, but he had never really developed his own voice as an artist. Early lessons began when he started exploring jazz and improv, not abandoning his classical training but to integrate it into a more authentic expression of his artistic self. This exploration opened up new worlds for him, both musically and personally. Jazz improv became a form of dialogue with fellow musicians, audiences and, most importantly, himself himself. He discovered new dimensions of his identity and new dimensions of creativity through these musical conversations. The collaborative nature of jazz helped him understand music as a performance and a relationship. Most significantly, this journey shows no signs of ending for him. Each new musical exploration continues to reveal fresh insights about himself and his art. He will likely continue to expand into new understandings of himself and music, I hope, throughout his life.
Speaker 1:This is the essence of early ladalessence the conscious decision to become the primary author of your own story. It's about moving from living by default to living with intention. But and this is crucial there's no universal timeline for this transition. Some people enter this awareness in their 30s, others in their 50s. Some seem to move through developmental stages with natural grace, while others myself included learn through a series of spectacular failures. I often tell my patients I'm pretty gifted at failure, but I've learned to see these setbacks as essential parts of my growth story. In fact, my failures have been crucial in forming who I am. What matters isn't how quickly or how smoothly you arrive at this awareness, but that you remain open to it when it comes. Our losses and struggles often serve as the most powerful catalyst for growth.
Speaker 1:From my clinical experience, most people enter early-late lessons between the ages of 35 and 55. An interesting paradox marks this stage. You look in the mirror and you sometimes see someone older than you feel inside. The adolescent part of you, with its dreams, energy, aspirations, fears and anxieties, still feels very much alive. But now there's something new, a hard-won wisdom. You wouldn't trade for anything. Much of it gleaned from those very failures that seemed so devastating at the time.
Speaker 1:Early-late lessons is where many people may remain until life circumstances push them forward to the next stage. That isn't a problem. Remember, we're not in a race around this. There are no extra credits for reaching any particular stage sooner than others. The goal isn't speed but authenticity, not achievement but alignment between who you are and how you live. To go back to the metaphor I used above, if the clothes you inherited fit you from the beginning and they still fit you and have the style and comfort you like, then lucky you. You don't need to finish this book.
Speaker 1:We'll explore middle and late lay lessons towards the end of this book, as these stages often serve as preparatory phases for the end of life. While they typically emerge later in one's journey, it's important to note that they can arise at any age when someone faces the profound recognition of life's finite nature. A terminal diagnosis at 40, a near-death experience in one's 30s or any circumstances that bring mortality into sharp focus can catalyze these later stages of adolescent developmentlesson development. Their placement at the end of this book reflects their chronological position in most people's lives and their deep connection to how we make meaning of our mortality.
Speaker 1:To support this journey through early-late-lessons, I've developed a flexible growth model that provides guidelines while leaving ample room for individual variation. Think of it as a map that shows possible routes, rather than a GPS that insists on one specific way. Before we explore that model in detail, it's essential to understand that early-lata lessons is fundamentally about increasing agency and coherence in your life story. This has been the first two chapters of my book on later lessons. If you get the book, if you buy the book, you'll find that there are several assessments that you can take to help you know where you are in your later lesson journey, as well as guides to get you on your path and get going. Check for more. I'll be back in a couple of weeks.
