How Aging Can Be a Spiritual Practice (And Not a Crisis)

You’re not falling apart—you’re becoming more whole.

Key Takeaways

➡️ Aging can be a spiritual curriculum, not a personal failure.When we stop seeing aging as decline and start recognizing it as an unfolding, it transforms how we relate to time, self, and purpose.

➡️ Stillness is strength, not stagnation.In later life, it’s not what we do but how deeply we’re present that defines our peace, clarity, and joy.

➡️ Letting go reveals the truest parts of us.Each role we release—from parent to professional—isn’t a loss, but an invitation to return to the soul beneath the title.

The culture says you’re fading. Your soul knows you’re arriving.

In our productivity-obsessed world, aging is often miscast as a crisis. We rush to prevent it, hide it, even deny it—anything but embrace it. The cultural message is clear: aging is a problem to be fixed. But what if aging is actually an initiation into deeper living?

That’s the question Dr. Christa Johnson—physician-turned-soul-guide and author of Mama J. Unchained—has been living into. After decades in Western medicine, Johnson came to a startling realization: the medical system is prepared to treat symptoms, but not the soul. Especially not the soul of someone aging.

In her book and teachings, Johnson offers an alternative view—one in which aging isn’t decline, but deepening. It’s a return to presence, clarity, and truth. It’s less about fixing the body and more about unburdening the spirit. This perspective builds upon ideas explored in Why the Last Chapter Might Be the Most Liberating One Yet, yet zooms in on the practice of aging—what it asks of us, and what it can give in return.

From Fixing to Witnessing

“Aging doesn’t need fixing,” Johnson writes. “It needs witnessing.” That line isn’t a soundbite—it’s a philosophy. It challenges how we’ve been taught to see ourselves as we grow older: as problems to solve, bodies to manage, identities to maintain.

But the truth is, the real transformation in aging happens when we stop trying to hold ourselves together and start letting ourselves unfold.

Dr. Johnson shares how years of practicing medicine left her acutely aware of what patients weren’t getting—someone to sit with them in their becoming. While checkups and prescriptions were abundant, presence was rare. What people needed was to be seen in their entirety, not just their symptoms.

She now encourages others to approach aging not through the lens of deficiency, but of emergence. Who are you becoming beneath the layers of what no longer fits?

The Sacred Pace of Stillness

Slowing down is often framed as giving up. But Johnson reclaims stillness as sacred.

In her own journey—especially after the loss of her best friend—she discovered that rest wasn’t a pause in life; it was where life began to speak most clearly. “Stillness allows us to meet ourselves,” she explains. In that meeting, we no longer measure ourselves by our output—but by our presence.

She teaches gentle practices that support this shift: meditation, breathwork, body awareness, and mindful rituals. They’re not meant to be “fixes,” but companions—ways to return to the moment when the world demands speed and performance.

And for many in midlife or retirement, this feels like an exhale they didn’t know they were holding. Aging isn’t pushing them out of relevance—it’s pulling them deeper into truth.

The Beauty of Letting Go

One of Johnson’s most powerful teachings is that every title we shed—parent, provider, achiever—reveals something timeless underneath.

Letting go isn’t a failure. It’s a refinement.

She speaks openly about stepping away from her career as a physician and the discomfort that followed. But in that space, something unexpected happened: she remembered who she was without the badge. That space became fertile ground for the book, the meditations, the voice of “Mama J.”

“Aging offers us one of life’s greatest spiritual invitations,” she says. “To surrender control, release roles, and let the soul lead.”

This isn’t about retreating—it’s about returning.

Aging as an Act of Becoming

When we think of aging as a crisis, we armor up. But when we see it as a spiritual practice, we soften. We listen. We come home to ourselves.

Dr. Christa Johnson doesn’t give you a list of things to fix. She offers you a lantern for the dark—a light of presence, humor, and humility. Her story is less about aging gracefully, and more about aging truthfully.

And maybe that’s the new goal: not to extend our youth, but to expand our soul.

🌿 To learn more, visit christajohnsonmd.com or find Mama J. Unchained on Amazon.