My name is Joya LaRock-Swofford. I am a social gerontologist, writer, and founder of The Second Half Method, a framework for navigating the developmental transitions of the second half of life.

​

In the West, aging is largely treated as a problem to be solved, a decline to be managed, or something that happens to us. That view is incomplete. Aging is also a developmental process, one that can move us toward greater depth, meaning, perspective, and connection to something larger than ourselves.

​

The Second Half Method draws on gerotranscendence, a gerontological theory developed by sociologist Lars Tornstam, which proposes that human development continues throughout later life and can involve a profound reorientation in our relationship with ourselves, other people, time, and existence.

​

I have taken that insight upstream. Rather than waiting until late life to recognize these developmental changes, the Method asks what might happen if we begin preparing for them intentionally.

​

At the center of the Method is a practice I call Gero Awareness, a research-informed approach to cultivating the awareness and intentionality needed to navigate the transitions of the second half of life. Together, these ideas offer something most people have never been given: a map for what comes next.

​

I earned my degree in Social Gerontology from San Diego State University in 1996. I served as Vice President of the San Diego Council on Aging, and as Chair of the Aging and Independence Services Long-Term Integration Project. What came afterward, including three decades of chronic illness, two near-death experiences, and a lasting change in my understanding of being human, became a lived education no classroom could have provided.

​

The Second Half Method sits at the intersection of those two forms of knowledge: what gerontology has taught us about aging, and what a life lived through change can teach us about becoming.

 ​