Elizabeth Lesser is the co-founder and senior adviser of The Omega Institute, the largest adult education center in the United States focusing on health, wellness, spirituality and creativity. She's also the author of "Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow and A Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure." Below, Lesser shares some insights on courage, crisis, and embracing life, balance -- and aging -- with a whole heart. 

MS: What was behind the formation of Omega's Women's Institute two years ago? 

EL: For five years we did these highly successful large conferences about women and power. And they just hit a tremendous nerve in the culture. They were so well received. Several people thought it was a subject matter worth researching and looking into more deeply. 

This is the point: We've had centuries of power and leadership where men have been at the helm. What would happen if women became empowered and could lead from their core basic values? What if women could actually influence the way power was wielded in the world, from a core feminine place? What do we even mean when we talk about women's empowerment? That is what the Women's Institute is devoted to. 

MS: What inspired the "Women & Courage"conference in particular? 

EL: As a leader in a large organization, I've often been the only woman working with powerful men, especially when I was younger. It really honed in me a courage -- to go out on a limb and demand to be heard in the only way that I really knew how to speak -- from my female voice. Because if we try to speak in a voice that isn't ours, we lose our power. I'm interested in helping women become courageous in being exactly who they are. Because the only way to change anything is to do it from your genuine self. 

MS: In your book "Broken Open," you talk about the kind of courage that emerges from personal crisis. What is the driving message? 

EL: We all have a choice in times of crisis -- to break down, or to break open, which means to let the shock and grief open your heart...to see how you helped create the situation you are in and to deeply learn from the experience instead of blaming, or feeling like a victim. The people I know who have been broken open through illness lived the years left to them with much more aliveness than most people get who stumble and kvetch through a long life. Because life actually is this mystery and gift. And every moment of it can be full of real radical joy and wakefulness. 

MS: How do you remain balanced in your own life? 

EL: I take time to just be alone in nature. I am grateful that I learned to meditate and do other spiritual practices starting at the age of nineteen because I can at will calm the voices in my head. I recommend learning how to come into the presence of stillness and vastness. Learn any form of meditation. Spend twenty minutes every day if possible, in meditation, listening to the crazy monkey mind inside you, and learning how to still the thoughts and discover that big, deep soulful part of yourself. If you do that, it actually becomes something that you can call up at will in a hard meeting, on a crowded subway, in a difficult conversation -- you can return to that still, wise voice within. 

MS: Women often have a hard relationship with aging. How do you feel about getting older? 

EL: I'm 56, and I had knee surgery last year. I no longer can go do three yoga classes and run. I don't enjoy the diminishing agility of the body! But instead of fixating on the physical aspects of aging, it's good to contemplate the deeper source of our anxiety. You know, it's not as much fun, physically. But emotionally, it's way more fun. I am so much happier and contented and less agitated --  I'm just calmer. So it's like everything in this human existence, it's a trade off --  it's like you trade the virility of the body for the agility of the spirit. 

MS: What do you think is the purpose to our existence? How should we look at it? 

EL: I think that life is a friggin' magic carpet ride. Everything about is mysterious and beautiful and touching and tragic and lovely and mystical. And we waste so much time -- almost every minute, swimming against the river. If we would turn on our back and float on this river, and look up at the sky and around at the banks -- it's so beautiful! So to me the purpose of life is to enjoy it! It's to enjoy the gift, and to make sure that other people have an opportunity to enjoy the gift. 

Read the full interview.

By Marianne Schnall 

Marianne Schnall is a writer and interviewer, founder of feminist.com