For
some people a form of crisis will have created the need to ask
Is This It and for others such a statement will have come simply
from a time to reflect on what they have achieved to this point
in their life and what more they can express.
I
have focused on personal transformation and philosophy of awareness
from over 35 years working experience from a background in clinical
psychology; psychotherapy, counselling and business mentoring
on the powerful connection with true self to create positive life
transitions.
My
work is to provide you with accessible, down to earth understanding
of the variety of approaches which you can readily explore to
understand where you are now at this stage in you life and where
we want to go with your future True Self expression.
There
is no teaching, but we recognise how we are all born into this
life not to learn but to express who we really are and what we
really know.
For
some a all powerful life transitions involves the death of someone
we love. I trained and have been working in bereavement
counselling since 1982 and I have a dedicated page relating
to this work which
you can access by following this link.
YOUR
LIFE STYLE AND YOUR MIND STYLE
FRIENDS
> WISDOM > CAREER > WEALTH > HEALTH > FAMILY >
LOVE
We
progress through various stages in this, the journey of OUR life
and embrace both the positives through which we connect with our
inner wisdom. This is a natural and all important process but
how many people take the time to stop and positively reflect?
People have consulted me to share a safe space to positively embrace
those elements contained in their life and to positively let go
of elements borrowed from others or situations around them.
Everyone
embraces transitional change in their life and the journey towards
such change may result from a list of different issues which inititate
such positive self reflection.
The
death of one we love; the loss of a role be that in work - within
society - within our family or within our sense of connection
with self may have occured.
It
may be that we have ended an important relationship or that we
are looking for a relationship in our lives. Loss of health and
wellness be this physical or psychological.
Or,
and most importantly, such reflection may be the result of achievement
beyond our wildest dreams for as we age we embrace a completely
different perspective on life which now has to be included in
our life. We let go of false ideas.
TRANSITIONS
CAN CREATE A TIME OF FEELING LOST
> UNSURE > CONFUSED > DISORIENTED > LACK OF CLARITY
>
NATURAL
STAGES OF TRANSITION
From
my training and early work in 1981 I have held fast to what I
learned and there are clear Stages of Growth mental and enegetic
or spiritual development and the movement through these stages
is to progress in our journey through life.
Naturally, as we pass through each stage there may be difficult
periods of transition where we have the opportunity to learn and
mature at that stage in the process. I have worked with people
to acknowledge and work through the all important issues which
each successive stage puts forward so we can lead a clear human
as well as energetic expression.
I am going to focus on the stages from our late teenage years
to post retirement and the ages are estimates given how our personality
and parallel lives mean that we vary in the ages relating to each
stage.
Now for the first stage 1 - personal autonomy
and exploring choices which emerges between the ages of 18 to
26.
In this stage we have left childhood and are now free to explore
based on independence from our family. We are developing an adult
identity separate from parents and those in our childhood. We
explore totally new relationships which include romantic roles;
professional roles, we develop new peer groups and a whole selection
of new friends.
However, we come and go as we explore taking on new roles and
are open to what others around us reflect back. The good and the
not so good.
We are still young and so there seems lots of time ahead to change
our minds in terms of job, where we live, plans to marry or not
to marry, which friends we want to have in our life, our key values
and our identity. We are defining ourselves as individuals for
a foundation to our future life.
The second stage is early Adult transition
between the age of 27 to 31. From my clinical as well as
personal experience this is often a period of significant turmoil
- of looking at who we are becoming and asking lots of questions
about the journey we have explored so far and what we want for
this next stage of our future.
We explore and often question many of the earlier choices we made
and uppermost in our mind is did we make the right decisions?
Time is passing and we are aware of that in terms of making changes
or are our decisions being fixed and becoming permanent. For example,
'do we want to make our home, our career direction or romantic
relationship permanent? Will we or not settle down and have a
family? Is time running out?
The mid life crisis we read or hear about in the media later in
our life is appearing in outline at this stage in our life as
we rethink our earlier decisions in light of holding on to them
or letting them go.
Stage 3 naturally now focuses on making
commitments and emerges during the age of 32 to 42. Interestingly
this is a period in our life of relative order and stability where
we put into practice the life choices which we made during our
young adult transitional phase. We settle down into deeper commitments
involving work, family, and community. We reflect and focus on
what we have accomplished in work realising we have become the
person we aimed for and feel a sense of achievement. By now we
have developed a clear sense of self and defined our identity
at this point in our life and explore use this to focus on the
final dream of what we want to achieve in our life and we invest
a lot of energy to achieve that future dream.
Now let's focus on stage 4 - the all powerful
mid life transition between the age of 42 to 48. As you
may have read in the press at this stage in our life we tend to
question everything all over again. If we have not achieved our
dreams we explore why not. We are confident and open to asking
if they were really the right dreams for us and if we have achieved
our dreams we look at what values we might have neglected in their
pursuit. Basically 'was it really worth it after all???
Either
way this is a time for many people where they are disillusioned
with their life at this stage and naturally feelings of resentment
leading to making changes to create a realignment usually takes
place including recognitions and re-balancing of key issues such
as:
Immortality versus Mortality - whilst
people often know intellectually and emotionally they seem to
feel immortal until, in mid life, we realise that we have moved
half way through the years composing our life and so we naturally
want to make sure that we make the best of what remains. This
requires our revising priorities and also re-examining our values
which we place on our life with one big, powerful focus on placing
less emphasis on values we have already achieved and more emphasis
on those that we may have neglected.
Constructive versus Destructive.
Up until our mid life most of us fool ourselves that our behaviour
has been constructive whilst we had to deal with other people's
destructive behaviour. In mid life we become uncomfortable when
we realise how we engaged in our own share of destructive as well
as constructive behaviour. For many, naturally, such an insight
is painful but an essential element we have to embrace if we want
to continue growing intellectually and energetically.
Nurturing versus Aggressive. Whether
we have focused on aggressive lifestyles or nurturing looking
after others rather than ourselves in mid-life we often want to
re-balance.
Refusing to both acknowledge or even emotionally and mentally
experience our mid life anxieties and questions or, as for many
people to reverse and return to behaving like we did in our twenties,
is the foundation for getting stuck at this all important stage
in our life. Getting stuck will definitely create problems for
our progressing into the next stages of our future life.
Now we focus on stage five which is basically
about leaving a legacy and emerges between the ages of 49 to 65.
As I write, at the age of nearing 6o, I can assure you how this
can be one of the most productive of all life stages. Most people
usually are at the peak of our matured abilities and if the issues
of mid-life transition have been acknowledged and worked on then
in this period of our life we can make our greatest contribution
to both our own life as well as to the lives of others.
Now we focus on what really matters to us, on supporting and developing
younger people, focusing on our community, essentially we are
aware of focusing on leaving a personal legacy that really makes
things better for people and on accomplishing values that our
maturing and greater energetic or spiritual connection tell us
have the most TRUE meaning in the overall scheme of life and living
it.
The final stage 6 is energetic or spiritual the final part of
a play, film, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are
drawn together and matters are explained or resolved. Essentially
this is the stage of tidying things up, of completing the design
of what we want to become, of finalizing our growth and assessing
or fine tuning the person we made of ourselves in this parallel
life expression. This stage can go on for many years and for some
people they resolve earlier issues whereas sadly for some people
their cynical view of their life means that there is no resolution.
We may move into this stage sooner or later depending on how rapidly
we have worked with earlier stages in our life - how open, if
you like; we were to going beyond our narrow view of self.
We are engaging with the limitations of life, our self expression
in this life and the fact that time is passing and we are engaging
with our personal mortality. We can honestly and expansively look
at the ultimate meaning of our life and also the lives of others
in a larger, broader context.
We wish to pass whatever wisdom we have gained in our journey
on to others and at the same time we expansively see and accept
who people are in our life. Our sense of community continually
expands as we prepare for the survival of our spirit, our unique
energy expression beyond this mortal life.
There is more beyond our human intellect and our physical life
and we understand the meaning in our life to surpass money, day
to day recognition from roles we planned to completion in helping
others around us to reach such an understanding. How life is never
ending learning by reaching plateaus and finding a need for new
challenges.
There are many who received high levels of material recognition
and reward but appear frozen, unhappy and stagnated in a lower
level life whereas others who went within reach a high level of
development without material recognition. There is nothing wrong
with material success and recognition as long as it is in balance
and doesn't distract us from the more enduring realities and challenges
of our inner life.
KEY ISSUES FROM RESEARCH which must
be addressed and resolved at each life stage for a rewarding destination.
STAGE 1 - Autonomy / Tentative
Choices
(18-26)
KEY ISSUES
Autonomy
versus dependence. Tentative versus lasting choices -
SELF IMAGE - Developing a sense of identity as separate
from parents and childhood peer groups -
GOAL FOCUS - Defining self as an individual and establishing
an initial life style -
RELATIONSHIP - testing out new relationships (.e.g. love
interests, peer groups and friends) -
COMMUNITY - realigning focus from family or origin to new
peers and groups.
STAGE 2- young adult Transition
(27-31)
KEY ISSUES
- Turmoil versus Certainty. Settling down versus Keeping things
open
SELF IMAGE questioning sense of self
and who/what we want to become
GOAL FOCUS re-assessing initial life style and making more
permanent choices / commitments
RELATIONSHIPS sorting out and deciding which relationships
will become more permanent -
COMMUNITY rethinking and evaluating commitments and connection
STAGE 3 - Making commitments (32
to 40)
KEY ISSUES
master
versus apprentice. Permanent versus tentative choices
SELF IMAGE firming up/establishing a more permanent sense
of self and who/what we want to become.
GOAL FOCUS deciding a life direction and defining/aggressively
pursuing a dream of what we want to accomplish in life.
RELATIONSHIPS making more permanent commitments to love
relationships, friends and peers.
COMMUNITY establishing more permanent connections and community
ties/responsibilities.
STAGE 4 - Midlife transition (41
to 48)
KEY ISSUES
Resolving key polarities Immortality versus Mortality, Constructive
versus Destructive, nurturing versus aggressive
SELF IMAGE re-examining realities of projected ego and
image versus true self and struggling to define/accept true self.
GOAL FOCUS questioning the dream
whether or not it was achieved and developing a more mature sense
of what is really important.
RELATIONSHIPS Recognising/acknowledging ones own negative,
as well as positive, impact on relationships and correcting course
for deeper, more authentic connections. COMMUNITY
Disengaging from groups and cultural pressures/norms to re-evaluate
and restructure priorities.
STAGE 5 - Leaving a Legacy (49
to 65)
KEY ISSUES
Contribution versus personal benefit, others versus self centred,
Social versus independent accomplishments
SELF IMAGE Letting go of earlier inaccurate ego images
and accepting oneself as worthwhile being with weaknesses as well
as strengths.
GOAL FOCUS Making the best of the time one has left to
help others and leave a positive legacy.
RELATIONSHIPS settling into more realistic and rewarding
relationships based on recognising/forgiving each other's imperfections
as human and helping each other grow. COMMUNITY
re-engagement on a deeper, more objective less driven and more
productive level with family, friends and society.
Stage 6 - Spiritual overview (66
and beyond)
KEY ISSUES
Hope versus despair Survival of spirit versus mortality Surrender
versus control
SELF IMAGE Accepting self as dependent on wisdom greater
than one's own, recognising that wisdom as benevolent, and submitting
ones self and life to that wisdoms will.
GOAL FOCUS tying things up and completing the development
of the person/spiritual being we want to become RELATIONSHIPS
accepting others and recognising/respecting humankinds diversity
as part of that greater wisdoms plan COMMUNITY
recognising that life is only part of a larger, more enduing spiritual
community and helping others understand that.
Where are you now?
MAKING
CONTACT TO DISCUSS AND EXPLORE WITH AN INITIAL SESSION
Skype:stevenpaulwarren
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