Mid Life Crisis

My life really began, or perhaps I should say, took off after I was forty. Before that I didn’t have a true awareness of who I was. I lived in a fog. I repeated patterns from my childhood that were inappropriate for me as an adult. I struggled to make sense of my world, my relationships and my sense of self.

I have always been active and happier when I am living an active life style. So I have been blessed with good health, and still am. When I was 40 I began a new stage in my life working in community theatre. That step began my path to a long and wonderful relationship with my third wife, and my personal growth to becoming a therapist. On the way I have worked as a dance teacher, a street performer and circus teacher and toured with my own theatre company. It has been, and still is, an exciting and challenging journey.

I believe that for many of us the “mid life crisis” can be the most positive stage in our lives. It is the time to reflect on the past, consider what we would like for the future and an opportunity to decide to be in the “here and now”. It can be the beginning of the most wonderful next stage of our lives; the time to remember all the lessons that we have learnt and count them as blessings. To be grateful for where we are and what we have. A time to appreciate our family and friends, our health and well being (after all we have arrived at the magical age of forty!) and, most important, a time to choose how we intend to be in this moment and the next. Top make a conscious decision about the quality of life we have for the rest of our lives.

I believe that the mid life crisis can be a positive time to reflect on all the life experiences from the past, count them as blessings and use them as lessons to help us to be our authentic selves. It can be a time to shake off any inappropriate patterns and behaviours, a time to create a lifestyle for healthy living, in mind, body and spirit; a time to acknowledge who we really are in this moment and in doing so accept and truly love ourselves. From this moment we can allow our light to shine for all to see.

I hear you say “oh yes it all sounds so easy but I can’t change just like that. I only wish I could.” So it may be hard to change those negative patterns, to break out of the safe comfortable lifestyle that we have created, it takes courage. However, the most difficult step is the decision to live a life of creative positive change, to have the intention to live in the “Now”. Once that decision is taken it is surprising how many people will offer you a helping hand when it is most needed.

Philip Burgess