The Mid-Life Crisis... No Such Thing!

The mid-life crisis is a term we are all familiar with. Either we ourselves have claimed to have gone through one or perhaps a loved one has traveled the road to crisis. We carry on through our days and one day we realize that there is something we need present in our daily lives. We accept the deadening of our spirit, day after day, and then wonder why one day we have a huge shift propelling us toward aliveness.

The mid-life crisis is actually quite the opposite than its name suggests. The mid-life crisis is actually a mid-life call TO BLISS! It is a soulful awakening beckoning us to joy and begging us to no longer settle! The actions of the person in so called "crisis" tell us that it is life, excitement, enjoyment and fun they are craving. I propose to you that if life is lived in this manner all along, day after day, through your twenties, thirties, and forties, the mid-life crisis will never knock on your door!

I know a man who by any exte
al measure would be going through a midlife crisis. He left his wife, moved from the family home, began to date a woman who was vivacious, fit and in a job she loved. To top it off, he left his work as an atto
ey to start his own business, a business he dreamed of creating since his college days. Can you guess what his ex-wife was saying about him? Can you imagine the talk among the neighbors? Surely this appears to be a life in crisis, an upheaval of what was, in its entirety.

In fact though, this was a call to bliss! This man who I will call Joe, was in a marriage he never wanted. By his own words, his parents had picked his bride and he was pressured to tie the knot with her at a too-young age. She had the attractive "Jewish" lineage which made the parents so happy. This was compromise one for Joe. As they continued in their life together they had nothing other than their Jewishness in common. She hated her job and came home crabby in the evenings. He didn't care fr his work either so the two of them were quite a pair after work.

Why was Joe in a job he disliked? Joe had a professor in college that had squashed his dream of starting his own business. He created an entire business plan as a class assignment and his professor tore it to shreds. Joe gave his power to someone who didn't share his vision or passion. He allowed his goals to be smothered with the opinions of another. What made the professor's opinion more valid than Joe's? Oh, let's not get started on the great power given to authority figures in our lives!

So Joe carried on with law school after college so that he could make a great living for himself and his wife. After all that was again what mom and dad promoted since his Dad also was a lawyer. He selected his profession not according to his natural gifts, innate passions and wanting to contribute to society but to make a great living.

So here we have the triple threat set up. Squashing of the dream, selecting a life partner even though it felt wrong long before the wedding vows, and picking a life's work not aligned with what we really want.

So as i goes, we carry on...We hope that we will forget the dream, learn to love the spouse or partner, and enjoy the stability and cash flow of the career enough to forget what we REALLY wanted. But, you can't. See, your spirit will nag you and nag you, reminding you of what is still inside you, dormant, but alive. Until one day as you reflect on the days that have passed. You being to think of how many you have left. It may occur to you what your legacy is and what you want it to be. You may come to realize how fast the first half of your life went and that it wasn't even very much fun. It is then that you begin to dream of what could have been and you have the epiphany that it is not too late!

Your spirit's quest is for aliveness and creativity. If you are engaging in low, dense-energy activities that drain your life-force out of you, you are on the road to ill health and crisis. But, if you consciously infuse your days with what you love, activities that thrill you, a sense of contribution and alignment with your soul, you'll never be in crisis.

There is no crisis in choosing a life of happiness. How can it be wrong to choose fun, contribution and to stop settling for less than you deserve? You can have a life you love, a job that uses your gifts and relationships that energize you. Just pick THAT life, THAT job, and THOSE relationships and do it today!nnn