I am working with lots of 'mid-lifers' these days and delighted to be doing so. I am one myself (56) and know intimately the demands and gifts of this particular transition. Sometimes coaches are a bit nervous of working through difficult transitions with clients - and this certainly can be one of those. We worry that we might be treading in therapeutic territory or that we somehow have to sort out our clients' lives.

Mid-life is a time for transformation and it is often referred to as 'the second adolescence' - meaning that we now have a chance to develop those parts of ourselves which have lain dormant or unexpressed since adolescence. In our teens we did a lot of trying on of personalities - witness the various 'costumes' we tried on before we thought we could walk into the world feeling ok. During our twenties and most of our thirties, we were climbing up the 'ladder of life' - getting exams, careers, partners, families, homes and occasionally pausing for breath before we pushed on to the next thing. All these were - and are - appropriate activities and we plunged into them with varying degrees of pleasure and success.

And then comes mid-life! Here's how the poet Dante wrote about it:

'Midway this way of life we're bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone……………………………………………………(the poem ends happily!)

It may not feel like it, but this is a perfectly normal - if uncomfortable - experience for many people in mid-life. Usually around late thirties/early forties, we begin to get glimmerings of discontent, which if not attended to, can wreck havoc with our carefully established world. Some key features of this time are:

• Experiencing Loss, Change and Death
• Former goals no longer motivate us.
• Uncertainty is a regular companion.
• The body starts playing up.
• Things don't work/satisfy like they used to.
• What mattered then does not matter so much now - but what does????
• There is a growing sense of time shrinking - mortality gives us a hefty nudge.
• Old values and needs, no longer bring contentment.

Don't let this depress you! There is great purpose to all this confusion and as coaches we need to know that, because accompanying clients through this territory requires that we are convinced that there is a big bright light at the end of this particular tunnel. What's actually happening here is that we are given a chance to re-assess and re-adjust the foundations of our lives - it's as radical as that, which is partly why this is a very rich area for coaches to work in. So, how can we learn from the 'dark wood' experience? What rites of passage will ease us and our clients in to the next phase of our lives? How do we/they co-operate with the processes of aging so that we can welcome change and move into the fullness and wisdom which are the gifts of maturity?

Joseph Campbell referred to this time using the image of climbing life's ladder. He suggested that many of us climb merrily upward until one day - you've got it, a mid-life day! - we realize that the ladder is 'against the wrong wall'. At this time, many of the features noted above, become the part of our daily experience: children leave home, relationships wobble, jobs lose their lure, the body signals some distress, parents die and we begin to wonder what it's all about. We can become disenchanted to say the least. Campbell says that at this point, we need to move the ladder to another wall - one which will carry us into the next stage of life. He says that the ONLY reason to do this is to 'follow our bliss'. As coaches, we need to be convinced of the 'bliss' he wrote about, or how can we hope to support and inspire clients, when life gets so tough.

The 'bliss', follows re-adjustment - learning to slow down long enough to savour life rather then tearing through it. We follow the body's wisdom which often insists on slowing down. The 'bliss' is in allowing the re-balancing of masculine and feminine energies so that we can finally follow dreams, seek out beauty, consciously partner with Wisdom, attend to relationship and allow our lives to be re-ensouled. It is in re-thinking who we are, in knowing that the hero's journey ends with a movement into Soul - an experience of Big Picture living, from the heart as well as the head. We learn how to BE here, NOW - we learn Presence. Compassion joins with passion. These are some of the major gifts of mid-life.

It is a great privilege to work with clients whose individual journeys seek out this level of experience. The whole process follows the classic break-down-to-break-through pattern. The following poem neatly and beautifully catches this process:

The Journey

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.

David Whyte

If you are working with clients who are grappling with this particular transition, and you would like supervisory support, do get in touch:

edna@mentorcoaches.com 028 703 27504

Edna Murdoch 2004