First is the ‘crisis of consciousness’ linked to Uranus and Pluto, strongest in late June and September.

Second is the shift of vision prompted by planet Neptune entering Pisces on February 4, where it will stay for 13 years.

Third is a whole lot of action in two signs: Gemini and Scorpio. And it’s all exciting!

 A Crisis of Consciousness is Not a Bad Thing

Change-maker Uranus is in Aries now for seven years. There, Uranus is visible, fast, letting it all hang out in sudden political shifts, ongoing social instability, people having their say, sometimes violently, reckless bids for freedom, for fun, for feeling more fully alive. Uranus is primed for a new era and we with it. Aries is the natural ‘upstart’ and youth of the zodiac, so it is not surprising we are seeing already what has been dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’ with revolt in much of the Middle East. A likely trigger to its 2011 beginning is that cardinal sign dance which began then – the squaring off of Uranus in Aries to Pluto in Capricorn. Expect much more in 2012. During this first quarter year it will be Dec 29, Feb 10, March 4, 25 and 30 which focus the mind challenging energy.  While the prime times for the wakeup action are  June and September, the cycle of social change via seven exact Uranus/Pluto ‘squares’ lasts right through until March 2015. It is the March born Aries, December born Capis, June born Cancerians and Librans born in September, firing up most rapidly for change.

 The Age of the Image

At its visionary best in the sign it co-rules – Pisces, Neptune comes home on February 4. The Age of the Image begins, meaning symbolic knowledge systems make a big comeback, meditation and contemplation gain wider credibility and a new fantasy genre linked to oceanic consciousness is likely to emerge. Surrendering to the flux, vision unlocked and imagination unblocked, are part of the flow. If you are a February born Pisces, a Gemini born in May, a Virgo born in August or a Sagi born November, you are the ‘mutables’ ready to shape shift in 2012. If you have the early degrees of Pisces Rising, get some water wings!

Tides of Change

Water in general is the talk of the town, not always for good reasons. With Neptune in Pisces linked to Pluto, the oceans, the water table and purity of groundwater are increasingly likely to feature as collateral damage to the huge global business of mining natural resources to keep us all ‘powered up’. Power planet Pluto has been in earthy captain of industry Capricorn since 2008 and mining just keeps getting bigger and bolder. One Neptunian response to this may be getting off the grid, an increasingly hard thing to do. With Uranus challenging Pluto, these issues will be stripped bare and increasingly a basis for social action and scientific research. Blended wisdom and uncovering secret codes of renewal come with the deep earth magic of Capricorn made moist by Pisces.

Mayan Records – Gemini Gets Moving

June 2012 is a big time for everyone with Sun, Moon or Rising Sign in Gemini. While much is written about the Mayans and their “prophecy”, this notion is a modern invention. Only four documents exist from Mayan times, apart from the calendar itself, which ends and resets at the next December solstice in 2012. The most important extant doc is The Dresden Codex, held in a museum in Dresden. The Mayans were talented mathematicians and Venus their most revered planet. The Codex includes 74 pages of accurate calculations, with the last page showing diagrams of the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun in Gemini on June 6, 2012. It will be over a century before such a Venus transit can be seen again, so clearly Gemini rocks.

Here is the full line-up: Two Gemini New Moons, the first on May 21, which is also an annular solar eclipse, and a second New Moon on June 20. A double chance for new beginnings! Add to this the fact that expansive fortunate Jupiter enters Gemini on June 12 to stay for a whole year. Plus Lover Venus sweetens life for the Twins by staying in Gemini from April 4 to August 7. This is an extended time because she describes a ‘retro’ cycle from May 16 to June 28, when Gemini learns the most from looking back, with the most powerful realisations when Venus meets Sun on June 6. The other Air signs – Libra and Aquarius are also in their groove. With so much happening in Gemini, expect a tsunami of ideas to gather momentum in June.

 Scorpio in Sight

Scorpio’s big story starts later in the year – tune in to later newsletters.  In short, the entry of Saturn into Scorpio for two years on October 6, 2012 and the total solar eclipse, visible in North Queensland on November 14 is the Scorpio New Moon. This eclipse too was shown in the Dresden Codex calculations. These make Scorpio a sign with a mission this year, not least because Saturn in Scorpio will help the Neptune vision manifest from October 2012 on.

About the Author – Christine Broadbent

Christine loves astrology with a passion.  With 25 years experience as a professional astrologer, counsellor and writer she has taken many people on the exciting journey of discovery that astrology opens, providing support with greater insights through their life transitions. For more information see Our Experts page.

You know you need to find a new job but either can’t decide what to pursue or are just not finding what you want.

This was where I found myself several years ago and I just couldn’t seem to get it right. I felt unsure of myself, what I should be doing and which of my options I should pursue. This left me feeling very frustrated as I seemed to be going nowhere. I was looking for a new job and thinking about going into business for myself but was confused as to which direction I should go in.

Does this sound familiar to you?  Then read on …

I am going to share with you a process that really helped me when I was feeling like that. It was given to me by a life coach I was working with at the time and it really aided me in getting my focus into perspective. So let’s do it.

1. Get a big sheet of paper – such as butcher’s paper or the like and some coloured pens.

2. At the top of the sheet of paper write these words:

My job is the vehicle through which I express what I love:

3. Draw a big circle on the page with lots of space inside it – leave some space at the bottom of the page.

4. Give yourself some quiet time to meditate on:

• what you are good at
• what you love doing
• what you are passionate about
• what you want
• what turns you on in a career sense

5.   Fill the circle with all the things you thought of.  Use different colours to make it more vibrant. You can list  money you want to earn, tasks you enjoy doing or are good at (in work and outside of it), how you want to feel and I could go on, but I don’t want to give you a prescription as it is important you just write what comes to you with no judgement or questioning. Take as long as you like. You can add anything you think of later too.

6.  When you have finished, write these words at the bottom of the circle:

Now provide me with the best vehicle to express all that I am and can be.

7.  Put the sheet of paper up on a wall where you can see it often and so it puts out to the Universe/God what you desire.

8.  Keep looking out for opportunities, being aware that you have passed control over to the Universe (where it has been all the time anyway). Be open to guidance from someone who knows more about what is good for you and what might work better for you  – your own Inner Guidance or Spirit.

See how you go with that. It may take some time but it will happen. I am now doing what I love and back then I had no idea how I would get here … but I didn’t need to know how. I just had to follow my inner guidance.

Do let us know how you go and what you get from doing this process. We would love to hear about your experiences.I trust it helps you as much as it helped me.

About the Author – Janeen Sonsie

Janeen‘s spheres of passion are Get Real Communication for growth relationships and blossoming through life transitions. She is an international speaker, facilitator and coach who helps people and organisations around the world Get Real Communication for Real People who want Real Results. Janeen is the Founder and editor of MojoCircle magazine. For more information  see Our Experts page.

What does it really take to increase your work life productivity and passion, have more fun and get a greater sense of satisfaction and pleasure? 

Here are my seven key strategies, gleaned from my research over the last 20 years, to do just that. Each one has  shown itself to be the way for success and world-class results in business and personal life.

As you read, you are going to discover powerful and practical strategies that will re-generate your Passionate Performance and take you where you want to go, regardless of where you are at this moment in time.

In fact, if you are facing significant challenges in your life at the moment, I think you will be able to see which of these strategies you might have overlooked that could have led to your current situation, so take out a pad and pen and make some notes as you go along.

1. Write out your goals in the areas of Mind, Body and Spirit

We all have goals but, despite the many books that describe the huge benefits of writing out your goals, only a few people actually do it!

I have found that the greatest hindrance is the difficulty of choosing from the many wonderful goals that are available to us, and so we never get started. All I can say is, “Please start!!”. An easy and practical way to start is to write out goals in the three areas of mind, body and spirit. Some examples are:

Mind:

1. Get a university degree
2. Attend a sales course
3. Learn speed reading skills
4. Learn a language

Body:

1. Do an Ironman triathlon
2. Run a marathon
3. Burn 10 kgs of fat (rather than ‘losing 10 kgs of weight’)
4. Buy a new car
5. Buy a new home

Spirit:

1. Learn to meditate and then do it regularly
2. Build a great relationship with your children
3. Learn to love
4. Find your life partner
5. Make a significant community contribution

I recommend that you write out at least five specific goals in each of these three areas.

The next step is to have goals in these three areas that are short-term, medium-term, and long-term. That would make a total of 45 goals – a great start and not too difficult to achieve.

2. Accept that you create your own unique picture of reality

No-one sees or experiences the world as you do! You are a unique person with a unique set of experiences. It is those experiences that create your interpretation of life and lead to your ability to be creative and solve problems in highly unusual ways.

Because many of us were ostracised for being different when we were younger, we have learned to conform and behave like others. If you do, your brilliant potential contribution to life on earth is unlikely to be realized.

 3. Know yourself ! Self-knowledge is the key to wisdom

Who is a ‘wise’ person? I believe it’s the person who can make ‘good’ decisions, rather than ‘bad’ decisions. However, because each one of us is unique, what is good and bad depends on how we view our own lives.

Therefore, the more you know yourself, the wiser you will become and your ability to make great decisions will keep increasing.

4. Access your courage to take risks and make mistakes

Each one of us must be willing to continually change, because the world around us is continually changing. However, as Buckminster Fuller in his book Critical Path so aptly put it, human beings only learn through trial and error. Our changes require us to learn and to err, but the unfortunate fact is that we have experienced punishments for making mistakes.

If you are not willing to face the pain of making mistakes, you simply will not learn quickly enough. In fact, much of the pain is really self-generated, through your unique reality. Therefore, when you understand why it’s necessary to err from time to time, you will be more accepting and ready to do so, and you’ll be able to tap into your courage reserves.

5. Be willing to be uniquely you

Be willing to be unique, and to be criticised for it! You will eventually be loved and admired for this rare talent.

Understand how the pressure to conform will limit your chances of success. Just one fact should demonstrate this to you: not many people can afford to retire at 65 years of age without Government assistance! So, if you behave like most people, your chances of independent living are limited.

6. Invest 5% of your time and income in your own learning, growth and development

You are your greatest asset: what are you doing to continue to maintain and enhance this asset? Brian Tracy, American Sales Trainer, describes you as the ‘managing director of your own personal services corporation’.

We each have 168 hours given to us each week. Spend at least 8 hours per week, 5% of your week, in some form of learning.

Also invest 5% of your income on your learning. Explore with your accountant the various ways to help you structure this investment in a tax-effective way.

The learning and growth must cover all three areas of mind, body and spirit.

7. Take responsibility for your life: don’t blame other people

This is the hardest one of all! We live in an analgesic society, where people simply want to be given a pill to solve their problems. One of these ‘pills’ is to blame other people when things go wrong – but that doesn’t solve anything. In fact it makes it worse.

True freedom comes to you when you accept that you are responsible for everything that happens to you. The only person in the world that you can change is you. When you change you, your whole world will change. Accept responsibility, and you can change the world and your unique experience of it.

Finally …

If you implement these seven strategies, you will access your unique Passionate Performance in a way that delivers you the life that means success to you. I believe that our future success in a globalised environment depends on every person taking responsibility for our country’s future, and not leaving it to others!

About the Author – Charles Kovess

After 20 years of high level legal and business experience, Charles knows that most people have a powerful and under-used ingredient they can use to drive successful changes in their life. He turned his back on the law in 1993 to share those success strategies as a professional speaker, educator, facilitator and coach. Charles is known as Australasia’s Passion Provocateur, and travels the world promoting the power of passion. For more information see Our Experts page.

If you have lost your job or an important relationship or your money or your health or just having a tough time at work, then it is time to discover what you are passionate about and pursue that. Are you passionate about your job or your business right now or have you lost that zing?

The passionate person engages the minds, bodies and souls of people engaged in a similar endeavour and also powerfully inspires them. So why is it that in the past 18 years, research shows that less than 25% of people are passionate about their work.

You can achieve extraordinary results in productivity and leadership if you are passionate about your work. What’s more, if you and your team are passionate, then your business success will soar in revenue and profit too!

This article will help you whether you are the owner of your business, an employee in a business, a consultant to others, or wondering what to do next in your life.

Firstly, let’s understand what passion is.

Passion is an unlimited source of energy from the soul (or ‘spirit’, or ‘heart’) that enables a person to produce extraordinary results. The reason the results are ‘extraordinary’ is because so few people are passionate in their work place. Passionate people have massive amounts of energy.

Why is energy relevant to profits?

Because money is essentially a representation of human energy. The equation can be explained like this:

• Money was invented thousands of years ago to replace barter.
• Human beings bartered goods and services.
• These goods and services were the direct result of human beings ‘doing things’.
• The more things they did, the more they could barter.
• The amount of human energy determined how much could be done: that is, each person’s productivity.
• Thus, the more energy you had, the wealthier you would become.

Contemplate the times and places where you have spent your hard-earned money over the past month; for example, restaurants, car dealers, banks, convenience stores, theatres and movies, fashion, shoes, lawyers, and accountants. On how many of these occasions were you consciously surprised by the high levels of passion evident in the behaviours of the employees or owners who took your money? It is clear from evidence of thousands of my workshop attendees that the number of occasions would be less than 10%, if at all.

And yet, when you experience the positive, high-energy, uplifting behaviours of passionate employees, you surely would not choose to go to any of the competitors of such an organisation!

So, how do you create this energy source in your work and in your life?

Here are seven key strategies.

1. Understand the value of your passion

I encourage you to do the work to discover your passion, or to access your courage to pursue your passion if you know what it is but you have not yet been doing so.

History is full of the stories of people who have taken the passion steps to successfully learn, grow and change to be world-class performers in their chosen fields. I assure you that some of the other benefits of travelling this road of passion are proven to be:

• Living a life of significance
• Being full of energy and highly productive
• Being at peace on the inside while performing at the highest levels
• Creating fulfilling and rewarding relationships
• Using the Law of Attraction effectively
• Taking the calculated risks you need to take to achieve greatness
• Being willing to make the mistakes that will help you to develop yourself and your skills
• Clarifying your goals
• Clarifying your vision
• Acting with integrity
• Living a loving life
• Loving what you do
• Loving what happens to you on the way!

Doesn’t it make sense to live such a life? Isn’t it worth doing the work you may need to do to discover or pursue your passion?

2. Dream Big

“All successful people, men and women, are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision or purpose.” Brian Tracy

Anything that has ever been created started with a dream.

Do you dream? What is your dream job or business?

If you had a business, recall the dream that started your business? It rekindles passion when you share that dream with others. Your dreams are powerful clues to what you are meant to be doing. In Disneyland, new employees are given four days of ‘dream-sharing’ before they learn the technical parts of their jobs!

What prevents you from pursuing your dreams? Isn’t it time to take the risks at last?

3. Craft an inspirational vision for yourself and your organisation

• Where is your life going?
• What can you see?
• Where is your business going?
• What is the vision for the future?
• Why should you or your colleagues commit to that vision if they don’t understand it or don’t even know it?

Are you part of an organisation that has clarified and then published its Purpose (or ‘Mission’), Vision, and Goals? When I ask employees about these fundamentals, the usual response is sceptical, even cynical, laughter. In fact, very few employees can remember them! And if they do remember them, they often don’t believe them anyway as they do not see it being actioned by the leaders.

Many leaders are unwilling to share their financial and business goals with their employees.

If employees are kept in the dark, how can they be expected to throw their souls, their passion, into the business?

4. Build trust

Without trust, there is no communication. Without communication, the real issues are shoved under the carpet. Building trust is like building a brick wall; it can take years to build it, but it can collapse overnight.

Still, both the brick wall, and trust, is worth building. Understand the power of trust and how it unlocks the truth and everyone with whom you deal will be more willing to access their souls and their passion and, more importantly, to contribute them to ensure success for any endeavour.

5. Build exceptional team work and team spirit

Not many people are ‘loners’. Most of us want to be in relationships; we want friends, we want people to care about, and we want to be cared for. Team work supports this basic human need. If you value team work and team spirit, you will create the environment that allows passion to be nurtured, to grow and to be rekindled when it is accidentally squashed.

If you are having a tough time because the quality of team work in your life is not fulfilling, then this one strategy may have enormous value for you.

The two key criteria that build team spirit are trust and a commitment by team members to each other. In other words, team members care about each other.

6. Be willing to make mistakes

This sounds a bit scary, but we live in fast-changing times. Human beings are designed to learn through trial and error. Unless you and your colleagues are learning new skills, new attitudes, new ideas, you will be left behind! People who are left behind soon lose their passion.

The tragedy is that we are often punished for making mistakes. We were punished in school and we see colleagues get the sack for making mistakes. There are lots of reasons why we hide mistakes. Stay at the forefront of technology by sharing and rewarding mistakes: they are excellent learning opportunities.

7. Have some fun

Lighten up! Stop taking yourself too seriously. It is just not true that profits and fun are mutually exclusive.

Fun is not something that happens at 4:36 pm on Fridays: it is an ongoing process where you are constantly thinking of ways to create fun. Southwest Airlines in the USA has created an extraordinary business by focussing on fun. Fun is a spiritual component of our humanity: the more fun you have, the more likely you are to be passionate.

To sum up

Passion is a very powerful force that, when linked with our minds, helps to create an outstanding and unstoppable life and business. If you take the above steps, the passion levels in your life and your colleagues will increase. You will be delighted and you will transform your life to create the results that you want and others will want to follow you.

As the Nike ad says, “Just do it”!

We would love to hear what you think about this article. Does it ring true for you? What “AHA” moments that you can implement in your life straight away did you get?

About the Author – Charles Kovess

After 20 years of high level legal and business experience, Charles knew that most people have a powerful and under-used ingredient they can use to drive successful changes in their lives. He turned his back on the law in 1993 to share those success strategies as a professional speaker, educator, facilitator and coach. Charles is known as Australasia’s Passion Provocateur, and travels the world promoting the power of passion. Charles has authored two inspirational books, ‘Passionate People Produce’, and ‘Passionate Performance’, and is the co-author of ‘The 7 Heavenly Virtues of Leadership’. For more information see Our Experts page.

Have you ever had a relationship with someone and felt like you couldn’t really connect with them in a way that made you feel good?

It might have been with your intimate partner or with a work colleague, family member or a friend. It doesn’t matter who and what form it takes, as long as we are having an ongoing two-way interaction with another person, it is a relationship. Of course, if the interaction is only one-way, it is usually called stalking.

All too often our relationships don’t seem to contain much actual relating or real communication of anything meaningful. Either we do not feel heard or sometimes we are not really listening to the other person. This leaves us feeling depleted rather than invigorated – like the energy has been sucked out of us. Sometimes we might think that it doesn’t even make much difference whether the other person is actually there or not. It seems they are only present physically and nothing more. This is probably because one of you is present physically only and absent in other aspects; mentally, emotionally or spiritually.

There are many reasons for this sort of disconnect; maybe your focus is on other issues, or one of you is feeling uncomfortable in the relationship for some reason, or maybe there is a trust issue about something that happened. The real issue is that you don’t know what the problem is because it is not being discussed – you just know there is a problem because you don’t feel a connection.

If we stay in relationships that lack connection without addressing what is really going on, we are left feeling unfulfilled and the relationship will usually spiral downwards until it reaches a crisis point – or one person in it does. That crisis point can be an affair or some sort of a breakdown. We often remain in these relationships and push how we feel under the carpet, pretending to ourselves that everything is ok, or asking ourselves “Is this all we can expect out of the relationship?”. The answer is “No!”. We can and should expect more because there is a lot more to be received from every relationship in our lives.

Changing the pattern in your relationships starts with you!

It is time to look inside and ask yourself some deep questions:

• How much do I give of myself to the other person?
• How much do I give to the relationship?
• How well am I connecting with my true self?
• How much am I allowing myself to receive from the other person?
• How much am I allowing myself to receive from myself?

Relationships are like mirrors and the other person often reflects back to us what we need to address in our self. Often the reason we find it difficult to connect with others in a relationship is because we, ourselves, are not open to connecting to our self and others. We hide behind a mask created by our ego and that is what we allow other people to see. Sometimes we hide so well behind that mask that even we do not see our true self.

So if we want to create relationships in which we feel really connected and energized, what do we need to do?

The relating starts with us connecting with our self and then with others.

In our society, we have been taught not to say how we really feel and to fear the consequences of telling the truth. So we shut down and shut up and suppress our feelings. When we stop sharing how we feel, we lose the connection between our self and others. The consequences of shutting down and losing connection are more of a danger to our relationship wellbeing than the unknown responses to our truth … which may or may not happen.

So the first step is to work out what you really feel and what is true for you. Listen to your positive inner voice that comes from your heart rather than your critical ego voice. If we hide behind our mask and are not true to ourselves, others will pick up on it and the connection will fail. It is like we withdraw our hooks that others could hook onto.

When you stand in your truth, you stand in your power. Knowing it is true for you, will enable you to accept what others think without making it your problem. People will be attracted to your energy and will want to connect with you because you will be in integrity and congruence in what you say and do. It will have a domino effect; when we are true with ourselves, then we can be true with others and we open the space for them to be true with us.

The next step is to share how you truly feel with those in relationship with you – from your heart and not from your ego mask. When you share what’s important to you in an honest and respectful way, people will respect you. When you open up and share your feelings, you extend the hooks for others to hook on to and connect to you. If they can do the same with you, your connection will grow.

Therefore, if you want to connect with another person in a meaningful relationship, share your thoughts, your feelings and your energy with them. Give of your inner self to them and be open to receiving from their inner self. When you open your heart and mind to giving and receiving, you open yourself to experiencing those deep and real connections with others that we all desire. Then you will create relationships with your intimate partner, family, friends and work colleagues that will support you and you will attract energising connections in relationships that will leave you both feeling fulfilled.

I invite you to try this in your current relationships and see how it changes how they relate to you.

We would love to receive your feedback and share your experiences. Please feel free to comment below.

About the Author – Janeen Sonsie

Janeen‘s spheres of passion are real communication for prosperous relationships and blossoming through life transitions. She is an international speaker, facilitator and coach who helps people and organisations around the world Get Real Communication for Real People wanting Real Results. Janeen is the founder and editor of MojoCircle magazine. For more information see Our Experts page.

Listening to Midlife

by Mark Gerzon

“In the second half of life, our old compasses no longer work. The magnetic fields alter. The new compass we need cannot be held in our hand, only in our heart. We read it not with our mind alone, but with our soul. … The standard maps of “growing up” and “growing old” will not serve us well. Using the best information available, each of us must find his own way.”

This five-star book offers wisdom and clarity to anyone attempting to make sense of the journey through midlife transition. It is great for men because it is written by a man who has also experienced these changes, but the wisdom is absolutely for women as well. If you are looking for answers, explanations and options, then it delivers that and more.

Gerzon is well-read and engaging writer, who says exactly what anyone experiencing midlife changes needs to hear: you’re not alone and it is OK to feel lost! He refers to the problems that are generated by our western culture in not providing models or rituals for aging proudly, elegantly and with respect.

His critique of our culture is accurate and scathing. Somehow we have allowed aging to become a “disease” or something to be feared and fought against. Our fear of aging is a really form of self-hatred and denial; after all, what is the alternative to growing older? We either get old or we die! They are our only choices. Our youth-obsessed society keeps sending us messages that growing old is about becoming disenfranchised, useless and ugly.

Gerzon provides an insightful examination of our physical body, marriage, work, aging, our planet and spirituality and reassures us that aging has magnificent meaning. He encourages us to adjust our thinking to view a midlife transition as a natural opportunity for personal growth rather than as a crisis. With this approach, the “private, lonely and often unchartered journey” through midlife becomes a time for healing our life wounds, acknowledging our shadow, seeking our soul mate and committing ourselves to a true calling; with respect for the aging process and our elders.

I agree that midlife is an opportunity for transformation, for facing the shadows of our personality, for paying attention to our disillusions and for acting on our dreams.  Gerzon offers a reassuring perspective and myriad of ways to get grounded and find your own path through the better half of life with joy.

Reviewed by Janeen Sonsie 

Have you been feeling like your life is hurtling down the tracks like a train with no brakes?

You could be having a midlife crisis.

Can you put the brakes on and avoid it completely?

A midlife crisis can be like a freight train charging into your life at 100 miles an hour. The train can’t be stopped completely until the brakes have been applied and it has been slowed down to a manageable pace. If we don’t put the brakes on, it may well go out of control and come off the track completely.

This train departs from the platform of many people’s life at some stage, mostly between the ages of 40 and 60 but sometimes up to even 20 years younger. So if it happens in some form to most middle-aged people, can we stop it from happening to ourselves and do we want to?

Can we navigate our path away from a midlife crisis or is it inevitable that we just have to go through it? Better still can we make it a positive experience?

Let’s start by understanding just what a crisis is. A crisis is a very stressful experience involving a period of intense difficulty, trouble or danger accompanied by complicated decision making. Researchers say it usually comprises a series of unexpected and out-of-the-ordinary events that create massive uncertainty in our life and threaten our goals, values and lifestyle. Furthermore, a crisis brings with it a need for transformation as it becomes impossible to maintain our old system. So a crisis is unexpected, creates uncertainty from a perceived or real threat and provokes change in our life. If we understand what it is then hopefully that can help us in our management of a crisis.

Looking into that definition deeper, I would question the assumption that a crisis is always unexpected. Is it really totally unexpected? Sure it might appear to be unanticipated on the surface but are they a complete surprise or do we get signs or signals that something is wrong or changing that we just ignore?
Most of the crises that we face in our life are created by ourselves in some way, especially the midlife crisis. So it being ‘unexpected’ is often a result of us failing to take notice of the onset of crisis conditions. It is like the worn brakes on a vehicle; we might occasionally hear them screeching and maybe even feel them becoming less responsive, and if we ignore those signs, one day they will just fail on us, “when we least expect it”, and we will crash into something. A midlife transition is much the same. We receive signs and if we heed them and take appropriate action we can sidestep it developing into a dramatic crisis.

Why would we ignore such signals if it means we could avoid pain and trauma? Often it is because we don’t know what to look for or what it means. Some of our inability to recognise a crisis before it becomes dangerous is because we are in denial. Denial is the mind’s attempt, at a conscious or subconscious level, to provide misguided comfort and protection for our ego and emotions. That is, we try to control our mental environment to stay in our comfort zone – even when we are not happy in that zone.

When we are in denial we allow ourselves to be tricked into believing that we are doing something for reasons that are not really true. We make up excuses and explanations that are based on what we prefer to believe. We think about them so much that we start to actually believe the fantasy ourselves and ignore the reality of what is happening around and to us.

The saying “What we resist, persists!” is very true. These issues won’t go away by themselves if we ignore them. The messages will only get louder and harder to ignore until they hit us in the face and knock us around, sometimes physically. It is our struggle to accept what is happening to us and our inability to address the probable results of our actions that results in a traumatic midlife crisis.

If we approach these uncomfortable feelings with an explorative and open mind we can identify what we really need well before a crisis ensues. An “explorative mind” means asking why in relation to ourselves;

• Why do we think and act the way we do?
• Why do we create the world around us as we have?
• Why are we doing what we are doing?

The only person who can answer these questions is us, ourselves. We need to look inwards and may use tools and support through personal development books and courses, meditation, therapy, discussion groups and whatever works for each of us to find the answers from our inner guidance as to what is right for us.

Once we can answer our own questions with understanding of our self, our passions and our purpose, then we can make changes to bring in more of what we desire in our life. There will probably be some things to let go of and leave behind, but it is important to look inside to our inner guidance to find the reasons for how we are feeling and address that first. Then we can make considered changes to ourselves to bring more of what we crave into our life and relationships.

We also need to give ourselves permission to change what needs to be transformed in our life and our self. Maybe we need to change our job, our career, or maybe our relationships with certain people but it does not necessarily mean we have to end them all. It is more about changing ourselves, our attitudes, belief systems and our emotionally attachments (more about these in future articles).

Surrender, acceptance and an openness to change within ourselves will ease the transition. I am not saying it will be effortless and pain free, but we can make it easier on ourselves if we accept that transformation in ourself is both desirable and necessary. Sometimes the biggest lessons in life arise from the biggest pain.

So a midlife crisis is a life transition that cannot be avoided if we want to grow and evolve, as it is usually our inner guidance letting us know that our physical and material life is not in alignment with our spirit; therefore we are not on the path our spirit intends for us. The actual crisis can be avoided though and our life transition does not have to result in a chaotic breakdown and total interruption to our lives.
If we notice the signals and take action to create and accept change in our life, we can avoid the crisis developing and manage our transition in a more effective manner. When we do this we can open our imagination to attract what we feel drawn towards and welcome our midlife crisis into our life as a beautiful opportunity to explore and become more of who we really are. Then we will see the bright light of achievement at the end of the tunnel of change.

What brought you to this article? Do you think you are having or have had a midlife crisis? Grab yourself a cuppa and take a moment to consider these questions.

What signals did you see or miss leading up to your midlife crisis?

Did you manage to avoid it becoming a crisis? How?

We would love you to share your answers with us or post any comments or questions you have. We all learn from each other. We will answer your questions as soon as possible.

About the Author – Janeen Sonsie

Janeen‘s spheres of passion are real communication for prosperous relationships and blossoming through life transitions. She is an international speaker, facilitator and coach who helps people and organisations around the world Get Real Communication for Real People wanting Real Results. Janeen is the founder and editor of MojoCircle magazine. For more information see Our Experts page.

Is midlife crisis an inevitable occurrence; something to be avoided at all cost or something to be welcomed into our life?

Approximately 10% of midlifers (formally know as middle-aged adults)  who are going through a life transition are identified as going through a personal crisis. It is most common between the ages of 40 and 60; a large study in the 1990s found that the average age at the start of a midlife crisis was 46 although in today’s economy, symptoms may start to show as madly early as 30. Midlife crises usually last about 3–10 years in men and 2–5 years in women.

Life situations that generate midlife transitions include (but are not limited to):

• Children leaving home and leaving the “empty-nest”
• An unwelcome or a long desired career change
• Aging parents requiring higher levels of support
• The end of a long-term relationship/loss of a partner
• Life threatening health issues in self or a close family member

If you are having a midlife crisis it is not uncommon to be feeling sensations of:

• a quest to realise a dream or goal, which may still be undefined
• a profound regret for goals you haven’t accomplished
• failure and humiliation in comparison to more successful peers
• a strong desire to feel youthful again
• a need to spend time alone or with certain people that you wouldn’t normally

What often happens in a midlife crisis is that we experience a major life transition stemming from dramatic circumstances such as overwhelming debt, an end of a relationship or a job, a death of someone close, a serious illness or a traumatic event in which we felt endangered. Crisis events like these often occur around middle age, although the “midlife crisis” can happen up to 20 years before what is traditionally regarded as midlife. These experiences are life changing and cause a major disruption to the way we perceive ourselves, our life and our loved ones.

The feelings that often occur with a midlife crisis are:

• Discontentment with aspects of your life or lifestyle that previously made you happy
• Boredom with things/people that once held great interest in your life
• Desire for adventure and wanting to do something completely different
• Becoming uncomfortable with the aging process and your own mortality
• Questioning the meaning of life and your decision-making ability
• Confusion about who you are, where your life is going and what purpose there is to your life.
• Compulsion to just run away from everything

If we allow ourselves to be driven by fear, these feelings become so uncomfortable they generate stress and anxiety and drastically reduce our self-esteem and confidence. It is our struggle to accept what is happening to us that usually results in the most pain. If we dig our heels in and refuse to go with this flow of change (usually because we think we can control it), we end up in a form of trauma and pain. We will then generate a crisis out of our transition, or at least allow a crisis to arise.

Developing from that state we will commonly see behaviours such as:

• substance abuse of alcohol or drugs
• unexplained bouts of depression
• irritability and unexplained anger
• blaming ourselves for our perceived failures
• acquisition of unusual or expensive toys and items; such as motorbikes, boats, clothing, sports cars, jewellery, gadgets, tattoos, piercings, etc.
• paying special attention to physical appearance to looking younger such as covering baldness, wearing youthful designer clothes, getting cosmetic surgery, etc.
• entering relationships with younger people (sexual, professional or just social)
• placing over-importance (to a possible psychologically damaging amount) on our children to excel in areas such as sports, arts or academics

Most often a midlife crisis is not identified as such until we are well into the process of change. This is because it is only visible after a drastic shift in our nature. Usually, the process has started long before the visible external characteristics appear. The above behaviours are indicators that we have reached a crisis and often support is required to help us through the process of change.

It is possible to help someone discover how to define their life to better match what makes them content and happy. Care does need to be taken though, when supporting a person through this transformation, as they will often feel trapped in a corner without options.

If you are relating to the descriptions in this article, don’t worry. You are not crazy and are not going mad. Rest assured it is a normal phase of life. Be gentle on yourself and look inwards to identify what it is that needs to change in you and your life – but do not make any rash decisions or actions. Welcome your midlife crisis into your life as a beautiful opportunity to explore and become more of who you really are. Dig deep and explore your feelings and behaviours with the help of a therapist, meditation and various forms of personal development articles, books and courses.

Surrender and acceptance will ease the transition. It will not necessarily be easy and pain free, but we can make it less problematic if we accept that changes in ourselves are both desirable and necessary. Sometimes we need to go through pain to really get the big lessons in life. Allow the transformation to the next phase of your life and feel the excitement of what lays ahead for you.

About the Author – Janeen Sonsie

Janeen‘s spheres of passion are real communication for prosperous relationships and blossoming through life transitions. She is an international speaker, facilitator and coach who helps people and organisations around the world Get Real Communication for Real People wanting Real Results. Janeen is the founder and editor of MojoCircle magazine. For more information see Our Experts page.