BECOMING UNSTUCK AND MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR MIDLIFE

By Lucy Baker CCHT

In today's world, people are living longer - and that we have, on average, an extra 15 years added onto our lifespan. When we think of this, we assume it has been placed at the end, but how would it be to consider that we have been granted the privilege of an extra 15 years in our midlife, in the middle of our life and not at the end - a chance to move ahead, to create reality from dreams, to come from trust in action rather than fear in procrastination? Extra time, just when we think we don't have enough!

Dr Lydia Bronte, is the author of a book called The Longevity Factor, who believes that the extra years of life expectancy are not being added to old age but to a second middle age, and attributes this to the increasing number of men and women who maintain a high level of functioning in their 60's and 70's and who maintain it until they pass into spirit.

Dr. Bronte interviewed people over 65, all of whom were still working, and discovered that many had three different career peaks, one in their 40's, another in their 50's and early 60's and still another in their 70's. "Almost half had a major peak of creativity beginning at about the age of 50 and in many cases lasting for 25 or 30 years," she said.

But what if you feel stuck, and cannot grasp the vision that lies within you? It may be because you are focusing on the effects of your past, rather than on the potential of your future, regardless of your current age.

It may be easier for us to focus on, at times, that which we do NOT want - but inside the old predictable husks of that energy is the essence of what we want, who we want to be, how we want to feel about ourselves, and the kind of life we want to have.

So, in essence, we know what we want. You may even have a vision and a plan. You might try to implement that plan but for some reason you can't. You are officially "stuck".

You feel as if you can't move forward, but can't discern why. You say to yourself "Okay, today I'm going to get start gym, give up smoking, write the first chapter of a book. No matter how I feel, I'm going to sit down and do it." But for some reason, other things get in the way, events and people that we make more important in the moment, another reason to delay our own deserving change. Then all we have left to do, is get grumpy, let down by ourselves, resentful of others.

Why not give yourself a break? Being stuck is different than good, old-fashioned procrastination. And it's not a sign that you lack self-discipline, determination or perseverance. You might be persevering with the best of them and still feel like you're getting nowhere fast.

While being stuck may feel uncomfortable, it's actually an opportunity. It's your soul's way of pointing out that there is something you need to see, understand, learn or experience before you'll be ready to make your vision a reality.

How does being stuck serve us?

- Being struck forces us to step back and reflect on what we really want.
- Gives us time and space to let an underlying issue emerge.
- Gives us an opportunity to receive the help and assistance we need.
- Lets us pause and focus on any fears.
- Lets us rest and recharge. The well of energy has run dry and this is our body's way of enforcing its need for sleep and stillness.

So what should you do? Stay put. Relax. Keep an open mind. The reason for being stuck usually becomes clear when the timing is right - and that's usually not until after you stop thinking about being stuck.

- Listen to what you really want in each moment. If you're tired, you may simply need to rest.
- Identify what kind of help you need, if any. Do you know someone who could shed some light on how you're feeling or offer you some practical or technical assistance?
- Ask yourself "Am I bored?" "Am I scared?" "Am I just tired?"
- Also ask yourself "What do I need right now?"
- Notice if there's anything in your life that you've been avoiding, no matter how small.

Although it isn't fun to experience, the result of being stuck can actually be as rewarding as winning a platinum title belt during a first-round knockout. Being stuck can bring many new insights and self-knowledge. Most of the time, being stuck is a precursor to spectacular mental breakthroughs and a heightened awareness that leads to a successful life outside of the boxing ring.

So if you're feeling stuck, give yourself a timeout. Coach yourself to lighten up a bit to get refreshed and recharged. The reward could be well worth a few days spent being down for the count.

Being conscious is cutting through your own melodrama and being right here. Exist in no mind. NOWHERE, said in a different way, with the light of new perspective, and with the exactly the same spelling is NOW HERE.

Be empty, here now, and trust that as a situation arises, out of you will come what is necessary to deal with that situation including the use of your intellect when appropriate. If you just breathe through the next thought, that if I am nowhere, I am out of my mind and now I fear losing control - know that by leaping into nothing, Faith rewards you with a deeper level of control and power that you may never have experienced.

Ultimately, when you stop identifying so much with your physical body and with your psychological entity, that anxiety starts to disintegrate. When you start to define yourself as in flow with the universe; and whatever comes along ~ death, life joy, sadness ~ is grist for the mill of awakening, Not this versus that but whatever.

Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we're so deeply interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act.

Then, once unstuck, do we have time to change our life, focus on a passion at last, allow there to be some YOU time in your life, with all of its other demands?

I remember a new student of mine who started attending spiritual and personal development classes with me some years ago, who was aged in her 70s, remark - "when I was 50, I thought my life was over, that I had run out of time to make the changes I wanted, so I chose to do nothing, to settle for what I had, for who I was as old age was just around the corner, and that I was getting too old to start again. Then she added, had I known I was going to live well for another 20 years and more, I would have started right then and there at 50.

What are you putting off because you think it's too late? What passion, what desire, what urge to make a difference, what purpose are you putting on hold because you have an eye on time, as if the time for growth, curiosity, passion, deep joy, restlessness, learning, and creativity is over for you?

What if, this is - no matter how old you physically are - the beginning of the next and easiest chapter of your life, if you allow it to be?

To dwell in the experience of any age in a different way, it becomes crucial for us to make certain changes. We have the option to push through our fears from an early age, yet if we don't take up the challenge to make certain changes, by the time we reach middle life, it is almost as if we have been gifted with a second puberty, a second awakening.

By the time we are in our forties, all of us have experienced a certain level of disappointment - divorce, bankruptcy, addiction, loss - the real issue in life is how we get back up. The real meaning of success then is buoyancy, the ability to bounce back up after pain and adversity. It may well be time to now, with your qualification of experience to now make a difference in the lives of others who are behind you on the path.

Imagine yourself in a dark tunnel walking towards Light. Why not breathe and close your eyes right now, and feel the floor of that dark tunnel beneath your feet, light up ahead, the warmth and soothing presence of your guides around you. By breathing now, and relaxing into your first impression - how big is that Light? Is it a dot in the far distance, or so big you can feel its warmth on your face? If that Light represents the arrival at your next purpose in life, what is your first sense of how far or how close the distance is between you and that Light? You may be closer than your mind thinks.

However, if you have chosen to carry an old perception, like an old photo in a wallet, of who you are and where you are on your life path, you may mistakenly believe you are further back in your tunnel of not-knowing or stuckness. But take heart, as sometimes it's only when we look back that we notice how far we have come, and then we must commit to walking ahead often into what we fear most, in order to reach who we really become.

The author, Marianne Williamson says that ‘Optimism is a moral imperative'. A MORAL imperative. Morals are rules that society itself has established and follows. Morals are useful individually chosen values that help one distinguish right from wrong or negative behavior that can hurt others whether emotionally or physically.

By learning from our failures as well as our successes we are ready to do it right, forgiving what happened in the past so that it doesn't become a deadweight, creating opportunities for personal excavation, taking the good with the bad.

I feel privileged to announce the readers of this magazine are a huge panel of Experts. People who are eminently qualified to speak on the effects of loss, gambling addiction, foster care, rejection, broken hearts, divorce, homelessness, alcoholism, drugs, prostitution, abuse, domestic violence, bankruptcy, the suicide of loved ones, the slow passing of others.

The Experts are all of Us.

Consider whether you feel you have qualified in any of those fields of study, raise your hands if you are an expert in Pain.

We all are. We all understand what Pain feels like. However, in this room there may some of us who are also experts in Suffering.

What is the difference between Pain and Suffering, we ask? Pain is sharp, a knowing, a strong emotion of realisation. Suffering carries a dampness within it, that continues to harvest itself from Pain caused by people and events often many years ago. Suffering places us in a circular motion of energy, carried on the inside of us, that blinds us to the wisdom and the lesson hidden inside pain.

Pain allows us to take our Light out beyond us, whilst Suffering keeps us circling inside selfishly, never truly able to make a difference to others until we find the grain of truth in Pain and when we find, it, it represents the key to Freedom!

Perhaps you are also an Expert in the ability to transform past pain into strength, a connection to Spirit, the realisation of hope, the courage to heal, the decision to make profound change, the parenting of your children in a different way that you experienced as a child, the wise and intuitive ability to remove yourself from harmful situations and people, the intelligence to let go when you need to.

Now we are experts, our next step may well be to take our expertise outside, beyond us now, to those still in apprenticeship? This is a worthy life purpose, regardless of how you express your expertise, in the fields perhaps of music, art, education, writing, poetry, building, restoring, healing.

Begin to use your mind to propel you forward Ask yourself questions that you may already have the answers for. What do you love to do?

Who are the people that you admire, and why do you admire them?

Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther-King, Mother Theresa, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi - role models teach us something simply be being who they are. It is almost as if they have learned to finally surrender to knowing that their contribution is really just their presence, rather than any furious striving to fit in with the perceived sophistications of society, in one's aim to present a certain image on the outside that we ultimately don't feel we deserve on the inside.

For example, you might admire Dr. Patch Adams for choosing to step out of the traditional role of medicine by using comedy to create new ways of heart-connected healing.

Your attraction to their specific qualities, are often because they are a part of your own path.

What one suppresses, another expresses - we are drawn to our mirror in all kinds of relationship, romantic, and otherwise - so accept the truth that within you, you carry a similar light to any one of your role models - they are simply expressing it. You ARE Nelson Mandela. You are Martin Luther-King. You are Mother Theresa. You are the Dalai Lama. You are Gandhi. How can you start to truly own this?

Notice what you do naturally without even thinking about it. Ask people you trust to be honest with you, about the talents they see in you. Such natural talents may be: an eye for detail, a great sense of humor, a nurturing side, the ability to focus intently, or being playful. These are your genius.

Genius comes easily and profoundly, without needing to expend a lot of energy. Some people are geniuses at math or music; but there are lots of other types of genius as well. There are genius mothers, genius teachers, genius listeners, and genius independent thinkers. We are meant to use our genius in service of our Life Purpose.

Take a stand right now if you are holding a suddenly clear definition of your next step towards your purpose within you, stand up if you feel ready to take the next step, declare your intention and vision as you breathe along with this supportive group of fellow ingenious experts!

If you feel as if you are ready to begin to look inside - then begin by looking at your Passions. Start by spending 10 minutes a day in the energy of a passion. Then increase it to 15, 20 mins to an hour or more.

Notice how you feel. By definition, if you're living your life purpose, you'll feel exhilarated, excited, happy, and alive. This is our natural state. You have had glimpses, like short snippets of film, of this throughout your life - now it's time to make the full length feature movie of it.

Decide to never again let fear stop you from becoming who you want to be. It's normal and natural to feel scared when stepping into your life purpose. The German psychologist, Fritz Perls said, "Fear is really just excitement without the breath." So, keep breathing, and take the next step. If it's worth doing, you're going to feel a little scared doing it. Just think of the fear as the energy you need to take the next step.

As you increase the amount of regular time spent in the energy of your life's purpose, you'll notice it will become easy to make decisions in life as you ask the question "Does this opportunity fit in with my passions and wisdom learned from my life experience?"

In a time of quietness, ask yourself this question three times. See if you can listen to the immediate answer you receive right now, in this moment:

My purpose is in life is…
My purpose in life is …
My true purpose in life is …


Notice any emotions coming up - often when we find the truth, we feel it. Step 2: Hold this truth close to you on a daily basis, moving yourself to the point where you become that purpose. Essentially we develop our purpose until we are doing who we are.

First we clear out our space, we complete any endings we are holding onto, we end relationships with those who do not see clearly see and accept us, we strengthen our boundaries of protection around those we, out of circumstance, have to stay connected to, we learn how to say NO when it feels right to our own sense of balance and wellbeing, we learn to say YES when it feel right as well as scary,

When we would look upwards into the night sky, we notice the stars. But as with much of our observation of Life, we may be missing the point. The stars are nothing without that wonderful dark space in which they live, move and exist.

SOMETHING only shines in the context of nothing. We like the presence of things. We like the presence of colour, the presence of taste, the presence of ideas, the presence of family or friends. Love is presence. Sex is presence. Art is presence. Music is presence. Sport is presence. Presence fills our world in bright, stimulating, solid, exciting, reassuring ways. It is hard to imagine anything more important than presence.

But absence is more important than presence, for absence is the cradle in which presence is laid.

There is an old saying that if you do not seize the moment then someone else will.

For some of us, that someone is our Past. Our past can cast a very long shadow across our lives and deny us much. Some never get clear of the shadow, remaining unable to live in the present and thus unable to live freely and spontaneously in the world. Some of us are stuck in the child within us. Even though we may have the appearance of adults, we live as the hidden child, invisible, unheard, abandoned, feeling undeserving, in old pain. We do not dare to ask that child within what the pain is about, because often we are fearful of the answer, and most importantly, fearful of the feelings the answer might stir up. There is no growth without feeling, no growth without the painful unfreezing of the past.

The good news is that it is not too late. We are not our past. We are our present. The past may have made us, but it no longer has to define us. That is just the ego talking. The ego, when it is out of balance, and has too much control over our energy, is a compulsive liar, it wants us to get lost in our past, for in our past are a lot of hidden doorways and scaffolding it can shuttle across with the ease of a cockroach, stirring up phoney emotions and reactions. In the present, there is no scaffolding, just a series of open doors into rooms filled with Light, that invite us to step in, if we are ready to walk through our fear of pain.

Your history has done its work, influencing every decision you have made up until this moment. You may hate the hold that history has over you, but strangely, we often make no plans to leave. History may have made us a prisoner but we may not try to escape. There is a strange fear that if we leave the past behind, we may cease to exist, we will no longer know who we are. So we loiter. The prisoner standing in a cell with an open door, fearful of sudden and unfamiliar freedom. Or we allow ourselves to get angry or sad enough to make a change, to get to the point of having had enough, and can walk forward to accept our Certificate of Completion.

There is no need to return to anything that happened in our past, but we are strengthened because of it, and can use the essence of our learning, the brightest point of light within its darkness to carry us forward in trust and hope and faith and a sense that we are born to be more than who we were.

In ancient China, pigs were considered sacred because they could eat anything and turn it into energy. Even today these creatures are regarded as masters of transformation. Nothing, not even garbage, is unusable for them. Aspire to be piglike in the sense of being able to learn from and derive wisdom from every experience, not just from the tidy happy and tasteful ones.

So clear the space for a new presence to enter. Your truest, most loving, joyous and powerful self responds to space, like a flower responds to sunlight.

Inspiration comes once we create the space within us, to receive a calling, a path.

Masaru Emoto, a Japanese researcher and the bestselling author of The Hidden Messages in Water, advocates global peace through water in his latest book, The True Power of Water. Emoto's work, which began in 1999, focuses on the belief that water responds to words and thoughts and can be transformed and removed of hazardous chemicals and other pollution with positive words and thoughts.

In his experiments, he taped words to bottles of water. Water inside bottles with positive words such as "thank you," "love" and "happiness" formed symmetrical crystals that looked like snowflakes, witnessed through high-speed photography and a powerful microscope to capture the molecular images. Water inside bottles with negative words, including "unhappiness," "worry" and "stress," formed asymmetrical or incomplete crystals.

Emoto's extraordinary work is an awesome display, and powerful tool, that can change our perceptions of ourselves and the world we live in, forever. We now have profound evidence that we can positively heal and transform ourselves and our planet by the thoughts we choose to think.

A significant amount of the human body is water, distributed into different areas. Lean muscle tissue contains about 75% water. Blood contains 83% water, body fat contains 25% water and bone has 22% water. If we are made up of water, how would loving thoughts transform and heal us? How are you feeding yourself now, energetically?

Moving forward towards changing your focus, may well BE your purpose right now, in this moment, in this next week.

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

Then you move forward, one step at a time. A Chinese Proverb advises that the journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

You do not need to wait for the whole picture of your vision, your next purpose to form itself, all you need is the next step on the new path ahead. We CAN leap into knowing and not knowing at the same time. If you sense a possibility that excites you, scares you, yet compels you, then step forward. If you sense the possibility but want all the details and guarantees of success in place before moving forward, you may never move to action. You often have to take the first step before the next one presents itself. You break free when you take a step, any step and see what happens.

This doesn't mean you are passively blown about by external events, rather you listen with all of your being and follow where you are called. It's about dedication and a deep desire to be who you are truly are.

Clear up unfinished business. Unfinished business means feeling guilty, upset, unclear, or hurt either by your actions towards others or from behaviour directed at you. Decide if you need to talk, write a letter, do some therapy, counselling, angerwork, rebirthing, healing or just make peace on an energy level.

Do not demand perfection. Mistakes are how we learn best. Giving up the vision is the only way backwards, not making irrelevant little mistakes and detours along the way. It is far better to do something fairly well over a long time than it is to be perfect for a short time and then quit altogether.

Support your learning. Don't set yourself up for failure by leaping ahead too far, like a crawling baby learning to jump tall buildings. Have compassion and gentleness for yourself, and as your energy relaxes, so you receive the clues for the next step forward.

Reward yourself, just as you would to a child who is learning a new skill. A balanced set of incentives help us aim higher.

Ask for support. Reaching out to others instead of taking care of them, is a profound act as it opens your heart to a deeper level of acceptance. Our ability to move easily into our life purpose only comes after we have let go of the need to maintain control, and commit to developing the skill of receiving on the balanced and functional level it was always meant to be.

Do something that moves you forward every day or every week. Stay focused on the big picture rather than wondering how it will create itself. All you need to do is the space between that future and this present is to practice the skills of trust, intuition, openness to receive inspiration and relaxation. All a baby, you were an expert in these four profound skills. This means you know how to do them, and they become easy to find inside of you once you clear out the old junk from your past that blocks their light.

Accept the fact that part of you may be resistant to change./ Notice anxiety, physical sensations, breathing difficulties, shutting down emotionally, thinking too much, putting things off. Just sit with these defiant scuttling cockroaches from the past inside of you and ask yourself: what is this about? What's the fear that's underneath this? Notice any shame, guilt, or ego-driven thoughts and remind yourself that it is natural for there to be a temporary rise and fall of emotions and thoughts, while the essential point of still clear awareness and wise knowing within remains constant as the foundation of who you really are, underneath the scuttlebugs. Observe the movements. You no longer have time or interest in taking them personally. Do you?

Our days are the precious currency of our lives. What if you have two weeks to live? How we spend our days is a measure of the quality of what's left of our life. When our days are spent in the unsatisfying tasks in which we feel unappreciated, simply spinning our wheels to pay bills, we are only working to satisfy the needs on the outside of us, like our financial obligations. We need to clear some space, to make time to grow what we DO want, rather than having to stay focused or committed to what we have to do. Or don't want to do.

The Authentic You comes from listening to the needs of your true self within all of that quiet present wisdom, rather than the past with its scarcity and suffering. When we feel as if we may risk too much by following our vision of life purpose, we are adding scarcity into the mix. This is called resistance to doing what you love.

Instead of thinking about the risks, think about suspending fear in favour of faith, for example: " It will be so wonderful to be finally doing what I love, and I know that whatever I need to handle outside obligations will come into my life, as I step into it more and more." You can either change and take of the risks that go with doing what gives you the greatest satisfaction or you can develop a new attitude towards what you continue to do.

As Dr Wayne Dyer puts it, instead of our old catch cry of "I'll believe it when I see it" - it is energetically, really "I will See it when I Believe it."

Know that you are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be. Know that if you use your mental energy to see yourself spending your days doing what you truly feel a call for, and if you keep this thought uppermost in your mind, it gains power through repetition, and this is what will expand for you. It has to, because this is what energy does.

So, make today the beginning. Think of 3 things that will immediately improve your life. Will you begin this now?

EXERCISE - standing up, pointing a finger ahead of you, go as far as you can. Close eyes, now we will do it again in our mind's eye, imagining that you can go 360 degrees, imagine how amazing this would be - then open eyes, do it again - did you go further?

If you don't see yourself doing something in your mind first, will you do it? NO.

Your purpose right now is to substitute the old thoughts for the new thoughts, starting now. When you are so focused on your purpose, you may be aware of obstacles but they are no longer important. A successful life leaves everyone in the world better off. If even one life has been improved today because of your contribution, then your day has been a magnificent success.

An African American man called George Dawson, decided to change his life one day. He learned to read after decades of never knowing how to, due to his impoverished upbringing. Then he wrote a book.

George Dawson made that decision when he was 98 years old.

In his remarkable book, Life is Good, George Dawson, now 103 and the grandson of a negro slave, he reflects on his life and offers valuable lessons about life and living during the twentieth century, offering insights into history, humanity, hardships and happiness, from civil rights and segregation to defining moments in history. This is an astonishing story of a man who lived every year of the 20th century, a bit of the 19th, and is now exploring the 21st. George Dawson holds a strong belief that he says, sustained him through his life "Life is so good. I do believe it's getting better." Last year, he began studying for his high school equivalency degree.

It's never too late to begin living the life you want, and at any age!

If you feel ready to begin, take these words into the space within you, no matter how small that space is right now. Today is the day I start living my Life Purpose. Today is the day that I accept I have value and a unique life purpose. Today I will live a purpose driven life and find joy!

warmly,
Lucy Baker Clinical Hypnotherapist