Is Your Old Life Dying?

I listened to a call by one of my mentor coaches this week, Martha Beck,  in which she talked about the rapidly accelerating pace of change that is taking place in the world, and in all of our lives,  like never before. There is a quickening going on and we are finding situations in our lives collapsing in a way that we are being called to reinvent ourselves, over and over, often in profound and dramatic ways.

Relationships are falling apart, careers dissolving, finances changing and health being challenged. We are being stressed and stretched to our limits in many ways. This is an unprecedented time in history that most of us don’t really have the perspective to fully see or understand. Martha has a PhD in sociology from Harvard so she is able to see these social trends and trace these patterns with the unique viewpoint of someone who has studied this.

Are you feeling or experiencing this in your life? Do you feel the pressure to change and the desire to birth something new but you have no idea what is happening? Is your life as you know it dissolving before your eyes? Do you feel lost and confused in unexpected ways while also feeling a deep urge to make a difference in the world and do something more meaningful? If so, you are not alone.

I am seeing this in many of my client’s lives, as well as my own. I see marriages and careers dissolving while many people are realizing they feel deeply unfulfilled and are frustrated that they are not making more of a difference in the world. I find myself working harder than ever to keep up with the needs of my clients so I can help more and more people in the best ways possible.

We are being shaken up and woken up and sometimes it is not pretty. The birth pains are arduous and the temptations to go back to sleep are all around us. We have so many easy ways at our finger tips to numb out, go into denial and pull the covers back over our eyes.

But what I am seeing is that the old tricks of numbing out aren’t working so well anymore. The impulse to change and grow is so strong now and the pain of not doing so is getting more intense.

What’s happening and what choices do we have? I wish I could explain exactly what’s happening and why, but I can’t really. Martha says we are birthing a new consciousness, a new way of being that we have never seen or experienced before.

We’re on a new adventure and reinvention is now a constant. This continuous change is creating lots of fear and anxiety and we need to find ways to deal with that. Martha talks about the importance of balancing rest and silence with the tumult of our lives.

We also need to learn to follow our own internal guidance systems and listen deeply to the messages it is giving us. This is where we receive the answers, and the wisdom of our own deep inner knowing, as to which steps to take in our own lives. No one else has the answers for you. It simply won’t work anymore to look outside yourself for your next steps.

This means stop asking anyone else what you should do. 

Here’s 6 basic pieces of advice I can give to help ease the birth pains of life transition/reinvention:

1. Reinvention is a new constant. Get used to it and learn how to flow with it.

2. Develop the ability to go into the silence and find a way to connect to your own inner guidance system to hear the answers to the questions about your life. Meditate. Walk in nature. Spend time in quiet.

3. Take the next step as it is revealed to you. You will not be given the whole map. Trust that as you take one step, the next will be revealed.

4. Rest and take a break from the intensity of daily life. You really can’t hear your inner guidance if you are always busy, busy. Let yourself slow down.

5. Be brave. It takes courage to stay awake and not numb out. We are all going through our own version of death and rebirth and lots of people are on edge. Have compassion for yourself and others.

6. Get some support. You don’t have to do this all alone.

Good luck.

These times we live in are not for the faint of heart. Yet, even though this may be difficult, there is good news here. We are birthing a new consciousness and a new human.

In future posts I will write more about the new woman and feminine consciousness that I am seeing.

May the Force be with you and may we all rebirth new lives full of peace, love and joy.