Dr. Toni

Significance and Meaning in the Midlife Transition

Posted on by Dr. Toni

Google sends me updates when someone else writes about the midlife transition.
This one particularly caught my attention, so I thought I’d share it with you today. It comes from a blog called The Fuel Depot…. It’s so apropos to our soul conversation these days..

Security to Significance
Yesterday, I had a wonderful lunch with an old high school buddy. Let me start off by saying I have really not kept up with any of my high school friends. He was in town and we met up to enjoy some Loco Mocos and a walking tour of the old campus.

I confess I was a bit nervous about our one-on-one reunion after 25 years had passed. People can change a lot in 25 years! Fortunately, my fears were for nothing as we easily struck up our conversation and didn’t stop laughing and sharing for 3 hours!

He caught me up with his life and the lives of many of my high school friends.

It got me thinking.

I heard somewhere that for men, their adult lives are often split into two phases: The Search for Security and The Search for Significance. After my meeting, the waters of my soul became muddied and disturbed. The “significance” questions kept floating to the top of my mind.

Another friend is living his dream, piloting choppers for 3 tours in Afghanistan while his photos appear worldwide via the Reuters news service. My visiting friend has lived all over the world, built several homes and does significant security work for large corporations and the military.

I can’t help but wonder about my life. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t covet THEIR life. That’s not me, and in fact, I am so very proud of the successes of my friends. However, I have to ask myself, am I doing the most that I can with my Time, Treasures and Talent? Am I being lazy or settling for less than my potential? Will my life matter?

Now I know these are classic mid-life crisis questions! I think the crisis happens when we as men transition from giving attention to questions about our financial security, over to questions about the significance of our lives and the self evaluation that results from that.

I want to make a difference. I want so much more for my family, my kids and my own experience of life! I want to value people and relationships more than I have. I want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem in the lives of people. I’m tired of letting negativity, sarcasm, or a bad attitude get a grip on my tongue. I want an experience of life that is deeper, “real”er, and more honest, a character that values other people as more important than myself.

Yet, I know that today, the toughest decision I’ll probably make is what kind of hot sauce to have with my burrito. The contrast of the lofty and the mundane in my life is stark.
That’s what is on my mind today, and I just had to get that out.

Wishing everybody
Peace, Love and Significance,
Rich

Thanks Rich, for your honesty. Our day to day lives get our attention more than the reality of our souls and their search for meaning and significance. How do we handle this? Take time each day? Take time each month? What do you do to give more attention to what’s really important in your life?
It makes a difference. It can help you avoid the midlife crisis!

Dr. Toni is an online spiritual life coach, female keynote speaker and best-selling author of “What You REALLY Want, Wants You”

What I’ve learned as an Online Spiritual Life Coach about the Mind and the Soul

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There’s got to be something more than the mind at work when we are attempting to manifest our dreams or make changes in our life. If it were only the mind and the words we speak, we should instantly have whatever we want. Some tell us it’s the vibration – the feeling that really matters. I’ve seen some people pretty passionate about an idea or a dream, and still it somehow fizzles before it comes to fruition.

There’s got to be a missing element here. I fully believe in the Law of Attraction and I know it works even when we don’t think it does. And yet, as an online spiritual life coach and spiritual counselor, I’ve heard from thousands of people, especially those in the midlife transition who haven’t achieved what they thought they would in life, I can’t help wondering.

Last night, I watched the Academy Awards – and several people said, “I never dreamed or imagined I’d be up here.” Others said, they had held a hairbrush as a microphone in a mirror and practiced their acceptance speech since they were about 7. Hmm. What’s happening here. Is it just hard work and dedication? Well, that would seem to account for something. Actually, most of them talked about the love they had for their craft – so, while others would consider the work hard, they were enjoying every moment (well, most every). Is that the missing piece? A part of it.

What gives us real joy? My premise today is that real joy comes from fulfilling our soul’s purpose… what we were born to be, do and have. The lessons, if you will, that we intended to learn. When we are in touch with our soul, our essence, we realize what we really want. And when we get clear on what that is, then it happens in our lives. It isn’t always what we would have chosen.

How many alcoholics will tell you later that their ‘bottom’ was the best thing that ever happened? Or think about how organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers started. No mother would want her child killed on a conscious level! But, that mother had a soul intention that made good from what others would have simply accepted as tragedy.

What might be happening in your life right now that you could later say was the greatest gift you ever received? Why not say that now – and see what happen. Follow your soul rather than resist it – and life becomes serene. Challenges now become gifts. Unwrap some today.

A perspective on Suffering

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I’ve been thinking lately about the suffering people go through, myself included. I like to think, and I truly believe that we create our own reality, and according to the law of attraction, we bring things into our life because somehow we believe them to be the natural order of things.. at least on an unconscious level. Most spiritual teachings and even success teachings talk about an end to suffering – as if that were a goal – or even a possibility. Buddhism says that in this life there will be suffering. Jesus put it this way, “In this world you will have tribulation.” Around when I hit the midlife transition, I began to let go of the belief that I could eliminate unpleasantness in my life. I learned then that suffering is not about what is happening to us or what the external circumstances of life are about.
I was able to avoid the perverbial midlife crisis by coming to new conclusions: Things happen. People die. We lose jobs. We get traffic tickets. Our consciousness is not so clear as to rule out all manner of ‘chaos’ – in fact, there is an order in the chaos.

Perhaps that’s where the soul comes in. Our souls KNOW there is a purpose for everything that has or is happening in our lives. In fact, many things, it seems to call in for the express purpose of elevating our internal experience, or soul standing, if you will. This is the part that remains a mystery to so many people. Beyond what we consciously think we want, there is a longing in our soul’s for what we REALLY want.

Life sometimes brings us things we don’t like. We tend to want to hold on when we call something GOOD and to quickly release it when things seem ‘rough’. I once heard it said, ” The best growing days are the days when the sun doesn’t shine.” Oftentimes, we learn more through what seemed to be struggle than we do when we are in bliss.

When we lose something we wanted to hold onto, or experience things we don’t like, then we might have a tendency to suffer. This suffering is all about expectation and our attachment to things being a certain way.

Challenges are inevitable. Suffering is not. You can be in JOY even when things aren’t turning out the way you thought they should. (Notice, whenever you believe something SHOULD happen, it’s an expectation…) When you look at life through the soul’s point of view, you’ll begin to understand that it truly all is GOOD. There is a gift in every experience. Often, it takes distance and perspective to see that. Today, give yourself that distance. Buddists would call it “non-attachment”. Those in 12 step programs might be more familiar with the term “surrender”.

Today decide that all of life ‘comes to pass’ – nothing comes to stay. I used to have a belief that good didn’t last and I tried desparately to change that belief. Now, I KNOW that NOTHING lasts – and I laugh at myself when I think it does. Surrender is another way of saying – live in the Now. Whatever is, IS. If I experience rather than judge it, suffering goes away. Try it. It really does work.

 

The Shift – Wayne Dyer talks about The Midlife Transition

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Last year I had the opportunity to hear Wayne Dyer speak at a Hay House event in Tampa. They showed a brief excerpt from the movie they were about to produce. At the time, it was called, “From Ambition to Meaning”. That certainly caught my attention, because I’ve been talking about spirituality in midlife and the fact that the midlife transition is a move from ambition to meaning. The movie certainly Continue reading “The Shift – Wayne Dyer talks about The Midlife Transition” →

Entering the Castle – Carolyn Myss – a Midlife book?

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I’m currently reading Carolyn Myss’ Entering the Castle and it’s exciting on so many levels. First of all, many years ago, I studied the works of the mystic, Teresa of Avila and so, it is reminding me of so many deep experiences of long ago. Secondly, Carolyn talks about the soul in ways that Continue reading “Entering the Castle – Carolyn Myss – a Midlife book?” →