The Phoenix Decade

It has started. The Phoenix Decade.

Our 40’s are a time typified by the clichéd ‘midlife crisis’: fast cars, affairs, career change, divorce and unexpected death.

Sadly, our society seems to sneer and judge a lot of these changes rather than embrace this as a natural life transition and of course that judgement comes from the fear of ‘us’ and ‘them’, separating the shadow and placing it in someone else’s court. But the truth is, our 40’s are the time for our spiritual renaissance.

Biologically, most of us will be coming to the end of the early years of parenting, the dance of mating and conception taking up so much of our 20’s and 30’s.  And with those elements ‘in the bag’, there opens up a space in our lives to observe ourselves in greater depth. Our children and loved ones will be offering mirrors to the darkest parts of our souls through their triggers and button pushing and it is here that we have the greatest opportunity to dig out the roots of our deepest wounds and raise them up into the light.

This is the decade of philosophical thinking, of reflecting back on our own upbringing, how we might do things similarly or differently; exploring the aggrievements that have entrenched reactions and personality traits that may no longer serve us into true maturity and adulthood. It is the golden ticket for change and transformation, to allow your past to die and your renewed and invigorated self to rise from the ashes.

As I look around my peers, I am seeing sickness that is shaking souls to their very cores – cancers, strokes, depression; I am seeing relationships flounder and stumble with what appear to be unbridgeable chasms of disconnect; I am seeing denial where materialistic choices are covering the voids of love and connection.  For me these are all symbolic gifts to face the Phoenix.

For myself I know I was close to great sickness. The levels of stress and discordance that I was carrying in relation to my mother were putting a burden upon my system that was unsustainable. Despite my healthy lifestyle, organic nutrition and conscious living, I could still feel the poison of unhappiness in my body. I had early warning signs singing through my nervous system, twinges, aches, pains, exhaustion. That was why it was so necessary for me to face that relationship head on and take the space I needed from it.  I could have sat in the dynamic continuing our mutual unspoken discomfort and pain, I could have pretended it didn’t really exist, it wasn’t surely that important, but I didn’t want to die. And that was what that choice felt to me, that my body could no longer carry such a consistently high level of stress, something would eventually crumble.

So I am walking into this decade of the Phoenix with my eyes wide open. I want to face the shadows that will twist and turn out of the ashes; I want to address what needs to be explored.  My husband and I will look into the fragile places of our love and relationship and dig out the dirt and attempt to replace it with light. I will stare into the mirror of my children and try my best to listen to their messages of reflection, to own what is mine and to return what is theirs.  I don’t imagine that this decade is going to be my easiest, moreover because I am also having to witness my dear friends as they uncover their own phoenixes and the joy and suffering that that can bring.  But I am also full of the excitement and possibility that this decade of renewal offers. I am excited to release the shackles of my past and to step fully present (with the best of my intention) into the second half of my life.

I will rise out of the ashes and I will soar.