Earlier this year I conducted some research on behalf of a popular radio station, about what it means to be a thirty something nowadays.  I was struck by the depth of response.  You thirties are really putting yourselves through it!  Heart rending accounts of decision trauma, failed romance, regret at having kids, anxiety at not having them, IVF and egg freezing, career turmoil – feeling used and abused / feeling you’ve chosen the wrong career / feeling guilty at having made it up the ladder so rapidly or wondering what the hell to do with your life now you have!  Repressed entrepreneurial desires – knowing you now have the skills to go it alone yet lacking confidence and still feeling like a child inside. Financial concerns, worries about not being successful enough, feelings that you should have ‘made it’ by now, guilt at lack of ‘success,’ feeling like you’re old and wrinkly in one end of town but young, silly and inexperienced in the other, plus a more vivid and disturbing contemplation of the inevitability of your own death than ever before as parents grow older and grandparents pass away.  Exhausting indeed!

But as the research unfolded, something else began to come through about thirties too.  Modern day thirties are indeed pressured, busy, stressed and perhaps far too subconsciously competitive to be in any way healthy!  Yet at the same time, this ‘thirties life crisis’ often eventually serves to provoke a rebirth of sorts.  Like a teenager who yearns to ‘get it right’ when going out into the world for the first time as an adult, thirties are trying to ‘get it right’ in an internal sense.  As a modern day thirty, you need to learn for the first time how to please yourselves!   In some way or another, you are at a stage in life where you begin to want to uncover, finally, your true heart’s desire.  There is a ‘taking back’ of your birthright.  Expectations from parents, managers, friends and society at large gradually begin to be questioned and a new sense of personal integrity can emerge.  In addition, new qualities and strengths can be uncovered in the self and ‘pulled out’ to be manifested in everyday life, suddenly making life seem that bit more right, and that bit more fulfilling.

Some thirties take a long time to get to this inner awakening.  There are those who ‘lie in’ until their forties or fifties, because it’s difficult to make change and to confront old habits that are not serving a purpose anymore.  Others are ‘rudely awakened’ by marriage, children, money crises, depression, or other life changes.  Yet others have a spiritual awakening of sorts, where they begin to question the whole purpose of life itself, the Universe, God, and what the hell we are doing here.  Whatever the nature of the awakening or the crisis, it can be beneficial to seek help when change becomes necessary but is difficult, or when change feels as though it has been forced upon you without your consent.

If you need help to get through a Thirties or similar crisis, or if you would like to explore your life purpose in a confidential, safe and creative way, contact searchingforself@hotmail.com or visit http://www.searchingforself.co.uk for more information about short and long term transpersonal therapy in South and Central London or via Skype.