Every client I consult with is striving for freedom: freedom to go after what they want; freedom to love who they want; freedom to ask for what they need; freedom from guilt or shame; freedom from resentment or blame; freedom from a relationship; freedom from a physical ailment; freedom to stop doing what no longer enlivens them; freedom from being the person that everyone …including themselves … expects them to be.
My clients are psychologically sophisticated men and women, most of whom are entering (or deeply embroiled in) the unsettling, liminal phase of existence: Mid-Life.
Despite having beautiful lives of outer success, many feel a niggling, inner dissatisfaction, wondering “Is this it?” That is often accompanied by guilt for not being more grateful for all that they have. They wonder what’s wrong with them that they just don’t, or can’t, feel happy with the things that used to make them feel successful and purposeful. They want to feel fulfilled and grounded and good about themselves and their lives, but underneath the lovely exterior, they just don’t. It weighs on them. Sometimes their health is suffering. Almost always a relationship is taking strain.
They are in the in-between, liminal space between declining and emerging value systems. The old values, or priorities, no longer feel enlivening and inspiring; but the new hierarchy of values is not yet clear. For many it’s a confusing time of dissatisfaction and frustration, with no clear cause or cure.
What they want is to make sense of what’s happening to them.
What they need is a way to break the addiction to being who they’ve always been … to become who they are being called to be.
Freedom to be fully themselves is the call they are answering.