Older Women & Counselling
Never has there been a more pressing time to feel happier. The days and weeks pass quickly. So much has changed. So much has been avoided and yet it’s all still there. Will it ever go?
“Growing old is not for sissies”
Bette Davis said this, or similar. We know. We know because we’re experiencing it. I didn't know it when I was in my 30s, did you? And in my 40s I could have written an essay on it, but it would just be theory, words on a page, something I read about, or that my mother had said. It couldn't come from the depths of me.
But it does now.
Finding our voice
Aging is change. And change is loss. We know this on all levels: superficially and at a very deep level of our being. And aging is hard sometimes, isn't it? Maybe tinged with a sadness at best. Or a fierce and firey 'doesn't bother me' attitude.
Yes I’m biased, of course. But, I truly know that this is where counselling conversations can be heaven sent! Counselling can take us far beyond all the fear and disappointment, and the funny ways we attempt to counter the fear. So much is hidden and unspoken. Decades of it. And somehow, now at 60 plus, there’s a need to make sense of things.
And there’s a need to find our voice.
What now?
As Carl Jung said: You can't live the afternoon of your life in the same way as you lived the morning of your life.... It's so true isn't it? So we have to adapt. Change. Leave that younger self behind...
Here he is:
“Wholly unprepared we embark upon the second half of life... But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning: for what was great in the morning will be little at the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”
It’s not easy. We are indeed wholly unprepared. All too often this stage of life evokes a sense of yearning and restlessness, like something deep within is shifting and we don't know what it is, or what to do with it, or where to go with it.
The world is changing and so are we. It's all about life's meaning essentially, I feel. It's because we understand things in a different way as we journey through life that we can feel this sense of being out of sorts, as it were.
I’m seeing many women in the afternoon of their lives. It’s an honour and a privilege. If you’d like to talk, get in touch with me. It could make a huge difference to the rest of your life.
Kind wishes,
Marina
Disclaimer and Ethical Practice
