Spirited conversations

I: If you cannot embrace change at this stage in your life then you will not embrace it at all. You have built your own individuality, personality and set of skills with which to earn a living. (Stage 1 of life) You have shared those skills and the fruits of your labours, and your loins with your children. (Stage 2 of life). What are you going to make of stage 3? Are you going to ignore that still small voice of soul and take up an extreme sport! That should take your mind off things? Or are you prepared to follow the path of spiritual discipline and actually make the space for a new way of being to emerge and grow? No one changes because they want to, they change because they have to. You just haven't realised that the imperative for you is as strong as it is for the bereaved and the saddened. ME: I am listening. I am thinking and I want to say 'yes' but somehow the words do not form, there is a block between my brain ' which knows that change is imminent ' and the breath I need to summon up from deep inside my being to bring life to my limbs and sound to the words of agreement, of acknowledgement that something has to give. What is that block? It is the weight of expectations, the weight of success, the harness of responsibility and blind panic. It is that sharp intake of breath when I see a lonely rucksack.

I: We are not saying leave the work when the momentum is high, but consider where in the seasons you are when the momentum is low. Making life hard is not just about changing actions but changing your attitude of mind to encompass the time of year. If you are getting lots of people feeling burdened at the moment, be aware that this is partly the time of year when the feeling of being burden is highest. When there is a sense of no light at the end of the tunnel, because darkness is increasing and light is decreasing. Not everything can be changed by the individual alone ' the force of nature, change and renewal are too strong, as they should be.