Soul Work - The Calling at Midlife

The work of the soul gets more important by the time we hit our early forties. At midlife (sometimes earlier, sometimes later – but always eventually!) two different stages of life start to clash, rubbing against each other in a way that becomes uncomfortable. We feel it in our work, our patience, our relationships, and our outlook.

When this happens it’s a sign you’re beginning to outgrow the first stage of life, which is all about how we meet the family, social, and cultural expectations of us. In the first stage we ask: What does the world want from me? What’s expected of me? How do I grow and succeed?

We set about answering these by working out what is expected of us. We get a job and career. Settle down. Do the things we’re meant to do. Recognition, reward, money, and success are agreed upon markers that we’re doing it right.

Then something changes. It might come with a loud bang through illness or divorce, or the death of a parent. Or it might come upon you slowly: life feels harder and not quite right. Achievements feel a little empty, dullness or frustration sets in. What once bought satisfaction, now has diminishing returns.

Even more than this, you feel within you something unresolved and unexpressed. And you’re less willing to sacrifice that essential part of yourself for acceptance and doing what's expected.

If this is you, it means the second stage of life is calling to you more urgently. It’s letting you know that now is the time for soul work. Instead of getting better at adapting to the world as it is, the second stage asks a different question. It wants to know: What does your soul want from you? What truly matters for you? Why are you here – really?’

These are soul questions. Integrating these into our lives and how we lead is soul work. My use of soul is not religious – it’s intentional. Soul is the wisdom hidden out of view. It’s found in our suffering and deepened through our honest grappling with questions of meaning.

Working with soul will transform how you lead and how you live in the world.

Soul work brings subtle grounding to what we do and who we are. Soul work for each of us is deeply personal. There is no manual! Soul work is not prescriptive. It’s not strategic or targeted.

Yet we are moved to do it, and in the doing of it, something remarkable and unexpected opens up that is transformative for you and the world around you.

The more we can identify what moves our soul, and include this in our work, the more we begin to live more solidly in the second stage of life.