What is Odyssey of Change?
A metaphor…
Today it is cold and crisp, but quite warm in the sun. It’s early afternoon and the frost is still on the pavement and the grass in the shady places. Darkness comes early this time of year. John O’Donohue, a spiritual philosopher, writer, speaker and I believe, very much a mystic, says we’re comfortable with the dark, because the slowness found there offers us the time and space for insight.
Women often begin to question their lives as they near 40. Thoughts and feelings change and our bodies don’t behave as they used to. A yearning for something different, something more, for a renewed richness of life surfaces often. This quest affects us on all levels…physical, emotional and spiritual.
The turning inward of winter could be a metaphor for the journey many women take during their mid years. In my perimeno- pausal years I had a powerful dream where I descended down through boulders to an underground cavern. It was a womens’ space, where women sat together wrapped in brightly coloured blankets and replenished themselves. It felt so real to me that I can still see the room, and the women in my mind’s eye.
What do women want?
This call for change experienced by many women can take many forms…career change, relationship endings and/or beginnings, creative pursuits, travel, a health focus, empty nest concerns.
We’re always on a journey…a work in progress, if you will, throughout our lives. In Midlife Women, What They Really Want, Barbara C. Phillips speaks of women who are looking forward to the midlife years as a time of renewal, of exploring new areas of interest and of having freedom to be who they really want to be. Sometimes it takes some pondering, a little internal ‘excavation’ to figure out what this new freedom we long for will look like. We need time and space for this.
Odyssey of Change is my offering to women 35+ to help them navigate the transition into the midlife years. I assist women with the new beginnings they often long for. Through private coaching and counselling sessions, groups or retreats women consider how they want to make use of their time and how to establish the boundaries that enable them do so.
At root the work is about empowerment andcreativity. Women are offered an opportunity to explore spiritual and emotional yearnings and curiosities, to identify and dissolve limiting beliefs that hold them back, then plan and create the life they envision. Odyssey is a holistic soup combining solution focused work, breathing, healing ritual and the powerful exercises of Dr. Martha Beck’s North Star coaching.
What are your personal desires? Here is an exercise to help you clarify your priorities.
- What are you most proud of? (List 5)
- What nourishes you the most? What do you yearn for? (List 5)
- What saps your energy? (2-3 main things)
- What are your strengths and talents?
- What things do you want to accomplish over the next 2 or 3 decades to feel complete?
If you are ready for change, call Ellen. Our first half hour session is complementary.
Awaken the creative power of your spirit…
Some thoughts…
“Change is inevitable. It can be empowering and even uplifting if we listen carefully to the cues our body-mind is giving us.” Ellen Besso
“And the day came when the risk it took to remain inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” Anais Nin
"How strange it is that we cannot see time. Yet its invisible presence determines so much of our experience.” John O'Donohue
“There is little to lose by taking the road less travelled; by making decisions based on nothing but dreams, or intuition, or our heart’s desires. Martha Beck
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