60 is the New 40!! Introduction to my blog.

Rayna

About Me

Hi everyone,

Let me briefly introduce myself. My name is Rayna and I am a UKCP registered child & adult psychotherapist, supervisor, trainer and educational wellbeing consultant. 

I have worked in leading London state and independent schools for over 40 years, first as a teacher and examiner of French and then, after training as a counsellor and psychotherapist in my early 40s, as a school counsellor. 

I started up my own private therapy practice, Metamorphosis Therapy Centre, in the year 2000, (for more details about me check out http://www.metamorphosistherapycentre.com), which I run from home and where I provide therapy and coaching for children, adolescents, adults and families of all ages and backgrounds. I also provide clinical supervision for qualified and trainee therapists.

In addition, I work as a school counsellor in two leading London girls schools and offer consultancy and training on any issues to do with mental health and emotional wellbeing.

I am a wife and mother of two adult girls; I have one grandson who is just over a year old and another grandchild on the way.

Why this blog?

What this blog is about and why am I writing it?

My blog is aimed at women over 60 who may, like me, be going through a huge transition, which researchers have identified as a ‘late life crisis’ (although I would prefer to call it a later life transition) 

This crisis is a recapitulation of the one we went through in our 40s; yet it is very different. Hence the title 60 is the new 40!

At that time, if we felt dissatisfied with our life, those of us who had the courage and the means, could change it. We could retrain for a new career as I did; we could reinvent ourselves by separating from or divorcing our partners; we could learn a completely new skill or start a new activity. We may have been aware of time but it didn’t hold us back.

Now I am in my 60s, I notice that, while the wish to keep renewing myself is the same, I have become much more conscious of the finite time I have ahead of me. Although I have always been conscious that we never know from one day to the next what life has in store for us, now that I get older, the prospect of becoming irrelevant or obsolete is far more in my awareness and I find that decisions about my future are increasingly harder to make.

I shall write more about this in another post. Suffice it to say here that I just wondered how other women my age experience their lives as they enter their 60s. I hope that we can inspire each other, help each other push through our blocks and live the life we have left as fully and vitally as possible, however long it may be.