India, Aug. 26 -- Over the years, working with clients who range from their 30s to their 80s, I have often thought about how every decade of our lives shapes how we feel and adapt to the challenges that life throws up. But there is one life stage that seems more daunting and overwhelming than most others, which is the mid-life. There is a reason why we associate the word crisis with mid-life.

The famous psychoanalyst Erik Erikson speaks about crises in his influential treatise on stages of development. Erikson says that at every developmental stage we face a conflict or dilemma which shapes our personality and how we relate to the world. He focuses on how every crisis has both growths and risks attached--and yet we have a choice each tim...