trying to be patient

[TimeHeals]

I don't know about any "6 stages" of anything. Usually such models are artificial constructs used by therapists as a guidline for dealing with patients and based on a rather limited cross-section of the population as a whole.

I did find this for you though:

"A particularly conspicuous
feature of middle age is that life is restructured in terms of
time left to live rather than time since birth. Not only is
there a reversal of directionality but an awareness that time
is finite".7 Recalling the different meanings a birthday has
to a child and to someone in the middle years helps one
grasp the idea. The youngster likely greets his birthday as
marking his new size, new knowledge, and ever-growing
powers and capacities that he expects to exercise in a future
that conceived as limitless and open. It is reason to
celebrate. For the middle-aged person, the birthday is likely
to be a firm reminder of time's passage. It is frequently a
time of weighing what has and what has not been achieved
-and the future is seen as time remaining. The person may
be reminded of his own mortality as a concrete reality
rather than as an abstract principle.

This changed time perspective may well foster a 'now or
never' attitude. Postponement is easier when the future is
extended; when the future is limited, postponenment of
goals and wishes merges into relinquishing them. For the
middle-aged person, those wishes that had been set aside for
such considerations as family, reputation, or career must
now be given up or grasped quickly.

Mid-Life Crisis Growth or Stagnation

I am unpopular with the MLC forum because I tend to relate things back to the latest research and primarily the role that our time perspective profile plays in how we perceive the world around us and interact with others.

I find it particularly interesting how people who have spent much of their lives with a time perspective that is skewed toward "future positive" can suddenly shift to being highly skewed toward a "present hedonic" time perspective. And it can happen at any age, although it is more common around mid-life.