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Here's how people change over the years.
By The Mind's Journal — Last updated on Aug 18, 2023
By Shweta Advani
It’s not a myth but rather a scientifically proven fact that our bodies and minds change every 7 years. All of us are changing every moment, our cells replace each other and are changing.
According to Rudolf Steiner and other scientists, 7-year cycles are extremely important to doctors, teachers, social scientists, and psychiatrists.
This is because of how your mind and body change every 7 years.
Here's how your body, mind, and spirit evolve every 7 years:
0-7 years: Physical, emotional, and social development influenced by your immediate environment
This is the beginning of life, the most important stage in one’s life.
At this period of time, we are driven by the instincts of hunger, the necessity for love, protection, and support, the feeling of pain, and the impact on the environment.
While this happens, our inner and mental structures are built which in later years allow us to feel, think, and be aware of our identities as individuals.
We learn a lot of behavioral responses unconsciously and the culture we are born into has a strong influence on this. An Australian aboriginal would react to a caterpillar by eating it while someone from North Europe or America would behave in a different way. Our learning as babies depends on how we respond, with willingness or with fear.
The physical and glandular systems at birth are different from the ones in later years. With the sexual organs yet to develop and a very large thymus that becomes smaller with age, we do not experience any intimate sensation and our responses to truth or lie are very primitive. Slowly, it is the social morality which the child develops.
Learning is one of the key activities of this period. We learn motor movements, speech, relationships we have with ourselves and with the environment, and also language(s) to communicate.
Starting from our birth, we are dependent on our loved ones for our physical, emotional, and social needs. If our loved ones leave us or we get the threat of their leaving, we experience feelings of jealousy, anger, or pain.
If we fail to mature beyond this age, as adults, we will experience this at a greater level.
7-14 years: Fast physical development and growing psychological autonomy
The development of the earlier phase is continued here. The ideas, concepts, and associations which had begun are now being discovered by the child.
The child experiences physical and psychological development. Sexual organs slowly start maturing towards puberty. The thymus considerably decreases in size promoting the development of right, wrong, and social responsibility. Adult teeth replace milk teeth.
The child has started creating an inner world of their own with their own heroes, dreams, happiness, dangers, and imagination. The direction of the child’s interest is also visible at this point in time.
Associations with the outer world increase. The child learns to share, interact, and control earlier instincts in favor of surviving harmoniously in groups.
The habits learned all this while becoming a part of the character of the child.
14-21 years: Emotional and physical development
This period is characterized by strong emotional and physiological changes with the dawn of puberty. Their physical and emotional instincts are able to run wild and they are able to discover themselves in relation to the world.
During this phase, you'll start to experience physical, emotional, and social development growth through puberty, as a child goes from teen to adult. We start becoming ‘self-conscious’, we start appreciating art, music, and literature, and distinguish between the subtler tones of color.
Our ideas of morality change. We become aware of ourselves, we tend to choose a partner for our own needs and have a difficult time figuring out our boundaries.
Independence is one of the key driving forces of this period. A number of us experience this urge to break away from home. Our childhood fades away leaving behind scars that affect our world.
This stage needs to add maturity and dignity to us. If it doesn’t happen, then we are labeled as lacking maturity.
21-28 years: Mental and emotional refinement
During this phase, the young adult finally enters into the stage of life which is adulthood, mentally and emotionally. You gain a sense of control over your emotions in this phase and your physical powers are peaking along with your enthusiasm, independence, and recklessness.
We start creating the base of our career and relationships which will earn us respect in the larger world. The sparks of interest seen in earlier cycles have a definite shape and abilities are more developed now. In relationships, we learn to choose our partners based on the human beings they are. We learn to live a life with them by loving, supporting, adjusting, respecting, and compromising without causing any harm to ourselves.
We act with our faculties of intuition, judgment, understanding, and insight. We start handling our relationship issues in a positive way and face the challenges at our professional levels.
If personal relationships and problems aren’t healed now, we will be facing them in later years.
28-35 years: Physical and mental peak
This is the phase where our creative process of mind comes to the forefront. During this phase, your physical foundation is at its greatest strength and you're full of ambitions and knowledge.
Most people are hitting an all-time high in their careers or creating lasting relationships, getting married, having kids, and more.
Researchers and artists are at the peak of their careers at this point in time. According to researchers, the association centers of the brain come to their peak at the age of 35.
The emotions become subtle. We understand ourselves better and we realize who we are and what are the characters forced on us by our family, friends, and society.
35-42 years: "Mid-life crisis" stage
A new restlessness is being felt depending on one’s personality and circumstances.
During this phase, a person is probably either content with where they are at or their mind is elsewhere, considering if they need to make a big life change.
Our careers, habits, and relationships are evaluated by us, modified, and changed. We can identify what makes us from the ones that don’t.
For those who haven’t reached their peak of realization or creativity in their earlier phase, this is the time they do.
42-49 years: Personal reinvention
This is the stage when major changes in our lives take place.
During this phase, you're settled, grounded, and have adapted to living your life.
You might be a mom, a dad, a married person, or a single person, and the idea of children, family, or work gets more important during this time.
We are all self-introspect and take major turns be it in careers or relationships.
If we haven’t made any mark in life already, we try to achieve it at this age. Emotional love is more of unconditional love now but a lot of us tend to retain that emotional age of a child. This is the age we start discarding stereotypes and believing in ourselves.
49-56 years: Spiritual awakening
You have inspiration, mastery, and growing power in your career and in life in general.
During this age we are in our mid-life and are mostly happy with our lives and where we are now.
With the loss of our strength and vitality, we look inwards. We accept the changes in our bodies. For the ones who haven’t realized who they are and what’s their purpose in life, this age is the age of extreme depression.
56-63 years: A deeper understanding of life
Your intuition and knowledge at this time are very strong as you're emerging into consciousness and your sense of connection with the world is at its all-time high.
This is the age of accepting inner peace and embracing tranquillity in life. There’s a great shift in adjusting to our aging bodies, our relationships, and our changing perceptions of the world around us.
63-70 years: A growing comfort with life
These years offer a blessing, grace, and opportunity for yourself and others.
At this period, we start having a deeper understanding of ourselves with the decrease in needs from our external world. We tend to see the best side of things and become aware of death. Detachment is practiced during this time.
70-77 years: Maturation into the true self
These years offer more intuition, acceptance, and wisdom in life. You're more connected to yourself and the world than in previous cycles.
One can mature anytime but this is the period where one can connect to the inner self most. Unconditional love increases a lot and one starts accepting in a greater manner.
77-84 years onwards: Stage of passing on knowledge
From these years and onwards, people will turn to you for your wisdom, vision, and intuitive words for the long term.
By this time, a new self has already developed. It has come out of the experiences of life already lived. The perceptions have widened and one lives life in a different way.
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Shweta Advani is a writer, a mindfulness coach, and an HR consultant.
This article was originally published at The Mind's Journal. Reprinted with permission from the author.