Midlife Crisis or Midlife Opportunity?
The term “midlife crisis” has many negative (or humorous) connotations, so please allow me to define what it means in my work: it’s the experience of challenge or difficulty that occurs in midlife, usually between age 40-65, when we know on some level that the strategies, goals and beliefs we’ve held for our entire adult lives are no longer working for us.
This may take the form of general dissatisfaction or discomfort, a feeling that we don’t fit into our own lives anymore; we might feel trapped or bored, anxious or depressed. Or it may feel more like our safe and comfortable world has been blown apart, leaving us stunned, overwhelmed and terribly confused.
The crisis may begin as a single, devastating event (divorce, death of a partner, loss of a job, serious illness) or it may be initiated by a series of less intense blows to our status quo. And it continues to progress despite our efforts to “return things to normal,” which is actually impossible anyway.
Many of us will fight against our changing situation by trying harder to make things work, setting new goals, resisting aging with hormones and surgery, having an affair, or engaging in various distractions and addictions. Eventually some of us will sink into a limited life that lacks vitality and meaning, too afraid to discover what lies beyond the midlife disruption.
I ask you to consider a new perspective on what the midlife crisis is really about: it’s the deep longing of our soul (or true self) to become fully expressed in our lives. To understand this, it helps to know a bit of psychology.
The ego-identity we’ve carefully and often unconsciously constructed for ourselves, and our beliefs about how the world works, are being critically challenged. The ego is the collection of all the thoughts and ideas we believe to be true about ourselves, definitions and qualities, personality and roles. We’ve created them from past experiences, messages from our families and other figures in our lives, and from our culture itself. In doing so, we’ve denied or repressed many aspects of our true selves that seem inappropriate, harmful or shameful.
This ego development is a normal process that begins in early childhood and allows us to survive, to get the positive attention we need and avoid being hurt. We learn strategies and responses that serve to protect us in those vulnerable years. However, many of these thoughts and beliefs do not serve us well as adults. They prevent authentic connection with others, limit our ability to function in emotionally healthy ways, and narrow the possibilities for what we can achieve in life. Blind to what’s happening, we pursue what we’ve come to believe is important and seek to fulfill our social “obligations” far into adulthood.
We could continue to live like this indefinitely except eventually, usually in midlife, we are faced with the undeniable fact that we actually can’t control circumstances and outcomes. The strategies we’ve long used to protect ourselves from suffering aren’t working. The activities, achievements and relationships that we believed would make us happy begin to feel hollow and uninspiring. And we're painfully aware we have a finite amount of time left to “get it right.”
We’ve long ago lost our connection with our soul, our innermost truth and energetic life force. And I believe, as do many psychologists, spiritual teachers, philosophers, poets and others, that our natural human impulse is to become whole, balanced and fully expressed. This impulse rises from deep within us and calls us to transcend the ego-identity, to allow the suppressed and denied parts of us into the light of awareness. To be our authentic selves.
Our modern Western culture does not support or value aging, and it certainly doesn’t provide tools or role models for gracefully navigating the midlife passage. Traditional religions and New Age gurus may encourage us to reach for God or Spirit, but this sidesteps the essential task of meeting and getting to know our own soul.
If the terminology I’m using makes it sound like I’m talking about a spiritual journey, that’s because the psychological work of midlife can’t really be separated from the larger aspects of us that exist outside the everyday, known self.
So, if in midlife our identities and beliefs are crumbling, and our soul is demanding expression, what are we to do about it? How are we to meet this challenge and choose to grow into our fullness? The truth is this path is not easy, not linear, doesn’t follow a set formula, will turn almost everything we know upside down, and will permanently change our lives.
We must ultimately have enough faith in ourselves and the process to completely surrender to the loss of who we thought ourselves to be. It’s terrifying, but the old must die before the new can be born.
[In my next post I’ll explore more details about how we can assist the midlife transition, what to expect, and why it’s worth the work. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me or schedule a complimentary call to discuss how you’re personally experiencing a midlife crisis and how I help women turn it into an opportunity for growth.]
Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay
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