This Midlife Shift is Kind of Like Being a... Teenager

Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Unsplash

I loathe the phrase midlife crisis.

“Oh, she’s falling apart, letting herself go, not handling the myriad, excruciating, unrealistic pressures put on her by the women-can-do-it-all construct that says that, since she can do it all, she should do it all: excel at her job, raise a happy, well-adjusted family, be a great partner, a community contributor, and do it all with grace, good looks and good honour.”

I reject that 100%.

Because midlife isn't a crisis, it's a sacred shift in a woman's life.

It’s an inflection point between the phase when we jump through hoops, do what we’re supposed to do to be worthy, produce, adapt to be loved and to belong… and the phase when we question everything, listen deeply to our hearts and souls, and finally do what we really feel called to do.

Midlife is when we stop seeking our meaning out there and embrace finding our meaning within.

In ancient times, midlife was seen as crossing a threshold and entering a time of profound transformation. A time that’s raw and mysterious, when our juvenile identity and armour is shed, sloughing off like slabs of glacier ice or puff-puffing away in whisps of smoke.

This is a time to become curious about yourself, all of you - mind, body, heart and spirit. To feel where you are on your journey now and offer yourself radical kindness and acceptance. And to slow down and listen to the deep waters within, the inner voices that whisper and call you to meet what else has been hidden within you, still waiting for you to bring into being.

It's a time to explore how you will express that deeper, truer essence. To feel your sovereignty in your bones. To be unapologetically you and offer your gifts to the world.

It's a time to allow all of your emotions. That holy anger that holds together your values and boundaries. Those fears that show you where you must look. The grief of loves lost and roads not traveled. And to dive into the joy of being alive.

It's a time to step into letting old things die, no matter how much resistance you experience, no matter how afraid you are of not knowing what comes next or who you will be when you're free of your old rut.

In midlife, we are shaken open. Our bodies change, our beliefs change, our relationships change.

And…

ON TOP OF ALL THAT…

We are in the tricky stage of parenting teenagers and young adults, who are ALSO in a major life change, whose hormones and emotions are ALSO oscillating wildly to and fro, whose beliefs are ALSO in doubt, and who are ALSO sweaty, confused and unanchored.

Who they are and how they see the world challenges us. Unwittingly, they mirror our habits, including the ones we dislike, and open our old emotional scars so we have no choice but to tend them now. Their words poke into parts of us that we’ve tucked away and didn’t want disturbed. We are thrown off balance and our confidence fizzles.

Their sharp tongues offend us, until we see that it’s not about us. They flip from loving us to loathing us in an instant and it hurts, until we remember not to take it personally. Their anxiety and gloom catapult us onto their stormy seas, where we gasp and grasp for control, until we remember that we have a calm center.

When it comes to raising teens and young adults, we either dig our own trenches and hunker down, or we allow ourselves to be changed. Every day we are given dozens of invitations to step forward into our self-development, trust what needs to crack open and follow it with curiosity and self-compassion toward the light.

For better or for worse, our teenagers are our teachers, not very skilled or subtle, but teachers all the same.

If we are willing to learn.

And change.

The messiness of raising our kids into adulthood is a key part of our midlife trek through a high mountain pass or odyssey across the sea. We're breaking old codes, step by step, and learning to assert our needs and speak our truth.  We're learning to shift from our over-tired minds down into the wisdom of our hearts and bones.

But it’s not a crisis. It's a transition into our mature wisdom.

 I’m in this mature stage of life, perhaps just a few years ahead of you. And one of the gifts I have to offer the world is guiding midlife mothers to cultivate their calm center, bring to life the capacities that have been latent within them and draw upon that deeper knowing.

Because when we’re figuring out how to parent a youth who’s friendless, failing school, drinking, self-harming or dealing with mental illness, and we’re doubting that we have what it takes to actually support them, it’s that mature wisdom that’s called for. It shows us how to come home to exactly who we are, where we discover, there within us, the parent we’d always intended to be.

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