The Midlife Passage.
If you have arrived at the mid-life passage you have likely lived longer than you are going to live. In our culture this is framed as “it’s all downhill from here”. “The best is over”. This is particularly pertinent for women who through partriarchy and capitalism have been commodified and suffered the myth that our main value lies in our youth and beauty (and bodies). This has been rammed down our throats from every direction. It doesn’t have to be this way. That said, it takes conscious attention to reframe this lifestage as positive; as a wonderful opportunity to know so much more about yourself and to discover an ease and delight and joy in the everyday of your life that you never dreamt might be possible.
Like you, I fill many roles. I’ve been doing some of them longer than others – I’ve been “me” for 60 years, a Relationship Therapist for 20, a Mum for 24, a group facilitator for 30, a meditator for 7, a Grandma for 2 ½ , and so on. I find it helpful to remember this, especially when I’m judging myself as doing a “rubbish” job! I’m only a beginner at Grandmotherhood – OF COURSE I’m sometimes “rubbish”. There are also a range of emotional Clares – the baby, the toddler, the teen etc. Do you know what I mean? A big feeling kicks in and if I think to ask myself how old I am when it happens I can usually make sense of the feeling and my reaction. Maybe my inner teen has been activated, or my inner baby, or my inner twenty-something and so on. In recent times I’ve come to see myself as a community - a community of Clares. Some of us are nicer than others and as I’ve aged I’ve become more skilled at choosing which Clare is in the driving seat. You too are a mini community and one gift on offer in the midlife passage is a gateway to awareness and mastery of these different Selves. In the therapy world they currently call them Parts.
To survive adolescence the ego kicks in and we try on personas such as the Rebel or the Good Girl. Eventually one sticks and that tends to be the role we inhabit for the first half of life. When we arrive at the midlife passage we get the opportunity to look at this and decide if we want to keep it or let it go. It is finally safe enough to explore the possibility that the role we’ve been playing isn’t actually our true selves – it’s merely a role. The invitations to this exploration can be confounding and they usually come thick and fast. Perhaps our house burns down or we’re made redundant or our partners leave us or we have a very symptomatic menopause. Any which way, if we can look at all these challenges through the lens of invitation, opportunities can open up for us.
When I first engaged with this kind of content I discovered I was living, at best, on the ceiling, at worst further than the moon. Basically I was living in a permanent state of disassociation from my body. I hadn’t knowingly suffered any extreme trauma, I’d never been hungry or homeless, I’d always had the opportunity to put on clean clothes. But over time it became apparent that I had left “home”. Initially I thought this was about living from my head. All decisions were made from my intellect. I can still have this propensity. But over time I realised it was much bigger than that. I’d left my body. My journey home has included psychotherapy, shiatsu, 5 rhythms dancing, meditation & yoga. I’ve learnt how to grow deep, connected, friendships. I’ve followed the careers of folk like Brene Brown and Esther Perel. What I have discovered is that the path home is a dynamic, living, vibrant process. I’d expected it to be a destination – the day would arrive when I was “better” aka “home”. What I’ve recognised is that coming home is a daily, hourly, moment by moment decision to be awake, to be present, to be alive. And I often forget – and quickly end up back on the ceiling! – but I know what I need to do to be home. To fully come home to your Self, your real Self, is the gold that’s on offer through this passageway – if you dare to walk into and through it, participate and engage with it. The harvest will come in bits and bobs as you traverse this wilderness – or wildness – and eventually you will pop through to the other side, fuelled by unexpected delights and discoveries.
Some of the delights I have found include the super-power of invisibility, the restorative power of rest, letting go of pleasing and entertaining the possibility that I am enough exactly as I am. Not to forget the delicious (yet tormenting) discovery of both/and rather than either/or. I notice a tingling at the possibility that all of these discoveries could merit a blog of their own.
Life relentlessly invites us into a richer more fulfilled engagement with the experience of being alive throughout our lifetime but I believe these invitations come with a particular urgency, poignancy and power when we arrive at mid-life. Don’t panic! All will be well.
