Navigating a Mid-life Crisis and the Reclamation of Self

Navigating a Mid-life Crisis and the Reclamation of Self explores what it really means to hit a midlife “crisis” and why it might actually be an invitation to reclaim who you are instead of a sign that something’s gone wrong. This episode helps you see your midlife career and life questions through a new lens, so you can stop wondering “Is it just me?” and start understanding the deeper patterns at play. If you’re feeling restless, stuck, or like you did “all the right things” and still aren’t happy, this conversation gives you language, validation, and direction for what comes next.

Some of what we talk about in this episode includes:

• Where the idea of a “midlife crisis” comes from and how cultural stories shape your experience
• The difference between genuine crisis and a powerful period of transition and reevaluation
• How attention capitalism and constant busyness affect when and how we finally prioritize ourselves
• Practical ways to honor this midlife season, without feeling like you’re broken or behind

Have thoughts or questions about this episode? Share them with me!

Send me a voice memo: https://www.speakpipe.com/MindsetUnlimited

LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:

The Modern Midlife Crisis – Psychology Today

Midlife Crisis - Wikipedia

Quarter Life Crisis - LinkedIn 

Quarter Life Crisis – Newport Institute

Leaning Into a Mid-Life Career Change [coaching]

Reclaiming Your Attention to Focus on What Matters

Honoring Menopause as a Life Stage 

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This podcast was produced by Valerie Friedlander Coaching

Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective

Transcript

Valerie Friedlander: 0:08

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another

episode of Mindset Unlimited: 0:11

Mindset Tips, Tools, and Inspiration for Women in a Time of Change. I'm your host, Valerie Friedlander, Certified leadership coach, sociologist, intersectional feminist, artist, mom, and nerd. And today we are talking about navigating a midlife career crisis and the reclamation of self. And so, what we're gonna kind of walk through with this is why we're talking about this, where this came from, in terms of a topic and the stereotype of a midlife crisis, the roots or like history of the midlife crisis, reality of it versus perception of it, and what do we do with this concept? And some of that's going to be up to you how you want to tell the story of where you're at in life and what works for you in terms of supporting yourself. So this topic came up because I was having a conversation with a client. She used the term "midlife crisis, and it got us both thinking a little bit about why that term was a fit and whether it was a fit and whether that worked for her in terms of how she was processing where she is at right now, and it was kind of an offhand, like not a like heavy comment. It was just kind of a descriptor of the experience. But both of us being a bit nerdy, we're like, what are the roots of that? Like, why why is that a term that's so prevalent in our culture, and so I said,"Well, I think we might have to look into that and make that a podcast episode. So that is why it is a podcast episode: is talking about this idea of the midlife crisis, and I've talked about like often people come to me when they're in a midlife career crisis, and I do sort of feel like that fits because it feels like a crisis. A lot of times, right now, so many things feel like a crisis. It something has to feel like a really big thing before we can take action on it because we're constantly putting out fires. There's so many things to do. How do we almost triage all of the things happening in life? Where do we focus? What takes priority? And it's the things that feel like they're on fire, i.e. the crises in our life, and so I do wonder a bit if some of the terminology that people use is related to no, this is big enough and important enough for attention, because in attention capitalism, our attention is commodified, and so it's really hard to give something our attention to have it be a priority. So I put that forward. We'll explore that a little bit more as we go along. But I first want to acknowledge the the concept of the midlife crisis has been predominantly placed into the stereotype of the the man in midlife having a crisis, having this this existential experience of something. Usually, it's just kind of a snap. It's like not necessarily tied to something. Maybe it's tied to a loss of a job, or maybe he's quitting his job. This identity shift, and then he cheats on his wife with a woman half his age, and buys a flashy, fancy sports car, and is doing all of these impulsive and frankly harmful to others, like very self-centered, self-oriented behaviors, and it's usually tied to this sense of impending mortality. Like, oh, I, and it's this idea that we have crested this peak of life, and now it's all downhill, and I I can see my death at the bottom of the hill. So it's this this really particular perspective of life that we we climb up the hill, like climb the ladder of life. We strive and we push and we work to achieve, and then we get to the top. And then we're like, now I'm at the top, and I can see death. And maybe the top isn't as awesome as we thought it was going to be. We don't have what we thought we were going to have. That life didn't serve up the rewards that we thought we would get if we played the game and we did the things, and a lot of times when we think of the stereotype, it's a man who, usually a white man, has lots of money and has this break, and it fits into this interesting social narrative where we're not actually addressing why that would happen? Like, what about the way we've positioned how we're supposed to operate in life would lead to this moment of, wow, this is not what I want. I'm not happy, and now I'm going to throw everything that I built out the window to just be impulsive and self-centered. I feel like some of it also is rooted in this like adult male version of boys will be boys. Like, well, he's just having a midlife crisis. Oh, boys will be boys, which is really problematic. So that is a rabbit hole. I'm not going to dive much further into in terms of like the patriarchy dynamic of the term in its stereotypical form. I'm going to instead focus primarily on what will serve you, my audience, in terms of like how do we engage this term for ourselves as women, and what does that look like in life? And so I just wanted to acknowledge that component of it because a lot of times when you say midlife crisis, that's the image that comes to mind, is is that guy and the boys will be boys kind of dynamic. So I'm gonna put that aside. If you want to nerd out more about that, you can let me know. Maybe we can do more on that, or you can dive into that and tell me more. I'm I'm open to either way. But that's that's the perception. I do think that there is a relationship in terms of how we think about this dynamic of the way we live and what that what that looks like. Like, oh, we we followed the rules, we did the things we were supposed to do, and now here we are. And I will say that that that has shown up in my own life, and I'll share more about that soon. But first, a little bit of history. I'm gonna check my notes here. Okay, so what what is a midlife? The definition of a midlife crisis, and it is a period of psychological distress experienced during the middle years of adulthood-it's thought to affect people roughly between the ages of 35 and 65-and that's my typical demographic of clientele. So, the midlife crisis is a stressful time of turmoil, emotional turmoil, when people experience feelings of deep dissatisfaction and unhappiness with their lives, period of transition where some people struggle with identity and self conscious self confidence, the midlife crisis related to the idea of the existential crisis when someone experiences inner conflict in a sense that life lacks meaning and purpose. So that's like the the definition. I'm going to have links as I do in the show notes for where I got all this information. If you want to dig further into it, I think that kind of breakdown came from Wikipedia or Psychology Today. The both I looked at. So the origins are from Elliot Jacks. From he is a physician and psychoanalyst who presented a paper to the British Psychoanalytical Society back in London in 1957. He was 40 years old, and he claimed that people in their mid 30s experience a depressive period lasting several years, and he identified this by studying the lives of great artists, who he said were an extreme case. Great artists being a bunch of white male artists. Yeah, so those are the origins of the term, as from his use, and that it's this idea that this happens when they realize they've crested the hill of life and death is at the bottom, as I described a minute ago. This is also rooted in some psychological analytics. Related to Freud and Jung and Erikson, I'll just say so. Freud thought that during middle age, everyone's thoughts were driven by the fear of impending death. He's a fun guy. I we're not going to get into him, but I bet you all can guess how I feel about Freud. Anyway, Carl Jung described the midlife integration of thinking, sensation, feeling, and intuition that he observed could lead to confusion about one's life and goals. And then Erik Erikson believed that midlife stage is where priorities shift to become committed to improving the lives of future generations, as in you see your life is waning and you're starting to think about your legacy. and And then he said, if generativity is not established, you know, thinking about generations, a person will fall into a state of self-absorption in which their persona need, or sorry, their personal needs and comforts become their main concern. So I think these are interesting to look at because this is very you know white male Western thinking, which is where the idea of a midlife crisis is deeply rooted in that. While I think we can think about these things a little bit differently. Understanding people in a particular cultural context, understanding themselves, and specifically thinking about how we're understanding where we're at can be an informative way of going. Oh, these are some of the dynamics of the story that we tell about ourselves and about each other. And this kind of, if we think about our our world and the way we live, a lot of it is rooted in story. How we understand ourselves is rooted in the stories that we tell about ourselves, and that we repeat, and we tend to repeat. And whose story are we living in? Are we living in our own story? Are we living in living into a chosen story? We have a collective story that we tell about who we are as a people, and that tends to tie into what we create because we forward think kind of problematically. Like we project who we are now into the future. We don't really create necessarily into the future. A lot of times, the way we think about what's possible is very limited in what we've already experienced, and so some of the things that I'll do with clients is look at how do we use what we've experienced to expand what we perceive as possible, knowing that it's really hard to imagine something different that we haven't experienced, or believe something is possible that we haven't experienced, it really helps to have examples, to have role models, to be able to see things. So, how do we take and build and be creative, especially if imagination and creativity is not something that we consider a strong suit, that can also be a story. However, it's everybody has different gifts and different things that work well for them. So these are the stories that we tell to explain our behavior now, and particularly men's behavior now. There are a lot of other people, a lot of women doing explorations around midlife, and it's very popular actually right now to talk about coaching into midlife. Menopause is a big piece of that transition for women, so that's been a big topic of conversation more recently. Is is talking about menopause and the transition, which tends to run parallel to the idea of midlife. I do also want to acknowledge that there are a lot of other things that we deem crises. Like one of the things that popped up when I was doing research for this was LinkedIn was talking about the quarter life crisis that has become more common, which is in people in their mid 20s to early 30s feeling like they're at a crossroads in their career life, and 61% say finding a job or career they're passionate about is the number one cause of this crisis this fear that they're not going to find that another top reason is comparing themselves to more successful friends instead of using that as inspiration? It's like I can't be that or I can't have that, and so that was an interesting kind of tangent of like, okay. Okay, now I'm now I'm really considering like how are we defining crisis and and why are we defining crisis this way again storytelling. So I'm going to come to that idea in a minute, but I just I wanted to acknowledge that this is part of the you know research has been done on the idea of a midlife crisis and the implications of that have been mixed in terms of what the research is showing. There's debate around the various attempts to validate the actual existence of a midlife crisis, and different cultures have different relationships to it. As I mentioned, a lot of this concept is coming from white male Western thought, and not necessarily as potent in other traditions, other cultures. Thinking about it more as a period of a period of transition, a period of change of thinking about oneself differently, and it's not necessarily a crisis. But as I mentioned at the beginning, I think that in our current society, Western society, there is a lot of emphasis on crisis. as a way to say this matters enough to give it attention. Like we're so busy, how do we decide what gets attention? Well, it's a crisis that gets attention, so it has to be labeled as a crisis. We have to tell the story of a crisis. We have to have it get to that point before we'll do anything about it. So, again, more on that, and I'm gonna repeat that a bit just because I want you to start thinking about your relationship to the idea of a crisis, and what are you labeling as a crisis in your life, and why? How is it serving you to call something a crisis? Are there things that maybe want your attention or worth your attention, particularly things for yourself, that aren't getting that attention, and? what would have to change for those to be valued at the same level of attention worthiness that these other things might be getting that maybe feel like the fires that need the attention again? Attention capitalism is really doing a a thing. I say that I think it's important to know where we are right now in this moment, and of course, before we had quite the level of attention capitalism that we have now, this still was a thing. So, not to say that it's the only reason that this is a struggle, and could we be more in front of it? Certainly, putting ourselves and valuing ourselves and our needs and our transitions in life is not something that's been very valued. A lot of other cultures have rituals. rituals, celebrations around transitory periods in life. Those places where we're shifting in life, whether it is coming into womanhood or before that birth, and then we move into the the period of menopause and then death, and I hear a lot more about the idea of a celebration of life as a way that we honor someone who has passed versus necessarily a funeral or memorial. We're celebrating their life sometimes. I wonder if it's something that we really conceptually want, and yet are we living in a way that uplifts that idea of that transition? It's a hard transition. I've been going through a lot of grief around those aspects of that transition that are impacting me in my life-the loss of my father, the loss of a friend recently-and thinking about how hard mortality is. And I think again, this idea of midlife crisis is very much tied in our cultural narratives to the fear of death and this desire to avoid death, and yet so many places revered like this is a part of life. This is where we go back into. The womb, we go, we return to the earth. There's, there is a celebration of this period of living, of which death is part of. Are we truly living without that aspect? What is life? What does it mean to be alive? What are what are we leaving behind? Are we someone who is going to be celebrated, or someone that people are going to be like, relieved that person is not impacting my life negatively anymore? I mean, there's there's a lot of like larger power dynamics that are coming up where that question of like thinking about someone's legacy and what they left behind and the impact that they made had anyway. Okay, so let me pull myself back and go. This is this is an important piece to look at of like what are our rituals, what are our collective ways of coming together, and especially because there's still a lot of stuff around women entering midlife, but especially old age, and what that looks like in terms of power in society, what that looks like in terms of support, let alone power, like even being supported, being thought of as still having something to offer. There are so many layers to that of like how we care for each other and how we honor someone's experience and lived journey. There's a lot there. There are plenty of other cultures who see that time as a time of reverence and wisdom and appreciation. I had a conversation recently with someone who was talking about the the idea, the maiden mother crone components, and that she's in her maiden period of her crone period, like stepping into this crone period and really appreciating the wisdom of the people who are more crone crone, like they've been in that period for a while and have something to offer there, and there's a reverence around each phase of life and the value of it, but when we've devalued that period, the idea of transitioning into it, the identity components, the fears that come along with our bodies not working the way that they used to, because we know that our system isn't designed to support us, and so what does this mean about who I am? Let alone what does this mean about how I can take care of myself? Let alone anybody else that I have responsibilities around. For women, a lot of times the midlife crisis comes into that sandwich generation of I'm caring for children still while my parents are aging, and I'm supporting them and navigating the grief of their loss. And who am I in this caretaker role that I feel overwhelmed by might not be the place that I want to be in. So there's there's a lot going on that while I bring forward the questioning, is it a crisis? Maybe it is. Maybe it is. Maybe it doesn't have to be because of our societal story, but maybe because we're operating in a society that has decided to make it a crisis because we don't support and care for each other. Maybe it is, and maybe we do need to acknowledge that level of importance. Not just because we deserve the attention, but also because it legit is a crisis because we're living in this society that treats us this way. So, yeah, putting that forward for you. Curious as to your thoughts. As always, I'd love to hear from you. I have multiple ways of reaching out, so it's a little intermission to invite you to reach out to me. You can send me a voice note, or you can send me an email. However, feels good to you. Find me on social media and send me a DM. What are your thoughts on this? Is this something that you feel like you are experiencing? Is this how you would label it? Is what does that label do for you? Again, I also recognize those are big questions, and I ask big questions, and sometimes that is hard to engage because if we're feeling like we're in crisis, who wants to take the time or feels like they have the time to take to really explore it? And yet, that is the next thing that I'm going to invite you to do, whether you reach out to me or not. Part of what we can do around this is understand that there is a fallacy to the story that we're living in. This story that if you follow the rules and you do the right things, then you'll get the reward. And we do hit a certain point in life where we realize something isn't working. I know that happened for me. It was actually one of the pivotal points that lent me on the path to becoming a coach. Was that I was looking at life and going, I must have missed something because I am not happy. I did all the things you're supposed to do: husband, kids, house, climbed the corporate ladder, successful, essentially, you know, well-paying, well-regarded career, and I am feeling like I'm having a breakdown. Things are not working. This is not. This is not going well. And I would say that was probably about 35. I think I was 35 ish, or really a little before that. Like between 30 and 35. I had my first kid at 30, and it was in that period where I was like, "Is it my husband's job? Is it my job? Like, I don't want to get rid of him. I still like him, though. I did bring him to counseling because we weren't connecting the way we used to. Because life transitions, as in having children, and all the layers that impact how we operate in our life when that transition happens, and then going. Well, I don't. I don't want to get rid of him. I don't want to get rid of my kids. I liked my house at the time, and so maybe it was the job. Maybe I just I fell into this career. It wasn't a chosen career, so maybe I need to like revisit what my chosen career is. And so that sent me on this whole exploration of like, what do I want to do in my life? What what impact do I want to make? What are my gifts? What do I enjoy? And you know the stuff that I talk about all the time, like those questions and having conversations and exploring, and that's where I found out about coaching. After a few other tangents, I'd heard about coaching and went, oh, that sounds interesting. Went to my training and went, oh, this connects all the dots for me. This ties my sociology, my spirituality, my experience, my strengths, my interests. Like it just it pulls everything together, and this is clearly what I'm meant to be doing. That doesn't happen for every everyone, and I don't think that necessarily what we make money at has to be something that is our thing. We can have our thing and have the thing that makes money. There are many ways of walking this path in the world that we're in, and that's just what brought me to my current iteration of career. And it was that moment of something is wrong. And my first thought was, what did I screw up? What did I do wrong? What did I miss in all of the personal development work that I had done, all the healing, the therapy, the group support, all these things. I was like, "What did I miss? I must have, I must have not healed something. And I think that was one of the most potent things that I learned early on with

coaching: 28:35

was no, I didn't miss something. I didn't screw anything up. I just hadn't decided what I wanted to create next. So this is where I'm looping back to this idea of what do we what are we creating, what are we telling. I hadn't unpacked certain stories about myself and my possibilities and where I was saying no, I can't do that, and where I wanted to stretch, and what stair steps to that might look like, instead of like, well, I can't jump to the top of that mountain, so I guess that's not for me. And sometimes we need to jump and go, I'll figure this out, and sometimes we don't. So, like, there's a lot of different ways. I'm not prescribing any particular path. There are some things I probably wouldn't have done had I been given the full information before I did the thing, and now, well, okay, I figured it out as best I could, and there's a lot of things that are like that in life, and so what I want, where am I going with this? What I want to say with that is knowing that this is-it's a period of transition. It's a period of change. That you're in, so whether you find the term crisis as supportive for you giving it the attention it deserves, or whether it's a little too much pressure, or whatever, knowing that it's normal to go through a period in multiple points in life, depending on the dynamics and things that happen, traumas and life experience and all that. But midlife is a common time to take a look and to start to have things connect and go. What do I want? I did what I was supposed to do, and now what? What is the next phase of this journey in this body, in this world? Especially as your body changes, which it naturally does. I also want to acknowledge that when there are a lot of changes happening that feel out of our control, so whether we're talking about like big societal, social, economic, environmental changes happening, or our own body or life happening, layoffs, career changes-all of those things. Any of them that feel out of our control-it's very normal to want to try and find ways to control what we can, and that can lead to impulsive behaviors that tie to the stories that we tell, of the patterns that we currently have that we haven't engaged, and the impulsive things. It can it it can look like that. It can also look like pausing and intentionally engaging. Okay, what do I want? Where is my power? What do I have control over? What do I have power in? And where do I want to place my energy? And that more intentional looking to do those things intentionally takes space. and again, that's why using the term crisis may help you give it space, and doesn't have to be a crisis for it to warrant space, for it to be worthy of space, for you to be worthy of space. It can just be I'm in a period of transition in my life, and I want to engage this transition intentionally. One of the big challenges that come up for clients of mine, one is wondering if it's just them, or if something is weird with them or if they've done something wrong, and you know, is this midlife thing? Is it just a me thing? And so, part of the reason for this episode is to let you know, no, it's not. And the other thing is just taking that pause to know I am worthy of taking this time to really make conscious choices in my life, and that's okay. So, knowing the that pause is really powerful. To sit in that liminal space is hard. We want answers. Part of what's motivating this is like we have these answers right at our fingertips. We have our phones and the internet and and AI now, and we can get answers right away if we just ask. We can get feedback right away. We can get a breakdown of all of the things right away, and one of the things that I often will invite clients into is let's pause and not have an answer. I know that can feel really uncomfortable, but what would support you in sitting with not knowing for a minute. What what might it look like to sit with not knowing, and to be in that space of uncertainty? Again, when everything feels out of control, we want certainty, and yet when we seek certainty and prioritize certainty, we tend to recreate what we always get. We tend to go back to the patterns that aren't serving, and so either we'll recreate what we've already had. Or we won't be intentionally creating. We'll just be kind of following along, being dragged along with what's going on instead of owning our own power in a situation, in our life, in this space, in this phase. So, allowing yourself to be in that liminal-I don't know-space can be a really powerful thing to do. We don't want to stay there forever. Sometimes it's time to reach out and ask for some support, and that's what I'm here for, is to support you through those things, that time, that exploration, so that you're not walking on your own through the uncertainty, through the unknown. That you have someone there who can really hold space for you and allow you to go through the process of choosing with intention what your next steps will be, how you want to move, how you want to own your life and your space in this phase, and not rush, not get too far ahead of yourself, but be here now. So that's, I think, one of the invitations in the quote-unquote midlife crisis, is allowing that space to be there to say no to the urgency and the hustle and the rush to know and have an answer and go. This is part of my process, and maybe it's creating some rituals to support you in that process. That can be really powerful and supportive. Again, we don't have rituals really in Western tradition to support these transitions, and I think that can be really important. So maybe again, calling it a midlife crisis will allow you to prioritize yourself in this period. Allow yourself to rest. Allow yourself to take space. Allow yourself to zone out. Allow yourself to read a book, whatever whatever it is that you need to do to support yourself in the period of transition. But sometimes, okay, this is the story I'm going to tell about this. But I know there's nothing wrong with me because I do think that tied to the story of being in a crisis is that you did something wrong, that you screwed up, and you shouldn't be in a crisis because you're supposed to be put together. You're supposed to have it all down. You're supposed to have know yourself and have your stuff together by now because you've done all this stuff and here you are in this midlife period. And shouldn't you have all the answers because you did all that work and you know better now all the things and no. that's not how that works. Life is a journey of learning, and each phase, whatever that phase or time frame looks like for you, is what you are here to learn. Where you need to be, and while all of these things are things that you do for yourself, you don't have to do them alone. You are allowed to ask for help, even if you don't know the help that you need. You just know you need someone, or some ones. You are allowed to ask for that. I don't know what I need, but could we just get together? I know I need people. That's about all I know. You can know one piece of it without having to know all of the pieces. I don't know what I need to talk about. I just know that I need to be around people. I don't know what I need to do with my day, but I know that I need a day to myself. You don't have to have all the answers; it's okay. So, some permissions and reflections for what does it look like to honor that? What does it look like to honor that space for yourself. So that is what I have for you today. I would love to hear how this resonated for you. Was this helpful? Do you have questions? Is there anything that you would like more exploration on? Your thoughts, your questions. Are always helpful for me in terms of creating more content, and I'm really I'm excited. I've talked to some really amazing women here in Chicago who were were working on planning ahead for some episodes coming up, talking about particularly about as we head into election season. So, say you're like, okay, I'm good on the midlife thing. I'm going to take my time. I'm going to sit. I'm going to think about things. But I really love to know more about getting involved and where I do have power in all of the things that feel out of my control by myself. How do I build coalitions? How do I get involved in a way that does not completely overwhelm me and stress me out? Then I'm going to have some great stuff for you. But let me know what your questions are about those sorts of topics, because then I can make sure that we engage those and. And I'm excited. I'm excited. Thank you so much for being here. For listening, so much love to all of you. And I will talk to you next time.