The Wild Alchemy of Midlife
From the clinicians at Forest Ferns Counseling. Written in the first person by a member of our clinical team.
I decided to change careers at midlife, leaving behind stints in academia and the corporate world to become a therapist. In addition to changing professions, I’ve recently undergone some enormous changes in my personal life. If the person I was even five years ago could see me now, she’d be astonished.
Some of the clients who come to me are also undergoing midlife transitions. Some are in the middle of a change, while others are just starting to see its outlines on the horizon. As a culture, we have a poor vocabulary for talking about changes at midlife. “Midlife crisis” is an annoying cliché that holds more than a whiff of condescension and judgment. It reinforces the idea that people over 40 ought to behave themselves and not rock the boat.
But what if the boat needs rocking?
Midlife is often the time when the unconscious mind insists on being heard. The stories we’ve been telling for decades start to crumble, and a deeper self emerges. In The Middle Passage, psychologist James Hollis calls midlife a “summons from within” and says that if we can move through this tumultuous life passage, then what is old can die and a new self can emerge.
If you can sense a change in your own life brewing, I recommend paying attention to your dreams. Notice the stray images that flood your mind and the symbols that return to you. An artist I know discovered that diamonds became an important symbol at midlife and began incorporating them into her artwork; diamonds represent pressure and change, the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary. A friend began dreaming of houses with hidden rooms, a possible invitation by her mind to consider dimensions of herself that had remained outside of awareness.
If you’re biologically female, midlife is a time of major hormonal shifts. It’s important to learn all you can about these changes, but beware of falling into the old misogynistic trap of reducing yourself to biology. Take your imagination seriously. Pay attention to emotions that seem to come out of nowhere and new ideas that energize you. What conversations are you having in whispers with the people closest to you? When you were younger, you probably spent a ton of time pleasing other people and monitoring your appearance and behavior. At midlife, you start to realize what a heavy energetic price you paid all those years. Think of what might be possible when you get that energy back.
Being born is one threshold; dying is another. But the middle of life also has its own liminality and magic. So if anyone tells you midlife is the time to settle down and behave, consider the source. The people who will give you side-eye as you take your life in hand at age 40 or 50 are the same ones who insist that young girls defer unquestioningly to male authority figures and new mothers give up their identities and cherish every single second with their newborns.
Why would anyone not want you to be free? What are they revealing of their own fears? How have they benefited from your compliance, and what do they stand to gain by keeping you that way?
Clinically reviewed by Mel Whalen, PhD, LP — Licensed Psychologist, Michigan #6301015759.
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