Midlife’s Perfect Storm

Closing in on fifty and overwhelmed by bone-deep irritation, anger, diffuse grief and a desire to move to an island alone? You’re probably peri-menopausal. These feelings are not merely a byproduct of shifting hormones - they are also culturally produced. Women often have a lot of good reasons to be pissed off; and they access their anger easily when serotonin and dopamine start to fade.

For many women, care-giving responsibilities, death of parents, changes in romantic relationships, and empty nests add to the perfect biological-psychological-emotional-existential storm. On top of it all, life experience lends itself to evaluating traumas and abuses from the past from a more enlightened perspective.

My view from the therapy room lends itself to a belief that this is a common experience for women at midlife, more than it is an exceptional one.

Transitions, though. Woosh. No longer who you were and not yet who you will be. How disorienting. And also, how pregnant with possibility. In a culture that attempts to diminish women’s value as they age, (thanks patriarchy!) what would it mean to identify and assert your value on your own terms? What would it mean to become less accommodating and put your own pleasure on the very top of the list? What would it mean to get in touch with what you long for and prioritize it?

If this feels radical, a great place to start might be journaling about the implicit and explicit messages you received as a girl about pleasure, about rocking the boat, about taking care of others. Were there ways you were made to feel not enough or too much? What emotions were you allowed and not allowed to express? Did anyone celebrate your authority, right to disagree or acts of dissent that were self-honouring? Who benefitted from your suppression?

Becoming conscious of the cultural template- the belief systems and behaviours you were conditioned into - is the first critical step toward freedom. Midlife is a great time to hold up each of the beliefs and behaviours that create a rub and ask, who really benefits from this, and, do I want to carry-on with this or is there something that feels more authentic and self-honouring to me?

Given the upheaval, midlife is also a key time to bone-up on grounding and resourcing the nervous system. If you have been functioning for years at 100% at home and at work, you may benefit from radically adjusting your expectations for output down to, say 70% of what you’re capable of for the next few years (or if you’re burnt out, dial it back further). Calm it all right.the.frig.down and practice becoming aware of the moment and how you feel. Step away from stressful moments and breath it out. Nap, play, cancel plans, watch funny stuff, care less. Good enough is the new mantra. When your nervous system is rested you may notice your capacity to experience pleasure opens up again.

So. This is my gentle encouragement to notice your relationship to midlife’s challenges. Nature shows us that regeneration is an intertwined process that involves both dying off process so that new birth can be made possible. Before you become convinced your hormones are merely rogue insurgents to be subdued, I encourage you to consider whether or not they may also be teachers with important messages about what wants an end and what wants a beginning or rebirth in your spirit.

Above all, please be gentle with yourself.