If you’re like most women, reflecting back on the first half of your life reveals that it’s been oriented in large part around the journey toward a series of milestones and destinations: Seeking an education; finding the right career; getting married; buying the house, having kids… And while there is no doubt that the pursuit of goals like these can bring us great joy, fulfillment and meaning, it’s also true that the first half of life is much more focused around meeting the needs and expectations of parents, peers, culture and kids than it is around finding our own self-expression, and exploring what makes truly us happy. That focus changes sharply at midlife.
There is a concept in Jungian psychology that tells us that whatever aspects of ourselves we haven’t realized, or expressed, in the first part of life, will demand to be expressed later on. One of the greatest gifts of reaching this age is that, for many women, it’s the first time since young adulthood that we’ve given ourselves permission to explore our own passions and preferences, and to make them a priority. Like adolescence, this is a time when we’re compelled to pay less attention to the clamoring of the world and to the opinions, expectations and voices of those around us, and to pay far greater attention to the voice that arises within ourselves.
The realization that there is perhaps more of this particular physical lifetime behind us than there is ahead of us can be a catalyst for a degree of freedom we’ve never before experienced. No longer willing to allow limiting beliefs such as “I can’t do it,” “people won’t like me,” or “I’m not worthy” to silence our voices, narrow our options or dictate our behaviors, we may now find the courage to say no when we mean no, and to say yes to new opportunities and adventures, even when they bring us face to face with the unknown. For maybe the first time ever, being true ourselves becomes more important than winning the agreement or validation of others.
As our perspectives and priorities change, we may find that we’ve outgrown circumstances that we once found to be completely fulfilling, and in this regard, midlife can also be a radical time of awakening. If our work is no longer fulfilling to us, or if we’re in a marriage that has grown stagnant or cold, we are more sensitive to our discontent, and less apt to disregard or deny it. Rather than trying to “shrink” ourselves so we continue to fit into a life that is too small or no longer serves us, midlife calls us to embrace the new direction our soul is urging us toward, and make the choice not to shrink, but to stretch. Instead of continuing to follow a preset path that we’ve been taught will guarantee our security, we find the courage to listen to the impulses and desires that arise from within, and allow them to guide us.
Society would have us believe that youth is the ultimate summit of life and that once we reach it, each year that passes marks a steady slide downward from that peak. What we learn at midlife is that every human being is in a continual state of becoming, and with each experience and passing year we become exponentially more than the sum of who we have been in the past.
In our youth, life spans before us as a long list of things to be accomplished, and we’re convinced that happiness will be waiting for us at the achievement of each one. At this stage of maturity, we realize that the real zest and joy in life has nothing to do with reaching a certain destination or accumulating a certain number of things. In fact, none of the peak experiences of our lives were about the “getting.” The joy, the awe, the passion that make life worth living does not come from our achievements, but from who we become in the process.
When we reach middle age and the achievement of many of life’s important milestones are behind us, our view of ourselves and the world around us broadens, revealing desires and possibilities not previously seen. Just as your values today are very different than when you were sixteen, twenty-two, or thirty, the things that excite you, that infuriate you, that captivate you are also in a continual state of evolution. Year by year, decade by decade, as our horizons change, our perceptions, desires, goals, and beliefs change right along with the shifting view. The more time that passes, the broader our vantage point becomes and the better able we are to appreciate and apply everything we’ve lived before.
The woman you are today reflects the culmination of every experience you’ve ever had; every challenge you’ve faced, every obstacle you’ve overcome, and all the wisdom you’ve gained in the process. In this moment, you have more insight, more perspective and more wisdom than the version of you that existed twenty years ago. You don’t lose the person you used to be; in fact, every “you” you have ever been still exists. You are more today than you’ve been at any time in the past. This is a time to embrace a new paradigm for middle age: We are not seeking to “recover” lost youth. Instead, we are now ready to reap the harvest planted over a lifetime.
