Such a time for me. I’ve had many “health crises” since age 33. I’m now 48. I feel as lost as ever finding my authenticity. And I’m being engulfed in the stress of it. What I yearn for is a place in nature….in the trees, near water, mountains. I yearn for this. But feel stuck in how to achieve this. I feel like I’m blindfolded right now and can’t see which way to go. Sometimes I just want to hibernate. I think I may be grieving my youth. How my body had energy before. I miss hiking for miles. It’s challenging now to do it. I just want to cry about this!
I love this so much. Dance of the Dissident Daughter was a book that really helped me onto a new path. I am still walking it today. It's so strange. I had so many dreams and ambitions in my life prior to 35. Now, it seems as if ambition has left me. I still have the desire to be a storyteller and I know I need to play more. But it will take digging so deep for the energy to do so!
While reading this lovely article, I find myself writing down books that I need (hope) to read. I started my transition in my late 20s and now I find myself in another old age crisis. I am 65 years old. And I am trying to figure out what happened. I made a stark realization today. When my husband and I first married we would walk all of the time. Now I spoke with my husband this afternoon and we realized that we have not been on one of our 1-2 mile hikes in well over 2 years. What happened? Why did we stop touching nature and breathing in the lovely atmosphere? When we used to walk we returned home feeling so stress- free and more alive and full of joyfulness. We must walk more and start now I said. I need to PLAY more. What are the emotional correlations between mid-life transitions? From the amazing list described above: All of them related to me. I became a real pill or nerd to be around. I was grumpy and stressed out, always following someone else's lead. Today I went to the market and saw an old friend. I immediately said to him, "I need a hug". Soon enough another friend walked over and we hugged. That easy. Immediately I was full of joy. My pleasant mood attracted another woman in the store to run up to me and say...I just love your eyewear and then she spoke of how she lived alone and showed me her shopping cart. I, of course, told her how amazing she was. It's that easy. I need more air, more me time. I need to be there for me, too. Blessings and love to everyone on this writing thread.
So interesting how you dissect that transition and in every description I recognise myself and what I went through at that time. I ended up leaving my marriage because I fell in love with someone who I had a real soul connection with (who, nearly ten years later I am still with), which was a tremendous upheaval with two young children and all the shame and heartache that accompanies it when you are a mother. But as you say there were all these signs: it was as if we were being pushed together, the road less travelled was revealing its path to us. I knew it was a kind of ‘midlife crisis’ but that sounds too negative. Your descriptions are thought out and accurate. I also like Jung’s analysis that middle age is a time to develop the parts of ourselves that have been neglected. I certainly did that and didn’t live to regret it
Yes, this all rings true to me. At 35 is when it began for me, starting with a Divorce, and the great "unravelling" of everything that I thought life was supposed to be. It turns out, everything I thought I wanted and that the world told me I should want, was not in line with my authentic self and soul. Now at 45, 2 years into perimenopause... some days I wake up and think I have gone batshit crazy. Other days I wake up and feel this incredible power surging through me, like lightning, but rooted in the earth, and I am ready to take on the world!
wow sharon... how am i just seeing this now; suddenly putting Context to what the past few years of my life have been. i really was narrowing it down to 'just me' and the mythically nonsensical/paradoxical/utterly, sometimes frustratingly Strange pattern/shape my life was taking-- needing to keep giving things up, things not working, things falling apart in fantastic fashion; especially in 2021, Huge things, one after the other.. but what you're writing here gives me Comfort, Context. in 2020 at 34 things began to Change in comparison to the life i was living beforehand-- also the year i found you, martin, and danny, as well as bill plotkin/soulcraft. the Embodiments of what i felt stirring inside me, taking a New Direction. in 2021 at 35 i was called Onwards from my 5 year job (longest job ever held for this mercurial being!) doing large-scale public outdoor cultural events, and Onwards from living (finally) safely alone and away from the emotional chaos of either my family or a dysfunctional relationship container... 37 now, and along the way especially since 2021 i've realized that it's now the Soul i'm following. and i've realized that the Soul honestly doesn't-give-a-fuck! about your fears, money, logistics, practicality, what you're scared of, what makes no sense, what you thought you'd be doing/what you expected... it just Always literally knows Who You Are (oh god sharon i'm cringing at the lowercase and random capitals LOLOL). anyway-- will be doing some work of recontextualizing based on this-- HEY, the collapses in my life are actually right on time--?! god willing will be 38 this year and so grateful for the gifts continuing to emerge/return tenfold since really dedicating to this crooked path of being a storyteller, space-holder, and apparently now full-on psychopomp.. thank you for the regenerative, guiding work you do, your sharing that normalizes the Truth of these processes we are all going through in silence or siloed; thank you for being in my life! <3
Just wow, WOW! This timing and synchronicity is finding me at a very dark and difficult moment... and reminds me how apt this process was when in my mid 40's, I was pondering these big questions, and began to dismantle my life ~ my husband had cancer, I began a deep dive into looking at human health, our environment, and foods - particularly the way we raise them, and then some years later separated from my husband in order to find myself... We did come back together, and have had a host of things to navigate through and around, which has felt like storm after storm. So many significant deaths (sister, father, stepfather, stepbrother, beloved dogs, friends) and betrayal and nasty litigation, and throughout this last few years, my husband's health has had ever ongoing struggles... I've lost count how many times we've been to Emergency Rooms! We spent from mid-December to now in hospitals and rehab facilities, diagnosed with a new cancer, and the prognosis is grim... My heart is twisted and breaking even further, here on the cusp of my 60th year... and while an ending is looming, and I feel lost and helpless, your writing illuminates the evolving transformations life (and death) bring to us and while I can't imagine what might be ahead, I can ground myself in the courage of being curious and trust that it's all part of my own journey. Thank you for this glimmer of light.
From the fetal position in a dark wood, your essay is what my shaking fingers found as I reach blindly for meaning, for a path ahead. The words offer just enough illumination to dry my tears and determine to rise again. I’ll keep on. It appears the only way through is through. Thank you, Angela
Thank you for recounting your triptik through the passages of midlife. I find your writing to be so wise and validating of my internal and external experiences. So unlike the prattle of the common mainstream patriarchal culture. I would love to hear your thoughts on the recently released Barbie and Oppenheimer movies. They give me hope for positive changes in what we are willing to perceive as truths
This article SO hits the spot and couldn't come at a better time. Just founded my own company and started freelancing, but still have to take the next step and decide to quit my well-payed and secure 9-to-5 to go all in.
My book, that marked the transition and lifted me into new relms, is "if women rose rooted". It magically bewitched my online bookstore algorithm to show me more wonderful books in that direction. And in wanting to learn more about this I found additional Podcast speaker who deeply inspired me.
Oh ❤️🔥 at 50, I’m trying to make peace with all the awfulness of my forties...respectable suburban MA student housewife turned poverty stricken, sometimes homeless lone parent with dead and dying relatives....and thinking even to throw a party titled “Feck-Off-Forties” but have very few people left in my life to invite, so, it’d be a small gathering instead of the massive hooley I dream of! But isn’t that the crux of this ‘crisis?’ I’m learning to, not so much ‘Let Go’ as the Instagram memes beautifully tell me to, but loosen my white-knuckle-iron-grip one stiff finger at a time on my expectations, illusions of how my life should be, yearnings and longings, and, the biggy - societal expectations. And yet, here I am, returned home to the West of Ireland, two healthy, spirited daughters, lots of wild space, solitude, living the life of creativity I dreamt of in my 20s (though not as chintzy or financially stable and much harder work than I imagined) my Hagitude is here, it is now yet I can’t shake off this feeling of purposelessness, aimlessness, not-good-enoughness, amassing a growing collection of tweezers for those wiry hairs that appal and thrill. Unable to read my own writing on those post-its
I’m very grateful that you’ve written this piece Sharon.
I’m 49 and knee deep in the perimenopause which started for me around the age of 40. Last year i decided to finally listen to what was calling to me, I wasn’t sure what it was but I knew I wanted to do something with other Women. I took some bold steps and closed my photography business, I kept listening to my hearts song and eventually stumbled upon Women’s Circles and as soon as I did, I knew this was what was calling to me so I trained as a facilitator and here I am!
What really speaks to me is the synchronicity, you are so right!! I’ve had some truly profound moments of synchronicity over the past year.
I never really thought of myself as a spiritual person before but I feel different now, I feel like this is my spiritual awakening.
I’ve just woken up to the fact that there are characters within stories that I’ve held close to my heart for decades but the characters and their archetypes we’re actually trying to point me to my truest nature. I don’t want to overuse the word profound but, it has been.
I experienced it when I read Hagitude and you talked about Granny Weatherwax, I actually gasped, clasped my hand over my mouth and then welled up.
I am really enjoying the synchronicity (you can keep the brain fog though)
Thank you, Sharon, for your wisdom stories and to all the others who wrote to share their experiences. A lovely community I have stumbled into, or rather been shipwrecked on the shores of. It reassures me to hear the various ages and stages that midlife transitions can be. I was struggling to identify my crisis in identity and purpose until I read your quote from W.H. Auden. I read it in first person and found it was me, reluctant to let go of my illusions, of what I thought my life should be, until I could not live with the illusions any longer.
Looking back, I now see my ‘mysterious dissatisfaction’ started out around ten years ago, as a building storm in my mid 40’s. This turned out to be what felt like hurricanes slamming into me one on top of the other. The death of my father with all its pain and guilt, the death of my marriage and my role I played, the death of my passion that had sustained my 27-year teaching career. It’s the waking up part that so resonates with me. Polishing the glass and finding clarity. Yes, my growth has been with much pain like you said, but I am stepping from one life into another. I don’t know what comes next, and I find that exciting and energizing. I can teach outside the strictures of academia and create and exhibit the art that no longer must fit into the appropriate line on my CV.
PS I smiled in recognition to your Dante reference, that quote is in the front of one of my journals.
Thank you Sharon for your wonderful mid life advice and wisdom. I wish I'd had you around all those years ago! My menopause in my late forties/early fifties was coupled and overshadowed by ME. How come I never put two and two together and realised there were things I shouldn't ignore. Well very sadly all this has come back to bite me twenty years later. You should have left him years ago is sad advice when you're seventy one and ill again. I have blamed covid this time around but deep inside I know (my sisters and daughter know) that my body is yet again screaming at me. Why didn't I run with the wolves. What sort of a wimp am I? Not really - just a feminist for every other woman except myself, a creative and intuitive person trapped for years in a feeling of wanting to make things 'right'. To make it work. Is it too late? I'm in a bad fairy story where the task of spinning a mountain of chaff into gold is never going to happen. I love being a hag, but not a hag in bed. Your books and the need to get back to the wilds and the woods that kept me sane, have bothered me so much that this time I need the to find that key. First step a few days ago, a room of my own. Already my dreams are brighter. I've stepped outside and positively sparkled. Little steps and some difficult and painful planning ahead. It's so wonderful to read your inspiring wisdom and the comments of sisters. The number of comments is so telling. Too important to be buried.
Such a time for me. I’ve had many “health crises” since age 33. I’m now 48. I feel as lost as ever finding my authenticity. And I’m being engulfed in the stress of it. What I yearn for is a place in nature….in the trees, near water, mountains. I yearn for this. But feel stuck in how to achieve this. I feel like I’m blindfolded right now and can’t see which way to go. Sometimes I just want to hibernate. I think I may be grieving my youth. How my body had energy before. I miss hiking for miles. It’s challenging now to do it. I just want to cry about this!
I love this so much. Dance of the Dissident Daughter was a book that really helped me onto a new path. I am still walking it today. It's so strange. I had so many dreams and ambitions in my life prior to 35. Now, it seems as if ambition has left me. I still have the desire to be a storyteller and I know I need to play more. But it will take digging so deep for the energy to do so!
While reading this lovely article, I find myself writing down books that I need (hope) to read. I started my transition in my late 20s and now I find myself in another old age crisis. I am 65 years old. And I am trying to figure out what happened. I made a stark realization today. When my husband and I first married we would walk all of the time. Now I spoke with my husband this afternoon and we realized that we have not been on one of our 1-2 mile hikes in well over 2 years. What happened? Why did we stop touching nature and breathing in the lovely atmosphere? When we used to walk we returned home feeling so stress- free and more alive and full of joyfulness. We must walk more and start now I said. I need to PLAY more. What are the emotional correlations between mid-life transitions? From the amazing list described above: All of them related to me. I became a real pill or nerd to be around. I was grumpy and stressed out, always following someone else's lead. Today I went to the market and saw an old friend. I immediately said to him, "I need a hug". Soon enough another friend walked over and we hugged. That easy. Immediately I was full of joy. My pleasant mood attracted another woman in the store to run up to me and say...I just love your eyewear and then she spoke of how she lived alone and showed me her shopping cart. I, of course, told her how amazing she was. It's that easy. I need more air, more me time. I need to be there for me, too. Blessings and love to everyone on this writing thread.
So interesting how you dissect that transition and in every description I recognise myself and what I went through at that time. I ended up leaving my marriage because I fell in love with someone who I had a real soul connection with (who, nearly ten years later I am still with), which was a tremendous upheaval with two young children and all the shame and heartache that accompanies it when you are a mother. But as you say there were all these signs: it was as if we were being pushed together, the road less travelled was revealing its path to us. I knew it was a kind of ‘midlife crisis’ but that sounds too negative. Your descriptions are thought out and accurate. I also like Jung’s analysis that middle age is a time to develop the parts of ourselves that have been neglected. I certainly did that and didn’t live to regret it
Yes, this all rings true to me. At 35 is when it began for me, starting with a Divorce, and the great "unravelling" of everything that I thought life was supposed to be. It turns out, everything I thought I wanted and that the world told me I should want, was not in line with my authentic self and soul. Now at 45, 2 years into perimenopause... some days I wake up and think I have gone batshit crazy. Other days I wake up and feel this incredible power surging through me, like lightning, but rooted in the earth, and I am ready to take on the world!
wow sharon... how am i just seeing this now; suddenly putting Context to what the past few years of my life have been. i really was narrowing it down to 'just me' and the mythically nonsensical/paradoxical/utterly, sometimes frustratingly Strange pattern/shape my life was taking-- needing to keep giving things up, things not working, things falling apart in fantastic fashion; especially in 2021, Huge things, one after the other.. but what you're writing here gives me Comfort, Context. in 2020 at 34 things began to Change in comparison to the life i was living beforehand-- also the year i found you, martin, and danny, as well as bill plotkin/soulcraft. the Embodiments of what i felt stirring inside me, taking a New Direction. in 2021 at 35 i was called Onwards from my 5 year job (longest job ever held for this mercurial being!) doing large-scale public outdoor cultural events, and Onwards from living (finally) safely alone and away from the emotional chaos of either my family or a dysfunctional relationship container... 37 now, and along the way especially since 2021 i've realized that it's now the Soul i'm following. and i've realized that the Soul honestly doesn't-give-a-fuck! about your fears, money, logistics, practicality, what you're scared of, what makes no sense, what you thought you'd be doing/what you expected... it just Always literally knows Who You Are (oh god sharon i'm cringing at the lowercase and random capitals LOLOL). anyway-- will be doing some work of recontextualizing based on this-- HEY, the collapses in my life are actually right on time--?! god willing will be 38 this year and so grateful for the gifts continuing to emerge/return tenfold since really dedicating to this crooked path of being a storyteller, space-holder, and apparently now full-on psychopomp.. thank you for the regenerative, guiding work you do, your sharing that normalizes the Truth of these processes we are all going through in silence or siloed; thank you for being in my life! <3
Shamati🙏wow! Yes, yes, and yes!
Just wow, WOW! This timing and synchronicity is finding me at a very dark and difficult moment... and reminds me how apt this process was when in my mid 40's, I was pondering these big questions, and began to dismantle my life ~ my husband had cancer, I began a deep dive into looking at human health, our environment, and foods - particularly the way we raise them, and then some years later separated from my husband in order to find myself... We did come back together, and have had a host of things to navigate through and around, which has felt like storm after storm. So many significant deaths (sister, father, stepfather, stepbrother, beloved dogs, friends) and betrayal and nasty litigation, and throughout this last few years, my husband's health has had ever ongoing struggles... I've lost count how many times we've been to Emergency Rooms! We spent from mid-December to now in hospitals and rehab facilities, diagnosed with a new cancer, and the prognosis is grim... My heart is twisted and breaking even further, here on the cusp of my 60th year... and while an ending is looming, and I feel lost and helpless, your writing illuminates the evolving transformations life (and death) bring to us and while I can't imagine what might be ahead, I can ground myself in the courage of being curious and trust that it's all part of my own journey. Thank you for this glimmer of light.
Sharon,
From the fetal position in a dark wood, your essay is what my shaking fingers found as I reach blindly for meaning, for a path ahead. The words offer just enough illumination to dry my tears and determine to rise again. I’ll keep on. It appears the only way through is through. Thank you, Angela
Thank you for recounting your triptik through the passages of midlife. I find your writing to be so wise and validating of my internal and external experiences. So unlike the prattle of the common mainstream patriarchal culture. I would love to hear your thoughts on the recently released Barbie and Oppenheimer movies. They give me hope for positive changes in what we are willing to perceive as truths
Yes. I will let the questions now sit with me....for they have much to reveal. Thank you Sharon
This article SO hits the spot and couldn't come at a better time. Just founded my own company and started freelancing, but still have to take the next step and decide to quit my well-payed and secure 9-to-5 to go all in.
My book, that marked the transition and lifted me into new relms, is "if women rose rooted". It magically bewitched my online bookstore algorithm to show me more wonderful books in that direction. And in wanting to learn more about this I found additional Podcast speaker who deeply inspired me.
Oh ❤️🔥 at 50, I’m trying to make peace with all the awfulness of my forties...respectable suburban MA student housewife turned poverty stricken, sometimes homeless lone parent with dead and dying relatives....and thinking even to throw a party titled “Feck-Off-Forties” but have very few people left in my life to invite, so, it’d be a small gathering instead of the massive hooley I dream of! But isn’t that the crux of this ‘crisis?’ I’m learning to, not so much ‘Let Go’ as the Instagram memes beautifully tell me to, but loosen my white-knuckle-iron-grip one stiff finger at a time on my expectations, illusions of how my life should be, yearnings and longings, and, the biggy - societal expectations. And yet, here I am, returned home to the West of Ireland, two healthy, spirited daughters, lots of wild space, solitude, living the life of creativity I dreamt of in my 20s (though not as chintzy or financially stable and much harder work than I imagined) my Hagitude is here, it is now yet I can’t shake off this feeling of purposelessness, aimlessness, not-good-enoughness, amassing a growing collection of tweezers for those wiry hairs that appal and thrill. Unable to read my own writing on those post-its
I’m very grateful that you’ve written this piece Sharon.
I’m 49 and knee deep in the perimenopause which started for me around the age of 40. Last year i decided to finally listen to what was calling to me, I wasn’t sure what it was but I knew I wanted to do something with other Women. I took some bold steps and closed my photography business, I kept listening to my hearts song and eventually stumbled upon Women’s Circles and as soon as I did, I knew this was what was calling to me so I trained as a facilitator and here I am!
What really speaks to me is the synchronicity, you are so right!! I’ve had some truly profound moments of synchronicity over the past year.
I never really thought of myself as a spiritual person before but I feel different now, I feel like this is my spiritual awakening.
I’ve just woken up to the fact that there are characters within stories that I’ve held close to my heart for decades but the characters and their archetypes we’re actually trying to point me to my truest nature. I don’t want to overuse the word profound but, it has been.
I experienced it when I read Hagitude and you talked about Granny Weatherwax, I actually gasped, clasped my hand over my mouth and then welled up.
I am really enjoying the synchronicity (you can keep the brain fog though)
Thank you, Sharon, for your wisdom stories and to all the others who wrote to share their experiences. A lovely community I have stumbled into, or rather been shipwrecked on the shores of. It reassures me to hear the various ages and stages that midlife transitions can be. I was struggling to identify my crisis in identity and purpose until I read your quote from W.H. Auden. I read it in first person and found it was me, reluctant to let go of my illusions, of what I thought my life should be, until I could not live with the illusions any longer.
Looking back, I now see my ‘mysterious dissatisfaction’ started out around ten years ago, as a building storm in my mid 40’s. This turned out to be what felt like hurricanes slamming into me one on top of the other. The death of my father with all its pain and guilt, the death of my marriage and my role I played, the death of my passion that had sustained my 27-year teaching career. It’s the waking up part that so resonates with me. Polishing the glass and finding clarity. Yes, my growth has been with much pain like you said, but I am stepping from one life into another. I don’t know what comes next, and I find that exciting and energizing. I can teach outside the strictures of academia and create and exhibit the art that no longer must fit into the appropriate line on my CV.
PS I smiled in recognition to your Dante reference, that quote is in the front of one of my journals.
Thank you Sharon for your wonderful mid life advice and wisdom. I wish I'd had you around all those years ago! My menopause in my late forties/early fifties was coupled and overshadowed by ME. How come I never put two and two together and realised there were things I shouldn't ignore. Well very sadly all this has come back to bite me twenty years later. You should have left him years ago is sad advice when you're seventy one and ill again. I have blamed covid this time around but deep inside I know (my sisters and daughter know) that my body is yet again screaming at me. Why didn't I run with the wolves. What sort of a wimp am I? Not really - just a feminist for every other woman except myself, a creative and intuitive person trapped for years in a feeling of wanting to make things 'right'. To make it work. Is it too late? I'm in a bad fairy story where the task of spinning a mountain of chaff into gold is never going to happen. I love being a hag, but not a hag in bed. Your books and the need to get back to the wilds and the woods that kept me sane, have bothered me so much that this time I need the to find that key. First step a few days ago, a room of my own. Already my dreams are brighter. I've stepped outside and positively sparkled. Little steps and some difficult and painful planning ahead. It's so wonderful to read your inspiring wisdom and the comments of sisters. The number of comments is so telling. Too important to be buried.