Wish You Were Here
What happens when hundreds of women in midlife come together? The conversation – and magic – that we all need right now.
Hi there,
Whenever I listen to Postcards from Midlife I have a little jolt of recognition, that I’m not alone in navigating this new life stage and that others feel the same way too. Hosts Lorraine Candy and Trish Halpin are company through these slightly wobblier days, sharing their vulnerabilities and bringing in different perspectives for when need requires expertise.
Over the past two days, they’ve done the same, but live in London, bringing their podcast to an expectant audience of hundreds of women needing wisdom and support as their lives, bodies and minds somewhat maddeningly decide to change.
Though many of the talks were specific to all the fun things of midlife, many of the speakers shared learnings that we could all use, regardless of how old (young). And that’s the part I wanted to share with you now. Three stand-out moments that I thought, “yes, that’s it”, that I wanted to capture and absorb and also pass on.
I’m paraphrasing and interpreting my awful handwriting here but hopefully the following will give you an idea and make as much sense to you as it did to me at that moment.
Dr. Julia Samuel, psychotherapist, author (of This Too Shall Pass, Grief Works and Every Family Has a Story), podcast host (Therapy Works), and columnist (Dear Julia in The Times):
“Most transformational steps happen in small steps over a longer time than you’d want.”
The beginning part/on starting to change: Dr. Samuel spoke to that overwhelming feeling we can all have around change, of wanting to feel more confident, vitalized, and happier. But often we want to change without really ever changing.
Sound familiar? I often have this around food. Case in point: this weekend I sat in a talk on nutrition, committed to an anti-inflammatory diet in my mind, then ate an almond croissant after.
Dr. Samuel attributes this to finding ourselves in a comfort zone, of being ok, which means there’s no requirement to shift anything.
And the agent of change becomes not want but pain. That’s the thing that gets us through inertia, something happens. And that something will be something different for each of us: a divorce, a child leaving home, a shift in jobs.
But whatever that external event is, whatever precipitated the change, Dr. Samuel also spoke to the fact that we need to recognize that internal processes and psychological change take longer than we expect them to.
I found some comfort, and self-compassion, in that realisation. Though we start to shift, we don’t have to anticipate the endpoint quickly; it doesn’t mean we have to finish in the same moment we start or put ourselves under a pressure-inducing deadline. Change then can take its time.
From Donna Lancaster, coach, therapist and writer (Wise Words for Women)
“If we allow ourselves this period of unraveling… what is waiting for us… on the other side is freedom.”
The middle part / being in that change:
Lancaster’s talk started to resonate when she outlined the four stages of emotional healing. This is the how of moving through that something. These are:
1. Acknowledge that you’ve been through something. So that means not the ‘I’m fine’, nothing to see here response that denies our emotional pain, but the ‘actually, I’m kind of struggling' one.
2. Share that pain with a trusted other, a friend, a therapist, or a coach. Even saying, “I’m hurting and this is why” can be enough.
3. Involve your body, because that is where our emotions live. It’s that phrase “feel it to heal it”: just getting moving allows emotions to move through us.
4. Practice new behaviours. Bring courage and curiosity to life, ‘revisit scenes from life’ gently, and start to practice in small ways, expanding that feeling of risk slowly.
Lancaster spoke about how doing this will bring us back to a sense of childlike wonder and return us to ourselves, which feels so needed right now as we’re under so much pressure to just keep going and do more, more, more without checking in with ourselves.
Dani Binnington of Healthy Whole Me, and most recently host of the podcast Menopause After Cancer
“but life is everything. It’s all of your emotions. It’s waking up to all of you.”
This talk just about captured so much of what I’ve been thinking about recently. Binnington talked about how often when we’re seeking to improve ourselves, we’re looking in the wrong places. Life is happening to us. We’re not really in it.
We want to feel free, and happy, and some version of perfect in that. But what we need to do is take that pressure off, the need to get to amazing. What we need to do is wake up to all life. Recognising that freedom and ease, confusion and clarity, fear and hope, sadness and joy, all these co-exist.
We need to learn to navigate life differently, by not always seeking but also recognising what’s already within us.
I found myself being grateful for this perspective because so often in the well-being world, we’re trying to change so much about ourselves and forgetting who we really are, but we need to come back to ourselves. There’s some hope in that.
What struck me most about these talks (and maybe why I chose these ideas above others I heard this weekend), was how much we can redefine even that idea of the ‘journey’ that we’re all on.
Rather than us all charging in the same direction (that best possible self) it’s about figuring out why we even got started, how we feel, what we say and how we act as we do so, and how we continue to remain open to all of life when the uncertainty of seeking can be so uncomfortable.
Maybe the overall wisdom that I learned though is that what we do share are the same fears, the same needs, and the same struggles. We’re so much alone and in our heads within any of life’s stages, but when we come together and name them, this can mean so much more than any inspirational quote.
Over this weekend, I heard stories from women in the audience and on stage about trying to find their purpose and having enough time, of drooping boobs and equally as drooping relationships, of being a good parent or a good daughter to aging parents.
Whether you are in mid-life or not, each life stage has its own worries and for me knowing that others are there with me, going through it, is a much-needed consolation. That women are speaking these things out loud, for others to hear, is the true gift of this weekend.
So, whether that’s via a conference or a conversation, how can you voice your fears and hopes and allow them to be heard? And then in turn, how can you be that person for someone else?
Maybe that’s the lesson I’m taking away and wanted to share with you: that others are trying to find their way, too. Maybe you are one of them?
Until next time,
xClaire
P.S. Midlife can be a challenging time as we navigate through a multitude of changes.
As things – sometimes it feels like all the things – shift in this midpoint, so too does how we see ourselves, how we think about our lives, and how we consider what’s next.
If you need some support with the messier middle bits of life and need some support as you do so, let’s talk. I help women have a better relationship with this time. From identifying their (potentially) new needs and desires, bridging any gaps between where they are and where they want to be, and cultivating strategies for making it all that much better.
Learn more about my midlife coaching sessions here.