About six months after turning 39, I woke up one November morning feeling numb. Not because of the cold Edmonton winter, but because I’d lost the ability to feel somewhere along the way. I couldn’t recall the last time I felt joy. I didn’t recognize myself or my life. I had made all of these choices, but I didn’t recognize myself in the life I had built. I knew I had to try to find a way back to myself. And so I set out on a journey of self re-discovery.
Not only could I not recall the last time I felt joy, I didn’t even know what would bring me joy. So I went back. I flipped through old photos of myself throughout the years and set aside any photo of myself where I recalled experiencing joy or where it evoked a strong sense of self.
I made myself some joy flash cards.
Then I chose a couple of those photos and wrote the story behind them in my journal. It was a good start.
Next, I started thumbing through old report cards. I know this sounds crazy, but reading the words of people whose job it was to observe and report, before anyone had gotten in my head, was very informative. My teachers used words like “exuberant” and “ray of sunshine” to describe me.
Ah yes, I can vaguely remember that girl.
The more I dug, the more it came back to me. When I finally had a picture of what is core to who I am, I set out to be true to her, to honor her, to seek out joy and a life that aligns with her.
Over the course of the next year and a half, I left a long-term relationship, moved from a big house in the suburbs into a small apartment in an urban neighbourhood, went on a three week solo vacation to Italy and Greece, launched a podcast on personal brand, left a C-Suite role, and started two values-driven businesses.
Given all of that change and the time in my life it came about, some might be tempted to call it a “midlife crisis” (some did). But, I didn’t feel like I was in a crisis. Quite the opposite. It was a lot more intentional and empowered than that. I was making intentional choices in my life that lean into who I am, who I want to be, and the life I want to be living.
I set out on a journey of (re)learning to be unapologetically me, own my magic and stay spicy. I decided, instead of ‘midlife crisis’, I will call it my Midlife Revolution.
I’ve spoken to a lot of other women approaching forty or who have turned forty and, to a one, they all say they went through something similar. It goes something like this.
- The wake up call: I don’t recognize myself. How did I get here? Where did I go?
- The reclamation and moment of clarity: This is who I am, this is who I’ve always been, I just hid it away for decades to make other people feel comfortable.
- The declaration: I will no longer live my life or base myself on what makes others comfortable.
It brings to mind Plato’s allegory of the cave. In case you aren’t familiar, Plato describes a group of people who have lived in a cave, chained to the wall their entire lives. They face a blank wall and all they see are shadows of life outside the cave projected on the wall. These shadows become their reality, but are only fragments or figments of a reality they are prevented from seeing. After we turn forty, it’s like we’ve been freed from the cave and when we walk into the sunlight, we can see the shadows are just shadows - not our reality.
I think this happens to a lot of people, but it seems particularly prevalent with women. We aren’t born this way, we are born free. Think about five-year-olds. They don’t worry about how they’re perceived, or what they are supposed to be. They just are. Honest and genuine.
At some point, we enter (or are put, or coaxed into) the cold, dark cave. After sitting and staring at the wall for so long, we perceive these shadows as reality. For whatever reason, when we turn forty, we step out of the cave, into the sunlight, and see reality: that we are unique, special, and enough – just the way we are. And we never look back.
One of the women I spoke with described it as a freeing and glorified feeling. But she also said, “why the hell couldn’t I have come to this at 25? Why did I have to go through all that shit?”
Why indeed.
Certainly our journeys, our struggles, make us who we are. But did it need to be that way? Is there some way we can help free women from the cave earlier? Or prevent them from entering it at all?
To everyone still stuck in the cave, come out and join us in the light, it’s where you belong.