♪ “I saw the sun begin to dim, And felt that winter wind, Blow cold ♪
Historically, around 40 is the age that people typically go through (or start to go through) a midlife crisis. That just so happens to be my age at this very moment. Merriam Webster defines a midlife crisis as “a period of emotional turmoil in middle age characterized especially by a strong desire for change.” You often hear of people leaving their spouses, having affairs, buying sports cars, having plastic surgery or maybe doing that thing they always wanted to do. Merriam Webster also defines an awakening as “a coming into awareness.”
The image that I always had of it was that it was a realization that you are halfway to your death and a fear of getting older. To be honest, it’s not something I ever spent a lot of time thinking about.
Now that I’m in my 40’s and looking at my life, I think I may be experiencing this exact period of my life.
♪ “Cause from then, rubble, What remains , can only be what’s true ♪
So what is this thing that keeps happening around the same time in people’s lives? Here’s the way I’ve experienced it in my life.
We are all born on this earth with a purpose. A purpose that only we can find and only we can connect to. But in our culture today, there are so many people, expectations, societal views, opinions, our own limiting beliefs, conditions, rules, religions, etc that lead us in different directions. I can’t speak for the masses, but for me, more times than not, those directions were not in alignment with my calling, my purpose, my inner guidance. To be fair, I didn’t yet understand that I had a purpose. I did, however, understand that I had these faint whispers or callings. But throughout my life, I ignored them, missed them completely because I was too busy overthinking or rationalized why I should not follow them.
Every day we make decisions about what direction our life is heading. Sometimes these decisions are big like what major to study in college, who to marry or where we want to live. Others are small like what we want to eat for breakfast or what outfit we want to wear. But each decision does one of 3 things: it brings us closer to our truth, its neutral or takes us further from it.
I have this image in my head of a central train station. We come to this station on our path to adulthood. At that station, there can be hundreds of trains heading in different directions. We might hop on one thinking we can switch trains if we need to, that this is just a short trip. But the further from the station that we get, the harder it is to change trains, it might even feel impossible. We might need to walk 5 blocks, take a bus and then get on at a different stop. That option might be in a town that we know nothing about and feel like it’s the middle of the night. So we just keep postponing switching trains. But the truth is, the longer we stay on that train, the harder it is to get off it. So we stay on it. Even though it doesn’t feel right, our fears of switching outweigh our desire for change.
I got on the train, thinking it would be a short trip. The truth is, I always knew these weren’t the right trains for me. I thought I had lots of time to change trains when I was ready. But I made so many decisions back then for other people. I was a people pleaser, believing that making others happy was what we were supposed to do. What I found is that happiness only comes from within. I can not bring happiness to anyone else and nobody else can bring lasting happiness to me. I digress, probably another post for another day. Then life got really busy, really, really busy. Our culture wears busy like a coat of armor. He who is the most busy wins, or so we think. I got so busy that I completely forgot that I was even on a train at all.
♪ “For years and years, I chased their cheers, the crazy speed of always needing more ♪
We spend our lives obsessing about where we are headed and we forget that we are ultimately headed towards 6 feet under. That’s the last stop on our journey. I know that might sound harsh but it’s the ultimate reality. That reality is what helped me wake up. I took one moment and thought: when I get to that last stop, is this the life I want to remember? Is this the legacy I want to leave?
When we forget that we have a choice, that’s when our Busoula starts screaming but our minds and our lives are so busy that we can’t even hear it.
The more I learned to listen, the easier it was to hear.
Somewhere along my journey, I woke up and realized that something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t in alignment and I started on a quest to figure out what it was.
Fear keeps many, if not everyone, on the train. When you start thinking about getting off the train, the other people on your train will try to stop you. They will tell you scary stories to try to convince you to stay on because they also have not yet embraced life off the train. They may think you are crazy. Your own fears keep you on too. You think thoughts like what if it isn’t better out there? What will people think? How do I know what to do and where to go? I’m not strong enough to go it alone. Who am I to get off this train?
The typical mid-life crisis actions are a more of a band-aid than a long term fix. An affair, plastic surgery or a fancy sportscar might bring us temporary happiness but ultimately, we still end up on that same train that we started on, so those quick fixes don’t bring us into alignment with ourselves. Those things are just a mask to hide those inner feelings. It’s almost like a drug that ultimately wears off and leaves you in the same place you started
No matter how good life on the train looks, it won’t feel good unless you are aligned with your own true North. You can have all the ‘successes’ in the world (a high paying salary, big career titles, sports cars, big houses, fancy things, country club memberships, etc) but they won’t mean anything on the inside of the person carrying them if they are on the wrong train.
Outer success can be found on many different trains. Inner success is a different story. Inner success comes from uncovering, listening to and navigating life with our Busoulas. Although life for me probably looked pretty good from an outsider, there was still an inner yearning, regardless of whatever level of outside success I had achieved.
♪ “But those are someone else’s dreams, The pitfalls of the man I became ♪
A true mid-life awakening happens when you decide to explore life off of the train. The magic happens when you recognize, decide and take action on the fact that you are the creator of your journey. You don’t need to wait for permission to get off the train. You can jump off at any time. I’m not going to sugar coat it and tell you it was magical from that first awakening because it wasn’t. It was lonely and scary. I doubted myself daily but the pull inside was too strong to go back. Most of the people on that train are no longer in my life. That was hard. I felt isolated. I felt different. It felt like nobody was going where I was going. The truth is, they weren’t. My journey is my journey. Your journey is your journey. Our paths may cross in life but it doesn’t always mean they were meant to stay connected during our full time on this earth.
At first, I had to go it alone. I had to find cabs, buses and new routes. Sometimes I hiked through unchartered territory. Other times, I accidentally hopped on the wrong train, again. I took many steps in the wrong direction and had to completely re-evaluate the path. I check my Busoula over and over and over again to ensure that I am heading in the direction of my North.
Many times it was exhausting. I had to learn to trust and to let go of trying to control every little thing in my life. I set my course North and set out on the journey. More often than not things didn’t go as planned and hit road blocks after road blocks (still do!). I had to learn that this thing called life is about the journey. It’s not about where you end up but about where you are going and who are you helping along the way. Your Busoula will help you find that direction every time.
The more I went off on my own path, the more in alignment with Jenn I felt. I felt lighter and more connected to myself. I’m following and trusting my callings and rarely thinking about them. I stopped making the journey about only the destination and instead learned to enjoy the journey. My goal now is to take only steps that I believe at the time are bringing me towards North.
North is not a destination, it’s a direction. When you focus on the direction and the journey, magic happens. I trust in this magic and I could never have found it if I had not learned to follow my Busoula.
When I forge my own path, I’m just concerned with planning a journey that’s fully in alignment with my purpose. I’m no longer trying to be perfect or trying to be right all the time. Its not about who will like me and what they are going to say about me. I’m not scared of people seeing who I really am.
First, I did the inner work to have the courage to get off the train and to learn to use my Busoula.
And then, I took action each and every day. I connect to my North and plan lots of mini-journeys in the process. I know where I am now and I can see the future ahead of me. It’s never about the destination and always about the step that I am taking at this very moment towards those destinations.
Some might say I’m experiencing a midlife crisis. The reality is, I no longer care what they say! The word crisis for me has always had an image of negativity or something going wrong when in fact, what I’m experiencing may be the greatest shift I’ve ever experienced in my life.
The truth is, I’m awakening. I’m awakening to the fact that I was on a train heading in a direction that my soul didn’t want to go in. I’m awakening to the fact that my feelings matter more than my thoughts. I’m awakening to the fact that my life is in my control, but it takes going against a lot of social norms to do so. I’m awakening to the fact that there’s magic on the other side of fear. And most importantly, I’m awakening to the fact that the only way I’ll ever feel in alignment with my soul is to follow my Busoula each and every day.
♪ “And from now on, these eyes will not be blinded by the light
I have this knowing that I never had before. A knowing that will never be able to be described with words and that’s absolutely ok with me. Because I just know. The word you use to describe it doesn’t matter, it’s just a word after all. Nobody teaches you how to connect with that knowing, you just have to take that first step and show up for yourself, your soul and ultimately the world. I can show you how I got there but only you can take the first step for yourself.
Sometimes we wait for permission to get off the train. That permission may simply come from watching someone else do the very thing our Busoula has been guiding us to do. In order to spread this message. Please consider sharing this post with anyone who you think is ready to unlock their Busoula and navigate their journey on their soul’s terms.
♪ “And we will come back home, And we will come back home, Home, again!” ♪
Song: “From Now On” from the movie The Greatest Showman
Recent Comments