Mid-Life Enlightenment

I have always been an over-achiever, which is why, even though I am just shy of 36, I am going to talk about mid-life crisis-ing. I think that is a bullshit term for what is actually an amazing, healthy and critical process in a heart’s revolution. It should be called mid-life enlightenment instead. It’s basically a grown ass person’s puberty — awkward, sometimes appalling, full of self-defining moments that make you question everything you’ve ever been taught — and most importantly so fucking critical to living your most authentic, amazing, joyful truth. On the other side of sticking your face in your own shit is the most pure breath of fresh air you will ever have.

In the past decade I have had several of these mini-enlightenments — regular intensive cycles of questioning myself, my values, what I believe to be true in this world and more importantly in myself. Every few years a new topic arises for me to fall apart on, deconstruct, and rebuild in a way that is so magical I could have never predicted such joyful outcomes. And while the process of revolutionizing in a heart space is utterly devastating and painful and fucking depressing at times, I would not change it or take it away. These are the moments — the crushing redefinition to the victorious phoenix rising — that are the epitome of what it means to truly be alive and present in your own skin. Being true to yourself and being real is where happiness is in infinite supply.

It is only in these journeys that you stop to take a critical look at how you’ve been defining things such as love, “good” parenting, success, and spirituality. How much these definitions are truly your own versus a story someone else has made you believe will directly correlate to your joy and radiance in this life. If you never ask yourself what these things really mean to you, what is most important to you in these spaces, and observe how you might get in the way of your own truth, then you can never build your own personal utopic kingdom.

It is only in these journeys that you learn who your real friends are — those that remind you that you are a good parent even if you sometimes can’t wait to leave your screaming children in the morning to go to work instead, or that you are not a complete moral wasteland because you ended up getting a little too close to a man who was not your husband. These are the people that check in on you and make time for you even though they have a lot going in their own lives. They are also the people that remind you of the innate goodness you bring to the world. Then there are the new people that enter your life because of the very subject matter of your quest — I can point to the tribe I built when I was figuring out what good mothering meant to me, I collected connections during my yoga journey to define my spirituality, just as now I have a collective of souls who connect with me on my quest to redefine love. These people are gifts — even those that fade away because you are no longer on the same wavelength.

And let me tell you something, I love dearly the people who have shared with me their tales of journeys within and all the messed up thoughts that went through their head and how maybe they still haven’t even figured “it” out. If we are never vulnerable to the people around us, if we are never honest about our struggles, we do not allow love and genuine connection to come in.

I currently don’t know if my super amazing job is really what I want to be doing. I am completely rebuilding how my marriage works and asking my husband to provide for my completely new needs because I found myself getting them met elsewhere, and I question daily whether or not my kids truly know in their hearts how much I love them even when I am not sure I could be alone with them for more than 24 hours. But I don’t question the practices I have learned that help me find the answers and I don’t worry about being an imposter in my own life because I am holding a magnifying glass to the fundamental aspects of humanity and checking to make sure how I am living is aligned with what I know is true for me.

So yes. I have my issues, and they happen to be around the mid-point of my life (ish). But I am so grateful that I am asking the questions, and really facing these things so I can break through to that sweet moment when it all becomes clear and I have one less topic in which to define my truth. In this way, I hope I continue to have a “crisis” every few years until I am fully realized. I hope you do, too.