Want to connect with other women 40+, make friends, and have fun? Then join The Girlfriend Social Club today! You'll love it!
Midlife gets a terrible rap. It’s a life stage no one wants to be in, associated with words like “crisis,” “old” and “mature.”
Truth is, it’s when we realize that we may have another 30+ best years of our lives. If adult life began at 18, and you’re currently 50 with a life expectancy of even 82, you’ve got 32 years of adventures ahead!
“There’s something incredibly freeing about being middle-aged — about stepping into this season with wisdom, grace and a whole lot of self-awareness,” says Jacqueline Johnson, founder of Jacquie Ooh, a wellness and lifestyle brand inspiring women to think and live well. “I wouldn’t trade this time in my life for anything.”
Besides, if you listen to aging gurus like Chip Conley, CEO and founder of the Modern Elder Academy and author of Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Life Gets Better with Age, you’ll find a whole lot of passion, purpose and wisdom that helps you realize midlife comes with a host of fabulous perks.
Here are six.
1. The Space to Reinvest in Relationships
Conley says that as you age, you begin to focus on showing up instead of showing off. Realizing that you may have nearly half your adult life left to live, you suddenly have more time to invest in the people who matter. Essential relationships are one of the sweet spots of midlife. Whereas back in your 20s or 30s with way too many spinning plates and never enough hours in the day, nurturing friendships and key relationships was more difficult.
Hello, midlife! There may be less stress, less frenetic energy and more time to devote to nurturing old, finding new, and even letting go of friendships that don’t serve you. Relationships with adult children become rewarding, and being present and relaxed with a partner can bring new joy to that relationship, too.
“You also start to realize how important relationships are for your well-being,” says Conley. “When we’re young, we don’t always grasp the depth of connection.”
Still, “as we get older, we see that friendships, family and community keep us grounded,” says Dr. Sal Raichbach, PsyD, LCSW and chief clinical officer of The Recovery Team, a nationwide mental health and addiction center. “Having people to lean on — people who truly know and support you — is incredibly valuable.”
Make a point to jot down your five most important relationships and see how and where you can devote more time and energy to tending to them at this stage of life.
2. Your IQ doesn’t Grow, But Your EQ Does
By your mid-40s, you come face to face with the disappointment of dreams that you’re not going to accomplish — climbing Everest, running for political office, things you thought you might want to do when you were 12, 18 or 23. But by recognizing and reconciling those dreams and beginning to edit them, you learn what you can let go of and what you want more of. Managing your emotions and understanding your needs is called emotional intelligence, or EQ.
Over time, you’ve grown culturally, spiritually and intellectually, and your ability to trust your intuition, think systemically and holistically, and switch from left to right brain on a dime are honed. Rather than projecting the phony confidence you might not have always felt when you were young and thought you knew everything, now confidence overflows.
“You’ve been exposed to so many different people and perspectives that you start to see life more nuancedly,” says Dr. Raichbach. “You learn to empathize, communicate better, and handle relationships with more maturity and understanding.”
3. Midlife Is a Transformational Stage
Conley says midlife is time for an edit: not only to let go of all the things that aren’t serving you, but to make decisions about how you want those remaining 30-odd years to play out. The good news is that you make much better decisions now than in your 20s or 30s. Is there something you’re excited, curious or restless about? Is there a passion or love from childhood you’d like to revisit? Those are things to explore.
There’s time in this transformational stage to ask big questions like, “Am I happy to spend the next half of my adult life doing the work I’m currently doing? Am I happy?” Maybe there are parts and parcels of your life that need an edit? Jot down the big categories in your life: work, home, relationships, health, spirituality, wealth and give yourself a grade for each. Maybe home gets an A, but work gets a C.
This age is ripe for making the changes we’ve only dreamed about. And if you’re not sure yet which areas need transition, sit with those feelings. Learning to become comfortable with uncertainty is a skill we’ve learned in midlife since this stage constantly evolves: empty nest, menopause, divorce, remarriage, downsizing, travel and retirement. Getting comfortable with the transition can help make the rest of the journey successful.
“Now, as an empty nester, I’m embracing a new chapter with my husband,” says Johnson. “We travel when we want, pick up and go without a second thought — no more searching for babysitters or planning life around school schedules. It’s a new kind of freedom.”
4. Discover a Second Childhood
Talk about space for discovery. Now’s the time to try new things. When we were younger, our job, family, obligations and commitments may have inhibited play, cramped hobbies and dampened the time we needed for fun. Now, we have time to ask what brings us joy and then embark on it. I have a friend who always wanted to learn baton twirling, so she bought one and found a class. Another friend took a workshop on creating fairy gardens, and her class cohorts at the garden center were mainly 12- and 13-year-olds. No matter!
Learn tennis, take up quilting, play piano or pool. Draw, sketch, paint.
“Another thing that comes with age is that you eventually learn to feel comfortable in your own skin. You stop worrying so much about fitting into a mold and start embracing who you are — your likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses — all of it,” says Dr. Raichbach. “There’s a freedom in accepting yourself instead of trying to be someone you’re not.”
5. You Care Less About What Others Think of You
The phrase “not caring what people think” hits differently in midlife. Unlike in youth, when rebellion or indifference drives motivation, this mindset stems from self-awareness and maturity. With age, we go through experiences that help form our personal value systems, which, in turn, reflect what we care about. Now, we can prioritize what matters most.
This shift deepens our sense of authenticity and helps us make decisions that lead to personal fulfillment instead of doing what’s expected.
Liberating yourself from the shackles of constant judgment and trying to win approval creates interactions and relationships that are more relaxed, genuine and enjoyable. That people-pleasing quality you may have had slips away. “We get to choose what we want to do and who we want to be instead of constantly trying to meet others' expectations,” says Dr. Raichbach.
6. You Have No More Effs to Give
As the author of a mental health decluttering guide called The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving an Eff, Sarah Knight teaches that Marie Kondo-ing your way to an uncluttered mind can provide you with the freedom, time and energy you crave more of in midlife. Her book helps you focus on what’s essential and let go of the junk that just isn’t.
In other words, midlife is the time to let go. Downsize your perception that everyone is looking at you or cares what you do. Silence the noise that interferes with what you want and need and declutter the stuff that stands in your way.
“I find myself laughing more, worrying less, and truly appreciating the small things,” says Johnson. “Those little everyday experiences that bring happiness remind me just how beautiful life is.”
Let’s associate midlife with new words like freedom, catharsis and balance. Let’s reinvent midlife to mean shedding anything that no longer works. This is a season to embrace, a time of reflection, adventure and joy.
Who else loves to be middle-aged? Let us know in the comments below.
Cari Vander Yacht
Follow Article Topics: Wellness