Aspire Magazine: Inspiration for a Woman's Soul.(TM) Oct/Nov 2016 Aspire Mag Full Issue | Page 43
At midlife, we have the opportunity to say, “I
am the priority”.
Midlife allows us to do an examination of
our life and see what is working and what
is not. We have hopefully garnered some
wisdom to take stock in what is going on. I
know that I don’t want to be performing an
examination when I’m 80 regretting that I
didn’t make any changes or that I battled my
entire lifetime to fit into a mold that wasn’t
for me or that I didn’t take my own dreams,
needs, and wants into consideration.
In terms of decades, life becomes pretty
short and much more precious as we
become increasingly aware that life can
be taken away at any moment. We can
experience an awakening. Are we happy?
What is the lifestyle we want to lead? How
would we feel if our life was cut short?
Would we be at peace with the way we live
each day? What small changes can we
incorporate over time?
Rather than a negative “midlife crisis” –
why not view this time as an opportunity to
evolve? It becomes a chance to create the
new! It doesn’t have to be this inner battle or
throwing away the entire first ½ of our lives.
It doesn’t have to be filled with regret or
giving up that this is the life you are resigned
to live. It doesn’t have to be acting out and
“Probably the happiest
period in life most
frequently is middle
age, when the anger
passions of youth
are cooled, and the
infirmities of age not
yet begun; as we see
that the shadows,
which are at morning
and evening so
large, almost entirely
disappear at midday.”
WISDOM & SELF-GROWTH
It might be, at this point, that we figure out life
has been dedicated to making other people
happy and/or putting others first. We might
be experiencing burn out, a general sense
of unhappiness, or realizing that we molded
ourselves to be what someone else wanted
us to be. We might come last and usually
by then we don’t know that anyone cared
what “last” was.
– ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
doing things outside of our truth even if you
haven’t identified what that truth is.
Midlife can be a scary stretch realizing
that one’s life is ½ way over and there isn’t
much time left. There can be emotions of
fear, uncertainty, angst, anxiety, and maybe
even depression. Try to look at your life in
the bigger picture as a journey. That the
decades are stretches along the way that are
filled with memories, mistakes, adventures,
people and a range of accompanying
emotions. This IS your life. Embrace it!
43