Are you following your Guiding Lights

Weeks 9 & 10

As women in midlife, if we scroll the wrong screens and read the wrong words, we can hear so much these days about what we can’t do anymore, or no longer do because life got serious, or we might not be able to do because you know, we’re ageing in an Age of Anti-Ageing propaganda. We hear so much about our limitations, our lamentations, those unrealistic expectations imposed on us. 

So let’s talk about what we can do and can want, and should do for ourselves, and might do and will try and see and experience and explore, shall we?

I recently turned 54. A lot has happened in this last decade since I was 44, an age when I thought 45 was the end. And it was in some respects….. the end of my marriage, the end of five years of sandwich years caring for my mum after her stroke with three small kids, the end of my hormones behaving, the end of my waist being significantly narrower than my hips, the end of my roots only needing done every three months, the end of my believing I wasn’t a writer because I hadn’t become an international bestseller by the age of 25, the very start of the end of me realising that perfectionism was killing me and I needed to go into recovery. The end of the first half of my life (hopefully). 

Here’s what began as I celebrate at 54:

*A midlife as I never could have imagined. Redefined by circumstance, chance and choice.

*Single parenting three glorious girls who pushed me to my limits (not them, the [single] parenting bit).

*Shattering a bunch of self-limiting beliefs that I’d carried for decades: running a marathon (albeit likely to be the only one BUT STILL, my 34 year old self wouldn’t have believed it because she believed she wasn’t a runner; becoming a cold water swimmer by overriding a lifetime of believing cold water was unbearable and going for my first swimming lesson aged 48; becoming a healthy-ish eater of stuff like white beans and hummus (my student self who drank a litre of diet coke a day for three years of uni would definitely not have approved); tried for the craic and became a shaky, crap, windsurfer who doesn't care what it looks like as long as she gets the rush of wind for a few seconds before falling in; became that author, of two books, something my 24 year old self could only have dreamed of; going back to college; a builder of a business - not because I wanted to be a businesswoman but because I found a passion and got off the career ladder and onto the climbing wall of life; became a yoga-loving non-apologist.  And many more beginnings. 

And now with 55 ahead in a year, I know it will represent more ends - the end of my eldest being a child and living at home, most likely the end of having a dad, and I hope the end of my imposter syndrome so I can just focus on what I do (I’m getting there). But I know now there will be many more beginnings too. Because life is in constant flow, and as a coach I know how crucial it is to keep paying attention, especially to our Guiding Lights.

As a speaker, I talk about this unique and extended midlife, and how we won’t always follow a straight path. That we will have Guiding Lights that will follow and lead us throughout our lives; those passions and interests and talents that make us who we are. And as life gets messy in the middle, some of these lights can dim, or we ignore them, or have to set them aside. And sometimes we even forget them.  

The life I began is not the life I have. Neither is yours. Some of the boxes I checked didn’t work out and some became irrelevant as new interests, discoveries and experiences influenced me - as I’m sure with you. But often when I work with someone who is trying to get clarity, decide next steps or find the courage to make change, I help her trace back through her life to reveal the threads that have woven a consistent vein through her life, those Guiding Lights that have consistently made her feel connected with herself.

Checking in with yourself to reconnect, recharge, reset every so often means assessing where and how and who you are now, at this age and stage of life. That also means checking in to see what Guiding Lights need brightening, relighting, finding, following. 

I’m sitting in Kerry airport as I write this, to fly back to Dublin having just given a talk for International Women’s Day to an amazing group of businesswomen in Kerry. I talked about my hyphenated history, how where I am now as The Midlife Coach was not a straight road. How that wasn’t even a thing when I started out my career with ambition and student debt. That I am not one role, and not one story, but many, multiple layered stories. But when I look back, I can see the threads that wove me to where I am, and are forming the fabric of my life now and in the future.

How my Guiding Lights of storytelling, writing, learning have brought me to a place on my climbing wall that I couldn’t have imagined when I first set out to build a career and a life. Because in this extended midlife, it is more and more common that we jump about, improve, change, adapt.  And often we can get carried away in the current role and we forget who we once were, or what we enjoyed. In this hyphenated, extended, unique, redefined midlife, where do you need to jump to? How do you need to adapt? Where or what would you like to improve or change?

As part of my year long Midlife, redefined Daily Journal Guide, I give you 14 daily prompts every two weeks to help you journal each day (or as many as you can muster) to get, and stay, connected to yourself. The prompts below for the next two weeks are about exploring the threads of your fabric, and searching or refining your Guiding Lights.

For those of you newly following me on Your Midlife Matters (thank you for being here!) I’ve already explained how this year-long adventure with yourself will work in Power is in Your Hand. You can start this journalling guide at any time of the year because it’s not date related: The daily prompts from Weeks 1 to 8 are here.

In this year long adventure with yourself, this opportunity to spend a few minutes every day (or as many days a week as you can) thinking about yourself will transform your relationship with yourself and to matter more in your own midlife and to build self-knowledge and empower yourself to live life for you.

A quick reminder we are now starting the second section - Passion, Purpose & Priorities for the next 8 weeks The first 8 weeks was Self-Discovery and the third is Action and Living with Intention. Then we repeat these directions (with new prompts) for the second 6 months.

We started with self-discovery because you can make all the plans and checklists in the world, but if you aren’t coming from a place of current self-knowledge - who, how and where you are at this age and stage of life - you could be making the wrong plans, or signing up to someone else’s (culture, society, Instagram, the school gates, the patriarchy, your partner, your parent)’s version of success. 

So this section is all about reconnecting to all the parts of you that still are there that may not have had much attention. Or just needs to get a bit of a shine.  Or you have lived and loved and laughed and learned and have developed new areas of interest and discovered new talents 

For just €5 per month, this Midlife Daily Journal Guide (and lots of other content and discounts on coaching) is for my paid subscribers. For all my lovely subscribers there is my free Midlife Daily Journal Template in my previous post here which you can use as a guide each day - and what I use every day.

So let’s get into the prompts for Week 9 and 10 of your journaling journey.