Who are you, really?

Midlife is a chance to be more you

Oct 24, 2024

One of the magical moments of midlife is when the mystery of who we are starts to unravel.

For most of our lives, women live with a deeply unconscious (and occasionally sloppy in-your-face conscious) cognitive dissonance of the Good Girl Should Version you are told to be, versus the Real Life Actual Version you hear screaming in your ransacked brains every so often.

I love the Brit Barron quote from her book Worth it where she prompts you to ask yourself: Is my life a reflection of who I want to be, or a reaction to the people I don’t want to upset?”

What a question. What an answer, many of us might give. And if I’m honest, depending on my mood and audience, I can be both a reflection and a reaction in different areas of my life.

I do know this though. The more I wade through life, and as I catch my bearings in midlife, I know I am becoming less of that reaction, and aiming as much as I can for more of the reflection of who I am.

It is our goal as women. We are the generations who are slowly moving society from a patriarchal system towards an equitable one, and so our mission must be to come out from under the one-size-fits-all-off-the-rack-skin that started to cover us as we grew up, into our own sense of self, and a skin we feel comfortable in because it is solely, uniquely ours.

I think so many of the stats around women suffering burnout and exhaustion and stress is we’re just get exhausted from all the trying. I know I feel that. The constant trying to figure out who I’m supposed to be, rather than spend that energy trying to figure out who I am. And as I meander through this extended midlife, my energy is shifting more and more towards the latter. And it is the wonder of this unique mid-life which is bursting with potential and brimming with pressure.

What about you? Can you feel the difference between the Good Girl Should Version you are told to be, versus the Real Life Actual Version?

The real you?

The you that thinks, the you that has a constant chat to yourself all through your day, in the background bickering and bitching with yourself, even while your “on” self is speaking to someone or doing some work? The one who is watching the other two parts of you fight with each other like snappy sisters bickering over a top, until you get bored of yourself and go for a lie down.

Women are conditioned to be one thing - compliant, caring Good Girls and yet, we are humans, with all kinds of desires and ambitions. And because we don’t always understand the sea we are swimming in, we try to contort ourselves into that fashion and culture-dictated size, rather than explore and express the “real us”.

Midlife is a time when the cognitive dissonance really kicks in - when the gap between the versions starts to become unavoidable to straddle. That’s because world we are living in - a social structure not built for or by us - is often at odds with the reality of what we know.

We are constantly being emotionally energetically drained by the conflict of what we are supposed to think and what we really think. We know we are supposed to have it all, but it also feels really wrong that all the pressure and responsibly are on our shoulders.

Women have been socialised differently to men. We don’t live and work and breath in the same worlds. It looks like we share homes, and collaborate in workplaces, and socialise in the same bars, but how we navigate those spaces and how we view ourselves in them is very different.

Midlife is this incredible time to open our eyes and starting Minding the Gap.

Like a Post It note on our brain, we were told to be a certain way, to shape shift and contort our bodies and behaviours to fit the cultural expectation of the day.

When my brother went out on a Saturday night he was told to have fun. When I went out I was told to be good. And now, as I start to redefine who I really am, I realise that the best version of men to listen to is the real one.

Who am I , really?

The writer Cheryl Strayed wrote that in early life we ask ourselves: Who am I? And in midlife we get to ask a better question: Who am I really?

My work is all about helping women ask that question and then find the answers to how to live accordingly.

I was told certain things when I grew up that turned out to be wrong. A lot of those things where about men and what was allowed, and what I should just shut up and put up with.

My first job was at 15 in a hotel. There was “banter” from the older men, lewd jokes and the occasional touch but I was told that I should just laugh and accept it. It was the 1980’s and “boys will be boys” and so my inner self had to shut down her reality which was to tell them all to Fuck off.

Then I had a Saturday job in a fruit & veg shop. I never particularly liked the 40-something man who would deliver the huge platters of produce that needed to be stocked in the big back fridge room where I was often sent to replenish the front of store shelves. Even at that age you knew who to avoid.

One Saturday I happened to be in there grabbing some apples when he arrived carrying a large tray of lettuces. Before I knew it he had closed the thick heavy door to the fridge room, essentially locking me in with him, and was gunning for a kiss. His tongue was lashing around my face while his hands clambered around trying to get under my jumper. I was 15.

Still with one very clear Good Girl Should Version of me remembering to ‘be nice now, and don’t make the man feel bad’, I tried to laugh it off as I (gently) manoeuvred away from him to the big door.

Nearly 40 years later, I can still remember the walk home to my house later that day, as I tried to reign in the riotous opinions and thoughts in my head. The voices dictated by Good Girl Should Version telling me it was my fault, that I was somehow responsible and to just be quiet and no-one will be annoyed with you. Did I embarrass him in anyway and would he make trouble for me?

The voices dictated by my Real Life Actual Version was outraged and hurt and knew, KNEW, that he was in the wrong. But this was the 1980s and Jimmy Saville and Benny Hill were in their hey day. So I made the decision not to tell my parents. I remember that walk to this day, and how lonely I felt. No-one had shown me how to Mind the Gap.

The reason I’m telling this story is that I cannot now imagine one of my daughters experiencing that and having a moment’s doubt that their outrage is right.

That the situation is the same but the cognitive dissonance between what they are told is right versus what they KNOW is right - in this instance - has changed somewhat.

That doesn’t mean for a second they don’t have different or worse Good Girl Should Versions (they have many, the obvious ones being around image). The point being - women always have two versions - the one that is real and the one that is expected.

Midlife is a crucial time to start closing the gap.

I’m 55 in February and I’m still evolving as a person and a women….and a huge part of that is being proactive about choosing to live by the truer version where and when I can. To even acknowledge there are two, and that I can choose.

A lot of my coaching is helping women understand the various voices in their heads. In the Good Girl Should Version there is usually one dominant voice. This is either guilt, shame, or fear. In the quieter, less known Real Life Actual Version, there are voices of wisdom, pride and ambition. To live a more balanced life you have to bring forward some of the less vocal voices.

I’d love you to think about your two versions, and how you think, behave and relate to others in each and see if you can actively try to choose more which version is going to make your midlife of your own making.

For my paid subscribers, just email me at alana@alanakirk.com or reply to this and I’ll give you a little template I sometimes give to clients to help them use their various voices to deal better with a situation.

I absolutely love hearing from you, and I’d love to know if you can see the two versions of yourself, so please join me in the comments below (if you’re reading this in an email, please click on the link below to go through to the website to join the conversation.)

Who are you, really?

Midlife is a chance to be more you

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