When does middle age begin? Most of us find that middle adulthood sneaks up on us and that we really don’t recognize it at first. In fact, few of us readily admit that we are in midlife or “middle aged.” Our culture favors the young and the strong. And we rarely see getting older as…
How do you know if you’re having a midlife crisis? And is that even “a thing” anymore? I’ve been writing in this middle adulthood space for a while and I’ve found that most women shy away from naming this middle adulthood phase as either midlife or crisis. We don’t want to admit that we’re in…
In her poem, Life’s Rainbow, Sheila Banani describes life as colorful beginnings, middles and endings. “Beginnings are lacquer red fired hard in the kiln of hot hope; Middles, copper yellow in sunshine, sometimes oxidize green with tears; but Endings are always indigo before we step on the other shore.” Sheila Banani, Life’s Rainbow, in When…
The middle of anything can be messy work, and we soon learn that while it’s uncomfortable, life is built in the transitions. In the middle of life, these transitions seem less predictable, harder than many of us anticipate. We know that changes will come, and mostly we expect them to be slow and gradual. We…
Are you a “next phase lost soul,” caught between phases of life? Throughout our lives, each of us experiences many transitions. Change brings both opportunity and anxiety, and sometimes a wealth of other emotions. In his work about navigating transitions, William Bridges wrote about The Neutral Zone, a reorientation phase between an ending and a…