The Awakening They Call a Midlife Crisis
My forties didn't begin with confidence.
They began with collapse.
Looking back now, I don't think it was a coincidence. I think life was inviting me into a deeper version of myself, but I couldn't arrive there carrying all the identities, expectations, and unresolved wounds I'd accumulated over decades.
Something had to break.
I often hear people refer to what women experience in midlife as a "midlife crisis." I understand why. From the outside, it can certainly look that way. Careers shift. Relationships change. Our bodies transform. We question everything we've built.
But I see something else happening.
I see awakening.
Awakening is never graceful contrary to what IG spiritual teachers will tell you.
It isn't all meditation cushions, crystals, and peaceful mornings. Sometimes awakening looks like losing your job. Sometimes it looks like heartbreak, illness, financial uncertainty, or confronting the family dynamics you've spent years trying to outrun.
Awakening often begins with a crack.
My first crack came around thirty-six. I had always been interested in spirituality, but something became impossible to ignore. Life kept nudging me inward.
Then, just before forty, everything accelerated.
I lost my career in a way that deeply challenged my identity. Being fired forced me to ask who I was without the title I'd worked so hard to earn.
Instead of retreating, I started my private practice.
It terrified me.
There were days I questioned every decision I'd made. Financially, it stretched me beyond what felt comfortable. Yet every challenge was teaching me to trust myself in ways I never had before.
Soon after, another deeply painful event forced me to confront shame and public judgment in a way I never expected.
Then came emergency surgery when my appendix nearly ruptured.
Looking back, I can see these events not as punishments but as invitations.
Life kept stripping away every illusion of certainty until all that remained was me.
And underneath those external events were older wounds waiting patiently to be acknowledged.
Around that same period, my father had recently been released from prison after spending more than twenty-five years incarcerated. Being his support system brought forward emotions I hadn't fully allowed myself to feel: resentment, grief, responsibility, compassion, anger, and love existing side by side.
There were no simple answers.
Only opportunities to become more honest.
Being cracked open isn't only about surviving difficult events.
It's about allowing every emotion you've spent years avoiding to finally have a voice.
Shame.
Embarrassment.
Guilt.
Fear.
Grief.
These emotions aren't evidence that we're broken.
Sometimes they're evidence that healing has finally begun.
One of the greatest gifts of this season has been learning the difference between humiliation and humility.
For much of my life, humility sounded like making myself smaller.
Now I understand it differently.
Humility is the willingness to let life teach you.
It's releasing the illusion that you already know everything.
It's asking difficult questions instead of defending yourself.
What role did I play?
What patterns am I repeating?
What belongs to my family story rather than my own?
What strengths have I forgotten?
What parts of myself are waiting to be reclaimed?
These questions require courage because the answers aren't always comfortable.
Yet they are often where transformation begins.
This understanding has deeply influenced the way I work with women navigating midlife. Again and again, I witness women believing something has gone terribly wrong with them.
I don't think something is wrong.
I think something profound is happening.
The identities that once kept them safe are becoming too restrictive.
Their bodies are asking for rest instead of performance.
Their relationships are asking for honesty instead of accommodation.
Their souls are asking for authenticity instead of approval.
None of this feels comfortable.
Growth rarely does.
I'm still learning. I'm still healing. Family continues to reveal new layers. My work facilitating family constellations continues to uncover places where compassion and accountability can exist together.
I've stopped expecting healing to be a destination.
Instead, I see it as an ongoing conversation between who I have been and who I am becoming.
If your life feels like it's falling apart right now, I want to offer another possibility.
Maybe it isn't falling apart.
Maybe it's falling open.
Maybe what feels like the end of the life you knew is actually the beginning of the life your soul has been patiently waiting for.
The crack is not the failure.
The crack is where your truest life finally begins.
