Reaching midlife has its ups and downs. You’ve worked hard and deserve to reap some of the benefits of your investments in life. The kids are either gone or rarely spend time at home. Life and its new horizons stretch out before you — beckoning you to partake in new and unexplored ways.
It’s often hard to move from a role with which you have always been associated to something else. To explore parts of yourself with new-found curiosity and courage.
Perhaps part of you aches for an expanded sense of yourself. Perhaps another part of you is afraid, uncertain of what that change looks like or how it feels. This is normal. Change is both inviting and scary; interesting but fraught with uncertainty.
Often at the root there is fear of shame or humiliation. If you take that sailing lesson or dance class, you might fail and make a fool of yourself. Maybe you simply won’t enjoy that new activity.
These reservations are understandable. But look to the kid in us that says, “Oh, the hell with it; so what if I fall down, I can always get up.”
Often due to childhood pain, we separate our lives into categories. Psychology calls that black-and-white thinking. Most of our lives, however, are lived in shades of gray and color. While we may be afraid to take that camping trip to the mountains, we also are able to feel excitement and wonder. We have the capacity as humans to feel different emotional states at the same time. Normal once again.
We need courage to step into change. And kindness toward ourselves.
Some suggestions:
Go back, way back to when you were small, say 5 or 6 years old. Close your eyes and try to remember what you loved to do.
Was it playing with a train set or a favorite doll? Did you spend a lot of time outdoors? Did you like cooking, watching your mother or father in the kitchen with curiosity?
Which simple pleasures led to times of fun? There was a time when fun wasn’t about having fancy gadgets and electronics but about fueling the imagination and creativity around fantasy.
Exploring aspects of us with which we may have lost touch is simply that. It is never too late to go back; to rekindle and explore all our childhood interests — even those we dimly wondered about but were not able to develop back then.
Perhaps today you are able to step into territory that has always been there waiting for you. Remember, getting started rarely requires extreme measures … a little here, a little there. Who knows what you may discover about yourself.