Midlife Mastery Journal

If you’re at midlife, or if you’re facing seemingly-catastrophic loss, if you’re feeling lost, purposeless, directionless and completely bereft of any semblance of spirituality, rejoice! Your spiritual awakening is here!

So long as we’re stuck in the ‘me-centered’ universe of adulthood, challenges and adversity will continue to appear to us to be focused on us (because that’s where our unconscious focus lies, and that’s the perspective from which we view everything that happens around us).

You may still think that, when circumstances change drastically (like they do at midlife), reinventing yourself would seem to be a very wise thing to do. I say ‘seem to be’ because that’s all based on your set of assumptions. You assume that it’s possible to ‘reinvent’ yourself, and you further assume that you know how to do it.

You may find managing important duties and issues a real ego-boost, but by staying focused on the big deals and neglecting the little facets of your life — in your career, your relationships and your own personal health and well-being — you risk descending into crisis and losing it all. Success in life and love depends entirely on how well you pay attention to the humblest of details.

Stubbornly refusing to rethink the tactics that used to work so well, your focus shifts to making the pain stop. Where do you find your relief? Whatever you’ve adopted as your principal method of stress relief: that’s your drug of choice.