Midlife Mastery Journal

The holidays can be particularly challenging for men and women at midlife. There are attitudes that you can adopt that transform your holiday season into something very special.

Remember back to when you were the only person in the entire world who ever felt this way: the time of favorite songs (that made your heart ache) and trying to do the ‘right’ things with the ‘right’ people at the ‘right’ time so that maybe eventually you’d belong? Remember how you felt when you were convinced that you didn’t belong? like you’d never belong? like nobody understood you? like you were alone?

In most cultures like ours, the show of emotion can be taken by others as well as ourselves as a sign of weakness or being out of control. For many reasons, emotions are suspect, and therefore uncomfortable. Rather than identify them, face them and express them openly, we find it easier to medicate them whenever possible.

Want some help? Here’s a little exercise that I’ve put together for you to help you to work through this transition.

What if, at some point along the gray, uneven flagstones that you shuffle over as husband, parent, provider, protector, and all those other hats that you wear from early morning until late at night without respite, you suddenly found yourself face-on with a seemingly-unbeatable foe or an insurmountable challenge? What would you do? . . . What could you do? . . . What will you do?