Midlife Mastery Journal

Just the fact of knowing what your emotional reactions to encountering change will most likely be (grief and fear), will also allow you to begin opening yourself up to the possibility of achieving an appreciation for the change process in your own life, and the rich rewards that are yours, if only you can train yourself (and your pesky emotions) to look beyond the momentary present discomfort to the growth experience that awaits you.

I’ve been working on a program to help guide people who are recovering from a serious (perhaps painful) life experience and are having trouble getting back up on their feet. It gave me the opportunity once again to explore the grieving process. Keep in mind that almost all life transitions result in the grief process, [...]

The bottom line is that, above all, Santa’s a guy, and guys are expect to just ‘suck it up’ and make the best of it all. I keep telling him that, especially at midlife, that can be so dangerous. It can lead to depression, or outbursts of anger at people that really don’t deserve to be treated that way.

Nobody has ever told you that arriving at this juncture was a normal part of your evolution as a mature person. It feels as though the situation is out of control, you’ve no one to blame but yourself, and you have no idea how you got into this mess, let alone how to get out of it.