Midlife Crisis: Can You Avoid a Midlife Crisis

Can You Avoid a Midlife Crisis?

Have you been feeling like your life is hurtling down the tracks like a train with no brakes?

You could be having a midlife crisis.

Can you put the brakes on and avoid it completely?

A midlife crisis can be like a freight train charging into your life at 100 miles an hour. The train can’t be stopped completely until the brakes have been applied and it has been slowed down to a manageable pace. If we don’t put the brakes on, it may well go out of control and come off the track completely.

This train departs from the platform of many people’s life at some stage, mostly between the ages of 40 and 60 but sometimes up to even 20 years younger. So if it happens in some form to most middle-aged people, can we stop it from happening to ourselves and do we want to?

Can we navigate our path away from a midlife crisis or is it inevitable that we just have to go through it? Better still can we make it a positive experience?

Let’s start by understanding just what a crisis is. A crisis is a very stressful experience involving a period of intense difficulty, trouble or danger accompanied by complicated decision making. Researchers say it usually comprises a series of unexpected and out-of-the-ordinary events that create massive uncertainty in our life and threaten our goals, values and lifestyle. Furthermore, a crisis brings with it a need for transformation as it becomes impossible to maintain our old system. So a crisis is unexpected, creates uncertainty from a perceived or real threat and provokes change in our life. If we understand what it is then hopefully that can help us in our management of a crisis.

Looking into that definition deeper, I would question the assumption that a crisis is always unexpected. Is it really totally unexpected? Sure it might appear to be unanticipated on the surface but are they a complete surprise or do we get signs or signals that something is wrong or changing that we just ignore?
Most of the crises that we face in our life are created by ourselves in some way, especially the midlife crisis. So it being ‘unexpected’ is often a result of us failing to take notice of the onset of crisis conditions. It is like the worn brakes on a vehicle; we might occasionally hear them screeching and maybe even feel them becoming less responsive, and if we ignore those signs, one day they will just fail on us, “when we least expect it”, and we will crash into something. A midlife transition is much the same. We receive signs and if we heed them and take appropriate action we can sidestep it developing into a dramatic crisis.

Why would we ignore such signals if it means we could avoid pain and trauma? Often it is because we don’t know what to look for or what it means. Some of our inability to recognise a crisis before it becomes dangerous is because we are in denial. Denial is the mind’s attempt, at a conscious or subconscious level, to provide misguided comfort and protection for our ego and emotions. That is, we try to control our mental environment to stay in our comfort zone – even when we are not happy in that zone.

When we are in denial we allow ourselves to be tricked into believing that we are doing something for reasons that are not really true. We make up excuses and explanations that are based on what we prefer to believe. We think about them so much that we start to actually believe the fantasy ourselves and ignore the reality of what is happening around and to us.

The saying “What we resist, persists!” is very true. These issues won’t go away by themselves if we ignore them. The messages will only get louder and harder to ignore until they hit us in the face and knock us around, sometimes physically. It is our struggle to accept what is happening to us and our inability to address the probable results of our actions that results in a traumatic midlife crisis.

If we approach these uncomfortable feelings with an explorative and open mind we can identify what we really need well before a crisis ensues. An “explorative mind” means asking why in relation to ourselves;

• Why do we think and act the way we do?
• Why do we create the world around us as we have?
• Why are we doing what we are doing?

The only person who can answer these questions is us, ourselves. We need to look inwards and may use tools and support through personal development books and courses, meditation, therapy, discussion groups and whatever works for each of us to find the answers from our inner guidance as to what is right for us.

Once we can answer our own questions with understanding of our self, our passions and our purpose, then we can make changes to bring in more of what we desire in our life. There will probably be some things to let go of and leave behind, but it is important to look inside to our inner guidance to find the reasons for how we are feeling and address that first. Then we can make considered changes to ourselves to bring more of what we crave into our life and relationships.

We also need to give ourselves permission to change what needs to be transformed in our life and our self. Maybe we need to change our job, our career, or maybe our relationships with certain people but it does not necessarily mean we have to end them all. It is more about changing ourselves, our attitudes, belief systems and our emotionally attachments (more about these in future articles).

Surrender, acceptance and an openness to change within ourselves will ease the transition. I am not saying it will be effortless and pain free, but we can make it easier on ourselves if we accept that transformation in ourself is both desirable and necessary. Sometimes the biggest lessons in life arise from the biggest pain.

So a midlife crisis is a life transition that cannot be avoided if we want to grow and evolve, as it is usually our inner guidance letting us know that our physical and material life is not in alignment with our spirit; therefore we are not on the path our spirit intends for us. The actual crisis can be avoided though and our life transition does not have to result in a chaotic breakdown and total interruption to our lives.
If we notice the signals and take action to create and accept change in our life, we can avoid the crisis developing and manage our transition in a more effective manner. When we do this we can open our imagination to attract what we feel drawn towards and welcome our midlife crisis into our life as a beautiful opportunity to explore and become more of who we really are. Then we will see the bright light of achievement at the end of the tunnel of change.

What brought you to this article? Do you think you are having or have had a midlife crisis? Grab yourself a cuppa and take a moment to consider these questions.

What signals did you see or miss leading up to your midlife crisis?

Did you manage to avoid it becoming a crisis? How?

We would love you to share your answers with us or post any comments or questions you have. We all learn from each other. We will answer your questions as soon as possible.

About the Author – Janeen Sonsie

Janeen‘s spheres of passion are real communication for prosperous relationships and blossoming through life transitions. She is an international speaker, facilitator and coach who helps people and organisations around the world Get Real Communication for Real People wanting Real Results. Janeen is the founder and editor of MojoCircle magazine. For more information see Our Experts page.