Mid-Life Crisis Mindfulness :-)

[Metaphysical Me]

Well, I don't know that I want to get into my whole "mindfulness story" - I have sooo been there and done the whole "examining my past" thing, that I'm not sure I feel like covering old ground yet again...

And that also fits in quite nicely with "where I'm at" nowadays.

I've been in a mid-life crisis for about 6 months now.

I'm calling it that, cos although I'm only 36, that's *exactly* what it feels like.

It's got all that "the first part of my life is over, bring on the second half" stuff going on. And mindfulness is a big part of that.

About six months ago, I started realising that "it's time now" to truly change my life. I'd been having this nagging feeling for a long time - always trying to change stuff, but it not really working, nothing really sticking or at least not making the difference that I had hoped for. And then half a year ago, there was suddenly this sense of "this is it".

I'm thankful of being in the "first-world-luxury" position of being able to afford a fully-fledged mid-life crisis. I'm able to put most of my work on hold and take time to allow this process to run its course and to take me where it will.

And mindfulness is helping me as my main tool for assessing the first half of my life and in finding out "where I'm at now" and where I'd like to go from here.

While things have been getting clearer over the past six months (at the outset I had no clue about any of those questions and answers) things are still relatively subtle and hazy now, too. But my sense of where I am and where I'm going is getting deeper and stronger all the time.

I'm loving the process of my mid-life crisis, can you tell? Have done so, from the moment it started. Perhaps that is in part due to the fact that I don't have kids or other dependents, so that I don't have guilt playing a role in taking time and space for myself. And that my situation is not full of constraints, so that I'm not constantly frustrated about not being able to go along for the ride of my mid-life crisis...

Anyway, not sure sure what else to post about this right now. But I guess it's a good starting point for me to start naming where I'm at. Cos as I said in my "Introductions" post, I'm kind of excited (but also kind of shy) about talking to others about mindfulness!

XXX Janey

[JonW]

Hi Janey.
If you've got any questions to ask about mindfulness practice, I'm sure the members of this forum would be happy to answer them.
Best regards, Jon

[Metaphysical Me]

Thanks, Jon, I will.

Today has been a challenging day, but I'm continuing to move further along my mid-life crisis path.

What I find difficult at the moment is getting up in the morning. As I've written, during my mid-life crisis phase, everything is "reset", everything is up for debate, nothing feels certain anymore.

So, in the mornings, I find it hard to be clear about "what" I want to do today and with what motivation. And since I've always been a terrible sleepy head in the mornings, I'm not really thinking very clearly at that hour, which doesn't help with working out what to "do" with the day.

Of course, there's some things that just need to get done - like walking the dog, for one, and getting some work done, but apart from that, there's quite a lot of "spare" time left over, that I want to fill in a meaningful, mindful way.

But, out of habit, I'm so used to filling my day with work, errands, mind-less stuff instead. It's what I, like so many others, have been taught to do with my life.

Changing that habit is a real challenge.

Sure, I get my mindfulness practice in each day, but there's still some elements missing. I don't know how to describe it - it's just out of reach, and I keep practising and waiting for "progress".

It's so weird - it's like being in a dream and there's something in the dream that you need to do or reach, but it's elusive, behind a thin veil and you can't quite grasp it.

It's kind of difficult, waiting. I get frustrated sometimes, but everything inside me is telling me to keep going, to keep practising and to keep waiting, so I guess that's what I'll do.

I do love everything being in upheaval and being new - it feels like such an adventure. But on a day-to-day level, I sometimes get so impatient.

[JonW]

Maybe start the day with a meditation? Ten minutes before walking the dog? Often works for me.
Though Banjo the spaniel isn't amused when his early morning walk is delayed. There's lampposts need spraying out there...

[piedwagtail91]

running errands and walking the dog can be done mindfully.
i go mindful dog walking every morning!

you don't need to change your life , just the way you relate to it and the things you do every day.

[Metaphysical Me]

That's a great idea, Jon, thanks!

I guess I've been finding the challenge of starting - and continuing - the day in a mindful, meaningful manner such a challenge, that I've (sleepily) run away from it in the mornings. Don't you just love avoidance, as a habit?

My initial reaction on reading your suggestion was "Ugh, but that will just postpone the stress of the day by 10 minutes" - and while, yeah, there's *some* truth in that, I do know that the meditation will help and that things *do* look and feel different after a meditation than before. Maybe 10 minutes of "first-thing-morning-mindfulness" will really help start transforming my mornings.

At the moment, I feel like sleep - and especially the comfort of snoozing - is so relaxing, so peaceful, so centred. In contrast, "the day" is something I experience as a huge pile of errands, commitments, work, phone calls, demands, chance occurrences, etc. That's what I'm used to "the day" feeling like, in my life so far.

Instinctively, I shy away from diving into the day's fast-paced hassles, problems and tasks.

So, obviously this is something I'm changing in my mid-life crisis phase. I don't want my days to be something that feels more or less stressful.

And while I used to be able to *force* myself to just get up and do the day's work (because of motivations like "earning money", "being a decent person", "it's the done thing", etc) I find that I don't want to have to force myself through life, for the rest of my life anymore.

I want life to feel like it's basically okay - even if there are boring elements, or elements that are hard work - but basically something that I'm willing / happy to get up for in the mornings. Something that feels like it could be as nice as rolling over and continuing to snooze...

It's a real challenge, allowing myself to find this new content for my life and my days. It's scary territory, sometimes, "taking the path less travelled". There are no maps, and only intuition to guide you...

But I feel like there *must* be a way of living each day, without the stress and pressure that our modern, western, capitalist style of living has become.

I will definitely add a 10 minute first-thing meditation to the start of each day.

Oh - one thing that I'm also finding a challenge in all this, as I change the fundamentals of my life - is that I find a lot of emotions surfacing throughout the day.

I'm not sure what to "do" with them! I've been taught to ignore them / consider them as "inappropriate" or "unprofessional". I've grown used to seeing feelings as a bother, something that stops you from "functioning smoothly".

Now, as I'm shifting towards a different lifestyle, I find emotions surfacing *all over the place*! And not nice, easy emotions like happiness, excitement, or even neutral ones like boredom or hunger, but real tough ones like anger, resentment, frustration, indignation, rebellion, aversion, etc, etc - you get the picture.

Part of me thinks "Okay, cool, let's be mindful with these challenging emotions then". But if I do that, I could spend all day being mindful with these emotions and getting *nothing* done. So I kind of compromise - sometimes trying to be mindful about all the challenging feelings that come up, and sometimes just trying to ignore them and getting the day's work done, despite all the unwillingness I may be feeling.

I think it's fair enough that these emotions are present - I've certainly supressed them for more than 2 decades. So, I'm kind of glad they're there. But it's also a bit like mucking out a huge stable that's not been cleaned in a looong time - I feel like I'm knee deep in manure, with no end in sight

All this isn't terrible... It just makes my days, ummm "challenging" at the moment

Hmm. I think I need to find a formal daily mindfulness practice for being with difficult emotions, too.

It's time to stop running away from them all. I'm a big girl now. Time to face them inner demons with mindfulness and equanimity.

XXX Janey

[Metaphysical Me]

running errands and walking the dog can be done mindfully.
i go mindful dog walking every morning!

you don't need to change your life , just the way you relate to it and the things you do every day.

Hi Piedwagtail,
you're absolutely right. I know.
I do want to change some of the things I do in my life and my day.
But I do realise that the main work is changing how I relate to it.
But that's a huge amount of work too, haha!
Ah, well, all this mindfulness work is keeping me busy at least - keeping me out of trouble

[Metaphysical Me]

I do think that some of my stress and negative feelings about some of the work I do and the errands I run is a sign that, or the result of, the fact that I'm running the wrong errands.

So, I don't want to just be more peaceful about running the errands that I *do* run... For some errands that is true. But not for all of them. Some of them are definitely things that no longer "sit right" with my life - and they haven't done so for a long time, but I've ignored that in order to "get things done" and now I need to sit down and face the fact that those errands need to "go".

Do you get what I mean?

I feel like I'm doing a major spring clean of my life. A lot of stuff can stay, some I want to change my approach to, but some stuff is also looong overdue to go.

[Metaphysical Me]

Well, I did my first-thing mindfulness practice this morning. Yay

I do feel a little less stressed, a little less like I'm on automatic pilot.

Long way to go yet, tho. Oof

[Metaphysical Me]

Hmm, just had a thought: maybe I should stop planning "the whole day" and just focus on what I'm going to do during the next hour.

I mean, obviously as regards appointments and work, I will have to schedule in some tasks at set times, but I guess I can just "ignore" those until I get to them.

Maybe just focussing on the single hour in front of me is more in line with "being in the present moment", too.