It’s Not a Mid-Life Crisis: It’s a Mid-Life Awakening
My life has literally been flipped upside down. Not in a bad way. I shook shit up. For any of you that believe in the power of the mind, will understand that I literally manifested my life to exactly where it is, right now.
I longed for something else for so long. I felt empty.
Again, checked off the boxes of the things I was told I should do, ought to do, etc.
It’s so fascinating to me now, at almost 40 years old, how misguided I was. And why was I misguided, because I listened to everyone else.
It is my utmost desire to inspire, guide, and make space for others who feel resentful for not living the life of their dreams, who are tired of the mundane life they are living, who feel lack of inspiration in their life, who want to break free from who they currently are, and find who they really yearn to be.
And after many years of working for “the man”, listening to the chatter of others, the complaining of life, the unfairness in bureaucracy, the pencil whipping in life- I decided to forge another path.
When I quit my 15-year career in Human Resources, I found Life Coaching. Luckily, I had a supportive husband at the time who allowed me to quit my job without additional income and go back to school to pursue my passion for helping people heal.
When I signed up for life coaching- I didn’t know that it would open me up. Learning how to coach others, started with me learning how to coach myself. But how can you coach someone, if you don’t know them?
I had to learn about myself. And what I learned about myself is that I was very unhappy. I was unhappy in a marriage, in a career, in a life that I had built for myself.
I wasn’t an unhappy person, but deep down inside, I was hurting. Badly. To the point where my physical body decided to convulse into two seizures to purge some very unhealthy things, I was doing to my body all of my life.
As an empath, I knew how to read between the lines. I picked up people’s feelings, emotions. Often things they were unable to say, but I knew in their heart it was fighting to come out. I overanalyzed at times what people said, how they said it when they said it. And for me, that was extremely unhealthy.
Someone once said to me, “it’s none of your business what others think of you, it’s only your business what you think of yourself.” Wow. That hit me hard when I heard it, and I carried it forward with me.
Because as a girl, growing up- I saw how I was groomed to care so much about what others felt, thought, did. And as an empath, that shit hit ten times harder.
I groomed myself to be liked. Although I didn’t like myself all that much.
I groomed myself to be like others. Although sometimes I didn’t like the company I even kept.
Then after finishing coaching school, starting up my own business, and continuing down the road of curiosity with being a lifelong learner, I awoke.
I awoke to see that it is all in my hands. I am the driver. I make the calls. I choose my friends. I choose the job. I choose what I put into my body.
Once I realized that I could change the trajectory of my life- I fucking did it.
After a marriage of 11 years, trying to make it work (even thinking outside of the box in our marriage to keep it afloat), I decided to leave it. Well, we both decided to leave it. But it took many months of crying, conflicted thoughts and emotions, journaling, and looking deep down inside Rachael to realize that I wasn’t living the life I knew that I was meant to live.
Sure if I wanted to continue with what I had already created which was stability and comfort- I could keep forging through with that. It wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t even all that bad, but it wasn’t what I knew, I deserved, nor was it what I knew I could be, and to that other person (and visa versa).
And the path I am on now isn’t necessarily the easiest, but it is the most rewarding for me. Because it allows me to listen to myself. It allows me, even amid loneliness, sadness, fear, and pain- I know that I am in the driver's seat, and there is no one else I trust more than myself.
Separating from my husband, reading over divorce paperwork, living on my own, making ends meet, making hard choices, loving my body, embracing the uncertainty of the future, and living in the now has taught me so much about myself.
I am someone who feels very connected to the universe, to God/Source, and every more importantly, to myself. For me, connecting to myself has required me to spend a lot of alone time, deciding on if the stories I am telling myself (typically negative stories) are true or are a lie based on past patterns.
And from my experience, once you spend time with yourself, quiet your mind and realize that other peoples opinions of you do not matter, but what you think of yourself does- then that’s the key to start the path to the awakening of what your heart has been dying to convince you of. Be your best friend. Make your most important relationship with yourself.
Now is the time. And literally, the universe is requiring us to look deep down inside of ourselves to evaluate where we are, and where we want to go. Nothing is harder than right now. Between covid, deaths, the economy, politics, global warming, homelessness, etc.- shit is hard. My question is do you want to continue down the hard path- or find the path of least resistance?
If you want to choose the path YOU want to create, which is the path of least resistance when you quiet your mind and listen to YOU, you will hear and see exactly what YOU want and YOU deserve to set yourself FREE.
For some helpful writing prompts to discover the repeated stories you’ve told yourself that continues to replay in your mind and hold YOU back from being who YOU want and desire to be, reach out to me for some soul wound discovering processes I’ve picked up in life and working with other coaches. I’d be honored to walk alongside your path in healing and growing!
rachael@mygrowingspace.com
