Mid-life Crisis or Self-Expression?!

If you’ve followed me for a while you’ll know that I’ve felt a bit like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole for most of my life. One of the surprising consequences of my late husband dying was that I gained the confidence to say “F*** It!” to the world and start being myself, at long last.

I’ve listened to my love for being on the water

As those who are bereaved will most probably agree, the loss of someone you love is one of the most painful things that us human beings experience. Bizarrely from the moment I first met my husband my anxiety escalated because I worried that I would lose him… I thought it would it would happen in some Royal Marine operation, an accident during his adrenaline filled hobbies, or to another woman… but I never thought he might slowly die from cancer at only 38 years old, leaving me a solo parent of our two young children.

Feeling like you don’t fit anywhere led me to a place where I had so little self confidence or self compassion that my endless worries fell into overdrive… instead of listening to what I needed… I became a constant people pleaser. I focused on caring for others rather than caring for myself… and I tried to make things as perfect as possible for everyone else. This meant that I grew up to be an adult who hid her natural tendencies towards chaos, disorder and spontaneity and I learnt to disassociate from my own feelings, wishes and desires in order to hide my quirky real self away from the world.

So what’s this got to do with a mid-life crisis…

We’ve all read about “middle aged” individuals having some kind of psychological crisis as they become aware of their advancing years, and possibly their perceived lack of accomplishments in life. For some this may lead to feelings of depression and anxiety… which then may further lead to a desire to re-kindle our youth and/or make drastic changes to our lifestyles. I am sure that many other people felt affected by the unnatural lockdown that covid threw us into back in March 2020. For me the seemingly endless months in isolation led to what I called a mini existential crisis… I realised that I had paused my career in law, I didn’t want to be a widow, I was struggling to solo parent, I was cripplingly lonely… all this and more begun some serious soul-searching as I wondered what direction to turn to next.

I now own a huge horse!

A moment of reflection when I got my bellybutton pierced two years ago in the post-covid world (which for me was in my 40s 🙈!) opened my eyes to the fact that, since my husband had died, I had actually done many of the things I had always wanted to do… I had bought a van, had my belly button & my seconds pierced, changed my wardrobe, discovered wild swimming, taken on a horse, bought a stupidly expensive blow up kayak and more recently the latest jigsaw puzzle piece to fall into place has been my recent ADHD diagnosis.

Realising that a main cause of my problems results from the fact that my brain is programmed a bit differently to a lot of other people, has opened my eyes to the fact that what I really needed to do is to embrace being a square peg… and to acknowledge that a round hole simply isn’t where I belong! This revelation has brought me to conclude that for me all this stuff I had been doing had not been caused by a “mid-life crisis”. When you look up the definition of a crisis the font-of-all knowledge that is Google states that it is a “time of intense difficulty or danger”. Although I have lived through some tragic moments, I would argue that what I have been doing is more like a reawakening… I have finally found the confidence to do various things and feel various feelings that I had wanted for years. I have realised the faults in the lessons of my childhood that led to worries about other people’s criticisms, judgments and my own avoidance tactics… and instead of repressing my quirky natural side to conform to what I felt that society thought I “should” be doing… I am learning to embrace the real me!

I’ve embraced a love of festivals!

I can’t write about this topic without giving credit to something that’s been vital in helping me to embrace the “real me”… which is my counselling course and all the personal therapy and self-reflection that has been required. Our first essay on the course was on our sense of “self”… whilst writing it, I realised that there were many different parts of me, all fundamentally good but some had involved unfortunate collateral damage to my self-image. Although all our parts all have a desire to keep us safe… there were parts within me, such as my fierce inner critic and the endless workaholic, which had done more damage than good and which needed a new script.

I’m now passionate that we embrace the things that make us happy… I encourage others to listen to what really creates smiles and joy in their lives and to accept their differences. After all, life would be really boring if we were all the same and it’s what makes us unique that is our superpower… But, in order for us to create magical moments in life, we need to lean into what sets us apart in order to accept ourselves exactly as we are and learn to true be who we really are.

Whether you want to call it self-expression or a mid-life crisis… the past seven years have given me the self acceptance to finally find love for myself… and happiness in a way I never thought possible when I first became a widow. Don’t get me wrong, I still have monumental emotional wobbles… change is not easy and this is all new territory for me. However, I now try not to do things that are bad for my health just to please others, I no longer strive for perfection… don’t get me wrong, my standards remain high and I still care for my loved ones and enjoy making them happy too, but I’ve realised how important it is to truly listen to and act on what brings me joy. After all, we only get one shot at this thing called life, and as I learnt the hard way, sadly death is the only certainty for us all.

If you want to follow me on social media you can find me on Instagram @rainbowhuntingmoments, LinkedIn, Twitter @HuntingRainbow and Facebook… I also have a private group on Facebook and I have a beautiful monthly Splash newsletter with all my latest blogs, freebies and courses.

Finally, if you fancy sharing your thoughts on this article, you can email me at: emma@rainbowhunting.co.uk.