How to make a smooth transition in midlife crisis
There is no instruction handbook, as with any questioning. Some people breeze through these years without experiencing a catastrophe.
Others go through a highly upsetting transition when the wish to discard everything coexists with the resurfacing of long-forgotten dreams and the hope of a whole different existence that is frequently very different from the one that was still appropriate the day before.
In actuality, we go through a different stage of individuation in midlife. According to Judith Petitpas, author of Living the Midlife Crisis Better, "it's a transition."
There are multiple stages to the individuation process: a progressive separation from our mother as a baby, a detachment from our parents as an adolescent, etc.
Carl Gustav Jung, a psychiatrist, was particularly intrigued by the idea of the individuation process. He proved that we go through a phase of accommodation during childhood and the early years of adulthood, acting in ways that make us feel safe and occasionally taking on the characteristics of a "character" that follows social norms or trends.
According to Marie-Josée Michaud, the author of 80 Hours a Week, "we are in the'must be' more than in the 'desire to be'". When Overachieving Turns Toxic.
To feel loved, accepted, and integrated, we have to be like everyone else. We feel pressure from outside of ourselves to succeed in life, often without even realising it.
According to psychologist Jean-François Vézina, the author of multiple books, including Self-realization in a World of Images, "it is a quest very typical of our time." It's not necessarily uncomfortable in this case.
Just "get used to it." However, as time passes, we begin to feel increasingly trapped by this phoney self. We experience a sense of being outsiders and imposters in our own life. Until the day comes when wearing this mask is really intolerable.
"My thirties passed by quickly! However, when I became 35, ugh! I felt elderly all of a sudden. When my mother was 35 years old, I recall her as a lady. But ME? Not me!
I became aware of all my flaws and began to fear becoming old before my time, among other things. Simply put, it was quite a shock "reveals 36-year-old Véronique.
Additionally, other shifts that rock our foundations arrive at this time in life. As they become older, our kids either stop needing us or move out. Individuals our age and close to pass away. Our parents age. Illnesses surface.
Though we are aware that we are no longer young, we are not yet elderly. All of a sudden, we understand that time is passing—and rapidly—and that we are running out of it.
A seemingly insignificant event is all it takes to set off a series of enquiries and reveal the intense urgency of life as we know it.