Finding Meaning in Midlife

I was crying deeply for at least 20 minutes, barely coming up for air. The thought came through, nothing is real, nothing is real.

I have pondered the definition of reality for quite some time. To me, reality is my energetic vibration expressed in this dimension. My energetic vibration is rooted through experiences that allows me to grow, create, and heal and released through my experience of wins, losses, loves, laughs, and cries.

But, the intensity of my crying episode prodded me to investigate my roots deeper. What was I really expressing when I said to myself, “Nothing is real”? I had no clue.

In October 2017 I turned 42, my outburst occurred in January 2018. The topics I had been mulling over for months were leading me towards a new foundation from which I would perceive life.

Anatomy of My Midlife Crisis
Happiness
Happiness has acted as a guide in my life, helping me make decisions to form the trajectory of my journey. My formula was simple: know yourself, act on intuition, and make choices that benefit the whole of society. I had decided to write an article on how to construct happiness using the formula as a guide. As I dove into writing I noticed that by placing focus on constructing happiness, I had been avoiding feelings relating to impermanence, an uncomfortable topic for me. This is when my existential crisis began to ignite. I was being confronted with an opportunity for personal growth and I needed to be open to receive the lessons. It was time to explore my fears and worries around impermanence. I pushed forward, confronting my feelings around creativity, death, stability, and use of time.

Creativity
I have always wanted to be a professional psychic. Through years of personal study and schooling, I have developed skills that allow me to help others with these skills. However, finding clients that are a match to my offerings has been a challenge. To build a successful business I thought I needed to become an “expert” in web development, marketing, data analyzation, photography, and writing, let alone have the skills required of my profession. While these tools have helped me develop my voice, time spent in their development has meant less time in my meditation practice and psychic and mediumship work, with family and friends, and adventures is nature. I began to ask myself, what is my meaning of success? Are my expectations of my work reasonable? Ultimately, I identified the question that needed investigation: Do my intentions for my work match with my life's values and priorities?

Death
I often help people who are in the process or losing a loved one, recently lost a loved one, or who are working through a relationship with a loved one that has passed. While employing my clairvoyant ability allows me to read clearly and be well protected from emotional interference, these consultations are highly emotional for those involved. I often leave the consultation deeply grateful and humbled to be involved in such an important transition in the client’s life as well as receive such profound insight into the human experience.

I have seen the energy of people days before they pass, when they are still fighting, or surrendering, or have their family near to support them in their process. I speak with beings who have committed suicide, been murdered, or who are in their later years and afraid to pass, unsure of what awaits them on the other side. Other times I speak with beings who have passed years ago. They enter the consultation space to communicate with their loved ones to offer their love and support. Sometimes the beings are so excited at getting a chance to express themselves through me that I receive a hug, healing, or thank you from them, breaking my barrier as the Medium to a participant in the consultation.

I am the communicator for my clients, the Medium between dimensions. Through my foundation in meditation I am firmly planted in this dimension, but I work the space between the the transition from death on this planet to life in the next. Life is as real in this dimension as it it to the beings in other dimensions. There is nothing different between our need for existence and theirs. The value in existence is our creation, in how we give to ourselves, others, and society.

Even though I have gathered this understanding of life, death, and dimensions through my experiences, I am still not resolved when pondering my own mortality. My To Do List is long, my itinerary for experience is deep, I still have a lot of work I want to do here. I am not so much concerned about leaving a legacy or mark on society as much as I am about having the opportunity of time to create what I want and help those that are a good match for my offerings.

It is hard to sit in my uncomfortableness with my own death while simultaneously being involved in the experience of it for so many others. 

Stability
I began to think that if happiness is a construct of experience and not the meaning of life, and impermanence and death are consistently inherent, then what the heck is the meaning of stability? What is the difference between spiritual stability and physical stability. Is there a difference? What makes someone feel stable in their life? Further, I couldn’t analyze the question of stability without considering money as a foundational piece of this attribute. I questioned, what is my relationship to money? What makes me feel successful and/or affluent?

Time
If the foundation of life is impermanence, what tasks in my day support the intentions I have constructed to help me create in this life, what detract? I needed some gauges so I considered my priorities: I want to embrace healthy relationships, a healthy and strong body, a good spiritual practice, and work in alignment with my skills and desire to be a good contributor and positive force in society.

Managing the Growth Period
January through March felt messy as I dug through all of these topics trying to combine their existential attributes with a practical application. I had difficulty focusing, at the end of the day I was left wondering how I had spent my time. I usually have a game plan and like to stay on task. Spinning in the glory of chaos was a difficult adjustment. I referenced an article I had written for Sedona Journal of Emergence in August 2017, 2018 Predictions. The article explained the tide of the energy I was experiencing and how to manage it through the use of intentions. I followed the article's lead and received some comfort to know I was moving with the energy instead of against it or ignoring it.

Catalyst for Breakthrough, Embracing Impermanence
I tried to meditate regularly through the experiencing, but it is hard to sit in meditation when you are already facing the energy in all the moments of the day. But, the trick to meditation is consistency and its ability to get you out of a deep pickle. Finally one day, I was in meditation examining the roots of my crying outburst. I used my tools to create a stable and protected meditation foundation helping me ground and release energy (see Mentorship for more information). Suddenly what came from the space was the need to embrace impermanence. I flowed with the feeling, acknowledging the central foundation of existence is impermanence, and consequently began facing every fear from which I had been hiding.

I began to redefine my everything.

Happiness
Happiness is not the meaning of life. Happiness is a byproduct of making mindful choices made in accordance with my intentions for creation, values and priorities. It is an expression, helping me gauge the momentum of my co-creating process.

Creativity
The human experience is expressed through the ability of being a creator. I create to form an alignment with my intentions. My intentions are steps to manifesting my journey, an expression of my unique voice. There is no promise that my creations will form my intentions into manifestation, but that does not entirely matter. My fulfillment comes from the process of creation and gift of growth.

Death
When I enter the experience of impermanence, I lovingly move away from any attachment to my intentions forming an outcome or expectation. I find focus and freedom in the present moment as it is my opportunity to express my voice and find enjoyment in living.

Stability
Stability is formed and monitored through a process. By continuously clearing my life from unnecessary things, poor relationships, and expectations that do not match my values and priorities, I clear my path to act on mindful choices allowing me to experience fulfillment in the present while providing for my future.

Time
​I loosely construct the pieces of my day around my values and priorities. This helps me focus while allowing space for inspiration. I take time to find the beauty in life’s details. Enjoying a breakfast lit by candlelight, a perfect cup of coffee in the afternoon to counterpoint the immediacy of my to do list, a walk with my pup checking out every rock, bush, and tree trunk that holds a story for him.

Creating A Relationship With Impermanence
In my practice, I see people’s lives changing dramatically in one moment, asking us to adjust immediately. When we allow ourselves to adjust, we move forward relatively effortlessly and feel like we are flowing with our life. When we resist the adjustment we feel stuck. We are not equipping ourselves with the courage to face life as a person different than who we knew ourselves to be.

Embracing impermanence asks us to get honest and focus on the present.
How has my intuition been hinting to me?
How do I really want to use time in my day?
What are the acts or relationships that pull energy from me?
What are the acts or relationships that make me feel alive?
Notice what is coming up.
Ride with the fears. 
Ride with the tears.
Note what is inspiring!
Allow the moments of insight to flow and reveal themselves.
Sit in this process, proceed with your day’s plan.
Allow time to feel excited or in anticipation, 
pain or uncertainty, 
or the black of the unknown.
Watch what you receive.
Continue to explore with follow up questions: 
What skills do I enjoy using that also add value to society?
What do I love that also inspires my ability to create?
What components comprise a day that feels highly valued and fulfilling to me?

Then give yourself some more time and watch what you receive.

Noticing patterns or responsibilities that feel discouraging?
Don’t let those get you down!
They are gold nuggets, asking you to adjust and edit. 
This can be done through a change in perspective, a decision, or the hunt for a new resolution.

When we co-create with impermanence, we are editing and refocusing our intentions with our values and priorities, creating a more harmonious match, and uncovering our path and unique ability to serve society. Create time to plan how to adjust and edit your life to more closely match your discoveries.

#1 Detractor of Embracing Impermanence: Comparing Ourselves to Other
When we prioritize comparing ourselves to others and following the status quo, we are creating a life not based on what we want, but what we think we should want. We are matching an ideal we have constructed from observing others, using our vision of their life for our own. When we use our precious time and energy in this manner, we have handed over our power, dismissed our intuition, and constructed a life based on a lie we created, leaving us feeling unsuccessful and disconnected from our true dreams.

How we express our power is our choice. Are we going to use our power to imitate someone else’s life, creating it in our image, for ourselves. Or, are we going to use it to know ourselves, act on intuition, and make choices that benefit the whole of society?

When embracing impermanence, we experience the present moment more fully, acting on our values and priorities and allowing inspirations to lead us into our future.

#1 Optimizer for Embracing Impermanence: Expressing Our Magic
The present moment needs room to breathe. To allow inspiration and spontaneousness we need to allow the space for its expression. We have to leave room for our magic to express itself.

Meaning In Midlife
It has taken me five months to construct this article. It has been grueling to organize words in a manner that closely matches the anatomy of my midlife crisis. I needed to write, organize, re-write, and complete this article for self-understanding, knowing that I will re-work this entire article again and again, as I gain knowledge into what I am learning. 

To help me understand my values and priorities, at the beginning of the year I wrote intentions for what I wanted to create. I edited them recently, based on what I had learned. I structure the tasks in my day around tasks that help me fulfill my intentions while leaving space for enjoying the details of my routine, time in nature, in meditation, and with my family and friends. I know if I am on the right track if I go to bed with a smile on my face in anticipation of what I get to create the next day.

​This midlife crisis is helping me drop processes and emotions that were no longer productive and courageously walk with my spirit into a new vision for my life.

Published in Sedona Journal's September 2018 issue. Available at many natural food stores and online.