Jody Brooks 0:01

You're not falling apart, you're waking up. If you're somewhere between 35 and 65, life feels like it's cracking open, the identity you built no longer fits, and the future feels terrifying, nobody around you seems to get it. Welcome, I'm Jodie Brooks, and this is Messy Midlife. Because this isn't a crisis, it's a calling to connect. Hello and welcome to the first episode of Messy Midlife. It's not

– Welcome to Messy Midlife

Jody Brooks 0:29

a crisis, it's a calling to connect. I'm Jodie Brooks, and if you're feeling that quiet emptiness, the push to get through days without joy, the overwhelmed building like ignored text messages from your inner self, you're home. This space is for us messy midlifers, the identity shifts, the future fears, the burnout weight,

– What This Podcast Is (and Isn't)

Jody Brooks 0:51

those failure whispers, the anxiety grip. No jazz hands here, no pretending you're fine, just honest sharing, like I'm sitting with you, head in hands, finally someone listening. Why I'm here? Well, if I'm honest, my midlife moment was pretty messy, and there was a moment when it looked like a crisis. But it turned out to be the turning point. That messy moment was the toilet cubicle breakdown, exhausted, crying, head in hands, and my body screaming enough. It wasn't the first time, but this time there was a moment of awareness, of awakening, the first of my nine principles of authentic living. That toilet cubicle is where it all began for me at 49. You know that fog when you're driving, where all of a sudden the road ahead vanishes, they're one moment, gone the next. That's midlife for so many. You're holding it all together. Family, work, roles, everyone counts on, then suddenly tilt who am I under all of this? And just like the fog, I didn't see it coming. On paper, everything seemed sorted. It screamed out sorted, in fact. Great job, company car, private health, owned business before that, award winning, UN speaking, jazz hands performing, crowds loving it. But inside, forcing through, counting to five o'clock with no spark. It was like I was ignoring texts and messages from myself, until I couldn't ignore the notifications or the overflowing voicemail. It built slowly, three years of ignoring messages, and then, like the fog, ordinary day, back to back meetings, nothing drastic, then the emptiness hit, palpitations, sweaty palms, a sense of overwhelm, the need to get out. So I slipped out to the restroom, I locked the cubicle door, exhaled, placed my head in my hands, and the tears rolled down my face. I can't do this any more. As I looked up, I saw a poster on the door. Do you need to speak to a mental health first aider? Slap.

– The Toilet Cubicle Breakdown

Jody Brooks 3:21

It felt like I'd just been slapped in the face. The way you see people in movies try to calm someone in the throes of hysterics. It was sobering in that moment to admit, yes, I actually did. It was that bad. I'd been pushing for too long, saying I'm fine. It was in fact just soul suicide. I

– The Road That Led There

Jody Brooks 3:46

drove home, stunned and acknowledged that those suicidal thoughts had been creeping in, not wanting out, not I want to die, just escape. I got home, emailed my boss, and took two weeks off. I didn't try to be fine, in fact, quite the opposite. I did say it's okay not to be okay, and I sat in that messy moment which allowed for the awareness. That cubicle was a portal, not a rock bottom, but a ground zero. Externally, life looked perfect. Inside it was the opposite. I didn't feel like I had the right to be unhappy. And the shame silenced those feelings. I mean, what have you got to complain about? The guilt was heavy, but that poster pierced through the internal noise with humanity. I wasn't broken, I wasn't a failure, I was quite simply human. As Brenny Brown says, vulnerability is the birthplace of connection. In that moment I'd been vulnerable with the person who we often forget needs to see our vulnerability. Us. I had ignored those inner calls too long, building up, filling my inbox, anxiety and overwhelm, snowballing. That pause, the moment of awareness, became a superpower. I came off autopilot and engaged the subconscious with the conscious and discovered real AI. Not artificial intelligence, authentic intelligence, the very essence of being human. Over the next two weeks I began journaling, simply asking myself in the mornings, how do I feel? I listed three things I was grateful for, and one thing that would make the day good. In the evenings I would reflect on the morning. Some days I didn't want to, others I wrote pages. Now in that simple action, things began to shift. The internal noise started to quieten, the overwhelm eased and the anxiety with it. And if I'm honest, at the time I didn't think that this action was playing as big a part in my recovery. Of course, now I know that in fact the research shows that journaling alone for 10 minutes three times a week can result in a 45% drop in anxiety. Because when you stop long enough to listen, the messages you've been ignoring start to come through properly. I returned to work, but it was different. It was like opening Pandora's box or finally listening to all those missed internal calls and messages. I'd switched off autopilot, stopped everything being diverted to my internal voicemail, and as I listened to those messages, awareness patterns began to emerge. Childhood memories surfaced, and with them, understanding of how I got here began to grow. My childhood shaped a lot. My parents divorced when I was young, in the 70s, which was rare, and I knew I was different. I remember the whispers in the playground, the sense that something about my family didn't fit the picture other people had. My dad disappeared when I was five. He was supposed to come on Christmas Day to pick me up, but he never turned up and I didn't see him again until I was seventeen. Then, just before my teenage years, my mum became an alcoholic, and that spiraled badly. There was emotional turmoil in the home, and I learned how to become useful. How to become quiet, how to keep the peace. I protected my little brother, I made sure he didn't see what was happening, and I became a people pleaser, because somewhere deep inside I learned that if I was good enough, useful enough, easy enough, maybe I would be safe. And of course, as a child you don't call that survival, you just call it life. There were good memories too. That's what made it so confusing. There was community, there was school which became my sanctuary, there were moments of safety, so for a long time I told myself it couldn't

– Principle 1: Awareness

Jody Brooks 8:06

have been that bad, and that's part of the problem with childhood trauma, especially when it's mixed up with happy memories. You minimize it, you normalize it, you think, well, other people had it worse. Just like now, what right do I have to complain? But the truth is, if it hurt you, it mattered. My twenties, well, the coping strategies that had worked in my childhood were no longer enough. Then university stripped away that scaffolding of community that had held me together as a child and a young adult. The outside world that had held me together no longer existed in the same way and everything caved in. I had a massive identity crisis because I didn't know who I was without all of those survival roles. I didn't know who I was without people pleasing, without performing, and without managing everybody else's emotions. That's when my mental health spiraled. I went into severe clinical depression, and in the end I had a full breakdown. I was lost, I was frightened, and I had no connection to myself. Back then there was still so much shame around mental health that I could not have walked into a doctor's surgery and said, by the way, I feel like killing myself. And if I could, I wouldn't have had those words to explain the emotional pain I felt. I just knew I hurt. Every bit of me hurt. I often say it felt like being in a dark hole, sliding deeper and deeper down, until the light at the top was so dim you could barely see it. And when you're there, you don't even know how to ask for help. The further down you go, the more painful it feels, until you'll do anything to stop the pain, the sense of hopelessness. I never wanted to die at this time, but if I had to die to stop the pain, then it seemed like a fair trade-off. After my second attempt to end my life, there was a moment in the hospital that changed something in me. I tried to leave embarrassed, wanting to be anyway but there being judged. As I tried to leave, I collapsed on the floor, a crying, broken mess. In that moment a nurse knelt on the floor, put my head in her lap, stroked my hair, and simply held me there. She told me it would be okay. She told me I was too precious not to be here, and that one act of human kindness shifted something deep in me. It wasn't therapy, it was connection. It was being seen, it was being heard, and it was belonging right there for that moment I was being held. And that is why I talk so openly about vulnerability now. Because connection matters, because shame thrives in silence, because healing begins when someone, anyone, offers tenderness instead of

– Principle 2: Understanding — Back to Childhood

Jody Brooks 10:58

judgment. And now I was learning that someone could be me in a simple act of kindness to myself. Those early years taught me something else. People pleasing is not a personality trait, it's often a survival strategy. If you've learned that being useful keeps you safe, you become very good at it. If you've learned that keeping the peace stops the shouting, you become brilliant at reading the room. And if you've learned that your needs come second, you stop noticing them at all. That was me. I became a version of myself that was endlessly adaptable, endlessly agreeable, endlessly available. But underneath that, the real me was getting quieter and quieter. That's why my twenties became such a critical point. Because once the old strategies stopped working, I had nothing left to prop me up. And it wasn't just a mental health crash that hurt, it was the identity crash. I didn't know who I was when I wasn't being what everybody needed me to be. The same patterns resurfaced later in life, especially in family relationships. My dad came back into my life, and by then I'd learned to belong on other people's terms. I was rolled out at special occasions like the Prodigal Son. I was introduced as my son, but often in a way that felt more like a possession than connection. There was love there, I believe that now, but there was also a lot missing. I was asked to fit back into a story that did not include the whole truth of my story or of who I had become. And that mattered because it taught me something very painful. Belonging that requires you to deny parts of yourself is not belonging, it's performance. For a long time I tried to make that work. I tried to be the version of me that could be accepted, but eventually I reached a point where I knew enough was enough. I'd spent too long sacrificing pieces of myself for connection, and it wasn't sustainable. That's when I started to understand that we can build our own family too. We can choose connections in places that are safe, mutual, and real. We do not have to keep returning to places where we are only allowed to exist in fragments. That insight helped me in the biggest way. When my father was dying, I knew it was coming. He was an alcoholic, he was an addict,

– Depression, Breakdown & a Nurse's Kindness

Jody Brooks 13:28

I'd spent years preparing myself for that day, because I did not want to be thrown back into the child version of grief all over again. And when the time came, I was able to meet it with peace rather than rage. I even gave the eulogy at his funeral, and I did it truthfully. Not as a middle finger, not as revenge, just honestly. And that for me was one of the proudest things I've ever done. Because I'd forgotten enough to be free. Not because what happened was okay, not because it didn't matter, but because I refused to let it keep ruling my life. That's where the journey toward midlife started to make sense. Because by the time I got to 49, the cubicle moment did not come out of nowhere. It was the accumulation of a lifetime of pushing, performing, people pleasing, denying, and surviving. And midlife was the place where all of that came up for review. I want to be really clear about this because I think a lot of people hear the words midlife crisis and assume it means failure, breakdown, or decline. I don't see it that way at all. I see it as an unveiling. I see it as a point where the life you were told to build is no longer enough, and your deeper self starts knocking loud at that door. That's why I talked about life being a series of bus journeys. As children, we get on a bus and we're told where to sit. As we get older, we often get on a bus because it's where everyone else is going and we like the look of the people on that bus. We follow the route, sit in the passenger seat, and assume that that's just what life is. But at some point in midlife, you look up, you realize you don't even know where the bus is going anymore, and the question becomes, are you even on the right bus? That's when the emptiness starts to make sense. Because often what feels like emptiness is actually grief. We are grieving the identity we built, the roles we played, the certainty we had, the version of success that once made sense. And grief, when it's not recognised, can look like burnout, anxiety, irritation, numbness, or collapse. What midlife gave me was the permission to stop pretending that external success was the same thing as internal alignment. My life had looked impressive from the outside, but I was no longer willing to pay for that with my well-being. Thanks to my recovery from my poor mental health in my 20s, I knew I had the tools and I had the ability to change this feeling. So I dug deep into the emotional awareness. I dug deep into those emotions awareness brought me, and I started asking different questions. What are my values? What actually matters to me? What brings me alive? What drains me? What am I saying yes to that I no longer want? It was on that journey that the nine principles, nine gifts as I call them, started to emerge. Awareness was the first one because once I stopped long enough to notice

– Principle 3: Trust & The Nine Gifts

Jody Brooks 16:48

what was happening, I could no longer unsee it. Understanding came next because I needed to know why I felt the way I did. Trust followed because I had to trust my own inner knowing. More than that external noise. Honesty asked me to stop pretending. Empowerment reminded me I had choices. Nurture said be kind to the person you're rebuilding. Transformation showed me I didn't need to become someone else. Integrity kept me aligned, and compassion reminded me to stay gentle through all of it. That work gave me language for what had been happening all along. It gave me a framework for healing, and it gave me a way to help other people who were standing in their own version of the toilet cubicle moment, wondering if they were the only ones. Because you're not. If you're in that place right now, I want you to hear this very clearly. You are not broken. You are not weak, you

– People Pleasing & Fitting In vs. Belonging

Jody Brooks 17:49

are not failing at life, you may simply be out of alignment with the life that you've been living. And the good news is that can be changed. For me, it changed slowly. I went back to work after those two weeks, but I went back differently. I had more clarity about what I was and wouldn't tolerate. I could name what was triggering me, I could see where my values were being hit, I began training to be a coach, because I knew I wanted to help people with this exact journey. And eventually, 18 months later, I knew the pull was too strong to ignore, so I left the corporate world completely and stepped into a life that was actually mine. That is why I call this a call in. Because what looked like a crisis was really an invitation. An invitation to stop abandoning myself, an invitation to listen, an invitation to come home. And that's what messy midlife is about, not perfection, not polish, not pretending we've got it all figured out, just the honest human work of listening to the messages we've ignored for too long, and taking the next step right back to ourselves. So if you're standing in your own fog right now, wondering what comes next, start here. Pause, notice, write it down, answer the text messages from your inner self. You don't need to solve your whole life today. You just

– Principle 7: Transformation & Kintsugi

Jody Brooks 19:26

need to stop pretending you haven't been receiving the messages. Because the moment I knew something had to change was not the moment everything became easy, it was the moment I finally told the truth, and that truth became the beginning of everything that came next. Create your moment of awareness this week by pausing, reflecting, and journaling on these three simple questions What is my inner self trying to tell me right now and where have I been ignoring the messages? What am I feeling that I've not yet fully named or acknowledged? And what is one small act of honesty or compassion I can offer myself this week? Sit with them gently There is no right way to answer, only a truthful one. On Wednesday, join me with my guest Hannah Kerman as she shares her journey through burnout, divorce and becoming a mother at forty-seven. And on Friday I'll be here again with more reflections for you on awareness. So until next time, stay curious, stay kind,

– Midlife Is Not a Crisis — It's a Calling

Jody Brooks 20:41

and keep coming home to who you really are. Thank you for spending this time with me on Messy Midlife. If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who might need to hear it today. You can find the show notes below and more resources at authenticcoaching.me. And just a little gentle reminder, Messy Midlife is here for information, reflection and personal growth. It isn't a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, therapy, or any other professional health care support. If you have concerns about your physical or mental health, please reach out to a qualified professional. Until next time, take good care of yourself. And remember, midlife might be messy, but it's not a crisis, it's a calling to connect.