— Introduction

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. Welcome

— The Journey to Awareness

back, Messy Midlifers. In episode 1, I shared with you my journey through the messy, how what seemed like a crisis became my call to connect, to answer the messages I'd been quietly ignoring from myself, and how a moment of awareness in a toilet cubicle changed everything. So today I want to talk about awareness. Not the shiny poster version, not the workshop buzzword that fades by lunchtime. The real thing, the kind that changes how you live, how you listen, and how you finally admit that your life needs a little attention. Because awareness is where it all begins. Before understanding, before trust, before the change, you have to notice. And yes, that sounds simple, but damn it's hard. In a world constantly vying for our attention, it can feel like your own inner voice is being drowned out by all the noise pulling you outward. So many of us have become masters at carrying on. There's practically a whole warehouse of keep calm and carry on t-shirts to prove it. Tired, keep going. Empty, smile through it. Disconnected, perform anyway. I'm fine is our favourite lie. And over time that becomes normal. Tense body normal. Looping thoughts normal. Broken sleep normal. Quiet joy normal. Freyed patience normal. Overwhelm normal. But here's the thing a lot of what we call normal is just survival dressed up as strength. That's why awareness is principle one of the nine principles of authentic

— What Is Self-Awareness?

living. It's the doorway, the fog thinning moment, the lighthouse in the low visibility, the off-ramp from autopilot, and into paying attention. It's the point where you stop sleepwalking through your own life and start answering the messages you've been ignoring. Think of it like this your conscious mind notices, names and chooses, but most of the time it's your subconscious quietly running the back office. Habits,

— The Survival Bus

beliefs, old survival tricks, patterns you learned long ago, all working in the background without asking your permission. Awareness is what opens the office door, switches on the light, and says, Oh, that's what's been running me. I love the iceberg image because it makes it so clear. What people see on the surface is only the tip. A tiny part of the story. Underneath is everything else. The fears, hopes, hurts, assumptions, protective strategies, and old truths that have been steering your life before you even knew they were. And once you become aware of that, you can't really unsee it. And that's both a gift and a discomfort. Because awareness

— The Dash Between the Dates

can feel confronting, it can feel unsettling, and sometimes it can feel a bit like grief. Not because your life is over, but because the old one, it just doesn't fit anymore. It's like realizing you've been wearing a coat kept you warm for years, only now it's too tight across the shoulders and you can't pretend it still fits. I know that feeling well. For a long time I looked functional on the outside, but hollow on the inside. I was showing up, managing, performing, but something essential was missing, and the harder I tried to fill that emptiness with achievement, the more hollow I felt. It was like trying to drink from a cracked cup. No matter how much I poured in, it never stayed full. And that empty feeling became the first awareness ping in that toilet cubicle moment. The moment that started out like a crisis, but quickly became a calling to connect. Because awareness starts with telling the truth about what's actually happening. It's like finally noticing the messages you've been ignoring, the inner self-text, the calls you've been hanging up on, the voicemails stacking up until everything feels overwhelming. And midlife has a way of making those messages impossible to ignore. Maybe your messages sound like this I'm tired, I'm not happy, I keep pretending, I don't have time, I keep saying yes when I mean no, I've lost touch with myself. Or maybe they're softer than that. A dullache, a low hum of anxiety, a strange numbness, a sudden irritability, limbs that feel heavy, every day feeling like a battle, counting the hours until your head hits that pillow. Then lying awake at three AM asking Is this it? Awareness lets those messages come into focus without shame, and that matters because shame makes us hide while curiosity lets us listen. If you meet your life with judgment, you ask what's wrong with me. If you meet it with curiosity, you ask what's trying to get my attention? And that question changes everything. Sometimes what awareness reveals is that you've been living by performance rather than purpose. You've been competent, steady, reliable, useful, all the things you were praised for, but maybe not aligned. And midlife has a way of exposing that gap. Children leave home, parents age, bodies change, careers flatten out, and relationships shift. What once felt enough no longer does. And there's the important bit. Pausing, stopping, and allowing awareness. It doesn't mean you're lazy, selfish, ungrateful, or weak. It means something in you is ready to be seen. It means the life you built may not be the life you're meant to keep carrying in exactly the same way. It's about stopping being resilient and about becoming more courageous. Awareness is not about blowing everything up. It's not about quitting your job tomorrow or making some grand declaration. Those are often the things we do when resilience stops working. Awareness is quieter than that. It's the moment you find the courage to stop and notice. It's the moment you breathe before replying, the moment you write in a journal, the moment you take a walk without your phone, the moment you pause long enough to feel what your body has been saying all along, and then actually listen. And from there you begin to gather evidence. You start to see patterns, you notice that you say yes because you want to be good, you notice that you keep the peace because peace once felt like safety, and you notice that you overcommit because being needed has become your way of belonging. You notice that you keep running because stopping would mean hearing yourself. That's awareness doing its work. It turns pain into information. It also asks something very human of us, patience. Because awareness doesn't fix everything at once. It doesn't hand you a perfect plan, it gives you presence. And presence is powerful.

— Journaling & The 45% Solution

Because once you're present, you can begin to choose differently. And that's where the shift begins. Not in perfection, in honesty, in the quiet decision to stop abandoning yourself in the willingness to ask what feels true, what feels off, what am I ignoring, and what am I ready to release? Those questions matter because awareness and values are deeply linked. When I began to understand my own values, integrity, justice, authenticity, growth making a difference, I could finally see why certain environments drained me and why others lit me up. I wasn't the problem, I wasn't broken, I was out of alignment, I was a cactus trying to survive in a rainforest. I was a fish trying to breathe in air. I was a bird trying to live underwater. Wrong environment, wrong fit, wrong conditions. And that's a big difference. Because if you think you're the problem, you just become harder on yourself. But if you realize you're out of alignment, you can begin to adjust. You can respond instead of react. You can make choices that reflect who you are, not who you had been then. That's why awareness matters so much in midlife. It's not decline, it's unveiling. It's the moment you realise the old scripts have expired. The destination you were handed no longer fits, you've been on a bus heading somewhere, but nobody ever asked if that was where you wanted to go, and now you get to choose something much truer. So here's my invitation to you. Don't try to solve everything. Just notice. Notice one moment where you're not fully honest with yourself. Notice one place where you're on autopilot. Notice one feeling that you've been brushing past. That's enough to begin. Try this. Before you answer a text, pause for 10 seconds and ask, what do I really want to say? Before you say yes, check whether it's a true yes or a fear yes. And before you rush on, place a hand on your chest and ask, What am I feeling right now? At the end of the day, write one sentence that starts with what I noticed today was. Keep it simple, keep it honest, keep it kind. Awareness is not about becoming

— Listening to Your Messages

someone else, it's about finally seeing yourself clearly enough to come home. If today stirred something in you, that's not a problem, that's the beginning of awakening. And next time we'll go one step deeper into what happens as awareness grows. This is Messy Midlife, and remember your midlife isn't a crisis, it's a calling to reconnect. Until next time, remember you're not broken, you're becoming. 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 healthcare 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.