Looking Back at the Files

Jody Brooks 0:00

Perhaps you've done some of the looking back. Perhaps you've found a few of the old files. The moments that explain why a perfectly ordinary Tuesday can feel as if somebody has quietly put a stone in your chest. Perhaps you've had one of those small disorientating moments when you think, ah, that is why I do that. That is why I get so loud or so quiet. That is why I say yes before I've checked whether I want to. That is why I stop just as something good begins to appear in front of me. You're not falling apart, you're waking up. If you're somewhere between 35 and 65, life feels like it's cracking open. This is messy midlife. It's not a crisis, it's a call interconnect. I'm your host, Jodie Brooks. Welcome to season three, Trust. Last season was called Understanding. We went looking. We treated the past a little like archaeology, not digging for drama, not trying to make anybody the villain, just carefully brushing the earth away and seeing what was there. We found the leak rather than endlessly mopping the floor. We found the files in the cabinet, and when you found a file that has been quietly influencing your life for years, there can be a moment of relief. There can also be a moment when you look down the road and think right then, I can see where I'm

A New Season of Trust

Jody Brooks 1:28

going, and then oddly the view changes again. Not the thick sea mist from the last season, the kind that hides the horizon. This is different. It's that early autumn ground mist you get on a cold morning. It lies low around your ankles and your knees, drifting across the road and the fields you're already walking. You can see the fields, you can see the sky, you can probably see the next bend, but you cannot quite see your own feet. You take one careful step and wonder whether it's sensible to take another. That mist is the feeling. It's not the voice, it's the weather around the road, the sudden uncertainty, the tightness in the belly, the hand hovering over the send button, and then out of that mist somebody walks towards you and begins to talk. That somebody is self-doubt. This season about trust, not blind optimism, not pretending every decision comes with a brass band and a leaflet saying, Well done, you've chosen correctly. It's about the quiet, hard-won ability to trust yourself enough to stay in the room when the old voice begins its speech. Welcome back to Messy Midlife. I'm very glad you're here for the beginning of this season. Because trust is one of those words that sounds simple until you try to live it. You can put it on a mug, you can put it beneath a sunset on Instagram, you can say trust yourself and somebody will nod while privately wondering if you've mistaken them for a person who knows what they are doing.

Why Self Trust Comes First

Jody Brooks 3:10

Before we go anywhere, I want to close the door gently, because I know what some of you will hear when I say trust. You may think, ah, this is about trusting other people. Can I trust my partner, my boss, my mate, my family, the person who promised and then did not turn up? That's a huge subject. It deserves its own season, and it will be coming at some point in the future. But this season is about the most important kind of trust, self-trust. It has to be because you cannot read anybody else accurately while you're still calling yourself a liar. You cannot hear your own no, your own yes, your own sense that something is not right, if every message from inside is being cross-examined before it reaches you. That's not a criticism, it's a human thing. It is what happens when your inner world learns somewhere along the way that its evidence was not admissible. So this month we are not asking whether everybody else can be trusted, we are beginning closer to home. You can begin to trust the part of you that notices. You can believe that the feeling in your body is worth a moment of attention even before you know exactly what it means. If you found yourself this week doing the thing you promised yourself you would stop doing, this one is for you. If you're about to put your name forward, start the thing, make the call, accept the invitation, have the conversation, and then you slowed down so sharply it felt like somebody had put a handbrake on your life. This one is for you. If your first response was don't be ridiculous, who do you think you are? This one's for you too. Notice that I did not say you failed, I said you slowed down. There is information in that. The autumn mist has appeared on a road that was beginning to clear. Your body may have noticed it before your mind had the words your throat may have gone dry, your shoulders may have crept towards your ears, and you may have opened a laptop and found yourself making tea, wiping a perfectly clean worktop, or looking at a video of a man restoring a 1974 lawn mower. There is no judgment from me. I have watched enough videos about things I don't even own to know that the mind can be very persuasive when it thinks it is keeping

Why We Stop When It Clears

Jody Brooks 5:41

us safe. The question for our first week is this why do I stop just when the road gets clear? I think the answer is kinder and stranger than you may expect. The moment you go to challenge an old belief, something turns up to defend it. The mist comes back, the court sits. It does not mean you've chosen the wrong road. It may mean that you've reached the bit of the road that really matters. In understanding, we found facts. We did not put a new personality over the old one. We did not sweep everything under the carpet with a lovely motivational quote and a scented candle. We found the files. We noticed the old satnav was still trying to send us along roads that no longer existed. It was not malicious, it had just got an outdated map. It had not yet received the

The Courtroom of Self Doubt

Jody Brooks 6:34

update. Trust is what happens when those facts finally come into the room and the case gets heard properly for the first time. I want to be very precise here because words matter. This month is not about changing your behaviour on command. It's not about forcing confidence into places that have known fear. Trust rehears the case. Same evidence, same memories, same moment when somebody's face changed or somebody did not come back or you learned that being visible could be costly, but now the evidence is heard in front of someone who is awake, present, and allowed to cross-examine. The courtroom is already there. It's always been there. You did not build it this morning because you listened to a podcast. You did not start a trial by noticing your self-doubt. The trial is automatic. It's what your mind already does when you hesitate, compare, apologize for taking up space, or decide that somebody else must know better. In that courtroom, self-doubt is the barrister for the prosecution. It speaks first, it has a very efficient folder, it lays out the case against you with the confidence of somebody who has rehearsed it in the mirror. It calls witnesses, the other protectors as expert witnesses. There is the imposter wearing a mask even when the audience is applauding, waiting to be found out. There is the inner critic, stern and particular, underlining every floor in red, and then there's another witness as well that we will meet later, but not today. Your memories of the evidence, they are cross-referenced too. One file pulls another from the drawer. A feeling in a meeting can bring up a classroom, a comment from a partner can bring up an old kitchen. A bit of praise can bring up the exact sentence that taught you praise was unsafe. The prosecution knows where the files are. It's not making everything up. That is what makes it so very convincing. And there is you. Now you are the defence, the jury and the judge. The defence is the you who is here now, the conscious tip of the iceberg, the adult who can say, hang on, that happened a long time ago, and I'm not there now. The jury is the part that can listen between the adult and the much larger part below the waterline, the part that learned the original rule. The judge is the part of you that can decide what gets carried forward. That is a lot of jobs for one person. No wonder some days you're tired before lunch. But here's the most important sentence of this month. The trial has been running your whole adult life, and you were never even called to give evidence. The verdict may be thirty years old, it may be older, it may have been delivered before you were old enough to appoint a lawyer, before you had the words to object, before you understood that a frightened child can make a conclusion simply because a child needs a way to survive what is happening. That verdict gets quietly reread every time you hesitate. Not because you're weak, because the court has been in session for so long that it mistakes familiarity for truth. This is not the kind of courtroom where somebody wins by shouting cleverer than the other person. I'm not interested in turning you into a barrister who can argue your feelings into silence. This is a courtroom of lawyers as healers. The kind who listens carefully, who asks what happened, who notices the frightened witness at the back of the room, who makes space for the facts without making a spectacle of them. It is closer to mediation than a fight, and it is chosen. The trial happens automatically. The mediation is the bit you get to choose. Perhaps you're already thinking, but what if the prosecution has a point? Good. That is a sensible question. It often has a point about the past. Something hurt, something was risky, something did happen. The trouble is not that the protector is wicked or stupid, the trouble is that it thinks the map has not changed.

Your Inner Flat Earth Society

Jody Brooks 11:08

This is where I want to introduce you to what I started calling my personal flat earth society. Imagine a small committee inside you. They're not wearing capes, they're not twirling moustaches, they're not trying to ruin your plans because they are bored and fancy a bit of chaos. They are sincerely, warmly, completely convinced that the world is flat. Their entire job is to stop you walking over the edge. They say careful, do not step too far, do not be seen, do not put your hand up, don't believe that compliment, do not change job, leave the group, speak plainly, try the thing, or admit you want more. You'll fall off the edge of the earth, and you can stand there with your adult map, your new sat nav, your receipts, your qualifications, your lovely list of reasons and say the world is round, look, I've got evidence. And the committee will look at your evidence and say very interesting, but have you considered the edge? Nobody likes being told they're wrong. Your protectors are no different. They did not receive the map update. They were given the instructions when you were smaller, when the world really did feel much more dangerous because you had less choice, less power, and nowhere else to go. Self-doubt is the chair of this committee. It is the person who clears its throat and says before we all get carried away, perhaps we should not. So we don't fight them, we don't try to evict them, we thank them for their care underneath their terrible geography. We listen for the message, we explain gently, and repeatedly that the route has changed. That is what trust begins to sound like. Not shut up. More I know why you're worried. I've heard you, and I'm going to take the next step anyway. There are three of those expert witnesses whose original invitations were largely written by other people. There is the fourth, and we'll come to the fourth, and the fourth is a problem, because it is the one witness you cannot cross examine, and you'll understand why later in the month. For now, let the committee sit with their tea and their flat map. We're not throwing anybody out, we're beginning to notice who is in the room.

A Personal Story of Control

Jody Brooks 13:40

I saw my own court more clearly through a story I've told before, the pub story from season two. Now I'll not drag you through every inch of it again because some stories need to be handled with care, and because you may have your own version waiting in the wings right now. But in understanding, I followed the wise down from an adult pattern I had thought was simply my personality, and I got to a frightened twelve-year-old boy, humiliated, trying to work out what had just happened and what he would need to become so it never happened again. For years I thought self-doubt was the thing that stopped people. That is how we often picture it, isn't it? A nervous voice saying do not apply, do not go, do not speak, and it can do that. But mine had another trick. My self-doubt did not always tell me to stay small. Very often it convinced me that I had to do something. I had to speak up, I had to take over, I had to lead the meeting, control the plan, have the answer, make the room safe by running it. I could not simply sit there and be a person among people. Somewhere in the background was a voice with all the subtlety of the mother in the film Carrie, shouting, They're all gonna laugh at you, Jody. Poor accent, I know, but I love that film and that line. Now that's a strange thing to admit, because from the outside it can look like confidence. It can look like being capable, people may even praise it, and parts of it have been very, very useful. I can lead, I can organise, I can make a plan so thorough it has a plan for what happens if the first plan becomes overconfident. That has occasionally been helpful in life. But when I started to look honestly, I could see the cost. I was not always leading because I was free to lead. Sometimes I was leading because the frightened boy in me believed that if I did not control the room, the room might turn on me. I was not just being prepared, I was trying to outrun a verdict. The first thing that helped was almost embarrassingly simple. I gave the voice a character. I let it have a face. Not its full biography, not yet, just enough that it was no longer called Jody. I saw a barrister, a very certain, a bit too pleased with his papers, the sort of fellow who would say, If I may draw your attention to exhibit A and somehow make a minor missed email sound like an intentional incident. I could feel the dry humour in it, which mattered. Humour does not make pain small. Sometimes it gives you enough air to look at it without drowning in it. And when I saw the barrister, I saw the room he was standing in. There was the bench, there was a jury, and there were files stacked in uneven piles. There was evidence being passed from hand to hand, there was a case being heard, it had been in session for as long as I could remember, but nobody had told me. Nobody had sent me a letter saying, Dear Jody, proceedings commenced some time ago. Do pop in when you get a minute. I'd spent much of my adult life behaving as if I had lost the case, as if there had been a fair hearing and I'd been found wanting. That was not what had happened. I had not lost the trial because I had never been called to one. That realization did not make me suddenly float through life with a halo and perfect posture. Nope, it did something more useful. It made me pause when I felt compelled to take over. It gave me a fraction of a second in which I could ask who is speaking now? Is this my adult judgment? Or has the prosecution stood up again? Is this a genuine desire to lead? Or am I trying to make sure nobody gets the chance to laugh? That friction of a second is not nothing. In a life it can become a doorway.

Practice Noticing the Mist

Jody Brooks 18:07

Now your story may look nothing like mine. You may not take over rooms, you may disappear from them, you may have become very agreeable, you may become very busy, you may be the person who says no, no, I'm fine, while your body is practically holding up a placard that says this is not fine. But consider one recent moment when you slowed down just as the road began to clear. Do not go looking for the biggest memory. You do not need to open a trapdoor on a Monday afternoon. Take something ordinary. The message you did not send, the course you nearly booked, the praise you brushed away, and the conversation you prepared for in your head, and then avoided having. Before you make a story about it, let your body have a say. Where did it show up? Was it a pinch in your stomach? A pressure behind your eyes? A heaviness across the chest? Did your hands become busy? Did you need a biscuit? A scroll? A sudden urgent check to see whether the washing had dried? Now there is no correct answer. You're simply noticing the weather before you identify the person walking out in it. Then very quickly ask yourself who told you to slow down? Not what is wrong with me? Not why can I never get myself together? Who told you to slow down? Let the question sit for a breath. If nothing comes, nothing has gone wrong. You are not being marked. You do not have to answer it today. Your court may have been holding this hearing for decades. It can survive a few seconds of you standing at the door and looking in, and if something does come, perhaps a phrase, a tone of voice, a feeling that is older than the situation in front of you, you do not have to chase it. You're allowed to say, I see there is something here. I'll come back when I'm ready. This is not a race, remember, it's a journey.

Hope Faith and Self Belief

Jody Brooks 20:20

There's another reason that moment matters. Trusting yourself is the principle that opens every other door. That can sound grand, and I do not mean it in a shiny motivational poster way. I mean it very practically. If you cannot trust yourself to notice that you're tired, you'll keep agreeing to things your body cannot carry. If you cannot trust yourself to notice what hurts, you'll keep explaining it away. And if you cannot trust yourself to hold a small disappointment, you may keep building a whole life designed to avoid one. Self-trust is not certainty, it is the willingness to remain on your own side while you are uncertain. For me, this season has three little engines inside it hope, faith, and self-belief. Now, hope is the ability to imagine a better future. It is the small spark that says perhaps this does not have to be the whole story. Perhaps the way I react now is not the only way I'll ever react. Hope does not demand a blueprint, it just lets you picture a window where there used to be a wall. Faith is the growing belief that the change you can imagine might actually be possible for you. Lots of us can be wonderfully hopeful for other people. We can see their gifts, their chances, their future. Faith is when you begin to allow that generosity to travel into your own direction. Not because you've become Becomes special, but because you finally stop excluding yourself from the human race. And self-belief is the anchor. It's the inner trust that keeps you moving whilst the road ahead is uncertain. It's not a booming voice saying I am brilliant at everything. Now it only would be exhausting. And frankly, nobody needs to be brilliant at everything. It is the quieter voice saying I can meet what comes next. I may need time. I may wobble. I may have to ask myself again tomorrow. But I'm not abandoning me. And here's the bit that catches people out. As hope and self belief grow, those protectors, those witnesses, they get louder. That's not you getting it wrong. It's very often the opposite. It's you getting it right. Change even good change can look like a risk to the part of you that has been scanning the horizon for danger. You begin to believe you might speak differently, choose differently, take up a little more of your own life, and the personal flat Earth Society calls an emergency meeting straight away. The barrister clears his throat, the mist returns, it says, See, I told you this would not work. This is for other people. This is not for you. Who do you think you are? That voice is the best possible news. Now I know that sounds backwards, but hear me. That voice tends to appear when you're getting somewhere. It does not spend much energy defending a door you are never going to open. If it's protesting, you may already be further down the road home than you believe right now. So if you hear it this week, you do not need to obey it. You do not need to prove it wrong either. You can simply recognise that the court in your head is sitting, and that a new piece of evidence is trying to come into the room.

Guided Courtroom Exercise

Jody Brooks 24:12

Let us sit on the bench for a minute. Not the witness box, you're not here to be put on the spot. Choose a small, current moment, something from this week or something waiting for you after you finish listening. Keep it ordinary, the email, the phone call, the plan you've been circling, the decision that has somehow become so complicated, you're now researching the optimum brand of tea instead of making it. Before you tell yourself what it means, notice where the hesitation lives in your body. If you're driving, keep your eyes on the road and do this gently. If you're at home, you might put both feet on the floor, not as a performance, not because you need to get this right, just because your body is also a part of the conversation, and it often gets talked over. Is it in your throat as if the words have narrowed? Is it in your shoulders lifted and waiting? Is it in your stomach hollow and tight? Is it behind your ribs where a small alarm has started ringing? Notice the first place you feel it. Give it a name if you want to. Tight, heavy, hot, numb, restless. You do not have to explain why it is there. You just have to notice it. Take one slow breath, not an impressive breath, just the breath you have. Now picture the autumn ground mist. It is low, it has arrived on the road. You are already walking. You can see a little ahead, but not every paving stone. The mist is not speaking, it is only the weather. It is your body letting you know that something familiar has been stirred. Then ask who has stepped out of the mist? You may hear self doubt immediately. You may hear a phrase it might sound like do not make a fool of yourself. It might sound like you are not ready. It might sound like somebody better will do it. It might sound like if you cannot do it perfectly, do not do it at all. It might be less verbal than that. You may simply feel an old instruction to be smaller, safer, busier, quieter, or more in control. Do not name the character properly yet. That is for next week. We're not asking you to create a whole cast list by Thursday. You are only noticing that the prosecution has stood up. Imagine the courtroom, you're not arriving late and being told off. You're entering a room that was already busy. The barrister has started the speech, the files are on the table. The jury is looking uncertain. It is all very official. Considering it may have started with somebody's offhand sentence when you were young. Look for the evidence that is being presented. Again, not the whole archive, just the first file in the hand. Perhaps it's a memory, perhaps it's a feeling of being corrected, perhaps it's a previous mistake. Perhaps it's not even yours, but a rule you absorbed because it seemed to keep the peace. You do not have to decide whether the evidence is valid, and you do not have to argue with it. You can say I see why that file is here. That sentence is powerful because it does not ask you to pretend the past was nothing. It does not call the protector a liar, and it does not throw your younger self out of the room. It says I see why that file is here. Then let the defence speak. The defence is not loud, it's not trying to humiliate the barrister. It might say yes, that happened, and I am here now. It might say yes, I made that mistake, and that is not the only thing I know about me. And it might say yes. Somebody once laughed, and I do not have to build my whole future around that laugh. It might say yes, I feel afraid, and fear is not always an instruction. Notice how different that is from trying to make yourself feel confident before you move. You're not waiting for a flawless verdict. You are allowing more than one voice into the room. Now, if self-doubt starts producing further evidence, let it. You do not need to interrupt. It may bring up the time you tried before. It may remind you of somebody who seemed to be more capable. It may compare your beginning to somebody else's middle and call that a fair contest. The barrister is very good at this. It's had years of practice. You can look at it and say, Thank you for trying to stop me falling off the edge. I can see that you are worried, but the map has changed. You're not twelve or ten or sixteen or whatever age the original rule belongs to. You may still carry that younger part with great tenderness, and you may still feel its fear in your body, but now you have choices that it did not have. You can pause, you can leave a room, you can ask a question, you can say no, you can say yes, you can learn, you can begin badly, you can rest, you can decide that another person's disappointment will not automatically become a conviction against you. Let the jury hear that. This is not about winning over the court in a single afternoon. Sometimes the jury will be hung. Sometimes you may walk away feeling as though everybody needs a biscuit and a lie down. That is all right. The work is in letting the facts be heard properly. Now come back to the small moment you choose, the email, the call, the decision, the invitation. Bring it close enough that you can feel the edge of it, but not so close that you overwhelm yourself. That is the smallest next movement that belongs to you. Not the whole journey, not a grand declaration, a small movement. Maybe you open the email and write one honest sentence. Maybe you put the course page in your bookmarks. Maybe you tell somebody I need a day to think. Maybe you say I would like to come. Maybe you let a compliment land without immediately explaining why you did not deserve it. Maybe you do absolutely nothing today except notice that the core exists. Now all of this can in fact be self-trust.

You Were Never Called

Jody Brooks 31:12

Now listen carefully because this is the line I want you to carry out of the room. You did not lose the case. You were never called. If that brings up sadness, let it be sad for a moment. There is a particular grief in realizing how long you have lived as though an old verdict was law. You do not have to make that grief useful. You do not have to turn it into a five point plan. You can just let your shoulders drop a fraction if they're willing. You can put a hand on your chest if that feels right, or you can keep both hands exactly where they are. This is your bench, your space. And if nothing comes, that is alright too. You may simply be learning the layout of the room. There will be time. This is not a race, it's a journey.

Protectors Not Enemies

Jody Brooks 32:03

Now the reason I love the image of the court is that it removes some of the shame. A lot of us have been treating self-doubt as a personal flaw, something we should have grown out of by now. But a protector is more like a prediction with a personality. It sees a shape in the present that resembles an old danger, and it runs ahead with the file in its hand. An old smoke alarm can do something similar. It can go off when you burn toast because in its view, smoke is smoke, and it's paid to be vigilant. You do not stand beneath it saying you are a failure as a smoke alarm. You notice it's oversensitive, you open a window, you wave a tea towel in a manner that makes you look as though you're conducting a very small, very angry orchestra, and eventually you learn what sets it off. Your protectors are not your enemy. They are not proof you are broken. They are the people in the courtroom and the committee in the flat earth society who have been trying with imperfect information to keep you safe. The first act of trust is not to become fearless, it is simply to become interested. When you feel that handbrake, perhaps you can say Ah, the court is sitting, the fog on the road is here, self doubt has come out of the mist. I wonder what it's trying to protect. You do not have to answer, you do not have to identify every witness, and you do not have to turn yourself into a project. The month will unfold. The court has time, the map will update through repetition, not through one spectacular moment or insight.

This Week’s Invitation

Jody Brooks 33:53

For this week, when you notice yourself slowing down at a clear stretch of road, take under ten minutes to feel where it lands in your body and ask, Who told me to slow down? And if you do not do it, nothing bad happens. That is the invitation, not a test, not a way to prove you're serious about your own life. Just a small chair placed in a room that has been running without you for a long time. You may find that what you are grieving is not only a past hurt, you may be grieving the person you believed you had to become in order to survive it. The person who's always been ready, always in charge, always pleasing, always disappearing, always trying one step harder. Be gentle with that person. Never forget they got you here. This season is not asking you to distrust everything you've learned, it's asking you to hear the case one more time, to bring the files into the room, to let the defence have a voice, and to see the mist for what it is, whether on the road, and to recognise self-doubt when it walks out of that mist carrying its papers. You're not falling apart, you're waking up, and waking up can feel misty before it feels clear.

Content Note and Next Episode

Jody Brooks 35:14

Now, a gentle content note before we close. This week's conversation and Wednesday's guest episode touch on suicide, a controlling religious upbringing, described as a cult and a breakdown. Please listen at your own pace if these subjects leave you feeling unsafe or at risk of harming yourself. Contact the emergency services or a crisis service where you are. On Wednesday, I'll be joined by Wes Towers, founder of Uplift 360, for a conversation about the beliefs we inherit, the beliefs we grip, and what can happen when a life that looks successful from the outside finally tells the truth from within.

Where to Watch and Join

Jody Brooks 35:55

You'll be able to watch Wes as well as hear him. You don't just have to listen. You can watch it on Apple, YouTube, Spotify, and of course over on the Messy Midlife homepage. And if you'd like company for this work, come and join the Messy Midlife community. It is a warm, judgment-free place where you can find the free tools from the season and be reminded that you do not have to make sense of your own midlife all on your

Subscribe and Closing Words

Jody Brooks 36:22

own. Now all the links are in the show notes below. And one special ask from me, if you've enjoyed listening to the show, please click on the plus sign, the tick, whichever it is to subscribe on your favourite app, and if you could spare a few minutes to write a review, it all counts and it helps make sure that the show's message spreads as far and wide as it can. So, until next time, as always, stay curious, stay kind, 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 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.