Midlife Wake Up Call

Jody Brooks 0:00

You're not falling apart, you're waking up. If you're somewhere between 35 and 65, life feels like it's cracking open. Perhaps it's because some part of you has finally stopped accepting a verdict that was handed down far too early. There's a court already in session inside you. It's been there longer than your current job, longer than your relationship, longer than the stories you tell about being the reliable one, the difficult one, the funny one, the person who never quite gets around to doing that thing. The barrister for the prosecution is up first as usual. It has a crisp little bundle of evidence and an alarmingly good memory for the moment you got something wrong in 1995. It calls witnesses, it speaks with complete confidence, and then before you've even had a cup of tea, it tells you what the verdict must be. This week I want to ask a question that sounds simple and it can change the whole feel of that courtroom. What if you've only heard one side? This is Messy Midlife, it's not a crisis. It's a calling to connect. I'm your host Jody Brooks. Welcome to season 3, Trust.

Meet The Inner Court

Jody Brooks 1:08

This is trust, self-trust. Not trusting that every person will behave beautifully because frankly that would be a very short and rather expensive course in disappointment. I mean learning to hear yourself accurately enough that you can live from something steadier than the old alarm. In our first two weeks, we discovered that the court was already in session. We did not start the trial, we walked into a room that had been running our whole adult lives. We met the expert witnesses too. Self-doubt the barrister for the prosecution, who turns up in the fog on the road and makes you slow down, turn back, seek one more opinion, read one more review, and somehow you're now five minutes into your third video of cats doing strange things. Admittedly entertaining, but not clearing the fog, just quietly adding to it. Then there's Sid the imposter standing in the spotlight in his old school headmaster's suit. Certain somebody is about to discover that you should not be there. I mean who do you think you are? And my old friend Ian the inner critic, clever as anything, a fact fanatic, holding a folder for every occasion on which you have ever been less than perfect, made the slightest error and god forbid, fallen short of a hundred and ten percent. And then offering escape somewhere near the biscuits is the self saboteur, asking whether any of this really matters and suggesting a bar of chocolate, a scroll on the phone and just doing it tomorrow. We're not getting rid of anybody this month. We're discovering how to hear them without handing them the gavel and the right to declare a verdict. They are witnesses, not the judge, and not the jury.

Stop Arguing With Yourself

Jody Brooks 2:53

This week we learn how to sit in that internal courtroom without it becoming a shouting match. If you ever found yourself trying to argue with your own mind this week, this one is for you. Perhaps you had a presentation to give and you said silently, furiously, stop being ridiculous, you know this stuff. Perhaps you're about to send a message, make a choice, book something, say no or yes, or tell someone what you wanted. The voice arrived and you tried to beat it with logic. You are fine, everybody does this, nothing bad is going to happen. Just stop it, you're being ridiculous. And perhaps maddeningly it got louder. Before you decide what that means, notice your body. Where does that argument show up? Is it a tight band across your chest? Is it a jaw that has been working a night shift? Is it your stomach dropping as though it has just missed the last step on a staircase? Is it the heat behind your eyes or the peculiar heavy tiredness of somebody who's been defending themselves from an invisible person all day? You do not have to tell the whole story yet. You do not have to remember the first time. Just notice that something in you has gone on alert. Your body often knows the barrister has entered the courtroom before your thinking mind has found its

Protectors Need Mediation

Jody Brooks 4:14

chair. Here is the central move for this week. You cannot out argue a protector. I know slightly inconvenient when your greatest skill is making a very persuasive case in your own head. Some of us could cross-examine a parking ticket, but a protector is not standing there waiting to be defeated by a better spreadsheet, a sensible list or an inspirational quote on a beige background. It's trying in its own clumsy and often exhausting way to keep you from falling off the edge of the flat world. Because nobody told it the world was round, nobody told it the map had changed, it's still working from an old satnav, the one that believes speaking in a meeting is dangerous, being seen is risky, disappointing someone means being left, resting means you're lazy, and joy must be paid for later. If you tell it that it's wrong, it hears danger. If you shout at it, it shouts back. If you demand that it leave, it braces itself in the doorway. This is why the courtroom here is not the adversarial sort. This is not you in a wig banging the table trying to win against yourself. It is the courtroom of the lawyer as a healer. It is mediation. A mediation exists because nobody has to lose. Before we walk

Intent Versus Impact

Jody Brooks 5:38

the steps, one small idea worth naming out loud because it will keep turning up all through this season and the ones after. Intent and impact. Two of the most useful words you will ever hold in the same hand. Picture it like this. You want to eat a nut. Simple, honest intent. You pick up a sledgehammer because the nut is stubborn and you're tired and you just want it dealt with. You swing and yes, technically you've cracked the nut. Job done. Except now the nut is in a thousand tiny pieces, mashed into a thousand tinier pieces of shell, and you cannot actually eat any of it. The intent was to eat the nut. The impact was that you destroyed your dinner and made a mess of the kitchen. That is how most of our arguments go in our own heads and out in the world. Someone means well and swings a sledgehammer. Two things end up true at once. Someone can love you and still hurt you, you can mean well and still cause harm, and a protector inside you can be trying to keep you safe and still be quietly running your life into the ground. Sledge hammer in hand, standing over a pile of shell, wondering why you are not eating. We've been raised as if there must be a winner, a right, a wrong, a tiebreak to decide it, and we forget that in life there is such a thing as a draw. Two people, both impacted, both human, both worth listening to. This work sits right in the middle of that mess. You're not here to prosecute your protectors and you're not here to let them run the show. You're here to take the sledgehammer gently out of their hand, notice their intent, name their impact, and show them the nutcracker. That is what mediation is. Nobody has to lose and you get to eek.

TLC For Inner Parts

Jody Brooks 7:31

And here is where I want to give this whole practice a name because it has one and you've known this name your whole life. T L C Tender, loving, care, thank, learn, confirm. That is how you meet a frightened part of yourself. The way you would meet a frightened child, an old dog or a friend at their worst, not by winning, by TLC. We'll meet this phrase again properly when we get to nurture in a later season, but you're meeting it here first for a reason. Trust is where TLC begins, because you cannot nurture a part of yourself you are still trying to prosecute. The sequence is simple enough to remember when you're tired, thank them for their care, learn what they are protecting, confirm the decision, your decision to go the other way, and repeat. Firstly thank them for their care. Not because the behaviour is always useful, not because the voice is kind, not because the timing could not be worse. You thank the intention. You might say, I can see you're trying to stop me being embarrassed, I can see you're trying to stop me being rejected, I can see you're trying to make sure that I do not feel that old feeling again. Then learn, what are they protecting? This is where the gentle why comes in, but not the harsh why that sounds like an interrogation, remember? Not why you like this, what is wrong with you? Why can everybody else get on with their lives? That sort of why belongs to the prosecution. The gentle why is a child's curious why. Why now? Why does this feel important? Why are you afraid? What are you afraid would happen if I did this thing? What do you need me to understand? Then add

Confirm Dont Explain

Jody Brooks 9:20

this the C of TLC. You confirm the decision to go the other way. Notice the word confirm, not explain. This is the piece I want you to sit with for a moment because most of us have been raised to explain and it's exactly what turns a two minute mediation into a four hour argument two in the morning. Explaining sets up a case, it quietly agrees that the other side has the right to be persuaded, and that if their objection is strong enough they might overturn your decision. Explaining hands the microphone back to the prosecution and reopens the trial you've already sat through. Confirming does something different. Confirming is the judge putting the gavel down, the evidence has been heard, the concern has been felt, the intent has been thanked, the decision has been made. No further justification is required because you were never on trial in the first place. You do not owe your protector a court case, you owe it a hearing and you've given it one. Now you confirm what happens next. This is also quietly the kindest thing you can do for your protector. When you explain the frightened part of you learns that objecting louder is the way to get you to change course, and it will oblige because it loves you and it's trying. When you confirm, the frightened part of you learns that your decisions are stable, that its concerns are heard without being obeyed, and it can finally stand down. That is safety, not the safety of being agreed with, the safety of being trusted. So you do not ask for permission as if your adult life belongs to a frightened committee. You're not swinging a sledgehammer at yourself. You are quietly passing the nutcracker across the table. You speak with warmth and steadiness. I hear that you are worried, I'm going to send the message anyway. I hear that you think we will look foolish, I'm going to attend the meeting anyway. I hear that you want us to cancel, I'm going to go and I can leave early if I need to. Then you repeat. You repeat because no old file updates from one conversation. You repeat because the protector has been doing this job for years, perhaps decades, and you repeat because trust is not a lightning bolt, it is a sunrise. At first the room is still quite dark, then almost without a fanfare, you can see the shape of the furniture, you can see your own hands, and you can see

Call The Defence Witness

Jody Brooks 11:51

the door. The question for this week is not how do I silence the prosecution? The prosecution is clever and sometimes it does have a point. It will remember the time you were overcommitted, it will remember the person who did not respond to you, it will remember the hard day. We do not need to pretend that there is no evidence in its bundle. The question is what if I have only heard one side? For many of us, self-doubt has summed up our whole life without interruption. It's spoken first, called the witnesses, read out the difficult bits, and delivered its closing argument before the jury has been sworn in. The defence has never stood up, not because there is no defence, because nobody taught it to. Trust is not the prosecution being gagged, trust is finally calling a defence witness. A defence witness might be the email you sent even though your hand shook, it might be the boundary you held quietly without a speech, and it might be the fact that you got out of bed on the day you thought you could not. It might be the time you apologize without turning yourself into the villain of the whole piece, and it might be the small decision you made yesterday that was actually yours. The prosecution never expects those facts to be entered into evidence because it's become very used to owning the filing cabinet. In season two, understanding helped us find the files. We did not destroy them, we found facts. This season we're bringing those facts into the room and hearing them properly. There may be a file marked rejection, there may be a file marked not good enough, there may be a file marked do not make a fuss. But there are also files that are marked I survived, I learned, I showed up, I chose, I changed my mind, I was kind, and I kept going.

Evidence And Journaling

Jody Brooks 13:40

There is a small practice that helps with that. In the evening you can ask where did I choose self-trust today, even in a tiny way. Not did I have a perfect day, not did I finally become the luminous, organized person I keep imagining lives somewhere behind the laundry basket, just where did I choose self-trust? Perhaps you did not join in with the usual criticism of yourself, perhaps you asked for clarification rather than pretending you understood, and perhaps you left a little space before saying yes. Perhaps you went for the walk, perhaps you rested without making a case for the defence for forty five minutes beforehand. That is all evidence. There is space for this kind of reflection in a journal, which is there for people who want a deeper place to keep their evidence. I'm not waving a product at you though through the witness box. I'm telling you the principle. Your defence needs somewhere to put the facts a note on your phone, the back of an envelope, a notebook beside the bed. All of it counts. There's some gentle science behind why writing a little can matter. Smythe and colleagues in 2018 found that positive effect journaling was associated with less distress, fewer depressive symptoms, and less anxiety after a month, as well as greater resilience compared with usual care. It does not ask a notebook to become a wizard, it simply gives the parts of you that only remember the worst day a chance to see another piece of the record. Now I'd done a fair amount of therapy by the time I began to understand this properly, in my twenties and then again in my early forties. I'm grateful for that. It helped me deal with facts that had sat unlabelled in the filing cabinet for years. It helped me see that some things I'd call personality were actually old ways of staying

Mediation Becomes Meditation

Jody Brooks 15:33

safe. But before I take you into the practice, I want to give you the smallest, most useful thing I've ever written on the back of a coaching notebook. Say the word mediation. Now very quietly add a letter one T and mediation becomes meditation. Watch what just happened. The whole thing softened, the word that sounded like a courtroom procedure became the word that sounds like a chair, a cushion, a slow breath. And there is the bit I love. It's not really one letter, it is one letter twice. The first T is time and the second T is trust. Mediation with time added on purpose becomes meditation, and neither one works without the trust that the time will be worth it. In a world that will steal every spare minute you have and hand you back a scroll of somebody else's opinions, the most quietly radical thing you can do is put ten minutes on the table for a conversation with yourself and trust that those ten minutes will pay you back. The reward is deferred, it has to be, but the time invested gains interest in the future. It compounds. That is the whole promise of this season. That is why the principle is trust, and that is why when we get to it, the practice is meditation.

Spill The Tea On Meditation

Jody Brooks 16:57

And listen, I get it if your shoulders just tensed up at the word meditation, you're not alone. Most people I talk to have already decided it's not for them, too fluffy, too still, too much sitting cross legged on a cushion pretending your knees do not hurt. You picture the linen trousers, incense curling in the air, some serene figure in a monastery somewhere, and an annoyingly calm voice, telling you to empty your mind, which is the one instruction absolutely guaranteed to fill it before you finish the sentence. So you write the whole thing off before you've even tried it. Because it feels like something other people do. Softer people, more spiritual people, but definitely not you. That right there, that flinch, that little internal eye roll, that is the resistance. I want to talk to. Because it's not really about meditation, it's about the story we've been told about what meditation is and the version of ourselves we think we have to become to do it. And both those, my friend, are getting in your way. Okay, let's spill the tea. Give me the tea, pull up a chair. It's a phrase I've borrowed from the younger generations, and it means this. Give me the gossip, tell me the truth, tell me what is really going on, and do not dress it up. That is exactly what meditation is. You're sitting down with yourself over a cup of tea if you like, and asking, all right, what's really going on in here? No wig, no bundle, no verdict, just you and you spilling the tea. If a teenager can find that funny and fair, then so can we. And that in one small piece of coaching alchemy is why the answer to why is this so hard is almost always the same. Because we have not yet given it the tea, both of

A Real World Practice

Jody Brooks 18:57

them. But the practice that made meditation possible for me was quiet. Not perfect quiet. I don't live in a mountain monastery, I live in the real world where somebody is likely to be looking for a charger, an email is making its little demanding ping, and there is always a mug that needs moving from one surface to another. I mean deliberate quiet, ten minutes in which I guide my thoughts away from everything competing for the now. Sometimes it has to be a chair at home, sometimes it's been a walk. Not the sort of walk where you listen to three podcasts, answer two messages and return with a bag of shopping, just a walk. And sometimes very practically it's been a car park before a meeting. I'd arrive early, which is one of the small benefits of anxiety if we're looking for silver linings. I would turn the engine off and sit there. The windscreen would have a bit of rain on it, or the car park would have that peculiar smell of warm tarmac, coffee and somebody else's diesel. I would close my eyes, I'd put on some music, low enough that it did not become another thing to listen to, and I would give myself ten

Mediating With Inner Critic

Jody Brooks 20:05

minutes. In those ten minutes Ian often appeared, Ian my inner critic is the nerd like super intelligent, always ready with a fact and a footnote, and a reason I ought to have prepared more. Now, before a meeting, he would have a lot to say. You've missed something, they'll ask you the one question you cannot answer, you will not explain it properly, you're going to look foolish. The old way was to argue. I would tell him he was being ridiculous, tell him to shut up, try to drown him out with a motivational playlist that probably had far too much percussion in it. The quieter way was different. I'd say, Alright, Ian, I can hear you. Thank you for trying to make sure I do not get caught out. What are you protecting me from? And beneath the facts and the fuss, there would usually be something much simpler. Do not let them see you get it wrong. Do not let them think you are not good enough. Do not give anybody the chance to reject you. That was not a conversation I could win. It was a conversation I could hear. Then I could say, I understand why you're worried. I'm still going into this meeting. I do not need to be flawless to be useful. I can answer what I know, ask when I do not, and live through it if somebody is not impressed. You can come with me, but you do not get to run the meeting. That is not an argument, that is a mediation. I did not emerge from the car looking like a man who'd solved his entire life between Bayes twelve and thirteen. More often I emerged like a man who was now a few minutes late because he'd closed his eyes in a Volkswagen. But I was steadier. I'd not handed Ian the keys, I'd not thrown him out of the car either. I'd heard him, and I'd made my decision.

Find It In Your Body

Jody Brooks 21:45

Where is your version of that car park? Before you find the story, find the place in your body. Think of a moment when you tried to argue a voice down and lost. Maybe it was before a call, maybe it was at two in the morning when the whole Case against you suddenly acquired dramatic lighting? Maybe it was before a date, a family meal, a difficult conversation, a social event, or the send button. What happens first? Did your shoulders creep up? Did you go cold? Did your mouth go dry? Did you feel that familiar urge to cancel, apologize, overexplain, eat, scroll, work late, become extremely interested in cleaning a cupboard? You do not have to make it a big memory. You do not need the original case file today. Just let yourself recognise the moment the prosecution entered the courtroom.

The Gentle Why

Jody Brooks 22:37

Then ask very softly what was it trying to protect you from? If nothing comes, nothing has gone wrong. If the answer feels too near, you do not have to go there. Go at your pace. This is not a race, it is a journey. You're only noticing that there may be more than one voice in the room and your own adult voice deserves a chair also.

Not Now In The Moment

Jody Brooks 23:01

The gentle why works best when it's not demanded in the middle of a fire alarm. If you're halfway through a presentation or standing in the supermarket with a crying child or trying not to say the thing you will regret in a family WhatsApp group, that might not be the moment to excavate your childhood. You can have a very short conversation then. Thank you. I hear you, not now, we have an appointment. Then later, deliberately, you sit with the question. Ten minutes is enough. A car park, a chair, a walk, the edge of the bed before the house wakes up, the kitchen table when the dishes are done, somewhere without a performance attached to it. You're not chasing an answer, you're sitting with a question. That is the trust bit. Not trust that a great revelation will land today. Trust that the ten minutes are worth it even if nothing seems to happen. That is the interest of the second T. Time compounding quietly out of sight. That is the trust bit. Not trust that a great revelation will land today. That difference matters. Chasing makes the mind run faster. Sitting with a question gives the answer space to approach if it wants to. Sitting with a question gives the answer space to approach if it wants to. Like waiting for a shy animal to decide you're safe enough not to bolt from. You cannot bully it into the clearing. You might ask why did that comment land so hard? Why is this decision making me feel as though the stakes are enormous? Why do I feel guilty when I rest? Why does praise make me want to look over my shoulder? And why does a small mistake feel like a verdict? Then just as we did in season one, create the gap, the space between the stimulus and the response. Be quiet long enough to notice what happens. Sometimes there is a sentence, sometimes a memory, sometimes a feeling with no words, sometimes nothing but the fact that your breathing has slowed down. That is enough.

Ten Minute Appointment

Jody Brooks 25:00

You've made space in a courtroom that used to be filled only by the prosecution. And now I want to give you a new image for this week. An appointment in the diary. Your protectors are dreadful at timing. They turn up halfway through the presentation as you're walking into a meeting just as somebody kind is beginning to like you, five minutes before you're about to do the small brave thing or at 2 AM when you're trying to sleep. They barge in like an unannounced detective from a television crime drama nobody asks to be on. So give them a standing appointment. This is imaginary, but do not let that put you off. And I promise you it works because this is exactly what I did when my life was filled with overwhelm and anxiety, and it literally came from me one day walking to a meeting, feeling that familiar grip take hold, and me saying quietly and firmly, inside, not now, I don't have time for this now. Let's do this later. And five deep breaths later, the grip began to loosen, shoulders dropped, palms unclenched, heart not racing, the meeting went ahead without getting on that familiar speeding bus. Much of the trouble inside our heads is imaginary, in the sense that it's not happening in the room and it still has a real effect. You can decide that each day or a few times a week there is a ten minute appointment during which your protectors may bring their concerns. You can put it in your actual diary if that helps. 420 in the afternoon, 840 in the morning, during the walk from the station, before you go into the house, whatever is realistic. The point is not to send them away forever. The point is to let them know they will get to be heard. So when the voice interrupts at the wrong moment you can say, I hear that you're worried. Thank you for trying to keep me safe. You do not have an appointment right now. I'll see you at 7.30 when I'm sitting in the chair with a cup of tea. Bring the file then and notice what you've just done. 730 is the tea, both of them. Time set aside on purpose and trust that the time will be enough. Firm, warm, not a fight. Now you might worry that it will not work because it sounds almost too simple. It will not make every interruption vanish, but it changes the relationship. You are no longer being ambushed by a committee that believes it has to shout because nobody listens, you're becoming the person who runs the diary. And when the appointment comes, you keep it as best you

Half Step Back

Jody Brooks 27:41

can. You sit down, you ask which protector has arrived, you may even use the names from last week. Is Sid frightened of being found out? Is Ian preparing his devastating evidence? Is self-doubt laying fog across the road? You thank them, you ask what they're protecting, and you confirm what you're going to do and repeat. If it helps, picture that protector taking half a step back. We'll get to that properly next week, but you can preview it now. It does not disappear, it does not have to be humiliated or defeated, it simply takes half a step back, still present, but no longer in control. This is the bench. This is where I step out of my own car park and sit beside you in yours.

Set The Scene

Jody Brooks 28:29

If you can choose a moment in the next day or two when you have ten minutes, you do not have to make it beautiful, you do not need a special notebook, a candle that smells of a forest after rain, or a playlist becoming your highest self. You can use all of those if you love them. You can also sit in your parked car with a slightly sad takeaway coffee. Both count. Before you begin, decide where the appointment is. Say it in plain language at 6.40 after I put the kettle on, I'll give this 10 minutes. At lunch, I'll walk around the block once and sit with it. Before I go into that meeting, I'll remain in the car for 10 minutes. Put it in your diary if you want to. An actual calendar invitation can be surprisingly powerful. Your inner protector has no idea it's imaginary, it just knows that it's been offered an appointment and a hearing. When the time comes, sit somewhere your body can settle a little. Put both feet on the floor or let your hands rest on your lap. Or feel the steering wheel beneath your palms. Notice the surface you're holding. Notice whether your breath is high in your chest or lower down. Notice the temperature in the room, the sound from outside, the weight of your clothes on your shoulders. You're not trying to relax perfectly, you're letting your body know that for these few minutes nothing needs to be solved at speed.

Name And Thank It

Jody Brooks 29:51

Now name what has been showing up. It might be self-doubt, it might be Sid in the mask turning a compliment into a fraudulent claim, it might be Ian with his cross-reference archive, it might be a voice that you've not named yet. Give it the simplest name you can. The voice that says I'll mess up. The voice that says do not bother, the voice that says they will leave. Naming does not make it more powerful. It just stops it becoming the whole of you. Say either aloud or silently, I can hear you, and then pause. Notice what happens in your body when you say that. Does your throat tighten? Does your stomach brace? Does something in you soften because perhaps for the first time all day it does not have to shout to be noticed? Whatever you feel is allowed, then say thank you for trying to keep me safe. Now, you might feel ridiculous, you might feel angry, you might think this voice has made my life very difficult. Why on earth will I thank it? Remember you're not thanking the interruption, you're thanking the intention that formed before you had the language, power or choices you have now. Somewhere this protector learned that a certain thing was dangerous. It stepped into the doorway and it's been standing there a very long time. Ask the gentle why. What are you protecting me from now? Do not rush to answer. Sit with it. Let the question land in your ribs, your stomach, your shoulders, wherever you feel it. You're not running down a corridor with a torch, you're sitting in a chair, leaving the door open. Perhaps an answer comes as words, embarrassment, rejection, being too much, being not enough, being laughed at, making a choice and having to live with it. Perhaps it comes as an image, a classroom, a kitchen, a face, a feeling of being very small, and perhaps it does not come at all. You can still say, I do not know yet, but I am listening.

Choose Anyway

Jody Brooks 31:44

Pause again, then choose one small decision that belongs to the present. This is important, not a dramatic declaration, not a decision designed to prove you have conquered your entire past before bedtime. One real, modest decision. I'm going to send the email, I'm going to say no to this invitation, I'm going to go to the appointment, I'm going to take the rest, I'm going to tell the truth about what I can manage. I'm going to apply. I'm going to leave the house. I'm going to wait before replying. Now confirm it to the protector. This is the C, not a defense, not a pitch, a confirmation. I understand that you're scared I'll be judged. I'm going to send this anyway. I understand that you want me to avoid disappointment. I'm going to try this anyway. I understand that you think rest is unsafe, but I'm going to sit down anyway. I understand that you are worried I will be rejected. I'm going to let this person know me a little more anyway. Notice the word anyway. It's not defiant in a brittle way. It's not a slammed door. It is the voice of the judge who has heard the evidence and is able to make a decision. You can come with me, you do not get to make this choice for me. If the protector gets louder, that does not mean you failed. As hope and self-belief grow, protectors often get louder. Change, even good change, can read as risk to the part of you that was built to predict danger. Loud is not proof that you are wrong. Sometimes loud is proof that you

Ground And Reschedule

Jody Brooks 33:19

are moving. If the question opens a door you do not want to walk through today, stop, put your feet on the floor, look around the room, name three ordinary things you can see, a lamp, a tree, a packet of crisps, your bag, the dashboard. Come back to the present. You're allowed to keep the appointment short and you're allowed to reschedule. You are allowed to say that is enough for now and go at your own

Evidence Log Practice

Jody Brooks 33:44

pace. And when the ten minutes are over, you do not need to write a grand conclusion. You might simply note one sentence the thing I was protecting was being judged, or I noticed fear in my stomach, or I chose to go anyway. This is your defence beginning to gather evidence, not to prove you are flawless, but to tell the whole truth. Later that evening, if it suits, you can ask that small question again. Where did I choose self-trust today? Even in a tiny way. You might be surprised by what qualifies. You might have stayed quiet when you genuinely wanted quiet. You might have spoken when you genuinely wanted to speak, you might have postponed a decision instead of forcing one. You might have eaten lunch, you might have asked for help with a practical thing without turning it into a character flaw. Evidence is all entered. You do not have to do this every day, you do not have to keep a streak, there are no gold stars for perfect mediation, which is fortunate because Sid would immediately forge one and Ian would question the font. This is an invitation to give the defence a voice when you have the space.

When Protectors Test You

Jody Brooks 34:53

There's one more gentle thing worth saying about the appointment in the diary. A protector may not believe you at first, it has spent years barging into the room because it believes nobody will listen otherwise. It may test the arrangement, it may arrive at 2 AM with a new bundle of evidence, it may interrupt in the supermarket, it may arrive just as you are about to speak and say very urgently that this cannot possibly wait until 7 thirty. You can meet that without making another internal war. Put a hand somewhere that helps you feel your body. Feel the chair, the bed, the pavement, the steering wheel. Then say, I know this feels urgent. I've heard that it feels urgent. I'm not ignoring you, I'm asking you to bring it back at the time I sat aside. The important word is not now, not never, just not now. That distinction teaches something new. It tells the protector that its concerns can exist without becoming an emergency. It tells your body that a feeling can be present without being a command, and it tells the prosecution it can submit its evidence, but it does not get to schedule the hearing in the middle of every ordinary day. If you reach your appointment and the voice has gone quiet, that is alright too. You've not wasted the time. You've practiced being available to yourself. You might sit for a moment and ask, is there anything I need to know before tomorrow? You might notice that your body is less tight than it was. You might simply drink the tea while it's still hot, which is a small miracle and should perhaps have its own certificate. And if you miss the appointment because life happened, do not turn the missed appointment into exhibit A for the prosecution. You did not fail self-trust because you had to collect a child, take a call, deal with a train delay, fall asleep or forget. The diary is not another stick, it's an offer. You can make another appointment. That is the whole practice, returning without punishment. The same is true of the evening evidence log. If you cannot find a grand moment of self-trust, look smaller. Did you pause before reacting? Did you tell yourself the truth about being tired? Did you stop reading the comments? Did you choose the easier dinner because the day had already been enough? Those choices may not look heroic from the outside. Inside the court, they are a defense witness saying, I was here, I made a decision with myself in my mind. To make that

Free Trust Meditations

Jody Brooks 37:18

easier, this week's free community giveaway is the morning and evening trust meditations. They live in the messy midlife community and they're available there for you to download as MP3 files. The morning meditation is a way of setting your internal navigation before the day gets a hold of you. It's a chance to call the defense to remember that the prosecution is not the only voice allowed in the room and to decide how you want to meet the day. The evening meditation gives you a place for the half step back and the evidence log. You can picture the protector in front of you, thank it for trying to keep you safe and watch it take half a step back. You can ask where you choose self-trust, even slightly. It's not about producing a brilliant answer, it's about letting the day be heard in full. They are free, they are short enough to fit into real life, and they are there when you want them. No performance required. For this week, book one ten minute appointment with the protector that has been interrupting you most. Ask one gentle why in the quiet, and if you do not do it, nothing bad happens. The last bit matters, this is not another standard you can fail. Your worth is not contingent on becoming very good at listening to yourself. By Thursday, the court has been in session for years. It can wait until you have the space.

Key Takeaways

Jody Brooks 38:37

What I hope you take from today is this. You do not have to need to win an argument against yourself. You cannot build trust by treating the frightened parts of you as enemies. Thank them. Learn what are they trying to protect? Confirm the decision to go the other way and repeat. Call a defence witness, keep a small evidence log if it helps. Sit in the quiet with a gentle why rather than chasing an answer. Give your protectors an appointment so they do not have to ambush you at two in the morning or halfway through the thing that matters the most. Old files may still be in the cabinet, the fog may still come down on the road sometimes, but you are no longer just the person being prosecuted. You are the defense, you are the jury capable of listening between the conscious tip and all that lies below. You are the judge who can say thank you, I hear you, and I'm choosing this. You're not falling apart, you're waking up, and it turns out that waking up is not always loud. Sometimes it is ten quiet minutes in a car park, eyes closed, music low, finally having a conversation with yourself instead of another

Next Episodes Preview

Jody Brooks 39:42

argument. On Wednesday, I'm joined by Tom Cronin, founder of the Stillness Project. Tom spent 26 years as one of Australia's leading bond and swap brokers in one of the loudest, most time hungry industries on earth. Before he walked away and chose stillness instead, before he walked away and chose stillness instead. Today his mission is beautifully simple to inspire one billion people to sit in stillness daily. Tom teaches something he calls the seventy-two twenty method. Your day he says is made of seventy two segments of twenty minutes, seventy-two, and all he asks is that you give two of them, one in the morning, one in the evening, back to yourself. If this week has been you learning the mediation, Wednesday is you meeting the man who will show you how to give it the tea, both of them, time and trust, and on Friday I'll bring what he teaches us back into the courtroom because commitment, real commitment, is what happens when you stop arguing with yourself long enough to make an appointment to keep it and let the interest quietly start to compound.

Where To Watch Join

Jody Brooks 40:54

Now you don't just have to listen, you can watch it too on Apple, on YouTube and on Spotify, and of course over on the Messy Midlife homepage. Come and join the free messy midlife community, also a warm place free from judgment where the morning and evening trust meditations live, where the free tools are all waiting and where you can be in the mess without having to pretend you've already

Final Thanks Disclaimer

Jody Brooks 41:20

solved it. So, as always, until next time, 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.