Waking Up in Midlife

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. And perhaps this month has put a name to something you've carried for years. Perhaps you've heard a voice in your own head and realised it was not the whole of you. Perhaps you've looked at a familiar habit, a familiar fear, a familiar way of making yourself smaller, and felt both sadness and relief. Sadness because it took a long time to build, relief because you can now see it. This season has been called trust. Not the kind of trust that says life will never hurt you, not the kind that asks you to endlessly be certain. Self-trust, the quiet, steady sense that your own experience deserves a place in the room, the sense that you can hear an old alarm without handing it the steering wheel. Our question for this final week has been what would I do if I believed in myself? That is not about forcing an answer, it's about release. It's about letting the court hear what it needs to hear, updating the record and allowing the room to rise without throwing anyone out.

Season Three Trust Begins

Jody Brooks 1:10

Welcome, this is Messy Midlife. It's not a crisis, it's a calling to connect. I'm your host, Jodie Brooks, and this is season 3, Trust.

The Court of Self Trust

Jody Brooks 1:20

Let us take a breath and remember where we've been. In the first week we discovered that the court of self-trust was already in session. We did not start the trial, it had been running our whole adult lives. Quietly rereading an old verdict every time we hesitated, spoke up, stayed silent, reached for something, or walked away from it. Self-doubt was the barrister for the prosecution, it laid out the case against us before the jury had even sat down. In the second week we named the expert witnesses, Sid the imposter lurking in the spotlight behind a mask, able to turn even praise into the beginning of an investigation, Ian the inner critic, intelligent, nerdy, and annoyingly fluent in every detail that might disprove us. Self doubt the barrister that walks out of the waist high autumn ground mist and tells us slow down, turn back, wait for another opinion, and the fourth protector, sitting quietly at the edge of the room. In the third week, we learned to mediate instead of argue. We gave the whole thing a name TLC, tender loving care. Thank them for their care, learn what they're protecting, confirm the decision to go the other way. Confirm not explain because explaining hands the microphone back to the prosecution, and confirming is the judge putting the gavel down. The protectors are not enemies, they're our inner personal flat earth society, sincerely trying to stop us falling off the edge, but is not there because nobody told them. The world was round, and the map had changed. On Monday I shared the oldest file I had found, the four year old on the court steps in Oxford, awaiting the verdict of a custody battle, looking at adults he loved and deciding without any grown up information to help him that someone was going to be angry and disappointed and he was the cause. We heard the verdict again. A child cannot be the cause of anyone's anger. The adult could finally stand beside the child and tell him that the verdict was wrong about the present moment. This is where we are now, not a finish line in a room where the evidence has been heard properly for the first

When Goalposts Move

Jody Brooks 3:45

time. Before I bring in Wednesday's guests and before we talk about what happens to the record, I want to find you in the ordinary place where this matters. Perhaps you've reached a goal recently and felt nothing a minute later. You got the job, finished the project, made the call, left the thing, began the thing, had the conversation, and then almost immediately the inside of you moved the target. Yes, but you can't keep it up. Yes, but what will they think now? Yes, but that was luck. Yes, but it does not count until the next thing. Maybe the body tells you before the story, the praise lands and your stomach flips, somebody says well done and your face becomes hot, an email arrives with a good result, and your shoulders tighten up, as though a second email is about to arrive explaining there has been a terrible mistake. You put the certificate in a drawer, you make a joke, you immediately find a more impressive person to compare yourself with. The goalpost moves so quickly you barely even see it happen. Or perhaps your moving goalposts are not success. Perhaps it is the old verdict you've been serving. I must be useful, I must be easy, I must not make mistakes, I must be chosen, I must not need too much, I must keep everybody happy. You may have met every condition and still feel you've not earned the right to rest. If that's you, nothing has gone wrong. You're not ungrateful, you're noticing a system that learned to place your value outside you, and anything placed outside you can be moved by somebody else.

Max Weigand on Coherence

Jody Brooks 5:30

This Wednesday I spoke with Max Vigand, a positive psychologist whose work he calls psychosomatic intelligence. It was a generous conversation and it touched anxiety, depression and loneliness. It also offered a sentence that landed with me because it describes so neatly what an old court can do to a life. Max said, The goalpost had simply moved. There is a whole story in that sentence. When identity is externalized, it is permanently at the mercy of the next success or failure. You reach the thing that was supposed to settle the question and it does not. It cannot. The result comes in, and then the old prosecution simply submits a new condition. You'll be enough when you do the next thing. You'll be safe when you prove it again, you'll be allowed to believe yourself once the scoreboard agrees. Sid loves that arrangement, Sid is the imposter and he can stand at the end of every achievement with a clipboard, asking whether the evidence is sufficient. He can turn a genuine success into a fraudulent claim before you've put the kettle on, and he can tell you the room is waiting to unmask you even while the audience is still cheering. But a scoreboust become a verdict you are willing to keep. It can tell a result what happened, it cannot however truly tell who you are. It can give information, it cannot, though, become the judge of your worth. Max also spoke about coherence. When your goals, your beliefs and your nervous system are aligned. I've been thinking about coherence in the language of this season. Coherence is the whole court agreeing at last. Not that every part is ecstatic, not that every fear has vanished, it is the tip of the iceberg, the depths beneath it, and the body in the same room saying the same thing. It is your goal pointing in the direction of your values, it is your belief allowing that goal to be possible for you. It is your nervous system no longer being asked to live as though the old danger is happening right now. That's a beautiful bridge back to the purpose work of season two. Your true North Star is not a performance target, it's a direction. It's the thing that keeps calling you home. You can set goals in its direction, but the goal cannot replace the star. A goal can move, a value can guide you when the weather changes, and there is a kindness in Max's framing. If your body does not yet agree with the goal, your mind has chosen, that is not proof you are lazy, broken, or a fraud. It is information. The court may not be coherent yet, parts of you may still be reading from an old file. That does not make you a problem, it tells you where the mediation belongs.

Body First Reflection

Jody Brooks 8:42

Let me turn that towards you for a moment. Think of a goalpost that has moved in your own life. Do not start with the story, start with the body where you feel the movement when the finish line shifts away. Is it a heavy drop in the belly after an achievement? A pressure behind the ribs when somebody expects more, a rush to do another thing before you've allowed yourself to receive the thing you've done, a restless feeling in your hands looking for the next proof. Stay with that sensation for one breath. You do not need to chase it back through your whole story or your whole history. Just notice it. It's a signal, not a command. Now ask, what was I promised this achievement would finally prove? That I am clever enough, that I matter, that I am safe, that I belong, that nobody can reject me, that I'm not the child who got it wrong. There may be one word, there may be a sentence, there may only be a feeling. Let that be enough. Then ask another gentle question Who? Move the goalpost first. Not in order to accuse anybody, not in order to turn your life into a courtroom drama with the villain and a dramatic closing speech, simply to recognise the old rule. Perhaps it began in a family where praise was rare, perhaps at school where you learned that a good mark only bought the right to work harder, perhaps in a relationship, a workplace, a culture, a group, or a time when you did the sensible thing, and survived by measuring yourself through other people's eyes. And perhaps the answer does not come today. That is all right, your truth is your truth. You do not need to prove it to another person for it to be worth holding with care. If this feels too close, look around your present room, feel your feet, take a sip of water. You're allowed to stay with the moving goalpost without going all the way back to the first field it was put up in. As always, go at your own pace.

Amending the Record

Jody Brooks 10:48

One of the biggest releases for me has been realizing that the record can be amended. Nothing is deleted. I do not have to deny the courtroom steps, the classroom reel, the losses or other ways that those experiences shape me. Those files are fact. They belong in the filing cabinet. They have dates, smells, feelings, and consequences. Pretending they did not matter would not create trust. My truth is my truth. But a file can be updated. The protectors became predictors, they learned to sense a pattern and fire before I was even aware of it. A certain tone of voice, a silence in an invitation, a chance to be invisible, somebody else's disappointment, a room where I might be judged. The old alarm notices a similarity and sends the same emergency instruction. Protect him, make him perform, make him smaller, make him take control, make him disappear, make him perfect, make him please everybody before they get cross. There's a strange relief in being able to update that instruction at last. The inner critic does not need to protect the four year old, the six year old, the eight year old, or the seventeen year old anymore. Those situations are long past. Some situations may look and feel familiar. That's why the alarm is understandable. But the instinct of a four year old is not the right place from which to protect the adult I am now. So the record is amended. Danger logged as past, not because life is without risk, it plainly is not. People can still disagree, leave, misunderstand, say no, be disappointed, and make choices we would not choose. The amendment is more precise than that. This particular emergency is no longer happening. This adult is not alone on those court steps. This adult has choices, words, values, and the capacity to seek a direction rather than simply react to a signal. Imagine the old filing cabinet. The file stays where it is, you do not set fire to the building. You add a note to the front in clear handwriting, evidence reheard, context added, child not responsible, danger past, adult now present. There is care in that. You do not insult the part of you that learned the old rule. You do not tell a frightened younger self that he or she was ridiculous. You thank that younger self for surviving what it could not understand, and you stand that younger self down from a duty they should never have had in the first place. For me, that means I can start to see a moment of anxiety or over control as a prediction with a personality. I can recognise it before it becomes my whole identity. I can say ah, there's the old file firing. Thank you. I understand why, and it's not the whole picture. Right now, in this moment. This work was already holding in ways I did not fully understand. In a difficult workplace grievance and a run of so-called mediation meetings, I could feel a steadiness that would not have been available to me earlier in life. As I've said before, I'll leave that story for another season, but I am strangely grateful to have seen the work hold under pressure. It did not make that experience pleasant. It reminded me that an old verdict does not get the final word simply because it speaks

Meeting the Self Saboteur

Jody Brooks 14:27

first. There is something I promised you we would return to. In the first week I said that three of the witnesses were called by other people, and there was a fourth. The fourth was a problem, because it was the one witness you cannot cross examine. Here is why you cannot cross examine the self saboteur because you are it. Let that land gently. This is not a gotcha, it's not an accusation, it's not me pointing across the courtroom and saying Court you It is, if anything, a moment for much more compassion. Sid was given to you, Ian was given to you, self doubt was given to you. They were formed through voices, rooms, rules, faces, expectations, and things a younger you concluded in order to make sense of a world that was much bigger than you were. The self saboteur is different, you built it yourself out of the verdict. You built it in good faith on a ruling that has just been overturned. If the verdict was I'm not good enough and I will be rejected, then the self saboteur made perfect sense. It became the overprotective bodyguard at the comfort zone door. It said do not apply because they cannot say no. Do not start because then you cannot fail publicly. Do not have the difficult conversation because then nobody can be angry. Have another bar of chocolate, scroll a little longer, stay with the familiar, go to the gym tomorrow, make the plan later, keep the dream safe by never letting it meet the world for reality. That part was not trying to ruin you. It was a doing exactly what you asked it to do. It was protecting the old verdict from being tested, because testing it felt too dangerous. And that is why we cannot simply put the self saboteur in the witness box and interrogate it from a safe distance. It does speak with your voice. It knows your reasoning, it can make avoidance sound like wisdom, and delay sound like preparation. It can give you a very convincing argument of why beginning next month after things calm down, when you are more confident, once everyone understands, will be the far more sensible option. The self saboteur is not the failure of this season, it is the reason the next season exists. Trust has reheard the case. Trust has reheard the case. The verdict can change, the behaviour has not all changed yet, and that is exactly right. The next principle is honesty, because there is only one way to meet that part of you you built yourself, not with blame, not with performance, with truth about what you are doing, what you are avoiding, what it costs you, and what you still want. For now, please do not turn this into another reason to criticize yourself. If you recognise the self saboteur, try saying of course you're here. You were built from a conclusion I did not know I was carrying. Thank you for trying to keep me safe. I can see you now. That is a beginning. Warmly, without a trapdoor under your

New Verdict New Habits

Jody Brooks 17:55

feet. It's worth being very honest about the difference between a new verdict and a new habit. The court has done an essential piece of work, it has heard the evidence, it has made it possible for you to see that an old conclusion was understandable and still not a reliable description of your present self. That matters enormously. It gives you a place to stand, but the old behaviours may still turn up. You may still reach for the phone when you mean to begin, you may still delay the conversation, you may still say yes before you've checked in with yourself, you may still hear a compliment and want to brush it away like a crumb. That does not cancel the verdict, it tells you that the protector has a well worn route through your day. Think of a path across a field. If you've walked it for years, it is clear even in poor weather. The grass is flattened, your feet know it before you have consciously chosen it. A new route exists too, but it's less obvious at first. Each time you pause, thank the protector and choose even a fraction differently, you make the route more visible, not through force, through repetition and truth. This season was not asked to make every habit vanish, it was asked to help you understand what the habit has been protecting and to rehear the case beneath it. That is why it may feel both complete and unfinished. A court can adjourn with an honest verdict, and the life outside its doors is still waiting to be lived. The next season belongs there. If you feel impatient with yourself, notice the impulse without making it another prosecution. Impatience can be the old demand that you become acceptable immediately.

Pace Over Perfection

Jody Brooks 19:48

You do not need to comply with that demand. You can say I'm learning a different relationship with myself. I'm allowed to take the next true step at the speed it becomes possible. Not never, just not now. The change is on its way. It does not have to be here by Tuesday. There is no prize for having the cleanest story. There is no medal for having no doubts, no old reflexes, no complicated feelings about people you love, places you came from, or the person you have been. The release is not that your past disappears, the release is that it no longer gets to introduce itself as your future. Let us make room for your own court to do something similar.

Arrive In Your Body

Jody Brooks 20:33

Take a moment to arrive in your body. Feel what is holding you. If you're standing, feel the weight through your heels and the balls of your feet. If you're sitting, notice the chair beneath your thighs. If you're lying down, notice the surface beneath your shoulders. Let your exhale be a little longer if you want it to be. You do not need to make your body calm. You're simply letting it know that you have arrived.

Meet A Protector

Jody Brooks 21:00

Now choose one protector that's been busy lately, just one. Do not invite the whole committee. This is not a staff away day and frankly they'd all argue about the seating plan. It might be Sid making you dismiss a compliment, it might be Ian replaying an error until it becomes an entire identity. It might be self doubt persuading you to wait for one more sign. It might be the bodyguard who keeps you in the comfort zone. Choose the one whose footprint you can feel in a recent ordinary moment. Bring that moment to mind. Perhaps you were about to press send. Perhaps you were walking towards a conversation. Perhaps you had set aside time for something that mattered and found yourself scrolling instead. Perhaps you were offered an opportunity and felt the heat of a refusal before you had thought it through. Notice the body signal first. Where was it? The shoulders, the throat, the belly. the belly, the hands, the jaw, the breath. Name it without judgment. This is the signal the protector used to tell you that the danger might be near. Now picture the protector in the room. You do not have to make a clear image, a sense is enough. Let it stand in front of you, not inside your skin, not in the chair at the centre of the meeting in front of you. And say thank you for trying to keep me safe.

TLC Pause Practice

Jody Brooks 22:28

That is the T Pause ask what are you protecting me from? That is the L You may hear rejection, embarrassment, loneliness, disappointment, shame, being exposed, being too much, being left. You may hear nothing. If you hear nothing, do not force it. The protector may not be ready to tell you yet. You are practising a relationship, not extracting a confession. Now the sea. Confirm one thing that is true in the present and confirm the decision you're going to make anyway. You might say I know you learned that making a mistake was dangerous. I know you learned that being visible could hurt. I know you learned that disappointing someone could feel unbearable. And I am here now, I am older now, I have more choices now. I can feel a feeling and still choose my direction I'm going to send this anyway. I'm going to say what is true anyway I'm going to rest anyway. Then invite it to take half a step back. Watch it take half a step still in the room, still visible, no longer in control. It may look over its shoulder, it may fold its arms, it may keep hold of the clipboard. Let it this is not banishment this is an adjustment in seating. Now imagine the court clerk writing a note into the file The language can be your own but let it contain this evidence heard properly danger past young self stood down adult present. Let the word sit for a moment evidence heard properly danger past young self stood down adult present. You may feel a release, you may feel resistance, you may feel grief, you may feel absolutely nothing except the need to make a cup of tea. Any of that is fine. This is not a performance the court does not need a dramatic verdict before lunch.

Adjourn The Court

Jody Brooks 24:34

Now bring the judge in not a stern judge with a gavel waiting to make someone lose the judge in this room is the part of you that can hold more than one truth the part that can say this protector had a reason and I do not have to let it run the day. This happened and I am here now. I can love the younger self and I can choose for the adult self. I can hold an old belief loosely rather than gripping it until my hands ache. Hear the judge say thank you to the court the evidence has been heard properly for the first time the danger is recorded as past the court is adjourned. Notice the word adjourned not won, not demolished, not declared silly adjourned everybody is still in the room nobody has been thrown out. Sid keeps his job, he just no longer chairs the meeting. Ian is still excellent at finding files when you genuinely need a fact checker. Self doubt can still slow you down when something needs thought the bodyguard can still point out the risks but they are no longer mistaken for the whole of

Return To The Room

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you. Take one more breath and come back to your actual surroundings. Look for a colour hear one sound feel the support beneath you are here the court can rise and you can continue with your day. If you do not want to do that today you do not have to you can simply put a hand on your chest or your arm and say the court has been busy I can come back when I'm ready that is not avoidance it is pace. You are allowed to choose the amount of truth you can hold kindly today this is the image I want to leave you with for the end of trust the judge thanks the court the evidence has been heard properly for the first time the danger is recorded as past the court rises. Nobody loses that matters a trial makes a loser a mediation exists so nobody has to lose. We're not trying to defeat the protectors or prove the younger you wrong for having needed them we're allowing the adult you to take the chair that has been vacant for far too long. The files remain, the history remains, the feelings may still visit. There may be days when the court reconvenes quickly because somebody says something in a certain tone, because an opportunity appears, because you get tired, because a relationship feels uncertain, because a goalpost moves you've not failed if that happens. You know what the room is now you know you can bring the defence, the jury and the judge back in. You know a new piece of evidence can be heard.

Hope Faith Self Belief

Jody Brooks 27:26

This is also where hope, faith and self belief come together. Hope is the ability to imagine a better future perhaps you have a little more of that now. Perhaps you can see a version of your life where you do not have to earn your right to exist every morning. Faith is the growing belief that this change can truly happen for you. Perhaps you do not have a huge amount of that yet. Perhaps it is only a small opening that counts. Faith often starts quietly with a sentence that says Maybe I am not who the old verdict says I was. Self belief is the anchor its days when hope flickers it stays when faith is still finding its voice it is the decision not to abandon yourself when you are uncertain. It is the hand you keep on your own shoulder while you take the next honest step. But self belief is not a certificate you keep forever without checking it. Left unchecked self belief becomes conviction and conviction becomes loudness and loudness becomes law that is how the protectors we met this season became so powerful in the first place. Somewhere in a very young version of you formed a belief about what was safe and what was not. They believed it well, they believed it fiercely and no one for a very long time asked them to check it. Self belief was never held to account so it hardened into a verdict That is why trust cannot be the whole story trust without accountability is how a four year old's conclusion became a forty year rule. Trust needs truth. It needs to be willing to be questioned it needs to stay honest with itself about what it is protecting and why and that is the next principle honesty not honesty with the world honesty with the self and that is the next principle honesty not honesty with the world honesty with the self the willingness to hold your own belief the way you hold anyone else's with respect, with warmth and with a genuine question about whether it still deserves to run the room. Trust in yourself is the principle that opens every other door it opens the door to honesty because you need enough trust to hear your own truth. It opens the door to empowerment because you need enough trust to act on that truth and it opens the door to nurture transformation integrity and compassion because each of those asks you to remain on your own side when the old instinct is to leave yourself behind. This is not a lightning bolt it's a sunrise the light comes in gradually and for a while you see both the room and the shadows then one day you realize you can see where you are going.

Holding Beliefs Loosely

Jody Brooks 30:33

There is another small way to recognise the court as adjourned. You may notice a little more choice in the pause. You feel the familiar rush to prove yourself and instead of immediately feeding it, you notice your feet, you hear the old instruction to withdraw and instead of making it your identity you say there is a protector worried about me. You catch yourself moving the goalpost and rather than running faster you ask whether the old scoreboard is the place you want to live. That pause is not nothing it is the space in which self trust grows. You may not feel wonderfully free every time some pauses will be untidy you may choose differently at nine o'clock and return to the old pattern by ten past ten. That is not a breach of contract with yourself it is a human nervous system learning that the current day is not the old danger. You can begin again at ten past ten. You can begin again after lunch you can begin again next week. The court does not send bailiffs because you had a difficult Tuesday when the old belief gets a grip see whether you can hold it rather than grip it. The opposite of gripping is not throwing it away it's holding it loosely enough to examine it. You might say a part of me believes I must earn rest a part of me believes being seen is risky. Part of me believes I have to get this perfect. Notice the difference you're no longer swallowed by the belief you are the person holding it in your hand. If you can hold it you can ask whether it still deserves to run the meeting. That is where the half step back becomes a life skill rather than a single image. The protector can be near you can still feel its concern you can even take useful information from it but your goal, your belief and your body have a chance to become coherent because the protector is no longer speaking for the whole court. This is the gap season one taught us to notice the space between stimulus and response. Awareness gave us the gap

Grief And Coming Home

Jody Brooks 32:44

trust is what lets us stand in it. And perhaps there is a grief in that as well grief for the years when you thought the old rule was your character grief for the younger self who worked so hard grief for the energy you spent proving, pleasing, hiding, overperforming, postponing or staying small. Let that grief be gentle. It's not evidence that you've lost time beyond recovery. It's evidence that you are present enough to care for what happened. The road home is not about becoming a different person it is about becoming less divided from the person who was there beneath the verdict all along.

Practical Daily Choices

Jody Brooks 33:24

You can take this release into very practical moments before you answer an invitation you can place your hand on your stomach and ask whether the yes belongs to you. When you make a mistake you can feel the flush in your face and decide not to give Ian the microphone for the entire evening. When somebody is disappointed you can let your shoulders drop a fraction and remember that their feeling is real without becoming your sentence. And when you meet a success you can pause before the goalpost moves and say this happened I'm allowed to let it count. None of these moments needs a perfect response you might only notice them after the fact. That still counts as being awake the next time may give you one more second before the old route takes over one more second is room room is

What If I Believed Me

Jody Brooks 34:15

choice choice is where life begins to feel like it belongs to you again. Before the week is out book one ten minute appointment with the protector that has been loudest. Give it TLC thank it for its care learn what it was protecting confirm one small decision you're going to make anyway watch it take half a step back and then ask the question we came here for what would I do if I believed me? And if you do not do it today nothing bad happens not never not the appointment is in the diary so what would you do if you believed you? You might not know yet that's alright. You've heard the evidence, you've seen how a verdict can be formed before you are old enough to question it. You've met the protectors you carried that verdict into adulthood you've learned to mediate rather than fight you felt the possibility that the file can be amended the younger self can be stood down and the court can adjourn. You may carry the question into next season like a small lie What would I do if I believed me? What would I say? What would I stop saying? Where would I admit I'm hiding? What would I choose if I stop calling the old verdict

Season Wrap And Next Steps

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my personality? Max Weigen's conversation is available to watch as well as hear and I hope you'll spend time with it. His thought about the moving goalpost is a useful companion for the road ahead your worth cannot live at the end of an external scoreboard. Coherence asks for your goals, your beliefs and your nervous system to become able to be in the same room that is not a demand it's a direction and I'm grateful you spent this season with me. Trust is not always dramatic. Very often it is a small act of returning returning to your body returning to the evidence returning to the voice beneath the prosecution returning home to yourself You're not falling apart you're waking up. The court can rise the old files can remain safely held and you can walk out with every part of you still in the room season four is honesty not honesty with the world honesty with the self we'll meet the protector we built ourselves and we may find he becomes the most useful voice in the room not because we defeat them but because we finally listen and this Wednesday's guest Max Figand whose conversation on psychosomatic intelligence can be watched as well as heard you don't just have to listen you'll find it on Apple, on YouTube, on Spotify and of course over on the Messy Midlife homepage You can join the free Messy Midlife community a warm judgment free place where you can return to the naming sheet and the morning and evening trust meditations and keep company with people who are learning to come home to themselves too. You've heard the evidence and you've reached a verdict now comes the harder part because the one protector you've not dealt with is the one we built ourselves and there is only one thing that gets you past that one. That is where honesty begins. So until next time stay curious stay kind and keep coming home to who you

Outro And Disclaimer

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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