What if You Dont Need to Find Yourself
There is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in midlife:
"I need to find myself again."
I’ve said it.
Maybe you have too.
But recently I've started wondering...
What if you're not bloody lost?
What if the woman you're desperately trying to find has been there the whole time?
Underneath the responsibilities.
Underneath the menopause.
Underneath the marriage.
Underneath motherhood.
Underneath work.
Underneath grief.
Underneath the weight gain.
Underneath the expectations.
Underneath all the opinions you've collected about who you should be.
There you bloody are.
Because I don't believe we arrive in this world fundamentally believing we're not enough.
A tiny child doesn't look at her thighs and think they're too big.
She doesn't worry whether she's successful enough.
She doesn't wonder whether everyone at nursery likes her.
She doesn't stand in front of the mirror thinking:
"Jesus Christ, I really need to sort myself out."
She just is.
She laughs when something is funny.
Cries when something hurts.
Says no when she means no.
Asks for what she wants.
Dances when there's music.
Runs around with her belly sticking out without giving a bloody toss whether it's flattering.
There's something beautifully uncomplicated about that.
Then life gets involved.
And Slowly We Learn the Rules
Be good.
Be polite.
Don't be too loud.
Don't show off.
Don't upset anybody.
Don't be selfish.
Work hard.
Be grateful.
Keep the peace.
Don't make a scene.
Forgive.
Cope.
Get on with it.
And, my personal favourite:
"What will people think?"
So we adapt.
Because human beings are bloody clever.
We learn what gets us love.
We learn what gets us approval.
We learn what keeps us safe.
We learn which parts of ourselves are acceptable and which parts apparently need turning down.
And gradually we build a version of ourselves designed to navigate the world.
The capable one.
The funny one.
The successful one.
The easy-going one.
The caretaker.
The peacekeeper.
The woman who doesn't need anything.
The woman who can cope with absolutely everything.
Until one day you reach midlife and think:
I'M BLOODY EXHAUSTED.
Of course you are.
You've been performing for forty bloody years.
Maybe You Haven't Lost Your Happiness
Maybe it's buried.
There's a difference.
We talk about happiness as though it's somewhere outside us waiting to be acquired.
When I lose weight...
When the kids leave home...
When I earn more money...
When menopause settles down...
When my relationship improves...
When I get the house...
When I change jobs...
When I finally look like the woman I've decided I'm supposed to look like...
Then I'll be happy.
But have you noticed how quickly then moves?
You get the thing.
There's a little burst of satisfaction.
And almost immediately the mind finds another problem.
Because that's what minds do.
There's always another bloody kitchen to renovate.
So perhaps happiness isn't something we finally earn when we've arranged our lives correctly.
Perhaps it's something we've become incredibly good at covering up.
The Same Goes for Love
We spend years trying to become lovable.
Thinner.
Prettier.
More successful.
Less difficult.
Less emotional.
More accommodating.
More impressive.
More useful.
We shape ourselves around what we think will make other people choose us.
And there's a brutal question hiding underneath all of that:
What do I believe would happen if I simply showed up as myself?
Would they still love me?
Would they leave?
Would they think I was selfish?
Would I disappoint them?
Would I still belong?
Now we're getting somewhere.
Because sometimes what looks like people pleasing is actually fear.
What looks like perfectionism can be fear.
What looks like overachievement can be fear.
What looks like constantly helping everyone can be fear.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of not being enough.
Fear of being judged.
Fear of not belonging.
And we can spend our whole bloody lives trying to solve those fears by becoming more acceptable.
Then Midlife Arrives and Kicks the Door In
And thank God for that.
Because menopause has many faults, but subtlety isn't one of them.
Suddenly the tolerance you once had for bullshit appears to evaporate alongside your oestrogen.
Things start irritating you.
Roles stop fitting.
Relationships feel different.
Your body changes.
Your priorities shift.
You start asking questions you haven't asked for years.
Do I actually want this?
Do I even like this?
Why am I doing this?
Who decided I had to live this way?
And the really terrifying one:
Who am I when I'm not being who everybody needs me to be?
That can feel like a crisis.
But perhaps it isn't.
Perhaps it's a reckoning.
Maybe the woman underneath all those layers has finally had enough.
You Don't Need Another Version of Yourself
This is where the personal-development industry can occasionally do my bloody head in.
BECOME YOUR BEST SELF.
UNLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL.
CREATE THE NEW YOU.
LEVEL UP.
Christ.
I'm tired just reading it.
What if there isn't a new you required?
What if your wellbeing doesn't depend upon endlessly improving yourself?
What if you aren't a renovation project?
Maybe the work isn't about adding.
Maybe it's about removing.
Removing the belief that you have to please everybody.
Removing the belief that rest must be earned.
Removing the belief that your worth lives in your productivity.
Removing the belief that getting older makes you less valuable.
Removing the belief that saying no makes you selfish.
Removing the belief that somebody else's opinion of you is an instruction.
Removing the belief that you need permission to live your own bloody life.
Layer.
By layer.
By layer.
Until eventually something familiar appears.
You.
And Then There's Humility
Humility isn't making yourself small.
That's something women have been spectacularly mis-sold.
Humility isn't saying:
"Oh, I'm nothing special."
It isn't dismissing compliments.
It isn't hiding your talent.
It isn't making yourself smaller so other people feel bigger.
Real humility is being secure enough that you don't constantly need to prove who you are.
You can say:
I'm good at this.
And you can also say:
I don't know.
You can be proud of yourself without believing you're better than somebody else.
You can change your mind.
You can apologise.
You can learn.
You can stop defending a version of yourself you've outgrown.
That's freedom.
So Maybe Wellbeing Isn't About Adding More
Maybe it isn't another supplement.
Another routine.
Another book.
Another podcast.
Another bloody morning ritual involving lemon water and journalling before sunrise.
Maybe today's wellbeing practice is considerably simpler.
Ask yourself:
What am I believing about myself that makes being me so bloody difficult?
That I'm not enough?
That I'm too old?
That I'm difficult?
That I have to keep everybody happy?
That I need to be needed?
That my body determines my worth?
That changing my life means I've failed at the old one?
Then ask:
Is that actually true?
Or have you repeated it for so long that it simply feels true?
Because there is a difference between who you are...
and the story you've learned to tell about who you are.
And perhaps underneath all that noise, the things we're desperately chasing haven't disappeared at all.
Love.
Joy.
Peace.
Humility.
Connection.
Enoughness.
Maybe they're already there.
Perhaps they've just been drowned out by decades of shoulds, musts, comparisons, expectations, fear and other people's bloody opinions.
So this Wellbeing Wednesday, I'm not asking you to become anything.
I'm asking you to notice what you might be ready to put down.
You don't need to find yourself.
You need to stop abandoning yourself.
You don't need to earn your worth.
You need to question who taught you that it had a price.
And you don't need to become enough.
You already were.
Maybe midlife isn't about creating a brand-new woman after all.
Maybe it's about finally giving the original one some bloody room to breathe.
Women who refuse to suffer politely live here.
Welcome to Wellbeing Wednesday, Moos.
We're not fixing ourselves.
We're questioning the bullshit that convinced us we needed fixing in the first place.
Love from Missy Moo x
Comments