The Midlife Threshold

It is possible to remain stuck at one of life’s most important thresholds. When this happens, we experience or witness what is often referred to as a “midlife crisis” unfolding in a person’s life. This is usually the moment a person mistakes the intolerance of their own life for something as superficial as the felt need to acquire something (or someone) “new”. Often the unattended pressure to make a change will manifest as depression or anxiety. Because most of us have received such little training in navigating the depths of psyche, we are often unfamiliar with how to respond in a healthy way when the deeper parts of ourselves begin to register their discontent.

When I was about 40, I began to feel the unbearable weight of failure. I was trying desperately to start a church. At the time, I was a practicing Christian and felt like this was the only way I could create something meaningful that also served others. And while I know that the 8 years I spent in this work did offer some relief and support to some people, I mostly suffered from feeling like a failed pastor of a church that could not grow big enough. On top of this, my contributions to our family finances were meager, further compounding the shame I carried as a father and husband. It turns out my frameworks for life were almost all wrong. You couldn’t have told me this at the time, as I would have rejected it. I wasn’t ready to admit just how badly I was doing on the inside. I resisted my own midlife threshold with every morsel of my being, until I physically could do nothing but succumb to the depression and anxiety that would eventually swallow nearly 2 years of my life.

Maybe your midlife looks like this, but it doesn’t have to. Often it will, simply because we don’t have a collective cultural understanding of how the soul’s call arrives. There are many big challenges to recognizing and responding to the midlife threshold. The overarching reason comes from a long history of suppression of soul by a dominator society. Western society presently has no cultural inheritance that offers support or guidance for this most significant life threshold. In our personal lives, we feel the effects of this, too. Many of us are parents or partners, fulfilling a sense of responsibility we have or a vow we have made - often without the kind of family or “tribal” support that would insist on the importance of our own initiatory journey to soul. Some of us are too well insulated by finances, and our wealth enables us to weather this storm more comfortably. When we do reach out for help, often well meaning psychiatrists will prescribe us psychiatric medication because they, too, are culturally misinformed. Therapists and counselors are sometimes guilty of offering the kind of advice that helps a person spiritually bypass the midlife threshold, at least temporarily.

As a pastor, I had no training or understanding of this critical moment in life. Life was supposed to be an ascension to heaven. Prayers will get you through. If you were succumbing to the undertow of the midlife threshold, you were lacking in faith.

All of us are experts at escaping our pain. We learn how to control our environments, stay super busy, blame others, or use a thousand other denials of what is actually happening within - all in service of keeping ourselves SAFE.

This is where knowing what to do makes all the difference.

“Staying safe” is the tagline of our childhood adaptive strategies. Most of us still navigate life with personas that are rooted in these adaptive strategies. You cannot pass through the Midlife Threshold without learning to cultivate your innate human wholeness. Without access to your wholeness, you are a ship being tossed on the stormy ocean without a sail, rudder, motor or oars.

If you resonate with what I’m saying, its probably time for you to learn how to cultivate your wholeness. I heartily recommend “Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche”, by Bill Plotkin, PhD. Bill is a nature-based depth psychologist and guide to soul. He’s a trusted teacher of mine, and his work has profoundly influenced mine. In fact, I found his work while adrift on my own psycho-spiritual ocean. I’ve had the privilege of training with him in several immersive programs since 2019.

If you recognize yourself at this midlife threshold, no matter what your age, reach out. Consider joining one of my offerings or signing up for a mentoring session. Real lasting change will happen if you give yourself a chance to learn something new.