Midlife Awakening: Rewriting Identity Through Story
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[00:00:00] karen: Do you think midlife means that we have to slow down or does it give you a sense of urgency that you need to speed up on something? If you're new here, welcome to the Creative Life in Po- Motion podcast.
[00:00:14] I'm your host Karen Wilson and we have, you know, conversations about life, about being creative and how it's better just to fall in love with who you're being on the way rather than waiting until you get the thing or build the thing. A couple of months ago, I was on the trail walking my dog, and I was thinking about this book that I had read in September when I was on the airplane on the way to go visit my mom in New Brunswick, which is all the way across Canada, so it's a long plane ride.
[00:00:49] Brought this book to read because the airplane that I was on had no, like, entertainment. So, you know, you gotta either sit there and think and look out the window, try to sleep, or bring something good to read. So I started reading this book called Four Thousand weeks and it really kind of puts in your face, like, the amount of time we actually have on this planet to do life, right?
[00:01:17] So I'm on the trail and I'm thinking about this, like, where am I on this map? And so I start to think about my age, and I think about, "Okay, well, um, I'm well into it."
[00:01:32] You know? Like, I'm 53. When did that happen? I mean, like, just yesterday I was 30 and had a whole life of mistakes ahead of me. So it's okay if I make lots of mistakes because I have lots of time to recover from mistakes, and things don't seem as urgent. But now I'm sitting here at 53, and it just dawned on me
[00:01:55] The math. If I make it to the same age as my dad, I only have 132 months left, 132 months. Now, if I make it to the age of my mom, who is still living
[00:02:15] That's 360 months Still, like, that's not a lot. And then, you know, I'm looking at my dog, Tula, and I'm thinking, "Okay, well, in, in dog years, her and I, we're the same age." Exactly the same age, and she's, you know, she's slowing down,
[00:02:39] So fast-forward to May. I'm so excited because I have finally signed up for this writer's conference that comes into my town once a year. It's a big writer's conference festival, and every year I'm usually doing something different at that time of year. So we're us- uh, my husband and I put on a RavenWater school.
[00:03:05] A lot of times we have it on that same weekend. There's been other times I've been away on other business, and it's just never really lined up with the dates, and I'm so excited this time it's gonna finally line up with the dates.
[00:03:20] So then when I get the call from back east from mom and she's having a few challenges, I decide that I'm going to go there and I'm gonna visit her the week before the conference, and then I will land and then I'll go to the conference and it'll all be great. As I sign up for this conference, I notice that there's this option, this opportunity for me to get, um, a well-known author and editor to have a look at my work and do what's called a blue pencil reading.
[00:03:52] I have to send in some, some work pre- like before, so I get the work ready and I send it in. We have a date on the calendar, and I'm really, I'm so excited. I'll be live. I'll be getting some real, um, what I feel is professional feedback, and it's the first time I've really stepped out of my comfort zone as a writer and said, "Yes, I'm open to having another very established writer look at my stuff before I publish it."
[00:04:24] So I'm there in New Brunswick, and I have just finished spending the day with my aunties and my mom, and we'd gone to the park, and we'd gone for some ice cream. And I go back to my place to have dinner, and I open up my laptop, and I get this email from, uh, the author that I'm supposed to meet with, and it says, "Sorry I missed you today." I'm like, "What? What are you talking about? Were we supposed to meet before the conference?" Like, I didn't get an email invite for, like, a Zoom session or anything. It's like this is not until next weekend.
[00:05:04] This is so bizarre. I didn't even know we were supposed to meet. So she had sent back my work. She had done some editing, and she's like, "Maybe we can connect another time. Here's your piece," and she did the whole blue pencil edit on the work I submitted, which I was very grateful for 'cause there I was, like, a no-show, and I'm, like, so embarrassed.
[00:05:26] So I email her back, and I say, "I'm so sorry I missed this," and, you know, I was apologizing. I said, "I didn't realize we were meeting before the event," and I hit send. Then I go to the website, and I realize that I'm supposed to be at the conference right now. The conference is not next weekend. It's actually this weekend, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh."
[00:05:52] I just doubly embarrassed myself because I not only didn't go um, to the conference, I spent money on a ticket that I couldn't go. I stood up this very, very successful Canadian author, um, and then I told her that we're supposed to be meeting next weekend. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh. I... Like, what is going on?"
[00:06:17] So of course, I emailed her back, and she was very gracious about it and everything. And I sat there for a second, and I thought, "How did, how did that happen?" Like, how did I not catch that? Maybe Karen, maybe it's time to slow down, but not Because I can't go fast, it's because I don't want to miss stuff. And am I, like, in the trap of busy?
[00:06:49] Am I in, in this, um, unrelenting hamster wheel that I need to have productivity to prove my worth? That my identity is attached to what it is I do instead of who it is that I am? I started asking myself all, all of these questions And not all the answers that I told myself were very nice, but, but that's okay.
[00:07:15] We don't always have to be really nice to ourselves. Sometimes we- the truth hurts. Sometimes we have to just, like, sit down and say, "Okay, what am I really doing? And how much of it really matters?"
[00:07:30] , It was a really tough week in New Brunswick because, you know, I was dealing with a lot of adulting things. And my actual work in progress has a lot of tribute to my mom. And as I'm seeing that, you know, memories don't last forever, and
[00:07:51] It puts so much more, for me, it puts so much more gravitas in the work that I am putting out in the world. So I started asking myself these questions about like, what, what is it that I really wanna create? Like, why am I really writing this book anyways? And should I just burn everything down and start from scratch?
[00:08:12] And am I wasting my time? And worse off, am I too late You know, am I too late to make a go of it? There was, um, another book I listened to on audiobook, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, A lot of times I've been guilty of saying, "Well, I just, I just want my story to help people." I mean, I wrote a book. I went and built a one-woman show, and the whole reason behind that was so that I could help people.
[00:08:46] Um, when I started teaching health and fitness and I was a coach online, the only reason why I wanted to do that was so that I could help other people So when I heard her say in the book Big Magic that if your motive is to help people, you'll probably help no one. And I thought, "Well, is that why I don't feel like I'm going anywhere?
[00:09:15] Because the motive is because I wanna help people?" And then she went on to say, "If the motive is to help yourself, in by doing that, your creativity will help others." That's what I've been really marinating on in the last couple of months,
[00:09:38] I've had some really great mentors, and I, and I just have to say that the ones that I have m- had the most success with, with myself with are ones that don't tell you that this is a shortcut. You know, the problem with the shortcut is that you don't get to make the mistakes. You don't get to feel the failures because it's the failures that allow you to go in a different direction or allow you to feel in your body that you're off track.
[00:10:17] If you, if you take the shortcut, then you'll have a body of work or a message or a vision or, or, or something creative in your hands that might never feel like your own. And so if it doesn't feel like your own, how do you expect to feel good about sharing it? And these are just contemplative questions that I have.
[00:10:48] Let's go back to this concept that Elizabeth Gilbert talked about for a second. If you are writing a piece of work or creating a piece of art that is fueling you, the energetic exchange with the universe is, is going to allow it to go and reach the people that need to hear it, thereby it being seen or attributing, contributing to other people feeling seen, which may or may not help them.
[00:11:20] The world just found out last week that, um, Bonnie Tyler passed away. And so you think of that song Total Eclipse of the Heart. Who has not sung that song with their brush in the mirror? You know, like for me, I, I don't know, 15, 16, I can't remember when it came out, but I remember the song and I could still belt out all the lyrics in my car, and there's something about that, that
[00:11:47] Is it the chorus? The chorus that just, just, just, just brings all that energy out and you just have to like embellish on it and, and sing it loud 'cause it just feels complete if you sing it loud
[00:12:04] Are you with me on that? So I, I looked it up to see if Bonnie Tyler actually, um, w- wrote that song, and it turns out that it's someone named Jim Steinman. Never heard of him before. But, I, I mean, I don't wanna jump to conclusions, but can't you just feel the heartache and the pain in that song? Can't you just feel the love and the expression?
[00:12:35] And obviously it was a co-creation between the writer and the artist, and it cr- it, it was made into what it was. But a lot of times you hear that songwriters and artists, we go into these kind of these writing trances or creative trances where it allows us to heal from whatever, and then a passion and energy exchange is ignited.
[00:13:04] So because of that, if you're in Gen X, you know that song, and, and, like, lots of different generations, right? So I think that that's a really great example of... I mean, I don't know for sure if this song was a healing song, but it sure feels that way. And maybe if it wasn't for the writer, it might have been for, for the artist, right?
[00:13:29] But when you feel it like that- You can't not feel something. You can't not identify with it. So that's, that's where I feel it's so important to get our creative energy going on paper. However, however that looks, it, it just ignites this different energy within us, and we've just been, I don't know, we've been told and conditioned that if it's not productive or if it doesn't produce money, then it's selfish, and I'm saying you've gotta be selfish in that respect because that's actually what helps the world empathize with one another.
[00:14:14] It helps us connect. It helps us feel each other. It helps us give, gives us more points of view on different worlds and different aspects on, on how things intertwine.
[00:14:30] Do you love what you do when you go to work and have all of that time be occupied? I think about 75% of the population probably likes what they do. They might not like their bank account. They might not like some of their coworkers or some of the people that they need to interact with, but they love what they're in service of. Because when you go to work, you're in service of something.
[00:14:57] Now, the question is, is that if you lost your job tomorrow, would your identity go with it?
[00:15:06] It's never too late to do something that you've always wanted to do and make time to do it every single day. If you're part of the Gen X, you know, you know what it's like to hold an identity. You know what it's like to be, um, put in these, these different buckets d- due to our occupation, and how s- how society treats you differently in every role that you have. And how showing up, uh, with an identity is what we've known.
[00:15:41] It's something that we've known, right? And it seems super scary to rip off that identity and actually show up as ourselves, but who am I if I'm not this?
[00:15:56] And who are you if you're not that? I know that sounds like I'm making a Dr. Seuss book up on the fly, and really I'm not
[00:16:08] Moving forward, I'm not slowing down because I can't keep going at this pace. I'm slowing down because I want to experience more of the 300 and w- whatever months that I, that I have left. Because honestly, that's another thing that you experience in midlife is that you realize that some people are not with you anymore, and some people that are not with you anymore, y- you're older than And some people that are not with you anymore, you're approaching their age.
[00:16:49] And there's this whole concept of you're here and then you're not Which is why it's so important to know who you are. And I feel like the best way to do that is to write a book. Honestly, I know it sounds, it sounds outrageous. It's like, where am I gonna find the time to write a book? blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:17:16] You don't have to give it to anybody. You, you don't, you don't have to share it with anyone. You can. It can become a great tool for your business, for your cause, for whatever. You can do that. But I can honestly say there has never been anything as eye-opening as digging into all of my personal stories from all of the decades, and it's exciting.
[00:17:48] When I get into those little pockets of, um, writing where it feels like no one's watching and I don't know how it's coming out of me, then sometimes I think that this is like the best writing in the world, and I come back to it and I'm like, "That was crap."
[00:18:05] But here's, here's the thing. I think this is why it's very important, is that 40 years from now, 50 years from now, there's gonna be an archive of, for our future generations of living in this time. And there comes a time, uh, in every young person's life where they start to really decide that they want to dig into who their parents were.
[00:18:40] There's nothing more, um, gratifying than finding things that were stories and scribes and thoughts and dreams and, You can kind of relate for the first time with, say, your 50-year-old mother when you're 50, like myself, and I can relate with all the things that she's writing in her journals at 50 because
[00:19:13] It's like she's my best friend. But I couldn't relate to her when I was 20, and we didn't always get along. Um, actually, we mostly didn't get along until I had my son Jake, and then I was like, "Oh, I get it. I get what this motherhood thing is." So- My mom was writing to help herself, and in by doing that, she's helped me.
[00:19:46] And if it's just one person or if it's a, a, a, a something that gets published, you're not in control of the outcome Isn't it a beautiful thing to be able to feel our expressions, to be able to relate and communicate across decades, across timelines, uh, and take in the whole human experience?
[00:20:11] The secret sauce is in the doing and, um, being that identity every day. Uh, so for me, I, I decided that I'm, I'm a writer.
[00:20:24] So what do writers do? I do what writers do. I write, I edit, I read
[00:20:33] Even when I don't want to. It's the same thoughts I've always had with identity shifts. Uh, so, you know, I became a runner. It took me a half a dozen half marathons and a full marathon actually, before I actually would surrender and call myself a runner. I wanted to be a non-smoker, so I created that identity, and what do non-smokers do?
[00:21:04] Well, for the first month I ate and shopped a lot because I was just filling the time and the space. I did what I needed to do to get the identity that I, that I wanted. So those are just a few examples. Not saying that I'm, you know, um, have all the answers. I think if someone says that they have all the answers, I would run fast the other way because it's you that has all the answers.
[00:21:35] There's tools, there's processes, there's things that have worked for eons that continue to work, but the magic is in you sitting down doing the work and feeling the feeling of how you transmit those things, if this seemed like a really deep episode, I felt that too , if you and I like hung out in real life, uh, and we sat down for coffee, you, you would find that I don't do small talk very well. We go deep and we go deep fast. And I, um I appreciate you hanging out with me and, uh
[00:22:18] Who am I if I am not this? And if you know, you know. Thanks for hanging with me. I'll see you next time. Bye.
