Midlife Confidence Lab (formerly Edge of Real)

The Psychology of Midlife Reinvention: Why You Want More Now - #15

• Kristin Hamilton | Personal Growth Coach • Season 1 • Episode 15

Share episode

We reintroduce our show as Midlife Confidence Lab (formerly Edge of Real Podcast) and explore why midlife restlessness is not a crisis but a call to a deeper, truer identity. We share the psychology, the signs to watch for, and practical steps to regulate, reflect, and follow small, brave moves.

• Midlife Confidence Lab has a deeper focus on self‑trust and boldness
• Carl Jung’s individuation and the shift from roles to inner truth
• Three driving forces: role disruption, cognitive maturing, somatic truth telling
• The hidden message of restlessness as expansion not failure
• Clear signs you’re outgrowing your old identity
• Reframing fear and discomfort as information
• Better questions to ask for clarity and direction
• Nervous system regulation with 4‑7‑8 breathing
• Small yeses, micro‑steps, and desire

Episodes mentioned:

#12. How to Find Meaning in Midlife When Everything Is Fine But Nothing Feels Real   https://www.buzzsprout.com/2517915/episodes/18086705

#7. Living Out of Alignment? How to Recognize the Signs and Realign with Your Authentic Self  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2517915/episodes/17895584

#5. Embodying Your Highest Self: How to Live It Today   https://www.buzzsprout.com/2517915/episodes/17813132

🦋 Would you like help walking through these steps, or with accountability, or deeper dives into these topics? Interested in learning more about working 1:1 with me to transform your life in your rediscovery? Schedule a free Discovery call with me here: https://stan.store/MidlifeConfidenceLab

🎧 Follow Midlife Confidence Lab on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. And share this episode with a friend who you would like to help.

✨ Find me on Instagram @MidlifeConfidenceLab

📌 Leave a review, then email us a screenshot at midlifeconfidencelab@gmail.com and we will send you a beautiful free digital journal to help you work through some of your thoughts and get some clarity about what you truly want out of your life.

🎵 Theme Music: Home by Vlad Gluschenko @vladest_art — Home

License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

...
Kristin:

Hi, it's Kristin. And before we get into today's episode, I want to let you know that you are in exactly the right place. I'm sure you noticed the new name and cover art. The podcast you've been listening to, Edge of Real, has evolved into Midlife Confidence Lab. If you missed this announcement in the last episode, go ahead and listen to that one next to hear more about this. We're still talking about midlife identity and rediscovery, but now we're diving even deeper into building self-trust, reclaiming confidence, learning to live boldly and intuitively in midlife. This is where reflection meets action. We'll get curious, take imperfect steps, make bold experiments, and keep expanding into what's next. Same voice, same depth, same real talk, just a little more fire, a little more freedom, and a lot more confidence. Welcome to Midlife Confidence Lab, where we make boldness feel natural, decisions feel doable, and self-trust and confidence feel like home. Thank you for being here and for growing right alongside me. Now, let's get into the episode. Welcome back to Midlife Confidence Lab, formerly Edge of Real. I'm your host, Kristin Hamilton, certified life coach helping midlife women who are in their what's next chapter of life. I am so glad you're here. This is our first episode under the new name, and it feels so right because this space is a lab. It's a place where you get to experiment and explore and evolve into the version of yourself that feels the most like you. So welcome to the lab. Today we are talking about a topic we've touched on before, but I want to go deeper because it sits right at the heart of the midlife identity search. That feeling that something's missing. People like to call it a crisis, but I say it's not a crisis at all. It is a wake-up call. So many women tell me, I don't know what's wrong with me. My life is fine, but inside something feels off. Or they might say, I feel like I am sleepwalking through my days. Sometimes I hear, I love my people, but I can't feel myself anymore. Or everything that used to motivate me doesn't. And here's what I want you to hear: midlife restlessness isn't a malfunction. It is not a falling apart. It is your system coming back online. And if you hear my cat purring right now, I'm so sorry. She is just kind of settling in next to me. This is my sweet little cat, Sky. She's a little black kitty cat. She is not the orange cat that some of you might have seen when I was on the Law of Attraction Tribe podcast that went across the back of my chair. This is my other kitty cat. This is my little Sky baby. So, anyway, sorry if you're hearing the purring. She's a happy little thing. So, back to the episode. I want to go a little bit into some history and some kind of theory here. Carl Jung was a psychiatrist who was one of the pioneers in the field of psychology. He talked of what he called individuation. In a general sense, individuation simply refers to the process of separating from the collective, including one's parents, uh, cultural norms, and becoming a unique individual. So one Jungian psychoanalyst said, individuation is the process by which every living organism becomes what it was destined to become from the beginning. So Jung believed that in the first half of life, we navigate the world in an effort to develop our egos. The first portion of life is mainly external as we seek to meet our basic needs: establishing a home, starting a family, having a career, developing the skills that are the common external objectives for the first half of life. But from Jung's outlook, the second part of life ideally represents a turning inward toward the deeper part of ourselves. This inward turn initiates this individuation process that he talked about. So psychologists now sometimes call this phase a second individuation, similar to the one we go through as teens, except now with decades of lived experience. So what is really happening then? You are outgrowing an identity that was built on roles and responsibilities and conditioning and survival strategies. And you're stepping into an identity based on truth and desire and alignment. It is not a breakdown, it is the beginning of a breakthrough. So let's talk about the actual psychology here because this does matter. There are three major forces at play. One is the disruption of roles. So for decades, many women build their identities around being the dependable one, the caretaker, the peacekeeper, the achiever, the one who makes everything work. And then kids grow up, marriages change, parents age, careers shift, dreams that were put on hold begin to resurface. And that scaffolding that we had, all of the external things that we up to this point built our lives on, well, that falls away. And with it, the identity that lived inside those roles. The second thing at play here is the cognitive and emotional maturing. So around midlife, the brain shifts into a new developmental stage that prioritizes meaning over achievement, purpose, authenticity, inner truth, emotional alignment. You are now literally neurologically primed for reinvention. The third thing at play here: somatic truth telling. Somatic comes from a word soma, which just means body. Your body starts telling the truth that you no longer have the bandwidth to ignore. Fatigue, boredom, irritation, restlessness, numbness, a sense of, I cannot keep pretending. It is your nervous system saying, I want more for you, and I will not let you shrink anymore. So let's talk about the hidden message behind the midlife calling. So here's what most women misinterpret. When you feel restless or dissatisfied or disconnected, you think, something's wrong with me. But the truth is your old identity is just too small for who you're becoming. You're not broken, you're not failing, you are expanding. If you were truly in the wrong life, you would feel panic. Or if you were truly stuck, you would feel this deep, deep despair. But what midlife brings is a pull, it's a tug, it's a it's an itch, a sense that something bigger is asking for your attention. And that is your calling. That is something deep inside you saying, Hey, hey you over here. This awareness is the first step toward what Carl Jung called individuation and what I call freedom. So, what are the signs of a midlife calling that nobody ever actually names clearly? Here are the signs that I see over and over again in my clients, and many of them I have felt myself. I'll give you some examples of those as we come across them. Perhaps you feel guilty for wanting more. Perhaps you fantasize about changing your life, even in small ways. I tend to rearrange my furniture or change my hair in some big way. Maybe you feel off but can't explain why. Maybe you're bored with who you've been. You crave depth, meaning, creativity, joy. I've gone through two phases of seriously wanting to be an artist or a writer. One was during adolescence, and the other was in the last couple years. That is not a coincidence. Maybe you feel like you're watching yourself from the outside. This is a disconnect. It's a it's a not knowing what you feel and who you are anymore. And so you've disconnected and you feel like you're just watching yourself from afar. Maybe you can't force yourself to care about the things you used to. I used to be so scared of my own apathy before I realized what it was a sign of. Or maybe you feel both scared and excited. So these are not signs of decline. They're signs of awakening. They're signs that your old identity is too small. So, how do we respond to this midlife calling? This is where we shift from awareness to action. First of all, stop interpreting discomfort as danger. Discomfort is information, it is data and it's guidance. Fear doesn't mean don't go there. It often means this really matters. And our mind is just trying to keep us safe by shouting, danger, danger. Number two, ask better questions. I know you've heard this from me before, but this is so important. Instead of asking, what's wrong with me? Try what part of me is trying to grow? What desire have I been suppressing? What truth am I finally brave enough to face? You can journal on this. You can give yourself time to think, go for walks, meditate. Just become more and more aware. Make space for the woman that you are becoming because she's extraordinary. And remember, awareness is the beginning of every change. Number three, expand your nervous system's capacity. Reinvention is going to require regulation. That fear response we talked about in step one, we can calm that and make it feel safe again. Safe enough to allow ourselves to expand. When you calm your nervous system, clarity returns. Your decisions become braver. Your self-trust strengthens, your sense of identity stabilizes. I have several episodes now where we've talked about the nervous system in depth, and I will link them in the show notes if you haven't listened yet, or if you could use a refresher, I highly encourage you to listen to those. Nervous system regulation and somatic work are very important in my practice. So we will absolutely be going more into this in future episodes as well. So here's just a quick one to finish this thought. I've talked before about the four, seven, eight breathing method. I do it whenever I need to regulate. I do it every day when I sit down to meditate and also when I lay down to go to sleep. So we're gonna do this together, but I want to explain it to you first. So you're gonna breathe in through your nose for four, and you want to breathe it all the way to your belly. You want to feel your belly expand, not your chest. Then you're gonna hold at the top for seven, and then you'll breathe out for eight. And this isn't a blowing of air, it's an exhale. You're gonna just let the air pour out of you. By the last couple counts, you might be contracting your core muscles to push the air out for those last couple counts. But you don't need to blow with force. So let's try it. And I usually do it two or three times, but let's just start with one. Breathe in, two, three, four. Hold for seven, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Breathe out for eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Breathing out for longer than you breathe in signals to your body that you're safe. So think about how when you gasp for air, that feels really unsafe and desperate, right? Well, this is the opposite of that. So after you take a couple of breaths, you want to move the energy. You can shake it out, you can dance, you can cry, you can go for a walk, you can journal, you can jump up and down. Basically, you just want to get that energy moving and out of your body. Number four, follow the small yeses. Big leaps aren't required. Start with micro movement if need be. Decide on small things that you can do to work toward where you want to end up. What feels more like you today? What's the next tiny step toward yourself? Number five, let desire lead without judgment. Midlife desire is not selfish. I'm gonna say that again. Midlife desire is not selfish. If you're feeling that it is selfish, that is old programming. That is something that you heard in your past. That is not your present, and that is not the truth. Desire is directional, it is a compass back to yourself. Write down five things you want, like truly want for your life. And these can be big or small. For example, maybe you want to go for a walk a couple times this week. Maybe you want to buy a couple of new things that are the kinds of clothes that you want to be wearing. Or maybe you want to book a vacation and go on vacation with your best friend or your kids or yourself. What do you truly want? So here's something that no one tells women. You are not becoming someone new. You're returning to someone original. Before the rules and the roles and the expectations, you certainly can become someone new. In fact, you can do whatever the hell you want because you are the boss of you. But midlife doesn't have to be about creating a brand new you. It can be about reclaiming the parts of you that got buried because life just demanded other things from you. And not to downplay this by any means. I know the feeling of wondering if I will survive this. But this is not a crisis. This is a course correction. This is your opportunity to choose differently, to honor your past, your experiences, yourself who did what she had to do. And now it is time to move on, move forward toward a true version of you in the now. If you are listening to this and thinking, yes, this is exactly what I'm feeling, please know that you are not alone and you are not imagining it. You are in a midlife awakening, and it deserves support. So join me here each week. There are new episodes every Tuesday. And please reach out to me at Midlife Confidence Lab on Instagram and let me know some of the things that you are struggling with, some of the things that you would just like more discussion on, and I can gear future episodes toward what you all find most helpful and useful. And please share this with other women you know who need this today. Our community is growing every day, and collectively, we are strong and we are powerful and caring and full of love for each other. If you want help navigating this shift and rebuilding confidence, strengthening your self-trust, regulating your nervous system, becoming the woman you know you are meant to be, I would love to support you further. You can book a free discovery call. It's a chance to talk through what you're experiencing, get some clarity, see if working together feels aligned. The link is in the show notes, and truly, you do not have to figure this out alone. Until next time, stay curious and keep playing and experimenting in life. And remember, trust the woman you're becoming. She is done playing small. Choose bold, choose aligned, choose the life that you want to live. Love you. Bye bye.

Head Shot

Kristin Hamilton

Host