55. Midlife Clarity: Recognize What Feels Right and Let Go of What Doesn’t

0:00 One of the sticking points that I hit on quite regularly with coaching clients is I don't want to do or try or talk about any of that woo-woo stuff. You want sound advice, you don't want woo-woo stuff. Well, we have to talk about what that means. Because in midlife, it is really important that you make decisions that you resonate with. And that is not woo-woo stuff. And I'm gonna tell you why not and exactly what to do. So let's talk about it. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time.

0:45 Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast. I think there are so many different reasons why we might hit our mid-40s into our 50s, maybe early 60s, and start reevaluating things in our life. And it's going to be different for everyone, right?

1:27 I can't necessarily just say this is the case for everyone. But you may have kids that are out of the house, and so you're not seeing them every single day, and it gives you this weird vacuum of time that you don't know what to do with. You may be starting to think ahead towards retirement and wondering about that. You may have had a relationship change, you may be frustrated about things going on with your body. You get the point. There's so much change. Parents, too, right? Aging parents, there's so much change happening during this period of time. And that change often comes with a little extra time to ruminate or obsess over, to say it in a less healthy way, things going on in our lives.

2:20 And so we're gonna sort of talk about that today because I think a major mistake that we make, and not even I think, a major mistake that I see so many people making is continuing forward with something because of a commitment or whatever, when we are really, really, really not in the right place for that thing anymore. And that's how I use the word resonate. So when something, when you resonate with something, and you've probably said that, wow, that really makes sense to me. That really resonates with me. It feels aligned. And I think this is where the woo-woo label sometimes incorrectly gets applied.

3:05 It feels aligned. It means it feels good. There's no drama, there's no kind of worry and weird stuff happening in your head. It feels like this thing that you're resonating with is a good decision or a good thing or a great person or a safe person. It's fitting with your natural energy. You feel kind of your body going, yeah, definitely. And that feels woo-woo, but it's not. It's science. It's inside of you a recognition that something just feels correct. And it can be, as I said, about people, about work, about routines, about how you live your life, I'm supposed even about what you eat, if we sit and think about it.

3:52 And resonance is actually a physics term. So when two frequencies match, they amplify each other. Make the wave bigger is another way to say that. And that happens in physics, and it also happens emotionally and mentally. Our emotions have frequency. Our thoughts have frequency. That's been proven study after study after study that have done really fascinating experiments with that. And our brains inside our bodies and aligned with our brains, our nervous systems, are constantly checking throughout our bodies, checking our senses where we're taking in information, checking to see: does this right now feel safe?

4:47 Does this right now feel familiar? Does this right now feel like growth? Does this right now feel forward motion? Or does it feel dangerous or questionable or upsetting or not what I wanted? Or backwards. Your brain is always checking that, always scanning to make sure that your nervous system is okay and you are feeling aligned with whatever's going on at that moment. And neuroscience studies have shown that we respond to coherence, meaning everything in sync, everything coherent.

5:30 When our thoughts, our emotions, our actions are in sync, we function better. So when something doesn't resonate, and don't worry, I'm gonna give you some examples. I'm not gonna just talk scientific terms all the time, although I do kind of nerd out about this stuff. So if you're like me, then hey, share this episode. Maybe, maybe the other brain science nerds will love it too. So we're gonna have some examples. But when something doesn't resonate, when you feel that just kind of, I don't, I always call it like a niggling in the in the back of your head, like you know, something's it's like you almost have the word, you almost have the thought.

6:10 It's often your body signaling dissonance. So instead of coherence, when our thoughts, our emotions, our actions are all in sync, dissonance means out of sync, misaligned. And that means that your definition of who you are doesn't match with whatever's going on right in this moment. Your definition of what the world looks like doesn't match with what's going on right in this moment. So let's dive into that a little bit. What is this definition of the world? Your subconscious brain stores all the instructions for running your body.

6:58 Your subconscious brain is directing your breathing and your heartbeat and the blood flow in your body and all the stuff that obviously we don't spend time thinking about. And your subconscious brain is storing beliefs about your life. And I don't mean faith type beliefs, although that certainly is part of it. It's just beliefs about if I'm in this situation, what will I do? What does it mean? If this thing happens to me, what does it mean? How do I interpret that? And all of these beliefs about how the world is and how you're gonna interact with the world and what you're gonna be able to do and not be able to do, all of that is saved into your brain, and it's not something that we think about.

7:51 And so I don't want to get too off topic, but when we start kind of hitting a ceiling where we're trying to create a business and we can't, we just can't seem to get something off the ground, or we're trying to find a person to date, and we kind of keep self-sabotaging, it's probably because there is something deep in that subconscious brain telling us that we can't do this or we don't deserve it. So when we get into a situation where this feels a bit off, I feel I'm not really resonating with that idea, like I feel a bit, I'm not so sure. Then we really need to take a look.

8:32 And I'm mostly going to tell you in today's episode that that means it's time to stop doing things that don't resonate with you. But we have a little subcategory of that. So let's do some examples first, and then I'll I'll give you those two areas. Let's say, simple, simple example. Let's say that you are frustrated with your weight and you would like to lose some weight. And I learned this lesson so many years ago, sort of accidentally, not having anything to do with midlife, but it still applies. Years and years ago, when my kids were young, I wanted to lose some weight, and I was figuring out what was I gonna do, what was I gonna try, and I have had some psychological eating issues before, so I'd never count anything, I never count calories or count macros or any of that.

9:24 So I was figuring out what am I going to do? And my sister said to me, and this was just a casual conversation, she had no idea at the time how powerful this would be for me. And isn't that the case? Be careful of your words because they might change someone's life. So my sister said to me, Well, you have to have a picture of what you want to achieve, or you won't ever get there. Meaning, not an actual physical picture, although there's nothing wrong with that, but a picture in my mind of myself at my goal weight. What types of clothes would I wear?

10:06 What types of activities would I do? What would the scale say? Although I probably wouldn't use that one. She said, if you can't visualize it, you're not going to be able to do it. And it was such a simple sentence, thrown into the midst of a conversation. But that sentence changed my relationship with my weight. Because I think so many of us get frustrated with ourselves, and it doesn't have to be weight, I'm just using that as one of our examples. It could be fitness level, it could be who knows, what else? We get frustrated with ourselves and we decide we want to make a change, and then we start into some type of a program where we're going to eat differently or we're going to exercise more or we're going to do both those things, and we don't last very long.

10:57 And if we don't last very long, it's because deep in our subconscious brain, we don't see ourselves as the sort of person who blank, if I don't believe I'm the sort of person who weighs X amount or who wears X size or who feels really great about their body, then I am going to stop myself from getting to that point. It's like a thermostat setting. And this is often called the upper limit problem, where if we think of upper limit not in terms of number, in terms of weight, but in terms of amount of success, there's gonna hit an upper point there, and then we're gonna start self-sabotaging because we don't believe we can get beyond that amount of success.

11:48 That is one key reason why so many people who try to lose weight or get healthier stop because that's not how they see themselves.

12:33 Now let's flip it the other way. When I say stop doing things that don't resonate with you, let's say that you have been in a career for a long time, and when you go into work, whether you do it at home or whether you actually physically go into work, doesn't matter, you have so much frustration in your day. You feel frustrated that people in your work don't listen to you, don't take your ideas, or you feel like you're really not being used as a resource, that you could help them so much if they would just listen to you. Or maybe you don't like the direction that the company is going, and you feel a bit, I don't know, guilty might be a strong word, but you feel a bit like what you're doing is just not the right thing, and should you be doing it?

13:28 And you just it's it's as if I were just passionate about the environment, and I went to work for a company that for some major project had to clear out an entire part of a rainforest, and I had to be a part of that project. Well, probably if I'm passionate about the environment, that's gonna be stressful, right? I don't maybe maybe deep down I don't like the idea that that's the project I'm having to work on. It's not resonating with me. And situations like that happen all the time in life. It might be in friendships, it might be in relationships, it might be in activities, it might be in volunteer jobs, it might be in actual jobs, it might be in where you live.

14:11 If you notice that you are not mentally and emotionally resonating with something that you are doing in your life, now is the time to figure that out and make a change. When we stay in these situations that there's just this cognitive dissonance, this emotional dissonance with, we drain our energy, we keep our nervous systems on high alert, which over time is going to affect our health because our hormone levels are going crazy.

14:51 Everything is happening inside our body when that is the case. And we sort of lose our sense of purpose because every day we're sort of fighting against ourselves and we're getting through the day, fighting against ourselves about this thing that doesn't resonate with me, but I have to do it because, well, you don't have time to think about what your purpose is in life or where you're headed next. You're just making it through the day. Now, I don't mean that we should just trash everything and start over. I definitely don't mean that. There's some things we can do that aren't quite so extreme.

15:33 The very first step is I want you to notice. Notice if there is something in your life that you are not resonating with. Remind yourself, this is not woo-woo stuff, this is brain science. Really, this is more than that medical science when we talk about the nervous system. It is really important that we understand how this is affecting ourselves. And let me just hopefully make you feel a little bit better. This doesn't mean that you're failing at whatever this thing is. If you're really frustrated with your job or you're really frustrated in your relationship, it doesn't mean that you are failing.

16:20 It means something about the fit of that scenario for you has changed. You've changed. Maybe the company, the person, the situation has changed, and the fit is now different. So we don't want to call this failing, we don't want to create self-blame in this situation. We want to first recognize where in my life is this dissonance coming from? What situation is it? And then we want to think a little more deeply. Remember, I say sometimes we want to go behind the curtain.

17:00 So, what is going on in your head that is creating this dissonance? What are you telling yourself? And it might take a little bit of time to figure that out, but if you are in a situation where over and over and over you just feel this, ugh, it just doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right. I want you to listen to your thoughts. What is running in your head all the time that is creating that frustrated or or just kind of off-kilter emotion? Recognize it, notice it. Because if we continue just out of habit or obligation or maybe fear of change, we're never going to find something that does feel better, that does align, that does resonate.

17:51 And this is one of the reasons that a lot of people hit burnout. So it's possible that you could be in a job that you love. Absolutely love it. You love it so much that maybe you do it a lot, you work a lot of extra hours, maybe you're not taking enough time for rest, you're not giving yourself a break, you're not taking enough vacation. It is possible to burn out even in a job you love, but it is even more likely to burn out in a job that you've been pushing through, and you've been ignoring the dissonance that was in your emotions, that was in your thoughts.

18:37 Resentment is a word that maybe we'd recognize here, or just that feeling that you're you're off track. Like, where am I going? The longer we keep pushing through and ignoring that, the more likely we're gonna hit burnout, and everything suddenly becomes even bigger and even worse. So, first step, recognize it. Second step, listen to your thoughts. Pay attention to what you're telling yourself when you're first waking up, when you're doing tasks related to this thing during the day, when you're going to bed. There's gonna be stuff running around in your head about this situation.

19:21 Third step is to start to think about what you want. Now, I'm giving you, I gave you an example about weight loss, and I gave you an example about a job. There's so many things, right? There's people, there's activities that you may or may not be resonating with anymore. So when you decide about how you're gonna take action, this is where a coach or even maybe a therapist, depending on whether you're dealing with trauma or something very significant, can help you a lot. You can always go to Cherylpfisher.com/slash coaching. I would be happy to help you. We can set up a call. The key is to start thinking about in an open, creative, calm, non-judgmental way.

20:07 Well, what would I want instead? Because I'm not telling you to kick that person out of your life. Family is really important to me. And family sometimes is not gonna get along, right? Family's gonna think differently about so many things, and you get to choose how you want to manage that. Maybe you'd like to speak with them differently. Maybe you'd like to spend time with them differently. Maybe you'd like to, let's say it's a relationship, maybe you'd like to have some couples counseling because while you're in a rough patch, you still believe the long-term potential is there.

20:50 Or maybe you realize burnout is around the corner and you are getting out of this job now. It could be any of those things. But recognize what it is that you really want. You want this or you don't. You want it to look different. Well, what do you want it to look like? What would feel good? And absolutely the best way to ask yourself that is in little bits and pieces when you're feeling calm, when you are able to think creatively. So maybe you do some tapping. Go find the tapping episode from this podcast and you can try that. Maybe some calming breaths in counterfor, hold it, counter four, out, counterfore, deep diaphragm breaths.

21:38 Maybe you go to a different place in your house or you go out into the park and you you go among the trees and then you think about it. Those little things reset our nervous system so that we can get back into that rest and digest state because our brains work better. It's not just about digest and gut health, our brains work better. We're able to think more creatively. But if there is something in your life right now, here's your OMG moment, oh my goodness, here's what you need to remember. If you are forcing something in your life that does not feel right, there is a reason, there is something going on that is a disconnect between your self-belief about what you can and can't do and about how the world works and the situation that you're in.

22:34 And you don't have to stay there. So, number one, notice. Number two, listen to your thoughts about it, just observe yourself. Number three, what do you really want related to this situation? What's one small thing that you could change or you could try to move yourself towards something that just sounds amazing? Whether it's a totally different thing or you're just making adjustments in these relationships because these people are important and we just need to work with them a bit differently. Even a little step can matter. Now, maybe you're considering a big change in your life.

23:14 If that is the case, make sure you are subscribing to the mindset deep dive bonus episodes. And the series we're in right now, there is all about how to move through a significant change in your life. The next series will be creating a more positive self-image. So go to CherylPFisher.com slash bonus episodes, subscribe, make sure you don't miss that. We can talk about mindset on this podcast, and yet going into a little mini-series where we can dive deeper into a particular topic is going to make even a bigger difference for you. And of course, make sure you've hit follow because on the next episode of Mind Your Midlife, we are talking intermittent fasting.

24:02 So I have a guest joining me to talk about this, I don't know, topic that I feel like is on everyone's mind lately as we are wondering about weight gain and weight loss and staying staying healthy in midlife. And in the meantime, keep remembering midlife is your time to take just a little bit better care of yourself. On the outside and the inside. Even a little bit more care makes a huge difference.