Why Midlife Feels So Unsettling (Even When Life Is Good)

For decades, many of us knew exactly who we were because our lives told us we were the ones holding things together, showing up, being needed.

And then slowly, those definitions begin to loosen.

Not because we failed, but because life changed.

And no one really prepares you for what comes after that.

Living our best life.

It's good to be alive, but it's best to truly let your spirit bright celebrate the journey every single day.

Aging with grace and style in our own special way.

Welcome to Aging with Grace and Style, the podcast for women over 50 who want to move forward with confidence without reinventing their lives.

I'm your host, Valerie Hatcher, and each week we take the pressure off midlife by making it honest, practical and doable.

And if you're ready to feel seen, steady and confident in this season, then you're in the right place.

Last week, we talked about that unsettled feeling, the kind that shows up even when life looks fine.

And once you begin to notice that feeling, another awareness often follows.

The roles that once shaped your days don't hold the same weight they used to.

Not in a bad way, just in a different way.

Today is not about reinventing yourself.

It's not about finding yourself.

It's not about questioning your worth.

It's about understanding what happens when the roles that once define you begin to shift and why that shift can feel disorienting if no one talks about it.

Because for many women, confidence hasn't disappeared.

It's just no longer tied to being responsible for everything.

For a lot of us, identity has been shaped by roles that we didn't just play, but roles that we carried.

Being a mom, being needed, being the go to person at work, the one people counted on, the one who knew how things work.

And here's the thing about carrying roles like that for so long.

You get good at it.

I mean, like really good.

You develop instincts.

You can walk into a room and know exactly what.

What needs to happen.

You can anticipate problems before they surface.

You become the person that others look to when things get complicated.

And that competence, that's mastery, it becomes part of how you see yourself.

And then life changes.

Your kids grow up and they don't need you in the same way.

So recently my son bought a new car.

Now, when he bought the other two, I was there with him.

Now, he did the negotiations and he handled it, but I was there.

This one, he did it on his own.

He didn't call me to ask me my opinion.

He just told me he was going to look at cars.

And then later he told me that he had gotten one.

And best of all, he negotiated a great deal on a beautiful vehicle.

So I should have been happy that he handled this like a 30 year old man should.

And I should have been patting myself on the back that I had taught him well about negotiating car purchases.

And I should have felt proud.

And I did.

But I also felt something else, something that I didn't expect and really wasn't quite ready to name.

A small, quiet sense of what.

Not rejection, not hurt, more like, well, where do I go with all this readiness to help?

I'd spent decades building this capacity to show up, to solve, to guide, and now, increasingly, that capacity had nowhere to land at work.

It's different, but similar.

Priority shift, leadership changes, succession planning becomes part of the conversation until you realize you're the one being succeeded.

I'll tell you when it became real for me.

I was in a meeting, the kind that I used to lead, and I was still at the table and still contributing.

But there was this moment when I offered a perspective based on my years of institutional knowledge.

And I watched the room acknowledge it politely and move on.

Not because what I said wasn't valid, but because the priorities had shifted.

They weren't being disrespectful at all.

They were doing exactly what they should be doing.

Being the future with fresh eyes.

But sitting there, I felt something shift.

A small recalibration of my sense of place.

And that can land in a very personal way.

Now, let me be clear.

Organizations need to evolve.

Fresh perspectives matter.

Growth matters.

But when your sense of value has been closely tied to a role, those transitions don't just affect your title or your position.

They affect your sense of place.

You start asking questions like where do I fit now?

Am I still needed?

In the same way, what do I bring if I'm not in that role anymore?

Those aren't dramatic questions.

They're human ones.

And they take time to adjust to.

Here's something that no one tells you about this transition.

It doesn't just happen in your head.

Your body knows it too.

You might find yourself checking your phone more often, even when you know that nothing urgent is coming.

For me, it showed up as this low level hum of anxiety I couldn't quite place.

I'd sit down to read, and within 10 minutes I'd be up again, looking for something to do, something to manage, something to fix.

Because being still felt like being useless as I talk about it.

Maybe that's why I stay so busy.

I complain that I have too much to do, but Complain when I feel like I'm not doing enough.

This isn't an identity crisis.

It's an identity recalibration.

And recalibration doesn't mean that something is broken.

It means the environment has changed.

You're still you.

Your competence is still intact.

Your wisdom is still valuable.

But the structures around you are different now.

The people who once needed your guidance, they've grown their own.

The systems that required your oversight have been redesigned, and you're left holding all of this capacity with fewer places to direct it.

I've had to sit with this myself, letting go of being the one who always knew, always handled it, always stepped in.

That sense of usefulness, it doesn't just disappear overnight, and it doesn't resolve neatly.

One of the hardest things that I've had to learn, and am probably still learning, is how to not offer help.

When I see someone struggling with something that I could easily solve.

I remember watching a colleague wrestle with a problem that I had dealt with dozens of times.

My fingers were itching to step in to save time, to smooth the path, but I knew they needed to figure it out themselves, and I needed to learn how to let them.

That restraint, it felt awful at first, like I was withholding something valuable.

But over time, I started to understand that stepping back wasn't the same as stepping out.

It was making space.

And making space is also a contribution, just a quieter one.

So here's something that I don't hear people talk about enough.

For years, many of us said that we wanted our kids to be independent.

We wanted work to be less all consuming.

We wanted margin in our lives.

And then we got it.

And it felt disorienting because there's a strange, unexpected grief that comes with getting exactly what you said you wanted.

You raised your kids to not need you, and then they don't.

You built systems at work to run without you.

And then they do.

And you're left thinking, wait, this is what I work towards.

So why does it feel complicated?

It's not that you want to go back, because you don't.

But moving forward requires acknowledging that something real has been lost, even when something else has been gained.

No one really teaches you how to navigate that with grace.

Because the truth is, for most of your life, your worth has been reflected back to you through your usefulness, through being needed, through solving problems and managing complexity.

And now you're being asked to locate your value somewhere else.

Not because you've lost value, but because the old measurements don't apply anymore.

By the time you reach your 50s and your 60s.

This shift makes sense.

Caregiving roles change, careers evolve or wind down.

Your energy becomes more selective.

Your tolerance for overextending yourself drops.

And suddenly worth can't be measured the way it once was.

Not by productivity, not by responsibility, not by being needed.

That can feel unsettling, even when life is good, even when you have everything you thought you wanted.

A listener once shared this with me.

She said, I don't feel lost.

I just feel undefined.

I've been so many things for so long that I don't know what it looks like to just be me.

Now that word, undefined.

It matters.

Because undefined doesn't mean empty.

It means there's room.

Room to notice what you actually want, not just what's needed.

Room to pursue interest without justify their usefulness.

Room to be still without feeling guilty about it.

But getting comfortable in that room takes time.

This season isn't asking you to figure yourself out.

It's asking you to separate who you are from what you've carried.

And that's a process, especially if you've spent decades being strong, dependable and reliable.

Because those qualities, they don't go away.

You're still strong, you're still dependable, and you're still reliable.

But now those qualities get to exist without the constant demand to prove them.

And that might be the hardest adjustment of all, learning that your value doesn't require constant demonstration.

The transition doesn't happen in a single conversation or some breakthrough moment.

It happens in small increments in the choice to let someone else handle the planning, in the pause before you jump in to fix something in the Saturday morning, when you ask yourself, what do I feel like doing?

Instead of what needs to be done.

It's quiet work, the kind that doesn't show up on anyone's radar but your own.

And it deserves respect, the same respect that you give to any other significant life transition.

Here's something to notice this week.

Nothing to fix.

Where are you still tying your sense of worth to a role that's already changed, or in the process of changing?

Maybe it's the way you introduce yourself.

Maybe it's the projects that you say yes to without thinking.

Maybe it's the conversations where you feel invisible because no one's asking for your input.

Just notice where the alignment is still happening.

That awareness alone matters, because once you see it, then you can start to make different choices.

Not all at once, not perfectly, but incrementally.

Before we close, I want to leave you with this.

You don't need to reinvent yourself to move forward.

You don't need to erase who you've been to honor who you're becoming.

Your wisdom still counts.

Your experience, it still matters.

And your value isn't dependent on a role.

This season isn't about proving anything.

It's about allowing your identity to stand on its own.

No reinvention required, just grace, style and a touch of sass.

Exactly as you are.

I'll see you next week.

Thanks for hanging out with me today.

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Until next time, keep shining with grace, style and a touch of sass.