How to prepare for and survive a midlife crisis

[Michie]

A coach who works with this issue offers advice on how to make it a productive and positive time.

“Midlife crisis can lend you wings” says Tristan de Feuilhade, who works as a midlife coach. Here he offers some advice on the issues proper to this stage in life that can help you better prepare for it and render it more productive.

How do we realize that we’re dealing with a midlife crisis?

Tristan de Feuilhade: A painful sense of dissatisfaction takes over the 40-somethings when they begin asking themselves existential questions about the significance of their work, their value system and their life as a whole. The crisis is often born out of difficulties at home or at work. For example, the lack of further professional perspective or gaining weight — these tale-tale signs that make one realize that they’re getting old. The older we become, the more we are aware how precious life is.

Does everyone undergo a midlife crisis?

TF: No, it is not inevitable. It’s generally experienced by those whose vision of what life is all about clashes with the actual life they’re leading. Some try to compensate for this with material goods and social status. But there are those who want more.


Are people who believe in God better at dealing with midlife crisis?

TF: Faith gives sense to their lives. When the center of gravity is your heart, you stay focused no matter what life has reserved for you. But when you gravitate toward external things, like money, professional career or physical appearance, sooner or later, your life comes crushing down on you.


What kind of advice can you offer?

TF: When faced with these existential questions, there is a great temptation to avoid them in becoming hyperactive. Many are those who derail their lives and let it all go to hell: their families and their careers. What I advise them to do is to stop, take a step back and examine their situation. It’s time to ask a question: “Am I on the right path?” and imagine a different scenario.

So, is the coach someone who invites people to change their outlook on life?

TF: We must learn how to let go of old objectives and find new goals, how to open up to other possibilities. It’s key in rediscovering desire and determination. The coach can help a person find them. In taking constructively, he can reignite a positive dynamic so necessary for success. Whenever I meet someone, I am always interested in their potential. In addition, the coach can provide a method for how to sort things out and make the right choice. Every precipitous decision is a risky one. The midlife coaching consists in temporizing, formulating, and analyzing. There is a radical change, like leaving a job to volunteer at an association, and less drastic one, like switching to a new position within the same company.

What are the changes once we’ve gone through the middle age crisis?

TF: You come out different, much wiser. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Nietzsche. Forty is the age when you can afford to let go of things. You become more self-sufficient and may want to reexamine your life. If you’ve got nothing to lose, you can only win. At the very least, the midlife crisis may be inspirational and offer a chance to make one’s dreams come true.

Interview by Stéphanie Combe

Read more:10 Reasons to love being middle aged

How to prepare for and survive a midlife crisis

 

[MBM888]

I'm a little confused on what "The Coach" is.

I'm in my early 40s. I've been out of work since around May of 2019. Health issues, major surgery, and Covid-19 all brought a lot of my life to a stand-still. Now, I want to start my own online business (because nothing else seems to be working out), but I find I'm consistently depressed and tired, and the idea of doing anything so daunting feels impossible.

OTOH, I feel like if I don't do SOMETHING to gain a nest egg, my hubs and I will be up the creek without a paddle as we get older. We don't have kids (our decision), but I constantly worry about being taken care of when I get older. (My mother passed away some years ago, and my father also in 2019, shortly after I was let go from my job.)

Currently, he's working, and I'm drawing unemployment, but I don't want this to be life. Yet, I feel like all the dreams and goals I had when I was younger didn't pan out, and that severely bums me out. Add that to the fact that 2020 was what it was, and I just feel really lost, and like there isn't any point to anything.

We haven't been to church in a while because of the virus and health conditions, and I feel at a serious loss as to what to do with myself spiritually. I don't know what to do. I pray, but sometimes I'm not sure what to pray for.

Any advice or help would be appreciated.

 

[Toro]

The best way to cope with midlife crisis.

Dont dwell on it.

If you are 40, but die tomorrow, your midlife moment was 20.

Im older than I was, that only becomes a tragedy if I did not become wiser than I was or more accurately, if I had not grown, for I am still a fool in the grand scheme of things.

Since I am far more likely to die tomorrow than if I were in my 20s... why spend tge time I have left dwelling on the fact I wont die young?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

A coach who works with this issue offers advice on how to make it a productive and positive time.

“Midlife crisis can lend you wings” says Tristan de Feuilhade, who works as a midlife coach. Here he offers some advice on the issues proper to this stage in life that can help you better prepare for it and render it more productive.

How do we realize that we’re dealing with a midlife crisis?

Tristan de Feuilhade: A painful sense of dissatisfaction takes over the 40-somethings when they begin asking themselves existential questions about the significance of their work, their value system and their life as a whole. The crisis is often born out of difficulties at home or at work. For example, the lack of further professional perspective or gaining weight — these tale-tale signs that make one realize that they’re getting old. The older we become, the more we are aware how precious life is.

Does everyone undergo a midlife crisis?

TF: No, it is not inevitable. It’s generally experienced by those whose vision of what life is all about clashes with the actual life they’re leading. Some try to compensate for this with material goods and social status. But there are those who want more.


Are people who believe in God better at dealing with midlife crisis?

TF: Faith gives sense to their lives. When the center of gravity is your heart, you stay focused no matter what life has reserved for you. But when you gravitate toward external things, like money, professional career or physical appearance, sooner or later, your life comes crushing down on you.


What kind of advice can you offer?

TF: When faced with these existential questions, there is a great temptation to avoid them in becoming hyperactive. Many are those who derail their lives and let it all go to hell: their families and their careers. What I advise them to do is to stop, take a step back and examine their situation. It’s time to ask a question: “Am I on the right path?” and imagine a different scenario.

So, is the coach someone who invites people to change their outlook on life?

TF: We must learn how to let go of old objectives and find new goals, how to open up to other possibilities. It’s key in rediscovering desire and determination. The coach can help a person find them. In taking constructively, he can reignite a positive dynamic so necessary for success. Whenever I meet someone, I am always interested in their potential. In addition, the coach can provide a method for how to sort things out and make the right choice. Every precipitous decision is a risky one. The midlife coaching consists in temporizing, formulating, and analyzing. There is a radical change, like leaving a job to volunteer at an association, and less drastic one, like switching to a new position within the same company.


What are the changes once we’ve gone through the middle age crisis?

TF: You come out different, much wiser. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Nietzsche. Forty is the age when you can afford to let go of things. You become more self-sufficient and may want to reexamine your life. If you’ve got nothing to lose, you can only win. At the very least, the midlife crisis may be inspirational and offer a chance to make one’s dreams come true.

Interview by Stéphanie Combe

Read more:10 Reasons to love being middle aged

How to prepare for and survive a midlife crisis

In pondering through my own philosophical reflections during mid-life, I've come to see that all of life is a kind of crisis since there's always going to be a significant problem to deal with somewhere, on some level (whether it's financial, a matter of health, relational or political).

The trick to dealing better with these problems is to have a social network in which we can connect with each other and help each other and through which we learn to remain realistic about the relatively short time we have at our disposal in this life.

Unfortunately, in our Modern society, so many of us have fragmented our social networks, and we often find ourselves falling through the cracks in one way or another. And this exacerbates our problems as we face-off with the social and physical entropy which takes place all through life and not just in mid-life.

As for Nietzsche, I'd disagree with him, and on more than just one point. Sometimes, we're actually weakened by the very things that we think enable us to live.

 

[Jaxxi]

A coach who works with this issue offers advice on how to make it a productive and positive time.

“Midlife crisis can lend you wings” says Tristan de Feuilhade, who works as a midlife coach. Here he offers some advice on the issues proper to this stage in life that can help you better prepare for it and render it more productive.

How do we realize that we’re dealing with a midlife crisis?

Tristan de Feuilhade: A painful sense of dissatisfaction takes over the 40-somethings when they begin asking themselves existential questions about the significance of their work, their value system and their life as a whole. The crisis is often born out of difficulties at home or at work. For example, the lack of further professional perspective or gaining weight — these tale-tale signs that make one realize that they’re getting old. The older we become, the more we are aware how precious life is.

Does everyone undergo a midlife crisis?

TF: No, it is not inevitable. It’s generally experienced by those whose vision of what life is all about clashes with the actual life they’re leading. Some try to compensate for this with material goods and social status. But there are those who want more.


Are people who believe in God better at dealing with midlife crisis?

TF: Faith gives sense to their lives. When the center of gravity is your heart, you stay focused no matter what life has reserved for you. But when you gravitate toward external things, like money, professional career or physical appearance, sooner or later, your life comes crushing down on you.


What kind of advice can you offer?

TF: When faced with these existential questions, there is a great temptation to avoid them in becoming hyperactive. Many are those who derail their lives and let it all go to hell: their families and their careers. What I advise them to do is to stop, take a step back and examine their situation. It’s time to ask a question: “Am I on the right path?” and imagine a different scenario.

So, is the coach someone who invites people to change their outlook on life?

TF: We must learn how to let go of old objectives and find new goals, how to open up to other possibilities. It’s key in rediscovering desire and determination. The coach can help a person find them. In taking constructively, he can reignite a positive dynamic so necessary for success. Whenever I meet someone, I am always interested in their potential. In addition, the coach can provide a method for how to sort things out and make the right choice. Every precipitous decision is a risky one. The midlife coaching consists in temporizing, formulating, and analyzing. There is a radical change, like leaving a job to volunteer at an association, and less drastic one, like switching to a new position within the same company.

What are the changes once we’ve gone through the middle age crisis?

TF: You come out different, much wiser. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Nietzsche. Forty is the age when you can afford to let go of things. You become more self-sufficient and may want to reexamine your life. If you’ve got nothing to lose, you can only win. At the very least, the midlife crisis may be inspirational and offer a chance to make one’s dreams come true.

Interview by Stéphanie Combe

Read more:10 Reasons to love being middle aged

How to prepare for and survive a midlife crisis

Midlife crisis begins for a man whenever his wife can no longer bear children. So if she has a hysterectomy at 35, his midlife crisis will begin early and it is a natural response to want to find a younger woman who can bear children. Even if he does not want children, it is just the way men are hardwired. It is half instinctual, and when a man is aware that this is what is happening, he can be better prepared to fight off the temptations by realizing what it is. It is nothing that his wife has done, per say. It has to do with spreading the seed. Repopulating. It makes sense, but many couples go through this realizing it is all part of the natural order of things. It is so sad to see men lose everything they hold dear by caving into this temptation and urge only to ruin theirs and their loved ones lives when these men genuinely love their wives and families and don't mean to get tripped up. If more women understood what was happening they might not take it so personal and would give their husbands another chance and forgive the infidelity and letting their husband be human for a minute. There is no reason to dissolve everything they have built when he is devastated and most likely won't do it again...unless it is all he has left.

 

[riesie]

Interview by Stéphanie Combe

Read more:10 Reasons to love being middle aged

Very nice slideshow, thanks!

 

[Larniavc]

Midlife crisis begins for a man whenever his wife can no longer bear children.

Do you have any evidence for that?