My Midlife Transformational Journey

A Radical Transformation

In 2022, I began a radical transformation.  I left my dream job and the career I had so carefully crafted.  I left my cherished friends.  I left Chicago, my adopted city.  Essentially, I left behind everything I had developed over the past 20 years.  I burnt the ship… without knowing what was next.

I let go of the old and embraced the new with a vengeance. I moved to a new(ish) city and new(ish) home—my childhood home in Los Angeles, actually.  In Los Angeles, I had no job, no friends, and no definitive plans.  The future was wide open.

Feeling “Dead” Inside

But why all these changes?  And how did I get to this point?  A couple years earlier, I had begun to feel “dead” inside.  Everything in my life felt uninspiring and stale.  And I mean everything.  My beloved work felt stale.  My dear friends felt stale. Chicago, the city where I had established my adult life, felt stale.  Even my lovely clothes felt stale—and I am one to keep them around forever.  Clearly, the issue wasn’t everything and everyone around me; the issue was me.  I was changing.

However, I didn’t know why I was changing or what to do about it.  I considered a different career, but couldn’t find anything I cared about.  I looked at volunteering opportunities, but didn’t feel drawn to any of them.  I tried new classes, like aerial arts and Brazilian dance, but they didn’t fully resonate.  I even began looking for something deeper and more meaningful than jobs and activities.  I Googled “spirituality Chicago,” but that didn’t yield any clues either.  Quite frankly, I felt stuck.  And to top it all off, I felt extremely alone.  Either my friends weren’t in the same predicament as I was (yet) or they weren’t telling me about it.  In short, I was on my own.

Shifting Priorities

Then, one day, I got the dream job.  The one that would finally give me the stability I had longed for in the career I loved.  I should have been thrilled.  But I wasn’t.  I had been doing the same work for 20 years; the opportunity came too late in the game.  My priorities had shifted—only I didn’t realize this until after I accepted the job. 

I was getting older.  Now, I was no longer solely thinking about my passionate pursuits, as before.  In fact, I was burnt out from all the years of trying to stay in my career and doing so in a way that honestly didn’t work for me.  As a result, I now had health concerns to contend with.  I also found myself thinking about more abstract, long-term considerations, such as where I had roots.  My mom, who was living in Los Angeles, was getting older. I wanted to spend more time with her and the rest of my family.  One day, everything finally became crystal clear.  It was time to go.

Freedom… and A Leap of Faith

The day I said “No” to staying at my dream job was the day I experienced the most distinct sense of freedom I have ever felt.  No longer chained to my profession, I was done.  I was done striving to meet everybody’s expectations.  I was done working day and night.  I was done driving long distances.  I was done doing it all.  And once I finally stopped, oh how sweet it was.  I felt all powerful.  Nothing and no one could stop me.  I didn’t know what was coming next, but I knew I would be okay.  I trusted myself.  The choice felt THAT right… and THAT inevitable.

And thus, a new chapter began with a dramatic leap of faith.  Little did I know how much that faith would be and continues to be tested.  Little did I know that my big climb to the top of the mountain was just the beginning of many more big, difficult climbs.  And little did I know that these climbs would often leave me in excruciating limbo between old and new ways of being.  But also, little did I know the sweetness—the light and the love—that I would find on the other side of those steep climbs.  This would make the journey worth it. 

A Spiritual Awakening and Aligning to My Authentic Self

In fact, this journey’s sweetness has stemmed largely from my ever-evolving spiritual awakening, which started soon after my life began to feel stale. While the timing is no coincidence since I was seeking a deeper meaning and purpose, I still marvel at the magic of this transformational process. Without any awareness on my part, something began shifting internally and then, at a certain point, I was open and ready for something new. I, someone who was raised with barely a faith-based bone in my body, was ready to connect to myself and all living things in a deeper, more profound way.

This spiritual connection has helped facilitate great growth. On the journey, I have learned the external measures of success really don’t matter if my inner life is not strong and full of vitality.  I have needed to heal the wounds that led to that need for success in the first place.  Moreover, I realized that those wounds were also preventing me from boldly living a life in alignment with my authentic self, rather than a conditioned self.  It was time to awaken.  It was time to step into my full power.  It was time to grow into the woman I was destined to be.

Since moving back to Los Angeles, I have been cultivating this attunement to my authentic self by deepening my connection to my inner life.  I have reconnected with my youthful passion for writing, discovered a stronger desire to be in nature, and even begun making art from the artifacts I find in nature.  I have also deepened into spiritual practices, such as meditation and qi gong, and discovered new ones, like Deep Transformational Coaching, which has greatly supported my own healing and transformation.

Through these activities, I have connected with new communities of people who are also going through midlife transformations.  And, yes, even old friends have begun sharing their midlife journeys with me.  There is, indeed, much light and love to be found on this midlife path.