Feeling Lost in Midlife? Your North Star Has Been There All Along

Dr. Peggie Kirkland (PK): Hi, my beautiful midlifers and empty nesters. We've talked about a lot in this series. We talked about your mind, your body, your friendships, your emotions, and your work, and all of that matters. All of it is real and important and worthy of your attention, but I want to take you somewhere a little quieter today.

I want to go somewhere underneath all of that. Because here is something I've noticed in working with women in midlife. When the children leave, or the career shifts, or the relationship changes, or the body does something completely unexpected, it's not the practical disruptions that are the hardest part.

The hardest part is the [00:01:00] question that surfaces in the quiet that follows. When you start asking, "What is my life actually for?" Sometimes it's just a quiet, persistent question that has been living at the back of your mind for months or even years. A question you've been too busy to sit with properly. A question that arrives most clearly at 3:00 AM when sleep is eluding you, or on Sunday afternoons when you're preparing mentally and physically to return to the office, picking out your clothes for the week, meal prepping for a week that you're not looking forward to, giving yourself a quiet pep talk that's supposed to encourage you, but which has a sense of hopelessness attached as you wonder if there [00:02:00] isn't more to life as you feel your stomach tighten. So you become irritable with the rest of the family.

The slightest thing could set you off. A question asked at the wrong moment or a mess left in the wrong place, which on a different day might get a less intense reaction. But not on a Sunday night when you're wondering if you have enough to get through the next five days without running completely dry.

Been there and done that. Everyone needs to steer clear of this potential explosion as you quietly ask yourself, "Is this all there is to life?"

The answer to that question lies in what we're going to be talking about [00:03:00] today, and that is avoiding spiritual depletion by taking care of your spiritual wellness

See if you can recognize yourself in any of these scenarios I'm about to mention. You're going through the motions of a life that looks completely fine from the outside, but on the inside, it feels like none of it quite means anything. Like the color has turned down a few notches. Like you're living in your life but not quite inhabiting it.

Or you feel like you're a good mother, a good partner, a good employee, a good friend, but there's a hollowness inside the goodness. Or someone asks you what you want and you genuinely don't know. [00:04:00] Not because you don't want things, but because you have been so busy responding to everyone else's needs for so long that your own desires have gone very quiet.

So quiet you're not sure they're still there, and sometimes it feels like a grief you can't explain, like you're mourning for something you can't name because the thing you are mourning is not a person or a place, but a version of yourself, a version that knew what she was for, that felt connected to something larger than her daily obligations.

What I just described are perfect examples of spiritual depletion, and it's far more common in midlife women than we ever talk about. We [00:05:00] really just don't talk about it enough

The spiritual emptiness that many midlife women feel is not a sign that you've failed at living or proof that you're selfish or that something is fundamentally wrong with you It's the result of spending decades doing for others in a way that left very little room for your interior life. For the questions, for the stillness,

For the practice of actually knowing yourself and what you value and what gives your life its particular meaning

 the fact is that when there is a gap between what we value and how we actually live, when our daily actions are misaligned with our deepest beliefs, the body and mind register that misalignment as chronic stress, [00:06:00] and that shows up as fatigue, restlessness, irritability, and a kind of dissatisfaction that you cannot quite put your finger on.

And this information comes from research on spiritual wellness from the University of Pittsburgh. Women in midlife are disproportionately affected by this because midlife is precisely the moment when the roles that organized our lives and gave us a sense of purpose begin to shift or dissolve. The children no longer need us in the same way.

The career has become familiar enough that it no longer challenges us in the same way. The relationships have settled into patterns that may or may not reflect who we actually are. [00:07:00] And suddenly, for the first time in decades, we are face to face with the question we've been too busy to ask, and that question is, what do I actually value?

What is my life actually for?

That feeling of spiritual emptiness, the hollow, the gray, the quiet grief for a version of yourself who knew what she was for doesn't prove that the meaning is gone from your life. In fact, it is evidence that you've stopped looking at your North Star.

Ask yourself, how did sailors navigate before GPS and before satellites? They navigated by the stars, the North Star, Polaris. [00:08:00] That was especially important because it remains fixed while everything else in the sky rotates around it. No matter how disoriented a sailor became, no matter how dark the sea or how long the storm, if sailors could find the North Star, they could find their direction Your values are your North Star.

They don't change with trends or circumstances. They don't disappear when life gets busy or when the roles shift or when the children leave. They're the fixed point by which you navigate, and they've been there all along, even in the seasons when you were too overwhelmed to look up and find them When your actions align with your values, [00:09:00] you feel what researchers call coherence.

That's when everything seems to fit together well. It's a deep, settled feeling that your life makes sense, that it hangs together, that you're not just moving through days, but living them with intention When your actions are out of alignment with your values, you feel the friction, the restlessness, the hollowness, and if you were to give it a color, the grayness

Spiritual wellness is not about finding a new purpose. It's about finding your way back to the one you have always had and building a life that is actually pointed in its direction

You [00:10:00] have a North Star. The question is, have you taken time recently to look up and find it?

So what does spiritual wellness actually mean in practical terms? And I'm not talking about religious traditions or practices. What I'm talking about is the part of you that knows at your core what you value, what gives your life meaning, why you get up in the morning beyond obligation,

What you want to be remembered for, what you believe a life well-lived actually looks like. That is your spiritual life. And for many midlife women, it's been running in the background for years without [00:11:00] any or with very little attention

. Here is what I want you to know. You don't need to change the world to have a valid North Star. Your North Star might be as simple as, "I'm here to raise children who know they are deeply loved," or, "I'm here to create beauty in whatever form I can," or, "I'm here to be a steady, honest presence for the people in my community."

The size of the impact does not determine the validity of the purpose, and I wanna say that to you again. The size of the impact does not determine the validity of the purpose, and that's because your North Star is yours. You decide what it's going to be, [00:12:00] and that right there makes it enough

Now that we've had this conversation about your North Star, you're probably wondering how you can find your North Star. So I'm going to share with you five questions to help you find your North Star. You can journal your answers, speak them into a voice note, or simply sit with them and let them percolate. And by the way, there are no wrong answers

Here's the first one. What gives my life the deepest meaning right now?

Two. When I'm at my best, most alive, most fully myself, what am I doing? Three, [00:13:00] what do I value so deeply that compromising it makes me feel physically uncomfortable?

four. Are my daily actions a reflection of those values? If not, where are the gaps? Five. When things get hard, what gives me hope?

I want you to sit with those questions. Your answers will tell you more about your North Star than any personality test or career assessment ever could

Having said all that, I have one invitation for this week that I'd like you to give as a gift to yourself

I want you to take 15 [00:14:00] minutes, just 15, in a place where you will not be interrupted and write your answer to this question

What do I want to be true about how I live?

Not what you want to have achieved, not what you want other people to say about you. What do you want to be true about how you actually lived your life? The quality of your presence, the honesty of your relationships, the things you prioritized, the values you embodied on an ordinary Tuesday

Write it without editing, without deciding whether it is impressive enough, without shrinking it to fit what feels realistic[00:15:00]

My beautiful midlifers and empty nesters, what you write is your North Star. And once you can see it clearly, once you have written it down somewhere you can return to, you can begin to ask the question that matters most.

Is my life currently pointed in this direction? And if not, what is one small thing I could change today? Just one small thing. The North Star does not require a dramatic course correction. It just requires that you look up and find it, and then take one honest step toward it

Before we [00:16:00] close, I just wanna say something to you You have a North Star. You have always had one. It didn't disappear during the years when you were too busy to look for it. It did not fade when the roles consumed you, or when the days blurred into each other, or when the question of what your life was for felt too large and too dangerous to sit with properly.

It was there the whole time, fixed, waiting exactly where you left it the fact that you're here today listening to this, sitting with these questions, willing to go somewhere quieter and more interior than the rest of your week usually asks of you, that is the beginning of [00:17:00] spiritual health, real spiritual health. . The kind that does not depend on a retreat or a revelation or a dramatic life change.

It just requires you to look up. You know what you value. You know what gives your life meaning, and you know in the quiet parts of yourself that do not lie what your life is for. Pay attention to that. Trust that

Today's affirmation will help you to do that. So here it is: 

My life has meaning and direction. I know what I value, and I live in alignment with those values [00:18:00] 

My life has meaning and direction. I know what I value, and I live in alignment with those values

 My life has meaning and direction. I know what I value, and I live in alignment with those values

My beautiful midlifers and empty nesters. This is it for today. Thank you for going somewhere quieter with me today. This episode asked something different of you than the others in this series. It asked you to slow down, to look inward, to sit with questions that don't have a quick answer. And the fact that you stayed, that you gave that to yourself, matters [00:19:00] more than you know

. So if this episode landed somewhere real for you, I would love for you to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you know a woman who's been quietly living with that 3:00 AM question, the one about what her life is actually for, please share this episode with her.

Our final episode of the series, Celebrating Women, is coming next: that's your financial wellness. And I promise you, we're going to approach it with the same warmth and honesty we've brought to everything else. Until next time, this is PK.