The world needs your voice, your gifts.   How often do you let them go quiet thinking it’s not the right way to go, not the right thing to do, or it’s not welcome?

“One night a man was crying, Allah! Allah!  His lips grew sweet with the praising, until a cynic said, “So! I have heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?”

The man had no answer to that. He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls, in a thick, green foliage. “Why did you stop praising?”

Because I’ve never heard anything back.  This longing you express is the return message.  The grief you cry out from draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup. Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.  That whining is the connection. There are love-dogs no one knows the names of.  Give your life to be one of them.”

Love Dogs by Rumi

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I talk a lot about the way to work with your Disquiet is to listen to its messages. Easier said than done! What’s the difference between your gut instincts or intuition and the old voices in your head telling you what you should and shouldn’t do?

When you are trying to figure out a course of action, it sometimes gets challenging to sort out all the messages swirling around in your head. How do I know I am not mistaking wisdom for laziness or plain old fear? How can I tell the difference between impulses and good judgment? How do I not mistake a message of making a change because I just don’t like something or is it the smart thing to do?

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I have been getting a lot of emails lately from people sharing what they are doing in trying to work with their Disquiet. I found myself referring back to an article I had written a while ago. So I thought it might be helpful to dust it off and re-post it here.

Ways not to handle your Disquiet

Working through your Disquiet is tricky. It is a very personal and isolating experience. Like transitions at other times of our life, navigating midlife is confusing and challenging. We are almost hard-wired with the thinking that if we are suffering, there must be a problem. And if there is a problem, it should be quickly figured out and resolved.

I have written a lot here how I believe what we have come to describe as the mid-life crisis (MLC) comes form ignoring the signals of the Disquiet. There is a lot of information out there on how to deal with your MLC, what to do and even think. There is not much written or said about what to watch for or avoid. Here are some tips from my learnings, personal experiences and from working with others.

Don’t do any of these regarding your Disquiet:

~Ignore it
~Jump into re-action
~Drug it
~Make fun of it
~Take it on alone

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Have you had that experience of waking in the middle of the night worrying about your life and how it’s not going right? Isn’t it amazing how you can almost feel the acceleration of the thoughts and then the panic deep in your gut flash-ignites as more and more things swoosh through your brain like a locomotive picking up speed?

That’s the Disquiet talking.

And ever catch yourself the next day as you try to delete that horrible feeling by getting busier in the day. I know I have jumped into work and activities like a madman after a night of suffering from the whirlwind of worry and fear. Like getting busier is the antidote. I think deep down I clutch at the idea that if I am busy and productive, those fears won’t come back.

But something else happened – I’d hit a wall of Disquiet. I became very dissatisfied with what I was doing. I’d often feel like a fraud. Sometimes I got angry and impatient as I ran around going through the motions of accomplishment.

That’s the Disquiet hitting back.

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If you haven’t been to LifeTwo.com for while, I recommend a visit. Wesley and Greg have done an amazing job of building a information-packed community center dealing with midlife issues in all its forms. The subject of changing careers recently came up. Wesley writes:

“Changing careers in middle age is very different than in the life periods before or after. Middle age is traditionally the peak earning period in most people’s careers. It is the time when workers achieve their highest rank, their fattest salaries, and their most prestigious achievements. But it’s also the time that we have perspective on what makes us happy and if our current career path doesn’t entail sufficient satisfaction (or future promise), then for many of us it’s time to make a change.

This is the dilemma I hear from many of my clients. I experienced it myself: A deep itch to change directions but the prospect is terrifying. Some ultimately jump, some don’t. The ones that follow their calling (myself included) don’t have an easy time of it. But most of us experience feeling more aligned and more alive than before.

Those that don’t change, well, some have to deaden their pain to be able to keep plodding. The golden handcuffs of nearing retirement or just needing to feel safe keep their hearts in check.

Wesley has a call out for stories of real experiences. Check them out - reports from the trenches of changing careers. It’s aptly titled, ” The good, bad and ugly“. Add your own .

And let us know what you think! What is going on for you?

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I receive a lot of emails from wives whose husbands have left them or are discovered having an affair.  “He must be having a midlife crisis”.

Is it?  In a NY Times article, Dr Richard Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, challenges the notion. In discussing one case similar to the emails I mentioned, he described it as “this was a garden-variety case of a middle-aged narcissist grappling with the biggest insult he had ever faced: getting older.

He goes on to write, “Why do we have to label a common reaction of the male species to one of life’s challenges — the boredom of the routine — as a crisis? True, men are generally more novelty-seeking than women, but they certainly can decide what they do with their impulses.”

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