Many people feel trapped in a good life at 45
You have achieved external success. You have what others might consider ‘a good life’, but something is missing. According to convention you should feel self-assured, confident… like a winner! But instead you feel flat, empty and lost.
Do any of the following seem familiar to you?
- You harbour doubts about your career, or your relationships, which you keep to yourself
- You have chased financial and material growth, but the fulfilment has not arrived
- Your life seems performative, rather than substantial
- You wonder how you could have got it so wrong for so many years
- It feels like it may be too late now to change trajectory
Although you might feel alone in your concerns, there are lots of people who feel the same way and who battle with the same questions – the cliches of existential vacuums at, or approaching mid-life, although over-simplified, are cliches for a reason.
What Is a Mid-Life Existential Crisis?
Existential crises are not ‘disorders’, they are reactions to transitions, adjustments to new conditions, or evolved personal truths. Mid-life is one such transition point that can prompt us to pivot life direction in awareness of connection, impermanence and legacy, for example.
This process can be conscious, but often it sits below the membrane of awareness. Things subtly shift. The things that we value and find important might begin to alter, without understanding exactly why. You might inexplicably begin to feel detached from the person you thought you were. This can be extremely disconcerting and destabilising.
There are a number of theories which explain mid-life existential crises, many of which overlap with one another.
Are You Motivated Extrinsically, or Intrinsically?
When you are motivated by praise, rewards, competition, or avoiding bad outcomes, you are ‘extrinsically’ motivated. This can work really well for short-term, immediate reward productivity and when structured over time, can lead to intrinsic engagement. It is not so helpful for long-term, deep, creative and relational endeavours.
‘Intrinsic’ motivation, on the other hand, occurs when engaging in an endeavour for the inherent satisfaction of the endeavour itself. You might find yourself in a flow-state, absorbed in the activity and losing track of time. Not only is the activity enjoyable, this kind of pursuit contributes to overall wellbeing. The risk of intrinsically motivated activities is that they can be so absorbing that they can lead us to burnout and neglect of other activities, or relationships.
A mid-life crisis can, in part, be representative of a transition from more extrinsic, towards more intrinsic life motivation.
The Death of the Arrival Fallacy
It is common to be seduced and motivated by the achievement of big goals, believing that when you finally achieve them, you will be happy. There is some truth to this and there is merit in achieving big goals, but the contentment is fleeting. You get enough of a taste of the reward to defer your happiness to the next cycle of achievement.
Once you realise that lasting authentic fulfillment comes from the engagement with process, not the result, you have begun the procedure of changing the way you engage with life to match your new worldview. This does not happen overnight. It can be as uncomfortable and confusing, as it is freeing. It can impact the quality of life for you and those around you. This transition can show up in mid-life, after having spent a decade, or two chasing the fallacy of arrival.
Stagnation to Generativity
Erik Erikson identifies a stage of life between 30 and 64 years of age, where healthy functioning is characterised by a need for ‘generativity’. Generativity occurs when we feel we are making a positive difference that will outlive our own lives, when we think, and behave in ways which generate something more beneficial for others and the future. This can involve contributing to society and raising children, for example.
In contrast to ’generativity’ is ‘stagnation’. When people stagnate they have an absence of connection to a community, they think and act in self-serving ways, without a drive to improve themselves, or the lives of others. A mid-life crisis can occur when generativity and stagnation are in conflict. You may come up against pressure from within yourself, or from society to shift from “what do I get?” to “what can I give?”.
Jungian Individuation
Carl Jung framed the first half of life as being concerned with suppressing certain qualities in order to be successful, developing a mask, called a “persona” to ‘help’ navigate society. Sooner, or later these suppressed aspects of the self, must be acknowledged and integrated, or included, as part of the whole self. This typically unfolds during the second half of life and is called ‘individuation’.
The process of individuation can be turbulent, where suppression has been strong and persistent, manifesting as a crisis.
Terror Management Theory (TMT)
Nearly all of our behaviour is a consequence of our trying to manage the terror of knowing we will die. According to TMT, when you become aware of your mortality, but you avoid confronting it, you might act to buffer yourself against coming up against this inevitability, by obsessing about legacy, wealth, or extending youthfulness.
When you acknowledge and accept your mortality, your approach shifts to appreciation of what you have and treating each day as a deeply valuable gift to make the most of and experience to its fullest.
Autonomy Reclamation
Self-Determination Theory (SDT) posits three basic needs: autonomy, relatedness and competence. Through early life we become shaped by the expectations of society, with our true selves becoming neglected.
At the mid-point of your life, and with increased mortality salience, you may find yourself reclaiming your autonomy. Choosing to approach life according to the preferences of your true-self, rather than your socialised-self. This can disrupt the status-quo of our life and place in society and be seen as a crisis.
Schema Activation and Collapse
Schemas are ways of economising energy expended by your brain. They are maps, or systems of types of situations, that help us shortcut ways to navigate and show up in these situations. They are extremely useful and without them we may be eternal infants (not as good as it sounds) – engaging in every aspect of life as if it were new, without reference points for how to behave, think, or feel.
Schemas can make the world feel predictable, with reduced cognitive load. If something comes up that doesn’t fit with a schema, it can be interpreted as an exception, or alternatively, distorted to fit the schema. If something is not working for you in your life, learning about the underlying schema which maintains this issue, in addition to formulating a new schema, or adapting a long forgotten schema, can help instil sustainable shifts in thinking, feeling, behaving, self and world-view.
The new schema-shift can be more successful when the new schema is significantly, or even radically different. Occasionally you may find that there may be an overload of input that doesn’t fit with a key schema. This can happen gradually, or suddenly, and beyond this threshold, exceptions, or distortions may not be sufficient to provide schema maintenance. When this happens, the schema can collapse. Your identity and the beliefs about others and the world, which you took for granted can make less and less sense, such as with an existential mid-life crisis.
This is the potentially messy stage. It can be confusing and overwhelming and you might not even be sure what you are going through. Next is integration – you get to know yourself, your old schemas and your emerging ones, which need a little awareness to help to self-construct and knit into a way of being that feels like a cohesive whole.
How Can Online Integrative Hypno-Therapy Help to Move Forward From a Mid-Life Existential Crisis?
The art of living a meaningful life is not common knowledge, so how do you access it? Take for example, integrative therapy, offering a tailored blend of existential, transpersonal, person-centred and hypno-therapeutic approaches, with a therapist who is down to earth, discreet and who you can trust. A research-informed framework, plus a grounding of decades of experience with clients who have felt just like you. These are some of the elements you may wish to prioritise in your search for a specialist who can help you find authentic fulfilment and contentment.
Seeking an alliance like this is far more effective than trying to white-knuckle your way through this on your own. We are not built to understand ourselves in isolation. The reflection we gain through therapy is hard to gain alone, but the realisations, transformations and developments gained are all yours. This is not a quick fix… or any kind of fix. It is you accessing the qualities and resourcefulness you already have, sitting down with someone who knows how to help you find it.
Engaging in therapy online is a great way to do it. The whole process can remain low-key, easy to access and in a format you can control. Research shows that online therapy is equally as effective as in-person therapy.
Practical Strategies You Can Experiment With
1. Meaning Audit Exercise
- Write: “What do I do that feels empty?” / “What feels quietly alive?”
- Rationale: Meaning reconstruction (Frankl; Schnell)
- Not sufficient if distress is persistent or intense
2. Role Inventory
- List roles you perform vs roles you feel
- Rationale: Schema awareness (Young)
3. Mortality Reflection (Gentle)
- Imagine being 85 looking back
- Rationale: TMT research shows value clarification
4. Shadow Dialogue Journalling
- Write from the “disowned” part of you
- Rationale: Jungian integration
5. Exposure to Ageing
- Spend time with older adults / read ageing narratives
- Rationale: Exposure reduces fear of ageing
When Self-Help Isn’t Enough
Indicators:
- Persistent emptiness
- Repeated relationship/career patterns
- Anxiety about ageing or death
- Desire for deeper identity work
