#154: My Midlife Identity Crisis & Choosing to Age Powerfully, Not Fade Away

Have you ever heard that menopause is like a second puberty? I think that idea goes beyond the hormonal changes and into something deeper: our identity.

We’re no longer considered “young,” but identifying as “old” doesn’t sit right either. As women in midlife, many of us are coming into our power. After decades of raising kids, taking care of family, navigating marriage and career, we finally have time and energy to turn inward.

And we’re not done living.

In this episode, I share my own struggle with this identity shift and the conclusions I’ve come to for myself. My hope is that by sharing my story, it helps someone who’s wrestling with the same questions.

Enjoy the show!

Transcript

#154: My Midlife Identity Crisis & Choosing to Age Powerfully, Not Fade Away

 [00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach, helping women to feel better, look better in midlife. Today I wanna talk about something which I think is very. Familiar probably to many of you struggling through perimenopause and menopause, and that is this identity shift that's going on, and I think it just does not get talked about enough.

So a few months ago I was out with a group of friends and one of the women there who is. About eight years older than I am, so I'm 54, she's about 62. She stopped and she looked me dead in the eye and said, "Lynn, you are old. You need to accept that you are old." And I felt like that was [00:01:00] such a slap in the face. Everything inside me was like, you are. Wrong because at this point in my life, I feel like I have finally figured out who I am. I am finally walking through life with my eyes open. I know myself better than I have ever. I'm having more fun than I did even in my twenties. I'm doing things I never thought I would do, and that just felt like. Such a bucket of cold water over my head.

And since then I've been really pondering this that am I old and what does old really mean? Because up until that day, I never thought that I was old and I am kind of resentful that she had to say that to me. But in any case, and you know, because I feel like out [00:02:00] there. There are kind of different opinions about this aging and getting old.

It's either that you need to age gracefully, which means accept the decline. It's natural, just go with it. And I do see women who are like, oh, I'm middle aged, and life is like this. And I get a little bit rounder and I become a little bit gray and I start to disappear. And the younger generation takes center stage.

And then on the other hand, I see these women who are absolutely fighting tooth and nail against aging, who are getting the facelifts, you know, doing everything, getting multiple facelifts.

And I feel like I don't identify with either of these camps because on the one hand, I feel. Enormously empowered. I finally found what I wanna do, which is help [00:03:00] women like myself who have been struggling to go through midlife feeling more empowered. And at the same time, I am acutely aware of the fact that I am aging.

So especially my parents have brought this very much to the forefront as I watch them decline as they're about 80 and their physical and their mental decline, and that scares the daylights out of me. So, you know, part of me is like a 20-year-old and the other part of me is like, oh my God, we're almost outta here and I'm trying to kind of come to terms with these both. Sides of my thinking. 

It reminds me a lot of my son, who's 18 years old, still living with me and he's right now at this phase where he's like one foot in [00:04:00] childhood and the other in adulthood where he wants all the adult privileges, like driving the car and staying out all night and having his girlfriend over. And yet mommy has to do the dental appointment and cook the dinner. You know, so he's trying to stay in both of them and he can't figure out where he is.

And I guess where I'm coming to with this is that I do feel like these two sides of me can coexist in midlife. So there can be the side of me who is feeling more alive, than when I was younger, and then the side of me that understands and is afraid of the fact that I am no longer 20 and therefore has to face and accept the reality that I am physically aging and I'm not going to be here forever.

You know, I want to stay visible. I don't [00:05:00] wanna fade away. I remember when I was a teenager, you know, and I had just gotten tall and, you know, matured. And my mom, I would go out shopping with her and she'd be like, oh, men used to look at me. And now they just look at you. I don't wanna be that mom. Sorry, maybe I'm not allowed to say that out loud, but I don't wanna fade away. I don't wanna be unattractive. I don't wanna give up being a woman and I'm not going to. So what I've decided is that I get to choose how I age and I want to age powerfully.

 I don't want to just passively decline and I am going to do what I can do within reason to keep myself as active, functional, and living life as I possibly can. So what I have decided is that I am [00:06:00] going to age powerfully.

I'm gonna accept that I'm not 20 anymore, but at the same time, refuse to accept that my best days are behind me because I tell you, I've had some of the best times of my life after turning 50, and I don't see an end to that, and I don't wanna see an end to that.

So I'm not gonna wait around for decline, but I'm gonna keep doing the things that allow me to keep feeling good about myself, to slow down the decline and let me live my life to the fullest.

And no, I can't help the fact that I have wrinkles and that my skin is starting to sag on my arms and on my body. That's just life. Of course, I use the creams and I take care of my skin and I've even done some microneedling, but that doesn't mean that I can't [00:07:00] do things right, just 'cause I have a few wrinkles 

 There are things you can absolutely affect, like the physical decline. Even though I have arthritis, even though I have old injuries, I am continuing to strength train because I wanna keep my muscles, my bones, my tendons, my ligaments, my body strong so that I can do things. I can carry a suitcase, I can go traveling and do all those things.

And then I am a user of HRT. I've talked about that on previous episodes and that has brought me a lot of quality of life in the form of, I sleep better, my sex drive is up, and I really enjoy physical pleasure and that's one of the things that I feel, feel like is one of the great pleasures in life that why should we give that up halfway through our lives? It can be so much fun.

And I keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I luckily [00:08:00] have this amazing group of friends and they like to do things that aren't necessarily my favorite things to do, but I go do it, and then they introduce me to new people and I go meet new people. And these are things that I would not get myself off my butt and do on my own. But I will say yes. I go to the theater, I go, I'm going to a whiskey festival this weekend. I don't even drink whiskey, but I thought, Hey, here's a new experience that I can try.

 I'm letting go of other people's opinions, not caring what they think. , for example, somebody might think that, oh, I can't go to a nightclub because I'm 54 and everybody there is 20. I'm like, I wanna dance. I'm gonna go to the nightclub. Sure. Somebody may look at me and be like, oh, you're my mom's age, you know? But I've honestly had people come up to me and high five me on the dance floor or tell me I look great. So, [00:09:00] you know, and they're not gonna remember me the next day. They're too involved in their own lives. So I go there and I have fun. We're only here once.

All of that to say that if you are struggling with your identity, as you go through midlife, as you go through perimenopause and menopause, as you start having the wrinkles, the saggy skin, you're not able to have children anymore. Maybe you get divorced, you have to kind of reinvent yourself and. Maybe my definition of aging powerfully has maybe given you permission to age powerfully to, or at least some food for thought about what you can and can't do and what kinds of preconceptions you have about what can a 50-year-old do, what can a 60-year-old do? And you know what we can do, whatever the heck we want because [00:10:00] we are only here once. And I do encourage you to take care of your body. And that means through exercise and sleep and nutrition and making sure you hold onto those muscles so that you can enjoy the rest of the journey 

and with that, I wish you an amazing week ahead and happy aging.