Why 47 is Peak Misery and Why I'm Not In It (Jo Moment)

Turning 47 comes with a surprising data point: it’s supposedly the peak age of unhappiness, yet I feel like an outlier. I share the three changes that help me unlock more happiness without needing an easier life. 
• the research on midlife unhappiness and why it might show up around 47 
• reframing the traits I used to hide as my zone of genius 
• dropping the chameleon habit and saying the thing 
• noticing how over-relying on intellect keeps me stuck in my head 
• building trust in intuition and body signals as another intelligence 
• learning presence by understanding the neuroscience first 
• turning down frantic future-thinking without losing ambition 
• exploring body wisdom and what kinesiology unlocked for me 
If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs.

The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute

For women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.

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Transcript

Welcome And Quick Reset

Jo Stone (Host) 0:04

Welcome to Balance and Beyond Moments. Your weekly dose of insight, wisdom, and mindset shifts, all in 10 minutes or less. Whether it's a powerful truth, a fresh perspective, or a spark of inspiration, this is your space to pause, reflect, and reset. Let's dive in.

Turning 47 And The Data

Jo Stone (Host) 0:22

The day this episode comes out is my birthday. So happy birthday to me. I'm turning 47. And interestingly, there is recent data out that says 47 is the peak age of unhappiness. That's right. Happy birthday to me. You are now officially the most unhappy based on a study of thousands of people across 132 countries. Hmm. Wonder why that is. Teenagers, peak of your career, aging parents, backed up hormones, being in the sandwich generation. The numbers are pretty bleak. And I don't think I'm immune to any of that, but I am an outlier on the data because I would not consider myself peak unhappiness. So today I want to share what I think has made the biggest difference to me avoiding being a statistic.

Turning Shame Into Strength

Jo Stone (Host) 1:21

So it turns out the things that I was most ashamed of were actually my genius things. I spent most of my life trying to hide the parts of me I thought were too much. I was accused of being bossy my whole life. So I was worried about being too direct or too intense or too weird. I always felt like a round peg in a square hole no matter where I was. There was so much energy and effort that I used to spend in softening, fitting in, being a chameleon, being palatable. But there was this turning point when I started to do deeper work on myself as I became more and more, I guess you would say, self-aware, is that the things I was most ashamed of were the parts of me that were my zone of genius. When I stopped trying to fit in, when I stopped softening, started saying the thing, created this alter ego for myself called Friday Night Joe, I felt for the first time like I came home. And you have no idea how much effort it takes to be someone you're not. So when you are in effect shaming yourself for being yourself, that's just a recipe for so much discomfort, lack of fulfillment, and unhappiness. So I feel the more I am me, the more and more happiness that I am able to unlock. So embracing all the parts of myself is part of

Stop Letting Your Head Lead

Jo Stone (Host) 2:54

it. But another piece that I think is keeping me out of the depths of unhappiness is that I have stopped relying on my soul strengths. So not only were the things that I was ashamed of, my zone of genius, I was leaning really, really hard into the things that I knew I was good at. We call this my zone of excellence. So my head, my intellect, the ability to explain, to tell stories, to make sense of everything, to join the dots. Now, this is a place that most women who listen to this podcast live. In your head, your intellect, it's what has got us so much. But I massively over-indexed and ignored everything else. I ignored my intuition, I ignored my body because I ain't got time for the toilet because I've got shit to do. Have you not seen my list? Whereas the more I learned that what if there is another form of intelligence out there that I could harness that was faster, that was more accurate, that came with less suffering. Hmm, what would have to happen in order for me to access that? So the more I could put down my head, put down my hassle muscle, put down those get shit done capabilities, and importantly do the identity work that meant I could be more than just that. It unlocked a complete side of myself, of interests, of passion, and of intelligence that I didn't know existed. And if I was to say of the three things that I'm sharing with you today, this one has probably been the source of over-indexing on happiness than I ever thought possible. I thought living in my head was safe. I thought that if I figured everything out, that everything would be okay. But leaning in and actually getting out of my head has been one of the greatest gifts that I could ever give myself. So you can imagine as someone who was very chameleon-like and hiding lots of me, was very much over-indexed on my head, on my hustle muscle.

Learning Presence Without Panic

Jo Stone (Host) 5:15

Well, something that has also made a big difference to me, avoiding peak unhappiness, was learning to turn those off. Learning to find presence and find peace, which allured me for such a long time. I was very much a future person. I'm not a big past stewer. But my mental capacity was constantly going to have I done enough? What have I missed? What am I missing? Am I moving fast enough? Have I missed the boat? And that franticness I used to just assume was my drive. That was my ambition. But it was actually just a shit ton of noise. Constant, exhausting noise that never stopped. And I'd heard in my podcasting and my mass consumption that I was doing all the time that I need to learn silence. I need to try to meditate. I need to learn to slow down because everyone's telling me that my nervous system is in overdrive. And I knew it, but I didn't know any other way to be. So it was really threatening for me to turn something off in the absence of trusting something else. So literally, silence was my enemy. And I was terrified that if I stopped, if I stopped moving, whether that was resting, silence, often sleeping, turning the brain off, what was going to be underneath? And I had to sit through the guilt, the fear, the chatter, the worry, the rumination to get through the other side. Now, what was really interesting is a lot of people say meditation changed my life, and I learned to sit still, and that didn't work for me for a really long time. I had to go in the way I had to go into everything. And that was through neuroscience. I had to understand the ROI on why I should turn this thing off before I would let myself even try. Then I had to find the right method for that. So once I understood the neuroscience, then it was about finding different people that could peel to my intellect and talk to me about quantum physics or the neuroscience, like, oh, okay. And then gradually, 1% at a time, I actually built the ability to be in the moment, to be present. Slower mind, slower voice. I used to talk very fast. I still do. I'm trying to slow down. Slower life, but not less ambitious, just less frantic, and have faith that that's actually gonna unlock a lot here for me. And then the last piece, which is tuning in to what happens when you get out of your head.

Body Wisdom And Kinesiology

Jo Stone (Host) 8:05

I mentioned having this extra source of wisdom. Unlocking what my body can do, unlocking my spiritual gifts has cracked me open in a way that no amount of thinking or intellect ever could have. We all say the body holds the score, but the body holds a deeper level of wisdom that is undisputable. There's a completely different operating system running in parallel to your brain, to your hustle muscle. And particularly for me, a huge source of my happiness and fulfillment is coming across a modality that just really spoke to me at the time. And for me, that's been kinesiology. It's not something everybody resonates with, but my God, what that has unlocked for me in terms of feeling powerful, in terms of understanding myself and understanding others. And I would never have got there if I hadn't been willing to put down the fact that my brain was maybe not the be all and end all.

The Three Practices That Help

Jo Stone (Host) 9:15

So you're gonna have your own things. What are your things that keep you out of peak unhappiness? But I want to share that I'm not happier because my life is easier. I have a mortgage, I have a husband, I have teenagers people. It's not easier. I'm happier because I stopped fighting the parts of me that I used to hide. I stopped outsourcing my wisdom to my head alone, tapped into another source, and I stopped living somewhere that wasn't just the future and really embraced the now. That's the work I've done. I'm still in it, but 47 feels a lot better than it was supposed to. So, yay! Happy birthday to me. See you soon.

Share And Subscribe

Jo Stone (Host) 10:10

Thanks for taking this moment for yourself. If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs. See you next time.