If We Could Go Back Five Years...

Five years ago, the world looked very different. 

We were navigating a global pandemic, rebuilding our business, and trying to make sense of an uncertain future. Like so many people, we had no idea what the next few years would bring.

If we could go back and sit down with our younger selves, knowing everything we know now, what would we say?

In this episode, we're sharing the lessons we wish we'd learned sooner - from trusting ourselves instead of the noise around us, to realising that healing is often more important than discipline, and why relationships, faith, rest and taking time to pause have become some of the greatest priorities in our lives.

Whether you're navigating change, questioning what's next, or simply wondering if you're on the right path, we hope this conversation encourages you to reflect on your own journey - and perhaps helps you learn a few things from our hindsight rather than having to learn them all the hard way.

THE MIDLIFE HEALTH PROJECT - Quick questionnaire:

https://tally.so/r/q4pGDO

Transcript

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The Midlife Mentors: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Midlife Mentors with me, James.

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The Midlife Mentors: I've got one, sorry.

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The Midlife Mentors: Hello and welcome to another episode of Midlife Mentors with me, James. And me, Claire. How is everyone? What are you doing? Hot, probably. We're recording this sweltering in our bedroom. We normally record in the front room, but there's like heavy construction going on in the street, so it's all a bit tricky.

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The Midlife Mentors: Are you talking about the weather? I might be. Listen, you know, if you're in the UK, if you're in Europe, in fact, you'll know that we're currently, as this podcast drops, sweltering in a delicious heat wave. Like it. I'm not going to make, you know, they were saying actually that it actually, it might be longer than the famous heat wave of 1976. You weren't alive then. No, but my brother was born.

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The Midlife Mentors: And my mum had him as a little baby in the May, and yeah, she had a newborn baby in the heatwave. Let us know if anyone else was born in 1976. I remember the summer of 76.

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The Midlife Mentors: Oh, yeah, you don't. You're like three years old. Ridiculous. Anyway, we've been up to lots. We're busy, busy, busy. It's fun times for the midlife mentors. We sent out a little survey, actually. Oh, we did. We'll put the link in the show notes for this, actually. Please do fill it out. We're trying to gather information on midlife.

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The Midlife Mentors: Health habits, really, to understand, you know, what's happening out there in the mid-lifosphere.

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The Midlife Mentors: So that would really help us if we could fill that out. It would only take you like three minutes maximum. Yeah, so we haven't done a little survey like this for a really long time actually, and things are happening very fast in the health and wellbeing arena. And we just haven't touched base with you guys from a midlife wellbeing perspective. So we have put this questionnaire together. Like James says, it will take three minutes to do, but we really

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The Midlife Mentors: just want to find out what's going on for you at the moment, what are some of your challenges, what some of your habits are. So yeah, the link is in the show notes, so we'd be super, super grateful for you to take some time to do that. And then we can tailor our programs and our forward planning around that. So let's dive into today's

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The Midlife Mentors: podcast episode. Yeah, it's an interesting one. We kind of thought, this might be useful to people. Well, we hope it will be. We're big proponents of always looking forwards, but I think it's important, you know, to also occasionally, like, look back and see how far you've come. So this one is about…

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The Midlife Mentors: If we could go back 5 years.

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The Midlife Mentors: What are the lessons that we tell ourselves? What are the lessons we've learned in that time? What would we do differently going forward. I think it can be really useful to think about that because it also shows you perhaps how far you've come at all. Because the thing is, when we're in life, it kind of happens around us and we're not really aware of our progress. But then when we look back, we can be like, oh gosh, actually.

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The Midlife Mentors: I've come quite a long way. And it's also really helpful, probably, for… well, we hope so! It's helpful for us to maybe…

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The Midlife Mentors: highlight some of the… I don't want to call them mistakes, because we were saying this, James and I are like, we don't do regrets, actually. Well, sometimes we do. But, like, we don't… we don't look back and think, oh…

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The Midlife Mentors: You know, I just really wish that hadn't happened or really wish we hadn't done that, but it's just all a journey and we're all learning. But maybe some of the things that we're sharing about the things that we would go back and tell our younger self from like five years ago, maybe that might make you think, hang on a minute, does that resonate with me? Am I doing that? Maybe I could catch that a little bit sooner, or maybe I'm not doing that, but that's something to avoid in the future.

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The Midlife Mentors: So what we're going to do is we're going to do like a little tag team. James is going to share one of his, then I'll share one of mine, and then we'll go backwards and forwards until we've both shared five. Yes, so 10 in total. Yes, well done. You can count. Well, I got my calculator out. That's something you can do better in the last five years. You weren't able to count five years ago. There you are, that's one of your honours.

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The Midlife Mentors: You've got a squeaky chair, so hopefully that's not… It's not being picked up. Don't move your arm too much. Anything else? You can

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The Midlife Mentors: See what life is like for me, listeners.

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The Midlife Mentors: She keeps me locked in a cupboard and just wiggles me out.

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The Midlife Mentors: And to do household chores. Like a little dobby. Yeah. Like a dobby. Right. Enough of this. Let's crack on. Ladies first, obviously. No, you go first.

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The Midlife Mentors: Ladies first! Okay, we… Age before beauty. Okay, age before beauty. Or even age and beauty before beauty. Okay, let's… Okay, go, go, go. So, I've been really reflective, I think, in the last…

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The Midlife Mentors: Few months only about, about where I want to go and how I'm developing as a person, but how, you know, my business is developing as well.

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The Midlife Mentors: And I think, looking back 5 years ago.

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The Midlife Mentors: that was kind of COVID-y times, wasn't it? So we were very, very, kind of entrenched in the grind of things. So, obviously, we had the retreats business, and we had, you know, a hugely successful group coaching program, the Midlife Reset.

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The Midlife Mentors: But,

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The Midlife Mentors: it felt like a real grind, because we were, we were kind of, you know, following different experts and, and, in inverted commas, gurus, you know, trying to understand the online space, what worked, what didn't, and I think got very caught up there in…

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The Midlife Mentors: external noise, rather than actually being internally focused and thinking, well, what do we actually want to do here? Listen, the product we wanted to deliver was a product we wanted to deliver. We were immensely proud of that, and it changed so many people's lives for the better.

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The Midlife Mentors: But we kind of got lost in all the marketing around it, and this constant driving, and then setting targets, and for me, there isn't that. Yeah, of course it's nice to have more clients, of course it's nice to have more money coming in, but it's not… it's not one of my major drivers, and

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The Midlife Mentors: I've gone through this liminal period where we kind of stepped off that. I'm sure Claire's going to reference it. We closed the program, and it was like, oh, you know, we've just got to trust that stuff will come. And so I think I would tell myself five years ago, actually, discount the external noise, stay truer to yourself.

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The Midlife Mentors: And trust yourself more. Do what feels good to you, and do what feels right. Mmm, love that. Love that. My… these are in no particular order, but one of mine is…

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The Midlife Mentors: 5 years ago, the exhaustion I was feeling. Like, I had… I look back now, and I had, heart… massive heart palpitations, I had an ECG put on, I couldn't…

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The Midlife Mentors: breathe properly, they did, like, stuff, x-rays on my lungs, I was constantly really, really tired, and I look back now, and my goodness, like, my body…

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The Midlife Mentors: yeah, it was… it was in overdrive, and yet I didn't even really recognise it, and actually, probably for all the reasons James just said, that we were really in, like, a striving, fighty survival place because of COVID, and because of so many changes in our life.

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The Midlife Mentors: And I think I've operated in that space for most of my life, since my early 20s. And so, I wasn't recognising it 5 years ago, and so I just thought there was something… instead of it just being about

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The Midlife Mentors: also what was going on mentally, I thought it was just, like, why am I physically not feeling okay? So, that exhaustion, I didn't realize at the time.

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The Midlife Mentors: Was because I was still doing way too much cardio, pushing my body way too hard.

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The Midlife Mentors: I didn't realize that exhaustion was mainly a spiritual.

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The Midlife Mentors: Wilderness. So… I, I don't think I realize just how much my mental health.

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The Midlife Mentors: And all of that striving, and all of that pushing, and all of that survival mode had really impacted me on a holistic level, mind, body, and spirit. So that, that, if I could go back and tell my, myself.

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The Midlife Mentors: 5 years ago, which was around 42, 40… yeah, 42, I would say…

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The Midlife Mentors: pay attention. Your body… your body's trying to tell you something, about what's going on internally for you, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. I would pay more attention. Really important one. Really important one.

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The Midlife Mentors: Okay, my next one, is kind of linked to my first one, but is different. So, it's to be less transactionally focused, you know, at that time when we were striving.

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The Midlife Mentors: It was all looking at metrics, like, you know, you know, what's the conversion rate? If I have 100 conversations online, you know, how many of those are going to convert to a call? How many of those will convert to a client? And it falls into transactional. We're like, oh, if I'm doing this, what am I going to get from it? That's not my natural state.

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The Midlife Mentors: And it's interesting, since I've relaxed from that, and just focused more on

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The Midlife Mentors: Having conversations, sake of conversations, they're reaching out to people, what value can I provide them?

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The Midlife Mentors: Actually, loads more opportunities have bubbled up as a result. So I tell myself, like, don't don't worry about the transactional part. Just just do it for the enjoyment of doing it. Yeah. I mean, that's one of mine as well. It's like, actually Don't steal my point. It's so one of mine. You've got four written down. She's trying to steal one.

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The Midlife Mentors: No, it's definitely one of mine, like, our value systems are very, very similar, that's why we get on and, have done such great things together.

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The Midlife Mentors: But yeah, like one of my things, it was never about the metrics for me, but I didn't realize it wasn't. And that's why it felt so misaligned. But actually my value system is to talk and connect and communicate without, without agenda. Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: So number two for me is don't be afraid to, I'd go back and say, don't be afraid to stop and pause.

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The Midlife Mentors: And take a huge, a big chunk of time out away from.

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The Midlife Mentors: The circus that you've put yourself in.

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The Midlife Mentors: I was on that, like I've said in my first point, I was on a never ending, human.

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The Midlife Mentors: doing loop rather than a human being. And

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The Midlife Mentors: And for me, it was very much around my faith.

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The Midlife Mentors: And taking those nine days out that I do sometimes talk about those nine days in August two years ago.

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The Midlife Mentors: I was really afraid to take a step back to trust God.

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The Midlife Mentors: To not have any devices with me, to not speak to anyone for 9 days, and just… they…

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The Midlife Mentors: In whatever came up for me.

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The Midlife Mentors: Because I think I was constantly trying to prove myself and validate myself through all these external forces. And when you take that time out, you've got nothing external to kind of validate you or to affirm you.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, I would go back and say, do that sooner rather than later.

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The Midlife Mentors: Because I have to say, my…

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The Midlife Mentors: whole DNA, and I know that sounds really dramatic, but I felt so, like, a completely new creation when I came out of those 9 days, with so many, elements of myself healed.

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The Midlife Mentors: and so many bits that made sense, and I could make connections, but you can only do that when you do have some stillness, some solitude, and you take your foot off the pedal for a bit. And you might be listening to this going, Claire, I just absolutely can't do that, like, I've got too many responsibilities. But I want to say to you, like.

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The Midlife Mentors: You kind of need to.

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The Midlife Mentors: And you need to figure out a way to… if you are feeling as dysregulated as I was, you're going to need not just an afternoon, but you're going to need some serious time

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The Midlife Mentors: Just to feel what you feel and go through that process without running away or trying to distract yourself from it. So that's what I would go back and say to.

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The Midlife Mentors: my 42-year-old self is you need to take some time out and do that, and stop running… stop running away. I think the pause is so underestimated, isn't it? The pause. The pause. Having the bravery to take the pause, because we have this…

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The Midlife Mentors: We have this perception that if we pause, if we stop, then everything's going to fall apart. 100%. But actually, no, not necessarily. And sometimes some things need to fall apart so you can rebuild.

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The Midlife Mentors: Well, that's what happened to me

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The Midlife Mentors: So 5 years ago, my confidence was actually very low, so I would, I would just say, be bolder. Like, I'm very bold now in just asking people, introducing myself, bowling on in.

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The Midlife Mentors: And, I kind of… it doesn't come naturally to me, but I do love, love that part of me, and again, that's opened so many doors for me, but back then.

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The Midlife Mentors: I think I've had, like, imposter syndrome. It's like, I need to hide behind something, or I, you know, I don't feel qualified to talk about that, or

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was tough. I had a lot of imposter syndrome. So that, and my confidence was low. So I just say, have more confidence, just be out there, be bold. You'd say that's your five, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would also say to myself, my self five years ago, I would say.

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The Midlife Mentors: That sometimes when I wasn't getting the results I wanted, I thought it was because there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't doing enough, that I wasn't disciplined enough, that there was some kind of…

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The Midlife Mentors: thing that I wasn't doing, that other people were doing. Like, I was comparing myself a lot to other people, and I… and that made me feel like I wasn't enough, and that I… I was doing something wrong, and I lacked something.

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The Midlife Mentors: So sometimes I would, I would really, it was almost like I'd take discipline to an extreme and.

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The Midlife Mentors: And not let up, but actually it wasn't necessarily discipline I needed, it was healing.

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The Midlife Mentors: So yeah, I think what I would say is it wasn't necessarily that I needed more discipline. I needed to keep or need to keep pushing myself. It wasn't discipline I needed. It was healing. It was pausing. It was time.

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The Midlife Mentors: it was taking a breath, and to stop striving, and allow my central nervous system to regulate again. So, I would go back and tell my younger self that she's doing everything she can,

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The Midlife Mentors: And that that's okay.

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The Midlife Mentors: but she actually needs… I suppose it relates to the one I just said, but she does need to… the world isn't going to fall apart, and she's not more… she's not of more value with the more stuff she gets done. Her value is actually in her relationship with God.

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The Midlife Mentors: That's what I would say. That's lovely. That's, that's, you know, my identity isn't in how much I can produce, and how many followers, and how many clients we can get, and all that kind of stuff. It's actually, my identity is in

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The Midlife Mentors: God, and what He has to say about me, and that shifted everything for me. Well, that leads me nicely into my fourth point, that I would have made God a player in my life earlier. Oh, I love that, James. Because it brings you, a sense of peace, you know, you have, trust.

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The Midlife Mentors: You have love.

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The Midlife Mentors: It lowers your stress levels, makes us more connected. So, yeah, definitely, that's been a big change in my life. Well…

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The Midlife Mentors: I probably… I'm jumping on your bandwagon now, aren't I? But I would say 100%, I wish… I wish that, for myself more… like, for me sooner, but actually, I also… again, this goes back to our original thing that we said, there's no regrets, and there's no kind of,

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The Midlife Mentors: I do genuinely feel like God entered our life and our world and our hearts at exactly the right time that was right for us, when we were finally ready to, I suppose, surrender to that.

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The Midlife Mentors: And not be as controlling as we were, and to say, hey, God, I trust you, and I trust what you're doing in our life. And actually, since then, calcifreeze, the… the… I don't want to say magic, because it's not really a word that we use, in the Christian world, but…

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The Midlife Mentors: There is that kind of thing that happens that when you hand it over.

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The Midlife Mentors: instead of threatening your life out of something, you allow God to open the doors that were ordained for you.

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The Midlife Mentors: Anyway, and I've seen that happen so much in James's life and in my life, is that actually everything feels like 100% easier. It feels more aligned, it feels more free flowing. The pressure's almost off of us when you go like, I'm going to take every day as it comes, step by step, I'm going to do what I can do.

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The Midlife Mentors: listen for that still small voice of God guiding me forward, but know that He's got me, and that He's what is meant for me.

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The Midlife Mentors: will come to fruition. Hmm, lovely. So that kind of was one of mine as well. So it's my turn now. Yeah, go on, you go back. Yeah, it's the last one. Listen, I'm always,

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The Midlife Mentors: aiming to do better and learn more, but I think I would have just applied myself a bit harder on things like self-development, particularly around

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The Midlife Mentors: Our relationship, as well.

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The Midlife Mentors: I think that's an area we've had massive growth, particularly in the last two to three years.

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The Midlife Mentors: And, you know, going… going to couples counseling has been, like, really transformational on that.

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The Midlife Mentors: But also, you know, outside of that and our relationship, just the way I'm showing up in the world, and, you know, by actually applying

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The Midlife Mentors: the things that I'm… I'm practicing and learning, it's made… made a big, big difference.

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The Midlife Mentors: But, you know, maybe it's a cumulative effect of all these things, right? We shift and we change, our experiences shape us, and we get to the point where we suddenly realize, and this is the point of this particular podcast, like, oh wow, I've actually moved quite a long way in what is a relatively short period of time.

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The Midlife Mentors: in terms of how I feel, how I'm showing up in the world, what motivates me, what drives me.

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The Midlife Mentors: And the energy I'm giving out to the world and receiving in return. Hmm.

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The Midlife Mentors: The other one for me is a relationship one too, and again, this is the beauty of those nine days, of my faith, of the healing, of the revelation that I have received from,

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The Midlife Mentors: Being very, very, like, prioritizing my relationship with God.

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The Midlife Mentors: there has become so much understanding about my patterns of behaviour and, how I was showing up, not just in this relationship, but actually how I have always shown up in romantic relationships in my other marriages.

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The Midlife Mentors: And this is not coming from a place of beating myself with a stick. In fact, it's… it's given me such a freedom and a relief and a love for myself from being able to understand, because I know, you know.

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The Midlife Mentors: As a Christian, one of those things is that you are forgiven and you're able to release these things. You're released from the shame and the burden of the past. But you can only really do that once you kind of understand it, if that makes sense. And I think that's what the gift I was given, particularly in August.

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The Midlife Mentors: those two years ago, and what I would say is, I didn't realize, as a female, how much I was operating in what I would say the masculine.

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The Midlife Mentors: And, you know, I saw James was really struggling quite a few years ago, and…

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The Midlife Mentors: You know, I kept trying to reach him emotionally and talk to him about it. But every time that I did, I was seeing this guy just shutting down and getting further and further away from me, which I then saw as rejection, which then made me kind of try even harder, but then actually get quite angry and frustrated. And a lot of the time I'd be quite critical and I would diminish, diminish him without. I wasn't really doing this consciously.

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The Midlife Mentors: It was just a loop I was stuck in. And so then I would be critical, then James would be like, understandably, like, what's the point? Why am I going to keep on trying if…

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The Midlife Mentors: if it's not enough, I'm not gonna keep putting myself out there. If I'm gonna… if Claire's gonna, I suppose, be,

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The Midlife Mentors: maybe critical, or trying to control things, and it… and it basically came for me from a place of feeling unsafe. You know, my little girl has been operating in that, masculine for such a long time, and that place of survival for such a long time, that to…

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The Midlife Mentors: to give over any control, felt unsafe.

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The Midlife Mentors: And so I was looking for James to kind of create that safety in me and with me, but again, I was kind of doing it all the wrong way. I was also looking for safety in the wrong places. I now have that in God, which is just incredible. That's freed James up, I think, to know that that's not…

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The Midlife Mentors: He's only his job, but like in freeing, in realizing these things.

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The Midlife Mentors: I was able to come to James and apologize.

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The Midlife Mentors: And to say, actually, what you need from me is to be your encourager.

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The Midlife Mentors: And for me to say, actually, this isn't just so I get something from it, but I love this man, and I want him to be the best version of himself and reach his potential for him, not for me.

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The Midlife Mentors: And this… this kind of, like, healing and this switch that also happened through couples counselling was so profound that making space and stepping back a bit and making space for James to step into the masculine, to really step into who he is, guess what happened? I created the vacuum, James spent…

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The Midlife Mentors: stepped into it. Because what I was doing with the midlife mentors all the time was just being like, this is mine, this is mine, this is mine. I suppose because there was a lack of trust and a lack of safety, so once that healing had taken place in myself.

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The Midlife Mentors: yeah, I was able to be softer, and to allow, literally, James to step into who he really is, and who I could see that he was. I think that's why I was so frustrated, I could see who he was, and who he could be.

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The Midlife Mentors: But I was, yeah, I was suffocating that. So real power in that.

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The Midlife Mentors: And I suppose I would go back.

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The Midlife Mentors: And… but this is the learning, but I would go back 5 years ago and try and explain that to that version of me, because it was difficult for both of us, wasn't it? It was. It was. Well, thanks for being so honest about that. And it did… it did mark a big shift and change, I think, in… in the balance of our relationship, and was another one of the reasons that I could step forward, stop having imposter syndrome.

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The Midlife Mentors: be bold and really, really go out there. Because we all want people to believe in us. And stop holding on to…

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The Midlife Mentors: metrics that didn't really light us up. But we all want to be believed in. We all want to be encouraged. That's when we thrive, right? And in a marriage and a partnership, that's what we're supposed to be for each other. So I just encourage you to check in with that and see where you're at with what I've just said. You know, women and men, like, see if there's any similarities there from what I've shared. So I think that was five for you and five for me. It was. I don't know, they kind of got a bit muddled because we do feel quite

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The Midlife Mentors: They're the same in…

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The Midlife Mentors: In the journey that we've taken, yours has been a bit different, but yeah, I feel like we've grown definitely together.

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The Midlife Mentors: For sure. Yeah, absolutely.

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The Midlife Mentors: And I hope you found that useful and interesting. It was quite vulnerable, I felt, this one.

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The Midlife Mentors: Hmm. Hmm. Okay.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, I'm processing what Claire said, I think, so that's why I've gone quiet.

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The Midlife Mentors: And also learning each other's different skill sets. Also, I wonder how long I've got before she locks me back in the cupboard again for a few hours. Not long, Dobby. Not long. You're going back in the Dobby the house elf. There's some stuff that I've got. Please have a little bit more daylight. Friday chores for you. Anyway, guys, I'm literally, we're sitting here in the back room.

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The Midlife Mentors: It is the coolest place in the house, but my goodness, I've actually even got sweaty knees. Yes, but we have actually, we're going to leave Lola pops at home and go for a walk around the city of London. If this is the first one that you've listened to, Lola's our dog. Wishing you all an amazing weekend. Do fill out the survey, please. That information will not only help us, but help other people like you as well. Link is in the show notes. And yes, until next time.

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The Midlife Mentors: Thank you. Bye.