#84: Why You Feel Disoriented in Midlife — And How to Find Your Footing Again

One foot in a season that's closing. One foot in a future you don't quite recognize yet.

Midlife has a way of reshuffling everything at once, which is why so many of us hit a wall. We're trying to move forward while standing in two seasons at once. The roles that used to tell us who we were have shifted. The life that used to fit doesn't quite fit anymore. And nobody handed us a map for the in-between.

In this episode, I'm naming what's actually happening. The quiet disorientation that comes with this season. And giving you three grounded practices to help you find your footing again. This isn't about becoming someone new. It's about recognizing yourself right where you are.

3 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

1. Disorientation in midlife is a sign you're right in the middle of a real transition.
2. Your surroundings, your shifting roles, and going it alone are quietly keeping the old story running even when you're ready for something new.
3. You don't have to see the whole path. Finding your footing starts with knowing where your feet are right now.

This season is disorienting. But you are still capable right now, exactly as you are.

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Transcript

Speaker 3 0:01

You're never too busy, too tired, too old, or too anything to pursue your dreams. Welcome to the Distracted Dreamer Podcast, where you'll learn how to move all those never ending distractions aside and chase your dreams with confidence.

0:23

Hello, hello my friend. Welcome back to The Distracted Dreamer. I'm your host, Carlene, and if this is your first time here with us, welcome. I am so glad that you found us. And first, I wanna share something with you that's been on my heart for a while now. You know I love the conversations that we're having here on the podcast, and there are also parts of this season that I wanna have a more intimate conversation about with you because, you know, we were never meant to do this part alone. So my new newsletter, called the Tuesday Letter with Carlene, it just went out. It's a letter from me to you, friend to friend, and I share things there that I don't share anywhere else. It's filled with honest and joyful and ridiculous moments of the season, some inspiration, a coach-led reflection, all the things that I'm loving lately, and of course a bridge to the latest episode of The Distracted Dreamer right here. And I would really love to have you be a part of that special conversation. So I just wanna let you know that you can sign up with the link that's in the show notes, or you can just go to coachcarlene.com/newsletter and sign up, and I will pop in your inbox every Tuesday morning. Okay, let's get into today's conversation. And I always love opening with a question. Have you ever stood in the middle of your own life and felt like you didn't quite recognize where you were? Like you know all the rooms in the house, but somehow you still feel lost in it? And that feeling, it has a name. And today I wanna give it to you because once you can name it, it stops feeling like there's something wrong with you, and It starts feeling like exactly what it is. What happens when you're standing between two seasons at once? That is what is going on here. And here's what I also want you to know before we go any further. Even when you're disoriented, you are still capable. So if you've been through the empty nest season or you're standing right on the edge of it, this episode is especially for you. Think about what it's like when you send the first child off, or maybe the second. The house shifts. It's quieter in ways that catch you off guard. But there are still kids at home. There are still backpacks by the door, and someone's still asking you, "What's for dinner?" So you figure out how to miss the one who left while still showing up for the ones who are still there, and you learn to navigate it. You have one foot in the new chapter and one foot still in the familiar rhythm of the old one, and somehow you manage But then the last kid leaves, and you're still standing in both places, one foot in a future you don't quite recognize yet, and one foot in a chapter that closed before you were ready. And nobody warned you that standing in both places at once was going to feel this disorienting, this uncertain, this lost. And that is what it actually feels like to be between two seasons with no clear ground under either foot. And you know what? It doesn't just show up in the empty nest. It shows up in the career that no longer fits. Maybe you're over the whole career thing, and you wanna do something more meaningful, maybe start your own thing. So you're showing up to the job, and you're doing what you gotta do, and then you're spending evenings and weekends creating that thing that matters to you. So yes, you have one foot in the old job or career that you absolutely loved 20 years ago, and you have one foot in the future, creating something that you love. And that's all exciting, exhausting, and disorienting all at the same time. And now let's talk about how your body keeps changing without asking your permission. Physically, nothing is wrong per se. It's just biology happening, but it's different. It doesn't feel like your body anymore. And you just wanna move through your days like you always have, and then your body and your mind reminds you, "Slow your roll. You're moving too fast And then there's the friendships that have quietly drifted, and you want it to be like it used to be, but it's not. Maybe you don't live close enough to go out anymore, or one of you have moved into a new phase of life like grandparenting. For whatever reason, the friendship fades, and it's easy to have one foot in the past with all the memories and one in the present season where you just don't fit each other anymore, and that's really disorienting. And you know what else? It really sucks 'Cause it happened to me with a friendship of over 20 years, and it was jarring. And I've learned to stop asking why, because you know what? It, it really doesn't matter. It just is. And I've moved on, and I think that is the point, to eventually move on. Because all of this change, it leaves you waking up in the morning thinking, "I don't quite know where I stand anymore." Does that sound and feel familiar to you? I wanna share a story with you, and I've talked about this before, but I wanna revisit it today through a different lens, because I think there's something in my story that I didn't fully name the first time around. So we had talked about moving to Tennessee for years. Sometimes it excited me, sometimes it really, really scared me, because, well, I don't love change. But with my youngest graduating college soon, I knew it was time. And in those last two years before we moved, they were really heavy and difficult for me. Every morning, I'd pull out of my driveway and see young moms at the bus stop with their kids, my bus stop. They'd linger there and chat after the bus left. That's what I used to do. That used to be me. In the summer, I'd see kids riding their bikes up to the pool for swim team. I could spot those Cobra swimsuits anywhere. Those used to be my little girls. Everywhere I looked, there were reminders of the life I used to have. Even if my girls had all been living at home as adults, it still wouldn't have been the same. My little girls weren't little girls anymore. They were all grown up. And, you know, that brought a lot of joy in ways I never could have imagined, but at the time, I felt stuck in a place that belonged to a version of me that no longer existed. I was no longer that mom. I was a different mom. I just didn't know it yet. And logically, I knew I hadn't been left, but emotionally, it felt like I had been. And here's the part that I wanna add, the part that I understand now that I couldn't see then. Those years when I had one foot in being mom to the kids still at home while being mom to the ones who had already left, that in between played tricks on my mind. I was convinced that the in between was where I was always going to be. And here's the honest truth. Having kids still at home gave me false security When I felt sad, they were there. Taking care of them gave me something to hold onto, and it meant I didn't have to do the deeper work of making that final transition into empty nesting. The work was always waiting, and I just kept finding reasons to put it off. And, you know, one of the reasons I didn't have any control over, COVID, cOVID were the pivotal years that I was supposed to be doing that work. Instead, I was in full-on take care of everyone mode. And then when the world opened back up, that's when I finally saw it clearly. Staying in our home where we raised our girls was keeping me stuck. The environment itself, it was running the old story on repeat, so we moved, and now we're building new memories here in Tennessee with everybody as adults, and it's very different, and it's very beautiful. But for a few years before we got there, I felt like everyone was moving on, and I was frozen in place. My girls, they were starting new careers. They were making new friends I didn't know, and I was still standing at the center, watching them all orbit out. And this is what they were supposed to do. I know that, and I cheered them on. I was proud. But I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Supporting them? Absolutely. Cheering them on? Always. But what else? What was my next move? And that question, what's my next move, is exactly where so many of us get stuck, Not because we're incapable of moving, but because nobody told us we were allowed to ask it for ourselves But what I want you to hear in that story, what I couldn't name when I was living it, is I was disoriented. I was standing between two seasons without language for what that actually was. And the longer I stayed in the same environment, surrounded by the same cues, trying to figure it out alone, the harder it got to find my footing. And that's what being in the in-between looks like So here's the thing about disorientation that nobody talks about. Disorientation sets in, your footing stays unsteady because of three very specific things that are quietly working against you. And once you understand them, I promise the whole thing starts to make a lot more sense. The first thing that is working against you is that your roles have changed shape. For most of us in midlife, we knew exactly who we were by what we did for other people. We were the mom, the caretaker, the dependable one, the one who held it all together, right? Those roles gave us our footing. They told us where to stand. But midlife has a way of reshuffling all of that, and sometimes it does it slowly, and sometimes it does it all at once. And you know what? The kids need you differently, and the career or job looks different, and your body is asking different things of you. And suddenly the map that you've been using to navigate yourself, it doesn't quite match the terrain anymore. So I want you to know this. You're not lost. Your map is just outdated. And that gap between who you used to be and who you are right now is exactly where the disorientation lives. Okay, the second thing that is getting in your way is that your surroundings keep running the old story. You're in the same kitchen. You sit in your same favorite chair. You take the same route every day. Same cues that have always triggered the same responses. Your brain loves efficiency. It has spent decades building grooves in the direction of the familiar. And when everything around you looks the same, the old pattern doesn't take effort. It just runs on autopilot. So this is why you can make a real decision on Monday, like you feel it and you mean it, and by Thursday, you find yourself right back where you started. It's neuroscience. Your environment is still narrating a chapter that's over. And I lived this. Our house, our neighborhood, they kept telling me the old story. Every Cobra swimsuit, every bus stop morning. The environment wasn't neutral. It was holding me in place Okay, the third thing that is getting in your way is that you are trying to figure this out alone. And I say this with so much compassion because I know this is how most of us were trained. Handle it quietly. Figure it out first. Report back when you have something to show for it. But isolation amplifies the disorientation. When you're the only one in the room with your experience, when no one around you is in the same season or speaking the same language, it is very hard to find your footing because there's nothing to orient yourself by. No one reflecting back, "Yes, I feel that too. Yes, this is real. Yes, you are not losing your mind." Because you were never meant to navigate this alone Before we talk about what to do, I just want to tell you that the disorientation you feel is not evidence that you can't do this. It's evidence that you are right in the middle of it. So there's a difference between being lost and being in the in between. Lost means you have no way forward. Between means you're in the transition, and transitions are supposed to feel like this. They're uncertain, a little wobbly, like the ground isn't quite solid yet, and that's not a sign to stop. That's what moving through actually feels like. So here's the lens I want you to carry. This isn't a destination. There's no finish line. It's just a way of seeing yourself while you're in it. And here's the lens. I want you to see yourself through the lens of, I am capable right now in the middle of this, even when I can't see clearly, even when I don't have it figured out. And I'm not talking about not capable like you have all the answers, but capable like you are still here. You're still showing up. You're still trying to find your footing, and that counts for everything So you're probably asking, "Well, what do I actually do with this?" I am going to give you three simple, honest practices, three things that will help you find your footing when the ground feels unsteady. The first is to locate yourself in the present. When we're disoriented, we tend to live in one of two places; the past that we're grieving or the future we can't quite see yet, and neither of those is where your footing is. You're not there. Your footing is here, right now, in this season, and this season is the in between. So try this. At some point in your day, you can do this in the morning or at night, whenever you have a quiet minute, ask yourself one simple question. Not who am I supposed to be and not who was I, but just ask yourself, "What do I know to be true about myself right now?" Maybe it's I am someone who shows up, or I am someone who loves well, or I am someone who is creative, or I'm someone who's figuring it out even when it's hard. Or how about I'm someone who takes care of herself? Start there. Stay there for a minute and let that be enough, because you do not have to see the whole path. You just have to know where your feet are right now. Okay, the second thing that you can do is change one small thing in your environment. Just one. You don't have to overhaul it. Just one small interruption to the autopilot. This does not require you to sell your house and move across the country like we did. But maybe it's creating a small corner of your home that belongs to you, a special chair, a special space, maybe a few things that feel like now rather than your past. Maybe it's a different route on your morning walk. Maybe it's as simple as moving where you sit when you and your spouse have dinner. Rearrange the furniture or get new furniture. Get new bedding. Paint a room. Plant a garden. 'Cause small environmental shifts send your brain a quiet signal. Something is different here. And that little interruption is often all it takes to step out of autopilot and into the intentional, even just for a minute. So remember, you don't have to change everything, just change something. Okay, the third thing that you can do is let one person in, And I know this one is hard. We are not used to saying, "I'm in the middle of something I don't fully understand yet We're used to handling it quietly and reporting back when it's done. But here's what I've learned in my own life and with the women that I work with, is the disorientation, it gets louder in isolation, and it gets quieter the moment someone else says, "Me too." You don't need a big group. You need one person, a friend, a woman in a similar season, maybe someone in a community where this kind of honesty is welcome, and you need to say, "I'm in the middle of a transition, and I'm trying to find my footing." Just say it. Let someone witness it with you, because you were never meant to navigate this alone, and sometimes the most orienting thing in the world is simply being known here's what I want you to take with you today. The reason that you feel disoriented, the reason the ground doesn't feel solid, isn't because you're weak or you're undisciplined or you're not trying hard enough. It's because you're standing between two seasons, and that is disorienting. And disorientation is a completely reasonable response to a completely unreasonable amount of change. So you are not lost. You are between. And even here, even in the uncertainty, even without the full picture, you are capable of finding your footing, of taking one small step, of letting someone in, of asking where you actually stand today. That is enough. You are enough right now, exactly as you are And I want you to thank yourself for showing up for yourself today Because this is where the change happens, is when you can name what is happening to you. And if anything in this episode resonated with you, go ahead and share it with a friend who's also in the in-between, because she needs to hear this too. And if you're ready for more connection and weekly inspiration, go ahead and sign up to get my newsletter, the Tuesday Letter with Karleen. The link is in the show notes, or you can go to coachkarleen.com/newsletter and sign up right there and I can't wait to see you next week for our next conversation here at The Distracted Dreamer. Until then, please take care of yourself. Bye for now

Carlene 20:43

oh, and one more thing. This is the legal language. You know, the stuff that the lawyers put together, and they say that I need to read this to you. So here we go. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I'm not a licensed therapist. This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professionals. Got it? Good. I will see you in the next episode.