When You Stop Fixing Everything: Learning Self-Leadership in Midlife

In midlife, many women begin to realize how much they’ve been carrying for years — managing emotions, solving problems, keeping the peace, and making sure everything holds together.

In the last episode, we talked about what happens when you finally stop over-functioning. Instead of relief, many women feel uncomfortable, restless, or unsure what to do next.

So what comes after that?

In this episode, Lori Buck explains how to move from simply pausing your old patterns to actually leading yourself forward. You’ll learn how to notice your instinct to step in and fix things, how to separate true responsibility from emotional reactivity, and how to choose responses that align with the woman you want to be in this next stage of life.

If you’ve ever thought:

• “Why do I feel responsible for everything?”
 • “What happens if I stop fixing things for everyone?”
 • “How do I show up differently without abandoning people I love?”

This episode will help you understand the next step.

Midlife isn’t asking you to become someone completely new. It’s inviting you to slow down, notice your patterns, and learn how to lead yourself with clarity and steadiness.

And that kind of leadership begins in small moments — one choice at a time.

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You can also follow me on my socials:

Instagram: @loribuckcoaching

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Website: www.loribuckcoaching.com 

Email: lori@loribuckcoaching.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, friend, and welcome back to Loving That Midlife. I'm Lori Buck, Master Certified Christian Life Coach, and I'm so glad you're here. At the time of this recording, Middle Tennessee is in the middle of what we affectionately call false spring. We're about 15 to 20 degrees above normal right now, and the spring pollen is out with a vengeance. This means two things. One, I am taking allergy medicine like my life depends on it. And two, at some point over the next six weeks, I will be using every extra sheet in the house to cover the hydrangeas that are budding out like it's late April. But it'll be fine, fine, just fine. It does this every year. We should be used to it, and we get lulled into thinking winter is over, but it will come back at some point in the next month. I hope the weather is treating you well wherever you are. But I'm not here to talk about the fickle weather here in Tennessee. So let's get into it. Over the last few weeks, we've talked about overfunctioning, about how many of us have been carrying things that were never actually ours to carry, and how we need to pause and figure out what is ours to carry. And in the last episode, we talked about something that surprises a lot of women when they start doing this type of mindset work. Stopping overfunctioning doesn't automatically make you feel better. Instead of relief, what often shows up is discomfort or guilt, restlessness, or a sense of, okay, but now what do I do? If you listened to that episode and thought, yes, that's exactly where I am, and I don't know how to move forward, then today's episode is for you. Because today we're answering the next real question. Not, why does this feel hard? You already know that. But what do I do now? How do I actually move forward without sliding back into overfunctioning and without checking out of the situation completely? That's what we're talking about today. So let me give you a really simple example of what this moment can look like when you realize you've been overfunctioning and then stop and try to figure out what next. So maybe you're standing in the kitchen and you notice something that isn't getting done. Maybe it's the dishes in the sink, or maybe it's something at work that no one seems to be taking ownership of. Or maybe it's tension between two people in your family and you feel that familiar pull. Your brain immediately starts offering solutions. I could just handle this. It would only take a minute. If I don't deal with it, it's going to become a bigger problem. And sometimes, if you've been practicing this work, you are able to pause. You don't step in right away. And that's when something interesting happens. Instead of the situation resolving, you feel that wave of discomfort. Your body feels restless. Your brain keeps offering arguments for why stepping in would be reasonable or helpful or the responsible thing to do. And you're standing there thinking, okay, I didn't jump in. Now what? That quiet, slightly uncomfortable moment is where leadership begins. Not because you handled the situation perfectly, but because you noticed the urge to react and gave yourself space to choose instead. But before we dive in, I want to pause for just a moment and say thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for trusting me with this kind of work. In just a few months, it'll be a year of this podcast. And I know some of you have been with me from the very beginning. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And if you are interested in learning more about coaching, I offer free consultation calls. You can find me at lauriebuck.com or email me at laurie at lauriebuckcoaching.com. And if this podcast has been helpful, subscribing or leaving a review is a simple way to help more women who need it find this work. Okay, let's talk about what comes next. As I mentioned, in the last episode, we talked about learning how to pause and how to tolerate the discomfort that comes with that pause. How not to rush back in and fix everything just because the system or other people around you feel unsettled. But the pause is not the destination. That's not where we ultimately want to be. At some point, you do have to choose how you want to engage with the situation. The problem is many women only know two modes. One is automatic responsibility, jumping in immediately, managing the outcome, making sure everything works out. Or the other is withdrawal, backing away completely because everything feels too complicated or emotionally loaded to handle. But I want to give you a third option, and that's self-leadership. Today we're talking about how to get there. The first step to self-leadership is awareness. You can't lead yourself if you don't know where you are and where you're going, right? So we're going to use a few tools to get there. And some of these tools will be expanded tools from earlier episodes in this series. Tool number one, the observer position. What we observe changes. The first tool that helps you move forward is learning to step into what coaches call the observer position. Instead of being completely inside of the moment, reacting automatically, you begin to watch what is happening. This is more than just a pause. It's noticing what is going on both around you and inside of you. You might notice things like, interesting, my brain really wants to fix this right now. Or I can feel my nervous system getting tense because someone else is uncomfortable. Or even, wow, my first instinct is to smooth this over. I wonder why. When you observe those reactions and get curious about them, instead of immediately obeying them, something important happens. You create choice. Before this work, your brain probably ran on a very fast loop. Problem, discomfort, action. Now the loop looks different. Problem, discomfort, awareness, choice. That awareness step changes everything. Because when you observe your own reactions, you're no longer trapped inside them. You can say, Oh, there's my urge to fix things. Of course I feel that way. That's an old pattern. Instead of, I have to fix this now. That tiny shift creates an enormous amount of freedom and the space you need to choose to react differently. Which brings us to tool number two: separating responsibility from reactivity. Once you're observing your reactions, the next step is discernment. This is where you start separating responsibility from reactivity. Reactivity feels urgent. It sounds like I need to handle this right now. This will fall apart if I don't step in. It's easier if I just take care of it. Responsibility sounds much quieter. It sounds like this is uncomfortable, but it's not dangerous. They are capable, even if they're frustrated. I can stay present without rescuing the situation. So here's a simple question you can ask yourself. And we've used this before if you are a regular listener to the podcast. Here's the question: Am I acting to reduce my own discomfort? Or because this truly belongs to me? That one question can completely change the way you respond to a situation. Tool number three, choosing a response instead of reacting. So once you've observed your internal reaction and clarified what is actually yours, the next step is choosing how you want to respond. And sometimes that response looks surprisingly simple. It might mean doing less than you used to, saying less than you want to. And let me tell you, that one can be challenging when it comes to parenting young adults. Letting something be a little messier than you prefer. And remember, not overfunctioning does not mean you don't care. It means you are allowing other people to experience their own problem solving, their own emotions, and their own growth. And that is where your identity begins to shift. You are no longer proving your value by holding everything together. You're learning to lead yourself within the situation and learning how to be okay with other people's opinions of you. Because remember, some of the people in your life will be unhappy when you step back. And that's okay. They're allowed to have their own feelings, and you are allowed to hold your boundaries. So we talk about self-leadership, but what does that look like anyway? Well, sometimes when women hear that phrase self-leadership, it sounds abstract. So let's make it concrete. Self-leadership often looks like very small moments. Not responding to a group texts immediately because you want to think about your answer. Letting your spouse handle a situation their own way, even if you would have done it differently. Allowing your adult child to solve a problem without stepping in to guide every step. Sitting with a little tension in a conversation instead of rushing to smooth it over. Choosing to ask a question instead of offering a solution. These moments might seem small, but they are exactly where a new pattern forms. Every time you choose awareness instead of automatic intervention, you strengthen your ability to lead yourself. And you start to disrupt those old neural pathways in the brain that led you to automatic or reflexive action. Instead, you start laying down new, more healthy pathways in your brain by doing this work. Now, I want to normalize something here. Leading yourself forward does not feel comfortable at first. Don't expect to feel confident in your new actions. It often feels slower, quieter, sometimes even a little awkward. Overfunctioning gave you immediate feedback. Problems got solved, tensions disappeared, people felt relieved, and you felt exhausted and stressed out. Remember? Self-leadership has slower rewards. You build steadiness, you build clarity, you build trust with yourself. And eventually you feel more peace. And those things last much longer than the quick relief of fixing everything immediately. So here's what I want to invite you to do this week as practice. When you notice the urge to step in, pause, observe what's happening inside of you with grace and not judgment. I love the phrase, of course I feel this way. Right? There is a reason we feel an automatic reflex. It's what we have always done. And it's hard to break a pattern. So give yourself grace. Then ask yourself, what is actually mine to do here? And then choose the smallest self-led response that your nervous system can tolerate. Not the bravest, not the cleanest, but just the smallest. That is how new patterns begin. And if you step back and look at the last few episodes together, something important is happening. First, you started noticing the anxiety that comes from carrying too much. Then you realized how often you've been overfunctioning, taking responsibility for things that were never actually yours to carry. Then you practiced letting go and tolerating the discomfort that came with that. And now you're learning how to lead yourself forward. Not by controlling everything or everyone around you, but by paying attention to what's happening inside of you and then choosing how you want to respond. That, my friends, is emotional adulthood. And it's a skill you can and will keep practicing for the rest of your life. So, what's mid about the midlife this week? Well, handling your adult children arguing. That's what. A few weekends ago, my son and daughter-in-law came into town and brought some friends to celebrate their friend's birthday. They stayed at the house, but since they were in town to celebrate, we didn't really see them much. So they stopped back by the house for a few hours on Sunday afternoon to hang out. And I love when my adult children come home to visit. So what's meant about that, right? Well, gaming consoles. There has been an ongoing battle over gaming consoles basically since they were first introduced into our home. Who owns them? Who can use them? Who owns the games, etc.? It is literally a never-ending conversation when my adult kids are together. Throw in big brother trying to push little sister's buttons energy, and my nervous system took a trip in a time machine back about 10 years before I ever found this work and figured out how to regulate myself. But here's the thing: even though my nervous system was lighting up with alarm bells, my brain kept reminding me, it's fine. Nothing is wrong. Even if they were actually upset with each other, which they were not, it's okay. They're adults. They can work it out. At one point I did say, you know, 10 years ago I thought fights over gaming systems would be over in another year or two, and yet here we are. Big brother did offer to pay Little Sister for her gaming console, fully recognizing her ownership. But she wasn't interested. And guess who owns all the games? Yep, Big Brother. It was fine, fine, just fine. And also, an exercise in regulating my nervous system. Yes, they're adults. No, no one was in danger. Yes, my nervous system hates it when my kids argue, even when it's mostly just noise. And yes, I did say more than once, be sweet, be sweet, which makes me sound exactly like my mother and makes my kids roll their eyes at me. It may or may not have been one of the refrains from their childhood. Adult kids can still act like kids, and I can still feel like they're 16 and 13 all over again. And everyone can make it through. Because it was fine, fine, just fine. Well, that's all I've got for you today, friends. If today's episode resonated with you, I want you to remember something. Midlife is not asking you to suddenly become a completely different person. Instead, it's inviting you to slow down enough to notice your patterns. And then choose something new that works better for you. And that kind of leadership begins quietly, one moment at a time. Remember, you can find me on social media at Laurie Buck Coaching or on my website at LauriebuckCoach.com. That's L-O-R-I-B-U-C-K coaching dot com. I'll see you next week.