Falling Inward at 40
Right around middle-age, between our 30s and 50s, there’s a quiet pulling inward that coincides with a falling away of what we once thought to be true. At least, that’s what I’ve observed in my own life.
After turning 40 earlier this year, my life was upended with an incredible amount of change. I packed my bags and relocated to a new city after accepting a leadership position at an agency I’d never heard of until the weeks leading up to my decision to apply. Within a matter of a few months, I found myself slightly disoriented in a completely new environment, during one of the coldest Ontario winters we’ve seen in decades. With a lifetime spent working and living in a smaller urban environment, the Toronto skyscrapers seemed to swallow me from above as I first made my way south from the subway station to my new office. The frigid winter air further compelled me inward, forcing me to brace myself against the fierce cold that blasted against any open skin.
Looking back on those first moments after relocating last winter, I can’t help but see how my life was shifting into an entirely new cycle. An older chapter of my youth had officially come to a close. The winter became a perfect time to find stillness between worlds—where I had been, and where I was going.
As we grow older, we are invited to let go of certain beliefs, behaviors, or old armor that have already served their purpose. In a youth-obsessed world, it can be hard to accept that by the time we reach middle-age, the raw stamina, time, and opportunities afforded to us in our younger years begin to shift. The task of aging with strength and grace is to accept that we are as organic as nature, subject to the arc that life naturally takes like all living beings.
While the winters of our life are inevitable—as are endings, loss, and the shattering experiences of trauma—these moments are often not what they first appear to be. The culture we’re steeped in might have us believe that loss or a shift in momentum is something to be feared and avoided. Nature demonstrates a very different view altogether.
In the natural environment, endings are woven directly into the newness of life. It is true that when winters enter our life, it signifies a massive shift and a letting go of how things used to be. There is an inevitable, heavy grief that encompasses our transitions through the coldest seasons of our lives before we arrive into the warmth of spring. At mid-life, there is a similar, challenging invitation to take inventory of everything that hasn’t come to pass, and perhaps won’t, while opening up to the unknown possibilities of a new phase of life.
As we enter the winter seasons of our life, we can choose to view those times as a critical period of stillness that invites us to look deeper inward. One of the gifts of getting older is that our inner world can become more expansive through earned wisdom and deepening insight. The power of getting older is in its capacity for mature leadership over our own lives—the ability to slow down, look inward, and take inventory of the bigger picture. We develop a greater capacity for finding a different kind of strength in our understanding of the interconnectedness of life.
The best we can do when the winter seasons of our lives arrive is to allow them to descend upon us. Not to resist the cool winter air by exhausting ourselves chasing the warmer seasons of our past, but rather honoring its presence by creating an inner place of refuge. Within that place of stillness, we can let our guard down, allow the winter season to clear out the past, and step intentionally toward an unknown future of possibility.
