Rise & Shine: A Guide for Experiencing Your Midlife Awakening

Introduction

It doesn’t happen overnight. It comes on slowly, as a nagging sense something is missing. You may be feeling loneliness, frustration, boredom, or just a general dissatisfaction with yourself or your life. It may be a persistent but vague sense you are out of alignment somehow. As the discomfort gets worse, you start asking all kinds of questions about your life, yourself, and what you need to do to get out of this funk.

If this scenario sounds familiar and you’re between the ages of forty and sixty or so, you can take comfort in knowing there’s nothing wrong with you. You are experiencing the universal rite of passage known as the midlife crisis.

Midlife is a distinct stage of life, like childhood, adolescence, and old age. It’s also the only stage that has the word crisis naturally attached to it. Why? All life stages have their challenges, but those of middle age are particularly burdensome and consequential. There’s a lot at stake in midlife, and the way we deal with these struggles will affect the entire second half of our lives. We all know the kinds of behaviors that make up the midlife crisis cliché: having an affair, quitting a job, making extravagant purchases, or taking some other kind of drastic action to bring renewed meaning to life. These are all remarkably typical in midlife, and all reactions to the struggles we feel at this stage of our life journey.

The good news is that the solution to all your midlife struggles is very close to home. It’s all about discovering the incredible gift you have inside of you. That gift is a tremendously powerful, sacred source of immense truth, wisdom, and love buried deep inside your core, within your very essence. This source is your inner light and the purest version of who you really are. Your midlife struggles are the result of being disconnected from this source for too long and undeniable proof that you are ready to go within and find it.

Those who discover their true essential self experience an astonishing process called an awakening. This process cures your midlife crisis and transforms you from the inside out. By awakening, you gain an entirely new perspective on yourself and your life, shed outworn beliefs and attitudes, replace them with new, authentic ones, and gain full ownership of yourself and your life.

An awakening, when fully realized, is the most life-changing and exceptional experience you can have in your lifetime. Sadly, many don’t have one because they ignore the opportunity that midlife presents to them. They keep themselves distracted with things like television and social media, while missing out on the greatest personal breakthrough of their entire lives.

My midlife crisis didn’t feel like some great opportunity at all—certainly not at first. I was searching, confused, and frustrated. By most measures my life was quite good, yet I sensed strongly there was much more to life and myself than I was experiencing. I didn’t know quite what I was searching for, but I knew deep down there was something truly great I was missing out on. I’d looked everywhere in my life to find it: different jobs, careers, hobbies, groups of friends, living in different places. I’d even searched in a few too many bottles. Only in midlife, when I was finally ready, I discovered the answer was much closer than I ever cared to look.

I experienced a profound awakening that cured my midlife crisis and changed more than I realized was possible. It’s been a spiritual journey of personal discovery and extraordinary transformation. Although filled with incredibly positive breakthroughs, this odyssey has also been painful and burdensome at times as well. I’ve made plenty of mistakes and learned a great deal about myself and the awakening process as I went.

During my awakening I became certified as a professional life coach to help others wake up as I had. Eventually I felt called to write Rise & Shine for two groups of people: those who are waking up and those who feel desperately ready to. If you consider yourself in the second group, I promise you are already in the first group, but just haven’t realized it yet. You are now on your path of awakening, and the struggles and desire you feel are the crucial first step of the process.

Awakening is a long and sometimes arduous journey. My goal for this book is to help you experience yours as safely as possible. Early in this guide I explore the awakening process: what it is, why midlife is the perfect time for it, and why experiencing it is necessary for a fulfilling second half of life. From there, each chapter offers instruction, advice, and personal stories to help you on your path. I’ve focused on practical actions you can take to experience your awakening, what to expect as it gradually unfolds in four stages, and what to be careful of that can potentially set you back. There are serious dangers in awakening, and I want to help you navigate them as smoothly as possible. I feel this book would have been a valuable resource for me as I woke up, and I believe it will be for you.

The time for your awakening has come, and you are ready. However difficult your midlife struggles may be, remember that now is the greatest opportunity of your life to awaken to the sacred gift within you. There are no religious or spiritual requirements; awakening is available for anyone who wants it.

Be still and listen closely. Hear the call from deep within. It is inviting you to begin on your personal path of awakening. Let’s invite wisdom to guide us as we get started.

1

Getting Started on the Path

If you’re like I was, you want to start right away on addressing the difficulty so common in midlife. You will find plenty of information about what an awakening is and how to experience one throughout this book. This first chapter is a simple means of starting on the path of awakening.

Don’t worry about having to do too much right away. Keep it simple and take it slow. The following suggestions provide a foundation for big things to occur later. The more committed and patient you are in the beginning, the quicker and easier the results will follow.

Relax

At midlife most of us have grown accustomed to rolling up our sleeves and actively solving problems. It’s the effective way to address many issues in life, but awakening is not one of them. This is the beginning of a fundamental shift and will not be solved the way most problems are.

For now, take a moment to recognize you are exactly where you need to be. Your awakening has begun, even if you don’t notice yet. Resist any urge to make radical changes to your life and be content not to have this figured out for a little while. Trust it will come. (It will if you do.)

Throughout this book you will discover suggestions for awakening that worked for me. For now, be okay with seeing this as a process that takes time and patience. Let any confusion and worry you’ve been experiencing fall away and trust in this process. Awakening occurs not by rushing ahead, as most of us are so used to. Rather, it happens by steadily starting to slow down.

Open Your Eyes

Begin to take a more mindful approach, which means simply being more present in your life. Look around you and take notice of what is occurring. If you feel happy, take a moment to appreciate it. If you feel pain or anger, notice and acknowledge it too, instead of looking for the quick fix to remove the discomfort. A day will come where you will use these negative emotions to assist you, which will be covered later in this book. For now, have daily checkins, where you consciously look around you and within you. Pay attention and be an active participant in your life. Try to resist the temptation of judging what you notice as good or bad. Take a deep breath every so often and observe.

Start to notice habits you have developed. What are your morning and evening routines? How do you spend your free time? What are the activities you do day in and day out? For the time being, there’s no need to make big changes. Just look with fresh eyes and notice what’s happening. See things simply as they are, and not as good or bad. This simple mindfulness is the initiation of awakening because it slowly wakes you up to your own life.

Don’t confuse mindfulness with overthinking; they are very different. Overthinking is being at the mercy of a busy, overactive mind. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is having awareness. It is thinking less, not more. With time and practice, this awareness will allow you to take greater control of the thoughts, feelings, and actions in your life. You’ll feel more present and greater inner peace. If you’re new to mindfulness, don’t be intimidated; there are no expectations here. Even the smallest effort toward noticing what’s happening in your life, made with consistency, goes a long way.

Open Your Inner Eyes Too

Intuition is your inner voice of higher wisdom. It is the expression of deep knowing you possess inside. You may not feel especially intuitive, which is to be expected at the start of the awakening journey. As you become more mindful in your life, you will find that your busy mind starts to slow down and you’ll become more relaxed. That’s when your intuition will emerge. It’s a slow and steady process that takes some time, so be patient. For now, set an intention to hear your intuitive voice. In quiet moments you will start to notice it and the wisdom it contains.

Make a little time each day to allow your intuitive voice to be heard. Consider when you are normally relaxed. Shortly after waking up, in bed before sleep, on a pleasant walk outside, or even in the shower are optimal times to listen for your intuition. You may be surprised by how much you can learn simply by listening to yourself during quiet moments, free of distractions such as television and your phone.

Intuition comes much easier with having an opened heart. Do more things that make you happier. Seems simple, but many in midlife have forgotten the importance of self-care. Even if you’re very busy, make the time for a little fun wherever possible. It can be something small and easy, such as sharing a joke with your spouse or coworker, watching a silly video online, or singing along to a song you hear on the radio. Give yourself permission to start having more fun, and your intuitive voice will emerge more easily.

Be Less Busy

With so many gadgets and distractions all around us, it’s normal to fill every waking moment of our lives with busyness. Many people in midlife are overloaded with work and family responsibilities, and don’t make any time to just do a little nothing sometimes. Being overly busy becomes a deeply ingrained habit; our brains go on autopilot, and we fill every waking moment with mental or physical activity. Consider for a moment how freeing it will be to ease this busy style of living.

An excellent way to start your shift is by spending less time staring at a television or your smartphone. This doesn’t mean, of course, you should completely give up these items now, or ever. However, many of us spend so much of our free time staring at screens, whether it’s the latest TV show, social media feed, or silly video game. These activities are totally fine in limited doses, but in excess they make us less mindful and engaged with life. If you feel this may be an issue for you, try to spend just a little less time staring at a screen each day. No big changes, just a little adjustment for now.

Instead, take a walk, read a book, listen to music, talk to your family or friends, or write in a journal. These activities are less mentally busy and will start the process of slowing your overactive mind and encouraging more mindfulness and intuition.

Be Loving to Yourself Always

We are often hard on ourselves, sometimes even quite cruel. We beat ourselves up for our imperfections when we’re all just doing the best we can. Notice the way you treat yourself. If you notice you are self-critical, set the intention to give yourself a break. Be kind and loving to yourself, always.

Awakening is not always easy. You will face challenges and make some mistakes along the way. The mistakes are part of the journey and necessary for growth. If you beat yourself up, you will not be able to move forward in this process. The negativity will block you from accessing your intuition, which is necessary for awakening. Give yourself full permission to be imperfect as you develop a positive, loving relationship with yourself. This will open the pathways within that will awaken you. It will also enable you to enjoy the entire process much more.

Have Fun, No Pressure

It’s hardly an exaggeration to say you could awaken through happiness alone. Feeling good automatically makes you more openhearted and intuitive. If you could simply be happier more often, you would awaken to more of the truth and wisdom within you. Stay optimistic because it really helps throughout the journey. Believe that good things are happening because they are.

There’s no pressure during this process. You never have to do anything you don’t want to do. You don’t have to become a guru or saint, and you don’t have to throw away all the comforts and habits you’ve grown accustomed to. There will come times to make adjustments to your life, but you want to make them through much more inspiration than perspiration. If you’re working too hard at awakening, you won’t get the results