Have you ever found yourself replaying a difficult conversation long after it ended?

Whether it’s a family member, colleague, neighbour or friend, difficult people can leave us feeling emotionally drained, anxious and frustrated—especially during midlife, when our time and energy become more precious than ever.

In this episode of Living Midlife Well, I’ll share five practical strategies to help you deal with difficult people without losing yourself in the process. We’ll explore how to identify your emotional triggers, protect your energy, set healthy boundaries, communicate more effectively, and develop the emotional resilience to respond with confidence instead of reacting from stress.

This isn’t about changing difficult people.

It’s about changing the way you experience difficult relationships.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why trying to change other people rarely works• How to identify your emotional triggers• Simple ways to protect your peace and emotional energy• Questions that can help defuse difficult conversations• How to set healthy boundaries without guilt• When it’s time to walk away from a relationship• Why personal growth is the key to healthier relationships

If you’re navigating the challenges of midlife and want calmer, healthier relationships, I hope this episode gives you practical tools and a fresh perspective.

Subscribe for more episodes on personal growth, emotional wellbeing, confidence, resilience and living your best midlife.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

What’s one strategy that has helped you deal with difficult people?

Until next time…

Keep Living Midlife Well.

Read the full article here

Learn more about the Mirror and Affirm communication process in my guide: Stop Absorbing Other People’s Problems: Two Phrases That Help Without Burning You Out

To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Free subscribers receive my weekly article and podcast. Paid subscribers also receive access to a monthly 20 minute wellbeing session video or audio and a monthly live group coaching call with me.

Transcript

Have you ever found yourself lying awake at night replaying a conversation with someone who pushed your buttons and left you feeling rattled and unsettled?

Maybe it’s a family member who always has an opinion, a difficult colleague, a neighbour, an ex-partner, your teenage children, or someone who seems to leave you feeling emotionally exhausted every time you interact with them.

As we move into midlife there is often a lot of shifting going on in our relationships, and within ourselves. We tend to have less patience for unnecessary drama, we’re juggling more responsibilities, and we’re becoming increasingly aware of how precious our energy really is.

So today I’d like to share five practical strategies that have helped me think differently about difficult people—strategies that can help you protect your peace, strengthen your boundaries and respond with confidence instead of reacting from stress.

Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Midlife Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach here to help people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Today we’re talking about something that every one of us encounters at some point...

Difficult people.

Are you dealing with a difficult person in your life? It may be a co-worker who is always getting in your face, a mother-in-law who loves to give you her advice, a rude neighbour, an unreasonable boss, or even a grumpy or defiant child or teenager.

Midlife often brings greater self-awareness, but this time of transition can also bring more challenging relationships through things like changing family structures, marital separation, children becoming adults, and hormonal shifts reducing tolerance levels.

Dealing with difficult people in midlife can lead to feelings of anxiety, stress, anger, frustration and of being trapped in a situation you do not want to be in. It can also be a big drain on your energy.

Learning how to deal with difficult people isn’t about changing their behaviour; it’s about strengthening your own emotional resilience, setting healthy boundaries, and responding with confidence instead of reacting from stress or frustration.

In today’s episode I’ll share five practical strategies to help you manage difficult people in midlife, protect your energy, communicate more effectively, and create healthier, more peaceful relationships while continuing your own journey of personal growth.

But before we jump into those five strategies, I think it’s important to lay a foundation.

There are two mindset shifts that make every other strategy much more effective.

The first is this...

Focus on what you can control.

You can only control your own thoughts, feelings and behaviour, and you are responsible for your own thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

The second is this...

Remember that everyone can be difficult sometimes.

Yes... even really nice people.

Let’s look at each of these a little more closely.

As soon as you start trying to control other people’s behaviour, then you are in trouble.

It can be done through manipulation or force, but that is not really ethical, usually not overly effective, and it takes a lot of energy on your part to maintain the control.

Most people don’t like being controlled or told what to do and will rebel against it in some way, or only do what they are told when someone else is putting pressure on them.

Even asking yourself a question like, “Why are they doing this to me?” is putting your focus and energy on something you cannot answer or control.

I love this quote from Pastor Daniel Fusco:

“Control the knobs on your side of the wall.”

It is such a great visual illustration of this concept

You may think that it is the other person who is the problem and it is them that needs to change, but you may be surprised at how much effect it can have when you focus on your own thoughts, feelings and behaviour—the things you can actually control.

Now here’s something else that I think is really important.

As we reflect on our own behaviour, we can also note that sometimes we can be difficult to deal with too, usually without meaning to be.

Ask any happily married couple and they’ll probably be able to name at least one habit or personality trait of their beloved that annoys or frustrates them.

Our difficult traits don’t necessarily make us difficult people.

And often what triggers you about someone else is more to do with your own likes, dislikes and wiring than it is about them.

In the same way, someone exhibiting difficult behaviour may not be directing it personally at you. They could simply be stressed, frustrated, tired or feeling unwell.

We all get grumpy and snap at people sometimes.

Be open to trying to see why they may be behaving this way and, if they are going through something demanding, try to extend compassion while maintaining boundaries that protect you mentally, emotionally and physically.

It’s important to remember that someone’s “why” is a reason—not an excuse.

You can understand why someone behaves the way they do without deciding that their behaviour is acceptable.

The purpose of understanding isn’t to excuse them.

It’s to help you manage your own response rather than being drawn into an emotional reaction.

Look at the other person through a lens of compassion and approach the situation as a puzzle to be solved rather than a threat to defend yourself against.

Remember that everyone is doing the best they can from where they are and that not everything is about you.

Ask yourself...

What are they really trying to gain?

What are they trying to avoid?

If you feel able to, perhaps even ask them what’s going on for them and what they’re hoping for.

Curiosity can open doors that judgement never could.

There’s one more piece of groundwork before we get into the practical strategies.

Reflecting on our own behaviour also means being honest and fair about the role we are playing in our interactions.

Are you being difficult in some way?

Are you asking more of the other person than they’re capable of giving?

Have you clearly communicated your expectations?

Are you tired or stressed?

Are you escalating things without realising it?

Are you taking responsibility for things that aren’t actually yours?

These aren’t comfortable questions.

But they are powerful ones.

Because meaningful and lasting change begins when we become

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About Living Midlife Well

Hi, I'm Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing coach helping people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Living Midlife Well — helping you slow down, feel better and enjoy life more, one simple step at a time.

Reclaim your time 

Restore your energy 

Rediscover yourself

Build meaningful relationships 

Janine Lattimore | Living Midlife Well | janinelattimore.com 

Thank you for listening, I hope that you find this information helpful.

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Transcript

Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Midlife Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach here to help people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Today we are diving into a topic that I think is one of the most important — and most overlooked — conversations in midlife health. We’re talking about stress and hormones, and specifically, the hidden role that chronic stress plays in making your midlife hormone experience so much harder than it needs to be.

If you have ever felt like you’re doing everything right and still feeling terrible, or you’ve had tests come back clear but you know something is wrong, then this episode is for you. Stay with me — because by the end of this conversation, a lot of things are going to start making sense.

When we start talking about hormones in midlife, most people think of women experiencing issues — but men, stay with me, because you experience hormone issues in midlife too. Just like the teenage years, midlife is a time of significant reproductive hormone shift for both male and female bodies. And as if dealing with this transition in your forties and fifties isn’t enough, stress frequently plays a big role in driving even more hormone havoc. The result: fatigue that won’t lift, belly fat that won’t shift, brain fog, mood swings, and disturbed sleep that doesn’t restore you. These aren’t just signs of getting older. They’re signs of a hormone system under stress — and once you understand how those two things are connected, you can begin to do something about it.

So let’s start at the beginning and clarify the hormone transitions happening in your body during midlife — for both male and female bodies.

In midlife, female bodies transition into perimenopause and then menopause. This transition can start as early as a person’s mid-thirties or as late as their mid-fifties, but the majority of women go through the transition from their late forties to early fifties. Essentially, it is the process of the female body ceasing to produce eggs for reproduction. It is commonly known that during this time, the female body begins to produce less estrogen and progesterone, the two key female hormones. What is less well known, is that as the ovaries gradually produce less estrogen and progesterone, the adrenal glands help compensate by producing precursor building blocks that the body then converts into a weaker form of estrogen. This is very important in the link between hormones and stress — which I will get to shortly.

And now for the men.

The chief male hormone is testosterone. In a male body, testosterone is at its highest level during adolescence and early adulthood. It starts to decline from about age thirty. For some men, the decline is gradual and changes aren’t very noticeable. For others, the decline accelerates in their forties and fifties and the shift is more dramatic. Many of the symptoms of male midlife hormone shifts are similar to females, such as fatigue and low energy; mood swings or depression — low testosterone can lead to changes in mood, making you more irritable, anxious, or prone to depression and what’s sometimes called “irritable male syndrome”. It can also cause brain fog, forgetfulness, and concentration issues — low levels of testosterone can affect the brain’s executive function and things like decision-making, focus, and memory.

Declining levels of testosterone also causes loss of muscle mass and strength — lifting weights feels harder, and gains are harder to maintain; It also leads to weight gain, particularly around the midsection; and low libido and sexual dysfunction.

Many of these symptoms are chalked up to being just general aging, but are actually connected to hormonal shifts or imbalances. The issues involved in a “midlife crisis” are likely to be physiological as well as psychological. Experiencing these symptoms is not “just part of aging” and is not inevitable. People in traditional cultures do not experience these symptoms of hormone change at midlife to the degree that most people in industrial cities do — so what is the difference? There are three main ones: a whole food versus a processed food diet, active versus sedentary lifestyles, and levels of stress. One of the key things that impacts our hormonal health is the level of stress we manage almost every moment of the day.

Which brings me to the heart of today’s episode. How exactly does stress impact your hormones in midlife? And why does it matter so much more in your forties and fifties than it did before?

Stress affects hormones in midlife more than most people realise, and more than most doctors discuss. During the hormonal transitions of your forties and fifties, chronic stress doesn’t just pile on top of what you’re already dealing with. It actively depletes the raw materials your body uses to make sex hormones, suppresses the signals that trigger their production, and makes your body far less able to regulate its own stress response. The result is a feedback loop where midlife hormone shifts make you more sensitive to stress, and stress makes your hormone symptoms worse. If you’re navigating midlife and wondering why everything feels harder than it should, this is a big part of why.

During midlife, there is a natural decline in estrogen and progesterone in female bodies and testosterone in male bodies, which can cause a number of challenging physical symptoms. Stress lowers levels of these hormones even further and makes these symptoms worse. For women, the adrenal glands — which take over producing the building blocks for estrogen — are also responsible for producing cortisol, your primary stress hormone. If your body is dealing with chronic stress, the adrenals may prioritize making cortisol at the expense of sex hormone precursors, which can worsen perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms. Over and above this, stress has a more direct impact on one of the most common symptoms of menopause transition: hot flushes. Psychological stress causes the body to release norepinephrine, which narrows the thermoneutral zone — that’s the body’s comfort temperature range. As a result of this narrowing, even minor increases in core body temperature cause the brain to trigger a hot flash.

For men, there are three issues. Firstly, both cortisol and testosterone require the same precursor — cholesterol — to be produced. During prolonged stress, your body prioritizes immediate survival and produces cortisol at the expense of testosterone. Secondly, elevated cortisol blocks testosterone from properly binding to target cells and tissue receptors, limiting its effect in the body. Thirdly, chronic stress and systemic inflammation can upregulate the enzyme aromatase, which accelerates the conversion of testosterone into estrogen and causes further hormone imbalance.

Now I want to get really specific, because stress doesn’t just affect your hormones in one general way — it disrupts them through several distinct biological pathways. Here are

Seven Ways Chronic Stress Hijacks Your Hormones in Midlife

Number one. Stress depletes your body’s resources to make sex hormones. Sustained stress keeps cortisol elevated, which redirects the raw material your body uses to make estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid hormones — toward cortisol production instead.

Number two. Stress reduces your body’s signalling to produce sex hormones. Elevated cortisol suppresses gonadotropin-releasing hormone which reduces the signals for estrogen and progesterone production.

Number three. Stress interferes with thyroid hormone production. Elevated cortisol interferes with the conversion of T4 — the inactive thyroid hormone — to T3, which is the active form. It also increases reverse T3, which blocks T3 from doing its job. This is why people under chronic stress often develop symptoms that look like hypothyroidism such as fatigue, cold hands and feet, hair loss, and weight gain even when standard thyroid labs come back normal.

Number four. Stress promotes food cravings and belly fat. Cortisol raises blood sugar, and chronic elevation can promote insulin resistance — which is a precursor to diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Abdominal fat gain, changes in appetite hormones, and excessive blood sugar highs and lows are all exacerbated by chronic stress.

Number five. Stress promotes mood swings and brain fog. Cortisol influences neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and GABA which are chemicals that regulate your mood and cognition.

Number six. Stress increases loss in bone density. Estrogen plays a vital role in bone remodelling, and as estrogen levels drop, th

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About Living Midlife Well

Hi, I'm Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing coach helping people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Living Midlife Well — helping you slow down, feel better and enjoy life more, one simple step at a time.

Reclaim your time 

Restore your energy 

Rediscover yourself

Build meaningful relationships 

Janine Lattimore | Living Midlife Well | janinelattimore.com 

We have been sold a very narrow story of what a midlife crisis looks like - in this week's article and podcast, I share mine. This is one of the most vulnerable posts I have written in a long time and it may also contain some triggers for you. I'm here if you want to talk.

To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Free subscribers receive my weekly article and podcast. Paid subscribers also receive access to a weekly 20 minute wellbeing session video or audio and a monthly live group coaching call with me.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Midlife Well — the podcast for people in their forties and fifties who are done with just getting through the day, and ready to start actually living it. I’m Janine Lattimore, and I’m so glad you’re here.

Today’s episode is a personal one. In fact, it is one of the most honest and vulnerable things I’ve shared out loud. I’m going to talk about what it really looks and feels like to hit your forties and have everything fall apart — not the glossy, reframed version, but the raw, messy, what-on-earth-is-happening truth of it. And then I want to offer you something to help make your transition through midlife a little easier with three ways to turn unravelling into understanding.

So, if you’re in your forties and life feels less like the plan you had and more like a pile of rubble you’re standing in — this episode is for you. Make yourself comfortable, because this may trigger a few things for you.

At forty-three, I was penniless, alone, sick, and on a welfare benefit. My second marriage had just ended, my body was staging a full rebellion against me, and I was supposed to be a motivational teacher — someone who helped people build happy, meaningful lives. The irony wasn’t lost on me. I was drowning in shame, held together by nothing much at all, wondering how on earth I had ended up here.

Let me take you back to where it all began to unravel — because it didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow accumulation of everything, until the weight of it became impossible to carry.

In my early forties I felt trapped in my life. I had developed severe multiple chemical intolerance and was experiencing sometimes debilitating symptoms where my joints swelled painfully, my energy disappeared, my skin came out in burning, itching rashes and my brain would melt into fog or be hijacked by anxiety. I felt like I had very little time or energy to do the things I wanted to do, or even to have any space for myself. My second marriage was struggling under the weight of stress that we had been and were experiencing. It felt like life had run my husband and I over and spat us out on opposite sides of the road. I thought that I had got it right the second time round, but unexpectedly and painfully, marriage number two came to an end.

Here is what led up to that. I had my son when I was thirty-eight and he was born with digestive conditions that meant he wailed in pain every time I tried to breastfeed him, and he couldn’t sleep lying down. We eventually got him put on a special formula, but not before I looked like I was anorexic from being too scared to eat anything in case it was what was causing the problem for him. He still didn’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time until he was about two. Then my father had a stroke and I had to help care for him because my only sibling lived overseas and my mother had died when I was thirty-two. I was also trying to help care for my god-daughter who had abuse issues in her home life, and then she started running away and I would spend days searching for her.

In the midst of all that I began to realise that I was carrying a truck load of fear and guilt, and at my core I hated myself. I also knew that my lack of self-love and acceptance had played a big part in my relationship issues. I felt stuck, exhausted, bound, depressed and like I had been waiting for someone to save me who never came.

Alongside all of the external chaos, there was an internal story running — a shame story. One that made everything harder to bear, and much harder to move through.

By midlife some people have made it — achieved their goals of career, family and financial success. However, I think that more of us get to midlife and think, “this is not where I had imagined, expected or wanted to be at this point in my life.” For me, I had dreamed of being a happily married, successful motivational speaker, inspiring and helping thousands of people. The reality, at forty-three I had experienced two failed marriages, and I was penniless, alone, sick and on a welfare benefit. I felt broken. I felt fucked up. And I felt like an imposter every time I tried to write or speak about personal growth, health and happiness. It wasn’t just the challenge of the circumstances I was experiencing; it was the shame story I attached to them.

So how do we get here? How does life end up looking so different from the one we imagined? I want to reframe what we typically call a midlife crisis — because I think most of us have a very limited image of what it is.

Looking back, I can see that what I experienced was a form of midlife crisis. The usual image of a midlife crisis is a man trying to recover his youth by buying a sports car or a motorbike and dating a woman in her twenties. I think it often looks different to this stereotype though. That is just one response to the build-up of stress and obligation we experience by midlife, and to the identity questioning that is a common part of realising that half your life is over and you don’t want to keep living your life the same way. For a lot of us that involves ruminating on all the mistakes and bad patterns we have lived so far, feeling like a failure and feeling broken or crushed by life.

But here’s the thing I most want you to hear — and I need you to really let this land. Whatever your circumstances, whatever your shame story, whatever your version of falling apart looks like — there is nothing wrong with you. Let me say that again. There is nothing wrong with you.

The end of my second marriage and equal shared custody provided me with both a stimulus and time opportunity to begin doing some deep personal growth work. The first affirmation, or rather healing statement that I made on my journey to loving myself was, “There is nothing wrong with me and I don’t need to be fixed.” I knew the soul truth of it, but it still felt hard to say, and especially to say it out loud to anyone else because I feared how they would judge me. It wasn’t until several years later that I realised I had been using what I perceived as my brokenness as evidence that I deserved to be loved. It was like I had been carrying around two suitcases my whole life. In one was all the painful things that had been done to me which I used as all the reasons I deserved to be loved. This was the one that I would open up and show to people to try and get them to love me. In the other suitcase, was all the things that I had done that I felt guilty or ashamed of. That one carried all the reasons I thought I didn’t deserve to be loved, and I kept it shut. The uncomfortable truth that came to me was that I didn’t feel my own worthiness so I played the small, nice, victim to try and get love. Only it wasn’t love. It was sympathy and attention. That first affirmation started an evolution in me, but it took many years of unravelling and learning for me to know in my whole being that I was not broken, and that I was worthy of love for all of who I am.

As I was reflecting on my story in writing this episode, I came to understood the Japanese art of Kintsugi in a new way. Kintsugi is an ancient Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery by mending cracks with lacquer mixed with gold, silver or platinum. This highlights the scars as the beauty of imperfection and makes the repaired piece even more unique and valuable. I have always thought it was a beautiful concept, but in writing this it resonated with me deeply and personally. We can feel like we are falling apart in our forties, and that we have been smashed by life, AND we can put the pieces back together with golden love to create something more honest: a self where the cracks and imperfections are visible, but accepted, and in that, somehow a self that is more whole.

For most people, your forties are a pivot point in life and an unravelling. Your forty and falling apart may look like being stuck on an exhausting daily grind treadmill, buried under the weight of the many different hats you wear and the invisible load you carry. It may look like a silent inner scream, or maybe a full physical melt-down of “what about me, it isn’t fair, I’ve had enough now I want my share.” For all of us, within that unwinding is a cry of “I want to fully live, I want to be free, I want to be me, I want to matter, and I want to be happy.” You are not broken, you are reforming. Let the masks you have worn for so long shatter, and from the pieces form your own gold threaded artwork.

You may be thinking, that sounds nice, but how do I actually do that?

It can be very hard to see how you can put the pieces back together when you are in the mi

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About Living Midlife Well

Hi, I'm Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing coach helping people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Living Midlife Well — helping you slow down, feel better and enjoy life more, one simple step at a time.

Reclaim your time 

Restore your energy 

Rediscover yourself

Build meaningful relationships 

Janine Lattimore | Living Midlife Well | janinelattimore.com 

Links

Part of this podcast content was an extract from my book 10 Steps to Happiness

To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Free subscribers receive my weekly article and podcast. Paid subscribers also receive access to a weekly 20 minute wellbeing session video or audio and a monthly live group coaching call with me.

Transcript

What if the life you’ve been living wasn’t actually yours?

Not because you made bad choices — but because somewhere along the way, you started making choices based on what was expected of you, rather than what was true to you.

If you’re in your 40s or 50s and you’ve got that restless, reaching feeling — like you’ve done all the right things and yet something still feels missing or maybe you’re not even sure what the “right things” to be doing are any more - then this episode is for you.

Today we’re talking about life purpose — but not in the way you might expect. Because I want to throw out the traditional definition and offer you something that I believe is far more liberating, and far more authentic.

Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Midlife Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach here to help people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

One of the top five regrets of the dying is this: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself.” If that sentence lands with you, then now is the time to ask yourself, “What do I really want?” Midlife is the perfect moment to stop living by other people’s blueprints and start asking what genuinely fires you up. Here’s how to discover your true life purpose — and why your passion and your purpose are the same thing.

So why midlife? Why is this the moment that so many of us start asking these bigger questions? Let me explain.

Midlife is a time of significant transition and change in our relationships, our work, our family structures, and our bodies. As we reach the midpoint of our life with several decades of experience behind us and our mortality looming closer on the horizon, we can begin to question our purpose and desires. We may realise that what we have lived up to this point was largely a response to people and forces outside of us, and recognise that either we don’t know who we really are now, or that we are not living in alignment with who we really are.

In their youth and early adulthood most people take on what society dictates to be the purpose of life which revolves around getting a good education, a good job, developing a happy long-term relationship and being a good person. At midlife, we may have ticked all those boxes and are now looking for more, or we may be realising that those purposes were not true to us. This can lead to a deep questioning of what our purpose is and what we really want which can be part of what is referred to as a midlife crisis, but which we can reframe as a midlife edit. That restless, reaching feeling in midlife isn’t a malfunction. It’s your authentic self asking to be seen.

Or maybe you are the opposite. Maybe you feel done with striving and are asking yourself whether you need a sense of purpose, or should you just sit back and enjoy life? What if enjoying your life is your purpose?

That last question is actually the perfect segue into what I really want to explore today — because it challenges everything we’ve been taught about what purpose is supposed to mean.

We tend to view life purpose as being connected to some form of service to others or promoting a higher good. In that it is often seen as self-less. I want to propose something radical. I want to put self right at the centre of purpose and say that your purpose here in this physical experience is to be you. You are unique. Even if you have an identical twin there is no one completely like you who can bring your mix of qualities, experience and insight to the world. This is captured beautifully in one of my favourite quotes from Martha Graham —

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it.”

If you have been playing roles like wife, mother, father, husband or whatever your job title is for so long that you are not sure who your authentic self is without those hats, then start here with asking yourself — what lights me up inside?

Your purpose in life is to do what lights you up. Your passion is your purpose. I believe that is what you are here for, and I also believe that is the best way you can serve others. Following your bliss and serving others are often viewed as being separate, even opposing things, as being self-centred versus being self-less. Service is often equated with self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice is often seen as necessary in order to help others. This is a belief not a fact. It is one point of view that has been perpetuated by many. I think it is very important to look at HOW we are serving others and to open our definition of what service is. Instead of using the word service, let’s use the word uplift. What most people desire is not just to help other people, but to uplift them, so that they can feel better and be happier.

And here’s the thing — the most powerful way to uplift others might surprise you.

If you would like to help other people to feel better and happier, then the best way to do that is to be experiencing a lot of joy for yourself. You radiate what you are feeling and the people around you receive that. Following your bliss is the best way to uplift others. Bliss and service are not separate, they are closely intertwined.

Your bliss serves others.

Your passion is your purpose.

We cannot be self-less and why would you want to be? You are here as a one-of-a-kind creation to live your unique life. No one else will ever exist like you and no one will ever be able to live the life that you are living now. I believe that is a divine gift. Many people go looking for their purpose in serving others in some way. I’m not saying that is not worthwhile, however, I would argue that your joy is your purpose. When you are lit up, you shine light into the world. So do what lights you up, whatever that may be.

When you do what lights you up, when you do what you love, what you’re passionate about, what gives you energy and what makes you glow, then that shines a light for others and brings more light into the world. Sometimes people think that our purpose needs to be an obvious act of service to others and I believe that is a good thing. If you feel that it is your passion and your calling to do that, then that’s wonderful. If that lights you up, then that is your purpose, but I don’t think that it has to be for everyone. Some people believe that if we are not serving others with our lives in a really obvious way that we’re not making a difference in the world. I don’t believe that’s true. I think we make a difference in the world when we shine as who we are.

So, if your purpose is to follow your bliss, your true desire, the next question of course is how to identify that. I think that it is important to note that your passion or bliss doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be some grand goal. Your bliss may be growing a garden full of flowers, or reading good books. It may be volunteering at a food bank or fostering rescued animals. One of the best ways to identify what lights you up is to play with curiosity. Try new things, meet new people, take on new projects, participate in local groups, or explore a new hobby. Moving out of routine and auto-pilot shakes up your energy and gives you a different perspective. Embrace discovery, imperfection and learning. You don’t have to be the best at something to enjoy it. When it comes to bliss, the process of engagement is what matters, not the outcome. The key is how you feel while you are doing it.

It may help to begin by reflecting on your responses to the following three questions. I recommend you take some time with this. Let them sit with you as you move through life for a week or two.

One — What did you enjoy doing as a child?

Two — If you received $10 million today and didn’t have to work to financially support yourself, what would your ideal day look like?

Three — When do you feel most authentic, connected, and at peace with yourself?

For most people what will begin to form is a list of things you love doing, ways you like to be creative, experiences of interacting with other people and/or environments you appreciate. You can use this list to guide you in creating a life filled with more of your bliss and purpose, and, if you want to, you can refine this even further.

Usually when we think of something that we love and appreci

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About Living Midlife Well

Hi, I'm Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing coach helping people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Living Midlife Well — helping you slow down, feel better and enjoy life more, one simple step at a time.

Reclaim your time 

Restore your energy 

Rediscover yourself

Build meaningful relationships 

Janine Lattimore | Living Midlife Well | janinelattimore.com 

Links Mentioned in the Episode

Learn more about the Living Midlife Well Member Community on Substack

Learn more about the Living Life Well Member Community on janinelattimore.com

I have two membership community platforms - one on Substack and one through my janinelattimore.com website. The benefits and content are the same for each of them:

* a weekly newsletter

* a weekly 20 minute wellbeing guided video or audio - this links to the content of the newsletter and is like an extended guided practice

* a monthly live group coaching call + replay

The difference is that the newsletter for the Substack member community is a long-form article whereas the newsletter for my website membership community is a shorter tips and highlights style email.

Transcript

What if the reason you’re exhausted has nothing to do with how much sleep you’re getting?

What if tiredness in your forties and fifties isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you — but a completely understandable response to decades of doing life at full intensity, with barely a moment to breathe?

Today I want to talk about something I think so many of us are quietly carrying but rarely say out loud: that bone-deep weariness that doesn’t go away, no matter how early you get to bed.

I’m going to share three types of midlife exhaustion that might explain exactly what’s going on in your body and nervous system right now — and then I’m going to give you a roadmap to three kinds of rest that can actually help. Not rest as in “do nothing and hope for the best,” but rest that works at a biological, mental, emotional and even spiritual level.

And I’m going to start by reading you something I wrote almost exactly a year ago.

For many years now I have been waking up tired, frequently feeling exhausted, falling asleep if I am sitting for a relatively short period of time and often feeling like I am living on a treadmill of to-do’s and I don’t know how to get off. I haven’t had a holiday of more than 2–3 days in about fourteen years, and that was to Auckland with the kids and I was pregnant with my son and had really bad morning sickness. It isn’t just that I haven’t had opportunity, the thought of stopping and having a holiday to “just relax” causes me to feel on edge. It would take several days for my nervous system to unwind even if I did go away.

Can you relate to any of that?

If you’re nodding along — even a little — then what I’m about to share is for you. Because that kind of tiredness? It’s not just your story, and it’s not just mine. It’s something that is showing up for so many people at this stage of life, and I think it’s worth understanding why.

Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Midlife Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach here to help people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

By their forties and fifties many people are starting to experience a deep weariness. It is connected to years of intense stress, demand, responsibility and also experiences of loss, heartbreak, unfulfillment, disappointment and failure. We are tired of our time being taken by things we don’t want to do and not being able to do the things we want to do. Many of us have carried the invisible load for decades — the unseen mental, emotional and logistical effort required to manage our relationships, families, and households. In our work and homelife we have been consistently required to do the non-stop exhausting labour of anticipating, planning, organising and remembering moving parts in the responsible role of adulting.

It is absolutely understandable that you are tired. Tired maybe even more than you know. It is not weakness. Modern life can drain the life out of any and possibly all of us. I don’t think that a longing for rest is something new, but I think that we are experiencing it in a new way due to the rapid development of technology leading to globalisation and almost constant lifestyle changes and updates. Those of us in our forties and fifties now lived through the dawning of the digital information age. We remember, not just in our minds, but also in our bodies, a slower, quieter, more personally connected life before personal computers, the internet, mobile phones and social media. I think that this adds to the impact of the fast-paced change and the weariness we feel.

And into all of this, gets thrown the turmoil caused by major hormone changes at this stage of life.

So that’s the backdrop. That’s the weight we’re carrying before we even get out of bed in the morning. And what I want to do now is get specific — because not all exhaustion is the same, and understanding which type you’re experiencing is the first step to knowing what you actually need.

Let me walk you through the three types of midlife exhaustion.

By midlife, chronic stress is affecting us in three main ways: fatigue, freeze and burnout; hyperstimulation — that wired-but-tired feeling; and what I call dis-ease, which is stress-related illness. Let’s look at each one.

Exhaustion Type 1: Fatigue, Freeze and Burnout — When Your System Has Simply Had Enough

Ongoing stress drains your energy — even low-level ongoing stress which affects you like apps constantly running in the background on your phone. This can manifest as fatigue, brain fog, procrastination, difficulty making decisions, forgetfulness, emotional flatness and loss of interest in socialising. Freeze, which is a second layer survival — or stress — response after fight or flight, can look like feeling numb, depressed, hopeless, disassociated and/or shut down. Burnout can happen when you experience too much emotional, physical, and mental fatigue for too long. You move beyond the overwhelm of stress into feeling depleted, used up, hopeless, cynical, and resentful.

Does that resonate? That flat, used-up feeling that goes beyond just being tired? Now let’s look at the second type — and this one might surprise you, because it doesn’t look like exhaustion from the outside at all.

Exhaustion Type 2: Wired but Tired — Why You Can’t Switch Off Even When You Want To

Hyperstimulation is the sensation of being constantly switched on and struggling with switching off — or in other words, feeling tired but wired. It can look like overworking, over giving, overthinking and over-functioning, all while being unable to stop or sometimes even sit still for long. If you have difficulty stopping and resting, then it is likely that your nervous system is stuck in survival mode. There are usually subconscious beliefs operating underneath this for you. Experiences you had when you were young that taught you that being still was somehow unsafe, that rest equals weakness, or that if you don’t perform, you don’t matter.

This second type is one I see very often — people who look busy and capable from the outside, but who are running on fumes underneath. And the third type is where the body starts sending the most urgent signals of all.

Exhaustion Type 3: When Stress Makes You Sick — The Body’s Long-Term Bill for Chronic Pressure

Long-term activation of your stress response system causes overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones which can cause inflammation and disrupt almost all of your body’s processes. This type of chronic stress can put you at risk for a variety of health issues including muscle tension and pain, headaches, infertility, heart disease, heart attack, weight gain, insomnia, auto-immune conditions and stroke. Long term stress keeps your body in a survival state where your body down-regulates systems not connected with fight or flight such as your immune system, your digestive system and your reproductive system. This can make you more prone to illness and slower to recover from it, stimulate or worsen digestive issues, and suppress your libido and sexual function.

You can experience issues from more than one of these areas at the same time. By midlife it is quite common to be experiencing all three in various ways.

So, we’ve named what’s happening. And I hope just having language for it gives you some relief — because when we can name something, we stop making it mean that something is fundamentally wrong with us, and we can start doing something about it.

Now, I want to talk about rest — but not in the way you might expect.

Midlife exhaustion is not just physical and therefore the rest we crave and need is not just physical. By this stage of life, a big part of rest is also experiencing inner peace — which is mental and emotional peace, and also spiritual. Not spiritual in a religious sense, but in the sense of self awareness and living in coherence with your values and what is important to you.

And here’s something I want to gently challenge — something I hear from

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About Living Midlife Well

Hi, I'm Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing coach helping people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Living Midlife Well — helping you slow down, feel better and enjoy life more, one simple step at a time.

Reclaim your time 

Restore your energy 

Rediscover yourself

Build meaningful relationships 

Janine Lattimore | Living Midlife Well | janinelattimore.com 

Living Midlife Well is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Transcript

What if the thing we’ve been calling a midlife crisis... is actually a midlife invitation?

In this episode we’re diving into one of the most universally experienced — and possibly least honestly talked about — seasons of life. Whether you’re in your forties, your fifties, or hovering on the edge of either, this episode is for you.

I want to start with a haiku. Yes, a haiku. Bear with me, because it captures something so perfectly:

“First: love. Then marriage.

A mortgage. And a divorce.

Is that all there is…?”

That’s from Peter Radley, and honestly... if that landed somewhere in your chest just now, you’re in the right place.

Kia ora and hello, welcome to the Living Midlife Well podcast. I’m Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing writer and coach here to help people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Many people in their forties and fifties are growing weary of the weight of performance and responsibility that feels required by their current life and are desiring something more. As that opening haiku captures, they are beginning to ask “is this all there is?” Midlife can be a time of unraveling and transition, but it doesn’t have to be a crisis — it can be an evaluation and shift into greater freedom and fun.

In this episode I want to look at the mid stage of life through the lens of four categories: Mental Wellbeing, Personal Growth, Life Direction, and Relationships.

But before we get into those, I want to get personal with you. Because I think the most useful thing I can do is show you my own hand first.

At fifty-three I am mid midlife. My forties bought a huge amount of upheaval, transition and growth, but so far I am sailing in smoother waters in my fifties. Here is my lowlights and highlights reel for my midlife experience so far.

The challenges I experienced in my forties were real and they were heavy. I developed a significant stress-induced health condition. I went through the unexpected ending of my second marriage. I navigated shared parenting and the particular demands of parenting teenagers. I lost my father — my mother had already died of cancer in her early fifties when I was just thirty-two. I went back to zero financially, and re-entered the workforce after being a stay-at-home mother for eleven years. And through all of that, I rode the emotional rollercoaster of dating, loneliness, and relationship heartbreak.

But here’s the other side of the ledger — the positives. I got to be genuinely explorative with dating and relationships in a way I never had been when I was young. Shared parenting actually gave me more time freedom than I’d had in years. I learned to accept, love and understand my authentic self. I discovered somatic practice. And I started dancing again regularly.

And then I turned fifty. And something shifted.

I love this quote from Jan Struther’s Mrs. Miniver:

“Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties: it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one.”

I loved turning fifty. It felt like the beginning of my second innings at life. In the first half of the game, I got the feel of the playing field, developed effective strategies to meet challenges and got warmed up in my skills. Now, in my fifties, I have a wealth of life experience wisdom and learning, a grounded self-confidence and a body that is fit and able. I’m ready to launch into the best years of my life.

Relationship wise I am settled in my third long term partnership and it feels like a really good fit. Over the last ten years I have done A LOT of personal growth work and relationship skill development. I have finally healed my inner child’s need for love and approval that kept driving me to get into relationships with emotionally disconnected, critical men just like my father.

So what actually matters to me now? It’s shifted quite a lot from what I thought I wanted when I was younger.

What is important to me now is living a life that feels good to me. In my twenties and thirties I dreamed of speaking to packed auditoriums. What I really craved was acknowledgment and validation. I have given that to myself now and don’t need it from others so much anymore. My key love language is still words of affirmation though, so I do still feel best when I am receiving regular words of encouragement. The things that take my focus now are financial and time freedom, doing work that is meaningful and creative, and developing my relationship skills to connect effectively with people.

There are a lot of things in my own experience that are typical of midlife ups and downs. Let’s have a look at some of the common challenges and positives for each of the categories I mentioned at the start of this episode.

Let’s start with something that doesn’t get talked about enough — what’s actually happening mentally and emotionally during this season of life.

By the time they reach their forties, a lot of people are feeling like they are running on the same treadmill of stress and exhaustion day after day and existing more than living. Many of us are working, raising children and looking after a household. Throw in extended family responsibilities and there is little time left for ourselves and our dreams. However, our children are getting older, which gives us some space, and we can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel — maybe, unless like me you had a child in your late thirties or early forties and then the light may get shunted out until your sixties. When I talk to people of midlife age, frequently the primary thing they desire is rest, and yet, ironically, most of us are so stuck in stress-induced survival mode that even if we get spare time we can’t or don’t know how to stop and just put our feet up. Many of us feel constantly on and find it very difficult to switch off.

Grief features strongly in midlife for many people. It is when they become acutely aware of their own mortality and the slow degrading of their body. In conjunction with this, death often becomes more of a feature as aunts, uncles and sometimes parents pass, and we enter the zone where fatal health issues such as heart disease and cancer start to rear their heads more intensely.

And alongside all of that internal experience, our relationships are often going through enormous change too. Let’s talk about that.

There is a general trend in Western societies that the number of couples that are separating or divorcing after age fifty is increasing. I think that there are many reasons for this including longer lifespans, increased financial independence for women and the abundance of information and options available now. Statistically women are the primary instigators of ending relationships and a key reason why is that they have been carrying the emotional and mental load of the relationship for years and finally decide that they have had enough. Most women in Western society are no longer locked into unhappy relationships for reasons of security. This opens up new opportunities and challenges of dating again in midlife, and I think it is also requiring us to get better at developing effective relationship skills. Now that couples no longer need to stay together out of necessity for material support, we are re-examining how and why we develop long term committed relationships. Many of us have also had painful relationship experiences and as a consequence are working on our own personal growth to reparent our inner child and shift unhelpful patterns of belief and behaviour.

The other key relationships most midlifers have is with their children and their parents, and there are often big shifts going on in this area too. Most people in their forties are managing the challenges of parenting teenagers, and then the fifties bring the mixed emotions of the home becoming an empty nest. However, empty nests can then often be filled with adult children returning to live with their parents, or having your elderly parents come to live with you.

Social isolation becomes more of an issue for a lot of people from midlife onwards. As children grow and partnerships end, social connections change, and joining new social groups and making new friends can be very hard, particularly at this stage of life. Past relationship experiences can lead to people carrying a lot of shame around “failed” relationships, or extreme wariness about trusting other people or themselves.

Woven through all of these relationship shifts is something deeper — a fundamental questioning of who we actually are. And for many people, that is where the real work of midlife begins.

On one hand, negativity around aging m

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About Living Midlife Well

Hi, I'm Janine Lattimore, a wellbeing coach helping people in midlife get off the treadmill of stress and exhaustion, rediscover their joy, and create a life that is aligned with who they really are and what they really want.

Living Midlife Well — helping you slow down, feel better and enjoy life more, one simple step at a time.

Reclaim your time 

Restore your energy 

Rediscover yourself

Build meaningful relationships 

Janine Lattimore | Living Midlife Well | janinelattimore.com