Have you ever heard of the Hero’s Journey?
In literature, the Hero’s Journey is a common storytelling framework, wherein a man faces many trials and challenges that cause him to confront his fears and leave the familiar comforts of home behind in order to finally challenge–and then overcome–a major obstacle. He returns home irrevocably changed, and it makes for a wonderful story.
I’ve been contemplating lately how a Heroine’s Journey might differ.
So many women feel tremendous pressure to do more and be more than we currently are, whether it’s at home, in our relationships, or in our careers. If you’ve been following my work for some time, you know that my perspective on wellness is holistic and multidimensional: I acknowledge that our emotional vitality and our relationships play a crucial role in our overall health.
However, we also know that this perspective has not yet become commonplace in the modern world. Emotional wellness is often viewed as incidental to our lives, instead of that which legitimately deserves our utmost care and attention to embodying a healthy lifestyle!
Practical daily wellness habits, like eating a nutritious diet, following a fitness routine, and getting enough rest are certainly important–but the overall context those habits are anchored in is just as important to our overall health and vitality!
The issues that women tolerate in our lives, like a stressful work environment, an unsupportive relationship, or the mental burden of taking care of everyone around us, often end up sabotaging us over time. Once those deeper, more complex emotional issues reach a fever pitch, it won’t matter how much we’re committed to our daily smoothie, supplements, or yoga practice–our vitality and resilience will inevitably suffer.
It’s often around midlife that we start feeling called to reexamine our priorities.
The catalyst for this could be a personal health crisis, a loved one or friend falling ill, or simply a nameless longing that shows up in our hearts–and in each case, we may find ourselves examining the very bedrock of our beliefs in order to get to the heart of our emotional distress.
Too often, we find ourselves facing the practical and physical changes of midlife feeling mentally (if not physically) overburdened, and fairly ill-acquainted with our own emotions.
As we move through adulthood, we continue to grow into new versions of ourselves. Our dreams and goals likely change–or crystallize into something even more precious as we age.
We probably imagined ourselves as the prime authors and creative directors of our lives, so it can be startling to realize just how much energy we unwittingly spent taking dictation from societal or religious expectations of us, both of which are completely influenced by unquestioned patriarchal norms.
In shining the light of clarity back onto our past, many women realize that a lot (perhaps too much) of our lives have been spent on the sidelines, quietly supporting the successes of our partners and taking care of our children and/or our parents in a multitude of ways.
Perhaps this was our choice all along…but looking back, maybe we did not realize then how we would feel now, with the full and complex hindsight of our choices.
Even for those of us who do not have children, the journey to midlife grants us wisdom, grace, and fortitude that our 20-year-old selves simply did not yet know we possessed.
But here, the path falters. As we reach midlife, we face a lack of cultural scripts for ourselves as women. We are no longer young–even though many industries are geared toward preserving an outward perception of youth–and we find that we have gained different perspectives and priorities than those of early adulthood.
It is here where I deeply believe that the ancient feminine archetypes of Maiden, Mother, and Crone are missing a vital phase…perhaps stolen from our narrative long ago:
We have forgotten just how powerful and potent a woman at midlife has the potential to be–should she choose to truly claim and invoke that energy!
The archetypal mother is perhaps 30-40, with many lessons yet to learn. The elder woman, or crone, is nearing the end of her Earthly years (perhaps 80+), and ideally wishes to pass on the wisdom of her legacy to others.
What of the forty-fifty years between these stages, then? Those years when our children are starting to leave our homes, with the grief that accompanies that time? Those years when women are portrayed so dowdily in popular culture, wherein we are given clothing and hair-style and beauty images that do not reflect our mature and robust sexuality?
Women at midlife suffer a dearth of empowered, self-aware role models in popular media and movies to act as way-showers for us. It’s no wonder many of us start to feel invisible–because the best years of a woman’s life are missing from our cultural narrative!
I have recently heard this missing stage referred to as The Queen – and I think it provides a compelling image of the woman at midlife:
The Queen does not need to prove herself to others, yet she is not to be trifled with and is increasingly capable of defending both herself and anyone else whom she invites within her Queendom. The Queen understands divine timing and the nature of consequences, and she reinforces her boundaries without apology or hesitancy. The Queen has long since parted ways with blind optimism, and uses the wisdom she’s gained over the years to cultivate a life of peace, success, and sovereignty.
In the past, my work and my blog have focused somewhat generally on holistic wellness in women’s lives, but it’s time for a shift in my own trajectory.
In the fullness of clarity, based on my own personal awareness at this stage of life, I will be turning my focus specifically to the beauty and sexuality and complexity of women’s wellness at midlife.
I see so many women struggling at this stage of life with not just their physical health and hormonal transitions and body shape transformations, but also with emotional resilience, shifting expectations in their lives, and changes in their romantic and sexual health and relationships.
Women at midlife are vibrant, passionate, and ready to wield their full power and sovereignty in a way that perhaps they didn’t feel able or even allowed to when they were younger.
This is a journey I share, and a journey I’m so excited to be digging into much more fully for all of us at this time.
