Journeying Through Spiritual Midlife Crisis

EPISODE 133 | JOURNEYING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MIDLIFE CRISIS

[00:00:00] We have to let God do it to us. Let it be done unto me. And what God does is often an undoing and we find ourselves needing to be emptied, stripped, becoming raw and naked before God, seeing ourselves more truly for the first time, and experiencing the unconditional love of God. 

[00:00:18] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:00:55] PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: SPIRITUAL MIDLIFE CRISIS
Hello! So, today's sharing, I want to talk about an experience that has been very significant in my own interior journey the last eight years. And it was something pretty hard to go through. And what that is, is spiritual midlife crisis, right. I didn't even know there was such a thing when I first entered into this experience. And was such a difficult time and such a crucial dimension of my interior journey that I wanted to share a bit more about this.

[00:01:35] Because know that there are more people out there who could be in this time in their journey. And they may not have the term for it. They may even realize they in some kind of crisis. And if that is you, and you're watching this or listening to this and this brings some light to you, I would be so, so glad. That's why I'm going to be doing today's sharing.

[00:01:58] UNDERSTANDING THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
So, the last sharing that I did was on The Critical Journey, right? About the of status of faith in the critical journey. And I talked this book, which is a resource that I only came across sometime, just a few months ago, right. And it came at a time when I think I'm finally coming out of this spiritual midlife crisis and it just connected all dots me, right? So, the Critical Journey - if you haven't heard about it or watched the video that I did on it yet, I would recommend that maybe you start there before coming back to today's sharing, this particular sharing on the spiritual midlife crisis.

[00:02:40] All right, so, today's sharing is going cover three main areas, all right. I will share a bit about the experience entering midlife. As always, I'm not talking about this any authoritative manner. I'm going to be my experience. But from what I have learned, there are a lot of universal similarities in this midlife experience. Okay, so, that's why there are resources that are helpful. 

[00:03:08] Even though for each of us who are going into it, it will be a very particular and unique experience. I'm going to talk a little bit also about why, in particular, spiritual midlife is such a difficult and also what resources helped me navigate through this period of my life. 

[00:03:26] THE ROLE OF CRISES IN SPIRITUAL GROWTH
Okay, so, first, before I go on into my experience, I just want to share that the spiritual journey, I think, is filled with different crises and many crises. That's a fact. And at different points of our developmental journey, it's different crises that we experience. But crises play an important role in the spiritual journey, okay as well as the interior integration journey.

[00:03:52] I differentiate these two terms because I want to say that for long time, I was already on the spiritual journey, but I was not yet in the interior integration journey, okay. So, it's possible to already be on the spiritual journey without Integration. It's still a very valid journey, it's a very valid experience of coming know God and having the faith and deepening our interior life. 

[00:04:15] So, even in the spiritual journey, crises play a very important part. The midlife crisis in the spiritual journey is just one of the many crises that we'll go through. And often, these crises - plural - they are like the doorways opens up for us. 

[00:04:32] And if we go through them, if we enter those crises and enter with surrender, we can actually reach, in a sense, like another step, another stage in our relationship with God, another stage in our spiritual development. It is also very common - and I say this without judgement because it has happened to me so many times as well - where when a crisis happens, which means that maybe God opens a door, we don't go through it because there's a way, one way to respond to a crisis, is to hunker down where we are, or to go backwards, even, in journey to what feels more secure and what feels more safe to us. 

[00:05:09] That is why I think God keeps on opening doors for us in our life, which why every now and then, some kind of other crises will pop up in our life. And really see these crises as thresholds, okay, opportunities for us enter. And if we enter, we move on that spiritual journey, where we move this interior journey. 

[00:05:29] So, that's crises in general. They're an essential part of spiritual development and maturing. But what I'll be sharing about today, about the spiritual midlife crisis is a particular crisis among all these crises in the spiritual journey.

[00:05:43] MY PERSONAL STORY
Right, so, I'm going to share a little story with you. Okay, this is from my personal experience. How I even knew there was such a thing called spiritual midlife crisis or a spiritual midlife and what led me to it, okay. This was about eight years ago and in terms of my life journey, this was a couple years, about slightly under two years after I had left my full-time job in the parish.

[00:06:14] And that year since I left the parish, after I left the parish, was really a year of entering into deep solitude and silence and beginning to heal physically, first of all because I was burnt out and having all kinds of chronic health issues. And I knew I needed to tend to that. But there also some emotional healing. 

[00:06:34] But at that time, not very focused emotional healing. It was by being by myself and with God, and entering into silence, entering a better rhythm of movement and exercise again. Because whenever I am very caught up with work, usually exercise, unfortunately, is the first thing that goes, the regularity of that, that's the first thing that goes. And just taking care of my body. 

[00:06:57] So, for one year, I was beginning to enter into a space that felt very different. So, as I entered into that healing space, I felt like I was drawing closer to God in a way. What I also began to experience was there was something new. And is that I wanted connect with God in ways that I never did before. I wanted to connect with God outside of the sacraments, outside of the church, outside of official prayer times that are happening before blessed sacrament, for example, in adoration chapel.

[00:07:30] In fact, I felt a yearning to discover Him in what we would think as secular, non - sacred, non-religious dimensions of my life. I began to have more frequent conversations with God everywhere and, all things. And then in 2016, and I shared about this in my other earlier podcast episodes as well.

[00:07:55] I had retreat. This was around my 37th birthday. I had a retreat where God gave me an image of a huge kind of like cathedral that was under construction and scaffolding was all around it and the walls have already come up but was no ceiling yet. And what I was given to understand when I saw this image, was that "Ann, this work cannot be completed". Okay, I felt God was telling me this work cannot be completed. This building cannot be completed because there's something fundamentally wrong in the foundations. 

[00:08:30] Okay, and so, if you want to complete this project, if you wish for this building, this church to be built to completion, we're going to have to take everything down. So, everything that I see in this image, all the walls that have already been built up and quite a lot of work has already been done - all that has to be dismantled and taken down. And not only that, we're going to have to go into the foundations - that means what is underground, which I can't even see. 

[00:08:58] And I felt God say we're going to have excavate the foundation because that's where the issues are. That's where the rot is. There's something fundamentally wrong in the foundation.

[00:09:06] We're going to have to excavate and clear the foundation and begin again. We're going to start again and this time, we'll do it right. We'll lay the foundation stone by stone, everything right. That's only way that this church can be completed.

[00:09:23] And I knew that He was talking about me. I knew that that church was me and He's talking about my relationship with Him and that this church, in a sense, symbolized my relationship with Him. And the completion of this church symbolized, in a sense, my fullest union with Him and being fully me, right? And I worked so hard up to that point spiritually to learn about my faith, to develop spiritual disciplines, to be so faithful, from what I understood to be faithfulness back then.

[00:09:54] And here I was hearing that it's not enough and everything has to be undone. I didn't understand at that point what that foundation actually really was referring to. Instinctively, I knew it was true but I didn't know what was God referring to. Much later, where am now, I know the foundations that He says were rotten were my human foundations, my affective foundations. 

[00:10:19] He's referring to how my capacity to relate and to love has been wounded fundamentally. And because of that, even my spiritual growth is compromised. And He's saying that we have to go back down and heal and rebuild my human capacity to love. So, after that retreat, something very strange happened.

[00:10:43] That retreat was wonderful. I felt God was very communicative. It was filled with consolation. But after that retreat, I went through like a spiritual desert. It felt like all my spiritual disciplines just fell aside and all the old compulsions and addictions surged up in my life.

[00:11:00] And what was different this time though, was I was going to let it happen. I wasn't going to fight my compulsions and addictions in the old way I used to, which was basically to suppress them or to spiritual bypass them. I never knew in the past how ask my body or to ask myself where's that urge coming from? Where's that compulsion coming from? 

[00:11:22] I was so afraid of sinning and so determined to fight sin in that old way of understanding, that I just thought if you don't entertain that thought, so, I just put it aside, or if it's let's say binge watching videos or whatnot, I just wouldn't do or I'll do it and then feel very guilty and then go for confession about how I've been wasting my time, etc. And then come back and forcibly force myself to be disciplined. I had been able get by for a long time.

[00:11:49] But all this was different. And found myself even as I was yielding to my compulsions, in that sense, I was talking to God, and I said you know what? I said, I'm just going to do this right now. And I know it's not the best use of my time and whatnot, but I want to do this. And I don't know why I want to do this, I don't know why I am different now, but I'm doing this. 

[00:12:11] And what began to notice was that God was with me. And after the experience, I would talk to God as well. And over time, I found this different. Because in the past, when I yielded to, let's say, what I think is temptation, even if it is just for example binge watching movies or videos or doom-scrolling on my phone or whatever it was.

[00:12:37] When realized and I know that I've been very compulsive, there was always shame. And there was always this sense that pulling me further away from God. And I needed to go for a confession before I can be reinstated into like a closer relationship with God.

[00:12:52] That was what I understood catechetically about the faith. But at this point in the journey, I was finding that God was with me, even when I was so-called quote-unquote, "behaving badly". He wasn't further away. In fact, I could talk to him about what was experiencing. I could unpack with him afterwards why I felt that way. And the thing is, the difference was, the incredible difference for me, that I experienced was that I began to experience God's love more unconditionally.

[00:13:25] I felt like I didn't have to behave better or get myself going through this confession before I can present myself with God. I entered into a new phase of closeness with God. And during this time, I began to realize that all the spiritual disciplines that I had, in past, shored up. And at the time, I really felt at one point, I was impressed with myself because there was a stretch of time, I think for more than year, maybe even two, I had an hour of holy hour adoration before the blessed sacrament practically every day.

[00:14:00] That was quite a streak and I thought, was some kind of spiritual peak that I was in. I was so disciplined and it wasn't difficult during that time for me do that. But now, in this phase where my spiritual disciplines were falling apart, I felt safe, secure enough with God to realize - and I'm sure it's God's grace that revealed this to me - that all those spiritual disciplines that I was doing so well in, in the past, like ninety percent or more than ninety percent of it was not coming love of Him, was not because I loved Him, but it was because I was driven to excel spiritually, is because was to trying impress Him. Because I wanted to impress Him so that He would love me.

[00:14:43] And that was such an incredible and scary realization, especially for someone like me, for whom doing well or having God or whoever is the is the other person think that I was doing well was such an important part of me feeling emotionally safe. 

[00:15:00] So, I knew that when I could even realize this truth, that all the wonderful spiritual growth that I had in the past, which I would say is still spiritual growth. It still came with grace. But yet, so much of it was driven by my insecurity and wasn't love yet. So, God was showing me, "oh, Ann, actually, now that you're ready to know this I want tell you you're so much more beginner than you thought you were. Because there I was thinking that I was a leader in church, I was in full-time ministry. I was giving talks, I was giving retreats, I was having all these amazing spiritual disciplines that I was able do.

[00:15:36] I thought I was pretty spiritually mature, right? Now, I cringe a little when I say this now, I cringe with compassion as well because that really was where I was. And I couldn't have known otherwise until I'd gone further. And so, at this point, when I had gone further and I realized that actually I was so young spiritually still, that, humanly, there were so many things in me, so much fear and insecurity. 

[00:16:03] And I didn't even know how to get over that. But that was when things really changed and I entered about half a year of just all these experiences, which I just couldn't put a handle on. I didn't understand. And eventually, about six months after this began - so it was about six months after the retreat that I had and had all these experiences that I didn't know how to make sense of.

[00:16:24] I happened to have conversation with very seasoned spiritual director who was also a supervisor of spiritual directors. So, it was a religious sister. She wasn't actually my spiritual director, although I knew her. My spiritual director had suggested that I speak to this sister in another matter because he felt that a supervisor of spiritual directors would be to counsel me on how to accompany someone that I needed to accompany.

[00:16:52] And I thought I was getting out of my depth and I just wanted to check, what I was saying was ok. So, the context there is this particular person that I was accompanying was, during that time, living in a place where he couldn't even access church. There was no local spiritual director or spiritual community, So, I was just connecting with this person virtually, so that he can have some kind of support. 

[00:17:14] So, anyway, that brought me to speak to the supervisor of spiritual directors. And after we resolved that matter, which was actually very fast, she asked me, "Ann, so, how have you been? How are you doing?" So, when I just told her, I said this year has been so weird. And I told her, just briefly, the experiences of the last six months. I think I mentioned to her about the retreat and that image and how since then, just everything seems to be falling apart. 

[00:17:38] And at the same time, I feel more secure with God than I did before. And at the time, all things that used to work for me to spur me and motivate me to become - I don't know - more spiritually disciplined, they all don't work anymore. And I just told her, I know what the heck is going on. 

[00:17:58] RECOGNISING SPIRITUAL MIDLIFE
And she looked me and I remember, she said, "Hmm, Ann, it sounds like you're entering spiritual midlife or you're going into spiritual midlife". So, that's the first time I've ever heard such a term, okay - spiritual midlife. So, first, I remember telling her. I said, with life already? I was only 37 at that time. I remembered saying, "I'm only 37. I'm not even 40. What midlife?" Right? And another thing I was thinking - I don't know. It's like, I don't think so. It was just a part of me that said that sounds so serious. Or like some kind of crisis. I didn't think so. 

[00:18:30] So, being a seasoned spiritual director as well. A good spiritual director never insists or pushes. She just says, "well, I can give you couple of books or I can suggest, recommend a couple books that you could read about this topic". And maybe you read and see whether it connects and maybe you will know whether you are in spiritual midlife. 

[00:18:46] RESOURCES FOR NAVIGATING THE SPIRITUAL MIDLIFE
So, the two, books that she suggested that I read - one was Sue Monk Kidd's When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions. And the other book was Richard Rohr's Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. 

[00:19:01] Okay, so, I've never heard of Sue Monk Kidd before. No, I've heard of the name in a different context, not but not of this book. And Richard Rohr, I was familiar with the name. And in fact, I would say, up to that point, I had been quite, conscientiously avoiding his work and maybe even being very careful when I do come across his work because I know, from googling and from what people are saying online, that there are a lot of voices that were saying that he's potentially dangerous, and what he's teaching is not necessarily orthodox. 

[00:19:33] So, in the earlier part of my spiritual journey, where all that was like the most important thing, I avoided his work. Even though I have to confess, there are certain times when read something or heard people quote some of his things, it did strike me as wise. But I just wasn't ready to go there yet. So, here I was now, with a trusted person, somebody that I respected and trust and whom I knew was an effective, sound and good spiritual director, who was directing me to read one of his books. So, I thought, okay. But I will read Sue Monk Kidd's When the Heart Waits first. Okay, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions, that's the full title - I'll read her work first. 

[00:20:14] So, I read that book and I remembered thinking, oh my gosh, she’s describing what I've been going through, what I've been experiencing. And I felt so serene. And thought, oh my gosh, is this what entering spiritual midlife is about? So, maybe am in spiritual midlife, right? And then after I finished that book, I waited a couple of months to digest before I began reading Richard Rohr's Falling Upward. 

[00:20:39] And again, I have to say, when I was reading that book, again, I recognized my own journey. In fact, I recognized that I was at that point where I was. beginning to make the transition from the first half of life. I wasn't really in the second half of life yet - in Richard Rohr's terms, okay. What he was describing about the second half of life was not describing me yet. What he was about describing about the first half of life was definitely me in my entire life and the spiritual journey up to that point. 

[00:21:07] But I was leaving that. I knew I was leaving that first half of life. But I haven't really entered the second half of life. So, I knew that, okay. I was entering spiritual midlife. And that was eight years ago. And midlife wasn't quick a thing. The whole midlife experience also has points of transitions, right? So, this is where, how I knew, and I just wanted to share a bit about how I knew I was entering it. We don't have enough time for me to go into all about the whole midlife experience.

[00:21:46] In fact, in most of my sharings, my podcast episodes, I've already been giving you guys snippets of what was coming during my midlife experience, my spiritual midlife experience. But I wanted to describe how I knew was in it, because maybe that will help some of you connect and recognize that perhaps, you might be entering spiritual midlife as well. If you recall, in my last episode, okay, when I talked about The Critical Journey, there was this image. 

[00:22:13] So, if you're listening to this on the podcast, you can't see the image, but if you go over to the YouTube video of this, you would be able to see it. It's a diagram from the book, The Critical Journey and it shows the six stages of faith development And, there's stage one: recognition of God, stage two: life of discipleship, the beginning of the life of discipleship. Stage three is the productive life, where you're very productive for God. And then stage four is called "the journey inward". And it is at this point, the journey inward, that we begin to enter into the midlife experience.

[00:22:47] So, what I just described to you about my experience, now I recognise looking back. And now, having read this book, The Critical Journey, that that was me entering into stage four, really stepping more and more into stage four. Now, why it is that I in particular love this resource, The Critical Journey, this book, is because of the space the authors gave into describing The Wall. 

[00:23:12] THE WALL: A CRITICAL PHASE IN THE JOURNEY
So in-between stage four, which is the journey inward and stage five, which is the journey outward I could say, exiting the midlife crisis. In between there is this experience called "the wall". It's actually part, of the stage four experience, okay. And it is so significant to the authors of the Critical journey that they gave an entire chapter to just describe this wall experience. 

[00:23:35] Now, The Wall would be where I would say, I think the crisis part of midlife really hits, okay. entering midlife, you may not really be in crisis yet. The intensity of the midlife experience the purging of the spiritual midlife experience really happens at The Wall And what I really love about this resource is because they describe, the authors say that at the wall is where integration must happen. If integration doesn't begin to happen, we won't move past the wall, okay. 

[00:24:07] There's no way of moving past The Wall or going to stage five or stage six if we don't integrate. And by integration, they are referring specifically to the psychological and emotional dimensions of our journey of our lives and the spiritual.

[00:24:22] And to be honest, this is the first book I read, that specifically emphasize that this is where integration has to happen. So up to The Wall it is possible to progress in the spiritual journey, but not make much progress in the emotional, or psychological healing journey. Or for some people, maybe they may have actually moved further in emotional and psychological healing but their relationship with God hasn't really progressed as much.

[00:24:48] Well, it is at stage four when whichever dimension of us was kind of like lagging behind. We'll have catch up so that's actually the work of spiritual midlife, the way I see it. 

[00:25:01] INTEGRATION AND HEALING
And the spiritual midlife crisis is actually a time of integration and healing. And it is really go hard to go through, but it is really essential to go through for us emerge with that kind of integration that brings both spiritual and emotional human maturity together, all right.

[00:25:24] So in another book that may better known. It may be better known especially I think people who study spiritual direction or even in the seminary, I think people have to read or study this James Fowler's Stages of Faith. So, he also talks think, six stages as well. Stage six being the stage of universalizing faith, okay, which is similar to the stage the six in The Critical Journey. 

[00:25:47] But James Fowler describes stage five, so for him, he says stage 5: conjunctive faith, he calls it "conjunctive faith" is when the person acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems Okay, say that again. 

[00:26:06] Conjunctive faith acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating to reality behind the symbols of inherited systems. Okay, in James Fowler's version of the stages, he didn't have a specific element that is equivalent to The Wall. So, stage four is when the person begins to individuate and reflect. on their faith and stage four in James Fowler's model is often when people also begin to maybe deconstruct or question and doubt. 

[00:26:37] And then, when they do of four reach five, this when acknowledge paradox transcendence and relate behind the concrete symbols whatever tradition they in, right? So, this is, in a sense, it doesn't cover the most painful part of the transition, which is why I like The Critical Journey so much. Because when you want to understand what you're going through, when you can see something on the page that actually describes what you're experiencing and offer also kind understanding and explanation as to why you're going through that. 

[00:27:13] That's just so powerful. So, that's why I really recommend The Critical Journey, okay, for those of us who wish to know more about the midlife journey. I would say, it's really, really about, you know - go and refer to The Critical Journey. 

[00:27:26] So, spiritual midlife is, particularly disorienting, okay. So, that's one of the challenges I mentioned that's different from all the other crises. It is disorienting because spiritual midlife comes after a peak that you've reached, okay. So, with the critical journey, remember stages one to three, it's like you're ascending, you're getting more sure of your faith, more knowledgeable of your faith, you're becoming more active, and taking on leadership positions in your faith community. 

[00:27:53] You're ascending, and then suddenly, there's this destabilization, like the next developmental phase being destabilized, being taken apart, being undone. What you were sure before, now you are not so sure anymore. It's not a matter of intellectual certainty. It's coming from someplace much deeper. Because God is calling forth, he's opening your eyes to the lack of integrity within your own being, right? Like He showed me, for example, that all the things that I've done and the spiritual disciplines that I've managed to "accomplish", so-called, was 90-something percent driven by my need to impress Him, my need earn His approval and not because I love Him. 

[00:28:38] So that realization was showing me a lack of, in that sense, not in bad way, a lack of integration. So, lack of integrity, right? Because there I was believing that I was so spiritually mature that I must be progressing in my, you know, spiritual disciplines because I love God and God is showing me, no, actually. You progress much far because you were very driven by your insecurities.

[00:29:05] And that is why I couldn't go further in relationship with God. Why He said everything had to be taken down and the foundations had to be rebuilt, right? So, midlife is very painful because we have to acknowledge all accomplishments or achievements in our spiritual life up to that point, in a sense, is dust, right? Not that it didn't matter but suddenly, at this point, it really feels like it doesn't, it really doesn't matter and the really important stuff, we haven't even begun yet. 

[00:29:37] But that's the gift of spiritual midlife, alright. It's disorienting and is different from earlier developmental crises because before we enter spiritual midlife, usually what helps us overcome the crises is more understanding, more knowledge, more clarity, more certainty about what it is we need to do and doing it and being embedded in a faith community and having people hold us mutually accountable. All that stuff that worked from stages 1 to 3, suddenly, at stage 4 - I'm talking about The Critical Journey kind of stages, at midlife, they don't work because the work of spiritual midlife is not growing in knowledge, is not growing in certainty, it's not using our using will to force ourselves to perform our faith. 

[00:30:22] Spiritual midlife is a time of stripping, of being stripped. You can't even do the work yourself. That's part of what makes midlife so uncomfortable. Because those of us who are so used to using our strength and our ego, like our will and our strength to accomplish even spiritual growth in the earlier stages, suddenly, now, at this point, we find that there's nothing we can do. At midlife in the spiritual life, the only thing we can do is to let God do it to us.

[00:30:53] So, we have to let God do it to us. Let it be done unto me. And what God does is often an undoing and we find ourselves needing to be emptied, stripped, becoming raw and naked before God, seeing ourselves more truly for the first time, and experiencing the unconditional love of God as we see all the things we have not dared to look at about ourselves. Okay, so, this spiritual midlife experience is particularly difficult to find support in when we're going through it. And that's also part of what makes being in spiritual midlife such a challenging season. 

[00:31:29] All right, and it is difficult to find support because much fewer people would have actually went through this stage. And many people who are very active in the usual places that we were active in the earlier stages, in the first half of life, in our institutions, for example, even our spiritual leaders, our faith leaders, most of them are familiar with the earlier stages are not familiar with spiritual midlife, okay. So, that's why it can be difficult to find support. 

[00:31:58] FINDING SUPPORT AND MOVING FORWARD
But if you want to more this and the kind of support that actually would help you in the spiritual midlife, again, I refer you to The Critical Journey as well as the other books that I've mentioned earlier. They can be helpful. Just don't worry. Don't be overwhelmed. It's going to take as long as it takes. God's grace is sufficient, okay. And I can say this to you because I've experienced it. 

[00:32:23] So, resources that would be helpful during spiritual midlife, spiritual direction, for sure would have already been helpful in the in the earlier stages, especially when are in stage two and three, becoming serious about our faith and practicing our faith and leading in our faith communities. But especially when we enter into the spiritual midlife, spiritual we sound. And by sound, here, it's a different thing from just saying "orthodox" because I know for some people, "sound" just means very orthodox to, let's say, Catholic teaching.

[00:32:53] There is more to the spiritual journey than orthodoxy, okay, and orthopraxy. So, that's part of the challenge of finding support because for a lot of, for many people, sound stops at being orthodox. 

[00:33:07] That's why you need, often, someone who's familiar with spiritual midlife, maybe have experienced it themselves or have the willingness, at least, to not direct you, because in spiritual midlife, what we need is not top-down kind of direction but someone who can help us enter into a more spacious time, who respects that it is really the Holy Spirit's work at this time. It feels very ambiguous, but can only wait, right? And to help us to discern and wait. 

[00:33:36] So, spiritual direction plays a huge part about being in spiritual midlife but you need find the right kind of spiritual director. Psychotherapy actually becomes very important if you haven't yet gone for psychotherapy, you know, before spiritual midlife. This is when, remember I mentioned that according to the authors of The Critical Journey, the wall experience within stage four is when the psychological and emotional dimension of has our journey has to be integrated with the spiritual dimension.

[00:34:09] So, for me, that was the case. The human foundations that needed rebuilding, excavating and rebuilding had to take the form of this kind of help. That was what I went through. I started counselling and eventually also into deeper psychotherapy working on family of origin wounds, especially. 

[00:34:27] Because those wounds, our family of origin wounds are usually what destroys or, really destroys our human foundation that enables us love and be loved, okay. It happens very young. So, it happens usually in our family of origin, whatever childhood experiences were. And going through psychotherapy, into that dimension, going into psychotherapy helped me to recognize what those wounds were and how to heal. So, in particular, inner child healing, internal family systems and somatic healing - which was more a more recent part, okay. The somatic dimension of healing of trauma. All of that helped with the integration that I needed to go through as I went through The Wall, which is my spiritual midlife crisis. 

[00:35:15] And there are also books that have been helpful, including the ones that I have shared so far. There are others as well but I don't feel prompted at this time to just kind of lay out all these books because especially when we're talking about spiritual midlife, actually about interior journey, we must respect, in that sense, where a person is and the resource that can meet the person where they are. 

[00:35:40] And just because a book has been really helpful to, you know, to me at some point, doesn't mean that it's necessarily good for me to just recommend it generally. So, the three that mentioned earlier the, The Critical Journey, When the Heart Waits, and even Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward. I feel that those three are already a good place to start. They are general enough that you would probably be able to find something that connects with you. And at least for you to confirm if you are going through a spiritual midlife okay.

[00:36:09] I also want to add that, especially when we are going through spiritual midlife, is when having trauma informed support, and in that sense, emotionally safe holding is particularly important, precisely because we are excavating and uncovering all these deep wounds, especially these deep human wounds, and especially for those of us whose wounds also from some of dimension of spiritual abuse, it just could be covert. It could be very subtle, okay. But where there's not just emotional or physical or sexual abuse, but especially if there's dimension of spiritual harm that we have experienced without knowing it, those experiences would have tainted our experience of faith in spiritual midlife, all this begins to surface and healing needs to happen. And that's why we need trauma informed spaces.

[00:37:03] And unfortunately, a lot of the usual spiritual formation spaces are not yet trauma informed, they're just not aware of that yet. But I just want to say that even if someone is not formally trained to be trauma informed, my experience is that those who are really humble and attuned, and who maybe themselves have gone through spiritual midlife, they naturally would be more attuned and supernaturally, I say a really good spiritual director, for example, would be attuned to the Holy Spirit and will feel, will listen to the promptings of how the Holy is asking him or her respond to you, o kay. 

[00:37:43] It doesn't have to be somebody who intellectually understands what being trauma informed is. If you find the right person, they will be safe for you. You feel seen, you will feel held, you will experience unconditional acceptance and love that you cannot offer yourself when you're going through this, and that that's what you need to be looking for, okay? Yeah, because this is a time when psychological and spiritual dimensions are being integrated.

[00:38:09] Last point before I wrap today's sharing up is that a lot of people who have entered spiritual midlife are filled with anxiety and doubt because everything that they thought was so clear before feel drawn in a direction that can even seem and feel very wrong based on their first half of life understanding of what faith should be. So, the fear of leaving certainty and clear black-and-white beliefs behind is very normal part of spiritual midlife crisis, okay? 

[00:38:40] The midlife experience in general, even before you enter the crisis part of midlife. But especially when you enter the crisis part of midlife. It's really an excavation of the foundations, of our human foundations, okay. So, this fear, this anxiety of leaving behind what was so clearly stated for us in past, what is wrong, right, what is wrong. That's normal. And so, if you so you feel you're experiencing that, don't be afraid. You are normal, okay. It's a normal part of the transformation process. 

[00:39:10] So, if you think you might be in spiritual midlife or spiritual midlife crisis, you know, I encourage to get support and find out. And it can just begin by, for example, reading the book, When your Heart waits, which is the book I read. Which is a very gentle and beautiful book because it was Sue Monk Kidd describing her experience of her entering that time of her life. She writes beautifully. I mean, she's an incredible author as well. So, that's a very gentle way of maybe finding out if you're also entering spiritual midlife and feeling accompanied by the writer who was describing her experiences of entering spiritual midlife. 

[00:39:51] FINAL THOUGHTS
All right, so, that's it for today's sharing. I hope that you found it helpful and if that's what you're going right now, just know that I'm praying you, that the right support will come to you or that you find the right support and just remember God's grace truly is sufficient. It's not easy but it will be sufficient. 

[00:40:15] And don't give up and don't feel bad if you feel like you can't keep going. All that is normal. And there's just so much compassion that God has for us. And remember, people who haven't gone through this part of their journey will not understand. Okay, so just be discerning who you share with, because really, those who have not gone through it will not be able to understand it and may even give you harmful advice that will distress you further. So, take care. Until the next time. Bye!

[00:40:47] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

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