Navigating Midlife and the Soul’s Summons

Somewhere between the certainty of youth and the soft bewilderment of later life, many women find themselves standing at a quiet crossroads, what Jung once called the midlife passage. It doesn’t arrive with fireworks or fanfare. More often, it seeps in through the cracks: a restlessness that no longer responds to the usual remedies, an inexplicable sadness that lingers beneath the surface of a perfectly functional life.

It can look like burnout, disinterest, irritability, or even despair. But underneath, something sacred is stirring: an old self outgrowing its skin.

When the Old Maps No Longer Work

Carl Jung observed that the first half of life is largely devoted to building an identity, securing love, belonging, achievement, a place in the world. This is the ego’s necessary work: to create structure and stability.

But around midlife, the psyche begins to whisper a different instruction. The outer scaffolding - marriage, career, motherhood, reputation - can no longer contain the complexity of who we are becoming. What once gave meaning begins to feel strangely hollow.

As Jungian analyst James Hollis writes, this is not pathology but a summons from the soul: a call to re-examine the life we have built and ask, Does it still serve my deepest self?

The Three F’s: Fear, Fantasy, and Fate

Hollis describes how the first half of life is shaped by three invisible forces: Fear, Fantasy, and Fate.

• Fear drives us to adapt, to please, to perform, to become who we think we must be in order to survive.

• Fantasy promises that one day, when we’ve done enough or loved enough, we’ll finally feel whole.

• Fate is what unfolds when we remain loyal to those early patterns long after they’ve expired.

At midlife, these old adaptations begin to crumble. What used to keep us safe now keeps us small. The psyche rebels. Relationships shift. The familiar storylines collapse. And while it feels like failure, this undoing is sacred work: the soul’s way of insisting that we finally live our own life.

The Tragedy and the Threshold

To witness women in this passage is to witness heartbreak: the grief of outgrowing one’s own life. Many realise they have spent decades abandoning themselves, attuning to everyone else’s needs while quietly silencing their own. The tragedy is that our culture has no rituals for this undoing. We are left to navigate it alone, often believing something has gone wrong.

But this unraveling is not the end of meaning; it’s the dismantling of false meaning. The psyche is clearing space for something more authentic, more soul-shaped, to take root.

Learning to Sit in the Not Knowing

In this liminal space, the greatest temptation is to hurry, to find a new purpose, a new relationship, a new project to make the uncertainty go away. But meaning cannot be manufactured. It has to be listened for.

Jung reminded us that we do not solve our problems; we grow larger than them. Growth happens in the pause, in the uncomfortable, spacious not knowing.

It is here, in the stillness, that we begin to hear the sound of the call.

What Helps During This Time

There is no single map through the midlife passage, but there are gentle practices that help the soul find its footing again:

1. Slow down enough to listen. The psyche speaks softly, through dreams, fatigue, longings, or irritations. Create quiet spaces where you can actually hear it: walks alone, journaling, therapy, solitude without agenda.

2. Mourn what is passing. Every ending deserves a ritual. Honour the identities, roles, and relationships that no longer fit. Grief is not a detour; it’s the doorway to transformation.

3. Stay curious about your symptoms. The anxiety, the numbness, the restlessness - these are not enemies to be fixed but messages to be translated. Ask, 'What is this feeling trying to tell me about what I can no longer ignore?'

4. Find honest companionship. This passage cannot be walked entirely alone. Seek out those who can hold your truth without rushing to tidy it up: a therapist, a women’s circle, or a trusted friend who knows how to listen with the heart.

5. Reclaim the body. The body is the ground of the soul. Notice where it tightens, where it opens, what it longs for. Practices like yoga, breathwork, or even slow dancing in the kitchen can reconnect you to the wisdom underneath the mind’s noise.

6. Trust the unfolding. The not knowing is not punishment; it’s gestation. Something in you is reorganising, reaching toward a larger life. Trust that what feels like loss now is making space for a deeper alignment with who you are becoming.

A Quiet Benediction

If you find yourself in this season - uncertain, aching, half-lost - know that nothing is wrong with you. You are not broken; you are being broken open.

The task is not to fix yourself, but to stay present to what is asking to be born. The invitation is to live more truthfully, more tenderly, more awake to your own aliveness.

In the stillness of not knowing, you may begin to hear it, faintly at first, the sound of the call that has been waiting all along.