Would you say that in many respects you have put together a pretty good life?   Would you also acknowledge that in the midst of that life you are now living - you have a deep and inescapable sense that there is something vital for you to live- that you are not yet living?   Can you relate to the well known statement of Dante:   "In the middle of the journey of my life, I came to myself within a dark wood where the straightway was utterly lost."   If you can, you may be experiencing what I call the tremendous tension of midlife.    I am using ‘tremendous' in both meanings of the word - tremendous as in a very large amount and tremendous as in really, really great.  I would like to offer you some unique perspective on what a truly tremendous benefit the tension of mid life holds.  At stake at this crossroads are the most important and significant matters that one can engage over the course of their life.  How you navigate this tremendous tension has the potential to leave you dashed on the rocks.   Or it can help you open a way to the deep satisfaction and joy that emerge as you begin to walk on the path that is only yours to walk.   Whether you consider yourself a candidate for the crisis of midlife or someone close to you is in its grip, I'd like to offer you a positive and practical understanding of the experience.   

We are taking a look at the notorious mid-life crisis. This phenomenon, somewhat deservedly, has a bad reputation.   Social scientists question what it is and if it even exits.  What do you think if someone says "my husband is having a midlife crisis?   I confess, I bought my first motorcycle not long after I turned 50.  Apparently I was a year behind, as the market researchers know that sales of Harley's to men peak at the age of 49.   But superficial understanding, or a superficial response to the midlife challenge robs us of the true opportunity the crisis is presenting.

The dictionary defines a 'crisis' as a turning point, or a critical juncture.  The definition does not imply that your crisis is a bad thing or something to be avoided.   It just says it is important - critical.  It is a time to be awake and alert.  A crisis can signal an important turning point or change of direction.  When you think about it, you have navigated many such critical junctures over the course of your life... times when you sensed both perils and possibilities as you set off in a new direction.  They started at least as far back as when very young legs first toddled off to school and your world suddenly became much larger.   

A critical juncture of midlife occurs when there is a deep call from our inner life that we perceive does not have a place in the outer life we have constructed.  

The more distance we feel between that inner call and the life we are now living... the greater the felt sense of tension.  Someone wrote to me recently and said they had this deep yearning for a pilgrimage to another part of the world.  This place represented an entirely different set of simpler spiritual values for him than those he currently experienced or lived.   He also said his wife had zero interest or support of his vision.  There you have the critical juncture and its attendant tension... an insistent inner call that refuses to lie quietly...and the sense that there is no real place for it.   In this example, there is the tension between an inner vision and the commitments and obligations to a spouse who may not share that vision.  So what do you do when faced with this dilemma?   Here is what we typically do.  We deny the crisis that is brewing and look for ways to quiet and numb the tension we feel.  Tension feels, well tense.  Our natural human response to this tension is to look for ways to reduce it.  We can deny the inner call and devote our attention instead to all of the responsibilities of our outer life.  Or alternatively, the inner call may simply burst through and instigate a dramatic reordering of our outer life.   The problem with the former strategy is that it can leave us without vision and vitality.   We begin in some significant way to just go through the motions of our life.   The problem with the latter strategy is that we may not have a deep understanding of what that inner call means and what it is truly asking of us.   We develop fixed and rigid notions of what our next move must be, chasing off after something that seems to be 'it'.   In that way, we can pay a very high price in our outer life and end up living more of a misadventure than our true adventure.  The much more challenging, skillful and ultimately effective strategy is to open to and stay IN the tension.  The task is to hold on to both sides even when the rational mind says there is no way for them to coexist.   This is where the creative crucible is made.   I would advise my friend to not just take off on his pilgrimage, his wife be damned... but to pause right where he is and sit with the meaning of the adventure he imagines.   Maybe there will be a time when he just has to go to be true to his self.   But first he can pause and deeply consider what it is from another part of the world that is calling to him.  He can see how this other part of the planet also resides in his own soul and how those values might have life right now at home.   He can consider  engaging in a deeper, more authentic dialogue with his life partner about what he is coming to see as absolutely vital.   To stay in the tension means to make a decision to 'choose both' - to hold things together that seem to not in any way fit together.  It means to not either deny your inner voice or to make high stake choices in your outer life before you understand what really is at stake for you.   This is no easy task and requires both an inner commitment and outer support to help you stay in the tension.  

To effectively cope with the tremendous tension of midlife your mission is to 1) understand it; 2) recognize its value; and 3) choose to stay and embrace it.   If you will stay there and let the tension do its work - your path will eventually be revealed.  This path will honor both the deepest calling of your inner life AS WELL AS the meaning and commitments of the outer life you have already built.