How ‘chrysalis thinking’ can help you get the most out of your midlife reinvention

Midlife gets a bad rap. The phrase “midlife crisis” was coined by a male psychoanalyst in 1965 and has stuck – with all its connotations of men cheating with their secretaries and spending all their money on a Ferrari. It is always framed as a desperate clinging on to youth, a final foray before death and age beckon us into that long goodnight. 

But the truth is that now many of us hitting midlife like me (I was born in 1970) have a good chance of living another 50 years. And in the 100-year life, 50 is only halfway through. It’s strange that longevity is the great gift science has bestowed on us (life expectancies have doubled since 1900), but we haven’t caught up with that in the way that we think about our lives.

All too often we act like a theatre director who has created a two-hour play and then is told – oh, actually it can run for two and a half hours; but rather than re-pacing the whole production just tags on a rambling extra 30-minute coda.

As we live longer, we are all going to have to rethink the segments of our life. Currently we think in three acts: youth and education, work – then retirement. But this is now being reconsidered. The extra chunk of good life we now get between 50 and 75 – is what thought leader Avivah Wittenberg-Cox calls Q3 in her podcast4-Quarter Lives. I also examine this crucial period in my upcoming book about midlife, Much More to Come, as the “age of becoming”. 

“Chrysalis thinking” is the new buzzword for how we can all capture the opportunity that this extra bit of time gives us. Leading this thinking is American midlife guru Chip Conley, founder of the Modern Elder Academy and New York Times best-selling author.

The idea is that we should think of our middle life as “not a crisis but a chrysalis” because beyond the first flush of youth, once we have navigated Q2 – that bit of time between 25 and 50, jobs, kids, houses, worldly success – we hit midlife, and this is the time when we can truly flourish.

David Blanchflower’s global research shows that unhappiness peaks at 47 – when many start to ask “is this it?” at the same time as dealing with the midlife cluster bomb of divorce, bereavement, redundancy, elderly parents, teenage dramas and health issues (and menopause for women).

In the research I conducted for my organisation Noon, over half of those aged 45-60 that we questioned had been through at least five major life events, which often hit together in a midlife collision. 

But the good news is that after this pinch point, many had successfully reset their lives exactly as they wanted them. Having been through a process of midlife shedding – Conley’s chrysalis – they were then much happier.

It takes skill to master the kind of thinking that will help you optimise the internal “chrysalis” and not be taken over by the external crisis. In an article in The Washington Post earlier this week, Conley talked about what he calls the TQ (transition intelligence) required to get through the midlife shift effectively, and it comes in three stages.

I discovered on my own midlife journey (redundancy, an empty nest), the first part of the transition is the ending of everything that has come before. Sometimes that happens out of the blue: we lose jobs, our partner leaves us, somebody dies, we get sick, or it can be more of a gradual sense of staleness, stuckness – a feeling that life is not really working for us anymore. 

The next phase is the messy middle. This feels the most painful time – but in this period of darkness, where we might feel most lost in a “fallow period”, we need to recognise what is happening. Like seeds germinating underground, we are regenerating inside. It’s crucial to mourn what has gone and dig into our deepest selves to uncover our purpose, or what Conley calls the “threads” of what might come next. 

During this time, it helps to have a supportive community around you. During my own “messy middle” I went on a journey of self-discovery involving weeks of silent meditation and yoga, and dabbled in various alternative therapies. Conley believes for a real chrysalis of transformation we need to prune ourselves and shed what no longer serves us – even if that is what was once at the centre of our lives. 

This process is painful: we can’t just lop big tendrils off ourselves and not feel it. The messy middle involves tears, soul searching and bravery. But as the spiritual teacher Ram Dass said: “When we face the thing we cannot bear – the part of us that could not bear it dies” and then we are free to transform ourselves.

My own reinvention has involved cultivating a community of “Queenagers” – women who are consciously taking control of their midlife journeys. Together we have discovered through the kind of chrysalis thinking that Conley talks about, the path out of the messy middle often comes from doing what we love. By tapping into what brings us joy, we activate our deepest sense of purpose and put all the experience and wisdom we have gathered over the years to work.

The third stage of chrysalis thinking and true TQ that Conley talks about is the becoming or, as he calls it, “the beginning”. Do the “painful” work of the messy middle and we have the chance to become the people we always wanted to be before life got in the way; it’s the last roll of the dice.

Reinvention takes many forms: I see people going back to study, writing the book that was always in them, founding businesses or charities, or powering up at work – or volunteering to give something back. Of course, it is easier to reinvent at 50 if you have had a successful prior 25 years, but if this pivot becomes embedded in our culture, then more of us can plan for it, both practically and emotionally.

Some men who have worked at the coalface for 30 years may be ready to slow down, just as their wives, often the primary carers in a family, are free to power up and finally fulfil their potential.

Or women who have the financial comfort that came from climbing a career ladder, may be able to afford to take on a role which pays less in monetary terms, but connects more to what they truly care about. Renegotiations of roles and relationships is a crucial part of chrysalis thinking and true transformation. 

The good news is that, if we embrace the messy middle rather than fight it, we will be rewarded with a renaissance – a shift into a happier, more purposeful, and free sense of self. The start of a whole new chapter!

So what are you waiting for? Be the butterfly you were always meant to be.

Eleanor Mills is the founder of noon.org.uk, a community for women in midlife. Her book ‘Much More to Come: Lessons on the mayhem and magnificence of midlife’ is published by Harper Collins on 1 August