School of Midlife

121. After the Unraveling: How to Reconnect with Who You Really Are in Midlife

• Laurie Reynoldson • Episode 120

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In this episode: midlife identity shift, feeling stuck, women over 40, personal reinvention, high-achieving women

✨ Show Notes:

You’ve unraveled the roles. You’ve let go of the hustle. You’ve stopped performing.

Now what?

In this raw, grounding episode of The School of Midlife, Laurie Reynoldson explores the space after the unraveling—when you’ve done the work to let go of who you’re not, but haven’t yet figured out who you really are.

If you’ve stopped being the overachiever, the people-pleaser, the approval-seeker—but feel lost in the in-between—this episode is for you.

💡 In This Episode:

  • Why the midlife in-between space is wildly uncomfortable—and wildly necessary
  • The myth of reinvention and why it can become just another performance
  • What to do instead: a softer, sustainable way to reconnect with your real self
  • The 3 most important questions to ask in midlife:
     ➤ What do you want?
     ➤ What does success mean to you?
     ➤ What does your best life actually look like?
  • Why it’s OK (and necessary) to stay in the question before rushing to the answer
  • A light intro to Human Design as a future tool to support identity alignment

🧭 Journal Prompts:

  • What lights you up—even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else?
  • What drains you—mentally, physically, spiritually?
  • What are you curious about—not good at, not known for, just curious?
  • When did I first learn that being high-achieving made me valuable?
  • What would I do differently if I trusted who I was becoming?

🔗 Links & Resources:

📩 JOIN MY MAILING LIST
https://www.schoolofmidlife.com/newsletter

👉 CONNECT WITH LAURIE:
📩 Email Laurie

💻 Website

On Instagram

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Work with Laurie

[00:00:00] If you're a midlife woman who is done or is doing the work, you've unraveled who you're not, but now you're standing in this strange, open, unknown space asking, who am I really? I will just say no one talks about the in-between, especially the midlife identity shifts that so many of us are experiencing.

In this episode of the School of Midlife Podcast, we're talking about how to begin exploring the real you figure out who she is and what's next for her. It doesn't require midlife crisis or a complete midlife makeover. It's as simple as reconnecting with your truest self. Without all of the conditioning and the weight of societal expectations.

So if you're ready to answer the question, who am I? Really? This episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson.

This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself [00:01:00] big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life. 

Well, hey friend. Welcome back to another episode of The School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Lori Reynolds, former award-winning attorney and the founder of The School of Midlife, and I am so happy to have you joining this conversation today. If you are watching the video. Yep. I got a little haircut, a little summer do.

Uh, my hair has been. Long for years. I used to wear it pretty short and this obviously isn't as short as it has been. But I felt like I [00:02:00] needed a little bit of change, so took about six inches off the bottom. Anyway, um, great to have you here. But I know you didn't come here for my haircut.

So let's start here. Have you ever had that moment where you think, if I'm not who I've always been, then who am I now? Because you just don't feel like yourself anymore. Your life doesn't feel right anymore. And you've tried some things to get back to you.

The you who feels most like who you think you are. And to do that, you've had to let go of some of the hustle. You're not chasing the same things anymore. You've started saying no more often. You're certainly not performing as much. And for the first time maybe ever, you're not trying to be someone else. But that leaves you kind of standing in this strange in-between space where you [00:03:00] feel a little untethered.

Maybe even a little disoriented and asking the big question, If I'm not her, then who am I? And that's what we're unpacking today.

I will say, it certainly was not my intention to create a series of podcast episodes with similar themes and topics, but here we are. It's week three in the, I wanna feel more like myself series because, because of the comments.

You are loving this topic. Thank you so much. For those of you who have reached out to me, either DM me on Instagram or send me emails. Some of you have texted me. Like I said, I love hearing from you because this is such a one to many conversation, but a lot of times I wonder, is what I'm saying landing? Is there anybody out there listening? And I am grateful for those of you who have taken the time to send just some comments my way. That helps so much with the [00:04:00] programming. And since there has been so much excitement around this topic, we're gonna try it again for a third week. Uh, a little different slant.

So. If you don't know what I'm talking about, let me catch you up real quick. In the last two episodes, we've talked about letting go of a high achieving persona, the one that has helped us survive in male dominated workplaces and frankly, the male dominated world in general. It's allowed us to survive in people pleasing roles and in relationships that were built on us performing.

A lot of us have been being or doing something that we learned to be, or that we have been conditioned to be. Basically, we're showing up in a way that it might not be fully aligned with who it is we actually are, but of course we had no idea we were [00:05:00] doing this right. It's because it's what we learned most of us very early on.

It's who we had to be, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to get approval, to be loved. It's just who we are. Or maybe more accurately. Who we were.

We, we've also in the last couple of episodes, talked about how doing all the physical work in midlife, so dialing in the hormones, eating the right food, all the protein, less sugar, less alcohol. We're doing all that. We're, we're getting more sleep. We're taking the supplements, all of the fixing of the physical stuff in midlife. Yes, it makes us feel better, but it can still leave us feeling a little off because of the real shift that has to happen, That's that's internal.

If you haven't had the chance to listen to the last two episodes, you can either pause this episode [00:06:00] right now, go back and listen to them. There will be clickable links in the show notes, or you can just make a note of yourself to make sure you pick 'em up after this, whatever works for you. Um, while you're listening to those, make sure though you're following the show because if you are following the show, then you're gonna automatically get the new episodes and then you won't get to episode three in a three part series and be like, why didn't I listen to the other two? So just make sure you're following the School of Midlife podcast. That would be so great. 

If you've been doing that internal work, you might find yourself now somewhere between identities. On the one hand, you've got Suzie High-Achiever, the overachieving version of yourself that the world rewarded because she was doing all the things for all the people all the time.

And on the other hand, you've either stopped or you're trying to stop being Suzie High-Achiever. But, and, and that's a big, but you haven't quite figured out [00:07:00] who it is that's waiting for you underneath all of that high achieving overperforming people pleasing who? Who is that woman? If that's not Suzie High-Achiever, who is she?

Who is that woman? So we've got Suzie High-Achiever over here. We've got non Suzy High Achiever over here, and that in between space. That's where a lot of women quit or they numb out or they distract themselves, or they decide, you know what? I don't have the time or the energy to deal with this right now. There are way more important things in my life. I'm just gonna be happy with the life that I have right now. Which for many of us, it's pretty good. It's not bad. And so we think I'll just pick up what I need to do, I'll pick this up again when there isn't so much going on. Which just means that we'll delay the work even further because when we pick it up again, we feel [00:08:00] that midlife angst again when we've doubled down on the physical changes in midlife and we still don't feel like ourselves. We'll be in exactly the same spot, that same in-between spot that we are right now, but it'll be one or two or five years down the road.

Why do we quit then when we're in the in-between? Because let's be honest, not knowing who we really are or where we're going, or what we're doing, or what we want, that unknowing, It's wildly uncomfortable, but I wanna offer you this today. You're not lost, you are not behind. Hear me? You are exactly where you need to be at this exact moment. This in-between, this uncomfortableness, the angst, the feeling that your life just doesn't fit anymore. It's not a problem.

It's, it's an opportunity. It's a beginning. It's a chance [00:09:00] to start. Again, not, not from zero, but from the years of experience. It's your chance to become the woman you are always meant to be. The woman who you were before the world told you who you should be. So it's an opportunity and it's about fucking time we start taking advantage of it, right.

Let's talk about a big myth that shows up and shows up hard in midlife. And that's this myth of reinvention. The idea that we have to burn it all down, completely reinvent ourselves. Start over from scratch and look, I get the appeal. When you are disillusioned or burned out, reinvention feels shiny, it feels productive. It's new, it's exciting.

But more often than not, that urge to reinvent yourself. It's usually just another performance. What do I mean by that? You are not here at midlife to become someone totally new. [00:10:00] You're here to become someone more aligned. This isn't about reinvention. It's, it's about reconnection. Reconnection to the person you were always meant to be before the world told you who you should be, what you should become, how you should act, what you should aspire to.

And hear me. If you rush into this next version of yourself too fast without checking for alignment, seeing if it feels right, you risk literally trading one identity trap for another. Trust me, I've, I've done it.

Mean, when I left the law, I dove immediately into commercial real estate brokerage, so same industry I'd been in for 20 years, commercial real estate. It was just a different part of the deal, or it was supposed to be a different part of the deal because instead of negotiating all the legal documents, I, I was going out and I was finding the buyers, I was [00:11:00] finding the sellers, I was finding the tenants to lease the space. So I was in theory putting the deal together on the front end.

But I say in theory, because so much of my identity was still tied to being an attorney, which meant I generally negotiated the front part of the deal, put the deal together and then I also negotiated the legal part. Yeah, that's right. So for my clients, not only did I put the deal together for them so that the part that I was gonna get paid, but for most of them I also negotiated all the legal documents.

Um, for no compensation. I mean, I got paid if the real estate deal closed, but the tens of thousands of dollars my clients saved because I also did the legal review. Well, I most certainly didn't get paid for that. Which meant I had literally left a career that required me to hustle and grade [00:12:00] every day seeking approval and applause.

You know? Great job. We couldn't have done it without you. You totally saved us. Well, I traded one career for essentially the exact same one because I was still hustling for approval. Sure. I was having more fun in brokerage, but I was still giving away my services for free. I was still sacrificing my personal time for someone else's economic gain.

And the crazy thing: I just told myself that I'm really good at my job, and I was, I am. But some of that is because I was raised to provide for others at all costs. Even if that meant sacrificing my own personal time or my own personal health.

You need my help while I'm on vacation. No problem. I will take my laptop. I will be on that conference call. I will keep the deal moving while I'm gone, even though you didn't ask me to.[00:13:00] 

I did that for decades because honestly, I believe that my worth was so integrally tied to what I was doing for others, how I was performing, what I could accomplish. I didn't ever wanna let anybody down.

Can you relate at all to that? If you are at all in a service industry, my guess is you probably can because as women, most of the time we are the most prepared people in a meeting in the room because we have to be. We're also the ones that are the most dependable. If they want something, something done, invariably they're going to ask us, because if you're like me, you have a hard time saying no to people.

Yeah, I'll get the work done. Will I be happy about it? I'll probably grouse about it, not to you. I'll keep that to myself, but yeah, I'm gonna get it done.

And for me, it wasn't [00:14:00] until I was squarely a midlife after years of doing so much inner work after figuring out what I wanted, what success meant to me. After I had a very clear picture of what my best life looked like, that I finally learned that I'm worthy now. Just because. For no other reason than I am. It's literally that simple. Worthy, right now, not worthy because of what I can do or achieve, or how I perform. Worthy now because I am. Period. Full stop.

So today I wanna offer you a softer, we'll call it more sustainable way forward. Let's start with what's true, because even if it's small, it's still true. You don't need to overhaul your life. You just need to get curious about what feels real and [00:15:00] honest and energizing to you.

I mentioned the three critical questions that form the foundation of all the coaching work I do at the School of Midlife because that's what helped me get to where I am right now. And those three questions are, what do you want? What does success mean to you? What does your best life look like? We've talked about these a lot on the podcast before.

What do you want? Not. Not what you've been conditioned to want, not what society tells you to want, not what your parents raised you to want, but what do you actually want you, what do you actually want?

What does success mean to you? And it's, it's not a paycheck. It's not a job title. It's not all of the things, the list of accomplishments that you have done. It's not that. It's something more. And only you know what that something more is. What does success mean to you?

And then thirdly, what does your best life look like? Because the thing is, is you can keep adding things to your [00:16:00] to-do list. Doing more, doing more for others, doing all the things. But if that's not part of who you are and how you wanna be living your life, then that's just gonna leave you burned out and overworked and overperforming. It it, and exactly repeating the exact same things that you've been doing over and over again.

And I don't want that for you. You don't want that for you. You should demand more for your life. So with these three questions, I've developed scientifically backed results, proven frameworks that help all of my clients find their honest and true and aligned answers to all of those questions. Here's, here's a little invitation for you.

If you're ready to start feeling like yourself and midlife and beyond, and you wanna work with us at the School of Midlife, whether that's one-on-one coaching or in our signature group program called the Gap Year, or in person at our best life retreats, which are amazing, [00:17:00] Then send me a DM on Instagram or hit the clickable link below and let's talk.

I will say, even if it's not with the School of Midlife, I hope it is, but even. Even if it's not, I just hope that you will get some coaching around this because we, we did great in school. We learned how to study for the tests. This is something different. This is this type of figuring out what you want to do with the rest of your life, this is different than any school you've ever been to before, and I would love to be the person that helps you with this, but if it's not me, that's fine. But you owe it to yourself to do this work and to get some help doing it.

This, this, this is probably gonna sound a little like some tough love, but here's, here's the honest truth. If you are on the fence about spending time and money on yourself to figure out who [00:18:00] you are now and what's next for you in midlife and beyond. That's okay. Maybe you feel guilty about spending money on yourself, or you feel guilty about spending time away from your family, that's totally fine. But I'd probably also say, and here is the hard truth, that if you're feeling guilty about those things, that's exactly why you should figure out a way to work with us at the School of Midlife or find another coach.

 Let me ask you something. When was the last time you stepped away from your life to actually focus on your life? No emails, no group texts, no one asking, what's for dinner? Just space. Just time for you.

If one day sounds like a dream, imagine what an entire weekend could do. 

I am inviting you to join me for the next Best Life Retreat in breathtaking Sun Valley, Idaho, a luxurious, intimate escape, designed specifically for [00:19:00] midlife women like you .

We will spend the weekend diving into powerful group coaching sessions that help you reconnect with who you are, what you want, and what your best life looks like right now. And between those breakthroughs, you'll enjoy sunrise hikes, spa treatments, gourmet meals, curated cocktails, and the best gift bag you've ever seen.

This isn't a vacation, it is a turning point. One woman has even described the weekend as: that retreat changed my life. Space is limited to just eight women, and when the spots are gone, they're gone. So if you're craving some space, clarity, connection, and maybe even a little magic, click the link in the show notes and grab your seat right now. And I'll see you in Sun Valley .

I'd probably say if you're feeling guilty about those things, that's exactly why you should work with a coach. This angst this int Betweenness. [00:20:00] This is something you cannot, well, I was gonna say, you can't figure it out on your own. You can figure it out on your own. But how many more years do you wanna spend end adding more to your to-do list? Working more, continuing the cycle of overwork and overperforming and feeling burned out.

It is gonna be a lot quicker. It's gonna be a lot less painful if you just hire a coach. So again, I hope it's with us. If it's not, no problem. But I also get that maybe the time just isn't right for you. I get it. Um, maybe there's just too much going on. You just feel like you don't have the bandwidth to spend any more time on yourself.

That's great if, if that's the case, I wanna just give you a simple structure that you can start working with right now. You might wanna grab a piece of paper or open the notes app on your phone, [00:21:00] however you want to take down the notes. Or you can download this episode so you can come back to it and listen to it again.

Here's what I want you to spend some time thinking about. You can think about it. You can, uh, record voice notes about it. You can journal on it, you can mind map on it, however you feel the most comfortable with this information. But this is, this is what we wanna talk about.

What lights you up? And when I say what lights you up, I don't mean what looks impressive or sounds important or adds something new to your LinkedIn profile.

When I say, what lights you up, I'm not talking about things that are marketable or Instagramable. That that's a mouthful. But what lights you up, even if it makes zero sense to anyone else. Is it drawing? Is it gardening? Is it, maybe it's midday naps or women's circles, or hiking without a watch?

I [00:22:00] don't know, but you should. What is it? What lights you up? What are the moments? What are you doing when you are the most lit up? When you most feel like yourself? Write them all down. Follow the sparks, the images, the moments. They'll lead you somewhere honest. If you do this, honestly, this is just for you, so no one's gonna see it.

No one's gonna copy your work. No one's gonna judge you by it. What lights you up? Write it down, be honest with yourself.

Number two, what drains you? Where are you overgiving? What conversations and relationships leave you depleted? What roles you keep playing out of habit or guilt? What are you doing when you feel most exhausted?

Mentally or physically? Or spiritually, or maybe all three? What [00:23:00] drains you? Where in your life are you still overgiving, overperforming, over proving, over functioning. Start noticing. Pay attention to what you're feeling in your body and where you're feeling it. You've probably heard before that the body keeps the score.

Yep. Well, great news. All those moments and experiences that you didn't wanna deal with at the time, the ones you buried and stuffed way down there, the ones that you'd rather forget, well, your body still remembers. They're, they're all still in there waiting for you to deal with them.

If you are paying attention. If you really get quiet and listen to yourself when you're answering these questions, your body's gonna tell you the truth. It's gonna tell you exactly what drains you.

And then finally, [00:24:00] I want you to think about what are you curious about? Curious. Not what you already know, not what you're good at, but what makes your head tilt?

Like my sweet dog, Theo, when you talk to him, he tilts his head. I love it. It's like he's trying to understand me, but what makes your head tilt and think to yourself, Hmm, that's interesting. Or I wonder why or how does that work?

I think a lot of us know what it means to keep doing something because we're good at it. Or because it's familiar or because we can do it on autopilot or in our sleep. But ask yourself, is that how you really wanna live your life? Is that how you want to spend your midlife years on autopilot doing things that are familiar? It is time to get curious, especially in midlife if you're wondering what's next for you, [00:25:00] Curiosity can be this incredible compass pointing you in the right well right for you, pointing you in the right for you direction. When the certainty you're seeking feels out of reach, like you just can't quite get back to yourself, start with curiosity.

So those are the three things that are perfect way to start. What lights you up? What drains you? What are you curious about?

I know that in the last episode I mentioned Human Design, and I am so excited about bringing Human Design in my coaching practice because it's all about energetics and alignment and becoming the person who you are always meant to be. And I'm, I'm not ready.

To go deep into it, yet with you here on the podcast, because I'm still getting certified and I wanna make sure I can teach it in a grounded, meaningful way. But here's what I will say. Human Design offers an energetic [00:26:00] blueprint of who you were before the world told you who to be. It's not a personality test, it's not a type or a trend. It's a way to reconnect with the real you. The you beneath all of the conditioning, all of the learning, all of the proving, all of the overdoing. And in the coming months, I'll be sharing more about how this can help you tune into your own unique wiring so that you can start making decisions from alignment and not pressure.

But for now, just know that I am constantly adding new tools and approaches to my coaching practice of the School of Midlife. So that. Midlife women, just like you have all of the tools and information and support you need to live your very best life in midlife and beyond.

So now that you are standing in this space and between the woman you [00:27:00] were and the woman you're becoming, what do you do with that awareness? Here's what I wanna leave you with. Becoming who you really are doesn't start with doing. For most of us, most of our lives we've been doing. And somewhere along the way it feels like we've forgotten that we're human beings, not human doings. And to become who we always were meant to be, it has to start with knowing ourselves, figuring out who we were before the world told us who we were supposed to be.

It starts with remembering who we are at our core. And know this, you do not Absolutely do not need to have a five-year plan right now. This work, this inner work doesn't need to be your full-time job. You just need to be willing to feel your way forward. To figure things [00:28:00] out for yourself, even when it's uncomfortable.

I'd invite you to stay in the questions, not rush to the answers. This, this isn't one of those things where the first person to figure it out wins. I mean, there is really, there's no finish line to cross here. If you've been living a certain way for 40 plus years. I think you'll agree that it's gonna take a little bit longer than listening to this podcast and the time you spend answering the questions I gave you to figure this out. Right. That makes sense. It's gonna, it's gonna take some time and be okay with that.

I. I guess at this point you really have a choice. You can stuff all of that knowledge about who you really are, You can stuff that down with all of the stuff that you've already stuffed down inside of you, and you can keep performing. You can ignore all the new [00:29:00] knowledge and keep up with a grind. Just keep hustling, keep grinding.

Or you can become her. The version of you that's been waiting for you your whole life. You can become her, the version of you who doesn't need to prove anything. Who doesn't need to win approval. Who doesn't need to hustle to be worthy.

She's already here. She's just waiting for your permission to come out of hiding.

If this episode stirred something in you, I wanna invite you to sit with a few more questions this week. You can write them down on that piece of paper that you grabbed or just reflect on them in the quiet moments of your day, whatever you prefer to do.

But here are five more because I'm just giving you que [00:30:00] lots and lots of questions in this episode. But here you go.

When did I first learn that being high achieving made me valuable?

What parts of me have I suppressed to succeed or fit in?

What does alignment feel like in my body?

When do I feel most like myself?

And finally, What would I do differently in my life if I trusted who I was becoming?

If you want any support as you navigate this work, dm me the word becoming on Instagram or email me with that in the subject line. I'd love to support you as you try and figure this out in a way that feels grounded and expansive and completely aligned. With you and your [00:31:00] individual truth.

The bottom line here is midlife isn't a crisis. It can be if we keep overperforming and people pleasing and overachieving, and never actually allow ourselves the time and the space to become the women we were always meant to be, it can be a crisis.

But for most of us, those of us who are tired of being who we should be, and we want to live a life that makes us feel the most like ourselves, for us midlife is this moment of clarity. And that clarity is such a gift if you're willing to slow down and listen to it. If you're willing to slow down and listen.

If you are, if you are willing to stay in the uncomfortable middle for just a second more than it feels like you wanna turn and run. If you can sit there and figure it out, that clarity will come. [00:32:00] It'll come, I promise, and it'll be so worth it.

Thank you so much for being here today. If this episode resonated with you, please, please share it with a friend. One woman, passing this message on to another, that's how the change begins. And as you know, we are on a mission here at the School of Midlife and we need your help. So thank you so much for being here today. I will see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session. And until then, take good care.

 Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an [00:33:00] episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. 

So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.

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Laurie Reynoldson

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