5 Midlife Fears That Steal Your Inner Peace
Blog post by Heidi Gustafson
Mindset & Transformation Coach
Mastering Midlife with Heidi is dedicated to helping middle-aged women live their lives with confidence and joy, instead of merely surviving.
Last month, I spent a week in Costa Rica and one of those days was spent in silence.
This was not the plan when I went there, but was a challenge given once I arrived.
Imagine being in this beautiful setting with jungle leading to ocean and monkeys wreaking havoc on your balcony to steal sugar packets… and you can’t talk about it with anyone!
Complete silence with your group of 21 people. The only voices you hear is all the talk in your head!
What is inner peace anyway?
Inner peace is a deliberate state of calm despite potential stresses in your life. It doesn’t happen randomly, and with all the things going on in the world around us on a daily basis, peace can seem fleeting or even non-existent.
It’s like having a room in your house unorganized and filled with clutter. When you walk in the room, it’s hard to feel calm with all the chaos around. So you have to purposefully do what needs to be done to eliminate the stressors.
Inner peace is the same. It doesn’t happen without deliberate effort to “clean up” the chaos in your mind.
Here are five fears I heard spoken in my heart while sitting in silence watching the monkeys party all around me.
1 — The fear of not enough time ⏰
I fight against time and can feel like I’m wasting it, especially when sitting in silence and doing “nothing.”
My mind wants me to believe there’s not enough of it (time) and that I’m wasting what I have by not ‘doing something.’ But time is a human construct. We have created time to have a system in place to measure productivity. There is no more or no less for any one person than another. We all have what we have. Worrying about how much we have or trying to get so much done only creates a sense of stress and lack. Trying to squeeze all our “to-dos” into a certain amount of time in order to feel value about “time well spent” creates anxiety.
2 — The fear of being with my own thoughts 💭
Because of past programming and conditioning when we are kids, our thoughts - when left unchecked - can lead us down dark pathways, places that aren’t comfortable to travel.
There’s no shame in this — it’s completely normal. I like to distract myself and there’s a reason why the concept of on-demand entertainment like streaming services or sharing platforms is such a comfort. It gets uncomfortable being in silence with nothing but your thoughts, even in a beautiful, vibrant place like Costa Rica!
So in order to not hear those voices, we allow our minds to distract us. My mind wanted me to read, to write, to nap, or eat. (A girl’s gotta eat, right?) Or it tricks us into checking social media. (“Just do it… do it! You’re still being silent,” my mind pleaded!) It becomes a game of avoidance that we will inevitably lose and have to face.
3 — The fear of “the void” 🤫
Ten hours of not speaking, even to yourself, creates a huge hole. As humans, we’re accustomed to noise, to no empty spaces.
We’re used to words from the TV, music, other people, etc. How often do you sit in complete silence? I love my alone time and peace and quiet, but when it’s created intentionally, for an unnaturally long length of time, with 20 other people in the house, it began to feel like the silence was a void. And a void can be filled with words. It made me wonder how many times in my life I have said something when no words were needed but because I was uncomfortable with the silence.
4 — The fear that someone is upset 😞
Twenty-one people in an 8 bedroom house passing each other without uttering a word created the thought that some of the people are upset. And because of my programming, if people aren’t talking, that most likely means that they’re mad. And if that’s true, maybe they’re upset at me. A little bit of my people pleaser showed up in my thoughts… wanting to break the silence to make sure everyone was okay. Smooth things over so I could get back to my cozy comfort zone where no one is upset or unhappy.
5 — The fear that everything’s not perfect 😰
Thoughts of perfectionism don't go away, even in silence. Questions that went through my head: Am I doing this right? If I did xyz, would that ruin the hours I put in so far and I’d have to start over? What will the others think if I ‘fail’ at this? You really can’t get silence wrong, and yet my thoughts told me that I could and most likely would… that I would ‘fail’ at something so simple as silence.
Every time we let fear have a little bit of space in our mind and our life, we diminish our sense of peace. It’s easy to blame the “noise” of the world on the reason for your lack of peace, but how much are your own thoughts and fears actually creating this lack? It’s worth a look! Maybe some time in silence is the answer to hear what your heart is telling you.
After completing this exercise, I was able to feel more confident and comfortable with myself because it allowed me to reconnect with the best medicine there is: MY THOUGHTS
Your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings creating your actions, and your actions are what create your reality.
So if you want something to change (your health, job, relationship, finances), you have to change your thoughts about that thing.
And in order to do that, you have to listen.
“All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”
It’s time to trade in fear. Invest in joy. Confidence. Peace.
Say goodbye to your old life and claim your FREE 30-minute consultation to determine if coaching and/or hypnosis feels right for you.