Unlearning the Myth of Midlife

Renae: Yeah, that’s wild. Yeah. Our kids, though.

Laura: I know, right? This is why people get old.

Renae: It’s not time. I have a practice of showing my children the gray hairs on my head and saying, I didn’t have any of these. This one here is when this happened.

Laura: This one here is when this

Renae: You can’t count for all of them. You all made this happen on my head.

Laura: You made my brain hurt so bad, my hair turned gray.

Renae: Well, the good news is it’s more of a silvery white. I’m actually, I don’t want to be in between, but I’m going to be in between. But if I have to, I would just like to skip forward to the silvery white hair.

Laura: Yeah, I’m growing mine now. You can see this is my gray right now, but then all of these ends are still colored.

Renae: I call it my wisdom. go, oh, can you see my wisdom? That’s what I’m calling it.

Laura: My sage wisdom.

Renae: Well, and I love the fact that we, I mean, it is more acceptable now than ever. Yes. And I think we could transition this a little bit to podcast talk to talk about. About that Gen X thing, because I don’t know if you’ve seen the memes going around of all of these TV show characters that said, this character was 48 years old, this character was 45 years old, this character was 50, and they look old, and we are those ages, and we do not look like that.

Laura: Right, true.

Renae: And I’ve not done any plastic surgery, I’m not a big fan of surgery to begin with, but I can’t stand it. It has to be life-saving for me, this is for me, for what my body and brain can handle. But I do, you know, I wash my face, and I do face masks, and I do remember I was, oh gosh, I think I must have been like 12 years. And I was living with my father had custody of us at that point. And he took me to the Clinique counter. And the Clinique counter to have the ladies teach me how to take care of my face with the bar of soap, right? The bar, the Clinique bar of soap.

Laura: I had a similar experience on the Huntington Mall.

Renae: I got a makeover. Yes.

Laura: And then, you know, got the associated products to continue being made over.

Renae: Right. Right. And so it was, it was the, here’s how you put on eyeshadow. Here’s how you put on lipstick. Here’s how you put on blush and foundation. And then we’re going to take it all off. At which point you’re introduced to the Clinique bar soap, the toner. And the moisturizer. Right. Like this is right.

Laura: Had all of those.

Renae: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. The woman at the counter said something that impacted me so strongly that my brain believes whether it’s true or not. I’ve never researched it, but what she said is, every night you don’t wash your face, when you have product on it, you are aging it a week.

Laura: Oh my gosh! That’s motivating.

Renae: And so I’m like, yes ma’am! Scrub-a-scrub-a.

Laura: Oh my gosh. That’s great.

Renae: But like, so yeah, I get it, like we’re into face care, skin care is better. I’m also convinced that we had so many more preservatives in our food during our fundamental years.

Laura: Preserving them. Wow, yeah.

Renae: But how, like, when we, when we’re thinking about out! Even this idea, what was shown to us in media, and maybe even in people in our lives, of where you’re supposed to be at middle age, and what life’s supposed to look like, and how do we reconcile that it is very, very, very different than what we were told it was.

Laura: Right? Well, also, retirement age, too, I think has something to do with it. feel like people used to retire at 55. My father-in-law did. My grandpa did. We have a huge retirement party, and then you don’t work. Like, there’s no way I’m retiring at 55. I don’t even want to. You know? But I guess that also goes back to, like, you work a job you hate for 40 years. And I don’t think people do that like they used to either.

Renae: No. No. Not in general.

Laura: And yeah, like you work that you show up every day, you hate your life, and then you get this reward where you don’t have to go there anymore. And I think that we’ve become a little bit better at building lives that we don’t have to retire from. Hopefully.

Renae: Well, yeah, I had someone in my family of origin is like, oh, I have the best get rich quick scheme ever. And I was like, what’s that? She’s like, you go to work for 40 days, five days a week for 30 years. Yeah. I was like, oh, yeah.

Laura: That’s less exciting than I was hoping.

Renae: Cool. Cool. And also, you know, I, I, the longest place I’ve ever worked was, well, that’s not true. I worked at one place, but I, twice. And so they count the years of service. And so I was there for 10 years total. And then the next place. It was, you know, seven years. was as much as I could do. But I think there is also, we are more psychologically aware of what we can stand or feels good.

Laura: Yeah.

Renae: And I’m wondering, too, there, you know, there is something that, and I don’t want to tell your story here, so you tell as much as you want. But I do think that when we hit middle age and drinking stops feeling good and is more about something else often. Now, like, you know, I drink wine, I drink alcohol. I’m not, I’m not, I am not a sober person. Like, I do. And I also have gone months and years without drinking for various reasons, not even on purpose.

Laura: It just is. You just have a different relationship with it than I ever did.

Renae: Well, one of the things that happened was COVID. One was 2016 happened and then COVID happened. And what I remember happening during 2016 is there was this moment where for a lot of women, because it was a painful time in so many ways, as we were watching the resurgence of false narratives about who we get to be in this world. And I was noticing that in my Facebook feed, there was like a parting of the Red Sea, and I had my female friend. friends that were like, the only cure for this is about a bottle of wine a night. And the other other half were like, I need to be really aware right now. And I cannot numb myself against the pain of what’s actually happening. And I think that that’s kind of stayed in a lot of ways, as a, like, I don’t, I, I don’t want to numb myself. Right, if I know that it’s, if it’s keeping me from paying attention to things that are actually important, actionable, and it’s more painful. But it’s, I think, I think that that’s, there’s something in that, in that, the way things are different for us in this, is this Gen X, you know, space, is that because of that awareness, we are. We aren’t ready to settle for things. We’re not necessarily numbing ourselves. And it could happen in other ways, too. I don’t want to pick out alcohol. It can be shopping. It can be TikTok. It can be Facebook. There’s all kinds of things that can take the place of that numbing. And we all, broad stroke here, we all have a way that we numb. And it just is whether it’s healthy or it’s true, honestly.

Laura: I mean, you may or may not be aware of it, but you’re doing something.

Renae: Yeah. So how does that resonate with you?

Laura: Yeah. When you started to talk about that, I was thinking about how I think that compared to, you know, like our parents’ generation, we’re certainly more aware of our mental health. And it’s… We have more coping skills now. But then I thought, well, do I just have more coping skills? I need to develop them. But I think that they’re more readily available. And it’s also, Dan and were just talking about this, like, my mom, our parents still are just like, that person went to a therapist. What was wrong with them? You know, like, it’s so, you didn’t do that unless you’re having a psychotic break.

Renae: You know what I mean?

Laura: And now it’s just like, oh, yeah, I went to my therapist. I think that that kind of stuff being so much more normal. And as a sign of, as a sign of mental health, like, it used to be a sign of a mental break.

Renae: And now it’s a sign of mental health. Yeah.

Laura: So that’s a huge difference, too, I think.

Renae: Well, think there’s something about that, right? The mental illness, we often define as that we have stressors that are greater than The coping strategies that we have available to us, right? So that’s when we don’t know what, you know, what to do or who to call, then we have a mental health crisis because our brain is just going to grab anything to try to meet that need because we don’t know how else to get our needs met. And that is tied to like our attachment strategies. It’s tied to our habits. It’s tied to our environment, what those particular things are going to be. But the practice of I’m going to practice with this person, I’m paying them money to talk about my feelings, to practice talking about what’s going on with me. So that when they’re not there, I can take those reflective habits, practices, methods. And internalize it. Or do it with other people, right? And that is a, I think that’s a shift too. And I know we’re, you know, both of us come from specific people groups in America. So we’re white ladies. Right.

Laura: We’re white Midwesterners. I have absolutely that, that, and that with that Protestant work ethic.

Renae: And, and often from European stock that’s like, walk it off, shake it off, you know, rub some dirt in it.

Laura: You’re You’re fine.

Renae: And so there is a, there is this kind of, when there’s a, that push back to say, no, that’s not my identity. I’m. I’m. Actually this, I’m actually an artist, or I’m actually expressive, or I’m actually passionate, or I’m actually creative. And I think that that’s been a big part of it, too. I love the fact that you have, you know, creative people in your family who are figuring out how to do it as a living, and then also coming to the reality of challenging that.

Laura: It’s not for the weak.

Renae: It’s not for the weak, right? And even that’s funny, like, in my head, there’s this little voice that just said, well, if you were up, you know, strong, you could show up for this job that you hate, right? And then no, it’s opposite. Oh, that’s really wild. just came up for me. but even, think that that, that four-year, how deep that programming goes, right?

Laura: Duke, we got on the phone next week and you were like, yeah, I’m taking a job, I don’t really like it, I’d be like, are you okay? Like, I’d be real surprised.

Renae: I cannot imagine. There’s been one job that I’ve applied to the last year, and it was just because it felt like, well, I knew I could do it, and it was remote.

Laura: If it was going to be what you had expected, I think it would be a good fit, yeah.

Renae: But I can’t, like, what is, this all comes back to, what is it about our, this time of life for this group of people who are in this gen X space, which you, you know, hear a lot on the Facebook, Instagram, and TikToks about, you know, the feral generation, and we’re tough, and we’re mean, and we, like, survivors, and we’re And right. So we learned we learned a lot about meeting our own needs, but there’s also this piece of like kind of knowing you might be dead inside a little bit because of that, because, you know, that’s ostensibly your attachment figures are supposed to be meeting your needs. But you’re, but the fact that you even would know them. Like that you need them.

Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Renae: I think that’s different because our needs aren’t, I want to be, I want to have a house with a white picket fence, 2.3 kids, you know, the, the, the Volvo in the driveway.

Laura: Yeah. even like I said a different way, like not even necessarily knowing your needs, but knowing to ask that question and not just defaulting to this is what you do, but to be able to. Say, is it? Is it what I need to do? Is it what I have to do? What could I do instead? What would I do instead? You know, like you, I feel like people assume their needs. You know what I mean? But this idea that you question them and then you dig into what are your own needs is an interesting concept that I think is probably newer with our generation.

Renae: Well, and I think we’ve grown suspicious of advertising because what I just named is the things that you’re supposed to, quote unquote, achieve or strive for was being sold to you by people who sell those products.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah, that too.

Renae: So for you, what was the, like, can you name for you when some of that switch of like, oh, maybe I am, maybe I am a person who thrives best in. A different environment, and, you know, it doesn’t have to be exactly the way that I’ve been programmed or told.

Laura: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think there’s a lot of little steps along the way. I was working a job in corporate America doing human resources, and I knew I hated that. Yeah, and it was one of those things where, on paper, everything was great. worked for a nice company, and they, you know, and I did what you’re supposed to do. I got increasing levels of responsibility, and I worked hard, and I figured out how I could do more, and then I was still not happy, no matter how many times I got promoted. And it wasn’t anyone’s fault, which was a frustrating thing. Like, because I think you were, I think I was, and I was pretty young at the time, like, you, I don’t know if everyone does this, but I think the first thing I was doing was, Looking for something outside of me that I needed to change. Do you know what I mean? Or it was someone else’s fault or it was circumstances or what. And then I happened to randomly read this hokey internet article that said, you should follow your dreams. I mean, it was something like that. And that really made me pause and be like, well, what if I did?

Renae: What are my dreams?

Laura: And so that set me off on a different path of then continuing to rise through corporate America. Like I could be a vice president at Nationwide right now.

Renae: Yeah.

Laura: If I hadn’t read that one random article to be like, okay, well, what really would that look like? Because this ain’t it. Right. I don’t know. What about you? When were you, were you like working at a regular job? And was just like, this is not for me.

Renae: Or did you start out not doing that? You know, I did a lot of different jobs, and what I noticed in my early professional years is I would go between a management position where I had a lot of direct response, like direct reports and a lot of responsibility. I would burn out, and then I’d go work an admin job. So I’d recover, and then I’d go back into management. So you see this interplay on my resume of management position, high management position, admin. People are like, and I’m like, no, it’s just my burnout cycle. I can do the admin, I can do it quick, and I can do 40 hours worth of work in about 20, 15, or 20, which gives me a lot of downtime to… … … … … … Do personal enrichment, to recharge, and so I was like, I’m going to go to grad school, I’m going do the, you know, so I would do, at one point I was working a full-time job, and then volunteering for 20 hours a week in a role at a church, and having a full life, being married, all the things, and people were like, that’s so much, and I’m like, not really. It’s just my, that’s, this is my brain, this is my wacky brain, not knowing at the time that this was tied to my neurodivergence, and just how my brain works, and its need for certain things, and so I had this admin job, which had challenges, but it wasn’t, the challenges weren’t, like there was nothing I couldn’t overcome or do, and I was very effective. And I And Learned a lot of, I learned things there that I still use today, having to do with like grant writing and project management and research, because it was that type of job. But the, that’s that left side of my brain, logistic, paid the bills, good benefits, all those things. And then this church job was in the worship department, and it was just, it was creative, like conducting choirs and building worship experiences and doing events. So it was all very creative, people focused, spiritual. So it met a lot of that right side of my brain type of stuff. So I have to have that balance. And I think for me, the, when I had to step out of. The normal working space, the full-time working space, was when my children moved home from foster care. I’m going to say that correctly. My children, we fostered children and then we adopted them. But when they moved into our home over 14 years ago, it required me to not work full-time for the first time because all of my resources were focused on, we were intensive treatment foster parents, and it was keeping people healthy alive and holding them through their healing journey to start to learn how to trust adults in the world around them. It provided myself safety. All of that brain power, all of that attunement, all of the creativity went into that. I was only able to work one job two days a week, and I was a pediatric chaplain. So people don’t call the chaplain for fun stuff most of the times.

Laura: You can imagine.

Renae: And that job was one of the least stressful jobs I’ve ever had. People are like, how can that be? And it’s just, again, that’s part of my, I don’t know, my gifting, how I’m made to be is to be present with people and hold space to the midst of the times that they would disconnect from humanity because the pain was so great and overwhelming to be a bridge to humanity. So I was doing that with my kids, and I did that in the hospital. And it felt, well, money wasn’t great, it felt very, very much like I, you know, I love. I loved that job. I loved that job. I didn’t want to leave that job, but I had to because of policies that would eventually require me to work when I couldn’t work because of the needs of my children. And so that was the, and then during that time, had a meeting with somebody who said, in a nonprofit, who said, hey, we want to do a foster adoptive kinship support program. What do you think that should look like? And I started to dream, and I started to build, and did it incrementally until eventually built myself a job. And at that point, that should have been my first clue that I should have probably not been an employee, but come in a different way, because that was the end of my, like, regular. Or employability. Like it just was such a, I had to mask so hard to be in a space with other people. I had to, you know, I was going through a whole bunch of other stuff with my family. I had a child who was having mental health crises. I was having my PTSD, my STSD, my Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder, was like off the charts from having all that vicarious trauma. during the healing process. And I stopped functioning as well. And I, that, that probably should have been my, my, my clue. Of course, it was also around 2016. So there’s that. So maybe there is something to do with like the, when I stopped numbing, I started to really see, wait a minute. That’s do All Wait a minute. And I learned more about narcissism and masking and complex PTSD and all of that. And as I was unpacking deep childhood wounds and healing, I had this need to be who I actually am. And it’s costly in some respects.

Laura: hmm.

Renae: I know. It’s sober. That’s what a downer.

Laura: I don’t know. My seven optimism is saying that’s not always going to be costly or at some point you’re to feel worth the cost.

Renae: Oh, it is. It is. I don’t want. So that’s so interesting to you. Right. Like this is why for those who are listening, who don’t know. And I like to talk a lot about the Enneagram because it helps us to make sense of things. And so I’m a healthy eight, usually, mostly, often, healthy eight. And Laura, you are?

Laura: A seven, the enthusiast, optimist.

Renae: An eight.

Laura: My feelings. I would call myself pretty healthy also, too.

Renae: Because of my heightened awareness of those issues. And I’m, the eight is the challenger, the, the, I can’t think of any of the other words, but my, my husband likes that. A think, maybe something like I don’t like that.

Laura: Let’s not do that. Don’t tell Renae that she likes to be in a place of power.

Renae: I do not. No, I like to create safety for myself and others. But I have learned.

Laura: the underdog, I. I will also appreciate it.

Renae: Yes, I would agree. So, yes, my husband likes to call me agitator. My grandfather named me that. And it’s true. I will buck status quo, right? I will buck status quo as much as I possibly can when I see that it’s damaging to people. Yeah.

Laura: Well, also to add to that, what I also appreciate about AIDS, all joking aside, is you’re completely unafraid of conflict. And it feels like normal discussion where I would be extremely conflict avoidant. Because to me, that feels offensive. But to me, I think it’s just a regular pattern of communication.

Renae: Not that you’re not aware of that, but… Yeah. Well, and it’s… I think that’s one of the markers of whether I’m in a healthy place or not is, am I able to be open and curious in that discussion of conflict to say, oh, can I learn something from someone else’s perspective, right? Like, I can stand very firmly for something and still listen for, well, is there wisdom that I can learn from this conversation, from this interaction, and is there a better way? I think that’s the part that, like, surprises people, because I will say, oh, is there a better way of doing this? And then when I’m like, I’m an eight, they’re like, wait a minute, I thought eights were, like, my way or the highway. And I’m like, well, once I’ve, like, really honed in on something, and I’m like, nah, it’s going to be this way. But it’s that way, this is the thing, it’s that way for me.

Laura: Yeah, well, I think that’s a demonstration of the superpower of it. We were coming into conflict with people is uncomfortable for a lot of us, but you’re unafraid of doing that. But by doing that, you can transform that into something that becomes a better way forward for people and not just. Yeah.

Renae: Well, that’s the dream. That’s the dream.

Laura: I don’t even know where this conversation started with.

Renae: So the conversation started with how we are different from what the prescribed middle-aged existence is supposed to be. And I think that this month’s the theme that we’re focusing on for Renae M. Dupuis is the soul. And so the soul is… Both spirituality, rest and play, and then this core of purpose. And so there’s this identity piece in it that when we were talking earlier, you and I, about when we play, we’re releasing fear of judgment. We’re entering into this imagination, this creative place, this I’m going to try on these hats to see what feels good, what other expressions of me there might be. And there’s this imagination. And when we’re doing this with other people, when we’re engaging in this play and this creative work, we’re open to there’s there’s failure is not failure, excuse me, failure is. Part of the derivative expression. And when, when we’re, especially when we’re doing this collectively, we’re bringing all these. Different perspectives to it. And so I think that’s part of the, that piece of, I don’t have to show up in this prescribed identity, and it’s okay for me to discover more about who I am, is I’m engaging in creative expression or expression with other people.

Laura: Right, yeah. I was just watching this artist that I like to follow on Instagram, and she’s always doing these tutorials, and one of the things she said today was, which is something we’ve talked about a lot, but I just loved how she encapsulated it, like your art is going to get better the less you worry about making mistakes with it. And I just think that is a huge concept that doesn’t apply only to that watercolor drawing that she was doing. You know, like, your being in touch with your soul is going to get a lot clearer if you’re not afraid of doing the right thing or a thing that seems weird. Or whatever that might be that you’re placing some kind of judgment on. If you can let go of that, you can get to the truth a lot faster.

Renae: Yeah. And to get to the truth a lot faster, not as a production model, but as a, I want to live into my truth. I want to feel, I want to feel that, that piece that comes with showing up as myself versus putting on a costume or a mask that someone else has prescribed to me.

Laura: Yeah.

Renae: Right. Well, I have, I will put into the show notes that I have a five-day micro-challenge called Rhythms of the Soul or Soul Rhythms that is just five prompts of reflecting on the thing. Things that grow and feed our soul, so that’ll be available, and certainly we continue to come back to soul-centered practices, but I just want to thank you so much for sharing from your experience and identity, and as always, it’s fun to have these types of conversations with you, Laura.

Laura: Yeah, it’s absolutely a pleasure.

Laura: Thank you for having me here. Awesome.