Excavating The Buried Self in Midlife: A Map of Transformation

What if the thing that’s keeping you stuck is the very thing that once made you successful?Your habit of taking care of everybody else while ignoring your own needs.The overwork and perfectionism.The ability to push through no matter how tired you are, and how desperately you want to rest.All of those are survival strategies we adopted to get us here.But by the time we reach midlife, those old strategies have long outlived their usefulness.And still, we keep repeating them. It’s automatic.Which is why insight alone is not enough. Knowing why we do something when we don’t want to is unlikely to lead to change.If we want to stop repeating the same patterns, we need a map.In the season finale of The Midlife Threshold podcast, I share my map of transformation and show how the stories we’ve explored all season illuminate the path.Together, we walked into the dark woods with Vasilisa the Beautiful.We felt the hunger of the girl in The Magic Orange Tree and the grief of the boy in The Stone Child.We watched Anansi play his tricks (and get outsmarted!) in Anansi and the Strange Stone.And we banded together with the villagers to free the buried moon and restore her to the night sky in The Stolen Mother MoonNow, it’s time to excavate the buried Self and bring her back into the light.Because midlife is not about reinvention.It’s about excavation and reclamation.It’s time to claim what has always belonged to us.You can enjoy this as a standalone episode. And when you want to dig a little deeper, I invite you to explore the other stories in this series:Ep. 5: The Stolen Mother Moon—A Folktale on Restoring The Buried Self at MidlifeEpisode 4: Anansi and the Strange Stone: A Folktale on Awakening The Self at MidlifeEpisode 3: The Stone Child: A Folktale on Freeing the Captive Self at MidlifeEpisode 2: The Magic Orange Tree — A Folktale on Feeding the Forbidden Hunger of MidlifeEpisode 1: Vasilisa the Beautiful and the Impossible Task of MidlifeThanks for reading The MidLife Threshold! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marjorieflorestal1.substack.com