One of the things I hear most often from women in midlife is that they feel as though the best of everything has already passed. That there’s no new joy or wonder to experience. That there are no longer an abundance of firsts to savor.

This always breaks my heart a little. Firstly, because I don’t believe it’s true. And secondly, because a culture of anti-aging has done such a number on us that we’re convinced that the most vibrant part of our lives is all condensed into our first few decades.

A culture of anti-aging isn’t just about the beauty industry selling us expensive lies on how we need to spend our way to self-acceptance, and how this cream, or that serum, is the magic elixir that will somehow make us more worthy.

It runs deeper than that. A culture of anti-aging convinces us that the older we get, the less options we have. That as our proximity to youth becomes more remote, we not only become less desirable ourselves, but our lives become less desirable too.

These negative beliefs about aging can impact our self-perception and our quality of life. We doubt who we are and what we’re capable of. We spend more time in a space of dread and less time in a place of possibility.

I want better for us than that.

As you likely know, since you’re reading this, my work is all about disrupting ageist stereotypes and challenging the idea that our age is an indication of our value, our worth, or our capability.

In fact, I want us to be living such full and rich lives as we age, that these meaningless societal stereotypes have no option but to disintegrate because just look at us doing our thing, living the depth and breadth of our lives.

And, it’s also true that many of us feel stuck somewhere between fear and shame at the idea of putting ourselves out there and trying something new in midlife or beyond, even when we may yearn to step into an adventure.

What will people say? What if they think I’m having a midlife crisis? What if I fail? What if I don’t quite know what I’m doing? What if, what if…

So we take our dreaming hearts, and we stifle their yearnings and whispers of want. We say That’s Not For Me and we go back to the lives that are perfectly good, perfectly fine, perfectly acceptable, and aren’t we a lot luckier than so many others anyway?

I know those fears. I know those feelings. Because I had that life.

I had the right husband. The right job. I was on the right trajectory to achieve all the right things. I even took the right vitamins to prepare my body in the right way so I could do the right and expected thing and start the family that I was supposed to want but never did, never did, never did.

What I wanted was to feel seen in my own life. I wanted to write the words I longed to read. I wanted to pick up a camera and see if I could capture the snapshots I was always taking in my mind. I wanted to travel to places I never thought I’d see and risk failure and fucking up and not having all of the answers.

But I stayed in the right life, doing the right things, so I could get approval from the right people.

Until of course the tipping point came and my Jenga-reality came crashing down in a very abrupt and surprising way.

The real surprise was that I was the one who did it. I walked away from all the right things because I cracked and couldn’t take it any longer. That’s what happens when we ignore our truth. It finds a way to surface.

I wish I could tell you that I walked right into a wonderful and liberating life, but the only thing I was really turning towards was too much wine, way too many cigarettes, and a decade of choosing entirely unsuitable men who would see me spiral even further.

But something that stayed with me was the heartfelt yearnings. The whispers of want. The small, almost silent, dream that maybe there was something more for me.

I stopped drinking quite so much wine and I stopped sleeping with men who didn't deserve me. (I held onto the cigarettes for a few years longer, but old habits really do die hard.)

I had dreams of writing, and traveling, and taking photos of things that made my heart ache in the best ways. But I had a reality of debt, divorce, and the belief that the corporate world was really where success was at, and maybe I just needed to try harder to fit into it.

I tried. I failed.

I gave notice on my rented flat in Essex. I moved back to my parent’s house in London, along with my two cats. I paid off all my debt and started saving. My family thought I was getting back on my feet so I could redo The Right Life. This time in the actualright way.

But I couldn’t breathe properly when I thought about that life. And if I created it a second time, I wasn't sure I’d have the strength to leave it again.

So I became somewhat of a cliche and I went off to India for six months. Friends thought I was going to find myself, but I was trying to remember myself. I was trying to remember who I was before all the rubble of This Is What Matters in Life had piled up around me.

When I returned home, I had no job, no savings, and I was still living with my parents. My teenage bedroom used to taunt me. “Ha ha haaaaa. You’ve really made something of yourself, huh?”

The temptation to return to The Right Life was always there. But so was the knowledge that I’d die in it.

I was dating again. A good man. Perfectly fine. Perfectly acceptable. Perfectly stifling. I’m going to die anyway, I thought. Perhaps I could live a little first? The life I longed to live.

I ended the acceptable relationship. I began taking photographs that meant something to me. I decided it was time to stop using my married name but I didn’t want to return to my maiden name, so I chose a whole new name for myself and legally changed it by deed poll.

People thought I was unraveling. And it’s honestly almost laughable because I’d been unraveling for years when I was checking all the right boxes. But because it was the societally approved version of coming undone it was somehow ok. Now? Now I was finally finding the courage to carve out the life I wanted.

It’s not easy to tune out of the world’s expectations or judgments and tune into your own inner knowing. The knowing you’ve likely been conditioned to turn away from your whole life. I call it the story beneath the story. The story that can change a life, or save a life.

Tuning into, and trusting, my own story saved me. It saw me move across a continent. Begin two businesses. Marry a man who could match my spirit. Center creativity in my life instead of suppressing it. Get more courageous with each passing year and achieve goals I never thought were possible for me.

Truth and courage are baked into my life now in such a way that I couldn’t remove them if I tried. I get called “brave” often. And I remember the woman I once was and how unimaginable the life I have now would have been to her.

But then I remember she did imagine it. She had a breath of a dream and she took very shaky steps towards it. And of course she failed and fucked up on many parts of the journey. And of course there were difficult days and long nights. But she did it. And even when things felt impossible, it was her life and she could breathe in it.

I’m not suggesting you need to go to another country or change your name to live your own story. (Although I’m absolutely cheering you on if you do.)

But I am definitely saying that your life, your one wild and utterly precious life, is not something to show up in half-heartedly. It’s not something that offered you a window of opportunity a few decades ago and has now firmly shuttered its shades.

It is certainly not something that society gets to determine or dictate.

And if the idea of creating meaningful change in your life terrifies you, then hi! Me, too. But guess what? Fear doesn’t have to be a barrier.

I don’t believe in the concept of fearlessness, but I refuse to let fear stand in my way. As Georgia O’Keeffe so beautifully said: “I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”

We can age afraid and stuck or we can age courageously and with purpose. Either way, we’re aging.

A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to take some more of my “story beneath the story” experiences and put them together in a way that might be meaningful to others. That’s how Aging Courageously came to be born. It’s a 5 day audio course comprised of story telling, heart-centered practices, meditations, and practical tools to help you achieve goals at any age. Because I’m damned if we’re going to drown out our dreams just so we can live lives that suck the soul from us.

Aging Courageously is also available on Insight Timer so if you’re a member there then it’s included in your membership. You’ll also get access to my two other audio courses Visible: A Midlife Roadmap for Women, and Spark: Seven Days of Self-Discovery.

Above all, I want you to know that the best of everything has not passed. There is new joy to experience. There are still an abundance of firsts to delight in, and we do not have to stay in our tidy little lives, not daring to rock the boat or go for our dreams because it might upset some societal sensibilities that say precisely nothing about the truth of our lives and what it means to fully live them.

It’s never too late to live yours.