The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

Life After 50: Coping with Loss, Change, and New Beginnings | Ep. 132

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 132

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Life after 50 often brings unexpected changes, from the loss of parents to shifting roles, identity, and purpose. 

In this episode of The Wellness Connection, Fiona Kane shares her reflections on the emotional transitions of midlife, the grief that can surface, and the opportunities for renewal that follow.

Through personal stories and gentle guidance, she explores how to reframe your story, embrace change, and find strength in the struggles that shape this transformative chapter of life. This isn’t only about menopause or aging, it’s about navigating the bigger questions of who we are and how we grow when life shifts beneath us.

Whether you’re in midlife yourself or supporting someone who is, this episode is a reminder that you’re not alone in the journey.

Music by Josh from Pixabay



Outro: Music by Musinova from Pixabay

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

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Fiona:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I'm going to be talking about midlife or about being in your 50s and the experience of that and some of the things that maybe we don't talk about and um and not specifically about menopause, that will be part of it. And this won't be specifically about women either, although, of course, my my personal experience is of a woman. I have patients that are men and women or clients who are men and women, and I talk to people about these issues. But yeah, I wanted to talk about midlife and some of the things that happen, and some of the maybe the unexpected things or the things that um the challenging things that that happen for us. And where I suppose where I'd like to start is by saying that we throughout our life, we have different periods, different transitions in our life. There's different transition periods. And in our culture, uh, which I would prefer I'll say Australian or maybe Australian slash Western culture, we don't really have good rites of passage for things like you know, coming of age or transitioning through menopause and those kinds of things. And it's kind of sad that we don't really have those rites of passage because they are important times. And I feel like what happens then is we kind of just have these experiences on our own and don't really talk about them as much or or understand, you know, we're not sure what's wrong with us, that kind of thing. So I'll give you a bit of an insight into what I'm talking about. So when you're going through this stage, when you're in your 50s, there's a lot of things that happen in your 50s and that um that change everything. Uh and one of those things is you often, if you haven't already, that is when you start losing your parents. And there's something really unique about losing a parent or losing your parents that is really that shifts the ground from under you. And I know some you know it happens much earlier for some people and all the rest of it. I'm just talking just in general, for most people, it's 40s or 50s, maybe where they that this starts happening in their life. And losing a parent is it does shift the ground from under you because it's kind of that person is a person who knew you better than anyone, possibly, or maybe you had a uh a confusing or challenging relationship with that person or a non-relationship with that person, whatever the case is when you've lost that parent, there's going to be grief, and it might be grief for the great person in your life that you lost, maybe grief for the relationship that you didn't have that you wish you had. But it's essentially it's you know, that is your parent, and regardless of whether you had a close relationship with them or not, there's something about you know that it's that legacy and that person who was the window into where you're where you came from, and they're gone, right? So there's it's quite significant, regardless of your relationship with that person, it is significant. The other thing that's significant about it is that for a lot of people, when you get to the point where you lose, especially once you've lost both of your parents, all then you look around and you're kind of you're if you're looking at that genealogy chart, you're sitting up towards the top now rather than down the bottom. And up the top now, as in, you know, you're next, right? Uh, you don't have your parents and grandparents above you. So now you're the elder. Now you're the um the yeah, now you yeah, you're the elder in the family, right? And so there's quite a shift there because suddenly instead of having that layer above you, all that uh assurance above you, if you were lucky enough to have um have parents who were supportive of you, you don't have that anymore. So you've lost that buffer above you, and now uh you've as as much more, I suppose you feel much more open to the elements in a way, or just much more, yeah, it's it's a bit more fragile or a bit less protected, maybe. Not so protected as you were when you when you had a parent uh in in front of you, sort of thing. Uh so one is losing parents, which is really challenging and really life-changing and and does shift you. And you do shift quite a lot, you lose your sort of you lose your grounding, and it takes a while to shift into, I don't say it goes back to how it was, it doesn't go back to how it was. Uh grief it works like that, but it it just you just shift into a new position. So it's a transition. Again, it's a transition. So losing a parent and you know, losing both parents, they are transitional things that take you to the next place. And along with that, what can often happen is you have the hormone changes that make it a bit challenging as well. Because for women, we have um we're normally making progesterone that's quite good for keeping us feeling calm and uh and relaxed, and uh that kind of disappears by the time you're in your 50s, and that adds to the sort of feeling that lost feeling, you know, um, and that feeling of not being able to maybe I I see what happens all of a sudden is even though we're at a time in our life where we've experienced so much and we know so much, and we're in some ways we're quite confident, on the other hand, we just start having experiences where we question ourselves as well, because we're like we things feel different, we feel different, and maybe we start second guessing ourselves a little bit as well. That can happen as well. The other thing that happens is because you're going through all these changes. So if you think about if you go through the change where okay, you've you know, your your youth is your youth is gone, and it doesn't mean you can't be youthful, but your youth is gone, and your problem for women you've changed over to a place where your childbearing years are gone if they ever existed for you in the first place, but that yeah, that gate has closed, that door has closed. And so there's a lot of different levels of grief, and there might also be grief in around your career or around your relationships, or not not even grief, but just kind of a you know, you get to an age where you look around and go, Oh, what how did I end up here? Uh you know, a bit like that uh talking head song, uh, you know, this is not my beautiful wife, this is not my beautiful, you know, just kind of looking around and going, oh, okay, how did I get here? Uh I this maybe wasn't the plan, or when I planned this, this isn't how I thought it would be. So we look around and we suddenly kind of go, okay, this is a relationship I have or don't have, and this is the career I have or don't have. Um, these these are the children I have or don't have, uh the grandchildren that you maybe do or don't have. And um, and so there's just a lot of things where you look around and you kind of have this awareness that there's a lot behind you and maybe less in front of you, less time, and you've made certain choices that have got you to this place. So there's just a lot of looking around and going, okay, how did I get here? And how do I feel about that? And what's my place in the world? And even, you know, often if you have had children, it's usually when your children are older and they've moved out of home, or they're moving out of home, or they're shifting on with their lives, and maybe they're having children as well. So maybe you're busy being a grandparent, uh, or maybe not. Maybe you're sort of just an empty nester and the children really don't need you much anymore at the moment, and they're off doing their thing. So it is quite a different time where you're sort of thinking about, well, what's what's the meaning of life? What's my meaning and what do I want to do with my life? But the other thing that can happen amongst all of this, because we're because like I said, we're we're in a transition, there's a shift happening for us, and like I said, we do feel like sometimes like some as it's our foundation is being pulled out from under us, you can really feel like that for quite a while, and so it often leads to us feeling quite sad, and maybe you know, quite flat, quite sad. And the risk is there's a risk that you might pathologize this when you don't need to. And what I mean by that is, you know, of course, if you are absolutely struggling, you cannot function, you cannot get out of bed, you're having dark thoughts, whatever, then go and get a diagnosis and yes, pathologize that because you you need more support, you need help, and you know, obviously that's a different situation. You have developed, you know, depression or something along those lines. But just feeling sad and being in transition and just up in the air and all of that, that's actually really, really normal for this time in our lives. And so there's no need to pathologize that. And I so I want to assure you, man or woman, if you're kind of got those, if that's sort of the experiences that you're having along those lines, feeling a bit lost and feeling like things have shifted from under you, and kind of, you know, there might be fear about uh fear about death or fear about what your life means or what your life meant or your legacy or all of those things, whatever's going on, it is actually perfectly normal and it's just part of this transition. So rather than kind of think, oh my god, there's something wrong with me that I need to fix, uh, you know, it is part of a transition. Now it doesn't mean you can't work on yourself. Obviously, this that's what this time is for, the gift of this time, is to actually start to kind of assess those things. Where am I in my life? Is this where I want to be? Is this where I wanted to be? Can I do something different about it? And it might be actually making a change in your life, or it might be just making a change to how you look at your life. Uh, both are quite valid. So sometimes people do the midlife thing where they change everything, and maybe that's absolutely the right thing to do and what you need to do. But sometimes the change everything isn't actually about the life itself, it's about the way you look at that life. And so what often happens is we we get quite fixed in our idea of what we think success is or what we think a successful life is, or we might have in our mind when we're in our 20s, 30s, whatever, that when I reach 50 or when I reach 60, or whatever the age, magic age is, when I reach 40, I'm gonna have XYZ or I'm gonna be XYZ. And we have this kind of fixed idea in our mind about what we hope to achieve by that age, or what we think success is going to look like at that age. And then we get to that age, and maybe none of that happened, or maybe it happened, but it didn't happen exactly that way. And even if none of that happened, quite often something different's happened, it's not necessarily a bad thing. But what we do is we kind of go, oh my god, I failed, or oh my god, I didn't, or whatever it is, we we stick to that rigid plan that we created 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and we get quite quite fixed on the fact that it must mean we're some sort of failure or we've done something wrong. And I invite you to think about that because first of all, as we know, John Lennon said this life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. So you can't always just do exactly what you plan to do. You do you plan and you do the best you can, but sometimes life just that that's not the cards you get given, right? You get given different cards. So you you can't that there's a whole lot that's not in your control. So if you're sitting back and not doing anything, then that's not helpful. You need to do something to get where you want to go in life. However, what we do is we make plans and we aim for one place, but if we go, if we land in a different place, it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different place, right? And I think we get caught up in it's not the original plan, therefore it's no good. But sometimes it's it's sometimes it might be no good, absolutely, but sometimes it actually might be better than the original plan. Sometimes it's just like we thought that we were, you know, we were destined for that, and we're destined for something else. And the something else is sometimes better or it's better for you, or whatever it is. But we get we're so rigid in our thoughts or in our ideas about how it should be, whether it's our ideas or whether it's an idea that someone put into our head or society or whatever, but some expectation of where where we should be, um, I invite you to reassess that because just because that was a good idea, you know, what I thought was a good idea when I was 35, I don't actually think is a good idea now. So I'm actually very, I feel very different about uh, you know, I feel very different to what I did when I was in my 30s. And so any idea that I had fixed in my mind when my 20s and 30s about how my life should look now, it's not necessarily true or true to me now, you know. So I encourage you to just think about why you're so fixed with these things and invite you to reassess your story. And you know, and even if you had the greatest plan, and you know, uh I I I've recently uh one of my sort of uh acquaintances, I would say, someone I met through networking, young man with a child, and uh he's recently his wife passed away, right? You couldn't plan for that. You couldn't plan for that, right? So he and the child they're grieving now and they're readjusting to life without mum, and obviously that's a massive shift for them, and it's going to change everything, it has changed everything. Now, if now right now they're they're in the midst of it all and they're just processing it all and what day by day, which is you know really appropriate. But if in 20 years' time he's still kind of fixed in the it was supposed to look this way and now it's not, that'll be really sad for him because the truth is truth is in life things change and we need to learn to create a new story. So what what we do is over time, and it might be one year, two years, five years, ten years, uh, we create a new story for ourselves that says, okay, we still include that person who we loved so dearly, who meant so much to us. Um, where they're still part of our everyday life, we still hold them in our hearts, but we we also live and we choose to live and we choose to have joy and we choose to, you know, move on, sort of thing. I don't mean moving on by letting go, like throwing the person away or any of that. Uh I just mean carry them in your in your heart, but keep going. And so we we we can't get fixed with, you know, it's it's uh the example I've used for myself is I wasn't able to have children, right? So if I'm 54 now, if I was sitting here saying it's not okay, I didn't have children, that's that means I'm a failure, that means I can't be happy with my life. Well, that's not helpful to me, is it, right? So I can stay fixed there and I can keep saying that story to myself, but what purpose does it hold? So I need a new story. I need a new story for well, okay, the children didn't happen, so what what can what can where do I find my purpose? Where do I find my passion? Where do I place my energies? And what can what does my life look like? And all that mothering energy that I have, because women do have mothering energy, I can still use that. I still do use that. I just don't use it towards my own children. I use it with other people's children and other people's grown-up children, right? So I still use that energy, but I use it in other ways. So I invite you just if you've if you've got some story that you're really fixed on, I invite you to just think about that story and one of two things, either kind of realize that maybe it's not your story anymore, anyway, and you'd you'd actually would prefer a different story, or have a certain level of acceptance if that story is not going to happen. Or make it happen if it's something that you really can make happen and you really want to make happen. So there's different, you know, there's acceptance, there's changing the way you think about it, all there's going and doing it. All of those things are completely acceptable, depends what the story is, doesn't it? But it's just like reassess because sometimes we're like angry at ourselves because we didn't do XYZ. And is XYZ really what we want to do or where we want to be? And maybe it's not, but we're just telling ourselves this same old story. And um, you know, one of the things I I refer to a lot, but I'm going to refer to it again because it's just so well said, is um, you know, Ren Gill, who is the artist, a singer that I've talked about many times, in his song Hi Ren, at the end, he does a spoken word part. And he's been through to hell and back uh many times with uh Lyme disease and all of the associated physical and mental health issues he's had that have gone with that. And one of the things he said at the end of that song, uh he said that um, you know, it was never really a battle for me to win, it was an eternal dance. And like a dance, the more rigid I became, the harder I got, the more I cursed my clumsy footsteps, the more I struggled. So the older I got, so I got older and I learned to relax, I learned to soften, and the dance got easier. See, eternal dance that separates human beings from angels, from demons, from gods. Uh essentially, like there's more, but he's he's just sometimes we need to soften. Sometimes we need to not be so rigid, and sometimes we need to just know that that we thought that we're going to be doing this dance, but we're doing a different one. And uh a certain level, and I have also referred to Eckhart Tully before on this as well, but Eckhart Tully talks about how most of much of the suffering in this world, the anxiety and the suffering that we have as human beings, is in just not having acceptance of this moment. So we we kind of it's like it should be like this, or I want it to be like that, or it's got you, but we're not just being in the moment and being present in the moment. And sometimes we just need to be present in the moment and say, all right, this is the reality where I'm at now. This is where I thought I should be. Do I actually still want that? Do I want something different? Uh or even if I do still want that, is that possible? Or is there a different way of doing that? Or yeah, whatever, or am I going to rewrite things and start again? Uh so just remember that we tell ourselves stories and sometimes we get really caught up in those stories and we get really fixed on them. And those stories can be really, really unhelpful. And this is in general in life. Uh, but um, so if you're having that experience where you feel like somehow you failed, you know, I would invite you to question yourself on that and you know, reassess things, you know, as I've sort of just discussed there. And um, you know, getting back to in general the the midlife stuff, the questioning that we have at this time, it's really it's really just understanding that it is a transformative time that you are going through a shifting and a transforming experience, and there's going to be struggle involved in that. All transformation has struggle involved in that, and so that's actually really normal. So rather than kind of go, oh, I'm feeling I'm feeling a bit sad, or I'm feeling all these funny emotions, or I I feel like I'm struggling at the moment, that must mean there's something terribly wrong. I mean, it is a sign. I mean, it's certainly it's a sign and it's data. So I'm not saying don't, I'm not telling you to ignore it. We need to pay attention to data and we need to decide what to do with that data. And it might mean go and get something to manage, you know, whether it be medically or or herbally or whatever, to manage your menopause or those sorts of issues. Or it might mean go and get a checkup with a doctor and just make sure that you know we're healthy and everything's going okay. So I'm not saying ignore, it's data. It's definitely data. So sometimes that data is saying listen to your body more, sleep more, look after yourself, make sure you've got enough nutrients, change your diet, whatever, get more exercise. So, but part of it is absolutely that. But part of it is also going, all right, it is understanding that it is normal when we're going through transition, that there's struggle involved in that. And there's a lot of that sort of thing where we okay, we we suddenly see ourselves. And uh as we get older, I find that life life humbles you more as you get older. And bit by bit the layers come off, and bit by bit, okay, well, your you know, your looks start to go, or you start to put on weight or lose weight, or whatever the thing is that you know that's that changing for you that that um makes you feel less of who you were before. Uh you can't rely on your looks so much, you can't rely on your youth so much, and uh, and you know, layers start to drop off and and friendships change and friendships drop off, and you suddenly look around, and there's less there's less buffering between you and reality, and you just start seeing reality, you start seeing life, and you start seeing all sorts of things. Uh, and so sometimes it can be challenging, and sometimes you get a look in the mirror, and I don't mean physically, although that's part of it, but you get a look in the mirror at what sort of person you are, or how you behave, or what you do, and some of it you might really like and some of it you might not. So, yes, this is a transformational period, and it is a period where there's some struggle involved, and there is a period where you feel you know, it does feel like the ground shifts from under you. And so I really just want to assure you that that's really, really normal. If you're really struggling, obviously get help, whether it's um with me or whether you go to your doctor or go to your therapist or whatever you need to do. I'm not saying don't go for help because sometimes we need help to manage these times. I certainly have when my mother passed away, I was actually working with two different um mentors and coaches at the time who helped me very much, helped me through that period. One of them was on this podcast a few years ago, um, Shandu Bickford, and she was amazing. Um, so I actually did pay for professionals to support me through a lot of that transition time and a lot of that time where I was really struggling and and sort of you know didn't know which way was up, sort of thing. So I struggled and I sought help because I was struggling and because I was trying to figure things out. And the other thing too is to, you know, the the butterfly analogy to sort of explain this situation is what we do know is you know, when the uh caterpillar is in the cocoon before it becomes a butterfly, it it needs to struggle so that it can actually fly when it becomes a butterfly. So it needs to spend however much time it is in the cocoon, I don't know, I'm not an expert on this, but it needs to spend a certain amount of time in that cocoon, and over time it starts to break its way out of the cocoon. And the breaking out of the cocoon, that struggle, is what allows the wings to work properly, so it allows it to fly. Now, if you were to go up to that caterpillar and just cut it out of the cocoon, doesn't have a struggle, and the wings don't work, and um, so that will never that butterfly will never fly. So it's the same with human beings when we're going through a transition period. When we're going through a transition, we're going through a change. There's going to be some struggle involved, and that is okay, that is actually really normal. So get support around that if you need to, or just know it's really normal. And maybe what you need to do is start doing some journaling or start going for regular walks and just clearing your head or do some yoga or do some meditation or whatever it is. But um, but just start doing sort of more self-care and be really kind to yourself. Uh, the other thing too is that it's important to understand that different phases in life require different levels of of planning or of uh thinking ahead. So, for example, when you're maybe when you're younger and you know you're planning, what do I want to do? And do I want to have a family, do I want to have well or kids, all those things. Maybe you're looking at the five-year plan, the 10-year plan, that kind of thing. But when you go through challenges in life, when you're going through a transition or you're going through grief, sometimes at that point, it's actually more like looking at what am I going to do today or the next hour or whatever it is. And that's okay as well. I can't remember there's a terminology for it. I can't remember what it's called. But essentially it's that window of depending on how much overload we've got, we can look at just a little bit ahead or we can look far ahead. It depends on where we're at. And if we're in the middle of a storm, that's not the time where you can kind of look that far ahead. Uh, and that's actually something that um at uh Charlie Kirk's memorial, uh, his wife Erica talked about this. She said that she was talking to Usha Vance uh the day after Charlie died when they were having his body uh returned back to the state, and she said that she said to Usha, What am I what am I going to do? How am I going to get through this? And Usha very wisely said to her, You only need to focus on the next 15 minutes. This is going to be 15 minutes. Let's just do that 15 minutes. Then we can do the next 15 minutes. And and sometimes in parts of life, all you can focus on is the next 15 minutes. So do that, right? And then things start to calm down, you start to work through things, and you start to build your capacity again. And then you might be able to go day to day at a certain point and then week to week. And then you can go back into more of a planning and saying, okay, what are we going to do the next year, the next two years, whatever? But it is okay to adjust that. So you might get a terrible diagnosis or be going through a treatment. Maybe at that point, it's like, what am I going to do for the 15 minutes? What am I going to do to get through this nausea? What I'm going to go do to get through this thing, right? So it's quite okay to like readjust that up and down, back and forward as you need to. And sometimes uh if you are going through a transition and you are going through a struggle, you need to adjust it back down. And especially if you're unsure of what's going to be the on the other side of it. So if you are in that transition and you're not sure if there's going to be a change in your job or a change in your relationship status or you know what's going to be happening in the future, it is okay not to have the answer and just focus on the next 15 minutes and just focus on the next day and focus on just building your capacity. So I've talked about this before, building your capacity, whether it be physically, emotionally, spiritually, you know, all of those different levels, but build your capacity. And so spend the time that if you are having a struggle and you are having, you know, you're going through a transition time in your life, allow yourself, allow yourself to be in that time. Allow yourself to work through it. Allow yourself to that you don't have to have all the answers, you don't have to know all the outcomes. Just work through the period that you're in and things will start to shift, and then you'll find yourself in a new place and get the support you need around it if you need support around it to help you going into that new place. But understand that it's normal, it's part of shifting and changing and going through transition in life. And um all those kinds of feelings and and experiences are really, really normal. Uh, and you know, without even I haven't even talked about the physical changes that um women certainly have during menopause. And I think men have a certain level of anthopause as well, where they experience just physical changes as well. Uh, it's you know, your body changes a lot and it can be quite overwhelming without all the things I just talked about to begin with. So uh just you know I invite you to understand listen, there's data, your body's giving you data. So if you're getting, if you're feeling certain ways physically, emotionally, or whatever, that is absolutely data. Pay attention to the data and you know, act accordingly, whether it is go and get a checkup or whether it is get someone to support you through the challenging time, or whether it is just to have an awareness, oh, okay, this is a transition time. All right, so it's not necessarily a pathology, it doesn't mean the world, you know, it's not, you know, uh. It doesn't mean there's something terribly wrong with me. It might just mean you're transitioning. And embrace it. So rather than you know, embrace it, there's going to be a struggle for a while, embrace it. That's really normal. Understand that that's actually going to that struggle and that uh and that having an awareness while you're doing it and really trying to to learn and um grow while you're doing it uh will allow you to build capacity so that when you get to the other side of it, the next choice or the next the next phase, you're ready for that, whatever that ends up being. But you don't necessarily have to know what that is right now. So I hope um hope that resonates with some of you and um and that's helpful. Uh please always give me feedback, love to hear feedback. Like, subscribe, share this episode, and um and rate it and review it on whichever app you're watching or listening on. And um, yeah, I will talk to you all again next week. Thanks so much. And you know, I like to have here, as you know, I like to have real conversations about things that matter, and uh, and this is an important thing that experience that we all go through different variations of this, but sometimes it's important to voice that and normalize it and just let you know that it's something that you can embrace and uh work through rather than feel like, oh my god, there's something terribly wrong with me. Anyway, see you all again next week. Thank you. Bye bye.

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