Dear Reader:

Just when we get a little too comfortable in our daily lives…when we think we have enough layers of armor to protect us from any situation that could possibly arise

… the universe smiles and whispers to us… ” It’s time for your midlife crisis!”

The other day I mentioned my 40th birthday and the arrival of Hurricane Hugo as symbolically turning my world upside down but I was actually a ” late bloomer” when it came to my own midlife crisis… late 40’s to early 50’s.

* I had always been a late bloomer, however. I didn’t get my braces until high school because my ” baby” teeth stubbornly refused to fall out and I was a freshman in high school before my stick figure finally began to blossom.

Yesterday I came across one of my favorite’ tell-all’ authors who was hilariously but sincerely sharing her personal’ take’ on the dreaded but necessary component in life-the mid-life crisis or ( as Brene Brown calls it) the ‘ mid-love’ crisis!

Brene Brown explains her mid-life crisis from the perspective of the universe. As she describes it… it is when ” the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear.

” I am not messing around. All of this pretending and performing- these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt-has to go!

Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable, but you are still searching and you are more lost than ever. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your own heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.

Brown shares her epiphany about mid-life crises … adding that it should be renamed ” mid love ” crises…. because loving ourselves is the most difficult and courageous thing we will ever do. But we only have a finite amount of time to find that self-love and mid-life is the halfway point.

So until tomorrow… we know when we have made peace with the universe… when we can love and trust in ourselves again … when we are past the crisis… when, in a quiet moment… looking deeply back into the universe’s eyes-we realize the universe is “us.”

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

* And speaking of Winnie she got a haircut-each time, besides being able to see her eyes again, she gets more black patches… a work in progress!