No, it’s not a misspelling. Yes, pun intended.

Chrys·a·lis – noun 1: a pupa of a butterfly; 2: a protecting covering: a sheltered state or stage of being or growth

I think that we should ban the use of the word “crisis” in association with “midlife” – that would truly turn the energy around, dismissing all the gloomy connotations.

The thing is, we don’t like change – we don’t like transition. We don’t like to spend decades building up a whole system of certainties, only to see them shatter and crumble or shift like quicksand. But what if that was just a natural evolution of life, what if we did not have labels to attach to it, words like “crisis” “depression” “slump”…? Come on, really: if you look up “crisis” on the thesaurus you get synonyms like “disaster” “catastrophe” “calamity”… how more discouraging can you get?

The way I see it, midlife can be a truly precious time to acknowledge one’s uniqueness and to expand in new directions: if we could just focus on the “growing” part of “growing old” and forget “old”, we might actually see how fabulous we are. I’m thinking of the Tower card in the tarot: a card of upheaval and dramatic change, heralding the new and hitting right at the heart of all beliefs related to permanence and security. The truth is, our reluctance to let go of stability often makes us turn down the power, learn to live life at the minimum, and slowly, slowly we withdraw our energy. Then the shock: it might be a painful breakup, or the loss of a job, or just waking up one day and realizing midlife has crept up on you without you even noticing.

The choice is in your hands: withdraw some more and let yourself fade into the background of life, or embrace the change as a new beginning. And let me tell you a secret: the heart cannot really be broken. It feels like it, but its most amazing quality is that it can heal itself… tune in to the heart and you will find an inexhaustible source of love, passion, zest for life, all wrapped up in acceptance. So if midlife caused you to wrap yourself up in a thick cocoon of defense, self-denial, lethargy, well, it might be time to break that cocoon and come out and shine in all your wonderful colors.