The 5 Midlife Scaries (and Why None of Them Are Real)
PODCAST · EPISODE № 002
Listen to the full episode:
Midlife has one of the worst reputations out there — everyone talks about it like it’s the end of something, not the beginning of anything real.
But here’s the truth: the only scary part of midlife is believing what everyone else says about it.
In this episode, Dr. Oksana Skidan — writer, educator, and creator of the Create Your Midlife™ Method — shares the five biggest “midlife scaries” women face, and why none of them are real.
From the myths of “empty nest” to the pressure to reinvent yourself, she reveals how midlife isn’t a crisis at all — it’s creation in motion.
🧭 In This Episode:
Why midlife’s reputation is completely wrong
The 5 biggest myths about midlife (and what’s true instead)
How to stop seeing change as loss and start creating forward
The one belief that transforms how you experience midlife
Useful Resources:
Subscribe to The Create Letter: https://oksanaskidan.com/newsletter
Explore The Midlife Method™: https://oksanaskidan.com/midlife-method
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/
Follow on Instagram @oksana_skidan_dr: https://www.instagram.com/oksana_skidan_dr
Transcript:
Oksana Skidan (00:00.0)
Let's be honest, midlife has terrible PR. Everyone warns you about it like it's some sort of horror movie. And by the way, it's quite timely with Halloween right here on October 31st. You hit 40, and suddenly you're supposed to fall apart. Or buy a red car, or change your hair color, or move to Bali, or divorce your husband. But I'm here to tell you that's not how it goes. I’ve lived through it.
Oksana Skidan (00:31.028)
I'm still living it, and the only scary thing about midlife is believing the noise around it. And here's something very interesting that I've discovered. The term midlife crisis — well, it wasn't even created for us. It came from a man, psychologist Elliot Jacques, who coined it in 1965 after studying men who struggled with their sense of purpose after their careers.
Oksana Skidan (00:59.168)
It had nothing to do with women — nothing to do with what we feel, create, or experience. And yet we took it on like it was ours. We adopted it and decided to use it as our guiding path. Well, it's not. Midlife for women isn't a crisis — it's creation. It's the season where you stop performing and start living.
Oksana Skidan (01:28.524)
And let me be clear about performing, because I've spent years and years of my life actually performing. I am a concert pianist by training and by my first education. There's nothing wrong with performing, but along with the concept of performance comes the understanding of perfection — comes the belief that I have to be better than I can ever possibly imagine.
Oksana Skidan (01:58.774)
And that's where the tricky part comes in. So if you can figure out how to perform without constantly striving to be perfect, then go forward and perform your life — if it's truly authentic, your own performance. But if you're trying to perform someone else's picture-perfect idea of your life, then that's not going to work.
Oksana Skidan (02:28.332)
Especially not in your midlife.
Oksana Skidan (02:33.292)
So today I want to talk about five midlife scaries that I hear all the time. And I think they're kind of fundamental for us to move forward from this point. So the first one is: midlife starts at 40. I actually got a comment the other day on my social media — a lady pointed out that
Oksana Skidan (03:01.518)
“Well, it doesn't start at 40, it starts at 35 because not everyone lives until they're 80.” So ladies, there's something I want to talk about with numbers, because yes, on media platforms you will see that we're again trying to be put into a number and into a box — where midlife is supposed to be
Oksana Skidan (03:31.37)
the middle of your actual life. And therefore, okay, well now with life expectancy, we're going to be talking about midlife starting at 40. But I want to warn you that, in my understanding, midlife is not a number. Midlife is a mindset. Midlife is when you realize that you're in a different season of your life — something changed. For me, it
Oksana Skidan (04:01.438)
didn't happen overnight, but all of a sudden I realized that something had changed and now I was in a different chapter of my life. And the term midlife came naturally. So if you're in your forties and you're not feeling it, then don’t — don’t try on something that isn’t yours, because midlife is all about authenticity and what fits you,
Oksana Skidan (04:31.166)
not what society is pushing upon you. If you're wondering how you'll realize that you're in midlife, there’s a question that most likely will start appearing — and that would be what’s next?
Oksana Skidan (04:50.614)
And that’s the most wonderful and probably the most refreshing question that you can welcome into your life.
Oksana Skidan (05:02.624)
Again, there’s a lot of talk that midlife is the time when you need to change yourself, you need to transform yourself, you need to reinvent yourself. And the question what’s next? could be a great platform to jump into all those narratives. But in my experience, looking back, the worst thing you can do is rush into the answer —
Oksana Skidan (05:30.442)
and actually start looking around for an answer instead of turning inward, toward yourself — inside yourself — and start asking what it means for you. What’s next? So, number one scary that people talk about — “midlife starts at 40”? No. Midlife starts when you realize you’re in it.
Oksana Skidan (05:58.998)
And for me, to be honest with you, it started, I think, around 45 or 46, when the question, as I mentioned, what’s next? really became permanent. So stop worrying that you’re 40 and in midlife. And for sure, don’t worry if you’re realizing that you’re in midlife — because I think this is the most incredible, freeing season of your life that you can imagine.
Oksana Skidan (06:29.734)
Second myth that I keep hearing: it's a crisis. Ladies, no, no. And here’s something very interesting about it: if you choose to believe it's time for a crisis, then yes, you will have a midlife crisis — because of the way our brains work. We start to focus on something, put a thought in there, and the mind follows it.
Oksana Skidan (06:59.05)
And the brain runs forward and will find reasons to call your midlife a crisis.
Oksana Skidan (07:11.158)
If you approach midlife as the period of your life when you continue living by everybody else’s rules, suggestions, and wants, then midlife will not feel authentic, will not be as freeing. And at some point you might realize that you are facing a dead end.
Oksana Skidan (07:40.716)
Because to me, the word crisis itself means that something has fallen apart and there is no answer yet. There's no way out. So there is this sense of a dead end — What do I do now? But if you're starting to feel that the life you're living right now is not really fitting your
Oksana Skidan (08:10.078)
own vision, then this is the perfect time to start looking around and paying attention to how you're treating yourself in your own midlife season. Are you still coming in as the very last one on the list? Do you put your own needs and wants at the very bottom of your to-do list — after your groceries and after your
Oksana Skidan (08:38.836)
other errands? Are you still structuring your day based on the needs of your family, your children, your co-workers, your job, your friends — you name it? Because midlife, to me, is the time when, alongside the question what's next, we can start asking: What do I want for myself?
Oksana Skidan (09:09.048)
How do I want to see this season? What do I want to create in today’s day? How do I want to create my weekend?
Oksana Skidan (09:23.692)
And if your brain right now is jumping into, Well, I don't have time and I can't really start creating because I still have children in middle or high school living with me. I have parents that I need to take care of. I have so many things I need to attend to — it's okay, because this is still midlife. You are still busy. You are still doing everything that you want or you
Oksana Skidan (09:52.256)
feel that you're obligated to do. However, you're starting to find the moments in this busy life when you ask yourself: How do I want to structure those first few minutes of my morning when nobody's awake yet? Or, How do I want to spend 30 or 40 minutes of my weekend when I am actually free? And you might
Oksana Skidan (10:21.578)
not think about it this way, but start looking at the activities of everyone around you. When they're scheduling their own things and leaving the house — going to hang out with friends and doing other things outside the house where you are not a part — these could be your free moments to start creating your midlife.
Oksana Skidan (10:49.9)
The other day I was talking to a friend of mine, and she mentioned, Well, maybe I should just wait until my kids leave, and then I will start creating my life, paying attention to what it is I really want. And we came to the conclusion that, no — the best time to start creating what you want is right here, right now, while your kids are still busy. In my case, my son
Oksana Skidan (11:18.718)
is applying to colleges; he's busy with the creation of his future life. And this is picture-perfect for me to start creating what I want — where I want to go in my next year or two, three, and so on. So start looking for open windows of opportunity for you to start answering the question,
Oksana Skidan (11:47.328)
What do I want to do next? Once you start doing this and start looking at it from a creative point — because women are creative by nature — we're creating homes, businesses, holidays; we're endlessly creating. Even the dinner that you will prepare and serve tonight for your family — you're creating it. So creativity is in us. Now we just need to tune into it,
Oksana Skidan (12:16.167)
and see how we can use it to create our own life. So once you look at your midlife this way, it's never going to be a crisis. The third myth — and this is actually the scariest phrase, I think, out of all that I've heard about midlife — I heard very, very early on, just because I come from Ukraine, and there are certain phrases that
Oksana Skidan (12:45.568)
we don't use the same way in Ukraine. They really register with me — they either settle or unsettle me — when I hear them in the United States. And that's the phrase empty nest.
Oksana Skidan (13:05.313)
Honestly, ladies, I can't believe it. First of all, the phrase comes from the last century. It has nothing to do with the modern life of a modern midlife mom — that's first. Second, the visual image of the empty nest — I think it's a horror picture. And to think about it,
Oksana Skidan (13:33.708)
I mean, we’re all visual. Most of us are visual individuals. And as soon as I say empty nest, what do you see? You see the actual empty nest — no birds, no baby birds, nothing. What an awful, terrible image to carry with you into the time when your children are actually flying free, moving forward. When they’re experiencing their life on their own — the life that you’ve
Oksana Skidan (14:03.502)
helped them to build, the life that you’ve helped them to create. And now, instead of being happy for them and flying in momentum together with them while they’re moving toward their higher education and new, open future, you could be flying alongside them — creating your own next chapter. Yet we’ve tied ourselves to this horrible image of an empty nest.
Oksana Skidan (14:33.966)
Please, please be on the lookout for this. Stop using it yourself, and encourage others around you not to use it either. There are so many other phrases we can create and embrace. I actually invite you to look at this as your first homework from this podcast. If your child or children
Oksana Skidan (15:03.2)
are about to go to college, about to start their new chapter in life — think about how you want to name this period in their life and in yours. You can come up with a phrase on your own, or you can create it together with them. But look at it again as a creative process. Come up with a phrase that is uniquely, authentically yours. And when you say it,
Oksana Skidan (15:33.204)
it should give you a spark of energy, a wave of excitement, a sense of possibility — the ability to move forward, to create something, to be active, and to be happy for the season of life you’re in. So empty nest or empty nester — it’s time to retire those phrases and start creating language that actually serves
Oksana Skidan (16:02.388)
you and your children. I’ll be doing this with my son, and in an upcoming podcast I’ll share it with you. But for now, see what suits you. See what phrase resonates with you and your children.
Oksana Skidan (16:21.88)
The fourth myth is that after midlife — or actually, after you enter your midlife — it’s all downhill from here. Well, the truth is, this is where the view gets really good.
Oksana Skidan (16:42.752)
Let’s stop pretending that aging is a tragedy. Yes, your body changes. My body changes as well. Our faces start to tell different stories. But here’s the thing — those stories are proof of life, of everything you’ve lived, loved, and survived. Everything that our body is telling us.
Oksana Skidan (17:11.618)
When we look at ourselves in the mirror, that's who we are. That's what we've lived through. That's our experience. That's our strength.
Oksana Skidan (17:26.55)
So to look at it as downhill from here — I think we're selling ourselves short and allowing ourselves to let go of something so powerful and so strong. Instead of following the narrative that we're declining, this is the time to fully embrace the power of who we are — the power of authenticity,
Oksana Skidan (17:54.914)
the power of our own experience.
Oksana Skidan (18:00.748)
The power of our own experience.
Oksana Skidan (18:05.614)
I personally, to be honest with you, spent too many years judging parts of my body. I thought that some of them needed to be fixed.
Oksana Skidan (18:17.004)
And then one day I realized that those thoughts — about certain parts of my body needing to be fixed — did not come from me. All those voices came from around me.
Oksana Skidan (18:39.722)
From the external world. From my family, because they had certain expectations — from the traditions and culture they lived in and carried forward. From my teachers — funny enough, I was told there were certain hairstyles I should never wear because my ears didn’t look perfect.
Oksana Skidan (19:01.698)
There are so many things that we carry from our early years without realizing that those stories are not our own narrative. Nevertheless, we hold on to them and attach them to our bodies. And then,
Oksana Skidan (19:20.056)
we try to change our bodies instead of learning how to embrace and love them.
Oksana Skidan (19:31.746)
So midlife is when I finally learned to say, I have myself.
Oksana Skidan (19:41.1)
I have my own body. I have my own face. I have my own wrinkles. And I have my own imperfections that actually make me who I am. Can you imagine if we all walked around looking exactly the same — identical to the one on the left or the one on the right?
Oksana Skidan (20:05.624)
But when we start criticizing our bodies for not being right or to our liking, that’s exactly what happens — we begin subconsciously wishing to look like somebody else, like that image that’s been put into our heads. So if you’re surrounded by the narrative that it’s all downhill from here — this is the time to change that narrative. This is the time to
Oksana Skidan (20:36.02)
start looking for proof that this is actually the best time of your life — right where you are. This is the time to realize that your body is your body. It carried you through your experiences and brought you here. And therefore, I think this is the time to accept it, to love it, to praise it. This is the time when your own individual style is actually growing
Oksana Skidan (21:04.706)
wings and flying forward. This is the time when you want to be you — every single day, more and more. So the narrative that it’s all downhill from here is very much outdated — pushed upon us by social media, which promotes trends of reinvention and change
Oksana Skidan (21:35.232)
without honoring the expertise, the stories, and all the past years of our lives that shaped who we are.
Oksana Skidan (21:49.516)
The last myth that I want to talk to you about today is a very loud one — I see it everywhere. And this is actually the reason why I created Create Your Midlife™, because the fifth myth says that you need to reinvent everything.
Oksana Skidan (22:12.686)
Look around you. As soon as we hit a milestone and we’re not sure what to do next, the questions begin — What’s next? Am I happy where I am? I want more… how do I find that? And there’s always a loud narrative around it telling you that you have to reinvent yourself.
Oksana Skidan (22:42.746)
And if you attach that to midlife, then the whole narrative falls into a pre-written sequence: reinvent, transform, become a new you. Anything — anything but embracing who you already are, and acknowledging and carrying that truth forward into your next
Oksana Skidan (23:12.162)
days and years. The danger of reinvention — of becoming a “new you” at the age of midlife, whenever you associate that moment — is that when we decide to step into something completely new, we almost naturally end up canceling out, denying, and
Oksana Skidan (23:42.56)
crossing out our past experiences. So we end up being somebody new — but without a past. And anyone at the age of midlife, without a strong and supportive past, will struggle with confidence, self-trust, and self-support.
Oksana Skidan (24:11.328)
Even with self-knowledge — because if all of a sudden you’ve decided that your past is not good enough to carry forward, then how are you moving forward? What are you carrying with you? And if you move forward as a completely clean page, without all the years you’ve lived before,
Oksana Skidan (24:38.786)
That's when you start finding yourself in a slightly shaky, uncertain situation. Because by now, you've experienced so many things in your life that no matter what it is you’ll be doing in the future, you can always tap into your past — for modeling success, for lessons learned, for finding
Oksana Skidan (25:08.27)
the path of how you did it before. And if it worked, then copy it and do it again. Use it for finding your own voice, for looking at the stories you’ve created — the ones that helped you move forward and allowed you to be where you are today. That’s why, when women jump into becoming a completely new
Oksana Skidan (25:37.644)
self through — you name it — a seven-day program, a 30-day program, or any of those shiny, quick invitations, there’s a danger. It sounds exciting and promising, but when you think about it, it can be quite lonely — because you’re moving forward as your “future you,” without carrying anything from your past you or your current you,
Oksana Skidan (26:05.516)
and those are your strengths. Those are all your tools that you absolutely must have — and need to have — in order to create your midlife the way you want it.
Oksana Skidan (26:23.244)
So these are the five midlife myths that I hear most often.
Oksana Skidan (26:33.974)
There are others, and depending on your surroundings, you might be hearing different ones more often. But there is one tool that I’ve discovered for myself that always helps. When I find myself in a situation where new information is coming toward me and I’m not sure what to do with it, I
Oksana Skidan (26:59.118)
consciously ask myself not to accept it as it is. I literally try it on — the same way you try on new clothes — because I want to know: Is this really true for me or not? Is this something that fits who I am or not? And speaking of the past, I’ve had an excellent
Oksana Skidan (27:28.746)
personal experience when I was pregnant with my child. There were so many women around me who wanted to share their stories, give me advice, tell me what they thought, how they felt, and so on.
Oksana Skidan (27:46.476)
And somehow — it happened subconsciously at first — but then I realized it, and I started using that same model throughout my life. I would kindly and nicely ask them not to share, because I wanted to experience it on my own. I wanted to experience it without anyone else’s input, without anyone else’s noise — without the lenses that would make me see
Oksana Skidan (28:15.98)
my own pregnancy through their stories. So exactly the same with midlife. When somebody tells you, “Aren’t you worried about midlife? There are horror stories about menopause,” — pause right there. Don’t try that phrase on. Tell yourself, “When the time comes, I will experience it myself.”
Oksana Skidan (28:45.708)
And I will see what works and what doesn’t. When somebody tells you, “You’re heading toward a midlife crisis — I know because all my friends are having one,” again — stop.
Oksana Skidan (29:01.87)
Consciously guide yourself toward a thought that doesn’t resist or argue with them, but gently say to yourself, “When the time comes, I’ll find out on my own.” That’s all you need to do. What this does is allow you to create your own path, your own midlife, your own story.
Oksana Skidan (29:32.844)
Because in the world we live in right now, the noise is so loud, and there are so many messages and stories flying around, that if you don’t learn — and teach yourself — how to decide which messages to take in, which to leave out, and which to simply try on… I want you to visualize it this way:
Oksana Skidan (30:00.776)
When you go into a store to try on new clothes, you don’t try everything on. You know what usually fits you, and maybe you try something new as an experiment — but you don’t pull everything off the hangers just because it’s there. The same applies to midlife. Pause and think twice before you try on
Oksana Skidan (30:30.388)
every message that comes your way. Instead, curate them — and try only the ones that truly fit your life, your own authentic, unique midlife.
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