Fun Midlife Sh*t Quickie Minisode: No More Midlife Shadow Living!

Sarah Milken  0:04  

Hey peeps, welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. I'm your host Dr. Sarah Milken. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago like last fucking year. I was sitting in the midlife pump wondering, was this it for me? That day I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD wipe the menopause, sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shit shovel and started digging deep to all my midlife bitches. It's not just love coffee and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this. Hey, peeps, this is Dr. Sarah Milken, and welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. I am here today to do a mini sewed on living in the shadows of other people in your life in midlife, basically shadow living in midlife, and I'm calling some of these minisodes in my series, ripped off of my Instagram, meaning that I put a post up on Instagram, that really resonated, got a ton of comments. And I kind of want to dive into the chunk and the content and the meaning of some of my Instagram posts. They take a lot of time to write they take a lot of thought. And it takes a lot of time of my listeners and followers to jump into the conversation respond and basically create a safe container for all of us to laugh, comment resonate and so this one is midlife shadow living. So here we go. in midlife, we are figuring out who shadows we're living in. Are we living in the shadows of our spouses, our kids, teenagers, even shadows of our past selves? Who shadows are you living in? I think that question stirred up a lot of emotion for a lot of the listeners and followers on Instagram, people were like, Fuck, I really have been living in my kids shadows or my husband shadows or even the shadows of the expectations of your parents. And even though you're an adult, the expectations of your parents like can still float there, and you can feel the weight of them. I'm here to say that in midlife, it's really the time that we have to start thinking about no more shadow living. Are you living in the shadows? Most likely? Your answer is yes. And as was mine until 18 months ago, when I discovered that while I enjoyed being a mom and a wife, I was living in the shadows of everyone else. I wanted to create some personal meaningful light that was not for my kids or husband, and not the light that shines from a 10x magnifying mirror where I spot unwanted hairs and new wrinkles. As many of you know, or if you're new here you'll be hearing for the first time I decided to start this podcast with zero listeners, zero Instagram followers, and no experience in technology or radio or even acting just my dusty PhD and some balls, lots of fear and tons of sweat and technology help. Let's be honest, my husband has basically been my fucking tech assistant for better or worse. In midlife, we're trying to figure out the shadows that we're still living in. And like I said, you could be living in shadows of your past self like a full time stay at home mom. But now you're an empty nester, a past career woman. And now you don't know what's next, a dusty PhD holder slash stay at home moms slash quote, good wife, that's me. Another interesting aspect of living in the shadows of our loved ones is that it builds a box of comfort and safety. So shadows aren't necessarily negative. It's just at a certain point, you have to figure out whether you can bend and get some of your own light, at least for a minute or two and midlife. Because the shadows really do create this container. It's so easy to say or at least it was easy for me to say, I'm just a mom. And I didn't pursue other things because it felt safer. And I felt so needed. I felt so seen and irrelevant. I mean most of the time, and I even considered having a third kid for like five fucking seconds. So I wouldn't even have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Oh, that's cool. The doorbell is ringing and I won't stop. It's probably Amazon who's my best friend, mid life empty nest life but I kept telling myself Sarah 12 years later, you're gonna face the same thing if you have the third kid of what's for me what's next. So I know this stings because it stings for me too, but it's so real and raw. This is honesty with myself. I'm telling you from experience that the more

Sarah Milken  5:00  

I step into my own light with this midlife remix of mine. Knowing that my teens and husbands are well, the more light I seek, the more I step out of the shadows, the more light I seek, and it's the kind of light that gives me meaning and purpose and relevance outside of my family. Of course, my family loves me. Of course, they need me, my teenagers maybe need me a little bit less, maybe need my credit card a little bit more. But it's the feeling of relevance. This is the time where we need to send that email we've been wanting to send or sign up for that class or take that pickleball class or join the mahjong group. It doesn't have to be a Forbes 400 company. I mean, honestly, most of us are never going to get there. But that's not even what most of us want. We just want to wake up in the morning and not feel like fuck another day. Like not dreading the hamster wheel, the Groundhog Day, all of those familiar lines, it's really in midlife about becoming you again, no more shadow living, stepping out of the comfort zones of the boundary lines of the shadows. You know, in this podcast, I talk a lot about living and seasons and how it's worked for me. And if you're new here, let me explain what I mean by seasons. Having gone to an Ivy League school, being a student and a student and getting a PhD. And having two professional parents. My mom has a PhD, my dad's a dentist, the expectation was that I would have a full time career while having young kids. And I didn't make that same decision that my mom made to work even with all the years of schooling that I did, and all of that commitment and hard work. And working full time while I was in grad school. I choose to stay at home with my kids. So how does this relate to midlife shadow living, I chose to be a stay at home mom, although my husband always thought I was going to work as my mom did in my growing up. He was cool with whatever felt good to me. And we could afford to do so. Let me mention that I went to public school until high school and the only reason I could afford to attend private school for high school was because my mom worked. I was in a different scenario than my situation with my husband, my working or not working would not have influenced my choices in the same way. My kids wouldn't have had this or that based on whether I was working or not working. So my kids are 17 and 15. And this podcast and venture midlife remix due to a bad case of what I call the fucking midlife itchy is started a little bit more than 18 months ago, until this podcast, I was essentially living in the shadows of being a mom and a wife. And when I say shadows, like I said before, I don't even mean it negatively, just implying that my space was not my own. It was a shared space with my two teenagers, my husband, my dog, I was in charge of making sure that these two human beings were cared for and basically micromanaged as my husband calls it. And I have love being a mom, and I truly love, love, love and do not have one single regret in that stay at home choice that I made seriously. One of the things that popped up here and there while I was a stay at home mom would be that sinking feeling when someone asked like, what do you do for work, and I would say I'm a mom or just a mom. And I so see really wanted to say I'm a mom, but I have a PhD. And I did this and now before I had kids, but of course I didn't say that, because that's sort of embarrassing, but I felt it of course I felt it. Because we all have identities outside of our children. And our spouses, whether it's a degree or whatever it is looking on the back on the role of sort of mom and wife, although I'll admit, as I have many times, I'm not the Pinterest wife that my husband jokingly yet truthfully says, I don't cook I'm not a good cleaner. I obviously don't fucking load the dishwasher properly. That's a whole other episode unto itself. My husband's obsessed with the dishwasher. And you have to put everything in organized and I don't give a rat's ass how anything's thrown in there because it's a fucking dishwasher. Anyway, separate story. Okay, so basically, in my house, everyone's like, Oh, she's the smart and if I have a problem needs to be solved as Sarah asked Mom, blah, blah, blah. Just so unexpected meal. But getting back to the shadows of it all. I think saying I was a mom. It was like a comfortable box. It made me feel needed and relevant. And I did dread the day my kids didn't need me or they graduated from high school. My daughter is in ninth grade. My son is an 11th. We don't know whether this episode is going to come out before or after, but we're going on a two week college tour with the four of us. I mean, all over the country can't even imagine

Sarah Milken  10:00  

What that's going to be like my kid sharing a fucking hotel room for two weeks. Oh my god. And like I said, I did think about having another kid for a second. But let's be honest, too, like pregnancy and I did not look good together my husband and I saying this, but he reminded me how sick my neck was and that I look like a linebacker, my gynecologist even asked me if I ate doughnuts all day long at five months pregnant, that was super fucking reassuring. Okay, I did serve on some high level boards, and I volunteered all the fucking time in elementary school. But I do say that I have some slight regret not in being a stay at home mom, but in that I could have and should have carved a tiny little niche for myself at the same time. I think because I've always been an all or nothing person. It was hard for me to do a little niche thing because it would be quote too small. It's sort of how like I feel in midlife or how I felt 18 months ago. How do I start small and then as a 45 year old, like, start small and have people looking at me like, oh my god, she's a beginner? What's happening with that? Wouldn't that be embarrassing to start a podcast with nothing, and an Instagram account with no one not even a personal account. But if you take one thing from these few minutes together today, start fucking small. Do the fucking thing. Sign up for the fucking pickleball I wish I was coordinated enough for that, or a website design course or an interior design course, you'll be so happy that you did it and you didn't just think about it for five fucking years. Life is short, don't think about something for five years. And guess what? Just try it. I interviewed someone today who was like, oh, yeah, I had a catering business for 12 years. And now she's doing something totally different. You're not married to something that you start. It's not like when we tell our kids that when they start soccer, they have to complete it after 14,000 years. I mean, come on you guys. We're adults, you don't have to be stay married to the topic or the activity forever. But we have to try new things. We have to expand our brains like sign up for the Gabby Bernstein meditation manifestation course. You know, sign up for how to write a blog, whatever it is, okay, I want to talk about parental shadows for a minute. Like I said, I came from professional parents, my mom was the CEO of the largest nonprofit for special needs kids in the country. She started the year I was born with five students, it's now over $100 million nonprofit, my dad is a dentist. And when you grow up with a parent who's the best at what he or she does, the expectation and the shadow is big. You know, for me, it was my mom, she never told me that I had a good good grades or go to certain schools. I just was it was just modeled for me that you just always do your best. And you excel, people always said, Oh, you're gonna grow up and work for your mom and do what she does. She's so fabulous. And although it interested me and we share similar PhD degrees, I didn't want to be in the greatness and bigness of that shadow of my mom, my mom's good at what she does. But I'm good at other things. So much of my parents disappointment, I chose to be a stay at home mom, I don't know, maybe I was avoiding living up to that big CEO shadow. And maybe I just wanted to be a mom, I'm not upset or disappointed that my mom was not a stay at home mom, because everything in life happens for a reason and 90% of who I am, is because my mom worked. And I saw her energy. And I saw her ability to relate to people and command an audience and get shit done. I would never change any of that. But at the same time, she was also the mom, like who wasn't at the pickup line who wasn't volunteering in the nurse's office or, you know, volunteering for the Halloween event. And obviously, that's all that I knew when I was growing up. So I didn't think like oh my god, I can't believe I don't have this. Like that's just what it was. But I think I just chose to do something differently and do it in different seasons. So like I started saying a few minutes ago with the season and thing it's like when I look back on my life now and reflection, which is obviously much easier to do rather than knowing going forward is that when I look at my life and seasons, it's like okay, I went to high school, I was a good student, I went to this certain college got a degree, my husband and I moved to London for a year after college and then I came back and started my PhD was at masters and PhD program and I completed that in four years while working full time and it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn. But when you're on that performance driven life of like checking boxes, checking boxes, and then when that's taken away from you or you change the path a little bit to like being a mom, then what are the

Sarah Milken  15:00  

was benchmarked. It sounds like you get fucking graded for being a mom. Yes, you get judged by other people. I mean, I was the mom who only breastfed my kids for six weeks each and I would show up a baby class with a can of formula and crack it open. And people were like, What the fuck? And I'm like, you guys, breastfeeding doesn't work for me. I did my six weeks, the pediatrician said, get to six weeks and I'm done now, no explanation needed. Anyway. So I been a state I was a stay at home mom for I don't know, let's say 15 years. I still am basically, except this podcast and Instagram, the whole platform takes up a lot of my time, which I fucking love. And I'm actually so grateful for because I wake up every day and I'm like, Okay, what do I get to do today that's related to my podcast. My kids are at school, they're busy. My son drives, he has baseball. My daughter has tennis like they all have their own lives, girlfriends, this that, you know, they're friends. And my husband goes to work. And he's not at work thinking like, Oh, God, I gotta get home for Sarah, like, you know, and a few years ago, I would say he probably did, like, Oh, I gotta get home like Sarah has kind of been like by herself today or whatever. So I'm in the season right now. It's not like a job, like I go to a job, but it's a job that I've created for myself. So however you want to define it, I'm in the season of midlife self obsession. It's my time for me the way I want it, the way I envision it the way I see it. And believe me, as you guys know, from my Instagram, and my podcast episodes, not every fucking day is a walk in the park. I just did that for minisode clusterfuck series about all the fucked up things that I've experienced with my body and you know, a month long bleed and frozen shoulder and all this bullshit, along with great things of like moving to a new house and after 18 years, but also the sadness of leaving a house that you know our kids grew up in and and all that entails with the 18 years. So I think midlife there's these days where like, Oh, I feel fucking amazing. I'm like this creative superstar. And then other days, I'm like, I feel like fuck, I feel like shit. I want to stay in this bed. I want to take a nap and eat hot tamales and the Hershey Kisses that are hidden in my closet. And guess what, guys? It's okay. And I just think that we have to give ourselves permission to step out of the shadows, the boundary lines, some of the weight and the darkness of the shadow boundary lines, create our own light. I know it's hard sometimes to think about, well, what's next? Or what should I do with my life? And what are my passions? Of course it is, you know, some people have like, always wanted to be a costume designer or whatever. So they go ahead and start doing that. But for some of us, we're like, Okay, I have no fucking idea what I'm good at. I don't know what my interests are. And that's part of the work. And I think for me, people are like, Well, how'd you come up with a podcast? And I'm like, Well, I was thinking about how I had the midlife achievers. And some of you guys know this story that my daughter, she was 13 gave me this gift for my birthday, my 45th birthday, there was a gold box. And she had asked all of my friends to write inscriptions of like, what do you think about my mom? And those inscriptions were like, my research friend, my pretty nerd friend that I call for answers, bla bla bla bla bla, and I was like, What is this theme here? And the theme was basically like, a fucking nerd research outlet, someone you go to for answers. And you know, I'm a very big podcast listener, because I don't not that I don't like to read. I love reading, but I like to multitask. So I like to walk and listen, I like to drive and listen. I'm not a TV watcher. So I would rather listen to a podcast or watch TV. I know that's not great for those people who are like, I'm a Netflix binge eater. I actually wish I could be at Netflix binge eater because it would probably give my mind a break a little bit from always just trying to like think about the next thing. Wait, I just lost my total train of thought. Wait, this is midlife. You guys? What the fuck? I've been talking for 90 minutes. Now I can't remember what I was saying. But you know what, I'm going to take a break here. I gotta run downstairs and eat and I have to get dressed because I'm going to a birthday party. If you can believe that. I have to like put big girl clothes on some like prettier makeup and actually like go out like post pandemic and my husband's not coming. It's just for women. And I'm kind of excited. I think it's gonna be fun but don't be back in a minute

Sarah Milken  19:51  

okay, I'm back. I know I had a midlife fog moment and I had to jump off. I'm back to shadow living right here right now. My daughter is now

Sarah Milken  20:00  

Andrea's making dinner if you guys don't know this, my 15 year old daughter is an amazing chef. And she taught herself how to cook during COVID Because I'm the worst mother ever and don't cook. And she was like, I can't eat Postmates anymore, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so if you hear pots and shit bagging, that's what that is. Okay, so before we wrap up my midlife shadow living little minisode here, I want you to think about the coziness and ease of your shadows, and see if we can like kind of stretch out of the cozy. Because if you know what I mean, it's like, if there's a shadow of like kids, a husband, like you have a role, you have a routine, you know where your boundaries are, you know what's expected of you. And that's what I mean by cozy and easy. But at this point in midlife, with midlife self obsession, we are going to try to find some of our own light and lean into our own personal light. And a lot of times we have to create that light for ourselves. And many of us don't even know what that means or what it is we want to do. And that's part of the work. I mean, you don't just wake up one day, well, at least most of us like oh, I've always wanted to be a chef. No, I wanted to find something that was my own. And I went through a few different ideas writing a book this that the other. And then I landed on the podcast, I want to share with you guys a few comments that I got on the Instagram post that this minisode is based upon. And I'm not a big metrics person, obviously, because I'm new to Instagram, but this post got like 235 comments. And for me it's not really the metrics. It's more like wow, this is like really resonating with people this whole idea of midlife shadow living. So I want to read you a few of them and see how they feel. And if they resonate and if they make sort of your brain pop and you think about yourself. So here goes. The first comment i So resonate with this post. I left a 25 year marriage four years ago and let the shadow go. Second post. So I so agree, Sarah, I am working on getting out of the shadow of still wanting to please my parents after all, I'm a grandmother now it's time. Third one. This explains what I have been feeling and trying to find the words for I feel liberated just reading this.

Sarah Milken  22:28  

Five, this is deep. It makes me think for sure. I love how much your account gets my wheels turning all such important things to be talking about six. So glad I found your Instagram and your podcast, I instinctively found my way out of the shadow. About five years ago when I started my custom cake business. I needed a creative outlet and something to do with my time. Number seven. I feel this now 47 widowed at 41 I feel like I haven't had much of a choice but to survive, work and raise my three teenage girls. The first one went off to college this year, the middle one will be starting her senior year next year. And my baby will be entering high school. It's all very scary, but I am going for it and not looking back. Eight. This hits home hard in a good way prepping for my twins to head off to college in the fall. And my 55 year old self needs to find myself again. Nine shadow living. I have a name for what was going on with me. I finally have adult children and suddenly met myself. I'm kind of cool. Nine where am I in 10 I started Interior Design School this past September. My husband and kids are super supportive for me doing something for myself. Wow. That's exactly how I feel in the shadows as they now are older. What the heck is my role now? What do I do with myself? Why do I feel so alone and bored? Thank you. Obviously I've stopped numbering because I can't keep track and read the comments. That's called multitasking. This is good I've been doing this for too long and it was a slow creep I didn't even notice it. I've been feeling becoming aware of it and then boom, reading it in your post really hit me hard. This is so me right now I keep waiting for my husband and I to do something together and it just doesn't seem to happen. So I'm stepping out. I signed up yesterday to start a dance class and I have other things I want to try. So if you can relate to any of these comments as the mom with kids about to fly the nest, a widow waiting for her midlife pivot aboard mom and wife looking for some spark and life a wife waiting for her husband and the wait was too long. So she did quote the thing herself, a divorce say looking for her own light and new light then you're in the right place. The boundaries of shadows can be cozy and predictable than they get boring confining and isolating. Please think about your shadows and what you can identify as to come

Sarah Milken  25:00  

OC and dark and what personal responsibility you can take and make your midlife self obsession. Fabulous. We all know it's hard. I mean come on. We're like sweating we're pissy we're Moni but no one can do it for us. Blah blah blah. I know everyone says this we have to do the work. It is true. It's time to start your midlife remix time to do the work. The inventor can start now. Some of us are already in it. Drink the fucking Kool Aid. It feels good. Feel the peer pressure the midlife peer pressure. We're doing these things peeps. I definitely have to pee and I'm making sure that my daughter doesn't leave most giant mess in the kitchen because she's making salmon I can't have the whole house smell examined tomorrow morning and I need to get some water and Hershey Kisses that are hidden in my closet behind me. And you know, I'm sure Amazon will ring the bell tonight at 10pm it's about 8:40pm right now, because you know Amazon's my best friend. I fucking love you guys. I'm loving that you're loving the podcast and Instagram. It's so cool to get messages from you guys. A few things you can do for me one fucking subscribe to the podcast. You know you're listening to the podcast so Throw me a bone and subscribe. It helps me grow. Tell your other midlife bitches about me spreading the midlife wisdom. And three write a review. I know it's an extra step and I know it's fucking annoying, but look what I'm doing. I'm recording episodes on Saturday night at 840 I mean episodes on my fucking colonoscopy and interviewing midlife experts doing the work. DM me, you know I respond to everyone. I'm the only one behind my Instagram, the only one with access. So when you see a response or comment, it's me I wrote it. The whole point of this Instagram and podcast is authenticity real real midlife shit. So if you love the Instagram, show me some love, like save shares and comments and reveal through Apple or you can do the star thing on Spotify, whatever it is. Love you talk soon