“You’re Not Crazy… You’re Being Called”
Having my Internal Conversations out loud
I want to start by saying something plainly, because I know a lot of men need to hear it:
You’re not crazy!
Someone said this to me. I said it to Kevin. And this simple 3 word sentence can rip you from the depths of loneliness like no other.
To finally be “seen” in a world that has no time for middle aged men that sentence could potentially save lives.
If you’re somewhere in midlife and things that used to work don’t anymore…
If success didn’t deliver what you thought it would…
If you feel restless, discontent, or quietly unsettled for reasons you can’t fully explain…
That doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.
It means something honest is happening.
Kevin and I just finished one of the most meaningful conversations we’ve ever had on the show, sitting with Dr. James Hollis (who asked us to call him Jim), whose work quite literally gave us the language for why Man in the Middle Show exists at all.
And what struck me most wasn’t some big new idea.
It was the permission.
The permission to stop treating this season like a problem to solve and start seeing it as a passage to walk through (hence the name of his book The Middle Passage).
My first life taught me how to survive.
My second life asks me what I’m here for…
I spent the first half of my life doing exactly what I was supposed to do.
I adapted, performed, and followed instructions.
I got a good job, then built a career. I was dependable, I provided, and kept it all together because I had to.
And for a while, that worked.
But then something started to happen.
The goals didn’t satisfy me the way it used to.
My passion dried up, and my energy began to drain from my body like a flushed toilet. The roles I played started to feel tight.
Hell… I even succeeded… and still felt like something was missing.
WTF?
That’s the moment most men panic.
They try to fix it externally:
New job
New city
New relationship
New distraction
Jim Hollis calls that the Seattle solution, wherever you go, you bring yourself with you.
What’s actually happening is deeper.
The first half of life asks, “What does the world want from me?”
The second half asks, “What does my soul want from me?”
And those two questions rarely have the same answer. At least they didn’t for me.
But The In-Between Is Brutal… Yet Necessary
Here’s the part nobody likes to talk about.
There’s a hallway between those two lives.
And it’s uncomfortable as hell.
I don’t know what’s next yet, my old map doesn’t work anymore while feeling lost, and the new one hasn’t been handed to me. Now what?
Jim talked about this spot exactly. He said:
“Haste is of the devil.”
I hated hearing that, because I’m wired to move, build, execute.
But the truth is, this season doesn’t respond to force, it responds to honesty.
This season take Patience, which I lack tremendously lol.
Endurance… hell I got this, so I’m good to go here.
And a willingness to admit I don’t know (this is something I’ve been practicing since 2018 and has been life changing, beginner mindset is the path to mastery).
For me personally, one of the strangest, and most beautiful shifts has been learning how to live without needing to explain the sacred.
In this context it’s meaning: entitled to reverence and respect
So I don’t need to justify this inner movement anymore and it doesn’t need to be packaged neatly.
I don’t need certainty to take the next honest step.
That’s new for me.
And it feels like… I am lacking nothing. My whole state of being is abundance.
One of the clearest signals Hollis talked about is energy.
Not the kind you manufacture with discipline but the kind that speeds you up.
When you’re aligned, hard things feel meaningful.
When you’re misaligned, easy things exhaust you.
Burnout, depression, and anxiety are not always disorders. Sometimes they’re messages from my soul reminding me not to forget about it.
The psyche has a way of getting your attention when you’ve drifted too far from yourself.
And if you don’t listen early, it will speak louder later. I talked about this in my last writing where I felt like my soul was screaming at me lol.
But that doesn’t mean you blow up your life. It means you stop pretending nothing’s happening.
Because I Still Have Duties… But I Also Have a Duty to My Soul
This was big for me.
I can’t abandon my family, quit responsibility, and then burn everything down.
But I also can’t ignore the quiet summons inside myself (that only I hear).
There are competing duties in midlife:
Duty to others
Duty to the self
Duty to something larger than my own ego
Wisdom is learning how to hold all three without betraying any of them. This has been super tough for me.
And no, sorry to disappoint all the “Relationship Instagram Influencers,” that’s not narcissism.
That’s maturity.
So If You’re Here Right Now, This Is the Work
Jim said something to Kevin and I that was a mic drop…
The ego is a tiny wafer floating in a vast ocean.
We are not as in control as we think, and thank God for that. Playing God is exhausting.
Something deeper knows us better than we know ourselves.
It speaks through feeling, energy, dissatisfaction, a deep longing, and even through our dreams.
If you’re in this season and wondering what’s wrong with you…
Let me say what someone once said to me:
You’re not going crazy.
You’re waking up.
And that’s not the end of the story.
It’s the beginning of a more honest one.
As always, thanks for reading and listening. Kevin and I appreciate you all as we put ourselves out there for the world to see what it looks like being a Man in midlife.
See you next time.
Cheers,
Joe