written by Judith Sherven, PhD and Jim Sniechowski, PhD |  

She’s approaching fifty, her children grown and on their own. Perhaps she’s a grandmother, maybe not. Could have been she juggled career and “happy homemaker” all at the same time. Or, maybe staying home to raise her children and make a safe nest for her husband was all she’d ever dreamed of. Either way, her mothering instincts have been pretty well satisfied.

Now, at fifty, what will she do?

At the same time, her husband, who’s been out in the workforce since he was a kid delivering newspapers, has climbed his way up the slippery career treadmill for more years than he can remember. Sure he came home to hot meals and clean sheets, children who loved him and a devoted wife who never looked at another man. But now, now at this time in his life when he’s at the top of his game, he discovers there’s really no more “up” to climb.

What will he do now?

While the “Mid-Life Crisis,” when it’s understood with compassion and respect, can be a riveting freedom factory for both women and men, all too often the questions “Is this all there is?” and “Has my life been worthy of me?” prompt the graying boomer crowd to rush into confusion and chaos without thinking much about the huge opportunities available to them.

Rather than listening intently for the next drum beat of their life’s calling, perhaps it’s even a Soul Calling , reasonably satisfying marriages are replaced by the dream of “Don Juan” or “Cinderella.” Successfully stable businesses are replaced by retirement to an island get-away and eventual boredom and depression. Face lifts and golf lessons seem to hold the key to happiness . . . until afterwards . . . leaving the Mid-Lifer feeling lost and alone, with no idea what’s driving them to make these radical if fruitless changes.

For women, the force driving them to reinvent themselves is laced with biological fuel as well as emotional need. During their young adult years, women’s estrogen-laden biology makes them well suited for having children. Couple that with the still prevalent undercurrent of social programming, no matter the women’s movement, that “Women’s place is in the home.” and “You’ll never really be fulfilled unless you’re a mother,” and it’s no surprise that the large majority of boomer women chose family as their first priority over success in the world.

But then comes menopause. And what happens to all that estrogen? It starts to decrease. But that’s not all that happens. As estrogen decreases a woman’s testosterone level, by comparison, now increases. All at the same time that her maternal duties have run their course.

So, what’s a healthy, red-blooded woman to do? If she’s conscious and mature, she’s ready to blossom and bloom in all her magnificence. So she may start her own business, go back to school, follow her dream of exotic travel, or even rethink her marriage.

Why? Because she’s free to do so. No longer responsible for raising or suppor...