The Stress of Staying in our Endlessly Working Survivalist Warrior

“Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long.”

Michael Gungor

Trying to continue our busy working life, built on the structures we created as far younger men, causes us grave difficulties as we move into midlife. We become so tired. We live with a growing sense that something is not right inside, especially as our old, painful inner dynamics resurface with increasing vigour.

Our hardened armour, developed so we could thrive in a competitive working world, becomes a prison rather than a protection. Those who love us become disillusioned and begin to feel that they will never reach us. Continuing our ambitious and excessive working effort begins to harm us rather than invigorate us.

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”

Socrates

If we listen carefully, we begin to sense that we must renew ourselves, or find a new way of being, if we are to cope with our winter and find happiness as we move towards old age. We recognise that simply continuing as we always have is not going to work.

Midlife is the time for us to turn and face ourselves. It is our time to face the old wounds we have hidden, and to face the lack of depth and feeling that may have helped us keep moving forward in our younger lives. It is time to look at where we have betrayed ourselves for success, or where we have given ourselves away to please and care for others. It is time to feel our profound, underground sorrow and to acknowledge the fears we have been avoiding.

It is time to find why we are here and what the meaning of our life is. It is time to discover who we are, and to ask whether the contribution we have made to the world is enough, or whether there is more we can give in a different way. It is time to pay attention to ourselves, rather than brushing ourselves aside in the name of success.

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

Henry David Thoreau

So many of us men are conditioned to be thoroughly one-sided. I was taught to be masculine only, and to demonstrate only my male qualities—strength, determination, overriding pain and discomfort, forging myself in the world. These qualities are useful in a working career, but I have found that they can profoundly block us from being fully alive, or from truly engaging with life.

Being one-sided—masculine only—becomes lonely in later life. These qualities do not equip us to be relational, loving, inclusive, or attentive to others. We can only access these sides of ourselves by opening to the parts we have previously denied—our feminine. Only then can we truly pay attention to our body, our emotions, our friendships, our family, and the community around us.

At midlife, it is time for us to step out of our striving, working, proving, competing Warrior—to slow down and become much more fully human.

“Too many of us move through our lives with our true selves buried below layers of repressed emotion. With so much energy channelled toward sustaining the repression, there is little left over for the deeper questions. The consequences of our evasion are profound. Our stockpiles toxify into a cache of weapons that turn inward against the self: quick fix, long suffering. As Rumi said, “Most people guard against the fire, and so end up in it.” This is the power of then. If we don’t deal with our stuff, it deals with us.”

Jeff Brown

Facing ourselves in midlife takes courage. It is not easy to turn towards the parts of ourselves that we have denied, suppressed, and hidden for so long. It is not easy to face the parts of us that feel weak, that suffer, or that are destructive to ourselves and our world. It is not easy to admit what is really going on inside, or to acknowledge that we do not know who we are—and that somehow our life feels barren and empty.

It is not easy to admit that we are injured, and have been for a very long time—perhaps since childhood. It is not easy to acknowledge that we do not really know how to love, that we do not know how to nourish ourselves, that we do not know how to feel, that we have little connection with our soul or with spirit. It is not easy to admit that we do not love deeply, and that our life feels empty.

None of that mattered too much as we strove our way into the world.
But when our striving comes to an end, it is all that matters.