Part 2
In Part 1, I introduced readers to an expanded understanding of middle age and the unique journey men take as we embark on what many consider a true hero’s journey. On the path of his new book, Learning to love middle age: 12 reasons life gets better with age Chip Conley offers a unique guide for every man (and woman) facing the confusing and challenging period known as “middle age.”
Chip Conley is the CEO of Modern Elder Academy, the first middle age wisdom school and New York Times bestselling author. “What is wrong with me?” Chip asked himself in the Introduction to Learning to love middle age.
“That was the question that haunted me in my 40s,” says Conley. “I hated my life, partly because every piece of it was falling apart. However, I clung to these pieces as if they were a tattered life jacket.”
I first met Chip Conley shortly after he opened the Phoenix Hotel in San Francisco in 1987. I was designing a men’s retreat and his quirky hotel seemed like the perfect place. He went on to create a chain of boutique hotels, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, becoming the second largest boutique hotel operator in the world. He later mentored the young entrepreneurs who started Airbnb and was named the company’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy.
I recently interviewed Chip for a MenAlive podcast. I asked him about his own midlife challenges, how he came to write the book, and his belief that middle age spans from age 35 to 75.
I have been writing about middle age since 1997 when my book, male menopause, was published and became an international bestseller translated into fourteen foreign languages. I said,
“Male menopause, also called andropause or manopause, begins with hormonal, physiological, and chemical changes that occur in men generally between the ages of forty and fifty-five. These changes affect all aspects of a man’s life. Male menopause is thus a physical condition with psychological, interpersonal, social and spiritual dimensions.’
I went on to say,
“My first experience with this life change happened on the day I was born on December 21, 1943. When my mother announced ‘it’s a boy’ and picked me up for my father to hold, she was thirty-seven years old and in the midst of a major crisis. of life. Over the next five years, he became increasingly depressed and withdrawn. She had what my mother called a ‘midlife nervous breakdown’. Just before my sixth birthday, she overdosed on sleeping pills. Although he didn’t die, our lives were never the same again.”
He was committed to the state mental hospital in Camarillo, north of our home in Los Angeles. I wrote about his own journey of survival and redemption in my book, My Distant Dad: Healing the Wound of the Father of the Family. Too many men reach middle age with little understanding, preparation or guidance. Chip Conley’s journey was not as difficult as my father’s, but he faced his own difficult challenges. “I felt completely alone” says Chip of this period in his life, “An idiot without a village.”
He goes on to say,
“Middle age is when we start to worry that life isn’t going the way we expected. We may feel a sense of missed opportunity and frustrated desires. Or we feel like we’ve sold out and are living someone else’s life. It’s when we can look in the mirror and see a stranger.”
Chip talks about The Midlife Unraveling.
“Middle age is the beginning of a time of tremendous transition. A drizzle of disappointments. Parents dying, children leaving home, financial bills, changing jobs, changing spouses, hormonal outrage, scary health diagnoses, addictive behaviors becoming unrelenting and the triggers of a growing curiosity about the meaning of life.” (What’s that about Alfie?)
Chip offers a wonderful vision of a positive transformation in the midst of unfolding.
“When a caterpillar is fully grown, it uses a button of silk to attach its body to a branch and then forms a chrysalis. Within this protective chrysalis, the transformative magic of transformation occurs. Although it is somewhat dark, dark and lonely, it is a transition, not a crisis. And of course, on the other hand, it’s a beautiful butterfly.”
12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age
Chip describes five important areas of our lives and in each of them offers a series of positive and transformative things we can address:
Natural Life
- “I have more life left than I thought.”
- “I’m relieved. My body no longer defines me.”
Emotional life
- “I make friends with my feelings”
- “I invest in my social well-being.”
- “I have no more ‘gammas’ left to give.”
The Psychic Life
- “I Master My Wisdom.”
- “I understand how my story serves me.”
- “I learned how to process my life.”
Professional Life
- “I’m glad to get out of the hallway.”
- “I am beginning to experience the abundance of time.”
The Spiritual Life
- “I discovered my soul.”
- “I feel like I’m growing whole.”
You can learn more about Chip and his work and order his book from visiting him here. You will learn more about his new book, Learning to love middle age: 12 reasons life gets better with age his six other books, courses and classes.
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