Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect

Jody Brooks Life Coach
  • 4.8 (6)
  • Mental Health
  • Weekly Series

You’ve followed the rules, collected the job titles, relationships, and responsibilities… and somehow ended up in the messy middle thinking, “Hang on, who am I and when did my life start running me?” Welcome to Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect – The Nine Principles of Authentic Living. This podcast is for humans roughly 35–65 who look “sorted” from the outside but feel lost, burnt out, overwhelmed, or one passive-aggressive email away from screaming into a pillow. I’m Jody – midlife coach, former corporate burnout, child of chaos, and someone who has done the full midlife plot twist: breakdown, identity crisis, six-stone weight loss, and putting type 2 diabetes into remission while rebuilding a life that actually fits. I created the Nine Principles of Authentic Living – Awareness, Understanding, Trust, Honesty, Empowerment, Nurture, Transformation, Integrity, and Compassion – and this show is where we apply them to real, messy lives, not perfectly curated Instagram squares. Each episode blends honest solo story-time from the “beautiful disaster” chapters of my own life with raw, funny, no-BS conversations with guests who are navigating midlife reinventions: careers, relationships, addiction, health, identity, and that quiet “Surely there’s more than this?” voice you keep trying to ignore. We’re not here for fluffy “think positive” platitudes; we’re here to name the hard stuff, laugh (sometimes inappropriately), and then actually do something about it. If you’re ready to swap midlife crisis for midlife calling, reconnect with who you really are, and write a next chapter you don’t need to escape from, this is your invitation to connect, not perform. Listen on your walk, in the car, or hiding in the loo from your responsibilities – no judgement, just real talk, practical tools, and a whole lot of compassion for the glorious mess of being human in the middle.

See All

  1. Episode 1

    Midlife Reactions & Emotional Triggers: Why Did I Just Do That? Understanding the Runaway Bus

    Connect With Jody Have you ever snapped at someone you love, agreed to something you knew wasn't right for you, or shrunk yourself in a room where you should have taken up more space, and then stood there afterwards asking, why did I just do that? That single question is the opening move of Season 2 of Messy Midlife, and it's the whole reason this season is called Understanding. Jody Brooks, life coach and Jay Shetty Certified Coach, opens the season with one of the most vulnerable episodes she has ever recorded. She takes you back to a twelve-year-old girl in a pub car park in Oxfordshire, humiliated in front of a room full of strangers, learning in real time that being small, quiet and out of the way was safer than being seen. That moment did not stay in the pub car park. It became a runaway bus, one of those responses that speeds through your midlife decades without anyone at the wheel. If you have ever wondered why calm, capable adults suddenly go silent, or people-please, or over-give, or snap for no reason they can name, this episode is the doorway in. Using the iceberg metaphor threaded from Season 1, Jody shows you what sits below the waterline of a midlife reaction and why the ninety per cent you cannot see is running the show. You will meet the runaway bus, borrowed from the film Speed, as the perfect picture of an old survival response driving a modern life. And you will get the first, gentle taste of the sat-nav metaphor that carries all the way through Season 2, the quiet realisation that the map you have been following was drawn a very long time ago, by a much younger you, for a road that no longer exists. This is not an analysis, and it is not a workbook week. It is an invitation to notice, to be curious, and to be kind to whoever shows up when the bus starts moving. No fixing. No fifth Why yet. Just Understanding, which is where the road home to yourself truly begins. New here? Search Messy Midlife It's Not A Crisis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, and follow the show so Season 2 arrives in your feed automatically. If you have concerns about your mental or physical health, please speak to a qualified professional. This show is for education and reflection; it is not a replacement for therapy or medical care. Because it's not a crisis. It's a calling. Be A Guest On The ShowIf you have a story you want to share on the Messy Mildlife, get in touch through PodMatch Book Jody As A Guest On Your ShowYou can book Jody on your show through PodMatch Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Join The Messy Midlife Community: https://authenticcoaching.me/messy-midlife-podcast Get all the latest @ https://messymidlifepodcast.world Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_authenticcoach/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577431237858 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgMbKkuAqAtXkv0NTI2KcWA Threads: https://www.threads.com/@the_authenticcoach LINKED IN linkedin.com/in/jody-brooks-coach © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    Midlife Reactions & Emotional Triggers: Why Did I Just Do That? Understanding the Runaway Bus

  2. Episode 2 ·  Video

    Midlife Reinvention After 40: Building a New Identity Before the Old One Ends, with Dr William Thomas

    Connect With Jody What do you do when the identity you have carried for twenty-one years is about to end, and the next chapter is a completely blank page? Most people wait until the page is thrust into their hands. Dr William Thomas started writing on it years before. William spent twenty-one years as a United States Air Force officer. In 2007, he was deployed to Afghanistan and, at forty-two, watching much younger soldiers run around the base, he made a decision that quietly changed his life. He went home, laced up a pair of trainers, and started running. Nine months later, he ran his first marathon. He is now approaching his fiftieth. Along the way, he has completed the Marathon Grand Slam, a marathon on all seven continents plus the North Pole, one of a small group of runners in the world to do so. His book, Cross the Lines, tells that story. But this conversation is not really about running. It is about the biggest question of Season 2, asked right at the level of identity. If your job, your title, your role as a parent, partner, or leader has been carrying you for decades and is quietly coming to an end, who are you now? William's answer is a masterclass in Understanding, and it is exactly the doorway Jody wants you to walk through this week. Inside the conversation, William unpacks why getting to the starting line is harder than the finish line, how to spot the friends who lift you off the sofa and the ones whose insecurity is dressed up as concern, why "tell everybody you're gonna do it" is one of the most under-rated tools in a midlife transition, and how a middle-aged consultant with no athletic background became a marathon runner on Everest at sixty. If you are staring at your own blank page, whether it is retirement, redundancy, an empty nest, a business change or a quiet knowing that the old life is ending, this is the episode. About Dr William Thomas Dr William Thomas is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, PhD, leadership consultant and executive coach based in Singapore. He is the author of Cross the Lines: A Journey to Complete the Marathon Grand Slam. Find him at drwillthomas on LinkedIn. New here? Search "Messy Midlife It's Not A Crisis" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and follow the show so every guest episode arrives in your feed automatically. Follow us on Instagram @the_authenticcoach, subscribe to the Messy Midlife weekly email at authenticcoaching.me, and come and join the free Messy Midlife Community for the tools, worksheets and honest conversation that go with every episode. Because it's not a crisis. It's a calling.  Connect With Dr William Thomas  Website https://designingleaders.com/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/drwilliamthomas Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/drwillthomas/  Be A Guest On The ShowIf you have a story you want to share on the Messy Mildlife, get in touch through PodMatch Book Jody As A Guest On Your ShowYou can book Jody on your show through PodMatch Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Join The Messy Midlife Community: https://authenticcoaching.me/messy-midlife-podcast Get all the latest @ https://messymidlifepodcast.world Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_authenticcoach/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577431237858 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgMbKkuAqAtXkv0NTI2KcWA Threads: https://www.threads.com/@the_authenticcoach LINKED IN linkedin.com/in/jody-brooks-coach © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

  3. Episode 3

    How to Trust Yourself Again in Midlife: Updating the Old Sat-Nav Inside Your Head

    Connect With Jody This is the episode where the sea mist clears. Not because you have suddenly worked everything out, but because you have spent a week noticing the runaway bus, meeting an extraordinary man on Wednesday who built a new identity on purpose, and now you are ready to look, gently, at the map that has been driving you. Jody closes Week One of Season 2 the way she always closes a week, by pulling the thread. She takes you back to the twelve-year-old in the pub car park you met on Monday and shows you what has changed by simply looking. Not the story itself, that is still tender, and it is held with real care, but the woman who now stands at her own start line, choosing to read the road for herself. Alongside her, Jody weaves Dr William Thomas back in: a middle-aged consultant at forty-two, who could not see the road ahead either, but who took the next step anyway. Two metaphors carry this episode. The sea mist that always feels permanent until it lifts, quietly, sometimes overnight. And the sat-nav on an old map, seeded on Monday and fully opened here. Because a midlife crisis, seen through the lens of Understanding, is really the moment your old sat-nav starts recalculating on a road that no longer exists. It is not proof that you are lost. It is the invitation to update the map. You will also get a light new image for the weekend, the noticing that follows a decision, the way a new car suddenly seems to be everywhere on the road once you have chosen one. This is exactly what happens when Understanding wakes up in a life. There is no worksheet this week, and no fifth Why yet, that comes later in the season. This is a feeling-first episode designed to send you into your weekend soft, aware, and quietly kinder to whoever shows up. New here? Search Messy Midlife It's Not A Crisis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, and follow the show so Week Two lands in your feed automatically on Monday. Week Two goes a layer deeper, into The Blocks, where these responses actually get built. Follow us on Instagram @the_authenticcoach, subscribe to the Messy Midlife weekly email at authenticcoaching.me, and come and join the free Messy Midlife Community for the tools, worksheets and honest conversation that go with every episode. If you have concerns about your mental or physical health, please speak to a qualified professional. This show is for education and reflection; it is not a replacement for therapy or medical care. Because it's not a crisis. It's a calling. Be A Guest On The ShowIf you have a story you want to share on the Messy Mildlife, get in touch through PodMatch Book Jody As A Guest On Your ShowYou can book Jody on your show through PodMatch Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Join The Messy Midlife Community: https://authenticcoaching.me/messy-midlife-podcast Get all the latest @ https://messymidlifepodcast.world Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_authenticcoach/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577431237858 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgMbKkuAqAtXkv0NTI2KcWA Threads: https://www.threads.com/@the_authenticcoach LINKED IN linkedin.com/in/jody-brooks-coach © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    How to Trust Yourself Again in Midlife: Updating the Old Sat-Nav Inside Your Head

  4. Episode 4

    Understanding Midlife Reactions Where Does This Come From

    Connect With Jody Have you ever driven home from work, turning one moment over and over, asking, why did I do the exact thing I swore this morning I would not do? You saw it coming. You promised yourself. And you did it anyway. If you know that private sense of failing to be a better version of yourself, this episode is especially for you. Week Two of Season 2 opens the part of the Understanding Principle that Jody Brooks calls The Blocks. Week One was about noticing. This week, the question goes a layer deeper and, honestly, gets braver. Not why did I just do that, but where does this response come from? Because noticing a pattern and understanding a pattern are two very different things, and until you know where a reaction was born, you spend your life mopping up the water on the floor without ever looking for the leak. Jody keeps the science light and only ever in service of you. Drawing on neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, he explains why your brain is not a reacting machine but a predicting one, running ahead of every moment and firing an old response before the thinking, grown-up part of you has even arrived. Research suggests the brain can commit to a decision up to seven seconds before you are consciously aware of it. That is not a reason to feel like a passenger. It is the thing that finally lifts the shame, because you cannot out-willpower something that happens before you are even awake to it. So what do you do instead? You go back, in the calm, and you update the map. You put the prediction machine and the sat-nav together, and you see that your reactions were once brilliant, life-saving reads of a real situation. Nobody just updated the map. Jody returns to the pub, one careful layer deeper, to show how a cruel moment only lands so hard when it confirms an older, quieter belief, a splinter of ice going into water that was already cold. And he offers the reframe that changes everything. A block is not a flaw. It is an old protection that has stayed too long, an oversensitive smoke alarm still screaming at burnt toast, and it does not need to be torn down. It needs gently recalibrating, so it can finally, kindly, stand down. New here? Search Messy Midlife: It's Not A Crisis wherever you listen. On Wednesday, Jody sits down with Catherine Crestani, whose story is Week Two in living colour. Be A Guest On The ShowIf you have a story you want to share on the Messy Mildlife, get in touch through PodMatch Book Jody As A Guest On Your ShowYou can book Jody on your show through PodMatch Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Join The Messy Midlife Community: https://authenticcoaching.me/messy-midlife-podcast Get all the latest @ https://messymidlifepodcast.world Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_authenticcoach/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577431237858 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgMbKkuAqAtXkv0NTI2KcWA Threads: https://www.threads.com/@the_authenticcoach LINKED IN linkedin.com/in/jody-brooks-coach © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    Understanding Midlife Reactions Where Does This Come From

  5. Episode 5 ·  Video

    Finding the Courage To Change & Say No To Resilience

    Connect With Jody What happens when the very qualities everyone praises you for are the same ones quietly taking you to the floor? This week's guest lived exactly that, and her story is Week Two of the Understanding season in living colour. Catherine Crestani is an author, a Brainz magazine executive contributor, a former speech therapist and an inner authority guide who helps women reconnect with themselves after burnout, heartbreak and identity loss. She joins Jody Brooks from Australia to walk through not one, but three messy middles. It begins in a first marriage, where she slowly gave up the music she loved, making mixtapes and CDs for all her friends, because she believed that if she just liked what her husband liked, it would keep them closer. Years later, a friend in a car playing music turned to her and asked, "Who are you?" and she realised she genuinely did not know any more. That quiet abandonment of self became a belief that got into everything. It built a seven-figure business partnership that turned one-sided and nasty, and then her own six-figure company built entirely around herself, where everyone came to her for everything, where she could not switch off her phone on holiday, where she answered a hundred emails a day and hid her insomnia behind the delay-send button at two, three and four in the morning. She was visiting her Naturopath every week for a bag of supplements just to keep her system from shutting down under the cortisol. Then came the collapse: staff resigning three at a time, three months in a row, until she ended up on the floor, curled in a ball, rocking back and forth. Woven through the whole conversation is a gentle challenge to a word we all admire. People kept calling Catherine resilient, and Jody shared his own version of it, carrying a salon single-handed for 18 months after losing all his staff, while everyone told him how resilient he was. They arrive at the same place: resilience is a choice, not a skill, and it can take far more Courage to walk away than to keep enduring. It is a quiet, important question for anyone told to just be more resilient. This is also one of the clearest stories of the body keeping the score you will ever hear. As Catherine kept overriding what she knew, she started to go numb, first her left little finger, then up her arm, then half her face, with her intuition warning of an autoimmune condition. The day she finally quit her job, the very first day she stayed home, every single symptom disappeared. Her message is simple and brave. It's okay to change your dreams. Give yourself permission. You are the only one who can choose yourself when everything around you is telling you otherwise. Catherine is also the author of the novel My Virtual Obsession, a dark, reflective romance exploring loneliness, identity and digital connection.  Connect with Catherine @  willowhealing.org  . Be A Guest On The ShowIf you have a story you want to share on the Messy Mildlife, get in touch through PodMatch Book Jody As A Guest On Your ShowYou can book Jody on your show through PodMatch Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Join The Messy Midlife Community: https://authenticcoaching.me/messy-midlife-podcast Get all the latest @ https://messymidlifepodcast.world Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_authenticcoach/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577431237858 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgMbKkuAqAtXkv0NTI2KcWA Threads: https://www.threads.com/@the_authenticcoach LINKED IN linkedin.com/in/jody-brooks-coach © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    Finding the Courage To Change & Say No To Resilience

  6. Episode 6

    The Archaeology of Your Reactions: Carbon-Dating the Feeling

    Connect With Jody Friday is where we let the week settle. In this closer to Week Two, The Blocks, Jody Brooks gathers everything up- Catherine Crestani's story from Wednesday, the prediction machine from Monday, and one more careful step down into his own- and hands you a single image to carry it all. This work, he says, is a kind of archaeology. An archaeologist does not yank a find out of the ground. They brush away the soil, layer by layer, and then they date what they find, because an object only makes sense when you know what era it belongs to. That is exactly what we are doing when we ask Where does this come from. We are becoming archaeologists of our own reactions. And the most freeing part is the carbon-dating. When you honestly date one of these disproportionate reactions, you rarely find it is from now. That flare of rejection when a friend cancels a coffee turns out to be forty years old. The collapse of worth at one small criticism belongs to a child in a classroom a lifetime ago. The situation today is just the site where the ancient artefact got dug up again. And once you can separate the ancient from the now, both become so much easier to hold. Jody draws Catherine's story together with his own. On the surface they look like opposites, a woman who quietly disappeared to keep a marriage close, a man who loudly took charge so he could never be humiliated. Underneath, they are identical: the same young person deciding who they had to be to be safe or loved, and then following that decision for decades. He explores why blocks are so hard to spot, because they disguise themselves as our best qualities, the very things people praise us for, and picks up Catherine's frightening numbness to explore, gently, why the body so often sends the invoice for a truth the mind will not face. He is careful here: if your body is unwell, always get it properly checked. This sits alongside the medical, never instead of it. The pub story is carbon-dated one careful step further, to the chill that was already there long before that afternoon, a felt-and-body layer rather than a full excavation. The proper dig, with the actual tool in your hands, is Week Three's work. For now, you have done enough. Search Messy Midlife It's Not A Crisis wherever you listen. Be A Guest On The ShowIf you have a story you want to share on the Messy Mildlife, get in touch through PodMatch Book Jody As A Guest On Your ShowYou can book Jody on your show through PodMatch Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Join The Messy Midlife Community: https://authenticcoaching.me/messy-midlife-podcast Get all the latest @ https://messymidlifepodcast.world Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_authenticcoach/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577431237858 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgMbKkuAqAtXkv0NTI2KcWA Threads: https://www.threads.com/@the_authenticcoach LINKED IN linkedin.com/in/jody-brooks-coach © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    The Archaeology of Your Reactions: Carbon-Dating the Feeling
See All Season 2 (6)

Trailer

4.8
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

You’ve followed the rules, collected the job titles, relationships, and responsibilities… and somehow ended up in the messy middle thinking, “Hang on, who am I and when did my life start running me?” Welcome to Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect – The Nine Principles of Authentic Living. This podcast is for humans roughly 35–65 who look “sorted” from the outside but feel lost, burnt out, overwhelmed, or one passive-aggressive email away from screaming into a pillow. I’m Jody – midlife coach, former corporate burnout, child of chaos, and someone who has done the full midlife plot twist: breakdown, identity crisis, six-stone weight loss, and putting type 2 diabetes into remission while rebuilding a life that actually fits. I created the Nine Principles of Authentic Living – Awareness, Understanding, Trust, Honesty, Empowerment, Nurture, Transformation, Integrity, and Compassion – and this show is where we apply them to real, messy lives, not perfectly curated Instagram squares. Each episode blends honest solo story-time from the “beautiful disaster” chapters of my own life with raw, funny, no-BS conversations with guests who are navigating midlife reinventions: careers, relationships, addiction, health, identity, and that quiet “Surely there’s more than this?” voice you keep trying to ignore. We’re not here for fluffy “think positive” platitudes; we’re here to name the hard stuff, laugh (sometimes inappropriately), and then actually do something about it. If you’re ready to swap midlife crisis for midlife calling, reconnect with who you really are, and write a next chapter you don’t need to escape from, this is your invitation to connect, not perform. Listen on your walk, in the car, or hiding in the loo from your responsibilities – no judgement, just real talk, practical tools, and a whole lot of compassion for the glorious mess of being human in the middle.

Information