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

Jody Brooks Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach
  • 4.9 (7)
  • Mental Health
  • Weekly Series

Messy Midlife: It's Not A Crisis, It's A Calling To Connect. The podcast for men and women 35 to 65 navigating the messy middle years. Hosted by Jody Brooks, a UK-based Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach and midlife transition specialist, Messy Midlife is where the complicated, courageous, and sometimes chaotic middle of life gets talked about honestly. Through candid conversations and practical coaching insights, Jody explores identity and reinvention, self-trust, core values, morning awareness practice, midlife habits, burnout recovery, and what to do when the version of you that got you here no longer fits. This is a midlife podcast for grown ups asking bigger questions. Who am I now. What matters next. How do I rebuild without burning everything down. If you are feeling loss of identity, fear of the future, overwhelm, anxiety, or a quiet sense that you have lost yourself somewhere along the way, you are in the right place. Each week you get two solo coaching episodes and one guest conversation.  Expect real stories about burnout, addiction recovery, perimenopause, menopause, career pivots, empty nest, divorce, grief, and finding purpose after 40. Alongside experts on positive psychology, resilience, workplace wellbeing, mental health, and authentic living. No clinical language. No perfect answers. Just honest conversations for anyone in the messy middle of life. Jody's work is rooted in his Nine Principles of Authentic Living: Awareness, Understanding, Trust, Honesty, Empowerment, Nurture, Transformation, Integrity, and Compassion. Each season of the podcast explores one principle in depth, so you can follow the show as a full personal development journey or drop in for the episodes that speak to where you are right now. If you love Mel Robbins, Brené Brown, Simon Sinek, Jay Shetty, Brendon Burchard, Johann Hari, Dan Harris, Louise Hay, or James Clear, this podcast belongs in your library. Warm, non-judgmental, and grounded in lived experience, Messy Midlife sits at the intersection of life coaching, midlife reinvention, and self-discovery. New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Follow the show for honest stories, useful tools, and a reminder that what feels like a crisis is actually a call to reconnect with yourself. F ind Jody: www.authenticcoaching.meInstagram: @messymidlife_podcast and @the_authenticcoachWebsite: www.messymidlifepodcast.world Messy Midlife is hosted by Jody Arran Brooks, Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach, midlife transition specialist, and school governor based in St Leonards-on-Sea, England.

  1. Episode 1

    Midlife Honesty: How to Be Honest with Yourself (Season 4 • Ep 1)

    Connect With Jody The Smallest True Sentence. Just one, in your own head, once this week. Season 4, Ep 1 — Midlife honesty with Jody Brooks: learn to speak your "smallest true sentence" and begin identity work. Practical coaching steps to stop talking over what’s trying to be heard, build self-trust, and start midlife reinvention. Clear takeaway: pick one truthful sentence this week and notice what shifts. Show notes & connect: https://messymidlifepodcast.world/episodes/s4-ep1  Welcome to Season 4 of Messy Midlife. This month is Honesty. Not the loud kind. Not the confessional kind. The quiet kind, that sits at the back of the room and gets drowned out by everything louder. The season opens in a doctor's surgery, in this country, on results day. I walked out of that room a type 2 diabetic. And the honest thing that day was not the diagnosis. The honest thing was that I already knew. All the evidence had been in the room before the doctor spoke. I just had a very good protector standing between me and the file. In this opener I introduce you to St Just, the Bodyguard, whose costume is a flat, closed sentence, spoken the way you would report the weather. I introduce you to The Cupboard You Do Not Open, and the small, dishonest ways we rearrange the whole kitchen around not opening it. And I hand you the lightest possible sketch of the season engine: Fact, Belief, Faith. That framing comes from Nir Eyal's book Beyond Belief, which he wrote with Julie Li. I use it here with the olive, St Just, the Bodyguard, the cupboard, and the Gentle Why which arrives later in the month. Week 1 is Faith on the season spine. Not religious faith. Faith as the possibility of something better. All I am asking you to hold, without any proof, is that the truth about your life, whatever it is, will not destroy you. The tool for this week is called The Smallest True Sentence. In your own head, in your own voice, no audience, no notebook, no pressure, you finish this sentence. The thing I already know, and keep not looking at, is… That is it. One sentence. It does not need to be said out loud. It does not need to be written down. It does not need to be acted on. It does not do anything. It just names. On Wednesday I am joined by Kirana Sidin, a writer in Jakarta. She said something to me on the recording I have not been able to put down since. She had all the evidence in a life that looked genuinely good, and she just did not permit herself to name it. That conversation is the perfect follow on to today. Come and find us inside the Messy Midlife Community The season room is open. There is a seat for you already. One-to One Coaching With Jody Book a FREE call with Jody and see if coaching could be how you move to the life you deserveBe 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.Follow the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.  Join The Free Community https://messymidlifepodcast.world/join New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Find Jody: https://authenticcoaching.me  Podcast: https://messymidlifepodcast.world  Instagram: @messymidlife_podcast and @the_authenticcoach  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Authentic-Coaching Want to sponsor the show or partner with Messy Midlife? Email messymidlife@authenticccoaching.me Loved this episode? A quick Apple review takes 30 seconds and helps someone else find the show. © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    Midlife Honesty: How to Be Honest with Yourself (Season 4 • Ep 1)

  2. Episode 2 ·  Video

    Something's Missing But My Life Looks Fine - Kirana Sidin, S4 EP2

    Connect With Jody I already had all the evidence. I just did not permit myself to name it. Something is missing, but my life looks fine. If that sentence has ever crossed your mind on an ordinary Tuesday, this conversation is for you. My guest today is Kirana Sidin, a writer, coach and blogger in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the author of Cheers for a Good Life. Kirana's life, from the outside, was a life you could not fault. A settled marriage. Five children. A financially stable home. She did not have to do anything about any of it, and for close to a stretch of years she quietly did not. She had the evidence of a longing she could not fully explain, and she had gotten very good at giving that longing acceptable names. Busy. Content. Grateful. Anything, she says, that meant she did not have to look at it too closely. What broke was nothing. One evening at a family dinner, her seven-year-old said, Mum, you're so jobless. Everyone laughed. Kirana could not sleep. Not because she was confused, but because she recognised the truth in it. Her son was not telling her something new, she says. He was simply the first person to say out loud what she had been quietly carrying. In this conversation, Kirana names, plainly, the difference she found between a crisis and an awakening. She hands us her working definition of a good life, and audits it honestly against her own: relationships already built, purpose and continuous growth quietly missing. She takes us inside the practice that changed everything: an ordinary hour of reading every morning, before the household woke, and writing twice a week. She talks about faith and culture, and the passage in the middle of the episode where she draws the line between what is truly her value and what is simply someone else's expectation of her is worth the whole hour on its own. She refuses to reinvent, refuses to give advice, and puts the answer back on the listener, gently and repeatedly, until the layer opens up. This is the quiet kind of honesty. The one that says the true thing to itself first, before anyone else hears it, without turning it into a case against itself. Kirana's episode is the softest possible landing place for a season this big.    https://cheersforagoodlife.com. Kirana Sidin is a certified life coach and author of Cheers for a Good Life. One-to One Coaching With Jody Book a FREE call with Jody and see if coaching could be how you move to the life you deserveBe 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.Follow the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.  Join The Free Community https://messymidlifepodcast.world/join New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Find Jody: https://authenticcoaching.me  Podcast: https://messymidlifepodcast.world  Instagram: @messymidlife_podcast and @the_authenticcoach  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Authentic-Coaching Want to sponsor the show or partner with Messy Midlife? Email messymidlife@authenticccoaching.me Loved this episode? A quick Apple review takes 30 seconds and helps someone else find the show. © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    Something's Missing But My Life Looks Fine - Kirana Sidin, S4 EP2

  3. Episode 3

    Self-Deception in Midlife: The Small Lies We Tell Ourselves (S4 • Ep 3)

    Connect With Jody Not the dramatic ones. The ordinary ones, running quietly under Tuesday. Learn to spot everyday self-deception and rebuild self-trust in midlife. Jody Brooks explores the ordinary, quiet lies we tell ourselves small habits and thought patterns that clip confidence and stall change and offers coaching prompts to notice them, shift inner stories, and move toward clearer identity and purpose. Practical: quick reflection prompts and a mindset shift for midlife reinvention. Welcome to Episode 3 of Season 4 of Messy Midlife. Season 4 is Honesty, and this is the Friday closer of Week 1. On Monday I walked you into the waiting room. On Wednesday I sat down with Kirana Sidin in Jakarta, and she said something to me I have not been able to put down. Today, I want to leave you with the smallest possible invitation for the weekend. Our focus question all week has been, what do I already know that I keep not looking at. Not what have I not yet figured out. Not what have I not yet learned. What do I already know. Because the honest truth is that most of us do not have a shortage of information about our own lives. What we have is a shortage of permission to name it. In this episode I introduce the anchor metaphor for the season, the cupboard you do not open. It is any door in your own kitchen that you have quietly arranged the rest of your kitchen around not opening. It might be a conversation. It might be a set of numbers. It might be a feeling that you keep giving a nicer name to. It is the door that you can walk past several times a day without noticing that you have been walking past it. On Wednesday, Kirana handed us a moment I have not been able to put down. Her seven-year-old, at a family dinner, said, Mum, you're so jobless. Everyone laughed. Kirana did not sleep that night, not because she was confused, but because her seven-year-old had said out loud what she had been quietly carrying for years. That is the whole of Week 1 in one image. The evidence was already in the room. Somebody just said it out loud. This is not a fixing episode. Nothing in Season 4 is a fixing episode, because fixing is the exact word we are all reaching for when we do not want to sit with something that is asking to be noticed. Week 1's job is noticing. That is all. Week 2 will ask what the not-looking is buying you. Week 3 will ask for a sentence out loud, to one person. Week 4 will ask you to make it ordinary. All I want you to leave this week with is the smallest true sentence, said quietly in your own head, no audience, no notebook. The thing I already know, and keep not looking at, is… On Monday, Season 4 opens its second week with the season engine, Fact, Belief, Faith, and the free workbook that goes with it, inside the Messy Midlife community on Tribe. For now, this weekend, one small honest sentence. That is the whole practice. One-to One Coaching With Jody Book a FREE call with Jody and see if coaching could be how you move to the life you deserveBe 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.Follow the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.  Join The Free Community https://messymidlifepodcast.world/join New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Find Jody: https://authenticcoaching.me  Podcast: https://messymidlifepodcast.world  Instagram: @messymidlife_podcast and @the_authenticcoach  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Authentic-Coaching Want to sponsor the show or partner with Messy Midlife? Email messymidlife@authenticccoaching.me Loved this episode? A quick Apple review takes 30 seconds and helps someone else find the show. © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    Self-Deception in Midlife: The Small Lies We Tell Ourselves (S4 • Ep 3)

  4. Episode 4

    Midlife Self-belief: How to Tell a Belief From a Fact About Yourself (S4 EP4)

    Connect With Jody Water boils at 100. That is a fact. Most of what you say about yourself is not. How to tell a belief from a fact is the single most useful move I know for midlife honesty. Because most of the sentences you say about yourself sound like facts, feel like facts, and behave like facts, and they are not. Welcome to Episode 4 of Season 4 of Messy Midlife. Season 4 is Honesty, and this is the Monday opener of Week 2. Week 2 is The Blocks. The season's central engine arrives today, and there is a free workbook to go with it, waiting for you inside the Messy Midlife community on Tribe. The engine is a small three-word spectrum, in a locked order: Fact, Belief, Faith. Fact is water boils at 100 degrees at sea level. Belief is the messy middle, the sentence I hold about myself that I inherited or built and never checked. Faith is choosing, without proof, to hold open the possibility of something better. Most of what runs your life sits in the middle pile. Most of it has never been audited. In this episode I hand you the whole engine, in plain language, with the one governing line from the workbook. I use the framing developed by Nir Eyal and Julie Li in their book Beyond Belief, published by Ebury Edge, and I credit them on air. I use the sentence they use about beliefs as tools, not truths. The focus question for the week arrives here. What am I protecting by not telling myself the truth. That is the Week 2 question, and it is a different question to Week 1. Week 1 asked what you already know. Week 2 asks what the not-looking is buying you. The not-looking is buying you something. It always is. That is why you are still doing it. The tool taught this week is the workbook itself. Two pages. The middle pile, and one belief from it, run through a simple three-column check. Fact. Belief. Faith. You do not need to change anything. You only need to see which pile a sentence actually belongs in. The workbook is inside the Messy Midlife community on Tribe from today. Free. On Wednesday I am joined by Eric Robinson, retired FBI special agent and former Baptist pastor, who has thought harder than most people about what happens when a belief you were taught as a fact turns out to be a belief. Until next time, stay curious, stay kind, and keep coming home to who you really are. One-to One Coaching With Jody Book a FREE call with Jody and see if coaching could be how you move to the life you deserveBe 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.Follow the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.  Join The Free Community https://messymidlifepodcast.world/join New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Find Jody: https://authenticcoaching.me  Podcast: https://messymidlifepodcast.world  Instagram: @messymidlife_podcast and @the_authenticcoach  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Authentic-Coaching Want to sponsor the show or partner with Messy Midlife? Email messymidlife@authenticccoaching.me Loved this episode? A quick Apple review takes 30 seconds and helps someone else find the show. © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    Midlife Self-belief: How to Tell a Belief From a Fact About Yourself (S4 EP4)

  5. Episode 5 ·  Video

    MIdlife Honesty: Questioning the Beliefs You Were Raised With (S4 EP5)

    Connect With Jody Twenty-four years FBI. Twelve years in the pulpit. What honesty looks like when the belief was your job. Questioning the beliefs you were raised with is one of the hardest kinds of honesty there is, because the beliefs were not just ideas. They were the room you grew up in. They were the people who loved you. They were, in Eric Robinson's case, the pulpit and the badge, in that order. My guest today is Eric Robinson. Eric spent 12 years in Baptist ministry, planting a church he built deliberately for people who did not go to church, and 24 years as an FBI special agent. He retired from the Bureau in January 2026 at mandatory agent retirement age. His book, Irreverend: From Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI, is publishing this autumn with Weaving Influence Press, the company founded by his wife Becky Robinson. In this hour Eric walks me through the two years of daily stress-related headaches in the pulpit, the small sentence he said to his wife, and what it costs to walk away from the only identity you have ever known. He tells the story of the flinch test he used to give his congregation, on grace and welcome, and what it eventually took to apply the same test to himself. We then move into the FBI years, and to what he calls his wet-socks metaphor, which he has kindly let me borrow for the rest of the season. Content notice, this one holds a little more than the last two conversations. Eric's investigative career touched serious crime, and we speak in general terms about the cost of doing that work over a long period. We also speak about faith, doubt, family, and what happens when your children invite you to update a belief you have been carrying for a long time. If any of that is heavier than you can hold today, take a walk with the episode later or skip to Friday. On Friday I close Week 2 with a solo, on why we hide how bad things have really got, and I keep Eric's wet-socks metaphor as the anchor. Until next time, stay curious, stay kind, and keep coming home to who you really are. One-to One Coaching With Jody Book a FREE call with Jody and see if coaching could be how you move to the life you deserveBe 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.Follow the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.  Join The Free Community https://messymidlifepodcast.world/join New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Find Jody: https://authenticcoaching.me  Podcast: https://messymidlifepodcast.world  Instagram: @messymidlife_podcast and @the_authenticcoach  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Authentic-Coaching Want to sponsor the show or partner with Messy Midlife? Email messymidlife@authenticccoaching.me Loved this episode? A quick Apple review takes 30 seconds and helps someone else find the show. © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    MIdlife Honesty: Questioning the Beliefs You Were Raised With (S4 EP5)

  6. Episode 6

    MIdlife Honesty: Why We Hide How Bad Things Have Really Got (S4 EP6)

    Connect With Jody Image management is exhausting. It also looks like you are fine. Why we hide how bad things have got is a question I want to sit with today, gently and honestly, because most of the people I coach are not hiding one dramatic thing. They are quietly image managing a whole life, and they are very good at it, and it is very tiring. Welcome to Episode 6 of Season 4 of Messy Midlife. Season 4 is Honesty, and this is the Friday closer of Week 2. On Monday I handed you the season engine, Fact, Belief, Faith. On Wednesday I sat down with Eric Robinson, and he gave us the wet-socks metaphor. Today I take that metaphor and sit with it for the weekend. Our focus question for the week has been, what am I protecting by not telling myself the truth. In this closer I want to be very specific about one particular kind of protection: the pretending-you-are-fine kind. The image management kind. The version where the numbers are worse than the ones you are quoting yourself in your own head, or the drinking is more, or the conversation you keep meaning to have has been being not-had for longer than you would like to admit, or the money is tighter, or the marriage is quieter. Here's the honest bit. Image management is not vanity. It is protection. It is protecting you from feeling how bad it has actually got, because feeling how bad it has actually got would ask something of you, and you are not sure you have got anything left to give. That is not weakness. That is a very reasonable protector doing exactly what it was hired to do. Eric's wet-socks metaphor, which I use here again with his permission and full credit, is the softest possible way to notice how heavy the socks have become without turning it into a case against yourself. You did not put the socks on wrong. You have just been walking in them for a long time. No new tool this week. This is Friday, and Friday is for landing what Week 2 has handed you, not adding to it. The invitation for the weekend is one small, honest recalibration. In private, quietly, name one number, one behaviour, or one situation where the sentence you have been running about it is a bit better than the truth. On Monday, Week 3 opens with the Gentle Why, and on Wednesday I sit down with Anu Verma. Until next time, stay curious, stay kind, and keep coming home to who you really are. One-to One Coaching With Jody Book a FREE call with Jody and see if coaching could be how you move to the life you deserveBe 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.Follow the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.  Join The Free Community https://messymidlifepodcast.world/join New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Find Jody: https://authenticcoaching.me  Podcast: https://messymidlifepodcast.world  Instagram: @messymidlife_podcast and @the_authenticcoach  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Authentic-Coaching Want to sponsor the show or partner with Messy Midlife? Email messymidlife@authenticccoaching.me Loved this episode? A quick Apple review takes 30 seconds and helps someone else find the show. © 2026 Messy Midlife: It’s Not A Crisis, It’s A Calling to Connect.

    MIdlife Honesty: Why We Hide How Bad Things Have Really Got (S4 EP6)
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About

Messy Midlife: It's Not A Crisis, It's A Calling To Connect. The podcast for men and women 35 to 65 navigating the messy middle years. Hosted by Jody Brooks, a UK-based Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach and midlife transition specialist, Messy Midlife is where the complicated, courageous, and sometimes chaotic middle of life gets talked about honestly. Through candid conversations and practical coaching insights, Jody explores identity and reinvention, self-trust, core values, morning awareness practice, midlife habits, burnout recovery, and what to do when the version of you that got you here no longer fits. This is a midlife podcast for grown ups asking bigger questions. Who am I now. What matters next. How do I rebuild without burning everything down. If you are feeling loss of identity, fear of the future, overwhelm, anxiety, or a quiet sense that you have lost yourself somewhere along the way, you are in the right place. Each week you get two solo coaching episodes and one guest conversation.  Expect real stories about burnout, addiction recovery, perimenopause, menopause, career pivots, empty nest, divorce, grief, and finding purpose after 40. Alongside experts on positive psychology, resilience, workplace wellbeing, mental health, and authentic living. No clinical language. No perfect answers. Just honest conversations for anyone in the messy middle of life. Jody's work is rooted in his Nine Principles of Authentic Living: Awareness, Understanding, Trust, Honesty, Empowerment, Nurture, Transformation, Integrity, and Compassion. Each season of the podcast explores one principle in depth, so you can follow the show as a full personal development journey or drop in for the episodes that speak to where you are right now. If you love Mel Robbins, Brené Brown, Simon Sinek, Jay Shetty, Brendon Burchard, Johann Hari, Dan Harris, Louise Hay, or James Clear, this podcast belongs in your library. Warm, non-judgmental, and grounded in lived experience, Messy Midlife sits at the intersection of life coaching, midlife reinvention, and self-discovery. New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Follow the show for honest stories, useful tools, and a reminder that what feels like a crisis is actually a call to reconnect with yourself. F ind Jody: www.authenticcoaching.meInstagram: @messymidlife_podcast and @the_authenticcoachWebsite: www.messymidlifepodcast.world Messy Midlife is hosted by Jody Arran Brooks, Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach, midlife transition specialist, and school governor based in St Leonards-on-Sea, England.

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