Sunday Journaling Prompt: How can you be more 'agentic' in midlife?📔🖋️
Welcome to Day One of Midlife Women's Spy School. Next up, tradecraft 101!
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Fellow Empresses, How the hell are you?
I’ve been thinking a great deal this week about midlife women, agency, and a remarkable piece by Cate Hall of
fictions.Imagine standing at the edge of a vast, seemingly impassable moat. This moat isn't filled with water, but with a different kind of obstacle: the moat of low status. It's a concept I hold dear when contemplating the essence of agency.
As you embark on new ventures or seek to acquire new skills, you inevitably encounter this moat. It's a period where you may feel incompetent or unaware, stumbling through tasks that seem elementary to others. It can feel clumsy—like your first day at spy school.
Like a medieval fortress, this moat serves as a barrier, separating you from the mastery you seek. Yet, it's not an insurmountable barrier. Those who can navigate this moat gain a significant advantage.
You can attempt to cross quietly, avoiding questions and collaboration, but doing so stifles the learning process. The path to mastery often involves getting your hands dirty, and rolling around in the muck of low status until you emerge on the other side.
But here's the secret: learning to thrive in this moat is profoundly liberating. It unlocks all of your determination and resilience.
This journey of midlife women through the moat of low status is intertwined with the concept of agency. Agency is the skill that has shaped the world around you, serving as an all-encompassing life amplifier. It empowers you to mold your corner of the world according to your desires, whether in your professional pursuits, relationships, aesthetics, or any other aspect of life.
As midlife women, embracing the challenge of the moat and harnessing our agency can lead us to profound personal growth and fulfillment. So, we splash around, embrace the discomfort, and with any luck emerge stronger on the other side.
So, some prompts to noodle on:
Reflect on your understanding of agency. How do you define it, and has your perception of it changed over midlife? Do you believe agency is an inherent trait, or do you see it as something that can be cultivated?
Explore moments in your life where you've felt comfortable in the moat. What actions did you take to manifest your determination to make things happen?
Think about the concept of finding real edges in life. Have you identified areas where you're willing to go beyond the norm to achieve your goals?
Are there areas in your life where you could have courted rejection more deliberately to better push your boundaries? Have you deliberately asked for more? Why not?
Consider the importance of expanding your surface area for luck. How can you connect with people across various disciplines and multiple levels of interdependency to explore new opportunities and collaborations?
It’s more prompts than we usually do, but women’s agency, now more than ever, seems to deserve it. Go with gusto! Huzzah!
Yours in Grandeur & Deep Sh*t,
By the way, as a disclaimer, I am not a therapist or a physician. I’ve only been to the medical school of me, so please take all of the above as mere musings and not at all as legit medical advice.
Thoughtful Monday.
I’m wondering if life is a moat Some days there are alligators to wrestle other days I can float.
Agency is a word that befuddles me. When did it slide into the vocabulary and raise its head so prominantly? Is it analogus with self worth? Self Esteem? Confidence? Balls? Too many new words with which to compare yourself or live up to. I'm confused.