I wrote about this in my book. Your passion is usually something you have a deep love for, whether you're following it or not. You think about it and there has always been this little thought in the back of your mind that you would love to pursue it. It doesn't always have to involve money either. Start small and work from there. I always prayed and asked God to show me what it was I was supposed to be doing. Never, at that time, did I think it would be helping battered women!

Julie G said, "Some of us go completely off the deep end, ditch the spouse, take off for the mountains, etc."

I'm sitting here thinking...she says that like it's a bad thing...hm....

Eagle, why not read some books (from your local library) about discovering your passion? Its a starting point, yes?

There's:

a) Discover Your Passion : An Intuitive Search to Find Your Purpose in Life - by Gayle Cassidy

b) Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live - by Martha Beck

c) Create A Life That Tickles Your Soul : Finding Peace, Passion, & Purpose - by Suzanne Zoglio

d) If Not Now when : Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife - Stephanie Marston

e) Awakening at Midlife - Kathleen Brehony

f) What's Next : Women Redefining Their Dreams in the Prime of Life - by Rena Pederson

These are just a few books out there that might spark something magical inside. And if your library carries them, its all FREE! Can't beat the price, eh?

Hope this helps, JJ

Thanks Dianne, I've been seeking my passion for quite awhile now, with the help of a therapist for a year or so, then with the help of good friends who have known me for 20-30 years, and now just through prayer, reading and seeing what other women are passionate about.

The one thing that keeps coming back and resonating throughout my entire being is (don't shudder) "God". My one overriding passion for my entire life has been God. Living my life loving and serving Him. Going wherever the Spirit-wind seemed to be leading me. And always finding myself right where I needed to be at the time. I even went to university to study theology, so I could become a priest in the Catholic Church (that's how much I believed it would someday be possible, because the desire and passion never waned...still hasn't, despite being married now and the possibility not even being remote within my lifetime).

I did try to "transfer" that desire and passion into becoming a nun, but my history of depression and chronic fatigue made that impossible. Eventually I gave up on the idea of a contemplative lifestyle, married and have since tried to live out that passion within the realm of my married life.

It's not quite the same...not even close to what I yearn for. It seems that I have the heart of a contemplative but not the physical/ emotional/ mental makeup to allow for a 100% commitment to that lifestyle. And so even as I hunger for it, I know I have to live within the limitations, making it always seem just slightly out of my reach. Too much and I break...too little and I yearn with an unbearable aching.

There's no doubt in my heart and mind that I'm meant to be married to hubby...he's my stabilizer and the truest love and home I've ever known; I've sure beyond doubt that he's the only person on the face of the earth that has the exact temperament and combination of gifts needed to be able to live with me! So it's clear Who brought him into my life, which is why I'm so sure this is where I'm meant to be.

But what to do with the passion and no physical energy or mental constitution to be able to do much with it. Maybe it really is all about just learning how to love...it seems that every road I venture down in this pursuit, every strand I follow in my quest to find my passion, keeps leading me back to the same thing...love, learning how to love authentically...loving God, hubby, others, myself. Maybe that's really my one and only passion/purpose right now. It's certainly all I seem to have any direction, motivation, energy or desire for these days.

It seems too simple. But you say to start small and work from there. So if that's where I keep finding myself to be standing after all the praying and searching, perhaps that's because it's where I'm meant to be right now.

Jawjaw, Thanks for that list of books. I printed them off and tucked it into my purse. I'm currently reading "The Highly Sensitive Person", by Elaine Aron, which is both exhausting and exciting. Having forever been a misfit and never being able to understand why, this book is an amazing explanation and affirmation of ME. It's so me, it's scary to think that there might actually be others just like me out there. But it's true. And it might be one of those keys I've been looking for to open my own front door and let myself back out into civilization.

(And once I can do that, I can go to the library and get some of these books...)

Eagle, try hunkering down in prayer and seeking God's guidance. Maybe journal about finding your passion. Make lists of what you enjoy. You might be surprised at what you discover. The Lord has a plan. Keep bothering Him until he reveals it. I'll be praying for you.

Also, you aren't the only one is this boat. I know women who are having similar thoughts. So many boomers are at midlife trying to figure out what's next. Some heve been stay at home moms and their lack of technological skills is keeping them from re-entering the work field. Some have climbed the corporate ladder and want to get off. Others are retiring and looking for something passionate to do with their free time.

Try to think of this as your second adulthood and you get to do what you darn well please.

That's how it was with me, Dotsie. I had a great career as a technical writer, making a boatload of money and I realized I couldn't do it anymore. I wanted to follow my dream, and my dream was to write.

I'm forever grateful that I have a supportive and understanding husband who understood my dream and wanted to help me achieve it. If it weren't for him, I'd probably be a very unhappy person right now. But, Thank God, he knew what would make me happy and wanted it for me as much as I wanted it for me.

I don't know what I'd ever do without my dear hubby. I pray that I never have to find out.

I spent a lot of time and effort praying, discerning, researching what my passion/dream could be. After my medical disability ran out (for work-related stress, burnout and depression), I still wasn't able to return to work (network admin for 75 computers), so the government sent me on a wide assortment of career-change seminars and psych tests to try and help me to find out what I would be suited for, what my passion is. They ALL came back with writing at the top of the list.

I've always loved to write, excelled at essays in school, wrote for the local newspaper when I was a teenager and always wanted to write something - anything and everything - from newspaper columns, Hallmark cards and poetry to children's books and theology dissertations. But life (i.e., the relentless need to pay rent and buy groceries) never took me in that direction, so it was a largely-ignored passion.

But I took the results from those tests and all of the excellent counselling to heart and began to pursue that dream. I even wrote a book. It was so much fun writing that book. I was in heaven the entire time, even revising and editing it. And it's a good book, well-written (because so much feedback has told me so, so I choose to believe it) with a message I believe in and believe should be "out there", even though it's admittedly aimed at a narrow target audience. And it was exciting, exhilarating, incredibly fulfilling to have that dream finally come true, so much so that I was convinced that this really was my passion and the new direction that my life was supposed to be heading in. And my head was/is still full of new book ideas, new directions to take the writing. I already have three more books (totally dissimilar from the first one and each other) in various stages of progress.

But then came the marketing and promotion. So not my forte. In fact, with chronic fatigue, painful arthritis and severe social angst hampering me, it has been virtually impossible to follow through on the admin end of this book writing dream. I simply can't do it. In short, this dream has left me $8,000 in the hole, and with 25+ boxes of my precious book still sitting in my basement, a daily reminder of what a failure that particular pursuit of a lifelong dream was.

I too have a very supportive husband who loves me more than I probably deserve; the last thing he deserves is for me to continue pursuing dreams that continue to drain our life-savings and in the end don't amount to much more than yet another failed attempt to "find myself".

I'm trying to stay positive. I'm trying to keep my head above these swirling waters. I'm constantly "rewiring my attic" and rewriting new tapes in my head that tell me good and wonderful things about myself. But the truth is that I'm drowning in inability, floundering in failure and don't have the energy to start over again without some sort of hope of success.

I don't mean to be negative, especially here. I don't want to drag anyone down, anymore than I want to continue feeling like a useless failure at the one thing that should have worked for me. But that's my reality. I haven't given up, I won't give up, I'm still searching, still questing, still praying, still hoping, still trusting that something somewhere will click and "aha" me into my new direction. Until then, it's a swirling maelstrom of unknowing.

Back to the question about using the word "crisis," I think the author of Breaking Point is trying to connect the midlife woman's experience to the classic "midlife crisis" that men go through, to make the point that women also often go through a profound transition at this stage of life. Previously, the belief was that only men have a midlife crisis (which usually consists of taking up with a younger woman and/or buying a sportscar). But I agree that with women, it's not necessarily a "crisis"--it's often a long process that stretches over several years.

It almost seems that whether or not it's accurate to use the word "crisis" would depend on the degree to which the woman's life is changed by this transition process. Some women breeze through it, discovering new and creative facets of themselves and come out the other side relatively intact. I suppose that "crisis" would be too strong of a word in those instances.

Others flounder and barely scrape through it alive, much less intact, and wouldn't hesitate to define it as a crisis, in terms of it being painful, unpleasant and even dangerous. In which case "transition", (while admittedly being exactly what it ends up being), would be too weak a word to use to describe the process.

I have no problem with it being called a crisis, since the word itself covers a wide range (and varying intensities) of experiences; each woman's sense of crisis (and interpretation of the word) would be unique and subjective, depending on each woman's personal history (and memory of intensity and impact) of previous experiences of crisis and/or transition.

Eagle Heart what is your book about? Why not continue to market it? Go to a local bookstore and request some space to have a signing or put copies on a card table at a local swapmeet. Never say never and never stop trying to get the book out there. No one is going to magically do this for you my dear, you have to take the bull by the horns and get out there and do this....