![]() She explained that throughout life we adapt as our “windows” get bigger or smaller to suit our needs, but in midlife, many of us seem to lose this ability to recognise what we can and cannot deal with and drown in the resulting stress. ![]() I first learn ed the phrase “windows of tolerance” from therapist Julia Samuel. ![]() “They wouldn’t believe me.” With her windows of tolerance completely shut, she’d lost all that confidence born a groundbreaking career alongside bringing up a family. “I don’t tell anyone I used to be a pilot nowadays,” she added. A 48-year-old woman told me she once flew jumbo jets long haul and yet the day I interviewed her she’d become so stressed out reverse parking her small car she’d given up in floods of tears. I mean, I forgot which side of the road to drive on at one point in my late 40s I felt so demented with stress (not something you really want to talk about out loud). I know this not just because I am a woman in my 50s and I’ve been through it, but because I have interviewed many women over the past four years in my role as co-host of the Postcards from Midlife podcast and author of What’s Wrong With me? 101 Things Midlife Women Need to Know.Īgain and again, women over the age of 40 told me they, too, had been ambushed by a sudden inability to deal with stress. Any amount of stress seems to overwhelm us. However, for an army of midlife women the turmoil of this life stage often inexplicably whips away our ability to deal with difficult situations overnight, from the simplest family problems to the biggest career dilemmas. It’s a contrary conundrum, as you’d expect life experience and maturity would increase your ability to cope, wouldn’t you? Sometimes they’re just tiny cracks in the glass and yet you feel you can’t tolerate any stress ever again. Have you found out about your windows of tolerance yet: those moments when you feel fully capable of handling any stress life throws at you? Our tolerance shrinks and expands to suit our needs, but these “windows of tolerance” are a funny thing for women, as I have just discovered, because they unexpectedly disappear when we hit midlife.
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