Is It Possible To Have A Conscious “Breakdown?”

This is a question I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately.

With quite a few decades now lived in a human body, it’s come with a trillion zillion micro impressions - some good, some rubbish, some challenging, triumphant and every other shade imaginable. It’s a LOT.

So with my own ‘coming of age’ (50 in just a few weeks) I reflect on this idea of the midlife crisis. It used to be just designated to men - an excuse to leave their wives, get a convertible, an ear piercing or a tattoo and other men would nod in understanding and in permission.

Now as a woman who’s body is having a whole THING of transformation, writhing in it’s ovarian death throes to make way for my magnificent metamorphosis into strong, soft and sexy over fifty, I’m looking at the mid-life need for change, a little differently.

What I KNOW is that after all these years and all these impressions, all of this steadying the ship and holding these glorious shitshow together, is that it’s coming for me. ‘What’s coming Lissie?’ You may ask in excitment and trepidation.

THE BREAKDOWN.

Now I’m not talking about some superficial had enough of my job, location, relationship type relocation, I’m talking about the disintegration, the volcano, the collapse of everything to this point that defines me as ME.

I can feel it skirting around my edges.

Can you feel it too?

So there are two paths we can take:

Ignore it, hope we can outrun (yoga, swim, meditate, gym) our way out of it and then get sucked into the calamitous process kicking and screaming. We can resist, fight, hold, accentuate and PROLONG OR

We can turn toward it and create the conscious container that invites it to unfold.

For some lucky folks, they might be able to take off for a year. Lose themselves in this blackhole of incinerating self-identity in Bhutan or on a hike through the Amazon. They might be lucky enough to make a movie out of it or pen some songs.

But what if the breakdown has to happen within the context of this life you’re living?

Here’s an offering of 5 oversimplified steps to help you consciously breakdown (yes, yes so it can become your breakthrough - that’s where we’re obviously going with this, but let’s be pragmatic first and cliche later):

1. Accept it is coming for you.

2. Relax your shoulders and open your chest - let in, let it out.

3. Tell your friends, but tell them in an empowered way - ‘I’m going to have a breakdown, don’t worry, I’ll be okay. Love me anyway, I’m looking forward to the other side. Meet you there.’

4. Do ALL the good things - food (ana), move (asana), breathe (pranayama) meditate (dharana), swim, hug, retreat, relax, cry your goddam eyes. Cry every tear you never cried.

5. Let it be. How long it takes is not up to your conscious mind, you’re rearranging yourself at the deepest level, you’re shaking off all that conditioned debris that got you here and reconfiguring who you’re going to be.

So dearest friends, with joy and terror, I’m inviting in my breakdown with incredible excitement, as I do this inconjunction with the programs I love, that have transformed so many lives - the 7-Day and 21-Day Dissolving Patterns Programs AND as I go deeper into the teachings of Yoga with our 2025 Yoga Teacher Training, then I have ever gone with you before.

This is an important season of life - as is the season you are in right now. Having a framework in which to navigate these things is profoundly helpful. With the deepest gratitude to Yoga, to my teachers, to all of my students, to YOU, I invite us all to take off the lids of suppression about these aspects of life - they are a fundamental part of what it means to be human.

Oceans of love
Lissie x.