The Reason Healing Feels Like a Midlife Crisis (And Why That’s Actually Progress)

RACHEL LAFORCE
Oct 9
2 min read

If you’ve ever thought, “Wait, am I having a breakdown or a breakthrough?” - congratulations, you’re probably healing.

In this episode of Healing Is Hilarious, I sat down (read: ranted lovingly into a mic) to talk about what it really means to meet yourself again. Not the “glowy, aesthetic healing” kind. The kind where you take a two-minute pause, try to breathe, and end up ugly crying about capitalism.

For most of my life, I was sprinting toward the next identity - comedian, actor, intuitive, business owner, mom, “person who definitely doesn’t need therapy” (spoiler: she did). And somewhere between being an only child raised by two wildly opposite parents, touring with The Second City, and accidentally rebuilding my entire nervous system, I realized something wild:

The real healing isn’t in becoming more. It’s in slowing the f*** down.

It’s in realizing your “midlife crisis” might just be your soul finally getting a word in. It’s in catching yourself saying, “Once I get ___, then I’ll feel ___,” and realizing that line has been haunting you since your twenties.

We’ve built a world where speed equals safety, productivity equals worth, and we call confusion “ambition.” But when you stop - even for two minutes - you can hear the truth: you’re not behind, you’re just being. And being is the whole point.

Three Takeaways from This Week’s Episode

1. Slowing down is not laziness - it’s leadership. When you pause, you reconnect with your intuition - and clear people are hard to manipulate. That’s why the world moves so fast: if we’re tired and confused, we’re easier to control. Slow down anyway.

2. The “middle bottom” moment matters. You don’t have to hit rock bottom to change your life. Sometimes the quiet, painful middle bottom - the one where you finally say “this isn’t working” - is the real turning point.

3. Your weird is sacred. Stop trying to be the red rose in a garden full of clones. Healing means reclaiming your weird, your rhythm, your beauty - even when it’s not trending.

Journal Prompts

What parts of me have I been speeding past because they feel uncomfortable?
Where in my life do I need to take a “two-minute pause” - not to fix, but to feel?
What title or identity have I outgrown, and what frequency do I actually want to live from now?
What would it look like to trust that my pace - not the world’s - is the right one?

Healing isn’t a rebrand. It’s a reunion. You’re not becoming someone new - you’re finally meeting the person you’ve been all along.

Tune out, tune in. Love you, mean it.

Rachel