Episode 154 - Permission to Bloom: Embracing Midlife Motherhood
Finding Joy in Life's Changing Seasons
Are you a woman of faith struggling to navigate your current season of life? Do you feel like life is just happening to you instead of for you? If you're in that sacred, challenging space where everything seems to be shifting—especially in midlife motherhood—this message is especially for you.
Mother's Day sometimes feels like another occasion where you're expected to smile and be grateful, even when your heart is wrestling with something deeper. If you're in that beautiful, challenging, sometimes bewildering season of midlife where everything seems to be shifting, you are not alone.
The roles that once defined you may be changing. The relationships you counted on might look different now. And sometimes, in quiet moments, you might wonder: What now? Who am I? What's my purpose?
These aren't signs of failure—they're sacred questions. They're the doorway to what might become the most authentic, connected season of your life.
When Motherhood Doesn't Match the Greeting Cards
For many of us, there comes a time when Mother's Day looks nothing like the greeting cards. Perhaps your children are leaving home and making different choices than you'd like. Maybe you're caring for an aging parent with declining health. You might feel lost and empty, wondering, "Is this all there is? Is this what I've been preparing for all these years?"
Maybe you can relate. You might be in a season where:
Your children need you differently now, or perhaps not in the ways they once did
Your relationship with your own mother is complicated by history or absence
Your body is changing, sending signals you're not sure how to interpret
Your faith feels deep, yet somehow more questioning than before
Your heart is whispering that there's something more waiting for you
10 Permissions for the Midlife Mother's Heart
Instead of another sentimental card or a list of ways you should be grateful, here are 10 permissions for your midlife mother's heart. These aren't instructions or demands—they are invitations toward a more authentic relationship with yourself, with those you love, and with God.
1. Stop Waiting for Permission to Celebrate Yourself
For how many years have you waited for someone else to notice your efforts, your sacrifices, your quiet acts of love? How long have you diminished your own needs, waiting for someone else to validate that they even matter?
The waiting can end today. You don't need anyone's permission to honor your journey, to celebrate what you've survived and overcome, to acknowledge your own worth. It isn't about believing you're better than anyone else, but that you are just as important and amazing as everyone else.
2. The Empty Chair Doesn't Diminish Your Motherhood
Whether that empty chair belongs to a child who's grown and flown, a pregnancy that never came to be, a relationship that's strained or broken, or a loved one who's no longer with us—that emptiness doesn't erase what you've given.
Your motherhood isn't measured by who sits at your table today, but by the love you've poured out across all of your seasons.
3. "I Don't Need Anything" Isn't Serving You Anymore
How easily those words fall from our lips: "Don't worry about me. I don't need anything special." We become so practiced at setting aside our own longings that we can barely name them anymore.
Challenge yourself to complete this sentence, even just in the quiet of your own heart: "What I really want is _______." And then, believe that your desires matter.
4. Your Mother's Mistakes Don't Have to Be Your Legacy
Many of us carry the weight of generations—patterns of criticism, silence, perfectionism, or disconnection passed down to us. But every time you choose differently, every time you respond with the patience your mother couldn't offer, every time you speak the words you needed to hear as a child, you're breaking the chain.
That holy work deserves celebration.
5. The Relationship That Determines All Others Is the One With Yourself
For decades, perhaps, you've defined yourself by your relationships to others—someone's mother, daughter, wife, friend. Those connections are beautiful and precious, but they cannot be the foundation of your identity.
Your relationship with yourself—how you speak to yourself, how you care for your body, how you honor your own boundaries—sets the pattern for every other relationship in your life. It's not selfish to nurture this primary relationship; it's essential.
6. Celebrate Motherhood Without Martyrdom
Somewhere along the way, many of us absorbed the message that good mothers sacrifice everything—their rest, their health, their dreams, their joy—and exhaustion became a badge of honor.
But what if the most powerful gift you could give your family is the example of a woman who knows her limits, who guards her joy fiercely, who demonstrates that rest is sacred? Your depletion serves no one. Your vibrant, rested presence changes everything.
7. What Feels Like Emptiness Might Be Space Being Cleared for New Possibilities
That ache you feel, the sense of something missing, is easy to interpret as loss only. But what if that space is being created for something new to emerge?
In the scriptures, we see this pattern: the desert before the promised land, the tomb before the resurrection, the winter before the spring. What feels like emptiness might be holy preparation.
8. The Most Beautiful Words: "That Doesn't Work for Me Anymore"
Maybe you've been the one who always hosts the holidays, who drops everything when someone needs you, who carries everyone's emotional burdens. Maybe you've been saying yes when your heart and spirit are screaming no.
Those patterns might have served a purpose once, but if they're draining your energy now, you have permission to change them. "That doesn't work for me anymore" might be the most honest prayer you can offer.
9. The Season That Feels Like Winter Is Preparing Your Soul to Bloom Again
If this season feels like a winter—a time of grieving, questioning, uncertainty—know this: Winter is not a failure. Winter is when the deepest work happens, when roots strengthen, when the soil of your soul is prepared for new growth.
Don't rush through winter. There are gifts here too, though they come wrapped in quieter packages.
10. You Cannot Pour From an Empty Vessel
Filling your cup first isn't self-indulgence—it's stewardship of the one life, the one body, the one heart God has given you. When you prioritize your spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being, you're not taking from others. You're ensuring you have something meaningful to give.
Your Midlife Journey Matters
When we begin to shift our relationship with ourselves, everything else shifts too—our marriages, our relationships with our children, our connection to God, and our sense of purpose.
Your worth isn't measured by what you accomplish or how much you sacrifice. It's inherent. It's God-given. And it's unchangeable. This mid-season of life might just be the most beautiful chapter yet.
The same God who called forth light from darkness, who brings life from what appears barren, who specializes in making all things new—that God is at work in you still.
May you feel seen in your complexity. May you find permission to honor your journey exactly as it is. And may you discover the joy that's been waiting for you all along.
If you're feeling that gentle nudge to explore what this next season holds for you, I'd love to talk. I have openings for complimentary clarity conversations where we can explore what's holding you back from the connected, purposeful life you're meant to live.
Go HERE to set up a Clarity Conversation.
Join My Conversation Project
I'm currently seeking midlife women of faith for meaningful one-on-one conversations about your unique experiences during this important life season. These 30-minute private Zoom calls provide a safe space for you to share your authentic journey—both struggles and strengths—with deep listening and no judgment.
To participate, email me at jill@seasons-coaching.com with the subject line "Conversation Project."
This blog post is based on Episode 154 of the Seasons of Joy podcast with Jill Pack, certified faith-based life coach and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Learn more about it HERE.
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About the Author: Jill Pack is a certified faith-based life + relationship coach and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She helps women of faith navigate their seasons of life with greater purpose and joy. For more resources or to work with Jill, visit www.seasons-coaching.com.
