Feeling Lost in Midlife? How to Reconnect With Your Authentic Self and Find Purpose, with Jody Brooks | #602

Agi Keramidas
(0:00)
In this episode, you will discover how self-awareness, journaling, and core values can help you feel more aligned, clear, and grounded. Welcome to Personal Development Mastery, the podcast helping midlife professionals gain clarity, shift their mindset, and take confident next steps towards a more fulfilling life. I am your host, Agi Geramidas, and this is episode 602.
In the following conversation, you will hear these three things. 1. Why awareness is the first step to authentic change.
2. How a simple journaling practise can help you reconnect with yourself. 3.
How identifying your core values can become a powerful compass for living with more clarity and purpose. Before we start, if you are a midlife professional ready to find clearer direction, understand yourself more deeply, and take confident next steps, I offer one-to-one coaching to support you on that journey. As a former dentist who has walked this path myself, I know how challenging it can feel.
To learn more, visit personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com slash mentor. The link is in the episode description. Now let's begin.
Today my guest is Jody Brooks. Jody, you help people in midlife move from feeling lost and overwhelmed to clarity, confidence, and a more authentic way of living. Jody, welcome to the show.
It's a real pleasure to speak with you.

Jody Brooks
(2:03)
Thank you for having me. I'm excited, as always, to spread the message and be here, and hopefully reach out and help a few people in the process.

Agi Keramidas
(2:12)
I will start with this because we were just saying that before our recording started, the intention for this conversation is to guide people listening or watching us to reconnect to themselves in a way or another, so giving this as a preamble for the conversation. Jody, there are so many things that we could discuss about, but what I would like to start with, and I'm going to go straight into the action or the meat. There is, because it is always something useful to get the practical things.
For someone listening straight away, they can practise something. You talk about, and we will go into that in more detail, but you talk about awareness as the very first step or principle of authentic living. What's one thing someone listening or watching us right now can implement straight away to heighten that awareness?
Also, if you want to preface that by explaining what you mean exactly by awareness, that would also be great.

Jody Brooks
(3:29)
I think awareness for me is the first of the principles because it was where I started. I had a moment, externally very successful, pushing through at work one day after numerous meetings for no particular reason. It wasn't a bad day.
They weren't bad meetings. I found myself in the toilet cubicle, head in hands, crying and thinking, I just can't do this anymore. I looked up and on the back of the door, it's weird how things happen, but on the back of the cubicle door was a poster that said, do you need to speak to a mental health first aider?
There was something very sobering about that poster in that I just was like, oh my God, it's actually that bad. I'm not going to, but I actually could answer yes to that question. That was my realisation, how important awareness was.
I went from that point then looking at how can I actually on a daily basis, make myself more aware. I describe it a lot of the time to clients. When I'm talking is that it's a bit like your inner self is sending you a text message and you just ignore it.
Then it tries to ring you and you ignore the call and there's a voicemail and you carry on doing that until your voicemail is full. There are a hundred and all the time you do that, the anxiety that builds with it, because we've all done it. Really got to listen to that voicemail and I don't want to, but what you're kind of doing it to yourself.
There are these moments where we just keep pushing through and we put them down to things like tiredness, a bad day, someone else was in a mood, et cetera, and we dismiss it all. It builds up in your brain because your subconscious just keeps filing stuff until you're completely overloaded. The very next day after that happened, first of all, I took two weeks off work and I allowed myself to just sit with it for two weeks.
Now I know everybody's not that privileged, but I was in crisis point at that point and that was what had to be done. The first thing I did, and this is not any groundbreaking science that I'm going to share with your listeners, but it's the one thing that when I work with clients is non-negotiable and that is to journal. I started very simply every day, 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening.
Through that process, very simple, I didn't set myself up. In fact, some days I actually wrote, a couple of days I wrote, I really don't want to do this today. I really don't want to do this today.
I really don't want to do this today. That's all I wrote because I began to learn and then I'm a bit of a self-help geek and it's no wonder I ended up a life coach really because I have consumed so many books over the years. I was like, I need to know because this is working, but I need to know why.
Then I started to stumble across research that is now starting to show that journaling three times a week for 10 minutes can reduce anxiety and overwhelm by 45%. The shocking thing about it is it's not what you write. It's merely the action.
It's the action of taking time out. It's the action. What starts to happen in that is you start to answer those text messages.
Thoughts come in, etc. When I work with clients, I literally have a journal that they do and in the morning it says, how do I feel today? What are my three gratitudes and what will make today good?
That's it. It's like four sentences and that's all I get them to do, but that starts to make you aware. It starts to bring you off of autopilot because instead of rolling out of bed and going through the same routine and realising that you're already halfway to the office in the car and you can't remember the last four roundabouts or the junction, but you know you're nearly there, it starts to engage you in that process.
As that happens, a lot of those messages that you've been ignoring start to come to the surface. Then again, instead of the subconscious being pushed away, the process of writing in the journal creates your superpower because it engages your subconscious with your conscious. I call that real AI because it's authentic intelligence.
That's when you take those two parts of you. Our subconscious is in fact just like AI. It's like human AI.
It deals in so much. 90% of our processing in our subconscious. It's constantly ploughing over this stuff and it's making decisions for you before you're even aware.
Like AI, it just searches its data bank and comes up with a solution. When we go into overdrive, we come away from our authentic self. My whole thing about when people have this 35 plus midlife crisis that I call a calling, it's that.
It's a calling to reconnect with your authentic self. It's your world telling you that you're spending far too much time with your subconscious running by itself on autopilot. Then when you do that again in the evening, you sandwich the day and you actually prepare your brain to rest.
What I then do several weeks in with clients is we then start asking in the evening journal, we set the intention for the next day, the night before, because what happens at sunrise starts at sunset is my phrase. That very first step, I urge everybody, no one's reading it. You don't need to be Shakespeare or Wordsworth.
It's just literally...I can't remember the name of the artist now, but she says the same thing about art. She says, stop panicking. Just go and do some shitty art.
I say that to my clients. Just go and do some shitty writing. It really doesn't matter.
It is the process of allowing yourself that time and that grace to honour yourself, because that's what's happening in it. That's my first and most important. You'd be surprised from there what happens.

Agi Keramidas
(10:21)
Journaling, I'm a very big proponent of journaling myself. I've been journaling every day now since 2017. I have realised firsthand the importance of it.
It's still a non-negotiable part of my morning, especially the morning. I appreciate it very much the way that you described the structure, the questions to ask and setting the intention for the next day. That's wonderful.
It's very practical and it's something that indeed will bring your message about the metaphor of your authentic self sending you texts and leaving you voicemails, which we ignore. I liked how, because I think that is important for someone to start to understand. If I'm ignoring them, how can I pay attention to them?
I liked the way you described journaling as a way for them to come out, to appear or in front of you and resurface. It is very practical. I appreciate it very much.
I don't know if you want to add anything to that, but there is something else that I wanted to go back now to. There was something that you said about that day when you had the turning point, when you were crying in the toilet cubicle. When you saw that poster that said, would you like to speak to a mental health aider?
You said you wouldn't do that, but it made you aware. I wanted to explore a bit with you why that certainty, why you wouldn't do that at that time.

Jody Brooks
(12:13)
Because at the time, and I'm going to probably be a bit political and go a bit widescreen here on my beliefs about what that poster really says. I was in a corporate that chewed people up and spat them out. I was working 80 hours a week.
I actually found the poster really hypocritical because I was like, so you know how bad it is here. You know how bad it is here because you've got a team of people to pick people up because they're broken. My claim on that now is I think we have a much bigger question to answer in the workplace.
That's also my passion working with people in midlife is we're all going to be working a lot longer and we need to start demanding better of our employers. The system we have doesn't work anymore. It's a system that's laid over from the 1900s in how we structure workplace and what we think the expectations are and wellness washing and mental health washing with posters is not good enough.
That is dealing with a symptom. What we really need to do is deal with the problem. I think that companies need to be very careful because I see one of those posters now or a company that is proclaiming and they're all there.
They're starting now. It's on their websites. We have mental health first aiders.
To me, that just says it's really bad to work here, but it's okay because there's someone you can talk to about it. In my company that day, the mental health first aid was actually the UK general manager's personal assistant. I was not about to go and tell her I wasn't coping.
I think mental health is mental wellness. It's a skill set. Certainly me as a very qualified coach and trauma informed, I still sit there with clients and say, this is not for me.
This is for a counsellor or a therapist. I know the remit of my things. I still struggle to understand where the natural flow is for somebody that goes on a one day or an afternoon course to be in a position to do that.
I think that really the answer is that we should create work environments where we don't need mental health first aiders because it's okay to say I'm not okay. It's okay to say it to all of your colleagues, not somebody appointed to deal with that situation. Sorry, that was probably a bit political and deep.

Agi Keramidas
(15:00)
It actually started because when you said about the poster, I did not realise at that time that that poster was actually stuck by the company itself. I appreciate your answer. I think it is very much useful for someone to see it in that prism that it shouldn't be in the first place because it is like, yes, we will harm you, but we will try to fix you if you are harmed.
There is, I will change gears, shift gears, because there is something else I wanted to discuss with you about. I think there's also something very important for people who probably listening now that have disconnected in a way from what they would like to be doing or for that fulfilment that fills one's life despite their external success and everything that was expected. They have done what was expected of them, but they're not in the place that they would like to be.
Something that you talk about is reconnecting with our core values. I would like to explore this with you. Again, I would like you to focus more on something practical that one can do.
Of course, we need to understand better the concept of why we've lost the connection and how to reconnect, but especially the implementation would be, I think, very useful.

Jody Brooks
(16:42)
First of all, a lot of the time, I don't think people have realised they've lost them because they didn't know they were there in the first place. I think that that's what happens when we reach this point 35 plus is we're like, oh, hang on a moment. I always describe it as though you've got on a bus and we're on a bus in childhood and it goes quite slowly, but we're told what bus to get on, where to sit, et cetera.
We don't get a lot of choice. Then we get to our 20s and we start picking buses, but we tend to get on buses on this journey that are with people that we like or people that we aspire to be with, et cetera. Sometimes we realise we've got on entirely the wrong bus or everybody else gets off and we're still sat on it on our own.
Then I think for a lot of people, we get on this external remit, you touched on it there, of buses, of going after the things that we're told are success and where happiness lives and all of those things. We're on the bus chugging along and then all of a sudden, we don't know where that bus is really going. One of the first things I say to clients is, I want you to imagine I'm going to ask you to get on a bus and sit at the back of the bus and you don't know where it's going and you don't know how long the journey is and you've just got to sit there.
Most of them just go, why would I do that? I'm like, but if you don't have a purpose, then that is exactly what you're doing. Into that then comes the values because our true purpose in life as human beings, excluding all of the external things, the things we may get along the way, which may fall into being a part of our purpose, but really our purpose is to feed our values.
Our values are our core needs. What I learned after awareness was, I started to apply understanding the next principle. As I answered the text messages, I was like, oh, there's that message again.
That's cropped up. Why do I feel like that? In doing that, I was able to dig down and I started to see patterns to things.
Hindsight, looking back, I could now categorise them into all situations where one of my core values wasn't being met. Some of my values are integrity, justice, authenticity, growth, and making a difference. If I look back at those periods, there was a conflict with one of my values, quite often integrity and authenticity in the workplace.
What I do with clients is people can reach out to me, but you can find on the internet if you search values cards. We do an exercise where we work through 140 values on a card and people pick their five values. Now, it's really funny when you give people 140 because they want to be everything.
They want to be kind and they want to be all of this. You're like, no, you're allowed five. I do it in stages.
What I say to people is, first of all, just shuffle them into yes and no. Then once you've shuffled them into yes and no, you can categorise them. You tend to find that because there's things like fairness, equality, etc., you could put all of those under justice. What we start to do is we group them in until we get down to five core values. Then from those five core values, that really tells you what's going to make you happy. To me, happiness is the ultimate success, but we very rarely ask that question.
We go on a journey saying we want to be successful. We don't go on a journey saying we want to be happy. Quite often, we think success is happiness, but happiness is success, if that makes sense.
What we do is we go on a journey that leads us to something that we think that's where it lies, and then it doesn't. That can be really derailing. Having these core values then gives you an indication of where your inner self, your authentic self, would be happy, because mine is happy in a world where there is integrity, justice, authenticity, growth, and making a difference.
Then that allows me to really set a destination where I know there will be happiness. That also takes me on a road where there is joy, because I want to be on that bus that's going to this magical kingdom that I've created in my head where all of those things exist. Then you start to live those out.
The reason it's called the nine principles is because they're not nine glossy words on a poster. They are nine ways of being. A principle is how we live something out.
With each of them, it's how we live that out in our life. Awareness first. When you're aware of what's really going on, rather than being on autopilot, you can start to think about why it's important and why it isn't.
Under all of that is your values. You can go on the internet and look up values cards or email me, and I have them. Sorry.

Agi Keramidas
(22:21)
Let's say someone is doing that and they pick out of the 140, they pick the five that they represent their core values. How can one start using them as a guide towards actually living them out? I think that's a phrase that you use.
How can one start to implement the abstract? Many times, integrity can be more abstract than we can put into action.

Jody Brooks
(22:57)
Then what we do with the values is we take them and we make them into lived sentences. We start this by saying, I will show up with integrity or I will know I've shown up with integrity because... For me, it will go with integrity because it's one of mine.
I will live out my life in my truth, owning my truth, and never letting anyone steal it in order to maintain my integrity. That then takes it from this value on a wall into actually, what do I mean to do with that? When something's wrong, I'm not going to do it because that's not my truth.
I'm not going to deviate from my truth because it suits someone else or all of those things. I'm also not going to put myself in a situation where someone can steal my truth. They can manipulate it into that that's not how I showed up.
It's a key part of showing up authentically. With justice, I will seek out to do things fairly, to stand up for injustice when I see it, and to make sure that I live out my life in a just and fair way that's equal for all.

Jody Brooks
(24:21)
And so, moving on from those, what I then do with, you know, you get these things, and I suppose that's maybe where I'm maybe a bit different as a coach. There's lots of things, and when I was doing my training, you know, like you've got to have a vision and a mission statement for life, and I hated it. I sat there in my training as a coach, and I was like, I, a vision and a mission statement, and I think the thing was is, and it was like, make it as big as you like, it doesn't have to be achievable.
And I had real issues with that, like, you know, kind of this mission of being like, something so big that actually it's not possible, and then you turn that into a vision. And so, for me, what I do with clients is I write a purpose statement. What is my purpose?
And that purpose statement then becomes a combination of all of those values. That then becomes a North Star, guiding you to the places where happiness would be, because it's about meeting your purpose, and your purpose ultimately is a combination of your values and feeding your values, rather than some external destination of success, that when you get there, might look very different. I think for a lot of us, I always use the Wizard of Oz analogy is, you know, we set out on this yellow brick road, and you know, what we're promised is amazing, and you pull the curtain back, and it's very disappointing.
And so, you know, kind of, it's about being clearer about where you're going, and being able to make everyday decisions that feed you and don't, again, your integrity, that pull you back and keep you in alignment, rather than veering off, because a shiny new car or a bigger house looks like it might do the trick.

Agi Keramidas
(26:09)
Thank you. And you said, the purpose statement as a practise, and what comes up with me when I hear that is, and personally, I have found it challenging at times when I am required to intellectually or mentally produce an answer to a question like, what is your purpose? Or what is your North Star?
You know, that not achievable, I liked how you said that I had heard of an equivalent of, it should be like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon. You know, I appreciate that it can be daunting. But apart from that, I think when one relies only on their mental faculties or the intellect to produce a sentence or a paragraph like this, in my opinion, there is a big limitation.
So that's what I wanted to discuss with you towards the end of this conversation today. What would be the role of our intuition or some other elements apart from our, you know, logic that can help us, you know, formulate this passion, sorry, this purpose statement that you said?

Jody Brooks
(27:29)
So I think it's, you know, like, I think the thing is, is we quite often sit there. And it's not, you know, that's what I found is it's not a broken down phase. And, and again, it's almost externalising, which I'm, you can tell, I've probably said it about 10 times now, how I hate this whole, it lies outwards.
But that's exactly what that statement is asking you to do. It's asking you to pin you outside of you. And what I'm asking you to do is to pin it inside of you.
And so by working from the values first, producing that becomes much more important and much easier, because by creating the value, each value becomes a sentence or a little paragraph in itself. And if you merge those paragraphs together, you actually get your purpose. Okay.

Agi Keramidas
(28:18)
Very simple like that.

Jody Brooks
(28:20)
And I wish, I mean, obviously, I would say, you know, every single client approaches it with me, and is filled with that dread, because I think we've all been there, you know, even if it's in business, or, you know, it's just as bad when you've got a business, and they're like, right, your vision and your mission. And if you're the business owner, or the person responsible of that, it's a huge pressure. It's you feel this huge pressure.
And so it is something that people always are apprehensive. But I haven't had one client not say to me that it was the most liberating thing once it was done. Because they got to make decisions guilt free from that.
Because it's very easy to say, that's not for me. And to know why it's not for you, and to not deviate from your truth. And so it does take work, you know, for a couple of other tips for your listeners, you know, some of the things you can do is just write a list of what makes me happy.
And, you know, don't sit down and do it all in one day. But if you're journaling, just every day, write three things that make you happy. And you will start to see your values in there, you will start to see those things.
And you will start to understand how you live that out, which, you know, the principles, obviously, when I work with clients, they're linear. But I say to them, these principles are not linear. And they will loop around.
And once you've got them, you will sit with a problem and work through all nine and ask yourself, is this awareness? Is this understanding? Do I need to trust?
Do I need some more honesty? Is it compassion that I'm missing here? And so, in doing that, you know, kind of that's that whole awareness again, if you're struggling, write a list of what makes you happy and write a list of what doesn't.
And in the middle of those two is your values. And in the middle of those two is the direction that you need to set yourself.

Agi Keramidas
(30:20)
That's great. That's again, very practical and appreciated, Jody. Where do you want to direct the listener to learn more about you and your work?

Jody Brooks
(30:31)
So the easiest place to go is to my website, which is authenticcoaching.me. So usual WW's, all of that. So it's authenticcoaching.me. I also on there, there's lots on there, there's links to all my social. And I also have a free to join authentic life community where I post some free tools.
You can contact me directly through there. There's a community of other midlifers, like all sharing their experiences, et cetera. And yeah, reach out.
It always makes me feel like doing podcasts and speaking serves a purpose in my purpose.

Agi Keramidas
(31:11)
Also, I will second that, Jody, for sure. And, you know, with what you just said, right now, what I will circle back to what we started this conversation with about guiding someone to reconnect in a way with themselves. And I think, and that would be, let's say my recap from, you know, this half an hour that we've been talking together, that there were two things, two practical, very particular things that help one, you listening right now, actually, to reconnect with yourself.
And the first was the journaling exercise that we talked about. And the other was the values, determining your core values, and then using them as a compass of some kind or a blueprint perhaps of dictating what to do next. So, Jody, thank you very much for this intriguing conversation.
Very useful. I want to wish you all the very best with your me, your purpose, actually, that is the proper word to describe it by. I will leave it to you for your parting words or any last message you have to the listeners.

Jody Brooks
(32:35)
I think, you know, thank you. I've absolutely loved this conversation. And it's just another piece of synchronicity in my world that it's fallen into my diary today.
I would just say to your listeners is, if you're receiving those text messages, and those voicemails, and you're putting it to one side, pause, take a breath, answer the messages, and allow yourself that moment of awareness. When we start to feel overwhelmed and anxious, it's not a sign that something's broken. It's a sign of your humanity.
And it is your humanity, your inner human calling out to you. Answer the call.

Agi Keramidas
(33:26)
Thank you for listening to this conversation with Jody Brooks. I hope it has given you a new perspective on how to listen to yourself, honour your values, and create a life that feels more aligned and true. Join us every Monday for in-depth conversations and every Thursday for shorter solo episodes with insights and tools you can use.
If you are a midlife professional ready to find clear direction and understand yourself more deeply, I offer one-to-one coaching to support you on that journey. To learn more, visit personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com slash mentor. The link is in the episode description.
Until next time, stand out, don't fit in.