— “The crisis of 40–50 years and how to overcome it” — is a very relevant topic, I think, for many: some have already faced it, others observe it from the outside. I’d like to analyze two states of people. The first — I seem to have everything, but there is no joy; loss of meaning, inner emptiness. The second — I’m already 40–50, and I haven’t managed to do anything, haven’t achieved anything. And here it’s important to understand: what to do with this? Indeed, by the age of 40–45 this period can most often be observed in people, right?
— I don’t agree, and here’s why: everything depends on the generation, and crises appear at different times. In today’s youth we will most likely observe new forms of crisis. Moreover, a crisis may come earlier than is usually assumed. After all, to say that 40 years is “midlife” sounds strange. Midlife of what? Lifespan? Then if a person lives 50 years, the middle is 25, and if 80 — then already 40.
That’s why it’s important to ask yourself the question: “Is this really a turning point, or a myth imposed by culture?” After all, in many ways this topic is linked to the “age of Christ” — 33 years. But now this “breakpoint” has shifted. From the point of view of spiritual and personal development, the lives of many people often stop already at 26–28 years, sometimes even at 24.
If you observe carefully a large number of people, their behavioral models, actions and movements through life, you can notice one important pattern. What exactly happens at the age of 40–50? Here I’m reasoning not from the standpoint of psychology or surface knowledge, but through the lens of sources of spiritual science. At this stage a person faces the state when he realizes: inside he has practically not changed. Yes, his ego transforms, the drive to achieve intensifies, new desires appear, external realizations arise. But in essence consciousness remains “frozen” at the same level.
This feeling is especially vivid after 49 years. Why exactly then? Because the karmic cycle of cause-and-effect realization comes to an end. The “basic period” finishes, and a person enters the stage of living out and summing up. It is precisely at this point that he often feels an inner emptiness, because he gets signals: many of the causes and effects have already been realized, and the old impulses no longer work.
Imagine if I told you: you’ve already lived your destiny. And yet people want a purpose, want to live their destiny, everyone talks about it. But imagine: you’ve already lived your purpose. Tell me, does that add happiness to the feeling?
— Not really. It adds sadness.
— Yes, it adds a state of loss. Why? Because when speaking about purpose, a person is looking for some exaltation, which in reality doesn’t exist. He’s looking for a final, definite action, a point of support — but it isn’t there. It simply doesn’t exist. But imagine once more: you’ve already lived everything in advance. That’s great — you did it and now you can rest. Or is it not so great? People dream of exactly that. After all, most live in expectation of something that doesn’t actually exist. They live in illusion.
And so when a person is in this expectation, age comes. And I wouldn’t speak only of 40–50 years — it can also be 30, 35, 45. Moreover, I see many young people — 25–27 years. They simply have a different construction, a different source, but the essence is the same. In this topic you begin to feel more and more strongly: “I know. You can say whatever you want, but I have lived my 40 years. I know what it was before. But do you think it will be different later?” On the one hand, you tell yourself: “Yes, it will be different.” On the other — your system suggests: “Anya, not at all certain. It could be, on the contrary, only worse.”
And here inside a never-ending imbalance is born. For some it shows up at 25, for others at 35. And this is the key reason why I don’t agree with the concept of ‘midlife crisis’. In fact, there is the beginning of a karmic period — around 28 years. And we see: many people were on the pedestal before 28, and then — bang! — someone ends up in prison, someone dies, someone gets sick, someone radically changes fields, goes into teachings, religions, changes the direction of attention. In a word, life completely turns around.
💡Why is that? Because until this age a person was under the influence of one hierarchy of spiritual beings, and after 28 a different one arrives. And with the new hierarchy the person is often undeveloped, has no experience of interaction, and his development stops. Hence the sense of collapse, the sense of crisis, often here people “live out” life.
I often give the example of my grandmother. On her 60th birthday she bought a suit in which she said she should be buried. And she lived another 33 years, dying at 93. A kindest person, no question. But in essence — she was living out those 30 years.
What does “living out” mean? It’s the state when a person’s energy is turned off. The physical body still exists, but the spiritual world has already let him go. The person seems to live, but without real movement inward. Some reflections remain, yes, but they are not filled. It’s more like existing within the limits of restricted actions and habits. And if we look at her life in those years — externally there were few events: a limited circle of tasks, a limited volume of communication. Everyone likes to read a lot, study, books, coaches, watch Reels, Shorts, many meetings, trainings — you can’t just gather, you have to put on a show. That is, the desire to exalt the outer essence, not the inner living. Grandmother was from 1926, she said: “You can’t buy me with these things.” But the paradox is that at the same time life was full of deaths. She outlived her son, husband, all her brothers and sisters, then the husband of her daughter — my father. She saw how close ones left one after another. This is a colossal experience — to live through a whole range of deaths, to observe them, digest them inside yourself, stay alone with this.
- And here the question arises: so did her life stop at 60, when she bought the suit? Or did it still continue — but in another form, through observing others’ departures, through the inner processing of this pain?
For me this suit became a symbol of an inner setting: “I am ready, this is already the last time.” I remember, you come to her for her birthday, and she says: “Well, last time.” And so every year. Every time. And it was a very strong feeling — to live thirty years in the space of the ‘last time’. My mother, for example, couldn’t go anywhere, because grandmother said: “I have a couple of weeks left,” “I have a month left,” and so on. In essence, she broadcast negative energy of death into the space, infecting everyone around with it. A person lives as if the end is imminent — and with this state holds his entire environment in tension.
And here’s the important point: every person at 30, 40, 50 years has the same “anchors” that he drags along. Sometimes these are not your own fears, but someone else’s programs, someone else’s phrases, someone else’s energy. If you don’t turn them off, you can live your whole life like my mother next to my grandmother — in the feeling that “the end is near,” even when decades are still ahead.
We all will die: me, you, and this house will die. To accept death is to say: “Yes, someday I will die. So what?” To live normally at the same time, without constant expectation of the end. Not to think about it.
My mother says: “What if I suddenly fall and die, and you don’t know about it?” What difference does it make? I could also fall, no one will know about it. I directly asked her: “What are you afraid of? Are you worried for us or for yourself? If for yourself, then transform it inside, don’t broadcast it outward. Then life will be lived differently.”
And what do people in their 30s, 40s, 50s carry? An anchor of insecurity, of inferiority; an anchor that they, as women or men, will achieve nothing professionally, in business. They carry this anchor for decades. But the reality is that the midlife crisis often arises precisely from here — from the fact that a person lives not in the present moment, but with this burden. It’s important to understand that 40 years is only the middle of the road, in professional terms — it may even be less than half the way. You can still live the second half of life with enormous activity. You can work, create, change directions, try new things. Therefore, the crisis comes from misunderstanding that this is the middle of life.
I, for example, have been working since 2001. In 24 years I’ve gone the path from a system administrator in a computer club to my own projects and businesses. But ahead — at least as much, if not more. Why not work until 75–80? Or maybe until 90, as long as I live. Then where is the crisis? On the contrary, here is joy. There is so much still ahead!
And a person thinks: that’s it, two children are born… or four, like I have. That’s it, four kids, so next maybe get a dog. Got a dog, then something else. But that’s not the essence. What’s important is different — ahead with the children there is still a whole life. I will spend as much time with them, if not more, than I’ve already lived. With four children I’ve only been five and a half years. Just five and a half! And ahead — the same again, and again, and again… An enormous amount of time. This is a question of the feeling of life, its taste, its brightness. At the same time, I, for example, don’t remember the first twenty years of my life — they are simply erased for me. If I said: “Well, that’s it, twenty years erased, life is lived, the end ahead” — but that’s not so. Ahead there are still lots of circumstances, events and meetings.
And the problem people have is this. Husband and wife begin to think: “We are together, so we must live the same way, feel the same, want the same.” It seems to them that there should be the perfect picture: one works, the other is at home, together they made money, went on vacation, exchanged good words. All the same, even. But in fact such an identical picture — is a stop in development.
I understand that with my wife anything may lie ahead. From incredibly bright colors that we still haven’t experienced together — to absolute hell that may happen in our relationship. And along with this I deeply realize: our relationship will still end. Because one of us will die first. Someone will go first. And then it will be the experience of time alone. Right now such words sound heavy: “time alone.” But if you look deeper — this is also experience. Important experience.
Here again the example of my grandmother. In 1986 my grandfather died, she was then 62. She died at 93 and lived without him for 33 years. Thirty-three years — that may be more than she spent with him. Or at least comparable. Do you understand what dimension of time opens? We often don’t even realize what layers of life can unfold before us. We think everything is predictable, but in fact it’s not a dozen or a hundred lines of the future. It’s fog. And not just two-dimensional or three-dimensional, but a whole multiverse. A multiverse of variants, which no scientist can calculate. There are endless intersections of probabilities, events, details. And this is the real foundation. It must be studied, considered, relied upon. Especially when you are 30, 40 or 50 and you are in a state of crisis.
A person is in a state of crisis always. What is crisis? It is the moment of awareness: there is something inside me that I want to transform. If you perceive crisis as a stage of development — that’s great. That means I’m moving, that I’m growing. But if a person says: “I have no crisis” — that means he has simply stopped in development. So, after all, what is crisis? It can be an emotionally invented story, when we ourselves made it up and wound ourselves up. Or it can be a real story, which a person lives deeply and truly. If we reduce crisis to “I just have negative emotions” — then, believe me, ahead will come such states that today’s will seem like nothing. And that’s no longer a crisis, but just a flow of emotions that need to be lived.
💡Midlife crisis is an artificial construction, an invention of modern society. A story pulled out of thin air, embellished and blown up. It is manipulated, money is made on it, destinies are broken, people destroyed. Therefore we need to keep returning all the time to the main thing: where here is the real foundation, and where is the artificial shell? Where is the essence, and where the imposed picture?
— And how to understand? Either you’ve already died inside — stopped developing, got stuck in one place, and there is no further movement. Or something is still happening? How to distinguish this? This is an important question: am I developing or am I stuck?
— This is a question exclusively from the ego. The answer is simple: if you are alive, you are developing. That’s it. Alive — means development is happening. But further it’s important to ask yourself: what exactly is developing? What in me is alive? What do I actually want to develop? Most people want to develop the personality. But it must be understood: there is the material world, within it the spiritual. There is the spiritual world, within it the material. And the question is always the same: what do I develop — the point inside the material, or my spiritual world?
Remember: development of the spiritual includes the material. But development of the material does not include the spiritual. Therefore, for a spiritual being, spiritual development is what matters, not growth or degradation of the personality.
Career realization, the number of children, the number of times you climbed Everest, steps on a fitness bracelet, hours of sleep, even the number of years lived — all this is not a direct indicator of the development of a spiritual being. Sometimes it may coincide, and sometimes — work in the opposite direction.
When I spoke about my grandmother, I did not mean that she stopped in the development of the spiritual being. I was speaking about her perception of life. She stopped in a certain spectrum of perception. Her part froze at one point and held her there for 30 years. But spirituality says: “Nothing of the sort, we are still moving, because it is necessary to live through something completely different.” But her personality gradually degraded.
— Anya, tell me, are you interested in spiritual or material development?
— Spiritual.
— Spiritual development can be of interest only in one aspect. If you are sure that every minute of this life has a spiritual basis, then you can tune in. But then you will study everything at once: all tasks, all operations, completely, without remainder. Listen, you told me: “I will open a business, make money.” But may I ask: and in the spiritual world what will happen? How often do you ask yourself this question inside?
— In daily life? Not often. 10–20%. Maybe I don’t formulate it so deeply, but something like that.
— Let’s leave it at 20%. The material personality wants 20%. Although you know what’s interesting? I would choose a smaller number. I’ll explain now. Always, if you develop spiritually, you choose the smaller percentage. Any smaller: 0.1; 0.01. Do you know why? Because happiness in the current moment is to realize that there is still so much else. And you want to say: “I understand there is happiness, there is so much, but can I personally mark in this little sheet that I lived my life not in vain.” And here arises the question of spirituality: what is spirituality? What are you talking about at all?
How to easily define the spiritual plane? If spiritual meaning is more important, then in all our everyday life, in ordinary actions, we will always rely on the spiritual source.
I live in this house, and what is happening here from the spiritual point of view? You spend 15 hours a day in the house, plus your children spend time there. Have you asked this question? Maybe abstractly somewhere, with some people living somewhere — but to study this fundamentally, to consider it thoroughly, to make decisions based on this — no.
There is a very important story. People ask different questions: what can be done, what cannot. Can you drink alcohol? Can you smoke cigarettes? Can you set a trap and kill mice in the house? Can you masturbate? Can you hit a person on the head? Can you beat a dog or other animals? Can you think badly of other people? Can you steal? Can you cheat? Can you leave something unsaid? Manipulate? Divorce? Do various things? Can you not work? Can you not work for a year? Can you take a pause between university and work? And can you not work at all for a whole year? It feels now like destruction is happening, like an earthquake: everything is collapsing, falling apart, and so on. Can or can’t? Can you have lunch longer than an hour? Can you make weekends not Saturday-Sunday, but, for example, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday? And can it be that there are never any weekends?
The most important aspect is to look and study from what we measure. From the point of view of the spiritual system, of spiritual life, from the point of view of me as an individual person, my personal situation: what specifically should I do? At the same time, it’s important to understand that there are a huge number of events that are predetermined. They will happen in any case. That is the essence — to live in balance. And someone will not be able not to work. Not because there are shootings in the street or because they need to feed children. There are people who simply will not be able not to work, because they have such energy — they won’t be able to stop.
I recently read one blogger-entrepreneur: he wrote that he has the opportunity not to work, but he works because he wants to develop. He simply cannot not work. Stop! Or a person says: “The worst thing I did in my life was spend little time with my children.” I like such statements from businessmen the most. And you think: wait, why listen to all these businessmen? Earlier we listened to them, they deceived us, and now they say they were wrong. And then you listen to the same businessman, and he says something new. So maybe now he is deceiving again? Why did we listen to him if he changes his mind? The biggest thing — you couldn’t spend time with your children. That’s the essence of your life. And if you regret it, then right now you are in disharmony with your life, with yourself.
There are things that can be analyzed: could I really spend time with my children? Was such a situation possible? Would it have changed anything? What exactly? Okay, you would have spent time with them. Maybe you’d just be drinking beer, and they’d be doing their own thing, not paying attention to you. You’d be trying to make contact with them, and they wouldn’t. You’d spend time with them, show aggression, and that would lead to your children becoming egotists or later going to therapists. What would have happened if you had spent time with them? That’s the essence. Why even discuss: what could you have done, what couldn’t you?
Endless arguments and discussions of people — that’s not the main thing. The most important thing often remains unnoticed. And people constantly compare themselves with others, compare their lives — endlessly. It’s amazing how everyone is always rushing somewhere. You live in Southern California, we in Central, somewhere in Silicon Valley. We walked in Palo Alto, an area with tightly standing houses, where home prices are 4, 5, 6, sometimes 8 million dollars. And in other areas houses are more spread out, but more expensive — 7, 10, 15, 20 million. Many people live there, including Zuckerberg. We walked there on a Sunday — and there were no people. None at all. Not on the streets, not in the yards. No one. Did you notice that the yards are empty, that there is no life around the house? Today is Monday, on our property life is bustling. Our plot is big — 200 sotkas (2 hectares) — and the kids run, people are doing things. And on Sunday, in summer, there it was empty. Why? Not because everyone went to church — no. People live in their own rhythms, in their crises, in their thoughts, desires, worries. Tutors, trainings, courses, trips — everyone has their own programs, their obligations, their goals. When you come here, to the ocean, you are surprised: almost no people. You have some people on the ocean, but mostly it’s tourists. And at the same time hundreds of thousands of people around earn half a million, a million dollars and more. Money is there, resources are there, but happiness is often not felt. You can sit and enjoy life, or you can worry — about electricity, about some failed lead in business, about unsubscribed followers, or about profit falling by 5%...
Someone will surely say now: “Well, that’s how it is for you in California, and for us it’s different.” But that’s not the point. I’m showing that in California people live the same way, rushing, hurrying. For example, my neighbor. You meet him — he has everything: “Oh, how busy I am, it’s terrible.” Other people with four kids — and everything around seems chaotic, surprising. But you look at them and think: “What are you even talking about?” And people constantly compare themselves: “You have happiness there, but we don’t.” A person projects his experience onto others. This is the typical problem at 40–50 years, when a person says: “Look, you have everything happy, and I got stuck in this.” But this is not an accident — it’s your own choice, your life.
If you knew in advance that you would live decades of crisis, it wouldn’t be a crisis. For you it would be ordinary, everyday life. You just wouldn’t know that there is something else. Think of a person who was born and lived all his life in Palestine, never leaving the district, without the internet. He doesn’t even know that something else exists. For him there is no other world, he only has his space. Similarly, when a friend of mine came to America, who had visited 50 countries but had never seen the USA, he walked around for a week asking: “Where is the dirt, ugly people, bad food?” It’s very interesting.
Everything happens inside. Everything inside. How you yourself relate to events in life — determines everything. It’s always possible to worry worse, and better. And there is no end to how much worse it can be. But better can be infinite. There are no limits.
People say: “That’s it, I’ve had enough meditation, I’ve had enough spiritual development, I feel too good already.” But think, who came up with this? Who is broadcasting these ideas? Listen to politicians — it’s very interesting. Some deliver a lot of good, others — a lot of bad. But why are they doing this? Just listen to them.
Religions basically said the same thing: “You can’t have infinitely good, because we decide whether to conduct higher energy to you or not. Here you don’t have the right to take communion, here you don’t have the right to baptize a child — we decide.”
And this is very important: someone outside — a politician, a boss, a spouse or a company manager — imagined that he has the right to dispose of another person’s life.