How to Find Clarity When You Feel Lost A Guide for Women Over 40
When Everything You Thought You Knew About Yourself Becomes a Question Mark
Six years ago, I was leading multi-million dollar software projects across global teams. I thrived on impossible deadlines, complex integrations, and high-stakes problem-solving. I knew exactly who I was: the capable one, the reliable leader, the woman who made things happen.
Then life handed me a different kind of project… one I hadn't planned for and couldn't manage with a spreadsheet.
My brother had a stroke. Then another. My mother's Alzheimer's progressed rapidly. Overnight, I went from leading international teams to becoming a full-time caregiver, watching my brother struggle to relearn basic language while managing my mother's declining memory.
In the chaos of hospital rooms and rehabilitation centers, I lost myself completely. The identity I'd built over decades was the competent professional, the problem-solver, the one with all the answers and now that disappeared. I didn't know who I was anymore when I wasn't leading projects or solving technical challenges.
And I spent months desperately searching for my "purpose."
I read books. I listened to podcasts. I journaled obsessively, asking myself "What am I meant to do now?" over and over, as if the answer would magically appear if I just asked the right question in the right way.
It never did.
What I didn't realize then, and understand completely now… is that I was asking the wrong question entirely.
The Exhausting Search for Purpose
If you're a woman over 40, you've probably felt this too.
Maybe your kids left for college and suddenly the role that defined you for two decades is... optional. Maybe you retired, divorced, lost a parent, or went through a health crisis. Maybe you're still doing all the same things, but they feel hollow now, like you're going through the motions of a life that no longer fits.
And everyone tells you: "Find your purpose! Discover your passion! Figure out what's next!"
So you search. You try new things. You make lists of what you're good at, what you enjoy, what might give your life meaning. You attend workshops, hire coaches, read self-help books.
And you feel more lost than ever.
Here's why: Purpose isn't something you find by searching for it. Purpose emerges when you create the space to see clearly.
The problem isn't that your purpose is hiding somewhere out there, waiting to be discovered. The problem is that you can't see what's already calling you because your vision is obscured by decades of unconscious patterns, limiting beliefs, and stories about who you're supposed to be.
You don't need to find purpose. You need to find clarity.
And clarity doesn't come from searching harder. It comes from finally stopping long enough to see what's actually there.
How I Stopped Searching and Started Seeing
My breakthrough came in an unexpected place: watching my brother work with a speech therapist.
She was helping him rebuild neural pathways damaged by his strokes, teaching his brain to create new connections for language. I watched him struggle with basic words one week, then speak them clearly the next. I saw firsthand that our brains can rewire at any age and that we're not stuck with the patterns we've always had.
That's when it hit me: If my brother's brain could create new pathways for speech, couldn't I rewire the patterns keeping me stuck in confusion and overwhelm?
I stopped asking "What's my purpose?" and started asking different questions:
What patterns have been running my life without me realizing it?
What stories am I telling myself about who I am or what I'm capable of?
What am I tolerating that's draining my energy?
What lights me up that I've been ignoring because it doesn't fit the "plan"?
These questions didn't give me immediate answers. But they gave me something more valuable: Radical Awareness.
For the first time in months, I could see clearly. I saw that I'd been operating on autopilot, following a script written decades ago about who I should be and what I should want. I saw the unconscious beliefs keeping me small: "I have to be productive to matter. I can't want things just for myself. Struggling means I'm doing something wrong."
And once I could see those patterns clearly, they lost their power over me.
I didn't find my purpose that day. But I cleared enough space for it to eventually find me. My purpose emerged naturally from that clarity: helping other women navigate the exact transition I'd just lived through, using the neuroscience principles I'd discovered through my brother's recovery.
I didn't go looking for this work. It appeared when I finally stopped searching and started seeing.
Why Clarity Comes Before Purpose (The Neuroscience)
Here's what I learned through my training as a Master NLP Practitioner and certified Hypnotherapist: 95% of our behavior is driven by our unconscious mind.
Think about that for a moment. The vast majority of what you do, think, and feel each day isn't a conscious choice, it’s an automatic response based on patterns formed years or even decades ago.
These unconscious patterns include:
Beliefs about yourself formed in childhood
Stories you've told yourself so many times you think they're facts
Emotional responses that trigger automatically before you even realize what's happening
Decisions you made long ago that still influence your choices today
When you're operating from these unconscious patterns, you can't see clearly.
You're viewing your life through layers of old programming, outdated beliefs, and inherited "shoulds."
This is why searching for purpose while overwhelmed is like trying to read a map through frosted glass. You might catch glimpses of shapes and shadows, but you can't see the actual path forward.
Clarity is what happens when you clean the glass.
Radical Awareness is the practice of seeing your unconscious patterns clearly without judgment and is how you remove those layers. Once you can see what's been running beneath the surface, you have choices you didn't have before.
And from that place of choice, purpose doesn't need to be found. It emerges naturally, like a plant that was always there but couldn't grow until you cleared away the weeds.
What Radical Awareness Actually Looks Like
Let me be clear: Radical Awareness isn't the same as general self-awareness or positive thinking.
It's not about affirming that you're worthy or capable (though you are). It's not about making gratitude lists or visualizing your ideal life.
Radical Awareness is about seeing the truth of what's actually happening inside you and around you, without the filter of who you think you should be.
It's radical because it challenges everything. It asks you to look at patterns you've been running for so long you don't even notice them anymore. It invites you to question stories you've been telling yourself since childhood. It requires you to see the ways you've been betraying yourself to please others, dimming yourself to fit in, or exhausting yourself to prove your worth.
This kind of seeing isn't comfortable. But it's transformational.
Because once you see clearly, you can't unsee. And once you can't unsee, you can't keep doing things the old way.
That's when everything shifts.
The Radical Awareness Practice: Your Clarity Process for the Next 7 Days
If you're ready to stop searching and start seeing, here's a practice you can begin right now.
This isn't about adding another task to your overwhelming to-do list. This is about creating space—just a few minutes each day—to see yourself and your life more clearly than you have in years.
Day 1-2: Notice Without Judgment
For the next two days, simply track your energy throughout the day.
Set three alarms: morning, midday, and evening. When each alarm goes off, pause and ask yourself:
Right now, what's my energy level? (1-10 scale)
What am I doing that's draining me?
What have I done today that lit me up?
Write down your answers. Don't analyze them. Don't try to fix anything. Just notice.
This is harder than it sounds because we're so conditioned to push through, to keep going regardless of how we feel. But awareness begins with simply noticing what IS, not what you think should be.
Day 3-4: Question Your Stories
For the next two days, pay attention to the stories you tell yourself about who you are.
Listen for phrases like:
"I'm the kind of person who..."
"I have to..."
"I can't..."
"I should..."
"People expect me to..."
Each time you notice one of these stories, write it down. Then ask:
Where did this story come from?
Is it actually true, or is it something I've been telling myself for so long I assume it's true?
Does this story serve me, or does it limit me?
You might discover that you've been living according to scripts written by your parents, your culture, your past experiences—scripts that made sense once but don't fit who you are now.
Day 5-6: Identify Patterns
Look back at what you've noticed over the past four days.
What themes keep showing up?
What are you consistently avoiding or ignoring?
What whispers or intuitions have you been pushing aside?
Where do you feel most alive? Where do you feel most depleted?
Write down the patterns you notice. Not what you wish was true, but what actually IS true based on the evidence of your own experience.
This is where clarity begins to crystallize. You start to see the shape of what's been happening beneath the surface.
Day 7: Clarity Insight
On the seventh day, reflect on everything you've noticed.
Ask yourself:
What did I learn about myself this week that I didn't know before—or knew but wasn't admitting?
What matters most to me beneath all the roles I play?
What wants to emerge that I've been keeping locked away?
Don't force answers. Let them surface naturally from the awareness you've been building.
This is how purpose begins to reveal itself… not through desperate searching, but through patient, honest seeing.
What Happens After Clarity
Here's what I've learned through my own journey and through working with hundreds of women navigating major life transitions:
Clarity is just the beginning.
Once you can see clearly, you need to take action on what you've discovered. You need to reclaim the energy you've been giving away. You need to build self-trust and step into leadership of your own life. You need to embody the woman you're becoming and take grounded action toward what matters.
This is why Radical Awareness is the first step in my RECLAIMING YOU framework and is a 12-week transformation journey designed specifically for women over 40 moving from exhaustion and overwhelm to clarity, confidence, and courage.
The journey looks like this:
Foundation (Weeks 1-4): AWARENESS
See yourself clearly—your patterns, your energy, your relationships, your direction
Activation (Weeks 5-8): EMPOWERMENT
Step into your power through self-trust, intention, worth, and identity
Embodiment (Weeks 9-12): EXTRAORDINARY
Live extraordinarily through resilient action, authentic expression, and unlimited possibility
Clarity and Radical Awareness is where it all begins. And it doesn't end there.
Your Next Steps
If this resonates with you—if you're tired of searching for purpose and ready to create the clarity that allows purpose to find you—here's what I invite you to do:
Start with the 7-Day Clarity Process
Use the practice outlined above. Give yourself one week of honest, radical awareness. See what emerges.
Join Me for a Free Workshop: SHIFT Happens
In this 60-minute experience, you'll:
Understand how your unconscious mind has been running your life
Identify ONE exhaustion pattern keeping you stuck
Experience a real-time shift using NLP techniques
Discover what's possible when you work at the unconscious level
Explore the Full Transformation: From Exhausted to Extraordinary
If you're ready for deep, lasting change—if you want to move from chaos to clarity to confidence to courage over 12 transformational weeks—learn more about the RECLAIMING YOU program.
This isn't surface-level coaching. This is neuroscience-backed transformation using NLP, hypnotherapy, and the wisdom of someone who's walked this path herself.
A Final Word: You're Not Lost—You're In Transition
If you're reading this and feeling lost, overwhelmed, or unclear about who you are or what comes next, I want you to know something important:
You're not broken. You're not behind. You're not failing.
You're in transition. And transition—by its very nature—is disorienting.
The identity you've carried for years doesn't fit anymore, but the new one hasn't fully formed yet. You're in the space between who you were and who you're becoming.
This space is uncomfortable. But it's also sacred.
This is where transformation happens—not in the clarity of knowing exactly what's next, but in the willingness to stop searching long enough to see what's actually here.
Purpose isn't hiding from you. It's waiting for you to clear enough space to notice it.
And that starts with one powerful practice: Radical Awareness.
See yourself clearly. See your patterns, your stories, your truth.
Everything else...the purpose, the confidence, the direction, the extraordinary life emerges from there.
