Midlife Man Rising
Midlife Man Rising is a podcast for men after 50 who sense something’s off — the quiet grief of identity loss, the ache of midlife crisis depression, and the restless urge for midlife reinvention.
If you’re tired of performing roles, chasing what no longer fits, or waking up with that hollow ache in your chest, this space is for you.
Through stories, reflections, and experiential practices, I help midlife men:
- Reclaim who they once were and honor what they’ve lost
- Face the hidden grief of midlife instead of pretending it doesn’t exist
- Redefine purpose beyond legacy, expectations, or success metrics
- Begin a midlife transformation that feels authentic, aligned, and meaningful
Each episode blends evidence-based experiential techniques with narrative reflection — helping you move forward with agency, not guilt.
Join me, Nelson Pahl, Ph.D., experiential psychologist, as we help the midlife man rise — and turn midlife crisis into personal reinvention.
Current and upcoming series include:
- Good Grief, John Doe mini-course
- Midlife Resurrection series
- Midlife Plan B series
- Legacy Lab mini-course
Follow the show if you’re ready to stop surviving midlife and start rebuilding it with clarity and courage.
Midlife Man Rising
Man After 50: 7 Signs You're Living Someone Else's Life (Midlife Resurrection Series - Part 4)
A seven-question survey to reveal identity loss and start your midlife reinvention
For Men After 50 — feeling like you’re playing a role instead of living your life? This episode of Midlife Man Rising helps answer a simple question: Is this your life…or someone else’s?
I’m Nelson Pahl, an experiential psychologist that helps midlife men reclaim identity, face hidden identity loss, and begin true personal reinvention. In this episode I walk you through a quick, clear 7-question survey that exposes whether you’re living a borrowed life...and gives you the honest signal you need to start changing course.
Episode Highlights
- Male Role Expectations Impact Self-Expression
- Men After 50 Often Live by Societal Conformity
- 7-Question Self-Survey for Men After 50
- What Your “Yes” Answers Mean
Healing Links
5-Day Challenge: Resurrection Camp
Supporting Links
Empirical Research: Masculinity & Social Conformity Pressures
Empirical Research : Male Role Conformity and Mental Health
Next Episode: Men After 50: Breaking Free from Your Father's Expectations (Midlife Resurrection Series - Part 5)
About the Host
Nelson Pahl, Ph.D. is an experiential psychologist that helps midlife men move from midlife crisis depression to midlife reinvention. Through his proprietary approaches — Resurrection Camp, the Six Stones Retreat Arc, and his Legacy Lab — he guides men after 50 through identity loss, midlife transformation, and personal reinvention. He's also author of the book, Escaping Sartre's Hell: A Guide for Self-Validation in Midlife.
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If you're a man after 50, chances are you've built a life that doesn't fully feel like yours. Maybe it's the expectations, the demands, the survival grind. But somewhere along the way, the real you got buried.
Societal constructs, marital constraints, family demands.
The reasons we end up here are numerous.
Slowly but surely, as driving men, we become what everyone else expects, demands, and insists we should be.
In fact, a 2018 study published in the American Journal of Men's Health finds that men's health has remained largely under-theorized, particularly in terms of the gendered nature of men's social relations, with evidence showing how masculine role expectations impact authentic self-expression.
This research is backed up by a 2020 study also published in the American Journal of Men's Health, which finds that men after 50 often find themselves living lives shaped more by societal expectations and masculine role conformity than by their authentic selves, leading to midlife identity crisis.
I'm Nelson Pahl, an experiential psychologist that makes it easy for men after 50, that is, my Gen X peers, to reclaim identity and reinvent themselves.
And in this episode, I'll give you a seven-question survey that reveals whether or not you're currently living someone else's version of your life.
As we start here, something I want you to keep in mind:
This isn't about judgment.
It's about honesty.
It's about getting you to a place of true fulfillment.
Simply answer yes or no for each of these seven questions. Again, answer each with full transparency. No one knows you're doing this. And transformation, it begins with truth.
So, here we go.
1. Do you find yourself talking more about what you used to do than what you're now doing?
2. When you look in the mirror, do you recognize, truly recognize, the man staring back at you, or just the roles he now plays?
3. Do you spend more time proving yourself than expressing yourself?
4. When people ask how you're doing, do you answer with a resume instead of the truth?
5. Do you sometimes feel like a supporting character in your own life?
6. When the house gets quiet at night, do you ever wonder, is this all there is?
And 7. If everything you've built collapsed tomorrow, the job, the titles, the status, would you truly know who you are without those things?
If any of these questions made you shift in your seat, you're not alone.
A lot of men in midlife feel this tension between who they really are and who they've been told to be.
The gap?
It's a kind of grief. The grief of losing old identities. And it's worth facing head on.
Again, if you answered yes more than once, I invite you to dig deeper.
I've created a powerful 28-day challenge called Resurrection Camp that will help you reclaim identity and reinvent yourself. I invite you to enroll today. Just log on to resurrection.camp. You'll find that link in the show notes of this podcast.
Until next time.