Identity Crisis in Midlife: Liana and the White Stallion in the Desert
- Calmfidence Council
- 12 hours ago
- 5 min read
Is this an identity crisis in midlife… or are you simply waking up to a version of yourself that no longer fits?
For many high-achieving women in menopause, the crisis rarely looks like chaos on the outside. It looks like competence. Calendars still run. Clients still get served.
And yet, behind closed doors, something feels off.
Motivation fades. Confidence wobbles. Self-doubt gets louder. Not because she has lost her intelligence, talent, or ambition — but because the old identity that carried her can suddenly feel unreachable. The strategies that once worked (push harder, stay strong, perform through it) stop delivering results. The inner engine doesn’t respond to the same fuel.
Liana runs a boutique interior design studio in Stockholm. Her clients come to her for taste, clarity, and calm direction. She can walk into a space and instantly see what needs to change.
But in her own life, something had gone quiet.
Not dramatic burnout. Not a breakdown. More like a dimmer switch turned down from the inside.
She kept saying the same sentence:
“I know what I should do. I just can’t make myself do it.”
And underneath it: self-doubt, fading confidence, and the unsettling fear that she was losing her edge.
So how one single, laser-precise question can help her decode her identity crisis, and step out of the “stuck state”.
Before the session: high functioning, low ignition
The single, laser-precise question that helped her decode her “stuck state” through the images of her unconscious mind. What emerged wasn’t a problem to fix — it was a message. And it became the beginning of a new, more sustainable way of moving forward.
On paper, Liana was fine:
steady clients
a strong reputation
a studio that looked like her aesthetic: minimal, elegant, controlled
Inside, she felt:
mentally busy, emotionally flat
tired of decisions (even small ones)
hesitant, second-guessing her own ideas
quietly ashamed that she wasn’t “as driven” as she used to be
The hardest part wasn’t the fatigue. It was the conclusion her mind reached:
“If I can’t push myself, something must be wrong with me.”
That belief kept her stuck. Not because it was true — but because it made every natural pause feel like failure.
The one question that opened the whole map
A skilled coach didn’t ask Liana to explain herself better. She’d done that already. Her thinking mind was working overtime.
Instead, the coach asked one precise question — a question designed to let her unconscious intelligence speak in an image:
“When you feel stuck like this, where are you?”
That was it.
No long interview. No digging. No analysis.
Just space for the inner picture to arrive.
Liana paused… and then the metaphor came.
The metaphor: desert, sand, and the returning horse
Liana said:
she was standing in the middle of a desert
behind her was a white stallion
and the stallion felt as if it no longer belonged to her — as if it had run away, or was no longer available
in front of her was only more desert
Then the scene shifted.
Liana described wanting to sleep. She put her head down on the sand. It was warm. A wind rose and covered her body halfway with sand — and it felt comforting, like a cocoon.
And while she slept, the white stallion returned.
It came close and licked her cheek.
Not to drag her forward. Not to demand anything. Just contact.
What the metaphor was really saying
A skilled coach doesn’t treat images like decoration. They’re data — delivered in the language the unconscious speaks best.
The desert wasn’t failure. It was “no more old rules”
A desert is open space with few markers. It often appears when someone’s old strategy stops working.
For Liana, the old rule had been something like:
Push harder.
Stay sharp.
Perform your way back to confidence.
But menopause can change the internal economy — energy, mood, motivation, emotional tolerance. Not in a way that makes a woman “less”. In a way that demands a new pace and a new relationship with power.
The desert was the honest truth:
You can’t cross this terrain using the fuel you used before.
The stallion symbolised her agency and confidence
The white stallion wasn’t a goal. It was self-trust, creative force, and inner authority — the part of her that used to carry her.
The key detail was heartbreaking and revealing:
“It doesn’t belong to me anymore.”
Translation: My old way of being powerful is no longer mine.
Not because it was bad — because it was built on strain.
The sand was a healing cocoon
Because the sand felt comforting, it wasn’t collapse. It was protection with kindness.
A signal like:
Rest is allowed here.
You can stop proving.
You can be held.
The stallion returned when she stopped chasing
This is the turning point.
Her confidence didn’t return through effort.
It returned through safety.
Her system showed her, perfectly:
Power comes back when you stop forcing it.
How hypno-systemic coaching helped her move again
Liana didn’t need more logic. She already had plenty. Her mind could write essays about what was happening.
What she needed was access to a wider intelligence — the kind that lives beneath words.
Through hypno-systemic coaching she could:
go beyond analytical thinking
include her right-brain, unconscious intelligence
start seeing her inner parts clearly (without judging them)
integrate them gently, instead of fighting them
build strategies that were sustainable, not punishing
The “stuck” state stopped being a personal defect.
It became a message.
A map.
A transition.
After the session: less pushing, more power
Liana didn’t leave with manic motivation.
She left with something better:
relief — the kind that restores your breathing
self-respect — instead of self-attack
a quiet clarity — not forced, not brittle
a new inner agreement: we’re not riding the old way anymore
In her words:
“I’m not broken. I’m just not meant to do it like before.”
And in that moment, the desert changed.
Not because the terrain vanished — but because she wasn’t trying to cross it by willpower alone.
Because the stallion had returned.
And this time, it came back to her gently.
A calmfident approach for high-achieving women
Seeing the glass half empty is not a moral failing, but a signal that the nervous system is asking for a different kind of leadership.
Menopause does not end your authority.
It asks you to source it from somewhere deeper.
Calmfidence is not the absence of sharp thoughts or strong emotions.
It is having choices when they show up.
A place to pause.
Without losing your edge.
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