The best podcasts for a midlife crisis

Billy Lahr is the host of The Mindful Midlife Crisis, a podcast for people navigating the complexities and possibilities of life’s second half. Billy spent 21 years as an educator but became disenfranchised the last half due to budding mental health concerns and a lack of job satisfaction. In 2021, Billy left his job as dean of students in order to travel the world in search of more meaningful life experiences. Since then, he’s been focused on teaching others how to navigate their own midlife crisis with more curiosity, openness, compassion, and awareness through the use of mindfulness meditation as well as practical and intentional daily routines that focus on consistency and discipline through his introductory Reflect–Learn–Grow mindfulness program. In 2021, I was one of 47 million Americans who quit their jobs due to my own burnout and priority re-evaluation. Following the challenges our nation’s educators faced during the pandemic, I no longer had the passion needed to work with high school students. For the next year and a half, I traveled all over the world in search of meaningful experiences to reignite my passion for helping others. Throughout my journey, I met many incredible people along the way, and during our conversations, I would share with them how my mindfulness practice helped me navigate the challenges I often faced during my time as an educator and as a midlife pivoter. What I learned from these conversations is that people all over the world were forced to confront their own mortality due to the pandemic, and they too were re-evaluating their priorities but needed guidance to do so with more intention and inspiration. After learning more about the existential crises other people from all over the world were feeling, I decided to become a certified mindfulness teacher. Through my Reflect–Learn–Grow Introduction to Mindfulness program, I am now leading virtual and in-person mindfulness sessions to help people live with more curiosity, openness, compassion, and awareness while also sharing practical and intentional daily routines that focus on consistency and discipline.

The purpose of The Mindful Midlife Crisis is to help others navigate the complexities and possibilities of life’s second half. One way I do that is by providing a platform that gives people the space and permission to share their expertise and life experiences so you can use that information to enhance your life with whatever you find relatable and practical. I also share how cultivating my own daily mindfulness practice over the last ten years has helped me navigate the trials, tribulations, and successes of my own midlife crisis, and I’m teaching you how to navigate life more mindfully through my virtual mindfulness sessions. My mindfulness practice has helped me process my ruminating thoughts, anxiety, and stress in a much healthier and productive way by reducing my emotional reactivity and impulsive behavior, which in turn has helped me improve my relationships and communication with others

My playlist focuses on self-improvement, mental health awareness, and mindfulness. This is especially crucial for middle-aged men because according to the CDC: "Adults aged 35–64 years account for 46.8% of all suicides in the United States, and suicide is the 8th leading cause of death for this age group." "Among men in this age group, suicide rates were highest for non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN) men (41.3 suicides per 100,000), followed by non-Hispanic White men (35.7 per 100,000)." These are three times higher than the suicide rates for women in the same demographic. Meanwhile, "Adults aged 75 and older have one of the highest suicide rates (20.3 per 100,000). Men aged 75 and older have the highest rate (42.2 per 100,000) compared to other age groups. Non-Hispanic White men have the highest suicide rate compared to other racial/ethnic men in this age group (50.1 per 100,000)." I firmly believe that we need to be having more conversations around this, but we also need to help men to understand that they have the power to reflect, learn, and grow when it comes to self-improvement, mental health, and mindful living. Not all men have the financial resources to access mental health services, but these podcasts offer free advice on how to reflect, learn, and grow (without all the woo woo nonsense).