As someone who spent more than half a century overthinking pretty much everything and attempting to pre-plan every potential outcome of any given situation, I can't tell you how liberating it is to finally be OK with not knowing. 

For me, uncertainty always meant chaos. It meant I wasn't in control, and if I wasn't in control, I would be left vulnerable and exposed as some kind of fraud or imposter. I'd spent decades honing a persona as a successful, super-organised, calm-in-any-crisis professional woman, and I wasn't going to let that slip. 

But whether I liked it or not, that persona did crack open. I was made redundant from a high-paying, high-status job as Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire magazine, the pinnacle of my 25-year career in publishing. Then came Covid and with it a jobs market in which a fifty-something out-of-work editor couldn't get an interview. Finally, and it's the big one, the hormonal rollercoaster of perimenopause made me unable to recognise myself anymore. The physical, emotional and mental symptoms were overwhelming. 

After getting help from a GP and the right dose of HRT, I was able to come to terms with the fact that I was no longer on an upward career trajectory. Sitting with the feelings that came with that, running the gamut from sadness to shame to worry and finally to pride in everything I had achieved, actually made me feel much better. By acknowledging rather than subduing, I realised those difficult emotions were there to help me let go and move on.

What I did not know at the time was that I was developing something cognitive scientists call interoception. It sounds complex but it is not. In the simplest terms, it is getting out of your head and into your body. We all know about our external senses, taste and touch. But we also have internal senses, things like balance and, crucially, our ability to notice physical sensations that accompany emotions. The stomach churning when we are fearful. The butterflies when we are nervous. Katherine Templar-Lewis, a cognitive scientist at University College London and co-author of The Uncertainty Toolkit, explains that these sensations are nudges from the brain about possible danger. Ignore them and they get louder. The louder they get, the more we panic. The catastrophising begins and the cycle worsens. 

The key, says Katherine, is noticing the emotion behind the physical feeling, pausing, and then naming it. "If we acknowledge the physical feeling by labelling it, this tells our brain we are aware of what is going on and it doesn't need to sound the alarm," she explains. This is particularly relevant for women in midlife, where fluctuating hormones can send the whole alarm system haywire, which may explain why we sometimes struggle to regulate our emotions in the way we used to. 

Everyone has a different level of what Katherine calls Uncertainty Tolerance, and the good news is that it can be developed. Journaling, meditation, breathwork, exercise and cold water exposure all help the brain process uncertainty by connecting you with how your body actually works. So does learning to ask for help, and seeking connection with others. "You can also recognise that what your mind is telling you when panic hits is just a suggestion," Katherine adds. "The mind may be catastrophising, but if you can tell yourself this is just a suggestion, not a fact, that helps the brain adapt its response. We are incredibly flexible neurologically. We can teach our brains to turn the alarm down." 

I have seen this play out in people I know and admire. Two recent guests on the Postcards from Midlife podcast, which Lorraine and I co-host, have either chosen a new life of uncertainty or are being forced to live with it. The author Jane Green shared her decision to leave her marriage and move to a new continent to start over, with no idea where her life might take her. Mostly, she is being open to possibilities and finding that where many doors had become closed, new ones are opening. The former Loose Women presenter Andrea McLean is rebuilding after financial ruin following a failed business venture. She lost her home, her furniture, even her jewellery. But she is putting one foot in front of the other, and she is OK. The worst literally happened. And she is OK. 

Now, as a freelance journalist and Pilates teacher, I live with uncertainty every month. Not knowing how much work I'll get or how much I'll earn would have riven me with anxiety a decade ago. Today it does not, because looking back over my life I was as happy earning minimum wage as I was on a six-figure salary. That realisation changed everything. 

I will always be a planner. Being a doer and organiser is simply who I am. But I am now much more accepting of what I cannot control. When intrusive thoughts hit, or I feel uncomfortable in my skin, I don't ignore it. I engage with it, question it, think about what is going on, and I return to calm. 

It turns out that is not losing control. That is what being in control actually looks like.