What the Prairies Teach Us About Resilience, Flexibility, and Midlife Transitions

The Prairies - where there’s space to breathe and land and sky become one.

This is a post about life’s lessons from prairie roots - on surviving change, building strength, and embracing growth.

Mary Pipher, (author of Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age), once wrote about how a cacti’s withered arms reflected her life - thorns and fruit, pain and beauty. As I stood on the edge of the prairies recently, I realized this vast landscape symbolized my life, how it shaped my inner core, how it taught me resilience and flexibility.

It is a land of extremes where summer is hot and the mosquitos are out for blood; where autumn is stunning as the trees turn colour in the city and valley before shedding their leaves in preparation for the harsh prairie wind that blows across its fields, delivering months of snow and ice and frigid temps; where spring slowly arrives melting winter’s grip turning the ground into mud and dirt that’s whipped into a frenzy as it settles along the roads, waiting for rain to clear it away.

You can hear the collective sighs of relief in the air after a long, hard winter, feel the anticipation and hope for good crops of waving wheat fields and bright canola yields, see the dust kick up as farmers work the land and then wait for warmth and sun, praying their crops survive another season without a grasshopper invasion or draught or a tornado to wipe it all out in seconds. 

I was born on the Prairies and lived there until 2004. It’s true - you can take the girl out of the prairies, but you cannot take the prairies out of the girl. No matter where I’ve lived, the need to find open spaces has remained strong, a lifeforce that won’t allow me to forget where I’m from.

There’s a hardiness about people from the prairies; a strength that comes from generations of those who’ve survived feasts and famines, of newbies who’ve arrived and had to adjust to a life that by all accounts isn’t easy and requires a certain amount of grit and determination. It’s an environment that demands resilience and flexibility, the strength to weather each season and not just survive, but thrive and grow.

Fall in the Qu’Appelle Valley

I learned about community where I’m from and the importance of helping others through tough times, of ensuring that neighbors were looked in on during long winter nights.

I learned the value of friendship and the importance of women supporting women, of never assuming I knew what it was like to walk in another’s person’s shoes.

I learned to trust my instincts and face my fears as I navigated icy roads with deep ruts that threatened to keep you stuck, taking you away from your destination. I steered my way out of 360-degree spins on black ice as I drove to hockey rinks with kids in the back seats of our chevy van during whiteouts and winter storms.

I learned that change and transition are part of life’s natural ebb and flow as the seasons fall into each other.  Nothing lasts forever - each season bringing it’s own charm and challenges, and the best we can do is dress for the conditions and roll with punches as the storms come and go.

My life on the prairies was like a lifetime within a lifetime. I learned to be strong, resilient, grounded, able to row north and navigate the most turbulent of waters, not always with ease but with grit and determination.

This hardiness and deep appreciation for life and survival comes with me as my midlife body ages; gifts as I navigate the future and feel my soul souring in the spaces I create along the way.   

Thanks for reading!

Joan

 🌾 Just as the prairies have taught me resilience, flexibility, and the beauty of change, writing offers us the same gift: a way to ground ourselves, process life’s seasons, and find meaning in our own stories.

If you’d like to explore this more deeply, join me for a Tap and Write session, where we use EFT (tapping) and reflective writing to uncover the wisdom in life’s transitions.

And if you’d like regular prompts and inspiration, subscribe to The WISER Woman’s Guide, my weekly newsletter created for women in midlife who are ready to navigate change with resilience, self-compassion, and courage.