Maria Bello Says a Midlife Crisis Is 'Actually a Gift to Us': 'Step Back and Reevaluate' (Exclusive)

Maria Bello is living the anti-midlife crisis. 

The actress, producer and writer is gearing up for a busy 2024, starting with a trip to the Emmy Awards on Jan. 15 thanks to her first-ever nomination for her role in the Netflix series Beef, followed by her wedding to longtime partner Dominique Crenn in the spring.

At 56 years old, she's hit a hot streak — though she admits she had to take stock of her life for it to happen.

“I never meant to take a pause, but the pause took me first," she tells PEOPLE. "I started menopause at the beginning of COVID, and two years into it I felt like I was just going to die."

She continues, "I had the opportunity to move to Paris with Dominique, and I said, ‘Stop. Just pause.’ I paused my social media, traveling, some work.... I realized a crisis is actually a gift to us at midlife, to take a step back, to reevaluate. So I went back on social media to talk about my findings. I feel more peace than I’ve ever had.”

Bello returned to Instagram with a bang in December after a two-year hiatus. She opened up about trying everything from “bioidentical hormones” to “Ozempic for a week” in her attempts to combat menopause and the subsequent changes wreaking havoc on her body (and mind).

She even dove into Carl Jung’s teachings about the seven tasks of midlife. 

“I wanted to explore these questions,” she says. “The only thing that I'd heard about midlife was 'midlife crisis,' 'menopause' — these phrases that denoted this horrible time in your life. I wanted to know: How would I take that construct using Jung’s principles and make it into something that I could relish and grow with and grow into?” 

To help her evolution, Bello relied on people she called her “midlife midwives.” Ironically, some of her biggest supporters weren’t women at all, but rather “my three old men friends that are over 80.”

She shares, "They really helped me. They all have such a sense of humor and such grace. And every time I would call my one and say like, 'Oh my God, I feel like crap. What else is there?' He'd say, 'Go take a walk. If you're feeling down, just look up.' They told me about their own crossing over and what that looked like for them. We're all going through it.” 

That “it” is aging, which Bello has re-trained herself to see as a gift. 

“The sort of running to stop the aging process, to try this and the machines and the cellulite creams and the diets and the this and the that? You suddenly realize wherever you go, there you are. You take yourself with you wherever you go," she says. "Just because my skin looks a little tighter at that midlife point — when I was really down, disillusioned and depressed inside — it didn't help a thing."

Now, having successfully "crossed over into the second half" of her life, Bello's mindset is one that celebrates “whatever makes you feel better about yourself,” and she stays armed with an inherently great sense of humor. 

In Bello's bathroom, she keeps photographs of women who project freedom and strength, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Beatrice Wood and Simone de Beauvoir.

There's also something each of the women have in common: "They're all over 60 with their wrinkles and their waddles and their confidence and their power. And I find it incredibly sexy. My goal is to continue to grow into that."

With such empowerment mind, Bello says she feels more peace now than she ever has before. She also feels more “confidence, more humility and more gratitude.” 

“There's not a lot of ideals, men or women, that you can look at and say, 'Wow, it's amazing to grow old, to grow older. It's amazing. The second part of life could be extraordinary,’” Bello says, noting that she considers herself a "midlife midwife" now, and she’s here to flip the whole notion on its head.

The advice she would share with young women with miles of road ahead of them affirms just that: "It gets infinitely better.”

For more on Maria Bello, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now.