July 5, 2023

Midlife Mastery: Empowering Thought Patterns for a Regret-Proof Life with Master Coach Suzy Rosenstein [Ep. 50]

Women in midlife tend to limit themselves–thinking more about what they can’t do rather than the possibilities open to them. Midlife mindset coach Suzy Rosenstein joins me today to discuss thought patterns you may see in yourself and some techniques to dismantle and improve those.

I hope you found this conversation with Suzy insightful and valuable. If you are enjoying the show, don’t forget to rate and review!

Episode mentioned on HRT: Navigating Perimenopause and Menopause with Hormone Replacement Therapy and How it Affects Weight Loss with Dr. Rosensweet [Ep. 41]: listen HERE

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This is the eat well think, well, live.

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Well podcast.

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I'm Lisa Salsbury.

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And this is episode 50 mid-life mastery empowering thought patterns for a regret proof life with Suzy Rosenstein.

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This episode lies squarely in the LivWell pillar of the podcast.

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We aren't talking really about weight loss today, directly, but you'll see the way you may be holding yourself back in your midlife years and how that might be affecting your ability to either get started with weight loss or thinking it might be too late, or even that you can't learn a new way at this age.

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Right in air quotes at this age, you will hear us talking a lot about thoughts that you may be thinking you're not alone.

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About what is, and is not appropriate at certain ages.

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And Susie gives you some great ways to break through some of that.

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She really emphasizes regret proofing your life.

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So take some time to think about what you truly want and don't let age stand in your way.

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You're going to love this conversation with Suzy.

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Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food.

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I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury.

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I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter.

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I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating.

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All right.

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Welcome to the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.

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I'm excited to have Suzy Rosenstein here.

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She's a master life coach, midlife mentor, and she was my instructor during the Life Coach school training, so it's so fun to reconnect with her.

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Hello, Suzy.

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How are you today?

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Oh, that's so fun that you mentioned that.

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And it's an absolute delight to be here with you today to talk about midlife.

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It's amazing.

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Yes.

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So many I think of my listeners are in this stage or we are approaching it.

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We're wondering about it.

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I was telling Suzy, I recently did an interview with a menopause doctor.

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If you have not listened to that, it's primarily medical more about hormone replacement therapy and the interventions you can do medically, and so I thought this would be a perfect.

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Companion to that episode with Suzy because she talks about the midlife, what is happening in our lives.

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It's sort of separate, but kind of a alongside what's happening with menopause.

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So we're not really gonna be talking about the medical side of menopause that's happening with our bodies, but.

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What's happening in our lives.

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That's where she really excels, is in, in this midlife.

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So we're just gonna jump right in.

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What are some of the biggest challenges you see with your clients or with women that are approaching this age or within this midlife age?

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Well, what typically happens is that it feels like.

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It's just happening immediately.

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Like there was no warning, which is really kind of funny.

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So it's like we've had a lot of time to get ready for midlife, but for some reason we, it usually we get a bit of a shock because of, um, a wake up call or, or, um, Somebody's retiring that we know, or a milestone birthday.

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Oh my God, I'm turning 50.

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When, when did that happen?

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How did that happen?

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You know, we've had lots of time to get ready, you know, or a kid goes to university or, or maybe somebody gets a scary diagnosis in your family or you have, you know, something scary to deal with or, or you know, you have to start taking care of your parents.

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There's so many things that can go on in midlife and what tends to happen is it's kind of, um, A surprise.

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It can be a surprise to many people.

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Kind of like menopause, you know?

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And definitely we're not gonna talk about anything medical, but um, it's an area I interview so many people, I.

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So many midlife women, and I've been doing this for almost 10 years now, and so many of us just aren't aware of what the heck is going on like,

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Mm-hmm.

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and it, it's so interesting because it reminds me of breastfeeding back in the day, like we all knew about pregnancy, what to expect when you're expecting.

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That book was really popular.

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But you know what's really happening with breastfeeding, it was a bit of a surprise.

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I remember having a thought that my kid was a, a barracuda, like, what is going on here?

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Nobody told me any of this.

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And I think it's kind of like that with midlife too.

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It's for some reason it's a bit of a surprise now.

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There are all kinds of reasons I mentioned wake up calls.

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It's also kind of like we've been so used to taking care of other people.

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That we're just kind of like, whoa, something's different.

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Maybe I'm not happy in my job anymore, or a kid is left, or all the kids have left, or there's a change in your relationships.

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And that can happen with your inner circle relationships.

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That's what I call them.

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Like, you know, maybe your partner, spouse, uh, some of the people that are really close in your life, but also your friends.

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There are changes everywhere and I just think a lot of people are kind of surprised that they're not that prepared.

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And so to even recognize what's going on, I wasn't prepared.

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I found like what got me kind of aware was that I was unhappy at my work and I was always very satisfied in my job.

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I was in my career for 27 years in health education, health promotion, addiction, mental health, that kind of stuff.

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And I was very content.

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The last job I had was a 19 year job, and around year 1415, I started to get a weird feeling that I just wasn't content and I didn't know what was going on.

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Well, what do you know?

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I was 45 to 50 In those years, I.

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And it just started to like, it was kind of like a whisper.

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Some boredom.

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I felt stagnant.

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Is there more?

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Is this all there is?

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Those kinds of questions started to come up and I didn't have the larger context and I wasn't prepared.

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It was a bit of a surprise.

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That's what happened to me.

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But I think that's really it.

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We're very busy building families, uh, careers, raising kids transitions, taking care of people.

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Very, very busy in that 20 to 40 typical age range or 20 to 50, and then boom, things do change to some degree.

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Does that make sense?

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Yeah, I, and I think too, for me, in this mid lifetime, There's just so many different things happening when all the kids were at home.

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I have four children and when they were all at home, it was a little bit more regular, even though it was crazy with having, you know, I was looking at photos of when my oldest graduated high school, my youngest was still like in grade school, so I had quite a range, so, You know, of course that's a busy time, but now it's like half of'em are in college, one just graduated.

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We're going to get her ready.

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We've got one left at home and I'm taking care of my mom

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So as the children have left, the care for my mom has increased.

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Not daily or anything, but just, you know, managing her medical appointments and.

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I won't go into all, you know, the, the things that I do there, but it's just been steadily increasing.

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The responsibilities there as my responsibilities with my children at home have decreased, and so the care has just sh shifted where my time is spent, and I feel like there's a little bit also of.

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I don't know who I am anymore if I'm not a mom.

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That is like a stay-at-home mom, taking care of kids, managing the schedules, doing the birthday parties, all of those things that I was very good at that it's like I don't, I.

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Sometimes know how to be a, a parent to adult children.

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I don't know how to be the, the a child to an adult parent who needs assistance.

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Like I, I mess that up all the time with her all the

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Oh, you really said that.

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Well, yeah, it's like an identity crisis.

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And so a lot of times people, you know, especially when we grew up, I'll be 60 this summer, so when I grew up it was 70 sitcom Heaven, Brady Bunch, you know, and all in the family and all those shows, and we had a very classic idea of what our role was as a mother.

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And I don't know, you know, we all have influences from different places, but it's pretty typical that a lot of people who grew up in upper middle class, middle class North America, um, grew up with a lot of these similar influences.

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And so it's just, we have these ideas of what it is that we're who we are, but we don't really.

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Have a chance to, even though we have plenty of chance to, but we don't, it doesn't feel like it.

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To think about who we want to be.

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Mm-hmm.

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And the person I am is that the person that I wanna be, does it fit me anymore?

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So I just always think about the Brady Bunch and maybe that isn't the best, um, example, I don't know if your listeners can relate to the Brady Bunch, but that had a huge influence on my life and, and that really, uh, it's funny because my family situation wasn't normal either,

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the Brady Bunch is interesting because we act like it's this perfect family, but that was a blended family,

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Yeah, it was a blended

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you know?

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But it was a work.

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It was working well.

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yeah, yeah, it was like this ideal blended family.

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But this is where, and, and again, we're not gonna get into the hormones today, but all of this is happening and you're dealing with the hormone issue.

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Like, and you're, you're dealing with all of this stress, which for my listeners often goes to overeating.

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We wanna compensate with food, and so we're having all this happening in our life, and then our body is not doing what we think it should be doing.

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And I think that's just one more layer that's happening.

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Yeah, and I forgot to mention a big layer and it, it has to do with aging and this idea that we're running out of time.

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So as we age and.

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Hit some of these milestones and some of these wake up calls happen.

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There's a lot of that kind of thinking, like even though time is not going any faster than it ever did, and we've been aging since, you know, from the beginning since we were babies, um, we didn't think about it the same way.

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But now there's a huge realization that time is flying by, that life is flying by and we start to think about having regrets.

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And it, I felt actually a little panicky too.

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The night of, uh, the night before my first kid went to university is when I, I really felt panicky.

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Like it wasn't a panic attack, but I felt panicky and the thought was, did I teach him everything he needed to know, like, where did the time go?

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Does he know how to cook five recipes?

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Does he know how to.

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You know, take care of himself and, and be a, a decent human being in all of these situations.

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And I came up with mm-hmm.

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So many of them.

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And the one thing, the one thing I didn't even worry about, which is I should have worried about it, is an understanding of, what I thought was an appropriate expectation for communication once they left.

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Yeah, we, we'd struggle with that as well.

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I didn't bother mentioning that one until I saw a picture of, um, an injury he had.

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He was a cheerleader and, and he had an injury and ended up going to emerge and one of his friends posted a picture online and that's how I saw it on Facebook.

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And I'm like, what?

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He didn't call when he had to go to a emerge.

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I think.

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I think we have to have a little, yeah.

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So it is a very jarring time in life and mm-hmm.

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The other thing that's kind of going on is that we, many of us like to think that we're kind of cool about aging, we're often not as cool as we think we are.

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Like as comfortable, uh, with some of the issues, even know what all the issues are and weight gain.

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In menopause and the type of issues that you're dealing with head on.

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I'm dealing with them too, but mine are in, uh, you know, dealing with a lot of things about identity,

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With your clients, you mean?

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Yeah, with my clients, I'm sorry.

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And yeah, but in, in menopause it's very confusing.

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We don't like the things we used to do that used to work to lose little weight.

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Don't seem to work anymore.

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It's very confusing, you know, if we wanted to lose five pounds before a vacation, Back in the day, we could, we had a few tricks up our sleeve.

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We could usually figure it out.

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And now I, I'm hearing all the time, and personally it's just confusing.

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The same things don't, don't tend to work anymore.

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So there's a lot about midlife that is, it can be very confusing and most of us.

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Maybe I can't say most cuz I don't know if it's most or not many of us, many of us think about what we can't do instead of what we can do.

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And that's the other, uh, perspective shift where there's so much potential because there are so many things that we can do when we, you know, get more comfortable with who, the idea of who we wanna be and what we're capable of.

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Yeah, That really speaks to what I wanted to ask you about some of the most common thought patterns that you're hearing because both Suzy and I are life coach school coaches, so we do really emphasize the thought patterns that are happening for our clients.

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And so I'm sure you hear a lot of the of similar thought patterns in this midlife with your clients.

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And so it sounds like that's one of'em is.

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A lot of what you're not able to do, can't thoughts, but what, what else do you see happening that you might notice if, you know, listeners are like, oh yeah, that's happening to me too.

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And of course, just so you know, we'll get to the solutions here in a minute.

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But, but what do you notice, uh, are, you know, common things that are happening?

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Well, a couple of things.

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One thought that comes up all the time is I'm too busy and I'm too busy to take care of myself, is really the way it comes up.

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So it comes up with weight loss, it comes up with movement, it comes up with sleep, it comes up with drinking too much water.

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Sometimes you don't even go to the bathroom when you need to go because it just, it's, I'm too busy.

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Um, embarrassingly I ended up doing a podcast about my worst mommy moment.

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So this happened before menopause, but clearly thinking I'm too busy was a pattern for me for a long time.

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One time we had a, a ripe mango on the counter and a ripe avocado.

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There was a bowl of fruit.

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And you know, when there's a mango and an avocado, we're on watch.

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We're on high alert.

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When's it gonna be ripe?

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When's it time to eat those?

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And one of my, my youngest son, I have three boys, they're all in their twenties now, and one of them, uh, the youngest one must have been around eight or nine at the time.

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And he's like, mommy, can you cut me a mango?

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I love mangoes.

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Can you cut me a mango?

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And I remember standing there at the island and saying to him, I'm too busy.

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I'm too busy to cut my kid a piece of fruit that he wants.

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Now, I didn't realize any of this at the time, but it was through mindfulness training and going through the self coaching and learning a lot over the years that I realized that that's what I thought.

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And I did not cut him a mango.

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And it happened several times.

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So, I find that so sad and, and just such a depiction of what can really be going on in your mind when you are, uh, you know, really thinking about what, what you're doing.

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And a lot of times it's on autopilot.

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It's not intentional at all.

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Uh, but you just don't know what you can do.

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You just have this idea about what you can't do and that's what you're focusing on.

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So that's one thought.

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I'm too busy.

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The other time that I'm too busy comes up.

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In a sneaky way is reading books.

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I've heard so many midlife women, uh, talk about being too busy to read a book The old fashioned way where you sit down, you don't multitask 10 things and you turn a page and they want

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Okay.

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Does Kindle count?

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I l I love reading on my Kindle.

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kind counts.

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Just making

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au audible's interesting because when you listen to a book on tape or a book on whatever, audible on an app, You can multitask and multitasking is not great.

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Not great.

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And what your brain's actually doing is something that they call switch tasking, which isn't efficient.

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It keeps you at the superficial level.

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It's just not, not great.

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And without going deep into that, just, it's just really not great.

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You can look it up and find all kinds of, uh, research, um, studies and YouTube things about why it's really not, uh, you're not really getting more done and you're not being with your time.

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I gotta, so I gotta push a little bit on that.

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So I tend to listen to, I, I do actually love an audiobook.

00:17:13.892 --> 00:17:23.461
I tend to listen when I'm doing what I consider mindless tasks like folding laundry, ironing, um, driving, maybe that's not very mindless.

00:17:23.761 --> 00:17:26.787
Um, S walking when I'm out on a walk.

00:17:26.787 --> 00:17:39.047
So is that considered task switching or is it only like, sometimes I'll also listen when I'm cooking and I'm not very efficient there if I'm trying to also look at a recipe and then listen to the book.

00:17:39.047 --> 00:17:45.406
But if I'm just like chopping and stuff, so like if I'm doing a physical task like that, is that task switching as well?

00:17:45.656 --> 00:17:57.862
Well, it's a good, it's a good question, and, and I don't actually know which tasks are considered, that would get in the way and which aren't, I don't know that answer, but I would offer you, this is why aren't you in the present moment and do you like your reasons?

00:17:58.162 --> 00:17:58.521
Right?

00:17:58.761 --> 00:17:59.991
So like you, I

00:17:59.991 --> 00:18:00.801
I hate laundry.

00:18:01.166 --> 00:18:01.882
Well, right.

00:18:01.882 --> 00:18:06.412
And I'll also do, I love listening to books when I'm putting on makeup or and podcasts.

00:18:06.412 --> 00:18:08.211
Like that's something I do.

00:18:08.211 --> 00:18:13.672
And I do find it doesn't get in the way and also with driving, but why am I not in the present moment?

00:18:13.701 --> 00:18:16.642
And I think that's the more interesting question, right?

00:18:16.642 --> 00:18:16.701
Yeah.

00:18:16.701 --> 00:18:19.561
Like is it because you have a thought that you're not being productive?

00:18:19.862 --> 00:18:23.422
And that's the next thought I wanted to talk to you about, because.

00:18:23.836 --> 00:18:38.596
We have this idea that we need to be uber, uber productive at all times, and we define what that means, and we don't tend to put things like taking care of ourselves the way we want to on purpose as being productive, right?

00:18:38.602 --> 00:18:40.666
You have to really think about how you being productive.

00:18:40.971 --> 00:18:41.541
Totally.

00:18:41.541 --> 00:18:46.221
And I, I just have to say that is such an issue with my clients.

00:18:46.551 --> 00:18:50.781
I didn't, I didn't take the time to even write down my food today.

00:18:51.172 --> 00:18:52.011
I didn't have time.

00:18:52.011 --> 00:18:58.372
I'm like, I just keep hearing things even though we're not strictly talking about weight loss today or really, uh, almost at all.

00:18:58.882 --> 00:19:01.701
My clients are always telling me I'm too busy.

00:19:01.701 --> 00:19:03.231
I don't have time to plan meals.

00:19:03.642 --> 00:19:05.061
Uh, another big one.

00:19:05.446 --> 00:19:07.487
With, I can think of a few clients.

00:19:07.787 --> 00:19:10.846
I'm too busy with the kids to exercise.

00:19:10.997 --> 00:19:11.896
There's too much to do.

00:19:11.946 --> 00:19:17.247
but they take'em to their sports classes, they take'em to their gymnastics, they all of that.

00:19:17.666 --> 00:19:20.787
But I don't have time for me.

00:19:20.787 --> 00:19:32.727
And so yeah, this self-care piece, whether it's, like you said, the movement or fixing proper meals for yourself, it is really an issue in this time of life, I think.

00:19:33.061 --> 00:19:33.662
I agree.

00:19:33.842 --> 00:19:34.261
I agree.

00:19:34.261 --> 00:19:36.241
And it comes up all the time with my clients too.

00:19:36.241 --> 00:19:38.701
And then, you know what's kind of related to that is.

00:19:39.707 --> 00:19:41.207
The understanding of commitment.

00:19:41.926 --> 00:19:48.257
So when you commit to yourself, it tends to be different than when you commit to somebody else.

00:19:48.257 --> 00:19:57.047
So an external commitment is typically easier to, uh, honor than a commitment that you make to yourself privately.

00:19:57.626 --> 00:20:01.126
And it's really interesting about that one because.

00:20:01.856 --> 00:20:16.797
if you say, like, if you're working with people or if somebody has a goal to lose a couple pounds or to eat more fruit or to drink more water or whatever, they tend to make that kind of commitment in a lighter way, in a way that opens the door to drama.

00:20:16.856 --> 00:20:23.869
I, I literally think of a door, if you committed to yourself the way that you've, um, that you really mean it.

00:20:24.964 --> 00:20:29.704
You can tell very simply, if you think about something you would never miss in a million years.

00:20:29.704 --> 00:20:33.454
So my example always is if I told somebody I would pick them up at the airport.

00:20:34.115 --> 00:20:36.275
This was even before cell phones.

00:20:36.305 --> 00:20:37.144
Just think about that.

00:20:37.144 --> 00:20:40.505
Somebody goes away for a week or two and you're like, yeah, I'll pick you up.

00:20:40.509 --> 00:20:41.105
No problem.

00:20:41.105 --> 00:20:42.125
It could be a kid.

00:20:42.365 --> 00:20:44.555
It could be a parent, it could be your best friend.

00:20:45.095 --> 00:20:46.565
I'm gonna pick you up at the airport.

00:20:46.924 --> 00:20:49.055
What's the likelihood that you're not gonna do that?

00:20:49.638 --> 00:20:50.179
Not at all.

00:20:50.449 --> 00:20:51.169
Like, of course you're going

00:20:51.334 --> 00:20:51.604
Right.

00:20:51.663 --> 00:20:52.354
You're gonna do it.

00:20:52.354 --> 00:20:55.983
What's the likelihood that you're going to write down dinner tonight?

00:20:56.314 --> 00:21:02.433
If you've said you're going to, it's, it's, the door is open a little bit for a negotiation.

00:21:02.784 --> 00:21:03.203
Mm-hmm.

00:21:03.453 --> 00:21:06.723
And that's a, a little bit less commitment, but I.

00:21:06.784 --> 00:21:12.064
If it sounds like commitment when you first talk about it, and it's like that with everything.

00:21:12.064 --> 00:21:23.703
So what we're really talking about with self-care is your ability to, you know, decide what you want for yourself, how you wanna take care of yourself, and how you're going to honor that commitment to yourself.

00:21:24.253 --> 00:21:29.584
And if that is shaky, you know, an expression that is used a lot is then you don't have your own back.

00:21:29.584 --> 00:21:33.753
You're not looking after yourself in the way that you really want to.

00:21:33.753 --> 00:21:34.713
There's a disconnect.

00:21:35.288 --> 00:21:36.153
There's a disconnect.

00:21:36.153 --> 00:21:50.433
So again, when, when you're not really sure and you haven't given careful thought to what kind of a woman you wanna become, do you wanna be a woman who honors commitments to herself in the same way that you honor getting to a doctor appointment on time or picking up somebody at the airport?

00:21:51.064 --> 00:21:55.834
And if the answer is yes, but you're not doing it, then there's a little bit of work that you can do there.

00:21:56.284 --> 00:22:03.423
That type of issue is something that's very common, um, to work on with the women over 50 that I work with every day.

00:22:03.888 --> 00:22:04.398
Yes.

00:22:04.729 --> 00:22:11.449
I love talking about commitment and it's something definitely that my clients really, really need to work on.

00:22:11.479 --> 00:22:15.318
I always say we are the very first person we're willing to cancel on.

00:22:16.203 --> 00:22:17.584
That's a great way to put it.

00:22:17.584 --> 00:22:18.483
It's so true.

00:22:18.784 --> 00:22:19.594
It's so true.

00:22:19.983 --> 00:22:23.884
And that's not the woman I wanna be, but I fight with her all the time in my mind.

00:22:25.294 --> 00:22:26.433
Yeah, for sure.

00:22:26.884 --> 00:22:29.163
So what are some of the solutions here?

00:22:29.169 --> 00:22:35.193
We've talked about a lot of the challenges that we're facing, a lot of the common thought patterns, and I do that too.

00:22:35.463 --> 00:22:38.044
I want, I wanna normalize that a little bit.

00:22:38.044 --> 00:22:39.784
Just that, hey, you're not alone out there.

00:22:39.784 --> 00:22:43.064
If you're having these thoughts, if you're like, I can't figure out how to.

00:22:43.963 --> 00:22:54.634
Make time for myself and, and I think really one of the challenges is that, Teenagers, I always say this, that toddlers are physically demanding.

00:22:54.784 --> 00:22:58.443
We're like in there making their food and giving'em baths and getting them to bed.

00:22:58.443 --> 00:23:11.253
All those like physical tasks and teenagers are very emotionally demanding and I think that can really take a lot more toll on you and they are just so busy.

00:23:11.253 --> 00:23:12.064
You go from.

00:23:12.523 --> 00:23:13.273
Once a week.

00:23:13.394 --> 00:23:18.463
Little classes you've got for your little ones to everyday sports practices for high school.

00:23:18.463 --> 00:23:21.013
You know, they're daily competitive things that you're in.

00:23:21.013 --> 00:23:28.153
You're driving all over who knows where for these things, and then the added layer of taking care of your parents

00:23:28.878 --> 00:23:29.808
Yeah, sandwich.

00:23:29.808 --> 00:23:33.608
You're a big sandwich generation, like what you're explaining and.

00:23:33.769 --> 00:23:49.308
You're, the thing we haven't talked about is that you're also running a business, and I have this, um, well, I'm starting a second podcast and I'm in the middle of interviewing people for that podcast, and my first podcast is Women in the Middle Loving Life After 50.

00:23:49.638 --> 00:23:51.729
But the second one is Women in the Middle Entrepreneurs.

00:23:52.669 --> 00:23:54.618
And so it's about the collision.

00:23:54.618 --> 00:23:57.199
It's where midlife issues.

00:23:57.618 --> 00:24:00.618
Get in the way of you running your business the way you want to.

00:24:01.038 --> 00:24:10.338
And I think the example you just shared is a really good one because the emotional part of young adults or almost young adults, it takes time.

00:24:11.148 --> 00:24:17.179
There's a lot of time for you to put yourself in a place where you're gonna have a conversation at just the right time.

00:24:18.169 --> 00:24:20.959
It, you know, it's tricky.

00:24:21.259 --> 00:24:22.368
It can be really tricky.

00:24:22.368 --> 00:24:24.199
That's, uh, anyway, but you're right.

00:24:24.199 --> 00:24:24.919
It's different.

00:24:25.128 --> 00:24:25.818
It's different.

00:24:25.824 --> 00:24:25.999
But

00:24:26.148 --> 00:24:31.578
because teenagers, they wanna have this conversation at like 1115 at night.

00:24:32.118 --> 00:24:36.669
You're like, come in to say goodnight, and then they're like, you know what, I'm Well, yes.

00:24:36.673 --> 00:24:44.409
This is definitely when I wanna have this conversation all about your boyfriend and when we should talk about anyway,

00:24:45.683 --> 00:24:46.403
That's so funny.

00:24:47.019 --> 00:24:48.818
We, we have all these challenges.

00:24:49.058 --> 00:24:54.909
Everyone that's listening can see themselves here or they can see it on the horizon.

00:24:54.909 --> 00:25:05.308
I do have definitely some younger listeners, but what are like some of the, some of the solutions, how do we make this time of life more enjoyable?

00:25:05.338 --> 00:25:13.163
Because I think that's, Really, a lot of what we want is more joy and peace in our lives.

00:25:13.344 --> 00:25:25.868
I think one of the, one of the antidotes to busyness is peace, because when I feel busy, I feel like I'm, you know, running on empty and just frazzled like a monkey in my brain.

00:25:26.229 --> 00:25:32.469
And so for me, the opposite of that is finding more peace and then of course that joy.

00:25:32.949 --> 00:25:38.169
So how does that look different when we're looking for those kinds of things in midlife?

00:25:39.134 --> 00:25:44.203
I think it all comes down to like boiling it right down to something you can do right away.

00:25:44.203 --> 00:25:46.874
I always say curiosity and compassion for the win.

00:25:47.564 --> 00:26:01.898
So if you're more curious, About what's actually possible for you and what you actually want when you haven't thought about it for, uh, you know, in midlife maybe 20 to 30 years, you haven't really thought about what do I want?

00:26:02.769 --> 00:26:06.068
Um, and if you're younger, you may not have thought about it either.

00:26:06.669 --> 00:26:14.199
Like you may have just gotten sucked into some routine or pattern or direction that you haven't checked in with lately.

00:26:14.288 --> 00:26:16.568
You haven't checked in with yourself lately about it.

00:26:17.048 --> 00:26:32.304
So when you're more curious, And more compassionate, less judgmental about yourself and maybe being, uh, being a beginner again in something that you actually wanna learn, but you're too afraid to, to look stupid.

00:26:32.513 --> 00:26:34.344
I'm taking tap dancing lessons right now.

00:26:34.523 --> 00:26:35.243
Let me tell you.

00:26:35.324 --> 00:26:35.983
Are you really?

00:26:36.443 --> 00:26:41.634
Let me tell you, I am worried about falling down, down.

00:26:41.693 --> 00:26:47.034
I was even embarrassed buying the shoes with all the dance moms, and I was so out of sorts.

00:26:47.273 --> 00:26:48.413
I have three sons.

00:26:49.074 --> 00:27:00.564
I just haven't been in, in the dance world since I was, uh, I don't know, 12, 13, 14, something very young.

00:27:01.074 --> 00:27:05.054
Um, my kids just didn't get involved in that sort of thing, so I, I.

00:27:05.108 --> 00:27:05.919
Didn't go there.

00:27:05.919 --> 00:27:07.509
I got involved in gymnastics.

00:27:07.509 --> 00:27:08.499
That's the route they went.

00:27:08.528 --> 00:27:17.499
You know, so it just, it's so interesting that I even had discomfort, buying shoes, going into a space, trying them on, standing in front of a mirror.

00:27:17.499 --> 00:27:19.838
There was a little floor there making a sound.

00:27:19.898 --> 00:27:25.929
It was so public and I was squirming even that being a beginner can, can really get in your way.

00:27:26.108 --> 00:27:32.919
And a lot of, uh, people have regrets about allowing themselves to be happy to do what it is they really wanna do.

00:27:32.919 --> 00:27:41.044
So in midlife, For sure, uh, probably throughout your whole life, I think you need to think about what you would actually regret and do something about it.

00:27:41.433 --> 00:27:43.233
So I call it regret proofing your life.

00:27:43.233 --> 00:27:44.374
So what do you need to do?

00:27:44.374 --> 00:27:45.334
What do you need to say?

00:27:45.338 --> 00:27:51.894
What do you need to try so that, you know, decrease the likelihood that you will have regrets.

00:27:52.394 --> 00:27:57.064
So with more, um, curiosity, more self-compassion.

00:27:57.979 --> 00:28:01.284
And then a healthy dose of really focusing on what's possible.

00:28:02.003 --> 00:28:08.753
And one of the reasons we get into trouble with that is I think the difference between the what and the how.

00:28:09.263 --> 00:28:17.034
So what you want to do, what you wanna try, who you wanna be, those kinds of questions.

00:28:17.034 --> 00:28:25.074
It's great to really dive into first and get the foundation and not question it, like really allow yourself to want that.

00:28:25.868 --> 00:28:36.368
Oh, I wanna be somebody who has a lot of skills in this area, or I wanna be somebody who's well traveled and really has opportunities to do that sort of thing.

00:28:36.368 --> 00:28:43.439
Or I wanna be somebody Who always makes time for friends, you know, to, to just really think about how you wanna show up with your friendships.

00:28:43.828 --> 00:28:51.959
So really thinking about whatever it is for you, what's foundational, and then ask yourself in a separate breath, how am I gonna make that happen?

00:28:52.288 --> 00:28:59.999
What typically happens is we focus on the how, in the same breath as the what and when you start to ask yourself how.

00:29:00.588 --> 00:29:01.993
You hear all kinds of thoughts.

00:29:02.233 --> 00:29:03.253
It's too hard.

00:29:03.403 --> 00:29:04.844
It's gonna cost too much money.

00:29:05.084 --> 00:29:06.913
Um, I'm never gonna be able to do that.

00:29:07.213 --> 00:29:07.814
It's a waste of

00:29:07.814 --> 00:29:08.054
busy.

00:29:08.564 --> 00:29:09.463
I'm too busy.

00:29:09.614 --> 00:29:14.023
What'll people think all that chatter happens when you focus on the how?

00:29:14.953 --> 00:29:29.203
And I just, I encourage my clients to just focus on what it is you want first, and then think about how separately and allow your brain to go crazy with coming up with solutions when you ask it how it's gonna do something.

00:29:29.594 --> 00:29:33.403
Because that's a type of thing where you, you spin on it in a very productive way.

00:29:33.403 --> 00:29:36.253
Like when you're in the shower, you're thinking, how am I gonna solve this problem?

00:29:36.493 --> 00:29:39.763
And if I know something about women, we are good problem solvers.

00:29:40.034 --> 00:29:40.723
Wouldn't you agree?

00:29:41.173 --> 00:29:42.794
Yeah, for sure.

00:29:42.794 --> 00:29:48.788
So when you just make the decision, this is what I'm going to do, then I'll figure out the how.

00:29:49.088 --> 00:29:50.169
Is that kind of the

00:29:50.378 --> 00:29:50.949
That's kinda it.

00:29:51.759 --> 00:29:52.148
Yeah.

00:29:52.179 --> 00:29:53.739
And, and don't rush the what?

00:29:53.769 --> 00:29:56.588
Like really allow yourself to ruminate on that.

00:29:57.159 --> 00:30:00.368
Um, and I think envy is a great clue.

00:30:00.429 --> 00:30:06.068
I have an exercise that I do with my clients about envy, where you invite envy into your life.

00:30:06.068 --> 00:30:09.979
Like, just allow yourself to notice when you're actually envious.

00:30:09.979 --> 00:30:13.419
Nobody wants to talk about envy, but allow just, you can

00:30:13.588 --> 00:30:18.173
that we consider that much of like a negative emotion, really, or, or.

00:30:18.443 --> 00:30:22.584
Actually an emotion that I would call that my clients would call wrong.

00:30:22.824 --> 00:30:23.094
Right?

00:30:23.094 --> 00:30:26.394
It's wrong to have certain emotions.

00:30:26.723 --> 00:30:27.054
Right.

00:30:27.054 --> 00:30:28.703
But so that's interesting.

00:30:28.709 --> 00:30:29.334
Tell me more.

00:30:29.663 --> 00:30:32.213
Well, just think about, just, you can even think privately.

00:30:32.213 --> 00:30:35.034
You don't need to take out a billboard, but just imagine.

00:30:35.394 --> 00:30:38.903
Let's think, when was I a little bit envious of, of somebody?

00:30:38.909 --> 00:30:39.894
Was it a thing?

00:30:40.284 --> 00:30:41.933
Was it somebody who traveled?

00:30:41.933 --> 00:30:45.773