Rebranding Middle Age

*Head's up: there's a swear in this episode. Also Kate's sound quality is a bit warbly at times but doesn't hinder the conversation. I'm delighted to welcome my first guest to the podcast! Kate Codrington is a mentor, author, speaker, facilitator, artist and podcaster.  She's the author of Second Spring: the self-care guide to menopause, and her second book, The Perimenopause Journal, will be...

Who is writing or telling the stories of your life? We all have stories playing out in our life, many unconscious, others that we are aware of yet believe or receive without examination. Most are rooted in conditioning of culture, religion, family of origin – or they may go further back. If we want to walk in freedom, wholeness, and joy, we must do the work to open up to a new hopeful and joyful p...

As we wrap up this season and prepare for the next season's theme of "Old stories. New Possibilities" I remind you about a practice I have that helps us walk in greater freedom, wholeness, and joy. I share about the cycle of self-awareness, self-compassion, and imperfect action that anchors my work and life. And I share about the "Shift Your Experience" model/exercise that you can use when an old...

Freedom is one of my core 5 values. It's also one of my top 2 values. As a personal value, what freedom means to me (us) as individuals can vary season to season. It needs to be personal and precise. We need to reevaluate and reorient on occasion for it to be a meaningful source of direction or a meaningful filter. This week, I've been listening inward and asking myself: What does Freedom look, so...

Happy spring! If you want to quiet the noise and practice a kinder way of being in your body and life, one of the most impactful choices you can make is to begin practicing Seasonal Living. There are, of course, many paths to wholeness, and many paths to a brave and beautiful life, but a seasonal living framework is one of the things that I know to be hugely impactful and empowering in life. It's...

In 2016 I wrote a short post that went viral around the world. It clearly touched something deep in many people. Here's one tiny snippet from that post that I want to talk about today: "What if I embrace my limitations and stop railing against them. Make peace with who I am and what I need and honor your right to do the same." SHOW NOTES Part of the conversation about embracing our limitations is...

Relationships in middle age can be messy. They take work and nurturing at every stage of life. But in middle age - yikes! If you're growing, healing, becoming your most honest and integrated Self... this will affect your relationships. And this is as it should be. SHOW NOTES Healthy and brave relationships and community are so important to our health and wellbeing. But because they take work and w...

We all need rest, probably more than we’re getting. Expanding our view of rest beyond naps or Netflixing is helpful and life-giving! Perhaps what you most need right now is sensory rest or creative rest. Or maybe it’s lowering the bar and being kinder to yourself. SHOW NOTES This is a two-part conversation about rest – you can listen to part one here. In part two of the conversation I talk about t...

In a culture that idolizes productivity, it can feel countercultural to make rest an essential part of our life and goals. But when we prioritize rest, we cultivate creativity, increase productivity, and we live more joyfully. In REST: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less , Alex Soojung-Kim Pang writes "Discoveries in sleep research, psychology, neuroscience, organizational behavior, sports me...

There's an African Proverb that goes like this "When death finds you, may it find you alive." SHOW NOTES: DO YOU FEEL FULLY ALIVE? I've been thinking about this a lot - am I living fully alive? What does this look, sound, feel like in my body and life? As I was pondering this morning, these 6 characteristics came up for me (I expand upon them in the conversation). I feel fully alive when... I allo...

To live on purpose - to handcraft a brave and beautiful life - to be anchored in the storms of life - you need deep roots. We grow deep roots through conscious, consistent effort or 'watering' over time. SHOW NOTES In this episode I use three examples of women somewhere in the middle season of life, and a situation they are grappling with. I walk through a cycle of self-awareness, self-compassion,...

A common experience that comes up in my work is grief and self-judgment when a client or community member feels that they have gone backwards in their growth. But we can’t go backwards; it’s impossible. We may feel like we’ve circled back to an old wound, or to something we believed we had already learned, once and for all. But we are all in progress and we need repetition to truly move a new trut...

Every single woman I know, and each woman I work with, benefits from regular, gentle reminders to pause and name what she is already doing well. To be proud of herself and name all the ways she regularly shows up with strength and bravery. Life is messy and we need to remember that perfection is not required. I certainly need regular check-points or invitations to do this for myself. It’...

Home is sacred. A safe and loving home creates a sense of safety and security in this noisy and often challenging world. Home is a mental-health issue. That is, lack of affordable housing contributes to struggles with what we think of as mental health (but mental health doesn’t stand apart from all other forms of health). It’s important to me to feel safe, at home, and joyful in my body, home, and...

SHOW NOTES Home is sacred space. It's not the size or fanciness of home that matters. Feeling at home in our body and life is also sacred. We get to treat home (home in self) as sacred and be the gatekeeper of who and what gets access to us/our True Self. Joy is relational; it's amplified when shared with others. But if we don't have a safe 'home base' within ourselves, we likely feel dysregulated...

*Heads up: there's swearing in this episode. SHOW NOTES Grief is always hard... but grieving over the holidays can be an extra layer of hard. Our grief doesn't need to be 'fixed.' It simply needs to be witnessed. In this episode I share honestly about where I'm at and a few ideas for taking good care of yourself if you're grieving over the holidays. LINKS/REFERENCES Sign up for the free  Simp...

In theory at least, the holiday season is about gratitude, connection/community, a focus on what's truly most important. The reality for many, however, is an increase in stress, anxiety and depression. I don't know what all is going on in your life, of course, but perhaps there are ways you can lower your stress through less performing, people-pleasing, and perfectionism while amping up your joy o...

Shoring up leaky boundaries (boundary work in general!) is essential to living with freedom, wholeness, and joy and walking out our core values. There are three clear cues in my body and life that I have one or more leaky boundaries that need attending to. These cues are: resentment, persistent anxiety, and avoidance. SHOW NOTES In this episode I share 15 examples of leaky boundaries from my life,...

All or nothing thinking keeps us stuck in lack. It keeps us stuck in the story that 'when' circumstances align perfectly then we'll be happy, love ourselves, start writing, etc. But if you're open to living with more joy, then I recommend that you try 'all or something' thinking on for size. SHOW NOTES We're all birthing something (or creating, handcrafting, bring to life or fruition, building, sp...

What do you want to be so filled up with that you leak it over into your circle of impact? What are you currently leaking into your circle? LINKS/RESOURCES Cultivating Joy: How to bring more joy into your daily life | Globalnews.ca New life hack: The joy snack - The Washington Post Practice Self-Compassion Like Your Life Depends Upon It: Episode 2 (alifeinprogress.ca) Make Peace With Messiness to...

“What if joy is not only entangled with pain, suffering, and sorrow but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things?” - Ross Gay, Inciting Joy I learned to armor up at a young age. Lately I’ve been thinking through some of the reasons that may have led to this. In my early childhood, two of my friends died - one of cancer, one in a house fire down the street. Siblings...

After my son died, I was thrown head-first into a deep and dark winter season. The years that followed were incredibly painful and I longed for spring or light to come again. One day I heard in my spirit, “you have to live the end of one story before stepping into the next.” I remember my dad telling me one day over a decade ago, that the time between a vision and the fruition of a vision or dream...

When I’m driving on the highway and someone zooms past me at high speed or weaves in and out of traffic to ‘get ahead’ I always wonder, “where are you rushing to?” And is putting your life and mine at risk worth shaving a few seconds off your ride? I’m a slow mover by nature. To be healthy and happy, I require a lot of spaciousness and breathing room in my life to think, connect the dots inside my...

“We learn from an early age that ‘masked and armored’ is the safe and sane way to live” writes Parker Palmer in A Hidden Wholeness . We are wired for connection - we need each other. Yet there is an epidemic of loneliness in the world and it’s getting worse. Loneliness has the same health impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and increases risk of premature death by 29%. A 2021 Canadian survey rep...

Life shouldn’t be neat and tidy. If your life feels challenging, you’re not doing it wrong. It’s the belief that you “should” always know what you’re doing, and that your life should always feel easy and smooth sailing, that keeps you in suffering. I’m a recovering perfectionist - an Enneagram One (hopeful reformer) for those of you familiar with The Enneagram. I had to learn to make peace with th...