I’m a middle-aged woman, well into my midlife journey at 56 years young. During my 40’s, many suggested—due to my life choices over the prior decade—that I was going through a mid-life crisis. My response?
“No crisis. I’m experiencing a mid-life awakening.”
To date, this has included graduate school, career change, starting my own business, step-parenting, divorce, single parenting, grandparenting, co-creating a loving and unconventional blended family unit, re-defining relationships, an ongoing reckoning with my changing body, and learning a vast array of new skills in solo home ownership and financial stewardship. It’s involved heartache and joy, fabulous changes and hard ones, love and letting go. And the journey continues.
I’m not alone. Midlife for women can be challenging. REALLY challenging.
Aside from the challenges and inner changes I kept bumping against, I realized that midlife women exist in a societal and cultural blind spot. The only light that’s shone on our female middle-age experience is by companies marketing products to make us look younger! Other than that? Crickets.
Which was exquisitely expressed by a new friend, in 2013.
Stressed-out, overwhelmed and invisible
Nine years ago, I invited a new friend I’d met at a conference to visit for a weekend from Canada. I was about 47 at the time and she was just turning 60. We were both divorced, with kids and entrepreneurial ventures. As we sat in a Boston sidewalk cafe on a fine fall day, sipping wine, she asked me how I felt about my middle-aged self.
Me: “I feel pretty good. I mean, my plate feels overflowing, but I’m keeping it together. How ’bout you?”
Her: “I feel invisible.”
She uttered this while looking at the ground and I could FEEL her pain. Her disappointment. Her longing. My eyes filled up. There was nothing I could say because what she said felt factual for her. All I could do is grab her hand, squeeze it and ask if she wanted to talk about it.
Since then, I’ve been doing a lot of research. For sure, ninety percent of my clients, lecture attendees, program participants and readers over the last 15 years have been the middle-aged woman. But that seemed like a small sample size since there are tens of millions of midlife women in American alone. Thus my adjunct research began. What were the common threads in the middle-age experience of women? They needed help with weight gain, hormone changes and disease development, yes. But there’s SO MUCH MORE that they struggle with. How could I best support these women, over and above the one-to-one whole-person client work that I was already doing?
I doubled down on the research.
My main takeaway? It’s time for midlife women to step out of the shadows. To put words to the endless transitions and accumulating responsibilities, and create ways to soften that. To have the conversations, to get the support they need, to heal their body and mindset, and to rock their midlife journey.
And I’m ON DECK for that rally cry.
Empowered: Wise, Middle-Aged Ninja
Next year on Wed, Feb 1, a NEW group coaching program will launch. A program specifically for the fabulous middle-aged woman and her physical, emotional, mental, relational and spiritual well-being. Her unique challenges. Her empowerment. Her unfolding majesty.
Announcing a group coaching program that guides the middle-aged woman toward becoming…
Empowered: Wise, Middle-Aged Ninja
=> The E:WoMAN Group Coaching Program
Program starts Feb 1
Registration is open from Jan 9 – Jan 30, 2023
While I’m SUPER excited about the program, I also want to offer FREE information about this midlife female journey. So, not surprisingly, I wrote an ebook. Y’all know I love writing. And if I can offer up some research, insights and solutions to the masses, who knows where we might end up? Like, SOCIETALLY. Cuz this whole suffer-in-silence-while-relational-dynamics-suffer thing needs to get its walking papers.
I don’t want to spoil the ebook for you, but the two-pronged main challenge for the midlife women I work with, and in that population as researched, is:
Snowballing roles and responsibilities combined with continual loss and transition.
Yes, health and weight too. Which falls into the “loss and transition” prong.
This 10-page ebook is an 8-minute read and serves to:
- Acquaint you with the challenges of the midlife woman
- Provide detailed information about the E:WoMAN Group Coaching Program
Whether you’re a mid-life woman, a young woman who wants to plan ahead, a man who wants to support the fabulous women in his life, or something else entirely…this ebook is for YOU.
CLICK HERE to access and download the ebook.
Please share freely with your friends, family and network. Although I’ve chosen to put this ebook on a hidden website page for now, and although no email is required for the download, people need to read this ebook!
Share, share, share by supplying this link:
https://bit.ly/3v6Qwbq
My holiday gift to you is, as always: Education, inspiration and empowerment.
Wishing you a lovely closing to 2022 and holidays rich in connection, love and fabulous Food Sass®.
To your Empowered Wellbeing,
Laurie
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