You knew something was wrong before you could explain it. You felt the room turn before a word was said. And when you spoke up, someone asked you to prove it, so you filed it away as being too emotional. In this solo episode of Butterfly Days, Tami Jorden makes the case that the read, the gut, the pattern you catch before you can name it, was never the lesser kind of intelligence. It was ranked that way, and the ranking was a decision, not a discovery.

She traces where the word hysteria came from, why the Mars and Venus era quietly handed our generation the same old hierarchy dressed up as science, and what researcher Gary Klein found when he studied fire commanders and ER nurses who knew before the monitors did. Here is the good news: embodied knowing does not decline at midlife. It peaks, right at the moment culture starts writing you off.

Tami closes with a three-rung ladder of exact words you can use the next time someone calls your knowing emotional, because a real boundary does not argue. It reclassifies and walks.

You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen https://www.amazon.com/You-Just-Dont-Understand-Conversation/dp/0060959622

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray https://www.amazon.com/Men-Mars-Women-Venus-Understanding/dp/0060574216

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When someone you love is dying, nobody hands you a map. You are guessing about the medication. You are guessing about the restlessness. You are quietly terrified you are doing this wrong. In this episode of Butterfly Days, Tami Jorden sits down with Margaret Pasquesi, a certified music-thanatologist, vocalist, and harpist who serves as president of the Music-Thanatology Association International.

Margaret brings live harp and voice to the bedside of the dying, not as a performance, but as a prescription tuned to a patient's breath, pulse, and temperature. She explains what actually happens in the final days, why so many loving families withhold the very medication that would bring their Person comfort, and how to know when the dying has started so the right people can be in the room.

Margaret also shares how a punk rock kid, child number seven of ten, followed a strange calling into one of the most unusual vocations in end of life care. Sister, if you are caring for a parent, sitting with a friend, or standing at your own empty nest wondering what comes next, this conversation is for you.

🦋 Connect with Margaret Pasquesi:

Website: https://www.margaretpasquesi.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaretpasquesi/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MargaretPasquesi/

Music-Thanatology Association International: https://www.mtai.org/

Accorda Music-Thanatology Institute: https://accordaschool.org/

Tony Pederson Music Thanatologist FootLeg22 Tiktok🦋

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Nobody reaches the end of their life wishing they had pleased more people. Tami Jorden has spent hours in rooms with the dying, and what she hears instead, again and again, is this: I wish I had realized what actually mattered. In this solo episode of Butterfly Days, Tami unpacks the scorecard GenX and GenJones women were handed before they were old enough to question it.

She explains why it kept paying out just often enough to keep us playing for thirty years, why the thing we call a midlife crisis is really the reinforcement schedule breaking down, and why success is the very thing that hides the miscalculation.

Then she draws the line that changes everything: the difference between a life assigned to you and a life you author yourself. Tami introduces the second portfolio, the one nobody told us to build, with two holdings, contribution and kinship. Most women arrive at fifty five having never taken inventory of either. This is a clear-eyed, warm rally cry to put down the wrong instrument and start measuring what actually counts.

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Substack: https://tamijorden.substack.com/

Website: https://tamijorden.com/

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Your group chats are blowing up about aging parents. The house full of stuff. The car keys. The "maybe we need some help at home" conversation nobody wants to start. In this episode of Butterfly Days, Tami Jorden sits down with Kirsten Mau, founder and creator of Who Gets the China?, the podcast, Substack, and website dedicated to helping sandwich generation women save their sanity while navigating life with aging parents.

Kirsten shares the paradigm shifts that changed everything for her: asking what do you want to keep instead of what can we get rid of, getting real buy-in before you touch a single closet, and practicing radical acceptance when your parents simply are not ready. She and Tami get honest about the car keys conversation, how to offer in-home help as a gift to you rather than a verdict on them, the spoons theory, and why access to your parents' electronic health records is a must for anyone caregiving from a distance.

If you are caring for parents while raising kids and trying to live your own life, Sister, this one is for you.

🦋 Connect with Kirsten Mau:

Website: https://www.whogetsthechina.com/

Substack: https://whogetsthechina.substack.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstenmau/

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/who-gets-the-china/id1823264326

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7h3w2YWQyhMxwFIeiBH2BN

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If you are the one holding it all together for someone who cannot carry themselves right now, this episode was made for you. In this solo episode of Butterfly Days, Tami Jorden draws on her hospice and vigil work to name the two traps waiting for midlife caregivers: the old one that turns selflessness into erasure, and the new one that dresses up desertion as protecting your peace.

Tami walks through research on caregiving and menopause symptoms, the science of self-silencing and what it costs a woman's heart, and the real difference between the martyr and the wise caregiver. One disappears. One does not. She shares six practical ways to sacrifice wisely, from naming your limits out loud to scheduling respite like a medical appointment, plus a full list of caregiver support resources including Daughterhood, the Eldercare Locator, and respite programs. This is not permission to walk away. It is permission to stay whole while you stay.

🦋 Caregiver Resources Mentioned:

Daughterhood (founded by Anne Tumlinson): https://daughterhood.org

The Menopause Society clinician directory: https://menopause.org

Eldercare Locator: 800-677-1116

Family Caregiver Alliance: https://www.caregiver.org

Caregiver Action Network Help Desk: 855-227-3640

ARCH National Respite Locator: https://archrespite.org

Alzheimer's Association 24/7 Helpline: 800-272-3900

VA Caregiver Support Line: 855-260-3274

Mental Health America screening tool: https://screening.mhanational.org

In crisis? Call or text 988

Subscribe to Tami Jorden's Substack and visit her website 🦋

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What would you do if your whole life blew up in 48 hours? In this episode of Butterfly Days, Tami Jorden sits down with Lindsey Goldstein, author of the debut novel Gap Year. It tells the story of Jane, a 46 year old CPA whose daughter leaves for a year abroad, whose husband leaves her for another woman, and whose boss hands her an ultimatum, all within two days.

Instead of staying stuck, Jane books a ticket to Ecuador to climb Cotopaxi, the volcano she dreamed of summiting in her twenties. Lindsey shares why she refused to make her heroine younger, how travel gives you license to change the script, why friendship is one of the most powerful longevity strategies we have, and the deathbed question that finally pushed her to write. If you are standing at your own pivot and wondering what is still in your tank, this conversation is for you.

🦋 Connect with Lindsey Goldstein at lindseygoldsteinauthor.com.

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What are you carrying just because it was handed to you? What baggage could you ditch at this age? And do you have room left for what matters to you? In this solo quickie episode of Butterfly Days, Tami asks the questions that might be the most useful ones you ask yourself all year. She gets honest about the loads midlife women carry without ever choosing them: the family peacemaking, the office mom role, the friendship where you give and never get.

Tami draws the line between the sacred weight that love asks of you and the weight that got set in your arms out of habit, guilt, or because you are the one who never says no. She exposes the praise trap, those compliments that always come with a job attached, and shares the three gates to run every hard conversation through before you speak. This episode is your permission slip to ask one brave question: Is this mine to carry?

Subscribe to Tami Jorden's Substack and visit her website 🦋

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Substack: https://tamijorden.substack.com/

Website: https://tamijorden.com/

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1ASQDpGEUX/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/butterflydayspodcast

Have you ever wondered if it is too late to start protecting your brain? In this episode of Butterfly Days, Tami Jorden sits down with Christine Despres, a registered nurse of over 30 years and founder of The Wellness Navigator, to talk about why midlife is actually the most powerful window you will ever have to transform your brain health. Christine shares her own story of discovering she carries the APOE4 gene linked to Alzheimer's risk, the midlife career pivot that took her from hospice nursing to brain health coaching, and the small, doable habits that protect your mind for decades to come.

Connect with Christine Despres at thewellnessnavigator.com. 🦋

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Wellness culture is everywhere. Optimize your body, extend your life, chase the protocol. But what if midlife is asking us a completely different question? In this solo episode of Butterfly Days, Tami gets real about the wellness and longevity industrial complex and what it quietly sells to women in midlife: the idea that aging is a problem to solve. She makes the case for ikigai, the Japanese concept of a reason to get up in the morning, and the Stoic practice of amor fati, love of your fate, as the two things that actually deliver what every supplement stack promises and cannot deliver. This episode is a warm but bold rally cry to stop optimizing your body and start inhabiting your life.

Subscribe to Tami Jorden's Substack and visit her website 🦋

More from Butterfly Days:

Substack: https://tamijorden.substack.com/

Website: https://tamijorden.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-jorden-322918227/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1ASQDpGEUX/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/butterflydayspodcast

Are you tired of the hot girl hamster wheel? The endless products, the procedures you heard about from a friend, the serum you bought because an influencer said so? And still not loving what you see in the mirror? In this episode of Butterfly Days, Tami Jorden sits down with Dr. Mary Alice Mina, a Harvard-trained, double board-certified dermatologist and host of the globally ranked podcast The Skin Real, to get honest about what actually works for our skin in midlife and why true skin health starts from the inside out.

Connect with Dr. Mina at theskinreal.com.

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