Dear Midlife...

Kendra Beavis is the Founder, and CEO of the brand strategy studio, MOKA Creative. Although her business has been successful, her proudest achievement has been her personal growth. She survived a tumultuous marriage, battled with several addictions as well as navigated the path through single-motherhood.

Each of these moments was a fork in the road for her. At each point, she could have turned to despair and darkness. It would have been easy to give up. However, she didn’t just persist… she thrived! Kendra has learned how to use her biggest challenges as fortifiers — Her traumas have become catalysts for radical growth to move forward and live her best life.

Now she wants to share her “Brand New You Method” with women who are looking to move past their trauma and start living their best life. Together with her clients, she walks them through the steps to figuring out who they want to be, how they want to feel every day, and what they want their lives to look like. Using the BNY method they are able to find clarity, confidence, and inspiration to take aligned action.

Through Kendra's stories of her own trials and triumphs we learned:

1. Take the things that break you down and use them to learn and grow.
2. Reinvention starts with identifying how do you want to feel everyday and what do you want a typical day to be like?
3. Create a vision board for who you want to be by "cherry picking" the characteristics and attributes of others you admire. Then "try on" new personas.
4. Discover and align to your personal core values
5. Don’t be afraid to reach out, tell people your story and ask for help
6. Try something new. If you don't like it, don't do it again. But, test new theories and explore new selves
7. Forgive yourself and when you have a bad day, create your own personal "recovery kit"

Find more of Kendra at:

Follow Kendra on IG

Guided Meditation

Brand New You Program at discounted pricing! Hurry and Sign Up!

USE PROMO CODE MIDLIFE

Ready to ditch midlife mediocrity and level up your life? We've got your back with a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe. Visit our website dearmidlife.com to gain access to:

Accelerated Education: Tap into our toolkits that contain expert interviews, curated resources, and actionable steps that demand growth.

Supportive Problem Solvers: Navigate midlife challenges with the fierce friendships of our community, helping you solve any problem, find your purpose and redefine yourself.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Build a strong inner circle that supports, cheers, and holds you accountable every step of the way.

Make sure we’re connected on Facebook and Instagram! 

We can't wait to meet you in the middle! xo Trinity and Shelby

Our guest today, Cindy Drummond, found herself in a unique situation. She woke up one day to find her, then, significant other was being arrested for some serious crimes.  In the blink of an eye, Cindy's world had been turned upside down. She fled the situation with her two daughters in tow and had to start again from the basement of her parent's house. She'd lost trust in others and faith in herself.

But, these moments are what define our character.  Perhaps, some of you in our audience  have similarly find yourselves feeling a bit lost amidst significant life shifts and wonder what to do next. Cindy learned quickly that action creates momentum and  self-imposed goals are the catalyst to action. In a short period of time, Cindy founded a network of women by forming the Women Only Weekend and found a new tribe.  She also boldly went on 50 dates in 52 weeks and, well…you'll have to listen to the podcast to find out how that experiment went! You can also read about it in her book "Reflections from the Dating Pool. A Story About Resilience, the Importance of Finding your Tribe and the Power of Falling in Love with Yourself." Cindy could have easily portrayed the victim in this situation. But she, instead, chose to uncover her own  personal interests and desires through journaling and meditation and, then, pursued these daily fueled by courage and determination to face and triumph over the things that made her most uncomfortable. To many, this path may sounds difficult…the reward, however, is a renewed trust and love for herself. By having the strength to face her own fears and discomforts, she saved her own life.

In this episode Cindy teaches us to:

1. Find your "tribe" and spend time with people who lift you up and empower you.
2. Do what terrifies you.
3. Put as much into the experience as somebody else is putting into the experience when building relationships with others.
4. Practice gratitude, listen to your own instincts and learn to trust yourself.
5. Sometimes you have to go through some "yucky stuff" in order to find what brings you joy.
6. Use self-imposed challenges as a catalyst for action.

Find more of Cindy at:

Facebook | Cindy-Drummond

Ready to ditch midlife mediocrity and level up your life? We've got your back with a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe. Visit dearmidlife.com for:

Accelerated Education: Tap into our toolkits that contain expert interviews, curated resources, and actionable steps that demand growth.

Supportive Problem Solvers: Navigate midlife challenges with the fierce friendships of our community, helping you solve any problem, find your purpose and redefine yourself.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Build a strong inner circle that supports, cheers, and holds you accountable every step of the way.

Our guest today is Mindy Gorman-Plutzer, a certified functional nutritionist, lifestyle practitioner and eating psychology coach with over 25 years of experience. Mindy is passionate about helping others recover from eating disorders and create a healthier lifestyle. Mindy’s approach to eating disorders tackles the root cause of the issue, and emphasizes that how and why you eat is just as important as what you eat.  Through her integrative approach, she also looks at the impact disordered eating has on one’s daily life, digestion and hormones.

Her life experience and training inspired her to create a framework that combines functional nutrition, positive psychology, and mind/body science called the Freedom Promise. She has established a compassionate resolution to physical and emotional challenges resulting from chronic and complex health issues, as they relate to Eating Disorders, specifically for women in midlife. 

This message is so powerful for me because I've had an eating disorder for over 20 years and I've come to realize that I've had such a difficult time overcoming this disorder because so much of who I am is entangled in what I put into my body. I associate my worth with how I look and have a skewed view that when I eat something outside of my strict protocols I will somehow become unlovable. In this episode, Mindy helps us to reveal these misconceptions for what they are and help us take small steps toward recovery.

Mindy is the author of The Freedom Promise: 7 Steps To Stop Fearing What Food Will Do TO You and Start Embracing What It Can Do FOR You and provides us a wealth of information in this interview including:

1. The limbic part of your brain remembers that when you're born, you are nurtured and felt safe by eating.
2. Doing recovery and being recovered are two different things
3. Stop fearing what food will do to you and embrace what it will do for you
4. F.R.E.E.D.O.M is: Find you're enough, Rest and digest, Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're not, Eat mindfully, Do something everyday to make your body feel alive, Only eat whole foods and Make sure you surround yourself with what truly nourishes.
5. We need to learn to trust our bodies. We will never love what we don't trust or trust what we don't love.
6. There are 3 kinds of emotional eating…and these don’t have to be negative. We just have to look at the "why" behind each. Recovery starts with awareness and curiosity.

You can find Mindy at the following:

The Freedom Promise_Website

[email protected]

IG @thefreedompromise

Ready to ditch midlife mediocrity and level up your life? We've got your back with a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe. Visit dearmidlife.com for:

Accelerated Education: Tap into our toolkits that contain expert interviews, curated resources, and actionable steps that demand growth.

Supportive Problem Solvers: Navigate midlife challenges with the fierce friendships of our community, helping you solve any problem, find your purpose and redefine yourself.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Build a strong inner circle that supports, cheers, and holds you accountable every step of the way.

Today we have an extraordinary conversation with Brian Mattson. He is here to discuss with us Attachment Styles and how they affect our adult relationships. Attachment styles refer to the particular way in which an individual relates to other people. The style of attachment is formed at the very beginning of life, and once established, it is a style that stays with you and plays out  in how you relate in intimate relationships and in how you parent your children in the current day. As a psychotherapist he explores how attachment styles and trauma (with big T and little t) limit intimacy in romantic and personal relationships.

Brian says love is always in the listening, and insecure attachment and trauma decrease our ability to listen. As a result, he spends most of his time helping clients regulate their nervous systems so they can really listen and stay present. In this episode, Brian takes us through an exercise in which we tap into how to begin to regulate our nervous system and truly hear and honor what our bodies are telling us. 

Brian is a licensed marriage and family therapist. His work is influenced by almost 20 years in private practice, A 25+ year Meditation Practice in-depth Reading of Eastern Philosophy, and Extensive World Travel. He has a Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology and a Bachelor’s Degree in History.

In today's episode, we explore:

1. Attachment styles as a framework that is laid over the true self that are based on how we are related to or not related to by our primary care given between the ages of 0-3.
2. The simplicity of life when we know how we want to feel…then the choices we make either help us to expand into that feeling or contract away from it.
3. How to grow spiritually by increasing our capacity to bear discomfort and staying in contact with self
4. Asking yourself what a "securely" attached person do in this situation?
5. Listening to your impulses and inhibitions…
6. Finding the "no's". What are you saying yes to that should be a "no", honor what you need.

Book recommendations:

Your Brain on Love by Stan Tatkin PSYD

Find more of Brian at:

Website | brianmattsonmft.com

Ready to ditch midlife mediocrity and level up your life? We've got your back with a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe. Visit dearmidlife.com for:

Accelerated Education: Tap into our toolkits that contain expert interviews, curated resources, and actionable steps that demand growth.

Supportive Problem Solvers: Navigate midlife challenges with the fierce friendships of our community, helping you solve any problem, find your purpose and redefine yourself.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Build a strong inner circle that supports, cheers, and holds you accountable every step of the way.

Hallie Hudson started as a dating coach over 5 years ago with an online coaching program to help women find love later in life. Everything  she does is built upon the foundational belief that “discovering yourself” isn’t about creating or establishing a new identity. It is about removing the stories, beliefs, and patterns others have been using to define you. 

The tools we discuss in this podcast are:

Release Writing

Body Compass

Naming an emotion

And they will help you navigate the emotions that come with letting go of old stories and personas so you can find your true self and live authentically.

When we reach midlife, we've spent so much time playing the roles of  mom, wife, sister or dauther, it is easy to lose sight of our identity and value. If this is where you find yourself lately, perhaps, feeling lost, We're confident that this interview with Hallie will provide you insight as to how to move through your emotions, let go of old stories and rediscover your identity. If you're enjoying the Dear Midlife podcast, please share your favorite episode with a friend and leave us a review.

In this episode, we learn:

1. Find your own way to Meditate. What activity or experience puts you fully in focus?
2. Leverage what is innate and honor who you are. But, don't let your introversion or extraversion become an excuse
3. You HAVE to FEEL your feelings. You really only feel your emotions in your body briefly (for about 90 seconds). It the stories we tell ourselves that cause us to stay in an emotional state.
4. If necessary, defer feeling your emotions to a specific time, then honor the emotion, journal, write about it allow it to come up and pass at that time.
5. Going through your emotions gets easier over time. But, you have to do it in order to appreciate the happy moments.

Book recommendations:

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

Heal Your Body by Louise Hay

Gretchen Rubin | The Four Tendancies Book

Jonathan Fields | Sparked Book

You can find Hallie at:

▶︎ Visit Our Website! 

FB | How to Single Without Lonliness

Assessments

Gretchen Rubin | 4 Tendancies

Sparketype Assessment

Human Design

Ready to ditch midlife mediocrity and level up your life? We've got your back with a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe. Visit dearmidlife.com for:

Accelerated Education: Tap into our toolkits that contain expert interviews, curated resources, and actionable steps that demand growth.

Supportive Problem Solvers: Navigate midlife challenges with the fierce friendships of our community, helping you solve any problem, find your purpose and redefine yourself.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Build a strong inner circle that supports, cheers, and holds you accountable every step of the way.

Aga Lawrynowicz is a mom of two school-age girls and a stepmom of two college boys. After becoming a mother and discovering that nothing about motherhood went as predicted, Aga dedicated years to her personal healing and realized that empowering moms and creating community are her passions. In her 40s, she quit her oil and gas consulting career to go back to school and receive a coaching certificate.

Aga left Poland at 22 and has lived in five countries on two continents before she moved to Seattle in 2011.

As a life coach, Aga is committed to deconstructing the common image of motherhood promoted by our culture. She helps moms find ease, settle into their maternal identity, and get grounded in their feminine power.

Trinity and I have become fascinated with this idea of shedding the personas you've assumed throughout your life that may no longer serve you and finding who you are at the core. 

Aga provides us tips on how to do just that:

1. Our first identity that we acquire is by pursuing some kind of validation from the external world and we do this for survival. But, it may not be who we ARE.
2. Your identity needs to be rooted in your values, not beliefs.
3. Ask yourself "What do I need RIGHT NOW?"
4. You can control your circumstances, but you have a choice of what you’re going to do with what you have.
5. Take what you can get. Self-Care doesn't need to take 5 hours. Take just five minutes to step into the sun or breathe while you fill the pasta pot with water. It all adds up.
6. There are no wrong choices…it's really about how aligned you are with your choices

You can find Aga at:

Website: Choose Clarity

IG @ChooseClarity

The Power Mom Method Program

Ready to ditch midlife mediocrity and level up your life? We've got your back with a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe. Visit dearmidlife.com for:

• Accelerated Education: Tap into our toolkits that contain expert interviews, curated resources, and actionable steps that demand growth.
• Supportive Problem Solvers: Navigate midlife challenges with the fierce friendships of our community, helping you solve any problem, find your purpose and redefine yourself.
• Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Build a strong inner circle that supports, cheers, and holds you accountable every step of the way.

Terrie Vanover is a Divorce Healing Strategist who went through a horrendous divorce herself and ended up homeless, broke, and broken financially, emotionally and even physically after being hit by a van and suffering numerous injuries. Now she’s living her dream life helping others to heal after divorce and has even created a relationship with her ex where they get along great, hang out, and do everything to support each other and their beautiful children.  Now, she works with others to heal their traumas and do the inner work and forge new, healthy relationships. She use actionable exercises and strategies that can be implemented in real life to quickly increase your self worth so you can no longer be triggered, set healthy boundaries, and feel at peace no matter what is going on externally. 

In this episode, Terrie shares with us the following strategies:

1. Healing includes "consciously surrendering" to your feelings. You have to feel your feelings in order to move through them
2. You cannot solve internal problems with external solutions. It requires mindfulness practices and reparenting yourself
3. For many people, the red flags we see in new relationships…feel like home and become comfortable. So we are attracted to those people because its easier to stay in that space
4. Meditation can help you achieve a state of mind in which you can respond and not react.
5. Adopting new and healthy rituals are important because they can help rewire your brain
6. Use forgiveness to release toxic emotions. It is for yourself. It doesn't not mean absolution…A forgiveness letter that you write (for yourself only) will help you to release negative thoughts and is a great place to start

You can find Terrie at:

Choosing to Rise Website

https://www.facebook.com/terrie.vanover.9

IG @vanoverterrie

YouTube TerrieVanover.tube

Girl, are you trying to take back control of your life in the middle? You need a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe to help you make small changes that lead to BIG transformation. Visit our website at dearmidlife.com to find:

Accelerated Education: Fast-Track your midlife journey by tapping into the community for expert knowledge and quick growth. No apologies, just strategic moves.

Supportive problem solvers: Join a tribe of badass women who are your go-to support system, ready to tackle challenges together with grit and girl power.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Gain unwavering support and genuine connections through a strong inner circle cheering you on and holding you accountable every step of your midlife journey.

We can't wait to meet you in the middle! xo Trinity and Shelby

Gayle Lynn is a relationship coach focused on “What do you do when your partner wants to have sex with another person?” or maybe YOU want to have sex with someone else? She has a passion to empower women to make educated choices about their relationships. She has personally experienced her spouse coming to her and expressing his desire to have sex with someone else. So many people will go out and cheat on their partner when there is a better way to handle the situation. Creating open and honest communication is key in these situations. Big feelings come up and many people don’t know how to process them. Having someone who has no agenda and creates a space where there will be no shame or guilt is what her clients experience. 

Through Gayle Lynn’s experience she learned how messy relationships can be when someone is expressing their sexual desires. She helps to navigate family and cultural beliefs, communication pitfalls, processing emotions and more. Her desire is that her clients will be able to evolve their relationships into what they desire and achieve inner peace. For some this may be creating more intimacy in the marriage, opening the marriage and for some it may be a divorce. Whichever decision is made she can guide you through it without judgment or an agenda. She is trained in the Chopra method of coaching and uses her C.A.R.E method to facilitate her coaching style. 

In this episode, she will share with us valuable tips and resources such as: 

1. Find out what you want within your marriage and then find ways to consciously pursue what makes you both feel happy and supported. Keep the conversation open.
2. Learn to love yourself in your own body so you can feel empowered to make decisions for yourself within the frame of your marriage.
3. There can be no shame, guilt or judgment for getting to what you want for your life.
4. Those with whom we have relationships in our lives can become a mirror in which we see ourselves and learn more about who we are.
5. Relationships are just two energetic beings, sharing themselves
6. Jealously is just a reflection of what you seen in them that you desire in yourself
7. C.A.R.E Method | Communication, Attachment Style, Really Understanding Yourself, Emotions

You can find Gayle Lynn at;

email: [email protected]

Facebook Relationships Evolving with Gayle Lynn

Book Recommendations

The Ethical Slut

Slow Sex

Girl, are you feeling like you're in a rut and trying to get your sexy back and own your midlife destiny? You need a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe to help you make small changes that lead to BIG transformation. Visit our website at dearmidlife.com to find:

Accelerated Education: Fast-Track your midlife journey by tapping into the community for expert knowledge and quick growth. No apologies, just strategic moves.

Supportive problem solvers: Join a tribe of badass women who are your go-to support system, ready to tackle challenges together with grit and girl power.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Gain unwavering support and genuine connections through a strong inner circle cheering you on and holding you accountable every step of your midlife journey.

Can't wait to meet you in the middle! xo Trinity and Shelby

Dr. Ashley Funk is the Owner and Founder of Paradise Psychology in Fort Worth, Texas. As a Licensed Psychologist, Dr. Funk specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders and helping caregivers manage unwanted behaviors displayed by their children. She is also passionate about helping her clients improve their relationships through open, effective communication and healthy boundaries.  Here are some of her best parenting tips:

1. Catch you child being good more that you catch them being bad. Use a 5:1 ratio of positive feedback to the negative. Rewarding a child doesn't have to cost money
2. Self-Care is VITAL. You have to care for yourself FIRST, before you can care for others.
3. Let your child know they can talk to you about anything and everything.
4. Social media has been proven to have a negative impact on mental health. Have a handle on your child's access to social media. Know what apps they're using. Know their logins. Know who they are talking to. Limit time and access to certain technologies, when necessary.
5. Try to limit technology 60-90 minutes before bedtime.
6. Time out rule of thumb is the child's age + 1 (a 4 year old would sit in time out 5 minutes). If in public, cut the time in half. Know that when you're disciplining a problematic behavior, your child's behavior may get worse before it get's better.

You can find Dr. Ashley at:

Website | Paradisepsychology

IG: @paradisepsychologypllc

Are you ready to start prioritizing yourself and become your own HERO? You need a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe to help you make small changes that lead to BIG transformation. At dearmidlife.com you'll find:

Accelerated Education: Fast-Track your midlife journey by tapping into the community for expert knowledge and quick growth. No apologies, just strategic moves.

Supportive problem solvers: Join a tribe of badass women who are your go-to support system, ready to tackle challenges together with grit and girl power.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Gain unwavering support and genuine connections through a strong inner circle cheering you on and holding you accountable every step of your midlife journey.

Stephanie Hickey is a certified sex, love and relationship coach with a special interest in relationship dynamics and personal responsibility within one’s relationship. She coaches individuals on topics related to sex, love and relationships and is beginning to move into coaching couples in session but she has a soft spot for the the one-on-one nature of working with individuals and witnessing them become empowered and transforming their own lives.

She has been with her current partner for 10 years and they are raising 2 daughters together with a third one on the way! The partnership itself is what prompted Stephanie to become interested in relationship coaching because she quickly realized that the very conscious and intentional nature of this partnership was something she did not experience in previous relationships and also not seeing amongst many other relationships.

She has found great meaning in being a witness and ally to those who also want to work their way through challenges, patterns, blocks and boredom. 

In this episode, Stephanie teaches us:

1. Sit with your partner and allow each person to first discuss  "what are your fears" for two minutes each without interruption from the other person (stream of consciousness), then "what do you love about me" and finally "what do you desire" to open up healthy conversation. Each person will answer each question.
2. Take the quiz and get you know  both your and your partner's erotic blue print.
3. Find ways to reflect on what drew you to your partner and look for opportunities to recreate that connection
4. Try to vision with your partner what you want your every day life to look like. Dare to dream the impossible. The conversation will elevate your thinking and give you something to work towards
5. Journaling is a great tool to help you get out of your head and get clarity of thought
6. To add a little spice back into the relationship…do something you've never done before in the bedroom.  You will feel different… You will see your partner differently…

Emily Nagoski's book Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. 

This book talks in depth about the female sexuality and why and how sexuality works all grounded in fantastic research. If you've never investigated what turns you on and what turns you off (brakes and accelerators), or if you wonder about spontaneous arousal vs. responsive arousal, this book will definitely change your life. (her website also contains free quizzes to learn more about your sexual temperament and sexual cues: https://www.emilynagoski.com/come-as-you-are-worksheets)

Here is Jaiya's website to look more into Erotic Blueprints https://missjaiya.com/  And finally, Esther Perel's area of specialty is eroticism and passion in long term relationships. She has several books (The State of Affairs, Mating in Captivity), many youtube talks, her own podcast, a membership site, a new card game to get good conversations started...the list goes on.

Are you ready to ditch midlife mediocrity and own your destiny? You need a no-nonsense blueprint and a supportive tribe to help you make small changes that lead to BIG transformation. At dearmidlife.com you'll find;

Accelerated Education: Fast-Track your midlife journey by tapping into the community for expert knowledge and quick growth. No apologies, just strategic moves.

Supportive problem solvers: Join a tribe of badass women who are your go-to support system, ready to tackle challenges together with grit and girl power.

Unapologetic Friendship Fuel: Gain unwavering support and genuine connections through a strong inner circle cheering you on and holding you accountable every step of your midlife journey.