Love From the Inside Out: Honest Conversations for Women About Midlife, Menopause, Body Changes and Becoming Yourself Again

What happens when the thing you imagined your whole life finally arrives... and it doesn't feel the way you expected?

For most of my life, I assumed I would change my last name when I got married. I actually looked forward to it. Growing up with a difficult-to-pronounce last name, I dreamed of the day I would take a simpler name and step into what I thought would be an easier identity.

But when I got married for the first time at 52, something unexpected happened.

The name I had spent years wanting to leave behind had become part of who I was.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, I’m sharing the story behind why I didn’t change my last name after marriage and why that decision became about much more than paperwork.

I talk about family expectations, growing up with the belief that marriage was the ultimate goal, what it means to get married later in life, and how keeping my maiden name became connected to identity, independence, family history, and belonging.

Whether you changed your name, kept your name, reclaimed your maiden name after divorce, never married, or are still figuring out what parts of your identity truly belong to you, this episode is really about one question:

How do we love deeply without losing ourselves in the process?

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why I chose not to change my last name after marriage
• What came up for me around keeping my maiden name
• Getting married for the first time at 52
• Family expectations around marriage, motherhood, and identity
• Why names can feel so emotional for women
• What it means to belong to someone without losing yourself

Referenced in this episode:

• Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden
• Related episode: “I Tried Every Dating App - What Actually Worked: Self-Love, Boundaries & Message Scripts” 

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🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

If your body feels different in midlife and you’ve found yourself wondering what you missed, what you did wrong, or why all the “right” things aren’t working the way they used to, this episode is for you.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, Susan explores the difference between caring for your body and trying to control it, especially during menopause and midlife, when body changes, aging, health information, and unexpected test results can bring up fear, frustration, and self-blame.

After receiving a DEXA scan result she expected would reassure her, Susan reflects on the deeper emotional layer beneath her longtime commitment to movement, prevention, and wellness. What happens when you’ve been exercising, paying attention, doing your best to stay healthy and your body still changes in ways you didn’t expect?

This conversation is not about giving up, ignoring your body, or pretending midlife changes don’t matter. It’s about learning to listen without spiraling, staying proactive without panicking, and caring for your body without turning every change into proof that you failed.

Susan also shares how watching her parents age shaped her relationship with health, movement, prevention, and control, and how she is learning to shift from fear-based vigilance to a more grounded kind of self-trust.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by menopause, midlife body changes, wellness advice, body image, aging, or the pressure to “get it right,” this episode offers a more compassionate way to relate to your changing body.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why caring for your body is not the same as trying to control it
• How midlife body changes can trigger fear, frustration, and self-blame
• Why menopause can make your body feel unfamiliar, even when you’re doing your best
• How health and wellness information can be helpful or quietly overwhelming
• What it means to listen to your body without letting fear run the show
• How to stay proactive about your health without turning your body into a problem to solve
• Why self-trust matters when your body is changing in ways you didn’t expect

Love From the Inside Out is a podcast about healing, mindset, self-trust, confidence, and coming home to yourself in midlife.

If this episode speaks to you, please follow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and share it with a woman in your life who is trying to care for her changing body with more compassion and less self-blame.

Text Susan about this episode

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• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

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Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out®, Susan explores why some of us feel responsible for other people’s moods and how that pattern can quietly lead to emotional exhaustion, overthinking, people-pleasing, and self-abandonment.

If you’ve ever walked into a room and immediately wondered what you did wrong, replayed a conversation to figure out why someone seemed “off,” or felt like it was your job to fix the energy around you, this conversation may feel familiar.

Susan shares a personal reflection on emotional hypervigilance, boundaries, nervous system regulation, and the midlife realization that caring about people does not mean carrying their emotions in your body.

This episode is about learning to notice the old pattern sooner, pause before taking responsibility for what may not belong to you, and choose self-loyalty instead of slipping into the same familiar loop.

It’s a conversation for anyone learning how to stop walking on eggshells, trust themselves more deeply, and create healthier emotional boundaries in relationships.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

Why do we keep trying to be perfect at life, even when we know life is a practice?

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, I’m exploring the pressure so many of us feel to get life right — to make the right decision, respond the right way, grow faster, heal faster, know better, and somehow skip the messy middle of living what we’re learning.

This conversation started over lunch with one of my closest friends, when we were laughing about how self-aware we can be and still fall into the trap of wanting to perfect our lives. She mentioned that a law office is called a practice and a doctor opens a practice, and that stayed with me. If law and medicine — two serious, high-stakes professions — are practices, why wouldn’t life be one too?

I also talk about yoga as a practice, why insight does not always create instant change, and how perfection can feel like protection when life feels uncertain. But the practice of life is often where we learn the most: what feels true, what no longer fits, what we love, what we tolerate, and what makes us feel more like ourselves.

This episode is for anyone who is self-aware, reflective, growth-oriented, and still frustrated that they don’t have everything figured out yet. Especially in midlife, it can feel like we should already know how to handle the hard conversation, the changing body, the uncertain season, the friendship shift, the career question, or the next version of ourselves.

Maybe the point is not to master life before we live it.

Maybe the point is to stop treating growth like a performance and let life be the practice that teaches us.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why self-aware women still feel pressure to get life right
• Life as a practice, not a performance
• Perfectionism, personal growth, and the illusion of control
• Why insight does not always mean instant change
• How real life teaches us through experience, discomfort, and contrast
• Midlife growth, changing priorities, and becoming more honest with ourselves
• Why the polished moments are not always the ones that change us
• How to stop using self-awareness as another way to judge yourself

Listen if you’ve ever thought:

“I should know better by now.”

“Why am I still figuring this out?”

“I’m self-aware, so why do I still repeat old patterns?”

“I want to grow, but I don’t want my growth to become another performance.”

“I’m tired of trying to be perfect at being human.”

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

What is it about having your picture taken that can bring up so much?

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, I’m talking about a recent headshot experience that brought up more than I expected around being seen, body image, self-doubt, visibility, and the very human desire to feel like ourselves in the way we are seen by others.

At first, it seemed simple. I needed new photos. I had a beautiful opportunity through a women’s group I belong to. I signed up before I could overthink it.

And then, as the photo shoot got closer, everything started to feel more complicated.

The clothes. The makeup. The camera. The body image thoughts. The pressure to look good, but still look like myself. The strange feeling of being comfortable representing other people and other brands professionally, but feeling much more exposed when the visibility was personal.

This episode is about what happens when something small — like a headshot — touches something deeper.

I’m sharing the story of how the experience brought up old insecurities, the part of me that wanted to explain myself, and the way self-doubt can still show up even when we’ve done years of inner work.

Because being seen in midlife can feel different.

We may have more wisdom, more clarity, and less patience for pretending, but that doesn’t mean the younger, more careful parts of us disappear. Sometimes they show up right when we are trying to step into something bigger.

This is also an episode about body image in midlife, self-acceptance, vulnerability, and the practice of not abandoning ourselves when we feel uncomfortable.

Not because we have mastered it.

Because we are practicing it.

And sometimes the thing we feel embarrassed by becomes the very thing that lets a more honest conversation begin.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why being seen can feel more vulnerable when the work is personal
• How a simple headshot brought up body image and self-doubt
• The difference between professional visibility and personal visibility
• Why midlife can make photos, visibility, and body changes feel more layered
• The instinct to explain ourselves before anyone has asked
• What it means to practice self-love when old insecurities still show up
• How vulnerability can create more honest conversations between women

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

Some dates stay with us. Grief anniversaries, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, and the moments our bodies seem to remember before we do.

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, I’m reflecting on the emotional memory certain dates can hold, especially as I move through the month of May, which marks the anniversaries of both of my parents’ passing. My father passed away seven years ago on May 9th, and my mother passed away ten years ago on May 30th. With Mother’s Day and Father’s Day also falling around this season, May has become one of those times of year that feels layered before I even fully realize why.

This is not a heavy episode about grief. It’s more of a quiet reflection on how love, loss, memory, and the body can all meet on the calendar. Sometimes a date is just a date. And sometimes, inside of us, it carries a whole history.

I talk about how grief has softened over time, why I don’t always feel called to visit my parents at the cemetery, and how I still feel them most in ordinary moments — in the way I think, tell stories, make decisions, host people, choose words, and continue becoming myself.

This episode is for anyone who has ever felt a certain date, holiday, season, or anniversary bring something back to the surface. Not because you’re stuck in the past, but because something in you remembers.

In this episode, I explore:

How the body can remember certain dates before the mind catches up
Why grief doesn’t always get easier, but can soften over time
The complicated emotions around Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and grief anniversaries
How loved ones can continue to feel present in ordinary, everyday moments
Why remembrance doesn’t have to look a certain way
How to move through meaningful dates with less pressure and more honesty

If this episode brings someone to mind, or if you know someone moving through a date or season that carries a lot for them, feel free to share it with them.

Sometimes it helps to hear someone else put words to something you’ve felt but maybe haven’t said out loud yet.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

Have you ever been in one of those no-clean-answer moments where both choices make sense and both choices cost you something?

In this episode of Love From the Inside Out, I’m talking about the love-hate relationship we can have with choices that are good for us, choices that feel good in the moment, and choices that come with consequences later.

This conversation came up for me after a full weekend of events for my husband Elliot’s 40th high school reunion and his baseball team’s Hall of Fame induction. I wanted to be fully present, enjoy the celebration, go with the flow, and not make the entire weekend about managing my food sensitivities. And at the same time, I knew my body was still more sensitive after a recent stomach bug and that some of those choices might have a cost.

That’s the tension I explore in this episode: how do we choose between joy and self-care when both matter? How do we make peace with the fact that sometimes the loving choice still has a downside? And how do we care for ourselves afterward without turning every consequence into proof that we made the wrong decision?

I also share how this connected to my ongoing nervous system regulation work after my Dr. Joe Dispenza retreat, why feeling regulated doesn’t mean life never throws us off again, and what it means to come back to ourselves with honesty and care.

This episode is for anyone navigating food sensitivities, body trust, self-care, midlife choices, emotional regulation, social energy, or those frustrating moments when you want to enjoy your life without constantly calculating how it might affect you later.

Maybe the point isn’t to find the perfect answer every time.

Maybe it’s to be honest about the choice we’re making, honest about what it may cost, and gentle with ourselves on the other side.

In this episode, I talk about:

• What happens when both choices feel loving, but both come with consequences
• The tension between enjoying your life and taking care of your body
• Food sensitivities, social events, and wanting to be fully present
• Why a consequence does not always mean you made the wrong choice
• Nervous system regulation, body awareness, and coming back to yourself
• Why self-care can sometimes feel like restriction
• How to stop judging yourself for imperfect, real-life choices

Listen if you’ve ever thought:

“I want to enjoy my life, but I also want to feel good in my body.”

“I don’t want every choice to become a wellness calculation.”

“I know what supports me, but sometimes I just want to be in the moment.”

“I wish there were a clean answer, but there isn’t.”

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

I went into our storage unit looking for my mother’s mahjong set and a few things I wanted to give to my brother. Instead, I found old family photos, childhood keepsakes, handwritten notes, and pieces of my life I hadn’t seen in years.

What started as a search for one meaningful thing turned into a reflection on memory, grief, legacy, and the strange emotional weight of the things we keep.

In this episode, I talk about family keepsakes, old photos, finding pieces of my younger self in old boxes, keeping loved ones alive in memory, and the very human reality of what we’d love for someone to find one day… and what we really hope they don’t.

If you’ve ever opened an old box and been surprised by what came rushing back, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• my mother’s mahjong set and why I wanted so badly to find it
• old family photos, keepsakes, and the memories they still hold
• grief, legacy, and keeping loved ones alive in memory
• finding pieces of my younger self in old boxes
• what we keep, what we leave behind, and what we hope no one finds

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

If your body, your energy, or your life has ever stopped cooperating with the pace you were trying to keep, this episode is for you.

A rough stomach bug forced me to slow down in a way I never would have chosen for myself, and once the worst of it passed, I started to realize this week was about more than just being sick.

It showed me how much I had been pushing through stress, pressure, overdoing it, and the quieter signs my body had already been giving me before life got louder.

In this episode, I’m talking about what a forced pause can reveal about burnout, body signals, urgency, and the difference between momentum and alignment. I’m also sharing how this experience made me look at the pressure I was putting on myself, the ways I had started slipping back into some familiar patterns, and why slowing down is not the same thing as falling behind.

We get into:

• what a forced pause can reveal
• the whispers we override before life gets louder
• how stress, pressure, and overdoing it can pull us out of balance
• the difference between momentum and alignment
• why slower still counts
• how a pause can bring you back to yourself

If you’ve ever felt like you should be able to keep going, even when something in you was already asking you to slow down, I think this conversation will resonate.

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.

If getting dressed has been feeling more emotional, frustrating, or loaded than it should, this episode is for you.

After listening to Mel Robbins’ recent conversation with celebrity stylist Erin Walsh, I thought I was about to feel inspired to clean out my closet, get intentional, and finally connect a few dots around style, confidence, and embodiment.

That is not what happened.

Instead, I opened my closet, felt immediate resistance, shut the door, and walked away. Then I went shopping with birthday gift cards, good intentions, and every plan to freshen up my wardrobe and I left without trying anything on.

In this episode, I’m talking about why getting dressed can feel so much harder than it should, especially when your body has changed, your closet no longer feels like you, and old stories about confidence, visibility, comfort, and self-worth are still hanging around.

I’m also sharing the deeper realization this brought up for me: sometimes what we call comfort is actually hiding.

We get into:

• why shopping and getting dressed can feel so emotional
• the difference between comfort and camouflage
• body image, postmenopausal weight, and the disconnect between how you want to feel and what you keep reaching for
• why this experience is more universal than it may seem
• a gentler way to start closing the gap between your inner life and what you wear

If you’ve ever stood in front of your closet feeling discouraged, left a store empty-handed, or reached for something “easy” when what you really wanted was to feel more like yourself, I think this conversation will resonate.

Referenced in this episode:

• The Art of Intentional Dressing by Erin Walsh
  
  
• Mel Robbins’ episode with Erin Walsh: “6 Words to Tell Yourself Every Morning”

Text Susan about this episode

🎧 Connect & Stay in Touch

• Instagram: @susan.kricun — DM me to share your story or ask a question.

• Join me on Substack: Love From the Inside Out® — Personal reflections, bonus content, and more ways to connect. Free and paid options.

• I'd love your feedback! Take my anonymous listener survey and tell me what you'd like more of.

✨ Support the Show

• Follow, rate, or review the podcast wherever you listen.
• Share this episode with a friend who might enjoy it.

🎙️ Interested in Being a Guest?

Fill out the guest interest form.

🎶 Music Credit

“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

© 2025–present Susan Kricun. Love From the Inside Out® is a registered trademark of Kricun Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

All opinions are my own. This podcast is educational, not medical or legal advice.