Magnificent Midlife

A solo catchup episode with Rachel talking about:

• My joy at the US election result
• Not taking democracy for granted.
• Life under lockdown in the UK
• The roadmap out of lockdown
• Being able to finally see my mum – I hope
• How Christmas plans went askew
• Not having time to waste when you're 86
• Making the best of separation
• Vaccination rollout and accepting the jab
• My amazing recent podcast guests
• Finding resilience from hearing Jessica Buchanan's desert kidnap nightmare
• Jackie Lynch and how to have a happy menopause
• How we go from what to who in midlife
• The pole dancing queen Makeda Smith
• Making more of a difference in the world with Alisoun Mackenzie
• How I failed to get into the BBC but now have my own podcast
• The importance of self-care and building our resilience
• Radical replenishment so we're ready for the end of lockdown

And more!

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

Meet Alisoun Mackenzie, coach, author, retreat leader, yoga teacher and speaker amongst other things. She's passionate about enabling all of us to make more of a difference in the world.

We talk about: • How Alisoun went from finance to building schools • Why our values get harder to ignore the older we get • Learning to listen to our inner voice, that niggling feeling • Making a difference as a white person without being a 'white saviour' • Questioning why you want to make a difference and where • How to channel your passion to give back to the planet • Having an extra layer of trauma when you're childless not by choice • Why Alisoun decided to become a yoga teacher • How to always question yourself and constantly reinvent yourself • Camper vans just might be the new trend • Being strategic with your business's fundraising • How fundraising can be a powerful tool for yourself and others • Making sure to always look after yourself

And more!

This website was mentioned: nowhitesaviors.org

You may also like to read: How To Avoid White Savior Complex and Why That's Important

Find out more about Alisoun:

Alisoun's website: alisoun.com

Alisoun's books: Give to Profit, How to Grow Your Business by Supporting Charities and Social Causes and Heartatude, the 9 Principles of Heart-Centered Success

Facebook | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter | Youtube

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

I interview Makeda Smith, celebrity publicist, and pole and exotic dancer. She began her pole and aerial training at the age of 50 and created her own exotic dance brand called FlyingOver50. A decade later, she's on a mission to enable older women to unleash their inner goddess.

We talk about: • How Makeda came to start pole dancing at age 50 • How pole dancing changed her life • Why sexy never gets old • The Everybody Visible movement on social media • How women in midlife and beyond can stay feeling sexy • How to get over the fear of injury when staying active as we age • Taking the fear out of the pole aspect of what Makeda does • Cultural differences in responses to older women being sexy • Balancing PR and pole dancing • Those very high shoes Makeda wears • Adapting to classes in a Covid world • Awakening the sleeping goddess in all of us

And more!

Find out more about Makeda:

Makeda's websites: www.FlyingOver50.com and www.JazzmynePR.com

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

Jackie Lynch is a Registered Nutritional Therapist who's written a very interesting book called The Happy Menopause. It's specifically about how nutrition can help us flourish and I just love the title Happy Menopause.

We talk about:

• Why Jackie believes menopause is a transformational time in a woman's life in a good way
• Estrogen as the biddable, nurturing hormone
• Why some women suffer badly in menopause and others don't
• The importance of diet and lifestyle in midlife and beyond
• How the manner in which we lived when younger can impact our menopause experience
• The impact of stress and the myth of having it all
• How Rachel got her periods back after a diagnosis of early menopause
• The importance of maintaining stable blood sugar levels
• How the body produces stress hormones when blood sugar levels are not stable
• How menopause may not be to blame for what's happening to us
• How our thoughts and beliefs can impact our experience of menopause
• The importance of eating more protein with every meal and snack
• Getting magnesium, calcium and iron from leafy green vegetables
• How phytoestrogens mimic the actions of estrogen in the body
• The wonder food that is flaxseed
• The physiological stress we can put on our bodies through diet and lifestyle
• Understanding whether HRT is right for you and how to balance that with diet and lifestyle
• HRT is not a quick solution and still needs a good diet for the best support
• How Rachel weaned herself off HRT at 51
• How just small nutritional changes can make a huge difference
• Jackie's own midlife reinvention

And more!

Find out more about Jackie:

Jackies's website

Jackie's books: The Happy Menopause, VaVa Voom, and The Right Bite

Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram

Listen to The Happy Menopause Podcast

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

Meet the remarkable Jessica Buchanan, the NYT bestselling co-author of Impossible Odds, a memoir that details her 93 days held in the desert by Somali land pirates, and her dramatic rescue by US Navy SEAL Team VI. I am so inspired by Jess and found this such an empowering story of survival against truly impossible odds that can help all of us cope better under duress.

We talk about:

• How Jess finds the strength to keep telling her survival story to the world.
• How she fell in love with Africa and met her husband.
• Her work as an aid worker in Africa and particularly in Somalia.
• How she kept herself going day to day with nothing in the desert.
• Anger management in the desert when she wasn't allowed to show any emotion.
• How she survived the ordeal and even found herself in the desert.
• Meeting the Navy seals who rescued her and finally realizing she was the hero of her own story.
• The story of the night she was rescued.
• Jess's President Obama story.
• The difficulties of surviving survival and trying to rebuild a life.
• Moving on from trauma and in fact, owning it.
• Her Tedx talk – change is your proof of life.
• Learning to collaborate with whatever is coming at us in life rather than fighting it.
• The healing power of nature.

And more!

Find out more about Jessica:

Jessica's website

Facebook | Twitter

TEDxPearlStreet: Change is Your Proof of Life

Jessica's book:

Jessica's podcast:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

An interview with Feyi Raimi-Abraham, founder of a fabulous new company called The Black Dementia Company, set up during lockdown and inspired into creation by caring for her mother who has dementia.

We talk about:

• Why Feyi felt there was a need for this company • How lockdown accelerated that need • What she hopes to achieve with the company • What it's like caring for her mother • When she first noticed signs of dementia in her mother • How the dementia progressed • How Feyi adapted to being her mother's full time carer • Adjusting to her mother as a new person having been a strong, very active and independent woman in her past • The impact on Feyi's wider family • The systems and tools she's put in place to support her mum • Advice for people who suspect there may be an issue with their loved one and especially their parent • How can family best support the person diagnosed with dementia • Getting rid of the stigma of dementia • Looking out for signs of dementia • Simple tests that can be done to check for dementia • What Feyi has learnt about herself from becoming her mother's carer • What Feyi would like listeners to know about dementia

And more!

Find more about Feyi:

The Black Dementia Company

Instagram and Twitter

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

Trish Beauchamp is a coach who helps women navigate change in relationships due to divorce, death or disconnection. She spent 35 years as a teacher and then experienced her own midlife unravelling facing personal challenges with health, relationships and her change in career. She joins me today to particularly talk about anxiety, cos I thought we could all do with some help in that particular area.

• Why anxiety can be such an issue in midlife for many women • How midlife can be less of a crisis and more of an unravelling • Allowing ourselves to feel the feelings not fighting against them • The vagus nerve and how it can decrease our heighted levels of stress • Taking the time to create what we need to bring ourselves back into balance • Depression being about the past and anxiety about the future • Recognising the impact of sensory overload on our wellbeing • Recognising when overwhelm is getting to dangerous levels • Adding in self-care options to ensure we can live well • Identifying the triggers for anxiety • Reframing thoughts and changing neural pathways • Staying curious about what's going on and ditching any sense of shame • Not feeling guilty about how we're responding to Covid • Controlling what we can and not worrying about the rest • Looking for the elements that can bring us hope for the future • Understanding what good pain can hopefully bring us • Not allowing fear to compromise our immune system • Being gentle and compassionate towards ourselves • The three coping Cs – curiosity, compassion, connection • Remembering we have a choice in how we respond • Instant ways to shift your mind and emotions to another state when you're totally overwhelmed by anxiety

And more!

Find out more about Trish:

Trish's website

Facebook and Linkedin

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

Clare Josa is an author of 8 books, a speaker, an NLP trainer and a leadership mentor. She started out as an engineer and uses a lot of that discipline in her soul-engineered leadership work.

She says that "changing the world isn't so much about what you do, as about who you allow yourself to become. "

We talk about:

• How Clare moved from engineering to doing what she does now
• Sexism in engineering when she started out
• Moving into market research at Dyson
• Wanting to work with people instead of machines and make a difference
• Bringing the woo into engineering and personal development
• How men are often more open to the woo and energy work than women
• Teaching energy work experientially so that everyone can get it
• Women leaders can sometimes be wearing too much armour to embrace the more feminine aspects of leadership
• The importance of being accepted for all of who we are
• How work still doesn't work for women who have responsibilities outside work
• How Covid has helped many working women by forcing meetings and training to be online
• Getting used to working and connecting on Zoom
• The law profession as a hotbed for imposter syndrome
• The difference between self-doubt and imposter syndrome
• The 4 Ps of imposter syndrome
• How people-pleasing can be a big issue for women
• Midlife women and imposter syndrome
• Menopause is the peak of imposter syndrome for women
• Being hyper-vigilant to threat when under stress
• Changing the ageist bias against older women
• Why stress impacts hormones and makes menopausal brain fog and hot flushes even worse
• Understanding negative self-talk and learning to stop it
• The midlife identity shift
• The dangers of judging ourselves
• It's never too late to get started on anything – take action today

And more!

Find out more about Clare:

Clare's website

Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube

Access Clare's Ditching Imposter Syndrome Training here: http://www.clarejosa.com/magnificentmidlife/

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

An empowering discussion with Dr Rhoberta Shaler, the relationship help expert. She helps people to recognize and recover from the toxic relationships that can make us crazy!

We talk about: • How to define a toxic relationship • The pressure that gets put on relationships • What Rhoberta means by a hijackal in a relationship • How a hijackal looks for power, status and control • How to identify a hijackal • All or nothing thinking and how insidious that is • What to do if you find that's the kind of relationship you have • How to recognize and deal with gaslighting in a relationship • Resisting the temptation to think we can nurture the hijackal out of their behaviour • Rhoberta's ABB formula – Always believe the behaviour • Relationship breakdown in midlife – often the behaviour becomes more evident without other variable in the home • We deserve to have relationships with equality, reciprocity and mutuality bringing true intimacy • You don't need approval from someone you don't approve of – Rachel's big aha moment • Ending the justification of bad behaviour and making different choices • Taking off the rose coloured glasses and seeing red flags • Having to cut people out of your life if necessary or at least distance yourself from them • Strategies for dealing with toxic relationships • Identifying this behaviour in public life too

And more!

Find out more about Roberta:

Rhoberta's website

Podcasts/ Videos

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram

Book mentioned in the podcast: Kaizen for Couples

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?

Every season I do a solo episode. I'm in contemplative mood again thinking about the challenging world we're living in right now, and how we can build and maintain our resilience.

I talk about:

• Jacinda Ardern's landslide victory in New Zealand
• Women leading as women not trying to be men or by burning out
• The impact of stress on our health
• Covid making us all depleted and how important it is to replenish
• My son coming home
• Tricky conversations about race
• Being open to being uncomfortable so we can continue to grow
• My hopes for the US election
• Living in a Covid world
• Getting creative about festivals and celebration
• Not being able to go visit my mum again
• Staying positive

Since I recorded this, I became aware that the video I mentioned is not wholly correct. Trump did say there were fine people on both sides after the disturbances in Charlottesville, but in that press conference he went on to say that he was not talking about the white supremacists. I still have no doubt that he has stoked the fires of prejudice but I wanted to point out that the video has taken his words out of context as did Joe Biden. I follow the line on the US situation of Glennon Doyle in terms of not necessarily being happy with either alternatives. But as she says, when the house is burning, you don't wait for the fire brigade to turn up. You just get out of the burning house. More about this in this article.

Here is the video I mentioned in this episode.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. Find out how to leave a review here: bit.ly/leavepodcastreview

You can find out more information and get the show notes to every episode at magnificentmidlife.com. That's also where you'll find strategies, support and resources to help make your midlife magnificent. There's a midlife wellness program, courses, midlife mentoring to help make the most of your next chapter and our online Members Club. If not now, when?