Making Midlife Magic

What does it mean to rest? Too often, our ideas of rest come from advertisements, which tell us that rest for women = baths and rest for men = drinking or napping. 

If you enjoy these things and find them restful, go for it. But for many of us, rest is more complicated. Watching TV or taking a bath either doesn't make us feel rested, or doesn't make us feel rested for long. 

We think that rest is what we get when we stop working, but here too, it's not so simple. After work, we have different work (family, volunteering, paying bills), which makes it even harder to figure out what exactly "rest" is and how to get it. 

In this episode, I offer a different way to think about rest, one that disentangles it from work entirely. Learn:  

⭐ Why we often don't feel rested, even in the bath 

⭐ How to experience more rest at the end of the day 

⭐ Why soul-feeding projects can actually help you to feel more rested

⭐ How rest is a collaboration between your body & your mind 

I'm giving away one hour-long coaching session every month of 2023. No stress, no sales, just an hour session over Zoom to give you more clarity on a situation or decision. Enter at pages.coachingwithrachel.com/giveaway. Open to everyone, including former and current clients. Signing up once enters you in the giveaway for the year. Take a chance on yourself and enter! 

Do you spend your time in pursuit of happiness? Most of us do. We try to organize our lives to maximize happiness, which makes sense -- but it means that when we are sad, frustrated, disappointed, or angry we can feel like we've failed. We often see those feelings as something we need to fix so we can return to happiness. And this can get intensified as we get older, because we think that by our age, we should have figured some of this stuff out already and should be happier more of the time. 

But what if that's not the point of life? What if the human experience is always going to be a mix of emotions, and none of them need fixing? 

This is the powerful concept I share in this episode -- the idea that life is always going to be 50/50. It has helped me to find greater equilibrium and calm through the ups & downs of life and has also helped me to get greater clarity on my decisions. Really -- it's that powerful of a concept. Take a listen and let me know what you think! 

If you have a midlife issue that you'd love to hear me talk about, drop me a note at [email protected]. I might just record a podcast for you! 

Today's episode is about celebrating your wins.  We often think of celebration as the reward for our hard work -- and it can be -- but in this episode I offer a different way of thinking about celebration. Rather than reward, I offer that celebration is a way of seeing ourselves, and that practicing it every day lets us experience ourselves and our life differently. 

In this episode I share the simple habit that will 

🌟 let you slow down before moving onto the next goal

🌟 allow you to focus on how far you've come rather than how far you have to go

🌟 remind yourself what a good job you're doing of being human (it isn't always easy) 

Try it for a few weeks and let me know how it goes! 

I'm giving away a free coaching session every month of 2023! To enter, go to pages.coachingwithrachel.com/giveaway. Signing up once enters you for the whole year. No stress, no strings -- Just an hour-long conversation over Zoom to bring increased clarity to any issue.

In this episode, I offer a different way to think about goal-setting, just in time for the new year. I explain why goal-setting is so powerful and why we so often do it wrong. I share a better way to think about goals, and explain why you may want to give up resolutions forever, if you haven’t already.

In this episode: 

🌟 Why so many middle-aged people give up on goals (hint: resolutions don't work) 

🌟 Why January 1 is a trap

🌟 How to think about goals in a way that works for you instead of against you

🌟 How to get closer to your goals by giving yourself the reward in advance 

Whatever you want to create in 2023, this episode will get you closer. ❤️

I'm giving away a free coaching session every month of 2023! To enter, go to pages.coachingwithrachel.com/giveaway. Signing up once enters you for the whole year. No stress, no strings -- Just an hour-long conversation over Zoom, sure to bring increased clarity to whatever issue you bring. 

We’re in the December holiday season  -- prime belief season. 

It sounds so ethereal, doesn’t it? Belief. Faith. Maybe the stuff of children. Good for holiday movies but not for actually getting things done.

In truth, belief is a powerful gift you can give the people you love, especially when they're struggling. 

In this episode I explain

🌟 What it really means to believe in someone (it's simpler than we think) 

🌟  How believing in someone is useful (belief changes lives) 

🌟 How to powerfully practice believing (it's more like building a muscle than we realize) 

I’m going to start with your kids – and I’ll explain why – but even if you don’t have kids, you want to listen to this episode.  I use kids as the example to explain how to believe in anyone -- including yourself.

I'm giving away one hour of coaching every month of 2023! Can you believe it? To enter, go to pages.coachingwithrachel.com/giveaway. 

Ambivalence is not a problem -- having conflicting thoughts and feelings is just part of being human. But ambivalence feels like a problem because we expect our emotions to be our north star. We think that we’ll know what to do when we feel happy about one choice, or unhappy about the other choice. We want the clarity that comes from a single emotion. And of course you get to decide when waiting for emotional clarity is the right choice. 

But feeling ambivalent is not a problem if you remember this power sentence: I get to decide who drives the clown car. 

In this episode, I explore:

🌟 Why ambivalence is not a problem 

🌟 How to decide which feeling to listen to 

🌟 How to embrace all your feelings without letting them make the decisions 

Find all the episodes of Making Midlife Magic along with other delightful content at www.coachingwithrachel.com 

I send out a delicious bonbon of new perspective, metaphor, and story every Saturday morning. You'll find them at lovenotes.coachingwithrachel.com -- if you love them, sign up to get your own. 

Here's something useful for your holiday tool kit -- Boundaries! There are a lot of expectations over the holidays. People have expectations for us, we have expectations for others, and trying to keep everyone happy can be a challenge. 

Enter -- boundaries. Boundaries let you know what's yours and not yours to take care of. They also let you create rules, so you'll know what to do when Uncle Moe starts talking politics at the dinner table. 

In this week's episode

🌟 Why boundaries are a gift you give yourself

🌟 The roles and rules of boundary-setting

🌟 One thought error that makes setting boundaries challenging and how to fix it

If you find this podcast useful, please share it with friends -- thank you! 

Holiday celebrations sometimes mean coming face-to-face with people who judge us -- people who think we're flaky, financially irresponsible, not successful enough -- or, you know, too uptight, frugal, and focused on work. There's no shortage of other people's thoughts about us! 

It feels bad to be criticized. Often we try to get out of that bad feeling by changing the other person’s mind, by proving that they're wrong about us. 

I want to offer a better way. It’s a powerful mindset shift that has helped me immensely.

Instead of convincing them, or agreeing with them you just -- let them be wrong about you. 

In this episode, I explain the power of this thought and also how to not make ourselves wrong. 

I offer the dynamic duo of thoughts that will help you get through the holidays with calm & confidence, even if you're seated next to judgey Aunt Matilda. 

If you want 2023 to be filled with more confidence, optimism, and calm, give yourself the gift of one-on-one coaching. Go to coachingwithrachel.com to sign up for a free one-hour session. It's my gift to you. 

There are many good reasons to be grateful. Even during challenging times, we often appreciate our friends, family, home,  food, and more. 

Why, then, can it be so challenging to feel grateful? 

Sometimes knowing all the good reasons we have to be grateful doesn't mean that we feel grateful. 

In this episode I explain: 

➡️ Why knowing how lucky we are doesn't always make us grateful

➡️ How trying to foster gratitude can backfire

➡️ How to be grateful even if you don't like parts of the gift

➡️ How to feel thankful rather than guilty about your good fortune

I'd be grateful if you'd subscribe, leave a review, and/or share this podcast with friends, so I can reach more people with Making Midlife Magic. The truth is -- it's useful wisdom even if you're not middle aged! Friends can also follow me on social media, or sign up for my delightful weekly love notes. 

Do you have dreams but think they're not realistic?  Maybe you decide to make them more realistic. Instead of dreaming of travel to far-away places, you decide to dream of nearby places. Maybe instead of a big, scary, impossible goal, you decide to pick something you can achieve more easily. 

This episode is for you. 

The truth is, you have no idea what is realistic. I don't know either, and in this episode I'll explain why. I'll offer you a better question to ask instead of "Is this realistic?" and explain why our brains get this question wrong so often. 

If you want to make your dreams a reality, one-on-one coaching is the best gift you can give yourself. In eight weeks, you can change your life! Visit www.coachingwithrachel.com to sign up for a complimentary session.