Midlife Unfiltered with Margit Cruice

You know the thing. The one that keeps quietly sitting there, waiting. You haven't forgotten it - you just haven't done it yet. This episode is for that.

In the final episode of season one of Midlife Unfiltered, Margit and Clarkie unpack one of the most human habits of all — procrastination. Not because we're lazy. Not because we don't care. But for reasons that are often more interesting, and more human, than we give ourselves credit for.

Together, they explore the emotional undercurrent beneath putting things off: fear, overwhelm, self-talk, perfectionism, and the strange comfort of staying exactly where we are. It’s a conversation that moves between humour and honesty, touching on relationships, work, identity and the quiet mental load many people carry every day.

This episode doesn’t try to “fix” procrastination with productivity hacks. Instead, it invites listeners to look at what happens when we delay the things that matter most — and why beginning is often the hardest part of all.

And somewhere inside the conversation is a simple reminder: sometimes momentum starts with one small step.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things
• The way our brains and our gender might shape how we hold (or avoid) the things on our list
• What fear has to do with the steps we keep skipping
• Why the hardest part is almost never the task itself
• A surprisingly simple technique for breaking the stall and building momentum
• What it means when we start to identify as someone who procrastinates and why that matters

2:10 – Gunna, procrastination, and the difference between the two

3:45 – Do men and women experience procrastination differently? An honest look at how we're wired

6:30 – Fear, business, and the step that keeps getting skipped

8:00 – What's actually happening in the brain when we stall and why starting changes everything

9:15 – The five-second technique that cuts through avoidance (it's simpler than you think)

11:00 – When procrastination becomes an identity and what to do about it

Margit Cruice is a midlife and leadership coach who believes this chapter of life can be one of the most expansive and liberating we’ll ever live. Drawing on decades of experience, sport, travel and deep personal inquiry, she creates spaces for honest conversations about identity, ageing and becoming.

Connect with Margit:

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

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

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

Website: https://www.margitcruice.com/

For all enquiries:

Email: [email protected]

Join The Joy Rebellion: https://ecc3-margit.systeme.io/joyrebel

What if the life you've been quietly craving has been waiting for you to simply say yes? This episode is for anyone who's ever stood at the edge of something unfamiliar and wondered whether it was too late to step through.

Trish Mallabar spent more than three decades as a teacher — and like so many women who pour themselves into a vocation, she arrived at midlife not quite sure who she was without it. This conversation begins there, in that tender and disorienting space between a life well-lived and one still unfolding.

What follows is a rich, unhurried conversation about burnout, the slow erosion of identity, and what it actually feels like to walk away from something that defined you. Trish speaks with honesty about perimenopause, the weight of a system that asked too much, and the moment she realised she needed to choose herself.

But this episode isn't about loss. It's about what opens up when you create enough space to let life surprise you — strangers who appear at just the right moment, the pull of ancestry, the unexpected comfort of aged care work, and the quiet joy of birdwatching at Lake Weyba on Mother's Day.

Trish and Margit share a warmth and history that makes this conversation feel less like an interview and more like two women sitting together with a cup of tea, being honest about the things that matter most.

In this episode, we explore:

• What it costs to build your identity around a vocation and what it takes to let it go
• The relationship between burnout, perimenopause and finally saying enough
• How slowing down on the road opened something up that rushing never could
• The strangers who appeared at exactly the right moment
• What ancestral connection feels like in your body, even across a language barrier
• Why midlife might actually be the best time to discover something completely new

9:40 – When your identity is 95% your job  and then the job changes

11:42 – Perimenopause, teaching and the slow unravelling of something that once felt solid

16:21 – Why they said yes to six months in North America and what came home with them

24:22 – What travel teaches you that no classroom ever could

27:02 – The boy in Sarajevo, the waiter in Amsterdam and the gentleman in Slovenia when the universe shows up in human form

39:19 – Standing in Denmark, feeling the pull of ancestry and the people who came before

Trish Malabar is a former teacher of 32 years who now works in aged care, bringing the same curiosity and warmth to both chapters of her working life. She has lived and worked across Australia, from the Northern Territory to the Sunshine Coast, and has spent extended periods travelling through North America and Europe with her husband Dave. Trish belongs in this conversation because she knows what it means to rebuild a sense of self in midlife — thoughtfully, honestly and without rushing toward easy answers.

How many times today have you said you'd do something — and quietly let yourself off the hook? This episode is for anyone who finds it easier to keep promises to others than to keep them to themselves.

In this episode of Midlife Unfiltered, Margit and Clarkie turn their attention inward — to the small, often invisible agreements we make with ourselves every single day. The ones we break before breakfast. The ones we dress up in excuses.

The conversation begins with a deceptively simple idea from the book The Four Agreements — be impeccable with your word — and quickly moves somewhere more personal. Because it's one thing to show up reliably for others. It's quite another to show up reliably for yourself.

What unfolds is an honest, warm and at times uncomfortably relatable conversation about the difference between big dreams and small actions. About how the gap between what we say and what we do quietly chips away at our confidence — and how closing that gap, even slightly, changes the way we feel about ourselves in midlife.

This isn't about perfection or productivity. It's about learning to trust yourself again, one small commitment at a time.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why breaking promises to yourself might cost more than you realise
• The quiet relationship between self-trust and confidence in midlife
• What being a "gunna" is really doing to your sense of self
• Why smaller, honest commitments can carry more power than grand resolutions
• The difference between starting something and finishing it — and why both matter
• How the way we speak to ourselves shapes what we believe we're capable of

3:29 – When you let yourself down vs. letting someone else down are they really that different?

5:04 – What happens when we distrust ourselves

8:40 – What smokers, lawn mowing and television have in common the power of the small step

10:30 – From self-sabotage to self-respect: how trust in yourself is actually built

11:40 – The invitation: start noticing where you're not being impeccable with yourself

Margit Cruice is a midlife and leadership coach who believes this chapter of life can be one of the most expansive and liberating we’ll ever live. Drawing on decades of experience, sport, travel and deep personal inquiry, she creates spaces for honest conversations about identity, ageing and becoming.

Connect with Margit:

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

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

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

Website: https://www.margitcruice.com/

For all enquiries:

Email: [email protected]

Join The Joy Rebellion: https://ecc3-margit.systeme.io/joyrebel

What do you do when the life you've spent decades building quietly stops feeling like yours? This conversation might be exactly what you didn't know you needed to hear.

Tony Crossin has lived an extraordinary life; executive chef, world traveller, business owner, and now leadership and growth coach. But behind the impressive career arc is a far more personal story: a man who reached a point where everything on the outside looked fine, and everything on the inside was quietly falling apart. This episode is about what happened next.

Margit and Tony explore the messy, courageous, deeply human experience of reinvention. The kind that asks you to look honestly at what you're holding onto, what no longer fits, and what it actually takes to choose yourself.

There's warmth here, and humour, and a jar of pickles that will stay with you long after the episode ends. But underneath it all is something quietly profound, a conversation about identity, inner peace, loyalty to self, and what it means to finally stop chasing and start arriving.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why reinvention starts on the inside and why the outside stuff never sticks without it
• The quiet tension between staying loyal and telling yourself the truth
• What it actually takes to let go of an identity that no longer fits
• The difference between chasing a life and finally arriving in one
• What inner peace looks like when you stop letting the noise in

9:06 – Why reinvention has to start from within

12:19 – The jar of pickles: a coaching moment that will stay with you

16:08 – The relationship that was slowly pulling him under and the decision he kept putting off

19:25 – Loyalty versus truth: the question that finally broke the deadlock

27:31 – Learning to hear the alarm bell and why intuition isn't just a women's conversation

37:57 – When inner peace became his most important value and what that actually changed

Tony Crossin is a leadership and growth coach who helps people turn life’s toughest moments into powerful reinvention. Drawing from real experience, he supports individuals and leaders to think differently, face hard truths, and create meaningful change, because lasting performance begins with understanding yourself first and leading from a place of honesty. He is an active community member who connects people and creates opportunities for himself and others to thrive. A chef, drummer and leadership scientist.

Connect with Tony: [email protected] 

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/tonycrossin

Website: www.uberteams.com.au

When did life get so heavy? If you can't remember the last time you did something just for the fun of it, this one's for you.

In this episode, Margit and Clarkie get into something that doesn't get nearly enough airtime in the wellbeing conversation — playfulness. Not the kind that requires a holiday or a special occasion, but the everyday kind that shifts how you show up in your own life.

They explore what it actually means to bring a playful attitude to ordinary moments — at work, at home, even in the hard seasons — and why it's often the first thing we abandon when life gets serious. With 4.1 million Australians treated for stress, anxiety, and depression in 2025 alone, the question of how we lighten our inner load feels more pressing than ever.

This conversation is grounded, warm, and genuinely fun. It touches on everything from competitive sport to corporate culture to Ash Barty's unexpected trick for making press interviews bearable. It's the kind of conversation that makes you want to go outside and bounce a ball — or at the very least, skip to the kitchen.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why playfulness is about how you do things, not just what you do
• What happens to our energy — and our performance — when we stop taking everything so seriously
• The unexpected link between play, creativity, and genuine wellbeing
• How one elite athlete reimagined her most dreaded professional ritual through the lens of play
• Why humour in the workplace can be a generous act — and when it isn't
• The small, everyday invitations to be more playful that are hiding in plain sight

1:46 – Now is the time to find more playfulness

3:29 – Competitive sport, lawn bowls, and learning to dial it down

5:26 –  Using playfulness as a way of being

7:54 – Ash Barty, Disney lines, and making the unbearable bearable

8:30 – Play at home, play at work — and why it keeps dropping off

11:28 – Pets are the ultimate reminder to play

Margit Cruice is a midlife and leadership coach who believes this chapter of life can be one of the most expansive and liberating we’ll ever live. Drawing on decades of experience, sport, travel and deep personal inquiry, she creates spaces for honest conversations about identity, ageing and becoming.

Connect with Margit:

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

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

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

Website: https://www.margitcruice.com/

For all enquiries:

Email: [email protected]

Join The Joy Rebellion: https://ecc3-margit.systeme.io/joyrebel

There's a word for what happens to a woman when she becomes a mother. Most of us have never heard it. And in midlife, when the shifting starts all over again, that silence still costs us.

In this episode, Margit sits down with Linda Anderson, a coach of over 20 years whose work centres on identity, transition, and the experience of becoming, in motherhood, and beyond. Linda lives on Waiheke Island in New Zealand, a place she chose with intention and with her whole body, and that same quality of attentiveness runs through everything she shares.

The conversation centres on matrescence, a word coined 50 years ago that still isn't in the dictionary, and still isn't part of the conversation we have with women before, during, or after they become mothers. Linda unpacks why that matters, and what becomes possible when women finally have language for what they're actually experiencing.

But this episode quickly moves beyond early motherhood. The identity shifts that matrescence describes don't stop at the baby stage; they keep unfolding through every season of a woman's life, including right here in midlife. Linda is also living what she teaches: finding her way back to herself not through a grand plan, but one small, honest step at a time.

In this episode we explore:

• The word most women have never heard and why it changes everything
• Why the gap between who you were and who you're becoming feels so disorienting and so necessary
• How matrescence doesn't end with babies it keeps unfolding into midlife and beyond
• The quiet cost of clinging to who you were supposed to be
• What surrender actually looks like when life doesn't go to plan
• Small, powerful practices for finding your way back to yourself

04:30 – How Linda made a deeply intentional move to Waiheke Island

15:44 – What matrescence is and why the silence around it matters

26:56 – The identity shift nobody warns you about

29:43 – When the picture of life asks more than expected and how to navigate that

40:35 – Living in flow: what allowing looks like in practice

51:04 – Two small practices for returning to yourself

Linda Anderson is a coach of over 20 years specialising in the transition into motherhood, with a particular focus on matrescence — the profound identity shift that unfolds when a woman becomes a mother. Based on Waiheke Island in New Zealand, she works with women one-on-one and in groups, creating honest, held spaces for them to make sense of who they are becoming. She brings both deep professional expertise and lived experience to this work, and has spent the last 15 years championing a conversation that is long overdue.

Links

www.lindaonthego.com

www.instagram.com/lindaonthego1

www.facebook.com/lindaonthego

More about matrescence: https://lindaonthego.com/a-beginners-guide-to-matrescence

Awe walks are one of the most underrated positive psychology practices available to us — and chances are you've never heard of them. If you've been feeling stuck in your head, disconnected or just a little flat lately, this episode of Midlife Unfiltered is exactly what you need.

In this Hacks, Habits and Happiness episode, Margit and Brett explore one of the most quietly powerful conversations the show has had — and it starts with a morning walk, a lemon-scented eucalyptus tree and a deliberate decision to leave the headphones at home.

Margit introduces the awe walk, a positive psychology practice that most of us have never heard named — even though many of us have accidentally stumbled into it without knowing what to call it. There is something that shifts when you give this practice a name and choose it deliberately.

The conversation moves through presence, mental load, self-compassion and what it actually feels like to notice the world around you again. It is honest, warm and surprisingly moving for an episode that also features a galah doing…well quite frankly – pooping!

This episode is for anyone who has been a little too stuck in their own thoughts lately.

In this episode we explore:

• What an awe walk is and why positive psychology backs it
• How one deliberate morning walk can reset your entire mental state
• Why intention is the difference between a walk and a practice
• The surprising ways presence changes how you connect with the world around you
• How to experience an awe walk anywhere, no special destination required

01:09 – What Margit noticed on her awe walk

02:17 – Does an awe walk have to be intentional to count?

06:51 – How to do an awe walk anywhere, including the middle of a city

07:26 – Sensing the bigness of life

09:24 – Brett's photography parallel and why it lands perfectly

Margit Cruice is a midlife and leadership coach who believes this chapter of life can be one of the most expansive and liberating we’ll ever live. Drawing on decades of experience, sport, travel and deep personal inquiry, she creates spaces for honest conversations about identity, ageing and becoming.

Connect with Margit:

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

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

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

Website: https://www.margitcruice.com/

For all enquiries:

Email: [email protected]

Join The Joy Rebellion: https://ecc3-margit.systeme.io/joyrebel

Most of us spend years trying to figure out why our relationships keep feeling the same — same frustrations, same patterns, same quiet dissatisfaction. What if the answer isn't out there, but in the mirror?

Alfina Lofaro has spent more than two decades in the deeply human space of how we relate to others, and perhaps more importantly, to ourselves. As a kinesiologist, transformational coach and debut author, she brings a rare combination of body-based wisdom and hard-won personal insight to a conversation that so many women in midlife are quietly having with themselves.

This episode covers a lot of ground, but the thread running through all of it is this: we are rarely taught how to do relationships well. We pick it up from our environment, from experiments that sometimes backfire, and from crisis and then we wonder why we keep arriving at the same place. Alfina's work, and her book Love Deliberately, is her answer to that gap.

What makes this conversation feel different is that Alfina isn't speaking from a polished distance. She shares from inside the work, family dynamics, the red carpet moment that nearly undid her, and the five days in New Zealand that taught her something she didn't know she needed to learn. It's honest, warm and quietly profound.

If you're ready to improve your relationships, this episode is a must.

In this episode we explore:

• Giving and receiving in relationships
• The unconscious patterns we carry from childhood and how they shape our relationships
• Why wanting everyone else to change is usually where the real work begins
• What the body knows about your next goal
• The quiet renegotiation so many women in midlife are navigating
• How small moments in conversation can reveal who we've become
• What does love actually mean to you?
• How curiosity can improve all relationships

09:03 – "Maybe it's not everyone else who needs to change" - where the real work begins

10:23 – What it actually looks like to explore who you are in relationship

13:46 – When the body knows your goal before you do

19:23 – The universe doesn't give you what you want, it reflects back who you are and why this changes everything

27:47 – Coming in looking for better relationships, leaving knowing yourself better

35:38 – What one client's definition of love revealed and the shift that followed

38:25 – Why Alfina wrote a book that isn't just about romantic relationships

45:13 – The one practice from the book you can start today

52:29 – A red carpet, a bad photo and a pep talk she had to give herself

Alfina Lofaro is a Queensland-based kinesiologist, transformational coach and author whose work sits at the intersection of body intelligence and relational wisdom. With over 25 years of experience, she helps people untangle the unconscious patterns that shape the way they love, communicate and connect. Her debut book, Love Deliberately: How to Be Less Sh*t at Relationships, recently received an award at the International Impact Book Awards in the United States.

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

Website: https://www.alfinalofaro.com/

Buy the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/Love-Deliberately-How-Less-Relationships-ebook/dp/B0FJ4Q5WQS

What if the weight you're carrying isn't about what's on your plate — but the words you're using to describe it? This one's a quiet game-changer.

In this Hacks, Habits and Happiness episode, Margit and Brett explore a deceptively simple idea drawn from Ben Crowe's book Where the Light Gets In — one that sits right at the intersection of language, mindset and everyday life.

It starts with noticing. The words we use, almost without thinking, shape how we feel about what we're doing — whether that's heading to work, showing up on a sports field, or getting through the tasks we'd rather avoid. There's something quietly profound about catching yourself mid-sentence.

This conversation weaves through sport, gratitude, pressure and performance — but at its heart, it's about something most of us in midlife know well: the difference between going through the motions and actually being present for your own life.

Nothing here is complicated. That's rather the point.

In this episode we explore:

• The connection between the words we choose and the pressure we put on ourselves
• How gratitude sneaks in through the most unexpected reframe
• What sport reveals about expectation, performance and joy
• The difference between having a goal and being crushed by one
• What it feels like, energetically, to move from resistance to permission

01:41 – The language we use without realising — and what it's actually telling us

03:42 – From the bowls green to the cricket pitch: testing the shift in real life

04:39 – Using language to move through your resistance

07:05 – Removing expectations and controlling what you can

10:33 – Goals, pressure and rediscovering the joy

Margit Cruice is a midlife and leadership coach who believes this chapter of life can be one of the most expansive and liberating we’ll ever live. Drawing on decades of experience, sport, travel and deep personal inquiry, she creates spaces for honest conversations about identity, ageing and becoming.

Connect with Margit:

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

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

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

Website: https://www.margitcruice.com/

For all enquiries:

Email: [email protected]

Join The Joy Rebellion: https://ecc3-margit.systeme.io/joyrebel

There are moments that stop you mid-breath. A non-verbal child speaks for the first time. A teenager comes home from his first competition and says something you'll never forget. This episode is full of those moments.

This conversation is not what you might expect from an episode about horses and disability. Yes, it's about the Riding for the Disabled Association of Victoria — but really, it's about what happens when people are finally told yes, you can, often for the first time in their lives.

Tanya Twaits came to this work as a parent. Her son needed support she could no longer safely provide on her own and what began as a practical solution quietly became something much larger. Stepping into the presidency of an organisation with over 1,200 volunteers and 225 horses across Victoria, Tanya has consistently shown up, leaned in, and done the quiet work that most people never see.

What strikes you in this conversation is how gently powerful it is. There's no grand reinvention story here, no dramatic pivot. Just a woman who showed up and kept showing up with absolute passion. And in doing so, quietly showed the rest of us what's possible — for parents, participants, volunteers, and for anyone who wonders whether they have something to offer.

This one will stay with you.

In this episode we explore:

• How therapeutic horse riding supports people with disabilities
• The quiet confidence that builds when someone is told yes, you can for the first time
• What it takes to volunteer with Riding for the Disabled and why you don't need horse experience
• Why the human-horse connection is unlike anything else
• How one mum stepped outside her comfort zone and into advocacy and leadership
• What riding for the disabled programs offer belonging, joy and community
• The milestone moments that volunteers, participants and families carry with them long after they leave the arena
• Why inclusive sport and disability programs matter more than ever in today's community landscape

Tanya Twaits is the President of the Riding for the Disabled Association of Victoria (RDAV), a volunteer-led organisation supporting people with disabilities through therapeutic horse programs across the state. With more than 15 years of experience in senior commercial and go-to-market roles across multiple industries, she brings both strategic depth and genuine heart to her leadership of RDAV's network of 33 centres, 225 horses and over 1,200 volunteers. Her connection to this work is personal, long-standing and, as you'll hear, completely unshakeable.

05:37 — An early encounter with Riding for the Disabled

09:09 — The innate and surprising connection with horses

11:18 — No one is left out: the different ways people ride, drive, lead and belong

22:36 — On joy, inclusion and what other sporting organisations are only beginning to understand

24:05 — How you find and keep the right horses for a program like this

33:40 — Who volunteers here and why you don't need to know anything about horses to help

35:45 — What leading 1,200 volunteers has taught Tanya about passion, people and showing up

51:11 — How to get involved: volunteering, becoming a participant, and the waiting list campaign

55:39 — What Riding for the Disabled has taught Tanya about human potential 

Riding for the Disabled Victoria: https://www.rdav.asn.au/

Riding for the Disabled Australia: https://www.rda.org.au/