The Courageous Middle Podcast

Most of us can name what we'd change about ourselves in a few seconds. How often do we stop and feel grateful for who we are? Lisa shares a personal story about her legs and how she stopped comparing them to everyone else's and started noticing everything they make possible.

She talks about why so many women deflect compliments, what it can look like to celebrate your own effort (it might involve a cup of tea), and why being grateful for who you are today can sit right alongside working toward who you're becoming.

It's a gentle, honest listen about noticing what you do well, and letting yourself feel it. If appreciating yourself doesn't come naturally, this one is for you.

If you want to take some of the mystery out of midlife, I created a short quiz that will help: https://assessment.thecourageousmiddle.com/

To learn more about The Courageous Middle, visit www.thecourageousmiddle.com

Follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_

At 30, Lisa was the woman people called Negative Nelly. At 54, she describes herself very differently, and one daily practice sits near the center of that shift. In this episode, Lisa explains the negativity bias and why the mind keeps replaying the one thing that went wrong. She shares what her gratitude practice looked like in the beginning (a pillow, a blanket and a lot of awkwardness) and how it changed over eight or nine years. You'll also hear how gratitude brings us back to the present moment, and Lisa walks you through a small practice you can try right where you're sitting. If you've ever felt silly starting something new, this one is for you. To learn more about The Courageous Middle Community visit https://www.thecourageousmiddle.com/the-courageous-middle-community Follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_

You catch your reflection in the window in the morning, just half a second, and before you've decided anything, there's already a thought. That's your judge. We all have one, and it's fairly active in most of us. In this episode, I get curious about that voice. We look at why your brain makes split-second judgments to keep you safe, and why the judge isn't the problem. We talk about the three places those quick judgments come from, and what happens when a small moment, like forgetting why you walked into the kitchen, turns into a verdict about who you are. You'll hear how the judge shows up when we aim it at ourselves, at other people, and at our circumstances. I'll share one question to ask when it speaks up, and why you shouldn't judge yourself for having a judge in the first place. If you want to understand more about the mysteries of midlife, I created a short quiz for you at: https://assessment.thecourageousmiddle.com/ To learn more about The Courageous Middle visit www.thecourageousmiddle.com Follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_

I’m too old for that. I should be happy with what I have.

Thoughts like these go by so fast that we accept them as true before we even notice.

This week, Lisa looks at where those thoughts come from, and why a thought doesn’t have to be true to feel true. It only has to be familiar. She shares a belief she absorbed from Freedom 55 commercials and carried through twenty-five years in corporate, and the question that finally loosened it: whose voice is that?

You’ll hear how curiosity differs from judgment, the one question to ask if you only have time for one, and what to do with the quieter thoughts she calls whispers. Lisa also shares the whisper that told her she’d be out on her own before 50, and what happened when she finally got curious about it.

Your one thing this week: catch one thought and get curious; try one of these questions:

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If you want to learn more about The Courageous Middle Community: https://www.thecourageousmiddle.com/the-courageous-middle-community

To learn more about The Courageous Middle, visit www.thecourageousmiddle.com or follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_

Changing the way you've lived for four or five decades doesn't happen overnight. If it hasn't happened yet, that's not proof you're doing it wrong.

In this episode, I talk about why real change takes more repetitions than we expect, and why the unsettled feeling that you should have figured it out by now is not a sign you're failing. I talk about what happens when we compare our day one to somebody else's day 500, what my own coach gave me instead of the shortcuts I kept asking for, and why the being side of change needs as much time as the doing side. I also share the belief that quietly slows down so many capable women, the belief that we should be able to figure it out alone, and the friend who reminded me of something I had walked right past. Self-trust is built through evidence, and it's so much easier to see when someone is there to reflect it back to you.

❤️ Join us in The Courageous Middle Community - come alongside other Gen X women navigating some of the same things you are. I’ll share my experience and support you on the beautiful journey of getting to know yourself and what you want now.

https://www.thecourageousmiddle.com/the-courageous-middle-community

To learn more about The Courageous Middle, visit www.thecourageousmiddle.com or follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_

You've spent years being the dependable one. So when it's time to say no, the words don't come easy, and honestly, it doesn't feel like a communication problem. It feels unsafe. In this episode, Lisa breaks down why people-pleasing at work isn't a personality flaw, it's a pattern built on autopilot, and walks through the exact incremental step she uses with clients to shift it. No dramatic confrontation required. Just one small, deliberate response, practiced until it becomes real. You'll hear why "no is a complete sentence" is true and still not the whole story, how a single Post-it note can interrupt years of automatic yes, and why knowing your reason matters more than the words you choose. To learn more about The Courageous Middle Community, visit www.thecourageousmiddle.com or follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_.

A woman told Lisa she needed six months to decide what needed to change in her life. Her doctor had already offered help. She said no, because taking it felt like admitting she wasn't as strong as she believed herself to be.

This episode is about the quiet belief underneath that no: that needing help means you can't keep going with it all. Lisa unpacks why the nervous system treats asking for help as unsafe long after it stopped being dangerous, what six months of waiting actually costs a body, a marriage, and a family, and why doing this alone was never the strength we thought it was.

Lisa Blanchet is a certified coach and the host of The Courageous Middle, helping Gen X women navigate midlife and the space between who they've been and who they're becoming. 

Connect with Lisa

Website: https://www.thecourageousmiddle.com

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

Take the midlife assessment: https://assessment.thecourageousmiddle.com/

“You can have it all” was supposed to be a gift. Somewhere along the way, for Lisa, it quietly became you should be able to do it all.

In this episode, Lisa unpacks the should warrior, the invisible weight of being the one everyone counts on, and why just saying no rarely works as a fix on its own. She shares what happened when a post about Gen X women reconsidering their next decade reached thousands of people, and what the honesty underneath the responses revealed. Most of all, she offers a simple, undramatic way to start distinguishing between what you can do and what you actually want to keep doing.

If you want to understand more about what you are experiencing, I created a short assessment for you at https://assessment.thecourageousmiddle.com/

To learn more about The Courageous Middle, visit www.thecourageousmiddle.com or follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_

Two women, one gym, 6:30 in the morning, and neither one sounded unhappy about how much they were carrying. That's exactly what caught Lisa's attention.

In this episode, Lisa unpacks the real difference between an hour you choose and an hour that simply defaults to whatever is loudest. Two hours that look identical on a calendar but feel completely different in your body. She shares her own years-long resentment of 6:30 am, and how the exact same hour became something she chooses on purpose.

This episode isn't about doing less or deciding work is the problem. It's about noticing where your hours are actually going, and giving yourself permission to be honest about it.

If you want to understand more about what you are experiencing, I created a short assessment for you at https://assessment.thecourageousmiddle.com/

To learn more about The Courageous Middle, visit www.thecourageousmiddle.com or follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_

A LinkedIn post about being let go after twenty five years turned into hundreds of messages that all said some version of the same thing: I thought I was the only one. This episode is about why that silence exists, and what actually breaks it. Lisa unpacks why women in midlife are so practiced at carrying on quietly, why being called strong or low maintenance can quietly reinforce that silence, and why permission to be honest so often has to be offered by someone else before we'll take it ourselves. She also shares her own resistance to community, and what she's building next for women in exactly this season. If you want to understand more about what you are experiencing in midlife, I created a short assessment for you at https://assessment.thecourageousmiddle.com To learn more about The Courageous Middle visit www.thecourageousmiddle.com or follow Lisa on Instagram @lisablanchet_