The Midlife Ripening Podcast

In this episode I sit down with one of my dear mentors, Sil Read, a psychotherapist, co-author of Mothering & Daughtering, and devoted teacher of Marion Woodman's work. Sil studied with Marion for two decades, and she's journeyed with me through my relationship with my daughter, my body, and my dreams, including the season when my own mother was dying from cancer.

We talk about the possibility of finding a spiritual mother when the mother line hasn't given us what we needed, and how archetypal love can let our human mothers be human. Sil shares why dreams are the language of the soul and how to begin a relationship with your inner dream maker. 

This conversation is an invitation to hold the tension of the opposites, bring the language of beingness back into our bodies and our culture, and follow the call of the soul in midlife.

What You'll Learn:

• How a spiritual mother or conscious elder can begin to heal the mother wound
• What Marion Woodman meant by bringing the feminine into the culture, and what the feminine principle includes
• Why dreams are "unopened mail," and how to start a conversation with your inner dream maker
• How feminism and the feminine principle can expand each other instead of competing
• Why the "containers" of sisterhood, nature, confidentiality, and time matter so much for deep inner work
• What changes when we stop identifying with our persona and start living from soul

Seed to Carry:
 "The dream maker wants us to evolve."

💌 Want to Go Deeper?
 Explore 1:1 coaching, small group programs, and my weekly email series The Second Bite.
 https://www.brookehofsesscoaching.com/subscribe

Connect with Sil Read: https://www.silread.com/

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

In this episode, I sit down with Shelagh Lennon — web designer, yoga nidra facilitator, and author of Moon Pause: A Field Guide to Rest, Rhythm, and Returning to Yourself in Midlife and Beyond. Shelagh calls herself a "fairy godmother for the 21st century" and a "priestess of the rest garden," but she didn't always have that language. For twenty years she worked in post-secondary education, building a whole soulful life (studying aromatherapy, priestess training, nature-based practices) underneath a career defined by grind culture dressed up as "excellence."

Two cancer diagnoses changed everything. The first led her, almost against her will, into six months of total rest. The second brought her to an oncologist's office, where he called her story "one in ten million," and a line from Mary Oliver arrived in her body: what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? She wrote her resignation letter a month later.

We talk about the difference between being a producer and an overproducer, rest and pleasure as a birthright rather than a reward, and how Moon Pause became an act of integration — pulling together every thread of who she is into something whole.

What You'll Learn:

• The difference between a producer and an overproducer — and why the goal isn't perfection, but recognizing sooner when we've turned away from ourselves
• Why rest and pleasure are a birthright, not something earned through hard work
• How to build a simple daily rhythm (Shelagh's two-sentence morning practice) that anchors you without demanding more time
• What genuine surrender looks like, without slipping into spiritual bypassing
• How kinship with the moon — and the more-than-human world more broadly — invites a radical, embodied practice
• Why Shele's web design work and her rest work aren't separate: how to build an online presence that doesn't ask you to leave any part of yourself at the door

Seed to Carry:

Connect with Shelagh Lenon.

Purchase her book, Moon Pause.

💌 Want to Go Deeper with Brooke?

Learn the 7 Soul Languages that guide accomplished women from “I just can’t keep working this way,” to “I’m finally doing the work I’m meant to do.”

Explore monthly gatherings for midlife women who desire creative rest, playful reflection, and deep conversations. 

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

Register for my upcoming monthly workshop, MORE OF YOU.

This bonus episode is an invitation to stop. To lie down. To receive.

Brooke recently completed a Yoga Nidra teacher training and is weaving this practice more deeply into her work as a Midlife Midwife — here's your first taste.

In this special conversation, Brooke guides you through a yoga nidra practice for softening the overwhelm. You'll be invited to rest while a poem by Mark Nepo invites you off the wheel of approval-seeking. Through a full body scan, breath work, and gentle imagery, you'll soften your grip and remember who you are beneath all of your roles.

All you have to do is press play, and then DO NOTHING for a little while.

What You'll Learn:

• What Yoga Nidra is and why it's one of the most direct routes back to the inner well
• How to prepare your body and space to receive the practice
• Why receiving is harder than it sounds — and how to soften into it anyway
• How to hold the part of you that seeks approval alongside the part who rests in her own truth
• What it means to be a "C-minus student" and why that's exactly enough
• Why the qualities you're seeking — ease, peace, contentment — were always already inside you

Seed to Carry:
"Let yourself be ready and not ready at the same time."

Want to Go Deeper?
Explore 1:1 coaching, intimate group programs, and my weekly email series The Second Bite.

 💌 https://www.brookehofsesscoaching.com/subscribe 💌

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

Retreat details: Join Brooke in Tuscany this October for six days of dolce far niente.

What if the most radical thing you could do for your growth right now… is nothing? 

In this deeply personal episode, Brooke invites you to slow down long enough to feel what's actually been simmering beneath the surface—the grief, the grayness, the soul cry that no amount of productivity can silence. This conversation is about the deeper kind of rest that reconnects you to your inner realm, your instincts, and what this particular season of midlife is actually asking of you.

Drawing on the wisdom of Marian Woodman, Lianne Raymond, and James Hollis, Brooke explores what we lose when we keep moving outward all the time—and what becomes possible when we finally stop long enough to enter ourselves rather than transcend ourselves.

What You'll Learn:

• Why exhaustion often gets mislabeled as responsibility—and what's really underneath it
• How chronic busyness severs the connection between your heart and head
• What the "soul's cry" sounds like—and why so many of us miss it
• The crossroads midlife women face between keeping busy and turning inward
• Why you can't think, plan, or optimize your way back to yourself
• How the Italian concept of dolce far niente—the sweetness of doing nothing—offers a different way of being

Bookmarks:

• You can't repair what you won't stop using.
• We label the exhaustion that follows that rhythm as responsibility—as proof that we're serious about living our best lives.
• It's so easy to miss our soul's cry when the calendar is full and someone always needs something from us.
• I didn't have the language for it then. But I sure as hell felt it. 
• You can't think your way back to yourself. You can't optimize your way back to trusting your own instincts.
• A day spent responding to what arises and being in real relationship with yourself, even if it's not what you planned, isn't a day lost. It's a day lived.

Seed to Carry:

May you find, somewhere in the fullness of your week, one true moment of connection with yourself.

💌 Want to Go Deeper?

Il Dolce Far Niente: From Overdoing to Overflowing -- A Retreat for Women in Their Wild, Mid-life Unfolding with Brooke Hofsess

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

In this bonus episode, I’m sharing a live workshop replay where we name—and begin to gently unhook from—the Good Woman Myth. That inherited script that urges us to work before we rest, care for everyone else before we care for ourselves, and prove our worth instead of trusting it.

Through story, teaching, and guided reflection, we explore resentment as a soul-level smoke alarm, what it means to hold our “flaws” without disappearing into shame, and why midlife invites a different kind of priority—one that has far less to do with ambition and far more to do with truth, desire, and wholeness.

Come as you are.
Light a candle if you want to.
Bring your journal.
Let this be a rare hour where nothing is asked of you except curiosity.

We’ll move through an unhooking ritual that just might shift how you walk through the next era of your life—with more breath, more room, and a steadier relationship with your own inner knowing.

If You Loved This Workshop

Inside Second Bite, this is the work we do month after month—slow, soulful change that doesn’t rely on force, pressure, or someone else’s metric of success. Your becoming, honored in community.

Learn more here: https://www.brookehofsesscoaching.com/the-second-bite

In this intimate round-table conversation, two original members of Second Bite — Ann and Tara — join me to reflect on a year of soulful transformation. 

Together we trace the subtle shifts, the unexpected courage, the creative renewal, and the deep relief of being witnessed by women who are walking a similar path in midlife.

We explore what first drew them to this work, what surprised them about their own becoming, and how having a protected space that isn’t “one more thing to do,” but a place to breathe, softened old patterns and soothed the rhythm of their days.

This episode is a testament to what unfolds when midlife women stop muscling through, start noticing the clues life keeps offering, and finally allow themselves the companionship and support they’ve needed all along.

What You’ll Learn

• Why midlife requires a different kind of support — and how Ann and Tara knew it was time
• How a small, protected gathering each month can open surprising spaciousness and depth
• The role of companionship (not just coaching) in mid-life
• What happens when you stop following the seesaw of venturing out and hunkering down
• Why community helps midlife women reclaim their creativity, courage, and sense of possibility

Thinking About Your Own Second Bite?

If this conversation stirred something in you — if you’re longing for a space like this, a place to be held without performing and supported without pressure — I’d love to have you inside the next round of Second Bite.

It’s where midlife women come to rebuild their foundation, reclaim their rhythm, and begin living from the center of who they truly are.

You can explore the program and join us here → 

https://www.brookehofsesscoaching.com/the-second-bite

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

Unhooking from the Good Woman Myth

Stop censoring — and finally say and be what you want.
RSVP for the free workshop here.

In this intimate episode, Brooke invites you to name the invisible guardrails that shape women’s lives in midlife — the internalized “Good Woman Myth” that keeps us polite, overextended, and too far from our wild knowing.

She shares the story of her own turning point — from earning tenure in academia to sensing a deeper call she couldn’t yet name — and how that deeper knowing eventually became her body of work.

Through vivid metaphors, Brooke illuminates what it means to unhook from the myth of being “good” so we can become whole. This is an episode about noticing what’s stirring beneath the surface and giving ourselves permission to follow it — even when it doesn’t make sense on paper.

What You’ll Learn

• How the Good Woman Myth subtly shapes our choices, energy, and self-concept in midlife
• The signs you might be “hooked” — from over-giving to invisible expectations
• Why our knowing often arrives long before we feel ready to act on it
• Three gentle, practical ways to begin unhooking today
• How harvesting your wins can rebuild self-trust
• Why it’s better to be whole than good

Seed to Carry

Take one of the images that came up in this episode and try it on for yourself. Maybe it was the image of the sand being moved by the tides underneath you, or maybe it was the image of harvesting, something that you've worked really hard to grow and really taking it in. 

💌 Want to Go Deeper?

Explore 1:1 coaching, small group programs, and Brooke’s weekly email series, The Second Bite.
Subscribe here.

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

Register for my free upcoming workshop:

Unhooking from the Good Woman Myth
Stop censoring — and finally say and be what you want.
Click here to RSVP.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You’ve been loyal to everyone else’s needs. What happens when you turn that loyalty back toward yourself?

If you’ve ever felt like you “can’t keep doing it this way” — this episode is for you. Brooke explores how betrayal shows up in midlife: in the culture that rewards your competence but ignores your creativity and pleasure, and in the subtle ways you’ve learned to betray yourself just to stay afloat.

You’ll hear how the “betrayal list” trend online points to something deeper — a collective longing to name what’s hurting, to say what’s true, to stop carrying it all alone. Together, we’ll look at the beliefs that keep you loyal to exhaustion and begin to imagine a new kind of devotion — one rooted in agency, ease, and your own becoming.

What You’ll Learn

• How to spot the difference between cultural betrayal and self-betrayal
• The everyday ways midlife women abandon their own needs and desires
• How to begin releasing the “good woman” conditioning that asks you to disappear
• What changes when you honor your own pace, creativity, and enoughness
• Why midlife is the ideal moment to stop betraying yourself and start belonging to yourself

Seed to Carry

Where have you betrayed yourself in the name of being good, competent, or needed?

💌 Want to Go Deeper?

Explore 1:1 coaching, small group programs, and my weekly email series The Second Bite -- brookehofsesscoaching.com/subscribe

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

How were you taught to meet the waves—the ones in the water, and the ones in your life?

In this episode of The Midlife Ripening Podcast, Brooke shares three parables from a week at the ocean’s edge—moments that reveal how we’ve been trained to meet discomfort and how midlife offers us the chance to choose differently.

Each story opens a window into the cultural scripts we’ve internalized about pressure, speed, and performance.

This conversation is for every woman who’s tired of powering through, laughing it off, or bypassing her own “no.” It’s for anyone ready to step into a different rhythm—one rooted in trust, presence, and the courage to move forward on your own terms.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why so many of us carry the inner voice of “Why aren’t you?” and what it costs us
• How humor and dismissal can mask real fear and hesitation
• What it looks like to move at the pace of trust in a culture obsessed with speed
• Why safety isn’t extra—it’s the soil of true transformation
• How to rewrite the stories you were taught about resilience, performance, and growth

Seed to Carry: How were you taught to swim in discomfort? And how do you want to meet the waves now?

💌 Want to Go Deeper?

Explore 1:1 coaching, small group programs, and my weekly email series The Second Bite.

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

What if your anxiety isn’t a problem to fix—but a pattern you’ve been dancing for years?

In this episode of The Midlife Ripening Podcast, Brooke explores how anxiety often shows up as over-responsibility, perfectionism, or disappearing into busyness. Especially for women who lead, care, and carry it all.

You’ll learn five common “dances” of anxiety—like overfunctioning, distancing, and blaming—and how each one began as a strategy for safety and belonging. The invitation isn’t to shame yourself out of them, but to recognize the muscle memory—and choose a new move.

This episode is a compassionate guide to recognizing what’s alive beneath the spin… and how to begin dancing toward something more grounded, honest, and free.

What You’ll Learn

• How anxiety often hides inside leadership, caregiving, and people-pleasing
• Five “anxious dances” women learn to perform—and how they show up in midlife
• Why anxiety isn’t just internal—it’s relational and cultural
• The difference between anxiety, instinct, and inner knowing
• Gentle, practical prompts to shift your choreography—one honest moment at a time

Bookmarks

• “Anxiety isn’t just a feeling—it’s a pattern. A choreography we’ve practiced until it feels like our personality.”
• “Maybe what you’ve been calling anxiety… is actually grief. Or knowing. Or instinct.”
• “We’re not here to solve problems. We’re here to notice patterns in motion—and that work is sacred.”

Seed to carry with you 

May you meet your anxiety with more love.
May you listen long enough to hear what it’s been trying to say.
May you thank the part of you that learned to give until empty,
to vanish,
to circle the truth until it felt safe enough to land.

May you notice the old choreography as it stirs—
the urge to fix, to flee, to spin.

And may you pause.
Just long enough for something different to emerge. 

💌 Want to Go Deeper? 

Explore 1:1 coaching, small group programs, and my weekly email series The Second Bite here. 

www.brookehofsesscoaching.com

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.