Twisting the Plot

This week’s podcast guest, Ezsti Roemer shares how seven years ago she was living her life, taking care of her children, seeing her friends, and enjoying her husband, when her mother had a sudden and unexpected stroke.  In a moment’s time the self-sufficient mother that Eszti counted on for her entire life, was gone.  The mother that remained, needed Eszti for constant support.  Eszti showed up for the challenge.  But she lost herself along the way.  She shares her story, her regrets, and her insights with us.  

The curious mindset puts us in wonder and keeps us out of catastrophic predicting.  By being curious we also stay out of stuck, rote experiencing.  We see things differently, notice new things about those we love, and feel more alive.  Make this twist: choose awe over automatic.  It makes life so much more interesting.

Late one night, Lilly’s Muse gave her a shove and woke her up to make art.  So she dove into her ancestral energy, conjured up her feminine power and started to sing.  And howl.  For Lillian Cataldi, the chapter beyond raising children, caretaking aging parents, and working to live, is a wild one.  Lilly embraces her Crone power, listens closely to her inner voice, and is having a blast becoming the next version of herself.  Listen to our conversation with Lilly and hear a recording of her song, Vigilante Momma at the end of the show.  

You can follow Lilly on Instagram @lillycataldi 

Listen to Vigilante Momma on SoundCloud

Jane Emmer is making some big shifts.  She is leaving a full time job as a school director to go out on her own.  

She is entering the world of the social entrepreneur.

It’s a big move.  

For decades Jane has assisted children, teens, and young adults in understanding and improving their executive functioning skills.  She helps students get organized, focus their attention, and sharpen their capacity to take in information and learn.  

Now she is planning to hone her years of knowledge, research and wisdom and share it with others eager to help children learn and grow.  She is going to create dynamic, interactive workshops for teachers and administrators.  

Jane is stepping into a new role, a new kind of leadership, and she is eager for the energy that comes from starting something new.  

She joined 12 in 12 to grow community, be inspired, get pushed when needed, and find support.

We are excited for her.

And we’ll will keep you posted.

Starting over or starting up isn’t easy but when you work with Andrea Minkow, things seem possible. She helps women start second career businesses and she makes sure they start strong.  Andrea is a master in getting women to own their expertise, confront fear, be creative, and do the hard stuff. She is an invaluable source of energy and has spot-on advice. Listen in as she teaches us how to stop comparing ourselves to others and avoid the perils of the “cool girl swirl.“

https://andreaminkow.com

Why do we resist change as we get older?  It’s not going to stop, no matter how hard we dig in.  Instead, we can embrace change like the artist, creators and evolvers that we are.  Here’s a creative action for all of you.  Take an object, something, anything static.  Disrupt it.  Destroy it.  And then… make something new of it.  Life is a mosaic.   Be an active work of art. Send us a description and a photo of your creation [email protected] so we can share it and twist our plots together.  It’s not easy, but we persist, creatively.

On this week’s podcast, we speak with the wise and funny Stephanie Krikorian, author of Zen Bender: A Decade-Long Enthusiastic Quest to Fix Everything (That Was Never Broken).  Stephanie had been a successful news producer when she found herself facing a major life twist. In the effort to reinvent herself, she started ghostwriting books for self-help experts. This new career led to a curiosity about all facets of self-help and quickly spiraled into a decade-long quest to fix everything there was to fix about her life. Then, one day, she realized that her efforts to self-improve were keeping her from the one thing that mattered most - herself.

http://stephaniekrikorian.com

Today we expand the conversation to consider gender and inclusivity.  We ask ourselves: who gets left out by the binaries we set?   Psychotherapist Navah Steiner joins us and shares her thoughts about why we should slow down, listen better to each other, and take in other ways to be.  Navah, who identifies as genderqueer, shares the experience of finding liberation and joy by living truthfully and aligned.  Navah helps us move beyond our gendered assumptions and embrace the value in learning and growing from each other.  “We don’t liberate ourselves in isolation, we are interconnected and influence each other… none of us can do it alone.”  Navah’s twists enlighten us all.  

https://www.navahsteinerlcat.com