Twisting the Plot

On this week’s podcast, we speak with Darcey Steinke, author of Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life. When menopause hit, she set out on a quest to better understand what was happening to her body and her identity as a woman.  The result is an extraordinary memoir that is more than personal.  It is a cultural quest to examine menopause through the lens of science, history, animal nature, and supernatural and patriarchal systems of belief.  For Darcey, hot flashes became a conduit to self-discovery.  Perhaps menopause is more than just a cluster of symptoms, but rather something vast and deep for us to experience.

Darcey is also the author of Easter Everywhere and five novels: Sister Golden Hair, Milk, Jesus Saves, Suicide Blonde, and Up Through the Water.

https://www.darceysteinke.com/index.html

Flash Count Diary is available on Amazon or at your local book store.

Early on in her corporate career Lorraine McCamley was identified as an introvert.  She thought she had to overcome this tendency in order to excel as a leader.  Eventually she realized that stereotypes don’t serve anyone.  Lorraine cultivated her own unique talents and strengths.   She discovered that there are many ways to have a voice, to be heard and to lead others.  Now she helps other quiet professionals become successful leaders.  She is a coach and the author of a new book, Boldly Quiet.  Listen as Lorraine enlightens us with her Boldy Quiet Manifesto, a pronouncement for all introverts who are leaders and leaders who are introverts.

https://boldlyquiet.com

https://boldlyquiet.com/boldly-quiet-book/

On this week’s podcast, we speak with Wilma Nachsin and Arlene Wanetick co-founders of Life Working, a company that guides the process of career and job change. Arlene and Wilma believe in next chapters.  They invite us to imagine the difference that a new outlook on life, career or even just a new resume can make. They also share their own stories about what it’s like to start a business as women in their sixties.  Crazy, right?

https://lifeworking.com

At the end of our last podcast Ingrid Helander told us she had a story to share. Well, we never pass up a good story. So we brought her back.  Listen, as Ingrid tells us of a message she received in the night and learn how it set her on a mysterious new path.

https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com

https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/calm-your-worries/

Does it sometimes feel like your brain has been hijacked by a worry machine? On this week’s podcast we get help from Ingrid Helander, psychotherapist and author of CALM YOUR WORRIES: Unlock You Secret Code to Lasting Stress Relief and Self-Confidence. Ingrid gives us a new ways to understand our worries, and she helps with tips on how to relax and ease our nerves.

https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com

https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/calm-your-worries/

This week, we had the distinct pleasure to speak with Ashton Applewhite, activist and author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.  In this podcast, we engage in aconsciousness raising conversation about aging and the other implicit biases in our culture.  Applewhite asserts: “When we work against any form of oppression, we chip away at the fear and ignorance that underlie them all.” Please join us.  Listen to this inspirational activist on the front lines of changing how we look at aging.  It’s a conversation that’s right for today, a plot twist for all of us.  

Thischairrocks.com

Oldschool.info

This week Carrie Skowronski talks to us about personal strengths, how to identify yours, and how to lead with them.  Carrie is an executive coach and the founder of Leadology.  She gives companies tools to build stronger leaders, and create positive, passionate workplaces.  Carrie is masterful at helping us understand our own strengths and shows us ways we can put them into action. She also says, “strengths never leave us, instead they ripen.”  And that’s good news for all of us.

https://www.getleadology.com

There are many ways to change our mindset and get beyond our limitations.  But this week is quite the twist. Lottie Moore talks to us to her from her home in Oxfordshire, England.  At midlife, a low point in her life, Lottie picked up and moved to West Africa as part of a volunteer program. It was a leap.  But it put her on a path of self-discovery and adventure.  Now, she helps other mid-lifers take leaps into the extraordinary. She coaches while summiting the highest peaks in the world, creates fire rituals, trains firewalkers and encourages us all to walk paths less traveled.  Lottie’s mission is to help us all find personal freedom, success, adventure and inner peace.  She’s a lot of fun too.   

https://lottiemoore.co.uk

https://mindsetmetaphors.com

This week we sat down with a true powerhouse, Indrani Goradia.  Indrani is a philanthropist and advocate for women’s health and empowerment.  As a victim of severe childhood abuse, she created Indrani’s Light Foundation, an organization committed to caring for survivors of domestic violence.  Her mission is to stop generational abuse and empower women to change their lives.  With her warmth, humor and honesty, Indrani shares with us how she felt lost and unsure of her purpose in midlife when she was asked a simple question:  “What can only you do?”  This question and her answer startedher on a path that includes a TED Talk, a partnership with the global health organization PSI, an address to the World Women’s Health and Development Forum at the United Nations and a life filled with meaningful direction.

http://indranislight.org

TedX

Talk Indrani Goradia addresses the United Nations

This week we sat down with a real twister, V.C. Chickering.  She is the author of Twisted Family Values, a novel that spans fifty years and four generations, spinning a tale of privilege, dysfunction, family ties, and social taboo.  In V.C.’s books, and in her life, there are more than a few plot twists.  V.C. talks about the many roles she has played throughout her own life and shares how creativity and play have always been her main guides.  You don’t grow up in a home with a rotating mirror ball over the dining room table and not know how to play.  

Books:

“Twisted Family Values” by V.C. Chickering on Amazon

“Nookietown” by V.C. Chickering on Amazon

More V.C. Chickering:

http://www.vcchickering.com/

V.C. Chickering on Facebook

V.C. Chickering on Instagram

V.C. Chickering on Twitter

Tori Erstwhile & The Montys:

Tori Erstwhile & The Montys on Youtube 

Tori Erstwhile & The Montys on Facebook