Midlife Reinvention: Offer Yourself Gratitude and Grace as You Navigate Your Reinvention Journey

What happens when you lean into more gratitude in your life?

I believe it's a powerful tool that can propel our lives forward in new ways in our reinvention journey.

For one, it builds our appreciation for the little things and helps up find joy (even in challenging situations).

I like to practice gratitude all year long. But it's hard not to focus on it as we near the end of year.

Thanksgiving is all about being thankful, having gratitude and appreciating what we have in our lives.

I'm leaning in hard this year, thankful for so many things in my life. You too?

I can't wait for you to listen to this solo episode where I share:

✳️ Why gratitude is so important
✳️ What I'm most grateful for this season
✳️ Why having gratitude for our challenges is empowering
✳️ How we can offer ourselves gratitude and grace on our reinvention journey
✳️ 3 questions to help you tap into more gratitude in your life

If you're celebrating Thanksgiving, here's to a joyful weekend with time spent with those you love.

And here's to endless joy for all of us as we welcome in the holiday season.

Enjoy this episode and let's all celebrate our gratitude!

P.S. Did you check out last week's episode with the amazing Wendy Hutchinson? I love how she stopped people pleasing and kicked her perfectionist tendencies to the curb to find her authentic self. If you're a midlife woman trying to figure it out and find more joy, this is a must-listen episode!

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Midlife women ready to reinvent themselves start with being curious about what's possible. Download my free audio, 5 Questions to Spark Your Curiosity & Inspire Your Reinvention Rebel Journey to get started today. 

Transcript

Wendy: I am grateful right now to be able to take a step back, to slow down, to take stock of the year. And it reminds me that no matter what you may have experienced so far this year, good, bad, and everything in between, there is gratitude to be found in both our triumphs and our challenges. There is gratitude to be found in being able to move forward every day.

[Reinvention Rebels Theme]

Welcome to Reinvention Rebels, stories of brave and unapologetic women, 50 to 90 years young, who have boldly reimagined life on their own terms to find new purpose and possibilities. I'm your host, Wendy Battles. Ready for a dose of inspiration? Let's get to it.

Hi everybody, it's Wendy host of the Reinvention Rebels Podcast and I want to welcome you to a new episode. Happy Thanksgiving by the way, if you happen to be listening, the day that I am dropping this episode in the US, the day when we get together often with family or friends, really have a chance to celebrate togetherness, connection, and some great food too. But even if you're are somewhere else, not celebrating Thanksgiving or in another country, I welcome you. And I feel like this is the time of year that is a gateway into the holidays, and hopefully more love and light. Because it is Thanksgiving. I wanted to talk today a little bit about gratitude and grace.

Gratitude and grace both in my own life and for all of us as we think about our reinvention journey, where we are, and where we'd like to go. I often think that this time of year, when things slow down a bit, I spent so much time running around when it's warm outside, when it's nice, when it's spring, summer, and fall, we get into cooler weather, it's not my favorite season, I don't love the cold, I don't love snow, but I also see other possibilities at this time of year. And I am grateful right now to be able to take a step back, to slow down, to take stock of the year. And it reminds me that no matter what you may have experienced so far this year, good, bad, and everything in between, there is gratitude to be found in both our triumphs and our challenges. There is gratitude to be found in being able to move forward every day. And I have a few things that I'm really grateful for as I take a step back and think about this year. One, I'm grateful for my mom, you may have heard my interview with my mom, way back in April. She was 89 then, she turned 90 in September, and she's slowing down the natural aging process. And I am leaning into spending time with her in the simplest of ways going over, hanging out, doing a puzzle together, talking, having dinner, going to have tea, the little things, it literally is the little things that make a difference and I'm so all into appreciating this, so spending time with my mom I am appreciating health.

I went to the doctor recently for my squeaky arthritic knees, nothing terrible, but I'm just recognizing that it's part of the process of aging when you're in your late 50s things happen and I'm appreciating that especially because right now I have many different friends and family members that are struggling with really major health issues. The kind of things that make you pause and reflect. Though I am appreciating my squeaky knees and all those other little things because overall I'm healthy and that is not anything to be taken for granted. So, I am truly appreciating that,. I'm appreciating my amazing friends. I am blessed to have a best friend I grew up with and I met when we were 3. So, that is almost 55 years of friendship. I'm blessed to have an amazing best friend from college. And I was able to see her this year. I've been able to connect with some friends I haven't seen in a while. I had a reunion with my three closest friends from high school in July and it was jubilant. It was amazing, it was so special. I'm leaning into those moments with such deep gratitude.

And finally, I am grateful for the amazing podcast community of which I'm part. I'll start by thanking all of you amazing listeners for listening to the podcast, for getting inspired by the stories of these amazing women I interview, for leaning in and commenting and being a part of this midlife and older woman community, I'm grateful for that. And I'm also grateful for the larger idea of being part of the Indie podcast community where I learned so much on a regular basis from so many amazing people to our podcasting, growing the podcast, and figuring things out. And we're really all in it together. So those are several things that I'm grateful for as I think about this year and what's happened.

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I'm also thinking about gratitude and grace for all of us for our reinvention journeys, for what we've been doing to grow and expand. I'm appreciating and grateful for the bumps along the way. And I have a hunch you might be too. When I was younger, I was so resistant when things didn't work out, I would get upset. Why can't they just work out? And I had no appreciation for this idea that all of those things are part of our journey. And challenges, of course, come with life, but I couldn't appreciate them. And I just thought this is difficult and I don't like it. I guess that's what you think when you're 20-something or 30-something. But of course, many decades later, I have a very different perspective and I'm really leaning in, and I'm grateful for all the bumps along the way that helped me get to where I am today, to be in this place with all the right circumstances, to be able to continue to grow.

There is something to be said for offering ourselves grace and gratitude for our reinvention journey. And I have to say that sometimes we're growing in ways we didn't anticipate, or we're really proud of, or we're like, "Hey, look at me." Maybe you've said no to people because you need to say yes to yourself, maybe you've gotten clear on your boundaries in a way you never have before, maybe you're more open to change or maybe in the past you were resistant, and maybe you're working through your fears that are enabling you to step out and give that reinvention journey a feel, a try that might be two steps forward one step back sometimes, but you're still making that forward progress. So, a few questions for you. What are you most grateful for about this year? Where do you feel like you've made the most progress? What are you truly appreciating about yourself? And where have you offered yourself grace as you think about reinventing yourself?

Just a few questions to get you thinking about the idea that as we reinvent, it's an ongoing process. There are so many little moments along the way to be grateful for and it's less about that final destination, which yes is important. Yes, you have a dream. Yes, this is the way you want to reinvent yourself. But for me, it's so much of this is about what I'm learning along the way and enjoying that journey, in stead of racing through to get to that final destination, it's appreciating that journey with gratitude and grace. So, as we move into the holidays, as you think about your reinvention journey, I hope people really lean into those gratitude moments, the grace that you've shown how far you've come this year because you are amazing, you are doing this reinvention thing, you are figuring it out, appreciate how amazing you are. And we'll talk more about that next week because I've got a great episode planned for you with a really special guest. But until that time, I hope you'll continue to shower yourself with love and remember that the world needs you and all you have to offer.

Hey rebel, if this episode inspired you to think about what's possible in your life, I'll share a little secret. Any of us can reinvent ourselves no matter where we are in our lives, any age, any stage. We just have to decide to get started. Here's a super simple way for you to get going with your reinvention dreams. Download my audio, five questions to spark your curiosity and inspire your reinvention journey. I share five key questions that will spur your thinking, help you uncover your dreams, and motivate you to take action. Because if not now, when? Details in the show notes. Let's get inspired together.

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