Bloom Your Mind

Ep 130: Rad Women

• Marie McDonald

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There is a goldmine of hacks and inspiration to learn from a specific population of people living in the world right now, and this episode is all about it. 

Maybe because we grew up in the 90’s, when body image culture caused eating disorders in myself and half of the young people around me. We grew up in a world that thought it had been liberated by the movements of the 60’s and 70’s, but that hadn’t yet publicly recognized multiple systems of oppression that were/are still woven through the fabric of the culture that we lived and breathed. Some of us were eating Special K and gummy bears to stay skinny, some were people pleasing and deferring as we lived up to expectations of the patriarchal systems we ate and slept and loved in. And we thought we were free, back then. 

But wait until you see us now. 

There is a generation of women who are more uniquely powerful, free, open and joyful than any one population of people that I’ve experienced before. And it’s the women who are exploring the middle decades of their life. They are owning hormonal and identity changes. They are collaborating and inspiring one another rather than competing and judging. And they are bringing unprecedented levels of joy and connection to the space they are in. 

What you’re learn in today’s episode: 

  • How finding a group of people going through the same moment of life can be the most empowering thing you can do 
  • The qualities that middle decade women are bringing to life in this culture, and why it’s such good medicine 
  • Why walking away from a conversation and listening deeply both come from the same well of confidence 
  • How connection over competition, and inspiration over judgement leads to deep connections and belonging 
  • Why hormonal changes are relevant for everyone to know and talk about 

Referenced on this podcast: 

How to connect with Marie:

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We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Bloom your Mind Podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified Coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to episode number 130 of the Bloom your Mind podcast, where we're going to talk about one of my favorite current things in the world, which are big women, women who are living, big women who are doing the big life that they have in mind. Because I've had these two experiences lately with these groups of women that were so spectacular to me, really breathtaking to me, and I noticed some things about them that are qualities that I think we all strive for and that are qualities that have kind of created a little secret code to this generation of women and kind of show what is so special about them and what is so free and powerful about them. So I'm going to share that today. But first it's about to be summer over here in the McDonald House and you know, if you've listened to this podcast for a while, that every summer we create a bucket list, we have a chalkboard and we all gather around and list on the bucket list all the things that we want to do over the summer, and so that might be like ride a horse, go to Montana, see a specific friend. It also might be like eat penne pasta, you know, find a butterfly. Anything that is an experience that we want to have goes on the list. Now, this is your annual reminder. That is bucket list time, because the bucket list is so fun. And also we were talking about it in the bloom room and had a pretty funny discussion about how one fabulous member of the bloom room made her bucket list, but it was all about the things she needed to do over the summer, so like areas of the house to declutter and that kind of thing. And we talked about the difference between that bucket list and a family bucket list. That's like up in the house on a chalkboard that's co-created and that it doesn't matter what you get done on it and what you don't. Of course, the game is to do everything on the bucket list, but there is no consequence if you don't do everything on the bucket list. It is a thing where every time you it's an inspiration right, where every time you do one of those things, you cross it off and see what's left, and every time you're like, what do we do cross it off and see what's left, and every time you're like what do we do with ourselves today? Or the kids are like I'm bored. You look at the list what should we do? And you get inspiration from the list for the things and experiences that you're going to have over the summer. So she was like I'm going back to the drawing board with my list, and we also decided that she could treat her decluttering list like the bucket list as inspiration for what to get done, but also there's no problem if she doesn't get it all done over the summer. That was pretty fun.

Speaker 1:

And then another thing that happened in the bloom room that I thought might be fun for you all to hear about is we are doing time whispering people in the bloom room. My courses that are available for purchase to the outside world are always free to the bloom room group, and so the time whispering course is something that they're all kind of going through together and asking questions about. And in that course, if you've heard the podcast about time whispering, that's kind of a sneak peek into some of the content, the course. If you've heard the podcast about time whispering, that's kind of a sneak peek into some of the content. The course has, you know, instructions and screenshots and templates to use.

Speaker 1:

But one of them was doing his weekly review and in his weekly review he showed it to us and it said prep morning reading. And I said what is this? And he said, oh yeah, I like to read something inspiring every day. So on my weekly review, when I'm planning my week, I'm going to plan something relevant to the week. That's going to be short, little snippets of inspiration or something to get me into the feeling state or the mindset that I want to be in this week. And I was like you're a genius, I love it. So maybe you want to prep your morning reading, maybe you want to do some morning reading, maybe you don't want to prep it but you want to do it. Maybe you want to prep it and do it. I don't know, but may you take that suggestion with you. Maybe you're going to add prep morning reading to your summer bucket list. Whatever you do, I hope that you enjoy it. All right.

Speaker 1:

So, big women, I went to two separate events lately. One was a camping trip that I told you about. That was in April, I believe. So a few, you know, quite a few episodes ago and because it's June right now, maybe you're listening to this at a wildly different time of the year, but it's a few months later. A couple months later and I was surrounded by a group of women during that trip and a different group of women this past weekend at a friend's annual 50th birthday party. How fun is that? First of all, that she's decided last year she had a 50th birthday party and we had a blast. First of all, that she's decided last year she had a 50th birthday party and we had a blast. And so she said let's do this every year. So she said we're going to have an annual 50th birthday party, and just that concept is emblematic of the things that I'm going to describe to you, that I have found so significantly powerful and free about these women that I've been around lately.

Speaker 1:

So these women spanned a few decades of life, with a large concentration of them being in their forties or some of them in their early fifties, but most of them in their forties and a lot of them in their thirties and some in their twenties, most in thirties and forties, and the ones in their forties, a lot of them are in perimenopause, which, if you don't know, can last for 10 years or more, I don't know, but it's about 10 years and can have all kinds of wild symptoms, and we are living in an age where it's starting to get normalized to talk about the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, which to me, is bananas that this hasn't been talked about before but, of course, is very you know, not surprising when we think about the patriarchal structure of our society and our history of our society, our history. So right now we can talk about those things. But what I noticed in both of these groups was that being in a group of women that was talking about that journey through the end of your cycle, this like hormonal change that women go through, that is sort of a new thing to talk about in such a normalized way. Right, we haven't really had this much information about it before, and if you're never going to go through menopause, please keep listening, because this is all about the big women in your life and it's not only specifically about menopause. And so one of the things that was so amazing about it is that any time in the first group, the camping group, anybody was having a conversation about this age of our life, about the years between 30 and 50, or 30 and 55, whatever, and the hormonal changes that happen, the identity changes that happen when your children are no longer little, if you have children, if you don't have children, watching the people around you, the families around you, change and for yourself, the changes that you go through, based on just the identity of this different decade and being in this middle passage of life work changes, if you work, relationship changes. You know all these different things that happen.

Speaker 1:

After we've passed the story of the foundational, I like to think of, like you know, the 10s, 20s, 30s to mid 30s as, like we're creating this foundation for our life. Where are we going to live? Are we going to get married or not? Are we going to have kids or not? Are we going to travel or not? What are we going to do for a living? And then you move into this now, what right? This next phase where, like most of the big foundational decisions are done. So now you just get to like, be in the world and express yourself and play.

Speaker 1:

And during the next, you know, sometime after that, 10, 15, 20 years after that, for women, we go through menopause and we go through a huge second change. And for me, what it reminded me of on this camping trip, because every time someone talked about what they were learning about hormone changes or longevity for the men that were there too, people identified as men too there was like or people born as men people were talking about longevity practices and all the things we're learning about. Anytime someone started a conversation about that, other people that were not in the conversation would pause what they were doing and come over to listen, be like I want to be a part of this, I want to learn about this, and it happened over and over again and it reminded me about when I was a new mom, right after I had my daughter, and there was so much confusing stuff happening and whether it was actually confusing or just new, it was all just like what my body was changing, my world was changing, my sleep was changing, my whole sense of my compass was changing for my life right and starting to point at this little human and about a family, towards a family unit rather than just towards myself. And I remember anytime I was around other groups of other young moms that were talking about what was changing in their body how to solve a problem, sleep, training, nursing, like anything. How do you work with a kid? What is childcare like? How do you get in summer camps, like, how do you find a sitter? All these mysteries that there's not really a training camp for. Everyone would stop and go, listen and ask questions. We all wanted to know and it was so beautiful to go through the process with other people that were in that moment of life and share what was working for us and share the differences and be there for each other.

Speaker 1:

And this is happening again now in these tribes of women who are here experiencing changes in our bodies and our lives and our identities and our children and our work and our communities, these changes in these middle decades of life. It's so empowering and beautiful to be a part of these conversations because the women are breathtaking. I am truly floored with the women that I am around that are in these middle stages of life. They are wildly unapologetic, they are powerful and they have exhibit this freedom. That is really something I haven't seen collectively in a group before, unless they're like teenagers that think they're going to live forever, you know, but groups of adults. There's a joy for life, there's a confidence. It's really amazing and one philosophy that I have is maybe because we all grew up in this time where it was like the semblance of the real conservatism of the 50s, you know, was like over and the 60s had happened and maybe we all thought we were free and we were liberated had happened, and maybe we all thought we were free and we were liberated and in reality, when I was a teenager, you were pressured to be like 90 pounds, we were all anorexic, nobody ate anything.

Speaker 1:

You were supposed to be skinny as a stick. There was so much body shaming and we were inside a patriarchal structure, societal structure that wasn't named yet, it hadn't been called out yet. So there's all this constriction on us as young women, and what I'm seeing right now is as the society that we're living in is opening up this conversation about hormones and normalizing hormones and normalizing the wild things that your body goes through that are just like you're by yourself, and these things are happening to you as a woman and you are expected to continue just functioning. There's no excuse of like being to continue to function according to all of the metrics for women's success as you're going through these huge hormonal changes. Now there's a conversation about that. There's a like, uh-uh, I ain't doing that. This is what I'm going through, and body shaming is like out man. Body shaming is like out man.

Speaker 1:

We are in not only body positive culture, but more of a body neutral culture. Where we're in, like not defined by our bodies, there's a lot I mean a lot of conversation and what it feels like to be in it and what it takes to break those internalized systems of oppression. So, as this group of women that is now in our middle decades of our life, we are being like liberated by these normalized conversations about these things, and it is awesome to watch and to be in the middle of this tribe of women. It's wild because it's like this bottled up passion and freedom that's just getting uncorked in these women around me. And so here are some of the things that they can inspire us. This group of women can inspire us, these characteristics that inspire us to be and pursue and become in ourselves, and characteristics that I think are aspirational. You know for myself, definitely this is how I want to live. It's good living to be these ways, and I'm seeing them more often in this population of people women in the middle decades of their life right now, than in anybody else, and how badass is that? All right.

Speaker 1:

So, number one, they are owning it, owning imperfections, owning their body in whatever state their body has been in, owning whatever things they're needing to do to acclimate to what their body needs. Owning what they want to wear, owning how they want to wear their hair, and owning what they want to say and what they want to do. There's this self-possession and, followed by this complete lack of apology. They do not apologize for their story. They don't apologize for where they've been or where they're going. This is this quality that I'm experiencing over and over and over again. They're not apologizing about what they do for a living, about what they don't do for a living. They share their stories so openly and what you can see is a total congruence between their words and their body language. And if you listen to the last podcast and learn about that, you can hear about how 93% of our communication is nonverbal and that when we are verbally in congruence with what we are thinking and feeling, then our body language comes across as authentic. We come across as thinking and feeling. Then our body language comes across as authentic. We come across as authentic because our words and our body are saying the same thing.

Speaker 1:

These women have that congruence, they are owning it and they are not apologetic. They are not shrinking, they are not trying to hide as they talk about who they are, and it's spectacular. Another thing they do is they walk away. When they're not interested, they just straight up leave. It's like if they're in a group or a conversation or an experience that they don't want to be in, they walk away. That's a hell. No, that's a. I'm out. I'm not spending the moments of my life doing this thing right now, because there aren't an infinite number of those moments. I'm not into this anymore. And they do it kindly. A lot of them do it with humor, they're just like I'll see you later. You know, there's no judgment, they're just not here for it. And we again, we have been, you know, socialized to sit and nod when we want to leave, to stay, so no one gets their feelings hurt. To be polite, and I feel like there's this moment that we're in this set of women that's like oh yeah, I was doing that, I ain't doing that anymore and it's really fun to watch them walk away.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that I love about this age, this set, is that they listen so well. They are the best active listeners. They listen intently for as long as they want to. They are not threatened by another person's story. They're not threatened by another person taking up space. If they're curious, they ask follow-up questions. They ask follow-up questions and comment on the whole experience without turning it around to be it about themselves. They don't offer advice unless it's solicited or they check in to ask first if they can offer advice. They're not self-referential. They don't interrupt each other or cut each other off unless they're like having a wild good time, and then they do. But for the most part they're so aware about creating space for one another and it is so refreshing and magnificent.

Speaker 1:

A couple other things they know that I guess there's this sense of presence and gratitude. It's like right now is as good as it gets. There's just a sense of awareness that we are in a precious life, a sense of presence that is just really wonderful and along with that, this fearlessness and this joy. I see them in these events expressing themselves wildly, but not too wildly, like not for anybody else's sake, just for themselves, and leaving when they want to leave right, leave the whole leaving. When they want to leave right, leave the whole event when they want to leave, not just the conversation and having so much joy in the experience that they are having.

Speaker 1:

And you know, the last thing that I want to say about this group is they are not threatened by one another. They are empowered by being connected to others that are like them and to learn about anyone that's different. Instead of looking at one another through a lens of competition, they look at one another through a lens of inspiration. If there's something about another woman that is spectacular, I want to learn about it, I want to know, I want to talk to her, I want to take that on for myself, because when I look at her and I see something I admire, it's a mirror of myself, of something that's in me, instead of looking at someone else and seeing something spectacular and being threatened by it. They're not confused by that hierarchical thinking. They're inspired by each other's power and joy and fearlessness and presence.

Speaker 1:

And, of course, all of these beautiful things that I'm saying. They are thematic. Nobody's perfect, nobody's. It's not like no one's ever interrupting each other, of course, but these are these thematic things that I am seeing resonant in woman after woman after woman that I meet. They're like a collective set of characteristics that I'm just so enjoying the other thing that I want to just say before I close out here.

Speaker 1:

I want to say two more things One about finding your group, which I'll get to, and the other one is going back to the hormone conversation. I just want to say that, as a woman who is in one of these mid-decades of life, it has been so cool to talk about this stuff to my kids, to talk about hormones, because my kids are 9 and 12. They're going through hormonal changes too. So to normalize in our home that we're all going through hormonal shifts and I'm sure our dad is in ways that are not named and discovered yet either right, and so it has opened up these conversations about when you feel sad and you don't know why, that's okay. We don't have to know why. When you feel anxious or when you're a little snippy, we even have a safe word for each other. If one of us is a little snippy or impatient, we can say the word cactus and the others. It just is a little signal. Oh, I'm being a little prickly right now, let me check myself. We call each other in because we know we're supporting one another. It also is an opening in the moments when we are feeling like that.

Speaker 1:

I had a moment the other day when somebody was feeling anxiety and feeling sad, really sad, and didn't know why. So we used a practice from the new book by Martha Beck that I've been listening to and it is just so cool and it's called Beyond Anxiety, and in one of the chapters she gives a process for a tool to use where, if you're feeling really anxious or you're feeling a strong negative feeling, you think about three things that you love to see and to look at. I can't really remember which one. She says three or five, but we went three. So three things that you love to look at and imagine looking at them, actually do it. So we'll do that together.

Speaker 1:

And then three things that you love to smell, three of your favorite things that you love to smell. And then we imagine smelling them. And then three things that you love to taste and we giggle and we all share what we love to taste, or the person who's feeling the big feelings shares what they love to taste. We imagine tasting them. And then three things that you love to hear and imagine it. And three things that you love to touch and imagine it.

Speaker 1:

And then the last part of this, after you take the time to go through those 15 things is to create an imaginary scenario where you're experiencing all of them at once, or at least one from each category, and then you actually imagine being there, experiencing that and in the moments when we've applied that, the anxiety or the sadness goes away because it can't really be present in the presence of that experience of joy and happiness.

Speaker 1:

But I don't know if I would have known to use that tool if the person hadn't come to me and shared how they were feeling, because they knew there was permission to do that, because we don't have to be perfect and we're here for each other.

Speaker 1:

In our highs and our lows we're all going through changes, changes are always happening, and so the permission to talk about those hormones came from being in the society at this time right, because I know about hormones now, because the information is available and I constantly am being inspired by the women around me in these middle stages of life that are normalizing all of these discussions and creating so much big beauty and bold healing in the world.

Speaker 1:

So my invitation for you today is to find your group that helps you remember that you're not alone, that they're right there beside you walking this same path or their own parallel path, because we can hold space for one another. As we walk side by side, we can remember we're not alone. We can find our people and if you need some people, come into the Bloom Room. We got you. That's what I've got for you this to come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. I'll see you in the bloom room.