44. When the Fog Lifts: Midlife Clarity (Jules Solo Mini-Series Ep 2)

Are you using your busy schedule as an excuse to avoid the hard questions? In this episode, Julee flies solo to kick off The Spicy Awakening series with step one: Seeing Your Life Clearly.

It's time to take an honest inventory of your life. We dive into the trap of over-functioning, carrying the emotional labor for everyone around you, and how "keeping busy" prevents us from growing. Julee shares a candid dating story about recognizing a one-sided relationship—where the physical connection was great, but the emotional return was zero—and why she chose to protect her peace and walk away.

We challenge you to audit your relationships this week: Who energizes you? Who drains you? Are you feeling appreciated or invisible? It's not selfish to notice these imbalances; it's the foundation of your awakening.

Watch the full video version on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Spicymidlifewomen-jandm

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Are you ready to take your "spiciness" to the next level?! 

Connect with Julee & Michele on Instagram @spicy_midlife_women and send a DM about what resonated most during this episode so they can encourage you with steps forward in your own life. 

Transcript

Welcome And Series Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey all you spicy ladies out there. Welcome back to the Spicy Midlife Women Podcast, where we are on a mini-series of six episodes that are all about the spicy awakening. And to recap last week, uh the first one in this series, we talked about the midlife wake-up call. And during that time, I also mentioned that Michelle, who is my spicy sidekick, she is dealing with some family issues and she is kind of out for a few weeks. And so we decided to put this series in here to talk about some of the things that we really talk about all the time, which is about awakening yourself, learning who you are again, and really trying to own your life. And the series really kind of goes into all of that in different segments. So I really hope you enjoy it. This particular one, um, of course, I did an acronym for SPICY. The first episode of this is see your life clearly. That is what we're going to be talking about today. And fair warning, ladies, this step can be a tiny bit uncomfortable. And I think as women, we avoid these steps sometimes because not necessarily that we're trying to avoid things, but it takes time to think about things and really kind of develop an opinion about different things. And we're freaking busy. We are busy with families, we're busy with jobs, we're busy with kids, we're busy with our significant others. And, you know, there's not a lot of time left sometimes for the stuff that really kind of makes us who we are. At least in this midlife timeframe, we're gonna try to really rejuvenate that and get you back on track and really become that spicy woman that you know that you own inside. So when I started talking about things feeling a little uncomfortable, you guys, I don't know, maybe you've heard that saying about life begins at the end of your comfort zone. And when you grow is really when you're uncomfortable. The only time you're growing really is when you're uncomfortable, when you're complacent or when you're just kind of going through the motions, you're not growing. You're just kind of in a stagnant stage. So what I'm trying to do here and what I'm doing for myself too, Michelle's obviously going through some of this right now herself, is really kind of opening that curtain and looking at it a little bit more closely, you know, looking at our lives and really taking a good inventory of the things that we love and the things that we know we could do a lot better that's gonna make us happier, that's gonna make us really feel more fulfilled. And that's really what it's all about. So, you know, when you're busy holding the whole circus together, or as I've said many times, like all the plates in the air, you guys have heard about that when you're juggling so many different things. Do you really stop and ask yourself, is this what I want? Is this working for me? Is this something that I want to continue to the foreseeable future? And if the answer to that is a pause and or uh a hell no, then you know that there's some changes you got to make. And the thing is, is that we're gonna evolve and make changes throughout our whole life. We are going to. It's that's inevitable. If we don't, we are stuck in a place that will always be, and that doesn't sound very good either. But as we're evolving, it's like we want to put ourselves in a position where we know there's gonna be uncomfortable stuff. We know people are gonna reject any kind of transitions that we have uh made or are wanting to make because it makes them uncomfortable. But it's important that we give ourselves the opportunity to do that stage. So I mentioned the word busy before. I hear my mom say that all the time. You guys are so busy because you know, we don't have the time necessarily to come over all the time when she wants us to or to do all of the things that she would like us to do. Honestly, you guys probably have moms like this too. They would rather have you just move in and, you know, be with them all the time. I'm probably gonna be that way with my daughter too at some point. No, I probably won't. Nah, I probably will. Anyway, but I really think that being busy sometimes is a way that we can avoid some of the hard questions. And I can speak from experience on this because I have always been in a position where I'm busy, you know, I've got myself moving, I'm doing something, I'm taking care of something, I'm fixing something around the house, handling something for someone else, whatever the case may be. You guys all do it too. But I've found that when I have downtime or when I have silence or not a task or quite quote, my to-do list isn't that long, I start finding things to put on there. Because if I don't do that, that forces me into a position where I have to start thinking about things that I might not want to think about. And we all have them. I would say I've forced myself to do that more in the last few years by meditating, by taking long walks on my own, just things like that where it's put me in a place where I have the ability to think thoroughly through different things that are bothering me or that I have to try to deal with, or that I have to convey, you know, in a way to where I want to make sure my message gets across. Whatever it is, it's like I feel like we sometimes don't give ourselves the opportunity to do that because staying busy is way easier. I can even remember being married, you know, and I was busy. When I was busy, I didn't have to deal with any of the shit that was going on at home, you know, or with my relationship. I was, quote, busy. And that meant my attention was going in a different direction. The eye contact wasn't where it needed to be. It was not good, you guys. That was not good. And I recognized that it wasn't good, but dealing with the things in front of me were way the fuck harder. And I I was scared. So I just didn't deal with them. And finally, obviously, I did, but it gets to the point where maybe it wouldn't have had to be that way. So, anyway, just a thought that I'm placing on that from my own personal experience, because I don't care what any of you say, we all do it. We all do it. And it might be just because you want to avoid something uncomfortable. And that's a question you need to ask yourself. Midlife, for those of you that are experiencing some of the changes that you're starting to experience, has a funny way of kind of slowing things down and giving you the ability to have the time. And then you realize, gosh, you know, I start noticing things. I start noticing things like, for example, friendships. It's like, am I the one putting all the effort into this friendship but not receiving anything in return? There's no reciprocity. Not that you're expecting something in return, but why am I the one that always has to be setting things up? Uh, for example, um, are you the emotional support person in a relationship? Are you the person that's always getting, you know, the conversations about the other person and you just listen? And is there ever any questions or conversation that is about anything going on in your life? That's a question that you could ask yourself as well. Do certain conversations leave you feeling drained and without energy? There's people out there that suck the fucking life out of you. And for God's sake, it can be your family. That's the funny part about it. Um, because those are the ones that we're around a lot of the time. And, you know, a lot of you out there may have chosen to eliminate some of those friendships, eliminate some of those relationships from your life, whether it be friends, whether it be a family member, which is a little tougher, whether it be a significant other, we've chosen to remove those people from our lives. And all of a sudden, we feel like we can breathe again. We feel like, oh my gosh, I'm starting to see myself come through this again. I can give you an example. Recently I was dating somebody, and it was pretty obvious it probably wasn't gonna go anywhere long term, but what the heck? I gave it a shot anyway. And I realized just through the just the thought process, just thinking through like the different conversations that we had had or the different things that I was doing, that I was in like a people-pleasing mode. I was in a mode where I was not receiving anything from this relationship but sex. But that's beside the point, which was good. But that's beside the point too. My point being is that I was not receiving anything for my heart. I wasn't receiving anything that made me feel like there was value in the relationship at all. It was all about him. It was a very, very one-sided, very short, mind you, but very one-sided type of relationship because everything kind of revolved around him. And it took me a little while to figure some of those things out. But what I found is that I started to see these little seeds of resentment creeping in to some of the things that I was doing or that I was saying. And boy, oh boy, did that bring me back to some memories that I had had before. And I'm like, no fucking way, I'm not doing this again. And that was the end of it. So it was great until it wasn't, right? But what I learned from that was that you have to put yourself in a position where you have the energy returned to you that you deserve. And if you don't, then you end up in these relationships that are very cyclical, end up losing yourself. So that's what's happened with a lot of us over time. Um, this is just one example from my own life that I'm sharing with you guys. And of course, there's plenty probably out there, but at the same time, it's like it was a very eye-opening experience for me. And even in midlife, you have to constantly be reminding yourself where you put your energy, that you protect it, frankly, that you protect your energy because if you don't protect it, nobody else is going to. And it really puts you in a position where you start thinking about, you know, I need to put off. Okay, I'm gonna stop right there. Stop with that last one. I think I'm done with that whole thing. Okay. So in midlife, too, the relationship dynamics that we have beyond beyond romantic relationships, just relationships in general, are put maybe through a fresh set of eyes. Like I was just explaining with that story I was giving you. It's like we've all been in relationships, friendships, whatever, throughout the years that we knew something didn't feel right with, but didn't necessarily do anything about. I think what midlife gives you is that experience and that knowledge to maybe identify and understand things a little bit differently. And so you're not always going to be coming at it from the perspective of like, what does everybody else need? And I know people think that this next thing is gonna sound a little selfish, but uh really it's like asking yourself what you need. We are so conditioned not to ask for what we need. And when we do ask for what we need, I think we take people back. We kind of go, whoa, that was kind of a selfish thing to say. But you know what? It's like if you don't ask for it, who's going to? So that's really kind of how I look at it anyway. Um, the other way to look at it might be how do I feel? How do I feel, or how does it feel to be me in this particular type of relationship? You might notice that you are overfunctioning. You might notice, like I told you before, that you're people pleasing. You might notice that you are carrying the emotional labor of whatever that relationship is. You're taking it on. And we have a tendency to do that because we're strong and because we can multitask and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We have a tendency to do that. But that's exactly where we get lost, you know, especially if it's something that is happening over the course of time because people start expecting that from you. So, one little thing that I wanted to share with you on that is being supportive of the people around us that we love and the things that we're doing is healthy. But when we start utilizing all of our support for everyone else and not for us, it becomes exhausting. And there becomes a moment where there is potentially resentment that starts feeding in. And I think resentment is probably one of the biggest relationship killers that will be out there, whether it be a romantic one, family one, whatever, it doesn't matter. Resentment is a very, very evil seed that can fester and build and build and build because you don't talk about it. And uh it turns into something really bad. So just something to think about there. So here's one of the simple questions that you can ask yourself. Where in my life do I feel energized? And where in my life do I feel drained? And if you can answer those two questions, then you know some of the things that you need to really be able to work on and where you need to be able to put more of your attention toward. Because we all want to feel energized, we all want to feel supported, we all want to feel loved, but we also don't want to feel exhausted all the time. And we don't want to feel like we have to be everybody's answer person or caretaker, you know, or anything all the time. I mean, it's natural that we are that way to some degree, but as you get older, you really start looking at it differently. You know, you're still gonna be a caretaker, you're still gonna love the people that are around you, but it's okay to be a little bit, quote, selfish and take care of yourself. And damn it, don't let anybody tell you otherwise. So here is the spicy truth, ladies. I talked a little bit before about that selfish word. It's like a four-letter word, but it has more than four letters. It's like a lot of women have been raised to believe that noticing imbalances in life, in relationships, in the world around us, some things we can we can impact, other things we have no control over, but just noticing them sometimes makes us selfish, appear selfish is maybe a better way to put it. But awareness, you guys, is not selfish. It's honest. And honesty is the foundation for any healthy relationship, even the one you have with yourself. So I have a spicy challenge. So this week's spicy challenge is really simple. You don't have to really do anything. If you want to write the stuff down or make a little note in your phone or something, that would be great. But I want you to just start noticing the interactions that you have with other people. Do they feel kind of one-sided or do they feel that you walk away from them drained? Are you automatically saying yes when you need to really think about what you're doing and perhaps say no? You know, maybe taking too many things on your plate, for example. It's okay to say no. Where do you feel appreciated? Do you feel appreciated by the people that are around you, by your loved ones, by your boyfriend, by your girlfriend, by your husband? Do you feel appreciated by them? And uh, do you feel invisible? Do you feel invisible around those people? Or do you feel like maybe your input doesn't matter? So those are all questions I want you to kind of ponder this week as we're going through finishing up this episode and everything and see what you should come up with. DM me. Let me know what your thoughts are. I would love to hear them. So that's it for this episode this week, you guys. Please know we are on all the socials. We're on YouTube, TikTok, we're on Instagram, and Facebook. We would love to hear from you if you have any feedback or anything on this episode or want to share your thoughts with me. I would love to hear you. And until next week, please stay spicy and I'll talk to you later. Peace out.