135. Go deeper to create the best year yet

Do you feel like the start of a new year is pressuring you into making big, sweeping changes you’re just not up for? Maybe the goals that used to excite you now feel heavy—or even irrelevant. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. In this warm and honest solo episode, I’m sharing a more compassionate, curiosity-led approach to growth in midlife—one that doesn’t demand radical reinvention, but instead invites deep self-understanding.

Let’s shift from striving to softening, and from pressure to presence. This episode is all about learning to listen to ourselves, make space for what matters, and give ourselves permission to do things differently this year.

In this episode:

• Why traditional goal-setting may not feel motivating in midlife
• The wisdom in letting go of “shoulds” and tuning into your nervous system
• A personal story of aging pets, clutter, and finding grace amidst the chaos
• Why getting curious is more powerful than creating a rigid plan
• Using your camera roll as a reflection tool (inspired by Mel Robbins)
• Key questions to ask yourself about what truly brings you joy
• How to gently shift your habits without needing to become a whole new person

Resources Mentioned:

West Virginia Wellness Retreat – April (Last weekend)
Join me and breathwork facilitator Trish Brewer for a nourishing weekend of yoga, breathwork, and sisterhood in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia. This is our 3rd year hosting, and it’s always a magical reset.
🌿 Interested? Send me a message at hello@risingwomanproject.com

Connect with me, Dr. Sara Poldmae:

Website: https://risingwomanproject.com

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/drsarapoldmae

Transcript

Sara Poldmae: 0:01

Sarah, welcome to menopause. Rise and thrive. I am Dr Sarah pulled May, and this podcast is your go to guide for navigating perimenopause and menopause. If you are feeling a little overwhelmed, trust me, you are in great company each week, I'll bring you expert advice, raw, honest conversations and simple tips to help you stay grounded and maybe even find some humor in the process. Let's rise, thrive and tackle this wild ride together. Hey ladies, welcome back today. I want to talk about something that's been on my mind with the new year, and I feel like for so many women that I work with, we might all be feeling the same, so I thought I would share it with you. I usually pop on for solo episodes, for either specific health related topics or just something that I'm thinking about that maybe another midlife woman might need to hear. So this is for you, if you are struggling with the concept of New Year's resolutions and having to make big changes. Wanted to offer a perspective that's been kind of simmering for me lately. So this idea is that maybe midlife is not asking us to change everything, but to really sink into understanding ourselves a bit more deeply. Because I don't know about you, but I know about me, that the older that I get, the less interested I am in dramatic overhauls or big declarations about who I'm going to be come next, right? So it's not about the next person that we want to be. It's more that I'm interested in asking better questions of myself in order to really develop the life that I want to live and the way that I want to feel and how I want to show up. So there was a time when goals worked really well for me, like I could pencil it in. I would do a whole 30 or pencil in a certain weight I wanted to be or something. I wanted to give up for the new year, and I could decide just to push through, override any discomfort and make it happen. And I'm still capable of that, but I feel like with age comes wisdom, and midlife can change those rules. So how we do things, it kind of forces changes on us, right? The the hormones change, our stress tolerance changes. Our nervous systems become much less willing to be bullied, and we know when to quit, or we know what's important to stick with. So when we try to set goals like we always have, maybe earlier in life, and the goals stop feeling motivating, or they feel heavy, I guess what I'm trying to share is that I've given myself permission to stop and I don't think that that's failure. I think that that is that midlife wisdom that we're all sinking into. So it's more of a reframing for me about like I've noticed something about myself recently that that I may want just to look a little bit different, and what I want, more than it to change radically, is understanding, understanding of how I got to this place, or the role that I'm playing in how Things are, the way that things are not in a self blaming way, but more in a curious way. Because I feel like sometimes the things that we put on our plates to change are things that society or people around us have told us that they want us to be whether it is weight loss or or our house being perfect, or, well, let's just stick with the house being perfect, because that really resonates with me. I have had a tough few years with aging animals, and I've had two little doll baby doggies pass away in the past. I guess it's been about 18 months, and one of the dogs passed away suddenly, but the the other dog, my little Delilah, was 16 years old, and she was a Yorkie, and both of them were adopted and had some potty training issues. And I noticed, before both of them passed away, pretty close to each other, that they were having more accidents, and so I was really struggling with what to do, because it wasn't fun waking up to and dealing with accidents. They had never been 100% house trained, and that was always kind of a source of stress for me, but it became really bad for the past, I would say, six months before the first one passed away. Way, and I just was giving myself a really hard time. Does my house smell? Do I want to live this way, like I love these dogs, it's obvious I'm not going to get rid of them, but how do I change the situation? I was really kind of beating myself up over it, and then I had a reprieve. My little Yorkie passed away, and this past August actually late July, and what I realized was a sense of relief that I was no longer having to deal with that. But of course, I was also in a state of mourning for both of my little ones, and I had a small reprieve. But about six months ago, my cat, who is 18 years old, started to have accidents on my furniture. And that was really like, I mean, that's a whole nother level cat pee versus dog pee. I mean, any of you that have animals can totally understand. And so I was starting to, like, not even want to live in my own home, let alone have guests over. And so, you know, I was really struggling with that, but what I found was, on top of that, I was also dealing with my own clutter. I've never been a super organized person, and so this year, I've decided that I really would like to work on my organization, and rather than setting that as a goal with some kind of time constraints or, you know, really diving deep into making this a big, structured tan, I've decided to sit with it, and I've been sitting with it for the past couple weeks as we're shifting through the holidays and into the New Year's, and asking my question of myself, the big question of Like, why is that so important to me? And I think I've come up with some answers. I'll share one of them. I think that just being more organized and finding things more easily will create, you know, less stress and balance my nervous system. So that's one of the big ones, and there's more that I can share with you that I'll pepper through some of the next couple episodes. But that's probably the thing that I would like to work on this year. I don't need to change it about myself. I don't need to become this hyper rigid, organized person with everything on a perfect shelf, but I'd like to shift that, and so I want to share with you that sometimes it's more about finding out why that's more important to you, rather than Is it because you want your house to look a certain way for other people? And if that is the the goal of having your house look a certain way for certain people, maybe ask yourself, why that's important? Because I need, I need to have you hear this. You're not alone in feeling like you're not enough, I feel that way occasionally, and it's a yucky feeling. And the thing is, it's also wrong. We are all enough exactly the way that we are. So I think by diving deeper into the things that we might want to change, I think that some revelations can come about, and that may not change what you want to change, but it can give you a little bit of grace. I know that it's giving me grace. You know, I love the fact that I love my animals dearly. I love the fact that my house is full of animals. So I'm not necessarily going to change that, but I may create some systems in my life that make managing a busy household with lots of fur babies in it a little bit easier, so that I can really sit back and enjoy them rather than stressing about things. I just listened to the podcast with Mel Robbins that's talking about the camera role as being a sort of mirror. So she has this little workbook that I filled out and thought it was really enlightening. She suggests in this workbook to look through your camera roll for the past year and notice the moments, whether they're big or small, that stand out, not necessarily the perfectly curated ones that end up in Instagram and social media, but the real ones, and I think this can be really a beautiful starting point. So if you haven't downloaded Mel Robbins workbook, it may be worth doing, because we can start with the camera roll, but then go deeper. And that's what I did, because the goal isn't really to say, Oh, that was a nice moment. The real work is turning these photos into questions. So what I noticed was that my camera roll was absolutely 100% filled with my animal so I have two new puppies at home, which could be a little bit of a problem, given that I just lost my two older ones. But you know, they're bringing me so much joy, and that's really what I saw in the camera roll, was there was so much joy. So I've decided to lean into that even further, and really, you know, just relish that. But when I look at my camera roll, I also notice patterns of moments where I look softer, or moments where I remember feeling. So much like myself and having so much inner peace moments where I felt relaxed and not stressed out. The interesting thing is, I don't take a lot of pictures of myself. If I do take pictures of myself, it is to do something related to work, or, you know, the things that I love to do, like yoga, any kind of events that I go to, but I don't take a lot of selfies, but I think looking at the camera roll and really figuring out, why did this moment stand out for me, and how did it make me feel? That's what I tune into. And so when you're if you choose to download the workbook from Mel Robbins, which I again, think is a great idea. I just ask that you go deeper and really tune into how those moments made you feel. And what do you want more of, and what do you maybe want less of? If you have a party that you you know invited a bunch of friends over to and it looks like a great party from the outside, ask yourself some honest questions, like, did you have a good time getting ready for that party? Because parties can be really stressful. Did you enjoy the people that you invited? Or did you invite people just to fill up space? What would you have done differently in order to make that party more enjoyable? And you can use that example for like anything as a vacation, a party or just the quiet moments, you know, in the morning, like my favorite part of the day is in the morning when I'm sipping my coffee and I have my puppies curled up on my lap. And I honestly, when I look at pictures that I've sent to my husband of the puppies on my lap, or I've sent to my daughter of them, in the morning, I look at those moments that I wouldn't change a single thing about those morning. So this is where Curiosity becomes more powerful in my mind than any goal that you can set. Maybe asking yourself looking at a picture where you had a good time, bad time, indifferent, whatever, and ask yourself, was I in that moment over giving of myself? Where was I not asking clearly for what I needed in that moment? Again, going back to the party example, if you found yourself super stressed, was there someone that you could have leaned on to help you plan that party? I have a girlfriend that I'm having a birthday the day after this episode airs, and I texted her to see where would be a good venue to have my little get together, because I did not want to entertain at my house because of some of the things that I just went through, you know, with Christmas and stuff and, you know, unpacking, and I just didn't want to give myself a deadline of getting all the Christmas stuff packed away. Christmas stuff packed away, and you know all that. So she texted back, and first of all, found a venue, took upon herself to start arranging flowers, put it all together with the owner of the restaurant. And I'm thinking, Oh my God, if we could all have people like that in our lives. And you know what I realized we all do, we just need to ask. So when you look at pictures of parties where you felt overwhelmed, or if there were people there that you didn't invite, like waiting for to tweak those things, because it's not necessarily a big overhaul. It's more about just being more intentional. Did you invite one person because you felt you had to? Well, you don't have to. Did you not ask for help? Where are you creating pressure that your nervous system doesn't like? Because so much so many of the times we're having, parties are supposed to be fun, and then you end up so exhausted you can't, you know, even enjoy your party. So going back to the idea that, you know that camera roll is great, but I think that the real beauty of looking through those moments is finding moments and then attaching questions to them. And Mel Robbins does a good idea. I think of starting with some basic questions, but I really want you to tap into your nervous system while you do this and say, How did I feel in those moments, and how do I want to show up differently. So one thing I've learned is that more of what shows up in this photos, the the ease, the creativity and the presence, I just need to like ask for that more we don't want to hold on to resentments or frustration this year, right? I think we can all say that we want to walk through this this year a little more clear. So I don't think midlife is asking for any of us to become something completely new, but I would love to see all of us walking into this year a little less stressed and with more joy. So sometimes it's not about changing the whole scenario. Your your camera roll could look almost identical this year as it did last, but with making some simple changes and tweaks, each of these events, big or small, could show up a little bit differently. So I guess what I'm trying to say, I hope, in summation, that you got a little bit of value of this is that we don't need the answers today. We don't need to feel like we should have created. At a resolution, if we haven't. Curiosity, in and of itself, is already a big step in the right direction, and helps us to understand the why behind what we want. It also can help us to define what we want more clearly, because sometimes it's not that we want different things, it's just we want to navigate things differently. So I hope you got some value from this. I'm super excited for this new year, and I would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on this episode, or how you want to show up in the new year, maybe a little bit differently so that you can be more joyful and calm and relaxed. I would love to hear from you. Shoot me a message at Hello, at rising woman project.com, we are hosting retreat in West Virginia in April. If you would like to join us, shoot me a message. It will be a breath work and yoga and wellness retreat. I would love to see you there. It's the last weekend in April, 3 year that we've hosted it, I host it with my one of my besties, a breath work facilitator, Trish Brewer, we would love to host you, and in the meantime, again, reach out. I love to hear from my listeners. You you.