Midlife After Cancer Reset

The moment you’re labeled “strong,” the world starts handing you more to carry and you learn to smile while you do it. Today we sit down with Karin Del Maestro, a breast cancer survivor and trauma-aware health coach, to talk about the real cost of being the capable one for decades and what it takes to rebuild after your body and nervous system finally say “no more.” Her story moves through stacked trauma, grief, and the shock of a breast cancer diagnosis plus a BRCA genetic mutation, then into the complicated reality of treatment choices, surgery, hormones, and the pressure to make fast decisions when you’re terrified.

We also go to the place few people talk about honestly: what happens after treatment ends. Karin shares why the “done” moment can feel isolating instead of joyful, how PTSD can show up for breast cancer survivors, and why your nervous system may still be stuck in fight or flight long after the medical plan is complete. If you’ve ever felt like your foot is on the gas but you can’t move forward, this will land. We connect the dots between trauma, workaholism, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and the exhaustion so many midlife women normalize.

You’ll leave with practical tools you can use immediately, including Karin’s simple framework “Pause, Check, Choose” to step off autopilot, plus a powerful boundary reframe: you’re not saying no to someone, you’re saying yes to your peace. If you’re navigating breast cancer recovery, midlife healing, nervous system regulation, or burnout, share this with a friend who needs it and subscribe, rate, and review so more women can find this support.

Guide: 7 Boundaries to Safeguard Your Energy: https://karin-del-maestro.mykajabi.com/pl/2148664959

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Speaker 4 0:00

Welcome back to the Find Your Lady Tribe podcast. I'm your host, Brenda Ridgley, and today we're continuing our season on midlife reinvention. And I am joined by Karen Del Maestro. She has navigated her midlife fog and emerged on the other side with a passion that is truly saving her corner of the world. Let me tell you a little bit more about a little bit more about Karen. Karen is a breast cancer survivor and trauma-aware health coach who supports women navigating after breast cancer treatment. After years of stacked trauma and a breast cancer diagnosis, she realized that being the strong one all the time had come at a great cost. In midlife, she chose a different path, one rooted in nervous system safety, boundaries, and learning to receive support without guilt. She now helps women who are exhausted from having to hold it all together, rebuild their energy, and rediscover who they are beyond survival. Welcome, Karen.

Speaker 1:05

Thank you for having me, Brenda. Such a pleasure to be here today.

Speaker 4 1:10

Yeah, thank you so much for coming in and agreeing to just really tell your story up close and personal because I think there's a lot of women out there that are going through things and they kind of feel alone, right? They feel alone in the process and just to hear other stories. And that's what this season is all about. Go, hey, I'm not alone. I'm we're we're in this together, and there is help. Welcome to the Find Your Lake podcast. I'm your host, Render Witch. This is season four. You are exactly where you need to be. Let's ignite that spark. Save the world, sister.

Speaker 2:20

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think that's such an important message. So thank you for doing this and sharing things that people can really hold on to. Because I think that's when we feel alone in things, I think it feels a million times harder.

The Messy Middle And Stacked Trauma

Speaker 4 2:35

Right. We kind of think when we're grown-ups, we shouldn't need any help anymore, right? And that's so far from the truth, right? We always need a mentor, we always need someone, a partner, a buddy, a friend. Um, so that's what we're here to share today. And I want you to kind of just dive in, because you know, Karen, we always start in the messy middle here with this season. So tell us about the funk. Tell us um that season of your life. What did it look like? And, you know, when you felt like more of a collection of roles than a whole person.

Speaker 3:08

Such a great question. And, you know, when I think of the messy middle for me, I think that was decades. I think that messy middle was was decades. Um, you know, I grew up like so many of us, having to be the strong one, the independent one, the reliable one, the capable one, the good girl that followed all the rules. And to be honest, I lived my life for decades that way. Yeah. Um, but what that looked like was going through a lot of really challenging things. Right. And some of these were, and if I get emotional, forgive me, it was actually one of those things was losing my younger brother, and it was his birthday yesterday. So I'm still feeling that way a little bit, you know, as we do. And so um life doesn't stop because of it. We just recognize it and hold it tight. So if I get emotional, then no, just know that that's where it's coming from. That is welcome. Thank you. I I appreciate that safety to to just be. Um, but for me, some of those things look like realizing I was actually abused as an as a child, just one occasion, but very young. Um, I went through divorce, I went through a life-altering car accident where I lost my job, my home, my sense of identity. I was a single mom at the time, so I had that additional pressure of being the strong one and holding it together and making sure that my kids felt safe and taken care of. Um, but it didn't stop there. And then I went through losing my mom, my dad, and my younger brother in a five-year period. Moving house 10 times in 11 years, including to and from the Caribbean. Being there for loved ones, as we so often are, as the caregivers, as the strong ones, as the fixers, right? We we support so many people. And I was there to support my husband after a very severe motorcycle accident, uh a loved one after another car accident, and and the traumas and life. And and I know that you, I can see you shaking your head, Brenda. I know that so many people listening to this get it, right? This is the bumpy roller coaster that so many of us are on. And so what it felt like for me was life just stacking and stacking and stacking and stacking. And I became so good at handling it, right? Right. Yeah, we're we're we're indestructible women.

The Strong One Identity

Speaker 4 6:14

We are powerful, we can take it all on our back and keep running. You know, they say, you know, you can't uh you can run with a hundred, but you can't run with one on your back. Well, that's not true. We can. And we do. We can and we do. We can and we do until we can't anymore. Until we can't anymore. Yeah, so let's let's talk about you've you've mentioned a few times the strong one. You're you've been so how has that shown up to you know form your identity in midlife? Yeah, really, but I'm a really great question, right?

Speaker 6:48

Because I think it's an identity that so many of us can relate to, but what does it look like like on a daily basis? Um, and I think you kind of just touched on it a little bit. It's it's feeling indestructible. It's okay, life, what have you got? Throw it at me because I can handle it, I'll I'll deal with it. And that's what I did. And I was actually known, it was kind of a nickname by clients, by so many people as a bounce back expert, that I was so strong I could get through anything. Now, what that looked like though, in reality, that many people did not see was me smiling on the outside and showing up on the outside. And inside, what I really wanted, if I'm being really honest, was a knight in shining armor to come along and say, hey Karen, I've got you, don't worry, not on your own. And I would only allow that thought in for a micro second before the thought was suck it up, Karen, get on with it. You can do this, you can do hard things, and I would. And again, like many of us, I was really good at it, like really, really good at it. And so I almost wore that like a badge of honor. Yeah, but I could do all of this.

Breast Cancer Diagnosis And BRCA Shock

Speaker 4 8:24

Yes, so you're being everything for everyone, you're you're you know, showing up loud and proud and strong and smiling as if you've got it this all together. And if I'm out of line here, you know, stop me, but then you get hit with the like the craziest worst news ever personally. Yeah. And I want to, yeah, the cancer. Yeah. The word the C word that no one ever wants to hear. On top of all of that, let's go there.

Speaker 9:01

Yeah. I have a belief in life that we that we do go through everything for a reason. And something I can hold on really strongly too is every single one of those things that I went through in life that stacked, I learned something amazing on the other side of it. So this this knowledge in the back of my head. But here I was a health coach, by the way, eating right, moving my body, doing all of the right things. Um I'm a I'm a I was the good girl. I'm gonna say was because it's not that I'm a bad girl now. I just look at life a bit differently. Well, we can dive into that in a bit. Yeah, but I was hit by this diagnosis, and actually I was feeling off for about six months prior. I had horrendous back pain, and I lived with biperniated discs from my car accident in 2012. So I wasn't a stranger to back pain, but this was different. And so I kept seeing doctors and specialists, and I mentioned we lived in the Caribbean and I got Zika virus, full-blown Zika virus when we lived down there. And then jingles, yeah. I mean, giving you some highlights. Bring it on. You know, it's just like it's when I start to say all of these things, it's like, really? Did I really get through all of this? Um, so anyway, I was going to specialists and them saying it could be long-term side effects from the Zika virus that they didn't know anything about at the time. This was in 2000 um 2018. But I just kept looking and looking and looking, everything was coming back okay. And so I was advocating my for myself, which I know can be very difficult when your doctors are telling you everything's normal, your blood works normal, everything's normal. And I just happened to go for my annual mammogram. I do not have a family history of breast cancer. Um, but thankfully they found something on the mammogram that was early stage, but I've had a lot of other cancers in my family. And so they decided to do genetic testing. So not only was I hit with a breast cancer diagnosis, I was also hit with a BRCA genetic mutation diagnosis. So BROCA is the breast cancer gene, so BR for breast, CA for cancer, and there are two different kinds of BRCA, BRCA 1, BROCHA 2. Makes you high risk for breast cancer, for ovarian cancer, eye cancer, melanoma, and pancreatic. So I didn't, and I'm using the word just not to minimize a breast cancer diagnosis in any way, that is a life-changing moment. But I was hit with two life-changing moments all at once, knowing that for the rest of my life, I'm high risk. Yeah, never goes away. High risk. So the moment that I heard those words, and I speak to hundreds and hundreds of women who've also heard those fine killing words, my life changed. And being diagnosed with breast cancer is a medical trauma. Your life changes from that moment forward. I always think of The Wizard of Oz and um Dorothy, and how the tornado comes along and it whips her up and she doesn't know where she's gonna be. And I say that's kind of like a breast cancer diagnosis. You don't know where you're gonna land, and you're going through weeks and weeks of not actually knowing what your treatment plan is going to be. So you're waiting and you're waiting and you're waiting. And during that time, of course, you've gone into full-on fight or flight, you're in survival mode, literally, knowing that you have to fight for your life, and the next part of the Wizard of Oz journey is you then land in Oz and you follow the yellow book road, which is like your treatment plan. You're following your treatment plan and you're going along the path, and the whole time you're just doing what you're guided to do. And the whole time you don't get to exhale, you're still going, going, going.

Surgeries Body Changes And Implant Illness

Speaker 4 13:53

Was that ever at conflict with your inner guidance? That's a great question.

Speaker 13:58

Um, for me, I made some decisions out of what I thought I should do at the time. So for instance, for me, I was 52 years old at the time. I was having a double mastectomy because of my risk factors. Three months later, a complete hysterectomy. For me, there was that element of my femininity being stripped away. Everything that had allowed me to become a mother and nourish my children was all being taken away in a three-month period. And I didn't know at that point in time how I would feel without breasts. Right. It's a very and there's there's panic, right? There's there's an urgency that you feel to have to make decisions very quickly.

Speaker 4 15:05

Yeah.

Speaker 15:05

Um, and sometimes that's fake urgency, by the way. Sometimes we have much longer than we realize, but it's just but you just don't know. You don't know, and there's also one element I've got cancer, get it out of me, please. You know, and so there's it's very, very complex emotionally, mentally, physically, and so much more than people realize until you walk the path, myself included, and I didn't know. Um so I decided to get reconstruction using breast implants. Um, but at the time I also said to myself, Karen, if you have any complications, then I'm gonna take these out and I'm just gonna be flat. I I kind of had that agreement with myself. And so I went through seven major surgeries in two years, every three months, another major surgery. My final surgery, however, I was very fortunate I did not need chemotherapy or radiation. I did need something, a hormone block, estrogen blocking medication, which I've been on now for eight years, um, because my breast cancer was estrogen receptive. And so anybody that's in midlife knows what happens when our body starts to lose estrogen. You know, and we're going into perimenopause and menopause, it affects everything. Um year after my implants were in, I was having all kinds of nasty symptoms. I could barely get out of bed, I was so exhausted, head to toe, muscle and body aches, fog where I'd look at my computer and say, I don't remember how to send an email. And so many things. Anxiety through the roof, so many things. And this was when I was being introduced to a lot of women in the breast cancer world, both professionally and personally. And I met somebody who was specialized in breast implant illness and realized that the majority of my symptoms were, in fact, breast implant illness. And I went to my doctors and said, What do you think? And they're like, could be the medication you're taking. Every single thing that I was experiencing could have been side effects from the medication. And this is where I truly tapped into my knowing and my intuition and my body. And it's not easy when you don't have a medical team that is backing you up. My husband and I had had some very serious conversations, you know, talking about intimacy. How's it gonna feel? Is he still gonna be attracted to me? I mean, real honest conversation. He assured me that he'd always been attracted to my butt the most, which to be honest, I know it's funny, but it made me feel better. So I'm like, okay, well, that's that's staying. It's like, okay, well, that's stained. That still looks really good. So, you know, so let's do that. So, anyway, I I did advocate for myself and I did remove the implants. I went flat. Um, I say now I'm actually concave. I say I have footprints when my breast went sway because I want to talk to my body kindly. Yeah, I want to respect this incredible vessel that has carried me through all of this craziness that life has held. And that was that was a shift for me because I was somebody that had always been really hard on myself. So that was that was definitely one of the shifts. So did I advocate for myself?

The Post Treatment Crash And PTSD

Speaker 4 18:59

Yeah, I had to. Good. I mean, because we have to, it's very important to listen to the experts from your your care team and all that, but it's also so important if something doesn't feel right, if it's if it feels off, yeah, it's off. It's off. Less than it's not. And you have to you have to respect your own feelings in it. And you like you said, advocate and fight, even if it's against or not against, but just differs from what your what your medical team. So what was the specific moment or aha, uh-huh, or even a no more, whatever. Yeah, that just kind of signaled your awakening.

Speaker 19:43

Yeah, it was really, it was a really clear light bulb aha moment. And it was truly life-changing for me. So after breast cancer, and you may have seen this on social media, Brenda. You see people ringing the bell, you see people celebrating, you see people being done.

Speaker 4 20:03

Yeah.

Releasing The Parking Brake

Speaker 20:04

And I expected to have that excitement and celebration. And it's like, this was the end of the Yellowbrick Road. This was this was the you know, the wizard's castle. I was supposed to be there, clicking my heels, saying, no place like home, get me back to how I was. And that wasn't what happened. That was not what happened. Um I broke down big time. Um I don't know if you've ever had the feeling why you're surrounded by people who truly love you and want the best for you, but you feel so isolated. Yeah, and that's how it felt. I knew I was surrounded by people, my husband had been, and one of the very fortunate ones, absolutely amazing, supporting me through every step of that journey. And I felt so alone. I felt so alone. And of course, I research health and wellness for a living, and I'm there saying, and of course, I'm online, and I'm goog, I'm googling literally what's wrong with me, why do I feel like this, right? Yes, and of course, you get every answer under the sun, and it's not helpful at all, right? But and it's not normally how I think because I don't normally think what's wrong with, but I just I did not know. And what I didn't know then, that I know now, is that 82 and a half percent of breast cancer survivors suffer from PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. And so So being done does not mean that you are done. It means that the yellow brick road portion of your journey might be over. But you're not home to Kansas yet. You're not home to Kansas yet. Exactly. There's this very messy middle, which looks like the forest with the monkeys and the witch and all the rest of it. I know you're all going to go check out the Wizard of Oz from here. You're going to be like, what's the I think most people in midlife understand the analogy, but you're in this really messy, confusing, exhausting stage where you want to be back, but you're not there yet. And for me, that felt like you know, I don't know if you've ever done that. So if you've been in your car with your foot on the accelerator, but the parking brake is still on. Yeah. Right. And it's like it's like you want to go forward, but you can't quite. And that's how it felt in my party. So when I realized that this was how I felt, and of course I tried to push through, and I tried harder, and I tried to being the strong one. I had tried all of that because it's what had worked. I thought it had worked before. It gotten me to where I was. And then I realized that what I'd always done wasn't working anymore. And so I've always been pretty good at thinking outside of the box and saying, okay, well, if that's not working, what can I try? Right? What can I try? So I said, well, if I feel like I'm in my car and I want to put my foot on the brake, but the parking brake is not stopping me, wouldn't it make more sense if I release that parking brake first? Then I get to push and move forward. And so, you know, this started to like sit in my head, and I'm like, Karen, what would that even look like or feel like? Because again, I was a parking break for you. What is it? Right, right. Well, the parking break for me and what it is for my client is this trauma. It's nervous system dysregulation. Where we have been in survival mode, and our nervous system, bless its heart, has done everything it can to protect us because that's its job, but it doesn't realize there is no off switch where it just says, okay, we're done. And so this feeling of being in fight and flight or freeze or fawn is still living inside of us, even though our head is saying, Let's go, let's get on with it. And so for me, it's like, okay, I now get to not just unravel the breast cancer piece of trauma, but all of those other stack traumas that I've been through in my life. Because even though I've done a lot of therapy, even though I've done trauma therapy, if you know anything about trauma and have experienced it, I don't believe it ever truly goes away. I think how it shows up changes. I think how impactful it is on our life changes. But that was the kind of like the reinvention place for me where I said, okay, let's hit the pause button. Instead of doing what I've always done, I call it being on the hamster wheel of life where we just it's like it's done, right? We're just doing what we've always done because it's what we've always done. Often because it's what's expected of us. And I got to hit that pause button. You got to hit the what? I'm sorry. The pause button. Oh, pause. Just like on the remote control. I know it's the accent. I'm sorry, people who was in there. I just want to make sure everyone heard that and everybody else.

unknown 26:26

Yeah.

Speaker 26:26

And so for me, that was that was like the defining moment. And so what that looked like in in daily life, instead of looking at my whole to-do list, because of course I'm a list person, and checking that box was always really important to me. Like it's that way. Instead of looking at the whole list, and if I didn't get everything done, then I used to judge myself for not getting it done or pushing it to tomorrow, whatever. Now I would put one thing on it. Yes. One thing. One thing. And that was as simple as that sounds, that was so difficult for me coming from decades of pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And workaholism, perfectionism, these are all traits of somebody that's dealing with flight. You know, we talk about fight and flight a lot. And so flight was a big one for me. And recognizing that keeping busy was actually part of my automatic trauma response. And so I had to learn how to rest without feeling guilty.

Speaker 4 27:47

And ladies out there, listen up.

unknown 27:50

Yeah.

Speaker 4 27:51

If you're in the hamster wheel of life or the treadmill of life, or whatever you like to refer to it as, and you don't even know you're there. It's about taking a breath. Yeah. And not feeling the guilt to be not being busy every waking moment. So but please continue.

Rest Without Guilt And Letting Go

Speaker 28:09

No, absolutely. And I thank you for reinforcing that because it's such an important message. Um, and I think, and again, these are learned behaviors. So understand there's no judgment here for anybody that is in that place. Um, these are learned behaviors. We learned them as children. So it's this is about kindness and compassion and just being starting to be aware, get curious. Like, am I still? Do I have a whole time like resting without feeling guilty or resting until everything's done? I mean, that used to be me. Breast cancer and how I felt afterwards, and all of this trauma, I now realize I couldn't do it anymore. So I learned how to stop. I learned how to pause, I learned how to sit down and have a cup of tea and enjoy it, not just rush it down because it's there, but sit and look at the trees and the sky and listen to the birds and take two minutes just to be just to just be exactly, exactly. So the way that we do this is it's not big and it's not about doing more. It's actually about letting go of things that are not yours to carry.

Building A Survivor Community That Fits

Speaker 4 29:41

Hey lady, just wanted to take a moment and interrupt right now in the middle of the show to ask you to subscribe. Yes, press that button right now. This show is all about you, the midlife woman. Let's do this thing together. So join us. Subscribe now. I love it. So let's, yeah, let's transition to the work you do now. Um, and I want to just share with you that in your story of being surrounded by people who love you but feeling alone, I feel our stories are very similar in that respect. And I think a lot of women might find themselves here, and I think you and I both in different ways addressed it the same way. And tell me if I'm wrong, but you created your work and you serve a tribe of cancer survivors that see you, get you, know you, a sense of belonging in this journey. And that's exactly what I had to do for a very different reason. I didn't, I wasn't, nobody knew me out outside of that loving, you know, environment that was small and limited. I mean, not even not even a small family, but limited to that. And and and they were bound to me by blood, contract, or vow. You know, so finding that my own tribe of of women transformed my life. So you, I mean, what how what do you think about that analogy, that similarity?

Speaker 31:22

100%. It was that moment when I was dark, and I said, Karen, you've got all this expertise, right? And doing all eating right, moving your body, managing stress, doing all the things that we're told to do after breast cancer, or any health crisis, or even medicals, right? These are the things we're told to do. And I said, if I'm struggling with this and I'm feeling this isolation, how are most women that don't have the education and expertise and even life experience that I've had, how are they feeling? And I did a bow and I said, I don't want another woman on this earth to feel that way. And that's exactly why I shifted my entire coaching practice to support women at this incredibly tender stage and confusing stage. There isn't much out there that supports women in this stage. Like the focus is on breast cancer prevention and treatment, but this didn't exist. And so I created what I needed, which is it's a group coaching program called Thrivership School, right? I don't want to just survive in life, yeah. I want to thrive, and so yes, it came about through that feeling of being isolated and recognizing if I feel this way, then I'm not the only one.

Pause Check Choose For Better Boundaries

Speaker 4 32:48

Yeah. And now in your practice, you teach something called pause, check, choose. So, how can midlife women use that to kind of step off autopilot or that hamster wheel and begin making more aligned choices?

Speaker 33:02

Yeah, absolutely. It's such a simple, quick thing, which again, when we're overwhelmed, stressed out, busy, you know, we all it starts with pause. Again, now I have um a family member who has a traumatic brain injury. And something that we I did with her is I actually, if you think of like pausing the remote control, like hitting the pause button, two fingers gently on your brain, to stop your brain from spinning. And so it's it's really a pattern interrupt. Let's interrupt the autopilot, let's interrupt what you've always done. I have clients then who say that they tap their leg. Obviously, if they're out in public, they're not going to go around tapping their forehead, but they tap their leg or something. And it is about just saying, okay, I'm recognizing that my brain's spinning, I'm about to do what I've always done. And the check is check in with yourself before you. I mean, a good example is right, how many times have you been asked to help out a friend and your plate's already loaded, your day's already scheduled, and inside your gut says no, but you go, sure. Yeah, no problem, right? We smile and we're just like, and we do it. So when we pause before that, it stops that automatic yes, right? Or an overextending of ourself. So the check is check in with yourself. Are you saying yes because you feel obligated to, right? Because you should. Are you adding another shift at work because you don't want to let somebody down? These are the big reasons why we do things. We don't want to let people down.

Speaker 4 34:50

Sometimes it's just simply because we think we should. Right. Yeah. I I was such a yes man at one point in time. I said, I am now a no person. There you go. I my first, I just decided I'm getting myself into all these things I don't want to do, and they aren't on my list of priorities or values. And just be to please because of expectations, to, you know, whatever, to be liked. And then I just I'd have it. And I said, I'm just my first response is no. And then I can always change my mind.

Speaker 35:22

Yes, yes, yes, so empowering. It's hard to go back from a yes, though. It's hard to go back from a yes. And we don't, but we might chew on it and overthink it and like spend our night waking up at 2 a.m. after our bathroom trip and saying, Oh my gosh, why did I do that? And beating ourselves up. And it takes us down a rabbit hole that uses, by the way, so much energy. Yeah. So it's just, it doesn't serve us.

Boundaries As A Yes To Peace

Speaker 4 35:51

I just want to ask you. I could talk to you all day about this. This is this is you know, just such stimulating conversation, so interesting. But I want you to just think about the women listening right now, you know, the the one who is, you know, still in her own version of some funk. And what's the one truth that you have learned through your journey that you want her to hear today?

Speaker 36:18

It's probably that I think I think I'm gonna go with the boundaries. So saying no are actually welcome myths for your peace. Right? Just like you were saying. And when we are able to say them in a way that is in alignment with who we are as the caring, incredible women that we are, we don't feel guilty. And we don't feel like we're being mean or rude or disrespectful. We feel at peace. And so when they're set the right way, and for me, that was always a disconnect. I always thought boundaries had to be hard. When in fact, when I reframe it and say it's not about me saying no to somebody, it's about me saying yes to my peace. Yes. Yeah, I love it.

Where To Find Karen And Closing

Speaker 4 37:20

Yeah. Well, Karen, you support women through all kinds of trauma and especially in in particular uh uh cancer. Um, how do our Find Your Lady tribe um listeners find you?

Speaker 37:34

I have my own tribe on Facebook, um, the Healthy Living After Breast Cancer Tribe Community, which is an incredible global community, currently around eight and a half thousand women. So we are the strong ones who are learning to be more respectful of ourselves and what we need. And we're real and we're optimistic and we're kind and caring. And so that's always a great place to land. Of course, my website, and I know that you'll share that information. Yeah, and and on Instagram too. So, and and I always, and I suspect like YouTube, Brenda, like I love to talk to people like human to human. So don't be afraid to send me a message. Say hi. I I like to connect, truly connect with people. Awesome.

Speaker 4 38:31

Thank you. So I always ask every guest this question because I think as we have already established in this conversation, connection is the cure. Yeah. How do you try, Karen?

Speaker 38:46

It's it's truly a really thought-provoking question, I have to say. So I'm happy that you asked. Um, there are a couple of ways that I tried, and they're slightly different personally and professionally, because like you, professionally, I provide that tried. And number one, there is safety. Safety to just be you, safety to let on those masks, safety to say what's real. Um is number one. And secondly, personally, because I've moved so many times, I don't have necessarily a physical local tribe. What I do have is some very strong long-distance relationships and friendships, and one of the big shifts for me over the years is how we've grown and become more honest with each other.

Speaker 4 39:49

Yeah.

Speaker 39:50

So we connect either via Zoom or WhatsApp or FaceTime using technology to make sure that we stay connected. And it does take effort, no matter whether it's personally or professionally, right? It takes effort. But again, if we go back to my mission, which is I don't want another woman to feel alone, it's it's across the board. I don't separate the personal and professional. I don't want anybody to feel alone.

unknown 40:21

Yeah.

Speaker 4 40:22

Yeah. Yes, the technology's made the world a smaller place, and we can try a lot of ways and yeah, um, yeah, use those resources, those tools out there. And I call my long distance friends my soul sisters. Yeah, those are the ones that you can just, you know, catch, you know, just get right back into the conversation you were having six months ago easily. You're right there. You're right there with them. Well, Karen, I just want to thank you so wholeheartedly for being so open, honest, vulnerable, sharing your story and um and and and what you learned and and giving some our our listeners some great ideas of how to um, you know, maybe press that pause button or um, you know, being okay with the word no.

unknown 41:10

Yeah.

Speaker 4 41:10

And knows a one is a sentence. Correct. One word sentence. You don't have to justify it. Just no. It's hard, right? It's hard to do that. It is hard. It is hard, but yeah, do it a few times. Practice, ladies, practice. So yeah, so thank you, Karen. Uh, it's been wonderful, so so pleasurable to talk to you and and listeners of Find My Lady Tribe. Thank you so much for tuning in, being here, being part of this conversation. And uh, I just encourage you, if if any of this resonated with you, if if Karen's story in any way reminded you of someone, please share it with a friend. Like the episode, share it, and definitely subscribe if you haven't already. So thank you so much. And we will see you next time on Find Your Lady Tribe. So when three or more gather, we are tribe. I love that. Thank you so much, Brenda. Absolutely. Thank you for spending this time with your Lady Tribe. I always say that when three or more gather, we are tribe. And today, with my guests, myself, and you listen again, that circle is gone. I hope this story reminded you that your purpose is worth the first time. Subscribe like and leave a comment. Here it is, I think. I might enjoy our gathering place. I read originally. Save the world, sister.