Navigating Midlife Changes: Insights from Kate Higgins

I'm  chatting with the delightful Kate Higgins, a licensed clinical social worker turned coach for midlife women, who's challenging the societal norms around aging and harnessing the incredible potential of these transitional years.

We dive into Kate's journey, from her bustling life as a therapist in New York to her tranquil new beginnings in sunny Sarasota, Florida.  Kate also offers insightful glimpses into the power of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping in managing stress, a method she's employed during her trying times. 

Kate helps us understand the importance of altering the dialogue around aging, boldly envisioning an age where wisdom and maturity are celebrated rather than feared. As we wrap up our engaging session, Kate shares a sneak peek into her podcast, "Your Magical Midlife," a platform designed to inspire women to view midlife as an exciting journey rather than a destination. Join us, because midlife is not the end, it's just the beginning!

You can find all things related to Kate at her website: 
 https://yourmagicalmidlife.com/
Check it out!

 **The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute  legal advice;  instead, all information, content and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this podcast  may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This podcast contains links to other third party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

So are you looking for more inspiration and possibility in midlife and beyond? Join me, leslie Maloney, proud wife, mom, author, teacher and podcast host, as I talk with people finding meaning in moxie in their life after 50. Interviews that will energize you and give you some ideas to implement in your own life. I so appreciate you being here. Now let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Okay, everybody, welcome to meaning in moxie after 50. And I have a very special guest here with us today on this, kate Higgins. She is a therapist turned coach and she is the podcast host of a really cool podcast called magical midlife. So it very much lines up with what we're about, I'm sure, on this podcast and leading a meaningful and moxie filled, spicy life. So we're going to talk about that a little bit today and just sort of see where the conversation goes, because I think it could go in a ton of directions. Kate, do you want to just kind of start us off and I know I just gave a little tiny sliver about who you are Do you anything you want to add to that, to let us know you a little?

Speaker 3: 1:20

bit better. Sure, I'm Kate Higgins. I am a licensed clinical social worker. I am now trans transitioning to being a coach for women in midlife and I launched my podcast, your magical midlife, in October of 2023. There is actually another podcast called magical midlife, so I just want to differentiate that. My podcast is your magical midlife. What's really? That was horrified when I had launched my podcast and then the other podcast came up because I guess I didn't do the sufficient research.

Speaker 3: 1:57

But yes, I am all about aging in a positive way aging with joy and ease and fun and adventure, and not giving up on ourselves because we've hit a certain age. I think that a lot of people, particularly women, feel that when they are in their late forties, early fifties, like doors close on them, and I wanted to spell that myth because I don't feel that I am resisting the messaging that I'm getting that doors are shut for me. I know certain doors are shut, you know, reproductively, but our lives are so much more than that. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm excited about having a reinvention in midlife and not just go out to pasture and put your Schmatte on and forget about having fun and forget about learning. I don't want that for myself and I don't see my friends aging that way, and so I'm hopeful that you know. Gen X is really changing that conversation around what it means to be a woman in midlife.

Speaker 2: 3:12

Absolutely so. I feel like and I am 61, I just turned 61 in the spring, so I got a little few more years on you but I feel like the world is wide open. I mean I just 50 was a whole new opening of doors for me. There's very little I felt was closing other than, yeah, the reproductive side had closed prior to that. But yeah, I just I do, I think, dispelling those myths, not buying into some of the what we you know, society, what we see in some places in the media about age, and it's such a wonderful thing because the wisdom that we take, you know that we have gained from all our life experience. We can now put it into play and I mean things don't bother me as much as they used to and you know I can let things roll off my back a lot, a lot easier, and just all of that. You know things that used to take up energy from you know my energy. They don't do that anymore so I am able to place my energy in other other new places.

Speaker 3: 4:29

Yeah, I think that by the time you're like 45 or 50, you've had enough disappointments. You know that. You realize that you can weather things because you're like oh okay, I've had failed relationships, I've had jobs that haven't worked out, I've had disappointments, I've had people die in my life, you know. So. I've had friends, you know, decide they don't want to be friends anymore. I've had enough disappointments that I realized I can survive things and I can have new things, Whereas, like when you're 22, you think everything.

Speaker 2: 5:10

You think everything's going to kill you or at least I did so, true, I mean, I think that's one of the biggest things I've gained with age is that I have been through some crap, you know, and ups and the downs, and I, yeah, and I've lost people and yeah, all of that, you know, I had had relationships, issues with even family and things like that, and, yeah, I'm still standing and I'm stronger for it. And so, knowing that inner resilience just gets stronger and stronger, and I think that is one I mean I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to go back to 22.

Speaker 3: 5:50

No, the only thing I wish I had from when I was 22 is like the stamina Like I, because when I was 22, I could. I could not sleep for a day or two. Well, I could not sleep for overnight and be functional. Now, if I don't sleep, if I don't sleep like seven hours or eight hours, you know I feel like a boss and I look like a boss, hit me, you know like, you know, um, that's the only thing I would take you know, do you think that was just your perception at 22, that you felt a little more?

Speaker 2: 6:33

you know, just maybe you're perceiving it differently now than you might have at that age. I don't know. I throw that out just for consideration.

Speaker 3: 6:45

I think I just value different things. Now. I like being, you know, maybe because I like where I live now I don't live in a crappy apartment with like other people you know. Yeah, I don't. I'm not like out looking for a partner. You know I'm not, you know, out drinking and doing the things I was doing in my early 20s.

Speaker 2: 7:06

So what do you do to fill your cup? What are some of the things you do to light you up and just fulfill you in your life?

Speaker 3: 7:15

Well, I'm in like an interesting period of my life because I moved to a new city right before the pandemic. I left my home of my whole life and moved to Florida from New York, so and then we had a pandemic and we, you know, even in Florida we couldn't, you know, we weren't. It was hard to like go out and like make friends.

Speaker 2: 7:39

And you're in South Florida. Let me stop you. I'm in Melbourne Beach, san Francisco. Are you in South Florida? I'm in Sarasota. Oh, okay, okay, on the other coast.

Speaker 3: 7:50

Yeah, so are we like basically like right across the state?

Speaker 2: 7:54

Pretty close, pretty close, I might be a little above you. We're about 45 minutes south of the Cape Kennedy Space Center, cape Canaveral, yeah. So yeah, part of the crow flies were yeah, we're not too far, we're leaving you from the other side. Anyway, go ahead. So you made the big move down to Sarasota.

Speaker 3: 8:16

And you know, then we were, and then COVID, and then I left my. I recently left my job. I left my job in August to pursue coaching full time. There was a layoff at my job and I took a voluntary layoff, which surprised even me, because I had been saved in the layoff and I had been praying and trying to manifest getting laid off. I had been like I have a gratitude practice with a friend, which we do on Voice Memo, and part of our practice is that we say things that we're grateful for that haven't happened yet, that we're trying to call in and once I had been saying and I'm so grateful I got a massive severance, I got laid off my job and then, like, the layoff happened and I was spared.

Speaker 2: 9:17

Nice.

Speaker 3: 9:18

I was like I wonder if I can volunteer for this layoff. And I approached HR and it happened so fast. It was like don't let the door hit you on the way out. They were just like, yeah, go, we'll give you. Yeah, take this evidence, go. And I went. And now I have to really make this happen for myself, this coaching thing I've been dreaming of.

Speaker 3: 9:43

Okay, so I'm in kind of a big transition period of my life and so what's lighting me up is honing, focusing and working on my vision of being a leader and a mentor and a guide for women a little bit younger than me and up through old age, because I think my desire and my dream is for women to not be panicking when they hit 40. Because I remember when I hit 40, it was such a kick in my ass. I was not prepared for the hormonal shifts, even though people talked about them all the time in a very derogatory way. I had this fantasy that I was going to be able to just that. It wasn't going to happen to me. I wasn't really emotionally prepared for it. I wasn't prepared for the grief that came up because I didn't have a child. I hadn't actually put a lot of thought into it. It wasn't like I knew I didn't want children. It wasn't like I knew I wanted children. I just literally thought I had all the time in the world, because I think media tells us oh, halle Berry has welcomes children at 48 and JLo has children at 50. Janet Jackson miracle baby at 55. What they don't tell you is that that person probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get pregnant.

Speaker 3: 11:35

I was a little delusional that this would all work out fine. I tried to get pregnant in my early 40s and it didn't happen. But it didn't go that far. Honestly, I didn't go as far as IVF and all that stuff, as far as acupuncture, herbs and a technique called mya massage. It didn't happen and ultimately I'm okay with that. But there was grief that came up because I ended up with nothing to do with the herbs or the massage or the acupuncture. I had to have a hysterectomy last year, which is when really, I shifted into the desire to coach women in midlife, because I just feel women aren't given proper agency over our own bodies in so many ways and I really would love for women to feel empowered as they hit midlife, as they go through menopause transition.

Speaker 3: 12:34

I really know that they can come out on the other side and make good decisions for themselves medically and also make the decision to live a life of joy.

Speaker 2: 12:45

Sure. So I know you said you were a therapist turned coach. So why the shift from one to the other? And it kind of explained our audience what the difference is in your mind.

Speaker 3: 12:58

Okay, so, as a therapist, there's a focus on the illness and the focus on the past, and let's talk about your trauma and your childhood and all the terrible things that happened to you, and let's talk about this for five to ten years before anything shifts in your life. And coaching is much more focused on the solution and the now and where do you want to be? Okay, I don't want to let and I don't let people, the people I work with in therapy, I don't let them sit in their childhood stuff. I mean, while it's important to acknowledge that we all have things that happened to us and we all have pasts, I don't think that I don't think it's really even necessarily ethical to let someone like lay on the couch for three times a week for 25 years and not get better.

Speaker 2: 13:58

Sure, you know, yeah, yeah, and I know, when I think of the difference, I mean I and I don't know, I'm not in that field, but I think of coaching as more short term and more there's accountability. Yeah, I think you know that a coach is sort of almost like a personal trainer in the gym kind of thing, that coaches there to kind of push you along and and that sort of thing.

Speaker 3: 14:21

Oh, I like that. I'm going to write that down. A personal trainer for your attitude.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I think there's days we can all use that right. I mean.

Speaker 3: 14:34

I'm going to write that down after this.

Speaker 2: 14:38

Yeah, so you made this shift now. So you, you came down to Sarasota. Yes, and what was the big? What? Why there? Why Florida, why why? So? It kind of the the layoff presented itself, and then you could freed you up.

Speaker 3: 14:57

Yes, but I moved down here because I, well, I'm from New York. I was born in New York, raised in New York, moved to Brooklyn In 1993, after I graduated from college and I spent, you know, my whole adulthood there and I was really wanting to own a home. That was like one of my big goals and I missed the boat by far in Brooklyn. If I had wanted to buy something in Brooklyn, I should have bought before September 11th.

Speaker 2: 15:40

You know, I should have a similar story across the country in many places, right?

Speaker 3: 15:44

Yeah, I should have bought on September 10th 2001. Yeah, because once September 11th happened, everybody moved out of Manhattan and into Brooklyn because I guess they felt safer.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Really Okay, I didn't know that.

Speaker 3: 15:59

Makes sense. Yeah, and I just, I just was and I was very fixated on. I had this like bitter undertone about like being priced out of my own city. You know, and I also follow my my my partner's dad lives in Sarasota and he has Parkinson's. So my boyfriend was laid off from his job six years ago and he came down here to take care of his dad, so I basically followed him in 2019.

Speaker 3: 16:40

Gotcha, gotcha, yeah, I was like you know what, like he was like. You know, even after my dad passes, I'm never moving back to New York. So if you want to make this work, you need to leave New York. Yeah, yeah, this is really working out for me. Anyway, I'm the super of my building and I'm paying 1650 to live in a one bedroom in Brooklyn, overlooking the BQE, the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, and be the super and drag the garbage to the street and sweep the hallway and, you know, argue with the people who live in the building about how recycling, you know what belongs in the recycling bin and what doesn't oh God, sounds like it was time for a move, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:28

So here you are, and so you are forging a whole new path, a new place to live and a new shift in a house and a new podcast.

Speaker 3: 17:40

Yes, yes, I bought a cute house in Sarasota before the pandemic, so right in the very beginning of the pandemic, before everything went crazy, before everybody moved to Sarasota and Florida during the pandemic. So I'm so glad I did, because if I had missed that boat, god I would have really been mad at myself, yeah. So what's this?

Speaker 2: 18:01

That's a lot of transitions that you're describing there. So how have you navigated those transitions and kind of monitored your stress level through that? What are some of your strategies? Oh geez.

Speaker 3: 18:16

I don't know. I will say a couple of other transitions. And now my mother died in 2020. And then I had ovarian cancer and had a oh man OK. So what's going on? I do EFT tapping, which is an alternate to it's acupressure acupuncture without the needles. It's an energy technique where you tap on various meridians to move your hands as you talk, just for the audience.

Speaker 2: 18:46

that's emotional freedom technology. What's the T-sterepore A technique?

Speaker 3: 18:52

emotional freedom and it's, it's a cousin of, like EMDR, which is the therapy technique with the light that's used to resolve trauma where you move your eyes. So it's a cousin to that. It's a cousin to acupressure, acupuncture, and it's to move the energy while you're talking through a problem and it really is like a. It's a miracle for stress and stress reduction and anyone can do it. It's really easy. You can learn how to do it in five minutes on YouTube, right right.

Speaker 2: 19:23

So that's emotional freedom technique. I know I was just at a little women's gathering, probably last month, and it's not the first time I've been around it, but somebody was teaching it and you know I found it to be something that just really brings you into the present moment and brings you into your body, which that's where we can get control of our racing thoughts. When we're able to come, Come into our body slower, slower, breathing down and you know, and just kind of present moment, I have to feel myself tapping Right and I have to. And so it just it was.

Speaker 3: 19:59

It's a nice tool to put in the toolbox for sure, absolutely, and I wish I had known about it when I was starting perimenopause, because the first time now that I look back, you know hindsight is 2020. And when my period started to shift, I guess my estrogen levels were dropping and my progesterone was whatever it was doing. I know like something drops and something goes up and then, you know, it all kind of goes around I'm not a doctor, so you know it all like goes around and waves. Anxiety is spiked, I think, by the shift in progesterone and I wish I had known about tapping then because my anxiety was insane in my early 40s. It was like that's when I started to have panic attacks in my life and I had them my early 40s. It was part of that whole transition.

Speaker 2: 20:56

Right, right, yeah, I know people who swear by it for sure, no question, I don't know if you're familiar with Dr Christian Northrup. Yes, oh, my God, okay, yeah, she's written a really good book I can't remember the name of it on menopause, but she also had her original book, I think was called Women's Body, women's Wisdom. That's right. Women's Body's, women's Wisdom yeah, that's a really great book for women going through different phases of their life and some of the more natural things that they can do to, you know, nurture themselves.

Speaker 3: 21:33

Yeah, she's amazing, I love her.

Speaker 2: 21:35

Yeah, yeah, she really is. She's been around quite a while, yeah.

Speaker 3: 21:40

She was way ahead of her time talking about this stuff.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Absolutely, Absolutely. So tell us what we can. We'll find if we tune into your magical midlife. What are some of the things that you plan to? Who are you going to do? Who are some people you want to talk to? The things you're going to do on it? You've got some great things out there already on social media.

Speaker 3: 22:01

Thank you, I am really excited to be changing the conversation, or being actually you know what. I'm not changing the conversation myself. The conversation has already started to change and that's really exciting. So I'm excited to be part of a changing conversation around what it means to age, age. Well, change your attitude about aging, embrace new things as you get older and also bring joy into it and fun into it. And also like marking the transition with a celebration of some kind. And I don't see that and I really I want to be the one to usher that in Like I want women to have like some kind of transition celebration, because for me, the last time that I had any kind of celebration, I think, was my first communion. Okay, yeah, because I didn't get married, so there was no wedding and there was no like baby shower. Okay, yeah, I didn't have a sweet 16. My grandfather died on my 16th birthday, so there, was no sweet 16.

Speaker 2: 23:20

Yeah, but the rights of passage are so important, rights of passage really. And yeah, the more I read on that, the more I really just I go back to that quite often. And for not just women, for a lot of different, oh sure, but what's women is what we're talking about here, and just people in midlife and beyond. Because, I agree, I think we got to change the conversation and that's certainly what my podcast is about is changing that conversation and living well all the way through your life.

Speaker 2: 23:56

And that age is checking your attitude on age periodically, all the time, because we get these subconscious influences that come in about age and just discarding those. And you, periodically I know I do I have to do a little self-check periodically, especially if I'm around certain people who are embracing some of those messages that are my age, and then I have to go oh okay, I'm not buying that, I'm not buying into that. And yes, we're gonna hit roadblocks, we're gonna hit challenges, but we can also. That doesn't mean that we everything has to fall apart and we can't live with that spark and a glint in our eye, that spark in our eye.

Speaker 3: 24:44

Oh yeah, I mean you'd be crazy to think like, oh, nothing bad is ever gonna happen. I mean bad things happen all the time. I mean you look out the window. I mean we're almost in a war by the time this airs. We might be in one, right? I mean you get to an age like your parents are either deceased already or going to die, right? I mean we're gonna get to a point where, like, maybe our partners will die before. I mean you have to. There's always gonna be sorrow, but there's always joy.

Speaker 3: 25:23

I mean one of the most difficult and meaningful things that has happened to me in midlife is sitting with my mother as she died, and I'm so grateful that I was there. Yes, so it was so hard and so excruciating and I mean this is something people don't talk about. It was so, at times, so hard to sit there because it took so long it was the longest five days of my life to sit there and sit there and just watch her chest just slowly go up and it was just hard, but at the same time, it was beautiful and it was amazing to sit there with her and hold her hand and stroke her hair and be with her.

Speaker 2: 26:18

Yeah, because how often do you get to be in a position where somebody's walking on both sides there and about to exit, make their transition, and I mean it's holy ground, it is, it's really holy ground and it doesn't mean it's not hard and it doesn't mean it's not sad, but it's. Yeah, there's beauty in that too, yeah, and yeah, I don't think we talk enough about that. And you showed up. You showed up and you were present. You didn't turn away because you didn't let, because some people can't show up for whatever reason.

Speaker 3: 26:55

It was a miracle because I got to be there. My brother, who I previously didn't really have much of a relationship with, was there, and we were there together. And my dad, who I have a very difficult relationship with and my brother has a difficult relationship with, he was there too and he was able to be present. Yeah, and my dad's usually not, I'm pretty sure my dad's on the spectrum, so for him to be able to sit there and be present too, it was really something yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:27

Yeah, looking for the gifts and the situations, because there's always the gifts at the same time as the challenge, right? Absolutely yeah. So any final things you wanna share with us, share with the audience, maybe tell them where they can find you and any other little tidbits that you wanna let us know about.

Speaker 3: 27:52

Yeah, my podcast is your Magical Midlife my website. It's all gonna be very easy. My website is wwwyourmagicalmidlife. I'm on Instagram under your magical midlife. Facebook. I'm not really. Facebook is more just for like people. I know people I went to high school with and people from my hometown and things like that. So I'm not.

Speaker 3: 28:14

I don't promote my business much on Facebook, but my tidbit I would like people to walk from in this interview would be to not give up on yourself, no matter what you're struggling with in the middle. There's so much on the other side. With the way that things are, we're probably gonna live to our mid-80s or more and you might as well live with as much joy as you can possibly muster up for yourself. And if you're not happy with your life right now, you have time to change it Absolutely. Don't just give up on yourself and like settle for what you have now. Like chase your dreams, because this is you have to. It's your obligation to yourself. You know, try new things. Try and let yourself be bad at them, let yourself flounder and fail. Like just keep trying until something feels good.

Speaker 2: 29:20

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Words of wisdom have some moxie.

Speaker 3: 29:26

There you go. I love the word moxie. I think it is such. It's got such a great like energy to it. It's about like having a good like, not just an added like, a good attitude, but a sense of adventure and fun.

Speaker 2: 29:42

Yes, yes, when I have to share this quick story. When I gave the eulogy at my mom's service, I talked when I think of my mom, I think of moxie and I, my final line, one of my final lines in the eulogy was may we carry on her moxiness? Oh, I love it. And so when I was thinking about the title for this podcast that I mean it was just like right there, it was right there. And so, yeah, those in the family knew right away that it was kind of a tip of the hat to my mom.

Speaker 3: 30:19

Yeah, but anyway, yeah. I love that. That's so cool.

Speaker 2: 30:25

Thank you so, so much. This has been a really good conversation today and we really wish you the best of luck with the podcast and the coaching and everything. Sorry, so everybody, you know where to find her Yep and I look forward to maybe talking with you again sometime.

Speaker 3: 30:43

I would love to have you on my podcast as soon as I figure out that you know technology. Okay.

Speaker 2: 30:49

Sounds good, thank you, all right, thanks, take care.

Speaker 3: 30:53

All right, you too, bye, bye everybody.

Speaker 1: 30:57

If this podcast was valuable to you, it would mean so much if you could take 30 seconds to do one or all of these three things Follow or subscribe to the podcast and, while they're, leave a review and then maybe share this with a friend if you think they'd like it In a world full of lots of distractions. I so appreciate you taking the time to listen in. Until next time, be well and take care.