THE YEAR I CHOSE ME: WHY SELFISH IS THE NEW FREEDOM

THE YEAR I CHOSE ME: WHY SELFISH IS THE NEW FREEDOM

If you're a woman over 50 feeling stuck, invisible, or exhausted from putting everyone else first, this episode is for you.
 Today we explore midlife reinvention, starting over at 50, and why choosing yourself isn’t selfish,  it’s freedom.

In this episode of Your 2nd Act, Valerie shares how a bold “Selfish Year” at 51 transformed her identity, relationships, and confidence from the inside out.

What happens when you finally ask, “What about me?” At 51, Valerie set a daring experiment: a year of being “selfish.” The result? A life rebuilt from the inside out.

In this episode, we discuss:
 • The “sofa moment” that flipped the switch from stuck to start
 • Red flags we ignore, and why we do it
 • The fears women whisper (money, age, starting over) and how Valerie moved through them
 • What a Selfish Year actually looks like day-to-day (boundaries, micro-steps, radical self-honesty)
 • Journaling as a truth tool: how to spot your own patterns and stop gaslighting yourself
 • De-centering men, re-centering you, and why many women feel freer single
 • The transformation: identity, body, work, friendships, what changed and what stayed

One small step to try today:
 Grab a journal. Write for 5 minutes on: “If I chose me today, what would I do?” Then do one tiny thing from the page.

Resources & Links

Connect with Valerie: The Selfish Year: The Power of Putting Yourself First (new book), plus her podcast The Selfish Woman.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you. Your feedback helps shape future episodes. Reach out anytime at michelle@your2ndact.com.

If you enjoyed this chat, please consider leaving a 5 ⭐ rating or a short review. Your words might be exactly what another woman needs to hear today.

Stay connected:

•📺 Watch on  YouTube

• 📲 Follow on Instagram

• 💬 Join the private Facebook group

Until next time, take care of you… Michelle ❤️

midlife women, women over 50, female empowerment, starting over at 50, self worth

Transcript

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It'S Time To Do Something Radical Because If I Don'T I Don'T Know I Don'T Know What'S Gonna Happen I Don'T Know If I'Ll Make It Out And What I Didn'T Know At The Time Was That I Was In An Emotionally Abusive Relationship All I Knew Is That I Was Desperately Unhappy Was Confused And I Felt Like I Was The Problem And I Didn'T Know How To Fix It Welcome To Your Second Act The Podcast That Proves That Life Doesn'T Have To End At Forty Fifty Or Even Sixty Because When It Comes To Living Your Best Life Age Is Just A Number Hi Lovely Thank You So Much For Popping Me Into Your Ears Again Really Appreciate It Today'S Episode Is All About Being Selfish Now How Many Of Us Always Feel Like That Is A Really Negative Word To Be Selfish You Can'T Be Selfish We'Ve Been Conditioned To Think That We Shouldn'T Be Now I Love Having Conversations With Women Who Refuse To Play It Safe In Midlife Who Decide To Shake Things Up And See What'S Really Possible And Today'S Guest Valerie Is One Of Those Women Have You Ever Stopped And Thought Who The Hell Am I For So Many Of Us We Have Had Years Of Putting Everyone Else In Front Of Us Kids Partners Careers Parents And You Know What What Does It Do It Leaves Us Exhausted Unfulfilled And Quietly Asking What About Me Now Valerie Asked Herself The Same Question And In Response She Set Herself A Radical Experiment A Full Year Of Being Selfish And What Came Out Of It Was Truly Inspiring And She Shares It Here Today With Us On The Podcast But Before We Do Pop Into Her Conversation I Would Really Appreciate It If You Just Took A Few Minutes To Rate And Review This Episode Because It Really Helps My Show Get Into More Ears And What Would Be Even Better If You Could Share It With A Friend You Probably Needs To Hear This Story So Let'S Get Into The Episode With Valerie Valerie At Fifty One You Made The Life Changing Decision To Walk Away From A Toxic Marriage You Left Your New Home In Spain And You Chose To Reclaim Your Power And That Is I Think Such A Courageous Step What Would You Say Was The Turning Point That Made You Get Up One Day And Say I'Ve Had Enough And Just Change My Life Completely And Move Away Yeah It'S So True Right It'S Like What Is That Turning Point Because I Think Me Like So Many Women I Talk To We Have So Many Moments That Build Up To That That One Moment Where We'Re Done And It Can Be Years You Know I In My First Marriage I I Waited Ten Years Too Long In That Relationship Trying To Make It Work And In My Second Marriage I Caught It A Lot Quicker But It Was Still A Long Time Of Really Trying To Make Things Work And Feeling Like Nothing Was Working And And Really Feeling Confused About What Was Going On And Everything I Knew To Do To Work On Myself To Try To Fix Myself Or Fix The Relationship None Of It Was Working And I Was Sinking Deeper And Deeper Into A Hole Of Of Darkness And And So I Knew I Had To Do Something But I Didn'T Know What And Then I Have What I Call In My Book My Sofa Moment Which Is You Know I Was Laying In The Sofa In The Middle Of The Night As I Did After Another Fight And You Know That Night I Just Felt A Turning Point I Just Felt This Click This Voice Inside That Was Like Now Or Never Like You Gotta Do Something Everything You'Ve Tried Isn'T Working You Gotta Do Something Different And I Just Decided You Know What It'S Time To Do Something Radical Because If I Don'T I Don'T Know I Don'T Know What'S Gonna Happen I Don'T Know If I'Ll Make It Out And What I Didn'T Know At The Time Was That I Was In An Emotionally Abusive Relationship All I Knew Is That I Was Desperately Unhappy Was Confused And I Felt Like I Was The Problem And I Didn'T Know How To Fix It So That Moment On The Sofa Was Really The Time Where I Felt That Inner Voice Saying You Know What It'S Time To Do Something About This And I Think That We All Have That Inner Voice Call It Your Intuition Let'S Say Or Your Inner Being And That'S Speaking To Us But We Try To Ignore It We Don'T Wanna Hear It Because It'S Scary To Imagine Doing Something You Know Big Like That But I Think Often The Pain Of Staying Where You Are Has To Get Bigger Than The Fear Of The Change And That'S Certainly Where I Where I Got On That Sofa That Night Yeah I Think You Know You Talk About Intuition That It'S A Great Thing Right But A Lot Of Us Ignore It Because Fear Comes Into It What Do You Think Were The Warning Signs That You Were Ignoring Because I Know There Are A Lot Of Women That Are Gonna Be Listening To This Who Are Probably In The Same Position That You Were In So It'S Like When Do You Get To What Does It Take To Get To The Point To Say Okay I Need To Make A Change Can You Share Some Of Your Warning Signs Yeah I Mean I Would Say There'S Internal Warning Signs And External Warning Signs And I Ignored A Lot Of Red Flags And It'S Interesting I'Ve Had Since My Book Came Out I'Ve Had A Lot Of Women Saying Like How Did How Early Did You See The Red Flags You Know And I'M Like Oh I Saw Them Right Away Almost But I Conveniently Ignored Them Cause I Was Caught Up In The Fantasy And I Was Caught Up In The Romance And The Excitement Of The Relationship And I Really Wanted It And So I Conveniently Just Ignored Them Or Told Myself You Know What We Can Work On That That Will Change And So A Lot Of It Was How We Communicated And How We Had Conflict Those Were Two Things That I Could See Very Early On That Were Not Great And Not Only Were Not Great But Were Toxic And I Just Told Myself Like We'Ll Work On That We Both Love Each Other Love Is Enough We'Ll Figure It Out And You Know It'S Incredible What We Tell Ourselves When We Really Want Something To Work And Then The Internal Warning Signs Were Like I Said How I Felt You Know It'S Like We'Re So Good At Overriding Our Intuition But Also Like Our Emotions Especially If You'Ve Been Raised To Be The Good Girl Or The People Pleaser Then You Have Been Conditioned To Override Your Own Discomfort For The Comfort Of Everybody Else And That Was Certainly How I Was Raised And So I Was Really Good At Abandoning Myself And Pretending Everything Was Fine When It Wasn'T And Ignoring How I Actually Felt And It Got To A Point Yeah Where I Was Like I Can'T Keep Ignoring And Abandoning Myself Just To Keep The Peace Or To You Know Not Disappoint Or Hurt Somebody Else I'M Hurting Me Every Time I Do That And So You Know I Really Got To That Point Of Having To Tell Some Hard Truths To Myself Yeah And You Know To Actually Come To That Realization Of Okay I'M Going To Do This So From What I Understand Is You Hadn'T Been Living In Spain For That Long Is That Right So You Had Moved We'Ve Been There For Two Years Two Years So You You Actually Had Started A New Life With This Man In A Different Country Cause You'Re From Canada So That Is In Itself A Big Deal To Actually Move To A New Country Start Again And Then Realize I Have To Get The Hell Out Of Here So The Bravery It Takes To Move Away From That And To Move Back I Would Find That Is The Hardest Step Of All And I Wanted To Ask You Because As I Was Preparing This Chat With You I Was Thinking If I Was In That Position What How Would I Actually Become Brave Enough To Do This Because All The Thoughts That Would Go Through My Head How Am I Going To Do This How Am I Going To Rebuild My Life Back Home How Am I Gonna Support Myself Am I Too Late To Make A Change I'M Sure All Those Things Went Through Your Head So How How Did You Get Yourself To The Point Where You Were Brave Enough To Actually Just Go And Do It Yeah And It'S True Moving To Spain Was An Adventure We Were Doing It Together It Was A Lot Of Work But You Know It Was When You'Ve Got Someone Else To Do It With It'S It'S Easier And You Know We Had Rented A Place In Valencia For The First Year The Second Year We Bought An Apartment In The Historic District Of Valencia Renovated It Furnished It And Moved In Three Months Before I Walked Out The Door So Haha We Had And And We Had This Beautiful Home And This Externally This Beautiful Life And So There Were So Many Voices In My Head Saying What Are You Doing You Know And And Don'T Do It And You'Re Crazy And So Leaving After Having Just Moved Into This Beautiful Home And Standing There At The Door Which I Also Talk About In My Book The Doorway With This One Way Ticket In My Pocket Not Knowing When I Would Come Back I Didn'T Know How Long I Was Gonna Be Gone But It Takes It Takes Courage But How What I Always Say About Courage Is Courage Is What We Build When We Witness Ourselves Doing Scary Things If There Was No Fear We Would Not Need Courage And So I Think We'Re Always Waiting For This Time When We Don'T Feel As Afraid And It Really Isn'T Gonna Happen If You'Re Standing There About To Do Something That'S Terrifying You Don'T Know What'S Gonna Happen On The Other Side Of That Decision You Don'T Know How You'Re Gonna Figure It Out Just Like Me I Didn'T Know Any Of That That'S When You Have To Realize That The Fear Is Never Gonna Go Away So If I Wait To Not Be Afraid It'S Never Gonna Happen So I Gotta Do It Scared And Trust That I'M Gonna Figure It Out And I Think That The Courage Actually Comes As You Walk Through Your Life That Way It'S Not Like We Can Wait Around To Feel Courageous And Then Be Like Here I Go You Know It Really Is Just A Leap Off That Cliff Trusting That You Have A Parachute And I Did I Found Out I Had A Parachute And It'S A Pretty Good One But Yeah In That Moment I Didn'T Know What Was Gonna Happen And And None Of Us Do We Don'T We Can'T See The Future You Know I I Was Listening To A Video The Other Day I Forget Who Who Was Talking About This But He Said We'Re Not Actually Afraid Of The Unknown Because How Can You Be Afraid Of Something You Don'T No Yeah True Right What We'Re Afraid Of Is What Our Mind Tells Us About What Might Happen And So Our Brain Makes Up All Of These Scenarios Of Things That Might Go Wrong Or What About This And What About That And Then We'Re Afraid Of That Really It'S Our Brain Being Afraid Of The Problem That Our Brain Created We'Re Not As Afraid Of The Unknown We'Re Afraid Of That And So You Know Part Of The Process Is Understanding Fear And How It Shows Up For Us Especially As Women And How To Take Action Even When You'Re Afraid And Not Get Stuck And Frozen And You Know Immobilized Or Sabotaging But Really To Just Keep Taking A Step Forward And A Step Forward And A Step Forward And Trusting That The Path Is Gonna Reveal Itself To You When You'Re Moving But If You'Re Just Stuck You'Re Not Gonna See It No I I Always Say It'S Easier Not To Do Something It'S Easier To Stay Stuck And It'S Crazy Because You'Re Not Happy In That Position It'S Like Why Do We Do This To Ourselves As Women And And It Leads Me To You Writing This Book Because You You Set Yourself An Experiment Which I Love Or To Become Selfish For A Year To See What Was That Going To Be Like Now We Are Conditioned As Women To Be Selfless To Put Everybody In Front Of Us Because That'S What The Good Girl Does Now A Lot Of The Time Let'S Just Face It Most Of The Time It Does Not Serve Us And It Doesn'T Mean That We Don'T Want To Be There For Others And Care For Them But What Happens To Us And This Is What I Find In Midlife A Lot Of Us Get To This Point And Go Basically What The Fuck Have I Done With My Life Where Am I Now And When I Came Across Your Account You Were So Upfront So Honest I Thought Wow This Woman Has Actually Gone And Flipped The Script And Thought Enough I'M Gonna Think Of Me Now What I Wanna Know Is What Does Selfish Mean To You Yeah Yeah It'S A Provocative Word Isn'T It Yes And It'S Confronting For So Many Of Us And Myself Included I Was Raised To Be Selfless Put Others First And I Did That Most Of My Life And I Thought Okay If I Check Those Boxes And I I'M Selfless I'M A Noble Woman And I'M Doing Life Right Then Things Will Work Well For Me But It Didn'T It Didn'T Work Well For Me And So When At Fifty One I Was Like Yeah What The Fuck Because This Whole Life I'Ve Been Doing This And It'S It Doesn'T Seem To Be The Way What If I Flip That Script And So Instead Of Self Less Which I Think Of As Less Of Ourselves Which Leads To Resentment And Exhaustion And Overwhelm And Burnout What If I'M Selfish For An Entire Year What If I Made Every Choice For A Whole Year Based On What Was Right For Me And Not Selfish In The Way That You Know I Was Raised To Believe That Women Are Selfish Who Are Self Absorbed And Self Obsessed No No No How About Selfish In I Wanna Become So Full Of Connection To My True Self That Everything I Do Is An Overflow Of That An Outpouring Of That And What Would Happen If I Lived An Entire Year In That Way And So I Did See It As An Experiment For That Year Which Yeah Changed My Whole Life In Every Area Of My Life But Also Showed Me That Selfish Is Actually The Way That Women Need To Be Living And You Know Men They They Learn How To Be Selfish Early On They They'Re Sort Of Given The Keys To The Kingdom In This Regard But Women Are Not And So Yeah We Need To Really Understand That All The Guilt And Shame That'S Kept Us Selfless Is Really Just Holding Us Back Keeping Us Smaller Keeping Us In Lower Levels Of Results Which Means We'Re Not As Powerful As We Can Be And We Need To Be And So My Selfish Experiment Really Proved That To Me So It You Know It'S Great To Say Yes I'M Gonna Be Selfish I'M Gonna Put Myself First But It'S A Very Hard Thing To Do When You'Ve Never Done That Before So Can You Tell Me In That Year Of Your Experiment What Did It Look Like To Be Selfish And You Know Look I Understand That Having A Whole Year Of What I Did Which Was Live Alone And Work On Myself And Be In Isolation And Learn All These Things I Get That That'S A Privilege And I Couldn'T Have Done That Certainly When My Kids Were Living At Home And You Know So I Had This Moment In Time Where I Was Able To Do It But What I Realized Is You Can Break It Down To Very Small Daily Actions That Will Help You To Shift This Programming Cause It'S A Program In Our Brain And In Our Body That Can Help To Shift You Into Learning How To Prioritize Yourself And Love Yourself And Live In Devotion To Yourself And Experience The Change That Brings In Small I Like To Call Them Micro Changes Small Manageable Steps So I Give You Selfish Strategies In The Book So Each Chapter Has Things You Can Work Through But I Would Say The Very First Lesson I Received Was When I Left Spain And I Was Like I'M Gonna Go Hang Out With My Kids So I Was Staying With My Daughter And You Know We Were Just Like Hanging Out I Didn'T Know What I Was Doing Or Where I Was Going Next And Time Came For Me To To Leave I Had A Flight To Go Somewhere Else To See My Other Child And She Said But Where Are You Gonna Stay Next And What Are You Gonna Do And You Know She Was A Little Worried About Me And I Was Like I Don'T Know And I Realized In That Moment That I Didn'T Even Know How To Make A Decision On My Own I Had Allowed Other People To Decide Things For Me My Entire Life My Parents Then My First Husband Then My Second Husband And I Realized Wait Like Okay So As Long As I Let Them Make Decisions Number One If It Failed It Wouldn'T Be My Fault I Wouldn'T I Wouldn'T Look Like The Bad Guy Yep And Number Two Right And Number Two It Didn'T Really Require Much Of Me To Have To Understand What I Actually Wanted And So That Was My First Real Aha Moment Was Hang On So Selfish Actually Means I Have To Know Myself Number One And Then Number Two I Have To Actually Act On What My True Self Says Oh This Is Gonna Take A Little More Work Than I Thought This Isn'T Just About Bubble Baths And You Know Massages This Is About The Deep Work Of Understanding And Connecting To Your True Self Yeah Oh That Has Just Spoken To Me Big Time Because I Have Always Felt That I'Ve Been Everyone'S Kind Of Cheerleader And Also Wanting To Get Close To That Excitement Of What It Could Feel Like But I'Ve Always Done It Behind Someone Else Because Then I Was Never Accountable If It Failed It Was That Person That'S Great Bang On What You Have Just Said I'Ve Never Looked At It Like That So It'S The Accountability To Yourself Isn'T It It'S Like Well I'M Choosing This I Can'T Blame Anyone If It Doesn'T Go The Way I Wanted It To Go But Even Just Doing That Must Feel So Empowering To Make Your Own Decisions But I Realize How Scary That Must Have Felt For You Yeah Wow Yeah But It Is It'S Enlightening Isn'T It When We Realize That Like Wait I Think I'M Being This Noble Giving You Know Caring Person And Sure That Is Part Of It But A Big Part Of It At Least For Me Was Also This It Lets Me Off The Hook Of Responsibility And Accountability And I Talk About Taking Radical Responsibility And This Is Really What It Is Right Because You Know We'Ve All Heard The Quote Nobody'S Coming To Save You Which Is True But We Can Certainly Try To Get People Invested In Saving Us By Making That Decision For Us And Then Yeah We'Re Off The Hook And We Don'T Have To Do The Hard Work Of Understanding What It Is I Actually Want I Used To Say That I Was So Easy Going And Low Maintenance And What I Really Was Was Just Somebody Who Didn'T Want To Make Decisions Hahaha Yes Yes Exactly Cause It'S Hard Who Wants To Make Those Decisions I Get It To Your Point Though I Did Have A Moment A Few Weeks Into My Selfish Year Where I Was In Canada And I'D Rented A Car And I Was Going To See My Son We Rented A Little Cabin By The Water For A Couple Weeks And I Rolled Down The Window And I Remember Putting My Arm Out The Window And Just Feeling So Free In That Moment Of Like I'M Here I'M By Myself I Can Do What I Want And Go Where I Want And Wow Does That Ever Feel Good At Fifty One To Be Doing That For The First Time In My Life That'S Those Moments Where It'S All Worth It Where You Realize You'Re Setting Yourself Free From All Of These You Know Constraints And Rules And Guilt And Everything That It'S Not Your Fault It'S Because Of How You Were Raised Or Taught Or Whatever But Now It'S Your Responsibility To Release Yourself From That And Free Yourself From That And So Many Women In Midlife Are Doing That And It'S So Exciting Yeah Yeah And I Think Our Generation I Talk About This A Lot On The Show That We'Re The Generation That Are Making The Change That Are Really Waking Up Compared To Our Mothers And Our Grandmother'S Generation And I Think It'S Amazing And You'Ve Got A Daughter I'Ve Got Two And I'M Hoping That They Can Learn From Us And Not Make Those Same Damn Mistakes That Have Been Happening Through Generations So By You Doing This Experiment On Yourself How Did It Affect Your Relationships With Others Yeah It'S A Great Question It Can'T Help But Affect Relationship With Others Of Course I Did End Up Getting A Divorce After My Selfish Year I Was Able To Understand And Learn That Like Okay It'S Time For Us To Part Ways And But You Know With My Kids Talking About Your Kids My Kids Were All Adults At The Time What I Found Later Afterwards Is I Really Saw That This Gave Them Permission To Be Selfish Themselves I Saw My Daughter Really Taking That On Board With Herself Her Career Plans She'S Married But You Know I Could See Her Sliding Into Some People Pleasing Around You Know Putting Herself Last Or Her Career Last And She'S Really Stepped Up And Said No This Is Important To Me And This Is What I'M Gonna Choose And We'Re Gonna Make That Work And They Are So I Think That I'M Modeling Something That My Kids Are Really Seeing And Noticing And Taking On For Themselves It It In It It Impacts Friendships Certain Friendships Didn'T Come Along Others You Know I'Ve Met New Friendships I Think Anytime A Woman Grows And Evolves Friendships Will Shift And That'S Okay There Has Been Some Challenges With Family You Know I Think Anytime You Show Up Differently In A Family Unit Biological Family Unit That Can Be Hard For People And I Think For Me Showing Up More More Powerfully Setting Healthier Boundaries With My Mom My Sister You Know That'S Been Difficult And Challenging But It'S Also Been An Opportunity To Have More Real Conversations And Work Things Through In A Way That I Never Did Before Because I Didn'T Have The Guts And I Didn'T Know How To Do It And Now It'S Like Wait If I'M Selfish What Does That Mean It Means I'Ve Got To Have A Hard Conversation With My Mother About You Know Something That I Probably Would Have Just Avoided Before So It'S Really Brought Deeper Richer Relationships Yeah That'S That That Is Amazing And I Can Imagine That Some Relationships Friendships Probably Didn'T Stand The Test Of Time Because I Think What Happens Is When You See Someone Evolving Or Changing Or Doing Something A Little Bit Radical It Really Hits Home Within Yourself And Some People Can'T Handle It So It'S Easier To Either Criticize The Person Who'S Made The Change Or Just Say I Can'T Be With That Person Cause I Think That'S Wrong But It It Always Comes Back To That Person And I I Think You Don'T Wanna Be Friends With People Like That You Don'T Want People Like That In Your Life You Want People Who Who Are Your Cheerleaders And Lift You Up And Say Go You That Is Amazing And And It'S You Know It It'S Led You To Write This Book The Selfish Year The Power Of Putting Yourself First So Tell Me About What Led You To Write The Book Yeah I Mean Little Did I Know That When I Embarked On My Selfish Experiment That I Was Living My Book Haha I Was Just Living My Life But Afterwards I Was Like Hang On A Second Like This Is This Is What I Need To Write About Cause I'Ve Been A Writer For A Very Long Time But I Knew That This This Was Something That Women Need To Hear This Is Something That Women Need To Learn And You Know I'Ve Been A Life Coach For Ten Years So I Work With I'Ve Worked With Women For Over A Decade And So I Understand What Women Are Going Through But I'Ve Also Been Going Through It Myself So It'S Like This Is Really Something That I Wanna Put Out Into The World And And So I Wanted To Tell The Story In A Way That Was Not Just My Story But Every Woman'S Story Who Sees Themselves In What I Went Through Which Is You Know Emotional Abuse Or Toxic Relationships Divorce Empty Nester You Know How Can We Be Good Role Models To Our Kids People Pleasing Getting Your Power Back In Midlife Like It'S All In There And Then Like I Said I Break Down Strategies For You So You Can Literally Take What I Learned The Hard Way And Apply It To Your Life Wherever You Are Whatever'S Going On You Can Do This Work You Know It'S Like No You Don'T Have To Wait Until You Have All Kinds Of Time You Can Take Five Minutes A Day And Like Lock Yourself In Your Bathroom And Write In Your Journal Or You Know Do Some Of This Work And If You Do A Little Bit Of Work On Yourself Every Day Imagine In A Year Where You Will Be Right Your Confidence Your Self Esteem Your Decisions Your Boundaries Your Your Self Talk Like All Of This Stuff Is Available To You To Change If You Want It And You Know Yes Sometimes We Have To Wait Until We Get Into A Position Where Life Is Really Hard And We'Re We'Re Forced To Make A Choice Or It'S So Painful We Have To But It Doesn'T Have To Be That Way Either You Know It Can Be Just A Simple Decision To Say I Wanna Feel Better I Wanna Love Myself More I Wanna Feel Proud Of What Who I See In The Mirror I Wanna Make Choices That Align With What I Deserve And How Do I Find That Out Even You Know Get The Book And It'Ll Walk You Through That Yeah Yeah Well That Sounds Like A Great Idea Cause I Think The Hardest Thing Is To Start Because We Constantly Will Put Every Excuse In Front Of What We Should Be Doing So I You Know Obviously I Encourage Everyone To Go And Buy Your Book And Read It But What Would You Say To Someone Who Is Feeling Really Low Unhappy But Just Can'T Doesn'T Know Where To Start What Would Be One Tip That You Could Give Her To Start Making A Little Difference Yeah I Mean Look I'Ve Been There You Know When I Left Spain I Was Probably The Lowest Point Of My Life And I Wasn'T Really Talking To Anybody About It And You Know And I Talk To A Lot Of Women Every Day Who Are In That Place And Feeling Really Desperate And Lost And Scared And One Thing I Always Say Is Like Go Buy A Journal And Start Writing In It Every Day Because And Don'T Write About What You Ate For Lunch Like Talk About The Real Stuff You Know And If You'Re Scared Someone Will Read It Then Go Online And Get A Password Protected Journal There Are Lots Of Free Ones Out There I Did That Too You Know Cause That Can Be A Reason Why Women Won'T Do It You Don'T Have An Excuse They Have You Have To Do It Because There Is Something Magical That Happens When You Put Pen To Paper Or You Write Your Thoughts Down It Takes It Out Of The Swirly Confusion In Your Head And You Can Then Read Your Words In A More Detached Way And It Helps You To Observe Yourself And What'S Going On In A Much More In A Much More Rational Way And It Helps You To Really Start To See The Truth And You Know I Journaled Every Day Through My Selfish Year And It Was Wild What I Started To Learn About Myself Just From That One Thing I Would Look Back And Go Hang On Am I Gaslighting Myself In My Own Journal You Know Like I Would I Would Start To See That Like Oh His His Voice Is Still In My Head And I'M Still Telling It To Myself You Know I Discovered That Through Writing It Down And You Really Will Start To Get To Know Yourself In A Deeper Way And So You Know I Give You Lots Of Journal Prompts In The Book I Would Say That'S One Simple Easy Way That Any Woman Can Start To Do That Will Start To Help You To Be Honest With Yourself Get To Know Yourself Better And From There You Will Start To Find Your Path Because It All Comes From Connection To Yourself And Awareness Of What'S Really Going On And If You'Ve Got Lots Of Things Going On In Your Life That Are Negative Or Or Difficult Then There Are A Lot Of Voices That Are Lying To You And Telling You Things That Aren'T True So Start To Be Your Own Voice Of Truth For Yourself Yeah That'S That'S A Great Tip I Also Think What What I Love About Journaling Is You Can Actually Look Back And See How Far You'Ve Come Because I Think We Block Out A Lot Of The Things That Obviously Are Traumatic Or We Just Don'T Even Want To Remember But If It'S Actually Written Down You Can See Wow Okay It'S Been A Year But I'M A Very Different Person As You Can Attest To How Different Are You Now From The Fifty One Year Old Valerie To Who You Are Today World'S Apart Right I Mean It'S Crazy I Look Different Like People Don'T Recognize Me From Back Then I Look Because After My Selfish Year And I Had So Much Healing And Transformation You Know I Lost Fifty Five Pounds I Moved To A New City And My Business Totally Transformed I You Know I Just I Dress Different I Cut All My Hair Off Like I Really Had One Of Those Moments Of Like This Is The New Me And So When I Look Back On The Journals And You Know I Include Some Journal Entries In My Book From That Year So When I Was Going Back I Was Writing The Book And Reading Some Of Those Journal Entries I Felt So Much Compassion For That Woman Who Was Just Trying To Figure It Out And Didn'T Know What The Heck Was Gonna Happen Like You Said Right It'S So Scary How Am I Gonna Provide For Myself Like How You Know All Of Those Fears Were There And Looking Back It'S Like Wow Like Look What You Did That'S Pretty Incredible And To Be Able To See Where She Was And Where I Am Now Just Reminds Me Of What'S Possible When You Decide To Be Selfish And So Yeah It'S So Fun To Be Able To Look Back And Be Like Whoa Look How Far I'Ve Come Yeah I I Think That Is Amazing Definitely I Recently We'Re About To Move Home And I'Ve Been Going Through A Lot Of Boxes And I Came Across Like You Know How We'Ve All Got Our Own Little Box From We'Ve Just Got Stuff There That We'Ve Had There From Years And Years Ago And I Found My Journals From I Think I Started When I Was Twelve Years Old And I Stopped Writing In Them In My Late Twenties It Was An Amazing Eye Opener To Me Cause I'D Forgotten A Lot Of Stuff And I Thought That Little Girl I Was So Damn Scared And It'S Just Been Interesting I'Ve Been Reading It Like A Book And Getting To Know Myself Through That And It'S Been Just So Lovely To See How I Have Evolved Over The Years And How I'M So Proud Of The Person I'Ve Become Now Through So Much Ups And Downs In My Life So Yeah I Think Journaling Is Is A Great Tool So Yeah I Can'T Wait To Read Your Book And Really You Know See These Great Tools That Can Help Us All Now What I Wanna Ask You Is So You'Ve Been Married Twice And Now Obviously I'M Assuming You'Re A Single Woman How Has Your View On Relationships Changed Good Question Okay So This Has Been A Journey As Well And Actually I I'M Going To Be Writing Another Book I Think And It'S Gonna Be The Selfish Year Of Dating Because I I Took A Year To Date Yeah So Two Years After My Divorce I Was Like Okay Let'S See What'S Out There But What I Did Was I Decided How Can I Date And Be Selfish Because The Old Me Would Have Dated To Get Approval From Men Or Attention From Men Or You Know Are They Gonna Like Me Are They Gonna Text Me Back And All The Things That A People Pleaser Would Do I Was Like How Does A Selfish Woman Date And So I Actually Saw It As A Self Growth Experiment Because I Knew I Still Had Things That I Had To Work On Around My Relationships With Men And So I Decided To Just Date Casually For A Year Without Looking For A Relationship But Just To See What Would Happen And I'M Telling You I Had Such An Incredible Year I Met A Lot Of Great Guys And I Learned A Lot About Myself I Would Literally Come Off Of A Date And I Would Journal And Journal And Journal Be Like What Did I Learn What Did I Do Oh I Saw That Pattern I Was Being A People Pleaser There And So I Learned A Lot About Myself And Then I Was Like I Think I'M Done Now And I Stopped Dating And For The Last Two Years I Have Been Totally Single Like Not On The Apps Not Dating And That Has Been A Wild Journey Of Learning How Much Women Are Conditioned To Orbit Around Men We Are Conditioned To Orbit Around Men That We Want Their Approval We Want Their Attention We Need Them To Think Of Us A Certain Way Do I Look Cute Do I Look Sexy What Are They Thinking And I Had No Idea How Insidious That Programming Was For Me Until I Removed All Of That Male Proximity Around Romantic Relationships And I Started Understanding How We Need To I Call It Decentered Men In Our Lives So It'S Not About Hating Men I Love Men I Got Two Sons Like Men Are Great What It'S About For Women Is Doing The Work To Understand That We Are Meant To Orbit Ourselves Like We Are Meant To Be The Center Of Our Own Life And If There Is A Man In Our Life They Are There As An Extra Right A Supporting Character In Our Life But We Cannot Orbit Around Them And How They Feel And What They Want And And Are They Mad Are They Upset You Know And So I Really Started Working On Decentering Men And That Has Been Another Revolutionary Thing I'Ve Learned And It'S Really Set Me Free In So Many Ways From How I Dress To What I You Know How I Feel When I Go Out Whatever It Might Be It'S Another Level Of Freedom That I Think Women A Gen X Women Are Just Starting To Talk About I'M Just Starting To Have These Conversations And It'S Really A Hot Topic Women Love Talking About This Cause I Think We'Re Finally Waking Up To The Patriarchy And How It'S Really Affected Us Yeah Wow That Is So Interesting I Talk To A Lot Of Women Who Are Single Now And It'S Interesting How Most Of Them Have No Desire To Re Partner They Love Being On Their Own Yeah The Relationships They Have With Their Girlfriends Become The Most Important Aside From Their Own Family But They Get More Out Of Those Relationships Than The Romantic Relationships And I Find That Really Really Interesting And I Look At Them And They Just Have This Look On Their Face It'S Like I'M Living Life On My Own Terms I Don'T Have To Compromise With That Person Anymore And I Think That Is So Freeing And That'S Not To Say Like You Said You Know Men Men Are Great We'Re Not Hating On Men Yep But I Do Wonder Can You Really When You'Ve You Get To This Stage In Life Can You Really Coexist With A Man Anymore Especially When You'Ve Done All That Work On Yourself I Think It Would Be Really Hard Yeah And I Think Also To Your Point Women Who Are In Relationships Also Need To Be Doing This Work Of Decentering Men And Learning How To Be With Their Man In A Way That Is Prioritizing Themselves But Single Women Yeah I Think They'Re Figuring Out That Like We'Re Doing Our Work We'Re Healing We'Re Evolving We'Re Growing We'Re In Community With Other Women And Life Is Just Pretty Damn Great And So If A Man'S Gonna Come In What'S He Bringing That'S Gonna Add To This Life I'Ve Already Created That Is Amazing What Are You Bringing Because I Don'T Need Your Money And I Don'T Need Any Right I Don'T Need You Yeah So It'S You'Re Gonna Have To Like Bring Something Else That'S Gonna That'S Gonna Add To My Life And Unfortunately A Lot Of Men Aren'T Doing The Work To Heal And Grow And Evolve And So A Lot Of Them Are Feeling Left Behind Because Women Are Just Like So In Their Place Of Power Now And Yeah I I Had My Book Launch Party A Couple Weeks Ago And One Of A Woman Came Who Has Come To My Retreats And She'S Been A Client Of Mine But I Hadn'T Seen Her In A Couple Years She Gone Through A Divorce And Then Immediately Started Dating And Was In Another Relationship And You Know Trying To Figure That Out She Showed Up And I'M Telling You I Was Like What What Is Going On Why Are You Glowing Why Are You Why You Look So Happy And She'S Like I'M Single Now She'S Like I'M Finally Single And She'S Like It'S The Best Thing Ever And Everyone Was Just Like Blown Away She Looked So Different And So Yeah I Again I Always Just Bring It Back To Us Right And It'S Like What Is Our Work To Evolve And Grow And Heal And Then How Do You Walk That Out In Your Own Life Whether You'Re Married Or In A Relationship Or Not Really It'S All About You It'S All About Finding Your Own Self Love Happiness Right Where You Are In Your Life And From There You'Ll Know What That Decision Needs To Be Whether You Need To Break Up With Somebody Or You Wanna Be With Someone Or You Don'T That Will Come When You'Re Selfish And You'Re Connected To Yourself You'Ll Know What You Need And For Me Right Now I'M I I Can'T Imagine Bringing A Man In Honestly I Thought Maybe Like One Day I'D Be Like Free To Kayla Where Like Her Husband Lived Next Door And They Had A Bridge Connecting Their Houses That Could Be Nice Yeah And You Know It Does Some People Actually Live That Way And It Works And I Can See Why You'Ve Got Your Own Little Haven And You Can See Each Other When You Need To See Each Other And That'S Fine But Exactly I I Think I Think That'S A Great Idea I Haven'T Thought About It Ha Ha Well No I Think More Women Are Thinking That Way Yeah Yeah Definitely Why Not Well I Loved This Conversation With You I'Ve Loved Watching Your Your Instagram I Think You'Re So Honest I Think So Many Women Relate To The Way You Speak Because I Think Honesty Goes A Long Way And The Fact That You'Ve Written This Book Is Such A Great Testament To Your Experience And To Wanting To Help Other Women And Why Not Why Not Share Your Experience And Hopefully That'S Just Going To Help Someone Else Wake Up And Maybe Realize I Can Do This And I Can Be Selfish So To End All My Episodes I Ask The Same Question Is There A Quote That You Love That Makes You Feel So Good About Yourself Or Just Really Resonates If You'D Like To Share It With Us Well I Will Share A Quote From Glenn And Doyle Because This Quote Really Kind Of Sparked This Whole Idea For Me And That Is That The World Needs More Selfish Women And When She Said That I Was Like Isn'T That Interesting What Does That Mean And What Am I Gonna Do About That And So Gotta Give Props To Her Because That Was A Really Inspiring Quote For Me And I And I Agree With It Wholeheartedly Now That I'M Living It The World Needs Women Who Are Selfish Who Are Putting Themselves First And Understanding What That Really Means Yeah Because What Comes Out Of That Is Quite Beautiful And Powerful And It Is We All Need To Feel It Thank You Valerie I Wish You All The Best With Your Book Launch Hope To See You Here In Australia One Day Yeah And Keep Doing Your Work And Keep Encouraging Women To Be Selfish Thank You Thank You So Much For Having Me Pleasure Thanks For Tuning Into Another Episode Of Your Second Act If You Enjoyed This Episode I'D Love It If You Could Rate And Leave A Review On Your Favourite Podcast Platform Your Feedback Means The World To Me