Colette Baron-Reid: The Real Science Behind Manifesting & Why You're Not Doing It Wrong l EP37

What if everything you’ve been taught about manifesting is only half the story?

In this episode of The Midlife Awakening Podcast with Odilia, I sit down with the legendary Colette Baron-Reid — intuitive, bestselling author, oracle card creator, and one of the most respected voices in the manifestation space — to talk about her brand new book, The Art of Manifesting. Colette has been practising and teaching manifestation for nearly 40 years, and what she brings to this conversation goes far beyond vision boards and positive thinking. We explore the neuroscience of why these practices actually work, what’s really blocking most women from manifesting the life they want, and why midlife might be the most powerful time to start.

In this episode we cover:

• Why “Uber Eats manifesting” doesn’t work — and what to do instead
• The difference between manifesting what you want vs. what you are
• How the nervous system is the missing piece in most manifestation practices
• The role of surrender, divine timing, and non-attachment
• Why creative practices like drawing and doodling are scientifically linked to rewiring your brain
• Colette’s extraordinary personal story — from addiction recovery and a failed music career to becoming a global spiritual teacher
• Real-life manifestation stories (including one of my own that happened 24 hours after doing an exercise from the book!)
• What women in midlife need to know about reclaiming their power and taking up space

About Colette Baron-Reid: Colette Baron-Reid is an internationally acclaimed oracle card creator, intuitive counsellor, and author of 19 oracle card decks and 8 books, including The Art of Manifesting. She has spent four decades at the intersection of spirituality, neuroscience, and personal transformation, and her work has reached millions of people worldwide.

Links & Resources:

• 🌐 Colette’s website: colettebaronreid.com
• 📲 Follow Colette on Instagram: @colettebaronreid
• 💌 Join the Midlife Awakening community on Substack: [link]

Transcript

The Midlife Awakening (00:00)
If you're someone who has ever tried to make a vision board in order to manifest something, only to feel like it didn't work or you were doing it wrong, this episode is going to change everything for you. Today on the Midlife Awakening podcast with Odilia I'm sitting down with the extraordinary Collette Barron-Reed, who by the way needs no introduction, but she is, of course, an internationally respected author, artist, educator, spiritual, intuitive, medium,

and Oracle expert. Her bestselling books and Oracle cards are published worldwide in 27 languages. She is the founder of Oracle School, a global online learning platform with students in 35 countries where self-empowerment, co-creation and ancient oracles meet in a modern contemporary way. Collette is also the creator of the energy psychology technique, Envision, the total mind shift process. She has also authored her brand new book,

the art of manifesting, a meditative drawing practice to rewire your brain and create your reality. Now Colette has spent nearly 40 years studying, practicing and teaching manifestation. And what she shares in this conversation is unlike anything you've heard before in the manifesting space. We talk about why the Uber Eats model of manifestation doesn't work. The neuroscience behind why vision boards actually do work.

when they are used correctly and how to surrender an outcome without giving up on your dream. Also, we cover why midlife might be the most powerful time in a woman's life to start co-creating the life she truly wants using manifestation tools like the ones in Collette's new book and why community is so important for women. Collette also shares her personal story behind her music career, her recovery journey and how this book came to fruition.

Whether you're new to manifestation or you've been on this path for years, there is so much gold in this conversation. So let's get into it.

Odilia|The Midlife Awakening (02:10)
Welcome to the Midlife Awakening podcast. I'm your host, Odilia. This is a podcast about transformation for women who are waking up to who they really are while navigating everything that comes with midlife. And I want you to know I'm on this journey right alongside you.

This is the show where we explore everything from the spiritual tools that can help us in our daily practices to healing modalities that we can use to heal what we've been carrying for so long to the everyday midlife topics that a midlife woman faces like perimenopause, finances, career changes, and so much more. Each week we go deeper into what it means to heal, to awaken, and to finally become the most authentic version of yourself. I'm so glad that you found your way here.

The Midlife Awakening (02:59)
Hi Collette, welcome to the Midlife Awakening podcast with me, Odelia. I'm so grateful that you're on today and we're be talking about your new book, The Art of Manifesting, which I, well, I've got a copy here. So there we go. There we go. For those on video, that's what the book looks like. And thank you. Thank you, it's Portuguese.

Colette Baron-Reid (03:08)
I should probably go grab it. You have it, okay. Thank you.

And I love your name. What?

I spent almost three months in Portugal last year. We were going to move there. we didn't. Yeah.

The Midlife Awakening (03:26)
Okay.

That seems to be a theme for you.

Colette Baron-Reid (03:30)
Yes, right, I was going to move to London when I first met my husband and instead neither of us went anywhere. We stayed in Canada and then yeah, I love Portugal.

The Midlife Awakening (03:32)
you

Yes, I'm actually going so I was actually born in South Africa and then moved to England nine years ago and I've never been to Portugal even though I am Portuguese but I'm going next month so we're actually from a little island called Madeira which is just off the coast yeah yeah and so we're going yes yes exactly

Colette Baron-Reid (03:48)
Holy crap.

I know what be. Yeah, Madeira, yeah. Where the wine comes from.

The Midlife Awakening (04:00)
So we're going for a week next month, which I'm super excited about. So can go and see like my heritage, ancestry and all of that. So I'm really excited.

Colette Baron-Reid (04:05)
Beautiful.

It's beautiful.

And there's a real, there's a magical quality to the entire country. it was just friendly people. The food was extraordinary. And, that just, it's mystical. There's something mystical about it. So I think you're going to really love it.

The Midlife Awakening (04:25)
Thank you. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. So today we're talking about your book, The Art of Manifesting, which, and I really love this book because you have a really clever way of combining neuroscience, creativity and spirituality. And you do it in such a practical way So if we start out, so you write that your journey with this work actually started in 1986 when you went to Unity Church. So do you want to talk a little bit about

Colette Baron-Reid (04:48)
Yes,

exactly. Sure. So I got clean and sober 40 years ago. So I think I should say that too, because both stories, everything kind of was parallel and interwoven. So when I got clean and sober, I had, you know, I got into a 12 step program, and then my friends, so was a thing that we would go all to learn in different meditation groups. So we went to the Tibetan

The Midlife Awakening (04:49)
how you got to Unity Church.

Colette Baron-Reid (05:11)
on Tuesday night, the Tibetans. But Unity was my favorite because they were non-denominational and they meditated and they had good music. They played really cool music, so this was a cool place to go. But more importantly, because I am a nerd, they had a library. And in that library, they had books.

by one particular author, Catherine Ponder, who wrote a book called The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity, The Dynamic Laws of Prayer, and then also Ernest Holmes, Science of Mind. So all of the original or early, original works of new thought, the new thought movement, that we create reality based on our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and our relationship to a higher power. So that changed my life.

⁓ And it is when I was first also introduced to an art form relative to manifesting, right? Cause they taught me, they called it treasure mapping. They didn't call it vision boarding. you would do these collages and, you know, pictures and things like everybody knows this, it's ubiquitous now.

So I started doing them every year. I also, so I made a living as an artist before that too. so I was painting on people's clothes and things like that. So I just wanted to put all the pieces together as to how the book actually came out. So that became a part of my spiritual, my practice, you know, that doing these creative,

projects making something real. They didn't have anything to do with neuroscience. So they didn't say anything about it. They didn't know anything about it, but it's all neuroscience because what they described was neuroscientific, but they didn't have the science to back it up. But I just did it because it worked. it didn't, there's lots of things that I learned from it. When I say it worked, I have a 40 year hindsight map.

to go over to say, cause I've done like 42 or 44 vision boards and have taught vision boarding now for almost 20 years. So it's like, know, it's in my own understanding of it evolved dramatically. the seed was planted then, the spiritual path.

was about emotional and psychological sobriety, not just being dry off drugs and alcohol. So it was about ego, deflation to the best of our ability, because usually addicts are pretty self-centered, and developing a conscious contact to a higher power. So if you put all those things, and plus I was an intuitive. So I was also working with divination.

So, right, so all of the pieces of me all came together like almost 40 years ago to then place me where I am today, which is fascinating when I look back, I'm like literally full circle, like full circle from the beginning to see how we have evolved in terms of our information that's available to us as a species, right? You know, like we know more now than we ever have. The science of materialist science has been proven now that it's not really true.

Like the fact that it is, is all connected. It's all energy. That's now no longer a new age statement. It's real scientists are studying this. And we recognize that there is a correlation between how we feel and how we are capable of co-creating a reality that

The Midlife Awakening (08:17)
Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (08:36)
is based on our choices rather than based on our conditioning, right, which I go into at length in the book.

The Midlife Awakening (08:43)
Yeah. And I love how you talk about co-creation. Not just, it's not just because so much, there's so much out there about manifesting where it's like, you know, make a list and then, you know, and that's it. And, you know, wait for it to appear at your, at your front door. But you, yeah. Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (08:51)
Uber Eats.

This bullshit, that's Uber Eats, right? That

doesn't work. I mean, but here's what's interesting. It can when you have no attachment to it. That's the thing. And that's why people, there's no, we're not, we cannot say an entire population of spiritual seekers are stupid. We can't. They follow this because there is a kernel of truth in it. There's more than a kernel, right? In fact, it does work like magic sometimes. And we're like, wow, is that what I should expect every day?

But it's usually the stuff we've completely let go of or we have no real attachment to. But no one has taught that part of it. It's mostly look at it, grab it, want it, visualize it to the T, right? To the button, and then you're gonna get it. And that's why also people are so messed up because they don't get the results exactly the way they thought it should be. And they think that they're doing it wrong. Whereas in fact, they are doing it 100%.

And that everything that actually shows up in your life is a direct reflection of who you are, not what you want. Right? We manifest what we are, not what we want, not what we are lacking. So whatever we're ready for, like some of the easiest manifestors are people that are not very complicated. Right? I have a friend who's very cut and dry, who's got no problem with

like manifesting money, I'm manifest this money. And very, like, totally not ashamed of being materialistic or whatever, why not, right? in our spiritual world, you can be both, you can be both. You just have to ask yourself these deeper questions, which are in the book, which are, is the motive behind wanting the thing you say you want? Why? What is it about that?

And can you let it go? Because ultimately, once we start diving into the manifestation journey, we come from three things, especially right now. And you see it on TikTok. Like I don't have TikTok. I think it's assaulting, but I've seen it. And apparently I have a channel, but Hay House did that. But I know that there's all these TikTok manifestors and stuff going like, look at my big boat. I manifested that. And yeah, you did, likely. But how, how? Did you rent it? Like for the pictures? ⁓ Is it actually yours?

And do you have the means to maintain it? Like that's the other thing. Like there's people say they want all these things, but what is it? What's the price you pay for those things? This is always a trade, right? There's always a trade off. but ultimately, yes, you can and things can work, but they don't work like that consistently. So you cannot place an order in the universal, you know, delivery service and say it's coming. But I've got some great stories about manifestation though. So.

⁓ I have two parallel lives that went together side by side so that like, I really believe that so I could teach about it. I believe that that's how what happened. Right. So I had another career that I was chasing and I was pounding away at it. And that was as a recording artist, a singer songwriter, and I was one. Right. So, but from my teens, that's all I wanted. This thing that I do, the intuitive stuff was like, well,

I used to tell people, I don't really do this. I'm really a singer. Don't come back next year. Right? Like I won't be here. Of course I never will. Right? But I would, because I had so much attachment to the result of that, because I was looking for the music career to redeem me from the crazy maniac life I had before, all the crap that happened to me, the victimization, somehow this was going to make me whole. So I had a big agenda.

The Midlife Awakening (12:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (12:24)
attached to the music and lost the art chasing the record deal. and of course, the doors kept slamming in front of me, right, slamming what I did nothing for whatsoever, except so here's what was happening at the same time, because I went to Unity Church and I was doing vision boards, I was asking to be and I was on a very distinct spiritual path of which requires me to ask, you know, to say, I will be done through me, show me how to serve.

Like show me how to serve. Oh, PS, I want that. But show me how to serve. And I kept being shown how to serve because it was the most easiest thing. I never even gave out a business card for my readings. People was all word of mouth. There wasn't any internet when I did this. Like there was nothing. Zip. We didn't even have cell phones when I started. And I had already in the first six years of working as an intuitive, I'd already got clients in 29 countries at that point. Literally they'd call me from all over the world.

and I'd be like, how did you get my number? Where are you from New Zealand? How is this possible? Oh, I got your number at a conference from this person and that person. And the phone would keep ringing and then I would have people to my house. People showed up from Japan from like, it's crazy. I have the craziest stories. And I was like, I don't like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, God show me how to serve with the music. And I could stand the people would be coming for this.

Okay, and then I would get on my knees and go like, if I'm not the real thing, I want you to take it away from me. Just take it away, take it away. It's too much, too much responsibility. I didn't want to be any of that. And meanwhile, it was like, wow, this is really cool. Look at all this is happening. Look how easy it is for me to do this. Look how good I am at this. Like, and I had an really, really, you know, strong reputation with predictive accuracy too, which I avoid right now, by the way, too, because I think the world has changed dramatically and prediction is not the healthiest choice.

The Midlife Awakening (13:51)
Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (14:12)
because people move quickly through already past that predictive moment and you have to allow people to evolve. However, now I look at things a little bit differently. But at the time, because the timeline of our world was slower, you could make predictions. It was like, yeah, I can see from today's point of vantage where I see you heading. And if you don't change anything and you're staying on track, that's likely gonna happen. I was really high accuracy. So that's how I got well known.

⁓ but I'd be like, I'm, I'm really this other thing. And I was miserable. I didn't recognize, I didn't recognize this as a gift at all. Okay. Like, so more vision boards, by the way, more vision boards asking, me how to serve. I will be done through me. So I would say to you that at, at the time, the me that was her would say, it was not working very well for me.

The Midlife Awakening (14:48)
Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (15:00)
Meanwhile, it was working perfectly for me, but I didn't understand that it was, because I didn't really understand, and nor did anybody that was teaching it either at the time, really understand the real nature of how it all worked. Because once I let go completely and had no attachment whatsoever, like, so I had quit music altogether, because at that point, I'm like, wow, I'm like, doing so well doing this, I feel really good. I had my one last record deal fell through and I was just miserable.

And I'm like, whatever, I'm giving it up. then, okay, so now wait, now I still put these things on my vision boards, right? Well, just in case, And I had also along the way, I studied Jungian psychology, holotropic breath work, I was constantly.

taking classes, learning about other ways in which I could help people and understand how this thing works. how I, because I changed so dramatically because I was also working this 12 step program. But I still had these two manifestation things, right? So here's what happens. Give it up altogether. I'm happy as a clam.

doing what I'm doing, I'm going all over the world. People start inviting me. I went to London. I'd go there regularly to do readings at the Sloan Club, no less, in London. So I had all these she, fa, fa clientele too, like connected to the queen and whatever. I thought, wow, I'm gonna move to London, which I almost did. I had people invite me to come to their homes, they bring their friends, and I went all over the place. I had the most extraordinary life.

And I finally realized that this is what God wants for me. I keep it open mind, that's the word I use. I don't believe in a white guy in the sky that relates to religion. I believe in conscious universe. God's easy to say. It's and it's higher powers, two words. So anyway, so so what ends up happening? And I'm teaching this stuff, too, about manifesting. And I said, OK, well, you know, you're going to get exactly what's meant for you. I didn't understand that.

I kept saying, well, that's just not meant for me. Finally, at the end of the day, was like, well, that's, I can't do this anymore. It's just not, I'm either doing something wrong or it's just forget it. The answer is no. So I completely forgot all about it. Well, not completely forgot. mean, but I focused on what was in front of me. I was serving and I was happy. I was teaching workshops. was, you know, I really was, I was realizing that I have a purpose here and pretty darn good. I'm cool. So knock, knock, knock at the door comes a

a client who ends up at a record label. so I did a meditation CD with my friend Dina. It went to number one in Canada. We did all our own. I decided to take my music and turn it into a healing art, right? And it went crazy, but the head of Virgin Records loved it so much. And then EMI Music loved it. They decided they were gonna release it.

I had a song on there. went, you can sing. And I'm like, yes. And I end up, listen to this, on my vision boards, I put capital records. EMI Music owned capital records. I literally ended up exactly where 20 years before every single one of my vision boards came true, When I didn't care anymore. And I was

The Midlife Awakening (17:49)
You

Wow.

for a while. Yes.

Colette Baron-Reid (18:10)
40 years old. They didn't know I look young because I'm going to be 68. I've had no work. I look young. I know my face looks young. I look young. So not for long. mean, if you look really close, not so young. anyway, anyway, so what ended up happening was I'm continuing to teach whatever record deal happens. The producer they sent me to work with realized I was really a singer songwriter said we're just going to take their money and do

songs, we're not going to do what they paid us for, which was another new age record. And he goes, let's write some songs. Went back, sure enough, became Magdalene's Garden. That led to my next record, I Am Grace. But still, I had to walk away because Hay House came calling. And I was at the fork in the road and I realized that the music business was misogynistic. It was so unhealthy for me. I couldn't stay in it.

They was, it was ageist. Once they found out how old I was, it was a big scandal. And I'm like, you know what? Hay House came and Denise Lynn had was my client and she introduced me and the rest is history. and just to finish this whole thing. And now I'm going to be 68 years old this July. I have created 19 Oracle Card decks, eight books.

I brought the spirituality, the neuroscience, because I'm a complete nerd. I've figured out how this really works, bought the art, got the art in it, and I'm recording an album for the first time in 25 years in Los Angeles with the same, well, with a new team, two of my old producers are coming onto the project too, full circle, all without any attachment, because attachment and the need for certainty.

The Midlife Awakening (19:42)
Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (19:48)
is the killer. That's the killer for all of us.

The Midlife Awakening (19:49)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. and you talk a lot about that in the book, is how people struggle with the surrender piece of manifesting. But that's essentially the most important piece. And I love how you talk about you've got to rehearse it for a little while and then completely release it. And that's really important because you need to be OK if you don't get it. Because maybe...

Colette Baron-Reid (20:06)
Yeah.

The Midlife Awakening (20:11)
And something else you talk about in the book that I love is you talk about the timing. So many people think manifesting doesn't work because I didn't get my manifestation, it hasn't happened, but it's all in divine timing. So do want to expand a little bit on that one?

Colette Baron-Reid (20:23)
Yes, absolutely. And I know nobody wants to hear, especially younger people, that nobody, I didn't want to hear, this could take 20 years. I'd be like, it. Don't even talk to me. Talk to the hand. I'm a master manifestor. I'm gonna make it happen. When you are ready and you are the person who can actually embody the self that can have the experience you say you want is when you're gonna get what you put out there.

and not before. you are meant to have an experience, a learning experience, and you get it too soon, you may not be ready for it. And you will then have to go through some really important and sometimes expensive learning lessons

have to ask yourself, well, who do I need to become in order to really have a healthy experience with this? Because I may not be ready, I may not have the money, I may still have a lot of work to do, internal work to do, I might not feel safe. Because of what's going on right now, We are rehearsing our state of being all the time. It's how we get manipulated by media.

And right now, specifically right now in the past number of years is, but right now we are being conditioned through media, through algorithms, because all of us are now on social media. We are all getting our news from there. We are all on computers. We are all now dealing with AI. We are dealing with geopolitical fallouts. We are dealing with all kinds of, you know, of pressure and stress and.

That's what we're, we're being advertised adversarial ways of thinking. We are being polarized on purpose. We are being made to feel afraid and overwhelmed on purpose. But we also have simultaneously the capacity while all this fricking chaos is going on, that's not to our benefit, but we still can create an extraordinary life if we.

Unhijack ourselves and our nervous systems and focus, really focus and discipline ourselves to bring our nervous systems back online so that we feel safe. Cause people are looking for certainty right now and certainty is the opposite. We don't need certainty if we trust. are have trust is the certainty. We trust. We have an instinct for survival and that's not your intuition either.

So we've rehearsed that state of fear over and over and over again. It becomes, and we have been, we have been in a constant state of uncertainty for so long now, it becomes our baseline. Does that make sense to you?

The Midlife Awakening (22:54)
Yeah, it does. And I love that you talk about the nervous system regulation piece because I talk about that a lot on the show, that it's so important, especially I feel like in midlife, this really comes up, it really bubbles to the surface for a lot of women who... Yeah, let's go for it.

Colette Baron-Reid (23:08)
Let's actually talk about that. Let's talk

about that. Cause I mean, my audience is predominantly women and gay men. So in perimenopause, right? Let's say you're dealing with the midlife movement where a, in your early forties, women are at our height. Our sexual height is in our early forties, right? I looked the best I've ever looked at my life in my early forties. But we are changing. are, it's that last chance.

for having a baby, for example. The whole biology of us is changing, hormonal changes, everything happens, but our brain changes too. Dr. Mindy Peltz should go on your show, because she's got a lot of, yeah, she's a very good friend of mine and she's got a lot of information about this. So women in particular, and we are the ones that are the co-creators, right? We really are. mean, yeah, guys can manifest, they can do all that, but it's for a different purpose, right? And there really is a difference in the gender, it is.

The Midlife Awakening (23:48)
She's amazing.

Colette Baron-Reid (24:06)
where you are, whatever you decide you are or where you're leaning to, you're going to lean the way the hormones are going, right? However you were born, you're going to lean that way. So when you are leaning into the hour, you know, the feminine, and you have all the hormonal upheavals, you know, you are very creative and even more so as you get older. But we're taught by our society is that we have less value. You know, can I swear on your show?

The Midlife Awakening (24:34)
Perfect. Yeah. Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (24:34)
I can? Okay,

so our fuckability goes down. Let's just call it what it is. Right? Even if you see any of these manosphere things, like it's like, ⁓ but anyway, so we've been told that like, don't get old, you're starting to wear anti aging cream when you were 30. Right? So there's this pressure to stay thin and to stay young. And nothing about being creative and blossoming and stuff like that. We have so much pressure on us to

The Midlife Awakening (24:41)
I it.

Colette Baron-Reid (25:03)
run a household, have kids, look a certain way and stay as youthful as we can and so that we are desirable. Well, I'm here to tell you, why do you hate your sexist kids? Because it gets really good if you let yourself, but I remember feeling those pressures, you know, and, that's when we have to pay closer attention to what we ingest, you know, when it comes to media.

is specifically women in the transitional phases of our lives. Because we are instantly impacted and influenced by that. We're very empathetic. have this, know, spidey senses at this point too that grows. But now it's about, what about me kind of feeling, right? But that gets hijacked, right? So when you are calm and when you are not calm, like, you know, like, I'm Zen all the time, because you're not going to be Zen all the time.

you can have reactions, you can have responses to life without having a dysregulated nervous system, right? So that you can make choices from there, your sovereignty is restored, but that has to be your priority. Before any manifestation or any kind of this stuff works for you, you have to be in alignment. How are gonna do that? How do you rehearse a new self if you're afraid or you're trying to do something or competing?

Like so many women are set up to compete that internalized patriarchy set up to compete with each other. You you notice that it's the women going after the women. We don't even need that saying anything to us. We do it to each other, right? It's like this, because we've been fed a scarcity narrative. There's no scarcity anywhere. when women get the hang of that, we are unstoppable. We can do.

The Midlife Awakening (26:35)
yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (26:51)
anything. We can create the life we want, but we need to do certain things. And it is to stop listening to those stupid effing narratives and stop comparing ourselves to each other. Stop competing with other women. Really look at asking yourself the important questions. How do I want to feel? How do I want to feel and why? Right? And why do I want to feel like that? And what would match that in my world? What would I want to experience?

Right? And then who would I need to become to experience that? Without putting pressure on yourselves, because I have also an issue with the fact that a lot of women talk about needing to find their purpose. You don't. Your purpose shows up organically for you. When you surrender, need to go find it. Right? It's not, it shouldn't be pressure. Purpose is not pressure. Right? And it's like, ⁓ finding, find your purpose. It's like, really?

The Midlife Awakening (27:31)
Thanks.

Yes.

Colette Baron-Reid (27:43)
Let me tell you something, you know, when you start on that road to I'm gonna go find my purpose, you're gonna be miserable because you are gonna constantly look at somebody else's purpose and think, well, that looks good, should I do that? Hmm, should I do that? This seems to be working, should I do that? Instead of like, where am I supposed to be right now in my life? Right now.

The Midlife Awakening (28:02)
And following

the synchronicities that come up, yes. And I mean, that was very much my experience. Like if you had said to me three years ago, you're to have a podcast, I would have been like, you're crazy. don't know. But it just happened, you know, and it's exactly what you're saying. Like it found me. I didn't go looking for it. It just found me. And I was like, well, OK, we're going to go with it. And yes.

Colette Baron-Reid (28:04)
Correct, because then the synchrony shows up.

No.

And even the name, remember what you told me? The name, like you just told?

The Midlife Awakening (28:27)
Yeah, the name...

Colette Baron-Reid (28:28)
It's like, here's what I want to be called.

The Midlife Awakening (28:30)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that came to me in a download and I was like, okay, I'm going to change the name then. But you have to be open to following those little whispers and those little breadcrumbs because if you deny them, you're just delaying your whole process, don't you think? Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (28:43)
I agree,

100%. But that takes time and it takes also good communities. I think that when communities are able to come together in a way, like for example, my community in all of my communities, you are not allowed to talk politics ever. I don't care who you voted for. Everybody has to throw that at the door. have to, egos, politics.

differences, know, competition, leave it at the door. That took a while for me to understand that that was necessary, because I didn't even know myself like 10 years ago when I first started all this, really like all my bigger, my communities started just over 10 years ago, 11 years ago. But it's like, this is what's gonna work. And if we take away what divides us, what brings us together? We're not gonna like everybody all the time, but when you find a common purpose,

say I would like to evolve and I want to play in this manifestation realm. And I want to be playful about it. And I want to track my synchronicities. And it doesn't mean you're not going to suffer. And it doesn't mean bad things aren't going to happen. You can handle them then. That's what this is for. You can navigate the world with grace to the best of your ability. When you discover this

however which way you do it, because you have different ways to do it too. Mine happens to be through art. I'm an artist. But that said, you don't have to be an artist to do this book. You can just doodle. This is all about doodling, right? It's because you bring your nervous system and the body. It's an embodied somatic practice where you're basically telling your body this exists already, just every time you go around in a circle, anytime you make a particular shape that matches the intention.

you're literally the body's going, that's real. I guess that's real. better go look, I better go take that particular activating system of the brain to go wake up and go, we should go be looking for that out there now, not the other stuff. Like get rid of the fear. I don't need you here. I want this thing that's supposed to be real. Cause now I need to prove to Colette or to Odelia that this is true because that's the point. It's always going to look for things to tell you that what you are rehearsing.

The Midlife Awakening (30:33)
Yes.

You

Colette Baron-Reid (30:54)
is true, right? Doesn't know any different, doesn't know it isn't true. That's why when you're afraid, you can, that's why when you get triggered, trauma can come up. You're literally that five-year-old girl again. Not for long though, but you know, like we've developed all kinds of really cool techniques. One of the things we teach in Oracle School is how to bring yourself back quickly without fanfare, right? It's like, okay.

The Midlife Awakening (31:03)
Yes. Yes.

Colette Baron-Reid (31:19)
Is this now? No. When am I? Like, am I now? Well, maybe I'm not now. This is how now is this? This is not so now. Like, so really, where am I? When am I? And who am I listening to? These three questions that we go, huh, that's a good thing to query at the moment. Doesn't take the feeling away immediately, but it releases it so that you're back in the now. Again, a daily practice. I don't sell quick fixes.

Right, I have been around the block and some and I know that they are bullshit. Like sometimes you can have an instant awakening, right, you can, but I'm all about a daily practice. I'm about live it and then you become it.

The Midlife Awakening (32:01)
love that, live it and then you become it. I really love that. And I really love that you talk about community and that's very much what I'm trying to do. I've started a community on Substack for midlife women who are going through this awakening to say like let's come to bit together because like you said it's not going to be easy. There's going to be those hard days but it is a necessary part of the journey and when you come out on the other end you're not going to be the same if you do the work but you're going to be such a better version of yourself and we really need

Colette Baron-Reid (32:29)
You won't be the same.

You won't. It's true. Nobody, if you do the work, you're going to see change. If you don't do the work, you're going to see nothing. You're just going to sit and complain in your dirty diaper. I love that you have that. So I started a sub stack to just to talk about AI for a couple of things.

The Midlife Awakening (32:31)
Yeah, yeah, you won't.

Colette Baron-Reid (32:45)
I trained in AI when it first came out, because my husband is always on top of all this stuff, and learned very quickly that it is not the spiritual thing that people are saying it is, oh, it knows me. No, it's trained to know you. You, in every nuance in a sentence you give it, knows you.

Right? So I know mine knows me, but I know it's a machine and it knows it's a machine. keep reminding it. So what are you? I'm a machine. Right? So there you go. But it's helpful as an editing tool, but then I go back and rewrite it in my own. Like I write something and say, can you edit this? Like, there too many words, whatever. And it'll give me an edited version. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I don't, but then the edited version, I will go through it and then rewrite it again. So I actually put twice as much into the stuff because.

but because it's an extraordinary tool,

So, I mean, obviously there are people who wanted to manifest that, there are really great minds creating things that are smart and whatever. Me personally, I think that it's too late to stop all that, but I want to live as a human being. All my art is hand done. I don't touch AI. My paintings, everything now. I look at...

I have great appreciation for like AI video, you know, as long as it says it's AI, then say it is. And I go, that's so cool. Look what AI did. Right. I love that. As long as you don't try to tell me that it's a human being, it's bullshit. Right. You know what I mean? Anyway, and it does impact all of us. Cause I think this is a subject that, well, how do we manifest our reality when it seems to be hijacked by this whole technological society that's coming in? Well, we can, we have to.

The Midlife Awakening (34:09)
Yeah, exactly.

Colette Baron-Reid (34:23)
Our humanity is more important now than ever. More important now than ever. Your group, more important now than ever.

The Midlife Awakening (34:26)
Absolutely, 100%, absolutely.

Exactly. Absolutely. that's why I'm like so passionate about and that's my purpose sort of coming through. So I want to circle back to so 2021 you pick up the paintbrush again after 30 years, not having done any art and you create this this Oracle deck, you know, God of the hidden. Yeah, I mean. This deck was this deck's amazing, like I heard you on the Yasmin Bolan podcast when it came out and I went to take a look.

Colette Baron-Reid (34:35)
Yeah, I love that.

Yes.

I know, but, and it wasn't planned. They're giant paintings and they really.

Yeah.

The Midlife Awakening (34:57)
and I looked at the images and I was like, my gosh, I have to have this. It was something about the paintings, the eyes, it was like, I have to have this. So I've had that since then and I've been working with them.

Colette Baron-Reid (35:08)
It's very accurate. It's the first deck though was weird because I was just starting to paint because I was, I took a painting class, finished half of it and just went off on my own, on my own tangent and painted like four of these, but they came through like these beings really came through. My other friend did it too and they were coming through for her, for her way, right? You know, she's an incredible artist. And I'm just like, this is so weird. I'm getting all these messages from these things. I showed the four paintings to Hay House.

The Midlife Awakening (35:10)
it is.

Colette Baron-Reid (35:36)
⁓ And they're like, can you do a deck with this? I went, I don't know. Like, it's not like I've hired an artist to come and work with me. It's like, these are giant three feet by four feet paintings. It's like, what if I can't summon them. So I literally, literally painted five in the morning, like anytime during the day. And I was just literally present to whatever came through. 44 cards came through and then I could not make

a dent on a canvas for a face after that, it was done. They were like, finish with me. And it was the first time I created an Oracle deck, not based on a lexicon that I had put together eons ago, because which was like a starter, right? Like the basic lexicon means that the actual Oracle will operate as a divination system. It means that all the parts work together.

Anyway, and then I'm like, well, how am going to make this work? Is this going to work? Can we do the cars together? Sure enough, it did it for me. So I was like, so excited. By the way, all the paintings are for sale now. I've sold a bunch of them. You know, people come and one lady came all the way to Canada, to my place and walked away with, she came for one painting left with three. So it was like, whoever. One of them I had given my husband as a present and he goes, you're going to sell that? I'm like, you betcha I am. This lady bought it for her house.

The Midlife Awakening (36:44)
I mean they're very powerful.

Colette Baron-Reid (36:53)
Yeah, that then, coming back to art, then I broke my foot. And then I, right? And then I got stuck in bed and I could not stand in front of a canvas. So I was fascinated with line art. So I went down the rabbit hole,

The Midlife Awakening (36:53)
you

You broke your foot and then...

Colette Baron-Reid (37:09)
I ran across a website called Mindful Line that was selling really short little courses based on something called NeuroGrafika. It was a Russian thing. I found it too many rules, like way too many rules. didn't enjoy it, but I kind of developed my own thing. like, well, yeah, but I mean, I had been doing line art already prior to that. So it was kind of like, well, that looks nice, but I've already been doing that.

I don't know why there's so many rules with this, but it's great. It's a great process. It's very psychological. And I'm like, I want mine to be spiritual and it has to relate to manifesting. met a a teacher who was teaching a number of line art techniques, one of which was the other one. And I approached her and we made friends and I just said, you wanna do this with me?

Like I've developed this thing. She goes, oh my God, it's so great. So then the two of us combined forces, added the Reiki, some of the components there, and then we tested it. Then we were like, well, we have to make sure this really works. Like, let's test it. Of course we tested it. Now we're both nerds. She is one of the smartest women I've ever met in my life. Her name is Anna Denning. I've never met a more intellectually on target.

genius person like she's a savant. So the two of us, she really was very stimulating and I love to be intellectually stimulated. So the two of us were like, okay, we need to prove this. We absolutely need to get the science for this. We had an incredible, incredible editor who also did research for us. And we have citations, we have everything. You cannot poke holes in this. We know that it works. We know why it works. We know it's hard to like to stay on track.

you know, with for any one of us, myself included, but if you can do what we teach you how to do in there, you are gonna see results. You are. And doesn't mean to say you're not gonna still fall prey to that clawing, gripping, you know, attachment to outcomes and stuff. You just have to start again. But it's like, you will learn how this really works and why the nervous system, the body, embodiment process,

how working with the conscious universe, we still don't really understand how that part works. And we know we don't, but we know we have evidence that something is working. Like the synchronicities, we don't know what type of consciousness we're dealing with because we don't know. nobody has figured that out 100 % what the actual universe, how the consciousness piece works, but it really works. It really does work. So I'm like, okay.

And then I taught it to a bunch of people at Hay House and then they offered us a book deal.

The Midlife Awakening (39:46)
Amazing, amazing. And I love how you structure the book because in part three you sort of talked all about the neuroplasticity and all the science behind it. So if anyone is doubting whether it works, you've got all the nerdy stuff in part three, which is really... Yes, you call that throughout the book, the nerd.

Colette Baron-Reid (39:48)
Yeah, it was.

The nerdy, we even call it nerd alerts. We call it nerd alert. Nerd alert, if you want to nerd out on this. Yeah, we

were very, very fortunate. We were completely freaked out the whole time because none of this was really planned. We were just fascinated. And also the fact that anytime we started thinking about something, Anna and I would both be thinking about.

we would both run across a weird article in Science Magazine or something like this new thing was discovered. And we're like, did you see that? I'm yes. She goes, we have to put that in the book. So, know, we're just, listen, we are not scientists. We are not pretending to be anything other than we're both into like we're coaches, we're artists. We believe.

The Midlife Awakening (40:33)
Synchronicities again.

Colette Baron-Reid (40:46)
that we have teachers now, we started our teachers trainings, we have another one, Hay House is doing it next in June. And we know that if people can learn how to do this, it's the most relaxing thing and it works. And you can align yourself with an outcome on the other side if you are focused on it. I gotta tell you a funny story about, okay, so when the book came out, I never had a New York Times bestseller, I never thought about that. All my friends have had them except for me.

So I'm like, okay, well, I don't want one. I don't care, right? And then I'm like, no, you know, I would like one. This would be, if any of the books, cause my other books are too niche. said, you know, this one could have some, some gravitas. So I draw a drawing and I write New York Times in this, in one of the things. Cause you, I put hearts and whatever it's, I went New York Times. So I then take a photograph of it. Sorry, Bizzou, you want to come up here? I know you're too hot.

I'm sorry, my dog is here. Yes, yes, yes. Mommy's taking you up here. Anyway, so I wrote New York Times. I then call my head of my brand. say, guess what I did? I did a drawing and it says New York Times. So I changed my mind. And if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. And we both just laughed. We figured, maybe in a couple of years, right? Like, whatever. So here's what happens. Two hours later, Beth Grossman, who brought us together, contacts me and says, the New York Times would like to invite you to come and...

to New York and teach them the art of manifesting. So the point behind wanting a New York Times bestseller is that I wanted to reach more people. Well, I reached 20 more people that day. And it was New York Times. So the form came exactly what I was ready for. Here you go. What was right for me. And I called that a giant success. Now in the past,

The Midlife Awakening (42:09)
and that's it.

and you got to teach it, which is like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (42:34)
I would have been looking at it going, what did I do wrong?

That's what I would have been asking. What was wrong with this? Because it wasn't a best seller. I got to go to the New York Times in the door and there were 20 people. Do you know what I'm saying? So it was like, I would have seen that in the past as not good enough. I saw it this time like as a wow. And then I really, and I really think the universe gave me that just so I could tell the story, right? Because it's such a good story. And I.

The Midlife Awakening (43:01)
And it's

also a really good example of the whole surrendering because if you don't surrender what the outcome's gonna look like, you're not gonna be grateful for what is delivered, right?

Colette Baron-Reid (43:11)
yeah, and we rehearse gratitude. That's part of the rehearsal. That is what we teach people, gratitude circles. We are doing gratitude. The whole thing is about reverence and awe. If you can start there, definitely know, okay, I wanna have this experience, but you start being grateful in awe in advance of the experience, you will be shocked at how extraordinary it's gonna work for you. Like,

The Midlife Awakening (43:14)
Yes.

Colette Baron-Reid (43:36)
The unit that I'm in now, the condo I'm in right now is in a building I never would in a million years gone to. In an area of Toronto, I would never have gone to. I was like, no way there's construction. I don't want to go there. When we were insisting on looking for a place in another part of town, I was turned down by every condo, which was not possible. have, I'm neurotic about paying bills. have the highest rating of everything. And then finally I was like,

This is a game. All right. So how about I surrender the area? Okay, Bizzou, come here. So how about I do a drawing and then just let go the whole thing. Maybe it's not meant to be at all. Maybe that could be true. So I'll be okay with it. So I write down happy, the water. I knew I was gonna see water. That was really important to me. Why come? I didn't wanna come if there wasn't the water. So we go instant about two, was it the next day or the day after?

think the two days, we get to see what looks like the perfect place back in the area where I wanted looking at the water. I was like, for sure this worked, my drawing worked, look at this. On our way there, they canceled. So I'm like, I'm so mad. I'm like, are you kidding me? And then I went, well, I did say if it's not meant to be, and I say to my husband, well, maybe this is just not meant to be. So my realtor goes, yeah, but there's these two units over there. And I'm like, I don't wanna go there.

And she goes, no, we should go and look. And Mark goes, we should look. It's a nice day. So we come here. And to get into the unit, we have a long numerical numbers for my address where I live on my farm. That was the code to get in to the unit. And then we're like, what? And it's, you can't hear a thing. It's completely soundproof. But then Mark, my husband said, well, let's look at the other one. went,

The Midlife Awakening (45:06)
Okay. Okay.

No.

Colette Baron-Reid (45:17)
This looks, then I'm like, okay, I give in, this is perfect. And then we came to this one and this totally looked at the water. It was more, it was a little more humble, a little more, less expensive and really perfect. And they accepted us on the spot. And I'm in a place I said I would never go to. And it turned out the whole area is so friendly. They're so nice. We have, everybody has dogs. You can bring your dog to a restaurant here. I didn't know that even if it was possible, we couldn't do that where I wanted to go.

See? So the universe knew better than me. Because I told it, okay, I'm trusting you. Here's what I want. If it's not right for me, take it away from me and show me something else. Now I know how that works. I'm like, whoo, you know, okay, you did it. Whoa. And I was like, Jesus, that was crazy. So because I really want people to know you can actually

The Midlife Awakening (45:48)
Exactly.

Colette Baron-Reid (46:05)
like when you're looking for a house or when you're looking for an apartment or when you're looking for something tangible that you know has an end result or an outcome. It just may not be the exact way you think it's gonna be your goal. Longer goals take longer. Go ahead.

The Midlife Awakening (46:17)
Yeah.

And it's funny that you bring that up because I have a funny story. So I was doing the exercises in the book. And one of the exercises is you write down everything you want, right? You just, you, you, go for gold, you write down everything you possibly could want. You want to manifest regardless. And one of the things that I had was a three bedroom house detached with a lovely garden, et cetera, et cetera. And that's quite hard to find in the UK, especially in the suburban areas. And

Colette Baron-Reid (46:44)
Yeah.

The Midlife Awakening (46:46)
I just put it on the list because I'm like, I'm just having fun with this, right? This, this exercise, getting to know the book and I put the list away and the next day I just happened to see a message come up on my emails because I still have, although I have no intention of moving, I still have like these ⁓ alerts come up because I moved in August last year and there was this house detached, three bedroom, beautiful garden in my budget and it's in the next town over. And I was like, no way, no.

Colette Baron-Reid (46:49)
Right.

Right? It's like, no

way, no way. We know it works. We still say no way. Me too. I say no way.

The Midlife Awakening (47:14)
way. the

reason I didn't want to leave this town is because I really like the doctor and I really like the school that my kids are in. And I looked at where it is in the next town over and we're still within the catchment of the school and the doctor and I was like, so we're going to be with this week. I'm like,

Colette Baron-Reid (47:35)
And you got the house?

The Midlife Awakening (47:38)
Wow!

Colette Baron-Reid (47:39)
my God, right? This does

work, but you did something which I thought was cool. Well, I'm just gonna do it anyway. I'm not obsessed about it. I'm just gonna look, this what I really want. That's the truth of what I really want. And then when you tell the real truth and it's calm, you actually feel it in your body. Your body knows. And also you are not coming from scarcity. You're like, I'm happy where I am. I know what it is.

The Midlife Awakening (48:00)
Yes.

Colette Baron-Reid (48:03)
crumbs. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And then bingo, bingo, there it was.

The Midlife Awakening (48:06)
Yeah, like literally 24 hours later and I was like, okay. Okay, I get it.

Colette Baron-Reid (48:09)
to me.

too funny.

The Midlife Awakening (48:11)
And

what I really love in the book is how you, you've got seven steps to manifest and then you split that over out over seven weeks. So it's like a gradual introduction into manifesting, which I think is really good. And for each week, you've got a drawing where you, you know, get a little bit more and you add a little bit more to the drawings. And then you've got these supportive practices, which are so good, supporting your nervous system, helping you.

Colette Baron-Reid (48:27)
Yeah.

The Midlife Awakening (48:37)
get rid of self-limiting beliefs, breaking all patterns. And so that's really, it's such a good way of structuring the book. Why did you think of doing it in that way?

Colette Baron-Reid (48:40)
Yep.

Want to know why? Because

it made sense to us, but it just kind of was like, well, why don't we stretch it out to seven weeks? At first we were like, should be 10 weeks. No, let's do seven. That's literally it. To be honest with you, that's how it went. We're going, well, we do have seven steps, but they're kind of stretched out to 15. So if you really look at it, there are seven specific pods of the steps, right? So we're like, well, that sounds good. And the editor was very, so I'm a seven in the Enneagram.

a projector, a seven, and I have not an organizational bone in my body, just so you know. So I have to hire people that know how to do that. So we had a great editor and Anna is very, very, Anna Denning is very organized. So yeah, it made sense, you know, to do it that way. but it may, in hindsight, it made even more sense. But while we were doing it, we were just following our intuition.

The Midlife Awakening (49:38)
Yeah, and I have ⁓ a Capricorn moon, so I'm very much into astrology. I've studied under Deborah Sillman, so I'm very, very, very much into astrology. yes, I mean, I studied, I did her course a couple of years ago and it was, yeah, it set me on my path of astrology. That's my other passion.

Colette Baron-Reid (49:42)
Love Kappa Chorons.

Yeah, she's of my very best friends.

Now, you know what's really interesting?

Just to kind of go with that. since you already know this, right? So you study with her. So if you look at your progress mode, it will also help you understand how your manifestation will, like progress mode in Aquarius, for example, or progress mode in Capricorn, major milestones for manifestation, right? Like if you're, because it's get her done, get the business done, whatever.

You know, me now, right? Me, I'm all about the group. Now I don't care as much what people think of me because Aquarius progressed moon for a Cancerian that's got like jumping up and round, you know, like with a Libra rising, that's codependent rising, right? So it's like, know I don't give a shit, which is great. So it's also very, very good to be more pragmatic in things. if you, even you look at your astrology, it can help you. I know there's a Hay House author,

The Midlife Awakening (50:22)
Goal orientated, yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (50:50)
Debbie Frank just did a book called Manifesting Through the Signs. So I haven't bought the book yet, but I'm gonna get it. Yeah, I think it could be really helpful to look at all the tools. Like what are you most inclined towards at this moment? Like one of my friends, progressive women, went into cancer. She was all about fixing up her house. So all the manifestation went into that. go, okay, so let's just focus on that. It was very fun to see how it would, whereas,

The Midlife Awakening (51:09)
this.

Colette Baron-Reid (51:17)
you know, it was about safety, the nest, all of that. Whereas it wasn't about going out and making big things happen. it's really interesting also to see kind of like how we're influenced by the planets in our manifestation journey too. It's pretty cool.

The Midlife Awakening (51:34)
So coming back to the practical steps, I think it will resonate with a lot of other people as well because sometimes you just need, you you need a framework to work from and I think you've done it really, really well in the book. Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (51:43)
You definitely need a framework for this. Also

because you're learning a new skill. And it's, yeah, and like we know, it works.

The Midlife Awakening (51:50)
And so you talk quite a bit about self-limiting beliefs and I was interested to know, because you've done a lot of work on yourself, what was one of the biggest self-limiting beliefs that you've had to overcome on your journey? Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (52:00)
limiting belief that I'm not

safe.

Yeah. That I'm not safe and that I will be betrayed or that somehow I'll be a victim. That's been a long time ago, but I worked through that

my parents had lost everything and that kind of traumatized me. So that limiting belief is like, if I get too successful or yeah, or if I get too successful, you know, the tall poppy syndrome, right? I'm going to be pulled down. Actually, somebody even said that they showed me at somebody sent me a picture of a text of somebody that used to work with me and saying that she wants to pull me down off my high public horse. I was just like, my God. Yeah. Which is what everybody said is how people are these days.

The Midlife Awakening (52:32)
Wow.

Colette Baron-Reid (52:37)
But I don't feel those things now. Like I didn't feel anything from that. I'm like, you know what? There is no scarcity. There is no scarcity. There is room for everyone. And we're gonna make mistakes along the way too. But yeah, the sense of lack of safety was a big one.

The Midlife Awakening (52:51)
And I think that's for a lot of women as well, because the world is not safe for us, right? It's very hard for us growing up. There's a lot that we have to contend with. And then you look at things like the Manosphere, which just amplifies that even more. ⁓ my goodness. I haven't even watched that. I don't even want to, because I'll just get upset.

Colette Baron-Reid (52:53)
Yeah.

Yep.

Just, did you see that? Did you see the video?

It's actually really informative. The degree of misogyny is astounding, astounding, astounding, and all in service to really wounded men, like wounded. on the other hand, the Manosphere exists because men have become so...

The Midlife Awakening (53:14)
Okay.

Colette Baron-Reid (53:30)
emasculated, I think, but there's so many ways. Like everybody's been hurt. Everybody. But the manosphere itself is a very, it's a very dangerous thing, I think, for women. It makes us less safe, I will tell you that much.

The Midlife Awakening (53:40)
yes,

yeah exactly. I mean we already don't feel safe, most women don't feel safe on a day to day basis, nothing just makes it worse. So of all the supportive practices that you put in the book, I mean there's some really really great ones in there. Which is the one that you go back to the most would you say?

Colette Baron-Reid (53:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

My, yeah, I will tell you the one that I go back to all the time is the getting stupefied in gratitude. That's my go-to. When anything's going on, I just sit and draw little circles. I actually drew this just before I got on. I could just draw and draw and draw and draw. I just draw circles, circles, circles, circles, then thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you, thank So just very simple.

The Midlife Awakening (54:13)
So beautiful.

Colette Baron-Reid (54:21)
I'm just, thank you, until I reached the point was I don't remember what I was thankful for. It didn't matter. just was, so that, and also didn't I put something in there about walking meditation? Did I put that in there? Yeah, that's my other go-to. I walk and meditate and be very present to whatever's in front of me. And again, gratitude, not for specific things. It is the sense of awe and reverence.

The Midlife Awakening (54:34)
Yes. Yes.

Colette Baron-Reid (54:48)
going back to these moments of like when synchronicities happen and you're going like, how is this possible this occurred? Those moments where you're like, I didn't make this happen. Those God shots, I'd like to rehearse those. Yeah, I go back to the simplest pieces.

The Midlife Awakening (55:03)
And I think that's what makes it an easier practice to incorporate in your day to day. Because we have so many things as women that we are dealing with on a day to day basis. We need things that are easy and simple. And I think you've really communicated that well in the book.

Colette Baron-Reid (55:08)
so we did.

Yeah.

And we need to know

that, I think we need to know that it's okay for every woman to take up space for themselves. That taking up space does not mean you're taking away space from anyone else, right? It's like really important. And if that, and you lift each other up, you know, I think it's so important. We need more of that than the takedowns that you see online.

what I do care about is our humanity. think it's so important.

and focus on what, bringing your own value to the surface and offering it to others. And women need to stick together.

The Midlife Awakening (55:47)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I think that's the whole big thing with midlife awakening is that that value starts to bubble up. What is it that I can bring to the world? What is that gift? Because a lot of us tend to suppress that because we've followed careers that were not right for us or we've got all these roles that are not right for us. And that's what's that bubbles to the surface. And then you're faced with this reckoning of who am I and what is it that I want? Yeah.

Colette Baron-Reid (56:11)
⁓ yeah!

I went, was supposed to go, well, I did go to law school. My, was supposed to be a lawyer. I was the biggest disappointment because I just wanted music. Well, that was terrible. My parents wanted me to only do classical guitar. I was not interested. And, but then it's not their fault. I mean, I really, I had great parents. I had amazing parents. They had a crazy daughter. I cannot blame them at all.

The Midlife Awakening (56:34)
you

Colette Baron-Reid (56:36)
They were extraordinary people. They were really special humans that lived through World War II that were both completely traumatized by the war. I understand them now so much more. He didn't get along well. My dad, but today I see him as who he really is. So now they're passed, they both passed. I get along great with them since they've crossed over and I communicate with them daily kind of thing. So yeah, but it's... ⁓

It's, it's, that's why we have to live our lives 24 hours at a time. can't, we have to stay present. What is in front of me? Great to make plans. Great to have goals. But if you are not present to the now and do the best you can in the now, you're not going to have a future that you want.

I just wanna live life to the fullest, take whatever's being offered to me, have the ability to take the risk and make mistakes. As long as they don't purposely hurt anybody, that's so important that, you know.

And we will sometimes without realizing it. And you know, life is messy. Life is messy. It's not perfect. We can't be perfect.

The Midlife Awakening (57:37)
It is. Yeah.

So this is a question I ask all my guests at the end of show and that is, if you could go back in time and see your younger self, what advice would you give her?

Colette Baron-Reid (57:52)
Mmm.

Don't get in the car.

and we get in the car.

Something really terrible happened to me when I took a ride home with some guys. Yeah, but also you are perfect as you are. You are whole, you are worthy, and you are magical. Just stay safe.

The Midlife Awakening (58:09)
That's a beautiful message. Colette thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so grateful to have had this session with you and you've made my manifestation from two years ago come true today. So thank you. Thank you so much. It's been wonderful talking to you.

Colette Baron-Reid (58:22)
Thank you.

And I'll check out your sub stack. You've been a real pleasure to be with and thank you so much for introducing me to your amazing audience. Thank you.

The Midlife Awakening (58:31)
That was the incredible Colette Baron-Reed. Wow, I'm still pinching myself. And I hope you're walking away from this conversation feeling genuinely inspired to start creating the life that you want. And maybe you also now have a little bit more faith in where you are right now in your journey. If anything resonates with you today, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it. And if you haven't already, please do subscribe, leave a review. Come on, you know what to do.

And come and find me on Substack where I write about all things midlife. All of the links are in the show notes. You know where to go. Now you can find Collette's book, The Art of Manifesting, wherever we sell books. Most likely the best place is going to be Amazon. And all her links are in the show notes too. Trust me, you want to get this book in your hands and give it a go. It is so much fun and it actually really works. Now remember,

You are not too late. You are exactly where you are meant to be. So I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now.