Insights from the Couch - Real Talk for Women at Midlife

Ep. 97: Beauty After Loss: Rewriting the Next Chapter with Laing Rikkers

• Colette Fehr, Laura Bowman • Season 8 • Episode 97

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Grief has a way of cracking everything open—and in this conversation, we sit down with Laing Rikkers to explore what can emerge from that opening. From unexpected loss to creative awakening, we unpack how life’s hardest moments can become invitations to reconnect with yourself, your purpose, and what truly matters. This is a deeply human conversation about courage, identity, and what it really means to begin again.

We also get honest about fear—why it keeps so many of us stuck in midlife—and how to gently move through it without needing all the answers. Whether you're navigating loss, burnout, or simply feeling the pull for “something more,” this episode offers grounding insights, practical tools, and a refreshing reminder: you don’t have to choose just one version of yourself.

Episode Highlights

[00:00] - Welcoming Laing and setting the stage for rewriting your life after major transitions

[01:40] - Laing shares the unexpected loss of her sister and how grief reshaped her path

[04:11] - Discovering “morning pages” and the healing power of creative expression

[07:05] - The surprising emotions of grief beyond sadness—anger, loneliness, and reevaluation

[11:43] - “Talk it, walk it, write it” — a simple, powerful framework for moving through grief

[13:02] - The biggest mistake in grief: isolation and the importance of connection

[14:58] - Fear, identity, and stepping into a multi-dimensional life in midlife

[18:54] - Why doing hard things becomes the actual journey of growth

[21:22] - Behind the scenes of publishing a first book and navigating creative risk

[25:17] - Creating a new chapter: blending business, creativity, and meaningful work

[29:14] - Writing through grief vs. making meaning after it

[33:05] - The healing power of nature, movement, and simply taking the next step

Links & Resources

If today's discussion resonated with you

Ever stayed quiet to keep the peace and felt yourself disappear? The Cost of Quiet is for anyone who avoids conflict and pays the price. Reclaim your voice, strengthen your relationships, and experience real peace. Order your copy and join the movement: https://www.colettejanefehr.com/new-book

🎙️ Love the podcast? Come talk about episodes with us inside The Midlife Chat. It’s a free, private community just for women at midlife who want to keep these conversations going. We’ve created this space for real talk, fresh resources, and honest connection—where you can share ideas and resources, ask questions, and get support from women navigating the same season.  Come join us—we’d love to have you!

👉 Join The Midlife Chat here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/795863256460970/

Order The Cost of Quiet now! Colette’s new book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations that Create Secure, Lasting Love, launched February 3rd. Order your copy today: https://www.colettejanefehr.com/new-book

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Colette Fehr:

Marc, welcome to insights from the couch, where real conversations meet real life at

Laura Bowman:

midlife, we're Colette and Laura, two therapists and best friends, walking through the journey right alongside you, whether you're feeling stuck, restless or just unsure of what's next. This is a space for honest conversations, messy truths and meaningful change.

Colette Fehr:

And our midlife master class is now open. If you're looking to level up, get into action and make midlife the best season yet. Go to insights from the couch.org and join our wait list. Now let's dive in. Welcome back to another episode of insights from the couch. We're going to be talking today about rewriting your life, finding courage, beauty and purpose after big transitions. This is so relevant to all of us, and I'm so excited to welcome our guest today, lang rickers, who is an award winning author, entrepreneur and executive coach, whose personal journey through grief inspired her book, morning leaves now in its second edition. And do you want to hold up your book before we

Laing Rikkers:

love to here it is.

Colette Fehr:

It's gorgeous, so you guys I'll have to go grab a copy of her book, and of course, we're going to link all of this to show notes. But first and foremost, let's dive in. Welcome Lang. We're so happy to have you today.

Laing Rikkers:

Oh, thanks so much. It's really nice to be here.

Colette Fehr:

So tell us a little bit more about you and your story, because you have a really powerful story that led you into this work.

Laing Rikkers:

So my work in grief and my book all came out of the unexpected loss of my younger sister in 2019 she was 46 and died very suddenly in atrial fibrillation. It was devastating, as you would imagine. But then on top of it, you know, we all went into lockdown just a few months later, and so the combination of the grief and then the isolation and being separated from my family and her young family was hard, and so I needed a way to work through some of the grief and emotion and the questions that something like that raises in your head about what your priorities are. And I was very fortunate to go back to an old standby that a number of people had recommended Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, and I started writing morning pages. And that was a great, great gift. And actually, the the title of the book, morning leaves, is a nod to morning pages, and it so, yeah, so I wrote poetry that are all botanical metaphors for things that I was seeing in myself that were coming up as a result of, you know, all of the loss and fear and reevaluation that I was doing at the time. And so I didn't intend for it to be a book. You know, some people are very clear and deliberate about what they're doing. I really started writing for myself, and then I sort of expanded. I thought, Gosh, I should share this with my children, because my sister's daughter had been left with my sister not having shared everything I knew she would have wanted to share. And so I thought this was a pretty good reflection of me, and so I typed it up for them, and and then it sort of grew from there. So it's been an incredible journey, and has been really rewarding and different than what I thought I would be doing right now. And I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to spend time on on these things that feel like they're really of ultimate consequence. So it's good.

Laura Bowman:

I was just talking to Colette about how one of when you're going through sort of a dark time or a heavy time, that that practice of morning pages, if you can get yourself to do it can be like just such a life saver. It sounds like it was a grounding point for you.

Laing Rikkers:

It certainly was. It really was. It was, I think, to tap into that. You know, I call it that sort of milky time between dreamy and coffee, you can capture something else that is not as deliberate or analytical. I think is really helpful. And I think a lot sort of comes up and out. I think both from. Inside, and then I think you also hear things from outside, and I think you can connect to something bigger, which is really important.

Colette Fehr:

Yeah, so for you guys listening morning pages, because not everyone knows what this is, and they're super powerful, it's a practice that Julia Cameron, who first wrote The Artist's Way, I think back in the early 90s, I've gone through her book several times over the years, and of course, she has updated editions. But it's really about being a writer for life and being a creative it's not even necessarily just writing. And one of many things she suggests is that every morning you start the day by hand, writing three you fill three pages in a notebook or on a notepad, and you can when I was doing an acting class, they had us do morning pages, and a lot of people cheated and got a really small notebook, but I use just a regular pad for them, and you just stream of consciousness. You write without feeling like you have to edit, without feeling like you have an audience, without any performance pressure, you just allow words to flow, even if you write I don't know what to write. I have nothing to say that counts. There's no right or wrong. So it's this really freeing process of just allowing yourself to engage with the page and let whatever comes unfold, and it's really transformative. In fact, Laura and I went to breakfast the other day, and I said, I just started again. I have not been doing it for over a year, and I'm starting again. So I love that this has come up, and I can see how it was probably a big part of the healing for you at a very difficult time. What did you Is there anything that surprised you about the grief process, being that you lost your sister so unexpectedly, and you don't even have time to prepare for this. I think what

Laing Rikkers:

was most surprising was we all think about grief as being sad or just the loss. But what really came up in addition to that, was anger, loneliness, frustration, you know, a questioning of, you know, how I was spending my time, you know, a lot of other kinds of emotions that I didn't, you know, historically associate with grief, but the grief kind of unlocked, and that was, you know, not easy necessarily, to go through, but really healthy and and good, and probably at a good time in my life, just, you know, being in my 50s. And I think I turned 50 right the year that I started writing, and it has, in retrospect, you know, had a lot of positives that have come out of not great situation. Yeah, and it's

Laura Bowman:

interesting that it happened in lockdown. I remember lockdown for me especially. It was like, I could hear the birds. I could like, I was, like, very in touch with nature. It was outside a lot, like it was, it was a really big reflecting time, like, whether you had lost somebody or not, but I can't even imagine the feeling of taking stock in all of that space then that you had, like, what, what we did you become aware of at 50, losing your sister, that you're like, wow, I need to take a look at this.

Laing Rikkers:

Well, first, I want to say birds were a big part of my experience, but mostly trees. I woke up every morning. And actually the poems are about 35 poems, every one of them essentially starts today. I am a and it's a different tree or plant, and I was sort of dropping I was spending a lot of time. I live in Southern California. I was spending a lot of time outside in places that normally you can't be on foot because cars lot of traffic and people and and so I was seeing and connecting to things that then were somehow working their way into writing and showing me things about myself. And so it, there was a lot of it is, the whole book is really about a metaphor with nature and the energy and connection that we have with everything in actually, the working title of the book was, you me chi and the tree. And I sort of discovered that notion of chi after writing it, and that was definitely woven in throughout so but back to your question about it being at that time of my life. I think I had spent 20 years working in private equity, and I was busy and engaged and doing things. Things. And I think that when you lose somebody, you also realize that there's, you know, you don't have an infinite amount of time, and that I wanted to make sure that I was directing my energy and my time into things that I really cared about, and I was working with a particular company at that time. And so I, I sort of was throwing myself into that, but when that wound down for me, I I said, you know, I don't, I don't want to do more of that. I've done a lot of it, and it was wonderful. And I feel really grateful to, you know, have been able to do that kind of work, but I wanted to focus on other things. And I I was really getting a lot out of sort of tapping into a more artistic side of myself, which I hadn't had time to do earlier in my life. I wanted to spend more time my family and traveling, and I liked the grief work that I was doing, and so it just gave me an opportunity to sort of reevaluate and make sure that I was living as deliberately and thoughtfully as I could.

Colette Fehr:

Yeah, yeah. So it made you reckon with yourself, re evaluate your priorities and how you're living your life, how you want to live your life. What about in terms of the grief process for you? I mean, are there any I know it's such a big topic, but are there any pieces of advice you have for someone specifically around grief and what was helpful to you as you worked through the difficulties.

Laing Rikkers:

My shorthand for it is, talk it, walk it, write it. So finding someone to talk to be it a professional, if you can. I had a Greek counselor who was phenomenal, but I think a good friend who will really listen and allow you to put your thoughts together and articulated is helpful. And then walk. Sorry, yeah, walk it. Walk it. For me, was physically getting outside and walking. I think being in nature is really great. But I also think just going to the gym, just getting the energy up and out and metabolizing it out of your body, because, as we all know, the stress can do a lot of damage in there, if it gets stuck, and it does get stuck sometimes, and then write it, I think doing something creative, and being able to either through morning pages and actually writing or, you know, I've been trying a lot of you know, took a glass blowing class and a ceramics class and doing other things with your hands and visually using a different part of Your brain. It allows you to sort of take that energy and work with it and then put it back out in the world as something more positive, and that's yours. So talk it, walk it, right? Those are the things that I love,

Colette Fehr:

that that's beautiful, where, what are the mistakes people make in grief,

Laing Rikkers:

isolating is the biggest one. I think, you know, not connecting with other people, that's it's interesting in the workshops that I, that I lead, I think that's the biggest regret that people come with, is like, I didn't realize that I that that other people were going through this too, or that I could have more of a community, or that people would understand it feels when you're going through it like nobody could understand. This is such a huge loss for me, and of course, everyone's grief is unique and is their own, but there are elements of it that are more universal, and I think are really helpful

Colette Fehr:

to share that isolation can just compound the grief and the sadness and the anger, right? We need, we need connection. No, that's a great point. Yeah, for sure.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, we really do. Yeah. That's just, I mean, I love the creative bent on it, though, that, I mean, I love to use my hands for things. It's such a salve for when I don't know when my life gets tough is just painting. I love puzzles. Everybody on the podcast knows that. But just like anything that I can, like, get my energy into my hands, like ceramics, like, I think that's powerful, like an underutilized and irreverent approach to just like suffering, yeah, and moving that grief through you, the energy

Colette Fehr:

of it, no, it's a great point, and I love the way you break it down. It's so simple and yet so powerful. So as we're talking about rewriting our lives after big transitions, what are some of the obstacles people typically face in doing that, like, let's say I've gone through a divorce, or I've lost a loved one and I want something different, you know, but you're in that thrashing, grappling stage. What do people bump up against that makes this hard to do?

Laing Rikkers:

Well, there's a lot of fear. Right? It's, it's scary to change, and even if you don't like where you are, at least as familiar. And so stepping out of what you know is always a challenge. But I think that, you know, we all read those things where people say that at the end of life, most people regret what they didn't do rather than what they did do. And so I try to remind myself of that. And you know, for me to write, I spent my life in corporate America and Wall Street, and to write a book of art and poetry was a really scary thing to do. It wasn't what I was known for. And you know, what were people going to say? And it felt very uncomfortable. And you know, was I going to be embarrassed? And was, you know, all of the things that one can question about themselves. And my husband had taken a number of improvisational acting classes, and that whole notion of yes and, and I kind of latched on to that of like, all right, yes, I can be a serious business person, and I can have a creative life, and I'm not boxed in. But it takes real work and it and it's hard, and you have to sometimes just close your eyes and keep going, even in the darkness when you don't know how it's going to and sometimes things don't go as well as you you know what I mean, it's but they certainly won't if you don't try so

Colette Fehr:

but that what you just said. I just want to take that sentence and again, because it's so brilliant, where you say, I can be a serious business person and have a creative life, that there's room, there's expansiveness and identity, that we don't have to be the one or 232, or three things we've been until now. We can be those things and then five other things if we want to be. And it is such a shift to go from being corporate Wall Street, right so business focused and very successful in that domain, to also allowing yourself to explore, to be a beginner, to become an artist and a writer, and that must have been a beautiful process. But also, like you said, really, really scary and to feel. So how will I be received? Self conscious about that? How did you get through that? Was it just keeping going, or were there other things, things you told yourself, or things you did that that got you through that scary time, that scariest time, because I'm sure it's not totally over.

Laing Rikkers:

No, it's never, I don't think it ever is totally over, but it's I do write about it in my book, because it was a really important part of the journey, was the facing myself and deciding who I wanted to be. But also, I think it in my case, I felt so strongly about the work, and the work kept telling me it needed to go. Whenever I would hit a wall, something in the universe would put another breadcrumb and another, you know, someone would say something, some opportunity would show up, some and so I just kept going. And there were definitely moments where I thought, This is the craziest thing I've ever done. I can't possibly and then, you know, so I would read something that would be just like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I'm trying to say. Yes, I need to, you know. And so it just kept leading me down the path. And I'm so grateful that I did because it's been one of the most rewarding things that I've gotten to do, partly because it's been hard and I've had to stretch myself and become bigger and different than this.

Laura Bowman:

That's it, right? That's the whole thing. Is like doing something hard becomes the journey, you know. And I'm just reflecting, because we interviewed a woman named Fran Houser, who I know, Fran, you know, okay, so, like, and she was in venture capital, and the whole thing, and, you know, she talks about, she owns a bookstore now, and is an author. And the whole

Laing Rikkers:

thing I'm doing, I'm doing an event at her bookstore in May.

Colette Fehr:

I'm doing one in March. And, yeah, yeah, congratulations.

Laura Bowman:

She talks about the multi hyphenate life and career. And I think in this moment, we have so much more permission to like, live different aspects of ourselves, like you don't have to be one thing. And midlife is that time where you really do get to try on different things if you have the stomach for it.

Laing Rikkers:

Absolutely. My stepmother, when I was in college, talked about, particularly, seeing women as having multiple chapters. And that always stuck with me. And I think that it's a great way to think about things that you're not you know, it's not one thing. Line of a story, that you can have different times and different roles, and that they're all part of your own, whatever book of life, I guess, yeah, and

Colette Fehr:

you're both speaking to the greatest challenge is really fear. A lot of this is just the demons in our own mind, self imposed limitations, and yet it's very real. The experience of it is very, very real. So we all know this is something that's exciting to embrace, and I think will cheer on people in our lives when we do these things. But when it's you standing at the threshold of a big change, it can feel terrifying, and that fear can show up as legitimate logistical obstacles that may not be as true as they seem like they are right, like, oh, I can't, because I have to work X number of hours, or people are depending on me, or I would never know what to do, or It's impossible because right, all the stories we tell ourselves that can get in the way of taking a leap. Did you have any specific things that felt like barriers that at the time, obviously weren't? Was there anything in the way just even making space in your life with a big, busy career?

Laing Rikkers:

Well, the pandemic made some space for me that I didn't have to travel the way that I had been traveling. So that helped a lot, and and my husband helped by, you know, getting up and feeding our dogs and sort of giving me the time and space to write, which I was really appreciative of. You know, probably the biggest barrier for me to actually get my book published was that I had written, I was a first time writer, and I've written a book of poetry, and neither are really conducive to publication. So, so I really had to learn a lot about how book publishing worked, and everything from traditional publishing, hybrid publishing, self publishing and and sort of how those different spheres worked, and the pros and cons of them, and and then figure out what was going to work best for my book. I started out going down the path of self publishing, but there are about in particularly in this newer version, there are about 100 original paintings by a really fine artist named Kelly Lee rating in it. And self publishing just couldn't do justification to the art. I thought she was going to maybe have a heart attack. Just couldn't. It just didn't look that great. And you know, traditional publishing, I had a lot of friends. I grew up in New York City, and so I knew a lot of people in traditional publishing, and they all were basically like, look, unless you've got 100,000 followers as a first time writer, not likely. And so ended up getting introduced. I was actually how I met Fran. Was we used for our first books. We both use the same hybrid publisher and and that was a great solution for my book. And then, and then, I was fortunate, after that did well, that I was contacted by or introduced to a traditional publisher who decided to take it for the second edition. So, you know, it had had an evolution, but that, but, but that's a real barrier. You know, it's sort of the publishing industry is struggling and challenging and changing, and it's hard to commercialize and make money at books these days.

Colette Fehr:

So you're preaching to the choir here. Lang, yeah, my book just came out in February, and I have been I'm just inside saying yes, yes, yes to everything you're saying. It's a lot to learn. So what advice do you have for people who might want to write a book or first time authors? Is there anything you would suggest? Because I know this is a burning question for a lot of people. Well, I I would say,

Laing Rikkers:

do it for sure. There are absolute ways to get it out, and self publishing has become very easy, particularly if you're doing a text based book. It's extremely easy. For me. It was largely the art that was going to be an issue with that and the just the printing side of it. But I also think to understand why one is doing it that, you know, it's very few people make much money doing a book. So I think to really understand, what is your why? Like do you is it supporting another business? Is it a dream you've had? Is it a message you feel it's important to get out and, you know, align your budget and resources and time and all those things with that and and hopefully it makes it you know that arithmetic adds up to make sense, because it's a really wonderful thing to do. Yeah, know

Colette Fehr:

your why, and that applies to rewriting your life too, and creating your next chapter. You. Is really being in touch with your intuition and knowing the why you of wanting something new,

Laing Rikkers:

absolutely. And

Colette Fehr:

then is this now work that you're helping other women do? Like? What does that look like for you at this stage of your life?

Laing Rikkers:

Well, I'm still architecting that stage, I would say, and which has been fun. So I'm still doing some business coaching and advising small businesses, which I love to do. And that's, you know, I get to pick my projects, which is really wonderful. But I'm also doing some grief work and leading workshops and speaking and, you know, trying to continue to educate myself and find my space in the in the grief world, there's a community of people who are really focused on this, and I like spending time with them. They're there's nothing like people who are less guarded and varnished because of grief. I think it makes people more there's something that comes the walls come down when you're when you're dealing with bigger losses. And I think, frankly, right now, we're all dealing with a lot of kinds of loss, you know, be it political, identity, environmental, etc. And so trying to figure out how I can be most helpful. And, you know, have my work support as many people as I can.

Colette Fehr:

Yeah, yeah. So you're really actually living this too, where you're trying on a lot of hats, doing a lot of things, retaining things that you still love to do, and being able to be at a point in your established career where you can cherry pick your projects, that's the beautiful part of the accumulation of years of good work and time in the saddle and being accomplished, and then trying these new spaces. And this is exactly what we're encouraging women to do is just to try on those new things. And you don't have to have all the answers, knowing your why, and it's enough to want more or want something different, if that's what it is. But being willing to dabble, Laura and I always talk about the active dabble, that sometimes you don't know what might be exciting or thrilling or rewarding until you give something new a shot, like improv. I also did improv classes. Oh, nice, yeah, yeah, and it was fun, but for me, it was terrifying. I mean, not just uncomfortable. I really had a stomach ache every Sunday when I would go to the class, so it put me through a lot, but I also got a lot out of it. I learned a lot about myself. I definitely overcame some fears, and I showed myself I can do hard things.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, because midlife can be like a developmental stall for a lot of women, and doing things, anything right, any hard thing, will get you back into, like, generative action, and that's what we're always preaching. But I have a question, because I was just kind of reflecting on this in my own life, not to like, I completely agree with everything we're talking about here, but in rewriting your script or your you know, after you've had a tough time, obviously, there's the writing that you sometimes do to survive a tough time, just to kind of, like, buoy yourself or, like, hear your own voice during that time. But you know, grief has all of these stages, like, you know you're gambling, you're angry, you're bargaining, I guess is the word, you're you're depressed, you finally arrive to like, acceptance, right? Is that the time then to go back and really do the rewrite in retrospect, to say this is what this chapter really meant to me. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I'm asking in this where it's like the writing that pulls you through, but then there's the final analysis, a meaning making piece.

Laing Rikkers:

Well, it's interesting that you say this, because the first edition of my book was called Morning leaves, reflections on loss, grief and connection. And the second edition is morning leaves cultivating a life of beauty, meaning and joy. And so I think there, you know, it's kind of the parallel of your of your question, which was the first was really the writing through the experience. And then the second edition has a new preface and apolog that are sort of the five year later reflections on what did all of that really mean to me, and what did I learn from that? And, you know, the the meaning making piece of it, and so. So, yeah, I think, I think both are important,

Colette Fehr:

yeah, because the one danger, I think so you can't fully make meaning often, until you have some perspective and there you're the ability to look back, you can't have the meaning that you'll have later in the now. But I also think the danger is that we can wait until we figured it out. Sometimes people can get themselves stalled by thinking, Oh, I'm not ready. It's not time. I don't know yet. I haven't learned the lessons. So you know, they're not there's space for both, right? And I love how the editions of your book speak perfectly to these different phases, what you can do and what you have to offer as you're in it, and then what you may see and reflect on and even bigger, deeper takeaways after you have some time to look back.

Laing Rikkers:

Yeah, absolutely. But you know, Grief is a funny, you know when, when you're first experiencing a major, particularly a surprising loss. I think it's probably different, if you can see it coming, but I went into so much shock that I really couldn't I couldn't read, I couldn't write, like I was just stunned. And, you know, people were doing everything. I mean, I was surrounded by a really lovely community, and one of the things people did was, they gave me a lot of books, but I couldn't read. I mean, I would read a paragraph and I'm like, no idea what that said. Like, I just, I was like, Nope, still can. I'm it was not digesting. And I talked to people about, you know, that there are stages, you know, and that's one of the things with my book that was sort of deliberate initially, was the art, you know, I could see like I could look at beautiful things. And actually, Beauty was so hopeful. And so, you know, I tell people, because my book is often given as a gift book for people who are grieving. And you know that sometimes people can't read it for a while. You know, might take a couple of months before they're ready to engage, but they can look at the art, and they can, you know, appreciate different pieces, and then you know, later, as your you know, your point, that, you know, maybe a year or two or five years, that they can come back and, you know, see a bigger, a bigger picture. And so it's, you know, everybody's timeline is a little bit different.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, I love that you said that, though, because I think that you mean even in therapy, you get clients that come in that are literally shell shocked in what they're going through. And I remember Joan Didion's book a Year of Magical Thinking, right? And when she loses her husband, and she says the only thing she can consume is, like, broth from like, Chinatown. And I think there is a phase where it's like, you can't think, you can't like interventions of any kind, or just really, like, don't like land, like a lead balloon, that it's just you're surviving initially, and it's hard to make meaning in those moments.

Laing Rikkers:

Yeah, those early days, my husband would take me, we live near the beach, and he would insist that we go down to the beach and even just walk slowly. And I never want, I didn't want to go. I don't want to do, I doesn't want to do anything, really, those first few weeks, but, but thank goodness he did that, because it did make a big difference. There is something about getting outside of the light, the beauty, the a little bit of movement that at least kept the wheels moving forward. And so, yeah, I always sort of say it's, there's, it's never a bad idea to go for a walk.

Colette Fehr:

Yes, amen to that. It's, it's one of the best things for you. I mean, it's the thing that research shows, in many cases, going for a walk can be more effective even than psychotropic medications over time. I mean, it's, it's powerful. It's more powerful than we even realize. So sometimes that's enough, right? Just to be able, if you can get out and go for a minute walk. I remember when I worked with people with clinical depression years ago that could not even get out of bed, oftentimes not even in a grief related situation. Again, clinical depression, that sometimes the goal would be just to walk to the mailbox, you know, and that that alone was a victory, and that alone would open up a pathway to some healing. So I think this is beautiful. Any final words of advice for our listeners?

Laing Rikkers:

I think that being honest with yourself, really understanding who you are, and taking care of yourself and trying new things and continuing to grow is it's the way to go, and it's, it's, I'm glad that you're doing the work that you're doing, because I think it's probably helping many, many women.

Colette Fehr:

Likewise, likewise. Same with you. Your book is beautiful. I can't wait to get a copy. So before we let you go show. Show us your book again and tell everyone where they can find you and find the book. And of course, we'll have it in show notes. Oh, it's so gorgeous.

Laing Rikkers:

Thank you. So so my website is my first and last name, so wine rickers.com and I have my socials on there and links to the book and events I'm going to be starting at Parnassus bookstore in Nashville for the launch in a few weeks, and then I'm going to be all over the country for the next few months. And so we'd love to see people, if they are in towns where I'm going to be, that would be great, wonderful.

Colette Fehr:

Well, thank you so much for being here. I think you've given some great wisdom to our listeners, and we're so grateful to have had you, and excited for you with this next edition of the book. Well, thank you, and

Laing Rikkers:

good luck with your book a bunch as well. It sounds exciting.

Colette Fehr:

Thank you. Thank you so much, and thanks everyone for listening. We hope, as always, you got some valuable insights from our couch, and we'll see you next time. Bye guys. You.