EPISODE 012 | Cathy Zielske: Age Does Not Guarantee Wisdom

In this refreshingly honest conversation, Cathy Zielske brings her signature candour to the Crone Rising table. From garden-variety neuroticism to hard-earned peace, Cathy shares how years of therapy—not time alone—gave her the emotional intelligence that now shapes her relationships, her work, and her sense of self. Together with Lee, they unpack the cultural pressures around body image, the myths of midlife wisdom, the invisible labour of motherhood, and the powerful choice to stay curious, outspoken, and unapologetically visible in a world that still wants to shrink women as they age. This is an episode for anyone who’s ever felt “too much,” or not enough.

Key Topics Covered

• The myth that age automatically brings wisdom
• Healing neurotic patterns through long-term therapy
• Emotional intelligence and personal growth in midlife
• Body image, smoking, and diet culture from a Gen X lens
• Shifting from self-obsession to outward curiosity
• Modelling healthy behaviour for adult children
• The radical choice to speak out (even on social media)
• Why staying home can be a revolutionary act
• Scrapbooking as therapy and creative outlet
• What it means to find your seat at the table, on your terms

After you listen to the podcast, answer this: What did you believe wisdom would look like at this stage of life? Was it peace, freedom, or maybe just finally giving fewer f*cks? Cathy’s story reminds us that growth doesn’t happen just because the calendar turns. It takes work, courage, and the occasional ass-kicking therapist. What have you unlearned about who you’re supposed to be? 

Come tell us over on Instagram @crone.rising.official — we’d love to hear your version of aging unapologetically.

Crone Rising is for every woman who’s done being quiet and done being small. We’re not here to fade. We’re here to rise — unapologetic, unmuted, and unmissable.

Connect with Lee Currie

Subscribe, share, and leave a review if Crone Rising resonates. Your voice matters. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hold on, Lee. I gotta get my camera going. Oh, there you are. Hello. Oh my goodness, it's been ages. I was trying to remember, and I think I remembered, didn't we go to Maya Angelou together? Yes.

unknown 0:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

With our girls. With Claire. Yeah, and Aiden. And Aiden, yeah. Oh, it was years ago. I know, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I don't even, I don't even know what year that was. No. You know something? Ever since COVID, like years kind of they don't, they all blend together.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

They absolutely do. And I think, yeah, part of it is not, it's not just age. It's kind of like trying to figure out what era we're even in anymore. And um, I find it very strange. I find it so strange. But the trajectory is good. The trajectory, the trajectory, I can't say that word. It is good.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Everybody understands the idea that as we get older we become invisible, but I've realized that most of my friends, because I've curated a great group of girlfriends online, offline, everywhere. Yeah. And but they don't feel invisible. So I'm like, wait a second. So when you said, I don't know if I'm going to be a good guest for this, I'm thinking, oh, you're on theme.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah. I mean, and I don't know if if we want to just get right into it. It is interesting because I have been, this is, this is, this is you, you know, Lee, that I'm an introvert. And this is what introverts do. We talk out loud to combat our nerves as we are preparing to do anything like this. And a lot of people don't believe that I'm an introvert. And you know, it has nothing to do with my ability to be personable. It's just energy. It's just energy. And where do I draw that from? And, you know, after something like this, I'll go curl up in a little fetal ball and just rock myself for a little bit and then I'll be good to go. Um, but I won't leave the house. Anywho, as I was thinking about this and this conversation we were going to have, the one of the things that I wanted to start with is this idea as we move into talking about invisibility that with age comes wisdom. I don't believe that. I don't, I don't believe that for a second. And I will tell you really no, I'll tell you a few reasons why. Okay. And again, these are I should I should have that disclaimer. These are only my opinions. This is only the opinion of Kathy Zilski, LLC, and her affiliated, whatever. Um, if that were true, my 90, my 90-year-old parents would be geniuses. And both of them have the emotional intelligence of about a five-year-old, maybe a six-year-old. Wow. Um, and that is that is obs observable, actually. And the thing that I feel like gave me the ability to move into a place of wisdom is years and years and years of therapy, but not just any old therapy, not sitting down with someone who's like, so Kathy, tell me how do you feel about that? No, I worked with this woman who um absolutely brilliant, doesn't live near me. I talked to her on the phone. My husband also talked to her on the phone. We were having issues in our marriage in the early, you know, 2010, 2011. And we got a hookup with this woman. And this woman, can I swear on this podcast? Of course you can. Like anything goes. Anything goes. She kicked my ass six ways to Sunday. It was a rude awakening. It was working with someone who at first I thought, yeah, this isn't gonna work. This isn't gonna work for me because I don't feel good about me after I talk to you. And basically, what I learned over many, many years is I was modeled uh by my parents, a very childish way of living. Um, you know, I learned from my dad how to throw fits, how to intimidate everyone in the house, um, how to literally give no emotional warmth at all. I learned these things because that to me looked powerful growing up. Now I didn't know this consciously as a kid, but I certainly, when I look back in my 20s and 30s and the way I interacted, not with people like you, not with my friends, but with the people I was closest with, I employed all the techniques that I learned from my dad. I'm gonna throw fits if things aren't my way. I'm going to withhold affection. I'm going to do, I mean, this is this is rough stuff to learn. And the reality is there was nothing really wrong with me, but I was a garden variety neurotic. That is hard to take in, and it took me a couple of years. But so what happened in working with this woman was being able to look at the behaviors that were not golden, were not stellar, and realized that I did not have to be locked into being a person like that, that I could actually change my approach to the world. I could change how I responded to my life. And um, that took about 12 years of work. And one of the things that I realized after I moved through this was this realization that I actually can exist in the world with a level of invisibility because now I am curious about what is outside of me rather than always being focused on me. How do I feel? What am I getting? What am I not getting? And it changed my life. So that is where I that's where I'm coming from today in this way of saying, just because you're getting older doesn't mean you're wiser. You can still be an asshole. And that may never change. You know, that may never change unless you can slow down and take a look at who you are and who you want to be. Now, it makes me sound like I was this horrible person. And to some extent, in certain aspects of my life, I was. I mean, I was still funny, I was still Kathy, I still have my, you know, close group of friends. It's not a, it's not a broad group, but there was a lot to unpack over the years. And, you know, um, if I hadn't done that, the relationships I have with the people I care about the most, my husband and my children, would be vastly different. It would be no question in my mind, no question. They would not be what they are today because everything was about me, not about them. I mean, I I appeared like, oh, you're a good mom, you do this and that. It's like, yeah, but at the end of the day, it was all about me. And now it's not all about me. And it is the most liberating place I have ever been in my life.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

That's wonderful. I've it's so good. No, and I've done my own therapy journey. And um, I tell you, the greatest thing that I learned was all those things that I was criticized about when I was growing up are all of my greatest strengths.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

And and here's the thing too, Lee, that I should clarify, you know, for anyone listening who thinks um when I say I was a garden variety and erotic, my parents didn't abuse me. Um, I had everything I could have wanted. I was not ever criticized. Oh, that's not true. I was never mind. I'm gonna retract that one. I I was encouraged to be creative. I'll I'll I'll say that. Oh, good. Um, you know, so there are people who have real pain from their lives, whether it was from, you know, a spouse abusing you mentally and emotionally, um, parents who did that. That's the one thing that I was like a lot of people, just a just a garden variety neurotic, you know, no real pain, you know, knock on wood. I've been really lucky in my life. Um, but there are people who really have trauma from from their past. And I I mean, I just managed to turn into an asshole by just growing up as a normal American in the United States, um, with with privileges coming out of my ears, you know, and I still managed to find a way to not be grateful for, you know, everything that I had. So, and when you when you mentioned, you know, your husband was part of the problem. I my husband, you know, I've been with him for a very long time. Um, we're not perfect. There are many things about a relationship, even with all the he did the therapy too, and we worked separately. So he had to make a lot of changes in his life, namely, um, he he left religion because he comes from a religious family, but a very liberal, awesomely liberal, wonderful religious family. They're out there protesting and feeding hundreds of people, and they're great, it's a great family, but he isn't a believer, and so he had to work through years of therapy to recognize it's like this isn't for me. So he did his own path, and at the end of this path, we come together. We're not perfect, but we still like watching TV together. Yeah, you know, like he's a really funny person, and I would rather live with him than not. And nothing made divorce more clear to me than working in therapy. Yes, I never got it before, and now I'm like, this is why you don't stay with people. Like, I I do not ever envision myself leaving the city in which I live, which is St. Paul, Minnesota, which we have, you know, Minneapolis and St. Paul butt up against, you know, we have everything right there. There's no need to go. I feel that it's um, I mean, we've lived in this house since 1990. Um, it's the one house we bought and we stayed here because we had enough room and now we own this house. We literally just made our last house payment. So it's old. It was built in the you know 1900s, the early 1900s. But like, I think every we have everything we need. But the funny thing is, do I take advantage of that? I'd rather stay home. I mean, you know, yeah, it's what I do. I have I have very little interest in being unless it's like a play or a movie. I'll go out to do those things. I won't do concerts anymore that I have to stand at. Um, you know what I'm saying? Like and uh I've seen so many great shows in my life, but like most of the time, I'm just happy here.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, you know, yeah, it's so funny because once it it's weird the stage because now you can you have the freedom to do anything you want and you choose to stay home, pick up a book, and you know, pet your dog. Like it's it's but I'm I'm the same and uh like you, I'm also an introvert, so it's very appealing. But the nice thing is I'm three hours away from the Toronto airport, so I can fly anywhere. Sure. And I did all my traveling, yeah, and I think I'm like almost at the end of like that, like I need, you know, I need to see the world, you know, because the last thing I want to do is as much as I would love to go to New Zealand, I don't want to be in a tin can for that many hours.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

It's like, did I get chubby over the years? Oh my god, yes. But my doctor said, listen, I would rather have you be overweight than a smoker any day of the week.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

And I'm like, Woo! Right? Yeah, oh I know, I know. And I I had a doctor say pretty much the same thing. So it was, you know, but but my my weight came from so I modeled for years when I was younger. So uh smoking was helpful. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

And if you know how to use it, it keeps the weight off. Do you know what I mean? Do I want to eat? No, I'm just gonna have this cigarette. And it's so funny because one of my two best friends, she still smokes, she's a sneak smoker, and she said to me, I've I've been smoking for years and I've never lost weight from it. I'm like, that's because you don't do it right. You have to smoke and not eat. Now that sounds terrible, but you know what I mean. It's like I do it's an appetite suppressant if you work it. That sounds terrible, and that's why hopefully no young woman will listen to this show, but that's just what we did. That's what we did.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

We all did. So it was so funny because I remember so when I was in my early 20s, I lived in Buffalo, New York. And uh, so basically I was on the cigarette vodka tea diet. Yeah, so that was kind of how I, you know, and I was, you know, basically tits on a stick because I I'm five nine and a half well, but then I was five ten. And I was like 119 pounds. Oh god, that's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

That's that's skinny, mini skinny. I mean, yeah, that is small. I I don't think I would I think I was that much in like the fifth grade.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

So like like my daughter put on some clothes that I used to wear. Yeah, and she's tiny, and she's like, Oh my god, you you fit into this is the this is the mom you know now. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't always, yeah, and that's the thing, like you go through different stages, and it's just it's just you just it depends on how you you know, no nobody wants to get heavy.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

No, and you know, I oh god, that's another whole topic. I will say that there are regrets I have in my life, and I think that is modeling a poor relationship with food for many, many, many years during these years where my daughter was growing up. It is cultural, it is really hard to escape. I don't care where you live, if you are a woman, unless you are the most internally developed person on the planet, you are gonna struggle with this if you don't, if you weren't gifted with genetics and a body that just doesn't change. But like I regret this modeling that that you know, all these years. Like when I when I got married, you know, I was like 130 pounds. And now in my mind, I think, oh my God, I was emaciated. I was so thin. You know what I mean? I'm five foot four. Yeah. So and then, but then all over the years of like quitting smoking, getting pregnant, quitting smoking when I found out I was pregnant, gaining a hundred pounds when I was pregnant with Aiden, my daughter. And um, you know, that was the first time that I really started going through weight loss. I had struggled with body issue from the as as old as I can or as young as I can remember. You know, my butt was too big and my blah, blah, blah, and my blah, blah, blah. I'm not pretty. And it's like so much wasted time, right? But that's growing up in.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

But we also grew up in the era when old ladies would look at you and say, mention your breasts. Oh, yeah, and your bomb. And it's like nobody would do that now. I wouldn't walk up to a young woman and say anything about their body.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

No, but they still, I mean, my my daughter is um, I think maybe a year younger than Claire. I don't know. Uh Aiden's 29.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, so Claire turns 20. Yeah, she turns 30 in December.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Okay, very close in age. You know, my own daughter had to, she recently just deleted Instagram, her account, not just took it off her phone. She's just like, I don't want to see what I'm seeing, yeah, because it makes me feel bad about me. And she is beautiful and tall, and she's an attorney, and she's like, she's my favorite person. She is my favorite. I have three, I guess that's my family, but she's one of my favorite people, you know, and yet still struggles with this. I'm not enough. And, you know, I'm at a place in my life where I'm like, I'm so happy to be me and who I am, and to have this peace of mind. Um, it doesn't, I yeah, I'm chubby. It doesn't really matter. I mean, I I'm healthy. Um, if my doctor said to me your blood pressure shit and you are diabetic, that would be a whole different thing. So far, I'm not knock on wood. Every time I go to the doctor, I think, well, just dodge that one, you know, because I never know. But like, you know, yeah, again, this, this, this, this idea of having some peace of mind at my age, I'm 59. Again, I don't think that would have come natural. That would not have come just by aging. That came from working to figure out what in my life was incongruent and how to get aligned.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

And I've done a lot of work over the course of years. Like, and and for me, scrapbooking really helped because it was journaling. It really let me express myself in a lot of ways that I couldn't have. Absolutely. And uh so, but when I turned 59, I took serious stock of my life and said, okay, by the time I turn 60, my life is gonna look exactly the way I want it to. I'm getting rid of people, I'm getting rid of books, I'm getting rid of shit, I'm getting rid of anything that does not serve me, will not be here by my 60th birthday. So that's exactly what happened. Like I turned 60 and I had just come back from um the Modern Elder Academy in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I had been there, I learned a whole bunch of stuff. I uh Karen Walrand wrote uh Radiant Rebellion, and so I was there in her cohort, and um, and Chip Conley, who runs the joint, you know, and oh my god, it was just so oh good. I'm on the right trajectory, I'm on the right path for me. This is great. I came home and then got a phone call. There was a uh a writing course in Carmel by the Sea, California. Okay, it had one opening, and I got a phone call. Do you want to come and do this? It's the only thing it's like one of those, like, and so this the journey was just say yes. Just say yes. At the end of it, it was just say yes and and be curious and learn things. And so it was like all of these things went into overdrive for a year. And I went to Carmel by the Sea and I learned from these great, wonderful women, and it's like, oh, and I learned by doing that that I belonged at that table. Yep. So it's like find the tables that you are welcome to be at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

And that's basically what I did. I mean, I love that because as you know, as you get older, there are things that you're going to face that are going to be limitations in terms of physical limitations. You know, we don't all work out like beasts and we can, but you're but if you are lucky and your mind stays where it is, you can keep expanding that forever. You don't have to stop up here. So, you know, even if you're slowed down physically by something, you have the ability to mentally expand your mind, learn new things, grow, change, all of that stuff. I mean, and I think again, I think you and I both have a a certain level of privilege in that we have the opportunity to be able to follow those paths to exact, you know, and that's a gift and it's an awesome thing to be able to do. Um, yeah, my that's one thing my therapist. She's like, you know, I think now she's 75, 76, she said, and she's in great freaking shape, but she's like, I will always have if I am if I stay with my mental facilities or faculties, whatever. Um, I will always be able to expand my mind. I don't have to stop growing, I don't have to stay in one place. And I'm always like, that is inspiring to me that you know, she's she's tried to instill that in me too, you know. And I it's funny as I was mentioning all the tech stuff that I love. I think one of the things in my work, you know, I love testing a new microphone and a new camera and a new this and a new that because it's just part of new things that I like to look at. You know, that and that that's part of why I mean, I don't have a huge social media reach. It's not huge. I I, you know, in scrap when I came from the world of crafting, um, scrapbooking felt more conservative to me. Um, card making, I definitely felt like a black sheep in the magazine publications that I worked for back in the day because I wasn't Mormon, I wasn't religious, um, you know, I didn't really fit into their, but they welcomed me. And I all will always appreciate that from all the Mormon women that I worked with. I will always appreciate how I was treated. Um, but you know, in the card world, it's like I'm not going to shut up about politics. Not now. It's not, it's there's just there's too many things. Now, I will clarify, I have a YouTube channel where I sh I share tutorials. I do not, there's no politics on my YouTube channel ever, because that is that is too important to me from a fine that's that's how I earn a living. And but on Instagram and every other platform, I don't care. I'm not going to I'm not going to be silent on these things because this is a time in America where like you they're probably going to over try to overturn legalized gay marriage, which is like, why do you care? Why? I know, I know. Why do you care? I just and a lot of times it comes back to people's religious beliefs that are taken from um you know this book called the Bible, apparently.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

And they and they twist it. They twist it, they twist it and for their own, for their own, and then they project all these things. So it's like, uh who are the loudest people screaming about any kind of sexual anything, you know, and then you find out a couple years later they're locked up because you know they were they were doing what they were screaming against.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

We just had a senator, uh Minnesota State Senator, who got caught trying to pay a 17-year-old for sex, and um, he comes from a very conservative district up north in the Brainerd area as you get closer to the border. And um, you know, it's just the hypocrisy is staggering and staggering. It it is. Um, and again, I can't think of anything less American than telling people how they should live their lives. I don't know. You can be religious, you can be this, you can be that. That's you do you. Yeah, but let the others do the same, you know. Um, that's what I don't understand. If if if you're supposedly subscribing to American values of freedom, it's not taking away freedom from others. And it's just it's a it's an assault every goddamn day here.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Thank you so much for taking the time to be with me.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Yeah, Lee. I mean, it was good to see you. I mean, I've known you for a very long time. I only follow you now through the Facebook, you know, I'll see updates when you got your second dog. You know, I kind of sit back there and lurk a little bit, but it was good to talk to you and good to see you. You look fantastic, you sound great, you sound like you're in a great place. So I appreciate um.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

I I love all of this. And so I might have to check out your cards.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yeah, don't get don't go down that rabbit hole. It is it's an expensive hobby, but it is an awesome one.