Part 2. Seasons of a woman, 30's, 40's and beyond

In the last episode we talked about childhood, maidenhood and what that means for women. In this episode we reflect on how women move through their thirties, forties, and into the edges of fifty, and how identity can change through marriage, motherhood, career shifts, and healing. We talk about ageing as arriving, learning to mother ourselves, and choosing freedom without chasing youth. 

• early marriage that still holds freedom, friendship and experimentation 
• the moment motherhood reshapes identity and relationship dynamics 
• the “midlife thrisis” in the thirties, responsibility and loss of self 
• careers ending and beginning again, taking ownership of happiness 
• mothering energy expressed through coaching, leadership and self-care 
• forties as a deep healing decade, trauma work and rebuilding boundaries 
• integrating the younger parts of ourselves rather than abandoning them 
• body changes, perimenopause and the pressure to look younger 
• mirror work, self-acceptance and resisting harmful beauty standards 
• intentions for the fifties, living on our terms and reclaiming the crone 

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Transcript

Part Two And The Decades Ahead

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Faith Sister. This is part two of the generational reflections of women living through the 20th and 21st century. Last episode we talked about our childhood and maidenhood era. And now we go into our 30s, 40s, and beyond. Because we are celebrating Karen reaching that brilliant, amazing milestone of 50 years old. So let's jump straight back in.

Twenties Freedom Inside Early Marriage

SPEAKER_01 0:31

You know what about you? Where did you go when you were in that maidenhood, like 20s?

Motherhood Shifts Love And Identity

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Oh, I was married, simple as that. Um, I was married at 22. Um, but I was still very much in my maidenhood. Um, but I coupled up and partnered up very early. But for me, it was almost like an episode of Friends or Um Cold Feet because we were living away, uh, we were living in Nottingham, and our best friends, our circle, were our family. And so there were quite a few couples, and we would do everything together. We would holiday together, we would meet up all the time. So it wasn't just me and him, we had a really big, rich life. We'd go to festivals together, we'd go to the theatre together. It was it was amazing, and so um I never felt like I was um giving up my maidenhood. We were fully out there living it, and um and I started doing my career and I started figuring out what is it I want. And although I was in a committed relationship, we still hadn't got children by that point. So we were still able to have that freedom to work out is it this or is it that? Do I like this or do I like that? Um, and it was, I would say my 20s was very much about experimenting, working out who I am as a woman, as a partner, as a friend, as all of those kind of things. And I loved it. And I was also doing really well because everything I'd turned my hand to, because I'm just an optimist, I'm I'm pragmatic. I just I seem to do well at everything I I did, so my confidence was growing. Um, getting married as well when you're 22, I'm always gonna look amazing on those photos. I was like, you know, I was a size 10 but toned, and I'd got Gwyneth Peltro from um sliding doors kind of hair. Um I I just I look at it and I and it's I'm so happy I I have those pictures of me then because when I look at her, she was genuinely happy, and she the the confidence that was coming through and then having being celebrated and it was just wonderful. Um, but that's all about the day, isn't it? Um because the marriage actually, one of the reasons why the marriage started to end was because as I started coming out of my maidenhood and started going into my womanhood, I was changing, but he was happy just carrying on because I don't think the men have the same kind of cycles. And in fact, because when I had my first child just before I turned 27, I felt the baby growing inside me, and my body was changing, and so I fell in love with the baby from the moment I found out I was pregnant, and then I could feel it her moving inside me, and and I I got to know her on a very unique basis. So by the time she came, I was just really happy to see her, and I felt like I already knew her. Whereas for him, it was a real shock, and it took him a good six to twelve months to realise oh, I'm a dad, this is what I'm supposed to do. So it caused quite a lot of friction, and I think when you have created life, suddenly you go into that mother, your your maidenhood is over straight away because you are now responsible for this human being, and it shifted all the dynamics in our relationship to the point where by the time I was 32 the the marriage was over. Um, so yeah, my maidenhood finished the day I found out I was a mum. Wow. And I have no regrets.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

I I totally get that, and I because I did it later. I got married at 43, I had a baby at 43. I looked back at those pictures as well, and I looked so beautiful on my wedding day and so proud of myself. Like, in fact, the best thing about my wedding day, apart from the fact that I did the vows and I'm I I loved my vows and my ceremony was my hair, makeup, and dress.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

I was like, this is just like living, you know what I mean? And then I look back at that and I go, oh, I and I yeah, so same on that, but I was 43, and so for me, when I looked back, I thought, actually, I was doing mothering work in my 30s, like with teams and projects and wanting to be like wanting to send out love into the world. I knew in my 30s that I was here to align with love, and that love has always been my um my love language, my communication, my p reason for being was to spread positive energy and support and you know light things up as opposed to close things down. I always knew that, and I I knew that from being a little girl, and my 30s was very much around that that sort of how do I I wanted to be a physical mum, but it wasn't happening for me, so I just knew that I had to find forms of expression for it. So I did.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

And yeah, and I think that's important just to anchor that point.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Um your mother, mother era does not is not defined by you being a physical mother.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

I think it is important because I remember when I was when I started coaching, you know, I was in my 30s, and I remember thinking, what is it that I bring that is different? Like, what is it? And when I worked for my clients, I felt this strong sense of love, and that sounds really weird, but that's what I felt. And because I was working with women, it's very easy for me to love other women, and I just felt it, and I and then I was like, This is about mothering, and then I thought this is about all of the women that I worked with were learning to mother themselves in some way. So for me, the mothering connection, I saw it through my work, I saw myself being sort of an anchor for that, but then teaching them on how to listen to their needs and how to mother themselves, so then it evolved from me into them, and then it became their thing, and then off they went into the world, which felt much more organic and right, you know, because we need to learn to mother ourselves. Um, so that's that's a big thing to say, and then I actually became a physical mother in my forties, but I can also say that in my 30s, I was st whilst I was doing mothering energy work, there were parts of it where I was still stuck in the maiden era, and I was like, you know, it was about success, it was about experience, it was about travel, it was about partying some nights, yoga other nights, there was a lot of extremes, and I was yo-yoing between two different worlds, two different life phases. You know, the one that wanted to ground, connect, start a family, and the one that was like, it's not gonna happen, so get out there, make an impact, go big, or go home. So I had these two things running at the same time, and then 40s have been about the physical motherhood.

The Midlife Thrisis In Your Thirties

SPEAKER_00 7:02

But do you know what? I think it's important to name this about the um the 30s because I um I've always called it the midlife thrisis because and I can't speak for men, um, I can only speak for the women's experience, but I see so many women get to this stage where they are departing their maidenhood um and being very responsible. So whether it is children or they've got a mortgage or they've got a job or they're caring for somebody else, we do the energy shifts into serving and looking after others in whatever capacity. But equally, um, we start saying, Well, we start, it takes away from us, I think. Um, so we are pushing everything outwards that we start to lose who we are. So then we start questioning, well, I'm I'm doing all the right things, but I'm not happy. Or by now I was told that this is this would be success, but I don't feel like I'm I am or where I should be. And so you do see either lots of relationships end, people switching career, uh questioning who they are, or getting resentful that they don't have the freedom. And so that's why I think it is um a thrisis because we're growing up and we're starting to ask the relevant questions, but it doesn't have to be catastrophic, it just can be that first starting to shift our minds and our energy into thinking, okay, where am I at this stage? You've done the first 25 years, the first hopefully quarter of your life. Now you're getting into maturity. Who are you? And I I look yeah, my 30s were horrendous on paper because my marriage ended. Um, I ended up moving from uh bought house into rented. Um I lost my job or walked away. I took redundancy and started my own business. Um so on paper, I literally just tore up my life and actually it was the best decade for starting me on my life's journey.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Yeah, I love that. It it yeah, I love that. I think it's the deeper questions that we hold. And when we allow ourselves to go in there, and and it can be a little bit messy, it does mean that we have to take responsibility for our own happiness, our own health, in some ways our own wealth. Um, you know, it it's like there's a lot of responsibility in that. And at the same time, if we choose to follow what feels right for us on the inside, we will get led in certain directions. Like we both start we both, you know, ended careers, starting new careers, did training. You know, there's just a lot, there's but for me, there's been a lot of movement in the 30s and in the 40s, but it has felt very, very, very different.

Forties Healing Trauma And Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 9:45

And for me, yeah, so let's move on to the 40s because I think the 30s is where you start questioning, but your 40s, it's an internal thing, it's not a mental thing where you're questioning, it is your whole physical thing. Um, and it is a lot of it's hormonal, but it is actually just the cycle of womanhood. Because that was the bit that took me in my 40s, and was like, Well, even who are you, Lucy? What what do you think? What are you put on this plant to do? What's your intuition telling you? And you know, in my 30s I always had intuition, but it was it was all mental stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I I mean for me my thoughts, oh my god, like as I always say, trauma tsunami happened, it was like trauma gate, everything that could have happened happened, you know, in this in a small window of time. And I went through so much, and it even on paper, I was like, I'd write it down and think, How am I still here? How am I still standing? Like, how am I still how have I got a smile on my face? How am I even coaching people? But it I went into a deep part of myself, and I went into this cave or the bubble, as we sometimes call it, we go into the healing circle or whatever you want to call it. But I went into this cave inside myself and I was like, I'm doing this, I'm doing this work, it is time. I have to deal with the immediate stuff that's happened, like miscarriage. Um, I was in perimenopause, postpartum, um giving ch you know, childbirth um as a later mum, the exhaustion, sexual assault. I mean, it was just like loss of friendship, loss, there was just so much loss.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

And then COVID happened, so you COVID, you know, and such a worldwide pandemic.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

It was just like, oh my god, you know, and I had PTSD, of course, which who wouldn't have PTSD, um, you know, and it was just a lot, you know, and I just thought, right, okay, I I know only one way, and that is to do the work. I don't know any other way. So we do the work, the different guides arrived, I work with so many brilliant women, um, a couple of men, and I just was like, right, one step at a time, unfold it, unfold it. But as I started to heal each piece, and when I s say heal, I don't mean I healed it and I am now, transformed into some kind of ethereal thing, and I feel nothing, like, no, none of that. Um, very real, very gritty, very raw.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Scars are still there, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

The memories are there. I think there's like the memories are there, the experiences are there. I don't want to trample over those because that that's part of my life's journey, and they were given to me, you know, for me to grow and shape myself differently, and also get boundaries and know what I really want and what I will absolutely not stand for, you know. So it it's it's given me a lot of power on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

The phrase life begins at 40. I used to say, Oh my god, my life is going backwards. This is not how it wants it to be. But now I'm entering the the last year of my 40s. I'm like, oh my god, life really does begin. Because now I do I'm doing it on my terms from a healed, healthy, wise position. Yeah, and that, oh my god, it is liberating. Uh which is when we get into the 50s, where apparently it absolutely is liberating, and your 60s, it's well, I just don't give an F anymore. This is the world I want to create. So everything is on the upside from 40.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

I think for me, uh as as it's been a big healing journey, like I feel like every single decade, every single life phase, there are parts of us that get left behind. And I feel like through doing the work in my 40s, I had to go back through every phase and go, oh, there's a fragment of myself. I left her behind. Like I left the so there were so many Karen's sort of like they'd been shut out because she wasn't allowed to have a voice, or she wasn't allowed to express herself, or she didn't feel like she was worthy or enough, or like people don't care, or it's too much for people. If I start to sort of share my stories, people won't be able to cope and they will leave, which is true sometimes. They do that, you know, but other people stay, and then new people come in. So I just feel like for us as women, when we are very, very different. Men need to do this work too, but we need to sort of go and go, okay, I'm at this phase now, where am I going? What do I want? And if we can't if we can't see that we can shift and change and grow, then we're stuck. And then we need to do the unraveling, and that includes bringing all the lost parts of ourselves back into the back to the table, back to the circle, and allowing them to express what they need, and that's work, but it is the most beautiful work, and when we get triggered, because we're going to get triggered again and again and again, we go, which part of me is scared right now, or you know, is objecting to this, and you go back in and you bring her back in and you sit with her and say, What do you want to say? What's going on for you? Just as we do as coaches, like tell me, I want to hear. Remember, I'm the adult here, you are seven-year-old Karen, or you know, 15-year-old Karen, or whatever, and you have something to say, and you had an experience, so I'm here, but I come home my hand, we're gonna walk together, and I am the adult and the grown-up here, and I am 50 years old, and we are going to take this journey, and we're gonna go and have an adventure, and I've got you, you know, and it's like that mothering that part of yourself again that is just so vital. We need to learn how to do that, and we need the sooner we can do that, the better, I would say, for all women.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

So there's another part of the 40s, which I don't think really gets spoken about, and because and this is the external world, but it's about how we view ourselves through those different versions of ourselves. So remember when we were in our teenage years, we'd look in the mirror and something had grown or shaped or whatever, over almost overnight. So you didn't the person you were on the inside didn't reflect who was on the outside because your body was changing that quickly. And then I think your forties is quite quite very similar because we do start having grey hairs, we might be sprouting hairs from our chin, um, our body shape changes, especially when we have like get the meno belly, um, might get a bit cellulite, our eyebrows and our uh hair starts thinning. And the person who we felt like as a powerful 20-year-old or 30-year-old, you look in the mirror and gravity's taking its toll on you. And I think that's very hard to come to terms with. Um, I personally try not to look in the mirror at all. And I was having this conversation with my friend who she's now addicted, well, not addicted, she's dependent on Botox. And she said, if I stop, everything is gonna drop. Um, and she said it with some sadness uh because she wants to be more like me. And she said, How do you do it? And I said, I just don't look in the mirror. I said, Because as soon as I do, I will notice the things that are negative. What I have to do is just say, Do you know what? My hair looks amazing today, or I love the way that dress looks on me, or oh wow, my skin is feeling really good, um, and focus on all the good things, and that's something that comes in that liberation because I'm retraining my brain to appreciate all that is good and not you know, every time go and look at all of the negative things about me, because I will never be that 20-year-old face in my wedding picture again. And if I tried to, well, it would be so obvious because we we we can see when somebody's had a facelift, it just it would it just wouldn't be the face that I want looking back at me. No, and so I I wanted to just name that because you've obviously talked about the healing um side, but there's also an external side, and that fitting in your own body again is something that the 40s teaches you.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

I want to say that you're you're beautiful regardless of anything that might come or not, you know, and you are so there is there is that piece, and I think if we get into comparison, you know, and we're starting to look, and the thing is we're both on Zoom here, and it's got a filter, um, you know, on the Zoom thing, which is great about Zoom because it does make you look, it it smooths everything out. And let's be honest with that. If I go into Teams, I look 10 years older. Um and I notice it and I go, Oh yeah, god, not team, do you know what I mean? So, and I've also got a light there and a light there, and um, if I can get the lighting on, I can convince myself I'm in my 30s. But if you if I've not got no lighting on, I'm I I am definitely 50, and it's that kind of thing, but I just think it's I think it's I just feel a lot of compassion for myself, but I also just think that's hilarious in a way. Um, it is a little bit sad too, but I know men that are the same, and I have I have this conversation with some men in my life, and you know, we talk about lighting and la la la, and I just think, you know what, there's nothing wrong with wanting to look younger, but at the same time we are where we are, and so there's an acceptance of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Well no, but no, this is the bit where I I actually do think there is an issue with wanting to look younger, um, and it's how you started like the the the pod almost, um just talking about this uh the perpetual maidenhood of wanting to stay there, and actually when we I love listening to people like Cameron Diaz and Kate Winsler because they are saying uh this is my face. I've been on the planet for 55 years. Embrace this side of you because actually, yes, I dye my hair, but it's only because I lost the colour when I I was pregnant and I actually don't like the look of it. I'm not grey, but I also know lots of my friends who are grey and they they don't like the greyness. Yeah, and it's because they do feel that they won't fit in, they won't be accepted that because older women aren't seen, aren't visible, are old hags, they're the witches, they're um and so this is something that I actually feel really quite passionate about. I don't want us to look in the mirror and wish we were younger, I want women to look in the mirror and just like I said, see the beauty that is there and not, oh, I wish that wrinkle wasn't there, because there's nothing you can do about it other than getting constructive surgery um or yeah, putting poison in your face or fillers and things like that. And for those of you who do it, I I don't judge you, but what I'm doing is looking under the surface of saying, why does society make you not feel beautiful for being the woman you are?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Oh yeah, I know. I mean there's definitely an issue there in that that obsession with beauty in youth is is really, really scary, especially for the younger, you know, for the maidens who are are actually in their maiden phase, who are changing everything. That's absolutely terrifying because they don't look they don't look like young women. They have a they age themselves to a point where it's like, wow, you know, like a 16-year-old, although that's not you know it's not legal to but I have I know young girls who are in their tw their 20 and they've had their lips done um and it's a botch job and different things like that, you know, and they're already doing all the aesthetics, and I'm I'm and I'm like But but we're the role models and we uh our generation and if we're all having work done we're just saying it's no different.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

So that I mean I've I've never put anything into my face. I'll have a facial um and I'll have a massage and stuff. That's because my daughter's in the beauty uh industry, but she'll talk to me about the aesthetic side and the the rebel in me is is saying, and I think it's like now I'm getting towards 15 accepting me. It's like actually, I'm no, I'm not gonna go down that um that path because it's almost betraying or playing into the patriarchy. So this is like a radical act of feminism. Maybe I'll stop wearing a bra and I'll you know just go whole hog. I don't know, but it's just something that I wanted to bring up because as we go through the decades, we have to meet ourselves where we are now and saying goodbye to that 20 year old and who she was and what her skin was like. Um it's just part of being able to then move into my 50s and 60s.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah, I and I hear everything that you're saying. And my hope for you and for all women is that they can go to the mirror and look in the mirror and not avoid what is facing them in the mirror. Because I feel like there's a lot of energy wasted in not seeing what's in front of us. And I I am for me when I do mirror work, which is one of my ways out actually when I'm in a bad place, because I look in the mirror and I and I can love myself in the mirror and be like, We're doing alright. We are doing okay here. We're doing and it starts with alright and then it evolves from alright into I love you and I accept you. And that has always been my process from being really little, actually, because my mum taught me that when I was a little girl, and she showed me my outline on my figure, and I thought I was fat, and she said, Show me where the fat is. And she took me to the mirror and I had a leotard on, and I and she said, Show me, I want to I want you to show me where the fat is on your body, and I could there wasn't any, I was just curvy, and she said, Do you see it? And I said, No, and I could see that my little waist and my little hips and you know and the boobs and everything, and and she was like, You are not fat, you have curves and you have an accent accentuated figure, you know. And I was really young, I was in primary school at this point, and I'm I I and it stuck with me like that going to the mirror, like having these thoughts in my head about what I look like, and then going into the mirror and seeing the truth and being like oh, I'm thinking something.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

What a gift your mum gave you. And that was a real gift. I heard if you can pinch an inch your fat, um, or are you sure you want to have that other biscuit? And Evie um has heard from her um paternal grandfather when she's got her uh little crop top on. Oh, put that away. Meaning, and he pushes her tummy, and she has got the most fabulous figure, and she comes home really upset, and she's I just don't want to go over there because it's always about what I look like. And I'm like, I get it. And so it this is like as well, this 60-year-old woman who was giving me these life lessons, this nurse, she was just like, I don't care what other people think about me because I know I am alive and amazing and whatever. And I was like, that's the energy that I want from my 50s. Because I look at other women in their 50s and I don't think, oh my god, you're so thin, you're amazing. I'm like, wow, you look so happy, you look so confident. Oh my god, you're killing it in you know, living life on your terms. That's that's what I'm looking forward to.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yeah.

Hopes For The Fifties And Reclaiming The Crone

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Um, living life on my terms, and I'm getting there actually. Um, yeah, because I can look in the mirror now and say, Wow, yeah, amazing. And when I go to the gym and I I lift something or I bend and like my body's doing that, I'm so grateful. So let's move on to your your hopes and dreams or intentions this next decade. So, you know, you're 49 now. Think 10 years from now, and you're gonna be 50 59. You've lived.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

What are your hopes for the decade ahead? I think just to keep on masking, you know, and f and just meeting uh the barriers that I face, um busting the taboos. There's always gonna be taboos in life, you know. I've done so much in that field, but I don't feel like that will ever stop now. It's part of who I am and what I do. And making sure that I take rest without guilt or shame, which is something I'm working on, I find that very hard because I'm a very productive person and I love to create things. So for me, that rest because I need rest and there's nothing wrong with it, I I do struggle with it still. So I've noticed I've noticed that is work, you know, to be done. Um and I want I suppose it's just an ongoing version of myself, but refinement's not the right word because when I say the word refinement, I think my I think drinking tea, and I do drink tea, but I want to be like wildly refined. So the rabb rebel there saying F you, I'm not doing that, that's rubbish, or that's not my way. But then there's this refinement piece as well that's much more like tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, but not tweaking aesthetically, but tweaking from a deep, deep level place of going, I've done with that. Okay, so how am I going to evolve? Like, where am I going? And really taking I like I say taking charge, and that makes me sound like a control freak again, because I realise that there is a bigger picture that I am not in control of, and so being how uh able to hold like these things as both are true, like this is my dream, so I'm going for it, and there's a bigger picture that I don't have the full story of, and I'm gonna get led in certain areas, and being brave enough to say, I have this dream, but I'm being taken here, and this feels right now, and I'm gonna go for that because I think sometimes we can get very rigid as well, you know. Like, I always wanted this, so we chase that thing, but there's something else for us, and we we are just not able to see it because we're so stuck on like that result, so it's like having the the deep wisdom to know when to say yes, when to say no, when to stay, and when to go. I think that's it for me on a level. If I can do that, then I feel like everything else will fall around and should, you know. What about you?

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Oh well, I'm really excited for you to go find that for me. Um, because my children are young adults now, I've got a decade ahead of me to, for the first time, truly choose me. Now, it does look different to what I thought it would look like at this age, um, because I've got um my children will always need me. Um, so they and I I will stick around for them for as much as I can. Um, but I do see my parents getting older, so now they're completely independent. Um, but already I'm thinking, oh, my 10-year decade of freedom and living Lucy might actually be a five-year window. We'll we'll see. And I've got my dogs and I've got my cats, so I'm I've still got my dependents. So this adventurer going around the world, exploring the world is not how I am actually going to be living my 50s, but actually it's the mindset of, well, who was that woman who was going to do that? Well, I actually the Lucy that does that is the woman that I used to actually fear in my 20s, because I'd see women who would just live life on their terms, uh be really happy and confident and not doubt themselves and totally trust their intuition. I used to look at them and I'd be scared because it was almost like they could see through me and what a fake I was at 20. I want to be that woman now. I'm not scared of her. I'm like, yes, she she's there. And I and I could feel myself turning into her. So me at 59, um, she's somebody I want to have a dinner party with or go on holiday with, and I want to hear her stories and feel her energy. So that's what I'm I'm heading for.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yay, so it still feels like we're both looking for that legacy piece, but it's more about how we feel in our own legacy, and also this sense of freedom is still there for us, like it's not something that's ever gone away. And I think maybe that's the anchor or the thread that runs through every single you know decade of our lives. Is as women, it's really important that we feel like we're free and that we can access the wildness while still grounding down and connecting, you know, on the inside. So that's what I'm summarising for the end of this conversation. I feel like every single stage of our journey matters, and that it's really important that we honour the whole journey, the whole path, not just the beginning, you know, not just those early years, and really we continue to evolve as we go. Um, for me, it's not just about aging, it's about arriving and it's about listening to our own needs and using other women to share with. What about you? How do you want to sign off, Lucy? Um, I'm just going to say let's reclaim the crone. Yes.