Good Woman Rules and Midlife Reckoning

We’ve all grown up with the “good woman rules”—be nice, don’t make a fuss, put everyone else first. Sound familiar? In this episode of Midlife Bites, host Kirstin Bouse—clinical psychologist and midlife mentor—calls out the unspoken rules that have shaped us since childhood and left so many of us feeling exhausted, resentful, and stuck.

From Disney movies to family expectations to society’s obsession with youth and beauty, these rules are everywhere. But here’s the truth: midlife is the perfect time to finally see them for what they are—and start breaking them.

Kirstin explores the impact these rules have on our mental health, relationships, and sense of self, and invites you to imagine what life could look like if you ditched them for good. Because this chapter of life isn’t about pleasing others—it’s about reclaiming your voice, your needs, and your joy.

✨ Your midlife rebellion starts here.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Midlife Bites. This is the podcast that tells the truth about how Midlife bites, why it bites, and what happens after it bites. I'm Kirsten Baus, clinical psychologist, midlife mentor, and someone who believes midlife isn't a crisis. Well, maybe it is a bit. At the very least, it's a reckoning. But it's also an invitation to your reclamation. Here you'll find real talk, real stories, and the kind of conversations that make you feel less alone and more like yourself. And heads up, I get a little bit sweary sometimes, so tune in if you do too, or at least don't get offended if you hear a few choice words. Sometimes it's just me, sometimes it's me chatting with a guest. But either way, it's always going to be raw, relatable, and real. Now, you may not be able to bring to mind anything specific right now, but if I was to say to you, the good rule, good woman rules include be nice, don't make a fuss, keep the peace, put everyone else's needs before your own, and make sure you look good doing it. And never ever be too much for anyone. I have a hunch that some of those will resonate for you. Or at the very least, even just the concept of the good woman is something that you can relate to. Now, we don't remember signing up for this list, but by midlife, we've been living by a bunch of them for decades because it's just how it is. We have this messaging. We're kind of marinated in this messaging from the get-go, which I started to talk about in the last episode. And it gets to the point where sometimes we can't even see these rules for what they are, just ideas and ideas that are unhelpful for us. Now, here's the thing. Here's the thing. In midlife, it all starts to crack. We notice those cracks. And once we do, we can't unsee them. So today, episode two, we're going to talk about what these rules are, how they got there, and even talk about maybe some movies that really reinforce these rules. And we're also, most importantly, going to talk about why midlife is the time where we start to actually realize just how ridiculous and unfair these rules are and why midlife is also the perfect time to break them. So, welcome to episode two, where we are going to take a deep dive on the conversation, in the conversation around good woman rules. So let's start by saying or kind of answering the question, what am I talking about when I talk about the good woman rules? And for those of you who are listening in and not watching, I'm kind of doing air quotes when I'm talking about good woman. So just kind of throughout this, whether you're even watching or listening, just imagine the good woman rules and each time that I'm putting air quotes around them. These rules are the invisible rules that tell us be nice, don't make a fuss, put everyone else first and look good doing it, as I said. Now, the interesting thing is movies have hammered most of this message home for decades. Super, super interesting. When we think of amazing movies like Pretty Woman, well, her life only becomes valuable when a wealthy man decides to save her. Or Titanic, Rose's worth is framed almost entirely through her romance with Jack. And the other thing is, I don't know if you remember this, because this was our generation, right? Our generation of movies when we're young adults. Kate Winslett was constantly body uh publicly body shamed at the time for not being thin enough, like crazy. So what message does that give us? Be beautiful, be chosen, and be defined by who loves you. Make sure someone loves you and be defined by that. So what I'm gonna do now is I have made a list of good woman rules, and I really, really want you to listen to every single one and just make a note what really kind of hits home for you personally. We're gonna go through a whole bunch. You ready? Ready to tune in? You might need to stop and make some notes in your phone or something about them. Okay. Always be slim, toned, and youthful, no wrinkles, no grays. Wear makeup, but make it natural and not too much. Dress attractively, but never inappropriately, not too short, too tight, or too revealing. Don't age visibly, dye your hair, fight your lines, stay small. Don't let yourself go, but you cannot look like you're trying too hard. Be nice, polite, and agreeable, even when you're not. Don't be bossy, loud, or opinionated. Smile, because women must be likable to be accepted. Come on, give us a smile, love. Don't swear, don't rage, don't be too much. Always say thank you, even if you've been inconvenienced. Particularly if you're walking down the street and someone knocks into you, make sure you say sorry. All right, keep going. It's a bit depressing. Prioritize your partner's needs and career over your own. You can have a career, but when something needs to happen, it's yours that must be inconvenienced, i.e., sick children. Motherhood is the ultimate fulfillment. If you're a mum, it comes first, always. And if you're not a mum, then quite surely you must not be fulfilled and you're missing something. And this one, which absolutely makes me sick, you're not a real woman until you've had kids. Vomit, vomit, vomit, and just anger. Keep the peace in your family, even at your own expense. Be the emotional caretaker for everyone, partner, kids, parents, colleagues. And by that, that means not only manage your own relationship, do the emotional labor in your direct relationships with everyone. They don't have to put much effort in, but also do the emotional labor for other people's relationships. Don't get divorced unless you've tried everything, and then be super grateful if you remarry, and particularly so, if you bring a kid or two in tow. That one I know. Be ambitious, but not so ambitious that you intimidate others. Don't outshine men at work, be competent but humble. Take on the office housework, organize birthdays, make the tea, do the emotional labor, be the one to notice that the milk is running low. And maybe even go and get it. But if your partner goes and gets it, my hunch is it's because you've actually told him that you need more milk because you're running low. You do the noticing. Say yes to overtime, extra responsibilities or mentoring, but don't expect the promotion. And make sure you put your hand up to get the office morning tea or the birthday cake or the going away present for whoever's leaving. If you're successful, you must still remain humble, likable, and family-oriented. You must not talk about your success because that's just big noting yourself. Sex and desire, be attractive and sexually available, but not too sexual. Don't talk about your own pleasure. Don't talk about your own pleasure. Good women please others. Once you're older, your sexuality is meant to fade away quietly. Don't desire too much, and definitely don't desire outside your relationship. Always be grateful for male attention. Be thankful, don't reject it too strongly. You might hurt their feelings. Don't be angry. Angry is ugly in women. Don't be sad for too long because it makes you difficult. Be endlessly resilient, smile through struggle, and most of all, keep it together. Don't need too much, don't ask for too much, and don't want too much. Heavens above. What do you think? That is a ridiculous list. Now they were all very blunt statements, right? And so maybe some don't fit quite for you because they're just too one or the other. But the interesting thing is most of this messaging, if it doesn't fit in such a bold, blunt comment, will still be taken on board in a softer version and with a lot of disclaimers kind of coming with it. So I'm super curious. And again, I always love to hear from you. So please let me know if you're so inclined. I'm super curious as to what stood out for you. Which of the ones actually kind of resonated for you that you thought, yep, that's something that I try and do all the time. And this is the interesting thing. We don't think about it. We don't think about it them as rules as we're going about our lives, living our lives, doing the things, fulfilling the good woman rules. They often only kind of come up when we have an opposing need that might inconvenience, disappoint, anger, sadden, frustrate somebody else. And when that need is really powerful within us, that's when it's kind of like, ooh, there's this rub. Like, how do I do what I want to do at the same time as avoid the inconveniencing of others or disappointing of others? And for those of us who maybe still from time, well, not, you know, time to time, or more often kind of pursue what we want and face the inconvenience of others and the disappointment and all the rest. Typically guilt follows because that's how the rules work. I mean, they work by making us feel guilty if we don't fulfill them. And sometimes even the thought of fulfilling what we want and pursuing what we want and doing what we want, and knowing what that reaction will be, or even even if the reaction isn't going to be so obvious, but kind of having this sense of I am not fulfilling the good woman role, even that is enough to bring up the feelings of guilt. And we stop there. So we just don't do it. That's a really, really common story. So the question is where on earth do they kind of these kind of rules come from? And essentially, you know, our families, our culture, our religion, our workplaces. And again, I'm really kind of wanting to bring this home and mention a couple of movies. So just think about Disney movies. Let's start with movies, because movies are a great example of cultural norms and expectations. And I think it's really important that we understand that when so many people are watching movies where the messaging really kind of portrays the good woman or the implications of when you don't fulfill the good woman rules, then this is the Kool-Aid that we're all drinking. So this is the Kool-Aid that makes us try and fulfill them consciously or subconsciously. And this is the Kool-Aid that sets the other people up in our lives to expect us to behave this way, to fulfill the good woman rules. So Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, all young, pretty, passive, and rescued. Rescued young women, beautiful young women. The villains are always older women. They're witches, stepmothers, hags. You know, this is how older women are portrayed as the baddies. And the young, pretty women are portrayed as being passive and needing to be rescued by the beautiful, handsome, amazing, wonderful, clever hero of the story. Ariel literally gives up her voice to be loved. What message does that give? The rule is clear. Don't be loud, don't be age, don't age, don't lead. Because if you are loud, if you do age, if you do lead, you risk not being loved. So let's go into this a little bit more, right? Okay. Family. Let's start there. Now, for some people, even just the mention of family kind of makes them shudder because there's some tricky families. A lot of people have tricky families. Many of us were taught explicitly to be a good girl. It starts super, super young. Oh, you're such a good girl. And usually that phrase was used in the context of when we were polite, we were quiet, we were helpful, we didn't answer back. Parents rewarded our compliance and punished disobedience. So brothers might have gotten away with boys will be boys. And I know that's being challenged now in more recent times, which is super like seriously, super good and seriously important. But back then, girls were expected to be tidy, calm, and accommodating. Accommodating, that word drives me nuts. Household roles were reinforced with girls helping with younger siblings and chores, and yet boys were often excused. Again, things I think a lot of us, Gen X's and millennials, and certainly younger generations, have been trying and are doing our very best to change those rules. As someone with three sons, that's been really important to me. Let's now talk about school. That's a fun one. Again, teachers often praise girls for their neatness, their manners, and being easy, so easy to manage. Whereas boys were given more leeway to be loud, disruptive, or assertive. High-achieving girls were rewarded, but at the same time, they were disapproved of if they were too competitive and often called a show-off. One of my earliest school memories is actually telling a story about my father and being very proud of him. Not, I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking about being proud of him and what he did and having the school primary school principal walk past, hear me tell this story, and tell me in front of everyone I was too big for my boots. And that particular phrase has followed me in so many different environments, maybe in slightly different language or very different language, but essentially that has been something that I have heard many times and have to do a lot of work to kind of push aside and challenge and just disregard. This podcast is a classic example of me saying, fuck it. What's so wrong with being too big for my boots? And I'm actually not too big for my boots. I've got some important stuff to share, and that is okay. I am okay. Peer dynamics also punish girls who broke rules, and they were called bossy, try-hard, you know, I love the word, precocious as well for bright girls. That's another one that came up a lot. Is any of this stuff kind of resonating with you? Is it kind of, am I staring the pop by talking about this? Because it actually, you know, it actually is stuff that you can relate to and that you rail against, or that's kept you small. It's a really big deal. Then we come to morality and sub-religions. Many traditions glorify women as selfless nurturers and caretakers. Now we've got the good mother, while positioning men as leaders. Stories of good wives, devote, devoted mothers and pure maidens become these kind of moral templates that are laid upon girls and young women and older women. And we're supposed to actually fulfill it according to how it's defined. And stepping out of that, divorce, actually being connected to our sexuality, ambition, all of those are painted as sinful, selfish, or moral failures. And again, some of you might feel as though you've really pushed against those things and that they, you know, you know just how crazy and ridiculous those judgments are. But it doesn't actually mean that our culture and our world and our society has fully embraced your perspective, we still come up against that stuff. And so from Disney princesses to the rom coms, women's worth is always portrayed as tied to beauty, youth, and being chosen by a man. And if that is what's consistently portrayed in our media, whether it's our adverts, whether it's many books, mainstream books, whether it's movies, like that's what we're up against because it is representative of our culture. Older women are witches' nags or invisible. Younger women are rescued and needing to be rescued, desired or punished if they step out of line. Even when women are strong, like Miranda in The Devil Where's Prada, they're framed as unlikable or monstrous. These scripts are so repeated, they feel natural, even inevitable. And I remember seeing Reese Witherspoon speaking, as she was a keynote speaker for something, and she showed snippets of movies where the line that every woman or character, because included included animated movies, the line that every woman or animated character said in the movie was as she looked to the male, what do we do now? Ridiculous, which she highlighted. I mean, what midlife woman ever looks to the male or at least or you know can consistently looks to the male and says, What do we do now? No, we know what to do now. We are strong women and we do not need to look to men to answer that question. We can answer it for ourselves, but that is not what is depicted in movies. And the crazy thing is it's just repeated so many times in the scripts, in the scripts in the movies, in the ads, in books, as I said, in general media, in social interactions, in culture, in commentary. They're so repeated that they become almost invisible. As I said, they become the Kool-Aid. And because of that, they feel natural and inevitable. Let's talk about work then as well, like, right? So we're told to lean in, but at the same time, we're often penalized for being assertive. We're expected to take on emotional and practical office housework, like I mentioned before. You know, who goes and buys the gift for the person that's leaving? Who organizes the morning tea for the birthday or something like that? We soothe conflict, we do the unpaid extra hours, we remember these events, we make shit happen even in the workplace. Ambition isn't praised in men, but it's often labeled too much in women. And promotions can go to men who break rules, but heaven help, if you're a woman who's broken a rule, you will not get that promotion. These rules are enforced laterally, so it's laterally. So not just from the top down. And the really crazy thing, and it saddens me when I see it, is that often other women reinforce this stuff. So when you hear a woman say she's let herself go, or she's a bit much, or she's not very maternal, these are all statements that women can make about other women that again reflect this cultural expectation that we need to be good women. And we need to be good women to be liked and accepted and belong. And social media, God, we haven't even talked about the beauty industry yet. So social media amplifies this in particular now through beauty, filters, hustle, culture, and judgment, judgment, judgment about parenting, relationships, and appearance. It is endless. Absolutely endless. But the interesting thing is the cracks start to show in midlife. Like we start cotton on cotton. Lettening onto this in midlife. Maybe earlier. I certainly have had these thoughts earlier than the age of, you know, soon to be 51 for sure. But I think midlife is a time when we are just so exhausted from playing the supporting role in everyone else's life, actualizing their potential, helping, sorry, helping them actualize their potential and shelving our dreams and hopes and wishes. Now that doesn't mean I'm not saying every single woman is not pursuing the career that she wants or the life that she wants. But I bet your boots that if the majority of us were to step back and think, what have I sacrificed in order to have all the things and the people in my life and to have to fulfill this good woman rule book, we would actually see the many, maybe smaller, but many ways we have inconvenienced ourselves so that we can fulfill the good woman role. But we get tired by midlife, super, super tired. And we just actually get jack of it. And I think this is where, as much as perimenopause and menopause can be really are, like for most of us, a really, really difficult times in our lives and it can last a long time, as many of you know, listening. This is in some way the gift that our fluctuating but overall declining hormones give us. It gives us the inability to tolerate this kind of stuff anymore. And I know we feel bad for biting people's heads off, and it's not good. I'm not necessarily saying that is the best way to be communicating our anger, our frustration, our disappointments, our wishes, our dreams. But it's the starting point. It's a way to start. And it's kind of what happens in this midlife stage. It affects our hormones and our fluctuating hormones affect our brain chemistry. We find our buffer is gone. We can't plaster our smile and a skipping our step over our frustration anymore. The biochemical, the like the neuroendocrine experience of perimenopause actually lowers our tolerance for stress. But I want to extend that to it lowers our tolerance for nonsense, people pleasing, and overfunctioning. And what what something that we once tolerated just now feels intolerable. We've also spent decades carrying the invisible labor, caregiving, emotional work, domestic management, workplace stuff on top of our actual jobs. And the weight of the rules to be nice, to hold it all together, to get everyone comfortable, to accommodate them has accumulated in burnout, resentment, and sometimes even collapse. Like this is my naturopath actually said to me, perimenopause is a time of reckoning. It's kind of when all your chickens come home to roost. All the things that you've been avoiding, all the things that you've been putting up with, all the way you have been over-serving others is comes to your feet and pulls the rug out from under you. And I know as a clinical psychologist, I'm clearly inundated by women who have varying degrees of challenges. Amazing, competent women who are finding the cracks of midlife really, really difficult to navigate. And sometimes, or no, not sometimes. Most of the bloody time, the reason they're finding it difficult is because to actually honor themselves and what's happening for themselves and support themselves in the way that they need to and should be able to is invariably going to inconvenience, disappoint, piss off other people. Absolutely. And it's going to put them outside. They're going to be breaking the good woman rules. The good woman, the good wife, the good partner, the good mother, the good daughter, the good friend, the good employee, all of that. They're going to be breaking rules in those areas just simply in order to look after themselves. And so often therapy becomes about learning to live with the discomfort of having made other people uncomfortable. Go figure. Go figure. And the really sad thing is, back to where I actually started that sentence, is I haven't met a midlife woman yet who is not close to burnout or actually burnt out or recovering from burnout because of the overfunctioning which occurs when we are accommodating, serving, and meeting the needs and wants of so many other people to the absolute cost of ourselves. And I can say that I've seen that in so many other places, not just in my therapy work. Colleagues, friends, family, just women I come across, particularly when I'm giving community talks or I'm educating health professionals, I hear this all the time. So it becomes impossible. Midlife is a time when it's not just intolerable, which I'm all for that one have to be honest, but it also becomes impossible to keep spinning the plates that we are supposed to spin in order to be good women. And so this is what's happening for us. And the interesting thing is the other factor that's going on is, and and this blows my mind. I read a book by Jacinta Parsons, I think it's titled Something Along the Lines of a Woman of a Certain Age. And one of the things that I really kind of took away and still comes to mind from that book is a statement where she, or you know, it's more than a statement, it's quite a pivotal concept in the book, is when she talks about how we are conditioned to seek, particularly the male gaze, to seek that confirmation, that validation of our worth through our looks. But at the same time, particularly as we become older women and midlife women and beyond, that pisses us off. So we're in this bind, right? We've been taught to want this validation of our worth via our appearance. But at the same time, we know that that is ridiculous. And so we want to push it against it. And sometimes we do, many do. But it's a real conflict for us. We want to be visible, but at the same time, we want to be invisible. And this is the double bind. And it comes up in midlife, particularly, because most of us know we've experienced or we will, we will experience as midlife women being invisible. So the double bind is we're too visible when we say no, but we're not visible enough when we want recognition. We want to be seen, but we want to be seen for who we are, not for how we look, our fertility, our youth. So how do we get seen in the way we want to when we want to, when we're actually getting older, our fertility is fading or disappeared entirely. And yet that's what our culture is deems worthy. And so it's that as well. It's that that clash that wakes us up to how absurd, absurd these rules are. They may leave, or eventually let's hope they leave home. Aging parents, parents becoming unwell, parents passing away. Our relationship change, our relationships change, our careers, you know, we're often at the top of our game, but can we actually keep up because of the shit show that's going on? Do we want to? Is the other question. These shifts and these kinds of life experiences, which are typical at this stage, they're known to occur quite often for midlife people. Like it's normal for this stuff to be happening. But they actually remove the distractions that keep us compliant, or and or at the same time, they bring up our mortality and you know, time becomes or the passage of time becomes so much more real and in our faces. Our roles shift, and the rules that define those roles no longer fit. If I'm not just a mother-daughter caretaker good worker, who am I? Who am I when the kids move out? Or even stay at home, but they don't need me as much? Who am I when I'm starting to have to really step up and support my parents? Or who am I when my parents are no longer around? Who am I in this relationship? Because we've spent many, many years building careers, maybe building a family as well. Who am I when I'm at this point? And who am I in this relationship? And who the hell are you? Are you the man that I married or hooked up with a long time ago? Are you still that same person? Sometimes men are, and that they haven't had the evolution that we're facing. That's a really common thing for Gen X women in particular to tell me is that I feel I've evolved, but my partner's the same guy, and he's not interested in coming on this, you know, kind of new path with me. So there's all this kind of stuff that moves us out of the good woman role. And as I said, we get really clear about the passage of time, and we kind of think, seriously? Good woman? No, good woman rules keep me small, keep me stifled, keep me suffocated, take joy from away from me. And it's like, if not now, when? If not me, who? And so it becomes harder and harder to actually, you know, kind of ignore that there is this clash. We often hope that by midlife things are starting to ease up. We think our careers will be established, and maybe they are. Kids are more independent, maybe they are, relationships are solid, maybe they are. But in their place, we find new challenges of ageism, perimenopause, career stagnant stagnation, or career questioning. And so all of this is going on, and this is why these good woman rules start to become more conscious in our minds, and why we have less willingness and capacity to kind of continue to fulfill them. So we often get to this point where the reward for being a good woman of this ease actually doesn't arrive. And that's the other thing that can feel like a betrayal. Like we've spent many decades fulfilling these roles in the way that we have been told consciously, unconsciously, overtly, covertly, whatever, a mix of them all. We've been told that if we fulfill these rules, then I don't know, by the time we reach midlife, we'll have made it and things will be easier and better, and we will have time for ourselves and we will be able to pursue the things that we want to pursue. But interestingly, that doesn't always happen. And so we feel really, really betrayed. It doesn't arrive. Instead, we're met with a really, really tough perimenopause experience where we don't know who the heck we are. We just know we're not that prior woman. We're experiencing a range of feelings, diverse feelings, intense feelings in short spaces of the time of time, and constantly we're exhausted. The demands on us are huge. I'm not surprised we feel betrayed. I'm not surprised we are overwhelmed during this period of time. But it is a time where because this is becoming both, well, not both, it's becoming more conscious what we're up against. We are becoming more conscious of what we're up against. We're also starting to realize how ridiculous and unfair these rules are. And we're also unable, because we're bloody exhausted, to keep going the way that we've gone. And it creates what is a lot of angst and overwhelm and disharmony within ourselves and in our relationships and in our lives for sure. And that is really, really tough. And we all need to look after ourselves in the simplest way we can. And as we find some strength, which often comes from a bit of anger, that could be one useful thing with being angry, and there's a few, we can actually start to say, no, I am not gonna buy into the good woman rules anymore because they are absurd, they are ridiculous, they are unfair, and I'm gonna make this time my time. It is my time. And then we can start asking ourselves, my time to do what, have what to not do, what do you not want to do? What feels right for you? And as long as we keep asking what feels right for me alongside a curious and experimental mindset, so that we can try and give ourselves permission to try, not knowing if it's going to be the right thing, whatever that is, air quotes again, then we actually can start to build a life that does feel right for us. This is the work of midlife. To stop living by someone else's script and to start writing our own. That has been a really full-on episode, or this has been a really full-on episode. I've covered a heck of a lot of ground. And I don't know. I know when I really started thinking about this stuff myself and having conversations with friends and colleagues, and then bringing these conversations into the therapy room. I know I certainly found it confronting. I certainly found it uncomfortable. And I know that it often is when we've really start looking at this stuff, because it also puts us in a position of what do we do? Do we try and pretend that we're not starting to see what's right in front of us? Like, is that the choice that we're going to make moving forward? Or are we going to choose a different path? Either are really, really difficult. But they're both a choice. What I hope that this particular conversation has at least provided you with is a lot to think about. So that when you make a step, just one step in either direction, it's with some information or a lot of information, because I have spoken a lot. Hang on to whatever has landed for you, even if uncomfortably so in this episode. Discard what just didn't make sense or you disagreed with. But I would love to encourage you to think about what's one good woman rule that you've been living by that no longer feels right. And what would it look like if you were to break that rule just this week? Again, I would love, love, love, love to hear from you. So you can DM me at the midlife underscore, or sorry, the underscore midlife underscore psychologist, my Instagram account, or the All About Her Center Instagram account. Or you could go to the allabouthercenter.com.au website and you can also get a hold of me through that. I would really, really love to hear from you. And if this episode kind of resonated heaps for you, I'd love a review. It would be really, really cool to get some feedback from you. Either way, that's it for this bite. This episode was a bit of a bite, I think. Midlife truth. And if you've been nodding along, share this with a friend who needs to hear it too, because it's always easier and often more fun to break rules in company with good friends. Next time we're going to be talking about the midlife overload and the invisible load, which I know you know, but I can't say it enough. This is the stuff we carry that nobody else sees, but it does shape every part of your life and my life. So it's pretty damn important for us to talk about. Thanks for tuning in. Have a fabulous day or evening, whatever lays ahead for you. And I look forward to sharing my random thoughts, or maybe not so random thoughts, in our next episode. Take it easy. You've been listening to Midlife Bites. If you liked what you heard, hit follow so you don't miss an episode. And if you have a minute, please leave a review. It really helps other women find the show. If you want to share your experience of the Midlife Bite, or you're an expert who can speak to the delights of it, please email me at Kirsten at allaboutherstcentre.com.au and I'll be in touch. You can also head to our website, all about hercentre.com.au, to find a practitioner who can support you through midlife. Or if you're a therapist, check out what's included in our health professional membership. We'd love to have you on board. Either way, remember, midlife isn't here to break you, it's here to remake you.