Midlife Butterfly | Coming Home to Yourself: Presence, Embodiment, Self-Love, Life Coherence & Transformation

#63 - From Self-Abandonment To Full Remembrance with Kimber Hardick

• Kena Siu • Episode 63

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What if the story you’ve been holding onto… isn’t actually true?

In this deeply honest continuation of my conversation with Kimber, we move beyond awareness and into responsibility — the kind that changes everything. This is where midlife empowerment stops being an idea and becomes a lived experience.

We explore how many women stay stuck in quiet patterns of self-abandonment — blaming, shrinking, waiting — without realizing they’ve been living inside stories that no longer serve them. From redefining “selfishness” to reconnecting with your desires, your body, and your emotional truth, this conversation invites you into a powerful identity shift.

Because this is about remembering who you are when you stop outsourcing your voice.

If you’ve been craving freedom, deeper self-trust, and a more honest way of living… this episode will meet you there — and gently invite you to choose yourself in a new way.


✨ In This Episode You’ll Learn

  • How to shift from victim stories into creator energy
  • Why midlife women feel invisible — and how to reclaim themselves
  • The truth about “selfishness” and choosing your own life
  • What happens when you reconnect with your emotions and desires
  • How to embody self-trust without needing external validation


🦋 Reflection Questions

  • Where in your life are you still waiting for permission to choose yourself?
  • What story have you been repeating that’s keeping you small?
  • What would shift if you honored your desires as truth, not inconvenience?


✨ Where to Find Kimber


If you’ve been feeling disconnected… even after doing the inner work—this is your invitation.
Join me live on April 16 for a guided Neuro-Epigenetic Breathing experience to reconnect with your bodyregulate your nervous system, and come back to yourself..

Sign Up Now: home.midlifebutterfly.ca/freesessions


HOME is my monthly membership for midlife women who are already doing the inner work and are ready to embody it.

Through nervous system regulation, Neuroepigenetic Breathing, and grounded integration practices, you create safety in your body and expansion in your life.

This is where insight becomes lived experience.

Join the Waitlist: home.midlifebutterfly.ca


🦋 Work With Me
If this episode landed in your body and not just your mind,
you may be standing at a threshold.

I offer connection calls for women who feel ready to move, align, and embody the inner work they’re already doing.

This is an intimate conversation to feel into whether working together is a true yes.

If you’re done searching and ready to choose yourself more fully,
you’re invited to book a call through the link below.

Trust what brought you here.

RSVP now: ...

A Hard Question To Begin

Kena Siu

What if the story you've been telling about your life isn't actually true? In this second part of my conversation with Kimber Hardig, we go into the deeper layers of midlife transformation, the ones that ask you to stop blaming, stop shrinking, and take radical ownership of your life, from rewiring all narratives to reclaiming your desires, your voice, and your truth. This is where the real shift happens. Coming back to that remembrance that we were talking at the beginning, is that is then noticing that power and use it, because we have that power as women, we have it as more like midlife when we realize that okay, this already happened. Like, how do I want then from now on to experience life and choosing that power forward because we in general are so disconnected, and it's and and not only from emotions and sensations, and sometimes the disconnection between our heart and our mind, and also with with our sex, because we come from there, but it's considered such a taboo that we think we are not part of it. We come from it, right?

Forgetting Old Stories To Remember

Retelling Life From Creator Energy

Why Midlife Women Feel Invisible

Kimber Hardick

That's right, that's right. Yeah, it's funny. So I'm gonna talk about my book for just a second, um, Invitation to Shine from Invisible to Invincible. This is about my healing journey over the last so many years. And I gave my daughter a copy of the book, and she's like, she looked at the table of contents and she was like, Mom, I'm not reading that. There's stories about sex in there, and so you know, you can't do this healing work unless you look at your sexuality. And for me growing up in the era where I grew up, my mom would have these conversations with me about how beautiful sex was, and it was this lovely, wonderful experience. But if it was on TV or in a movie, it was bad and I couldn't see it, I couldn't watch it. And so when I got divorced in my 50s, I got to get back into the dating world, which was a trip. It was fun, it was it was all the things. And online dating was really where, you know, thank God for online dating. I don't know how people meet, right? I don't go to bars and clubs. And so one of the chapters isn't in there is me creating my profile for the first time on a dating app and all the shame of you know, in the emotions that came up. So my book really talks about emotions in each chapter, each story kind of draws you in. It's uh, you know, talking about being in the cadaver lab or some some of my sexual experiences with Tantra, and so it kind of draws you in, but underneath it all was the forgetting and the remembering. And so I had to forget all these things that I had learned about myself so that I could remember who I was, and so each chapter is a remembering at a deeper level, a more authentic level, a more you know, more uncovering. And sometimes, you know, I might have had to uncover and remember several different times in different stories because the remembering doesn't just happen in today, you're a genius, uh remembering who you are. He takes a lot of time. You sometimes have to have another experience and another experience until you go, okay, I remember. I'm not gonna forget, not gonna forget. And so I was given an invitation two years ago, just um, an invitation to step into my shining, and it was a four-day intensive, and I really took it to heart, and I had to look at all the ways that I was still not allowing myself to shine, to shine, and in the process, I wrote this book, but one of probably the biggest things that shifted for me was retelling stories, not from a place of a victim, but from the place of the creator. And one of the big ones was why I stayed in a marriage long after its expiration date. And I would always say, I stayed for the kids. I stayed that long for the kids. And I realized I was making myself the helper, him the villain, my kids the victim. If I left, then I was becoming the villain. I mean, I was deep in that drama triangle. So I rewrote the story and I realized I stayed as long as I did because I didn't know what else to do. And so there were other several, you know, stories that I realized I was still staying in the role of the victim. And and here's an example. So I we used to always say, well, he my husband would never let me go back to work, and he wouldn't let me go back to school, and yada yaddy. But then I this real story underneath that was why did I feel like I needed his permission? Oh, that's a huge one. That was a big one. Yeah, yeah. So I started with little moments like that, just little stories that you know, I uh I clung to. I mean, like the gospel, you know. And in the process, I started going deeper and I realized I am an integration coach, but I also realized I have a very unique gift of being able to integrate big life experiences, and it turned into this book, and so I looked at all the ways that I was still not allowing myself to shine, and through the process, being able to shine. And before I released the book, I realized I believe this book is going to be a big deal in time. I mean, it's it's timely, it's relatable, it's fun, it's shocking, you know, it's all the things that I needed to prepare myself because I found myself at a crossroad. I was coming in from my backyard through the sliding doors, and I realized I've been here before, just on the verge of doing something big, and then all the reasons why I couldn't do it. I don't have the time. What about the commitment? Showing up for these podcasts, and you know, now I realized I don't have those excuses anymore, but they're still kind of playing back there. So I really had to set the intention, and I did an intensive to step fully into my shiny. And what that meant was expanding my capacity for what was to come because I know there's going to be naysayers, there's gonna be people that aren't gonna like what I wrote, and I I need to be okay with that. And if this book takes off like I want it to, and Oprah discovers it or Greece Witherspoons or whoever, um am I am I am I ready for what's to come? Because it'll be out of my hands by that time. Yeah, so um yeah, there's one thing to have a mind knowing, there's another thing to have a body knowing. Yes, then living knowing is the next step. So I've gone from having a mind knowing to an embodied knowing, and now I'm beginning to have a living, lived in knowing. And that's where I teach from, that's where I share from. I'm not a counselor, I'm not schooled, I'm schooled in life, in my life, navigating the messy middle, the best way I knew how. And my hope is that the tools that I'm creating, the calls that I have, my book will not tell you how to fix yourself because you're not broken, but just kind of walk beside you and hold your hand and support you as you step into your shining. And so, you know, I ask that here's your invitation to step into your shining. Will you accept it?

Kena Siu

Yes. And so the thing is before jumping into that, we as midlife, we you know, women in midlife, we feel invisible from your perspective. What do you think is actually happening there that we have this kind of feeling?

Pleasure As A Practice And A Clue

Kimber Hardick

We've actually become invisible to ourselves. We we've been we've put the needs of everyone else before us, the kids, we've taken on this role is we're the caretakers have to take care of everybody else, everything else. We keep ourselves busy so that we don't have to connect to ourselves, and but it it's being invisible, because I I know I had someone say, Oh, but I love being invisible because the men don't hit on me or this doesn't happen. That's not the kind of visible that I'm talking about. The kind of visible is walking into a room and not needing anybody to prove my value, knowing my own value when I walk into the room, not looking for external validation, not walking on eggshells, not trying to make myself small so that I don't upset whoever, rock the boat. Yeah, that's to me what invisible is really we're in being invisible to myself and my needs, in my desires, my wants, and you know, the desires, sexual desires. A lot of women, especially when they, you know, are our age. Oh, I know we had started to tell you the story. I was in the cadaver lab and we were dissecting a human cadaver. And when we got down to the anatomy parts, sexual anatomy parts, Gil said the only job of the clitoris is that of pleasure. That's it. That's its only job. Yeah. And yet we we shun it, we hide it, we deny it. And that really shifted me into really checking into my desires. And and I I had an experience years ago with a woman after I got divorced. And I had never been with a woman. I was like, you know, I'm I'm exploring sexuality. I think I I want to try to be with a woman. And so a girlfriend of mine and I we went away on the weekend, and so we decided I'm gonna give this the world, and I didn't know what to do with her, and I have a vagina, and I thought, you know, these poor men walking around without a vagina, without a pussy, and we just expect them to please us, yeah, but if we don't know what pleases us and what feels good, and how are we going to share and tell the man? And so getting in touch with our own pleasures and not just sexual in nature, what pleases you? Where is your pleasure in life, at home, in work? If you don't know what your pleasure is, then nobody else is going to you know come and fix it for you. And so that to me is what the whole invisible to invincible piece is is really uh connecting with yourself and not leaving yourself and knowing yourself, knowing who you are, what you desire, what you feel, what you need. That's the and that's the invincible part.

Kena Siu

Yes.

Choosing Yourself Without Apology

Kimber Hardick

Does it mean being bigger and louder, and although you can do that if you want. Yeah, definitely. But I love it. I love it when I see older women, and you know, I'm 64, so I guess I fit that category, but dressed in you know, big bright colors and beads and glasses and the whole schlabang. And I had on this outfit one time a couple of years ago, and it's I love it, it makes me feel like a fairy. And this woman came up to me and she said, I love your outfit, but my girls would have a fit if I wore something like that. And I said, if it makes you feel pretty, why wouldn't you wear it? And so, you know, that's that that validation, needing permission. And I hear it a lot. I heard it not not too long ago when I was out shopping. A woman saying, Oh, I don't know, I need to ask my daughters what they think. What do you think? What do you so many women are so used to giving themselves away that they don't have a voice, they don't know what they think, they don't know what they feel, they don't know what they need because they're so busy trying to be it for everybody else. Yeah, and that makes me really sad. It makes me really sad. And I moved to Panama and left my kids in the States, and I'd have people go, How are you leaving your kids and your grandkids? Grandparents don't do that. Well, they have their life too. Exactly. I love my grandkids, but I raised my kids. And if I stuck around and took care of my grandkids and then my aging parents, when is it going to be my time to live my life? I I got married when I was 22, so I wasn't one of those that was fortunate enough to travel and do things before the kids came. I'm not faulting anybody for that, that was just my life choice. And so the idea of continuing to live my life, and and a lot of people think I'm selfish, and I'm okay with it because I know what my intention is, yeah, and where my joy is. And you know, if I know well, when I met my husband, he moved to Texas because his daughter lived there, and within two years, she moved to Arkansas. But that's okay when that's okay when the kids move away, right? But when the parents move away.

Kena Siu

No, but that's the thing, like coming back to that selfishness is like who's being selfish? You that you don't want me to move because you want me here, or is it me because I want to build my own life?

Kimber Hardick

And experience something new. Yes, being in being an expat is something that's been in my radar for a really long time. We have the opportunity, possibility, and I'm married to a man that we both said yes. And I remember my daughter, she she was really supportive, and she said, You know, mom, if you don't like it, you can always come back home. And I said, I know. And it's gonna be three years, it's gonna be three years in April. Oh, wow, that we that we moved down here. And there's several grandmas down here that, you know, and before we moved down here, we lived in a 50 plus community, and there were so many women. I played pickleball, and there were so many women that moved there from somewhere else in the US because their kids were there. And that's just kind of what you know, the construct of being a good grandma and a good mother is. And Glendon Doyle wrote a book, I can't remember the name of it, and she talks about, I know it's over there. She talks about we as women are conditioned to believe that in order to be a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter, a good grandmother, we have to self-sacrifice.

Kena Siu

I don't agree with that anymore. I think that's also a condition and that's a program. Because we don't come here to to be sacrificed or to suffer for someone else, we're here to live, and I think that's part of the remembrance. It is, yes, absolutely that we came here to activate, reactivate.

Learning Support Among Women

Kimber Hardick

Absolutely, and that I forgot what I was gonna say. It came and it went, it'll probably come back. But yeah, no, I totally agree with that. And oh, I know what I was gonna say. I used to be told that I was a superwoman because I took care of everything and everybody, and I wore that like a like a shield, like a you know, a fur coat. I was proud of the fact that I could handle situations and I could do I don't get called that anymore, and I am so okay with it. I mean I didn't come here to be a Wonder Woman, superwoman for anybody but myself, but yourself. Yes, yeah. So I've lost friendships because of it, relationships, and they're just not where I'm at, and they don't understand. I I feel like it's it's kind of like the our constructs are bumping up against each other. They have this strong belief that no, this is how grandmother or mother should be, and I'm going and doing just the opposite and having this incredible life, and so I've it it gets kind of lonely here sometimes, you know. I'm actually I'm calling in some women my age because the young ways, yeah. And so my my win, my focus on my women's group, and I think you'll you'll you'll love this, and maybe it's something we can you know co-create together in some form or fashion, bringing women together to remember what it's like to be supported by other women and to support what it's like to support other women, because most of us were never taught that. And I shared this on a podcast I was on not too long ago, and bless her heart, it was a great podcast, it was a wonderful interview, but she recorded it on her phone while we were on the computer, and that's what she posted. And so the quality, sound quality was terrible, but she had this video recording, so I was like, I want to support her. This is me jumping into help remote. I'm gonna support her and encourage her because that was such a good conversation. So I took the Zoom call and I put it through D script and I cleaned it up and I sent it to her. And in her mind, I was judging and criticizing that she wasn't good enough. When in my mind, I was supporting her, and we just had this conversation about women supporting other women. But some women don't know what it feels like to be supported by another woman, they only know what it feels like to be judged or condemned or criticized. And so in my women's groups, that's our focus is to hold space for each other, not try to fix, but to support and then be supported. And it's it's part of the remembering as well.

Kena Siu

Yeah, that's true. Because, yeah, it it is we are so much powerful together when we support each other, and sometimes it's just holding space, as you said before, it's not about fixing anyone, it's about noticing that because many times we keep quiet in what we are going through, that we don't know that by speaking our truth, some more, so many others they can relate. It might not be exactly the same story, but it can relate, and then you can come with more love with more. I I do love, I don't like using the love compassion. I don't know, but but just coming from that place of I am here for you, not to judge you, but to hold space for you and to allow you to go through your path. And if you want help, I can I can help you. And if you want just to be listened, I can just only listen.

Estrangement Without The Victim Loop

Kimber Hardick

Listen, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I think that's why I have finally decided to step on this estrangement platform because I realize that I've had the privilege of time, money, tools, mentors to get me to a place where the estrangement has not caused me to just totally fall apart and lose my sense of self. And you know, a lot of these groups, people are replaying the story, and then someone says, Oh, I'm going through this. You know, they're they're just they're building their anxiety. And in my group, we're learning how to retell the story. I love that to not get lost in the story and to really, you know, create be the be in charge. Of how we experience it, it doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt, but it's not totally consuming us. So the conversations are different in my estrangement group. And it's interesting because I'm in some of these other groups and I keep getting banned. They're there to support, you know. And I'm like, hey, I have another way, you know, we're not replaying the stories. If you're ready to step into something different, it's called parenting forward, finding strength after estrangement. And I can't tell you how many of the estrangement groups are like, okay, she's banned. She's banned. And they've got 10,000 people in their group. How do you support 10,000 people by yourself? It's it's has become for some of these people on whose their platform is estrangement and how horrible our kids are for doing this to us. It's it's a numbers thing and it's an ego thing, and it's it's feeling a need for them, and that's fine. That's not why I'm doing it. I'm honestly looking for people that are tired of suffering or tired, and that can go through you know any experience, but sometimes breaking it up into people with shared experiences, you can have a kind of a shared language, yeah.

Kena Siu

So yeah, I think it's for those groups, is more like the intention of the gathering, like is what makes the difference that you said, not coming there, and then for what you were mentioning more, it's like, okay, these groups who are well, like they want to keep in the loop of the victim. No, the intention here is it's collaboration, is seeing whatever is happening to you in a different perspective perspective and having that holding space and and you know that it really creates the difference then for growth and evolution instead of victimhood and getting kept stuck in there.

Emotions As Needs Plus Somatic Tools

Kimber Hardick

Yeah. Well, and it also takes away their, you know, they want to be the helper. And if they're not able to help you, then you're of no use to them. So it, you know, it's still it's all you know, the drama triangle is such a powerful, powerful first step in shifting, you know, our story and where we are and how we respond and how we react. And I think what's really cool about this format that I'm creating, there's not an order. You don't have to do step A to step B, step C. You can join my calls at any point along the way and are still going to walk away with some value and know that you can come back and keep coming back and learn more and go deeper. And so there's no, you know, and healing is like that, it's not a linear thing, it's a spiral and it oh yeah, down, you know, back stepping and going forward and receding and yeah. This has been so lovely.

Kena Siu

No, thank you, thank you. I mean, it's has been such a wonderful conversation, and I think we nail a lot of important things that, and maybe that we because we talk about a lot about emotions, and I think that's something very important because that's how we can remember who we are absolutely through those emotions by not blocking them, because that's how we release, how we clean whatever it is there that is blocking us to be ourselves for that woman to be the one that she really wants to be, and feel that call because as we were talking at the beginning, it's not the shoes or the habs, it's really that calling of okay, I'm tired of this shit. Like, what is it? But it's only by doing the inner work and going through those emotions that the healing process, or better say, that remembrance is going to come through.

Kimber Hardick

And you know, if we're not in touch with our feelings, how do we know what we need when our needs are being met and when they're not being met? And that shift right there, I think, is a mindset shift that might make people go, oh right. Because our emotions are the message of your needs are being met or they're not being met. But if you're not listening to them, then you don't know. You just don't know. And I would say all but three stories in this book started after I got off of antidepressants and really started learning what it means to feel. And I had a teacher tell me one time, she she drew a line, she had all the emotions. And she said, you know, if you don't allow yourself to feel these emotions, then the all the rest of them dim down. You know, the emotions dim. And one of the girls in my women's group told me that she heard on a podcast, and I'm going to rephrase it in in kind of my own language, but that joy is the mother of all emotions, and she won't come sit at the table until all of her children are welcome. So if you turn down your anger, you turn down your sadness, you're turning your joy down, you're turning it all down. And you know, this work isn't about becoming more emotional, it's about becoming more emotionally whole. And our emotions are not storms to survive, they're they're part of us. Yes, yeah. And if we don't make make space to feel them and to welcome them, they're gonna control us in the background. We just aren't gonna be aware of it. And so by tapping in and becoming aware of what it is that we're feeling and why, and separating the emotion from the behavior we associate with the emotion is really important as well. So I can feel sadness and not have to go and have a long, hard cry. I can have a cry if I want, but that's not necessarily how I'm going to relieve myself of the sadness. There's all sorts of practices. If an emotion does get stuck through sound, primal scream is one of my favorites. I've I've taught it to kids, it's an amazing practice. You can do it by yourself with the just on the floor, you can do it with a partner, and it's super powerful. Shaking and moving, you know, putting on some music and just shaking. If you feel an emotion is stuck and just shaking for three to five minutes, you know, even just flicking right now, flick your hands with me.

Kena Siu

Yeah, just flick your hands. It's just so powerful.

Kimber Hardick

And as you flick and you flick and you flick, do you feel how that energy is moving up into your arms? Yeah, and then you stop. What do you feel? Oh, I can feel like you know, like yeah, that's the energy moving through, and emotions are energy in motion, yes, and so if they do get stuck, you know, tapping, clapping, you know, there's so many somatic practices that can be done. And I have a whole toolbox of things to to take take out when when emotions feel stuck for whatever reason. And they do get stuck because we don't know what we're feeling, and so they go and they hide.

Simple Pleasures And Closing Notes

Kena Siu

Yeah, exactly. Wow, Kimber has been a pleasure, literally a pleasure having you here. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Sure why not. Thank you. I do love your energy, your your laughter, your smile. I mean, thank you. You are literally shining, right? As the name of your book, and I'm gonna be sharing all the links in the show notes so people know how to reach you. Thank you. You already answered this, but I would like to know if there's something else because this is a this is a uh question. I don't know. So I'm gonna ask again if something else pops up. Like, what's the pleasure you enjoy the most?

Kimber Hardick

A simple pleasure I enjoy the most, besides the one I I just mentioned earlier. You know, getting up and having coffee in the mornings with my husband and watching the sunrise, spending the end of the evening curled up on the couch in his lap, watching TV, doing podcasts is amazing for me, talking about my book and working on the work that I'm creating. Um, I was talking to another teacher yesterday, and she was like, I'm just getting really tired of teaching. I want to leave a body of knowledge behind. And I said, exactly. You know, I don't I don't claim that this work is just mine, but I it I'm I've put it together in such a way through a different lens that I think it's gonna be helpful and I want it to be accessible. And my book also, you know, it's so exciting for me. I have one sitting on my bookshelf, and it's like every time I walk by, it's like another invitation, a reminder. This is my invitation.

Kena Siu

Yeah. Thank you for tuning in to Midlife Butterfly. I hope this episode empowers you in some way. Share the love by hitting follow whatever you're listening and leave a review if you feel inspired. I also love to connect with you. Come say hi on Instagram at Midlife Butterfly. I love to know you. Until next time, keep spreading those wings and lead enjoy, growth, and pleasure.

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