Living on her own timeline - Donna Fortune's midlife unravelling

In this episode of The Unravelling, I’m joined by Donna — a life-seeking, deep-thinking, conversation-loving woman who’s discovering what it really means to live on her own timeline.

From modelling in her 20s, to embracing motherhood in her 30s, to starting over with photography in her 40s, Donna has always done things a little later than expected — and she’s learning that maybe that’s her strength. Now in her 50s, she’s navigating the changes of menopause, the shifting face in the mirror, and the unravelling of relationships that no longer feel balanced.

We talk about ageing, beauty standards, and the way midlife asks us to let go of who we’ve been in order to step into who we’re becoming. Donna also shares her belief that the challenges women face with hormones today may be shaped by the environment we live in, and why she thinks this messy middle is less about answers and more about awareness.

Alongside her personal journey, Donna has built a business as a personal brand photographer and consultant. Through Donna Fortune Photography, she helps women show up authentically in front of the camera, with a strong desire to promote a healthy self-image and a positive approach to ageing.

If you’ve ever felt the “WTF” of midlife while also being excited for what’s ahead, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Connect with Donna here:
 📸 Instagram: @donna_fortune_photography
🌐 Website: donnafortunephotography.com

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Unravelling: The Diary of a Midlife Mess.

If something resonated with you today, I’d love to hear your thoughts, come join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram @themessymiddlelife or visit sharonwilkesburt.com
for more resources and support.

💌 Freebie: Grab Mirror Mirror : A simple self-reflection tool to shift how you see the woman in the mirror, observing her with kindness (instead of criticism)

✨ Unravelling: A journalling course for midlife women
A self-paced course to help you get clear, feel more like you again, and find solid ground in the messy bits of midlife.

🌱 New Beginnings Session
Curious about coaching but not sure if it’s for you? This one-off 90-minute coaching conversation is designed to give you a taste of what’s possible, with an easy introductory offer to help you begin.

Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you’re enjoying the journey so far!

Let’s Begin | You’re not too late, too much, or too lost. This is just the middle ... and there’s gold in here.

Transcript

 Today's guest is Donna Fortune, a life seeking, deep thinking conversation, loving woman who's found herself in midlife, feeling a confusing combo of what the heck, and also pumped for what's to come. Donna's story is one of late blooming fresh starts and unraveling that have shaped her through the decades she's lived by her own timeline.

It's a timeline that she used to question, but now she recognizes as her strength. We talk about the shifts that come with menopause, the change in face in the mirror, and the way relationships can unravel when you start noticing who shows up and who doesn't. Donna shares her struggles, her joys, and the lessons she's learning about letting go, redefining feminine strength and stepping into the next chapter with curiosity.

Just a quick heads up before we dive in. The sound quality dips in and out in a couple of places. I promise you'll still want to lean into the conversation, at some points it just get really screechy. Sorry about that.

Hi Donna. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so delighted to have you here and have this opportunity to chat with you. And as this podcast is called Unraveling and it's where we talk about this season of life, this process that a lot of women seem to go through, where we get to this, we have everything that's going on and then we fall apart and we begin to unravel.

And so this podcast is about this and about your journey and, your experience of all of that thing. Donna didn't arrive here as this woman in the messy middle. There was a donna that came before there was a messy like there were messy other bits. Yeah. So let's look at the messy other bits.

So I'm, because obviously it's the diary of a midlife mess and I'm all about, that sort of journaling and, not say everybody had to have done that, but when I look back on, I found my teenage diaries some years ago, which were absolutely hilarious. But at Comedy Gold, I have to say.

But if I were to open, or if you were to open your teenage NH diary, what would it say? Oh, she would be a bit of a mess. I think. Just not so secure, just in that teenage. Time where she was probably more worried about what people thought of her and what she was doing in life. So yeah I don't know that it would say anything specific, but yeah, she wasn't, she was loving life and yet yeah.

What's the word? Just a little insecure still, just not quite fully sure of who I was. Yeah. That kind of makes sense because she's a team. So who's on her walls? Who's she listening to? Oh my gosh. She was totally into George Michael and Michael Jackson. Definitely wanted to marry Michael Jackson.

And then, and like both of them, George Michael obviously very gay. We found out. Yeah, we didn't know that at the time. Yeah. And boy George loved him too. So I've had a thing for guys obviously had a little bit of a George and Michael, somewhere in there. Michael Jackson, boy George Michael, yes, exactly.

Michael Jackson. Yeah, that's true, isn't it? They're all connected. So yes, they were who were on my walls and who I had like quite large life-size, cardboard cutouts of. Oh, that's cool. That was always my dream to a life. So I wanted a life-size cardboard cut out of because obviously it was wham that George Michael was in.

So wham was like, Andrew originally was my big love from that period. Really? You liked Andrew? Who liked Andrew? Oh, I loved Andrew originally. Sorry, Andrew. I, no, he didn't do anything. He just looked pretty, but he was pretty, that's all he needed to be, was pretty well, at least suited my teenage requirements.

At least he was kinda like heterosexual. So you were on the right base. I was on the right track, yeah. The gay dog was strong at that time. So when you look at teenage Donna, who did you want to be when you grew up? Oh, now this is really interesting because this came up recently and it's one of those things where almost half embarrassed to say it and yet it's own it.

And my sister would laugh at me because when I was a young kind of child, all I ever wanted, all I ever said, oh, when I grow up, I wanted to be married and have children. Okay. And so there wasn't, I really don't recall ever having this huge, big I'm gonna be this, or I'm gonna be that later that came.

Those earlier years, it's no, I'm gonna be married at 18 and a child right away. And it's almost like that's all I wanted. Yeah. So again I wish I could come out with this amazing, this is what I was gonna be, or this is what I wanted to do. But no, that was it. So it was just, so what was that, what did that mean to you to be married with children was gosh, we could go down, let's get a psychologist involved here as to what did that mean?

Who knows? I analyze it now as, a 50 something and I'm like, did that just mean security? My parents were in and out of their, marriage for, three or four times, where they would separate and come back together, separate, come back together. Who knows whether I just wanted some stability.

I don't know. That's my own little take on it. But it makes sense, growing up in beautiful children and yeah, just living this kind of utopian little life. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense because as you say, if you're, you don't have that.

Necessarily then that's the thing that you aspire to have, isn't it? It's the kind of the having something outside of what you've got already, in a sense. And that's, I'm not a psychologist do that, but that's it. That is just like my own little thing. Like, why did I not have this huge ambition to do something else?

I don't know. I think it's always interesting though, to look back at your childhood and see if there were any kind of if there were any parts of your, any sides to you or things that you enjoyed, things that you loved as a kid, things that kind of lit up your heart kind of thing. Were there any of those things for you?

Yes. Definitely like dancing and like furniture. I would move furniture around, so obviously very much into visually like creating stuff. So yeah, design was something I did look at, later down the track. Yeah, tho those two things are the first things that kind of come to mind. I was always creative, always liked making things, and yes.

Yeah, I think it's, we often look back and you start to see where these threads start, where these kind of little things that show up in your childhood that we, you, as you look back over decades, that you go, ah, okay, I saw the start of that. I saw that. Yeah, that kind of made sense, or whatever.

Yeah. So if you, if we take you into your twenties then what did success look like for you then in your twenties? That would've been very different because then of course, at the time, I don't know I was doing some modeling when I was younger and in my teen years, and I think at a certain point I was like, okay, this is a path I want to take.

But it wasn't just to be like, Hey, I'm a model. There was always a bigger purpose. I felt like I wanted to, have these organizations to help people in need. So so I've gone from just wanting to have kitten, to these big organizations. So things change up a little bit. But yeah, and I felt like modeling would be that would give you that.

I guess what am I trying to say? Profile, I guess to to be able to do that. It would be an easier way to be able to build these things that would help people. And did you have the husband and children in your teens that you no. And following like a very like a path that, that's followed me.

I've always done things a little bit later than everybody else around me. So e even though I wanted to do that and, get married and have children at 18, no, I was like late twenties, early thirties before that started kicking in. Yeah. That's good 'cause then you got to live a little bit before, but that's fine.

Find out what Donna, that actually Donna really wanted you to have this dream about organizations and Yes, exactly. When you say organizations, what do you mean by that? Oh gosh. I just always remember, I don't know whether it would be like girls or children in other countries.

Just wanted to have, I guess the money, you needed to have money to set up. Yes. These kind of yeah, these kinds of, and again, and this is like a pipe dream going back, some 30 years ago that, that's what I remember. But yeah, there probably wasn't an awful lot of thought there was just like, okay, if I modeled, then I'll become possibly known, then I'll have some money, then I'll have a profile, and then I can do better things with okay.

Better things with that profile as opposed to just being a model, yeah. Then I can, my, my heart, my brain, my mind as well, as that outward thing. Yes. Yeah, and I think that's. That's a great aspiration really at that. To be fair, when you're in your twenties you think you can do anything anyway.

You don't really see the blocks to things. You you just see that you have this and the fact that you had this vision beyond being a model, it wasn't just to your vision was to be for a greater purpose in a sense. Yeah. Was yeah, very ahead of it really.

Because really in my twenties, I don't remember being that, I was still pretty shallow. Pretty shallow in my twenties. I'm sure I had some shallow in there too, so don't worry. There was some self-absorption as well. Oh yeah, that's, that was a whole lot of that for me. Yeah. So if we move into your thirties then, what was the drive in your thirties?

Because thirties is a kind of, can be quite a. Busy decade in terms of, and that can be like, your child rearing at that point or your you are progressing in your career or whatever it was. What was the driving force for you in your thirties? Was it an ambition or was it survival or reinvention or something else?

Yeah and this is interesting because now it goes back to that original wanting to have, children. Because in my thirties, yeah, that's when I'd met my husband, we'd gotten married, and then we'd started, having a family. And I was, again, very different than anybody else around me. I wanted to be a mom.

I wanted to stay at home with my kids. I didn't want to juggle that, that, that career and everything. I and again, maybe like naive kind of thoughts, but at the time I'd just finished a degree in, in natural health, and I just had all these different opinions or thoughts or, judgements as well as to, there were so many like behavioral issues and stuff with kids and, coming into our world.

And I questioned what was that? Was that, our food what was it we eating? And part of me, rightly or wrongly and felt that it had something to do with, we were so busy, we were all, both parents were working. There wasn't a stability at home for children. And so they, that showed in their, that, show playing up and there and things like that.

So I, that was my philosophy and so I thought I'm gonna be the best one in the whole wide world and and stay home and just really, and it wasn't like put my life on hold necessarily to raise them. It was like, that's what I wanted to do. That felt really deeply. Like a connection for me.

That's what I wanted to do. So yeah that's what I did. And mind you, I, at the time I was living in la so it was just me and my husband, my family were in Australia. His family, have, are in on the east coast. We don't have a single family member, a single close friend that we've grown up with there.

It was just the two of us. And my husband was studying, he'd gone back to school, wanted to do his masters. There wasn't a lot of support. So really it just made sense that one of us was gonna. Stay, be that parent and 20 something years ago, I'm like, didn't even enter the mind whether it would be my husband.

It's it would be me. Yes. Because that's just, that was just more the dumb thing. So yeah, that's pretty much what my thirties was. Yeah. And you're absolutely right because obviously, we can have all these kind of judgements about, parents who work or parents who don't work or, people raising their kids this way or that way.

But there are so many factors, and as you say, when you are in a country and you are not surrounded by family, then, some of that is just outta necessity. But the fact that actually tapped into what had been for you, a teenage desire, really was probably very fulfilling in that sense, that you were and also, what kids, what parents really don't want to be at home with their kids, but I say do the nice stuff. Obviously there's days. Yeah, get me outta here. Times where I was like, hell, what? Why did I want this so badly? This is not quite the, for sure. Yeah. Utopian kind of experience I'd envisioned. So if you move into your forties now I find, from chatting to so many women, I find, and I can say this from my own point as well, forties was like a crazy busy decade for me, and it was almost like, because your kids are that.

Bit older and you've got that bit more time and all of a sudden you go what do I need to focus on now? Oh, that's right. My career or my, my business, or whatever it is. So that was but of course you're still juggling all those balls and you have and although your kids, certainly for me, my kids were like going into their teens when I was in my forties.

And I always think it's just this hilarious trick by Mother Nature that she gives you like teenage daughters, just as you're probably going through menopause or perimenopause. Yeah, in mental hormones. Yeah. I imagine that household setup Oh yes. Just delightful. It was lovely. Yeah, so I think forties an odd time, but if you think of your.

The who you were in your forties and if you, did you give any consideration to midlife and, I dunno if it would've been called midlife then it was just called being middle aged. Yeah. Did you imagine what it would be like at that point to be this middle aged woman? No, not at all. I think I felt, just completely alive and.

Yeah. And again, I think things hit have hit me later, just like I'm saying like, oh, I've done things, a bit later in life than everybody else. Haven't quite done it at the same time. I'm the same with like with menopause, at 54 up until last month, I had a very regular period, and that's quite late.

So yeah, when I hit 40, we we'd let, we decided we were gonna move from LA and come to Perth. 'cause that's where I'm originally from. And so it was like this whole new thing again of oh, okay let's find this. We've got to get our kids into different schools. And just really finding our place again of okay, we didn't have friends, we had, I had a few.

Old friends. But yeah, it was just like this time of reinvention and right before we left LA I'd gotten into photography and started doing families. So I came here and just started very slowly doing that. But got so involved with school because, I was that PNC person who was just there doing it all, and helping out in my kids' classrooms whenever I could.

And it wasn't until like the mid to the late forties that it was like, oh, something started to open up and go, I am really feeling that I wanna step into the career that, that I've never really stepped into or put on hold because the time wasn't right. And then it was like, okay, this feels really good now.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, yeah, I think it's I have to say I loved. Forties and as much because I felt you have that extra time space freed up a little bit. But also you just it's almost like you peak energy almost. Just had I could, I could have all the plates in the air, I could do all the things, and I just didn't, it was, and like you, I didn't really give much thought to be middle aged or midlife or any of those things.

I, I had this distant idea that maybe at that point you'd have it all together. Yeah. We laugh now, obviously. That's never gonna happen. Yeah. Sorry. Spoiler alert for anybody in their forties right now. Yeah. Yeah. You think it's, so in your fifties now, you say you're 54. So Yes. What has shifted for you in in how you see yourself?

See that big, like sigh. It's like a big old, oh my gosh. I've, again, I hit 50. Amazing. Never felt better, with who I was, my body, even the way I looked, like all of that just felt great. And two years later and I thought, huh, this won't get me. This has got I take care of myself.

I'm doing this. Everybody else maybe is complaining a little bit or whatever. So then at 52, when all of a sudden I was like, Ooh, I started having little anxious feelings. I started that irritability. Just those things that everybody keeps talking about and and. Of a sudden I didn't love people.

Like I loved people. I'd always loved people, always seen the best in people. We've all got, stuff that ain't so yeah, attractive within us. But I'd always seen the best in people and thought, okay, we will overlook the not so positive attributes. But then all of a sudden I was like I'm seeing I'm not so easily seeing the best in people.

And that really concerned me for someone who's always been able to do that. And then it was like, is it me? Is it them? Like what's happening? So there was all this internal change that was, yeah, a little bit. I feel the same. I feel I think I refer to that period as been like the wobble.

It's almost like the ground into your feet just starts to shift a little bit, and it's almost imperceptible at first, but there's something quite of not quite right, and then it becomes really. Wobbly and things like, I don't need better words for it, but it yeah, everything just feels a little bit say it's just like the ground's moving under your feet.

Yeah. That's how it felt. Feels like you are you're not thinking in like things the same as you think about them. You start, I remember starting to feel like low self-worth and I'd never felt that way. In my forties I felt like I was on top of the world, yeah. So all of these things that we've just always alien.

To me, but I and I at the same time, I wasn't getting hot flushes. I sleep, I slept like a baby. I still sleep like a baby. So I wasn't having any of those things that people Yeah, sorry, sorry for all those that don't Yeah. Or eight hours getting gal, but I wasn't getting any of those sort of traditional or expected, oh, this is, that you're going through menopause because you're having hot flashes and you're getting angry.

I wasn't having any of those things, but there were a whole list of things that I would say Yeah, I'm definitely, and it all feels a little bit like you're going a little bit mad because you don't quite feel yourself. And it's totally unnerving because Yeah.

And just people around you, you feel differently towards people around you and just that kind of mess. Ugh. Just where's my joy? Like I've always been like this happy, joyous kind of person. And all of a sudden it was just like, oh, to feel that joy was, it took a glass of champagne for me to feel, yeah.

Oh, that's how I used to feel. But I would have to have a glass of champagne to get that bubbly feeling. So yeah. And then of course, then that didn't start feeling good. So you got two glasses of champagne sleep as well, because you, so I was like, dang it, what? What is going on that I can't even enjoy A glass of bubble walls.

Yeah. It's I think it's a, it's an odd, it's odd when it comes on because you don't, you don't expect to. And I think that kind of, I think that would be the start of my unraveling I think when this started to happen for me. Yeah. But when you look back, so if you look back through all of your, your sort of decades before are there any threads that have run through all of it in terms like whether that be a belief or whether that be a desire or a strength or a struggle.

Is there anything that's gonna run through all of that? There is something that, you know, like the negativity that we all talk about with this phase. I also think there's like a beauty in it as well. And I would say that goes back to being like childhood. I remember I couldn't wait to get my period.

I couldn't wait to start developing breasts, it was just I couldn't wait to be older. It was just, and then I always wanted to be hanging out with older people. And then of course I couldn't wait to have a baby. I couldn't all these things that were very much feminine and very much a womanly journey.

Yes, I loved I just wanted to be a part of that. So I always thought that, I guess menopause might be a bit more of that, that beautiful, I guess if we look back on, native Americans or, ancient cultures, yes, they would, it would be more of a time of life, a passing, a ritual.

And so there is part of me that. As much as all this is going on still wants to, I don't know, celebrate that part of my womanhood and mark it in a beautiful way. But it's a little bit difficult because it's, there's all this other challenging stuff I can think of that goes back to still feeling connected to that womanhood or Yeah.

And it's interesting and it's so true because as you say, we don't look at it, first of all, because for many years it's been like a mystery to us and I remember getting to 50 Yeah. And thinking, feeling quite annoyed at everybody and thinking. I would go through the menopause and then realizing that I had absolutely no idea what that meant, what that involved, and then feeling quite cross that I didn't know why it involved.

You can't imagine a 12-year-old or 11-year-old starting her period and not knowing anything about what that is or what that's gonna look like, or a woman having a baby and not having any information on what that's gonna be like. And yet we this stage of life and we have no idea what that means for us or what it's gonna look like because it's shrouded into this kind of oh, it's the change, this, we don't talk about it.

Yeah. And I think you're right. I think it could potentially be something that's like a rite of passage or a thing of beauty if there was more understanding around it. Which is why I think these conversations are so important because first of all, women aren't going, oh, I just feel a bit mad, yeah. It's oh, actually it is a rite of passage. It is a journey. It is our kind of next, evolution or whatever it's gonna be. So I think there is that. I think there's that's a really beautiful way to look at it, really. Yeah. And I don't know about you and your mom, but like I remember, I think my mom was about 50 and I was, again, I was still living in the States at that point, and I can remember like just calling her at home and just, Hey, do you still got your period mom?

And she's oh no, I haven't had it for about a year. And there was something in me that kind of mourned. I was like, my mom doesn't have a period. And it was just this weird feeling for me, like that she wasn't a woman, but I don't know, there was just something still tied into that whole transition moment that was quite deep to me that was like, oh yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. Did you, but I had never talked to my mom about whether she had symptoms or whatever. Did you? No. And again, it was never something that they was really spoken around. I just remember my, I've got this great story about my mom. We were watching this television program.

My mum was the most gentle, never said a bad thing, barely ever swore, she never said anything awful about anybody. And we were watching this program on Cliff Richard, if you remember Cliff Richard. He was on this cliff, Richard, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Not necessarily a a person who creates a lot of kind of hate or anger or any of those things.

He is not particularly, he is fairly neutral in that sense. Yeah. Oh yeah. But I remember watching this program mom going, I fucking hate that man. So she had an absolute moment when, that's when we thought, I wonder if mum's going through the menopause, because she's a little bit nuts. Wow. But that's the kind of but there was no kind of oh, isn't this beautiful womanly thing or not? It was just like mum's, yeah. Cliff on the tele, how hilarious.

But but really yeah, it didn't, yes. It's interesting that for you, that's like there, there's this kind of, as you say, there's this real sort of thread I suppose, that's passing through and it's that kind of it's nurture and feminine that's going through your early teens, through your twenties and now, as you say, this is a consideration for you as you're in this part of life, a thread that's running through.

And I feel like we are obviously like one of the first generations that's really talking about it and it's just something exploded in the last five years. Like we are all just oh, yes. Look at this. Let's talk about this and all these symptoms and. Part of me is a little bit scared because I feel like, gosh, what do we, what is the generation below us thinking?

Like we're, it's really not nice things that we're talking about. It's really something to almost be feared because, but then I just think, oh gosh sometimes I'm scared to talk about it because of that reason. But then, yeah, I've you've got sons, haven't you? Yeah. Having a daughter I want to talk about it.

I want her to know about this. You want 'em to know that this is and that at some point this can be celebrated because it's not a thing that's hidden under kind of I'm not gonna say shame. Yeah. But almost just a kind of a we don't really talk about it. It was just that we don't talk about it and I want to be able to, because they talk about everything else.

My daughter will come out and tell us all sorts of things that are going on in whether we want to hear about it or not. How old is she? Oh, she's 25 now. But literally from, oh, from being quite young, a little person, she would say, oh, don't talk to me.

I'm on my period today. Which I don't recall I'd ever said when I was, 12 or 13, 20, anybody in my house. Because it had been kind like, you don't talk about that stuff, period. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So yes, I'm glad that we're having these conversations because I think it's really important for the women that come behind us that this is something to be embraced essentially, rather than something, and yes, you probably are gonna get angry at people and yes, you're gonna be a little bit nuts, but it's okay. You're gonna come out the side, you're gonna come out the other side. So when we talk then about your unraveling, as it were, and as you say, you hit 50, you got to 50, and you felt on top of the world, and it's only thus in recent months.

What has started to unravel for you? Yeah. It's been like a couple of years now, so I definitely remembered 52. I was like I think this thing is affecting me. And I was a little bit pissed because I never, like I said, I never thought it would, so I was very confronted by it all.

Yeah. But it just unraveled in my relationships, I just thought, I just, all my relationships I looked at differently and including within my own family and, and I just thought, again, is it me? Is it them? Is it me Who's needing to adjust? And I think that's the growth in it all.

And what everyone will talk about is it's that natural coming together of oh, I've been this carer this. And that's part of my personality. And part of my character is I love to I love a conversation, I love to, to connect with people and I wanna know about people and their past.

And so I'll be continually asking. Yeah. But then when you are that person, sometimes it's not reciprocated. So then you're, you're not getting it back. So then I think I hit, got a point to a point where I was like I'm a little bit over. A bit over. Yeah. Just be one sided. Yeah. So much time on everybody else.

And again, that scared me because I'd never been that way and it didn't feel nice, it didn't feel nice. It wasn't the people pleasing side that had become quite apparent. So I think that unraveling just is bringing a different strength to, oh, okay, this isn't where I need to change things.

This is where I need to look at things differently and it's up to me to change that boundary or whatever that may be. And that's interesting because obviously for you set, you said before that this is a kind of, you feel this is a very kind of feminine process for you. And I suppose that's a way of looking at it, isn't it?

Because I was gonna say is it, was it a slow burn or was it a specific moment? But I guess it's that slow burn of making, having those realizations about relationships and where you are not, your needs aren't being met necessarily, and. And almost seeing the beauty of that, that they're ah, okay.

That's a lesson. Yeah. As opposed to previously you might have thought either they're a piece of whatever, or I'm just being a piece of whatever, yeah. I suppose there's that, you take that moment to step back and look at it from the outside and go, oh, okay, there's some, this is teaching me something here.

Yeah. And I think so and I think I read somewhere or heard it that. When we are at that phase now and, the hormones are like depleting and all that that it's a natural process as in we're at the age now where our kids are probably, if we've had kids, they're grown up and there's this natural, so it seemed very natural as well.

You're naturally, I don't wanna care for you anymore. I'm done with caring with you. So your body is naturally allowing that child to do their thing and while you are getting ready to do your next thing. Yeah. Yeah. So it, that part is the beautiful part, but it took a while to figure out that's maybe what's going on.

Yeah. Yeah. And and this is the thing, we look back at the whole cycle. When you look back at all these things, when you look back at all your, your teens through to your forties, things match up and they make sense. But when you are going through essentially what we're going through now, the messy middle, you're not going, oh, this is beautiful.

Yeah. The beautiful thing there is annoying the crap outta me. Exactly. I'm so embracing this moment, I'm so embracing this moment of my kids getting on my nerves and me thinking, my God, why are you still here? Yes, exactly. Yeah. I know, so when you think of all these and obviously you've, you've had this mum role and you've been, obviously you've been building a business as well outside of this, and you, so you've been bringing up the boys and you've, you've been building up your own career.

If you think of your identity over that period what roles have you been most attached to? It definitely, as I started growing my business I much more became attached to that, and I was like, less don't think you're ever not into your kids or doing something for them.

But yeah, that naturally I was like, okay, I am getting far more enjoyment because when your kids are teenagers, you're not getting a lot from them sitting with you and they love you and all that kind of stuff. It's all beautiful. Yeah. But yeah those teenage years, and not to diss my kids, but they're normal, they're, yeah, for sure.

You don't get that love that involvement that, they're not really that caring about what you are doing in your life or whatever. Yes, when I started, when my business started to grow, then I was like, oh, I'm far more connected to this right now. Yes. But yet, there was no. It didn't come with animosity or anything.

It was like I chose what I wanted to do. I chose to spend those years doing everything else, and I was like now I'm, now, this is my time to be doing this for me. So is, would you say that then, as you are going through this now, is it that role, is it, was it the role of motherhood that you're most attached to?

Or is it the role of your business owner that you're more attached to? Or that have you, that you've been most attached to and is like starting to fall apart? Want to fall away? That's an interesting question. I guess the motherhood one, but that, that hasn't been like a yeah, it hasn't been like an empty nesting, but mind you, my kids are still here, so there's no opportunity to feel the empty nesting. I hear you. But I do think. Because I've, because I'm doing the career thing after that is gonna carry me through. And that is like excited to continue to build and explore and build upon without Yeah. That motherhood loss.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's yeah. It's like not a replacement, but it's something where you're forward thinking for yourself. Have you ever, like I'm, and I'm talking because I know that I experienced this, I know that probably around in my early fifties I remember looking at this woman in the mirror and going, I don't actually even know who you are anymore.

And that was definitely quite an unnerving moment where it, and it's not just physical, it's not like just the physical changes. It was all of it. I'm looking at this woman going, I dunno who you are anymore. Yeah. Definitely the physical, yeah. And I was just recently chatting with my husband about all this, and I said, I said, I, like you get a new hairdo or something like that at some point in life, it takes you a few weeks, a few months to get used to it.

If you went from long hair to short hair and it'd take you a while to, you change a little bit, it changes your soda or somewhat. But I said, I was talking to my husband, I said this, the last two years I feel like I have changed, like inwardly and outwardly what I look like, what I feel like, what's going on in my body, how I think, so dramatically.

And I said, it's actually a really big challenge to every day, almost wake up and feel like you're finding something new. And it's like you don't have time to just adjust, if it was just that haircut you'd have time to just adjust at that haircut. Where, whereas it's no, everything is different, yeah. Physically. I look different. I, my, yeah, all that. My hair was one of the first things I noticed, like at that 52 mark, I was drying my hair for a July 4th party, and all this stuff was like different levels and stuff, and I was like. What is that? And that was, that's when it all started kicking in.

And so yeah, total hair changes. And then the next day you'd wake up and you'd be like, where's my skin elasticity gone? You's my muscle tone and my legs gone

Yeah. Show hair. Like all this Yeah. Just so many things that like yeah, for two years and I'm like, Tom, this is like really. Quite a lot to be going through. Yeah. And changing, accepting those changes in yourself all the time. I, you're absolutely right. When I do the makeup shakeup workshops and and I do these women because there is that point in your life, like you say all of a sudden you are looking at this face, going, oh, that's not the face that I used to put makeup on.

I used to do this thing, and that's not quite doing the thing anymore. Where's my, why do make eyelids? What happened to my lips? Did I notice have cheekbones? So where did they go? Scar? I think there's a real, there's scar eyelashes. Exactly. Yeah. That, God, I used to have double layer of eyelashes and I'm gonna go what there's gaps?

Why is the gaps? But I think there's there's an element. Certainly when I do these, when I do those workshops, obviously we're learning how to apply makeup and we're learning how to, adapt it for our changing faces. But there's such an element of that where we just actually learn to be kind to woman in the mirror, because the first thing we do is we look at her and we go, oh my God, look at whatever it is.

And I think the first step is actually just being a bit kinder to her. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause it's hard to do all the other stuff when we're still being mean to, we've still got judgment around how she looks or how she's, how she's showing up today, how her lips have disappeared or her, her eyelashes of eyebrows.

It was eyebrows to me. I remember waking up in I think the speed of which my eyebrows disappeared was I had eyebrows and I didn't have eyebrows. And I've gone back to photos from 2015 and I've zoomed in on those pictures and I was hair and then there wasn't hair and I dunno what happened, but they had speed at which they went two fully formed eyebrows should have appeared on my pillow one morning because they were no longer there.

It's just the speed of which which it happens is like phenomenal. It's just it's like you wake up and you're like, where did that go? Or where did that come from? Or, yeah. Yeah. And it's rude. And this is why I think that, so we were saying earlier about kinda feeling embarrassed about these things.

I want my daughter to know that these things happen. Bits fall off you. Yes. Be prepared on this. A big shock. Yes. You're beautiful. Now just hold onto that. Yeah. And it's not that we're not beautiful, it's just that, we have to be prepared for this gonna be change that's gonna come and we're in like, such a weird state, like with, there is so much you can do if you choose to.

Yes, of course. We're aging and we wanna, age, gratefully, gracefully, however you like to term it. And just, but we are up against that beauty industry that is, yeah. And there's, it's changing. There's more voices around it and I'm pretty want to be like pretty strong in that.

Yeah. Aging naturally as well. But yeah, when there's so many things that you can do to ward some of those things off, then there's the pressure of, oh, should I be doing that or should I not? And yeah, so there's that. Additional pressure on it all. I think I think there's a clue in the word should, because I think the minute you're using I should do this.

And I think that's the kind of okay. That's an outside opinion. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we have to be very careful and you're absolutely right. There are so many things that we could do. There are so many things available to us, and of course we, the beauty industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it's primed to tell you that there is something wrong with you, and here's how we can fix it, because you've got creams for that.

And look at these potions and look how we grew this girl's eyelashes back just by applying this false set of lashes. Oh no. It was this cream. We do get some bombarded with this stuff, and I think it's important to and I'm gonna say we step away from, which is very difficult to do because if we're, we're watching.

Media of any sorts, we're getting those images thrown at us. But I think again, it comes back to that just being kind to yourself. Being kind to who you are and the fact that, there's this woman, as I said right at the beginning, she hasn't just landed here, she's been on this journey, yeah. All the way through. And it's pulling out her gifts throughout that journey. And that's what we need to be looking at, rather than going, oh my, my eyebrow hasnt disappeared. If you, so is it for you now, because obviously you know, you are feeling that you are right through this messy middle bit.

Is there anything you are pretending it's still working, even though it isn't.

Whoa. My first thing comes to physicality, like the way I look, I was just recently in Thailand with my husband, and I remember like saying to him, I feel like I am, like I'm wearing clothes or whatever, that all of a sudden I'm like, I look like that. Like when you get a photo back and it's like that realization of oh, I don't look like I did a year ago wearing that, that same thing.

So it's more, there's more that physicality attached to it now of just oh, I don't feel comfortable wearing that anymore. And that change has happened. Very quickly. Yeah. Does that feel, when you say you are looking, I don't look like that. How does, how are you feeling then now about how you look?

It just, yeah it just creates it, it's back to that wobble, isn't it? It is that wobbly part of oh, do I, yeah. And it's more just in how you feeling in yourself, so you're like am I gonna devote myself to 24 hour like weights and exercise to try and maintain more of this, strength or whatever it may be.

Or do you just go, fuck it? I like for goodness sakes, like my body is a 54-year-old body and it's not just the way it looks, but the way, what it's able to do. And it's not meant to do in 20 years what it did 20 years ago. So yes, I want to set myself up for the best possible, years ahead as possible.

But I also don't wanna get caught up in the obsession of it either. Yeah, for sure. Life as well. I think it comes down to that being kind to ourselves on all levels. Not just being kind about what we say about the war in the mirror, but actually being kind to ourselves in we don't have to beat ourselves up about this.

And there are so many, and there's always a choice in who we follow or what we consume in a sense. But I think perhaps the most important thing we can follow is our own. Internal guidance really does this feel right? Does this feel good for me? And I think we, there is some really great advice out there with regards to aging strong and aging, yeah. There's better or yeah. Probably more sensible ways to age. We were brought up in a time where, women had to be slim and that was, I, I could tell you now that if my mom and dad saw a girl even today, that was quite a must girl. I know they would have an opinion around that, because it's just of that generation where girls were meant to be thin and slim.

And of course now we're going no, we need to be, we need to be strength used, doing strength exercises really for, preparing ourselves for our old age, which is actually is really good, solid advice, yeah. Rather than, we just need to look beautiful. I think there's, things are starting to change, but again, it depends on what you are consuming and having that awareness around, what you are looking at. And, obviously. You work in an industry, so you are doing your photography, you work with women all the time. And of course, so you have women that are constantly, I've no doubt this saying to you this, that they're probably saying to you, oh, can you edit out my chins?

Can you just make sure I look beautiful? Can and will literally tear themselves apart. And as a makeup artist, I've had women sit in my chair for years and tell me that they want to, can I cover the bags? Can I get rid of their wrinkles? Can I get, can I make them look young?

That's what they want to do. And I'm sure that as you, through that lens, people are saying the same thing to you. Can you make me look younger? Yeah. Yes and no. I don't know if it's like what you put out is what you attract, but, I work with, women of all ages, but the ones that are kinda like my age that I work with most are pretty okay with how I don't get too many, 'cause I'm pretty light on Photoshop.

I'm, and I'm pretty open about that. I'm like, Hey I want, I'm a natural, I want everybody to look naturally how they're supposed to look. And so I don't do a lot of Photoshop to alter somebody's appear or and, but everybody still loves the way they look and yeah, I don't have too many people. I've had, I've worked with some people for a couple years and they'll say, oh, I can tell I look different than I did a couple years ago.

Yes. Yeah. But it's not, they're not like down on themselves for it. They're just, yeah. Scene. Yeah. And that I love that. And I love, and actually I think that's a real because I think particularly photographer as well, or being in the other side of a lens is very it's quite a vulnerable time, because of course we never like looking back on pictures of ourselves, not normally.

We will all automatically, more so than probably the women in the mirror, we will automatically go, oh my God, look at my stomach in that, or look at my gift, whatever they give yourself 10 years and you look back and you go, what was I worried about? I know. That's the thing. It's oh, I was so cruel.

I know. If we think about where you are, has there been a turning point for you? So as you say, you're on this journey, this, and you are deep in your messy middle right now. Has there been a kind of turning point for you or a moment that is helping to guide you in a particular direction?

Oh not one particular thing. I think you, it's the little things that you do. It's the daily stuff that you do that I think it's keep doing this because it's gonna help you, next year, whether it be, next week, next year, 10 years from now. So that's like the little things of still watching, not watching the amount that I eat, but watching what I'm putting into my body what works with me, what doesn't work for me.

Exercising, meditating just those little things. Saying no to some of the other shit that I don't wanna do. Yeah. So yeah, just the everyday stuff. Yeah. Nothing but it's, but I think it's that, it's, it is those small things, isn't it? It's the 1%, it's the kind of the habits, the kind of things that we build into our everyday that are going to make that difference.

Because I don't, I think it's very difficult to say, yes, I had my hair cut and then everything changed for me. It's go, it is gonna be those kind of, those daily practices, whatever that is, that supports you to get through this stuff. Yeah. And then the hope is that by doing those things now and by staying consistent with all that, that when on the other side.

That's just going to make that feel all the better because you've been doing all the right things all the way along and yeah. Do you feel there's any, that you are still unlearning? If we think about this unraveling, is there anything that you are unlearning as you move into this next phase of your womanhood?

Probably so many little things. No, one big thing is oh, definitely this, that I'm. Coming to No. Yeah. Sorry. Be sorry. It's a process, isn't it? It's there's things that we learn or unlearn all the time, yeah. So we have, we have so much conditioning through our lives and that, it's, it is a kind of process.

There is a whole kind of unraveling. It's as these layers come off, I'm learning that, I'm not lazy or whatever it is that you've been, oh, okay. There's things that you might have been told as a kid that you go, oh actually that's not true, or, you are bad at such and such.

And you go, oh, because I think when we get to this stage of life, we tend to question that more. We stop and go, is that true? Yeah. Probably. I dunno. I feel like, I dunno that this is to do with middle age though, but I think one thing that often comes up with me is, I didn't excel when I was in high school for whatever reason, but I always felt intelligent, and I always had this thing where I was like, but I feel intelligent, but I just wasn't making as in school. And I just think I was just always different, and whether that these days, whether it be a DHD that hasn't been diagnosed or something different, I just always felt a little bit different than others around me and how I was doing things.

And then I, yeah, I didn't follow the same path as everybody else. I, did things differently. I, everyone was building, went straight to uni. I went off and traveled. I, spent years just traveling around and doing different things. I just wanted to be a stay at home mom. Other people didn't wanna do that, just building a career in a, mid, late forties.

So I feel like that's all coming together now, and it's that's okay. Like I probably used to. Question that in myself and probably be like, oh, I'm a bit late. I'm a late bloomer or, and now I'm like, no, I'm just doing things at different times and yeah. Yeah, and I think there has to be a level of acceptance around that because, you said a few times that you were late to this or late to that, or you were late and actually, what if you were just on time?

Yes, on my own time, but yeah. Yeah, that's it. Just on society's time of as when you should be doing it. Yeah. Absolutely. Talking to somebody earlier we was saying about, kids are from the age of 14. It's pick your options. Pick what you want to do. These options are, these are gonna decide what you want to do and what you're going to study in uni and what you're going to do as a job, and then what you're going to do for the rest of your life.

And then that's a lot, I remember getting to oh gosh, I remember getting to 30 and thinking, oh my God, that's like a proper adult age. I should really decide what it's I want to do. At this point I've been here for 15 years and going, God, I should job now.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's a lot to unlearn in terms of and I think that, I think the timeline thing is a big one to unlearn that have things are gonna happen in their own time. Yeah. Society's conditioning. Yeah. I think I'm very much unlearning that of just, Hey, is that me? Or is that society conditioning me to think that, or conditioning all of us, not just me.

No. Absolutely. But I think as well, there's, I think there's something about this time in life where we just get the space to stop and consider that. Because when you are in your thirties and your forties, you are not, you're not going oh, am I being conditioned here? You're going has that child just stuck some just doing it?

Yeah. Or has, you're busy. You're just busy. Yeah. So I think it's only at this time when we have that extra bit of space that we can start to question those things and go, is that true? So if you were going to give some piece of Golden Nugget advice to somebody who's going through the messy middle at the moment, what would you want someone to hear right now?

I dunno that I'm the right person. I don't think I'm in the right phase or stage to give that advice. I think I'm still needing that advice myself. I think this is, and again, this is why these conversations are so important, because actually you're probably a step ahead of somebody else that's just stepping it.

Somebody else is waking up today, it's her 52nd birthday, and she's going, oh, I don't, I feel quite annoyed at people. Yes. It's quite normal idea. As I say this, I think this is why the reason why these conversations are so important, because, and also to say that it's not, it's not quick.

It's not quick. Yeah, it is. I'm surprised when I look back and I go, that two years has passed already of this constant change and I'm like, that's two years. That's crazy. Yeah. That and I don't know when, obviously if I've still got a period, I've still at least 12 months, oh, for sure. Going visual menopause thing. Yeah. So yeah, it's a long phase, but I think there's, I think there's this understanding there that there's perimenopause, menopause, and then post menopause in so much as this doesn't end on that magical day when you've had your 12 month marker and all of a sudden you're like, my God, that's it.

I'm a free woman now. It's this is, we're still, there's this evolution that kind of continues. And it's still. We're in menopause till we die, basically. Exactly. So I think that's a shocker because we go, oh no, you are you gone where? No. Mine's still fine.

Mine still shows up now and they again goes, oh, still here, we making a cameo every now and then. It does like to make a little cameo. Oh gosh. Okay. And I think the and aside from that, I think the just the whole thing I think around identity is such a big one, because that was the one that kind of flawed me was the whole kind of who am I now?

More so perhaps than the physical, which obviously, that's a shocker in itself. Yeah. But I think there was, there were certain aspects of this whole process that's been quite the journey for me and really. Again, why we have these conversations is because nobody was talking about this stuff.

People would talk about the kind of like the physical things, the health things, the, all those, the side of it. But nobody's talking about, when you are self-confidence dips out or when you wake up in the night with anxiety or when you are any of those other joyful attributes of perimenopause that really don't get much of a mention.

And that's what, and I think that's the kind of messy middle. Yeah. And I go, I always go back to were people not talking about it or was it just not that big of a deal? But it just seems like whatever we are experiencing is way more than what generations before us. And that could be as simple as, yeah.

People weren't talking about it. But I don't know, like I, I still think there's something environmental that's happening Yeah. To make it. Us go through it worse, and whether that is, like whatever we're consuming, what's in our diet, what pesticides are, out and about, are they, affecting our body and our hormones differently?

I don't know. I just think there's something else going on. Yeah. Why is a worse thing? I, I just don't, my moms my aunties, I only remember going to work, in my twenties. And there was one woman, one woman I've ever heard talk about going through menopause, and she was having a rough time with it, but that's the only person I've ever heard talk about it.

You have such a wonder, because I know there's a lot of GA lot of young girls today have an awful lot of issues around menstruation and fertility and all of these things, and far more than I ever recall being when I was younger, yeah. Yeah, it's, and again, for you, this is you've got your nutrition background.

But it is, it does, it definitely intrigues me. It fascinates me. It's, yeah. I just, something in me feels that there's something else contributing as to why we're so much more affected by it. I sometimes debilitated by it. It's not just, it's not just this little phase that, you know, and again, why are girls getting their periods so much younger?

It's, yeah. There's something in our environment that has changed. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Sure. Yeah, no, that's a big, that's a whole different philosophical, path and it's definitely, yeah. A way for the conversation to go. For sure. Okay. So I'd like to do a little thing where we go I've put you, I'll put you into a time machine.

Yeah. And you get 20 minutes to spend with your younger self. So what nugget of wisdom are you going to share with her? I don't know if it's like. Complete wisdom, but I would just tell her she was on the right path. She was doing okay those times where she wasn't following everybody else when she didn't fully know what she wanted to do.

But she felt but she was strong in in doing her own thing, in following her different path. And I would just tell her to, you were on the right path. You just, you did good kid. Yeah, just keep doing it. You didn't do it like everybody else. And sometimes that's your, that is your strength is that you had the strength not to follow and do it.

It didn't always work out, whatever. But you've had some really amazing experiences that. Maybe not everybody else has had. So yeah, I don't know that would be it. Just keep doing what you're doing. You know what would come out though is that you mentioned somewhere, something about a song and if there was one song, it would be that and this has come to me at different parts of my life, is that, is it Natasha Bedingfield?

Is that Oh yes. Yeah. The unwritten, I find that song still, as a younger person when it first came out, in the nineties or whatever. Yeah. I just thought it was so inspiring, just that, hey, the rest is unwritten. Staring at the blank page before you, it was just so now that means a whole lot more.

Even again, it's yep. I feel like there's a blank page before me. And it's up to me to rewrite it and do that. So Love that. Yeah. Is there a myth around adulting that you would bust for her on the spot? Yeah. Retirement. I'm just like, why do we spend our whole life, building up to this utopian experience of what retirement is and putting every bit of money away for retirement.

It's you may not get there. We may not have that moment. Yeah. Enjoy some more of along the way. And finally, and we go back. I know we had kind of something like this before. We said, if you could give one sentence to somebody who is still deep in their own unraveling, what would it be?

Oh gosh. Hang in. There seems so cliche and ridiculous, doesn't it? That, but that's the first thing that came to my mind is just like. Just go through it and yeah, I don't know. I, yeah, this could, there'd be a gift at the end and it's, and I think it's not until we're through it that we'll be able to look back and go, yeah, that was really, yeah, great.

But I think sometimes just being aware of it helps though, don't you think? I. When things started happening, then that's when I started reading and going to, looking for pit stuff online and finding awesome people to follow that. I think just that acknowledgement of oh, this is normal, this is happening to other people.

And absolutely sharing it with your crew and who's around you. It's that makes it for more. Okay. Yeah. It's yeah we're in this together. This is part of it. We're gonna, we're gonna go through. But yeah. Thank you so much, Donna. It's been absolutely lovely chatting to you.

Yes. We are, we we've been jumping into each DMS for such a long time and having these I know, conversations around all of this stuff. So it's it's a real honor to be able to chat to you today. So thank you for taking the time to come and join me. Yeah. Thank you. It's been great.

Thank you. Oh, what I love about Donna's story is that she's beginning to see that her timeline wasn't off or that, she didn't do life in inverted commas or at a step with everyone else. I love the way that she's embraced the unraveling as a chance to step more fully into herself. Although, she's candid that she doesn't have all the answers, and that she's still very much navigating the messy middle, but she's noticing shifts in her body, in her relationships, and her sense of self.

Donna also raises some big questions about the world that we're living in now. We wondering if environmental factors are impacting women's hormones in ways that. Previous generations possibly didn't experience. And it's a reminder that midlife and menopause aren't just personal journeys, but they're also shaped by the times that we live in.

We touched upon Donna's work as a personal brand photographer and it ties in beautifully into the way that she's approaching this stage of life. Through donna fortune photography.com, which is her website, and I'll link all her details actually in the show notes. She not only helps women show up authentically in front of the camera, but she's also driven by a strong desire to promote, like a healthy self image and a positive approach to Asian.

Something that we don't see enough of in today's beauty obsessed culture. If you are deep in your own unraveling, take Donna's advice, hang in there, find your people, and know that just being aware of what's shifting and can actually make it a little easier. Thank you so much for listening. If this conversation spoke to you, please follow, subscribe, share it with a friend, and help me to keep building this community of midlife women who are redefining what it means to be here now.

Until next time.