What 55 Episodes Taught Me About Midlife Women

One year. Fifty-five episodes. Countless conversations with women navigating midlife. 

When I started Loving That Midlife, I hoped to encourage women through the challenges of this season. What I didn't expect was how much I would learn from all of you. 

In this special anniversary episode, I'm sharing the biggest patterns I've noticed after a year of podcasting, coaching, and talking with midlife women. From emotional overload and identity shifts to grief, people-pleasing, and self-criticism, we'll explore what women are really struggling with—and why I have more hope than ever. 

If you've ever wondered whether you're doing midlife "right," this episode is a reminder that you're probably doing better than you think. 

In this episode, you'll learn: 

•  Why so many midlife women feel emotionally exhausted 
•  The difference between failing and grieving 
•  How midlife exposes patterns that have been there all along 
•  Why women are often their own harshest critics 
•  What gives me hope after a year of conversations with women just like you 

Plus, I'll share a recent anniversary trip to Alaska that reminded me of one of the most important lessons of midlife: life is rarely all good or all bad—it's usually both.
 
Whether you've been listening since Episode 1 or you're brand new to the podcast, thank you for being part of this community. Here's to another year of learning to love the life we're living right now.

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend!

And if you loved this episode, please rate the show and leave a review so others can find it, too.  

You can also follow me on my socials:

Instagram: @loribuckcoaching

Facebook: Lori Buck Coaching

Website: www.loribuckcoaching.com 

Email: lori@loribuckcoaching.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, friend, and welcome back to Loving That Midlife. I'm Lori Buck, Master Certified Christian Life Coach, and I'm so glad you're here. Friends, today is a special day because this week marks the one-year anniversary of Loving That Midlife. And if you have been here since episode one, or if you've only been here a week or two, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being here, for listening, and for encouraging me. When I started this podcast a year ago, my main goal was to encourage women. I wanted them to feel less alone. I wanted to share the tools that I had learned, practical tools for navigating midlife with a little more peace, a little more confidence, and hopefully a lot more joy. That's what I expected to do. What I didn't expect was how much I would learn from all of you over this last year, whether it was from coaching conversations or messages from listeners, emails, comments, or even researching podcast episodes, I have learned so much about midlife women. And honestly, what I've learned makes me more hopeful than ever. So that's what I'm going to share with you today. A few things that I've learned over the last 55 episodes in a year spent talking about what it means to love this sometimes messy, sometimes complicated, but still beautiful season of life. So let's get into it. Number one, the first thing I've learned is this. Midlife women are carrying far more emotional responsibility than they realize. Many of us have spent decades becoming the emotional managers of our families. We anticipate needs before anyone asks, we smooth over conflicts, we remember birthdays, anniversaries, appointments. We check in on everyone. We worry about everyone's feelings. We try to keep everyone comfortable. And after a while, we start believing that other people's emotions are somehow our responsibility to manage. We don't just want people to be okay. We feel responsible for making sure they are okay. If there is one theme that has surfaced again and again this year, it's that so many women are exhausted. Not because they're physically doing too much, although many of you are, but because they're carrying emotional loads that were never theirs to carry. I know that probably doesn't sound like good news, but it is. Because the good news is that so many women are recognizing this fact. And awareness alone changes things. Once you begin to recognize that some of the things you're carrying are not your burden, you can start setting them down. And that, friends, brings a whole lot of freedom. Number two, the second thing I've learned is that many women think they're failing when what they're actually doing is grieving. This one has shown up everywhere. So many women tell themselves they should be happier, more grateful, more excited about this stage of life. Meanwhile, they're navigating children growing up, evolving marriages, aging parents, changing bodies, career transitions, health challenges, lost dreams, and shifting identities. Of course, that brings grief. You wouldn't be human if you weren't grieving some of those changes. And friend, here's the thing: grief doesn't always look like sadness. Sometimes grief looks like irritability. Sometimes it looks like feeling stuck. Sometimes it looks like restlessness or dissatisfaction. Sometimes it looks like wondering what happened to that version of yourself that you used to be. So where is the good news in that? Well, a lot of women are learning to stop judging themselves for grieving normal losses. Or to put it more plainly, they've learned to stop judging themselves for being human. Friend, you can love your life and still grieve the parts of it that are over or that have changed. Remember the mantra I've said over and over again this year? Two truths can exist at once. And when you embrace that, there's freedom in that as well. The third thing I've learned is that midlife doesn't create most of our problems, it exposes them. So I can hear you now. Some of you might be saying, Lori, I don't believe you. But just think about it for a minute. Midlife is a little bit like shining a spotlight on all parts of your life. Patterns that were manageable in your 30s become impossible to ignore in your 50s. Patterns like people pleasing, perfectionism, avoiding conflict, resentment, poor boundaries, the pressure of midlife reveals what has been there all along. And while that can feel very frustrating, I actually think it's a gift. Because once something is visible, you can work on it. You can't change what you're unwilling to see. And what I have seen over this last year is that a lot of you are opening your eyes to what needs to change. And that is definitely a good thing. The fourth thing I've learned, or more truthfully, what I've been reminded of this year, is that women are often much harder on themselves than anyone else would ever be. The things I hear women say to themselves are heartbreaking. They tell themselves they're behind. That something is wrong with them, that everyone else is handling life better than they are. And yet, when they talk about their friends, their daughters, their sisters, they offer compassion and grace. And they would never say those ugly things about them. Somewhere along the way, many women learned that kindness was something to be offered to everyone except themselves. But friends, self-compassion is not self-indulgence. It's honesty. It's recognizing that you're a human being living a human life. And human lives are messy. But thankfully, many of my clients and listeners of the show this past year have told me they are learning to turn down the volume on that inner critic and instead offer themselves compassion and grace. Fifth thing I've learned this year is that most women aren't looking for a completely different life. They're not looking to burn down the lives that they have, but they are looking for permission to fully live the life they already have. You know, we sometimes imagine the answer is a traumatic change or a dramatic reinvention of ourselves. A new job, a new city, a new relationship, a whole new identity. And sometimes a major change is necessary. But often, what women really want is freedom. Freedom from guilt, freedom from perfectionism, freedom from people pleasing, freedom from constantly second-guessing themselves, freedom to enjoy what is already good about their lives, freedom to become more fully themselves. And honestly, this is where most of my hope comes from. Because after a year of conversations with midlife women, I don't see women giving up. Instead, I see women waking up to their lives. I see women becoming more self-aware. They're asking better questions. They're getting curious about their patterns. They're paying attention to what triggers them and why. Awareness can be uncomfortable, but it is so powerful. I see women choosing emotional adulthood. Not perfectly, none of us do it perfectly. But more women are learning to feel difficult emotions instead of avoiding them. More women are also learning that it's okay to let other people feel their own emotions too, even if it means they'll be disappointed. More women are taking responsibility for themselves instead of trying to control everyone else around them. That is real growth, friends. I see women becoming braver. I've watched women have difficult conversations, set boundaries, change careers, go back to school, start businesses, change unhealthy dynamics in their family, try new things, take risks, but not because they're fearless, but because they've decided that fear doesn't get to drive the bus. And maybe most importantly, I see women discovering that happiness isn't found in perfect circumstances. It's found in the ability to hold both joy and disappointment, gratitude and grief, hope and uncertainty. Listen, if you have reached midlife, you know that life is rarely all good or all bad. It's usually a bit of both. What we call the 50-50 life around here. And the women who seem to navigate midlife best aren't the women with perfect lives. Those don't exist. Instead, they are the women who've decided to stop arguing with reality and instead embrace the beautiful, complicated truth of the 50-50 life. Honestly, I think that might be the biggest lesson I've learned this year. Life isn't waiting for us on the other side of perfect circumstances. Life is happening right now, in the ordinary Wednesday afternoons, in the changing relationships, in the unanswered questions, in the growth we might not have asked for, but somehow needed. When I started this podcast, I hoped I could help women love midlife a little more. What I didn't expect was how much hope all of you would give to me. Because after 55 episodes, I don't see a generation of women falling apart. I see a generation becoming more honest, more emotionally mature, more self-aware, more willing to stop pretending, more willing to create lives that actually fit who they are. And that, friends, gives me tremendous hope. So wherever you find yourself today, I hope you'll take a moment to look back at last year. Not at what you've accomplished, not at how far you still have to go, but at what you've learned, who you've become, what you've survived, what you've grown through. Because chances are you've changed more than you realize. And that's worth celebrating. So what's mid-about the midlife this week? Well, how about spending two years planning an anniversary trip and then being a little disappointed by it? That's what. As you heard me talk about last week, you know we just got back from Alaska. And this trip was kind of a big deal. It was to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary and my in-law's 55th anniversary. But here is where I guess the problem comes in. This wasn't our first trip to Alaska. Twenty years ago, for our 10th anniversary, we took an Alaskan cruise that became one of those legendary vacations. You know, the kind of trip that you talk about and think about for decades afterwards. It was epic. We had a captain who would literally stop the ship and call everyone out up on deck so they could watch the whales that were in the water right next to us. We also sat in this lounge that was at the front of the ship where we got to see a glacier that was calving these huge chunks of ice into the water. We also, at one of our stops, found some random little crab shack called the office. And they had a big huge pot boiling outside where they were literally fishing crab out of the water across the street, bringing it in, dumping it in, and cooking the crab right there. It was the best dungenous crab I have ever had in my life. And also, we flew into Anchorage and we took a train ride to Seward to get onto the ship. And that train ride went through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life. It was a four and a half, five-hour trip. I could have stayed on it for five more hours. So, as you can imagine, for 20 years, that trip lived in my memory as the gold standard for Alaska. So, naturally, I expected this trip to feel the same. But friend, it did not. We did not see a single whale from the ship. And the glacier we had loved 20 years ago had retreated dramatically onto the land, and it wasn't calving those huge chunks of ice anymore. The dive bar called the office, we found out was under new management, and they didn't even serve fresh crab anymore. The ship was older, the entertainment and the music was fine. And the six-hour train ride through a different part of Alaska honestly just left me thinking: well, that was a six-hour train ride from point A to point B. There was nothing much special about it at all. I spent several days managing mild disappointment. Not because anything was wrong, just because reality wasn't matching that picture I'd been carrying around in my head for 20 years. And honestly, isn't that a whole lot like midlife? Because midlife has a way of exposing all those expectations that we didn't even realize we were carrying. But here's the other side of that story. Jeff and I got to spend an entire week with our adult kids. We got to watch them laugh together, tease each other, and be siblings again in a way that just doesn't happen very often anymore. We also took a helicopter ride onto a glacier. And let me tell you, the pictures of the water on top of glaciers and the crevasses, there's no picture that does that justice. It is the bluest water you could ever see in your entire life. We also went on a whale watching cruise and saw several whales out on this little tiny boat we were on. And there was even a bubble net feeding group. I think that's the technical name. It's where whales gather in a circle while they're feeding and they kind of create this big bubble and they all come up to the surface. We also ate dinner every night with our extended family, and we got to spend time with relatives from Iowa that we don't get to see very often. And then, best thing of all, on the land portion of the trip, we hit the jackpot. Apparently, only 30% of visitors ever see the top of Denali, and only about 5% see it on a completely cloudless day. Friends, we were in that 5%. It was so clear, it almost looked fake. We got there on the first clear day of the entire year. The weather could not have been more beautiful. And honestly, the staff could not stop talking about it. So was the trip disappointing? Yes. Was it amazing? Also, yes. And one of the gifts of doing this work is that I didn't spend the trip trying to convince myself that I shouldn't feel disappointed. I just let myself feel the disappointment. And then I managed my thoughts, I noticed my expectations, and I adjusted as I went along. And because of that, I was able to enjoy what was actually happening instead of staying focused on what wasn't. By the end, I realized this trip wasn't a lesser version of our first Alaska trip, it was simply a different trip, different season, different memories, different gifts, which honestly feels like a pretty good metaphor for the midlife. Well, friend, that's all I have for you this week. If this episode brought something up for you, if you found yourself wishing you could enjoy your midlife more, instead of feeling stressed, anxious, or emotionally overloaded, coaching can help. This is the kind of work we do together. Not just understanding concepts intellectually, but actually changing how you show up to your life. I offer free consultation calls to see if coaching is a good fit for you. You can find me on social media at Loribuck Coaching or at my website, LauriebuckCoaching.com. That's L-O-R-I V U C K Coaching.com. I'll see you next week.