The Next Phase
I used to be fun. I used to be driven. I used to be sexy. I used to be...young. What happened?
Dear Millennial moms in your late 30s or 40s -- former forces of nature,
Are you burned out, overwhelmed, and wondering where your energy (and your old self) went? You’re not alone.
The Next Phase is the podcast for overachieving moms navigating perimenopause who are dying to take back their energy, their bodies, and their magic. Here, we will not pummel you with hormone treatment plans or talk about perimenopause as if it's a diagnosis. Instead, we're going to celebrate it. We're going to use it as an excuse to really start taking care of ourselves. As a matter of fact, we're going to find ourselves in our perimenopause era.
Hosted by Stacey Hutson—certified health coach, wellness chef, former co-host of the Mother Plus Podcast, and mom of two—you’ll learn how to: Understand what’s really happening in perimenopause and how to work with your changing body, use nutrition, supplements, and sleep as medicine to restore your energy, get in tune with your cycle and learn practical ways to sync your life with your hormones, and create rituals (with a little woo) that help you slow down, listen inward, and reconnect with yourself.
Each episode blends personal stories, expert insights, and actual doable steps you can take right away.
✨ Subscribe now to The Next Phase and join a community of millennial moms redefining wellness in their 40s. Let’s make perimenopause your most magnetic chapter yet.
The Next Phase
#14: The New Year Self-Help Spiral (and How I Found More Space Instead)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
January has a way of turning us into projects.
Fix your habits.
Fix your body.
Fix your mindset.
Fix your life.
In this episode, Stacey reflects on the familiar New Year self-help spiral—and why, after decades of goal-setting, optimizing, and trying to become “better,” she’s choosing something different.
Through a deeply personal New Year ritual, a surprising realization, and one tiny experiment that changed how she experiences time, Stacey explores what it actually means to create more space in your life—without forcing change, quitting your phone, or becoming someone new.
This is a conversation about presence, nervous system safety, and learning how to enjoy the life you’ve already worked so hard to build.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why January can feel so aggressive for self-help-prone women
- The difference between fixing yourself and listening to yourself
- How constant phone consumption quietly steals our sense of time and space
- A simple, ordinary practice that brought Stacey back to herself
- Why small, embodied rituals can be more powerful than big New Year resolutions
✨ Mentioned in this episode:
- Stacey’s Substack, where she shares a deeper reflection on the tooth-brushing practice and explores creating more space and joy through everyday rituals
- Episode #3: Why You Should Listen to Fewer Podcasts—Including This One
- Want to drop a note to Stacey? Email her at stacey@stacey-hutson.com
If you’re tired of feeling like a before-version of yourself—and ready to experience your life instead of constantly trying to improve it—this episode is for you.