Ep 9 - Pee, Portals, and Permission Slips: A Midlife Reinvention Pep Talk

In this episode, Rachel cracks open the quietly destructive habit most midlife women don't even know they're doing: handing out permission slips for their own life. The "this might sound silly" cycle. Waiting for a coach, a partner, a parent to bless the idea before we move on it. Rachel connects self-dismissal and permission-seeking as the same thing in different outfits — and walks through what it actually looks like to stop.

(She also opens with a Mother's Day story involving her husband, a hug, and a puddle. You've been warned.)

In this episode:

• The Mother's Day moment that became a literal puddle on the floor (and the one rule no midlife woman should ever break)
• Why my own body had to stage a dramatic intervention to get my attention — and the signal you're ignoring right now
• The "this might sound silly" trap — why it's just permission-seeking in responsible-sounding clothes
• The coaching call moment where one question — "well, why don't you?" — completely rewired what I thought I was allowed to do
• Why waiting for someone else to validate your idea is actually how you avoid being accountable to it
• The truth about why permission feels so safe: if it fails, it's not all your fault. If it works, you never fully owned it.
• How the "business divorce" eroded my trust in myself — and how I'm rebuilding it in real time
• Why I'm now trying and failing publicly on purpose (and what that's teaching me)
• The disclaimers we attach to our own dreams — "I mean, I don't know if it would ever get published, but…" — and why they have to go
• The one question I want you to sit with this week: what are you still waiting for permission for, and whose permission is it really?
• Why midlife isn't your wrap-up season — it's the portal (and yes, I know "portal" sounds dorky, I'm working on a better word)

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Not Done Yet Collective (free + paid community on Substack for midlife women who are not done yet): rachelaperry.com/collective

Connect with Rachel:

• Website: rachelaperry.com
• Instagram: @rachelaperry
• TikTok: @rachelaperry

If something in this episode made you go oh… that's me, share it with the midlife woman in your life who's been waiting for someone to tell her she's allowed. Spoiler: she always was. She's not done yet either.

Transcript

Midlife Signals We Keep Ignoring

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Not Done Yet, the podcast for midlife women who know deep down their story isn't finished. I'm your host, Rachel Perry, and here we're going to talk about what's really happening in this season of life: the identity shifts, quiet questions, the courage it takes to listen to yourself again, what it actually looks like to step into what's next, and why our boobs are hitting our knees. If you've ever looked at your life and thought, wait, is this it, girl, you're in the right place. Because midlife isn't the end of your story, it's the moment you start paying attention to it. So take a breath and let's talk about what's really going on and what you want to do with it. Because, sister, you are not done yet.

A New Community On Substack

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of Not Done Yet. I am so happy you're here. I'm so happy you're here, and I so appreciate you. You guys, I have to tell you something very exciting. I have just opened a community for us. It's called the Not Done Yet Collective. And it's for any midlife woman who is not done yet. Okay, that's you. All right. There is a free version. There is a paid version. Okay. So if you want to go check it out, just go to rachelaperry.com forward slash collective. And that's where we're going to hang out. So it's on Substack. And if you're not familiar with Substack, I'm still figuring it out too. But you can come and join for free. It's just subscribe and you get all of my articles and you get to comment and all the things like that. And then if you're like, no, I want more, I want more of this community. I want to connect. I want to have chats. I want to have free gatherings, whatever, then do the $33 a month one. Totally up to you. But I would love for you to come over there and hang out with me because this is what we're going to do, girl. We're going to build a community so that we can hang out and we can just connect. This is the thing. I think we need a place to connect and just be like, this is what happened to me. Is this normal? Is this happening to you in midlife? But also, hey, I'm trying this new thing. Will you support me? Like, come and cheer me on as we're doing this. So go to rachelaparry.com forward slash collective if you want to check it out.

Mother’s Day And A Mortifying Story

SPEAKER_00 2:27

You guys, I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day. If you're a mother, I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day. If you're not a mother, I still hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day. I know Mother's Day can be hard if you've lost your mom, if you wanted to be a mom and you never had children or all the various things. You know, I'm probably going to say the wrong thing here. I don't mean to offend. I just, I know Mother's Day can be hard. And so I hope that you were able to have a good day. Um, whether you're a mom or not. Oh, it can be tough. But I had a really great day. I was really blessed. Um, my husband went above and beyond. And actually, that brings me to my story that I want to start out with because I thought, you know what, he's gone above and beyond. I'm going to go and thank him. So I went downstairs to give him a big hug. And he got up from his seat and came, came around and gave me a hug and picked me up. And he hasn't been able to do that in a long time. I've lost some weight. And he was not able, he was not able to do that. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. He can pick me up. And then he squeezed. And let's just say well, you should never squeeze a woman in midlife, especially if they've had children. You you get me, right? So he squeezed me, and immediately I peed my pants. Well, I wasn't wearing pants. I was wearing a dress, but I peed and I was like, stop squeezing, I'm peeing. And he kept squeezing because he thought it was hilarious. And I think he thought I was just, you know, when we sneeze or we laugh and we peddle our pants. This was not like that. Girl, this was like I was pregnant with triplets and my water had just broken. There was a gush, and the gush didn't stop. And Mark kept squeezing. And I was like, Mark, stop. I am peeing my pants. So he stopped. He put me down and he goes, Oh my gosh, there's actually a puddle on the floor. Oh my gosh, there's actually a puddle of pea on the floor. I'm like, I know this. Like, we didn't need your confirmation, sir. Okay. We did not need your confirmation. So there I am standing in this puddle of pee, feeling so embarrassed as Mark is saying, Oh my gosh, it's actually pee. Look, there's actually pea on the ground. I can't kept going. Caroline, my 18-year-old daughter, is cracking up, laughing, rolling on the floor. Meanwhile, I'm standing there in my puddle of pee thinking, oh my gosh, this is literally rock bottom. I have never experienced anything so mortifying. I had no control over my body. My body was like, nope, we're out. Like, hey girl, hey, but no, we need to release this pee and you have no say in it. So I then looked over at the table and there was a folded up towel because I'd just done laundry and I put it on the table, grabbed the towel to sop it up. Okay. And Mark says, you're gonna have to wash that towel before your parents come next week. If you're watching this, like you see my face, right? Like really? Thank you so much for telling me that, Mark. Because without without your advice there, without your direction, I would have given them that towel that smelled of my pee. What? I was like, okay, I'm sorry. So many things went wrong there. Mother's Day went great until the puddle, until the puddle. And I was mortified and I ran upstairs because I truly was so mortified. Now I can laugh about it. And I'm telling you first, because you're my besties. Because, see, this is what I do. These things happen to me, and then I feel the need to laugh at myself and make people other people laugh too. So I it is going to come to a social media platform near you. But obviously, first it comes over here on the podcast. And I share this because y'all, this is midlife. This is midlife. Nobody warned us that these things could happen. Nobody warned us we should never allow our husbands to squeeze us if we have a full bladder. And for me, a full bladder might, it might not be that full. But somehow there still seems to be P that can decide to just release itself. Okay.

The Real Cost Of Self-Ignore

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Here's the funny part. I'm gonna connect it to this episode. I went back downstairs to take care of someone else, right? I went downstairs to be like, hey, thank you. I don't want you to feel like I'm leaving you hanging. Thank you so much. And my own body stopped me in the most dramatic and undignified way possible and said, Hey, girl, hey, guess what? You can't keep ignoring me. And you guys, guess what? That is the whole episode. That's what we're talking about today. Not peeing our pants. Okay. But just go with me here for a second. We have gotten really good as midlife women at ignoring our signals. Not just the bladder ones, though, although clearly that too. And maybe I need to get better at listening to those signals, but peeing is just so annoying, right? But the deeper signals, the nudges, that quiet, persistent voice that says, hey, what about this? What about this? And so many of us file it away. We decide it's not practical or it's not the right time or it's not realistic. And we keep showing up for ourselves. I mean, sorry, we keep showing up for everyone else and telling ourselves that that's enough. That that's enough. And I think for decades, we have really been so focused on being everything to everyone else that we've lost ourselves in the mix. We've lost ourselves. And I think some people have lost their self themselves so much, they're having a hard time even tapping into this thought that maybe there's more for you out there. It's kind of like, well, I don't think so. In fact, I was talking to someone the other day and I was sharing about how I think midlife is kind of, I sound like such a dork when I say this, but I think it's a portal to your next level. I really do. And I think society has pushed it down and made us think that we're kind of done and that's that's all there is. Like now it's retirement and we're just gonna, you know, or at least strive for retirement because we're not there yet. And frankly, that's I don't believe that. I don't believe that. And I don't think if you're listening to this, I want to call you out on that if you believe it, because it's not. This is truly the most magical time for women. And we're gonna show society what's up. You can't ignore yourself indefinitely, my friend. At some point, that signal gets loud enough that you can't pretend it's not there. Like for me, I kept pushing it away. I kept pushing away this desire that I had to serve women in a in a different way than I had been doing, I had been serving them. And I just kept ignoring it or pushing it away because I thought, you know what? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And finally it got loud enough that I couldn't pretend anymore. And for some people, it's a restlessness. Others, it's like an identity shift. You know, there's I was thinking about this today. There was a big identity shift for me when my kids, oh gosh, I've had so many identity shifts in midlife. But I think one of the biggest ones was when my kids got old enough that they didn't need me quite the way they needed me before. They didn't need me to drive them places. They didn't need me to come and help them in school, like at parties and stuff. Like they didn't need me anymore, or they need me, but not in the same way. And so that identity shift was big for me. For some, it's a buried spark. For others, it's those 2 a.m. wakeups where you're like, is this it? Different signals, same message. You exist, pay attention, right? Hey, it's me. Let's not, let's not allow the pee to come without preparation.

Self-Dismissal Turns Into Permission Seeking

SPEAKER_00 10:36

So we have talked about this in the past several episodes, uh, the self-dismissal, right? The phrase that we use to just sort of dismiss ourselves, the this might sound silly type thing. And again, you might not say that specifically, but there is probably a phrase that you have or several phrases that are your self-dismissal. In fact, I caught myself in self-dismissal. A friend actually did caught me in a self-dismissal cycle yesterday, in fact, because I was sharing with her that I had introduced the knowing to my audience. And if you were listening to this podcast last week, you heard me do a little commercial for it. And I had very, I wouldn't say very little interest, but the the several people who reached out and were interested in it couldn't do it for one reason or another. And I remember, and I was telling my friend, yeah, maybe it's just not the right thing. And she was like, You're doing, you're literally doing what you teach other women not to do. You're dismissing yourself. And I thought, oh my gosh, I it's happening when we don't even realize it's happening, you guys. Another thing I've talked about on here on the podcast is the permission, right? I waited for everyone else for years to validate my ideas, thinking I couldn't move forward with my ideas because they weren't valid enough unless I had a coach or a thought leader or someone who I viewed as more, I don't know, had more qualifications than me. I don't know, unless they told me it was okay. And so today I'm gonna cut, we're gonna connect those two things because guess what? They're the same thing. Every time you say this might sound silly, you're asking for permission. You're asking for someone to be like, no, it's a great idea. It's like when I did this in high school and middle school, I don't know if you did, but I did the whole, I'm so ugly, hoping that someone would be like, no, you're not, you're pretty, right? Like that type of thing. It's the same sort of thing. We are handing our idea to someone else and waiting for them to say it's okay. I don't know why we decided these other people knew more than we did, like, know better, because that's BS, right? Every time you file your dream away is like, not yet, or I'll wait when I'm ready, or when I have more information, or when there's a better time. You're waiting for a green light from something or someone outside yourself. That is permission seeking, right? It's just dressed up in very responsible sounding clothes. But y'all know, it might feel like wisdom. It feels like you're being careful and realistic. But what it actually is, is a way of avoiding accountability for something that you already know you want. And I did that for so long. And if you don't commit, you never have to find out if you can do it. Keeping that permission out of reach really, you think you we feel that it keeps the dream safe from having to be real. And when I tell you that's exactly what I was doing, and I kept doing over and over, even when I recognized that I was doing it, I still kept it out of reach, which is why I'm creating, you know what? I was gonna say a bad word, but I'm creating things when I feel led to do it now. I'm just doing it because I am not going to risk keeping something amazing from being put out there. And I do that. I've done that for so long. I've tried to keep myself safe, but we ain't doing that no more. And you guys, I I shared this, I've shared this before, but just before my 50th birthday, actually, no, it was after my 50th birthday. I remember being in a coaching on a coaching call with one of my coaches. And I was like, you know, if I just didn't have to teach network marketing anymore, I would be so happy. And she was like, Well, why don't you? Why don't you just do that? And I thought, oh, yeah, why don't I? What, what if I what if I just didn't anymore? And that was a huge realization for me because I'd been waiting. I'd been waiting for some authority to say, yep, you got this, Rachel. But it was in that moment when she put it back on me that I was like, oh, wait, it's not up to anyone else. It's up to me. And I'm not gonna pretend that I don't still fall into this trap sometimes. There are times when I'm talking to my coach and I want her to reassure me and tell me I'm doing a good job or tell me I'm making good decisions. It's getting easier now because I am really, I've really in these past five months been leaning into trusting myself. Because guess what? We're the only ones that can show up for ourselves. The person we're looking for to validate our ideas doesn't exist. And it also becomes this space where it's almost addicting, right? You're like, well, well, she said it's a good idea, but I wonder if he would say it's a good idea. Okay, that's me anyway. Maybe it's not you. But the thing is, is you've been handing your permission to everyone else. Maybe it's a business partner, maybe it's an upline, maybe it's your mastermind, a coach, your audience, friends, family. Oh my Lord, when we ask, when we're looking for permission from our family, that is a whole nother episode. Do you know what I'm saying? Because we still do it in our 40s and 50s, 60s, even. We're still looking for from our parents. Why? Okay, that is another episode. That's a whole nother episode that we'll have to do. But

Owning The Risk Of Trying

SPEAKER_00 16:11

here's the thing the green light was always yours to flip. You just kept giving that permission away. So if someone approves it and then it fails, right? Like if you get permission from someone or you get that validation from someone, they're like, you know what, Rachel, this is a great idea. You should go for it. And then it fails, then I can be like, you know what, she told me to do it. So it's not all my fault, right? Because if you approve it, if you're like, I give yourself or myself permission to do this and it fails, that's yours to own. And frankly, that's terrifying. Which again is why I am committed to trying and failing publicly so that you can see that we are able to do this and we survive. Because waiting for permission from other people, it it doesn't it somehow protects us, it spreads the risk. It's it's uh we share the accountability, but it also means that if it does work, you never fully owned it, right? You never get to fully own what you built because you never fully decided to build it. Not just that, when we look for permission and validation from other people, we are taking away the trust that we need in ourselves. And you know, if you've made bad decisions, like I I'm I think I made some not great decisions after I left my business partnership. I I call that like a business divorce because it really was like a divorce. It was awful. And I made decisions after that for my solo business. And I look back and I'm like, there was a time where I thought, oh my gosh, I can't make any good decisions. I keep making the wrong decision. And I lost trust in myself. And I think it's easy to do that. It's easy. Maybe you're in in the middle of a divorce, or maybe you've gone through a divorce, or maybe you and your family, your parents don't get along, or whatever it is. It's easy for these experiences that we have to erode the trust in ourselves. But I really need you to hear me when I say you are trustworthy. And giving yourself permission is terrifying, but it's also the only way to fully own your own life. Maybe you're not where you thought you were going to be. But that doesn't mean that you've made bad choices. It doesn't mean that you've done anything wrong. What if where you are now is just where you're meant to be? And now this is your moment where I where you hear someone say, What if you just did what you want to do? Now you can go, you know what, you're right. What if I just tried it? Because so what if you try it and it fails? Y'all, I'm doing this in real time, trying things, putting things out there, and maybe they don't work. That's okay. Because I know that I have this strong passion to serve women in midlife who are done dismissing themselves and ready to step into what's next. I know that that's what I'm being called to do, and that is where I'm meant to be. So the way I serve you is gonna show up in different ways. There are gonna be so many opportunities for you and I to work together. Maybe you'll want to work with me, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll want to be part of the collective, maybe you won't. Maybe you just want to do the free version so you can read the articles and things like that. Awesome. Maybe one day you're gonna get to a point where you're like, you know what? I keep dismissing myself and I am ready to stop this. And you go, okay, now it's time for me to step into the next step. Whatever that looks like, maybe it's working with me, maybe it's not. Whatever it is, I just really want you to acknowledge that you are trustworthy, you can trust yourself, you don't need anyone else's permission or validation.

Practical Ways To Give Yourself Permission

SPEAKER_00 20:07

So here are a couple of things that you can do now to give yourself permission and what it looks like. So if you have decided, you know, I want to write a book, I'm gonna write a book on maybe you've gone through something, you want to share that. I'm gonna write a book. I don't want you to have any disclaimer when you say it. I, in fact, I've talked to several people who are writing books or want to write books, and they'll say things like, I mean, I just I don't really have time to do it, but I want to do it. Or I mean, I've written a book. I don't know if it would ever get published, but those are all disclaimers. Stop it. Stop dismissing yourself. Put it out there. I'm gonna write a book. We don't need any other declarations. We don't need you to point out that it's hard to find a publisher. We don't need you to tell us that you're a bad writer. Girl, listen, voice memo it. There are so many things that you can do. But making one decision about the thing that you want to do without pulling everyone around you first is another way of giving yourself permission. I am that is the one I am so guilty of. What about treating your own ideas with the same generosity that you would give your best friend's ideas? Like if your best friend came up to you or your child came up to you and said, Mom, I want to do this, or Bestie, I want to do this, would you be like, oh girl, no, that will be a failure before it even starts? That's stupid. Maybe someone's parents say that. I have talked to a couple of women whose parents would say that. But that's it doesn't matter because we're not talking about other people. We're talking about you. Treat your own ideas and your own desires with the same generosity that you'd give your child's or your best friend's ideas. Knowing the difference between wisdom and fear. Wisdom says, you know what, let's think about this carefully and put things together. Fear says, let me find enough reasons not to try. And then being honest about which one is actually. Running the show. That's that takes some introspection. And a lot of people struggle with that. But be honest. Call yourself out. Nope. This is fear talking. This is fear talking. You guys, our bodies, our minds are as we enter this midlife portal, for lack of a better word. I'm going to come up with a better word because I don't love the name, the word portal. It sounds so silly. But that's really what it is. This is a magical time for us. We have more to give than we've ever had before. And not just to our families. Truly. Don't be my bladder. Okay, no, I can't. I can't do it. I don't know how I'm going to connect that. But listen, seriously, though. Listen to yourself. Acknowledge that dream or desire that you have. Don't file it away. Allow yourself to explore it without dismissing it. Okay. Because you truly do have this purpose that's more than what you've been up to now. So I'm going to ask you a question. I just want you to sit with it this week. What are you still waiting for permission for? And whose permission are you actually waiting for? Name it. Name it. It's, and it's almost never as vague as the right time. There's usually someone really specific. And I just want you to sit with that and recognize that even if they did give you permission, which y'all just remember they don't have that. Like they, they're not any better than you. But would that be enough? Girl, you've got this. Okay. Couple of things.

The One Question To Journal

SPEAKER_00 23:44

If you are curious about the collective, go to ragelaperry.com forward slash collective. Check out the free, just hit subscribe and that's for free. Or you can upgrade. And listen, if you know of a midlife woman out there who you think would benefit from this podcast, I would so appreciate it if you would share it with her. I just really want to get this message out there that we are not done yet. And sister, this is our time. So I will be back here next week for another episode of Not Done Yet. Until then, my beautiful friends, take care.