In this episode of Midlife Spotlight, we discuss how to make the most out of midlife by reflecting on advice we would give our younger selves and using that advice to make our lives better in the future. In particular we look at:
Midlife is a rewarding and fulfilling phase. By viewing the past with appreciation rather than regret, you can use the wisdom gained over the years as a wonderful resource for personal growth and decision-making.
Disclaimer: This podcast, along with associated websites and social media materials, are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are that of Sara Garska and Kate Campion, and that of our guests, respectively. It is for informational purposes only. Please consult your healthcare professional for medical questions.
In this episode of Midlife Spotlight, we discuss how to make the most out of midlife by reflecting on advice we would give our younger selves and using that advice to make our lives better in the future. In particular we look at:
Midlife is a rewarding and fulfilling phase. By viewing the past with appreciation rather than regret, you can use the wisdom gained over the years as a wonderful resource for personal growth and decision-making.
Disclaimer: This podcast, along with associated websites and social media materials, are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are that of Sara Garska and Kate Campion, and that of our guests, respectively. It is for informational purposes only. Please consult your healthcare professional for medical questions.
Kate: Welcome to the Midlife Spotlight podcast. I’m Kate Campion -
Sara: and I’m Sara Garska -
Kate: and we’re certified life coaches obsessed with helping you find joy in this next act of your life. Whether it’s reviving your midlife marriage, losing weight, or scratching that “what next” itch, we’re here to share our experience and expertise with you.
This podcast is a weekly dose of YOU time, where you get the tools and tricks to improve your health and happiness. Talking to you is so much fun, so thanks for tuning in. Let’s get started.
Kate: Hi there and welcome to Midlife Spotlight, the show that helps you enjoy your next act. I'm Kate Campion-
Sara: I'm Sara Garska.
Kate: And in today's episode, we're going to talk about how to make your life great with advice from your younger self.
So, Sara, take it away.
Sara: All right, well, hi, Midlifers. So today, we're going to talk about when we look back on our lives, a lot of times, we think of our younger self, and we wish we could give her some advice from where we're at now.
And so, I'm going to go into three things that I wish I'd known earlier, but the twist is, how could I use these to help me in my life going forward?
So, we're going to take a look at how we can use our current wisdom to improve our lives now and in the future.
And how I got this started is, I have a blog, My Think Big Life, and I have an email list that I write to every week.
So recently I asked the readers of my blog and email, what do they wish they could tell their younger selves?
And my readers sent me some brilliant answers, and Kate and I are going to also add our own.
So looking back, life might have been better if I'd known these things, and often we regret that we didn't know them.
But here's the thing. These things can be put to use at our current age. Since there's no rewind on life and we can only go forward, we can definitely dig in and see how we can use what we have learned to benefit us now.
And I think sometimes we forget how much time we potentially have in midlife. It's normal to look back and think we've had our best times and think, you know, we're not going to have any more good times.
And that's just not true, right, Kate?
Kate: Totally not true.
Sara: I don't know. You're a decade younger, so you may not be at that point where I am where it's like, oh yeah, that part later is getting shorter and shorter.
But the reality is, you know, you might have four decades, I might have three, I might have four, I might live to 100.
Kate: I'm going for 100.
Sara: Me too.
Kate: So I'm halfway there.
Sara: You're the true, you're truly at midlife. Anyway, so we have, you know, we might have decades left in our lives.
And what I think we're both like, one of the reasons we're doing this podcast is because we have the personal belief, these upcoming years may be the best years of our lives.
Okay, so you ready to dig in?
Kate: I totally am. Let's go.
Sara: All right. All right, so we're going to dive into the lessons we've learned along the way and see how we can put them into practice. Right now so we can benefit from all the learning we've done.
All right, so I'm going to start, start with the number one thing that my readers and I came up with. And this is the idea around fear.
And looking back, fear, yeah. Fear ruled my life pretty much up until a year ago when I got this house.
As I went and talked to my own coach, like, a theme has been fear. And but what my reader said was, don't let fear restrict and limit your life.
And there's several different fears that she mentioned. Fear of not looking good enough, fear of not being smart or talented enough, fear of failure, fear of disappointment or disappointing others, and fear of rejection. I can relate to all of those.
Kate: Most definitely.
Sara: They're very common for women. And so I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with fear. It's really a natural emotion feeling. And it's useful. We have it for a reason.
But in a lot of things in our lives, the only thing we're afraid of is how we'll feel. You know, when we talk about being rejected by someone, you know, we say, yeah, I'm afraid I'll be rejected.
But we're all afraid of feeling rejected, feeling disappointed, feeling embarrassed. They're feelings. And you know, an example I'll use is public speaking.
So I don't know if this is still true, but they used to say public speaking was the number one fear of people.
And I don't know. Well, you're in education. So you've been in front of groups of people. So I'm sure you relate to public speaking. And no matter how good you get at it, I still find it scary to get up in front of a room.
Kate: Yeah, like as part of my job, you know, an assistant principal, I would often have to address the whole school. So that might be like a thousand people, know, a thousand, fifteen hundred people, depending. Most of the time it was just the seniors because I'd be talking about things related to examinations.
You know, let's say about a thousand people. And I would always find like my water intake would increase dramatically, which is really funny because I'll share with our listeners that Sara and I chug a lot of water when we're recording these episodes.
I don't know what it is, something about it calms me to just take maybe just take a breath and sort of calm myself.
And my big fear around that was always around actually tripping over. Whenever I'd get up to speak, would I fall over?
Once I opened my mouth I was completely fine, but it was the fear of that. But yeah, definitely those fears of all those things you mentioned, not being smart enough or failing, being disappointed.
We always want to keep ourselves safe. There's a part of us that just says, keep yourself safe, keep yourself safe.
Don't do this because you might feel bad. Don't do this because you might feel such and such. In fact, I remember oh my poor mum. She probably thought she was giving me the, you know, being really helpful, but whenever I used to try and do new things, she was like, it won't work. No, that won't be successful. And I remember one time I was like, why do you say this to me, mum? Like, why can't you just be encouraging?And she was like, well, I don't want you to be disappointed when it doesn't work out.
I mean, who cares about being disappointed, right?You know, isn't it actually better to learn how to be disappointed?
Sara:es. Yes. But that's so common. You know, saying that hearing that, like, I don't want you to be disappointed or I don't want to be disappointed.
And now I'm like, like you said, that is the work, but that is not good advice.
It's like, yeah, let's, let's practice being disappointed because then we can just do more things. But that's not how we've been raised. And so we've had to learn to actually feel afraid sometimes so that we have get some stuff done.
Like, I don't know how if I've said it on here more than once, but the podcast scared me.It's been really scary, but here we are.
And so anyway, so back to public speaking. mostly, so people will say I'm afraid of public speaking, but it's really not the public speaking itself.
It's the things that they might feel, you know, embarrassed, humiliated, awkward. And so we avoid doing things because we just don't want to look stupid.
We don't want to say the wrong things. Or what if we froze? What if we got up on the stage and didn't say anything at all?
But here's the thing, that can all happen and it's not going to kill you. And so if any of those things happen, you're going to be fine.
But the thing is, there are things that are really life threatening. That's why we have fear. It's kind of our warning system when there is something to be afraid of.
So fear isn't to be disregarded. It's just let's separate out what is life threatening from what's a feeling you don't want to feel.
All right. So, of playing back to the episode that's, you know, from last week and, you know, how, you know, how my life has changed since my divorce.
And we didn't talk about this a lot, but I spent those first eight years after my divorce being afraid. I was afraid of everything. And, you know, that fear that it always ruled my life, that fear of being alone.
And then when I finally was alone, I had to really face that fear. And that wasn't always easy. So, dealing with it has been a gradual thing.
And one of the ways I like to think about fear is the difference between your house being on fire.
Like, there is a fire in your house or your smoke alarm going off because you've cooked the bacon too long.
As somebody that has, has gotten to know her smoke alarm very well because there are mishaps in the kitchen quite a bit.
I just started thinking about it, but every time my smoke alarm would go off, my body felt like there was an emergency.
Kate: Mm-hmm.
Sara: I'm going to use the bacon thing. So I bake mine in the oven and sometimes when you open the oven door, the smoke just goes right up and the smoke alarm goes off.
My body thinks there's a real emergency. My body's like waving. I'm waving the potholders, trying to get the smoke going.
I'm trying to turn up the fans, turn on the air conditioner. It feels like a real emergency. My body is like in action.
Now, it finally dawned on me, there's not an emergency. There's just an alarm going off. And I think that's how these fears around public speaking or doing something that seems scary or we're afraid we're going to be embarrassed or we're going to look stupid.
That's just the smoke alarm. It's not an emergency. The house is not on fire. But your body feels like it.
So anyway, while you can't go back and have your younger self be less afraid, you can definitely encourage your current self to see the difference between not wanting to feel uncomfortable and that there's something really dangerous.
And so if you know something isn't truly dangerous and your fear is of feeling certain feelings, then I say go for it. And here's a fun tip, fun tip. Even the worst feelings only last about 90 seconds if you let yourself really feel it in your body.
You get your real pain when you try to push those feelings away. Like do you ever do that, Kate? Cause I didn't know that. I always just thought feelings would go on a long time. And so one of the things that I learned through becoming a coach was when we actually like sit there with a feeling like, so what we tend to do with feelings is. Either push them away, we avoid them, we react to them, so I'm gonna pull in anger for this one.
And so we think anger is, yeah, telling someone we're mad, yelling at them. But that's actually avoiding your anger, pushing it away, you're trying to push it on someone else.
Or maybe you put it down, we all see people do that, you're like, you see your problem, you look at them and they're like, not.
Kate: I'm fine.
Sara: A face. But we can actually just sit there and let anger be in your body. When I'm angry, I will fill it in my chest, my face will feel like it's freezing. It's a body experience. And when I can just let it be there, you can almost set your timer to it, 90 seconds.
Kate: We talked about that a little bit in managing your midlife mood toos, didn't we? That's just what you just said then about how sit with the feeling, identify where it is located in the body and just kind of let it pass.
And it was funny because you were talking about the smoke alarm example and we have a smoke alarm that is connected to our security system and it is monitored.
So the other day we actually did set off our smoke alarm and we could not remember the code to turn it off because of the fact that we have our phones that we usually use to deactivate the burglar alarm and this was the first time the smoke alarm had ever gone off.
And it was a four digit combination and neither of us, you know, we were running through all our standard pin numbers. We were trying it and my heart was just going, boom, boom, boom, it was beating so fast. And the thing was, I couldn't think straight.
Like it was just such a simple thing that I almost couldn't even put in the budget - put in the budget, I almost couldn't press the buttons because I was so like in this adrenaline state.
And that's the other thing about fear as well. It's that what it does is it takes your ability to think logically offline because all you're doing is you've got that adrenaline pumping, you're totally focused on survival and so your calm self which tells you this is probably the code, goes out the window and you're trying these bizarre combinations and next thing you know you've got a phone call saying is your house on fire.
I have to say by the time they rang I thought if our house had been on fire we would have been pretty screwed but anyway.
And after that happened though you know we actually had to like practice like doing our number calmly and also just breathing through it so it has happened again accidentally when I cleaned it.
I touched the touch pad and the thing went off and you know I felt that same like response but I had to just think just breathe.
You know keep the logical mind engaged don't let the fear take over because yeah it really I think is important to realize that it’s not just fear, just won't stop you from doing things that will actually stop you from thinking logically about the situation.
And you will need to take action to actually get your rational brain back online and running the show.
Sara: Oh, that's brilliant, because I did not have that in my notes, but that is such a brilliant thing that, yes, when we're in that moment, we don't have access. And so when we're busy trying to make the stimulus go away, in that example, the smoke alarm, we don't have access because we're just running on almost autopilot. We've got to get it done. But when you can, and so this is a little bit nerdy, so Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor.
So anyway, so this is one of the best things I ever read, and it's in the book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor.
Or it might be in this meditations. It's in what it's in something. But what he said was that part, like when the smoke alarm goes off and your whole body goes into, oh my God, an emergency, that's the part you can't do anything about.
Like, you're not going to have a body reaction to something. Like when you're getting up to speak on stage, going to have always, you can't see this, but I always keep pointing to my chest because that's where, oh, you know that, that like just. Everything in your body just squeezes and constricts. Like, yeah, that's going to happen. And so what he recommended was, and this is where, and this has really informed a lot of what I do with my client work, is he said, when that happens, just feel it.
You're going to feel it all through your body. And you can't stop that. So when you feel the fear or the anger or the, you know, the panic, just let it be in your body.
And he didn't say the 90 seconds. They've added that, know, we you've had not me personally, but I've read it.
Kate: I’m wondering if Roman emperors had 90 seconds.
Sara: Yeah. I don't know what they had. I know that scholarly, but I just pick and choose the parts I like.
Sara: So this part, though, has really helped me around everything. It's like, so I never judge like, oh, yeah, I feel this.It feels really horrible. And then I just let it be there. And once you've let it process, your brain can come back online.
And that's what you're talking about. When you're in that trying to push it away or fix it and you're all panicked, you don't have access to all your best thinking.
But if you can just for that 90 seconds, let yourself process that, then you get to bring your brain back online.
And that's where you find your solutions.
Kate: Nice.
Sara: That was a good point. Yes.
Kate: So what was your second piece of advice?
Sara: This is a good one. This is a good one, ladies. I don't know. don't know if men like to listen to this, but we do aim most of what we're talking about to women.
And so this is one that was a big one. We didn't realize how attractive we were back in our younger years.
Like when we look back at ourselves as teenagers, which I don't know about you, I thought I was the ugliest thing ever to ever exist.
And even through my 20s and 30s, like I mentioned, I didn't even wear skirts, dresses, shorts, I just did not like how I looked at all.
And I looked back on pictures. And I was not horrible. It's hard for me to say I looked okay, but...
Kate: I was not horrible.
Sara: But it was like, oh my gosh. And so a lot of women tell me, they're like, I wish I'd just been happy.
And it's mostly with my body when I was 30. I didn't know it was going to get worse. And so I think that's one of the more common ones.
We're just... So surprised when we look back 20, 30 years ago, like how cute we were, how attractive, regardless of size.
It's like, oh yeah, we're pretty good back then. Do you have any of that?
Kate: No, I'm just thinking, you know, and like you were saying, how we can apply this advice to our life later.
Probably when I'm 90, I'll probably look back to pictures of myself when I was 50 and think, gosh, why was I worried about not wearing shorts? You know, I should have just gone for it.
Sara: Absolutely. Yeah, like, yeah, because that's where I'm going next is, yeah, it's, yes, of course we're here, like, oh yeah, we were great in our twenties or thirties.
And what I to tell you is like, um, when you get to 80 or 90, it's going to be, you're going to look back at your 50, 60, 40 year old self and be like, you were actually pretty darn good looking back then. Your body was fine. Everything. And I do this because, and I know this because my mom. I'm going to go visit this weekend.
She's 91 and she lives in a retirement community now. And she's in the independent part. So she's with kind of the people that get around the best, that still have, you know, pretty good thinking.
Like they're kind of the best of the best, physically and mentally of the 80, 90 year olds. And you know, so I think about, yeah, that's, you know, I'll be like that someday.
I guarantee you, I'm going to look back and be like, wow, you really should have appreciated your 60 year old self.
So if you can take when, how you think about yourself looking back at your 30 year old self and just be like, yeah, I need to appreciate my midlife self because someday, you know, it's going to be different. Like everything else is. So, And what I also want to add is that you're going to appreciate your body from the vantage point of 80 or 90 in a way that you aren't right now.
So I think this is really the important piece of this is, and we talked about it in the podcast about how to love your body, that it's a decision, and that it's not based on just you look at it and like, Oh, I've got the perfect body.
It's based on appreciating the mobility you have. You know, all the things your body does for you. And the truth is when people are in their 80s, 90s, no matter how they've cared for their bodies, things are breaking down.
You know, a lot of people are using their, I call them walkers, but they're not anymore. They have wheels on them, and they have a name, canes, some people have the chairs, wheelchairs. So what becomes what I call social currency at that time is your ability to move, your ability to do things because when you lose that, you also lose your ability to do things with people and so, our bodies are something to treasure right now. If we can look forward and be like, yeah, I have a lot to appreciate right now. I just have this feeling that we'll all have better outcomes when we're older. Then if we say, well, it's the best it's going to be. Does that make sense?
Kate: Yeah. Yeah. I really like the way that you're saying, you know, let's shift the focus away from valuing our body from the way that it looks to actually valuing our body for the way that it functions and it what enables us to do.
Because I was also thinking that you talked about how, you know, movement and mobility enabling people to connect, but it also enables them to be independent.
And, you if I don't know about you, but the thing that I find, you know, we talked in the last episode as well. I spent a lot of my younger years kind of living alone. I really don't like the thought of not being able to take care of myself. That's probably my biggest reservation about aging, is how is it going to be if I can't care for myself in my old age because I can't move in a particular way? I think there's some research to indicate whether or not you can get down off the floor. So whether you can get down on the floor then stand up on the floor without assistance in your like 50s and 60s actually has a huge impact, a correlation, not necessarily a causation, but correlation with your ability to be functional in later life. My son is a doctor and my father was a doctor as well and both of them have said that the issue with aging is often falling. People lose their strength and then they lose their mobility and then they fall and then they can't get up.
And the amount of people that actually have these falls, I'm thinking of a particular person that I know, like literally be lying on the bathroom floor with no clothes on for five hours and it’s only because their daughter came to visit that they were found, you know, like these, because they couldn't get themselves up.
You know, these are the things to think about with our body, not whether or not you know, I'm feeling bummed because I've now moved up to a size medium from an extra small.
Sara: Yeah, because I can guarantee you this, that when you get to be 80, like, yes, they still care about how they look and everything, but it's a different way.
And but the most important thing, I think the thing everybody would want. Because money, no one talks about that. You know, no one's talking about, you know, the stuff that we have all like tried to achieve, accumulate and do throughout our lives. But I bet if I went and did a poll, having their body work like it did when they were younger would be the number one thing everyone would want. And some of that we don;t have control over. I'm not saying that if you do everything right now, you're going to have a perfect body. We all know bodies don't work like that. You know, stuff still happens. But on the other hand, like you said about the getting up and getting down, and it's funny, you mentioned that because I do practice that.
And it's hard. It's hard!
Kate: I can't do it. I need to learn how to do it.
Sara: I can't do it hands-free? See the videos of people going up and down. just like, no, I'm okay. But with my hands, I can do it. But I do practice. I'm like, that is important to do.Hopefully it’'ll pay off at some point.
Okay. So number three on my list, and then we'll get to your list.
So it's savor the small things. Once upon a, I don't know where I read it, but I'd read something.
Maybe it was when I was a hospice volunteer for a period in my life. But I'd read like when people kind of get to it towards the end of their life or they've lost someone they love or even like breaking up with a boyfriend, which I’ve done a couple times.
You don't miss like like the big stuff. What you miss is the little stuff. You know, like, you know, someone that brings you coffee, having your coffee in the morning, your family vacations.
I think about just like when my kids were little, just listening to them play. You know, when they be playing and their little voices, I still miss that.
Kate: The smells.
Sara: Oh my goodness. The smells. Yeah. Like even just talking about it, can see your face.Like you've gone to like, oh yeah, I'm remembering some small things. Not that the big things, the big trip.
Some things aren't nice, but those aren't what we miss. We miss how someone comes up behind us and gives us a hug.
Or I think of my mom. I think when I get into, because I've lived away for quite a while, but when I get in town, her smile, when she sees me, it's so precious.
My dad is no longer alive, but I think of his smile and the jokes he would make. And he loved to sit on the porch and he would whistle to the birds, you know, what I wouldn't give to hear that again.
And so a lot of times we're so busy focusing on whatever the next step is in our life, you know, getting the next, I don't want to say promotion, but you know, whatever your next career achievement is or whatever your, you know, things, these goalposts we've set up.
And we forget to just enjoy, you know, what we have going on right now. You know, I love, and my kids are all grown now, but I love what if we've gotten together, I always take this a lot of pictures because my kids are not picture takers.
And, but then I get to relive everything. I just someone's like, oh, so cute. And I love to go through those.I Yeah. So I try to spend a lot of time appreciating what's good in my life. Knowing that about myself, I try to spend time each day appreciating what is good in my life.Hugs for my granddaughters and fun dinners with my son and daughter-in-law. Eating homemade sushi made by my son-in-law, walks in my neighborhood, my little garden, my comfy bed, and the list could go on and on, but you get the gist of it.
It's the little things. And if you savor them now, you enjoy your life now. You're not so caught up with that future focus.
And I think it just gives a little bit more quality of, not quality of life, but you perceive your satisfaction.
What is you have a term for that? Like you perceive it as your perception of your satisfaction. Yeah. So you just feel better.
Kate: Yeah. Your subjective happiness like actually taking, you know, taking, taking those sort of moments and I'm thinking actually that's a fantastic action step for our listeners to actually make a list of those small pleasures that bring them happiness, you know.
And use them to focus on when they're not like, I actually, funnily enough, did that. That, I'm reading a book at the moment, which is very positive psychology orientated, and it's like a hundred ways to happiness.
In the first day, said, make a list of your happy things. Even writing the list made me feel happy because it was things like, you know, I wasn't seeing the sunset that I was writing about, but I got back into that emotion.
So, yeah, just writing the list and reading the list can add to the happiness without even having to do it.
Sara: I agree, I love that. All right. so I had asked you to come up with some pieces of advice for your younger self. What did you come up with?
Kate: Yeah, well, I think, you know, we've talked a bit in the episode about being an invisible woman, for example, about how it's easy as we get older to forget who we are or to not even forget who we are, actually actively stop ourselves being who we are, because we think that how we are isn't good enough for society or isn't good enough for the people in our lives or isn't acceptable or whatever it is.
So my first piece of advice would be to remember who you are and one of the ways that I can, I do that is I actually think back to the activities and ways I used to be when I was younger and the traits of myself that I showed there without fear and and think to myself well if they were present in me then you know those those things still exist now.
A funny one is resilience because you know my last ah - since I met my husband really my life has been pretty good like there have been some definite things that have been really hard that that I do not want to talk about. But basically you know the things I went through by earlier years were actually really challenging and rather than look at those things as being a bad thing that happened to actually see them as signs of my ability to cope with whatever comes my way and to know that actually resilience is a core part of my personality and so that's something I should treasure.
But even things like, you know, as a kid we used to love putting on performances and as I've gotten older, that's something - I'm not saying I want to get into amateur theatre, far from it. But basically like that idea of not being afraid to be seen, not being afraid to put myself out there, that is actually part of myself so, you know, remember that.
And that kind of links into the pay attention to your emotions and act on them. So, you know, we've talked a little bit on this episode about fear and its function and how we try and push things away and do stuff like that.
And one of the biggest things I know now is that my emotions are a sign to stop and pay attention, particularly if they are negative emotions.
I cannot believe how many years of misery I spent in my second marriage and that I did not take them as a sign that something was seriously wrong and that I didn't act on it. Like, I just, what did I think, it was just okay and normal to be miserable?
You know, looking back now, I'm just like, that is just so dumb. On a softer scale, even, you know, my previous job in education, I was not happy in that job, but I didn't act on that unhappiness for many, many years.
I was in education. I was a teacher for 20 years. And probably about 13 years in I started to get dissatisfied with what I was doing.
So that's a long time wasted, right, to not pay attention to what my feelings were telling me. So I think like, I'm, I'm, I'm really big on intuition and trusting your inner knowing and that's something that I've actually actively been working a lot on just this year even.
But it's actually about being quiet and listening to what my emotions are telling me and trusting that they are my signposts.
That something needs to be different or conversely, if they're happy emotions, this is good, do more. Or this is bad, do less.
And I do want to say on that, sometimes when we have got anxiety disorders or things like that, sometimes our emotions can be untrustworthy.
So I'm just putting it out there that this is not when we do have anxiety, where our emotions can get very overwhelming. So this is not kind of moving into that sphere. This is more like the general feeling of, you know, this doesn't feel good.
Sara: And like what we had talked about earlier, sometimes we decide, I mean, don't like with the smoke alarms, sometimes like it can just be a reaction to a stimulus, but like what you're talking about with your marriage, is sometimes we just get used to feeling bad, and we just accept that that's the way it is.
And I think sometimes it doesn't even cross our minds to change it.It's just sort of like, well, this is how it is. And, you know, so I hear you, but you know, if you had known how to process emotions, or if I had, you know, I look back to my marriage, I'm like, well, maybe I would have had a different marriage if I hadn't just been accepting how bad I felt.
Because at the end of it, I just felt so bad I wanted to get out of it. Because I did not have the tools at that point to understand what my feelings were trying to tell me.
And in the end, I was just like, my feelings were, this isn't good, I need to get away. And I don't know that that's the truth anymore.
You know, Not that I want to go back or anything. know, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying maybe if I'd had different tools or understood emotions and I think that's what, you know, I'm hearing from you is sometimes they are like, this is, I feel bad. I shouldn't be in this. And sometimes it's like, I feel bad. I'm trying to make it about someone else. Maybe I need to understand. Yeah. Yeah, we need to understand them.
I think we both agreed on that. Yeah. If we feel bad, that is worth exploring period.
Kate: And linking to that, like I'm just thinking about, for example, when I used to drink and like when my drinking was particularly bad was like post-cancer diagnosis and treatment.
And you know, that was a classic example of not wanting to feel my emotions and trying to hide them.So it kind of like links or trying to suppress them.
So you know, we've talked before about the different behaviors that people can get into that suppress emotions like overeating, shopping, you know, drinking is one of them.
But the thing is, rather than look at the emotions as something that needs to be suppressed or ignored or whatever, actually just say, Hey, thank you, sadness Okay. What's your message for me in this? Rather than pour me a glass of wine so I don't have to feel sad, you know, because I mean, most of the time, our emotions often know. They often know if something's good or bad.
Sara: Yes, I believe there's so much wisdom in our bodies and are unconscious and our emotions are one of the ways that that is communicated to us.
Kate: And my third one then kind of links into this. So I mean, years and years ago, I did have some therapy post cancer and I did have some before then.
And while I agree that that is helpful for particular situations, I do find that the way I've taken my approach to life with coaching and positive psychology has actually been the game changers. Like I've always been interested in personal development. I've always been fascinated by the human condition. I'm actually a social anthropologist. It was my degree and honors at university before I went into teaching.
But therapy to me is a little bit about the past and I actually don't believe that constant regurgitation of the past is helpful.
But when you talk about coaching, you're actually really focused on the future or the present because things that might be existing in the present like we've talked about before with limiting beliefs that might stop you.
So when I actually transitioned to not thinking myself as broken and needing to be fixed, but as someone that was perfectly okay how they were but could get better if I wanted to. And that part of that experience would be through knowing who I was, so kind of looking back to my first thing.
That's when things really shifted because I had this moment when I was doing my positive psychology diploma when I realized that I wasn't happy in my day-to-day life.
And throughout that work with that diploma as well, I also realized that the strengths that I had brought to my job were being so overused that it actually ceased to be positive things and they were actually becoming draining things.
All the knowledge about myself, how I operated in the world, those things have all just made so much of a difference.
To put it into context, my husband and I were talking about - he quit teaching as well and teachers have earned quite good salaries here in New Zealand.
I don't know what they earn in the States, but they've just got a deal where they're going to be at the top of the scale that we call it, it's over six figures. so we were like, my husband's was like... Should I go back to teaching? I was like, hells no.
Go back to the things that we just talked about. What do you know about yourself? What do you know about how you felt when you were doing that job?
All those things, pay attention to those things. Don't just make your decisions based on money or it looks good or it sounds good.
Actually make your decisions about what you do based on your knowledge of who you are and how you feel about things and you can't go wrong.
Sara: Yeah, I was thinking as you're saying that, I think when I got into life coaching and for me it was getting it first.
And so none of this is to say therapy isn't good or appropriate in some situations because it is. It's a lifesaver.
But there are a lot of things that for me when I think with the difference that forward focus that present.
And the best way. Like, I've, so sometimes you can talk about a problem, you can try to figure out the why, where did it come up, and that's good to know sometimes.
But what really has been helpful to me is to learn to feel those uncomfortable feelings. So we've talked about that actually quite a bit today.
And being able to feel disappointment, being able to feel jealousy and not make it mean that there's something wrong with us.
I think sometimes when you're not, I'm not, I'm going to just move it away from therapy little bit to, you know, like, if you're talking to your friend, you have something going on in your life and you're talking to your friend or your mom or someone and you're like, this is what's going wrong. I feel so terrible. He didn't call me. That's the reason I feel bad. And where coaching I think is so helpful is we quit looking to other people to create our feelings.
Like other people are wonderful. We want have good relationships with them and connect. We also have to learn that we are responsible in a lot of cases for how we feel.
And that's powerful because we're always going to have times when we feel bad. I know we talk about happiness and different things, but nobody gets 24-7 happiness.
It does not exist. But what I love about coaching is even though you're not going to be happy all the time, you're going to have some pain, you're going feel some painful feelings.
But I love the idea that these things I feel are going to serve me. And so an example of that is when I do something like starting my blog, which was scary back in the day, it's not scary anymore, but it was when I started.
And I did it. And that, you know, it pays my mortgage now. So this thing I said,the emotion was uncomfortable.
It felt scary. I felt embarrassed sometimes, but I did it anyway. And so that's what I think coaching does. It teaches you to manage your feelings, your thoughts, your feelings, so that you can act in a certain way that serves you, that gets you to the things you want and helps create a meaningful life.
So having that meaningful life does not mean, not having, know, oh, I'm in happy happy land, that doesn't exist. But we learn to use what we have in a way that, you know, does make our life better. We perceive it as better. And even when there's pain, we still find that meaning in it. I think that's the value. For me, has been the value of coaching. So love our little, you know, like, I know we're, we're both big fans. So just that little explanation, if you're not clear, like, if you're here listening to us and you're wondering what we do, that's part of it.
Kate: Totally. So that's my three pieces of advice.
Sara: Thank you. Thank you. All right. So to wrap up, we often look at the past with regret, you know, that's a lot of times we look back at things with regret or wish we could have done better. But what I'm going to suggest instead, look for the lessons from the past.
And you can use those right now in your midlife and beyond to make your life better. You have the wisdom. You've lived the life. And now you can provide that wisdom to yourself and use it for going forward. Because the truth is, we couldn't know what we didn't know back then.
But when you can appreciate the past for what it was and what you learned, you can move forward with confidence and appreciation for who you are now and who you are becoming.
And remember, one of these days you'll look back on this time and it can either be with regret or appreciation.
And my vote is with appreciation.
Kate: Love it. Thanks, Sara.
Sara: You're welcome. Kate: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you loved what you heard, you can leave a review so we know to keep more of it coming. You can also visit our website at midlifespotlight.com and learn a little bit more about us. We love connecting with you and can't wait to see you next week.