It's not just me, my friend, many women in midlife and beyond have a certain four-letter ‘F’ word on their mind. Want to know what it is? Keep listening.
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I'm Karli Newman and you're listening to FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®️ - a podcast for women in midlife and beyond who want to feel connected, hopeful, confident, and more satisfied with life than ever before.
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The 'F' word I hear over and over again as I chat with women in midlife and beyond?
It's fear! Not that other 'F' word you might've been thinking about.
It's not always identified as such, but something about this time of life brings fear closer to the surface for many women. Often it's the emotion underneath our trepidation toward change.
Change that is associated with menopause, empty-nesting, career transitions, and relationships. I see this surfacing of fear as a good thing. Hear me out, my friend. This episode, and the next three, are focused on helping you shift how you think about and deal with your fears.
Coming up are four ways to help you notice your fear. It's time to stop ignoring it.
Grab your journal, notebook, or favorite app, and take some notes. If you're not in a note-taking space, listen to the end so you know what to expect. You know me, I'll drop the time marker in the transcript and show notes, so it's easy to get back here when you're in a better place.
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As women in midlife and beyond, we have years of experience ignoring, hiding, and pushing down our fears. I don't mean our phobias or biological fears of survival. You know what I mean because every single one of us has been doing it for decades. I'm talking about the fears that keep us from speaking up, joining in, standing out. The fears that hold us back and keep us small. The fears that prevent us from fully expanding into who we truly are. We've been doing it for so long that we don't even recognize we're doing it.
So let's go through four ways you can recognize your fear for what it is without judging it. This is a guilt and shame-free zone, my friend.
And that is a perfect segue to mindfulness. Being present in the here and now without judgment of your thoughts and feelings is what mindfulness is all about.
I encourage you to find moments of mindfulness every day. Use them to allow your system to slow down and recognize your feelings. And you don't need hours to be mindful, my friend. Minutes of mindfulness can work wonders.
Spend two minutes breathing deeply while focusing on your slowing heart rate. Perhaps you take a walk while you go through each of your senses to get fully present. Or maybe you sit quietly with your eyes closed and tune into your emotions and how they sit in your body. Mindfulness helps you get comfortable with the release of self-judgment and makes it easier to identify your emotions.
Journaling about your feelings goes hand-in-hand with mindfulness. There's something about the brain to pen, to paper connection.
A joint practice of mindfulness and journaling can be enlightening when recognizing your fear. Journaling allows you to explore and document your feelings. Over time, you can see patterns and themes so you know where and when fear appears in your life.
Another way to notice your fear is to embrace vulnerability. Acknowledge and accept your emotions of fear rather than hiding or suppressing them. Vulnerability is something that many of us learned to restrict for a multitude of reasons, so this might be a challenge for you. If that's the case, start small. Start being vulnerable with yourself. Through mindfulness and journaling about your feelings, you may already be opening up to vulnerability without even realizing it. Vulnerability is a strength, my friend. Not a weakness.
The last way to notice your fear that I want to mention today is to do a body scan. I think this is a really important technique because it's so easy to be unaware of how our emotions live in our body.
The point of a body scan is to recognize the physiological signs of your feelings. Focus your attention on different parts of your body and notice things like muscle tension, heart rate, and how you are breathing. What are the physical sensations that go along with your feelings?
I've heard people say it's a tightening in the chest or a stomach ache comes on. What is it for you?
Something. I like to say to myself when I'm doing a body scan is, 'isn't it interesting that...', and finish that little sentence for myself. This helps me notice without judgment and see it for what it is. Here's an example. I might say to myself, ' Isn't it interesting that my breathing is quick and shallow right now.' It takes the judgment out of it. It takes the criticism out of it, if you will. And it helps you notice when you're feeling it.
When you become aware of the signs your body gives you when you feel fear, you can work with your fear - which happens to be the topic of next week's episode.
Okay, my friend. I encourage you to get familiar with your fear over the next week. No need to go any further yet. Use mindfulness and body scans to notice how fear feels in your body and mind. Journal about your feelings to recognize when and where fear shows up. And be vulnerable to allow your fear to show itself without judgment or critical self-talk.
Midlife and beyond is a time to stop holding your fear in a place where it is unrecognizable and start getting to know and understand it.
If you want to chat with me about your fears or ask for my advice or opinion on something else, schedule a one-hour spot during my wellness hours. I set aside time on Wednesdays and Thursdays to help you with your wellness questions, challenges, and concerns.
Head to my website, flipsideofmidlife.com, to learn more and to schedule a time that works for you. Next week, I'll be right back here with ways to work with your fear. Don't miss it, my friend. It can help you create your best life.
So, what are your thoughts about today's episode? I'd love to hear from you, my friend. Email me at karli@flipsideofmidlife.com to share what resonates with you most in this or any of my episodes.
Thanks for listening to FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®️. Will you help other women in midlife and beyond find this podcast? Tell your friends or take a moment to follow, subscribe, rate, or write a review. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
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