54. Feeling Stuck in Midlife? Here's What to Do | Jolene Atkinson-Kruse

Today, we're diving deep into the transformative landscape of midlife, especially for women questioning their purpose and direction. Joining us is the phenomenal Jolene Atkinson-Kruse, a seasoned mental health professional and coach, here to share her invaluable insights on navigating this pivotal life stage.

🎙️ We kick things off by shining a light on those all-too-familiar patterns and roles that can leave us feeling stuck and unfulfilled as we age. Jolene reminds us of the power in recognizing these patterns and actively seeking change to foster our personal growth and fulfillment.

🔍 But wait, there's more! Our conversation seamlessly transitions into the potent synergy of therapy and coaching as essential tools for midlife transformation. Jolene breaks down the distinctions between the two, emphasizing how they both play a vital role in providing the support and guidance we need to thrive during this phase of life.

Tune in for an episode packed with wisdom, encouragement, and actionable advice to help you embrace midlife with confidence and clarity! 🎧✨

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who's starting to ask herself big life questions like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work? Each week, we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school. And we're figuring out, finally, what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life.

There are a handful of quotes that I feel define midlife or the midlife experience. One of those is from Albert Einstein. He says, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” How often do we double down on our efforts, expecting that that will lead to a different outcome? We think to ourselves, if I just tried harder, or if I just spent more time on this, then I'll have what I want.

Or do you ever find yourself essentially living out the same patterns in, say, relationships, like always playing the caretaker role or the decision maker or the victim? And even though we're playing the same roles, we expect that this time the relationship will be different. For many of us, the way we show up and the roles we play in the lives of others, those are influenced by patterns and lessons we learn very early on in life. Over time, those patterns just become a part of who we are until we reach a point, oftentimes in midlife, when we realize that those patterns are no longer serving us. They're keeping us stuck or they're leading to Overwhelm or burnout. And it's at that point we start looking for something different. 

In today's episode of the School of Midlife podcast, I'm excited to introduce you to Jolene Atkinson-Kruse, a mental health professional and coach. We're talking about why more midlife women are now seeking both therapy and coaching, and how those modalities complement each other beautifully, giving women the tools and resources to make midlife their best life. Basically, it sounds like you should have both a therapist and a coach on speed dial. You'll love this thoughtful discussion about rewiring the thought patterns that might be holding you back from living your life full out. 

Jolene, I am so excited to have you here today to talk all things mental health and therapy for midlife women. Will you please introduce yourself to the audience and tell them a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00: Hi, Laurie. As you said, I'm Jolene Atkinson. I am a clinical social worker in private practice in Davenport, Iowa. And I'm also a certified life coach and owner of what I do is basically how we're told to take care of our stress and to keep our stress manageable, but we're often not told exactly how to do that. So what I do is I help my clients with common sense, practical ways to help them not be stuck and overwhelmed with the stress in their life.

SPEAKER_01: I love that because oftentimes we are told stress causes cortisol, which causes belly fat. You need to be less stressed, but most of the time that doesn't come with practical steps on how we can reduce that stuck feeling or that overwhelm. Like you, I am also a coach. I'm a certified high performance coach. You are a certified life coach. It feels like to me that coaching is like the aerobics of the 1990s, like everyone's doing it. For sure. And I guess to be fair and honest, I also coached, I taught aerobics classes in the 1990s. But it also seems like that there are an increasing number of midlife women who are exploring coaching services. And because you do both, In your opinion, what are the main differences between therapy and coaching?

SPEAKER_00: There are so many similarities for sure. I think that when I am working with a therapy client, the focus is both cover mental health, but the focus is more on a mental illness perspective in terms of anxiety, depression, serious mental illness, chronic mental illness, trauma. And coaching, while those things definitely arise, it tends to be at a little less intensity. I don't know if that's the right word to use necessarily, but oftentimes I refer to it as like the walking well, where people who are functioning at a pretty decent level, but who are troubled in the sense of, I wish I were happier. I wish I was more productive. I wish that I had more time to myself or I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Those would be fabulous coaching clients or appropriate for coaching.

SPEAKER_01: It seems to me that I don't, I agree with everything you just said. A lot of times therapy seems more backwards looking and coaching is more forward, future, future looking. Is that right or not? 

SPEAKER_00: I often disagree with that because I think that I'm very forward focused in my therapy practice. We talk about goal setting. We talk about mindfulness and in the moment practice, and we're looking towards the future. With goals, that's generally my practice and looking back at how pattern behaviors developed. And so I do both. And I think it's very similar in my coaching practice. It's goal setting, looking at what's going on in your functioning today, or I use the word functioning from like a clinical perspective. So forgive my language there, but I think how we're working within our day in the coaching practice is looking at. What's going on in our day and what do we want to have different? So that is both a very future focused in that sense.

SPEAKER_01: Maybe let's level set here for a minute. When you talk about functioning in a clinical setting, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00: That means how are you doing day to day in terms of your basic needs? Are you sleeping? Are you eating? getting out of bed? Are you going to work? Are you doing laundry? Are you showering? Are you able to take care of your basic needs and responsibilities? I would say that's like the level of functioning where if you're below your ability to do those things, therapy is definitely in order. Where with coaching, if you're not functioning at that basic level, therapy is probably the place to start. So one of the ways that I look at the distinction is that if I were a runner, and I injure myself, I will go to the doctor and have an evaluation done. And I might be referred to physical therapy to help me if I don't have a broken bone or something like that. I would go to physical therapy to help rebuild my basic functioning. Once I'm back to that baseline, then I might be referred to a coach to help me excel in my skills and improve my ability to run. my endurance, etc. So that's a comparison I like to use. I think of physical therapy as in relation to mental health counseling or therapy as helping people get back up to that baseline. And then the coaching tools that I use are helping people expand beyond that to excel.

SPEAKER_01: I love me a good metaphor, and I've never heard it described in that way, but it makes abundantly good sense. And that distinction and how you described it, I thank you for that. So I guess then, a follow-on question there is, do you think women should have both a therapist and a coach?

SPEAKER_00: I don't know that it's necessary. I think they work great in tandem. I think that if you're not functioning at a level where you're eating well or, and I'm not talking about like diet and nutrition, I'm talking about, are you getting enough to sustain your health physically? If you're not meeting those basic functions, I really think the attention focus would best be, your needs would best be met in a therapeutic setting. I do think that coaching can very much complement certain types of therapy. If someone is doing, oh, for example, more psychodynamic kind of work that is backwards focusing on the past, I think a life coach can be a very strong asset to help you concentrate on. moving into the future and looking at goals and supporting you in goal setting. So you can work in tandem, but I don't think that it's necessary to have both.

SPEAKER_01: So in order to achieve these goals that the women that you work with want to achieve, that they're looking toward the future, they've got an idea of what they want to do. And that's exactly in line with what we do at the School of Midlife. We're looking for ways to make midlife our best life. It seems to me that oftentimes women find themselves in these patterns. They, maybe they over schedule themselves so that they can just keep moving on to the next thing. So they can say, avoid a tough conversation or they, they busy up themselves. And if it gets to be Sunday and they start looking at their to-do list and they're so overwhelmed that they're just in this. stuck, like all I want to do a little bit of overwhelm. All I want to do is sit on the couch and scroll through social media. So. Because we have those patterns, how can a coach help move past those patterns or take into account what the patterns are, what they have been to help tool them to help the women move forward in the way in which they want to move forward?

SPEAKER_00: Because I have this balance of looking back and looking forward, I think that recognizing that it's valuable to be aware of how those patterns became set and to look at from a self-discovery. point of view in recognizing that if I'm someone who has habits of perfectionism, for example, being able to explore where did that start? Why is it that perfectionistic thinking and behaviors came into play? And so looking back at what started that, for example, is maybe not the right way to put that, but where those patterns develop. Um, and then looking at, okay, where do you want that to be? What do you want that to look like? How is that pattern causing problems for you today? And how would you like to make a shift in that? So the awareness from past can be really helpful and actually very necessary in helping us move forward to recognize making a change and accomplishing our goals.

SPEAKER_01: understanding that I don't have the therapeutic background that you do. And I will admit that most of my, we'll call it psychological training because I don't know how else to say it, comes from reading books and listening to podcasts. But what you're talking to me, what you're talking about seems to triggers this idea of inner child work or exploring internal family systems, which seem to come up in midlife a lot. Can you explain to those of us, to the listeners who may not be familiar with them, but what these approaches involve and why they could be particularly relevant to this stage in our life?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack in that question. I think that, first of all, there is really good information that you can get from psychological information from podcasts and reading. So I won't minimize that for sure. It can be really valuable. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01: I'm going to put that on my resume. I feel like I should have some more letters on for my name then.

SPEAKER_00: I think it's very valuable. And so I don't want to minimize what we can learn from those resources. What is inter-child work and family systems theory? Basically, it's an approach of looking at how our childhood experiences and how we bring those into adulthood. Interchild work addresses looking at unmet needs that we may have had. It can be from traumas as one a common way to refer to as there's trauma with a big T that we often would think about in terms of experiencing abuse or a traumatic death of a loved one or experiencing PTSD and there or being a vet and experiencing combat or challenges from serving to what we might say is a little t where it could be the breakup from our first dating relationship and how that impacted us. So it can be many life experiences and it doesn't necessarily have to be a huge traumatic event. It can be simply just unmet needs. Working parents who by family circumstances, maybe you as a 10 or 11 year old had to come home and take care of yourself or be in charge of siblings that you Because your parents were working or parents who had their own mental health challenges and weren't available to you. So I may be going off line of what you were asking, but those are some of the things that really can regenerate coping mechanisms from our childhood that are derived from a child's brain. So if I had to over-function in my home and I went to school when I over-functioned, meaning I performed and performed, and I got positive feedback from that, no one would necessarily label that as traumatic, but I would certainly develop patterns of behaving and patterns of interacting and seeking affirmation through performance that may show up in midlife having over-functioned in relationships or over-functioned at work or extending ourselves into other people's stuff, so to speak. That inner child work is looking at how are those childhood experiences playing out in pattern behavior as adults.

SPEAKER_01: I think I resemble everything you just talked about with how over-performing, over-functioning adults, how that pattern started. If you learn early on in your own family that in order to get praise or to be seen, or it's not to be loved, but that you're more noticed when you get the A or you score the goal on the soccer team than It's the… Internally, there's this drive to always be looking for the next accolade, the next achievement. Who's gonna clap for me? So, that makes perfect sense to me, what you're talking about. And then I can see how what I learned young has impacted how I show up. in midlife and at every stage between that. So maybe staying there or moving on, depending on how you want to answer this question, but in your experience, what are some of the most common reasons that women seek out your help in midlife?

SPEAKER_00: The first thing that comes to my mind and is oftentimes it's a point either where people in midlife have either achieved or are well on their way to achieving career goals. And they look around and say, now what? I thought this was going to be fulfilling and it's not so much. Or have been busy with career, busy with family and. Perhaps those things have slowed down a little bit. And when I say slow down, less divided, your attention is less divided of climbing that ladder or having young children where you have to be responsible for them or other family responsibilities. And maybe those things in midlife have started to slow down in, and now women have time to take a look at. Gosh, this is my time in life and what do I really want and feel lost because their attention was in so many other places. Those are probably the most common reasons I see in terms of just that stage of life.

SPEAKER_01: I think the lack of fulfillment is so interesting and it's almost universal with the women that I talk with, because when you talked about being busy, you talked about taking care of kids and the things for so many years. And there's almost this expectation that once you get to midlife, if you do all the things that you think you've been told to do, that you're going to get to midlife and all of the sudden you're going to have this fulfilling life or you're going to be abundantly happy and every day is going to be this great day. And I feel like a lot of times women get to midlife and It's not that they don't have a great life, it's just that it feels differently than they expected it to.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I also too think people are just burnt out. If they haven't burnt out in their thirties and forties, for sure by the time you're in your fifties is what the heck is the point of this? I'm so tired and I, it's ridiculous that work is getting all of my attention or it's ridiculous that I don't get any time with my girlfriends or any time alone. It's hard to even imagine. And then what I do with time alone, if I even got any of it.

SPEAKER_01: So how do you typically work with women to help them move past that overwhelm and tiredness and burnout?

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SPEAKER_00: I'd look at what the source is first and foremost and help them identify what that source might be. Cause it's different for every individual. I have some women who are invested in what's going on with their children's lives that they struggle to let go of that or move past that and are entangled in their relationships with their kids. So in beginning there, I would look at how to untangle that and how to prioritize time for themselves and what that might look like. And even it down to the very basic things of, oh, so you text your kid five times a day. How about we take that down to once? And then work to decide what, what level of communication might be most helpful. That's very microscopic as an example, but helping people explore what they might be interested in. I don't think you would be surprised, Laurie, at how many people say, I don't know what I want. and haven't even paused to think about it. They just know they don't feel quote unquote, or this is what I've been working for kind of question. And it's not what I thought it would be. So helping them just pause enough to look at and be curious about what it is they would have fun doing or what would feel fulfilling to them or what would be interesting beyond having to run around everywhere to this, that, and the other thing.

SPEAKER_01: You were right. I am not at all surprised that they don't know what they want, because like you, when I work with midlife women, that that is really a through line, which is I've done everything that I thought I was supposed to do. I went to school. I got a degree. I got a job that paid well. And then I got married and I had some kids and I raised them up and. Now, so I have everything I always thought I ever wanted. Why do I still feel like something's missing? And when you press them on it. they don't know what they think is missing. It's just, again, they thought that they would feel differently when they got to this stage. And so when I work with coaching clients, a lot of it is focused on what do you want? Not what you've been conditioned to want, not what your parents taught you to want, not what society tells you to want, not what your neighbors down the street in this kind of keeping up with the Joneses situation. But what is it you actually want? And most of the time, I don't know if you've experienced this, but it's like this blank stare.

SPEAKER_00: Don't you find that conditioning is so difficult to break through? The conditioning of what it means to be a female or what it means to be a daughter or a sibling, or as you were saying, whether it's keeping up with the neighbors or what those images look like. The curated Instagram that we see, what is that even about? And whose ideal is it we're trying to fulfill? To set that all aside is so mind-boggling. for some people and myself included at times to be really honest, like what is it that I want to look forward to? And going back to your question about like, how do I begin to help people? I'm a very much emphasize emotional wellness and looking at how your capacity to feel the full range of emotion. So that's where my wheelhouse lies. So I'm asking like, what do you want to feel? And then what do you want to think in order to feel that? And what do you think you'd do if you were feeling that? To just help break down a little more detail about what do you want? That's where I focus because that's where my, that's where my skills lie. And I get really passionate about talking about feelings. It sounds so basic, but so many people do not know how. to identify their emotions and to communicate their feelings and to regulate their emotions. So I look at how do you want to feel at this point in your life? How do you want to handle anger? How do you want to handle excitement? What fills you up? What is it that brings you joy?

SPEAKER_01: I think that approach is brilliant because oftentimes when we start questioning what do we want, we start thinking about things that we can buy or feel or touch that we can see and everyone around us can see. The new car, the new house, a vacation home, a great new handbag, something along those lines. But this whole idea of what do you want to feel? What do you want to experience? How do you want to show up and what are those feelings? What do they mean to you? That to me feels like a really impressive level that most women haven't explored.

SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can still hear me, Laurie, but I have you.

SPEAKER_01: So when we talk about midlife and oftentimes women that want different experiences or they want to feel something a little different, they are characterized as having a midlife crisis. And we don't agree with that at the School of Midlife. Midlife, there's so many transitions, right? You've got career transitions. You've got the family transitions with the kids leaving the house. Right now, I'm dealing with family transitions with my in-laws who are elderly and actually moving into memory care. So there's lots of family dynamics, but then there's physical changes that we're going through in our body as we go through perimenopause and into menopause. And then there's these relationship transitions because a lot of us have been married a long time. How can therapy and or coaching and maybe both together, how can those services help women navigate these transitions?

SPEAKER_00: I am really biased in that I believe in the benefit of support and the value of having someone outside of my own brain helping me to see what I can't see. So I think that's probably one of the biggest benefits is support from another person. Not necessarily out of external validation, looking outside yourself for validation, but just to have somebody who can listen to you in an unbiased way and a nonjudgmental way to help you understand yourself, to help raise your awareness, to help point out patterns. that you might not be seeing, something you might be blind to, and it may, I guess I think that's the beginning benefit.

SPEAKER_01: Simply put, I agree. I think a lot of it's nice to have a safe space to just be able to talk about things. I know for me, I'm a verbal processor, like I want to listen to myself saying it out loud. And the more I can talk about it with someone who isn't, say, my girlfriends when we're out having wine or it's not a family member or it's somebody that's enough removed that I feel comfortable going a little deeper than I might with somebody who I'm going to see every day or at my own home. But just being able to talk things out in a way that there's some space to work through the things. I think a lot of people believe that you go to a coach and they'll give you all the answers, but that's not what it's about. It's about… Hold me accountable. Yeah, but it's about I'm going to a coach because that person is going to help me figure, like, I have to come up with the answers myself. They're just going to provide this space and this box for They've got tools. They're bringing their toolbox. We're going to figure this out. But you don't go to coaching to have somebody tell you what to do. Most of us have been doing that most of our lives. So it's time to actually figure out what's important to us.

SPEAKER_00: When somebody asks me, what do you do? And there's a lot of answers that we could provide. And I typically don't give this answer. But the truth of what I do is I ask good questions and I listen intently. And I think that's so valuable to have that opportunity to have somebody really listen to you and to inquire as opposed to tell you what you should do.

SPEAKER_01: For successful, high achieving women, is there a stigma around seeking support? And what I'm getting at there is a lot of women, they grew up Most of the women that are in school and midlife now, they're Gen Xers. So they were the first latchkey kids. They, which I hate that label, but we all know what it is. And we've really, we rely on ourselves. We push away help. Is there a stigma to seeking support?

SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, I still think there's a pretty strong stigma. I think in my 30 plus year career, This point in time, I think we are talking about mental health more than we have ever done. And so I think that's a fabulous, fabulous thing. So my hope is that by talking about mental health, by considering the benefit of mental health, by trying to take away shame about asking for help, it will diminish that stigma. Unfortunately, I think it's still there. I think people are talking about it more for sure. And to have people so openly talk about, I have a therapist, I have a life coach, is an amazing thing. But I think internally, we are still, especially Gen Xers, are still at that point of where independence is so valued that it's hard to seek out help and think that's okay. So whether culturally there's a stigma, this I think is one of those things that's ingrained in our generation, that you still pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you move on, girl. Keep going. Dig in. So I don't think that's gone yet, but I think, and my hope is that more and more though, openness to talk about it. When I talk to a 20 something or even as in my therapy practice, when I work with teenagers, they're, they like have this pride about, yeah, I go to a therapist. Where it's awesome. It's awesome. I can't wait for that. I can't wait for what they are going to do in my future. Having grown up in a generation where it is okay to seek out help. I think 20 somethings are, I go to my personal trainer and she says, Oh yeah, I'm a therapist or I go to a therapist. When I, of course that chit chat about what do you do? When I say what I do. Oh, I love my therapist. Or we'll have conversations, she'll say, Oh my gosh, my therapist told me this week. It's just like I went to the grocery store and bought some eggs and you know what? I got some cottage cheese too. Just that basic of a conversation. So yeah, this is what I told my therapist. I don't think that happens quite as much with 40 year olds and 50 year old or 60 year olds. I think that's a whole different level of. acceptance in those younger ages. That's a really long answer to talk about how passionate and hopeful I am about that changing and how unfortunately I still think today is harder for many people.

SPEAKER_01: What's interesting, I absolutely agree that the younger generations are much more open to talking about what's going on. They are also, I don't think they're going to have this midlife transition or this midlife awakening because so many of them are, they're aware of this idea that why would I spend all my time Pouring into other people if they're not going to pour into me, why would I do? Why? It's like they're not even seeking work life balance because it would never even occur to them that they would they would have to somehow balance that out. If they don't like doing something, they do something else and they don't care how they're judged. I. Like you, I'm hopeful that some of these conversations and some of those stigmas, they're going to dissipate as the people that are the women that are coming up behind us. They are just more open to having these conversations.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't think there'll be less dressed necessarily, because I think there's always going to be expectations that are placed on women. But I do think that taking care of themselves so that the impact of the stress is less significant, hopefully, because seeking out help and support

SPEAKER_01: I'm also happy that, maybe relieved is a better word, that social media wasn't a thing when we were young. There's so much pressure that comes from social media. How are you finding that is impacting the women that you work with?

SPEAKER_00: The first thing that comes to my mind, and this is not necessarily a positive thing, is that I think Kids are so used to seeing their parents with the phone in their hand, and that disconnects from parenting. So that's the downside in terms of the accessibility. Social media I think is, it's going to be hard to not have that comparison. My generation had that comparison. It just was not via something I held in my hand and had with me 24-7. So I, I'm not sure I'm answering your question there, Laurie, but I think that's the downside of it, that having access to that all the time and the comparison all the time. But I also think it on the other side of that is the availability of support. And I certainly hear people taking a break from social media or not even being on social media. That's definitely not in the teenager group, some 20 year olds. And which surprises me because I think of that generation as very much connected through their phones and social media communication. But I'm hopeful that people will have a good balance there. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, Laurie, I don't know if I answered your question there.

SPEAKER_01: No, it's I there was no I didn't have an idea of where we were going with it. It was just a lot of times I just throw these out. Sorry. But we've talked we talked about the younger generation raising the younger generation. which everyone is very aware of. You have kids and you keep them alive until it's time for them to go off and be adults. And hopefully they stay alive after that. But anyway, so we've got that, which is traditional. And then, like I mentioned, I know I'm not the only one caring for aging parents. So we're in this most midlife women. A lot of them find themselves in this sandwich generation, right? We've got our we're raising kids on one end. We're raising parents on the other. How can coaching or counseling or however we want to define it, how can those modalities provide support for women who find themselves in this sandwich position or this very demanding season of life?

SPEAKER_00: It is a very demanding season of life. And I think the biggest way that it can help is by reminding women and teaching women how to prioritize taking care of themselves as opposed to pouring it all into your children, pouring it all into caring for aging parents. And when I talk about this prioritizing, I oftentimes get this blank stare. You've got to be kidding me. I have to figure out how to do one more thing and that's prioritizing me. And recognizing that doesn't mean you're going to put yourself first in all situations. And I think coaching can help a person figure out that just right balance. You can't give something that you don't have. Whether that's, how can you love someone else if you're not loving yourself? How can you care for someone else if you're not caring for yourself? And it won't be a 50-50 thing, but won't even probably be 25-75. But having the support of someone reminding you, take a 20-minute walk, go outside, get some sleep. Did you remember to pee this afternoon? Let's just sit and breathe for a little bit to calm your nervous system down. Having that support can be so valuable. And even when the 45 to 50 minutes that a person might take in a week. to touch base with their support system, a coach or counselor. That can be sometimes the only calm and settled time other than when they're asleep to be able to talk about what's going on and get that kind of support and encouragement.

SPEAKER_01: Isn't that so interesting that ummm, is it 268 hours in a week? Does that sound right? I don't know. Quite a few hours in a week. In fact, I'm going to get my calculator out 24 times 168 hours in a week. And it can be difficult to find one hour to devote to yourself to go meet with your coach. And it's vitally important. We talk about having this support system. And for some reason, we think everyone else needs support. Right. But we don't necessarily want to we see it as indulgent or, oh, my gosh, there's so much else going on. How could I possibly take that amount of time for myself? And it's. That's when you almost need it the most, right? When you are looking at your life and thinking, there's no way I have an hour to devote to myself. And I think you would agree that one hour is not even enough. You should be focused more on yourself for more than just an hour a week. If you get to the point where it's just stress and you're running from one thing to the next and you can't even understand where you can find one hour, then that is probably an indicator that you are in desperate need of some support.

SPEAKER_00: Yes. I wrote in a recent blog that being self-care is not being selfish. And I can scream that from the rooftops and I will still have some people like, yeah, but no, that is, it is as important as going to your dentist. It's as important as getting a checkup with your doctor, getting a mammogram, going to those tests. Taking care of yourself, taking care of your mental and your emotional well-being is equally as important as taking care of your physical well-being. And I know, you know, that those things get neglected. When we are stretched between children and parents, or just, you know, even if our children have launched just in caregiving for our parents, I know that we get stretched with that. But we are better able to care for other people when we do care for ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: What role can mindfulness and self-compassion and this other therapeutic modalities, we'll call them, what roles can they play in helping midlife women live their best life?

SPEAKER_00: I think how we talk to ourself is huge. And a practice that I often encourage my clients to do is to consider just even this basic way of communicating with yourself. To follow a rule of, and a practice I should say, of talking to yourself in the same way that you would talk to your friend. To think about that internal dialogue that we might have and just pause and ask, would I talk to my friend that way? Most times that answer would be no. And to develop the practice of kindness towards ourselves, like how would I say this to my good friend? And how would that sound if I were to say, Jolene, hold on, you're doing the best you can. just even that basic level of self-compassion and understanding. One of, one of my coaching mentors has this practice of when she notices that she's riled up, she'll pause and put her hand on her chest and say, what's the matter, love? I loved that. I know. I just, I've adopted that myself. Like what's wrong? I don't call myself that name, but that that's beautiful. What's the matter, love? And I do practice like putting my hands on my chest and just like that comforting, what's up? What's going on? You're okay. This is all right. And so having that just pause and becoming your own support system and using kindness and self-compassion as a tool to help yourself. We don't think of those as tools. I do. I think of it as a way to. to develop a practice of caring for yourself. Just pause and think about what is going on. How am I talking to myself? Am I a cheerleader or am I a critic? And really evaluating how am I helping myself or hurting myself here?

SPEAKER_01: Most of us would never talk to someone, not even a friend, but like somebody that we didn't even really know. We wouldn't talk to them in the same way that we talk about ourselves to ourselves. I love this idea of when you're recognizing it to actually do a physical gesture, putting your hand on your heart or whatever works for you. But this kind of pattern interrupt where all of a sudden you become aware of it. And then you flip the script on how you're you try again and you're more compassionate to yourself. And that is just a beautiful pattern. I love that habit. For women who are just either beginning therapy or coaching in midlife, what advice would you give them to get the most out of their experience?

SPEAKER_00: I oftentimes will recommend to people to journal and to use that, use writing as a way to explore what are you thinking? What are you feeling? What do you want? I get a lot of resistance from my clients on that at first, and then I talk about the wide range use of journaling. And really it's the practice of pausing first and foremost to designate some time just to really observe what's going on in your head. You can journal in a lot of different ways. It can be doodling. It can, you can pick up, don't go just with an A box of crayons, get 64 and just put color to paper and you don't have to use words. You don't have to. It can be abstract. It can be something specific that you draw. That's journaling. It can be writing lyrics to a song or poetry. I always tell people, don't let there be any kind of a barrier between you and a piece of paper. It doesn't have to be beautiful. It just has to be you. So it might be a thought download of, here's all the things on my mind today. Or it might be, if you identify as feeling really anxious or an emotion of anger, you know, to journal, this is, I'm angry because, and fill the page. And then let that be your source of, well, what do I want to explore further with my coach? It can be a page of questions. What does this mean? Why do I do that? Where's this coming from? And just all the questions that boil up in your head. So journaling, I think, can be so valuable. I don't ever assign it to somebody. I suggest it and offer, please, this is not something to add to your to-do list. But I find that as a way of helping people begin the practice of self-exploration, writing can be a valuable tool to help do that. So that's one suggestion I would make for people getting started is to help increase their self-awareness. The other part of it is that you don't have to be perfect when you are preparing to talk with a coach. Let the coach be your guide. To have somebody who is interested in what's going on with you, don't ask questions. The coach will help explore what's going on or what's needed at that point. And so a lot of people are like, I'm not sure what I'm going to talk about today and 45 minutes later. It's been a really valuable conversation. So to not think you have to have it all figured out and what you're going to talk about, the coach will guide you.

SPEAKER_01: I think that is such an important point that you just made because a lot of women feel like they have to come with a big agenda on what they want to accomplish. And more often than not, We're not going to get through the whole agenda. You might want to do something. You say you want to write a book in 90 days and you just feel like you sit down in front of a computer and you never have the words are just not coming out. And so you talk to a coach about that and you have this idea that in 90 days I'm going to write a book and you might. But more likely than not, the coach is going to help you. recognize the patterns on why is it you set these goals that are big goals, which I'm a big fan of big goals. But then you beat yourself up for you sit down in front of the computer and you can't think of anything. And now you're and now that's been two days in a row and now you're behind. And how are you ever going to make this up? It's cute to come with an agenda or with what you think you're going to talk about. But I think you have to almost surrender to the process and know that you're going to get out of a coaching session exactly what it is that you need. I think maybe to piggyback on that, it's important to have a good relationship with your coach because coaches have different kinds of styles and you might mesh with one Another one you might feel like is being too pushy or not pushy enough, but I think it's important to talk to a couple of different coaches when you're looking for a coach.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree totally. I think that I tell people that, gosh, would you walk onto a car lot and say, oh, I just want this red one and I'm going to take it because red's my favorite color. That would really be ridiculous. You test drive a car, right? You take it out. You do research. I don't know. I do. You do research ahead of time and you think about what are the features that you want? What are you looking for? What would be a deal breaker? And then you go and you drive it and you try some different things and it, and you might find the car you want, but the salesperson sucks. And so I was like, nope, done. And you go someplace else. So when you're looking for a coach, I think that's valuable too. I tell people that in my therapy practice, the first session, what we're going to do today is talk about what brings you in and whether or not I'm. somebody you can become comfortable talking with. You think I can be helpful to you. That's like basic beginning for me. So I think it's so valuable for people to feel free enough to approach accounts, a coaching session with, let me explore whether this is going to be right for me. Sometimes you don't know that right off the bat. Sometimes it takes a few visits, a few conversation and other times it's, oh yeah, you're my person.

SPEAKER_01: The fact that you combine two different, not different, two related, you've got your coaching, you've got your therapy. I would assume that there are plenty of our listeners who like that combination. And so for our listeners who are interested in learning more about how they could work with you, How can they find you?

SPEAKER_00: Thanks for asking. And I would just before I answer that question. Yes. One of the reasons that I sought certification for life coaching was because as a licensed clinician, I can only practice in states. I mean, I'm located in Iowa and I'm licensed in Iowa and Illinois, where I live is right on the Mississippi River bordering Iowa and Illinois. So I'm licensed in those two states. And I learned thank you pandemic about doing telehealth or thank you pandemic to find those positive things out of.

SPEAKER_01: I'm a huge pandemic fan. That was a big breakthrough year for me. So I think that there were a lot of gifts if we want to take a step back and actually look for the gifts.

SPEAKER_00: Sorry to interrupt. No, that's okay. So that was one of, one of the things that I found during the pandemic was, oh gosh, you can still connect with people via telehealth. Um, and insurance companies started to pay for it at the same as somebody sitting in my office. But part of the reason that I created my life coaching business was to help serve more people. I could expand and serve people beyond the boundaries of the state that they lived in. And so I, I don't think that there's a whole lot of difference. I'm the same person, no matter what chair I'm sitting in. And so I think it's been really valuable to have the life coaching business as another tool or another resource that I can offer people no matter where you're sitting. So that's the background of how, why I expanded into that. But thank you for sharing that. I can, if you happen to live in Iowa or Illinois, I can be contacted at my office at Psychology Health Brew. But if you're not, or the other piece of it is that in terms of accessing insurance, that's a fabulous benefit, but not everyone is functioning at a level where their health insurance will pay for therapy and life coaching, that's not an issue. I can be reached at coaching.com. You can email me, Jolene, at LifeWell Coaching. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And so those are other ways that people can contact me. I'd love to communicate with anyone who's interested.

SPEAKER_01: Perfect. And we will drop clickable links to all of those places in the show notes so that if you're looking for Jolene, you can find her. We end every episode with the same two questions at the School of Midlife podcast. So are you ready? Yeah, I don't know what they are, so I'm very curious. Okay, good. Even better. So question number one, if you could go back to your 30-year-old self, knowing exactly what you know now and having learned all of the life lessons you've learned up to this point and having all the life experiences that you have, What advice would you give your 30-year-old self?

SPEAKER_00: Oh, that is an easy question. I would tell my 30-year-old self, slow down, pause, and calm yourself, sister. So I think just working at the pace that I did in my thirties and my kid, I got married in my thirties. I had two children in my thirties. And so they were youngsters and boy, oh boy, was that busy in addition to working full time. And as we all, we're all busy, right? I think that low down appreciate in this moment. And I tried really hard to do that, but I would reinforce that over and over again.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that. Question number two. What have you loved most about being a midlife woman? 

SPEAKER_00: Wow.I honestly love the increased sense of independence that I have. That might sound weird because I've been independent as an adult, but I am primarily responsible to myself. And that's pretty darn cool. I still have a lot of responsibilities. I don't, I'm not done parenting. And like you, I have aging parents and I still have responsibilities as a wife and a sister and a mother. But I think in midlife, I have been able to come into an understanding more than ever that I get to decide things. and what other people expect of me still is factored in, for sure. But I'm going to decide. I'm going to decide what I want to do.

SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful. Thank you so much for being here. I have so enjoyed this conversation. I know our listeners will as well.

SPEAKER_00: Thank you. It's been really fun, Laurie. I appreciate you inviting me.

SPEAKER_01: Do you ever wish you had a community of midlife women you could go talk to about those big life questions that seem to pop up in midlife? Like, what do I want? What's my legacy? What's next for me? A community of women to have candid conversations with about all the things that come at us in midlife that no one else seems to be talking about. Changes in our bodies related to menopause, sure, but also changes in our relationships and family life and careers. Well, great news. The School of Midlife has launched a book club called Your Next Chapter. Each month, we'll be reading and discussing books that relate to the unique experiences of midlife women. It's absolutely free to join, and we'd love to have you meet up with us and add your voice to these important discussions. And this isn't like other book clubs, because if you didn't have time to finish the book, but you're still interested in the conversation, absolutely join us anyway, because you'll still get so much out of the conversation. The book club is free to join, but you'll need to sign up. Click the sign up link in the show notes and you'll automatically receive your invitation to join us. Get signed up, grab this month's book, and start reading. And we'll look forward to seeing you at the next book club discussion, where together, we're helping each other make midlife our best life.