Welcome to my new podcast The Happy Middle. I'm Suzy Darke and this podcast is for women navigating midlife with its ups, downs, and 'messy middles'.

This first episode is mostly about me, my life, and my midlife journey, from motherhood to menopause, to finding my creative voice and becoming a coach.

So curl up, grab a cuppa and dive in, I'm so glad you're here.

Episode highlights:

02:01 Meet the Host

04:48 Navigating the Challenges of Midlife

06:05 Overcoming PMDD and Embracing Menopause

07:04 Finding Creativity and Purpose in Midlife

08:26 The Happy Middle: A Hopeful Resolution

09:12 Looking Forward: What's Next for The Happy Middle Podcast

Thanks for listening, please come and say hello over on Instagram and do check out my work online.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Speaker: 00:00:10

Hello and welcome to The Happy Middle, a

podcast for women navigating the sometimes

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tricky in betweenness of midlife.

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I'm Suzy Darke, a coach, a writer,

and a mother in my late forties, so

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deep in this middle bit with you.

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This podcast is all about normalising

the trickier bits of midlife, celebrating

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the good stuff, and asking how we can

turn the messy middle into a happier one.

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Expect honest conversations, interviews

with some brilliant humans, and stories

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that I hope will help you feel more

supported, reassured, and hopeful.

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So settle down, get comfy,

and we'll get started.

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Hello and welcome to episode

one of The Happy Middle, the

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podcast for women navigating the

tricky in betweenness of life.

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I'm Susie Dart, and I'm so delighted

to be finally here doing this.

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I can't wait to share honest conversations

and interviews and stories about midlife

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over the coming weeks and months.

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I'm not the best at small talk.

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I love deep and meaningful conversation.

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And I think podcast chats are great for

getting to the good stuff really quickly.

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I'm really excited.

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I get to speak with some wonderful humans.

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about all of this midlife stuff

and that's what we're going to be

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doing here on The Happy Middle.

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It's going to be a place for real talk.

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I hope this podcast will help you

feel more hopeful and understood

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and resourced and supported.

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I hope it'll also make you

smile and make you think.

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This first episode, I'm going to

spend just a little bit of time

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introducing myself and telling

you a bit of my own midlife story.

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So I'm Susie.

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I'm a coach.

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I work with midlife women

who want to create braver,

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softer, more meaningful lives.

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I'm also a writer.

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I write about midlife.

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I'm also fledgling novelist.

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I'm writing my first book.

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It's taking forever,

but I'm getting there.

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and I'm a mum.

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I'm originally from Leeds in Yorkshire.

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After years living in London, I finally

found my probably forever home in

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Cornwall, almost at the very furthest

southwesterly tip of the country.

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I live here with my husband and

two kids, and a menagerie of pets.

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We live in a really

rural part of the world.

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In a small village near the coast and I

can see hills and fields and trees and the

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most enormous sky from my office window.

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In many ways I'm embracing midlife.

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I've become one of those middle aged

women who swims in the sea all year round.

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I try to go for a dip

at least once a week.

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I know how lucky I am to be living

in this really beautiful place.

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But still, it comes as a bit of a

shock to me from time to time that

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me, this city girl, has ended up in

a really rural part of the world.

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I still can't seem to dress myself

for country life, and I get these

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mad cravings for concrete and city

skylines and I have to go and visit

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a big city just to get my fix again.

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Sometimes it feels like I haven't

really said goodbye or a proper

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goodbye to the old me or the old

me's who would have looked at this

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life and been really surprised at how

different it is from the one I had then.

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It's different in many good ways.

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but also different in some other ways

that feel less tiny, less steady.

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And I think it's because I'm at that

age when it's natural to look back

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at everything that's happened and

look forwards towards what I hope

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to make happen with the next bit.

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And this is ultimately

what this podcast is about.

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It's often tricky in between this

that we find ourselves in with

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all the longings and the losses.

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And also all the potential and

the possibility, but I'll tell

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you a little bit about my own

messy middle, my messy midlife.

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I think I was 38, 39 when I started

to feel this real tug to pull

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everything apart and start again.

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And there were quite a

few drivers behind this.

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I can point to, I'd become a mom at 35.

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And I was finding it really hard

to juggle motherhood and career.

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I think my hormones had

gone into overdrive as well.

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motherhood, approaching perimenopause.

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I've had wobbly mental health

since my teenage years.

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I had no clue that it

was so hormonally based.

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I'm of that generation that tended to

ignore or endure our monthly cycle.

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Thank God, now we all have the

encouragement and the ability to track

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and understand how it affects us.

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But back then, I had literally no clue.

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the PMDD symptoms I'd struggled

with since my teenage years.

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started to go into overdrive

in my late thirties and PMDD

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is this extreme form of PMT.

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It's like PMT on steroids.

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It's an inherited condition and

it affects around 1 in 20 girls,

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women, menstruating people.

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But I had no idea that

it was even a thing.

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I had this really frightening

episode and somehow, thankfully,

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Google led me to this definition of

PMDD and it really saved my life.

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I had a couple of years of trying all

the different treatments available, and

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then I ended up having hysterectomy,

and going into surgical menopause at 41.

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I am reporting to you from the other side.

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And, I can say that starting my 40s

without my usual emotional hellcoaster of

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monthly periods was a real biggie for me.

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It was like waking up, felt like I'd

just been drifting for a long time,

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being blown by the wind, just trying to

get through like the monthly onslaught.

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And all of a sudden there was

space, to think and to dream and

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to imagine, and this real sense

that there was more I wanted to do.

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And I also found this creative part of

myself, woke up and started demanding

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some room so I could do its thing.

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Anyway, a few short years later, after

those first stirrings of my own messy

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middle, life looked completely different.

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So we've moved to the other side of

Cornwall, I've quit my job, I've had

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a hysterectomy, grown a business as a

freelance copywriter, and then I realized

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I didn't really want to do that work

anymore and I've retrained as a coach.

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I'm 46, almost 47 now, post menopausal

and enjoying that immensely.

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Some days I feel this peace,

like I've never known before.

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And other days I feel this

primal rage that I haven't

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felt since my teenage years.

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Sometimes I feel like I've arrived at

the answer and everything makes sense.

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And other times I can't even remember

what the question is supposed to be.

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I'm definitely not done yet.

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I'm definitely still in this middle

and some days it feels really

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bloody messy, others it feels

really good and full of promise.

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A Happy Middle, the name of this podcast.

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I wanted something that felt like

a hopeful resolution of the messy

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middle, not the perfect resolution

because this isn't going to be a

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podcast about doing midlife perfectly.

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Of course, we're going to be celebrating

all the good bits about our power years.

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about us not giving so much of a damn

anymore, about the new freedoms we

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experience as we leave our younger

selves behind and leave maybe

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outdated parts of us behind too.

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But we're not going to be

ignoring or bypassing the

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sticky bits and the hard stuff.

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We're going to be talking about all of it.

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and finding our own happy middle,

however that looks for each of us.

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So I can't wait to share the conversations

and the stories I have lined up for coming

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episodes, and I'm really looking forward

to navigating this middle bit with you.

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So until then, take care, and I

hope to join you again very soon.