In this companion episode to The Queenager Podcast, Eleanor Mills and Wendy Lloyd discuss the biggest takeaways from episode featuring Dr Sharon Blackie. Here you'll find the inspirational takeaways from the psychotherapist and author so you can take action and make positive change in your life.

Eleanor Mills is the founder of NOON, the UK's leading network for midlife women. She's also author of the bestselling book Much More to Come.

Wendy Lloyd is a Women’s Centred transformational coach. To find out how Wendy can support you through your midlife reinvention, visit www.dramafreeyou.com and book a FREE 30 minute coaching call.

  Hello, and welcome to another Queenager debrief with me, Eleanor Mills. In these companion episodes to the Queenager podcast, I discuss inspirational takeaways from my guests with Women Centred Transformational Coach, Wendy Lloyd, so that you can take action and make positive change in your own life. The Queenager podcast is brought to you by Begin, the Age Renewal Skincare Experts.

Stay tuned for our special Queenager discount code for their gold standard skin solution. Hello again, Wendy. Hi there. Let's get cracking. Debriefing my chat with psychotherapist and seeker of empowering culture stories about older women, Sharon Blackie. What did you reckon?

I loved hearing what Sharon had to say.

Um, I mean, obviously the overall thing of stories matter. And I love that what we can really glean from what Sharon's been talking about, all the work that she's done, is that if we as midlife women are struggling to see what our life should look like, what we want it to look like, what does an older woman's life look like and what can we aspire to?

If we're struggling to see that image, it's understandable. It's not our fault. These stories have been suppressed. They've been hidden. They've been sort of removed from our culture. So I think it's really great that we at least know that we're kind of off the hook. And her brand new book, of course, is a wonderful touchstone because we know that stories, um, of midlife women and older women, and I know this from my world of film criticism, you know, it's something we've been banging on about a lot more recently in terms of, um, stories that really are representative.

We're still struggling to get those in contemporary media. So while that fight continues, at least we now have, courtesy of Sharon's books, access to these stories that have been around forever, but are only now kind of resurfacing because of the work she's done.

Yeah, I absolutely love her collection Wise Women.

The first story in it is about a woman who turns into a fox. Um, she has to leave her home. She walks out on her husband and it's really about that shape shifting into the new person that you're going to become. And also that sense that I write about a lot in my book about not being able to go back.

That there, it really is a kind of crossing a Rubicon in midlife and we become somebody new and actually the person that we were does die.

Yeah, and it's not a surprise really that these stories have been suppressed because we understand as human beings the power of storytelling, you know, my work as a transformational coach is all about getting people to kind of really understand and step outside of the story that they're currently in.

And all the things that are holding them back and really setting aside the core beliefs and indeed limiting beliefs in their current story and seeing it as just that. It's a story. And what's the deal with stories? We can change the stories. So the idea of stepping into a new story is incredibly exciting and empowering.

And I think Sharon really kind of enables us to go, wow, this You know, there are stories out there. I can't wait to get my mists on her book. I have to say, I'm very excited.

Yeah, I was sent, I was sent an advance proof. I felt very lucky about that. And actually, really interestingly, when, I think for me, the most powerful tool in becoming the new person that I really feel I have become in midlife, which is what my book is about, was, going on silent retreat.

So I've done two, um, eight day, totally silent, um, yoga and meditation retreats. And actually what that is all about is dropping the stories. Cause of course, when you don't speak, you. you stop telling the constant story that you've been telling about yourself all the time. And it's amazing when that drops away, that you suddenly think there's space for a new story to emerge.

And actually, I think that's one of the reasons why that was so powerful to me. And then when you can speak again, you don't want to tell the old story because you've kind of discovered that maybe it was, wasn't as true as you thought it was. So it's all about dropping those stories. And so I think that.

The, the shift into telling a different story is really mixed up with actually going deeper inside oneself, accessing maybe more spiritual realms, which I think when we're younger, or certainly in the way I was brought up, we were definitely taught to do that. Doubt, you know, I was an enlightenment facts, fact based journalist, you know, absolutely bred to be extremely suspicious of different ways of knowing, but actually what I think we come into in midlife and what the, a lot of the myths are about is that embodied wisdom that we have as older women, that we can feel it.

You know, when you get a kind of prickle, when someone's talking to you, you know, that they're feeling truth or you get a sense that somebody's kind of not telling you the truth. And so I think that really tapping into, are embodied wisdom is really what, what midlife is all about.

Absolutely. And I love that you mentioned that, uh, bringing it into the spiritual.

And I really felt that when you're talking about the silent retreat. And I, I don't think I've heard anybody. Explain to me so well, why Silent Retreat works in terms of connecting it to the story. That is really, I'm finding that really fascinating. You should come and try it. Yeah, I may well do that. It would be a challenge for me, like for you, Eleanor.

Well, it was the biggest challenge, I think, because everyone said to me, you'll never manage it.

Yeah.

How, you know, because I never stopped talking. It's like, how are you going to manage eight days completely silent? But actually, I discovered I quite liked Silent, Eleanor. And when I wasn't rabbiting on, there was space.

Yeah. For other stories to brew.

Yeah. Perhaps we feel the contrast even more. Um, well, the second of my takeaways was very much about how Sharon, um, really said kind of quite, um, I love that she sort of said quite categorically really, you know, the search for meaning and purpose in life. is spiritual. And I think that's a wonderful thing, you know, to hear someone really making the case for us not bulking at the idea of spirituality.

As you said, it's something that was, it's something that's more recently come to you. And I know that for me, I've really, again, it's, it's actually been big time in my more recent work and understanding the concept of transformational work, which is very much grounded in attaching your, your, your self and your belief system to something much bigger than the material.

And that we really have to be connected to that if we really want to step into the full breadth of what is possible and to really become quite humble in the face of how there's so many things that factor into. who we are and how we become. So I love that Sharon really kind of made that case. And I hope that it encourages people really listening, women listening to recognize that just because they haven't kind of tapped into spirituality yet in their lives, maybe this is the time to do so.

And I think because it connects so powerfully to purpose, you know, sometimes it can be a real motivation to get. a bit spiritual, whatever that means for you personally.

Yeah, and I think that doesn't have to be organized religion. For me, that's come very much through nature, um, and becoming much more attuned to the kind of wonders of the natural world.

Uh, whether that was taking kind of psilocybin and, uh, feeling that sense of complete oneness and connection with all things. Um, and I think that once one starts to realize one's small space or in, in that kind of bigger realm, that's really important. And actually, I think all. All kind of, um, any kind of enlightenment or any kind of transformation or growth, um, in human terms tends to come through realizing where we fit in the bigger scheme of things.

Whether that's something like AA, which also talks about a kind of higher power, you know, whatever you imagine that to be. For me, that's the kind of golden light dappled through the trees when I swim in the pond or the kind of gold at the top of the poplar trees, which spray, spray in the wind. And I just get a sense of the divine.

It doesn't have to be anything to do with Jesus. Absolutely.

It's really important people kind of recognise that and you make that what it is that kind of speaks to you, speaks to you in terms of what is bigger than us. The third takeaway I had from Sharon's was that she also said a wonderful thing in terms of, we are more interesting as our authentic selves.

And I really like that because, you know, I think it's something that can never be said too often, that at this point in our lives, it's a really powerful time to drop the people pleasing, you know, the kind of, um, connection to the idea that, um, you know, we hang on to our past and the way we've done things.

And she really talked about, Sharon talked so much about leaning into change, you know, don't hang on to the past. And I love that her example herself of, you know, the change in her life, you know, breaking through her patterns of insecurity. How's this for shifting a story? She, she taught herself or she learned how to fly.

Yeah, I love that. And I think that tells you a lot about her sort of appetite for life and for change. So this whole idea of the, you know, we don't need to conform at this point in our lives. We can really, um, deep, you know, deeply jump into what we want to do, tell the truth, and all that sort of establishes new boundaries for ourselves.

And I think though, having that motivation underneath of it, we're going and all of this, all this change that may be a bit uncomfortable at times, and it'll also be exciting, and maybe it feels a bit risky, But I'm going to be much more interesting by the end of it.

Yeah, no, I think that's really true. Uh, we talk about it about, you know, kind of maybe finding your inner wild.

And I also talk about it in my book as I think what we do at Midlife is that we shape shift and that we, um, the society and the way that we've been brought up often forces us. to take a sumo shape in our early, you know, our twenties and thirties, which fits everyone around us. And that's part of the people pleasing.

And so we take the shape that we're expected to take. And then it's actually only as we get to midlife that we finally have the chance to really pour into the shape that suits us to find our kind of organic form. And of course, there's always pushback against that. Um, but I talk a lot about becoming the woman you always wanted to be.

And I think that that really is about finding your own shape, you know, not the shape that you've been forced into, but the one that you would flow into naturally. And what's really interesting about Wise Women and Sharon's book of fairy tales and myths and about older women is about how much of that is about shape shifting.

Or is about the woman, the older woman as the land itself, you know, as Gaia, as the Kaliak, as the mountain, and that we really are the earth. So when we talk about the spiritual connection, I think there's also something about woman's bodies, the mother's body actually being the land, the earth, the planet, that we're on and that really bigger connection to nature and the infinite.

Yeah. It's beautiful, isn't it? That expansiveness and, you know, to have that rooted in such ancient tales.

Um, yeah. And everything from the kind of, you know, the, the fates, the three women who are the old fates kind of knitting people's lives. There's so much about older women actually controlling, creating destiny and being the kind of key.

people who help others shape shift into what they would really like to become. So if ever there was a Queenager book or a kind of Queenager prophet, I think it's Sharon Blackie.

Yeah,

I think these stories are going to be inspiring for all of us. Yeah, I highly recommend people read them. Wise women, Sharon Blackie, and a very wise woman, Wendy.

Um, and if you'd like to work with Wendy and be supported through your midlife transition, visit her website, dramafreeu. com, and book a free 30 minute coaching call. That's it for the Queen Ager debrief. Check out our website, noon. org. uk, and sign up to my weekly Queen Ager newsletter. And there's my book, Much More to Come, Lessons on the Magnificence and Mayhem of Midlife, published by HarperCollins.

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It's usually 29. 99 a bottle, so don't miss this terrific deal. Next time, we'll discuss what we learned from longevity expert Aviva Wittenberg Cox. As you sit at your morning breakfast table, when you turn 50, is you look at the person on the other side and the question you want to ask yourself is, do I want to be with this person for another 40, maybe 50 years?

Thanks for listening and being a part of the Queen Aja revolution.