#63: What Self-Care Actually Looks Like for Women in Midlife

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What if self-care in midlife has nothing to do with face masks or spa days and everything to do with remembering who you are?

In this episode, I'm getting personal and vulnerable, sharing the self-care story I wish I’d heard years ago. The one about hormones, brain fog, feeling “off,” getting dismissed by doctors… and finally finding the kind of support that helped me feel like myself again.

If you’re tired of being told to “just slow down” or “get more rest” but you’re still exhausted, unfocused, and wondering what happened to your motivation, this conversation is for you.

We’re going beyond surface-level advice to talk about what self-care actually looks like when your body is changing, your brain feels scattered, and your dreams are patiently waiting for you. 

3 KEY TAKE AWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

• You don’t have a motivation problem — you might have a clarity or chemistry problem
• Dreaming isn’t indulgent in midlife — it’s a neurological support system
• This episode is the kind of support you'll find inside Dream Studio.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Join the Dream Studio Waitlist here

The New Menopause  by Dr. Mary Claire Haver

The Pause Life - Dr Mary Claire Haver website with more menopause resources

CHADD - ADHD Resources

Join the Dream Studio Waitlist here

DOWNLOAD THE FREE START DREAMING AGAIN GUIDE

Check out all my coaching and course offerings - Coachcarlene.com

MORE FROM ME

Follow me on Instagram: @coach_carlene

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Transcript

Speaker 3 0:07

You're never too busy, too tired, too old, or too anything to pursue your dreams. Welcome to the Distracted Dreamer Podcast, where you'll learn how to move all those never ending distractions aside and chase your dreams with confidence.

0:29

Well, hello my friend. Welcome back to the Distracted Dreamer podcast. I'm your host Carlene, and I got a question for you. What if the decision that you made to hit play on this episode is a sign that things are gonna get better for you? Because that's how good this conversation is going to be. Today, I am reminding you of the woman in midlife that taking care of yourself is not optional, and what I'm sharing is exactly what you need to hear right now. So you are in a new season, or maybe you've been in it for a while, but still approach life the same way you did in your thirties, and I'm guessing. Based on my experience that might not be working for you anymore, and I wanna show you a new way for the new you in this season of your life. Now, you've never heard self-care talked about like this not the kind you're probably tired of hearing about. This isn't a go take a bubble bath episode. This is about the kind of self care you need when your brain is foggy, when your body is shifting in ways that you do not understand and your energy is very scattered. Because I know so many of us, especially in midlife, we are sitting here wondering. What happened to me? Why can't I focus? Where did my energy go? Why does everything feel off? This isn't just about being busy or being tired for a lot of women, midlife brings a whole new set of challenges, hormonal shifts. There's brain fog, there's fatigue that sleep does not fix. In the A DHD symptoms that show up out of nowhere. And then there's the deep aching feeling that we've lost a part of ourselves. And in the middle of all of that, we still have dreams. We have big ideas, and we have purpose. But accessing them, simply put, it feels like a mountain We're not gonna climb right now. So today I want to reframe something for you. Dreaming is self-care. Now just stay with me'cause you're probably going Carlene. That is a stretch, but it is not. But dreaming is self-care, especially now, especially in this season of life. I'm gonna share my own story with you today. And. I thought about this long and hard, how much do I really wanna share? Like this is a podcast that's out there. Some of this is very personal and I am going to share enough so that it's helpful for you. So if you feel like it's a little too much information, I want you to know that. I planned this conversation very thoughtfully. Because I wanna give you practical ways to reconnect with your dreams as a form of self-care, and to talk honestly about why getting the right medical support is part of this journey too. So this episode is your first step to both becoming more of who you are and feeling like yourself again. I've experienced it recently and it honestly felt like a rebirth. You being here with me right now is self-care. It's a lifeline and it's a way back to yourself. I'm talking self-advocacy, fighting for yourself like you never have before, and dreaming like you never have because both of those. Are the two missing puzzle pieces to your quality of life and your happiness in this season. So let's start with the invisible stuff, because what you're feeling, it's not just aging, it's not just in your head. And no matter how many doctors have told you all that, it's not true and you don't have to settle for feeling like garbage every day. Midlife for women is a full body, full brain shift. It's called menopause. Estrogen drops, dopamine crashes. And for a lot of us that looks like not being able to focus like we used to. Or how about, uh, forgetting words, mid-sentence? Oh gosh. That happens all the time. Or feeling physically and mentally exhausted and you don't even know why. Even when we're technically getting enough rest. Mm-hmm. Or how about struggling to keep up with the things that we used to love to do? And if A DHD is in the mix for you, whether you're diagnosed or not, it can feel like your brain is offline a lot of the time. And this is where dreaming can actually become a form of regulation. It's a stabilizer, it's a lifeline because when you reconnect to your desires, when you give your brain something that lights you up, it can begin to work with you again. And I'm gonna talk more about that, the science behind that a little bit later on. But we have to be honest, dreaming in your forties, fifties, and beyond. It looks nothing like that. Vision. Board it and go energy that we were sold in our twenties. That's just not the way it is. By this time in life, you've likely been carrying a full load. All the decision fatigue, all the emotional caregiving. How about all the career pivots or parenting teens or aging parents? And now your own body, it's doing its midlife thing and the brain fog is real. You are not imagining it. And you can want to create or start something and still feel completely mentally checked out. I have experienced it. So if you are feeling that little tug of. Well, I do want something more, but you're also thinking, I literally can't remember what day it is. You are not alone. You are just in the messy middle of the biggest natural transformation you'll go through in this lifetime, both physically and emotionally, and dreaming in the middle of this. That's hard and it's brave. And here's the truth, I couldn't fully access that until I got the right kind of support. So let me tell you how this started for me, because my hope is that it will help you trust your instincts too. At first I was that person who thought, I'm just feeling all this icky stuff because I'm aging. This is just what happens to women. I went to the doctors and I was pretty much dismissed and sent on my way, aches, pains, fatigue and all. So I thought, okay, well I need to control what I can, and that was my stress and how I was spending my time. I had actually been pouring some energy into things that were draining me, not restoring me, and one of the biggest shifts I made as a form of self-care was dialing back the number of one-to-one clients I was working with. Now hear me out. I still have clients. I still meet with people one-on-one, but I had to dial back the number of clients that I was working with because you know what? That zoom fatigue. It is real. Spending five to six hours a day on video calls, it was exhausting me. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. So I did something that was really uncomfortable because I love coaching people. I love that connection. But I pulled back and I gave myself space, and in that quiet, I began to hear my own voice again, and I realized what I really want is to support women in midlife who are navigating these same storms. Who are dreaming, who are tired, who are trying to figure out what's next, and that's where Dream Studio was born. So if you've listened to previous episodes, you've heard about this, but that is the community that I'm opening for you and for me, for women in midlife who want to be heard and seen and supported, and who want to prioritize themselves and their dreams. And this has been more than a year in the making, and I am so glad that I made this shift so that I could realize that this is where I was meant to be. And if you're feeling alone. Well, you're probably not alone, alone, because most of us are still caregiving at one level or another. Then this is where you are meant to be too. The link to hop on the wait list, it's, it's in the show notes, but I will talk about that later. What I wanna say is making that shift in my business, it was scary and it gave me clarity. And you know what else? It turns out I didn't have a motivation problem. I had a clarity problem. My question for you is this, where in your life can you make a shift to give yourself some room to breathe, to hear your dreams again, to slow down, to get that clarity? What boundaries do you need to build? There is something that you can do. It can be big or it can be small, and it might be that you don't answer calls or texts after a certain time. It could be that you meet a friend for coffee or a walk once a week to talk and share what's on your mind. Find that small shift for yourself and see what happens. Now, while the shift that I made gave me clarity, it did not do anything for all the other menopause symptoms I was experiencing. Nope, that did not happen. So I knew that if I stood any chance of feeling like myself again, I needed to find the right medical support. I could no longer accept complacency and the just suck it up attitude from doctors. My friend Julie from bar class, she recommended that I go see this woman, Tiffany, who is a board certified nurse practitioner and founder of a women's health clinic focused on integrative comprehensive care. And when I tell you she changed everything for me. I mean it. She looked at my labs in a way no doctor ever had, where others had said, your thyroid numbers are in range. You know what, Tiffany? She dug deeper. She found antibodies that were actually destroying the thyroid hormone. My body was making no wonder I was crashing in the afternoons. No wonder I felt like I was losing myself. So we started a protocol to support my thyroid and the fatigue lifted. Like, this is amazing. I don't have those crash days anymore. And I remember one weekend I was feeling so good. It was so shocking to me to feel that way again, and I just turned to my husband and I just kept saying, this is amazing. I feel like myself again, and not just physically, but emotionally and mentally and energetically. Like me, I was back. And you know what, Tiffany, she helped me improve my sleep, manage my stress, and reduced inflammation throughout my entire body. And most importantly, she treated me like a whole person, not a set of symptoms. And she's also an oncology nurse and a student of the metabolic approach to cancer, which means as a breast cancer survivor, I feel incredibly supported and seen. And I want that for you too. And that's why I'm sharing my story with you. If you aren't getting the answers in care, you deserve fight. I know you fought for others. And now it's time to fight for yourself. Talk to your friends, your sisters, share resources with each other. Find your Tiffany. You deserve the best care in the world. And the good news is that we are finally having these conversations around menopause. There are women doctors out there like Dr. Mary Claire Haver. She's got a podcast on menopause and a book called The New Menopause, and so many other resources. So start there. Be open to exploring an untraditional path to your care. Okay. Alls you have to do is explore. You still get to decide whether you go down that path or not, but it's a wonderful thing to find out what else is out there. I can tell you it is the best decision that I have ever made. The second missing piece of that self-care puzzle that I mentioned at the start of the episode is your dreams. Your dreams aren't just, oh, it's nice to dream. It's more like dreaming is necessary, and here's why. When your hormone shift, especially in menopause, your brain chemistry shifts too. Estrogen impacts dopamine. When your estrogen drops, so does your dopamine. Dopamine. It's tied to motivation and energy and focus and all the things that your dream requires. So when you feel scattered or disorganized or like you're losing your edge, it might not be your mindset, it might actually be chemistry, and that's why dreaming can actually help, because when you give your brain something you care about, not just something you should do, it activates curiosity. Imagination and a spark of energy that counteracts that mental drain. It gives you a dopamine hit. That's the biology your brain wants, something meaningful to focus on. So giving it a small dream to tend to, that's self care. That's how you stabilize your nervous system. So what does dream centered self-care look like in midlife? First, let's redefine self-care through this lens First, it's not about escape, it's about reconnection. And next, it's not about getting more done, it's about feeling more like yourself. And I'm gonna give you three ways right now that you can practice some dream centered self-care. Okay? The first thing that you can do is to make some space for some low stakes creativity. Th this is what I mean. This is creativity without any. No, there's no audience. There's no outcome. It's just you doing something that lights up your brain in a quiet way. That might be getting back to tinkering on the piano. I love to do that. Or maybe doodling or painting without a plan. There's no end result. You're just enjoying the doodling or the painting. Um, or how about sending a voice note to yourself when you have all those wild ideas while you're on a walk? Capture those thoughts, they're worth capturing. And when you do this, you're feeding your brain dopamine and it gives you clarity. And it's a way of reminding yourself that you are still a creative being. Okay, the second way that you can practice some dream centered self care. Is to track your energy, not your tasks. This one is really hard for me because I'm the person who like writes down everything I do every day, and then I cross it off and I feel really, really good. But these last two years I have been tracking my energy and it, it was an amazing shift to do that. So instead of trying to force productivity, start noticing when you feel most alert. Or most creative, or most open, or when you have more energy, even if it's just for 20 minutes late in the morning, use that time it. Build your dream work around those windows, just those tiny pockets, and that's enough. So track your energy, not your tasks. The third thing you can do is let your dream live outside your head. A DHD and hormonal shifts can make thoughts feel slippery, like you have a thought and then poof, it's just gone. Right? Your dream, it might be really vivid in the shower and then it's gone by the time you get to your laptop. Give your dream a landing place like a post-it on your mirror, or maybe send yourself a voice memo each day. Or what I do is I send myself a text when I have all these wild and crazy ideas. Because externalizing your ideas is self care for your future self. She's gonna thank you when you're like, oh, I really need something to light myself up. Or, gosh, I had this thought. I wish I could remember it. Your future self is gonna thank you. And there's this myth that you have to take care of everything else and everybody else before you're allowed to want something for yourself before you're allowed to even care for yourself. But here's the truth. When you're deeply connected to something that matters to you, you move through the world with more intention, more calm, and more resilience, and that's not selfish. It's self-care. And that's why I created Dream Studio, because you don't need another course or a checklist. You need a soft place to land. A space where your midlife fog, your scattered thoughts, your quiet ideas, all of it is welcome here. Dream Studio is about taking care of your dream and you as a whole person. It's about finding clarity and connection with other women who are in it with you. It's about remembering that you're still allowed to want more, especially now. And you know what your first step to your self-care is to hop on the wait list for Dream Studio Doors open in February, and I would love to see you inside the link to get on the wait list is in the show notes below. And if you join as a founding member, you will be part of the very first group, which means that you will lock in the lowest ever rate for life. Plus you get access to special perks and bonus content but most importantly, you will be joining with that. I was here when it all began. Energy OG status, I'm talking about. Add. Your name to the list@coachcarlene.com slash ds waitlist, coach carlene.com/ds waitlist Now, if this episode spoke to you, go ahead and forward it to a friend who's in the same messy metal. Invite her to join Dream Studio with you. And I just wanna thank you for taking this time for yourself today. And I wanna remind you, you deserve to feel like yourself, to have energy and clarity and rest and to dream again, and if something resonated with you today, shoot me a text. The link is also in the show notes. Go check those show notes out. It's full of great information today and I look forward to seeing you for next week's conversation. Bye for now.

Carlene 21:34

Oh, and one more thing. This is the legal language. You know, the stuff that the lawyers put together, and they say that I need to read this to you. So here we go. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I'm not a licensed therapist. This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professionals. Got it? Good. I will see you in the next episode.