For a long time, I thought being capable of doing something meant I should be able to do it. If I knew how to do it, had done it before, had the skills or could physically accomplish it, then I should be able to do it now. The last two years have taught me that capability and capacity are two very different things. My nervous system taught me that the hard way. I’ve spent most of my life carrying more stress than my body was designed to continually handle. I was functioning. I was working. I was figuring things out. I was being resilient because that’s what I do. But during the 2024 election, I could feel something changing in me. Stay with me through this next part, because the politics aren’t the point. What was happening inside my body is. I had lived through the first Trump presidency and COVID and everything that came with those years. This time I was watching what he was saying before the election. I was watching what was being planned. Project 2025 had been published. I was listening to the things he was saying and what he planned to do if he returned to office. And I kept telling people that I thought we were watching the dismantling of our government as we knew it being laid out in front of us. People told me I was being dramatic. I was overthinking it. It wasn’t going to happen. Then I woke up around 3:00 in the morning after the election and saw that he’d won, and before I was even fully awake, the first words out of my mouth were, “That’s not the truth.” That’s what came out of me in that moment. I can’t prove that the election was stolen. What matters is that my nervous system had already spent months watching for danger, and when I woke up that morning, my body believed the danger had arrived. Then I watched what began happening before he even took office. My body had been bracing for something I believed was coming, and now it was here. Something in me simply couldn’t do it anymore. Within 2 weeks of the election, my nervous system shut down.

There’s nothing to figure out. Just notice what this question stirs in you, see where it leads and if you feel drawn to, share what comes up for you. 💜 I'll go first: For so many years, I've judged my Mom and her emotional distance and even some trauma that she created in me. But after these last couple of months going the ego and identity deaths that I have, I've been able to forgive her for her inability to do any more than she did. She didn't have the awareness or tools that I've had. She didn't have the support to do the work. She didn't have the space. AND...she played her part beautifully to help me learn about these things in myself. So now I have empathy, and new level of love and compassion for her. Yes, those things happened. And I'm grateful in the sense that they led me here. She had the courage and love enough to play her part for both of us in this lifetime.

I’ve watched Off Campus more times than I care to admit. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I don’t really care who knows it. I’m obsessed with this movie. I’ve watched the whole thing more than once and gone back to certain scenes more times than I can count. IYKYK 😏 At first, I thought it was because the movie had awakened something in me that I had put away a very long time ago. And it did. But the more I’ve watched it, the more I’ve realized there’s something else happening. I don’t want to be 20 again. But at 66, I keep finding pieces of my own life in it. And apparently a lot of other midlife women are seeing themselves in it too! It’s not just in Hannah. It’s in Garrett. In Allie. In their relationships. In the things that don’t go according to plan. In being terrified and moving forward anyway. In the yearning for a life that feels bigger and more alive than the one they’ve been living. There are pieces of my story scattered all over this movie. One of the parallels for me is Garrett’s mom’s experience with abuse. My circumstances were different, but I know what it is like to be in an abusive relationship and not simply walk away the first time something happens. I’ve had black eyes. I’ve been choked. I’ve had broken bones. I’ve been thrown around and my head cracked open. From the outside, it can seem so obvious. Why would someone stay after that? Why wouldn’t she just leave? From the inside, it isn’t always that simple. Fear is involved. So is the hope that when they apologize and promise they won’t do it again, they mean it. Love and shame can be involved. Your sense of what is normal can shift so gradually that you don’t always recognize how far things have gone. Sometimes you are trying to survive inside the situation long before you are ready or able to leave it. I also recognize in Hannah the woman working and going to school because there is shit that needs to get done and no one else is going to magically appear and do it for her. I’ve lived versions of that too. I worked while raising two daughters by myself. At one point, I was working during the day and attending Landmark, an intense self-development program, at night, or doing speaking engagements after work. I did it with little or no co-parent or child support.

I was texting with my friend recently about something happening in her family when a thought came through me so clearly. I believe in past lives. I’ve actually remembered some of mine. And I suddenly thought, no wonder I’ve accumulated so much karmic trash to clean up. For much of human history, life was shorter and harder. Maybe I kept getting just old enough to accumulate some wisdom, but didn’t live long enough to do anything with it. Stay with me, because whether you believe in past lives or not isn’t really the point. The thought opened up something much bigger for me about midlife and why so many of us seem to arrive here with so much stuff asking to be looked at. Because there’s something we have now that we simply didn’t have when we were younger: experience, wisdom, discernment and access. Think about the world most of us midlifers grew up in. There was no internet. There were no podcasts or social media. There wasn’t a coaching industry, so I couldn’t have aspired to be the coach and guide I am now. There weren’t thousands of books, programs, methodologies, communities, therapists, teachers and guides available from a little device we carry around in our hands. We were adults when email became mainstream. We were adults when mobile phones became mainstream. Hell, we were adults when “the cloud” became a thing. Our worlds were smaller, and so were our resources. If you were struggling with something, you might have had a religious leader, a business mentor, an older family member or maybe a really wise friend. And some of those people were wonderful guides. Some of them were carrying around just as much unhealed shit as we were. Younger generations have access to language, tools and support for understanding themselves that we couldn’t have imagined at their age. And I’m incredibly grateful that they do. I watch younger people recognize family patterns, talk about nervous system regulation, question expectations, establish boundaries, go to therapy, explore who they are and reconsider what they’ve been taught at ages when many of us were still doing exactly what we thought we were supposed to do. We worked hard. Got married. Raised the kids. Built the career. Took care of everyone. Tried to be responsible, successful and good.

When I lived in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, my apartment was on the fourth floor of a small building. Each floor had one apartment. The others were one-bedrooms, but mine was a studio with a large, plant-filled patio. When I was looking at apartments, the one directly below mine was also available. It probably would have been the more practical choice. One less flight of stairs. A separate bedroom. But I fell in love with that patio. The only problem was those damn stairs. They were outdoor tile-covered stairs, and the first time I climbed them I thought I was going to die. It was the middle of the afternoon in September in Playa del Carmen, which meant it was swampy. By the time we got to the top, I was so hot and winded that the landlady went to the store and bought me a cold mineral water while we waited to hear from her daughter about whether they would accept the price I’d offered. They did. So I got my plant-filled fourth-floor patio and the apartment for the price I wanted. And I got the stairs. When I moved in, the rental agent carried my large suitcase up while I took the smaller suitcase and my backpack. I was going to be there for just shy of six months, so I figured eventually I’d get used to them. The first few weeks were brutal. I’d found a coworking space I loved and usually went about four days a week. On the monthly plan I got my own key code, so I started going early to get a good seat. Or, more accurately, “my” seat. 😂 I’d leave around 6:30 am and usually come home around 2:30 or 3:00 pm. On the way home, I’d frequently stop to eat or pick up groceries. Sometimes I saved the groceries for the weekend because after walking home in the heat, I knew exactly what was still waiting for me. Those damn stairs. I didn’t have a washer or dryer, so I took my laundry to the lavandería. They had a minimum price, which meant I usually waited until almost all of my clothes needed cleaning before I took them in. I had a backpack to carry the laundry. There were days I’d leave the coworking space with my computer and everything else in my backpack, stop to pick up my clean laundry on the way home, and then climb those four flights with two packs on my back.