S.O.F.T. and Strong: Midlife Women On A Mission

Episode 27: Aim for UNSTOPPABLE!

March 15, 2021 Bernice McDonald Season 1 Episode 27
S.O.F.T. and Strong: Midlife Women On A Mission
Episode 27: Aim for UNSTOPPABLE!
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

What creates SPARKLE? What lights you up, attracting love TO you rather than you having to go chasing it? 

Wouldn't it be awesome to have permission to be FUN, FEISTY, SASSY like the Downy Un-stoppables commercial lady?  Watch it here.

What kind of aging do you want to do? What kind is in your heart?

To Open To Love Again, you need to be True to Yourself (the 'T' in S.O.F.T.).

Take a stand for who you are. Let your "Unstoppables" commercial lady out into the open and find out what you stand for by thinking through:

  • what you absolutely CAN'T stand
  • what makes you madder than a hornet?
  • what makes you cry for someone or a situation because it stirs you so deeply?

Even these are "your heart" and staying youthful and vibrant means owning this part of yourself.

Here's another link mentioned in this podcast. Listen to this beautiful song and sing the words TO YOUR OWN HEART.  I Will Fight For You.

Here are you Power Pillars for you to work on this week:

Power Pillar #1: Your Reason Why:  I want to open to love again.

Power Pillar #2: The Truth Is....I have SO MUCH life in me. A reason to be here.

  • I have a light to shine.
  • I have a love to live.
  • I have a song to sing.

Power Pillar #3:  Hope-filled Action: Fight for your heart. List what cheeses you off. Use it to feel that power inside to begin to ignite your passion from the inside out.

I'll show you Part 2 of this the next Episode: Podcast #28.

Come on in and discover the Secret. I'd love it if you'd join me.

YOU are amazing. You have your own light to shine. Love to give. Song to sing. Step into your S.O.F.T. 

S      Strong on the inside so you can be Soft on the outside.
O    Open to life and to love
F     Feminine
T     True To Yourself


For more about becoming a Feisty, Fun, FABULOUS woman over 50 who FIGHTS for her heart and is learning to Open To Love Again, listen to other episodes at www.opentoloveagain.com





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0 (1s):
Life is simple. There we are a heart walking on a path, just ourselves. This person that was made, this unique individual that has inside of her, everything that she needs to live her life and so much more. She has so much more. A light to shine. There you are walk in your path. How do you get to the place where your unstoppable? How do you, when all those bombs have gone off in your life, those boulders have dropped on you, those rocks have been thrown at you from people on their other paths, walking beside you...How do you get to the place where you are an unstoppable?

1 (55s):
So you're a woman beyond 50, what is standing between you and the dreams that you have in your heart? I'll tell you, it's the Story that you're telling yourself. This podcast is about keeping our hearts awake and open to love because those stories are what closes your heart and keeps it locked up tightly. It takes courage every day to face those stories - about 15 minutes a day, only, in fact. I'm Bernice McDonald, Courageous Happiness Coach. And that's the journey that I'm on in this life. I want you to find your heart again, to find the real you, the amazing courageous, loving, crazy, sexy woman that you were meant to be.

1 (1m 47s):
Yup. Even after 50 you're ready. Okay. Come on in. Let's take those 15 minutes right now.

0 (1m 58s):
Unstoppable! Have you seen that Downey commercial - and don't worry, I don't get any kickback from this at all, but I just love this commercial - that one for Downy Unstoppables. You know, the things you sprinkle in your dryer or your washing machine to get the smell into your clothes. Well, there is this one commercial, I'm going to put the link in the show notes. She is an older lady that is just plain, and ordinary. Actually, there's a commercial with all three, with three very normal ordinary people. And when they smell something, a towel, a blanket, a sheet that has been doused in that Downy unstoppable scent, suddenly they come alive.

1 (2m 47s):
I love to watch her because she's just such a character, an older lady, but she embodies that sexy villain of her, that sexy person inside that is inside all of us, just waiting to be released. Maybe not in the way she's doing it, but similar. I want you to go watch that commercial because it'll make you smile. And it'll also make you realize that there are things in our lives that we can do to actually bring ourselves alive.

1 (3m 27s):
To remember who we are and that, no pun intended here, that we are  unstoppable.

0 (3m 37s):
Remember, we're talking about opening our hearts again, to love. The love of a man. The love of life. Life is simple. There we are a heart walking on a path, just ourselves. This person that was made, this unique individual that has inside of her, everything that she needs to live her life and so much more. She has so much more. A light to shine. There you are walking your path. How do you get to the place where you're unstoppable?

0 (4m 19s):
How do you, when all those bombs have gone off in your life, those boulders have dropped on you? Those rocks have been thrown at you from people on their other paths, walking beside you. How do you get to the place where you are an unstoppable? Today - remember, we're talking about being S.O.F.T. - Staying S.O.F.T. because the worst thing you can do, the sign that you have built a wall around your castle, and you are Sleeping Beauty who has pricked her finger on the pain in life and put her heart to sleep.

0 (4m 59s):
The sign that you have done that is that you have this huge wall around your heart. And that usually means you're hardened. You are very wary and cautious to people coming to you. Men helping you. Receiving anything is very difficult for you because it feels as if it puts you in a vulnerable place. If you feel that hard wall around you, if you feel that fiery fear, dragon hissing at you and warning you off of relationships and love and everything, that's good in life, then you are at risk.

1 (5m 44s):
You are stopping yourself. You are allowing yourself to be frozen in time to be asleep. And we don't want that. I don't want that for you. That's why we're talking about being soft. This is what I had to learn when I opened my heart to love again. I had to learn to be strong on the inside. So I could be soft toward the world toward people who wanted to give to me, toward a man, my Knight in Shining Armor who wanted to come into my life and be in my heart.

0 (6m 24s):
I had to learn to open up my heart just like you sit up straight, put your chest out and open up your arms. That feels like your heart is open. I had to learn to do that. But in order to do that, remember, life is simple. Two things I had to realize and still do every day. One, how am I seeing myself? And two, how am I seeing others? Now that lady in the commercial we're talking about, she exudes confidence and identity. She knows who she is, and she's not worried about what people think of her.

0 (7m 5s):
In fact, she's reminded of how amazing she is by how she moves her body, how she dances, how she just gets into life. That's what we need to do to be where we can welcome anything and where we can find our strength, where we can be that soft on the outside. The S in S.O.F.T. stands for Strong on the Inside - knowing your values, setting your standards, being who you are, understanding that. The O stands for being Open to life and to love, to not clenching your fist, to keeping an open Palm, to allow life to just happen.

0 (7m 51s):
And you are just surprised. You accept it as an adventure.

1 (7m 57s):
The F is for Feminine so that you can welcome a masculine man into your life so that you can learn to just "be", to relax, to receive, to just be who you are in all of your feminine beauty, in all of your Treasure, all of the beautiful things that you have learned as you've walked your Path, learning to sense, learning to feel, learning, to be okay with being that way and not seeing it as a weakness or putting you into a vulnerable place.

0 (8m 44s):
Now, the T we are starting to talk about here is being True to Yourself which means you are unstoppable. To be True to Yourself is to understand one who you are, what your identity is, and to, to find that unstoppable confidence within you. The belief that you have a reason to be here. You belong. It's called "fighting for your heart". Believing in yourself, that lady in the commercial, she is a fighter for herself, for her heart.

0 (9m 26s):
She is who she is. She shows us there that when she sniffs that scent, woo, she comes alive. How are you alive? What do you stand for? If you were to be True to Yourself, who would you be? Are you hearing those, those Bad Fairy Voices in your head from your past? Do you hear your mom saying something? Do you hear your ex-husband telling you something? Do you hear your friends mocking, you laughing at you? What are the voices inside that are stopping you that are making you halt the S that create that Story that you're telling yourself, the Story that comes under that umbrella, "I am not enough.

0 (10m 17s):
And so I won't be loved".

1 (10m 19s):
We want to stop the Story. We want to make you, the person you are on, because have a reason to be here. You don't want to spend the rest of your life, your fifties or sixties or seventies, your eighties just being stuck, just waiting to die. Stopped because life seemed to prove to you that you weren't enough. You couldn't find love you. Weren't lovable. You know, that is just so untrue and it breaks my heart. Now this is where you start.

0 (10m 58s):
This is one of your Hope-Filled Actions. I'm jumping ahead, but I'm going to tell you a way to begin to understand who you are. It's not just who you are, but it's what you aren't, it's what you don't like, what you hate, what cheeses you off. What makes you angry about the world? Not just about what people have done to you though that is something that will incite those feelings inside of you. But it's about what you're passionate about. What makes you cry? What moves you to tears?

0 (11m 38s):
I just recently had to do an exercise like this. Let me just read something to you. And this is what cheeses may off. It cheeses me off when women lose their sense of worth. As they get older, that they feel invisible. That, over the course of our lives, we lose our sense of being anything worth loving, worth caring about. I hate that women get to be 70 and feel all washed up.

1 (12m 8s):
I hate that they let themselves fall apart and forget to be beautiful. I hate that they think they're not lovable. I hate that they can't meet better quality men if they're alone and that they're treated so awfully sometimes if they are with someone. I hate that life dries us up and makes us think we're done. It was so powerful for me to write that down. To begin to realize what it is that gets me going. That makes me cry. That cheeses me off, makes me angry.

0 (12m 49s):
So what we want to do, if you are going to be unstoppable, which I hope you are going to make that determination to do, because unstoppable leads you to believe in yourself and see yourself as you really are to believe in the strong parts of you, not the weaknesses. And it also, secondly, you know how you see people, it helps you to understand why you see people the way you do. It helps you to understand that there are other people walking their paths and they're hearts just like you. And that they also have the things that cheese them off, including the men that you're going to meet.

0 (13m 33s):
When you begin to step into your heart and stand up for yourself to be true to yourself, you can be soft. You can soften because you understand what it is that drives you. That brings you passion and lights you up. Because when you state what you don't like, it leads you to what you do, like which reveals to you why you're here. It shows you your gifts. It will open doors that you did not know were even there in the past.

1 (14m 12s):
So this is your Power Pillar #1 - to know your why. Who are you? You want to be true to yourself. You want to understand yourself. You want to be unstoppable. Okay? That's your Power Pillar #1 is to stand on that pillar and say,"I want to be unstoppable. I'm tired of being quiet. I'm tired of withdrawing from life and hiding behind my wall and listening to that Fiery Fear Dragon. I want to step out and see what it's like to be powerful.

0 (14m 52s):
So Power Pillar #2 - The Truth Is... The Truth Is, my beautiful lady, "You have a light to shine. You have a life to live. You have a love to give. You have a song to sing." There is something about you as a person that you need to get out into the world. Just like that lady in the commercial, dancing on the dryer with that funny music in the background. Oh man, I tried to sing that to my husband every once in a while just to get a laugh. And I can't, I can't sing that tune.

0 (15m 33s):
Anyway, that's beside the point.

1 (15m 36s):
There's a song that has meant so much to me in recent days. And it's called "I'll Fight For You" by Andy Grammar. I'll also put the link for this in the show notes. It moves me to tears because it reminds me of what I want to do for my own heart. It also reminds me of what I want t do for what fires me up and makes me angry. I love the words of the song. They go, something like: "I will fight. I will fight for you. I always do until my heart is black and blue.

1 (16m 18s):
I'll reach my hand out in the dark and wait for yours to interlock. I'll wait for you. I'll wait for you."

0 (16m 32s):
This is where I'm coming from. And when I am doing this podcast, I'm thinking of you looking in your eyes and thinking of something that just moves me to tears and that's eyes that aren't alive eyes that are afraid eyes that reveal the soul inside that is hurting and afraid. Afraid of living afraid of loving. And I, I hate that. And it just makes me want to fight for you until my heart is black and blue. These are the words. This is the song that you need to sing to YOURSELF.

0 (17m 15s):
This is the music that you need to listen to, to bring your heart alive.

1 (17m 20s):
And that leads us to Pillar #3, Hope-Filled /action. I want you to make that list of the things that cheese you off, the things that make you cry, the things that make you passionate in life. I want you just to sit down and I want you to write, and I want you not to edit yourself. I just want you to let that flow, listen to a song that's that wakes your heart up.

0 (17m 55s):
Listen to music while you're writing. Find a song that is powerful and Epic and stirs you. And just let the words flow. Start with "I hate..." or it makes me so angry or it cheeses me off of that. And then just start writing because you need to get to know yourself in order to fight for your heart in order to stand up for you in order to be true to yourself, you have to know these things. So that's what I want you to do. Okay? Send me an email to bernice@opentoloveagain.com or PM me on Instagram.

0 (18m 37s):
If you want to send me your list, if you want to just vent, if you have something in your heart that is starting a breakthrough, I want to know. I try to answer every email I get. I will watch for it and try to respond. It's good for you to share it with somebody neutral like me, but on the other hand, in many ways, I'm not neutral. I care about you. I will fight for you. That's my why for doing this.

1 (19m 10s):
So find your why - learn to fight for your heart. Be unstoppable. That's Power Pillar #1. Power Pillar #2, The Truth Is... You have a light to shine and you need to find that, and you have a passion inside that needs to be released and Power Pillar #3 is finding that passion this week. Your 15 minutes a day is to write that list and to play that music and to find the songs, the "scent" - the Unstoppables scent that wakes up your heart to be alive.

0 (19m 55s):
Alright. I have loved sharing this time with you today. And I look forward to talking to you in the next podcast. Go and have an amazing week.

What does an Open Heart feel like?
To be UNSTOPPABLE is to be alive!
It's heartbreaking to stay stuck as you age.
To be UNSTOPPABLE...do this.
Power Pillar #1: Your Why is because you want to Open To Love Again.
Power Pillar #3: Hope-Filled Action. What cheeses you off? Get passionate! Tap into your beauty.