Instead of Menopausal...A Beautiful Woman on a Mission

From a post on Pinterest talking about midlife women:  "You know you're getting old when you get butt jiggle, bingo wing flap and boob wobble when you brush your teeth"...

It made me laugh right out loud because I had just been noticing my bingo wing flaps in the mirror when I was brushing my teeth. It's just like, "Oh my goodness, that skin just looks like crepe paper under my arms".

Midlife! You gotta laugh or you'll just sit down and stop trying. What's the antidote to this kind of thinking? The "I'm going through menopause" thinking and I'm going to die if I have another hot flash!

We're talking about the antidote right here in this podcast today. And it will transform you from someone who describes herself as "menopausal" to being a "MIDLIFE WOMAN ON A MISSION".

Doesn't that sound SO MUCH better? And bring up a "Wonder Woman" kind of feeling inside? A feeling that says, "I can do anything I set my mind to."

That's what we're going for. Because we are women. 

And we have so much life left to live. A Mission to accomplish.

Download here:  FREE e-Book:  How To Find Your Passionately Personal Midlife Mission

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Transcript

(00:01):

Woohoo. We are back. I am so happy to be back with you, my lovely ladies. And I don't know if you noticed, but I have given this podcast a little bit of a tweak. Again, I know I'm always trying to find what really works. It's still soft and strong, which we all are a combination of a beautiful softness and a beautiful strength. But where I wanna go with that is to really focus in on creating women on a mission. Because identity is everything. And you know what happens to us in midlife? I kind of chuckled cuz I just saw this uh, thing on Pura talking about midlife women. And they said that, you know, you're getting old when you get butt jiggle, bingo wing flap and boob wobble when you brush your teeth. <laugh>. It made me laugh right out loud because I had just been noticing my bingo wing flaps in the mirror when I was brushing my teeth and it's just like, oh my goodness, that skin just looks like great paper under my arms.

(01:27):

And I've been trying to work those, that part of my arm out with weights. And despite that, here I am with bingo wing flap. I hope some of you can identify with that <laugh>. The thing is that this whole time period called midlife is something that makes you aware of the fact that the time for the bingo win wing flap is approaching in the story of your life. Now what's really important here is to remember that you are a heart walking on a path. You enter that path in that path when you were born and you will leave it when you die. In between, there's all this stuff that happens, all of these phases of life that you pass through. And in all those phases you are the one making decisions about you. You are an individual. Life is really so simple. As I keep telling you, if you've listened to any of my past podcasts, it's really about two things, how you see yourself and how you see others. That's it

(02:59):

<affirmative>. Now, when you came into this life, you started to walk up the hills and walk down into valleys over and over again. So much has happened in the, when you stop and you look back over the path of your life, I know that you see so many things have happened and now you are in, if you live to be 90 or a hundred, you are in about the middle. The middle is what we think of as the forties, the fifties, and the sixties. So here we are in this midlife and you have come through so many transitions because that's all this is, is a transition. It's not something evil that has happened to you, uh, in order to make you miserable. This is one of those normal transitions in life that happened to us without any of us having any control over it. What are we facing?

(04:10):

Why do we call it midlife? Why is it such a big change? Because it's in this transition that you may be going through an empty nest or you're noticing a lot of changes in your body signaling to you the loss of your youth. You know, the wing flaps that brings on this kind of fear of aging. And there's questions that start to come up and it's common to all people who are at this midpoint. You know, did I make the right choices? Did I choose the right man? Did I choose the right career? What if I had made other decisions? Where would my life be? Is it too late Now you feel as if the door, the young door is closing behind you and with it maybe the doors of opportunity. And also what happens to us here is that we hear these voices in our heads about things that people have said to us in the past.

(05:17):

They, they come to the surface. They said, I'm not smart enough or talented enough or qualified enough to do whatever it is comes to your mind. Whatever that chapter was in your story, you're carrying those voices with you. You're, this is also a time when you start to ask yourself if you're needed anymore. Because with the changing of life and the busyness in your twenties and your thirties often and your forties, you're often in that place where you all of a sudden realize that you're not needed in the same way that you were needed before. Like when your child goes off, your last child leaves home, who needs me now? Or your husband is so busy with his life, your relationship has kind of been on the back burner, which happens to many couples and you're wondering, does he need me anymore? Does he want me anymore?

(06:23):

What's next? What Now it's here that I've seen so many women who are struggling and focusing on be being quote unquote menopausal to the point where that becomes their identity. It's really a lot of their conversation and a lot of their thinking. I can't seem to wanna get up in the morning. I must be going through menopause. I can't seem to find a place inside where I feel happy anymore. It must be menopause. I feel so crappy. I don't have any good weeks left in my month. I feel tired and depressed and weak. And useless. I feel gray. It must be menopause. Are you relating to any of this? Okay, so what can we do? Because obviously it's not something that we can stop our bodies from going through. It's not something we can just erase from our life. We're going to get the wing flaps, we're gonna get the chin hair.

(07:41):

It's going to happen. And we have no choice about that. So what is the antidote? This is where I get excited because there is an antidote. There is an antidote to all of the thinking that we associate with menopause. And that antidote is purpose. And what is purpose? Okay, so I looked up this definition and I, I agree with it to a large extent. It's an intention, something that you are aiming to accomplish. Now, where does the mission fit in with this? Your mission is actually an action plan. It's a response to having a purpose. It's taking the purpose of who you are. Knowing and understanding who you are in this life, who you are made to be, and how everything that has played out on the story in the, in your story up until now can be put to good use because it's developed these qualities in you that are amazing, fantastic, very useful and unique to just you.

(09:07):

Having a mission is like putting that intention into an action statement. The what? The why and the how you are going to live from now on. Imagine if you had that. What if I were just to hand you a script and say, okay, you're at this place in your life. You're wondering what you're gonna do and how it's gonna play out. Here's a script for you. This is now what I want you to do to live the rest of your life. Now many of us would be happy to have that because we don't have to go after those questions ourselves. However, <laugh>, that isn't going to happen. Many of us would also rebel against that because we don't wanna be told what to do. You know, you know yourself the best.

(10:02):

And what I'm proposing to you is this, instead of feeling menopausal, instead of defining your life as that, what would it feel like to think of yourself as ready for it? A beautiful woman on a mission. Imagine it's just one small shift in our brain. A sentence like that can make all the difference. Feel it. Imagine this two sentences. I am menopausal and I am a brilliant woman on a mission. This is where we get stuck because when we define ourselves in as the easy negative part of us, we start to feel as if we're justified to have all of those negative feelings and then what follows feelings, actions. Then we're justified to sit down and just stop in the middle of our path. Now you're, you're going to be tempted to do that, but I want to just intrigue you with the idea of having a mission.

(11:38):

And I know that there are many average women out there who are just trying to survive and having a mission is not something that they really even think of. In fact, you may be a business executive, you may be a doctor, may be somebody who has a, who works for a big organization or somebody that has given you the mission and you're working, operating within the mission of that business. And every business has one mission is the core purpose of an organization or a company. It's a summary of their aims and their core values. Well, I want to challenge you with thinking and applying that kind of mission to you, to yourself personally. Your mission is the core purpose of you. It is a summary of your aims and your core values. It's also an important goal or purpose that is accompanied by a strong conviction, a calling or vocation.

(12:52):

Something like if you, if you take that meaning and put it into a sentence, it sounds like this. She has finally found her mission in life. We can all identify with that sometimes envy somebody who has that, right? Or our mission is to find the child a safe home there. That's the what? The why and the how and the who. <laugh> the child needs a safe home. And our mission is to help that child find that safe home. So in this midlife time, this transition period in our lives, there is a shift, a change going on like winter changing to spring as you're walking your path called life. This calls us to do different things. You don't dress in your winter clothes in the spring. In fact, you put them away as quickly as possible, right? If you are in a place where you go through winter and it starts to feel like spring, you get your bright colors out, your lighter coats, you wear your sweater. Even if you're shivering as soon as you can, it calls for a change of clothing.

(14:13):

Midlife is kind of that transition. You can think of it like puberty. Puberty is also a transition that we have no control over. Just like we can't control the weather, we can't control going from a preteen to a teenager into that puberty stage. You changed a lot then as well, right? Puberty is also one of those tough transitions in life that you just had to go through. Do you remember if you're raising teenagers now, I'm sure you remember very well, <laugh>, when approach your forties, you know that you're facing a different phase. You feel it. You feel your young door closing behind you, but really you're just walking around a bend in your path. What if it's actually the point where you are getting a calling? What if midlife is a calling? Not a calling to leave your youth behind, to not focus on that, but instead a calling to look forward, to look forward to doing something great in the world.

(15:33):

A chance to really understand who you are and what you are still doing here in this world. The purpose or intention or objective that your creator has for keeping you here. <laugh>, are you just meant to suffer? Or is there a reason for you to be here? And the change in your life is like that. Transition into a higher calling, into a different calling, a different phase to start becoming somebody deeper, better, wiser, greater. Gives me chills when I think about that. But I, this is my purpose in life is to show you your purpose. That's why it gives me chills cuz I get excited about it. Which your purpose will too. I like to think of a personal mission statement as a bold declaration to do something that makes life super amazing for you. It's something that you've always wanted to be so you could do something that's in your heart. Now, there's three questions that you have to ask yourself. If you're wanting to define your next great mission, pay really close attention to this. They're easy questions. The answers are there in your heart. Now, if you stop all the noise around you and inside of you for a few minutes, you're going to feel it. If you allow yourself to actually consider the possibility that you are being called into something more, you're gonna feel it. Even if it's just for a moment.

(17:29):

It's more of a feeling somewhere in your body at first than a voice in your head. The feeling of being called into doing something special in this life. We all want to be special. We all want to be unique. And you are that feeling not wrong. That desire is not wrong. It's the truth. The truth of you being a human being, that individual walking on your path. You're here for a reason. So the first question you need to ask yourself is, what is one thing that you want to do with your life? Pull out all the stops. Don't let your brain talk to you because your brain is going to tell you you can't do that. You're not worthy of that. Why would you go there? It's just going to hurt you. Your brain's job, remember, is to protect you. It's like that fiery fear.

(18:28):

Drag them flying around the castle of your heart. He wants to keep you safe inside. Doesn't want you to come out and explore the world. Now that one thing that you might wanna do with your life, hmm, what could it be? Maybe it's something like starting a podcast. Whoa, <laugh>. Maybe it's something like opening a restaurant or running for Mayor <laugh> or finding new love running a marathon or becoming a doctor or the end. The possibilities are truly endless. You'll know what it is because you'll feel this in your gut. The excitement, the passion, it's like a wishing, and I want you to write it down. No matter how crazy you think it is, what you need to do is write it down so that you put it out into the world. Just putting it on paper, puts it out there into the world, it makes it real.

(19:35):

And again, your brain is going to try to stop you and give you all the reasons that you shouldn't do this. That you can't do this, that you're not good enough to do this. You know what? That's all right. It's okay. Your brain is just trying to protect you and we're going to move you beyond that. So the second question that you wanna ask yourself is this. What good thing will happen if I get this thing, if I do this? What good could come out of it? Now stop for a second. You're looking at that statement, the one thing that you would like to do with your life. And you're imagining that you're there already doing it. You're seeing it in your head like a movie up on the screen. And you're life, by the way, is like a movie. You the hero, the main character. What intrigues you is when that main character decides that they're going to do something that is outside the com, their comfort zone, they're called to do something that's bigger than they are. Imagine yourself there actually doing it. Imagine how it would be a legacy for your family, for your kids, an inspiration or maybe the biggest surprise they'll ever experience that you would actually have the chutzpah. Is that a word? I think it is the chutzpah to do that. Imagine the difference that you could make in someone's life.

(21:21):

The people you could help feel relaxed and renewed by coming to a bed and breakfast that you're creating in your mind. The children you could inspire if you open that afterschool program, the joy you could bring by offering what you do to the world in a business. Donald Miller, I've just been following him lately. He created a dream called business made Simple, an amazing program and process where he's helping thousands of people to find the steps and excitement to start and managing, start and manage their businesses. Imagine all of the good that he's bringing to the world. And then there's my hero, Evelyn Gregory, who was a bank manager for most of her life, but she decided after she retired and she was around 68, that she wanted to live her lifelong passion to be a flight attendant. What? From bank manager to flight attendant. That had always been in her heart. Guess what? She graduated as a flight attendant at 71 and she became an instructor, a mentor a couple of years later as well. She did so much good in her seventies.

(23:00):

Good thing. What good thing will happen if you were to do that one thing that's in your heart? The third question that I want you to ask yourself is this. What bad thing will happen if I don't make this happen? If you don't do this? What could happen for yourself? Imagine yourself in 10 or 20 years if you thought about this thing and then you didn't do it because you're too scared or you don't believe enough in yourself. And so you don't take the time to plan the steps. You put it off till later. You say, well, maybe someday, but not now. Now's not a good time. And I could never do that because I don't have the finances and I don't have the ideas and I, I, I just think it's something that's a pipe dream for me. How? And then let's say in 10 or 20 years, you are still using those as excuses and now it's way down the road. How will you feel about yourself? What will you be doing with your time? And even more importantly, than you as a person who will have missed out on something because you didn't help them or create something for them who will have missed out because you just sat down and decided that you're not enough to do this thing you're being called to do.

(24:51):

This is where so many of us women give in to getting old. You know the women I'm talking about, the women who have gone before you, who just kind of shrunk and got smaller and smaller and sorta backed out of life just disappeared because they're just getting old, they're menopausal. And then post-menopausal, we feel that young door closing and we're so tempted to just sit down in the middle of our story and stop growing. We resign ourselves to just putting up with whatever environment we find ourselves in. Just putting up with it. We settle. What if Bill b Bagen said just St where the elves live, went part of the journey and then didn't continue the journey with that ring to win the great battle? What if he hadn't? What if Wonder Woman had just stayed on her island and never answered the call to fight the great force of evil in the world?

(26:07):

What would've happened to the world? I know these are movies, these are stories, but they tell us something about who we are as human beings, who we are in our lives. Your next great mission may not be to this, you know, this large as wonder woman or billable baggins, but in a way it, it is, it matters. It's your story and what you're intended to do with all that you have become in this life. It's a part of why you are here and there's a reason that you need to pursue it. Think of your mission statement as if it's a storyline for a movie only. This is a storyline for your life and you're actually living it. So this is how I want you to write that mission statement. Let's bring those three questions together. I want you to make it passionately personal. No one else is going to see this yet.

(27:20):

This is all you. This is yours. This is you talking to yourself because you are an individual on your path making a decision about who you are going to be, just you. So you can write this down. You can also go, I, I have just written an ebook about how to do this exact process. I'll tell you about that in a second. You can also go and use that as your template. But this is how it is. I put your name, want to overcome. Now think about the bad thing that might happen. Pick one of those bad things that could happen if you don't pursue what you want to do. So I put your name, want to overcome, think about the bad thing that might happen. Now mine is I want to overcome the fear of a meaningless life cuz that's my biggest fear. That's what scares me about getting old, is just my life becoming meaningless.

(28:31):

The next part is to accomplish, put in the one thing you thought of before, that one thing that you wanna do in this life mine is to accomplish the vision of helping others to find their purpose. So I, Bernice McDonald want to overcome the fear of a meaningless life to accomplish the vision of helping others to find their purpose. And so what is the last part? This is where you put in The good thing that will happen when you do this minus is that so that others will live with strength and courage and love being who they are. What am I always talking about? Because that's ultimately in my heart. That's the the impact I wanna make on the world to help women live with strength and courage and love being who they are, even in this crazy midlife season. So this is how it reads altogether.

(29:41):

Bernice wants to overcome her fear of a meaningless life to o to accomplish her vision of helping others find their purpose so that they live with strength and courage and love being who they are. Okay, this is the end of this podcast episode <laugh> and I am ending with you working on this like homework. It's your turn to create your passionately personal midlife mission statement. The ebook I've written is, is justice. It's just rounding out what I've talked about here and giving you a template for writing your mission statement. This exact one, it's called, I called it exactly this, how to Write Your Passionately Personal Midlife Mission Statement. And as I said, it has the template in it. So you can use that or I'll tell you how to download it in the show notes by the way. Or you can just write this down. Your name wants to overcome what the good thing would be if you didn't, what the thing would be if you didn't do this. So the bad thing that could happen to accomplish the one thing you want to do so that the good thing you want to happen will come out of this.

(31:16):

If you're totally baffled by this and have all kinds of questions about what your mission could be, remember that I am here for you. This is my mission to help you figure out your purpose and to live it. So send me an email with your questions to bernice bernice mcdonald.com or book uh, a consult with me. Go to my website, www.bernicemcdonald.com and book some coaching so that we can get your mind off of being menopausal, of being in midlife and onto living a life that makes you want to get outta bed in the morning. You got this. We're gonna keep talking about this. So come on back to the podcast next time. So looking forward to being with you then. And until that time, consider answering that midlife call, finding your next mission, and living your life with purpose.