Rediscovering Your Essence in Midlife: A Journey to Self-Discovery

In the whirlwind of daily responsibilities, it’s easy to lose touch with what truly centers us — that core part of ourselves that holds our truest desires, aspirations, and values. Midlife offers a unique invitation to reconnect with this essence, making it an ideal time for reflection, growth, and renewal.

This week, try the following steps to start this journey of rediscovery:

1. Daily Reflection and Mindfulness

Carve out a few quiet moments each day to reflect. Start by creating a new vision or reading the midlife vision you’ve crafted for yourself, or simply think about the goals and dreams you hold dear. If you can, spend a few minutes in meditation, allowing yourself to sit peacefully and tune in.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

• What are my deepest desires?

• What are my aspirations?

• How do I want to live during the next five years?

• What kind of future do I want to build for myself?

Write down what comes to mind in a journal. Don’t censor yourself — let your thoughts flow naturally onto the page. This practice can help you unlock and acknowledge what truly resonates with you.

2. Feel into Your Desires and Aspirations

Now, take another moment to pause and reflect on those desires and dreams, regardless of whether they feel attainable or practical. Allow yourself to feel the presence of these aspirations fully.

• How do these thoughts make you feel?

• Do you feel more alive, energized, or inspired?

• Are you empowered to start taking small steps toward them?

Capture these feelings in your journal, noting any new insights or clarity. Daily journaling will help you delve deeper into what matters most and open your journey toward meaningful change.

3. Commit to Daily Practice

These reflective exercises can help you stay connected to your core, returning to the essence of who you are and what you value. This practice will give you a clearer sense of purpose and fulfillment, equipping you with the wisdom and strength to live midlife authentically.

Consider committing to a 90-day practice to ensure your daily actions are aligned with your vision. Remember, your daily actions reflect what you believe about yourself. By renewing your vision and reflecting on it daily, you can move toward living out your desires and dreams. Grab a 90-Day Vision Journal with daily prompts to help you stay committed to the process. 

Why Now is the Perfect Time to Begin

As we approach the last two months of the year, there’s a natural shift in energy — a time for reflection and setting intentions as the year winds down. This season invites us to pause, reset, and reconnect, making it the perfect time to rediscover our essence. Embracing this practice now allows you to enter the new year with a refreshed sense of purpose and clarity, grounded in what truly matters to you. Let these final months be a season of self-discovery, preparing you to step into the year ahead with renewed energy and intention.

Embrace the Journey

Reconnecting with yourself in midlife can be an empowering journey that celebrates your wisdom, resilience, and individuality. 

As you rediscover your essence, the path ahead will likely align more with your genuinely desired goals.

Let this week mark the beginning of a new chapter. Embrace it thoroughly, and know you’re supported in every step of this remarkable journey!

If you need additional support finding your essence and renewing your vision, check out our upcoming online and in-person classes.

Empower Your Midlife Journey: The Art of Vision Creation and Goal Setting

As another year is underway, you may already have a waning interest in their New Year's resolutions. You reflected on the past year, acknowledged areas where you want to improve, and set ambitious goals for the future. 

While this tradition is well-intentioned, it often leaves people feeling discouraged and disheartened by mid-February. So, what's the secret to making lasting changes and reinventing your life to flourish in midlife? It all starts with a shift in mindset from resolutions to creating a vision and setting goals for how you get there (your future).

Creating a new vision begins with evaluating your identity. What type of persona best describes the person you want to be? This identity is not just about setting goals but redefining who you are and what you stand for. A shift in mindset propels you towards your vision for life. When you think about it, every goal we set is fundamentally about becoming someone different, someone better, someone more aligned with our aspirations.

Your vision is to become a healthier, more active individual. Setting specific health and fitness goals is a crucial step, but it's equally essential to embody the identity of a healthy, active person. You're not just chasing a goal; you're becoming a "fit" person who prioritizes your health, makes mindful choices, and enjoys an active lifestyle.

Your identity, the beliefs you hold about yourself, is the foundation for your goals and vision. When you genuinely believe you are that person, your actions become natural extensions of your identity. You don't just exercise because it's on your to-do list; you do it because it's part of who you are. So, in your journey towards a fulfilling vision, remember that crafting a new identity is the linchpin that makes the entire process more seamless and sustainable.

Here are several tips inspired by Atomic Habits author James Clear and his approach to changing your identity and vision:

• Start with Small Votes for YOU: Implement small, manageable habits that align with your desired identity. These microchanges may seem insignificant individually, but they collectively shape your self-image over time.

• Focus on Consistency Over Intensity: Focus on consistency with your new habits rather than pushing for immediate, dramatic changes. Consistency reinforces your identity and builds momentum.

• Create Identity Statements: Create affirmative "I am" statements that reflect your desired identity. Repeat these statements daily to reinforce your self-image. For example, "I am a healthy and active person."

• Surround Yourself: Surround yourself with people who embody the identity you're striving for. Their influence and support can reinforce your commitment to change.

• Visualize Your Ideal Self: Spend time visualizing your ideal self, living your desired vision. This mental rehearsal can strengthen your belief in your new identity.

• Journal: Write about your progress, reflecting on how your new habits align with your vision. This journaling practice can deepen your connection to your evolving identity. We’ve made it easy for you to create the life of your dreams with our 90-Day Vision Journal.

• Learn Continuously: Seek knowledge and skills related to your desired identity. The process of learning and growth reinforces your sense of self.

• Embrace Setbacks: Understand that setbacks are a natural part of change. Instead of viewing them as failures, see them as opportunities to refine your identity and vision.

• Celebrate Milestones: Acknowledge and celebrate your achievements along the way. Each milestone reinforces your new identity and motivates you to keep moving forward.

• Establish a Feedback Loop: This will help you assess your progress and adjust as needed regularly. This continuous improvement cycle helps maintain alignment with your vision.

If you want additional feedback and encouragement, consider our email course. Our year-long Vision Course guides you through setting your vision and weekly exercises to practice living your desires. By the end of the course, you will have done the work to ensure your desired changes stick and can be sustained. Don’t pass up this opportunity to finally live the life you desire, not just think and dream about it! 

As a midlife woman, you have the wisdom and experience to make profound life changes. Rather than making fleeting New Year's resolutions, embrace the power of embodying the persona of the identity of an individual who already does the behaviors you desire to do and create a compelling vision for your future. With a clear purpose and the determination to follow your roadmap, you can reinvent your life and flourish in midlife. 

Remember, it's not about perfection but progress, and your journey is worth celebrating every step of the way. It requires patience and commitment, and we can help! By implementing these tips and staying true to your desired identity, you can gradually reshape your life in line with your vision. 

Live Well as You Age with These 4 Tips to Reset Your Mindset

We now have evidence that the brain is malleable. What this means is by learning new skills, changing current behaviors, and modifying lifelong habits for better health, you can halt cognitive decline as you age — even into your later years.

Live Well As You Age with These 4 Tips to Reset Your Mindset

You’ve done it before - picked up a new hobby, learned a new skill for work, or started a new morning routine. It’s not always easy to learn something new or change an existing behavior, especially as you get older. All humans are actually hardwired to resist change, but the younger generations generally find it easier to change than those of us in our prime time. 

The reality is that getting out of your comfort zone, learning something, and adopting a new behavior (or two) is actually good for your brain health and has been shown to increase happiness. There is evidence that the brain is malleable. What this means is by learning new skills, changing current behaviors, and modifying lifelong habits for better health, you can halt cognitive decline as you age - even into your later years. 

The story of decline in aging you’ve been told isn’t true. Successful aging requires a
change-is-good mindset, the desire to learn, and a progress, not perfection attitude.      

Get Started with these four mindset reset tips listed below. 

Create a Gratitude Mindset

A gratitude journal is a wonderful way to reset your mindset. By focusing on what you are grateful for, you'll open yourself up to experiencing an abundance of emotional, social, professional, and health benefits.

If you’re already in the practice of writing down what you’re grateful for, try taking your journaling a step further. Make one of your points of gratitude everyday descriptive about someone else and what they've done for you, so that not only are you grateful for your own life, but you also recognize the people in your life and how they contribute to your success and wellbeing. Then challenge yourself to spread gratitude to improve someone else's day.

Send the person you recognized in your journal a note to let them know how grateful you are for them and the impact they have had on your life. Think of the lives you can impact by committing to sending just one message a day! 

Adopt a Fun Mindset

Rebecca’s high school boys had their high school finals coming up  in one week. She realized that her freshman would be experiencing high school finals for the first time and might be feeling added pressure.

When she asked him how he was feeling about finals’ week, he replied, “I am so excited; preparing for finals is fun.” 

Fun and finals weren’t the two words she expected to hear in the same sentence, but she was glad to hear he wasn’t stressed and overwhelmed. 

Fun was his mindset which was making the process of preparing enjoyable and exciting. 

What if you took this approach and reset your mindset when you had something stressful coming up in your life? What if, instead of an automatic response of being overwhelmed, you looked at a stressful event as something fun to be excited about? What if you focused on the process of learning being fun and took the pressure of the results off yourself? 

Give it a try. A reset mindset towards fun can help change your perspective quickly and your life may even feel more fun! 

Build an Intentional Mindset to Change for Good

Like many of you, we started 2021 by setting intentions and a word as our guide for what we want to give attention to over the next 12 months.Transitioning our desired behaviors into lifelong habits is part art, part awareness, daily work, and a whole lot of science.

A place to start is with proven strategies or ‘how tos’ on changing behavior for good. 

We all have patterns of behaviors that we fall back on when we're feeling vulnerable, helpless, angry, stressed or alone. These can be choices that feel more comfortable than sitting still with our emotions. In reality, the only thing that behaviors done mindlessly do is cast a shadow inhibiting our ability to live wholeheartedly. These mindless behaviors give us a false and fleeting sense of soothing and comfort. 

One reason we advocate for sitting still and going inward is the process helps you be mindful about the intentions behind your behavior choices. There are no checklists to identify mindless and comfort behaviors, but self reflection allows you to identify them for yourself. 

Here is one question you can ask yourself that may help. 

Do my choices comfort and nourish my spirit and contribute to my ability to live inside out and flourish, or are they a temporary respite from life?   

Be intentional and identifying red flag personal behavior patterns to help you stay mindful on the path to reaching your goals. For example, if you automatically reach for the sweets after dinner, try going for a short walk instead. 

Being intentional is a mindset. Intention can create awareness around habitual behaviors and help you create change for good. 

Seek a Joyful Mindset

Aging well and flourishing after 50 doesn't require a lengthy to do list or lofty goals. 

Focus on the joy in the journey! 

Do things that nourish you from the inside out. 

Here is where we have found joy the last few months:

• Participate in gentle movement like yoga or meditation

• Walk, ski, or snowshoe in nature 

• Have a conversation with a friend

• Enjoy a wholesome meal with family or friends

• Read a thought-provoking book 

• Listen to an intriguing podcast

• Have a conversation with someone who holds a differing view-point, listen, and seek to understand

• Plan a staycation

• Enjoy the extra time at home to do a puzzle or play a game

By resetting your mindset to focus on the pleasure found in the moment versus what you’re not able to do right now, you’ll discover the joy in so many new experiences in your life. Plus, it can help you positively navigate your life during these stressful times. It’s certainly helped us.

Discover a YOU-First Mindset

Does the recommendation of putting yourself first make you cringe just a little bit? For many of us it certainly does — especially for women. 

Stay with us here. As we’ve aged, we’ve grown tired of trying to live up to someone else’s expectation of who we should be, how we should act, and what we should look like as we age. For many of us, these external expectations create stress in our lives and have become an unrealistic burden that we’re trying unsuccessfully to live up to.  

The reality is you get to decide and write your personal story. And, in doing so you will soften your mind, have greater clarity, and calmness as you evolve closer to your truer and more authentic self.

This is hard work. Society will tell you the goal is to be ageless, instead focus on loving yourself as you are and live age free. 

How to begin? Go inward daily. Set your intentions. Do frequent check-ins to catch yourself if you get off track. Live. Love. Flourish. 

At Rumblings, our philosophy is this...we must reset our mindset in order to live the life of our dreams.  

By focusing on gratitude, intention, joy, and YOU, you can reset your mindset to flourish as you age!  

Rumble On!

Rebecca and Karyn

The Ultimate Revelation of Cultivating a Reset Mindset

Each of us gets to decide and write our personal story. And, in doing so we will soften our mind, have greater clarity, and calmness as we evolve closer to our truer and more authentic selves. The result is a life full of wholeheartedness. 

By this time in our lives, we have all been through a lot of challenges and triumphs. We’ve experienced despair, disappointment, and grief in addition to many moments of joy. 

People say ‘things that don’t kill you make you stronger.’ 

Yet, hearing that and feeling like we have to be strong implies that we have to live up to someone else’s expectation. That then becomes our burden and we carry it around with us forever. 

“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am”

~ Thomas Cooley

It’s time to give ourselves permission to shed those external expectations that do not serve a true purpose in our lives. All those burdens and expectations we carry around only hold us back, and weigh us down. They may even start to feel comfortable and safe. 

As we go through life, we take on others’ expectations. For example, we often play roles at work representing who we think we should be. In our personal lives, it may be smaller things that diminish our confidence or belief in our value. 

We’ve become so accustomed to them we don’t even realize we’re receiving those messages. Just think of all of the messages women our age receive focused on our external appearance - how to look younger, stay thin, and have flawless hair and makeup. We likely even have built-up feelings of shame/guilt due to not feeling like we can live up to these ideals we've taken on over time. Even worse, some of us still carry the burden of having suffered abuse and trauma. 

We don these beliefs like we’re dressing for a northern winter day outdoors when we don’t know the weather forecast - adding layer upon layer of gear until we can barely move. The problem is, when we never fully take the layers off, they weigh us down until we no longer remember what it feels like to be free from it all. 

Having a goal, making a resolution, setting an intention are all worthy endeavors. Yet, what is going to really make a difference and help us make changes in our lives is cultivating a reset mindset. 

Instead of adding one more layer to our already layered up stuff we’re carrying around, we have to shed some layers to get closer to discovering what is underneath it all.  We need to rid ourselves of all the layers that have either served their purpose, are no longer adding value, or we never wanted in the first place. 

We’ve learned many things from our life experiences. It’s time to begin to shed those layers of burdens, expectations, undesired roles, and past microtraumas. 

The place to start is for each of us to spend time with ourselves in stillness, whether in nature, walking, yoga, or meditation to let our inner awareness reveal the things that are no longer serving us. 

As we begin to shed those things that no longer serve us or have purpose, it helps to reveal the core of what is inside - and our truth. We need to tell that truth and live it, even when others may not always like it. 

It’s our life, no one else’s, and letting those layers of ‘stuff’ go leaves space for the things that do serve us. This process is an evolution. We need to find time to periodically ask ourselves who we are becoming and how that changes what is important to us. 

That is what it means to cultivate a reset mindset. As we learn and experience life we are constantly shedding the layers of things that no longer serve us to make space for the new things that do. We are not required to keep stuff that no longer - or maybe never did - suit us. We also don’t have to put that layer on in the first place if it doesn’t add value. Each of us gets to decide and write our personal story. And, in doing so we will soften our mind, have greater clarity, and calmness as we evolve closer to our truer and more authentic selves. The result is a life full of wholeheartedness. 

Over the next few months, our email newsletter will focus on teaching the tips, tools, and techniques for living with a reset mindset. If you haven’t signed up for our email newsletter, you can do so here. 

Rumble On!

Rebecca and Karyn

Use the One to Three Word Practice As Your Guide to Live Well in the New Year

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” — Carl Jung

Since 2011, I have identified three to four words to guide me throughout the year every year. The “my three words” practice was inspired by best-selling author Chris Brogan, President of Chris Brogan Media. These three words are my compass for how I want to live that year. My three words evolve year after year depending on what I want to accomplish, what I feel is holding me back from reaching my goals, and how I want to feel during the year. 

When I reflect on my words over the years, one word has remained consistent - connect.  Usually, one word (such as leap, adventure, or dare) on my list has reflected my personal goal to take more risks throughout the year and not let fear hold me back. Frequently, another word (e.g., aligned, present, or centered) has reflected my desire to be more mindful and intentional about how I live my life. 

Karyn and I have never discussed setting words as intentions for the upcoming year until discussing this blog post. She has a similar practice of choosing one word or a short phrase as her intention for the year. This provides clarity and narrows her intention to a specific topic of focus.

In 2019, a nonprofit organization I worked for took all the employees through an exercise and identified one word —reimagine— as the word for the year.  As we spoke about projects throughout the year, we always returned to our word - reimagine -  for how to design, deliver, or measure results. It was a great word to push creativity and change throughout the organization that year.

The word(s) practice helps you be intentional about the upcoming year. It can also help you break the cycle — picking a behavior to change, going all in, vowing to be successful by the end of the year, and slipping up after a week or two — of unfulfilled New Year’s resolutions. Unfortunately, over 80 percent of us fail to achieve our annual resolutions.  By setting words, you become more intentional about how you want to live your life, which in turn, helps you be more successful in reaching your goals. 

My 2020 words were— listen, connect, inspire, and leap. When I reflect on my accomplishments this year, I see my words reflected. I leaped and left my full-time job of eight years to go back into consulting and start Rumblings. The foundation of the work I do every day is about listening to people, looking for ways to connect deeply with them, and inspiring them to live well. My words also guide me in how I want to parent. I want to be present, listen to each of my children, understand their individual needs, connect deeply with each of them, guide them, and inspire them to live to their full potential. 

Whether you pick one word or three, here are a few tips that we’ve found helpful:

1. Your words do not have to mean anything to anyone else — they’re your words! 

2. Keep the same word(s) all year.

3. Put your word(s) somewhere —  on a calendar, in a journal, as a screensaver, or on a Post-It note attached to your mirror — where you can see it/them every day. 

4. The more you review and reflect on your word(s), the better.

5. Use your word(s) as your mantra. 

How do you choose your word(s):

1. Reflect on the past year. 

2. Visualize how you want to feel, what you want to accomplish, and how you want to live. Creating a small vision board may give you ideas if this is a struggle.

3. Make a list of every word you can think of that reflects what you visualized. 

4. Review the list and narrow it down to your top one or three words. 

5. Give yourself a few days, continue to reflect on your words, and refine your list until you feel confident you’ve nailed them! 

Another reflective activity to prepare for the new year is to renew your vision. Walk through these steps to envision your future.