143. You’re Not Here to Be the Martyr: Reclaiming Your Life in Midlife

What if being called “selfish” was actually your first clue that you’re finally doing it right?

Episode Summary:

We’ve been taught our whole lives that putting ourselves first is selfish. That the gold star goes to the woman who juggles all the balls, sacrifices the most, and never drops a single one—especially not the ones tied to motherhood, marriage, or work. But what if that’s the exact mindset that’s keeping you stuck?

In this episode, we’re flipping the script on what it means to be “selfish.” Laurie shares how embracing this misunderstood word is actually the gateway to living your best life in midlife—not someone else’s idea of it. You’ll hear how the conditioning of self-sacrifice shows up in sneaky ways and how reclaiming your energy, your time, and your identity isn’t just okay—it’s imperative.

This episode isn’t about blowing up your life. It’s about choosing yourself—without apology. Because the truth is: no one’s going to give you permission to prioritize yourself. You have to take it.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why “selfish” isn’t the dirty word you’ve been taught it is
• How societal and cultural conditioning keeps high-achieving women stuck in people-pleasing cycles
• Real talk about what it means to reclaim your energy in midlife
• What choosing yourself actually looks like—without burning it all down
• Why the feminine energy of receiving and resting isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity

If you’re ready to stop asking for permission and start living like your life belongs to you again, this one’s for you.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Oh, we have a lot to catch up on in this week's episode of the School of Midlife podcast, because I wasn't here last week. Talking all about stepping into your feminine energy, being a little selfish, and creating a life unapologetically yours in the way that you need to.

Let's get into it.

Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson.

This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life. 

Hey guys. Welcome back to another [00:01:00] episode of The School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. So good to see you today. Did you notice I wasn't here last Tuesday? Did you? If you follow the podcast, you know that I drop a new episode or a replay episode every Tuesday, and I have done that like clockwork since, uh, for a while. There, there was a little bit of a time where I did take some time off after the first season, and we're not really doing seasons anymore. But I, I did take a couple of weeks off to regroup, figure out what we wanted the podcast to look like. But since then, I, I don't think I've missed a Tuesday. Yeah. There haven't always been a new episode sometimes because of work or life or vacation. I've posted a replay.

I 1000% intended to record an episode last week, but I was [00:02:00] inflicted, affected, however we wanna say it. The Amazon Web Services outage completely derailed my plans last week.

I, I, I was so excited to come on and talk to you a little bit about the Best Life Retreat, which I had just wrapped up, and it, it, it was incredible. I mean, an amazing time with nine women this year. We spent a lot of time coaching. We had a ton of really in-depth conversations. Of course, we went to the spa because part of the Best Life retreat is giving time for yourself. And understanding that self-care, although that man, that term has been so overused, but self-care is non-negotiable, or at least it should be.

And so many of us get so busy, so in the weeds of Lifeing that we forget that occasionally we really need to take some time for ourselves. And maybe [00:03:00] even more than occasionally. It's interesting because I was at the Best Life retreat last week and then this very past weekend I was at a writing retreat. I have been for, pretty forthcoming about the fact that the thing that I have always wanted to do is write a book and land on that New York Times bestselling list. Of course, in order to do that, you've gotta write the damn book, right? So, um, I actually spent some time away at a writer's retreat and it was amazing. I am going to make sure that I do something like that every year.

And, and don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of retreats. I always make sure that I go to one that benefits me and my life personally. Obviously I love hosting the Best Life Retreat. It's great. It's my favorite weekend every year. But it's [00:04:00] also, it can be a little tiring. It can be a little draining, you know, if you're the one responsible for all the content you, you are responsible for making sure everybody gets to point A, to point B on schedule.

That the dinners are arranged, that people are being fed, you know, all the little things that, that you have to think about. I take care of all of those things and sometimes it tires me out a little bit.

So fresh off of the Best Life retreat, I was home for two nights and then I went away to this writer's retreat. I 1000% did not plan on going. It's, it's a really long story. I'll get into it another day, another time, but I just looked at my calendar and thought, there's no fucking way I can fit this in.

And I'm so glad that I did. I'm so glad that I made that a priority. So glad that I found a way to work with my [00:05:00] schedule to do something important to me.

Because I will tell you the interesting thing about owning your own business is that it's, it's this really interesting dance. And almost like the most intensive personal development course you have ever taken. Because you have to deal with your limiting beliefs and boundaries and blind spots and all of those habits that you thought were serving you well and for the most part really have, but might be holding you back.

All of that just comes bubbling up and all of a sudden you are just faced, you know, faced with this idea that, well, holy shit, if I wanna get from point A to point B, I gotta start doing some things a little differently. If doing the same thing over and over again would get me where I wanted to go, I'd already be there.

And I don't know about you, but I know I've talked about it on this podcast before, [00:06:00] in fact, just probably a couple of weeks ago, about how I have really big ideas of where the School of midlife, not only the podcast, but the whole company is going to go. And in doing, making those bold projections, it is abundantly clear that I have to start changing the way in some instances, how I am showing up in my life, what I'm saying yes to, what I am saying no to. And it, it comes back to a couple of things that I wanna talk about today.

I, I feel like that this, this episode's just gonna be all over the place because I actually recorded the episode that was supposed to drop last Tuesday, and then because of all of the Amazon web services stuff, um, I, I didn't the, it was a whole buffering, no connection, no cloud recording, and it was just a fucking mess, honestly.

Um. But I know that [00:07:00] I said some of this stuff last week, and so I'm, I'm in this really interesting part where I'm thinking, oh, I already told them that. I, I already said that. So, um, if I seem to be kind of double tracking a little bit, it, like you can see it in my head or you can hear it in my voice, it's probably 'cause that internal editor is saying, um, yeah, we already talked about that, and I understand that the microphone and I talked about it, but you didn't actually hear it. So if this episode feels a little disjointed, then that, that's why.

One of the most, I'm gonna call it profound. I don't know if it is the most profound, but we had this incredible conversation at the Best Life Retreat about being selfish.

Let me set up the scenario for you a little bit, give you a little bit of context. I'm not gonna name names. I'm not going to go into specifics because what happens at the retreat stays at the retreat. We were [00:08:00] talking about what it is we want in life, and there's a whole series of exercises that we go through to get there.

But I noticed that one woman was holding back a bit. And I asked her what was going through her mind. She said that she knew what she wanted, but she felt really selfish about that. Not embarrassed, not shameful. Uh, which are completely valid emotions and feelings which many, many women have in midlife and beyond, or even before that, if they feel like that they are taking up too much space or who are they to want this thing that they actually want, uh, how will they be judged if they say it out loud?

We talked about, you know, are, are you feeling shame? Are you feeling guilt? Are you feeling embarrassment? And she said, no, I just feel really selfish for wanting what I want. And we had this [00:09:00] incredible group conversation about what does it mean to be selfish?

We, we could have looked the definition up in a dictionary, but instead of doing that, we just kind of popcorn style went round robin and just talked about this whole idea of being selfish. And what we came up with was this idea of taking more than what has been allocated or being inconsiderate to others or taking some time or, or some thing away from someone else. Um, this inability to see others' perspectives, this feeling of being self-absorbed, that's what we, what, that's what was coming up when we were talking about what does selfish mean to me?

And then we flipped it a little bit and we, we spoke a bit, we had this amazing discussion about self-care. [00:10:00] And self-worth. And this idea of loving yourself enough to put yourself first. Loving yourself enough to make yourself a priority. And it's so interesting because we all talk about how important it is to show up for others, how important it is to make things comfortable and easy for those around us. But when it comes to ourself, we really struggle with that.

And, and I, I 100% know why. I mean, years and years of training, years of conditioning, that's how we were raised. That's what we were taught. Don't be selfish. Don't focus on yourself. Don't be a bitch. Don't take away time and space from other people. That's what we were taught in a, a myriad of different [00:11:00] ways.

And man, it is so important for us to claim our space, to claim our time, to make ourselves a priority in our own life, because if we don't do it, literally no one else will. Part of that is the way that we have trained the people around us by not setting healthy boundaries, we've, we've essentially said, yep.

I will take care of it. Come on in. Walk all over me. Don't worry about what I had scheduled. I will make time for you. Don't worry about if this is an inconvenience for you, no problem. I will handle it. Don't worry if I just needed some time alone. If, if you need me and my time and my attention, I will gladly give it.

That is how we have been raised. It's just what we have taken [00:12:00] as that's how we're supposed to life. And I would invite you to rethink that a little bit. Maybe it's time in your life to be a little selfish. To focus on some self-care. To focus on self-worth. To focus on making yourself a priority. What would that feel like to you?

Can you even imagine? Can you imagine taking up, and I'm not talking about even taking more than, than is allocated because I believe there are enough pieces of pie for all of us. A lot of times we talk about competition and, supporting those around us that do similar things.

Coaching in my instances, for example. Or when I was practicing law, there are enough clients to go around for everyone; Right? [00:13:00] We don't have to feel like if I take what's allocated to me, then that is somehow going to negatively impact someone else. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about taking what is rightfully yours.

And for some of us that feels really uncomfortable because we are not used to claiming what we want. We're not used to claiming what is ours. We are not used to, we are not accustomed to saying, this is mine. I want this. And in that claiming, owning it without feeling like, ugh, can I really have this? Can I really say that I want this?

Does this make me feel selfish? Does it mean, uh, that people will judge me and think that, that I am selfish?

I would say no, but then I would also say the way that other people judge you [00:14:00] and the things that they think about you aren't really any of your business. I. I understand that that is easier said than done to not worry about what it is that they're saying about you or thinking about you behind your back, or maybe not even verbalizing, but just thinking. You can't control that.

So many people are so self-involved. They're so focused on their own life that we think that we are showing up in a certain way and they're judging us a certain way, and more often than not, they're just focused on themselves. They're focused on their lives. Yeah, they might look up from their little life for a minute and, and take a look around and see that we're there, but they're not as worried about us as we think that they are.

And if that's the case, then why don't we grow a pair and claim what is [00:15:00] ours. Claim what we want, take our portion. And not feel bad about it.

When I, when I talk about growing a pair, obviously that is masculine energy and I've been thinking a lot lately about the dance between the feminine energy and the masculine energy.

I've been dealing a lot in energy. Fun fact, over the weekend I received the news that I had finally earned my human design certification. So way more human design is going to be coming your way, whether you like it or not, but it's fascinating and I hope that you stick around for it. There's gonna be some fun online opportunities for some group coaching focused on human design and how you can figure out more about your design and how you can actually apply that in your life to figure out your purpose and, and what do you want, and what are you here to do in your life. It's, it's so exciting. I'm [00:16:00] so excited. But more on that very, very soon.

Human design looks at energy because at the end of the day, it's all energy. We are all energy. The way we, the, the very way that we are, the way we come into a room, the way we leave the room, the way we impact people, it's all energy.

So I've been thinking a lot about the difference between masculine energy and feminine energy. That really came to a head this weekend at the writing retreat that I was at. I, I've, I've really been focusing more on embracing feminine energy because for most of my life, I have mastered the masculine energy: the competition, the achieving, the success, the hustle, the achievement [00:17:00] at any cost. The tamping down of emotions. Just the drive.

Basically, anything that has to do with success and achievement in our lives is generally tied with masculine energy.

I was a commercial real estate for the first 20 years of my career. I worked in a very male dominated industry. After that, I was in commercial real estate brokerage, also mostly male dominated. I know what it means to steel myself for a tough negotiation, and I have no problems doing that.

But I also feel, and I'm, I'm starting to realize that along the way, I lost a little bit of myself, in fact, half of myself, all of that feminine energy, the caring, the consideration, the love, [00:18:00] the intuition, the caretaking. Things that we typically associate with women and feminine energy. I've done my level best to push that energy aside. Maybe you can relate to this.

I've been so focused on achievement and where I'm going and what goal am I working on that I stopped asking myself questions that were important to know the answers on.

Because they weren't related to some sort of monetary level of success. I stopped trusting my intuition. I started crowdsourcing opinions on what I should do from other people, [00:19:00] even when I knew what the answer was, I still wanted to have that backup from someone else because I just didn't feel like I trusted myself.

I have pushed so many vulnerable emotions down inside of me because I didn't want to seem weak. I didn't want to seem like I couldn't tackle the job or the responsibility ahead of me. And in doing so, I, I feel like I lost a part of myself.

And I realized this weekend that so not only is owning a business this personal development on steroids, but I finally figured out that in order to be successful at it, as I define success, [00:20:00] I have to get back to marrying my masculine and my feminine energy together. I have to show up as a whole person, not someone who is just committed to the drive and married to the hustle, but someone else who understands the beautiful benefits of intuition and caring and loving and those soft skills that I have mostly reduced to

if I have time. Now, when I say that, I am the first to cheer on someone to provide care to them, to show them love, to show up in ways that are important to show up even if there is no competition or hustle involved. But I've realized that when I do that, when I am exercising my feminine energy muscles, I'm doing it for other people. [00:21:00] And not myself.

And that became abundantly clear this weekend when I started writing some really honest pieces. Uh, there was, there was one piece that I, I wrote that. God, I talked about being so mad. It was all about saying, I'm sorry, as sort of my default answer, the one thing that seems to slide off my tongue.

Everything else feels, everything else that comes outta my mouth feels very specific. It feels very intentional. I'm sorry man, that just like comes out of my mouth so easily. And what am I apologizing for? What am I apologizing for? I mean, that's my default. I'm sorry. Even when I don't have anything to be sorry about. And I wrote this really, probably the most [00:22:00] rage filled piece I have ever written in my whole life. I typed it out, I wrote it. And then I read it knowing I was gonna have to share it with the group later. And my first thought was, God, can I even write this? I mean, is this okay for me to write? And then I'm gonna go share it when it's exactly how I feel.

Isn't that interesting that it's so much easier to focus on the doing and how we're measuring up and showing up in a way to protect ourselves so that we don't feel like we're going to be judged for being too much or too selfish.

And yet in doing that, we lose a little bit of who we are and how we really feel. And we trade those authentic emotions for something that looks and feels more palatable to the people around us.

Do you know [00:23:00] what I'm talking about? Am I the only one that feels this way?

Literally, I wrote a piece that I'm damn proud of. And it was almost like this collective exhale when I read it, which means to me that I am not the only one who felt that way.

But for some reason we feel like as women, we feel like our own thoughts and feelings aren't as important as those around us. That being selfish or making ourselves a priority in our own lives, that somehow that means that we're incapable of loving others, which is exactly the opposite.

You showing yourself love in spite of [00:24:00] the flaws that you see when you look in the mirror, in spite of the things you wish you would've said, in spite of the lessons that you seemingly have to learn over and over again, you loving yourself just as you are, man, that is radical self-care in a world that values massages and green tea, and morning walks as self-care.

Those are good too. Absolutely. One hun. 1000%. Those are good too. But what about loving yourself? What about liking yourself? There's a difference.

I don't think either is selfish. I. I also believe that the success that you want in life, the fulfillment, the [00:25:00] happiness, the satisfaction, those three things that we talk about so much on this podcast, because they are across the board, the three things that women tell me that they want the most

happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction. I'm telling you, friends, you cannot get there. You cannot achieve the happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment unless you start at home. And I don't mean the walls of your house, I mean with inside your body. It's time to do a little digging and bringing up some of those emotions.

The ones that you never wanted to express, the ones that it when you were right on the verge of crying, but it didn't feel like the right time to share your emotions with people so maybe you bit the inside of your lip so hard just to keep those, those tears from bubbling up in your eyes. Maybe you bit your tongue, [00:26:00] literally or metaphorically when you needed to say something, but you knew it wouldn't make someone else comfortable.

In fact, it probably would make them uncomfortable. Because you've been taught that if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all.

We can keep living our lives with this idea that we need to be quiet and we need to play small, and we need to serve the others at the expense of ourselves

or we can finally decide that we've put in the work, you know, decades. In my case, five decades of doing and showing up in that way is enough. It's no longer serving me. It's not serving the person that I wanna become. It's not serving the life that I am creating. It's not in alignment with the woman that I am [00:27:00] becoming.

So I'm not gonna do that anymore. Instead of focusing on all the masculine energy and being concerned about how will they judge me? What will they think of me if I break down and show some emotion? God, can you imagine that women show emotion that is something other than, oh, this is great, or this is fine.

Yes, I'm so comfortable. We don't have to do that anymore. We don't have to sacrifice ourselves at some altar that says, you're good if you give pieces of yourself away, or if you push them down and don't feel them, or if you think I'm too busy to deal with how I'm actually feeling right now, I'll take care of that later.

That's not the way it works. If we really want to be women who [00:28:00] live the life we want, who live our best lives, then we also have to be a little selfish. We have to claim what is ours. We have to claim what has been allocated to us without feeling any longer that we're somehow.

Inconveniencing somebody else. We're somehow taking something from somebody else. It's okay to want things as women, it's okay. It's okay to claim the things that we want. It's necessary. In fact, it's necessary.

Which brings me to this:. \ a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, I mentioned doing an in-person mini retreat in November and had, man, I just thought that that would be fantastic. I, I went through, I found a venue, I worked through what the [00:29:00] curriculum would look like, what we could do in a day, and it, it is amazing.

And. When I actually went and looked at my calendar, the only weekend in November that I am in town is the weekend before I leave for Paris for two weeks. And I've been talking myself into, oh yeah, you can totally do that. You've got all the curriculum, all you need to do, you know, is uh, book the venue and get the caterer and print the materials for the notebooks. And I mean, just the list went on and on and on.

And I could do that. And former Laurie, in fact, Laurie of just a month ago would have made that happen because she said she was going to, um. We're not gonna do a retreat in November. I, I just cannot honestly figure out how I [00:30:00] thought that we could make that work because we just can't.

It's that there's too much going on. Yes, I could have shoehorned another thing onto my calendar in November when I am packing up and getting ready to leave the country for two weeks. In fact, I was very close to signing the contract for the venue and then I took a step back and thought, huh, sometimes I need to model.

Sometimes I actually need to pay attention to the coaching that I'm giving other people, which is, it's okay to be selfish. It's okay to say, you know what? I could do that retreat. It would be an incredible experience. It would be an amazing weekend, but I'm not going to try and add another pretty big undertaking to my schedule, [00:31:00] to my calendar in November. Not gonna do it. I am looking at a Saturday in December. We might just push it to January though. I'm still trying to figure that out, like am I trying to make this happen because I feel like I gave my word that it was going to happen?

I mean, there's definitely a little bit of that. I know that the impact, even on just being away, focusing on your life for six or eight hours on a weekend will dramatically change how you set yourself up for next year. I 1000% stand behind that. I completely agree with it. I, I've experienced it myself. I know what can happen in just a short amount of time.

And also what happens if we just push it to [00:32:00] January? What happens if we just push it to next year? That might be fine too. So I'm working on it. I will have more to talk about very soon. I mean, talk about trying to back my calendar. On my calendar in a way that I had not actually even talked about, I am supposed to be starting a five day masterclass that I'm hosting the day this episode drops. Which I didn't talk about, uh, because I, in the back of my mind, you know, I had everything to go, I've got all the slides created or most of the slides created, but I kept wondering, Hmm, am I going to have the energy to do that after being gone for, I mean, in the last two weeks, I think I've spent three nights at my house. It's not very many; right? Um, so no masterclass starting tomorrow. Most of [00:33:00] you don't even know that, that I was thinking about that.

But I'm using this as an example. The masterclass that I have taken off my calendar, the retreat in November that I'm trying to shoehorn in, I'm trying to show you by example that even though you said you are going to do something and you are a woman of your word just as I am, sometimes you have to be a little selfish. Sometimes you have to understand that you're not being inconsiderate, you're not making things all about yourself, but you need to allocate some time and space for yourself.

You need to bring in some of that feminine energy of authenticity and vulnerability and self love and self care. And when you're so busy taking care of all of the things around you and the people around you, you also have to look in the mirror and say, enough. Enough now. I've, I've got to take care of [00:34:00] myself and that's what I'm doing, and I hope that you do too.

I am curious. I would love to know what your definition of being selfish is,

and will you give yourself permission to show up in a selfish way? To hold the healthy boundaries that you've set? To pursue the best life that you are trying to create? To love yourself a little bit more? Let me know what does selfish mean to you? Are you giving yourself permission to show up in that way?

Thank you so much for being here today. I will see you on Friday with a new guest episode, and then I'll meet you right back here next Tuesday , when I'm back here with a new solo episode of The School of Midlife. And until then, make it a great week and take good care.

See you soon my friends.

 Thank you so much for listening to the [00:35:00] School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. 

So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.