Why You Need Your Intuition More Than Ever in Your 40s and 50s | Katie Krimitsos

Is there anything you want to focus on today in particular? You've got your program coming up. So is that something that you want to do? I would love to, yes.

It's called Meditate to Magic.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's coming out on uh it's opening on 1 26th, 26th. So yeah, and I've got some like free resources that would all lead into that, like a meditation quiz and you know, five secrets to download, all that fun stuff that we could talk about. But yeah, that that'll be that'd be great. Cool.

Welcome to the Midlife Rebel Podcast. It's time to rewrite the midlife story for women who refuse to be put in a box. Because maybe midlife isn't a crisis. Maybe it's an awakening. Probably the most talked-about experience of midlife is menopause. And I'm a firm believer that lifestyle plays a huge role in how we experience it. Stress shows up in the body in countless ways, and often it's the simple habit of doing too much for too long. But if we're willing to pause and listen, midlife offers an invitation to do things differently, to question what we've been taught to tolerate, and to choose a more supportive relationship with our bodies. Ancient wisdom has long pointed to practices that help steady the nervous system with slowing down and mindfulness at the center. Katie Kri Kremitsos is the founder and CEO of the Women's Meditation Network, a global family of 24 meditation podcasts with more than 200 million downloads. She supports women through midlife, perimenopause, and menopause by helping them reconnect with their bodies, intuition, and inner wisdom. Thank you for joining me, Katie. That was fairly meaty intro.

So I'm not gonna say anything else.

And I'm gonna let you uh kick us off with telling us a little bit about yourself without giving too much away. Let's drag it out a little bit.

Yeah.

We'll keep you hooked in. Um hi Niki, thanks for having me here. Um yeah, I I am a podcaster, I am you know a mother, I am a wife, I am someone who loves sucking the marrow of life, as one of my favorite writers says. And I um and because of that, I have just found myself continuing to live a life with a lot of intention. And, you know, this this experience of midlife, this experience of the things that happen in midlife, our perimenopause, menopause, like you know, our relationship with our kids changing, our relationship with ourselves changing, our relationship with our our spouses changing, like all of that is in transition, right? So um, yeah, so I love the idea of being able to provide meditations and and support and inner knowing and tools for that to women all throughout this journey.

How yeah, and we're gonna get stuck into all of that and how that kind of how that how meditation can be a benefit, like huge part of missing part of the puzzle for so many women, because let's face it, stress, emotional stress uh is a big factor in lifestyle and often one that goes uh well, it it's kind of like the elephant in the room, isn't it?

Yeah, it's like we all accept that we're stressed, but um I I I don't think that we really get the impact or or really like handle it. Um we sort of like just accept it, like yeah, it's supposed to be here. We're supposed to be stressed, we're supposed to be living this busy life, right? And it's like actually there's some big impacts to this, like physically, emotionally, spiritually, and therefore it deserves our attention and our our ability to show up to it with presence.

Yeah. And I would love to get stuck into some of those things, like what the side, you know, the the negative impact of those things. But I'd love to know what your own experience has been and what led you into this journey with meditation. Have you always done it? Was it like a calling from early on, or was it like an answer to a to a um yeah?

I I mean I had I grew up very religious, I grew up very Catholic. And so the idea of sort of like praying to you know, an entity and praying to God and and having a spiritual relationship that was all mine and unique was absolutely embedded in me. And I'm super grateful for that. And then when I was 19, I was in college and I was taking a yoga class, and you know, the teacher at the very end of that let had us lay down for this like five-minute guided meditation as we were laying down. And I remember waking up from that meditation, like, what was that? Like, wow, what was that? Like my brain kind of went still for a little bit, which never happens. And I just my entire body, like mind, body, soul, felt calm. And it it inspired enough curiosity in me that I just started going and learning about meditation. So I would go to the library and go, you know, check out DVDs back in those days or CDs to go play a guided meditation, my little CD player, and sit in my room and get super frustrated after two minutes because I'm like, oh my gosh, my brain's too fast. Like, I hate this, you know. Um eventually that turned into just me just practicing in a lot of very imperfect ways. Um, eventually, that had me going and seeking out, you know, um at the local Buddhist meditation center, like their meditation series that they might have over the course of however many weeks or months. And then eventually I sort of was introduced to a woman who would put on small group guided meditations at her house every week. And I did that for like a year, and then eventually I stumbled across podcasts. This is oh my gosh, back in the very early years of podcasts. And so I stumbled across one podcast in particular that had guided meditations, and I was blown away. I was like, I could have this in my hand, this is amazing. And so I just became a very imperfect practitioner of meditation. And so I used meditation and still do as a tool for self-knowing. And that's always been the heart of meditation for me. It has all these other side benefits, it helps reduce my stress, it helps me process some deep stuff I'm going through. It helps me, you know, it helps lower cortisol, it helps me feel centered, it helps me feel calm. Like it, it has all those physical effects that you could, you know, anyone, you know, could Google. But for me, the magic was always in, I really this becomes a space for me to sort of like be still and so I could hear my intuition. And that was just really beautiful to me. And so meanwhile, no one ever knew I meditated. This was just a you know, a very personal practice for me. And in 2014, I had started a podcast, uh a uh women's entrepreneur podcast called Biz Women Rock. And back then I was one of three podcasts that were hosted by women, interviewed women entrepreneurs, and that was it. So now I'm happy to say that that's a flooded arena, but um back then it was relatively new, and so I was in, I was now a podcaster, and and so I did that. I had my first daughter about a year or so into it, and I was just like living this life of like entrepreneurship and podcasting and mommying and all the things, and I loved it. And then in 2018, at the very beginning of 2018, I was putting together kind of my business plan for the year. I had just hit my first six-figure year. I was feeling really good about myself. I had a whole coaching business. I, you know, provided masterminds for women entrepreneurs, I helped them scale their businesses. I loved what I did. And so I kind of put together the year plan. And on that year plan, one of the random ideas that I had was a meditation podcast for women because it was a personal interest of mine, right? I didn't do anything with it, didn't look at it again. Fast forward, Q1 comes. We've we're hitting all of our marks, you know, we're like about to, we're going towards tripling business that year. And then in April of 2018, we found out we were pregnant with my second daughter. And all of a sudden, in an instant, I heard my intuition whisper to me, you're done with that business. You're done with that business. And I freaked out because I was like, What do you mean? I love this business. But I knew my intuition enough to listen to her. I'd had enough practice by then to be like, hey, you know what your intuition sounds like. You need to listen to her, even if you don't understand. So what I did is I just used the opportunity to kind of pause. And everything I was about to launch, I just paused. I I continued working with clients and I was where I basically did what kept me status quo, and like what I was responsible for doing. But I would really, I would spend my days going on walks with my husband and just talking this out. Like, what am I doing? I don't know. Like all of a sudden, everything in me that felt so clear and secure a month earlier now was like in complete upheaval. I know all of us listening can can understand that moment, right? And so I just would talk it out with him. I would process with him, and weeks of this were going by. And after one walk in particular, I'm kind of done with my spiel for the day of like, should I do what should I do? I don't know. Do I love this? Do I not? Do I want to be a stay-at-home mom? Do I want to push forward in this business? I don't know. And I'm done. And he looks at me and he says, What about that meditation idea? And I said, What about it? And he goes, What about it? And within an hour of brainstorming, I was so clear on what it was. I was like, this is a podcast network. It's not just one show, it's many because there are so many different types of women. There are so many different types of experiences that we have. Like I and back then in 2018, if you searched in Apple Podcasts or Spotify for meditation and women, one podcast came up. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. The space is open. I have so much to contribute here. I feel like I could be a voice for these women. Um, and so I did. I just a few weeks later, I launched my very first podcast, Meditation for Women. Um and now, almost eight years later, we now have 24 podcasts that are a part of the network. And the more most recent one is Meditation for Menopause and Perimenopause. So I um it has been a really incredible, never-perfect journey of me sort of stepping forward with just something that I love to do personally and bringing it forward in a way kind of mirroring with my business experience, marrying it with my podcasting experience and saying, hey, I know how to get this content out to the masses. Um, and we've done that. Like, and I continue to have a passion to do that and to not only to bring meditation itself to women, I mean, these are all podcasts full of guided meditation. So you just press play and you're listening to a guided meditation, whether it's putting you to sleep or starting your morning or what have you, or helping you deal with hot flashes, like all of that. But more importantly, what's what I've become more aware of is that my mission is a full circle of actually sharing and teaching women how to use meditation to come into themselves, to come home to themselves, to hear their intuition so that they can really get aligned and actually create a life designed by them for them. So that's really where I get goosebumps all the time. Like that's why I'm here. That's why I've built this thing.

Wow, what a story. That is so cool. There were so many things, and I was like, just stay focused on listening. Because I, you know, because I could start thinking about crafting a question to like for for so many of the different things that you were saying. But what an amazing story. And I love that um you trusted your intuition. Can you like this is uh well, my experience personally is that it's that's a really hard thing to do because you can have those moments. But like there's also the inner voice that says, no, you can't do that. Well, it sounds very fortunate that your husband was completely with you through that process. Because that can challenge in itself, can't it? That that you're a caregiver for others and you have to consider, like, if you give up your job, what does that mean for my entire family? What are people gonna think of me? Like all of those things. Oh my gosh. What would you say about that experience of like having that moment of your intuition going, it's time to it's time to make a change, it's time to stop.

Yeah.

And all of that other stuff that can come up.

It's a lot, and it's not it's not an easy practice, but it is a practice, which means that that you can practice listening to your intuition on small things, like what what does my body need to nourish itself today versus what should I eat? Or, you know, like, or what should my husband and I do for a date night tonight instead of what are we always supposed to do? You know, basically it's a distinction between the shoulds of our lives and like what really do I need? So we can practice in small ways. And in practicing in small ways, we build that muscle because we see the, we see the, we see what happens, we see the full story of what happens. We see that when we listen to our intuition, who says, Hey, tonight, man, my body really would love some pizza, right? Love, like not, I crave it, oh, I'm gonna cheat today. It's none of that. It's coming from a place of true intuitive knowing. I really want to have pizza with my kid, have a pizza kid tonight, right? Great. What happens on the other end of that is that you are aligned, you're clear, like I want that's gonna be so nourishing to me right now. You take aligned action on that, you eat the pizza, and then you there's magic on the other side of that, this manifesting of like the beauty and the wholeness of that. So I feel good, I feel nourished, right? I didn't overeat because it wasn't about that. I ate what my body needed. So, like you start seeing the full circle pattern of how good you feel after you make the decisions and take the aligned action based on what your intuition has told you. So the more time, the more at bats you have, the better you get, right? And the more able you are to make really big decisions. So uh, but I want to stay there for a second because the reason we don't listen to our intuition can be so multifaceted, right? Number one, we're not, we're we're kind of not trained to listen to our intuition. We're trained that other people know better than us, right? Other people know better, the experts know better, your parents know better, you know, how things are normally done is the right way versus what your intuition is telling you. And so there's sort of a box that we're put in. And so it becomes a little bit of a, we become a little bit of a rebel if we, if we are actually like, actually, right? Actually, I'm supposed to do this, right? So that's one reason. Another reason is, you know, maybe we're not just as well versed with our with our intuition. We don't really know what she sounds like or looks like. You know, intuition can be for me, it's very audible. For some people, it's very visual. For some people, you're seeing things in nature, like things are confirming and speaking to you, right? Um, and then there's exactly what you alluded to, which is there are real impacts to listening to our intuition. Good and not so good, right? So the real impact of me listening to my intuition and saying, I'm done with this business. Now, granted, I did not shut that business down right then. There was like a year and a half where both of these things overlapped, and I sort of like, you know, one business sort of went down and the other business was kind of growing, right? But there were real impacts of that. That was a real, like I was a big financial contributor to our family at that point. And so I remember going to my husband, and I am very, very blessed that my husband is an entrepreneur, he's a fellow dreamer. So he is like, yeah, like absolutely follow your gut, follow your dreams, like go for it. Like, I know not everyone has those people in their lives, but my husband is like that. And so after his amazing blessing, it, you know, I told you this year and a half process, there was a point in this process where I went to him and I said, okay, next month is gonna be the first month that I have no money to contribute to the household. And that I've never done, never, I've never done that. And we had agreed on this. He already had things in place, like everything was planned, everything was ready. But I went to him and my ego, I was like, babe, my ego is so uncomfortable right now because it's so uncomfortable with this, and I don't know what to do. I'm having an identity crisis. And so he goes, Well, the way I see it, you can either, if it's that important to you to contribute to the household right now, you can go back to coaching, you can go do this, A, B, C, D. But I don't think that that's what your soul really wants to do. So why don't you just do the thing? So I'm like, okay. And it didn't take very long. I mean, it took, it took the Women's Meditation Network three years to be in the to be in the black to be positive and revenue. But and that could be a whole nother financial story. But um what a blessing. What a beautiful thing to have somebody by you who's like, go freaking go for it. Like, why not? Right. So, you know, I really, this is why I am such an advocate for a meditation practice, in addition to all of the other popular reasons why. Because the more I meditated, the more I had a stillness practice, the more I journaled, the more I walked in nature, the more I just sat in silence or pressed play on a guided meditation, the more I could really know myself and I could start dissecting. Like, is this because look, just because my intuition spoke to me doesn't mean a whole train of stuff did not come after that. I absolutely have the self-doubt. Katie, are you self-sabotaging? What is this? Like, who do you think you are to go and do this? You've never done this before. No one knows you as this person. Like, all of that came like you know, I'm gonna lose all this money. How are we gonna pay for this? Like, all of those things. But the stillness practice, this meditation practice is what allowed me to sit with all of that and really be able to distinguish the noise from the voice. And that is the power. That's why I was and continue to be incredibly confident in listening to my intuition because I I know me so well, I know that voice so well, and I've learned to trust her over and over again because she's never let me down. Ever. My our intuition is always working in our favor. Always, always.

Wow. That's wow. I totally have the experience of like not listening to it, I think. I love that. That you were really supported and and really can trust it. And yeah, also that tip of like just doing it with the small things. But it's really it's almost uh in instant, isn't it? That that intuition is like a moment, a thought. And uh the first step is really just hearing it. Because it can be it can kind of come and go. But then but then yeah, really trying to identify between the what is the truth and what is all just the psycho babble. Um and I guess a part of it is feeling it in your body rather than taking your head taking over.

I'm so glad that you said that, Nadine, because so I was gonna give you an example because I wanted to make sure you hear that I don't always listen to my intuition. I can know her, I can know what she sounds like, but there are times that I don't listen to her for all the reasons, right? And so I just want to make sure you don't feel so alone in that, and that's completely normal. It's completely normal not to listen. And it it this example I'm gonna give back drives your point home. So uh, oh my gosh. I would say two years to through maybe three or four years into the Women's Meditation Network, I was in the process of interviewing a couple advertising agencies with whom I could be exclusive, which meant for the majority of the years of uh the Women's Meditation Network, the um a big source of our revenue has been from advertisers, right? And so for many years I worked with, let's say, three or four or five different advertising agencies who all would bring us advertisers, and that was great. Well, now I was considering only working with one because there were some benefits to that. That, you know, there were a lot of pros and cons, but the pros seemed a lot bigger. So I interviewed and they interviewed me two different companies. So company number one, I sat down, and you know, we're talking like, hey, if I'm gonna cut off all these other relationships, what are you gonna do for me and what could we do together? kind of thing. So we're talking numbers, we're talking money, we're talking how many downloads, we're talking all the things. Company number one. It's a 20-minute conversation. It's great. It feels great. Super simple. Great people. Great. Put that conversation aside. The next day I meet with company number two. And I know, I know her. Like we've worked together. Um, it it's great. During the entire conversation, my body, I was sweating, I was physically shaking. And by the time I hung up with them, I felt like I was going to throw up. And you would think, because I knew that that was my intuition, going like, no, no, this is a no. You would think that that would be a big enough sign for me, right? Nope. I still decided to sign with that company, with company number two. And let me tell you, I so I want to, I want to, this is such a good poignant example of this. I still decided to do that. And what ended up happening was that the moment I signed with them, all advertisers stopped. Like they didn't now I had to say no to all the other companies, right? And the one advertiser, the one agency who was supposed to bring me all these advertisers had no one to give me. She didn't plan it. There was nothing negative on then. She didn't plan it that way. I mean, she thought everyone would be interested, whatever. And for three months it maintained like that. So I probably lost easily$100,000 in revenue. And the whole time, my gut turned the whole time. And I was like, okay, this is the$100,000 lesson. Listen to my intuition next time. So I'm even when we don't listen to our intuition, or even when we quote unquote choose wrong, I still believe that there's a purpose behind that. I still, because I'll tell you what, I will not make that, I will not make that mistake again. And that's been I it is built my wisdom. Let's just say that. So it you to bring the point home to your body, you feel you can feel it in your body, you can hear it, you can you can feel it in energy sometimes. I hear the women say this a lot. I feel it in my gut. Like I had a gut feeling about that person. You know, you've had that feeling of like just stay away from that person, or oh, I love that person, like I need to be around that person more, right? So we feel it. We're so we we're so attuned to it. We just need to take her a little more seriously.

It's a really interesting combination, the business and meditation, like those two things. I I feel like we don't necessarily put those two things together. Have you had to grapple with that, you know, the sort of uh the spiritual side of meditation and the business, or has it always just been a very clear, like, this is what I do, this is who I am, this is how I want it to be, and going with that?

Yeah, it's a really good question. Um I for me, it's never been weird because I feel like me as a being, I sort of have those two components of me. I'm incredibly creative and woo-woo, and I'm also very business-organized person. I have both of those sides of me. So it felt completely natural. All these years, it's felt completely natural to be incredibly organized and business-minded about something as soft and beautiful and creative as a meditation, right? Um, which is why I feel like I have made such an impact because in some ways I've been able to bring a business growth, expansion mindset, and experience to meditation to get it to more and more people, where somebody who kind of just has a creative brain or doesn't have some of those business skills wouldn't maybe necessarily reach as many people, right? Um, that's not always the case, but it could be. So where it's been a little different maybe is is in me sort of discovering what my brand actually is. Like, what do I actually stand for? Because I'm not really a meditation teacher, right? Like I don't, I don't consider myself a meditation teacher. And it it stumped me for a long time, long, long time. And so the way that that would manifest is that people would ask me to come and, hey, can you come teach on meditation? Can you come, oh, come on this TV and tell us the five benefits to meditation? And that's that's great. I will do that all day long because I want people to at least be um associate me with this beautiful tool, right? Um, that said though, I've I as the years have progressed, I now have distilled down, like, okay, you heard my big mission statement, you heard my big heart with meditation, right? So it's just been a matter of sort of like carving out that representation in the public sphere so that that's clear. You know what I mean? Because um, because it does it, it's two different, it's two things, you know, it's that, you know, sort of bringing the business to it, bring like what does that actually mean versus the purity of the meditation, if you will. So yeah, I don't, I think it's just a dance and it's a matter of like it lives in me so naturally. So, and and I have found out with other people, I think what it I like to hope what it does, and the feedback I've gotten is that it it makes my meditations and me very approachable because because of just who I am, and like like I've I have a whole I have a whole module, you know, part of one of my modules in my course talking about like, let's deconstruct what we think meditation is so that it's so that it becomes what you need it to be, right? So I love talking about here's some myths about meditations, and that actually those don't need to be true. And what could meditation be for you? So I think that that attitude about it, that sort of like more practical, yeah, very practical way of talking about meditation and integrating it into our lives, and no matter what those lives look like, I I like to think that that makes it a lot more approachable, and therefore now we can we can feel it, we can use it, we can come into ourselves and we can like feel the experience of that.

Yeah. Cool. Let's talk about how meditation can help women in this midlife um when we're going through so many different shifts, both physically, and mentally, emotionally, spiritually, like we're questioning our purpose, like what the hell is this all about anyway? How can meditation help? But I know that for well, for me personally, that one of the biggest challenges when I've when we talked right at the beginning is the the time issue. Like, I haven't got time for that. How do we carve out time and why is it important? Like, let's kind of go. Yeah, there were two questions in one, but yeah.

Well, that'll lead me right back to one of the most common meditation myths is that what does meditation need to look like? Oh, it needs to look like an hour sitting on my meditation pillow with incense burning at four o'clock in the morning and my mind is completely blank the whole time. That is not what my meditation practice is. That's not what yours needs to be. It could, that's awesome if it is, but so how do we find time for it? Is we start breaking down and and uh one of the we start breaking down and sort of deconstructing what meditation should be, and we actually get to see what it is. So, for a starting point, I consider meditation a pause. Yeah, that's it. It is a pause. It is a pause from the normal motion of our lives, it's a pause from the normal motion of our minds. And in that pause, we're able to sort of like come back to center and hear ourselves. It sort of opens this portal to our true selves, right? So, because of that, because it can be that simple, then it's a question of like, well, what could this look like in my life? So one of the best tips I love giving people is to start with mini meditations. And mini meditations are just tiny little moments of pause. Most often, the ones that I really love doing are like take five deep breaths, right? And I love attaching them to habits that we already have. So when you're waiting for your kid in car line, take five deep breaths. When you come home after going grocery shopping, before you bring everything in, just sit in your car and take five deep breaths. Conscious breaths, right? When you're in the shower, instead of thinking about all the tasks that you need to do that day, stop and take some deep breaths. When you're brushing your teeth, like things that you're already doing. So you just think about like stop and take five deep breaths. This develops the habit of stopping and pausing and having more mindful awareness of who you are and what you're doing at any given moment. So I think that's a really great way to start for those of us who are like running around trying to manage all the things. And then to address your point of, you know, how do we what's the true value of meditation and how do we use it during this season of our lives that is in complete upheaval for many of us, right? Like complete upheaval. Everything is changing. It's really uncomfortable, both physically, mentally, spiritually. And, you know, the obvious answer to me is that it gives you this tool to anchor yourself in you. In a season when you are feeling very uprooted, and everything that you have this is a grand assumption, by the way, that I can't paint this picture for every woman during this season, but for many women in this season, it feels like a season of complete uprootedness. I'm getting uprooted from everything that I've known to be true and the identity that I've had, the job that I've had, the um the role that I've had, the physical uh capabilities I've had, like everything is feels uprooted and changing. And to have so many things changing in our lives all at once makes me feel crazy, right? So the meditation gives us the opportunity at any given moment to come home to ourselves, to truly come home to ourselves. The value of that is that once again, we can sort of start seeing the difference between the noise and the voice. Okay. Now, I'll give you an example of how this works in menopause. There's an enormous amount of shoulds in menopause right now and perimenopause. We are flooded with shoulds. Is HRT good? Is it not? Should we do this naturally? Should we not? Should, you know, should it be okay that we're sweating off at night? Should I be able to do something about that? Like, there's so what is my friend friend doing? What is she doing over there? What are they recommending here? Like, we are completely drowning in shoulds. So imagine how powerful and how different your perimenopause and your menopause journey could be, for example, but middle age in general. Think about how different your path can be when you are choosing on a regular basis to come home to yourself. You are better able to make decisions that are true to your voice, that are true to your soul and are true for you rather than what all these shoulds are telling you to do, you know? And so we actually have a meditation on the Meditation for Women or I'm Meditation for Menopause podcast. And I think it's I don't remember the exact title, but it has something to do with HRT and with hormone replacement therapy. And it's not telling you whether you should or you shouldn't, but it's just asking you to sit with it and listen to yourself about what that is and go through what do you like trying to distinguish the noise of this versus what do you feel inside? Because at the end of the day, this is your life, not anyone else's. And if you choose that because it's the it's what you truly authentically believe that you need, then go for it. And or if you choose the opposite, you there's no reason you should get like there should never be, in my opinion, this sort of like fear of making a choice that is authentically you because of any backlash. Because I really do believe that meditation leads us to such a strong sense of self, yeah, that all those shoulds, all the people with opinions, including ourselves maybe from our past lives or ourselves from two weeks ago, like all of it dissolves. All of it dissolves, and pretty soon we understand we're untouchable, we're unbreakable, no matter how many things are changing. We can hold ourselves in all of it step by step. That's the true power. It is a it's a it's an owner's owner's manual. Like, I wish that there was an owner's manual about how to go through perimenopause and menopause in midlife. Like, I wish that there, where's the part about you know, issues with your spouse? Like, this is your own owner's manual. It's all here. You got it. You just got you have to listen, you have to pay attention. You have to constantly have some level of a practice that allows you to come inside. Pause from the noise, come inside to yourself.

Yeah. What about the timing? Do those pauses need to become longer, or is that enough? That's my big that's my next question. I'm grappling getting a meditation practice, and I've done your um I've done your quiz, which we'll talk about in a minute. Yay!

Oh, I want to know what you what you are, what your style is.

Um I didn't last I'm a curious chick.

That's that's exactly why you're asking me that question. So for anyone who wants, um, if you're listening, you can go to women's meditation network.com forward slash quiz. So I have a a quiz of like what's your meditation style? Because I want you to see that there's not only one way to meditate. There's so many ways to meditate. So somebody who's a curious chick is somebody who's sort of maybe in the beginning stages of her meditation journey, or she's sort of tried it, but not really. She feels like she really needs to know a lot more in order to be good at meditation, right? Which is why you ask the question, but like, how long should it be? So, my what I love to say here is that it can be as long as you need and to pay attention to how long you feel you need. Some days for me, it's five minutes, or some days it's five deep breaths. Some days it's five minutes, some days it's an hour, right? But for somebody who needs a little bit of structure of like, just tell me what to do, and then I can start feeling the afterffects. I love doing like a seven-day meditation challenge, for example. Give yourself a challenge for seven days, go listen to a guided meditation of mine because now you don't have to think about it, right? You just go pick a new meditation every day and just listen and just, you know, whatever those lengths of those meditations are are the time that you're gonna dedicate dedicate it to it. So um, yeah, so it gets to be really fun just experimenting with like what works for you.

So yeah, I loved it. I I I listened last night, um, not straight before bed, but in the evening, and it was a 12-minute meditation and it yeah, it was it was really good. I well I felt relaxed. I felt like I was connected to it. There was talking, but not too much talking because I feel like I just get caught up with, you know, if there's too much visual visualization, I get caught up with trying to visualize trying to do the visualization and not relaxing. It's a real fine line, but I'm sure that different things work for different people. So yeah, it's it's very cool. And I was really surprised at how accurate it was. Like, how do you know all of these different types of people? Like, how many are there?

How many different oh my gosh, I think there's five. So there's like, you know, uh, the long time last, the girl who's been meditating forever and she knows her stuff and she can talk all this stuff. There's the grab and go gal. That's typically what I am. The grab and go gal is like, oh, I need to meditate right now. Like, there's no time day. I like the creativity, like, you know. Um, and then what is there? There's the curious chick. Oh my god, I'm gonna have to go remind myself of it. There's all these different types. The moving mate, the moving maven. That's a really important one. So, like, there's a moving maven. So if this is especially for people who are like, I can't sit still long enough to meditate, right? Well, guess what? You can meditate while you're moving. You don't need to sit still. So, like you can optimize that stillness experience as you're moving, as you're walking, as you're gardening, as you're doing something. So um, yeah, there's there's no excuse. There's there's stuff for everyone.

And I love that you've got that, the podcasts. Um, can you talk us through a little bit about each of the, well, not maybe not each of them, but like the collection that you've got? Because um, yeah, I've I've actually been seeking out some kind of podcast, or not podcast, but some kind of app or something that I can listen to that can get me into a regular practice. So this is really timely. And the fact that you've got a podcast, it's like, well, that's easy to access compared to you know having to pay for an app or going through an app and trying to figure out, you know, what is it I actually need because there's so much information. Yes. Um, yeah, it's been really, it's been really good to to have you. Like this is perfect time.

I love it. Um, yeah, we deliberately have done that, like stayed on the podcast um, you know, apps. And we have um we have four different YouTube channels as well for those people who prefer on YouTube as well. So meditation for women is the first one that I mentioned, and that is my old OG, my old school original podcast. And that one has a little bit of everything, literally everything. Um, my most popular is called sleep meditation for women for obvious reasons. Many of us are having problems sleeping or just need something going on in the background while we're sleeping, right? To help us along. Um, and then we have a lot of different sleep different like sleep-focused podcasts. We have sleep stories for women, we have sleep meditation for women, three hours, uh, that's three hours long. We have um sleep sounds, um, and then we have a morning meditation for women, short five to seven minute little morning meditations to kickstart your day. And then, as I mentioned, we have meditation for menopause. We have one that's meditation for anxiety, meditation for travel, um, oh my goodness, mindful, mindful meditation, meditation for or panic attack meditation podcast. So the kids' ones as well, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we have five different kids meditation podcasts. Um, the goal, the way I handled this, sort of from a business perspective, was that I wanted to answer your pain point right there. I wanted it. I know I I basically made each of the podcasts like playlists. Like, hey, if you're experiencing anxiety, you could either go to like one of my main podcasts and scroll through endless amounts of meditations to find something that's specific for your anxiety, or I could just make a podcast called Meditation for Anxiety, and you know everything there is going to help you. So all you have to do is find the one that really sticks with you in that moment. Same thing for sleep, same thing with panic attacks, same thing for um menopause and perimenopause. So um, yeah, we have a lot. Like literally, wherever you are in your journey with meditation, wherever you are in your journey in life, like we've got the podcast for you.

Um I haven't listened to one off of your um podcast. I've only listened to the Curious Chick recommendation. Yeah, yeah. Um I'm I'm still curious. One question. Um, you mentioned that you used advertising. Do the ads pop up in the middle of the meditation?

Absolutely not. That would be stupid of me. No, no, no. Don't you ever mid-roll app? No, of course um the only way I can.

Because some do actually. Like yeah, but yeah, on YouTube and I've been part way through listening to a guided meditation and all of a sudden an ad comes up. So yeah, it does happen. No.

No, I actually take extreme measures to make sure all ads are on the front end. Yeah, cool. Um, what we call pre-pre-roll. Because um, yeah, because then it's like, look, if they're here in order to make this free, this is we're partnering with these people. I believe in them. If you don't want them, just scroll on by or just you know, opt into premium that we don't have to listen to ads, whatever that is. So yeah, they're all they're all in the beginning.

Cool. Yeah. All right. So you've talked about um you've I'm sold. Oh, I'll but you've got something else coming up, and you talked about that right at the beginning about this full circle and intuition being a key word in this, like following your own intuition, but now you want to start teaching other women specifically or anyone? Yep.

To yeah, I mean, my my how to tap into our intuition. Yes, but so much more than that. So the course is called Meditate to Magic.

Yep.

Activate your intuition, shed the stress, live a life aligned. So it's so much more than listening to your intuition. I'm gonna I'm gonna take you there. Like, we within the course, I definitely go through like the mechanics of meditation. I give you all sorts of like, hey, here are all the different ways we can meditate. Here's like what you need to know about meditation, here's how we can shift your mindset about meditation. But then it moves into this beautiful discussion about like, what does your intuition sound like? How can you listen to her? How can how can you start, you know, taking these small actions to build that muscle? But then now, what does it mean to actually hear what she's saying? And what does it mean to actually become aligned, to let your mind, your words, your belief, your actions actually be in alignment and taking action on that, despite all the fears, despite all the things that come up, right? But then What actually happens? Magic is what happens. We call it manifesting, right? Like, but it's it's like all these little magical moments in life that are a byproduct of being aligned. And the alignment begins with self-knowing, right? So the course, I'm so excited about the course. I I've got a fun little story to share with you about how um, like kind of a perfect example of the embodiment of the course. Okay. So uh as we're speaking right now, it is Thursday. A week ago, last Friday morning, I we were just coming off of the holiday break, like the Christmas break. And it was a really, it was just, it was not a fun break for me. I'm just gonna be honest. Like it's just, it was too much, like infighting in the family, you know, like just travel, like all the things. So I came back really dark, really low, energetically wiped. Okay. So I wake up Friday morning and I'm taking my girls to a play date, and I'm just, I, I can see myself like I'm barking at them. I'm I'm angry, I'm frustrated, and there's no reason for it, other than I know, like I'm I'm off, right? So I text my husband, I text my husband and I say, I'm not okay. I need some extra TLC. You know, I just I need you to remind me of who I am. I need you to remind me of who we are, like in all of this, right? So beautiful man texts me like a Google Maps location. He's like, Meet me here after you're done dropping off kids. So we end up going for this walk, right? And we talk about this in the course about how important your magic circle is, who's around you. So we go for this walk. And by the end of this walk, he's he does what I need, he knows I need. I need to be in nature, I need to be surrounded by Mother Nature, I need to be, I need to have this beautiful human remind me, like reflect back to me the beauty of this life, right? And so by the end of it, I'm feeling on a high again. I'm like, okay, I feel really good. Well, then I was like, okay, so I feel, I feel like I know myself, I know what was going on, I'm aligned. And then I said, what do I most need right now? What do I need right now? And immediately I heard my intuition say, You need a solo retreat. Do you know what solo retreats are? Yeah, yeah. I'm such an advocate of solo retreats. So solo retreats could be an hour or they could be a weekend or a week. It's just uninterrupted time when you are alone and you are not responsible for anyone else. It is lovely. It's a beautiful luxury. So I was like, I need a solo retreat. He's like, okay. So on that inspired, you know, intuitive knowing, I went and I just looked real quick on my um on online and I was just like sort of scrolling hotels, whatever. And one in particular stood out to me, and it's this really high-end luxury resort 30 minutes away from me. So it's it's right here. I know it, I've been there, but I've never stayed there. And I was like, what if? So I get on my I basically, long story short, and able able to pay for three nights stay, which gives me two full days, all with points.

Okay.

And really high-end, really, I didn't plan that, like a high-end luxury resort. I'm like, sweet, points took care of it, right? So I should, so that's not the end of it. So now I'm like, awesome, let's go. Like, I feel so good already just being in action with like, okay, I made this decision. I'm I've taken aligned action. I'm good. So I'm there. I show up. So that's part of the magic in and of itself. But I show up and I'm at check-in and I'm talking to the girl. I'm telling her I'm on this, like, oh, I'm just getting a mommy break. She's like, oh my God, girl, yes. And so she, by the end of it, she's upgraded me to a suite overlooking the water with a balcony. And I was like, I love you. Thank you. She's giving me food, comps, drink comps, all the things. So I get in my room, I have a lovely, you know, sleep. And the next day I'm going for a walk. I see a dolphin. I'm like, life is great. This is exactly what I needed. And I I sat down and I, again, I was just like listening to my intuition. And my intuition said, hey, and I knew I needed to like, so I I've planned launching this course on 126.26 for a long time now. And I have, I had maybe 20% of it done. So I was like, I know I need to actually like do the course, right? So I sat down, I was like, you know what? Let me just do the next module. Let me write the outline for the next module. And then I got that done. I was like, let me just do the next module. By the end of that night, I had all eight modules completely done. And by the next day, I had recorded everything. So in 48 hours, I completely finished my entire course. And I say all this to show you the embodiment of what it means to really listen to your intuition, know yourself, and be able to make take aligned action. And that's when that's when shit happens. Like it all ends up happening as a byproduct of you being aligned. So, yes. So, to answer your question, I'm super excited about this course. It is complete magic. Um, and I'm so excited to be able to give women a very practical tool because it comes with a workbook that like is literally having you like, you know, pick these things apart and put this stuff in action. And so I'm really excited for them to be able to have an answer for what they are commonly seeking, which is I don't know what to do with ABC in my life, or I'm feeling stuck, or I'm feeling out of sorts, or all the whatever it is, it's like these areas of misalignment, really is what it is. And so this is the answer to that. Are you feeling stressed? Are you feeling depressed? Are you feeling like just out of sorts? Are you feeling not yourself? Are you are you in a transition? Are you just for whatever reason not home in yourself and everything that's going on in your life? This is the answer to that. This is the guide for that. So yes, I'm super excited about that.

Yeah, it sounds great. How long is the course? How long would you expect it to take? Like you've said that there's eight modules. How long would you expect someone to take running through that?

Somebody, somebody, you know, there are eight modules. Each module is any is probably an average of 20 minutes, like anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, I would say. There's a couple bonuses along there too, as well. Um I would say, you know, I would say just I definitely have had people who want to take it like a week at a time, and that's how they receive courses, and you get to kind of work on it, you know, in between those weeks. And then there have been a couple of people in my beta who are like, boom, I got like I just once I started watching, I couldn't stop and I got it all done. And I'm now the next day I'm working on the workbook. You know what I mean? So um, yeah, it's just that's what it's meant to be. It's meant to be whatever you need it to be. Did you have digital access to it? And so it's um on the launch, we will have like a live discussion forum, what I call the magic circle. So, you know, for 30 days, we're going to have me in there discussing things, showing up for ask me anything kind of things, you know, live discussions, questions answered, all that sort of stuff. So that will be sort of a really beautiful live component of the course that I'm excited about too.

And then it will be sort of a standalone. It's not like a continual coaching program. It's it's more of a like standalone.

Yeah, it will have, so it will you'll have the opportunity to do like a VIP option, which would include a one-on-one session with me. Um, and then the back end of the course will most likely have like a VIP uh magic circle option. So if you want to continue and you want to be part of like a really small intimate group of people who are supporting your magic, like we can continue together.

Yeah, great.

Yeah.

I would love to um hear your thoughts as we come towards the end of our call. I'd love to hear your thoughts on why this is important right now. I'm not gonna say anymore.

You can see, I know, you can see my giant smile. Girl, I don't think I'm the first one that would be able to identify that I feel like universally speaking, we're sort of in a time when we are farther away from ourselves than we ever have been. And there are so that's not true for everyone. So I want to make sure I'm being I'm making a really broad statement here, but there are so many tools that are designed or just have the impact of taking us away from ourselves. And the noise is so loud. The noise is so loud on how how you need to parent, how you need to look, how you need to do job, how you need to do money, how you need to do life. And I don't have this down perfectly by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel like what what I've gotten really good at is piecemealing my life together in a way that is not impacted by all of that noise that really is like I this is important for me. I want to do this. And it my life doesn't look like anyone else's life that I know. My, you know, like if you were to take a snapshot of my life, it's really weird. Like it's very odd and weird and and piecemeal together, but it's mine. So I feel like the importance of it is that misalignment is visible everywhere. It shows up as anxiety, it shows up as depression, it shows up as sickness, illness, it shows up as complacency in life. Like I've just kind of given up. It shows up in as suicide, like it shows up in some big and some small ways. It shows up as being like we're detached from our bodies, we're not fully feeling our whole bodies these days, you know, like we're it shows up as us putting the power in someone else to tell us how life should be. And maybe this is my rebellion to say, no, no, no, no. This is you get to be, you are the author of your life, no one else. No one else, you, but you have to be brave enough to sit down and write on that page. No one else gets to write it. You you're letting other people write it, but you're the one who's supposed to write. So this is my way of giving back the power to every single woman who takes this course and says, No, this is my life. And it it might be hard to shift and move and to make different decisions, but I would so much rather have that hard than to succumb to whatever box that life has put me in. Yeah, that doesn't sound fun at all, you know? Yeah, so that's why. Because this life is just, you know, it's so short. So why are we not doing everything in our power to live as vibrantly as we can in any given moment? Why? So yeah, that's why.

Yeah, great. I love that. And when you were talking about alignment, it just caught kind of popped into my head like it's not just our own individual alignment. It's there's like there's misalignment worldwide, right? On a grand scale. And we can forget that each of us has our part to play in that, however big or small. And coming back into alignment has does have that knock-on effect of changing the way that your outside world looks, changing your perspective, and and yeah, that one person can have uh a massive impact on on the change as a whole. So yeah, I thought that was yeah, really great. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been really good. I've I'm like totally inspired to get my meditation practice happening. I've done it before, but yeah, too many rules. I love that that we can make it our own. Yeah, and I've yeah, I do feel really excited about taking the next step. So thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and your wisdom. Thank you, Nadine. Hey there, Rebel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Midlife Rebel Podcast. If you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a coffee by going to Buy MeACoffee forward slash Midlife Rebel Podcast. Thanks for listening.