From Powering Through to Moving at the Pace of Trust.

How were you taught to meet the waves—the ones in the water, and the ones in your life?

In this episode of The Midlife Ripening Podcast, Brooke shares three parables from a week at the ocean’s edge—moments that reveal how we’ve been trained to meet discomfort and how midlife offers us the chance to choose differently.

Each story opens a window into the cultural scripts we’ve internalized about pressure, speed, and performance.

This conversation is for every woman who’s tired of powering through, laughing it off, or bypassing her own “no.” It’s for anyone ready to step into a different rhythm—one rooted in trust, presence, and the courage to move forward on your own terms.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why so many of us carry the inner voice of “Why aren’t you?” and what it costs us
• How humor and dismissal can mask real fear and hesitation
• What it looks like to move at the pace of trust in a culture obsessed with speed
• Why safety isn’t extra—it’s the soil of true transformation
• How to rewrite the stories you were taught about resilience, performance, and growth

Seed to Carry: How were you taught to swim in discomfort? And how do you want to meet the waves now?

💌 Want to Go Deeper?

Explore 1:1 coaching, small group programs, and my weekly email series The Second Bite.

Original theme music by Dustin Hofsess.

Transcript

1:08

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Midlife Ripening Podcast. So I just got home from a week by the ocean and honestly, I can't remember the last time I felt that deeply relaxed, the kind of relaxed where your shoulders drop without anyone reminding them to and where you're not just away from your to-do list, but you actually have forgotten what was on it. And somewhere in that slow rhythm. I remembered what I always do. That nature is a relentless teacher and Mother Ocean especially has her own curriculum, and it got me thinking that when we learned how to be near the ocean or when we learned how to swim, we weren't just taught in water. We were taught in stories and expectations and opinions, stories about pressure. Or speed or performance stories about what our resilience or our fear is supposed to look like. And as I watched the shoreline from our deck all week long, either out of the corner of my eye while I was reading or weaving or just sipping my coffee, I saw those stories replayed again and again. Each moment reminding me of a different way we've been taught to meet discomfort, and that's what I wanna bring to the podcast today. Three parables from the surf. Three ways we learned to meet discomfort and what it might mean for us in midlife to start to choose differently. Okay, here's lesson one. The dad in the Breakers. My daughter and I were having our bliss turtle time, which is our way of saying we were floating on our backs, holding hands, cloud gazing when a dad nearby hoisted his daughter up into the air and threw her face, burst into a wave. Now she sputtered up to the surface wide-eyed as he yelled. Why aren't you swimming? Why aren't you using your arms? You know how to do this. She kept paddling silent and overwhelmed, and my daughter turned to me and whispered something tells me that's not the best way for her to learn. And yet that's a way that many of us learned to meet discomfort, get thrown in, perform on cue, and figure it out fast. No matter how you actually feel. By midlife, we don't even need anyone yelling from the shore. We've internalized the demand. The why aren't you Question lives inside of us, but here's the cost. That question yanks us out of our body, away from intuition, away from instinct, away from the very place our resilience can take root. Growth doesn't bloom in interrogation. It blooms when we create conditions that respond to who we are, not who we're supposed to be. So let's pause here and check in with you. Where in your life are you asking yourself, why aren't you, and does that question actually help you move forward? Or does it hold you under. Okay. Lesson two, the couple in the shallows. On another day, I saw a woman standing ankle deep laughing with friends, but clearly hesitant to wade farther out as they swam away. Her partner walked over, wrapped his arms around her and yanked her out, and she pulled back with all her force and reined herself in the sand. So he splashed her and at first she splashed back, and then she turned and walked out of the water entirely. His tone was a little playful, but in a way that skipped right over her hesitation and ultimately her. No. This is another way many of us learn to meet discomfort. Turn it into a joke, laugh it off, pretend everything's fine. It struck me how much our culture confuses dismissal with a sense of humor, especially when it comes to women. We're expected to be good sports, to not make it a thing, but playfulness that ignores the body's signals. The hesitation, the pause, the no, the fear isn't play at all. It's bypassing. And collectively, we do it all the time. We say it was a joke or don't make waves, pretend the riptide isn't there. so I'll pause here again to check in with you. Where in your life are you splashing, humor or distraction over something that actually needs your care? No need for judgment. Just bring in a little bit of curiosity. Okay. Ready for lesson three, the woman in the neon pink bikini. Later in the week, I spotted a woman with a silvery pixie cut and a bright pink bikini walking towards the water, hand in hand with her partner, and every time a wave came, she paused. Curled into his chest and waited, and every time he just stayed with her, no pushing, no coaxing, and when she was ready, they stepped forward together, wave after wave until they were waist deep. That's the third way most of us were never taught to move with discomfort at the pace of trust. In a speed obsessed culture. This is radical. It says your safety isn't extra. It's the soil from which you grow. To let fear stay by your side to hold its hand and to still take one small step forward to go chest deep in the ocean when you're afraid. That's a skill most of us were never taught. It's not sexy, it's not fast, but it is how real transformation happens. So here's another reflection point for you. Where could you offer yourself that same steady handholding presence one extra magical thing about our trip was that the cottage we rented had a sea turtle nest right outside. And every night after sitting with the sea turtle rescue volunteers, my family would walk the shoreline in the dark out to the pier and back. As we walked, we added on one ridiculous thing after another of what we would need to practice if we ever got cast on the Amazing race, because we're watching that show right now, memory puzzles, asking strangers for directions. And of course, open water swimming. But we also name some of the inner skills that often get overlooked in that kind of race. The capacity to stay calm under pressure, to stay respectful under pressure, knowing when to lead and when to follow. Trusting your gut even when everyone around you is panicking because the ocean will keep teaching us. Some waves will knock you flat and some will fill your swimsuit up with sand and others will hold you and let you float like a goddess. But the practice is the same. Keep showing up. Keep feeling your way through the conditions, the water that's actually here. Okay, so let's start to land here. We've all been taught various ways to meet discomfort, and today we talked about three, get thrown in, improve yourself. Laugh it off so no one has to feel what's real or move at the pace of trust with a steady hand to hold in midlife, I'm learning that trust, not speed, not pressure, not performance is what carries me where I want to go the most. And when we practice that, or not just rewriting our own story, we're reshaping the culture we'll hand to the women who come after us. For this episode? Seed, I'll toss you a few questions. You can always take these to your journal or just let them work in the background as you go about the rest of your day in your week. I always love to joke with my clients that the magic of a session is showing up, and you don't need to leave with homework. Let the magic do what it's gonna do. Okay? Here are your questions. How were you taught to swim in discomfort and how do you wanna meet the waves? Now? Thank you so much for being here. I'll see you next time.