100 Episodes of Mind Your Midlife: Brain Fog, Bloopers, Body Image, and Finding Your Joy

Episode 100 Kickoff

Cheryl Fischer 0:00

Oh my goodness. This is episode 100 of Mind Your Midlife. Ah, crazy. Crazy. Crazy. And what are we going to do in this episode 100? I'm going to share some bloopers with you. I'm going to share the tips that you've loved. I'm going to tell you where to find all the cool stuff. And I'm going to tell you what's coming next. So let's talk about it. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success. One thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast.

Sponsor Spotlight Vitamin G

Cheryl Fischer 1:03

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Bloopers And Losing The Thread

Cheryl Fischer 1:39

Okay, if you have ever been involved in filming a video or recording an audio or some type of presentation that there was a chance to edit, there were bloopers, right? I love a blooper. I love a blooper. There's there's accounts on Instagram I follow just because of bloopers. Now, my bloopers from Mind Your Midlife all kind of center around the same theme, and that theme is losing my train of thought. So a little treat for you as we start. So here's one from my conversation on making fitness fun with Erika Shannon, and that was episode 52. Fiber and hydration. Yeah. Yeah. Um I lost my train of thought. Hold on. This is why it's good for the Yeah. What was I gonna say? Oh, I know what I was gonna say. And don't you worry, it wasn't just the one time. Here's one from my conversation on being sober curious in midlife with Emily Allen in episode 26. Very interesting. And I was gonna ask you something related to that, but now I lost my train of thought. Sorry. No, not your fault. Totally my fault. Yes, generally always my fault and not the guests' fault, I gotta say. Then let's see, episode 18, when I was talking about sleep struggles with Carin Luna -Ostaseski. Yeah. Again. Um I don't know why I keep luckily I'm editing this, but I don't know why I keep losing my train of thought.

Speaker 3:18

As you were saying that, I was like, oh, we're doing an interview about brain fog, so it's perfect. Yeah, I'm just demonstrating.

Cheryl Fischer 3:27

Um, but to me when I was driving a car, so this is low stakes. All right, I think you're getting the point. Now, sometimes there's tech issues too. And what are we gonna do? Right. I was filming the breathwork episode with Kamini Wood, episode eight, and uh got a little dicey. And I lost you for a second there, but I think I got all the audio, so I think we're okay. I think it's my end that's the problem, but I think we're okay. Okay. So let me get my thought, let me get back on my train of thought. Oh my goodness, I was worried for a second. Train of thought still coming up anyway. And a personal favorite blipper of mine that made me laugh, Katharine Giovanni talking about forgiveness in episode two. Uh, maybe with not the most pleasant illustration. You gotta kind of pick at it like a scab.

unknown 4:16

Yeah.

Speaker 4:16

It's a horrible watch.

Cheryl Fischer 4:19

It's a little unsettling. I'll give you that. It is a little unsettling, but you have to pick at it. Yeah, and and pick at it like a scab. Okay, so I thought you would enjoy those. What the heck? A little kick if you're watching on video. I showed you the clips on my phone, a little bit of a fun way to start the episode. So things happened. I forget stuff, we get confused, the guest doesn't like the way they said it, they want to say it again, the audio cuts out. I have had situations where we had to go from Riverside, which is where we normally record, to Zoom because Riverside wouldn't work at all. If you remember episode 10, which was a coaching episode with an actual client, her audio was glitching so much that I eventually just used it and said, Hey, it kind of sounds like we're anonymizing her voice. Let's just go with it. So we roll, we roll with

Rolling With Midlife Messiness

Cheryl Fischer 5:12

it. And maybe that is a great lesson for midlife. Roll with the messy parts because they're gonna be messy parts. And maybe it's gonna be brain fog, maybe it's gonna be hot flashes where you're just about to melt. Maybe it's gonna be hard stuff that you have to figure out. Well, how am I gonna get through this? I have that stuff too. If we can roll with it, if we can add in a little bit of humor, it really does help. One of the themes you have loved over these hundred episodes is the idea that we aren't isolated in the issues that we're dealing with. This kind of question of is it just me that's going through this, that has to do this, that's struggling with this? The short answer to that is no, it's not ever just you. I'm gonna say that again. It's not just you. We're all in the same boat in this kind of messy middle. And that's okay because we're pretty wise from our 40, 50, 60 years on this earth. And if we trust ourselves, we can figure it out and we can help each other.

Brain Fog Reassurance That Helps

Cheryl Fischer 6:31

So, for example, episode 31 about whether our memories are failing, or is it just midlife? One of the most popular episodes because I was able to reassure you, and quite frankly, reassure myself, that the brain fog, the forgetfulness, that is not 99% of the time a symptom, an indication that you're having a dementia-related issue. In midlife, it's often hormone changes combined with a lot going on and a lot of distractions. And that episode 31 really validated that we're all in this together and it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. Another really popular episode was episode 25 about flashbacks and nostalgia.

Nostalgia Gratitude And Cringe Memories

Cheryl Fischer 7:36

And I do have in, I have two stairways in my house, which are full of photos. One of them is kind of a black and white theme, one of them is color, it's photos of the kids, the family, the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the cousins. I try to, you know, represent everyone. And I love those photos. I also have a digital photo frame that I have almost 700 pictures in, and I love it. And I play it on like random shuffle so that I never know what's coming. I could sit and watch that thing like a movie. It's incredible. It's good to look back on happy things and feel the gratitude that you were able to have those happy things. That kind of nostalgia is really healthy because it puts us into this mode of gratitude. Now, in that same episode, we also talked about the fact that we all have flashbacks that make us cringe a little bit. And one of mine is when I fell down the steps in like May of my senior year of high school, out coming out of my trailer, which was where my homeroom was. There were like three steps, it was raining, fell down the steps on my butt, had to take my AP exams on a pillow. I mean, embarrassing. And I still think about it. And probably no one else thinks about it unless I remind them of that. So some of these things, if they're keeping you up at night, you're still thinking about it, just know you're generally doing your best at any given time. And sometimes you're gonna make mistakes, and sometimes silly, ridiculous, embarrassing things are gonna happen. And again, you're not alone. It's okay. Let it go, move forward, it's okay. Or maybe remember it with some humor. If you can laugh and truly enjoy that laughter, that's a big plus too.

Movement Habits That Actually Stick

Cheryl Fischer 9:40

Now, another thing that you all loved in these first hundred episodes of Mind Your Midlife was game-changing habits. And you know, I say in the intro to this show that I am not about, you got to do 21 things in the morning, you got to do 10 things at night. We are not about adding stuff to our day. I don't have the patience for that, and so I'm not gonna give that to you. And that being said, there were some episodes where we got to talk about some habits where we could make a shift in something that we do on a regular basis that would really matter. And of course, multiple episodes we've talked about movement. And maybe you remember episode 22 when I confessed to Laura Dow that uh I didn't play any sports ever. I was in the flag line in high school and we marched with the marching band. I did try taekwondo when my kids were doing taekwondo. I do pure bar now, bar class, but uh hmm, yeah, I wasn't very sporty. That being said, movement is, I'm gonna say, more important now in midlife, even than it was when we were younger. And there's a whole host of reasons why that is. It has to do with bone density, it has to do with keeping your strength, keeping your muscle tone, because unfortunately, as we get more seasoned going forward in the future, we do have to, you know, I always say this, take a little bit better care of ourselves. And part of that is preventing the loss of our bone density, preventing the loss of our flexibility, preventing the loss of our strength. And so there are a lot of episodes. I mentioned Laura Dow, episode 22, I mentioned already my blooper with Erika Shannon in episode 52. There are quite a few episodes about finding a way to keep moving and make it fun because you and I know we are too, again, using the word seasoned, to do something more than once or twice that is not fun. I had a fantastic time in episode 54, one of the Changemakers episodes, talking with Inessa Love about how she started surfing when she was in her 50s. Incredible. You can find something to do that is movement, that does matter, and you don't hate it. You might have to build in the habit a little bit, you know, put the shoes on beforehand or whatever it is. You can find something, just keep trying because it does matter and is really, really, really a big deal because we want to be able to get out of our chair when we're 80, right? And that happens now. The preparation for that happens now. All right, soapbox.

Hydration Electrolytes And Better Sleep

Cheryl Fischer 12:48

I was on my soapbox. Now, another big hit, episode 20 about hydration with Kristen Coffield. Oh my goodness. This episode was a top episode. We talked about why being hydrated matters, what it really means. And spoiler, the problem sometimes is that the water we're drinking doesn't even have the minerals, the electrolytes in it that our bodies need to be able to absorb the water. Huh. So she recommended something that I show on my website. Uh, 40,000 volts. You can obviously get electrolytes anywhere. It's a big deal to be hydrated. It helps our skin, it helps our brain, it helps our movement, it helps our focus, it helps our sleep. I mean, crazy big. In fact, she is the one who said to keep some water next to your bed if you commonly are waking up during the night. Because if even if you think you're hungry, you wake up, you think you're hungry, it's like two in the morning. Drink the water. Oftentimes you're not hungry, you need water. And I got feedback from people saying I was able to go back to sleep and I stopped the middle of the night snacking. Amazing, amazing. Another thing, episode 80 about stopping the complaining

Stop Complaining And Clear The Clutter

Cheryl Fischer 14:13

habit. Whew, that was a big one. So I talked to you in that episode about how to shift your sort of conversation habits because we have this thing where we talk about the traffic, the weather. I mean, gosh, at the time I'm recording this, I'm looking out the window. Uh, the we just had a thunderstorm, it's humid, it feels like a wet blanket fell on you when you go outside. It's like 90 degrees. Well, the problem with the traffic, the weather, I'm tired, you know, these people are so annoying. Is that we do it as a habit, as a way of conversing with people, and we don't even realize. And it brings our energy down to that sort of complainy level. And in that episode, we talked about having in mind a couple of things that you could talk about instead. What fun things did you get to do this weekend? Where are you going on your next vacation? Where would you want to go? Something that allows people to think about a positive. And it takes a minute to try this out, and it's not something that we can switch easily. And I still catch myself getting in a mood and oh, blink, blink, blink, blink, blink, blink. So vent when you need to, and then see if you can catch yourself in these conversational habits and switch it around. And another big one: decluttering and organizing. Episode 24 with Mary Beth MacKinnon was a big one. Episode 79 with Tracy Hoth. Also, organizing isn't about buying cute bins and creating now piles of bins that are waiting for you to use them. It's about the mindset. And they both talked about this from each a different angle. You'll want to listen. The mindset is that you want to have the things that you want to have, and you want to have them in a way that you can get to them, and that there's not this heavy stuff, this clutter that sort of hangs over us. And when Mary Beth and I were talking, we also kind of took it farther into what about leaving this for our kids? And it was top of my mind because my sister and I had recently sold my mom's house. And it's a big job. It's a big job to go through all of that. So thinking about how we live and enjoying the heck out of it as much as we can now, and not leaving an overwhelming and just smothering amount of stuff for whoever is taking care of everything after us is a gift. It's a gift. All right.

Body Image Community And People Pleasing

Cheryl Fischer 17:10

We also talked about making this period of life fun and being kind to yourself and finding people around you that would do that as well. For example, body image, episode 57. We are hard on ourselves. And in fact, just a few episodes from now, I'm talking with a photographer about how we can love our pictures more. We are so hard on ourselves. If I ask you a question about your body, you're often gonna think about the part or parts that you really don't like. But listen, we're all in our 40s and 50s, early 60s. And our bodies have changed and they will change more. And we want to take the best care of them that we can, as I was saying earlier. And we want to find the things we love. I love having curly hair. Some days that curly hair is just crazy and frizzy and whatever, but a lot of days it's got personality, and I love that. I like my eyes being green. Have some things that you love about your body that you can focus on when you get down on yourself. Listen to that episode. It will help you. And then community. Oh my goodness. I'm gonna pick out one example here, but there are a few times that we've talked about creating community and how powerful it is. One of the popular episodes is episode 61, a change makers episode with Tori Rittinger, who's the founder of a Mahjong studio in this Northern Virginia area. And you know, Mahjong is sweeping the nation. So finding hobbies, activities, new sports like surfing, as I mentioned, it could be anything. Just for the sake of fun and play and meeting people is really powerful. And it obviously doesn't have to be mahjong, it doesn't have to be games at all. It could be hiking, it could be walking. Oh, so many episodes we've talked about. Walking, you could walk as a means of creating community, you could walk as a means of meditating, you could do uh both of those things at the same time, potentially. Finding something that you enjoy that allows you to create community is uh so important that I'm not quite sure how to describe it. And one thing that's cool about that is that this community of mind your midlife listeners has formed over these 100 episodes. You guys are in touch with me on social media, on Instagram and LinkedIn. You are commenting on Spotify, on the episodes, you are reviewing on Apple and telling me what's meaningful to you. And if you're local, sometimes you're coming up to me in person or you're texting me and you're telling me that something mattered to you. And those things matter to me. I want you to know if you've reached out and said something to me about a podcast episode mattering for you, that matters to me. So powerful to hear that. This is why I'm here. And a lot of feedback, in fact, came from episode 97, which was a recent one with Lori Montry when we were talking about dropping the people pleasing. That was a two-episode series. My aha moment on that one, if you hadn't heard it yet, she said, Are you one of the people you're pleasing? What? I mean, truly. Ask yourself. You're trying to please everybody in your life, and there's nothing wrong with that. We don't want to be ogres to everyone in our life, but are you on that list? Because if you are, then then all good. It's balanced. Big one.

Get Clear On What You Want

Cheryl Fischer 21:15

Any other thing I want to sort of bring your attention to in this phase of life, and this comes from episode 30 about getting clear on what you really want. Allow yourself to think about what you really want. Maybe it's what you really want to do today. Maybe it's the decision you really want to make about something bigger, job, relationship, that sort of thing. Maybe it's how you really want to exercise, how you really want to live, where you really want to live, what you want to do in 10 years. We often don't even know the answer to that. And it's because we don't allow ourselves to think about it. We feel like we've made a choice. We're in this path now, there's no deviations off of this road. It's like my wagon wheels are in the rut. And that's where I'm going. Not true. There are ways to change, but you can't change until you know what you want. My favorite sort of visual picture of this is if you get in your car, in your garage or in your driveway, and you turn on your car and you start to press the gas to get going, where are you going? Do you know where you're going? Because if you don't know where you're going, I don't see what we're going to achieve here. If you get in your car, you turn it on, you push the gas, you need to have a destination. And in our lives, we need to have a destination. And it doesn't have to be final. It could be today. What do I want to do? That's what you want to do. It's the destination. Where are you driving your car? Because if you don't know, it's time to just allow yourself to daydream a little bit about it. Now, there's there's so many more things I could mention today. And there's so many other episodes that you've told me have been really meaningful for you. It's hard for me to even pick. There are 99 episodes of Mind Your Midlife prior to this. And those of you that have been around even longer may realize there were 89 episodes of the podcast previously known as OMG Teach Me that aren't even counted in that 100 and they are still there. If you go back to season one, you'll see those. That's a lot. And I'm so excited that this thing is really making a difference for you and for me. So what's next?

What Is Coming Next And Resources

Cheryl Fischer 23:34

Am I going for another 100? Well, yeah, we're going forward, and I'm excited. I have already pre-recorded some episodes for you about the mindset and the psychology we need when we retake up a sport in midlife or we start a new sport in midlife so that we don't beat ourselves up about being a beginner at it, about feeling good about your photos and how to look good in photos, about the men in your life in midlife, and how we can help them and how we can just understand what they're going through, about financial planning, because I mean it's really a big deal. And more. There's more. There's more, more, more, more, more. Pelvic health is coming. So many more things coming up this fall and going forward. Make sure you've hit the follow button. And if you don't yet have it, I want you to grab the self-care menu for free, Cherylpfischer.com/slash selfcare menu. This is a list of what you can do to calm your body and calm your mind, even if you have one minute, or maybe you have five, maybe you have 10 options in every category of amount of time you might have to calm down. Print it out, keep it next to your computer, save it on your phone, have a look at it whenever you have even just a minute to figure out how to calm your nervous system. It matters. That's taking just a little bit better care of yourself. And if we're not already connected on Instagram at Cheryl P Fischer, on LinkedIn, Cheryl P. Fischer, come and find me, say hi, tell me what your favorite episode was. I can't wait to hear from you. And if you have a book, a brand, a business that is looking for ways to reach savvy midlife women, I have two sponsorship slots still available in the upcoming months on this podcast. Go to CherylpFischer.com slash M Y M sponsor info. Take a look, I'll put the link in the show notes. And until next time, thank you for these 100 episodes. And keep remembering, midlife is your time to take just a little bit better care of yourself. On the outside and on the inside, just a little bit more care makes a big difference.