Month: December 2025

Step right up to the Game of Your Life—
Not the mild sort, not the lukewarm-lite.
No, this is theBIG one,the bold neon swirl,
Where you spin the dial and design your whole world.

Guess who’s in charge of it all? Surprise! It’s YOU!
You’re the boss, the head honcho, the whole kangaroo.
You craft the game board, the squares and the tracks,
Choose a penguin, T-rex, rubber ducky, or yak.

You choose the colors of twenty-buck bills,
Hot pink or grape purple—whatever you will.
You call all the shots in this wild, wiggly place,
But to win, you must meet the star—Your Own Face.

Strange though it sounds, many humans insist
They’re here by accident—cosmic hit-or-miss,
Or stitched from a swirl of egg-meets-with-sperm,
Then sentenced to struggle through life long-term.

But before you began this big Earthly stroll,
You pass through the Valley of Forget-All-You-Know.
Your memories blur, all your brilliance on mute,
Your Divine spark hidden in an earthly commute.

(And yes, it seems odd to plan life, then forget,
Like boarding a ship and ignoring you’re wet.
For if you knew the end, you’d skip the whole quest,
Play beer pong on deck while ignoring your best.)

By age five or six, you buy into the show.
“All these rules must be real! Mommy says so!”
You follow directions with trembling fear,
For an ill-tempered God might smite you from here.

Heaven or hell or the black-hole abyss.
What a grim set of options for being amiss!
But later—hooray!—your true memories return,
And your inner lamp sparks with its long-hidden burn.

Millions today feel that flicker ignite,
Learning to talk with their higher-self light.
And something delightful begins to unfold—
Their laughter grows louder, their courage more bold.

They win more as well—not the “beat someone” kind.
But the treasures of Earth: deep peace of mind,
Abundant good health, friendships that stay,
A zest for each moment that brightens the day.

So what is the trick? Must you gamble or cheat?
Eat sixteen pies? Chant spells in the street?
No, none of the above—just greet someone new:
The most fascinating person as always, is YOU.

And as you recall what your soul came to do,
Your thoughts rearrange, your path becomes true.
You expand into yourself—through and through,
Becoming the “you-iest you that you can do.”

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you found the you-iest-you? What does she look like?

Standing at the threshold of a new year can feel like standing at a portal with one foot in what was, one foot poised to step into what could be. For women over 60, this moment holds power. This phase of life offers you the freedom to live the life you’re truly here for, perhaps more than at any other time in your past. It’s time to take the reins and live fulfilled.

Fulfillment requires intention. It asks us to examine what we’re carrying and decide what deserves a place in our future. I’ve created a five-step process to help you move into 2026 with clarity and purpose, including the most liberating question: what needs to be released?

Step 1: Honor What Was, Choose What Continues

Before you can move forward, take time to reflect on 2025. What are you genuinely proud of? What were your high points and happiest moments? This isn’t about perfection or achievement by someone else’s standards. Look into your wise self and recognize what brought you alive.

Now comes the releasing part. Identify two or three things you want to leave behind. Maybe it’s a draining obligation, a pattern that no longer serves you, or a disappointment you’ve been carrying. Write them down. Check to see if any forgiveness is needed toward yourself or anyone else. Forgive and move on. Now tear up the paper, burn it safely, or simply throw it away with the intention to move ahead with your life.

Next, note two or three things you want to carry forward into the new year. What provides you with fulfillment, a sense of meaning, or real satisfaction? Write them down to take forward with you. Perhaps you’re poised to create something entirely new in your life. This is your moment. Keep your notes at hand for our final step into 2026.

Step 2: Acknowledge Your Web of Support

We don’t grow in isolation. As you prepare to move into 2026, pause to reflect on the support you’ve received throughout the past year. Who held you up? What communities nourished you? What unexpected moments of support surprised you?

Express gratitude for these connections. You don’t need to thank anyone (unless you want to!). The power is in recognizing the foundation of support that exists in your life. It could be friends, spouse, child, pet, an unexpected book or article that served you, a spiritual community, or a neighbor. Think broadly.

When you acknowledge how others have contributed to your journey, you carry that sense of support with you into the new year. You remember you’re not alone in the life that lies before you.

Step 3: Recognize Your Courage and Build Self-Trust

You are resilient; you have strength. You may seldom pause to notice this. Reflect on how you’ve grown over the past year. Where did you show strength? How did you adapt when life threw challenges your way? When did you persist despite headwinds? Consider the pride you feel in stepping up during tough times.

You can trust yourself. You are more than surviving; you are growing and creating. It is time to appreciate the woman you’ve become through experience, choice, and perseverance. As you prepare to move into 2026, hold onto that self-trust. It’s the compass that will guide you forward.

Step 4: Lighten Yourself – Let Go of What Weighs You Down

Now we return to releasing, but with deeper awareness. What no longer serves you? What is complete for you, yet you still carry it? For example, my husband still worries about his former employer, even though he is now retired. I raised my grandson, who is now almost 24. He is responsible for himself. I no longer help him carry on the details of his life. I had to consciously allow myself to let go and move more fully into living my life.

Let go of the outdated beliefs about who you should be, along with habits that drain rather than energize you. Your 50-year-old beliefs about who you would be at 65 may not be true. What your friends are doing may not serve you. Certainly, the media does not reflect who you are. Most importantly, examine the ageist thoughts that may limit your choices.

Do you catch yourself thinking, I’m too old for that or That ship has sailed? These beliefs are weight you don’t need to carry. The truth is that this phase of life offers unprecedented freedom to pursue what matters to you. Let go of anything that tells you otherwise.

If you don’t feel lighter after this reflection, revisit it. Sometimes we need multiple passes to uncover lingering burdens. The goal is to embrace who you are today and make space for more fulfillment in 2026.

Step 5: Envision Who You’re Becoming

You’ve now appreciated the woman you are, recognized the support in your life, acknowledged your strength and resilience, and released what no longer serves you. You’re ready for the final step: envisioning who you’re becoming in 2026.

Take a moment to center yourself. Breathe deeply and allow yourself to sense what’s calling you in the new year. What genuinely pulls at your heart? Who is the woman emerging? What does she care about? How does she spend her energy?

After this reflection, write down what you envision. Then, identify the first small step you’ll take toward a fulfilling 2026. Decide upon one manageable action that moves you in the direction of your vision.

Your Portal Awaits

The new year isn’t just another turn of the calendar. It’s an opportunity to step through that portal with intention, having released what weighs you down and claimed what truly matters. You have the freedom now to live the life you’re here for. The question is: will you take the reins?

May 2026 bring you fulfillment and the courage to become who you’re meant to be in this year of your life.

A worksheet to help you reflect and document your thoughts can be found here: Fulfillment in 2026.

As always, if it would help to talk about your journey, you can schedule a 30-minute chat with me.

Let’s Talk:

What was one positive thing you will take away from 2025? What have you released?

Many women tell me something quite astonishing: when they speak French, they feel like a different person. Braver. Freer. More willing to take up space. It’s not the vocabulary that changes them, but the voice they discover when they use it. I have watched this unfold hundreds of times over the years, and it never stops fascinating me – this small but powerful shift in identity that arrives the moment someone really allows themselves to inhabit another language.

The Braver Self We Meet in a New Language

One of my students once described her French self as “who I might have been if nobody had taught me to second-guess myself.” I knew exactly what she meant. When adults speak another language, the usual internal commentary – will this sound silly, will I get it wrong – loosens its grip. Something about the very act of stepping outside English interrupts the habits of a lifetime.

French, in particular, invites a different stance. You have to send your voice forward. You have to land your sounds with intention. You cannot mumble your way through liaison or glide over endings the way English sometimes lets us. The language has a built-in courage to it, and many people find themselves borrowing that courage long before they feel “fluent.”

Why French Changes How We Feel, Not Just How We Speak

People often assume confidence in speaking French comes from mastering grammar. But grammar, while useful, isn’t the real engine of change. What shifts people is sound. Rhythm. The physicality of the voice. When your mouth shapes a new pattern, your brain follows. You enter a different cognitive state – one with fewer inhibitions and a surprising amount of freedom.

Sometimes students tell me that speaking French feels like putting on a beautifully cut jacket. They stand differently. They feel more expressive. They notice themselves listening with more attention and speaking with more intention. Nothing about their life circumstances has changed in that moment – yet they have changed, subtly but unmistakably.

If you’re curious about how this kind of learning environment works, you can explore more at The French Room.

Belonging: The Hidden Gift of Sounding French

It’s extraordinary how quickly belonging can appear once someone begins to sound French. Not perfect. Not native. Just committed to the music of the language. A hesitating beginner who tries to place their voice in the right rhythm is often received more warmly by French speakers than someone with a larger vocabulary but no feel for cadence.

I’ve watched people who once felt invisible in French cafés or markets suddenly be met with a smile, a longer conversation, or a comment like “vous parlez très bien.” This is not about performing Frenchness. It is about giving yourself permission to go along with another culture’s way of expressing itself and, by doing that, stepping into a different version of your own.

And that version is often more open, more spirited, and more confident than we expected.

Learning as Identity, Not Achievement

By the time we reach our 50s, 60s or 70s, most of us have lived through enough reinventions to know that identity isn’t fixed. Careers evolve. Families take new shapes. Confidence rises, dips, rebuilds. What we rarely expect, however, is that learning a language could reveal a part of ourselves we haven’t met before.

Yet again and again, women tell me that French reconnects them to something they worried they had lost: a sense of play, experimentation, curiosity and risk-taking that life sometimes squeezes out of us. Speaking in another language removes the pressure to be polished. You are allowed – even encouraged – to be imperfect. And that softens the rules many of us have lived by for decades.

This is why fluency isn’t simply a skill. It is a state. A way of feeling. A psychological space we step into where we are permitted to explore without judgement. And when that space exists, confidence tends to grow without being forced.

The Power of Sound, Rhythm and Voice

Many of the women I teach share a common experience: they didn’t lose their confidence because they lacked ability. They lost it because they were judged, silenced, overlooked or expected to “get everything right.” French, with its musicality and forward-moving rhythm, helps loosen that grip of perfectionism.

Learning to speak with a gentle liaison, or allowing the voice to drop at the end of a sentence instead of lifting (as many English speakers do), creates a subtle emotional shift. You feel more anchored. More assured. More willing to continue even when you hesitate.

Some readers may enjoy the structured approach of Live Classes, which are designed to build this kind of confidence step by step. And if you prefer to learn in smaller pockets of the day, the Bonjour Brilliance + Voice Mastery programme offers a way to explore French at your own pace while developing the expressive, confident voice that makes everything click.

A New Year, and the Courage to Discover a New Part of Ourselves

This time of year often nudges us to look ahead. Not with resolutions – we know they rarely survive beyond the second week of January – but with a simpler question: how do I want to feel in the year to come? You might consider French as part of that answer. Not because it is a grand reinvention, but because it lets you experience yourself differently – more expressive, more present, more willing to try.

When we experiment with language something shifts. We find ourselves speaking with more intention. We hear our voice in a new shape. We notice the part of us that is willing to take a small risk, turning an ordinary Tuesday morning into something that puts a spring back in our step. It’s a reminder that the changes we seek don’t always arrive through big decisions. They often arrive through small actions, mini experiments, and the willingness to try again.

I often think of French as a doorway. On the other side is not a more “perfect” version of us, but a more spacious one – the us who is allowed to experiment, unpressured by old expectations, surprised to discover she has more courage than she imagined.

Closing Thought

French may give you new words, but the real gift is the shift inside you – the steadier breath, the bolder sound, the flicker of possibility that appears when you hear yourself differently. Standing at the start of a new year, you could ask yourself whether this is something you’d like to explore more of at The French Room.

Something to Consider:

What part of you have you not heard from in a while – and what might she say if you gave her a different language to speak in? Where in your life would a little more boldness make the biggest difference? And if you stepped through a doorway into a braver version of yourself, what is the first small thing she would do?

My client “Janice” (not her real name) is 66, vibrant, and sharp as a tack. She runs her own consulting business, helps care for her grandchildren three days a week, and juggles chronic pain on top of everything else.

One day in session, she shook her head and said:

“I know I should be tracking my spending better. But honestly? I don’t even have time to think about it.”

She’s not an outlier. She’s the norm.

Many of the women I coach are wise, accomplished, generous women who come to me not because they lack motivation, but because they’re overloaded. Not lazy. Not clueless. Just… full.

Time Scarcity Isn’t About the Clock

You’d think that after retirement, or once the kids are grown, things would open up. But that’s not always the case.

Time gets filled. With caregiving. Volunteering. Side businesses. Friendships. Health appointments. Home repairs. Emotional labor.

Even when there’s technically time on the calendar, there’s not always mental time, the emotional spaciousness to sit down and sift through paperwork or budgeting tools.

And so the pile grows. The avoidance and anxiety grow with it.

Perfectionism Masquerading as Responsibility

Many of us carry the belief that “once I catch up, then I’ll feel better.” We wait for the elusive moment when everything is organized, accounted for, explained.

But here’s the truth:

Catching up is optional. Regaining clarity is not.

You don’t need to sort every receipt or calculate every dollar from the last six months. You do need to know: Am I safe? What needs my attention next?

Instead of trying to tackle everything, start by asking: What actually matters TO ME right now?

Maybe it’s one bill. One account. One pile.

That’s more than enough.

Interrupting the Spiral

When financial tasks go undone, it’s easy to slip into guilt: I should have done this earlier. What’s wrong with me? I’m bad with money.

That spiral is not truth, even if it is familiar.

You can interrupt it gently.

I sometimes encourage clients to notice those spirals and say, “Ah, here it is again. The voice that says I have to do it all, perfectly, and yesterday.”

Notice. Breathe. Choose one small, elegant step instead.

One Tiny Action Is a Triumph

One envelope opened. One password reset. One dollar moved into savings.

Micro-actions like these aren’t trivial, they’re proof of re-engagement. They teach your nervous system, “I can do this.”

Sometimes, after a small step, I invite clients to ask with a smile:

“Did I die?”

It’s a silly phrase, but it helps.

We build resilience by showing ourselves that discomfort isn’t danger.

(Important note: If that question brings up shame instead of lightness, skip it.)

It’s the System, Not You

If your budget stresses you out, your receipts never make it into the app, or your tracking system causes dread… that’s not a personal failing.

It might just be a system mismatch.

A good system fits your life. It adapts when things get busy. It respects your energy, your values, your pace. A good system complies with your messy, beautiful life and never expects you to comply with it.

Instead of asking, “Why can’t I make this work?”

Try asking, “How could this system/routine change to better fit my actual life?”

You Deserve Tools That Make Room for Your Life

You are allowed to have full days and full emotions. You are allowed to pause, to be messy, to do less.

And when you’re ready to re-engage, you deserve support that feels like a deep breath, not a punishment.

And remember:

Not having time to think about money doesn’t mean you’re failing.

It means you’ve been busy being human.

Start small. Stay gentle. Your clarity will return.

Your Thoughts:

How does time scarcity impact your finances? What systems and routines have you built that serve YOU – financially, emotionally and every other way?

I was in my 60s when my relationship with my adult daughter finally broke completely. The details don’t matter as much as this truth: I spent the first six months believing my life was over.

How could it not be? I’d spent decades defining myself as a mother. My identity was wrapped up in those relationships, in being needed, in showing up. When that all fell apart, I didn’t just lose my daughter. I lost myself.

If you’re reading this in the aftermath of your own family rupture – whether it’s estrangement, chronic conflict, or the painful realization that your relationship with your adult child will never be what you hoped – you might be feeling that same terrifying lostness. Who are you when the role that defined you no longer exists in the form you built your life around?

The Unique Grief of the Empty Nest Crisis

We talk about empty nest syndrome like it’s a passing phase – a temporary adjustment as kids leave home. But for many of us in our 50s, 60s, and beyond, the reality is more complex and more painful.

It’s not just that the nest is empty. It’s that the birds don’t want to come back. Or when they do, the visits are strained, obligatory, fraught with tension. Or maybe they’ve cut contact entirely, and you’re left with silence where there used to be relationship.

This grief has layers. There’s the loss of the specific relationship you had. There’s the loss of the future you imagined – grandchildren you’ll never know, holidays that will never happen, the closeness you thought would deepen with time. And beneath all of that, there’s the loss of your identity as the mother you believed yourself to be.

In our generation, we were told that motherhood was our highest calling. Many of us stepped back from careers, hobbies, friendships, and personal ambitions to focus on raising our children. We were told this was noble, that we were building the foundation for lifelong closeness.

When that closeness doesn’t materialize – when instead there’s distance, anger, or rejection – it’s not just disappointing. It feels like our entire life’s work has been invalidated.

The Permission You’ve Been Waiting For

Here’s what I wish someone had told me in those early, dark months: You are allowed to build a life for yourself now.

Not in some distant future when things might be resolved with your adult child. Not after you’ve earned it through enough suffering. Now.

You are allowed to matter. Your needs, your dreams, your joy – they count. Not just in relation to others, but on their own merit.

This feels selfish, doesn’t it? Like you’re abandoning your post, giving up on your children. But here’s the truth: you cannot pour from an empty cup, and you’ve been empty for a very long time.

What Rebuilding Actually Looks Like

Rebuilding after this kind of shattering isn’t about pretending the pain doesn’t exist. It’s not about “getting over it” or “moving on” as if your child is dead to you. That’s not healing – that’s just more denial.

Real rebuilding means grieving fully while also reclaiming your life. It means acknowledging that yes, this relationship is broken or changed in painful ways, AND you still deserve to experience joy, purpose, and fulfillment.

It means asking yourself questions you may have been avoiding for decades: What do I want? What brings me alive? Who am I beyond my role as mother?

For me, rebuilding meant rediscovering writing, something I’d abandoned when I became a mother. It meant returning to a career that once was my life’s ambition – practicing law. It meant developing friendships based on who I am now, not just shared experiences of parenting. It meant traveling to places I’d always wanted to see, leaving a dark and difficult marriage, allowing myself to be fully present in my own life.

The Freedom on the Other Side

I won’t pretend the pain disappeared. Some days it still catches me off guard – a memory, a holiday, a milestone I’m not part of. But alongside that pain is something I never expected: freedom.

Freedom from the constant worry, the people-pleasing, the contorting myself to try to be enough. Freedom to be imperfect, to have needs, to live for myself.

This breaking can become your beginning. Your life is not over – it’s waiting for you to claim it.

I invite you to join my Facebook Group: Empty Nesters: Writing your next story.

Let’s Discuss:

Are you feeling the loss of your adult child? How are you choosing to move on to live a full and fulfilling life after motherhood?