August 24, 2023

My Sixties Have Been the Best Decade Ever.

Why mu sixties has been the best decade ever by Stella Fosse
Life after 60

When I was ten, I realized that I would still be alive for the year 2000. That was exciting for about a minute—until it dawned on me that by then I would be in my forties. “Never mind,” I thought, “that’s so old I might as well be dead.”

I was raised on a steady diet of Disney princesses (young, lovely, and passive) and Disney villains (evil, aggressive older women). So it is no wonder I internalised gendered ageism by an early age and took a long time to outgrow it. Turning forty was depressing. By fifty I began to see the ageism thing as a bit of a hype. And by sixty I was through my second divorce, had resumed dating and was writing erotica about Women of a Certain Age. My sixties have been the best decade ever.

The secret society of women over sixty

My children were grown, I was about to retire, and life was grand. I joined the secret society of women over sixty whose members enjoy more freedom than at any time in decades. It turns out retirement is rather like college—if college did not include homework or tests.

As I write, I’m on the edge of turning seventy: the perfect moment to reflect on why this decade of the sixties has been so great.

First, there is time.

Not everyone has the privilege of retirement. And some of us are caretakers of grandchildren or ill spouses or much older parents. But for many of us, including me, the children have flown from the nest and work diminishes or ends. Those of us who had to mount a pitched battle to take two weeks off per year now enjoy grand vistas of time. Did we envy the independently wealthy? Suddenly we possess the most important thing they have: Control of our time. It is like being let out of a cage.

Second, there is indifference.

Do you worry about what people think of you? Whether you are cool? Whether you are dressed for success? Do you walk the narrow line between feminine/passive and masculine/aggressive, seeking the perfect level of assertiveness? In my sixties, I achieved the quasi-nirvana of not giving a flying fig.

Third, there is a new level of self-care.

I go for a long walk every day. I lift weights, I dance in my nightgown, I read all the books on my TBR list, and I volunteer for projects that are near and dear to me. And, equally important for self-care, I keep an Anti-Bucket List of things I am no longer willing to do. Top of the list: No high heels ever again.

 Fourth, there is romance and sexuality.

Contrary to how we are socialized, we can just keep going as long as we like. As Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, once said, “Learning and sex until rigor mortis.” When we date in our sixties we may end up kissing several frogs before finding a prince; yet it is definitely a worthwhile endeavor. I was 62 when I met my terrific partner through an online dating site. I recommend Joan Price’s book, Naked at Our Age, for more on this topic.

Fifth, there is the return to creativity.

 I set aside my passionate desire to write books when I became a full-time worker and a mother. I’m not alone; many of us turn away from the creative joys of our youth when we grow up. Even when we have time, it’s easy to judge ourselves about the pastimes that bring us joy—as if play needed to meet a certain standard. Making peace with our Inner Critic is one of the key developmental tasks of our sixties.

As I write my own fiction and teach workshops about playful writing, I see women reclaim ourselves through creativity. It’s the most magical gift of my sixties. By following our passions—whether writing or painting or learning about dinosaurs—we  fully inhabit our vivid lives, which are completely different than the stereotype of women in our sixties. And when we share our creativity, through publication, through showing our paintings in galleries, we push back on the negative social narrative about women our age.

 Savour each day for the privilege it is.

My sixties have been a grand adventure, and I treasure every memory of this marvellous decade. How much longer the ride will last is impossible to know, but I plan to live in joy as long as I can. My resolution as I transition to my seventies is to savor each day for the privilege it is.

Written by Stella Fosse

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August 3, 2023

The Autistic Joyologist – You Are Limitless

By Nikki Butler, The Autistic Joyologist.  

An autism and ADHD diagnosis at 45 and major spinal surgery 12 months ago that resulted in permanent nerve damage, has led me to rethink and realign my life and launch The Autistic Joyologist.

I had a complete career change at 40, after what I now know was an autistic and ADHD burnout at 36, causing me to leave my legal management career behind. I entered the world of entrepreneurship at 37 and have been running a multi-award winning business for the last 7.5 years. An autism and ADHD diagnosis at 45 and major spinal surgery 12 months ago that resulted in permanent nerve damage, has led me to rethink and realign my life and launch The Autistic Joyologist.

The beauty of doing this in my 40’s, and with my autism and ADHD diagnosis, is having the confidence and clarity to be able to create a life that is fulfilling and successful on MY terms.

When life simultaneously makes sense and falls apart -

Being diagnosed as autistic ADHD in my mid 40’s was life changing. On the one hand, my entire life started to make sense. On the other hand, it was like someone had thrown a grenade into the middle of my life, leaving me bewildered and shaken. Realising that my life was not exactly supporting my neurodivergent self - I was like a rabbit in the headlights.

As I processed my diagnosis I rode a rollercoaster of emotions. I felt angry, sad, confused and resentful that nobody had noticed sooner. But, I also felt immense self compassion, pride and hope. The latter won, I am pleased to say!

My spinal surgery, whilst removing the risk of paralysis I’d been faced with, left me with permanent nerve damage. Living in chronic pain and running a skin and scar clinic were not a match made in heaven, and I was only able to return to work part time.

The gift of space and grace -

I’ve always felt the Universe gives me a little nudge (or big shove!) when I need to make changes in my life. I decided to see this time as an opportunity to reflect on my life, and make new choices to support my neurodivergent self. I reflected, I researched and tried to find ways to make changes to my working life that would better support me, but I hit panic mode. I’d created an outwardly successful life, but inwardly I lived in a state of panic and overwhelm. I didn’t know how to change my life, and all the resources available didn’t seem to have the answers.

Reconnecting with myself -

When I left corporate life, I’d spent a lot of time connecting to my core values and dreams. I revisited those audiobooks, and I started again.

As I listened, I realised in horror that I had not been living my life by my core values at all. I had spent my life being a prolific people pleaser and assessing my worth on how much use I’d been to others.  From that moment, I decided that my life would be centred around my values. I would live them each day, and build a life that allowed me to thrive and be successful on my own terms.

RADIATE  -

As I aligned my life and made the changes, I felt immense inner peace. I was recalibrating. I didn’t want to lose this feeling, or be drawn back into living up to societal expectations of success.  And my RADIATE model was born! I created a model that I can use to stay connected to my values, play to my strengths, advocate for myself and create clear boundaries - all to set me up for a thriving and successful life, on MY terms! I’ve used it to transform my whole life, step by step, and I use it to stay connected and in alignment.

Sharing is caring -

Feeling the calmest and happiest I’ve ever felt, I knew I wanted to share this with other women like me. Other women who wish their life could be different, but feel like it’s too late to make changes, too late to lead a life that they actually enjoy.  And so I stepped out as ‘The Autistic Joyologist’, supporting others to thrive and shine, as their true authentic selves. It feels so special to be sharing my RADIATE programme, because I know how much it’s enabled me to transform my life.  It’s exciting to be able to share that with other women, too.

Being bold, brave, and seen! -

The truth is, The Autistic Joyologist is on a mission! As late diagnosed women, we are transforming our own lives, so we can lead fulfilling and happy lives, but we are blazing a trail of glory for our younger generations of autistic ADHD girls. Smashing apart outdated stereotypes and creating a brighter and happier future for those that follow in our footsteps.  It’s never too late to create a life that lights you up, and enables you to be your beautiful, brilliant and authentic self!

To find out more about me please visit, The Autistic Joyologist - https://www.autisticjoyologist.co.uk/ or connect with me via  Nikki Butler - The Autistic Joyologist (@autisticjoyologist) and   Facebook

September 2, 2020

Liberte Free to Be with Susan Burrell.

I'm delighted to be joined by the inspiring American Author Susan Burrell. Susan is also a podcast host ‘Empowering Lives’, a presenter and guest speaker and is really helping people who are at a crossroads in life through her own intuitive healing.

After digging a bit deeper and reading more about Susan’s story, her journey really resonated with me and I'm sure lots of women will be able to gain some inspiration and relate to this one.

How do you describe yourself when you wear so many different hats?

I see myself as one of those carnival people of the last century with the poles and they're spinning plates and they're juggling. It's about creative freedom for me now in my later years. In my earlier years, I didn't think I was good enough or believe in myself. I was taught very carefully to not believe in myself in a very subterfuge clandestine way. As I got older, especially in the third chapter of my life, I really want to get out of that measurement of feeling less than and devalued and I did some very deep inner work.

Rachel I'm in the divine flow of life for the first time in my life and I had to work really hard to get into that flow of life. There’s days where I get sidetracked or I feel less than again, I mean, even though you do the work, it's an ongoing thing, right?

People think that once you get to this state of finding your way, of really finding the true self, that it's a done deal and you don't have to do any more work, but it's an ongoing journey.

Isn't it? Ongoing journey in this lifetime and probably many lifetimes, it's just an ongoing journey.

Life After Divorce

You’ve turned some really negative situations, emotions , feelings and gone through a similar experience to me with your divorce that really is life changing. How difficult did it get and how did you find your way out of it?

I've been on a spiritual quest since I was 17, 18 so I already had accumulated tons of skill sets. Working as a counsellor for 20 years with skill sets that I would use with my clients, I just used all of them on me.

I thought I had almost escaped the divorce debacle, you know, Oh, we've made 28 years and aren't we great. No!

All of a sudden, these women who had been divorced, came flooding into my life, you know, because if I'm not married, where's my tribe?

My girlfriends who were still married couldn't understand what I was going through.  I started hanging out with other divorced women and I noticed after a bottle and a half of wine later, they were still embittered after having been divorced 15 years ago. I'm like, I don't I want to be like that because I knew I had a second path in life.

I knew I wanted to live fully since it felt like my first half, I wasn't living my life as me. I was living my life in conjunction with someone, in partnership with someone. It was time to give Susan her turn and I think that happens a lot with women.

We give ourselves permission all of a sudden to really think about ourselves and what we want to achieve in life.

Divorce kind of kicks you out of the nest, right? It throws you out of that comfort zone, so for me I didn't realize it was happening until I actually chose to file.

What I mean by that is I kept trying to make it right and it wasn't ever going to be right. It probably wasn't right from the beginning of the marriage and I stayed 28 years, I was shattered. My understanding of who I was, was completely shattered, like shattered glass.

Different colours all over the floor. I felt like during the divorce, it was so contentious. I felt like I was crawling on my belly through that glass almost every day. After a while of feeling sorry for myself and running my story to friends and crying and sobbing and going through several box of Kleenex, I thought how do I want to come out of this?

I want to come out better than I've ever been in my life.

I am so surprised I'm saying this, Rachel, but the gift for me was to really dig deep into my spiritual practice again. Opening up that toolbox that I had and then applying it to myself. The gift really was the divorce because I came out loving and respecting myself more than I ever had. I came out respecting the work that I do, which I had always just kind of fluffed off. I gained the insight.

That’s the heart of what self-love is about, about accepting and loving yourself.

So many people don't know how to do that. We haven't been taught that at university or kindergarten, or we haven't necessarily even been taught that in our family of origin. I know I wasn't taught that. The good news is you get to make your life up however you want and if you want it to be a good, healthy, empowered, fun, creative life, you get to have that.

Facing Fear

How did you stop the fear from eating away at you and step into your new life?  I think so many women that I talk to have dreams and aspirations and they want to try and take those next steps forward but then the fear blocks and stops them from doing that.

That's a really good question. I think that was the gift of my divorce. I had been affirmed over and over that this is the work I'm supposed to do, not go be a sales clerk somewhere, or a waitress again. The fear showed up , Oh my gosh, where's my income, you know, but I began to learn that in order to come out whole loving myself more, I had to face the fear.

I attempt to do that now, when it comes up, I have to face it. Often times when you face that fear you can see that it's really just a small part of you that's trying to keep you safe. It's not a big bugaboo guy. It's a small little thing within you that's saying I'm scared. When you can recognize that, or when I do, then I can comfort it or say, well we're still going to do this anyway, but you're going to be okay. I do a lot of that kind of work in meditation or journaling.

I've just started doing that. I started writing a gratitude journal at the end of every day and I think it’s really made a difference. It has kept me grounded with in reality and given me a better understanding of what’s truly important to me in life.

A good journaling prompt you might ask yourself in the morning is what do I need to know today? I just do stream of consciousness writing. What do I need to know about my day to day and see what happens?

Live Your Empowered Life

You’ve now used all your experiences, your spiritual practice and your intuitive gift that brought you into the forefront to be able to help other people that are at the same crossroads in life. How has your work evolved into an inspiring book?

I had several clients and colleagues say, Oh, 'I can't wait to get your book. I'm going to read it'. I'm like, Oh, it's not a self-help read, you might get a gem but it's a let's go on this journey together and hunker down and do the inner work.

There's lots of affirmations in the book to work, I crafted it so you're going to begin on a gentle ride and then you're going to dive deep and then you're going to come up for air and then you're going to dive deep again.

Until you can get to a place where towards the end of the book, you get to rewrite your purpose in life and come out of the book with a real conscious purpose, which is a spiritual purpose.

I mostly work with women who have gone through divorce or are going through divorce and they really want to heal.

Most of my clients re reflect what I went through, they don't know themselves. I have a stellar client who said, I never knew that I had a choice about loving myself.

Feeling Lost in Midlife and Finding your Way Back

Why do you think we do lose ourselves in society? It does seem to be a common theme that women get to the forties and fifties and come to this point where they need to find themselves.

I'm praying and knowing that the current generation of women will not go through that, that they're going to know themselves sooner. I think what we're witnessing now in our generation is a closure of an old story, an old paradigm. The patriarchal that women should be seen and not heard, women stand behind their man, women stay at home, Or if you go out in the workplace, you come back and you do the laundry and cook the meals and clean up and put the kids to bed.

Inspiring women are the ones that are going to lead us into the light in and are the ones that are going to lead us into how the new way of living. I'm not saying men aren't going to be a part of it, but it's going to be awakened men, not men that continue to do the good old boy club thing, because it's dead and they're still beating it with a stick.

Women would hit midlife with society's description of how women are supposed to be in the world was complete. Get married. raise kids, maybe go to university, find a job, but now halfway through it's like, NO! and that's why women wake up and go holy moly, who am I? I'm tired of doing what everybody else tells me to do.

I had a yearning; I had a divine urge within me to be more than I was. I got battered mentally, emotionally, and energetically to wake up and stop with the old. I think a lot of women go through that.

That really resonates with me and that yearning for knowing that actually deep down inside you, there's something that was trying to get out, someone to be who you could be. It’s about finding your way through that.

Finding your way through is different for everyone, but I believe a consistent focus if you allow it. That focus is what we were talking about earlier, focusing on that divine urge, not what your head's telling you, but what your heart's telling you.

Allowing that to begin to inform you your wisdom within, because all the answers we are asking for reside right within us.

If you align with your higher self, if you align with the infinite then all your answers are right inside you. That's why journaling and meditating, silent meditation is so important because that's how you can hear.

Finding Inner Peace Through Meditation

Let’s talk about meditation. I know how good it could be for me, but I do struggle to switch my brain off. What tips can you recommend helping beginners learn to let go and meditate.

Meditation insight is a great ap. If you've never meditated, you can set it for five minutes. You don't have to worry about what else is happening and build up the amount of time you feel comfortable. What I encourage people is to start a meditation practice and start a journaling practice.

The journaling practice can happen right after your meditation, because then you're more open and you can write down insights. But what you also said, Rachel, starting a gratitude journal. That works a lot for people, especially if you're feeling a little down and out. Writing down the things you're grateful for is a very simple process to move you from despair or fear into love and light.

I have a guided meditation that I'd love to give them. It's called out of the box thinking and they can download it @susanburrell.com/free-gift-meditation

Self Love

My last question is if you could give yourself a compliment, what would it be? Women are notoriously bad at accepting compliments we always try to pass it off and push it aside or make a joke of it.

Wow, that's going to make me cry. I think I would. I, Oh, I can't even get the words out.

I would tell myself that I'm very proud of who I am now proud of the courage and the strength that I am and proud of the love and the value I bring. I'm very proud.

I'm sure you will agree Susan Burrell has really been inspiring and giving us all a lot to think about.

If you'd like to find out more, please go visit www.susanburrell.com.

You can listen to full audio interview here

#podcast #outofthebubble #inspiringwomen #divorce #sharingstories #conversations #confidence

 

January 24, 2020

Welcome to Liberte Free to Be blog

When I first started blogging I wasn't exactly sure which direction it was going to take so I think it's taken time for my ideas and aspirations to take shape. I knew I wanted to create a space full of inspiration and positive posts to help other women that may have lost their confidence along the way. When I was younger I struggled with a lack of confidence and it wasn't until I hit my forties that I finally managed to change that. Never in a million years could I have imagined being confident enough to start a modelling career at 46.

Liberte Free to Be blog is full of inspiring women that have reinvented themselves; body confidence inspiration; fashion; beauty and a glimpse of my life as a model. I'm a firm believer in taking yourself out of your comfort zone to help improve your confidence and mental well being, so I intend to lead by example and have some fun along the way! I started the Out of the bubble podcast because I'd made connections through social media with so many inspirational women over 40 that have stepped out of their comfort zone and started something new which really helped motivate me too.

Since turning 40 I have faced some of my own fears, including my fear of heights by throwing myself out of an aeroplane in a tandem skydive for charity. I have to say it didn't cure my vertigo but what it did do was help provide a memory bank of my own courage so when I have wobbles I can go back and remind myself what I can do which helps me take the brakes off again. Since then I have said YES to so many more things that I would never have done before - I swam the Great North Swim in Lake Windermere twice; cycled the127 mile Leeds to Liverpool Canal and also from London to Brighton. It has opened up so much more self belief that I don't want to stop experiencing new adventures.

Join me on my adventures whilst I continue to step out of my own bubble to enjoy new experiences, from roller skating lessons at 50 to trying new activities and sports.

Would you love to rekindle an old hobby or passion? Have you a burning desire to try something new? I'd love to hear from you.

I know it's a cliche, but the saying "you're never too old" is so true!

Maybe you can come and join me along the way.


Rachel x

January 10, 2018

Swim Suits For All shoot #dreamjob

When I say this was my dream job, It really was!

The fact that it was in The Bahamas working with Ashley Graham, Elaine Eirwin, Stefania Ferrario and Lori Harvey was an amazing opportunity. But for me it was so exciting to be involved with Swimsuitsforall, an American swimwear company I have been following and really admire for their positive and inclusive attitude to swimwear. When I tentatively started modelling this time last year I would never have imagined modelling swimwear at the age of 47 and it has been such a positive turning point in my attitude. I have come back even more determined to be able to represent the curvier women over 40, we are so under looked in the fashion industry even when our age bracket is one of the largest spending groups in the market. As I slowly approach my 50th I can't wait and I've never felt more confident, sexy, comfortable in my own skin, embracing my grey hair, so I'm looking forward to this new chapter and let's see what it brings!

Girl Squad Goals with Elaine Eirwin, Lori Harvey, Ashley Graham, Rachel Peru and Stefania Ferrario, Swimsuitsforall.

Rachel Peru, Elaine Eirwin, Stefania Ferrario , Swimsuitsforall.com

Rachel Peru, Silver curve model, Bridge models

''If everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty'' Charles Darwin.

Ashley Graham & Rachel Peru

More from the blog

Social Bubble - On Instagram

Wrong or no access token.

LIBERTÉ FREE TO BE

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