December 11, 2025 • 11 mins
In this heartfelt My Legacy Bonus Drop, Emmy-winning journalist and bestselling author Tamsen Fadal joins her husband, Ira Bernstein, for a candid conversation about rewriting the narrative of midlife. From menopause to marriage, they explore how this chapter can be the boldest yet.
Together they reflect on:
- Why “living your someday” starts now
- Taking charge of your health and redefining wellness
- Finding real love after 50
Subscribe now so you never miss our weekly episodes and bonus drops every Thursday.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is my legacy. In this bonus drop, menopause mentor
and New York Times best selling author Tamson Fidel, she
shares how she's reinventing midlife, turning it into a season
of power, purpose and possibility. Joined by her husband Ira Bernstein,
they open up about living your Sunday today, reclaiming self worth,
(00:21):
and building a love that feels grounded, authentic and real.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Let's jump in.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
But listening to the two of you speak about like
health and well being and you're living your someday and
standing up a walking tall and like all of this
this is so much more than a conversation on menopause.
I thought I was gonna have a conversation on medicals.
We're having conversation around self worth. We're having conversation around
including claiming midlife. We having conversation around so much more so. Tamson,
if I can dress this to you, when you look
(00:48):
at your message, what is your message to people entering
midlife and what is your message even more broadly to women.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Yeah, I mean I you know, I do the live
your Someday today because I think that I spent forty
years saying like some day I'm going to do this.
Some day, I'm going to work out every other day.
Someday I'm gonna pay attention to on me. So I
think that is a big one for me because I
think that this is where we're at right now, This
is that someday one. I think two is taking charge
(01:16):
of your health. Really, I mean, I think that there
is that kind of encapsulates everything, whether we're talking about
women or men, or menopause or perimenopause or longevity. Because
for a long time we were said, like, go to
the doctor, they'll let you know, you know, here's here's
what you do, and that'll be the fix. And I
don't believe that that's the fix. You know, the fixes, Yes, doctors,
(01:37):
you know, have a place, but it doesn't all just
happen in that fifteen minute doctor's appointment. There's a three
sixty of our lives that I'm really pleased that people
are starting to see when it comes to health and
fitness and wellness. And but I think that the onus
is on us, and especially as women, to take charge
of that and be educated about going into that office
(01:59):
and knowing what those symptoms are and knowing that you
know whether it's perimenopause, menopause, or beyond. Something's not right.
I don't feel like myself I have joint pain that
I shouldn't have. There should be more than one solution
or no solutions for me. So I think that that
would be my second message is, you know, is taking
charge of that, because that is the only way that
you get on the other side of this. I mean
to a point where I've done this with my eighty
(02:21):
five year old father, you know, so.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
We've oh, he's amazing, but.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
But you know, he was the person that would the
generation of go to the doctor if something's wrong, avoided
at all costs if not, and whatever the doctor says,
that's that's it. And I think that he's learned even
what the you know what that three sixty is of
what it means to be well.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
He's very bold. He goes to a trainer three days
a week, and one of them is a woman in
her late forties, and she was sharing some concerns with
him and is inimitable style. He's now eighty five, grew up,
you know. It was a text and he says, and
that great little drill you might be in menopause.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
He's a little tuble how a.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Man can say something that right, he just does it
with the accent of the thing, and it's like nine
out of ten you'd get a look and he gets
you know, maybe Jim.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
But it's also important once women get through like what
you're offering, once you get the protocol that's helpful for you,
and then you get through the other side. It does.
It's something like you just really feel bold and bright
and I know and you recognize it and other women
it's great.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I was just gonna say that, like I know somebody
else that's been through it. I'm like, oh, you've got it, right,
I got it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
It's like a little the club.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
And I also think, and I don't know about you,
but I feel like my relationships are established quicker, Like
I like the person I know, the woman I already
know or I probably already know. You know, we've been
through some of the same have some of the same
storylines in there, and like I got it and worredy
into like this deeper part of the relationship quicker, which
(04:07):
I really appreciate. I really appreciate. And so what I
thought of as friends in the past and what I
thought community meant is something very different now than what
it meant before. Like, it's very clear to me what
commute the importance of it anyway, and.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
It's so much deeper, so much deeper all the way around.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Scrolling won't change your life, but subscribing just might tap
that button and stay connected to conversations that can't. Now
back to my legacy, I R.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Okay, you've talked about how Tamson focusing on her own
health and well being has been a positive influence on you.
What have you started to do because of her that
has made the biggest difference?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, I think, look, every what's that phrase, every challenges
and opportunity. So what biology does two women doesn't happen
in the same way to men. We're slowly like we're
sort of slowly eroding away and folder I'm just saying.
And so what Tamsen has done is it's really a
(05:15):
health issue. It's really a It sort of made me
feel like, however we age whatever it is, that doesn't
mean you get a free pass of not taking care
of yourself. And so whether it's it's diet and exercise,
it's all those things, but it's to make you feel
better and that we're all sort of fighting the aging
process in different ways. But what a woman has to
(05:37):
go through sort of hits you in the face. So
you can either you know, shrink from it or grow
from it. And most women, thanks to Tamsan and more
and more women are growing from it, so they become
empowered on the other side. So while that, you know,
I don't think there's a man that I would know
that would want to trade places to go through that.
I think you can learn from it. Nobody's raising their hands.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
None of these men are looking at I'm looking at
all three of them.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
They're all like, I can just tell. So nobody got it.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
We're moving on.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So because nobody was a trade blix is I think
there are other things and that has been the gift
of like you know, I'm not just saying you're spinach,
but it's all of those things. It's not you know,
I don't need to have vill palmersan every night. That's
not a necessity anymore.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
He's actually not allowed.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Now. This is just giving away some of our internal
rules and regulations. But yes, yes, and I think in
the bottom line is you do feel better and.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
We've done things together. I think more too, which has
been nice. Like the pandemic did some of this too,
But like working out together or walking together, I would
never walk.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I would never I mean, I would work out in
the gym every day, but that would be it. I'd go,
I'm very regimented. I'd go, I do this, I do that,
I do the next thing. Stretch for eight seconds and
you're done. Now it's stretching much more important. And he's
taught me to be open minded, if I begrudgingly or not,
to try plates, and to try other things that are
(07:07):
not just what you do every day as a guy.
That's not how you grow up.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Martin, will you go to pilates with me?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, so soon? Oh man, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I'm going to save Martin for him asking a question
you a man answer. That's why I love the conversations
with friends and couples. I just love seeing the two
of your respondent.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
And speaking of loving and couples, Ayra, you said that
falling in love in your fifties is completely different than
in your thirties. For any of our listeners out there
finding love the second time around, what was the biggest
shift in how you approached love and partnership this time.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, I think it's a lot of different things. I
think you know as much about what you don't want
as about what you do, and finding someone that shares
that and their outlook on life about that becomes the
most important thing. And it's also at this stage, particularly
if you both decided you don't want to have children,
(08:14):
it's just about each other. It's just about who do
you want to Tamsen as a phrase, you know, who
do you want to walk the earth with for the
rest of your life? And that's a serious but also
inspiring kind of a thing. And you got to want
to do the same things, and you got to want
to live. That's sort of in the same way. I
love what she's doing. She knows what I do, and
we sort of come together every night and sometimes even
(08:37):
during the day about what's going on. And I think
that sharing it is sort of the best part, and
you have to want to do that.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
And Tamson, what would you say?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I would say that I think that, and I've said
this before, so I'm not saying it out of school
with him here, Like, I don't know that I would
have picked Ira ten years ago, you know, because I
was like, I just want to go have fun and
I had a different like look at how I was
doing things. I was wanting to be free and and
I be.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
But I think that was before menopause.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Remember, yeah, I had the white horse, the white.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Like she did into this beautiful bald woman. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
there you go.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
This is the after the pause. You know, I think
that I have such an appreciation for authenticity, and I
think I have an appreciation for like safety and for feeling,
you know, not afraid to allow somebody to care about
me because I know who I am now and I
didn't before. So how could I barely loved myself? So
(09:48):
how how would I believe that somebody else would? And
so I think that that's all come with this, Like
I feel much stronger as a result of the relationship,
but as a result of what I've done in and
out of the reallyationship. So and it's and it's easier,
like it just feels easier, Like I uh, somebody's like,
are you in love? And I said, yeah, I'm in love.
(10:09):
But I also want to walk the world with him,
like I want to, Like that's what I want to do.
And there's something visually nice about that, you know, that's
more meaningful than anything else. And so yeah, we got
I got remarried at fifty and I swore I was
never going to do that again. And you know it
didn't take a lot of convincing.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I was the pursuer. You haven't figured that part, honored
to be.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But I love the relationship of that second chapter in
life like I just I to see the two of
you so clearly madly in love. And I are your
phrase of you know, getting it right the second time
and who you want to walk the earth with for
the rest of your days.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
At its core, this podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Honors doctor King's vision of the beloved community and the
power of connection. A Legacy Plus Studio production distributed by
iHeartMedia creator and executive producer Suzanne Hayward co executive producer
Lisa Lyle. Listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your podcasts.
This is my legacy. In this bonus drop, menopause mentor
and New York Times best selling author Tamson Fidel, she
shares how she's reinventing midlife, turning it into a season
of power, purpose and possibility. Joined by her husband Ira Bernstein,
they open up about living your Sunday today, reclaiming self worth,
(00:21):
and building a love that feels grounded, authentic and real.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Let's jump in.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
But listening to the two of you speak about like
health and well being and you're living your someday and
standing up a walking tall and like all of this
this is so much more than a conversation on menopause.
I thought I was gonna have a conversation on medicals.
We're having conversation around self worth. We're having conversation around
including claiming midlife. We having conversation around so much more so. Tamson,
if I can dress this to you, when you look
(00:48):
at your message, what is your message to people entering
midlife and what is your message even more broadly to women.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Yeah, I mean I you know, I do the live
your Someday today because I think that I spent forty
years saying like some day I'm going to do this.
Some day, I'm going to work out every other day.
Someday I'm gonna pay attention to on me. So I
think that is a big one for me because I
think that this is where we're at right now, This
is that someday one. I think two is taking charge
(01:16):
of your health. Really, I mean, I think that there
is that kind of encapsulates everything, whether we're talking about
women or men, or menopause or perimenopause or longevity. Because
for a long time we were said, like, go to
the doctor, they'll let you know, you know, here's here's
what you do, and that'll be the fix. And I
don't believe that that's the fix. You know, the fixes, Yes, doctors,
(01:37):
you know, have a place, but it doesn't all just
happen in that fifteen minute doctor's appointment. There's a three
sixty of our lives that I'm really pleased that people
are starting to see when it comes to health and
fitness and wellness. And but I think that the onus
is on us, and especially as women, to take charge
of that and be educated about going into that office
(01:59):
and knowing what those symptoms are and knowing that you
know whether it's perimenopause, menopause, or beyond. Something's not right.
I don't feel like myself I have joint pain that
I shouldn't have. There should be more than one solution
or no solutions for me. So I think that that
would be my second message is, you know, is taking
charge of that, because that is the only way that
you get on the other side of this. I mean
to a point where I've done this with my eighty
(02:21):
five year old father, you know, so.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
We've oh, he's amazing, but.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
But you know, he was the person that would the
generation of go to the doctor if something's wrong, avoided
at all costs if not, and whatever the doctor says,
that's that's it. And I think that he's learned even
what the you know what that three sixty is of
what it means to be well.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
He's very bold. He goes to a trainer three days
a week, and one of them is a woman in
her late forties, and she was sharing some concerns with
him and is inimitable style. He's now eighty five, grew up,
you know. It was a text and he says, and
that great little drill you might be in menopause.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
He's a little tuble how a.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Man can say something that right, he just does it
with the accent of the thing, and it's like nine
out of ten you'd get a look and he gets
you know, maybe Jim.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
But it's also important once women get through like what
you're offering, once you get the protocol that's helpful for you,
and then you get through the other side. It does.
It's something like you just really feel bold and bright
and I know and you recognize it and other women
it's great.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I was just gonna say that, like I know somebody
else that's been through it. I'm like, oh, you've got it, right,
I got it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
It's like a little the club.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
And I also think, and I don't know about you,
but I feel like my relationships are established quicker, Like
I like the person I know, the woman I already
know or I probably already know. You know, we've been
through some of the same have some of the same
storylines in there, and like I got it and worredy
into like this deeper part of the relationship quicker, which
(04:07):
I really appreciate. I really appreciate. And so what I
thought of as friends in the past and what I
thought community meant is something very different now than what
it meant before. Like, it's very clear to me what
commute the importance of it anyway, and.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
It's so much deeper, so much deeper all the way around.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Scrolling won't change your life, but subscribing just might tap
that button and stay connected to conversations that can't. Now
back to my legacy, I R.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Okay, you've talked about how Tamson focusing on her own
health and well being has been a positive influence on you.
What have you started to do because of her that
has made the biggest difference?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, I think, look, every what's that phrase, every challenges
and opportunity. So what biology does two women doesn't happen
in the same way to men. We're slowly like we're
sort of slowly eroding away and folder I'm just saying.
And so what Tamsen has done is it's really a
(05:15):
health issue. It's really a It sort of made me
feel like, however we age whatever it is, that doesn't
mean you get a free pass of not taking care
of yourself. And so whether it's it's diet and exercise,
it's all those things, but it's to make you feel
better and that we're all sort of fighting the aging
process in different ways. But what a woman has to
(05:37):
go through sort of hits you in the face. So
you can either you know, shrink from it or grow
from it. And most women, thanks to Tamsan and more
and more women are growing from it, so they become
empowered on the other side. So while that, you know,
I don't think there's a man that I would know
that would want to trade places to go through that.
I think you can learn from it. Nobody's raising their hands.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
None of these men are looking at I'm looking at
all three of them.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
They're all like, I can just tell. So nobody got it.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
We're moving on.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So because nobody was a trade blix is I think
there are other things and that has been the gift
of like you know, I'm not just saying you're spinach,
but it's all of those things. It's not you know,
I don't need to have vill palmersan every night. That's
not a necessity anymore.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
He's actually not allowed.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Now. This is just giving away some of our internal
rules and regulations. But yes, yes, and I think in
the bottom line is you do feel better and.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
We've done things together. I think more too, which has
been nice. Like the pandemic did some of this too,
But like working out together or walking together, I would
never walk.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I would never I mean, I would work out in
the gym every day, but that would be it. I'd go,
I'm very regimented. I'd go, I do this, I do that,
I do the next thing. Stretch for eight seconds and
you're done. Now it's stretching much more important. And he's
taught me to be open minded, if I begrudgingly or not,
to try plates, and to try other things that are
(07:07):
not just what you do every day as a guy.
That's not how you grow up.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Martin, will you go to pilates with me?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, so soon? Oh man, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I'm going to save Martin for him asking a question
you a man answer. That's why I love the conversations
with friends and couples. I just love seeing the two
of your respondent.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
And speaking of loving and couples, Ayra, you said that
falling in love in your fifties is completely different than
in your thirties. For any of our listeners out there
finding love the second time around, what was the biggest
shift in how you approached love and partnership this time.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, I think it's a lot of different things. I
think you know as much about what you don't want
as about what you do, and finding someone that shares
that and their outlook on life about that becomes the
most important thing. And it's also at this stage, particularly
if you both decided you don't want to have children,
(08:14):
it's just about each other. It's just about who do
you want to Tamsen as a phrase, you know, who
do you want to walk the earth with for the
rest of your life? And that's a serious but also
inspiring kind of a thing. And you got to want
to do the same things, and you got to want
to live. That's sort of in the same way. I
love what she's doing. She knows what I do, and
we sort of come together every night and sometimes even
(08:37):
during the day about what's going on. And I think
that sharing it is sort of the best part, and
you have to want to do that.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
And Tamson, what would you say?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I would say that I think that, and I've said
this before, so I'm not saying it out of school
with him here, Like, I don't know that I would
have picked Ira ten years ago, you know, because I
was like, I just want to go have fun and
I had a different like look at how I was
doing things. I was wanting to be free and and
I be.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
But I think that was before menopause.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Remember, yeah, I had the white horse, the white.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Like she did into this beautiful bald woman. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
there you go.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
This is the after the pause. You know, I think
that I have such an appreciation for authenticity, and I
think I have an appreciation for like safety and for feeling,
you know, not afraid to allow somebody to care about
me because I know who I am now and I
didn't before. So how could I barely loved myself? So
(09:48):
how how would I believe that somebody else would? And
so I think that that's all come with this, Like
I feel much stronger as a result of the relationship,
but as a result of what I've done in and
out of the reallyationship. So and it's and it's easier,
like it just feels easier, Like I uh, somebody's like,
are you in love? And I said, yeah, I'm in love.
(10:09):
But I also want to walk the world with him,
like I want to, Like that's what I want to do.
And there's something visually nice about that, you know, that's
more meaningful than anything else. And so yeah, we got
I got remarried at fifty and I swore I was
never going to do that again. And you know it
didn't take a lot of convincing.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I was the pursuer. You haven't figured that part, honored
to be.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But I love the relationship of that second chapter in
life like I just I to see the two of
you so clearly madly in love. And I are your
phrase of you know, getting it right the second time
and who you want to walk the earth with for
the rest of your days.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
At its core, this podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Honors doctor King's vision of the beloved community and the
power of connection. A Legacy Plus Studio production distributed by
iHeartMedia creator and executive producer Suzanne Hayward co executive producer
Lisa Lyle. Listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.