November 6, 2025 • 36 mins
Thoughts or comments? Send us a text!
The quiet voice in our head can be a coach or a critic—and most days, it’s the critic with a megaphone. Mary sits down with Cheryl Fischer, host of the Mind Your Midlife Podcast and a certified life and mindset coach, to unpack how subtle habits like constant complaining, reflexive apologies, and comparison keep us stuck. We share real stories about catching a negative loop in the moment, the surprising power of neutral language in close relationships, and why glimmers—tiny flashes of joy like perfect evening air or that first sip of coffee—are not fluff but training for your brain.
Cheryl breaks down mindset in practical terms: the lens you use to read the world and the words you use to talk to yourself. We dive into the reticular activating system, the brain filter that hunts for evidence of what you expect, and how to aim it toward opportunity without sliding into toxic positivity. You’ll learn how to put fences around venting, choose affirmations that actually land because they’re tied to emotion, and replace automatic “I’m sorry” with confident asks and gratitude reframes. We also zoom out to what midlife really looks like today—identity shifts, changing bodies, aging parents, launching kids—and why this season can become a wider field, not a narrowing hallway.
If you’re ready to swap invisible rulebooks for your own definition of success, this conversation offers simple, repeatable tools to build self-trust and momentum. Listen to hear how small changes in attention and language can reshape your day—and your direction. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a lift, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find us.
You can find Cheryl at https://cherylpfischer.com/
Sign up for the launch team for my book, Nature Knows, and get free insider news and surprises at https://maryrothwell.net/natureknows
Comments about this episode? Suggestions for a future episode? Wanna be a guest? Email me directly at NSVpodcast@gmail.com.
Follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and check out my website!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mary (00:05):
Welcome to No Shrinking Violets.
I'm your host, Mary Rothwell,licensed therapist and certified
integrative mental healthpractitioner.
I've created a space where wecelebrate the intuition and
power of women who want to breakfree from limiting narratives.
We'll explore all realms ofwellness, what it means to take
up space unapologetically, andhow your essential nature is key
(00:28):
to living life on your terms.
It's time to own your space,trust your nature, and flourish.
Let's dive in.
Hey Violets, welcome to theshow.
When I started my career, I wasa school counselor in a
building with 450 high schoolfreshmen.
I was 24 years old.
I had a wonderfully supportiveprincipal, and I work with some
(00:50):
of my favorite teacherco-workers ever.
However, there was one person,let's just say that if cartoons
were real, she would have had araining black cloud over her
head everywhere she went.
From the minute she walked intothe faculty room, we all needed
umbrellas.
Negative.
I timed my breaks so that Iwouldn't be there when she was,
(01:11):
and sometimes I even ate lunchelsewhere.
Even students commented thatthey were afraid to ask
questions because she was sosarcastic.
That was a couple decades ago,and I can still remember what it
was like and how much I wentout of my way to avoid it at the
time.
Well, recently I started torecognize that I was in a
negative mindset loop.
Minor annoyances started tofeel like personal affronts.
(01:34):
I was acting like I believedthe world had it in for me
specifically.
Well, that was just my innergremlin.
In fact, my life is prettygreat.
In light of what I read in theheadlines every day, my inner
gremlin needs to go pound sand.
And really, there's alwayssomething to be grateful for,
even though sometimes it's veryhard to find.
(01:55):
And you feel like sockingsomeone in the nose for
suggesting it.
And there's also the other endof the spectrum, toxic
positivity.
Although that's a bitoverblown.
I have thoughts, but I'll savethose for another day.
Suffice it to say, there's adifference between positive
vibes only and realisticallyfocusing on what's the best that
(02:15):
can happen.
So I'm going to explore theidea of mindset shifts,
including how complaining mightbe holding you back, with my
guest today, Cheryl Fisher.
Cheryl is the host of Mind YourMidlife Podcast, ranking in the
top 2% of podcasts globally,which she created to help
midlife women feel confident intheir body, their decisions, and
(02:36):
their goals to create a midlifethey love.
As a certified life and mindsetcoach, Cheryl works with
clients one-on-one and in groupmasterclass sessions to shift
the narrative that tells us thatwe're stuck or not enough to
one that allows us to moveforward towards self-belief and
success.
She's a speaker and trainer,presenting and moderating at
(02:57):
industry events and providingcorporate training classes
around the world.
Cheryl is a wife, a mom, and agrandmom and enjoys reading,
golf, happy hours, yes, andtravel.
Welcome to No Shrinking Violet,Cheryl.
Thank you so much, Mary.
I'm excited to be here.
Well, I'm looking forward tothis discussion because, like I
(03:17):
said, I recently had to grabmyself and pull myself out of a
negative, negative mindset.
But I always like to start offwith having my guests talk a
little bit about, I'll saysharing the highlights of your
story and how that got you towhat you do today.
Cheryl (03:34):
Absolutely.
And and I'm so glad you'reasking that because as you were
telling the story of thisparticular teacher, I used to be
a teacher.
I taught high school for 12years.
And I feel like I want toclarify that that was not me
that you were talking about.
No, it was not Cheryl.
But I know exactly what you aretalking about.
(03:55):
So I have worked in thecorporate world.
And when I had kids, I realizedthat I loved the training
aspect of my job.
And I made the switch toteaching.
And that was a great way for meto be around in the summer when
they were growing up and it wasworking well.
And all of that matters becauseI started to hit burnout while
(04:21):
I was teaching.
And having been in that world,you know, that's kind of an easy
thing to happen.
It's a rough job and rewarding.
And so I started a littlebusiness on the side.
And that is when I learnedabout mindset, because I used to
kind of poo-poo all thetouchy-feely personal
(04:44):
development stuff.
I thought it was silly.
I thought it wasn't necessary.
And I was wrong.
And I learned that if I wantedto have my own business, even if
I was going to do it on theside and it was not going to be
huge, I had to be able to makegoals and I had to be able to
think bigger and uh be my ownboss.
And all of that was about how Ithought about it.
(05:06):
And I'm thankful for all ofthat because that's how I ended
up getting into coaching becauseI realized I wanted to share
this with other people as well.
And that's where the podcastcame from, also.
Mary (05:19):
Yeah.
Well, when I read some of yourinformation and you talked about
exactly what you're saying,like you go from working for
someone else and you're good atit.
You know, that was very muchechoes where I came from.
And then you decide, okay, I'mgoing to do this thing.
And you know you have theskills, but there is this
insidious voice sometimes thatyou're trying to, I think you
(05:46):
think you have the samebenchmarks and you don't,
because success is very hard tomeasure.
And I think part of that isidentity.
Like we have this identity, andI want to also segue eventually
into this idea of midlifebecause I think as women,
especially, we have all of theseidentities.
We are a mom, we are a worker,we're a wife, we're, you know,
(06:07):
all of these things.
And then we get to midlife anda lot of things shift, or we we
do what you're talking about.
We'll change careers or work,especially working for
ourselves, and all that shifts.
Cheryl (06:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
And it, I guess the way I wouldhave described it for me is I
was a really good employee.
I knew how to do the projectwell and do what my boss wanted,
and I knew how to prioritizeand blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
And then nobody was telling mewhat to do.
And nobody was telling me whatsuccess was, and nobody was
(06:42):
telling me what the next stepwas or how to do something
differently because it wasn'tquite working.
I had to figure it all outmyself.
And it's really easy to fallinto the trap of either just
thinking that you can't do it orkind of just berating yourself
every time you have a problem.
(07:02):
And that just makes it worse.
Mary (07:05):
Yeah.
And I think too, when you gofrom you know how to earn a
paycheck, you know, like there'sespecially, I'm gonna say,
especially as a teacher, youknow, you you know these are the
objectives, even if you can'talways affect the change on
everyone that you want to, youknow what you need to do to hit
(07:25):
your mark.
And I think when you wade intosomething different, whatever it
is, and I'll just use thebusiness idea because we both
have experienced it.
I know for me, I felt like Ihad to do it exactly like
somebody else did.
Or, and that didn't fitbecause, you know, that, and I
think there we can do thatcomparison.
(07:47):
And well, look at this person,she's so successful.
Why can't I do that?
Cheryl (07:53):
Yeah.
At one point I worked with acoach to help me kind of move
forward in that.
And I said to her, I don't seeanyone who looks like, not looks
like physically, but justanyone who's like me doing this
in a in a big way, like I wantto.
(08:13):
And so I don't see how I can doit.
And she said, That's why youcan do it.
You need to be there.
Why do you have to be just likeanybody else?
You need to do it yourself.
And that was a big aha momentfor me.
And again, something that isnot the case really in a
structured school or corporateworld where you all have a boss.
(08:35):
It doesn't matter if your bossis like you or not.
They're your boss.
You do what they say.
Mary (08:40):
Yeah.
You know, and I want tobacktrack a second because I
make the assumption that when wesay mindset, everyone knows
what we mean.
How do you explain that tosomeone?
Cheryl (08:51):
It's a tough word, isn't it?
It it encompasses so manythings.
I explain it as the way we lookat the world and the way we
speak to ourselves.
Because it's kind of both.
There's a there's a runningwow, I don't know why I'm losing
(09:13):
my words.
There's a running conversationin our heads going all the time
with ourselves.
And if you don't think that'sthe case, if you pause and and
kind of just listen, you'llknow.
And so that affects our mood,it affects our emotions, and it
affects how we look at theworld.
And then you can interact withthe world in two very different
(09:36):
ways, depending on kind of whatyou're expecting and how you're
thinking about things.
And so it's it's inside andoutside.
Mary (09:44):
And I would contend that most women have very different
outsides versus their insides.
We come across, we have to bepleasing, and we smile.
And I think a lot of times onthe inside, it's totally
opposite.
Cheryl (09:57):
Yes.
Yes.
We are usually very tough onourselves.
And I suppose if it's asituation like you're describing
where we feel like we have tobe pleasant and we have to
smile, we could be maybelegitimately thinking in our
heads, oh, this person is soannoying or whatever.
I mean, that's okay.
You're allowed to have anopinion.
(10:18):
But the problem that a lot ofus deal with is the way we're
speaking to ourselves.
Not that we're thinkingsomebody's annoying, but that
constantly, constantly insideour heads is why did you do
that?
Why did you wear that?
You don't look very nice today.
Why are you gaining weight?
Like, why are you so tired?
(10:39):
I don't understand why younever go to bed on time.
Like, what?
You know, and it's you know,why do you always look like ugly
in pictures?
You look horrible in thatpicture.
Things that you would never sayto anyone else.
Mary (10:50):
No, correct.
And I do find that my clientshave trouble hearing that.
It's so part of our fabric thatwe have trouble hearing it.
How do you help people kind ofisolate that and recognize it?
Cheryl (11:06):
It takes practice because the key is to recognize
it and also not berate ourselvesfor doing it.
So it can't be like a doublewhammy.
If I realize I'm speaking meanthings to myself all day, then
I'm mad at myself for doingthat, which is the problem.
(11:27):
So the first thing is I try tohave my clients get in the habit
of just doing a little pauseonce or twice a day.
They might give themselves areminder to do it.
To just kind of pause and ask,okay, how am I feeling right
now?
And that is surprisinglychallenging to figure out
(11:52):
because we're not used tothinking about feelings besides
like happy, sad, mad.
Mary (11:58):
Yeah.
Cheryl (11:59):
But maybe you're frustrated or you're feeling
kind of dejected, or you, youknow, there's more words.
And then if we can get in thehabit of figuring that out, then
we can say, well, huh, why am Ifeeling like that right at this
moment?
And we can tune in towhatever's going on in here.
(12:19):
And the reason I try to helpclients learn how to do this is
this was a big deal for me.
I I can, in fact, remember asituation where I was walking up
the stairs in my house and Iwas just kind of oh, like, what
everything's bad.
And I just paused and Ithought, wait, why is it?
(12:40):
Why do I feel like that?
And I realized that in my head,I was just running and worrying
over this situation with somepeople in my family, and
whatever I was telling myselfwasn't even happening.
It was a worry, you know,maybe.
Yep.
And I thought, wait, is thatwhy I'm feeling like this?
(13:02):
So just starting to evenrecognize it is good.
And and just with the caveatthat we don't want to tell
ourselves, I'm such an idiot.
Why would I speak to myselfthat way?
It's how our brains work.
It's not, it's not a thing thatyou're doing wrong.
Mary (13:20):
Yeah, we just I think get used to doing it and not
recognizing it.
But I know one of the otherthings that you talk about is
being negative in conversation.
Cheryl (13:29):
Yeah.
The complaining.
Mary (13:32):
Yeah, the complaining in conversation.
Cheryl (13:34):
Yeah.
So this is also something thatI learned myself.
And it had to do with my yearsas a teacher.
And I don't tell this story towell, actually, I have two
different situations, I guess,where I realized this.
But one of them was when I wasteaching.
And I don't tell this story tomake it sound like all schools
are negative environments oranything like that.
(13:56):
Teaching is hard and teachersneed to vent sometimes.
And I realized that when Iwould go into the workroom, all
of our conversations would beabout how the copier was broken,
or the traffic was bad, or thekids wouldn't pay attention, or
I have more papers to grade.
Oh my gosh, so many papers tograde, or the weather is
(14:18):
terrible, blah, all of it, everybit of it.
And that's just how we talkedto each other.
And I'm not sure that it mademe feel bad.
That was just how we talked,but it did make me focus on that
all the time.
And as I was kind of realizingthat, it was around the same
(14:40):
time I had started thisbusiness, and I was having a
conversation with my husband oneday.
We were just standing in thekitchen having a conversation.
I was telling him about how thebusiness was going.
And he said to me, You know, ifyou don't like it, you could
just stop.
And I went, Why would I dothat?
I do like it.
And he said, All you ever do iscomplain about it.
(15:04):
And I didn't even know that.
I did not realize.
And that was really a wake-upcall to start paying attention
to what is actually coming outof my mouth.
Because if all I'm doing issaying negative stuff, it is
(15:26):
going to affect what's going onin my head, and it's going to
affect all the actions I'mtaking.
Yeah.
And the reason I think this isso powerful is it also affects
what we, how would I, how will Isay it?
What we sort of look for in theworld.
Um, so it's easy to have aconversation where you're
(15:49):
talking about the weather.
Oh, it's raining.
Yeah, it's raining.
Oh, the traffic was bad.
Yeah, the traffic was bad.
Oh, we feel good, we agree, wehave this in common.
But now we're sort of bringingall of together, we're going
down and now we're focusing onthe bad.
You know what I mean?
And it's just a habit.
Mary (16:06):
Yeah.
It's so funny you took youmention your husband because I
realize that he's the safe placefor me to really, like when I'm
texting him during the day, mytexts can be much more negative.
I use a lot of um, we'll sayadjectives that maybe I don't
need to put in there.
And I realize, like, first ofall, I don't need to hand him
(16:28):
all that crap.
Like, that's my crap.
And I started to intentionallylike hit the backspace button
and take out some of maybe theywere swear words, take out some
of that and just present thefact instead of how I feel about
the fact.
And I realized, I think thatmade me feel less angry or
(16:49):
frustrated or whatever washappening.
And I'm sure that he alsoappreciated receiving perhaps an
emoji instead of a swear word.
So I think that idea of beingcareful, who are your safe
people to vent to?
Because that's not reallyhelping both of you.
(17:10):
And I think, again, I want tobring up we don't always have to
be positive.
It's not like, oh, just, youknow, good vibes only.
Yeah, I think try to focus onthe things that aren't the
crappy parts, but we do needspace to be able to
legitimately, especially aswomen, complain or present
something.
(17:30):
But I think we need to becareful how often that just
creeps into our everyday stuff.
Cheryl (17:36):
I couldn't agree more.
And I think you're right aboutfamily.
And we're talking about ourhusbands, but it could be, you
know, sibling or best friend orwhatever.
There's there's probablysomebody that we know they love
us no matter what happens and nomatter what we say, and they
are the safe space.
And at the same time, numberone, that's not always great for
(17:58):
them to have to deal with that,as you said.
But number two, I think we needsome fences around the venting.
And this is something thatpeople ask me a lot.
Like, do you think nobody couldever vent?
You should never say anythingnegative.
Well, no, I don't think that.
We do need to vent.
We do need to sometimesprocessing verbally is a real
(18:20):
thing.
And I think we need to giveourselves a little bit of time
and say, I need to vent withwhoever we're talking about, and
we do it, and then we stop.
And that's, you know, it's ittakes some practice to learn how
to do that and then turn itoff.
But it's okay as long as it'snot all the time.
Mary (18:42):
Yeah.
And I know there are peoplethat will actually say to
someone, do you have space forthis right now?
Because, you know, and I thinkbeing aware, we I think as you
know, we have a friend thatprobably is the kind of the
receiver of that for us.
It's the extra safe person.
And I think sometimes,especially if we're going
through some stuff, that seesawisn't even.
(19:06):
It really can tip one way.
And I think again, being awareof what is that energy?
How am I approaching thatrelationship?
What is the energy?
And I can tell you where thisworks for me.
And this is, I still think itsounds crazy, but when I'm going
into a parking situation, myfirst thought is, oh, there's
probably not gonna be a space.
(19:26):
And I started to just be like,I'm gonna find a space.
Yeah.
And almost always there is aparking space in a very short
amount of time.
Now, some people would callthis manifesting, and I've had
guests that talk about that.
What you put out into the worldis what you're gonna get back.
What are your thoughts on that?
Cheryl (19:46):
So I agree that what you put out into the world is gonna
affect what comes back.
I don't know.
I've always struggled.
I've struggled with the I'mgonna say I'm gonna get a good
parking space, so there it'sgonna appear.
If I'm being honest, I strugglewith that a little bit.
The way I interpret that ismore brain science-based,
(20:09):
probably, in that I thinkbecause I've tried the same
experiment and it does work alot.
I think if you are basicallygiving your brain an instruction
to go find a parking spacebecause I believe there's going
to be one there, then it's gonnasee it.
You're gonna see what you mightnot otherwise see because you
(20:31):
didn't believe it was gonnahappen.
Yeah.
That's how I would interpretit.
Mary (20:36):
Yeah.
And I think it is when we usethe word manifest, it can sound
very woo-woo.
But you mentioned this a littlebit ago.
We're going to feel a certainway based on what we pay
attention to.
So when I have clients thatseem especially caught in that
negative loop, I say to them,like, you're seeing the one pile
(20:57):
of dust in the corner.
What about the rest of theroom?
It's sort of like when youactually are when I know for me,
I entertain sometimes just tomake me clean the house better.
And I'll look at it and be andsee things I never noticed
because I'm thoroughly cleaningit.
But I think sometimes becauseour brains are wired to keep us
safe.
So we we do legitimately comeby the negativity, we can too
(21:23):
often then have so many goodthings happen, or especially
people will say a compliment oror you'll hear lots of
compliments.
But the one thing that wasn'tthe compliment, there's your
dust in the corner, and you arealmost shining your flashlight
right on it.
Cheryl (21:37):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And our our brains havesomething called a reticular
activating system, which meansthat we're taking in, I mean, I
couldn't even give a number, somuch different input.
All these little pieces ofinformation around us, your eye,
all your senses are taking inthis information.
You can't possibly be payingattention to everything at the
(22:00):
same time.
So the reticular activatingsystem is picking what you're
gonna notice the dust in thecorner or the sun in the sky, or
the, you know, whatever.
And it chooses because thebrain likes to be right.
So it picks to focus on thethings that match with how
you're feeling, what yoursubconscious brain believes is
(22:22):
possible or true, what you'reexpecting.
That's what we notice.
And so that's where that comesfrom.
That I only see the pile ofdust, or I see everything looks
so nice.
It's it's from what we expect.
Mary (22:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think rewiring that, yeah.
That when especially when westart the negative, because some
of us, again, we come by thenegative legitimately.
We've had some stuff happen.
Yeah.
So it's a little bit of adefense mechanism.
It's all, you know, we don'tneed to go psychobabble.
But I think um trying to changethat is difficult.
(23:01):
So, first, positiveaffirmations, yes or no.
And then what are some ways wecan start to tweak and just
soften some of that innerdialogue?
Cheryl (23:12):
So I'm gonna say yes on affirmations, but I'm gonna make
it a yes and as if we're in animprov.
Yes, and affirmations arevaluable if they are attached to
emotion.
And so I think the frustrationthat we have with affirmations
sometimes is that we just go,oh, today's a great day, and I'm
(23:34):
so great, and that's not gonnahelp.
But if we can come up with anaffirmation or two that make us
feel really good when we say orlisten to them, that's how we
take that information in.
And the repetition does help tokind of save it in our brains.
(23:56):
So, yes, and with emotion.
unknown (23:59):
Okay.
Cheryl (24:00):
And the other little tool that I love, um, are you
familiar with glimmers?
Mary (24:06):
Yes.
Cheryl (24:06):
Yeah, tell us more about that.
I love the concept of glimmersbecause especially when
presenting the idea of some ofthese change your mindset type
of tools to people for the firsttime, they sometimes are
skeptical.
If you're listening, maybeyou're feeling a bit skeptical.
And that's okay.
(24:27):
So a glimmer is, I would callit a moment of joy or a moment
of happiness.
It's when you notice just atiny little thing that makes you
happy.
And so it could be your coffeetastes great, or you walked out
your door and oh, the air feelsamazing, or just tiny things.
(24:49):
The power in that is that if westart to look for them, then
number one, I guess there's twothings.
Number one, we have all thesetiny moments of joy throughout
the day, but number two, westart training our brains to
look for them.
And so gradually over time, nowwe're looking for the good
(25:10):
stuff as opposed to the badstuff, or maybe in addition to,
because as you said, our brainsare trying to keep us safe.
But if we can mix in the goodstuff, it really can change the
way we interact with the worldover time.
Mary (25:23):
And I think we sometimes have an inaccurate idea of
reality.
And I what I mean by that is wethink that if we take care of
all of these things, we're justgoing to be happy all the time.
And we we don't really arriveat happiness.
You know, I think we it's ait's a back and forth.
(25:44):
I mean, every day is an up anddown.
So if we can tease apart a joyversus happiness versus
contentment, those are allreally different goals.
And joy, I think we think joyis like the big one, but how you
describe it is how I think ofit.
It's that one moment you thatthe light will hit something
perfectly.
And you just feel it in yourheart.
(26:05):
It's like, this is justperfect, like right now.
Cheryl (26:09):
Yeah.
Mary (26:09):
Yeah.
Cheryl (26:10):
And it's such, it feels good.
And I think we all recognizethat it feels good.
Like I'm picturing I have aback deck and I'll I have lights
out there and I'll go out andsit there with my book or a
glass of wine or something inthe evening.
And it's just like, oh, this isso nice.
It feels good.
I don't think we always realizethe power of always looking for
(26:30):
that and really appreciatingthose moments.
Because if we teach ourselvesto do that, we find them even
more.
Mary (26:38):
Yeah.
So this is a little left field,but it's another idea that I
saw like when I read someinformation about you.
And I want to see if we canpull it in.
The idea of people feeling likethey always need to say they're
sorry.
Because I think it ties in inthat with if we circle back to
where where we started theconversation and feeling a lot
(26:59):
of times as women that we'resupposed to be pleasing.
Or so I think sometimes ittends to be women that will lead
with I'm sorry, but or they'llapologize for something that's
not their responsibility.
Cheryl (27:14):
Absolutely.
And and let me just say,apologizing is good when there's
a real thing to apologize for.
However, so often I have afriend, and she's been working
on this so much to change herhabit, but I have a friend whose
habit always has been beforeshe asks a question, she says,
(27:35):
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
What time are we gonna bethere?
I'm sorry.
How does that work?
I'm and I'm like, stop, stop,why are you sorry?
But she didn't know, she didn'tnotice it.
It's back to the sort of theway we habitually speak.
It might be complaining, itmight be apologizing, but it's
it's making ourselves smallerwhen we do things like that.
(27:59):
And and I would argue thatsometimes even the complaining
is that because if someone elseis having a bad day, we're gonna
make our day worse so that theyfeel okay about their it's just
we're making ourselves smaller.
And it it kind of shows thatmaybe we'd need to work a bit on
(28:20):
self-confidence.
If I feel like in order to aska question, I should say I'm
sorry.
Uh it's disempowering.
Mary (28:29):
Yeah.
Cheryl (28:30):
And I I mean, I think the good thing is just to
recognize it, honestly.
And interestingly, some ofthese things you can switch to
gratitude.
So instead of saying, I'm sosorry if you're a few minutes
late, even though I guess maybethat's a real thing to apologize
for, you could say, Thank youso much for waiting.
Mary (28:48):
Yeah.
Totally different.
Great reframe.
Yeah.
Cheryl (28:51):
Yeah.
And the asking of a question,we can drop the I'm sorry
completely.
It doesn't need to be there.
Ask the question.
Say thank you for the answer.
You know, it's it's it'srecognizing it that really does
kind of help speed us along tochanging that habit.
Mary (29:09):
Yeah.
unknown (29:10):
Yeah.
Mary (29:10):
And I know your focus in your work is mostly women in
midlife.
And I wanted to find that.
I've had actually women thatare confused.
What do you mean midlife?
And for me, I feel like that'ssort of early 40s to well into
60s.
Is that how you think aboutthat?
Cheryl (29:27):
Yes.
Yes.
I would say most of the womenthat I'm talking to on the
podcast slash working with are40s and 50s.
So it's quite a that's a bigrange.
Yeah.
And definitely early 60s aswell.
It's the way uh besides age,the way I define it is if you
have kids, they are gettingolder, teens, college, out of
(29:50):
college.
If you have parents living,they're getting older.
So we're getting into thatsandwich period a little bit in
between.
And And you're looking ahead toretirement and you're wondering
about that, and probably theperimenopause, menopause stuff
is happening.
It's just this period of timewhere so much is changing that
(30:14):
it can be overwhelming.
Mary (30:16):
Yeah.
And I also love working withwomen at this time because I
think, and this sort of ties inwith the negativity, I think
we've accumulated so much stuff.
We may not have had time toprocess it.
We just carry it around.
We and so the world now startsto see us differently, you know,
as our children grow and ourbodies change and all of these
(30:39):
things.
And I think for a long time,the the journey through
menopause was put out there assomething very negative.
And I don't believe it is.
I think there are legitimatethings, but you know, I have I'm
certified in um functionalnutrition.
So I think when you know someof that stuff, you realize,
(30:59):
okay, I have more control than Ithink.
But don't you feel like it'ssuch a much more hopeful time
than sometimes we believe it'sgonna be?
Cheryl (31:08):
Yes.
And I'm gonna give us as womenwho are doing exactly what you
and I are doing right now, atthe age we're doing it, credit
for changing that.
Because I believe there's a lotmore women out there now
talking about this, whether it'sfrom a medical perspective,
podcast, just general mindset.
(31:28):
How do you go through midlife?
There's just so many morepeople talking about it.
And I think it used to be likenot a secret, but I don't know,
like nobody ever spoke about it,you know?
I think we've changed that.
Mary (31:41):
Yeah.
And I had a conversation nottoo long ago with a group of
women talking about how theirmothers didn't prepare them.
And I, if my mom was alive, shewould be 98.
And I said, they didn't know.
Like it was you sort of thesuffering, the the idea of
suffering was just, I think,accepted.
(32:02):
And nobody compared notesbecause everybody thought, well,
they look okay, so they must beokay, or I don't want to let my
guard down and let somebodyknow I'm not okay.
It was a very different time,and we are now just admitting
here's what it's like for me.
And I think what we're findingis exactly what you're doing
right now.
We're nodding like me too, metoo.
(32:25):
Like, I get it.
It's the new me too movement.
unknown (32:29):
Yeah.
Mary (32:30):
Absolutely.
It is.
And I think it's veryempowering.
And I think it also is veryhopeful because now a lot of
things we've moved through it,and now we can make the next
part of our life what we want tomake it.
Absolutely.
Cheryl (32:48):
Absolutely.
And uh you're talking aboutnutrition, which is so powerful,
it makes such a difference.
I'm speaking about mindset.
I've had uh various guests onmy podcast who've talked about,
you know, hormones and all thesethings that you can do.
And there's just so much we cando to get to a point where we
(33:12):
feel good about ourselves, wetrust ourselves, we trust our
gut instincts, and we lookforward to the next, I don't
know, 30 years.
It's amazing.
Mary (33:22):
Yeah.
So before I have you share moreabout what you do and let
people know where they can findyou, I want to ask a question
that as a fellow podcast host,what are some of the biggest
things that you've learned orbeen surprised about, or it in
the ex because I think westarted doing this sort of for
the same reasons.
(33:42):
And there have been benefitsthat I never imagined would
happen.
So I'm just curious about howyou feel about that.
Cheryl (33:52):
That's a great question.
So one of the things thatreally strikes me, I don't know
if I would say this is shockingin any way, but I at the end of
the episode, I always ask myguest, what's the one thing that
somebody listening needs toremember?
And what surprised me, but Ilove, is that at least 50% of
(34:14):
the guests will say, be kind toyourself, give yourself grace.
And it doesn't matter whattopic we're talking about, just
you just give yourself grace.
You're amazing and be kind toyourself.
And I love that concept.
I mean, that's certainly amindset powerful concept.
And I'm fascinated how oftenpeople say that.
(34:36):
And so, for so many topics, Iremember the woman I had on the
podcast talking aboutdecluttering and a doctor I had
on the podcast talking aboutmenopause, both saying the same
thing.
It doesn't matter the topic.
Just give yourself grace.
And I think that's powerful.
Mary (34:53):
Yeah.
Well, that's a great idea toend on.
So now can you share a littlebit more about what you do, what
you offer, and where people canfind you?
And then, of course, I willlink it in the show notes.
Cheryl (35:03):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for that.
So, as you mentioned, Mind YourMidlife Podcast is on every
major podcast app.
And you can also find it atmindyourmidlifepodcast.com.
So that's easy.
And then my website isCherylPFisher.com, and you can
have a look at coaching that Ioffer.
(35:25):
And you can also have a look, Ihave a substack and a Patreon
secret podcast series forsubscribers.
So I would love for people tohave a look at that as well.
And uh yeah, I guess that's me.
unknown (35:40):
All right.
Mary (35:41):
Well, thank you for the conversation.
I'm so happy to have talked toyou today.
Thank you so much, Mary.
It was fun.
Sure.
And thanks to everyone forlistening.
If you have any comments aboutthis episode, please send me a
text or there's an email in thelink in the show notes.
And until next time, go outinto the world and be the
amazing, resilient, vibrantviolet that you are.
Welcome to No Shrinking Violets.
I'm your host, Mary Rothwell,licensed therapist and certified
integrative mental healthpractitioner.
I've created a space where wecelebrate the intuition and
power of women who want to breakfree from limiting narratives.
We'll explore all realms ofwellness, what it means to take
up space unapologetically, andhow your essential nature is key
(00:28):
to living life on your terms.
It's time to own your space,trust your nature, and flourish.
Let's dive in.
Hey Violets, welcome to theshow.
When I started my career, I wasa school counselor in a
building with 450 high schoolfreshmen.
I was 24 years old.
I had a wonderfully supportiveprincipal, and I work with some
(00:50):
of my favorite teacherco-workers ever.
However, there was one person,let's just say that if cartoons
were real, she would have had araining black cloud over her
head everywhere she went.
From the minute she walked intothe faculty room, we all needed
umbrellas.
Negative.
I timed my breaks so that Iwouldn't be there when she was,
(01:11):
and sometimes I even ate lunchelsewhere.
Even students commented thatthey were afraid to ask
questions because she was sosarcastic.
That was a couple decades ago,and I can still remember what it
was like and how much I wentout of my way to avoid it at the
time.
Well, recently I started torecognize that I was in a
negative mindset loop.
Minor annoyances started tofeel like personal affronts.
(01:34):
I was acting like I believedthe world had it in for me
specifically.
Well, that was just my innergremlin.
In fact, my life is prettygreat.
In light of what I read in theheadlines every day, my inner
gremlin needs to go pound sand.
And really, there's alwayssomething to be grateful for,
even though sometimes it's veryhard to find.
(01:55):
And you feel like sockingsomeone in the nose for
suggesting it.
And there's also the other endof the spectrum, toxic
positivity.
Although that's a bitoverblown.
I have thoughts, but I'll savethose for another day.
Suffice it to say, there's adifference between positive
vibes only and realisticallyfocusing on what's the best that
(02:15):
can happen.
So I'm going to explore theidea of mindset shifts,
including how complaining mightbe holding you back, with my
guest today, Cheryl Fisher.
Cheryl is the host of Mind YourMidlife Podcast, ranking in the
top 2% of podcasts globally,which she created to help
midlife women feel confident intheir body, their decisions, and
(02:36):
their goals to create a midlifethey love.
As a certified life and mindsetcoach, Cheryl works with
clients one-on-one and in groupmasterclass sessions to shift
the narrative that tells us thatwe're stuck or not enough to
one that allows us to moveforward towards self-belief and
success.
She's a speaker and trainer,presenting and moderating at
(02:57):
industry events and providingcorporate training classes
around the world.
Cheryl is a wife, a mom, and agrandmom and enjoys reading,
golf, happy hours, yes, andtravel.
Welcome to No Shrinking Violet,Cheryl.
Thank you so much, Mary.
I'm excited to be here.
Well, I'm looking forward tothis discussion because, like I
(03:17):
said, I recently had to grabmyself and pull myself out of a
negative, negative mindset.
But I always like to start offwith having my guests talk a
little bit about, I'll saysharing the highlights of your
story and how that got you towhat you do today.
Cheryl (03:34):
Absolutely.
And and I'm so glad you'reasking that because as you were
telling the story of thisparticular teacher, I used to be
a teacher.
I taught high school for 12years.
And I feel like I want toclarify that that was not me
that you were talking about.
No, it was not Cheryl.
But I know exactly what you aretalking about.
(03:55):
So I have worked in thecorporate world.
And when I had kids, I realizedthat I loved the training
aspect of my job.
And I made the switch toteaching.
And that was a great way for meto be around in the summer when
they were growing up and it wasworking well.
And all of that matters becauseI started to hit burnout while
(04:21):
I was teaching.
And having been in that world,you know, that's kind of an easy
thing to happen.
It's a rough job and rewarding.
And so I started a littlebusiness on the side.
And that is when I learnedabout mindset, because I used to
kind of poo-poo all thetouchy-feely personal
(04:44):
development stuff.
I thought it was silly.
I thought it wasn't necessary.
And I was wrong.
And I learned that if I wantedto have my own business, even if
I was going to do it on theside and it was not going to be
huge, I had to be able to makegoals and I had to be able to
think bigger and uh be my ownboss.
And all of that was about how Ithought about it.
(05:06):
And I'm thankful for all ofthat because that's how I ended
up getting into coaching becauseI realized I wanted to share
this with other people as well.
And that's where the podcastcame from, also.
Mary (05:19):
Yeah.
Well, when I read some of yourinformation and you talked about
exactly what you're saying,like you go from working for
someone else and you're good atit.
You know, that was very muchechoes where I came from.
And then you decide, okay, I'mgoing to do this thing.
And you know you have theskills, but there is this
insidious voice sometimes thatyou're trying to, I think you
(05:46):
think you have the samebenchmarks and you don't,
because success is very hard tomeasure.
And I think part of that isidentity.
Like we have this identity, andI want to also segue eventually
into this idea of midlifebecause I think as women,
especially, we have all of theseidentities.
We are a mom, we are a worker,we're a wife, we're, you know,
(06:07):
all of these things.
And then we get to midlife anda lot of things shift, or we we
do what you're talking about.
We'll change careers or work,especially working for
ourselves, and all that shifts.
Cheryl (06:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
And it, I guess the way I wouldhave described it for me is I
was a really good employee.
I knew how to do the projectwell and do what my boss wanted,
and I knew how to prioritizeand blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
And then nobody was telling mewhat to do.
And nobody was telling me whatsuccess was, and nobody was
(06:42):
telling me what the next stepwas or how to do something
differently because it wasn'tquite working.
I had to figure it all outmyself.
And it's really easy to fallinto the trap of either just
thinking that you can't do it orkind of just berating yourself
every time you have a problem.
(07:02):
And that just makes it worse.
Mary (07:05):
Yeah.
And I think too, when you gofrom you know how to earn a
paycheck, you know, like there'sespecially, I'm gonna say,
especially as a teacher, youknow, you you know these are the
objectives, even if you can'talways affect the change on
everyone that you want to, youknow what you need to do to hit
(07:25):
your mark.
And I think when you wade intosomething different, whatever it
is, and I'll just use thebusiness idea because we both
have experienced it.
I know for me, I felt like Ihad to do it exactly like
somebody else did.
Or, and that didn't fitbecause, you know, that, and I
think there we can do thatcomparison.
(07:47):
And well, look at this person,she's so successful.
Why can't I do that?
Cheryl (07:53):
Yeah.
At one point I worked with acoach to help me kind of move
forward in that.
And I said to her, I don't seeanyone who looks like, not looks
like physically, but justanyone who's like me doing this
in a in a big way, like I wantto.
(08:13):
And so I don't see how I can doit.
And she said, That's why youcan do it.
You need to be there.
Why do you have to be just likeanybody else?
You need to do it yourself.
And that was a big aha momentfor me.
And again, something that isnot the case really in a
structured school or corporateworld where you all have a boss.
(08:35):
It doesn't matter if your bossis like you or not.
They're your boss.
You do what they say.
Mary (08:40):
Yeah.
You know, and I want tobacktrack a second because I
make the assumption that when wesay mindset, everyone knows
what we mean.
How do you explain that tosomeone?
Cheryl (08:51):
It's a tough word, isn't it?
It it encompasses so manythings.
I explain it as the way we lookat the world and the way we
speak to ourselves.
Because it's kind of both.
There's a there's a runningwow, I don't know why I'm losing
(09:13):
my words.
There's a running conversationin our heads going all the time
with ourselves.
And if you don't think that'sthe case, if you pause and and
kind of just listen, you'llknow.
And so that affects our mood,it affects our emotions, and it
affects how we look at theworld.
And then you can interact withthe world in two very different
(09:36):
ways, depending on kind of whatyou're expecting and how you're
thinking about things.
And so it's it's inside andoutside.
Mary (09:44):
And I would contend that most women have very different
outsides versus their insides.
We come across, we have to bepleasing, and we smile.
And I think a lot of times onthe inside, it's totally
opposite.
Cheryl (09:57):
Yes.
Yes.
We are usually very tough onourselves.
And I suppose if it's asituation like you're describing
where we feel like we have tobe pleasant and we have to
smile, we could be maybelegitimately thinking in our
heads, oh, this person is soannoying or whatever.
I mean, that's okay.
You're allowed to have anopinion.
(10:18):
But the problem that a lot ofus deal with is the way we're
speaking to ourselves.
Not that we're thinkingsomebody's annoying, but that
constantly, constantly insideour heads is why did you do
that?
Why did you wear that?
You don't look very nice today.
Why are you gaining weight?
Like, why are you so tired?
(10:39):
I don't understand why younever go to bed on time.
Like, what?
You know, and it's you know,why do you always look like ugly
in pictures?
You look horrible in thatpicture.
Things that you would never sayto anyone else.
Mary (10:50):
No, correct.
And I do find that my clientshave trouble hearing that.
It's so part of our fabric thatwe have trouble hearing it.
How do you help people kind ofisolate that and recognize it?
Cheryl (11:06):
It takes practice because the key is to recognize
it and also not berate ourselvesfor doing it.
So it can't be like a doublewhammy.
If I realize I'm speaking meanthings to myself all day, then
I'm mad at myself for doingthat, which is the problem.
(11:27):
So the first thing is I try tohave my clients get in the habit
of just doing a little pauseonce or twice a day.
They might give themselves areminder to do it.
To just kind of pause and ask,okay, how am I feeling right
now?
And that is surprisinglychallenging to figure out
(11:52):
because we're not used tothinking about feelings besides
like happy, sad, mad.
Mary (11:58):
Yeah.
Cheryl (11:59):
But maybe you're frustrated or you're feeling
kind of dejected, or you, youknow, there's more words.
And then if we can get in thehabit of figuring that out, then
we can say, well, huh, why am Ifeeling like that right at this
moment?
And we can tune in towhatever's going on in here.
(12:19):
And the reason I try to helpclients learn how to do this is
this was a big deal for me.
I I can, in fact, remember asituation where I was walking up
the stairs in my house and Iwas just kind of oh, like, what
everything's bad.
And I just paused and Ithought, wait, why is it?
(12:40):
Why do I feel like that?
And I realized that in my head,I was just running and worrying
over this situation with somepeople in my family, and
whatever I was telling myselfwasn't even happening.
It was a worry, you know,maybe.
Yep.
And I thought, wait, is thatwhy I'm feeling like this?
(13:02):
So just starting to evenrecognize it is good.
And and just with the caveatthat we don't want to tell
ourselves, I'm such an idiot.
Why would I speak to myselfthat way?
It's how our brains work.
It's not, it's not a thing thatyou're doing wrong.
Mary (13:20):
Yeah, we just I think get used to doing it and not
recognizing it.
But I know one of the otherthings that you talk about is
being negative in conversation.
Cheryl (13:29):
Yeah.
The complaining.
Mary (13:32):
Yeah, the complaining in conversation.
Cheryl (13:34):
Yeah.
So this is also something thatI learned myself.
And it had to do with my yearsas a teacher.
And I don't tell this story towell, actually, I have two
different situations, I guess,where I realized this.
But one of them was when I wasteaching.
And I don't tell this story tomake it sound like all schools
are negative environments oranything like that.
(13:56):
Teaching is hard and teachersneed to vent sometimes.
And I realized that when Iwould go into the workroom, all
of our conversations would beabout how the copier was broken,
or the traffic was bad, or thekids wouldn't pay attention, or
I have more papers to grade.
Oh my gosh, so many papers tograde, or the weather is
(14:18):
terrible, blah, all of it, everybit of it.
And that's just how we talkedto each other.
And I'm not sure that it mademe feel bad.
That was just how we talked,but it did make me focus on that
all the time.
And as I was kind of realizingthat, it was around the same
(14:40):
time I had started thisbusiness, and I was having a
conversation with my husband oneday.
We were just standing in thekitchen having a conversation.
I was telling him about how thebusiness was going.
And he said to me, You know, ifyou don't like it, you could
just stop.
And I went, Why would I dothat?
I do like it.
And he said, All you ever do iscomplain about it.
(15:04):
And I didn't even know that.
I did not realize.
And that was really a wake-upcall to start paying attention
to what is actually coming outof my mouth.
Because if all I'm doing issaying negative stuff, it is
(15:26):
going to affect what's going onin my head, and it's going to
affect all the actions I'mtaking.
Yeah.
And the reason I think this isso powerful is it also affects
what we, how would I, how will Isay it?
What we sort of look for in theworld.
Um, so it's easy to have aconversation where you're
(15:49):
talking about the weather.
Oh, it's raining.
Yeah, it's raining.
Oh, the traffic was bad.
Yeah, the traffic was bad.
Oh, we feel good, we agree, wehave this in common.
But now we're sort of bringingall of together, we're going
down and now we're focusing onthe bad.
You know what I mean?
And it's just a habit.
Mary (16:06):
Yeah.
It's so funny you took youmention your husband because I
realize that he's the safe placefor me to really, like when I'm
texting him during the day, mytexts can be much more negative.
I use a lot of um, we'll sayadjectives that maybe I don't
need to put in there.
And I realize, like, first ofall, I don't need to hand him
(16:28):
all that crap.
Like, that's my crap.
And I started to intentionallylike hit the backspace button
and take out some of maybe theywere swear words, take out some
of that and just present thefact instead of how I feel about
the fact.
And I realized, I think thatmade me feel less angry or
(16:49):
frustrated or whatever washappening.
And I'm sure that he alsoappreciated receiving perhaps an
emoji instead of a swear word.
So I think that idea of beingcareful, who are your safe
people to vent to?
Because that's not reallyhelping both of you.
(17:10):
And I think, again, I want tobring up we don't always have to
be positive.
It's not like, oh, just, youknow, good vibes only.
Yeah, I think try to focus onthe things that aren't the
crappy parts, but we do needspace to be able to
legitimately, especially aswomen, complain or present
something.
(17:30):
But I think we need to becareful how often that just
creeps into our everyday stuff.
Cheryl (17:36):
I couldn't agree more.
And I think you're right aboutfamily.
And we're talking about ourhusbands, but it could be, you
know, sibling or best friend orwhatever.
There's there's probablysomebody that we know they love
us no matter what happens and nomatter what we say, and they
are the safe space.
And at the same time, numberone, that's not always great for
(17:58):
them to have to deal with that,as you said.
But number two, I think we needsome fences around the venting.
And this is something thatpeople ask me a lot.
Like, do you think nobody couldever vent?
You should never say anythingnegative.
Well, no, I don't think that.
We do need to vent.
We do need to sometimesprocessing verbally is a real
(18:20):
thing.
And I think we need to giveourselves a little bit of time
and say, I need to vent withwhoever we're talking about, and
we do it, and then we stop.
And that's, you know, it's ittakes some practice to learn how
to do that and then turn itoff.
But it's okay as long as it'snot all the time.
Mary (18:42):
Yeah.
And I know there are peoplethat will actually say to
someone, do you have space forthis right now?
Because, you know, and I thinkbeing aware, we I think as you
know, we have a friend thatprobably is the kind of the
receiver of that for us.
It's the extra safe person.
And I think sometimes,especially if we're going
through some stuff, that seesawisn't even.
(19:06):
It really can tip one way.
And I think again, being awareof what is that energy?
How am I approaching thatrelationship?
What is the energy?
And I can tell you where thisworks for me.
And this is, I still think itsounds crazy, but when I'm going
into a parking situation, myfirst thought is, oh, there's
probably not gonna be a space.
(19:26):
And I started to just be like,I'm gonna find a space.
Yeah.
And almost always there is aparking space in a very short
amount of time.
Now, some people would callthis manifesting, and I've had
guests that talk about that.
What you put out into the worldis what you're gonna get back.
What are your thoughts on that?
Cheryl (19:46):
So I agree that what you put out into the world is gonna
affect what comes back.
I don't know.
I've always struggled.
I've struggled with the I'mgonna say I'm gonna get a good
parking space, so there it'sgonna appear.
If I'm being honest, I strugglewith that a little bit.
The way I interpret that ismore brain science-based,
(20:09):
probably, in that I thinkbecause I've tried the same
experiment and it does work alot.
I think if you are basicallygiving your brain an instruction
to go find a parking spacebecause I believe there's going
to be one there, then it's gonnasee it.
You're gonna see what you mightnot otherwise see because you
(20:31):
didn't believe it was gonnahappen.
Yeah.
That's how I would interpretit.
Mary (20:36):
Yeah.
And I think it is when we usethe word manifest, it can sound
very woo-woo.
But you mentioned this a littlebit ago.
We're going to feel a certainway based on what we pay
attention to.
So when I have clients thatseem especially caught in that
negative loop, I say to them,like, you're seeing the one pile
(20:57):
of dust in the corner.
What about the rest of theroom?
It's sort of like when youactually are when I know for me,
I entertain sometimes just tomake me clean the house better.
And I'll look at it and be andsee things I never noticed
because I'm thoroughly cleaningit.
But I think sometimes becauseour brains are wired to keep us
safe.
So we we do legitimately comeby the negativity, we can too
(21:23):
often then have so many goodthings happen, or especially
people will say a compliment oror you'll hear lots of
compliments.
But the one thing that wasn'tthe compliment, there's your
dust in the corner, and you arealmost shining your flashlight
right on it.
Cheryl (21:37):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And our our brains havesomething called a reticular
activating system, which meansthat we're taking in, I mean, I
couldn't even give a number, somuch different input.
All these little pieces ofinformation around us, your eye,
all your senses are taking inthis information.
You can't possibly be payingattention to everything at the
(22:00):
same time.
So the reticular activatingsystem is picking what you're
gonna notice the dust in thecorner or the sun in the sky, or
the, you know, whatever.
And it chooses because thebrain likes to be right.
So it picks to focus on thethings that match with how
you're feeling, what yoursubconscious brain believes is
(22:22):
possible or true, what you'reexpecting.
That's what we notice.
And so that's where that comesfrom.
That I only see the pile ofdust, or I see everything looks
so nice.
It's it's from what we expect.
Mary (22:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think rewiring that, yeah.
That when especially when westart the negative, because some
of us, again, we come by thenegative legitimately.
We've had some stuff happen.
Yeah.
So it's a little bit of adefense mechanism.
It's all, you know, we don'tneed to go psychobabble.
But I think um trying to changethat is difficult.
(23:01):
So, first, positiveaffirmations, yes or no.
And then what are some ways wecan start to tweak and just
soften some of that innerdialogue?
Cheryl (23:12):
So I'm gonna say yes on affirmations, but I'm gonna make
it a yes and as if we're in animprov.
Yes, and affirmations arevaluable if they are attached to
emotion.
And so I think the frustrationthat we have with affirmations
sometimes is that we just go,oh, today's a great day, and I'm
(23:34):
so great, and that's not gonnahelp.
But if we can come up with anaffirmation or two that make us
feel really good when we say orlisten to them, that's how we
take that information in.
And the repetition does help tokind of save it in our brains.
(23:56):
So, yes, and with emotion.
unknown (23:59):
Okay.
Cheryl (24:00):
And the other little tool that I love, um, are you
familiar with glimmers?
Mary (24:06):
Yes.
Cheryl (24:06):
Yeah, tell us more about that.
I love the concept of glimmersbecause especially when
presenting the idea of some ofthese change your mindset type
of tools to people for the firsttime, they sometimes are
skeptical.
If you're listening, maybeyou're feeling a bit skeptical.
And that's okay.
(24:27):
So a glimmer is, I would callit a moment of joy or a moment
of happiness.
It's when you notice just atiny little thing that makes you
happy.
And so it could be your coffeetastes great, or you walked out
your door and oh, the air feelsamazing, or just tiny things.
(24:49):
The power in that is that if westart to look for them, then
number one, I guess there's twothings.
Number one, we have all thesetiny moments of joy throughout
the day, but number two, westart training our brains to
look for them.
And so gradually over time, nowwe're looking for the good
(25:10):
stuff as opposed to the badstuff, or maybe in addition to,
because as you said, our brainsare trying to keep us safe.
But if we can mix in the goodstuff, it really can change the
way we interact with the worldover time.
Mary (25:23):
And I think we sometimes have an inaccurate idea of
reality.
And I what I mean by that is wethink that if we take care of
all of these things, we're justgoing to be happy all the time.
And we we don't really arriveat happiness.
You know, I think we it's ait's a back and forth.
(25:44):
I mean, every day is an up anddown.
So if we can tease apart a joyversus happiness versus
contentment, those are allreally different goals.
And joy, I think we think joyis like the big one, but how you
describe it is how I think ofit.
It's that one moment you thatthe light will hit something
perfectly.
And you just feel it in yourheart.
(26:05):
It's like, this is justperfect, like right now.
Cheryl (26:09):
Yeah.
Mary (26:09):
Yeah.
Cheryl (26:10):
And it's such, it feels good.
And I think we all recognizethat it feels good.
Like I'm picturing I have aback deck and I'll I have lights
out there and I'll go out andsit there with my book or a
glass of wine or something inthe evening.
And it's just like, oh, this isso nice.
It feels good.
I don't think we always realizethe power of always looking for
(26:30):
that and really appreciatingthose moments.
Because if we teach ourselvesto do that, we find them even
more.
Mary (26:38):
Yeah.
So this is a little left field,but it's another idea that I
saw like when I read someinformation about you.
And I want to see if we canpull it in.
The idea of people feeling likethey always need to say they're
sorry.
Because I think it ties in inthat with if we circle back to
where where we started theconversation and feeling a lot
(26:59):
of times as women that we'resupposed to be pleasing.
Or so I think sometimes ittends to be women that will lead
with I'm sorry, but or they'llapologize for something that's
not their responsibility.
Cheryl (27:14):
Absolutely.
And and let me just say,apologizing is good when there's
a real thing to apologize for.
However, so often I have afriend, and she's been working
on this so much to change herhabit, but I have a friend whose
habit always has been beforeshe asks a question, she says,
(27:35):
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
What time are we gonna bethere?
I'm sorry.
How does that work?
I'm and I'm like, stop, stop,why are you sorry?
But she didn't know, she didn'tnotice it.
It's back to the sort of theway we habitually speak.
It might be complaining, itmight be apologizing, but it's
it's making ourselves smallerwhen we do things like that.
(27:59):
And and I would argue thatsometimes even the complaining
is that because if someone elseis having a bad day, we're gonna
make our day worse so that theyfeel okay about their it's just
we're making ourselves smaller.
And it it kind of shows thatmaybe we'd need to work a bit on
(28:20):
self-confidence.
If I feel like in order to aska question, I should say I'm
sorry.
Uh it's disempowering.
Mary (28:29):
Yeah.
Cheryl (28:30):
And I I mean, I think the good thing is just to
recognize it, honestly.
And interestingly, some ofthese things you can switch to
gratitude.
So instead of saying, I'm sosorry if you're a few minutes
late, even though I guess maybethat's a real thing to apologize
for, you could say, Thank youso much for waiting.
Mary (28:48):
Yeah.
Totally different.
Great reframe.
Yeah.
Cheryl (28:51):
Yeah.
And the asking of a question,we can drop the I'm sorry
completely.
It doesn't need to be there.
Ask the question.
Say thank you for the answer.
You know, it's it's it'srecognizing it that really does
kind of help speed us along tochanging that habit.
Mary (29:09):
Yeah.
unknown (29:10):
Yeah.
Mary (29:10):
And I know your focus in your work is mostly women in
midlife.
And I wanted to find that.
I've had actually women thatare confused.
What do you mean midlife?
And for me, I feel like that'ssort of early 40s to well into
60s.
Is that how you think aboutthat?
Cheryl (29:27):
Yes.
Yes.
I would say most of the womenthat I'm talking to on the
podcast slash working with are40s and 50s.
So it's quite a that's a bigrange.
Yeah.
And definitely early 60s aswell.
It's the way uh besides age,the way I define it is if you
have kids, they are gettingolder, teens, college, out of
(29:50):
college.
If you have parents living,they're getting older.
So we're getting into thatsandwich period a little bit in
between.
And And you're looking ahead toretirement and you're wondering
about that, and probably theperimenopause, menopause stuff
is happening.
It's just this period of timewhere so much is changing that
(30:14):
it can be overwhelming.
Mary (30:16):
Yeah.
And I also love working withwomen at this time because I
think, and this sort of ties inwith the negativity, I think
we've accumulated so much stuff.
We may not have had time toprocess it.
We just carry it around.
We and so the world now startsto see us differently, you know,
as our children grow and ourbodies change and all of these
(30:39):
things.
And I think for a long time,the the journey through
menopause was put out there assomething very negative.
And I don't believe it is.
I think there are legitimatethings, but you know, I have I'm
certified in um functionalnutrition.
So I think when you know someof that stuff, you realize,
(30:59):
okay, I have more control than Ithink.
But don't you feel like it'ssuch a much more hopeful time
than sometimes we believe it'sgonna be?
Cheryl (31:08):
Yes.
And I'm gonna give us as womenwho are doing exactly what you
and I are doing right now, atthe age we're doing it, credit
for changing that.
Because I believe there's a lotmore women out there now
talking about this, whether it'sfrom a medical perspective,
podcast, just general mindset.
(31:28):
How do you go through midlife?
There's just so many morepeople talking about it.
And I think it used to be likenot a secret, but I don't know,
like nobody ever spoke about it,you know?
I think we've changed that.
Mary (31:41):
Yeah.
And I had a conversation nottoo long ago with a group of
women talking about how theirmothers didn't prepare them.
And I, if my mom was alive, shewould be 98.
And I said, they didn't know.
Like it was you sort of thesuffering, the the idea of
suffering was just, I think,accepted.
(32:02):
And nobody compared notesbecause everybody thought, well,
they look okay, so they must beokay, or I don't want to let my
guard down and let somebodyknow I'm not okay.
It was a very different time,and we are now just admitting
here's what it's like for me.
And I think what we're findingis exactly what you're doing
right now.
We're nodding like me too, metoo.
(32:25):
Like, I get it.
It's the new me too movement.
unknown (32:29):
Yeah.
Mary (32:30):
Absolutely.
It is.
And I think it's veryempowering.
And I think it also is veryhopeful because now a lot of
things we've moved through it,and now we can make the next
part of our life what we want tomake it.
Absolutely.
Cheryl (32:48):
Absolutely.
And uh you're talking aboutnutrition, which is so powerful,
it makes such a difference.
I'm speaking about mindset.
I've had uh various guests onmy podcast who've talked about,
you know, hormones and all thesethings that you can do.
And there's just so much we cando to get to a point where we
(33:12):
feel good about ourselves, wetrust ourselves, we trust our
gut instincts, and we lookforward to the next, I don't
know, 30 years.
It's amazing.
Mary (33:22):
Yeah.
So before I have you share moreabout what you do and let
people know where they can findyou, I want to ask a question
that as a fellow podcast host,what are some of the biggest
things that you've learned orbeen surprised about, or it in
the ex because I think westarted doing this sort of for
the same reasons.
(33:42):
And there have been benefitsthat I never imagined would
happen.
So I'm just curious about howyou feel about that.
Cheryl (33:52):
That's a great question.
So one of the things thatreally strikes me, I don't know
if I would say this is shockingin any way, but I at the end of
the episode, I always ask myguest, what's the one thing that
somebody listening needs toremember?
And what surprised me, but Ilove, is that at least 50% of
(34:14):
the guests will say, be kind toyourself, give yourself grace.
And it doesn't matter whattopic we're talking about, just
you just give yourself grace.
You're amazing and be kind toyourself.
And I love that concept.
I mean, that's certainly amindset powerful concept.
And I'm fascinated how oftenpeople say that.
(34:36):
And so, for so many topics, Iremember the woman I had on the
podcast talking aboutdecluttering and a doctor I had
on the podcast talking aboutmenopause, both saying the same
thing.
It doesn't matter the topic.
Just give yourself grace.
And I think that's powerful.
Mary (34:53):
Yeah.
Well, that's a great idea toend on.
So now can you share a littlebit more about what you do, what
you offer, and where people canfind you?
And then, of course, I willlink it in the show notes.
Cheryl (35:03):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for that.
So, as you mentioned, Mind YourMidlife Podcast is on every
major podcast app.
And you can also find it atmindyourmidlifepodcast.com.
So that's easy.
And then my website isCherylPFisher.com, and you can
have a look at coaching that Ioffer.
(35:25):
And you can also have a look, Ihave a substack and a Patreon
secret podcast series forsubscribers.
So I would love for people tohave a look at that as well.
And uh yeah, I guess that's me.
unknown (35:40):
All right.
Mary (35:41):
Well, thank you for the conversation.
I'm so happy to have talked toyou today.
Thank you so much, Mary.
It was fun.
Sure.
And thanks to everyone forlistening.
If you have any comments aboutthis episode, please send me a
text or there's an email in thelink in the show notes.
And until next time, go outinto the world and be the
amazing, resilient, vibrantviolet that you are.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com