Beauty culture is loud. And most of us have been listening to it for so long we've forgotten it was never actually our voice.

Writer, meditation teacher, and midlife coach Skylar Liberty Rose joins me for a conversation that kept surprising me. We're talking about beauty standards, the invisible pressure women carry around their appearance, and what it feels like to finally start shedding expectations you never consciously agreed to.

Skylar believes midlife is both a reckoning and an invitation. And in this conversation she makes a compelling case that the rules we've been handed about how we should look and how we should age were never really ours to begin with.

We get into her essay in Midlife Private Parts, her "is this mine?" practice for interrupting negative self-talk, why she started doing over-the-top mirror monologues (and why they actually work), how guided meditation carried her through a brain tumor diagnosis and craniotomy in 2022, and what aging has given her that her younger self simply couldn't have received.

This one is for any woman who's ready to stop shrinking and start becoming.

🔗 Find links to Skylar's work, her guided meditations on Insight Timer, and her ceremonies for midlife women in the show notes at [latebloomerliving.com/episode271]

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode!

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop! Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

Have you ever had one embarrassing moment — one failed public speaking experience, one bad drawing, one time you couldn't keep up — and quietly decided that was just who you are?

That's what this episode is about.

After a conversation with psychologist Gail Rice about re-storying our lives, something clicked for Yvonne — and it came straight from her work as a photographer. When she shoots headshots in burst mode, she captures dozens of frames of the same person in seconds. One frame? Guarded. The next? Laughing. Same person, completely different story.

And yet most of us are walking around defined by a single frame — one moment, usually from childhood, with very little context and even less life experience.

In this solo episode, Yvonne explores what happens when we confuse one awkward moment for the whole truth about who we are — and what it looks like to start creating new frames instead.

Because you are not the worst photo ever taken of you. You are the entire album. And the next frame hasn't even been taken yet.

🎧 If this one resonates, go back and listen to last week's conversation with Gail Rice — it's the episode that sparked this one.

Late Bloomer Living — because midlife is not the end of becoming.

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode!

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop! Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

Scaring Yourself Alive: How to Re-Story Your Life at Any Age with Gail Rice

What does it actually look like to choose expansion over disappearance — not just as an idea, but as a daily act of courage?

This one is for the woman who has ever felt the pull to play it smaller, quieter, safer. The one who wonders if her best chapters are behind her. The one who's tired of waiting for permission.

Spoiler: the permission slip is yours to write.

Gail Rice is a psychologist, writer, and late bloomer who got her psychology degree at 50, built her own practice, and moved to Australia temporarily — then stayed for 40 years. When she turned 70, she felt something she wasn't expecting: an existential dread that she was fading away. Becoming invisible. Losing her voice. So she did something about it. Something unexpected. Something that didn't go the way she planned — and ended up changing everything anyway.

In this conversation, we get into:

— Why Gail is more afraid of not living than dying

— The decision she made at 70 that woke her up (it's not what you think)

— What she calls "re-storying" — and how to actually do it

— Why the worst moments became the loudest wake-up calls

— How regret and anger might be the most useful emotions you're not using

— What it means to step onto the stage of your life without a script

This one is for the woman who has ever felt the pull to play it smaller, quieter, safer. The one who wonders if her best chapters are behind her. The one who's tired of waiting for permission.

Spoiler: the permission slip is yours to write.

🔗 Find Gail Rice on Substack, Instagram, and at gailricepsychologist.com

Until next time — bloom like you mean it. 🌸