Shows
The Midlife Ripening PodcastWhy Rest Feels ImpossibleRetreat details: Join Brooke in Tuscany this October for six days of dolce far niente.What if the most radical thing you could do for your growth right now… is nothing? In this deeply personal episode, Brooke invites you to slow down long enough to feel what's actually been simmering beneath the surface—the grief, the grayness, the soul cry that no amount of productivity can silence. This conversation is about the deeper kind of rest that reconnects you to your inner realm, your instincts, and what this particular season of mi...
2026-02-2727 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastBonus episode: Unhooking From The Good Woman MythIn this bonus episode, I’m sharing a live workshop replay where we name—and begin to gently unhook from—the Good Woman Myth. That inherited script that urges us to work before we rest, care for everyone else before we care for ourselves, and prove our worth instead of trusting it.Through story, teaching, and guided reflection, we explore resentment as a soul-level smoke alarm, what it means to hold our “flaws” without disappearing into shame, and why midlife invites a different kind of priority—one that has far less to do with ambition and far more to do w...
2025-12-041h 21The Midlife Ripening PodcastThe Power of Companionship in Midlife: Inside the Second Bite ExperienceIn this intimate round-table conversation, two original members of Second Bite — Ann and Tara — join me to reflect on a year of soulful transformation. Together we trace the subtle shifts, the unexpected courage, the creative renewal, and the deep relief of being witnessed by women who are walking a similar path in midlife.We explore what first drew them to this work, what surprised them about their own becoming, and how having a protected space that isn’t “one more thing to do,” but a place to breathe, softened old patterns and soothed the rhythm of their da...
2025-11-1927 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastWhy Midlife Women Feel Stuck—and How to Finally Be Whole, Not Just GoodUnhooking from the Good Woman MythStop censoring — and finally say and be what you want.RSVP for the free workshop here.In this intimate episode, Brooke invites you to name the invisible guardrails that shape women’s lives in midlife — the internalized “Good Woman Myth” that keeps us polite, overextended, and too far from our wild knowing.She shares the story of her own turning point — from earning tenure in academia to sensing a deeper call she couldn’t yet name — and how that deeper knowing eventually became her body...
2025-11-0221 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastThe Mid-life Betrayal ListRegister for my free upcoming workshop:Unhooking from the Good Woman MythStop censoring — and finally say and be what you want.Click here to RSVP.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -You’ve been loyal to everyone else’s needs. What happens when you turn that loyalty back toward yourself?If you’ve ever felt like you “can’t keep doing it this way” — this episode is for you. Brooke explores how betrayal sho...
2025-10-2120 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastFrom Powering Through to Moving at the Pace of Trust.How were you taught to meet the waves—the ones in the water, and the ones in your life?In this episode of The Midlife Ripening Podcast, Brooke shares three parables from a week at the ocean’s edge—moments that reveal how we’ve been trained to meet discomfort and how midlife offers us the chance to choose differently.Each story opens a window into the cultural scripts we’ve internalized about pressure, speed, and performance.This conversation is for every woman who’s tired of powering through, laughing it off, or bypassing he...
2025-08-2510 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastThe Five Dances of Anxiety—and How to Step Into Something More AliveWhat if your anxiety isn’t a problem to fix—but a pattern you’ve been dancing for years?In this episode of The Midlife Ripening Podcast, Brooke explores how anxiety often shows up as over-responsibility, perfectionism, or disappearing into busyness. Especially for women who lead, care, and carry it all.You’ll learn five common “dances” of anxiety—like overfunctioning, distancing, and blaming—and how each one began as a strategy for safety and belonging. The invitation isn’t to shame yourself out of them, but to recognize the muscle memory—and choose a new move.This...
2025-07-3016 min2025-07-2220 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastBonus episode! 3 Soulful Steps to Go from Overdoing to a Life That BreathesIf you’ve been carrying it all—while quietly emptying your own cup—this conversation is for you.Join midlife coach and mentor, Brooke Hofsess, for An Overflowing Cup, a soul-deep workshop exploring what it means to clear the noise, unhook from proving, and protect what brings you alive.This isn’t a call to burn everything down.It’s a gentle, grounded invitation to stop disappearing inside your own life.To begin listening to what’s been whispering beneath the swirl.In this workshop, Brooke shares:🫖 A vision of confi...
2025-07-141h 05The Midlife Ripening PodcastInitiated by Life: A Conversation with Lianne Raymond on Midlife, Mentoring, and the Maturation of WomenFrom Self-Help to Rhythm, Agency & Confidence in MidlifeIn this soul-nourishing episode of The Midlife Ripening Podcast, I’m joined by my longtime coach and mentor, Lianne Raymond—a life poet and a deeply wise guide for what it means to grow into our fullest potential.Lianne invites us to rethink midlife as a sacred initiation offered by life itself. We talk about menopause, matriarchy, mentorship, and the cultural hunger for mature presence. We explore how women can move from self-help toward rhythm, agency, and confidence.Whether you’re navigating perimenopause, questi...
2025-07-0837 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastFrom Proving to Inhabiting All of Who You Are: A conversation with Joanna Lindenbaum on True Self-Acceptance.In this powerful, intimate episode of The Midlife Ripening Podcast, I’m joined by my longtime mentor and renowned coach-trainer, Joanna Lindenbaum, for a soul-deep conversation about what it means to stop worrying—and start inhabiting the truth of who you are.Joanna shares her personal midlife transformation: from achievement and people-pleasing to power with and embodied self-acceptance. Together, we explore how midlife can be a sacred threshold where women reclaim their brilliance, reimagine their relationship with power, and begin to create from pleasure.If you’re ready to lead, love, and create from your wholen...
2025-07-0331 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastHow to Name—and Nourish—What You Really WantDesire can feel slippery in midlife.Maybe you don’t know what you want anymore.Or maybe you do—but it feels too big, too selfish, too risky to say out loud.In this episode, I share the deeper reasons why wanting can feel so fraught for midlife women—and offer a new, gentle way to begin listening again. I introduce you to the WANT Framework, a soulful tool to help you tell yourself the truth about your desires without shame or pressure.Whether your longings are whispering or roaring right now, this episod...
2025-06-2016 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastWhy I Stopped Measuring My Worth by Being UsefulIn this deeply personal episode, I share the story of how I unraveled my good-girl identity, said yes to midlife truth-telling, and began building a life that feels more like mine.I talk about burnout, overfunctioning, embracing a late-in-life neurodivergent identity, and the subtle reckoning that midlife brought into every corner of my life. What began as exhaustion became a soul invitation.This episode is for anyone who’s built a beautiful life on paper—but is waking up inside it thinking: This isn’t quite it.What You’ll LearnThe co...
2025-06-2009 minThe Midlife Ripening PodcastThe Midlife Ripening: Begin Again from the Inside OutIn this inaugural episode, I share why I created The Midlife Ripening Podcast and the deeper longing that fuels it: the need for conversations that go beyond hot flashes and hormone shifts—and into the quiet ache, the inner questions, and the tender longings so many of us carry but rarely name.If you’re feeling overwhelmed, underfed, or like you’re living at the edges of your own life, this episode offers relief.We’ll talk about what it means to stand in the sacred fog between the first and second halves of life—between wh...
2025-06-1908 min
The Good Enough ProfessorExpansive Leadership with Brooke HofsessAn honest and hopeful conversation with Brooke Hofsess, artist, scholar, and leadership coach. We talk, laugh, and dream about re-making academia, the deep power of choice, the fun of chairing (really!), and finding our brilliance amid the scarcity and burnout of higher education. And I get a mini-coaching session from Brooke
on my own leadership challenges! Bonus: count how many times we say “beautiful”—spoiler, it’s 12.
Find the Transcript for Episode 10, “Expansive Leadership with Brooke Hofsess” here.
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2024-05-2451 min
Business as Activism with Elijah SelbyDisruptive Leadership for Women with Brooke HofsessThe way we lead makes a difference. Leadership can be Activism, just as Business can be Activism! Brooke Hofsess takes us on her own journey to leadership. In this episode, she shares five leadership paradoxes that invite you into your fullest expression (while also disrupting the status quo): Insecurity and trust; Competition and community; Self-reliance and sharing the load; Fear of chaos and flow; Gatekeeping and generatively. You're going to leave feeling empowered and inspired. LINKS: Brooke's website: https://www.brookehofsesscoaching.com/
2023-10-031h 03
Context Matters with Amanda BellEpisode 10: Self-Expressed Leadership as a Workplace LensToday, Brooke Hofsess and I talk about self-expressed leadership as a lens for understanding how folks can show up as leaders. We talk about the five qualities of self expressed leadership: presence, congruence, reverence, interdependence, and divergence and how self-expressed leadership invites other people into their fullest expression, and how that creates a sense of connection and belonging. Brooke's framework is a great example of the alignment between content and methods, where leadership is the connective tissue that grows as you practice and live into these expressions of yourself. What has your experience of self ex...
2023-09-1334 min