Episode 328: Navigating Midlife Post-Election with Reshma Saujani
Doree and Elise hear from listeners about the joy of having a community in the wake of the election. Then, Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, joins them as part of their Midlife & Menopause series to talk about how she’s going through perimenopause, changing what authority and leadership looks and sounds like, the childcare crisis in the United States, and where women go from here.
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Transcript
*Transcripts are AI generated.
Doree: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise: And I'm Elise Hugh. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Doree: Well, welcome to our first full episode post-election that we are actually recording post-election. Who? Boy. Oh boy. Oh baby. Yeah, it's been quite an interesting few days.
Elise: Yeah, what a time to be alive. I have been just trying to kind of reach out to my friends. We're all kind of reaching out to one another. I just think being with others is better than sulking alone.
Doree: Yes, I completely agree. I completely agree.
Elise: So there's a lot of links and memes and people are just passing around to one another because I think it doesn't seem really healthy or helpful right now just to catastrophize. Yeah. Which I can very easily spin into a doom spiral, and I'm just trying not to do that. It was always a possibility that America, a majority of Americans were going to reelect Donald Trump and they have decisively. So now we go into, I've been saying into the unknown, but I think we know. We know, right? Yes. He is who he says he is. He has shown us who he is. So now it's up to us to process that and grieve and then get back to work in terms of how we can shape society in a more affirmative vision. How are you doing?
Doree: I like that. I like that framing more affirmative vision. How am I doing? That always reminds me of that broad city gif of Alana with a very skeptical face being like, how am I? Because it is, it's like how am I? Oh, you really want to know. You know what I mean? So Wednesday was just like a weird day. You and I recorded what we called an emergency post-election episode, commiseration episode. Commiseration episode that we posted on our Patreon. By the way, we posted on our Patreon, it is free for all. You just have to join the Patreon, but you can join as a free member. So go forth, listen it there. It was easier for us to put it up just straight up on Patreon and it's there, and I know a lot of people got a lot of comfort. Also, the Forever35 Patreon chat was a source of comfort for me on Tuesday and Wednesday and continues to be a source of comfort for me. Just really nice to be in this little cocoon of good people. So that was nice. But then also on Wednesday I was like, I really want to go for a run,
Which is something that you and I have been sort of talking about. And I was like, well, I haven't gone running in so long. And on Wednesday I was like, okay, going to lace up my running shoes and go for a run. So I dig out my running shoes. My running shoes I think are 12 years old. I think I last, I think they are from at least 2012 if not 2011. They're like old Brooks. And I put them on, they fit, but I was like, oh, these are literally falling apart. Parts of them were coming off. And also I'm walking around my house and I'm sliding because the treads were totally worn down. So I was like, okay, I need new running shoes. Where do I even go? I Googled running stores and I ended up at a Roadrunner running store.
Elise: Oh, okay. Oh, this is all Wednesday in reaction to the election. This is all Wednesday. Okay.
Doree: Yeah. So I drive to Roadrunner, it's like a 20 minute drive from my house, and they do the whole, we're going to take pictures of your feet. They do the whole computer thing. Are you an over pronator? Are
Elise: You a supinator or whatever.
Doree: So they convinced me to buy their custom insoles, which I'm like, these sort of feel like a scam, but whatever. I don't care. And I bought and I got a new pair of running shoes, and then they put the custom insoles in and I was like, oh, these are really comfortable. Maybe that's what you needed all along. And then I went for a run around the Hollywood Reservoir, which is one of my favorite places to run a walk for the past few years, I've just walked around the reservoir, but I did go for a jog.
Elise: Nice.
Doree: And yeah, I was like, okay, this is what's happening now. This is one thing I can control. So just looking for a small bit of control in this crazy world.
Elise: And I guess my message is that everybody has different energy levels and maybe I have a lot of friends who have just said they've been in a real kind of hunker down mode, just not a lot of energy to reach out even to loved ones. But it does feel like that is what people are starting to do and that feels good and supportive. And there's also endless opportunities to get involved. Totally. You want to gear up and fight for the institutions that might be jeopardized. We have to recognize that we have barely kind of recovered from Trump Part one. I know, and
Doree: I know I know.
Elise: And Covid, I mean it's so profoundly. This is an aftermath and an aftermath of Covid the plague that we lived with. And so there's all these unprovoked crises at home and abroad that happened during that time period. And so I think we just have to be gentle with ourselves and remember that, sorry to borrow a running metaphor, but this is a marathon and not a sprint. And I think that Kamala Harris was talking a little bit about that too in her concession speech.
Doree: What a world. So yeah, we got a bunch of emails and texts about the election, and I won't read all of them, but we did get a nice text that said, hi, hi. Just dropping a line to say thank you for your special EP today. In a world that makes no sense, at least we have Forever35 heart emoji. And that just made me feel good. So thank you listener for sending this. This
Elise: Is a community for sure, community. This is a community. Look to community, look for supportive places. So we are here for you and really y'all are here for us too. And so this is symbiotic.
Doree: Yes, it's
Elise: Reciprocal.
Doree: Yes.
Elise: Thank you for your message.
Doree: And we did get a voicemail that I just want to quickly play.
Voicemail: Hey, do and e just saw you guys came out with emergency post-election pod, and I just wanted to say thanks for seeing us. I live in DC and I work for the federal government in sales, say a liberal agency, you could say, doing liberal work, highly targeted and depressing. Four years under Trump. Barely felt like I got out of it alive mentally. And it's just scary. Personally, I have a mortgage and kids and a life that I need to pay for and I'm scared if the house doesn't go Democrat. That with the three system we have in our federal government, the Supreme Court, the White House, and the executive branch, that we won't have a check and balance system. I'm scared of what can be done permanently in four years. Also, just want to share that the Trump transition team, unlike last administration when they didn't know what they were doing, literally arrived at federal agencies this morning ready to transition, telling federal employees, you now report to us and they're hitting the ground running unlike they did last time.
Just afraid. Just kind of afraid as someone who believes in just protecting our water and our air and our land, that even the most basic things won't be protected and confused about how to share it with my daughter who's only five, but has an idea of what's going on and is asking questions. I dunno what to say. I dunno how to go on from here, but I will say that federal employees believe in the mission of our agencies and we're going to keep doing our job, we're going to keep doing it well, and we're here to stay, protect the missions of our agencies and what we believe in. So going to keep on keeping on putting one foot in front of the other.
Elise: Thanks for that lovely message. And take deep breaths, same thing no matter where you're at, just be gentle with yourself. I'm totally scared for how organized and coordinated this transition and the new administration is going to be compared to the last time around because last time there was so much chaos, they literally had no idea what they were doing in so many, many cases and they didn't expect
Doree: To win. They really
Elise: Didn't expect to win last time. So it was a real mess. And this time around there's kind of an operation and what that means in terms of infrastructure and institutional norms and the federal bureaucracy, which is necessary in so many cases for the functioning of national parks, of taxes, of so many things. Streets and bridges and highways. It's just the federal air traffic control system. There's so many things. Anyway, thank you for the message.
Doree: Yeah,
Elise: She's
Doree: Right.
Elise: Keep on keeping on on keeping on. We have no choice but to put one foot in front of the other foot in front of the other.
Doree: Alright, well let's transition to our guest and also just mention that she is another one in our series this month on midlife and menopause. Last week we talked to the amazing Lynn Slater, the
Elise: Accidental icon,
Doree: Lynn Slater, the accidental icon, and we are going to be talking to a few more amazing people. Also, if you have questions for this series, please write to us Forever five podcast at gmail com. 5 9 1 0 3 9 0 is our text and voicemail number. Everything we mentioned is on our website Forever35 podcast.com. We're on Instagram at Forever35 podcast. And again, you can join our Patreon. Listen to the episode we put out last week, patreon.com/forever three five. In addition to all the other bonus content we have on there, like our pop culture roundups, our casual chats, the Patreon chat in the app, there's just a lot happening over there. Patreon do com slash forever five and our newsletter Forever35 podcast.com/newsletter.
Elise: Alright, let's get to today's really inspiring and motivating guest. She was kind of the perfect guest for this moment that we're in. Her name is Reshma Sajani. She's a leading activist and the founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, which was formerly the Marshall Plan for moms. She has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women and girls and their economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in tech and most recently advocating for policies to support moms who were impacted by the pandemic. She's also the author of the international bestseller, brave Not Perfect, and her influential TED Talk, teach Girls Bravery, not Perfection, has more than 5 million views globally. She's a graduate of the University of Illinois, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Yale Law School. She now serves on the board of Overseers for Harvard University and on the overseers for the International Rescue Committee. She lives in New York with her husband and their sons and their Bulldog Stanley.
Doree: Most importantly,
Elise: I think we get to hear Stanley during the interview. If it wasn't Stanley, we got to hear the sons. We definitely heard her sons. She was definitely momming while we were interviewing her. It is
Doree: Perfect. Alright, so we are going to take a short break and then we'll be right back with Rema
Elise: Reshma, thank you for joining us.
Reshma: Thank you for having me. How are you?
Elise: Well, we've been better.
Doree: Yeah, quite a week. Quite a week. We always start by asking our guests about a self-care practice that they have and I feel like given the events of the last few days, people are in need of self-care practices more than ever. And I'm wondering if you have something that you have been doing that you would consider self-care. Especially right now.
Reshma: I've been taking naps during the work week for like 25 minutes and I think it's a little bit of the perimenopause around three. I just am fading or something and I can do a 15 minute power nap. And I feel like honestly, I just did it before I hopped on with you guys and I a new person and I think sometimes we're embarrassed to nap or embarrassed
Elise: To Ralph. If you came up in hustle culture, it's like we feel ashamed for having to take a break or get some rest, but that's great napping. I'm glad you're taking care of yourself that way.
Reshma: Napping is great.
Elise: And I'm glad you brought up perimenopause all on your own because you're joining us for our special theme month called Midlife in Menopause. Love it. How is it going for you? Tell us a little bit about your experience.
Reshma: Well, it's been, I felt fucking great till I was 44. I was in the best shape of my life. I had so much energy and then my body started falling apart and I'm like, what is going on? I didn't have the same, my workouts weren't the same. I was gaining weight and my belly, which is already for South Asian women is not our friend. All of a sudden it appears. My father, I had gestational diabetes. My father got diabetes and had a heart attack at 56. So it's something I'm super conscious of and anxious about I guess. And then I got all the things I couldn't sleep. I was getting more anxious. My hair was itching on fire all the time. And then I started going to a series of doctors to figure out what's going on and what do I do. It's funny, I just had this amazing woman Tampson thought who just did this documentary, the M factor on my so-called Be Life, my podcast. I interviewed her last week and it, there's so much we don't know about our bodies. And I think the last time I felt this way was during my fertility challenges. I remember when I had my first miscarriage and I found out the first time I was pregnant, I found out I was pregnant at 10, 11 weeks. I told everybody I canceled my wedding and moved it. I was like, of course this is happening
Elise: Because it was 10 or 11 weeks too, and you always hear
Reshma: No one really talked about miscarriages. And so when I went to my first appointment to get that heartbeat and there wasn't one, it just opened up this whole world for me of trying to really understand my body and what was happening. And I kind of felt like I was getting that experience again around menopause.
Elise: What did your doctors say? Did they identify it as perimenopause?
Reshma: I mean, yeah, they did because the cholesterol was through the roof and I had no eggs. All my numbers were in the toilet and it happened very rapidly. So it was clear that my body was changing my periods. I think you really know when your periods either become really heavy or you have to track them again when you were much younger to make sure you weren't pregnant. So that was a big sign to me and I think it was very clear that I was perimenopause, I am in perimenopause.
Doree: And how have you been navigating it?
Reshma: This was something I learned that was really new for me that no one had ever said before, which was essentially all the problems I had about getting pregnant. So I had a condition called aps. So every time I got 10 or 11 weeks pregnant, my body would attack the fetus as if it thought something was attacking my body. I had to do a series of things to retain my first pregnancy. And then my second child, I ended up having a baby ve surrogate because my body, my doctor was essentially like, you're either going to die or you need to have a surrogate. And so all those same issues, all my autoimmune issues really were popping up during fertility, IE while I was having the itching. Why I would have almost like an allergy attack mid period. And also why I couldn't really, I wasn't a good candidate for hormones because I had high likelihood of blood clots because of my autoimmune issues. So that was a mind fuck for me. I'm like, oh shit. All the things that I struggled with in fertility are all the things I'm going to struggle with as I'm ending my fertility.
Doree: So what did you do?
Reshma: Right now? I feel like I'm just getting through it. I'm not taking hormones, I'm taking different supplements and I'm watching my diet. I can't have those two glasses of wine like I used to.
Elise: Oh no.
Reshma: Yeah, the sugar. I
Elise: Don't want that future.
Reshma: I know you probably don't. Skinny margaritas though are the jam.
Doree: Oh, is this a histamine thing? I feel like everyone's talking about histamines these days.
Reshma: Yeah, I mean, here's the thing, ladies, there's just not enough research on menopause. There's Just not enough research. So I don't think we know all that much right now as we should. Speaking of the election, it's like we don't invest in understanding women's bodies and women's health care.
Elise: We had a guest, we had a urologist on just a few weeks ago talking about this in medical school, even as doctors are being trained to become doctors, they aren't learning about women's bodies. They aren't getting research. There isn't research or enough research on women's bodies and their reactions to various drugs and therapies and procedures and whatnot.
Reshma: It was the same thing with my issue of recurrent miscarriage. There hadn't really been a study and all of this was just chance try it. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. But there weren't even on fertility and on recurrent miscarriages, there's barely any research.
Elise: Wow. Well, you mentioned getting through it. As somebody who has been in the activist space in the tech space, what advice do you have to our listeners as we are in this period of reckoning following the election and what seems like a pretty decisive rightward shift or at least a decisive victory for another Trump term?
Reshma: Well, first of all, you know what really helped me watching the play sucks on Broadway.
Elise: Oh, sucks.
Reshma: Right? So good. So I've been fighting for women and girls issues since I led my first march when I was 13. This is my life. This is what I feel like God put me on this earth to do. And it's exhausting to make progress and then it get dismantled and then you have to get up and do it all over again. It's exhausting to have moments of euphoria where you're like, this is going to happen. And I don't just mean about electing the first female president, I feel this way about girls who Code. I started Girls Who Code in 2010. Everyone's like, there are not enough women in tech. We need to teach more girls to code. And I'm like, great, meet me. I'll do it. I'll do it. Right. Taught 650,000 of them flooded the pipeline when I started Girls Who Code, if you went to Stanford University and you looked at their computer science class, it'd be 16% women today you go, it's like 40% women.
And I was like, great, y'all want to hire women. All nerds are welcome. But then what happens is we start, as soon as they start seeing more of us there, all of a sudden we're going to cancel the DI programs. All of a sudden there's a backlash all of a sudden it's like, oh, they're not qualified. What? But I have a 4.0 and a PhD. And what do you mean? So there's always resistance to progress, but that doesn't mean you stop fighting, right? It's like you make incremental progress and then you get pushed back. You make incremental. And the point is though, is to not get burnt out. The point is to not let your spirit die. The point is for us to not lose community. And so what was so powerful about seeing Suff, because that was the story of the suffrage movement. You realize that you stand on so many shoulders of women in history. We've been at this, they've been at this forever. And so our obligation in this lifetime may not be to win, but it's to fight like hell. When 2016 happened, Hillary's a mentor of mine. I was devastated. Devastated when I saw her the day when she gave her commencement, she literally reached my hand. She said, you are going to be okay. You are going to be okay. Oh,
Elise: She was consoling you.
Reshma: Wow. Right. So this time around I was a little more prepared, but it's still so sad because I do still believe it's about power. It's still like we're uncomfortable with women in power and that's where all the, oh, I just dunno. I just don't think she's smart. I just don't think she could handle a world war. It was constantly questioning her competence without evidence or facts or anything to demonstrate that she had anything other than a resume that showed that she was fully qualified and prepared. I think it was really hard on reproductive rights to me, if you can't control your body, you are a second class citizen. This was a basic human. And for so many people to not understand that, to not recognize how fundamental it's, and I don't dunno about you guys, but I really saw a shift in the way we treated women and we treat women. When Roe v. Wade, I mean, was over sent
Elise: To the states.
Reshma: Yeah, yeah. I really felt it and saw it. Now listen, I want to be clear. We got to get our men back.
Elise: Oh, for sure. Feminism, feminism is for everyone. It's
Reshma: Not for us versus No, and they're not all toxic. The vast majority of the month, the ones like, quite frankly, I married to you are good men, but we didn't talk to them in the way I think that we need to now and women who voted for him. You know what I mean?
Elise: That's the thing. But that speaks to your point about how there's so many ideas or frameworks or normalization around what a leader looks like, what authority looks like, what authority sounds like, what authority acts like. And it often is the picture and the sound of a man and a man's voice and a man at the head of the class or the man at the head of the boardroom. So that has to change up and down the pipeline.
Reshma: Absolutely. And I get it. I remember when I started, I do a ton of public speaking and I do a lot of speeches and I wanted to be great. I wanted to inspire and move people. And I would go on YouTube and I'd be like, what does a woman sound like? What's a powerful woman? You couldn't find that. You know what I mean? You couldn't find, if we said to a group of women who is the most powerful speaker. It's like maybe we give with one or two, even though there's dozens. But you cannot be what you cannot see. And I think that we have to change what the impressions are of power, and that's where representation really matters.
Elise: Okay. Let's take a break and we'll be right back.
Doree: Can we talk a little bit about something that I know has been on the forefront of your mind, which is the childcare crisis in this country? We've had a democratic administration for four years. It hasn't been fixed. And now we have a coming Republican dominance of probably the House and Senate and White House. And so where do we go from here in terms of the childcare crisis?
Reshma: We actually had universal childcare during World War ii. All the men were off to war. There was something called the act. And people are like, oh damn, we need people to fill those factory jobs. We need people to make sure that groceries, we need women, but women had children. So we created these childcare centers where no one paid more than $10 a day. It
Elise: Worked. Military bases still have really affordable childcare.
Reshma: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. One of our partners in this work is Boost our families. But the minute the men came back, we disbanded and it worked. And what we then put in place was work days that were nine to five and school days that were eight to three with the entire system was set up to basically have women fail at being able to both be caregivers and workers. And the reality is, regardless of whether you are a lawyer or you work at Walmart, you are doing two thirds of the caregiving work You are, I mean, making sure your kids got their lunches packed, making sure you plan their doctor's appointments, doing their play dates, managing childcare, and working your full-time job. You know what I mean? And so you are just exhausted. And so you're set up to basically feel, and so that's what I mean.
I was like, whoa, no, we actually, what are the two major things that women need to actually both survive and thrive both in their work and in their life, and it really is paid leave in childcare. If the vast majority of women go back to work two weeks after having a baby, you have a C-section and you're back at work and you're still an adult diaper, you don't recover from that both physically and mentally. So we got to give women families, quite frankly, women and men, time to bond and be with their child and to figure out, quite frankly, the logistics of your family. How is this going to work? And then we got to give people affordable childcare. The thing that was the most striking thing, especially post pandemic, is the cost and the availability of childcare dissipated. So now people are paying 40%, people are paying almost 40% of their salary. You know what I mean, on childcare? Or 40% of parents are going to into debt because of childcare.
Elise: Oh, we know it. Yeah. You're preaching to the choir here.
Reshma: So then what happens if you are the one that's getting paid less because you're a mom? Because that's a fact. Men make 6% salary increase when they have a child. We lose 4% for every baby that we have. If that's immediately happening to you, guess who's downshifting their jobs? You know what I mean? When they have a baby us or guess who's downshifting their jobs when daycare becomes So I mean, the cost of motherhood in America is untenable. So we at Moms first, were like, okay, how do we get this from number 13 on the list to number one, two, and three? And we set out a strategy in the beginning of the presidential campaign to make sure that the question was asked. In the debate, oftentimes what's asked assent be is then what is prioritized in the first hundred days of any administration. And so we made childcare priority, we got petitions signed. Mom's telling their stories, and the question gets asked, they don't answer it the first time. And then I had an opportunity to ask Trump a question on it. He kind of botches it, that then initiates this big conversation about how do you fix childcare? And then by the VP debate, they're all talking about it. So listen, I think regardless now of who has won, moms in our allies have made childcare priority and now we got to get it done.
Elise: Love that, love the spirit, because I think a lot of us are sort of feeling demoralized about policy and the potential for policy change, but you're keeping it really at the forefront regardless of who's in charge. On the flip side, because we are all at midlife and we continue to be having these discussions about this month, there is the matter of elder care and having to take care of our parents. Where are you thinking or are you thinking about any policy changes or systemic areas where y'all could tackle that
Reshma: Other of the sandwich? He said, yeah, he said he's going to do a tax credit for people who are taking care of elderly parents. So let's hold him to it.
Elise: Yeah, let's, right,
Reshma: Let's hold him to it. I mean, he made these commitments. He made these promises. They're the party of families, so let's hold him to it. I think, and I had this instinct when he won the last time, I'm going to disengage. I'm going to do resistance. I'm going to fight the whole time. Now listen, you do an abortion ban. Oh, I'm coming for you and a handful of other things. But if you want to actually do something about childcare and paid leave, okay, I want to see it.
Elise: Let's work together. There's a place where we have agreement and can push forward.
Reshma: To me, every society is judged by how you care for, you're young, you're sick, and you're old. And we've entered this place, and I see it more in the Republican party where you're on your own. We take care of ourselves. You got to take care of you. My tax break, my situation, I got to take care of me. That's dangerous. And I feel like that's very anti-American. And to me, these are the kinds of conversations that we have to have with one another about what is our commitment to one another as citizens. Now I understand it is really hard to think about other people when you yourself are struggling.
Elise: Right. But it doesn't mean we can abandon it because it's the entire project of America.
Reshma: Exactly.
Doree: Well, ra, on a somewhat different note, we want to talk about the podcast that you recently started, my so-called midlife great title, and of course very on theme with what we are talking about on our show this month. And you've done almost 10 episodes so far. And I'm just curious, what have you learned from it so far? Is there anything that you've gleaned that has surprised or felt new to you in these last few episodes?
Reshma: I think I entered the conversation being like, I'm so sad. I don't like getting older. This is really hard. I feel like my best years are behind me, not ahead of me. And now hopefully we're all living really long and everyone tells me when they're 70, they're really happy, but I don't want to be unhappy for 30 years. And everybody in my life was feeling that way, all my friends. It was just on every level, right on the way you look, feeling like no one looks at me anymore.
Elise: Right. The invisibility,
Reshma: The invisibility of aging, the pressure to look younger, to see the mirror in reverse. And it's not that for men. Men can have the same wrinkles and the same pot and the same thing, but they're hot and I'm not. What's up with that? And it takes an enormous amount of time out of your day. And thinking about that, I think about your career, your studies show that you stopped getting promoted after 50,
But for men, they just sore. And so you're like, if I haven't done everything I'm meant to do by the time I'm 45, is that it? Am I done? Is it over? Or also, why aren't I feeling? It's hard when so much is happening with your body to be actually having the same type of ambition or as you used to have, but that was so part of your identity. I think the relationships that you have with friends, I suddenly feel like I don't have any friends or social life in the way that I used to. So damn tired all the time. So there were just so many, and I can go on and on and on. There's so many things. So I really started my so-called midlife because I wanted to explore this. I also, I love a good con. And I realized as I dug into the topic that like, oh, you're fucking with me. You know what I mean? This is manufactured through culture to make women feel both even visible and irrelevant and it's dangerous. And so I feel like that's my superpower is to uncover the a little bit. And I loved every minute. So one of the first things I realized was like, oh, midlife is a mindset. I would interview people and be like, oh, I'm brushing it. I'm happy. I'm feeling good. This is great. And I'm like, okay, tell me your tools and tactics to get there. So that was a big, big aha. And I think this week we just released an episode about divorce,
And it's just, to me so fascinating. Most women initiate first all women are normally the age that happens is 45. So it's right at this moment in our lives where we're feeling stuck like Groundhogs Day. And so you sometimes blow up your life because you're bored,
Elise: But it can be very expansive. I love the midlife sort of question of is this all there is? Because it can be so fruitful.
Reshma: So fruitful if you give yourself the time and the space to do that, to explore, to be. And I do think that men are better at that. My husband's picked up, for example, marathon running. And if you are married or dating a guy or anyone who runs marathons, they English a lot of time. You know what I mean?
Elise: Doree and I have both run marathons or trained for marathons, and we were talking about how it's like, well, now we feel too old to do it because it takes up so much time. Time much. So much
Reshma: Time. So much time, right? It's so much time. But I'm like, but he's got a hobby that makes him happy. You know what I mean? And he never apologizes
Elise: For hobby and the time that it takes.
Reshma: And I'm like, I don't have anything like that in my life. My podcast is my hobby.
Elise: You're making content, you're making stuff, you're speaking with artists.
Reshma: Good. But that's why I didn't want to do it. I'm like, I want something for me.
Doree: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is how I took up tennis, and I also have unapologetically just taken the time. It feels good. I recommend it.
Reshma: I love tennis. I got obsessed with tennis two years ago, and it's just right. There's something so satisfying about hitting that ball, and it's a great workout, and it just feels like it's fun to learn something new in the middle of your life, but you're not going to be a tennis pro. Absolutely,
Doree: Yes.
Elise: Totally. Thousand percent. It's going to have fun. Yes.
Doree: Yes.
Elise: And it's also social. You talked about friends and friendships in midlife and making new friends. That's another way. And a portal to new friendships and different kinds of connections and relationships that aren't built in at the office as they were in our twenties or at college as they were in our twenties.
Reshma: Yeah, you got to learn how talk to people.
Elise: Yeah, absolutely. Looking back, Reshma, what do you feel as if you would tell your younger self about getting older now that you have explored it a little bit more and really sat with it and reflected?
Reshma: I think the most thing is if you can practice not what other people think.
Elise: Oh, yes, we've talked about that a lot on that show, on this show, just about how that's the freedom, that's the beauty. And what I love about being 42 now, I'm just like, I much, two,
Reshma: So much less. And it's so freeing and it provides so much clarity about what you want and not what other people necessarily want from you. And I think it really does open up a lot of time. I've realized the older I've gotten, and I'm 48, that I'm kind of an introvert that isn't an extrovert's job. And so I would feel like I had to go to that cocktail party. I had to show up for that thing. I had to, and I would feel so guilty about missing the dinner. But at kind of my core, I want to just play with my dog and my kids chill and get my pajamas on as fast as I can and go to bed around 8 45, unapologetically,
Unapologetically. So I, I would say I'd say yes to the thing and then it would creep up. It'd be three like, oh fuck, I don't want to go. You know what I mean? And then I would feel guilty about canceling or I would just go for 10 minutes and run out. And I'm like, what am I doing? I'm a grown ass woman. You can make your own decisions, okay. And now I just don't do that as much. It's still hard. I'm not going to lie. I still have that sense of guilt, but now I can choose where I want to spend my time. I fucking love my kids. I love being with them. And in any free time that I have, I want to be with them.
Elise: Oh, that's great. And now that you realize we didn't have to just get all of our really badassery done in our thirties and there is this whole other frontier, what do you want to do with the next half of your life?
Reshma: Well, I want to keep exploring these topics that I think can help make women's lives better, whether it's midlife or even spirituality. One of the things I've realized as I've gotten older is to go up. You have to go in. And I have really, really, so about every other week I speak to what I like to call him my monk. And I wanted to study the bug with gha, which is our kind of text and Hinduism in our culture. It's like we had a temple in our house and we would go do that, but you really never knew what the story was, what the history was about, our religion. And these are kind of very complicated texts to kind of read. So you need a guide.
But this has been such a powerful experience for me because it's allowed me to really also confront my own demons and my own history and my own traumas and my own relationship with God. And it's allowed me to be a better person to operate with so much more gratitude and kindness. Kindness. But that doesn't mean I'm perfect. I can go from zero to 10 in five seconds, but it just has given me this wonderful gift. And so I really do encourage people to find that spiritual practice in their life, especially the older you get. Because for whatever reason, I dunno if you guys are going through this in your forties, but it's like your body, your mind is seeking it.
Elise: Absolutely. It was at midlife when I started seeing my Jungian dream therapist. I talk about him a lot, but it's like I love looking inward. I have found it to really unlock so much of who I'm and make me more comfortable with myself and all the things. So
Reshma: All the things
Elise: Echo what you're saying.
Reshma: You always think about these kind of spiritual yogi types is just walking around and smiling and they're so happy and nothing bothers them. And there's a point where, what's wrong with that? I'm at my core like a New Yorker
Elise: That seems woo
Reshma: Right, that seems super woo, right? But that's where I want to get to
Elise: Enlightenment, or at least on the path. I think we works in progress. We never fully get there, but even just seeking is a really transformative practice.
Reshma: I agree. I agree. I agree. And I think especially where we're in right now in the world, I think we all need to start becoming seekers and start figuring out the things that are more important than our own selves and our own egos.
Doree: I think this was a beautiful note to end on, and thank you so much, Ishma, for sharing your wisdom and all your insights. And where can our listeners find you?
Reshma: Well, come find me on my so-called midlife, wherever you listen to your podcast. Podcast. Like I said, we have a great episode on divorce. I interviewed Justice Catan Jackson. I think she's talking exactly about what we're talking about, gratitude, kindness, spirituality. It was just the most beautiful interview I think I've ever done or experienced in my life you can find on Instagram. But thank you guys so much. I think Thank you. This is a moment where I think women have to find community with each other, and these conversations I think are really nourishing. So I encourage everyone to just to have them.
Elise: Yes. Thank you.
Reshma: Thank you. Thank you guys. Thanks for having me on.
Doree: It's funny when guests inadvertently align with the moment.
Elise: Yes, it's wonderful. Yeah,
Doree: Yeah, it's great. It's wonderful. So I was really, really glad that we had her on. So let's talk about our intentions.
Elise: What
Doree: Was yours last week? It
Elise: Feels like 12 years ago, so I don't even, I don't know.
Doree: Well, mine just said election do eek, which turned out to be prescient. And then I said, but also walk. And I had been talking about walking without devices,
And there have been a couple walks that I've taken inadvertently without devices. When I walked my dog this morning. Oh, good. I realized I just left my phone in the house and I was like, okay, whatever. So trying to do a little bit more of that, not be hyper attached to my phone. And then this week I'm running, I don't know, is this just some weird thing that happened the day after the election and I'll never go back to it again? Or is this going to be something that I actually incorporate into my day-to-day or weekly routine? Time will tell.
Elise: Yeah. Yeah. My intention last week was to focus on connection and spend at least 30 minutes to an hour a day trying to call a friend, an old friend that I hadn't talked to in a while, or just really connect with my kid and make sure that I was present. And I did do a pretty good job of connecting with friends because there was so much electoral anxiety that we were actually reaching out to each other. And now in the post-election anxiety, the same thing is happening. So the traumatic world events are going to necessitate connection. So one is kind of leading to the other, but I feel like this week I need to do some sort of self-care intention that stops me from, as we were talking about at the top of the show, catastrophizing, because I think that I've been kind of waking up super early in the morning or in a panic at night, like, oh my
Doree: Gosh, the
Elise: Deportations are going to happen, or the State Department will be further hollowed out. I have all these thoughts, and so I need to stop that kind of ruminating. Maybe the way to do that is escapist stuff for a bit, just like reading a novel. Maybe I'll make my intention reading a novel that's set in a different world so that I can separate a little bit from the nonstop blitz of headlines and news. I mean, even hearing our caller call in and talk about the transition team already coming in and showing up at her agency, it's just like, yikes, that's really hard. So yeah. Alright. I'm going to read a novel. It's going to be a light fun one. Maybe a rom-com. That's my intention. Maybe somebody, y'all can do it with me.
Doree: Love that. All right. Well thanks everybody for listening. Thanks for being there for us as we hope we are for you. And a reminder that February 35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree and Elise Hugh, and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partners Acast. Thanks everybody. Until next, Dawn. Bye.