Midlife Is Just The Beginning: Stepping Into Your Light With Wendy Valentine, Host Of The Midlife Makeover Podcast & Author Of Women Waking Up

In this empowering episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, Becca Powers sits down with Wendy Valentine, author of Women Waking Up, for an honest conversation about breaking free from people-pleasing, reclaiming personal power, and stepping fully into the woman you were always meant to be.

Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:

• Wendy’s realization that she had to take a stand for her own health and wellbeing
• Becca’s reflection on returning to her authentic gifts and allowing her to have a seat at the table
• The conversation around being scared of your own light

About Wendy
Wendy Valentine is the author of Women Waking Up: The Midlife Manifesto for Passion, Purpose, and Play and the host of The Midlife Makeover Show, a top-rated podcast for women in midlife. Wendy empowers women to kick fear to the curb, reignite their spark, and wake up to what is truly possible in this powerful chapter of life. Learn more at http://www.WendyValentine.com.

Connect with Wendy Valentine

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Transcript

Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of The Empowered Half Hour, and I'm bringing you a guest that you're gonna love because I love her and I've only known her for a few minutes and I just think this is gonna be really, really good. But I am bringing you today a fellow new World Library author, Wendy Valentine.

She is the author of the recently released the. Women of, I was going to share your podcast, so I'm just gonna rewind. Her book is Women Waking Up and she's the podcast host of the Midlife Makeover podcast. But Wendy, you do a lot of beautiful things for women in midlife, so let's welcome you 

Wendy Valentine: to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. And I know we had some technical difficulties, but nothing, two women cannot handle, we're here and we're ready and we're gonna have fun. 

Becca Powers: That is it. That is it. And I love just reading about you. I noticed I was telling you when I first start, actually could see your face too, that I love alliterations and I love that you use passion and purpose and play.

And I was sharing with you that I'm really tapped into purpose. I'm really tapped into passion, but I sometimes miss the play. And I think a lot of the women listening to this are in the same boat. So. I can't wait to get into it a little more. So ladies, we're gonna talk about play, but first I wanna introduce you a little bit more to Wendy and why she does this work.

I love, love, love, starting with the backstory. Whenever you have a podcast and whenever you write a book, there's a reason we do it There's a story, 

Wendy Valentine: right? I tell you what though. The reason I wrote women waking up, is for any woman out there that feels lost, stuck, invisible, or just quietly dissatisfied because I have been that woman.

I'm 52 now. I'm almost turning 53. I'm turning 53 on Thanksgiving. Y'all think about me when you're eating your Turkey. But 45 years old. About seven years ago, I was going through divorce, unemployment. I was about 150 grand in debt. Empty nest. Let's see, chronic illness. I had black mold toxicity, Lyme disease.

The list goes on. I was also dealing with menopause. And I know menopause is like the hot topic these days, no pun intended. and then within a six week period, my dog died. My cat died, and then my brother died. Damn, Wendy. I know, I know. I mean, talk about a shit sandwich. But, so needless to say. I was incredibly depressed.

I was suffering from panic attacks, which I'd never experienced before. My whole life, anxiety, you name it, I was a mess. And I can remember, and actually I read on your website where you had kind of like a bathroom floor moment and I was thinking like, why do we, women always end up bawling our eyes out on the bathroom floor?

I think it's because it's the only place so we can get a little bit of peace and quiet so we can cry. I'm like, hello, cold tile. You're holding me right now. Or maybe it's the hot flashes, like with the cold tile, it's like, oh my God, it feels so good. But anyways, yes. I had a moment like that too, where I was laying on the bathroom floor bawling my eyes out, thinking, Wendy, you're gonna be turning 50 here in a few years, and your life is a mess.

You have no job. You're sick, you are broke. I mean, you name it, anything. And everything was wrong with my life in that moment. Then I was saved by this wild vision, this wild dream. Literally just like out of the blue, I was, I can't wait to hear it. I was thinking, wouldn't that be cool to drive an RV across the country?

And I was like, where in the world did that come from? And I always thought it would be cool, you know? And I thought, windy, this is not the time to do that. I'll admit, I think at the time I thought it was a nice escape, right? Oh, if I could just take off and get the hell outta here.

But then I was reminded of the fact that I had no money, I had no job. I go like, wait a second. It's like, problem to the plan? Yes. But then I thought, well, what if I actually made this dream come true? And I started to think of all the things that I would need to do to make this dream come true.

I'd have to get a job. I'd have to get outta debt. I'd have to recover from all this illness and the grief and everything. Then I became very overwhelmed, paralysis by analysis and I was already, ready to wave the white flag, even though I hadn't even started yet. But then I thought the pain of staying where I was at my life was far worse than the pain of just going for it.

And why not? I had nothing to lose at the point. 'cause I had lost everything and within two years. I'm gonna like fast forward it for you a little bit. Within two years. Yeah. My transformation took about two years too. From bathroom floor to like new life. Yes. It's crazy. Yes. 24 months roughly. I ended up recovering from chronic illness.

I paid off all my debt and saved up enough money to buy an rv. Take off across the country. Start my own podcast. The Midlife makeover show. And eventually writing my book, women Waking Up, which the book itself, the framework in the book is Freedom. And I'm like, you too. I love a good acronym. I mean, you can't love it.

You can wrong How Go wrong with a good acronym. Right? And that two year journey became the blueprint, became this, freedom framework that I teach in the book. That's my breakdown to breakthrough story. 

Becca Powers: It was awesome. Hey, it's real and raw and beautiful and that's I think what all of it is. It's like, I think sometimes we need, I don't know that we need to, but there seems to be from all, you interview a lot of people too.

It's like there, this stripping needs to happen like this. Yes. maybe it's rock bot. Some people like, you know what I mean? Like when I hit the bathroom floor, I was riddled in disease, that I had autoimmune disease. Mm-hmm. I had to heal that. Like, I call it the devastation of the ds, but I had disease, I had debt.

I was on the verge of divorce. Thank god that didn't happen because my husband's on the other side of that door and I love very much, but like I had disconnected relationships with my kids, I could go on and on and on. I'm like, it's the devastation of the ds. They were present everywhere. But you learn what's not aligned to you, right?

And Yes. Oh yeah. And you start such a good point letting it go. So anyway. Mm-hmm. I relate to so much of what you're saying. I love, I mean, I'm a Sagittarius and I love freedom, so I'm just gonna, oh, that's right. You're on Thanksgiving. Yes. Year. I'm December 13th. When's your birthday? 

Wendy Valentine: When's your birthday?

December 3rd. And I'm 1127. That is so wild. I had a feeling you were Sagittarius. Yeah, I, I was, but you know, I, I love that you made that point. 'cause it was just yesterday I put Instagram reel up about the statue of David and when they asked Michelangelo how he carved the statue of David, he said, oh.

He said, well, I just carved away at everything. That was not him. Yeah, I know, right? it's the unlearning, like sometimes we think we need to add more things in our lives, whether it's habits or we need to hustle more or we need to jump through more hoops. But really it's the opposite. it's carving away at the things in our life.

Within our minds, within ourselves, that is not us. and as you chip away at those things, whether they're behaviors or your beliefs or your thoughts, you chip away at those things and really start to like, you have to have that real conversation with yourself of, okay, Wendy, alright, Becca, like, is this really what I think?

Is this really what I believe? Is this really what I wanna do? Like, start having those conversations with yourself and try not to do it out loud in public, but. You might get some, have those tough right. Have those tough conversations with yourself, and start to question those things like I think especially as you get in your forties.

That you Do you need to question a lot of what you're doing and is it what you really want to do? Is it really how you want to think and believe? Because especially in your twenties and thirties, like you're checking off all the boxes, right? The kids, the career, the house and the birds. Yes. You're building.

You're not even thinking about it doing. You're building, yes. You're just bum, bum, babu bum, and it's whatever family wants or society wants, or Instagram wants, right? You're just doing the things and then you wake up, you know, in your forties and fifties and you're like, wait, who am I? your body's changing.

 your relationships are changing whether you like it or not. And that's one thing I love about this stage in life is that you're old enough to know what did not work and what did work. But you're still young enough to do something about it. You can literally flip your whole life upside down if you want to, or you can just fine tune it.

What, tell 

me, tell me, I'm just laughing because literally I said I'm in another transitional state. Yeah. And  I'm having to look because it's been like eight years since I went through my last one. So I feel like it's par for course, you know? Good sloughing off period. And so I have to like, what's in alignment, what's not alignment, doing all those things that you said. But I literally said to one of my girlfriends, I am like,  I am too old and too young for the sh%t Yeah, exactly. Right. But that's why, yeah, that's why it's such a perfect time to like reevaluate, regroup.

 Before you go into this next chapter, I mean, we always have a next chapter to go into, hopefully, Hopefully we always have a next chapter to go into, but as you're still breathing, then yes. Then go ahead and take a look at your life. Take a look at how everything that you, as a matter of fact, I watched your trailer on your website and you told a story about when you went to Tony Robbins, the UPW, which I did too.

Did you walk on fire? I did. Did you? Yes, I know I did too. I did too. It was so fun. But anyways, in your video you talk about how this lady Tony Robbins chose her out of the audience and how. she wanted to become a singer, but she didn't because of her dad. And then she really could sing.

And it also made me think of, Wayne Dyer. He used to always say, don't die with your music. Still in you. Yes. Oh, how the goosebumps head to own. Yes. Yeah. You remember like what? Like whatever your music is. Doesn't have to be literal music. But then also, it made me think of Brony Ware. In her book, the Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Yes. And the number one regret. Yeah. The number one regret is, is living life for everyone else. That is the number one regret. And I can remember going back to my bathroom floor moment, I can remember thinking. It is time for me to start living for me, 

Becca Powers: yes. 

Wendy Valentine: I mean, not that I don't regret being, a mother and taking care of the family and doing all the things, but I mean, I was a perfectionist.

A people pleaser, an approval seeker, A codependent. Yeah, right. Everyone, raise your hand. So I was going above and beyond, not, not knowing why I was just robotic about it, because that's how I was raised to think this is what you do, you take care of everybody else. Wendy, you know, set your dreams over here on the back burner, even whatever you think and believe and what you really wanna do with your life.

Put that over here. you can maybe, maybe address this. You're on it. My life. Yeah, no, they totally go sidelines 

Becca Powers: back burn or whatever. Why's so miserable. 

Wendy Valentine: Yes, exactly. I had finally decided, no, it's time Uhuh. We are not doing this anymore. Yes, ma'am. I finally. I had to take a stand for me, for me, for my own health and wellbeing.

' cause I know that I wasn't doing anyone anywhere. I couldn't take care of anybody else anymore. I mean, I just couldn't, couldn't do it. I get that I can remember there was, um, a quote that I loved during that time. I still love it. It's one of my faves. I bet you know it. Maryanne Williamson.

Oh yes, yes. Say it please. I know our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light who not. I know it's our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Now, there's a reason why that quote kept sticking out for me during that time.

And I remember reading, I had like one of those cute little plaques with the quote on it, on my wall, and I kept staring at it and thinking, why would I be scared of my light? That's stupid. I remember they was like, Marian Williamson, you don't know what you're talking about. And when I read it again and again and I was like, you know, I think I am scared of my light because if I fully embraced my life, if I fully stepped into my life, that means.

I'll have to get a divorce. That means I have to get a job. That means I actually have to write a book or start a podcast or fulfill my dreams and actually get over myself and my fears and my doubts, and all the BS that I've carried for decades. So, yeah, I think a lot of us are very comforted by our own darkness.

Because it's familiar. we know how to deal with our own bullshit, right? We know how to, we know we even have the internal conversations. Like if we have the doubts that pop up or Oh my God, I'm too old, or I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough. Then there's even like another voice going, yeah, you're right.

You know? I mean, you get used to it. You're just like familiar with it until, one day. You just have to make the decision, like, I'm not believing this stuff anymore. I'm gonna step into my light and actually be who I wanna be. I love that on 

Becca Powers: so many levels because it's true. And that, it takes work.

That's the one thing. So like you're saying, it's a little more comfortable to stay in your darkness, throw your pity party, complain, or just settle whatever it is for that person. But you know what happened when I stepped into my light, kind of like what you're saying, and started owning my gifts and talents.

I had to start developing them. I had to start leaning into them and it was so exciting and so fun. But it was also a lot of work hadn't nourished them for a long time, Like the writer and me, I was writing, I was pretending to write books when I was like six years old and then like delivering my epiphanies to my stuffed animals, you know?

So there's a part of me that has been around for a really long time and I had to like allow her to come back. You know? Yeah. And have a seat at the table. And to nurture those natural skills. And like I would say like my uniqueness, my talents that are native to me, I had suppressed. So I had to like, yeah, spend some time developing 'em too.

Like to be at the level that I wanted to be by owning my light. Right? Because I was like, Ooh, my light wants me to be an author. My light wants me to be on stages. Awesome. But scary, you know? So anyway. 

Wendy Valentine: I love that you made that point because yes, you have to give yourself permission to change. And for me, one of the things that I was so excited about, not so much just driving an RV across the country and you know, the cruising through the desert to the sunset, like Woohoo, but it was actually more excited about the woman behind that steering wheel, the woman that was actually in.

Literally and figuratively in the driver's seat of her life. And I was so excited just to envision a woman that was happy and healthy and financially free. And she had her shit together. She had good relationships. She had gotten rid of all the toxic relationships. See, that's all of talking about. Yes, exactly.

So I think sometimes, you know, it's like we. We're wanting to change our lives, whether a little or a lot, we focus too much on the what, when, where, and how. Instead of just focusing on the who, like who do you want to be? Right? If you were to imagine, you know, Becca of years ago, before you did any of this, you had to envision Abeka that was actually.

 how does that Becca, like stand in front of a crowd of people and give a speech? how does that new Becca actually write a book and be focused and giving herself permission? Like you have to envision the man or woman that you want to be, and then it's fascinating how a lot of the things that you want just will fall into your lap because you're being the person.

You're being the person of whoever that, whoever attracts those types of people, places, or things or events in your life. So get excited about that. Get excited about the person that you want to be. Knowing that you have the power, you have the be of power. You. That you have the power. That's the power to actually do that, right?

It's all up to you. mean, I mean literally taking back your power. Taking back your power, and going, this is who I'm going to be in my life and no one's gonna stop me. I mean, if you wanna be a control freak, right? Like that's when you step up and be a control freak about your own, right? Yeah. Put that, put it there.

Yes, exactly. Exactly right. Of your own health and wellbeing, of your thoughts, your beliefs, and I mean, we all have a choice of how we live our lives. Then I always say like, your mind is either your best friend or your worst enemy, right? 1000, and you're the one that gets to decide. Yeah. For me, looking back at that time when I finally got quiet enough to hear my thoughts, oh my God, that was the worst enemy, the worst critic in my head.

Pretty bad, right? It's, and I had to be like, we are not doing this anymore. Because

Becca Powers: because if I'm gonna 

Wendy Valentine: be that 

Becca Powers: happy, why would program yourself like that? Yeah. 

Wendy Valentine: I know it's 

Becca Powers: just conditioned. But to your point, like when I started unpacking, I'm like, why do I look at myself like, I would never even treat my worst enemy as bad as I treat myself.

Wendy Valentine: I know. And that was really 

Becca Powers: mind blowing. I was like, I gotta work on this narrative, 

Wendy Valentine: You think about it though, it's all a habit. Everything's a habit. being a happy person and grateful, that's a habit. Complaining, it's a habit. Know, eating like crap. It's a habit, all of it. Everything is a habit until you stop and you have that awareness of what you're doing.

While you're doing it, you'll just stay as a robot and be like, Uhuh, uh, uhs. Why so many people love that awareness? 

Becca Powers: Because I truly believe that's the first key change. Yeah. I too, you know? Yeah. Like, you get that aha. You can't unha, you can't un aha. You know? Is that a word? I don't know, but I am making it up today.

You can't undo it. You 

Wendy Valentine: can't have an un aha. No, it's so true. As a matter of fact, I think it was Einstein that said that once your mind expands, then it can't go back. You can't be like, yeah, you can't un aha. You can't un epiphany or, yes. You like you had a synchronicity. You can't undo that. it's gonna change you.

It. And it does. 

Becca Powers: And it does. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say like I could probably like talk to you for two hours straight and totally be okay. But we have like 10 minutes left. So I do wanna go to the Freedom acronym because I'm like, if I know listeners are probably already feeling our vibe and feeling empowered and like, yeah.

So I'm assuming does the F start your process? 

Wendy Valentine: Yes, it does. Can we talk about. Yeah, when I wrote the book, I literally sat there and I looked back at the two years of that reinvention of myself and my life, and I did it in order. 'cause then I felt like, well, if I did it this way and it worked, then why wouldn't I just share the same.

Actual framework. So step one is free yourself from limiting beliefs and self-sabotage. Yes, we all do it, but to free yourself of that, our is to reset your life of the clutter, emotional and physical clutter that we have in our lives. Step three is Envision. The firstly is envision a future filled with love, that vitality and confidence and joy.

Step four is embrace and explore your potential, your passions, and your purpose, which you're really good at. And then step five is detach from tomorrow. Start living for today. Oh, is own your best self with unshakeable boundaries. This one's kind of new for me. Yeah. Because I, I was never very good at setting the boundaries, but I'm getting there.

Well, that was, 

Becca Powers: I was not either. And that led to my bathroom floor moment. So that was like, yeah. As I rewind my own process, that was one of the things that I had to do. I didn't even realize that's what I was doing. I just, outta necessity had to start saying no when I always said yes just to like, not end up back on the bathroom floor.

Yes. And then later I was like, oh, those were boundaries. 

Wendy Valentine: If you think about it. No one ever, I mean, I don't know about you, but especially growing up or my twenties or thirties, no one was like, let's talk about boundaries. Let's teach boundaries. I mean, if, if they only taught about that in school, oh my gosh.

 I needed that bad. So, and then finally, M is master yourself so you stay grounded with life's inevitable ups and downs because shit's always gonna happen, but it's how you handle it so that, yeah, she might get knocked down, but you're gonna be able to get up much quicker the next time. 

Becca Powers: Yes.

And I always say, I say something similar, I'm like, life, be life in. Like, you can pretend that it's not going to in two months from now or six months from now, but guess what? I know it is, it's gonna do its thing. 

Wendy Valentine: And then how are especially right again, especially when you're, forties, fifties and beyond.

Life will change those birdies leave the nest, right? you're gonna go through perimenopause and menopause. if you're a man out there listening, then whoever you're with is probably gonna be going through it. So you have to deal with it. And our parents are aging. You're like, there's so many things going on.

Yeah. So much. And sometimes it's all at once. So the more that you're able to stay grounded, stay centered, and be aware, just like you said, right, having that awareness of how you're feeling and cutting yourself some slack. I mean, as a recovering perfectionist again, right. I was so hard on myself. I know.

Like so hard on myself. If I was having a bad day, I'm like, I should not be having a good day, a bad day. I should be having a good day and should be happy. And now I'm just like, I'm having a bad day, I'm having a bad, you know, I just allow myself to just. Deal with it knowing that 

Becca Powers: I'll get through it a hundred percent.

I think it's that, whether you wanna call it faith or what, but like that knowing that everything is cyclical, like it's going to come to an end, though every ending has a beginning and just because you're having a bad day today, guess what? That's gonna end. it could be a bad week or a bad month.

It's definitely going to be if you don't shift your perspective and allow it to be something like I'll probably talk to you more after we're done because we only have like five minutes left. But this past year has been really rough on me too, and I called it my, I do a lot of teaching. I have, one of my keynotes is called The Power of, and so I really believe in, and yeah, and that's what I was saying.

It's like even if you're having a bad day, you could be having a bad day and things still be going well. And so like last year. A year and a half ago, my brother passed away, so I wanted to like, I know it sucks, and I was releasing a Return to Radiance. He passed away in the second edit, and I had due dates.

I had to keep going, and I'm like, how am I going to honor this colossal grief? Yeah, and also honor one of my biggest joys, my passion, my purpose, like also coming to life. And so I had to just, I just really love what you said because it's an honoring, it's like I had to honor the grief, but I had to honor the joy at the same time.

And it was, it felt conflicting and at times it was, but they were both real and both alive inside me. So I'm really just glad that you mentioned that because I think it honors our humanness. 

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, totally. And it's the dichotomy of life, right? You wouldn't know joy if you didn't know sadness. You wouldn't know dark if you didn't know light.

 it's part of it, and it's like you being able to push through. Oh my God. That probably taught you a lot, 

during that time. I have this 

Becca Powers: bumps again. How did she say that? I'm like, I've learned so much. That's just starting to land, Probably be another book about it 

Wendy Valentine: someday. Well, I mean, hence your book, right?

A Return to Radiance that even despite loss. Yes. Death, Like you're still able to come alive within yourself and return to Radiance over and over. Like it's a practice, right? It's just, it's huge. You just have to teach yourself to, and that doesn't mean that you're not, like you weren't honoring your brother, you were honoring your brother, and you were honoring Becca.

You were honoring yourself. And I truly 

Becca Powers: believe I honored him more by continuing my path. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so. Anyway, it's, I know we're, and we have three minutes, and I'm so sad, Wendy, we could keep going, but I want to, I really do. I, I'm sure the listeners are like, how do I stay in touch with Wendy?

And so I wanna get through all of that stuff. But I'm gonna ask you one last question and then we'll summarize with where to find the book, how to stay in contact with you and all that jazz. okay. So let's tie all of this up in a bow. I always like to end, since it's the empowered half hour. What is an empowering message?

That you would like to share with the listeners? 

Wendy Valentine: Well, tying it into with my niche of midlife, yes. You're not too old. It's not too late. Midlife is just the beginning and it's the most exciting chapter of your life, so go for it. Whatever it is, go for it. 

Becca Powers: I love it and I got the goosebumps again. I got 'em like five or six times.

This is gonna be a good one, guys. alright, Wendy, how can the audience find you? Find your book. And all those beautiful 

Wendy Valentine: things, all those goodies, the best place is just go to wendy valentine.com. anything and everything is on there. The book, women Waking Up is sold everywhere. Books are sold, obviously Amazon, there's paperback.

There's the audio read by me. And then also the ebook too. And there's over $500 in bonuses that go with the book that you can get on my website in the show too. The podcast, the Midlife makeover show wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Becca Powers: That is awesome. Well, Wendy, this was awesome. Thank you. I think this was really good.

Yes, yes. You were truly, this 

Wendy Valentine: turned me to radiance. 

Becca Powers: Yes. Yeah, I feel very woke up right now and ready to claim my midlife, so I appreciate you. You are awake girl. You are awake. That's alright. No, well, thank you for being a guest. It was great to have you on. Thank you, Becca. Everyone have a great day.