A Grown Up’s Gap Year – ISSUE #3 – Just Wear The Bikini

Hello ,

This month using the tagline – ‘just wear the bikini…’ for our CONVERSATIONS ON MIDLIFE Newsletter – resides in the spirit of encouraging you to ‘do the thing’ you may have been pondering, sitting on the fence, waiting for the right moment…

I know, you know – you do not need to wait for anyone’s permission to ‘…….fill in the blanks’ to keep your life spicy, invigorating, ever-evolving.

Consider this my gentle nudge to prevent you from sitting back waiting for the perfect time to;

segue,
book a trip,
move town,
change countries,
revel in staying still,
study,
upsize,
downsize,
streamline,
apply for a new role,
resign,
get fit,
clean up your nutrition,
learn to be comfortable in your skin as you are – and/or yes, ‘just wear the bikini’.

It’s your time NOW. Plan to do what brings you JOY.

For daily inspo join our community of women on Instagram (LinkedIn too); as we seek to squeeze a little more out of life, make sense of this season of change, empower ourselves, and find our FUN!

I’d love you to invite your friends to our space of inspiration.

This month an excerpt from my forthcoming book;

‘A Grown Ups Gap Year 101 really practical journeys for navigating mid-life (I wish someone told me)’

Love and hugs,

ON GETTING BACK TO BASICS

Let’s be honest, by the time you hit mid life, chances are you’ve seen quite a few fads come and go. Without unlimited time, funds, and giving enough of a shit – zealous adoption of rapidly evolving, and often expensive ‘must do now’ regimes is (to my mind) a rubbish mountain to even attempt to scale.

Wonderful benefits of mid age are; hindsight, experience, and a ringside seat to many of the comings and goings of fashion, fiction, and utter rubbish. Now it is the commodifying of ‘Wellness’ that is all around – I am thrilled to see focus and research into healthy lifestyles – however, in the quest are most of us actually feeling better?

When I go down the rabbit hole of what to do – in the pursuit of ‘Wellness”, I remind myself of both Grandmother’s who lived 9.5 decades of joyful, adventure-filled, on the whole healthful, existences (yes one Grandma smoked like a chimney, first handed to her when a young woman as a ‘health option’ stress release against the backdrop of war). That to one side, neither of them EVER uttered the word ‘wellness’. They simply got on with the art of living a life in wellbeing;

manual household activity (I confess I’m not thrilled at readopting this)
one didn’t drive, so walked many more than 10,000 steps each day,
lots of connection with community and extended families,
seasonal eating (we were dining on bottled plums and homemade pickles long after one passed),
moderate alcohol (if daily then as a part of convivial gathering, a small whiskey or organic wine),
purposeful days (a garden to re plant, a business to run, a social conscience),
a sense of pride and self love (leaving the house without lipstick affixed akin to not putting on knickers, it didn’t happen),
no tech per se (although age 85 years Oma did upskill to Facebook to keep in touch with travelling Great Grandkids),
TV was for news, a show or movie watched together, then off it went,
cakes were for treats, snacks were an orange and a slice of cheese and a handful of nuts (snack of choice for one Granny), the other Belgium so I won’t lie and say Patisserie and Frites/mayo didn’t factor regularly – portions of ‘on occasion ample sufficiency’ rather than ‘every day’, seemed to serve her well,
meat meals the exception rather than the rule,
dairy and eggs bought directly from the farmer, fish from the fisherman,
fridges full, cupboards mostly bare of pre-made/processed foods,
I swear the minestrone soup made by one at the beginning of every winter, literally kept stovetop and topped up now and then (vege, beans and parmesan) added an extra few years to her life (Blue Zone ‘inspired’ minestrone soup recipe under FREE RESOURCES on my website).

Both migrated from Europe. Forest bathing, hiking, ice bathing, saunas (in the Netherlands my Dad and his partner have sauna social evenings as we go to the pub), alpine guest houses for a week of ‘cure’ (massage and considered meals, a la Hotel Post you will read about in my book), always in nature – part of the fabric of life of their formative years.

The correlations between the now-named Blue Zones, their simplified, prosaic lifestyles, and that of my (most likely your) Grandparents are evident.

Front of mind – if ever I find myself tangled in a web of ‘what SHOULD I be doing.’

I’ve concluded not much more than the basics, consistently (the caveat being if you suffer from symptoms or conditions requiring specialised plans).

To that end, I’ve picked up quite a few tips along the way – from the utterly brilliant to the total waste of time and money (let us not revisit the year I queued around the block to get my hands on a jar of thigh reducing cream, I hear your titter of disbelief from here). I’m sharing it all in my book…un-complicating ‘wellness,’ getting back to basics – creating space in your life to get on with what is truly important.

TRY THIS

Go and watch the Netflix documentary ‘Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones‘, then go and have a cup of tea with someone over 75 years old and ask what is important to them and what they wish they hadn’t bothered with. Oh and if you feel so inclined ‘just wear the bikini’! *

*excerpt from A Grown Ups Gap Year – 101 really practical journeys for navigating mid-life (I wish someone had told me) – available June 2024

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