Healing through Life Transitions, Menopause, and Emptying the Nest with Coach Karen Randall
Transition coach Karen Randall gives us access to healthfully making big transitions in our life. From menopause to the kids leaving home, she shows us how to honor ourselves and step into our creativity.
Referenced in the Show
Karen’s Bio
Karen Randall is a Transition Life Coach who helps people at midlife who have experienced a significant life event that has left them wondering who they are to create and manifest a life that is full of Purpose, Meaning, Passion and Joy.
She is a Transition Life Coach, Energy Psychologist, Creative Arts Facilitator, college professor, yoga teacher and recovering CPA.
Karen left her career as a successful business executive to pursue a master’s in transpersonal psychology followed soon thereafter by certification as a psychosynthesis life coach.
Website | Facebook | Instagram
Full Transcript
Sarah Marshall, ND: Welcome to HEAL. On today’s episode, transition coach Karen Randall gives us access to healthfully making big transitions in our life. From menopause to the kids leaving home, she shows us how to honor ourselves and step into our creativity. I’m your host, Dr. Sarah Marshall.
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Sarah Marshall, ND: Oh my gosh. We've got Karen Randall here today on Heal. And this is like, I'm super stoked about this episode. I've had a lot of women in my practice and I mean, I'm 40. I have my own experience with transitions in my life. I have a little bit of an opinion about that this isn't my first lifetime or my first rodeo, but, you know, that's kind of like an, a whole other world of spirituality.
So I suspect I've been through midlife transitions a few times in other iterations, but I've had quite a few people in my practice that, you know, they've really come up against feeling on their own and alone in this midpoint in their life. And wondering like, why are there not. More women talking about this and how come when I go to my mom, she's like, Oh, whatever, just power through.
And like, so I'm so excited to get, to have this conversation with you, Karen, about, you know, empty nesting, menopause, midlife, like what it is for a lot of women to make this transition because it's a significant shift. And I think that doesn't get underscored enough, how dramatic of a shift that can be in people's personalities, their goals in life, what they want, the way that they deal with life, like stuff didn't use to bother them, now it drives them flipping crazy.
Karen Randall: Right? Well, first off, I'm so excited to be here with you, Sarah. I I just love the title of your podcast Heal because I think that that speaks to this time in our lives, you know, so significantly also it's like we can choose to step into it as a time of healing and creating a healthy life that serves us and others, or we can choose to ignore it and keep on keeping on,
Sarah Marshall, ND: right?
Yeah. Yeah. And I you know, because obviously our listeners can't see you, but I actually am gonna acknowledge that you were in the most gorgeous setting, your feet. Are you in Scottsdale? Phoenix?
Karen Randall: So this is the Palm Springs area
Sarah Marshall, ND: Palm Springs. That's right. Yeah. And I can hear birds chirping and we talked about it, but I'm like, This is great! I love bringing little the outside world in to Heal, so we'll try and manage it. And if at any point we might have to make a shift, but you know, if the listeners hear a little chirps in the background, that's because it's and this beautiful place, so...
Karen Randall: I'm sending my healing energy, right?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, getting connected to the environment connected outside. So. Awesome. Yeah. And it, so let's just start there, like, what's your take on, what does it mean to heal? How do we do that?
Karen Randall: Well I can, I can start with my story. And that kind of provides the context for how I have learned to view this. Of course. So I started in yoga, so my three kids left the home and I'm like, okay.
So I, I have all this time. I don't know what I want to do. Do you know, I could do yoga or he could do martial arts and honestly yoga fits in better to my schedule. So I'm going to do that right? Well,
Sarah Marshall, ND: that was that's sometimes how we make these big, important choices in our life, but totally, yeah.
Karen Randall: So you chronicity at work and It truly started me on that journey of questioning everything that I had been told and everything that I believed and opening up that box to say, okay, what is true for me?
And I believe that that is a lot of where healing comes from is tapping into the connection with you. Not only on body, because healing happens on so many levels, I'm a coach. So I'm working with people more in the emotional and mental and, and even the the things that get in the way of moving towards our goals.
There's so many different ways of healing. There is the energetic and there is relationship and communication, but all of those start with realizing what you have been told and asking, is that true for me or not? Yeah. And then discerning for you, what is truth and what is healed for you?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that is so the essence of a lot of what we have talked about in other episodes.
Cause it's like, I mean, I have these incredible surgeons and physicians and healers of all kinds of different realm. And we can, you know, I can geek out on all of the like biomechanics and the molecular and like, Oh, and this is how you're changing interferon gamma a and when you turn on the T H I L 17, you know, like, I love that stuff, it's why I am a doctor, but I mean, kind of what my experience has been is all of the mechanistic science side of it without the proper container. The context, you know, one thing can be lethal and another thing could be healing. One thing can be destructive and detrimental that in another case could be miraculous and life-saving, it's not inherent in the molecule.
It's inherent in the context for us. And that's kind of a controversial way of looking at medicine but it's important.
Karen Randall: About a year and a half ago, walked through a final cancer journey with one of my very dear friends. And even in that journey, it's like, you know, what is healing? She was not able to heal from cancer, but there were many other emotional wounds that she was able to heal through that process.
And so, so, you know, living longer is not always the, you know, the answer of healing, as you said in this life, right life for her, she died and she was only 49, you know, very young yet. This was, you know, Truly a healing journey for her to go through. So I think that it's also partially saying what's in this for me.
You know, what is this challenge bringing to me? Right now my 89 year old mom is dealing with a horrendous case of shingles. I mean,
Sarah Marshall, ND: no, that's harsh
Karen Randall: really bad. And it, you know, while she's still dealing with so much pain, I, you know, she's like, I don't want to hear this Karen, but I am always like, and what else is there for you in this?
You know, Is there something else that you can take with this, which at 89 years old is way different than at my age, way different than at your age too. We all get to put that context into it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, my mom and I had a conversation at one point that I really got where I don't know that she even feels the same way now, but she said something to me and she's like, you know, I think I've just decided that, that thing, that issue, I'm not handling it this lifetime.
If it's with me next time, fine, I'll deal with it then. But I'm just going to put it on the shelf and just like let, and you know, that was coming from her, in her seventies in a different space of her life of like, you know, where me and my forties I'm like, take it all along and I'm, I'm handling it all, you know?
And she's like, there was a real peace and her being able to say, I'm just going to let that be. I'm just going to put rest on that, you know, so these different phases in our life come with a different context for what is true for me now. So let's get into that of like, When these transitions happen, which that sounds like lovely, right?
Like a transition it's just slowly comes on, like that's often not, it's like kind of running into a brick wall that was invisible that you had no idea was there. And then, you know, for some women, they sort of wake up one day and go, I don't feel like myself anymore. That's often when they call me, they're like, I think this is just menopause, but is there something else here I need to check out.
I want to make sure I'm not overlooking anything, you know, and then we get into conversations about what transformation is happening, hormonally and biochemically and how that's corresponding to a real shift in role in their life, from the role of basically when we are in our child rearing years, whether you have children or not, I don't, and I'm still in the midst of this is like I kind of surrender my body and my life to the world, what the world needs for me I provide. And I'm always working on keeping balanced with self-care inside of that, but it's a work in progress, but then there's this like distinct shift that you probably can speak way more to where. It's what I see in my clients is like a claiming back of their life. They're like, no, you can't have that part of me anymore.
You can't have that part. You can't have that much of my time. You can't have like that much. And like, there's this. And then the outside experiences, they're bitchy. They're irritable. What do you mean mom? Like, you've always done this. And then mom's like, Nope. I actually remember when my mom informed me, she was no longer cooking dinner.
She's like, I did that. For decades. I did that now. What's funny is in her, even later chapter, she loves cooking. It's one of her creative expressions. So now she cooks all the time, but it comes from a different place than at that point where it was this obligation.
Karen Randall: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you touched on so many important things there and I want to start by saying you know, there is a difference between change and transition.
Okay. So change is the event. That you know, the outer expression or, you know, in the, in the case of menopause, that's, you know, it's more of an inner physical thing, but transition is our inner emotional response to that. How do we take that in and allow it to change us? And to move us. And so in that, in that midlife time, I mean, it really is a power point, right.
For women because we have the experience, we have the knowledge, I mean, as an employee, I spent 30 years in the business world. I will tell you that the best employee that you can have is a mom who has gotten to that point in her life because she can handle it all. And she has handled it all and she is dedicated and she wants to be there and she has got all of the tools. So it's at that point in life where we have all the tools we have given, we have given and we have given, and now we get to say, okay, now that I have done all of that, What do I want to do with all of these tools, all of this experience, all of this knowledge and wisdom for myself, what do I want to do for myself?
And what do I want to do for the world, for my community? Yeah.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I mean, I see a lot of people and this was like, when I was first starting my business, I spent a lot of time at business networking events or one day, you know, entrepreneurship for women seminars and things. And I was always amazed the extent to which I was one of the young ones at 30. It was mostly a lot of women between the ages of like 48 and 60 who were going, okay. I've had this whole other life and they might've even had a whole corporate career there might've been, you know, and then it was like, I don't want to do that anymore. And, and these inquiries into what is my self-expression, you know, what do I want to put out in the world now?
And also a lot of it was like, Leaving circumstances or situations that were much more about the utility of it. Like I had to make this paycheck, I needed these hours. I needed to do this to raise the kids or whatever was going on. And then it was like, now they were at this real creative point in their life.
Karen Randall: Wow. Women are the creators, right. We have the creative life force in us So when that starts to go away, physically, that energy moves in other ways. Right. And we have so much that we can give with that. Right. So we talked about how, you know, the change, that's like the ending of something and that's where a transition journey starts.
But that, that next phase is, is the listening, the listening it's grieving and saying goodbye. And I think that this is the part that often we just kind of try to rush past, right? Because it's not comfortable. It's not supported in our society, in our culture, but I think it's a huge healing step that we can take to grieve and honor what we are saying goodbye to, to this phase in life that we got so much from, and we gave so much to.
But if we want to create space for something new, we have to let go of something else. And so that second stage is really taking the time and moving slowly to say, I don't have to make a decision right away.
Sarah Marshall, ND: You know, I mean, I'm not going through menopause, fortunately. And I don't, I would like to create, I'm not quite at midlife at age 40. I plan on being here a long time, but like, I'm getting there. I can tell. And there is something really distinct God, I wish, you know, I it's like, I try not to make 40 significant, but, and I'm turning 41 shortly.
So I'm towards the end of this year. I'm about to move to my childhood town of Rochester, New York, like literally like next week I move in and this is after 21 years of living out West and at 19 it was the adventurer who went out and crossed the country to go be, you know, in the ski teams and ski all the big mountains.
I became a whitewater rafting guide and, you know, finished my college years and there's been this whole other chapter and I'm watching myself like the last month. My poor boyfriend. I had been on an emotional roller coaster and I keep trying to be like, it's not significant. It doesn't really mean anything.
It's just a move. We're just picking up stuff from this place. We're putting in stuff in this place, but it's, it's, it's one of these for me. And like one of my coaches actually I got a team of people around me to support me. We've been investigating into the eras of our life. And that there are these distinct different eras and they have different qualities and different things that our life is about.
And it was a little different way of looking at it. And I loved that and I can really see, like, this is going to be one of those. And I know when I get to New York, this thing of like slowing down, being with it, not needing to suddenly, but my instinct is like, fill up the space, plan, everything out, go dive into all this stuff.
Cause it's just easier to stay busy in that way. But this is a whole new blank canvas in a lot of ways for me to reinvent things, to look at, what am I leaving behind? What do I want to bring forward with me? It's put my relationship through the paces as I've been. Like, I don't even know if I want to stay together anymore.
And how do we know that this is a good idea and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, Oh my God. And loves me to the core, has been so patient with me as I literally been like, it's just a move, but I've been watching myself actually look at all the areas of my life. Do I still want to practice the same way? Do I want my business to be the same?
What do I want to do different about my health? How do I wanna express my spirituality different? And Justin's like, We're just moving to Rochester and I’m like, but you don’t understand!
Karen Randall: But you know, this is a really important point because you know, the things that send us into transition, it's different for everybody, you know, a move for some people can be huge. Like I remember moving one time. And the thing that was the hardest for me is that the grocery store where I was moving to didn't have wide aisles in it. I got three kids, three young kids. I'm like, I can't even, I can't even deal with it. You know? But like for some people, if they lose a pet, it is a huge thing.
This is, you know, a member of the family for other people. It's like, it's a dog, you know, we don't know, we cannot, we cannot project our values onto someone else onto someone else. So I think that's a really important thing, even in the journey of midlife. There are certain things that will hit you stronger than other things.
For me, the physical aspect of menopause was not challenging. I was really fortunate in that, but my kids leaving the home, that that was huge for me. That was huge. That was, was really my entry into midlife transition. So you know, that the, what you deal with sometimes it's your relationship with your primary, you know, Other significant other, whatever, you know, you've had, it is going to change in one way or another.
So we can't really project usually, cause it usually gets us by surprise. Right upside the head. But that other thing that you talked about, and this is so classic and in the the way that I described transition it's like the red zone is the ending something ends, right? And then you move into this blue zone where I was talking about, you know, it's grieving, it's being quiet, it's allowing, but because that's hard, we often take this little side trip into the yellow zone where it's busy, busy, busy, try new things.
I don't want to deal with that, right? And for some people, they just stay in that. But for other people it's like, I can't keep this up. This is not really, I'm just, it takes a lot of energy to not feel those feelings to hold them off. And then you find yourself right back there in the same place. And I think for me, and for many people, it is a necessary process to go through.
If you really want to get to that point of creating something that is really your call of self, right? Your heart, your heart. Speaking of this is what I want to create. And leading that the, the next stage, the pink stage is where there's creativity and imagination and you know, what could I do?
And thinking outside the box of all those limitations that you've had for me, I stopped working in the business world. I was a CPA and CFO and all that kind of stuff. And then one day I was so sick of it, I could hardly stand it and I stopped and I went back to school and I got a master's in transpersonal psychology, but for the thought I had to get over was, Oh, I'm too old to do that.
Right. Such a, a common theme in our society. It's like women in midlife. We don't really have much to offer out after that. Right. And no, I mean, it's so much to offer and it gives us so much more life and energy and excitement and joy. I teach Monthly class called letters to you. And we write three letters from parts of ourselves.
And the first one is our fear. The second one is from our enchantment. So what is it that gives us joy and lights us up and really feeds us because when we do that, We invite everyone around us to do the same. And the final letter is, you know, the permission slip to do that because we so often have this idea that there's something wrong with us doing all of these things to make ourselves joyful.
But the question I ask is what if this is our purpose? Right, because we all have the same fears, love, money, health, you know, but are enchantment, those things that fill us with joy, those are individual. So if you believe in a divine creator who has created you with this specific list of things that bring joy, this is your purpose.
And this is how you bring healing to the world. You heal yourself and through that you heal others.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, absolutely. It's like cool. You know, that's continued to be my journey. And as I'm making this transition, I can kind of see this era shift, you know, from early in my career, the last 12 years building my practice… Just, I mean, honestly, just answering the question, can I, am I going to make it like I, can I pay the bills and do this? This is really good. People are going to keep calling me to work with them. Like, I'm sure you know, the whole space. And then now I've been in this really solid spot for the last. Three, four years where like everything's word of mouth.
My practice just kind of runs like a top. And I actually was about a year ago. I hit this place that I was working with my coach and I was like, I don't love them what I'm doing. I mean, I know I make this difference, but like there was this boredom setting in, and there was this experience of apathy about something that used to be so enlivening for me.
And she, and I did this amazing exercise where we completed my life up till then. And what she got to was that something I'd never considered was the fulfillment of a dream, when it's fulfilled, you don't have that driving you anymore. And it was like, I had done it. I had made it, I had achieved the thing that, I mean, really, quite frankly, since my undergraduate, I had been working towards whatever the heck career meant.
And then now I had arrived and that was fulfilled and nothing new was created yet. And I was grieving. I was grieving the loss of the drive. I was grieving the loss of this whole experience of like being up to something that I didn't have to be up to anymore cause like it was all working, which was great.
And then I felt like guilty. I was like, what the hell is wrong with you? Like, you know, you have this great life, you have this great career. Like what are you just bored? Like, what's your deal? You know? And we got in this conversation and I did about, I don't know, two or three hours of journaling with a format that I actually mentioned on other podcasts, but I have this completion creation document and I do it usually quarterly indefinitely annually, where I complete everything that happened in the previous year and I create what's next for me. And I shifted the language to every question that was on the form was completing my life. And it was fascinating because some of the questions are like, what's still incomplete for you and what's unresolved?
And what happened in your life that you can, no, you can't be with; you can't just let that be. And it wasn't, there were like thought provoking and some things started to open up for me. And what's wild now that I actually look at it, we did that work in December, 2019, and I said, yes, to start recording Heal the podcast in January, 2020. I just made that connection that, that. That there was a relationship there.
Karen Randall: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. And now you're moving.
So really, really an end to an arc, you know, part of the arc of this life.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So you kind of, you put it in here, but I want to make sure we highlight that cause you have a really awesome structure for looking at transition in the stages of transition and knowing that there's a flow of, however you put it, but like the energy or kind of the process that happens.
And you've mentioned a few, I think maybe all of the pieces, maybe we haven't gotten to all of them yet, but let's just underscore that. So you said like use colors, red is the actual moment of change. So like.
Karen Randall: So the F the first one is an ending. And I think it's important to realize that endings, you know, we think of them as, you know, like this, but actually endings take awhile often.
Right. They really do. And, and they take a lot of energy, a lot of thought, a lot of emotion. And so by the time you really finish it, you know, you, you have been busy working, emotional, trying to just move through things. And then one morning you wake up and I call it, excuse me, for those of you who don't like swearing but I call it the “oh shit”day because all of a sudden you're like, Oh shit, what do I do now?
Because you've been so busy taking care of all that business, and then you don't know what to do. And you are tired and that means moved into that blue stage. And that's really where you need rest and recover. And then you start into this process of grieving and, you know, really having the time and claiming the time to grieve and let go.
And I just want to focus again on the fact that often, this is not supported in our culture. You know, someone who's gone through a divorce, they might just be getting to that point and friends are saying, Oh, are you ready to start dating again? You know, like yeah, you really do have to claim that time of no, I'm not.
And a lot of times you just feel like being by yourself because nobody else really understands what you're going through and you can't explain it, which is you said people come to you quite often at that point cause they're like, what, what is happening to me?
Sarah Marshall, ND: then toss in for some women, if this is during menopause or even empty nesting. there's a whole physiologic hormonal kind of symphony going on at the same time. And our estrogen levels are dropping. Our adrenals are supposed to be taking over the job, but often we've kind of smoked them out through most of our life because we've been pushing so hard on our bodies.
And so your adrenals are like completely fatigued. And then the ovaries were like, well, we're done. And the adrenals are like, I got nothing left, I can't do it. And then that's where like, so then on top of that you get even more emotional instability feeling hypersensitive. A common thing is like, I, I literally like cry at every hallmark commercial or every movie or everything, and they'll be listening to podcasts or things on their drive and they're like weeping in their car on their way.
And they're like, I'm I used to run the show in corporate America and now I’m stting at my desk, trying to hide myself behind my scarf is like the littlest incidences at work. You know, we'll throw them off because there is this heightened sensitivity to what I see physiologically is like to your inner world. It's actually your inner world is kind of refusing to be ignored anymore.
Karen Randall: Yes. I learned that.
Sarah Marshall, ND: That piece comes up and it's not actually pathological in most women it's actually normal, but there are some things we can do to kind of put a soft pillow under the landing of your body, going through that, you know, massive biochemical change and for some women, and this is something that I got from Dr. Christine Northrup is a medical doctor and she was a leader in this conversation about women's health, integrative women's health. And she also did a lot around transition and menopause and One of the things that is where I recommend my women in their twenties and their thirties to recognize the healthier and the better care they take of their endocrine system in your twenties and in your thirties and your forties, then menopause is smooth sailing and there's no major bumps.
But what Christine had said is all the unprocessed stuff you've been suppressing, each menstrual cycle for those decades will bite you in the ass during menopause. It will eventually come due to pay the Piper. And so that's my big proponent for women to really make sure they're taking care of their adrenals and their endocrine health, their hormone health, their thyroid, their ovaries going through their… ither childbearing years or their creative career years or whatever that is. So that then that physiologic abruptness doesn't hit them quite so hard over the head as there's this spiritual transition. And there's this, you know, biochemical transition that's happening regardless.
Karen Randall: I likened it to the way that I described it.
And I tell them I have three daughters. So I tell them, this is what it's like. It's basically reverse puberty. It is totally a bit that way. I mean, we all know how crazy teenage girls are. Right. And it's the reverse of that. So of course it would be, you know, at that same level, right. And that's really, for me, what it felt like.
It was like, you know, the Reaper's crazy. My biggest challenge was the brain fog. And you know, sit like you're saying the sitting at your desk at work, you're used to being in charge and everything. And I was an accountant, so lots of details. And I'm just kind of sitting there looking at this spreadsheet, going, No, I maybe that's why I was sick of accounting all the time. There was…
Sarah Marshall, ND: That probably kind of helped put the nail in the coffin.
Karen Randall: Yeah. So anyway, back to the process of transition, you're moving into this blue zone where there is this time that you need to do the self-care and understanding what's happening helps so much with that.
And I think that that's one of my biggest messages is to really embrace this process. Both the physical aspects of it, the emotional, the spiritual. So in the blue zone, quiet taking care of yourself, listening, resting, just grieving and letting go. And, and through that process, eventually creative sparks start to come.
You know, it just happens. It really does native beings. And I think it's kind of exciting when you start to think, Oh, You know, I could do that. Or could I do that? Or that could be fun. And all of that, these ideas of what you could do start to come to the fore. And I just like to encourage my clients to let every one of them come.
Right. Cause you never know, you never know what piece from one is going to be the piece that's needed and then another idea, and eventually it starts to coalesce into, this is the vision. This is my heart talking, my call of self. And the fourth stage is when you move into manifesting that, making it real by planning it and, you know, moving from where you are now to that reality. And that can be five weeks. That can be five months, five years, you know, but having a plan and a vision, it, it makes all the difference of moving from where you are now to where you want to be. Because, you know, we have to deal with the realities of our life. We have, you know, food and clothing and home.
All of those we have to pay for. We have relationships. You know, your husband likes Alaska. You like the Caribbean.
Sarah Marshall, ND: You probably it may have kids in college that you're still figuring out how to, you know, launch them into the world and pay for it and, you know, totally
Karen Randall: all the realities, but having the vision.
And having the plan and continuing to work the plan. Right. Just that is such an uplift of knowing what it is that feeds you. What is it that I need for my wellbeing to nurture me? And what is it that I want to do with these gifts that I have to share with the world. And as you said earlier, so often this includes a spiritual journey.
So many of us are saying, I put this on the back burner for so long because kids, home, work, everything else was first. And this has been waiting. Now this is, this is what's really up for us.
Sarah Marshall, ND: And I'm going to hurl this other caveat in here, which is not either of our specialty. So this is one of my hail Marys, but I want to bring this into the conversation as so there's a resource that I've used a lot in my relationships around, you know, understanding men, understanding women and it's from a woman named Alison Armstrong.
She does these incredible courses called the PAX courses. And I've listened to like every audio recording of her work I can get ahold of it's just been super empowering for me. And her whole stance was that she started out with, I just didn't get men, so she started studying them. And she has a concept in her work of the tunnel that men in particular in there that she actually has a whole conversation about the stages of development of men. And she maps it on to being a Prince and being a Knight and being a King and this, this way. And there's other versions of this conversation that have kind of looked at the magician and the lover and Al chemistry and pretty awesome stuff out there about it.
But one of the things I recognized was this, what we in, in from the masculine perspective will also cause the life, or the midlife crisis, right? This is one of the societal conversations about it. Where men will really go through this transition usually somewhere between 40 and 50, that's marked by an ending.
You know, something happens. One of the things that'll kick men into it is when their father dies. And there's this like the father who has been the King and has been running the kingdom and he dies in this shift that happens for them. But other things, you know, in life can come and happen to them. It can be a trauma, it can be certain transitions, it can be job change or job loss, but sometimes it just sneaks up on them.
And there's this sense of being a little crazy that their sense of self, of like being certain about who they are starts to disappear. And it often corresponds to what we would kind of call that same timing that happens with women through menopause will happen for men and androgens change and their physiology changes as well.
And Alison pointed to that some women, many women who've been highly identified in more masculine careers and they've run in the corporate world will identify with this experience and you have to go through the top channel alone. And the tunnel can be six months or five years. And it can be this period transition of reassessing what really matters to me? Why am I accumulating all of this? What is it for? What's my life for what, what is my legacy? You know, those kind of questions tend to come up a lot for men, but I actually really could reflect on seeing aspects of the masculine more than gender, right? This fed this energy in our body.
We have the feminine energy. We have the masculine energy in this very parallel track and that what she spoke to as well as women, when our men go through this transition, one of the hardest things is we're used to being able to feed and nourish them and take care of them and handle their needs. And in this tunnel, we're cut off.
And they actually need to do it alone and that it matters that we're there to listen. If they want to share, we can be. But it's like, and it's a real opportunity. Then she says, okay, women go do your thing. Like leave them alone. Let it be. But depending on how your relationship has been, it can be really terrifying to go through that, you know?
Karen Randall: I I love that. And I, I laughed when you first said you know, we don't understand men because three daughters, right. I really did not get it. And then I have, my oldest grand child is a boy. I have. Like eight grandkids, half girls and half boys, but the boys have been the biggest illuminator for me because I see what happens when they're like two years old and I'm like, Oh my God, it doesn't change.
It's always there. This, this creativity is huge you know of their environment and their surroundings and what they can do and make, and without thinking about necessarily what could happen, you know, I'm just like, Oh, Oh, I get it now. But I, I hadn't seen with the young ones, they haven't gotten to the age of going through puberty, which I think is a very similar thing again, to what the male would go through in the tunnel.
Because for boys, I had friends who had boys and they're like, They go in their bedrooms for three years, starting around, you know, high school, mid high school. They don't come out. And when they do grunt all the time.
And, and, you know, so they're very much in that same, you know, by themselves processing all of this that's happening in their world, like in the tunnel. So I think it's so interesting that we can, you know, we can see these, these things in, you know, the reflection of them in both of the genders.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So one of the things that I love that you underscore is the real opportunity midlife transition is for women. And I. I see that popping out in society, but I would hardly say that's like our standard come from at all.
Karen Randall: Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you know, as you said with your mother and the same was true with my mother, It wasn't in those earlier generations, right?
At all. You went through this in secret, you know, menopause in secret. You didn't want anyone to know. And it was a time of great sadness because you had nothing to look forward to. You were no longer raising families. What, what else is there for you? Right. And so I think that we are still overcoming that perception.
And that is one of the reasons that I, and there are other women that I have connected with, who are working in this world of mid-life also who have the same message, that this is an invitation. It is an invitation and you always get to RSVP to an invitation. You can say yes, or you can say, Nope, not ready.
And you know, and, and that could be your journey in this life. As you said, your mother has decided, you know, at this point, she's not going to deal with this particular thing. All have that choice, but it can be a time of great creativity and joy and an opportunity to bring great healing to the world.
And I look at it what I'm doing now, because I have three daughters, you know, I, I feel like I have a responsibility to open the door for them to allow them to see that there's a different story that they can tell at this time in their life. And I think that all of us have that opportunity to share with others too, that you know, this is an opportunity and indigenous societies, you know, they always had ceremony and ritual to mark these times where you would move from being the mother to being the crone.
And, and in those ceremonies, they told you what you were saying goodbye to and what you were stepping into. Right. So they were given the archetype of what was there for them now. And we've, we've lost that through, you know, through losing ceremonies and rituals. And so, you know, my hope is that we get back to that of, you know, women together.
Celebrating ceremony and ritual, where we, you know, grieve and whale for what is going, you know, for what we're saying goodbye to, and we embrace and celebrate that we have this new power and this new ability to create and lead.
Sarah Marshall, ND: And alot of women talk about increased intuition and increased sense of their inner knowing, you know, and that that's mapped into a lot of the understanding of more primitive cultures or more ritualistic cultures.
I hate the word primitive. That's completely wrong, not our modern, more primitive in my view, way of dealing with it, actually, you know, and, and you know, and, and that space too, is that's something that I've heard it reflected as like, where are the other women to talk about this with? Right. And so the importance of people like you creating opportunities for women to gather, but for us to even just reach out and, and it's all, it always takes courage, right?
To be, you know, you might have these amazing women in your life, but you don't have these conversations. You don't sit around and do this. And with my clients, I've encouraged several of them to be willing, to be the one, to make that invitation, to come sit around the dining room table with an intention to not just gab and gossip or catch up or whatever it is that's the normal conversation to have intentions of a different type of conversation. Have you been brainstormed with some people about like having a few talking points, having a few inquiry questions and involve right. Every time. What I get back is, Oh my God, that was the juiciest thing I've ever done.
I had no idea that he's a person that's been in my life, my whole life. And we had this most incredible conversation we've never had before, you know? And it's like being able to do these, you know, kitchen table wisdom conferences. Getting back to the red tent or creating...
Karen Randall: that what I was just thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. What you called it? The kitchen table wisdom. I mean, that's our red tent now, right?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, totally. My mom was a big participator in some women's groups, which as a kid and a teenager, I was like blahhh, you know? So the funniest thing happened to me when I had had recently gotten married so big transition for me there in my life. And I needed a vacation from med school. I was in my third year and I just needed to rest and take a break. And I found a women's circle online that met down in East Mexico, and I just signed up and went down there. And that was my first experience. And I had to get over my internal childhood, like, Oh my God, women topless howling at the moon.
You know, it was like, which I don't even know if my mom ever did that, but that's what it seems like to me, but it was, it was just, it was grounding. And we had all ages. I was on the younger side, but. You know, and so I, I participated my first women's circle at 28 and I've since done three of their retreats and we'll have portals to the self is the work of these amazing licensed social workers therapists out of Cleveland, Ohio that I got to spend now are like lifelong friends of mine.
And then I actually came home from my first women's circle and boldly my last year in medical school, I led a woman's circle. And it was crazy, cause I'm like 29 and I'm like, what do I know about like an all these women, we had like 25 women came all the time and I let inspiration come through me. And I pulled out some ideas and I would read poetry and we do meditations and we'd have a chance to share.
And we used a talking stick and like, you know, and it's funny cause there's this craving in me again now to like, want that again specifically and to be able to gather and just sit in the living room and drink some tea or wine or whatever you're into, you know, and, but with this intentionality of holding space for each other and listening to where they're at and being able to honor these different phases that we're in and, and I see women's circle, cause I think it's important for women to gather with women. I think it's important for men to gather with men, you know, but all of that.
Karen Randall: But I, I think that you, you hit on something early, that's really important. And that was, you know, your perception of your mom, you know, and, and the thing is, is that that happens when we are kind of at our most vulnerable, right?
When we're in menopause, it is a vulnerable time because every it's like, what is this? You know, nothing that your clothes don't fit. Your skin's not the same. All, you know, everything is changing. You feel very vulnerable. And then you've got these teenage daughters going, Oh mom, you know, and. And it's, it's something it's a, a weakness again, in our culture that we do not have that feeling, that we have the strength and power that we do often, like to say, you have no idea what you're talking about.
You know, when you get old enough and mature enough, you're going to understand the wisdom of what I'm doing. And in the meantime, I don't care what you have to say. But it is, I think it is just this step sometimes to get past that because we just, it is such a disorienting feeling often when we get into that, that liminal space of the in-between.
Right. Like who are we? And then we have somebody say, well, I definitely not that.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Oh yeah. I was not easy on my mom. We went through, I mean, we, you know, we've always been close, but we had, and I know it's common for daughters to have that place where they really reject their mother and the separation, and then to go create who they are.
And I did that probably not that gracefully could have been better. And some of my, my. You know yeah. The adventurer at 20 years old packed up her, you know, 10 belongings in the back of my car and drove across country and went to Moab and started working for the rafting companies. But there was another part of me in that that was like, that was the rejection of family.
And I'm going to go do this on my own. And you know, and we went through some years there in my early twenties. My mom had me when she was 35. So it would have corresponded right up. 55 years old, you know, in the midst of all of this for herself. And I just, I mean, she couldn't do anything, right. Nothing. And I was like, mom, look at everything.
Karen Randall: I am here very familiar with that because I had three of them. And I also, you know, I don't know the answer to this. I, I think that there is you know, an energetic thing that happens where a younger woman is realizing that the older woman is hap is going through that. And so there is like this, you know, This hitting of the different energies, like where too far away here, I went to the biggest part of my femaleness and you're leaving it and we got nothing in common, Right?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Totally, and fortunately, my Saturn return at 27, something clicked. I started waking up in me. I did my first women's circle at 28. I stepped way into the world of personal growth at 29. And one of my first things was calling my mom and just being like, I am so sorry for the last 10 years. And we are an amazing relationship.
I mean, I moving to before miles down the street from my parents, like that's what this whole move is about. So I have an incredible relationship with both my parents now. And. We worked through it all. And she said, yeah, you were not the easiest to live with for a while there.
Karen Randall: And thank you. I mean, how, what a gift to her that is beautiful.
Sarah Marshall, ND: awesome. So what have we not said that you want to make sure it gets in this what's your, like, if you could stand on the mountain top and proclaim this to the world, this is what you want people to hear or know.
Karen Randall: I think what I really would want them to, to do is to really embrace this as a, as like the penultimate point in their life. Right. I call it a power point, but that's, that's like, not even powerful enough. It's not big enough. It is, you know, it is the mountain high where you were up there and you can see it all. And so see it all, see it all and then decide which of it you want.
Sarah Marshall, ND: That's awesome. It's so interesting too when I like, you know, with all my personal growth work, I'm like 40 doesn't mean anything. It's not significant, but yeah, no, I mean, I definitely have watched myself, but now I'm shifting it into ….like honoring this is a transition. This is a certain threshold for me.
And I don't know if it was cause I was born in 1980, but decades do hit me pretty strong. Other people it's seven year cycles or whatever. There's something for me around the decade. And I can see, like I moved from Utah, from New York to Utah, the first time 19-20, I turned 20 that summer. And then when I was 30, I was on the precipice of a divorce and starting and embarking on my career as a doctor because I graduated at age 29.
And my first year in practice was kind of the end of my marriage. And then 31, I got a divorce and moved to Scottsdale Arizona and created a whole new life, you know, so I've really had this like, and then here I am my 40th year making a massive move and I'm like, well, that's funny, but I watch what I'm getting from this conversation personally and what I watch myself as like, I was just laughing. Cause I'm like, we call it mid-life the midlife transition. And I can see the culturally inherited script that it's the end, but there is nothing after that, it really doesn't occur like that's the halfway point. It occurs like, well, and then you just gotta do the best with what you got and hanging out. It's like, that is so strong that it's like, it's not what I believe, but I can still even see it in my own thinking.
Karen Randall: Yes that you re and it, because it's subconscious, it has more power, right. Because you don't even know, so you can't work with it. But you know, I, I just want to share with you that I'm about to turn 65 and I'm also about to start on my PhD.
So I think that The more that you can make it conscious. The more that you can be aware and embrace it this is what's happening. The more power there is in it, you know, instead of hearing that message that is in the media, everywhere that, you know, once you could, once you stop being interesting on Instagram, you don't matter
Sarah Marshall, ND: And our love affair with youth and our love affair with that, that, I mean, yeah.
And my sister, she's five years older than me and I love being the younger sister. She trenches ahead. She plows the road for me. She tells me what's coming. She warns me, you know, don't wait any longer for this one. And, and one of her warnings was skincare seriously. No kidding, Right. Yeah. And it, and she's, it's so amazing. And this is part of, what's kind of woken me up cause I'm at like, Oh, 40 whatever. Okay, cool. But my sister's 45. She's about to turn 46 and a couple of days. And she's really like. She can feel the transition happening. I'm like, Whoa, Oh my God, that's only five years away from me.
Like, Holy crap, it’s the beginning of something and it, and the age depends on you, depends on your life, depends on all kinds of things. It can be wide range, but I'm really grateful to have that, you know, up there in my future pointed back at me and it started to wake me up to this conversation personally, a lot.
And I got to say, whatever you're doing is working. I know our viewers, you know, our listeners can't see you, but like, I, would've never guessed you're 65. There's a youthfulness that's from your being, you know, but like maybe youth is probably the wrong word. It's just vitality. It's it's you. I can see the lust and love for life. So I think that underscores that you're walking the walk.
Karen Randall: Thank you. Thank you. And. And I hope I am, because I do want this, this, if I'm an advertisement for it so much the better, right. You know, it's like, you are not invisible. You have so much to offer. So grab it with both hands and run with it. This is, you know, it's the great time of life, even with, you know, continuing transitions, but, you know, there's one other thought that I just want to offer around transitions.
And, and that said, I think, you know, we have multiple ones throughout our life, as you, you know, have said you've already traveled and they're all an invitation, but I, I believe that they're all an invitation to practice for the ultimate transition, right? Yeah. You know, so that we can do all of them better and better and do that the last one in this life well and with grace and can lean to whatever is happening,
Sarah Marshall, ND: being fulfilled, being complete, you know, having actually actualized what our soul or spirit came here to do and to be a new experience, you know, in this lifetime. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, I love it. Oh my gosh. Karen, you're such a gift. This has just been a beautiful conversation and needed very, very, very needed.
And I just like, I feel the healing juice of just getting to be here for this last hour. So thank you so much for bringing that.
Karen Randall: Oh, thank you. Thank you. And thank you. I mean, starting a women's circle at 29…
Sarah Marshall, ND: I'm a weirdo, but it was awesome.
Karen Randall:Yeah, that's so great. I just love that. All of it. And you know that you were there, that is amazing, and that it is brought you to where you are today in this conversation. That it's just been lovely.
Sarah Marshall, ND: More more to come in that department too. Yeah. Awesome. Well, we'll have all of your contact information. People can get ahold of, you can get, get, and you have a download or a video. Is that right? That talks about some of this?
Karen Randall: Yeah. So on my website, which is KarenRandallcoaching.com there is in the upper right-hand corner, a little button that says ideas to support you in transition. And it's a video that talks about these stages that I just mentioned with ideas in each stage about what you can do that's going to support you in moving through that.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Awesome. Awesome. That's so valuable. So that's great. We'll make sure everyone's got access in the show notes on the website and I can't wait for the next iteration, so exciting. Cool. Thank you.
Karen Randall: Thank you.
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Sarah Marshall, ND: Inspired by YOU, our community of over 4,000 incredible listeners, we will be launching some courses and workshops in 2021. Be the first to know about them and other great tidbits of wisdom by joining our mailing list at SarahMarshallND.com. Thank to today’s guest, Karen Randall for her insight and compassion. For a full transcript and all the resources for today’s show, visit SarahMarshallND.com/podcast. Special thanks to our music composer, Roddy Nikpour, and our kick ass editor, Kendra Vicken. And as always, thank YOU for being here. We’ll see you next time.