Late Bloomer Living Podcast

What If You Stopped Trying to Look Younger? with Skylar Liberty Rose

Beauty culture is loud. And most of us have been listening to it for so long we've forgotten it was never actually our voice.

Writer, meditation teacher, and midlife coach Skylar Liberty Rose joins me for a conversation that kept surprising me. We're talking about beauty standards, the invisible pressure women carry around their appearance, and what it feels like to finally start shedding expectations you never consciously agreed to.

Skylar believes midlife is both a reckoning and an invitation. And in this conversation she makes a compelling case that the rules we've been handed about how we should look and how we should age were never really ours to begin with.

We get into her essay in Midlife Private Parts, her "is this mine?" practice for interrupting negative self-talk, why she started doing over-the-top mirror monologues (and why they actually work), how guided meditation carried her through a brain tumor diagnosis and craniotomy in 2022, and what aging has given her that her younger self simply couldn't have received.

This one is for any woman who's ready to stop shrinking and start becoming.

🔗 Find links to Skylar's work, her guided meditations on Insight Timer, and her ceremonies for midlife women in the show notes at [latebloomerliving.com/episode271]

 

 

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

 

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 

 

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

Are You Letting One Awkward Moment Define Your Whole Life?

Have you ever had one embarrassing moment — one failed public speaking experience, one bad drawing, one time you couldn't keep up — and quietly decided that was just who you are?

That's what this episode is about.

After a conversation with psychologist Gail Rice about re-storying our lives, something clicked for Yvonne — and it came straight from her work as a photographer. When she shoots headshots in burst mode, she captures dozens of frames of the same person in seconds. One frame? Guarded. The next? Laughing. Same person, completely different story.

And yet most of us are walking around defined by a single frame — one moment, usually from childhood, with very little context and even less life experience.

In this solo episode, Yvonne explores what happens when we confuse one awkward moment for the whole truth about who we are — and what it looks like to start creating new frames instead.

Because you are not the worst photo ever taken of you. You are the entire album. And the next frame hasn't even been taken yet.

🎧 If this one resonates, go back and listen to last week's conversation with Gail Rice — it's the episode that sparked this one.

Late Bloomer Living — because midlife is not the end of becoming.

 

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

 

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 

 

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

Not Fading. Expanding. — Gail Rice on Refusing to Disappear After 70

Scaring Yourself Alive: How to Re-Story Your Life at Any Age with Gail Rice

What does it actually look like to choose expansion over disappearance — not just as an idea, but as a daily act of courage?

This one is for the woman who has ever felt the pull to play it smaller, quieter, safer. The one who wonders if her best chapters are behind her. The one who's tired of waiting for permission.

Spoiler: the permission slip is yours to write.

Gail Rice is a psychologist, writer, and late bloomer who got her psychology degree at 50, built her own practice, and moved to Australia temporarily — then stayed for 40 years. When she turned 70, she felt something she wasn't expecting: an existential dread that she was fading away. Becoming invisible. Losing her voice. So she did something about it. Something unexpected. Something that didn't go the way she planned — and ended up changing everything anyway.

In this conversation, we get into:

— Why Gail is more afraid of not living than dying

— The decision she made at 70 that woke her up (it's not what you think)

— What she calls "re-storying" — and how to actually do it

— Why the worst moments became the loudest wake-up calls

— How regret and anger might be the most useful emotions you're not using

— What it means to step onto the stage of your life without a script

This one is for the woman who has ever felt the pull to play it smaller, quieter, safer. The one who wonders if her best chapters are behind her. The one who's tired of waiting for permission.

Spoiler: the permission slip is yours to write.

🔗 Find Gail Rice on Substack, Instagram, and at gailricepsychologist.com

Until next time — bloom like you mean it. 🌸

She Published Her First Novel at 88 — Patricia Lee Lewis

A sixth-grade teacher told Patricia Lee Lewis her story "could never have happened." She stopped writing creatively until she was in her forties. At 88, she just published her debut historical novel, Thorns of the Mesquite — 15 years in the making.

In this conversation we talk about the writing workshop that cracked her open in her mid-forties, why treating your pain as fiction can set you free, what curiosity looks like at 88, and why she believes community is our most powerful tool right now.

Patricia Lee Lewis is an award-winning poet, writing retreat leader, and co-founder of the Straw Dog Writers Guild. All profits from her novel go to organizations supporting domestic violence victims and civil rights.

Because it's never too late to bloom like you mean it.

Letting Go of the Plan (and Finding Something Better) with Beth Schillaci

When you finally decide to make a change… and life has other plans.

In this episode, I’m joined by Beth Schillaci, creator of Roaming Yeti and host of Pop Culture Passport, for an honest conversation about what it looks like to reinvent yourself in midlife—when things don’t go the way you imagined.

Beth left behind 25+ years of client work to pursue a more creative, freedom-filled life. But just as she was stepping into that next chapter, a family health crisis changed everything.

What followed wasn’t the plan—but it led her somewhere more aligned, more joyful, and more her.

We talk about:

• Letting go of the version of life you thought you’d be living
  
  
• Navigating unexpected detours and emotional pivots
  
  
• Finding creativity and meaning in the “side quests”
  
  
• Redefining success in a season that looks different than expected
  
  

If you’ve ever felt like your timeline got disrupted—or like you’re trying to force something that no longer fits—this conversation is a gentle reminder that a better path might already be unfolding.

 

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

 

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 

 

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

 

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

 

What If the Pause Is the Productive Part? With Theresa Crisci

What if the clarity you've been grinding for has been waiting for you in the quiet all along?

Theresa Crisci has years of experience helping people reconnect with their bodies — first as a massage therapist, then as an interfaith minister — and she's learned that our most important insights rarely arrive when we're pushing harder. They arrive when we finally stop.

In this conversation, Theresa shares the moment under the stars at Acadia National Park that changed the entire direction of her life, how her body kept sending signals she didn't know how to read, and why slowing down is often the most courageous — and productive — thing we can do.

We also talk about:

• Why the body is always communicating — and what happens when we ignore it
• How to tell the difference between intuition and fear
• What to do when you can't get quiet enough to hear anything at all
• Why burnout might actually be an invitation, not a failure
• Simple practices for raising your vibration when you're stuck in a low moment

If you've been feeling that quiet nudge you keep talking yourself out of, this one is for you.

🌐 totalbalancelifechoice.com 📷 Instagram: @theresakcrisci 💼 LinkedIn: Theresa K. Crisci

 

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

 

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

Why Not Me? Dana Hilmer on Self-Acceptance and Living Fully in Midlife

So many of us arrive at midlife carrying parts of ourselves we've never quite made peace with. The shameful parts. The doubting parts. The ones we've spent years trying to fix, hide, or outrun. What if those parts aren't the problem — and accepting them is actually the key to feeling more free?

That's the heart of my conversation this week with Dana Hilmer, coach, positive psychology practitioner, and founder of Wiser & Free. Dana brings a rare kind of honesty to this topic — not from a place of having it all figured out, but from genuinely doing the work herself.

We talk about the two women who shaped her relationship with aging — her grandmother, who was "a basket of sunshine" right up to the end, and her mother, whose unlived life became Dana's most powerful lesson. We get into beliefs and how to change them, what your body has been trying to tell you, the difference between surrendering and giving up, and why gratitude sometimes needs a gentler on-ramp.

Dana also shares something that stopped me in my tracks — the way she talks to her own chronic pain. It's one of the most radical acts of self-compassion I've heard on this show.

And she closes with three words that I think a lot of us need to hear right now.

Why not me?

🎁 Free workbook from Dana — no email required: wiserandfree.com/knowingyou

 

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

 

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 

 

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

 

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

Creating When the World Feels Like It’s Falling Apart with Melissa Dinwiddie

Have you ever sat down to do your work and wondered… how does any of this matter right now?

That question shaped this conversation.

Before creativity consultant and author Melissa Dinwiddie and I even hit record, we found ourselves talking about something that didn’t fit neatly into a typical interview. With so much happening in the world, it can feel strangely difficult to focus on the work we care about — especially work related to creativity, play, and innovation.

Melissa is the author of the new book Innovation at Work, which explores how experimentation, curiosity, and small creative risks can help teams generate ideas and solve problems. But in this conversation, we go deeper than business or leadership.

We talk about what it means to keep creating when the world feels heavy.

In this episode we explore:

• why fear and uncertainty often shut down creativity
  • how perfectionism keeps people from starting anything at all
  • the surprising power of small creative experiments
  • why joy and creativity can actually be forms of resistance
  • and how community and connection help us stay engaged instead of shutting down

Melissa also shares a personal story about rediscovering her own creativity after years of feeling blocked — and how a simple 15-minute daily practice changed everything.

If you’ve been feeling the tension between wanting to contribute something meaningful and feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world, you’re not alone.

This conversation is a reminder that play and creativity aren’t escapism — they’re fuel.

 

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

 

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 

 

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 💥

 

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

How Story and Humor Bring Hope in Heavy Times — with Sky Bergman

The world feels heavy right now.

 

In this conversation with award-winning filmmaker Sky Bergman, we explore how storytelling — especially across generations — can remind us that we’re not alone.

 

Sky shares what she learned while filming The Jollytologist®, her new documentary about humorist Allen Klein, and reflects on why humor, curiosity, and connection matter even more in difficult seasons.

 

We talk about grief and laughter, empathy in divided times, and the simple but radical power of listening to each other’s stories.

 

If you’ve been feeling the weight of the world… this one is for you.

*And be sure to listen to last week's episode with the Jollytologist® himself, Allen Klein.  I guarantee you'll feel better. 

 

🌻 If you’re feeling inspired, I’d love for you to share your thoughts about this episode on social media and tag me @latebloomerliving.

 

🌻Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! 

 

🌻 Need a little more FUN in your life? Come to The PLAYshop!  Sign up for the waitlist and get in on the fun! 🛼 

 

You can also join the Age Agitators Club for more fun and inspiration as we navigate midlife together. Find out more at https://www.latebloomerliving.com/

Joy, Grief, and the Power of Humor with Allen Klein

Grief and joy are not opposites.

In this episode, I’m joined by Allen Klein — known as “The Jollytologist” — for a deeply human conversation about loss, resilience, and the surprising role humor can play in hard seasons of life.

After his wife’s three-year battle with a rare liver disease, Allen found himself navigating profound grief while raising their 10-year-old daughter. In the midst of hospital rooms and uncertainty, something unexpected kept showing up: laughter.

We talk about:

• The hospital moment that reshaped his understanding of grief
  
  
• Why humor can be healing — even in hospice
  
  
• Getting kicked out of Yale Drama School (and why it turned out to be a gift)
  
  
• The power of play, perspective, and choosing how we respond
  
  

Allen’s life and work are now the subject of a new documentary, The Jollytologist, directed by Sky Bergman. In our next episode, I’ll be speaking with Sky about the making of the film and why this story feels especially relevant right now.

There will also be an upcoming online screening before the film heads to festivals — I’ll be sharing details as soon as registration opens.

This isn’t a conversation about pretending everything is fine.

It’s about holding sorrow and joy at the same time — and discovering that sometimes laughter isn’t denial… it’s relief.

If you’re navigating loss, transition, or simply wondering how to stay open and playful in a complicated world, I hope this episode brings you comfort.