Welcome and Introductions

Jody Brooks 0:00

She built the company everyone leaned on. A hundred emails a day, answering messages at three in the morning, and the whole time people kept telling her how resilient she was. Then her body started switching off. First her little finger went numb, then her arm, then half her face. She didn't need more resilience. She needed the courage to walk away. And the first day she finally stayed home, every single symptom disappeared. My guest today is Catherine Cristani, and her story asks a question I want you to sit with. What if the thing everyone praises you for is the very thing that's slowly taking you under? This one goes deep, so stay with. Welcome, messy midlifers. Answering the call to connect today is Katherine Cristani, author, Brains magazine contributor, former speech therapist and inner authority guide who helps women reconnect with themselves after burnout, heartbreak, and identity loss. After navigating her own midlife plot twists, including divorce, business collapse, and major reinvention, she now speaks about self-trust, authentic living, and creating a next chapter that truly fits. She's also the author of My Virtual Obsession, a novel exploring identity, illusion, and truth in modern relationships. Catherine, welcome to Messy Midlife and thank you for answering the call to connect today.

Catherine Crestani 1:26

Thank you for having me, Jody. I am really excited to see where our conversation goes, because why not? Let's see where it happens. I think that's a great thing.

Jody Brooks 1:35

That

Time Travel Connection

Jody Brooks 1:36

completely. And obviously, I always like to have her, so we've had a bit of a pre-interview chat just to make sure we know where we're going. And I'm genuinely really excited for today. You don't mind saying, but uh Catherine's in Australia, which is kind of weird, which means I'm time travelling right now. And I was thinking this before we came on air today is that time travel's real. I've moved into tomorrow already today. It's mad this world of how we connect. So um that was my crazy thought as I walked into the studio. So, as always on the messy midlife,

Three Messy Middles

Jody Brooks 2:10

Catherine, let's start in your messy middle. When did you first experience that messy middle moment and how did it feel?

Catherine Crestani 2:19

Oh, I think I had three messy middle moments, if I'm honest, because I had to have different parts of my life break down, if I'm gonna be really honest. So the first, the first of my catalyst, yeah.

Jody Brooks 2:31

I was gonna say, do you know what you're not on your own? The more and more I do this podcast, the more and more I ask that question, and people go, Okay, there were several. Okay, because it it kind of starts with one and then and it really is eerie that like those areas of your life. So that's great. Unpack the various different messy middle moments in the different areas.

Losing Yourself in Marriage

Catherine Crestani 2:52

I feel the first the start of really coming back to myself was learning how to choose myself in my marriage, my first marriage. And I say my first marriage, I haven't married again, but it was a friend who driving me home one evening after we did like a catch-up dinner thing, and he was showing me music, and I used to make mixtapes and CDs and download off Napster. I'm showing starting to show my age now, but I used to create music for all my friends, and then somewhere along the line, I thought I had this idea that if I just liked what my husband liked, then it would keep us closer. We would have things, similarities, and things like that. So I actually gave up all my music that I love doing and listening to, and my friend was playing me this music in the car, and I'm like, I never heard that, I've never heard that. He's like, Who are you? And I'm like, Who am I? It was just that catalyst, and it just started that planting that seed and allowing it to keep moving through and moving through. And once I finally stepped out of my marriage, I was so deliriously happy to the point that people kept asking me if I'd lost weight, and I just joked and said 80 kilos because that's what my ex used to weigh. And they're like, What? I said now I'm getting divorced, and they're like, I'm so sorry. I said, I'm not, I'm truly not, and it wasn't anything that my my ex did, but this is what it was truly a relationship where we didn't grow together, we grew apart, and we got married quite young. I don't recommend that, but so be it. You're lucky to find someone young, well done, and grow together. But then once that was okay, my personal life, eventually I met my husband, like accidentally,

Business Partnership Breakdown

Catherine Crestani 4:38

um, and then the light shone on my business. So I was in this seven-figure business partnership, and we built this business. I bought in, and but we built it and expanded it to a whole new level, and it was full on. Like I was having every morning I'd wake up to a hundred emails, and I had they weren't spam. I promise you, they weren't spam. I had to address them. And this was where it got to a point, and I was pregnant with my son, and I'm like, I can't keep doing all of this. This is meant to be a partnership. This isn't a partnership. I feel it's very one-sided, like all the crises get put to me. I always look like the bad guy, keep doing this. And then we had this big fight over a staff member, and the staff member ended up resigning because I gave her a warning, and my business part ex-business partner lost it. And I went, you know what? I don't want to put up with this, I don't want to deal with this crazy with a child as well. So then I call that my nasty divorce because it was quite nasty. So then

Burnout and Insomnia Spiral

Catherine Crestani 5:41

in the meat background, I'd been building up my own company. I had my own business, if I built it up to a six-figure company, but I made it around me, Jody, and everyone had to come to me for everything. So if I went on holiday, I didn't get to turn off my phone because I was the one that came to in a crisis. And I can't count how many times I would go away and the pal would get cut off. That was one of them. Another time I went away to go camping, and all of a sudden all the stationery needed to be ordered because there was no paper for the printer. Just these little things that I think really like how did I create this culture? But you can only burn so long on that. And I say I worked 24-7 because I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I'd have so much insomnia. I'm gonna go back to sleep because of the to-do lists in my head. And then I learned about this function called delay send. Now, if you're trying to hide insomnia, this thing's a blessing and a curse because I just started replying to all the emails and doing all the things on my to-do list and hiding it because I didn't want people to know I was up at two in the morning, three in the morning, four in the morning. But then it got to a point that I was going to my naturopath every week to walk out with a bag of supplements to keep me from essentially dying, because you can't run on that high cortisol for that long without your system starting to shut down. And through

Dark Night and Collapse

Catherine Crestani 7:06

that, I went through a spiritual journey, and part of that was I had to lose some identities, right? They talk about in the spiritual community this thing called the Dark Knight and the Soul, it's just a fancy way of saying you need to shed some old things that are keeping you shackled to the past. Mine was my company fell apart, and I cannot make this up. So, in a in the space of three months, in the first month, I had three staff design resign in a week. And so by this point, I'd already gone. I need to fix my health, I need one to focus on my family more, I want to step back, I want to explore these spiritual gifts I've got, what's going on there. So to have three resign in a week, I had an absolute breakdown. That was probably my epitome of breakdown level. I was on the floor in a ball, rocking back and forth because I was like, I'm trying to step away from doing so much, and I don't know how I'm gonna find more stuff. I don't know how I'm gonna cover all these clients because I care. I didn't want them left without therapy, all these things just running through my head, and eventually I got up. Obviously, I did, I'm here anyway, and then a month later, in the space of a week, another three staff resigned, and I still hadn't I still hadn't replaced the first three, and I'm there going, but then I got angry. I was so angry, I was yelling at the universe, I was incredibly angry with what was happening, and I was like, What do you want from me? This isn't fair. I'm trying to step away, I still haven't found staff to replace the other stuff. This is crazy, and all their reasons were completely unique and different. It was amazing, right? Like just weird things all coming together at once. I accidentally took my anger out on one of the staff who was leaving, but I did go and own that because I am that person. I like to be accountable and saw where that was. But then a month later, in the space of a week, another three staff resigned. So by this point, this is what I mean. I can't make it up. Three by three. But by this point, I went, you know what? I don't want to run this company anymore. These people aren't meant to be in my life anymore, and I am done. Either I find a buyer or I'm shutting the doors when our lease runs out. That's the point I was done because I was just burnt out and done, absolutely done.

Host Shares Similar Story

Jody Brooks 9:34

I can wholeheartedly empathize with that story. I'm sat here smiling. I had a very successful business and I had always built, I was listening to you because I always built the business not to be in it. Okay. My very first boss I had said, a true business. If you've if you have a business and you have to be there, you haven't got a business, you've got a job. So if you so I always remembered that. So I opened my business. I was a hairdresser for 32 years, and I opened my salon with always the intent purpose of not being there. I worked internationally, so I was in the salon one to two days a week, suited me perfectly. I was like a guest visitor when I walked in. I did it all remotely. COVID hit, first lockdown came out the other side, amazing. Second and third, second one, okay, third one. Just when I came back, I had lost all five of my staff. So we reopened the doors, and then all of a sudden, it was just me. And when I was listening to you, that whole thing, and again, like nothing that I could have planned, and I carried on for about 18 months with people going to me, You're so resilient. And I always remember saying to them, it's not a skill, it's a choice, and it's a choice right now I'm having to make. But my moment just in that was I did the same as you. I sat in a therapy session. I always say to people, Look, I didn't get through that without a therapist, because it was pretty catastrophic. And my business was up there, we were winning awards, written about internationally. Like it was that was it. And there's that bit where you go, Oh my god, I've made it. And I was sat in a therapy session, and my therapist, I think, was just bored of me because just went, Okay, it's time you made a decision. What are you gonna do? And I don't know where it came from, Catherine, but it was when you said it, it reminded me, and I just went, I'm just gonna shut the business. And the therapist went, and do what? And I went, I don't know, but you asked for a decision, and right now that's what I feel. And I did eight weeks later, I shut the door, walked away, and didn't know what I was gonna do. But it is it would have been easier, like I say, in some respects, it would have taken more resilience to stay, but it took greater courage to go, and I think we quite often get trapped by that. We get trapped by thinking that because resilience, you even hear it in businesses now, resilience is spoken about how do we build more resilient teams, how do we and I question really should we build environments where people have to be resilient to show up? So that's it. But I just like wanted to share with you how much I understood that moment. Like cool. So I'm I'm guessing you did then you just went, that's it, I'll shut the

Selling the Business Aftermath

Jody Brooks 12:53

door.

Catherine Crestani 12:54

The universe sent me a buyer, Jody. So and I was incredibly grateful for that, but then I get paid out for my business, and subconsciously I didn't believe I was worth it because I had been programmed that I had to work hard for my money, so it pushed it all away, and all of a sudden I'm leaving paycheck to paycheck because I had to stay working in the business as part of the contract to just in short handover, smooth handover. But at the same time, I had to watch my business, my legacy, if you will, fall apart to nothing because the staff problems were still there, all those issues were still there, and slowly all the clients that I'd built up from scratch, over 300 kids and that sort of thing, they all went like nearly all of them. And it got to a point too where I came home one day to my husband, and we built this beautiful home. We're still here at the moment, but we built this beautiful house in the Australian bushland. It it was gonna be our forever home. And I came home one day and I looked at my husband, he's like, What's wrong? I said, I want to sell the house and leave. I want to travel, I want to live near the beach. We live like 90 minutes from the beach. I'm like, I don't want this anymore. And God bless him, he went and pulled out the computer and started looking up the costs of RVs and motorhomes so he could figure out if we could do it. And I was just like, ah, okay, I thought this would go a completely different way. But because we built our house custom to suit our like staying here long time, it doesn't appeal to everybody.

Body Warning Signs

Catherine Crestani 14:35

But then what happened was I was staying in my job to keep paying the mortgage, and I went to resign one day with my to my boss, but more heads up saying, Hey, when our house sells, I'll resign. But my intuition, like my inner authority, went, let's put the date as the end of April. So this was over a year ago, and I went, Oh, I can't do that, I can't do that. And then when you do that and you don't listen to yourself, sure enough, I put conditions on it. When the house sells, then I'll quit my job. So I was taking a scapegoat route, and the universe doesn't let you do that. So what ended up happening was I was forcing myself to stay, even though I wasn't happy. It wasn't that I didn't love working with children, I didn't love what I was doing working with children because I was restricted by a code of ethics, I was restricted by an expected practice, I couldn't do what I really wanted to do. And anyway, so I started to go numb. I literally started to go numb. So I lost feeling in my left pinky, it went up through my arm, it got to the point I couldn't feel half my face, and I was scared. I was truly scared. Every day I woke up and I just kept hearing my intuition saying you're heading for an autoimmune, you're heading for an autoimmune, and I knew my nervous system was still fried from all the nervous, all the cortisol, everything else. And I tried to say to my husband, I need to quit my job. He's like, Where are we gonna get money from? I said, I don't know, but I need to quit. I said, I can't keep working, like I'm really concerned. And he was hearing it, but not really hearing it. And this one day I was working with my coach at the time, and he's like, Okay, if your heart has something to tell you right now, what is it? And it was Jody, this non-negotiable quit came up. It was like, you need to quit, and I knew that was it. That was my last warning. If I didn't quit, I was tipping the scales. I don't even know how much more feeling I would have lost, and so I did the month of May last year in our household because it was like, Where's the money gonna come from? What are we gonna do? The house hasn't sold yet, XYZ. And I was like, I don't care, I can't keep working. And the first day I got to be at home because I was the breadwinner, I didn't get to watch my son in the early years. My husband was the stay-at-home dad, and we were changing roles for the first time in eight years. So, granted, it was a shock to his system as well. But I was like, I can't do it, I need to stay home now, you need to go. I'm gonna do my other things, but you need to go. And the first day I was home, all the numbness disappeared. Every single symptom went, so I'm just like, okay, thank you. And it was just this parallel of just reflecting how much our body does hold things, and how much if we keep ignoring what the deep calling going on, it will come out in your body, or it'll come out in a dis-ease, or it will come out some way. And I guess this is where a lot of the time we go through these messy midlifes because our health starts to catch up with us, or our body stops trying to hide what we've been lying to ourselves about the whole time.

Jody Brooks 17:50

I I think that's such a valid point, and I was listening to you there that and again, working with people in midlife, hosting the show and having these discussions, I really do hear so frequently of this physical manifestation in the end, is that when people constantly keep pushing and refuse to answer that call, and I think it's so important for listeners to hear that because what you just touch on there as well is in midlife we do start to become aware that our bodies are getting older, and but I feel like some of these things we put down to age when actually it's not age, it is this physical thing, and when you let go of it all, you almost take like 15-20 years off. I know the moment I did that, and then I went on then to lose like 70 pounds in weight and get rid of type 2 diabetes and all of these things that that actually were a physical representation of me, like you say there, that cortisol for me had fuelled the diabetes, it had fuelled the sugar, it had fuelled all of those things, and it's amazing, like you say there, the moment you make this kind of emotional decision, the physical starts to disappear.

Spirituality Explained

Jody Brooks 19:16

And you say there as well, which I wanted to pick up on your like you said this like your spirit, like a spiritual awakening or a spiritual connection, and I know sometimes people may struggle with that. I think we still live in a world where the moment you say that people assign that to religion or to the mystic. How would you unpack that for listeners that maybe say, I'm not spiritual, you know, that awakening?

Catherine Crestani 19:47

I

Intuition and HeartMath

Catherine Crestani 19:48

guess for me it was I'm very intuitive, so I've always been intuitive my whole life. So it's like, how do you explain when you know something before before it actually happens? Or how do you know that feeling? Like a perfect example was one day I got in the car after school and my and I was in high school and my sister got in, and she's like, Oh, you'll never guess what happened to my friend today. And out of my mouth I just said, Oh, she fell off her horse and broke her arm, and she goes, Oh, did you see her? And my mum and my sister were just staring at me, and I'm like, No, she goes, That's exactly what happened. And I was like, Huh. So I could sit there and play my logic and go, Oh, I know she rides horses, did it, but how did I know exactly what happened? To the point that she broke her arm and and so that kind of set like this little thing, and even running my business, I always trusted my gut, and it was probably the same for you, Jody, right? You made these gut instincts, so you made these gut choices, and people keep telling you, Oh, you can't think you can't make decisions from your gut. I'm like, why not? It hasn't gotten me anywhere. And then when I started more like tapping into this spiritual kind of side of things, and I'll explain that a little bit more in a minute, but then I stumbled across something called the Heart Math Institute, and they do all this amazing research, and what they showed was so fascinating was that our heart and our gut have way more decision-making receptors than our brain, way more. In fact, our heart has the most. So we've been conditioned to think with our head, check in with our gut, and then listen to our heart. It's actually backwards. We should check in with our heart, listen to our gut, check it safe, and then listen with our head. But what happened was when I started this spiritual journey, is I always believed there was something bigger, right? So I don't believe in religion, I feel, and that's not to say I'm against religion. I just feel religion is very constrained, and I resonate with things across multiple religions. I when I work with spirit teams or things like that, there's no I don't care who comes forward, it's whoever's for the highest and greatest good. That's The intention that I set, right? As I was unpacking this, I had these gifts start to come online. Like I could suddenly hear things, and I'm not talking crazy hear things, right? So I could hear like messages from my my grandparents who had passed away, and I had to pass them on to my family, and my cousin who had passed away, I had to pass it on to my auntie, and then all of a sudden I could see things that weren't there. It looks like a projector for me. And then people would ask me questions and I would just know the answer, even though I'd never knew it before. So I had a friend talking to me, and she her husband was going through gene therapy at the time, and she was trying to explain it to me. And I just got this download, and it was like that. And I said, Oh, it's this and this. And she's like, How do you know that? I said, I don't know, I just got a download. I just knew it. So often we all have these gifts, we all are born with these gifts, we just forget how to use them, and we become so disconnected from ourselves, and that's kind of where that break is.

Jody Brooks 23:03

So yeah, yeah, I think I love that, and I think there are levels, and I always say to clients, the first step, if you want to make spirituality and people say, Yeah, we I'm not really religious, and I say, Yeah, but really what we're talking about is a belief structure, and and so I always say to people, so what I'm asking you to do is to have a belief structure in you, so come back to you and start your belief structure there, and it's about hope, which is about the ability to believe in something bigger and better that you don't have evidence for yet, and it's about faith in the fact that that can be real, and then we go on to the next level where I say we are all just this mass of energy, we are a mass of energy of cells, and we are surrounded by energy, and essentially it's that ability to say to people like you walk in a room and you'll say, Oh, it feels odd in here, I don't like the energy in this room. So that's just spirituality. Take the religion away from it, and it's in that ability to then just go, you know what? I don't feel comfortable. I can't tell you why I don't feel comfortable right now, but I just don't feel comfortable, and understand that there are a billion cells in your body that are currently bouncing, going, Oh, that doesn't feel okay. Then just have faith and hope that your body's cells are going, maybe it's right. Okay, if you're not gonna listen to us, Catherine, we're gonna make your arm go numb, and then you'll have no choice but to listen to 100%. Yeah.

Catherine Crestani 24:48

So 100%, and and even yeah,

Science of Energy and Grounding

Catherine Crestani 24:52

and there's the science to back it up now, too, which is really cool, Drew. It's actually really cool explaining this to people when you're talking about energy, it's called a biofield, just go research it, or you can see now there's something called spectro I think it's chromatography or something like that, where people can take a spectrography, that's it, where people can have photos taken of them and you can see your energy body around you, and we all have different energies, so we have different colours, and then we talk about grounding, which is also called earthing, and that is actually because we are electromagnetic beings when we stand on the earth, we naturally polarize to the top of earth. So this is where there's this crossover now, and I love that you bring up that spirituality is not religion. I believe it's first of all believing that you are connected to be something bigger than yourself, exactly like you said, because it's not about here's what you have to do. And I I really don't resonate with gurus because when they tell you you have to do something a certain way, or you need to meditate every day, or you need to do this every day. No, you don't have to do any of that. You just trust what you feel what feels right for you. Try it on. If you like to meditate every day, please do. If you don't, find something else that helps you find that peace, whatever it might be. This is where that crossover happens, and a lot of people come into it in their midlife because they realize that their soul or their heart is calling for something bigger than themselves in the first place. They want to change something, they just have this feeling of emptiness and they don't know what it is, so they go searching.

Jody Brooks 26:34

I think, and it's so true. There's a kind of in a here in the UK and where I live, a couple of coaching friends, and I kind of have some coaching friends who are executive coaches, leadership coaches, and which, as a coaching method, very valid, but incredibly structured, about a driven thick. They're very meticulous executive leadership coaches, and they always joke and call me, Yeah, but you're just a bit crystals and yoga, Jodie. Okay, in all fairness, I am a bit crystals and yoga, but one of my other ones, one of the other friends said, Yeah, but your crystals and yoga with science, and I went, exactly that. I said, Because I am totally all those things, but we do now have the science to back it up, we have the science to understand why this has worked, and worked for millennia. Some of these things are things that we've done as a species since the dawn of time because they help us remain connected, they help us remain on par. I don't know whether you've heard of an author, Johan Hari, and he writes a book, he's written several very good books, he's an amazing author. My listeners and people on my website will know I'm a huge fan, I'm a bit of a super fan of Johan. But he wrote a book called Eleven Lost Connections, and it was this journey that he went on to discover why we were living in a mental health crisis with anxiety and depression, and he discovered there were these 11 connections in modern life that we've lost, and one of them is nature, one of them is to be outside. And when you were saying that about grounding, in my previous career, I used to present on stage in front of huge audiences, hundreds of people, and I was supposedly an expert and very good at what I did, which I had a lot of imposter syndrome and self-doubt. One of the things that I used to do before I went on stage was I'd just go outside, and everybody knew you won't find me 15 minutes before because I'll be barefoot somewhere pushing my feet as hard as I could into the earth for that sense of bringing me down almost. Because when you are anxious, you're like it's it can be like you're levitating almost, you feel like you're up. People say, Okay, go calm down, and there's a reason we say that because when you're in that zone, you are up and you are fired, and so that kind of pushing it down and letting it go down. So I completely empathise with that whole thing. There was something else in there that I thought was really interesting.

Why Hire a Coach

Jody Brooks 29:25

The business has gone, the two six-figure businesses, one divorce, second marriage, and you're in a job that's struggling, and then you just dropped in there, and I had a coach. So this is interesting. So, at a point where I'm presuming then at this point, you're saying like you're trapped in the job because of finances, you still went, and as a coach, I know that you coach, I coach, and sometimes you get people come to you and say, Oh, yeah, but not right now. So, what made you at that financial kind of headway go, actually, I'm gonna go and get a coach?

Catherine Crestani 30:06

It was time to invest in myself because I always put myself last, and it was just at that point, and it was really interesting. My journey with my coach because it actually taught me a lot of what I don't like, so I don't like super structured. Uh I call it the hustle culture. I don't like that, I don't work well like that. I actually go into burnout more being like that because my being and my energy, I'm that person when I commit to a project, I'll put in 120%, but I forget to stop and rest. And I had to learn that. I prefer the crystal and yoga approach and being in flow. But what I learned through that coaching was actually unpacking, I went through so many identity shifts. I can't even tell you. I I didn't even recognize myself after the year. Yes, part of it was my coach leading me through that, but also part of it was me wanting to get to the bottom of what was creating my reality because a lot of us forget that what's happening on the outside is a reflection of the inside, and there's no such things as coincidences or accidents, right? So everything that's happening inside you on the outside is a reflection, right? And so all these things were happening, and I'm like, why am I going through this word story? So then I just wanted to dig deeper and deeper, and I am the person that jumps in Jody because my spiritual mentor and I used to joke and say, I don't want to incarnate and have to do this again. I'm like, I don't want to do this all again. Stop that. I'm jumping in and I'm doing this, you know, and let's just see what ends

Identity Shifts and Support

Catherine Crestani 31:46

up. And so for me, I wanted that community as well. I wanted someone I could go to and talk to outside my husband because we so often forget that our partners aren't always the best people to have discussions with, especially if they don't understand what you're talking about, or they don't understand it's hard for me to talk about the complexities of running a business because my husband's never had to do that. Or it's hard to talk about, hey, this is what I've noticed with my energy and these kind of spiritual things. And if he doesn't resonate with that, he's never once not supported me, but at the same time, he's not the person I go talk to about certain things, right? Putting yourself in these different communities, and that was part of what I wanted. I wanted to be in a community, and it was great until it wasn't, to the point that I kept shifting and I actually felt actually I already know all this that my coach is teaching me. I already learned all this, I did this through running my businesses, I did this through learning and constantly evolving. I am and I have a deep yearning to learn more things, and it was I outgrew the space. And this is where it was really interesting to see the breakdown in that relationship, too, on the contrast, because I could own who I was in that moment and go, actually, this isn't the right place for me anymore. And then I stumbled into this other coach, if you will, and she worked and spoke more my language, so she worked energetically, she shifted patterns. It was how I was working, and it was actually what I was looking for, and so I'm still in that space every now and then, but I'm now at this point in my life where I'm like, I don't want a coach per se, I want a space where I can go to and connect with people and create tribes or be part of tribes, and but that's part of my evolution journey. I'm not saying that maybe I won't go back to finding a coach or someone to support me because I have a support network, and I find that's really important too to have. We can't do this alone. I have to emphasize that. It's really important. Like you said, you went to your therapist every week. I went to my naturopath, he did the former therapy, like all those sorts of things, but you need someone else to sometimes reflect back to you what you're missing because sometimes you can't see it yourself, and that was a big thing I learned from my coach that was Amira can't see herself, and that was such a big thing and turning point in my life that I went, actually, you're right, I can't see all my blind spots, I can't see everything, but I can at least try and put it together and have a beautiful team that I can go to when I need that support or need that push to go to that next step in my life.

Jody Brooks 34:31

I think, yeah, it's some really great points there. The funny thing is, is that I think I saw my therapist two more sessions and I was like, Yeah, we're done now. And then that's when I went and got a coach. Because I was like, Okay, we've done the past, we've done the trauma. Now I want to get as far away from it as possible. And I love what you bring up there about the mirror because it's really true. Because people say, That's my job as a coach. I don't have your answers for you, you have your answers, but what I have the ability to do is to hold a mirror up and reflect it back at you, and what you'll see is the bits behind you. When I hold the mirror up, you'll see the bits over your shoulder that you can't see unless someone holds that mirror up. So I think that's amazing, and that commitment to yourself, and also, as well, like you say, we do change that identity,

Coaching to Let Go

Jody Brooks 35:29

and so sometimes we shift coaches, and we're like, Okay, you were great, you got me here. And I think that's another beautiful thing about coaching versus therapy and counselling, is as a successful coach, I want my clients to leave me. People think it's weird. I don't want you to come back, I want you to do the bit of the journey with me and then fly, go like that. That's my job, and maybe you'll come back later at some point, or maybe you'll find that other coach that takes you on the next part of your journey. So I think that's really powerful. I was just going over my notes and thinking we've unpacked a huge amount, so I mean you're triple messy middle, if you like. So, first the business, then the marriage, then the career shift again and coming to this point. Is there anything on I think particularly that's some of the key bits that jump out for me is there's an awful lot of bravery and courage in your decisions to not look at the external but to eventually the part answering the call to connect, but not answering it fully, so being delivered it back again, and then finally go going, okay, that that physical representation of that messy middle. And I think what shines out there goes six-figure, seven-figure businesses to to say goodbye to all of that because I always say with me, and I don't know it's the same for you, is I couldn't possibly put a price on my happiness, and so therefore, that's irrelevant. That's irrelevant. My happiness might be in a shed in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't essentially feed it. Are there any bits of your messy middle that you don't feel that we've unpacked or that need to be aired before we move to the future as we're time traveling today?

Catherine Crestani 37:53

The future.

Courage Over Approval

Catherine Crestani 37:56

I feel that I I completely agree your summary, Jody. It was a lesson of learning courage because even if anyone's been divorced, it was so interesting. My parents are like, Oh, we support your decision, but then when you make the decision, they don't really support your decision because it wasn't what the decision that they wanted you to make. Even then I felt, and even my friends were so because my life became very reflective. It's like this is reflecting flaws in my relationships that I don't want to look, so I lost all my friends, like all these things, and it was like, no, well, I'm not gonna stay in my relationship because of other people. It's like I have to have the courage. I think a lot of people don't realize that courage is created, you're not born with it. You have to take that step, and even if you want to grow or expand, if you want to have your own business, if you want to choose a life that aligns for you, I promise you, if you do not take that risk, that little risk, each day, or put yourself out there, you are never gonna shift anything because you're the only one that can change your circumstances, and you're the only one that can choose yourself when everything else around you is telling you otherwise.

Grieving Old Identities

Jody Brooks 39:10

I think there just is that huge piece that you mentioned there about identity as well, and like listening, it's come up so many times, but that identity is so based, not like it appears from listening to you, and I know for me it was is that my identity was based so much in other people, in being a people pleaser. I had like when you said there about people tell you that, but actually they don't want you to do that because then you don't match who they like you to be rather than liking you to be you, they want you to be what suits them, and we collect so many of these identities that I feel that's a huge piece of this messy midlife, and then quite often what happens there is people find these monumental shifts, and it is a grieving process because, like career changes, divorce, marriage, kids leave home, and all of these constructs of ourselves are outside of us, and then all of a sudden, there's a grieving process. You're not just sad that your kids have gone off to university, you're sad because your identity as a parent has actually left the room, and there is a void in front of you, and and there's a grieving process that goes with it.

Catherine Crestani 40:29

100%, and so many clients I work with now, stepping into the future, but so many clients I work with now, that is a big thing we have to unpack is mourning the dream that didn't happen, or mourning the dream of especially if you're choosing to leave a relationship or choosing to leave a career or whatever that looks like, you actually have to give space to mourn the dream that didn't happen. So for me, I had to mourn the house that we built that we were gonna live in forever. We're not gonna live in here forever anymore. Our dreams changed. We I had to mourn and let that go. I had to mourn my watch in my business crumble, the one that I thought would stay around. Like I had to mourn and grieve.

Dreams Can Change

Catherine Crestani 41:10

And a lot of the time too, we get trapped in this false reality of what we think our life should look like, right? I always say on your wedding day, you don't mar imagine divorcing your partner in five years' time, right? You don't sit there saying, I do, and I'm gonna divorce you in five years from today. Or however that looks, right? You don't imagine the end, you imagine the forever. And this is where we sometimes get stuck in our own way and we create these false realities, and a lot of my clients, that's what they come in with, and I just sit to them and be that mirror. I'm like, hey, what's actually really going on in your relationship? Oh, this and this, and how long have you been hoping that it will change to this dream that you had? Or 20 years. Do you think it's gonna change? No. Do you feel it's gonna change? No. Then why do you expect it to change? And sometimes it's just anchoring back into that reality moment that can be really hard, but at the same time, it allows us to step forward and step out of that perpetual loop that we've got stuck in because we think we have to have our life look a certain way because that was the dream that we had, and that was the dream. Our dreams are allowed to change, and it's okay to change your mind. If you're doing it all the time, maybe you're escaping something, but that's a whole other topic. But you are allowed to change and evolve because we're human beings, that's what we're designed to do is to keep growing and evolving and allowing us to expand.

Jody Brooks 42:44

I think I feel like we're itching to get to the future, and I think that's a beautiful point there before we go on to talk about you evolving, I suppose. So we'll take a quick pause, a few seconds, catch our breath after unpacking that triple messy middle, and we'll see you after this short break. Before we keep going, I want to invite you into something a little more personal. If Messy Midlife is speaking to you, you don't have to walk through this season alone. You can join the Authentic Life Community, a space to connect with me, connect with others, and explore the nine principles of authentic living. It's a place for honest conversation, gentle support, and real connection without judgment. If that sounds like what you need, come and join us at authenticcoaching.me and look for the authentic life community. Okay, let's get back to today's episode.

Answering the Call

Jody Brooks 43:41

Welcome back to this, the second half with Catherine, and we unpacked all of your messy middle there, and now I want us to move into you've obviously answered that call to connect, that moment where you were like, okay, I can't ignore this anymore. And we touched on some spirituality. And right there before we took the break, you just said something that I thought was amazing about evolving and changing and about destinations of goals. So answering that call to connect, where is Catherine now and how did that change how life looks?

Catherine Crestani 44:23

It

Becoming a Writer

Catherine Crestani 44:24

was funny. I I mentioned my naturopath a lot, but he was my he was a weekly presence in my life for a while. But um He did something called neuroemotional technique where you start to unpack the emotions under things. But he said to me one day, he goes, If you could be anything you wanted, it's probably five or six years ago, what would it be? And unfiltered out of my mouth, I said, I want to be a writer. Now I had no idea what that would look like, Jordy. I just knew that's what came out. That's just what fell out of my mouth. And then that planted a seed. And I know you love planting seeds, but it planted the seed, and I was like, what is this gonna look like in my life? How can I start writing? What does that look like? So I started a sub stack. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna do some writing on my substack and share some of the knowledge I've collected and that sort of thing, but then I had a dream. It sounds funny, but I had a very vivid dream, and it was my whole novel that I've written now in a dream, and I went, I need to write this. I see it as a movie, but I need to put it in book form first, and so I made this promise to myself, and I call it a self-commitment promise, and every day I wrote for 15 minutes. I wrote this novel 15 minutes a day, every day, and within I think it was five months, I had a 90,000-word novel, and I was like, Oh my goodness, I've written a novel. Then my little self-saboteur showed up, right? It's like no, we can't submit this, this isn't any good. So I did eventually submit it, and I didn't hear back from publishers, and then I learned how hard it is to get picked up by a publisher, so I thought, stuff this, I'm gonna publish it myself no matter what. But then I learned so much, but in the meantime, I'm like, all right, what else do I want to write? So I just kept writing Substacks and all these sorts of things, and then this email lands in my inbox recently, and it's like, hey, you've been highlighted as tourist by from somebody, we really like your work. Would you like to come for an interview for Brains magazine? I was like, okay, I have no idea what this publication is, but okay, sure. This is cool. Anyway, and then I put this submit like application in, and they're like, hey, we really like your viewpoint and where you're coming from. We actually want to interview you for a higher position. Oh, okay. And then all of a sudden I find myself as an executive contributor for Brains magazine writing articles about listening to yourself and how to not lose yourself in the in in the void. And I look back and I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm a writer. I didn't have this expectation of what it would look like, but all of a sudden it is there. And it was funny, I have on my phone I normally set, I don't at the moment, actually, no, at the moment I said my my house, it says my house and land will sell soon. That's what it says on my phone. But but normally I have something I want to aspire to. So last year I had I want to become a published author, a speaker, an international speaker, and I think it was and start creating a space for children. And at the end of last year, I looked at my phone and saw that and I went, I did all of that. And it wasn't that it was just there every day, just there as a reminder of what I wanted to step into. So then I started speaking at conferences, I started and I just started sharing my story, and then I started a podcast. I I did all these things because I just felt this urge to share creativity and share what I've been through because we all have these beautiful life stories, we all have this unique journey, and why not find a way to share that with others? And I always say, if I inspire you into action with something I did said, then I feel incredibly happy. But if you just like what I said and don't go and do something with it, then I get disappointed because I'm like, you're not inspired, you're just listening. Actually, go do something with that. You need the brain to take you into action. It's great. I moved your heart, but now just follow up with that. If you want to go do that, this is kind of how it's evolved, and then I noticed as well when I was editing my book, I actually used AI to help me do the final edit, which was actually really interesting. It was a fun, it was a fun and tedious process, I have to say, but at the same time, I said, Hey, can you analyze the story arcs? And I hadn't realized how I'd written the story was a reflection of how loneliness can lead to you saying yes to things you don't necessarily want to say yes to, or how it makes you avoid certain situations, and then it made me reflect on my life, and I realized, oh, I wouldn't go home. Like I would stay later and later at the office and avoid being at home because my relationship wasn't okay, and then when my office wasn't okay, I just couldn't wait to get home. So there's all these kind of reflections that were coming through, and then because this is how the universe sometimes works as well, all these clients started to come into me with the same problems that I wrote about in this novel. I'm like, oh my goodness, what is going on there? So all of a sudden, I'm coaching people on relationships from a very different perspective because I can tap in intuitively, but also because I've been through it and because I have all this information, I'm like, oh wow, this is what I'm meant to be doing. And all of a sudden, these are the people I started attracting, and it was like one after another, one after another. It was so fascinating to see it shift and to see that

AI Without Losing Voice

Catherine Crestani 50:16

where that's moving.

Jody Brooks 50:17

I think it's you say something there, there's so many things that I want to pick up on in the stuff that you just said, but I really want to dive into that AI point because I think it's really interesting. A lot of people find that maybe you know, my myself, and would think someone like yourself when we talk about spirituality and all of these things, would be the people who are like AI is a bad thing, and more and more I'm spotting that we're the ones that are like this is amazing, and what you said there is really true because it is able to almost point your intuition out to you. That's what I think sometimes. When you were saying that about the arcs, we're doing stuff, we're writing stuff as coaches, I'm making a tool, I'm writing a blog, I'm doing these things, or I do a podcast, and I did it recently. I take the transcripts of all my podcasts, ones where I'm guests and ones where for the messy midlife, and periodically I upload them all into the AI that I use, and I ask it to pull out the major themes, and it would take me hours, and I may not even spot it, but it just spots these things, and then I'm like, Yeah, that's it. It's amazing.

Catherine Crestani 51:50

So I think it's yeah, and I was the person that was like, I'm never gonna use AI and everything like that, and then I realized what a tool it can be, and I guess this is what I've been teaching people as well. And I've even written an article that I just submitted, actually, to Brains, where how to not lose your voice to AI, because when you start becoming dependent on it to make your decisions, that is the danger, right? Not using it to enhance what you've written. If you want to use if you want to write a piece of writing, write it and then put it through the AI. Don't ask AI to write it first because then you've taken away your voice. You've allowed AI to replace you. My favorite example I heard was you want to leave the house and your gut's telling you, I need to grab the umbrella today, but then you go, I'm just gonna check the weather app. Oh no, it's meant to be sunny all day. I'm just gonna leave the umbrella at home. And sure enough, within two hours it starts raining. You've just discounted yourself and your intuition over what a technology has told you. And this is the same with AI. If you take everything at face value and you don't challenge it, I fight with my AI all the time. I will tell you right now, chat and I have very I there's days and I'm like, you are done. I had someone I was talking to, actually a co-host on a show ego. I'm creating, and he said, You have to treat you're loving this, aren't you? I am yeah, I have fights with it all the time. But then he said, You have to treat AI like you're a lazy employee. And I went, You do, you have to stay on top of it, you have to make sure it's doing what you ask. And I've had days where it spits out something, I'm like, What what is this? I actually say that. What is this? No, done, you're done for the day. I don't want to talk to you.

Jody Brooks 53:48

That's what I say. I'm just I'm laughing because I'm exactly the same, and I say to people, you have to argue back at it, and you know, and I will also when I ask it a question, I will ask it the opposite of my question because it gets used to it and it goes, Oh, he likes this, we'll give him this, we'll agree with him. But it's dangerous for that thing, so I always ask counterbalancing questions, but when it gets stuff wrong, I go nuts at it. And the other day it kept repeatedly not finishing a task for me. So I actually typed in the thing, is it time you took some annual leave? Because clearly you are not on your game today, and this is now the third time I've asked you. And and then it says, I'm so sorry, your feedback's been taken on board, I'll try harder next time. And I went, and I just put please do, like, please do, because and the other day it did something else, and I was like, Do you know what? Forget it, I'll do it myself. This is why you're AI and I'm human, and it just goes, You're quite correct. And I think it's very funny, and when you work by yourself, then I get a bit scared because I I'll go downstairs and say to my husband, it's literally like there is someone up there, and when you said treat it like a lazy employee, and I'm like, Yeah, treat it like a lazy employee, it's only as good as you are human, and 100% like AI is powerful when you are really tapped into your humanity. If you behave like AI when you're using it, then you need to be scared because what you're saying is you are better than me, and I know I'm better than AI. I just can't work as quickly.

Catherine Crestani 55:36

Yeah, and it's actually I have to share this story with you. So I found this I found this post popped up on Instagram, and I always love when things drop into my field, right? Or they drop into my life somehow. And it said, I put this prompt in chat and it stopped being so nice. And like, oh, I'm gonna try this. So I put it in and I went, All right, I wanna I want you to act as a marketing specialist. Here's the prompt. It was basically stop being nice, stop locating me, blah blah blah blah blah. Um, I want to do a 30-day marketing thing on my book. What would this look like for you? And then it said all this stuff, and it said, Stop being so woo. This is what it said to me, stop being so woo, stop with the spiritual stuff. This is a hard-hitting book. We need to come from a hard-hitting angle. You have been scared and you need to step out of it. I'm like, true. Whisper what it was.

Jody Brooks 56:27

Yeah, point of caution, be careful what you ask it sometimes, because it will tell you exactly what it thinks.

Catherine Crestani 56:35

It's a reflection.

Inside My Virtual Obsession

Jody Brooks 56:37

We've touched on it, and I really do want to unpack your certainly the title of your book and what it's about because I have to confess I haven't read it, I haven't had time, but I am gonna read it at some point and it's gonna go on my stack because I just love it by the title. So the book's called My Virtual Obsession. Yes, tell us a bit more about it.

Catherine Crestani 56:59

I'll so I'll give you some ideas because we've got the dark twistiness, right? So basically, we have Clive who's our main character, and he is incredibly lonely. He's like a self-made billionaire for we want to say he's a conscious billionaire kind of thing, but he's just over all the fakeness, he's over all of that. So he's just decided I'm giving up on everything, and then his best friend decided he knows better and bought him a virtual dating device, essentially, so a VR system for dating. And when he logged in, he thought it was all fake, and then weird things start to happen in his life, like technology starts going haywire, and he realized how connected he was to the world with technology to the point that everything started to fall apart, so his life, his like money started to go missing, his business starts to fall apart, and then we meet Anna the book nerd, and this actually goes in. I'm just checking, I'm like, can I flip it? Yeah, so the first part of the book we have Clive, and Clive's questioning if is it real? Is it AI? I don't know what it is. Like, he has to hire a security team, like all these things, his life gets hacked and turned upside down, and then walks in Anna, and Anna is pretty much a sociopath, but you get to learn why she's that way, and you get to see how loneliness can turn into obsession and how digital intimacy can suddenly feel real to people, and it's such a reflection of what's going on. I have clients and they're like, Hey, I don't know why she didn't open my Snapchat. I'm like, Why does it matter? Why does it matter if they reply to your DM or not your DM? I I never understand that because I'm like, you know, when you're so sure of yourself, but this was the reflection, right? This is where we create this reality based on a digital imprint that we get, or this kind of digital connection we think we have, and then it edges out into our life to the point that we think it's real, even when it's not. So there's a lot more plot twists in there and everything like that, but it's really looking at how loneliness can lead us to making decisions that we wouldn't actually normally make, but also when we ignore the red flags that come into our life and just keep pushing them to the side, pushing to the side instead of going, hey, actually something's not right here, and I'm gonna trust my gut on this one. It's a really fun, well fun, it's a really fun dark romance, but at the same time, everyone in web categories the best romances, right? With the craziness, but the beautiful thing is that it actually invites you to think deeper about your life and reflect on things at the same time. And I created a virtual book club to atta that's attached with it that has questions that can take you deeper if you choose to, and there's also bonus chapters and all those fun things as they flow out of me. But the amazing thing is that everyone who read it says the same thing, they're like, it just made me reflect on my life and made me actually re reprioritize what I ac how I actually want to show up and what's important to me. And I was like, wow, that's beyond what I thought would happen with it. So great, thank you, thank you for that feedback.

Jody Brooks 1:00:33

I think it's almost like there it sounds a little bit like the book is maybe that you've written a coaching mirror, and uh it is that kind of it's just a huge mirror that is reflecting back at people in this world where we believe we're so connected, yet we're actually so disconnected. Um I find that pretty amazing. So obviously, now then so and this is kind of quite I'm just thinking now, I'm tracking back messy middle, messy middle, but once you've answered the call to connect, it feels like things have gone at huge pace, and so like book now, what's the other major thing that you're uh focusing your time into other than writing?

Coaching and Sovereignty

Catherine Crestani 1:01:28

So I've also been doing a lot of speaking, so speaking a lot of conferences on podcasts, obviously, and just sharing my message, but also coaching people essentially to come back to themselves and to honour their intuition and how powerful they actually are, and that calling back in their sovereignty, and I know that's such a woo term, if you will, but really it's about reclaiming who you are because when you realize how powerful you are as a person and how special you are as a person, and I'm not saying that lightly, we're all here with a unique thing to share with the world. When you realize that and you start to earn your power, things just start to shift. And funny things can happen at the start of the year. I I journal a lot, right? So I use writing as my I actually journal for myself too, but I journal a lot and I wrote this question and I said, Why don't I have any clients at the moment? And I wrote back to myself, I don't want any. I was like, What? Yeah, I was like, no. I was like, oh actually, yeah, because I was trying to finalise my book at my book launch happening. I had my podcast going on, I was being a mum, I had so much happening, I didn't have the capacity. And then about a month ago, I was in this workshop, like a sales workshop, and I'm sitting there and going, you know what? I would really love clients again. I really want to help people, and I kid you not, Jody, within an hour, I had clients messaging me saying, Hey, can I have an appointment? Hey, can you help me with this? I had my phone ringing, and I went, Okay, this is where I want to shift my attention to. So really supporting most of my clients are women, and I still get men as well. I'm not discriminate, but that's just who I attract. And at the same time, I feel it's such an important thing to learn to come back to yourself and how to choose yourself and not feel selfish about it as well.

Jody Brooks 1:03:25

I think that's pretty amazing that bit there, like you say, is coming back to yourself, choosing yourself. Certainly for me, and in my work, I talk about that. That's that authenticity of you, is coming back to your authentic self, finding that sovereignty as you call it. And you pick up something beautifully there as well, where you say, you know, about the selfishness, and actually, I say to people, it's actually really selfish to go out into the world and not be connected to you because you're not turning up authentically, therefore, what you're projecting is something that doesn't really exist, and you're selling a lie. So, you know, like, do you want to turn up as a lie, or do you want to say no as your authentic self? And I think that's pretty powerful. We are so rapidly running out of time, and I feel like we could have just talked for hours, which is what always happens when I get on here. You have brought up so many interesting bits, certainly your triple messy middle and that courage that it took for you to step into courage and away from resilience to do all those things, to shed off all those identities, to come back to who you were. And talking to you now, I can clearly see that this is this rooted person, and that you stand strong in that identity, and it gives you faith in what the hopes that you create that you drive forward. You've clearly demonstrated that you know I I always say as well, the first thing is you've got to see it, then you've got to believe it. So the see it is the hope, the believe it is the faith, and it's like an internal sat nav. I think you've really beautifully demonstrated that today. Is if you don't put a destination in, then any road will take you there, and people will happily take you on their roads and pull you away from yours. Is there anything as we begin to wrap up now that you want to share that I haven't touched on that we haven't been able to share in uh the discussion?

Choose Your Suffering

Catherine Crestani 1:05:25

So actually, this thing's echoing in my head. So I had this client the other week, and we were I was doing a reading for her and helping her through, I think, some work things and life things, and the message that came through was choose your level of suffering. And it was really interesting because what exactly what you were touching upon, Jody, is that you can go any road to get there, and sometimes you went up on other people's road, but it's the same how you choose to show up in your life. Like I got up at 4 a.m. this morning so I could show up onto some podcast interviews, and at the same time, people are like, How do you do that? And I said, Because I Love it because I actually enjoy sharing my message. I rather suffer with a little bit less sleep than and get to do what I love rather than sleep in and miss that opportunity or whatever that looks like. So you can choose your level of suffering. And from a mum who my child was a terrible sleeper. So I understand about sleep deprivation. I also know how to balance that. So I don't do that every day. I used to get up at 5 a.m. every day. I was like the 5 a.m. club or right. But I don't do that anymore. Yeah. Because I found it was I found it was too much. It was actually too much in my system. And sometimes I need more sleep than other times. And I have to honor that and respect that because I go through cycles. We all go through cycles. We have to go through that. So if you don't have a dream or a vision, it's time to do that. It's time to dream. It's time to vision. It's time to allow yourself to suffer for something that you want to do. A little bit of stress is okay. The chronic stress that Jody and I went through is not okay. But at the same time, and we don't want to do that again. A little bit of stress is okay. And it's okay if you're doing it and you are passionate about it and it's something that brings you joy. That is the way to keep moving forward and to allow yourself to show up happy. And you don't even try, right, Jody? You just you're genuinely happy because you're like, yeah, this I'm doing what I love, I'm excited about it, and you light up, and that's how you know you're on the right path.

Jody Brooks 1:07:33

It is so true. And like as a coach, I have a coach and I had a session probably about two months ago now, and what you're saying there, and it's resonated with me, and I've repeated it so many times, and she said to me, Watch where your energy goes, and in a situation, ask yourself, Is this draining me or is it energizing me? And I was thinking about it then when you and I've been really conscious recently then of that because there are things I was like saying I'd do, and then turning up and going, Oh my god, and I think that's it, is you can get up at 4 am if the energy's in it, because it will energize you and it will restore you, and you will know that's where you're meant to be. So I completely get that. I was nodding frequently there because I am the 5am club, but I want to add into that I never set an alarm when you were saying there is I do what my body tells me. I was actually the four o'clock, I was the four o'clock club for four weeks recently. I have no idea why, but I just was like, I'm awake, I'll get up and and go to bed early or meditate in the afternoon kind of thing.

Catherine Crestani 1:08:47

Yeah, and you balance it out, yeah.

Where to Find Catherine

Jody Brooks 1:08:50

I I obviously have the privilege of knowing exactly where to get hold of you. I'm sure that there are lots of questions that listeners still have and would want to reach out and certainly find out where they can get your book. So, how can anybody who wishes to connect with you connect with you after this show?

Catherine Crestani 1:09:11

Yeah, so the best place to head is probably my website, which is willowhealing.org. So O-R-G at the end. I'm on Instagram a lot as well, so my handle is Willowhealing sh. And if you want to check out my book, My Virtual Obsession, it's on Amazon, your favorite ebook reader, it's on multiple platforms. So and if you can't find it, please let me know because I can organize with you to get a copy somehow, I promise.

Jody Brooks 1:09:40

Perfect,

Final Seed and Farewell

Jody Brooks 1:09:41

perfect. I always like to ask this question before we go, is there's been so many things today, but if you could plant a seed, a thought, a practice in the minds of the listeners today, just one that would grow with time, what would that seed be?

Catherine Crestani 1:10:03

I told you I'd wait for the moment. I it would be that it it's okay to change. It's okay to change your dreams, to change your desires, to change what you want in life, because if you don't it honor that and allow yourself to grow and expand with that, it's gonna eat you up. So give yourself permission and know it's okay to change.

Jody Brooks 1:10:25

Catherine, I have this bit now where I have to sum up everything we've done, and I'm just sitting here thinking, I'm not quite sure how you sum up what I know in the edit will be an amazing episode. Firstly, from me, thank you so much for being so vulnerable, for sharing so openly. An aim of the podcast is to let people know that it's fine to be in that messy middle and to give them hope that it does change and it does become so much better. You've touched so beautifully today on answering that call to connect that going, and you talked about sovereignty and spirituality and that intuition and following yourself. I have truly been touched by the conversation, and I know I've found it inspiring, and you've definitely made me think. So, thank you once again from me and from all of the listeners. Listeners, thank you for tuning in to Messy Midlife again. Remember, it's not a crisis, it is a call-in, as we've discussed today, to connect, to be strong, and to come home to yourself. See you next time. Thank you for spending this time with me on Messy Midlife. If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need to hear it today. You can find the show notes below and more resources at authenticcoaching.me. And just a little gentle reminder, Messy Midlife is here for information, reflection and personal growth. It isn't a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, therapy, or any other professional health care support. If you have concerns about your physical or mental health, please reach out to a qualified professional. Until next time, take good care of yourself. And remember, midlife might be messy, but it's not a crisis, it's a calling to connect.