Midlife Revolution - The one about fear

Welcome 137 new readers to the Midlife Revolution newsletter. I'm Lee Chalmers and I'm a 48 year old woman running towards 50 with joy and a spring in my step. I want to counter the negative stories about midlife for women with doses of can-do positivity and inspiration. Judging by the MASSIVE response I got to last weeks inaugural newsletter it looks like there are a lot of you out there who want something that so here we are! Newsletter number 2.

Last week I shared that this Midlife Revolution idea sprang on me in lockdown and I got all inspired and blurted it out to the world. "I'm doing this thing for midlife women!!! Everybody look at me!!"

Well you looked and then it happened. I got the FEAR.

I panicked that, once again, I had let my mouth get ahead of the rest of me and set up expectations without really planning and now people would want stuff, and what would they think of me if I failed and did nothing and that reminded me of that girl who bullied me at school and I started to feel sick and down and wished I'd never said anything and ...wait a minute! I know this. It's the FEAR. And it arises whenever I dare to step outside myself. When I dare to claim an idea, to step forward, to speak. And I'm not having it stop me and I don't want it to stop you either. 

Loads of you wrote to me last week to share your dreams of midlife, the plans you had and the dreams you had not dared to share with anyone. What might have happened after that is that the FEAR arose. This is a natural part of the process. It doesn't mean the dream is bad or that you shouldn't do it. You just need to find a way past the fear blocker. Hopefully this video will help.

A few years ago a friend asked me to speak about FAILURE and despite initially not being able to think of anything (ahem) I soon found my flow and below is 7 mins of me talking about fear and failure and my 3 top tips for dealing with it. Once you've watched it I'd love to know....

• What would you do if you had no fear?
• What is your best way of overcoming your fear?

This weeks inspirational woman is Julia 'Hurricane" Hawkins, a 101 year old runner who keeps breaking records for the 100 metre dash. She took up athletics aged 81. I mean, COME ON!

That's all from me this week. Enjoy the sun and the summer and the easing of lockdown.

Lee x