Positively Midlife Podcast

Midlife Advice to Your Younger Self - Ep. 35

February 01, 2023 Tish & Ellen Season 2 Episode 35
Positively Midlife Podcast
Midlife Advice to Your Younger Self - Ep. 35
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Show Notes Transcript

Do you ever think about what advice you would give your younger self? 

Ellen recently had lunch with a group of old friends where the topic of advice to your younger self came up - and she learned new and surprising things about each of the ladies sitting around the lunch table at Pastis- women she had known for 35+ years.

In this week's podcast, Ellen and Tish share the details of the intimate,  vulnerable, and surprising discussion about what advice we would give our younger selves.  Ellen found the conversation was a way to deepen and enrich her friendships and her own self-awareness. Ellen and Tish share their advice to their younger selves and findings from when they polled friends and family on this topic. 

Things we talked about in this episode:  Pastis, Sex and the City, New York City, Lululemon crossbody bag, the 1980s, the song Wear Sunscreen, Baz Lurman, Mary Schmits, Salons of Paris, and college friends.

Support us with a monthly subscription and get a quarterly live  Q&A with Ellen and Tish.

Obsessions:
Tish:  so cute pink fuzzy baseball hat
Ellen:  Olive and June nail polish - Bunnyslope winter white and the Poppy applicator

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Ellen Gustafson:

Hey, Tish, you know, I was just in New York last week, right? Yeah. You saw some of the Trinity girls, right? I did. It was a small group part of the tribe and we had lunch, one afternoon at Pastis in the Meatpacking District. And it was a great,

Tish Woods:

Gosh, that sounds like so Sex in the City get together. I love it.

Ellen Gustafson:

I mean, are we aging ourselves or what? But it felt very Sex in the City. We were at a big round table. And we were just chatting. And somehow I throughout this topic, you and I had been talking about doing a podcast on what kind of advice would you give your younger self? And let me tell you, it was informative and surprising.

Tish Woods:

Wow. You know, I really wish I had been at that table too. I know what an amazing topic to drive some really deep conversations between you all, and the idea of that introspective look into ourselves. I'm sure it prompted some really provoking conversation. And I'm curious, I mean, you've known these women for a long time. Yeah. Nothing could have surprised you did it?

Ellen Gustafson:

Well, it did. Boom.

Tish Woods:

Wow. Now it's a cliffhanger. I need to know.

Ellen Gustafson:

It's so true. Well, you know, we have some mileage behind us right? To give our younger selves, some wisdom. And the the ladies around that table did that. And the wisdom is beneficial for us at midlife too. But, you know, we got to get to our obsessions before we dive into this. So it's one of my favorite parts of our show. What do you got for me, Tish,

Tish Woods:

I have got the cutest little obsession this week. And it's perfect for just a little fun thing to get for yourself, or a gift even. So it's this little lambs. Well, lamb's wool baseball hat. Okay. And if you've ever seen the crossbody Lululemon that's in the fuzzy wool pattern. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, it would match perfectly with that. And I found one on Amazon. And it is inexpensive, and just as cute as can be. And I know I sent it to you. What did you think of it? It? It, I want it. I'm ordering it. And I love the pink color. But it comes in a few colors too, right? It does. It does. There's a color for everybody. But it doesn't matter. Like you and I have different styles. But it's it's one of those things like anybody could wear. And if you just have one of those days that you don't want to mess with your hair. What a cute little thing. And it really could go for a lot of ages too. But I'm telling you check it out. You know, what about you? And Ellen What is your obsession this week?

Ellen Gustafson:

Well, I think I've talked about how I'm obsessed with this olive and June nail polish before. But this week, you know, I am in love with a color. And it is called bunny slope. And it is kind of like a creamy white for the winter. And one of the reasons I love Olive in June, well, two one is it doesn't have a lot of chemicals in it, which is really important to me. And the other is they have this thing called the poppy that you put over the lid. And it enables you to really control the brush and get really like a salon manicure at home. And so I'm obsessed with the bunny slope this week.

Tish Woods:

Oh my gosh, I absolutely have to try that. I always I always want to do the white now. But it just never looks right when I do it at home. So again, if I had a brand like this that's going to apply correctly. And I love that, you know, the low chemicals. I mean, what, uh, even if you want to do a manicure on a young child, you sit and think, oh, do I want to put these chemicals on her? So what a good choice for that, you know, maybe with your granddaughter or, you know, a niece or something. What a neat product. I like that. But I need to go back to this New York conversation because you have me on the cliff waiting to hear. So tell me,

Ellen Gustafson:

Well enough of our obsessions. Okay, so, you know, we're sitting around the table, and I really thought it was it's fun to see what people would say. And it was so surprising. But this reminded me Tish up this song that was a speech that a lot of women our age will know because it's from the 90s and it was called wear sunscreen by Bazh Lurhman and the lyrics were from a famous essay written by someone named Mary Schmitz from the New Chicago Tribune. And it is just an amazing Head of advice for life. And I thoroughly recommend if people don't know what that they go take a listen to that.

Tish Woods:

Do you remember it? I do remember it, and it starts off with sunscreen. If I could offer you one tip for the future, it would be to wear sunscreen. So yes, I do remember it. And it also like reminds us to enjoy the power and beauty of our youth and to dance even if we have nowhere to go dance dance anyway dance in your living room. It is has so many fun things that just make you smile. I love that little speech song.

Ellen Gustafson:

I haven't thought about it for years, literally years. And honestly, I wish I had paid attention to the sunscreen part.

Tish Woods:

Well, I remember to that part where it tells us to travel. Right. And it says to live in New York City once and leave before it makes you hard and to live in Northern California, but to leave before it makes you soft. So that's it. You know a lot of what it's telling you is about self care and living intentionally, which is you know, deep in our hearts.

Ellen Gustafson:

Well, especially at midlife. I think that means so much more. So exactly. Tish, I'm 100% with you. And I did kick off the conversation in New York. And surprisingly out of the group. I was the only one that didn't live in New York City at some point. But everyone knows I do live in Northern California. I came here and I stayed and maybe I'm soft. Maybe I'm the softy.

Tish Woods:

Haha. Well, Ellen, remember we talked about that once we were both empty nesters that we might move to Brooklyn and work remotely for like six months. So maybe that living in New York City thing may still happen for both of us. That's right. Yeah, so Ellen. I need to know what would Ellen? What would midlife Ellen, tell her younger self?

Ellen Gustafson:

Well, I have a lot of advice for myself. Tish. But I started with a really easy one. No cigarettes, not even social smoking. I lived in Madrid for a year and picked up smoking like everyone back then in being and I read, you know, just every cigarette was stupid. I would really say no smoking, don't even do it. And like I said before, and the song says wear sunscreen. I mean, I would be even more firm and say no rubbing baby oil on myself or sitting on maybe a reflective blanket out by Alumni Hall for hours during our senior year.

Tish Woods:

How about those homemade album covers that we lined with foil to give us an extra boost of sun if we weren't already burning ourselves to Chris. You know, wearing a hat. I mean, I can remember how many times growing up because I am fair, fair skinned. I would blister I would Sun I'd be in the sun and burned so bad that I would blister everywhere. I can't even imagine.

Ellen Gustafson:

No I blistered to Tisch. And somehow at one point, I thought that all my freckles would go together and turn into a tip.

Tish Woods:

I just thought if if I stood next to somebody who is really tan that I'd be

Ellen Gustafson:

very silly, but you know what the really big thing for me would be I would tell my younger self, don't be afraid. I was afraid of a lot of things. And one was to be alone. And to really learn and enjoy how to be with yourself, not by yourself, but with yourself. Right? Enjoying my own company. And being content with myself. I think it really gives you that opportunity to know yourself better and to understand alone doesn't equal loneliness.

Tish Woods:

Well, you know, I gotta say that you talking about being afraid surprises me, because you always appeared fearless to do anything. This is the girl that went over to Maryland University, kicked in a frat door and said, You're coming to a dance with me. That doesn't sound like fearful. I don't know. But but it really kind of speaks and this is I guess what was so exciting about this conversation this topic is it lets us to be vulnerable to talk about what these things that we really were challenged with.

Ellen Gustafson:

Yeah, and that maybe I thought everyone knew this about me right? Get that I had quite a bit of fear. So I think we really were vulnerable at this table in this conversation that we were having.

Tish Woods:

Oh, wow. Well, I think my favorite part of that was that the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. Yeah, that part of that song that that, you know, essay. That's one that really has really always spoken to me that part of it.

Ellen Gustafson:

Yeah, I mean, it's those friends, those old friends, that one, you know, the ones we made stories with, and we've made big mistakes, big mistakes, and they loved us anyway. And they forgave us and we became closer, right?

Tish Woods:

Yeah, those are the friends we have all that history with. And in all it takes is to say one word, to conjure up this huge flood of memories, right? And, and those are the people that are going to keep you grounded. Because I know if I went back to some of my childhood friends back in South Buffalo, all I'd have to say is Timon dances, or Mickey Rats, and just years of memory come spilling out, you know, the Trinity girls, all I'd have to say is, you know, go into that, the Navy football game, and you know, those kinds of things. And it just that one word, it's just it just magically transports you back into those times. And I think, I think those relationships, those friendships need to be nurtured because they are so valuable, and we should never take them for granted.

Ellen Gustafson:

Yeah, and we can still deepen them and enrich them at midlife. I think that's important. So I'm kind of curious midlife Tish? What would you tell your younger self?

Tish Woods:

You know, Ellen, I really tried to live my life with not looking back and having regrets, right. I, I'm a firm believer that our trials and mistakes of yesterday are, who make us who we are today, if we didn't go through those, we wouldn't be the same person. But if I had to go back and and talk to my younger self, I would say self care. And this would be my main piece of advice to my younger self, and to take better care of my health. I think I spent too many years putting myself last. And I know a lot of women do. They put everybody in their life first. And it left no time for me no energy for me to take care of me. And that left me physically, emotionally, financially, and mentally broken at times.

Ellen Gustafson:

Wow. It's so interesting for me to hear you say that. Because during those years, you were the mom throwing the incredible parties. You were the wife moving a family of five across the country and getting your house together in two seconds. You know, to me, you were Superwoman. Right. And so kind of the same idea of how how you really didn't realize I had a lot of fear. But you had three children in five years. Did you have three and five? Or yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what happened. Tish. Right. And I've heard that from a lot of friends. And I think as women so many times we do put everyone else first.

Tish Woods:

But you know, we do have friends that didn't do that, you know, and I look at them and and coming to mind to me, or Kristen and Linda, they always took their health as a priority in their lives. Yes. And I think it allowed them to have richer lives during it because they didn't have these broken down times. You know, so if I had to go back to Young, Tish, I'd say sometimes you need to be selfish and take care of yourself. So you are more available. Right? For everyone else.

Ellen Gustafson:

Yeah, you know, I'm going to add Danielle to that list of PBS, right, who always put like health and fitness first and, and made it a priority. And I think maybe when I was younger, I thought of those women is more selfish, but now I think of them as more self possessed and stronger. Right. You know, it's not a negative. It's a positive they carved out that time. So I think that was great.

Tish Woods:

Okay, Ellen, this conversation you started in New York, with the friends it It's just, it is so inspiring to me. And you know, we've, it just, it's made me go back and start asking this question of so many people around me. Yeah, I can't tell you how excited people around me get when I asked this question. And it just things that they're telling are so revealing and so surprising. What was something that you heard in New York at the table that surprised you?

Ellen Gustafson:

Well, I think, you know, as I said, everyone was so vulnerable, and so open and wanted to talk about this. And even since then, like you, I've spoken to almost every one of my friends and thrown this question out, and everyone wanted to answer it. But one of our friends told us that she would stop comparing herself to others, and that she did this a lot. She always felt less than she's not that classic blonde beauty, she's more of a unique beauty, and that she would really tell her younger self, you know, just don't be focused on everyone else, embrace this uniqueness, embrace who she was, and, and I thought that was really powerful. I see this woman as being so strong and self confident, and I had no idea.

Tish Woods:

Wow, that's really kind of shattering, right? Yeah, yeah. Again, I think that's what I love about this so much is it does open this deeper conversation with our friends to really get to know what their struggles are, and to make that a safe place to talk about it. What really kind of hit me too, and I had, I even asked my kids this question, you know, I love Yeah, you asked, Oh, well, you know, so my son, Sean said, he wished he had read more. So reading was always a little bit of a struggle for him in school on he, you know, he had some learning, processing issues with reading. So it was always a struggle. So he's become this huge, voracious book on tape listener. He listens to so many different type of things. And just, he's like a sponge right now getting an all in, I wish I had thought to offer up, you know, because he did struggle with reading books I did, I did offer up, you know, these books on tape to him earlier, I never really thought about it. But I thought it was so curious that that is something he is currently working on. That he wish he had told his younger self. And I noticed that pattern, I talked to Danielle today. And it was the same thing, the same things that she would tell her younger self, where things she's working on right now for herself. So, which, which led me to believe that people were being raw and honest, you know, because you knew they were working on it today.

Ellen Gustafson:

You know, I think that's amazing. I just want to add here that, you know, one person at the table said she would really tell her her younger self, to be less judgy and more kind to people and less judgy of herself, you know, when you're she judged herself harshly. And I never would have thought that of this person, either. But something that with a little bit of mileage behind you, you realize that you really carried some of these things as as your younger self.

Tish Woods:

Yeah, I love that everybody felt so open to be able to share those things. And I'm sure other people related to a lot of what people were sharing.

Ellen Gustafson:

Oh, it was a building. It wasn't a but this it was, and I felt this too. And this led to that, you know, so it was it was a really inclusive conversation. I think in the show notes, we'll put, you know, a bunch of the things that people told us because I think it's fascinating to see what people put. But you know, back in Paris, you know, during the early 1900s, When Hemingway and all the writers between wars, they were over there, they would have something called a salon. Where, you know, people would have a gathering and there would be a reading or someone speaking, and they would amuse one another and it was all about learning and art and, and knowledge, right? That the kind of the salons of Paris.

Tish Woods:

Oh, I love that idea. You know, many times they would pose this question for discussion. You know, they didn't have movies and TV and things to distract them. They had to entertain each other. So a group would discuss a topic they would pick a topic for the evening, and they would get deep into conversation with each other on the Topic. So basically Island, your New York City dinner, your kind of Sex in the City luncheon that was going on there became a modern day salon. I love it.

Ellen Gustafson:

You know, I think it did. And of course we were at pasties. It really felt like we were in a French bistro, I mean that place you just feel like you're in France or somewhere in Europe, but it was so much more interesting than us just catching up. Right? We so I just want to challenge our our listeners to kind of host this type of lunch or dinner or coffee or drinks party, you know, kind of a salon and pose a topic next girls night out, it could be this topic, or it could be something else.

Tish Woods:

What a great way to really get to know people that you're spending time with in such a deep level. I, you know, I know the next get together, I'm going to I'm going to be posing this question to people because I think it's so fantastic to really get that conversation going.

Ellen Gustafson:

Yeah, so I mean, I think our takeaway from today is, you know, you can hold your own modern salon, throw it out there, get some questions together, choose a topic, and really get to know your friends on a much deeper level. And I think the second thing, it's never too late to follow our own wisdom and advice that we would give our sweet little younger selves, right? Tish.

Tish Woods:

Yes, carpe diem, seize this day right now. And you know what, there is no time like the present. And that's the whole gist of our podcast is, this is the time, this is your time, to be selfish, reinvent yourself, get in touch with that younger, that younger girl, nurture her and, and kind of take it from there. I love it.

Ellen Gustafson:

I agree. take that time to honor your younger self, your your inner child, so to speak. And the most important thing, it's the most important thing you can do be kind and gentle to her or him or them and talk to your friends about this be vulnerable. Be open and conversations with your children with your parents if you still have them. You know, it's a topic that opens up so much conversation and deepens the relationships that are the most important to us.

Tish Woods:

Yes, and please share, you know, on our social pages, what you would tell your younger self, we are dying to hear what that piece of advice would be. You don't know how could help retrigger that piece for someone else. So we would love to hear from you. And remember, the positively midlife podcast will drop every Wednesday, become part of our tribe and follow and like this podcast wherever you listen and share the feature of the podcast. Share it with some friends that you know. It's very easy to share. These podcasts are some little dots on the side and allow you to share so spread the word that midlife has endless possibilities. So until next week, mid lifers that's right

Ellen Gustafson:

Share, share, share until next week