I’m welcoming back Wendy Valentine, a pocket full of sunshine, reinvention expert, and empowerment coach, to celebrate her brand-new book, Women Waking Up: The Midlife Manifesto for Passion, Purpose, and Play. Whether you’re in midlife yourself or looking for a thoughtful gift for the women in your life, in this conversation and throughout her book, Wendy shares inspiration and tools you can carry into any season. 

In this episode, Wendy brings frameworks, strategies, and encouragement for waking up to your fullest self. We explore what it means to move through the dark night of your soul, those heavy, disorienting seasons that can actually serve as a sacred initiation into your next chapter. Plus, we talk about self-reflection as the foundation for all of it, including simple ways to carve out space to check in with yourself, even when life feels overwhelming.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• The most common disempowering thought in midlife and how to overcome it (5:20)
• The Freedom Framework: Wendy’s seven-step process for creating lasting change (16:10)
• Midlife, menopause, and perimenopause and why these transitions are catalysts, not crises (24:48)
• The Stop, Drop, and Roll method as a practical tool to reframe negative thoughts (32:15)
• How to make self-reflection a priority, even when life feels too full (33:48)

Resources from this episode:
Andrea’s email list: andreaowen.com/free
Wendy’s website
Wendy’s book, Women Waking Up
Wendy on Instagram
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✨ If you’re in a season of stretching, expanding, or navigating complex emotions in your relationships, I’ve got something coming up just for you. This new, deeper program is designed to help you build shame resilience, reconnect to self-trust, and stop abandoning yourself for others’ comfort. It’s still brewing—but if you’re curious, DM me on Instagram @heyandreaowen or email us at support@andreaowen.com. I’ll personally reach out with more details to see if it’s for you. 

Book recommendations:
I love a good personal development book, and you do too, right? I’ve compiled a list of book recommendations, as mentioned in past episodes. Check out these amazing book recommendations here. Happy reading!  

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Wendy Valentine is a reinvention expert, empowerment coach, and the author of Women Waking Up: The Midlife Manifesto for Passion, Purpose, and Play. She’s also the creator and host of The Midlife Makeover Show, the #1 podcast inspiring women worldwide to embrace midlife as a powerful new beginning.

After navigating divorce, menopause, job loss, debt, and an empty nest—all at once—Wendy stopped living on autopilot and started designing a life that finally felt like her own. Her journey from breakdown to breakthrough fuels everything she does.

Today, Wendy helps women kick fear to the curb, reconnect with their purpose, and create bold, joy-fueled lives through her book, her FREEDOM coaching method, and her transformational programs. Whether she’s leading a group of women through guided meditations or road-tripping the U.S. in her motorhome, Wendy is on a mission to prove that it’s never too late to wake up to what’s possible.

She currently splits her time between Portugal and wherever the road takes her, living proof that life gets better—not smaller—with age.