Evolving Your Inner Midlife Hamster

Sarah Milken  0:04  

Hey peeps, welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. I'm your host Dr. Sarah Milken. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago like last fucking year. I was sitting in the midlife pump wondering, was this it for me? That day I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD wipe the menopause, sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shit shovel and started digging deep to all my midlife bitches. It's not just love coffee and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this. Hi, peeps. This is Dr. Sarah Milken, the flexible neurotic and this is the flexible neurotic podcast. I have two types of podcast episodes the longer more in depth ones with deep dives with expert guests and then another version that just basically called Fun midlife shit quickie minisode series. This episode format is shorter, more stream of consciousness. I don't know just fucking crazy. In this minisode series I highlight resonating and edgy midlife shit from my Instagram grids, solos, short pop ups with gas and stuff we're all thinking about but maybe too embarrassed to ask. And of course, I will ask for you all do all of the asking. Ask my teenagers. I guess I'm just miss TMI. Okay, so this minisode is called evolving your inner midlife hamster. Well, I'm sure I'll change the title but it sounds good right now. evolving your inner midlife hamster. What does that even mean? It's the concept of evolving or repeating in midlife, many of us feel like midlife hamsters are fucking groundhogs living the same day over and over again, supervising your teenagers or thinking you're supervising them deciding you're going to eat more healthfully, but then you don't committing to meditating, but then you can't stick with it. Drinking more water but then you have to pee and then that becomes annoying. This is the question that I'm constantly asking myself in my midlife freemax Am I going to evolve or repeat? It's so easy to stay on the hamster wheel in midlife or there prefer Bo fucking Groundhog Day where you do feel like you're living the same day over and over again. Except in between you have these like weird hormone blasts, or like you're sweating under your boobs or you can't fucking remember where your car is. It's just sort of like the same thing over and over again. And you might just be fucking bored and feeling crazy all at the same time. You want to change in midlife you're itchy for something new. You know how I always talk about these midlife fucking itches? Well, I'm the queen of midlife itch. Especially don't even tell my kids this but like the yeast infection, crotch swamp. There's a whole episode dedicated to that. So I'm not even going to get into crotch swamp right now. But guess what, guys, if you want to change in midlife and the new purse isn't cutting the mustard, then we have to start thinking about like, Well, why can't we make those changes? And why can't we make them last? fleeting instant gratification from the new purse or the Amazon order is like a two minute dopamine hit. And for me sometimes the next stop would be a brownie. But that doesn't last long either. Because then I'm in like a blood sugar dip five seconds later looking for gummy bears. So what is lasting in evolving in life versus repeating? Who knows? This is what we're going to talk about in this hamster episode. I'm on a runner's high front right now because I did have to take my teen daughter to the dermatologist. So I have all this adrenaline running, we went to discuss her non existent acne, but whatever. I mean, my son actually really does have pimples, but my daughter doesn't, but she's convinced that she does. But whatever, as long as it makes her feel good, because if she feels good, then the rest of the house feels good. I feel like that's a running theme. My husband says that about me too. And my teen daughter drove me with her driver's permit, and I'm totally fucking carsick. But other than that, I'm so doing well, and it's 84 degrees in LA. So full crotch swamp leggings on. I said I was in a workout today. I didn't get to it. So I have to do probably have to do Pilates tomorrow and maybe the weighted vest on the treadmill. I do want to add that I got a message from a listener today with a really funny real about a vagina odor product that she saw. I mean, honestly, who knew that at age 45 Two years ago because I'm 47 now

Sarah Milken  5:00  

I when I started this podcast that I will be chatting with women about midlife, vaginas, elasticity odors, body odors, and your inner midlife hamster anyway back to the inner midlife hamster. So you might have teenagers still at home or you have kids off in college, whatever. Or maybe you don't have kids, you're asking your kids if you do have them about homework tests, baseball practice, college applications, bullshit forms, emails, all of it. Like I said, you could be an empty nester and never getting around to getting a new midlife plan together before your kids were off to school. And you're now living the same hamster day over and over again. You're doing the hamster workout that isn't bringing you any results. If you even work out at all or you try to keep eating like the same foods because you think it's like the right diet for you. But then that never works. You keep reading about supplements and you order them like a million of them like I do and then you don't take them or you take them for a week and then you stop because you don't want to refill the pill container. That's definitely me. I mean, I don't even know where to fucking start. I feel like I'm all of those things. And that's why I started this journey that I'm calling the midlife REMAX and I'm renaming it from the midlife crisis to the midlife REMAX, okay. My husband has taken piano lessons as his midlife REMAX. He's bought sports cars, he gets bored of the sports car, sells it a year later and then buys another one again a year later. He's been doing that for about 10 years, but like I say, I guess it's better than gambling and porn at this point. Okay, so my point in telling you all that is that no house no money, no outward thing is ever going to be fully satisfying and everlasting. You love your shiny new thing. You love your new fucking purse, and then that even gets old. I remember reading the study where they studied people's happiness and satisfaction with life. There were two groups. One group were couples who had new kitchens built in their houses. The other group was couples whose houses were near a hiking trail. They found as you can imagine, that the hiking trail couples had more life satisfaction. And I'm sure you can surmise why things are cool and fun, but they don't bring lasting change. But the hiking trail brought lasting change. People were exercising more they were out in nature, they were walking together as a couple or walking individually or walking with friends you get the point in terms of evolving or repeating your midlife hamster. We all hear and see Instagram posts and read articles and self help books and endless podcasts about how to make change. We hear about the probiotics we hear about the bone density and needing to strain train, we hear about meditation and how it's crucial. So why can't we just fucking do it? Why can we implement it? And even if we do implement it, why can't we stick to it? I mean, honestly, there's like, what 1800 habit formation theories? So that's the question. I'm constantly asking myself, evolve or repeat and how I know I should drink more water, but I don't. I know I should do more weights, but I don't always stick with it in my midlife freemax I'm always talking about how we can start the midlife remix and make these changes. I think part of evolving or repeating is also about making simple changes that lead to lasting change. And it also think about this idea a lot of novelty and trying new things. Try new things is hard for most of us. What's interesting is that we make our kids do new shit all the time. Oh, yeah, Jake, you've never played soccer before. Or you should take this art class, even though you can't draw or whatever it is. It doesn't matter if you aren't good. You should just do it for the experience. Why don't we hold ourselves to the same standards that we put on our kids and our teenagers? For me, I think many of us get caught in our routines. And newness feels too hard. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. It's itchy, you feel scratchy or uncomfortable. Yet the research shows that every five to seven years we seek novelty in almost every aspect of our lives. So these are the questions I asked myself and I ask listeners to think about in thinking about change. So step one is how do I feel? How do I feel right now? How do I feel generally do I feel like a fucking hamster? Step two. How do I want to feel? Well, of course, we can all say we know how we want to feel but we don't really know until we stop and think about it. Like do we want to feel more purposeful? Do we want to feel more of a sense of connection or both?

Sarah Milken  10:00  

Most of those things and more, do you want to feel like the same day over and over again and your fucking hamster wheel keeps spinning and spinning? And then you have to ask yourself step three, what small step can I take to bridge that gap between how I feel and how I want to feel? And that's like the $40 million. Question is, how do I bridge that gap? How do I take a small change? Make it happen and then fucking stick with it? Honestly, and it doesn't mean about being perfect. It's just generally sticking with something and making it a habit. Okay, so let's talk about some of the little changes that my inner midlife hamster has been making and some of the new shit that I've tried in midlife. Okay, we can't just go all the way and just make immediate change. Well, I guess some people can my husband sort of like that, which is kind of weird. You can't just wake up one day and never eat sugar again. Or if from my experience if I do that method that sends 567 red flags around my body Sarah you can eat sugar you're starving my brain and nervous system go crazy and then I fucking fail because I eat the entire Starbucks browdy counter. Okay, so this is what I have found works for me over the past two years, taking smaller more manageable steps blah, blah, blah, Sara. Everybody's talking about that. I totally get it stay with me enter midlife hamster. I'm going to take you through a few of these small things the upgrades the upper levels that I've made in my midlife REMAX, just start bridging that gap between how I feel and how I want to feel. I know you're saying small steps blah, blah, blah. Everyone says that it's not that easy. Believe me, I fucking No, stay with me. Stay, stay stay. I promise little things I'm doing are so so dumb that you can do it. Two basic things. Okay, let's start with food and nutrition. I'm not a huge vegetable eater. I don't cook vegetables are annoying. I can't chop properly. Everything's annoying about vegetables. And if you get vegetables in a restaurant, and they're covered in fucking butter, they are they're steamed and they don't taste good. They're just taste like steamed gross vegetables. Okay, so I asked myself, What small step could I do to get closer to the more eating of the vegetables goal? Okay, so step one, I bought athletic greens. Okay, this is not a sponsored post. I don't even know that people are not athletic greens. It's basically a greens powder that has like 70 Something vitamins and minerals and greens. Is it the same thing as eating a bucket of broccoli, of course not fuck now, but it's better than pretend veggie chips from Trader Joe's. So I grab a cold glass bottle, of course, because I'm trying not to use as much plastic and the Athletic Greens powder is stored next to the fridge with glass straws in the next drawer. And I put the green powder in the water, shake it up, stick the straw in and you're saying like, who cares about the straw. Okay, so I did learn during the colonoscopy journey about the ease of liquid intake with a straw sipping from the bottle take so much longer. And I always sort of shied away from straws because it says like drinking from a straw gives you gas, I haven't really experienced the gas thing. So I've been kind of going with the straw lately, because you just take in so much more Oh, and by the way, that's called habit stacking, having like all your like things in the same place. So it's like you think to yourself, Okay, I'm going to get the water I'm going to put it in the bottle. I'm going to take this straw, I'm going to take the lemons out of the fridge and cut the lemon and squeeze the lemon in. And all of those things are kind of in the same proximity and near each other because who wants to go on a fucking scavenger hunt for all of the things the lemon does make it a little bit less bitter if I didn't already add that I can't fucking remember. Okay, so that is little step one Athletic Greens towards my goal of more vegetable eating. Then we go back to the title of the minisode evolving or repeating your inner midlife hamster. Okay, so repeating would be not making any changes to my daily veggie intake. So athletic greens is my mini step and evolving. Then my guest Jenny Giles, who is holistic nutritionist who was on a few weeks ago, gave me a shit ton of small hacks up levels. If you guys haven't listened to those episodes, go back and listen to them. They're so good. Okay, so when I eat my eat oatmeal in the morning, this is how I'm evolving. I use high quality almond milk with no gums in it. Okay, if I hear one more fucking thing about gums. Are there fillers.

Sarah Milken  15:00  

They make the milks last longer. They're really bad for you. They're inflammatory. So Jenny Giles and Jennifer Fisher are like no gums in the milk. Okay, so then I crushed my walnuts. I get my walnuts from the guy at the farmers market so they don't have a bunch of shitty weird oils in them. You have to read the nut bags according to everyone. And then you get rid of old the whole weird oil thing. Okay, so then I add a scoop of collagen powder, mix it into the oatmeal with the cinnamon, and then Jenny said to add some raspberries for fiber or blueberries for antioxidants. And then I toss in the chia seeds for more fiber. Okay, it sounds fucking complex, especially for somebody who doesn't cook. But again, I have an oatmeal drawer so the oatmeal is there. The chia seeds are there, the walnuts are there, the collagen powder with the scooper. And they're all in individual containers. I'm not Murray fucking Kondo, but for certain things I have to be are not going to do that. If your habits aren't easy, you're not going to do them. Okay, none of these things are hard, just little tiny annoying things and organizing a drawer for all of your oatmeal items or all of your midlife salad items or whatever just makes life so much easier. Okay, so that has been really key for me, the drawer near my fridge that houses all of the items when it's oatmeal time, so it's not a fucking scavenger hunt. Okay, let's just say that my husband calls my oatmeal a science experiment. And even if I was like, dying with the flow, he would never offer to make my oatmeal and bring it to me because he will royally fuck it up. So I would have to just eat a bagel and cream cheese and suck it up. Okay, next. So this is step two of my evolving adding to the oatmeal all the add ons. Next little thing, I hate drinking water. It's boring. I have to pee. I feel like okay, I have to drink water. It needs to have some added benefits. So other than the athletic greens, water, what am I doing to hydrate, I add a powder called alkaline and it has magnesium and blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah and different flavors. And every nutritionist on the planet is telling everyone to get it and I've tried it and I love it and I use the blood orange one. I will put it in the show notes. Okay, so they say that if you're dehydrated, sometimes there's no amount of water that you can get caught up with. So you have to kind of pack in some electrolytes so that you can kind of get to a new threshold so you're not completely dehydrated by the time you drink the water. I hope that even makes sense. So this past week, I have been trying to do this and I've actually been sticking with it because the powder is right next to the water bottles. Okay, so that was like step three, I think of my mini steps towards evolving in my nutritional healthy athletic greens, the Oh mill the scavenger hunt. Yeah, idea. Okay, so thinking about the idea of evolving or repeating and midlife. I was listening to a podcast with Joe Dispenza. I'm sure you all know who he is. I'm not going to get into all that. But he's like one of the leading sort of researchers, authors, speakers on meditation and all of the benefits of meditation can bring to your body curing illness, etc. I guess you could call them a meditation guru. And then he was doing a podcast with Ron John Chatterjee. I'm sure I'm screwing up his name. And he's a leading podcast host. And okay, so because I've been digging for this research and information on why some of us can choose to evolve and grow while others of us have a harder time why why why? Okay, so I started digging around Of course, you can also be a combo of both evolving and repeating. So you could be get really good at drinking water, but like maybe not continue with your strength training, of course. Okay. So these two men talk about the how gets easier when you find meaning in your Why does that make sense? Okay, so, the how of it the how to stick with the habit gets easier if you know why you're doing the fucking habit, you have to know why you're doing it. If you're doing the steps to the habit because your spouse told you to or you heard it on a podcast, it's probably not going to be enough ever lasting change or move towards the evolving or growing of your inner hamster or making those changes. These two guys say and they're basically gurus in their field say that you must know your why. For example, I want to reduce my inflammation numbers or my bone density results came back and they weren't great. So I'm going to lift weights more often. Those are my why's and when you can constantly come back to room

Sarah Milken  20:00  

remembering your whys. They say that the research shows that it helps you stick. Like honestly, you guys lately with my podcast, I fucking love it. But it's really hard. It's time consuming. It's stressful and it's also super purposeful and super inspiring all at the same time. So sometimes I'm like, oh my god, can I continue with this podcast? Can I continue with the Instagram? Can I continue with this pace all by myself doing this. And when I get all flustered and freaked out, I go back and I read my reviews or my DMs and I'm like, okay, my why. My why is I want to normalize midlife for women so they can feel seen, heard and felt. Okay. So what would greatness look like these two men were talking about on the podcast, those questions of asking yourself, what would greatness look like in my life? So when you start asking those questions, you start to install the circuitry in your brain. We can't do this. They say if we are in a state of stress, or arousal, and we have to be engaged within ourselves, we cannot be relying on things outside of us to get outside of that feeling. So Dr. Chatterjee reshares, the famous statistic that everyone talks about that 90% of our thoughts are the same thoughts that we've had the day before and the day before and the day before they're ingrained in us. And 95% of our behaviors of who we are, are fucking set by the time we're age 35. So basically, we're walking around with our inner hamsters, a set of memorized behaviors, and they're hard patterns to change if we're looking to not remain stagnant and stay the hamster. And if we're looking towards evolving and letting out our inner hamster, you guys are probably like, I gotta get a hamster after this. Okay. Anyway, so Dr. Chatterjee and Joe Dispenza basically say, ask, how do we change our habits and behavior? If they're so hard wired into us? How do we undo the other stuff to bring in the new stuff? So Joe says the chronic diseases, for example, require big lifestyle changes. And the hardest part about change is about not making the same decision as you did before. And before and before. And like you said, earlier, I said earlier, you're hardwired it's an automatic behavior. So as part of this idea of evolving or repeating your inner midlife hamster, it's so fucking easy for us to repeat a behavior rather than evolve and change. It's so damn wired into us what the fuck Okay, so Joe Dispenza says that the moment you decide you need to change, get ready, because you're gonna feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar and you're stepping into the unknown. The body loves the familiar suffering and pain and unworthiness that all of those automatic behaviors and feelings bring. And when you step into the unknown, of the newness of the change, your body freaks out because it likes familiar suffering, it's addicted to it. So he quotes I would rather feel guilty for breaking a new habit of eating less sugar than feel this super uncomfortable feeling of the unknown, the new the change, and then you have to save yourself or he says that you would say to yourself, oh, I can start tomorrow. You really should eat that piece of cake. This whole midlife remix for the last two years for me of starting this podcast and Instagram has been a fucking stew of discomfort Oh my god. But at the same time, it's been amazing. So I've had Inner Mean Girl narrative going on Sarah you can't do this. Sarah, you can't start this small again. It's like so low level for you. You're so used to like the GPA and the degrees and all of this stuff. Like why would you ever do this yourself and be a beginner again? Then there's the peanut gallery. And you know what the peanut gallery is? Sarah you can't do this. Sarah, why are you doing this? So as I'm playing this in my head, it's never been said to my face. Okay, Sara, there's no way you can do this on your own. You're gonna have to have a whole team to help you. You can start a whole thing from your bedroom during a fucking pandemic. Your husband sold his company a couple years ago. That's a real thing. This is small and stupid and just like a little hobby of yours, Sarah you can put yourself and your family on Instagram. You'll look like a wannabe Are you going to try to make your life seem perfect on social media and then one day after a lot of work with myself and life

Sarah Milken  25:00  

Have Coach Carrie rose Guess what? I said fuck it. Fuck it peanut gallery fuck it Inner Mean Girl now or never Sarah. So with my teenagers at home from school during the pandemic texted me asking me what was for lunch? Or could they order Postmates? And would the fucking packages have germs on it? Like I know. And where was the Amazon box with the calculator that they had needed two days prior, my husband wondering why wasn't available the exact second he had free time to walk the dog and the dog wanting to get out of the room because he wants to go see my husband. Honestly, I just gave birth to an Instagram with zero followers, a podcast with zero listeners, I didn't even know how to post or how to create an Instagram account. I mean, honestly, all of it was brand new. And guess what? I never told my parents I was even doing this. They found out when everyone else did, I adore my parents. But I was scared that if they or friend made one comment that made me doubt myself at this age that I was at 45, then I wouldn't move forward. So in the evolving process of growing my inner hamster, some authors and research think that you should share with your friends and colleagues and family members and let them know what you're doing. So they can support you and give you accountabilities than other say keep it a secret until it's out in the public. I am here to say that there is no right way to evolve or to grow your inner hamster. I just chose this way my way because it felt good to me. And I think that's a huge theme of this podcast that I keep going back to over and over again. What feels good to you whether it's Botox, not Botox, changing, not changing whatever it is, we can read everything in the world with differing opinions. But at the end of the day, many of us doubt our own intuition. women's intuition is powerful shit, like crazy shit. You know? Like, if you're a mom, you can feel if something's not right with your kids. My husband, as many of you know, are like, yeah, yeah, Jake is fine. Yet he has 104 fever in the flu. But yeah, he's fine. Lol. The point is that your intuition as a female is like magic. It's a magic fucking crystal ball. And not that every single feeling is going to actually materialize. But I would say that many things do materialize. And we have to give ourselves credit, self doubt like this that we're talking about in midlife, where we're doubting ourselves all the time, it's gonna make us want to fail. It's different from Intuition telling yourself, you're going to fail the test when you know, you really know the material is different from saying you're going to fail the test. And you don't really even know why you're saying that. Anxiety will have to be its own fucking episode, because anxiety is a bitch. And that pitch keeps coming back. And that pitch is too much for me sometimes, and she's a lot for a lot of us, especially in midlife when our hormones are going. We're not sleeping as much as we used to. And the anxiety bitch is worse than any high school or middle school girl gang of bullies, we can all attest to that. Okay, going back to Joe Dispenza for a minute. And the example of fuck it, I'm just gonna eat a piece of cake and start my nutrition plan tomorrow. He says that if we believe and surrender to the thought, that when we fall back on going back to the old habits that lead to the same choice that lead to the same behavior, then created an experience and creates the same exact feeling, or going back to repeating and not evolving. Rewind that for a second, if you need to hear that again. So Joe presents the idea of quote, crossing the river of change. He defines this as going from the old self to the new self, there is a psychological, biological or hormonal death of the old self pruning going on. We aren't producing the stress chemical that we are addicted to with our old selves. And I just love this idea of the river of change. Okay, so in midlife, we're looking for this newness. A lot of the time, we're looking for like a rebrand, but we don't necessarily know how to do it. We sort of deep down want this, like evolving and growing. And we're trying to look across the river of change, but it's so uncomfortable stepping out of our comfort zones, the comfort zones are there, because we think that they're there to keep us more comfortable. Personally, I think that this addiction to feeling stressed and waiting for the next shoe to drop got even worse for all of us during the pandemic. It was like one thing after the next after the next we would turn on the news, get a text or call with the next terrible thing that was happening.

Sarah Milken  30:00  

thing. Joe asks us to think about what would happen if we tried to break the addicted to stress dependence that a lot of us have? What would that even look like? What would it look like if we weren't in a constant stress cycle. So I go back to my midlife of trying to evolve my health, my eating habits, my exercise my vagina, of course, my kids are going to love that as if they're listening to this, and my purpose. So bringing it back to evolving to eating more veggies first, Joe Dispenza would tell me that I have to be really sold on the why I really need to eat veggies, not just because somebody fucking told me to the why has to super resonate with me or won't stick, you want to get into the mindset of what you're trying to change. Like, for example, what's the mindset of a veggie eater than Joe also gives an example of a person who doesn't want to be a competitive person, for example? So Joe would say, How would a person who doesn't want to be competitive behave? So you start to think, and then this starts to create a new narrative in your head? What can I do to be less competitive? What can I do to be a better vegetable eater, he says that you should close your eyes and rehearse it. When you are truly present. You can install new hardware and your brain doesn't know the difference between the real and the rehearsal. So your mind is rehearsing. I don't want to be competitive. And this is what a non competitive person would do. But can you teach your body that you can no longer be competitive, you do that in enough time and you become a new personality of a non competitive person, Joe says, he says that if you rehearse these stories in your head enough times, you can actually change the circuitry in your brain. And MRI scans have proven it. Research shows that you change your circuitry and very profound changes in ways that take place in the new personality. And there's a ton of evidence that medical issues can disappear. With mental transformation and rehearsal. I don't think anything outside of me is going to change my internal state. That's what Joe says, I don't think anything outside of me to change my internal state. It's all within us. The growth is all within us. I love this idea. Also, because it relates to what I'm talking about, that no one can do the midlife self reinvention work for you believe me, I've tried to order on Amazon. I've tried to order my new life self midlife self on Bloomingdale's. It's not available. The only person who can do that work is you. We have to repeat the ACT enough times Joe says so that we have circuits in the brain to use less thinking and more doing in the feeling of what it would feel like if I ate more veggies, my inflammation will be lower and my body would feel less sluggish. Creating the experience of eating vegetables or rehearsing the midlife salad eating in my head. Okay, let me explain the midlife salad. If you follow my Instagram stories and you see me eating the midlife salad almost daily and drinking the athletic greens I talked about at the beginning of this whole minisode Schpeel and paying attention to those very intentional choices. This read does the circuitry in my brain, the midlife salad is on my Instagram reels if you want to see it. Okay, so since I'm not a big veggie eater, I've been ordering the kale salad from sweet green no dressing, the kale, the grilled chicken one scoop of quinoa, one scoop of chopped apples because I have to have the crunch and then when I'm at home in my kitchen, I soup up the salad with some add ons. I call them like the upper level add ons for my episode with Jenny Giles, my midlife add on so the salad from my fridge and pantry or sort of like my oatmeal experience I add on hearts of palm artichoke hearts pepper, chi knees, hemp seeds, sliced almonds and avocado. You know I don't cook so I have all these items in like jars ready to go. And then you know the store bought dressings are a disaster for you, according to everyone so I do a little Jennifer Fisher style dressing situation. And if you didn't listen to her episode, go back. So I basically take a very good organic olive oil I mix it with balsamic vinegar and I squeeze in a half a lemon and I shake it up in a jar with a lid. I mean honestly you guys if I can do it, anyone can do it that that's the midlife salad. I'm evolving, not repeating. Okay, let's talk about the exercise. So I've been working on a bit with my husband's trainer. I don't do it that much because let's be honest exercise

Sarah Milken  35:00  

This is not my fav. I don't like to sweat and I don't like to sweat enough to ruin my hair because I hate washing my hair. So this trainer made me step out of my fucking comfort zone a bit. And he's like, Okay, Sarah, it's time. And I'm like, evolve with me with exercise. We need to mix up this routine Sarah, I thought, oh my god, I can barely do what I'm doing. He busts out the jump rope. I can't even deal. Of course he's a guy so he doesn't understand the midlife bladder. So I'm like, okay, Dan, let's make a deal. You won't die or laugh if I pee down my legs at any moment. So I started jump roping. I tripped. I stumbled I complained that the weight of the jump rope wasn't right. I felt like a fucking idiot. Then I asked does Jeremy do this? He's like, Yeah, of course. So yeah, of course, I figured out how to jump rope. Let's not go crazy. I'm not going to the jump roping Olympics. I do it once or twice a week for sets of 50 jumps. I feel like I'm gonna pee and shitting my pants all at the same time. And I'm forcing myself to do it. I'm you know, training my bladder. Just kidding. And but the reason I'm doing it is because jump roping is considered weight bearing and as we all know, midlife women who need weight bearing activities, and I don't always like to lift weights even though I do it. It's just another thing to put into the you know, evolving my midlife hamster. So this is my exercise, evolving jump roping twice a week. Okay, let's talk about the weighted vest for walking. I'm sure you guys have seen it on my Instagram and I've talked about it in other episodes. The midlife couples episode does a big focus on that. And yes, it's an eight pound weighted vest from Amazon that I wear outside and it basically adds a weight bearing component to my Cardio if you know me I like a two for one special so I you wear it inside the house and outside the house like doesn't matter. And let's be honest doing it on the treadmill is easier because the treadmill sort of pulls you saw when I go on an uphill hike with Jeremy sometimes I can't wear it because I feel like I'm gonna slide down the hill, but the treadmill does a little bit of the work for you. Okay, so let's review some of my hamster evolving the athletic greens for veggies the oatmeal was 70 add ons and the scavenger hunt in my kitchen. collagen powder, chia seeds, cinnamon three trees plant milk with no fillers and walnuts with no weird things in them. The midlife salad and its add ons good fats from the avocado fiber hemp seeds slice almonds, artichoke hearts, pepper, cheese, hearts of palm, and my homemade dressing. The jump roping the weighted vest. Okay, you guys, let's talk about pickleball Okay, so many of you know, I'm the least athletic person in the world. And as I've said before, I've received a certificate of attractiveness from my high school soccer team. Basically like pretty girl award, how fucking sad that was really confidence building. Okay, so I don't play tennis. I don't play sports against other people. I basically can do pilates and walk on a treadmill and that's about it. Some of my friends are taking up new activities. I took up a podcast that some of them are taking on like pickleball maj on experts maj on is way too fucking complicated for my brain. I did it once 10 years ago, and I was like shit, there's no way I can do this. I'll try again. At some point I might have to be drugged, but that's giving me more of a dementia feeling than losing my car in the parking lot at the gynecologists office because Majin has so many patterns. I'm like I don't even know what's happening. Okay, so I get in an evite or Paperless Post, it says join Allison's 50th birthday. I'm like, Oh my God, how fun. And then I keep breathing in. It's like pickleball I'm like, Oh my God. My worst fucking nightmare. A million women playing a sport. I've never played in special pickleball outfits and I didn't even know where to start. I was like, Okay, should I tell her I can't come? Should I make up an excuse? A few years ago, I would have made up that excuse. But here I am to tell you in the midlife hamster remix that I said yes. I said yes to being uncomfortable. Uncomfortable shit here i Calm started the podcast start an Instagram saying yes to the fucking pickleball party. My husband almost fell off his seat. So I texted her and I said I'm coming. But you know me in sports. She said don't worry, there's a beginners group. I was like a beginners group or like a group who's never seen a pickleball racquet or knows what a pickleball even is. So I went into my daughter's closet grabbed the alow tennis skirt found my white Air Force One shoes because I think you have to have white bottoms or some shit. Got a hat for my mother.

Sarah Milken  40:00  

Ozma and here goes let's just say that not bad for beginner and I want a certificate for the most improved at the luncheon after the pickleball game. That was a lot better than the attractiveness award in high school for the soccer team. I actually felt so accomplished. And I'm starting to feel so accomplished doing these tiny little things. If I have made you think about the ways you are evolving and are repeating in your midlife the groundhog day life or trapped hamster feeling. I'm so happy that you're here. You're not alone peeps. I told my husband the other day that sometimes I feel like a trapped hamster. And did I mention to you that I had a hamster growing up named Miss Holly, the plastic aquarium or cage or whatever it's called had duct tape along the top. And one morning I woke up and Miss Holly had escaped. To this day. My parents say they don't know what happened to the hamster. Miss Holly. Can you juice up your nutrition exercise your brain start pickleball Dyer hair pink. Get multiple ear piercings. Just I don't know. Shake it up. I mean, honestly, if I can do some of these things, you can do them. Look, I played pickleball once. I'm not saying I'm never going back. I'm just happy that I overcame my fear of trying something new that I'm not good at and I just did it. What little things can you do to surprise yourself today? Oh, and don't forget my three ingredient dressing for someone who doesn't cook as I wrap up this minisode of how not to be a perpetual midlife hamster and craving feeling felt seen and heard. Then listen up in midlife. Yes, it's normal to feel bored. in midlife. Yes, it's normal to feel itchy for something new in midlife yet is normal to want an identity outside of kids and your spouse in midlife. Yes, it is normal to feel hormonal and hot and sweaty. in midlife. Yes, it is normal to feel like your vagina needs a tune up in midlife. Yes, it is normal to feel like what the fuck is happening to my body and my brain in midlife. Yes, it is normal to feel like everyone else's lives are perfect. Buy your own. Let your inner hamster evolve. Peeps, there are a few things you can do to help me with this podcast first fucking subscribe da. The more you subscribe, the more apple podcast suggests my podcast and new listeners second share it with friends who'd like midlife shit, share it on your Instagram and third, write a fucking Apple review. It's so annoying to do. But it's so so helpful. I love you guys. If you DM me, I'm the only one on my Instagram. I respond to everyone. I love this podcast. I'd love the listeners. I'd love the community that we are creating here. Stay cool. Love you talk soon.