Dear Reader,

I KNOW you’ve done the inner work. You can identify your inner critic and reach for your inner wisdom when you need it.

Then a $40 late fee shows up — a box you were sure you'd checked — and something in you just caves.

Maybe you publish something raw and stretchy on Substack. Or survive another one of your boss's spiraling monologues about the state of things. And instead of feeling proud of either, you're on the couch, staring at the ceiling, wondering what's wrong with you.

And just like that — perfectionism gets its hooks in.

Sure, you're not chasing perfect the way you did in your 20s and 30s. But you're probably still judging yourself for dropping the ball, for not being able to push through the way you used to.

That's the myth of perfection in midlife.

So often we're measuring ourselves against our younger — and let's be honest — less wise selves. (Looking at you, 22-year-old Brooke, living on iced caramel macchiatos and Cheez-Its during finals.)

I say this often in Second Bite, my intimate group program: what we're unpicking together was never meant to come undone. There's a whole architecture built to keep it stitched — one industry that profits from fear of your own aging face, another that profits from your fear of becoming irrelevant before you've even fully hit your stride.

I don't say this as a bystander. I come from a lineage of women steeped in the project of being flawless.

In the weeks before my mother died, when she could barely lift a fork to feed herself, she still put on her favorite necklace for family dinners. A swipe of lipstick. She was radiant — and it wasn't all vanity. Of course some of it was habit, but it was also refusal to let the ending be the whole story.

So no, I'm not aiming for a perfect record.

I get to get it wrong. I get to catch myself wanting to be something I'm not.

This is exactly what we're going to sit with together on Saturday, at The Divination Well. Chuck the five-step plan to "finally" let perfectionism go. Think: yoga nidra, creative play, and a circle of women who know the late-fee spiral too.

More on Sunday.

Love,

Brooke

DEPARTMENT OF BEAUTY & MAGIC

For those of you in the butterfly soup:

~ Marion Woodman

I'm Brooke Hofsess.

I'm a Midlife Midwife for women who want to start their next chapter from soul, not fear or ego, so they can finally do the work they're meant to do — and actually enjoy it.

You'll find me in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where I live with my husband Dustin, our daughter Thea, two clever border collies, and an ever-growing collection of handmade mugs for Egyptian Licorice Mint tea.

You can read about my journey here.​