Pre P.S. Join me for The Divination Well this Sunday 9/27 at noon ET. Our theme this month is Mirror, Mirror.

Dear Reader,

I used to feel so scared every time I published this newsletter. I remember wishing I could magically cast a spell so certain people would never, ever see it.

It wasn't that I had anything to hide. But I was afraid the me on the page wouldn't match the woman they'd already decided I was.

I wonder if this sounds familiar? Not the newsletter exactly, but the spell: the wish that the people who think they know you won't see how you are changing… and judge you for it.

What's your version?

Maybe it's 11pm and you're scrolling. You land on your former colleague's "at 50 I finally…" post, and suddenly you're comparing her dining room furniture to yours, her second home in Colorado to your guest room. (The one you'd definitely turn into a studio if you weren't so worried about being another midlife woman with a watercolor set.)

Or you're standing in the bathroom trying to remember what goes on first, the retinol or the eye cream, and honestly, whether you already did this step ten minutes ago. You catch yourself tallying: What did I actually get done today? Am I still me, or just what everyone else needs me to be?

The women I work with are done keeping that tally.

But that leaves a strange, holy problem. If not those metrics, then what?

Who are you when you stop rushing to be someone the culture approves of?

Maria Popova put words to this dilemma:

And the mirror isn't only on your bathroom wall. It's in the people who knew you at thirty-five, in the inner critic that keeps score. None of that is a personal failing.

I don't think we fill that void by hustling toward some better self. I think we fill it by practicing being seen as we actually are. Unmasked, silly, wild.

I spend my days teaching women to bridge this gap, through practices of non-doing (and undoing). They get to be ridiculously well-rested, gloriously C-minus students of their own becoming.

Yoga nidra, so the ego drifts off to sleep, and you wake up to your nature, your creativity, your deep inner wisdom.

Expressive arts, because there is a part of you that knows and dreams and has things to say beyond words, and it will speak if you give it paper and a little quiet.

Council with other like-spirited women, because what midlife women see in the mirror was made in community. It comes undone there, too.

We have to learn to see ourselves without the mirror culture keeps holding up.

That's what we'll be doing at The Divination Well this Sunday: two hours of resting, making, and being witnessed, with the Mirror, Mirror theme as our doorway.

The Divination Well · Sunday, 9/27 · 12–2 ET · $24
​ Register here.​

Whether you join us or not, I hope even reading this far softened something.

Love,

Brooke

P.S. I still haven't found the spell btw. What I've found instead is that the me on the page, the one I was so afraid of exposing, is the one other women now write back to.

So maybe this is my invitation to you: let yourself be seen changing.

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.​