This week’s guest is Jill Romig who helps women redefine what aging means to them so that they authentically embrace their second half. She loves to see women show up confidently with style, grace, and elegance without apology, shame, or regret. Recently, Jill has focused on working with women on their relationships.

In this episode, Jill and I talked about:

• How she stumbled upon the world of personal development and how it completely changed her life.
• Her early years of struggle as a widow and single mom on government assistance.
• Her rocky relationship with her 2nd husband that almost led to divorce
• Her late-in-life pivot from being a full time CPA to life coaching and how she’s using the lessons she’s learned to save rocky relationships.

It may take two to tango, but it only takes one to lead, and that’s what Jill did. She waltzed her way back into the kind of relationship that she wanted and came out with a renewed perspective of what is possible and...

My guest for this week’s podcast is Valerie Trumbower, a DONA Certified Postpartum Doula, a Certified Lactation Counselor and a mother of three, including identical twins. Her online courses, The Bump-to-Baby Roadmap & Expecting 101...You’re Adopting™ have helped hundreds of families (and grandparents!) prepare for life with their newborns. 

Over the past 8 years Valerie has been helping hundreds of parents adjust to their new family so that they can approach the newborn stage with as much calm confidence as possible. And so that they know what to do with their little newborns.

In this episode, Valerie and I talked about:

• Understanding what a Doula is and what they do
• How she learned about postpartum and birth Doula and how she started
• Best qualities to look out for if you want to be a Doula
• Necessary tips for grandparents to best help our children navigate new babies

Many people are probably not familiar with what a postpartum doula is. You may decide...

My guest this week is Liberty A. Baldovino, also known as The Youthful Granny, a content marketer who specializes in writing ebooks, whitepapers, case studies, blogs, emails, and assisting clients with content strategies.

Despite Liberty’s busy schedule, she still finds time for her advocacies - encouraging people in her age group to venture into freelancing and teaching writing to kids and adults.

In this episode, Liberty and I talked about:

• The culture she grew up with and what it’s like living in a 3rd world country
• How she transitioned from a low paying Private School Teacher job to a lucrative online freelancing career
• Her plans for her future and her passion for helping other people her age get started with their own businesses.

Liberty is a great example to other people her age that a late-in-life career shift is possible no matter what your circumstances. Her freelancing journey has also inspired her to start an online community she calls, Freelancing for the...

In today’s episode I interview Claire Sandys, who co-hosts The Silent Why podcast with her husband Chris. Claire is an aspiring writer, blogger, Earl Grey tea drinker and lover of baked beans on toast. 

I met Claire because I heard about her podcast in a podcast community and reached out to her to recommend one of my past guests as a guest for her show. In that process, I learned she’d be a good fit for Not Your Average Lives so here we are!

Claire has a touching story about losing the life that she thought she’d have: being a mom. And she openly shares her journey from an early marriage, to deciding to start a family, to finding out it was unlikely they’d get pregnant on their own, to contemplating and rejecting IVF, to contemplating and rejecting adoption, and to ultimately dealing with her own health issues that led to a hysterectomy and early menopause, before age 40..

In this episode, we talked about:

• Their childless journey and the hard...

Anna Whiston-Donaldson is a popular author and speaker whose New York Times bestselling book, Rare Bird: A Memoir of Loss and Love chronicles the raw, early grief of losing her 12 year old son in a freak accident. Selected one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2014, Rare Bird resonates with readers looking for hope in impossible circumstances. 

She also has a children’s book, A Hug from Heaven, that speaks to grieving children from the point of view of a loved one who died. Anna has been featured in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal, Woman’s Day, Time Magazine, and other publications both print and online. She lives with her family in the Virginia suburbs, has a blog titled “An Inch of Gray,” and is launching a podcast late 2021.

In this episode, we talked about:

• The crazy parallels between her life and mine, in 17 year intervals (aka cicada time), our kids traversed the same experiences.
• How she channeled her grief about losing...

Listen in to my conversation with Sandy Weiner, the founder of Last First Date and The Woman of Value. Sandy is an internationally known TEDx speaker, dating and relationship coach, women's empowerment coach, author, and podcast host who has had a varied career from artist to comedy writer/manager and now relationship coach.

Sandy is a perfect dating coach because she is still in the thick of the dating world herself. lIn fact, she openly shares a couple of recent experiences and I appreciated her honesty, coming from a very real place.

In this interview, we talked about:

• her challenging pregnancy and all the difficult decisions she had to make
• abortion and the stigma that comes with it
• gaining personal freedom after her divorce, which led to her taking action to accomplish her own dreams
• her biggest dating tips

Sandy was such a great guest and after listening to this episode, I’m sure you’ll be  inspired in some way whether or not you are in search of a...

Today my guest is Elena Hartz who describes herself as a 48 year old mother who is twice divorced, Russian-born (raised in Ukraine) and who immigrated to the US in 1993.

I was compelled to interview when I heard her story on her daughter's podcast. To hear the incredible story of her young life in Russia, her early marriage to a man who turned out to be a liar and an abuser, and her family's escape from Communist Russia, check out Episode 217 of the Manifestation Babe podcast. It's a long one but so worth it! (In this episode, we don't go into those details.)

We talked about so many things including:

• her perspective on the American dream and comparison to her way of life as a person who grew up in a communist society
• her difficult adjustment to her daughter's version of the American dream which is not the traditional one she had dreamt for her
• her big aha moment about manifestation and how it can backfire on us.
• her amazing take on "mistakes."
• her Rythmia experience...

I had a great conversation with Junie Moon, The Love Coach, who teaches women in midlife how to magnetize their ideal partner and experience Next Level Love. With Junie’s unique heart-centered dating strategies, coupled with some powerful mindset tools that helped her magnetize the love of her own life, she helps women learn to embrace this precious stage of life with confidence, playfulness and ease.

Junie is also an award-winning international speaker, Best-selling author of Loving the Whole Package: Shed the Shame and Live Life Out Loud, director/producer of the film Shed the Shame, host of the podcast Midlife Love Out Loud and a Certified Shadow Work® Facilitator.

After years of walking on eggshells in her marriage, afraid to be her true self, eating tons of food and hitting 200 pounds, she shared her breakthrough. How she found herself, her voice, her life and then finally finding her new love partner as well as letting go of 50 pounds and keeping them off 18 years!...

My guest this week is Jackie Wheeler Wiebe, a longtime homeschooling mom & the founder of HomeSchool ThinkTank. who strives to connect homeschool families with one another and provide the resources and inspiration they need.  

Her purpose path began quite unexpectedly, as it often does, when she took action to help someone else - her 13-year old daughter! Her daughter wanted to write a book so Jackie decided SHE would start writing a book to learn about the self-publishing process so she could help her daughter publish her novel when she was ready. 

When she thought about what her book should be about, she turned to what she knew and that was homeschooling. This process led her to think about the challenges she had as a homeschooling mom and come up with ideas to solve those problems.

An internal spark was lit, and as she took action, her path and potential purpose became more and more clear. Once she committed to this new path and doing the work she was meant to...

This is a follow up to Episode 99, so if you haven't listened to that episode about how to improve relationships, you should check it out! You don't have to watch these two episodes in chronological order, but if you find this episode helpful, you'll definitely want to hear my other valuable tips.

For this episode, I delve into the specific relationship of in-laws and particularly the relationships involving mothers-in-law and kids-in-law, meaning the relationship you have with the spouses/partners of your children.

I have great experience in this area, and in this episode, I share my worst moment as a mother-in-law, why I believe it happened and what I learned from it.

I also share 3 great tips that I think will help you if you are navigating a tense or difficult in-law relationship. They are:

1. Let go!!!
2. Look inward!
3. Look for the good/positive and ditch the negative!

I know you love your child and if you are struggling with his/her spouse/partner, the best thing you can do is...