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Episode 102 Transcript: Embracing Wholeness in Midlife with Jen Berlingo

Jen: Wholeness to me is really the goal, not happiness. Where I talk with my mom and she’s like, I just want you to be happy, honey, you know, which is a wonderful thing and I get that as a mom. And it’s never been the thing that I’m seeking. I’m like, no, I’m actually seeking wholeness. And I tell her that. I’m like, it’s really the whole expanse of all of the feelings. Like I am grieving and I am happy and I am all of the myriad things. 

Nancy: Welcome to Your Permission Prescription. I’m Nancy Levin, founder of Levin Life Coach Academy, bestselling author, master life coach, and your host. I train life coaches, aspiring coaches, and anyone who wants to add coaching skills to their current career to elevate their life and their business. I’ve coached thousands of people to live life on their own terms, and now I coach, train, and certify other coaches to do the same. 

If you are ready to give yourself permission to finally make yourself a priority and mobilize your vision, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in. 

Nancy: Welcome back to another episode of Your Permission Prescription. I am delighted to be joined today by my guest, Jen Berlingo. And Jen is a midlife coach, she is a licensed professional counselor in the state of Colorado, a national registered art therapist and a master level reiki practitioner. 

After two decades of midwifing, hundreds of women through life’s major transitions and experiencing her own passage through a fiery midlife portal, she was inspired to write her book, Midlife Emergence, to accompany other women inversing their midlife journeys.

Jen is also a visual artist who creates custom pieces for collectors worldwide and exhibits her fluid, abstract art locally in our beloved hometown of Boulder, Colorado. Jen and I have lots in common, including Boulder. And I also wanna point out that her book, Midlife Emergence, has a gorgeous painting on the cover by Jen. 

Jen: Thank you. 

Nancy: You’re welcome. Hi Jen.

Jen: Hi. Thanks for the introduction. 

Nancy: Of course, of course. Yes, my pleasure. So the book is a sort of a brand new baby at the moment.

Jen:  It Is, yeah.

Nancy:  How does that feel? 

Jen: Vulnerable. Honestly, it feels pretty vulnerable to have it out there and also really exciting. I’ve wanted to write a book my whole life since I was little, and so part of me is still pinching myself that that actually happened. And then there’s another part of me who’s like, oh my gosh, why did I write all of this down? Publish it. 

Nancy: I get it. I often will say writing is cathartic but publishing is not.  

Jen: Right. Yeah. Well this is my first go at it and so yeah, I’m learning a lot about it. 

Nancy: Wonderful. Well, I’d love for you to share with the listeners a bit about what brought you to this point where you have had your own, as you said, you know, sort of your own midlife transition, what that looked like, what feels important about this time for you that you wanted to create this book to help other women or other people?

Jen: Yeah, sure. Oh gosh. So right now I am 47 and I wrote this book, I’ve been writing it over the last few years, and I noticed a marked difference when I entered my forties. Midlife is typically defined as the period between 40 and like 65, but I think of the decade of the forties as this sort of portal or liminal space between the first and second half of life. 

And I had been guiding clients as a therapist and coach for years through different passages and transformational times. A lot of them in midlife themselves. But then when I entered my forties, I felt like this fire sort of burning inside me that was really calling me from the inside to make a shift in my life, to really unearth parts of myself that hadn’t previously been seen, which is actually why I titled the book Midlife Emergence

It’s kind of a flip on midlife crisis or midlife emergency because the word emergence means to come into view or to become exposed after being previously concealed. And so that felt really relevant to my own experience. It felt like I had a part of myself, several parts of myself that really needed to be unearthed that didn’t necessarily go with this sort of good girl ,people pleaser type saying that I was doing the first half of life.

And yeah, and I write about it in the opening of my book, just this inkling around my 41st birthday where I was just craving more grit and truths and depth and rawness and passion. And I had this like “perfect on paper” life. I was married to an amazing man with a great kid. I had a private psychotherapy practice in the Bay Area at the time, wonderful family and friends. 

But I felt dissatisfied and I hadn’t admitted to myself yet what exactly was brewing inside. Not sure that I knew quite, but then a few months later, there was this morning that it all sort of broke loose inside me and after school drop off, basically I was in my pajamas and bare feet because that’s how I do a school drop off, I just had the urge to like drive over to the beach in this little ocean town called Half Moon Bay that was nearby where I was living. And an Ani DiFranco song came on the radio, the song’s called So What? And it just hit different that day. The lyrics really fit and I was just able to admit to myself the truth that had been bubbling up under the surface for a very long time. And I knew that it would shake the foundation of this really beautiful life that I had created for myself. And that was that I wanted to be in an intimate relationship with a woman at some point in my life. Yet I was in this like wonderful marriage. So it wasn’t so much a new admission to myself that I was queer, I had always known that that was actually one of the first conversations I had with Craig, who is the man who became my husband. But the lack of the expression of the fullness of my sexuality had just gotten so internally loud and painful for me as I entered midlife that I needed to explore that. And I knew that it would really shake my comfortable life. 

So that’s sort of the beginning of my own midlife passage and especially in the relational part of it. And I’ve since gone through a divorce and dating a woman for the first time in my life and, but that’s the beginning piece I guess. 

Nancy: Thank You. Thank you for sharing that. You know, I certainly can relate and resonate with so much of it and sort of that whether intentional or inadvertently way that we sort of blow up a life that, like you said on paper looks perfect. 

Jen: Yeah.

Nancy: And when we hopped on before we started recording, you had mentioned that your read Jump… And Your Life Will Appear and so there’s my dirty laundry. 

Jen: That’s right. 

Nancy: So I resonate. I get it. And I love so much about what you shared in your story. To me it really speaks to the permission you gave yourself to inhabit your own life fully and to live into the expression that you really wanted to have.

Jen: Yeah, yeah. It really felt like at a certain point I didn’t have a choice otherwise, you know. It was like now that I know this I need to start taking action, you know. And baby steps. It was like, and I noticed this in your book too, very similarly, the first step was, I need to tell one other safe person.

And for me it was my husband, you know, I was like an immediate thing that night, like, you’ve known this about me since you’ve met me and it hasn’t been an issue until it is, and here it is. 

So just unfolding from there in terms of visibility, you know, around what hadn’t been seen and what had been feeling so painfully invisible. And so yeah, there’s a whole progression there, you know, after that that unfolded. 

Nancy: But yeah, And I think like what you said, the expression and the stepping into visibility versus the, whether it is something that you expended energy hiding or whether like as in my case case I expended a lot of energy hiding things, or if it’s just sort of waiting till something tips the scale to actually be willing to rock the boat.

Jen: Right. Yeah I think that can happen either way. I just, I think there’s just a developmental milestone too at midlife where we are really pulled to individuate. We go through this process of individuation as teenagers, you know, from our primary caregivers. But then in midlife it’s more around social, cultural and maybe familial still norms. And so whether we choose it or it chooses us, you know, by some external circumstance, I feel like myself, my friends, my clients tend to be all be pulled into this sort of choice point between what is safe and familiar and comfortable and then what is seductive, mysterious, new growth reducing. And it’s like walking this line between those, you know, tends to be a common experience regardless of how you come upon it.

Nancy: It’s very true. It’s interesting that you said, you know, you were talking about sort of the teen years of the individuation or you know, the growing and then this period of midlife. And I’ve really been reflecting lately on how much as a teen, I spent a lot of time by myself and that was my happy place. And then I sort of went out into the world and did the things that the world expected of me. I got married and you know, did all these things and realize now at 58, so probably even past midlife, if we’re being realistic. I know to actually return to this place of being with myself and consciously choosing that, as opposed to relationship, or really sort of honoring what the younger part of me knew to be true after sort of going through a lot of emotions and exercises with people.

Jen: Yeah. I love that because it is a process in some way of remembering, like coming back to the part of us, the really true core authentic self that we were before. Like as Gwen says, before the world told us who we were supposed to be, you know?

Nancy:  Exactly. 

Jen: And that feels really familiar to me too. I feel like I’m coming back into the little one of me, But from, you know, a wiser lens and having gone through a lot of crap along the way. 

Nancy: Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the things I was taken with in your book is actually a quote that you share at the beginning. “The story you are ashamed to tell is the one that will set you free” and the quote is attributed to Lizzie Recinto.

Jen: Yes. 

Nancy: And it’s interesting because some version of that is what I often will share in terms of when I’m working with my students in Levin Life Coach Academy and we’re talking about how to actually market and promote ourselves and the story we’re ashamed to tell or what we think we need to hide is actually the golden key to connection. 

Jen: I totally agree. I feel like the things that we feel alone about are often what connects us most deeply. And honestly, that’s all I’m really interested in at this point in my life, is like, yes, getting to those things and being connected in a very real way, which as I answered earlier, like how my book being in the world feels. It feels very vulnerable. But the only way I can get through that is reminding myself of the mission behind it, which was to be part of a change or a movement or I don’t know, a collective of people who are actually okay and willing to stand for radical truth telling and to model it and to invite it. . 

In that quote by Lizzie Recinto is actually framed in my office on my wall, and it sat beside me as I wrote the entire book and I watched me write it. So by the end of it, when I was getting it ready to be published, I was like, this quote needs to be in the book. And it seemed like the right one to open it because it’s what kept me going through writing and burying so many things that really are not, I am definitely not the hero in the book, you know, by any stretch. And that’s fine. But that quote helped me through it. 

Nancy: Yeah. Because, you know, I do think that in one breath, we just, we feel or believe we have to hide something in order to be loved and accepted. 

Jen: Yes. 

Nancy: And then in the next breath, we wanna be loved for the truth of who we are and how do we reveal that truth and how do we reveal our truth without sort of exposing ourselves in such a way that it’s re-traumatizing.

Jen: Yes. And that is a fine line for sure to walk. And I feel like being appropriately boundaried and there are things I didn’t include in my book. I mean, yes, it’s pretty revealing in a lot of ways and there are parts that that I ended up editing out that felt like, okay, this is, this part’s just for me. And I feel like that’s also in the interest of the people in my life who I love. It’s like when you’re writing something that is memoir or teaching memoir, it involves the people in your closest circles. And so for their own privacy, I only tell the parts that I can speak to that are my story and the way that I perceived things that happened. So I think that that is, that’s a piece that was like difficult for me in some way, but I feel like I feel comfortable with what is out there relatively. 

Nancy: Yeah. Good. And I think also what you were just speaking to, you know, there are elements of our story, that there’s a difference between personal and private. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Nancy: So things can be personal, but the private may very well be the things that we don’t need to include all the time or that we don’t need to put out there in that same way. 

Jen: Right. And the personal tends to be the part where I feel like the specific pieces where, like what we were saying before, where you feel alone, that can actually be something that inspires someone else, like inspires the reader, makes you feel that point of connection of like, oh, me too. 

I actually, this book came about right before the pandemic started. I was posting on Instagram just snippets of my story as it was unfolding. And I called it 100 Days of Midlife Emergence. It was a part of a 100 day project and I was just putting little paragraphs in the captions of things that I was going through.And I got a lot of responses in the comments and DMs people saying, me too. And I thought that was just me or Can you talk more about that? Or can I connect with you around this? And you know, a few people said, this should be a book. And so that was, I was like, oh, maybe, maybe this does come together as a book. But that kind of feedback made me keep going, like really just feeling like, okay, this is serving in some way, speak to a collective experience even though it was a very personal experience I think sometimes the things that are the most personal tend to also be universal. 

Nancy: A hundred percent. I couldn’t agree more. What are the other things we have in common is Naropa University.

Jen: Yes. 

Nancy: And I did my Master’s in Poetry there and I never in a million years had any idea that I would publish. That wasn’t my goal. I just wanted to write and wanted to study more. And especially poetry, which is so personal. And for me to have, as you just mentioned, that experience of recognizing, wow, the more personal I share, the more universal the resonance is. And how much courage that gave me to keep sharing the pieces of myself that I knew would not necessarily draw people toward me, but draw people toward themselves. 

Jen: Yes. 

Nancy: You know, it’s, if I share this or I offer this, it’s an invitation and it gives someone else permission, you know, to go within in that way.

Jen: Yeah, definitely. I love also the title of your podcast, Your Permission Prescription is like, I mean so much the work you do, obviously, and it’s something that I feel like happens in my work with my clients and in my book as well and my courses. I hoping that people will, it’s not like I’m writing a permission slip for anyone, but hoping that they’ll write it for themselves. I think there’s just this, in hearing each other’s stories, it’s just such a beauty of storytelling and sharing and community. I feel like when I do midlife emergence work and like group formats, it’s so powerful that way we’re hearing someone else’s story ignites in us this self purposeness to like tell our own, to admit to ourselves our own maybe first and then to share it.

So yeah, that is often the prescription, right. 

Nancy: Yeah. So I’d love for you to share a bit about, so you have this realization, you have this recognition about what you want and then, you know, you begin to make steps in the direction of your desire. 

Jen: Yes.

Nancy:  And so I, I’d love to hear from you a bit about how that process was for you, actually moving into that place where you were really sort of taking your own life by the reins.

Jen: Yeah, I mean it is like that, right? It felt like a process of really breaking my own heart. 

Nancy: Mm. 

Jen: And letting go of a lot of things that I was very comfortable with. And I knew that I needed to do that because it was like, I realized I would be disappointing a lot of people, including my ex-husband, potentially my kid, which actually ended up being okay, friends, family, all of that. 

But disappointing myself just didn’t feel like an option. And I knew that it would be heartbreaking for everyone including me. And it still is, it’s this feeling of, you know, having all of the feelings. Like I feel I every day go through this feeling of freedom. I mean the subtitle, my book is Free Your Inner Fire and I do feel like I’m constantly becoming, being, becoming and becoming more and more free. But even in that I’m still grieving. 

So it’s been a slow process. It’s definitely not over. I don’t know that it ever will be. I think it’s like a constant evolution. My book certainly is written from the, as people say, the messy middle, but the middle or the raw, rawness of actually experiencing it. I didn’t go through it and then write it. And then after, you know, where I am now, this perspective, I didn’t go back and edit from that perspective either. So it actually does kind of go through that heartbreaking process and breaking open and expanding. It feels like this boundlessness that sort of happened. 

So for me specifically, what that meant, admitting my truth to my then husband, to my friends, and then eventually, you know, to more people, but in a small enough way that it felt safe and well boundaried, like I said. But then going through a pretty private process in my marriage of going through couples counseling, experimenting with open marriage, an ethical non-monogamy, seeing a therapist who specialized in that and going very slowly and intentionally through that process to see if that was an option. Because we very much loved and love each other, but it was like, we know our relationship needs to take a new form. How can we do this? We’re like, let’s be creative.So that whole process was years long. It wasn’t like this was a rash decision or, and we moved really slowly through it. 

But in that exploration we really came to a place of realizing that that isn’t, having an open relationship isn’t what either of us really wanted our relationship to look like in our marriage. And it definitely didn’t work for my own attachment style. Like I’m realizing now, it’s like I don’t know that I’m have the constitution for that. And at the same time it’s a completely valid and wonderful form of relationship that works for a lot of people. 

And yeah, so it was definitely a gradual evolution and one that is still is changing all the time, but I definitely feel more aligned with myself and in my truth, like it, I think about, it’s funny, two nights ago I was having dinner with my teenager and my girlfriend and we have these like conversation cards and we picked one and the question was things that are like on your bucket list or five things on your bucket list or whatever. And they named theirs. And I was like, gosh, I think I just you know, I was like writing a book. That was my bucket, you know, being in a relationship with a woman, not like, I’m like, wow, okay, write a new bucket list. I started. 

But that idea of no regrets or things that you feel like there’s an urgency at this point of midlife where you’re like, okay, this is the one life I have to live. I wanna live it for me. And on my deathbed, what would I wanna look back on and make sure I had done and just not have regrets about. So I feel like I’m on that path now. It’s not like I’ve checked all the boxes, but I don’t know, I definitely feel a lot more me and more whole and more, and wholeness to me is really the goal, not happiness. Where I talk with my, my mom and she’s like, I just want you to be happy honey, you know, which is a wonderful thing. And I get that as a mom and it’s never been the thing that I’ve seeking. I’m like, no, I’m actually seeking wholeness. And I tell her that. I’m like, it’s really the whole expanse of all of the feelings. Like I am grieving and I am happy and I am all of the myriad things. Like, and that makes it complicated. 

I think that there has been a pressure, I have felt in the idea of bringing my truth forward or coming out or as I like to say, inviting others in to who I am, rather than coming out because that sort of others. Others, the person. 

But I feel like there was this responsibility in me and it is probably my people pleaser part to assure the other person that I’m happy and I’m making this decision and I’m super solid about, you know, and all of this. And that’s not the way that that looks often, you know, it’s not this perfect thing. It’s like I am grieving a loss and I am happy I’m taking this step. It’s both. 

Nancy: Oh, all of that. Yes. 

Jen: All of that. 

Nancy: Yes. Yes. I have to say, I love that you said what you said about happiness. I’m someone also who doesn’t really resonate with happiness and of course also have a mother who’s like, I just want you to be happy. And for me it’s much more about, I love what you said about wholeness, it’s about fulfillment or satisfaction or meaning or whatever it is, but it’s not about sort of happy. 

Jen: Right. 

Nancy: Yeah. You know, the other thing that I find really interesting and I’m seeing with other women at this stage of life, at midlife, this how do I wanna say it? It’s almost like finally a courage to say nothing might be wrong, but it ain’t right.

Jen: Right. 

Nancy: So to leave a marriage that again, on paper or to the outside world looks perfect. I mean, in my case it was because I expended a lot of energy making it look that way, right? 

Jen: Yeah. 

Nancy: But people who are like, you know what, it’s not necessarily that anything’s particularly wrong. You know, we all want a reason, like no one had an affair or no one did this, or no one did that. But to really be able to make a conscious choice to say, you know what, this isn’t how I wanna live the rest of my life or this isn’t the choice I wanna make.

And whether it’s about divorcing or whether it’s about, there’s a, the big movement of living apart together. You know, to have freedom and to have some space, but to really be able to look at, you know what, I don’t know that I can consciously make the choice to live the next whatever, 40 years of my life like this. 

Jen: Yeah. I mean I think that’s so important what you said, because it can be so many facets of life too. A lot of the women I work with, they’re not unhappy with their life. They’re just, they’re like, I want more. And I don’t know what my personal more is, it’s just this. And I write about this in introduction to my book, like this cry for more, like is there something more I want more? Like they’re humming along in their life, but there’s an emptiness or there’s a dissatisfaction. And I felt that too before I was able to name it. But I also felt it in other areas of my life. My career has shifted. I moved from the Bay Area back to Boulder. So it doesn’t need to be a giant leap necessarily. 

I hear from women a lot, like, I really like who I am, it’s not like I need to make this major shift. And no, you don’t. I mean, I happen to make a lot of shifts that seem major to a lot of people and to myself, but it can be the small choices that the little one degree choices that eventually create change or create a different direction for a way of living that might feel more congruent. So yeah, I, I hear that and what you’re saying. 

Nancy: Yeah. And you know, even just sort of like coming back to what, you know, I was mentioning before about like as a, you know, as a teen or as an adolescent, you know, I like to spend time alone and then now as an adult, I like to also. And I really think about this concept of reinvention as really what it is, is it’s a return to the essence of who we were. It’s not like this whole now painting over, you know, it’s not like, let me create a whole new being to be in the world. It’s like, actually, let me strip away all the bullshit and I’m gonna stop packaging myself to be digestible to you and I’m gonna really let myself see what’s true here.

Jen: Totally. Yeah. It feels so that’s the freeing of like just the unmasking, right? And just getting back to the essence of our personality, our person that we generally are. Sometimes a lot of us are free to be in childhood and then we get socialized out of it and then we remember it, put it back together again. You know, and midlife really does invite us into that in a way we’re, we have an opportunity at this stage of life to do that and it can be really daunting because at this point we’ve often committed to relationships and careers and mortgages and jobs, you know, all of that and maybe taking care of care of elderly parents. And there are a lot of things that could be daunting about making shifts, you know, at this point of life. And it’s like, if not now, when 

Nancy: Exactly. 

Jen: And why not? 

Nancy: Yeah. Right. Like why not? Why not make sure that I’m living the life I wanna live versus caretaking you and your feelings about me living the life I wanna live. 

Jen: Yeah, exactly. And I feel like that disappointing others instead of disappointing yourself is like a takeaway for me, I think. And what I hope that a reader will get from my book and, and a lot of others. I think it’s really just, it’s so hard to do. I think, especially if you’re socialized as a woman in our culture and this generation as well. It’s like being a martyr or being a people pleaser, or being one who is like in my family, oh my gosh, she does things for others so much, you know, before herself. It’s like a compliment. And I’m like, wow, I do not wanna be that. 

Nancy: Right. I do not wanna pride myself on that. 

Jen: Right. Yeah. 

Nancy: You know, I also, this has me think too, and it’s something that I find myself thinking about every now and then you that certainly when all of these, when marriage was invented, if you will, people were dead by the time they’re our age. 

Jen: Right. 

Nancy: They weren’t, yeah. Like midlife was like 15, you know? 

Jen: Yep. 

Nancy: But people weren’t in these sort of like never ending single monogamous relationships or people didn’t have one career. Now, you know, it’s, there are multi relationships or multi-career paths and I think that there is an embracing of all of that that has not quite caught on.

Jen: I agree. Yeah. I think that we have the opportunity now. I mean, it’s just like we’re living, we can live a lot of lives in a life. And that’s sort of the way that my ex-husband put it. Like as we were going through the divorce process, he’s like, this is just the logistical stuff of it. We’re still just us, but we’re just gonna do something different now and we need to do something different now. Because those are the vows we took with each other is to help each other be the most free versions of ourself. And to do that, we dissolve the marriage, sure, on paper. And we still love each other and we still, and I know that that’s a maybe unique situation or everyone has different stories around how that works for them or looks for them.But that really felt like the way to uphold our vows as human beings to each other in this life and realize that, okay, now we just need to break whatever this pattern was that we were in and do something else just so that we can be, be ourselves and grow more and watch each other grow more. 

Nancy: And you share a child, which is going to be far more bonding than probably anything.

Jen: Right. Yeah. I mean, we’re continuing to co-parent and we live down the street from one another. And yeah, I mean I, that part, you know, I’m going over there for dinner tonight. Like it’s something that we still do and it’s not without hardship. It’s not like, yay, this is this perfect unconventional family at all. It’s still challenging and I feel like we do it in a way that’s pretty conscious and respectful. 

So it’s always changing. And we have a teenager, so that’s all that’s constantly, constantly challenging us in new ways. 

Nancy: Hmm. I wanna make sure, is there anything that you wanna make sure that you say here or get across? 

Jen: Oh gosh, yeah. I think that, I mean, I enjoy talking about this with people and I enjoy just talking with you about it. And especially after reading your book, I felt like such resonance and the way of going about really using your own story as a way to invite others into their own self inquiry. And even, you know, the structure of a book where it’s like, here’s a story and also for the reader, here are some questions or prompts for you to really explore this theme in your own life. 

And it just felt natural for me to write something in that way and tying in like therapy and coaching and art therapy. Cause I do offer different, you know, art prompts and personal ritual and just different ways of exploring the midlife transition. And no one’s just gonna look exactly like mine. And there’s no like steps that are linear. I don’t feel like it’s a linear path in any way at all.

Nancy: Right.

Jen: But there are some themes that I feel like I’ve identified that are worth looking at in whatever order they come up. So yeah, I just, I just resonated with that with you and I just wanted to, I don’t know, I think to say to you that your book touched me in those ways as well and got me thinking about my own leaping, jumping, and where I am in the process of that. So yeah, I just, I really appreciate the conversation. 

Nancy: I’m so glad and I’m so glad that you wrote your book and put it out in the world for all of us. 

Jen: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, me too. 

Nancy: So you mentioned earlier that you like the title of the podcast, Your Permission Prescription. 

Jen: Yes. 

Nancy: And so I’d love to know what you invite the listeners to give themselves permission for after they’ve listened to us.

Jen: Yeah, I feel like the permission to claim more like what I was saying earlier, whatever their personal more is, and to really ask there, there’s a prompt in the beginning of my book, and I think that for me it’s, it’s a question that I was actually toying with in the very beginning. It’s like, what is the one thing that I am not writing? What I, what can’t I say yes and what am I not writing still?

And when I answered that sort of prompt in myself was when I was like, oh, this is the thing that is, the more that I’m craving and that I’m after. And it’s like, not until I had written everything I could write and then it’s like, what am I still not saying? And so I think I would just invite that claiming of more claiming of whatever that looks like for you. And I feel like that’s a key to alignment and the freedom that we’re talking about. 

Nancy; Thank you. And for those listening, once again, your book is Midlife Emergence and it’s out now in all the places. And what’s the best way to stay in contact with you, follow you, find you? 

Jen: Sure. Yeah. My website is the hub for all my offerings. It’s my name JenBerlingo and my book Midlife Emergence: Free Your Inner Fire. It’s available wherever you like to buy your books. 

And there are lots of ways of connecting with me. I offer one-on-one midlife coaching, I’m rolling out several new online programs this year around different themes that I touch on in my book. And I’m gonna be offering more group guidance programs later this year. 

You can always find me on social media, I mostly hang out on Instagram. I post daily inspiration there I like that platform because it’s visual and I’m visual, so I share my art there as well. My handle is my name there @Jenberlingo. And yeah, I’d love to hear from anyone who’s read the book or anyone who’s touched by the conversation. Yeah, I’m available. I’m pretty accessible. 

Nancy: Wonderful. Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. 

Jen: Thank you too Nancy. Thank you for having me. 

Nancy: Yes, you’re welcome. Thanks for being here. For everyone listening, I’ll be back with you again next time.

Thanks so much for joining me today on Your Permission Prescription. For even more, I invite you to head on over to nancylevin.com and sign up for my newsletter, The Practice, and follow me on social media. 

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