These jeans you see here, they are my fav-or-ite, I LOVE these jeans. 

These jeans that you see here, they are also my 2nd pair. Not because something happened to the first pair, but because something happened to my body. 

That something is perimenopause and aging with a sprinkle of a global pandemic.

These jeans that you see here, are two sizes bigger than my first pair. 

Moving up sizes feels uncomfortable, even to someone who helps women on the daily with body image and confidence. After all, I am still swimming in the same thinner is better soup right alongside you. 

But when I couldn’t wear these jeans any longer it hit me a little harder. I donated a lot that no longer fit, but these babies were going into the attic in case my girls might enjoy them one day as much as I did.

And I’d be lying if I said that there wasn’t at least 10% wondering on my part if I wouldn’t be able to fit into them again one day (she sighs) once my body got done doing whatever weird hormonal thing it was doing.

You want to talk about someone who is on the precipice of losing her sanity? It is the woman who is asking this question.

This can come up at various times in a woman’s life but I see it most when a woman is in her late 30’s to late 40’s. 

Hello perimenopause, there you are. 

Perimenopause is the time before menopause that can span up to 15 years of “interesting” hormonal fluctuations that seemingly change everything you once knew to be true about your body. 

And let me guess, no one prepared you for it. 

One of the most uncomfortable changes is an increase in fat, particularly around your belly area. 

It seems like New Year’s resolutions are no longer ‘in.’ I’ve never been one to keep up with what the cool kids are doing and it appears that this is no exception.

I like the New Year and resolutions of sort.

I like reflecting on the past year, thinking about what I learned, what went well and what I would like to go better. I like thinking about the next year and I like picking some areas from the ‘what I would like to go better’ department and think about how that can be possible.

I also think about if there is anything new I want to do or achieve.

It’s a lot of doing.

So I also make sure to pump the brakes and hold things loosely and try to work from a place of being inspired versus grinding it out to make these things happen.

I think as women we are overly focused on what we are DOING and so often criticize ourselves for what we are NOT DOING. I don’t think this is our fault, I think it is because we live in a culture that values doing and attaches it to our worthiness.

And this is also likely why I was really intrigued when one of my fellow women business owners I’m in a group with talked about her ‘Don’t List’ that she made for 2024.