This week on The Pause: Straight Up, we’re doing two very important things: dancing through the outrage and officially announcing the death of giving a f**k.

First up, I’m over the Super Bowl halftime pearl-clutching. If you’re deeply distressed about Bad Bunny being joyful and wildly successful in Spanish…I have questions. Then, I’m digging into the unqualified midlife joy of simply no longer prioritizing the opinions of others. We're talking things like body image baggage from eighth grade and the radical act of saying, “I’m too tired” and meaning it.

Escape Plan? This week, we’re jetting off to Buenos Aires with a bottomless budget. And in Things I Didn’t Hate: progress on my crochet blanket at long last.

If you’ve felt your tolerance for nonsense shrinking with every passing birthday, welcome! You're among friends.

In this episode of The Pause: Straight Up, I talk about why the killing of Alex Pretti hit so hard and what it’s been like to live inside the emotional whiplash of this moment in the country. I share how I’m processing the fear, anger, and exhaustion so many of us are carrying, especially as middle-aged women who are paying close attention and wondering where we go from here.

In the main segment, I focus on the quiet but essential work women are doing right now to hold things together. From organizing and mutual aid to legal support and behind-the-scenes labor, this episode is about how to help without burning yourself out or putting yourself in danger. I also share concrete resources for anyone who feels powerless but wants to do something, along with a gentler take on escape, rest, and the small signs that maybe, just maybe, the pushback is starting to matter.

Links to help out:

The American Civil Liberties Union--https://www.aclu.org/

National Lawyers Guild--https://www.nlg.org/

Campaign Zero--https://campaignzero.org/

Mutual Aid Hub--https://www.mutualaidhub.org/

United We Dream--https://unitedwedream.org/

Indivisible--https://indivisible.org/

Street Medics (Google for groups near you)

In this episode, I attempt to improve my health in midlife, which mostly involves stretching, lowering my expectations, and negotiating with parts of my body that have stopped cooperating. We are not chasing perfection here. We are chasing basic functionality.

I talk about the small, realistic changes I am trying to make, what is helping, what is annoying, and why my hip flexors are currently my main adversary. This is not a wellness transformation story. It is a status update.

Also in this episode: a minor household frustration that somehow becomes a philosophical issue, a brief but necessary escape to a beach with a drink in hand, and one thing I unexpectedly did not hate this week.

If your health goals are modest, your body is opinionated, and your patience is limited, this episode is for you.

In this episode of The Pause: Straight Up, we start with something truly enraging: two-factor authentication and the emotional damage caused by needing six passwords just to watch TV.

Then we get into the idea of “failure to thrive” in midlife. Not in a dramatic way, but in the quiet realization that your life didn’t turn out the way you once assumed it would. The house that never happened. The career that zigzagged. The dreams that are still hanging around, even when reality refuses to cooperate.

There’s also an Escape Plan to Marrakesh, featuring food, hammams, spices, and the fantasy of being scrubbed within an inch of your life and emerging calm and moisturized. And we wrap up with Things I Didn’t Actually Hate This Week, including a skincare product that is genuinely pulling its weight.

Funny, honest, and deeply relatable for anyone navigating perimenopause, aging, and the weird freedom of finally not giving a shit what anyone thinks.

Welcome to “Sh!t My Body Just Does Now,” the episode where I finally admit that my body has entered its feral middle-aged era and did not consult me first.

In this episode, I talk about all the weird, annoying, and frankly disrespectful things my body does now that I’m pushing 48. The stiff lower back that apparently woke up one day and chose violence. The doctor who shrugged and said, “Yeah… that’s aging.” The itchy inner ears no one warned us about. Hormone patches, rashes, Flonase being used for things it was absolutely not marketed for, and the deeply humbling experience of standing up after sitting too long and looking like I just moseyed off the trail.

We get into perimenopause BS, Pilates fantasies, and why yoga can fuck off. There’s also a little escapism because honestly, we need it. Italy makes an appearance. Aperol spritzes are discussed. As they should be.

This is not a wellness episode. There are no tips that will magically fix your joints. It’s just real midlife talk, dark humor, body betrayal, and the comfort of knowing you are absolutely not alone.

If you’re a woman over 40 dealing with perimenopause, aging, stiffness, exhaustion, and the general feeling that your body is running its own side quest, this one’s for you.

Listen, laugh, and feel extremely validated.

#MidlifePodcast #Perimenopause #AgingAsAWoman #WomenOver40 #MidlifeHumor #BodyChanges #GettingOlder #RealTalkPodcast #RelatableAF

Welcome to The Pause: Straight Up—a podcast for every woman who's ever stared into the void of her 40s (or 50s) and wondered “what the hell just happened?” In this very first episode, I finally hit record after too much overthinking and hoping my husband wouldn’t overhear me.

This intro is all about why I started the podcast, what I hope it becomes, and why I think it’s high time middle-aged women like us got to do a little more yapping. No advice. No toxic positivity. Just honesty, a bit of filth, and hopefully a few laughs. If you’ve ever felt like your eyelids have become crepe paper and your life plan took a hard left at midlife, you’re in the right place.

If your perimenopause symptoms are piling up faster than your savings, and you’re pretty sure everyone but you got a cheat code to life, welcome to The Pause: Straight Up.

Join host Shannon for raw, honest conversations about the messy, hilarious, and oh-so-relatable realities of midlife.

Hosted by a fellow perimenopause warrior, The Pause: Straight Up is a new podcast for women who are going through it. Our days can be a fight against brain fog and a mystifying number of new aches and pains, not to mention the strategic incompetence of our loved ones, and trying to embrace the life we've built, even if it's not the one we always dreamed of having. The Pause: Straight Up is a place we can all take a deep breath together.