Welcome to the Mastering Midlife podcast where we talk about all the crazy fun things that happen when you are a midlife mama. I'm your host, Heather London. Let's dig in. How are you? Okay. I have been missing doing my podcast, but I've been on a bit of an adventure. I don't know if you could tell from my background or not, but I am not at home and I am in the beautiful city of Barcelona or Barcelona.
as they like to say. And so I've been a little bit busy and that's why I haven't done my podcast yet, but I wanted to catch you up. on what i'm doing and because this is what mastering midlife is all about for me i love traveling and i haven't traveled in well since last year but i mean before that i hadn't traveled in forever because
of my kids. I couldn't afford to take my kids traveling and all the responsibilities and blah, blah, blah. But now my kids are old enough and I have gotten back to traveling and I... always used to be travel i'm a wanderer by nature that's just who i am and how i function and so this adventure trying to escape the cold and the rain in vancouver has brought me to spain
and i'm in barcelona and taking in all of its amazing wonders like i am just walking around looking in awe of every single thing i love the people i love the architecture the food the culture, the passion, the ambience, just so many people. And this is winter, so it's off-season for them, but it's still...
The streets are packed with people just walking and talking and eating and shopping. And I could see why it's the number one vacation destination in the world. And even though it's wintertime, it's still... packed the streets the later it gets the more people that are out on these streets and these streets just go on forever they're so beautiful and i just start walking and then i walk down this beautiful street with this
amazing architecture. And then next thing you know, it opens up to this even more beautiful plaza with lights and restaurants and cafe. Oh, it's just as if you can't tell I am. in love with barcelona i've been here before but i was very young i was in my 20s so i was only here for a couple of days so i really don't remember much so now i'm taking it all in. I'm doing all the sites. Spent New Year's Eve here, which was amazing. And that, my friends, is why I haven't...
done a podcast in a while. So I feel like you're going to understand. You're going to be like, that makes sense. But I have a couple stories that are in my brain that I wanted to share from my travels, like just from getting here. And the first one really... duck with me and i actually recorded the story in the airport but it was too quiet so i had i have to record it because it just was no good the audio was no bueno but when when i was on the plane and this is
we're talking like a nine and a half ten hour flight from vancouver to munich germany and the funniest thing is it takes like you fly for seven hours and then you're finally not over Canada anymore because Canada is so huge but this was a long flight big plane lots of people and two rows in front of me was this little girl. And I'm going to say she was maybe three years old, just guessing. And I don't know what language she spoke because she never said actual words, but she scowled.
screamed her face off screamed at the top of her lungs and when she wasn't screaming she was just yelling the straight up yelling and there were no words I couldn't understand any words it was just Scream crying, you know and you can see like the person's tonsils and then just yelling at the top of her lungs It was so crazy. And the reason I wanted to talk to you about this, because it's like, I understand people travel with kids and hey, trust me.
mom and baby fitness, all that kind of stuff. I get it. It's hard. But this was a different case. This was a case of where the child is running the show. And I thought, oh, she'll stop after. 10 minutes or whatever this went on for hours and hours probably like three hours maybe four i don't even know because i put my headphones in and and was watching a movie
It lasted until she actually cried or screamed herself to sleep. And the reason this is such a big thing for me is because she wasn't born this way. She was... she became this way because of her experiences in life thus far. And so what am I saying? It's like her parents trained her to be this way. How did her parents train her to be this way? By her doing a behavior and then her being rewarded for the behavior
And so what she learned, because she's just a little kid, she doesn't know anything. She's just learning from her environment around her. She's totally like a blank slate and could be turned into anything. And this is what she was turned into by... her learning that if i yell or scream or cry i'll get what i want i'll get the attention that i want and i was like damn like it was tough even for me to watch and i'm like a super patient kind of person but it was
tough to watch and to see and to listen and the mom was just at the mercy of this child like at one point when we were taking off The stewardess said, please, she has to sit in her chair or we have to like stop our takeoff. Like we will stop this plane if she's not sitting in her chair. So of course that's going to freak them all out even more.
The reason I'm talking about this is because it applies to us today. We are the way we are because of a lot of our past experiences, but it doesn't have to define us. If there's a way that we are and we don't like... We can totally reprogram ourselves. That's the beautiful part. And that's why this story was like, I have to talk about this on my podcast because...
she was this way because of her experiences. She's like, I'm going to try this. And if this doesn't work, I'll try this. And then eventually she tried something that worked and it worked for her. So what did she do? She just kept repeating it over and over again. And then that's how we got to five hours of screaming on the plane.
And how this relates to you is what would you want to change in your life that you feel is something that... you're doing or you who you're being that you don't really want to do or be but it's from your past experiences from your upbringing and then let's reprogram that That's the work that we do is like we know that all of these things come from thoughts in our brain and we can reprogram our brain 100%.
Coaching the unconscious brain. That's what I do and we don't even need to get into the past like we don't need to say, you know, like, do you have daddy issues or anything like that? It's like, what do we want? We want to look forward and program what we do want and retrain our brain to think the way we want to think and to see things the way we want to see them.
And then another situation, which is along the same lines, and this is why it's in my brain, and it keeps them in my brain like, I have to talk about this, I have to talk about this, so now once I talk about it, I can let it go, which is really nice, so thank you for allowing me to share this with you. When I walk out the door of where I'm staying, I'm in the Gothic Quarter, if anybody has been to Barcelona. And it's, you know, if you've been here, you know. And when I walk out the door...
I'm literally on the street that faces the Barcelona Cathedral. And it is just grandeur. It was just so beautiful and magnificent. And that's what I see every time I leave my little apartment.
Because Barcelona is such a big tourist area, there's always people hawking stuff. There's always people trying to sell stuff or whatever it is. And every day... at the at the square there are i see maybe four of them so i think they're all together but they paint their face white and then they the girls dress up in like a white sheet and
crown on their head and the guys have more like a clown suit on and then what they do is they take balloons and they make they make two balloons i've seen two different types one is a heart out of balloons and then the other one looks like maybe it's a sword and
They have this balloon and then they'll come up to you and they'll put the heart in front of you like a frame. And they'll be like, oh, you're so beautiful. Take a picture. And then they'll get in the picture. And then if you take the picture, they're like, now you have to pay me for the picture. or they'll guilt you into it. So what they're doing is they're getting something and then putting pressure on you to buy it. And this, of course, rubbed me the wrong way too, because...
They're manipulating you because they're going up to little kids and taking pictures with little kids and making balloons for little kids and then being like, now you have to pay me for it. And, and this is how they make their living. But the thing is to the girl that came up to us was like, not happy that we didn't want to pay for it because we didn't want to.
we didn't want it but they're quite aggressive right so they're just like on you all the time and then she was unhappy that we didn't want to buy the balloon so She's trying to guilt you into it. And so they're really good at it, but they're playing on your unconscious brain. And so that's how they make.
their money, and they know what works. Like they know how to manipulate people and they can see the people that they can manipulate because they're so good at it. They do it so many times a day that they're just really, really good at it. And that's similar to...
you know, baby on a plane is the manipulation. You just learn from trial and error. And when they've taken thousands and thousands of pictures with people, they know what to say and what to do in order to get people to buy what they want them to buy. And so that was like another form of how powerful the brain is and how easy it can be manipulated. And then I want to tell you about another story. And this one was New Year's Eve. So for New Year's Eve, I...
So I'm traveling solo, but there's a couple groups that I go in to meet up with other girls that are traveling solo from all over the world. It's so fun. And you just put in chat, what are you doing? Let's go for a coffee or whatever. And you just meet up.
with these people and you have new friends so on new year's eve there was a group of us maybe about 15 of us that ended up going to this place where you buy a ticket and then you get some food they're called tapas here so it's just a bunch of different little things to eat and then you have the celebration and you get drinks and then there's a dj and dancing and first of all let me tell you the food was amazing
it was we just shared everything so there was you know one for everybody and it's like a bruschetta and then there's like uh what oh like a potato salad and just so many good things and it's a little bite of this and a little bite of that And I love that. I love tapas because you get a whole bunch of different things, which is so good. And then you have a dessert. And then for the countdown, what they do here.
is they have 12 grapes and then as you're counting down when you get to 12 you make a wish on a grape and you eat it you make a wish on you and you do that every second until you hit happy new year and then all your wishes will come true but it's like
it's too hard to eat that many grapes that quickly and then celebrate new year's like it was it was a fun tradition but i'm like i couldn't eat all my grapes because it's so fast and you're chewing and wishing and cheering and chewing and cheering anyway we had a really fun night Of course, the more the night goes on, the more fun it becomes and everybody's...
you know feeling more comfortable with everybody the drinks are flowing and then the dancing starts and you know me or if you don't know me i love to dance i'm like i'll be the party starter i'll be the first one on the floor i don't care i love to dance And so we were dancing and there was like a ton of us girls and the place started to fill up. And they're like, we need some guys to dance with. And I'll do this all the time. It's just what I do.
i see there's like a table of people and there's two guys that aren't with any like with girlfriends and the they were dancing at their table so i go over there and i'm like come and dance with us And the guy next to him was with his girlfriend and he's like, the one guy I was talking to said, oh, he has a girlfriend. I'm like, well, I mean, like everybody come and dance with us. Like all of you guys come dance with us. So I'm always trying to like get more people on the dance floor.
But this kind of backfired because first of all, he's like, do you speak Spanish? And I'm like, well, I do, but I'm not very good at it. And it's really loud. And so I was just trying to say, you know, all of us not. Not just that one guy with his girlfriend, because I think that that's what he thought I was doing. I'm like, Oliver, come and dance with us, because he's at the table dancing. And there's a whole bunch of girls dancing. So I'm like, come dance with us.
It was lost in translation and it didn't go the way that I had planned. And then in my brain, I'm like, oh my God, this guy thinks that I'm, or, you know, they think I'm hitting on this guy or.
And this guy was way younger than me, but that's not what I was going for. I was going for, let's have a big party together. And so in my brain was like, oh my God, what have I done? And then I'm thinking like, this guy thinks I'm a... cougar trying to hit on him and and he never did come dance with us so in my brain i could make it mean like something negative or in my brain i could make it something positive
And I noticed my brain trying to go to the negative. And this is what happens when you're aware of your brain is like you catch it before it happens. I could see it going down the road of.
it being a bad thing and i just caught it right away and turned it around so i could just have an amazing evening because here's the truth we don't know what other people are thinking like my intention was to get a whole bunch of guys out on the dance floor with all the girls because there was 15 girls dancing and back at home it would have been easier to do because you could have a conversation about it but that's not what happened and so
Because I was able to catch it I could see what I was gonna do with my brain I could start to hear what I was saying to myself in my brain and I could catch it and I coached myself on it And I turned it around and let it go and had a wonderful evening. Like it was such a good evening. And as I was rolling home at 2.30 in the morning, like I don't do that.
But the party was still going on, like so many people out just having so much fun. And here in Barcelona, people are just happy, you know, like just... Everything is just happening and people are polite and courteous and it's just such a wonderful place. I just love, love, love it. What else I've been doing is just trying to make new friends and enjoy doing things by myself and enjoy doing things with other people. Like I met up with a girl from...
who's originally from Canada but lives in Singapore, and she's leaving today. But we ended up doing a whole bunch of stuff together because we really just clicked. And it was so much fun. And somebody from home, somebody who understands.
I haven't traveled in a place like Barcelona in a very long time. What I mean is, last year when I went to... costa rica and nicaragua it's a different system there like when you're traveling around i'm jumping on a shuttle or a bus but here in the city the the trains the underground trains
will take you everywhere. But it's a big system. And I've never used public transit, like even at home. I don't use it because at home we drive everywhere. That's what we do. But here you don't. You take the transit. And it was a learning curve for me to figure out how to work this system. And luckily I had my friend who...
In Singapore, all she does is take public transit. Like she hasn't driven in forever. So she figured it out really quickly. So I felt really lucky to have her help me figure stuff out. As we're going to all the places, we're just jumping on the... public transit and it's so easy and it it was very overwhelming at first and I easily could have told myself like
that I didn't know what I was doing and, you know, that my brain wasn't working and all this. But instead I thought, you know what, I'm going to put effort into figuring this out. And now I've figured it out and it makes sense and it's so easy and convenient. And now I look forward to going on the train to get me to where I need to go as opposed to being like, oh, I don't know what I'm doing. Like every time I go, it'd be like.
a full-on adventure, like an escape room. That's what it felt like, an escape room. It's like, okay, go here, go there, do this, do that. And you're like, what the heck? How is this all working? And now because I have the overall flow of it, I know.
like the basics of it then it makes it so much easier for me and the whole reason i'm telling you this is because when we're learning or doing something new it can be scary and overwhelming and if we give up then we'll never get good at it but if we come up with a plan like studying the main roads i have a horrible sense of direction horrible even home where i you know i grew up there so when it comes to a place like this i don't know which way is up but if i just
get out a map and look at the main streets, figure out where I am, the main stuff. Then I'm like, oh, now I have a general idea of what's going on. And that gets me a leg up. And then I can enjoy what I'm doing more than being worried about it or trying to figure it out. And it's just like that as we get into midlife when our brain, it seems to be failing us a bit. But all I think, I had this realization with the whole metro system is that I wasn't putting enough effort into it.
Like I was just going along with I don't know how to figure this out. I don't know what I'm doing and then I didn't like the way that made me feel. So as soon as I switched my thinking to be like, I'm going to figure this out, I'm going to know how to use this system, that empowered me. It put my brain into super... supercharged mode and now I feel like I'm learning and growing and using my brain as opposed to my brain not working for me and that is huge in my life when we start to forget stuff.
and it's harder to put new information in like that is a thing in midlife for real but just like when i was doing a memory course It's not that when we're meeting new people, it's not that we don't remember their names. It's that we just didn't put the effort into learning it in the first place. And so what I want to offer to you, my friends, my midlife sisters, is that...
I want to encourage you to put the effort in, to use your brain, to learn new things, to figure out the stuff that you want to figure out. Because I felt like, you know, how your body too just hits a...
When you get to a certain age, it hits a turning point where you're not as agile or strong or whatever that was. The brain is the same way. And so instead of me just going, oh, my body isn't doing what I wanted it to do, so I'm just going to... write it off i just figure out a different way to get it where it needs to go i just work harder on working on my brain or my body so i put the effort in
And where does that come from? All of this comes from my thoughts about it. So if I'm thinking, oh my God, my brain is broken, then... I'm going to feel sorry for myself and I'm going to be frustrated and I'm going to be scared and I'm not going to do anything. But if I'm like, oh, I just need to work that muscle. I just need to put some effort into learning the metro system. Game changer.
And you can apply this to anything that you're working on. And that's why I wanted to share this because it was so empowering. I went from feeling like overwhelmed and frustrated and defeated to like... Ooh, I got this. And every time I go out, I'm on an adventure. I'm going to figure this out. And it gets easier and easier and easier. And then it just becomes about going out and not about the figuring out where you are or how you're going to get there.
So that's why I've been missing in action, but I am back. I'm here to share my adventures with you and I am hoping to encourage you.
to get out of your comfort zone and go do those big scary things and create the midlife that you love even if it's like traveling the world or starting a new business or or getting some new hobbies or making some new friends like even in your little city maybe you're not traveling to a new country but maybe you want to make new friends in your little city well gosh darn it if I can make new friends in Barcelona you can make new friends where you are
So let's do these things. Let's empower ourselves. And if you need help, you know where to find me, Mastering Midlife Membership. That's what we're all about. But I wanted to share these stories with you to inspire you. So I hope that that's what has happened here today.
I am thinking about you all the time. When I'm out here, I'm doing my adventures. I'm like, oh, I got to tell the girls about this. So I am taking you with me on these amazing adventures. So thank you for listening. Always, always, always. Love yourself first and have an amazing day.