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. Hola chicas! I know it's been a hot second since I've done a podcast. I have been busy living my best life in Spain and I'm like exhaling like that because... man it's been a little bit rainy here which i can't complain because being from vancouver it's always rainy but this is costa del sol this is you know
sunshine territory. So when your brain is expecting sunshine and you get a ton of rain, it can be tough sometimes. But the reason I have this big exhale is I just did this huge tennis lesson and it's awesome because I'd never... I worked with this tennis coach before and there were only three of us and he totally like killed us. I'm exhausted. I'm like, I haven't worked out like that, like done that much.
intense cardio and so long because there was only three of us we played games where it was like you have to run a lot and I'm like for the first time in a long time my brain was like I don't know if I can keep going. Like I'm the one who will always run to like even pick up the balls in between, in between drills and exercises. I'll always be running and moving. And at this point I was like,
damn, I don't even know if I could make it home. I got to get the bus home. I'm so tired, which was good because we need to, we always need to challenge ourselves, right? To keep our body like. at its peak so it will allow us to go on all of these adventures so i'm gonna be sipping water throughout this podcast or i mean guzzling water because here's the thing about spain
When it does rain, like it rained say at nine o'clock and my lesson was at 1045. It takes me an hour to get there on the bus. So I messaged them. I'm like, is the class on? Because I don't want to.
take the bus over there if it's not on and she said well it stopped raining so surely the courts will be dry by 10 45 and when the actual sun comes out it dries up almost instantly because it's a hot hot sun it's so crazy and sure enough by the time I got there the courts were dry and game on so that was awesome and I'm exhausted from that but I wanted to talk about
the one of the best things about my trip so far and i think any trip i go on and i think anything i do in life and i think anything you do in life one of the main things like the most important thing is the community, the people that you surround yourself with. And I've been gone for about three months and it feels like a lifetime because when I think about all the amazing people that I've met,
I think about when I first arrived here and I'm like, damn, that was only three months ago. That felt like a lifetime ago. The woman whose apartment that I stayed in, she was so kind. I remember her coming and finding me. um because i was lost and just so oh amazing welcoming me into her house and giving me tons of information on things to do and how to eat the grapes at midnight and all that kind of fun stuff
And then going to Valencia and taking language for four weeks and staying at the school and doing all the events. And I met so many wonderful people. And the thing about traveling like this is... Most people are transient because if you're hanging out with other people who are traveling, they're usually there for a short period of time. If you meet anyone else from Europe, they're usually there for a short period of time because it's just...
a hop, skip and a jump away for them to get there. Super easy. So you really want to work on, or it's a good opportunity to work on your friend making game. Like how do I meet other people?
And I actually really enjoy building communities when I'm in a spot for a longer period of time. And I found it really easy to do. And I was just... contemplating like last weekend i went um on the caminito del rey which is this gorgeous trail on the side of a huge it's a big ravine and the trail is just built into the side of it and it and then there's the river below and it is gorgeous and it's the only thing that i really wanted to do before i left like touristy
And so I was going to a language school for one week because here's what happened. I took the language school for four weeks and I'm like, God, week four, I don't know anything. I'm going to go to Malaga and I'm not going to take any lessons. I'm just going to tennis, meet people, practice my Spanish just by doing meetups. And then I'm because I've been here for I don't even know how long, like maybe I'll do one more week. So we did another week of school. And it's interesting because...
When we are doing something we don't know how to do, it can be really challenging because we suck at it and we fail at it. So the challenge isn't... getting better at it because if you stick with it you will get better at it the challenge is what you tell yourself while you're sucking at it that's the thing because i'm like this is hard i don't understand what people are saying but when i went
to the week of school it was kind of like a review of what i had done the first four weeks and i'm like oh i actually do know stuff so that was validating for me so if i have confidence in my brain I'm going to speak more. I'm going to go out there and try more things. Just being confident, knowing that I do know some things. So that was good. And then after that, I'm like, okay, no mess. Like I'm done with these.
four hour a day learning things because they are quite quite intense but when i was at the school they offered this trip to the Caminito del Rey, which is wonderful because they organize the bus and everything and it's cheap when you go through the school. So I went on my own and then of course I met like five other people on their own. So here's my key, my super secret.
um, tip to making friends when you're traveling solo and you can use this anywhere. You don't have to be traveling solo, but if you're by yourself and you want to make a friend, this is what I do. I look around for anybody else that's by themselves.
And then I just strike up a conversation. It's super easy when you're traveling because you'll say, where are you from? That's the best starter because it's super easy. But if you are... not traveling, like if you're in your city, you just come up with a nice little line. that you can use on anyone no matter where you are because there's usually other people who are also traveling solo but they're usually just afraid to make the first move
So I'll just jump right in there and start chatting people up. For example, on this trip, we had to, this is the directions that you give. This is just like classic Spain. It's like...
here, just go meet in front of City Hall. And then there's no other details, just a time in front of City Hall. And so there was this huge wedding going on and the film festival is going on and there was tons of people and lots of buses. So it's like... damn how do we find where our bus is and as you just look at the people you can see that there's some people that look like they might actually be going hiking
And so I would just walk up to that person because they're by themselves and start chatting them up. And then you have like someone to chat with on the trail. But walking through the trail, I met. 10 more people who are also traveling solo because you would stop and take pictures. So you'd be around different people in your group all the time. So it was super easy to meet people on that excursion on any excursion.
So that's my number one thing is I'll always talk to the person who is also by themselves. Another thing is I go to meetups. So meetups are an app and you can.
punch in anything that you want like you have an interest in hiking or skipping or sewing it doesn't matter and they have meetups now when you're traveling it's fantastic because you'll meet a ton of other local people and malaga where i am now it's super social every night every day there's five or ten things to do for anybody anybody can go everybody's welcome
So it's a super social area, super social town. Even though it's very touristy, there is a really great community here. And as I am reflecting on community... I was thinking about all the amazing people that I met on the way, like Janice in Barcelona. We just hung out. We just hit it off because she was originally from Vancouver, but living in Singapore.
working and living there with her boys and we just had this awesome connection so we could do a lot of things together and then all the friends that i made at the language school so many it's funny because they have it was a very good school
I would highly recommend Tarahona in Valencia. Really, really well run. And every day after school, they have social events. But if they're going out... to a bar or a big party or something they'll also have another event for people that are say over 30 that don't want to go partying and that was wonderful too like you'd go for dinner or go for drinks or go to a museum
So it was really easy to make friends that you're just set up to make friends. You can't lose in that situation. But so that was where I made a lot of my friends from. And then living in a shared apartment. meet people that aren't in your class that are also at the school and then when i went when i came here i did a ton of meetups and language exchanges and because i wasn't going to school
Every other day, I would go to a language exchange where we would do half an hour of Spanish, half an hour of English, half an hour of Spanish, half an hour of English. Those are really hard for me because...
It's wonderful. Like it's really well organized. It's called Pa Change. And I would highly recommend them as well here in Malaga. But it's hard because every table has like maybe... six people sometimes it has four and you have at least one native spanish speaker from the area but the andalasia area has so many crazy accents
that some people are really, really hard to understand. And when some people come here just to chat, I think they forget that you're a learner and they just go off. And that's why it's hard to understand is because the Spanish people... spanish people just speak in one long sentence like they talk fast and all the words run together so sometimes you'll you'll get somebody who's a teacher and they slow it down. And I'm like, damn, I can understand you, which is wonderful.
But like I told you before, there was a guy from Canada there and I couldn't understand a word he was saying in Spanish. I thought he was local. And then when he started speaking English, I couldn't understand either because he would just talk so fast in general. what the heck is happening i should be able to at least understand my fellow canadian so that was always fun but i feel like what the world needs now and i say this all the time is love sweet love
But it's connection and community. And in my own, I don't know, heartfelt way, that's what I'm always trying to create. is community because i know like i'm talking about traveling solo traveling solo works great for me because
I can be by myself when I want to be by myself. And then I go out and I find people when I want to find people. What I'm learning about myself is more often than not, I do want to find people. I do want to hang out with people. And then there's different kinds of hanging out. The hanging out where it's a lot of effort.
you've got to really think with as those are the language exchanges and then there's other hanging out where it's just a social and then that's way easier so at this point of my trip at this point in my journey, I'm looking for the easy stuff. Cause I just, I'm almost at the end of my trip. So I'm like, I'm all about the easy, but I just keep reflecting on all the fabulous people I met. And that's.
What I think happens in midlife is that we, it's kind of the end of a community because our community usually is based on our kids' activities. kind of our kids lives and that's how we build the community for example the school that your kids go to that's a community and you hang out with those people
And the sports teams, that's a community and you hang out with those people. And then when your kids leave, then is when you want to build your own community, a new community. And that can be overwhelming for people. That can be like, people would be like, I don't know how.
tired like it's just so easy to not do anything here i'm saying i'm going out all the time no matter what i'm going out even if it's just for an hour i'm going out and usually once i go out then because here stuff doesn't start until nine o'clock that's when stuff starts so i'm really noticing that here I'm participating in as many things as I possibly can. But at home, I was kind of lulled into this space of, I can't be bothered.
I can't be bothered to go to a meetup. I can't be bothered to build a new community of friends. And I feel like it just, you know, you get tired and you need a rest from all that momming that you've done. Sometimes it can be that transition when your kids leave the house or work or whatever, and you just never see them anymore. So it's that transition of like, what do I want to do? But I feel like...
It's an effort that we want to make. Because with all these changes that go on with our body, it's so important to stick with community because it would be so easy just to slip into the abyss. And we don't want to do that. We have so much to share with the world. And I feel like if we can really get our eating on point, our health and fitness on point, this is prime time for us because our bodies are still rocking and we can go and do these things.
Like we can surf, we can play tennis, we can go to dance classes, we can do all of the things. And there will come a time when... we get older where maybe it would be harder for us to do those things that's why it's like now is our time we have all this experience we have all this knowledge we've worked our whole life so we should have some money to spend and that's when we want to
really figure out who am I what do I want to do what kind of community do I want to be a part of and I feel like midlife moms just have so much love and energy to give like that's the best kind of community that you want to be a part of for sure so my invitation for you is to get curious about
what kind of community you would like to create for yourself or if that sounds like overwhelming what kind of a community would you like to be a part of so it already exists you just gotta go find it and then go partake in it so that's super easy because it's already like up and running you literally just have to show up and you can use that trick like i use just like i'll just go for an hour because if i get my butt out the door i'm gonna be out for hours and hours and hours
I'll just find yesterday, I just went from one event to the next, to the next. Like my whole day was filled with these meetups and they were all totally different, totally and completely different. So really be curious about... how you're feeling in this moment are you happy with the community that you have like maybe you already have a community that's wonderful i would invite you to embrace it even more to to contribute to it even more to pump it up to
breathe some crazy midlife bomb life into it like this is our time to really do all of the things and i know for sure that if you have this thought about something you want to do or a life you want to create that there's other people out there that are the same i guarantee it you just got to find them and there's a group for that so i invite you because i can tell you for sure for sure that on this trip all the places that i've gone all the things that i've done
Nobody has ever once said to me, I don't want to talk to you. And nobody has ever ignored me. It's been the exact opposite. I'm not going to lie. You know, there is... a french guy once that was kind of you know je ne sais quoi like very you're like that's what people are like you find oh my god there have been some people where you're like damn you're really unique
Like there was this one guy who was totally and completely standing on his own. And I could see why after I started talking to him, he just, and I don't know if he did it on purpose. I don't know if he was just like, he thought.
I know more than everybody else or if he just liked to be cheeky and shake things up if he just liked to stir the pot I don't know because he had a little grin on his face but he was kind of like like socially awkward a little bit so I think there was a combination of many things going on where I'm like it was even hard for me to chat with them and I'm like okay if it's hard for me to chat with you we got some work to do because I'll
chat with anybody about anything because the easiest thing is to ask them a question about themselves and then just listen that's the easiest way to start a conversation and i catch myself trying to always be asking questions Because then if they're interested, they'll ask me a question, but they're happy to answer questions about themselves. Happy to. And then you'll find curious people really quickly because they're the ones that ask questions back.
And talking about this, I see that the people that I'm drawn to the most are the curious people. I love people with curious brains because... They're asking questions from a sincere place of like, oh, that's interesting to me. I really want to understand that more. And those have been the best connections that I've made. When I go to these things, I try to find the curious people. I love the curious people.
I think too, because I'm one of those people, I'm just curious about everything. And that makes for good conversation when you're meeting people. Just go up and genuinely be curious and that's it. So I wanted to share this just about, I wanted to tell you more stories about my travels, but I've run out of time because I really feel...
Like community is the way to go. And the best thing you can do for yourself is find some really good communities during this time that you feel like, yeah, I can really get on board with this. Like I can be all in on this. The cool thing about being in a foreign country is if you feel like, Oh, I don't know if I could do that. Or that's not really something I would do. And you have feelings about it. You're in a foreign country. Nobody knows you. You can go once and then.
just disappear forever. For example, I did improv the other day, improv, like I've always wanted to do that, but I've always thought that's crazy. I could never do that. And so I thought, what's the worst that could happen? It could just be the most crazy experience, but no, I'll never see these people again ever. So. I went and it was awesome. And I loved it. It was the same. That's how I learned about surfing. I remember my friend Bonnie being like, you have to come surfing. And I'm like,
Oh, that sounds horrible, but I will because you're my friend. I'll try it. And then I was addicted. So you never know what you're going to find that's really going to light you up. It could be the craziest, strangest thing. So you never know until you try. Last weekend was supposed to be a super rainy weekend. So instead of just doing all the same old things that I've been doing, I thought I'll just organize.
something else to do. So I got a group together and we went to an escape room and it was such a fantastic evening. And all I did was invite a bunch of the people that I had met and they didn't know each other and I said here I've booked it let's go and they all showed up and had a lovely time and then after that we went out for tapas and then after that we went out for drinks and then it just turned into an awesome night.
And then also organizing paddle just like, hey, I want to try this and put out the invitation to like people that I just met, but I knew were interested in paddle or athletic or wanted to give it a try. And so that whole weekend was just full of. different kinds of excursions that I had created just with random people that I met and bringing them all together. And it was fantastic. It was easy to do.
and it was a really really good time so there's you could it could be as simple as that as creating your own group randomly just based on something you want to try and that's where you're gonna find that place that kind of leads you to the next place or re-inspires those little embers that were kind of like just simmering while you like just kind of glowing while you raise your kids and stuff like that
Because those passions that we had, they're still there or they've turned into other passions, but we still are human beings that want to live our best lives. So this is how we get to really switch gears.
and find like-minded people that also want to do those same things and when i get back watch work because i'm going to be building more communities because i just feel like that's what we want to be doing especially when the world is in chaos we shouldn't be separating we shouldn't be segregating we shouldn't be fighting we should be coming together we should be curious we should be supporting each other
And that's what I want to create. And I hope that you can create that for yourself too. If you need any help, you know where to find me. Thank you for listening. Always, always, always love yourself first and have an amazing day.