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Overview

If you've ever quietly asked yourself have I done enough? — this one's for you.

Stacey Lindsay is an award-winning journalist and the author of Being 40: The Decade of Letting Go and Embracing Who We Are, and in this conversation she does something I've rarely seen done so precisely: she names the thing. The invisible measuring stick. The "shoulds" that become brick walls. The manufactured timeline that has women at every age asking whether they're behind, broken, or somehow not quite enough—when the timeline itself was never real to begin with.

We talk about what Stacey calls "delayering"—the ongoing, never-finished work of taking off inherited stories, other people's expectations, and judgments you've been carrying so long they feel like your own skin. We get into how your body already knows the difference between the stress of genuine challenge and the stress of a life path that isn't yours. And we talk about outsourcing self-worth—the quiet, slow erosion that Stacey says is far more damaging than burnout, and far more common.

And then, near the end, she introduces the concept I haven't been able to stop thinking about since we recorded: the Autumn Queen. A different archetype for women in midlife. Not decline. Not "aging gracefully." Renaissance.

This episode drops on the week of Stacey's book launch, which feels exactly right—because what she has to say about this chapter of life deserves to land in your ears at full volume.

In This Episode

• 00:48 — The made-up timeline: Stacey introduces the "shoulds" as brick walls and the question that never gets answered—have I done enough?

•  02:47 — The brick wall that hurt most: on choosing not to have children, the grief that comes with it, and the exhausting expectation that women justify their choices

• 05:20 — What "delayering" means: taking off the inherited stories, judgments, and expectations you've carried so long they feel like your own skin — and why you're never really done 

• 8:41 — The two kinds of stress: how to tell the difference between excited butterflies and the anxious, hot energy of a life that's going against your soul

• 12:03 — Outsourcing your self-worth: why letting situations chip away at your dignity and values is more damaging than burnout—and far more common

• 15:17 — Practical starting points for the uber-busy human who can't write a whole book about it

• 24:50 — Stacey's reframe of ambition, achievement, and what work is actually for

• 28:51 — How to let it rip: on finally stopping the habit of managing other people's comfort at the expense of your own values

• 39:43 — Beauty ideals—reframing beauty as a feeling, not a performance: including an epic story of a wedding that made Stacey question herself, and why sexuality and vitality are things you carry—not things you earn

• 46:36 — The Autumn Queen: the archetype for women in midlife that nobody's giving us vocabulary for — and why that's not an accident

About Stacey Lindsay

Stacey Lindsay is an award-winning journalist, author, and wellness advocate whose work explores identity, womanhood, and what it means to truly know yourself. Her book Being 40: The Decade of Letting Go and Embracing Who We Are is available now wherever books are sold.

Find her at StaceyLindsay.com and on Instagram @StaceyLindsay.

 Connect with Meghan

• Book: This Isn't Working
• Substack: meghanfrenchdunbar.substack.com
• Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/meghanfrenchdunbar

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Stacey Lindsay — Full Episode Transcript

Unbehaved Season 2, Episode 2

"You're Not Past Your Prime. You're Reinventing It."

Released Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Meghan French Dunbar (00:00): Stacey. Kindred soul, I swear. Alright, we're gonna just get right into this.

Stacey Lindsay (00:08): Can you hear my smile? You can see it. Can you hear it?

Meghan French Dunbar (00:11): I mean, that is — that is like who you are. You are a human smile.

Okay, so we have the book coming out. I haven't gotten to read it yet, but I will as soon as it's in my hands. But one of the things that I imagine is in there is a lot about the shoulds in life. And I'm curious for you — as the process of writing the book, as this uncovering of a new perspective — what are some of the most harmful shoulds that you're seeing consistently of women at a middle age?

Stacey Lindsay (00:48): It's this timeline. And I think we're always up against it, whether we realize it or not. But it really became evident to me when I reached my 40s, turned 40. And I've talked about this, how I didn't have some existential dread leading up to my 40th birthday. And I know some people do, and I understand that totally. What was interesting is after I turned 40, I started really paying attention to things feeling different.

And it was the shoulds — all these markers that I felt they became almost like brick walls. And I kept running up against them and hurting myself and running up against this wall and hurting myself even more. And so, again, these things that we think we should do in our career lives, our work lives, whether it comes to motherhood, having and not having children, when it comes to how we look — all these things, there's countless shoulds. But the biggest thing is this timeline, I feel like.

That we need to do these things. And then we feel like we need to do these things according to this made-up calendar, which is totally manufactured — but still. And so I know I'm not alone. I've heard this from so many other women and I have experienced this. My gosh, I am now a 40-year-old woman, or I'm a 45-year-old woman, or I'm a 52-year-old woman, or a 28-year-old woman. Have I done enough? I still haven't done this. What does society think about me that I haven't fill in the blank?

It's all against this made-up timeline. And I get excited because I do think the timeline is slowly disintegrating when we have these conversations, but it's still real. It's still there. So there's a collection of shoulds that are just endless, but they're all up against the "when" — and it can really hurt us.

Meghan French Dunbar (02:37): When you talk about running into the brick wall, is there any specific brick wall that you ran into that was particularly painful?

Stacey Lindsay (02:47): This desire that I didn't want to feel like I had to keep justifying my decisions. And so I think that is the brick wall — it's kind of that metaphor for feeling like I have to justify. One thing for me is I'm a woman without children and I have actively made that choice in my life. And at the same time it has actively caused me a lot of grief, a lot of angst, a lot of feeling like I have to prove that I'm enough without having kids.

Also having to prove that this is not a very neat, easy decision. For some women it may be, but for me it hasn't been. It is something that I actively really reevaluate all the time and I have a lot of grief around, even though I have the immense privilege of being able to have made that decision — where a lot of women don't have children because it's not their choice. And so that was a big one for me, and work too. Like all the questions around work. And I know you and I can dig into this for hours and hours and hours, right?

The "have I done enough in my work?" Have I done things in my quote-unquote career? And I say quote-unquote career because I think career can be a little bit of a stagnant word. I think we need to stretch it out a little bit and really talk about what that means. But have I done enough — and enough according to whose standards? But I'm always asking myself this. So work and kids conversation. And then also the partnership conversation is a huge one as well — by which I think we feel very, very judged and we have to kind of explain why we're not in a partnership, or why we're leaving a partnership, or why we're entering a new one or changing all these things. We don't have to explain to anyone, but we still need to unlearn that. Did I answer your question? I get so passionate about this and I feel like it's all spidery.

Meghan French Dunbar (04:33): Don't question yourself. Don't question whether or not you answered the question. One thing that came up for me just listening to that is — it's a source of grief, it's a source of pain, but then it is almost multiplied by the fact that we feel judged and have to justify it. So the process of writing this book and understanding that dynamic — has it changed the way that you respond? If someone asks you about one of those sticky topics of children or partnership or career, do you still feel like you have to justify it, or do you have a new way of explaining yourself, or do you not feel like you have to explain yourself at the same time?

Stacey Lindsay (05:20): I'm feeling that less and less and less, I have to say. And that has been one of the gifts of writing this book. Writing this book was incredibly hard because writing a book is incredibly hard. You know this, Meghan. That's another aspect of this I think we need to talk about more — just whether it's writing a book, whether it's sharing our story on a podcast, whether it's sharing our story on social media. It's hard to do that, right? If we really go there, it can be hard because we feel like we're going to get, again, a whole other layer of judgment.

But writing this book was really hard because I was really delayering — which is a word Carrie Hammer gifted me. She's somebody I interviewed for the book. And she looks at this as a delayering. We're taking off these layers of stories and expectations and judgments that we've been carrying for so long. So it was hard because I was actively going through the process of delayering. And I still am. I don't think we're ever done. I am not a one and done. I've learned all these things and I am still messy and actively in it.

But that was hard and also incredibly freeing. And it has gifted me this new perspective — I don't feel like I need to, I'm more responsive than reactive to these things. Again, of justifying, of thinking, my gosh, is something wrong with me? And this actually touches all aspects of my life too. I think beauty is such an interesting example and kind of a lens through which we can view a lot of these things. If we see a new wrinkle pop up on her face, instantly we might think, I need to fix that. What's wrong with me? I did something wrong. I didn't wear enough sunscreen. I didn't get the retinol cream, whatever it is. There's nothing wrong. If you want to quote-unquote fix it, that's your right. But first and foremost, there's nothing wrong. And so that's what this process has helped me see — to not react and think, my gosh, these stories are right. I'm the one who's broken. It's not. These are manufactured stories.

And how I respond to it is up to me. And I want to say this — it is not easy, but it is also probably the most worthwhile thing we can put our hearts toward for ourselves, our fellow women in our lives, for women we don't know. And of course, for our daughters and nieces and everyone else. So it has changed me.

Meghan French Dunbar (07:36): This process of delayering — what a great word.

Stacey Lindsay (07:42): Good word, right? So good. A good visual.

Meghan French Dunbar (07:45): My experience of delayering in the last, let's call it ten years, has regularly uncovered this feeling as though I didn't choose the way that my life has turned out as freely as I had imagined. That a lot of it had been shaped by external forces of judgment, expectation, all of societal pressure. And I'm curious for women as they're going through a process like this — is there any way that you were able to identify what are the first signs that you are living through a manufactured script that has been externally imposed upon you versus your own internal truth? What is the difference between those two? And how can people start divorcing those two concepts?

Stacey Lindsay (08:41): I really pay attention to how it shows up in my body. And later in the book, I worked with a somatic practitioner — this woman who does therapy through dance, and actually specifically erotic dance. But it's by yourself too. And I've learned that one thing I've taken from that practice is to move my body in a way that feels good every day. And I do that to take care of myself, but I also do that to really check in — to see where I physically feel like I'm holding some of this angst and stress. And again, it's every day, right? There's mortgages and there's rent and there's food to buy. There's all the things. The stress isn't going away. So there's always going to be that stress.

But I found that when it's the stress that I carry in my body that goes against my soul — just this stress that I need to perform — I physically feel that very clearly. I feel it in my upper back. I feel it in my chest. I feel this tightening, this kind of anxious, hot energy. And when I just check in, I check in. And when I feel that, it's different from like right before you and I started talking.

I got excited. Kind of felt like an excitement-butterfly nerves too. And I don't want that to ever go away. That's a totally different feeling than when I was honestly in a meeting last week and it felt really bad and it felt really expectational. And I was feeling that I was carrying that physically in my body. So it's a somatic practice — it really is first and foremost for me. And I invite that to be a practice for anybody too, because it's accessible. This is not very expensive wellness culture stuff. This is genuine, just checking in and seeing where you're carrying the stress.

And the other thing too is I just check in on what we talked about a couple of minutes ago. Okay, is this something I'm reacting to because I feel like I'm less than, or broken, or should have done something differently? Or is this something that is maybe a challenge or a hurdle I have to overcome — and can I pause and respond to it rather than react to it?

But when I have that instant feeling like I have to react, and I come up against it all the time, I know something's deeper, something's going on. That's a manufactured societal thing that I can take my time and reevaluate how I want to respond to. And it's just this lovely hug you give yourself — because the other thing about these patriarchal stories and these expectations, and so much about what you write about in your book, Meghan — it pulls us far away from ourselves. It makes us feel completely disconnected. And when it comes to patriarchy, that's really the point, right? They want us to feel destabilized. So that's a deeper, whole other conversation, but it's all related. This practice is just — I feel so much closer to myself when I just take a minute and go, okay, I'm feeling this angst and stress. I'm feeling like I need to prove myself against this. And I don't have to. I don't have to.

Meghan French Dunbar (11:42): I'm curious — either from your own personal experience or interviews that you've done — what are some of the most common and harmful ways that women typically abandon themselves in their 20s or 30s that they then start to reclaim after the big 40?

Stacey Lindsay (12:03): Thank you for this question because it's a fun one too, because I think back on my 20s and 30s and I have so much compassion for her, right? That woman was hustling. My gosh, in her 20s she was running around, she was having fun too. She was having some fun in her 30s as well, but in her 20s she was just doing all the things. And I like this question too because it's important to underscore the hard work. There are these times in our lives that we do have to try a bunch of things and fail, right? And I argue that happens through all our lives — we have to keep, if we're taking risks and stretching ourselves. And so I talk to women in their twenties and thirties often, and I don't want them to be afraid if they're trying new things and they're failing and they're working hard. I just don't want them to feel like there's something broken or wrong with themselves. I don't want them to outsource their self-worth. And that is the biggest thing that I see in women in their twenties and thirties — and I have to say, in their forties and fifties too.

But the nice thing about our forties is we start to gain this incredible wisdom that is so hard to describe sometimes. We get this upgrade of just genuine knowing ourselves. And again, delayering and all the things — but it's the self-worth component that is critical. If I could go back to my twenties and my thirties, there's so many things that I would still do the same. I would have taken the hard road. But I lacked self — I let certain situations chip away at my self-worth and my own dignity and sometimes my values. That really gets me emotional. That is the biggest. It's not a mistake, because again, we're all living under this really hard system — but it's something that I think happens to so many women. And if we can just take these moments to pause and to know we are worthy of peace, we are worthy of joy, we are worthy of emotional safety — because so much of this chips away at our emotional safety. So number one, it's the self-worth. And I've been there too, but I work on that every single day, just knowing again that I'm worthy of these very, very basic things.

Meghan French Dunbar (14:23): One thing that is common to both of us is that the experience of writing a book is hard, but it also is a forced pause and a forced examination of an issue where we get to go super deep and delayer — where our work is to actually explore things and delayer them for ourselves. But not everyone has the gift of getting to write a book about the issues that are on their heart. And so I'm curious — what does the process look like for the person who is so busy and is like, cool, Stacey, you got to write an entire book on this thing. I am doing my nine to five. I am going to soccer practice. I'm so busy that finding a way to cultivate and nurture my sense of self-worth feels completely out of bounds. How do they start?

Stacey Lindsay (15:17): The uber busy human, right? I love that you say that, because we can talk about all these amazing things about evolving the self and finding ourselves and reclaiming our voices and declaring ourselves. And sometimes it can still be too macro for that. I pictured this woman when I was writing — she was a single mom. I just felt like she was right next to me. And there were pieces of her that were so evident in me too. And if you don't have the $200 to put down on a weekend escape, or the thousand dollars for the retreats — those are wonderful, but they're not accessible to everyone.

There are several practices. The first one is to make it a priority to nourish yourself during the day. Even if that means putting one extra healthy thing on your plate — literally an extra serving of berries. I know this might seem so banal and almost too simple, but it's actually really emboldening. Just that one extra step to taking better care of yourself actually begets more movement toward taking better care of yourself.

Another thing is to move every day if you can — and I want to make this really accessible, this does not mean you have to do some major workout. It is literally just to get things flowing. If you're able to walk, walk for five minutes, even if it's literally around your apartment complex or around your block. Five minutes — everybody can do five minutes. And then you'll find that you want to do more.

I love the practice of just getting your thoughts out. We call it journaling, and I think sometimes that can be a little bit of a turnoff for somebody who doesn't want to sit down and physically write — but journaling means just getting your thoughts out. You get to know yourself a little bit more by doing that. When you're thinking of anything, send yourself a voice note. No one else is going to hear it. Jot down something on a notepad. No one else is going to read it. Just that whole act too is a start to all this process.

And lastly — there's something about going outside and looking up at the sky. I can't say it enough. I get emotional talking about this because it is a reminder that we can be so in it, in our stress, in our self-doubt, in our lack of self-worth, in our questioning. And we need that reminder sometimes to go outside and to know there is something bigger at play. This beautiful universal energy that's connecting all of us. And whenever I do that too, it makes me actually feel less alone because I know there's another woman out there feeling what I'm feeling.

Meghan French Dunbar (18:55): I just adore you.

Stacey Lindsay (19:00): Letting me go down that rabbit hole because it's a good one, right? A lot of this stuff is — how can I feel better or more at peace, right now? That's what I want for people to know.

Meghan French Dunbar (19:18): I walk most mornings and I talk into notes and then I throw it up into AI. I have like a little chat channel that is just my stream of consciousness. The stuff that comes up on walks — without a doubt, the best stuff. I half-wrote my book, walking and talking. It's where your brain actually calms down.

Stacey Lindsay (19:40): It is. And it's also empowering, because sometimes you feel like nothing maybe connects. How am I going to write this book? And then you actually, when you start chipping away at it, you start to see these themes and you start to see how things do connect. I love picturing you doing that.

Meghan French Dunbar (20:05): Always the lady talking to myself in the park. So my experience is that you write about turning 40 as a sense of self-discovery rather than a decline. And I still remember putting up the decorations for my mom's 40th birthday at New Shanghai Chinese restaurant in Evergreen, Colorado — all the "over the hill" messages, like, well, had a good run, you're done from here. So as we imagine this as a sense of self-discovery, what do women — or humans — need to let go of and grieve in order to discover this new way of being, the new expanded version of themselves?

Stacey Lindsay (20:52): I call the 40s an intersection, because it is a time where so many things collide for a woman. And with that, one of those things coming into this intersection is this awareness that we've been talking about. I sort of chafe at the term midlife and middle age because I think it's quite privileged sometimes — because we never know when we're at that midpoint. I think of my father who passed in his 50s. Middle age for him was in his 20s. And with that said, considering the average lifespan for a woman in the Western world is around 80 — there is no denying that we are at this quote-unquote middle point. And so that is so incredibly clarifying. It also forces us to let go of taking time for granted.

But still, it really whips you into the present to realize I don't want to take any of this for granted — and I really want to start doubling down on the stuff that matters. This book is focused on the forties, but there are some things that are extremely specific to the forties — how our bodies are changing, perimenopause, the stigmas around this age. But there's also so many things that I hope speak to a woman in her twenties and thirties and also speak to a woman on the other side of her forties in her fifties and sixties. It's really about being a woman, right?

But there is something about that awareness that helped me realize — and I know a lot of women I talk to feel this — I don't want to mess around anymore with how I'm spending my days and my weeks. And ultimately that adds up to years. I want to take better care of myself, however that means. I want to really, really start looking at how does my self-worth show up in my world of work? What are my relationships? How are they feeling in my life? It's just this big time of doubling down — I'm not messing around anymore. And again, I wasn't really messing around before, but this is serious. And it's kind of scary. But we got to look at it.

Meghan French Dunbar (23:51): That question of worthiness at work — my experience, and a lot of people I've talked to, is that they outsource their sense of worthiness to accomplishment. However successful you are in your career — you're a high achiever, look at all of my awards and accolades and titles and all the things that prove my worthiness to others. And they reach pinnacles of whatever their career looks like and they still feel that sense of emptiness. They're not fulfilled. They're looking around like, is there something that I'm missing? And it's so often it comes down to a sense of self-worth. For you, how has that process looked? The relationship between worth and achievement and success — how has that looked for you?

Stacey Lindsay (24:50): I'm re-evaluating it every day for myself too. Being really serious about that — because that arrival fallacy, when you think, when I just get this title, when I just make this salary, then fill in the blank, all these things will fall into place. And we know, and science shows that too, that that kind of puts us in the cycle of purgatory. But again, it's no one's fault. If not most of us have experienced that, and we're starting to have this collective conversation of — wait a second, no.

You've got to do the inner work and you've got to really look at these things. A big change for me — and this has come with writing the book and looking at my career — is one, I'm realizing I work to live. I work to make money. I am so grateful that I get to, I love my work, but still at the end of the day, this is not a path. I'm doing this to put food on my table. I'm doing this to be able to pay my bills to live. And I think sometimes we can forget that. And so when I realized that first and foremost, I think, okay, I'm actually really going to be smart about where I'm putting my energy within my work world. Because I am not afraid of hard work — like you, Meghan, I will work to the end, put an extra day on the calendar. But am I working efficiently to really take care of myself?

I'm realizing that I have been kind of spinning my wheels a lot in a way that a lot of my work has taken more than it's given me. We put in this energy and this time because we want to get something in return — payment, right? But when we really look at it, women particularly are putting in so much more. And so with that said, I have put some really strong boundaries in ways that I'm able to right now. I realize this isn't accessible for everyone, but I am putting boundaries on emails, I'm putting boundaries on even when I look at social media related to work — because I'm really putting a marker on those parameters around my work. So then outside of those parameters, I can actually give more to the things that really fill me up creatively right now. Other side projects that I'm really looking to diversify into. Because we can put all of our eggs into this one thing because that's what's feeding us. And we miss out on things sometimes. Really looking at the brass tacks — I'm doing this and I'm one of the lucky ones that I enjoy it, but I'm doing this to feed myself. So is this working for me still, and what are some things I can do to take better care of myself and my job? That's been a big one for me. And I think it's an important conversation to have.

Meghan French Dunbar (27:51): It's reminding me — I wrote about this concept of essentializing, of in order to show up with your cup more than empty or to show up as your best quality of self. There's a sense, especially as you get older, you get more comfortable doing it — essentializing what you spend your time on, what the relationships are in your life, the inputs that you allow in from social media, whatever it is. And the practice of doing that, the more we dial that in, the better we're able to show up. And a lot of the things that I used to say yes to were because I felt some obligation. I was worried about judgment or I was worried about disappointing people. I was worried about making someone uncomfortable. I'm curious — the stories specifically about womanhood and how women should be, which ones of them have you found become kind of less believable and you turn the volume down on them as you get older, and which ones become louder?

Stacey Lindsay (28:51): My gosh. I love this. You said something a minute ago — you don't want to make somebody uncomfortable or inconvenience someone, right? That's a huge thing. So that has become quieter in a sense — louder and more obvious, but now it's quieter too.

This idea of outsourcing our self-worth — outsourcing just all the things, so many things that I have done in my life. And again, I know this is the case for so many other women too. So much of what I've done has been because I don't want to inconvenience somebody. If somebody asked me, do you have kids? Do you want kids? — which is a fine question, it can sting, and it's stung — because I feel like it always warrants this very neat response: nope, don't have kids, nope, don't want them. When it's a constellation of things, you know? I've been just really quick in answering it because I don't want to make somebody uncomfortable. I'm leaning into it now. I'm totally letting it rip. So that's the biggest thing for all these things. I don't want to worry about my beliefs and my values and how that's going to inconvenience somebody else and make somebody else uncomfortable. And women tend to do that. And we need to stop doing that. This is the same thing in work too. We need to speak up when something doesn't align with our values. We need to honor our integrity. We don't need to justify all these things, especially where we're working so hard. But so much of it is in the service of others — and in negative ways, in ways that arrest us.

I find that that is getting quieter. I've been seeing that so much. A beautiful energy that I've experienced too — I talk about the having and not having children a lot, because it's something I'm really passionate about — is this world we live in right now, this time in our lives, it calls for that divine feminine energy that lives in all of us. It lives in men too. It's not gendered, but it's very robust in women. And I'm seeing that that is becoming louder for me. And I love that we can channel that and use that in so many different ways in our life too. We put that toward our children if we have them, but we also put that toward our friendships. We put that toward our creative endeavors. We put that toward our relationships. And I think we can put that toward ourselves more too. Really turning that mothering energy — which is ultimately such juicy compassion — toward ourselves.

And another thing that's getting really louder when it comes to the shoulds is I'm feeling proud. I'm feeling proud of what I've done. I'm feeling proud of the messiness of the mistakes I've made because it means at least that I was doing things and I was going after it. And I want to really tap into that pride for myself even more. And I want other women to feel that too.

When I talk about this in the context of work — the idea of a career, I think sometimes can be a little limiting in a way because we feel like we need to build this perfect career. What about that woman who is juggling several jobs and maybe they aren't vocations that society valorizes? I want her to look at her body of work and to go, I am working hard. I am putting some good energy out there collectively. I'm proud of myself. And that's how I'm feeling too in work. Some of the things don't always make sense. I don't know what I'm building next. But I'm looking at this body of work and I'm proud. I am just as proud of my time being a cocktail waitress and bartending as I am being a journalist — on camera, behind the camera, for digital, for all of it. Every single thing I'm proud of. And that's like, we can start as women really tapping into being proud.

And you gave this great visual of how we're doing all these incredible things, but it's like we're dragging this backpack — we're carrying such a heavier load and we're still killing it. So if we can take the time to actually really look at, holy moly, I'm proud of what I've done — look at our capabilities. Because society is not reminding us of that. They're just saying, you're not doing enough, you're looking older — and it's like, hell no. Look at what I'm doing. I'm proud. That can be such a reframe. Maybe we should have a party about telling each other what we're proud of.

Meghan French Dunbar (34:11): That's our next gathering. The linear progression of the career — that's another narrative that so many of us are told. And my career has not been linear. It has been extraordinarily messy. And my experience of that is that each thing, whether or not it felt like a success or a failure, gave me a tool or a skill or an experience or a connection to put in my little skill toolbox — so that later in the journey, sometimes immediately, sometimes ten years later, I'd be like, now I understood why I did that thing. That seemed like an abject failure. And I've started imagining my career as a collection of experiences, a collection of intellectual curiosity. And it's been a really helpful way for me to not feel like I have to impose some belief about where I should be now. All getting to — how have the insights from your book, or your process, or this entire thing impacted how you think about success in your career? And I'll also add — and ambition.

Stacey Lindsay (35:16): Ambition's a good word. I'm holding onto that one for the next few seconds because I was saying a couple of minutes ago — I'm not messing around. I'm really doubling down on this. The reality of time does show us this, and it can be that big birthday with the zero behind it that can kind of reawaken — my gosh, I can't mess around. My ambition is so much more holistic now.

So it used to be so focused on checking all those boxes specifically when it comes to work — building my title, I'm a journalist, making sure I'm an editor, making sure I'm a senior editor, making sure I'm an executive editor, all these things. I'm much more holistically ambitious now. What are the experiences? What are the things I can learn? How is this feeling? How am I taking care of myself? And when it comes to money — because I can't say it enough, this is something that I have fought and faced and am still actively facing. I spend my time and energy to take care of myself. And we want us to be talking about money more, because it helps me too. I haven't figured it all out, but it helps when I talk about money. It helps me and vice versa. The ambition is so much more holistic. I'm just so much more holistically ambitious about my life. Where does career fit into my life? Where does work fit into my life? What is that satisfying? What role is that playing? And is that adding to my health, is it adding to my creativity, is it helping my relationships?

I also talk about taking risks and I think about the idea of making myself proud. Writing this book has helped me evolve my thinking around taking risks. What is a risk I can do for myself? Ideally every day, but if that's not even realistic, once a week — and it can be small. But what is something I can do that gets me closer to myself, gets me closer to my joy, gets me closer to taking better care of myself, gets me closer to who I really am? That's a big theme in our 40s. When we realize, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be in this relationship anymore. I do want to be in this relationship. I don't like men. I like women. I don't like this kind of work. I like that kind of work. We do have this declaration of self — but what is a small risk that I can take, that other women can take for themselves, that gets them a little bit closer to that fire inside?

In the world of work, a risk for me was I'm going to be stricter on emails — so I can reallocate that energy toward things that really matter for me. A risk for another woman could be opening up a bank account and putting even five bucks a month toward something you really want to do. It can mean calling an old friend you haven't talked to in a while to reignite that — it can be anything. But what's a risk we can do for ourselves? And in the world of work, I'm taking the big risk of just reaching out to people cold because I want to make new connections and friends and I want to expand what's possible.

Meghan French Dunbar (38:52): When I turned 40, one of the most insidious stories that I had was around physical appearance and sexuality. There's this externalized narrative that we're all given around what we are allowed to show up as, especially when it comes to physical appearance. And I remember when I turned 40, feeling the sense of, no one will ever look at me again. I am not allowed to dress certain ways. I need to be more modest. I just had this whole narrative. So I'm curious around the insights that came up around that topic, and if you're seeing a trend in the way that people are starting to reimagine their 40s, 50s, 60s and what it means to sexuality.

Stacey Lindsay (39:43): My gosh, yeah, because it really is a conversation about feeling this vitality in our bodies. When I wrote the beauty chapter — I don't want to play favorites, but I think I had some of the deepest insights actually around that, because beauty and our appearance is our currency, unfortunately, in many ways. I wish it weren't the case. There's a lovely aspect to it because we want to take care of ourselves. We want to be proud of this body. We want to be proud of our faces, right? But then the tipping point is these manufactured societal ideals — it needs to look a certain way and it needs to stay a certain way. And these beauty ideals are so damaging, because of them beauty moves from a place of where every single person is worthy of it to something that we have to perform.

And then we only have a short amount of time to be able to perform. We don't even want to have to feel like we have to perform. And then when we hit the marker of 40, it's like — you're over the hill, it's too late. And again, this calendarized idea, this total made-up fallacy, but it is so damaging. And I remember I was at a wedding and I had just turned 40 and I was having a great time. It was one of those times where you're just surrounded by incredible people and you're feeling sexy and you're feeling vibrant. And then some random dude — I still don't know who this guy was, he was a friend of a friend, and I talk about this comment in my book actually — he just comes over and, talking to somebody else in our circle, goes, do you see all those 40-year-old women over there dancing? And I literally remember feeling so vibrant two and a half seconds before. I had to remind myself to take a breath. I was so upset. And that's going to be, unfortunately, all around us. He is just symptomatic of so many things that are wrong with beauty culture and all of that.

A beautiful awakening I had around this though is the realization that beauty and eroticism and sexuality — all these feelings — they're all a feeling. It's not something to perform. It's not something to buy. It's not something to justify. And it is by no means something to earn. Every woman is worthy of this and has this inside of them. So just knowing that first and foremost — and I don't care if you are 21 or 61 or 81, forever. So this is part of being compassionate and taking care of ourselves. We want to keep that feeling. We want to stoke that feeling. And sometimes we can be robbed of it. We can get that aliveness back.

And in doing that, I have completely done this audit of practices, the rituals, the products, the things I spend my time and money on, the narratives around beauty. I've really paid attention to — what genuinely makes me feel alive? What genuinely makes me feel sexy? And I'm not talking about looks, because that's totally subjective. What makes me feel in my core, sexy and vibrant and alive? And I'm leaning toward those things and I'm letting go of the other things too.

Those deep patriarchal stories of putting a woman in the position of being a mother, always meant to procreate, and then after that she's done — that's a story. And it's a story that's really impacted us for a long time and it's impacted our mothers and grandmothers. And I think we're starting to really unlearn that story. That sexuality and vibrance — that's alive in us all the time. And we can dress how we want to dress. I just invite women — because I've done this for myself — consider the things that make you feel alive and beautiful and sexy, and keep going toward those situations. If it's a dance class, if it's being around a certain person, if it's being in the company of a certain novel or a book, if it's using certain products that really do make your skin feel vibrant and bright — whatever it is, go toward that. And start to let go of the other things.

Meghan French Dunbar (44:20): Many people have probably had this insight — right as we're beginning to stop outsourcing our self-worth and begin feeling our confidence, and we stop normalizing prioritizing other people's comfort over our own and putting up with everyone's garbage — it's like right at this moment where that happens, the societal narrative reverses it and says, oh, you're 40 now. You need to turn that down. Because that's not allowed. I'm imagining you dancing at this wedding as this wild, joyful act of rebellion — a societal expression of reimagining what it looks like to be a woman at any age.

Stacey Lindsay (45:09): And dance by yourself too. If you don't want to dance around people, I get it. Dance by yourself or move your body by yourself. Put on something that makes you feel good. This is similar to the voice note, right? No one's going to see you. If you can find five minutes to put on some song that just opens you up — that's how you get closer to yourself. And that's again, you remind yourself: I am so sexy. I am vital. I am worthy of this feeling.

And it's the work of our lives, Meghan, to remind ourselves of this every day — that there are larger systems at play created to suppress us. And it hurts all of us, but it really hurts women. And so we have to just connect with ourselves and talk about it more to remind ourselves this is set up to keep us pushed down, because they know that we just get stronger and stronger and sexier and sexier and more beautiful and more capable of doing incredible things with every year we get older. And so that's really scary for these systems at play. But I'm not worried about the systems at play. I want us to let it rip.

Meghan French Dunbar (46:20): This is why your book is so damn important. The book coming out May 5th — everyone go get it. Last question pertaining to the book. What is one insight from the book that you still wish we had talked about that you're just excited to share?

Stacey Lindsay (46:36): That we're always, always, always learning. And I'll share this nugget too. I don't talk a lot about the mythological in the book, but there is a thread weaved throughout the pages. We have these three archetypes that for a long time have been used to describe women — very loosely, sort of energies and traits that correlate to a woman's age. Basically maiden, mother, and crone — and they can be gorgeous and amazing. And technically we can be in our crone era, but also feel maiden energy, right? So it's all loose. I love them. I also think that they can be very limited — because what happens when we look at our forties?

We're actually pushed into crone a little early. As gorgeous as crone is, we're not crone yet in our forties. We are this other archetype. And Steph Jagger, who's this incredible women's coach, introduced this to me. She said, we're the Autumn Queen. And Danae Logan, another therapist I interviewed for the book, she calls it our enchantress phase. But it's this understanding that the forties are this electric time of new power. Again, a closeness to ourselves, capabilities, desires, fire, all of this. And we need to start giving it new vocabulary too, because this is a personal renaissance. So I love the idea of the Autumn Queen. And Steph Jagger actually said — the reason why there isn't archetypal storytelling around this age is because it's our most powerful. It's when we start to really get powerful. So they don't want to give us a word, right?

I love that. I envision my Autumn Queen. She's just this embodied, powerful, magical, beautiful self. And I bring her with me all the time. I bring her with me to meetings. I bring her with me to doctor's appointments. She's here with me right now. She's next to me. And so I pull from her energy when I'm still in the trenches of self-doubt and feeling unworthy. I'll be like, what's my Autumn Queen? How's she responding to this? It's pretty fun.

Meghan French Dunbar (48:49): Autumn Queen. Being 40 is the book. How else can people find you?

Stacey Lindsay (48:56): This has been such a joy. I don't want this to end, Meghan. Find me on Instagram at Stacey Lindsay. I'm here and there on social media. I have a Substack newsletter. Or at StaceyLindsay.com.

Meghan French Dunbar (49:00): All right. You're the best. Thank you.

Stacey Lindsay (49:14): Thank you, Meghan.

Transcript edited for clarity. Minor transcription artifacts removed; speaker voices and meaning preserved throughout.