But I’m not surprised. Although I was never fortunate enough to have visited the offices of Ms. magazine, I’ve got an educated guess that openness, truth telling, and an unconditional positive regard for one another underscored all they accomplished. Moreover, these women walked their talk. The stated feminist goal of bettering the lives of all people and treating each individual as worthy of respect could not have been more real. How can I claim to know these things? Well… I’ve been lucky.

Because of this blog and my radio show, I’ve had the unbelievably good fortune to get to know a couple of the founding members of Ms. magazine. Suzanne Braun Levine, longtime Editor of Ms., and Karin Lippert, Promotions Director of the groundbreaking periodical, have each graciously shared their support and their friendship. Furthermore, both these women continue their commitment to enhancing the female experience and providing us all with a better life: Suzanne through her books for women over fifty and Karin through her personal fundraising for the “Weekend to End Women’s Cancers.” (These are just a couple of the ways Suzanne and Karin continue to contribute.)

Ms. was far more than a magazine—it represented a movement that changed each of our lives far more than we could ever have realized at the time. So, if you missed the initial airing of Gloria: In Her Own Words, be certain to check your HBO listings or watch the program on demand. This retrospective is living history at its best. And, while you’re at it, take a little time to recall the days when you were openly blocked from entering a number of top universities, when you couldn’t buy a house or even get a credit card without a male signature, and when your career options (should you be so bold as to have a career) consisted of the wildly varied choice of three: teacher, nurse, or secretary.

Yes, we owe a lot to the women of Ms. They were known for telling truth to power but, as you’ll see in the documentary, their real strength came in simply telling the truth. The female worldview, as Gloria Steinem so beautifully represents, encompasses the courage to be open, vulnerable, and admit mistakes.

Ours is the polar opposite of the hero’s journey—a solitary affair allowing few, if any, visible chinks in the armor. The heroine’s journey includes plenty of chinks. It also includes humanity as a whole. As Gloria frequently stated in the film, she was not alone. She had her sisters at Ms. and, indeed, women everywhere by her side. So tune in and take a little time to celebrate Gloria, the ladies of Ms., and the Women’s Movement. It is through the unwavering dedication of these brave pioneers that you and I have come a long way, baby!

But boomer women have more or less kept breaking new ground in issues of authority, control, and gender politics (thank you Hillary Clinton and cohorts). Moreover, now that most of us have passed our half-century birthday, our sense of personal power surfaces like never before. Hormonal changes, pent up personal needs after years spent deferring our own to favor those of our children, and the growing knowledge that we won’t be around forever, combine to create a mighty, menopausal drive.  Midlife calls us to refocus, individuate, and access our own sense of mastery and achievement.

In light of this drive, Gloria Feldt and Suzanne Braun Levine have joined me on Feisty Side of Fifty Radio to share their thoughts on claiming and enhancing this menopausal gift. Both have lived their entire professional lives in the epicenter of the Women’s Movement and are well versed on the topic. Gloria’s latest book: No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power and Suzanne’s most recent work: Fifty is the New Fifty: 10 Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood combine to create the ideal framework from which to identify ways we can access our growing personal power.

I invite you to invest 30-minutes, listen to the show, and make a giant leap in your own journey towards personal fulfillment. Both Gloria and Suzanne continue to help us enhance the female experience in our years past fifty and your time will be well spent as you listen to their insights.

One of the categories I selected for this blog is “aging with attitude.” It’s high time we claim our attitude, our feistiness, and our power and forever transform the way society views women of maturity. Boomers, after all, have always been trailblazers. It’s up to us and we’re up to the challenge.

We, however, tend to do things differently. After years of nurturing and giving to others, midlife is a time when we chose to focus on our own goals and dreams and begin to express ourselves in new and creative ways. At long last, we’re choosing to “do unto ourselves as we’ve been doing unto others.” The author of this quote is Gloria Steinem and her good friend and longtime editor at MS. magazine, Suzanne Braun Levine, and I discussed this very idea in the first installment of our ongoing monthly radio series.

So much has been said about happiness recently. Yet Suzanne believes this particular word does not cover the depth and complexity of the transformation we experience at midlife. Perhaps a more all-encompassing term would be “fulfillment.” And a large part of feeling fulfilled for women is sharing our lives with our female friends. In truth, as we’re doing unto ourselves, we’re hardwired to want to share our journey with those closest to us. As Suzanne puts it: “A circle of trust is a must.”

I invite you to take a brief 15 minutes from your day to listen to this enlightening conversation. You’ll come away feeling both informed and inspired. As always, Suzanne shares her special insight into the changes and challenges today’s women face as we continue to revolutionize the spirit and style of aging.

We boomers are indeed fortunate because, as Suzanne writes, for our mothers and grandmothers, the “change of life” meant their lives stopped changing. As their nests emptied so did much of their focus and purpose. Without careers and with limited options and outlets, many of them became ladies who lunch, played tennis or bridge, or waited anxiously to become grandmothers. Maintaining home and hearth remained their primary responsibility and, with fewer mouths to feed, their job description became marginalized.

Ours, however, is a different generation. The women’s movement, the trailblazing spirit of the baby boomers, and the current economic realities have combined to keep us actively engaged in life way past our half-century birthdays. Traditional retirement is a thing of the past as the “forever-young” mindset of the boomers drives us to continue to contribute, interact, and break social barriers.

With our passion and energy still intact, the popular phrase for women our age has become “fifty is the new thirty.” But Suzanne buckles at that one! As she wrote: “That is not it at all. I have discovered that most women in Second Adulthood are very happy being where they are—they don’t want to go back to any of their earlier stages or decades… The assumption is that youth—or at least younger—is the ideal state and that given a choice, no woman in her right mind would relinquish it. I have found the opposite to be true.”

I, too, have found the opposite to be true and I bet you have as well. The years of fifty and beyond present us with many gifts: a newly found freedom to speak our minds and renounce much of our reflexive need to please; a greater sense of strength, mastery, and the ability to roll with the punches; and the drive towards authenticity and becoming the magnificently ripe and wise women we know ourselves to be.

Fifty also brings with it life lessons. Suzanne has highlighted ten of them in her book Fifty is the New Fifty and I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing her about all ten. Please take the brief fifteen minutes to listen to the final broadcast in our series and then check back to listen to each and every one. The lessons are powerful and profound and will guide you well through this amazing time in your life. In fact, you too, will likely start taking umbrage when someone smugly states, “fifty is the new thirty.”

No—it’s not! It’s far from that. Fifty is the brand new, remarkably fertile, ripe, robust, and exceedingly feisty FIFTY!

Suzanne Braun Levine coined the term in her book, Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood and refers to it again in her next book, 50 is the New Fifty: 10 Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood. The Fertile Void refers to the period most every woman experiences when her first adulthood gives way to her second. Changing hormones combined with major shifts in life circumstances (empty nests, plateauing careers, relationships grown all-too-familiar, and so forth) produce a period of such significant re-evaluation, that it can shake us to our very core.

The good news, however, is what follows on the other side of the Fertile Void. As we rebuild our lives, Suzanne tells us we stop asking, “What do we want to do?” and start asking, “How do we want to live?” For women, second adulthood becomes a quest for authenticity. We pay less attention to our personality (how we interact socially) and more attention to our character (the way we act when we’re alone) as we move towards a more authentic way of being.

As we become more comfortable and confident in our own skin, any perceived slights and wounding by others carry far less weight—we literally lighten our load. Ideally, we can let much of the baggage we’ve borne for years slip away. And this includes the baggage we’ve piled upon ourselves. It’s a time of forgiving and forgetting as we forge forward toward a new wholeness and self-actualization.

I invite you to take a listen to this latest, and very important, lesson in our 10-part series on embracing our age and making the most of this special time in our lives. Once you pass through the Fertile Void, most women report that the feisty side of fifty is truly a remarkable, deeply rewarding, and enlightening place to be!

In Part One of “Your New Normal,” I told the story of Sally Franz who was hit with Transverse Myelitis and went from being a perfectly healthy Alpha Female to becoming paralyzed—uprooting her reality in a swift and devastating 20 minutes. Although Sally’s experience was extreme, many of us have dealt with difficult and challenging situations of our own: the loss of one or both parents, divorce and the dissolution of relationships, major disappointments and hurts, the loss of a job, and a myriad other major events that sent us into a temporary tailspin.

It seems that, just when we’re coming into our own as fully formed powerful women, life conspires to knock us down. But maybe not. My latest interview with Suzanne Braun Levine, founding editor of Ms. Magazine and author of several books on women and aging, was all about finding the strength to create our new normal after we’ve been hit by major adversity. One of the women she interviewed used the term “forging forward.” Rather than merely “moving forward” or “coping,” this term has energy and determination behind it.

As Suzanne reminds us, the very defiance and strength that wells up within us during the powerful midlife transition we experience as women serves us well. No longer robotically focusing our attention outwards to please others, we’re more equipped to tap into our inner resources and stand up to these types of challenging circumstances. Ironically, Suzanne says, one of the major lessons to be learned at such times, is to reach out to others for aid and assistance. So, while our inner reservoir of strength is increased, so is our ability to ask for help.

It’s one more fascinating lesson from Suzanne’s latest book, “50 is the New Fifty.” I invite you to check out her site and take the brief 15 minutes to listen to our interview. You’ll come away inspired and empowered.

It is true that significant life events may force us to create a new normal, but as women in our fifties and beyond, we can handle it. In fact, when hit by these major events, we boomers can and will forge forward in a very feisty way—flower power all grown up is a thing to behold!

There’s no argument that midlife brings with it tremendous change, both emotionally and physiologically. Marriages, especially long term ones, can suffer. As several years of pent-up baggage and hormonal fluctuations drive the need for life-altering transformation in both partners, husbands and wives often find themselves at odds and colliding with a vengeance. Throw the empty-nest, with children gone and a renewed focus on one another, into the mix and things can become rocky indeed.

But Suzanne Braun Levine shares the hopeful news that, yes, your marriage can make it. And, better yet, the couple bond can grow significantly stronger. By learning the tools to speak your truth, becoming more authentic in your words and deeds, and recognizing the changes your partnership is undergoing, you’ll be far better equipped to navigate these oftentimes-choppy waters.

This is one of the most intimate and important lessons in Suzanne’s book, Fifty is the New Fifty: 10 Life Lessons For Women in Second Adulthood. I invite you to take a listen to our brief 15-minute interview on Feisty Side of Fifty Radio where Suzanne shares her thoughts on this critical topic. For many of us, marriage is the first place we begin testing out our new behaviors—so it can be both a proving ground and a battleground. But, with a little insight and understanding that change is necessary at this time in our lives, our marriage can survive and even blossom into a renewed and even more deeply connected relationship.

I am thrilled that the founding editor of this groundbreaking magazine selected Feisty Side of Fifty to help launch her summer series on “Embracing Our Age.” Suzanne Braun Levine has spent a lifetime working in support of women, families, and women’s issues. Having been instrumental in creating untold opportunities for boomer women in the past, she’s now helping us create vital, healthy, and successful lives after fifty.

To these ends, Suzanne has written a number of books on aging including Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood and Fifty is the New Fifty: Ten Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood. One of the major and most joyful of the life lessons she shares is that growing older is not (I repeat, NOT) a disease.

Suzanne writes of the menopausal zest Margaret Meade described years ago. Although women in previous generations no doubt “felt the zest,” it is yet one more boomer blessing that we are fortunate enough to actually live it! With a little of what Suzanne terms, “mindful maintenance,” we can take on new ventures and adventures with gusto; we can thrive in the second half of life and we can push our boundaries even further than we ever thought. Want to learn how to dance the salsa? Why not? Want to learn to skydive? Who’s stopping you? Want to learn most anything? Just go for it—at this age, we’re most often limited only by the limits we place upon ourselves.

So take a brief 15 minutes to listen to our interview and hear what Suzanne has to say about embracing our age. Then be sure and catch every interview in this exciting 10-part series. Suzanne will be describing each of the ten life lessons and how she’s seen them lived out through the numerous women she’s interviewed. She calls these ladies “horizontal role models.” I promise, you’ll come away renewed and revitalized as you’re touched by these flesh and blood examples of living fully and joyfully after fifty!

Women who were reared in the 1950s and ‘60s will especially relate to how difficult this lesson can be. Not only did society teach us to nurture above all else, Mother Nature played a role in ensuring our instinct to care for others by hardwiring our brains to do just that. But, as Suzanne reminds us, at midlife our hormones become more balanced. The magic of menopause empowers us to take charge of our lives, speak out in new ways, and finally learn to put ourselves near the top of our own to-do lists.

So spend some time on your SELF (a mere fifteen minutes) and listen to Suzanne share her personal thoughts on self-care. Among other stories, you’ll hear:

• The “lice-lesson” one woman learned the hard way
• The power of a certain flower
• Shaving both legs in a single day?!

As Suzanne wrote in her book: “Doing unto yourself is not about me; it is about taking practical and emotional responsibility for the rest of your life.”

The first topic Suzanne discussed was the often difficult but necessary lesson of learning to say “no.” This simple two-letter word, rather than a sign of being churlish and uncooperative, can actually represent an act of bravery and authenticity. It is one of the first signs of growing into second adulthood and creating a new and more truthful edition of ourselves.

As younger women, we often go along and agree to things we may not care to do so as not to rock the boat. Even our brains are hardwired to avoid conflict and confrontation. But one of the gifts of midlife and our changing hormones is the fact that we can and will say “no.” And, as Suzanne points out, it is by representing our feelings and ourselves more honestly, that we can truly embrace the times we say “yes” with a full and willing heart.

The second in our series was all about the joys of female friendships: “A Circle of Trust is a Must.” I’ve written about friendships many times on Feisty Side of Fifty and Suzanne suggests that these all-important relationships grow even stronger with age.

In our youth, we may consider one another rivals. Women often compare ourselves according to our looks, our earning power, the men in our lives, our children’s success and a whole host of variables. As we age, however, many of those earlier feelings of insecurity and envy drop away. We mature and recognize the strength of the bonds we share.

Moreover, as we’ve learned to say “no” and express our feelings more truthfully, our friendships become more authentic as well. So take a listen to our latest interview and celebrate the special women in your life. After all, a circle of trust is a must and what better way to celebrate the years past fifty than spending time with your women friends–a very feisty and friendly thing to do!