Ep 65 Meeting yourself on the journey with Damianne President

What if the most transformative journey you could take wasn't to a faraway place, but back to yourself?

In this episode, I sit down with Damianne President, a coach who helps midlife women use intentional solo travel as a catalyst for self-discovery. Damianne has lived and worked across four continents — from St. Lucia and Canada to India, Sudan, Japan, and now Prague — and her extraordinary cross-cultural life is the foundation of her work.

What you'll hear in this conversation:

• How a Sufi teacher in India told a 20-something Damianne she was "watching her life from the window of a train" and how that moment set her on a completely different path,

• Why travel, especially to unfamiliar countries, is one of the most powerful developmental tools available to us, and how it works on the nervous system in ways our everyday routines simply don't,

• The crucial difference between escaping yourself through travel and genuinely meeting yourself and what it looks like when people confuse the two,

• How Damianne supports clients to stay regulated when travel gets uncomfortable, including Tara Brach's RAIN practice and her own beautifully simple "5 more minutes" approach,

• Why midlife is such a potent moment for this kind of work, identity is formed but something feels quietly off, and the anonymity of a new place offers the freedom to experiment with who you want to be,

• The integration piece: why the real transformation happens not on the trip, but in the intentional reflection that follows.

There's also a rich conversation about belonging and nervous system regulation, the grief that lives inside unmet aspirations, the way our neurobiology pulls us back toward the familiar, and why shared humanity is the thing that consistently surprises people most when they travel deeply.

Damianne makes a distinction that stayed with me long after the conversation ended; the difference between searching for yourself and meeting yourself. They're not the same thing.

Connect with Damianne:

• Website & free guide for beginners: freedomlookslikethis.com/goalone

• Social media: @Damiannecoaching

Ep 65 Meeting yourself on the Journey with Damianne President

Kellie Stirling and Damianne President

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Ep 60 Transforming Relationships with Caroline Shahbaz

Caroline Shahbaz is a colleague, mentor and friend who I am so happy to talk to today. She is a meta psychotherapist, who is deeply experienced and who has trained in many different therapeutic modalities. She is a Clinical Psychologist, has a masters degree in Depth Psychology, is trained in Family Constellations work, is a certified in providing psilocybin assisted therapy and has trained in many wisdom traditions and modalities. Caroline is also a member of the kink community and she trains other therapists how to work with Kink and BDSM.

We talk about how relationships are crucibles for our transformation and growth throughout our lifetime. They trigger our core wounds so that we may heal and burn away who we think we are. We learn how to be in relationships through our family system and internalise much of this from our parents and caregivers, but we are born into a cultural narrative or story that shaped you and often our growth is about reclaiming part of that or alternatively it may be about letting go what we no longer need.

You will also hear:

• Understanding the midlife narrative through the Jungian Lens. We also apply an astrological frame to it (Neptune square Neptune),

• How our hormones and the changing hormonal cocktail we have facilitates changes through our lifetime,

• Understanding the deeper architecture that drives the general level of dissatisfaction in midlife many of us experience,

• The Hero and Heroines Journey and how they are an archetypal framework for the many initiations we face in our lifetime,

• The concept of the Shadow and how it plays out in our relational life,

• The different alchemical stages of relationship transformation.

Caroline runs a program called Transforming Relationships that is for couples and individuals who want to explore themselves deeply in a group container.

You can find Caroline at Transformingrelationships.com.au or metapsychotherapy.com

Ep 60 Transforming Relationships with Caroline Shahbaz

Kellie Stirling and Caroline Shabaz

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Ep 55 Finding true intimacy at midlife with Heidi Trudinger

Today I am talking to the fabulous Heidi Trudinger about midlife relationships. Our bodies go through huge changes at midlife and women in particular feel the change more acutely due to the hormonal dropoff of perimenopause. Men go through their own hormonal change with Andropause however the hormonal shifts are small each year and the decline is steadier.

All of this impacts how we feel about our bodies and our imprint on ageing that we learned through both our family system and culturally, has a huge impact on our ability to embrace our changing bodies at midlife. Most of the fear that we experience around ageing is not about getting old it is actually about dying and Heidi and talked quite a bit about this.

How do we sustain sexual intimacy at midlife with all these changes? Well it is not too hard but for most of us it is about learning about what sex actually is; something few of us learned when we were younger. It is about learning what true intimacy is and how to hold space for that with each other.

We also discussed:

• Self love as an antidote to ageing and how to find that,

• Embracing the Maga (archetype) at midlife really understanding what our individual expression of that that is and how it is different to the Crone,

• How we can reconnect with the playful parts of ourselves, parts we have often buried deep in our unconscious, to reinvigorate our relationship,

• How our body brings up old trauma for resolution at this transition and what a gift that can be,

• How deep rest is incredibly sustaining for our bodies and is part of our erotic practice,

• How our midlife transition is a portal for us to claim our authentic sexual selves and how we might start the path to explore this aspect of our selves.

You can find Heidi at heiditrue.com.au. She is also on instagram @true.intimacy and Facebook

Ep 55 Finding true intimacy at midlife

Kellie Stirling and Heidi Trudinger

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Ep 52 The Midlife Mysteries

Midlife is a profoundly transformational life transition that all people experience. It occurs generally at some period between 40 and 60 years of age for most people. Some people may start late thirties. It happens over time it is a general unfolding. Midlife awakening supports our growth into emotional adulthood.

Midlife is not a crisis it is an awakening. It is about healing your childhood adaptive strategies to become your most authentic self. The development challenge of midlife is radical honesty with yourself. There is a strong mystical side to the midlife transition and this can be best understood by using archetypes to explore the story and road map of what this transition is all about.

What about menopause and how does this fit in? Menopause is the end of our fertility and it is part of the midlife transition. Our hormones changes facilitate growth and development, physically, psychologically, culturally through the different phases of our lifetime.

Listen in to find out which feminine archetype I have found the most useful to provide guidance in what is required in midlife to support our growth during this transition.

If you would like to explore the mystical side of midlife transition more deeply you can also explore my ebook Magical Midlife and Menopause and my Midlife Masterclasses.

Ep 52 The Midlife Mysteries

Kellie Stirling

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