Autoimmune diseases are rapidly rising across the globe—and women are disproportionately affected. According to numerous clinical and epidemiological studies, women make up approximately 80% of all autoimmune disease diagnoses. Even more alarming, over half of these cases may be linked to one often-overlooked root cause: chronic stress.
In a world where stress is normalized, even glorified, many women silently carry the weight of unprocessed trauma, emotional burnout, hormonal disruption, and nervous system dysregulation. This blog explores why autoimmune disorders are so prevalent in women, how chronic stress plays a central role in triggering and exacerbating these conditions, and what can be done from a holistic, preventive, and integrative perspective.
What are Autoimmune Diseases?
Autoimmune diseases occur when the immune system, designed to protect the body from threats, becomes confused and starts attacking healthy tissue. There are over 100 recognized autoimmune diseases, with some of the most common including:
- Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Systemic lupus erythematosus
- Multiple sclerosis
- Psoriasis
- Type 1 diabetes
- Celiac disease
These conditions can affect nearly any part of the body, including organs, joints, glands, and connective tissues, and often involve chronic pain, fatigue, inflammation, and systemic dysfunction.
Why Women?
The gender disparity in autoimmune conditions is one of the most intriguing and under-researched mysteries in modern medicine. Several biological, hormonal, and psychosocial factors contribute to the fact that 4 out of 5 people with autoimmune disease are women:
- Hormonal Influence: Estrogen has been shown to modulate immune activity. Fluctuations during menstruation, pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause can heighten autoimmune vulnerability.
- Genetics and Epigenetics: Women are more likely to carry specific gene variants associated with autoimmunity. However, genes alone don't determine destiny—environmental and emotional triggers often activate these susceptibilities.
- Immune System Robustness: Women typically have stronger immune responses than men. While this offers better protection against infections, it may also increase the risk of immune system misfiring.
- Social Conditioning and Suppression: From a psychosocial lens, women are often taught to care for others before themselves. Emotional suppression, boundary violations, and chronic people-pleasing can lead to internalized stress and trauma that dysregulates the immune and nervous systems.
The Chronic Stress - Autoimmune Link
Chronic stress isn't just a mental health issue—it’s a full-body phenomenon with physiological consequences. Stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, triggering the release of cortisol and other stress hormones. In short bursts, this system is adaptive. But when stress is unrelenting, the body never exits the fight-or-flight state.
Over time, chronic stress can cause:
- Immune system dysregulation: Stress impairs immune surveillance and balance, leading to overactivation or confusion of immune cells.
- Inflammation: Chronic stress increases inflammatory cytokines, which are directly implicated in autoimmune pathology.
- Gut permeability: Stress compromises the gut lining (“leaky gut”), allowing toxins and proteins to enter the bloodstream and trigger immune reactions.
- Epigenetic shifts: Persistent stress can literally alter gene expression, turning on or off genes that influence autoimmunity.
- Nervous system fatigue: Dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system can lead to parasympathetic shutdown (freeze response) or sympathetic overdrive (fight/flight) that never resolves.
A Holistic View of Women's Stress
Chronic stress in women is complex and multifactorial. It’s not just about a high-pressure job or a packed schedule—it’s about living in a body and society that rarely allows rest, expression, or full presence.
Consider the following chronic stressors:
- Emotional Labor: Unseen caregiving work, emotional support for others, and managing household responsibilities.
- Body Image & Beauty Pressure: Constant cultural messaging that a woman’s worth is tied to appearance.
- Medical Gaslighting: Being dismissed, misdiagnosed, or told symptoms are “in your head” by healthcare providers.
- Trauma (including microtraumas): Childhood adversity, sexual trauma, and accumulated relational ruptures that were never fully processed.
- Work-Life Imbalance: Navigating careers, motherhood, aging parents, and personal health with little structural support.
These layers of stress accumulate and manifest physically—often through chronic inflammation, hormone disruption, and immune confusion.
The Nervous System - Autoimmune Interface
One of the most exciting areas of research in autoimmune disease is the nervous system’s role in immune function. The vagus nerve, a key component of the parasympathetic nervous system, directly influences inflammation and immune modulation.
When the nervous system is dysregulated due to trauma or chronic stress, the body becomes stuck in survival mode, making it harder to mount a healthy immune response. This is why nervous system healing practices—such as somatic therapy, breathwork, vagal toning, and trauma release work—can be so powerful for those with autoimmune conditions.
Preventive & Integrative Strategies
Autoimmune diseases are complex and multifactorial. While there’s no one-size-fits-all cure, there are proactive, holistic approaches that can support immune regulation and reduce flare-ups:
1. Stress Reduction as Medicine
- Commit to daily nervous system regulation (breathwork, meditation, yoga nidra)
- Establish firm boundaries to avoid overextensio
- Schedule downtime like you would a medical appointment
- Explore somatic therapies or trauma-informed coaching
2. Anti-inflammatory Nutrition
- Eliminate common triggers: gluten, dairy, refined sugar, seed oils
- Increase omega-3s, leafy greens, and antioxidant-rich foods
- Heal the gut with probiotics, bone broth, and fermented foods
3. Detoxification Support
- Minimize chemical exposure (clean beauty, home products, water filters)
- Support liver and lymphatic function with herbs and hydration
- Regular movement and sweating (sauna, exercise) to eliminate toxins
4. Hormonal Balance
- Track your cycle and support each phase with nutrition and rest
- Work with a holistic provider to address estrogen dominance or adrenal fatig
- Adaptogens like ashwagandha, maca, and rhodiola can support resilience.
5. Spiritual & Energetic Hygiene
- Rituals of grounding, intention-setting, and energy clearing
- Reconnection to purpose, community, and personal sovereignty
- Nature time, creativity, and sacred pause
Real Talk: This Isn't " All in Your Head"
Many women with autoimmune conditions have been gaslit by the medical system, told their symptoms are psychosomatic, or left with little more than a lifelong prescription and a pat on the back.
Let’s be clear: your symptoms are real. But the current medical paradigm often separates physical illness from emotional trauma, immune function from stress levels, and the gut from the brain.
The truth is, the body keeps score. And chronic stress is not just a mental health issue—it’s a root cause of immune collapse.
Final Thoughts
illness, but as a body’s response to chronic stress, trauma, and systemic overload—especially in women.
Healing must go beyond symptom suppression. It must include nervous system regulation, emotional restoration, and structural changes that support women’s well-being at the cellular and societal level.
If you’re a woman dealing with unexplained symptoms, chronic inflammation, or a diagnosed autoimmune condition, know this:
- You are not alone.
- It’s not your fault.
- Your body isn’t broken—it’s brilliant and communicating.
- You can support healing—not overnight, but layer by layer.
The way forward is not just medical. It’s holistic, integrative, and deeply compassionate.
Resources & References:
- Harvard Health Publishing – Women and Autoimmune Diseases
- PubMed Central – Stress and Autoimmune Disease
- The Institute for Functional Medicine – Immune System and Stres
- Dr. Gabor Maté – “When the Body Says No
- Dr. Sara Gottfried – “The Hormone Cure”
- Donna Jackson Nakazawa – “The Autoimmune Epidemic”
- The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
What does it really take to turn your pain into purpose?
In a world that often rewards hustle over healing and silence over speaking up, The Wild Sage Society Podcast is a space where stories of resilience, reinvention, and radical self-love come to life. In one particularly powerful episode, host Marcie Walker welcomes Holly Oldham—a luxury cleaning entrepreneur and domestic violence advocate—who has lived through survival and emerged with a mission: to help others reclaim their space, their voice, and their lives.
In a culture that often rewards overachievement, silence, and self-sacrifice, choosing to pause is a revolutionary act. Slowing down isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom. And learning how to reflect and move forward, on your own terms, is the foundation of lasting personal transformation.
This is a reminder that healing isn’t just a personal journey—it’s a process of remembering who you are beneath the roles, noise, and survival strategies.
The Philosophy That Changed Everything
“Pause. Reflect. Move forward.”
Simple, right? But how often do we truly allow ourselves to do it?
We live in a society that glorifies busyness. We're told to keep pushing—even when our bodies are exhausted, our minds are foggy, and our hearts are quietly breaking. But the truth is: growth begins in the stillness. Healing begins in reflection. And forward movement begins with clarity—not force.
This powerful three-step philosophy isn’t just about mindset—it’s about embodiment. A moment to feel, to listen, and to choose again.
Your Environment Is a Mirror
Our emotional well-being is deeply intertwined with our physical environment. Messy space? Scattered mind. Cluttered home? Overwhelmed nervous system.
What if cleaning your house wasn’t just about tidiness, but about energetic reset?
Reimagining your living space with intention can be a grounding ritual that clears not just the dust—but also the emotional debris we carry. Start small. One drawer. One corner. One shelf. See how you feel afterward.
Creating an environment that supports your well-being is a powerful form of self-respect—and often, the first step toward reclaiming your life.
Reinvention is Not a One-Time Event
Many people think reinvention is a grand, dramatic shift. But more often, it’s slow. Messy. Ongoing. It’s waking up one day and realizing: I want more peace. I want to feel like myself again. I want to be free of survival mode.
Whether you're healing from burnout, stepping away from toxic patterns, or simply trying to reconnect with your joy—remember this: you’re allowed to begin again. And again. And again.
You don’t need a big plan. You just need a willingness to be honest with yourself.
Vulnerability as a Strength
There’s incredible power in naming what you’re going through. In asking for support. In telling the truth about your life—not just the curated, filtered version, but the real, raw one.
Vulnerability isn’t a weakness. It’s your greatest tool for connection, authenticity, and growth.
And if you're walking through healing with humor, softness, or even sarcasm—embrace it. Laughter, like tears, is a sacred release.
Action Steps to Reclaim Your Path
- Practice the Pause
Take 5 minutes each morning to breathe and check in with yourself. Ask: What do I need today to feel grounded? - Clear Your Space
Choose one area of your home that feels heavy. Clean it with care and intention. See what shifts internally. - Move Forward with Intention
Instead of rushing into action, ask: What’s the most nourishing next step for me right now?
These simple actions build momentum over time. They signal to your nervous system that it’s safe to come home to yourself.
Final Thoughts: You are Not Broken - You're Becoming
You don’t need to earn your healing. You don’t need to justify your fatigue or hide your truth. You’re allowed to outgrow people, habits, and environments that no longer serve your soul.
Reclaiming your path is not about perfection—it’s about presence.
So wherever you are in your journey, let this be your gentle reminder:
Pause. Reflect. Move forward.
Repeat as needed.
🎧 Want to hear more?
Listen to the full episode on The Wild Sage Society Podcast for a deeper conversation about healing, empowerment, and emotional reinvention.
There are seasons when becoming requires motion—seasons of unraveling, of movement, of letting go. And then there are seasons that ask us not to move forward, but to circle back.
This moment, right here, feels like one of return.
Not a return to old habits, old roles, or old stories—but a return to something more ancient. More essential. A return to the sacred self.
As we move closer to the Fall Equinox and the relaunch of the Women’s Holistic Group Coaching & Mentorship Program, I keep hearing the same phrase rise from within:
We remember to reclaim.
We remember our rhythms. We remember our power. We remember that our bodies are not problems to solve but temples to inhabit. And through that remembering, we reclaim what was never meant to be lost in the first place.
The Sacred Act of Remembering
Remembrance is not nostalgia. It’s not about reliving the past. It’s about gathering the threads of our truth from the places we were taught to abandon them.
It’s about:
- Remembering the girl who danced barefoot under moonlight and knew her own magic.
- Remembering the woman who spoke up once and was silenced, and how her voice still echoes inside you.
- Remembering that your cycles, your cravings, your emotions—they are not inconvenient. They are intelligent.
The systems we’ve been raised in have separated us from that intelligence. And in doing so, they have separated us from each other.
When women remember, the whole world begins to heal.
Midlife is Not a Crisis - It's a Ceremony
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: aging is not a crisis. It’s a ceremony.
It’s a sacred rite of passage that our modern world has forgotten how to hold.
And so, we hold it for ourselves.
At fifty, I am not seeking to be younger. I am seeking to be more fully me.
This ceremony of midlife is a return to original design. A stripping away of layers that never fit. A stepping into the space of wisdom that we no longer need to earn, prove, or hustle for.
The more I remember myself, the more capacity I have to hold others in their own return.
This is what The Wild Sage Society was created for. Not just to teach—but to create containers where women can witness one another in the vulnerable, holy act of remembering.
The Embodied of Reclamation
Reclamation isn’t just an idea. It’s a body-based, breath-based, moment-by-moment devotion.
We reclaim ourselves by slowing down. We reclaim ourselves by saying no with love. We reclaim ourselves by honoring rest as sacred.
And we reclaim ourselves when we stop asking permission to be who we are.
This is the path of the Wild Sage.
Not the untamed chaos of girlhood, but the grounded, wise ferocity of a woman who knows her body, knows her cycles, and knows the difference between urgency and clarity.
We rise not through force, but through remembrance.
Ancestral Threads and Sacred Feminine Wisdom
My work is deeply informed by ancestral reverence and feminine energetics.
I believe we carry the wisdom of our grandmothers in our bones. I believe healing is not just personal, it’s collective. And I believe the nervous system is one of the most sacred maps we can learn to read.
In the upcoming fall cohort, we will weave together ancestral healing, somatic regulation, hormone literacy, and sacred rituals that help you come home to your body as an ally.
The world has enough information. What it needs more of is integration.
And that begins with remembering that you already belong.
The Power of Ritual in Modern Times
Modern life is fast. Disembodied. Fragmented. Ritual is how we re-weave ourselves.
When we light candles. When we sit in circle. When we breathe together. When we bless our food. When we witness each other without needing to fix—we create healing.
The Women’s Holistic Group Coaching & Mentorship Program is designed as a living ritual. Each call, each module, each reflection, is an invitation to become more present, more rooted, more whole.
Ritual is not extra. It’s essential.
Especially in midlife. Especially when so much of what we thought would hold us begins to fall away.
Tending the Roots of the Feminine
The feminine is not a trend. It’s not a buzzword. It’s the original intelligence of life itself.
The feminine teaches us to:
- Listen before we speak.
- Feel before we fix.
- Nourish before we produce.
This fall, our mentorship circle will root deeply into the feminine as a way of life. We’ll explore how to attune to our inner rhythms, how to trust our energy ebbs and flows, and how to live in partnership with our biology rather than in battle with it.
This is sacred rebellion in a world that asks us to override ourselves.
What to Expect as We Prepare to Open
As we approach the program launch on the Fall Equinox (September 22, 2025), here’s what I want you to know:
- This space is designed for women in transition, whether that’s physical, emotional, spiritual, or all three.
- It honors your body, your sovereignty, your inner knowing.
- It is not a race or a checklist—it’s a ritual.
- You are welcome exactly as you are.
We begin enrollment on August 12, and every week until then, I’ll be sharing more stories, teachings, and invitations for you to consider what it might look like to walk into fall with sacred support.
You do not have to carry it all alone. You were never meant to.
Your Invitation to Remember
If you’re reading this and something stirs—a soft ache, a quiet yes, a pulse of recognition—this is your invitation to remember.
You are not behind. You are not broken. You are not too much.
You are right on time. You are being called to return. And you will not be alone on the path.
Let remembrance become your reclamation. Let your return be the beginning of everything.
With devotion,
Marcie
Founder of The Wild Sage Society
Women's Holistic Health Coach, Mentor & Midlife Guide
Women's Holistic Health Coach, Mentor & Midlife Guide
There’s something about this time of year—just after my birthday, deep into the pulse of summer, with the whisper of the Fall Equinox on the horizon—that always calls me inward. Not in a way that feels heavy or retreating, but in a way that asks me to root deeper so that I can rise higher.
This is the medicine of the season. Of aging. Of awakening. And of the work I’m called to share through The Wild Sage Society.
The Earth is starting to turn again. The Solstice taught us to pause and bask in the full light. Now the invitation is to soften, to prepare, to gather our wisdom and prepare to plant again—not in springtime, but in the fertile soil of soul-deep readiness.
This is why the Fall Equinox is the perfect moment to relaunch the Women’s Holistic Group Coaching & Mentorship Program. Not because we need another program to do more—but because we need sacred spaces to remember who we are becoming.
The Rebrith After the Reckoning
If you're reading this, I imagine you’ve felt the ache of transformation. That holy ache that comes when you can no longer live a life that asks you to be small, silent, or scattered.
Maybe you’ve walked through a dark night of the soul. Maybe you’ve released identities that once kept you safe. Maybe you’re learning how to mother yourself in ways no one else could.
This is what I call the reckoning. And the beauty of the reckoning is that it always births a rebirth—if we allow it.
My own journey into midlife hasn’t been tidy. It’s been messy, honest, sacred, and strangely circular. I've had to sit with what no longer fits. I’ve had to face the patterns that drained me. I’ve had to remember that slowing down isn’t failure—it’s a reclamation of rhythm.
And through all of that, I’ve emerged more rooted. More present. More fully myself.
This is what the Fall Equinox asks of us: to bring our light and our shadow into balance, to harvest the truth, and to walk forward with intention.
Why I Created the Women's Holistic Group Coaching & Mentorship Program
This program was born out of lived experience. It’s not about a rigid structure or a quick fix. It’s a living, breathing container for women in midlife who are ready to tend to their own becoming.
It’s a space for:
- Releasing inherited expectations
- Regulating the nervous system through nourishment and presence
- Realigning with feminine rhythms
- Reconnecting with inner wisdom, clarity, and truth
So many of us have been taught to push through, to abandon ourselves in service of being needed. But the season we are entering asks us to become rooted women who rise from within—not from force, but from alignment.
The fall cohort will open on September 22, 2025, the Autumnal Equinox—a day of equal light and dark, where balance is not just metaphor but embodied truth.
Soulful Alignment Over Hustle
The Wild Sage Society was never meant to be a brand that shouts. It’s a movement of remembering. Of weaving ancestral wisdom, somatic healing, and practical tools for women who want to age consciously and lead from their inner authority.
This program isn’t about fixing what’s broken—it’s about coming home to what’s already wise.
Together, we will explore:
- Nervous system literacy and regulation
- Holistic hormone health and food as medicine
- Emotional and energetic boundaries
- Shamanic and ancestral healing practices
- Mindset work through the lens of sacred feminine leadership
You don’t have to walk alone. You don’t have to figure it out all by yourself. You get to be held. You get to be witnessed. You get to be deeply seen.
And most importantly, you get to lead your own healing.
Becoming Who You Were Always Meant to Be
This isn’t just a coaching program. It’s a seasonal ceremony of self. A sacred pause in your timeline to say:
I am ready to stop running. I am ready to rise differently. I am ready to walk forward from within.
Every woman I work with is a teacher in her own right. You’ve lived enough life to know what doesn’t work. You’ve been through the initiations that carved you. Now it’s time to choose a different path—one led not by fear or performance, but by embodiment and truth.
At fifty, I can say with absolute conviction: the only way to sustainably lead, love, or live is through authentic presence.
You don’t need a new version of yourself. You need the spaciousness to remember your original one.
What's Included in the Fall Equinox Cohort
This 12-week journey will include:
- Weekly group coaching calls to explore themes like emotional regulation, hormone literacy, energy hygiene, and sacred leadership
- Monthly 1:1 mentorship sessions to support your personal transformation
- Private community access to connect with other like-hearted women
- Live masterclasses with guest teachers on embodiment, nourishment, breathwork, and more
- Integration rituals and seasonal ceremonies to deepen your connection to nature and self
Every element is designed to meet you where you are—whether you’re navigating burnout, perimenopause, spiritual awakening, or all of the above.
This is not about doing more. It’s about unlearning, unwinding, and remembering the ancient wisdom in your bones.
You Already Belong Here
There is no entry test for this journey. If your soul is whispering “this is for me,” trust that.
You don’t have to be perfectly healed. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t need a polished plan.
You just need a willingness to show up—honestly, imperfectly, and fully.
Because here’s what I know to be true: when women come together with intention, when we are witnessed in our wholeness, when we dare to slow down and listen—everything changes.
The Season Ahead
So here we are. Mid-July. The heat still rising, the edges of summer softening. You might feel like something is shifting in you. That a layer is ready to shed. That a new truth is stirring underneath the surface.
This is your season to root. To regulate. To rise.
And I would be honored to walk with you.
Registration for the Fall Equinox cohort opens August 12, 2025. We begin our journey together on September 22.
You are not too late. You are not too much. You are right on time.
Let this be the season you choose your becoming.
With reverence,
Marcie
Founder of The Wild Sage Society
Women's Holistic Health Coach, Mentor & Midlife Guide
Women's Holistic Health Coach, Mentor & Midlife Guide
Today, I turn fifty.
There’s something sacred about naming that out loud. Not just as a marker of time, but as an embodied declaration: I have arrived. And not in the performative sense, not in the social-media-perfect-milestone way—but in the deeply cellular, soul-level knowing that this age, this threshold, this season… is a return home.
Fifty, for me, is not a crisis. It’s a coronation.
It’s not a hill I’m climbing toward decline. It’s the horizon I’ve been walking toward my whole life—sometimes with clarity, sometimes lost in the fog, and often learning to trust the rhythm of my own breath when the map disappeared.
This is a love letter to the power of presence, the beauty of aging, and the sacred unfolding of becoming our most authentic selves.
The Culture Doesn't Prepare Us for This
We live in a culture that clings to youth and fears aging. We’re taught to count wrinkles, dye the grays, Botox the stories from our faces, and perform vitality at all costs.
But what if aging isn’t a problem to solve?
What if it’s the invitation we’ve been waiting for?
As I sit in the quiet of this morning, just before the sun rose, I realized something I’ve been coming home to all year: Presence is the true beauty secret. Not serums, not surgery, not sacrifice.
Presence is what softens the edges of time. It’s what makes a woman magnetic—not her age, but her awareness.
The Power of Presence While Aging
There’s a radical kind of magic that happens when you stop rushing through your life.
When you stop trying to “get back” to who you were at 30 or 40.
When you stop measuring your worth by what your body looks like or how productive you’ve been in a given week.
When you pause long enough to feel your own pulse. To listen to what your skin, your heart, your cells are whispering.
That is where true power begins: in the now. Not in the next goal. Not in the former version of yourself you’ve outgrown. Not in proving, performing, or pleasing.
But right here, in the raw intimacy of your lived experience.
What Presence Has Taught Me About Becoming
Presence teaches you that grief and joy can co-exist.
That holding space for who you once were doesn’t mean abandoning her—but rather honoring her for bringing you here.
Presence helps you see your own evolution with tenderness—not judgment. You begin to recognize that every version of yourself had wisdom, even the ones that made mistakes or didn’t yet know how to say “no.”
At 50, I’ve become less interested in perfection and more curious about congruence. Am I living in alignment with what I say I believe? Does my inner voice match my outer life? Do I rest as deeply as I give?
Becoming authentic isn’t a destination—it’s a daily devotion.
The Seasons Within
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we move through seasons—not just externally, but within ourselves.
In my 20s, I was planting seeds. In my 30s, I was growing fast and recklessly—learning through expansion and contraction. In my 40s, the pruning began. The sacred undoing. The quiet unraveling of everything I thought I needed to be.
And now, at 50, I feel like a woman who has learned how to tend her own garden.
I know which roots are strong. I know which flowers were never mine to grow.
I’ve become my own home.
The Liberation of Aging Authentically
There is something profoundly liberating about this age. I no longer need to hustle for my worth. I no longer perform strength—I embody it. I no longer seek approval as a lifeline. I am allowed to disappoint others in service of being true to myself.
This decade is not about external achievement for me—it’s about internal congruence. About resonance. About choosing environments, relationships, and ways of working that honor my nervous system, my intuition, my joy.
I no longer need to fight my body to feel powerful. I collaborate with her. I listen. I thank her. I soften.
The women I admire most at this stage of life are the ones who live unapologetically. They know their value. They don’t explain their boundaries. They wear their years like wildflowers in their hair—each line a poem, each scar a portal.
Sacred Aging is Not Passive- It's a Practice
Aging consciously requires courage. It means choosing presence when distraction feels easier. It means confronting the mirrors that culture hands us and deciding whether or not we still believe the reflection.
It means coming home to the body, even when she’s changed. Especially when she’s changed.
It means remembering that joy is still allowed. That beauty still belongs to us. That sensuality doesn’t expire. That play is not just for the young—it’s for the free.
We must unlearn the myth that aging equals invisibility. Because here’s the truth: when you are fully present, you become undeniable.
Letting Go to Let Myself In
At this threshold, I’ve been doing a lot of shedding.
Letting go of urgency. Letting go of resentment. Letting go of the version of me that once equated productivity with value.
Letting go of fear around being “too much” or “not enough.”
Letting go of who I thought I’d have to be in order to be loved, or respected, or safe.
And in doing so, I’ve made space to let myself in.
To let in the quiet wisdom that’s been with me all along.
To let in the softness I once thought I had to hide.
To let in the power that doesn’t scream but still moves mountains.
To let in the softness I once thought I had to hide.
To let in the power that doesn’t scream but still moves mountains.
What I Know Now
I don’t have all the answers—but here’s what I do know at 50:
- The more I trust myself, the less I need to control others.
- The more present I am, the more beauty I notice.
- The more I rest, the more I receive.
- The more I forgive, the more room I have to love.
- The more I release the pressure to “be good,” the more I become who I really am.
And who I really am?
She’s still unfolding. Still becoming. Still wild. Still wise. Still a work of sacred, sovereign art.
To the Women Walking Beside Me
If you’re approaching this age—or any age—and feeling resistance, I invite you to pause.
Not to fix. Not to “level up.” Just to breathe and bear witness to the woman you are today.
What if aging isn’t a loss but a deepening?
What if becoming your most authentic self requires less effort and more allowing?
What if presence—not performance—is your most powerful gift?
There is no milestone more important than your own embodiment.
Let this year be the one where you come back to yourself with reverence.
An Invitation
Today I don’t need a big party or a spotlight. I just need my bare feet on the earth, my hand over my heart, and a few breaths to remember:
I am here.
I am enough.
I am enough.
I am becoming.
And from this place, I extend an invitation:
To all women aging alongside me—whether you’re thirty, fifty, or seventy—may you rise into your next season not with fear, but with fierce presence.
May you remember that the real glow-up isn’t aesthetic—it’s energetic.
May you soften your armor, return to your rhythm, and live your next decade like the sacred woman you are.
Because the journey of becoming never ends—but it does get more beautiful when we stop trying to be someone we’re not.
So here’s to fifty. Here’s to presence. Here’s to the radical, rebellious act of aging authentically.
I’ll meet you here—rooted, radiant, and real.
Nervous System Habits that Lower Cortisol
- Eat breakfast within 1 hour of waking
- Hydrate early in the day with mineral-rich water
- Practice deep breathing or vagus nerve activation daily
- Get natural sunlight in the morning
- Prioritize sleep—especially before 11 PM
- Cycle caffeine intake and cut it by 2 PM
With love,
Marcie
