What if the silence you’ve been avoiding in midlife is the very thing that could set you free? Laurie Jacobson spent years trying everything to find her way out of pain until 22 days of silence at a Buddhist monastery gave her what counseling and alternative modalities couldn’t: her own self back.
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If you’ve ever felt like you were carrying something so heavy that it had become part of you, this conversation could be the thing you’ve been looking for. I sit down with author and health coach Laurie Jacobson who shares her journey to escape an emotionally abusive marriage led her to a Buddhist monastery and the inner freedom to finally walk away. Together, we explore what it really means to design your life on your own terms, especially in your 50s and beyond.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- Why the biggest hurdle women face after 50 isn’t age; it’s learning to embrace it as a new beginning rather than an ending.
- How a 22-day silent retreat cracked open one woman’s heart and gave her the courage to leave an emotionally abusive marriage.
- The unexpected gift of impermanence: how meditation teaches us that pain, even the deepest kind, will pass.
- Why “on and off” is still a meditation practice, and why 5 minutes of stillness can be just as powerful as an hour on the cushion.
- The healing triad of self-compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance — and how to begin practicing each one today.
- What it means to become a non-judgmental observer of your own life, and why that inner spaciousness is pure freedom.
- How stepping outside your comfort zone isn’t recklessness; it’s the path to becoming who you’re meant to be.
Whether you’ve never meditated a day in your life or you’re an on-again, off-again practitioner looking for permission to just begin again, this episode will meet you exactly where you are.
About My Guest
Laurie S. Jacobson is a writer, certified health coach, and the author of Unexpected Awakening: 22 Days at a Buddhist Monastery Freed Me from Abuse. Fascinated by the Buddha’s teachings, she has channeled her lived experience of healing and resilience into health education programs, a monthly wellness column, and a book that is as much a love letter to suffering women as it is a testament to the transformative power of stillness. Her work is grounded in one simple truth: there is always a way through.
Connect with Laurie:
Website: lauriesjacobson.com
Book: Unexpected Awakening — available on her website or Amazon
Resources & links mentioned:
Holosync – binaural beat meditation audio program available from Centerpointe.com
Vipassana meditation — insight meditation practice taught at Theravada Buddhist monasteries
Gene Keys – transformational system for shadow work and inner integration
Building Your House of Health — Lori’s free 24-page wellness guide (available at lauriesjacobson.com)
Design Your Life, Your Way – next steps:
Learn more about the Good Grief Retreat — a sacred space to process loss and rediscover yourself: goodgriefretreat.net
Discover your unique gifts as a midlife entrepreneur with my free Personal Power Archetype Quiz: bit.ly/PersonalPowerQuiz
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Share this with a friend who’s navigating grief, transition, or the beautiful (and sometimes messy) work of reinventing herself after 50.
Connect with me on LinkedIn @GloriaGraceRand to continue the conversation about midlife, meaning, and living on purpose.
TRANSCRIPT – Midlife Rebirth: Silence & Self-Love for a New Start
Introducing Laurie Jacobson: Meditation, Healing & Midlife Reinvention
Gloria Grace:
Namaste. I am a big, big lover of meditation, and I really do believe it is a really powerful tool to use, especially when you want to design your life your way. And that’s why I’m excited to talk with today’s guest, who I believe feels the same way. We’ll get into that, but I think so. My hunch is that. So her name is Lori Jacobson, and she is a writer and on and off meditator. So I am going to ask her about that, but that’s what her bio said. She’s also a certified health coach, and she is fascinated by the Buddha’s teachings. She has authored a monthly wellness column for the publication Our Town. She created and facilitated the healthy living program for Somerset Hospital and developed and hosted the segment Cooking for Health on WJAC TV. And what also really connected me with her is that she’s the author of a book called Unexpected Awakening: 22 Days at a Buddhist Monastery Freed Me from Abuse. So, without further ado, we’re gonna get into all of that, I think, in just a second. So let me welcome you, Lori, to our show. So welcome. So glad you’re here.
Laurie:
Thank you. Thanks for inviting me.
The Biggest Hurdle Women Over 50 Face When Designing Life on Their Terms
Gloria Grace:
Well, I think I want to jump right in, focusing in on our audience, and then we’re kind of gonna back in and get into a little bit more of your story, but your answer might even fall into this. So what I wanted to ask you is what do you think is the biggest hurdle that women over 50 face when it comes to living life on their terms?
Laurie:
Wow. I think the biggest hurdle is embracing your age, for one thing. Now we’re entering a new chapter of our lives. It can — well, and it is different than youth when you’re finding yourself and having fun and exploring, and that’s one phase. And then perhaps you’ll get married or have a lifelong partner, and that enters into more responsibilities, you know, plus whatever work you’re doing, kids come into the picture, and then by age 50, you’re almost like, well, I’m getting close to retirement. Maybe the kids are out of the house, and, you know, what next? What’s next? Or you’re looking for — I mean, I’m retired right now, so that was a big, you know, hurdle for me. Like, what do I do now with my life? And then you realize, you know, you have freedom to, as you say, design your own life. You know, what am I when I get up in the morning? What’s my mission? What gets me out of bed? And a lot of times it’s really tough to find that purpose, that sense of purpose, and takes a little reflection and, you know, inner work to see, you know, well, what brings me joy, what brings me pleasure, and how can I structure my life, my new life around that?
Staying Open to Change: When Your Purpose Evolves After 50
Gloria Grace:
I appreciate that answer because, yeah, it is. It can be challenging. And I think one thing I also want to just let our audience know, too, because I’ve experienced this myself, is that that purpose can change. You know, it could, you know, at any time. It’s like — it just doesn’t matter. So just be aware and be open to that, and know that that’s also — I think the beauty of this time of life is that we can. Okay, yeah, this was — I thought that idea was going to pan out, but you know what? Maybe I’ll go in this direction instead.
Laurie:
Yeah. Because it either no longer serves you or — but you mentioned the big word, you know, change. I mean, you know, life has changed. Everything changes. And we — and the other big word you said was being open to it, for sure, not pushing it away. If change is going to happen and we can embrace that — yeah, absolutely. It’s not always pleasant, but I always hold on to the mantra, this too shall pass. This too shall pass. And I’ve had to do that this week. This week was not the most pleasant of weeks for me, and thankfully it passed. So I’m just in time for this interview today, so perfect timing.
Writing Unexpected Awakening: A 20-Year Journey to Publishing Her Story
Gloria Grace:
So I want to go back because I was doing a lot of reading about you and all the different things that you’ve been doing. Now, I guess I want to figure out — and if you can maybe give me the timeline on here, because you wrote this book, I guess, recently, right? Within the last year or two?
Laurie:
Well, I’ve actually been writing this book for 20 years. Oh, okay. Published recently? Yes, I published it last March. But it’s been a long process of fits and starts because the incident that I’m writing about was just a portion of my 42nd year on this planet. So when I was 42 years old, I took this slot of what happened to me. And now I’ll just say I’m in my early 60s. But it took me that long to — and you know what, sometimes I think that was a good thing because it gave me more perspective looking back and seeing it a little with different eyes.
22 Days at a Buddhist Monastery: What Led Lori to Seek Healing in Silence
Gloria Grace:
Yeah. So the title of the book, or the subtitle I should say, is 22 Days at a Buddhist Monastery. So as someone who did a 10-day silent retreat — I don’t know if yours was silent or not, but let’s start. I’m really curious about that. So what prompted you to spend 22 days at a Buddhist monastery? What in your life caused you to do that?
Laurie:
Well, as I explained in the book, I mean, I was in a very abusive marriage. I was at the lowest point in my life ever. And I tried a lot of different things to help me feel better, to get me unstuck, to lift me out of depression. I tried so many different conventional and alternative therapies. Nothing worked. And I was always interested in the Buddha’s teachings and I was always interested in meditation. And I found out about this monastery that was only about a 3½ to 4 hour drive away from where I was living at the time. I was living up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, very isolated, which made it even more difficult being in that abusive relationship. But, you know, I just thought, I got to do something, why not try this?
Snowed In at the Monastery: When an Unexpected Storm Becomes a Blessing
Lori:
And it was a silent retreat. And the initial retreat was only supposed to last about a week. But what was really cool and ended up being a blessing was we got snowed in. I’m out in the mountains of West Virginia in this monastery. And they told us a snowstorm was coming about halfway through the retreat. And they said, well, if you really have to be someplace, you better leave now because we don’t know when you’re going to be able to get out. And I just, things were starting to happen for me and I just said, I’m sticking put, I am staying. I want to see this thing through. So I stayed throughout the snowstorm. We all manned the snow shovels and eventually the plows reached us. But that retreat with the snowstorm was only about 15 days, but a fantastic transformation happened at that point and I thought I could go home and everything would be all right. But I certainly discovered it shortly — discovered it wasn’t all right. And then I just was drawn back to the monastery a second time for a second retreat. So all told, the total time I was there before I really was able to free myself was 22 days total.
Inside a Silent Meditation Retreat: Structure, Rules & Small Acts of Grace
Gloria Grace:
Well, let me ask you because the one I attended — it was a silent retreat. You did have an opportunity where you could once a day talk to some of the leaders if you really needed to. And I had met a woman that very first day, and she was like, I don’t know if I’m going to make it. And she took advantage of that being able to speak every day. She went out like after lunch and talked to them. And they also said not to journal. So it was really just spending time with your own thoughts for that entire time, you know, doing a lot of meditating, but also then just quiet time, you know, either in your room or walking around. Was it a similar situation for you? Was it that they really encouraged you to just be alone with your thoughts?
Laurie:
Well, certainly, you know, the silent retreat does induce that for sure. They did have optional interviews. You could sign up for an optional interview with the monks. One of the monks, yeah. And you know, if you felt like you had a question or you needed to talk to them. So I did sign up a couple of times for an optional interview. Yeah. And in terms of taking notes, yes, you were discouraged to take notes. But when I was back in my room and I had something really big come up, I would just jot — I had, I cheated, if you want to call it that. I don’t know, whatever you want to call it. But I did. Or if I had a question, you know, I remember in the book, I wrote down I had a lot of fear coming up. Oh my God. When I first got there, I had all this fear coming up. So I might have written down like fear in big letters with a question mark or when the monks gave a talk every evening — if something in their talk that resonated with me, I might jot that down. It was just sort of bullet points just for my own self improvement or understanding. So I did that. And the only other time you were allowed to talk was — we always had to sign up for a chore to do. Had a job and my job — I had two jobs, but one job I had to coordinate with somebody else so you could sort of talk to them. And one time I was helping in the kitchen, so of course you had to talk to the cook.
Gloria Grace:
I’m one of these people — I was really a stickler for the rules. And so I was like, okay, remember this when you get home. Remember this when you get home. Because this was a moment. And I think that did help me out. But yeah, I could have probably skirted by. They weren’t going to throw you out.
The Transformation: Bliss, Insight & Becoming a Non-Judgmental Observer
Gloria Grace:
So what was it about this experience that really kind of spoke to you?
Laurie:
Well, these things just started happening to me and I couldn’t explain them and they were very deeply profound, either insights or — I also had visions and I knew they meant something. And at one point it was just so blissful. I had these insights that caused so much bliss that I mean, you just want it to last forever because you get to this point if you meditate enough — and I’m not saying this will happen to everybody. I was just so lucky it happened to me — was that you get so entrenched in the present moment and paying attention that you become this non-judgmental observer. And it’s so freeing and so wonderful because you’re just watching things happen but you’re not attaching any judgment to them. So it’s just this wonderful, free — you’re almost freed from your own ego or your own self story in a sense. And that was something that you want to hold on to. And of course, the Buddha says you shouldn’t be grasping at anything, but, you know, you do want to hold on to it. Just like, you know, when you go home, you’re in this beautiful, blissful place of clarity and tranquility, and you just want to hold on to it. But you can’t because you’re back in the real world and you have the real world responsibilities and stresses and fast pace — and that’s why it’s important to try to at least keep up with your meditation practice.
The On-and-Off Meditator: Releasing Perfectionism Around Your Practice
Gloria Grace:
Well, that brings me to my next question, though, because in your bio that you sent me, it said on and off meditator. So what’s the story behind that?
Laurie:
Well, I tend to be pretty hard on myself. My husband keeps saying, why are you beating yourself up so much? You know, I think a lot of us do that. You know, we think, oh, I should be doing this, or I should be getting this done, or I didn’t cross this off my to-do list. And we beat ourselves up. And, you know, although I know the value of meditation and I’ve been there and I’ve experienced very lengthy meditation centers — and that includes sitting meditation and walking meditation — like, anything less than that, I tend to get on my case that I’m not doing it. Or, you know, even if I don’t do it on a regular basis, I’ll — I can’t claim that I am a meditator because to me, a meditator, it’s like you get up every morning and you meditate every day and nothing stops you. And I’m — I can’t say that I’m there. I’m not. But I am so pulled to it, especially during times when, you know, that little internal voice tells you you need to sit and be quiet and watch your breath. And that’s really meditation in a nutshell. Sit, be quiet, and watch your breath. And, you know, it’s like people make it to be so much more complicated than that.
Making Meditation a Non-Negotiable: How Even 5 Minutes Can Ground You
Gloria Grace:
Absolutely. Yeah. And I like to say — because I’ve been meditating since 2009, and I’ve gone through lots of different ways to meditate — it just, you know, I may spend one year or more years doing it a certain way. And actually for a long time I was using a program called Holosync that I would listen to and I did that for years and years. And then I probably got bored of it and tried to figure out some other way to do it. And then I did this Vipassana-style meditation when I did the retreat. I did that for a while, and then now I’ve just decided that for me meditation is my non-negotiable. But it doesn’t mean I would — I love sitting for like a half an hour or an hour even sometimes meditating, but that’s not practical every day. So I will spend at least 10 or 15 minutes, you know, or maybe even only five minutes. Especially if I’m like maybe I had to go on an airplane, I’ve got to fly somewhere and it’s like I gotta leave early in the morning, gotta drive to the airport for an hour. It’s like, okay, I’ll do five minutes, let me just at least do five minutes. And I can, and that’s it. And I can just be sitting, just sitting still. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.
Laurie:
And I love that you mentioned walking meditation too because that is a lovely way to be able to just be still, be quiet with your thoughts and be out in nature, which is also wonderful. Yes. And it’s — we actually practiced it in the meditation hall. And you know, it’s a great way to just practice present moment awareness too because if you really focus on, you know, lifting your leg, placing your heel down, placing your toe down, shifting your weight very slowly. I had an experience, and I put this in the book, where while I was doing this walking meditation, all of a sudden I had no sense of time. Time just disappeared. It could have been 6 o’clock in the morning, 11 o’clock at night. Summer, winter, fall, I had no idea. And it was the most wonderful, pleasant feeling in the world to not even know what time it was or what season it was. Because I was just so involved in the movements of my body that everything else disappeared. And that was really cool.
Gloria Grace:
Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I love those times when I’ve meditated sometimes that I think it’s only been a few minutes and it was a lot longer, or sometimes I thought it was a lot longer and then it was only a few minutes. So it’s a really cool thing.
Laurie:
It is. And you know, one of the lessons I remember learning from the monks is like, well, in books you’ll learn this from too, is that meditation is going to be different every time and have no expectations and don’t feel as though — try and say, oh, that was a good meditation session or that was a bad meditation session and oh, I’m not making progress because I didn’t reach that like pleasant space. It’s just all a practice. It’s just, remember it’s just a practice. And I commend you for it being non-negotiable even five minutes. It can be so grounding and restorative and wonderful.
Gloria Grace:
Yeah, yeah. I’ve only had — well, thank you. And I’ve only had this one moment of pure bliss. And it was during that Vipassana meditation and after I’d been sitting there for, you know, two hours and it was like all of a sudden it was, yeah, it was like bliss. And it lasted three, three or four seconds, you know. It’s like — I said, you know, it did not last long and it was like, oh, wow, okay, that was cool. Yeah.
Laurie:
All right. Can’t attach to it. But boy, it was really nice while it lasted. Yeah. And you know, I would encourage people, you know, to certainly have a little basic meditation practice at home. But you know, if you want to go deeper, if you can go on a retreat and see — because that’s going to afford you the time to do these longer silent meditations. And you know, but I would also caution, you know, don’t go in with expectations. Don’t go in chasing bliss. Yeah, chasing anything. But the nice thing about the Vipassana meditation, which is the type of meditation that they practiced at this monastery — this was a Theravada Buddhist monastery — is that, you know, sure, you’ll have maybe some blissful moments, but you’ll also gain insights. And I had a couple of very profound insights that — those can last. I mean, those are lasting, you know, feelings, impressions, perspectives that you can have forever. And that was a big turning point for me, is having these insights. And that you can gain that from longer meditation sessions. Yeah.
Gloria Grace:
Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that I found, which is the reason why I keep up my meditation practice, is that I get wonderful insights or ideas for things. I mean, the idea to write my book came while I was meditating. So that’s one of the reasons why I keep it up because you never know when something’s going to pop into your head, and it’s a really worthwhile practice. So I encourage everyone to at least explore it, you know, and try different things — and know you don’t have to stick with the same thing.
Lori:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, try different types of meditation. See what resonates with you. But I will say also that, you know, there are people that approach meditation strictly for stress relief. Fine. And that’s perfectly fine. But, you know, if you do want to go deeper, you can, you know, to gain these insights or, as your program says, can change your life. You can have these insights that have a profound effect on you that make you make a decision that maybe you wouldn’t have made before you had that insight.
Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone: The Path to a Life You Actually Want
Gloria Grace:
Absolutely. Which brings me back to the other point — I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but I would love to get your perspective. What is the importance of stepping outside of your comfort zone for you?
Laurie:
In my life, it’s just almost something you have to do if you want to get someplace else. We can hum along, hum along and do the same old things and enjoy our life. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. But if you’re struggling or if you’re uncomfortable or if you’re seeking something more, it usually involves — or if you’re trying to just follow your heart, it usually involves stepping outside your comfort zone to get to a place you haven’t been before. And, you know, it can be scary and it can be frightening. I mean, it certainly was for me. You have to have a bit of courage, and you got to have courage to break out of any uncomfortable situation. And you have to be willing to, as you said, be open and try something new. I mean, when I was struggling in that abusive marriage, I mean, I just was trying all these things — I was so desperate to feel better. And I did Reiki, I did acupuncture, I did some counseling. I didn’t really want to do medication. Like, everybody kept pushing me to do that, but this was back in the day when they didn’t really know a whole lot about the effects of certain medications. But, you know, you have to keep putting out the effort to get to where you want to be, and that usually includes doing something different. And you just gotta say okay. You know, I can do this and find that courage. And eventually that led to me, you know, leaving this terribly abusive man and being able to say goodbye. I’m not doing this anymore.
Recognizing Emotional Abuse: Why It’s Hard to Leave and How to Find the Courage
Laurie:
Because I don’t think, you know, people realize who haven’t been in toxic relationships, how stuck you can get and how difficult it is to extricate yourself from that situation. I know that’s a whole other topic. We don’t have to get into that. But I just want to mention that when I talk to other women and I mentioned that I was in a toxic relationship, nine out of ten of them say I relate to that. I’ve experienced that as well. Really sad, sad fact.
Gloria Grace:
Yeah, that’s true. And I’ll just say this because I don’t necessarily need you to go into details, but it can be — there’s all different kinds of abuse, too. There’s, you know, there can be physical abuse, for sure. You definitely need to try to get out of that as quickly as you possibly can. But there’s also mental and emotional abuse, and that can be a little more sticky because — I know, for me, I sort of grew up with that and so then didn’t realize that.
Laurie:
Okay. I don’t even really want to be that hard on my husband, who I don’t live with — wasn’t exactly abuse, but it wasn’t respectful. Yeah. Yeah, in a lot of ways. And, you know, that’s why, you know, I love him. Good guy overall. And I know why I married him because he was very similar to the mother that I grew up with. And so that’s why — why do we do that? I know. Well, it’s these lessons, you know, I did it too, until we learn them. Right. First time around is learning. Second time around is like, yeah, I know. I don’t want that.
Gloria Grace:
So was there — I know for me there came a point where a coach told me, you will know. There will come a time when you know it’s time to make a change. Was there something like that, similar for you, where you’re like, okay, this is it? You know, the old movie Network. You know, I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. Was there that kind of —
Laurie:
I would say that to myself every day. I would say that. I would say, I can’t do this anymore. I’d be crying on my bed. I can’t do this anymore. At one point I did initiate divorce papers. But then, you know, he comes to you, oh, give me another chance. I love you so much. I’m going to treat you like a queen. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and you fall for it. But it, you know, it definitely — I mean, the overall category of abuse is emotional abuse. I mean, it’s, you know, everything falls under that. And that’s mostly — thank God I didn’t really have physical abuse, but I had terrible emotional and verbal abuse. And that will wear down your soul, your spirit, your self-esteem. Everything that makes you, you is gone. I mean, it just disappears. And so it makes it very, very tough to regain that and to be able to get to that level where you can make the decision to leave because you’ve been so worn down by, you know, this man who pretty much criticizes you every day, tries to control and manipulate you. And we as women, you know, initially, if we don’t recognize it and deal with it initially when we start to see the red flag, we can get really sucked in and it’s harder and harder to leave at that point.
How Meditation Became the Key That Unlocked the Door to Freedom
Gloria Grace:
So do you think the meditation work that you did — do you think that was helpful then in being able for you to finally say, okay, I’m going through with this this time. I know I’ve wanted the divorce. Now I’m definitely going to do it.
Laurie:
It was the key. It was the key that unlocked the prison doors. What I say in the book — and what it did — it was through everything I gained from the meditation. It’s so funny, I just never realized this until now, but it wasn’t the meditation itself. It was what the meditation did for me. And that was open my heart, made it filled with loving kindness and compassion, gave me insights into the nature of impermanence, which was instrumental in me being able to let go of this. And I do explain it better in the book, but it’s everything that meditation gave me that was the catalyst to me being able to go home in this soul and spirit of loving kindness and bliss and compassion and self-awareness and clarity, be able to look at him in the eyes, not be triggered by him at all and say, you poor dear man, I know you’re suffering and you’re just gonna have to get over me. And he knew — he could tell he didn’t have control over me. The spell was broken and the jig was up, you know. Yeah. And I drove him to the bus stop a couple days later and that was that.
Self-Compassion and Forgiveness: The Healing Work That Changes Everything
Gloria Grace:
And I think what I’m hearing you say — and correct me if I’m wrong — yes, definitely compassion for him, but ultimately compassion for yourself. I think that’s really what meditation is great for, is opening yourself up to learning how to love yourself and to love yourself enough to start taking care of yourself.
Laurie:
Absolutely. And when I said compassion, that included self-compassion. And another key besides that was forgiveness for me. I was finally able to forgive myself for putting up with all of that. And, you know, it’s like when you — that was a big part of the retreat too. They talked a lot about forgiveness and, you know, forgiving others, but also forgiving yourself. It always comes back, you know, to yourself. And that was very helpful as well.
Gloria Grace:
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, well, this is what I take away from it, you know, and people ask, you know, oh, well, you know, if you had your life to live over again, would you do the same things? And it’s like, sure, there’s probably some things I’d change, but at the same time it’s like, well, no — it was painful to go through some of these things, but they did allow me to survive to where I am now. Allowed me to write a book.
Laurie:
Allowed you to write a book. And hopefully your book is inspiring others. That is my greatest wish. That is my greatest wish in writing this book — to support and inspire others, to let them know the wonderful benefits of meditation and that there is a way out of suffering, whether it’s in a toxic relationship or anything else. And, you know, in terms of going through painful times, it almost is integral to your growth because it’s going to — you’re going to learn something. Hopefully it’ll make you a stronger, better person. And, you know, if we only had pleasure in our life and we never knew pain, that wouldn’t be a very fun life, you know.
Impermanence, Acceptance & the Wisdom of ‘This Too Shall Pass’
Gloria Grace:
So we can, you know — it just really will hinge on, you know, your attitude and your mindfulness and your mental perspective on the pain. You know, like you say, the pain will pass because everything passes. I mean, everything — like, you know, I’m in. I study something called the Gene Keys and going through a retreat, online retreat right now. And their big thing they’ve been talking about is allow, accept and embrace. And it is specifically about allowing these — you know, the parts of our lives that — or the parts of ourselves even — that, you know, the shadow sides or, you know, parts that you maybe not always are thrilled with. But as you say, you know, just kind of allow and make peace with it.
Laurie:
You’re absolutely right, because when you accept — and that way you don’t struggle against it because the struggle is what’s going to create more emotional pain for you. So, so, you know, the acceptance is so important and — oh, my God, if you can get to embrace, you’re doing really well.
Gloria Grace:
Yeah, I know. Yeah, exactly. That’s definitely the highest. The highest part. And yeah, I’m still working my way towards there.
Laurie:
We’re all a work in progress, you know?
Gloria Grace:
Yeah, absolutely.
One Message for Women Over 50: Be Brave, Think Out of the Box, Love Fully
Gloria Grace:
If the women out there listening to this today or watching could take just one thing from your message today, what do you hope it is?
Laurie:
Wow. What’s my one message? Be who you are. Don’t be afraid. You know, think out of the box. On my website, I just — my little something after my logo is be brave. Think out of the box and love with all your heart.
Gloria Grace:
Wise words. I like that. Very good. Very amazing.
Connect with Laurie Jacobson & Free Wellness Resources
Gloria Grace:
And that also is a good segue. So what is your website? So people want to be able to learn more about you?
Laurie:
Sure. My website is basically my name. It’s Laurie S. Jacobson. S stands for my middle name. So it’s www.lauriesjacobson.com. You’ll find information about me, about my health coaching, about my book. There’ll be links to buy my book on Amazon or buy directly from me. I also have a blog. You can check out my blog posts on my website. And if you’d like to sign up for my monthly newsletter — I don’t bombard people with emails, just once a month I try to send out a little newsletter — if you sign up for that on the website, I’ll send you my free 24-page guide to health. And it’s called Building Your House of Health.
Gloria Grace:
All right, excellent. Well, I’ll have that in the show notes, and then also, so make sure if you’re listening to this that you do check out the show notes, especially for the correct spelling of Lori’s name because, you know, that’s one of those names that you can spell lots of different ways. So she spells it L-A-U-R-I-E and then the letter S and then Jacobson, and that’s S-O-N. So just at the end, because again, there’s lots of ways people can spell things. So thank you for that.
Laurie:
That’s so true.
Gloria Grace:
Well, I really do appreciate you being with us today and sharing your experience of meditation. Hopefully we’ve inspired some folks. At least think about it if you haven’t started a practice. And again, remember, it’s a practice. So, you know, the only way to get to Carnegie Hall was to practice, practice. So no pressure. Just practice, you know.
Laurie:
Gloria, thank you so much for having me. It’s been my pleasure.
Gloria Grace:
And I do want to thank all of you for watching and for listening today. And I really do hope that you got as much value out of our conversation as I did. And I will be back next week with more ideas on how you can make this chatper of your life the best one yet!
