Life in Three Parts

This year, 2025, is down to the last three months, and I am thinking a lot about "thirds" right now.

I am turning 60 in a few weeks. Lots of my friends are turning 60 this year. We are all whooping it up with trips, parties and more great memories. Lou and I recently went on a trip to Lisbon and Marrakesh where a a group of people sang happy birthday in French to me after a Moroccan spa treatment. There I was eating chocolate cake in a bathrobe enjoying every minute. 60 feels very different than 50.

The things I think about at 60 are different from the things that occupied my mind in the first third and second third of my life. The first third was about the programming and expectations and hopes I had for myself. College, starting a career, finding a spouse, being dumped and hating being single.

The second third of my life was about undoing the damage of those expectations. I got divorced. My career came to a screeching halt. One of my daughters was born with a h0eart defect and then got cancer at 6 months old. My career path was on the biggest detour I didn't see coming. Yet that is how I got into coaching at Weight Watchers. I spent 17 years there, helping so many great people get more from their lives, on their terms. I had no idea how much I loved the facilitating, public speaking and mindset work that was involved. It changed me.

Now that I am approaching what I am thinking is the LAST THIRD (give or take a few years--no one knows) I am at a completely different place. My parents are both still around, but my dear dad is 88 and fading. He is eight years from his pancreatic cancer diagnosis (He's in a club of 1!). My mom is 87 and driving around Edina doing what she likes. Lou's mom is 95 and ready to leave assisted living for the nursing home. If someone told me I would be thinking about caregiving, end of life planning, health issues, cringing when the phone rings at the wrong time, I wouldn't have understood it.

It's not just their end of life, though. I am thinking about my third chapter as I am calling it. I have spent so much of this 2025 year being quiet, going inward and doing the emotional and spiritual heavy lifting and personal "work" it takes to let go of what needs to go, so that there is room for what is ready to come in. All of my grandbabies (8 in 4 years.)!

I want different things than I wanted before. I don't feel like I have anything to prove anymore. I feel a deep pull to be of service to others in a healing way. I'm not done working. I still teach 9 or 10 yoga and qi gong classes weekly and coach 1:1 clients, and I have decided to create a yoga/qi gong/meditation group program online. More to come on that. And I am facilitating death cafes. The first online death cafe will be Wednesday October 22 at 6PM on Zoom. Here's the link. https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87929981994

So, what about you? What are you thinking of at this stage of your life? Are you where you thought you would be? Are you doing what you thought you'd be doing? Is the fun, fulfillment, meaningful connection bringing you joy? Is your last third incredibly different from the first two thirds, like mine?

I am always cheering you on. I am always hoping for the very best for you even when I am quiet. That just means I am doing my own work so I can help you do yours.

xo Coach Karen :))

,