Lana Antonova is the founder and creative director of Webvixxen Design, and a multi-founder across several ventures, but what I love most about her is the language she uses for this chapter: not reinvention, but refinement. Lana is in what she calls the reclamation season of midlife, a season where she’s no longer performing but aligning. Clearer. Less apologetic. Far more intentional about where her energy goes. In this conversation, she speaks to the internal nature of midlife, the subtle psychological recalibration no one prepares you for, and the disorienting contrast of feeling like the same woman on the inside while everything around you shifts on the outside. It’s thoughtful, honest, and quietly powerful.
Who are you, and what season of midlife are you in right now?
I am Lana Antonova, the founder and creative director of Webvixxen Design, as well as a multi-founder across several ventures. I am in the reclamation season of midlife. I don’t mean the season of reinvention, necessarily, but the season of refinement. I mean the season where I am no longer performing but instead aligning. I am clearer, less apologetic, and much more intentional about where I am putting my energy. I think this season is less about proving and more about building from wisdom.
What surprised you most about midlife or menopause?
I’m not in menopause yet, but what has surprised me most about midlife is how much of it is internal. You expect surface-level changes, but you don’t expect the deeper recalibration. Your priorities shift. Your tolerance shifts. Your definition of success shifts. There’s a psychological refinement happening that no one really prepares you for.
Midlife is not about dramatic change; it is about subtle change. It is the quiet awareness of one’s finite, hence precious, energy. It is this awareness that alters the way one goes through the world.
What’s been the hardest part that people don’t talk about?
The hardest part is the shift. On the inside, I feel like the same woman I’ve always been. My ambition is there. My humour is there. My drive is there. But on the outside, things change. Energy changes. Appearance changes. Dynamics change. And that contrast can be disorienting.
There’s also a quiet reshuffling of priorities and relationships. Friends move into different life stages. Some are raising children. Some are newly married later in life. Some are building entirely new chapters. The circles evolve, and sometimes you find yourself slightly outside of conversations you once belonged to. No one really talks about that subtle loneliness.
Midlife asks you to adjust, again and again. But what it also gives you is the skill to do exactly that. By this stage, you’ve learned how to recalibrate. You’ve learned resilience. You understand that change is not a crisis, it’s a transition.
What feels hardest is not the ageing itself. It’s the pace of the world around us. Everyone is online. Everyone is distracted. Real conversation feels rarer. And yet this is the stage of life where depth matters more than ever.
That realisation is actually shaping something I’m developing now, something rooted in presence and human connection. Because if midlife teaches you anything, it’s that being heard and hearing others is no longer optional. It’s essential.
What has helped you most (a habit, a mindset shift, support, HRT or no HRT, community)?
What has helped me most is not giving in to change but embracing it. I have realised that priorities change, energy levels change, and some friendships change. However, I have also realised that I should not give up on my ambitions and myself in the process.
Movement has been one of the cornerstones of my journey. I have enjoyed long walks, weight training with adequate recovery time, eating with intention, and sleeping with intention. I have also realised the importance of honest conversations with women who are not afraid to say that everything is not as easy as it looks. Community has been more important than ever, and I have finally come to appreciate my body instead of trying to negotiate with it.
What are you unlearning?
I’m letting go of the idea that I have to be the same to be relevant. I’m letting go of the need to challenge myself beyond my limits just to prove that I can do it. I’m letting go of the idea that a friendship has to last for it to have been meaningful.
Most of all, I’m letting go of the need to keep up with a world that is hyper-digital and doesn’t stop. Depth is more important to me than noise.
What do you wish you could tell your 35-year-old self?
Slow down. You are not behind, and you do not need to prove your worth by pushing yourself to exhaustion.
Take care of your health from the beginning. Nurture your nervous system. Be discerning about the company you keep. And understand that reinvention is not a singular act, but rather one that unfolds in layers. You are allowed to evolve, without apology.
What do you want other women to know they’re not alone in?
You are not alone in feeling like there is a disconnect between your inner being and the way you are changing on the outside of life. You are not alone in the way your friendships are being rearranged. You are not alone in wondering what’s next.
And you are not alone in your desire for a deeper connection in a world that often feels like it’s just surface-level. Your desire for real conversation, real connection and real understanding is not a weakness. It’s maturity.
What’s one small ritual or practice that’s keeping you steady in your daily life?
Meditation and movement have been the anchors of my life for decades. I was always someone who had faith in the power of the mind. I know that what I think about grows. Training my mind to think about possibilities rather than limitations has been one of the most stabilising forces of my life.
Meditation has been about allowing change to happen rather than fighting it. It has been about being open to change rather than being afraid of it.
Movement has been my second meditation for many years. Training, walking, working out, and pushing myself physically have been a part of who I am. In recent years, nerve damage in my neck and hands has forced me to dial it way back in ways that have been very hard for me to accept. Yet still, I move. I walk. I use my body as much as it will allow me to. For me, being steady and stable has nothing to do with how hard I am pushing myself and everything to do with how consistent I am with training my mind and working with my body, no matter what it asks of me. Two things have been with me through every season of life and are with me still.
What Lana articulates so beautifully is that midlife isn’t always a dramatic rupture. Sometimes it’s a series of subtle recognitions: your tolerance changes, your friendships reshuffle, your body asks for a new pace, and suddenly depth matters more than noise. She doesn’t frame these shifts as failure or loss, but as maturation, the kind that teaches you to recalibrate again and again without making it a crisis. I also love her devotion to presence in a world that’s become hyper-digital and distracted. Her anchors, meditation and movement, feel like a steady refusal to abandon herself. Even with nerve damage forcing her to dial things back, she keeps moving, not to prove anything, but to stay in a relationship with her body and her life. If you’ve been feeling that disconnect between who you are inside and how life looks outside, Lana’s words are a reminder: your desire for real conversation, real connection, and a quieter kind of success isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom.
If you’d like to be part of the ‘5 Minutes With…’ series, or you know a woman whose voice would feel like medicine here, email me at hello@kiransinghuk.com. And if you’re reading this thinking, same, tell me in the comments: what are you unlearning in midlife?