Every so often, an interview arrives that I want to sit with for a minute before I even publish it.
Mary Westheimer’s is one of those.
She calls herself a Wise Woman, the third and final season, in her words, and she says it with the kind of laughter that tells you she’s earned the label rather than settled for it. She’s still working full time, still building, still very much in motion. But underneath the motion is something I keep noticing across these conversations: a woman who has stopped forcing her life to look a certain way and started letting it become what it actually is.
There’s a line in here about meditation that stopped me. About spending most of a life living in the head, and having to relearn how to feel. I think a lot of us know that particular kind of relearning.
So, 85 Weeks to Fifty continues. Here’s Mary.
Who are you, and what season of life are you in?
My name is Mary Westheimer, and I am in the Crone or Wise Woman season of my life, the third and final season. I prefer the “Wise Woman” label, even though it makes me laugh. (But then, I highly value laughter.) I’m still working full time as sculptor Kevin Caron’s “lovely assistant” as well as promoting my book “What Nobody Tells You About Getting Older: Aging With Both Eyes Open and a Smile on Your Lips,” a book I didn’t mean to write until I recognized that other people might appreciate better understanding the beneficial and even the challenging aspects of aging and ways to cope with it.
What surprised you most about your 50s?
Aging in general has provided a lot of surprises. When I was younger, I thought I’d just get better and better by continuing to refine who I am. While that is true in some ways, I was definitely not prepared for the changes in my body and the world that would affect everything. I can see why people become curmudgeons, but I’m determined not to fall into that chasm.
One thing you’ve stopped doing (and you’re better for it):
I’ve stopped caring so much about what people think. As many wise people have noted, what they think of me is none of my business. As long as I am comfortable with who I am, how I live, and treat others, others are welcome to their opinions, good and bad. Unless I can learn something from them, their opinions have little or no impact on me. I simply wish these people well.
One thing you’re choosing instead:
I’ve recognized that most things are “the small stuff.” Without being irresponsible, as if that would ever happen! I often note that “no one died” if I make a mistake. Most mistakes are unintentional, easily resolved, and unimportant. I know that now. It has lifted a substantial burden off my shoulders.
One boundary you now honour, no apology:
I believe in being “generous with praise and stingy with advice.” If I think I should share my thoughts with someone, and they usually have to be a really important person in my life, I ask first if they are open to it. With some exceptions, if they aren’t, they probably aren’t friend material for me, as I WANT my friends to point out good and challenging things to me because I respect their views. I may or may not do what they advise (such as cutting my hair because I’m old), but I sincerely value their insights.
One micro-decision that changed everything:
I quit taking on others’ pain. I’ve realized that they have their own journeys and need to take them. Their decisions and, sometimes, mistakes are their own, and despite my determination to save the world, I should not take on their problems and decisions. Their successes? Well, those I gladly celebrate with them, but they, too, are not mine.
One practice that keeps you steady:
Meditation. The more I meditate (at least 20 minutes twice a day), the more I want to meditate. I had spent much of my life living in my head and literally had to relearn how to feel, so meditation helps me stop trying to “figure out” everything and instead experience it. The ability to get out of my head and be able to look at my life and the world from the outside has had a profound impact on me.
One belief about midlife you no longer subscribe to:
I have never believed that we begin the downhill slide at midlife, so that hasn’t been a problem. I do now know, however, that everything, my body, my perspective, my potential future, will likely be different from what I can imagine, so I quit trying to force it to be something I want and instead let it become what it is. That doesn’t stop me from taking care of my body and mind, but focusing on what is happening and how I can work with it happily overrules trying to force anything. It’s amazing what happens when I let go.
The best thing about being in your 50s:
Shedding expectations. I’ve gotten much better at acceptance. That doesn’t mean giving in or giving up. Instead, I no longer mourn that something didn’t happen that I desperately wanted. I now know that things happen the way they’re supposed to (yes, I really believe and live that), both good and bad, which gives me the ability to celebrate that life is happening for me instead of to me. Some might call that faith (I do).
Complete this: At 50+, I am…
Perfect as I am in this moment. Even what I might have once considered weaknesses or failures are, I now see, exactly what I needed at the time.
This week, I want women turning 50 to remember:
Everything you have done until now is one more step toward who you truly are. Everything you’ve learned, whether it’s from mistakes or wrong turns, is something you needed to traverse. Who you are may continue to change, I hope I do, but the changes you make are incremental steps to being fully yourself.
“Everything you have done until now is one more step toward who you truly are.”
I keep returning to that line from Mary, not as a tidy conclusion, but as something to carry with me this week.
There’s a thread running through this conversation that I don’t think is an accident: the letting go of others’ pain, the letting go of forcing outcomes, the letting go of what people think. Not resignation. Something closer to trust.
If Mary’s words landed somewhere in you today, I’d love to know where.
Good, format and pricing confirmed. Here it is, drawing specifically from Mary’s actual answers.
My Note to My Future Self
What I love about Mary’s answers is the way she talks about letting go, not as giving up, but as a kind of quiet strength.
She stopped taking on other people’s pain. Stopped carrying their decisions, their mistakes, their journeys, as if they were hers to fix. And there’s nothing passive in that. It takes a particular kind of steadiness to watch someone you love struggle and resist the urge to save them from it.
I think about that a lot: how much of what we call caring is actually control. How much of our exhaustion in midlife comes from carrying weight that was never ours to carry?
And I love what she says about forcing outcomes. That she quit trying to make her body, her future, her life look a certain way, and started working with what’s actually happening instead. Not resignation. Something closer to trust, the kind that only comes after you’ve tried the other way for long enough to know it doesn’t work.
Maybe that’s the real shift in this decade. Not becoming someone new. Just putting down what was never ours to hold in the first place.
If you’re following along this week
My Stop: Where am I still taking on pain, problems, or outcomes that were never mine to carry?
My Start: What would it look like to be generous with praise and quieter with advice, unless someone truly asks?
My Boundary: Where do I need to stop caring what people think and simply wish them well instead?
My Micro-decision: What “wrong turn” from my past might actually have been exactly what I needed to traverse?
My Practice: What twenty minutes, twice a day, could help me stop figuring everything out and start experiencing it instead?
Journal prompt: What am I still forcing that might soften the moment I stop?
The 85 Weeks to Fifty is a series born from one woman walking herself towards fifty in the company of other women’s wisdom. If Mary’s words are landing, if you’re finding yourself somewhere in her honesty, there is a space where this conversation continues, week by week, not just in interviews but in the deeper, more personal work of actually living this season differently.
The Midlife Circle is that space. Bi-weekly essays, a private podcast, the Midlife by Design Library of tools, and a monthly personal video from me, from £19/month or £149/year.
And if you’re ready for the deepest layer, audio training, The Midlife Reset course, and four quarterly 1:1 calls with me, the Midlife Inner Circle is £297/year.
You don’t have to walk towards fifty alone. Come and do it properly.
~ Kiran x