There are some women you interview where, before you’ve even finished the conversation, you know you’re going to be thinking about their words for days afterwards. Kai Soremekun 🤸🏽♀️✊🏽 is one of those women.
Kai has spent more than four decades in the entertainment industry, an environment that has plenty to say about women, beauty and ageing, and very little of it is particularly kind. Rather than allowing that world to determine her worth, Kai turned it into a training ground for something much more powerful: learning to separate her value from her appearance, her age, and other people’s expectations of who she should be.
Now, as a midlife alchemist, author of Joybellion and creator of the Joybellion Journey, Kai is inviting women to do something that feels both radical and deeply necessary: stop trying to fix themselves and start reclaiming themselves.
And I think that distinction matters enormously.
How many of us have entered midlife believing there is something about us that needs fixing? Our bodies. Our confidence. Our careers. Our relationships. Our choices. Our anger. Our ageing. We have been given an endless list of things to improve, manage, correct, and overcome, when perhaps the more interesting question is: What parts of myself did I have to quiet, suppress, or abandon in order to survive the life I was living?
That is where this conversation with Kai begins.
We talk about the lies women have been taught about ageing, the strange liberation of becoming less visible, why anger can be a source of information rather than something to suppress, how to rebuild a relationship with intuition after decades of overriding it, and why choosing joy can be an act of rebellion.
But underneath all of it is a much bigger invitation: to stop asking what is wrong with us and start asking what we want to reclaim.
I think you’re going to love this one.
You’ve spent more than 40 years in the entertainment industry, which is one of the least forgiving industries for women as they age. What did that world teach you about your own worth, and how much of it did you have to unlearn?
Working in an industry that places a lot of value on appearance and youthfulness helped prepare me for the more apparent signs of aging that show up in midlife. By my mid-twenties, I was aware that aging was not going to be my friend in the industry I chose. This awareness helped me decide early on to separate my self-worth from my appearance or age. As brutal as the industry can be, it became my training ground. I used it as a daily practice in refusing to let my value live in my looks. Unlearning is an ongoing process because the “you’re not good enough” messaging never stops. I continue to remind myself that my value lies in my spirit and who I am as a person.
Joybellion opens with the premise that everything society has told women about ageing is a lie. That’s a strong claim. What’s the lie you most want women to stop believing?
If I could wave a magic wand and have one lie eradicated, it would be that women are to blame for everything. For crying out loud, women are the only reason we’re functioning as a species. We are not to blame for getting paid less than men. We are not to blame when we are sexually assaulted. We are not to blame for world wars and the instability that follows. We are not to blame for getting old. We’re handed so many crazy solutions to stay looking young. When they don’t work, because, hello, aging isn’t avoidable, we get blamed for looking old or “letting ourselves go.” I would like women to take an extreme stance on this and decide that we never do anything wrong, just for a while, to balance things out. I’m not saying to blame men. I’m saying reject anyone or anything that blames you.
You describe the thing that makes women feel invisible in midlife as actually their greatest source of power. That’s a radical reframe. What is that thing, and why does it take so long to see it that way
The “thing” is how aging women are viewed in society. On a crass level, we are seen as baby makers. When our fertile years are behind us, the underlying societal message is that we no longer hold value except as caregivers. What comes with being devalued is that people stop paying attention to us. THAT is when we can do whatever we want. The female gaze turns away from us at the very moment midlife invites us to tap into our power. Our wisdom. Our resilience. Our strength. Then, we can wield them for good in our lives and the world around us, without the nuisance of society’s judging eye.
It takes so long because we first have to enter our “invisible phase.” Prior to that switch in our relationship with society, we spent a lot of time on other concerns, whether it be navigating unwanted attention and harassment, nurturing a family, or climbing the career ladder. We have to wait for our visibility in society to fade a bit before we can fully use the power we’ve gained.
There’s a difference between self-help and what you’re calling self-reclamation. It feels like an important distinction. Can you say more about where that line is and why it matters?
Yes. Self-help tends to imply there is something wrong with you. I am obsessed with insisting there is nothing wrong with women. If we want to point the finger somewhere, then point the finger at the status quo and patriarchal society we live in. Having to navigate what I call the problematics often results in us losing parts of ourselves to survive and thrive in a system that was built to keep us down. So I reject self-help and the idea that we need fixing, and replace it with self-reclamation, which invites us to reconnect with the parts of ourselves we may have quieted to survive the problematics.
You run a workshop called Holy Rage, Anger as a Path to Liberation. A lot of women in midlife have been told, directly or indirectly, that their anger is too much, too ugly, or not aligned. What do you say to the woman who is deeply uncomfortable with her own rage?
First, I say I’m so sorry that you’ve never had an outlet to express an emotion that offers us a lot of valuable information and healing when expressed in healthy ways. Second, I would say, of course, you’re deeply uncomfortable with your rage or anger. We all see what happens to women who express their anger. I don’t want to have to deal with the backlash of saying you’re pissed. However, anger holds a lot of power and guidance for us and is a key factor in how we have an impact on society. I hope to be of service to women by helping them use their anger to better their lives and those around them.
You talk a lot about intuition as a guide. But so many women in midlife have spent decades overriding theirs, for practicality, for other people, for survival. How does a woman start to trust something she’s spent years ignoring?
I think the keyword here, when wanting to strengthen our relationship with our intuition, is trust. Intuition is a built-in part of being human. So first, I’d emphasize: you are tapped in. Intuition isn’t something some have and some don’t. Then I’d say take baby steps. Reacquaint yourself with how your intuition speaks to you. My experience has been that when I bring up this subject with someone, they will have at least one story in their life tied to a decision they made based on listening to their intuition. Travel through your life and see if you can find a time when you listened to your gut. Pay attention to how you feel. What motivated you to listen to something outside of logic? Then start to practice in situations that have little consequence if you make a decision and it doesn’t pan out how you’d like. I’d also say connect with a friend who’s also working on trusting her intuition more, or who already trusts hers. Support makes it more fun and magical.
You describe yourself as a midlife alchemist. What does that actually mean in practice? What is the raw material, and what are you turning it into?
As a midlife alchemist, I help other women turn their everyday lives into ones filled with magical experiences. The raw material is life and our connection to everything around us. We are turning these connections into an experience of life that allows us to float just slightly above the fray on a regular basis. It doesn’t get rid of the challenges that come with being alive, but it shifts how we travel through life and how supported we feel by unseen forces. In practice, most of what this looks like is mirroring. I reflect a woman’s own talents and dreams back to her until they are so normalized that she is moved to act. That’s the process I’ve built into my one-on-one offering, the Joybellion Journey.
The word disobedience runs through everything you do. But disobedience has a cost, social, relational, sometimes financial. How honest are you with women about what it might cost them to stop living by everyone else’s rules?
Interesting. I think I understand what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t describe it as disobedience having a cost. Maybe because the word cost implies something negative. We aren’t being disobedient just to be disobedient. We are being disobedient when we reject what someone or something else has told us we should do that is out of alignment with our true selves. Instead of saying disobedience has a cost, I would say there are repercussions for honoring ourselves over others, but the payoff is freedom. It is common for women to have accommodated others’ needs and wants for decades. When we reach midlife and realize that we want to put our needs and wants first, this can trigger unexpected changes. Others may prefer the older version of us. So yes, there are repercussions, but the replenishment comes in living a life we want as opposed to one others want.
Joy feels political right now, particularly for women in midlife who’ve been conditioned to earn it, defer it, or feel guilty for having it. Is joy an act of rebellion? And if so, against what, exactly?
Yes! Choosing joy is an act of rebellion. It means making what brings you joy a priority. Choosing you over everyone else in a world where you are expected to be self-sacrificing 24/7 is an act of rebellion. Women still get paid less than men. Women are being told what they can and can’t do with their bodies. Abusers are protected over survivors. Choosing acts that bring joy to our lives is an act of rebellion against a system that thrives by keeping us powerless and joyless.
If a woman reads Joybellion and finishes it feeling seen but still not quite ready to move, what would you say to her?
Trust your timing. I’m amazed at the magic that can show up when we give ourselves a bit of grace and let go of wanting to be in control of when things happen. Sitting in a liminal space is a fascinating journey. It’s similar to when a seed is planted, and it looks like nothing is happening. Underneath the surface, much is happening. The same is true for us. Trust that what’s energetically needed is unfolding in the quiet to help you eventually move forward. I would also say, stay curious, and know that when you are tapped in, movement in your life often mimics the timing of nature rather than the pace of modern life.
I came away from my conversation with Kai thinking about how often we approach midlife as another self-improvement project. We look at ourselves and immediately start making a list: what needs changing, healing, losing, fixing, improving. And perhaps that is one of the most deeply embedded stories we need to question.
Because what if there is nothing fundamentally wrong with us? What if the woman arriving at midlife is not a broken version of the woman she used to be, but a woman who has accumulated enough wisdom, experience, resilience, and self-knowledge to finally start asking what actually belongs to her?
I loved Kai’s language of self-reclamation because it shifts the entire conversation. We are not necessarily becoming someone new. We are reconnecting with the parts of ourselves we may have quieted in order to be loved, accepted, successful, safe or simply to get through the day. And sometimes reclamation looks surprisingly ordinary. Saying no. Listening to your gut. Letting yourself be angry. Choosing something because it brings you joy. Changing your mind. Wanting something without immediately explaining it away. Deciding that your life gets to feel good too.
And perhaps that is the heart of Kai’s Joybellion. Not rebellion for the sake of rebellion, but the courage to stop outsourcing the authority over your own life.
There may be repercussions when we begin doing that. People may prefer the version of us who was more accommodating. Some relationships may change. Some choices may feel frightening. We may have to sit in that strange liminal space where the old life no longer fits, but the new one hasn’t quite taken shape yet.
Kai’s advice there is simple, and I think it is something many of us need to hear: Trust your timing.
Not everything has to happen today. Not every seed needs to be dug up to check whether it is growing. Sometimes there is an extraordinary amount happening underneath the surface.
So perhaps midlife isn’t asking us to hurry towards our next version. Perhaps it is asking us to become curious about the woman who has been waiting underneath everything we’ve been told we should be.
And maybe, just maybe, she has been there all along.