Julie Smerdon

You've earned this chapter.

Vibrant ageing isn't something you arrive at. It's a practice, and like yoga, it keeps showing you more as time goes on. There's no shortage of people telling you how to do it well. What to eat, how to move, what to take, what to quit. The Vibrant Pathway starts from a different place. You already know. This is six months of giving yourself permission to find out what works for you, not what works for an influencer who’s never even met you.

This isn't another menopause gathering. It's six months of connection and clarity for women who want the second half of life to feel like more, not less.

This is for you if:
You're done asking "am I doing this right" and ready to ask better questions
You're caught between the superhuman 70-year-old and "this is just what happens," and neither fits
You want real connection with yourself and the people you love, not just another wellness routine
You want to practise ageing on your own terms, not anyone else's
You want to do this alongside other women asking the same questions

The Vibrant Pathway runs over six months, in six modules. You work through one module a month in your own time, then at the end of that month, we come together in person at Soho Yoga to move, talk, and integrate. You'll also have WhatsApp access to me and the group between sessions, plus lifetime access to all six modules.

What's included:
6 in-person sessions
Private WhatsApp group
All video and audio content
Daily journaling prompts and practices
Lifetime access to all materials

In-person sessions: 25 July, 22 August, 19 September, 17 October, 14 November, 12 December.

Life happens. If you miss a session, that's fine. This is built around real life, and WhatsApp keeps you connected either way.

Details and enrolment at https://juliesmerdon.com/the-vibrant-pathway/

Over the weekend I hosted a bridal shower (aka a hen’s party here in Australia) for my daughter Sarah. I got to plan it with 3 of her closest friends, as well as my other daughter and my daughter-in-law. It was so fun to watch these girls go all out, fuelled by their love for Sarah. Decorations, invitations, flowers, balloons, all of it colour coordinated down to the last detail.

My biggest job was creating the space. I cleaned for 3 days before. I set a beautiful table with a tablecloth and cloth napkins. I made some of the food, and I set everything up. Creating a space like that, whether at my house, in a studio or in a conference room, is maybe one of the things I’m best at, and I loved doing it. Watching the day unfold was so rewarding.

Sarah’s friends have known her since school. More than a decade for most of them, being in and out of each other’s lives. I noticed a kind of shorthand between them, the result of having shown up for each other again and again over the years. Watching them together, I felt the love in the room, and beneath it, something completely different.

I felt lonely.

I don’t have those kinds of friendships in my life anymore, at least not on this side of the world. I honestly don’t think I’ve made a new friend in years.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the kind of friend you chat with at the gym, or wave to on your walks through the neighbourhood. I have lots of those. I’m talking about the kind of friend I can call if my car breaks down, or if my heart gets broken. I can think of at least two people off the top of my head I can see myself having that kind of friendship with. The problem is we’re all busy. Or maybe we don’t know how anymore. It’s strange, because I used to know exactly how. I was the kid at the playground who'd walk up to someone and just ask, "Do you want to be friends?"

When my kids were young, I virtually collided with women the same age and in the same phase of life all over the place, and friendships formed almost by accident. I met the mothers of my kids’ friends, I met people at work, or standing on the sidelines of a never-ending soccer match. When you stand on a sideline long enough, eventually you find your person, and that shared experience becomes shared history.

But as we age, life changes. Careers stabilise or wind down. Some of us are navigating health challenges. Kids grow up and leave, and friends move away. In my case, I was the friend who moved away, and quickly discovered that an ocean is not such an easy thing to get around, especially when you’re the one doing all the travelling. My school friends still get together every year at one of their holiday houses in Texas. Much as I’ve wanted to, I haven’t been able to make it back for that yet. But I love that they keep inviting me.

The day after the shower, I got up early and sat by myself with my coffee for a long time. I cried, grieving for the thing I want, but no longer have.

After a while, my brain did what it always does eventually: it focused on what’s possible. I thought about groups I could join. I remembered that Sarah met one of her closest friends through an app called Bumble BFF, and within about thirty seconds, I’d half built a business plan for a BumbleBFF for women over 50 in my head. If I could get the backing, hand on heart, I’d do it. Is that such a crazy idea?

I don’t have this figured out yet. But sitting there with my coffee, I remembered something that I really believe to be true: we’re wired to need each other. For the big things, but also for the small currencies we exchange. A hug, a feeling of safety, someone simply being there. It shouldn’t feel this hard to connect more deeply.

Am I the only one feeling this way?

A while back, Layne was out so I had dinner alone. I was so excited to make myself a feast of things I love, but he doesn’t. I sat down at the table with my delicious dinner and my laptop and went through the usual loop. YouTube first, then Facebook, then Instagram. And I suddenly saw it clearly. It was almost all junk. It made me angry and a little embarrassed. Obviously not everything online is trashy; there is quality content too, but in that moment, drowning in a sea of digital uselessness, it hit me. Why am I feeding myself digital junk food?

We often think of nourishment as the food we eat, but nourishment is everything we absorb. The conversations we have, the people we choose to spend time with, and the content we consume. All of it is either feeding or depleting us, and I had never really asked the hard questions about how my digital consumption was affecting me.

With the world feeling like it’s on fire, I started to think in particular about the news I was consuming, and what I found was uncomfortable. I grew up in a time when the news came once a day, at six o’clock, from someone who felt trustworthy. It wasn’t entertainment, and it wasn’t designed to keep us glued to the TV. I began copying and pasting content into AI for a second opinion on various bits of it. I discovered that a significant amount of what I’d been seeing was exaggerated, embellished, or outright false.

The news I was looking at wasn’t informing me; it was manipulating me. And I had been letting it happen because it hadn’t occurred to me to question it.

So I made a change. I chose two news sources, both known for reporting facts without theatre, both transparent about what is news and what is opinion. Not because I want to be sheltered from the world. I know I can’t afford to look away from what’s happening right now. But there is a difference between being informed and being managed, and I had been confusing the two.

That evening, I closed the laptop, finished my dinner, and went out back with the dogs. I sat in a chair while a nearly full moon was rising, and let nature do the scrolling while the dogs played. It took a few minutes, but eventually I felt clearer and, more importantly, more alive. The dogs ran around, the moon did its thing, and for the first time that evening, there was just…space.

If this struck a chord, nourishment in all its forms is exactly what we explore in Week 3 of The Vibrant Pathway. You can find out more about it here:
https://juliesmerdon.com/the-vibrant-pathway/

I was waking from a Sunday afternoon nap, still in that soft half-conscious place, when my world rearranged itself before I was fully awake. My daughter and her family, including my two grandsons, were moving interstate. My son and his family had already moved in January, taking my other grandchild with them. We are a close family, the kind that has regular gatherings we call ‘Fam Jams.’ I think I’ve been romanticising the close-knit family as if it’s a permanent state of grace. But the reality is more tender than that. Close-knit can also mean watching your people grow and accepting that their growth sometimes takes them elsewhere.

I’ve had enough practice with loss and change to know that the shock and grief of this news would pass. But grief is the receipts for deep love, and this grief had landed smack in the middle of my chest. Over the days that followed, and even now if I’m being honest, I’ve been watching the grief ebb and flow, letting the tears come and go as it morphs into something different.

As time went on, I started to feel something I can only call resignation, but I don’t mean that in the sense of giving up. It’s more that I kept coming back to what I could and couldn’t control. And somewhere in that process, a kind of pride crept in. Proud that they are forging their own paths in their own individual ways. Just like I did.

I also did what I’ve learned to do when I can’t think clearly on my own. I sought the counsel of a wise friend. She listened. She felt my pain and held me in it without trying to fix anything. And from that held place, something shifted. Not the grief, but my relationship to it. She helped me see that while there was much I couldn’t control, there were small things I could do. Calling the family together and making a plan. Deciding what Christmas looks like this year. Finding the dates we can count on being together, and putting them in the calendar as non-negotiables.

A podcast conversation between Ezra Klein and the Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön landed in my lap in the middle of all of this. Chödrön talks about increasing your capacity to sit with discomfort, not as a way of making it disappear, but as a way of becoming less afraid of it. That resonated with me because it echoes what I’ve learned through years of studying yoga philosophy. Life holds us, not just in the happy times but in the painful ones too.

In my work I often talk about the full spectrum of emotion available to us as human beings, and how we sometimes push the uncomfortable feelings down to neutralise them, rather than just letting ourselves experience them. What I’m living right now is a good reminder that the spectrum has two ends. Grief and joy can coexist. Anxiety and excitement are two sides of the same coin. My family is scattering, but at the same time my daughter is marrying her Scottish love, the one she met while being stranded in the UK during the pandemic. Layne and I are getting on a plane to Europe for a trip we weren’t sure we’d ever be able to take, to watch her marry a man we’ve grown to love.

All of this is true at the same time, and I’m here for all of it.

Life changes, that’s just what it does. We get older, families scatter, and friendships change. It’s how we grow. I’m trying my best to move with it rather than against it, even when it hurts.

I can’t explain the atrocities in the world or the unbearable losses people experience. I can only speak to what I’ve lived. And what I’ve lived is that flowers can find a way to bloom even in the harshest of times. I just have to remember to look.

Well I made it home from Fiji (eventually), and I'm settling in, and I have something I want to share with you.

Last year when I built the Vibrant Woman app, I created a course called The Vibrant Pathway to go along with it. I had a cohort of 14 women who did the flagship course with me, and the feedback was really positive. The course is the culmination of nearly 30 years of navigating some pretty major transitions, learning to trust my own agency, and applying what yoga has taught me about the way we live. It also comprises what I've learned over the years from working with other women through some of life's biggest experiences.

The course has been a labour of love, so when I realised the app was not the best place for this kind of work, I tidied it up and put it on a proper course platform, Teachable. It sits alongside my speaking and facilitation work as a self-directed program for you to explore at your own pace. I'm offering $100 off through the end of May. There's a lot in there, and you'll have lifetime access.

There's a free taster available if you want to try it out. Have a look at the page on my website, I've linked to it below. I learned so much about myself creating it, and I hope you get the same value from it too!

The Vibrant Pathway : Julie Smerdon The Vibrant Pathway You’ve done the hard work of becoming who you are. This is what comes next Most of us arrive at our 50s and 60s with more lived experience than we know what to do with. We’ve raised children, built careers, survived losses, and reinvented ourselves sometimes more than once. A...

I'm finally on my way home, And I’m still smiling.

This past week on Toberua Island was everything I hoped it would be. People who had never met before arrived a little tired, a little tense, and over the course of a few days I got to watch people slowly put down whatever they’ve been carrying and start to shine again. We all parted as friends. It happens every time, and it never gets old.

Just getting there is an adventure, which sets the tone perfectly. No TV and sketchy wifi meant we snorkelled, we kayaked, we swam, we napped, we ate the most delicious food, and we laughed A LOT. The quiet was extraordinary.

I’m already thinking about going back. I'm looking at July or August next year, it will be my 5th visit to the island, and I know it will be as magical as the others have been. If you’d like to be the first to know when dates are confirmed, drop me a message or a comment below.

Vinaka Fiji. Thank you. Until next time. 🌺

My alarm didn't go off this morning.

I missed the boat to Suva, which meant I missed my flight home. Yesterday I finished running a week-long retreat here in Fiji, and I found myself sitting in the dark at 4:30am on a private island in Fiji wondering what on earth to do next.

There was no phone. No way to call anyone. Just wifi, a travel insurance policy that turned out to be useless, and a credit card. I wanted to go home. I really did.

But I sorted it. One more night on the island, a rebooked flight, and a morning I hadn't planned for. There are much less pleasant places to be stuck.

When you spend your working life helping other people find calm in chaos, there's something humbling about being the one who made the rookie error. The hardest part isn't fixing the logistics. It's shifting how you're looking at it.

I'm heading home tomorrow. One day late, frustrated, but determined to enjoy the day and use it well.

Retreat recap coming up - and plans for next year...Should I save you a spot?

Today I forgot what day it was, and I’m counting it as a win...

We’re on retreat on a small private island in Fiji, eating our meals in bare feet, on tables set at the water’s edge. The quiet here is so profound that it takes time to get used to it before you can fully appreciate it. There’s no TV, not a single car, no airplanes, just water and birds, and the music of the beautiful Fijians who play and sing for us at mealtimes. I’m here as a facilitator, so I am working, but even that feels different without the background noise we’ve all gotten so used to.

The retreat participants AND the staff here are starting to feel like people I’ve known for years. Nobody planned for that, it just happens when you give human beings enough stillness and enough time to connect.

The theme for today is community which feels appropriate in a place where it’s so natural for strangers to become friends. This afternoon we go by boat to a local village, bringing school supplies for the kids, and fishing gear for the ones who fish to feed the community. A group of souls from one part of the world, meeting, singing, dancing, and sharing kava with a group of souls from another part of the world.

We need more of this right now, and I want to leave you with a piece that I read at the end of my class this morning. It’s a prayer for all of us, and it feels especially poignant given the state of the world at the moment:

*******
Thank you for the ones who find their way to our sides: our brothers, sisters, tribes, and clans. Thank you for the willingness to take care of one another and value our contributions as a whole. Help us to put the good of the whole before the good of the few.

We need your support, as we take the next steps, to expand. Ease our fears, and teach us to gather in a circle of equals. Remind us that a circle has no beginning and no end, and that nature contains innumerable examples of the beauty of co-leading and the sacred geometry of many parts working as one.

Remove our irrational fears of moving along the road together, and allow us to look at all options for teaming up. Inspire in us the creativity required to dream outside of our insular boxes and single-family homes, and instead meet up at the fireside to break some bread together and spread our beautiful ideas out on the table like a feast. Lean us into one another’s shoulders when we need a little care.

Fill us with unassailable HOPE that our collaborations will yield great harvests.

Burn up our excess ego, and inspire our communications with thunderous compassion. Provide us with the strength of character needed to be good to each other.

Let us default to great love in times of doubting ourselves and one another as we work together toward solutions.

— Pixie Lighthorse, Honoring Community, Prayers of Honoring (excerpts)

3 days in Fiji so far..Should I save you a spot for next year?