Julie Smerdon

In June I marked seventeen years living in Australia. In the process of moving across the world, my youngest daughter Sarah and I found ourselves living in a space that was between lives. Tim and Mallory were already at university in Brisbane, and Layne had gone ahead of us with a container packed with all our stuff. But Sarah and I stayed back for two months, camping in our empty house so she could finish out the school year. We had none of the trappings of our old life, and we hadn’t begun the new one yet. We were neither here nor there.

That kind of in-betweenness has a name. It’s called a liminal space, from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. We know the word subliminal, meaning below the threshold of consciousness. Liminal is the opposite; it’s the space at the threshold itself, the waiting room between what was and what is to come.

I think we move through liminal spaces throughout our lives. Our twenties, wondering what adulting is supposed to feel like (I vaguely remember this). Our thirties and forties are full of thresholds. Job changes, first babies, relationships beginning or ending. And our fifties, when the first whiff of bigger change starts to creep in.

Now I’m finding that in my sixties I’m at multiple thresholds. My kids are grown, partnered, and building their own lives and families, as they should be. Crossing that threshold has been a slow, sometimes emotional journey from being the centre of their worlds to sitting on the sidelines. Still loved, just no longer part of the framework in the same way. And, of course, I’m still trying to figure out what’s next for my career.

There’s a researcher named Dr Lisa Miller; she was on my podcast a while back. She wrote a book called The Awakened Brain, one of the best bridges between science and spirituality I’ve come across. She uses the metaphor of red doors and yellow doors. A red door is something you want so badly that you'll do anything to force it open. A yellow door is one that opens instead, almost always in a place you weren't looking. Her red door was years of unsuccessful infertility treatment. Her yellow door was a stranger on a bus telling her she looked “like someone who would adopt kids from all over the world”. She adopted internationally, fell pregnant during that process and ended up with ‘twins’ who weren’t biologically related to each other!

Yellow doors, when you walk through them, tend to hold more than you ever thought possible.

In the six years since the studio closed, I’ve bashed on a lot of red doors, mostly trying a version of teaching in different forms and in different spaces. I wanted so badly for one of them to be the work that could carry me all the way through, because I’m not remotely done. Some days, though, I do wonder if anyone will hire me at my age. Still, I’m not ready to retire, not emotionally or financially. My energy is still high, and I have years of hard-earned wisdom to share.

I’m done bashing on red doors; I’m pretty sure there’s a reason they’re so hard to open. These days I feel like I’m slowly walking a hallway, cruising past the red doors, and looking for the yellow one I know will eventually be there. I’ll know it when I see it.

What doors, red or yellow, are you looking at right now?

A few years ago, not long after I’d changed bookkeepers, I sat down for our second meeting to go over cash flow forecasting for my business, a busy, urban yoga studio. My new bookkeeper reformatted my cash flow spreadsheet and went through it in more detail than I knew was possible. In a meeting with her, she presented it to me, and the bottom line had changed considerably, in my favour.

Yoga studios are not generally cash-rich, and mine was no exception, no matter how it may have looked from the outside. But it had been a decent year, so a closer set of eyes finding more money than I thought I had wasn’t impossible. It was just a wonderful and unexpected surprise.

The effect it had on me was unreal. In my mind, new doors seemed to open everywhere. I felt proud. After years of feeling like a failure at the business part of the business, I felt successful, finally. That feeling wasn’t contained to the business either. It spread into how I felt about almost everything in my life.

But…there was a mistake in how the spreadsheet had been converted from one format to another. A big mistake. In the time it took to read the email explaining this, I went from feeling proud and successful to frustrated and powerless.

The only thing in my life that had changed was a number on a page.

That spreadsheet wasn’t the only time a number determined how I felt about myself. It’s a pattern I know well by now, one that started well before I owned a small business. And it’s surfaced in my life again, this time with a different trigger.

In Hindu philosophy, myths are metaphors for life. The story of Lakshmi is one I’ve always been drawn to. Lakshmi represents value, good fortune, and prosperity. But the abundance she represents isn’t limited to numbers on a spreadsheet. Lakshmi also represents wealth in areas like relationships, wisdom, character, and health. Her story is the one I return to when I need to be reminded that abundance is so much more than a bank balance or bottom line.

I know that intellectually. But knowing something and applying it to my life is not the same practice, and applying it to my life is a practice I’ve had to return to again and again.

I’ve taught yoga for nearly three decades, and I can’t picture a version of my life without some form of that in it. But it isn’t providing what it once did, and I’m genuinely not sure yet what comes next. Maybe more teaching, just shaped differently. Maybe part-time work alongside my beloved Wednesday evening class. Maybe something else altogether, a full-time role I haven’t found yet, or can’t picture from here. I’m trying to stay open and look at what life is showing me. In moments like this, my instinct is always the same: to look straight past all the abundance in my life, head into scarcity thinking and punish myself.

I don’t have the tidy ending yet where I tell you I’ve sorted it out. What I do have is a faith in the intelligence behind the way life unfolds, and the support of a damned good man.

Oh and there’s still the spreadsheet story, sitting there as proof that abundance was never about a number.

Layne and I hadn’t taken a trip that was wholly and solely for us in fifteen years. Any other travel we’ve done in that time has been to visit family, or involved one or more of the kids, or was a quick weekend squeezed in between life stuff. I’ve done a lot of solo international travel for work during that time, and I honestly wasn’t sure how well we’d travel together for that long. We had two and a half weeks away, built around Sarah’s wedding in Scotland, with France on the back end. Somewhere in the middle of it I realised I couldn’t remember the last time it had been just us for this long.

In the early years, often a marriage is built around everything except the union itself. Careers, kids, money, the next move. You’re building something together, but the focus is outside rather than on each other. If you’re lucky, or maybe just stubborn, you’re still standing together twenty-five or thirty years in. There are plenty of things that can end a marriage that have nothing to do with two people no longer feeling suited for each other: illness, death, the wear and tear that happens over decades of living together. And admittedly, there have been a couple of moments over the years where one or the other of us considered throwing in the towel. I think that can be true of any long marriage. These days our kids are building their own lives and families, most of them farther away physically than they've ever been. Our careers have settled into something less stressful, more comfortable, and enjoyable. And with that shift, something interesting has happened.

I’ve been rediscovering the man I married.

I noticed him the whole trip. The morning we landed in Edinburgh, jet-lagged after twenty-one hours of flying, we had five hours to kill before we could get into our unit. Layne sorted it. After we had some breakfast, he booked us onto a tour bus so we didn’t have to think (or stand upright). We just watched the city go by and used that time to decide what we wanted to see while we were there.

Again in Paris. After a brutal drive down from the Brussels border, we arrived at our unit on a 40º (104ºF) afternoon. The unit was on the ground floor with no air conditioning, which is the norm in Paris, but it meant we couldn’t leave the windows open at night or while we were out. I’d booked it months earlier, never even considering that there might be a crazy heat wave. We were both hot and miserable, and I was really upset, mostly with myself. Once again, Layne sorted it. He gave me his cheekiest grin and said, heat wave or not, we’re in Paris, so let’s get out there and enjoy it! That buoyed my spirits and brightened the vibe, even though the temperature barely moved the whole time we were there.

That was the trip. Whenever something went ‘wrong,’ Layne was the foundation underneath, no matter where we found ourselves.

I’ve come to think home isn’t about the location. Maybe home is something you build inside yourself and carry with you, a foundation that goes wherever you go. For me right now that foundation has Layne built into it, but I know that won’t always be true in the way it is now. As I get older, I’m more aware that none of us gets to keep our people forever, and I’ve watched friends lose their person suddenly and far too young.

I felt as at home on a tour bus in a foreign city, or sweating it out in an airless Paris flat, as I do in our own house with the dogs at the door. We’ve lived in eight different houses during our seventeen years in Australia, and we haven’t owned a single one of them.

But it took walking around Scotland and France, with nothing to do but be together, to show me that home was never where we stood.

It was always just him.

✨ The Vibrant Pathway ✨ Registrations close 30 June!

Join me for a 6 month mentorship programme for vibrant ageing.

You’ll look at how you move, how you rest, how you nourish yourself, and the stories you’ve been telling yourself about what the second half of life is supposed to look like.

The Vibrant Pathway is for you if:
> You’re ready to embrace the wisdom you’ve earned and put it to good use
> You’re overwhelmed by the conflicting versions of aging well you see on social media
> You want a deeper connection and intimacy with yourself and the people you love
> You want to practise ageing on your own terms
> You want more than just another book that winds up on the shelf

Join our in-person cohort at SoHo Yoga commencing 25 July 2026. But don't delay - registrations close this Tuesday 30 June!

For more info and to secure your spot visit http://sohoyoga.com.au/.../the-vibrant-pathway-with-julie.... 🙏

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...