I’ve been noticing something about my own tiredness lately.

Not all of it feels the same. Some of it has a quality of — I want to say flatness. A kind of used-up feeling that rest doesn’t quite touch. And some of it, even when it’s considerable, has something else underneath it. Something that still feels like me.

It’s taken me a long time to understand the difference. And I think it matters enormously, especially now, especially at this stage of life when our reserves are not what they were and we can’t afford to keep puzzling over why we’re more depleted than the day seems to warrant.

What I’ve slowly learned is this: not everything that tires you costs the same thing.

Some things take a great deal and give something back. A long session with someone I’ve worked with for years — the kind of conversation where something real shifts — will leave me tired in a way that still feels alive. Writing that goes well does the same. Even a demanding day in the garden, when the sun is out and the work is physical and my mind goes quiet, leaves something behind that isn’t depletion.

Some things cost what they cost and the body absorbs them without much difficulty. A familiar routine. A gentle walk. A task I know how to do and have done many times before. These are affordable. I don’t need to protect against them.

Some things are genuinely expensive and worth every bit of the cost — though I’ve had to learn to stop pretending they’re free just because I value them. Preparing and delivering something that matters to me. Being fully present with someone in real difficulty. The concentrated work of writing something that needs to be true. These are not wrong to choose. They are essential, often. But they need honest accounting. I can’t spend that kind of energy and then be surprised by the bill.

And some things drain quietly and steadily without returning anything at all. These are the ones worth watching most carefully, because they don’t tend to announce themselves. For me it’s a certain kind of administration that circles without resolving. It’s waiting for news I can’t influence. It’s the low persistent hum of having too many open loops — things not finished, not decided, not yet put down. None of these look dramatic. That’s precisely what makes them so costly.

Once I started sorting my experience this way — not judging it, just sorting it — something shifted. The days that looked gentle but left me completely flat became readable. There had been more circling, more unresolved waiting, more quiet vigilance than I’d noticed in the moment. The days that looked demanding but left me surprisingly intact became readable too. Something in them had fed me, even while asking a lot.

One question has become a companion for me at the end of most days.

Did that give anything back? Or did it only take?

It won’t answer itself the same way twice. But asked honestly, and listened to honestly, it begins to change things.

Earlier this year, I spent several months tracking my daily life alongside my biometrics. What I was working on, what I was trying to carry, what my body was signalling through heart rate variability, sleep quality, and recovery scores.

What I found wasn’t dramatic. But it was clarifying.

On days I felt I’d managed well, the body sometimes told a quieter version of that story — not alarmingly different, but sufficiently so to make me pay attention. On days I felt rough, the body had sometimes recovered more than I expected. And some days — quiet days, apparently easy days — had cost more than they appeared to, because something in me had stayed on call the whole time, even while I was outwardly resting.

The body and the mind don’t always agree. Neither is wrong. Both are information.

Most of us have never been taught to read that mismatch. We measure a day by what we accomplished, or whether we coped, or how we appeared. We don’t often ask what the day required internally. Or what it left behind. Or whether we actually recovered — as opposed to simply got through.

I think that distinction — between coping and recovering — is one of the most practically useful things I’ve learned in my own third third. And it’s what this series is going to be about.

Not another system to manage. Not surveillance of yourself. Just a more honest way of reading a life that deserves to be read truthfully.

We’ve all been told we need more resilience.

The ability to bounce back. To absorb difficulty and return to where we were. It sounds right. It’s become the dominant language for coping with a world that won’t slow down.

But I’ve started to wonder if it’s pointing us in the wrong direction.

Because returning to where we were isn’t always possible. And in a world changing at this pace — politically, climatically, technologically, personally — it may not even be desirable. The place we were no longer exists.

What I’ve been exploring in my own life, and increasingly in my work, is something different. Not resilience, but what I’d call fluid adaptability. The capacity to move with change rather than simply survive it. To meet unpredictability without being destabilised by it.

It sounds subtle but it changes everything practically. Resilience asks: can I get back to baseline? Fluid adaptability asks: can I move with this without it breaking me?

The distinction matters especially in the third third, when our baseline has genuinely changed — when chronic conditions, reduced energy, or the aftermath of significant life events mean we’re not going back to where we were. We’re finding a new way of being well.

That’s not failure. It’s actually the more sophisticated and more honest response to the life we’re living.

I’ll be writing more about what building that capacity looks like in practice. Some of it is about the body. Some of it is about the mind. And some of it is about something quieter than either.

A woman I know — early sixties, capable, running her own business — told me recently that she hadn’t felt properly rested in three years.

Not ill. Not broken. Just never quite recovered.

She’d tried earlier nights and better food and less wine and a walking habit. She was doing everything right. And still, underneath all of it, something in her felt quietly depleted in a way she couldn’t name or fix.

I recognised it immediately. Because I’ve felt it too.

There’s a concept in health research called allostatic load. It describes the cumulative biological cost of repeated adaptation — not the cost of one crisis, but the running account the body keeps across years of adjusting, compensating, and carrying on without quite recovering in between.

The load builds from everything. Uncertainty. Loss. The relentlessness of a world that keeps changing faster than we can absorb. Caregiving. Chronic pain. Financial strain. The low-level vigilance that becomes so familiar we stop noticing it.

You can feel fine — capable, even — and still be carrying more than you realise.

That gap, between how we appear to be managing and what the body is quietly accumulating, is where I want to begin. Because I think it’s one of the most important and least talked-about realities of life in the third third.

Next week, I want to look at what we can actually do about it. Not in the “eat less, move more” sense. Something more honest than that.

You may have noticed that the world seems to be talking a great deal about “AI” at the moment. Clever machines. Algorithms. Technology that apparently “thinks”. Every day there is another headline, another prediction, another urgent voice declaring that everything is changing and that we’d better keep up.

For many people, especially those of us who did not grow up with technology in our pockets, this can feel quietly distressing. Not understanding a new system is no longer just inconvenient — it can begin to feel personal.

Everyone else understands this.
I must be hopeless.
I can’t keep up anymore.
I feel stupid.

If any of that sounds familiar, I want to say this gently and clearly:

You are not stupid.
You are not failing.
You are not obsolete.

You are a human being who has lived through extraordinary change — and you are still here.

When your body says “this is too much”

Perhaps you recognise a moment like this.

You’re sitting at the kitchen table while someone patiently explains a new feature on your phone. The screen keeps changing. Menus appear and disappear. You try to follow, but your chest tightens. Your breath becomes shallow. Part of you goes blank, or wants to give up altogether.

This isn’t because something is wrong with you.

It’s because your body is saying, “This is too fast. I need time.”

Our nervous systems evolved for conversation, firelight, shared meals, familiar faces, and rhythms we could feel in our bodies.

They were never designed for relentless updates, constant novelty, and the unspoken expectation that we should adapt instantly.

So if you feel overwhelmed, resistant, or tired in the face of fast-changing technology, that response is not a flaw.

It is a deeply human signal asking for care.

You don’t have to keep up

This is something I want to say plainly, because it is so rarely said.

You do not have to become fluent in every new piece of technology in order to live a meaningful, dignified life.

You do not need to understand how artificial intelligence works.

You do not have to learn every new app, platform, or system that appears.

You are allowed to choose what genuinely supports your life — and let the rest pass you by.

Machines may be clever.
But clever is not the same as wise.
Fast is not the same as deep.
Efficient is not the same as kind.

And none of those qualities are the measure of your worth.

What cannot be replaced

A machine can analyse patterns.
It can process vast amounts of information.
It can respond quickly and convincingly.

But it cannot sit with a grieving friend and know, without being told, when silence is the most loving response.

It cannot hold a child or grandchild through decades of growth, loss, repair, and return.

It cannot understand what it costs to rebuild a life after everything falls apart — or what it takes to stay open-hearted in the face of disappointment.

It cannot live inside a body that has known illness, recovery, love, ageing, resilience, and change.

Only human beings do that.

Only you have lived the life you have lived — slowly becoming the person you are, layer by layer. No machine can replace that depth of knowing.

A different kind of strength

We are often told that the future belongs to the fast, the digitally fluent, the endlessly adaptable.

I am not convinced that is the whole truth.

I think of a woman I know in her seventies. She doesn’t rush. She still prefers to speak on the phone rather than send messages. When something goes wrong, she pauses, breathes, and thinks before reacting. People find themselves telling her things they hadn’t planned to say — not because she has answers, but because she makes space.

In a world that feels increasingly hurried and brittle, her steadiness becomes quietly valuable.

The future also needs people like that.
People who know how to slow a room down.
People who can listen without fixing.
People who remember that meaning is not the same as efficiency.

In times of acceleration, the gift of the older adult is steadiness.

Your pace may be slower.
Your learning curve may feel steeper.

But your perspective, patience, humour, and humanity are not liabilities.

They are anchors.

You still belong

If I could sit with you now, with a cup of tea between us, I would want you to hear this:

You still matter.
You still belong.
You are not being left behind.

You are not required to become a different kind of human in order to have a place in the world that is unfolding.

So tomorrow, when another headline appears about clever machines or artificial intelligence, you are allowed to set it down.

You can make your tea slowly.
You can phone a friend who needs to hear your voice.
You can step outside and notice the light changing.

That is not falling behind.

That is being human — deeply, kindly, steadily human — in a world that needs exactly that.

And sometimes, that is the most important work of all.

I placed my hands on my kidneys and said “thank you.” It felt a bit daft, honestly. A grown woman talking to her organs. But I stayed with it, palms warm against my lower back, and something unexpected happened. My shoulders dropped. I felt tears prick my eyes. For the first time in months, I wasn’t at war with my body.

That was years ago now. I’ve since taught this practice to many students. I’ve watched a 65-year-old man cry when he thanked his heart. I’ve seen a woman with chronic pain soften when she acknowledged her spine. That moment when criticism becomes acknowledgement—it never gets old. And it never fails to bring tears to my eyes too.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand: most of us operate with an adversarial relationship to our bodies, particularly as we age. We’re disappointed by what’s declining, frustrated by what hurts, betrayed by what’s changing. My knees are failing. My back is letting me down. My body is falling apart.

But what if our bodies aren’t failing us? What if, right now, your kidneys are filtering toxins, your heart is pumping blood without you having to remember, your lungs are breathing you even whilst you sleep?

What Changes Everything

When I thank my kidneys now, I’m not just being nice. I’m acknowledging alliance—these organs are working for me, not against me. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine they’ve held my fear for seventy-one years. They deserve my recognition.

This isn’t positive thinking. It’s relationship repair.

This winter, I woke with that familiar ache in my hip—the one that whispers “you’re old now.” Instead of my usual irritation, I placed my hand there. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for still carrying me.” The pain didn’t vanish. But my relationship to it shifted. I wasn’t fighting my body anymore.

Where to Begin

Start simply. Place your hands on one part of your body—your heart, your tummy, wherever draws you. Feel the warmth of your palms. Notice what’s happening beneath them. Smile, even slightly. A quiet Buddha smile. Say thank you.

That’s it. That’s the practice hardly anyone teaches.

I still do this every morning. Some days it feels profound. Some days it feels like going through motions. But over time, it’s rebuilt my relationship with this body that’s carried me through everything.

Your body deserves that repair too.

I still remember the sound of my mother's Singer sewing machine humming away in the back room. When she passed it to her granddaughter, my niece, magic happened. This young woman who'd never shown interest in "making dress things" was suddenly designing her own clothes, learning the same careful moves and neat finishes my mother had perfected.

My brother's legacy to his son, my nephew, was a battered toolbox and the belief you could fix almost anything. He learnt that from our father, who left school at 10 and went down to be a pit boy in South Wales back in the 30’s.

He also passed on something even more powerful to me - his conviction that education could unlock any prison. He broke out of the pit by winning a scholarship to university when he was 20, where he studied mining engineering. Of course!

These weren't formal bequests. They were ways of being that got absorbed and lived forward in me, my brother, my niece and my nephew.

At 71, I'm discovering my own legacy isn't what I expected. Yes, I want my 45 years as a psychotherapist to keep helping people. But with it as my core material I'm also building what I call my Legacy Project which is a small online enterprise selling printables, downloads, books and whatever I turn my work experience into - solving my "what do I live on?" question (I was less than sensible about my pension arrangements) while creating something for my niece and nephew.

The surprise?

Learning to use AI as my ‘team’ has me feeling like the entrepreneur I never knew I wanted to be. And I’m enjoying that so much! This is authentic aging - not winding down, but creating something that serves multiple generations while having the time of my life.

Your legacy might be humming away right now without you even realising it Let me know what you think your legacy will be in the comments if you’re willing to share :)

"Everyone focuses on the emotional journey, but what about my pension pot?"

67yo Sarah said this during our coffee catch-up. She'd been exploring her emerging elder identity for months but suddenly panicked about whether she could afford to keep changing. “my pension pot which looked OK when I was at work now seems to drain away so quickly. Everything is going up so fast.”

But here's what nobody tells you - the practical stuff matters just as much as the soul-searching.

Sarah discovered she was spending £200 a month on her old life. Gym memberships for exercise she hated. Magazine subscriptions she never read. Social obligations that drained her bank account and energy.

"That's £2400 a year I could spend on who I'm becoming."

Try this: Make three lists.

• Must-haves: rent, food, healthcare, basic utilities.

• Want-but-could-live-without: restaurants, entertainment, subscriptions.

• Old-life expenses: things you're keeping out of habit, not choice.

Sarah called yesterday: "I cancelled three subscriptions and freed up money for a pottery class. Funny how the practical stuff makes the emotional stuff feel more real."

What old-life expense could you cut this week?

Wednesday Wisdom can also be about the real stuff. The Money. One of the biggest sources of stress for ‘third thirders’. You’ve probably thought about where to cut back already - but it never hurts to do a double check. Join the Waiting List for the next Masterclass on SideHustles for Seniors. You might find you can be Healthy Wealthy and Wise, just like that old saying.

"My daughter asked if I need therapy because I won't host Christmas anymore."

This came from Janet during our walk yesterday. After fifteen years of three-day Christmas productions, she'd announced she was done.

"She said 'What's wrong with you, Mum? You love Christmas.' But that's just it - I don't think I ever did love it. I did love making everyone else happy, but 3 days! Too much."

When you start living authentically, it disrupts every role people expect you to play. Adult children panic when their endlessly available mum suddenly has priorities. Friends feel confused when you're no longer up for every obligation.

Your changing isn't rejecting them - it's embracing yourself. But they don't see it that way.

Here's what works: "I'm not rejecting our relationship. I'm finally learning who I actually am underneath all the roles I've played. This is good for both of us."

With adult children, be specific about what's changing and what isn't. "I'm not hosting Christmas, but I'd love to come to yours."

Janet called last week: "My daughter was furious at first, but then she offered to host Christmas. Turns out she wanted new traditions anyway. I'm actually excited about Christmas for the first time in years."

Your authentic relationships survive your transition. The ones that don't weren't serving you anyway.

Ring any bells for you? This is my monthly Wisdom Wednesday article for September. I’ll be posting up other articles during the month too as well as my weekly Spotlight, monthly Memoir Prompts and a whacking big old Blockbuster of an article at the end of the month when I combine Third Third wisdom with the latest scientific research on surviving and thriving in this time of life - mixed with some really quirky takes on this from the new kid on the block - AI! Expect to be surprised ;)

"I used to bite my tongue so much, I'm surprised it's still intact."

My friend Joan told me this last week. She's 72, former teacher.

"Now? If someone's being ridiculous, I tell them. Life's too short for diplomatic nonsense."

Joan's discovered what many of us find as we get older - the fear of disapproval starts losing its grip.

The Great Permission Slip

Something shifts as we age. After decades of people-pleasing, we discover an unexpected gift - the freedom to speak authentically.

Studies show assertiveness increases with age in women, particularly after menopause. The hormonal changes literally alter our brain chemistry, reducing anxiety about social approval.

When Politeness Becomes Prison

"I spent fifty years saying 'that's fine' when things weren't fine," my neighbour Dorothy told me. "One day I realised - I might have twenty good years left. Do I really want to spend them pretending?"

There's a difference between kindness and constant accommodation.

The Wisdom Advantage

After sixty-plus years of observation, we've seen patterns younger people haven't recognised yet. We know how stories end.

When Joan suggests to her adult son his girlfriend could be taking advantage of him, she's not being interfering - she's sharing hard-won insight as an invitation to consider that possibility.

Your Voice as a Gift

When we model authentic self-expression, we give permission to younger women to find their voices sooner.

Your perspective, earned through decades of experience, matters. The world needs what you have to say.

What hard won insight have you been keeping to yourself?

"I shocked myself yesterday."

My neighbour Linda told me this over coffee. She's 68, recently stepped back from banking.

"My daughter asked me to babysit again, and instead of saying yes automatically, I said, 'Let me think about it. I’ll get back to you about that.' She looked at me like I'd grown a second head."

I know that moment well. It's terrifying and liberating in equal measure.

The Great Unbecoming

For decades, we've mastered being what others need. The devoted mum, reliable colleague, helpful friend. We become experts at reading rooms and smoothing edges.

These skills serve us well, but they can also bury a lot of who we are and who might be under layers of what everyone else requires.

What Really Happens

Relationships shift. Some people won't like your new boundaries. Adult children might struggle with a mum who has her own agenda.

You disappoint people. And here's the thing - disappointing others is often the first step toward discovering yourself.

When Linda told her daughter she needed to think about babysitting, something shifted. "For the first time in thirty years, I asked myself what I actually wanted to do with my Tuesday afternoon. The answer surprised me - I wanted to paint."

Space opens up. When you stop performing expected roles, room appears for authentic preferences you may have forgotten you had.

The Fear and the Reality

The fear is that without our helpful roles, we'll have nothing to offer. The reality is usually the opposite - we discover gifts that can only emerge when we're not constantly responding to everyone else's needs.

Where to Start

Notice where you automatically say yes when you mean no. Pay attention to whose expectations you're carrying around.

The goal isn't to become difficult or uncaring. It's to become authentic. It’s not that you’re saying no forever. But you are saying no to this Tuesday!

What expectation are you ready to question?

"I feel like I'm becoming someone I don't recognise."

My friend Margaret said this over coffee last week. She'd been retired from social work for about six months.

"Is that normal?"

Absolutely it is. In fact, it's one of the most promising things that can happen at this stage of life.

After chatting with loads of women dealing…

Read more

It's 4AM and your mind won't switch off.

You're lying there getting increasingly wound up about not getting enough sleep, especially since you recently stepped back from work and thought you'd finally get proper rest.

I've been dealing with this middle-of-the-night thing for years now. Those first months after I'd reduced my hours, I'd lie there calculating how awful I'd feel the next day, even though my days were supposedly less demanding.

Then one particularly restless night, something occurred to me. What if this wasn't actually a sleep problem at all?

Instead of fighting my wakeful mind, I began paying attention to what it was actually working on. Tuesday night I found myself thinking about that conversation with Sarah when she asked what I was going to do with all my free time, and I realised I had no idea. Wednesday it was wondering who I am when I'm not constantly busy.

These questions weren't surfacing to torture me. They were coming up because my mind had finally found the quiet space to wrestle with them properly.

Turns out there's actual research behind this. There's a name for it - gerotranscendence - where our minds naturally reorganise themselves for whatever comes next as we get older.

I started keeping a small notebook by my bed. Not for endless worry lists, but for the thoughts that felt worth capturing.

My racing mind began to settle - not because I'd found all the answers, but because I'd started listening to what it was trying to work out.

What's your middle-of-the-night mind been wrestling with lately?

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Why this, why now - Why a Memoir?

Hi - I’m here because I want to have a place where I can share my thoughts, experiences and journey through my Third Third! So here I am at 71yrs 6 months and I am strongly of the opinion that ageing isn’t for sissies!

Nevertheless it is also a time of surpising benefits and is a time of potential transformation - which is the exciting bit.

So I want to write about the reality of this time. The aches, the pains, the challenges and the surprises, gifts and grace. I want to tell it like it is - for me - and invite anyone who recognises and resonates or disagrees and begs to differ to hop in and share too.

I want this to be a community hub for what I have come to call Authentic Ageing - the Reality. .

One of the ways to age authentically I’m playing with at the moment is writing my Memoir. The Easy way!

So my plan is I’ll post up some articles on my research on the health and wellness aspects of ageing - of mind body and spirit. And I’ll share with you anything I find practical and useful - and fun to do - like writing my Life Story as a memoir-collage of vignettes..

So with this in mind I’ll kick off by posting up weekly Notes on a Sunday where I share my memoir prompts.

Just to explain I like things that are practical and one of the ‘tasks’ of my Third Third has been prompted by strong wish - almost an inner demand - to create a legacy.

And so after flailing around trying to work out how to ‘write a memoir properly’ I snaffled the idea from the platforms like Storyworth, Storii and No Story Lost who send prompts weekly to the writer and then publish a Life Story Book for the faily after a year of prompting. I teamed up with Claude (AI) where we worked out a basic system and it sends me three prompts every Sunday and I choose what I feel drawn to write about. That saved me $97 and is working just fine, for now anyway.

I have had a lot of fun watching as buried memories suddenly emerge from the earth as I write.

I will share the prompts each Sunday on the Notes section of my Substack and if anyone wants to join in and use them too - please do. A community of memoir writers to create a legacy of our life stories really appeals to me.

I will also share a summary - round up of my month of memoir vignettes so that you get to know a bit more about the proces and about me as we go. No idea if this will be interesting to folk but I’m giving it a go! Feel free to chip in :)