Episode 186 - 10 Takeaways From Top Episodes of 2025
A Year in Review
The Episodes That Transformed Midlife Women in 2025
As we step into 2026, it's time to celebrate the conversations that changed lives this past year. The Seasons of Joy podcast community has spoken—through listens, shares, and heartfelt messages—about which episodes resonated most deeply with women navigating the complexities of midlife.
What makes these episodes special? Each one addresses the real struggles midlife women face: managing overwhelming emotions, improving intimate relationships, understanding why you react the way you do, and finding joy even when life feels hard.
Whether you're struggling with adult children who've made different choices, seeking to improve your marriage, or simply wanting to understand yourself better, these top 10 episodes offer practical, faith-based tools for transformation.
Let's count down from #10 to the most listened-to episode of 2025. Each one is packed with insights that can change how you show up in your relationships and in your life.
#10: Finding Your Fancee - Simple Organization Strategies That Actually Work
Episode: Finding Your Fancee with Jancee Wright (Ep. 139)
Why This Episode Resonated
For midlife women drowning in decades of accumulated stuff while caring for aging parents and launching adult children, organization isn't about perfection—it's about sanity.
Key Takeaway: The Five-Step Framework
Jancee Wright's framework transformed how thousands approach their spaces:
Clarify - Define what each space should do for you
Simplify - Keep only what you use and love
Systemize - Give everything a "home address" and label it
Style - Add your personal aesthetic touch
Refresh - Create habits to maintain the system
The breakthrough insight: Stop organizing clutter you'll never keep. You're not managing stuff. You're creating a life.
Perfect for: Women feeling overwhelmed by their physical spaces and ready to become creators rather than managers of their environment.
#9: Understanding Your Nervous System - Why You React the Way You Do
Episode: Why You Keep Reacting the Way You Do (Ep. 183)
The Science Behind Your Reactions
Have words flown out of your mouth during a heated conversation that made you think, "Where did THAT come from?" You're not alone, and you're not broken.
Key Takeaway: Your Survival Brain vs. Your CEO Brain
When your nervous system perceives threat, your survival brain (toddler brain) shuts down access to your prefrontal cortex—your CEO brain where logical thinking happens. This isn't a character flaw; it's your body's protective mechanism based on past experiences.
Understanding the three types of trauma:
Primary trauma (big-T and little-t): Direct experiences that overwhelmed your coping ability
Secondary trauma: Witnessing someone else's traumatic experience
Environmental trauma: Living with chronically activated people
Why this matters for midlife women: Years of accumulated experiences have shaped your unique nervous system responses. Understanding them without shame is the first step toward change.
Perfect for: Women who feel frustrated by their reactions and ready to understand the biology behind their behavior.
#8: The 90-Second Emotional Reset - Divine Design for Difficult Feelings
Episode: Divine Design: The 90-Second Reset Button (Ep. 151)
God's Built-In Reset Button
What if I told you that any emotion—anxiety, anger, sadness—would pass through your body in just 90 seconds if you let it?
Key Takeaway: Feel It to Heal It
Based on research by Harvard brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolt Taylor, emotions have a 90-second chemical process in the body. After that, any remaining emotional response is your choice to stay in the loop.
The two common mistakes:
Pushing feelings down - "I shouldn't feel this way"
Looping thoughts endlessly - Getting lost in the story
The practice that transforms:
Pause and breathe
Notice physical sensations
Name the emotion
Allow the wave to pass without resistance
Perfect for: Midlife women struggling with worry about adult children, frustration in marriage, or anxiety about life transitions.
#7: Building Stress Resilience - The Long Game of Nervous System Health
Episode: Growing Your Capacity Over Time (Ep. 185)
Stress Reduction vs. Stress Resilience
There's a difference between making waves smaller and learning to swim better. Midlife requires both.
Key Takeaway: The Goldilocks Principle
Your nervous system needs the right amount of challenge—not too little, not too much. This sweet spot is where growth happens.
Building capacity over time means:
Understanding your baseline nervous system state
Practicing daily regulation techniques
Widening your window of tolerance gradually
Completing stress cycles through movement, breath, and connection
Why this matters now: Life will keep happening. Your adult kids will keep making choices you don't understand. Stress will come. Building resilience prepares you to handle bigger challenges without falling apart.
Perfect for: Women who want to stop white-knuckling through life and build genuine capacity for whatever comes.
#6: Lessons from Kilimanjaro - Journey Over Destination
Episode: 4 Lessons I Learned Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (Ep. 145)
Life-Changing Insights from Africa's Highest Peak
At 19,341 feet, Mount Kilimanjaro teaches lessons no classroom can.
Key Takeaway: Four Transformative Truths
1. Experience Over Information You can't understand challenges intellectually—you must live through them. This is why earth life is essential for growth.
2. "Pole Pole" (Slowly, Slowly) Sustainable pace beats urgency every time. Rushing makes you miss the journey's transformative power.
3. Jesus Is Our Ultimate Porter Like the porters who carried burdens and prepared camp ahead, Jesus carries our loads and prepares the way.
4. We Walk Together No one climbs alone. We're fellow travelers supporting each other through difficult terrain.
The unexpected lesson: Not everyone summits, and that's okay. The journey itself is what transforms us, not reaching the top.
Perfect for: Women facing major life transitions who need perspective on process over outcome.
#5: Quiet Wealth - What Money Can't Buy
Episode: Quiet Wealth with Brooke Oniki (Ep. 147)
True Wealth for Midlife Women
Real wealth isn't about the luxury car or designer handbag. It's about what you build when no one's watching.
Key Takeaway: What Cannot Be Bought
"A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love—these things cannot be bought. They must be earned."
This wisdom from Amber Smith's work challenges our cultural obsession with external success.
Creating quiet wealth means:
Prioritizing physical health now, not after the crisis
Building spiritual practices during peaceful times
Investing in relationships before you need them
Creating meaningful work that aligns with values
Choosing balanced effort over hustle culture
Why preparation matters: When trials come—health scares, family crises, life transitions—quiet wealth provides the resilience you need.
Perfect for: Women exhausted by achievement culture and ready to define wealth on their own terms.
#4: Conflict Transformation - Becoming Peacemakers in Your Relationships
Episode: The Power of 70x7: Becoming Peacemakers (Ep. 150)
The Difference Between Conflict and Contention
Based on Chad Ford's book on Jesus's path to conflict transformation, this episode reframes everything you thought about disagreement.
Key Takeaway: Four Principles for Transformation
1. Love Your Enemies See the divinity in those you're in conflict with—even (especially) family members who've hurt you.
2. Roll Away Stones Jesus is a stone roller, not a thrower. Look inward at your contribution before pointing fingers.
3. Take the Risk of Embrace Engage rather than fighting, fleeing, or freezing. Make the first move toward reconciliation.
4. Practice Creative Restoration "Call in" with love rather than "calling out" with shame. Create solutions that honor everyone's humanity.
The paradigm shift: Conflict isn't the problem—contention is. Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of reconciliation.
Perfect for: Women navigating difficult relationships with adult children, spouses, or family members who've made different choices.
#3: Healing from Betrayal - Emotions as Messengers
Episode: Happily Even After with Jennifer Townsend (Ep. 153)
Moving Through Pain Instead of Getting Stuck
Whether you're healing from betrayal or any difficult season, these insights on emotional processing can change everything.
Key Takeaway: Feel to Heal
When you resist sadness, you can't fully feel happiness—you just feel numb. The full spectrum of life requires allowing all emotions to flow.
Healing from betrayal specifically includes:
Rebuilding confidence after it's been shattered
Learning to trust yourself again
Establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries
Refusing to carry others' shame for their choices
Why this matters for all midlife women: Even if betrayal isn't your story, learning to process anger, shame, and grief without judgment transforms every relationship.
The permission you need: It's okay to feel angry. It's okay to grieve. Moving through trials means allowing emotions to flow, not pretending they don't exist.
Perfect for: Women healing from betrayal, divorce, or any experience that shattered their trust and self-confidence.
#2: Eros and Spirituality - The Divine Longing That Transforms
Episode: That We Might Have Joy with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife (Ep. 180)
Desire as a Spiritual Act
This conversation with renowned therapist Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife challenges the false dichotomy between desire and spirituality.
Key Takeaway: Understanding Eros
Eros vs. Wanting:
Wanting = Fear-driven, filling a void, indulgent
Eros = Faith-driven, longing for communion, transformative
What eros actually means: The life force that encourages us to become more than we are. It's the longing to commune with divinity, mystery, and each other—not just physical pleasure, but the yearning for the whole person.
Why relationships die: When we stop being open to the mystery and difference in our partner. When we demand they become who we want instead of staying curious about who they are.
Why relationships thrive: When we choose the courage to know and be known, to witness and be witnessed, to step out of our ego into genuine connection.
Perfect for: Midlife women seeking to deepen marital intimacy and understand the spiritual dimensions of desire.
#1: Embracing Sexuality in Midlife - Breaking the Silence
Episode: Embracing Your Sexual Self in Midlife with Amanda Louder (Ep. 146)
The Most Listened-To Episode of 2025
That this conversation about sexuality topped the list tells us something beautiful: you're done with shame. You're ready for honest conversations about what matters.
Key Takeaway: The Switch Doesn't Flip
Sex doesn't automatically become great after marriage. For many women raised with silence around sexuality, the wedding ring doesn't magically erase years of messaging that desire is wrong.
What transforms intimacy:
Addressing the beliefs you carry about sex, pleasure, and your body
Working through shame with compassion, not willpower
Having honest conversations about desires and boundaries
Understanding that emotions during sex are normal and God-given
Learning to see yourself as worthy of pleasure within your faith
The integration women crave: You don't have to choose between being a woman of faith and experiencing sexual wholeness. True integration means bringing your body, mind, and spirit together instead of compartmentalizing.
Why communication matters: Your beliefs about sex, your husband, and marriage directly impact your experience. When couples can talk openly about what they want, connection deepens.
Perfect for: Women seeking to heal shame around sexuality, improve marital intimacy, and create a more integrated approach to faith and pleasure.
Common Themes: What These Top 10 Episodes Reveal About Midlife Women's Needs
Looking at this list together, clear patterns emerge about what matters most to women navigating midlife:
1. Understanding the Body's Wisdom
Three episodes focus on nervous system regulation and emotional processing. You want to understand why you react the way you do and how to respond differently.
2. Relationship Transformation
From conflict resolution to sexual intimacy to healing from betrayal, you're hungry for tools that actually work in your most important relationships.
3. Integration Over Compartmentalization
Whether it's bringing sexuality and spirituality together or creating quiet wealth across all life areas, you're done with splitting yourself into acceptable pieces.
4. Self-Compassion Over Self-Criticism
Every episode emphasizes understanding without shame, extending grace to yourself, and recognizing that your responses make sense given your story.
5. Faith-Based Practical Tools
You want coaching and insights grounded in faith but applicable to real life. Not platitudes that sound nice but don't actually help.
How to Use These Insights in Your Own Life
Start Where You Are
You don't need to tackle all 10 concepts at once. Choose the one that resonates most right now:
Feeling overwhelmed by emotions? Start with the 90-second reset practice.
Struggling in your marriage? Begin with the eros conversation or Amanda Louder's episode.
Reactive in conflicts? Dive into nervous system understanding and the 70x7 principles.
Drowning in stuff? Use Jancee's framework to reclaim your space.
Exhausted and burned out? Explore quiet wealth and stress resilience.
Practice Consistently
Transformation doesn't happen from one listen. These concepts require practice:
Listen to episodes multiple times
Take notes on what resonates
Implement one tool at a time
Give yourself grace when you forget
Celebrate small wins along the way
Get Support
While podcasts offer incredible insights, personalized coaching accelerates transformation. Working one-on-one allows you to:
Apply concepts to your specific situation
Get unstuck when old patterns resurface
Build accountability for lasting change
Receive customized tools for your unique challenges
Your Next Steps: Continuing the Journey in 2026
Revisit What Resonates
Sometimes we need to hear something at exactly the right moment. What didn't land six months ago might be precisely what you need today. Go back and listen to whichever episode calls to you.
Join the Community
You're not walking this path alone. Connect with other midlife women on similar journeys:
Share which episode resonated most with you
Tag friends who need these conversations
Invest in Yourself
If you're ready for personalized support applying these concepts to your life:
Explore one-on-one coaching options
Book a consultation to discuss your specific challenges
Discover how nervous system work, relationship coaching, and faith-based tools can transform your experience
Coming Home to Yourself in Midlife
The common thread running through all these episodes? They're all about coming home to yourself.
Coming home to your body and understanding its wisdom. Coming home to your emotions and learning to feel them without fear. Coming home to your relationships with courage instead of defensiveness. Coming home to your faith in a more integrated, whole way.
These aren't just podcast episodes. They represent real transformation happening in the lives of many midlife women who are:
Learning to regulate their nervous systems
Climbing their own personal Kilimanjaro
Choosing to engage in conflict with courage
Creating quiet wealth across all life areas
Healing shame around sexuality
Building stress resilience for the long haul
As we move into 2026, my hope for you is simple: that you'll continue this journey of becoming. That you'll practice feeling your emotions for 90 seconds instead of avoiding them for 90 days. That you'll see conflict as an opportunity for connection. That you'll organize your spaces and your heart with equal intentionality. That you'll extend grace to your nervous system when it's trying to protect you.
And most importantly, that you'll remember you're not walking this path alone.
We're fellow travelers together, supporting each other, learning from each other, and celebrating every small win along the way.
Here's to a year of growth, transformation, and choosing joy even in the middle of hard things.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I regulate my nervous system as a midlife woman?
Start by understanding your baseline state and the three types of trauma that may have shaped your responses. Practice the 90-second emotion reset, complete stress cycles through movement, and build capacity gradually using the Goldilocks principle of optimal challenge.
What's the difference between stress reduction and stress resilience?
Stress reduction focuses on making waves smaller by eliminating stressors. Stress resilience focuses on becoming a better swimmer by building your capacity to handle challenges. Both matter, but resilience prepares you for life's inevitable difficulties.
How do I improve intimacy in my marriage during midlife?
Begin by addressing beliefs about sexuality, opening honest communication about desires and boundaries, understanding that eros is about longing for the whole person, and recognizing that you're worthy of pleasure within your faith framework.
Can I really heal from betrayal?
Yes. Healing involves rebuilding confidence, learning to trust yourself again, establishing healthy boundaries, processing emotions without judgment, and refusing to carry others' shame for their choices. It's a journey, not a destination.
What is quiet wealth?
Quiet wealth refers to what money can't buy: a fit body, a calm mind, and a house full of love. These must be earned through aligned effort. Prioritizing relationships, health, spiritual connection, and meaningful work over external achievement.
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About the host: Jill Pack is a certified faith-based life coach specializing in helping midlife women navigate conflict in relationships, strengthen marriages, and build emotional resilience. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, mother of five, and grandmother, Jill understands the unique challenges facing women in this season of life.
Through the Seasons of Joy podcast and one-on-one coaching, Jill helps women:
Understand and regulate their nervous systems
Transform conflict into connection
Process emotions without shame
Create marriages that thrive beyond the kid years
Find joy even in difficult circumstances
Connect with Jill:
Website: seasons-coaching.com
Instagram: @seasons_coaching
Podcast: Seasons of Joy
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