#55 - Stop Pushing, Start Planting: How Cyclical Living Transforms Midlife

What if you're not stuck — you're simply in Winter?

 In this gentle, grounding solo episode, Kena invites you to slow down and remember something your body already knows: you are cyclical by nature. If midlife has you feeling quieter, foggier, or out of sync with the world's relentless pace, this episode isn't here to motivate you. It's here to give you permission to rest.

🦋 You'll Discover:

• Why feeling slower, quieter, or less clear in midlife is not a sign of failure — it's your body living in alignment with the season it's actually in.
• How cyclical living — through nature's seasons, energy rhythms, and a woman's inner landscape — can transform the way you move through reinvention, rest, and rebirth.
• What it means to plant intentions from your soul instead of resolutions from the collective's checklist — and why that difference changes everything.

✨ Coming Home Question:

If you trusted the season you're in right now — what would you stop forcing, and what would you allow yourself to quietly become?

💜 I created Coming HOME for the woman who has done everything right and still feels something is missing. It's free, it's private, and it might be the most important thing you listen to this year — sign up here!

🦋 Midlife Butterfly is a podcast for high-achieving midlife women navigating emotional exhaustion, people pleasing, self-abandonment, nervous system healing, identity shifts, and midlife awakening. Hosted by Kena Siu, Identity & Embodiment Guide.

Instagram: @midlifebutterfly
Website: midlifebutterfly.ca

Music: Back Home by Alex Productions and  Reborn by Alexander Nakarada

Transcript

Arrival And Invitation To Slow Down

Kena Siu 0:00

Before we begin, take a breath. Let your shoulders soften, let your body arrive. This episode isn't here to motivate you, it's here to slow you down. Yes. If you've been feeling quieter, less clear, or not quite ready to move forward yet. Hmm, let me tell you that you're not behind. You're listening in the right season. And today I want to talk about cycles, about winter, about the past that doesn't look productive, but it's deeply alive. This is an invitation to go inward, to honor where you truly are, and to plant seeds. Not from a place of pressure, but from alignment. If you are new here, welcome to our cocoon. You've just entered a place where choosing yourself isn't selfish, it's sacred. I want to share something personal with you. Since November, I haven't been very, you know, there out there in social media. I kind of consciously slow down. I really needed it. That's the truth. My body was asking me for that. And the last two weeks of the year, I really honored the holidays and spending the time with my family. And I kind of disappeared since then. I only stood connected through my newsletter to this podcast. And the rest, I just let it rest.

Living By Nature’s Cycles

Kena Siu 2:05

And I did this one intentionally because I've been taking the neuroepigenetic breathing certification. I took another program of entrepreneurship, and I was like, my body, my mind was really like, okay, stay quiet as much as you can. And I honored that for the first time. For the first time in a joyful way, I'm gonna put it that way, because that's what happens. In the last years, I learned to live according to the cycles, and seriously, that has changed everything for me. And I'm talking about nature cycles, which are inseparable from energy cycles and how we move through life, how nature really moves through seasons, right? Winter, spring, summer, the autumn, and then the menstrual cycles as women, and these different phases, and also the rhythm of the calendar year. And the thing is, these are not only concepts, there's a lot of wisdom in here, and it's about remembering that wisdom because you are part of nature. We are part of nature, and the more we can relate to it, the more we can connect to it, the more you can remember who you truly are. And at this moment, we're in the northern hemisphere, we are in winter, right? And winter is really that invitation, you know, to go inward. Why? Because the days are shorter, there is more silence around, you know, the colder weather really calls us to go

Winter As Stillness And Gestation

Kena Siu 4:15

with them. And even though it's the beginning of the year and we have all these expectations or resolutions, and we pressure ourselves to start in full, you know, in full energy, in the go, go, go, and the doing and the doing. The thing is, winter is to be more on that being part. I don't know if you have noticed that. The more you connect with your body, the more you are going to feel the need of this. Because winter is not here for us to be doing or any performance. It's meant for stillness, for reflection and restoration after going through a full cycle. And the body, your body knows this because are you craving more warmer foods or more rest, you know, more coziness too. And it's not because we are very like being lazy or you know, or anything else, it's really our energy at this moment is being redirected. Because winter is the season of gestation, it's really where we plant the seeds. Remember, I talked uh a couple of episodes behind about the intentions. I don't like resolutions because what not resolution is like looking for a solution again and again. And no, if we are human beings that are growing and evolving, we don't need a resolution. We need an intention to keep living. And this winter season is where we really plant the seeds of that intention of what you want to experience this year. And those seeds are planted, they are planted like quietly, you know, and and invisibly, because once they are seeded, we don't see them anymore. And even when it's dark over there and it's gonna be moisture because we need to nourish it, the fact that we don't see them, it doesn't mean that it's not existent, it doesn't mean that something is not happening. So if you've been feeling slower or foggier or you know, less clear, or even if you feel stuck, just know that there's nothing wrong with you. Not at all. What happened is you are in winter, so take the time to honor this season, to enjoy it. Because the next seasons are going to come. They are always

From Seeds To Spring And Summer

Kena Siu 7:50

rolling. It's another year, it's another season. So, what will happen if you really take the time to honor it and go with them in that stillness, in those quiet moments that winter is asking you to feel, to embody, to go with them. Because what happens is then spring is gonna come, right? So then it's gonna be light, more you know, more light during the day because the days are getting longer. You're gonna feel more like doing more movement, and it's when the seeds that you planted in this winter are going to sprout. And then because you start moving more, your breath changes, your appetite changes, your desire for life expands again. That's what happens, and then from there, summer comes, and it's nature in full bloom. And when we take the moment of winter of really planting these seeds with all that intentional love, that bloom in the summer, fuck, it's gonna be so beautiful and expansive. Because you would like to really be expressed and seen, and you're really gonna feel alive and outward. Why? Because you took the time to honor winter, because you truly passed in this time, because that blooming doesn't need to be forced, it's gonna come naturally, it always comes naturally, at least from nature. I think as with humans, we tend to push it, but it's because we don't honor the seasons, we know we don't honor our cycles because it's gonna come organically, right? And then after summer, it comes autumn. And what happens with autumn? It asks us again to slow down, it's the time to harvest, to release, and then to prepare gently to another cycle to complete. Why? Because after autumn it comes winter again, it comes death again, that's

Autumn, Release, And The Death-Rebirth Cycle

Kena Siu 10:50

what it is. If you think about it, every cycle, it's about giving birth and then dying again and birthing and dying. But he didn't want to use this word at the very beginning because if you are not truly living your life and enjoying every experience that you are having, it doesn't matter in what part of the roller coaster is, if it's up or down, you're gonna be afraid of dying. So by honoring the cycles and knowing how it flows, nature, and you being part of this nature, and knowing that you know, autumn is this part where you're gonna release whatever didn't serve you during the year or during decades, who knows? So you can prepare again to complete that cycle and go back again to this winter. That's how then your rebirth is gonna be a beautiful bloom again. And yes, I know there was a lot of you know noise and a lot of stress and a lot of stuff happening during the holidays because being with family and all these gatherings stresses it out a lot, and even when you might be back at home at work, and then if you have kids taking care of them and whatever it is that is happening in your life, I want to invite you to pause to slow down, to make an intention to honor this winter, to honor this season exactly where you are now. Because again, like this year, I didn't talk about resolution, I talk about intentions, and I talk also about your goals that really and again I'm not talking about the resolutions or the goals you pull, you know, from probably a checklist

Intentions Over Resolutions

Kena Siu 13:40

that doesn't even belong to you. I'm talking about your intentions, what is inside of you that you desire to experience, which seeds you want to plant, but that come from your heart, that come from your soul. What is your soul really craving? Because unfortunately, most of those resolutions or even those intentions that they're not really coming from your heart, they are based in the expectations of the collective, meaning the checklist, like the job that you're supposed to have, the money that you're supposed to be making, or if you have to be married by the age that you are now, if you should have a car by this moment. All these expectations that the collective has over there, because that's the media, that's why social media is constantly showing you, and then we believe, we think that because everything is out there, we should have it too. But is that your truth? And then also happen to have these dreams or expectations that come from our loved ones, but it's about them. It's not even about you. What is your dream? What does your soul want to experience? There's so much fucking noise out there. Constantly. Constantly, you are getting information from songs, from social media, from the news, for what your parents are telling you, for everything else that is happening out there that we miss to connect to the soul. And the more you do this cyclical living, this living according to the seasons, the more

Quieting Collective Noise To Hear Soul

Kena Siu 16:20

you're going to connect back to your soul, to your heart. Because you are nature. As a human being, living this experience, you are nature, and that's why by living by these seasons, the more you're going to feel home within. The more you are going to remember who you truly are. Beneath, you know, the roles, the expectations, the shoots, the noise that is out there. So it's about choosing heartfully what you desire to experience this year. Not from the pressure of others, from comparison or the expectations, but really from alignment. Alignment in body, mind, and soul. And that alignment most likely comes from taking the pause during the winter, to sit with that, to let winter hold you, nourish you, support you. Stay close because we are entering a very fertile season where even when it looks quiet on the surface, there's a lot of stuff going on under it. And I'm gonna be talking about this fertile void on the next episode because I'm going through it, that's why I'm taking it easy during this winter. I've been slow still in social media, really listening. I'm doing the inner dive, and I want you to do that inner dive with me. If you feel the call to work one-on-one with me, I am opening five spaces to work with me privately, and this is for the woman who knows she's at the threshold and is ready for spacious intimate inner work. You know, so if your body says yes while you are listening, trust it

Alignment Through Rest And Inner Work

Kena Siu 19:05

and apply to the link below in the show notes. And also, if this topic about seasons, about living in rhythms in stuffness, it really landed with you. Stay tuned for home, which is my upcoming membership. And it's not something really that you gotta understand, but it's gonna be more about something that you're going to embody, and that's time of embodiment after all the inner work that you've been doing, all the different methodologies that you've been going through. If you're ready for embodiment to really feel home within, stay tuned for home. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope to see you soon. Take care and much love and usual. Thank you for tuning in to Midlife Butterfly. I hope this episode empowers you in some way. Share the love by hitting follow whatever you're listening and leave a review if you feel inspired. I also love to connect with you. Come say hi on Instagram at MidlifeButterfly. I love to know you. Until next time, keep spreading those wings and live enjoy growth and pleasure.