Writing My Second Act

Creating a New Career in Peri/Menopause

What if peri/menopause isn’t an ending, but a beginning? 

This is the question I asked myself eight years ago before I jumped off a proverbial cliff. Allow me to explain: 

I was in my early 40s, a single mom to two tweens who would soon need so much: cars, computers, smartphones, and eventually college. I loved (and still love) my job as a functional movement teacher and yoga and Pilates instructor, but in this line of work, you only make money when you’re physically teaching. While it’s certainly rewarding, there are only so many hours a day you can lift, twist, and stretch – especially with the onset of perimenopause symptoms like joint pain and sleepless nights. I began to get signals from my body that this wasn’t a sustainable way to provide for my family until retirement, let alone save for retirement. 

While I did do a lot of ruminating late at night, I also began to use my morning yoga sessions and daily walks with my dog Phoebe to wonder: What could a new career look like? Was it possible to reinvent myself? Where would I even start? 

At first, doubt crept in.

It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one reading this that our culture tends to undervalue women, and the history of limiting our potential later in life runs very, very deep. (If you’re interested in learning more about female archetypes in mythology and philosophy, Alisa Kennedy Jones, my friend and author of The Empress substack, recently taught an online workshop that crystallized them for me nicely.)

I generally consider myself rather self-assured, so I was surprised by how much of these negative stories I’d subconsciously absorbed. A sample of the thoughts meandering through my mind:

“A new career is too risky at my age.” 
“I’m too old to go back to school for another degree.”
“I have an MFA, a degree that doesn’t translate into real skills.”
“I don’t even know where to begin searching for a new career.”
“I don’t have a flexible schedule as a single parent.”
“There’s no way anyone would hire me with my background in teaching yoga/Pilates.” 

I’ve always been a bit of a contrarian, and the quickest way to make me want to do something is for someone (even my own subconscious!) to tell me that it’s impossible. So, instead, I began to ask myself: How could my experience bring value to the world? A new voice started showing up in my morning sessions:  

“I have more inner resilience than I’ve ever had before.”
“I’m calmer in the face of the unknown and in stressful situations.”
“I feel more capable of handling challenges.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time working through my anxiety.”
“I’m much better at taking care of myself.”
“I’m able to make decisions rooted in knowledge instead of fear.”

It was from this foundation that I began to explore what my second act could look like. 

I've always loved solving problems and helping people. So when a friend approached me with a tin of balm and told me he liked how it helped calm the inflammation in his elbow, but not how it felt on his skin, I told him that I could remake it. I did successfully remake it, and the learning process sparked my interest in skincare formulation, which eventually led to Phosis. 

I began a five-year journey that included skincare formulation school, becoming a menopause educator, becoming an aromatherapist, dreaming up my skincare line, creating a brand, finding a lab to make the products, designing packaging, and conducting clinical trials.  

I want to write much more about the process of creating Phosis, and how I became the founder and CEO of a skincare line for peri/menopausal women, but for now, this brings us to the present.

I’m 30 days from launching my products to the press and to the world. It feels a bit like I felt when I finished graduate school and my whole entire unknown life was in front of me.

Am I terrified? Sure. Excited? Absolutely. Confident in the products I’ve created and the new life I’ve dreamed up for myself? Without one single doubt. I don’t expect the future to be easy, but I do expect to keep growing as a person, and that is equally exciting. 

And this never would have happened if I had believed that middle age was the end and not the beginning. 

While most of you probably can’t relate to jumping into the world of beauty start-ups (and if you can … please DM me!), if you’re a woman in her 40s or beyond, I’d bet my moisturizer that you’ve felt limited by our culture’s belief that it’s too late for you — too late to find a new career, to fall in love again, to move to a new city, to run a marathon, to start whatever the heck you want.

Phosis community: Let’s dream together. What could your beginning look like? 

This Week’s Movement Snack

One thing I love to do is examine something from a new perspective to see what I can learn; this curiosity extends to my yoga practice as well. Over the years, I’ve noticed several poses are the same shape but executed in a different plane. So this week, I’m exploring variations on triangle pose (Utthita Trikonasana), which looks very different if you’re lying down or standing on one leg. Grab a strap and have some fun!  

Cheers to looking and feeling your best,

Susan

Susan Campbell
Founder & CEO, Phosis