Introduction: The Ladder and the Landscape We’ve all been told that life is a climb. We spend the first thirty or forty years meticulously building our ladders, rung by rung. We focus on the “container”—the job title, the perfect home, the social circle, and the “yes” we give to everyone but ourselves.
But there is a moment, often arriving in the heat of midlife, where we reach the top and realize the view doesn’t match the effort. We realize we’ve been climbing toward someone else’s horizon.
The Second Spring: Grounded to Grow
In our recent meditations, we’ve been reflecting on the “Second Spring.” In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this is the season of the Wood Element—a time of fierce upward momentum and renewal.
As women in our midlife transition, we are entering our own Second Spring. I like to think of us as Bamboo. Bamboo is unique; it spends years grounding its roots before it ever breaks the surface. But once it sprouts, its growth is unstoppable. It is incredibly strong, yet it is hollow and flexible. It doesn’t fight the wind; it moves with it, certain of its own roots. This is how we withstand the shifts of midlife—by being grounded enough to grow and flexible enough to endure.
From Performance to Certainty In the first half of my life, I was the woman with a smile for everyone. I fed everyone else’s soul while mine went hungry. I thought that was success.
Through the lens of Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward, I’ve learned that the “falling” we experience—the shedding of old identities and people-pleasing habits—is actually the only way to move “up.”
This is a perfect alignment of concepts. The “Second Spring” from Traditional Chinese Medicine—which links the Wood Element to the liver/gallbladder energy of renewal and upward movement—is the biological and seasonal counterpart to Richard Rohr’s “Second Half of Life.”
By weaving these together, we show that Certainty isn’t rigid; it’s like a tree that has survived enough seasons to know it won’t break in the wind.
Blog Title Idea: The View from the Second Half: Why Certainty is Better than Perfection
Introduction: The Ladder and the Landscape We’ve all been told that life is a climb. We spend the first thirty or forty years meticulously building our ladders, rung by rung. We focus on the “container”—the job title, the perfect home, the social circle, and the “yes” we give to everyone but ourselves.
But there is a moment, often arriving in the heat of midlife, where we reach the top and realize the view doesn’t match the effort. We realize we’ve been climbing toward someone else’s horizon.
The Second Spring: Grounded to Grow In my recent meditations, I’ve been reflecting on the concept of the “Second Spring.” In nature, spring is a time of fierce upward momentum. It is the energy of the Wood Element—the sap rising, the buds bursting.
As women in our midlife transition, we are entering our own Second Spring. But unlike our first youth, this momentum is tempered by wisdom. We are like the willow: flexible enough to bend when the storms of life hit, but deeply grounded enough to withstand them. We no longer grow just for the sake of “getting bigger”; we grow to become more ourselves.
From Performance to Certainty In the first half of my life, I was the woman with a smile for everyone. I fed everyone else’s soul while mine went hungry. I thought that was success.
Through the lens of Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward, I’ve learned that the “falling” we experience in midlife—the loss of old identities, the shifting of our bodies, the shedding of people-pleasing habits—is actually the only way to move “up.”
We trade the fragile “perfection” of our youth for something far more valuable: Certainty.
Certainty is the “Second Spring” energy—it knows how to bend, but it never forgets its roots.
Perfection is about how you look to others.
Certainty is about how you feel in your own skin.
Perfection is rigid and breaks under pressure.
Evidence of the Sprout This spring, I have felt this “upward momentum” in my own life and work. I recently had the joy of being a guest on the Bloom Bright with Kelly podcast, where we dove deep into the power of Visualization and Perimenopause. It was a beautiful conversation about how we can literally “see” our way into a more vibrant version of ourselves. Listen to the episode here.
I also just returned from hosting our spring yoga retreat in Arizona with THE WELL. Standing under that vast desert sky with a group of women who were all brave enough to stand at their own “thresholds” was a powerful reminder: when we gather in community and move with intention, our expansion is inevitable. (Stay tuned—I’ll be sharing some photos and the beautiful feedback from our attendees soon!)
The Woman in the Mirror When you look in the mirror today, don’t look for the girl you were at twenty-five. Look instead for the woman standing there now. Look at the certainty in her eyes. This is the woman who has survived the “first half” and is ready to cross the threshold into a life that is healthy, vibrant, and entirely her own.
The ladder might have been leaning against the wrong wall, but the view from the ground—where the roots are deep and the bamboo is rising—is much more beautiful anyway.
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