If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it too late for me to...” the answer’s NO and The Uplifters are about to show you why. This space is for purpose-driven women who want to do big, brave things in the second half of their lives. I’m your host, Aransas Savas, and I’ve spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching.
This month, our theme is LOVE. We’re exploring:
💓 Mother love with Ruthie Ackerman (author of The Mother Code) on understanding the women who raised us, reconciling feminism and mothering, and reimagining this path in a way that feels right and true for ourselves. Listen HERE
💓 Friend love with Patina with Dina Aronson + Dina Alvarez on how later-life friendships and collaborations can unexpectedly change our creative paths Listen HERE
💓 Self-love with Wendy Harrop, who said a giant yes to herself even though it meant courageously ending her marriage, moving across the country, and upending all the personal and professional structures she built in the first half of her life
💓 Human love in the age of AI with Susan Ruth, host of the Hey Human podcast
💓 Romantic love with Alyssa Dineen, a midlife dating coach who helps us rethink the stories we’re telling ourselves about navigating the mysterious and messy world of modern dating
Picture a 200-year-old barn on a New England flower farm, the kind of place where the air smells like hydrangeas and history, and the stone fence bring you back to that Robert Frost poem you memorized in high school. Now picture the woman who built that life — not inherited it, not stumbled into it — but willed it into existence through decades of patient dreaming and one very courageous conversation.
That woman is Wendy Harrop, and the moment I walked into her world at The Phineas Wright House in Massachusetts, I understood immediately why every woman who visits leaves changed. There’s something about being in a space that someone created entirely by saying yes to herself, and only herself, that gives you permission to wonder: what would I build if I stopped waiting for someone to hand me the key?
Wendy grew up in California, but her heart always belonged to New England. Her mother is from Massachusetts, and childhood visits planted a seed that took decades to bloom. She packed for a cross-country move three times as an adult — twice unpacking still in California, once living in a neighbor’s guest room for two years with all her furniture in storage — and even then, she’ll tell you she was living a dreamy life.
But living the life she had wasn’t the same as having the life she wanted. For twenty years, Wendy had been building her world around the hope that the right person, her husband, an investor, someone, would finally see how great she was and hand her the life she deserved. Then in January 2020, a coach said to her, “No one is sitting around thinking of ways to make your life better. You write your own permission slip.” And Wendy thought: oh. OH. If I’m her... I’m done waiting.
She’d been a wedding planner for thirty years, an entrepreneur surrounded by people with corporate jobs who made her feel like she was doing it wrong. She’d been what she calls “high-functioning codependent,” setting herself on fire so everyone else could be warm. She’d been waiting for her husband to say yes to her dreams. And then a coach in a room full of women asked her a question she wasn’t expecting: “If you were in full freedom, would you be with him?” She didn’t even know that was an option.
Nine months she sat in the question of her marriage. And then she had the most courageous conversation of her life. Twenty-two years of marriage ended with a fifteen-second outburst and then a very practical discussion about finances. “My courage set both of us free,” she says. And she means it: her ex is happy. Sometimes when we say yes to ourselves, we give others permission to finally do the same.
This full-body yes changed everything for Wendy. But saying yes is where a lot of us get stuck, because even if the yes feels easy, the how often feels terrifying. So in this episode, we dig into what it actually takes to give yourself permission before you have all the answers, how Wendy maintained her courage when everything was uncertain, and the morning practice that became the through-line of her YES life.
Here’s what we know about midlife women and transformation: the belief that we can change, what researchers call self-efficacy, is one of the strongest predictors of whether we actually will. External validation (like Wendy’s friend saying “she’s living the dream and she knows it”) doesn’t just feel good; it literally rewires how we perceive our own capability. And the women who make the biggest leaps in midlife often describe a similar pattern: a moment when they stopped outsourcing permission and claimed it for themselves. The research calls it agency. Wendy calls it writing your own permission slip. Either way, it changes everything.
Listen to this episode if...
You’ve been waiting for someone else to give you permission to change your life — a partner, a boss, a bank account, a sign from the universe.
You’re in a relationship (or a job, or a town, or a version of yourself) that looks fine from the outside but feels more like tolerating rather than living.
You’ve been telling yourself you can’t make a move until you know exactly how it’s all going to work out.
3 Ways Wendy Shows Us How to Build Our Courage Capital:
She practices waiting as an active, creative choice. Wendy waited twenty-four Mother’s Days to become a mom, three cross-country attempts to reach New England, and two decades in a marriage before the courageous conversation to end it. But she wasn’t miserable in the middle. She was enjoying the present while keeping her dreams alive.
She claims agency as a radical, learnable act. Writing your own permission slip isn’t a one-time event; it’s a practice of recognizing that no one is coming to hand you the life you want.
She has courageous conversations before she has all the answers. Wendy ended her marriage before she knew exactly how she was going to make it work. She didn’t have a plan. She had a morning practice, a community of wise women, and the conviction that her yes would unlock the how. (And it did — for both of them.)
Lift Her Up
Explore Wendy’s world at phineaswrighthouse.com — from solo retreats in her 200-year-old barn to culinary trips in France for women ready to say yes to their next chapter. You can also listen to her podcast, Say Yes to Yourself!, wherever you get your podcasts, and find her on Instagram at @phineaswrighthouse.
If you loved this story...
For more stories of women who rewrote their own permission slips, explore: Susannah Ludwig’s episode (Academy Award-nominated producer turned life coach), Candy Motzek’s episode (recovering corporate executive turned women’s business coach), and Aditi Sethi’s episode (physician and end-of-life doula on living fully present).
If this episode moved you, share it with someone you love. Share it with a woman who might be ready for a little loving nudge to say yes to herself.
