Total Health in Midlife Episode #219: Graceful Mom with Kim Damon

Kim: We didn’t talk about mom’s changes because mom is just supposed to put her big girl panties on. Suck it up because she’s mom, she’s the adult in the relationship. She should know better. She should act better. She should set an example.

Kim: But that doesn’t negate the fact that there aren’t all these symptoms and all of these emotions and all this heartache. We have been much more sympathetic in my opinion. We’ve been much more sympathetic to juveniles going through puberty and men going through midlife crisis. Than we have been for women who are going through this time in their life.

Welcome to Total Health and Midlife, the podcast for women embracing the pivotal transformation from the daily grind to the dawn of a new chapter. I’m Elizabeth, your host and fellow traveler on this journey.

As a Life and Health Coach, I am intimately familiar with the changes and challenges we face during this stage. Shifting careers, changing relationships, our new bodies, and redefining goals and needs as we start to look to the future and ask, what do I want?

In this podcast, we’ll explore physical, mental, and emotional wellness, offering insights and strategies to achieve optimal health through these transformative years.

Yes, it’s totally possible.

Join me in this amazing journey of body, mind, and spirit, where we’re not just improving our health, but transforming our entire lives.

Elizabeth: So, you know that moment when the kids leave home and instead of feeling free, like everyone tells you that you should, you feel kind of lost. Maybe your relationship with them isn’t what you had hoped. Maybe they barely call. Maybe conversations feel strained, or they don’t happen at all. And you’re left wondering, “did I do something wrong? Am I a bad mom?” Or worse, like what now?

Elizabeth: In today’s episode, I’m talking with Kim Damon, founder of Midlife Discoveries Worthy Moms and host of the Midlife Worthy Moms podcast. Kim is a certified life and Enneagram coach who helps midlife moms navigate fractured relationships with their adult kids.

Elizabeth: What I love about Kim is how real she is. Like, she is the real deal. She is so authentic. I love her. She’s been through it estrangement, reconnection, that gut wrenching feeling of being shut out. And she’s created a path not just to heal those relationships, but to help moms feel whole again, no matter what.

Elizabeth: If you’ve ever wondered why your grown children keep their distance or how to rebuild a relationship when the old rules no longer apply, or if you’re struggling to find your purpose, now that mom doesn’t feel like a full-time job anymore, this episode is for you. So, here’s what you’re going to walk away with.

Elizabeth: First, why your old parenting style might be creating distance. And how to shift it without losing your values. Then, how your Enneagram type and your child could explain those communication breaks downs. It’s fascinating. And then third, a new way to see your worth, even when motherhood feels less defined.

Elizabeth: And the bonus? Kim shares the details of her Graceful Midlife Moms Conference. A free online event, packed with expert interviews. And yes, I am one of them. That covers health, relationships, purpose, and more. So, let’s get into it.

Elizabeth: All right, everyone. Welcome Kim Damon to the Total Health and Midlife Podcast. Kim, I am so excited to have you on the show today. You are doing some really exciting things, which we are going to talk about today. But first, let’s introduce you to everyone who’s listening. Tell us who you are, who you help, what you do, and everything else about you.

Kim: That’s great. Thank you for having me. This is a lot of fun. I’m glad we connected. So, my name is Kim Damon, and I help beautiful moms of adult children. No one has a book for what comes after we become an empty nester. But a lot of times, we struggle with our relationships with our kids, with our adult children.

Kim: They grow up, they’re on their own. They want autonomy. All of a sudden, they don’t want to hear your advice anymore. They don’t get along with you anymore. And that’s a little bit of what happened to me that caused me to start helping other mothers.

Kim: And so, I, through my journey, have created a program for moms that are struggling with their adult children. And it’s been very rewarding. It’s on midlifediscoveries.com, and I call my program, “Worthy Moms” because that was the essence. I did not feel worthy anymore, after my children left home, and it felt like my purpose was gone.

Kim: So, it was really important for me to find my worth as a mother, as a midlife woman, as a woman who has entered into the wonderful world of menopause. So, hence the reason I got to talk to you, because one of the things that I like to do is pull experts together.

Kim: And so, I’m hosting a conference that’s virtual, it’s online. Anyone can sign up for it. It’s free. If you want to sign up, or you can get a lifetime access to this for a small fee. But it’s called the Graceful Midlife Moms Conference. And this is where I met you, Elizabeth, and I’m really excited that I got to work with you.

Kim: I loved your material, so make sure if you guys haven’t signed up for this, that you get signed up for it and listen to those interviews. We have had some amazing people who have stepped up and have participated in this. And really, what I’m seeing is four different categories of experts that are speaking to midlife women.

Kim: One of them is health and wellness experts, and this is so important in midlife. I can’t tell you how much I have struggled in my own journey of being midlife. Trying to figure out exactly what all these aches and pains are. Or these weird symptoms, or even dealing with my central nervous system.

Kim: And then, we also have another category of people that are talking about relationships and family. The experts here, and this is kind of where I fall in. We have people talking about estrangement. We have people talking about creating deep friendships in midlife. We have healing, people who are dealing with healing.

Kim: I have one expert. He’s really amazing. He’s the only man by the way, so we really have to give him a hard time when we’re out there. But he does couples coaching, and he actually created a game where you can resolve any problem that you have with your spouse.

Elizabeth: Sign me up.

Kim: Okay. He has a game that you buy for 29.99 or whatever it is, and he also has a free offer. You can get that too. But he plays a game where husband and wife play this game to resolve any conflict. And he talks about this in the graceful midlife moms conference. And it’s called, the letter Y, the letter B, angry. Why be angry? I just thought it was brilliant.

Kim: So, we have all different kinds, child specialist, we have a beautiful mother who has got a degree. She’s a doctor in New York City and she has a program where she deals with mothers that have a relationship with their children. And their children have some sort of mental disorder, or mental disease, or maybe they have alcoholism.

Kim: And so, this is another area of being a mother that you may not realize until after your kids have launched that there’s a problem. And she has done a lot of research and she’s written a book. And a lot of these people are authors. It’s just been a really great experience.

Kim: So, the other area, the third area out of the four, we have life coaching of personal growth experts. So, this could be just reframing our thoughts, understanding some personal challenges that we’re having, how to solve that negative ruminating thinking.

Kim: There are so many moms, and we can get into a little bit more there. And so, many midlife coaches that are there to help you through this stage of your life. Because let’s face it, we can go through our own sense of midlife crisis. It’s not just about men going through this. We go through this as well.

Kim: On top of the fact that our hormones are changing, our kids left us. And now, our bodies are changing. And now, we’re faced with, you know, what do I do next? What do I do from here? And there is so much out there available to people that they don’t even realize.

Kim: So, bringing these experts together is beneficial to any midlife woman. You are going to find something in here. At least one or two things that’s going to help you in any area of your life, gain some perspective, gain some new tools, some strategies to become more fulfilled in this time of life.

Kim: So, the last group of experts that we have are experts in career changes, ’cause believe it or not, I mean, we have a lot of women making different career choices in midlife. I’m one of them.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Kim: In the beginning, I told myself I was too old to start my own business. And this is something like a broken record that replayed in my mind, for quite some time, before I finally decided, “okay, enough is enough. I’m going to try this.” Because I didn’t like where I was working. I had a job that was not suited for my personality.

Kim: In fact, it went against every grain in my body. I’ll share it with you real quick because I think it’s important to see how this transition took place. But I was an internal auditor.

Elizabeth: I can’t see you.

Kim: Right. Exactly. Okay. Now, I just want to point out that I like people to smile when I walk in the room and go, “oh, there she is. How’s it going?” And guess what? Guess what does not happen when you are an internal auditor. When I walked into the room, it was like people looked at me like, what are you doing here?

Kim: And it was difficult. Like I said, it was against everything in my personality. So, I was glad to give that career up, and I’m excited to move forward in creating this being an entrepreneur. Is it easy? No. Is it fun? Yes, it is. And so, I am just really excited to be here and be a part of hosting this. It’s very much an honor to talk to all of these women, and one man.

Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The soul. No, I think that this is so important because there is so much changing in women’s lives at this point in time. Like it’s all coming together and there’s just this huge crunch from the body changes, which you mentioned. Not only are our hormones changing, but then that’s changing our bodies. And before we hopped on, Kim and I were laughing about body image issues that happen in midlife that have nothing to do with size or shape, right?

Elizabeth: That have everything to do with our skin, and our hair, and how we look in the mirror. And we’re like, “oh, I feel tired today,” and da da da da, whatever. And so, yeah, there’s that. There’s the changing relationships. You mentioned friendships, like I think that friendships out of convenience, they go away because our kids are going off to school. And we no longer see those parents of their friends as much.

Elizabeth: Which means that when we have empty nest, we’re now looking at our partner, like, who are you? Do I like you; do I know who you are?

Kim: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And really developing that whole relationship over again, like creating something new out of the relationship that you have with your spouse is part of that midlife journey. And just opening yourself up to that. And then, speaking of friends, not only is it the children, but I’ve noticed a lot of pattern, and I don’t know who can relate to this. But I cannot drink any very much anymore. Like, I have an occasional glass of wine, but I don’t enjoy going out and drinking. That’s not my type anymore. And so, there are literally a lot of people out there who have stopped drinking and they’re losing their friends.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Kim: Sometimes our friends run their course. So, I really love the fact that number one, we can learn how to celebrate with our friends that may drink in a different way with mocktails in all of the things, or as some of the speakers are going to talk about, or we can find new friends. And we can just develop new relationships that better meet our needs and their needs at this time in our life.

Kim: I love that. I love that. Yeah. Give us the details. So, when is this conference happening? I mean, I know that we had our interview, but that was a few months ago.

Yeah. So, I’m interviewing everyone in advance so that way I don’t have to collect all the people at one time that doesn’t work for a lot of schedules. So, the event, we’re going to start signing up at the end of April to about the time of this podcast. You guys will have a link to be able to sign up for this. And then, the event starts on May 7th, and it runs all of the leading experts, the featured experts, they will speak on the seventh, eighth and ninth and 10th. So, four days.

Kim: And then, I’m going to love bomb all of you moms out there on Mother’s Day because so many of us don’t get to spend Mother’s Day with our kids. Or maybe they’ve moved away or something’s going on. And I’m going to love bomb you with some bonus speakers on Mother’s Day.

Elizabeth: Nice.

Kim: And so, you’re going to get all the experts, you’ll be able to select. You can listen to everyone, or you can listen to whomever you are most interested in. And not only that, but each one of these experts has given a gift of some kind. As an example, some people are sharing a video, maybe a training video of their particular expertise. There are other people that are sharing portions of their books, so they might share a few chapters if you’re interested.

Kim: You know, it’s always nice to be able to get that for free and decide, ‘is this really something that’s for me.’ And as an example for me, I am giving you 10 parenting pitfalls that we fall into. And I’m going to give you a framework to get yourself out of those parenting pitfalls. So, everyone has their own unique gift. You can get one, you can get them all.

Elizabeth: Terrific. Terrific.

Kim: Yeah. And I’m really, yeah, I’m very excited about you being a part of this. You know, in my own journey, I’m just stepping into this holistic wellness business in my own life. And it’s so interesting to me how long I have gone with certain symptoms that went unnoticed. And I kept saying, ‘something’s wrong, something’s wrong.’ And I wasn’t being listened to by traditional medicine.

Kim: And so, that one of the reasons why I decided to really open this up to that holistic hormonal part of our life, whether it be perimenopause or full blown menopause, or just anything that we’re struggling with at this time in our life.

Kim: I wanted to open it up to expert speakers because this is so important. We have a couple of people here who has survived breast cancer. And they talk about their journey in thriving again after breast cancer. So, I know this is going to appeal to a lot of women out there who have either gone through that journey, fear that journey, or maybe in that journey right this moment.

Kim: I guess, there’s such a diversity here. We even have an expert on the central nervous system which again, I’m very interested in learning more about the nervous system and the resilience that we see and strategies on how to help us help ourselves.

Kim: It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. This is about strategies that can work for each midlife mom out there, each midlife woman out there. You don’t even have to be a mom. I just call it moms because that’s something that I take care of. But yeah, I would just invite each of you to join this and decide for yourselves.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, and it’s so funny because in addition to midlife, like all of these things happening. I also feel like in midlife, all of those, I don’t want to call it bad habits. But all of those things that we’ve grown up with, that we’ve been able to like piece together. Like midlife kind of shines a light on that and says, ‘you know, you really haven’t been doing this very well.’ You might want to look at it right now.

Elizabeth: And so, whether that’s your relationship with food, exercise, like the health aspect, whether it’s your relationships. That also becomes glaringly obvious in midlife. Yeah, like your life purpose. Serving others and not taking care of yourself. I’m sure that that’s something that you work with your clients all the time is what is my purpose here if I’m not a mom?

Kim: Exactly.

Elizabeth: And so, like being able to identify, are there any areas that need addressing? Before I move into this third stage of life.

Kim: Right? And that was exactly my story. I was not afraid of my kids growing up. I was not afraid of them moving out. That’s what I did was I raised them to be independent individuals and I was excited about this new part of life.

Kim: But what I didn’t realize is all these expectations that I had for having adult children. That were in the back of my mind somewhere underneath the blankets. I mean, I didn’t know I had them, until I wasn’t getting from them what I thought I should.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Kim: And then, it became a problem. And like you said, we’re entering into a new phase. And most of the time I joke about it. I joke about it with my daughter, they don’t warn you about this. They don’t tell you that you’re going to be plucking your chin every flipping day. And maybe you are not one that has to do this, and that’s great.

Kim: But I want to make sure that my daughter knows what’s coming, so that she doesn’t think something’s wrong with her when it happens. You know, it’s just these little things. What can we do? How can we make this a little easier on ourselves? Is there any reason why this is happening? Are my hormones off because I just bit my husband’s head off. It’s like going through puberty all over again.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, and the kick in the pants are the women who are going through perimenopause, menopause, and they have teenagers.

Kim: Yes.

Elizabeth: Like, oh my gosh. I can’t imagine being in that household.

Kim: Well, this is why I am 100% sure that this is why my daughter and I almost killed one another. It was a real show and luckily, we don’t have that anymore. We’ve been able to repair that relationship. But I had the same thing with my mother.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Kim: At the very same time. When she’s going through these changes, except we didn’t talk about it then. We didn’t talk about mom’s changes because mom is just supposed to put her big girl panties on. Suck it up because she’s mom, she’s the adult in the relationship. She should know better. She should act better. She should set an example.

Kim: But that doesn’t negate the fact that there aren’t all these symptoms and all of these emotions and all this heartache. We have been much more sympathetic in my opinion. We’ve been much more sympathetic to juveniles going through puberty and men going through midlife crisis. Than we have been for women who are going through this time in their life.

Elizabeth: Well, yeah. Because I mean, even like I think about my mom when she was going through menopause and when I started my practice, I used to ask my clients like, what symptoms did your mom have? Because that’s a really, you know, genetics are a really good indicator of what we’ll experience. But like chances are that your mother, aunts, and grandmother didn’t have any idea other than maybe the hot flashes.

Kim: Right.

Elizabeth: And they may have even chalked up like the midlife weight gain to just being inactive or having a bad diet or whatever it is. There’s 80 some symptoms of menopause perimenopause right now. And they are as vast and widely, ranging depending on the person of herself.

Elizabeth: And so, just because you’re experiencing these symptoms, your sister might be experiencing different ones. And so, your mother, maybe she didn’t even know that, like that whole brain fog or the emotions was part of menopause.

Kim: I’m sure she didn’t. You know, obviously I can remember that time. Looking back, it was a very difficult time. In fact, our relationship became estranged during that time, and this is why it’s so critical for us to open up and talk about it. I’ll just share this with you, and anyone who’s listening that my mom was just really angry and very upset all the time.

Kim: She said to me because you had two girls, one’s going through puberty, the other one’s perimenopausal, and we were having an argument. And she said, ‘if you think you’re so big, I want you to get out, find your own way.’ And I did. Elizabeth, I was 14 years old when I left home.

Kim: And so, I look now at my 14-year-old granddaughters, and I can hardly fathom me being out on my own. I went to school, I had a job, I had roommates. I did what I was supposed to do. But there was a real struggle that occurred in my household. And then, this is still happening to some degree today with people.

Kim: You’ve got these two personalities in the house, or you’ve got a situation in the house. It might not even have anything to do with the kids. And you don’t know what’s wrong with you. Your mind is like, you think you’re going crazy.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Kim: And we don’t talk about it, so we don’t know that there are so many other women out there that have these same types of problems. Whether it be with their healing or a broken family or a career that they hate that they’ve had for 18 years. But they don’t know that other people are suffering the same way that they are. It’s like the world’s best kept secret. We just don’t talk about it.

Kim: So, I love seeing people come together and I think we’re overcoming that. But I will say I am a late baby boomer. And we just don’t talk about stuff like that.

Elizabeth: No, we really don’t. I mean, definitely menopause has become more mainstream recently. But there’s still just so much that we don’t know because historically men have controlled the purse strings when it comes to research. And didn’t find women’s bodies particularly interesting. And so, menopause and the woman, the female body is completely underfunded.

Kim: Yeah. You know, I think back in the days of Marilyn Monroe was a size 16. And at the height of her beauty. And yet, that would be obese right now. A size 16 is considered obese. So, when you go to the doctor and you’ve heard for the umpteenth million time that you need to lose some weight in order to feel better, there’s nothing wrong. I don’t see anything wrong. You need to lose weight. Go join Weight Watchers, you’ll be fine.

Kim: This is like that broken record that I would hear Doctor after Doctor. Every year, same thing rolling in. That’s why I think, your example or your expertise comes in, the holistic wellness is so important right now. We’re seeing a whole shift in the medical profession. And I think it’s only going to get bigger. And developing those habits early on, like you said.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, let’s talk a little bit about your bread and butter. What do you do the rest of the year, when you are not holding summits and conferences?

Kim: Ooh, that’s a really good question.

Elizabeth: Did I surprise you?

Kim: Yes. I feel like 90% of the time I’m creating content, new content. I have a membership group, so that’s a lot of fun. I have a podcast as well, just got done with my podcast today. And you know, it’s very rewarding because a lot of people are not talking about this. A lot of people, like I’ve said. On my off time, I just really enjoy spending time with my husband. And I know it’s this old cliche. You say he’s your best friend? He truly is my best friend.

Kim: We enjoy each other’s company. And we didn’t get married until all the kids were out of the house, so that could have had something to do with it. I don’t know. But that was almost 20 years ago, so that’s pretty exciting. This year we did something crazy, or last year I should say, ’cause now it’s 2025.

Kim: But last year we bought a Harley Davidson, and we spent all summer touring all around. It was great. We’re having a blast doing it. He enjoys doing it. We’ve done just a lot of different exciting things. We ziplined across the Royal Gorge. I love doing stuff like that. I love being adventurous.

Kim: But most days, I am working with my mom’s. And the reason that I do that is because not only was I estranged from my parents for a while, and we mended. My mother taught me something very, very important, and that was that she never gave up on me.

Kim: Okay. So, I blame her 50% and I blame me 50%. No one is at fault here. These are just circumstances that people run across. They think at the time it’s the other person’s fault, but really, it’s just a relationship, a kink in the relationship that we have to figure out. And I never thought that I would find myself in those circumstances, but I did.

Kim: I had trouble with my own two children. I have a boy and a girl. And it was really difficult. They both went into the service. They served their country as Marines. And they did an outstanding job. They were definitely great patriots, and they were beautiful members of society, and they contribute to everything. They have good jobs, they have beautiful children. But we did not connect for a while. I would consider it low contact.

Kim: So, there’s different stages of estrangement that just happens to be one of them. And we are reconciled now. And one of the reasons we’re reconciled is because I had to do a lot of growth. I had to heal some old wounds. And I also had to understand that I couldn’t parent in the same way.

Kim: And I needed to model, how I wanted them to be towards their mom. I had to model that back because I was the mom who said, don’t do as I do, do what I tell you to do. You know? I think that a lot of us were that way. A little bit of a dictator, honestly.

Kim: That’s how I raised my kids. So, you know, really navigating through some growth and understanding why we feel the way that we do. And why our feelings get hurt and what they do and what they say has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with their capabilities at the time. My kids were just experiencing the world. And I’m like, where are you? When are you coming home? Why haven’t you called? And this was the beginning of the friction.

Kim: So, I’m really glad that that’s passed me. But I developed a 40 week program. You can be in it as long as you want, but I recommend one week at a time. Where you can work through some of these issues from anywhere, from people pleasing to just simply understanding our own ruminating thoughts. And how we can feel just a little bit better by stopping that rumination.

Kim: So, I’m also an Enneagram coach, so I teach different personalities, which is so beneficial to the parent child relationship. Because I’ve understood now that my kids didn’t get my personality. They have their own unique personality. And they do things differently under conflict or under stressful situations than I do. They each do their own thing.

Kim: And I realize, ‘oh, now I get it.’ It’s like, okay, you’re acting this way has really has nothing to do with me. This is just how you are when you’re under conflict. And I’ve noticed myself how I am in conflict. And that helps me understand what to do and not to do. So, for example, kind of meeting your kids where they’re at, with a conflict. For my son, I have to step up a little bit. I have to match his energy when I’m talking to him.

Kim: He responds better to that, and I don’t mean arguing but really get excited with him. Really have a passionate conversation, listen to him. Active listening helps with him. And with my daughter, you know, it’s about letting her vent for a while. And then, softly talking to her about strategies that she might consider. And it’s a whole different approach because I’m understanding their Enneagram personality.

Kim: So, it’s been very helpful. It is a part of that 40 weeks, so, yeah.

Elizabeth: Amazing. Okay. Where can people find you and sign up for the conference? And let’s wrap up.

Kim: Yeah. So, you can reach me, about my program if you’re struggling with your kids on midlifediscoveries.com, and you’ll get all the information and all the links there. And if you want to hear more about this conference coming up. Now, it starts May 7th, and of course, I think you’ll have a link available.

Elizabeth: Yeah, we’ll put it in the show notes for sure.

Kim: Perfect. It is elizabethsherman.com/kim-damon.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Kim: So, kim-damon. Yeah. And sign up for it. Like I said, you are going to get so much information out of this, even if you’re being selective, there’s more than 30 expert speakers.

Elizabeth: That’s amazing.

Kim: It’s wonderful. It’s been great. And I’m really looking forward to it.

Elizabeth: Terrific. Well, thank you for sharing all of that with myself and everyone else who’s listening. Thank you so much for being here.

Kim: Oh, well thank you. Thank you for joining the conference because your expertise is needed and I’m so excited to talk about holistic wellness. So, yeah.

Elizabeth: Amazing.

Elizabeth: That was such a powerful conversation. I just love Kim. I hope you’re walking away with a little more clarity and a lot more compassion for yourself. Whether your relationship with your adult kids is solid, strained, or somewhere in between. You are not alone. This stage of life doesn’t come with a manual, but conversations like this, they help us piece it together.

Elizabeth: If Kim’s story resonates with you, or if you’re curious about how your own personality might be showing up in your parenting even now. Go check out her free conference. The Graceful Midlife Mom Summit. The interviews are honest, hopeful, and practical. And yes, I’ve got a session in there too. You can sign up at elizabethsherman.com/kim-damon. And we’ll also drop that link in the show notes.

Elizabeth: And as always, if something stirred in you while you’re listening, if you felt seen or understood, or if you just want to talk about what’s next for you. You are invited to book an ‘I know what to do, I’m just not doing it’ strategy call with me. You don’t have to figure this out alone.

Elizabeth: Thank you for listening. Take care of yourself. And I’ll talk to you next week. Bye-bye.

Hey, so if you’ve been nodding along and thinking, okay, I know what to do, Elizabeth, I’m just not doing it. I have got something for you. It’s my free podcast listener’s guide. It’s a curated roadmap to help you get started with the most helpful episodes based on exactly what you need right now. Go to elizabethsherman.com/roadmap and take the guesswork out of where to begin with the Total Health and Midlife podcast.