Tranquility du Jour #625: Recap & What's Next

hello there and welcome to episode 625 of tranquility du jour my name is kimberly wilson

and i am delighted to be back in your ears sharing with you some updates and a big thank you to

everyone who has reached out and let me know that you missed the podcast that means so much to me

having done this since 2005 18 and a half years and then pausing in january to just do a little

re-evaluation and really just to take a little break i want to say a big thank you for your

kindness around it and i know it's a big shift if you're used to getting something in your ears

every week every other week so i want to say a big thank you to those of you who are like oh i'm

enjoying your past archives and or have just been

reaching out to say hello so thank you for that and i also want to share some updates on what's

transpired since episode 624 and then also a little peek on what's ahead including season two

so grab your journal a cup of tea maybe light a candle and tune in i love love love creating this

experience with you and i'm so happy to have you

here in my world so thank you so first of all okay what has happened since episode 624 released

in january of 2024 quite a few fun things going down to like some tiny mundane things to some

really heartbreaking things to some exciting things right so one is i started a sub stack

which has been fun to learn a new platform and to share with you in this way and it's

called midlife musings and you can find links to it and more at kimberlywilson.com slash sub stack

and it's been a wonderful way to really hone in on midlife in general and in july my midlife

musings newsletter goes out once a month i shared a variety of midlife mishaps that i think those of

you in midlife close to midlife or have passed midlife you may get a kick out of it and i'm so

so definitely head on over there and have a read i also released five tea with kimberly videos

ranging from like what you need for your adult ballet practice to how to stay on track part one

and two and some box breathing and things along those lines body scam so please have a peek over

at those and those can be found on youtube i'd love to know what you think and also if you have

any special requests for

next few that i will do and be releasing in the fall i also you guys this is big i read two fun

fiction books now i am not a fiction reader i tend to only read non-fiction but i have to say

and i think it was within one month i read these two and they were so captivating and i was like

i see why you read fiction they're so fun they're so engrossing it was like i could not put

these

books down and i don't really have that with non-fiction very often because non-fiction

you're kind of like you're absorbing you're taking it all in but these books were so good

many of you have probably read them the house across the lake got a little supernatural towards

the end which i don't really love that as much but it was so good so captivating so well written

and then the guest list by lucy foley very very good

i also have consumed a few non-fiction books but two of my favorites so far

ambition monster so good it's a memoir oh my gosh so good and really a beautiful model for me with

the memoir that i've been working on for 10 years now i do have draft two done but it needs attention

which i'll get back to it after i finish the one i'm working on anyway it's such a great book really

well written and really enjoyable and then real self-care which was also so so good highly

recommend these two books one super sad thing that i'm still not recovered from i mean when do we

ever recover from loss but was saying goodbye to gizmo so end of february he had just been

diagnosed with cancer and was really really deteriorating and it it just didn't work out

and it just got to the point where we knew it was time and it was so heartbreaking but i will say on

the last day it was a an unseasonably warm february afternoon and we went out for some tea we sat

outside and tim and i both got almond croissants and we shared those with gizmo and it was just the

sweetest thing and then we went over to tea as like we were able to be outside and just kind of

moments with him and that was very it was very very sweet and very very heartbreaking i mean tim

and i have still not recovered from that um despite the fact he was so much work right like so much

work i mean 24 7 care i mean the sweet thing i think you may those of you who listened to the

podcast last summer you may recall he like vomited on my pillow like the night of my 50th the night

before i turned 50 right i mean he just was like

and then we spent christmas eve at the emergency vet and we're just like really is this our life

and yes it was our life and we wouldn't change it he was so so amazing but anyone who's had a

senior pet or a senior loved one or a sick loved one right you just know the amount of care that

goes into it and so it's been it was it's been a really really big loss and hole in our lives

after that shortly after that actually a few weeks after that i traveled to borneo

which made me like what in the world is borneo so i wrote a post about it also over on substack

and you can access all of this for free and i shared my experience and photos so four years

since childhood i've been obsessed with orangutans with great apes really i think it started with

gorillas and never as much into chimps i love them though they're adorable but orangutans really

stole my heart and so i went to meet them at a sanctuary

and that i support through borneo orangutan survival so you may have seen that on various

emails or on the website the boss logo and that is actually the organization that i went to go

support and and meet these animals through and so it was a pretty magical crazy experience and

borneo for those of you who don't know it's the world's third largest island and it's above

australia it's the largest island in the world and it's the largest island in the world and it's

so it's quite it's quite far like south of the philippines it's insane it's so so beautiful

and rainforest and the sounds of the orangutans we'd wait wake up to because they were rescued

on and they were on a specific island and it was just it really was a magical experience which i

write about again over on substack i would love for you to take a peek at that

a return to yoga that retreat we had a yoga teacher and it was amazing and initially immediately i

knew i was like she is jiva mukti trained and jiva mukti and some of you may recall or know in 2007

that was my big big teacher training i went through every year i'd go through a new teacher

training and then in 2007 i went away for a month and did a i think it was a 500 hour i'm not sure

it was a it was like a

very intense teacher training with jiva mukti and i've always really loved sharon gannon who

is a co-founder and she's written endorsements for some of my books and just adored her anyway

i love that practice and it's a vinyasa which is what i taught for years and anyway this teacher

immediately i'm like oh my gosh you're jiva mukti she's like yes i am and i was like i trained and

i was like it's my favorite practice i just love it it's so beautiful and i did poses i have not

done in years

especially after the hip replacement i did things like pigeon pose with a lot of blocks and support

and headstand which i haven't done in so long and it just felt really really good so when i got back

to dc i went to a vinyasa class and then i i was kind of like i don't know if this is quite if i

can quite do this my body is just so it's just not conditioned in the same way it once was with yoga

so then i started going to eat

yoga classes which are really juicy and if you haven't done yen it's really great for aging

bodies all bodies but you know it's where you get into these poses and you hold them with the

support of props and you hold them for a few minutes and it's really a beautiful quiet soft

practice so that's been nice to reconnect to the practice of yoga i hosted our seasonal soiree

which was an opportunity to join live

i shouldn't say live i had one person live from the coterie but to join like any a live event that

was happening virtually in paris which was a treat and i also took three ballet classes in

french while i was there now i am not a french speaker i'm a wannabe but i get by i get by and

i've been doing duolingo and i think i'm on like day 127 if you guys don't know duolingo and you

want to learn a language i highly encourage it because

even if it's like late at night and i'm like getting these nudges it'll send you a nudge

through the app or through email i'm like i don't want to let duo down right so i think i've missed

three days at least 127 been doing it since march so i'm loving it anyway it was it is quite helpful

and it's uh to take when you're taking ballet classes in french but it's also quite helpful

that many of the names for poses i guess you'd call them poses positions

movements are french right so to hear it from a french a native speaker it's really really

beautiful and you kind of already know some of them right one thing that was actually quite

challenging over the past four months was february through june was participating in an audition that

led to rehearsals i was accepted into the beginner programs

concert experience or performance so basically from february until june and we had three

performances mid-june and it was just really an unpleasant experience on on many levels which

i'll talk about at some point but i'm glad i got through it i'm glad i hung in there

and i enjoyed the performance aspect of it and again very very glad to have a chance to do it

behind me because then it allowed me to transition into really focusing on my solo and also my group

performances for the international adult ballet conference or festival this usually happens in

june around my birthday which has been so fun but this year it's happening early august so it's kind

of nice because it allowed me to do the washington ballet thing and then refocus and regroup to be

able to do and focus really on my solo and then i was able to do the international adult ballet

which is to la vie in rose edith piaf so beautiful and choreographed by sean kelly who is my main

teacher who i just absolutely adore and it's stunning he's done a beautiful job and i hope

that i will be able to represent it as beautifully as he's done it i also we created a new website it

took months months months months you guys really from november and then really probably got started

on it early in the year

and then it released in june so i hope you like it if you're having any trouble finding things

or you have questions please reach out because i want to make sure that it's easy peasy for

navigation and all that good stuff also started an ask a therapist series on instagram and so

thanks to everyone who's contributed to that or asked a question or given feedback on responses

things along the way so i hope you guys have a great day and i'll see you in the next video

those lines i really appreciate it and i'm glad that it's been resonating

the latest one that i did was for highly sensitive people highly sensitive person

and that was a nice one to do i mean a as an hsp but also just knowing how hard it can be as an hsp

to exist in the world i mean not that we don't get by we get by right but it's just a bit more

challenging we just feel and experience things on a on a different level

and i don't mean like an elevated level i just mean different like it's things are more intrusive

for us than it is for others and one thing that i've definitely noticed for me is noise

noise just really is so intrusive and so for you you might be an hsp you could take a test

a free test online it's not a diagnosis it's just simply helping to better understand yourself so

that was kind of fun to pull together some tips for that i also started a program a

program that ends this upcoming week but it's psychotherapy and spirituality institute it's

through them they're out of new york new york city and really really have been enjoying that

and thinking more about psychotherapy and the blend of spirituality and then one other thing

that was super fun is went out to the west coast for my birthday and i did a post about this where

i shared more about this again over on psychotherapy and spirituality and i did a post about this where

and i also did a reel kind of highlighting the experience in over on instagram so please feel

free to have a peek there if you're curious it was so beautiful and what i just like to share

about that is next to paris the redwoods being among the redwoods is my favorite place in the

world and there's just something so magical about it and we were among the redwoods for this birthday

trip and it was really special and i remember as we're leaving

we're driving down this road that is part of like a state park where there are lots and lots of

redwoods and i was just like pull over let's go out and just walk through one more grove pull over

just one more grove pull over one more grove and it was like i don't know like you're leaving a

lover right you're like i don't want to say goodbye i mean i even got teary i was like i

don't know what it is about them but it's so so magical and beautiful and just encouraging you

i'm sure you have places like that in your world and i'm sure you have places like that in your

and how to spend more time among them and within them and with them so so important one other

experience that i had that was similar to that was there was a pierre bonnard exhibit at the

phillips collection and it went on maybe it was like maybe march through june i must have gone

10 times and the last day it was open i went twice that day i mean i couldn't get enough of my

bonnard and again as i was leaving i just felt like i was going to die i was going to die i was

like i was teary as i left i was like i don't want to say goodbye and it might be like whatever

you'll see these paintings again but i probably won't because there were quite a few i counted

five to ten of the i don't know 50 paintings that were there that were from private collections so

these are in people's living rooms which is insane but i don't know that i'll ever see them again i

mean how often is there a bonnard exhibit i've been to three in my life one in paris one in

new york city and then this one but where else do you get these private collection pieces on

showcase it was just amazing and the images that were chosen the paintings that were chosen were

just so so stunning i have to say something funny too about my trip to paris one of the main reasons

i went was because there is there was i don't think it's still showing but an exhibit about

impressionism and the history kind of

of impressionism and then what's crazy is i found out if i got my tickets and was so excited

that it's actually coming to dc next it was like oh my goodness no way so anyway for those of you

who are interested in seeing it in the dc area or coming to dc because it may be easier than

having gone to paris this spring it will be at the national gallery of art i'm not sure when but

we're checking out and anyway bonnard can we just have a moment for bonnard if you

don't know bonnard google him his work is so stunning just stunning magical and it's fun to

be moved by things right where you're like oh my gosh nature or a painting or a song or

oh my gosh the olympics opening ceremony i am still wrapping my head around i was so blown away

it was so beautiful so artistic so impressive i mean it's so french

right so things like that where we're just moved it's so important for us to have that in our lives

and how do we get more of it i think that's a really good question to ask ourselves

now what's next so this is kind of one of the big things i wanted to share with you but i just again

wanted to fill in just a few of the blanks of what's transpired over the past many months and

one other thing is that the blog whenever i started substack i've transitioned the blog to

substack so you'll see posts that i've done on the blog and i've done posts that i've done on the

a lot of them are private posts for people who are have joined as a paid member of substack but

you don't have to you still get a lot of really wonderful free things but if you do want things

like private podcasts guided meditations spotify playlists posts that are just for you then there

is an option to join as a paid member which is kind of cool because it's like 99 a year

which i think comes out don't don't quote me with the math but if you divide

99 by 52 it's like a dollar and 80 cents a week or something like that so if you'd like more just

know that's there but the blog now lives over on substack just kind of a heads up there and it

doesn't have the 20 years of archives that's actually part of the founding member benefits

as you get those archives but you know you can still find a lot of things by googling for those

of you who are interested and

looking for old podcasts definitely you can find all those i think that itunes which is now what

apple podcasts only hosts a certain amount of them but if you just type in tranquility du jour

podcast number five like it should pull up on google which allows you to have access to all

of the podcasts which is many many many many so next what's on the horizon i mentioned earlier

the international adult ballet festival i'm

kindly requesting good thoughts on august the 8th that will be the day of my performance everyone's

performance who is coming to this and again it'll be my solo and then two pieces one waltz of the

flowers which is a group piece and then swan lake which is a group piece so welcome any and all

thoughts there and hip surgery number three and somebody reached out to me they're like how can

you have a third hip surgery we only have two hips i was like good question so i had a hip replacement

during it he cracked my femur apparently it's very rare put a metal band around it to keep the

the bone secure well then as the year went on it was really irritating my soft tissue

so last summer i had to have that metal band removed well over the past six to eight months

the fascia that was sewn up after the metal band removed has separated and so i have this big

indent where you can touch my femur and it's very rare to have that metal band removed so i had to

i mean and it can touch your bones but usually there's a little cushion around it and there's

none around mine like you can kind of like feel my femur so anyway he's gonna open that back up

and re-sew it and my my gp told me that sewing fascia is like sewing lasagna i'm like that's

really interesting so i guess what she was saying is just very porous and very like thin and i don't

know challenging but somehow the stitches or the

nipples gave out right or there weren't enough put in so again very very rare so yes this is all

happening on the same poor hip so that's happening mid-august and then apparently i have to take

quite a bit of time off of ballet so that makes me very sad but i will be back afterwards also

working on a book proposal so you may have seen this advanced tranquility and you can join the

wait list to find out more about it if you go to the books page of my website

and i'm really excited about this this is basically tranquilista which some of you

may know that book it came out in 2010 it was my second book and it is being re-written

with an eye toward midlife and the idea of embracing more beauty and balance in in midlife

and when i say beauty it's not about like beauty products it's beauty about like aesthetics and

appreciation of the world and i'm really excited about this book and i'm really excited about this

and things around us like for hsp's beauty is something that's really really important to us

and it's like a decluttered space it's about flowers it's about performing arts it's about

bonnard right it's about seeing orangutans right so whatever it is that evokes beauty for you

so i'm working on this and my hope my hope fingers crossed is to have a proposal to my

publisher by the end of august so we'll see we'll see that's the hope that's

the plan fingers stay crossed a couple other things that i'm working on for you guys are

some digital courses so you may recall year of tranquility it's the last book i released in 2019

and the idea is to take that and that course that i've created around it and shared within

the coterie over the years take that and actually update it similar to what i'm doing tranquilista

with a midlife bent so

stay tuned for that i think that'll be a really fun kind of like year-long course for anyone who

may be interested in having a bit more tranquility in their lives i'll also be releasing a micro

course called embrace your inner parisian which is a kind of just like a little love tap towards my

joy of paris and all that kind of the french culture has to offer and i look forward to

sharing with you it'll just be a little micro course and i'll see you in the next one bye bye

so it'll have five lessons ish versus like a big course that has multiple modules

with lessons in it and so i'm excited about releasing this and creating this for you

and again just with some fun tips on how to live a more parisian type lifestyle even if you live

in rural west virginia right we can all embrace these simple pleasures i think that's one of the

things that the french do so well which you probably saw with the opening of the course

of the olympics of just like all the attention to detail you guys from having people in windows like

playing classical music i think it was like violins and they're in they're in like black tie

to like the red streamers and the heavy metal band it was just like in the marie antoinette's it was

it was so amazing and so creative so inspiring and so that's whenever i think of paris that's

you know it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's

what i think of all this attention to detail the other thing that i want to mention well two more

things one is a fall collection of tdj so last fall i sunset the collection being available

all year round and i basically said that i would be releasing occasional capsules in the future

and so this fall the plan is to release a small capsule of just some basic staples that

are beautiful

for everyday wear and also for dressing up dressing down also for travel but also for

wearing to the office and also making it seasonless so you can wear year round so anyway stay tuned

for that and last but not least what i want to share is season two okay so the plan for season

two is going to be limited edition releasing in the fall and it's going to be interviews with some

amazing women in midlife who are going to be in the fall and they're going to be in the fall

i adore and who are doing amazing things amazing amazing amazing clearly i am using that word too

much but i just can't emphasize enough the importance of women in midlife feeling seen

and that's the beauty of having people on the show where we're really talking about this and

the importance of honing in on the midlife journey the challenges that come with it and also the

ability to kind of redefine reinvent

and really kind of celebrate this phase of wisdom all that we've accumulated and from a wisdom

perspective and all that we are looking forward to while also paying attention to the challenges

that come with it and as i said in the latest midlife musings i talked about midlife mishaps

which range from getting lost on a moving amtrak train to losing my credit card despite the fact i

just put it down and i'm not going to talk about it again but i'm going to talk about it again and

down on the table for the purchase and set the phone over it and then did it again five minutes

later i mean just these things you're like is this really is this really my life is this really

happening and apparently it's this stuff is very very common so i i hope that the series will help

you feel seen and that is going to be season two again we'll release in the fall and i'll be

sharing more of course as it gets closer but i just wanted to give you a little peek

inside so you knew what was on the horizon so i hope this has been helpful as i just brought you

up to speed a little bit with what had been transpiring the past many months but also

to give you a look at what's ahead and i hope you're excited and i hope that i am providing

meaningful tools for you as we think about how to really build our tranquility toolkits

and feel good about the way we're showing up in the world especially

as we age and as melanie and many others have shared it's like we've grown up together

i mean we were babies i mean how old was i in 2005 i can't even do the math oh my gosh i was like 32

when i started the podcast you guys that's insanity okay so 32 wow and so if you think about

how different we are in september it'll be 19 years since i started the podcast and just how

we have evolved i mean how the world has evolved and how we've evolved and how we've evolved and

social media all these things and it's a joy and it's also a challenge and i'm delighted to be

on this journey with you for new listeners and to have been on this journey with you to those of

you who've been around for many years all right closing out to wish you a beautiful beautiful

week ahead and to say thank you so much for staying subscribed to this podcast and i hope

you continue to find what comes ahead and i'll see you in the next podcast

what is ahead for you in digital courses in offerings in the season two of the podcast

and the eco fashion collection all the things that they are meaningful to you and they help

bring a dose of tranquility into your every day thanks for being here

and i'll see you in the next podcast