Ep 153. The Iconic Wife

I’m Kym Showers and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 153, The Iconic Wife.

Welcome to the Reinvented After 40 podcast. I am your host, Kym Showers, and I’m a certified life coach for women in the second half of life. Each week I’ll bring you direct advice and inspiring, practical wisdom to help you live your very best life and create a future you’re absolutely obsessed with. It’s going to be fun, let’s get started.

Hey, my friends in podcast land, how are you today? Let’s see, it is another beautiful day on the Central Coast if you’re wondering. I’m sitting here staring out at my ocean, and it is just completely lovely. It is Tuesday, August 6th, 2024 when I am recording this. This episode comes out next Thursday, so it will be almost the middle of August when this episode comes out, which is nuts and crazy how fast time is going, I am telling you.

The iconic wife. I love this title and I love being her. I am the iconic wife. You probably are too but you might not recognize it. You might not give yourself credit for it. You might not notice it and you might just be in the process of becoming her. The iconic woman becomes the iconic wife, becomes the iconic coach, becomes the iconic businesswoman, the iconic teacher. We get to decide what that means, what that looks like, and I love thinking about myself as an iconic woman. I am an icon. I am legendary.

I love who I am at 63 years old. And celebrating my 40th wedding anniversary on Sunday, I decided I was the iconic wife. And that’s why I’m talking to you today, coming from this energy of knowing how fabulous I am and how fabulous my marriage is because of it. Our marriage of 40 years is truly a miracle, it’s magnetic, it’s magnificent. And it is iconic and only because that’s who I have decided to be in this relationship with my husband and it really has been a journey here. And I want you to know that it has been a working progress as all marriages are.

And it used to be my identity. When we got married 40 years ago, you guys, that’s a lifetime ago. We actually met 44 years ago and for some people, that is an entire lifetime. And we were just babies, we were both teenagers when we met and we have been together ever since. And I realize how that is so rare, that is very rare these days. And to be so strong and sturdy and happily married has taken a lot of intentional work.

I can’t really give you Jeff’s perspective per se, though I know him so well. He is very simple, so I could probably explain it all pretty simply to you. I think you guys probably know him if you’ve listened to all my episodes because I refer to him so often because of course he is my person. But I reinvented myself, let’s just generally say, 10 years ago when I decided he no longer made me happy. I don’t know if he ever really did make me happy, but I have always been such a happy girl.

I’ve been a very happy person in general. He married a very happy young woman and he calls me easy. He said that he is happily married because I’ve been so easy. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I would say I’m easy, but I’m also a dreamer and he is not. He is not a dreamer. And we are very opposite, which is very normal. I truly see how opposites attract, and we definitely are opposites and we definitely are attracted to each other because of it.

And I also know that it has taken so many laps around the track, let’s just call it the track, to get us where we are today and I just have never stood still. I’ve never just settled. So that’s why it surprises me that he thinks that he would describe our celebration of 40 years, given the reason that I’m so easy. I’m easy in some ways and I’m not easy in other ways. And I think I’m not easy in other ways because that is what it’s taken for me to be happily married at 40 years and to be the iconic wife, to be the iconic woman, to be the iconic coach.

To be the iconic teacher and the iconic mother, it is more of just an intentional way of thinking about myself, of being someone that is a little unexpected in all of these areas of life for a 63 year old woman. I’m just not going to play along with what’s safe and practical and expected. Iconic means you’re going to stand out, you’re going to be noteworthy, and people are going to take note of you. But more importantly, I’m going to take note of me. I’m going to stand out in my mind. I’m going to be the most important person that I see and that I relate to and that’s what makes me iconic.

That’s why I can say I’m iconic, because I know that I’m rare and I know that the way that I think about myself and the way that I talk about myself, makes people uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable feeling this way about yourself and then saying these kinds of words out loud to lots and lots and lots of people. It used to be so uncomfortable that I could never do it, in fact, I’d never even felt that way about myself because I didn’t have an example of what was possible in this area of someone that was iconic and could actually talk about it that way and showed up that way in her own life.

I know that I am a part of a generation who was taught to put everybody ahead of ourselves. So, I have always been the supporting role in all of my relationships. I was never the leading lady in all of my relationships, let alone in my own life, where hello, that’s why we’re here. We’re here to be the most important person in our own life, in the story of our own life, the leading lady in the movie of our life. We should be her. We should be the icon in our own life, my friends.

We are part of a generation where that wasn’t allowed, where we were taught to be a good woman, to put other people’s needs above our own, to not be selfish, that word ‘selfish’. And what it does, though, it creates relationships that are functioning at a dysfunction, at a level that we are not proud of, that doesn’t feel free, that doesn’t feel thriving, that doesn’t feel like true love. It causes us to have a lot of resentment in our lives. It causes us to feel very stuck and very isolated and very suffocated in our own lives.

When we put our husband’s needs above our own, then we create this relationship that we feel lost in, that we don’t even know who we are. We feel unimportant and unvalidated unless someone outside of us makes us feel important and makes us feel validated by their words or their actions. So, we’re always waiting and we’re always over-functioning in our relationships, hoping to get our needs met.

But what I learned 10 years ago was how to meet my own needs, how to show up as the best version of myself, for myself and for myself alone. And that’s when I started becoming iconic, an iconic woman who believes in herself, who trusts herself, who shows up for herself and absolutely is thriving and loves being who she is. That is me and that is what’s possible for you, for all of us women in the second half of life.

Everything we want is on the other side of this uncomfortable feeling of showing up for ourselves, of being willing to not just play the role of what other people need from us. But to actually get super honest and clear with ourselves and find out what we truly want in our life moving forward and show up as her now and go after it. And put all the other relationships that we have on notice, on the back burner and put ourselves first and foremost on the starting block.

Let’s just reference the Olympics. I’m sure they’re going to be over by the time you guys listen to this, but oh my gosh, how inspirational. These are iconic women doing their thing in the world unapologetically. And they’ve had to put their relationship with themselves first.

And Simone Biles is the perfect example of that when she took herself out of the Olympics in 2020 because of her mental health. And she was brave enough, she loved herself and she was such an iconic woman then, a young woman then, iconic Olympian. To take herself out of the Olympics all by herself because she knew something was off. She couldn’t function at an Olympic level. And she handled it beautifully, and she came back four years later and won everything.

So, if you guys haven’t, just an insert here, if you haven’t watched her Netflix special, you’ve got to watch it. It is so inspiring. I’ve watched it twice now. But just the way that she fought her way back in the last four years to be a part of this Olympics. And it’s such a good example of our brain and everybody’s story about her being too old. And whenever our brain tries to tell us, we’re too old to do that. I’m just like, “Absolutely not.” And she’s a great example of that.

She’s even mentioned that maybe she’s going to come back four years from now, and the Olympics are in LA, and do it again. And there’s no such thing anymore as too old. None of that even matters. What do we want? Let’s go get it. And being an iconic wife requires that from me. I had to put my husband on notice 10 years ago because I really wasn’t sure I wanted to stay married. I was resentful. I was frustrated. I felt like, and I know I’ve told you all this before if you’ve been listening to these podcasts, but I had to reinvent myself.

Another man isn’t what I wanted. I love Jeff. He’s just the best person for me, but I had lost myself in my family life. I had put my kids first, my husband first. And I just didn’t know who I was and who I wanted to be in the second half of life. I had to reinvent myself. I had to reimagine and recreate myself, and I totally did that. And I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to stay married and make my dreams come true.

But I remember deciding, thinking it all through and deciding that if I did leave him, what would I be doing? What would I be thinking? How would I be showing up to my life if I was single? What would be different about it? What would be better about it? I answered all of those questions with, well, I could do all of those things and remain married. What if I did that? What if I didn’t have to leave my marriage to become the iconic woman that I knew I could be, to be the dream maker in my own life, to be the star of my own show, to make all of my own decisions.

Who would I have to be and stay in the marriage? How would I have to show up for myself? That’s where everything started getting very interesting and very exciting. And I was able to start letting a lot of old beliefs and a lot of old commitments and a lot of old habits and behavior go and make new agreements with myself.

And I just put my husband on notice and I said, “I want to stay married, but I’ve got to start doing things differently. I want my own space. I want to be able to make my own decisions. I need to create a career for me myself. I don’t want to cook for you anymore. I want to be partners. I want to have equal say. I want my own bedroom. I want my own bathroom. I want to drive the car I want to drive. I want to wear the clothes that I want to wear.”

Because the reason I’m telling you all of this is because I had this belief that I had to kind of go along with his ideas about who we were as a couple and his ideas about who I should be as a wife. And not that he ever put that on me, it’s just the agreement that I thought I made when we got married and what I had been taught and what my brain believed to keep me safe and what a good wife looks like.

And I decided I no longer want to be a good wife. I want to be an iconic wife. I want to be a legendary wife. I want to be a renowned wife. I want to be an important wife. I want to be a noteworthy wife. I want to be able to succeed at standing apart. I don’t want to be a wife like everybody else thinks I should be, or what is acceptable in society to be. I want to be the kind of wife that looks like the kind of woman that I am. So, the iconic woman that I am becoming, that I have become makes me this iconic wife which has created this legendary marriage.

So, the more that you become the next version of yourself, the bravest version of yourself, the most courageous, stylish, focused, competent, consistent, sturdy, confident version of yourself. The more iconic you’re going to become in your own life and in all of your relationships, which if you are married, will make you the iconic wife, that’s what she looks like.

And I can tell you from everything that my husband, his behavior, all the words he speaks about me, all the things that we especially have talked about in the last week or so since we celebrated our anniversary, he is obsessed with me. He loves being my husband. He loves who I have become and who I’m becoming. He’s extremely attracted to me, so everything that you think you want is really on the other side of you becoming the next best version of you and getting out of everybody else’s ideas of who you think they want you to be.

I want you to become who you want you to be. I want you to see that. I want you to know that it’s beneficial to all of your relationships, especially your marriage, especially your partnership with the one you love the most. So, for me to be able to sit here proudly and tell you I am the iconic wife that I am so proud to be. And we have a marriage that I am thriving in as the iconic wife, the iconic woman whom I love, I appreciate, I’m proud of. It’s so fun being me because of it. I’m so proud of who I am because of it. I love every single day of my life because of it.

I want you to know it’s because I put myself first. I took my husband off the throne, I took my kids off the throne and I put myself on the throne. I am the queen of my own life. That makes me the iconic wife in my marriage. Can you see that? Are you encouraged by that? Are you motivated, are you challenged by that? Does it make you a little nervous? I hope it does, because that’s what it’s going to take. I want you to know, your marriage will thrive because of it. The more you up-level, the more your husband will up-level, it just happens automatically.

And these are the stories I hear from my clients all the time and it’s so fun. It’s so fun to be the leader. I get to be the leader, but we share in the leadership. He gets to make himself happy. He gets to be the iconic man that he decides to be. And it really has nothing to do with me. And I always say, and this has been such a change in the last 10 years too. I don’t have to trust my husband anymore. That’s my job, to trust myself because when I have the utmost trust in myself, I know that I’m going to make all the decisions that are going to serve me moving forward.

So, if my husband is doing something he shouldn’t be doing, that’s going to come to my attention and I’m going to handle it in a way that only an iconic woman would handle it and so, I trust myself at that kind of level. I’m not listening to anyone else’s voices. I’m not listening to anyone else’s opinions. I get coached regularly. I am the one for me. I am the icon for me. I show up every day as my best self for my sake, for me.

And I want to pass all of these ideas and all of these practices and beliefs and agreements onto you. So, you can start practicing being her now, being the iconic version of yourself, being the one that is noteworthy, symbolic, renowned, important, succeeding by standing out. You don’t want to fit in anymore. This is just another way of saying, get out of group think. Whatever groups you’re in that are keeping you small and limited and people just pulling you down, I want you to know you cannot be iconic if you’re in a group think. If you’re worrying about what other people’s opinions of you are.

This is how I’ve become iconic, I’ve let all of that go. I absolutely do not think about other people thinking about me. I’m so grounded in what I think about me. I’m so sure of it, that it absolutely drives me forward. I love who my future self is and I truly know that I’m just getting started and that is for you too, my friend. Whatever age you are, I want you to know you are just scratching the surface of who you can become if you do the work.

And that’s why this is my invitation to you to come join my September 10th group. It may be my last group that I start this year of 2024. My next group will be in January of 2025. So, take this opportunity and finish out this year strong. This group will take us into January of 2025. We will meet 20 times as a group on Tuesdays at noon California time, Tuesdays for one hour at noon California time.

And you will get the replay every single week afterwards that you can look back on, you can study, you can start doing the work to become the iconic woman that you have always longed to be. And the whole reason you’re here, you guys, the whole reason we’re here is to become this kind of woman that stands out, that is legendary, who is living her best life on her own terms. That’s what it’s all about. And the people that love you, they will become so inspired by you and so up-leveled by your own courage to become the woman of your own dreams.

So come join my September 10th group. You’ll be so glad you did. It’s very easy. There’s only one way to do it. You go to my website kymshowerslifecoach.com. You hit the button that says, group coaching, and then you pay the $2500. I will get notified right away. You will hear from me right away. I will send you my workbook in the mail. And I will also send you my six month plan tomorrow today planner that I’m going to teach you how to use.

And if you join now when you’re listening to this, if you join two weeks ahead of time, two weeks before September 10th, you will get a private session with me before September 10th. So, get going on that. Stop hesitating, invest in yourself for the first time, put yourself on the throne of your own life, be the queen, be the icon of your own life, my friend. Start changing everything. Start changing the way you think and feel about yourself and how you show up to your life every single day. You’ll be overwhelmed with love for not only you, your life, but for all the people in your life. It changes everything.

So, thanks for showing up today. I love you all so very much. You’re amazing. If you’re not following me on Instagram, come follow me on Instagram. I’m doing a new thing there, it’s full of energy every single day, lots of motivation, lots of inspiration. Follow my stories, I just take you along with me. I have an iconic life. I am an iconic woman and I am the iconic wife.

If you love this podcast, I invite you to come work with me. Go to kymshowerslifecoach.com, sign up for my next group and retreat, and let’s create your dream life together.