The Midlife Heroine's Dictionary: A Translation Guide for Your Second Coming of Age

Or... Screw it! We're making up our own words!

They gave us a vocabulary designed to keep us small.

“Selfless” was good. It meant we were willing to bend over backwards for other people while putting ourselves, absolutely, positively (or actually negatively) last. “Selfish” was bad. It meant we actual had needs, and wants (how dare we - that’s for the men and the children) “Boundaries” sounded like HR speak, or walls we were building solely to force others to climb over. “Self-care” meant spa days and guilt (oh, lots and lots of guilt.)

For years, we’ve been speaking a language that doesn’t fit. Words bestowed on us from the language of “how you are supposed to live” (especially if you are a woman).

Last monthly, in the September Heroine’s Salon, something shifted. The main question we posed as part of our discussion was about selflessness. Is selflessness actually noble or just another word for disappearing? Is it the opposite of selfishness?Or is selfishness a word society has weaponized to make not disappearing seem evil (and dare I say… witchy?)

In the middle of our conversation someone said: “We don’t even have the right language to express ourselves!”

She was right.

So I’ve started building a new dictionary. I’m calling it the Midlife Heroine’s Dictionary

Here’s what I’m using now.

De-Selfing - A word contributed by Margo Fraker (Margo if you’re out there let me know youre Substack link so I can link you here)

The active process of erasing yourself to take on everyone else’s shape. Not “losing yourself,” that’s too passive, too accidental. De-selfing is what you do when someone beckons and you become them. You know… when you walk into a room and shapeshift to fit it. It’s when you’ve mirrored so many people for so long that you can’t remember which reflection is actually yours.

Example: (from Margo) “My sister said: I think you’ve been de-selfing. And suddenly I had language for what I’d been doing for fifty years.”

Instead of: People-pleasing (which sounds like a personality flaw you should fix, not a survival strategy you learned)

Re-Selfing

The practice of reclaiming the parts of yourself you erased. Not reinvention. Not becoming someone new. Just remembering who you were before you learned to disappear, and becoming the self you imagined you’d be.

Example: “I’m not broken. I’m re-selfing.”

Instead of: Self-discovery, finding yourself (both imply you’re lost, not that you were deliberately hidden)

Self-Curation

The practice of selecting what to feature from what you already have, rather than acquiring, building, or becoming something new. Like a museum director choosing which art to exhibit this season, not because the other pieces are worthless, but because you can’t show everything at once.

Example: “At this point in my life, I don’t need more skills or credentials. I need to curate what I already am.”

Instead of: Self-improvement, reinvention, life design (all of which imply you’re defective or outdated)

Showing Up as Yourself Fully

Being present in your self-actualized identity without explanation, performance, or shapeshifting. Not selfish. Not selfless. Just here. Knowing what you need. Asking for it. Without apologizing.

Example: “Instead of asking ‘Am I being selfish?’ I ask: ‘Am I showing up as myself fully?’”

Instead of: Authenticity (which has been emptied of all meaning by Instagram)

Setting Expectations

Communicating clearly what you can and cannot do, what will happen if certain conditions are met. Collaborative clarity, not defensive walls.

Example: “I’m setting an expectation: if you yell, I’ll leave the room. That’s not to control you, it’s to protect me.”

Instead of: Boundaries (which sounds like armor, walls, or corporate HR language)

Invited Support vs. Uninvited Rescue -

Linda Yetman

explores this in her featured piece for the October Salon.

The difference between helping someone who asked for help versus swooping in to save someone who didn’t invite you. Uninvited rescue often damages the very relationships you’re trying to protect.

Example: “I thought I was helping my family through a medical crisis. Turns out I went where I was never invited to go. Now we’re estranged.”

Instead of: Being helpful, being supportive (without the critical question: did they ask?)

Clean Generosity

Giving freely within clear limits, but without strings, resentment, or secret expectations. The most generous people have the firmest boundaries because they know exactly what they can give without depleting themselves.

Example: “I can help with this specific thing. I can’t take on the whole project. That’s not selfish, that’s clean generosity.”

Instead of: Selflessness (which is an expectation of giving without limits)

Self-Cultivation (the wisdom of my friend and attendee,

Julie Strauss

)

Tending to yourself as you would a garden, with an understanding that a garden lives through seasons, fallow periods, and the reality that not everything blooms at once. Acknowledges you’re a living system, not a machine that needs fixing or a product that needs upgrading.

Example: “I’m not taking a spa day. I’m practicing self-cultivation. This is my fallow season.”

Instead of: Self-care (which has been colonized by capitalism and implies purchasing solutions)

Fallow Periods

Seasons of strategic rest where you don’t produce, perform, or push. Not laziness. Not depression. The necessary pause that allows for future growth. Continuing to till fallow ground damages the soil.

Example: “I’m not doing nothing. I’m being fallow. There’s a difference.”

Instead of: Taking a break, being lazy, self-care (all of which imply your lack of productivity is a major problem.)

Cyclical Living

Organizing your life around cyclical rhythms rather than linear productivity. Acknowledging that midlife women are still in cycles just different ones than before. What am I learning this time around? Do I need another visit to this place later?

Example: “I used to think I was failing when I couldn’t solve this problem. Now I realize I have to abide by my cycles and cyclical living. I’ll solve that problem the next time around.”

Instead of: Work-life balance, consistency, discipline (all of which assume steady-state functioning)

Sacred Slacking

The deliberate practice of doing nothing as an act of resistance against productivity culture. Slacking not as failure but as necessary rebellion. You slack because it’s required for you to function as a human being in society.

Example: “I am a Sacred Slacker. I slack because it is required of me.”

Instead of: Rest, relaxation, self-care (which all sound optional or indulgent)

Wanting What You Want

The practice of naming your actual desires without justification, explanation, or making them palatable to others. The most radical and terrifying act available to a woman who’s spent her life wanting what she was supposed to want.

Example: “If I was allowed to want what I want (not what I should want, not what would make me a good person), what would I actually want?”

Instead of: Lifestyle Design (which skips past the part where you’re not allowed to want in the first place)

We’re done speaking the language they gave us.

This dictionary is still being written. What would you add? Tell us in the comments.

These words emerged from a single 90-minute conversation with brilliant midlife women who were tired of speaking a language that didn’t fit. In September’s Salon we built a vocabulary together.

Imagine all the other cool things we can do?

Just one salon, one conversation at a time.

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