Author’s Bio: Jen Berlingo is a thought-leader, coach, guide, and
author on the midlife transition. She’s also a Licensed Professional Counselor
in the state of Colorado, a nationally registered art therapist, and a Reiki
master. Through two decades of
midwifing hundreds of women through life’s major transitions and experiencing
her own fiery midlife passage, Jen was inspired to write her book, Midlife Emergence, to accompany women needing fortitude when traversing the
portal into the second half of life. 

In addition to her long-standing healing work, Jen is a visual
artist who offers original paintings, prints, and oracle decks to collectors
worldwide. She shows her fluid, abstract art in her beloved town of Boulder,
Colorado. There among the sunny foothills, Jen can be found making bottomless
bowls of popcorn and snuggling on the couch with her unconventional family, her
coven of close friends, and her Norwegian forest tabby rescues, Jinx and Juju.

Deliah Lawrence: What inspired
you to write your book?

Jen Berlingo: In addition to my 20 years of experience in guiding my
Therapy and Coaching clients through life’s transitions, I experienced my own
profoundly transformative passage in my early forties, wherein I was able to
live more fully into my queerness and other seemingly subversive aspects of
myself. Through this journey, I became inspired to write a book to midwife the
modern woman through her unique midlife emergence®.

There’s an unexpressed and beautiful part of each woman that
is longing to be set free. It can feel difficult to acknowledge and even
more daunting to act upon. Most of my clients, like myself, are “recovering
good girls” who have done all the “right” things and met the expectations to
create the life we “should” want, but we still feel unsatisfied. Making changes
could be disruptive because the stakes feel high. Most of us have no roadmaps,
models, or cheerleaders helping us to unfurl into our most expansive, aligned
way of being in the world. Therefore, we are lulled into staying in our safe,
sleepy, stagnant habits because it is too difficult to face the voice inside us
that perpetually wonders, “Is this all there is?” I’ve so
been there.

As I’ve been working to realign to my own integrity, I
became a cartographer, charting the course, marking the waypoints, pinpointing
the universal signposts along the journey. I did this so other women in midlife
wouldn’t need to walk the path alone. Midlife Emergence is a compassionate companion that
belongs on the bedside table of every woman who desires to shamelessly reclaim
powerful parts of herself that social conditioning locked away.

DL: What is your writing process?

JB: I really love to write at
small tables in cozy cafes with a steamy beverage beside my laptop and people
bustling about. However, I began to write Midlife Emergence at the start
of the COVID-19 lockdown, when we were all quarantined in our homes, wearing
pajama pants. So, I tried to recreate the café vibe in my house by playing instrumental
jazz music and sipping my chai tea latte each time I began to write. This was a
signal to my body and mind that I was moving into writing mode! I try to let
the words pour onto the page at first, without taking a critical editing eye to
them. The edits will come later, but it’s important for me to first capture the
essence of the feelings and senses.

DL: What do you think makes a
good story?

JB: Author and theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber talks about how we do the most
harm when what we’re protecting is the notion that we’re good. My favorite
stories are the ones where the storyteller allows the full spectrum of the
human catastrophe to be witnessed. This hopefully creates a ripple effect in
radical truth-telling. 

As a collective, we are famished for honesty, thirsty for admitting our struggles to
each other. Keeping everything neatly inside is such a profoundly lonely way to
live. The things that make us feel that alone are actually what have the
potential to connect us to one another, if only we felt safe enough to make
them visible. Those are the sorts of stories I am interested in hearing, and
they’re the only ones I’m interested in writing.

DL: What were some of the
challenges when writing this book?

JB: Writing Midlife
Emergence was such a cathartic process, in that I revisited some of my
childhood stories in order to examine (and eventually overturn) childhood
messages that don’t serve me at this stage of life. I also wrote this book from
inside the messy middle of my divorce. Even so, it wasn’t the emotions that
were the biggest challenge; it was the anticipatory visibility/vulnerability
hangover I experienced in knowing my story would soon be out in the world. When
one writes a memoir, it usually involves those in their closest spheres, so I
felt challenged in walking the line between telling my truth and respecting the
privacy of those I deeply love.

DL: What do you like to do when
you are not writing?

JB: When I’m not writing
about midlife, I work with women one-on-one as a midlife coach and guide, and I
facilitate online programs on the topic. I am also a visual artist who loves to
create colorful, abstract pieces with watercolors and alcohol inks. I’m a big
fan of all things cozy and connected, so I spend a lot of time at home with my favorite
humans and my kitties.

DL: What are three things you
can’t live without?

JB: Cuddles. Art. Hand
lotion.

DL: If you had to describe
yourself in three words, what would they be?

JB: Tender. Honest.
Visionary.

DL: Would you like to share an
excerpt from Midlife Emergence?

JB: Sure! This is an excerpt
from a chapter where I invite the reader to examine their early childhood conditioning.
Here, I’m uncovering what I learned from my caregivers about having needs:

I grew up in a household of tremendous
care and good intentions, underneath a cloud filled with expectations,
obligations, and unspoken rules. In writing on what she calls “the mother
wound,” Bethany Webster
says, “For daughters growing up in a patriarchal culture, there is a sense of
having to choose between being empowered and being loved.” Like many of us, I
was born into a time and a family where I had to choose between these two. From
the time my tiny and supremely permeable being could pick up on energy in
utero, I surmised that being an “easy baby” and a “good girl” were prized over
expressing genuine needs.

When I was a smiling, quiet baby, I was rewarded. When I did what babies
naturally do to communicate their preverbal needs—have a tantrum or a
breakdown—I was placated. Natural emotional expressions that fell outside of
happy were met with impatience and often rage by my father. My mother responded
with an anxious “you’re okay,” and a perfunctory hug accompanied by a pat on
the back in a curt “there, there” fashion intended to soothe me, but not coming
remotely close to matching my level of discomfort. (I know this reassuring hug
well, because as a nervous, young mother myself, I repeated this pattern at
times.) The cocktail of my dad’s anger response paired with my mom’s minimizing
response knocked me unconscious to my own needs at quite an early age.

DL: What new projects are you
currently working on?

JB: I’m so excited to have my
book out in the world, and I’ll be busy all year spreading the word about it
through live and virtual events, as well as continuing to guide Midlife
Emergence® programs online. I’m also collaborating with another artist on a
forthcoming tarot deck. Soon, I hope to get back into my art studio and begin
to accept commissions for custom paintings again. And I have a juicy idea for a
second book…

DL: Where can readers learn more
about you and purchase your book?

JB: Readers can get more
information here: 

• Website: https://jenberlingo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenberlingo/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenberlingotherapy
• Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/artsorceress/
• Sign up to be notified when my book
  is released + receive a free gift:
• https://jen-berlingo.mykajabi.com/midlife-emergence-e-book 
• Book Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Midlife-Emergence-Free-Your-Inner/dp/1954805462

DL: Thanks so much for being
here with us today. I know my readers will enjoy getting to know you and your
work.

JB: Thank you!

Originally Published on https://vocalexpressions.blogspot.com

Deliah Lawrence Attorney, Author, Blogger, Workshop Facilitator

Deliah Lawrence is a Maryland-based attorney and award-winning author of two romantic suspense novels (Gotta Let It Go and Gotta Get It Back) set in Baltimore. She’s also a blogger and workshop facilitator who writes poetry and short stories.

When Deliah isn’t writing, you can find her reading a book, indulging in her addiction to investigation discovery shows; or painting her yet-to-be exhibited oil artworks of landscapes, portraits or whatever else comes to her creative mind. Constantly on the go, she is also a member of the Black Writers’ Guild of Maryland and Sisters in Crime.