The Sacred Art of Falling Apart: Mental Health, Midlife, and the Power of Coming Back Together

Kimberly Benoy
May 7
6 min read

A conversation with therapist Kari Goeden on the Midlife with Courage™ podcast.

There's a story we've been told about midlife. By now, you should have the relationship, the career, maybe the 2.5 kids. You should have your stuff together. According to therapist Kari Goeden, that story is, in her words, "a pretty big lie."

The truth? Midlife — with all its hormonal shifts, identity questions, and relentless change — can feel like coming apart at the seams. And that, Kari says, is not something to hide. It's something to talk about.

Why Midlife Can Feel Like a Mental Health Earthquake

Kari, who runs Wise Womxn Wellness in Stillwater, Minnesota, describes midlife as "the sacred art of falling apart and coming back together again." The falling apart part? That's real — and it's largely biological.

As progesterone and estrogen levels fluctuate unpredictably during perimenopause and menopause, women can experience sleep disruption, mood swings, and anxiety — sometimes for the very first time in their lives. Progesterone, the "tend and befriend" hormone that helps us feel calm and at ease, can drop dramatically, leaving women asking: Who am I right now? Why don't I feel like myself?

"We might wake up feeling great one day and the next day it's like, I don't even feel like myself in my body," Kari explains.

And how progesterone and estrogen are affecting our mental health — they are such huge pieces that impact our sleep, which is the foundation of our mental health."

Sleep is everything. It affects energy, mood regulation, and our ability to cope with life's challenges. Poor sleep in perimenopause doesn't just make you tired — it can be a gateway to anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and feeling completely untethered from yourself.

The Sleep Hygiene Prescription

When Kari says sleep hygiene, she doesn't mean complicated routines. She means predictability. Brains love knowing what comes next, so a simple, consistent pre-sleep ritual can work wonders:

Shut off screens by 8 p.m. (or at least an hour before bed)
Use blue light blocking glasses or a warm/red filter on your devices if you can't unplug
Create a small, repeatable wind-down sequence — tea, a chapter of a book, pajamas in the same order every night
Ditch the evening wine — it disrupts sleep architecture more than it relaxes you

"The brain loves predictability," Kari says. "I don't want to add more stress to your plate. Just a few simple things, done in the same order every night."

The Medicine Nobody Prescribes: Community

If sleep is the foundation of mental health, community is the cure for the midlife crash. Kari speaks passionately about what happens when women stop hiding their struggles and start sharing them.

"The biggest recipe for coming back together is community — being vulnerable and asking for help and talking about this stuff, not keeping it to ourselves," she says. "Asking for help isn't weakness. It's strength."

This is personal for many women. The perimenopause journey in particular can feel deeply isolating — until you find someone who says me too. That validation, Kari says, is healing in a way that no clinical setting can fully replicate.

To build that community in real life, Kari launched the Wise Womxn Walking Club in Stillwater, a free, twice-monthly Sunday gathering for women of all ages — from 16 to 80s. Before hitting the trail, women gather at a beautiful co-working space, coffee in hand, and do "speed chats" — bingo-card style conversation starters that skip small talk entirely and go straight to the good stuff:

What are you most proud of in the last year? What's the most embarrassing thing that happened to you recently? If you could vacation anywhere, where would it be?

"We're not talking small talk," Kari says. "Most of the time people are sharing their life stories with absolute strangers. And that warms my heart like no other."

Why Walking + Talking Is Therapy Magic

Kari's individual therapy practice is built around movement. Her "walk and talk" sessions take clients along the Browns Creek Trail or up the 100 stairs in Stillwater — and the science behind why this works is fascinating.

When we walk, the alternating right-left-right-left foot pattern creates bilateral stimulation — a neurological process that activates connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This is the same mechanism used in EMDR therapy for trauma. The result? We can access emotions more easily, make decisions more clearly, and process what's stuck.

"People open up a lot more," she notes. "And there's something that helps women feel more at ease when we're moving our bodies and side by side — not that intense face-to-face eye contact."

Her advice for everyday life: walk with your partner when you need to have a hard conversation. Take that dreaded phone call while moving. The pacing you do when you're stressed? That's not a nervous habit. It's your body trying to heal itself.

Your Greatest Superpower: Intuition

One of the most powerful themes Kari returns to again and again is the need for women to trust themselves. Midlife, she argues, can strip away the noise and reveal what actually matters — if we let it.

"Women's greatest superpower is our intuition. It's been there from the beginning of time for very good reason."

Too often, that intuition gets buried under a pile of shoulds. As Kari's old supervisor once told her: "Stop shoulding all over yourself." The question she poses to clients and friends alike: Where are these messages coming from? Are they actually yours — or are they society's?

Her prescription for tapping back in: take a solo walk. Without your phone. Without earbuds. Without music. Just you and the trail.

"That's when we can get quiet and integrate our minds, our hearts, our spirits, and our bodies," she says. "She has the answer. You have the answer. Most of the time, we're just too scared to admit it."

Click the photo to listen to the podcast.

Cougar Puberty: The Hidden Gift

Kari offers a reframe that might just change how you see this whole season of life. She calls it "cougar puberty" — the idea that perimenopause, like adolescence, is an intense period of transformation that prepares you for the next chapter of who you're becoming.

"Yes, people talk about how intense perimenopause is — but it's like, yes, and. It's intense and powerful. There's a lot of power in that."

This is the coming back together. The recalibration. The moment when you stop caring what people think about the job you quit or the hobby you picked up at 52. When, as host Kim Benoy put it: "Someone doesn't like that I left my job that I hated? I don't care."

The Loneliness Epidemic — and What to Do About It

Before closing, Kari drops a statistic that stops you cold: the U.S. Surgeon General has declared a loneliness epidemic, with 50% of adults reporting they feel lonely. And the physical toll of that loneliness? It's equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

"We need each other," Kari says simply. "Our villages aren't really there anymore. Our bodies aren't built for that. Our spirits aren't built for that."

Her call to action for midlife women: make community a priority — not a luxury. Even virtual connections count. Check in on each other. Create regular touch points. Start a group chat and ask if anyone has a therapist recommendation.

Which brings her to her final piece of advice, the one that perhaps surprised even Kim:

Find a therapist before you need one.

"When sh** hits the fan and I need some support — I've already got her number. Because there is nothing harder than trying to find a good therapist when you're already overwhelmed and drowning ..."

Mental health care, Kari says, should be treated as seriously as physical health care. A check-in with a therapist once or twice a year? It's not a crisis intervention. It's maintenance. It's wisdom.

Where to Find Kari

Therapy & Coaching: wisewomxnwellness.com (women spelled W-O-M-X-N)
Wise Womxn Walking Club (Stillwater, MN): Free, twice-monthly Sundays — follow on Instagram
This Is Not Therapy Podcast: New episodes every Thursday on Spotify and YouTube
Newsletter: The Wise Womxn Weekly — sign up at her website