Are you feeling a lack of connection or community in this season of life? The women over 50 who are most alive have one thing in common, and it’s not a morning routine or a business strategy. It’s each other. In this edition of Design Your Life, Your Way, I dive into the essential need for deep, authentic connection for women in midlife. This solo episode is for the woman who feels something is missing from her life. Not achievements, but a true sense of belonging. I share the personal story behind the creation of the Soulful Women’s Network: how a “kick in the gut” moment led me to build a space where spiritually minded women can mastermind, grow, and thrive together. We talk honestly about why community isn’t a luxury but a lifeline, and how to find — or create — the kind of sisterhood that actually holds you. Key topics covered include: The Importance of Community After 50: Why we need to move past loneliness and find our “people” to navigate transition, grief, and growth. The Origin Story: How I navigated the shift from local in-person networking to building my own unique, soul-centered community. How to Build Your Own Group: Practical advice on determining your end goal, choosing your platform (Facebook, Meetup, etc.), and enlisting help. Designing Your Own Path: Why it’s okay if an existing community isn’t the right fit and how to take the “bull by the horns” to create what you need. Light Language Activation: I close the episode with a channeled light language transmission intended to help you release what no longer serves you and align with your soul’s highest good. Whether you are looking for a community to join or feeling called to start your own, this episode provides actionable insights on how to foster the sisterhood you deserve. Resources & links mentioned: Search for the Soulful Women’s Network by name on Facebook or visit bit.ly/soulnetwork to see if our community is right for you Related episode: Breaking Free from Loneliness: Community After 50 Community platforms mentioned: Facebook Groups, Meetup, Skool, Heartbeat Book a 30-minute private Light Language session with Gloria Grace: tidycal.com/gloria3/single-light-language-session Design Your Life, Your Way – next steps: Get my free Personal Power Archetype Quiz to start designing your next chapter: bit.ly/PersonalPowerQuiz If this episode spoke to you, leave us a review. Follow/subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. Share this with a friend who’s been feeling disconnected or lonely in this season of life. Connect with me on LinkedIn @GloriaGraceRand to continue the conversation about midlife, meaning, and living on purpose. TRANSCRIPT Namaste. Do you know what many women in their 50s and 60s who have designed their life their way have in common? They stopped doing things alone. They found their people a community of women who understand that this season of life is really ripe for possibilities and they know how to hold space for one another through these crazy transitions we go through, through self doubt, through grief, and through growth. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. And specifically what I created the Soulful Women’s Network to be, to be this place where space spiritually minded women over 50 come together to connect, to grow, and especially to thrive. Not despite of their age and experiences, but because of them. Now, I did talk a little bit about this group in a past episode. It was actually called Breaking Free from loneliness, community after 50. So I encourage you, if you haven’t listened to that one or watched it on wherever you watch the podcast, we’re on YouTube and it may even be on new reality TV. Now you can, you can watch it there. But today I thought that I wanted to really go into more detail about Soulful Women’s Network. And my intention, my hope is that you’ll consider joining it. And if it’s not what’s right for you, that’s fine too. And maybe it’ll inspire you to create your own group because again, we need community and, and not all communities are right for every person. So if you want to join mine, yay, I would love to have you join it. But if not, that’s okay too because you may find, like I did, that you may find that you’re called to start your own group. And I think that’s just as amazing. So let me tell you, let me tell you a story right now. So you know, if you got a cup of tea or. I’m a tea drinker, so I always say cup of tea. But if you’re a coffee drinker, you can have coffee. And let me, let me, let me tell you a little story about, about how this, how this idea came from. And it’s going back a couple of years. So for those of you who are regular listeners or watchers of this show, you know that I have, I separated from my husband in 2022 and when I did that, I moved to Melbourne, Florida. And so it’s a lovely, lovely community. Finding Authentic Community: The Women’s Prosperity Network And I was so excited about. One of the reasons I was, I’ll say one of the reasons I, I, I chose this location was because it would be closer, it would be a much closer drive for me to attend meetings of the Women’s Prosperity Network, which was an organization and I’m still a member of, but I’ve been a member of this organization for years and years and years now, probably. Oh my gosh, let’s see, 10 years, 12 years, I don’t know, it’s, it’s been a long time. And one of the reasons I joined that group in particular was because they, we would have meetings at a local restaurant and we would get together and mastermind. It was a place for really, what they talk about is to be real, where you can be real, you know, not put on a phony front like a lot of people, a lot of networking, business networking groups. I would say in particular, sometimes when you go to them, it’s like everybody’s just putting on this real, you know, front about, oh, business is great and you know, and then they want to be able to enroll you in their business, etc. Etc. Well, what attracted me to WPN is the fact that we could be real and say, you know, hey, this, I got this issue going on with me and my business. Can you maybe, can you give me some ideas on how to fix it? And we would brainstorm. I love masterminding. And that was what really attracted me to it. Now, of course, in 2020, as we all know, the world shut down and a lot of organizations, a lot of networking groups had to pivot for those who were meeting in person and start meeting online. And so that’s what Women’s Prosperity Network did. They started having more. I think they were already doing some meetings online, but they really embraced it and, and, and went, you know, full fledged because we couldn’t meet in person anymore. But by 2022, you know, things were opening up again and there was a local group that I had and actually I was, I belonged to the Orlando chapter and so I would go to meetings there, but I also would occasionally drive for an hour to come to the Brevard chapter because I knew some of the women who regularly attended that one and they were lovely women, they had become friends and I liked the atmosphere over there. It’s, it’s nice to be able to go to different chapters of an organization where, you know, that meet in different areas because then you get to meet new people. So, and, and, and there was a really good energy at the Brevard Chamber or chamber. Not the chamber, the chapter, the chapter. And so I was like, yes, this is great. Midlife Disappointment and the Loss of In-Person Connection Now I’m moving, I’m moving to Melbourne. I’ll be able to, as it turned out, drive like less than 10 minutes from the location of where, where they were having their meetings. I was like so psyched about it. Just one problem. The organization WPN Women’s Prosperity Network decided that they didn’t want to have any more in person chapter meetings. They wanted to move everything online and so they decided to close down all of the local chapters and so my lovely Brevard chapter would be no more and we weren’t going to be able to meet in person. Talk about a kick in the pants. A kick in the gut. It was so. I was so disappointed. I really was. I was just so disappointed because, you know, this was, this was, you know, I wouldn’t have to drive an hour anymore, you know, and I would get to see people in person. And as much as Zoom was so great for helping to keep us connected to people and enable us to connect with people all over the country, all over the world, I mean, was wonderful. I mean, and, and in effect in 2020 is when I, I started the end of 2019, but definitely in 2020 I started my Live Love Engage podcast. So which you can find old episodes of that. And so it was great. I loved being able to connect with people, but I wanted to see people in person again. I wanted to give my friends a hug. You know, we, hugs are so. There are scientific studies have shown that hugging someone is really good for your physical health as well as your mental health, frankly. So I was disappointed, needless to say, that they weren’t going to be meeting in person anymore. Meditation, Inner Wisdom, and the Birth of Soulful Women’s Network So what did I do? Well, I, I didn’t automatically come up with this idea to, to create my own network. What I did do though was continue some of my spiritual practices that I have developed over the years and, and, and the one that I’ve been doing the longest is meditating. And so I. Every morning, that is my non negotiable part of my routine now. Journaling comes and goes, going for a walk, comes and goes. Sometimes I don’t do it in the morning and I will do it in the afternoon, but I make it a point to devote part, a part of my morning before I really get involved in working to meditating. Even if it’s 10 minutes, I’d like to do at least a half an hour, bu
