How To Make Space For Your Soul In Midlife with Olivia F. Scott

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (0:04)
I have a special treat for you today on The Anxious Achiever, and it's a conversation with Olivia F. Scott. Olivia's work sits at the intersection of ambition, wellness, and truth telling. She is the founder of Freedom at the Mat, a women's wellness sanctuary offering yoga and mindfulness experiences designed especially for busy women. And she is a seasoned marketing executive and educator who has spent years building big brands and telling stories.
Through Freedom at the Mat and her well-checked conversations, Olivia creates a sacred space for women, particularly black women, to put down the strong one mask and prioritize their mental, emotional, and physical health. So we joined forces. This episode is going to appear on Olivia's podcast, and it's on The Anxious Achiever today for you. And it is a really honest conversation. It's about what it's like to pivot in midlife, to choose newness, to change, even when it is friggin scary.
And the beauty of community and knowing, because you've lived a full life even when you don't know. My conversation with Olivia F.

**Olivia F. Scott** (1:25)
Hi everybody, it's Olivia Scott with Freedom at the Mat. Thank you so much for joining us for another edition of WellChat. So instead of just being a solo episode this week as usual, I am blessed to be joined by a woman whose work deeply inspires me, and whose work also influences the greater mental health society. Her name is Morra Aarons-Mele.
Morra is the host of The Anxious Achiever podcast, and author of The Anxious Achiever, Turn Your Biggest Fears Into Your Leadership Superpower. So today we're bringing our worlds together, Freedom at the Mat and The Anxious Achiever to have a real middle-aged anxious achiever conversation about authenticity, performance, and what it means to be both driven and human. This is for all of my middle-agers, like myself. I finally come into realization that I'm a middle-ager, I'm a mid-lifer. So, Morra, welcome.

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (2:28)
Thank you, Olivia. Thank you.

**Olivia F. Scott** (2:31)
Have you embraced the fact that you're a middle-ager? Have you gotten there?

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (2:35)
Oh my gosh, yes. I am turning 50 in just about, gosh, a little over a month.
So, yeah. Above. Here I am.

**Olivia F. Scott** (2:47)
Are you excited about it? Are you anxious? How are you feeling? Because 50 does something a little different, I think.

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (2:51)
How old are you?

**Olivia F. Scott** (2:53)
52

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (2:53)
Okay.

**Olivia F. Scott** (2:54)
All right.

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (2:54)
So, you're just starting.
Yeah. I mean, I think that it's a big milestone. Our society makes it a big milestone. I don't know about you when you were turning 50, but all my friends, everyone's like, what are you doing? Like, are you, you know, there's like this sort of, I feel this pressure to market in a really significant way that I'm not sure I actually really want to do. And then I feel guilty about that. So yeah, it's a lot.

**Olivia F. Scott** (3:19)
Yeah, it can be a lot. It can be a lot. And I realized that for other people, like I wanted to do something different with my 50s, which is kind of just chill. And I think that society makes us want to turn up, get it crunk. And that's just not my energy. But anyway, welcome. And I want to do a shout out. This sounds profitable for creating the space for us to meet at the South by Southwest Summit this year. That's right.
When I talked about spinning and midlife. So what I want to talk with you about, my first question for you is, when the mic goes off and the camera is put away, I love your podcast, The Anxious Achiever.

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (4:00)
Thank you.

**Olivia F. Scott** (4:01)
Because that's who I am, so I totally identify with it. But what is the truest sentence that you say to yourself about your life right now, that you rarely have ever say publicly?

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (4:12)
Oh, gosh.
That I'm rebuilding. I think that I would love your thoughts. I mean, I think that, again, with the societal expectations that by the time you're 50, you've figured it out, you're at a certain point in your career, blah, blah, blah. And for me, my 50th year is actually one of the most tumultuous years professionally that I've ever had in my life. So it's been a really weird sensation of being like, you're 50, yeah, you've done a lot, and you're kind of in this very uncertain, tumultuous space professionally that you didn't necessarily think you'd be in. I don't know if that resonates at all.