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Life at 60: Womanhood, Leadership, and Embracing Change
- Laurie Warren
- Dec 27, 2025
- 4 min read
March 2026 will find me turning 60, or 21,900 days old. I don’t mind the accumulation of lived years so much, and most often feel deeply grateful to have experienced them. I appreciate the wisdom that we tend to gather, navigating the full, unpredictable, and highly-textured life of WOMAN. Some variation of...
Family life as a child of the 60’s and 70’s; start work at age 11 (babysitting and swim instructor for littles); education; first sexual harassment at work, age 14; career launch; the party me-me-me years; dating; marriage; becoming a stepmother; more education; the early death of a loved one; therapy; career changes; becoming a mother; graduate degree; awakening to the spiritual Self; launching a business; stewarding a mindful divorce (more therapy...haha); learning to prioritize self-care; championing family life; writing and publishing a book; raising children in a blended family; tending friendships; supporting aging parents followed by the inevitable farewell; evolving into a new relationship with adult “kids”; honoring the empty nest with all that it can bubble up; grandkids (yay!); completing 2/3 of a campervan buildout when a major life event prompts selling it; rebuilding a home for 362 days after a 90-foot tree crushed it; and refocusing a business to where the heart lies.
Balancing self and family can often feel like a rub for women. I’ve been a working-for-pay mom, a stay-at-home mom, a full-time grad school mom, a business-owner mom and a single mom. Many self-reinventions, periods of healing, trying things on, learning to rest, making plenty of mistakes, and being continually reminded by life that growth and comfort don’t co-exist.
In a few words, a woman’s life is often one of continual personal evolution, sometimes chosen and sometimes required.
I imagine you may see parts of your own story in some of the incomplete stories above. There’s a saying that “behind every strong person is a story that gave them no choice,” and, indeed, the art and journey of a female human requires incredible strength, resilience, tenacity, heart, and adaptability. And, although at times I’ve grumped around in my mind about some of that?... I love being a woman. And I’ve learned to appreciate womanhood more as I age. As such, one thing is crystal clear to me:
Woman—especially in her awakened and empowered state—is a natural and powerful leader who can effectively juggle an enormous number of tasks and responsibilities. Our brains and heart-mind are truly phenomenal. Speaking of heart...
I wrote in the opening paragraph that supporting aging parents is followed by the inevitable farewell. The Truth is, EVERYthing ends in farewell. What is the throughline of that incomplete story highlighted above? It’s a whole lot of farewells. It’s said that the only thing in life that remains constant is change. Embracing impermanence is something I’ve been working with over the last dozen years, and I’ve come to view life as a river that I’m swimming in.
The river of life finds me feeling like I have some measure of control because I can swim. But the Truth is, the river is the boss. It’s powerful, inescapable, and unpredictable. It offers wide and sandy parts, then narrow with rocky rapids, now a waterfall, then lazing into the shady cove that turns out to be teeming with leeches, on to wild whirlpools and beyond, with plenty of wildlife and inclement weather along the way. Being in the river is—in turns—fun, exhausting, exciting, harrowing, peaceful, sad, empowering, scary, and rewarding.
Sometimes, the river journey feels meh. Often, we’re carrying others, like a mother sea otter on her back with pups riding on her belly. And every once in a while, we manage to grab on to the roots that line the riverbank to rest and collect ourselves for a few beats. It’s never long before the current pulls us back in.
I learn, pivot, and adapt to river life because the river certainly isn’t going to adapt to me. Perhaps this analogy is where the saying “go with the flow” came from.
This honoring of adaptation and flow has been deeply required in my business as of late. In my decades of working with folks—mostly women—on their health journeys using functional medicine and integrative nutrition, chronic stress continually crops up as a major barrier to healing. I’ve been writing about and providing training on stress for 15+ years, yet this work has recently demanded to be center stage. Societally, we’ve got chronic stress all wrong, and that’s why our flailing and intermittent efforts haven’t moved the needle. I’ve developed a unique leadership training program and coaching practice around a proprietary framework that finally gets to the root of stress. I’m so pumped about bringing this solution to those who are ready for it and am enjoying speaking to groups that want to learn about it. The river flows on.
Coming full circle, I’m about to turn 21,900 days old and—clearly, based on the last paragraph—retirement isn’t anywhere on my near horizon. On some days when I’m particularly tired, I wonder about my choice to keep following this passion of mine. But most days, I feel stoked! I love this work; it’s not something I DO, it’s something I AM. I’m a woman, on a mission, fueled by passion... empowering others for well-being while they navigate and enjoy the river of life. Thankfully, my river journey continues, in all its challenge and growth, chaos and contentment.
I’m grateful to rub shoulders with women like you on my journey. It’s well-known that when women—in all our resilience, inner strength, wisdom, and heart—support each other, the sky’s the limit. I love that about us and am wishing you a 2026 rich in purpose and love.
Bio: Laurie Warren is a paradigm pioneer, stress & well-being expert, business owner, published author, and mom/stepmom of four adult kids. A Maine native, she lives in the Greater Boston area and enjoys family, kayaking, reading, writing, research, hiking, music, and snow sports.
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