Lola Wellness & Mental Health, Calgary, AB (2026)

07/31/2026

Can we please stop talking about menopause like it's just a thermostat malfunction?

Yes, there are hot flashes. But there's also the brain fog, interrupted sleep, emotions that seem to come from nowhere, and the strange feeling of looking in the mirror and wondering when your body started feeling unfamiliar.

It isn't just a hormonal shift.
For many women, it's an identity shift.

You're learning to live in a body that's changing while the world expects you to carry on as though nothing is different.

That's a lot to ask of anyone.

💛 Menopause is more than a physical transition, it's a life transition. If you're feeling like you've lost yourself somewhere along the way, I'd love to help you find your footing again. One-on-one counselling sessions are available virtually through the link in my bio

07/31/2026

Dearest Lola Reader,

If you thought hot flashes were a b*tch in the winter... welcome to summer in menopause.

I was standing in Costco the other day and, completely by accident of course, found myself lingering beside the blueberries in the refrigerated produce section. Did I need blueberries? Not really. Did I suddenly become deeply interested in comparing the quality of strawberries? Also no. I just needed to stop feeling like my internal organs were trying to escape through my forehead.

I stood there longer than I'd like to admit, pretending I was making a very important produce decision while secretly wondering if anyone would notice if I simply moved into the walk-in dairy cooler and made it my permanent residence. Honestly, I was only one step away from putting a lawn chair beside the lettuce and calling it self-care.

And can we talk about the timing of hot flashes? It's almost as if my body waits until I'm surrounded by other people before it decides to recreate the surface of the sun. Sitting quietly having coffee with friends? Perfect. Standing in line at Costco? Absolutely. Sleeping peacefully at two o'clock in the morning? Obviously the ideal time to wake up feeling like Satan himself has tucked me in with an electric blanket.

The hot flashes, though? Honestly, they're not even the worst part anymore.

I can survive those.

It's everything else nobody warned me about.

The emotions that seem to arrive without knocking. The irrational rage that appears because someone is chewing too loudly. The fact that I can suddenly smell everything within a three-kilometre radius. Why does someone's perfume from the next aisle make me want to gather the village women, paint my face, and charge into battle like a Viking shield maiden with absolutely nothing left to lose?

Then there's the other part.

The part where my tolerance for nonsense has quietly packed its bags and permanently left the building. As Jo Dee Messina so eloquently put it, "My Give a Damn's Busted."

The older I get, the more I wonder if we've misunderstood menopause entirely. We've been taught to see it as something our bodies do to us—something to survive, something to fix, something to quietly endure until it finally passes. But what if it's something else? What if menopause isn't trying to destroy us at all? What if it's trying to introduce us to the woman we've been editing for everyone else all these years? The woman who finally says, "Actually... no." The woman who rests before she's completely depleted, who stops apologizing for taking up space, and who no longer twists herself into impossible shapes just to keep everyone else comfortable.

Maybe that's why this season feels so uncomfortable. Not because we're losing ourselves, but because we're finally meeting the version of ourselves we've kept waiting for decades. And maybe that's not a crisis at all. Maybe it's a return to ourselves.

So if you happen to find yourself standing beside the blueberries this summer, trying to decide whether you're shopping for fruit or simply borrowing Costco's refrigeration system, slide over a little. Make room for me.

Stacey

07/28/2026

Grief Doesn't Check the Calendar

It doesn't care that it's sunny outside or that everyone else is posting vacation photos.

Sometimes it's the first camping trip without them. Sometimes it's reaching for the dog's leash before remembering there won't be a walk today. Sometimes it's seeing an empty chair around the fire that your heart still expects to be filled.

People often think grief should get easier because time passes.
I'm not sure that's true.
I think we simply become stronger at carrying love in a different way.
Some days it feels light.
Some days it feels impossibly heavy.
Both are perfectly normal.

💛 Grief doesn't need to be fixed, and you don't have to rush your way through it. If you need someone to sit with you as you carry your loss, I'm here. One-on-one counselling sessions are available virtually. Book through the link in my bio.

07/26/2026

Very few people wake up one morning and think, I'd really love to start my life over.
Yet life has a funny way of rewriting the script.

Divorce. Retirement. A career change. Children leaving home. Losing someone you love.

None of us ask for those chapters.
But sometimes the chapters we never wanted become the ones that teach us who we really are.

Starting over isn't a sign you've failed.

Sometimes it's simply proof that life isn't finished with you yet.

💛 If you're standing at the beginning of a chapter you never expected to write, you don't have to do it alone. I'd be honoured to walk alongside you. One-on-one counselling sessions are available virtually. Book through the link in my bio.

07/24/2026

Whoever said little kids, little problems and big kids, big problems wasn't kidding.

One minute they're asking you to tuck them in. The next they're 'borrowing' your hoodie's disappearing into their room, and communicating almost entirely through eye rolls with their faces in their devices.

It's easy to think they're pulling away because you've done something wrong.
The truth is they're pulling away because you've done something right.

Growing up is supposed to look like independence.

It just turns out that watching someone need you less is a lot harder than anyone warns you. Parenting teenagers is a strange mix of pride and grief, often happening in the very same moment.

💛 Parenting teenagers can feel lonely, even when your house is full. If you're carrying more than you let anyone see, I'd be honored to hold space for you. One-on-one counselling appointments are available virtually through the link in my bio.

07/24/2026

Letters from Lola #004

Dearest Lola Reader,

We spend so much time talking about becoming a mother. There are books, podcasts, prenatal classes, parenting courses, and approximately seventeen thousand people on the internet ready to explain why you're holding your baby wrong. We prepare women for every stage imaginable. Feeding schedules. Sleep schedules. Potty training. First days of school. Teenage hormones. We have entire industries dedicated to teaching us how to keep tiny humans alive.

But nobody prepares us for the day they don't actually need us anymore.

One day your house gets... weirdly quiet. The fridge still has food in it three days later. The laundry basket isn't somehow reproducing overnight. Nobody has yelled, "Moooom!" because they can't find the ketchup that's sitting directly in front of their face. Instead, you get a text.

"K."

That's it.

Twenty years of wiping noses, making lunches, finding missing shoes, reminding someone to brush their teeth, driving everyone everywhere, and financing what feels like a small country's GDP... and your reward is one letter.

Cool.

Thanks, kid. I'll frame it.

The funny thing is, we think we're going to miss the noise. And we do. But what catches us completely off guard isn't the silence. It's realizing that somewhere along the way, we didn't just raise children, we quietly built our identity around being needed. Our calendars revolved around everyone else's lives. Our routines, our priorities, and even our conversations became about the people we loved most. Then one day they grow up, and nobody hands you the instruction manual for what comes next.

We spend years learning how to become mothers, but almost no time learning how to become women after the job changes. And before anyone tells you to "get back to who you were before kids," I'd like to respectfully throw that advice straight into the trash. Twenty years ago, many of us were barely adults ourselves. We hadn't lived enough life to know who we were. We hadn't experienced the heartbreaks, the victories, the failures, the resilience, or the wisdom that now lives quietly inside us. She's not waiting for you. And honestly, that's a good thing.

This isn't a journey backward. It's the beginning of an entirely new adventure. Maybe this season isn't asking us to rediscover the woman we used to be. Maybe it's inviting us to meet the woman we're becoming. The one who's a little wiser, a little braver, a little less interested in keeping everyone else happy, and a whole lot more curious about what she wants from the years ahead. That feels less like an ending to me and more like the beginning of the most interesting chapter yet.

You spent years helping someone else become who they were meant to be.
Now it's your turn.

Stacey

07/21/2026

There comes a day when the bedrooms stay clean.

The laundry pile gets smaller. The fridge actually keeps food in it for more than twenty-four hours. You finally have the quiet you've dreamed about for years.
And then it hits you.

You didn't just spend twenty years raising children. You spent twenty years building your identity around being needed.

An empty nest isn't only about missing your kids. Sometimes it's about wondering who you are now that your days aren't organized around everyone else's needs.
Maybe this chapter isn't about losing your purpose.

Maybe it's about finally meeting yourself again.

💛 If you're wondering who you are beyond caring for everyone else, I'd love to help you rediscover her. One-on-one counselling sessions are available virtually. Book through the link in my bio.

07/18/2026

Money Stress Has a Nervous System

Financial stress isn't just about dollars.

It's lying awake at three in the morning running numbers in your head. It's standing in the grocery store wondering what can quietly go back on the shelf. It's feeling guilty for buying yourself something while happily spending money on everyone else.

The hardest part is that nobody can see it. You still show up. You still smile. You still make dinner, answer emails, drive kids to practice, and somehow keep the wheels turning.

But your nervous system knows.

Stress has a way of settling into our bodies. It steals our sleep, shortens our patience, and leaves us wondering why we feel so exhausted all the time. If money has been weighing on you lately, please know this isn't a personal failure. Life has become expensive, and many incredibly capable people are quietly carrying the same burden.

💛 If you're feeling exhausted by the weight of it all, let's talk. One-on-one counselling sessions are available virtually. You don't have to carry this alone. Book through the link in my bio.

07/17/2026

Letters from Lola #002

Dearest Lola Reader,

I remember the first weekend without my kids after my divorce more vividly than I remember signing the divorce papers.

Up until that point, I had been surviving. There were lawyers to meet with, decisions to make, paperwork to sign, and a thousand practical things demanding my attention. Through all of it, I was still a mom. I was making lunches, searching for missing shoes, reminding someone to brush their teeth, reading bedtime stories, and answering one last request for a drink of water before finally collapsing into bed myself.

Then they left for the weekend.

I wandered through the house, not because I had anything I needed to do, but because I didn't know what else to do. The silence felt unfamiliar. Every room still looked like ours. Their backpacks were by the door. Their artwork still covered the fridge. Beds were unmade. Toys had been abandoned mid-play. It looked like life would carry on exactly as it always had.

Except it wouldn't.

That was the moment everything became real.

It wasn't only that my marriage had ended. It was the realization that the life I had imagined, the life I had spent years building, no longer existed. The ordinary rhythm of our family had changed forever, and no amount of wishing was going to stitch it back together.

That first night, I lay awake wondering if their dad remembered to turn on the lullaby they always fell asleep to. I wondered who got them a drink if they woke up thirsty. I wondered if they missed me. Every instinct in me had been wired to be there. Suddenly, I wasn't.

No one prepares you for that part.

People talk about grieving the relationship, but very few talk about grieving the everyday life that disappears alongside it. The Tuesday evenings. The bedtime routines. The voices drifting down the hallway. The little interruptions that once felt exhausting somehow become the very things your heart aches for.

Over time, the quiet changed. It stopped feeling like something I had to survive and slowly became something I could breathe inside of. I found pieces of myself I hadn't seen in years, and I began building a life that looked different than the one I had planned.

If today the silence feels impossibly heavy, don't mistake that for weakness.
Sometimes the deepest grief isn't for the life that was.

It's for the life you imagined would be.

And there is nothing foolish about mourning a future that mattered to you.

Stacey

07/14/2026

Nobody really prepares you for summer after divorce.

The schedule becomes a spreadsheet. Long weekends get negotiated. Holidays are divided into pickup times and calendar invites. One week your house is bursting with noise, and the next it's so quiet you find yourself missing the sound of wet towels on the bathroom floor.

People often say, "At least you get a break."

Maybe.

But you also miss half the moments you imagined you'd have when you pictured raising your children.

Divorce isn't only grieving the relationship. Sometimes it's grieving the future you thought you were building together. That's a loss very few people acknowledge, and yet it deserves to be mourned.

💛 Divorce changes far more than your relationship status. If you're trying to find your footing in this next chapter, you don't have to navigate it alone. I'd be honoured to support you in a one-on-one counselling session. You can book through the link in my bio.

Lola Wellness & Mental Health

07/31/2026

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