Eleanor's Letter: Play Queenager Bingo with me!

10 November 2024

Dear Queenagers,

Greetings from a rammed Ryanair flight to Dublin! I’m in Ireland this weekend speaking about my book Much More to Come with Barbara Scully at the Leaves Literary Festival.

I love taking our Queenager message out on the road to new audiences and was particularly inspired last week at a Keynote Speech I did for a huge corporate by how inspiring the younger women found the NOON message that women have no sell-by date; that in fact younger women should look forward to being 50, as that’s when it all gets good. Midlife isn’t something to dread but when we come into our prime as Queenagers!

• Read past Letters from Eleanor
• Why we’re only in the foothills of the gender revolution
• Women supporting women is a powerful thing

The women I spoke with said that what with the depressing anti-ageing beauty and social media drumbeat – plus all the doom-mongering about menopause – they exist in a state of age-dread. I was so pleased to have made them feel way more optimistic … empowered and inspired for what is to come. That’s one of the key points of the NOON mission. We want to extend the runway for ALL women.

Our inaugural London Circle at AllBright

From my speech – all coiffed and in my best speaking kit – I went on to Chair our first London NOON Circle at the very swanky AllBright Club in Mayfair, which is going to be our new London home.

It was such fun to be able to have 35 of us in comfort at their beautiful penthouse. (And it definitely feels more grown-up since I don’t have to lug all the snacks and wine back from Berwick Street Co-op with my mum’s pull-along shopping trolley.)

We began our London Circle with a bit of Queenager Bingo – our game that shows the extent to which we are all in the midst of the Midlife Maelstrom. It’s a bit different from the version played down the bingo hall – but it demonstrates in a fun way how we are all experiencing much the same thing.

Play Queenager Bingo yourself

You can try it now.

Put your left hand in the air. For every one of the big life events on the list below which has happened to you, bend down 1 finger. (Do it with a group of friends!) First one to a clenched fist (ie. no fingers up anymore) wins.

• Divorce
• Bereavement
• Redundancy
• Caring for elderly parents
• Looking after a young person with a mental health problem (eg: anxiety, self harm, eating disorder etc)
• Your own health issues
• Financial disaster
• Abuse of some kind

Have you got the full list? SO many of us have. In fact, we find in our big NOON research that over HALF of women have been through at least 5 of these by the time they hit 50. They tend to often hit all together in what I call a Midlife Collision (or Midlife Cluster F***).

The good news behind the bingo

We also found that the MORE a Queenager has been through in term of these crises, the happier she was likely to be later on. As one of the women said: “I’ve been through so much, shed so much, with a lot of pain – but now I have my life set up just the way I like it.”

The creation of this resonant life – one which feeds all of our being – is what the NOON Circles and project is all about. If you want to know more, do read my book Much More to Come which is all about this (check out the free excerpt on our site). It features loads of inspiring tales about what this can look like. (We’re also going to be running a course on this in the New Year, so stay tuned!)

The truth is that creating this resonant life will look different for all of us.

For me it has been about a shift out of feeling compelled to achieve for achievement’s sake (very much the default operating system of my birth family…) and shifting into a more purposeful, nature-filled life where I have more control and feel more in touch both with my authentic self and my true values. I spent a lot of my time as a journalist feeling like a square peg in a round hole. Now I control my voice, my time and my decisions – which is a revelation.

Do you have ‘purpose-anxiety’?

At the London Circle last week there was also some chat about “purpose-anxiety” – the idea that this next phase in our lives HAS to be purpose driven.

‘What if I don’t have or want a purpose?” asked one Queenager plaintively. That is completely fine!

Someone else told me, “I’m so exhausted … and now I have a come up with some huge purpose?” The answer is no.

The whole point about this midlife pivot is that we own it – we tune into what works for us and we find our own shape. This isn’t about creating a plethora of new shoulds. There is no SHOULD about this.

The point of being a Queenager is that it’s finally your turn to suit yourself. Do what you like and want. After years of putting everyone else’s needs first, this is ‘finally when it gets to be my turn” as one of you said so eloquently last week (and which our research shows over half of you agree with).

This past week I heard from ‘the good girls’

The big learning for me from last week’s Circle came from a question I asked on a hunch. Rather than doing one massive Circle, we broke into smaller groups of four so everyone got a proper chance to be heard – and it gave me the invaluable opportunity to listen in at different points of these insightful conversations.

I kept hearing how so many of you had spent 50 years “being the good girl, the responsible one who looked after everyone else.” So many of you said that you had spent your lives jumping through the hoops set up by the culture and the expectations of our families. 

So – as an eldest child and daughter myself – I asked the room who else was an eldest child… the first-born tends to take up the biggest burden of those parental expectations.

And the answer? About 80% of the Queenagers in the room were either the eldest or only children. For me, that was a lightbulb moment!

What are you shedding … and calling in?

We talked about what we are shedding… it being the season of letting go (just look at the trees). We are shedding our fear, our possessions (lots of chat about downsizing, or right-sizing our lives).

But most of all, it’s a great time of “shedding everyone else’s expectations” as one of you put it. Particularly about what constitutes success. “They have been so loud my whole life. What I am really shedding is my expectation of myself to please everyone else. I am finally putting in some self-protective boundaries.”

That led us into the next phase of the evening: What we are calling in. Because in the space that a clearing out leaves there is space for something new to grow. 

One Queenager talked about her “terror-citement” (a combination of terror and excitement) at the publication of her book. (I can relate to that, when mine came out I felt I was going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. It was the culmination of a childhood dream and simultaneously felt so terrifying!)

What I’ve learnt through my own midlife collision and talking to so many of you about this phase during over two years of NOON Circles is that change is difficult and scary. But that the fear is part of moving into that unknown and possibly better future. One way to deal with it is by slowing down and really sitting with and embracing the uncertainty that a big shift involves. Really letting it in and feeling the anxiety helps us to cope with the the fear which inevitably accompanies changing or shedding big parts of our lives and identities.

Sometimes we can really surprise ourselves.

My moment today of surprising myself

This morning for instance I got to Stansted and for the first time in my life sought out the multi-faith prayer room. Why? Because I usually meditate for half an hour every morning and because I had an early flight, I’d missed it.

I felt like a bit of a nit, but the prayer room was deserted, clean, quiet – an oasis of peace in the chaotic airport. I sat on a prayer mat and was still and connected with myself and something larger. Yup, there was a tiny voice of my old cynical hack self going “what the actual fxxk?” But I emerged feeling calm and clear headed. Much more relaxed than if I’d been shopping or scoffing croissants!

So we really can become a new version of ourselves which doesn’t just DO something different (in terms of a job or where or how we live) but who engages with the whole process of what it means to be alive … differently. 

And that really can be rather wonderful.

For a moment as I wrote that I was flooded with intense bright, white sunshine – and now I am descending fast into the murky, foggy, brown/green land of Ireland. 

Wherever you are I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend – and do come and join us soon either at one of our Circles or our Christmas Party or one of our new NOON Walks. Check out:

• Cornwall Walk, Sat 23 Nov – FREE
• Cardiff Walk, Sun 24 Nov – FREE
• Brighton & Hove Walk, Sat 30 Nov – FREE

And see you Wednesday at NOON Book Club to discuss the fascinating mother/daughter memoir In the Blood about alcoholism and how it runs in families.

Much love and see you soon!

– Eleanor 

The NOON Christmas Shop is here

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