We spend our twenties and thirties collecting achievements, and then one day we look up and ask: is this all there is? In this episode, I sit down with NPR health correspondent Allison Aubrey — author of Your Turn: How to Create a Midlife You Love — to talk about what it actually takes to answer that question. We get into the parts of ourselves we've left behind, the dreams we've stopped letting ourselves have, and the concrete, science-backed practices that can help you build a life with more room in it.

After a client checked in on her wellbeing following a newsletter that said she felt overwhelmed, Diana reflects on how modern life collapses the space we need to know what fuels us versus drains us. She shares creating space through an “energy audit,” moving commitments, stepping back from Instagram, and hiring help, alongside preparing for an emotionally significant talk at her son’s prestigious prep school where her eating disorder and perfectionism began. In her Sangha/Dharma talk, she reframes “space between stimulus and response” into space within, between, and around us, emphasizing psychological distancing—relating to thoughts and feelings rather than being inside them. Drawing from time in the ER with a close friend recovering from extensive cancer surgery, she explores interbehavioral fields, brain “syncing” research, and the idea that what holds everything is consciousness.