For Women Navigating A Season Of Life Nobody Prepared Them For
Something about your life no longer fits the way it once did.
The restlessness. The disconnection. The feeling that something is changing, even if you cannot fully explain it yet. Many women experience this season of life. Very few are ever given language for it, support through it, or permission to take it seriously.
The kids may be older or gone. The marriage may still exist, but it feels different. The career that once mattered deeply may suddenly feel strangely hollow. The house gets quieter. The calendar gets lighter. The people who once needed you constantly… don't.
And somewhere inside all of that space is a feeling many women quietly carry for years:
"I don't know who I am."
“I don’t know what I want.”
It shows up in the small moments...
- Walking through Target, buying groceries for fewer people, realizing you don't even know what you like to eat anymore.
- Scrolling late at night, watching other women travel, create, laugh, reinvent themselves…or simply look alive.
- Sitting in the driveway for ten extra minutes because going inside the house feels heavy, and you cannot explain why.
- The feeling of something you can't quite name. It’s not just the hormone changes, although those are real, it’s deeper.
... or looking around at the life you worked so hard to build and realizing that you have spent years functioning, producing, helping, managing, caregiving, accommodating, and holding everything together while slowly losing touch with yourself.
Maybe you tell yourself you're just tired, or it's “a season”. You tell yourself you should be grateful, and you are, which somehow makes the hollow feeling worse.
Very little for the moment when a woman realizes she has spent decades asking what everyone else needs from her without ever asking what she wants for the rest of her life.
Modern culture has endless language for achievement, productivity, parenting, wellness, and reinvention.
"I’m scared this is the beginning of becoming irrelevant."
And yet privately: She doesn't recognize herself in the mirror the way she used to.
The woman looking back has been so busy being everything to everyone else that she genuinely doesn't know what she would choose if nobody else's expectations were involved.
She feels guilty for wanting more. She tells herself she should be past this by now. She wonders if something is wrong with her for feeling this restless inside a life that, by most measures, is good.
Nothing is wrong with her. But something has to change.
This is not a personal failing. It is a cultural gap. And it has a cost.
"Functioning is not the same as living."
What those scripts never covered was what happens when those roles change. Or end. Or when a woman wakes up one morning and realizes she has been performing them for so long that she doesn't know where the roles end, and she begins.
Every culture that truly honored women understood this transition. They gave it a name. They built a ritual around it. They sent women into the wilderness (literally or metaphorically) and welcomed something different back.
- In Celtic traditions, women often celebrated the transition into the Crone phase of life believing that a woman's power actually increased with age.
- In Japan, families traditionally celebrate Kanreki, marking the completion of a major life cycle and the beginning of another.
- Many Indigenous cultures recognized elderhood as a distinct and meaningful stage of life.
As well as the recognition, the acknowledgment, and the understanding that transitions matter.
What we have instead is the quiet expectation that you'll grieve privately, adjust quickly, keep functioning for everyone else, and figure it out on your own. Most women do exactly that. They adjust. They manage. They keep going. They get very good at the performance of being fine.
You reconnect with desires you buried so long ago you forgot they were yours. You build friendships — real ones — with women who understand exactly where you are without explanation or performance. You walk into the next chapter of your life with intention instead of inertia.
This kind of transformation doesn't happen by accident. It doesn't happen from a weekend away. It doesn't come from a good book or a gratitude journal or another podcast about mindset.
It happens when you are given a structured, supported, intentional process — and decide you are worth taking it.
introducing
A Modern Rite of Passage for Women in Midlife.
intermission
It is a real process. Intimate, honest, structured, and personal. Built for women who are ready to stop managing their lives and start authoring them.
Jennifer is an ICF-certified life coach, Enneagram practitioner, and former theatre professional who spent years on stage before realizing that the most important story a woman can step into is her own.
She built Intermission at 50 — not because it was a logical next business move, but because she understood from the inside what it feels like to arrive at a season where the old script runs out and nobody hands you a new one.
She understood that women are more powerful and more capable of co-authoring their lives than most of them have ever been told. And she was deeply convinced that they shouldn't have to navigate this alone, in silence, while continuing to function beautifully for everyone else.
What Jennifer brings to this work is rare: the emotional precision of the Enneagram, the structure of professional coaching, and the story intelligence of someone who spent years in theatre understanding exactly how characters transform.
The result is a process that feels less like a program and more like finally being seen by someone who isn't going to let you stand for anything less than a standing ovation.
hear from jennifer
What actually changes
- Restless but unable to name why. Something feels off and nothing is obviously wrong.
- Performing all the proper duties while feeling like an emotional bystander.
- Guilty for wanting more — and exhausted by pretending you don't.
- Carrying grief, quiet resentment, and questions you keep pushing to later.
- Lonely inside relationships. Invisible in a life that looks full.
- Waiting — for permission, for the right time, for someone to finally ask.
...before Intermission
... after Intermission
- Clear on who you are in this season.
- Grounded in a purpose that belongs to you, not borrowed from a role.
- Confident in naming what matters and what you're no longer available for.
- Living inside your story as the main character again.
- Connected to women who genuinely understand this chapter of life.
- Done abandoning yourself to maintain the version of life everyone else expects.
THE EXPERIENCE
Enrollment is intentionally limited. Jennifer knows your name, your story, and what you came here to work on. This is not a program you consume. It is a process you live.
A retreat designed to create enough separation from everyday life for you to exhale, reflect honestly, and reconnect with the parts of yourself buried beneath years of responsibility and constant motion.
September 17–20, 2026
3-Night Immersive Retreat
Three days in northern Indiana's lake region that Jennifer chose specifically for its beauty and stillness. Sessions go deep. The schedule also has white space: mornings by the water, evenings by the fire, the kind of unhurried time you haven't allowed yourself in years.
- Nourishing meals
- Guided yoga
- Breathwork
- Boating. Hiking. Horses.
- Eleven other women who are also experiencing their own rites of passage.
One-on-one, personalized support to help you untangle what you truly want from what has simply been expected of you. These sessions go where the group leaves off… into the specific architecture of your life, your Enneagram patterns, your relationships, and the changes you're ready to make and the ones you're still afraid of.
10 Private Coaching Sessions with Jennifer
Intimate monthly conversation with your cohort over six months. The connection formed inside Intermission is often what women describe as the most unexpected and lasting gift of the entire experience. A space to speak openly, feel understood, and realize how many women have been carrying the same things alone.
6 Virtual Cohort Labs
Guided exercises, prompts, and practices throughout the six months are designed to reconnect you with your own voice so the insights from Intermission begin shaping your real life, relationships, and decisions. Not theory. Practice. You will also receive a personal workbook to facilitate our work and give you a centralized place for your new insights.
REFLECTION & INTEGRATION PRACTICES
A real connection with women navigating the same questions — without fixing, advising, comparing, or performing. The rare relief of being known by people who understand exactly where you are.
friendship
Space to explore your relationship with God, whatever your faith background, whether you're reconstructing, deepening, or simply listening again after years of not having time to. This is not theology. It is an invitation to stop pretending you have it figured out.
FAITH
is not "what should I do next", but who you are becoming, and why. You'll leave with a personal purpose statement that holds across seasons and guides decisions when the answers aren't obvious.
Purpose
Who are you beneath the roles, expectations, and versions of yourself you've outgrown? The Enneagram is a compassionate, precise guide for recovering the parts of yourself you've quietly set aside and understanding the unconscious patterns shaping your choices.
IDENTITY
THE FRAMEWORK
Chapter 7: Act 2 Manifesto
Create a bold vision and personal manifesto declaring how you'll intentionally live the rest of your story.
Chapter 1: From Audience to Author
Stop watching your life unfold and begin intentionally co-authoring your next chapter with God.
Chapter 2: Main Character
Meet the real you through the Enneagram and discover the motivations and patterns shaping your life.
Chapter 3: Applauding Act One
Honor your story with gratitude, releasing what no longer serves you while carrying forward what matters most.
Chapter 4: The Power of Purpose
Craft a personal purpose statement that becomes a trusted compass for every decision ahead.
Chapter 5: The writer's room
Choose the voices that shape your future—and release the ones that no longer deserve influence
Chapter 6: plot twists
Gain the skills to respond with confidence when life doesn't follow the story you expected.
what to expect
Three days in a place designed to make honesty feel safe.
september 17-20 2026
- Dates: September 17–20, 2026
- Location: Northern Indiana Lake Region
- Included: All lodging, meals, retreat sessions, guided yoga, breathwork, and evening connection time.
- Cohort size: 12 women maximum
- What follows: 10 private coaching sessions + 6 virtual cohort labs (Sept-Feb)
INVESTMENT
AFTER AUGUST 15
STANDARD ENROLLMENT
Intermission is a high-touch, small-cohort experience. The investment reflects six months of Jennifer's direct attention, the intimacy of a 12-person cohort, and a retreat experience built without compromise.
$4,997
ENROLL BY JULY 15
BEST PRICE
$5,500
ENROLL BY august 15
EARLY ENROLLMENT
Because enrollment is limited and each cohort is a carefully considered community — not just a list of buyers — Intermission begins with a short application. Jennifer reads every one personally and reaches out to schedule a real conversation. Not a sales call. A genuine conversation to make sure this is the right fit, for both of you.
Payment plans and scholarships available, Discuss with Jennifer.
5-minute application · No commitment required · Jennifer responds personally
$5,997
This experience is probably not right for you if...
The work requires honesty — about resentment, loneliness, exhaustion, desire, grief, and the reality that many women have spent years shape-shifting into whatever version of themselves kept everyone else comfortable.
If that's not where you are yet, that's okay. This will be here when you're ready.
- You're looking for a quick emotional "fix" before returning to the exact same patterns that disconnected you from yourself in the first place.
- You want someone to tell you exactly what decisions to make.
- You prefer staying emotionally busy over becoming emotionally honest.
- You feel more committed to being an audience member in your life rather than the star of your show.
- You want transformation while remaining unavailable to discomfort, truth, or change.
IS INTERMISSION FAITH-BASED?
What is the time commitment involved?
extreme exceptions may apply on a case-by-case basis.
what if i need to cancel or reschedule?
Do I need to know my Enneagram
number to participate?
How do I find out more without committing?
What is the investment for Intermission?
September 2026 · 12 spaces · Applications reviewed personally by Jennifer Stanley
Women were not meant to spend the second half of their lives quietly grieving themselves while continuing to function for everyone else.
The second half doesn't have to feel like a long disappearing act.
It can be the part where you finally stop performing and start living. The next act, where you become the person you set aside in all those years of being needed. Where you stop asking what everyone else requires and start answering (really answering) what you want the rest of your life to feel like.
That begins with five minutes and a short application.