On Fawning No Longer, the Village, & Refusing to Disappear After 40 with Becca Piastrelli

Becca and I spent last summer voice-memo-ing each other deep questions and raw answers in the weeks before we each turned 40, two days apart from each other. Somewhere in those exchanges I felt it — a collective quickening.Real women standing at the threshold, telling their stories. Worthy not because of what they’d accomplished or achieved or could put on a resume. Worthy simply by virtue of being here. That’s what became The 40 Portal Podcast.This episode is foundational. If you want to understand what the portal actually is — what liminality means, why this threshold matters, what’s on the other side — this is the episode to send your friends.In this episode, we talk about: → What the portal actually is — liminality, the birth canal, the hallway, the messy middle — and why 40 is not a day, it’s a journey → Fawning, conflict avoidance, and outsourcing your worthiness to what others think — and what it actually takes to stop → Learning to give less f*cks about being misunderstood, judged, or unliked — and how to practice that in real life → Decoupling “feeling younger” from “feeling vibrant” — there are other words than young → Smutty romantasy, Dipsea, All Fours, and so forth ;)→ The fear about disappearing as we get older and wisdom from The 40 Portal that BLOWS that fear wide open (you don’t want to miss this convo at the end!)TW: we mention death of an animal during birth and Epstein & pedophilia re: the beauty standards we’re done with.ABOUT BECCA: Becca Piastrelli is a land steward, storyteller, and gatherer of community living in the Hudson Valley. She dreams of a world where we eat slower, respond to emails slower, sleep on decisions, and create space for the full spectrum of emotions to be felt. She’s a mother and a daughter, a deep and present listener, and the host of the podcast Belonging: Conversations about rites of passage, meaningful community, and seasonal living.  Find her: @beccapiastrelli | beccapiastrelli.comTHE 40 PORTAL NOTEBOOK: The call-and-response you'll hear in this episode came from the handwritten notebook I passed around my 40th birthday party. Women wrote their questions, their fears, their wisdom — and sometimes they wrote back to each other without knowing it.You can add your voice to the Portal right now: the40portal.com/submit SHARE THIS EPISODE: If this conversation moved you, share it with another woman who needs to hear it. The more of us who refuse to disappear, the braver and more beautiful this world becomes.JOIN THE 40 PORTAL RETREAT: A gathering of women in the Hudson Valley, June 17-19. ALMOST SOLD OUT! CREDITS: Hosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Becca Piastrelli | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.