The following podcast is a dear media production.

This is Well, a podcast about wellness in all its forms.

I'm Ariel Laurie, and each week I'm sharing unfiltered conversations with people shaping how we feel, live, and look.

Come for the substance, stay for the honesty, and leave with the tools to be well, inside and out.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. Excited to do a solo episode today, right before a major milestone

in my life, which a lot of people have been asking about. And that is, I'm turning 40.

So when this episode comes out, I think we're about five days out from my actual 40th birthday.

However, I feel like I've been talking about it for so long that I actually feel like I've

been 40 for, I don't know, at least like all of this year. So I feel like I've

really accepted it. But I did get a lot of people who asked me how I feel about turning 40.

And I've touched on this a little bit in some TikTok videos that I made and maybe even on

Instagram. And I think I've referenced it in

past episodes as well. But I have to say, I feel zero anxiety about turning 40 versus when I was

going from 29 to 30. I was in a full-blown existential crisis. Tessa, how old are you? I'm 31. You're 31. Okay, so did you

have that when you went from like late 20s to 30? Yeah, like 25, I feel, to 30. Okay, yeah. Everyone,

this is Tessa. She's my producer. Ashley had a baby. Yeah, I feel like something about going from

20s to 30s, at least in my experience, is a lot more overwhelming and anxiety provoking than going from 30s to 40s. For a number of reasons, the main thing I think is that I feel very established in my life, whereas like when I was going 29 to 30, I had been sober for one year. A lot of you guys know my story. I was living in sober living. I had been in like a rehab environment for a year. I had nothing. I had no car. I had no job. I had no money. I was still trying to pay all of my debts back. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't know where

I was going. You know, I felt kind of directionless except for in my recovery. I knew that I was

doing the right thing there. And everyone kept telling me that if I just do the next right thing,

like everything will fall into place. But I felt like I had to have everything figured out.

And I think that that is kind of the common thread going

from 20s to 30s. You feel like you suddenly need to have your life together and know everything

...