Starting Over in Your 40s: The Life You Didn’t Plan | For Mannerless Women

Season 6 of For Mannerless Women is here and we're beginning with the brilliant Kaz Lucas.

What happens when the life you're living no longer looks like the life women are told we're supposed to want? In this episode, Adelle sits down with Kaz for a deeply honest conversation about divorce in your 40s, grief, loneliness, being childfree, queer womanhood, friendship, community and the courage it takes to build a life outside society's expectations.

Kaz opens up about navigating separation and the grief of losing not only a relationship, but the future she thought she would have. She shares why being lonely on her own feels different from being lonely inside a relationship, how she's learning to sit with difficult emotions instead of numbing them, and what it means to come home to yourself even when that journey can feel lonely.

They also reflect on losing their mothers, carrying grief through different chapters of adulthood, finding connection with their ancestors, and learning to recognise beauty and magic even while life is difficult. Kaz shares the story behind reopening her pole and movement studio and why she's intentionally creating a shame-free, judgement-free space where women, queer people, Kenyans and Africans can move their bodies, find community and simply be.

The conversation also explores the relationships we're taught to prioritise. What happens when we stop placing romantic relationships at the centre of our lives? What could our friendships become if we poured the same intentionality into them? And how do we create community when the structures around us were largely designed for people who followed the conventional path?

Kaz's Mannerless Message: "The hardest thing you're ever going to have to do is learn to forgive yourself. Your biggest relationship with any human being is going to be the relationship that you have with yourself.”

In this episode:

Grief and losing a motherStarting over in your 40sDivorce, separation and the grief of an imagined futureChoosing yourself after a relationship endsBeing childfree in your 40sLoneliness outside conventional womanhood *Queer identity, shame and belongingBuilding intentional female friendshipsLearning to sit with difficult emotionsPole dancing, body connection and shameBuilding community outside traditional structuresCreating safe spaces for African women and queer peopleForgiving yourself and coming home to who you are

CONNECT WITH KAZ LUCAS:

Website: https://www.kazentertainment.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kazkarenlucas

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kazkarenlucas