Writing My First Book at 61: How Women Over 50 Can Reclaim Their Power

At 62, I'm publishing my first book challenging society's narrative about women after 50. "Empress Rising" rejects the notion that we should fade into invisibility and instead embraces our power as women who rule our own lives with wisdom earned through experience.

• Written because women over 50 are often told to slow down, step aside, and become invisible
• Inspired by seeing brilliance, wisdom, and power in women in their 50s-80s
• Developed the "Empress" concept as an alternative to the limiting "crone" archetype
• The Empress rules in her own right, sits on her throne because she's earned it
• Share vulnerable personal stories including breast cancer, toxic relationships, and becoming a yoga teacher at 55
• Every woman has stories of courage, resilience, and reinvention that deserve celebration
• Writing this book at 61 because I finally have the clarity and courage to speak my truth
• Message that women are not "old" or "too late" regardless of age
• Your empress years aren't coming—they're here now

"An Empress is a woman who rules in her own right. She sits on her throne not because someone gave her permission, but because she's earned her place there through every triumph and challenge she's faced."

Rose's book "Empress Rising: Own Your Energy, Trust Your Wisdom, and Rewrite the Rules of Aging" launches October 16th

Join the waitlist for "Empress Rising" on my website at rosewippich.com. Let's straighten our crowns and step into our power together.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Chat Off the Mat
• 0:36 Announcing My First Book
• 1:23 Challenging Society's Aging Narrative
• 3:23 The Birth of the Empress Concept
• 6:20 Personal Stories of Transformation
• 10:13 Your Empress Years Are Here
• 13:29 Episode Closing and Call to Action

Transcript

Rose: 0:01

Ready to unlock your most vibrant, authentic self? Welcome to Chat Off The Mat, where holistic wellness meets practical wisdom and extraordinary transformation. I'm your host, Rose Wippage. I'm a Qigong instructor, yoga teacher and a Reiki master, so get ready for inspiring conversations with wellness experts who understand your unique journey, plus practical tools for energy healing, life transitions and conscious and soulful living. Your journey to radiant wellness starts now. Let's create magic together. Hello and welcome to Chat Off The Mat. I am your host, rose Whippich, and today's episode is a little different. Instead of our usual format where I interview someone else, I want to share something deeply personal with you. In just a few weeks, on October 16th, I'm launching my very first book. It is called Empress Rising, own your Energy, trust your Wisdom and Rewrite the Rules of Aging.

Rose: 1:11

62 years old, I'm doing something I always wanted to do. Never thought maybe I would do it in this lifetime, but it was always a thought, it was always a dream of mine, and today I want to tell you why and why I'm excited about it. You know people keep asking me, rose, why now? Why are you writing a book at this stage? Or how can you do this? Like, wow, you're writing a book and I have to kind of chuckle at the question, because in and of itself it reveals exactly why this book needed to be written. Why now? Because this is exactly when I have something important to say.

Rose: 1:54

Well, for too long we've been told stories about what happens to women after 50. We're supposed to slow down, step aside, become invisible. We're supposed to accept being called hags, crones, old, old lady and just accept it. We're supposed to fade into the background of our own lives. At least that's what we think sometimes. But here's what I discovered. None of that is true. My awakening to this didn't happen overnight. It's been a gradual realization, building over, let's say, the past decade.

Rose: 2:30

I remember walking into a room and I suddenly felt overlooked, and maybe part of it was my own thinking right, not being accepted, looked at, acknowledged, and it's all good. Because who am I? Right, and I was probably like my mid-50s, perhaps, or even earlier than that. But I noticed something different. Younger eyes looked past at me. Their attention went to voices that sounded well, like mine used to sound right. I felt like the old person in the room and at first I internalized it. Maybe I wasn't as sharp as I used to be, maybe I felt I didn't have much to say, that was important. Maybe I didn't have much to offer, maybe this was just a natural order of things, but then something shifted.

Rose: 3:24

I started paying attention to the women around me, women in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. I saw brilliance, wisdom, power, creativity. I saw women who had survived cancer just like myself, raised families, built businesses, overcome trauma, develop spiritual practices that could heal the world. I saw women with so much to give, so much wisdom to share, and I realized the problem wasn't with us. The problem was with the narrative. You see, I come from a family where my mother died at 49 from breast cancer. When I was diagnosed with the same disease at almost the same age, I made a decision I wasn't going to accept any limitations on what my life could be. I wasn't going to live. Small could be. I wasn't going to live small because some voice, whether internal or external, told me my time was up, I'm done, I'm too old.

Rose: 4:38

So the concept of the empress started to form in my mind. Actually, it really fully crystallized one morning last year, last June, when everything clicked into place. I had been reading more about the crone and the triple goddess archetype, you know, the maiden, mother, crone, and I was studying this traditional framework that's supposed to honor the stages of a woman's life, and it's a beautiful concept, right. So you have the maiden in her younger years, starting her cycle, and she's just filled with this beautiful energy, this expansion of energy, and then she becomes the mother and things change, right. So she's more nurturing, more thinking about others. Her cycle is still going, but at some point it starts to change and then the crone archetype sets in this transition of being the wise, elder person, which is still true. But the images that were depicted, the visuals, were of this old, hunched over, toothless woman, and that was the image that I didn't want to associate with. I didn't want women in these years, in these emperor's years, associated. So I realized that crone wasn't a term. I wanted to be called nor hag nor old. These words just didn't capture how I felt inside or how I saw myself and other women in their wisdom years.

Rose: 6:10

One morning, when the veil between the worlds is thin, subconscious to conscious, I start to really sometimes come up with some ideas and concepts. Sometimes come up with some ideas and concepts. Well, this one particular morning I started getting ideas, downloads of content of words, of script around this Empress energy that's what it was originally called embodying the empress energy and I got up, grabbed my notebook a notebook, I have many and I just started to write and I started to think, wow, this is something. What if we change the image? What if, instead of crones, we saw ourselves as empresses, change the language around? And as I was writing all these things, it was almost as if I couldn't really keep up and I wrote them longhand, right? No typewriter. The energy is different when I write and everything just flows. So I really was in the moment, right. So after I wrote all this, I paused and I was thinking about paused and I was thinking about the concept, the words, the energy around what I was writing and I thought, wow, an empress. I want to be called an empress Because an empress is a woman who rules in her own right.

Rose: 7:37

She's regal, wise and powerful. She's gathered abundance through her life experiences, and we all have experiences. An empress sits on her throne not because anyone gives her or someone gives her permission, but because she's earned her place there through every triumph and challenge she's faced. So the empress in the tarot sits surrounded by abundance, radiating this confidence that comes from a fully lived life. She's not withering, she's in full bloom. I feel I'm in full bloom, as are all the empresses out there, and she's not invisible. She's actually impossible to ignore, and it's not because she's demanding attention, but because she's radiating authentic power. She knows her worth, her value. This is who we really are.

Rose: 8:35

Writing this book has been one of the most vulnerable things I've ever done, so I share stories I've never told publicly before. So I share stories I've never told publicly before. I've mentioned my breast cancer journey, but more about the toxic relationship that literally made my body hurt until I found the courage to leave, and also the spiritual awakening that began in a little tiny bookstore in Sedona when I was broken because of this relationship and searching for hope. I talk about becoming a yoga teacher at the age of 55, despite the voice in my head that said I was too old to start teaching. Well, not really. I really wanted to teach. I was hesitant, of course, because it was out of my comfort zone, but I was excited. I did not let my age stop me. I share the vision I had during my first Reiki session in my book, where my deceased mother showed me that one day I would have twins, a vision that came true years later, when my boys were born.

Rose: 9:32

These aren't just personal stories. They're examples of what becomes possible when we refuse to accept society's limitations on what our lives can be. Every woman I know has stories like this. I've heard them. Moments when they choose courage over comfort, times when they reinvented themselves over and over again, experiences that proved they were far more resilient and powerful than they ever ever imagined. But we don't share these stories enough. We keep them to ourselves, and that's sad, because these stories are powerful and we should celebrate them. We need to use them as evidence of our magnificence. Sharing our stories can inspire others, other empresses on the rise.

Rose: 10:21

So why did I start writing this book at the age of 61? Well, because this is when I finally had the clarity to see the bigger picture. This is when I have the courage to speak truths that might make some people uncomfortable. This is when I have the wisdom to know that my voice matters, regardless of whether everyone agrees with me. When I was younger, and maybe not so long ago, I was still trying to figure out who I was supposed to be, what my path was, who I was supposed to inspire, what I was supposed to do and seeking external validation. I was apologizing for taking up space, but now, now I know who I am. I've done the work and I'm still doing the work, but I know what I believe. I know that my years of experience have given me insights that can help other women step into their own power, and I'm writing this book because I want other women to feel empowered, to know that they can live their life the way they want to, to step into their personal sovereignty and reclaim their kingdom.

Rose: 11:26

Refuse to be invisible. I refuse to accept that my vibrant years, my most vibrant years, are behind me. I refuse to believe that wisdom comes with a requirement to diminish ourselves Heck, no. I refuse to believe that wisdom comes with a requirement to diminish ourselves Heck. No. My vibrant years, they're still here, and I'm writing this book because I know I'm not alone. I know there are women listening to this right now and people I've talked to, people I've worked with, who feel the same stirring inside them. Women who know they have more to give, more to create and, more definitely, more to experience. Women who are ready to claim their thrones and ready to wear the crown.

Rose: 12:11

Empress Rising launches on October 16th, and I'll be sharing more about this journey in upcoming episodes, but today I want to leave you with this you are not old, you are not too late, you are not made to fade into the background of your own life. You have earned your place on your throne. You have wisdom that could only come from a life fully lived. You have power that deepens with age rather than diminishes, whether you're 45 and worried about what comes next, 55 and feeling overlooked, 65 and being told you should slow down, or even older, this message is for you. This book is for you. Your empress years aren't coming. They're here. The only question is are you ready to claim your throne? Well, that's all for today's episode of Chat Off the Mat. Thank you for listening. If you're interested in the book, there is a waitlist on my website. You can follow the links in the show notes at rosewhippishcom.

Rose: 13:14

I would really love for you to join the royal court and be a part of this community of rising empresses. So let's straighten our crown and step into our power. Have a beautiful day. Thank you for joining me on Chat Off the Mat. If you're ready to transform your energy and step into your fullest potential, I'd love to work with you. As an energy alchemist, I help women release blocked energy and reclaim their vibrant essence. Visit rosewipichcom to explore, working together and discover free resources for your journey. Love today's episode. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave a rating and share your biggest takeaway with me on Instagram at Rose Whippich. Remember wellness warriors your energy is precious. Nurture it wisely.