✨The Empress Questionnaire: Dear Heroine, Your Journey Awaits—Lisa-Marie Cabrelli, Ph.D on Crafting Your Epic Tale 👑
Discover how this multi-hyphenate novelist, creator, and retreat host inspires midlife women to turn their life stories into epic adventures!
✨ A vibrant space for midlife women, The Empress now reaches over two million readers through our networks of networks. ✨ From bestselling author Alisa Kennedy Jones. ✨ If you enjoy content about midlife, humor, and agency, I’d love to welcome you as part of our community. ✨ For only $50/year ($4.17 a month!) or $5/month, you’ll gain access to all my articles, Monday columns, book clubs, and virtual events.
Fellow Empresses, how’s the queendom holding up?
Ready for a new story? I am.
When I first encountered the radiant force that is Lisa-Marie Cabrelli, I had no idea what kind of delightful magic I was about to experience. Years back, as a starry-eyed 19-year-old in a history of consciousness class with the indomitable Gary Lease—a historian of religions and intrepid digger of Egypt and Syria—I was introduced to Joseph Campbell’s epic hero’s journey and Mircea Eliade’s enchanting notion of a self-evident reality. There I was, expecting to play a mere supporting role in a tale designed for heroes, when all I craved was a life filled with full-spectrum feeling, adventure, and a dash of Indiana Jones swagger.
Fast forward to midlife—a time when chronic illness, perimenopause, grand mal seizures, and a once-loud voice threatened to mute my spirit. I found myself desperate for a narrative where I wasn’t just a vessel for someone else’s journey but a heroine embarking on my own extraordinary expedition. Enter Lisa-Marie Cabrelli with her refreshingly subversive heroine’s journey—a framework that reclaims the story for women, offering a roadmap of 52 transformative shifts as well as a host of courses, and tools that chip away at the mundane and enable you to sculpt a life meant for the vibrant, empowered person you’re destined to be.
Every time I tune into Lisa-Marie’s wisdom, I’m reminded that our lives aren’t meant to be written in the margins. They’re epic tales of self-discovery, community, and reinvention—where leaving the ordinary behind isn’t just an option, it’s the point. So here’s to embracing an empress age of vitality, adventure, and re-engagement. With Lisa-Marie as our guide, we’re not just surviving midlife—we’re stepping boldly into our power and writing our own extraordinary story.
About Lisa-Marie…
Lisa-Marie Cabrelli is a novelist, creator, speaker and retreat host living her Extraordinary Life. Living between Scotland, Italy, The Bahamas and the US, she follows the sun with her table-dancing husband while penning romantic comedies and creating transformative courses for midlife women searching for a Heroine's Adventure. A digital nomad before it was cool (2006, eek!), Lisa-Marie traveled the world while she turned a $500 investment into a seven-figure eCommerce empire. She sold her business and "retired" at 45. After “retiring” she published 7 novels (traditional & indie), got a Master’s degree in crime writing and earned a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at 52.
About The Call for Heroines…
The Call for Heroines publication is an invitation to midlife women to connect story structure to life and author their own narratives. Free subscribers get snarky stories and weekly journal prompts to get you unstuck, quarterly quests (mini-adventures for a specific goal), as well as access to the prelude series (learn the what and the why of the Heroine’s Adventure).
Paid subscribers get monthly group coaching calls with Lisa-Marie, plus the 2025 series “52 Narrative Shifts to Reinvent Your Midlife.”
The Heroine's Adventure is a transformative life-planning course. The journey is designed to empower you to discover, plot, and create your extraordinary life by using the power of the secrets buried in story structure. Become the main character in the most epic story ever told – your own.
Where midlife women discover, plan, & achieve goals by connecting story structure to life.
Right now, Empress readers can take part in The Heroine’s Adventure Live taught by Lisa-Marie!
1. What is your idea of perfect midlife happiness?
I stopped aiming for “perfect” in midlife, and what a relief it was to let go of that nightmare trait of perfectionism. Instead, I aimed for extraordinary happiness, and I’ve found it. I know who I am. I don’t allow others to dictate my “shoulds” as I used to. And I find joy in the small everyday moments (like sitting my “wee hoos” in my backyard in Scotland writing for my heroines) and the big, game-changing adventures (like crossing the Drake Passage to land in Antarctica - yes, I did throw up). I believe midlife is about creation. It’s about letting go of who you were and allowing the (primarily crappy) experience of menopause to grant you rebirth. It’s about saying “yes” to all those things you’ve sidelined because of cultural expectations and responsibilities and “no” to anything that holds you back.
2. Which empress, queen, goddess, or mythical figure do you most identify with?
I have a client who started a tarot business, so I got many readings and often pulled “The Empress” card. I identify so much with her at this stage in my life. I want to be her (and not just because she has a kick-ass throne). She is the ultimate symbol of fertility and abundance—which, for me, represents the power and ability to encourage creation and abundance in others. The Heroine’s Adventure is a culmination of my life’s work in entrepreneurship, coaching, writing, academia, etc. I guide women to step onto their own “throne,” weaving their life experiences into a narrative that radiates abundance and self-assuredness. The Empress sitting in a field of grain represents her dominion over growing things. I grow heroines.
3. Which living midlife woman do you most admire? (And why?)
Oh gosh. There are so many living midlife women I admire. I admire my friend, Julie, who has been so brave this past year, facing up to the inevitable losses of midlife and the accompanying incapacitating grief. I admire so many of the heroines who have been through the adventure, like Nic, who quit her demoralizing job and is now kicking butt in her lifelong dream of becoming a singer/songwriter. I admire my sister, who has always known exactly the life she desired and never wavered in her commitment to herself. Of course, I admire the more visible women standing up and speaking their truth to power (Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris). I admire creatives like Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She’s only 39 years old (does that count as midlife?), but she is doing the work that reminds women that the stories we tell ourselves shape our reality and that by rewriting those stories, we reclaim our witchy powers. This is what my work and the Heroine’s Adventure is about.
4. What aspect of midlife or the peri/menopausal journey do you most deplore?
Nobody freaking talks about it!
It is thrilling that there seems to be a surge of mainstream interest and information about the menopausal journey. We need it. Women need to be unapologetic about sharing their experiences with everyone around them, including the men. We need more studies, more resources, more information, more words!
I also deplore hot flashes. Have you ever had a hot flash in The Bahamas? It feels like someone lit you on fire. I may risk the Drake Passage again and go back to Antarctica. I didn’t have any hot flashes there. I’ve started calling them my power surges, and that seems to help, but come on, universe, it’s been four years now. When do they stop?
5. What do you most treasure or value about this phase of life?
Clarity. I often say that by the time we reach midlife, we are our own wise woman. We’ve had so many experiences and collected enough data about ourselves - what works and what doesn’t, where our true passions lie, etc. One of the fun mini-workshops I do is using archetypes to guide the creation of your own inner heroine. The “you that is not you” that you can have ongoing discussions with to guide you in your next chapters. During this phase of life, we can make decisions with confidence. And even if we make bad choices, we understand there are always more choices to make. I treasure the fact that we recognize life is one big adventure, and we have the clarity to author it.
6. If you could share one key midlife lesson, hack, or nugget of wisdom, what would it be?
You are the main character in your story. In every good narrative, the heroine has to hear the call to adventure, endure challenges and change, and emerge transformed, carrying the elixirs. If you can see your midlife journey through the lens of story, you realize that plot twists and challenges are opportunities rather than setbacks (the dragon is always guarding a treasure.) I would love for every midlife woman to accept that she is a heroine.
7. What gives you the greatest sense of agency in midlife? (i.e. “Knowing that I can…”)
Knowing that I can design the blueprint for the rest of my life (my Heroine’s Map). Today’s midlife women can forcefully reject (kick ‘em to the curb, ladies) the roles, labels, or obligations assigned to us by society decades ago. By re-envisioning who I want to be and systematically implementing life-planning processes (yes, even creative souls need a good process!), I feel an incredible sense of ownership over how my story unfolds—no matter what challenges arise.
8. Give us the headline for your Empress Age. (one that captures the bold narrative you are rewriting for the latter half of your life)
The Heroine’s Adventure - How to Use the Secrets of Story to Write Yourself into an Extraordinary Life.
Lisa-Marie’s Empress Edit
I’ve never been much of a make-up person. Unless it was stage makeup, I was always pretty crap at it, and it got worse when I got wrinkles and my attempts began to make me look like Yoda. But I love all the Jones Road products because they are easy, obvious, and look fantastic. My daughter calls the Miracle Balm “chapstick for your face.”
Prophet Song was my favorite book of 2024 by far. Eilish (the main character) is a true heroine under the most devastating circumstances. It’s a gorgeous but terrifying read about a country falling apart under a tyrannical government. It’s a “there, but for the grace of God, go I” ending, making it all the more poignant for our current times.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prophet-Song-Paul-Lynch/dp/0861546458
I always ask people if they have one song that is guaranteed to lift their spirits no matter what, and it always makes them get up and dance. In true Gen X style, here’s mine.
Where are my big booby girls at? During lockdown, I ditched the underwire and felt so free and comfortable that I got obsessed (like hours on the internet and lots of wasted money, obsessed) with finding the holy grail of bras (comfortable, supportive, pretty). I found it! This is now all I wear. They are Italian and a tad expensive, but worth every penny.
https://eu.cosabella.com/products/never-say-never-curvy-plungie-longline-bralette-grappa-en
We are lucky enough to travel frequently. And you know what this means? Comfortable shoes! I originally bought these flats from Vivaia, but now I also own heels, wedges, and boots. I can walk in them for hours; they are easy to pack.
https://www.vivaia.com/item/round-toe-flat-p_10013614.html?gid=10013622
Speaking of travel. I am a celiac, so I crave my time in Italy, where I can find restaurants that serve gluten-free pizza and pasta in every town. (Fun fact: Italy has become the first country in the world to pass a law requiring all children under the age of 18 to be screened for celiac disease.) They also make the best gluten-free dried pasta on earth. I used to have to bring back a car full from our annual trip, but now you can get it in the supermarket.
You can tell I’m a writer when nothing makes me as happy as a 36-count box of these pens. They don’t bleed through the page and mold to your handwriting.
https://www.sharpie.com/pens/felt-tip-pens/sharpie-pens-fine-point-0.4mm/SAP_2083009.html
Where readers can find you:
I’m pretty much “all in” on Substack these days. You can find me there on Substack Notes all day, and access all weekly journal prompts at:
I am also on Instagram at http://www.instragram.com/laptoplifelisa
You can always send me an email (I read them all) at guide@heroinesadventure.com
We hope you enjoyed this week’s questionnaire. In celebration of Women's History Month, we are offering 20% off preorders of both our debut books—plus free shipping!
Empowering, bold, and delightfully candid, Quickies is the go-to guide for embracing pleasure, power, and intimacy in midlife with confidence and joy.
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Yours in Grandeur & Deep Sh*t,
PS - I am a human typo. Amnesty appreciated.
*An earlier version of this email newsletter contains a misprint of question # 8—sincerest apologies to our guest. Brain fog made us do it!
*The information contained in this post is intended for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness. Before using any practices or products referenced in this piece or others, always consult your healthcare providers, read all labels, and heed all cautions that come with the products. Information received from this piece, or anywhere in this Substack, should never be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have any adverse conditions, please consult your healthcare providers immediately. This Substack, including Alisa Jones and any other writers or editors, disclaims any responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of any information contained herein. Opinions of any writers in this Substack are their own, and the Substack does not accept responsibility for statements made by writers. This Substack does not make any representations or warranties about a writer’s qualifications or credibility.
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Thanks for reading, Francesca! You will be surprised to hear that I forget I have my Cosabella on.
I wish the reframing also made me sweat less! Thanks for reading, Susan!