You Can’t Perform Your Way Through a Portal.
40 is When You Stop Performing.
A podcast, a community, a practice, and a gathering place for women navigating the threshold of midlife — and everything that comes with it.
Welcome to The 40 Portal, babe.
the 40 Portal Story
Hi, I’m Cath. Creator of The 40 Portal.
The night before my 40th birthday last summer, I did something a little wild.
Instead of asking people at my party to wish me well, I passed around a notebook and asked the women in my life to write me their wisdom. What they wrote was so raw, so honest, so unexpectedly beautiful — and so obviously not just for me — that I couldn't stop asking.
Nearly one year and a hundred submissions later, The 40 Portal is a podcast, a Substack, a retreat, and a growing community of women who are done performing and ready to actually show up for their own lives.
I believe that a woman in her 40s is one of the most breathtaking, inspiring, sexy, powerful, and maybe even terrifying & magical creatures in the entire universe. I’m determined to get as many of us talking honestly and together as I can. Join us?
THE 40 PORTAL PODCAST
A coming of aging story, told by 40 real women
Weekly episodes, released every Sunday.
The Portal Retreat
An all-women gathering, June 17-19, in the Hudson Valley.
Three days to dive into the Portal together.
1:1 Coaching
Ready to go deeper than a podcast episode can take you?
I work with a small number of women — six at a time, twice a year — in a private six-month coaching container.
This is not a self-improvement plan. There are no modules, no guarantees, no three steps to a better you.
What there is: a rigorous, time-tested process I've spent twelve years distilling through intimate work with hundreds of women. Socratic self-inquiry. Contemplative and meditation practice. My “40 Early Mornings” methodology, which teaches you the PRACTICE to support you in your PORTAL thresholds.
The women I work with are accomplished, self-aware, and carrying a question they haven't had the right conditions to answer yet.
They're not in crisis. They're at a threshold. There's a difference — and I know how to work with it.
Six spots. September start.
Applications open now.
Submit your wisdom.
Since July 2025 when I turned 40, I’ve been collecting handwritten wisdom & vulnerable questions from women in their 30s, 40s, 50, 60s, 70s, & 80s.
Every episode of the 40 Portal is anchored by handwritten wisdom. Submitted by listeners. By you.
Welcome to the Portal, babe.
I'm Catherine Zack (you can call me Cath), and I'm the host and creator of The 40 Portal.
I'm a former Big Law attorney who left the partnership track 12 years ago because I was kinda dying inside. Now I teach meditation to skeptical high-achievers, coach women through threshold moments, and run a brick & mortar yoga studio in the Hudson Valley.
I've walked through a lot of portals. Some I chose. Some chose me.
And here's what I know: You can't perform your way through a portal. You can't productivity-hack your way into being.
You have to actually BE with yourself. Know yourself. Remember who you are.
That's what The 40 Portal is all about.
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Go Deeper.
I offer 1:1 Portal Sessions for women in threshold moments. I also speak to organizations about retention, burnout, and what women actually need. Tell me what brought you here and let's talk.