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Midlife, Menopause & Saying Yes to Yourself · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Shy away from the real talk?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries Ready to find your perfect job.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Professional industries Ready to find your perfect job Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Today, I am chatting with Emma Thomas.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Emma is an executive coach and consultant, passionate about helping people unlock their potential.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: For 30 years, she worked in academic publishing with many well-known brands, with roles spanning business development strategy, business process optimisation, change and transformation, and internal communications.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: In 2021, she set up her own podcast.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: She's now interviewed over 100 guests, including midlife well-being and menopause experts, inspiring women who have undergone midlife reinventions, and tackled topics relating to multi-generational workforces and ageism in the workplace, which we're definitely going to be touching on today.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: In 2022, she founded managing the menopause, which works with companies to help them become menopause supportive employers.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me, emma.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: It's um, it's a pleasure to chat with you.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Um, what prompted you to set up your podcast?
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: oh, now there's a good question do you want the long version or the short version?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Long version is fine, uh, okay, so cast your mind back.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Uh, to the pandemic yeah if you can bear to uh, and I can't believe it's.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: It's five years ago now.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Um, so I, my, my two kids were, were at home with me I was attempting to homeschool them with and I shared that reasonably equally with their dad, uh, and I was also trying to carry on doing my my sort of pretty much full-time role in publishing.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I think I was maybe doing a 31 hour week, something like that.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how people did it from home.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, in the room that I'm sitting in now, the kids were, you know, at the dining room table.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I was sat here on the pull-out desk.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: The dad was upstairs working, so he was also working full-time.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Uh, and don't ask me why, but somewhere in all of this I, um, I actually decided to to start a blog.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: So I think I needed a kind of a creative outlet.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: That wasn't kind of work, yeah, kind of chaos around me, uh, and and it was sort of a chance conversation with a couple of people who sort of said, well, why don't you start a podcast?
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Um, and I probably looked at them a bit funny and said don't be ridiculous, I don't know anything about podcasting where you know, where on earth would I begin?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Um, but that I think that planted a bit of a seed, um, and and actually I kind of thought, well, I looked into it, it's not that difficult.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm a reasonably we just, I just record ours on mine on zoom, so you can work exactly so yeah, sort of piece together the kind of the technology stack I think is the technical term that I needed, got these headphones that I'm wearing now, which are my husband's cast off, noise cancelling headphones bought myself a microphone.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Why do we not deserve good, nice new things anyway?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: But it's by the by and yeah, it's kind of roped in my lovely friend Hannah to be my guinea pig first, first guest who'd started her own business.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Basically, uh, from her kitchen, uh, teaching people in lockdown how to bake sourdough bread.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Oh right, yeah, nice.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Um, and that was actually a business idea that came out of a conversation with me, because she was going to teach my husband for his birthday present.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: We went into lockdown.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh Hannah, why don't you teach people over zoom?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, why not?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: She's still doing it, you know, very successfully four years later love that, I know, I love that.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I love how like entrepreneurial that is and and it.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: You know, and it was a conversation with her and another person that sort of sparked off this sort of then kind of mutual idea of um of the podcasting.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: So so Hannah was my first guest.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: I was probably fairly terrible.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: I don't go back and listen to uh, to that episode very often.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I think the sound quality is a little bit dodgy, but you know, over time I got better.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: It kind of coincided with uh, I think a sort of a zeitgeisty thing, with the Davina documentaries.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Lots of people were coming talking about menopause and midlife wellbeing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: They had books that they wanted to promote.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Did you have a theme then when you first started, or were you just like, chanted through?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: So I think I kind of wanted something that was for me and other women like me in midlife who were a little bit, you know, not necessarily homeschooling the children, but you know a little bit, a little bit like where, what, what is this, what, what am I doing, what?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: What do I want to be doing with the rest of my life?
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And you know why am I so angry with everyone all the time.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: So, you know, a little bit of exploring the sort of perimenopause and menopause stuff, a little bit of exploring that thing that I think typically happens to a lot of us in midlife, where we we have a lot of soul searching, we're kind of like, oh, is this, it am I?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been doing this thing for 20 years.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Is that what I want to keep doing with my life?
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Do I want to go and make a change, depending on when, whether we have kids or not, and how old those children are?
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: You know some people who maybe have had their children a little bit earlier in life.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: They're kind of of flying the nest, you know, they're off to uni or whatever, and so that's kind of then a time where typically people kind of start looking inwardly and thinking, okay, I'm, you know, if I'm, if I'm lucky, I'm probably going to live to well.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Now I think one in six of us is going to live to 100, right?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: So we've got what Aviva Wittenberg-x calls these four quarter lives.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: So you know, you're sort of you're.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: You're 50 to 75 quarter.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: All right, typically in my grandmother's age, you know, you'd have been winding down if you were even working at all, as a sort of 50 something, 50 plus woman.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, your kids would have been well grown up by that point and having children.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly, whereas now, you know, 50 to 55 year old women, you know we're starting businesses, we're going into kind of the top levels of leadership or we're.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: You know we're going, we're going and retraining as psychotherapists or coaches or or whatever.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: With you know, or we're kind of rediscovering the things that light us up.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't be expecting to necessarily be loving the thing that we've been doing since we left university.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: People change and grow and the world has changed, goodness me, like immeasurably.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: I sound like such a fuddy-duddy when I'm talking to my children and going in my day the TV was black and white and we had no mobile phones, but it has changed so much.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: My dad's just turned 80 and I was saying to my son he was born, my dad was born the same year that the Second World War ended, and now look how much has changed just in his lifetime.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: But you know also, you know so much has changed since, you know, since 1972 when I was born it's yeah, yeah, it's incredible or even just since I left university.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Right, I can remember going to a computer room in the university to type out my essay.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I know I remember that I'm not.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I think, um, maybe something, because I remember at school there was like one single computer room and then we all like to go and you've got one lesson a week, yeah, in the computer room so yeah, so that's.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I remember the um we've meandered off the topic.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Now we have completely meandered off topic, but I do remember when we were there.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: We were.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I do remember this lesson because then the teacher was very excited because he was like there's this new thing on the internet called Ask Jeeves.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: We were just talking about Ask Jeeves the other day.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I think Scott Mills was talking about it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: It's like pre-Google.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: If there's anyone?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: listening.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: That's younger.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: They'll be like what's Ask, jeeves?
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It was like before Google, google, before Google, poor old Jeeves.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't last very long did it.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that very long today.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Um, but yeah, that was basically what it was, um, do you know?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I listened to your story.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I think it was really cool what you've done, because it's sort of what a lot of people advocate doing and you did it.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: It's just going for something, even if it's not perfect.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: You know, you've said, like those early episodes maybe a bit dodgy, but that's fine and that's growth, isn't it?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And that's you starting something, you know.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: You know it might not be perfect to begin with, but it's only going to get better if you start and try and put yourself out there and be a little bit brave and I wrote exactly that on LinkedIn fairly recently, which is that you know you to be good at something.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: First you have to be willing to suck yes and most of the time, you know, unless you're born with, you know, an innate talent at playing the piano or something, right, you've got to put the work in.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: But also, you know, why not pick something that actually you know feels a bit more playful, like you don't?
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: You don't have to go into it with the mindset of I'm gonna be, you know, the next Mel Robbins or the next Stephen Butler.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: You could just be like, well, I'm gonna do this and it's gonna be an interesting experiment.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: And, okay, some people might think I'm a bit, you know, up myself, or or you know who does she think she is like, well, actually most people are much more interested in what's going on their own lives and and couldn't care less.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: But yeah um, at the end of the day for me, you know I I love chatting to people, but you know, on this podcast.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: I've, you know, I've learned so much over the course of that sort of four years in terms of you know that I have applied both to myself and also to the kind of people that I work with.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: I got a whole new career out of it which I wouldn't be doing now if I hadn't, probably if I hadn't started the podcast um, and and I I just continue to enjoy doing it.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: So I, you know, just approach it with that that um mindset, I guess of.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Well, the day that I run out of interesting women and the odd man to interview is the day that I'll stop podcasting.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I don't think that's necessarily going to happen so, and what's beautiful about podcasting is such a low bar to entry, really, like we've just spoken about.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: If anyone's listening wondering, oh, it sounds really complicated, it really isn't.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I just record mine on zoom, we're just on zoom and there's just a record button and that's it.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It's really low bar.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: You don't need to be super techie to get into podcasting.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Indeed.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: And some people say to me oh, it all sounds very professional.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: And then I kind of have to have a bit of a giggle behind my hand because, as I say, it literally is you know, the Mac, the cast off headphones, the microphone that cost me 40 quid and some free software.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: And, yeah, you can do it some free software like you, and yeah, you can do it, it's absolutely so you were podcasting, you were working in publishing and then you said you got a new career.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So what was that and how did that come?
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: about.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: So I got made redundant and that was the second time that had ever happened to me.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: At first time, I think I was in my 20s.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: I was okay.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: I was doing an entry-level publishing job and people tended to move jobs every 12 18 months anyway, so it wasn't such a disaster, um.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: And then the second time it happened to me, um, in 2022.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Initially I was devastated and I'm sure you know you'll have people listening that, you know who have been through this as well, and I think it, you know it really rocks your kind of your sense of self and your sense of worth.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Um, and I think you know there's a sense where you kind of have to have that period of grieving and yeah kind of reckoning with the things that it brings up for you.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Uh, and, and I didn't really know if I wanted to go back in and look for another corporate role.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: You know very much in the way that you, you know you're talking about both.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: My kids, I think, were just about still at primary school.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Then We'd moved back to the UK because my parents are quite elderly and not particularly well.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: So you know, I need to be around for them.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: This sort of classic midlife collision, right, everyone needs something from me, um, and I, I just wasn't sure that I wanted to put myself back into an environment where, uh, you know, I needed to be in the office five days a week, nine to five, or, uh, you know if that was expected of me, certainly in my, in my last role, you know, because it had been the pandemic I'd ended up working, you know, even after we'd gone back into office.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I wasn't in there particularly frequently.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: So, you know, having that flexibility was invaluable, yeah, and so I just kind of thought, well, is there a way that I can be my own boss, do my own thing, something that will allow me to bring all of these different skills and kind of knowledge that I have acquired together.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: So that's what I'm attempting to do.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: A couple of years down the road, it's kind of yeah, it's still, it's still evolving, um, and yeah, I don't know, I don't, I don't, I don't.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm not really very good.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: I think I drive my husband mad.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: He's a good, he's a real planner.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: So he, likes you know, he's a big fan of a five-year plan.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm much more of a fan of figuring out as you go along, um, so I'm still figuring out some things, but but I'm having a lot of fun along the way so what sort of clients do you coach then?
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: um, I don't typically just coach uh sort of women in midlife and going through menopause, um, but that some of them are, uh, it might be, uh, people who are sort of moving up into new roles.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: It might be people who are, um, have just started their own businesses or are, you know, are working in their own business and feel like they need a bit more of a thinking partner.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Uh, it might be people who are considering a kind of a career pivot, so all sorts of people, and so why do they come to you then?
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: It might be people who are considering a kind of a career pivot, so all sorts of people and so why do they come to you then?
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Good question, I think some do come because of the you know the sort of the perimenopause, menopause angle.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: So having somebody who's kind of been through that, who understands it, who can.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: So in those cases it might be more of a kind of been through that, who understands it, who can.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: So in those cases it might be more of a kind of a combination of coaching and, you know, some sort of solutionizing, looking at, looking at what's going on for them, uh, in terms of you know what they might particularly be struggling with.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And I think for a lot of people it's you hear this a lot from people it's very hard sometimes to tease out what's actually kind of perimenopause driven and what's just the everything else right, everything else bucket of life, stresses and demanding job, and you know potentially, you know there are symptoms coming and going.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: So so sometimes it's.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: It can be a real sort of slippery thing sometimes to pin down and sort of say definitively yes, kind of this sort of constellation of things I'm experiencing, yes, that's definitely perimenopause.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Some things are obviously fairly blindingly obvious.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: You know, if you're drenched in hot sweat 10, five times an hour or sort of three times a night, then that's fairly conclusive.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: But other things you know, like the anxiety, the fatigue, the sort of the loss of concentration, the brain fog thinking about, yeah, just the sort of lower tolerance to sort of stress, feeling, feeling less resilient, feeling less able to cope, those things are really quite nebulous, aren't they?
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: And hard to kind of quantify.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so what would be your advice?
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Into the one that was coming that, you know, is in that sort of messy middle really, that is maybe experiencing symptoms.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: They may or may not be um paramount, but life is busy life is lifing, yeah.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: What can they do to help themselves?
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: yeah, I think I I talk a little bit sometimes about slowing down to speed up.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, I think there's this sort of tendency that we often have as women to just keep piling on another thing and another thing and another thing and we kind of we don't stop too much and think about, actually, do I want to do this?
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Do I have the capacity to do this?
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Do I really need to do this or am I just sort of shitting myself into, into doing that?
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously there are, you know, there are some responsibilities, um, you know that we absolutely do need to do.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: But just taking a bit of a step back and a pause to reassess, um, you know, just because you know you've been the person who kind of puts their hand up to do the bake sale every time, yeah, you know, is, is the?
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Is the sky gonna fall in if you don't do that?
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not, you, you know.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So we talk uh, we talked a little bit off air about this.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: You know, like leaning into to the kind of the power of saying no, and I think it it can feel uncomfortable because you know we're we're so used to saying yes and picking up, you know everything along the way, uh, and it may be that actually that and this is a whole episode actually of my podcast on people pleasing with nataloo, which is brilliant and sort of identifying the different flavors of people, pleaser um.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: But I think definitely this sort of midlife menopause phase is a kind of a time of reckoning where, you know, we do get a little bit like why am I, why am I doing all these things for everybody else and and not so much for me, so really kind of taking some time out to kind of recalibrate on that, and it can be.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: I think it can be hard to kind of relearn those different behaviors if, if you're kind of automatic knee jerk responses to be the one that puts their hand up and sort of takes the thing, whether that's at work or, you know, outside of work or kind of.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: You know, sometimes in family dynamics, you know there will always be the one that is the kind of the doer and the you know, the runner around and the fixer say, you know, eldest daughter mentality here, yeah, you know, it's okay, I'll sort it out, I'll jump in like and the same with our children, right, if we don't jump in and we don't kind of if they've forgotten something we don't race to, kind of drive around to school and drop it off for them, or you know, then actually they, they will learn um.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: And so that you know what are, what are the things that you can let go of or perhaps deprioritize um, but also, I think, a lot of the time, just even that process of naming it and recognizing it, as I think I think I've taken on too much here can be quite powerful.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: So you know how would you extract yourself.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Or if you've been so used to always saying yes, start learning to say no oh, a good one, um, and actually there was another good, uh good podcast episode that I did with Carla Miller where she was sort of talking about overwhelm, um.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: So I think one of her tips, one of her really good tips, was buying yourself some time.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: So, rather than saying no or yes straight away, you can say, can I come back to you on that?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: And I think that's that's a really, really good one to say.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: You know, um, you know I need to go and check my diary or, if it's a workplace scenario, I need to go in, you know, have a look at what my workload is at the moment and figure out, you know, because if I take this, I'm going to have to deprioritize something else.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: So, you know, if it's a manager who's kind of coming to you and say, well, ok, if I, if I take on this thing, what are you happy for me to, you know, change the deadlines on or deprioritize, or what can I delegate to somebody else to make room for this thing over here?
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: So it very much depends on on, obviously, on kind of which bit of your life that is happening in, um, but also kind of thinking about those, uh, you know those patterns of you know, is it?
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Is it always the same friend that is getting you to kind of bail them out, um, and and actually putting in some some clearer boundaries there?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: So being you know, and you don't necessarily have to phrase it in such a way as, like, well, I'm not doing that anymore because you know I'm totally overwhelmed and I, you know, just haven't got capacity.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think I think, just as I say, sort of stepping back, thinking about you know, what?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: what's what?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: What do you want to give a wholehearted yes to?
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: There's different buckets of things out there.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: There's the things that there's the kind of the stuff that we have to do to kind of, you know, either in work or at home, to kind of keep things running along smoothly.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: There's the stuff that we absolutely want to do, we would love to do and ideally, right, we'd be doing more of that, because I think that's a lot of the time that's where we're feeling depleted.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: We're feeling a bit, oh, because you don't get to do the things that spark joy and that light you up, because you're so overwhelmed, kind of giving giving time and attention to everybody else.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: So, thinking about that, you know, what are the things that I want to say yes to?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: yeah um and thinking about the things.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: You know, what are the things actually I don't need to do, but I'm sort of shooting myself in to do, oh, I really should do that.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, no one else is going to pick that up, so I suppose I'll do it and begrudgingly well, in saying yes to those things, you're saying no to more of the things that light you up and give you that spark and that energy and that kind of joy of life.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: And I think that's again, that's something that a lot of people, because of this sort of midlife collision of things, find, that that sort of you, you know, that joy and that spark is, is missing, because we I mean we only all we only have 24 hours a day and we obviously have to sleep, and and not everybody's 24 hours is the same either.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think you know.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Molly may said that everyone had the same 24 hours in a day.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: They don't.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Um, I can categorically say that they don't.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think if you say yes to something else, it is really important that you're probably saying no to something else and that or something else.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Maybe you and also you know also what, what impossible standards are you placing on yourself?
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: So I have decided that I'm very happy to live in a house that has a certain amount of dust and dirt around the place, because you know it's not like I have important dignitaries chomping in and out of here every day.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I don't mind, you know if, if it, if it's, I don't have a cleaner, so you know it, it gets clean when it gets clean.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Um, and hopefully training up the you know, the teenager and the pre-teen to kind of take up a bit more of the slack, and for some people that might be incredibly stressful.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, right.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: But to have a kind of a slightly messy, slightly dusty house.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: So you know, you do you, but you know, equally there might be other things where you think, well, actually, just because I've put this standard on myself, actually, just because I've put this and this standard on myself, is that something that I, I can kind of renegotiate, that I'm, that I'm ready to, to let go of?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: yeah, I can apply in lots of different places absolutely I've started, I definitely am an outsourcer, so I'm like I will outsource anything that I can and I think that I think that is actually a really good way to.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm not busy and not stressed, but then I feel like the stuff I'm busy on is the stuff I try and want to be busy on.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: So it's off your mental load as well.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't have to think about it because you know.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's someone else's job so we do have a cleaner and I can say that that I think that is just if you can.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: We only have somebody that comes once a fortnight, but it is amazing for that mental load.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: So like, for example, she's coming tomorrow.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: The house is not nice at the moment.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: It is dirty but do you do that thing that my mum used to do when we were teenagers, where she would run around and tidy the house?
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I do tidy it a little bit because I think I don't want to pay her to tidy.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I'd rather pay for her to clean.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: But I can see the sink's dirty at the moment.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I can see that the oven, the top of the oven's dirty.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm like that's fine.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't have to deal the pressure to clean it because I know that she's coming tomorrow.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: So I do think anything like you can out if we're busy.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: You know we're so busy at the moment.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Anything you can outsource, then do yeah, and also just like it doesn't matter, like my kids are not gonna keel over if they get beans and cheese on toast for dinner one night no, and you know what else I've discovered?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and I think, why was it taking so long to discover it?
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And I feel, refuse to feel bad about it those cook, you know, cook like the posh on it.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Hopefully they they cost a fortune.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: They cost a fortune, but I think that's another thing.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I don't have to think about the tea now.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just put it in the oven.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, oh, like my life.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we basically ready-built people, but like it has made a difference because I can work a bit longer now because I was having to cook my hours shorter Either me or my husband, he cooked, yeah, so, and I do not like cooking.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Some people obviously love cooking and they like that because they find it's, you know, it reduces stress.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: For me it just heightens stress.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Well, the 14 year old is learning to cook now at school, so I'm kind of like you need to be on the.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Uh, the dinner rota, my friend yes, exactly, and I think, yeah, my children are young, but I think you know I've done coaching for people before that I have got teenagers, a lot older teenagers, and they're still doing everything for them, everything.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking why.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: I know, and while we're saying that, I do still make the kids pack lunches in the morning.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: So maybe that needs to stop.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, but that's a perfect example of you know you get into these patterns and then these routines and a perfect example of you know you kind of.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: You get into these patterns and then these routines and you know if that's no longer serving you, then then sort of having a bit of a pause to to rethink and step back and think actually, yeah, they're 12 and 14 they perfectly well they're making their own packed lunches in the morning, instead of sitting up in their rooms doing I don't even know what.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, why am I doing it?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: absolutely, there you go, you'll stop.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Now they say I think they say like 30 days for habit to form, or something.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's about that, isn't it?
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: so, yeah, you stop, and then in a month's time they'll just be making those lunches um second nature but, um, you know, really very seriously though, that kind of that, that layer of kind of caregiving whatever that kind of looks like, whether that's, you know, sort of elderly relatives, kids, teenagers um, you know there is research out there that shows that the more hours of caregiving that people are doing, that has a direct impact on how the severity of the the menopause symptoms that they're experiencing.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: So, um, that did a study, a Mayo Clinic study, of over 4,000 women, um, and so caregivers had a sort of higher prevalence of moderate to very severe menopause symptoms and that kind of was directly correlated to to the number of caregiving hours.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: So you know we're sort of I'm being fairly flippant about it, but you know it does have a direct correlation on people's kind of health and well-being.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: So yes, I think it is.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously we want to care for other people, don't we?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: But I guess what can you reduce then to help you?
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: because you know, if you're burnt out and stressed, then you're not going to be able to give to other people anyway yeah, and you know, obviously in some cases, you know people are are in difficult situations where you know they are just having to kind of for a period of time to cope, um, you know, particularly if they've got sort of maybe elderly relatives, um, who are really unwell or kind of you know, a teenager in mental health crisis and it's like, well, you know, it's not like I can just step away from that responsibility yeah, I'll buy a ready meal, so I'm gonna solve that yeah, exactly so, a lot, you know, some of some of it is systemic, but to the extent that you, you know if it's going to be a sort of a short-term thing, what.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: What can you negotiate?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: And can you, you know, negotiate with with your employer as well, and you know, I think they are really working out waking up to the impact of caregiving responsibilities as well and sort of supporting employees through that.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: So, you know, can you negotiate some sort of short-term flexibility?
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Or, you know, talk to your, your line manager about what's going on for you, um, and, and see if they're willing to put some sort of adaptations and adjustments in place for you.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Just to you know, because people, you know we do, we take on more and more and more and then people reach this kind of this point of burnout and and maybe potentially just leave completely because they don't see a way to to kind of balance those things out, um, so I think, with most employers, you know they would rather keep somebody experienced and and um, you know that they know is is a good employee, by giving them a bit of flexibility for a while, rather than having them, you know, reach the absolute end of their tether and leave.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Any other final tips about how to sort of juggle this midlife and make it a little bit easier on yourself?
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I mean some real kind of basics I think in terms of you know getting, you know making sure that we're we're looking after ourselves.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: So you know that with the, the nutrition side of things and we've got some good blog posts about that on the managing the menopausecom uh page and and lots of the middling along podcast episodes you know building in that time for exercise.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: I know it's really really difficult when, when you know we're already juggling loads and I'm saying here's another thing to put on your plate.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: But actually you know just the benefits that you'll get, even just from sort of if you can factor in half an hour a day or a couple of times a week, and then some you know lunchtime walk for your mental well-being as much as anything else as well.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: And I think you can find you know it can, it can help with you know things like brain fog.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: It can obviously help converse, weirdly kind of help you with with energy.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: So actually you know, because you're of the the benefits of exercise, you actually find that you're kind of you're feeling more energetic and awake, um, which sounds kind of counterintuitive Definitely.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: You know things like keeping an eye on alcohol.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I think it's really easy to to kind of fall back on that as a coping mechanism.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Definitely, in midlife, you know, alcohol is not our friend.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: We're, you know, probably, people potentially probably already finding that you, you know, even having a couple of glasses, they'll be feeling worse the next day, might be increasing, you know, their anxiety.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: It would be messing with sleep quality.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: You know, even if you don't necessarily notice that you're waking up, you're going, you're not going to be having as good quality sleep, so you're going to feel more tired the next day.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: You're more tired.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: You're therefore, you know, more likely to eat rubbish and so you kind of got this vicious cycle.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, what else?
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: And I think, yeah, you're really, really thinking about building in that that kind of the me time um, I was talking to to somebody else about um, doing this sort of mini me breaks.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: So, if you can, if you can get away, even just 24, 48 hours on your own can be incredibly restorative.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Like you don't have to, you know, fly to ibiza and just go and maybe book yourself into an airbnb or something down by the coast and kind of just like I don't have to deal with anybody, I don't have to feed anybody, I don't have to listen to anybody.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to go and do exactly what I want for 24 hours and please myself.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: That sounds like heaven.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: So easier said than done if you've got small children.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: But no, it is still doable yeah, definitely.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, emma, for joining me today.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Where can people find you, connect with you and remind people your podcast and website?
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: yeah, so I live in a couple of different places online so the podcast is middling along.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: At middlingalongcom, uh, my coaching practice is called the Triple Shift, which is all about this sort of you know, the various demands that women are placed under home work and kind of other caring responsibilities.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: So that's the tripleshiftorg, and then managingthemenopausecom is the corporate facing work that we do.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: And I have to give a shout out to my amazing sister-in-law, dr beth thomas, who's a menopause specialist.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So she does.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: We do these kind of great q a sessions.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Uh, in organizations where you know people can submit anonymized questions, we get a whole hour, whole glorious hour, to go through everyone's questions about perimenopause and menopause and you know always such good sessions that you know people take such a lot away from and it's just lovely to be able to kind of help.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, put put people's mind at rest, I think, because it's it's so hard sometimes to to get a, to get a straight answer out there if you're struggling with, with symptoms and maybe, maybe your health care provider isn't as helpful as as we would like them to be yeah, you must be an expert now.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: You must know more than a lot of doctors well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't dare to say that yes but I know that some are better than others so and yeah, and we have to say that it is definitely improving.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: There's there's lots of gps out good gps who are going out there and upskilling.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Some are better than others and yeah, and we have to say that it is definitely improving.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: There's lots of GPs out good GPs who are going out there and upskilling in menopause.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, we still kind of hear a lot of unfortunate tales from people who have kind of, yeah, really really struggled to kind of get help.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: But things are going in the right direction Absolutely Well.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today, emma, it's a pleasure to chat with you yeah, lovely to talk to you too, elizabeth thank you for listening to another episode of the work.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: It like a mum podcast.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.