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Why You Still Miss Them · My Sexy Menopause Body

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to My Sexy Menopause Body.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not just a podcast, but a movement.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Menopause isn't something to dread.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's something to own with strength, confidence, and yes, sexiness.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because menopause doesn't mean fading into the background.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It means stepping fully into who we are.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And now here's your host, Kim Nicholson.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's Kim, and welcome back to my Sexy Menopause Body.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to start today with something really personal.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I can get through this entire podcast without crying, but I um I feel like I'm ready to discuss it.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So recently, well, six months ago, seven months ago, somebody incredibly important to me passed away.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And grief has a way of rearranging the the inside of your body.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: You can know that this person is gone, you can understand it, you can sign the papers, you go through the motions, you attend the services, and yet your nervous system still expects them to walk around the corner.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I catch myself thinking, I heard their footsteps or I heard their laugh, or believing for a split second that they were sitting in the next room or at the end of the table.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, grief plays by its own rules, and I know everyone grieves differently and for different periods of time.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: But what I've learned is this you don't have to lose someone to feel that kind of distance.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: You don't.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Some women listening right now are grieving a partner who is still right beside them.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Others are grieving a friendship that's faded slowly away over the years.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Some of you are carrying the ache of a breakup you thought would, you know, that you should be over by now.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: But guess what?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Some of some of us are dealing with a parent whose silence or disconnection hurts more than any argument ever did.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So these are all very similar in different ways.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So different stories, same heartaches.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: So today we're going to talk about what's actually happening inside your body in these moments and why, no matter what your story looks like, there is always a way forward.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So let's begin talking about distance in any of these situations, whether it's a breakup, whether it's a divorce, whether it's just, you know, distance with your spouse, or whether it's death.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, we don't talk enough about distance, and I'm talking about the emotional kind.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we talk about fights or we talk about breakups, uh, we talk about loss, but distance, hmm, the slow kind, the quiet kind, the kind where someone is still in your life, but somehow not in the same way anymore.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of distance is very sneaky.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: For some women, it happens in marriage.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: You wake up one day and realize that the person who used to reach for your hand now barely makes eye contact with you.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or the test, the text messages that you get are very logistical.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be home at five.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: The conversations can be shallow, you feel like roommates.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can be polite and functional but disconnected.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And for others, you know, it's a friendship.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're a girlfriend, maybe she was your person, the one that you shared everything with, and now years have gone by, and you're not sure how to bridge that silence anymore.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know whose turn it is to actually reach out anymore.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, there's family, you know, the sibling who used to feel like your twin flame, and the parent who can't say the words you wish that they would, or the adult child who's turned inward.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: That distant distance can be so heavy because it's the one we don't want to admit out loud.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes distance inside yourself is what creates it.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're going through the motions, doing everything right, but you can't find the part of you that feels alive anymore in that distance.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: So here's what I want you to hear today.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Distance doesn't always mean love is gone.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: That has taken me almost seven months to realize it's the love is not gone.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Often it just means life gets very loud.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, stress piles up, misunderstandings build walls instead of bridges, and guess what?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system shuts down little by little until you find yourself on opposite sides without knowing how you even got there.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is not failure, people.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is human nature.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I came across something while navigating my own grief, something that really changed me, and I wanted to share.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to share this with you because it it really helped heal me.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I can you ever get healed over a death?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: But you could say the same about divorce or friendships at fate or uh marriages that feel distant, you know.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I I I found hope and I wanted to share this with you.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So when you love somebody so deeply, guess what?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system codes them in.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I found that remarkable, but it makes so much sense.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system codes them into your body, their voice, their laughter, the way they walk into a room, the seat that they always sit in, the smell of their perfume or cologne, all of that becomes part of our internal wiring.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Your body literally uses them as a reference point for safety, for love, whatever it is that you felt most with this person.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: That means when someone dies, your body still looks for them.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: When a relationship ends, your body still anticipates them.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: When a friendship drifts, your body still misses that rhythm of them.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when your partner pulls away, your body still remembers what closeness felt like and can't understand why it's gone.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not dramatic, you're not being too sensitive, you're not being weak.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know what you were being?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're being wired.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's your nervous system doesn't speak the language of breakup.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system doesn't understand, oh, we drifted apart.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system doesn't understand they're gone now.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's only it only understands your presence, your current presence.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Who felt safe?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Who felt familiar?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Who felt like home?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when that shifts, when someone disappears or pulls away or changes somehow, some shape in your life, your body scrambles.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: That heaviness in your chest, how about that sudden anxiety?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: How about that hollow feeling that you can't quite name?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can name it now.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's your nervous system, it's your nervous system trying to orient itself again.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system can orient itself again.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: It can, it absolutely can.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, when I named that hollow feeling within me as my nervous system trying to orient itself again, I kind of felt sorry for it and I understood it more.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to me, that was my revelation.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was my turning point when I realized that it's just me.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just my nervous system trying to orient itself again.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the next step to take: rebuilding this connection from the body up.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: So how do we do it?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: I know everyone's gonna be different too.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we rebuild that gap when it feels overwhelmingly too big?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: We start very gently because healing never responds to force.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've tried it in my years of heartache, separation, you name it, healing never responds to force.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can't force yourself to feel anything.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can try, but I'm gonna tell you it's not gonna work.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: But where we do start is we slow down.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: You give yourself some grace.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: We breathe.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: We give our bodies permission to come out of that protection mode.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes the repair of our nervous system starts with something really unbelievably tiny small.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like sitting next to someone without needing to fix the whole relationship in one conversation.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it can be a soft hand on a shoulder or somebody who looks at you in your eyes and says a real hello and cares and really does mean when they say, How are you?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: That caring feeling, those are small moments.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: A moment where neither one of you, you know, you're sitting next to your spouse or sibling or whomever it may be that you feel distanced from.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: But when you have that moment where neither of you are scrolling or rushing or being distracted, that's healing.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that relationship isn't ready for the big truth telling yet.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's okay.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, you cannot force anything, you cannot force healing.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Presence is in its own form of repair and will come at its own time.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some people grieve for years, some people feel lost for years, and others less time than years.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes the most healing thing you can say to someone else or even to yourself is I'm here.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: There was a moment with someone I love, someone where everything had felt, you know, felt tight and awkward far too long.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we weren't really fighting, but we weren't us either.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And every conversation felt like tiptoeing around old landmines.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I know you know what I'm talking about, so don't pretend, don't pretend like you haven't felt that way.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we've all had that situation, whether it's a girlfriend spouse, or I don't know, boyfriend.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what in my this situation, one afternoon, we ended up in the same room, not talking, just being, just being in the same room and letting go of those hostile emotions or that distance that we had felt.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And out of nowhere, guess what?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: That person looked at me and said, Are we okay?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Something in me softened.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Not because everything was fixed, but because that tiny question was the thread, that golden thread or a bridge.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I found myself saying, Yeah, you know what?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting there.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, that was enough.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm sure you felt that feeling before.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful feeling, it's a beautiful feeling.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we think connection is all about words, but it's not.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Connection is not about words, and you know that if you've listened to other podcasts, you know it is so much more than verbal communication.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes the body, you know, repairs faster than the mind does.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that hug that lasts a few seconds longer, that's healing.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Leaning into someone you trust, that's healing.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Feeling a hand rest gently in the middle of your back, that's healing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sitting shoulder to shoulder without flinching, guess what?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Healing again.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system learns through contact and through your breath work, calming yourself down, through the presence of another human being willing to be soft with you.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the healing begins.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the most healing thing isn't a conversation, it's just the body remembering, oh, I'm safe here, or I feel loved here, or I feel supported here.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's talk about re kind of like rewriting, I guess, your wiring.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the beautiful truth here is that your nerve your nervous system learned how to love once, and guess what?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: It can learn again.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: It can learn every deep breath, it can every moment of kindness, every soft repair, every time you choose to show up instead of shutting down, that's your rewiring.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's your body's building new patterns, new safety, new connection, new ways of trusting yourself and with others.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So here's what I want you to take away today.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can rebuild after distance.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can heal after loss.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: I am you can reconnect after drifting.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Happened millions and millions of times to you and others.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can soften soften after shutting down.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, we've all been there.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system is not fixed, it's just learning a do you every day.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So this week, sit with someone you care about, whether it's a partner, a friend, a parent, or even yourself.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Put your iPhones down, take a breath, let the moment be enough because love doesn't disappear, it just changes shape.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And your body is waiting for you to help find its way back.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of My Sexy Metopause Body.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm excited to um be with you again, and I appreciate you.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Please follow and support and um share this with others, especially if you're feeling distant.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a whole new beginning.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is your time to own your power.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Rewrite the rules and show up unapologetically.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because sexy doesn't expire.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: You define it.