Latest / The Menopause Disruptor Podcast / Unveiling Your True Self: The Impact of Hormonal Changes
Transcript
- 0:00Mary Lee: Eleanor Roosevelt is famous for her quote, do one thing every day that scares you.
- 0:05Mary Lee: And posting this episode is scary, but we can't grow until we leave our comfort zone.
- 0:10Mary Lee: Welcome to All Things Menopausal.
- 0:12Mary Lee: My name is Mary, and I'm a menopause doula.
- 0:15Mary Lee: As a doula, we augment the healthcare profession as menopause support practitioners.
- 0:20Mary Lee: I created this podcast, All Things Menopausal, to build community for women going through menopause transition and to foster resilience through the stories that connect.
- 0:32Mary Lee: Educate and empower.
- 0:34Mary Lee: These stories are real, raw, relatable, and they're very much relevant to the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual whole person that we are.
- 0:43Mary Lee: In our midlife transition, we are not alone.
- 0:46Mary Lee: Each week, you will hear from courageous, vulnerable, and knowledgeable guests sharing their passion, their journey, and lived experience.
- 0:55Mary Lee: These are little clues to finding solutions to our unique situation.
- 1:00Mary Lee: The menopause symptoms are personal.
- 1:03Mary Lee: But the experience is universal.
- 1:06Mary Lee: Welcome back my listeners to the All Things Menopausal podcast.
- 1:10Mary Lee: And I really do appreciate that you check in each week to hear from my guest interviews about the menopause journey.
- 1:16Mary Lee: As we cover it all, we unpack our gut health, nutrition, vaginal health, incontinence.
- 1:23Mary Lee: We talk about self love.
- 1:25Mary Lee: We talk about self care.
- 1:26Mary Lee: We've talked about the spiritual realm.
- 1:29Mary Lee: We've talked about meditation and breath work.
- 1:32Mary Lee: Singing to find the power of our voice and we've touched on humor and hysterectomies and there's so much more and That's exactly why I call it all things menopausal, right?
- 1:43Mary Lee: But today today is a solo cast It's just me a monologue speaking my truth and if you could see me right now I'm sitting in my closet on this beautiful Saturday morning of the Easter long weekend And I'm ruminating about life and well all of its upheavals as menopausal women, we feel all the angst and pain, both physically, but also emotionally, I say this often and it bears repeating, as the hormones fluctuate and estrogen egresses, it's like you're pulling down a sheet that's covering up your true identity, covering up things that you've been masking, hiding from.
- 2:21Mary Lee: And we do it just to get through life.
- 2:24Mary Lee: You know, we, we cover up certain things that are only secret to ourselves so that we can get through life, get on with having a career, get on with being professional, so that we can show up, show up to be a parent, a friend, a daughter, a sister.
- 2:39Mary Lee: We put aside certain things that we can do these day to day duties and play these daily roles and do it with dignity and without regret.
- 2:50Mary Lee: But then when that veil is lifted, Well, it's like the world, the universe, God, source, whatever you wish to call it.
- 2:58Mary Lee: It wants us to see that part of us which we've been covering up so that we can you.
- 3:04Mary Lee: properly have a better relationship with who we are truly.
- 3:10Mary Lee: And I like to think of menopause that way to address the transition, to come clean, so to speak, and to face it head on and to say, I know, I see you, I know you, you are part of who I am, but I've been ignoring you.
- 3:24Mary Lee: And so it's time to give you the attention that you deserve, you know, kind of like a clean house so that we can make peace.
- 3:32Mary Lee: Give it the TLC it deserves.
- 3:37Mary Lee: I'm talking about things like an old injury, maybe a physical one, or an emotional wound.
- 3:42Mary Lee: I'm talking about a health concern, perhaps, that could have happened in childhood, a trauma, or in adult life.
- 3:51Mary Lee: It could have happened as a result of another significant emotional event.
- 3:56Mary Lee: Thank you.
- 3:57Mary Lee: It could have happened from our career, serving a uniform, for example, being confronted with a relationship change, a marriage, a divorce, a breakup.
- 4:06Mary Lee: You get the point.
- 4:07Mary Lee: What I'm trying to say here is that a lot of incidences that happen to us in our lives, they are all part of our makeup.
- 4:15Mary Lee: They are who we are.
- 4:17Mary Lee: And they can't be ignored and pushed aside.
- 4:21Mary Lee: My girlfriends and I, we speak about this often in our veterans group.
- 4:25Mary Lee: Um, We're all working together on healing.
- 4:28Mary Lee: And we call this the strategy that pretend the avoid and shove away.
- 4:34Mary Lee: We pretend things didn't happen, past injuries, traumas.
- 4:39Mary Lee: We avoid dealing with the emotional upheaval that comes from it.
- 4:43Mary Lee: Physical, physical pain, mental angst, but it still exists.
- 4:49Mary Lee: And we shove away the incident and the emotions that come with it.
- 4:54Mary Lee: So that we can get on with life.
- 4:57Mary Lee: But when you hit that menopause transition with all the other crazy symptoms that we're feeling, this too is going to come to the forefront.
- 5:07Mary Lee: This is a really tough episode for me to record and eventually air.
- 5:12Mary Lee: And if you're listening to it, I took that bold move, that brave move, and I did publish it.
- 5:18Mary Lee: But I'm coming completely clean with you.
- 5:22Mary Lee: I'm real.
- 5:23Mary Lee: I'm raw and hopefully relatable.
- 5:25Mary Lee: And I'm doing this because a significant event has happened in my life and in my family, my biological family, just not too long ago, my birth mother was admitted into the hospital with terrible health condition.
- 5:44Mary Lee: She passed away yesterday morning.
- 5:46Mary Lee: And there had been several Illnesses associated with it, respiratory issues that exacerbated over time, causing further problems, an inability to be physically fit, to allow herself to heal physically properly, the way she needed to be healed.
- 6:13Mary Lee: And when somebody passes away, we tend to ruminate over it, the relationship, the things we could have done to change, to make it better.
- 6:23Mary Lee: The connection we had our history.
- 6:27Mary Lee: Me, I tend to mourn in a deeply cerebral way.
- 6:33Mary Lee: I try to avoid doing the shoulda, woulda, coulda, because that is totally unproductive.
- 6:38Mary Lee: First of all, things are often out of our control.
- 6:43Mary Lee: We all make our own decisions.
- 6:45Mary Lee: We are all our own person.
- 6:48Mary Lee: And we make those decisions based on what we have.
- 6:50Mary Lee: We do the best we can with what we've got and we don't give ourselves enough credit and give gratitude to who we are.
- 7:01Mary Lee: So in my case, mourning, grieving, I tend to go deep into thought, deep contemplation.
- 7:11Mary Lee: And I like to look at life more holistically, rather than just pigeonhole the situation.
- 7:16Mary Lee: Look at the relationship in a microscope.
- 7:19Mary Lee: I take that wide angle view and say, What can I do to ensure that I have a wonderful quality of life moving forward?
- 7:30Mary Lee: What can I do to inspire others to have a beautiful quality of life?
- 7:36Mary Lee: And that squarely brings me back to why I do what I do as a doula.
- 7:42Mary Lee: Becoming a doula, well, it found me in the first place.
- 7:47Mary Lee: I very much care deeply and will advocate strongly for the well being of womankind.
- 7:54Mary Lee: Faced with a lot of challenges in my own life, stemming from a career in the military to dealing with an upbringing, which was beautiful, but it had its own challenges.
- 8:04Mary Lee: when I was young, we look to our mothers as our first and foremost, most significant role model in our lives.
- 8:13Mary Lee: But our mothers impart on us their insecurities and self doubt.
- 8:16Mary Lee: And we tend to form impressions and belief systems of how we see the world based on their insecurities and self doubts.
- 8:26Mary Lee: For me, I never wanted to be small.
- 8:28Mary Lee: I never wanted to be diminished.
- 8:30Mary Lee: I never wanted to be boxed in or limited because I am a female, female gender, but I didn't see myself as a female gender.
- 8:41Mary Lee: I always, as since a young child, saw myself as an energetic body who had something to say, something to do, something to give.
- 8:52Mary Lee: And that is totally my authenticity.
- 8:56Mary Lee: This is my love language.
- 8:59Mary Lee: Let's get on with who we are.
- 9:01Mary Lee: Let's get on with being who we're meant to be.
- 9:05Mary Lee: So stop diminishing your wellness and not believing in yourself.
- 9:10Mary Lee: And I was drawn to a career of strong women because of this viewpoint of the world.
- 9:19Mary Lee: I wanted to be in the company of strong women that were doing their best and giving it all, physically, mentally.
- 9:25Mary Lee: I was drawn to the military.
- 9:27Mary Lee: So how does the military girl become a doula?
- 9:31Mary Lee: Because the same qualities that attracted me to the military, the same call for resilience, if you will, and the same need to show up strong and be forthright and stand in your power while still being a creative person.
- 9:44Mary Lee: productive, nurturing, energetic body who has something to say and wants to share her voice are the same qualities that attracted me to become a doula.
- 9:54Mary Lee: After 24 years in communications and well over 30 years in corporate workplace, from the military to being a PR professional, I was always drawn, no matter where I was, to create community.
- 10:11Mary Lee: Drawn to connect like minded beings and create community for people who want to put in the work for people who believe in themselves and are innately driven to rise, to become higher version of themselves because in that community of like minded people, we continue to raise each other up, to help each other out.
- 10:32Mary Lee: And when I help you, you help me.
- 10:35Mary Lee: So the same goes for menopause.
- 10:37Mary Lee: We are not meant to do this alone.
- 10:40Mary Lee: We are not meant to suffer in silence.
- 10:43Mary Lee: and I'm going to bring this back now to the passing of my birth mother.
- 10:48Mary Lee: Did she suffer in silence?
- 10:51Mary Lee: Did she do it alone when she went through the transition?
- 10:55Mary Lee: Did she have girlfriends there to help her, siblings, family members?
- 11:01Mary Lee: Did she ask her own The transition of life.
- 11:08Mary Lee: And maybe there were several people who surrounded her and imparted in her some great knowledge.
- 11:13Mary Lee: I don't know this.
- 11:15Mary Lee: I didn't have the opportunity to ask, but when the student is ready, the teacher will arrive.
- 11:21Mary Lee: Meaning when you're ready, and I know it sounds cliche, but ready to wave the white flag and say, I can't do it alone.
- 11:31Mary Lee: I need to surrender and find the help, the comfort of others.
- 11:36Mary Lee: Well, then the universe puts the answers or the opportunities to find answers and find solutions and find healing in your path.
- 11:46Mary Lee: So when a woman hits her transition and there's this massive decline in her well being, or maybe it's just a slow drip.
- 11:54Mary Lee: This is a point where we have to remind ourselves, don't quit, don't give up on yourself.
- 12:05Mary Lee: It doesn't have to be a long suffering.
- 12:08Mary Lee: It can be a beautiful life in community.
- 12:11Mary Lee: We don't have to hit that pinnacle point in our lives where we feel like there's nothing left to give.
- 12:20Mary Lee: And so my grieving, my mourning process in the last 24 hours has been just exactly what I've blurted out in this recording for the last 15 minutes or so.
- 12:31Mary Lee: It has been healthy and helpful, I think, for me.
- 12:35Mary Lee: And I'm hoping that maybe I can spread a message out into the ether so that it will resonate with others and they can grab onto it.
- 12:43Mary Lee: and say, thank you.
- 12:44Mary Lee: I appreciate that message, Mary.
- 12:47Mary Lee: I don't do this for the accolades and I'm certainly not doing it to improve my ratings and my stats.
- 12:54Mary Lee: I'm doing this only because I want to share my voice and I'm expressing myself, my true authentic self, my true authentic existence as an energetic body.
- 13:05Mary Lee: And I'm allowing that energy to flow and to release.
- 13:11Mary Lee: So I don't have to hang on to any past pain.
- 13:15Mary Lee: So I can move forward and I don't have any stuck energy.
- 13:20Mary Lee: And I allow that healing to begin by acknowledging that in my.
- 13:24Mary Lee: great reveal in my menopause transition.
- 13:28Mary Lee: I'm beginning to uncover so many misunderstood beliefs of who I was and who I am and misbeliefs about women and who we are and can be and should be.
- 13:42Mary Lee: So as we transition into the years beyond menopause, we enter into the time of the great wisdom, which is also an Ayurvedic philosophy worth repeating.
- 13:52Mary Lee: We have to first come wise with ourselves, which calls for radical honesty to quote Rebecca Gillis, whom I interviewed for episode 25.
- 14:02Mary Lee: She's opened up my eyes so much.
- 14:04Mary Lee: And here I am as the doula, but the teacher is still the student, right?
- 14:08Mary Lee: And the student is often the teacher.
- 14:11Mary Lee: And that goes right back to my whole point about creating community and connecting women through our stories, through our pain, through our joy, so that we can continue to raise each other up.
- 14:22Mary Lee: And so I dedicate this episode in memory of Anne and in honor of all the women who've come before me and come before Anne in her family lineage and all the women who are still here in this beautiful family.
- 14:34Mary Lee: And in my family that I grew up with, my adoptive family, I honor the women and my mother and my grandmother.
- 14:42Mary Lee: And I know that your spirit still energetically still vibrates on this planet.
- 14:47Mary Lee: And that, that, Vibration will continue to influence us, continue to influence me in so many beautiful ways, and I tap into that energy.
- 14:58Mary Lee: I love you all, the shining stars, may your light always shine brightly, and may we always find each other in times of pain and frustration.
- 15:07Mary Lee: Do not feel alone, do not give up on yourselves.
- 15:11Mary Lee: So if this podcast episode can reach out to you in some way, gives you a little bit of hope and strength, and I invite you to go back and take a listen to previous episodes if you have not already, or go back in, you listen to them and pull out some little pieces of information that will help you get up and out of that slump and see things from a new light a new perspective and to carry on to be wise.
- 15:36Mary Lee: To rise to the divine women that you were always meant to be.
- 15:40Mary Lee: Because this is the year of the Divine Mother.
- 15:42Mary Lee: It's an eight year, the number of divine femininity.
- 15:46Mary Lee: And it's a powerful number, but it's also an energy of feminine energy.
- 15:51Mary Lee: That is to remind us that at our core we are the creators and nurturers.
- 15:57Mary Lee: We are birthing not only just the next generation, but we are birthing ideas and productivity.
- 16:05Mary Lee: We're birthing our own growth and birthing into our second spring as we transition into the midlife and years beyond to quote Kim Holmes, whom I interviewed in an earlier episode.
- 16:18Mary Lee: And this is a beautiful message.
- 16:19Mary Lee: I feel for the Easter weekend.
- 16:23Mary Lee: You know, we look at this time often as a rebirth.
- 16:25Mary Lee: The significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- 16:28Mary Lee: It's your rebirthing and your resurrection as well.
- 16:31Mary Lee: So lean into that and take a moment just to tap into your heart center, your energy space, and also tap into your crown chakra, your higher divine space.
- 16:40Mary Lee: And you can do this just by sitting quietly at a time of meditation, placing your hands over your heart and breathing into the full expansion of your heart center.
- 16:51Mary Lee: And exhale longly and slowly with a wide open mouth, making an H A Ha sound to stimulate the vagus nerve and allow your nervous system just to relax.
- 17:03Mary Lee: Then I invite you to rub your hands together briskly and then draw your hands apart, maybe just a couple of inches, and feel that energy between the palms of your hands.
- 17:13Mary Lee: And then place one hand over your crown chakra and the other hand over Allow it facing your body, the palm, to scan all the other chakras moving slowly from your brow, your third eye chakra, slowly down to your throat, into the heart center, and through to your solar plexus and into your low belly, the sacral chakra, and finally to your root chakra.
- 17:38Mary Lee: And then draw that hand back up in the opposite direction slowly.
- 17:42Mary Lee: then bring your hands together in prayer over your head.
- 17:45Mary Lee: And draw your prayer hands.
- 17:47Mary Lee: Slowly back down, lightly tapping your thumbs to your third eye, and then to your throat, and then to your heart space, and then release your hands.
- 17:58Mary Lee: And now breathe into the expansion of who you are.
- 18:02Mary Lee: Congratulations, you've just settled your nervous system, and I've given you a quick realignment of the chakras.
- 18:09Mary Lee: You've also tapped into your powerful woman, and do not forget this.
- 18:14Mary Lee: With love and light, I send you this very unique, very different and very emotional episode of all things menopausal.
- 18:20Mary Lee: I hope you will continue to tune in as we share stories of our journey together.
- 18:25Mary Lee: And remember, the symptoms are personal, but the experience is universal.