Latest / Empower Your Menopause / Episode 49: Making Time for You – Prioritising Joy in a Busy Life

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Episode 49: Making Time for You – Prioritising Joy in a Busy Life · Empower Your Menopause

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to Empower Your Menopause, the podcast that helps you take charge of your health hormones and happiness.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're your coaches as always, Julie and James from Fabulous Beyond 40.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And today's episode is going to be part gentle reminder and part kind of necessary, what we think is necessary tough love.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to talk about making time for you and finding ways to prioritize joy in your life.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And no, this isn't a fluffy chat about things like bubble baths and spa days, although admittedly, those are very nice things.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But this is more about the kind of joy and self-support that's actually fuels your long-term health, strengthens your relationships, and gives you the energy to actually live the life you want to build for yourself.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if your first thought in this is saying, yeah, yeah, self-care, blah, blah, blah, heard it all before, hang tight because if you've been putting yourself last for years, which I'm guessing you have if you're listening to this, this isn't a luxury kind of thing.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is about survival and about thriving in life.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the sooner you learn how to make space for yourself, the healthier and happier your midlife and beyond are going to be.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go ahead and just dive straight into this first uh area that we were gonna talk about today, which is lies we tell ourselves all the time.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that some of these are gonna sound familiar to some of our listeners.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, number one is about I'll make time when it's less busy, you know, when things aren't so hectic, after the holidays, after the kids are done with school, when kids are back in school, after Christmas, after my birthday, when I'm done with holidays, you know, let's have a little reality check here.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you can remember things ever getting less busy?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: They never do, because even though your life may shift from time to time, it's highly unlikely to settle down until you decide to make that happen.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we all run into this.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am not immune to any of this myself, so I'm not, you know, trying to be the naysayer here, but but we really do have to take the time because nobody else is going to give it to us.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So something else we hear a lot is just an attitude, maybe not these specific words, but this attitude of needing to earn rest, right?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: We have this martyr complex.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I haven't done enough.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I need to get all these things done first, and then I can rest.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But ask yourself this question.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who told you that your needs weren't valid unless everybody else was sorted out first?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know, I don't know any planet on which that is an okay thing, right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the kind of conditioning that most of us have grown up with.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we we we forget ourselves, we forget to put ourselves on our to-do list.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And quite honestly, my personal belief is that taking care of ourselves, and I mean mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, it's our number one responsibility because when we do this, it allows us to support everybody else from a place of much better strength and confidence and energy because we actually have more of those things to give and share with other others.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, who wouldn't benefit from us being our best versions of ourselves when we're we're there to help them?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then somebody else has said recently, well, it's multiple people have said it, but just recently this came up again.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Say, oh, this is just a phase, you know, when I get through this phase.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been saying that for like a decade, as many people have, this isn't a phase, this is a pattern.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And again, you know, we we develop habits by repetition.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's time to break through that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting for some magical right time feels easier, but that magical time never arrives.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that it can be difficult, but at some point we have to draw a line in the sand because your health is not going to wait for a more convenient time.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Your health isn't going to wait until you feel like dealing with it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it and you know, case in point, have you ever noticed that you seem to get sick at the most inconvenient times?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when is it ever convenient to be sick, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is your body basically screaming at you to give it your attention.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I and I've been there myself.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've been through the whole burnout thing where I actually had to be signed off of work for a long period of time because I just couldn't manage it.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to take care of everything at work, working 60, 70 hours a week, going to school, trying to take care of a household, you know, have a relationship, enjoy social time with my friends.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was a mess.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I it really taught me a lot about how to how to draw that line in the sand and how to understand that taking care of myself wasn't selfish.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually doing the best I could for other people as well.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So let's reframe this a little bit and and think about it in this way.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need a weekend retreat, that's not going to take care of years of building up these habits.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: What you need is 10 minutes a day of intentional time spent on your needs, and you need to give yourself the permission to take that time because nobody is coming to give it to you.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: James, I've talked enough now.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Any thoughts on that?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think first of all, it's worth it reiterating here that there's a difference between joy and self-care.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And is joy part of self-care?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, it probably is, but actually doing something that you enjoy for 10 minutes a day is probably the prime part of self-care that you can do.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't have to be, as you alluded to earlier, you know, a relaxing bath or you know, 10 minutes of sitting there going um in a yoga meditative uh state, or whatever those other sort of like almost hackneyed cliche ideas of self-care might be.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: What we're talking about here is actually trying to find stuff that makes you happy because if it makes you happy, it automatically by default becomes self-care.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: All those other things, yoga, etc., great for restorative stuff, but sometimes just finding happiness is something you do, even if that happiness is sprinting for a hundred metres and you finish that smiling, that's the kind of thing that we're talking about here.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, just to differentiate a little bit, I think, from just the general idea of self-care, although it all does come together.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Why is this kind of needed then?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, particularly at this time, it's this concept once again of chronic stress that happens throughout the menopause transition, both because of the physiological effects that are taking place and the mental repercussions that that has on a woman, but also because of all the other things putting herself last, where she sees herself in society, where she sees herself in relation to the rest of the family, etc.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we know full well that chronic stress really worsens menopausal symptoms.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: There are tons and tons of studies that show that the more stressed you are, the higher your symptom load is going to be, whether that be sleep, whether it be mental clarity, whether it be hot flushes, whether it be night sweats, anxiety, all those things are exacerbated by chronic stress.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we we really know that, yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing, of course, is that chronic stress affects our decision making, that elevated causes all affects our decision making as well.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we often don't make the right decisions.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: That can be particularly true when it comes to food.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're running a program at the moment, our Feel Fabulous in Five Summer program.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Just this week, we've been talking about how much elevated stress can make people make the wrong decisions when it comes to their food choices, or not the wrong decisions, I'll rephrase that, the decisions that don't actually serve their goals at this point.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if I hear that phrase, actually, if I had a pound for every time a potential client had said to me, I have no time, I don't have the time.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'll start on Monday, I'll start on Wednesday, I'll start next in in a month of Sundays when there's a blue moon, whatever they might be, I would I would be a millionaire if I had a pound every time somebody had said that to me, right?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you keep telling yourself that, you will never find the time.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's only when you make that conscious decision to say, right, I'm actually going to look at my schedule.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you again not wanting to harp on about some of the things that we do, but within our membership programme, Club Fabulous Beyond 40, one of the bonus uh trainings that people get access to there is uh a program, a mini programme called Make Time for Me Time.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing we want to do is make sure that people are going through that and making sure that they're actually prioritizing time, and so that is really, really important, I think.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, convincing yourself that you don't have the time is much more dangerous than your actual schedule is because I can guarantee you anybody who's a little bit of a time diary for a day for a day is gonna find at least 10, 15, 20 minutes that they can actually shift their priorities around.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not taking myself out of this, of course.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a woman in menopause, but I'm a man of a certain age going through the male equivalent andropause, and I know that I spend tons of time a day scrolling aimlessly through social media that I could actually reduce and and and and use that more for self-care.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, we we all aren't immune to that.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk, I suppose, a little bit my turn to rant um about what happens when we don't actually prioritize some kind of joy.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you've got burnout, you've got resentment, lol libido is really really key.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Irritability, you're snapping at the people you love.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your nervous system is in fight or flight mode constantly, and there's never a reset to it.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And some of you may be familiar with this concept of you know, those of you who have children or grandkids, you'll be familiar with the concept of almost going from zero to a hundred in seconds when something happens that upsets you around the kids, whether it be their screen age and they're spending too much time on their screen, they're not tidying their rooms, they're not helping you around the house when you and your partner are already frazzled.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: All those kind of things that make us just go from being really nice, the parents that we want to be, nice and calm and collected, going to a raging banshee with our kids, that is indicative of these increased stress levels that we put ourselves through where we constantly in fight or flight, and then the flip side of all that, of course, is that we come up with coping behaviours.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: What are our coping coping behaviours?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: That scrolling that I spoke about earlier, you know, constant wine o'clock.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've had a shit day, so I deserve a glass of wine at the end of it, and you may say argue, and and you may be right, that you find joy in wine, but that might not come if that becomes a habitual thing because there are other effects that alcohol obviously has on the menopause transition as well, and then of course you've got emotional eating, all those kinds of things are kind of numbing habits that sort of like take us away from it.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's escapism, but not escapism in a I'm dreaming, I'm seeing myself in the future, I'm going away somewhere else.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's more of an escapism, is as in I'm trying to blot out what's going on in real life.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really important to try and recognise that.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you have heard those phrases that Julie was talking about before, I can't remember the last time I did something just for me.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Even when I do take time for myself, I feel guilty.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there was a time when I didn't even know I wanted anymore, all those kind of things might be signals that something is not quite right, which is why we think that joy is important.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, Julie, let's throw this back to you then.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly what is the real real role of joy or happiness in our health in midlife?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's so it's so much more important than I think we give it credit for.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: We think, oh, joy, happiness, you know, these are things that we eventually achieve, but really they need to be part of our everyday.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: We can choose these things, we can choose how we see things.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the one of the critical parts of this is that when we are doing things that bring us, you know, maybe joy isn't the right word.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I like it because it just feels so good to say, but joy, happiness makes us feel good, lights us up from the inside out, however, you want to refer to that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when we do things like that, it actually supports our hormones.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in midlife, that's really important.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: As James was talking about with cortisol levels and stress, you hear us talking about this topic all the time, how it's the number one enemy of women going through menopause.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, who can be in a bad mood when you're feeling happy about something, right?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it helps with those mood, that mood regulation and lowers our cortisol.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: It also is better for sleep, it's better for digestion.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we're talking about neurotransmitters, and these are things that our brain releases when we sense things that make us happy, when we sense things that that bring us joy, and and these are neurotrans, these neurotransmitters can actually have positive healing effects on our body.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And those are we're talking about things like dopamine and serotonin, oxy oxytocin and endorphins.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you hear people all the time about the runner's high and the endorphin high after exercise.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's that kind of thing.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: You just feel like you can take on the world.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't want to feel like that?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And by that nature, by that, you know, by that pathway, joy isn't about finding a way to treat yourself, as it were.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's about fueling yourself, it's about bringing that energy.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, what we focus on is going to grow when we can look at things we're grateful for, we could do things that make us feel good, when we can do things that make us laugh and feel happy and be around people who also um do that for us, it can actually improve our health.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about simple things.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you like to draw, do something artistic, um dance around the room, the dance party.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we've talked about the the dance party in the living room, and this can this can help you in a number of different ways.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Going for a walk in nature, journaling, what whatever it is that you enjoy doing.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: If it's sitting quietly with a cup of tea, watching a sunset, listening to really moving music, whatever that is that really makes you feel good, this 10 minutes a day can make a difference.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And those 10 minutes don't even have to be together, like we talk about exercise snacks, we're talking about happiness snacks.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you can do five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the evening, or whenever you can squeeze that in, because we know you can find five minutes in your day a couple of times to do that for yourself, and you are absolutely worth it.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of science behind this, isn't there?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, and I think that is key to mention as well that you know Julie and I tried to be as evidence-based as possible when we're talking about the menopause transition.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the questions that we ask quite a lot is is there science behind how lifestyle medicine or lifestyle changes or lifestyle management, whatever you want to call it, how all those things can actually help with menopause symptoms.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And there is absolutely, and and joy struck happiness is another one of these.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: There are not menopause related, particularly, um, but you can draw a link to menopause.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: There are tons of studies by Johns Hopkins University over in the United States that show the positive effect that joy and happiness can have on our overall health.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, one of the key things is it reduces inflammation.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely cast iron that chronic low-level inflammation that comes from stress, that comes from living next to polluted roads, that comes from the busyness of today's society, all those kind of things, that low-level inflammation is a key driver of disease in society today.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and positive joy, positive happiness can help, has been scientifically proven to help reduce that low level of chronic inflammation.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: That low level of chronic inflammation obviously can be a risk factor for all kinds of long-term health conditions, cardiovascular complications, for instance.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So joy and happiness can reduce cardiovascular risk, it can improve your immune health, you know, as we get older.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and then when you look at you know those just those few things that I've mentioned there as headers, and then translate translate them back into the menopause transition.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we know fully well that estrogen has a protective effect over so many different aspects of a woman's health.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Two that we talk about a lot are muscle mass and and and bone mineral density, but ones that maybe could be highlighted even more is you know, there is an inflammatory effect to the menopause transition when estrogen starts to wane, our body isn't as good at fighting off inflammation, risk of cardiovascular challenges increases as oestrogen depletes, immune system can be compromised as estrogen depletes.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, although the studies at Johns Hopkins don't really direct it back to the menopause, we can see where the link is between what effect that can have on our general health and also translating that over to symptoms of the menopause transition, and then this concept of you know, nobody's talking about going round smiling 24-7 and with a big beat on half, it's just not practical, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: But trying to find the time or finding, because you don't need you shouldn't be trying, you should be finding the time for these little micro pieces of joy, just trying to do something for a few minutes a day has been proven that those tiny habits, when you can install them, have are the basis for a sustainable path to lasting change.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a book by BJ Fogg, he's the founder and director of Stanford Behaviour Design Lab in the States.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Really, really respected academic.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's written a book called Tiny Habits.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Read it, it is incredible.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't want to read it, you want a summary of it, join our membership because we talk about all the time there how just the concept of finding tiny habits and stacking one on top of the other, and if some of those tiny habits are joyous or they're happiness related, even better because we know that scientifically that that can help, and there's you know, there's there's tons of ways around this.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, if you're looking for starting point, that 10 minutes a day, five minutes a day, ten minutes a day is really really important.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can journal, you can walk, you can read, you can stretch, whatever it may be.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: A few studies that I found that actually, once again, show how small change can have a big impact, right?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: There are studies that show that just a cup of saffron herbal tea a day can help with menopause symptoms.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: 10-15 minutes of physical activity, proven scientifically proven to help with menopause uh symptoms.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Group discussion.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, those of you who listen to this but are also in your local menopause group or whatever, or a support group with other women around you, whether it be a female book club or whatever, that group discussion proven to help with menopause symptoms, mindfulness proven to help with menopause symptoms.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there are so many things that you can pull at strands that actually work here.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: There was a recent survey, it was only published about a month or ago, a month or so ago here in the UK by um a well-known menopause supplement.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: We won't name them because we don't like endorsing project products unless we've tried them ourselves here in the UK.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So this is not a scientific study, but it's a survey of 2,000 of 2,000 women during the menopause transition, and they found that many of them were taking up new hobbies to help them through menopause.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just gonna read, they had a whole list in this research of I think about 30 different hobbies that people had taken up to help them find more joy.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna give you the top 10.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: So number one was gardening or outdoor activities, cooking or baking new recipes.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: We might need to have a word about the amount of sugar that's in the cakes, but that's another okay.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Finding out about healthy eating and just cooking healthier was another one of the things.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's number three travel, exploring new places, expanding our horizons, going to the gym.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's a hackney one.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about it a lot that you know, five, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour of extra.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exercise can help, but going to the meditation, mindfulness practices, sewing, knitting, crafting.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Julie talked about those before.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Renovating your home, doing DIY stuff.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: If at the end of the day, you sit down and you think to yourself, do you know what?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've done a great job there today, and you enjoy the fruits of your labour when you've got you know a newly painted room or something's changing the house, whatever it may be.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Really, really important.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Volunteering was another big one, and then things like practicing yoga or tai Chi, those more calming things.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you know there's a whole lot list there of 10 things that women are practically trying to help them find more joy, more happiness, and as we've said scientifically, that more joy and more happiness can help with your menopause symptom load as well.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you know if you if you're not doing this right now, let's make this a time to draw a line in the sand.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not uh you don't need permission from anybody else other than yourself to say, I'm gonna do this.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: So let's draw that line now.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Start with some something simple and build on it.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Five minutes, do that for a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, then move up to ten, fifteen, whatever it may be.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will your menopause journey be built in a day.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then also have a little bit of curiosity about this.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: If if from that list of ten things there, there's something you think, oh, do you know what?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought of you know, DIY is a joyous thing, explore it, see if it works for you.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Not all of them will work for you, but some of them will.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and and if it's not those, you know, think of some some some others, or come to Julie and myself and and ask us for other ideas.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're always open to chat to people.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, Julia, anything else you want to add on to that before we bring things to a halt for today?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think the the key to remember, key thing to remember is this isn't about being more productive, right?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to look at this as another thing on your to-do list.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is about feeling more alive, enjoying your days, getting more out of every day.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because let's face it, you're not ever going to be a better professional, a better parent, a better partner, better friend if you're always the last person on your list.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: The people who love you want you to be happy.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So again, take the reins on that and and make it make it happen.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's not a selfish thing to do.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: We all need it.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a smart thing to build into your life because it's essential for your long-term health.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and it it comes down to the bottom line of it's it's being a choice, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're we get to choose, and by not choosing, we're making a choice every day.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: So this is more about it's not not just thinking about what you do, it's about reclaiming who you are and and who you want to be.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I I yeah, I don't think, I mean, if we're gonna wrap this up in a nutshell, I would just say you don't have to earn joy in your life.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that you you deserve, you get to have, and you get to find what that looks like for you.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to hit brock bottom to justify taking a break.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Fate, please take it from someone who has been all the way down the burnout path.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not worth it.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can start creating that belief that your life is worth enjoying now because you can't wait to be happy.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be happy.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say you need when you're when you make the decision to be happy now, it's amazing how different your life can look.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: So start with 10 minutes, allow yourself to believe that you matter, and you can see where things go from there.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Fabulous.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so if you do want to start on something like this, but you're not quite sure where to start, we've just launched um a new coaching uh session that we're really, really excited by.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's called our menopause impact assessment.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a new service where we take you through a validated, once again scientifically validated questionnaire to ascertain your symptom load, and then that'll allow us to know exactly where you are in your menopause journey and what that symptom load is and what effect that is having.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it's called a menopause impact assessment.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: What impact is this having on your life?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: We then use the results of that alongside you on the call to find out where you want to get to.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: We look at what you already have in place to get towards that, but more importantly, where your gaps are, so we can start working on things right away.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And by having that menopause impact assessment, it also gives us a tally, a score, if you like, so you can measure down the line what impact any changes that we've suggested can make for you.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you have a really, really validated way of knowing whether the sessions work for you or not.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Calls last around 45 minutes, and the cost is just 23 pounds, which um, as ever we charge in pounds, so whatever the current currency rate is, but at the moment it's just under 32 dollars, um, and the dollar-pound ratio has kind of stayed stable, so we don't expect that to change too much.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to book in for one of those sessions, we'll put this also in the show notes.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's impact.fabulousbeyond40.com.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we're here to help you build a life that's sustainable, joyful, grander in what matters to you.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you think we can help, book onto one of those calls.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's about it for today.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll just say we've been coaches James and Julie on Empower Your Menopause.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: As always, stay strong, stay fabulous.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.