Latest / Women of the Well | Women's health, done differently / Who holds the authority over your body? Women, medicine and power

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Who holds the authority over your body? Women, medicine and power · Women of the Well | Women's health, done differently

• 0:02
  Speaker: Welcome to Women of the Well.
• 0:05
  Speaker: This is a podcast about what medicine looks like when it listens to your body, to your story, and to your own deep knowing.
• 0:13
  Speaker: Hosted by gynecologists Dr.
• 0:16
  Speaker: Peta Wright and Dr.
• 0:17
  Speaker: Thea Bowler.
• 0:18
  Speaker: With me, Holistic Counselor Sam Lindsay German.
• 0:21
  Speaker: We explore health from a whole woman perspective so you can make choices that feel true to you.
• 0:28
  Speaker: This podcast is for information and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment.
• 0:38
  Speaker: Before we start today's episode, we'd like to acknowledge and show our deep respect to the Jinibura people as the traditional custodians of the land we are recording this on.
• 0:48
  Speaker: We pay respect to the elders past, present, and across time, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today.
• 0:58
  Speaker: Now it is time to replenish yourself by the well.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I'm Dr Peta Wright. I'm Dr.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Thea Bowler.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm Sam Lindsay German.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It's been a little bit since we've had you because you've been away, you've re returned to the UK.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I did, I went back to the homeland.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I was just hearing about the beautiful cottage in Wales that you returned, well, you didn't return to the cottage, but you returned to the place where you and Ian went on your honeymoon.
• 1:42
  Speaker: Yeah, it was very beautiful.
• 1:43
  Speaker: So to be back in rural whale Wales, deep dark Wales, and to sort of spend time just in complete quiet nature was quite amazing.
• 1:54
  Speaker: And very interesting to observe how one's body responds to being in in your homeland.
• 2:03
  Speaker: But I was talking to someone yesterday who's actually um from Australia, but she was saying that she even feels it when she goes back to Hungary.
• 2:11
  Speaker: So talking to Brooke, and she was saying when she goes back to Hungary she feels it there, which is like really sort of ancestral.
• 2:19
  Speaker: So we were discussing the importance of knowing that you feel safe on a land and making yourself feel that way.
• 2:28
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 2:29
  Speaker: I think that's a whole could be a whole other episode.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a whole other episode.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a very big one.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: But it's very good to have you back, fam, because we we missed you.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: So today we wanted to talk about a few things.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: We really actually wanted to talk about women, the medical industry, and power and abuse of power.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: And, you know, it was Women's Health Week a few weeks ago, and we kind of get inundated at that time with all the things you're supposed to check in, all the medical appointments and checks you're supposed to go to.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And I think I did a post about maybe the most important check that we can do as women, as humans, is to check in with our own self and our own body and our own soul.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And I guess I'm probably pretty uniquely placed to see what happens when women don't do that and when they trust blindly in the medical system.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: And I think we we kind of get sold this idea that that's always a good thing, and that you know, seeing doctors and and seeking help in the medical system is always going to be beneficial to us, and they'll always know the answers, and those people are experts and they know more about our body and what our body needs than we do.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: And I actually see so much harm that happens when women outsource their authority to the medical industry without checking in first on what it what feels right for their body.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: And this isn't an anti-medicine episode, of course.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: There are lots of times and places that modern medicine is invaluable, but if it is unchecked and if it is not held to account, or we make decisions from a place of fear or not in our power, then I see, and you fear you would see, and Sam you hear about how it's not benign, that it can be really damaging.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And I guess it really struck home to me this week.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And I had a had an appointment with a couple of women who had undergone harm in the medical system, so much so that I read their stories and then thought, God, why are you even returning to see a doctor?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Some of these women's stories are really heartbreaking, and I see this a lot, but it really affected me particularly this week, and and perhaps particularly this week, because there's even more stories about male abuse of power that continue to come out.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And I guess also on the back of the ABC for Corners program back in February that I was involved in commenting on about the alleged operations on a lot of women, presumably for endometriosis, where it was revealed that they didn't have endometriosis and they'd had multiple, multiple operations and reproductive organs removed and that didn't help them.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And so I guess we really wanted to talk about that and not just highlight it, but also remind you that you do have a power and that there is a authority that is more important than any authority that's outside of you, and what practical ways that we can employ to come back to our own discernment and our own power before we hand it over.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: About really connecting with our own agency and our own sovereignty before we actually blindly follow someone else's recommendations about our own body.
• 6:10
  Speaker: It's quite a lot to quite a lot to listen to, but also thinking, understanding, and hopefully we could maybe find ways of educating young girls and young women so that actually before hopefully they get to any of these points, they have more sovereignty.
• 6:28
  Speaker: So I think as as women and mothers and women who are sisters, aunts, teachers, guides, it is part of our role to help each other find that sense of sovereignty and trust each other and believe in each other and listen to each other before perhaps we hand everything over to someone else.
• 6:52
  Speaker: That's right.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Because if we are already already living a life where we're not connected with those things or outsourcing those things, and then we come into contact with a medical system that is not malevolent or anything, like all of the treatments unconscious.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: There's a power system that often the people that are delivering that care are not even aware that they are kind of they often think that they're doing the best thing.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the time it's with good intent, but the problem that I think is that Western medicine's very good at helping if you have a broken bone or a tumour or a cancer or something.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: But when when it comes to chronic symptoms and chronic conditions, which are, as we talk about constantly, you know, really messages from our body about what's going on in our nervous systems and our lives, a lot of those treatments fail.
• 7:46
  Speaker: And that's where, you know, we sometimes want to turn to alternative therapies or even spiritual concepts.
• 7:53
  Speaker: But I just want to highlight that I think it's also important that we practice discernment there too, that the wellness industry is not different to the medical industry.
• 8:02
  Speaker: And I just personally want to make that very clear.
• 8:05
  Speaker: We're not saying that the wellness industry has all the answers, and by that I mean alternative therapies, because it too can do exactly the same thing, and I've seen that happen as well.
• 8:15
  Speaker: And me too as well.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: So I guess we could just this is a made-up story, but it is a I guess a culmination or analgamation.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: An amalgamation of many stories that we hear, and so I just want you to think about how this would feel in a young person's body and how it would help to develop their belief system because what we understand about how our body behaves, how our nervous system is, which can then produce symptoms, our belief systems have so much to do with that.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: We talk about predictive coding, which is what we believe has the power to change our nervous system, change our immune system, our gut health, and make us more likely to experience a whole host of issues.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: So I just want you to like feel into your body about how this kind of trajectory might be if you were a woman.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: So this would be something I would see really very often.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: So a young girl, nine or ten, might get her period for the first time, it might be irregular, and she might see a doctor who, you know, then she could get diagnosed with a reproductive issue like PCOS, or be told that it might make her make it difficult for her to have children, and that's at nine or ten.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: So the beliefs already about this young girl's body before she even starts to have a cycle is that her body's already broken, and that diagnosis, as we know, isn't ever something that's made at nine or ten.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, as that young girl goes on, there might be a especially if someone has been experiencing a lot of childhood trauma and their nervous system is on high alert, so they have more likelihood to have a sensitized pain system, so their periods are going to be more painful.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: They might see a doctor and then get told that their pain is due to an anatomical variant in their uterus, which needs to be operated on to improve.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: And so then again, they still think that something is normal, that's a normal variant in their body is causing them pain, which there's no evidence of, and that their body needs to be surgically corrected to fix this.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Then, because they continue to have pain, they might go on to have, and this is an incredibly common story with many of our patients, they may go on to have multiple laparoscopies.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And in many cases, they don't get better, and and so they see another gynecologist who does another surgery, and then they're still not better, so they might see another gynecologist always thinking, well, it's you know, the huge amount of endometriosis that you've got is causing your pain.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: So, again, the belief system is that the pain is due to the inherent defects of the body.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: So the body is constantly being pathologized.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: And I had a particular patient who used the words to me and said, due to the way I guess my my body had been pathologized all this time, my belief system became I'm helpless, powerless, I need to outsource the decisions around my body, and I can't be better unless I'm putting my body in the hands of these experts.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: So I just kind of want us all to sit with that trajectory.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: And then you can kind of see if you understand and the way the nervous system works to amplify pain conditions, that all of that, and we know there's really good science to tell us that the words that we use to speak about the body, they have an effect, and so it's known as the nocebo effect.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: So if we say you have this condition, it is incurable, it will be progressive, those words actually can make pain and symptoms worse.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: They also create this sense of helplessness, like there's no hope for change, and that is damaging in itself, apart from all of the operations and the interventions which are damaging.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I think that's it.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Like it goes beyond just complications from medicine or complications from surgery.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: It's that whole paradigm that's actually damaging, which is that the answer is outside of yourself, that your body is the problem, that the only solution is in invasive treatments.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: And I think that's not benign.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Like for a person, and we see people all the time who've had, you know, three or four laparoscopies by the time they're 19 or 20, all in the name of trying to help them with pain.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: And not only is it neutral, not helping with their pain, actually it's harmful because the repeated surgeries, the repeated sense of failure that I'm doing all of the things and I'm not getting better, the nocebo effect of your endo is coming back, all of these things actually impact a person's sense of their own connection to their body and their body's own ability to heal.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And in that way, I think it's really harmful.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Like a really minor example is I had a patient once who had a tiny bit of period pain but ended up having a laparoscopy with someone else who told her she didn't actually have any endo, but the doctor used the words your uterus is angry.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Uterus looks angry.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And when I saw her, she was had so much more pain than she did before the surgery.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: She was in tears, and so that's the perfect example of how words are spells.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: It was literally just that word, angry, and then all of the fear and the worry that flowed on from there that meant her nervous system moved into a state of distrust with her body, of fear that amplified her pain.
• 14:02
  Speaker: What's most fascinating to me about that though is that we actually are unable now to discern which are our beliefs and which are the ones that we're given.
• 14:13
  Speaker: And um, and I think that's you know, that's the point where we're at.
• 14:17
  Speaker: It took you as someone who she perceived to be an authority to change that belief.
• 14:23
  Speaker: And what we really want to be able to do is help people to not need that, but to know that they have that power within themselves.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I know that's what I constantly think to myself and say to you guys all the time is nobody realizes how powerful they are.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Nobody realizes how incredibly magical and powerful and strong their minds are.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Because if we, particularly as women, if we all could connect to that, then we wouldn't be coming to see a doctor.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: No, and the world unless we not be in the situation that it's in at the moment.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: We were all excited about this book that's going to be released by this psychiatrist in the States, and I can't remember then her name, but her book is called Season of the Witch, and it's all about her disenchantment through the medical system, probably similar to our own.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: But she said in a podcast we were listening to, and it stuck with me, she said the world will extract your power if you let it.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: And I thought that that is like so true.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: And I I think that all we want to do is try to help people remember the power that they have in the first place.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And Sam's right that the culture that we have is is kind of like this outsourced wisdom, and there's no reverence for that inner wisdom, and that would that campaign to do that would have started happening hundreds of years ago where women's wisdom, our intern our own wisdom was told, you know, that's like old wives' tales, that's not to be trusted.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Only things that can be measured in a randomized control trial is relevant, it doesn't matter about what your experience is.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And so because we do see this harm, and trials actually do show that there is harm, there is evidence that iatrogenic or medical-induced harm is one of the I think top like five causes of death or something.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And you know, definitely studies that tell us about the way we use language affects pain symptoms.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: A study that looked at the way GPs gave a report on a back MRI.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: If they gave language that was just neutral, you know, you have these changes.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Often we see those in people who don't have pain or who do have pain, it's not particularly correlated.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: But if they were given the same the same kind of factual information but with an emotive tone of oh my god, you've got all these awful, degenerative, terrible changes, then their pain was worse.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: And we see that every day as well when we comes to things like ultrasounds.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: And I frequently have women who come into my practice who have been doing really, really well and then have an ultrasound and then get told things like you'll be dealing with this endometriosis for the rest of your life, and you need a hysterectomy.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Or the diagnosis of adenomyiosis is a very common one.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this will never go away, and you'll need a hysterectomy to get better, which we know isn't true, but this puts women into a spin, and then again it's only when you come back, they could, if they were able to sit with themselves, they could think, okay, but before the scan, I didn't have those symptoms and I was doing really well.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: But because someone in authority casts literally casts the spell on them, you know, essentially telling them their body is broken and can't be changed, they really feel into that.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: And because we have severed our own attachment and our own wisdom and our own knowing as valuable and possibly more valuable than what an expert is telling us about our body, but we have it so low on what's valuable, we learn to ignore that.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: And uh, even though we might know, oh, but I had been well before, the only thing that's changed is the words that someone's told me over an ultrasound scan.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Um, but we're so conditioned to just believe and trust medical authority figures, and I guess this this episode is really rethink that and not to not get the information if that's what you feel called to, but to always weigh it with your own discernment and your own wisdom.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: And if you don't feel like you have that yet, it's really important to develop it.
• 18:40
  Speaker: I think one of the things that I really am conscious of and listening to all of this, it makes me think of it even more, is that we seem to desire to know what's wrong with us.
• 18:50
  Speaker: And it seems to be a big yearning at the moment in our society to sort of know what's wrong.
• 18:56
  Speaker: And I think about that because when you get to my age, you're bombarded by being offered a million tests, which I haven't done any of.
• 19:04
  Speaker: But not that I would advise anyone else to follow me, but I'm just saying, but mainly because my belief is if you look hard enough, you'll find something.
• 19:12
  Speaker: And I feel well.
• 19:13
  Speaker: And I say this to my husband all the time.
• 19:15
  Speaker: I say, if I didn't feel well, if I woke up one day and I thought something was off, then potentially I would go and look into it.
• 19:23
  Speaker: But the truth is that I know when I feel good and when I don't feel good, and I know when that is something that is that needs pathologizing, or actually whether I just need to go and find some peace and quiet and take a rest.
• 19:36
  Speaker: And and I I feel a lot of people are so stuck in a busy life and a life that they feel that they can't get off, that they are constantly seeking for the answer to why they're struggling to perform and to feel well in that life.
• 19:55
  Speaker: And so they actually really do want to come and receive some of these spells because, in theory, some of these spells might help them to make a change.
• 20:06
  Speaker: Unfortunately, we don't seem to see that very much.
• 20:09
  Speaker: The change doesn't come that quickly, but it is the start of a desire to want someone to help them.
• 20:16
  Speaker: I'm just not sure that they want the spells that they're given.
• 20:20
  Speaker: No, that's right.
• 20:21
  Speaker: I think Does that make sense what I'm trying to do?
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, it totally makes sense.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I think we want we want a label for our suffering, right?
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Like we want a reason why we're struggling, because it's very hard to actually admit a lot of the time that the reason might be something to do with the way that we're living or the things that are going on in our lives, because those things are harder to change.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Or the things that have happened to us, or the things that have happened, and so to make it a problem with the body seems easier in a way, but often it l because because medicine is coming from a place of the body as pathological.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: It's not coming from a place of the body as whole, the body as able to heal itself.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: And so if someone's coming wanting to find a problem, medicine is going to give you that.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Medicine is gonna give you a problem.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Well, it's the only way medicine can help.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Is by having the problem that it can then do something with that's right.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And then you go down a path of of interventions in medicines, all of which quite often not only may cause problems, but as exactly as we've said, divorce people from any sense of agency.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Do you think that what is that quote?
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: It's like a Marianne Williamson quote that says people's fear isn't that they are powerless, but it's that they are powerful beyond all measure.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: And maybe it's something like that too, because we've been so conditioned to outsource our own power and authority, and it's been so devalued, especially for women.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: It's almost like if we knew how powerful we were, we would then have to accept.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Responsibility for situations in which, of course, we could have been in situations which we didn't have control over at certain points, and especially you know, if you were in a power imbalance, you're a child, there was things that were happening, but ultimately, when you realize that you're powerful, you realize that you have agency choice, and then with that comes a responsibility.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And I wonder if that's really scary.
• 22:28
  Speaker: I always use the Spider-Man quote, actually.
• 22:30
  Speaker: What is with great power comes great responsibility?
• 22:34
  Speaker: But mainly because I think women are more powerful, as we've already said, than they realize.
• 22:39
  Speaker: And I've heard many, many times women asking me, Why do I have to work so hard?
• 22:44
  Speaker: Why does the man not have to work hard?
• 22:46
  Speaker: But it's just different.
• 22:48
  Speaker: I I don't think we should ever look at ourselves as being like, you know, why don't they have to do this?
• 22:52
  Speaker: Why are we having to do this?
• 22:54
  Speaker: But the point is that you were created as a woman who can create and bring life into the world.
• 22:59
  Speaker: With that comes huge responsibility.
• 23:02
  Speaker: We have things occurring in our body and we have things that we can do with this magnificent body that man can't do, you know, the masculine can't do.
• 23:11
  Speaker: And one of the things that I am thinking as I'm listening to you is, because I keep speaking to many women who are my age at the moment who are struggling with some of the diagnoses that they're receiving from blood tests that they're having, I keep saying you have to remember pathology up to this point has mainly been done on men.
• 23:28
  Speaker: You're being compared to a man and you're feeling what you're feeling and you're being told that you're not right based on that.
• 23:36
  Speaker: And it's probably going to take another 10, 20 years before we have true pathology on women's bodies going through menopause.
• 23:44
  Speaker: Do you agree?
• 23:45
  Speaker: So actually at the moment we're basing it all off something that we're not entirely sure is factually correct for our bodies.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: That's like endometriosis, like the the fact that I don't think that that's always a pathology.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: And because we don't really know what's normal in women, we say it's a pathology.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: The other thing is like when people say, Well, why they weren't doing anything or they didn't do the right thing, or I had to research all of this myself, I think, well, but of course you had to research it all yourself because it is your body, and we shouldn't expect someone else to care more about our body than us, even if we're going to a professional, they're just not going to.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: And if it like the thing is you need to care the most about your body, that's the thing.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: And you ultimately have that responsibility because you're the person who's living in your body.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: I guess it's not just the things that we see day to day in our practice.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Um, I think when the if anyone doesn't know what we're talking about in terms of the ABC Four Corners episode, they reported allegations in February of this year that women underwent repeated or extensive surgery for severe endometriosis, and that was despite pathology showing little or no disease in many cases.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: That was a really difficult program to watch and really difficult stories to hear from these women who felt betrayed and lied to.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: It was like an exploitation of their vulnerability, wasn't it?
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: It just makes me think of that quote again: our power will be extracted.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: And in this case, not only was their power extracted, but their bodily parts were extracted, you know?
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: And this is why we think it's so important.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And we can get really angry about it.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Like, why are these people doing this, these things?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: And we can also think, well, this is an isolated case of just one person who allegedly performed these potentially unnecessary surgeries on women, but it's not isolated.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And I see it in my practice every week.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I see women who've had similar scenarios by other surgeons, and I think just getting angry about it isn't going to change the fact that like the mess we're in, and we need to then think, well, what can we actually do as women?
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: And I guess that starts with we cannot outwardly change the system, but we can come back to ourselves and be so discerning about where we who we trust and um where we um who we give our power to.
• 26:27
  Speaker: We mustn't forget also though that anger is mobilization.
• 26:30
  Speaker: And that's really important because if we don't have anger, if we're actually just, you know, laying on the four floor, fawning and completely giving up, then then there's nothing happening.
• 26:42
  Speaker: So actually anger is a good thing, it's a good place to start.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And to me, it's like it's all a spectrum from you know, like the abuse of women's bodies medically through to the violence and the harm that we've heard about all over the news all year, really.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Like it was started with Epstein at the start of the year, and that was just sickening, and then it's just gone on and on and on, and it's all part of the same problem, I think, which is the world extracting women's power if we let them.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: And so I think to me, the anger is really sacred because we should be angry, like we really all should be so angry, and that is why I really connect with that book, The Season of the Witch, because I think the word which to me gives me like a sense of somewhere to put my anger.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Like I can be a powerful angry woman, and that's okay.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And I think the more of us that become more grounded and centered in our rage and our anger, and then action flowing from there, the more well.
• 27:48
  Speaker: I think it's you know, it it's getting to a point where you're unapologetic in your beliefs.
• 27:53
  Speaker: And unfortunately, I mean, even doing a podcast like this, we have to be careful what we say.
• 27:59
  Speaker: So there are lots of things that we have to be careful how we state them and how we share them because we're doing a podcast.
• 28:07
  Speaker: That in itself means that our speech and the words that we want to share are not always what we want to say fully.
• 28:15
  Speaker: And I find even, you know, there's always seems to be something around our throat just holding us back and saying, no, you can't actually say what you're thinking, you can't actually say what you're feeling, you can't actually scream and shout what you want to do.
• 28:31
  Speaker: And that in itself makes me very angry because I can feel that.
• 28:37
  Speaker: I feel like, yeah, we sit here, we're trying to say certain words, we're being quite deliberate about not saying it in a certain way.
• 28:44
  Speaker: Trying to be diplomatic.
• 28:45
  Speaker: Exactly, and that is frustrating because this is all very frustrating, and it keeps happening.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: We've been writing letters to journalists for years.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I wrote a book about this, and there's going to be a reluctance for the powers that be to really look into it because these kinds of practices on vulnerable women, where invasive surgeries and things like that are being done on them without full autonomy.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: We want to have someone making a decision with their full autonomy, which means that they have other options explained to them where they have the real what we know to be studied benefits slash risks of certain procedures being given to them before they can actually make a decision.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And I would say, actually, even before that, because most of the time you see that, as you say, the these women are often very vulnerable, have had horrible things happen to them in their lives, often still happening when they present to a medical practitioner, it's making me want to cry.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: You can clearly tell that no one has gone to the trouble of asking them anything about their lives.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Like they've not asked them because if you even got a glimpse of what was going on in these people's lives, which we find out about because we ask, but if you knew about that, you wouldn't be trying to operate on them because you would clearly understand that there were greater reasons for their pain than something you could cut out of their pelvis.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And once the things are cut out of their pelvis and their pain is worse or they're struggling still, and then they're almost like discarded from these clinicians because there's nothing else they can do.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: They've done their thing which wasn't ever going to help them anyway, and there's evidence that tells us, that shows us that if your nervous system is heightened, if you have amplified pain processing, that it that a surgery often isn't going to be helpful.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: So they can predict this as well, and that is never told to people.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: No.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: And then you get to the lack of choice and the lack of actual informed consent about what surgery is likely to do, and then the discarding at the end of it.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And it's just it's to me, quite often seems like one big pointless roller coaster that a person has been on to be spat out the other end.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: At best, no better, and at worse, much worse.
• 31:15
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:15
  Speaker: And it and it all comes, you know, and stems from the fact that these women are, like you were saying, feeling desperate, looking for someone to help them.
• 31:23
  Speaker: And I think that's a really important word.
• 31:25
  Speaker: They just want to be helped.
• 31:27
  Speaker: And when a woman is vulnerable and she wants to be helped, she turns to someone who she believes can help her.
• 31:34
  Speaker: And that there leaves them open to basically being placed in a situation where they can be abused.
• 31:42
  Speaker: Taken advantage of.
• 31:42
  Speaker: Taken advantage of.
• 31:44
  Speaker: Because, yeah, every time we do that, that is where potentially can happen if we are or we find ourselves in the hands of someone who is willing to abuse that state of power.
• 31:55
  Speaker: And and I think that's really hard.
• 31:57
  Speaker: So we have to not take that away, you know, and that is true of the wellness industry, the medical industry, all industries.
• 32:04
  Speaker: This is a business.
• 32:05
  Speaker: Healthcare is a business, and therefore it makes money from people not being well.
• 32:11
  Speaker: And I that in itself makes me angry because you have to be unwell to be helped.
• 32:17
  Speaker: This is a whole flipping of a system where there's two doctors who are saying, we want you to be really well and not come and see us in there.
• 32:24
  Speaker: At all.
• 32:24
  Speaker: Which is what I did.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Because don't you think we always say that like it's, you know, and I think the culture tells you you have pain, it might be endometriosis, you have to go to a hospital, you have to get diagnosed, where there's zero evidence that getting diagnosed helps people.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: It puts them on a rotating door of coming in for more and more and more invasive procedures that don't help, and it's an industry.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And Thea's crying, and I'm angry because I'm day 27, but we really just get sick of like, you know, really sick of hearing this day in and day out.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: And I hope actually that people can hear our anger and frustration and sadness and heartbreak for the women that we are, I mean, we're privileged to bear witness to their pain and and privileged to be able to show them another path.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Which is really a return to themselves.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: So I guess I guess what we want to do is highlight that this stuff happens because of the industries, because this is a medical model that values doing operations over other things that probably are more effective and less likely to be harmful.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: And also out of this, you know, centuries-old culture of us outsourcing our authority and our own wisdom being devalued, and also from a culture of so many women being abused, really.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Like we there is a link between childhood, sexual abuse, childhood, trauma, all of that, and pain.
• 33:59
  Speaker: Women not being believed.
• 34:00
  Speaker: I think women not being believed.
• 34:03
  Speaker: It always being questioned, you know, do is that true?
• 34:06
  Speaker: I just think that's the thing that gets me the most in these situations is when we think about, I understand that there has to be investigations, but it always seems to be at the expense of the women who have suffered.
• 34:18
  Speaker: In all cases, whether it's medical, whether it's, you know, awful other things that are happening to women all the time.
• 34:25
  Speaker: I just feel it's always at the expense of women.
• 34:27
  Speaker: And that woman has to really go through so much in order to prove her point that actually I understand why so many women don't.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: And also those women who then develop pain conditions like endometriosis and things like that, who may have and very often haven't been believed or haven't got the help that they needed or validation for their suffering, come to this medical industry that is so well set up to get them in the door to diagnose the endometriosis, where that might be where the validation comes for the first time in that woman's life.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: A part of their suffering is seen and someone takes action, but it is often at enormous expense and cost.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: And no one is sitting there before she embarks on her first operation, well, frequently, and tells her all of the other things that may be contributing to her pain and all of the other things that may be beneficial for her in this situation.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: And then in our feeling, often these women become yet another, another way they're becoming victims, another way that they're being being abused.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: And by a system that is extracting their bodily parts and their finances.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: And their power.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: And their power.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: And not emotive.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: So I'm sorry that I haven't been that, but I really, really want everybody to really sit with this and think, how have we gotten ourselves into this?
• 36:05
  Speaker: Well, I think one of the things to note is that one of the ways we've got this is being calm and not actually saying what we feel.
• 36:11
  Speaker: So it it's also important to note that women getting angry and feeling like they want to cry and feeling these sensations in our throats, they're all indicators that they're speaking their truth and that these emotions are coming up.
• 36:28
  Speaker: And I think one of the the biggest problems we have is that we're scared to actually feel.
• 36:34
  Speaker: And so what I was thinking, just listening to you all, is that at home, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, I feel very riled up now and I don't know what to do about it, I just want you first of all to just remember that you're not alone, that there are three women sat here who who see you, and that there are many other women listening to this podcast today who also see you.
• 36:58
  Speaker: And just take a breath and just feel what it is to be in sisterhood for a moment with other women who have been through the same thing, who have listened to people saying things that are not true, or perhaps you have a belief system that has been given to you that you don't want to keep holding.
• 37:19
  Speaker: And so in this moment, just take a breath.
• 37:23
  Speaker: Feel you know, maybe you're just feeling the seat of the car that you're sitting in.
• 37:29
  Speaker: Maybe you're standing outside and you can feel the ground.
• 37:31
  Speaker: Wherever you are, just feel something and just know as you breathe that you're not alone.
• 37:39
  Speaker: And it's together like this, coming together with our rage, and then coming together and then knowing that we're not alone, that we can actually make a change.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: That brings us out of being victimized over and over again.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: And I guess from a practical point of view, we just want to say that you don't need a medical degree to retain authority over your decisions, but you need space, uh, information and self-possession to decide what you consent to.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: So we have a little acronym and it's rooted.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, so R is if you are seeking, if you feel that you need to seek medical care or care from an opinion about anything in your body that you're wanting help with, R stands for regulate.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: So regulate before deciding.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: So if it's not an emergency, make sure you're creating enough physiological and emotional space to think.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Do the little exercise that Sam just spoke about.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: If you're going to an appointment, bring someone you trust and ask for time.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Don't make irreversible decisions when you're fearful, if you don't have to, and don't make a decision about something invasive during that first appointment when you just first meet someone without making sure that you understand all of the alternatives.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: What happens if you don't have this treatment, what happens if you do have this treatment, benefits, risks, etc.
• 39:09
  Speaker: I was just gonna say on that that another great use of that word would be resourced.
• 39:13
  Speaker: I was always taught that resourcing can't of can't sometimes be with a an actual person.
• 39:19
  Speaker: So you might not be able to bring your mum or a sister or someone like that, but you could bring a picture with you, or you could bring the thought of someone being with you.
• 39:28
  Speaker: Perhaps it's someone who's passed over or a guide that you feel might be in your life.
• 39:33
  Speaker: So don't forget there are other ways we can resource ourselves.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Wear something that means something to you, a piece of jewellery or or clothing, or like even a stone or a crystal or something.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: So in the rooted acronym O is own the question.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: So I think that's about specificity, like actually going into an appointment, being really clear about what you want to get out of it.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: And it might be an answer to a specific question, it might be to discuss a result, like an ultrasound, it might be because you want to talk about bleeding or you specifically want to talk about pain, but always returning back to that one thing that you really wanted to find clarity on rather than kind of being taken in any direction by the person that you're going to discuss the problem with.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: The next O is observing the evidence.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: So, what do you know and what's suspected?
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: What might be normal variation?
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: What is the evidence that something is always pathological?
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: What evidence might confirm the diagnosis?
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Even like if a diagnosis is offered to you, think about do you want to receive that diagnosis?
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Is that something that's going to help, or is that something that's going to be limiting?
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: You have a choice about that.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: You don't have to take on these words.
• 40:56
  Speaker: Could you also observe the evidence as to how what you've been told makes you feel?
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is really important.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: So what does the observe how it feels in your body to be given certain words, diagnoses, stories about your body?
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Observe or ask to see the pathology, the imaging, operation reports.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: And I think that should be anytime you're having something invasive like that.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: You should have that person explain to you, you know, all of those things, and you should be able to have copies of them.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: T is test certainty.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: And so this is really like being able to ask your practitioner kind of probing questions, like, how sure are you that this is going to work?
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Could there be another explanation for what's going on?
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Are there situations where we might change our mind about what intervention is required?
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Really kind of exploring how sure they are that what they're saying is going to help you is actually going to help you.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: And I think a good clinician is someone who'll be able to take those questions and sit with uncertainty if it's not there and explain uncertainty and not bring a sense of urgency to you to make a decision, but actually to be able to sit in the unknown if there is an unknown and give you all the options without becoming defensive or making you feel that this is an urgent decision.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: And saying we don't know.
• 42:25
  Speaker: Yes, I love that.
• 42:26
  Speaker: Someone that can actually have the authority to and humanity to say, I don't know, but I'll get back to you.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: The E is explore every option.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: And this is so important.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: And I think when we think about like ethics of medicine, there's first do no harm, which is, you know, the the basis of our Hippocratic oath, and then beneficence, like, is this treatment going to be beneficial?
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: So you want to know, well, what happens if I don't do anything?
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: What is the natural history of this thing that you're telling me that I have?
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: What is the likelihood of improvement if I do have the operation?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: What is the likelihood of improvement if I don't have the operation?
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: What are the non-operative options?
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: And what are the benefits, risks, and limitations of all the options, including doing nothing?
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Um, so I think that's like extremely important.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: If you see somebody who just says you have this, you have to do this, and if they don't respond well to those probing questions, that's a time where you would want to run.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: And the final letter is D, which is decide from values, not pressure.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And so that really comes back to connecting with your own values, your own inner wisdom, your own sovereignty, and really asking yourself in a non pressured way, perhaps outside of the appointment time, does this sit right with me?
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Does this sit well with me?
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: And ultimately that's the most important piece, I think.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: And then I guess questions that you might want to think of when you leave.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: So like going back to my patient who said my beliefs that were kind of implanted in me about my body from an early age were broken, all of the things.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: What when you leave a consultation, what did you leave believing about your body if you were to take on all of that?
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: Did that encounter increase your agency?
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Like did it give you more choice and return to you, or did it increase your dependence?
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Was the uncertainty uh honestly named?
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: And if you had to give consent for something, was there enough space for that to be real and valid?
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: And I guess it's we uh really want to help you all to remember that you have this power inside of you that we don't need to give away the keys to our beautiful, incredible, amazing body.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Um that that if we're seeking external help, which is completely fine, that we are going in there with our own authority intact and our own wisdom intact.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: And that is as valuable as the information that's being that is it's actually more valuable than the information that's being given to you.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: And I think something else that's really important on that note is like, does your healthcare provider see your see you and your body as perfect, see you and your body as whole, see you and your body as really sacred, you know?
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Because if if they're coming from the lens of your body is already broken, well then the the treatments are going to be very, very different than if they see you as your body is wise, your body knows how to heal, and we can create the conditions for it to do that, you know.
• 46:04
  Speaker: As I said to a client yesterday, one of the easiest things is just to go outside and be in nature and just to sit for a moment, find some stillness, and just really ask yourself some of these questions that Peta has just said, or as Thea just mentioned, you know, what is it that you feel is not right in your body?
• 46:26
  Speaker: And why is that happening?
• 46:28
  Speaker: And what is making that happen?
• 46:30
  Speaker: Like be really honest with yourself and ask nature to support you.
• 46:34
  Speaker: Ask a tree or a flower, something that seems like it might not be able to help you, but go and talk to that if it isn't that you can talk to another woman.
• 46:45
  Speaker: But make space for quietness so that you can actually be still and listen to what is already occurring within your body and within your mind.
• 46:55
  Speaker: And then you can actually start discerning some of the stories that you've already been given.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: And also really, what are you seeking?
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Because I think we think what we're seeking, you know, we're seeking help, we're seeking a diagnosis because we believe that will help us.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: But maybe what we're actually seeking from our place of suffering is uh unconditional love.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: Maybe what we're seeking is care validation for the experiences we've been through.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: And those things can be given and experienced without outsourcing, in fact, they can only be be gotten through our own sense of agency and authority and partnership.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: So really asking yourself that question: what is this diagnosis or this point of care?
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: What am I searching for?
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: And in a funny closing, because we have to go, we felt very angry today, and there's this old, old, old thing that was referenced in Greek mythology and through the ages, Celtic mythology as well.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: And goddess worshipping religions were a bit like the evil eye, like when you were warning off evil spirits or wanting to use, I don't know, the power of life and creation to be like in defence of it was in defence, but it was also like to promote fertility of the crops and the fields.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: But it certainly was protection.
• 48:28
  Speaker: Absolute feminine power.
• 48:29
  Speaker: Yes, that Shakti energy.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: Shakti energy, that's it.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: And um uh Regina Thomas Hower speaks about it in her book, which is called Pussy, a reclamation, and in many other cultures, obviously, and it is flashing your vulva to the divine to nature, and it's quite liberating.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: We did it earlier.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: We put in the state of the world today.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then what else can you do?
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: So we flashed our vulvas to the field, yeah.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: And it was very liberating, wasn't it?
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And then we laughed, and then that was medicine in itself.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: So, you know, do all these things, and then if in doubt so daily vulva flashing, that's right.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: It's like what was uh the end of our caption on Instagram was lanterns lit, skirts, raised, patriarchy be warm.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, love it.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: So maybe that's another thing that we need to do to reclaim our power.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being with us today.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Any questions, comments, please let us know, and we'll be with you next week.
• 49:37
  Speaker: Bye bye.
• 49:38
  Speaker: Thank you.
• 49:38
  Speaker: Thank you.
• 49:39
  Speaker: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Women of the Well.
• 49:44
  Speaker: If it resonated with you, please follow the podcast and leave a review so more women can find their way here.
• 49:50
  Speaker: If you would like to keep the conversation going, come and find us at verawellness.com.au on Instagram.
• 49:58
  Speaker: And for our courses, resources, and our training for practitioners, please visit verawellness.com.au