Latest / The Menopause Disruptor Podcast / Mindset and Resilience: Moving Beyond Grief in Midlife with Lisa Boehm
Transcript
- 0:00Lisa Boehm: We definitely start with the mindset piece and the belief, if you don't believe you can do something, I don't care what tools you have in your toolbox, you will not be able to do them.
- 0:12Lisa Boehm: Every single, Olympic athlete goes to the Olympics.
- 0:19Lisa Boehm: With the visualization and the belief that they can stand on that podium.
- 0:26Lisa Boehm: So we too have to have belief that we can do something before we even start.
- 0:33Lisa Boehm: Because if we don't believe it's possible, guess what?
- 0:37Lisa Boehm: It's not going to happen.
- 0:38Mary Lee: Welcome to All Things Menopausal.
- 0:40Mary Lee: My name is Mary, and I'm a menopause doula.
- 0:43Mary Lee: As a doula, we augment the healthcare profession as menopause support practitioners.
- 0:48Mary Lee: I created this podcast, to build community for women going through menopause transition and to foster resilience through the stories that connect, educate, and empower.
- 1:00Mary 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.
- 1:09Mary Lee: In our midlife transition, we are not alone.
- 1:12Mary Lee: Each week, you will hear from courageous, vulnerable, and knowledgeable guests sharing their passion, their journey, and lived experience.
- 1:21Mary Lee: These are little clues to finding solutions to our unique situation.
- 1:26Mary Lee: The menopause symptoms are personal, but the experience is universal.
- 1:32Mary Lee: I recorded this episode with Lisa a couple of months ago when I was really suffering from COVID.
- 1:39Mary Lee: And on this day in particular, it was really bad.
- 1:42Mary Lee: I had kept my mute on for most of the conversation because my coughing wouldn't stop.
- 1:48Mary Lee: All that to say I had left the recording of the intro and the outro for much later on.
- 1:54Mary Lee: And just this week I've been prepping and editing for this episode.
- 1:58Mary Lee: So I went back and I listened to it.
- 2:02Mary Lee: And of course it's been a good It's been a solid two months.
- 2:04Mary Lee: So I forgot a lot of the great conversation I shared with Lisa.
- 2:09Mary Lee: So when I replayed the episode and listened to her conversation intently, I got so much out of it.
- 2:15Mary Lee: And I really think that you are going to get so much out of it too, my dear listeners.
- 2:20Mary Lee: There is an enormous amount of information, advice and guidance, and honestly, just some plain old simple tips and strategies to deal with our midlife transformation.
- 2:31Mary Lee: And truly, it all begins with mindset.
- 2:34Mary Lee: Mindset and believing that whatever is going on in our life, whether we're facing some sort of trauma, grief, or the loss of someone near and dear to us, or just grief in general over the loss of our youth, it all begins with believing that we're going to be okay and that we can take these little baby steps, small, manageable steps to integrate into our life Just every day move that yardstick forward and get back to that place where we want to be and that is ultimately to be happy and to be healthy and This is it.
- 3:11Mary Lee: This is my intro to you That's all I really wanted to share was to reflect on going back and listening to this interview with Lisa So sit back and enjoy And come to it with an open mindset, lean into Lisa's story as she pours out her heart, losing her precious teenage daughter, and then she manages to turn life around and find joy again.
- 3:36Mary Lee: If she can do this amidst all that turmoil, the anxiety and the trauma, even that trauma that comes with the midlife crisis.
- 3:44Mary Lee: Transition.
- 3:45Mary Lee: Then we can all do it.
- 3:46Mary Lee: So have faith and take comfort.
- 3:48Mary Lee: Know that we're all in this together.
- 3:51Mary Lee: So before we get started, here's something you should know about Lisa.
- 3:56Mary Lee: Lisa is an author, a speaker, and a podcaster who shares the power of hope and human connection in her presentations and on her podcast, Rising Strong.
- 4:07Mary Lee: Mental health and resilience.
- 4:09Mary Lee: Her podcast explores the depths of mental well being, burnout, stress, anxiety, and overwhelm, and of course grief.
- 4:17Mary Lee: Through candid conversations and expert insights and personal experiences, Lisa uncovers strategies for navigating life's challenges and cultivating inner strength.
- 4:28Mary Lee: And as a resilience coach, she uses Her unique 1 percent shift strategy to empower women to make small, impactful changes that lead to significant transformation.
- 4:39Mary Lee: So this episode kicks off with Lisa, who is also a health coach with a long career in oncology, sharing her journey of overcoming the loss of her teenage child and years of mental health struggles.
- 4:53Mary Lee: A tragedy that she so tenderly was able to capture in a book on grief.
- 4:58Mary Lee: And that book, Journey to Healing, A Mother's Guide to Navigating Child Loss, is available on Amazon.
- 5:05Mary Lee: You can also find Lisa on LinkedIn.
- 5:07Mary Lee: It's Lisa K Bohm Speaker Author.
- 5:13Mary Lee: And then her website is risingstrongpodcast.
- 5:17Mary Lee: com.
- 5:17Mary Lee: And check out her website.
- 5:19Mary Lee: She has several free resources for midlife moms.
- 5:24Lisa Boehm: Welcome Lisa to all things menopausal.
- 5:27Lisa Boehm: And I'm really happy to have you here.
- 5:29Lisa Boehm: My pleasure, Mary.
- 5:30Lisa Boehm: Thank you.
- 5:31Lisa Boehm: before we start unpacking how we can adapt, overcome and be resilient during the menopause years, tell us a little bit about your backstory and what brought you to where you are today.
- 5:44Lisa Boehm: It's a little bit of a convoluted bumpy story, actually I'll give you the Coles note version because we could be here for hours, but, about 15 years ago, I decided that I wanted to, do something more for myself.
- 6:00Lisa Boehm: I have a long career in oncology.
- 6:03Lisa Boehm: I've been there for 33 years.
- 6:05Lisa Boehm: Love it, love my patients, but wanted something a little bit more and had discovered in my own journey, the power of fitness and nutrition to handle my own mental health issues.
- 6:18Lisa Boehm: I'd struggled with anxiety and depression, oh boy, for decades.
- 6:23Lisa Boehm: So really found some, helpful benefits there.
- 6:28Lisa Boehm: So I became a health coach and I helped busy, overwhelmed women find time to become healthy.
- 6:35Lisa Boehm: And that was great.
- 6:37Lisa Boehm: It was great until the unspeakable happened.
- 6:41Lisa Boehm: And on a regular Tuesday night on December of 2015, we got the knock on the door that every parent fears.
- 6:50Lisa Boehm: And there I stood in my front entryway in my pajamas, expecting my daughter to be coming through the door.
- 6:56Lisa Boehm: But instead, there was a police officer and a lady in black who I later learned was the coroner who had come to tell us that our daughter had been killed in a head on collision.
- 7:07Lisa Boehm: And thank you, as anybody can imagine, that was the moment in time that my life became, very definitively divided into before.
- 7:23Lisa Boehm: And after Katie died and it, put every single one of us in my family just in a tailspin.
- 7:33Lisa Boehm: A little bit of time went by and I don't know that you ever heal from grief of that magnitude.
- 7:40Lisa Boehm: I always say it's like a suitcase that I carry around with me every day.
- 7:45Lisa Boehm: But after a period of time and struggling to find positive, resources.
- 7:53Lisa Boehm: I just couldn't find any.
- 7:55Lisa Boehm: There were tons of books, tons of videos, tons of things that just said, doom and gloom, your life is over.
- 8:02Lisa Boehm: This is the worst possible thing that a human can endure.
- 8:05Lisa Boehm: I even had friends come up to me.
- 8:08Lisa Boehm: Face to face and say, Oh, Lisa, you know that your marriage is over, right?
- 8:14Lisa Boehm: Oh, Lisa, you know that your 15 year old son, yeah, he's going to face a lifetime of mental health challenges.
- 8:22Lisa Boehm: And he's probably going to be addicted to drugs.
- 8:25Lisa Boehm: Like these were the kinds of messages and maybe they were well intentioned.
- 8:32Lisa Boehm: But I thought, okay.
- 8:34Lisa Boehm: If I'm going to have to live with this pain for the rest of my life, I'm darn going to find a quote unquote, more positive way to deal with this.
- 8:44Lisa Boehm: I need hope.
- 8:46Lisa Boehm: I need encouragement and I couldn't find what I needed.
- 8:51Lisa Boehm: So I made it.
- 8:52Lisa Boehm: I wrote a book.
- 8:54Lisa Boehm: I created a grief support circle just for grieving mothers who wanted hope and healing because not everybody does.
- 9:03Lisa Boehm: But for anybody who wanted to focus on living with their grief because we got to figure out the with the grief part, I created that and then just this past summer, my son, who's now 24, he had gone through a bad breakup, his grandfather passed away, our dog that had been with us for Basically, as long as my son could remember was really, sick and just, he had a whole bunch of bad stuff going on and he was struggling and his mental health was in the toilet.
- 9:39Lisa Boehm: And it was just a big wake up call for me that I had done.
- 9:44Lisa Boehm: I had put all this energy into working on myself, which we all know we can't pour from an empty cup.
- 9:50Lisa Boehm: I could be a better mom.
- 9:51Lisa Boehm: I could be a better wife, better everything if I took care of me.
- 9:55Lisa Boehm: So I don't regret that.
- 9:57Lisa Boehm: But it was like a holy moly moment when I thought my kid, my, my surviving kid needs me.
- 10:08Lisa Boehm: And it was looking around at my co workers, I'm a frontline healthcare provider, and not to say that we endured the worst of COVID.
- 10:17Lisa Boehm: Man, it knocked everybody on their butts.
- 10:20Lisa Boehm: But working on the front lines when we didn't know when they were building, a morgue outside in the back parking lot of the hospital, we had to walk past that every day.
- 10:31Lisa Boehm: It was hard, especially in the beginning when we didn't know much.
- 10:34Lisa Boehm: So I started looking at my coworkers, my neighbors, my community, my, my immediate family, my own brother it seemed like we were going from one epidemic straight into another.
- 10:45Lisa Boehm: And the other being the, epidemic of mental health.
- 10:49Lisa Boehm: So it's, really been, like I say, a long and convoluted road as to how I got here.
- 10:56Lisa Boehm: But that is just a little bit of my backstory.
- 11:01Lisa Boehm: Thank you so much for sharing.
- 11:03Lisa Boehm: I applaud you and your strength right there, just to be able to stand in your power and know that you have a purpose still to serve and then find, dig deep and find that hope, the courage, the resilience to pivot and move on.
- 11:19Lisa Boehm: And I.
- 11:20Lisa Boehm: I'm in enamored of who you've become today and to share and then show other women, particularly in her midlife, how we can too, is we're not all going to face something so traumatic, but the weight of that transition is for many very traumatizing.
- 11:42Lisa Boehm: So let's, look at that a little bit.
- 11:44Lisa Boehm: A little bit more.
- 11:45Lisa Boehm: And I see that this is, your week that you were actually focusing on the mental health and the midlife.
- 11:51Lisa Boehm: And I listened to your podcast about the wine and oh boy, do I, about the effects of wine and just a little Piquito sip and what it can do wreaking havoc.
- 12:07Lisa Boehm: But let's talk about that.
- 12:08Lisa Boehm: Let's talk about the program that you have built, the speaking engagements, the workshops that you offer for others.
- 12:16Lisa Boehm: And we're probably talking not just women, but Men as well.
- 12:20Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 12:22Lisa Boehm: It's, so hard to find an, I hate even to, use the word niche, but this is what they, any coach is going to tell you, you've gotta speak to one person, right?
- 12:35Lisa Boehm: Is, if you're speaking to everybody, you're speaking nobody.
- 12:37Lisa Boehm: And I understand that, but I feel like so much of my message.
- 12:42Lisa Boehm: Whether it's whether I'm talking about grief, whether I'm talking about healthy lifestyles, whether I'm talking about midlife struggles, mental health, take any of it resilience, it can be applied to anybody.
- 12:55Lisa Boehm: But I think that what all through all of this, like I say convoluted path, but there are some definite underlying commonalities through all of this.
- 13:09Lisa Boehm: And the first one I would say for sure, hands down was mindset.
- 13:13Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 13:15Lisa Boehm: I think when we are, when life's going great we're sitting on a beach in Maui, we're sipping Mai Tais watching the sunset and the dolphins and the whales.
- 13:27Lisa Boehm: That's great.
- 13:28Lisa Boehm: But our mindset is in a good place because everything is in a good place.
- 13:34Lisa Boehm: But when things start going sideways, it's so easy to get in our heads.
- 13:40Lisa Boehm: For instance, in my situation after Katie died and people were telling me my marriage was over and my son was facing this horrible future.
- 13:51Lisa Boehm: I could have listened to that, but instead the message or the, self-talk that I was doing was like, no thank You I, just did a podcast yesterday and we were talking about the power of perspective.
- 14:10Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 14:11Lisa Boehm: And as I said, I have worked in oncology for a very long time.
- 14:17Lisa Boehm: I have seen a lot.
- 14:20Lisa Boehm: And when Katie first died, I was so angry.
- 14:25Lisa Boehm: So angry.
- 14:27Lisa Boehm: I thought, she's 17 and a half.
- 14:29Lisa Boehm: She's got the rest of her life to live.
- 14:32Lisa Boehm: She was a rule follower.
- 14:34Lisa Boehm: She had just been accepted into nursing in college.
- 14:38Lisa Boehm: She had a 95 percent average.
- 14:40Lisa Boehm: She was volunteering.
- 14:42Lisa Boehm: She was a good kid and a good person.
- 14:45Lisa Boehm: And you don't have to look very far, unfortunately, to see crappy people doing horrible things.
- 14:52Lisa Boehm: And I just felt like her death was so unjust.
- 14:57Lisa Boehm: But then there was a part of me that was like, wait a minute, Lisa, now this didn't happen right away.
- 15:03Lisa Boehm: This was an in time thing, how many families have you seen at the cancer clinic where they bring their small child in and they sit with them day after day, week after week, month after month, years, sometimes of treatment, and then sometimes they don't get to take their child home.
- 15:25Lisa Boehm: And I thought, instead of saying, I only got 17 and a half years.
- 15:31Lisa Boehm: The language and the thinking that I do around that now is, I got 17 and a half years with Katie.
- 15:38Lisa Boehm: She was healthy every second of it.
- 15:40Lisa Boehm: She was happy.
- 15:40Lisa Boehm: We got to travel.
- 15:41Lisa Boehm: We got to do some really cool things and make some amazing memories.
- 15:46Lisa Boehm: So things like this, like mindset is so powerful.
- 15:52Lisa Boehm: It's so easy to take a look at our lives, even if nothing big and traumatic is happening right now, but maybe things at work are a little bit annoying, or maybe your husband didn't do the laundry.
- 16:05Lisa Boehm: Like he said, he was whatever.
- 16:07Lisa Boehm: It's so easy to go down the bunny hole of negativity.
- 16:11Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 16:11Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 16:11Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 16:11Lisa Boehm: And when we start looking at those things, that's all we see.
- 16:16Lisa Boehm: But if we can stop doing that, even for a day, to stop complaining and to look for the positive in everything, challenge yourself, you start to realize something, you start to realize my life is actually pretty good.
- 16:33Lisa Boehm: There's some bad parts.
- 16:36Lisa Boehm: But overall, it's pretty good.
- 16:39Lisa Boehm: So mindset has been huge.
- 16:42Lisa Boehm: And I would say the other second thing, the close second, I'm not sure which comes first, is a healthy lifestyle.
- 16:49Lisa Boehm: And I know that sounds cheesy and everybody says it and it's probably overplayed, but my God, it's the honest to God truth.
- 16:58Lisa Boehm: Honest to God truth.
- 17:01Lisa Boehm: I remember hauling my sorry butt out the door many days to go for a walk in the early days after Katie died.
- 17:09Lisa Boehm: I did not feel like doing that.
- 17:11Lisa Boehm: I did not.
- 17:13Lisa Boehm: But my husband usually dragged me out the door and there was not a single walk that I came home feeling worse.
- 17:20Lisa Boehm: Every time I came in the door, I was like, I feel a bit better.
- 17:26Lisa Boehm: Good.
- 17:27Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 17:27Lisa Boehm: And same thing with healthy eating, mind you, I was a health coach right before Katie died.
- 17:34Lisa Boehm: Healthy living was, a part of my life as it was, but.
- 17:39Lisa Boehm: I could just feel myself if I was not eating healthy, if I was having too much wine any of these unhealthy coping mechanisms, I it was just like, okay, that made things way worse.
- 17:54Lisa Boehm: So I would say those two were my, main go tos.
- 17:59Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 18:00Lisa Boehm: So when you're working with your clients now, obviously you're able to put them in the right perspective.
- 18:10Lisa Boehm: Is that nothing can be so bad as, but when they first meet you with a sense of first of all, I would imagine that by the time they've come to see you, they're ready to make some shifts, to make some changes, to find that hope.
- 18:28Lisa Boehm: But when they are dumping with this heavy baggage and are resisting because they just feel like they've, there's no hope for whether it's to lose weight or to improve some aspect of their life.
- 18:43Lisa Boehm: What is the first adjustment, if you will, that you focus on?
- 18:48Lisa Boehm: You know what, I find a couple of questions.
- 18:52Lisa Boehm: Typically are self discovery questions for people.
- 18:57Lisa Boehm: I think that's where it's at.
- 18:58Lisa Boehm: I you and I can tell people things until we're blue in the face, but I think when we can discover them on our own, that's where the magic happens.
- 19:06Lisa Boehm: But just asking people on a scale of one to 10, how are you feeling about X right now?
- 19:15Lisa Boehm: And they'll give you a number.
- 19:18Lisa Boehm: Where would you like to be on a scale of one to 10?
- 19:20Lisa Boehm: Like, how would you like to feel in terms of being having more peace and happiness and joy or whatever it is that they're looking for, most people say they'd like to be a nine, 10, eight and a half for sure.
- 19:35Lisa Boehm: Okay.
- 19:37Lisa Boehm: How what would you think if we could get you from this point to that point?
- 19:43Lisa Boehm: Do you want to stay at a six or a five or a three or whatever it is, or do you want to, what would what would you say if I could give you four steps to get you there, four steps starting today and things that are small and digestible.
- 20:04Lisa Boehm: I think we live in this world of instant gratification, right?
- 20:09Lisa Boehm: Like you, you think, Oh I'd really to lose this tummy for that dress I've got to wear to that wedding, and we want it to happen now in a week.
- 20:22Lisa Boehm: We might've been able to do that when we were 20 but not so much now.
- 20:28Lisa Boehm: And we just get frustrated, instead of focusing on these great big giant leaps in a week.
- 20:37Lisa Boehm: What if we could make a 1 percent shift?
- 20:45Lisa Boehm: You might think 1%, like, where's that going to get me?
- 20:49Lisa Boehm: You think about it.
- 20:50Lisa Boehm: What if you made a 1 percent shift for 100 days?
- 20:56Lisa Boehm: Where does that get you, right?
- 20:59Lisa Boehm: So we can take big, things and we can break them down into small manageable bite size actions that we can take every day.
- 21:11Lisa Boehm: That's my love.
- 21:13Lisa Boehm: I love it.
- 21:14Lisa Boehm: As you say, even on your website, small manageable adjustments, which ironically is S M A.
- 21:22Lisa Boehm: So That's As in smart goals.
- 21:24Lisa Boehm: I was looking at that going small, manageable adjustments, which are, and you just gave it like relevant and time bound.
- 21:32Lisa Boehm: So it's all about going back to that.
- 21:36Lisa Boehm: Like you said, is as cheesy as it might sound smart goals.
- 21:41Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 21:42Lisa Boehm: So what is you talk about four steps?
- 21:46Lisa Boehm: Do you have a specific formula?
- 21:49Lisa Boehm: Not necessarily.
- 21:50Lisa Boehm: I think it really depends on each individual person, what their goals are, and all of that kind of thing.
- 21:59Lisa Boehm: But we definitely start with the mindset piece and the belief, if you don't believe you can do something, I don't care what tools you have in your toolbox, you will not be able to do them.
- 22:12Lisa Boehm: Every single, Olympic athlete goes to the Olympics.
- 22:18Lisa Boehm: With the visualization and the belief that they can stand on that podium.
- 22:26Lisa Boehm: Love it.
- 22:28Lisa Boehm: So we too have to have belief that we can do something before we even start.
- 22:35Lisa Boehm: Because if we don't believe it's possible, guess what?
- 22:39Lisa Boehm: It's not going to happen.
- 22:40Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 22:42Lisa Boehm: I found it really interesting too.
- 22:44Lisa Boehm: And, I'm just as guilty of it with the midlife is that we, don't do overwhelm very well.
- 22:51Lisa Boehm: And that should be our motto is I don't do overwhelmed, but overwhelmed seems to come a lot, easier than it did at almost any other stage of our lives.
- 23:02Lisa Boehm: Even in the tumultuous teen years is that so much external stimuli from the workplace, be it.
- 23:11Lisa Boehm: Even within our communities or in the home or stimulation at home from television.
- 23:17Lisa Boehm: I just found digital world, social media.
- 23:20Lisa Boehm: That's another area of overwhelm and a whole topic onto itself.
- 23:25Lisa Boehm: So I've come to notice that a lot of weight is being put on the external factors.
- 23:31Lisa Boehm: If only I could remove this, if only I didn't have overwhelmed from this, if only I could work, less.
- 23:38Lisa Boehm: And.
- 23:39Lisa Boehm: We're shifting from it's outside of us and expecting change on the outside, but as you said, that period that journey of self discovery.
- 23:53Lisa Boehm: So walk us through how you would take as a health coach, take someone through, getting them back into that driver's seat saying hey look you know girl, you've got this, you're in control because As Eckhart Tolle says, and the power of now is that the key is in here.
- 24:11Lisa Boehm: We have the solution.
- 24:13Lisa Boehm: Absolutely.
- 24:15Lisa Boehm: I think it's getting crystal clear on what they do want, right?
- 24:18Lisa Boehm: Because I think the word overwhelm is like greige, right?
- 24:24Lisa Boehm: Like it's so vague, overwhelm.
- 24:27Lisa Boehm: Like I think we can all identify with it.
- 24:29Lisa Boehm: We know what it means and what it feels like, but what is it?
- 24:33Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 24:34Lisa Boehm: That's overwhelming you and granted, we can't fix all the things, but what is the most overwhelming part of your life?
- 24:45Lisa Boehm: Is it, the housework?
- 24:47Lisa Boehm: Is it, that you've, got a workload in the workplace?
- 24:53Lisa Boehm: That's just too much.
- 24:56Lisa Boehm: Is it the kids?
- 24:57Lisa Boehm: What is it specifically?
- 24:59Lisa Boehm: And then the first thing that we actually do is we sit down and we itemize everything that they can think of that they do as part of that pain point.
- 25:10Lisa Boehm: So let's take work for example, why do I feel so overwhelmed with work?
- 25:16Lisa Boehm: And I usually send them home with this homework because in the moment, I think we can't list all 57 things that are overwhelming us about one thing, right?
- 25:25Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 25:25Lisa Boehm: But over the course of the week to identify everything that's overwhelming them, and sometimes it's a short list and sometimes it's a really long list.
- 25:35Lisa Boehm: And then we start pulling it apart.
- 25:39Lisa Boehm: And I think as women, I don't know if this was messaging from the 90s or where it comes from, or if it's honestly something that's innate, we're pretty good at multitasking.
- 25:52Lisa Boehm: I think the data now suggests that multitasking is actually not good and that we're not doing anything really well.
- 26:00Lisa Boehm: But I think when you compare men to women can do it much better.
- 26:06Lisa Boehm: And I think it's the mom thing, right?
- 26:07Lisa Boehm: Like we can have the laundry going, we can make a doctor's appointment, we can have supper going, we can do all the things right.
- 26:15Lisa Boehm: But should we have to do all the things at one time?
- 26:19Lisa Boehm: So we really look at listing out things as actually I need to do this thing.
- 26:26Lisa Boehm: Or can I delegate?
- 26:29Lisa Boehm: That's a big one.
- 26:30Lisa Boehm: And it's so hard for so many of us, asking for help.
- 26:36Lisa Boehm: Or can I delete this thing?
- 26:40Lisa Boehm: That's powerful too.
- 26:42Lisa Boehm: One of the challenges that I give a lot of my clients is to remove things from their plate.
- 26:50Lisa Boehm: Take a look at this list you've just given me.
- 26:52Lisa Boehm: Can you give any of this to your admin assistant?
- 26:55Lisa Boehm: Can you tell your boss that, collecting data on the spreadsheet that nobody looks at anymore, that maybe we could just park this for a while?
- 27:03Lisa Boehm: Cause we're not whatever it is, what can you take off your plate?
- 27:08Lisa Boehm: And at first there's this, hesitation, I think everything I do is important, probably is, but really take a look at what you can delete.
- 27:20Lisa Boehm: And then we will often blossom out from that too, if we're able to work through that and then things will bubble up that are associated with work like, yeah, my kids teacher always likes me to go on the field trips with them once a month on Friday, and it really cuts into my productivity time.
- 27:43Lisa Boehm: What are we going to do about that?
- 27:46Lisa Boehm: What are some other ways that we can continue to be a part of that and just, I think I find asking questions.
- 27:55Lisa Boehm: And people, end up discovering the answer themselves.
- 28:01Lisa Boehm: You just asked enough curious questions to get the conversation going again in the process of self discovery.
- 28:07Lisa Boehm: So clever.
- 28:09Lisa Boehm: So it's interesting.
- 28:11Lisa Boehm: We're at that age in the midlife too.
- 28:13Lisa Boehm: And this is the part where grief comes in where we're that sandwich generation caught in between our aging parents.
- 28:21Lisa Boehm: and children who still not have left the home yet.
- 28:27Lisa Boehm: Or they haven't we're, still pretty much a prominent role, parenting role in their lives.
- 28:35Lisa Boehm: And then we lose our parents that we've been taking care of or, not, but we're at that age where we're going to start realizing that our parents are gone, live forever.
- 28:46Lisa Boehm: And that grief can have such a heavy toll.
- 28:49Lisa Boehm: So we feel like, okay, I'm managing my menopause.
- 28:52Lisa Boehm: And then.
- 28:53Lisa Boehm: Whammo, a parent or a loved one or a relative passes and it's 10 step backwards and the menopause journey is bad enough as it is.
- 29:04Lisa Boehm: So what are you helping your clients with when they're transitioning through that menopause and then do have to inevitably face the grief that comes with the loss of a parent?
- 29:16Lisa Boehm: And I will just add on to that as well.
- 29:19Lisa Boehm: As a grief educator there are many, different kinds of grief that we experience in life and in menopause.
- 29:30Lisa Boehm: And I will answer your question about loss of a parent, but so many things that we go through, like we're probably grieving our youth.
- 29:40Lisa Boehm: Yes, we are, grieving different changes in our health.
- 29:44Lisa Boehm: I don't know about you, but my joints, my poor old knees all these things like I, I miss that.
- 29:52Lisa Boehm: Friends are starting to have not so good diagnoses, right?
- 30:01Lisa Boehm: We're mourning all kinds of things.
- 30:03Lisa Boehm: Emptiness syndrome is a kind of grief.
- 30:08Lisa Boehm: So we've got all these kinds of losses that we're dealing with, and then we might be, as you say, having to face the loss of a parent, or even, the loss.
- 30:22Lisa Boehm: There's a name for this and I cannot recall it I'm going to call it ambiguous grief that not might not be the right term but let's say a parent has got dementia or Alzheimer's.
- 30:32Lisa Boehm: And we're losing them.
- 30:35Lisa Boehm: They might be physically here, but that relationship, that recognition, all of those things, we're losing that.
- 30:44Lisa Boehm: That's grief.
- 30:46Lisa Boehm: Yes and grief, like we've got so much going on at this stage in life.
- 30:51Lisa Boehm: As you said, the sandwich generation and then our hormones, we are not wired the same as we were 20 years ago.
- 31:01Lisa Boehm: A lot of us can't handle as much as we used to.
- 31:06Lisa Boehm: And I don't think that should be a negative thing.
- 31:09Lisa Boehm: That's just a fact.
- 31:10Lisa Boehm: It's just a fact.
- 31:12Lisa Boehm: So then you've got this other layer of grief on and it, I always recommend that my clients go back to basics.
- 31:22Lisa Boehm: So a couple of things, self care, and I'm not talking about getting your nails done, although that's fun or massages.
- 31:28Lisa Boehm: That's fun.
- 31:29Lisa Boehm: I'm talking about the basics, getting fresh air every day.
- 31:35Lisa Boehm: getting enough sleep.
- 31:37Lisa Boehm: And I'm going to get on my soapbox here for a minute and say, if you're not getting at least six hours of sleep, go have a conversation with your family doctor.
- 31:46Lisa Boehm: Because if you're getting less than six hours of sleep, I'm going to let you in on a little secret that I learned.
- 31:52Lisa Boehm: When we don't get enough sleep, it actually augments our, brain fog, our forgetfulness.
- 31:59Lisa Boehm: It can actually kick us into Alzheimer's and dementia faster and earlier than if we were getting enough sleep.
- 32:10Lisa Boehm: So and we can't cope.
- 32:12Lisa Boehm: We can't cope with life stresses when we're not getting enough sleep.
- 32:17Lisa Boehm: Go see your GP.
- 32:21Lisa Boehm: I was on sleeping pills for a number of years after I lost Katie.
- 32:24Lisa Boehm: I've just, gotten off them.
- 32:28Lisa Boehm: But my doctor said exactly that.
- 32:30Lisa Boehm: She said like it was a half or it was a quarter, but I was really worried about negative long term side effects.
- 32:38Lisa Boehm: And she said, you know what, Lisa?
- 32:39Lisa Boehm: She said, if you're not sleeping, all of this that I just said, she goes, you have a greater chance of having dementia or Alzheimer's.
- 32:46Lisa Boehm: You can't handle your grief.
- 32:48Lisa Boehm: You've told me that.
- 32:49Lisa Boehm: So she said this, we're weighing out the pros and cons here.
- 32:53Lisa Boehm: So I'm not an advocate to say to everybody to go on sleeping pills, but go and have the discussion and same thing with antidepressants.
- 33:04Lisa Boehm: If that's what you need to help you cope, do it.
- 33:11Lisa Boehm: They are there for a reason.
- 33:13Lisa Boehm: And many of the people that I coach, whether it's in grief or whether it's just You know, other adversity in life, oftentimes, I would say 90 percent of these ladies are on either sleeping pills or antidepressants or a combination thereof for the short term, like I'm talking six months, nine months, whatever it takes to get through the worst.
- 33:37Lisa Boehm: And there's no shame in that.
- 33:40Lisa Boehm: None whatsoever.
- 33:41Lisa Boehm: If you had a heart condition and you needed to take something, you would take something.
- 33:46Lisa Boehm: That's it.
- 33:46Lisa Boehm: That's it.
- 33:46Lisa Boehm: That's it.
- 33:47Lisa Boehm: So sleep is a really, big thing.
- 33:49Lisa Boehm: So anybody that I'm, helping, with grief, that's where we start is the basics.
- 33:57Lisa Boehm: Are you sleeping?
- 33:58Lisa Boehm: Are you drinking water?
- 33:59Lisa Boehm: Because when we grieve, we cry, when we cry, we lose hydration, a lot of hydration.
- 34:10Lisa Boehm: And when I was writing my book, I did a ton of research and one of the things that I discovered is that even when we are a little bit dehydrated, like a little bit, that is, makes us more inclined to be depressed.
- 34:28Lisa Boehm: Yes.
- 34:29Lisa Boehm: And a friend of mine who actually works at the crisis center here in Regina said that when they're on a call, if somebody's calling in they're in a crisis.
- 34:39Lisa Boehm: With mental health, she said the first thing that they ask them to do is walk over to the sink and pour a big glass of water and start drinking as they're talking.
- 34:48Lisa Boehm: That's how critical hydration is to our mental health.
- 34:52Lisa Boehm: Isn't that interesting?
- 34:54Lisa Boehm: Yes.
- 34:56Lisa Boehm: So we start with those basics.
- 34:59Lisa Boehm: And then, because I find if we're not in a physical state of well being, we cannot be in a positive well being with our emotional health.
- 35:15Lisa Boehm: So it's like doing a triage, if you will, you come to the emergency situation and the most, the issue that is the most demanding and the most life threatening you tackle first.
- 35:28Lisa Boehm: Yes, absolutely.
- 35:29Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 35:30Lisa Boehm: And then I think when people can see.
- 35:34Lisa Boehm: Oh Lisa and I talked about getting enough water, enough sleep and some decent, nutrition.
- 35:43Lisa Boehm: Those were little things, but they made a big difference.
- 35:46Lisa Boehm: So then the next week we come back and I, and then they start to believe in themselves.
- 35:51Lisa Boehm: They start to believe that things can be better and that we can get some tools in their tool belt that will help them get through this difficult time.
- 36:02Lisa Boehm: Very good.
- 36:03Lisa Boehm: Like you said, those 1 percent shifts.
- 36:06Lisa Boehm: Every day, have an extra glass of water.
- 36:08Lisa Boehm: Sure.
- 36:09Lisa Boehm: Try to get another extra hour of sleep.
- 36:12Lisa Boehm: Maybe turn off the device before bed.
- 36:14Lisa Boehm: Absolutely.
- 36:15Lisa Boehm: Those things should be chucked out the window, honestly.
- 36:19Lisa Boehm: And interesting that the report came out that they want to, they being in, it was in the U.
- 36:25Lisa Boehm: S.
- 36:26Lisa Boehm: I'm starting to recognize that they need to put safety warnings on our social media devices, much like they would on a cigarette package.
- 36:36Lisa Boehm: It is that damaging to mental health, and we are in a mental health crisis.
- 36:41Lisa Boehm: And I talked about this at great length and then I actually alluded to it earlier when we were speaking about the social media in itself is damaging and that is a whole other conversation.
- 36:53Lisa Boehm: But I had just learned to that the exposure to blue light, which disrupts her melatonin production is also leading to melatonin in itself.
- 37:07Lisa Boehm: is an anti inflammatory, but the blue light exposure just learned about this, raises our blood sugar level in our body.
- 37:18Lisa Boehm: So it's not just a mental health issue.
- 37:22Lisa Boehm: Now it's re wreaking havoc on our physical well being.
- 37:29Lisa Boehm: It's unbelievable just how complex the body is, but Self care.
- 37:35Lisa Boehm: Get back to the basics.
- 37:36Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 37:37Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 37:39Lisa Boehm: I want to do focus on the social media aspect just really briefly because it does tie in the whole depression item.
- 37:47Lisa Boehm: And, then we see this with midlife or bombarded with them if we're on our devices.
- 37:54Lisa Boehm: And I'm telling you, I want to take a detox altogether.
- 37:58Lisa Boehm: It's hard in this day and age when you do have a business, not to be on social, but we can, the comparison, comparing, like I have such a better presence than I do.
- 38:10Lisa Boehm: Look how young they look.
- 38:11Lisa Boehm: And yet they're older than me and just comparing who we used to be.
- 38:16Lisa Boehm: Like you said, in that grief of who we used to be.
- 38:19Lisa Boehm: So what is some of the approaches that you've taken?
- 38:21Lisa Boehm: or even 1 percent shifts that we can do to tackle that and address it for what it is.
- 38:27Lisa Boehm: It's a mental health issue.
- 38:29Lisa Boehm: Absolutely.
- 38:30Lisa Boehm: An excellent question.
- 38:32Lisa Boehm: I just had this conversation with, one of my clients and that is, Do a little bit of a digital detox, as you said, now we're attached to these things.
- 38:42Lisa Boehm: Like you said, you've got a business but go through there and delete every account that doesn't make you feel better.
- 38:52Lisa Boehm: If it's somebody, like you say, you're like, Oh this or that, or they somehow just bring up some resistance in you, delete, unfollow, whatever it is, delete, That's number one.
- 39:06Lisa Boehm: Number two is to go through and start following accounts that make you happy and giggle.
- 39:13Lisa Boehm: I did this about six months ago, and I have got, I'm embarrassed to say, more puppy and kitty videos coming soon.
- 39:21Lisa Boehm: than anything else.
- 39:23Lisa Boehm: When I am busting a gut, scrolling through my, my social feed, my husband will always come and look around the corner and he'll say another dog video.
- 39:35Lisa Boehm: Yep.
- 39:36Lisa Boehm: Yep.
- 39:37Lisa Boehm: But those are the things that make me feel good and make me laugh.
- 39:41Lisa Boehm: So try and fill your feed up deliberately with things that make you feel better.
- 39:49Lisa Boehm: Yes.
- 39:50Lisa Boehm: Yes.
- 39:51Lisa Boehm: That is so perfect.
- 39:52Lisa Boehm: I'm glad you explained it that way because I find that in the, in what I'm doing as a menopause doula, I need to follow more menopause related businesses or podcasts.
- 40:06Lisa Boehm: I'm just, I'm finding myself going down that comparison.
- 40:09Lisa Boehm: And then I go on to my website, say, okay, I got to tinker with this.
- 40:12Lisa Boehm: Oh, now I need a digital course.
- 40:14Lisa Boehm: Oh, and now I need this.
- 40:16Lisa Boehm: And I'm like a squirrel.
- 40:17Lisa Boehm: My mind is going everywhere.
- 40:19Lisa Boehm: And then it literally Lisa has been in the last, I would say week, 10 days.
- 40:24Lisa Boehm: And I, not that I liked getting COVID another time, but I have to say it slowed me down enough to really think deeply about what's going on here.
- 40:32Lisa Boehm: Okay.
- 40:32Lisa Boehm: Bye.
- 40:34Lisa Boehm: And I am just like you say, why would I follow somebody just to get my numbers up?
- 40:40Lisa Boehm: And they teach you this in social media marketing classes that you've got to like all these people so that you're in their feeds.
- 40:47Lisa Boehm: And, but I don't think that's necessarily good for mental health.
- 40:51Lisa Boehm: It might be from a marketing perspective, go hire somebody out to do that because they're emotionally removed from all that.
- 40:59Lisa Boehm: But the digital detox, just cleaning out and bringing joy, which is a perfect segue to my next question.
- 41:07Lisa Boehm: I yesterday and it merits talking about, I had listened to Mel Robbins podcast and we're going to talk about Mel and it was about flowers.
- 41:20Lisa Boehm: It was her solo episode talking about flowers and the science behind the joy it brings to us and just raising dopamine and serotonin.
- 41:31Lisa Boehm: And I was just.
- 41:32Lisa Boehm: enamored.
- 41:33Lisa Boehm: I'm blown away with the message.
- 41:36Lisa Boehm: And I'm looking outside my front window, looking at my peonies.
- 41:40Lisa Boehm: And I thought I'm going to go treat myself to some flowers, just like Mel recommends.
- 41:45Lisa Boehm: I went out there and I cut them.
- 41:48Lisa Boehm: And then you just can't cut them.
- 41:50Lisa Boehm: You, then you have to arrange them all beautifully.
- 41:52Lisa Boehm: And then the light, and then you pick up your phone.
- 41:54Lisa Boehm: You want to take a picture of it.
- 41:56Lisa Boehm: And an hour had gone by and I had made a social media reel of these peonies, but it brought me so much joy.
- 42:04Lisa Boehm: And I could feel.
- 42:06Lisa Boehm: Good about that social media post and I didn't care about any results from it, but just being in the moment of capturing it.
- 42:17Lisa Boehm: And then I went out to grab the other peonies, which are a different color.
- 42:22Lisa Boehm: And this is the one that the ants really because they open up and of course you need the ants to open them up.
- 42:27Lisa Boehm: So those ones don't come in the house.
- 42:30Lisa Boehm: And I just sat there 20 minutes watching a couple of ants crawl all over.
- 42:36Lisa Boehm: And it was the simple things of being in the moment, being completely present.
- 42:41Lisa Boehm: And that brought me so much joy.
- 42:43Lisa Boehm: I felt so good.
- 42:45Lisa Boehm: Like I just had a massage, a day at the spa.
- 42:49Lisa Boehm: And again, simple, basic self care things.
- 42:54Lisa Boehm: And now I fill my Instagram with accounts, like the puppies dash helm in particular, my daughter has a dash helm.
- 43:03Lisa Boehm: And so I just can't get enough of the doggies and the animals.
- 43:09Lisa Boehm: And Mel Robbins, she posts some really wonderful things, but I do.
- 43:13Lisa Boehm: And that's why I bring that up because I asked you what your favorite book is of all time.
- 43:19Lisa Boehm: I ask all my podcast guests, or if I can remember to ask them spring fog does can, tell us what is your favorite book?
- 43:30Lisa Boehm: I wrote it down there and you're going to have to tell me if I get the title mixed up, but I believe it's called high five habit Robbins.
- 43:36Lisa Boehm: And.
- 43:40Lisa Boehm: I just love Mel for 500 reasons, but I love her shoot from the hip, approach.
- 43:48Lisa Boehm: She just says it as it is.
- 43:50Lisa Boehm: She doesn't necessarily do everything that everybody else on social media is doing.
- 43:56Lisa Boehm: She's exactly the same age as me.
- 43:59Lisa Boehm: And, I don't see her using a bunch of fancy filters some days, a lot of days she's on there without her makeup she just got up and her hair's all whatever.
- 44:11Lisa Boehm: And she talks about her family and she talks about the things that I can relate to.
- 44:18Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 44:19Lisa Boehm: She's not doing dance moves on her social and she's.
- 44:25Lisa Boehm: Sometimes giving people some tough love, but I just love her approach.
- 44:30Lisa Boehm: But the high five habit is definitely more of a personal development book than a business kind of thing.
- 44:38Lisa Boehm: But I just love the idea of walking into the bathroom first thing in the morning, hairs sticking up, zit cream on, whatever, and high fiving yourself in the, mirror.
- 44:51Lisa Boehm: You got this, and, her whole book breaks down why this simple, again, 1 percent strategy you could call it is so effective.
- 45:03Lisa Boehm: And it's giving yourself self love, telling yourself that you respect yourself.
- 45:10Lisa Boehm: That you believe in yourself and if you read the book, it follows a number of people all the way through and what after this period of time of them high fiving themselves every morning in the mirror.
- 45:24Lisa Boehm: And I just think it speaks so much to the importance of starting your day off on the right foot, positive messaging, positive mindset.
- 45:35Lisa Boehm: And yeah, I really like it.
- 45:37Lisa Boehm: It's my favorite.
- 45:39Lisa Boehm: Love that between that and the five second rule, which is the book that got me to start podcasting during the pandemic.
- 45:48Lisa Boehm: And then that podcast ended and then I started another one, but I have to credit Mel Robbins exactly for that.
- 45:58Lisa Boehm: Don't let the brain talk you to anything else because its job is just to protect you.
- 46:03Lisa Boehm: But it's a lot of chatter that serves no purpose.
- 46:06Lisa Boehm: override it.
- 46:07Lisa Boehm: And I think gratitude, self appreciation, a high five is a beautiful way to override all of that negative self talk, certainly in the menopause years.
- 46:17Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 46:19Lisa Boehm: Quick question though, when you started your podcast, how did that get started?
- 46:24Lisa Boehm: And Tell our listeners where they can find you as well.
- 46:28Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 46:30Lisa Boehm: I'm a big believer in, I call it the universe, call it what you will, but, and I also believe in spiritual connection.
- 46:38Lisa Boehm: And I always believe that my daughter is with me, literally kicking me in the butt, literally kicking me in the butt.
- 46:43Lisa Boehm: I didn't want to ask.
- 46:44Lisa Boehm: That's awesome.
- 46:45Lisa Boehm: Beautiful.
- 46:45Lisa Boehm: And I, that could be another podcast for another day.
- 46:47Lisa Boehm: I've got a hundred stories of connection and communication with her, but I just felt like podcast kept showing up in my life podcast kept showing up in my life, and I kept going, Nope, not for me.
- 47:04Lisa Boehm: Nope, don't have time for that.
- 47:06Lisa Boehm: And I kept thinking, as much as I enjoy helping grieving mothers.
- 47:15Lisa Boehm: It's hard work.
- 47:16Lisa Boehm: It's emotionally heavy work.
- 47:19Lisa Boehm: And in some sense, it made the most sense for me to start a grief focused podcast.
- 47:28Lisa Boehm: I didn't want to.
- 47:30Lisa Boehm: I didn't want to.
- 47:31Lisa Boehm: So I sat on the idea.
- 47:32Lisa Boehm: I was like, okay, maybe I'll start a podcast, but I don't know what I'm going to do.
- 47:37Lisa Boehm: And then just the way my summer unfolded last year, my son's struggling, my brother's struggling and it was just like mental health.
- 47:46Lisa Boehm: And then looking around at the women around me and thinking, holy moly, like we are a generation of women that are struggling, quietly struggling because God forbid we ask for help.
- 48:00Lisa Boehm: And I just thought, if this is a complete flop, no harm done.
- 48:06Lisa Boehm: Even if I do did 10 episodes and I packed it in no harm done.
- 48:11Lisa Boehm: So that was my approach going into it.
- 48:13Lisa Boehm: And season one was more general.
- 48:16Lisa Boehm: I had some amazing interviews.
- 48:19Lisa Boehm: Amazing.
- 48:20Lisa Boehm: I don't know if anybody's familiar with Dr.
- 48:21Lisa Boehm: Jodi Carrington.
- 48:24Lisa Boehm: I had a young man from Regina here, intergenerational trauma and first nations.
- 48:31Lisa Boehm: Like all kinds of stories, because I honestly, I think everybody's got a story, at the end of the day while these stories were really good to listen to.
- 48:42Lisa Boehm: And I always made sure to pull out some little nuggets.
- 48:47Lisa Boehm: They weren't speaking to anyone in particular.
- 48:52Lisa Boehm: And so season two is just for us, us midlife moms and just talking about some of the trials and tribulations that we face.
- 49:02Lisa Boehm: And I'm, really enjoying it, but you asked where people can find me.
- 49:10Lisa Boehm: And my podcast is called rising, strong mental health and resilience.
- 49:16Lisa Boehm: And if you can't remember all that, my website is risingstrongpodcast.
- 49:23Lisa Boehm: com, and everything you need to know is all there.
- 49:28Lisa Boehm: And I also see that you offer up some free resources on your website as well.
- 49:34Lisa Boehm: I do.
- 49:35Lisa Boehm: I do.
- 49:36Lisa Boehm: Right now I've got an eight minute guided visual meditation.
- 49:42Lisa Boehm: So if anybody needs just a quick wind down, like at bedtime, like we were saying, or just at the end of the workday, I've got that.
- 49:51Lisa Boehm: And there's a few other goodies in there as well.
- 49:54Lisa Boehm: And I'm working on a freebie actually later this afternoon, all about burnout.
- 50:00Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 50:01Lisa Boehm: Yeah.
- 50:02Lisa Boehm: It's something we need, right?
- 50:05Lisa Boehm: So watch for that, too.
- 50:07Lisa Boehm: I think by the time we have your episode aired, that just might be up on your free resources on your website.
- 50:13Lisa Boehm: We'll have that all in the show notes.
- 50:15Lisa Boehm: Lisa, I want to thank you so much for your time and just sharing your story being resilient, and vulnerable at the same time.
- 50:24Lisa Boehm: And it takes courage to be vulnerable as we well know.
- 50:28Lisa Boehm: It's quite a, an amazing journey, but you've come out of it in spades.
- 50:33Lisa Boehm: I just, I applaud you for all that you're doing and many women can use your, guidance, your sage advice and how we can transition through the midlife.
- 50:44Lisa Boehm: So thank you again so much for joining me here on all things menopausal.
- 50:49Lisa Boehm: Thank you so much for having me.
- 50:52Mary Lee: It's been a while since I've given my key takeaways after an interview, but I want to get back to doing them because again, as I reflected in the beginning, I got so much out of listening to this episode after two months of sitting down with Lisa and I want to share them with you.
- 51:09Mary Lee: I'm sure you have your own key takeaways, but here are mine.
- 51:13Mary Lee: Of course, as I said in the beginning, it all begins with mindset, the power of the, of perception.
- 51:21Mary Lee: If you can see your future and perceive the greatness or the healing that you want to have, that is the first step to actually achieving.
- 51:31Mary Lee: Second is gratitude and trauma.
- 51:34Mary Lee: Looking for the positive in everything and anything.
- 51:39Mary Lee: Third, healthy lifestyle.
- 51:40Mary Lee: Just keep moving.
- 51:42Mary Lee: healthy eating.
- 51:43Mary Lee: Not poor eating as a coping mechanism, but healthy eating as a remedy to cope and manage trauma.
- 51:52Mary Lee: And then ranking.
- 51:53Mary Lee: I love that she ranks where you want to be and takes small digestible steps to move in that direction.
- 52:00Mary Lee: By taking one step, manageable and adjustable at a time, you are shifting towards your greatness.
- 52:07Mary Lee: Whether it's healing, abundance, you name it.
- 52:11Mary Lee: Rank it and go get it.
- 52:15Mary Lee: And then, as I said, we don't do overwhelm very well.
- 52:18Mary Lee: So examine the most overwhelming part of your life and itemize everything associated with that pain point.
- 52:25Mary Lee: So good.
- 52:26Mary Lee: And recognizing that multitasking, it isn't really all that healthy and good for us as we've been made to believe taking on too much prevents us from moving things off of our plate and delegating.
- 52:41Mary Lee: We're simply just asking for help and learning to say no, which is all about setting boundaries.
- 52:47Mary Lee: And then I love what she shared as a grief educator.
- 52:50Mary Lee: Grief isn't just loss of loved ones.
- 52:52Mary Lee: It's in mourning our youth or facing the empty nest syndrome.
- 52:56Mary Lee: We're all carrying some grief and grief needs to be recognized as an emotion and dealt with in a healthy manner, It starts with basic self care, sleep.
- 53:08Mary Lee: Fresh air, staying hydrated, and the importance of sleep.
- 53:12Mary Lee: Well, if you're not getting good sleep, it just exacerbates any underlying mental health issues, cognitive hit or effects that come with menopause, as well as increase the risks of dementia and Alzheimer's.
- 53:26Mary Lee: And of course, exposing ourselves to blue light before bed disrupts melatonin production.
- 53:31Mary Lee: And I've talked about this before.
- 53:33Mary Lee: Melatonin is a natural anti inflammatory too.
- 53:36Mary Lee: So when it's not producing, we're losing that ability to address inflammation that comes with estrogen egress.
- 53:43Mary Lee: And then dehydration.
- 53:45Mary Lee: We're so inclined to depression if we're not properly hydrated.
- 53:49Mary Lee: This is something I didn't know.
- 53:51Mary Lee: And it's so critical to our mental health.
- 53:54Mary Lee: And then the impact of social media, as Lisa suggests, we need a digital detox and you can do that by simply deleting what doesn't bring you joy or doesn't make you feel joy.
- 54:05Mary Lee: So fill your feed up deliberately with what makes you feel good.
- 54:10Mary Lee: going back to belief.
- 54:11Mary Lee: Belief comes from self care.
- 54:13Mary Lee: So take the time to indulge in self care.
- 54:17Mary Lee: So important.
- 54:18Mary Lee: So every morning, get up, go in that mirror, say something beautiful and positive to yourself.
- 54:23Mary Lee: be grateful.
- 54:24Mary Lee: Whatever it takes, cultivate positive mindset, delete the negative self talk.
- 54:31Mary Lee: Those are my key takeaways.
- 54:33Mary Lee: Thank you so much for joining me on All Things Menopausal and until next time.
- 54:39Mary Lee: If you enjoyed today's episode and want to stay connected, be sure to follow me on Instagram for tips and updates.
- 54:46Mary Lee: For even more support and community, Join our Facebook group, personal and universal, where we share experiences, advice, and empower each other through the transformative journey.
- 54:58Mary Lee: if you found value in today's episode, please consider leaving a review on Apple podcasts.
- 55:05Mary Lee: Your feedback helps reach more women who can benefit from these conversations.
- 55:10Mary Lee: Okay, my lovelies stay empowered, stay informed and embrace the beauty of your menopausal journey.
- 55:17Mary Lee: Remember midlife should be the best life and it will be.
- 55:21Mary Lee: Namaste.