Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Pain + Unresolved Trauma in Perimenopause

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Pain + Unresolved Trauma in Perimenopause · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma get into the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
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discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
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anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
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world that we live in. One of the things that I simply love about
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doing this show is that I learn more and more about how I not only
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found my place in this world finally by podcasting, but I also found myself
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again, not just my place in it, but I found me again and
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not even know if I even really knew who me was. Quite frankly,
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and I say this because it's been a very long time since I feel like
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I've ever been true to myself. And I never would have guessed that it
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would take me getting sick, desperately sick and diseased as we like to stay
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on this show right and in pain to be true to myself. And another
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thing that I love about this being on podcasts and hosting one as well is
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that I get to meet people every day from all around the world who just
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fucking rock you know, like seriously, and this has just been the best
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journey that I've been on thus far. So sadly though, I also have
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come to see the true reality that there is so much trauma that surrounds us
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every day, all day, everywhere we go. But what I learned is
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that I'm just not alone in what I struggle with, and that has been
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huge. Talk about a weighted blanket wrapped around me, and that's new and
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amazing awareness that has led me down more mindful pass in my day to day.
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But as I continue to age graceful, we me are swimming in new
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waters over here at forty five years old. When it comes to this bod
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and as a woman, enjoin the beginning of paramountopause. Yay, round of
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applause for all of us who are experiencing this joyful time of our life together.
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But what I am learning is that it actually also is associated with an
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increase in pain, and even more interesting when it comes to the link between
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trauma and emotional health, because we're losing these hormones that have protected us right
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and they start to go away, they start to dwindle, it's just like
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our skin, you know, We're like, what is going on here?
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It doesn't look like it used to, right, So let's talk about it.
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Let's talk about the link between an increase in pain and angst from unresolved
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trauma as a result of the impacts of the parmenopausal easy for me to say,
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hormonal shifts. And I've got a guest for us here for you today,
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So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you today to my guests,
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and amazingly gorgeous Cheryl Carroll. Oh, oh, thank you, thank
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you much, what a great intro. Thank you so much. Oh my
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gosh, You're just amazing. And what's so interesting about her is that she
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used to be a banking professional and she turned into and when you get to
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know her personality, I don't see how she could be in banking, but
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she was, and she turned into this integrative health practitioner and a health coach
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for women. She works with women to connect their health dots, which I
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love that and resolve the things that are holding them back from living with radiant
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energy and feeling strong and sexy in both body and mind. And I know
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it's so hard when we get older to feel sexy, right, So she's
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going to bring our sexy back a little bit. There's a special interest in
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autoimmune conditions, thyroid health, talk about thyroid adrenal dysfunction, and other issues
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that are related to chronic inflammation. Her mission is to inspire women to make
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their health top priority. Wait what Yeah, we need to put our health
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as a top priority enabling us to reach our fullest potential in life. So
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I'm going to roll out the red carpet for your girlfriend, and I'd like
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to start by talking about what made you make the switch from banking to integrative
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magicine and unpack that a little and then let's take it from there. Absolutely
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also the red carpet. I love it. And so I have been somebody
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who's always been interested in health. But when I say interested in health,
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it was it wasn't really healthy. When I look back on my past,
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when I was labeled as the healthy one who loved to exercise, but it
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was over exercise. Was interested in the healthy nutrition, but I feel like
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that was more control than anything else, and it was always just kind of
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part of me. I just wanted to be the healthiest version of myself,
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etc. And you know, when I was doing my titled accountancy and then
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traveled around the world. I did this with a very close friend and so
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we did that together in Johannesburg, we went to New York together, we
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went to London together, and we continued these healthy habits together and we ended
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up in Australia together. And when I was pregnant with my daughter, she
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was diagnosed with full cancer. And this absolutely like shook my world because I
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didn't understand how somebody who was healthy like me and was making the healthy choices,
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was exercising, was interested in all of the health related things could get
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sick and you know. So I was around six months pregnant and then through
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that, when my daughter was six weeks old, she passed away. So
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I was going through this really strange phase where I was bringing new life into
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the world when I was losing a life. And yeah, and so I
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just had this like fear around am I am I doing the right things for
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myself or this new little family that I have? How can I how can
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I under health if this can happen? Because it just fell to me.
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It wasn't just it wasn't just something that happened. It wasn't just chance that
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this that cancer presents itself. So this was the question that was going around
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in my head. So when I was pregnant with my son, I said
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to my husband, I feel like I just want to do some extra studying
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when I'm on maternity leave so that I can really validate the decisions that I'm
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making for my family. And the line of questioning I had was all around
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nutrition. So when I was on maternity leave, I stumbled upon the Institute
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of Integrative Nutrition Health Coaching certification and that gave me this really broad view of
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what integritive health is and I was like, wow, kind of I'm starting
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to get it that it's more than just you know, cutting back the cobs
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and you know, having low fat or whatever the hell I used to do
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back in the day over exercise. And so that kind of gave me this
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introduction, but I wanted to go deeper, and that's when I started to
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follow doctor Stephen Cabrol, who created a certification which is based on Functional Medicine
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IVADA traditional Chinese medicine, and he's brought all of these modanities together. And
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when I started going through his through his certification and going deeper into his level
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too, which is all functional medicine based. I was like, this is
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my thing. It's it's you know, it's marrying my auditing skills of root
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cause analysis and health and oh my gosh, it makes sense that I've been
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in this job for so many years because it's the listening, it's the connecting
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the dots that actually helps people move forward and you know, thinking, yes,
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thinking very creatively around each individual because we're all different as to how we
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get to where we are in terms of our health journey. So when we
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talk about I love that you brought in the banking thing about assessment and analysis
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and all that, because that makes complete sense. You know, the analytical
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part of your brain and all these wonderful things that you did, and now
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you just apply it to a whole different shift. I think that's really that's
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actually a really sweet little bridge there. So when you got into this,
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you really started to focus on women's health because I mean, we're women and
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that's what we need to be focused on. What was just on that I
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didn't, but you know what happens, you know, the universe helps you
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on your journey. I just started to Yeah, I definitely worked I worked
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with men, and I worked with different age groups, but I kept on
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being given women who were in their forties having these different symptoms. And then
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I connected my own dots and realized, oh my gosh, I'm in prying
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metopause. And this was when I was This was before I went into health
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coaching full time. I was doing it part time, and I was still
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in banking. I was in a very toxic work environment. I was working
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a full time job in three days, people that didn't want me to be
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doing this arrangement and kids that didn't sleep. So I'd be up from three
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o'clock in the morning and then i'd go and i'd work a full day.
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I'd work at nights, you know, kids, all the things. And
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I ended up this absolutely anxious, emotional wreck. I was a shell of
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myself and I was forty one. I distinctly remember it. I was forty
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one and like, what is wrong with me? You know, I'm this
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resilient person who can take on anything. I don't I'm always positive, I'm
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this, I'm this and this and this, and all of a sudden I
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wasn't that anymore. And that's because through all of the stress, my progesterone,
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which is the lovely calming hormone, started to dip, and my hormones
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were already slightly messed that because I had been a marathon runner for like,
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an over exerciser for like ten years, I didn't have a period from my
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twenties to my thirties, and that pushes you into an earlier experience of lower
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hormones in perimenopause. So this realization of, oh my goodness, I'm in
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perimenopause. So then I just started to go deep into the space because that
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became my mission because I was like, if I am experiencing this and understanding
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the impact it had on my life at that stage, and I'm unaware,
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I need to make this my spotlight because there are other women suffering out there
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just as much. You know, I had the knowledge to correct my path
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through slowing down, really adjusting my lifestyle to nourish myself to rebalance. But
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other people don't know this, and they just think that they're using their minds.
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Yeah, well, sir, so, I mean I think that kind
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of comes with it. We're all a little bit crazy, guys. All
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Right, It's okay, it's okay to lose your mind just a little bit,
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but you can't let it go too far. And that's where like,
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I'm glad that you brought that up where you're like, I just you said
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it perfectly and so eloquently about being a shell of yourself, and I totally
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identify with that. I'm just like, wait a second, when did this?
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How did this happen? All of this sudden it like snuck up on
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me and bit me in the butt like an ostrich in a wild animal park.
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And I was just like, and then at the simultaneously all of the
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pain stuff was happening and was increasing. Until we spoke, I really did
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not know the true connection between paramenopause and the pain that we already had suffered
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that maybe from past trauma, but also anybody that's chronically ill. All of
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it just intensifies when we move into that. So can you talk a little
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bit to us about that? Absolutely so? Would I first just explain what
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perimenopause is, what menopause is, just so there's that kind of definition clarified.
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Yeah, the perimenopause, what I'm seeing these days is it starts from
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as early as the age of thirty five. Because we've got all of this
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physical, mental, and emotional stress. It we're just a pressure cooker and
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that starts to disrupt our hormones earlier, and so what happens then is the
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first hormone that starts to dip down is progesterone, which is the calming hormone
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that comes in after ovulation in the second half of our cycle. And the
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importance of progesterone is that it keeps estrogen in check and estrogen, if you
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think of a car analogy, estrogen is like your foot on the pedal and
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progesterone is your foot on the brakes. So progesterone keeps estrogen in check.
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And when estrogen gows rogue and goes wild without enough progesterone, it creates this
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information this pain, really sore breasts, irritability, heat, all of that
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kind of kind of stuff, and that's a Progesterone is the first hormone to
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drop down. And so in the early days, the subtle symptoms are poor
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sleep, more rutability, maybe slightly heavier bleeding, and then your cycle will
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start to shorten, like maybe one or two days from what's normal for you.
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And then that's kind of the beginning phases of perimenopause, and then you
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move into phase two and that's when the ovaries. So really what menopause,
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what perimenopause is if the ovaries are deciding that they don't want to be they
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don't want to do their job anymore, and so the adrenal glands are going
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to take over. So what happens there is that the ovaries start to slow
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down, and the turtary gland in the brain is like, no, no,
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no no no no no, no no no, this is not happening,
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and we'll and we'll shout down to the ovaries like produce, produce,
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produce, and then the ovaries will sometimes overproduce and then other times will not
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produce enough estrogen. So it becomes like these wild swings of the hormones,
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which feels very like out of control for women because it's it's actually classified as
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being the second puberty, So perimenopause is like is like the puberty in reverse.
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So all the chaos and hopines when you get your period, first of
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all, it's like happening in reverse for you in perimenopause. So it's the
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swings of the hormones that can be quite difficult for women because their hormone receptors
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all over our body. So the body is like, Okay, one month
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we've got liked, the next month we've got little like what the hole's going
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on here, It's like this recalibration. And then when we get to then
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our periods start to become less regular, so we can skip two months and
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then it comes again, then skips four months, comes again, and then
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menopause is just a day where we haven't had a period for a year,
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and then you're in menopause for the rest of your life. So then when
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it comes to me, me is I had no period for three years and
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then it just lovingly came back full till like worse than it ever was.
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And now I'm dealing with that, and it's it's kind of well here and
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there now it's Nothing's really like, I'm not getting anything regular at all.
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But I've always had problems with my period. And that's a million That's a
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whole other episode about just how much more do you want to learn about how
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Lindsey bleeds. No, it's just I I started my period very early.
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I started at nine years old, and then, uh, you know,
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it's just been up and down and all around with my body and my health
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for so long. But why in God's name that I was so stoked.
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I was like, yes, I'm done. And then it came right on
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back with a vengeance. And did it come back that? Did it come
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back around the corvid vaccine or anything like that got up? Yes, happened
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to a lot of women. I came back shortly after the first and I
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didn't want to get vackine. It's not because I'm anti vacs. I just
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with my crps and my easy for me to say, with my crps and
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my body stuff. I was like, my central nervous system is so screwed
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up as it is, and I'm always sensitive to anything. I've always been
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that way with any kind of a pill or any kind of a medication,
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anything, I'm always so sensitive to it. And I was like, my
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sweetie and I got in a fight both times we were on our way to
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get our vaccines because I did not want to do it and I was so
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upset and I was so mad, and it was like, well you've got
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to and I'm like, okay. So I did the two and I haven't
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done anything else since then. I'm not doing it. But that is interesting
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Wow, Yeah, it happened to a lot of women's I don't I don't
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know the mechanisms around that, but that was but interesting that we're not asking
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you to be fauci right now, but interesting that it's that it didn't that
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it's still going on for you, do you know what I mean? So,
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so what perhaps happened is that you weren't truly in menopause, like you
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still had some some some go you still let some go in your buddy,
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have some go at it for it's still last. So that that must have
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been the case, but that that happens a lot. So COVID itself is
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in the virus, and the vaccine has had huge implications on hormonal health and
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periods for women. That's just something to flag. Yeah, yeah, that
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is something to flag. I've got a flag and it's a middle finger.
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I can tell you that much right now. So you obviously are not yet,
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so you are not years in menopause because your your periods are still doing
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things and which is normal. Yeah, this phase, you know, around
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the age of forty five, Like that's normal. So I personally still have
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a regular period, but you know, some months is like twenty three days
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depending on my levels of stress and other months, it'll be twenty seven twenty
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eight. So that's kind of what mine is doing at the moment. So
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it's so what it seems to me in my cycle is that if I'm really
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focusing on managing my levels of stress and you know, optimizing that, then
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you know I'm having a normal cycle. Whereas some women at the stage will
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already be skipping ovulation events, so they may not they may bleed every month,
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but they may not have their men not ovulate, which is really like
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the star of the show, like we're wanting ovulatory events, and then other
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times they will just skip a whole cycle or two cycles because they haven't ovulated.
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So that's kind of how that's that's how it all plays out in terms
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of the change. Okay, so now can we move into So now we've
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got a better definition of this and I like that, thank you for doing
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that for us, because you know, it sounds so stupid that like women
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are asking the question about the change, and they're asking about why are these
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things happening? That makes me so sad because it really does show how left
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behind we are in education and tools and the things that we need. To
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know about our own bods and our doctors that we I mean, I know,
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my general practitioner that I've with for many, many years from when I
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was a little girl, you know, until probably my early twenties or whatever,
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I didn't get any like decent conversations that had any curiosity about why I
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might be experiencing these things with my health at such a young age, you
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know, Yeah, absolutely, And I think so many women just think,
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oh, one day, your period stops, and that's that's all it is.
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When actually, oh and you may get a hot flash. But actually,
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like the most problematic time for women is perimenopause, So it's before you
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hit your last period, Like that's a situe actually, and that's when you
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know, to your points around pain and inflammation and autoimmune conditions, like peri
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Menopause is a very kind of pivotal place where women end up being diagnosed with
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autoimmune conditions because the change in the hormones results in a change to our immune
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system itself, and it causes an increase in our levels of inflammation. So
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kind of that with a catalyst. And then if you think about the fact
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that when the ovaries are slowing down, the dreams. We want their adrenal
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glands to pick up the slack. So now the adrenal glands are trying to
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do sex hormones and the cortisol and like that's a lot. So you know,
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we do end up having less resilience to stress. So it's the perfect
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storm of where we are in this phase where you know, a lot of
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women have perhaps still young kids like myself, or they've got kids that are
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leaving home and elderly parents working, you know, shootings war like, it's
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a lot, it's a lot, and women very often underestimate the straits of
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their cognitive load because we always worry about everybody else, none ourselves. So
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there's that plus what's going on physiologically with us that I see as being the
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biggest contributor to like very problematic pering of or symptoms and like these diagnoses that
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woman gets at the stage of life. Yeah, and that's that's when it
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when we're earlier from meeting Greet, we talked about, you know, how
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unresolved trauma can creep in during the span of time too. Why so what
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happens here is with the change in hormones. If you think about our hormones
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when we are in our full reproductive years are helping us to be these resilient
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caretakers because our role is to procreate and to look after the tribe. And
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then when it comes to hairy menopause and we're starting to lose the protection of
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our hormones, things that should have irritated us before really start to irritate us
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because we don't have this protection field, you know, because I think when
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you get into the space, if you really started your attention to it,
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I don't know, I'll just use the silly example like maybe the way your
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husband choose, like it's probably always chewed like that, but then now you're
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in perimenopause and he's cheering next to you, and you're like, what is
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that? Like, what is that sure you doing right now? But I've
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always done this, but and now it's irritating because you like, there's less
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filter, there's less there's less kind of stopping you. And so what the
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research has actually shown that where women do have unresolved trauma in their past,
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like unresolved emotions, it really starts to kind of pump to the surface as
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things that need to be resolved in their lives. So that can be the
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thing that is actually what is driving like they're more severe perimenopause symptoms because if
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you think about it, we have less resilience to stress, you know.
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And I always think about trauma as like a stone in the shoe. It's
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just like been digging, digging, digging, digging, and by the time
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you get to perimenopause, there's like a big gouge in your in your keel
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and now it's like, okay, it's time to look at this. But
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it's you know, it's what I find in the work that I do with
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women. It's easier to focus on the physical, like okay, so how
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do I need to change ma nutrition? And then okay, so how does
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my exercise need to change? But actually, like turning the spotlight onto the
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emotional stuff is just like it's hard, as you know, it's like hard,
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it is a full time jetep here and go wow, Okay, So
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all of these things are contributing factors. Some of them have been my decisions
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that have been made pissed, poor or great, whatever they've been. Some
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of them have been completely out of my control. But here I am doing
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this exercise with my guests on the you know, I feel like I'm doing
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it every day because I am but trying to just unpack all of this,
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and I'm unpacking a hell of a lot more than I actually thought I needed
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to. And that's been very interesting for me. I'm using the word interesting
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just because, but it is interesting that I all of these things I've kind
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of aligned with a timeline of how I've been ill here and there throughout my
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years and what happened then and how my body responded to it, and now
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putting it all together, I'm like, wow, I was one hundred percent
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failed by the people that were supposed to be helping it to take care of
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me as a kid, as a teenager in high school and college, all
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of these places where I'm like, wow, I was screaming for help from
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the very beginning of being so young and going back and going, oh my
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god, I just how did none of these people like go, you know
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what, we should probably intervene here. Maybe we should like check on her.
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She's fourteen, she said her period for you know, there's all these
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different things that I'm like, resentment has come up through this unpacking, unpacking
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of shame and unpacking of gunpacking and unpacking and I'm just like I'm getting mad.
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Like I'm not getting mad. I've been pretty resentful and angry, and
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I've been working through those emotions because it also has is contributing to how I'm
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responding to stress, because my stress response is, well, get mad about
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it, or get angry about it, or go sob about it and off
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in a bedroom, just like you would when you were a little girl,
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you know, cry, throw a tantrum, and then go away and hide,
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deal with it yourself, figure it out on your own. Don't ask
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for help, don't call anybody, don't reach out to your friend, don't
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talk to your spouse. That's what I knew, because that was kind of
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how I was, like, you're good, you know, you're good.
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Everything's me fine, You're fine. You're young, you're young, you're young.
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No, I'm not not anymore. And all of these things have been
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adding up and stacking, those little tiny things that happen over your whole life,
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and now here we are. It's like the princess and the pea,
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you know, all of the mattresses, and that's all these things. And
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now that pee is literally like what my body is like, it's just it
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will not go away, will it will not release itself. I feel like
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I'm getting actually better in the pain department over the past few weeks, and
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I'm not one hundred percent sure why, and I'm trying. And I was
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talking to my sweetie about it right before we got here, right before we
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got on, because I'm like, what changed? Because something I know,
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something has shifted, and we're not sure how do I I don't know how
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to identify it because I do so many things. So I started to kind
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of pull back on doing like twenty different things that were healthy for my body
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and instead do like one or two so that I can I could analyze,
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like my little banker over here, I could analyze, well, if I
26:30
took this, this is how I responded to it, and let's see how
26:33
that works, like a week, you know. But we want the like
26:37
I want the immediate gratification. I want to feel better. I want to
26:40
feel better. And when we're so tired all the time, and we hurt
26:42
and we're achy, and we're sad and we're overwhelmed, it's hard to take
26:45
care of yourself. Absolutely say that's and that's says you're taking care of everybody
26:51
else, And then that's where I find that. You know, we're actually
26:56
working with somebody who can show you. So you where are you going to
27:03
and just to like hold your hand, you know your comment now you were
27:07
like, I've got to do it on my own. I've got it.
27:08
Like, no, you don't have to do it on your own at all.
27:11
Because you shouldn't have to do it on your own. We're not meant
27:14
to do things on our own. We're meant to be in community, supporting
27:15
one another, you know, being mirrors for one another. It's like finding
27:19
the right community, the right people to walk with you. Yeah, because
27:25
we're not supposed to live in isolation, you know. I mean, I'm
27:29
great at it. I'm a complete homebody. I'm completely isolated, especially with
27:33
me not being able to go do all the fun things that I used to
27:34
be able to do walk, you know, walking my dogs and hiking and
27:38
yoga and skiing and biking and all the things I used to do. Yeah,
27:41
enough for now. For now, that's right, And I'm in this
27:45
place and I get it, and I understand it, and I've embraced it,
27:48
and I've accepted it. The acceptance part was the hardest. And so
27:52
then once I got to that point. Now I'm here, and so what
27:55
can we do as women in this phase of this change of ours? Where
28:00
do where do we really begin? Like where do we start right now?
28:04
If you're listening right now and you're going through any of the things that we've
28:08
just been talking about, what in the heck are we going to deal for
28:11
us? Right? What do we deal? And what is your role in
28:14
that? So what I always recommend for women, it's like, let's go
28:18
back to like the basics. So number one is tracking your cycle and your
28:25
symptoms. Get familiar with your body. And it doesn't necessarily have to be
28:30
like hormonial symptoms, like anything like digestive distress, brain FuG irritability like it
28:37
could be heavy bleeding, it could be pain like whatever it is. Get
28:41
familiar with where you are. And I always say because obviously, like not
28:45
everybody can work with someone like me, but chat to your friends and just
28:48
say, like is this normal? Like I really want to encourage women to
28:52
stop normalizing feeling like crap. You know these symptoms because they're all signs from
28:56
your body that something is out of balance. So Number one, get familiar
29:00
with your body, your cycle. Where are you on that perimenopauseal journey.
29:04
You know, get your hormones tested, know where you're at in the context
29:08
of your hormones. It is slightly more tricky in perimenopause to get an accurate
29:14
reading because there can be those swings, but you can see where your progesterone
29:18
is, you know if you're ovulating or not. Testosterone is also a good
29:22
one to test because low testosterone affects so many women because it's impacted by stress
29:27
as well. So do that and then educate yourself on exactly what the change
29:33
is, you know. So yes, I've given you a very kind of
29:38
high level overview, but there's so much more to it. You know,
29:42
what it means in the context of your nutrition, how you exercise, the
29:48
real importance of recovery, and boundaries, you know, all of those sorts
29:53
of things that women are not so good at. So that's you know,
29:57
boundaries. I don't know what, I don't know. It sounds sounds terrible,
30:07
but that's a good I'm glad that you even said that, because boundaries
30:08
are really hard, and you know, I've had the boundary a hell of
30:12
a lot of people and a whole lot of things in in the past.
30:15
Year and a half. And it is not easy work. It is not
30:19
easy work. And man, oh man, of course not. We weren't
30:23
taught to. We weren't taught to. We were told do this. If
30:26
you don't, you're in trouble. Do this. Don't you're in trouble.
30:30
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you're not perfect enough, then great, you
30:33
know. I mean, and I talk about it all the time about perfectionism,
30:34
because I grew up in a a in a world in my mind at
30:37
least that was I wasn't ever going to be good enough. I wasn't going
30:41
to be perfect enough. I wasn't to do all these things. So I
30:42
try to do all of this to be like good student, you know,
30:45
like great GPA, get into the good colleges, do all these things.
30:51
But then on the other side, it was also so incredibly rebellious and so
30:53
incredibly self sabotaging constantly, and it just count. It was just I was
31:00
fighting against myself. I still fight against myself, but I was fighting against
31:03
myself in such an early developmental stage in my life that looking back at it,
31:08
I'm like, Wow, I'm actually lucky that I'm alone, considering all
31:15
of the stuff that's happened, and so looking at it from a fortunate like
31:18
I'm fortunate that I'm here, and I'm fortunate that I've got the opportunity to
31:22
speak to meet people like yourself. And now I'm like, Okay, i
31:26
feel like I'm almost at this place in my world where I'm now just beginning
31:30
to actually live. Yeah, but that's but that's kind of makes me cry
31:34
a little bit that it's taken this long and I've been beautiful. But think
31:37
about think about the amazing impact you're going to have on the world right Like
31:47
you, I'm working on but you are just honestly, just by being who
31:51
you are bring to these conversations, You're drawing people in to have and to
31:57
listen to the very tough messages, the very difficult conversations, and you're normalizing
32:05
the stuff that people hide in the closet because they feel shame about it,
32:09
you know. And yes, it is deeply, deeply sad that you've gone
32:15
through this, that this has been your path, and I cannot wait to
32:21
see what your next years are going to look like. Many of the baby
32:27
you know, and I think you know, we can say, which is
32:30
why it's so important. And I think that's that's the other thing, you
32:32
know. It's it's we can spend so long in the future, like with
32:37
our minds in the future, which drives anxiety, or we can spend our
32:42
time in the past, which drives depression. But actually we're missing out on
32:46
the present moment. You know, the beauty that we are creating in the
32:52
present moment is what I think we miss so much because we just like chasing
32:57
our tails were missing We literally are like flying over it at thirty thousand feet.
33:02
We're like, well, we missed all that good stuff because we were
33:05
worried about all the cabin pressure and oxygen masks coming down, you know,
33:09
yeah, yeah, it's just it's nuts in it. It's crazy that that
33:15
how much just these small little things add up and how much they contribute to
33:20
our well being and our health. But let me just close off the conversation
33:22
around you know, like what you can actually do, because then you can
33:27
you know, ask me questions around that. So so ready, you know,
33:30
there's so many women who have women doctors who have written books now around
33:35
menopause. There are great books. There's a Canadian woman, a doctor Laura
33:38
Brydon, who's got a book called the Hormone Repair Manual, which is brilliant.
33:43
It's like a manual, so you there's scripts around how you talk to
33:45
your doctor. There's all kind of conditions that women have, like how you
33:50
can treat them naturally, what your if you want conventional medicine, you can
33:53
like use conventional medicine. She gives tips. That's brilliant. There's another doctor,
33:58
Marisa Snyder, who's read in a book around menopause, perimenopause and using
34:02
essential oils if that's your jam. So there's there's so many options in terms
34:07
of just grab a book, read it or even get an audiobook, and
34:12
you know that's you can just get enough information to be able to advocate for
34:17
yourself. So that's number one. And then the other thing is the importance
34:22
of adjusting your lifestyle our body. Because we've got the shifting hormones, our
34:27
bodies just have a different requirement in terms of the food that we eat.
34:31
So you know, we start to lose muscle, our bones, weaken,
34:36
Like it sounds terrible, but this is sounds terrible, but our hormones are
34:42
amazing, Like, think about all of these things that our hormones do for
34:45
us, apart from you know, allowing us to procreate like they do so
34:50
much for us that we only really start to appreciate when they start to go
34:53
away. And then and then that's where we have to use our lifestyle to
34:59
help our bodies pick up the slack from where we're losing our hormones. So,
35:04
you know, whole food nutritions, prioritizing protein, good quality fats,
35:08
not having like pasta seven meals of the day, you know, like appropriate
35:15
amounts of fasting. I think fasting is a bit of a question mark in
35:21
my mind, and by that I mean lung fast because fasting is a hormetic
35:25
stress and I just feel like generally women in our age group have a lot
35:30
of stuff on eats, and I just feel like sometimes doing extra long fasts,
35:36
particularly at the wrong time of their cycle, can they just won't get
35:38
any of the benefits and it just stresses the body out too much. So
35:43
that's a very individualized thing. But everybody can be doing an overnight fast of
35:46
like thirteen fourteen, maybe even fifteen hours. You know, that's that's doable,
35:51
and that's what I recommend. I'm the Queen of fasting because I just
35:55
don't like the ear that's my challenge. You don't like to eat it at
35:59
all? Wow, I'm just I just get sick. I just I call
36:06
it pain puking. It's very It's just something that I'm over the past couple
36:12
of years. I would say five six years of all of this fully.
36:15
But surely I wasn't really a foodie anyway, you know, like I did
36:19
whatever. Okay, if somebody couldn't have said this before on the show,
36:21
so those people listen forever, you know this jam. But it's like,
36:23
I just wish that I could just take a pill in the morning for breakfast,
36:27
take a pill in the afternoon for lunch, and one for dinner,
36:30
and I'll be good and then have a glass of wine. I'm like,
36:31
that sounds amazing. I don't like food in my mouth, Like I don't
36:37
like to do it. I've gotten to the point that it's almost like I'm
36:39
pregnant, Like I'm so sensitive to smells. I'm just it's terrible. And
36:45
I go in these waves where like I was really doing well a couple of
36:47
weeks ago and bringing back food into my world and really embracing it, and
36:52
people are like applauding me, like I'm running a marathon and they're like,
36:55
you know, giving me a metal At the end of a dinner, I'm
36:59
like, come on, you know, but I mean I can see everybody
37:01
watching me eat or not eat because I pushed my food around. I make
37:06
it look like I kind of ate a little bit. I do a little
37:07
bite, I shew it slowly, and then I'm like, I just I'm
37:09
just not interested in it. And I did it last night at dinner.
37:13
I went out with one of my girlfriends and I had a bite of my
37:15
little fakida and I had like a little spoon of soup, and I was
37:19
like, that's all I can do. Wow. So I'm challenged in that
37:22
because with this I never had problems with body dysmorphic issues. You know,
37:27
I didn't have anything like that. It was like I intended to have an
37:29
eating disorder or disordered eating. It just kind of ended up happening. And
37:35
so now here I am, you're talking about, you know, our bones
37:37
getting brittle and you know, getting a hunch on my back. I'm like
37:42
all of the old people's stuff that's happening now, and I'm like, but
37:45
I'm atrophied, Like you would not believe so much of that I know is
37:49
because I haven't been feeding my body as well as I should be if it
37:52
actually just feeding it. And it's something that I didn't think was as big
37:57
of a deal as it has turned into, and I it's it's something that
38:02
I really really have to get a grip on. And I thought I was
38:06
doing better and the past couple of weeks that kind of slipped up again,
38:08
and so I don't know. Perhaps it could just be my hormones going up
38:13
and down and that's affecting my my my appetite and my sensitivity dismils, my
38:17
sensitivity the light like some you know, a lot of that is other health
38:22
issues that I've got going on to but the food thing is my biggest challenge
38:25
for sure. The other thing for you to think about as well from a
38:29
thiroy because if you think about thyroid is your metabolic regulator. So if you
38:32
absolutely just never feel hungry, then that could also be something because you know,
38:39
waking up in the morning and not feeling hungry, you know that's not
38:44
necessarily a good thing. It just means such your metabolism isn't isn't raved up.
38:47
So the fact that you you know that you're not eating because you've got
38:52
all these things which are totally valid thoughts, and you know it's in your
38:58
it's probably just ingrained into your NOPE system as well, But there is this
39:00
element of fear around food as opposed to seeing food as nourishment, et cetera.
39:07
So you know, so there's that. So there's that kind of thought
39:09
that I was thinking from what you were sharing. And the other thing which
39:14
I think you may have done testing on around already, but the sensitivities as
39:19
well can be representative of, you know, a higher toxic load. But
39:24
generally when when you have autoimmune conditions or conditions like yourself, it's the body's
39:30
ability to detoxify is is compromised. So that would make sense if there's you
39:36
know, this build up of toxins in your system that can drive that that
39:39
sensitivity, as well as vagual like vagus nerve issues, which you'd be oh,
39:45
yeah, I have been up on the vegas nerve stuff. I've been
39:49
I've been working on that for some time now, and I definitely am getting
39:52
there's some benefits from that for sure, and I think a lot of what
39:54
we talked about earlier about how I am seeing some changes in my pain by
40:00
doing a lot of the things with the vegus nerve and doing the polyvagal theory
40:04
and you know, all of that stuff. I find it to be so
40:07
incredibly interesting. I had no idea what the power of that was. And
40:08
I don't think we know what our thyroid is at the power behind our thyroid
40:14
either. You know, they're just like, oh, well, because when
40:15
you do when you get your blood tests, because they always test for it,
40:17
oh, your thyroid is fine. I'm like, oh my god.
40:20
There are so many women in my world that have that have thyroid issues that
40:24
their original testing and everything came back that they were fine until they went and
40:29
when they talked to somebody like yourself and did actual functional diagnostic testing. Yeah.
40:32
Absolutely, because the traditional doctors will only test thyroid stimulating hormone, which
40:37
isn't actually a thyroid hormone. It's a communication down to the theroy to produce
40:42
thyroid gland. They don't test the full thyroid panel itself. So you're right,
40:46
there are so many women who go undiagnosed with thyroid issues. And you
40:51
know, even for me when we moved to the country last year, I
40:55
have now realized that I had from all the stress and everything and having COVID
41:01
and you know, all the funky things I could, my thyroid started to
41:08
suffer. And I only recognize that since moving back to the coast and really
41:15
upping the nutrients that I know, the thyroid reliant having released all of this,
41:20
like just gained all of this kind of like bloat like water weight,
41:23
and was just feeling really tired. And that's what the thyroids to the thyroid
41:29
weight that you get is you almost just feel a little bit puffy, you
41:31
know, like you just carry like the weight that's a good word, puffy,
41:36
yeah, puffy, And you just carry this extra weight around your like
41:39
stomach and like thighs and stuff like that. It's like the it's almost like
41:43
because when you have thyroid dysfunction, very often you've been like pushing it too
41:46
hard. So it's like the quarters of bally weight. Like that's that's really
41:51
what starts to starts to show. And you know, but my thyroid numbers,
41:55
my thorough stimulating hormone was fine, but I know that I needed to
42:00
do some work. But I know what to do, you know, and
42:02
I can now that I'm balanced again. I can recognize, oh wow,
42:07
that that was it. I would love to be in balances. I would
42:14
love to It's a hod thing. We get this, it is, I
42:19
will. Yeah, there's no option. Well, and here's another thing,
42:22
And I said, I know that we're creeping up on time here. But
42:23
I was talking last night with my sweetie about how like I know that the
42:27
relationships that I'm building with the people that are on this show, some of
42:31
them are but I already know that. I mean, I've got lifelong friends.
42:34
I mean, one of them shoes on an episode with me, Angie
42:37
Webber. I love you girl. She and I do every week on Tuesdays.
42:39
We do talk shit Tuesdays together. I met her being a guest on
42:44
my show and I was on hers. And you know, when when we're
42:46
talking about balance, I think that friendship. And we got so isolated with
42:50
COVID and we ended up coming so far into ourselves and we were stuck on
42:53
Zoom. And then in the podcast world, we're now even more isolated because
42:57
now we're just in our studios, we're we're on our cameras, we're doing
43:00
our thing. You know, we're doing all the things. And that part
43:04
of it throws our balance off too, you know, and the balance part
43:07
for me is tenfold. I mean, I think it is for all women,
43:12
but you know, it is definitely a challenge to get it. But
43:15
I absolutely still is getting our groove back by doing this. This is this
43:21
is far better than any medicine that can be given to me. Is doing
43:24
what I'm doing here, I'm giving my pain purpose. And also it's about
43:28
knowing yourself. I think that's the most because what looks like balance for me
43:31
doesn't look like balance for you. So it's really about knowing knowing yourself a
43:38
and knowing how you want to feel, like what does balance feel like in
43:43
your body? Like? What does it? You know? Really focusing on,
43:45
you know, the visualization and the feeling into how you want to feel
43:50
like whether it's balance or whether it's how you want to feel as a perimenopause
43:53
or woman. Because only you can drive your path towards that place, you
43:59
know, So when it comes to all of these different lifestyle pillars that we
44:02
can do, you need to be tracking to see what am I actually like
44:07
heading towards this place of this perimenopause or woman that I want to you know,
44:10
step into who has energy, who doesn't lose your car keys all the
44:14
time, who's not irritable, who's not carrying like the cords all tire around
44:17
your belly? You know, only you know if the things that you are
44:22
doing are getting you there or are moving you further away from from her.
44:25
So it's like, really knowing yourself where you are and where you want to
44:29
go is really important and the whole picture of any change. Yeah. That
44:36
and also being one hundred percent honest with yourself, because if you are ninety
44:42
nine percent honest with yourself, that one percent is going to kick your becids.
44:45
I've lived my whole life living at ninety nine percent, right, that
44:50
one percent is so much bigger than ninety nine. And then when I started
44:53
like unpeeling all the layers of this one percent, I was like, oh,
44:58
holy god, there's so much here, and I'm getting so much out
45:04
and validated for a lot of the things that have happened to me. You
45:07
know, a lot of that shame and that guilt that comes with trauma really
45:13
does sit in your psyche for so long. I mean, it drives how
45:15
you feel about yourself, it drives your self worth, and that's something that
45:22
I've unfortunately had to look at myself in the mirror. Well not unfortunately,
45:27
no, no, no, I fortunately I am looking at myself in the
45:30
mirror now for the first time, and it took me a very long time
45:34
to get there and be able to honestly look at myself and go, Okay,
45:37
well you did all of these things, and if you're going to start
45:38
this journey, this journey that I'm on with you right now, then you're
45:43
going to have to be one hundred percent you and be as as authentic as
45:46
you possibly can be. And by doing this, I'm also holding myself accountable,
45:52
and that is a huge thing for me because my listeners and the people
45:55
that listen to my show, some of them they've known me since I was
45:59
a little girl, and they will hold me accountable. They do hold me
46:02
accountable, you know, And so there's an element of that that I am
46:06
intentional about what I do here because my health is my future, you know,
46:12
yeah, which is not the people like you. You beautiful green eyed
46:15
girl. Oh my gosh, I course you could see her. She's so
46:17
damn pretty, very very very sweet. Thank you. I think you maybe
46:25
need to change your glass but anyway, oh my goodness, no, they're
46:29
brand new. My vision is perfect. Nice sty lady, Oh my gosh.
46:34
Okay, well this has been wonderful. Before we go, is there
46:37
anything that you'd like to leave us, leave our listeners with and then we
46:39
want to talk about where we can find you and what's coming up. Yes,
46:44
So the most important thing, which is really part of my mission,
46:46
is to make yourself a priority. There is only one of you, and
46:51
I think we all have this kind of servants heart. We want everybody to
46:54
be well looked after. But remember you cannot do that job if you are
46:59
not healthy, and if you are not looking after yourself. You know,
47:02
you need to fill your cup first. It's such as so clichede, but
47:07
you honestly just need to fill your coinst like leave it us, So I'll
47:12
leave that. And also that the perimenopausal journey, it is suffering is optional.
47:17
So really empower yourself to be able to feel your best, have the
47:23
body that you want to have in this phase of life. You know,
47:28
the ability to respond as opposed to freaking, like react to everyone and be
47:32
irritable, et cetera. Like that doesn't have to be your reality. So
47:37
educate yourself. And you know we didn't get through all of these, but
47:39
the pillars that you need to be thinking about are nourishing your body, moving
47:44
your body just enough to be able to build your strength, build your muscles,
47:49
get your heart pumping. You know, cardiovascular disease risk is huge for
47:52
women because of the hormonal shifts. And then we've got you know, detoxification
47:59
your gut is huge important, and you know, managing your nervous system,
48:02
you know, the breathing, the meditation, the slowing down is very important
48:09
for us. So those are just kind of a very quick whistle stop tour
48:14
of the things that I'd like women just to start thinking about when it comes
48:17
to their health, because it is actually the holistic lens, which is what's
48:22
going to get you to where you want to be. As you already know,
48:29
Oh my gosh, you're so wonderful. Okay, so you've got a
48:30
new program that's going to be coming out. You want to do a little
48:34
distion on that for a minute. So I actually have two. So the
48:37
first one is just a four week course which is called the Midlife Women's Nutritional
48:43
Toolkit. So this is where I go in depth on understanding your body's new
48:49
requirements with the changing hormones and what that means from a nutritional standpoint, So
48:54
I'll help you with exactly how the structure your macros to fill your plates,
49:00
how to go about eating the fasting situation as well, and also talk a
49:05
lot about emotional eating and breaking through kind of weight loss resistance which often happens.
49:13
It's a real pain point for women in midlife because our bodies don't do
49:17
what they used to do. So then women are like, oh my god,
49:21
what do I do? Like nothing's helping because they actually just don't know
49:24
what they should be doing. And then the second program, which is my
49:29
real passion project, which is called the Signals of Safety Blueprint. So this
49:34
is a program which is focused on supporting women who have suboptimal thyroid function or
49:39
a diagnosed thiroy condition to make the lifestyle changes to help them optimize their thyroid
49:46
function. So if they want to, they can then work with their GP
49:51
to kind of get off any meds or just really start to feel better.
49:53
The whole point is, you know, as we spoke about earlier, the
49:57
thyroid can really mess people up when it's not working well. Pain, fatigue,
50:04
weight gain, brain fog hold all the time, like all the things.
50:07
So you know, this is a program. It's really just to educate
50:10
women on how to support their optimal pyrot health and then to get them to
50:15
just feeling better. I love it. I love it so much, and
50:20
she is passionate about it. I've been watching it with her and I've been
50:23
listening to her about it and talk to her about it with me prior to
50:27
this, and it really is meat what she's doing for us ladies, so
50:30
you know, and by proxy it will affect men because we won't be so
50:34
pissed off at you all of the time. Exactly exactly. Oh my gosh.
50:42
Well, we can find this cutiepetuity at Ytvhealthcaching dot com. Will you
50:46
please tell us why it is? Why TV? So my business name is
50:52
called Your Tiny Voice, and there are two reasons behind that. So my
50:58
nickname is actually tiny. So when I arrived in Australia, everybody just started
51:02
to call me tiny because I'm not very large. He's tiny. And it's
51:09
also around like everything I do in terms of my coaching is really helping people
51:15
get to this place of balance that we've spoken about, because it's from their
51:17
place of balance that you can then listen to your intuition because until you're in
51:22
a place of balance. These messages your body is giving you are not They're
51:28
not ones that you can take meaningful steps forward from. But from a balanced
51:31
body, you can recognize, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally,
51:36
what the right steps forward are based on the cues from your body. I
51:39
love it. I wanted to make sure that you told us that story because
51:43
I think it's adorable because she's so cute and she is tiny, and I
51:46
love that tiny little voice because we tend to not listen to her all that
51:50
often. It's like, excuse me, how the whispers of her that we're
51:53
supposed to be listening to on a day to day basis. Then they start
51:57
screaming, like, ladies, it's time to get exactly timing to pay attention
52:00
because we can't go, well, I'll just do that tomorrow. We're the
52:02
queens of that, because we're like, you should see how many stickies both
52:06
my guests and myself have in our life right now. And it's like a
52:08
sticky biasso in here, because there's so many things we want to do,
52:13
but they're all coming from a really good place, and they're coming from a
52:15
place of healing and love and spirit and drive and grit and all of that,
52:21
and that's I I absolutely adore you for all of that and what you're
52:23
trying to do for us peak. Thank you so much and thanks for having
52:27
me. It's been a great, sick great to of course, thank you
52:29
for being here. It's been wonderful. You are exclusively invited to share this
52:34
hot and flashy change VIP pain journey together. Let's get to the heart of
52:38
how to heal with you by my side. Do you know anybody who is
52:42
living in and with chronic pain, or is struggling with health challenges or traumas,
52:46
or are just so hot, flashy, irritable can't stand the cheers around
52:51
them, Please send them our way. We are here for you. That
52:54
is the reason that we're doing this stuff for you, guys. I'd love
52:58
to connect with you and hear your heartfelt stories of strength and wisdom, and
53:02
we're here as a safe place for you to unleash and share your incredible stories,
53:07
whether heartbreaking or heartfelt or both. Please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever
53:12
you digest your podcast content, we will be there. Visit us at the
53:15
Pain gamepodcast dot com and follow us on all the socials. Thanks for listening
53:20
to my little VIPs. Catch you on the other side.