Hello, and welcome to the chaos to calm podcast, episode number 64. I'm Sarah, the perimenopause naturopath, your guide through this journey of perimenopause. So if you're over 40 and feeling like you're changing hormones or hijacking your mood, energy and weight, and you'd like to change that in a holistic way, then this is the place for you, my friend, because each episode I share with you my views on what the heck is happening in your body.

Why are you feeling the way that you are and what you can do about it with actionable advice to help you feel more calm in control, less stressed and way more comfortable in your body. I'm so glad you've joined me today. Thank you for sharing your time with me. Let's get right into discussing today's topic so we can shift your perimenopause experience from chaos to calm.

Today feels like a special episode, but it kind of feels a bit like it's all about me. Because by the time you get this episode, I will be 50. I am in the last few days leading up to my 50th birthday weekend, because let's face it, it's at least a weekend, if not a week of celebration for birthdays. I love birthdays.

I love celebrating my family, my friends and their birthdays. I love doing things to help make their birthday special. And I'm so excited because, my sister, one of my kids, my husband, they've all worked together and my mum of course have worked together to make this a wonderful weekend, and so I had some questions on Instagram from followers.

When I mentioned that I was turning 50 with lots of questions about turning 50, how I'm feeling, all that sort of stuff. So that's what this episode is about today, answering all those wonderful questions about turning 50, my reflections, my lessons. Embracing what's coming next. Because I have spent a lot of time reflecting as I, it's a milestone for sure.

It's one that we could be, I could be frightened of. I could be thinking, Oh, it's the end, Oh, I'm just getting old. All of those things. It's turning 50 can be painted as a time of crisis, loss, the end same with menopause, but for me, it's really been the opposite. Life has definitely had its ups and downs for me.

And I'll talk a little bit about that in this episode as well, but I am really stepping into this new chapter, this next part of life with a deep sense of contentment, acceptance of myself and my body and my life. And a whole bunch of excitement for what's to come. I hope you can hear that in my voice.

I'm actually really excited about my birthday. I'm so excited about what my sixth decade of life is going to bring me. But you know, the sense of contentment certainly didn't arrive overnight. It's certainly not how I started my fifth decade of my, when I turned 40. I totally did not feel excited or looking forward to it.

I actually just felt really exhausted and depleted. And really burnt out. So it's been a process and it's been a long process of learning to accept who I am. First of all, I didn't even, I didn't really need know that I needed to do that or that I could do that, or I didn't need to worry about what other people thought.

Until my forties, even what my body needs, same deal there. It wasn't until I was studying. And even when I graduated as a naturopath and then further into my own health crisis, that I really learned to understand what my body needs, how to support and nourish it and how that brings us health and weight loss and all the things that we're seeking.

Yeah. So, how to move through life's challenges with grace. I had a massive, well, we, as a family had a massive, major traumatic life changing event in my thirties. And I'm going to talk a bit about it today because that actually was the start of change for me. And changing my mindset and that's really made all the difference as I've, and as I'm entering this milestone birthday, all those years leading up to now and helping me change my mindset and the way that I look at life and the way I look at challenges and the way I look at the good stuff that happens as well.

So we're going to talk a bit about contentment and self acceptance today, because that's been the foundations for my growth. And that certainly is the foundation for me moving into my fifties with excitement and joy. Yeah for a lot of my life I was trying to ignore my symptoms or suppress them.

Take some Panadol, take some Nurofen, take some Pondstand. You remember when that came out when you were a teen and you were like, Oh my God, it's like the best thing ever. But no one was ever teaching us about our periods, our cycle, the bloating, the pain, the cramps they were all just seen as an inconvenience.

I mean periods were just seen as. Don't talk about it. Try and pretend it doesn't exist. And that's kind of what I grew up doing that with my symptoms and things like that. Just try and suppress them, get rid of them. They're an inconvenience. I've got so much to do. But when I trained as a naturopath, that started to change for me.

Like I really learned that symptoms aren't just annoyances. They're our body's way of speaking to us. They're signals. They're clues about what our bodies need, whether that's rest or nourishment or hormonal support. And yes, sometimes those signals, those clues, what our body needs. Darned inconvenient like when your body's telling you, you need rest, but you feel like you've got a whole bunch of stuff on your to do list.

I know that's how I certainly felt. Especially around in my thirties, when we had that major event, I didn't have time to rest. That's what I thought. I know differently now, when my reflections in recent times, and certainly this is what drives me as the perimenopause naturopath too, is that most of us are not taught about our cycles and our hormones. We live in a world that's built for men's stable hormonal rhythm where their fluctuations are minimal, but our bodies are cyclical and they operate on fluctuations around the month. Our hormones are ebbing and flowing constantly, and that influences our energy, our mood, our physical health.

So learning how to sync with that natural rhythm instead of fighting it was a really major event for me there, but that didn't come really until my forties and even then it was hard because I felt like I was too busy, too much to do and overscheduled to be able to slow down and rest when I not honor that cycle.

But that's what I'm really passionate about teaching to you, to women so that you can teach the girls in your life, that's what I want something different for them and not that it's too late for us. Cause certainly you're never too old and it's never too late to change how you approach your body and your health and your body will always certainly benefit when you do that as well.

But I like to teach my teens, my girls and my boys to honor their cycles, to tune into their bodies and what they need. What's your body telling you when you're feeling a particular way? This is what I wish I had learned when I was younger like in my teens, even as a child, if I'd known that then, like if I'd known then what I know now.

I would have treated my body with more kindness and respect instead of trying to push through discomfort or punishing it by over consuming alcohol, sugar, different things as a child, as a young adult, not a child. I was not drinking alcohol as a child, a young adult. Yeah, but of course there's no regret because I can't change that.

That's just how it was. It was like that for a lot of us and our mothers and our grandmothers as well. It was probably even worse, but I think it's up to us now to start help changing that for our girls and. Our future granddaughters. And I just want to say like, our cycles aren't a burden.

They're actually a superpower, how amazing is it that we can like each month prep for a baby that may or may not be coming, but we can prep that. And then if there is a baby, we can grow a human from like a cell, two cells. And then when that baby is born, we can, nourish them and help them grow with milk from our body.

Like, tell me that's not a superpower. How is that disgusting and gross? I think it's just amazing. And that's what I'm teaching my kids as well. What an honor. How amazing our bodies. Yeah. So, I was thinking about how marvelous our bodies are. I was, and try and give thanks even when I was in the thick of things and I was having a health crisis, I was trying to give thanks to my body for carrying me through all that it had to carry me through.

And it was a lot. So let's talk about, the questions that I had sent in to me. So, I'm quite philosophical as I'm approaching my 50th. But yeah, I asked my followers to send me questions about and they've asked me questions, lots of different questions about different stages and how what I would tell myself back in, different decades.

So, we'll start with my twenties, because I think I've already told you what I would tell my teen self. What I would love my teen self to have been taught was more about my cycles and tuning into my body and being connected with it and listening to it and treating it with love and kindness and respect.

So what would I tell my 20 year old self? Well, my 20 year old self was always trying to fit into everyone else's idea of who I should be. And self acceptance is the most important lesson I've learned in my forties. And I wish that I had understood that earlier. I wish that, that was modeled for me, not worrying about what other people thought, because I spent so much time trying to be someone I wasn't to fit in, to be liked.

But in doing so I ignored my true self. I ignored my I, we didn't know about neuro divergence then, but I just always felt that things weren't, I was living out of sync with this world. And now it's being in my forties that I've realized that I have different needs. My body, my brain has different needs.

And when I try and resist and push against that and do it what everyone else is doing, it just doesn't work. And I spend my whole life out of sync, discombobulated and unhappy. So I would tell my 20 year old self to listen to her body, around the cycles, each month, my body's preparing for your body's preparing for the possibility of a baby.

And if that doesn't happen, it needs to recover from the loss. It's a lot, what we build up and then lose rest nourishment care just generally. Rest nourishment care so vital. I didn't realize how much my body needed it. And I was always doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, and trying to be someone I wasn't so I could be liked and fit in.

So that's what I would tell my 20 year old self, just love and accept yourself, be yourself. What would I tell my 30 year old self? Well, my thirties were hard physically and mentally because I was either pregnant or breastfeeding for that whole decade. Literally, a whole decade and a bit either side of it then as well.

So imagine the depletion there physically is large. But life through really big challenges our way. Like I mentioned before, we had a major traumatic event. Our home was lost in a fire. We lost most of our belongings. We literally had what we stood in and the tools in camp shed. That was massive.

I was pregnant with my third child planning a home birth and had no home. And he was due in six weeks. So it was big, and I would tell my 30 year old self, like, I think what the way that I got through that time was I disconnected from the reality of it and just focused on my to do list and got it done.

The problem with that though is that grief, we need to grieve. And if we don't grieve, if we shut it away and we shut our emotions down, then it's going to manifest in some different way in our body.

I haven't cried about this for years

and yeah,

And it's true what they say. The time does heal all wounds. And certainly these days I can come and go from the date that it happened without crying, but not today.

Okay. So in that time period of it, just, I felt like I never had enough time, never had enough energy and I've just felt constantly overwhelmed by all that I needed to do. And, totally ignored what I needed, what my body needed, what my mind needed there as well. Like I said, I just had to shut down and disconnect to get through that time.

That was with the skills that I had at that time, that was the best that I could do. And to be fair people offered support, but many people just didn't know what to do or how to approach it or approach us. And it was quite a lonely time as well because of that. So if you know anyone that has some major or traumatic event going on, please don't, move away because you don't know what to do or what to say.

Just ask what you can do for them. And it'll be hard for them to say yes. And that's one thing I wish that I had done then. And that's what I would tell my 30 year old self. It's okay to ask for help. Being a functioning human, being a great mom, doesn't mean putting yourself last and trying to do everything.

Cause like, we're not machines. We are human beings with a like a mortal body. And just like you wouldn't ignore your car and not have it serviced or not fill it up with oil or water or whatever. Our bodies need the same, if not more. So, yeah I would like to tell my 30 year old self to let go of the belief that I needed to do everything and be everything for everyone at the same time, or all the time saying self care, those basics of looking after ourselves, finding some joy and having some joy in every day.

Drinking enough water, nourishing food, sleep, all of those things. Especially if sleep is difficult, giving yourself enough time and opportunity for sleep, then having all of those things in place means that you can be more efficient and you can get all of those things done. Instead, I kind of just flogged my body and then had this major health crisis and developed a whole bunch of allergies, became a celiac, and yeah, it wasn't great.

I'm literally amazed at how my body and mind carried me through that decade, especially with what happened when I was pregnant with Alfie. But yeah, I would tell myself that it's, I can be a great mum and prioritize my care and my health. So my forties, my 40 year old self, what would I tell myself then?

My forties were busy and that's I reckon it's the busiest phase of life, our forties and fifties. I haven't met a woman yet that is not like at the busiest time. Kids might be getting older. Maybe you might have young kids too, because I had a when I turned 40, I had a one year old.

I also had a 10 year old, no 11. So, wow. If you're going to have more than two kids, have them closer together. And that's my advice to you. I wouldn't tell my 40 year old self that, that's maybe something I'd tell my 20 year old self. But you know, life doesn't always work out how we want to plan it anyway, but my forties were super busy.

I started, I graduated, I had four kids, started homeschooling in my forties while I was studying my youngest daughter got diagnosed with juvenile arthritis. Like there was a lot going on, just like there's a lot going on for most of you listening. And it was the decade that I started perimenopause.

Quite early too. Like I was 42 on reflection. I was around 42 that I started perimenopause. Of course, I got told that I was too young and it wasn't perimenopause. Even though looking back at the bloods, they definitely were showing that those early signs of perimenopause. And so because I wasn't sort of honoring my cycles or what my body needed.

I was just too busy trying to be productive and get everything done. I was dealing with short cycles, heavy bleeding, flooding while I was at work in my clinic. I remember one day I was like, I knew I wouldn't be able to get up to see a client out because I had flooded on my chair. So yeah, it was hectic.

And that happened for a few years before I really sort of dived into being the perimenopause naturopath and dived into realized, well, they were that doctor was wrong. I actually have been in perimenopause and my body's just been telling me what it needs And then yeah I kind of felt that grief that probably many of you feel as well like that because in my head I had the idea that menopause is the end and so, then when my cycle started getting longer and longer between periods, I actually realized this is really great because, I'm not tied to my cycle.

They were getting lighter. It was pretty good. And I started doing more reading. I read research around, other cultures, not Western cultures and how they don't tend to have perimenopause symptoms because they celebrate and revere women as they age before their wisdom and their experience.

And so menopause is like perimenopause, the journey to menopause is pretty easy for them because like they're looking forward to it and excited about it. So you know, once in my forties as well, I learned, really learned how to look after myself and nourish my body and, and lost that 20 kilos I'd gained during that whole health crisis in my late 30s into my early 40s and early perimenopause there.

And really felt like I'd been given a second chance at life. Because like, in my early 40s at 42, I felt miserable. I was miserable. I was angry, grumpy all the time, tired, exhausted, sad in my heart. Like, I was really down. And then COVID hit and I was really depressed. I was in a really bad space.

And my sister beautifully looked after me and checked in with me every day to make sure I was eating and looking after myself. So yeah, it really felt like I got that second chance at life when I came into knowing about personalized nutrition, metabolic balance, personalized nutrition, and it absolutely changed my life because it made me look after my body and it worked and I just felt amazing.

So, that was four and a bit years ago. And I give thanks almost every day for what I learned in that. And that's essentially I'm offering and teaching that to clients in the chaos to calm method and a version of it in PerimenoGO. go. So yeah, my forties, multiple different things that I would teach myself there, but mostly that, menopause is not the end.

And, prioritizing again, my care and love and acceptance for my body and not trying to punish it into, what I want it to be, but also being okay with where it is and that it's changing and like it's done a lot of things for me, it's grown for humans and nourish them, and it's carried me through tragedy and loss and many other joyful times as well.

And it still helps me show up on the lacrosse field each and every week in season and try new things, trying full contact version of lacrosse. I started doing that at 48, crazy times. And I'm still looking forward to playing it this season as well. So I give thanks to my body each and every day.

But one of the things that I would tell what I've done in my 40s is lots of thought work around my beliefs, my thoughts. They drive your feelings, they drive your actions, your results, that thought work. I again, maybe I would tell, that's part of what I would tell my 20 year old self about acceptance and contentment.

 So my most challenging decade, that was another question. Well, it was my thirties because of all that happened. It not just the pregnancies and breastfeeding for a whole decade. I actually breastfed for over 12 years. Like it's a lot. It was that amount of life that was happening all at once.

From we had rebuilt our house. My husband built that on the weekends while he worked during the week. That meant I was pretty much solo mama for most of that time. It took nearly three years to rebuild. Yeah, so I I look back at that now and I think just how resilient we are as humans, our bodies and minds have an incredible ability to survive and thrive.

Like it's literally our brain's job to keep us happy and surviving with the least amount of resources possible. But we are really resilient as well. We can be really resilient even in the face of immense pressure. Absolutely amazing. Our bodies are amazing. So another question was what it's like not being driven by hormones anymore.

Well, I think I touched on that before. It's actually really liberating and freeing. So I'm almost 18 months post menopause now. And while hormones still play a role in my health, I don't, they still have an impact, of course, but it's not as cyclical and up and down it's no, no highs and lows of a cycle or the rollercoaster of perimenopause.

So that, yeah, there's that freedom. I don't have to plan around periods or deal with PMS or period pain or anything like that. I have to worry if my period is going to show up on a holiday or at an inconvenient time. And it takes time for your body to adjust to the changing hormone levels and then the lower hormone levels of menopause.

But I really am enjoying this new state of equilibrium. And it does, it feels like I can focus more on the other aspects of life there as well. And of course I understand how to look after myself, how to support and nourish my body. And that stays pretty consistent. What my needs are, it's not as cyclical anymore, so that's easier too.

But you know, I do have to work out more and I have to lift more heavy things because it's harder for me to build muscle mass and stuff like that, but that's okay. It's all swings and roundabouts. What you gain once somewhere, you might have to work harder in another place, but that's okay. There as well, it's like if we're happy all the time, we, how would we know we're happy all the time?

So we need the dark with the light. They're happy with the sand. Yeah, life's 50, 50 as Brooke Castillo says, I love her, the life coach school. So if you want to listen to thought work and thinking about mindset, she's your woman. Go listen to her podcast. So my final thoughts, that as I move into my fifties, I feel really grounded.

I love and accept myself and my body. As it is where I'm at right now, I have a great self care routine. I'm trying to be self aware sometimes, not always, but I it's something that I'm working on with some reflection and thought work each day. And they really become my pillars. I have a busy life, like you all do, like I said before, but I can manage it and come through it without burning out again, because these are my pillars, these underlie they're the foundation for that house. That's my busy life. 

The mindset work I've done, like I mentioned, particularly around self coaching and coach myself each and every day, all through the day has really helped me see the link between my thoughts and my feelings and actions, literally life changing work. But recognizing where my thoughts and my beliefs are getting in the way of me doing what I want to do.

And Rewiring how I think about myself and my body, but also, well, how can I adjust what I'm doing to suit my neurodivergent brain to suit what my body needs? It's really been, I've I've been able to achieve and do a lot and create a lot of content and do things but also create a sense of peace and purpose that carries me forward and excitement.

I have goals. I have an idea of my fifties or what it's going to be and my sixties and beyond that there as well. And all of that there's that common narrative that menopause and ageing signal the end. I just see this as a new beginning. It's a new decade. It's a new phase of life.

It's a great time to embrace the freedom that I don't, not tied to a cycle. My kids are getting older and more independent. It's my time. I can explore goals and passions and enjoy the wisdom that comes from decades of life experience. And, those hard times as well have all given me something too.

So like I said, I have a plan. I have a purpose. I have so much excitement for what's next life, you know It's not always easy, but I don't necessarily want it to be because how would I grow, like personal development is not just for the workplace, you know If we want to grow and have an amazing life at times, we're going to have to be uncomfortable and there's going to be sad and tough times, but through all of those, we can grow and evolve.

And that's what I want for me, for my family, for my friends as well. So yeah, like underneath everything that's gone on for me, I have a deep sense of contentment and self acceptance and that's what I'm carrying with me into this new chapter. And that my friend is all for today. Thank you so much for listening, sharing your time with me.

Do check out the show notes for any links to episodes and resources I've mentioned today. That's www.chaostocalmpodcast.com. While you're there, don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss an episode and you can share with a friend who would benefit from hearing my reflections or more about perimenopause in general.

So next time I do hope you'll join me. I'm looking forward to talking about premature perimenopause until then have a wonderful week and keep working on moving your perimenopause experience from chaos to calm.