The number of women who are questioning whether they are experiencing burnout, perimenopause, undiagnosed ADHD, or even early-onset Alzheimers is at an all-time high.  A lot of us are struggling and don’t even know where to turn for answers because there is so much crossover between the symptoms of these conditions.  Each of them affects our body, mind, and brain, so sorting things out is far from simple.

One of the most challenging aspects is the skill gap that seems to exist. Gynecologists don’t have enough training in perimenopause,  business coaches don’t understand mental health and psychotherapists aren’t trained in business.  What are mid-life female solopreneurs supposed to do? 

I invited my friend, midlife hormone specialist, Stephanie Shaw, host of the Hello Hot Flash Podcast to help us unpack the confusion, normalize the struggle, and create some genuine clarity about how to create better boundaries (the ultimate in self-care), advocate with our health care providers and set priorities that really move the needle for women in their 40s and 50s, especially those of us who are self-employed. 

👉 Here are 3 key takeaways for every female entrepreneur: over 40

Emotional Regulation: The transformative power of journaling to understand emotional patterns and taking proactive steps to process negative emotions

Self Advocacy with Healthcare Professionals: How to differentiate burnout from perimenopause symptoms, the importance of asserting for appropriate medical tests, and the art of being strategic during healthcare conversations.

Redefining Self-Care: Stephanie and I unpack the societal pressures women face and how embracing a comprehensive self-care approach—including establishing boundaries and renegotiating relationships—is vital not just for personal well-being but for sustainable success.

Mic Drop Moment: 

"Part of the work that I do is teaching women to advocate for themselves because if your gynecologist will not provide you with information on how to handle your medical condition, then you need to find another gynecologist."

— Stephanie Shaw 

Want to connect with Stephanie and find out more?

Listen to her Hello Hot Flash Podcast: https://bit.ly/43xI1X1

Take her course: https://bit.ly/3Tl2Hgk

Book a call: https://bit.ly/3TLnOtv

Are you looking for Holistic Business Coaching that helps you balance self-care with passion, purpose, and profit?

You don’t have to be perimenopausal or burning out to know you are working too hard and too much for the money you are making.  I am opening up opportunities to work with me for different lengths of time, based on your needs, goals, and what’s got you feeling stuck. 

It starts with a no-obligation free consultation. I help you figure out why your business is not yet where you want it to be, and help you create a plan that takes mental wellness and energetic capacity into account.  I call it “right-sizing” and it might be exactly what you need right now.

Want to know more?  Schedule a free consultation here: https://bit.ly/calendly-free-consultation

H: We both know that a lot of women are asking, am I in burnout or is it my hormones? And that's a lot of suffering going on that you are uniquely qualified to address. So let's just start with, how do you know like, what are the symptoms?

G: Yeah. So sometimes you may not know if it's one or the other unless you are taking some tests. So you can take hormone tests, but I will tell you, a lot of times, our doctors do not want to prescribe those because they always say that it's a moment in time. Yeah it is, but we still wanna know so you may not be able to tell the difference between the two, but you can react the same. So if it's burnout, if it's perimenopause, there are some steps that we as women can take to navigate what is actually going on. And the one thing that I think is so super important is getting to the root cause because we often think we wear stress as a badge of honor.

We think we need to be Superwoman, or we think we don't have any stress because that's just how life is. Once you start to uncover what is going on in your life, that's how you can get some solutions. More than likely, you'll probably be able to kinda self determine if it's just burnout or perimenopause, and it can help you move forward. So we can talk a little bit about those steps as well.

H: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I already have a question because what I'm thinking is, and I know for a fact because I have already been through perimenopause and menopause. And it wasn't that long ago that I don't remember exactly how daunting it was at times. But I hear from a lot of women that they need to have their hormones checked. But the hormone tests that most physicians and I'm not talking your GP, I'm talking your gynecologist. Even most gynecologists are not willing, or they have to be persuaded, shall we say, to prescribe a full battery of tests because the standard tests may not be accurate enough, is that your experience as well?

G: Yeah, that has been my experience. So part of the work that I also do is teaching women to advocate for themselves because I say if your gynecologist will not provide you with information on how to handle your medical condition, then you need to find another gynecologist. So giving them a little credit, you know, because they are intelligent men and women. They are not trained specifically in menopause for an extended period of time. I'm going to say 30 days, there's this mini course, basically, that you take on menopause. So they're basically trying to help you when you're pre or yeah pre perimenopausal.

That support is in there, so advocating for yourself is really important. If you're like me so I ended up going to 18 different doctors, 2 world renowned medical facilities. I didn't know all of the symptoms that I was having, which was close to 40, was perimenopause related, but I kept at it until I found someone who can actually support me. So, yeah, you're right that they do not always prescribe to giving you tests, but that's why as women, we can not only advocate for ourselves, but start taking steps to help solve the problem so that we can at least be working toward living a better healthier life with or without the test results.

H: It's certainly been my as being part of the health care system for many, many years that you, generally speaking, do not get what you do not ask for. And it's a shockingly small amount of training that physicians get on things that are critically important to our well-being, like nutrition.

G: Nutrition. Yes, thank you so much for saying that.

H: There's I mean, it's like there's almost no training because physicians who are trained in Western allopathic medicine are trained to identify, diagnose, and treat disease. They are not as well trained to keep people healthy. And I'm just gonna say it I think there's a astonishing amount of gender bias as well. We agree, most research is not done on women. So and very little research has been done on perimenopause. So we don't need to go down the whole list of the 40 symptoms that you I mean, girl, I gotta tell you, I have mad respect for your determination and your need to understand.

I am getting a superficial answer, I'm like, next and I will keep going and keep going and keep going. Sometimes it can become quite the rabbit hole but in your case, like, you were suffering, you were going to specialist after specialist, spending time, money, energy, effort, sacrifice, and you still weren't getting what you needed. What do people need to know about the laundry list of things that you might just think it's aging or it's stress or it's maybe I'm not exercising enough, but it's actually perimenopause. What are some of…

G: The big symptoms of the signs? Yeah. So first of all, I'm gonna jump back to advocacy for just a brief second. Don't just walk in saying that you're going to advocate. Do the homework first. So write down your list of questions, and when they see that you're serious, I've found that they're more apt to respond to you and perhaps sit down and answer your questions, so I just wanted to say that. But my laundry list included my hair fell out in the back, left hand side. It was funny that my cousin one time said, oh, I like that little cute, asymmetrical bob you have, I'm like, I don't have one.

I hadn't even noticed how much it was breaking up. So hair falling out, twitching in my eyes, cold hands and feet, rapid heartbeat after I would eat something. Certain foods just my heart would beat so fast. I'm like, I'm dying, I'm dying. Phantom smells is one that people aren't quite familiar with so most people smell like gas, electricity, some people smell body odor. I smell gas, which too frequently at work I called my husband, like, the gas is leaking, call the gas, he's like, this probably is in your head again. But that was before we knew that it was actually a perimenopausal symptom.

So those stronger smells, but people also smell things like maple syrup. So I was on both spectrums and while you may think that smelling maple syrup is a good thing, the intensity of that sugar smell, I can't even describe it, it's very disturbing. So that can change, you can have itching, rash, dry skin. The way that your body reacts to maybe your deodorant and, certain detergents and so forth, all of that begins to change. So there has been a study that lists close to 100 perimenopausal symptoms.

So it's part of this research group in well, it's a supplement group, but they're doing some research in Canada. And as they went down the list, I'm like, oh my goodness, I had that, that, that, that. So understanding that all of these symptoms are related to the changes in our estrogen, progesterone, and the testosterone levels, and our cortisol levels as well. When we start to understand that those changes can actually cause different changes in our body. So just be don't get paranoid about it, but be aware that some things you may think are a little off may actually be a little off, and then you can find some support at that point.

H: You know, as you're going down this list and by the way, you are talking about some of the more nuanced and maybe less well known symptoms. The ones that we mostly hear about are weight gain, even if we've never had trouble maintaining our weight, decreased sex drive, being sweaty, disrupted sleep.

G: Yes. I had all of those had all of those too. Like, my face was, like, so I gained all weight in my breast and my face, and so I'm like, can I get some hips back here, that didn't work out. Gut, breast, face so I gained weight as well. So, yeah, you're exactly right. My sleep was totally I had a girlfriend, and, like, 3 o'clock in the morning, we'd be like, alright, let's just start texting each other because we were both up in the middle of the night. You like, what else are you gonna do at this point? So that sleep is again, it's all because of your hormones that are changing, but there's also, we again, as women, we often think that we need to be everything for everyone and never take care of ourself.

I was queen of that I, like, thought self care was selfish. I talked about people behind their back in my head. I'm like, oh, they're so selfish and so I did. As a matter of fact, yesterday, I was sitting with a woman who didn't realize I had talked about her in the past, but I'm so she's so sweet and so healthy and so vibrant, but she had a really good self care regimen. And I thought, well, how did she find time for that? But, you know, complete digression but…

H: I wanna know this though. Did you fess up? Did you tell her? Girl, I was so judgy.

G: So I can now, because we have that relationship, and I didn't even think to fess up. I thought about her and being with her yesterday after I thought about recording this episode. So right before I got on with you, I'm like, oh, I was with yesterday, and I remember when that happened, so, yeah, I need to fess up. But, yeah, so again, all of these symptoms do happen when we're not taking care of ourself, and they can cause additional stress on our bodies.

H: Well, and let's be honest, they're going to happen. They're going to be disruptive. They're going to affect you, body, mind, and brain, even if you're taking care of yourself right? It's not like taking care of yourself means it's gonna be smooth sailing as your hormones are wrecking havoc with you. But if you're taking care of yourself in the ways that you're going to share with us, you will be able to tolerate the symptoms better, and you may be able to diminish them somewhat, is that right?

G: You are 1 million percent right and we didn’t even mention brain.

H: Well actually, I cued you up for that. As you know, I thought I was pretty sneaky about it. I was a licensed psychotherapist, as you know, for many years before transitioning into coaching. And so I realized that a lot of people, a lot of women, would come for therapy in their late thirties to mid forties, even those who had never come for therapy before.

And they would generally say, all of a sudden, I feel dissatisfied with everything in my life. I think my husband is an A hole. I want to give my kids away. I wanna quit my job. I want to run away. I want to do and so or they didn't have the energy to think such grandiose escape fantasies. They would just say, I'm exhausted. I'm anxious. I'm depressed. I don't wanna do anything for anyone. I don't even wanna do for me. I just wanna lie in my bed and wish the day away. And, of course, many therapists would just say, oh, this woman is suffering from anxiety, depression, whatever. They would give them a diagnosis, and they'd put them on meds.

And it was something that you and I have talked about in the past that a shocking percentage of women over 40 are on anti anxiety and antidepressant medication when, to me, that's the first sign that they probably need a proper hormone workup because they may not need that medication. So let's just get right to it, what are the effects of perimenopause in particular on the brain? Because what happens to the brain is gonna affect not only your well-being and your functioning, but your mental health and brain fog is one of the biggest complaints I hear.

G: Yeah, so you're exactly right. That is one of the biggest impacts. We begin to forget everyday thing, and it's hurting us not only at home, but it's hurting us in the workplace. So women over 50 are leaving the workplace at a higher rate than ever, and that's who we need in the workplace because that's where all the, you know, all the nurturing and the intelligence is when we get to that age. But so, yes, it's affecting us with brain fog. It's in affecting us with anxiety. I've never been an anxious person. I thought that you should just suck it up, anxiety. I've never been an anxious person. I thought that you should just suck it up and move on.

And I've spent a lot of days in the back seat of my car my then 18 year old son's hand while my husband rushed me to the ER. Like, this became, like, every 3 to 4 weeks because I would start to have anxiety attacks. So it's all real, the impact that it has on us emotionally. But one of the biggest things that I think it that at least helped me is recognizing that, okay, this has to be hormone based. This is not my normal MO, and making a decision. Now what am I going to do about it? So I didn't understand why I was anxious.

Part of it was probably because I was going 18 different doctors across 4 states and blah blah blah. But I didn't understand where all of the anxiety was coming from. I didn't understand why. I still can't remember my kid's name, so I'm not gonna even say that came back. But I'm not gonna I couldn't understand, like, in the workplace why I was forgetting things. So I started and people think this is oversimplification, but it's not. It's so real. I started journaling. I started writing down what my day was like and what I and then I just didn't write it down, but the highs, the lows, I started to see a pattern. Oh, during this week of the month, I'm a little more anxious.

When I'm in a scenario with this person, I'm a lot more anxious. So I was able to use that, I did my own research on myself. It's yes, you can think that it's time consuming, I'll never do that. I can't make that part of my life. But when you get to that point where you are in the back seat of the car driving to the ER room, you know, with your child, you take those steps. So I encourage women to start a journal. Don't you know, it's not 2 hours a night that you're journaling, 5 minutes per day. Do it while sitting using the bathroom. Just find time, and then go backwards and start to see where those things are. And then make a decision, what are you going to do?

So it was time for me to have a really big conversation with someone that 2 people, actually, that impacted my livelihood and could have impacted my, familial relationships. I had to make a decision that I was not going to live like this anymore. I had those conversations, and it's beautiful now. It wasn't like the relationships are severed or anything. I was respectful. I went and spoke about what I needed, and they were receptive to it. That, I kid you not, within 4, 6 weeks, all my sciatic pain that had been there for almost 2 months.

And, I physically, at one point, couldn't move my shoulders, left, and I should not have I didn't drive for 2 months, but I really should not have been driving for longer, I couldn't move my head. So those people were sitting on my neck and sitting on my behind, basically. So I was able to, by using journaling, walk through that transition, and encourage other women to do the same thing. So get to the root cause see, there there's sorry.

H: Stephanie, there no. No, it's all good, and I wanna go back, circle back to it and unpack it a little bit more because there's so much there. So many of the qualities and traits that you have that I love so much are that, you know, many women when they're experiencing this much discomfort, they just don't feel like themselves at all. They really freak the f out and start feeling like they're being betrayed by their own body. They're being victimized by their own body. And none of that will actually help you figure it out.

Your ability to think, okay, this is very disturbing. This is very disruptive, I don't like this, but it's happening for a reason. And you're able to, like, engage that critical thinking and critical problem solving part of you because there's all kinds of ways to journal, Stephanie. A lot of people journal like, dear diary, today sucked. Yesterday was pretty shitty too, sorry, I forgot to mention that. You know, and it's just kind of venting. Hey, listen, I'm a big fan of venting.

G: Right, angry journaler is what I am.

H: Yeah. And, you know, I always say, you know, there are plenty of bartenders and hairstylists out there who are the great untrained therapists of the world because they listen to venting all the time. But you didn't just vent, you engaged your critical thinking and your problem solving ability and your desire to get to the root cause. Be like, why is this okay, it's happening. Why is it happening? Because that curiosity is what drove you to try different things and to keep pushing until you got a satisfactory solution. I think that's one of the messages here that's so important is that you are worth it. Don't give up. Put yourself in the driver's seat even if you feel like you are completely out of control, because I know you do, you are in the driver's seat no matter how many years of training the so called experts have. You are the expert in you.

G: Exactly, Diann. Oh my gosh, that is so powerful. And don't think that, oh, day one, I felt bad. And day two, now I'm gonna work on journaling and do step by step. I have my moments, but I also assign time to my moments. Like, I would physically sit there and went, okay. I need to be angry, depressed, and cry, but you got 60 seconds, girl, let's go. And I kid you not, by, like, 50 sec and I would time it a lot of times. By 50 seconds in, I would start laughing at myself, oh, this is so stupid. But it helped it was part of what my chiropractor told me.

She's like, whenever you're having those thoughts, just say cancel, and it will make you start laughing and it'll redirect your thought pattern. It worked so well for me. It took a while. Again, it wasn't all magic and, you know, fairy dust overnight. But the more I kept, like, setting that timer for 60 seconds, the less I needed that time to actually just moan and groan and complain and think how this like, sucks. It really does. That helped me get through all of this. So don't yeah, it wasn't, again, all rose petals the whole time.

H: But it's such actually, the longer I talk to you, the more I realize we have in common. It's just awesome because I do the same thing, and I teach my own clients to do the same thing. I know and I think the previous version of Stephanie and the previous version of Diann, we grew up very proud at being very responsible, very strong, very in charge. Don't need nothing from nobody, I got it. Everybody come everybody depends on me. I don't depend on anyone. I just keep pressing on and soldiering on. But I think what's so great about, allowing yourself those 60 seconds is that you're not bypassing your legitimate emotions. You're not disregarding your emotions because I know I did a whole lot of that in the past, and I bet you did too. Or you just disregard like, this feeling is illegitimate. This is inappropriate. This is inconvenient. I ain't got no time for this shit.

I'm not feeling this, it's literally bypassing your legitimate emotions, which have a way of circling back around and biting you in the ass. But you didn't go to the opposite extreme and say, well, I'm just gonna have to feel this way, and I'm just these emotions are just gonna have to have their way with me until they're done. It's like, no, I allow these feelings. I allow all feelings, all feelings are acceptable.

G: That's good.

H: But there's a time limit and you're right. Because you set that time limit, you're allowing it. You actually will find over time you don't need it. But there was one more thing that you said that I think is super, super important for us to touch back on. Without naming names, totally unnecessary, or identifying the type of relationships, you realized that setting boundaries with people, saying no to people, renegotiating your relationships with people was also necessary. And I think that is absolutely part of anyone's burnout recovery plan because most of us are doing too much for too many with very little in return to show for it.

G: Those conversations were absolute game changers. I'm telling you, physically, I felt the weight of those people coming off me. I'm like, oh and now if I get into an intense conversation with someone and then in my mind, I think, oh, my sciatic is kinda bothering me. Oh, wait, did I just have a conversation that was, okay. Let me breathe through this because I'm not going to allow it to get me back to where I need to be. And I advise that when you have that conversation, don't just think, oh, I just listened to this podcast. I'm going in the room, and I'm having this conversation.

H: Like you can have a throw down.

G: You're going, yes, I'm gonna kick some butt. So I went to a prayer partner about the conversation. I mapped out that conversation, everything that I thought they were going to say back to me. I focused on Stephanie and what Stephanie felt didn't not that I didn't care about them, but I couldn't say, and you did this to me and you made me feel blah blah blah. No. Me, me, me, it's about me. Now you get to choose if you're going to accept this and make the changes that I'm asking you to make. So I prepared before I had the conversations.

H: You are so strategic, my friend.

G: I try to be because it is hard. I mean, you right now.

H: Well, let's put it this way. Yes, it is a lot of work, it's work. However, just like you had to prepare for those conversations with the various physicians and providers, because you're so right. They're on a short leash. They have very little time and I think many male physicians have been sort of conditioned to see all women as just complainers right? So you gotta know your shit. You gotta be prepared. And you can't just go in and, quote, unquote, advocate for yourself because that will end up sounding like complaining, maybe even disrespectful, demanding. I've never met a doctor who responds well to that approach.

It just feels like, why are you even here? You're telling me what to do. I'm the expert. It usually goes south really quickly. But being prepared, whether you're having a conversation with your health care provider or a conversation with a family member where you need to set some boundaries and kind of renegotiate some terms, if you're not prepared, you should be prepared for that to go very badly.

G: Yeah, I one million percent agree. Yeah and but it's was so cool that 2 of my doctors, my chiropractor and my physical therapist, they had lunch. They sat down and had lunch and talked about me and both, like, came up with a plan and came back to me like, that does not happen. But it was part of the fact that I was with them, like, every single week, I became part of their families, so that's part of it. But it was also I'm I went to every appointment with some strategic questions, and like you said, being respectful of their position as well.

So, they were willing to engage with me. Even my, general practitioner, she rolls her eyes at me sometimes. She's like, okay, let me sit down so I know you have a bunch of questions. I'm like, yep, I sure do. So, I get more time because I walk into that room prepared and being respectful of the situation that I'm in. So, I completely think that everyone should you know, again, come prepared and ask the questions that you need to ask.

H: What do you think was the hardest part for you about sort of making that decision and then moving into that energy because, you know, we both were raised in a way that women who advocated for themselves were bitches and women who took impeccable care of themselves were selfish. And we didn't wanna be we were gonna distance ourselves from all of that and inevitably, you reach a point where you're like, you know what? My mental and physical health are suffering. My work performance is suffering. This is having an health are suffering. My work performance is suffering. This is having an impact that's rippling through my family because I'm sure your husband and son were not having a good time with you during this period of time. How did you change your relationship to the word selfish because I think every woman needs to do this at some point, and it's kind of difficult.

G: Yeah, so I had to recognize what was going on in order and then realize that self care was the only way to get me out of it. So actually, 2 of my sons thought I was dying from cancer and just not telling them. The youngest son was handling it well, but I could just tell it was weighing on him. And my husband is a big, huge, 250 strong, muscular built person with a big teddy bear heart so it was weighing on him and my parents as well. So I was seeing the hurt around me. I was seeing that I wasn't being able to be active, and I was seeing the demise of an organization that I had started on my own.

So, I was at a point where I'm like, okay, I need to figure this out, and self care kept coming back. So, eating properly is self care. Journaling is self care. Going out in the sunshine is self care. Saying no to I was on so many different community boards and so forth. Saying no to those boards. Not working 10 hours a day at a job is self care. So, I had to think of self care differently and then start to think, what does that really mean to me and for me, I'm totally different than other people.

I can sit in a room with a book for, like, you know, 3 days and not see anyone. They're like, are you an introvert? I'm like, I really am. I'm just a covert introvert. So, again, the hardship, the I just didn't want that for my family. I didn't want the looks in their eyes that I was seeing, and I also just didn't, I felt horrible. I didn't wanna feel like that. I didn't want to not be able to, you know, carry laundry upstairs or not be able to move. I didn't wanna be in a situation where I couldn't think clearly or I was stressed out all of the time. So, I just made that it I had to hit rock bottom, to be honest, to make that decision to implement self care, and so that's what I don't want anyone else to have to do.

H: Yes. As I'm listening to all of this, I'm thinking, how many women would actually be able to deal with all of that and still really be mindful of other people like, you're very strong. You're very driven. You're very determined. And I think I think we can agree that it was a blessing in disguise for you to have such severe symptoms. Because if your symptoms had been more moderate, I somewhat doubt you would have made all these incredible life changing transformations in the way you show up and take care of yourself in the world.

G: You are so right that was part of it, pain and the purpose. Okay, I have a relationship with the Lord so I prayed. I meditated. I read scripture. I worshiped. I was pouring my heart out so that I could understand what this was. But from the beginning, when it started to get rough, I'm like, okay, there is a purpose to this pain. I know I have to go through this, but it's so I can understand how better I can have a better body in order for me to serve others better. And so the more I kept thinking about that, alright. Alright, I can't drive right now, I'm sitting at home so what should I be doing? Oh, I should be studying so I can educate people. I always kind of think and again, it wasn't as easy as I may be making it sound now, but I was purposeful in my thoughts so that I could try to get to that easier side of it.

Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I knew there was purpose in all of this and I'm living through I'm like, oh my gosh. It's just crazy how relationships are different. The way I think is different. The way I react is the when I get a pain, how I can, like, think through and breathe through the pain line. This is cool. But it didn't happen overnight. It took years of practice, and it took me, again, hitting rock bottom in order to see that I don't want I don't like being here. I don't like being down and can't move around and, you know, making everyone else feel. I don't like people taking care of me so let's get to the bottom of it.

H: I'm getting the message loud and clear, my friend. And I also think because we haven't yet touched on a couple of things that I think need to be part of this conversation. One is how going through this hormonal disruption of perimenopause, how did it change? Because you started implementing things while you were in perimenopause and so because of that, like, how was your actual menopause experience?

G: So, the perimenopause is one day, period. It's the day of the 1 year when your cycle ends. So leading up to all of that, my postmenopausal experience has been great. Well, not it hasn't been all, you know, roses either, but I know how to control different symptoms. So hot flashes, I know tropical fruit, kombucha, excessive sugar, or those all trigger hot flashes and sleepless nights for me. So what it did was help me understand my body and help me understand what it's going to make my hormones not be happy, different stressors. Now I'm like, oh, that is kinda stressful. Where before I would have been, like, in suck it up, mother, and keep moving. That is kinda stressful, let me back off.

So it has been of great impact to my postmenopausal health. I'll be transparent, and I'm having so last July, my hair start falling out on the left side again, I'm like, what the world? So let me figure all of this out. So I just started, you know, upping I'm a veg pescatarian, but most of the time, vegetarian. So I just had to again, now I know I'm able to catch it faster, so I had to start on some additional supplementation, making sure I was getting my Biotin and making sure my B12 levels. It the perimenopause helped educate me enough so that I can now live a happier life during postmenopause.

Not perfect, but a much happier resolved life with a lot less symptoms. I even, so I host at our, church and so I had to probably memorize, like, 5 to 7 minutes worth of script. I'm like, I memorized script. I didn't have rainbows. I got all excited about that. So, again, it I think that the end is a much better than the beginning. That's why I always tell women, like, it's good after 50. People are like, oh, I'm almost 55 or 60. I'm like, no, if you do what you need to do, you take care of your mind, your body, your spirit, it's good when it only get older, there's wisdom.

H: That's absolutely been my experience. And I think that, you know, there are a couple of little technicalities here that I think are important that we double down on. One is perimenopause can start as early as your late thirties and last as long as a decade. And menopause or what our mother's generation used to call the change or the change of life, it is a day that is 1 year after your last period. However, if you think about it, and I'm sure you've thought about it a lot, we spend as much if we have a normal lifetime, if we have a typical lifespan, we are literally going to spend as much of our life postmenopausal as when we're menstruating.

The number of years that we are going to be going through all of the hormonal changes is gonna be equal to how much of our life will be spent postmenopause. So there is an expansive transition that takes place in the middle where we literally go from one kind of person to another kind of person. And I always say it's quite perverse that women in Western culture, as they age, tend to be diminished, discarded, denied, you know, ignored, made invisible, whereas the older women in more tribal cultures, historically and now all around the world, these are the most important people in the community because of their wisdom and life experience. So I just think we've got it all wrong here in the west.

G: We have it so wrong. My son is marrying a woman from Sierra Leone, and her grandmother is living with them now in Ohio. And to see that level of respect, and she is the queen of the house, and not in a domineering type of way. It's just in a matter of respect and love, where a lot of people are like, we can't have grandma living with us, we need our privacy. They're like, no, stay with us like the kids are like fighting to…

H: They're fighting over her.

G: Yes and we have that all wrong. I'm happy you just said that. We do have it all wrong.

H: Absolutely. One other thing I was thinking about is that you were running a company when you were going through this, and you're running a company now. It's not the same company, is it?

G: Not at all. So I was doing, education, what was I doing? I was hurting cats is what I was doing. I was helping, and I paused because I'm like, never mind, I'll tell you this off camera. But anyway, so I was connected in preschool to post secondary education folks. So when kids transition even in the same school system they don't talk. So middle school to high school, like, they don't even know what's going on in the next school building. So, I was helping them navigate that and then helping with data on the side. Now I am helping midlife women who want to navigate the change.

So I still call it the change because I think that's key. So, yeah, if, women are struggling with any of the symptoms that we discussed today, I help them by helping them with their nutrition, and I do that by getting down to the DNA so I work with the naturopath and we do some hair tissue mineral analysis see what's going on and then help them navigate what's going on in as it relates to perimenopause and then I have the podcast as well as well.

H: Which we have to name, it's very clever.

G: Yes. It's Hello Hot Flash.

H: I love that so much. And I think, you know, that's the one symptom that even if you know very little to nothing about menopause or perimenopause, you've certainly heard of a hot flash. And you are if you're listening to this, you've probably experienced at least 1. And it really rocks your world because it's like, well, this is different. Yeah, but everything that you've been talking about, Stephanie, how because you're you are a critical thinker and a curious person, how you get to the root cause of things, your own rocky perimenopause and everything that you needed to go through personally to experience this transformation and all the learning that came with it literally led you into a completely new role of service to other women.

Because there isn't a lot of really good information in the medical world. And a lot of women will just take the prescription for the antidepressant, continue to gain weight, continue to feel irritable, continue to have all kinds of inexplicable physical, emotional, mental, spiritual symptoms, and just think, well, I guess I'm just getting old. I guess I'm losing my marbles. I've had some women ask, you know, how do I know if it's perimenopause or early onset Alzheimer's? Because the impact on the brain can be so troubling. And you know that a lot of the people I work with have ADHD.

And something I've learned about that, because I do as well, is that the influence of hormone production, specifically estrogen, has a big impact on dopamine. And dopamine is the hormone that has difficulty being regulated with ADHD. So I'm seeing a huge percentage of women who never considered that they might have ADHD being diagnosed in their forties and fifties because perimenopause or menopause unbalanced them to the point where they're like, I seriously need to find out what's going on. So I think these two things kinda go hand in hand, perimenopause and, like, late diagnosed ADHD. I'm seeing a ton of that.

G: I agree. Cornell just did a study in October of 23, and there's a relationship between menopause and dementia as well. So, again, going back to the brain health, it's all interconnected. And I when you just said that, I'm like, yeah. I have seen like, people are now I don't wanna say wearing it as a badge of honor, but, like, happy that they have a diagnosis so they can learn how to navigate it is probably a better way to say it. And I'm seeing more people saying, okay, I have this, now I'm going to figure out how to navigate through it.

H: It's a relief. I don't know if it's a I don't know if it's something that it that's a badge of honor, but I think it's that, there's a relief because like you, most women know their bodies really well, even if they tend to deny, ignore, or minimize troubling symptoms. And when we know that there's a reason behind what we're dealing with, even though we still have to deal with it, even though we still have to manage it, even there there's no cure for any of these things. But knowledge, specifically applied knowledge, is powerful because it puts you back in the driver's seat. And I think that's probably the most significant transformation that happens is when we are not feeling like ourselves. We don't know why. We don't know what to do. We feel completely out of control. But with information and with applied practices and strategies, we're back in control and that to me, that's everything.