Last July I had a hysterectomy. And I want to tell you that everything after was a smooth, graceful journey of healing and self-discovery.

But I would be lying to you. And lying to you is not what this show is about.

What actually happened is: I woke up from surgery, my hormones did whatever they wanted, and my business started cracking at the seams. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I had a very loud, very inconvenient realization. I had been doing everything wrong. Not just the surgery. My whole setup. The way I arranged my life, my work, my energy, my time.

My body and my business both blew the whistle at the same time.

In this first episode I'm sharing how I got here, what starting over actually looks like when you still have teenagers and a mortgage and a business to run, and why my body and my business were failing for the exact same reason.

This is the conversation you've been having in your head. We're having it out loud.

WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE

• Why the hysterectomy was the thing that finally made Shay stop overriding her body's signals
• The slow creep of building a business you're miserable in and not even noticing
• What "starting over" actually looks like when you can't blow up your whole life (mortgage, teenagers, travel sports)
• The moment Shay realized her body and her business were failing for the exact same reason
• What it means to be a 4/6 Projector running a Generator's life for 16 years, and what happens when your design finally stages a revolt
• Why the pivot she's making isn't about quitting, it's about finally building something that fits how she's actually built

TIMESTAMPS

Update these with your actual timestamps after your audio is edited and finalized.

[00:00] The hysterectomy, the hormones, the 18-wheeler realization

[01:45] Welcome to She Claims Herself - who this show is for and what we do here

[04:30] Part One: The Body - what happened after surgery and what her body was finally saying

[08:00] Advocating for yourself: the hysterectomy she asked for 10 years before she got it

[09:30] Stopping being able to perform fine and what she found underneath

[11:00] Part Two: The Business - 16 years of done-for-you work and the 3pm couch

[14:30] Where the body and business stories connect - the same problem in two places

[16:00] Human Design: running a Generator's life in a Projector's body

[18:30] The pivot: what starting over actually looks like

[22:00] Why she started She Claims Herself - who she's building it for

[23:30] Close: you are enough, you are safe, you are loved

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Human Design - specifically the 4/6 Projector type (If you want to find your Human Design chart, search "Jovian Archive free chart" — enter your birth date, time, and location.)
• Perimenopause and hormonal shifts post-hysterectomy
• Endometriosis and fibroids and the reality of advocating for your own diagnosis (The Menopause Society provider finder: menopause.org/find-a-provider — if you're looking for a doctor who actually knows this stuff, start here.)

CONNECT WITH SHAY

• Website: https://shayhrobsky.com/
• Substack: shayhrobsky.substack.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shayhrobsky/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shayhrobsky

Okay, so last July I had a hysterectomy and I wanna tell

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you that everything after that was

smooth sailing, graceful journey of

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healing and self-discovery and all

love and puppies and kittens, but I

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would be lying to you and lying to

you is not what this show is about.

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What actually happened is

I woke up from surgery.

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My hormones immediately

did whatever they wanted.

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In this post 40 Body, my business, it

was cracking at the seams, and somewhere

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in the middle of all of this, I had this

very loud, inconvenient realization.

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It was like I got hit by an 18 wheeler.

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I had felt this gut instinct that

I had been doing everything wrong.

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Not just the surgery, not just

my business, but my whole setup.

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The way I had arranged my life,

my work, my energy, my time, all

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of it had been built around the

wrong things for a very long time.

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And.

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After the surgery, my body and

my business, they both decided,

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Hey, we're blowing the whistle.

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We are throwing the white flag.

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Is it the white flag?

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We're raising the white

flag and we are done.

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And at that time it felt like a lot.

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Hi, welcome to, she Claims Herself.

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I'm Sha and I am so glad you are

here and you found this podcast this.

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It's a show I created for women who

are in the middle of it like me.

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Not the after, not the, I

figured it all out part.

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And now I have a morning routine

and a gratitude practice.

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And again, I'm all cozy and kittens.

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I am talking about the actual middle,

the part where your body is doing things.

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Nobody warned you about.

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The part where you look at your life and

you think, how did I fucking get here?

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And.

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Is this it?

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Is this really all there is?

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It feels like it's where, it's the part

where, what's the word I'm looking for?

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Where something is cracking open inside of

you and you're not sure if it's terrifying

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and you're scared as hell, or it's the

best thing that's ever happened to you.

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Spoiler alert.

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It's both.

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At least for me, it's,

it's almost always both.

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This is the show where we're gonna

talk about all of it out loud with

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research, with honesty, and I promise

because it's me, a healthy amount

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of sarcasm in smart assery because.

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Honest to God, some of the stuff that

we are going to talk about is so absurd

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and so out of the realms of what we

have been told as middle aged women,

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that if we, and what we have not been

told, like some of the things I'm

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gonna share here are things where I was

like, why did nobody prep us for that?

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And so if we can't laugh,

we will lose our mind.

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This is going to be the conversation that

you've been having in your head probably

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quite a bit recently if you're listening.

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But I wanna have it out loud.

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I want us to get to the part where we

get to talk about the taboo things.

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So every week we're gonna go.

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Over something completely real.

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Perimenopause, identity, desire,

rage, the business stuff, the body

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stuff, the spiritual stuff, the

health stuff, all of it I created.

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She claims herself because I

didn't want anything off limits.

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I want us to start at the

beginning, my beginning, so you

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can see what has happened, where

I've gone, what it looks like.

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And be on the journey with me.

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I honestly think that if you're listening

to this, some of some version of my story

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is probably going to feel familiar and

relatable and like, oh my God, I didn't

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know you felt that too, because that's

exactly what I felt when I started talking

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about the things that we don't talk about.

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Okay, so the hysterectomy, I

had it last July, and what I

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didn't completely understand

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and maybe.

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There should be like a prep, like

granted, I did go to like two pre

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doctor's appointments, but still it

feels like nobody really explained

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it particularly well, that removing

your uterus throws your hormones

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into chaos and also into clarity.

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In a way that it, it wasn't subtle for me.

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It was very much a, I had been ignoring

my body signals for years, pushing through

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exhaustion, normalizing the insomnia,

normalizing all the things, chalking up

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random anger, distress, and all of that.

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Telling myself that my random

low libido moments was just what

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happened when you were tired and

had teenagers and a business, and a

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very long list of shit to do, but.

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Something happened after surgery

and I started talking to my

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girlfriends about it, but my

body like said, Hey, we're done.

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We're done whispering.

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We're done doing this quietly.

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And you don't get to just

go through it now, Shea.

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You get to listen.

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Even though I had had a hysterectomy,

which I'd had because my periods

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were so horrible, it turns out

I did have, um, endometriosis.

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And, uh, fibroids.

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So I'm grateful that I

did get it taken out.

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Um, I'd gotten my, I had asked

to have a hysterectomy 10 years

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earlier because my husband and I

knew we weren't having children,

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but they did not give me the option.

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They said, you can just get your

tubes tied, but you don't need this.

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Um, and so I suffered 10 more

years of debilitating periods.

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Uh, working from bed two to three days

a month because of how bad it hurt.

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Um, and it was just ridiculous.

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That will be a whole different

episode in its own to talk

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about advocating for yourself.

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Um, but if you need to hear this

right now, it is okay for you to take

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up space and advocate for yourself.

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Okay.

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Back to what I was saying.

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So once I was done with the surgery,

I started getting hot flashes.

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I started feeling a little more foggy.

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Um, or I'm sorry.

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Initially I felt foggy

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and I also felt clarity at the same time.

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It was the most bizarre.

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Connection to my body.

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My body was saying, ma'am, we're foggy

on what you've been doing because it

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doesn't feel like it's something you

want it to do, and yet you know what

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you need to do, but you're not doing it.

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And then on top of it, desire and sex

got interesting, which again, that is

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going to be a whole separate episode

because there's also a lot to say on that.

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And.

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Explicit little tidbit right here, 'cause

we're going all in there, sweetheart.

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You're gonna see what this is about.

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But if you did not know this, as you

go through perimenopause and mepa and

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menopause and get older, your clitoris

is actually absorbed into your body.

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I verified this with my, uh.

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OB after my surgery because

I had a friend tell me this

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and I went down a rabbit hole.

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So FYI, you will need estrogen

lotion or whatever it's called.

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But that is again, a whole different

episode because I did not know about

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this until I was 40 years old going

to a post hysterectomy checkup.

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What in the actual chicken?

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F.

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Okay, let's go back.

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The thing that shifted for me in this

season is I stopped being able to perform.

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I actually went inward

for quite a long time.

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I stopped hanging out with friends.

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I honestly thought a part of it was a

little bit of a depression, but what I.

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I found out as I went through it is that

I had been performing fine for so long.

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I am the competent one, the capable

one, the one who handles it, the one

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who figures it all out because that

is what we are meant to do and all of

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a sudden I just couldn't, the systems

I had thought I'd built to keep me

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running on fumes stopped working.

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My body would not let me override

it anymore, and what I found out

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underneath all of that was not the

breakdown that I was expecting.

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It was really information.

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What I noticed is that my body had been

trying to tell me something for years,

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and it just finally got loud enough for me

to hear it because I actually let myself.

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And I wanna say this to you because

I think it's important to say

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your body isn't betraying you.

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It has been really trying to get

your attention, and for me and

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my journey perimenopause is what

finally made me stop and listen.

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And I don't know if this is for you,

but maybe you're meant to hear this,

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because now it's time for you to listen.

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And a little bit of that information

that I got was you're exhausted and it's

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not in a way that sleep is going to fix.

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Your sleep deficit is not

going to make you all better.

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You've been running on obligation and

adrenaline and all the things for so long

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that you didn't even know what it felt

like to want to do something for yourself.

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Shea.

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It was crystal clear as day.

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I had been everyone else's

everything, and I have been nobody's

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first priority, including myself.

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And of course it that isn't a medical

diagnosis, but it was the information and

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the realization and the most important

thing that I learned in that whole season.

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And the only reason why I heard

it is because I took up the time

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and the space to let my body

get loud enough to make me stop

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and let, let's talk about the other thing

that was falling apart as well at this.

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So I wanna talk about, yes, I was

having, I had my hysterectomy.

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I was.

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Out of supposed to be out of work for six

weeks, I took one week off and I actually

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worked from a recliner that we bought

so I could work starting at day three.

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So I didn't even take the time off

that I needed to take off, which

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brings me to, at the same time, all

of this was happening with my body.

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My business was doing its own

version of the same thing.

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I had been building this

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I passed out at work from

Stress and I quit my job.

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I was doing inside sales and I went

into, um, social media management

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because I'd went to school for

marketing and human resources.

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And so I worked with this woman who had a

social media agency and then she just quit

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and said, Hey, do you want my clients?

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And I said, yeah.

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So I was essentially doing

Done for You Work since my son.

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Had been born in 2009, so 16 plus years.

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He's 16 and a half right now.

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At the time of recording

this, my clients got results.

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I knew what I was doing, and I

was honestly absolutely miserable.

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It wasn't in a dramatic way though.

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It was in that slow.

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Creeping behind the scenes way, you

know, where you don't notice it's

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happening or how unhappy you are until

you had been so unhappy for so long.

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It just feels like that is

what your personality was.

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That is what

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it felt like.

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I had been undercharging for years doing

the work I didn't enjoy for rates that

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didn't reflect what I was actually worth.

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And then I was telling

myself the cost of stay.

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It's the cost of staying busy, essentially

staying busy, felt like being valuable.

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The more hours I spent at my

computer, the more legitimate I felt.

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Also just an FYI.

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That is a terrible, again, let me

just make this a hundred percent

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clear for those in the back.

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It is a terrible way to run a business

and also a terrible way to live.

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By three every day.

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I was on empty, not tired, like, as

you probably know, you've been tired.

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I was not tired.

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I was empty.

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My kids would come home and I had

nothing left, and I built this business

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so I could spend time with them.

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Nothing worked.

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I was sitting on the couch

like I was a complete zombie.

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And I didn't even watch The Walking Dead.

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My husband loves that show, by the

way, but I should not have been

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a zombie and I would tell myself,

you know, it's a busy season.

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We're in Q3 ads are, ads are busy.

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We're in Q4.

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Ads are busy.

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We're in Q1.

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Goal setting time.

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Ads are busy.

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We're in Q2.

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Spring ads are busy.

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No, no, no, no, no.

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It was not a busy season.

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It was my entire life and I had

built it to the breaking point.

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And what tipped me over

that point was my kids.

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I looked at them one

day and I did the math.

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How many more years do I actually have

where they want to be around me, where

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I'm still the person they come home to?

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Not many.

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And I had been spending those

years completely hollow.

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I built a business that

was eating my life.

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I'd convinced myself, this is

what success looked like, even

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though you know how you know.

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And so I justified it in my head that

this is what success looked like.

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But underneath, I know.

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I really wasn't burned

out 'cause I was weak.

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I was burned out because I

had spent years ignoring every

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signal my gut was sending me.

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And I'm big into human design and

I am a four six projector, which

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meant that I'm meant for community

and I'm meant to be a role model.

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And I was not doing

either of those anymore.

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I was not in community with other women,

which is why I am starting this again.

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And I meant to lead the way and

create a different way again, which

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is why I created, she claims herself.

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And what had happened in the midst

of all of it is that I ignored it.

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It felt like it was on purpose.

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I know it was not consciously,

and it was not malicious.

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But it felt still like

unconsciously on purpose.

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It felt like if I had admitted that my gut

was correct, it meant that I admitted that

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I had built something that wasn't working.

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And to me, that felt like failure

and I kept going until I couldn't.

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Ooh, I get emotional

because it just, it's a lot.

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Um.

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Here's what I did figure out though, is

that when I was sitting on that couch,

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empty post-surgery being strained and

watching my business strain me at the

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seams, like my body and my business were

failing, and again, my business wasn't

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failing in the sense that it was failing

financially, but it was failing in the

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sense that I had essentially built a very.

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Unsatisfying job for myself, but they were

both failing for the exact same reasons.

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My body and my business.

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I had built them both around

everybody else's needs.

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I had optimized them both to make others

happy, for the output for the performance,

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what looked good from the outside

looking in versus the inside looking

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out, and I really ignored my own signals.

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Both my business and my body for so long

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that like when I first started listening,

when I started retreating, I didn't

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even know what they were saying and I

realized a couple things that my body

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stuff and my business stuff weren't

necessarily two separate problems.

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They were essentially the same problem

showing up in two different places.

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At the same time, and I was like,

woo, this is a little weird.

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Friends, this is a little weird, but

again, my four six projector, if you're

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into human design, I would definitely

look up what your human design is.

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But for me, it made complete sense.

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And so what that means is that

I'm not built to run the way

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I'd been running my business.

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Projectors are not designed

to go all day, every day.

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I'm not meant to hustle.

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I'm not meant to work

off of sheer willpower.

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Projectors are designed to work

in focus bursts, be seen for our

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specific gifts, and essentially wait

for the right invitations instead

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of forcing our way into everything.

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I've literally been running a generator's

life in a projector's body for 16

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plus years, and my body is like Uhuh.

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It's like we are staging a revolt.

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We are done.

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Ma'am, if I'd known about human design 10

years ago, if I had listened to my body

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just 10 years ago, if I had advocated for

myself for the surgery that I knew my body

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needed so much would have been different.

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But here we are.

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I cannot go back.

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Hindsight's always 2020.

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I do wanna share about the pivot

that I'm making now, though

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in my business, in my life.

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And it's something that's

going to fit how I am built.

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Less doing for everyone else, more

being seen for what I actually

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know, what I actually like.

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More time that's mine.

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More saying yes to things that

light me up and saying no to

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things that just drain me.

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Um, just because they're expected of me.

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Is, is it figured out?

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Am I like on the path

of immediate success?

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No.

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I have children in travel sports.

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I have to pay the bills.

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Like we have a mortgage and things to pay.

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So no, it's not all figured out.

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Yes, there's going to be

some adjustment period.

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Uh, but guess what?

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It's progress.

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Is this the most uncomfortable

thing that I've done and the most

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uncomfortable that I have been in years?

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A hundred percent.

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But it's also the most exciting part

as well, because I get to build it

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from a place that my body says yes.

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And I do wanna preface this by saying

that I know that this is not going

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to be all kittens and roses that.

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I'm not gonna ride into the sunset

and say everything gets to be easy,

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that I can only do the easy stuff

because that's not how life is.

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Like we are built to have

the good and the bad.

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We are built to have the yin and the

yang, like we are built for both.

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And I know I don't love every piece

of being in business or working in my

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business, so there are things that I'm

going to have to do from that sense.

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I get to do more of what lights me up.

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I get to educate on more of what

lights me up and help people who

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are more of an aligned fit as

I move into this new direction.

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But all of that to say, let me get into

what we are going to be doing here.

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I started, she claims herself because

I know a lot of women are living.

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In my old story right now, or

a current version of expansion

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that I am also going through.

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So if you have been running yourself

into the ground or ignoring your gut

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performing fine, I know you can't see

the air quotes when I do them, but

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if you've been performing fine with

genuine commitment while something

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underneath is cracking inside of you.

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And not having anywhere to talk about it.

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Not having anyone to get deep into

the body stuff, the business stuff,

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the identity stuff that happens

when you've been doing so many

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things for so many people for so

long that you've lost that thread of

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who you actually are underneath it.

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That's what we're going

to do here every week.

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I'm going to bring in actual research.

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I'm going to bring in real stories.

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I'm going to bring zero tolerance for

the idea that you should just accept all

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of this gracefully because that's the

way it is as you get older and move on.

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No, no ma'am.

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You are not too old.

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You are not too far in, you are not

too much or too dramatic or too late.

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You are in the middle of something.

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And the middle is exactly where

I wanna meet you because we are

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going to do this, not necessarily

gracefully, but we will do it together.

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Okay?

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So this is already way longer than I

wanted it to be, but before I let you

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go, I do just wanna say one thing before

I send you back to your real life.

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Whatever version of starting over

you're in right now, whether it's your

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body, your business, your relationship.

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Your sense of self, or maybe

it's all of the above because

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apparently that's an option too.

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Found that out last July.

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I want you to know that whatever

version of this you are in,

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you are enough and I love you.

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Even as you've changed, even as

you're still changing in ways

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that could feel discombobulating,

disoriented, and sometimes like a loss.

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Also sometimes like the first breath

of fresh air that you have actually

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taken in, in years, you are enough.

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You are safe, you are completely

loved, and the woman you're becoming,

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honey, she's absolutely worth meeting.

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I love you and I will see you next week.