What if midlife wasn’t the beginning of the end, but the start of something bigger? Marcella Hill thought she had it all figured out—until she lost herself completely.

Midlife has a way of forcing women to wake up. For Marcella Hill, it came in waves—divorce, reinvention, success, then the sudden and unexplained loss of energy, libido, and joy. She was doing everything “right,” yet her body was shutting down.

After years of being dismissed by doctors, she took matters into her own hands. From finding the right hormones to breaking free from deeply ingrained sexual shame, Marcella shares how she not only reclaimed her body but also her power.

Her journey didn’t stop with her own awakening. One viral TikTok turned into a movement, leading thousands of women to the resources they desperately needed. Now, she’s on a mission to make sure no woman has to suffer in silence again.

In this episode, Marcella and I get real about everything—hormones, libido, the lies we’ve been told about aging, and how women can rewrite their midlife stories on their own terms.

Episode Highlights:

• The moment Marcella realized her body was shutting down—and why doctors ignored it
• How testosterone completely transformed her energy, mood, and sex drive
• Breaking free from religious and cultural shame around pleasure and desire
• Why women over 40 are feeling invisible—and how to change that
• The rise of midlife awakenings and how Marcella is helping women take control

If this episode resonated with you, don’t forget to subscribe, like, and comment! And view the show on Apple Podcasts.

Let’s keep the conversation going—share your thoughts and tag a friend who needs to hear this.

Get in Touch with Marcella:

Website

Instagram

TikTok

Get in Touch with Dr. Rahman:

Website

Instagram

Youtube

Hi everyone. Hey y'all, it's me, Dr. Smeena Arman, Gyno Girl. Welcome back to another episode of Gyno Girl Presents Sex, Drugs and Hormones. I'm Dr. Smeena Arman and I'm so excited for you guys to be with me today because I have a special guest who is gonna tell some fun stories for you to find out.

Great.

Amazing. Yay. That's perfect.

I love to talk about how women reinvent themselves in midlife. And I like to hear people's journeys when they go through all the issues that we experienced in midlife and with sexual dysfunction. And I think the stories are very powerful. So I brought an amazing storyteller who has reinvented herself and is doing great things for advocating for women. So welcome to my show. Okay, I like to do the Oprah intro. Ready? Marcella Hill.

You get a car, you get a car!

I'm like, I'm not giving away cars. No, I'm just joking. You're gonna get estrogen. You're gonna get estrogen.

Hormones, get, everybody gets hormones.

I'm so excited to be here. mean the the title of your podcast I was like that basically sums me up I mean sex drugs and hormones that is all I want to be doing and talking about so Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me

Yeah.

Well, of course, and, know, I think your story is so compelling. I follow you. That's how I met you online. So amazing how like the world has become so small because you're in Utah, Yeah, I'm in Chicago. So I mean, it's great that we can like, you know, interact and communicate and hopefully we'll meet IRL one day. So that's always fun when we get to meet like in person. But

I'm in Utah. Yes, I am.

But I want to hear, I want everyone that listens to my podcast to hear about you. I'm sure most of them know about you, but let's hear about your story and with your journey in midlife, what was happening with you that brought you like such notoriety when it came to, I think exploding on TikTok. But I'm gonna let you tell the story, because you tell it for you.

Gosh, as I was thinking, where do I start? mean, this it's yeah, and it's just been so dramatic and so many millions of different things. But, I mean, I'll just start from the beginning. You know, I was 30 years old and I think that was the first time life just completely exploded in my face. I had been married for nine years. We had two kids. I was living the dream, you know, got married to the.

because it's been years now right it has like

Yeah.

called Dark and Handsome Man and we just, we were doing it. We had the house of my dreams. He was an attorney. Like we were doing the thing. And one day I found out he was having an affair with a friend and it just destroyed everything. And I think up to that point I had, without knowing it, I thought I was doing what everyone told me to do during life. checked all the boxes. But when everything went away, I realized that I had wrapped myself up into

my value and my personality and my character had become a wife and a homemaker and a mother. And without all of that, I had no idea who I was. And I found myself at 30 years old living in my parents' basement with no job, no experience to go get a job, no money, nothing. And you know,

Absolutely.

All of sudden I went from being a stay at home mom to he had custody of the kids during the summer and I had not even the kids to take care of. I mean, I was just nothing. And I felt like nothing. And that was honestly the first time where I thought I've got to figure this out because I obviously am still living. So there has to be something here. No, and I...

Right. Yeah.

Right?

Yes.

I know that has nothing to do with hormones, but I think that is almost every woman's story. There's something that happens where you suddenly are faced with this reality of like, wait, who am I? Where did I go? How did I get caught up in all of this? And how do I get back? And that's kind of where it all started. then, mean, fast forward, I got remarried, put my life back together, checked all the boxes again. Here we are, we are just.

a seasonal event.

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

doing life all back together. I was like, okay, I got the husband again. You know, I'm doing the mom thing and, I felt like there we are. And, then rude awakening again, you know, lost a job again. I was like, who am I? Uh, my kids turned into teenagers and then that, you know, and then you're really asking who you are because you're just really invisible. honestly, about five years ago,

No. No. No.

Right.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah.

I was probably living everything that I'd ever wanted. had a business. It was successful. I loved it. I had been doing it for about 10 years and it was going well. I thought that was going to be the thing I did forever. I had a great team. I started speaking, public speaking to entrepreneurs about how to start a business and create joy in your life.

I was just doing the thing and at the same time, my body was just not going along for the ride. It was rough. wasn't able to get out of bed. I could not convince myself to get into the factory to even work this dream job that I had built. And it really threw me for a loop because I kept thinking, everything's fine. Everything's good. I should be happy.

Yes.

I should be happy. My marriage is good. My kids are healthy. I've got this dream company. What the hell is my problem? I must not be grateful enough, right? Like, okay, gratitude journal. Gratitude journal, motivational podcast, like read all the books, know, Mel Robbins and Brene Brown. And it just still like, it didn't matter. I was literally speaking on stage.

No. That's your journaling.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right

to women about how to create joy. And I would come home and be like, do I have joy? And yeah, so that threw me into another awakening where I started meditating. I had read that book, Morning Miracle or something, and you know, in my effort to find myself. And there was something about listening to all these podcasts and all these motivational things that kept standing out and it was meditation.

Then you felt empty.

Yeah.

and it was the idea of turning your thoughts off. And I thought, is that a thing?

You possibly just sit there with no thoughts. mean, I've got grocery lists to make and marketing plans to do and kids to worry about. How could you possibly? Yeah, I just, I thought there's no way that could happen for me, but it kept coming up. It kept being really loud. Hey, let me figure this out. So I thought let's try it. And I would wake up early before anybody. I'd sit in my basement and

Endless. The endless to-do list.

I would be like, okay, I'd set the timer for five minutes. like, we're gonna not think for five minutes. And it would not work. It wouldn't work. I just thought meditation isn't for me. This is bullshit. Like I can't, I can't do it. And I was like, not me. That's not my thing. And I just kept trying. And I would go to yoga class to try to understand how to sit in Shavasana without thinking. And there was just this one day.

so hard to do. my god. Yeah. It's so hard. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it works for some people, but you're not that specific. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know, out of the blue, I'm sitting there, I'm trying, I'm like looking through the third eye, I'm like really doing the deep breathing. And there was this moment that everything went blank. And I get really emotional thinking about it because beyond thought, beyond doing anything, beyond trying to figure things out, there I was.

Yeah.

I existed with no thought, with no money, with no body. mean, that changed everything. And even if it was just for a minute, it's kind of like sleeping, I guess, like that moment where you're falling asleep, you don't know you're asleep. It kind of feels like that, but you're not asleep. There's just this nothing. And you realize, I exist. I exist with nothing. And that changes everything. And...

Yeah.

Yeah.

I kept going with that. And because I kept going with that, I was getting these massive truths, I guess, just from myself. And a big thing to note is that I grew up Mormon. So at this point, I was still very Mormon.

I was going to ask you because I grew up Muslim and I feel like you and I, we grew up in conservative backgrounds where you don't talk about sex and you don't do the discussions around any of this,

Oat and...

Yeah. And you're always taught that, yeah, there's something about you're so disassociated with yourself without knowing it. You know, you're always looking to something else for answers, for guidance, for, you're just trusting the rules rather than yourself. And that gets really confusing. And as I was sitting there, not reading scripture, not going to church, not praying.

and suppressing it.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Right.

just sitting with myself, I was getting answers. And one of them was that I am whole. I am not here existing on this earth to earn heaven. That was like a really big deal for me because my entire life, I thought at the end of every day, had I prayed enough, had I served enough, had I done enough, had I been kind enough, had I done all of the

you

righteous things to make sure that at the end of my life I was going to get into heaven.

Right.

And when you're running your life like that, it feels like you're chasing something every damn day. And I didn't know that. I just thought that was what we did. And when you're sitting there and you get the information that you're whole and that you don't need one more prayer, one more anything, you don't need more money, you don't need anything, that you're whole as you are, again, that changes everything.

And so eventually I ended up leaving the Mormon religion and all of this, all of this is happening, feeling separate from what's happening in my body. I'm not sleeping. My body hurts. I'm going to the chiropractor every week. It's not working. My bones hurt. I've stopped running. I used to run half marathons. I have no libido. So I think I hate my husband. So my marriage is

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Panking we're going to marriage therapy. My hair is changing. I'm switching out my shampoo My legs are itchy every night to like scratching them till I bleed so I'm trying all the different lotions again None of this is adding up to one thing, right? This is all separate and completely overwhelming because I go to the doctor for this going to chiropractor for this changing out my shampoo for that, you know blaming my husband for all the things and one

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the irritation is, the irritability is like so real.

Well, you know, women have always been treated like these separate pieces, especially from our doctors, right? When you go into your doctor and you have your eyes are itchy, they're going to treat your eyes for being itchy. They're not going to ask you, also, is your vagina itchy? Like, we're not connecting the dots here, you know, and your eyes being itchy seemingly has nothing to do with lack of sleep. Like those are we're treating those like two separate issues.

Yeah.

I got lucky. I had a friend that I complained about low libido to and she asked me a few more questions and she said, didn't you have a partial hysterectomy about a year ago? And I said, yeah, it was supposed to fix all the things. And she said, no, you need hormones. And I had gone to my doctor, I had got my hormones checked. She said everything was fine, that I was just getting old. And that had been, I don't know, two years prior to this conversation. And she goes, no, no, no.

you need to go to someone that does hormones and that's all they do. And at this point, I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn't know the word hormone therapy. I didn't know the word perimenopause. She's like, go to this Botox clinic and get this thing, these pellets. And I just, at that point, I was like, give me whatever the hell you got. I don't need, I can't wake up in the morning. I didn't want to live. So I run in.

I get these testosterone and I'm not joking. The next day I slept all night. I didn't even know that that was possible as an adult. I didn't know that adults could go to bed at night and then wake up in the morning. I didn't know. And I thought, well, that's, that's gotta be just a coincidence. But by day seven, it was seven o'clock at night. And I remember we hadn't even made dinner and I thought, let's make dinner. Let's pop popcorn.

now.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Who's up for a game night? And I wasn't counting the hours down to bedtime. I wasn't annoyed. I wasn't tired. I just was generally, regularly okay. Right? Not hyped up on caffeine. Just good. And I thought, okay, this is very, very different. And I kept going with that. And about, I don't know, two months in.

Yeah.

All right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I was out for a long walk because I realized my bones don't hurt. And I was walking and I thought, okay, let's check it. was like, shoulders don't hurt, hips don't hurt, knees don't hurt, feet don't hurt. This is new. I wonder if I could run. And again, I get like really emotional because I started running and just bawling, realizing that I'm back.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

just realizing I'm not gonna slowly die from here, like I'm not gonna just be miserable, popping ibuprofen for the rest of my life, like I can run. And it was just, it's like I woke up in a new body that was ready to live again. And by the fourth month, my libido zings on. I mean, if we wanna talk about sex, I could talk about that for the rest of the time, but.

Yeah.

I had no idea that you could be married for 13 years and have your husband walk in the door and have your body zing on like you're a 15 year old as the boy walks by in junior high. I didn't know you could feel like that. I mean, it didn't matter if the dishes were done or if he had done some romantic, I was like, please take my pants off and let's go. I mean, it was wild and so fun. And that threw me into this understanding that

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

libido and sexual desire. mean, that was a whole nother phase of my life the last couple of years is realizing that sex and my desire and my pleasure isn't for someone else, which is what I was taught. I was taught that sex was for procreating. It was only something to be shared with your husband and that self-pleasure was a sin. I mean, I

Amen.

30 years old and going in and confessing my sin to a man that was my same age, but he was my bishop. That's crazy. And, and now I'm realizing, wait a minute, orgasms can reduce stress, orgasms can reduce pain, orgasms can enlighten your mind, orgasms can help you like manifest things and light you up. I mean, your pleasure and your libido is this, just like turn the radio up.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

roll the windows down, it's that. It's feeling like you wanna live. It's wanting, it's desire. We always think that libido is like, how much sex are you having? It's not, it's, if you wake up and have no desire, just in general, then you're not wanting to live.

alive again, right? Mm-hmm. And I think...

Not yet.

Absolutely. It's pleasure beyond like, you people think of pleasure and libido and, but you know, other things can bring you pleasure that wake up your senses. And it's really like a similar scenario where you're seeking something to kind of wake up your senses, wake up your pleasure. And I think that can help people overcome pain. I mean, your story is very similar to what a lot of my patients go through when they just sort of dead inside, right? Like they don't feel like the same person. And I'll tag you when I get, I just ordered this sweater that says

Yeah.

period menopausal AF. I'll tag you when I'm ready. But it was, you know, the reality is like period menopause hits you in different people in such different ways that, you know, understanding, I think one of the good things about hearing other people's stories is kind of like normalizing the feeling that you're not alone in this, right? Like this journey is very difficult for so many women and, you know, different people seek different pathways toward getting the relief they need. But

Yes!

crazy.

just normalize it, hey, I'm not going crazy, hey, I'm not losing my mind over something that is sort of a natural process that people experience so differently, right? Some people breeze into, I mean, I don't know, patients, I'm like, what? You didn't have any of that when you went through bariobacillus? Because I'm in the fix of it right now and I'm like, yeah, check, check, check, check,

I know, what? Lucky.

all the things.

one of these things that when people talk about the extreme cases where you had, know, like probably you could check off like a hundred different symptoms that you may have had. And it's so debilitating. It really impacts the quality of your life. And it really impacts how you feel about yourself and to not, and it's true. Like lab work for the most part doesn't give us a diagnosis. It's clinical. And I think that's very important for you to, for the listeners to hear that when her OBGYN said that her labs were normal, like normal, what does that mean? That's a snapshot.

Go.

that day in that time when your hormones are great doing like this the whole time and so it's really important that someone is actually listening to your sentimentology and saying like these hormones this is a hormonal issue compounded by the fact that I always say I always say perimenopause like the perfect shit storm of events because most people are in the pinnacle they might be in the pinnacle of their career they might be pivoting they might experience you know kids that are growing up that they have to balance with parents they might be transitioning you know to different marriages

So you have all this other stressors on top of the fact that you're, let's just throw in hormones that are raging and going crazy, know, like ups and downs, up the roller coaster. And so it's like really like a perfect shit storm of events that really can dramatically impact your quality of life. And I think that when you, cause you went on to TikTok, right? And you told your story.

Nah.

Yeah, so that's kind of the next piece of this. What happened is I was, mean, the only reason I had to talk is because my little sister is on TikTok. And she's a big deal there. So I'd be there to like, watch her. And you know, this had all happened. So one day I turned my it was actually the day that Ropey Wade was overturned. And because I had currently been speaking to women, but in an entrepreneur sense, I felt like I need to say something, I need to say something that creates some level of

Yeah

June 24th. Sure.

hope because we are pissed and devastated. I just, turned my camera on and opened my mouth. And for whatever reason, my story of perimenopause and hormone therapy fell out of my face and I thought nothing of it. And the next day, nine million views and it was devastating. You know, I wish that I could have said like it was really exciting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm counting, sure.

But had you read, I mean, you can go look at it. You read all of the comments and it is women that are saying, I don't wanna live. Wait, what? My doctor won't help me. My doctor said, I'm normal. Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do go? I mean, it was just hundreds of thousands of women telling me that they are dead inside and it destroyed the world I live in because I had no idea. I mean, I'm not, I wasn't in the health space. I'm like.

making mittens. That's what I was doing. I owned a mitten company and no business being here. And all of a sudden I realized that we live in a world where women after 40 feel dead inside. Are you kidding me? Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, what they call the invisible women's syndrome where you're just like put aside and that's it. Yeah.

Absolutely not. And I refused it. I was like, this cannot be my world. This cannot be the world where I am raising my girls to walk into this. No. And as an entrepreneur, I'm like, let's fix the whole thing. I mean, how do we fix the world? And what ended up happening, so in all of this, during all this five years of journey that I just explained, I also wrote a book. My soul was like, you gotta write these stories down.

you

No.

Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah.

I started writing this book called Wake Her Up and the whole time I thought nobody cares. Why would you write this? It's everybody's story. It's nothing new. It's just the vanilla midlife story of everybody. And I kept writing it. My soul just kept saying, write it, write it, write it. So I opened a Facebook page during the month that I launched the book. The Facebook page is called Wake Her Up.

Yeah. No. No. No.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I sold like maybe, maybe 40 bucks to my friends. Like I was not a thing. Well, then I dropped the TikTok, 9 million people show up. Some girl runs out and gets hormone therapy. And over the next few weeks, I start getting these comments that say, thank you for waking me up. And in this crazy flash, I realize, I think I wrote a book for you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

and women were asking, where do we go? And they were trying to, people are like, I'm in Pittsburgh, where do I go? And we were trying to like coordinate things in comments on TikTok. So I thought, okay, hold up. Everyone just come over to the Facebook group and let's make recommendations there. So then I started pulling all the recommendations and making the biggest link tree list on my Instagram ever.

Yeah.

of all these recommendations. Well, it got so big. mean, at one point there was like a hundred links of just states and links to hormone therapists. So then I just built a website because I had done that before in my entrepreneur stuff. And now consequently these women and this wake her up thing has become the largest directory in the world for hormone therapy providers. So wakeherup.co is a free directory of

everyone that's recommended their hormone therapist and it has been the wildest ride of my life. And then right when I thought, okay, nobody, we've talked to everybody. It was like March, I think. All of a sudden Oprah Daily reposted me making crepes, talking about perimenopause in my kitchen. And it was like all over again. And I was like, okay, this train.

Yeah.

huh.

has not gone into the station yet. Like we're on this ride forever. And then, and then a year later I was on the Oprah, the Oprah special on Hulu for weight loss, talking about GLP ones. I mean, it's just, I don't know. I don't know how I got in this train, but here we are. And, and it has just led me into the most amazing transformation personally. I just got back from Mexico where I host the

Yeah, there you go.

wake her up retreat and it's only 10, 12 women max. if there were two things I could talk about, would be hormones and mushrooms. And I don't know how you felt about that. I figured we're talking about drugs. I didn't know what kind of drugs we're talking about, but I take women to this amazing retreat. And if you knew me three years ago, I was a girl that like had never drank. I didn't even drink coffee. I didn't even drink coffee three years ago.

Yeah.

And now I'm texting my friends saying, you want to go to Mexico and do mushrooms? And, and, you know, we just went and I'm sitting with 10 women in midlife that are all looking to find themselves looking for relief, looking for rest, looking for renewal, looking for awakening and finding themselves. And it is the greatest privilege and thrill of my life to be in front of this movement and have.

be able to witness women either finding testosterone, turning their libido on, finding mushrooms, having these spiritual awakenings. I just feel like I won the jackpot. I don't know how I got here, but here we are.

Well, you were a voice that people needed to hear.

You know, like I think your voice resonated with so many people and it is unfortunate. think, you know, like when it comes to perimenopause and menopause, always say like, you know, you don't get the training that we need and we're trying to change that. Those are us in the academic world. But I think that like, you know, working toward getting, you know, better healthcare toward women has always been a goal of mine. And I think that, you know, well, as I don't do pellets in my office, I tried to do FDA approved transdermal testosterone. I see the reason that they

exists because there's a no FDA approved testosterone for women period and number two like or a and b b b the

You

There's definitely a role for testosterone placement in midlife when it comes to low desire with bother the hyperactive sexual desire disorder and I think that Because it's inaccessible There are companies that have come up with you know, their method of replacing, know this Hormone, is so important and vital for women and for me. I always like in my office For the last 10 years. I've been using you know more of the products just because I think they're safer but for some

women you're right they you know they don't get the relief they need from these other types of hormones or maybe they don't get access to them and so for some people it's a true access issue and so

Well, and when I went just from like a regular girl's perspective, I didn't know there were other options. I wasn't like, let's go research this. wouldn't have even known what to research. I had a friend that said, go get this thing, it helped me. And I was like, okay. It would be like a friend sending you a link to something on Amazon. And you were like, yeah. And you'd never heard of it before? didn't know? I literally didn't know that there were.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

anything else. I mean, obviously, now I know. And I think that had I gone, had I gone back, I would have probably started with the cream to try to see what that was like, you know, and then I probably if that wasn't enough, I would have probably tried the injections to see what that was like, I would have done some DHEA, right to see if my body could increase, like I would have done all these things. And, and I think that's why I love. Yeah, women just need to have the

Yeah.

Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And it's just a matter of finding the guidance.

assurance and feel safe to know that it's their body. mean, one of the biggest things I talk about in our Facebook community, which is now like 53,000 women, we talk about the biggest thing that you can do for your health is to start listening to your own body. Because if you're just going off numbers, if you're just trying to reach the perfect number and you still feel crappy,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Like your body's trying to tell you something. You know, I had a girl yesterday that said, well, my testosterone is 43. So I, I'm fine. I guess there's nothing they can do for me. And I was like, yeah, but you, you still feel crappy. You still like there's something else happening. Maybe your body really likes to live close to a hundred. Who knows, but it's worth playing with and investing in and using your body to like try things out. wish.

Absolutely.

Yeah, there's.

Honestly, from like a regular girl perspective and watching all these women be so scared of hormones, I wish hormones were referred to as supplements, almost like a vitamin D or a, you know, where we had the allowance, just the less fear of being like, you know what? I need some vitamin C, go get some vitamin C.

Yeah, unfortunately we have. Right. Right. And I think, you know, we have that residual damage from the 20 years old study that we have. But I think that, you know, one interesting point is that there are so many women who will take, you know, different types of hormones and they don't get the same effect. And some women who will go on pellets and they'll grow a micro penis or they'll get a deep voice. So we always have to like, you know, that's why when I try to go the safer route, because I...

Yeah.

Right?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

In my office, I've seen patients have the negative effects that are irreversible, right? so I just, for the safety of people, want them to understand too that like not everybody's story will be like, you know, so amazing that with yours, obviously. But I think it's important to find some. Right.

Of course, yeah.

I'm like the perfect scenario, right? And this is not how it goes for everyone. I've watched women try to figure out their hormones for two years until they're like, I finally got there. And what we will keep saying is that you are worth the effort. If it takes you five years to figure this out, it will be worth it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And part of the problem in perimenopause, know, is like, it's like, don't know how long it lasts for everybody. You know, we don't know how much the roller coaster you're going to have the highs and the lows. And I think that, you know, because sexual function of women is so multifactorial that there's definitely the biology portion where the hormones can be deficient, where your neurotransmitters can be off. And some of these other medications are helpful, but you know, there's a psychological component, like if people are anxious and if you have complete depression and anhedonia, no desire for anything, then you're going to

have probably no desire for sex too. So you have to look at all the categories. And I think that, you know, the hormones is definitely a big picture in that. But there are people that have, you know, like the social issues, right? Like you grew up in a negative environment, you have to address that in some capacity, like either giving yourself permission to wake up, right? Other people don't even give themselves permission. Like, how did you come about that? Like, because I think like, for those of us who have grown, grown up in a conservative, like religious environment, it's like, how do you give yourself even

Yeah.

Yeah.

permission to go out and enjoy this part of your life.

Yeah, this is really hard and I'm such a good question because I think this is the biggest piece that I like try to harp on because yes, I talk about hormones a lot because people want that quick fix. But I have watched women jump on hormones and then be like, I still feel like crap. And you're like, well, have you done any like personal work in your heart and in your soul or have you dug out trauma? Have you figured out why you feel stuck and

Yeah.

Yeah, there's really quick fix. Yeah.

Yeah.

One thing, a very specific example for me is when my libido turned on, I had lived in so much sexual shame that I wasn't aware of that all of a sudden I feel horny and I feel shame. I feel guilty. Like I am like, I don't want to be like this ho girl that wants sex all the time. Like I didn't know how to even have that in my body. And I...

Yeah.

Guilty of that. Yes.

Sure.

I really had to lean into it. I started forcing myself, this sounds so silly, started forcing myself to listen to podcasts about sex that were extremely uncomfortable. I I forced myself to dig this shame out and I had to look at it straight in the face. I read a book called Living an Orgasmic Life. I listened to something called, what was it called? The Clip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Clint talk, think it's called something else different. I think it's like the pleasure positive podcast now, but it was so explicit. I mean, they're talking about how to give a man a blowjob, like the best way. I was like, Oh my gosh, like we can't talk about that. But I, I sought out conversations that were really uncomfortable for me, but specifically conversations where women were speaking in a enlightened, confident,

Yeah.

way about sex like they owned it. This was a gift they had. It helped enlighten themselves and others. I literally did not know that sex could be something that felt the same as standing on a stage speaking a motivational speak where everyone starts clapping. I didn't know it could feel like that.

Yeah.

now.

And I only thought that sex was something I was giving up, that I had to make myself very small, that it was taking something from me. I didn't know that it could add to me. And now I use it as like a manifestation tool. use it in, I mean, it is part of my healthy routine for myself because I truly believe that sex now is your light switch. It's that, it's that.

thing that makes things attract to you like a lighthouse. It's your fire. And I had to dig really hard into that because it yeah, I mean, that's just one example, right? The other thing is, mean, all of these things where religion just really makes you think that you have to have permission from everybody else to do something. And it's terrifying to live

Right.

Yeah.

with no rules, but also hell is fun. mean, it is as fun as hell just to run around in the world. mean, right now I feel like I'm Alice in Wonderland showing up to this world for the very first time. A lot of my friends who have never been Mormon and they hang out with me, they're like, you're like hanging out with a college girl. It's like, what if we did this? What if we tried this? Like I'm going to a bar and ordering drinks for the first time in my life. While all of you are like,

Right.

Hahaha

swearing off of alcohol. I'm like, what, what, is, you know, when somebody asks me, what type of tequila do you want with that? I'm like, are there different kinds? Like, I don't know.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think that just, I think for women in midlife, if you remember, my sister gave me this example, that if you think of adulthood as starting at 30, then at 35, you're five years old, at 40, you're 10, at 45, you're 15. And if you remember what it was like to be 15,

Yeah.

you were excited about life, but it also felt very wonky and weird and wobbly and you're switching out friends and you want to not hang out with your family so much. And it kind of basically is exactly how we feel at 45. And I think if we can live our lives during this time, in fact, I don't know where this came from, but I started wanting to live my days where at the end of the day, my 15 year old self would be like,

Hell yeah, we did that. And if you can live like that, it's a fun, fun life to live when you can go to bed at night and your 15 year old self is like, we grow up to do that. Like high five. mean, again, I was in Mexico a week ago, laying there, just having a ball with these beautiful women, just listening to music in this beautiful space. And I had this moment that my 15 year old self was like,

Hot damn, we do this? Like, this is epic. And I think we feel like 15, so keep doing that.

That's awesome. Well, tell me. No, that's great. think it's really important to find something to reinvigorate you and to give you purpose because I feel like

Mm-mm.

You know, that will also promote, you know, a better quality of life and longevity and all the things that we're all hoping to not end up in nursing homes, you know, like being on ourselves and doing all the things that are not not fun that we see some of our parents going through. So I feel like, you know, these are all really important things to for our listeners to hear, because, you know, there is there are other things that you can be doing. There are ways to reinvent yourself. What's what's up for you now? Like, what are you what?

next chapters look like for you.

Well, right now it's really interesting because when I came into this, obviously it was just TikTok and I had all these followers and I hadn't built a business plan. You know, I hadn't, I was just going along with the ride and right now, um, is very exciting because now we realize what we have and we are building the company and yeah, wake her up will be, um, we're really gonna lean in. We're going to build an app. We're going to build a beautiful website that really, uh,

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

People want to hear it.

almost recreates women's healthcare and an entire new network where women actually know where to go. I think that's the question I want to answer. know, all of this education, I'm not a doctor. You know, I'm not one to be educating anyone about hormones. I'm not an expert in perimenopause.

but what I can do is I can build a directory. I can put the phone book together, you know, because at the end of the day, you can have a really beautiful thing from even Oprah herself can highlight a lot of doctors and talk about perimenopause and menopause and advocate for it. But at end of the day, the question remains, where do we go? And women need a phone number to call.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, where's the access?

They need a doctor that they know they can trust. And so my next chapter is to actually build the thing, build the answer to that question. And here we are.

Yeah.

I'll help you. I have a lot of great colleagues, so I'll help you build that one. That's wonderful.

Let's do it. Yeah, so it started, you can go to wakeherup.co and that's kind of the beginnings and that website was built by me. So it's very, just as DIY. But also the next book I'm writing right now and it's more novel form about kind of my life and it's a little, it's, I will say it's a lot spicy.

That's amazing actually. Yeah,

Thank

Ooh, like, erotica? I'm like, erotica? I was kidding.

I think I'm writing it to heal all of the sexual shame that I grew up in. It's kind of a, you and I'm gonna write as much as I want. So I'm very excited about that too.

Run.

Yeah, not absolutely.

wonderful. I can't wait to see it.

I think that's great, Marcelo. I feel like you describe so much of what I see on a day-to-day basis when people feel reinvigorated, when they get hurt, number one, when they advocate for themselves, number two, and when they find the right solutions. And I think you're right in saying that hormones isn't going to be the thing that's going to cure you. I always say it's part of a toolbox of things that you need to do. We need to do all the other things that can help us. But it is a big component for so many patients.

And so I feel like it's really important to discuss that and hear that. And I love your story because I think it's so telling to what women want, right? Like it's the fact that you resonated with nine million. that what you said? And I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah. The first one was nine million and now it's like, I don't even know. There's so many, it just kept going. I, you know, this morning I was running on the treadmill. Somebody had, I don't know, I was looking at Instagram and there was this girl that came up that was a ballroom dancer, gorgeous, moving. And I surprised myself that my brain thought, I wonder if we'll be a ballroom dancer someday.

Right.

uh-huh.

Okay, I think that's when you've like made it to the other side of midlife. When you start dreaming again, when you think everything is possible, anything is possible. I mean, I'm 44 years old. I've got an entire life to live. And I want to live in a world where women after 40 have an entire life to be lived. I want to watch women dream again and go and fulfill millions of different lives.

No! No limitation!

Yeah.

I just, that's the world I want to raise my daughters in. That's the world I want to live in and I'm gonna contribute to it as much as I can.

I love it. I think that's a great way for us to end today because that's such an optimistic note to end on. So I really appreciate you coming to tell your story. And know, really so patient so people can learn that self advocacy is so important. And you know, just understanding that there is there's so much more out there that you can really put your mind to and get done. So thank you so much again. I have to come to one of your retreats.

Thank you so much! This was so fun! Thank you!

Absolutely. Well, thanks for coming to join me for another episode.

Yes, we're gonna do the red dress.

I hope that was okay. I should have okayed that with you.

What's that? yeah. No. No, no, totally, totally. think there's so much. And we're actually, have a, I'm going to issue next week and we have a whole segment on like this.

I was like, I should have okayed that with you that I was mentioning mushrooms. Okay.

I brain fog, you know, psychedelics. Okay, thank you. We have a whole, we have like a lunch and learn session on psychedelics and its use in like sexual medicine. So I'll keep you posted what they say. We're gonna, you know, talk to talk about the science behind it and stuff like that. So I'll let you know.

psychedelics. Yeah.

I was like, okay, well if you guys wanna come talk to me, I can tell you have some things.

I love that.

Anyway, but thank you again for joining me today. I'm Dr. Smeena Raman, Gyno Girl. Thanks for joining me on Gyno Girl Presents Sex, Drugs, and Hormones. Remember, I'm here to educate so you can advocate for yourself. Please join me on the next episode.