Unveiling Your True Self: The Impact of Hormonal Changes

In this profoundly intimate episode, I delve into a heartfelt monologue sharing my thoughts and experiences surrounding menopause, grief, and the path to healing. I underscore the significance of community, self-care, and confronting one's authentic self during this transformative phase.

Exploring the physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges that women encounter, I emphasize how menopause can serve as an opportunity to confront and heal from past traumas and obstacles. Reflecting on my recent loss and the journey following the passing of my birth mother, I stress the importance of support, transparency, and resilience.

With a message of hope and empowerment, I encourage listeners to embrace their individual journeys and the wisdom inherent in menopause. Drawing from both personal anecdotes and professional insights, I aim to foster a sense of connection and encouragement among my resilient audience.

In loving memory of Anne 🩷
To Maxine and Anne, I pay tribute to you! 🫶🏻🫶🏻

Learn more about the topic of energetic bodies, as mentioned in this episode, in the book The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy by Cyndi Dale.

Transcript

Mary Lee: 0:00

Eleanor Roosevelt is famous for her quote, do one thing every day that scares you. And posting this episode is scary, but we can't grow until we leave our comfort zone. Welcome to All Things Menopausal. My name is Mary, and I'm a menopause doula. As a doula, we augment the healthcare profession as menopause support practitioners. I created this podcast, All Things Menopausal, to build community for women going through menopause transition and to foster resilience through the stories that connect. Educate and empower. These stories are real, raw, relatable, and they're very much relevant to the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual whole person that we are. In our midlife transition, we are not alone. Each week, you will hear from courageous, vulnerable, and knowledgeable guests sharing their passion, their journey, and lived experience. These are little clues to finding solutions to our unique situation. The menopause symptoms are personal. But the experience is universal. Welcome back my listeners to the All Things Menopausal podcast. And I really do appreciate that you check in each week to hear from my guest interviews about the menopause journey. As we cover it all, we unpack our gut health, nutrition, vaginal health, incontinence. We talk about self love. We talk about self care. We've talked about the spiritual realm. We've talked about meditation and breath work. Singing to find the power of our voice and we've touched on humor and hysterectomies and there's so much more and That's exactly why I call it all things menopausal, right? But today today is a solo cast It's just me a monologue speaking my truth and if you could see me right now I'm sitting in my closet on this beautiful Saturday morning of the Easter long weekend And I'm ruminating about life and well all of its upheavals as menopausal women, we feel all the angst and pain, both physically, but also emotionally, I say this often and it bears repeating, as the hormones fluctuate and estrogen egresses, it's like you're pulling down a sheet that's covering up your true identity, covering up things that you've been masking, hiding from. And we do it just to get through life. You know, we, we cover up certain things that are only secret to ourselves so that we can get through life, get on with having a career, get on with being professional, so that we can show up, show up to be a parent, a friend, a daughter, a sister. We put aside certain things that we can do these day to day duties and play these daily roles and do it with dignity and without regret. But then when that veil is lifted, Well, it's like the world, the universe, God, source, whatever you wish to call it. It wants us to see that part of us which we've been covering up so that we can you. properly have a better relationship with who we are truly. And I like to think of menopause that way to address the transition, to come clean, so to speak, and to face it head on and to say, I know, I see you, I know you, you are part of who I am, but I've been ignoring you. And so it's time to give you the attention that you deserve, you know, kind of like a clean house so that we can make peace. Give it the TLC it deserves. I'm talking about things like an old injury, maybe a physical one, or an emotional wound. I'm talking about a health concern, perhaps, that could have happened in childhood, a trauma, or in adult life. It could have happened as a result of another significant emotional event. Thank you. It could have happened from our career, serving a uniform, for example, being confronted with a relationship change, a marriage, a divorce, a breakup. You get the point. What I'm trying to say here is that a lot of incidences that happen to us in our lives, they are all part of our makeup. They are who we are. And they can't be ignored and pushed aside. My girlfriends and I, we speak about this often in our veterans group. Um, We're all working together on healing. And we call this the strategy that pretend the avoid and shove away. We pretend things didn't happen, past injuries, traumas. We avoid dealing with the emotional upheaval that comes from it. Physical, physical pain, mental angst, but it still exists. And we shove away the incident and the emotions that come with it. So that we can get on with life. But when you hit that menopause transition with all the other crazy symptoms that we're feeling, this too is going to come to the forefront. This is a really tough episode for me to record and eventually air. And if you're listening to it, I took that bold move, that brave move, and I did publish it. But I'm coming completely clean with you. I'm real. I'm raw and hopefully relatable. And I'm doing this because a significant event has happened in my life and in my family, my biological family, just not too long ago, my birth mother was admitted into the hospital with terrible health condition. She passed away yesterday morning. And there had been several Illnesses associated with it, respiratory issues that exacerbated over time, causing further problems, an inability to be physically fit, to allow herself to heal physically properly, the way she needed to be healed. And when somebody passes away, we tend to ruminate over it, the relationship, the things we could have done to change, to make it better. The connection we had our history. Me, I tend to mourn in a deeply cerebral way. I try to avoid doing the shoulda, woulda, coulda, because that is totally unproductive. First of all, things are often out of our control. We all make our own decisions. We are all our own person. And we make those decisions based on what we have. We do the best we can with what we've got and we don't give ourselves enough credit and give gratitude to who we are. So in my case, mourning, grieving, I tend to go deep into thought, deep contemplation. And I like to look at life more holistically, rather than just pigeonhole the situation. Look at the relationship in a microscope. I take that wide angle view and say, What can I do to ensure that I have a wonderful quality of life moving forward? What can I do to inspire others to have a beautiful quality of life? And that squarely brings me back to why I do what I do as a doula. Becoming a doula, well, it found me in the first place. I very much care deeply and will advocate strongly for the well being of womankind. Faced with a lot of challenges in my own life, stemming from a career in the military to dealing with an upbringing, which was beautiful, but it had its own challenges. when I was young, we look to our mothers as our first and foremost, most significant role model in our lives. But our mothers impart on us their insecurities and self doubt. And we tend to form impressions and belief systems of how we see the world based on their insecurities and self doubts. For me, I never wanted to be small. I never wanted to be diminished. I never wanted to be boxed in or limited because I am a female, female gender, but I didn't see myself as a female gender. I always, as since a young child, saw myself as an energetic body who had something to say, something to do, something to give. And that is totally my authenticity. This is my love language. Let's get on with who we are. Let's get on with being who we're meant to be. So stop diminishing your wellness and not believing in yourself. And I was drawn to a career of strong women because of this viewpoint of the world. I wanted to be in the company of strong women that were doing their best and giving it all, physically, mentally. I was drawn to the military. So how does the military girl become a doula? Because the same qualities that attracted me to the military, the same call for resilience, if you will, and the same need to show up strong and be forthright and stand in your power while still being a creative person. productive, nurturing, energetic body who has something to say and wants to share her voice are the same qualities that attracted me to become a doula. After 24 years in communications and well over 30 years in corporate workplace, from the military to being a PR professional, I was always drawn, no matter where I was, to create community. Drawn to connect like minded beings and create community for people who want to put in the work for people who believe in themselves and are innately driven to rise, to become higher version of themselves because in that community of like minded people, we continue to raise each other up, to help each other out. And when I help you, you help me. So the same goes for menopause. We are not meant to do this alone. We are not meant to suffer in silence. and I'm going to bring this back now to the passing of my birth mother. Did she suffer in silence? Did she do it alone when she went through the transition? Did she have girlfriends there to help her, siblings, family members? Did she ask her own The transition of life. And maybe there were several people who surrounded her and imparted in her some great knowledge. I don't know this. I didn't have the opportunity to ask, but when the student is ready, the teacher will arrive. Meaning when you're ready, and I know it sounds cliche, but ready to wave the white flag and say, I can't do it alone. I need to surrender and find the help, the comfort of others. Well, then the universe puts the answers or the opportunities to find answers and find solutions and find healing in your path. So when a woman hits her transition and there's this massive decline in her well being, or maybe it's just a slow drip. This is a point where we have to remind ourselves, don't quit, don't give up on yourself. It doesn't have to be a long suffering. It can be a beautiful life in community. We don't have to hit that pinnacle point in our lives where we feel like there's nothing left to give. And so my grieving, my mourning process in the last 24 hours has been just exactly what I've blurted out in this recording for the last 15 minutes or so. It has been healthy and helpful, I think, for me. And I'm hoping that maybe I can spread a message out into the ether so that it will resonate with others and they can grab onto it. and say, thank you. I appreciate that message, Mary. I don't do this for the accolades and I'm certainly not doing it to improve my ratings and my stats. I'm doing this only because I want to share my voice and I'm expressing myself, my true authentic self, my true authentic existence as an energetic body. And I'm allowing that energy to flow and to release. So I don't have to hang on to any past pain. So I can move forward and I don't have any stuck energy. And I allow that healing to begin by acknowledging that in my. great reveal in my menopause transition. I'm beginning to uncover so many misunderstood beliefs of who I was and who I am and misbeliefs about women and who we are and can be and should be. So as we transition into the years beyond menopause, we enter into the time of the great wisdom, which is also an Ayurvedic philosophy worth repeating. We have to first come wise with ourselves, which calls for radical honesty to quote Rebecca Gillis, whom I interviewed for episode 25. She's opened up my eyes so much. And here I am as the doula, but the teacher is still the student, right? And the student is often the teacher. And that goes right back to my whole point about creating community and connecting women through our stories, through our pain, through our joy, so that we can continue to raise each other up. And so I dedicate this episode in memory of Anne and in honor of all the women who've come before me and come before Anne in her family lineage and all the women who are still here in this beautiful family. And in my family that I grew up with, my adoptive family, I honor the women and my mother and my grandmother. And I know that your spirit still energetically still vibrates on this planet. And that, that, Vibration will continue to influence us, continue to influence me in so many beautiful ways, and I tap into that energy. I love you all, the shining stars, may your light always shine brightly, and may we always find each other in times of pain and frustration. Do not feel alone, do not give up on yourselves. So if this podcast episode can reach out to you in some way, gives you a little bit of hope and strength, and I invite you to go back and take a listen to previous episodes if you have not already, or go back in, you listen to them and pull out some little pieces of information that will help you get up and out of that slump and see things from a new light a new perspective and to carry on to be wise. To rise to the divine women that you were always meant to be. Because this is the year of the Divine Mother. It's an eight year, the number of divine femininity. And it's a powerful number, but it's also an energy of feminine energy. That is to remind us that at our core we are the creators and nurturers. We are birthing not only just the next generation, but we are birthing ideas and productivity. We're birthing our own growth and birthing into our second spring as we transition into the midlife and years beyond to quote Kim Holmes, whom I interviewed in an earlier episode. And this is a beautiful message. I feel for the Easter weekend. You know, we look at this time often as a rebirth. The significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's your rebirthing and your resurrection as well. So lean into that and take a moment just to tap into your heart center, your energy space, and also tap into your crown chakra, your higher divine space. And you can do this just by sitting quietly at a time of meditation, placing your hands over your heart and breathing into the full expansion of your heart center. And exhale longly and slowly with a wide open mouth, making an H A Ha sound to stimulate the vagus nerve and allow your nervous system just to relax. Then I invite you to rub your hands together briskly and then draw your hands apart, maybe just a couple of inches, and feel that energy between the palms of your hands. And then place one hand over your crown chakra and the other hand over Allow it facing your body, the palm, to scan all the other chakras moving slowly from your brow, your third eye chakra, slowly down to your throat, into the heart center, and through to your solar plexus and into your low belly, the sacral chakra, and finally to your root chakra. And then draw that hand back up in the opposite direction slowly. then bring your hands together in prayer over your head. And draw your prayer hands. Slowly back down, lightly tapping your thumbs to your third eye, and then to your throat, and then to your heart space, and then release your hands. And now breathe into the expansion of who you are. Congratulations, you've just settled your nervous system, and I've given you a quick realignment of the chakras. You've also tapped into your powerful woman, and do not forget this. With love and light, I send you this very unique, very different and very emotional episode of all things menopausal. I hope you will continue to tune in as we share stories of our journey together. And remember, the symptoms are personal, but the experience is universal.