Get Right with Anger for a Healthier Menopause Journey with Bronwyn Schweigerdt

In this transformative episode, Mary is joined by Bronwyn Schweigerdt, a licensed psychotherapist and anger expert who brings a revolutionary perspective to understanding emotions during menopause.

Bottom Line Up Front: Anger isn't the enemy—it's vital information that can guide you toward healing, especially during menopause when suppressed emotions from childhood resurface as your inner child demands attention and nurturing.

The conversation explores how menopause symptoms may actually be your inner child trying to wake you up, literally demanding that you stop betraying yourself and start nurturing your authentic needs. Bronwyn reveals how suppressed anger, particularly from adverse childhood experiences, manifests as physical illness and mental health challenges, and provides practical tools for transforming your relationship with these powerful emotions.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn to view anger as vital information that something needs attention, wanting to move us toward healthy boundaries and assertiveness.
• Discover why menopause symptoms may be our inner child's wake-up call to finally prioritize self-nurturing over people-pleasing.Understand how shame severs your connection to your inner child and intuition. 
• Understand how alexithymia (keeping emotions inside) literally makes us sick, contributing to autoimmune disorders, depression, and anxiety. Learn healthy ways to channel anger through boundaries and assertive communication.
• Use of visualization exercises toconnect with and nurture our younger self, helping to address the root sources of shame, guilt, and suppressed rage that surface during menopause.
• Learn to move beyond surface-level self-care to authentic self-nurturing—which may mean ending toxic relationships, setting firm boundaries, or making major life changes that honor your authentic needs.

Resources:

• Angry at the Right Things Podcast with Bronwyn Schweigerdt 
• Connect with Bronwyn on Instagram 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] I see shame, and then again, guilt as the enemy of humanity. Because what happens is I become less human. I'm not really connected to me anymore. and the other thing is I don't believe I'm good because shame is a liar.

Shame lies. And it says you're all bad. It doesn't say, you know what, Mary, you made a mistake. You're human. Humans make loads of mistakes. And what humans do best is we learn from our mistakes.

I'm excited to introduce to you my next guest, Bronwyn Schweigerdt She has something very interesting to offer us as menopausal women on a topic that we don't discuss nearly enough. In this episode, we will dive into the importance of understanding and channeling anger, especially those emotions that we experienced during menopause.

And Bronwyn will emphasize that anger actually gives us vital information. And should be acknowledged, not suppressed. She will explain [00:01:00] healthy ways to express anger, such as setting boundaries and being assertive. And she also distinguishes assertiveness from aggressiveness and more so Bronwyn explains that our unprocessed anger can actually lead to anxiety and panic attacks and even manifest as physical illnesses.

Stuck energy. That lack of ease, well, that leads to dis-ease. So this makes sense. But what I like about Bronwyn is that she takes a different approach, encouraging us to change our relationship with anger and view it as helpful signals rather than something that is entirely negative. What's really interesting that we get into, and this is very uncommon amongst menopausal women, and that is.

Adverse childhood experiences, things that happened to us when we were younger, that stuck trauma, and a lot of that comes out as shame and guilt, particularly from those experiences when we were younger. We were never taught how to or allowed to release those emotions. Wrong one though. Advocates for self approval and [00:02:00] nurturing oneself, even that inner child, especially for menopausal woman, and this can serve as a pathway to healing.

We also touch on societal attitudes towards menopause and the difference between anger and hatred. Very key Bronwyn's own journey of becoming an anger expert is quite fascinating. But before we begin, here's something you need to know about Bronwyn. She's a licensed psychotherapist and anger expert, and the host of the podcast, angry at the Right Things.

She's passionate about helping people come back to life by reconnecting with their inner child and transforming the relationship with anger. So rather than trying to fix people's messes, well, Bronwyn takes the approach that is refreshingly honest. She invites her clients and listeners to feel the emotions they're most ashamed of, including hatred and rage.

She believes that feelings don't just disappear. Not until we find the courage to express them with someone who truly listens and validates our experiences. Bronwyn [00:03:00] describes her role as playing a midwife to these difficult emotions, helping people finally externalize and release what's been buried for too long.

And her work has led to remarkable breakthroughs with clients breaking free from depression and anxiety and even bipolar disorder. Any psychosis, all by healing the relationship with anger and ultimately with themselves. So if you're at all curious about the power of embracing your full emotional self and wanna learn more, stick around this conversation just might change the way you think about anger forever.

Hello, Bronwyn Schweigerdt joining me from Sacramento, California. So happy to have you on the Menopause Disruptor Podcast. I think this message about processing anger and hatred is so apropos for the menopause journey when we could be faced with a lot of those emotions. I liked, in particular what you had said on one of your YouTube videos that often the suppressed anger in our [00:04:00] cells largely comes from PTSD, and a lot of my episodes have been dealing with PTSD as well as other neurodivergent traits and, concussion.

So there's a lot of emotion going on, and we're gonna unpack that. But first, Thank you so much for joining me here today. 

Bronwyn: You are very welcome, Mary. Yeah. So I think you are referencing I read a, really interesting research study where they found that suppressed anger at ourselves was most correlated to the most severe PTSD symptoms in their participants.

So yes I agree with that. that has definitely been my finding that we humans. Suppress or disassociate from all kinds of feelings, but particularly our anger at others and at ourselves, as well as our hatred of others and ourselves. And it does make us sick in one way or another. And [00:05:00] that is not a surprise to me that people with PTSD were the most likely with the highest severity of PTSD.

Were the most who are holding in anger at themselves and not. Allowing themselves to process it, to acknowledge it, to feel that, and so, That has been like something for me recently, I'm really trying to hone in on, on my podcast especially, is letting people know, you know what, researchers call, they have a word called Alexia, which is a fancy schmancy word for saying.

Keeping it all inside. You know what? My clients as a therapist call holding it inside. That's what alexathymia is. It's just a word for what we humans do, which is hold things inside. And so research shows that alexathymia us, holding it inside literally makes us sick. And there is so [00:06:00] much to substantiate now.

Autoimmune disorders in women and children in men. of all types. So one of the studies I saw, it was multiple sclerosis in women was most correlated with alexathymia or keeping it all inside Type one Diabetes in young children was most associated with children who are alexathymic, meaning they keep their feelings sight.

So again, as a therapist, as a podcaster, I am trying to get this message out. We're not doing anyone any favors when we keep things inside because it is making us sick. 

Absolutely. My goodness. We really need to be hearing this message over and over again before we get into that quite deeply. We always tend to arrive at a place in our career and our expertise from past lived experience, our journey.

I would really like to get into your backstory, [00:07:00] Bronwyn. What landed you in this field of psychotherapy and to become an anger expert? 

Yes, so I landed here as a second career. I did not wanna change careers. I already had a master's degree. I didn't wanna go back to school. But as life, gives us these great crises slash opportunities.

I had mine and I. I found myself in a very, severe depressive episode about 15, 16 years ago where I thought I was losing my mind, and everyone I knew was like, go to a therapist, find a therapist, and I went looking for a good therapist. And each time I remember sitting on the couch thinking to myself, you know what, Bronwyn, you are barely functional right now, but I still believe you would make a better therapist than this person.

That was my experience with kind of everyone I went to, unfortunately. So part of [00:08:00] that healing journey for me with that depressive episode was going back to school and becoming the therapist that I needed for myself. So getting another master's degree, getting all those 3000 hours, all of that. But looking back in retrospect now.

That depressive episode and then that was followed by a subsequent even more pernicious depressive episode a few years later. I see how both of those depressive episodes were absolutely the outcome of my own disassociated anger, and I started connecting the dots with my own clients. And I don't have as many clients with depression.

You, most of my clients have a lot of anxiety, though. I started seeing, oh my God, their panic attacks happen right when something goes wrong and they're refusing to allow themselves to feel angry 'cause they don't feel entitled to feel angry. And so they get anxious, they get panic or even manic [00:09:00] at times.

And even, I have one client who had psychosis, so I just started seeing, oh, pretty much all of these mental illnesses are an outcome of our own disassociated. 

Anger. Oh my goodness. so step one I would think obviously is being aware, identifying it, and understanding like you had, understanding this is, this has got the best of me.

I can't live this way. I have to move forward such a big step. So in your work as a psychotherapist, working with other people who are trying to unpack their anger, what should be the first step to move forward? And I will say this, as someone who suffers PTSD anger was probably the number one indication to my family.

That, Hey, mom or my wife, she's not quite all, all together there, but there was a time and a place where I wasn't [00:10:00] willing to listen to that because I thought, well, that's how my parents were. I grew up. Isn't that normal? So how do we lead someone? 

And the menopausal woman too, who's, who could be going through this anger as associated with the hormone changes among other things.

And we bring them through that. First step of awareness. 

Bronwyn: Yes. So I would start, I think the first step is changing our relationship to anger, changing our disposition toward anger. So I like to say that I like to see anger as akin to a light on the emotional dashboard of our car saying, Hey, check under the hood something is wrong.

The goal is for you to find out what it is and to bring it to repair. And if we can start to see that as anger instead of maybe how we were taught growing up. It's bad to be angry. You don't have the right to be angry [00:11:00] or, if you're angry, I'm out of here. So like the abandonment that we often associate when we are true to ourselves, when we stick, stand up for ourselves when we can like deconstruct all that.

Just go, oh, this anger is here for my benefit. It is here to give me wisdom and instruction on what to do next. So if we can start to view it as that barometer, that warning light on the dashboard instead of something negative or bad. Of course anger can result in something negative. Yes. And we all associate anger with that kind of sensational.

Violence or verbal violence that we've seen or witnessed or been the victim of. But anger in itself is not inherently bad. It is good. It is there to give us vital information. So if we can just say, okay, I'm just gonna feel in my body. Oh, I think I'm feeling angry right now. That's okay to [00:12:00] feel. Where do I feel it?

I feel it right here in my chat. Okay. I'm just gonna start with going. Thank you, anger. Thank you. For giving me this information, and I'm gonna check in with you about what to move, how to move forward right now. And so, and then that would be step number two. What does this anger in my chest wanna say or do?

Does it wanna have a boundary with this person? Okay, let's think about how we can have a boundary. Does it want to speak assertively and say, Hey Mary, what's the deal? We were scheduled to meet at noon and it's. Noon, 15 right now, and this is not the first time this has happened. What's going on? So those are just examples of me harnessing that anger and channeling it out of my body in healthy ways.

And that's the new kind of perspective we need to have is that what anger really wants to do, it wants to be moved and move us [00:13:00] in a healthy way. 

So what are some of those healthy ways that we should be moving? 

Yeah, so like I just said, like a boundary or assertiveness, those are two main ones. and, again, the example I gave of like, Hey Mary, what's going on?

It's 1215, we said we'd meet at 12. That is me channeling my anger out. Does that mean you hear the anger? No, you probably don't. You probably just hear me going, Hey, what's up? Right? But that is actually my anger that is compelling me. To say that it's, oh, it's confrontation, but it's not like confrontation.

it's hate. Right. Is everything okay? Right. So it's a kind, curious, compassionate type of confrontation or, accountability maybe. But it's also motivated, it's catalyzed by my anger, and that's me being true to myself. And maybe you're gonna say, oh man, I just got in a car accident. Oh my God.

And then I'm not angry anymore. Right. That takes care of that. [00:14:00] Then I'm gonna go, oh, shoot, what can I do? Should we reschedule? But what if you're like I'm not late. What are you talking about? We said we'd meet at 1215. Well, then my anger's, I'm gonna reinforce it. And we say, no, that's not true.

And so that's just me being assertive, I'm not being aggressive. Okay. And so a lot of times we conflate yes, assertiveness with aggressiveness. There's nothing aggressive about me just saying, Hey, that's actually not true. 

Mary: Right. So when we ourselves are the subject of our anger, how do we then turn those, key steps?

Of course, first meeting it with gratitude and then getting curious. But then how do we say I gotta put some boundary downs and be assertive with myself And what is there? Is there some other specific techniques then for giving ourselves, some grace, but at the same time, holding ourselves accountable to that [00:15:00] anchor.

Yeah, that's doubling up. 

Bronwyn: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think we are all angry at ourselves at some level if we're honest. And I call that regret. That's what I call regret, and if we are people who are reflective, we're gonna have regret because we're human and we make mistakes. And if humans do one thing well, it's making mistakes.

I on my podcast, I, actually have a short episode called a Self-Forgiveness Exercise. And so I lead my listeners in this exercise to forgive themselves. But this is basically what I do with my clients when I find out that they have regret, which, again, all of us do. So basically what I do is I have that person talk to themselves so that this is, I have them close their eyes and see maybe younger Mary from 10 years ago. Okay. So I would have you close your eyes picture [00:16:00] Mary, from 10 years ago when you're thinking about the thing that happened that you regret. Right. Okay. And then I would lead you and I'd, have you talk to younger Mary and say, you know what, younger Mary, I wanna hate you right now.

I really do. Like, I am really feel betrayed by you. By what you did or didn't do. And I would be really honest and like describe everything and share all those feelings. And then after that phase I'd pause. And I'd say, but you know what, younger Mary, you know what I'm also able to take into account 'cause I know you pretty well.

I'm also able to take into account the fact that you were conditioned from early childhood. To believe that you are not res, that you are responsible for other people's feelings. And you're not allowed to say no. And so, and I'm able to take into account that you are conditioned [00:17:00] to betray yourself and believe that you need to do what other people want you to do and not be true to yourself.

And all of those things. And so when I take in the whole context, younger Mary. Even though I am angry at that thing that happened, when I take in the whole picture, I can forgive you because I see the whole picture and I see that you were just blind. You were just blind, right? And so when we do that, we can finally really forgive ourselves.

And so I would imagine this is in line with a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy con and the talk therapy in regards to, particularly when you're suffering from PTSD, and there is a lot of blame and shame, and the layers get confused from our childhood rearing to being triggered in a situation.[00:18:00] 

Particularly if it's an occupational stress injury, that we are suddenly back into that mindset where those hidden beliefs or those patterns, behavioral patterns developed because we were mirroring, reflecting what our parents were telling us. And then as we get older as adults, I would imagine then that a lot of the work that is being done to help with the PTSD.

Is centered around that kind awareness and to unpack that negative self-talk. Let's look into that a little bit more. 

Bronwyn: yeah. I think, I'm not a fan of CBT, but I do believe, okay, that we do need to uproot those distortions. There definitely are those cognitive distortions, but instead of me, the therapist doing that for you or trying to convince you.

You need to do that for yourself. And so that's why I lead listeners in an exercise where they're [00:19:00] giving that to themself. Gotcha. You have to be the one who sees that for you, not me. Right, 

Mary: right. Okay. Okay. So take us through a session. Say whether it's, you're, working with your listeners out there with your podcast, or if it's say you're working with a client.

One-on-one, what would be an exercise, for example, that you would take someone through this process and then leaving in them in that space to be okay with whatever comes up so that they can, get the full benefit of the process, of the therapy session, if you will. 

Bronwyn: Yeah. Well, I would, I start with.

we need to know that our feelings aren't right or wrong or good or bad, and we really need to stop judging our feelings. And we need to stop being afraid of our feelings that they're gonna overwhelm us. [00:20:00] And honestly, you know what heals feelings is sharing them whether, their people are sharing them with me as their therapist.

But also me sharing them with little Bronwyn, So when I go back and I have a painful memory that I don't wanna touch with a 10 foot pole, 'cause it was painful, I have to be there for little Bronwyn at age 10 who experienced that and say, you know what? I'm gonna feel it with you now. Because what's shareable is bearable.

And when we share our feelings, they're no longer overwhelming. The reason why. Childhood, especially feelings, emotions were so painful is because we had to feel them in isolation. But if we had, a loving attachment figure there who felt them with us, who didn't judge us, who didn't shame us, then they would've been bearable.

And now as adults, we really need to do [00:21:00] that for our inner child. 

Inner child. Oh, so good. Bronwyn, this was, this is where I see the link now. We, were told to force to feel these emotions in isolation. And let's face it, like our frontal lobe is not fully developed until our twenties. And here you're sending a young four or five, 6-year-old to the room, berating them for their behavior.

They don't understand. It's just this uprising of emotion that they need to release and it manifests obviously. And behavior that is unbecoming or unacceptable to the parent, or of course you add in the parent stressors and it just push pushes them over the edge. I think that to my childhood, but when we were told to feel these emotions in isolation, naturally we all figured out our own coping mechanism.

Our own [00:22:00] strategy to survive that aim, that anger, and that's what gets stored deep within our system. That neuro pathway is developed. Then we hit menopause and estrogen leaves the body. Everything that was nicely hidden underneath that veil is gone and we are confronted with all of these stored emotions, physical, mental, emotional.

Scars, wounds, issues that have to be dealt with. Do you work with menopausal women and in particular, is there strategies and anger? Being anger for everyone is pretty universal, but are there specific strategies to help women in particular face those demons? Because we are. At a higher rate of depression, statistically.

Yeah, 

a higher rate of autoimmune disease. And I like that you brought that up. [00:23:00] 

Yeah. 

So what should we be focusing on in particular? 

Bronwyn: Well, if you can't tell already, I'm very unconventional in how I see all of this. So I will say, my first career was in nutrition. I already had a master's in nutrition and I was all about, self-care, obviously, lifestyle, health, all of that.

I wouldn't have believed back then what I believe now, like even a few years ago, I wouldn't have been a believer to now where I stand and how I now see things is I really believe that our bodies are always speaking to us. They're always attempting to communicate with us, and I. Our body is actually where our inner child lives.

Our brain, our prefrontal lobe, as you mentioned, is our adult self who is dissociative oftentimes from the body. And we're like, I don't, hear anything. I'm doing just fine. I'm gonna think about this. And we're [00:24:00] dissociating from our body. We're dissociating from our inner child, and I really believe, I believe menopause symptoms.

Is our inner child trying to wake us up, which is why insomnia is so common during menopause. I believe it's our inner child trying to wake us up literally and say, stop betraying me and start nurturing me. You've spent all these years nurturing your other children and now they're grown or grown-ish.

It's time to nurture me. I, that is absolutely how I view menopause these days. And what I have found is that when my female clients who are menopausal age Start doing that, when they actually just start nurturing themselves, their symptoms go away. And I myself found that to be the case as well.[00:25:00] 

And when I say nurturing ourselves. I don't mean, self-care as we usually think about self-care. 'cause self-care could be like, go for a walk, have a cup of tea, do some meditation, do some yoga, whatever. Those are great. But when I say self nurture, for a lot of us it means ending relationships.

Who that are toxic in our lives. It means big stuff. That we don't normally associate with self-care. It means standing up for ourselves with bullies in our lives. It means drawing boundaries, being assertive. It mean that is self nurture really being true to ourselves. And I am convinced if women start to finally wake up and self nurture in real ways, we're not gonna have these menopausal symptoms.

That is such I would say an enlightening, refreshing, [00:26:00] well-informed way of phrasing at Bronwyn. Looking at it conceptually. I love that you use that analogy, that inner child trying to wake us up and now I need to equate it to something that, and my listener's gonna say, oh my God, there she goes again.

A philosophy does say that menopause is the time of the great reveal, but it's also the time of stepping into our wisdom. Yes, being the wise matriarch that wise, empathetic woman of great wisdom from her lived experience. And what do you picture when you think of a woman with that persona? Is this.

Nurturing grandmotherly type and I really feel that it's that embracing empathy, embodying that empathetic role we should play. But it makes sense. It starts with the self [00:27:00] dealing starts within. And interesting though you said, dealing with the big stuff, oftentimes we will see women will end those relationships, marriages, divorces will happen.

Yes. 

Or they'll real reshape their relationship with their children because their children, if they have children, are now adults and moving on in their lives. And it's a matter of saying, I gotta stop parenting and just be a parent now. And then moving on. And then the boundaries. Women will leave the workforce altogether.

'cause they're saying, I'm done. I'm not playing with this anymore. I'm not doing this. I'm not selling myself short. I'm not playing small. So it really comes down to having them, I guess in, you could correct me if I'm wrong, but embodying this role of playing big instead of small in life, taking up space.

[00:28:00] Yeah. So good. Wrong. That is a real light bulb moment for me. I would say. I, really appreciate how you rephrase. You phrased that. So what other practices then of course that you would lead clients and, you want your listeners to do the conventional ones or what we picture for self-care, like the yoga and the meditation.

Complimentary perhaps. But what are some of the other deep rooted exercises that you allow your clients to go through to unearth these big Yeah, big things. 

Yeah. Well going back to what you said before, how you know as kids we were sent to our rooms to feel our feelings in isolation. Well, we didn't feel them.

We stopped feeling them in isolation 'cause humans don't feel painful feelings in isolation. we do the coping mechanisms, which aren't really coping, they're just they're just dissociating [00:29:00] mechanisms. But yeah, so going back to that, what happens when we experience that as a kid, when we're center of rooms, when we're made to isolate for having, anger or any kind of negativity it creates a lot of shame.

so we really, throughout our lives, especially in our early childhood, all have, all of us have shame for different reasons and different parenting methods for different ways. Some were outright abusive and some were just like, just normal human stupidity that all of us make mistakes as parents and our parents made mistakes.

Those mistakes went unaddressed. And so we carry shame because I see shame as the residue of all neglect, all experiences of rejection or any kind of emotional [00:30:00] abandonment. So shame's kind of the sticky common residue that we get from that. And shame also is so, ugh. It is so pathological because what it does.

Is, it severs our connection to ourself. So it severs me from little Bronwyn, my inner child, because I have found working with, I work a lot with the body as a therapist, you know what we call somatic, that shame lives in the gut. Like almost all my clients will say when they're talking about their shame, that they feel it in their gut.

Guilt also seems to live in the gut too, and I'm not sure they're always different shaming, guilt. I think we make artificial distinctions that may not apply a lot of the time. But anyway, it, those things live in the gut and what I also have found is that our inner child lives in the gut too, which is why when we listen to our [00:31:00] intuition, we're really working with our inner child.

We're really being true to ourselves when we trust our gut. But when there's shame there or when there's guilt there, that connection is destroyed or not destroyed, I should say severed. And now I'm not trusting myself. I'm not listening to myself. I'm not listening to my gut. I'm not doing right by myself.

I'm betraying myself. 'cause that's what shame and guilt do is they disassociate me from me, which is the worst thing ever. So I see shame, and then again, guilt as the enemy of humanity. Because what happens is I become less human. I'm not really connected to me anymore. and the other thing is I don't believe I'm good because shame is a liar.

Shame lies. And it says you're all bad. It doesn't [00:32:00] say, you know what, Mary, you made a mistake. You're human. Humans make loads of mistakes. And what humans do best is we learn from our mistakes. Shame doesn't say that. Shame's a liar and it says, oh, you made that mistake. You're all bad, right? And so that shame tells us that we are bad and we need to believe at some level that were good.

And so now, because that shame is keeping me from believing in my own goodness internally. I need to outsource that goodness from outside of me. So I'm gonna need to find it in my looks, in my physical appearance, in my sexuality, my ability to attract men, or I'm gonna need to, find that goodness from my professors, from my boss, from my career.

but it's addictive. Like I'm never gonna get enough. I'm never gonna be sated, right? Because. It's coming from [00:33:00] outside of me, but I'm addicted too, and I'm now betraying myself to do whatever it takes to win this person's approval of me. So it's more and more now severing me from myself. I'm not being true to myself and I'm trying to get something that needs to come from within.

And so when what I do, getting back to your question. My podcast is, I lead my listeners through what I call an integration exercise where they integrate with their inner child and we dislodge the shame, and so I'll give you an example. so for me personally when I was 10 years old until I, I went off to college at age 17, my father would mock me at dinner every night.

He would just, Mock me and ridicule me every night. And one day I just put all this, I just closed my eyes. I just imagined putting all the shame that I felt from all those dinners [00:34:00] in a big cardboard box, and I returned it to my dad and I said, here you go, dad. This is yours. It always was. It was never mine.

I'm gonna return to owner. You do with it what you will. But it wasn't my shame. It's your shame. Here you go. And voila. And so I lead my listeners through this where we do that for ourselves, for our inner child, where we give the shame or the guilt back to the parent. Right. 

So powerful, Bronwyn, very powerful.

Yeah. I, we, I appreciate that very much. And. the power that we have within ourselves to visualize, and the brain doesn't know the difference between it being a physical, tangible item or just it visualize thought of in the mind, it's still getting the same results. 

Yes. 

And I would imagine that whole [00:35:00] process, that there has to be an element of gratitude.

Held for ourselves or that kind awareness held in. Check the whole time through it. Because as we're going into it, I can just imagine, oh yeah. And I remember that time and that comment that there could be this, and correct me if I'm wrong, a percolating sensation of, oh, that one hurts a lot. But then if we wanna get truly through the process, we have to keep going back to.

I see it, I'm naming it, but I'm still giving myself that kindness, that room to feel into the curiosity, as you said, to feel what's coming up and not absorb it. Own it.

So, yeah, and, it doesn't hurt as much when we realize I'm not the shameful one in this memory. Yeah. It's not, I'm not the shameful one.

You're the shameful one, mom or dad. It's your shame. 

Yeah. Just [00:36:00] switching gears a little bit, but on the same note, we've talked about how a lot of it comes up from inner relationships, presently work relationships intimate relationships, and of course childhood relationships or childhood rearing. To what extent does societal attitudes towards menopause play into the role of a woman's anger?

That she is not, she's suppressing it rather than addressing it. Do you feel 

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. I think societal, just the, the common theme of, feeling objectified that because I'm a woman I have to look a certain way. And if we look at that from that lens.

I have younger female clients who really wanna look good, and I'll say What happens when you get to my age? [00:37:00] And you have to work so hard if you're ever gonna, it's a lot of money to, try to continue to look good. And you know what? There's no really no real way to go about it. You know what really needs to happen is you need to.

To feel good about you, you need to have your own approval. Let's start that right now and let's not wait till you're my age and you're getting the wrinkles and the gray hair that you've decided are not approved by in your mind. Let's like give ourselves that approval right now. Let's give ourselves the approval that we need for once and for all, and then we can feel free to disappoint the hell out of everyone else.

I love that. Yeah. Going back to us being the, center that the healing comes from within and that external stimuli, well, it's impermeable, it's not gonna last. And people will come and go in, in our lives as well as jobs, [00:38:00] but the steady constant that remains unchanged is us. But what we can change is our relationship with the pain or with, well, the pain of course, but the anger, the emotions that, that percolate up.

On your very recent episode, you talked about how hatred can actually be good for us. 

Yeah. and you did mention that, you touched on that with anger being that. That little barometer, if you will, to tell us that something needs to be done. Is there a difference between having anger but then just real deep hatred and so we'll look at that first and then how is that hatred good for us?

Yeah, so that's what I talked about. I try to clarify and distinguish hatred from anger. 'cause we wrap them all up together and we really need to. [00:39:00] Distinguish. So yeah, anger. When we're angry with someone, we still have expectation on them. And I see that as, if that is someone in our lives that we wanna be with that can be a good thing where we confront them and say, Hey, I expect you to do better.

This is how you need to do better. Let's talk about this. But hatred is really not like that at all. Hatred is like getting to a place where. You don't feel anything. You just don't feel anything. It's like apathy. It's like unconcerned. It's an absolute absence of feeling. It's not hot, like anger.

Anger is a hot emotion. Hatred is cold. Hatred is like me. I don't care. And that can be so beneficial because I talked about this on the podcast. When we are walking down the street with a young child and they, we see roadkill and the young child says, [00:40:00] icky. And you, don't talk 'em out of it.

You don't say, icky. That's bad. No. You say, yeah, dead things are icky. That warns us to stay away. When we feel ick, we naturally wanna stay away. So keep that up little girl. Like that's a good thing. That's a good instinct. And when we feel hatred for someone, that's an ick. That's a disgust and that's telling us stay away and we need to heat that.

We need to see that as vital wisdom. And I really see hatred as giving us a type of closure with this person. Whereas anger, we're still like expecting something of them. Hatred, we're just done. And that's how it's worked for me in my life when I felt hatred. I know, I'm done with this relationship.

It's over. And that's given me like absolute peace. And then what I say about that is once I've cut that person off, I don't feel hatred. 'cause I put it to use and it went to work [00:41:00] and there's no more hatred. 

Wow. Yeah. Now what if that hatred is turned inward? We spoke about hatred. Well that would be shame.

So that goes back to the shame. That is shame. yes. Shame is self contempt. Yeah. So we need to go back to that root of where that shame got lodge. So that memory or memories, most of us have far more than one, and we need to do those integration exercises. We need to go back and see our younger selves and say, let's put that shame in a box and give it back to this person.

So, if that was sexual abuse, go there and see it in your mind's eye and, put all that shame in the box and say, here you go, this is all yours. Thank you very much. and, so don't shy away from that because it is so powerful. We're basically doing [00:42:00] what we should have done in that moment if we had the ability to do.

Mary: Yeah, so I don't often get to this point in my podcast, but I do like to talk about an influential book that we've come across. And you did share one, and I imagine because of what this book is or the topic it's on, it has influenced and shaped how you. Approach your work or just maybe how you approach yourself and your own journey.

So share with our listeners what your book is and why you would recommend it as, a good read in our journey through understanding, shame, hatred, angered, and as well as menopause. 

Well, I just love the book Untamed by Glennon Doyle, which I read a few years ago. I think. What I love the most was the very first chapter in the book where, she's giving you how she arrived at the [00:43:00] title Untamed.

And she's in a zoo with her kids. And there is, let's see if I remember this right, there's a cheetah that there having jumped through hoops and do all these tricks and they're showing everyone. How the cheetah was raised with I think a golden retriever. And so the cheetah from its infancy, and so the cheetah kind of thinks it's a golden retriever.

And so it was tamed, it was a tamed animal. And she Glennon Doyle has this epiphany while she's watching all this and she's looking at the big, beautiful, slick muscles in that cheetah's body. And she's seen the cheetah turn tricks like a dog sit and stand and all the, and she's like.

No, you're a goddamn cheetah. Be a cheetah. it's so cool like, and it just spoke to me, that her own experience, like she realized, I've been tricked into thinking I'm a golden [00:44:00] retriever and I am a cheetah. she for her, the light went on and I just thought that was so beautiful.

And something maybe we can all relate to is that we have been conditioned. To be something domesticated that we actually are not, and it's time to really embody ourselves and grow into what we were created to be. Oh, 

Mary: that is so beautiful, Bronwyn, and it truly does bring it back full circle to recognizing our own inner wisdom.

Stepping into that, embracing, embodying. I just love that it makes so much sense, and we're going to share that book in the show notes as well. Let our listeners know where you are, where they can find you, how they can find your podcast Angry at the Right Things, angry at the Right Things. 

Bronwyn: yeah. So, listeners are welcome to reach out to [00:45:00] me. I'm on a lot of social media with my name, which is hard to spell, but my podcast is how is Angry at the Right Things. And I also have videos of it on YouTube as well.

Little shorts too. So they're great little pieces of sage advice, little exercises. So we'll definitely share that in the show notes. Bronwyn, this has been a really necessary conversation and I'm glad that I found you at a time when I did because of the process, me personally, going through my anger and the PTSD diagnosis.

And also looking at my. Head injury, my concussion from a different lens as well, and embracing, embodying some of the outcomes from that. But it's been through the journey of working with menopausal women and diving deep into coaching women, the menopause education that have come to realize that we are all shelving an [00:46:00] emotion of some sort.

A lot of it, yes. Guilt and shame and anger and we've. Come from a generation where we were left to our own devices to cope. Yeah. They're surfacing and menopause, as you said, when they come up, what a beautiful invitation for us to recognize it or that, that inner child saying, wake up, let's get to work.

Just love that. bridging the overlap between menopause and those emotions and anger has. Is very enlightening and necessary, and I think a lot of women will find that their symptom management and just their journey and stepping into this new role. To be that much more graceful and fulfilling when they can grapple with this concept and get to work that integration exercises as you speak of.

I'm really excited to share your work and I'm so thrilled that you reached out and, found [00:47:00] me, and I can share your work as well too. It's a nice compliment to each other, so thank you so much Yeah. For sharing your expertise, your education, your lived experience. Sharing on the Menopause podcast.

Thank you, Mary. Thank you for having me.