← BETTER! with Dr. Stephanie Estima | Strength, Body Composition & Perimenopause
BETTER! with Dr. Stephanie Estima | Strength, Body Composition & Perimenopause
Energy, Effort, Purpose & Pleasure in Perimenopause with Dr. Diana Hill
01:09:43
Are you struggling to embrace change as you age? In this episode with Dr. Diana Hill, we uncover how to find joy, creativity, and pleasure during perimenopause. Embrace your unique genius energy and thrive! Watch the full episode at https://youtu.be/_7gLtSPq3Dk
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- [00:00]
A
It's not all hopelessness as we age, and we do know this from the research, that women in their 60s and 70s are happier, that there's, there's actually a happiness dip in the 30s and 40s, and then there's a happiness incline in the 50s, 60s and 70s because we're moving more into that expansive y self and we care a little bit less about the little stuff, you know.
- [00:29]
B
Hello my friends. Welcome back to another episode of better with Dr. Stephanie. It's me, your host as always, Dr. Stephanie Estima. This episode is special in that it is really a description of maybe perimenopause, but then broader, you know, our experience as humans on this earth. And my guest today is Dr. Diana Hill. And we are talking all about energy and how things evolve and change with time. And I think as a perimenopausal woman there is exquisitely painful, it's bittersweet change. We have bodies that are changing. We have skin and faces that are changing. We have children that are growing up and leaving the home. We have parents that are aging. Everything is changing. And the more you try to keep things the same, the more you will suffer. And I believe in our conversation today, Diana even said something to the effect of, of the more rope burn, the more heart, the harder you are holding on to things staying the same, the more rope burn that you are going to, that you are going to acquire. And so I think that this is a great conversation for anyone who's had difficulty coming to terms with aging, coming to terms with being a perimenopausal woman and some of the changes that come with that, body composition changes, aging changes, et cetera. I think that there is a path for happiness and contentment and joy, that if we are able to maybe surrender a little bit to the change, that there is joy on the other side of that, there's even, dare I say, bliss. We don't use that word in the conversation, but I will, I will use it here. And so just to give you an understanding of who Diana is. Dr. Diana Hill is a clinical psychologist. She's an author and she's an expert on acceptance and commitment therapy, or act, which is dedicated. And she's dedicated to helping people train trade burnout for a life of meaning and vitality. She is the host and of the podcast Wise Effort, which is also the name of her new book, which is what we're talking about today. And through her work, she provides science backed strategies to help women get off autopilot, manage difficult emotions with grace, and align their precious energy with their deepest values. And that is really what we talk about today. We talk about grief. We talk about aligning our actions with our values. We talk about sitting with emotions, how to process really difficult, difficult emotions like grief and rage and anger and sadness and depression. I think you're going to find a lot of value in this conversation and I hope that you are able to, from some of the action items that we give you in the conversation, take this away and apply it into your own life. So please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Diana Hill. What if you could get the benefits of a 45 minute run in just five minutes? Well, that's exactly what Carol Bike does. It is an AI driven workout that is scientifically proven to improve your fitness, your metabolism and your brain performance in record time in just three sessions per week, clocking in at five minutes each. This can roll back your metabolic age by a decade. Carol is not just another exercise bike. It is a time machine for your health. And this is so important for us ladies because our VO2 max, which is how well our bodies use oxygen, is one of the biggest predictors of our longevity. The problem is that it naturally declines with age and in fact, 95% of people never sprint again after the age of 30. And I do not want to be part of that statistic, and I know you don't either. Carol Bike is the first workout scientifically proven to reverse that decline in VO2 max in just five minutes, three times a week. And the result is a 12% boost in VO2 max in only eight weeks, meaning better cardiovascular fitness, sharper brain performance, and a younger metabolic age. It is efficient, evidence based and designed for consistency. No excuses, just science and action. Head over to carolbike.com and use code better for a hundred dollars off of your purchase. Again, that's carolbike.com and use code better at checkout. All right. Dr. Diana Hill, I'm so happy to have you back. Round two on the show. Welcome back.
- [04:47]
A
I'm so glad to be here and I think we're going to have a great time talking about wise effort and menopause and all the things so.
- [04:54]
B
And all the things. And I think the, the central core for this book, at least for me, the core disruptive idea is that working harder is actually the problem for women. It's not the solution. So I thought we might start there, talk a, talk to us a little bit about why working harder is not always better.
- [05:13]
A
Yeah, well, sometimes we do need to work harder. You know, sometimes we need to put a little energy into something that we've neglected or we've set aside. But oftentimes it's actually overworking something, putting too much effort over efforting that sends us off track. And we have this tendency, I think, especially as women, because we're so used to working hard. You know, we're so used to raising families and building businesses and working hard in all the different domains that we're juggling that we think that that's going to be the solution. But it's actually about, I mean, we've heard this line, working smarter, not harder. But I would say working wiser, not harder. It's not just even smart, it's. It's wisdom, which I believe grows with us, can grow with us as we age. And as we age, we need more and more and more wisdom to be able to navigate some of the transitions that we're going through, but also to be more effective in the many domains of our life.
- [06:14]
B
Yeah, I think for many women, myself included, I'm still in the process of unlearning this is this idea that you're, you know, to your word, to use your words, overworking and over efforting becomes really intangibly associated with your worth. Like if you are not someone who was able to punch out 10 things on your to do list and keep all the balls in the air at all times in heels and lipstick and totally, you know, and in a good mood and ready for anything, then in some way you've. You failed being a mother, being a wife, being, you know, someone who's producing meaningful work. So what are some of the ways that we can begin to unravel that examine where these belief structures come from and how we can really tap in. And I want to talk a little bit about our genius and our genius energy.
- [07:05]
A
Yeah, well, where these belief structures come from is sort of a very big. At the big societal level and then all the way down to like grade school level. Right. We got trained up around good girls and good jobs and gold stars and it feels good to get praise. And so that can really shape our energy and shape our efforts, even if we're getting praise for things we don't really care about. And then we can get really good at certain things. And then we have this about face. We look at our lives and we're like, wow, I've climbed this ladder. I've gotten to this point, but maybe I don't really feel satisfied or fulfilled or actually doing all those things. It kind of scratches the surface. It doesn't actually water me at A deep level. And I remember, gosh, when I had young kids I used to do these crazy birthday parties. Like I was the mom that made the Pinterest, the ridiculous themed out birthday party. And I'd work so hard, I'd be so stressed out. The kid would come in the kitchen, I'd be like yelling at the kids because I was working on their birthday party, you know. And I remember at one point my mother in law came as mother in laws can do this so well, came in to my birthday party and said, do you think that the moms who come to your party like you a little more or like you a little less when you put on birthday parties like this? I was like, oh, actually they like me a little less. We also this over efforting and this working hard maybe it also doesn't get us the connection that we're craving as women and the perfectionism doesn't get us the relatability as women. So genius energy is something that I have been exploring on a personal level and from a psychological angel angle. I'm a psychologist and the way that I'm defining our genius energy is our talents, our strengths, our emotional intelligence, our interests, the things that come easily to us that may not come easily to others. And it's not good or bad. It's just sort of like, I mean Stephanie, you have such. I can already just, I know just very little about you, but you have genius energy around just like sort of like a coolness factor. Like imagine, you know, you being in high school or college. You just kind of have like a calm confidence to you, right. And it's just sort of part of your nature in your presence. I feel it now. What can happen though is we have this genius energy about us. Our talents, strengths, aptitudes, interests and, and we can overuse can become our problem when it's becomes the thing. So I actually have some genius energy around throwing birthday parties. I'm actually pretty good at themed out things, right. But when it becomes like rigid and restricted and I'm using it to get people to like me and I'm over efforting on then pulls me off course and your genius can become your very problem. You see this in people that are like great, they're really great helpers but then they turn into martyrs or people that are really funny and they turn into everything into a joke, including themselves. You know, they throw themselves under a bus on a joke, right? So that's where the over efforting on over indexing and how can we direct our genius in a. In A wiser way and towards our values.
- [10:19]
B
It's almost like what your strengths are can be. There's like a light side and a dark side to it. Right. It's like there's this light and shadow side to it. So like a perfectionist, which I know many of the Bettys who are listening may identify as type A overachiever, that can keep you very rigid. Right. So that cognitive flexibility or that flexibility to if something unexpected happens. If you are a perfectionist and you've already laid out, you've already gone through the algorithm and you're like, nope, this is how things are going to go in the life, in the birthday party, in the whatever. And there's something that changes in that. I think that that might be an example of a shadow side or a dark side of that talent or strength. I was always told I talk too much, by the way. So that was always, like, on my report cards. It's like, Stephanie's always talking too much. She's not living up to her potential.
- [11:02]
A
Now, look.
- [11:03]
B
And now I'm a podcast host.
- [11:05]
A
Right? Right. And this is great. I think everyone can have that, can fill in the blank of, you're too much of this. You're too this. Don't be so loud. Don't be so set. Mine was, I'm too sensitive. I'm too emotionally sensitive. I'm picking up on everyone's energy. Well, guess what? I'm a therapist. So it kind of helps to have an emotionally sensitive therapist.
- [11:23]
B
Right.
- [11:23]
A
You wouldn't want a cold, distant, aloof therapist. So those. Those very qualities that. The things that make you you and that are unique to you. Everyone has their own design. We all have our own design. The question then becomes, how do I take my own unique design and channel it in a way that's aligned with my values so that it becomes my offering in the world? As opposed to something that's too much or something that the other side of that is. People play small. They go underground with it. They don't show their genius. Right. Because they've been told, you talk too much. So then you kind of pull back. I'm not going to say anything because I've been told that I talk too much.
- [12:04]
B
So how do we figure out what our genius is? It we sort of look for historical clues like, oh, you're doing this too much. You're doing that too much. What are some of the ways that we can get closer to really understanding our unique strengths and gifts?
- [12:17]
A
Well, there's psychological sort of tests that you can take around this. So you can, you could take tests like a, there's something like a personality test to look at your extroversion, introversion, things like that. You could take the via, which is a. That via.org which is a character strengths test, to learn what some of your character strengths are. But one way that I like to go about it is first, I like to think about other people in my life. Do I know what their genius is? Can I spot their genius? Like, do I know what the. My husband's genius is?
- [12:49]
B
Yeah, totally.
- [12:50]
A
It's the very things that irritate me, but also the reasons why I married him. Right. He's incredibly patient and he's a, he's a math teacher.
- [12:57]
B
Of course.
- [12:57]
A
He's like, that shows up in his patients, right. And sometimes he's too patient. Like he needs to like step it up and get angry about something. I'm like, you're too. Like, I need more chi in you. You got like so much of a patient vibe. So you can see it in other people. You can spot other people's geniuses and then ask your friends and family, like, what. What do you notice about me that makes me me? Or maybe even think about yourself as a kid. What were some things that stood out for you that you kind of remember about being a kid? You in third grade, your eight, your eight year old self. And yes, we evolve and change over time, but some of those essence, some of that sort of temperament and qualities about who we are are still with us today and may need to be expressed or honored or appreciated and kind of brought a life to, to life again. There's a, there's a parallel, I think, between adolescence and our perimenopause and menopause years. There's a emotionality, there's a transition, there's a wanting to figure out who you are. Like some of those things that happen during adolescence, I feel like happen again as we go through these years. And part of that is figuring out what makes me me. So a question you asked yourself when you were 13, and maybe you're asking yourself that again at 43, right? What makes me me and how do I live to the fullest expression of me and give the biggest offering possible of me, which is unique and different.
- [14:24]
B
I love that. I saw, I just saw a meme the other day. I don't know how this is going to land, but I'm going to say it anyway. It's like, you know, perimenopause should be rebranded like cougar puberty, which I thought was so great. It's like. It's puberty, but for cougars. I was like, oh, I love that. So do they do our. Does our cor traits, our geniuses, do they evolve as we evolve? Like as we're going through that perimenopausal transition? Maybe it's an opportunity. I like to say it's an opportunity to come home to yourself, to really understand who you are. You've maybe for many years been putting yourself on the back burner for various reasons. Child rearing, marriage, career. And as your children are maybe growing up and out of the home and there's a little bit more capacity, you can really get closer to the things that you want to be doing that maybe you didn't have the time, energy, focus, or money to do in your earlier years. So does your genius do those traits? I know you said that that essence is sort of consistent over the lifespan, but have you noticed even with clients or maybe even with yourself, things that maybe have come up that are that percolated, that are new, that are maybe new traits that are coming out as you're maybe getting closer to your. Your essence?
- [15:36]
A
Sure. I think all of our life experiences change us. Our relationships change us. The traumas that we go through, every single one of those experiences is shaping us. Right. So as we move into perimenopause and menopause these years, you know, when we look at sort of developmental psychology models in these later years, we're starting to move into, for example, with Erik Erickson, his model, he talks about in the 40s, we're either moving into generativity or stagnation. So sometimes we're also just. We could be really stuck. You see, actually, these are the years when a lot of times when people leave their marriages or they change careers or they do something just like, okay, I'm gonna go travel somewhere unusual. And part of that is because you want to get unstuck. You want to have this generativity. You want to have this growth that can happen during these years. And that is where our genius can come back to life and can shift and shapeshift and you can learn new things about yourself physically. We learn new things about ourselves because there's also, I think, a shift that happens, especially with something like exercise. The other book was about exercise and movement, where all of a sudden exercise and movement isn't just about trying to shape your body to look like something in a bathing suit anymore. Because, you see, wait, my body is. My body isn't going to look in a bathing suit like it Used to look when it's 20. And there's actually so much more to this body than that. Like, I want to feel vitality. I want to have energy. I want to be able to dance. I want to be able to move. I want to be able to climb a mountain. I want to be able to. Whatever it is that our relationship with our body and the genius of our body changes and how. How we feed our bodies and move our bodies and rest, our bodies also changes because our bodies need different things. So, yes, there is a shift that happens. I think the shift is moving more towards openness, expansiveness, flexibility, if we're. If we're moving in the right direction, and generativity, as opposed to maybe in our 20s and 30s, which is like, get on the path and try and get somewhere. I'm establishing my career and my family and my house and all those things that we're trying to nail down. And I think in our menopausal and perimenopausal years, it's more about opening up.
- [17:53]
B
Yeah. And one. One of the things that I hear a lot of women say to me is in perimenopause, that they feel absolutely bagged. Right. Like they're burnt out. Maybe they're burnt out from family stress, marital stress, as you mentioned, could be, career, could be all three of those things. A combination of the above. And one of the things I. You touched on it a little bit before. We were talking about light side and dark side. You know, like, perfectionism can show up as, like, rigidity or cognitive inflex. But in the context of wise energy and how we're sort of thinking about our genius, how can our genius energy go wrong? Is there a way that our innate talents and gifts and aptitudes, can they keep us stuck? Can that be creating some of that exhaustion that so many women in perimenopause feel? Even when we're doing everything right, like, even when we're following, you know, doing the things that we deem to be right by us, by our family, by society and our community at large.
- [18:52]
A
Yeah. Well, burnout is a complex phenomena. There's, you know, sort of a whole psychological syndrome to burnout, which includes three main things, which is you're physically exhausted.
- [19:03]
B
You.
- [19:04]
A
Your performance either starts to decline, or you believe your performance is declining. And you also get this detachment thing where you kind of are detaching from the thing that you work or family. You kind of distance yourself. You don't feel like you can connect to it anymore. So it's because it's so painful. And what I find with burnout is that in terms of the, there's the external factors that contribute to burnout. So if you're in a toxic work situation, if you just have too much on you and not enough resources to support you, which is the case for many women working women, working parents, right? There's just too many loads of laundry and too many loads of work and too many loads of kids carpools. But the, there's a psychological thing that contributes to our burnout. And the psychological thing is we are stuck in a story. We add a story, a self critical story, a sort of futuristic negative story. You know, all the add ons that we do with our mind that makes whatever our experience is so much worse. Right. I was just, I just went to this conference where I was presenting at the conference. And I'm a clinician, I'm not an academic. I was on a panel with all of these male researchers. And if you were to climb inside my head, you would not necessarily hear things that were very helpful to me presenting in a confident, clear way, right? The self criticism that goes on, that weighs us down, that burns us out. And that can be connected to our genius. Because if we are, if we have a genius, like we're great thinkers, we're great problem solvers, we can turn ourselves into the problem to be solved and overthink ourselves into burning ourselves out. The other thing that can contribute to our burnout is, is avoidance. And this is the, the classic thing around avoidance is something is uncomfortable. Whether it's my marriage is uncomfortable and feeling burned out in that, or my relationship with my teenage child is uncomfortable, or something at work is uncomfortable, or a friendship is uncomfortable. And our, our instinct is to avoid, to back away, to distance ourselves, to make a wide circle around it, to go on the phone whenever they're in the room. And that can contribute to our burnout because we aren't actually developing our capacity to stay in the discomfort long enough to cut, to work through it. You know, like maybe there's a conversation that you need to have with your partner or maybe there's something you need to do to change some of the dynamics that are happening at work. Or maybe there's a pile on your desk that you just need to go through and like clean it up, you know, so that contributes to our burnout. So our stories contribute, avoiding discomfort contributes. And then the third thing that can contribute to our burnout is we hold too tight to things staying the same in a changing world. Our bodies are changing Our world is changing, our life is constantly changing, our kids are changing, our friends are changing, Everything is changing. And we want it all to stay the same. We're like in the same haircut that we were when we were 21. And it's like, you gotta, you gotta change with it, folks. And the more that we hold tight when something is changing, the more rope burn we're gonna experience. Right? So that is part of the burnout is we're holding too tight to things staying the same. Those three things.
- [22:17]
B
That's such a great imagery of rope burn. And I think that this is a really good place to maybe bring up this idea of grief and grieving. This is something I've been thinking about lately as a woman with two, you know, teenagers, where my relationship with my children are changing and we. I have a great relationship with both of my kids. I'm excited to see them become, you know, happy, productive members of society. And I also know that that time when they were young and they would look up at me and I was like, the sun, moon and the stars to them is over. Or like that look. I mean, I don't know if you breastfed your children, but I breastfed both of them. We had extended breastfeeding for both kids. And then when they were finished, you know, when they were finished feeding, like that just that look of like they would just look up at like a little eight month old, look up at me and be like, you know, thanks, mama. You know, as they drifted off and just like, that's done. And I think I'm gonna cry now, but I feel like it's like two truths can be. Can happen at the same time. Like you can be excited for things to be changing and like the maturation and the evolving of a relationship and also be sad that something is no longer there. And I think, you know, we often think about grief in the context of death, which is true. You know, obviously we grieve when our loved ones. When our loved ones die. But I think it can really be extended to. And I'd love your opinion on this. Anything that we lose that we've found value in or that we enjoyed, like that part of my mothering. And I look at baby photos and all nostalgia and all. So I'm grieving that loss of my role as that kind of mother and now moving into another role in my motherhood journey. But it's like exquisitely painful. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about something super important. How your digestion changes in perimenopause. If you want more energy, better focus, less stress and to stop bloating after each and every meal. This starts in your gut. When your gut is out of whack, just everything feels off. Your mood, your digestion, your sleep, everything. And this is why I use and I love the Just Thrive probiotic. Most probiotics never make it to your gut alive. They are dead on arrival. But Just Thrive is clinically proven to arrive in your gut 100% alive and actually do what it is supposed to for you. That means less bloating, better immunity and that steady feel good energy to tackle your day. Here's my challenge for you. Try the Just thrive probiotic for 90 days and it is 100% risk free and just see how much better you feel. Head over to justthrivehealth.com better and you're going to save 20% on your first time order and start your 90 day just thrive challenge today. If you don't love the way you feel, if you don't see any changes in your gut health, you can ask for a full product refund, no questions asked. So again, that is justthrivehealth.com better if you're looking to sleep better, recover faster, improve your skin's appearance and thicken your hair, you are going to love the Bond Charge Red Light Therapy Panels. Red light stimulates something called Cytochrome C oxidase is a protein that enhances energy production in human cells. This essentially boosts mitochondrial efficiency in breaking down nitric oxide and generating more energy that helps the body's healing process. Red Light therapy has been shown in peer reviewed clinical trials to help with improved collagen and elastin production in the skin, thereby reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, improving skin blemishes, roughness and reducing scars, supporting recovery for better sleep, promoting muscle relaxation, AKA soreness and stiffness. And this is also FDA approved for hair loss, which is something that many women in their 40s, mental health and 50s deal with. The bon charge red light therapy device uses the most bioactive frequencies of red and near infrared light at 630 nm, 660 and 850 nm. I personally use the full length panel after a long bike ride. I typically like to do my mobility and stretches in front of the full length panel for about 10 minutes a day. If you want to get these benefits, head over to bondcharge.com better and use code better at checkout for 15% off your purchase.
- [26:45]
A
Francis Weller, who's written a lot on grief he has my favorite book on grief, which is the Wild Edge of Sorrow. And he actually has a new book coming out. I'm interviewing him on Thursday about his new book, in the Absence of the Ordinary. And he talks about how we need to become apprentices to grief because we are in a constant state of loss. And that actually he talks about five gates of grief. That we are what we walk through many times. One gate is, everything you love, you will lose. Everything you love, you will lose. That little baby is going to change and it's going to be a toddler. And then all of a sudden, you're going to be in your kitchen one day like I am, and you're not looking down at your baby anymore. You're looking up at your boy who has facial hair, and you're like, what happened to my boy? You know, he's. I'm looking up at him and. And he's out the door. And he's out the door and he's not even looking back. He's not even looking back.
- [27:37]
B
It's like the longest breakup. That's what it feels like raising a son. It's like you're breaking up for anybody.
- [27:42]
A
And I don't know him anymore. I don't know what's going on. I don't know the inner world and the way I used to feel. Like I knew. Like I knew what pair of underpants he was wearing at all times, you know, like I knew what he snack he had. I know I knew everything. And at the same time, so it's the, the. The things that we love, we will lose. And therefore we need to be in the presence of what we have. Because if I'm looking at my son who's here, and I'm thinking about him going to college, and I'm all caught up in my head again, stuck in a story. Then I'm missing out on this moment, which is actually a really beautiful moment. It's a really beautiful moment of having a like, like this transition time. It's actually our transitions, the bardos, the. The ships that have a lot of good energy to them because I can honor this. Like, he's in his own transition. I can see that. Like his. What's happening for an adolescent in terms of their brains and their bodies and that huge, massive maturation that's happening during these years. It's like from zero to three again, like they're doing this massive maturation and in it. But now it's in the emotional world too. And if you think back to your adolescent years, what happened for you during those years? They were so massively transformative. We actually remember our adolescence more than we remember, like, our high school and our college years because there's so much emotional balance to them. So I can honor that transition for him, and I can. And ground in the here and now is probably one of the most powerful things we can do with our grief, is be in the grief and remember that we're grieving because we love something, and then you can land in the love. But Francis Weller also talks about the grief, the other gates of grief, which is like the parts of ourselves that haven't known love. Sometimes our children can be. Can activate that aspect of ourselves. Like, as I think for. At least for me, as my child goes through adolescence, I'm kind of like having my second adolescence here. Like, whoa. I'm working through a lot of stuff that I didn't fully work through when I was 13, like, around friends and feeling left out and wanting attention and, you know, all this stuff that's, like, happening in my 40s again, you know, so the parts of ourselves that haven't known love. And then we also have the grief that's around the sorrows of the world. We have grief around our ancestral grief that we carry. And then we also have grief around. This is a big one. This is the fifth gate, which is that which we wanted but didn't receive, that which we expected. And that's another thing that happens, I think, in our grief is like, with our kids. It's like I kind of, like, expected it to be different than maybe how it is, or it's, you know, it's kind of funky sometimes, or it's awkward sometimes, or I thought we'd be closer than we are or whatever it is. Like, we have all these expectations and there's grief around that. Like, we don't always get what we expected, you know, and how do we again, ground back in the here and now? And that's a lot of. That requires opening up to feeling, opening up our minds, opening up our sense of self, which is a big part of the wise effort method.
- [30:47]
B
Yeah, I think that that is so beautiful. And I think I would love if everyone listening to this conversation, if there's one big takeaway, it's like we can feel ugly feelings. Like when things feel really uncomfortable. Maybe we are. We are just noting that our. The thoughts that we're having, we're noting where it's happening, where we're feeling activations in the body and maybe getting more comfortable with holding very difficult Emotions, because I think that, I mean, grief, and I would think that shame is right up there as well, and guilt. Like, these are very difficult emotions to navigate for humans in general. And I think when you have a perimenopausal woman where it's a very busy and chaotic time of her life for all the things that you just described, just within the parenting realm, but then we also layer in hormonal changes, we layer in body composition changes. We layer in the grief of our body's not responding in the way that they do. I need more recovery now from my workouts than I ever did, and that is incredibly frustrating for me. I have new aches and pains in joints that, you know, didn't ache or pain me ever in my life. And I think that there's a. Maybe a hopelessness, a frustration around the aging process as well for perimenopausal women. I'd love for you to speak to that a little bit as well.
- [32:12]
A
Yeah, you know, I. There's a. I actually did a. A whole episode once on how to sit with an uncomfortable feeling, because I feel like we're told this a lot. Like, sit with your feelings, be with your feelings. Like, what does that mean? Like, actually, what does that look like? Someone give me the step by step bullet point of how to be with an uncle. How do I.
- [32:30]
B
How.
- [32:30]
A
How do I be with shame? How do I be with feeling fat? Even though fat's not a feeling, what's the feeling that's underneath that? Which is, like, not good enough. Right? And.
- [32:38]
B
Or even rage. Like, rage. Can we talk about rage, too? Yeah. Okay.
- [32:42]
A
Yeah. So. So in this, like, stepwise method, I was like, well, first, the first thing is to find it in your body, because we. We often are trying to think through our feelings, and. And feelings are not a thought process. The thoughts will just feed the feeling. If you go to the body, where do you feel rage? Do you feel it in your throat? Do you feel it in your belly? Do you feel at the front of your chest? Do you feel it in your arms? Like, where do you feel rage? Is it a full body experience? You know, start there, because then you're getting out of the story. Remember, I said the story makes things kind of wacky and worse and go into the body, and then if you go into the body, can you make space for it and can you experience it at the level of just pure sensation? This is a great thing to do at night when you're really worried or really mad about something. Get out of the story. Get into Your body, where do you feel it, make space for it? Can you allow it to be here? Can you breathe around it? And it's not to get rid of it, not to regulate it. We've been told a lie that we need to regulate our emotions all the time. Sometimes we need to allow our emotions to move through us and give them permission to be there. Because you'll get to the next step, which is, could I give this emotion a name? Could I say I am feeling rage, I am feeling sad, I am feeling anxious? You could say it out loud, you could write it in your journal, you could say it to yourself. But there's some evidence where they've, they've put people in FMRI machines and they've exposed them to distressing images. And then while seeing this distressing images, told them just to name what you are feeling. Say it in your mind. I'm feeling scared. And you see shifts in their brain activation to more frontal lobe activation, more regulation of the actual brain, and downregulation of that extreme feeling. Because just naming it, giving it a name, means that you aren't it. So go into your body, make space for it, give it a name. And then the last thing that I would say with that feeling is ask why are you here? What's important to you? What is important to me that's triggering this feeling? Because behind every strong feeling is a strong value. And if you can identify what that value is, then you can act from there. I am feeling rage because I feel like a boundary has been crossed and somebody has, you know, I want to protect myself or I'm feeling rage because I want to protect somebody else that I love. I feel like there's an injustice here or I'm feeling whatever it is. Then you can move towards that value of you care about justice, act on justice. You care about protecting yourself, act on caring for yourself. And it transforms the feeling into an action which is a values based action. Now you have something to do with it, which is not just sitting with your feelings. So it's really important to make space for our feelings, allow them to flow through us, but also see them as motivations that are connected to our deepest values.
- [35:43]
B
Okay, so I'm going to ask a question that might be silly. Yeah. But I just want to make sure that I understand what you're saying here. So you said emotions allow the emotions to move through us. Is what you just described a way to allow us to metabolize that or is there actual movement that you are?
- [36:01]
A
Oh, movement is great too. Movement with Emotions is fantabulous. Fantabulous is a word, is fantastic. Because what happens when we move our bodies? Actually, a lot of our emotions would benefit from movement either because they are emotions that are linked to us actually moving. Something like fear or anxiety, if you think evolutionarily would trigger us to like run away, run.
- [36:26]
B
Yeah, right.
- [36:27]
A
And actually to metabolize those catecholamines that are activated and the cortisol that's activated from anxiety and stress. It's really good to move your body, go for a walk, go for a run. Something like depression may actually lead us to kind of get really. Or grief, get really, really slow and feel really, really bogged down. And moving your body can help shift some of that energy of that bogged down, heavy grief to start to kind of move you out into the world a little bit. They call it behavioral activation and psychology. And it's one of the really most effective treatments for something like depression is exercise, but also just getting out and about in your life. Get up, take a shower, go for a walk, walk your dog, you know, meet someone for coffee. So getting moving can be really helpful for that. The one emotion that we do, you know, sort of are careful with in terms of movement, because there's been some research on this, is extreme anger. Something like punching a punching bag or a pillow actually makes anger worse. And if you have an anger management problem, it's not a good idea to go and like pound a wall. It's just gonna activate some of that anger. And that would be something where we would, in psychology, we would do opposite to emotion action. We actually would say, like, step back a little bit. If you feel like you're about to explode with anger, especially if you're gonna harm someone, that's when you step out of the situation.
- [37:52]
B
Does that include rage as well? Would you include rage under that as well?
- [37:55]
A
Okay, yeah.
- [37:55]
B
So for rage and anger, you might try to slow down instead of speeding up. Depression. It makes sense that it's almost the opposite. Right. Depression is just a slowing down or depression of the body and mind. But going for a walk, it's so interesting. I always. I'm always blown away by if I'm ever feeling anxious, what a walk around the block does for my. My hopelessness, my feeling that things are not going the way that I want. After the. After the walk, some miraculous. I'm like, I can handle. I can handle today. I can do it. And it's just a silly little five minute, you know, maybe seven minutes if I'm taking it a Little slower around the block walk, but just that five minutes of blood flow, little bit of motor cortex. It's unbelievable what that does for when I'm having very stressful days or I'm feeling anxious or I'm feeling scared, fearful. Any of those emotions.
- [38:50]
A
Yeah, you know, I think there's the physiology of it that we none of us can argue against. The physiology of blood flow and BDMF and all the good things that happen in your body endorphins when you move. But there's also another really important component which is you're getting out of yourself. You know, when you are out and walking in nature, you may see a big tree, you may see a big sky, you may see a big mountain, you may feel the elements of the world around you. And what happens sometimes when we're kind of narrowed down in our like story and selfing and all focuses on us, whether it's self criticism or other criticism or just like getting into the nitty gritty of whatever thing that we're feeling that emotion around, having that expansive awareness of going outside, walking the block connect, you know, seeing another human out there potentially or being with your dog expands you into a wiser self. Which is I, I believe is also part of the sort of our wise effort. Is, is there a bigger self than this small self with a little tiny s. It's a big self. It's me as interconnected to a world, it's me as interconnected to other people, to nature, to the wisdom of my body. And I also think that as we age we, we kind of see that bigger self a little bit more. We can step into that bigger self a little bit more than, you know, especially when we're like in our 20s and 30s, we live a little bit more from the smaller self. We see that in the, you know, 20 and 30 year olds out there. So that's also one of the benefits. It's not, it's not all hopelessness as we age. I actually think, and we do know this from the research, that women in their 60s and 70s are happier, that there's, there's actually a happiness dip in the 30s and 40s and then there's a happiness incline in the 50s, 60s and 70s because we're moving more into that expansive wise self and we care a little bit less about the little stuff.
- [40:41]
B
You know, it's almost, it's almost like. And again, I don't know if these are psychological, proper psychological terms, but I almost feel like there's like an alter ego that we can start Developing here, like we always talk about in psychology, I always hear terms like talking to your inner child or family systems, and those are all wonderful. To be able to create an archetype of baby Stephie who never got what she wanted when she was younger, or baby Diana, who never got what she wanted. And then why? Some of our maybe primal drivers or our behaviors now are predicated on some of the needs that weren't met in that younger version of ourselves. But what I'm hearing you talk about when we're talking about this wise energy is this archetypal wise older woman, you know, this woman with, I mean, at least I imagine her with like, long, flowing white hair in like a moo moo and like, you know, and she has wrinkles and she has a gentle smile and like, really cultivating that relationship potentially with our wise older self and asking her, maybe drawing on that energy instead of, as you were just mentioning, like, you know, 20s and 30s energy, which is. Can be a little bit. Well, I mean, I was an idiot when I was in my 20s, so I'll just say that with love. But is. Is that, is that kind of close to the concept? Is, is it, is that an alter ego, would you say? Is that the proper terminology?
- [42:04]
A
Yeah, well, there's. There's a good l sort of line of research now looking at what's called compassion based approaches or compassion focused approaches. And part of compassion based approaches is to be able to identify, like, a compassionate version of you that is, I mean, some would say, like, could be the divine mother, the, you know, the wise elder. It could be a spiritual, you know, figure that you feel like you kind of connect to. It could be nature, it could be all sorts of things. But imagining that, you know, sometimes I'll do this exercise where I'll be like, okay, imagine that you're looking through the eyes of, like, the. The wisest, smartest, most clear seeing person that you know. And imagine that your, you know, your back is the strongest woman that you know. And imagine that your heart is coming from, like, the most loving person that you know. And then you get to embody that. Right? So it could be this, you know, woman with gray hair and flowing, you know, that's your version of a wise self that you could draw upon. But it could also be just a. Maybe a good friend or a spiritual figure or someone in the media who you really like.
- [43:15]
B
Wow.
- [43:15]
A
I mean, I think about, like, Michelle Obama, like, if I had an ounce of her strength and, you know, her spine and her backbone and her courage If I could embody that when I go into another scientific panel like the one I was on, wouldn't that be awesome? Wouldn't I be a badass, like sitting, like, could I sit like Michelle Obama and embody her right now? So we all have that capacity to take on wisdom and to embody it and live from it. And you are like a tuning fork. So whoever it is, whatever energy it is that you pick up on, you're like, that's, that's kind of the thing that I want. You can, you can be that. And in psychology it's a lot less about like feeling confident and therefore acting confident. It's actually like embodying confidence, acting confident, being that way. And then it feeds back into your brain a feeling of confidence. So we can, we can definitely do that with a compassionate version of ourselves. Or who would be your wisest version? What compilation of people? If you were to put em all together, would you put together to be a wisest self? And then could you embody that in your life?
- [44:23]
B
The other, the other point I wanted your thoughts and expansion on is I think that a lot of women, at least I hear this in my community that they have, we'll say a love hate relationship with aging. Obviously aging is a privilege. You know, the alternative is not being here. So we want to be here. But aging is difficult, right? There's kind of back to that grief conversation like we're losing hormone function, you know, in the physiologic, you know, it's like ovarian function and we're seeing more fine lines and wrinkles and body composition shifts that we are maybe not loving. So how can we maybe shift our self image and the acceptance of, of all that is aging and embody more of this powerful wise self that you're describing. Ladies, if you are waking up drenched in sweat at 2 in the morning, or you're just waking up like you didn't sleep well, this is for you. 80% of women in menopause deal with hot flashes. And 100% of women have changes in the quality of their sleep in midlife. I have been using eight sleep pod and it has without a shadow of a doubt changed my life. It automatically adjusts the temperature overnight to allow for deep restorative sleep. When your body's heating up, the pod can instantly cool it down even more so that you can sleep through hot flash. And there's even a mode where you can just tap the bed for instant cooling. I used to overheat under my covers. I throw them off and then I get cold and then I try to find them again. And that cycle will repeat over and over and over again. My sleep was restless and I woke up feeling bagged. I have been using the eight Sleep now for two years and I wake up feeling actually rested. And bonus, I don't have to have a wrestling match with my covers anymore and I'm not dragging my feet through the day. What's more is I can customize the bed for my side and my husband can customize the bed for his. 8 Sleep is clinically shown to reduce hot flashes by over 50%. And they are working with researchers to actually study how women sleep and build the tech around that. Pod 5 is their newest generation of their signature product. It's a smart mattress cover that you just place on top of your existing mattress. It automatically regulates your body temperature throughout the night independently for each side. So the result is up to one hour of glorious additional quality sleep per night. In the latest model Pod 5, it introduces a blanket. So the Pod 5 blanket uses the same tech as the mattress cover to extend that temperature regulation now across the entire body, not just on the mattress surface side. So we don't have to crank up the air conditioner anymore. We're just using the blanket to give us 360 degrees of temperature regulation. If you're going through menopause perimenopause or you're just struggling with sleep, you have to try this. And if you or your partner is a snorer, the POD can also detect that. So if you're snoring through chest vibrations, it'll automatically adjust the position of the bed to reduce or completely stop the snoring. Head over to 8sleep.com Dr. Stephanie and use the code Dr. Stephanie and you're going to get $350 off of your pod for 5 Ultra. The best part is that you get 30 days to try it at home. And if you don't like it, you'll return it, no questions asked. Shipping to many countries worldwide. See details@8sleep.com doctors I think a big.
- [47:50]
A
Source of that frustration is going back to that expectation of the rope burn of things aren't going to change and I'm going to hold too tight to things not to things not changing. And the attachment, you know, attachment to being a certain way, looking a certain way, my skin being a certain way will cause suffering. Whatever you are attached to again, everything you love, you will lose. It will cause suffering if you hold too tight. So how do we hold it? Loosely and with love and with appreciation. You know, sometimes I'll in a session between parents and like if there's a family therapy session. I don't know if you had to do family therapy when you were a teenager, but it's like torture for these poor kids. Family therapy with your parents. And what I, well, I instruct the parents to do is to look at their child like that. They are sunset. And whatever color you're seeing right now is the color of this child's experience in the sunset. And the guarantee is the sun is going down. And you could say that with yourself. You know, whatever lines or wrinkles you see in your face right now or whatever body composition change you're seeing, this is this coloring of the sunset of you. And it's going to change, it's going to continue to change. But could you appreciate it as a sunset? Not necessarily as a problem to be solved or as something to hold on to and say, okay, no, I have to keep it this, that, you know, that feeling like when it like you're, you get, you know, some new thing on your face and you're like, okay, if I can just preserve it. Don't want to get any worse. You know, as soon as you're in that spot, then all of a sudden you're attached again. And it will be suffering when it changes. And I'm not saying like don't use the skin creams and don't do the things to take care of your body and in, in all of that. But be careful about how tight you're holding on to all of this because there will be a direct relationship between how much you suffer and how tight you hold on to things staying the same. The folks that I see that age really well are ones that invest in their energy into things that are life affirming, values based, connected to what brings them the most vitality. And you'll see this, you know, like people that take up painting classes or that I write about in Wise Effort about this. Friends that have been walking, you know, they're in their 70s and they've been walking together along the beach since they were 30 years old. And how their conversations have changed over the years, but their connection as friends has just only strengthened. That's a great thing to invest in. And their walk has changed. Maybe they're, they've been slower, maybe the time's been injured, maybe they're, you know, not going up the same hill anymore, but their friendship is stronger. Those are places where you want to focus your attention and your energy because that will make you Feel a greater sense of vitality, ease, comfort over time. When you're holding on to things that are changing, it will make you feel more pain over time.
- [50:58]
B
Let's talk a little bit about, in the book you talk about reclaiming pleasure and creativity, just talking about values based on. Explain to us how these are also worth our time, effort and energy as well. I think that for a lot of women, again back to, you know, we could talk about the physiological changes and sexual, you know, sex hormones dropping and maybe there's libido and you know, sexuality and sensuality is very complex and layered. And I do think that the time invested in whether it's sensuality, pleasure, creativity, I think these are also things that are value based decisions that can fill your cup up. Talk to us a little bit about why this is wise energy as well.
- [51:45]
A
Well, there's many different levels. I mean I think at one level you could look at it sort of on the physiological level. Martin Picard, who's out of Columbia, did a study where he looked at highly stressed mothers. So mothers who were 90 mothers who were taking care of kids with autism and looked at their mitochondria. So mitochondria are sort of the powerhouses of your cell that also are the measure, the things that turn your food into energy. And when you have high functioning mitochondria, you have more energy. And those mothers that experienced more reported higher levels of joy at the end of their day. Even despite the spirit, stress showed better mitochondrial functioning. Right. So even at the cellular level, if you are focusing your attention and energy, even under times of stress, towards things that bring you joy, if you have something to look forward to at the end of your day, it will show up in, in how you feel energetically. And that is in part an attentional shift. Where are you placing your attention? So at any moment in time you can place your attention on stressors and on things that you're dreading and on how, on thoughts that helpful or you can place your attention on things that are pleasurable and creative and bringing you a sense of hope and maybe even just a sense of. In this moment, in any moment in time, no matter, no matter where you are, there is something to appreciate. There is something to appreciate and that can shift our energy in terms of pleasure. I think it's very, it's just part of our human experience in terms of vitality and feeling good in our lives to not have to work, to have pleasure, but pleasure as a birthright to have pleasure in our bodies. Whether that's just for Me, there's just little things that I have that I take pleasure in. My husband roasts coffee, and my first cup of coffee, like, I take the time to make it. Everyone's into the oat milk, but I'm still an almond milk girl. To make the most amazing almond milk latte for myself in my favorite cup. It's not even like I have like the cup of all the cups out there that I give to, it's a big round one with little red polka dots on it. And I love this cup and it feels the ceramic in my hands. And I take the time every morning to have that pleasurable experience in silence. I practice noble silence every. Every morning. It is pleasurable. I have two teenage boys. I have a loud house. I have sports equipment everywhere. I have loud music and bouncing balls. I wake up before everyone and I have my special almond milk latte. And I have my little space where I journal. And I have my little flowers behind me in my. My living room because it brings me pleasure to have fresh flowers in the room. And that bit can change how I show up for my kids when they wake up in the morning. Right? So it's not only pleasure isn't only about us. It's also the transmission of energy. When you experience more joy, when you experience more creativity, when you experience more pleasure in your life, then you also give off a different energetic vibe. And what we know about energy is that it's an exchange. It's not just about you having good energy. It's also about you sending out good energy and being in good energy flow with other people. So pleasure is a big, I think, a big part of that and something that we neglect. I think as women, we think of it as something like we have to earn or it's like selfish or all sorts of things around pleasure, even just pleasure around eating, we feel guilty pleasure, you know, but actually, if you are eating in a way that is pleasurable, you probably will end up eating less because you'll actually feel satisfied. You're enjoying the pleasure of the food.
- [55:28]
B
Yeah, I love this conversation around pleasure because I think that to your point, I think it's something that a lot of women feel like they have to earn. Oh, I was a good girl. So I get rewarded versus embodying pleasure in all of the smaller moments, like your polka dot ceramic cup with your freshly roasted cup of coffee. It could be. I too share. I just will take like a garden flower if I don't have, you know, if I don't have a big fancy bouquet in in the. In the home, it's just like, I'll snip something from the garden and I'll bring it into the kitchen. But just little moments like that. Or for me, I. I like a skincare routine in the evening. I like to take my makeup off, and I like to do my little gua sha stuff and like, all my little skin things. It gives me a lot of. It makes me really happy to do that. And I think that when you are giving to yourself, I mean, it's cliche, but, like, when you're giving to yourself, you have more capacity to give to others. And I think for women, you know, I'm in the same boat as you have teenage boys. There's literally soccer balls. I'm dodging soccer balls in my house at all times. We don't keep anything out because they're definitely going to get knocked over. It is really important to take moments, however small, inexpensive or brief they may be, to give to myself just a little bit in the time that I can. Yeah.
- [56:44]
A
Creativity is another one that I think we think of as secondary. We think of these as, like, these are the extracurricular activities. After you've done all of your school work, then maybe you get to take an art class, if you're lucky. Right. They're the things that get excluded first in our, you know, public school system, but then also we abide by that in our lives. And I've really started to reclaim creativity in this exploration of energy and effort and creativity in all forms. Like there, like, there's creativity in picking a flower. There's creativity in cooking. There's creativity. And I've really gotten into making new playlists and learning about new music. This is actually the great thing about teenagers. Ask them about what kind of music they're listening to and open your mind to that and listen to some of their music. There's, like, creativity there. We're all stuck in the stuff that we listen to in our college years. But one of the things that I started doing recently is poetry. I really got into. Speaking of grief, I really got into this poet, Rosemary Trommer, who. She wrote this book called the Unfolding holding of Poetry, after her son took his life, her teenage son took his life. And I started reading her book at night because I was so sick of scrolling on my phone at night. And then I'm too exhausted to read a book. So I'm like, poetry is about right? Like, I could read a poem or two. And I interviewed her on my podcast, and she. She taught me this Technique that now I've been doing in the morning, which is so fabulous. And I recommend it's a little creativity wise effort with poetry technique. What you do in your journal is you pick a word, any word. Like today you could say fatigue. Maybe you're feeling low fatigue. And then you pick an object that you can see in your room. So like, for example, I have one of these light switches on my wall. It's one of those flat switches that you can push on and off. And then you write a poem using that word and that object and how they represent each other. So you could say something like. And it always starts with today my blank is. So today my fatigue is like a light switch that's stuck on, off. I want to go press it on, but it feels really far away. And I'm sitting here on the floor stuck here and I can't reach it. And my fatigue is just off. Everything is a little bit dimmer than I want it to be. Or even how I remember it today is my fatigue is a light switch on, off. Right. So you could write anything like that and it becomes a way of expressing yourself creatively in your journal or using writing to express a feeling. And then I've been doing this thing where I've been writing things, like I've been writing love things to my kids and sending them a little, little poem like, you know, so there's many forms of creativity, art, dance, music, writing that maybe we did when we were 4 and 5 or 10, but we haven't gotten back to. And I really recommend, I think perimenopause and menopause is the time to let it out. Start exploring that side of yourself again and you'll feel a lot of vitality. And you may also connect with some of those emotions that have become heightened in a different way during this time.
- [59:46]
B
So you mentioned art, dance, music, writing. I think that there's. I've talked about this a couple years ago actually on the podcast, not recently. But this idea of creating a joy list, like, what are some things maybe more expensive all the way to not expensive. Some are some things that bring you joy. So back to that pleasure conversation. I think that there's also maybe room here to expand that and say, what are. What's on your creative list? Like maybe it's cooking, maybe it's learning how to do a winged eyeliner or you know, whatever, you know, makeup or some type of, you know, whatever. As you said, music, like making a new playlist on Spotify. And you're right, we do list to the exact same music that we did.
- [60:26]
A
Send it to a friend when we were.
- [60:27]
B
Yeah.
- [60:28]
A
And part of creativity is what creativity do you admire in somebody else? So do you. Do you look at somebody else's clothes and you're like, wow, they have such a great, you know, great earrings all the time. Or do you love somebody else's design? Or do you love the way that somebody else talks? Or do you love, you know, whatever it is? What on Instagram, do you love how somebody else writes? And that, again, we're tuning forks. So if you think about you are tuning into that which you value or that which you want to embody. And if you turn that energy around and be like, okay, so how am I going to bring creativity into my design? Or how am I going to bring creativity? I think there's creativity and minimalism. I really admire the folks that can, like, narrow it down, streamline. They call it saucha in yoga. Get really, like, clean, clear, streamlined in their. Whatever it is in their fridge, in their closet, in their house. There's a lot of creativity in that. So whatever it is that you're picking up on, that can be something that you can start to live out and embody. And that's a wise use of your effort. Because what you will notice is that when you engage in creativity, you get a little bit of an energy boost. As long as you can get over yourself and the story that you have about it being. Being bad or the critic or, you know, all that kind of stuff. And you just let the energy flow into a creative force. Whether it's in the dance or the music or the clothes, you'll feel a little boost of energy for. Create from creativity.
- [62:00]
B
I love that. And it also kind of gets into this idea of desires, right? So if you're on Instagram, you're like, wow, I really love the way that woman's earrings are, or the way this other woman styles her home, or this creative drawing that somebody did. If you're really drawn to those things, it's probably an indication that there's some desire for you to also experience that. Maybe it's the exact same way. Maybe it's a variation of it that you. That you can personalize and make your own. But I think a lot of women, myself included, for many years, really ignored my desires. Like, the things that I was really attracted to. I'm like, that's not important. What's important is the accolade, the degree, the clinic, the this, this, this. And for. I'll give you an example. I Am. I've always been obsessed with language languages. And I love, love, love the way that grammar and syntax and the way that different, you know, Italian and Portuguese are very similar. And it's like how they. How sometimes you might use a V versus a B, you know, for example, between, like, Italian and Portuguese. So I love that. But I always thought that that was such a silly. I was like, ugh, languages, whatever, you know. But now part of my, you know, you mentioned your coffee, so I'll just share mine very quickly. I love to have a cappuccino in the morning, and I usually do my duolingo, which is just an app that you do, like, language learning on. And I will do my French, the Portuguese. I'll do my Italian, like, all the ones that I love. And it's just such a. I love starting my day like that. It's my little morning ritual, like you said, before the boys get up before breakfast has to. The soccer balls and the soccer bags and all the things have to be packed. That's the. That's. That's. That's the thing for me. And I think tuning into your desires, the things that you admire in other people, but also just what you're attracted to. Are you attracted to tennis? Are you. Are you finding yourself, you know, wanting to get involved in pickleball, for example? I'm using my own examples here. Usually it's an indication that that's something that lives within you that you haven't maybe attended to yet.
- [63:52]
A
Yeah, that's your unique genius. And then you can see how it goes underground because you don't value it or you think, oh, that's. Oh, that's the language. That's just the languages. Those are, again, those are the extracurricular activities. Except for folks that speak multiple languages, Score higher on empathy, score higher on perspective taking, are able to actually have more creative solutions to things because they can see them from many different points of view. And then talk about keeping neuronal connections growing and alive as you age because you're doing something that's hard when you're learning a language. I have the same thing about. I love calligraphy. I used to love you. Go back to, like, when you were a kid. What did you love? I loved the feeling of a paintbrush and dipping into a big paint and swiping across the page. And I've been doing this deep dive into Chinese calligraphy. And if you look into, like, kanji and the. The Chinese words for things, how they put these two symbols together to meet. So, like, something like energy. I look, what is, what is the Chinese word, you know, chi, for energy? It's the symbol for rice with the symbol for steam over it. Because it's the steam that transforms the rice into something that is nourished, nourishing, and that you can actually use. And that's what energy is. It's a transformative power that's invisible. Right? So I've been like super geeking out on all of these Chinese words. The symbol for clarity is the sun and the moon put together. You think about the feminine, the masculine, that lights up the sky and we have clarity. So beautiful. And again, something that I would have written off is like, oh, that's not important. Why would you even go into that? Because it's interesting. And then it becomes a teaching point and also a deepening of my understanding of concepts. So it's creativity allows for all of that to start to happen. And actually what we find later on in our, I think our careers is we actually become deeper, wiser, more sophisticated in what we're teaching and we're learning and we're expressing. Whether you are an accountant or a podcaster, because of these creative pursuits, they actually enhance your work and your offerings.
- [65:56]
B
All right, friends, how many of these symptoms are you currently dealing with? Bloating, indigestion or reflux? New food sensitivities that's popped out of nowhere? Leaky gut? Autoimmune flares, post antibiotic issues, or mold exposure? Or just gut problems that never fully go away? Now ask yourself, did these symptoms get worse around perimenopause? If they did, I promise you are not imagining it as estrogen and progesterone decline. They will affect profoundly gut health like motility, microbiome balance, and your gut barrier. That is why so many women in perimenopause suddenly struggle with gut issues that didn't bother them before. When your gut lining is weakened or it's inflamed, it disrupts nutrient absorption, it ramps up inflammation and even worsens hormonal symptoms. Because gut health is directly tied to hormone detoxification, your ability to produce energy, your mood, and your immunity. So that's the bad news. The good news is that you can totally repair your gut with peptides. Level Up Health has formulated the most powerful gastrointestinal healing product, Ultimate GI Repair. It is a clinical grade formula designed to rebuild your gut barrier and calm inflammation from the inside out using peptides like BPC157 and GHK Copper. These are very powerful peptides that rapidly repair the Gut lining lorazatide, which is another peptide that seals leaky gut and improves barrier integrity. Then you have other compounds like zinc, L, carnosine and tributerin. These are things that will soothe inflammation and support digestion. And then quercetin and sodium bicarbonate. These will enhance nutrient absorption and gut resilience. This product, Ultimate GI Repair, is designed to target the root cause of gut issues and it will help heal and protect your digestive system so that you can feel your best whether your symptoms are tied to perimenopause chronic stress. Hello, that would be me. Or past gut issues. Ultimate GI Repair will give your body the ingredients it needs to finally heal. Head over to leveluphealth.com that's L V L U-P-H-E-A-L-T-H.com and use code Dr. Stephanie to get get 15% off of the entire website. That's L V L-U-P H-E-A L-D.com and use code Dr. STEPHANIE at checkout. So what does maybe you can give a personal example or examples of of clients or patients that you worked with. What does wise effort look like on a day to day basis? So you know your life, you've given a couple of examples of how things are very loud, maybe chaotic, busy. How do we make wise choices that honor our genius energy that we've been talking about, our essence that can infuse our desires? Fun, playfulness, lightness. What does that look like on a, you know, if we're talking about action items or takeaways, Big takeaways for the audience listening. How does wise energy show up in midlife which is a very busy full time of our lives.
- [69:06]
A
Yeah. Well, I think Wise Effort actually just did a whole energy audit on my podcast of look, doing like a full energy audit across your life. And there were four things that I asked people to ask themselves and these would be four things that would link to wise effort. The force. The first thing is to ask yourself throughout your day, is this a whole body yes or a whole body no or somewhere in between. And when you have somebody's asking you to do something, someone's saying, you know, someone asked me the other day, do you want to get together on Wednesday after work to go do this thing? And my whole body said no. I was like no. For whatever reason I'm having a whole body no right now. You listen to that. So that's one thing around Wise effort is you start to tune in and listen to the wisdom of your body when you're making your meal. Is it a whole body yes or a whole body no? When you're deciding on what you're gonna do for your movement for today, like tuning more into. If you look at my movement practices across the week, someday, some mornings I'm doing like full on hit training, hitting it hard. Sometimes I. Some days I'm like walking out on along the hillside and just like listen to my favorite song, right? So whole body yeses and whole body knows. The second thing to check in around throughout your day is am I using my genius? Am I using my strengths? Am I doing what comes easily to me in my life, whether it's using my strengths in my parenting? So again, my strengths are emotional sensitivity. Am I using that in my parenting? Am I, am I allowing enough space for my emotional sensitivity to step in here or in my work or in my podcasting conversation with Stephanie, like, am I, is that emotional sensitivity showing up? So we ask that. And then what are my values in this moment? What's important to me? How do I want to show up? What do I want to stand for? And are my actions reflected in what I want to stamp or my values? So checking with my body, checking with my strengths, checking with my values. And our values can show up moment to moment in our day. How we walk into a room, how we drive our car, how we interact with somebody in the grocery store, whether or not we yell at our kid for leaving the peanut butter on the counter, how do we address the peanut butter situation and the smoothie that they left out? Do we address it through values or address it through rage? And then the last part that I think is also very important part of why it's effort and something that I write about quite a bit in the book is our how am I impacting others? How? What about second bodies? What about the greater whole? And that it's not just about me, it's about we. Whether it's my household or my community or the greater planet that I am part of, my contributing in a way and conscious of impact and connection to a greater whole. So those four things check in with your body, check in with your genius and strengths, check in with your values, and check in with a greater whole. And when you are doing that throughout your day, then you will start to feel a little bit more energy, a little bit more aligned, a little bit more like you're contributing the best parts of you. And it doesn't matter as much of whether or not you've got crow's feet or, you know, it's like, yeah, okay. I mean, yeah, that's all part of it, but that's not the whole of it.
- [72:10]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Well said, Dana. You did not disappoint. I am so happy we had you back on the show. Where can people find you, where can people find your book if they want to find out more about you and your work?
- [72:21]
A
Wiseeffort.com, that's my website. Wise Effort book, if you want to go straight to the book. And I also have a podcast called Wise Effort. So that's, that's where it's all at is under Wise Effort.
- [72:32]
B
Thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate you.
- [72:34]
A
Thank you.
- [72:37]
B
All right, friends, welcome to the after party where I tell you the highlights, the low lights, the things I like, things I didn't like about my conversation with my guest and the after party. As you know, if it's your first time listening, that is my is pretty much what I'm calling menopause. It is the after party. It's where we like who doesn't want to be invited to the after party. So here is your after party for the podcast. So this is, this is a great conversation with Diana. It's her second time on the show. She was first on the show, if you recall, with Katie Bowman, talking about Nutritious. Well, we were talking about movement and why we some of the excuses that we have around movement. And this is, this was different. This was more a deep dive into what I suspect is Diana's body of work in her clinical life. And a couple things I really, really loved. I think my favorite conversation, if you're watching it on video, you probably saw me getting a little teary eyed, was the conversation around grief and how grief shows up not just when we lose, you know, people that we love from death or disease, but it's losing anything that you thought was important. And obviously in the conversation we were, I was thinking, sharing about my grieving of the changing of relationships with my kids. And I loved how she was talking about there are different types of grief. So there's grief for the parts of ourselves that haven't been loved and loved properly. There's grief for things that we wanted but we never received. There's, you know, the known love that, you know, everything that you know and love is going to be taken from you. So these are all examples of grief. And I, I mean, even just simply knowing that I'm not the only person going through it in a very selfish way was comforting. But I just think that it's such a valuable conversation for women to be having. Because there's something like I always say, this ain't no hood. Like motherhood. It is such exquisite pain knowing that every stage of life with your child, as they move and progress to another stage of life, you are losing the previous stage, right? And you know, motherhood starts with you going down and picking up babies from the floor, and then it ends with you sort of looking up. And now my 14 year old is like 6 foot 1. So I look up to see him and he's bigger and stronger and taller than I am. So maybe my favorite part was, was our conversation on grief. And I think later on in the conversation, we were talking about pleasure and creativity and doing an energy audit. Maybe my second favorite part of the conversation. I don't think women prioritize pleasure in the way that maybe we should for our own vitality, for our own peace of mind, or even just showing ourselves that we matter. And I think that we think about pleasure. Whenever you hear the word pleasure, I think that, that the instant association with that is sexual or sensual or sensuality. And that's fine. Of course, that is a form of pleasure. But I really liked Diana's description of her big ceramic cup with the, with the polka dots on it. I think that there are little moments for pleasure in our life that if we just take those little mini vacations, we go and have this beautiful cup of coffee in the morning before the house wakes up. Or, you know, you just go and you cut a, a rose from the garden and bring it in, put it in a glass, and you know that's your bouquet of roses, let's say. Little moments like that, I think, are an opportunity where you can seed some beautiful energy from it. So loved that. And then the energy audit. Oh, God. Like I wrote down these four questions. Is it a whole body? Yes, no, or maybe am I using my genius? Am I acting in accordance with my values and what's important to me? And am I using my strengths? And how am I impacting others? It's not just me, it's we. I love those questions. And those are probably gonna become journal prompts for me as well. And I think the whole conversation really just around, you know, perimenopause some of the changes, trying so hard not to hold on to this idea that everything is going to stay the same. I mean, that is the essence of life. It's like everything is going to change. And the more you try to hold on to staying the same, the more you're going to suffer. I thought that that was a really maybe brutal truth, but something that I think the faster that you're able to embrace that, the happier and freer you'll be. So that was, that was my big, my big couple of takeaways from my conversation with her. I think that her genius is really that she's emotionally exquisitely sensitive and is able to really relay a lot of very difficult topics in a way that is compassionate and kind. And so I really appreciated that about her. What did you like? What was the. What were your big takeaways? I want to hear from you. You can read, you can leave a comment on, on Spotify, you can leave a review on Apple, what you thought. We always are checking those and helps direct our content, lets us know if we are doing right by you. And so I hope that I see some of those comments on today's episode. So until next time, I bid you adieu. All right, all right. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and I must give you the obligatory legal and medical disclaimer here. This podcast, better with Darwin Dr. Stephany, is for general information only and the advice recommendations we discuss do not replace medicine, chiropractic or any other primary health care provider's advice, treatment or care in the consumption of this podcast. There is no doctor patient relationship that has been formed and the use and implementation of the information discussed are at the sole discretion of the listener. The information and opinions shared on this podcast are not intended to be a substitute for primary care diagnosis or treatment. In other words, guys, be smart about this. Take it with a grain of salt. Take this information to your primary health care provider and have a discussion with him or her to make the best choice. That is for you. Remember, I am a doctor, but I am not your doctor and these conversations are meant for educational purposes only.