Why Relationships Change in Midlife: Menopause, Awakening & the Marriage Reset with Jillian Turecki

If you are somewhere in your 40s, 50s, 60s are beyond, and you felt like your body is changing, your brain is foggy, your moods are all over the place. Here's what I want you to know. You are not alone. So many of us experience this as we move into our postmenopausal years. So for starters, you're not broken. Just keep in mind that because you're going through a transformation and like any phenomenal transformation, it's really important to have a guide, not guesswork. So this is why I created what I call my reset academy. It's a really cool group of online women from all over the world where we come together to learn how to fast for hormones, how to eat for our brain, how to understand the behavioral changes that are going on with us, and to really give women an opportunity to feel at home in both their bodies and their brains again. In the reset academy, we do many live calls, we do lots of challenges together, we have monthly programs, and you have an incredible community that is built not only from me and my team of coaches, but from women who have been in the academy for years that have read my books, done my videos, listened to my podcast, and are working on making themselves the best version they can possibly be. So if you're looking for that community support, if you're wanting to lean into more knowledge, get off of the socials and into a really cool live community, come join me inside my reset academy. You can go to resetacademy.dotdoctormidipels.com and find all the ways you can sign up there. I will tell you my absolute favorite thing we do in this community are the Saturday morning coffee chats where two Saturdays a month you will find me not only working out with you all, but leading you through whatever is burning on my heart and opening up community discussion around how as women we can use our metapuzzle experience to come together and how we can use it to not only better ourselves, but better everyone around us. So excited to see you inside my reset academy. Okay Jillian Tarecki, I feel like I have been talking to you on Instagram for years now. You just don't know it because I'm speaking it out loud every time I see a real of yours. I'm like, yes, that's it. I love it. It really a joy for me to have you here. So welcome to my botgast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute honor. I have fast like a girl. I'm so excited to be here. I'm driving up. Okay, if you ever need help, you know what I know where to find you. Yeah, so you have an express pass to my brain if you would like it. Oh, it's so sweet. My question. Let me tell you why I called you here and I really want my audience to know this too, is that one of the things I love about your style is it's I would call it very no nonsense. You say it like it is and I think in relationships we often lie to ourselves, especially as women. And whenever I see your reals, I'm like, oh, man, isn't that true? And what I see with my audience and what I really want to have a deep conversation about is that you have women who are going through this massive life change where their hormones are changing, their behaviors. Maybe they gave their whole life over to their family and now their kids are grown. And they're coming in. I really think a woman's really deeply steps into her power as she moves through menopause. And that power, that place of awakening actually I feel is contributing to the divorce rate and these new trends that we're hearing like the gray divorce. And I don't think it's a marital problem. I think there's something going on in the relationship when a woman finally stands up for herself and I may be wrong. So that's why I got you here is help us understand what a healthy 25, 30 year relationship looks like. And how do we get women to really stand in their power and be their authentic selves without destroying the whole relationship? Okay, so this is a big topic. So when you think about the woman who's like, you know, 45 to 65 years old, let's just say that sort of, um, Perry menopausal, menopausal postmenopausal stage of life. And she's been in a relationship or married for long, you know, over 10 years, let's say, um, or more. And many of these women have children so much of what women are what we're conditioned to do in a relationship. And and and part of this is biological that we are just nurtures more by nature. Mm-hmm. Is women tends to put, we tend to put everyone's needs before or oh yeah. And there's a really interesting research that, um, Alice and Armstrong has talked about, which is that women as opposed to men have something called diffuse awareness. And diffuse awareness is we are taking in our environment in a way that men are not. So like we'll be in a room filled with people and we will like notice what like the person crying in the corner, what someone's feeling over there. What's, you know, and obviously there's different levels of this, but our capacity for just like taking things in in our environment and part of part of that, the research suggests is the role of estrogen in the body. But there's also research to suggest that it's also because, you know, it's like where do we draw the line between conditioning biology basically. But there's also just that women we have to, we are aware of our safety or lack thereof in a way that men are not. Yep. And so because we are always taking everything in and compounded to that is that on top of that is we feel, we then feel responsible for others. I have it that women have is putting themselves last. Yep. And so when you have a woman who's been someone's wife for many, many years and someone's mother for many, many years, when she reaches the stage of life, it's sort of like, you know, the why the wisdom stage of life, like this next chapter where she's not old, she's not elderly, but she's old, her right. And it's like, so what is the stage of life? She often has a reckoning where it's it's not a midlife crisis, but it is a sort of mid to you know, a little bit past midlife reckoning of where am I in all this? And what do I actually want? What are the needs that have been unfulfilled in my life? And often what happens is then she thinks, you know, well, my spouse can no longer meet my needs. And also she's learning how to become an advocate for her needs because she doesn't want to just be mommy and wife. She wants to find herself. I put that in big quotation marks. Yes. So it's really about helping her understand that that that probably what she's needing at this stage of life is more significance because she's made everyone else more significant than herself. She's needing more significance. She's needing more just an understanding of who she is. And oftentimes women then get into this, you know, there's this funny trend on social media right now that I don't care club that I do. Yeah, yeah, that we do not care. Yeah, that's gone very viral. So there's very much like, well, I just don't care. Like I'm exhausted. Now it's about me, which is incredibly empowering, but can also be incredibly destructive in her relationship. So it's about teaching her or helping her understand how to honor that, how to be like, this is what I need and not to shy away from that, but also learning how to give yourself that. So what does that mean? That might mean, okay, I actually need more alone time. Yes. And I didn't need that much alone time before or I suppressed that need, but I do need more alone time. Yeah, it could mean I want to, I want to learn how to write. I want to learn how to paint. You know, there's other parts of her that need to be expressed. Exactly. Now how that become, that how that can potentially become complicated in a marriage is is she's needing she's needing to connect to these parts of herself that have been long lost or long suppressed. And she's needing to meet her needs for greater significance. Like who am I? You know, I want to feel significant now in my own life and to others. And then you might actually have what's interesting is that as a man, let's say she's in a relationship with a man as he gets older, he's probably more established in his purpose and his career. So he's looking more to connect. Interesting. And she's looking more to individuate. Yes, that that that that that was on. Yeah, it totally resonates with what I felt and with what my friends and our audience is that it's almost like the woman is moving away and the man wants to move into connection more and the woman wants to move out of connection more. And it's interesting because so my new book age like a girl, I've actually spent over a decade researching this book. And I think that the neurochemical shifts that happened to women as they go through menopause starts to take us out of what I would call or what Lisa Misconi, who is the top female brain researcher, calls it a relational brain where a woman brings her right hemisphere and her left hemisphere to every single decision. So she's always thinking about the relationship. And the connection between two of hemispheres is the corpus colosum, which gets ignited by estrogen. So when estrogen comes in during puberty, a female's brain goes into this relational place where she's always thinking through the lens of how do I take care of everybody just like you said. But like, how do I get chosen all of it? Yeah, all of it. Like, oh, you want me to look this way? Oh, you want to behave this way? The relationship is the highest value. That's right. But when estrogen goes away, what happens is the brain rewires itself. And it rewires itself for more independence, exactly what you just said. And combine that, I love what you just said. I am literally convinced that women become more intuitive, more psychic, more sensitive as we move into our aging years. So when we, I love what you said, when we walk into a room and we sense something's off, it can set into our whole nervous system into a sympathetic reaction. And now cortisol is high. And maybe it's your husband sitting on the couch. And he's not doing, he's not doing what you want to do. But all of a sudden, you walked into that room. He didn't even say anything. And your whole nervous system is flared up. And or your dad, or you sensed your kid, your teenager or your young, dull kid is depressed or anxious. Yes. Yeah. And you can't so now you can't sleep. And so you're like fixing your kid's problem at two in the morning. So I love what you, how you just describe that. And what I've heard, and this is really an important part that I'd love to bring forward. What I've heard from my friends who have gone through divorces is to men is they say, I tried, I tried to get him to understand any won't. So I love you do this with all your relationship work where you're like turn on yourself and look at what you can do. But I'm just going to be as bold as to say, I think the men need to step up. I think the men need to, to see this phase a little differently. We need to figure out how to help the men. Because we're changing. And it's like they're doubling down on something that's not working for us. Yes. So a couple of things I'll say to that. One is I think that any man who dates a woman, regardless if he's 20 years old or 70 years old, men need to be aware of a woman's cycle. And lack of. Yeah, bingo. So he needs to be and he needs to know exactly when she's about to get her period. What's going on for her then? Understand that usually there's a certain stage in a woman's cycle where she's going to want more sex. And that's the time to really initiate this sex. And there's going to be times where she's not going to want that. And so I think all men who are even in any relationship with women, even if it's if it's not sexual, should be aware, if they're close enough with this woman, should be aware of the cycle. The same thing goes for menopause. Men need to be educated on this. But I want to go so far as to say is that, you know, women also have to do their part, you know, men, men are also vastly misunderstood in relationships. And it's, you know, it's not just about you, honey, you know, like you actually have to, you can't just take the position of I'm a victim in my relationship and my husband just doesn't understand. That's never, ever going to work. And if you really feel that then you shouldn't be with him. Yes. Yeah. I think, and so, you know, again, when you look at the divorce rates, you know, when I'm looking that through, I'm like, okay, I think what happens to a woman is exactly she wakes up, she wants to individuate. And a man is like, what is going on? This marriage has been working for me. And I don't, and you seem, you seem happy in it. And then all of a sudden, like, you know, she's doing things that seem really unusual for him. And I think that it's not about always exiting. And I will tell you that as a woman who's been in a 30 year marriage, I've learned more about myself in a marriage than I've learned in any other place in my life. I'm sure. So how did you communicate it with your husband? Well, so one of the things that we did that has been really helpful is talk about our marriage in segments. And we call the marriage before kids, marriage 1.0. We call the marriage we had when kids were in the house, marriage 2.0. And then the marriage we're creating right now is marriage 3.0. So the way we're talking two things that have helped, as I will say, in marriage 3.0, I don't want to spend every moment with you. I need my alone time. So actually, we moved to a house where it has like a back house so that I could go and spend more time by myself. Amazing. So we talked a lot about in my book, and it's easy because this is my business, right? Yeah. But in my book, I have a concept called Butterfly in yourself where you sort of crawl, menopause causes you to crawl into the chrysalis and dissolve parts of you that you don't love, and then you come out of butterfly. So the other day, I found a little baseball cap with a butterfly on it. And I tell them, hey, when I wear this, remember what version you're talking to. You're talking to a different version of me. So it's been the language. We've had to change the language. We've had to change the rhythm. And it's helping. And it's like recreating something that we needed to recreate. I love that. It reminds me of a strategy that I used to use with couples, which is that it's helpful to have different nicknames, like a few different nicknames for your partner that represents the archetype or the energy that they're in. So like sometimes, like, and I would say, you know, let's say I was talking to the woman, you know, when you come home or when you're home, just say like, you know, I'm, I'm this today, you know, I'm Julie today. I'm, or I'm Julian today. And then your partner immediately knows, okay, I'm with playful, or I'm with serious, or I'm with, you know, the one who's feisty and wants to have like a sexual adventure or just an adventure, the 3.0 and men apostase, it could be butterfly. It could be whatever your nickname is. Yeah. It could be sage like because there's, you're more like wisdom. But I, but I also think that, um, I, I, I would love to hear your take on this. Is it also important? Don't you think it would help us women to also remember that like, we are still alive and places and sexual and feminine. Yes. Thank you. And that you don't actually have to just be like, you know, in wisdom archetype because you went through menopause. Yeah. You have to actually still connect to the feminine side of you. And that's very, very important for women over 45 who are dating to be able to connect to that part of themselves as well. Yeah. So in my research for age like a girl, I found the work of Carol Gilligan. Are you familiar with her? I'm not. But I will. Yeah. So you, this will be interesting for you. She was a feminist psychologist who studied girls in the 1980s. And it's especially relevant to me because I was a teen, I was, I was the age she studied in the 80s. And what she did is she looked at how girls respond to questions of desire. So if you ask a boy and a girl at the age nine, what they want to eat, they'll both tell you, the boy will tell you the girl will tell you. But if you ask that same question at 11, the boy will still tell you what he wants. But the girl might waver a little bit. By the time she gets to 13 when her hormones kick in or as a friend of mine likes to say, once she got drugged on estrogen. And you ask the boy what he wants. He still tells you and the girl says, I don't know what do you want to, what are you going to eat? And so the, her idea was that when girls come into these teenage years that she didn't say it through the lens of estrogen, I'm adding the lens of estrogen. But that society has taught girls that you are worthy if you are selfless. And so everything comes from that over and over and over again for a woman as she goes into her 20s, 30s and 40s. And you said it earlier, like if I'm, if I look pretty and you come in and you tell me I'm beautiful, then all of a sudden I know I'm worthy. Or if you know safe. If we were to go back even further in time. Yeah. To a different century than it's safe. Ooh. Yes. Okay. Safety is interesting because, and I'm super happy you're bringing this up because I have a theory that the rage that it comes out of women during menopause is because they have, we all have been feeling safe, unsafe for a very long time living in a patriarchal society. Yeah. Well, that's, yeah. So safety comes and so talk a little more about safety because there are a lot of good men that will say, oh, I would never hurt my wife. I'd never do anything. But I also have a friend whose husband never cheated on her. But he would make, by a thousand cuts, he would talk about her weight and over and over and over again until she wasn't safe in the relationship. So safety is, safety doesn't just mean I'm beating you up or I'm cheating on you. No, absolutely not. I think it's understanding that for centuries, so women have to have had to figure out how to be safe in the world because we are the physically weaker gender. Mm-hmm. We just are. Yeah. Of course, there's some women who are really strong, but in general, men are physically stronger than women. Yeah, that's well said. Yeah. So we have had to figure out how to stay safe. Yeah. And so, and, and I think that that's probably one of the most important things that men can under learn about women is that we're constantly thinking about our physical safety. And so that also translates into emotional safety. Like how, like a woman goes into a room where she goes, she walks down the street, she's constantly, even if it's unconscious, yes. Scanning for threat. Yes. And that is exhausting. Thank you. Okay, so let's, I want to stay on this because do you know one day I was trying to explain to my husband who is a, who is an amazing man. I was trying to explain to him how I felt unsafe in the world. And one of the descriptions, I, questions I asked him is if you walk into a parking lot and your car, and it's dark, there's not well lit, and your car is parked next to a van, what do you do? And he's like, I just go to the car. Yeah. I'm like, I can't tell you how many times that has happened to me. And I literally crawl in the passenger side to the drive, if it's parked next to the driver's side. 100%. And he wouldn't even think of that. No, he wouldn't even think of that. So I do think safety is a big one. And, and I think a lot of women are feeling unsafe in their, in their relationships. And, and the spouse might not even know it. How would you as a, what, what would be a sign of safety is not present in your relationship? I'm in it. I'm going to, I'm going to answer that question. What I want to just say first, if I may is this is why communication is so important. Like if you're going through something as a woman and you're needing more a long time or you're feeling like you need to give to yourself more, you don't just do it. If you're in a marriage or a relationship, you need to talk to your partner about that. And we assure them and have conversations about it. You don't just say, this is, you know, I am woman here, me roar and go fuck yourself to, you know, like you have to actually talk about it. How do you know you feel emotionally unsafe in a relationship? You're going to have a whole bunch of physical symptoms. You're going to have a lot of anxiety. You're going to, you're going to, you're going to have, you're going to be obsessing and ruminating. You're going to feel incredibly insecure. And you're going to feel like you need a lot of reassurance and you're going to be stressed out. And basically, you're just feeling, you know, certainty is so important in a relationship. You need to really feel like you can be yourself that you can express yourself. Obviously, if you're doing, you know, you have to be able to do this with respect. But if you feel like you need to censor yourself or you can't really say the truth or you can't actually have a conversation with your partner and you have to like, watch your words so much so that you don't, you know, hurt, agitate them or you're, you know, walking on eggshells. Walking on eggshells is one of the most under under acknowledged forms of emotional abuse. Yeah. Yeah. It's, that's really the two. Okay. So in that situation, if you're scared to tell your spouse that you're walking on eggshells, like, is that the time you go to therapy? Is that time you get a third party involved or how would a woman approach that conversation? Yeah. Well, first I have to say if you're afraid that there's going to be any physical violence you leave. Yeah. Never ever stay in any scenario where there's physical violence in any way. You never give them a second chance. You don't wait for them to go to therapy. You don't go to therapy together. You do what you can and gather whatever resources you can. And I know that it's, it's not exactly easy for some people, but you figure out a way to leave. But if it's just like you're not feeling like emotionally safe, you have a conversation with you, that's when you have to be really brave. And say, I'm not feeling good. Like this isn't feeling right. I don't feel safe. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. And this is what I'm about to say is easier said than done, but it's absolutely crucial. Let them have their reaction. Not just I don't mean to sound like let them right now, but like you really just have to allow them. Yep. In other words, they are going anticipate that they may have a reaction to that of defensiveness. And your job is to stay very centered and calm. Yeah. And it's not like you're trying to put salt in a wound, but you just have to say, this is how I'm feeling. And if they cannot handle that react, if they can't handle you saying that, then you have, then you have some big choices to make say we either need to speak to a third party or, you know, let me know when you can have this conversation in a calm way. But this is how I'm feeling. But like you can't, you have to be able to say that to your partner without them raging. And if they are raging or getting incredibly defensive, that's a time to really rethink your relationship with them. But there's always context and nuance and all of that. And you don't want to be constantly going to your partner about about habit that women have in relationships is because they are always scanning for threat. And because they are always looking for safety, women have an unconscious habit in a relationship to always point out it to themselves and to their partner when their partner is doing something wrong. And they forget to appreciate. Yes. Yeah. It's like kids like we, I remember my husband and I, we would when we were like getting our parenting style together, we had read something about five positive for one criticism, like five. You're awesome to one, hey, we need to, you need to work on this. So it's the same same in relationships. Yeah. Absolutely. Because human, we're like dogs that way. We respond to positive reinforcement. And we really don't respond to punishment. And everyone who's in a relationship who plans to be in a relationship regardless of who you are, you have to be very honest with yourself about the ways in which you punish your partners. Yeah. And to stop because no one is motivated to change with punishment. People are motivated to change when we see the goodness in them. And we point out the positive. And you can do this with a student. Anyone you're mentoring, no one is going to be positive to rise to their potential. If you are constantly pointing out the ways in which they're failing. But if you can constantly appreciate how amazing they are and say I see the amazingness in you, then people are more inspired to change. Ooh. Yeah. And where I see this with a lot of my girlfriends is the constant nagging. So I'm worst. Yeah. And we do that as women. We need to call ourselves out on that because you know, that is where we're like, you didn't do this and you didn't do that and you didn't that. And then I can imagine if you turned around and said, oh, and by the way, I'm walking on eggshells. That might be where all of a sudden, you know, the wheels come off the bus. The wheels exactly. And the more that we nag, the more our partner is going to shut down and withdraw. And then the narrative becomes they're avoidant. They're not listening to me. And it's never look. It's never just one person's fault. It's it's a dynamic. Well said. And it's about understanding human nature. And it's about understanding if you are in relationship with women, really understanding women. And if you're in a relationship with men, really understanding men, I really, really think that that is a huge key to the success of a relationship is understanding the nature of the person who you're with as an individual and also with their biology. Yeah. Okay. Resentment. Let's talk about resentment a little bit because this is another one that festers in these long term relationships. And I spent a day with Julie Gottman and one of the things she said to me that really hit me was that resentment builds in women in marriages when we say yes to all the things we really want to say no to. And then I had a conversation this week with a sex expert who said resentment is the number one killer of libido. It is. Yeah. And so how do we acknowledge that we're feeling resentful and what is a woman do with that emotion? I also want to add that that's why the nice guy syndrome. He's going to be the the you know the nice guy not the kind guy, but the nice guy is going to be the one who stabs you in the back because he's always saying yes when we leave he wants to say no until one day he wakes up and he hates you. Yeah. Yeah. So it's important it goes both ways. So it is always learning to like for women it's always coming into conversation with the ways in which you people please. And and and and you know why you do it and learning how to be an advocate for your needs and that that really is yes of course there's the nice guys who have to be the advocate for their needs but it's really a women's task to learn how to be an advocate for a needs because more women than not just don't say what they need in a relationship. Yeah. And they try to keep the peace or they just are so unaccustomed to saying what it is that they want and what it is that they need. Yes. So you have to practice. Yes. And you have to practice every day not just in your relationship and you have to practice with the low hanging fruit in small ways just saying what it is that you want or practicing saying no when you really want to say no. And it's very important. Yeah. And and so what happens when you find that you are resentful there's two things either you have to recognize that there are things that you haven't been saying that you need to say. Yeah. And then you have to say it in a way that is tactful because oftentimes with resentment it's like a pressure cooker and then everything comes out and it's a nightmare for everyone. But the second thing is that most people don't like to hear is in what way have you been projecting so many of your expectations onto your partner to be someone who they're not. Wow. Yeah. Both require self-responsibility. Yeah. But sometimes it's also like I'm resentful of my partner because I'm expecting them to literally be someone who I know have known from day one they're not. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think we put too much pressure on our partners in general like you know there's that when yeah when you first fall in love you have all that projection and then you want that to stay so I can totally see that but what I think we also have this expectation that somehow this person needs to be the center of our universe. And I think that like I've actually really sat and thought like is the container of marriage set does it set us up for failure because the old way that we or the way we entered into marriage at least when I got married in 1996 was that this is your person you're going to be get you're going to happily have happily ever ever for your rest of your life. And this is your person now and what I've learned in my 30 years of marriage is how deeply important having other go-to people are having how important my girlfriends are how important my alone time but somehow that seems to be at odds with the marriage message of this is your person forever. I think it's more the romanticization of love it's like you know it and marriage used to just people used to rely on a village not just on one person. Yeah yeah. So yeah I think it's always about having relationships outside of the mayor I mean you know obviously friendships and community relationships outside of the marriage I think it's about I think it's very important to have a life is does marriage set us up for failure I think that or any relationship is an opportunity for growth but I think where we've been set up for failure is that we think that a relationship is supposed to make us happy when really it's our responsibility to make the relationship happy. Yeah or make ourselves happy which actually makes the relationship happier. Yeah yeah right because if you're happy then the happy person creates a more like yeah happy two happy people tend to make a happy relationship. Yeah how how necessary do you think sex is in a relationship a romantic one? I find it to be very necessary I think it's very important I think people should be scheduling it if you're if you're even if you are you know really busy but more than not than like the act itself I find that just sexual energy between two people is really important and that most people don't know how to recreate that in a long-term relationship and that it's that feeling of like like how Esther Pearl refers to it like the erotic which is like how like where like that eroticism that exists between you and your partner and we're sold this lie that it's just supposed to be there because in the beginning you know the falling in love stage and and the beginning of a relationship we can be incredibly passive because hormones and novelty and newness is doing everything for us right but it's really about you know for a lot of people foreplay begins well before touch yeah yes it's when you feel most alive it's when it's noticing when you feel most attracted to your partner it's making sure that you know because people are mostly drawn to those when they are witnessing their this person in their flow state it's so beautiful yeah and I think that for a lot of people who are attracted to men they are most attracted to their men when he's like in charge and powerful and like yeah yeah for men interesting for people who are attracted to women I think that he will have or she will have a lot of respect for her when she's like in charge but that's not usually when he's most attracted to her he's attracted they're attracted to her when she feels most relaxed and happy and free yes I can see that and what do you think about this idea that desire is is wrapped up in in mystery then Esther Estare Perrella said this where it's like when when there's mystery there's desire which is like people go and have affairs because oh this is a new it's novel it's mysterious how do you recreate that in a 30 year marriage well um it's it's exactly what we're saying it's you know it's you wanting a little bit of a long time that creates a mystery it's it's not just it's also being curious about another person's inner world and and and checking yourself and reminding yourself that you really don't know everything there is to know about your partner and they're always evolving but more than mystery like I said before it's seeing them when they don't when they're not reliant on you so again if you're attracted to men you're attracted to masculine energy masculine energy it feels most alive to us when it's like you are you are in charge because then we're seeing you as strong and capable yeah people who are attracted to feminine energy they don't get strong and capable yeah they might love that about you they might respect that about you they may be proud of you but that's not what's gonna turn them on it's when you feel so happy and free and you don't need them to make you happy and free right right yeah which is that's why when women are dancing or singing that is very much an Afro-Dijiaque for those who are attracted to them fascinating yeah and you know after studying the the female body for so long I've and even the menopause experience I've wondered if what a woman's sexual energy is supposed to be like as she as a whole reproductive system that gave her hormones that made her feel sexy so that she would reproduce that all goes away and there's so many of my friends and the people who are in our in our following that just are like there's nothing there there's literally no libido there and so you have this massive hormonal shift and you've been in this marriage where there's no mystery and there's no it's just been doing its thing forever and so I there has to be a recreation of something there yes so she has to um look I'm not the doctor but from what I understand estrogen is still developed in the adrenal glands yes yes yep okay so it's not like it's totally gone no it's you still have some yeah still have some you're still a woman so figure out what makes you come alive is it going to a concert is it trying something new and slightly dangerous and anything that gets you like excited creative energy is sexual energy oh I love that yes it is and look at we all have both masculine feminine energy I feel as much male as I do female right but like when I'm like in work mode and like you know like making shit happen I'm in mostly my masculine right but when I'm like when I'm feeling very creative and alive and plugged in that that is creative energy that is the same thing as sexual energy and I will always say it's very important for both men and women to continue to move their bodies but for women to move their bodies like I understand the whole trend right now is build muscle and you got a weight train and I know that that's very I'm a yogi for many years and I mean yeah yeah so I'm oh and I don't have like that kind of body that just builds a lot of muscle but I so I understand functionally why that's so important but as a woman if you're not dancing if you're not doing some sort of breath work or moving your body that's more fluid and isn't just about like you know heavy weight you're gonna be just connecting from that part of you that feels free and open and sexual and alive and sensual and fun I love that thought because I actually am getting exhausted with the build muscle conversation and and and I'll tell you why like this is my big beef about menopause right now is the conversations all built around more half-tos for more protein yeah more this more that yeah more yeah so like yeah now you're like lost these hormones you got to find the right doctor with the right patch and you got to make sure you've eating enough protein and you're going to the gym and you're lifting weights and and you got to work on your marriage and I mean it's just after a while women are just like forget it enough for ready to their symptoms by the way that's right that's right it's actually interesting because in age like a girl I the section on food I decided to take out any any like macro counting or calorie counting I was like here are the foods you should eat here are the foods you shouldn't eat here are the fasting lengths I recommend and try it for yourself and see what happens because I feel like everybody has some opinion about how women should be and the last thing we need now that this menopause conversation is opened up right is more things that we have to be actually me and my friends because we're all like 40s and 50s and a lot of it's like on the one hand it's like it's great that the conversation is out there but you know if I'm going to be very candid a lot of the conversations that me and my friends are having is like we're so over it yes so thank you over the conversation being stuffed in our faces and and and everyone I know because I know some I have some friends who are like in the perimenopause menopause transition and the ones who have basically no symptoms are the ones who are just like by nature less stressed yes yes yes no no no I you can say it because I I've been saying this a lot on all of these podcasts I've been doing for the book is that I think that the person that survives this experience the woman who survives it without all the turbulence has two things working for her she has her metabolic system I I really think like she's not sitting there eating you know boxes of pizza and drinking sodas all day long yes so she's got herself yeah she takes care of herself and her nervous system is regulated which is a very unusual thing for a woman to go into her 40s with her nervous system regulated in our culture yes right thank you so now we've come in with this HRT conversation that now every woman's got to put a patch on and we totally forgot to remind her to do less and to worry less and to eat better we're just like put this patch on you're going to be okay and and because we're because we're because we work so hard and we're doing everything that's right not letting go enough yes that's right sorry to interrupt yes no no I'm so happy you're saying this because I I'm really agitated with where the menopause conversation has landed because what happens to women and I'm curious your thought on this is that when you tell us to do something and we can't succeed at that we don't think you're the problem we actually turn on ourselves and we start to shame ourselves 100 percent and it's it's a self-fulfilling prophecy yes it's a self-fulfilling prophecy I think the a balanced nervous system is everything I mean I just know for me like when my nervous system I mean this is a whole other wormhole but like I have a nervous system that's easily afraid I study a lot of I've studied for many for decades Ayurveda so I have a certain constitution that makes it that like when my nervous system is regulated I'm highly creative and sharp but I can easily become ungrounded it's just it's the way I was born yeah and I have found that when my nervous system is just regulated I have all the symptoms that everyone is complaining about and when it's regulated I'm like I'm fine right right and that's not to blame people about nervous because some people again it could be other things I am someone who happens I mean I love a little sugar and I love my chocolate but overall like I eat very pretty well and I don't drink alcohol at all so so I to me it's always been a stressed thing I do think there's a little bit of a chicken or an egg which is am I stressed because of my hormones or my hormones out of whack because I'm stressed but I do but what I have noticed is that when I take the time to really let go check out you know really look at the ways in which I'm operating from an old belief system of I'm not good enough which then furthest dysregulates that like all the things that I see everyone complaining about and like oh there's that ache or there's that stiffness or there's that like lack of sleep or there's that like I'm feeling a little warm oh my god and then like they're neurosis like I'm hot am I having a hot flash just like no I actually just sometimes get really fucking hot oh my god that's such the problem with this menopausal moment is we're like oh it's menopause we just breathe on all that yeah it's so true it's so true what do you think of some of the new trends that we're seeing in long-term marriages like living apart together so this is interesting my mother and my stepfather they both have passed but they they started seeing each other he lived down he lived down I grew up in New York City in Manhattan and we lived and they lived like he lived two buildings down on the same walk yeah and so when they started seeing each other I would say my mom was like around 43 and divorced three kids and he was like you know 48 or something like that and so they for many years had a relationship where they they had their routine like when there was the sleepovers and then they finally decided to get married but they were like there's I'm not living with you like what's the point we're not having kids and so I think that's what you're asking yeah I'm in full support I think it's challenging if you're younger and you want to start a family and have kids but I think if you're at the stage of life where you've had your kids or you don't want kids I think it's great some people are amazing couples but they don't live well together yes yeah and so I actually think it's great it's great to have a night off then you can watch whatever the fuck you want to watch on TV and you can sleep I'm in full support yes yeah it's a trend that started after the pandemic I guess a lot of couples started you know living separately because the pandemic just was too much together time yeah and so then it started and and there's a lot of models of how it's worked incredibly well for people I think it would also back to what the general theme of this conversation has been it would take a lot of communication as well the other trend that I think is really interesting is they're calling it sleep divorce where couples are sleeping in separate rooms what are your thoughts on that yeah I mean I'm in support I really am in support I think that what I this is what I'm in support of what I'm in support of is that what works for one couple doesn't necessarily work for another and that you just have to figure out what works for the two of you and not conform to what anyone is telling you or what society is telling you and do what fucking works for you yeah yeah yeah it's interesting because I mean in full transparency this is something in as I've gone through Manopause I just need to sleep in my own bed it's it is like a non-negotiable for me now and it has nothing to do with my husband it I mean I guess it has he makes noise at night and I wake up and I don't like that so I guess but he can't control that he can't control that yes so it's just but it's something about being in my own energy and like getting into bed and my and you know this is after years of having little kids crawling your bed and like of course it's like I want I want to take my bed back and I just want my bed but I think it's I think it's one of those things that has been taboo because it's like somehow we think it's the beginning of a divorce but we're not focusing enough on is this sorry to interrupt yeah no please yes yeah rather than just focusing on if you're sleeping in the same bed what is happening the other 12 hours of your day are you touching each other um are you holding hands um is there when you speak to each other is there an eye contact um and even better when you when you make eye contact you also put your hand on their arm at the same time so that you are appealing to all their senses focus that so everyone's like oh you're sleeping apart that's the problem no what's actually leads to divorce is a death by a thousand cuts and sometimes those thousand cuts are the are the repetitive cycles of not actually connecting to one another through touch through tone through eye contact throughout the day yeah that's so so beautifully said okay so we we have to definitely address this one which is when do you know it's time and I saw you do a podcast on this how do you know it's time to leave so it's like the million dollar question yeah and it's a very hard one to answer I would say it's I really think that if you've invested you know there's no abuse happening um and you care about this person and you've invested a lot of time you have to it's why I wrote my book it begins with you you have to really think about the ways in which you haven't been meeting needs and not only think about the needs that are not being met for you and I'd like to give people like a 60 day challenge sometimes a 90 day challenge depending on the couple of just showing up as your best self and really really being a giver and a loving person and not just think about what you're not getting because then at the end of that trial period if you've really really done the work to not just think about yourself but to really think about the other person it's not about overgiving the way that women do but really being like what does this person need from me and how can I step out of my own ego and give it to them it's going to reveal very quickly if you're with if you're with someone you should stay or not because either that's going to do nothing and they're just going to keep taking yeah or it's going to really open up the energy between the two of you where flow can actually where love is like flowing freely between the two of you so I always I always say that you know learn to commune if you haven't been a communicator an advocate of your of your needs don't leave before you do that because guess what you're just going to repeat it with someone else exactly I was just going to say don't miss the opportunity to practice standing up for yourself exactly because if you're just it's going to be the same pattern with someone else and then you're going to end that relationship with the story yeah he just they just weren't right for me when really it could have been your patterns contributed to what was not working as well yeah and then there's just sometimes you just I do believe that divorce is a human right I don't believe in staying in a relationship for decades miserable but I do believe in having the hard conversations and stepping outside your comfort zone and I do believe that it's really big spiritual work to be in a relationship and if you're just freaking miserable call it life is short right right do you do you believe in marriage I you know it's funny I've never been asked that question before which is shocking yeah I I don't really believe in the institution of it I don't believe in you stay in something miserable because you have a piece of paper between the two of you I don't believe I used to think that when your marriage that's the ultimate commitment I don't really believe that but I do the romantic in me and even the practical side of me I do like the idea of we have gone through a ritual that is telling the us and the world that we are going to do what we can to make this a thriving relationship yeah and I think there's something important about that you know the way that marriage was originally defined was for technically the way I've researched it is for the woman because she wasn't working and so you know we go way back right there was a dowry there was everything was like okay she wasn't educated she's not working so she needs a man and now we have women that don't need that and so one of the things right thank God is right and one of the things I've thought deeply about is that we need to redefine marriage I think there needs to be it's like an outdated institution or container that we're trying to take modern day people and fit it in there and there needs to be some redefinition of it yeah and I I don't know what that would be like a part of me is like there should like just because you put a ring on it in my 20s doesn't mean that you just get to own me forever like there needs I almost feel like there should be every 10 years there should be like hey is this still working yeah I agree yeah every year I think a couple should sit down and just say you know what's working what's not working I love the idea of people renewing their vows and I love what you said because I think that I think that like marriage vows instead of like I promise to love you forever it should be I promise to like show up even when I'm not in the mood I promise to to make my emotional health and my physical health the priority so I can show up at her I'm you know all these things that take more personal accountability and I am a very very strong believer that every woman should have her own money oh great a great because otherwise then she's not yeah then she's trapped it's it's really true and it's interesting so my 25-year-old daughter just got engaged aha and and so she's getting married next summer and I mean I'm in full transparency I have a lot of mixed feelings as as a woman to woman about you know just the what she's entering into and the reason I say that is because at the point she's at right now all she can see is how beautiful it is and there's like a part of me that wants to impart some motherly wisdom to her of like you know it's beautiful and it's messy and it's painful it's all those things so just keep that in mind I actually had five mama bears come and throw me a shower when I got married there were my mom's best friends and they were all in long-term relationships and one of them said to me in my I guess I at that time I must have been 27 28 years old she very boldly said to me I just want you to know that there's going to be a day that you wake up in the morning and say what the fuck did I do and I was like you know about 27 I was like what no I love this man but do you know that the day that happened to me I knew it was normal I knew that that was part of the process so I love that and maybe as someone who's been married for so long and you're still married you tell your daughter that and then tell her what to do when that happens not to panic what she should do instead probably means like you know she has to you know have a conversation about maybe take care of her resentment take care of herself make sure she's giving to herself as much as she's giving to the relationship that's beautiful that's beautiful I love that yeah well I just I loved this conversation I you know I could talk to you for hours I really again I I believe in saying it like it is and I think when it comes to relationships that's a big problem because we don't say it like it is and this is how we end up in all these kind of messes so yeah so I want to thank you so much for having me yeah and how how can people find you I know you've been a little bit on a hiatus I know what are you up to next I know well new book coming so of course we work on that but uh yeah uh people can find me of at julian traki.com I have a membership for women called the conscious woman helping women to actually discover this with the muscles amazing and uh yeah Instagram I've got my podcast julian on love and all the social media channels um yeah and my book of course begins with you awesome well thank you I really appreciated this conversation and I hope we connect in person someday I'm up to I'm under in person person I like I like the energy that happens between two people when they're live so we'll make that happen at some point so thank you julian thank you julian thank you so much for joining me in today's episode I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you if you enjoyed it we'd love to know about it so please leave us a review share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is