Ep. 559 Heal Your Hormones, Reclaim Yourself: Women's Health in Midlife with Dr. Sonya Jensen | Perimenopause, Menopause & Hormones

Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, nurse practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower, and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives. today i had the honor of connecting with friend and colleague dr sonia jensen she's a naturopathic physician with a mission to change the way women understand their bodies and themselves and she believes that women are the center of their families and communities and by supporting them we are creating a ripple effect that will support the whole she mentioned to me after our recording that she misspoke about the famines during British rule in India. She wanted to make abundantly clear that it was 50 total famines during British rule, not 50 total famines in one year. We spoke at length about feelings of selfishness when advocating for our needs as women, why choosing ourselves is so important, especially midlife, science versus soul transformations, gestational silence and trauma and the physiologic effects that impact not just our current generation, but many to come. The role of stress on the immune system and autoimmunity. Why stress reduction techniques are so critically important to activate the vagus nerve. The role of mental health and hormones, womb wisdom and generational influences. How grief and sadness can influence us profoundly. and why trusting your intuition and embracing the gifts of aging are so vitally important. Sonia brings such a gentle, loving, and kind message to women, one that I think is so important for us to consider and to reflect on. I know you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did recording it. And make sure you check out Dr. Jensen's brand new book, Heal Your Hormones, Reclaim Yourself. It's a way of connecting the dots between hormonal chaos, emotional overload, and relationship pain with her her method. This beautiful book will be out in early 2026. Dr. Jensen, such a pleasure to have you here in person to talk about your new book. Oh, thank you. It's so nice to be here and connect with you in person. Absolutely. It's been a long time coming. Well, and I think there's something very intimate about in-person podcasting as opposed to doing it over Zoom or Riverside. And so thank you for making the journey to the East Coast. There are a lot of themes in your book that really stood out to me as I read it for a second time this week. Why do you think women feel so selfish choosing themselves? It doesn't necessarily have to be in middle age, but why are we conditioned to perceive that as selfish? Yeah, I think it starts from a young age, and it's what we've been modeled through the generations before, that if they took time for themselves, that meant they were being selfish, that they weren't giving to their families, or they weren't being that good woman or that good girl that's supposed to be in service of others. And we're so wired to take care of others. It's part of our nature to nurture everyone around us. So I think there's a lot of guilt and shame associated with putting ourselves first. And so I think creating a new narrative around that and reframing it for women is so important today. Well, and I feel like when I look at my mother's generation, I don't recall my mother ever being idle. And when I mean idle, I don't recall watching my mother read a book. I don't recall my mother joyfully sitting down to watch a movie or take a nap. and yet I feel like our generation is doing a much better job of helping communicate the fact that being of service to others is obviously very important. We're nurturers by nature, but by the same token, I think it is equally important for our sons and our loved ones to see that we're not Energizer bunnies, that we do actually need to take time for ourselves, invest in ourselves, and not feel a sense of guilt for doing so. Yeah, and I feel like it's so imprinted. I even find myself when Nick is at work, he'll call me and say, oh, what are you up to today? Automatically, I'm defending my day, even though in my mind, I just want to sit and watch MasterChef all day with a cup of tea and be with myself and maybe read. But I'll throw in, oh, and laundry. And, you know, I got to do some stuff for the book. And I'll send some emails. So I'm packing on these other tasks that I'm doing that maybe feel or make me feel like I'm more worthy of that time for myself and defending that. And so I think we still have to really give ourselves permission to be and not be in that stage of doing or that state of doing all the time. Yeah, and I think this is something most of us probably struggle with. I know that I was at a business event last weekend, and as an introvert, I have to balance the expectations of whatever I've agreed to do with also I'm an introvert. Sometimes I'm happier in my hotel room ordering like True Food Kitchen than I am going out to big events in the evening after being on all day long. And I think that it's one of these kind of push-pulls as probably isn't necessarily unique to our gender. But I think for many of us who've grown up being people pleasers or we have been conditioned to believe that we're meant to be ladies, we're meant to be quiet, we're meant to be respectful, we're not meant to disagree, we're not expected to articulate what we want. And so I still feel like there are moments as a reformed people pleaser where I catch myself and I'm like, oh, I know what I'm doing. I'm subjugating my needs in an effort to accommodate someone else in a situation where I really should be advocating for myself. If there's a woman listening who is resonating and who wouldn't resonating with that message, where do you start? like from a very basic level, finding your voice and not feeling guilty or feeling like you have to apologize? Yeah, that's such a good question. And I think it does become that awareness first, like you had of your own patterns and the stories that we're carrying. And I often ask women to ask themselves, like, who's your narrator? Like, who's actually in your mind speaking to you when you're trying to make a choice for yourself. And when you start to unravel that, like, okay, was that something that was modeled? Was it shown to me or was it said to me as a young child? Is this how I feel like I belong somewhere? Or if I feel significant, where do I get my love and connection from? Is it through that act of service and putting others first and myself last? Once we can identify that, then we can start making different choices. Because if we don't, our body starts to make those choices for us. As you probably know, too, working with women, our body starts to speak, if not yell at us. And it's often then that we finally pause and ask ourselves, okay, where is this pattern coming from? So I think the first step really is awareness. And then the second would be that discernment of this choice that I'm making because service is beautiful. And if we can do it from that full cup, it's such a different experience than when it's empty because that translates to resentment, that translates to anger. And then that's what the body starts to imprint and hold on to. Well, and I think you have such a beautiful dichotomy. You are a physician. You're also a yoga instructor. I'm curious what that process was like for you. What drew you to yoga with, you know, this very science centric training and perspective? I would imagine your narrative and your trajectory of your life probably was a strong impetus for kind of finding other ways of looking at patterns and behaviors that you were seeing not only in yourself, but also your patients. Yeah, for sure. I think it really was my upbringing. It was very spiritually based, and I saw both polarities playing out in my world. My grandfather was a math professor, and yet when we got sick he would make licorice tea for us yeah and so i think just that having that awareness of two can exist together so my background was in cell biology and then i went into naturopathic medicine which you know looked at the science looked at everything but there was still that other stuff woven in with ancient medicine with chinese medicine and i grew up with ayurvedic medicine just in the home not even knowing it with the food that was on my plate had no idea there was a science behind all that food. And so I really, when I look back at my story and understand myself and the traumas I've been through, the stresses I've had, the stories that I've been carrying on my back, and I look to my mom and my grandma and start to understand their stories too. Then fast forward, I have women sitting in front of me mirroring those same stories. Like there's something really important that we need to bring together, that East and West. so that women can understand themselves on a whole level. And I think the science gives us the how-to, which is important, but then this other soul piece gives us the why. And that, I think, for me, is where I've seen pure transformation happen. Yeah, it's really exciting to understand that it's not just one way. There are multiple ways that we can look at health and longevity. I think that one thing that has kind of driven my desire to better understand things beyond just a traditional allopathic model was the trajectory of my own family. Like I have a child who's now an adult that developed life-threatening food allergies. You know, he was diagnosed when he was two. And at that time, which was 18 years ago, what I was told was carry an EpiPen and pray. and that was an unacceptable response because listeners may not realize this, but 18 years ago, this very allergy-sensitive environment that we're now in was really not the norm. And, you know, that kind of traditional model of the only way that we can deal with this is to utilize emergency medications and just pure avoidance. And so I think for me as a clinician, as a mom, that was what initially got me interested in looking a little bit more deeply and saying, okay, yes, there's value. EpiPens are important. Let me be very clear. But there has to be other ways that we can come out this issue. Because looking at a two-year-old and imagining what his life was going to be like, trying to navigate peanut and tree nut allergies, which he never outgrew, only 30% of kids do. I think that there was this kind of false sense of security, if you will. like I just knew too much. You know, I was an ER nurse in my past life and I just saw too many anaphylactic reactions to feel comfortable saying, we're just going to avoid this for the rest of our lives and carry an EpiPen and think that's going to be acceptable. Yeah. I had the same experience with my oldest son. He was having difficulty breathing when he was young. I mean, it starts off with birth, you know, C-section baby microbiome wasn't all that healthy, did nurse him. So hopefully that combated some of those impacts. But he is very vulnerable in his lungs. And around age three, there was one night where I was just up all night watching him breathe because he would get croup. And it was so scary to watch. And, you know, I call the nurse's line. I'm like, okay, you know, I'm in both worlds. Let's just take him to the hospital and get him some oxygen if he needs it. Because I had the spirometer and his oxygen kept dropping. But I'm like, I think there's something wrong with mine. Let's just go get confirmed. And he was okay. But then instantly he was diagnosed with asthma without doing any other testing and given an inhaler. And I'm like, okay, my mom's asthmatic. So I know the trajectory of this, but he's never had to take an inhaler. I went into action and did the things that I know, and he is thriving now playing soccer, has never had any issues. And so I think it is important for people to know that there are other ways. These other tools are important in emergencies when we need them. Absolutely. But there's such a different way we can look at our body. Absolutely. If you're a woman in midlife or beyond, you're probably noticed those changes in energy, strength and recovery just don't feel like they used to. And what's frustrating is that for many women, this happens even when you're eating well, lifting weights, prioritizing protein and doing all the right things. You're not lazy, you're not unmotivated, and you're not doing anything wrong. 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You can pre-order The Menopause Gut wherever books are sold. And when you do, be sure to check out the special pre-order bonuses I put together for you. Again, you can go to www.cynthiatherlow.com. You'll click on the banner. It'll take you to multiple options for where you can order the menopause gut in presale. So kind of getting back to family and the concept of generational silence and how our mothers, our grandmother's generation were expected to suffer in silence. There was just a very different mindset and philosophy. I recall my maternal grandmother, who was an amazing woman, having a conversation with her sister, who was also widowed. And I recall I was probably maybe I was 20 saying, do you think you'll ever get married again? And they both looked at one another and they looked at me and they said, nope, we're totally happy, never getting married again. They're probably in their 60s, totally happy, never getting married again. And I remember my grandmother leaving me with this. She was never a complainer. plainer. And so she just said, in my generation, Cynthia, if we got married, we stayed married, irrespective of whether or not we had a happy, healthy, fulfilling marriage. And your generation has so many more options. And, you know, I think that my grandmother now, as I understand her, my grandfather was a very domineering, controlling person, maybe not physically abusive, definitely emotionally abusive. And so for me, when I reflect on that generation of women that subjugated their needs, who maybe weren't able to speak up, who in circumstances, they just worked really hard and raised their kids and did the best that they could. And I'm not suggesting that doesn't happen now too, but I do think that if we are exposed to a lot of stress and trauma, it can change us epigenetically. We can pass that along to our offspring. Talk to us about generational trauma as well as silence. And I know, again, I think our generation is speaking up and out about this more and certainly trauma is having a moment, but talk to us about how that changes us physiologically. Yeah. I love that question. Cause I think once we start to really understand it, we know, Oh my God, like the light bulb goes off of the, why we're behaving a certain way or our body is a certain way. And so Rachel Yehuda's work is, I love looking at all the research that she's doing. And she did some studies on Holocaust survivors to give you kind of an extreme example. So when she studied this group of people and looked at their offsprings to look at their hormonal health, specifically their adrenals, she saw that 100% of those infants were born with adrenal insufficiency. So their cortisol awakening response was just not there. So you're already then born with this inability to manage stress. So imagine being born with that and then moving through life and all the stressors that show up throughout our lifetime. And if our adrenals are already burnt out, our progesterone is going to be low. We're not going to get that support that we need when we need to move through stress. So our immune system is going to be compromised. Our metabolic system is going to be compromised. And what they on the grandkids is metabolic syndrome. So you start to see this trickle effect happening in the generations because of the stories that were held by the past. So that doesn't mean that we're victim to it, but I think it can give us information so we can navigate life a little bit differently. When I looked at my own ancestry and during the colonizing years, when there was lots of famines in India, there was about 50 famines in one year. And so when you look at that number, you see something's going to change in that individual's physiology. So our beta cells don't function as maybe your beta cells do. And so this is why there's more metabolic syndrome, there's more diabetes, more heart disease in our community. And so again, if you can understand those elements, you can make choices in your everyday with your habits, with your food, with your exercise that can support your physiology. So when a woman sits in front of me, I think it's so important to understand her story as a woman. And then there's layers of culture. There's layers of where she's from. That's so important to understand. So you can actually have that unique picture in mind when you're treating someone or even for yourself when you're, you know, I think women were the hardest on ourselves. You know, the mind can play some amazing tricks. And when we look in the mirror, especially first thing in the morning, we don't often think something positive. There's often a criticism that's there. And so when the body's not functioning the way it's maybe meant to, quote unquote, the first thing that we do is blame ourselves and not understand that there might be this story playing out in my physiology that I may not have a lot of control over, but I do have control over these choices that I'm making every day. There's so many beautiful things that you said there. I think I'm going to start backwards and work forwards. So there is a thrifty genotype. It's something that a lot of my Southeast Asian colleagues talk about. So you mentioned that famine. I didn't realize at one point, 50 famine within a one year time. Is it any surprise that epigenetically Indian lineages, and it's not unique to Indian, but I'm sure it's many because there was a risk of not having food to eat, that your bodies became much more efficient at extracting calories probably from food. And then you mentioned the beta cells in the pancreas not working as effectively. I think this is why it's so important when we as clinicians are meeting with patients to really be understanding about backgrounds, like not make assumptions, because I think it is so critically important because it's one of many components that helps us better understand our patients. And then the other piece about the experiences that women go through and Rachel's work in particular, which I find so incredibly interesting, fascinating, disturbing all at the same time. So if someone is born with already suppressed adrenal function, so we're talking about hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal access suppression, what does that put them at risk for? Like what are the things that might show up for them as males or females that may show up for them that they're more susceptible towards than someone who doesn't grow up under those circumstances, those extreme circumstances? Yeah. Well, the immune system is intimately linked to that. So their inflammatory markers are often higher especially interleukin So that one thing to watch out for The other thing would be just your emotional resilience isn there So in your everyday life those moments where maybe you shouldn't feel irritable, you're feeling irritable. Those moments where anxiety is showing up out of nowhere or the fear of stopping you from taking that adventure or making that choice in your life. I think there's so many elements that it'll affect from your relationships to your physical body. And when you don't have that extra boost of cortisol that we actually need, cortisol, I think is said to be the villain a lot, but we really do need it to feel motivated. We need it for energy. We need it to, like I said, support the immune system in many ways too. So for in general, I would say that's what are things to look out for. And then for women, you're looking at your progesterone, you're looking at your estrogen, you're looking at the impact it's having on your insulin levels as well. So if you're born with that adrenal insufficiency, your body is not navigating your hormonal story as well as it could. You may be more prone to PCOS. You may be more prone to cysts and fibroids and all these things. So I think it's so important when looking at women's health and their hormones to look at that triad. If your adrenals are insufficient, so your thyroid will probably be impacted by that and your ovaries. So looking at all three of them is so important when treating. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is the first time I've talked about this, but when I was pregnant with my older son, I still had a stressful job, but it was a different type of stress. After having my first son and I was pregnant with my second, I went and changed to work for a very large cardiology group in Northern Virginia. and I worked for someone who was really hard to work for. And when I say really hard to work for, she was a very nice person, but she was very difficult. We did not, we had a challenging relationship. We were not from the STEM generation and she expected me to do what I was told. And that's not how I operate. I'm a good, I was a good employee and I was a very good nurse practitioner, but I didn't like being told what to do. And so I recall that entire pregnancy with my second son. She and I were arguing a lot. And I recall at one point talking to the supervising physician and saying, this is not healthy for me as a pregnant female to be under this much stress for a part time job. It's like, let me be clear. I was like, I'm very good at what I do, but her expectations are a little bit ridiculous. And I remember he actually had to step into these conversations because I felt like she wasn't listening to what my needs needed to be. It was not reasonable to ask a pregnant female to work at a hospital 30 minutes from her house and then turn around in the afternoon and see patients in an office 30 minutes in a second direction and give me no time to eat. Like those are the types of things we would. She was like, you can eat in your car. I was like, while driving, I should be eating in my car while driving. So it was those kinds of things. And that may seem trite now, and I can laugh about it now. But what's interesting is that child, who is now 18, in the past year had some health care hiccups and is seeing a wonderful functional integrative physician. And when we did testing on his adrenals, guess what was not optimal? And so in the back of my mind, of course, every mom thinks this. I was like, what was different about my pregnancy with this child than my first child? And I absolutely believe each child is unique. Each child is different. My second son is wired very differently. His stress levels rev high. He's a very intense kid. He's at a very demanding high school, and that's by his choice. But when we started looking intrinsically at his lab work, and I said to this physician friend of mine, I was like, I'm 1,000% certain that the stress, that I haven't even disclosed all the things, But the stress that I experienced while I was pregnant with him at work, battling with this particular person, at least had some impact on his adrenals at this point. And he said, I don't disagree with that. And so I share this because we as women, what do we do? We blame ourselves all the time. And I always say, like, you know, he is managing his adrenal health and his health beautifully with no, you know, long term negative effects. But in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking, you know, when we talk about the interplay of adrenals and immune system and stress, I always think about autoimmune stuff. And so that's always tucked in the back of my mind because I know for myself personally, I've had multiple autoimmune conditions, which has a great deal to do with how I grew up. And so I'm very sensitive to that. But let's talk about how this interplay of stress, even suppressed things, you know, so many of us are super high functioning. But when we're talking about this interplay between stress, chronic stress, the immune system and autoimmunity, how does that play up? How does that show for your patients? And how do you think about autoimmune conditions? Because even now they're talking about how PCOS may not be this just metabolic issue. It may actually be an autoimmune issue as well. Yeah, and even endometriosis, there's such an immune component. And there's one study that looked at anger as an emotion. And so I always pull anger and resentment together. And in Chinese medicine, we store anger and resentment in the liver. And the liver has so many different functions, as we know, from our metabolic health to detoxing the excess estrogens from the environment. And so they saw when there was excess anger in the body or in the emotional body, interleukin-6 went up, pro-inflammatory markers. When they saw that they would bring community or support to the women in that same cohort, they actually saw interleukin-6 go down. So it goes to show how intimately connected our emotions are to our physiology. and so when we're looking at PCOS or endometriosis or even fibroids, there was one study that followed 60,000 women over 16 years and just to see what kind of reproductive health they had over those years and the women that had fibroids, each and every single one had some sort of emotional or sexual or physical abuse in their childhood. So there has to be something that's interconnected there. And so for autoimmunity, it's self-fighting self. So when you really think about it, it's like, where have we not been kind to ourselves because our environment didn't give us that safety to be kind to ourselves. We had to maybe survive and we gather these tools, our brain does whatever it can to protect us. And in doing that, we had to suppress who we were. We had to freeze. And so in doing that protection, it's our body that starts to speak. It's like Gabor Mate's work when the body says no. Like your body is speaking to you in that autoimmunity that yourself is fighting itself and it's time to now use your voice and find out where that suppression actually came from. Well, and I think so many of the people I interact with, that I interview, that I talk to patients just across the spectrum of my life. How many people had experiences as children, young adults, that then drive them to have unhealthy maladaptive patterns? And that could show up as like a shopping addiction. It could be gambling, it could be porn, it could be alcohol, it could be drugs. And it's our body's way of trying to make sense of either emotions we cannot process, were unable or incapable of processing, or were just not even on a conscious level aware of what we've experienced. When I interviewed Gabor Mate, I think it was one of those pivotal interviews. I read his entire book. And for anyone who's listening, it's a very long book. And for me, it was a very long book, but also very hard for me to read because it gave me particular insights into my father. Now, my father's now deceased. I've spoken openly about his alcoholism. And Gabor said something to me along the lines of, Cynthia, do you realize how bad your father's trauma must have been for him to have become an alcoholic? And it was the first time it had been phrased in such a way that it gave me a hundred, like a 360 degree shift in my perspective. I mean, Not that I was ever not empathetic towards my father because I was, but it gave me tremendous insights because Gabber's work really speaks to the pain that people experience and how many people can't say I'm in pain. Instead, their way of articulating I'm in pain is to develop an unhealthy relationship or connection with any of the habits that I've mentioned. And that's not an exhaustive list. And so I think that giving ourselves permission to better understand other people's behavior, because I think fundamentally for any of us that are in health care in any capacity, we genuinely care about people. We want to better understand them. We want to be able to help them. And so it's amazing how books or people or resources will show up. And so you do such a beautiful job in your book kind of touching on a lot of this vignettes that kind of bring greater awareness to how emotions can impact our health quite significantly. Now, I'm not suggesting to anyone listening that every single person goes through trauma and they develop alcoholism. That's not the point of what I'm saying. It's just each one of us have our own bio individual way of kind of working through our experiences. And some people do a great job. Like I was one of them just stuffed it all down because I was expected to show up and be high functioning and get good grades and have lots of friends. And, you know, the expectations that my parents set for me. Did you feel like growing up in your household that you were encouraged to talk about your feelings? Or is it something like what I experienced where I was told I have to keep my dignity as a lady, which essentially was my mother's way of telling me to stuff my emotions down because it wasn't acceptable to be emotional. So I'm first generation Indo-Canadian, meaning my parents came from India in the 70s. In the 70s, so they were 20 years old. And so the expectation for our generation was to still have those values that were held back home. So it was a very difficult thing to navigate two different cultures. So it was difficult for my parents to see their children growing up in a culture that was so different. And so when, you know, we would speak up or I would speak up being the oldest to being a girl, that was the other layer because there's a lot of reverence given to young men in our culture. So there was a lot of, yes, you just put your head down. You just keep doing what you're supposed to do. There were so many lines that my mom would say about even marriage. A woman can adjust if she needs to. You just have to adjust. And that's what makes the marriage work. It was all about giving up pieces of yourself in order to keep the peace. And so growing up, there really wasn't a lot of voice. And so there wasn't a lot of safety to speak about stressors that I had or traumas that I did go through. And so a lot of that work had to be done on my own as I grew up. And I think that shift that you had about your father, I recently have started having that about my mother too. And she did the best that she could. She came when she was so young. She was taken away from her family and what she knew back home. She was in college. Her father was a math professor, but she gave all that up to raise a family and be in a totally different country, learn a new language. I mean, she knew the language, but it's a very different way of being and was just trying to hold on so tightly and try to control as much as she can. And so now being a mother, I understand elements of what she was feeling, but also there's this anger that rises in me sometimes. I'm like, why didn't you stand up for me? Why didn't you stand up for yourself? And then I go back to my grandmother's generation and I look at all that she went through, married at 16, lost her first husband, lost one of her children. Her mom and mother-in-law died within the same couple of years, all up until the age 18. Got remarried to my grandfather, who was the younger brother of her other husband. And she had all this trauma that she faced at such a young age, but she would just navigate life like nothing happened because there was no room for her to express anything that happened. And the minute my grandfather passed away, she had dementia. It was literally within hours, all of a sudden she's gone. She's not the same woman again. It's like all that stored up trauma, like something just clicked in her brain and was like, I'm out of here. That's what it felt like. The grief was so vague and so compiled for all those years. And so when I look back to my lineage, I understand why I wasn't given that safety to have a voice. And so now I'm trying to change that for myself because it becomes your pattern in your own relationships, in friendships and all of that. And a friend of mine, we're just having this talk the other day, like how good we are in crisis. You know, you just show up, You get the thing done. And it's what's afterwards that shakes you up. I actually had a really negative experience last night at the airport coming off of the airplane. There was an individual, I guess, didn't enjoy the color of my skin. No. Yeah. I said quite a few things and was yelling a lot and was yelling at a young kid next to me too who was black. And at the moment, you know, I got really protective of him because he reminded me of my son. I was like, you go. He's yelling at me, too. There's no need to apologize for anything. We didn't do anything wrong. We're just existing. And there must have been something going on in that man's life to create that much hatred. I don't know what it was, but in that moment, I was okay, but it was afterwards. I got in my hotel room, and I could not stop shaking. And in that moment, when that was coming at me, I froze. And so what I realized even last night, as I was kind of navigating what I was feeling, I'm like, this action of freezing started at a very young age because I wasn't given that safety to speak. And the things that I did go through and that a major trauma that I had when I was young, I had to freeze to keep myself safe. So now the pattern in my life is to freeze when something shows up. And so that's the pattern that I'm moving through. And it's the pattern that my body's been imprinted with, too. Yeah, I mean, our ability to respond to stressors, so it's usually fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, which is my personal narrative. I'm so sorry that you had that experience. That makes me feel terribly because people in this part of the world are actually generally wonderful. But as I tell my children, I'm like, there are people out there who are just mad that you breathe. Like it makes zero sense. There's no rationale to it. They're just not in a good place. and just recognizing it really has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them. But for each one of us, we have our own patterns. And so mine has been fawning. And so I have fawned throughout most of my life. And that dissociation piece, my cousin who's a physician and like the sister that I never have, and we're always unpacking our trauma. So our mother, my mother and her father are brother and sister. So that's how we're cousins. I mean, that may seems obvious, but we're on the same side of our family. And so she was she and I were talking and I was saying like this dissociation piece I didn't even recognize. But there are so many instances throughout my childhood and young adulthood. And even now where I can feel that dissociation when I'm really uncomfortable, really don't want to be where I am or I'm experiencing something that makes me feel really uncomfortable. That's exactly what my body does. This complete dissociation. And now we have a terminology and a name for it. But years ago, it was like, oh, fight or flight, you either run away or, you know, you get eaten by the saber tooth tiger. And so there's so much more nuance to those discussions. And I'm sure when you're reflecting on your grandmother and understanding the impact of generationally what's happened, what was expected at that point in a woman's life, I think that can mirror what many people intergenerationally see with their family members. and it's interesting I have a very strong mother and growing up people would say things like oh you know your mom she doesn't want anything to get past her and it's interesting that I think my mother's way of reacting to the trauma that she grew up in was just to especially with men no one could push her around she was just tough and so it's interesting to watch how I watched that growing up and then I became the people pleaser because I don't like friction I don't like confrontation. So part of my challenge is always pushing myself to be like, you want to speak up for yourself. You don't want to sit back and sit in that mode of inactivity because ultimately that's not doing you any benefit. But when we're talking about hormones and healing, one thing that really stands out for me is women's mental health. Not talked about enough. I think young women are expected to suffer through their periods. Maybe these younger generations are doing a better job ensuring that doesn't happen. But young women are expected to have painful periods, heavy cycles, years and years before their cycles get regulated, if at all. many of whom are put on synthetic hormonal contraception in order to fix that. And let me be clear, I'm not anti-contraception. I'm just mentioning that, you know, we're taking synthetic hormones. Talk to us about how a young woman's physiology, how things start through puberty, and how it does take, as I learned from you, five, ten years for our menstrual cycles to really get regulated, but how most women don't ever, ever get to really experience that because we're put on synthetic hormones that regulate it but don't actually regulate it. Yeah, that's such a great question because we are in that world where it's been normalized to have the painful periods, the heavy periods and dread that time of the month. But it's that relationship that really needs to change. And that starts with understanding why we're feeling the way we are. And so a young woman, as she's developing, first it's her DHEA that's going to rise when she's quite young. And then as she's going through puberty, that's when estrogen and progesterone start to come in. And it does take 5 to 10 years for ovulation to actually regulate itself. But it's usually in those years where if she's feeling uncomfortable, if it is a heavier period and she goes to her doctor, the first tool is that synthetic hormone, which is then shedding that communication between her brain and her ovaries. So if we shut down that communication, we don't actually get a sense of her. She doesn't get a sense of her. She has no idea what her actual rhythm is. And so when we don't have that understanding, we can't make the right choices when it comes to food or movement or even knowing. And partners, yes. That one's huge. I think women don't understand that when they're on synthetic hormones, they may choose different partners than when they are not on synthetic hormones. And it changes the way your brain is behaving. There's so many women that are more prone to depression when they're on birth control pills that they don't. And I'm not anti either. I think it's something that's necessary for a lot of women in different stages of their lives. I just think we need to understand the impact so we can make an informed choice. And so anxiety and depression can follow. And so if you think about, you know, we're women in perimenopause, menopause and dealing with women in those stages, too. So we're going through reverse puberty and the discomfort that we feel now with the wisdom that we have. So imagine a young woman that doesn't have that life experience and is feeling uncomfortable in her body, is looking to, you know, the generation before for those messages of like, how am I supposed to relate to this? But we've just been suppressing it. And so I think it's so important to have these conversations that your period is your power. This is what tells you your story. This is what tells you the story of your body and your health. And if we can just take a moment to understand what's happening, like when estrogen is rising in that first half, that you are going to feel really powerful. When progesterone is rising, you probably want to be more like introverted and cozy with yourself. And that's okay. It's okay to change. It's okay to feel different things throughout the month because it's that feeling that gives you clues as to when you're serving your body or when you're not. Well, and I think it's so important to hear that message because I was one of those young women that never got a regular cycle. So at 15, 16, 17, I can't even remember now. So maybe 17, I started the pill because I wasn't getting a regular cycle. And back then, that's what they did for everyone. but I never had bad PMS, but I did when I was on the pill. And it's no surprise because you're on synthetic hormones and then your hormones, there's a complete disconnect between your ovaries and your brain. And so when you're getting withdrawal bleeding, it's not actually real bleeding. It's a byproduct of, you know, taking a break from these oral contraceptives. And again, to echo our, both of our sentiments, contraception is important. We're not saying not to take contraception, but understanding the complex interplay of disconnecting our hormones from our brains and how we never get a sense of what's going on with our bodies. One of the things that I really appreciated in the book was, you know, the emphasis on mental health and then talking about how some women develop the really severe manifestations of PMS, which is PMDD, about five to eight percent of women. And this is debilitating PMDD. And to your point if we talking about women that have experienced quite a bit of intergenerational trauma epigenetic changes maybe starting off life with less amounts of progesterone they might be the ones that are at greater risk for developing PMDD which is sometimes very hard to treat. I'm sure you probably have some clinical experience, you know, addressing this with patients. How do you help them unpack how to address these symptoms, especially the week prior to their cycle starting? I think it's so dependent on what season of life a woman is in. So women that I'm treating in their 20s, it's a very different conversation than 30s or even 40s. And so a woman in her 20s, we try to bring in tools that are going to support her in that moment. And sometimes it is hormones that she needs to help support her. But in order to unpack the why, I think is really important. So if I as a physician have an understanding of her story and her physiology and know that her progesterone is low, so maybe I am going to give her some progesterone, some bioidentical progesterone to support her through that cycle. There are certain herbs that can be really helpful, like nerve veins to help her nervous system. So just to connect her, that connection between your hormones and your nervous system health and how important that is, and to help her see that these small changes can actually make big differences. The other thing I always ask women to recognize is what's the pattern? You know, is it anxiety? Is it depression? Is it fear? Is there a certain theme that's coming up? Like, is there a certain thought that's coming up at that time? Like, is it irritability with your partner? Is it feeling not good enough at that moment? What are the themes that are coming up? Because that's going to give us clues as to why you're experiencing it more than someone else. Often the physiology piece is the adrenals and progesterone. And thyroid has a huge role in that as well. So if we can start treating those, I often see pretty good results with PMDD. Fast forward to perimenopause, it's a whole different story. This is where because hormones aren't going up, they're going down. And they're going up and down throughout that time. I think there's more vulnerability. And it's almost as if we can't escape it. We can't escape the feelings. And that's my own personal experience this last year or two. I turned 46 this year and, you know, before I could keep it together. So even last night when that stressful event happened, normally I could keep it together. But I had to go to the bathroom, hide from the gentleman first, and then bawl my eyes out and go to the hotel, still bawling my eyes out. I'm like, normally I could completely suppress what's going on. And it's like you hit perimenopause and everything's at surface. It's like the veil has been lifted. And so to recognize, you know, again, what's the pattern? Where is it coming from? What are my adrenals doing right now? What's my nervous system feeling like on a daily basis? All those things will make a big impact on your health. Yeah, and I think there are definitely women, whether it's in, you know, peak fertile years, perimenopause or later, I absolutely think there are women that are much more sensitive. Their bodies, they are so attuned to their bodies. they know like I have a very good friend who is now officially in menopause but I remember her saying to me that she would feel so differently day to day that it was deeply troubling and when the option came to have a hysterectomy because she was having very heavy cycles she actually said you know what I'm willing to do it because she said I would have like one morning I'd wake up and feel great the next morning I wake up and I feel terrible she's a licensed medical professional And she said, I am so exquisitely attuned to my body that I just got to a point. And she's in her early 50s where she just said enough's enough. You know, this is too much day to day that it's not like it's just one week out of the month. She was like, it's almost every single day, just depending on how things show up. And so I want to give women permission to know that we're all bio individuals, just like all of our puberty experiences were very different. Same thing with perimenopause and menopause. And I'm the first person to say that I found perimenopause far harder to navigate than menopause, good or bad. It's just when I reflect back, where was I struggling the most? It was easily 10 years ago. And so I think, again, it goes back to whatever you're experiencing is real, you know, making sure you're articulating what's working, what's not working. You mentioned you have this almost irritability, like I can't not express my emotions. That can be both good and bad. so in that circumstance what were the things that i'm sure obviously you reached out to your husband but what were the things that you were employing to be able to feel like you weren't so your emotions weren't so friable yeah so a lot of grounding techniques the first thing i did is started breathing because i started to notice i was fidgety i was like breathing up here and i'm like okay i just need to get in my body because i'm so wrapped up in my mind and in this like feeling. So the feeling is there for a reason to tell me there's something that needs to be healed, obviously. And so I just started moving. I was literally shaking. So I started shaking even more just to kind of get the jitters out. And then I started doing these breathing exercises. And then I took a shower because I'm like, I need water to just kind of like feel or like move this off of me. And those simple things made a huge difference in just resetting my nervous system. And so I think if we learn tools that help us in our daily, because we could be stuck in traffic, we could be trying to take our kids from like soccer to school to like making the lunches to doing all the things and having a very similar reaction as if you're in danger. The brain doesn't know the difference because the brain's predicting all the time when it comes to your safety. And so if you're in your everyday, so if you're in traffic, maybe you have a breathing exercise that you can do, or you have a mantra or affirmation that you say to yourself, or you're putting on some good music and singing along with that music because that actually massages your vagus nerve and it helps to activate that. So you're calming your nervous system down. And that I think is so empowering because it tells you that you can be in control, that the emotion doesn't have to control you, but just to inform you because the emotion is there for a reason. There is no bad emotion. There is anxiety is there, maybe giving us clues as to something that might not be safe, but we get to evaluate, is it or not? The depression or the sadness might be there because it's giving us this clues into like something that we're missing in our lives or we're sad about or we're grieving. And maybe there's so much love somewhere, but we're not able to express it. So I think if we can start to relate to the emotions differently and then have these everyday tools that bring us back to ourselves, that makes a massive difference in how the emotion is expressing through you. Thank you so much for sharing what you did last night. But I think for our listeners, you're not talking about a gadget or device. You're talking at things that we can employ on the go. I mean, minus the shower, we'd have to be in close proximity to your house or the hotel room, but helping people understand there are things that we can tangibly do. I think breath work for me personally is something that has been transformational. It's a way that I can regulate not just my emotions, but it's a way that I can regulate my voice. So if I'm getting ready to step on stage and I'm feeling like excited, nervous, that's when I start those, like I do a box breath. And so that's typically what I do, but I know that that will stimulate my vagus nerve, slow me down. So I'm not feeling quite so jittery, but I think for a lot of people understanding this relationship between the vagus nerve, which is the longest nerve in the body, direct communication between the brain and the gut. So when you get nervous and you get butterflies in your stomach, it's, you know, your brain is sending information down this vagus nerve. What are some other ways that we can engage the vagus nerve that don't necessarily require a gadget. And yes, there's lots of fun gadgets out there that can do that. But the things that are simple that we can do at any time. Yeah. So I mentioned singing is a big one because you're using your voice. Humming is the other one as well. Cold exposure. So this could just be the face, it'd be the hands, just that cold exposure is really helpful. And then movement. And so like that shaking that I did or doing some like yoga postures or just going out for a walk and connecting with nature, that in itself is going to activate or massage that vagus nerve. So breath, movement, humming, singing, using your voice, I feel like those are like the simple things that one can do for the vagus nerve. And then there's, you know, herbs that you can take on a daily basis too. So because of my night before, I went straight to this organic tea shop and I got myself ashwagandha, holy basil and ginger tea just to calm my nervous system down too and help support that vagus nerve. I love that. And I love that you are so thoughtful in the way that you go about it. Like you're like acknowledging I have these little pieces and then I have these herbs that I go to that are so beneficial. And I'm a huge fan of adaptogenic herbs in general because I feel like they're so multipurposeful. When we're talking about women and mental health, it goes without saying that perimenopause into menopause is a time when mental health issues can sometimes be magnified. What are some of the ways that you go about exploring this with women? Because I think that although we as medical professionals are very comfortable asking patients, I think that many patients still feel a degree of stigma when they're talking about anxiety and depression. And middle age is when a lot of women go through divorces. Suicide rates go up. So how can we help screen for these concerns? Yeah. I think one thing for women to understand is that they're not alone. And as soon as you understand you're not alone, you know there's not something wrong with you. And you start to understand that the emotions that you're feeling are temporary. So when I'm sitting across a woman, I first look at the physical. So when I look at the hormonal hierarchy of healing, it's the physical first to get her feeling well. So she might come in with like fatigue or she's noticing she's irritable with her husband like she never used to be. Maybe her libido is low or maybe she is having the night sweats and the hot flashes and all of that. So the first thing I do is do some testing to show her the connection. So when I get her test, if her progesterone is low, I'll start talking about anxiety. I'm like, you know, progesterone supports GABA. So some women, if their progesterone is low, may feel anxious when before they never used to. If your estrogen is low, you know, that fuels dopamine. If you're not feeling motivated, if you're feeling a little extra depressed, or if your testosterone is low and you're feeling extra depressed, that's also quite normal too. As soon as I do that, they're like, oh, it's not me. Like there's something going on with me. So that I feel like builds some level of trust with me and then trust within themselves as we start to do some of the things to help their physical body. Then I can go into the emotional. So often when I'm sitting across a woman, I can already tell what her story is and just how she's answering questions like, is she the people pleaser? Is she the overachiever? Is she just silent and not really expressing herself? So I'll start seeding some questions that will help navigate to understand her like hormonal identity or personality. and as we do that and as we build that trust, I would say 9 out of 10 women will start to describe some sort of trauma that they've experienced. And that could be a small T trauma too. And I know, like you were saying, trauma is having a moment now, which I think is great because I think we're talking about it, but I also think we can get stuck in our stories too and not realize how they can actually inform our today so we can heal and move forward in a very different way. And so once we start to identify these traumas or the stories that they're carrying, and it could just be like a big theme that she's carrying that she's not good enough in what she's doing. I had one woman, we did some testing and she had Hashimoto's and I was expressing some of the things that we can do. And she kind of sat back and all of a sudden she's like, you know, I don't deserve your help. And that broke my heart. And so, you know, she was that person and also of that generation where she was silent, where she took care of everybody else. So we had to do a lot of unpacking before we could even treat the Hashimoto's. And so once we can discover and understand her why and the story that she's carrying, then I can give her different tools, whether it's with movement or food or changing that relationship with herself so that she can navigate her every day in such a different way. It's so interesting when patients openly say things like that i'm not worthy can you imagine what the internal dialogue must be like that's what i always reflect on like wow if someone said that out loud imagine what they're telling themselves in like their internal dialogue how toxic and unhealthy that must be yeah and then when they start to realize how that's impacted their bodies and their relationships in so many ways. For one person, that might be deteriorating, but for another person, that could be so empowering. Like, okay, so if I created this, I can actually change this. Yeah. That reframe is really important. Absolutely. And I think it's so important and so vital that if someone can find the reframe, and I think for those that are survivors of any one thing, it's because you probably have had to find a reframe to be able to move yourself forward, At least that has been my personal experience. Like, okay, we're going to find a reframe, move forward and just kind of keep moving forward. You talk a lot in the book about womb wisdom, which was kind of a new terminology to utilize, but makes so much sense. And again, goes back to the mother and that generational component. Can we talk about what is womb wisdom and how does it influence who we are and how we're imprinted? Yeah. So, you know, when you think about being in the womb, like everything you needed was given to you. And so when you actually sit with that knowledge, it's like all I had to do was be and everything was provided. and there's such a beautiful communication between the placenta and mom and just her hormones her voice her everything how she's carrying herself how she's navigating life and the information that you're receiving while you're in the womb and if you think about the lineage of a grandmother to a daughter to a granddaughter the granddaughter was already in the grandmother's womb when the mother was being born so you can see that there is like a huge link and the stories are being passed down And so when a mom is having an experience in her environment, like you were talking about your stressors, that environment is being shown to the fetus. And the fetus will change and shift and change their physiology and hormones to navigate the environment they're about to go into to survive. Like we're already built to do that when we're in there. And so this womb space, I feel like we're able to create life there for those of us that choose it or those of us that are able to. it's such a form of creation and yet we just don't give it the reverence that we should because of how women have been treated over the years and centuries and we've been actually chosen or told to avoid it and your period is impure in some cultures and talking about the womb just doesn't exist unless it's in these kinds of safe circles and so when you start to understand the knowledge that's carried there and the wisdom that is because when you look at your period at the end of the month, it's giving you a whole picture of your whole month, what you've eaten, how you've moved, the stressors you've experienced in its heaviness, in its color, in its everything is telling you your life experience. So there's so much wisdom there. And then when it comes to mom's environment, so that's physical, that's chemical, that's also emotional. There was one study done in Mexico around the cortisol awakening response going back to that whole stress state, and they were following these women over the course of their pregnancy and looked at, you know, who had really high cortisol in the morning and who had really low. And then they followed the infants when they were born. And at nine months, they started testing them, but they put them in some stressful situations, like taking them away from mom for a little while. They saw the infants that could actually shift and regulate themselves more easily were the ones that had higher cortisol in the morning, like normal cortisol, but the ones that were adrenal insufficient, they couldn't navigate that stress. So the resilience was really low. So we're learning all of that. So yes, there's like a pain associated there, but there's also knowledge and wisdom that's being passed down as well. I think it's so fascinating because I feel like at least my generation, you know, we weren't allowed to talk about our periods. I remember, you know, I had a stepsister and I have one sibling, a younger brother. And I remember when I had my period, it was like the communication from my mother and my stepfather was, we do not talk about it. This is how we address it. You know, you have to make sure that, you know, you're dumping the trash. I mean, it was like all of these like extra things. It was almost like we have to pretend this doesn't exist. And so I think women sometimes can feel like their physiology needs to be muffled. Like somehow it's not normal. It's dirty. It's not clean. You should feel shameful. You know, back in the day when they would have like tampon commercials. I don't even know if they even still have them, but, you know, they would separate each gender, which they still do to talk about, you know, female physiology and puberty and male physiology and puberty. But, you know, I think that this generation is certainly much more vocal, you know, certainly when I pop in on TikTok, which isn't often, but when I do, there's certainly an awareness, a discussion. Women are talking more about painful periods, It's endometriosis, you know, choices that women make about contraception or not. And I think that it must be incredibly freeing as opposed to when I reflect back on my teens and 20s, very much like you don't talk about it. It's muffled. It's quiet. It's meant to feel like it has to be, you know, hidden away. Like you shouldn't even acknowledge this part of your physiology. And what's the message you're getting when you're receiving that, right? Like you're getting a message. It's shame. It's shame that there's something wrong with you. And so that's what we carry throughout our life. So if we can speak it, we take the shame away from it. So I love that women are speaking about it. And even young men, so we're moms of two boys. My boys know everything. They know when I'm on my period. They know how I'm feeling. They know all the things because I'm looking out for their future relationships. And so that they have an understanding of what's going on and how beautiful this actually is. This is what creates life. So how can we suppress it? How can we not talk about it? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure if I were asking one of my young adult sons, I would hope that they have a de-stigmatized perspective on these things. And I'll pretend that one isn't off camera right now. Totally embarrassed. Okay. So let's talk about what grief and sadness represent. You talk about how they're a gift in your book. And I 100% agree. But I would love to hear your explanation because I think that that, again, it's a reframe. I think that life gives us opportunities to show up, sometimes not the gift or opportunity we want at that time. But I do fervently believe that when we have sad things happen or things don't happen the way we wanted to, isn't that part of what grief is? I think it allows us to truly show up differently in our lives. You know, it's like it's an invitation. Talk to us about this, because I think this is an important concept. And I think especially for women at this stage of life, because most of us are dealing with kids getting older, parents getting older. Maybe they're dealing with deaths of loved ones. Maybe they're dealing with spouses who have an illness. Maybe they're dealing with job loss. Maybe they're dealing with frustrating relationships outside of their immediate family. But there's a lot. We're in this sandwich generation. Talk about grief. Yeah, I think it's so important to have a relationship with grief. There's this book that I love to reference every single day. It's called The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. And it gives almost a word to everything that we're feeling, even the grief that you feel after finishing a really good novel, you know, that like feeling of sadness. Yeah, it's over. Yeah, it's over. And so when they describe sadness in that book, it actually came from the word satisfaction. So there's like a fullness that follows sadness. There's a fullness that follows grief. There was a quote that I saw once that grief is just love that has no place to go. yeah and when you think about grief in that reframe you start to understand what a gift it is so that grief that we're feeling about our boys growing up is because of all those beautiful years that we've had with them and are still going to have but we're grieving those stages before the grief of our body when we become pregnant the grief of our body when we're going through perimenopause it's because we've had this lived story in this body so we get to we get to grieve We get to have sadness or that loss that we've had a loved one. We get to grieve all that love that we've experienced in that relationship. So I think if we reframe it in like I get to feel this way, it really shows us. I think it humanizes us in so many ways, too, because it shows us how temporary everything is. Yeah, it's interesting. Someone was asking me recently what it was like to be nearly an empty nest. And I prefer to use Gretchen Rubin's open door because that sounds so much more positive. What my husband and I felt like getting to that point. And I said, I don't know yet. It's not that I'm not paying attention to what's coming. Yes, our youngest is graduating from high school in 2026. But I think I've constantly been one of those people that's really savored every single stage. Like when I say I loved being pregnant, I loved when my kids were infants. I loved when they were toddlers in elementary school, middle school and high school and even now young adults. I think I've been present and I've spent time really enjoying being with my kids. So I look at it as like it's been such a gift. Like I really have had try not to get emotional. I say this, but I've had such a different relationship with my children than my parents had with me that I it made it forced me to be present. And so I don't look at it as like I have this loss coming. I look at it as I really get to see my kids turn into these amazing young men Like isn that a gift And so yes my husband and I are going to have to second guess what we doing with all this extra time that we have but now we have three dogs and so that makes us certifiable But I think for everyone listening, it's this push-pull. It's the push-pull of parenting. It's the push-pull of life. Each time you're given this opportunity to find the reframe when maybe you're like, oh, I would go back to my kids being eight and 10 in a heartbeat. but then I would miss all what's going on right now so I think we are constantly invited as parents as humans as women to just be like sitting gratitude like part of that reframe is just saying gosh I'm so lucky I'm so fortunate that I have these experiences that I don't look at it as a negative so when people say to me oh what's it like you're gonna be an empty nester soon I'm like I don't just don't feel that way. Like that's not the way I think about what next year will be like. I look at it as there's some cool things we're going to be able to do. Like, I don't have to think about like cooking someone dinner. I don't have to worry about as much laundry. Exactly. Second dinner. Correct. You know, you understand. I've got two boys. But I think for each one of us, it's like allowing us to have this opportunity to find that reframe and to express gratitude. Because if I do both of those things, I don't feel lost. That's the medicine. It's the presence and the gratitude. And I think where we are challenged as women is the anticipatory anxiety that comes with this knowing that things are about to change. And, you know, even in our brains, our worry center is larger than men's worry center on purpose. So we keep the little beings alive. We can anticipate the challenges that are coming our way. And I think it's if we get wrapped up in that experience of that anxiety of like, what if this, what if that, that's where we get it overwhelmed by it. But if we start to do that reframe of just being present right now, and when we do look back, looking back with gratitude, it's a game changer for those emotions. So then we welcome the emotion instead of trying to deny them. And I also think, this is my gestalt, as I was reflecting on the fact we would have this beautiful conversation today, I was like, you know, maybe one of the things I'm grateful for about my upbringing, which was not ideal on a lot of different levels is that I am good about having a little bit of tunnel vision when I need it. When I'm in stuff, it's like I have an ability to focus. And that could also be, I believe I might have a little bit of neurodivergence that helps me stay really, really focused and very present on one thing at a time. But I think that my experiences as a child and young adult have kind of prepared me for what life is throwing at me right now. That maybe that is the blessing from all of that. You know, when we talk about, I agree with you that we don't want our trauma to become our identity, but I do think that how I've been able to unpack what my life experiences has been is what has been my superpower because of what I experienced. And so I think that for me personally, the way that I kind of work my way out of these, you know, life hiccup changes, challenges is like, okay, how do you eat an elephant? Like when I really am like, when I feel like the overwhelm coming, it's like, how do I eat an elephant one bite at a time? It's a terrible way of describing it. But the same thing I say to my children, when you've got a thousand things going on, like my 20 year old mentioned to me, you know, he's got 19 credit hours. He's an engineering major. He was like hitting that point in his semester that we all did where you're just like oh my god how am i going to get through it and i said jack what do i always say how do you do an elephant one bite at a time so it's like taking it day by day little by little you will get through it yeah and i think before you're able to do that i think what you said something that was so important is you accepted yourself who you are the characteristics you have the identity or the roles that you may have packed on because of your experience before. So instead of fighting it, you had acceptance, which gives us more healing about what's happened in the past. So then you can see yourself as that superpower and not something that's holding you back. Absolutely. Absolutely. What has been your experience? What are the things that hold women back from healing? So we've talked a lot today about childhood experiences, life experiences, intergenerational experiences. What are some of the biggest impediments or barriers to women being able to get on a path to healing? Yeah, I think the biggest one is that lack of self-trust. Yes. Not trusting one's intuition, not trusting their body signals, not trusting the voice that's actually the soul voice, not the other narrator. So I think when she's not in full trust of herself, it's really hard to even trust the process. And we are looking, especially in today's world, we want those quick fixes too, because time is just, it's not stretching. It's shrinking all the time. And so when we're in that state of trying to get everything done as quickly as we can, we're not able to listen. We're not pausing to listen. And we've been trained not to listen. So if we don't have that self-trust, I think that is the biggest obstacle for women. It's interesting. I'm sure you're familiar with human design theory, but when I got introduced to it, I was like, hmm, things make so much sense. And so I think for many, many years, I was conditioned to believe, as I know many women are, don't trust your intuition, be left brained, you know, look for the evidence. And so I've learned that I'm a manifesting generator, which means I must trust my intuition. And so that is when I started trusting my intuition, my life got a whole lot easier. You know, whether it was about a person or an event or saying yes to something, having boundaries, like what is my gut telling me? What do you think contributes to women not trusting themselves? Is it societal? Is it familial? Like what are the things that you think contribute to women not trusting their intuition adequately enough? Yeah, I think it's all of it. I think it starts at a very young age when we're being told what to do, when to eat, what to eat, how to behave. Don't use your brain. Exactly. Don't use your brain. Yeah, exactly. So when we're being told how to be, we haven't had that opportunity to even understand ourselves. Bringing our kids into the stories, my youngest, he's a carnivore. We were vegetarian when I had him and he came out with like canines. And I was like, oh gosh, okay, this one's going to be a bit different. And for a few years, I still try to stay vegetarian with him and he would just gravitate towards me. And I'm like, okay, he's listening to his body. His nervous system completely changed when I introduced meat into his diet. Yeah. Now slowly he's got all of us eating meat again and is a chef, cooks steak all the time. But it was one of those moments as a mom, this aha moment of like, how often do parents unknowingly take that intuition or that wisdom away from our children? Because whether it's like time that's contracted or we just, you know, we need to get somewhere or we know better. And yeah, there's many ways we need to guide our children, but we don't teach them how to listen to their bodies. And we haven't been taught to listen to our bodies. And for so long, generationally, women's voices have been shut down. And, you know, even thinking about how women were treated when they were intuitive, when they were doing medicine in a different way with the herbs and stuff. So there's that stigma as well. It's like if you listen to your intuition, you're a witch. You know, there's all these things that we're carrying, all these stories that we're still unpacking. And so I think it's really hard in a noisy world that we're so distracted in, and especially now the age of information, which is amazing. I think it's great that we have information, but now we need discernment. And that discernment comes from ourselves. You know your best self. That's it. We are guides. You and I have these conversations sitting in front of our patients, too. We can share our own experience, but we'll never have that experience of that woman in front of us. And so I think if we can instill that in her, that she's the most powerful doctor that she will ever meet, that will start bringing that trust back and that intuition. I love that. And I love the story about your son. I think it's fantastic. And I will just share one and say that my oldest son played lacrosse when he was young. My kids were both very athletic and enjoyed different sports. And he came back to lacrosse as a high school student. And I remember him saying one day, why didn't you force me to continue playing? Now, my husband played in college and played his entire life. And I remember saying to him, and he would be the first person to agree to what I'm about to say. I said, Jack, it just wasn't worth it to force you to do anything. That I allowed you to follow what you were interested in. And that was not what you were interested in anymore. Now he came back to it and now he plays at the college level. And so, you know, every once in a while that will come up in conversation. Why didn't you force me to do it? And I was like, well, I just didn't believe in doing that. And so I think that I think for each one of us, like you with your son coming back to meet and encouraging all of you to return to meet. I think for each one of us, it's deciding like, you know, you just get to a point where it's like you are an autonomous individual. And I think at some point I want you to be able to discern for yourself. What are you interested in pursuing and what are you not interested in pursuing? And I think that is like our primary. It's one of my primary drivers as a parent, as I'm sure it probably is for you and Nick. Now, I'd love to kind of round out the conversation today talking about the gifts of aging and the impact of loneliness. I say this with a very, I guess a very full heart, but the acknowledgement of watching patients that are going through different times in their lives, whether they were recently widowed or they're retired or maybe they don't have as many loved ones around them or friendships as much as they want. I've been able to witness that personally as well as professionally, the impact of loneliness. But let's talk about navigating the aging process and kind of loop that in because I think that many listeners may not realize how impactful loneliness is on our health. And I'm not talking about like you're bored one day, but like true to your bone loneliness and the impact on our health, which is substantial. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a cultural issue and a societal issue where, you know, we have the anti-aging narrative instead of pro-aging and graceful aging and understanding that as we age, we develop wisdom and those wrinkles that we carry, the scars we carry are telling our story of our life. And thank goodness we're able to age and how thankful we should be that we are aging. So I think there's such a lack of reverence for the elders in our society that were fearful of aging. And so we've taken away these family community dynamics. And if we're not moving through life, through community, we actually just had a neighbor pass away. And I'm just, yeah. And, you know, I'm witnessing her husband now. And, you know, I will give some food. And he's always talking to the boys. And he's so good still because he's had community his whole life. They have their church community. They have our neighborhoods actually really great. And he keeps himself active and he's doing all these things. And I don't know if it's the same for women when they lose their spouse. I think it's a very different experience. And I think when we haven't been brought up in community, when we're so individualistic in the way that we think, it's harder in those older years to find that again. And so I think that impacts the body in so many ways. your immune system, your hormonal system, your motivation for life, like your zest for life isn't there like it was before when there's that true loneliness. You could be in a room full of people and still feel lonely. And that often occurs when you're not being yourself, when you're not feeling like you're heard or seen, and you've had to hide yourself for so many years. So I think there's so many layers to why we feel lonely. And I think as a community, we need to do a better job of accepting aging. So if we accept that, if we have reverence for it, it changes the whole narrative. We then look forward to those years and we can do that together as a society. I think you bring up so many good points. And, you know, to the point about as a culture, there is a very ageist philosophy. And so it's interesting. I was saying to someone the other day that being in a position where I'm at events and I'm seeing other people and I'm talking to people online as well. It's been interesting to me to hear what people say about themselves. Like, again, it goes back to the comment about if a patient says X, I can imagine what they're saying internally to themselves. But I feel like there's growing awareness. Like I think about Paulina Poroskova, who's doing a really beautiful job of talking about like for her, she's choosing to age naturally without surgery, without doing Botox fillers. And she always says like, I invite everyone to choose for themselves what works. But I agree with you that there is this push pull of social media and media in general with mixed messages. Like we're pro aging, we're anti aging, we're, you know, pro looking natural. And then women that talk about whether they choose to get surgery, not have surgery, age naturally, not age naturally. It's like they can't win because there's always someone that's making a comment, you know, that the trolls abound irrespective of where you are in social media. So I think that there's that issue. And then also the sense of community that, you know, living in a, you know, we lived in Washington, DC, we lived in Northern Virginia for almost 20 years and now live in a smaller part of our state. And I remember saying like, there was such a disconnect being in such a big city that people literally would live next door to you and they would drive into their garage at night and you would never see them or you would never have a conversation. And so I think now more than ever, it's critically important for people to have a sense of community, whether it's church or activities. You know, when my kids were younger, you know, the parents that were on swim team and the parents are in lacrosse, like you just got to know these people. It felt like a sense of belonging or just even having close friends, how important that is, because the impact of loneliness is beyond just the social aspects. It is loneliness is as destructive as smoking, that it is so, so important. It doesn't have to be that you're in a huge group of people. I'm an introvert. So as surprising as it is for people to know this, I'm happy in a small group. I don't necessarily want to go to a big, loud party. But for each one of us, figuring out what are the things we can be doing so that we feel a sense of connection, not just to our partner or our children or our loved ones, but feeling a sense of community outside of our physical house. because that is ultimately what is helpful when times get tough. Yes. I worry about the future in some sense for the elderly, even as we're stepping into that phase of life too, because they're everyday things that they're doing, like going to the bank or going to the grocery store, and they're interacting with people. That makes a huge difference in their day. And if we're going to replace that with automated things and not having that human connection anymore, it's going to change so much. Yeah. I remember that back when I was working for this large cardiology group and a large portion of the nurse practitioner service saw Medicare patients because they were the hospital follow ups. And it was just the way that it worked. Like if I looked at my schedule, 16 patients was a full day. Easily half or two thirds was Medicare patients. And I knew that when I went to see these patients, I had to take more time with them. And they generally wanted to talk a lot. And it would sometimes frustrate the nursing staff. And I'm not picking on the nurses. I'm just saying, like, you're in a busy practice, and they're trying to get patients in a room and get them ready for the provider. And then they step out, and they're like, someone's really talkative today. And I came to realize that some of these people were living alone. And maybe I was the only person they spoke to all week over the course of a couple of days. And so them wanting to talk was really that desire to feel a sense of connection to someone beyond a very superficial level. And so maybe I thought differently about it in my 30s. But now that I'm in my 50s, I think so differently. I always say, like, becoming a parent made me a better person. But I always look at it from the perspective of that's everyone is someone's child. And it's like I would want someone to be kind to my children. So I was always incredibly kind. And sometimes I would encourage them to come back. Like, maybe you need to come back for another visit. Not because I wanted to have their insurance company charged again. But there was clearly more that needed to be unpacked in that conversation. And so I think for a lot of people understanding, like, as our world starts getting more automated, as there's less real interaction between people, I do think that our older population is at risk, not just for the loneliness piece, but just not being in front of people. It's like you miss those social cues. You miss there's a lot that you miss. And that generation, just like my generation, just like the generation behind me, that generation is not we grew up with a lot of engagement, a lot of socialization. And so you start thinking, are people going to end up being frailer, faster? Are people going to be dealing with longer, more debilitating illness? Are people going to go from being really independent to being, you know, needing requiring assisted living a whole lot earlier? And to your point about how things are in the United States versus other cultures where you expect in other cultures that your parents are going to live with you at some point or they're going to be close to you. Maybe they like my mother in law lives next door to my sister in law. And that has worked out really well for her care needs in independently in her own house. Let me be clear about that. So I think that there's a lot that I start considering as I'm getting older that like, what are the things that my husband and I need to be doing? As I'm sure you probably reflect on as well. What are the things that each one of us need to be doing to foster a sense of community, which we know is so important for warding off loneliness? Yeah, I was pretty lucky to grow up in an Indian household where we would have like four generations in one house. And community has always been really huge. But then marrying my husband, it was a very different experience where it was just the five of them and that's it. And so it was a big adjustment for me and then for him to see this other side as well of like, yes, there's an expectation in our culture that parents will stay with you. And there's circumstances where it's too difficult. Like my grandma at one point, her dementia was just it was just too hard. And I see, however, the guilt my mom and her sister is still carry from putting her in a facility. And so I think these conversations should start to happen at a young age or at an age where you start to kind of understand that, you know, what is life going to look like in the next 20 years? And how do I belong to myself first so that I can belong to a group as well? I think that's the other conversation around when we're aging, especially going through menopause. Most of our reproductive years, we are giving. We are taking care of others. We are looking at the community and outside of ourselves. And here's an opportunity to reinvent and rediscover and we remember who we are so we can show up and attract that community that's maybe doing the same. I love going to our community center in the morning. We go to the gym there, all elderly, lined up for pickleball every single day. And, you know, they're in there, they're laughing. And we're walking out the other day. One gentleman who's like, what are you guys up to today? I'm like, oh, we're both working. He's like, I'm going to go meet my friends for breakfast now. I know it's a shitty life, isn't it? And I so look up to everyone that's there. I'm like, they're still moving their bodies and they're still making it a point to get up at six o'clock in the morning and be there. I mean, they could sleep in and not come until later in the day, but they have their schedules. And so I think it's so important, especially on that conversation around grief and loneliness, to have these conversations with our partners or with ourselves. Like, what do we want life to look like? Because then we're modeling that for the next generation as well. Absolutely. And I would just interject with that beautiful sentiment you just shared. My brother and I lost my dad last year. We didn't lose him. He passed away. He had a series of falls and hit his head and didn't want surgery. and I remember saying to my brother when we're trying to make decisions for our father we never had a conversation with our dad about what he wanted his burial to be like where he wanted to be buried I mean never had a conversation and I actually said okay the gift of what just happened was that we have to have these conversations so I went home and said to my husband you need to have a conversation you and your sister need to have a conversation about you with your mom about what she wants. And, you know, same thing for my mother and my stepfather. I said, because sometimes we don't have those conversations either because we refuse to believe it'll actually happen or we just don't, it isn't on our to-do list. And so I invite everyone to have those conversations, even with my husband, like we're still young, we're in our fifties, but I was like, I would want to know what you would want to do. And I think that's so important because there is, it's a terrible feeling to feel like, gosh, I spent an entire lifetime with my dad, not knowing what his wishes were. And I think in his mind, he was never going to die. But honestly, I think, you know, he had had a couple of near misses along the years. And so that became our joke between my brother and I, a little bit of gallows humor was that my dad just never thought he was going to die. So it just wasn't part of what he thought about. Well, I so love this beautiful conversation. Please let my listeners know how to connect with you outside of this podcast, how to get access to your new book. We'll make sure this comes out around your publication day, or to learn more about you. Perfect. Yeah, so Instagram, so just Dr. Sonia Jensen is my handle. And then you can go to healyourvormonesbook.com with the book. It's a great book. If you love this podcast episode, please leave a rating and review, subscribe and tell a friend. you