Menopause, Sex & Self-Love - Tanya Kazeminy

Menopause Needs A Rebrand

menopause is just it's it just needs a rebrand you know like it's just the whole concept around it it's just such a dead word and it like the feeling of it is there's there's shame around it there's really like there's awkwardness around it it it it it just kind of hits the table like tunk it doesn't it doesn't have any buoyancy to it or any life in the word and from you know from the very very beginning we've been taught that that you know there's a point in your life where you become invisible unattractive um you know just you you irrelevant there's this kind of the sense that you dry out you know you dry out and everything gets very very gray and powdery and I just it's just not true it's just 100% not true would you mind starting by talking about love because I think that this um I heard you say somewhere um that your work has been led by love maybe that's not my not the exact words that you use led by love for the last 10 years or so and I really want to hear about that to start us off.

Working For Love Not Fear

I think it's an important topic and yeah I I I guess my boss is love.

My boss's love's love yeah I mean that's who I who I work for like day in day out I I take assignments from love I'm always working on behalf of love. I luckily there's many of us out there working on behalf of love probably you too I don't know that everybody identifies as it but like I just can't imagine a better boss or a better purpose. And so I've been working um I've been working in the space of of creating more love in the world really like everything that I do is is about how does this make more love in the world? Does this create more love in the world? Does this I have this I had this big drop in actually it was in 2016 where I just realized I'm like oh we're in an epic battle of love versus fear and and so what can I do in every single point of my day to help love win.

And of course I fail of course I do of course I fall you know like of course I curse and of course I swear at the driver and of course I lose it with my you know like you it's it's not a perfect journey but I keep returning to this point of how do I help love win.

And and at times like this where the world is so crazy it's kind of a depressing it feels like oh no we're we're losing but I just one of the things that I really value is I know love is so much stronger than fear. So it doesn't actually take as much love to tip the scales because love is I don't know let's say it's like 5.6 times stronger than fear. And then if I was to do the calculation it would be like all right we only need you know 25% of love equals whatever but like it it is just this this this pursuit of of helping love win. So how do you like how do you put that into your day is it bringing awareness to it and when you make decisions you make decisions out of love rather than fear um how do I put that into my day I I the beginning the beginning there's there's sort of two things there's sort of two streams one stream is how do I behave more lovingly how do I speak more lovingly so I'm I'm really conscious of almost like a almost like an old fashioned stereo and I just want to turn the dial up on love. So I'm I'm very likely to meet you randomly and just be just say something you know I I I really love the way that you you you have such a beautiful feeling about you you have such a like you have such a lovely energy coming off of you and I'm I'm really likely to say the things that I think inside of my heart or I feel inside of my heart. I'm very likely to leave a long voice rambling voice message about how epic you are I've really I've really worked a lot to take myself out of competition. It doesn't it it's like that was so I think that's so ingrained in us in women to compete with each other and to really to try to counterbalance that and that one was a direct action of when I see you doing a podcast for four years and I think oh I wish I would have done that four years ago like I wish I would have I wish I was where you know and then it's it's like oh I'm not gonna compare myself to you I'm gonna celebrate you. Yeah so this this direct like that's amazing what you do is amazing you know wow I I didn't have the foresight to do that so cool that you did it. You know so you just continually shift from compare or compete to celebrate. So that's the one stream which is like this kind of the the verbal outpourings or the the the the action outwards and the action inwards has really

Self-Love As The Source

been about learning self-love because I've been teaching self-love now for 10 years and I couldn't teach it until I learned it to a certain degree but obviously it's it's a never ending process and I just really recognize that self-love is the restrictor valve on the tap to how much love I can give and receive. So I can't I can't I really can't love you much more than I love myself. I really can't you know and and you I definitely can't let you love me more than I love myself. On a good day I can but on a bad day I don't believe it. And so this thing about the more that I learn to love myself the more in love I am in all dimensions of my life and it's a really like even with my sons I have two sons and I really notice they either love me a lot more now or I can recognize their love or receive their love. So even as deeply as I feel with my children, you know, like I would have thought my love my get my capacity to give and my capacity to receive was like on the button with them. But I really noticed that um now I I I'm constantly I quite often I think God have you always loved me this much and I just wasn't able to see it because I just didn't have that much love for myself. So it didn't feel I couldn't even perceive it.

It wasn't even it was like it was too high pitched note for me to hear because I hadn't I hadn't like expanded my capacity my sound hearing capacity to hear that note does that make sense yeah yeah totally yeah self-love how did you how did you realize that that's what you needed it's a kind of a it's a bit of a paradox isn't it because it seems self-love it seems kind of selfish but in giving yourself love you are able to express as you said more love outwardly but it and it and it's also like we are all part of the same thing so when we see things that we don't like outside of ourselves that's basically a reflection of something we don't like about ourselves it's a lot to untangle isn't it's a lot where did you start with self-love and how did what what is it like is there a magic solution to this conundrum no it's a day by day journey but I I think I remember when I started to make the commitment to it and again I can remember I was I was it was it was after I got divorced so in 2010 um I got divorced and uh I just it started to become clear to me how how much pain and how much like damage I held in my system and how much self-loathing I had and how um honestly there was just a point where I just realized that the only thing that's forever in this life is my relationship with myself.

You know we sign this contract and say till death to us part and then it was you know it was it was a sort of a kind of a death it definitely was a kind of a death but it was like there is no there is no such thing as forever the only thing that's forever is my relationship with me. And so I better get good with myself. And that was that was the thing and I was like I don't know what that means even but I understood that I needed to come into a much different relationship with myself and and it just began this process and I remember walking through the park in 2010 with my sons and being like I'm I'm gonna love myself. I'm gonna love myself and they were like oh mom like that sounds so egotistical like that's just like so you're so into yourself and I and and it was really interesting that that was their response and that was my response it felt really cringy like it wasn't something that I could say out loud. And I don't I don't know whether I've changed or society's changed or whatever but I think self-love has become I it's just so far from selfish. It's so far from selfish. It just it the the more I love myself the more I come to love myself the quieter the voices are inside of my head that took so much energy takes a lot of energy to beat yourself up on the regular. And so like as I dropped those voices became more quiet I have so much more energy to give so much more energy to give so it is the absolute antithesis of what we've been taught that self-love makes in my experience and my you know my coaching experience the people that I work with and like again and again like you know whatever hundreds thousands of examples of people that self-love um is an act of love for others.

Yeah and and it's the most important thing we ever do yeah it literally is the most important like it all I think it all starts with self-love because it's just every single thing leads from there you know yeah and I feel like well I feel like love is it's a thing it's not a an action necessarily but like when we talk about love in this um respect it's almost like um that it it love is that wholeness it's that unity isn't it it's what we share together as humans that soul essence it's not like oh I love you it's something kind of different it's a thing it's a love of the essence yeah I I personally think that when I do this with my hand like when I wave my hand through the air I feel like it's I feel I I'm not entirely convinced that love isn't the invisible right you know I'm not entirely convinced that what isn't solid in me whatever you know all the all the all the spaces the gaps in me I'm not sure that those particles aren't just love I'm not sure that God isn't love I'm not sure I don't I don't know like words are so limiting but yeah I I and and love is it's also just incredibly surprising how it shows up and how it expresses and it's it's kind of goofy you know it's just like it just jumps in and does something spontaneous and you're like whoa I didn't know love would do that you know and to just allow yourself to constantly be in relationship like in love you know like I want to be in in love with love and in communication and in the dance with love.

Be animated by love so you need it it becomes more natural no no doubt the more that you do it but you probably would need daily reminders or ways to kind of get into that um super simple super simple I I for years you would you would have seen me on like I just rub my heart and I just think I love you. Like I just it's just like in those moments where I feel myself getting anxious or or whatever you know it's it's it's my it's my go-to now like when I find myself in a tight situation I hear myself say I love you to me and I repeat it I love you it's okay I love you I love you I love you it's it's funny and I I don't even I don't remember ever initiating this I don't know why it lives inside of me but it it surprises me how often it pops up yeah um so there's just the simple thing of just hand on heart like just putting your placing your hand on your like heart or like your lower breastbone your sternum and just giving like pressure and a rub and just thinking I love you. I love you.

It's okay I love you like what's your relationship to self-love well it's very interesting um it's have you heard of the gene keys yeah so I am a gene keys guide and at the moment I'm helping um in the community calls uh once a fortnight and anyway we're doing the the Venus retreat which is um a sequence of spheres um from the gene keys or a sequence of gene keys that are related to your to love and um we're in the sphere of attraction so it's the second sphere in the in

Meeting The Inner Critic Gently

the sequence so it's like how how you attract you know what the people you attract into your life and it's very kind of cool that you're here right now when I tell you um so you try attract people into your life that are there to kind of teach you and you know everything is there you know we're all here for a reason and nothing nothing's coincidence anyway so Richard Richard Rudd the the guy who wrote the gene keys has done these sage lines and so it's your gene key plus your line and he's written a description and my uh gene key for the attractor sphere is self-love so it it's an interesting relationship um and I'm currently in the kind of the beginning stages of really telling myself I love myself and I did have a very small moment a couple of months ago where I'd just done a meditation before bed and you know I'm used to sort of saying goodnight to my kids goodnight to my husband and there was a there was a voice that told me that it loved me and it wasn't me it wasn't me but it was in me it was really interesting because you know I'm telling everyone else I love them and then someone said it to me um so yeah I'm really feeling into feeling into that but it's the um quite my my other sphere that it's kind of in relationship with um is um the the phrase underneath the the main word the main word is a an unusual word um says something like the ability to what is it's it's about it's about making peace with the enemy and I've come to think that rather than that being well that can happen externally right the ability to make peace with the enemy or to to make friends with the enemy but when I saw it in relationship to self-love I'm like oh it's all of the internal dialogue it's the negative self-talk that's what I need to tune into.

Yeah I hear you loudly on that one the enemy within yeah and and I feel like in a way the word enemy is kind of a a slightly dangerous word to use because it implies that um there's something inside of you that's acting not on your best behalf. Yeah you know like and I I don't believe that I I I'm really focused on inner child work and I just believe that the end the the enemy as it were is just a very young version of myself that is self-protecting. So that the enemy is a is a hard word to use like the young one is like I would I would more prefer to do like the young one kind of because the enemy there's a there's a quality of I want to get rid of the enemy yeah whereas I I I want I want to soothe the enemy you know I want to soothe the enemy I want to I want I want her to feel safe and feel loved. So I think I think so much of what what I've really been diving into in the past year so 2025 was a was a really hard year for me. I had a lot of um memories come through from my past and and it was really this this experience of coming into compassion for myself you know I was like oh that explains so much about my odd behavior you know we're all such sweet little weirdos right like we all have these funny weird you know like we do like our funny nerdy things and our weird ways of coping and we all try to be so smooth and and and and um serene at the surface and underneath the legs you're like whatever's happening and I just came into such a deep compassion with my coping mechanisms and to understand them so clearly and I was like oh wow and then that compassion was like another level of self-love and it and the way that I view self-love because I have this inner child frame the more I love myself the safer it is for my my my kind of inner orphans to come forward and say like this happened and it really hurt me when it happened and and this behavior is a you know you know like my you have these behaviors come through and you and you start to they come and almost lay their head on your lap and say I I feel like you're safe enough to tell you you know that kind of feeling of if you've got a really frightened kitten in the corner and it's like you can't reach for the you know you have to sit still and like and be a safe environment and just and create trust in order that the kitten will come to you and I think a lot of the pieces inside of ourselves are like kittens. And so this feeling of just becoming like you know I'm a I'm a very kilometers from where I was and I still have 10 000 kilometers to go and I I love that about life. I love that there's no there's not like oh boom done got it you know it's like every time you get to where you think is the goal you realize there's so much further to go and that really excites me but this this feeling of just oh compassion that's that's such a big chunk of it such a huge chunk of it and I hadn't been there in the past that's really that's really new and my compassion is it it extends to everybody in the weirdest circumstances like the other night we were out and there was this guy and he was just being such a toad and I was just like I was really irritated by this man and suddenly I had this wash of empathy and compassion I was like oh I'm so annoyed I now feel completely compassionate for him it was so much more fun when he was irritating just these places of compassion where you just watch people and you're like oh sweetheart that looks hard yeah that looks really difficult.

Yeah I look really red for some reason I'm a bit hot tonight yeah I've got the air conditioning on today I'm gonna blame it on hormones we'll blame it on hormones we'll just blame it on hormones yeah exactly what is it what else would we do?

Come on having a hot flush um let's go to hormones because we're gonna talk about um the work that you're doing with women now that you are on the other side of menopause menopause um close menopause um what was your experience with menopause like are you still I I don't I don't feel like last night I woke up with hot flashes and I'm like dude I'm 58 like I I I'm I'm eight years postmenopause like how is this happening still so I feel that um

Reframing Menopause As Freedom

it it's it's an ongoing I I guess I I recognize how much the dance exists between uh my my emotional state, my psychological state, my physical state. There's so hormones affect so much within us. And whereas early on in my menopause, because I went through perimenopause without any without anything. I I did it on acupuncture and homeopathy. Um, and it was when I came into, I think when I was 54, that I started learning about HTRT. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting. I'd been following it before, but I had that kind of you know, the fear around it, and and that felt like a capitulation in some way that I was kind of like quitting, like I was supposed to like muscle through and like all that strange psychology which goes on inside of women. Um but yeah, it was it's been a ride. I'm I'm super grateful for it. I'm super grateful for it. I I just I've come out the other side, and because I'm a teacher, I've I've been a teacher for 20 years, like my my experience of it, I I can I'm looking back at it and I'm I'm putting it into a completely different frame. And that's really what I'm sharing in my work because I just think we go into like menopause is just it's it just needs a rebrand, you know, like it's just the whole concept around it, it's just such a dead word, and it like the feeling of it is there's there's shame around it, there's really like there's awkwardness around it, it it it it just kind of hits the table like tunk. It doesn't it doesn't have any buoyancy to it or any life in the word. And from you know, from the very, very beginning, we've been taught that that you know there's a point in your life where you become invisible, unattractive, um you know, just you you irrelevant. There's this kind of the sense that you dry out, you know, you dry out and everything gets very, very gray and powdery. And I just it's just not true. It's just 100% not true. And I I really know that if that information was to be out there, I I I want 20-year-olds to be like, I can't wait. That looks so fun and cool. You have so much freedom. You know, this I just want to reframe the whole thing. So I've I've I've integrated everything that I've been through. I've been studying it for 15 years now. Like I've been really intense about the whole experience and my learning. And then I've turned it into a seven-week course called Wisdom Women. And in Wisdom Women, it's really about the reframe. It's really about understanding um what are the what what are the belief structures that we're going into this with and how do we see them as false and release from them? Um there's a a two-hour class with a a specialist menopause MD because it it's not a fast process getting your hormones in the right balance. You know, there's a there's a lot of, you know, like okay, my estrogen's right now. We put in progesterone, a progesterone, we put in estrogen, okay. Now testosterone, like it's like this whole dance where you want to be in connection with somebody. So I ended up going to like I saw like 15 doctors, 15 menopausal doctors. It's when I say I was studying and I really was studying, and I was like, this is like my education. Um and to have two hours with a doctor just listening and then having you know one hour of lecture and one hour of questions is so valuable. Yeah. Um also to build to pull people into community, that we have uh, you know, that you have a gang. You have a gang of of these women that like you you're having a hot flash in in Australia, you can put it on the chat. Yeah, like I'm I'm self-sabotaging madly right now. Like, can is some is anyone awake? Like England's like, hey, I'm awake, what's going on? Like, you know, that just these like you can just reach a hand out into the abyss and someone's gonna hold it for you, you know, because there is that feeling, isn't there? There's this feeling of the abyss at night. Um, and I just really feel like we we need to educate each other because you know, you if you and I sat and talked for long enough, I learned so much from your experience, and you'd learn so much from my experience, but it's all siloed up, like everybody's in their little experience not talking about it and and ashamed to share what they're what they're going through because it's a you know, there's so much shame around it. Um and if we connect all the dots and we start to share the information, I really think I I really believe that the second half of our life, the 42% of our life which happens after menopause, can be the even better half.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's that's it's so important to me that that information gets out. There's a lot of information out right now about like the the the kind of the facts, and and that's wonderful. And I feel like there's so much feeling to be talked about, and really to put it in the in a I mean I come from like a I don't know, I feel lame to say it, but like I come from quite a strong spiritual background, like I'm a seeker, like that's my that's my purpose. And I think it's really interesting to frame it in that context as well. To really like understand it as a teacher and to receive it rather than to resist it. Yeah. Which is hard.

I'm kind of not I've had uh some uh I've had one particular in particular very cool um woman who came on as a guest to talk about um HRT. Well, not just about HRT, but about just about all of that stuff and whether we should or shouldn't and that sort of thing. But I'm still kind of like there's been so much conditioning, right? That you know, menopause is this particular story. And you know, I saw a poster in the toilet the other day of the public toilet, and it said, you know, maybe you're in menopause. I feel like there's a potential for there to just be another story, you're in menopause, and therefore you need HRT. Do you know what I mean? Like it becomes another thing, and so it's it's almost like a trend. And I'm just really like I understand that it like women who are taking it, like they say it's amazing, and or you know, it helps them get through some really hard times, but I'm still really conscious that this could be another creation of a story that you need it to fix yourself and your hormones because of all of these things that are going wrong with you. I don't know where I sit with it, but that's kind of where I what I feel at the moment.

I'm teaching a class tonight, and one of the sections I'm talking about is hormones. And I was thinking, okay, I only have an hour with these women. Like, what do I want to convey? And I I think it's really interesting to understand why we're afraid of hormone replacement. And for that, you need to go back to 2002 when the Women's Health Institute ran uh they'd run a test on on hormone replacement, um, which was they ran it for 15 years. So it started in, I don't know, 1990, something like that. And um, and they they pulled the plug on the test three years before the end of it because they said it's so dangerous. And and then they they did something which they don't really do in women's health, which is they

HRT Fears And The 2002 Study

called a national press conference. And in this national press conference, they gave the results of this of this study before they'd actually finished the study. So the people that were writing the research hadn't even gotten a chance to finish the research before these they called this massive press conference. Like it was on the cover of Time magazine in 2002, which when do they ever put anything about women on the front? You know what I mean? Like it was like it was like wow, it was like a complete um explosion. Five million women were pulled off of HRT overnight. Can you imagine?

Wow.

And the the interesting things about that study was it was later really, really like so many flaws were pulled out of the study. There were so many holes pushed into it. They talked a lot about the breast cancer, the rise in that. Um, but but they talked about an an absolute number rather than a relative number, or a relative run over rather than an absolute number. Like it literally was that there was a chance of maybe um a few women out of 10,000 rise. So it was a very small rise. They ran the test primarily on post-menopausal women. So the average age was 63. So that means that out of 1600 women, like a fairly hefty proportion of them were well in their 70s. So the the numbers were skewed, they weren't they it it wasn't a they weren't doing it on perimenopausal women, they were doing it on like postmenopausal women, but significantly postmenopausal women. Um and so, and now they're they've they've done so much more testing about the positive effects of it when you're when you're dealing in perimenopause. And they also kind of have uh what what the most important thing that came out of that factually was they advise that it's the first 10 years after menopause when you'll get the best results from from hormone replacement. They also everything was completely synthetic. So the estrogen was horse urine, pregnant horse urine was where they they drew the um the estrogen from, and the progesterone was completely synthetic. Um, so they weren't using bioidentical, which is the norm now. So that I just it's just I think it's very important to understand the like back to this love v fear thing, like that there was a lot of fear, so so there was a lot of fear around it then. Yeah, like there's a really aggressive amount of fear and and quite a strange, it was quite a strange PR stunt. Like it was questionable, you know. You're like, what is this about? Um, so I I think that the questions that you're asking are a hundred percent valid. Like I did, I think it's really important. Is this for me? Is this not for me? What do I believe or do I not believe? Am I being pushed into something? Am I not? You know, but that establishing the base of where the fear comes from and how you feel about that, I think is really important before you can start to make the decision without the old story clouding your decision. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I don't feel yeah, I don't, I'm not, I don't feel in fear of it by any stretch of the imagination. I feel I just feel like potentially um women get directed towards it when they may not need it or they don't know enough about it, they haven't been educated, and then there's fear, that comes up again, like that they think they need it. You know, we have a hot flush and we think, oh fuck, maybe I, you know, maybe I should be doing something about this. I've certainly done that. Um, yeah, I don't so I'm I think I'm like knowledge is power, right? I'm I'm all for just yeah, making educated decisions. And and I guess that my gripe with it, if that's what it is, is more about the fact that it gets advertised as the only option for women. Yeah. So it's a problem you're trying to, you know, women they they want to fix women, right? Rather than it being a gift or a as a of a benefit. That's just where I'm with it.

Yeah, I I I really get I really hear what you're saying. I and and I think it's a really valid question to be asking. I also am never very trusting a pharmaceuticalist. Exactly. Yeah, like if it's big pharma, I'm like, yeah, do they really want the do they have my best interests at heart? No, they absolutely do not. And but sometimes they sometimes they still manage to get the they still get the sale. Yeah.

Sometimes they without inadvertently they help, you know.

Yes. But yeah, I think I think it's a really important question to ask, and I I really respect it. I did the same. Like I went through my my perimenopause with, you know, as I said, acupuncture and homeopathy.

Yeah.

Um, homeopathy, by the way, was brilliant. Super, super supportive, very helpful.

I can believe that for sure. I'm a yeah, big fan of acupuncture through pregnancy and trying to conceive I was um yeah, man on the acupuncture. What was I gonna ask you about? Oh, okay. Here's one. And it's still to do with HRT. But I heard you say um that one of the things that happens when we go in into menopause is that there are no fucks given. And it's because and it and it's because of a drop in estrogen. So how does HRD fit in there? Because we want to be like no fucks given, right? If we get given estrogen, won't we go back into like people pleasing again?

It's so funny that you asked that because I was just in London seeing my sons. And I just noticed a distinct uptake in my capacity to be motherly.

Oh, okay.

Like my maternal drive. Like, I I was I I found because there was a point in my life where I really found doing the stuff, you know, like doing the washing or whatever. I was like, this is not my job. Like it, the the like the things that used to be my kind of my motherly gifts. And they they sort of fell away for a period of time. And this trip, I was just I was like in full mom mode. Like I was like, I was staying with my son and I was just washing everything inside, filling the fridge. Like I was just in this zone of like, oh, I'm just creating like I've I've come in here and this is what I can offer. And it felt really good to me. It felt really good. It felt very much, oh, this feels this feels completely in alignment with how I want to be right now and and and how I want to give. And I it did pass through my mind where I was thinking, huh, is this is this about the my estrogen levels coming up?

Yeah.

Because I I I can't tell you how zero fucks I give. I really, it hasn't changed that. It hasn't changed my my no, no, that's just ridiculous. You know, it hasn't changed that dimension of me, but I did notice an up up to an upshift in my in my joy in in the maternal.

Well, there's a fine line with that as well, I feel. I've been um I've got a friend in the UK that I catch up with once a week, and we've been talking about all of this stuff, and you know, meaning and purpose and and conditioning, and like what's what do we actually want to do versus what do we think we should be doing kind of thing. And one thing that I've sort of witnessed, just um my kids are 12 and 10, so they're still pretty young. Um, is I've just been witnessing when I want to do something, make dinner, do the washing, versus when I feel like I should be doing something to be busy because I want to be recognised as you know a good mum or a good wife. And just so that so like you can still enjoy taking care of your sons and doing the washing and cooking and stuff, but it's like not doing it because there's an expectation, I think. And it's a very fine line, but but yeah, you've got a maternal instinct, right? That what that you want to do those things. Um it's like but you don't feeling like you're fitting into a like someone else's expectations of what a good wife or a good mum is completely, completely.

Yeah, there's uh um but I I think another thing that I teach a lot about is boundaries. Boundaries have been like a very strong theme for me and a really big game changer for me in my life, and to really recognize where my boundaries are, and and that that distinction of what you're saying between I this feels good, this is a yes, and this is a this is a a no, but I'm I should do it. This is a should and this is a want, you know, and that that should do, it's so strong, you know, it's very strong because it's it comes in from so many different levels about what is a good a good person would do that, you know, that kind of um inner voice in your monologue. Um, and when I really bust out of that, but it's hard. It's hard to say, no, I'm not gonna go get you a glass of water because I'm comfortable right now, you know?

Boundaries The Antidote To Resentment

You know, this it's like something simple where you just think, well, just get them a glass of water, it's no big deal. And then just being really attuned to where um what what what is my body saying to me? What is my you know, what what like what do I feel about this right now? Can I can I honor can I honor myself? And yeah, so I really I hear that, and I think it's really important. I think it's a gift to everybody around because what I I further notice is once I've done the should do, I'm pissed. Yeah, I'm just pissed, yeah, and I piss at them, like you know, whatever. Maybe it's maybe the number is 10 should do's or 20 should do's, or there's a certain number where your bucket just overflows and you just feel resentful. And that person would have probably preferred that you said no 10 shoulds ago than you are being pissy with them now. So it's the gift of that, you know, like, oh, I'm gonna say no to you now so I'm not mad at you later.

Like, oh great, well, I'm confused, but okay.

Yeah, that's uh I'm glad you've you've uh cleared that up with the no fucks given. I don't feel like I've actually got to that point yet, but so many women who are in menopause or you know, mid to late 50s are sort of saying, Oh just wait, you know, and I can kind of feel it coming, but I haven't I haven't hit that. Hit my straps.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I I just I think it's I think one of the the other things that makes menopause a really difficult journey for women. I mean, we talked about it, but I think there's there's a few things that are really important to recognize. It's a very long tunnel.

Yeah.

You know, it's a very long, like a portal. Like I think of it as a portal. I think that, and it I think that we could some of us can find it more easy, easy to understand if we map it against the teenage transition, because I think the teenage transition and the menopausal transition is very, very similar. And weirdly, oftentimes it overlaps. Yeah, the menopausal woman has teenage kids, and like, and then I just think, wow, somebody's laughing to just put everybody in this house, just

The Long Portal And Self-Advocacy

these hormonal, like, yeah, exactly, just these like crazy hormonal beasts in one house. But if you can map it against that, it's it's you watch a teenager, it's a good eight to ten years, yeah. From when the the first hormones start to click in to when they kind of walk out the other side. Um, and there is a walking out the other side in teenage dumb. There is just a point where, like, oh, they're just they're just settled in themselves. Now they're not doing that. You can see it. So I if you can look at that as a frame or as some kind of guidance, I think that's helpful to see and the recognition that it goes on for a long time. The difference is as a teenager, you're fully stoked to be a you know, to be an adult.

Totally.

And as a perimenopausal woman, you you're not even remotely interested in being menopausal, you know, you postmenopausal, it's not, it's not an exciting destination. And I I really feel that's where we're letting women down on that, because we need to be excited about the destination. You know, we really need to be excited about the destination, and it's really awesome. I don't think enough women are saying how awesome it is. Um, so yeah, I think it's a really important thing to have that frame. And to what I started to say to you before was I think part of it is we don't have an idea about how long it is, and then we're not connected enough to our bodies. Almost in the same thing about what you were saying about you override yourself to get things done. We override ourselves constantly, and we and we we override and we undermine, you know. Oh, that's not a big deal. Somebody wrote to me recently, and they were like, um, oh uh. I I said in I said for this class that I'm teaching to does anybody have any questions? Send them through to me so I can answer them on the night. Somebody wrote to me, I've been bleeding for a month solid. And I just was like, I just maybe you gotta go see a doctor about that. Like, that's not okay. You know, you might need to go to ER. Like, you know, like here's some things. Like, if this is what you're experiencing, then like go today, otherwise book an appointment. But we're so used to just being ignore it, keep on going. A woman's life is is pain. We're used to pain and suffering built in. A further thing that I want to go back to that study, the 2002 study, it meant that there's a there's a whole like since 2002, doctors haven't been educated on menopause. So it's something like in OBGYNs in 2013, one in five had had anything about menopause. That's obgyn's one in five. And then I think the statistic went slightly up by 2020, but not impressively. So when women come in and they say this is the number one um thing for a woman to walk into a doctor and say is I just don't feel like myself. But if they've never been educated in menopause, it's like you're coming in and you're speaking Turkish and they don't speak Turkish, so they want to get back into English as fast as possible because they don't they don't have the information. Like, no shame on them. They just weren't taught this. It wasn't, it's not in the system. So you're gonna go in and say, I've been bleeding for a month, and and they're gonna say, I don't know what to do with you. So just send you home because they don't they don't know, they don't have the answers, and and it's easier not to engage in the topic if you don't have the information. So that's a problem. I think that it's it is a problem, and and it's really so it becomes this time of us being strong advocates for ourselves, yeah, which is an interesting piece of learning for us as women, you know. It's a it's a really beautiful invitation. Do you believe yourself? Yeah, like do you believe that what you're going through is, you know, like what is discomfort? What is beyond discomfort? What is what is pain? What is extreme pain? Like, where do we live in these things? Like discomfort I can manage. Pain I shouldn't be dealing with. Pain is a doctor's issue, it's a medical issue, you know, like it's these kind of, but we need to be tuned into ourselves so we're actually feeling what we're feeling. We need to have community where we're able to talk to people, and you're gonna say, babe, doctor. And then she's gonna come back and they're gonna say, She said this, the doctor said this, and you're like, new doctor. So, and to have a community of women where you're like, Who's got a doctor that is good with menopause? Yeah, nobody wants to admit they're in menopause, so we're not asking that question. So just we are so we're so full of information ourselves. We're such we're such support. We're like for you and I to connect is for us to become like in a quadruple as powerful and to share stories without shame, like to be honest about what we're experiencing, and and I don't know, to just to hold each other accountable to our experiences, to support each other in advocating for ourselves, to direct each other and uh the learnings that we've learned to share the information, you know.

Yeah, I'm surprised that you say that um women are are ashamed to talk about being in menopause. I guess because the the women that I talk to, uh well, we don't all talk about menopause, you know, but the women that I talk to on the podcast, they're often, you know, they're advocates for midlife and beyond, you know, the second half. Um, so yeah, I'm surprised to hear that that is a thing.

We're we're in a bubble, my love. We're in a bubble.

Okay.

I mean, the bubble is growing, which is wonderful, fantastic. But even then, it's like, okay, what's acceptable, what's not acceptable? Hot flushes are acceptable, painful sex, is that acceptable? Like, how how do I talk about that? So there's a lot of of things, and then you know, just the obscurity of symptoms, like frozen shoulder is a symptom of perimenopause. That's so crazy. It's kind of vertigo, is a symptom of of perimenopause. Like, that's so wild. So there's so there's so much that like there's there's the things that we're we feel comfortable talking about, there's things we don't feel comfortable talking about, and there's the things we don't even know to talk about. Yeah, but yes, it's becoming so much better, it's absolutely becoming so much better, and that's wonderful.

And I think, like you said, that those environments like the the community that you've got helps with that, doesn't it? Because you realize that there are other women having the same experience. We've I um have a personal training business with my husband, and we so we have you know, I have groups of uh six women together, and there have definitely been you know, those conversations come up about hormones and perimenopause and you know, bleeding for a month, and you know, girl, you need to go to the doctor, those kind of things that they wouldn't have even known to talk to anyone about, no one's ever told them. Um, so yeah, I definitely feel the strength in in those community settings and just making it normalizing talking about those things.

Can you talk about sex? Let's talk about sex.

Can you talk about sex there, please? Um well you just talk you talk about um the second half of our life being our sexual prime, but there's a lot to unpack there, isn't there? Like we don't just magically become more sexual, or maybe we do, um, but that hasn't happened to me yet, if um, but like I've also read you talking about distortion of sexuality in our culture and and the need for sexual healing. Is that all interconnected? Like do we go through all of that process

Sexual Healing And Self-Pleasure

in menopause, like that healing, or does it just depend on where you are in the journey?

Um, so so I've been teaching, I wrote a book in 2018. Uh, and the book is called Gasp, and the book is a book of sexual healing through erotica. And through the the process of that, I began teaching about sexuality. Um, and and now I'm uh, you know, I got my certification as a coach in sex, love, and relationship because it was it just came in, like it came in really strong, and I was like, whoa, where did this come from? Um and I just followed the I followed the breadcrumb trail, as it were. Um and so there's things which are distinct. I I I believe that I love teaching about sexuality because I think there is so much disease in our viewpoint of sexuality. I think so much of the world's fucked upness is because of our relationship to this tremendous force that lives inside of us. Uh and so the more that we can remove the bits of junk, like like, you know, like every every weird story we've ever heard, every weird experience, every sad, bad, painful experience, there's just there's just so much damage that exists within this really tender ground of our sexuality. There's so much damage. I I don't know, I don't know anyone who's who's made it, you know, to just about any age, really, like any sexual age, any 25, 30, 35 that hasn't had some sort of trauma in this very tender ground. And so there's a lot of work to do to um to uh untangle ourselves from the stories. You know, the stories of I I like to say this because I think it's quite it, it's one of the first things that came through to me, which is our sexuality is innocent. And it's such a it's just our sexuality is innocent, it's an innocent force, and and everything else that we put on top of that is a story. So the more that we can remove the stories and come back to the space of this innocence is um is super profound, it's radical, it's it's a long journey, but that when you really think like you know, I remember sitting in a a square and wherever, like Ecuador, watching this dog get like shagged by all the other dogs. And I was like, I was sitting there, and I was like, what a slutty dog, you know, like and I think that we I think we've done that before where we've kind of like like slut-shamed an animal. And I and then I think, well, that's just all my stories because that's a completely innocent, that's innocent. That's just like there's no that's just innocent. That's the innocent act of of procreation, or that's the innocent biological drive. This force is really powerful inside of us. Um, and this force is so powerful because we're animals and we're put on this earth with, like, you know, every cell wants to reproduce, whether we choose to do it or not, that's our gig. Um, but you it's like trying to push a beach ball underwater, like to try to suppress that force is like you're pushing a ball underwater, and you have no idea where it's going to bounce out, you know, when you do that in the sea and it just like shoots out and hits some lady over there, like shoots out and hits the guy. It's that, it's that kind of, but almost as a world, we're trying to push this beach ball underwater. And I really believe that so much of our um so much healing, so much health, so much better health could come through to the world if we had a different relationship to our to this force. Like we had a clean, clear, respectful, pleasurable relationship to this force. So that's kind of the work of which is non-specific to menopause. It's just it's it's it's the human work. I I feel that where it gets really interesting for us women in our paramenopause menopause is this more like this zero fucks given. Like for me, a lot of my paramenopause was just, I just stopped being able to perform.

Right.

You know, it was just like a it was like a ceasing of the ability to perform. And to perform was to act and to do the good girl, and to be the this and to do the that and to to to to to be married to the guy and to do the job, whatever the things were, I was performing my life, and then I just stopped being able to perform. And I think a vast percentage of people who are sexually active, it's a performative act, and so when you stop performing and you start um being, like you start like back to this thing about do I want to do this, do I not want to do this? Like, what do I actually want? What feels good to me? Where you start, you start. I really like this term self-centering. And again, it's another one of those words like self-love, like self-center. I'm self-centered. That's such a negative connotation, but actually self-centering like for so much of my life I was orbiting around all these other human planets, you know, just orbiting all these other human planets. And my life was was that, which is a strange and disconcerting way to live because, you know, and to become more self-centered and really to be asking the questions of what do I actually want? What actually feels good for me? What do I actually want to do? What do I want to give? What do I want to receive? And this this capacity to come into that space of those questions is the is the launch pad into your sexual prime.

Okay.

So it's it's it's complicated. It's not a I can't I can't flick a switch. I can't, but if I were to say, if I were to give um, I I'm a strong advocate for self-pleasuring, whether you're in a relationship or you're not. I think self-pleasuring is a really important place for us to explore our own capacities. Because uh so we have we have such a we have such an idea about what orgasm looks like or what sex looks like, and it's really modeled on the male model, which to be honest, isn't even modeled on the correct model for them. But we've been doing this kind of like peak dot yeah, like boop, boop, boop, boop, you know, and and when when you start to self-pleasure, when you have a self-pleasure practice, and I I treat it like a meditation, like it's a practice that I do. I might not be in the mood for it, but I do it. Um you start to expand your your um you start to understand that there's so much more possible. You just start to understand, like, oh, when I do poop boop, like what happens if at the end of the poop boop, and then if I just start to build again? Like, can I maintain, like, oh wow, my orgasm can last for 60 seconds? Wow, that's cool. I didn't know that could happen. Wait, my orgasm can last for two minutes? Wait, what is that? Oh, wait, you know, so you you start to just play around with these things because you're you are an experiment of one. There's nobody else in the room with you. So any shame that you're feeling is self-applied. Yeah, nobody's making you feel shameful. Any limit that you're placing on yourself is self-imposed. Nobody's placing a limit on you. Any speed that you're making, like I need to be fast, I need to be fast, that's self-imposed because nobody's rushing you. So you just start to see where where you are, where you are constructing your limitations and where they don't actually exist. Does that help?

Yeah, yeah.

So I would say self-pleasure practices are really, really important. I would say that I think that's a really big one to allow yourself slowness, to not dive right for your clitoris, like to move your way down your bodies more slowly, to encompass your whole body, to really include your breasts and your heart in your experience of pleasure. Um, and to to play with time, to really play with time, like to allow time into this, and to allow yourself to try like like the thing of about chasing orgasms, and and when you get close to an orgasm, when you get like, okay, I'm I'm getting there, I'm getting, you can feel yourself getting really like focused on this one point. Like, take your foot off the gas for a second, like like let that energy spread and then start to build again. And when you get to that, oh, I'm almost there, I'm almost there. Whoa, take your foot off the gas again and just let the energy spread through your body and be calm, move your hands up to your breasts, like like move yourself away and then go again. And and like as many times as you want to do that, and then when you do, if you are someone who's lucky enough to have orgasms, because not everybody is, everybody's capable, but not everybody has the the the good fortune of of being able to reach them easily. When you do go into an orgasm, like like continue, continue, like continue afterwards, slow it down, keep going, see what happens. Because it's just a learning. Is that is that is that what do you have any questions?

Nope. I'm glad yeah, I think it yeah, that you've given some great uh advice and um direction. Um and it's really about self-exploration, literally, in the in that yeah, in sexuality. Is that part of your program, your wisdom women program? Yeah, I'm really curious. Yeah, I'm really curious. Wow, when um like it sounds like there's a lot in there, and this part of our lives, as we said, it's the the portal, the tunnel, but goes on for a long time, you know. There's this this long journey that we sort of embark on um an initiation, maybe. Um and you manage to get your the those get that course done in seven weeks. How how does that pan out for women? Like if they're I guess what point of are they at when they decide to

Wisdom Women Course And Movement

join you? And how does how do they maintain like the learnings on that journey when it's such a a short amount of time?

You know, I the the first cohort opens in October, so I haven't taught it yet yet yet.

Oh, okay.

I haven't taught it yet. I've been I've been really um I've been preparing the material and preparing the the like I as I described it, there are six pillars. Yeah, and then the seventh pillar is an integration pillar, which happens a month after the six weeks. And I um and people are like, why is it so long? I'm like, yeah, people really deep work to do. You know, can you do it shortly quick more quickly? I was like, oh god, I I so I believe like for me, the course is is open to women who are in perimenopause or postmenopause. So it's really about um because it's really about about understanding where we're where we're limiting ourselves in a lot of different, I have these different pillars. So one of the pillars is just the societal picture, and then there's another pillar, which is the sexual picture, and then there's another picture, which is the physical picture, and then there's another pillar, which is the masculine pillar, because we have so much damage around the masculine, and and the final pillar is just a whole string of keys. Like, so the idea is that when you leave the course, you are going to feel very well on your way towards creating freedom and joy in your life. Like, really, that that's that's what I want to do. I want, I want us to recognize that we are touching into some sensation of limitless possibility. I want this, I want this experience of like how we've been taught that we're headed into a dead end. I want it, I want us to recognize that that is a thousand percent untrue. We're actually opening out into a new horizon. And within that horizon, there is this quality of limitless possibility. It is a time in the same way that the teenage portal was this time into this massive period of creativity and reinvention and like what is my life gonna look like? I'm a young adult. What do I want to do with my life? What do I want to do with my life? And that menopause is the same. Perimenopauses you come out into this, what do I want to do with my life? But there's a lot to let go of and a lot to see differently, and a lot to understand, a lot of facts to have before we're gonna step into this world of like when the horizon opens out, that we're like, we can see it. Like, oh, I can see this is a new horizon because you could easily miss the whole thing because you believe that you're in a gray dead end. And if you could just take the gray dead end glasses off, you'd be like, oh my god, I'm in Tahiti, you know, like I'm not in a gray day, I'm not in a gray dead end. I'm in this crazy new world where colors are more distinct and sensations and feelings, and like, and that's I say all of this, and then I have to caveat it because so much of Instagram world or whatever we're doing, we're presented with this perfect. It's not perfect, it's not perfect, it has its ups and downs. It has its mornings where you wake up and you can't get nothing. It's not a cure all. There is no cure all. But if we can just understand that we are this we are we are a necessary and we're a really necessary force in the world right now. You know? We're a necessary force in the world right now. So as an individual, I want you to understand that you're stepping into this. What do I want to do with the next 42% of my life? And it's exciting. And you have this quality of limitless possibility around it. But I also equally want for the world, I want this for the world. I want you to have your voice because you are a wise woman and you have seen shit and you have loved things and you have been through stuff and you have compassion and you have knowledge and I want your voice out in the world right now. Because God knows the old white dudes are not doing a good job.

Amen.

Right? So I really love, I I want, I want, so I've called the program Wisdom Women. And for me, it's not, it's not mine. I'm I am a teacher of it. I want it to become a movement. I don't want my, I don't, I don't need to be a part of it. I'm not doing this for ego's sake. I'm doing this because I want there to be wisdom women circles around the world. I want us to support each other. I want our voice to be out in the world. I want us to be like in positions of I I want us to be in positions of governance. Whether it's within our family, like, or whether it's within a school district, or whether it's within, you know, a country. I want wisdom women to be the voices that are leading. I really do. It's why I'm doing it. 100% why I'm doing it. Yeah. Girl.

Yeah. Yeah, girl. Yeah. I love that.

Do you feel this change? Do you feel this shift? I've spoken to many of my guests about this. Just there's just like we're on the precipice of something different. And it sounds like your work is kind of leading women towards that. Um, you know, stepping into our power, really, essentially. Understanding that yes, we're in the second half of our life, but it's not the gray dead end. It's like, yeah.

I think we're so powerful.

Yeah.

And I think that's why we've been taught that it's a gray dead end, because I think so. Like so many dimensions of of like, you know, just women in general have been have been quelled. You know, we've been we've been quelled at all of our, you know, in all of our massive transitions. That so I I believe that we're actually just powerful beyond measure. And that's why the stories exist, because like it's we're gonna be a lot more manageable.

Totally. Yeah.

As a as a crew, if we believe that we are invisible and irrelevant and attractive. Unattract is a weird one to say. I mean that in the biggest sense, you know, like what in the sense of like our inability to attract things to us. Um, so yeah, I think we are on the precipice. I just I feel a little bit heartset about how long we've been on the precipice, you know.

Okay.

I I I I absolutely believe that change is coming. I believe that we're in the process of creating change. I believe that we're in the process of of transitioning out of the like the current form of management, which is currently the patriarchy. Um, but I don't like to refer to it as the patriarchy because that damns men, and I don't want to damn men, but I believe we're on our way out of that. And I I hope what we're into is a process of union. So we're not moving into a matriarchal society, but we're moving into an equal society. Yeah. Um and one of the other things I think is really interesting, which I'm interested if you've had this conversation with other people, is how many women I'm talking to who are coming into their witchiness.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Like this quality of like, oh, I I mean, I I was just I was seeing a bunch of friends, and I was watching my friends who were super straight, like super straight London gals. And then I was watching them and they were like, their eyes were kind of like they just close their eyes, and I could see movement of their eyelids, and then they open their eyes and they'd say something. And I'd be like, dude, where did you just go? Like, where did you just go? I've never seen you do that before. And they're like, Oh, really? And and then this becomes this conversation like,

Intuition Witchiness And Womb Shame

are you more in contact with some place of knowing?

Oh, yeah.

And I I think that's super freaking cool, like, super exciting in the limitless possibility scale. Because, like, you know, we're living, we're moving into the the old the old witch that lived in the woods. Like, that's that's part of the archetype of this.

Uh yes, the crone.

And now, yeah, but this thing about like she had this witchy, she had this witchy quality to her, the oracle, you know, like it's like you we're coming into the space where we're sort of more connected to something, yeah.

Um, and it's wisdom, isn't it? And it's intuition, and yeah, reconnecting with your essence, all of those things, yeah.

And the intuition part, I think, is just really strong because maybe as I see it, the the less I'm pretending, yeah, you know, the less I'm pretending, the more I'm in connection to my intuition and really um training that you know, really training that, like thinking like that is a muscle that I want to build. Do you have that conversation much with other people?

Uh not necessarily, not specifically the witchiness, but definitely there's a strong theme of like reconnecting with intuition and the important and that that sits in our body, and that we've been very much up in our heads, and you know, I think that that is reflected in us ignoring our bodies, um, you know, and trying to push through that. Yeah, that there's a returning to that kind of um yeah, bodily wisdom, I think.

It's interesting, isn't it, how much wound shame there is.

Yeah.

You know, like the that we're we're so embarrassed to bleed. Yeah. The whole thing about giving birth was like, you know, it's it's sort of it's so it's so diminished. Such a diminished, you know, like because it's a freaking miracle, like that's incredible, that's crazy. Like, and then and that it's sort of it's still it's not such a big deal, really. Um and then and then menopause, there's so much shame around this time as well. So there's just like that we just have so much shame around our wombs, yeah. And that's where intuition lives.

Yeah, yeah. And I've I did talk to another guest, um, Debs DeVries, and she was talking, she's written a book called uh The Voice, the Volva and the Vegas, and how that shame from the womb, you know, it's it's um there's a connection um with the vagus nerve and like our voice and not speaking out, and this, yeah, how how there's sort of an interconnection with with that, so like reconnecting with that sort of feminine wisdom and the womb space and how that can help to express you know, help us to express ourselves better.

Fascinating, yeah, fascinating. I'm so glad we get to live now.

Yeah, me too.

So we're so lucky, so lucky to be in this time period.

Yeah. Hey there, Rebel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Midlife Rebel Podcast. If you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a coffee by going to Buy MeACoffee forward slash Midlife Rebel Podcast. Thanks for listening.