Ambitious women have learned over the years to suck it all up, never talk about it and carry on as if nothing's wrong.
But I believe it's time to break the silence, own perimenopause and learn to thrive through this normal reproductive phase!
Living with fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, irritability, low libido, low productivity, low moods, skin conditions and all the symptoms of hormonal imbalance does not have to be your new normal.
In this episode I share 3 simple steps to break the silence and own peri, SO THAT you can find solutions and start to THRIVE.
If you'd like to share my free 10-day coaching program, save your seat here.
Transcript:
Well hello there and welcome back to another episode of the perimenopause podcast. I’m happy to have you here this week and if you’re new around here, I’m Vandghie, I’m a qualified women’s health dietitian and I teach ambitious women how to thrive through perimenopause.
I’m an ambitious woman myself. I’ve always worked hard and have always had big dreams for my business and my family.
So I absolutely know the way ambitious women push themselves and they generally have many many positive attributes, like being goal-oriented, driven, motivated, disciplined, persistent, resilient, confident, willing to learn, positive and so much more…
But I think it’s exactly these attributes that kept me from knowing what was happening with my body as I started moving into perimenopause and what the solutions were for all of the battles were that I was fighting.
I think it’s because we, as ambitious women, are goal-oriented, we tend to not want to make time or spend time on things that will not push us closer to our goals.
We’re driven, and so we focus on what we do instead of how we’re doing. We don’t show emotion, because in a man’s world that would probably look weak
We’re disciplined, so if we don’t feel well, we put aside our emotions and ‘weakness’ and stick to the routines that we know will produce success.
We’re persistent and resilient, so we roll with the punches that come our way.
We convince ourselves that there’s nothing wrong with us, we just need to get on with it and slog it out.
I used to roll my eyes at the thought of hormonal imbalance because I believed that I was too young and tough to be dealing with those sorts of things.
Showing emotions and feelings are weak and does not help to achieve those ambitious goals and who’s got time for that.
So we learn to stiff upper lip it, convince ourselves that all we need is to get used to this new normal and soon you’ll get used to it.
I totally get it. Trust me, i do…
Looking back now however, I realise that it took me 5 years to reach the point of realising that I didn’t want to live with that kind of quality of life. Everything was harder than it needed to be and I was definitely not showing up as the best version of myself any longer.
Not in my career, not as a wife and most definitely not as a mother.
And over that period of 5 years, it got progressively worse and in a sense I’m grateful for that, because that’s what pushed me to go back to the research and find the answers for myself
You see, initially it’s not uncomfortable enough to even pay attention and we write it off as being a new mum, or because we’ve started a new business, or doing all of that exercise or whatever it is that you use as an excuse.
You might be tired all the time and you think it’s because you’re not sleeping well.
You have low libido and you think it’s because you’re tired,
You’re irritable because you’re tired,
You’re gaining weight because you’ve been too tired to do enough exercise,
And so we have a reasonable explanation for all of those symptoms.
But have you ever considered that each one of those symptoms are not as a result of another.
It’s actually a symptom in it’s own right.
You have a whole truckload of symptoms that are actually caused by hormonal imbalance during perimenopause and you haven’t stopped for long enough to acknowledge that and perhaps you don’t want to.
So part of my mission, is to to normalise conversations about this.
In the 3 years that I’ve now been helping women, I realise that hormones, and perimenopause, and periods and low libido, and fatigue and irritablity are simply not things that we like talking about. In fact, it’s not just that we don’t like it, it’s that we feel is forbidden topics to even bring up, and so we all suffer in silence.
We feel like the only place where it’s acceptable to share these struggles is in a doctors office
But unfortunately they have not been able to come up with any solutions in the last 100 years, so it’s absolutely essential that we start looking for solutions in other places, and that includes talking about these things.
So I wanna share with you x ways of starting the conversation on this. If you feel like this is a forbidden conversation, how can you take small steps forward to break out of the mould and find the solutions.
First of all, I believe that it’s important for you to be honest with yourself. Instead of just putting your head down and getting on with business, kids, marriage and life, take 5 minutes to think about the aspects of your body and health that just doesn’t quite feel right and make a list. Grab your journal or diary and make a list. Have you been experiencing fatigue, foggy brain, have you been irritable and growling your kids without any solid reasons, have you been struggling to pull yourself out of bed in the mornings, have you had zero interest in intimacy. And let me just say this, zero libido is unlikely to be because of the fatigue or little sleep, it’s a symptom in it’s own right. Maybe your moods have been feeling low, or you’ve you had messy, unpredictable, heavy or painful periods? Have you had headaches, acne, allergies or skin conditions. Make a list of all of the things that just doesn’t feel right. And as an ambitious woman, you’re simply not willing to accept it as normal and you’re looking for answers but you have no idea where to look for those answers. Maybe you’ve even pulled up all of your courage and went to visit your doctor and they’ve mentioned some scary stuff and testing that need to be done, or prescribed hormonal contraception or anti-anxiety meds. And deep down in your heart, you know that is no solution at all. So this is your first step. Be honest with yourself and make the list. Then I want you to take it one step further and discuss this list with your husband and tell him that you’re committed to finding the answers and share with him what kind of support you’ll need from him.
The second step I believe you need to take is to start looking for subject matter experts. And the fact that you’re hearing this podcast episode, means that you’re at this step. But I wanna encourage you, if you’re here and you haven’t completed the first step that I just mentioned, go back and do that! And then continue to search for those professionals that are sufficiently qualified to provide you with guidance and support on this topic. This is your health, and quality of life that’s at stake here, so resist the temptation to go to the social media influencers that seem to have the answers because they look good or have a happy story, or are just really good at advertising. You need somebody that can look at your unique situation and body and help you to interpret your symptoms and guide you towards implementing strategies that will be sustainable and effective. I’m hoping that, because you are here to listen to the Perimenopause Podcast, you’ve identified myself as a subject matter expert. Truely, this topic is something that I’m incredibly passionate about. Not only do I have the formal university degree to back me up, but I’m specialising in this topic. This means that I spend all of my time to stay on top of the research. I’m no expert at for instance food allergies, because I don’t spend my time working through the research to be the best at that topic. But when it comes to women’s health and hormones, you can rest assured that I’m always looking out for the latest research.
And then finally, I believe the third step that you need to take, is to get yourself educated. LEarn about your body, what this significant reproductive phase, called perimenopause is and what you can do to support your body through this process. What are the things that even your healthcare team have been telling you that has not been accurate and how can you advocate better for yourself. What are the small changes that you can implement every day that will have a significant impact on your health and absolutely take the power back into yoru own hands. This is a lot easier and more joyful than you can ever imagine. So how do I suggest you do this? Well I’ve created a program to help you do just that. It’s a 10-day program that I run 4 times a year for free, and the aim is to teach you the most important things that I believe you need to know, for example:
Why your doctor has not been helpful and haven’t had a clue what to do with you;
What is happening with your hormones;
What you should be doing instead of dieting;
How to get rid of the irritability and emotional rollercoaster; and
The 5 simple habits that you can start implementing in less than 20 minutes a day to start healing your hormones.
I’m totally convinced that if you join this program, you’ll walk away with your mind blown about how much you can do to take your health back into your own hands and absolutely thrive through every reproductive phase. Because the thing is, perimenopause is not the last reproductive phase you will go through. The next phase will be menopause. And how you go through peri, will set you up for menopause. I totally believe that your 30s and 40s can be the 2 best decades of your life. You just need the right tools to get you there.
So this is my personal invitation to you my friend. I would love for you to join me inside the Thriving Through Perimenopause 10 day coaching program.
You can head to vandghie.com/thrive to save your seat and it might be even better to invite a friend along to experience this with you.
You can also find the link to join in the show notes of this episode.
If you’ve loved this episode, or any of the other episodes of my podcast, I’d love for you to place a rating or review where you’re listening to this. It’ll help so many other women to find my podcast and the answers that they’re praying for.
In closing, I wanna say this.
We are the ambitious women that will have the courage to start talking about this topic. We can open the conversation for those who will never be brave enough to reach out. So join me inside this program and let’s pave the way for others.
Thanx for joining me again today, and until next week, bye for now.