In my last post, I shared three ways that nutrition can support you as you’re moving through perimenopause, the gradual sequence of events that happens before you reach the menopause, the day when you haven’t had a period for 12 months.
Even if you’re not close to being perimenopausal (this can start as early as your late 30s, but most typically starts in our early to mid 40s), what you do in your menstruating years will set you up for a better perimenopause and menopause.
Here are three more areas that you can look at to help you have a better perimenopause: alcohol, sleep and stress.
Be more intentional about how you drink alcohol
Stress levels can definitely increase in our late 30s and 40s. It feels like we have a lot more to juggle between work, family, side hustles, friends, ageing parents and more. With so many balls in the air, alcohol can feel like an easy way to release the pressure.
Since the pandemic, alcohol intake has increased and some of us have started relying on it more as life gets back to a new kind of normal. It can help us feel like we can unwind even when we’re expected to do more and more.
I’m sure you won’t find it surprising to hear that alcohol isn’t great for our changing hormones during perimenopause. As we talked about last week, our livers are working hard to metabolise changing estrogen and progesterone levels. When we throw regular alcohol intake on top of this, our liver has to work even harder, which isn’t ideal.
If you’ve been wondering why your sleep is getting worse and perhaps why you’re starting to experience night sweats, this could be one of the reasons why. Alcohol stops us from going into that deep restorative sleep that helps us wake up feeling refreshed and reduces sugar cravings. You may even notice that you’re a bit grumpier too. Alcohol depletes vitamin B6, one of the nutrients we need to make serotonin, our happy hormone.
We’re heading into the time of year when there can be more drinks on offer, with Hallowe’en parties, Bonfire Night and of course, the run up to Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year. Could you start to be more intentional about how and when you drink? Could you drink less often and drink less when you do.
Try it and notice how you feel the next day.
Click here to read how you can change your sleep and manage stress to help you have a better perimenopause experience.
Prioritise a great night’s sleep
Sleep is the foundation of our health, yet so many of us tend to skimp on it, thinking we’ll catch up at the weekend.
Changing estrogen and progesterone levels can affect the quality of our sleep, leading to perimenopausal insomnia or simply more difficulty falling asleep. Then if you throw hot flashes, night sweats and waking up to urinate on top, it’s not a recipe for a great night’s sleep.
There’s a lot you can do to improve the quality of your sleep, despite changing hormones.
When we consistently go to bed and wake up around the same time each evening and morning, we prime our brains to expect this routine. Don’t forget how much our brains love a routine. A routine creates a shortcut and lightens the mental load, which I know so many of us appreciate.
Drinking less alcohol, especially before bedtime helps us sleep better too.
If you find yourself struggling with winding down before bed, try adding a magnesium glycinate supplement. Magnesium is nature’s relaxing mineral and this version has glycine, an amino acid that can reduce insomnia and improve sleep quality.
Be mindful of you’re managing stress levels
When I talk about stress, I use the analogy of ascending a staircase. As your stress levels increase, you go up the staircase step by step. As you go up each step, your body tries to adapt to the increased stress levels. But if you reach the top of the staircase, that may be the point where you notice burnout starting to creep in. You could be the duck on water, outwardly gliding across, but inwardly frantically paddling beneath the water to keep up.
Instead of looking at reducing stress as yet another thing on your to do list, consider what you can do to punctuate the day with little moments that help to reduce your stress levels.
Deep breathing is an easy one. When we take a long breath in through our nose and exhale it out through our nose, we give ourselves the opportunity to calm our nervous system and reduce our cortisol (our primary stress hormone) levels.
You could also try sighing, humming or singing, all of which helps to activate the vagus nerve, the long nerve that goes from the gut to the brain through our lungs, throat and around the back of our head to our brain. The vagus nerve helps to shift us from a fight or flight highly stressed state to a calmer state.
Have you noticed the effects of mindful drinking, better sleep and less stress on managing perimenopause symptoms?
Le’Nise Brothers is a yoga teacher and registered nutritionist, mBANT, mCNHC, specialising in women’s health, hormones and the menstrual cycle. She is also the host of the Period Story Podcast, which aims to break taboos around menstrual health and hormones.
Le’Nise has helped hundreds of women improve their menstrual and hormone health through her private practice and group programmes, talks and workshops for the likes of Stylist, Channel 4, Boden, Ebay and TikTok and her Instagram page. Le’Nise works primarily with women who feel like they’re being ruled by their sugar cravings, mood swings and hormonal acne & bloating. They want to get to grips with heavy, missing, irregular & painful periods, fibroids, PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, post-natal depletion and perimenopause.
October is Menopause Awareness Month (and yesterday was World Menopause Day!), so let’s spend some time talking about this important phase of life and the lesser recognised one before it, perimenopause.
Menopause is the day when we haven’t had a period for 12 months.
What we’re commonly calling menopause now, is actually post-menopause.
Did you know that you could spend more years without a period than with one? This is one of the reasons that I believe so strongly that we must move away from the wholly negative messaging that we’re seeing around this topic, focused on severe symptoms and ‘menopause as an estrogen deficiency’ (spoiler alert: it’s not). Of course there will be symptoms that we experience as we transition into this new phase of life, but they aren’t inevitable and won’t last for the rest of your life.
What you do in your menstruating years will set you up for a better perimenopause and menopause.
Since many of you are still menstruating and cycling regularly, let’s spend some time diving into perimenopause.
Perimenopause, which can start as early as your late 30s, but most typically starts in our early to mid 40s, and can last around ten years. This time of life is best described as a sequence of events that happens gradually.
Remember, you’re not a passive participant in these events. There’s a lot you can do through nutrition, supplements, exercise and lifestyle changes that can affect how you feel, both physically and mentally during this time.
The perimenopausal sequence of events can be best described like this:
Regular menstrual cycles can start shortening by a day or two.
Menstrual cycles gradually change, becoming more irregular and / or shorter.
There is a longer space between periods and when they come, they can be shorter and lighter or heavier.
Finally, the menopause arrives when you haven’t had a period for 12 months.
During this time, you’ll ovulate less frequently as fewer follicles are available to grow into mature eggs. It’s really important to note that it’s still possible to get pregnant. It’s not about the number of follicles, but the quality of those follicles when they turn into mature eggs. As an aside, this is why it’s important not to get obsessed with your AMH number if you are trying to get pregnant, but instead, focus on what you can do to improve the quality of your eggs through nutrition, supplementation and stress management. I cover this extensively in chapters 5 and 6 of my book You Can Have a Better Period.
Here are some ways you can support yourself nutritionally if you’re in your perimenopausal years:
Add foods that support the liver
During perimenopause, estrogen levels can fluctuate dramatically because not only do you gradually produce less of it, but you also have less progesterone, which counterbalances estrogen. We can’t stop this process, but we can make sure that we’re adding in foods that help the liver and the gut metabolise, or breakdown estrogen so it can be removed from our body through our stools and urine. Here are some foods that you can add into your meals that are really helpful for what we call estrogen detoxification, or the way our liver breaks down estrogen that our body has already used:
Add cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, cabbage, kohlrabi, brussels sprouts, bok choy, radish and wasabi.
Eat one medium raw carrot each day. Carrots are in the apiaceae family (this also includes parsley, dill, celery and fennel) and contain caffeic acid, which supports estrogen detoxification in the liver.
Cook with alliums like onions, garlic, leeks, scallions, shallots, and chives.
Add turmeric to your smoothies or fresh juices.
Add foods that help manage the stress response
Anxiety can be one of the earliest symptoms of perimenopause. You can feel fine one moment and then the next, you get hit by a wave of full body anxiety to which you can’t necessarily attribute a cause. To give yourself some extra protection if this happens, you can add foods with specific nutrients into your meals that help manage the stress response. Remember, when we’re stressed, the body uses these nutrients faster so make sure to keep topping them up!
Vitamin C: berries, broccoli, kale, red and yellow peppers, citrus, tropical fruits
Add more high quality protein and fat to your meals to manage your blood sugar levels.
As we move into our late 30s and 40s, we can have more responsibilities and obligations in our lives, which mean that we need to make sure we have enough energy to make it to the end of each day without crashing. Very often, I see perimenopausal women relying on coffee and sugar to prop up their energy levels, which can in the long term, make them feel even more frazzled.
When you add enough high quality protein and fats into each meal, you feel full after each meal, you have more energy and there’s less need to reach for something sweet or drink another coffee to keep you going.
High quality protein: Organic / free-range beef, lamb, chicken, dairy and eggs, game, seafood, beans, lentils, fermented tofu and tempeh
High quality fats: Nuts, seeds, full-fat, organic dairy, free-range eggs, olive oil, avocado (whole or oil), coconut (oil, cream or milk), butter and ghee
Le’Nise Brothers is a yoga teacher and registered nutritionist, mBANT, mCNHC, specialising in women’s health, hormones and the menstrual cycle. She is also the host of the Period Story Podcast, which aims to break taboos around menstrual health and hormones.
Le’Nise has helped hundreds of women improve their menstrual and hormone health through her private practice and group programmes, talks and workshops for the likes of Stylist, Channel 4, Boden, Ebay and TikTok and her Instagram page. Le’Nise works primarily with women who feel like they’re being ruled by their sugar cravings, mood swings and hormonal acne & bloating. They want to get to grips with heavy, missing, irregular & painful periods, fibroids, PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, post-natal depletion and perimenopause.
What we eat each day and the foods that we add into each meal can have a powerful effect of all aspects of our health, including the way ADHD symptoms manifest. To be clear, I’m not saying that food is a panacea. What I am saying, is that food can be very beneficial, especially when we consider that we have 3 opportunities each day and 21 opportunities each week to add in foods that can positively impact our health.
Here are 3 ways that food can be supportive for ADHD symptoms:
Support healthy estrogen and progesterone balance
Think of estrogen and progesterone like a see saw that rises and falls depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle. When estrogen is too high or too low in relation to progesterone, this imbalance can have a negative effect on many aspects of our health, including the way our brain makes the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, glutamate and noradrenaline.
Without being too simplistic, supporting healthy estrogen levels throughout our menstrual cycle can potentially have an impact on neurotransmitters too. It also means that a healthy balance with progesterone can lessen the impact of ADHD symptoms after ovulation during the luteal phase.
Adding cruciferous vegetables such as kale, broccoli sprouts, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, chard and bok choy helps the liver and the gut in the way that it breaks down estrogens that our body has used so that they can be excreted in our bowel movements and urine. It goes without saying, (but I’ll say it anyway!) that we need to have at the very minimum one bowel movement a day to get rid of these estrogens. If you’re not, have a look at what you can add into your meals to increase the number of healthy bowel movements – fibre, ferments and lots of water are great places to start!
Support gut health
Our gut (our large and small intestines) is where we produce about 80 – 90% of our dopamine and serotonin. Although these two neurotransmitters naturally decline as we move towards the end of our menstrual cycles, by supporting our gut and a healthy gut microbiome, we can positively influence the way dopamine and serotonin are made in our gut.
An easy way to do this is by adding in the 4 Ps: prebiotics, probiotics, polyphenols and phospholipids.
Prebiotics are fibre rich foods that feed the healthy bacteria that already in the gut. Some examples are oats, Jerusalem artichokes, cabbage, garlic, onions, greens, apples and bananas (the greener the better!).
Probiotics are fermented foods that introduce new bacteria strains into the gut. Some examples are full fat Greek or natural yoghurt, sourdough bread, kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, natto and pickled vegetables.
Polyphenols are compounds found in plant based foods. There are over 8,000 different types of polyphenols and they most commonly act like antioxidants, reducing inflammation and the cell damage from free radicals. Brightly coloured fruits and vegetables, herbs, nuts and seeds are great sources of polyphenols.
Phospholipids are a type of fat found in plant and animal foods. They are helpful for reducing inflammation and supporting gut health. You can find these in oily fish (remember the acronym SMASHHT – sardines, mackerel, anchovies, haddock, herring, trout), full-fat organic dairy and eggs, algae and flaxseed.
Address nutrient deficiencies
There are several nutrient deficiencies that when present, can exacerbate ADHD symptoms. Magnesium, zinc and omega-3 are some of the big nutrient deficiencies that can be addressed through food and supplementation.
Magnesium is an important mineral for supporting serotonin neurotransmission and can calm ADHD symptoms.
Zinc is required for serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline production.
Omega-3 fatty acids must be obtained through food and supplements because the body cannot make these on its own.
If you have ADHD, do you notice the effects of food and supplementation on your symptoms? Does this change depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle?
Le’Nise Brothers is a yoga teacher and registered nutritionist, mBANT, mCNHC, specialising in women’s health, hormones and the menstrual cycle. She is also the host of the Period Story Podcast, which aims to break taboos around menstrual health and hormones.
Le’Nise has helped hundreds of women improve their menstrual and hormone health through her private practice and group programmes, talks and workshops for the likes of Stylist, Channel 4, Boden, Ebay and TikTok and her Instagram page. Le’Nise works primarily with women who feel like they’re being ruled by their sugar cravings, mood swings and hormonal acne & bloating. They want to get to grips with heavy, missing, irregular & painful periods, fibroids, PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, post-natal depletion and perimenopause.
In my last post, we talked about the first phase of the menstrual cycle, menstruation, which most of us are very, very familiar with.
Let’s talk about what happens after our periods finish when we move into the follicular phase, or our inner spring.
A lot of us look forward to this time in our menstrual cycles, because we know as we move further into our inner spring we’ll start to feel like our best selves. Our estrogen levels are rising and with this comes more energy, an outward focus, a need to try new things or take more risks, more creativity and a feeling that things are more likely to go our way.
With more estrogen comes more serotonin (our happy hormone), more dopamine (the neurotransmitter associated with reward) and more acetylcholine (the neurotransmitter that helps us think and come up with ideas).
Do you notice changes in your libido after you finish your period? Does it come roaring in again? Or do you find yourself feeling more aware of yourself, even by 1%, as a sexual being? That’s the effect of more energy from estrogen and rising testosterone, the hormone that is associated with libido.
Testosterone is also the reason why we may feel more confident and stronger when we exercise or it simply feels easier to lift something heavy. If you’re exercising and moving your body according to where you are in your cycle, this is the time when muscle becomes easier to put on. And this is really important because after the age of 30, we lose about 3 – 8% of our muscle mass each year. Supporting muscle also means healthy bones, reducing the risk of osteoporosis, or decreased bone density.
There are physical signs we can look for to show us that we’re moving into our inner spring.
After our periods finish, you may notice that your cervical fluid (what you see after you wipe your vulva in the loo or in your underwear) starts to change. This is a good thing.
On a personal note, I didn’t learn about changing cervical fluid until my early 30s and actually went to the doctor at one point because I was baffled by the changes, thinking I might have a yeast infection. I didn’t. Your cervical fluid will change from very clear to a similar texture to egg white. If you were to pick it up in your fingers right before ovulation, it might feel viscous and sticky – we want this, because this is a sign that estrogen levels have risen to their peak and we’re about to release an egg from one of our ovaries.
What’s normal during the follicular phase? More energy, a feeling of wanting to rejoin the world again, more confidence and creativity, increased libido, better skin, improved mood, better sleep, a smaller appetite.
What isn’t normal? Sustained low energy, pre-ovulatory anxiety, lack of libido, no changes to cervical fluid or excess cervical fluid, constipation.
How does this phase of the menstrual cycle feel for you? Tell me more in the comments.
Le’Nise Brothers is a yoga teacher and registered nutritionist, mBANT, mCNHC, specialising in women’s health, hormones and the menstrual cycle. She is also the host of the Period Story Podcast, which aims to break taboos around menstrual health and hormones.
Le’Nise has helped hundreds of women improve their menstrual and hormone health through her private practice and group programmes, talks and workshops for the likes of Stylist, Channel 4, Boden, Ebay and TikTok and her Instagram page. Le’Nise works primarily with women who feel like they’re being ruled by their sugar cravings, mood swings and hormonal acne & bloating. They want to get to grips with heavy, missing, irregular & painful periods, fibroids, PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, post-natal depletion and perimenopause.
Her mission is for women to understand and embrace their hormones & menstrual cycle! If you’re looking for support with your hormone and menstrual health, click this link to book a 30 minute health review to talk about working together.
The podcast is back! Welcome to season 5! We went on an unexpected hiatus last year when I realised that I was running myself ragged trying to do too many things – see clients, write a book, homeschool and sell a house. I have more breathing space again so Period Story podcast is back!
Today’s podcast is such a good one. I’m so pleased to share my conversation with Erin Holt. Erin is a board-certified integrative and functional nutritionist with a feisty attitude and over a decade of clinical experience. She blends evidence-based practices, functional lab testing, energy medicine, boundary setting & humor for a unique and customized approach to women’s health. She dives deep with women to get to the root cause of their health issues and finally get answers to their mystery symptoms.
A quick note on today’s show – we recorded this early last year, so please check Erin’s website for her most up to date programmes and courses!
Erin and I had a fantastic conversation about boundaries, diet dogma, how to recognise intuition and of course the story of her first period. I can’t wait for you to hear this episode – Erin is a fountain of knowledge and a great person to follow on Instagram!
Le’Nise: Hi, everyone, I’m so excited for you to meet Erin Holt on today’s episode, so, yes, enjoy the show. And let’s start off with a question that I always ask my guests, which is tell me the story of your, your first period.
Erin: OK, so this is really not something that I’ve thought a lot about. So when you sent over the the questions ahead of time or just, you know, things to ponder for this show, it really, really made me think and not just about the actual story, but sort of the whys behind it and what did that tell me? And so I just want to say that this is really the first time that I’ve thought about this. But I got my period when I was in sixth grade. And you can tell that I’m like a kid of the 80s and 90s because in sixth grade we just like would walk to our friend’s house after school. Like no parental supervision. No, like nothing. I have a first grader and the thought of her doing that in five years, like I would never I would never. So I was at my friend’s house. It was a boys house. And there was just a bunch of us there watching MTV back when they actually had music videos. And I remember having to put on a pair of his sweatpants because it was very muddy out. So I was wearing his pants at a boy’s house with my friends and I got my period. So it luckily it wasn’t like a big, huge thing. I was able to go home. But what happened when I went home, as I told my mom and she asked me, were you having sex over there? I’m in sixth grade. I’m 12 years old at this point, maybe even 11 and. I saw right out of the gate I got this impression or this message that this is wrong, right? This what just happened to you is actually like because you did something you potentially did something bad and holy smokes. Now, my mom, I have to say, she had me really young, but we were really open and she was hip. You know, she that was I think that kind of just came from a place of like fear and like nervousness within herself. And probably if she could go back in time, she probably would have done it a little differently. But that that is really my takeaway from the first time I got my period was feeling like, oh, this this this is something that that that happened.
Le’Nise: So when you got your period at your friend’s house, what did you do? Like you actually like in the moment you’re wearing his sweatpants. So like for the Brits listening, like, they’re like just sweat sweat bottoms, tracky bottoms. And then you felt like you felt your period come. What did you do? Like take us through that actual time at your friend’s house?
Erin: I didn’t feel it. I went to the bathroom and noticed, like, oh, my gosh, this is something. And of course, I said nothing. I didn’t say anything to anybody and was like, oh, my God, I can I just going to get home as fast as possible. My mom has to come pick me up and got to get out of there because how mortifying to get your first period at a boy’s house while you’re wearing his pants. So it wasn’t a very you know, there wasn’t much of a story to tell because I just hightailed it out of there after that.
Le’Nise: And did you know what it was?
Erin: I did. I did know. I did know what it was. And I’m trying to think of how I knew because I had not really had a conversation about this is going to happen. And here’s what we do. I mean, my mom got her period and like I said, she was really open. So I was aware of what menstruation was, what it looked like, all of that. But as far as I knew what it was, but I didn’t know, like, where do you go from here?
Le’Nise: And so then you got home. Your mom asked you that question, which she said that she probably regrets. And then what did you do? Like, did she give you pads? Did she give you tampons?
Erin: No, she gave me, we got pads. I remember that. But we I spent the summer times with my with my grandparents. And I remember the very first time I had to use a tampon because my mom hadn’t taught me how to use a tampon. She got me pads and that was sort of it. And the summer, like I said, we were with my grandparents. I was meeting my friends at a water slide and I got my period. So I’m like, oh, I have to figure this out. I have to figure this out like really fast. How do I use a tampon? Because I can’t go in a bathing suit on a water slide with a pad. And so I remember, I totally remember the exact bathroom I was in. I remember it was so uncomfortable. I had no idea what I was doing, but I just went for it and figured out how to use a tampon through my bathing suit. But I there was no there was no guidance. There was nobody walking me through the steps. And in fact, I went I was the first one in the group to get my, in my group of girlfriends to get my period. And so when another one of my friends got it and wanted to start using tampons, I was the one that had to teach her. And I taught her by drawing a diagram because that was easier than actually like teaching, you know, like going into the bathroom with her. So I drew a diagram and then gave her the notebook. I remember the journal that she wrote it in and she took it in and figured out how to do it because we really just didn’t have parents swooping in and saying, OK, here’s what’s going to happen. Here’s the next steps. Here’s how to use this. It was like a total, like, magical mystery tour.
Le’Nise: And so you became the kind of educator in your group of friends, so then after you figured out how to use a tampon at that, the moment of the water slide, how did you then further and learn about what was happening to your body?
Erin: Well, I’m thirty seven in two days, and I’m just now learning about it, so that gives you any insight I. I didn’t I mean, of course, we had like. One course in in like middle school, you know, like talking about the birds and the bees type of vibe, but outside of that, there really wasn’t any education around. Why this is happening, like the actual physiological reason it’s happening, what to expect, what the different phases of your cycle might mean, what’s normal, what’s not normal. I’m pretty fortunate in that I have dealt with a lot of health issues, but none of them really, I didn’t I’ve never had really hard periods. Let’s let’s just say that. And so I just kind of like when went through the motions, really.
Le’Nise: So then you kind of kind of figured it out on your own and then you never had any hard periods, so no period pain, heavy period or any other issues with your menstrual cycle.
Erin: The I was I did battle eating disorders for over a decade. And so there was a time when I was in my my early teens and I had lost a really significant amount of weight. I was overtraining, under eating, significantly restricting my food source. And I lost my cycle for a while and didn’t even know that that was. And for a while I would say under a year, not not several years. But I didn’t know that was a problem. I didn’t communicate that to people knowing what I know. Now, looking back, I was like, oh, my goodness, that was a big deal, but had no idea that that that that was a thing. And like I said, didn’t didn’t even talk about it. Never told anybody. But outside of that, no, I didn’t have really horrible cramping or heavy bleeds or big issues surrounding menstruation.
Le’Nise: Yeah. It’s interesting you say as a student athlete, when you lost your period, I spoke to someone else on the show last year and she was saying that something happened to her, the similar thing happened to her. And she was actually really happy when she lost her period because her and her friends, they always saw their period as a hassle as as athletes. And that was a kind of. Kind of common theme throughout high school and university for her, doing sports, period was, having a period was always a hassle. If you think about you as a student athlete and then your friends who also played sports, did you said that you didn’t notice that you lost your period, but did you, were you getting any other messages, if you think back about it, around periods being a bit of a hassle as an athlete?
Erin: Totally. And so let me just clarify that. I wasn’t an athlete. I think I was like self-inflicted. So I ran a lot. I joke if my husband could hear you call me an athlete, it would be like the joke of the week. But so I wasn’t really in the athletic group, so I can’t really speak to that. But I absolutely got the message that a period is is not. It’s not something to revere, right, it’s something it’s our cross to bear, it’s this thing that it’s kind of cloaked in shame. You don’t really discuss it with anybody. It’s embarrassing when it happens. And, yeah, it would be it’s a great thing to not have to deal with it. Like I said, like not having a period. I was never like, OK, something something is off here. I was like, cool, you know, like one less thing to have to deal with in this, you know, crazy body of mine.
Le’Nise: If you think back to how you learnt about your period and or you’re still learning about your period and your menstrual cycle, what can you take from that into the way that you teach your daughter when she eventually gets her period?
Erin: Well, there’s going to be a conversation leading up to it first and foremost, and it’s a we even have conversations now because she sees we’re definitely an open parent. And so she sees the fact that I menstruate every month and we have conversations about that. And so there’ll be more conversation leading up to it. But what I really hope to instil in her is this appreciation for what her body’s actually doing every single month, because it took me well into adulthood for me to understand that. And if she can go into it understanding that this is more of a superpower than it is a cross to bear, I feel like, what a gift. And my my my job will be well done if she she can if she can take that away from it.
Le’Nise: So you mentioned to see it as a superpower. What does that mean for you?
Erin: Well. Just the the. Miracle that our body essentially creates a new gland every month. I mean, I think as as this is a generalisation, but as a woman, I’ve been extremely hard on myself and on my body. And I tend to look for the broken places and I tend to look for the places that aren’t meeting some arbitrary ideal. And I tend to beat myself up for all of those places rather than the more I study the human body, the more I work with a lot more women, the more I’m like, oh my God, this body truly is a miracle in what it can do every single day, every single week, every single month, over and over and over again. So this the fact that this was a big aha moment, the fact that we’re just creating these things within our body every month is is so significant. And then once we can really get in touch with the phases of our cycle and understand that they each hold a purpose, like a really big significant purpose is is huge. I think that for me, understanding the luteal cycle and what’s happening there. Was a really big eye opener for me, because I tend to be my husband calls it my outrageous temper. I tend I have I’m a hot tempered person, right. And I beat myself up for that a lot. Like, why am I like this? What’s wrong with me? You know, why is this happening? And understanding that there is that we become so much more discerning in the week or the weeks leading up to our menstruation that we’re able to look around and assess, hey, what in my life isn’t working? You know what’s not really like feeding my soul anymore and being able to understand that and harness that? That’s not a problem. I’m not a I’m not a bitch. I’m not broken. I’m not awful. It’s just that I’m more in tune to different aspects of my life. And to me that that’s a real gift. And if we can if we can just teach women that versus telling them why they’re so awful all the time, you know, I think that just creates such a different environment.
Le’Nise: And how have those learnings that you gained about how you behave differently or think differently in different parts of your cycle, have you taken those into the way that you work and the way that you run your business?
Erin: I won’t say that I’ve gotten to the point where I create my schedule around different parts of my cycle. However, I give myself a lot more grace around how I interact with people. I understand that, you know, in the follicular phase, I really enjoy interacting with people and I have a lot more patience for folks, whereas on the other half of my cycle, not so much. I tend to be a lot more introverted and communicating with people feels like a lot for me energetically. And so I think this really applies especially to social media and my interactions on social media, on that Instagram is the one where I spend my most time. So whether it’s DMs or interacting with people that way, I give myself a lot of grace because I would get really frustrated that I felt like people needed me all of the time and were asking so much of me. And now I just understand that, like, there are times in my, in the month where I’m excited about that and then there are times in the month where I am not. And so that I would say, is how I’ve harnessed that the most in my work currently.
Le’Nise: I really love that because you you saying that I have never thought about it, but that actually Has connected a lot with me. There would be times where I could be like you. I get a ton of DMs and there are times where I just like why? Why are you DMing me? And even though I say to me, like, you know, and then other times I’ll just be tip tapping away. I love responding and I never really thought about it like that. But I actually want to ask you that now that we’re talking about social media, I love what you say about boundaries on social media. Can you share your stance on boundaries for listeners who may not be familiar with you and don’t follow you on Instagram?
Erin: Oh, my goodness. Of course I am. Boundaries are is one of my most favourite things to talk about. And I view boundaries as a form of self care. And self care is a term that I don’t really vibe with. I don’t really align with that term. But it’s a good catchall term. People know what you mean when you say it. And I work with a lot of women in my in my work who are really struggling with some chronic stuff. It might be GI, it might be ongoing hormones. It might be just utter extreme burnout, autoimmunity. And what I found over the years is that so much of it comes from our inability to just set and hold boundaries, whether that’s in our life with our family or in-laws or friends or our work. It’s, you know, I think, again, generalisation, but a lot of us are brought up to believe that we have to be the peacekeepers, that we have to walk into a room and make sure everybody’s comfortable. It’s, we’re responsible for everybody else’s comfort level above our own. And we’ve been taught this lie that if we start to take a step forward and say, hey, I matter, though, right? My my energy matters, my health matters, then we’re selfish. Right. And so and the more I talk about about boundaries publicly, the more I get gaslit into thinking that, like, oh, well, you’re just selfish or. Or greedy or your money hungry or you don’t care enough about people. And so this happens like this. Our society teaches us that in doubles down in that message, often infrequently. And so I get why people are nervous to step forward and create boundaries. But it is arguably one of the most important things that we can do. I joke that like Boundaries is my favourite adaptogen because all it’s doing is saying I need to take care of my energy. Right. We are walking around, burnt out, strung out, exhausted, like dragging the limbs all over the place. Just really, really, really tired. And what nobody is going to swoop in and give you an extra few hours of the day to take care of yourself. That will literally never happen. And if it did happen, I’m sure you’d be really good about filling up that space with doing things for other people anyway. So we have to kind of stake a claim on our own lives and say here’s like evaluate our energy and be radically honest with energy leaks, like where’s my energy going in? Does that feel good to me? And if it doesn’t, that’s where we have to create a boundary. That’s where we have to say, I’m unwilling to do this. And I think it’s really challenging when it’s something that we used to be available for and to all of a sudden say, I am no longer available for this. You know, we can use DMS as an example. Maybe now you’re saying, DM me, I love it. I love to chat on DMs and then perhaps your business might shift in restructure to the point where you can no longer DM people back and forth all day. And so you would have to create a boundary and say, I used to be available for this. I am no longer available for this because I took stock of my energy and I realised that it doesn’t feel good any longer to do that or I don’t have the bandwidth for it. And so I think a boundary boundaries is is a must. I think we’re hearing a lot more about them and I’m really glad for that because it’s hard. I think it’s very hard to have a good handle on mental health, emotional health and physical health if you are unable to create boundaries in your life.
Le’Nise: I I am just nodding along with what you’re saying, because I’m a big believer in boundaries. I like I don’t like it when people behave in an unboundried way. And I always push back against that. I mean, I’ve I think social media is, because you have access to so many people or you feel like you have access to so many people because you can just send them a message. It makes people feel like, well, you know, I have access to you all the time so I can just send you what I want. But and people don’t necessarily think before they send you, you know, their like whole page long health issue. And I love that people feel open and able to share that. But I think there’s a kind of energetic exchange that happens. And what I love about what you said is it relates quite nicely to people who work in healing professions. There is a boundary issue that happens because you are giving so much of yourself when you’re working with people. And there is a kind of, it’s a it’s a challenge to be able to say no, because you’re so used to giving and giving and giving, and that’s certainly something that I’ve learnt in my time as a practitioner that I have to have boundaries like I don’t let people contact me on certain platforms anymore, I just I don’t like it and I need to have my own space to be able to know that I can be there as Le’Nise Brothers, the person rather than Le’Nise Brothers, the practitioner. So, yeah, that’s kind of I’m really connecting with what you’re saying,
Erin: I think that social media can be the biggest boundary breach if we let it, because to your point, we’ve created this this false expectation that people should be entitled to our time, our expertise, our brain, our energy at any moment in the day. And so I do think there has to be a little bit of a resistance and a little bit of a kickback, because at the end of the day, we’re all human beings with a finite energy source. Many of us have families and other obligations outside of of the app. And we show up because we like to interact. We like to create content. We like to help people. But I think what also some people fail to understand is that a lot of that, especially for for practitioners, is that that a lot of that is content marketing. So we’re willing to show up and to give in the hope that that message will resonate with somebody and then they’ll end up working with us because there has to be a monetary exchange. I am the primary provider for my family. So if I don’t get paid, the lights don’t go on. I don’t have Internet to provide free content. We don’t eat. So I have to get paid. And that is a boundary in and of itself is that that energy exchange of receiving compensation for the energy that I put out in the world. And we have to we have to understand that, too. And a big thing that I get asked a lot by other business owners are like, aren’t you so afraid to set boundaries on, publicly like you do, like aren’t you afraid you’re going to lose clients? A lot of people are afraid to say no because they they they need clients. Right. Understandably. But I look at it a completely different way, because if somebody is going to overstep my boundaries on a on a free platform, then they’re surely going to do it when they’re paying clients. Surely. And so I almost use that as a screening tool to assess who who is a good fit for me, who can work with me. If you can’t respect me here, then you don’t get past this check point. You don’t get access to to my one on one work. And it has been really quite tremendous and helpful for me to to hone my clientele, because by the time somebody is paying to work with me, they’re so respectful, they’re so understanding of my boundaries, they’re so respectful of them that I love the work that I do. And I’m not hitting that that burnout that so many of us practitioners or business owners hit when we’re just saying yes to everybody.
Le’Nise: So someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, yes, I just have a huge issue with boundaries, whether they’re a practitioner or whether they’re just a person in this world. What was, what would one tip for them to start with? What would that one tip be?
Erin: I think it’s putting the responsibility on yourself to understand, because it’s hard to know where where we need to set boundaries if we don’t if we don’t know what’s triggering us. So really, really pay attention to those trigger moments. You know, when I for me, when I get triggered, I get really hot. Like, I physically feel a sensation in my body where I’m like, I have to get up and like, pace my house. I’m just like, walk around because I get this, like, big visceral sensation. So I would like understand what your kind of trigger, you know, clues are and then really think about what’s happening in this moment in time. And then is there a pattern here? Does this happen every single time, X, Y, Z happens? I think pulling it in, if you are somebody who menstruates and has a cycle, pulling it into that luteal phase, because, again, we’re going to be a lot more attenuated to like, oh, these are the things that are driving me nuts, you know, and maybe kind of utilise that. I always say, and I’m sure you say the same like that that period is not the best or that phase of the cycle is not the best time to act on your decisions. Like if you if you have clarity, you don’t necessarily have to take action, because at least for me, that action is usually a little too aggressive. But you can pull it into your menstruation and like think about it meditate on it come from a clear headed spot. But that, I think, is the very first step is to pay attention to where you get bothered in rather than say, oh, there’s something wrong with me for getting bothered, like, why am I like this? Why do we react this way, use it as information. Because there’s probably a boundary that needs to be set.
Le’Nise: And this actually segues nicely into this. You’re talking about tuning in and understanding what you need. It segues nicely into what I wanted to talk about around your work and intuitive eating. And on your website, you talk about ditching diet dogma and you talk a little bit more about what that means. So ditching diet dogma.
Erin: So I want to first say, because I’m, transparency and integrity are like the two bedrocks of my business. And so there’s a lot of intuitive eating terminology being thrown around. I do not, have not received training and intuitive eating. And I just say that because that is a trademarked framework. Right. So I don’t want to co-opt that or make it sound like I’m doing something that I’m not doing. I, in my eating disorder recovery, intuitive eating came into play. And I did work with a registered dietitian who is trained in intuitive eating. So I’ve had exposure to it. Ditching the diet dogma means stop living as though your diet is your religion, right, we can get, tribalism is so huge right now, we can see it play out in politics, especially here in the U.S. pretty keenly, but it’s also infiltrated so many other systems like our food. Right. And so we have different camps. We’ve got the paleo, we’ve got the keto, we’ve got the intermittent fasters. We’ve got the vegan, the plant based diet. We you know, there’s so many different camps and everybody shouting from the rooftops, why this is the one way. This is the end all be all this is the thing to finally fix your broken pieces, to finally save you. And so we can get really locked into that. And I just see it do such a massive disservice long term to be so locked in and so rigid. And it’s like, you know, I recently said it’s like when when your food plan, your way of eating becomes more like religion. Right. More like like doctrine than that usually creates problems in the long run because there’s no wiggle room for you to say, oh, jeez, this isn’t working for me anymore. There’s no space for your intuition to come through and say, you know what, this actually doesn’t feel good in my body. Right. So I would say that ditching the diet dogma is more about embracing the idea, because this is a lot easier said than done, but embracing the idea that our own body’s communication and our own intuition should guide the way that we eat versus somebody else’s set of rules.
Le’Nise: Now, I know we talked a little bit about this over over DMs. And you have recently released a very interesting podcast episode about intuitive eating, intuitive fasting, where you you position this as a position, as an opinion piece. But I just want to go back to what you just said about tuning in and understanding your intuition. What would you say to someone who says, well, I don’t even know what the word intuition means, like what I don’t get I don’t connect. I know that this is something I need to ditch diet dogma, but I don’t get that.
Erin: That is a really, really good question, because that is that’s sort of my the rub for me with any type of intuitive eating approach, whether it’s the trademarked intuitive eating or something similar, because we can’t just turn on our intuition when it comes to food. You don’t just walk into the kitchen, open the cupboard and say, my intuitions on now. It is really something that we have to practise throughout our entire, the rest of our life, not just with food. And so where do you begin? I mean, what is intuition? It’s like the sort of like the quiet whispers that you might hear that you’re like that that can’t be real or even like the gut sense that you’ve got. What I always say is like, has there ever been a time where you just knew something? You didn’t know how you knew it, you just knew it and you acted on it. In looking back, you were like, oh, my gosh, thank God I listened to that. That that that was a big thing. That’s your intuition speaking to you. And where does it come from? I don’t know. I think it probably depends on what kind of spirituality or philosophy or religion you align with. So I won’t go there. But it’s coming from it’s either your higher self or it’s coming from something bigger than you. And I think that the only way that we can access this is by creating space to do it, like having the desire and the willingness to say, you know what, I really want to really want to check in with my intuition. I really want to figure out what these messages mean or where they’re coming from. And I think we have to practise it. And I think we have to create space for it. I call it like mental white space, almost. If if our heads and our bodies and our days are so filled up to the brim with stuff, with noise, with information all day, every day, there’s really not a whole lot of space for your intuition to come in. Right. Whereas with what’s the entry point? And so I think that’s why having a meditation practise or having a mindfulness practise can be really good because it creates that white space in your day. Now, for some people to just sit down, you know, quietly for ten minutes to listen to their intuition, it’s not going to happen. It’s like being hit by a Mack truck. All of a sudden, you know, you’re going, going, going, going. And then they sit down. They’re like, I got to get out of here. I can’t do this right. So I also think that we can access it. One of the ways that I do it is through nature. We live in the woods. So I will go I call it my forest medicine. I will just go into the woods. I think nature has this ability to connect us to something bigger than ourselves. It’s that that sense of all that sense of wonder that we’ve sort of been disconnected from. I think we all have it as children and then we move away from it the older we get. But you go into a wide open space of nature, whether it’s green space or blue space, and you just see if you’re able to feel into this sense that there’s something bigger than me, doesn’t make all your problems go away. But it kind of gives you perspective on your problems a little bit. And for me, that creates a little bit of a pocket in my day. A quiet moment. A pause, if you will, from all of the noise and the chatter and I find that my I can connect with my intuition really, really well there, but I think we all have to find what works best for us. But it really is about one being willing to go into creating a pocket of time for yourself to listen.
Le’Nise: I I think what you’re saying is so interesting, and it reminds me of one of my yoga teachers, she would always say that you need to listen, listen to the whispers before they become screams and if you take that principle beyond the physical body. When you’re doing kind of asana movement to kind of what’s happening internally and related to your hunger and what you’re what your what your body needs, it’s really interesting. And it’s almost like a muscle that you have to build. But if you give yourself that small space weather is, as you say, a walk in nature or even like just five minutes away from your phone, just kind of looking at your candle, whatever it is, you know, it’s that little kind of white space. I love that, that white space that gives your brain a chance to focus on something else. I, I just think, I love that. I think that’s so interesting.
Erin: That quote is so I love that quote so much. And I think that’s sometimes for some people my myself, definitely. So I’ll use myself as an example. If we’re not listening to our intuition or we’re not heeding the message, sometimes those messages can come through our physical body. And I use that that quote in relation to physical health, because I’ve I’ve really struggled with I was diagnosed with an autoimmune illness six years ago. And so I’ve had some some battles with with my physical health. And I think looking back, that’s exactly what was happening. I was not heeding my intuitive messages. I was I had kind of gone dark on myself a little bit where I was like, I can’t even listen right now. And so those those whispers started to come through my body and I didn’t pay attention. And then those whispers slowly became screams in the form of a really serious health condition. And so I think it is. And I want I want to just make sure that everybody listening is not hearing me say that if you are struggling with a health condition, you caused it. I’m not saying that, I’m not saying that, but I do think that our bodies try to communicate to us and we’re not really great at listening to those to those signs and those symptoms. And so there’s multiple ways that our, our intuition can communicate with us. And some for some of us we’re like more I don’t know, like I get a lot of messages through my body, some of us are like, that’s how messages come in. Some people are more clairsentient, I think it’s called. So you can hear it’s like somebody speaking to you or something. Speaking to some people are more clairvoyant where they see different energy. I feel like I’m I think it’s clairsentient maybe. I feel people’s stuff. So I think that that’s an important thing, too, is that if there’s if there’s this repetitive message coming through, like whether you go through any of those channels, it’s really important that you listen to it because your intuition usually doesn’t just turn off. Right. It’s going to try to get your attention in there. If it’s not, it’s not getting your attention in a gentle way, then it might ramp it up in a different way.
Le’Nise: Yeah, absolutely. And in terms of the work that you do with your clients beyond what you’ve said about ditching dogma. So you mentioned that you you have an autoimmune condition yourself and you do work with people who have autoimmune conditions. Talk a little bit about how, because they tend to be more complicated as a practitioner, a little bit about the work that you do with those types of conditions and what you’ve learnt perhaps from what you’ve experienced yourself.
Erin: So I do a lot of functional medicine, works with a lot of lab testing to assess, to get the data to assess for what could be contributing to the overall imbalanced immune system. So I do that. From a food perspective, it’s interesting because the functional medicine space loves a good elimination diet, right? It is its restriction. It’s a whole new form of restriction where it’s not necessarily restricting calories in order to lose weight, but you’re restricting food as a safety mechanism to keep yourself safe so your disease does not progress, which is equally as stressful. I will say that. So I’ve found I’ve sort of found this weird little pocket of the Internet where I’m deep in the functional medicine world. But I’m also kind of kicking back against the fact that they prescribe these very restrictive diets as a way to cure or treat an illness. Because what that tells me is that you’ve taken the humanity out of it, you’re not looking at the human, you’re looking at the diagnosis and you’re saying, here’s the template, here’s the protocol. Here’s what you do. And you forget that there’s a human being sitting on the other end of that and that human being might have their own restrictive past. That’s certainly what happened to me. I had put myself into remission of 13 years of disordered eating. And I was like, I’m living the dream. I’m feeling good. I’m not dieting anymore. I love my body. And then I got smacked upside the head with this really scary diagnosis. And of course, in the blogosphere back then, it was all autoimmune paleo protocol, AIP, which is extremely restrictive. If no if you haven’t heard of it, I know that you have. But listeners, you remove all gluten, all dairy, all grains, you remove eggs, you remove all nitrates, you remove all spices that have nitrates, you remove all nuts, you remove all seeds. It’s intense. But if you have a doctor saying, hey, this disease could kill you, you’re pretty highly motivated to do whatever it takes. And so a lot of these people are on these really restrictive diets scared, saying I have to do this or something really bad could happen. So it creates the safety structure. And I just find that. When we take you know, there’s a lot of practicality with with removing certain foods, for example, with an autoimmune illness like a Hashimoto’s, for example, it makes sense. It makes practical sense to remove gluten. Right. But if it if it crosses over from practicality to restriction for the sake of saving my life, there’s a whole soup of emotions that go with that. And I just feel like that’s kind of where we’re missing the mark is that we’re not honouring that emotional aspect to these healing therapeutic strategies, and that’s kind of where where I’m at right now in my work is saying like, don’t just don’t just slap a template on somebody, don’t just slap a protocol on somebody, treat them like a human being. And you have to work within within their own emotional situation. Does that makes sense?
Le’Nise: Yeah, that makes total sense. And where is the balance that you find with someone with with Hashi’s, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, for example? Who they, you know, that they are taking gluten out would be beneficial for them based on what you see in their labs, their antibodies, et cetera, what you know, that there is a history of restriction or disordered eating there. How do you find the balance there with that, with a patient or client like that?
Erin: So that’s an awesome question. I will say that I have one client right now that we just discovered the presence of Hashimoto’s antibodies, which explains a lot. We’re not just looking at lab data. We’re also we’re looking at lab data and saying, does this explain what this human being behind the data is actually experiencing? And in this case, absolutely. So with the Hashimoto’s. My one of my first things is to say, OK, because of the way that gliadin, in the protein within gluten can cross react with certain tissues in the body. Right. We want to pull out gluten. But you’re saying, OK, that makes sense from a practical standpoint. But what happens if if that doesn’t make sense from an emotional standpoint for her? She, her entire world, her entire identity is gluten because her business. She’s an entrepreneur and her business is making bread. So, I mean, holy smokes, it’s not the same thing as having a history of restriction, but this is a big deal, right? So in these cases, what I do is I say I think this is where it makes sense to invest in doing a test. The one that I run is called the Vibrant Wellness Wheat Zoomer, Wheat Zoomer from Vibrant Wellness in that shows, as is your immune system, actually reacting to these peptides within week, because what if the answer’s no and then we just restrict unnecessarily just based on theory. So for her for a situation like that, I think it’s really makes sense to invest in proper testing to say, is this your bag? Is this something that we have to focus on? And if it is what the next step is, it’s not to just smash her into a gluten free diet, but it’s to assess how does this make you feel? So I just told you that you have a gluten free diet is a practical way to support your health condition. How does that make you feel? And I’m looking for two things. One, does it feel expansive in your body? Or does it feel like contraction in your body because some people are like, oh my God, I feel so much better knowing this. I’ve wondered about this. I’ve thought about this for years now. I have the data. I feel good. I’m excited to get started. I want to support my body in this way, like let’s go and some people get that data and they’re like, how am I going to do this? My kids eat gluten. What if I want to go to Italy? Can I never eat pasta again? I can never eat bread again. This this girl is like, do I quit my business? Like, well, what do I do? And so we want to, I never want people to make a choice, a decision from a place of constriction and contraction if it feels hard, scary, rigid, bad for lack of a better term in your physical body, that’s information. And we’re not going to make a decision from that place. We’re going to wait. We’re going to give ourselves some breathing room. We’re going to talk through it. We’re going to talk about your biggest fears. We’re going to do all of that before we run into this potentially restrictive diet.
Le’Nise: That is just like music to my ears, because, you know, we’ve talked about diet dogma and we see a lot in this space, we talked about restriction. But what’s interesting is that what you just explained is a very nuanced approach. And that’s something that we’ve talked about before, this lack of nuance and the lack of seeing, even though we get trained to see the person for who they are, the whole whole person, physical and emotional, there is this kind of default of going back to templates and protocol. And this nuance is really important because that’s where the healing really begins, because you’re seeing all elements of the person and what they will actually respond to rather than take out gluten, take out dairy, you know, take it all out. It’s well, actually, how does this fit into my life and where I’m at emotionally, professionally, personally, all of that.
Erin: And I think the longer that you do this work, the more people that you work with. And this is why I always want to talk to practitioners, not just researchers, because the research is really important. It’s really important. But how that research applies to actual human bodies is the work that I’m most interested in. Right. It’s that is the big stuff and. That’s where we learn about the nuance, that’s where we learn that context matters, is working with lots of people and that’s where we can have compassion for that piece into say, like, I know this is hard. I know this is really hard. Right. I can’t tell you how many people have come to me that have been put on like a leaky gut protocol or like a leaky gut diet or a ketogenic diet or, you know, all of these things. And they’re they’re pulling their hair out because they’re so stressed about it. But they’ve never had anyone say. Does this feel manageable for you? Are you OK with this and what is understood discussed because it’s not as sexy as diet and it’s not as sexy as protocols, but what is under discussed is the role that any type of stressor can have on the gut, on antibody production, on autoimmunity, on any of the things that we’re talking about, on food sensitivities, even. Right. And so if every single time we sit down to our plate to eat, we’re locked into this stressed out, hyper vigilant state that’s going to impact your physical body, too. Right. And so we have to make space for all of those things to exist. It is not just as simple as do this diet. All your problems go away. If it was, none of us would have any problems. It’s not that simple.
Le’Nise: I yeah, I’m just I’m just nodding my head. I just I’m just agreeing with everything you’re saying. I know that listeners who will be connecting with what you’re saying. Can you tell them about what you’ve got coming up in your business, how they can get in touch with you if they want to find out more?
Erin: I think the best place to start is with my podcast. I’ve been podcasting for three and a half years now, and I really do a lot to put a lot of good information and well researched and well thought out information there. So that’s the Funk’tional Nutrition podcast. That’s a really good starting place to just get your feet wet, you know, understand who I am, whether or not we would even be a good fit. And then from there, I run different nutrition programmes and then also functional medicine programmes. So the next one coming up would be my carb compatibility project, which is going to be in May. And that is a four week process to explore doing a lower carbohydrate template, because for some people that can be really health healthy or really helpful to manage GI issues or other things that are going on, blood sugar regulation. And so we talk a lot about that. But we do it from a place of compassion and we also do it from a place of there’s a template, there’s a framework, but we do it from a place of accessing your own intuition so you can keep coming back to your body and saying, but does this work for me? And every single time you have a question, I’m going to remind you to do that same thing. People are like, yeah, OK, OK. I know, I know, I know. You’re just going to tell me, like, listens to my intuition, but many cups of blueberries should I eat in a week? You know, it’s like still I totally get it. We want the easy answer because it it makes it less work. But if we choose the path of more resistance, we choose to really listen to ourselves and kind of do the working and like what we are talking about practise that it helps us in so many more ways than just food. So that is the next thing that I have on the horizon. But lots of different programmes. And then there’s always the option of working with me one on one as well.
Le’Nise: Great. And all of all of Erin’s links will be in the show notes so you can check out her website, check out her podcast, her Instagram. Now, if you could leave listeners with one thing, one thought based on all of the amazing things that you’ve shared on the show today, what would you want that to be?
Erin: I would say that and this is right off the cuff. I really want people to understand that our bodies are like Wolverine. My, my daughter and my husband are really into like superhero movies right now and Marvel and all of the things. And my daughter was like, if you could have one one superpower, what would it be? And I’m like, I would be Wolverine, because he has the ability to self heal. And I’m like, I am Wolverine. I do have the ability to self feel like our bodies truly, truly do. We’ve never been taught that. We’ve never been taught that that’s an option for us that’s available to us. And because of that, we don’t know that it is. And so my mission is to help people understand that we have this innate capacity to heal ourselves. And once we understand that, that it’s available to us, we like unlock this massive superpower.
Le’Nise: Wow. Again, I’m just nodding my head as you’re speaking. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Erin. It’s been fantastic speaking to you.
Erin: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure to be here.
This week, let’s talk about the four phases of the menstrual cycle.
We have four phases: menstruation, follicular, ovulation and luteal. For some of us, using those terms to describe the phases can feel really clinical and nowhere near the emotional and physical feelings each can bring. Using the analogy of the outer seasons is another way to think about the four phases. I find it easier to connect with, because we already know what each outer season is supposed to bring and can connect this to our inner menstrual seasons, giving us a rough guide of what to expect.
The analogy of the seasons was originated by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer in their book Wild Power: Discover The Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power.They say that throughout your menstrual month, you move through an inner winter (menstruation), spring (follicular), summer (ovulation), autumn (luteal) and back again. Each phase brings a set of specific resources and psychological challenges that help you grow into yourself and your power.
If we think about how we might feel during our inner winter, there’s likely to be a sense of slowness and a call to hibernation or at least staying closer to home. We’re shedding the lining of our uterus, an energy intensive process that can see us turning inward.
After winter, comes spring, a time for growth and renewal. We feel this in our inner spring as estrogen and testosterone start rising and with it so does our energy, mood, libido and confidence.
Then we come to summer, where we’re at the peak of our powers, fizzing with energy and vitality.
Finally, we get to autumn, which we can split into two parts. We have early autumn when progesterone is still high and estrogen has reached its second smaller peak. There is a bright, calm feeling, similar to September and October. Then we have late autumn, where the leaves fall off the tree in earnest, the clocks go back, and the nights draw in, similar to November and December.
Do you connect with the analogy of the seasons as a way to understand your menstrual month? Let me know if the comments.
Le’Nise Brothers is a yoga teacher and registered nutritionist, mBANT, mCNHC, specialising in women’s health, hormones and the menstrual cycle. She is also the host of the Period Story Podcast, which aims to break taboos around menstrual health and hormones.
Le’Nise has helped hundreds of women improve their menstrual and hormone health through her private practice and group programmes, talks and workshops for the likes of Stylist, Channel 4, Ebay and TikTok and her Instagram page. Le’Nise works primarily with women who feel like they’re being ruled by their sugar cravings, mood swings and hormonal acne & bloating. They want to get to grips with heavy, missing, irregular & painful periods, fibroids, PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, post-natal depletion and perimenopause.
Her mission is for women to understand and embrace their hormones & menstrual cycle! If you’re looking for support with your hormone and menstrual health, click this link to book a 30 minute health review to talk about working together.
For the last episode in season 4 of Period Story podcast, I’m so excited for you to hear my conversation with Lola Ross, a fellow nutritionist and the co-founder of the amazing menstrual cycle and mood tracking app, Moody Month. If you haven’t downloaded the app already, I definitely suggest that you check it out!
Lola and I talked about her work as a nutritionist, female entrepreneurship, starting the app and of course, she shared the story of her first period.
Lola comes from a really big family of women, so she says the conversations around periods and bodily changes were always free and open. She says that after having her son at 23, she started to notice changes in her period, which she managed through eating in a different way.
It was this journey that led her to go on to study for a degree in nutritional therapy and health sciences. She says that working with patients in student clinic brought home the the impact of diet and lifestyle in helping to modify and improve menstrual and reproductive health symptoms.
We talked about the emotional shifts that can occur across the menstrual cycle, which led us nicely into a conversation about Moody Month, the menstrual cycle and mood tracking app that Lola co-founded. Lola says they wanted to reclaim the word moody.
Lola says that moods are what make us human. Moods can be reflective and positive and they can equally be negative. Lola says that we need to delve deeper into our moods and why we experience them and move away from negative associations around being moody. Thank you, Lola!
Lola Ross (BSc Hons NT, mBANT, CNHC) is a registered nutritional therapist based in London with a specialisation in women’s health, and a personal interest in female reproductive health issues, including those that disproportionately affect black women. Lola works with women, and all female identities on concerns such as menstrual cycle health, weight management, fertility, skin imbalances, to sleep and mood disorders. She is a passionate advocate for health education in harder-to-reach groups and has managed and delivered nutrition initiatives for children at-risk programmes, NHS nutrition initiatives and a women’s health charity offering low cost treatment to vulnerable women.
In recent years, Lola has been integral in the building of the Apple ‘health pick of the day’ app Moody Month. Moody Month is a tracking app that provides daily wellness for women, tailored to their cycle, co-founded in 2017 alongside Amy Thompson (former Seen Presents CEO) and Karla Vitrone (NY).
Lola is an expert contributor to publications such as The Times, ELLE, Red, Shape, Brit + Co, Forbes, Dazed & Confused, and has contributed to the 2021 Penguin title – ‘Moody’, authored by Amy Thompson. Lola has also led workshops for brands including Adidas Women, Matchesfashion.com, and run period health sessions for secondary schools and female health events in London. Lola is also a brand consultant, and recently advised on formulations for the luxury CBD brand Apothem Labs.
Lola runs a clinical practice online, and in Notting Hill, West London. She works on the principles of functional medicine – treating system imbalances by addressing the underlying causes of disease using nutritious foods, supplements, and simple lifestyle changes. Using tools such as in-depth, patient-centred consultations, functional testing, genetic testing, behaviour and symptom tracking, Lola is able to personalised nutrition protocols and help to optimise patient’s health. Lola is starting an MA in Food Anthropology exploring culture and diet, medical anthropology, gender and the impact of climate change on food systems and communities.
A north London native, Lola is a mother of two, and has previously lived and worked in Trinidad and Tobago. She spends quality time with her family and soul sisters, loves yoga, her Peloton, and live music and festivals are a big love.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise: So on today’s show, we have Lola Ross, so I’m really excited to interview. Lola is a registered nutritionist like me, and she’s founded an amazing period and menstrual cycle tracker Moody Month. Welcome to the show.
Lola: Le’Nise, thank you for having me.
Le’Nise: Let’s get into the first question I ask all of my guests, which is tell me the story of your very first period.
Lola: Well, it’s actually funny because I was thinking about that quite recently, just because I was having a conversation with somebody else about about their first period, and actually I took my first period really in my stride. I was, I think 12, maybe 13. And I already have, I’d already kind of experience it through my older sister, who’s only 18 months older than me. So she kind of had her period. We were talking about it and really excited. And then I was just kind of waiting for mine to arrive. And so when it did, I was just happy to kind of join the club, so to speak. And yeah. And so, so the reason why I’m laughing is because I was quite geeky when I was young. I used to archive lots of things, collections of like laces and, you know, stinky stickers and, you know, all these kinds of like collectable things. I even had like stamps at one point. And I remember and I used to write a diary avidly when I was younger. And I remember cutting up, taking my first period stained knickers.
And I actually cut them and stuck inside my diary. And I covered it with, like plastic.
And that was like the moment. And I had it in my diary. So I kept this diary for years and years and years. But for some reason it’s disappeared. So I’m hoping that it hasn’t ended up in some random book sellers, the second hand store. And someone’s going to be like, what is this period stain about? Yeah, so that was my my first period.
Le’Nise: Well, so you you saved your knickers for posterity. Do you remember what you felt around that time and what perhaps you wrote in the diary?
Lola:You know, I can’t remember what I read from the diary, but as I said, I felt good about having the period. I felt like I joined the club with my big sister, kept bonded. And I guess I probably wrapped up in that, I felt more mature and more grown up, and, you know, I could have those conversations with the other girls in the, you know, in our locker room about that kind of thing.
Yeah.
Le’Nise: And you said you felt grown up. So you had the conversations with your friends at school. How did you learn about, apart from the conversations with your sister? How else did you learn about what was happening to you and beyond just getting your period?
Lola: So I come from a really big family of women. I have lots of aunties, some of them are not with us, but I had aunties who were very close female cousins, similar age to me, my sister. And so when we spent a lot of time together in my childhood, so those conversations around periods and kind of changes, bodily changes and adolescence and stuff were very free and open. So I guess I learnt a lot from within my family setting. But again, at school, you know, the standard, standard menstrual health, education that was churned out, go I got a bit of that which that end of the day is biology.
And, you know, it was informative. I mean, even if now we look at that kind of teaching as so kind of bizarre that, you know, I need the girls were allowed to learn about, you know, it was treated in a very hush hush, kind of like, “OK, well, this is what happens to you each month. So get on with it, girls, but keep it quiet.” Now, that is changing, obviously. But but yeah, obviously, I found it useful at the time, for sure. And then we got, we got free tampons at the end of the session.
Le’Nise: So when you got your period, you said you felt like you were part of a club. Did you continue to have a positive experience with your period as you went through your teenage years?
Lola:I think so, yeah, I mean, I never kind of, I didn’t ever really go on any hormonal contraceptive in my teenage years, so I didn’t ever have that kind of, so I never I never sort of was advised to take that because I was managing menstrual health problems or even being that starting to be sexually active. You know, I wasn’t using hormonal contraception, so I was very kind of in tune with my period. And I don’t recall it being a problem until actually I got into my 20s. When I noticed it starts to get a bit heavier. I noticed issues around sort of mood changes, you know, each month. So, yeah, but on the whole, not really a problematic thing. I think my experience of periods were pretty good. However, I got, I was pregnant when I was 23 and I had, yes I had, I had a pregnancy when I was 23. And I do recall that, that after having my son, there were some changes to my menstrual cycle, just noticed that things were sort of heavier, my symptoms around my menstrual cycle were different, you know, and perhaps not as you know, not pleasant symptoms. And it was around that time that I kind of really got switched on to understanding my body and being more in tune with that, realising that actually, you know, when I kept my bodyweight to a certain level, you know, I would experience perhaps of better health for me or if I ate certain things, I would feel better around my menstrual cycle. So that’s actually kind of partly what led me into studying my degree in nutritional therapy, health sciences.
Le’Nise: So you started to tune into your menstrual cycle and then when you made the changes around what you ate, did you notice a difference in the bleeding?
Lola:With what the flow? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, certainly.
I mean, so interestingly, when I was at university studying for my degree, we had a polyclinic, which was a, you know, a working clinic where we would have, you know, live patients. And we saw them for, you know, two or three years, two years of the degree. And lots of women who came into the clinic and we would treat and who I was learning through or learning with had menstrual health problems. And that’s where it really started to kind of click for me, that the impact of diet and lifestyle in helping to modify and improve menstrual health symptoms and reproductive health symptoms. So, yes, in theory, yes. And for me, certainly, adopting certain changes, incorporating certain nutrients, you know, exercising in a different way, you know, limiting stress in my life, that type of thing for sure. Reduced issues around the sort of heavy bleeding and menstrual kind of emotional side of things. Yeah.
Le’Nise: After you were able to resolve those issues, what would you say your period, your relationship with your period was like as you went through your 20s and then into your 30s?
Lola: So I felt I think, that understanding my body more obviously was doing my degree.
I you know, I graduated. I then, you know was using this knowledge, you know, in my work, you know, in working with women and in this area and seeing the results and seeing how incredible if you just focus on, you know, these natural approaches to menstrual health imbalances, how beneficial that can be. So I was really charged up and energised by seeing those results in myself, because obviously, you know, you do things for yourself, but you don’t know if that’s just you and you don’t know if it’s going to work with lots of other people. But, you know, I see this in clinical practice. I see the benefits of this, as you probably do as well. So that really changed me, charged me forward and my relationship with my period, sorry, Le’Nise, I’m think I’m meandering with the question. I think I was answering the question I wanted to answer. So what did you say? Sorry.
Le’Nise: What was your relationship like? What did it become after, you first got your period? It was cool.
You were part of the gang, part of the club, and then through your 20s and 30s, after having gone through a pregnancy, your period changing, how did your relationship change as you started to resolve some of the issues that you had had?
Lola:So.
I guess just being prepared, you know, thinking about my period in a different way, in a deeper way, trying to kind of understand the rhythm of my cycle, and this was before the kind of language that we have now around the four phases around, you know, tapping into your superpowers and looking at those, that sort of cluster of symptoms that are associated with PMS as a positive, as a potentially positive thing. So I was certainly tracking my symptoms and tracking my experience, but more in my head. It wasn’t something that I was, you know, writing down or logging. We didn’t have those apps and in those days. And so, yeah. So I guess that was my relationship. I was much more aware of what was going on for me. And then and then if I found that there were changes, for example, if I did have a particularly heavy period, one month for, you know, there were, I was suffering for some reason around my menstrual cycle, I would stop and reassess and look at my diet again and maybe even review my supplement protocol and address my health through that and through those methods. Yeah.
Le’Nise: Given the work that you do and your vast clinical experience, why would you, why do you say that we don’t get taught about these things in school? You know, we get taught about the biology of periods and potentially the menstrual cycle. Why do you think we don’t get taught that we can be proactive about managing our mental health?
Lola: Why do you think we are not.
Le’Nise: Yeah.
Lola: I mean, it’s a really good question, I guess it takes a long time for, you know, the science that, you know, is published and and discussed and discussed with NICE and and, you know, the Public Health England and all of these different kind of bodies to filter down into the kind of accessible language and that we know now and that many of us use and is out there.
But I guess it will come.
You know, I think that it would be really, really useful, actually, for the NHS, for example, to employ more nutritional therapists, for example, who you deal with this kind of language to help consult on any sort of education around menstrual health in schools, for example. That would be really great.
And it would bring things into, it would modernise the approach in teaching this area of science and biology to children from the digital age who have access to so much information. That’s easy to digest.
Le’Nise: It’s interesting because you, you said that this this this like the language has changed and people have a different vocabulary now to talk about their periods and their menstrual health. And I certainly see it. And it’s becoming more accessible.
In your clinical practice, what are the things that you most typically see?
Lola: In terms of the mental health and mental health, OK? So I would certainly say we’re looking at. So the emotional side, so looking at emotional shifts, that anxiety and depression, so lots of mood related issues that are cyclical, so they come within the ovarian cycle at specific times. And usually, you know, my patients are very aware of that and very aware of the association between the natural cycle and these mood swings. So, yes. So looking at that is major, I would also say that weight is also a, weight management is also quite key when you think how hormonally driven our appetite is and, you know, weight, how we manage weight, sorry, we metabolise weights and our energy. It is. Yeah. And it’s very much connected to the menstrual cycle. So yes, weight issues and mood anxiety and depression really key.
Le’Nise:It’s interesting that you say weight issues because it’s not, you and I both as health professionals, as clinical practitioners know that weight has an impact on health, but it feels sometimes that it’s hard to have those conversations because there is so much, you know, there’s rightly so. There’s a big conversation about anti-diet culture, but it feels like some of the nuance around that has been lost because, as you say, weight management is important because of, you know, certainly if you have a lot of adipose tissue, it can be oestrogenic and that can have an impact on, on hormone and menstrual health. So it feels tricky to have certainly have these conversations in public without then almost not getting attacked. But people are saying, oh, well, you’re just getting into diet culture when there’s a legitimate health conversation around how weight management affects hormone and menstrual health.
Lola: Absolutely.
I mean, as I said, you know, when you know, when I’m dealing with my clinical practice, women who come to see me around the weight issue are bringing it up themselves. You know, it’s not me saying, well, I think that you need to they come to talk about this.
And as you’ll know, you know, as soon as you start that listening to the patient’s story and understanding, you know, what’s the history there? You know, what’s you know, what were the triggers, what’s mediating the situation and and and starting to make these connections between perhaps overweight and mood issues around, you know, menstrual cycle health and perhaps this acne involved or perhaps this, you know, these different issues. And actually, as practitioners, we’re able to see that. Well, that sounds like imbalance. But and so actually, your weight management is something that you see and you may want to try to address. But actually, we’re also going to address some of these underlying things that you can’t see necessarily, but you’re feeling them and experiencing. And because there’s an imbalance there, you know, your body is out of balance. So and then it is up to people to, you know, if they want to. Kind of listen to that and hear it in that way rather than.
Thinking that that’s a focus on an aesthetic level or whatever, but, yeah.
Le’Nise: So separating it out from legitimate, a legitimate health conversation from it being more of an aesthetic, a conversation that’s kind of steeped in diet culture. So separating those two. I completely agree with that. And that’s what I do in my practice. I never say to any anyone, oh, I think you need to lose weight. I couldn’t imagine having that conversation. But if they come to me and say that, as with you, that’s a concern, then I will help them address it.
Lola: Well, yeah. I mean, you know, completely. And, you know, that’s kind of, you know, as good practitioners, you know, we’re going to, you know, look after, you know, the people that come to see us and and treat them sensitively and and all of that, of course. And I think you would, you know, totally agree with this. You know, if we are identifying a condition like polycystic ovarian syndrome, we know the relationship between insulin that and, you know, weight gain. And we know that by modifying and and reducing weight in that picture, you can really help reduce, you know, the polycystic ovary kind of symptomology across the board. So, you know, in that instance, yes, I would suggest weight loss as part of that protocol for sure.
Le’Nise: Mm hmm. OK, I want to ask about some of the work that you do. You said that you take a personal interest in female reproductive health issues, including those that disproportionately affect Black women. Let’s talk a little bit about that, because I’m personally interested in that myself. What do you, what issues are you, do you typically see when one looking at Black women?
Lola: So, again, it may not be something that’s a sort of named condition, you know. You know, I see mood disorders as a common issue in some of my Black patients, female patients. So that’s actually something that’s quite common. And actually, when you look at the numbers there, you know, Black women in the UK have very high rates and risk of mental health disorders, which is why? And, you know, how how are they being supported? And that’s a major thing. If you don’t have your mental health in check, you know, I mean, it’s difficult. You know, life is very, very difficult and you’re not living your best life. So that in itself is a is a major one. However, you know, there are issues that, you know, that we know about, such as fibroids, uterine fibroids, which is now being discussed. You know, in America, I understand that they are putting in, you know, millions of dollars into the research of uterine fibroids and the risk in Black women, which is a major thing because this is a condition that can affect fertility. This is a condition that can affect quality of life enormously and Black women have been living with that for a long time, so, you know, to try to understand more about why, you know, this is going on is going to be really, really, you know, important and. Yeah, great and great research.
Le’Nise: Well, yeah, I think. going in deeper into fibroids and how they affect women, Black women is going to be so powerful and hopefully will move away from I. I was speaking to this doctor who specialises. He’s out and I think I want to say Georgia in the US. And he was saying that in the US, hysterectomy is the number one treatment for fibroids. And I just think that’s so crazy because you have these women who, who can, don’t need to have a hysterectomy, who have there are other routes that they can take who are having these unnecessary hysterectomies and then having to deal with the aftermath, whether they have a partial hysterectomy or a full hysterectomy. And I just, you know, speaking to clients who have come to me and said, “Yeah, my doctor, I have these fibroids. And my doctor says to me, the only route for me is a hysterectomy.” And then talking to them about the potential alternatives for them. They’ve come to me and said, you know, it’s really, it’s life changing because they can then think about, “well, perhaps I can then go on to have a child.”
Lola:Yeah, absolutely, but you know, what’s really exciting, Le’Nise, is that there are some brilliant Black doctors here in the UK who have, you know, so much knowledge around this issue and, you know, have researched in their degrees, you know, their medical degrees. And I’ve been chatting with quite a few, you know, in recent weeks. And, you know, so, you know, the the interest and the qualified people to do, undertake, you know, and carry out this research, you know, they’re out there and, you know. Yes. So I’m really, really optimistic that we’re going to be moving into a time where Black women’s health is, you know, going to be a focus and more of a focus and research. The money is going to be put into the research.
Le’Nise: I want to go back to what you were saying about mood issues and the effects that they’ve they’ve disproportionately had on Black women in the UK. So, firstly, can you tell me a little bit more what you mean when you say mood issues?
Lola: So mood issues, so that could be anything from anxiety, low mood, mood fluctuations, depression, mild depression, you know, clinical depression.
And just negative thinking, I mean, there’s a whole spectrum of things that come onto to mood disorders, obviously, if someone’s dealing with something much more serious, like, you know, whatever schizophrenia, that’s out of my remit.
But those types of issues that can be affected by hormonal issues or can be exacerbated by obviously we never know all the aspects that are going on in a person’s life until they come into the practice and we talk and hopefully we get that information out to them and we can look at the issues, the other things that are going on in the environment. But often diet, when you’re not feeling good, diet can be disrupted or it can be not a focus. And actually, the very act of looking after themselves through improving diet, perhaps looking at different nutrients, perhaps getting on a supplement protocol, it could be that they are also experiencing very heavy bleeds, perhaps like the iron lost and the iron deficiency then that hasn’t been addressed. And that can obviously affect mood, regulation, mood balance.
So there are lots of things to look at. And I’m not saying that nutrition is going to be the fix all for a mood disorder, but it’s definitely one part of the plan.
Le’Nise: You’re the co-founder of an app called Moody.
So this kind of segues nicely into the conversation about the work you do here. So tell, tell listeners more about why you decided that building an app called Moody was the right thing to do.
Lola: Are you talking about the name or the actual app content?
Le’Nise:Both.
Lola: Oh yeah. OK, so. I don’t know if we’ve discussed it before, maybe we have it since, obviously some people ask us about the name all the time, so I’ll go back to the story. So Amy, who is our CEO and the founder of Moody. We met maybe four years ago, and it really was a kind of stars aligning moment where she was ready and she was exiting a business that she had set up and she was ready for creating something new.
And she had this incredible idea that was in its embryonic stage. And it was just ideas and, you know, a few calculations and things. And we met and we just used to meet in these cafes and just like flesh things out and come up with ideas around this, the concept of this, of this app. And, you know, we did this for about six or seven months and just really enjoyed each other’s energy around it and company. It just felt so right, you know, more right than anything I’ve pretty well done in my work career.
So we, we were doing all this. And then very quickly we started to put some of these ideas down and create a platform. So a web platform. And we wanted to kind of own the space and and start putting this content. We were kind of writing articles and doing something on a very low budget. But we we got it out there and then we basically thought we needed a soft launch and we launched the the concept of Moody and, you know, with our networks in sort of creative agencies and in media and stuff like that, we managed to have this incredible launch and there was so much excitement around the products and the idea of it.
And from there we raised money. So we raised money based on the concepts, based on the existing Web platform and these amazing ideas for the app.
So when, so talking about the actual name, Moody, so it just felt like a no brainer. I mean, actually we it was just that idea that we wanted to kind of reclaim this word, you know, the the moody cow, the you know, what happens, you know, in your period. And it’s all these negative associations around your menstrual cycle being moody. But actually moods are what makes us human and moods can be positive and more reflective. Sometimes we can certainly experience moods is a very negative experience. But actually we are delving deeper into that. We are looking at why do you experience that kind of mood? Is that a time for you to be reflective and during your cycle, is that a time to be quiet and insular and get from something that’s quieter? If you’re not feeling social and gregarious and all of those things, it doesn’t have to be seen as negative, I guess. And it’s that whole kind of talk about tapping into your superpowers. You know, during a cycle and looking at each of those moods is something to.
Kind of tap into and and utilise and and and help to optimise, you know, sort of day and experience.
Le’Nise: I really love that because we get taught, there’s this kind of cultural message that we get taught that mood, mood swings and being, as you say, a moody cow is inevitable and something that we just as when we have a period or we have periods, we, we that’s just part of having a menstrual cycle, having a period. And it doesn’t have to be that way. And I really, really love what you said about how, you know, we have moods, their, their range from all their, all ends of the spectrum. And we need to embrace these moods rather than looking at them as something to fight against. And that’s really that’s quite countercultural, I’d say certainly at this at this moment.
Lola: And I think that, you know, we’ve had I mean, you know, it’s been such an amazing space to be part of, you know, growing Moody Month. You know, we’re obviously so proud of the product that we’ve created. You know, visually, conceptually, the amounts of work and the experts that we’ve had involved in creating the app has been, you know, it’s just been a privilege to be part of it.
And, you know, we know from our feedback that lots of women have found it, you know, of use and continue to.
And, you know, as we go forward, we’ve got some amazing ideas for the app that are coming over the next years. We’ve actually got a book coming out as well. Amy’s Amy is actually authored this book called Moody, which is coming out in March 2021. So, you know, that’s that’s exciting as well. So that’s kind of going to kind of condense and kind of expand and some of the concepts around human behaviour and the female experience.
Yeah.
Le’Nise: Oh, amazing. Well, I’ll definitely look, look out for that. So with the app itself, what you how long has it been? It’s been around for three years. since you launched the app. Getting into the more into the idea of female entrepreneurship. What kind of things have you learnt being a part of this, this app?
Lola:So going back to that moment that I met Amy and our clicking, you know, that that feeling of something feeling right was.
Really insightful, actually. Now, I realise that, you know, you can, you can know those things, you can know because stepping into a business partnership with somebody can you know, it’s daunting because, you know, it’s a long journey. There’s blood, sweat and tears going into the project. You just want to make sure you’re working with the right person. But she really was that person for me.
And obviously I was for her and the team that we grew.
I can’t, I mean, Le’Nise, you’ve met these you’ve met some of our team and the amazing women, you know, women who are friends, you know, women that I’ve learnt so much from.
And we’ve managed to have a kind of beautiful experience while working incredibly hard. So. I guess we know just answer your question, I think that people, you know, obviously, your vibe tracks your tribe. I know that feels kind of a bit frivolous, but that’s really how it felt, you know, growing Moody. And everyone that was engaged with that and came on board has felt completely right. The right fit. Yeah. [00:33:36][34.9]
Le’Nise: So work with people that you connect with not only on a kind of business level, but on a personal personal level as well.
Lola: Well, I think that we, maybe it’s kind of too much for me to to say, you know, you must connect with them on a personal level because, you know, maybe that’s just it was a luxury and it was a real gift for us at this time to me. And it was just a lucky, more of a luck thing as well. But yes, obviously, if you can work with people that you enjoy and that you get, then that makes the experience of working such long hours and giving your all to much more enjoyable. But I guess it’s also interesting that, you know, we were creating a product that a bunch of us women were creating a product that, of course, there have been other apps and there are other apps, very successful ones that period trackers.
But how we were doing our app, or how we presented it was different. And we were looking at we were the, you know, the four phases and kind of breaking things down and in a slightly different way and very much focussed on moods as well.
And. That coming working as women, working on an app like that was obviously, you know, that’s kind of like what connects us, like we were all in our different ways, experiencing our periods and or cycles or hormones or whatever.
And so we had lots to talk about and we all knew we all knew when anyone was on a period because we had it on a on a, you know, a board.
So we’d know who’s who’s who’s in which phase so we could give tasks to them based on the on their, you know, phase of the menstrual cycle.
Le’Nise: That’s amazing. I love that. For listeners who who don’t really know what that means.
Can you talk about what sort of tasks you would you would typically suggest for each phase of the menstrual cycle?
Lola: OK. I mean, I was probably exaggerating a bit more, but we were well, I was saying that we were definitely more gentle or considerate or whatever around around people’s phases. But, you know, as as you know, you know, the phases have quite common patterns with most women and most women. So, you know, and of these these patterns of emotional and physical experiences are following the patterns of our hormonal fluctuations. So the rising of oestrogen and progesterone, the dropping of these things, the rising of testosterone throughout the cycle can influence how we feel energetically, how we feel around sleep, how we feel sexually, how we feel emotionally. So, yes, you really want me to go through the four phase?
Le’Nise: Oh, no. No, you don’t.
Lola: Go check out check out Moody Month and Le’Nise’s Instagram or something, and you’ll learn all about it.
Le’Nise: If there are listeners who want to know more, there are quite a few episodes where we get into each of the four phases of the menstrual cycle. But as Lola says, the Moody Month app is an amazing resource and I would encourage anyone who hasn’t downloaded it, to download it and really dig into how you can track your cycle across each of the four phases through the app and connect it with your moods and then go deeper if you want to or just, you know, do it at a really high, high level.
If they want to download the app, how do they do that?
Lola: So downloading the app is free download from the App Store so you can just put in Moody Month, you’ll find it and yeah, then that’s it.
I would also like to say and I’ve, I’ve mentioned it before, but, you know, with Moody Month it, it was also such an exciting project to start because it was this idea of being able to provide for free at the moment, this incredibly sort of detailed and, you know, progressive information to women across the world that, of course, you know, there are books now that are written about a lot of the work that we have in our app. But in terms of an app, in terms of nutrition, in terms of medical content, you know, often this kind of information you would get from a private consultation, as we do and being in private practice as a nutritional therapist, you know, you unfortunately, the NHS here in the UK, they don’t do, don’t employ nutritional therapists very regularly. So, you know, the only way that we can offer our services is through paid for service. So I love the fact that I’m able to put all this information out there in the app, the content that I’ve written and studied hard for and share with my private practice. But I can actually put put this in the app and it’s great, brilliant information.
Le’Nise: What I love about your journey is that you studied originally. You had your degree, you studied and you became a nutritional therapist, but then you took a different path.
So, of course, you still have your clinical practise. But I think it’s a really good example for anyone who’s listening, who is currently studying and thinking, well, I don’t necessarily want to strictly work in clinic or work with people on a one to one basis to show them that there are other routes that that can be taken. You know, you can found a business, you can go deeper into your area of specialism and then build a business around that. So I think what you’re doing is incredible. I love the app. And if listeners want to learn more about you and working with you, how would they connect with you?
Lola: OK, so the first part of that question about learning, about taking your nutrition knowledge after graduation and and looking at where which other avenues you can take and rather than just being in private practice, so you may decide not to be in private practice at all. But what can you do with this qualification is such a great question, Le’Nise, because I know that when I was studying, I found it really intense as a full time degree. I was just totally like in this kind of like serious academic zone for so long. And by the time I finished, I felt like, oh my God, I’ve just been so serious for so long. And I just wasn’t sure if I could sit in a clinic space, kind of quite solitary. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. So I had to take a small break before I actually stepped into clinical practise. But yeah, I guess if I had known that there were options like working or either working for an app or starting your own and working with a team, that would have been really, really exciting to have known that that’s a possibility. And it’s a whole other thing because, you know, as I say, I have been working with a big team, meeting people I deal with on a daily basis, connected to a whole kind of world of, you know, female tech, amazing people. And so the whole load of learnings that I’ve had through that, but obviously alongside it, I’ve had to always have my clinical practice because, you know, those living, breathing skills, you know, you have to have them. You have to understand what that clinical encounter is in real life. Otherwise you’re only being theoretical. So my advice around that is never, you know, keep, definitely have your clinical experience. You don’t be scared. Just go for it, find your niche, find what it is that interests you and become good at that area because you can’t be good at all areas. Well, you can, I suppose, but you’ll be very good in one particular area and people will come to you as well if they know that you’re specialised in one particular area and then look around even. I mean, there are some colleges I don’t know where you studied, but I remember advertising when we first started Moody and I was looking for practitioners, naturopathic practitioners to come in to write content and stuff. And I advertised at some well-known natural health colleges in London. So always look at noticeboards as well and see who’s publishing what’s and also who is advertising what kinds of positions. And yeah. So that was part one of your question. And I’ve talked too long.
Le’Nise: If listeners really connect with you and they want to find out more about you and working with you in in your private clinic, how would they connect with you?
Lola:OK, so for sure, email me is the best thing. You can find my contact details on my Web platform, which is www.lolaross.com, which is the preferred method, and we can take it from there. But at the moment and you have probably been doing the same, you know, since lock down and everything, you know, on my clinic, actually, cause which is sad and my clinical physical space closed, which is a shame.
But so, working on virtual sessions has been absolutely brilliant and actually, you know, expanded my clients and my patients to a much broader, you know, different countries around the world. So there are limitations with that. But, you know, I love that that clinical encounter that, you know, seeing and and seeing someone in the flesh, but I guess that will come back. So, yeah, but at the moment, yeah, I’m online.
Le’Nise: OK, great. And all the details will be in the show notes. If listeners take one thing from all of the brilliant pearls of wisdom that you’ve shared today, what would you want that to be?
Lola:I think it has to be for women listening who, I think yeah, I think probably the thing I leave is that. Keep listening to your body, tap into the intelligence of your body and realise that. What’s happening, happening here now may not be what’s happening for you next year. You know, our bodies change, our cycles change, our environment changes, and all of those things can contribute to menstrual health changes. So. Yes, I would say just keep aware of that and and remember that, you know, your period is your menstrual cycle is important, an important part of your kind of health and well-being in terms of keeping it in balance.
Le’Nise: Tap into the intelligence of your cycle. I love that. I think that’s so, so important. Thank you so, so much for coming onto the show, Lola. It’s been wonderful to speak to you.
Lola:You’re so welcome, honey, you’re so good and thank you for doing this brilliant podcast. I mean, I know you’ve been at it for a while and, you know, you’ve had some amazing guests.
And, you know, I think you’re hearing, those sharing those stories, those period stories is it’s just one of those important steps of breaking that, continuing to break down taboos and understanding that we’re all sharing a similar story. They may be different stories, but ultimately they’re around our hormones.
On today’s episode of Period Story, I’m so excited for you to hear my conversation with Melissa Ramos, the founder of Sexy Food Therapy. Melissa and I had a fantastic conversation about her healing journey through ovarian cysts, very heavy periods, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, thyroid nodules and fibroids. And of course, we talked about her first period. She is a very inspiring woman!
Melissa talked about her first period and reflected on how she felt not knowing what was happening to her. She says that from the beginning, her periods were so heavy that she would need to plan her schedule based on proximity to a washroom in order to avoid accidents.
Melissa shares the journey she took to understand what was happening to her – going from practitioner to practitioner to try to address her symptoms. She says that thinking back, none of the practitioners ran any testing on her – a lot of guessing and protocols and no testing.
We talked about the impact of unresolved emotional trauma on healing. Melissa says that we need make sure we value the trauma work as much as we value supplements, self-parenting, sleep and eating good food.
Melissa says small things such as going to bed earlier can really make a difference. She says that when we’re sleep deprived, we’re not always going to want to eat well or think positively. She says to never trust your thoughts on a tired brain. Thank you, Melissa!
Melissa Ramos is the founder of Sexy Food Therapy and the creator of the Sexy Lady Balls, an online community and program dedicated to helping women balance their hormones with nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle changes.
Melissa uses her background in both nutrition and Chinese medicine to create holistic healing protocols for both her private clients and the members of her Sexy Lady Balls program (a.k.a. “ballers”). She prides herself on educating her audience in bold and innovative ways on a variety of women’s health topics, from to vaginal dryness, to PMS, to more potentially severe issues like cysts, fibroids, and endometriosis.
Melissa, named one of Canada’s up-and-coming rising stars in the health industry by Flare magazine, has appeared on CTV’s The Social as their resident health expert, written for Huffington Post as an official health writer, and spoken at TEDx while lightheartedly wearing a shirt that read “the poop whisperer.” While she’ll admit to having a silly sense of humor, she brings a lot of compassion and firsthand understanding to those suffering from hormone-related health issues. Not-so-fun-fact: She herself had a cyst that ruptured and nearly cost her her life.
Melissa is also a passionate supporter of global initiatives for women’s issues, and has contributed to organizations such as Femme International and Plan International Canada to aid in their efforts to provide menstrual cups and education to the people of east Africa, and end sex trafficking, respectively. In addition, a portion of the proceeds of Sexy Lady Balls is dedicated to an initiative that helps provide menstrual products to homeless women.
Melissa’s mission is to help women rediscover their inner beauty, spark, and magic, starting with the best hormonal health possible. To learn more about Melissa and her signature program Sexy Lady Balls, please visit sexyfoodtherapy.com.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise: I’m so excited for you to be here. Welcome to the show.
Melissa:Thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here and talk about periods and more.
Le’Nise: So this is a question I always start with. Tell me the story of your first period.
Melissa: Well, I was 13 years old, and it feels like such a cliché story because I was in class and it was art class, in Mr. Nelson’s class. And of course, I was, I had bled through my pants and I had a windbreaker because it was the times you wear a windbreaker here. You know what I’m talking about, you know, when you’re born, when.
Le’Nise: Right.
Melissa: Anyways, I had I remember wrapping it around my waist and I was mortified. And my friend, like, put a bunch of like that, like the really awful paper towels in school that comes in one big roll.
Le’Nise: Yeah.
Melissa: Ripped it and then put it down and she said, you know, put put the the thing around your your waist. I went home. And I didn’t come back to class that day because I was mortified and I went home and my sister was home who’s seven years older than me and she’s like, “You got your period.” And I was like, “Ahh, there’s something wrong with me, you know, I was terrified. I had no idea what’s going on. And she was the one who told me, like, OK, so, you know, there’s menstrual pads and there’s tampons and stuff. And I guess because there was such a huge age gap, she would teach me a lot of this stuff before even my mom got to it, my mom’s awesome, but just before she got to it. And I remember that evening sitting for dinner and my dad I don’t know what I had said nothing about my period because I wouldn’t tell my dad about it. But I said something and my dad goes, “Well, you’re all grown up now, aren’t you?” Right. And my sister and I said and I replied back and I remember going, “You have no idea.” And my sister started laughing, and he said, “What are you laughing about?” because you know, he had no idea what we were talking about. The great thing was when I did go back to school, nobody made fun of me. And I actually was really terrified that the boys or something would say something because I had blood all over my chair and I was like, oh, my God, that, you know, they’re going to make fun of me when I go back to school. But, like, no one said anything. And so I think I was really, really lucky about that. But that was my first period when I was like only I was 13 years old, which I feel like is much later than a lot of women are getting their periods these days.
Le’Nise:Yeah, and it’s later than a lot of women that I’ve spoken to, but for the age that you are, I feel like that’s actually around the average age. So what’s really interesting to me is that you were 13 and you said that you weren’t sure what was happening to you. Did you, when did you learn about these things in school? I know you said your sister told you about what was happening, but what about in school? What was the Health Ed like for you?
Melissa:We didn’t even learn about it. You know, I mean, I’m kind of in that camp where I believe that kids should be learning about even Sex Ed earlier than they should. I know people say they’re too young. I’m like, but there’s so much shame, I think, wrapped up in the idea of bleeding or having sex or anything. And I don’t, I didn’t really learn about any of that. I didn’t, you know even in Sex Ed, we didn’t really start talking about it more so until I remember being in high school. So, like, it, it, I wasn’t learning about anything about periods. I knew about them from, you know, my, my mom or like my sister. And I knew my mother had really heavy periods. And my mother is Polish born but grew up in Brazil since she was four. So she essentially considers herself Brazilian and she had such heavy periods. She would tell me that she would make her own pads, because she was like, she was raised in a very, very, very poor part of a city in Brazil where a lot of people immigrated after the war.
They were refugees from World War Two. And she would say to me that she would make her own pads because they were really poor and she would have that. But she bled so heavy all the time and she would try to race home to go get some more pads because maybe she didn’t have enough or something. And she said that like there were birds or something that were on the side of the road. They’d always try to stick with her because they would try to like they try to, like, nip at your legs where she’d have stockings and all these crazy stories. But I remember her always having really heavy periods and my sister had very heavy periods. So I just was really used to that. Almost felt like the norm. That I kind of always expected that was going to happen to me, and sure enough, it did.
Le’Nise: So your periods were really heavy, so when you say heavy, what does that mean for you?
Melissa: Oh gosh, they were like, I just remember talking to girlfriends and they’re like, oh, I get my period, like, for three days. And I’m like, what is that like? You know, what is that like? Because I get, I was at that time, I would get them for a full seven, but I would probably have three days where it was like insanely heavy, where I would be, you know, super absorbency plus tampon from OB, which was like you. It’s very actually that tampon, which I don’t use those now because I know how bad and how toxic those commercial tampons are. And they were without the applicator. And I remember how hard it was to get that specific one because they didn’t sell them everywhere. But they were the most absorbent you could possibly get. I’d wear super absorbency plus tampon and an overnight maxi and I’d have to change both in an hour.
Le’Nise: Oh, my gosh.
Melissa: Yeah, and so overnight I would have to, like, set an alarm and I think that it was also hard during the day because you’re moving and, you know, like when you’re sitting and all of a sudden you get up and you’re like that rush and you’re like, oh, why did I just move? You know? But like at night, I think because I was, you’re laying in bed. Maybe the flow doesn’t feel as heavy, but I still would have to set an alarm in the middle of the night, because if I didn’t, then I would have to like, I’d have to change. I don’t experience that anymore. But I had that for probably if I got my period at 13, that would have been until, I probably would say until about my mid thirties and I’m 42 now.
Le’Nise: Wow. So you are you basically had 20 years of those heavy periods?
Melissa: Yep.
Le’Nise: I mean, I want to talk more about the rest of your story because, you know, there is obviously a root cause for for those heavy periods. Tell me more about what that meant for your relationship with your period.
Melissa: Oh, it was like hell. When it was coming, and I’m so glad I’m having this conversation because I was thinking about this today, because when it would come, it was just hell, I’m like, that’s just it’s one of those things, you know, people who have Crohn’s, they have to always map it where the bathrooms are. Oh, that was me around my period. So I like, you know, I wouldn’t schedule, I wouldn’t schedule dates around the first day of my first or second day because those heavy days would last for go to the third day was manageable. Third day I could actually go out and in like I still have to make sure that I was like, you know, not pushing it. But the first two days were like literally would have to definitely go by the bathroom. So I would plan my life, try to plan my life around it so I wouldn’t have an accident. And I still did have tons of accidents. So my relationship with it was so bad at the time that I just dreaded it. You know, you get the period brain. I think I still get a little bit of period brain when it comes, but not to the degree that it was before.
Le’Nise: And so you did a lot of planning in the first couple days of your period because of the heaviness, was it painful as well?
Melissa:Yeah, it was really painful. I had, I wasn’t one of those women who were like I’ve heard of women who they’ve thrown up. They had horrible headaches. I was lucky that I’ve never experienced that I would have cramps, but nothing that was severe, just like pretty uncomfortable. A lot of soreness and back pain, but nothing against severe and just obviously a lot of fatigue because you’re losing that much blood, you’re exhausted. But that probably like I guess I was lucky in that sense that even though the flow was so heavy, I met women and have worked with women in practice who’ve had periods that were light and their symptoms were excruciating during PMS. Emotionally, I definitely was like all over the place where it’s just kind of like I just want to hug and for someone to feed me cake, but that I want to smack your head off and want my own alone time all at the same time. That’s kind of that like, you know, manic sort of behaviour. But, you know, I’m lucky in the sense that I didn’t struggle from extreme pain like a lot of women.
Le’Nise: What was a point where, so after dealing with this for 20 years and then, you know, I guess you got to a point where you were like, OK, there’s something’s going on here. Tell me about the point where you realised actually something, this wasn’t right, something was wrong, and you needed to sort things out with your period.
Melissa: I think it probably, I probably would say around my mid 20s is when I because, I for the longest time, I just felt it was normal. I, my mom went through this, my sister went through this, and I’ll probably be like my mom and have a hysterectomy, you know, and like but this is just kind of what happens. But then in my 20s, I think it’s normal. And I didn’t really care so much about my health in my earlier 20s and even throughout my 20s. I don’t know how much I really cared about it because I think that I like a lot of people, I felt sort of invincible. You know, I was an ad person. I worked hard. I played even harder, a lot of drugs, lots of alcohol. And so you’re not really thinking too much and or even correlating that like, well, what I’m eating or how I’m taking care of myself is greatly affecting my menstrual cycle every month. So I think that a lot of the things I was doing was just adding insult to injury. It was just making it worse.
But I started to go see practitioners and my number one complaint was always like, I have the hardest, like heaviest period. I just don’t know what to do. And I remember seeing a Chinese medical doctor and literally giving her a huge sum of money and just saying, “I don’t like, here’s a bunch of money and just start taking like my sessions off this big lump sum of money and let’s start working on this.” And when I did cycle charting. It was so erratic, I remember like a cardiograph and it started to normalise in terms of the way it’s supposed to look, when I was doing a lot of, like, my periods were still heavy. And she’s like, “Oh, you just have spleen Qi deficiency and you’ve got to take these herbs.” And I kind of gave up on it because I felt like, well, I don’t really feel like it’s like something isn’t shifting still. So which is ironic because, you know, my background is nutrition and Chinese medicine and I do think that both are very powerful. But it’s also the reason why that I find that, like, there’s more to it than just the one modality. It’s why I like exploring other areas and finding like, why is this happening and what are the all these different factors that could be at play here versus just this one thing that was the reason why that this happened. And I’m not entirely sure I believe in that very much. But yeah, I would probably say mid 20s was probably when it was started to become at the forefront. And I had seen multiple practitioners to try to address it. And nobody, not one person ran a single test on me, which is interesting. Like there’s no hormone test, there was no stool testing, there was no hair trace mineral analysis. There’s nothing, you know, it’s just protocols after protocols and lots of money spent.
And in hindsight, looking back and there’s a lot of guessing and no testing.
Le’Nise: And that was kind of like the opposite of, I know you talk about testing a lot on your, in your work, so the opposite of what you do now. So as a practitioner, if you could go back and speak to for yourself back in your mid 20s, what would you say?
Melissa: I really would say go to somebody who’s actually going to go test you like, to really get to the bottom of it. And I think that so many practitioners even now, like I’m not saying hormone testing is not is not valid because it is, but I also believe that hormones are very much superficial in the fact that so many things affect them. And I think that if we actually address what, are there gut infections at play, because if there are well, those can affect your hormones. And for me, you know, I came from a history of having, like, really bad skin for so long and had been on rounds of antibiotics for Lord knows all these respiratory issues and thinking like maybe that’s probably where you should have start. It was just looking at your gut first. And so that’s probably what I would have said, is like, go test your gut. Let’s, let’s start there. And honestly want a huge part that helped me was symptomatically was bioidentical, natural bioidentical progesterone. And I say symptomatically, because I think a lot of women will get on natural bioidentical progesterone and go, “It’s the answer to all my prayers”, just like taking vitex is the answer to all their prayers. And I don’t believe everyone should be on vitex. But I you know, it’s it’s progesterone is so needed to calm those heavy periods, and it certainly calmed mine. My period are still heavy, but they’re manageable and I don’t have to plan my washroom route. But why is the progesterone low to begin with? Why is the oestrogen high to begin with? And I think everybody sometimes needs a bit of symptomatic support, like just cut a gal a break. But, you know, like you got to keep looking at those causative factors while you’re addressing it symptomatically.
Le’Nise: So really, it’s going in and giving someone something that’s going to provide them with some short term relief while you go in and you address the kind of deeper, deeper issues. I 100 percent agree with that because if someone has been going through something for such a long time and then come to you as a practitioner, you just want to be able to show them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Melissa: Yeah, a thousand percent. And that’s why I’m just like it was it was a godsend for me. But in the interim, it’s just, you keep chipping away at the stuff that’s there. And sometimes it’s layers of stuff. Sometimes it’s not even like it’s your, it’s just your gut. How about if it’s emotional trauma, even stuff that it could have been there from, like before you even had the mental articulation to go like, oh, I remember this happening. It might have been something that was even like transgenerational from your, your family, but you don’t, that you’re not even consciously aware of. Like, there’s so many layers to us as human beings. It’s quite remarkable.
Le’Nise: I was having a discussion recently about epigenetics and how we carry trauma in our genes. And I just find that such a fascinating area. And then you combine that with the whole the the hypothesis of racial weathering. And I’m hypothesising here. But if you just look at something like fibroids, and I know that’s an area of focus, one of your areas of focus, and you look at how prevalent they are within Black women and you just think, well, if we were able to dig deeper, you know, what is going on there? You know, how much weight does, does intergenerational trauma have to do with the prevalence of fibroids? I just think it’s just, it’s just fascinating.
Melissa: It really is. Because you think about. And it’s what I find fascinating is like, I’m a huge fan of breathwork. And I love breathwork, and there’s so many different modalities of breathwork, right, you know, you have Wim Hof that people do, which I don’t feel is very esoteric in nature. He’s just kind of like, “Breath, mother…”, you know what I mean? Not going to swear, but like, he just very like go get it, you know. And then you have Dr. Stanislaw, Dr. Stanislav Grof who does breath work and there’s like all this like music and stuff. And it kind of takes it from, like shamanistic areas of it. But he believes that some trauma can be very much from in utero or even from the birthing process because you think, OK, that was like really traumatic. Like my mother couldn’t speak English. And you’ve got nurses yelling at her to push and she’s crying because she has no idea. So how traumatic knowing that for her, but for my sister coming out of her. But you can’t remember that my mother went through war. She was a Catholic who harboured the Jews in the war. Right. Like you think about this. And so it’s interesting. There’s a guy by the name of Mark Wolynn and he’s fantastic at talking about like traumas that happen through our lifeline and how it actually could be the reason why we’re reacting the way we are or even like why we’re physically manifesting certain things that we do. You know, I think the Black community, it’s so deep rooted that trauma on so many levels, especially for women. Oh, my God. And so I think that, like I think that the the layers are so deep in there. And the beauty of breathwork, which is one of the things that I really, really believe in, into the integration process of somebody, because I think sometimes you tell someone, oh, you’re healing, you’re healing. But I look at the times and you’re healing makes it sound like you’re broken to begin with, like you’re integrating all these puzzle pieces that just need to click together. And when you do breath work that, it’s moving the diaphragm, which then moves the lymphatic system. And the lymphatic system is that emotional shock absorber. So there could be like trauma there from God knows when.
And so I think that when women are thinking about periods, for example, you know, we have to kind of go beyond the physical part and think that, like, this actually could be much deeper and that it’s not about abandoning one thing, but really making sure that we value the trauma work as much as we value the supplements, we value the self parenting and getting her butt to bed at a decent time as much as we value, like eating good food. But I think generally people tend to abandon those things because they just don’t put as much value or weight in where they should be.
Le’Nise: I am just nodding along with you. I agree with everything you’re saying. I think that people, they want a quick fix. And, you know, you can take a pill, you can take a supplement, and that will give you the quick relief that we were talking about earlier. But that integrational work that you were talking about, that that’s really that is the work. You know, that’s the deep work that takes can take months and take years to really go through the layers of what is actually driving this. And I think that people can be afraid of that because it pulls up so many things that they just, they haven’t really wanted to deal with.
Melissa: Yeah, and it’s interesting because when it does come out. Is it important for us to mentally articulate the why? Like, if you experience something, did you experience it first in your mind or did you experience first in terms of like, well, no, when I experience something, this is how I like I felt at first I felt an energetic resonance. Then our brain makes the mental articulation of what that meant. So sometimes when women say me like I’m doing the breath work and I feel so sad and I feel so angry and they’re trying to articulate the why and I wasn’t held enough as a child or this. And does it matter? Like maybe we just need to release that that that stored emotion that’s been sitting there that is causing us to react in so many ways, like allow yourself to feel that. But people don’t want to feel because it’s uncomfortable.
Right. So I think it’s just all those things I think are really ingrained and deeply stored into the human psyche. Like I woke up or was trying to go to bed and I was so I don’t even know why. But I was, I felt angry. I had this feeling of anger and I don’t know why nothing caused me to create to feel that way. And I could not for the life of me, go to bed because of it. So I got up and sat down and I did 15 minutes of breath work. And partway through it, I started bawling my eyeballs out and I had no idea why. And I still think maybe I just was not meant to know why. Maybe it’s OK that I just released it like the do I need to rationalise it? Do I need to create a perception of what what it was and how or why? Like, maybe it’s just important that I just let go. You know, so I think that, yes, I think that when it comes to periods and any part of your hormonal healing, you got to look deeper.
Le’Nise:I want to go back a little bit and talk about your, your story and your journey to where you are today, because you have quite an interesting story. You were saying about working in advertising, you know playing hard, working hard. I used to work in advertising as well. So as you were talking about that, I thought I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, got it, been there. But then you had a really dramatic experience. Can you share kind of an abbreviated version of that story for listeners who aren’t familiar with it?
Melissa:So I left advertising. I started to actually kind of dabble in the healing realm around that time, studying nutrition and left advertising to fully pursue it. And after that point, I was really interested in Chinese medicine. But I had when I went into that whole field of nutrition, Chinese medicine, I went to do it with the idea of like digestion. Like that was kind of my thing for the longest time. And it still is, right. It’s usually where I like to start. But fast forward down the road. I had an ovarian cyst that had ruptured this was years after my studying and I was graduated from the Chinese medicine school, but I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured. It tore off a piece of my right ovary and I got sent to hospital and I had no idea was going on. All I knew that I was in a severe amount of pain. My abdomen is distended, thinking in my head and what if the pain isn’t fixed? It’s like moving left to right of me with my appendix and all the diagnostic things in my head. And they said, “Well, we have to do a CT scan.” They did.
And they said, “We can’t see anything other than blood and it’s right up to your lung cavity. And it’s the reason why that you can’t breathe very well right now because blood outside of your organs is an irritant to your organs and it hurts. They’re supposed to be on your vessels, in your capillaries, in your veins.” And so, yeah, it was up to there and they said, “We have to do an exploratory surgery to find out what it is.” They did a six inch vertical incision, they took out about two litres of blood, which was a lot, and they had me for over an hour, hour or two of surgery or so. And now they have like four of the best surgeons in there from different walks of life. They didn’t know they were going to see an ovarian cyst that had ruptured, tore off a piece of my ovary. They stitched my ovary back and said, “It’s fine. It’s in good working order. Sidenote, We didn’t see any endo that was in there” and it was months of recovery. I had 24 staples in me and I, yeah, it took me a while to recover. It was really, really challenging.
And so that was when I really kind of started getting into the hormonal area and obviously spurred from that. And then from there, fast forward even further found out that I had fibroids by mistake because I was experiencing very weird sensations in my pelvic region, not understanding. Is it an ovarian? I don’t know. And then I went into the hospital and luckily the radiologist was still there, did an ultrasound. And then the doctor said, “We didn’t find anything. Did you want a copy of your ultrasound report?” I said, “Sure.” Grabbed it, really sleepy, stuffed it in my purse next and looked at my purse and opened up the results and it said 2 fibroids: one intramural, one subserosal. So and I’m like, you wouldn’t think to tell a woman who came in experiencing pelvic pain that she has like a couple of fibroids, probably a good thing, right? That’s why I felt weird, because I, unlike a lot of women, felt my fibroids, you know, and I have one that’s shrinking right now. And so I had later discovered that I had Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune thyroid condition and who knows how long I had that, that maybe it hadn’t been diagnosed for years. It takes about 10 years for Hashimoto’s to develop. And I say that because it’s not like, OK, well, one day you just get an autoimmune condition, but your thyroid can really change your periods quite a bit, that how it functions. So who knows how long I had it for so long.
And maybe that was something that needed to be addressed too. But I never really had proper bloodwork, which is an ongoing issue for so many women to get complete blood work. And they’re just told that their normal or that it’s all up in their heads. So I experienced that and had a bunch of thyroid nodules. And through a lot of work that I’ve done, my last ultrasound, which I always show on the masterclass I’ve done, on one side, all the nodules are completely clear. And then the one that I had that was one millimetre away from getting biopsied shrunk down by 50 percent.
Le’Nise: Wow.
Melissa: Yeah, so it was like I always tell them and I’m like in my antibodies are almost at almost that normal right now, which is insane.
And I say to women like it’s a thousand percent possible to to get past these things. But you’ve got, it’s not about being consistent. Consistency is BS in my opinion. It’s about being committed. You’re never going to stray for something that you’re committed. Consistency, you tell women to be consistent and her little perfectionist brain starts going mental and when she’s not consistent, it’s like shame follows and haunts her to death versus commitments like well I’m always going to go back to something I’m committed to. And eventually all those slip ups I do are less and less. When I do, I kind of have a little bit of grace with myself, you know.
Le’Nise: You have been through a lot. So you had the heavy periods and then you had this surgery from the ruptured cyst. Then you found out that you had fibroids and then you had, got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s and then the thyroid nodules. And you are, I mean, you tell me if I’m wrong, but from what I see of you, you seem like you’re thriving and all of that would have put someone else on the floor. So what listeners will probably be thinking is well what are her secrets? How did she do it? Can you talk more about what you did on your healing journey and what you were still doing?
Melissa: Yeah, I think that, you know, I was the gal who when I commit to something, I was like, yeah, I’m going to go full throttle. And I think I all I think when I did really dive into health, food wise, I was always on point, you know, I was always on point with that. I had a lot of struggles with addiction for quite some time. But I think the biggest challenge for me was the lifestyle. The sleep was something that, I would eat well. I would drink enough water, work out, but like sleep? I’ll sleep when I’m dead, I will work and I will work hard because it’s where I get validation, right? Like a lot of people, they get validation through the work that they do. And so that was that was the hardest part to integrate, was the sleep, was crushing the co-dependent patterns, the need to people, please, to validate my sense of self-worth, to distract myself from feeling, because, hey, if I can make someone else feel good, then I’ve done a good job. I think that those are really huge catalysts and definitely addressing the trauma and from a food perspective, I’m a huge fan of looking at the gut and I had a lot of gut infections that were at play and that was something that I noticed.
And I ended up actually, I was in Bali last year for five weeks. Prior to going to Bali. I started to experience some pretty intense gut pain and realised it was from an H. Pylori infection that I had. And what I, and H. Pylori, for listeners, listening is the same bacterial infection that creates peptic ulcers. And it’s found in 2/3 of the world’s population and their studies to even show that women who have very low levels of progesterone tend to actually have a higher incidence of H. Pylori, because progesterone is also antiinflammatory in nature. And so we also need progesterone for thyroid help. People who have thyroid conditions also sometimes has H. Pylori and we have H. Pylori, you don’t have stomach acid. So it’s like a welcome party for all bacteria and parasites to come into your gut. So it’s no surprise that I had all this gut pain. I didn’t have Bali Belly. It literally was, it was because of that. I ended up thinking to myself, why is it does it hurt after I eat almost all my meals except for breakfast? And then I realised breakfast was the only meal that was all protein. So I decided I went on this whole quest to kind of go and I say this like loosely, but carnivoreish and I say carnivoreish because it was not a full carnivore. I don’t label myself as carnivore, but a meat based diet. And it was literally like someone just turned off the switch to pain like that and all the gut pain was gone. It was so bad that I thought, I was trying to get a flight home. I was reeling in pain for five, six hours because it was so intense and I just stuck to eating like now I think my diet, I would say, is pretty high fat, but I do eat vegetables and fruit. But when I took the Cyrex test, which is a food intolerance test, it’s done by blood and it showed that I was intolerant to a ton of foods. But you don’t, you’re not intolerant to a ton of foods until you understand why and it’s usually from gut infections.
So yeah, I went carnivoreish, meaning I still eat berries and apples and pears sometimes, but my diet is primarily protein and pretty high fat and it has been an absolute godsend for my gut. It’s been an absolute godsend for my thyroid and my hormone levels. But the breath work has been huge, the sleep has been huge, the bigger boundaries has been massive. Like that’s where a big part of my healing really was.
And working out where I’m like, I’m going to rest today and I’m not going to feel guilty about it, like I don’t want to do high impact workouts, you will never catch me at a boot camp or a cycling class like I would rather die than to do that, like I will do what my body feels is best for it. And for me, that’s usually like a yoga or Pilates where it’s not a high impact thing. So that’s probably the secret sauces are in multiple parts.
Le’Nise: Going back to what you were saying about being on a carnivoreish diet, I know that some people listening will think, whoa, whoa, whoa, eating all of that meat, that’s bad for the environment, we get told that meat is so bad for us. I have my own view on that, that there’s no one size fits all. You know, you’ve got to do what’s right for you. But what I’m sure you’ve heard, if you talked about this publicly, I don’t know if you talk about what you eat publicly, but what has been your response to people who are kind of like, no, the way you’re eating is wrong.
Melissa: I always say one size fits all approach doesn’t work. I also say the results are in the pudding because look at my numbers, it’s improved. I think that meat has the highest bioavailable nutrients other than plants. So I think that there that I grew up in a meat based household, my, my family is Brazilian. You can’t get more meat based than that. But, you know, whether it’s bad for the environment, I think that you have to vote with your dollar. And I think that if you’re buying, I don’t buy commercially raised meat, I purchase organic and grass fed. I also switch up my protein sources. My favourite is beef, but sometimes I try to get what’s local. Where I’m right now, they’re going to have a lot of elk and venison. So I try to switch up because you’re getting more nutrients from different animals.
And also I try to get in some organ meats as well. I think that we strayed so much away from like, people will rant and rave about how bad things are for the environment when there’s like mono cropping of soy and corn going on. I’m like, you don’t understand the amount of life, of wildlife that has actually been killed by the growing of, you know, plant based foods. And again, I’m not demonising plants at all, but I’m also, I think that organic and grass fed farming can be extremely regenerative to the environment. I, a lot of people don’t realise, but with fruits and vegetables, you require blood meal. So there’s actual animal fragments in there to, you know, to grow those. So a lot of people I know that, ‘well, it’s bad for the hormones because of this.’ And I’m like, “but what is?” Because if you look at that, if you look at the oestrogen. And that it is in grass fed organic meat and then you compare that to the oestrogen levels in soy or even other various things, you’re going to see massive differences, a lot of different differences in that.
My issues haven’t gotten worse, my issues have only gotten better. They’ve only improved. But I’m not, I’m, I don’t subscribe to diet dogma. So that’s why I say carnivoreish, because sometimes, yeah, will I ever eat grains? Rarely. I mean, one day out of the blue, I really want oatmeal. I never frickin eat oatmeal. I don’t know the last time I ate it, but I bought some and I made some. Oh my God. Is the world crashing? No. But that day my body really wanted it so I had some, I didn’t feel terrible after eating it, which is a bonus. But I think that you have to, I think that sometimes the dogma of various eating regimes, even carnivore, can be so extreme that it’s something.
And I think that we strayed so much away from like food that back in the day when people eat meat, they ate like especially in Brazil, you know, you’re talking about people who were slaves, who were poor, they ate every single part of the animal, because they had to, you know, they looked at. And that’s why even now, it’s like if I can eat some organs, I will. And for those that I know that I’m not going to like like kidney, I think it’s gross because just personal taste preference, I will end up probably getting that in dessicated form from various supplement companies to supplement what I have, because you’re getting a lot of those micronutrients. I think that eating muscle meats alone, you’re really straying from that.
Look, even if I’m making a stew, I’ll put bone in there because I know I’m going to get the collagen from that. Like when my dad made it’s a Brazilian dish called feijoada. A lot of it was like actually from the African slaves in Brazil who would make it and they would make it from every part of the animals, a bean dish with lots of meat. And I remember when my dad made it when we were kids, you make it for a big amount of people. And there is like there’s ear, there’s tongue. There’s like a hoof in there, like there’s everything that’s in there. But you kind of grew up in and I was just normal will eat. Right. But now everyone wants this pretty cellophane packaging. And I’m like, that’s not that’s so far from what it is, you know. So yeah, I definitely try to respect as much as humanly possible from the animal.
Le’Nise: I am nodding along because I’m in this world and I I agree with what you’re saying, but you know, what we hear from a lot of mainstream health people is vegan is best, vegetarian as best. And you and I both know, we both said it. There’s no one size fits all. So I’d say for listeners who are confused about what to eat, it goes back to listening to what your, your body is telling you. So Melissa said she craved oatmeal, so she went and got some oatmeal, you know, really tuned in to the signals and the science of your bodies and don’t feel like you have to stick to these templates just because, you know, some influencer is saying everyone should be vegan. You know, that might not be right, right for you. I feel so passionately about that.
Melissa: Oh, I totally agree, because even, you know, I have some patients of mine who do really well with higher vegetable count. I do believe that most women are probably not eating enough protein. As we age, our muscles breakdown, we need the protein for blood sugar balancing, and unfortunately, when you’re vegetarian and vegan, you have to combine various foods, starches, legumes, etc. A lot of these foods have a lot of anti nutrients in them like lectins, things that prevent the assimilation of those nutrients. And that high starch can be very problematic for a lot of people, especially for insulin levels. So is that protein combining actually right for you? And I think that that has to be a really integral part before someone really commits to a specific diet. Is it right for you?
Le’Nise: Look at what’s right for you. So tell tell listeners more about what you’re up to now in your business. I know you’ve got a lot of things going on. Tell us what’s coming up for you.
Melissa: Yeah. So right now we have a membership that has been running gosh, for probably about five would say five years or so. Sexy Lady Balls, everything I do kind of kitschy. So I’m on Instagram, you see Sexy Food Ttherapy. You’re going to go, wow, this girl just dressed up as a big vulva or a big fibroid. Yes, that’s me. And I, I like to have people to laugh and learn some of these very complex topics. So we have this membership called Sexy Lady Balls, Lady Balls referring to your ovaries and there are women from all walks of life in there. And it’s great because we have women there, whether they have fibroids, like we really specialise mainly in those oestrogen dominant conditions. The fibroids, the endo, the adenomyosis, the ovarian cysts, the polycystic ovarian syndrome. And there’s so many women in the programme in the membership who have thyroid conditions and pretty much all of them across the board are struggling with their adrenals. So it’s not to say we don’t have women in menopause because we do. But that’s a huge part of my work.
And I’m in the process of developing something that’s not going to release for a while, not until probably the fall of 2021. It’s an autoimmune programme. And but right now, that’s right now is Sexy Lady Balls. And at some point I got to get my book together. So that’s a labour of love. But yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at right now. And it’s been extremely fruitful and amazing and wonderful to chat with women and to support them, because I think especially with hormonal work, it’s not like, OK, you did this for 30 days and you’re healed. It’s you want to give them ongoing support, which is why the membership has been created. And that’s really where, you know, these women join at a really low priced monthly fee and then they have the opportunity to upgrade, to get testing. And my job is to really fight tooth and nail to try to get them to get complete blood work. So we have women in there from Australia, from all parts of Europe, from the States and Canada. And I want these women to get answers like that to me is my number one goal, because like I said, who knows if I had thyroid issues in my 20s and 30s and it was just undetected, you know, and that’s why I think especially blood work is so key. So we try to make sure that we get resources for women so that they get answers.
Le’Nise: So someone’s listening and they’re thinking, how do I fight to get the right blood work done with my doctor, how do I have a conversation with my doctor? What would you say?
Melissa: I think the hardest part is I think I don’t think it should be a fight. If you’re having a fight, then I think that it’s time to look elsewhere and to just, you know, manage your energy accordingly if you’re not pushing up the stream. I think it’s important to look to work with an alternative care practitioner, whether it’s someone like myself, a naturopath, the functional nutritionist, what have you, who may have those resources for you. And usually those resources will require you to pay out of pocket to get testing. Now in the States, people are used to paying always out of pocket for their health in Canada. It’s like, oh, go into the doctor and just get bloodwork done and we’re good. You kind of feel like it’s free, right? And sometimes I find that that’s probably the most challenging to work with our my fellow Canadians. But, you know, I say I’m like, you gotta, I think there’s a weird thing, especially with women, about investing in themselves.
That it’s like, you know, and I’m not talking about fashion and I invest in myself all the time on Amazon. Sure. But is that actually investing in yourself like something that’s going to be like fruitful and abundant to your body? Like, are they distractions or are the actual investments? Right, like, are you spending or are you investing because those are two very different things, but most women really struggle with investing in themselves, though, like, you know, and that’s why we try to keep the membership rate low and then we have upgrades for stool testing and all the rest. And even that I try to keep as low as humanly possible. But yeah, it definitely comes to a distraction issue, a self-worth issue. And these, again, come down to those very deep core patterns that I think a lot of women have so deeply ingrained that are a huge part of why they’re struggling and then still looking for that pill to fix everything.
Le’Nise: So for listeners who they’re listening, they’ve heard everything you’ve said. What would you want that one thought that they would take away to be?
Melissa:I would say probably the biggest one thought would be if you’re struggling and you’re confused and you’re overwhelmed, I think that sometimes you have to sometimes let go and seek the help of somebody. And if you seek the help of somebody and they haven’t done any testing, that should be a red flag to you. I think that you also have to be mindful and think like, is there trauma that’s here? You know, is there co-dependent issues that are here? Like sometimes something as small as like just getting your butt to bed earlier. I say this to my husband all the time, like if more women just got sleep, so many other issues would improve. Now ask yourself these questions, ask yourself these hard questions, because when you’re really sleep deprived, you’re going to want to eat everything on your fridge. You’re going to think that you suck. Never trust your thoughts on a tired brain, no matter. I don’t care if you are the most evolved human being. I still say that to myself to this day. So remember to say that to yourself. Like I’m feeling really, I’m really beating myself up today. Am I tired? Yes, OK. I can admit that I’m tired. I’ll never trust my thoughts on a tired brain. Got it. Cool. So I would say that that probably.
But I would always say, look, when it comes to your health, the number one thing is like start with your lifestyle first. Because you can eat all the made in foods, but in the end, if your lifestyle sucks, you’re never going to stay on plan. That’s why most people are falling off the bandwagon. This just because you don’t have a food problem, you have a lifestyle problem. So that probably would be where I would leave people with.
Le’Nise: So look at your lifestyle. Look at your sleep. Look at your, look at your trauma, I think. Amazing. Thank you so much. You brought so much to this conversation. I’m so, so thrilled to have you on the show. Listeners can find you on Instagram, on your website. So it’s it’s Sexy Food Therapy. And all the links will be in the show notes. Thank you so much, Melissa.
I know I say this every week, but I am so excited for you to hear this episode of Period Story! I spoke with Jenn Pike, a functional nutritionist and medical exercise specialist and we had a wonderful conversation about the power of our menstrual cycles, our period as a report card and the information it gives us and how to exercise in a way that is synched to your menstrual cycle. And of course, Jenn shared the story of her first period! Be prepared to take notes because Jenn shares amazing information and tips!
Listen to hear the story of Jenn’s first period, which arrived when she was at Canada’s Wonderland, a Canadian amusement park (for my British listeners, think Alton Towers!). She says that when she thinks back on it, she wonders why she didn’t learn more about it at school and home.
Jenn says that she now has really open conversations with her son and daughter about periods and menstrual health. It’s important for her son to understand that this isn’t something to shame girls about and he can try to take care of them instead.
Jenn started tracking her menstrual cycle when she was 17 (!!!). Listen to hear why she started tracking at such a young age and what she learned about her body and how to take care of it.
Jenn says that our period every month is a report card, telling us what’s happening with our bodies and giving us the opportunity to heal ourselves. She says that when you understand what your body is telling you, it will change how you show up for yourself in your life, your career, the way you move your body and so much more.
Jenn wants all of us to know that our bodies are our friends and they’re not against us. Our bodies want us to feel the most vital, the most energised, the most loved and the most balanced possible! Thank you, Jenn!
Jenn Pike is a Functional Nutritionist and Medical Exercise Specialist. She specializes in women’s health and hormones and is the Bestselling author of “The Simplicity Project” as well as her two cookbooks The Simplicity Kitchen and The Simplicity Body.
She is the founder of the global and revolutionary women’s health programs The Hormone Project, Synced and her Simplicity Body Movement series. These programs are dedicated to teaching women what they should have known about their bodies all along; the incredible healing abilities, wisdom and power their bodies hold and how to bring them to life.
You can catch her weekly tips and tools on her podcast The Simplicity Session and her youtube show Simplicity TV. She sits on the Advisory Board for STRONG Fitness Magazine and contributes to CHCH Morning Live, CTV, Global, CP24 and Breakfast Television.
As an inspired Wife and Mom of two, she understands that true well-being is a journey to be enjoyed not a struggle to be forced. She will inspire you to create more Simplicity and Ease in all you do!
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise: Welcome to the show, Jenn!
Jenn: Thank you so much for having me.
Le’Nise: So let’s go straight into it. Can you tell me the story of your very first period.
Jenn: Yes. So I was 13. I was in Grade 8, and it was actually this summer between grade eight and going into high school. And I was at Canada’s Wonderland with my friends, which for those of you who aren’t from Canada, it’s a giant amusement park. Think like Disney World, but on a much smaller scale. Anyways, it’s not the place that you want to get your period for the first time.
And I was not prepared. Looking back, I don’t think I was really in touch with my body in that way in terms of noticing any signs or symptoms. I just remember walking and all of a sudden feeling this gush and being like, uhhhh… And luckily two of the girlfriends I was with already had had their period. So I said, like, “I just feel like I peed my pants.” They were like,”Oh, my gosh, I bet you got your period.” I was like, “What? No!”
And then we went into the bathroom and I was like,”Oh my gosh.” I didn’t have anything, they didn’t have anything. And back then they had like the twenty five cent cardboard, no name brand tampons that were on the wall in a machine. And so I got one of those. So I had to use a tampon for my first time having a period and we had just gotten to the park. This wasn’t like part way through the day and our parents weren’t picking us up for like eight hours. And at that time where this amusement park was, there was no like pharmacy or drugstore around. It was literally off the highway in the middle of nowhere. There was like a gas station there. And so I had to use this cardboard tampon that I had no idea what I was doing with. I also, there’s no cell phones. I couldn’t call my older sister or my mom and be like, “Can you walk me through this process?” My girlfriends had never used a tampon. They’d only used pads. So they’re like coaching me on the other side of the door. None of us know what we’re doing. And I, I insert the tampon and I walk out and I’m like, this is so painful. I had left the entire cardboard applicator in as well as the tampon. I had no idea that that was just how you get it in and then you pull that out. So for the next hour, I’m walking through the park and I am like, this is this is the worst thing ever. How do women have this for like 40 years of their life?
And so, we are in line to go onto a ride. And I’m like whispering to them, you guys like this cardboard is killing me. How do you make this pain go away? And there was a woman in front of us with her small kids and she was like, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but do you still have the cardboard for the tampon inside of your body?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And she’s like, “No, no, you are not supposed to.”
So we went back to the bathroom, got another quarter, tried it again, and then it was much more comfortable.
But I was just like, “Oh my gosh.”
Le’Nise: How do you feel when you look back and you think about that story now?
Jenn:I think to myself, how did I not know? Like, where was the conversation in any of my classes in school or even with my mom and my sister? Right. I understood what tampons and pads were and there was no weirdness around periods in our house. My older sister is 12 years older than me. So like she was 16 when I was four, I was exposed to a lot of things at a young age that is very normal. But I think because things were so normal in our house that they didn’t go into detail. Right. And like, tell me certain things. And then I think back to grade five, six, seven, even grade eight of like sex education and health, and that there was never that conversation that went into that kind of detail. So looking back, I’m like, oh, my gosh, I wish I knew. And then it kind of spears’ this off side conversation of, well, what else didn’t I know? Right. So, yeah, my oldest, she’s 14 now, and so and I have five nieces that are all older and my, one of my nieces was 10 when she got her cycle. So she was quite young. And so when my daughter was around that age, I had really open conversations. I put together like a little package in her backpack with like a fresh pair of underwear and like a panty liner and those kind of things. And we had those talks so that she did not have to go through that.
Le’Nise: So when she got her period, has she already got her period?
Jenn: Yep.
Le’Nise: And there was no surprises for her?
Jenn: No, actually, she, she took it like a champ. She just came home one day. I think I got my period and I was like, tell me more. And she was like there was just like stuff in my underwear. And so, I just used the stuff that you brought me and my other friends, you know, they knew what to do. And so, like, it’s fine. And she was very asymptomatic with her cycle for a very long time. And I taught her to start to track, like, right away so that she had this idea and not even just tracking, you know, when it was coming, how long it was when it was ending. But also, like, just start to notice how you feel so that because especially in your first couple of years, you can have very irregular cycles and you can be surprised. We talked about the tying the sweater around your waist, if any accidents happen and all of those little things.
Le’Nise:Wow. I mean, you just wish that every, every girl had a mom like you with all this knowledge that they go into, when they get their period, they’re totally prepared and totally nonchalant. like your daughter.
Jenn: Yeah, it’s interesting, too, because my other child is a boy, our son, who’s 12 now. But ever since he was, we’ll probably like, Emerson, it was four years ago we started having these talks with my daughter. So Sam, our son, he was around eight. We just are very open and they’ve grown up in my studio when I owned it, in my home, teaching women, hearing all about hormones, health periods. And so it’s not gross to them. It’s just like, “oh, God, Mom. Like, again, stop talking about it.” Right? They’re just over it.
But he, growing up, I always made sure for him, he also understood that, you’re going to have friends and class and girlfriend at some point in life, and you might notice that her mood changes, that she’s a bit more emotional, you don’t call her bitchy, you don’t say, is it that time of the month? You don’t make rude comments to her and it’s going to happen when you’re around at some point where some girl is going to get up and you’re going to notice that blood has leaked through on her pants or on her chair or something. You do not be the kid that makes fun. You take your sweater off and you give it to her to wrap around her waist. Like I was very clear about those things: as a boy, that this is not something to shame girls about and take care of them.
Le’Nise: That is ,that’s so beautiful. I love that and I wish that more, more parents taught their sons that because these conversations aren’t just for girls, they’re for boys as well. And this is how we break these taboos about periods and menstrual health and move away from this idea that we’re supposed to be bitchy or we’re supposed to be, quote unquote, moody cows.
Jenn: Yeah. Yeah, I know.
Le’Nise: So when you got your period, you were at Wonderland. And then what happened when you got home?
Jenn: Oh, my gosh, I got home. And it was another, another girl’s parents who had picked us up. So when I got home, I got home and I went to my mom, my sister and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, you were never going to believe what happened to me.” And I was like, “I got my period today.” And they were like, ready to have a freaking cotillion for me, like, you know, that episode in The Cosby Show. And like, Rudy gets her period and they have like the menstrual parade. And I was like, you don’t understand. And I told them what happened. And they were like, my sister: “Jenn, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe you left it in.” And I was like, “I can’t believe no one told me that you’re not supposed to leave it in.” And yeah, so it was and then it was just a thing of, you know, that my mom going and get me all the things, putting a basket under the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink. But my brother and I shared a bathroom at the time. And so again, he was like, an older sister. It was no big deal in our house. My dad was aware, like it it just was never a hush hush, like this is bathroom talk kind of thing. And there was three of us women in that house now at that time that we’re all menstruating. And eventually we all ended up on the same cycle as well, too. So then my brother, my dad would just be like, oh, you know, a few days leading into it.
Le’Nise:You know, that’s really interesting that you say that, because whenever there’s any discussion of that in like magazines or newspapers, inevitably, you get people saying, oh, well, that’s been debunked. You know, women’s cycles, they don’t regulate to each other. But then you hear all of these stories like women in the same household where their menstrual cycles do align. So I just, it’s more proof that actually, there’s more to this than we realise.
Jenn: Oh, my gosh. And I would say as a health and hormone practitioner and I only work with women in my practice, I would say that I have like, unequivocal data to prove that those articles are wrong because majority of the women I’m working with are mothers and they are in sync with their daughters or they’re in sync with their coworkers.
They’re in sync even with, like long distance friends that they have. The more they talk about their bodies, the more they talk about their cycles, the more open, vulnerable and honest the relationships they have in their life, the more attuned they are to what is going on. I find that it just there is like this interweaving, this webbing that happens with the women in their life. And everybody starts to become within a few days of what’s going on in their cycle.
Le’Nise: That is so fascinating. And when they’re, when their cycles are actually seen as a positive thing in their life, they kind of get the benefit of aligning around the follicular phase, that energy of ovulation. And you can just see all the benefits of that. So this is what happens for you and your daughter?
Jenn: Yeah. So it’s interesting. I don’t think she picks up on it as much just being her age and she has other things she’s thinking about. But for me, I definitely do like, I notice how she walks into a room, the way that she communicates with us. And because I do cycle synching, I’m just very aware on that level. And it’s actually a really, it’s become a cool parenting tool, the dynamics with my husband and I because she’s in a mood or whatever, and he’s like not tolerating the mood. I’m like, hey, just so you know… Is there ever a safe time for me to let her know that that’s not appropriate to act that way or behave, or is it always because I’m like, no, you just have to understand. And and the other thing I always say to my husband and my son is like, here’s the thing. If you just let it go and give her the space to just feel the way and granted like we’re not talking, like being rude and belligerent and whatever, it’s just like if you notice it, just pretend you don’t notice it. Like let her just have her space, because that’s really for us as women. All we need is we just need to be able to feel like it’s a safe environment to, to feel how we want to feel. Let us move through that. And the faster we get to move through it, the better we feel what we like.
Le’Nise: I mean, just so many lovely parenting gems you’re coming up with here that listeners can take away. So when you go back to your experience in high school, so you are about to go into grade nine, you got your period and you said that your, the education you got in health wasn’t that great. So how did you then educate yourself about your body? And then what was your relationship like with your period?
Jenn:So going into grade nine specifically, I don’t remember a lot changing in the beginning, but coming in towards the end of grade nine, like I had my first serious boyfriend and there were definitely, I mean, being in high school, you’re hearing more about people being sexually active and the conversations were changing and circumstances were. And so for me, I’m adopted. And my birth parents were 15 and 16 when they had me.
And I knew this story my whole life growing up. And so in my mind, when the conversation in school, the education of that time in like sex ed was how not to get pregnant, there was kind of this hard wiring in the back of my mind where I was like, oh, my gosh, I am like living proof that this can happen, right? Like, this is how I was born. And so, I became very curious about how not to get pregnant.
So for me, when I thought that I was going to become sexually active, it wasn’t just about the pill because I was like, I’ve also heard that’s not one hundred percent and that you possibly could get pregnant. And so I was like, well, I want to learn more about barrier method and right, so condoms. And then I was like, I learned I mean, from a young age, I understood what spermicides were and those types of things like using foam. And I was very well versed to the point by grade 10 in gym class, we were learning about things in health and we’d go back in the change room and I would say to my girlfriends, “OK, we just learned actually not true. I’m going to tell you the real deal.” And so I was essentially teaching these classes at the age of like 15, 16 years old in the locker room after gym class. And then by 17, I was I was tracking my cycle. I was actually, pen and paper. I had graph paper. I was in a yoga studio one day. I was 17 years old. And there was this book called Taking Charge of Your Fertility. And I started to read it and I was like, oh, this is fascinating, I thought reading the cover, it was like how you’re going to get pregnant.
And for whatever reason, I started to flip through and I was like, wow, this actually is not just about if you want to get pregnant, this is if you want to really have a deeper relationship with your own cycle, your body and understand your health. So I started tracking at 17. Now, I was on the pill at that point and no one told me that when you’re on the pill that that’s not a real period that you get. I didn’t know that I didn’t ovulate at all when I was on the pill.
I really, I didn’t understand really what it was, other than I needed to take it at the same time every day, and that this would prevent me from getting pregnant. And so beknownst to me, I was tracking all the way through being on the pill. So when I came off of it, I actually went into a very healthy cycle right away afterwards. But in high school, it was more so just recognising and noticing that no girls knew anything about their body. I was just like baffled by it. And at the same time as when I was really into health and fitness and I was in a gym environment and I was changing what I was eating. And it just, I was always referred to as the weird one, like I was the black sheep, the purple duck, because I was bringing, like, salad and vegetables to school while my friends were eating poutine and pumping out liquid cheese on their fries. I was the weird one.
Le’Nise: Poutine! So Canadian.
Jenn: So it was, it was more so just like this is this is not the norm. What I’m doing, what I’m interested in, what I’m reading about, what I’m talking about with my friends, this is not the norm. But I’d always be the girl that when my friends would start to become sexually active, they would come to me and be like, “OK, what do I need to use? How to protect myself? What do I need to know about my cycle?” And so what I do for a living now, for me, it’s no surprise because it just became this evolution issue.
Le’Nise: There’s so much I want to ask you about. Is this having this self awareness when you were so young is incredible, but also just doing all of this while you’re on the pill. So talk a little bit about why you originally went on the pill,
Jenn: Because I knew I was going to become sexually active.I had a boyfriend. I knew that that’s where things were going to move to. And so I actually went to my mom and I was horrible timing on my part. I went to her and she was getting ready for work in the morning. And I was and I sat on the edge of the tub and I was like, “Mum, I think I should probably go on the birth control pill.” And she was like, “Why?” And I was like, “Well, I think I might have sex.” And she was like, “Lonnie!”, which is my dad’s name. Right? Calls my dad and my and I’m like, “Mum!” So he came up and she was like, “Nothing like, we’re fine.” Anyways, I just said to her, “Look, I’m coming to you because I understand what can happen. Hello again. Birth parents, very young and I want to protect myself.” And so she was like, “OK.”
And so she booked me an appointment with the doctor and I went in. But I still continue to not only use the pill and use a condom, like I was like doubled down on that because I again, like I just, I think it was that just knowing in the back of my mind, like, this is not just a story they tell us to scare us as kids like girls legitimately get pregnant when they are still a child. And so, yeah, it was that. And then I think also, too, I’ve always been very curious about the human body. My dad exposed me to a gym when I was like five, six years old. He was always very active. My mom was doing Jazzercise with the local ladies and I just loved how it felt. And so the older that I got, I just continue to move towards things for my body. That brought me closer to that. And I remember when I was in school to become a holistic nutritionist, one of our teachers one day was teaching a subject. And this is going back like 20 years ago now, called estrogen dominance. And I had never heard of this term before. I had no idea what this meant.
And I was 21, 22 at the time. And she, in a part of her talk, went on to talk about the impact of the birth control pill on our gut, on our health long term, on our mental health, on all of these different things. And I was, I was flabbergasted because at no point in taking the pill for seven years at that time had my doctor asked me any of those questions, explained any of the things that could happen. And when I was 17 on the pill, I started to have breakthrough bleeding and I was like, this is not normal. And I went back to my doctor and I said, I’m having these breakthrough bleeds. And he was like, “OK, we’ll put you on a different one.” And he put me on a different pill. And within two weeks I had put ten pounds on an entire bra size. I was crying. All the time I felt like I was losing my mind and I was like, “Mum, I have to go back to the doctor. Something is wrong with this pill he has put me on. It’s the only thing that has changed in my life.” And I went back to the doctor and I explained to him what was happening with my body. And he and I remember I am 17 years old and I’m crying as I’m telling him this because I’m like, my body is not the same that it was literally two weeks ago. I’ve not even gone through a full cycle of this pill. He looked at me and said, “You know what, why don’t we maybe talk about a low dose of Prozac, an antidepressant?” I was like. What, what and I was like, “No, I just need you to not have me on this pill, can you put me back on the other one or a lower dose? I was like, I’ve been reading about this.” And so he switched me back to a lower dose pill and those symptoms went away. But I left that office and I was like, that was my first moment of, wow, here I am as a woman, as a girl. At that time, I have literally laid out for you exactly what is going on in my body. You saw me two weeks ago and I was not in this state. You know, the only thing that has changed in this, is this pill. And you were prepared to not only keep me on this pill, but then stack me with an anti depressant at 17 years old.
I, I was just, like, flabbergasted.
Le’Nise:And you, it makes you think how many other girls, not even women at that point, girls are on or were on antidepressants unnecessarily because…
Jenn: A ton because I work with them in my practice.
And the stories are. Oh…
Le’Nise: So you what you had this experience with your doctor, did it change and you had to have this experience of breakthrough bleeding on the pill, did it change the way that you felt about your period? Did it change anything else at that point, even like your relationship with their doctor?
Jenn:The relationship with my doctor, I became very, I was very wary in anything he recommended to me after that because I was like, you don’t get it. That was my whole thing. And in my head, I was like, it’s because he’s a guy. He’s a man. He doesn’t get it. I later went on and later in life after having babies and had female doctors and understood. You also don’t get it. So I don’t think this is a person issue. I think this is a system issue. And then in terms of my body, you know, at that time it was tricky for me because I knew that I could use the spermicide, I could use condoms.
But that also felt outside of me because that was the responsibility of someone else. And so I stayed on the pill because I did not want to get pregnant. And I didn’t really feel at that time like I had many other options. And there wasn’t a lot of women around me talking about other options, which is why I firmly believe that, you know, at 17 was the same age this happened to me. It was only a matter of months later when that book, Taking Charge of Fertility, like, literally fell off a shelf at me at a yoga studio, which then led me to read Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book, Women’s Wisdom, Women’s Bodies. And it sent me down this loophole of. not loophole, rather this like rabbit hole, beautiful one, of really just discovering. And then it was like a full circle moment sitting in that class all those years later having this instructor talk about estrogen dominance. A lot of the symptoms that I had actually struggled with that I was told are normal because you’re a woman and you have a period now and you’re on the pill and all these things are going to flux and change. But no one gave me solutions. No one was telling me to, you know, nourish my body in a certain way to take B vitamins and magnesium. Like none of that.
None of that.
Le’Nise: You see a lot of these women who have had a similar experience to you but have gone the way of taking the antidepressant in your practice now. What are the kind of things that you tell them that you wish you had heard? You mentioned magnesium, vitamin. What other other things that you tell them?
Jenn: Yes. So the birth control pill is very depleting on our body, our minerals. It impacts our gut microbiome almost identically to the way that an antibiotic does. So a lot of us can’t wrap our head around being on an antibiotic for five, 10, 15 years. Yet this is like the actual life cycle of a woman being on the pill, averages a decade or more. And it’s like I said, it’s very depleting and it will rob your system of a lot of the core nutrients. So I work with them on helping to heal what’s going on in their gut digestively. So are the bowels eliminating this is a big part, like are we able to actually break down the food that we’re consuming and be free of struggle, of bloating, of gas, of indigestion, of pain, of constipation, of diarrhea. So that’s really the first pillar is making sure that their gut health is on par and that they’re regularly eliminating. And then it’s helping to bridge the gap of where some of those nutrient deficiencies are. So it’s helping to build a foundation.
And I don’t know your your listeners personally, obviously, so please, those of you listening, take these recommendations with a grain of salt and always work with someone. Making sure things like the complete B vitamins, magnesium, vitamin D, those are like some of the core essentials, probably restoring that bacterial balance with a good quality probiotic as well too and some healthy fats, some omegas.
We don’t realize also the impact that the birth control pill has on certain elements of our cerebral cortex and our brain because it’s impacting the gut, your gut and your brain. They’re sharing the same blood barrier. So oftentimes, there’s going to be suppression of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, which those are our free anti anxiety, anti depressant hormones that we can produce. But if we have barriers there, if we have injury to our gut, that then impacts the way that our body is able to produce those and then obviously how we feel. So, yeah, and then working on what they’re putting in their body food wise, I mean, our food is that is what’s restoring our system. That is what is balancing us, that’s what’s literally getting into our cells, which we’ve learned this is as far as you can go back in science, no matter where you live in the country or what grade you’re in, like the powerhouse of the cells, the mitochondrial energy, that is what everything is made up of in our body. And so teaching them about how to step away from focusing on the macro, which is the calories, the carbs, the fat and the protein and how to actually focus on the micro, like let’s get the nutrients. And then once they’ve worked on that, I will teach them on the certain foods at different times in their cycles. And it really honestly, it depends on the woman, because for some they’re just ready for all the information right out of the gates and for others, there is a period of grieving what they didn’t know and what they went through. And so I work with women individually and I work with them in group settings, and I’ve just learned that I don’t go in with an agenda anymore. I go in and I listen.
And then based on what that woman is dealing with, how she feels about it, there’s a lot of women that when you start to talk to them openly, like it’s so amazing that you do a podcast like this, because there’s a lot of trauma for a lot of women in their period story, not just about the period itself, but the environment around them when it happened, the way they’re made to feel the lack of proper education and love and support they were given to about their bodies. And so women need to feel safe, that they can openly grieve and move through that trauma of going through that experience.
Le’Nise:It’s so fascinating to me that you’ve you’ve talked about the idea of grieving for what they didn’t know. These women who they’re, I speak to so many women in their 40s and their 50s who say, I just wish I had learned this. My life would have been so different. And I think just connecting that with the way that you’re educating your daughter is incredible. And, you know, it’s something it’s something that a lot of us can aspire to, having these really open conversations and moving away from shame.
If you could, if a listener is hearing this and they are saying, well, this is all fine and well, but I feel a lot of shame around my period. What would your message be to them?
Jenn: First of all, I understand why, because everywhere you look in society, we’ve been conditioned to feel that way, not just about our period, but about our body and being a woman in general, like there’s always something to hide. There’s always something that’s not good enough. There’s always something that should be changed. And what I want you to know is that your period, like you being a woman, you were literally given a superpower. Our period is a superpower and it is a superpower of the divine feminine, but also divine intuition. It is a compass that we can tap into every single moment of every single day. And if you’ve never been taught how to use this tool, it’s going to take time. But our period every month is a report card. We literally are the only human beings that walk around and can check in with ourselves on such a visceral level, on a regular basis and understand what feels good and what doesn’t, what appears to be normal and what doesn’t, what are our signs and our symptoms and start to understand the terrain of what is going on hormonally and our body. And this is, it’s a beautiful gift that we wouldn’t be here if our bodies didn’t have the ability to do this to create. And, you know, that’s a lot of the messaging I teach to my daughter and to the younger generation that I’m working with is that, you know, this is a generational gift. And, yes, there can be generational trauma and information that that comes down with it. But each of us have the opportunity to really, you know, flip the page and to heal ourselves in this way of understanding that your period is your voice. Your period is your body’s voice literally speaking to you on a regular basis and letting you know what is going on and when, you can start to understand that language. Because that’s literally what it is, it’s like a different language that none of us have been taught from a young age, and then you just it’s like once a month you’re dropped into this other country with a new language and you don’t understand what’s going on and you just kind of roll with it.
You suck it up. And that’s what life is like for a lot of women for that week on their menstrual cycle. And so, you know, helping them to understand that this is a gift be our response to this gift are our journey. And this is to elevate our education.
Right. So it’s following women like yourself. It’s working with women like myself. It’s understanding that there is this entire collective of women like us that we’ve literally created a livelihood out of this because we’re so passionate, because we know the difference of how you can show up in every facet of your life. This is not just about having a more manageable, healthy period. This is how you show up in your relationships, how you show up in your career, how you show up with your self-confidence, your self-esteem, your self worth. When you can get this part down for you, you stand taller and stronger on your own two feet.
Le’Nise: There’s so much again, there’s so much in what you’ve said that I think listeners, you should rewind and take that all in again, taken Jenn’s knowledge and her wisdom.
You’ve talked about the, the gifts that you can get from your period and your menstrual cycle and how you can connect more with different parts of yourself. I want to touch a little bit on the exercise side of it, because that’s such a big part of what you do. Talk about how women can use exercise as, align exercise with their menstrual cycle.
Jenn: Yes, so I created a program called Synched, which is about synching up your movement, your exercise to the different phases, the four different phases of your whole cycle. And so the reason that I did this is I have been in the fitness industry for 24 years. I’ve been teaching classes since I was 17. I’ve done fitness competitions, worked with athletes, you name it. I’ve been there, taught it and done it. And what I kept realizing and noticing is that so many women were training the same way that men would be. They were going in with a grunt mentality. They were always and oftentimes, truthfully, women were working harder than the men. They were doubling down on double cardio sessions, cardio and strength the same day, never taking days off. They were not respecting the fact that their body is not on a 24 hour cycle like a man’s is. That we can have anywhere from 23 to a 35 day or longer cycle, and that each different phase that our body is moving through impacts our energy, our performance, our recovery, and that by showing up every day and always going hard, long and intense, you are actually creating diminishing returns not only on your physical goals, you’re wearing your nervous system down, you’re depleting your adrenals, you’re impacting your thyroid health, and you are sending a message to your brain into your pituitary gland that is controlling how healthy or whether or not your ovulation is going to happen, the quality of your eggs, your fertility overall and all these things that we do in those fertile years as a woman are what set up perimenopause and menopause and beyond. So I started to create this because I wanted to move my body in a way based on my cycle, and I could not find an actual system that would help me to lay it out, create a calendar where I could press play and go. And so I started to fiddle around and put these together for myself. And I was sharing with my team one day what I was doing. And our director of programming was like, “Why are you doing this quietly and not letting anybody know you have to put this out there like there’s nothing that exists like this”, because she had been looking for something and I didn’t know she was looking for something. Excuse me. And much earlier here than it is over there, morning voice.
And so what Synched is, is I have created a series where during your follicular phase, so follicular phase is that period of time. Once your bleeding is done, bleed week is over and it’s like where you start to feel connected to your body again. It’s like, oh my gosh, OK, like I can reemerge now back into the world. And so it’s a great time to actually challenge yourself. The follicular phase is also the best time where the neuroplasticity of our brain is a woman. We are hardwired to start something new. You will have a better chance of actually sticking with it if you start this in the follicular phase. So it’s a great time for heavier lifting. It’s a great time for a little bit more intensity. And then as you start to transition into ovulation, ovulation is like this. Look at me, very outward energy, high feminine. I am in charge. It’s a very it’s a woo energy. Right, because ovulation is meant to, like, woo in a partner. Right. To procreate life so we can use that woo energy to add a little bit of spice during that period of time into your training. Now, all these things I’m saying is that taking into account you have a healthy nervous system, your adrenals and your thyroid are in check, and you are not exhausted because if you are any of those things, then there’s a beginner approach that I give you in the program so that we’re not further plummeting your your body state of health, but saying that you are healthy, everything is going well, out of ovulation, you come into the luteal phase, which is the longest of the four phases, and this the first week of the luteal phase, is still a really good time to be lifting weights using your own body. But I like to shift it where we go little bit lighter in the actual load, but a little bit higher and repetition and love incorporating more yoga into this period of time as well, too, because yoga for me is like the coming home to our body. It incorporates your breath. It’s a very intuitive way of moving. The longer that you do it, you really just start to access different energy channels in your body. And it’s very calming and takes us out of that sympathetic state, which when you’re in the follicular and ambulatory phase because you’re like literally unstoppable, it’s what it feels like in your energy. You tend to function in that higher fight or flight stress space. Very reactive, quick to decision. You’re an action taker in that period of time.
The luteal phase starts to draw you into the parasympathetic, which is more like pull back and analyse, complete the things that need to get done and start to prepare for the fertile void, like that winter, which is the bleed week. And so as we start to taper into the end of the luteal phase, it is definitely encouraging more things like fresh air, walks outside, yoga, pilates. We’re still strengthening your body, but in a much more compassionate way. And you become the tool and the equipment as opposed to barbells, dumbbells, those types of things.
And then the bleed week, the first couple of days is you like rest. If you want to walk, that’s fine. I also teach women how to do uterine and abdominal massaging using a tool called the Coreageous Ball. So it’s amazing to help to also free up restrictions in the diaphragm to bring us back into our belly breathing. And also if they have any type of crepitus or scar tissue, whether it’s from an abdominal surgery, they have a history of fibroids, cyst, uterine pain. We will use this ball in those first few days to help to ease that. And then in the couple of days after once, typically for most women, they’re more challenging days for their menstrual cycle are days one through three. So by the evening of day three, I’m talking about foam rolling and deeper, stretching, nadi shodhani, like alternate nostril breathing. And then by day 4, 5, 6, 7, now we’re starting to move our body again. But it’s, again, yoga based. So it’s like we enter into a cycle with the coming home to our body. We start to phase out of our cycle, back into the coming home, and then that sets us up if we’re there and feeling it to move back into that follicular phase.
Le’Nise: How long does it take women to typically get into a groove with understanding how to move according to their cycle?
Jenn: I find about four to six months.
Four to six months is typically what I find, because it all depends on how often they’re showing up to this type of movement, and it’s hard the first couple of months, especially for women, like I was this woman who was always used to intensity training for a goal, measuring it, benchmarks, all of that.
I would start and then I’d be like, oh, this isn’t long enough, this isn’t intense enough. And then I would swing back to what was comfortable and what I knew. And then I would not recover well, not feel good. And I’d be like, oh, I’ve got to get back to my Synched. And so they do this back and forth because women don’t trust their bodies. They do not trust that they can do something effectively in less than 40 minutes a day. Sometimes it’s 12 minutes a day. And that, that is enough to make their body feel good because we are not being taught to feel good. We’re being taught to look good.
And there’s a big difference. And a lot of women are living out of alignment with that. So they’re doing the workouts that do not feel good, that are killing them, that are making them exhausted for the rest of the day, burning out their system, that are actually increasing inflammation, creating a plateau with their weight and leading to more issues because they believe the story that they have to look a certain way, way a certain amount, be a certain size. And if they don’t… fill in the blanks, because for all of us, it’s something different, I won’t be loved, I won’t be valued, I’m not worthy. It’s we all have that. I’m actually reading this book right now that is blowing my mind. And it’s called Patriarchy Stress Disorder. And it goes through all of this of like, how every layer of our life is the coating as women that we have been ingrained in us, that our role is how we’re supposed to function, show up.
Look, all of these things and I read this book and I’m like, oh, my gosh, this is every woman I know.
And it it bleeds itself into everything we do, including our movement, which exercise is not meant to be torturous, and we’ve been taught that because of slogans like no pain, no gain. Right. And like the Beachbody mentality of like P90X just grind it like insanity, wear the shirt that’s like sweat dripping. That literally says insanity. Yeah, that that is fucking insane. Right. And that we are not programed that as women. So what happens on a hormonal level is the more you are a grinder with your exercise, you are stepping into a more androgynous, more yang, masculine energy that pulls you further and further out of your own feminine and further and further away from being able to listen when your body is whispering because whispers we will look at as weakness. They don’t matter. Not a big deal. I can suppress that. I’ll take an Advil. I’ll take a Tylenol. I’ll take something. I’ll just move through it until the whispers get seriously agitated and start to yell and start to kick and start to scream, and now you can’t get up in the morning, you are gaining weight, you have horribly painful periods. You have massive breast tenderness. You have hormonal migraines. You are losing fistfuls of hair. You have no sex drive. You are not sleeping. Those things do not show up overnight. There were whispers and signs, but we don’t believe them and we don’t trust them because that’s not what the outer world is telling us.
Le’Nise: What happens when women, they start to get into alignment with their bodies?
Jenn: They become so much more compassionate with themselves.There is a level of grace that starts to show up in how they move through their life. I notice with the women that I work with Synched, in The Hormone Project, their entire tone changes like the tone of their body, the tone of their words, like the language they choose. There is a softening that happens. In some women, there is a fierceness that shows up and it’s like a beautiful fierceness where it’s like, yes, I have known this woman was in there who has needed to speak her truth and needed to come forward, and it’s allowed her to do that. But I would say for most of them, the feedback in Synched around that third fourth month is I never knew it could be this easy and have this great of results, meaning like I never knew that I could only move my body for less than an hour a day and feel so good and all these other parts would start to come into balance.
Le’Nise: So that’s definitely something that we should all be aspire to, being in sync with our body, being in alignment. If a listener is, they’re taking in everything you’re saying and they’re thinking, gosh, there’s so much here. What would you want them, the one thing for them to take away to be?
Jenn: Your body is your friend. And there are beautiful messages that are being communicated to us on a daily basis. But we need to create the space to not only hear them, but to then also like absorb that like soak it up and take it in. And you don’t have to analyse everything. You know, my response when my body communicates something is, “Huh.”
And I just breathe in around it and then I’ll continue to move forward, and as you do this, you will naturally, you will, you will be blown away at how you start to choose things differently for yourself. And so your body is not against you. Your body is not broken. Your body has no agenda coming after you. Your body ultimately wants you to feel the most vital, the most energized, the most loved and the most balanced possible. Our body is not what is in the way, it is us that is in the way. So we need to learn how to sidestep that and saddle right up next to it and start to really listen and massage and receive those messages and lead forward from there and give yourself time, ladies. This is not something you’re going to achieve in 30 days. And this might take years depending on how long you’ve been going through things. But, you know, the gift is, is that the sooner that you can start to do this, the better your relationship will be, the better your transition into menopause will be. And, you know, it’s just your health overall. Your menstrual cycle is the gateway into your health of your entire body.
Le’Nise:Your body is your friend, your menstrual cycle is a gateway into the health of your entire body, words to kind of burn into your brain. Beautiful words.
Where can listeners find out more about you?
Jenn: So they can go to my website, www.jennpike.com. Instagram is where I spend most of my time. And that again is @jennpike. And then I have a podcast, The Simplicity Sessions, and we talk all about women’s health hormones and so much more.
Le’Nise: Thank you so much for coming on the show.
On today’s episode of Period Story, I had the pleasure of speaking to Dr Dani Gordon, an expert in CBD and cannabis medicine and the author of the book, the CBD Bible. Dani is a double board certified medical doctor and integrative medicine physician. She has advised the UN, governments and physician bodies on the use of medical cannabis and also co-founded the UK Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society, trained the UK’s first cannabis medicine specialists and helped set up the UK’s first cannabis medicine clinics.For anyone that’s interested in CBD, especially its use for period pain, this episode is a must-listen!
We talked about Dani’s first period and how she learned to manage her menstrual health as a competitive swimmer. She says she felt really empowered by her first period and really supported by her mom during this time.
We talked about the link between stress and changes in periods and menstrual cycles (something I’m seeing a lot right now!). Dani shared how as she got older, she started to link the heavy periods she was experiencing with stress and what she did to manage this stress. Her doctor told her that her only option was to suppress the hormone imbalances and bad periods with the pill 🥴 Listen to hear how Dani gradually realised there were other things she could do to manage and improve her menstrual health.
Dani talks about how she started out as a conventionally trained medical doctor and told me what inspired her to shift to integrative medicine and to ultimately focus on CBD and cannabis medicine. She shares how her patients opened her eyes to the benefits of cannabis for chronic pain relief and this inspired her to learn more.
Listen to learn the difference between CBD and THC, what the endocannabinoid system is and the wide range of conditions CBD can help with (including period pain!). The world of CBD is rapidly growing in the UK and Dani shares her top tips on how to choose the right type for you, including ways to access medicinal cannabis for severe conditions.
Dani says that CBD and botanical medicine is about empowering yourself about your health and wellness and taking control back. Thank you, Dani!
Dr Dani Gordon is a double board certified medical doctor, integrative medicine physician and world leading expert in CBD, cannabis medicine, brain wellness and stress resilience. She has advised the UN, governments and physician bodies on the use of medical cannabis, and was one of the youngest physicians to become American board certified in Integrative Medicine (the newest US physician sub-specialty). She also co-founded the UK Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society, trained the UK’s first cannabis medicine specialists and helped set up the UK’s first cannabis medicine clinics.
She has studied mindbody medicine at Harvard, yoga and meditation extensively throughout India and south east Asia with traditional teachers, QEEG brain scanning and EEG neurofeedback brainwave training with the top leaders in North America. Dr Gordon is the co-founder of UltraResilience, a wellness company specializing in burnout and stress resilience programs for individuals and organizations.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise: Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Dani: Thanks for having me, Le’Nise.
Le’Nise: So let’s start off by getting into the story of your first period. Can you tell us what happened?
Dani: So I was trying to think back to my first period when you emailed me and I was thinking, gosh, I don’t have a very, very clear recollection for some of the parts. But certainly I remember that I was 12. I was a competitive swimmer at the time. So it was kind of a big deal because, of course, I was training at quite a high level in the swimming pool and I needed to think about what I was going to do when I had my period. A lot of people on the swim team who were my age were taking days off of training when they had their period. And it was the big decision almost right away: do I use a tampon?
Which is kind of a traumatic decision for a 12 year old. But I was really lucky. My parents are really supportive of just body image stuff in general. And my mom was really supportive. So we talked it out. And I think I think I had a few periods in and then she basically taught me how to use the tampon and it went OK. And I went to swim practice. And I remember feeling pretty empowered because I didn’t have to take practices off when I had my period. So I think that’s the thing I remember most about. My first year was I was with my first friends to use a tampon and then of course, everyone wanted to know about it and it was a big deal.
So I didn’t really have any bad periods per se when I first started menstruating. But definitely when I was a teenager, 15, 16, I did get some heavy periods. I think partly it was due to stress. I was a very driven teenager. I was very academic. I put a lot of pressure on myself. And I think looking back, a lot of it was related to when I was when I was over, overly stressed or kind of stretched too thin with my academics and my sport. And I remember going up the stairs of my high school and we had to wear uniforms, so I had to wear a kilt. And I remember feeling blood trickling down my leg, walking up the stairs and just being mortified. And then I had a big patch of period blood on my, on my, my kilt. And I had to wrap my, my sweater around my waist for the rest of the day.
So I think those are kind of two of the most emblazoned period memories I, I have probably, from being a teenager. So, nothing too dramatic, but certainly that that walking up the stairs worrying about boys seeing me, I think those are things that a lot of women go through and no one really talks about, though. So I often, I often talk about these things when I do talks about women’s health.
Le’Nise: And going back to when you got your first period, you said it was really empowering.
Your mom taught you how to use a tampon and knowing that so swimming is quite intense, you’re in the water. You never had any issues after you learnt how to use a tampon with your swimming, on your period.
Dani: No, I was actually really lucky. I think that part was really easy. It was kind of later on when I started to have some heavy periods that I started to really connect it to, oh maybe this is stress related? What can I do about this really heavy period that I’m having? But the first few years, my periods were quite light and I just was able to use kind of the junior tampon. And I went to swim practice and it was it was almost like it wasn’t a big deal. I remember even having a big race when I had my period, probably when I was about thirteen. And I did a lot of visualisation as part of my training.
So I would visualise myself feeling more powerful because I was having my period and going through this race rather than I think the other way of thinking about it: I’m going to be really tired for this race. Or maybe someone had a heavy period, they would be really tired. So I think generally my, my first experiences were positive. But certainly I think the fact that I remember that walking up the stairs and bleeding, it’s probably probably a bit of a traumatic experience.
Le’Nise: And you said that you linked having a heavy period with stress, which is quite, quite advanced.
When I think about the other guests that I’ve had on the show or other women I’ve spoken to, when they, when they’ve heavy periods, often they’re not sure why they have heavy periods and they just kind of get, get on with it. How did you learn how did you make that connection and how did you learn about what was happening to you?
Dani: I think it was just kind of a thought that I had really when I was a teenager and when I was 16, I finished, I went to university when I was 17 and I already knew I wanted to do medicine, so I was already kind of had a bit of a scientific mind, I think, thinking about these things. But there is not a lot of information out there. Like when I went to my doctor about my heavy periods, he said, “well, you can you can go on the pill if you want.” And that’s what I ended up doing because I also wanted birth control when I was around 16. So I talked it over with my mom. My mom was really supportive and she said, “if you’re going to be sexually active, you want to be safe and you should go on a birth control pill and all these things and then it’ll help your periods.” And I also had some teenage acne. So those three things kind of led me to the pill. But when I went to discuss that with my medical doctor as a teenager, there was not even any discussion of stress and periods, really. That was something I just kind of thought about.
And what did I do about it? Well, nothing really concrete, really, at the time. I guess I was just trying to connect the dots. And really, as I got into university and I had to really manage my stress, I got more into yoga and meditation quite early. I was, I started doing yoga by 18 to help the stress at university. So I think for me it was just a gradual kind of realisation versus the doctor’s opinion at the time. The GP’s opinion was, “OK, you just well, if you have bad periods or if you have hormonal imbalances just suppress it with the pill, that’s the only option.” It wasn’t really ever discussed, anything else that could be a factor. And of course, I’m not against going on the pill either. Some some of my patients say the pills saved them. We’re going on an IUD. So I’m not against the western medical solutions. But I do think when it’s offered as the only conversation for women, that can be a little bit limiting or a lot limiting. I think this idea that you just the only thing to do when you have a bad period is just suppress it rather than digging, as you said, into stress playing a factor. Are hormones playing a factor? I didn’t learn really about the fact that we had hormone cycles until I was in medical school properly about oh, so maybe I feel more energised. I can do more cardio training in the first half of my cycle versus the second half of my cycle. I generally feel maybe not so energised and I need to be more eating different foods, having a more nourishing diet, more nourishing routine, avoiding the caffeine. Those things I didn’t learn about until I learnt about the anatomy and physiology of periods in medical school. And even then they just taught us the kind of medical parts. But they didn’t ever connect it back with saying, oh, this is how you can change your lifestyle or in your period. It was just purely like this is what the hormone levels do at this day. So I felt like I was really disconnected. I had to kind of connect the dots myself.
Le’Nise: And when you were making those connections so, I mean, by the way, everything you’re saying is music to my ears.
But when you are making those connections and when you were putting the pieces together and did it change what you thought about being on the pill? Talk a little bit about your journey coming off the pill.
Dani: Yeah, that’s a really good question. So I was one of the main reasons I really liked the pill because I had this teenage acne. So of course, my mom wanted to help me with my acne. She bought me this. I remember she bought me this expensive infomercial kind of natural system for my acne that it didn’t work but she really wanted to help me. I was really, like, really supportive parents. So when I decided to come off the pill, it was really I guess it was near the end of medical school. So I was 24 at the time. So I’d been on the pill for almost a decade and I didn’t really have any side effects on the pill. I felt fine. My skin looked great. I just I didn’t have bad periods. I had very light periods.
But one of the things that made me consider coming off it actually was is really two things. The first one was I started to study more natural medicine at the same time as I was taking my medical degree. And I got, I got really interested in getting in touch with my cycles and the fact that when you’re on the pill, you have pill periods, you’re not really in touch with the natural cycles. So I really wanted to see what would happen if I had a natural cycle and I got into a natural rhythm. What would happen to to my emotions would I, I don’t know would I have a better sex drive. And I didn’t even know that my sex drive was lower on the pill necessarily. But I wondered if things like, for example, reaching orgasm was was a problem on the pill, because it’s another thing I didn’t really understand fully at the time. Even though I had a boyfriend, I was sexually active, but I didn’t feel like it was easy for me to have an orgasm. And I was like, ‘OK, well, of course there’s a medical school. So I was doing all this research on the pill. I wonder if apparently the pill can cause this.’
So there was all these little things that kind of led me to say, well, I think I just want to try coming off of it. So that’s what I did. And when I stopped the pill, it was a really interesting process for a few reasons. The first thing is when you come off the pill and you’re this and this is like 15, 20 years, 15 years ago, the first reaction to a boyfriend, of course, is, oh, now we have to use condoms. They don’t like it very much. So first of all, you have the male pressure. Second of all, my skin just went crazy. So my skin, it gradually got worse. And then it got my acne really, really came back and my periods did get heavier. So I had that to deal with. And but I decided actually to stay off of it because I did find my sex drive did increase and I really liked it. And I did feel like it was easier for me to reach orgasm in sexual intercourse. And I just thought that that was such a great benefit that I really wanted to see what else I could do naturally. And in that way, that was kind of the beginning of me going down more of a natural route towards kind of managing my cycles, realising that if I wasn’t on the pill, I did some topical treatments for my acne. So I used the benzyl peroxide and I used a few of the vitamin A acids. I was really lucky I didn’t have to do any Accutane or anything, so I kind of managed my skin like that.
I got into really looking at my cycle as kind of a cycle, not me feeling the same way every day. And that really helped. And I really started to look at my stress levels and I added herbals like ashwagandha. And I started taking a lot of supplements. I already had a very healthy diet, but I started adding more healthy oils to my diet and all those things just really helped. So I never went back on the pill. And I think the biggest pressure to go back on the pill over the years has probably been boyfriends and guys, because it’s a pain in the butt when you’re in a long term relationship to not be on the pill. But I decided I was really going to stick with my decision. And for me, it’s been the best decision. And I wouldn’t say that for everybody, of course. But, yeah, that was it was a big it was a big shift for me.
Le’Nise: Can you talk a little bit more about the connection between the pill and libido, because what you said is quite interesting. And you said that you when you were on it, you still were having sex, but you noticed that when you came off that your orgasms were more intense. As a physician, can you talk a little bit more about why that might be?
Dani: So there’s it’s not really a very well studied area, to be honest, but some women find that they have trouble reaching orgasm when they are on the pill. And it’s probably because the way the pill affects our natural hormones, but we don’t know exactly, exactly why. And some women don’t find a difference and some women do. And I think because of the lack of really sexual education to the point of focussing on women’s orgasms, when I was a teenager, I didn’t really know a lot about how to have an orgasm or how to self pleasure and all these things. So for me, when I first started having intercourse with my first serious boyfriend, I was 17, I, I really didn’t know much about it. I just thought having good sex, was feeling pleasure and not feeling pain. And that was kind of it. And we didn’t, I didn’t really talk about what I liked with my partner or how to maybe for him to help me have an orgasm.
So I think it was a lack of, I guess, awareness about women’s orgasm in general that led me to really maybe take a few more years to kind of put the connection together. ‘Oh, I wonder if I’m not having orgasms when I have intercourse with a partner, partly because, well, maybe I don’t know how to pleasure myself properly.’ I went on that journey. And then the other thing is, ‘I wonder if it’s the pills.’ So, yeah, we don’t really know. But a lot of my patients will say the same thing.
They will. And oftentimes, unless I ask them, they will never bring it up. But I often will ask on certain medications as well. “Have how is, how is your your sex is, your libido, how are you able to reach orgasm or are you happy with it.” And women don’t care. And that’s fine too, some women are just not really into sex that much and everyone’s different. But if it bothers them that they’re not having orgasms or if their libido is low, it bothers them, then I think it’s something to do, something to look at definitely as a possible factor.
Le’Nise: I want to talk more about the connection between stress and periods, because it’s certainly something that I’m seeing a lot in my practice where being in a pandemic, being in lockdown, women are coming to me and saying, my period is late, it’s missing or it’s longer or it’s more painful. And you’ve talked about the connection between the changes in your period and stress. For listeners who are putting the pieces together for themselves, can you talk a little bit more about why that connection happens?
Dani: Definitely. So this is something we know a lot about, actually, and I think doctors should talk more about it. So when your, your cortisol, when your stress hormone levels are high chronically over a longer period of time, you tend to crave sweets and carbohydrates because the body thinks that you’re constantly trying to run away from a sabertooth Tiger. So the body gets confused because we’re supposed to have this this rush of stress when we’re in physical danger, so when we were cavemen, we were living our life in the jungle and everything was great, and then we would see a sabertooth tiger and the cortisol would come on, would enable us to run away from the tiger, give us that muscle energy, and then the cortisol will go back down once the tiger was gone. But the modern life, we have all these mental threats. So your boss emails you something stressful, you have a due date at work, you have a fight with your partner. All of these little things build up, build up, build up. And the body treats it the same way as if you were constantly running away from a tiger if you’re not managing your stress. So what happens instead of the cortisol coming back down, that stays high. So, yes, you get those food cravings.
It even affects memory consolidation, so you feel foggy, but kind of wired, so I call it tired, but wired problem, irritable and on edge, but unable to wind down, you don’t make as much sleep hormone at night, naturally. So your body can’t sleep as deeply and then is a vicious cycle and then you need more caffeine, like a little bit of caffeine in the morning. Like I drink a cup of coffee in the morning, but I just limit it to one. And for most people that’s OK. But if you’re needing caffeine more, then I say really a cup or two in the morning every day and you need it to wake up. That’s potentially a sign that your body is feeling quite stressed clinically. So all these things, of course, go back to affect our women’s hormones that balance our cycles, because if we’re not sleeping properly, we’re not eating the right foods, we’re not supporting our women’s hormonal system. Then things start to get out of balance and period problems show up. And then there’s genetics. So some women are blessed with just being, I call it, having a high stress set point. And some people are not. And it’s no one’s fault. It’s just the way it, it’s partially genetics, partially environment, partially what, what we’re conditioned over the years, our life experience, all these factors.
So so. Yeah. So that’s that’s really how stress plays a central role.
Le’Nise: That’s really interesting.
And I think that will be really helpful for listeners who are trying to understand why the changes they’ve been experiencing recently have manifested in their periods. So now I want to talk a little bit more about your journey into becoming an integrated physician. So for listeners who don’t know, can you explain what an integrative physician is?
Dani: Sure.
So like we talked about earlier, so I’m trained as a conventional medical doctor. So I went through the normal training, but throughout my training, And it really did start with me really getting interested in stress myself. And I’ve always been interested. I was a teenager about stress and its effects. But in my third year of medical school, I went through a very challenging period and I had a harassment, a sexual harassment case with a senior physician that I was under his, his tutelage. And it was very, very stressful. And in the end, my school had to be very supportive. I end up reporting him, but it went on for a few months and I reached the point where I felt so stressed I didn’t want to go to work. I felt like I knew what my patients with depression felt like because I was just so underslept and stressed. And it was really a turning point for me. Like I knew I was interested in holistic medicine before that, but after that I got really into meditation and managing stress and really just being connected with myself on a deeper level.
So I decided to start taking courses in natural medicine. So I took a course in Chinese traditional medicine at my university. I was one of about four students. I’d already done some some training in nutrition, some courses, but I did more of that. And then I just kind of continued on doing courses. And then when I graduated and opened my practice in family medicine, I decided because after about six months, a lot of my patients were just having all these chronic conditions that weren’t getting better with the pill alone approach. Although, of course, I’m not anti drug, I wanted to give them more. So I ended up seeking a programme in the United States called the Integrative Medicine Fellowship, which is for conventional medicine doctors to do basically a two year fellowship programme. And what we learn in that programme is basically evidence based natural medicine. So we do mind body medicines o we learn about mindfulness and BSR, mindfulness, stress reduction, meditation, everything from lifestyle, medicine to how exercise affects us, nutritional medicine. And then, of course, the other arm that that was botanical medicine, which really led me into cannabis medicine and CBD. So I went and did that and I brought that back to my practice and I started using botanicals alongside drugs with my patients. I started using dietary, lifestyle approaches ranging from the very, very simple to the more complex and using functional medicine testing, that kind of thing. So that was really my journey. I really added it because I was seeing the need with my patients and it was what I was doing myself, because I always said I would love to offer my patients the same quality of wellness and education about their health as I would want myself and I take supplements myself. I take herbals. I know I try to minimise the use of drugs. I mean, all of these things I wanted to do for myself, I really I really want to share with my patients.
And the unique thing about the integrative medicine programme in the US and now they have it at Harvard, University of Arizona, UCLA. So this is a fully board qualified speciality of conventional medicine in the US. So that was a big deal. That was this is the new speciality basically in the last few few years. When I did it in 2012, I was one of the first I think I was the first, I was one of the first in Canada to do it. And then it became a fully board qualified speciality, just like cardiology or ob gyn in 2017, it’s still not recognised as a special speciality in the UK, it’s just recognised as a special interest. But the cool thing about it is is it’s all evidence based. So I studied, I did a course at Harvard with the father of mind body medicine, Herbert Benson, and I studied with these amazing doctors who were all medical doctors, but they were using their medical expertise to really go beyond the drugs only approach. So everything in integrative medicine has evidence. That’s what’s really unique about it in terms of the natural medicine world, is it’s all really based on research and evidence. And I really like that approach as a scientist.
Le’Nise: You mentioned that you then had been focussing on botanicals, so herbs and you mentioned CBD. So for listeners who aren’t familiar, tell tell us what CBD is.
Dani: So when I first started getting into botanical medicine, I’ve been using botanicals in my practice for about a decade. So it wasn’t the first one that I used, certainly. But what really led me to it was a lot of my patients were in Canada were really bad chronic pain patients, my cancer patients, my palliative care patients, some of them were starting to grow their own cannabis or get cannabis oils from like a local kind of black market at the time, herbalists. And I got really curious about that because I was also, I was prescribing other botanicals alongside drug therapy, but I wasn’t using cannabis because of the stigma.
There was no commercial products at the time to prescribe. And I had a lot of baggage around the word cannabis from my medical training. And they didn’t really even know the difference between CBD and THC as far as medical doctors, that everyone just thought cannabis bad, THC all the same. Of course, it’s not true. So when I started realising my patients were getting, were getting relief from their chronic pain and it’s helping palliate their cancer symptoms, not cure, but just helping with the palliation in their sleep and all these things. And they were coming down off their opioids like some of the other more harmful drugs. I was very, very curious.
So I started doing a lot of my own research. I started reading a lot of research papers which were really in animal models when I first started looking into it. There’s a Canadian who’s actually American but does a lot of work in Canada called Dr Ethan Russo who’s a neurologist who was doing a lot of cannabis publishing. I had a colleague in Colorado, Dr Scott Shannon, who was a psychiatrist, conventionally trained psychiatrist, and he was starting to use CBD and medical cannabis with his patients, mainly CBD. So I got really interested and I just started researching and asking my patients and thinking maybe I should be prescribing this somehow if it’s possible. So then really why I got interested in CBD specifically, it’s just one chemical in the plant, but CBD does not have any, what’s called basically does not make you high. It’s called psycho[…] properties. That’s THC. That can make you feel high or intoxicated, although it also has medicinal properties.
CBD is non intoxicating, so it does not make you feel high or stoned or impair you in any way, but it has a lot of really powerful properties. It’s an anti inflammatory.
It helps with the gut health. And we think it may help kind of tone the endocannabinoid system, which is our natural cannabis producing system we have in our own bodies. I’ve seen it help for everything from topical use, and sometimes people find that helps with their skin conditions to really serious autoimmune disorders and epilepsy and anxiety disorders. So that’s that. I really got interested in very high CBD, low THC, medical cannabis. That was that’s what I prescribe most in my practice.
Le’Nise: For listeners who are going into this world of CBD, so we’re recording from the UK, so THC is illegal here, but I know it’s not, so Canada where I’m from originally, it’s not. So in the UK, if they want to dive into the world of legal cannabis, where would you recommend that they start?
Dani: It’s a really good question. So in the UK, so I’ve moved back. I’m British and Canadian, I think like you as well, right?
Le’Nise:Yeah, yeah.
Dani: So we’re very lucky. We’ve moved back about two years ago and all this cannabis legislation was changing in the UK. So currently here in the UK, if you are interested in trying CBD for a wellness indication. So just for helping with stresser, kind of mild to moderate anxiety, you can buy a CBD product from hemp over the counter and you can buy it at a health food store. So CBD from Hemp is a CBD, but it comes from a variety of the cannabis plant that is, has no very low THC or the THC has been removed. So that’s legal to buy without a prescription. If you have a medical condition, then it’s always safer to do it under the advice in the prescribing of a doctor, of course. So that would be someone who might have endometriosis, for example, or might have really severe PMDD, premenstrual dysmorphic disorder or really severe anxiety disorder or sleep disorder.
And here in the UK, I’ve actually been a lot of my work since I’ve been back, has been in the non-profit sector and the education and government sector. So I have been training a lot of the first doctors in medical cannabis. So medical cannabis, even containing THC is legal, but by prescription. So if you have, if you’re on a lot of medications, for example, if you have epilepsy, if you have endometriosis, then that’s a reason you might want to see a doctor who specialises in this type of medicine. And again, that’s what I’ve been, my focus of my work really in the UK, it’s been training doctors in this and I volunteer a lot of my time for a lot of the non-profits to help train doctors. So you would see a doctor on the GMC specialist register and they would assess you for medical cannabis and they’d probably still prescribe high CBD, low THC. But it probably the oil that they would prescribe for you probably has a little bit more THC than you would get in the shop and for pain conditions, for sleep, for a lot of different medical conditions that are quite severe, that tiny bit or a little bit more of THC actually makes it work a lot better.
Le’Nise: Really interesting. So if you’re in the UK and you have severe, so like stage four endometriosis and you’re really struggling with the pain, so you’re saying, look at the GMC register, general medical council.
Dani: Well, you won’t find it there. So this is where it gets complicated. The best place to go for information if you’re looking for a doctor, I’m not seeing patients at the moment because I’m going on maternity leave in another four weeks. But I’ll be back. But in the meantime, I’ve trained some, I’ve worked with some lovely colleagues over here. And the best way to find them is to go to the non-profit that I vice chair in the UK. It’s called the UKmccs.org. So we’re a non-profit. All of the doctors on our council volunteer their time, including myself and our chair, Professor Mike Barnes.
And we have a list of the clinics that prescribe medical cannabis across the U.K. There’s unfortunately, they’re all private at the moment. There’s no NHS prescriptions being written. We’re doing a lot of campaigning to try to change that. But I think, to be honest, we’re quite a ways away as far as probably a few years. Unfortunately, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes to get it available. But it’s, it’s a slow process, I have to be honest. So sadly, it’s in the private sector right now. So you have to pay privately to get the prescription and to see the doctor.
But that the UK MCSS website has a lot of resources so people can find out who is prescribing, what clinics are in what area, all that kind of stuff. That’s the best place to go if you want medical cannabis, if you have a really severe condition. Otherwise, if you want to try CBD, it’s very safe from hemp for most people unless you’re on certain medications. Again, that would be the medical category. But in general, if you’re not, it’s very safe to try on your own and you can pick up a good quality CBD oil and just give it a shot yourself.
Le’Nise: Actually for listeners, all the links that Dani just mentioned will be in the show notes. In your book, the CBD Bible, you talk about the importance of full spectrum CBD. And that’s something that, if you go to a shop and you want to purchase some CBD, that’s something you should be looking out for. Why is that important?
Dani:It’s a really good question. So full spectrum CBD is basically CBD that’s been extracted from the whole plant and it’s still retains at least some of those other plant chemicals in it. So there’s things called other cannabinoids. So there’s something called CB, CB, CBDV, THCA there’s so many other plant chemicals in the plant that can be beneficial both for a wellness use and for a medical use. And they all work together in the plant because it’s called what’s, what’s called a herbal synergy or some people in cannabis know it as is the entourage effect. So I do find that full spectrum products work work the best. That being said, the the rules and the laws in the UK, around CBD in Europe are changing quite swiftly. And as of next year, it’s probably not going to be the case that you will be able to get full spectrum CBD. It’s going to be just pure CBD, which is still beneficial. But often people find they need a higher dose. So when that does happen, when those laws change, you might find that you need to up your dose or you need to look for a product that’s been kind of teched up a little bit. So there’s kind of some high tech products that are probably becoming. So they’ll probably be trying to add some of those other plant chemicals back in one at a time. So it’s never going to be the same as full spectrum. But that will probably unfortunately, again, this is something that I wasn’t happy to see happening, but it looks like it’s inevitable now. But right now, if you can get a full spectrum product, certainly I think that that does work the best at the lower doses for most people. And again, it’s not universal, this people always say, well, what’s the evidence? Well, there’s not really good big studies to prove this. There’s a few animal model studies that looks at pure CBD versus full spectrum for pain in rats. And they think the full spectrum works better at lower doses. But the evidence is weak, I have to say. But clinically, from what I’ve seen over the years, I do think it works a bit better.
Le’Nise: So a lot of listeners to the podcast will be really interested in everything we’re talking about and they’ll be interested in how they can use CBD for specific conditions that they’re facing, so we’re podcasts about periods, so let’s talk about period problems. So in the book you talk about how we can use CBD if you have period pain. And you mentioned a kind of protocol that you can use. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Dani: Sure, yeah. So there’s a whole chapter in the book about women’s health and periods, and then there’s a whole nother chapter about sex and libido and CBD. So but to distil it down, there’s not a lot of big study, well, there’s no big studies for its use and periods. And this is something that I talk about in the book is being really kind of annoying and frustrating when I was writing this chapter is I realise even for men’s health, there’s more evidence and studies than for women’s health conditions. And unfortunately, this is something that kind of permeates medicine. A lot of women’s health conditions are understudied, although it’s changing, luckily, but it is still a phenomenon we see.
And this is definitely the case with the CBD in women’s health. That being said, CBD has a lot of antiinflammatory properties and it can help lower stress for many people. So, of course, this is definitely related to how bad periods are. It’s not, it’s not going to cure your period pain if you just start using a little bit of CBD. But a lot of people find that it makes a massive, massive difference in order for them to not even really notice their period pain anymore and everything in between. Some people find it helps them 20 percent or 30 percent. Some people find it helps them 70 percent, because everyone is different with response to the dose of CBD, because everyone’s body responds slightly in a unique way. That all being said, if you’re using it purely for period pain, but you don’t have mood issues throughout the throughout the month, it’s just the period pain that you want to target. A reasonable way to start would be starting to use a CBD oil potentially 5 days or 3 days before maybe even 3 days before your menstrual cycle starts. You have to track on an app. For example, there’s one called iPeriod that I that I use personally. And there’s lots, though. And then your period will start probably on this date. So 3 days before you can start taking your CBD and you could start with 10 or 15 milligrams, 2 – 3 times a day with a meal. And then on the days that you have bad period pain, you can really up the dose and you can experiment with that. Of course, the cost goes up when you start really upping the dose. That’s the downside.
And for acute pain, like to stop pain in the moment, THC tends to work better. So that’s why if you have really bad period pain, sometimes adding a little bit of THC from, say, a prescription cannabis medicine is going to be a lot more effective for you because CBD is more, it helps with more of the chronic anti inflammatory anti stress effect. And some people do find that it helps their period pain more acutely. But it’s not the norm, I would say.
Le’Nise: You mentioned it briefly, but I just want to dive into this a little bit more, that CBD is not a cure all. What would you say to someone who’s saying, who would say to I just if I take CBD is going to fix all of my period problems, what would you say to them instead?
Dani: I see CBD as an amazing botanical medicine tool, but unfortunately, just like anything in botanical medicine or anything in medicine in general, either Western medicine or natural medicine, there is no cure all solution. CBD does, however, do a lot of different things in the body because this the system that we have, this endocannabinoid system, basically we make our own cannabis like chemicals. It affects everything from eating, sleeping, relaxing, stress relief, immune function. So because the system does so much stuff, CBD can do a lot of things too, because it works on this system and other related systems in the brain, in the body. So it can do a lot of different jobs in the brain, in the body. But certainly nothing is a quick fix or cure all. I always tell my patients in integrative medicine, run the other way if someone says they’re going to just give you something and all your problems are going to go away the next day from taking this one bottle of anything. It’s just unfortunately not the way we work because we’re really complex. So I use it as alongside other herbals, alongside stress reduction techniques, alongside integrative medicine and oftentimes alongside drugs too. Western medicine, drugs. So that’s how I see it fitting in. And the medical side, of the wellness side, you probably know you might not need any drugs, but you might still need some help and some help with stress reduction.
Le’Nise: OK, that’s really interesting. So you now your book has come out, the CBD Bible. Talk a little bit as we close out the show about what prompted you to write the book and what you want readers to get out of it.
Dani: Sure. So this book is really kind of a labour of love of the last 10 years of my experience as an integrative medicine doctor in botanical medicine and then in cannabis medicine. I’ve treated thousands of patients with CBD and medical cannabis, and then I’ve trained a lot of doctors. So I basically wanted to write this because there’s a lot of academic books out there for kind of scientists about CBD and cannabis. And then there’s a lot of lay books that talk about it kind of on a very kind of superficial level. But I didn’t feel like there was a book out there that someone could pick up and flip to the sleep section or flip to the period section and find out how to actually use that in all the nitty gritty details.
So I just wanted to kind of, I guess, spill my guts with all of my secrets and tips that I have found over the years doing this for years and years and years. So people could feel empowered because I think that’s for me, integrative medicine, that’s what it’s all about, is empowering my patients. I think when you take the drugs only approach in Western medicine alone, people can feel really unempowered and they, they just kind of lose their sense of if they can actually help their body rebalance and their internal sense of hope. And that’s where I see integrative medicine being so powerful because there’s so much we can do. You might not be able to cure chronic disease, but we can improve it so much with these tools. And CBD is one of them. So in the book we talk about CBD, but not just CBD, also medical cannabis and all the other things in the plant to stay that way. If you want to use it on the medical side, you know how to talk to your doctor about it because they might not know. They might be open to prescribing it to you, but you might have to educate them on how. So there’s a whole section on every problem on that side of it, too, and then also in CBD wellness. So things you can pick up from the shop yourself and start today and then just how to monitor what you’re trying to, what you’re trying to alleviate and being kind of your own expert.
Le’Nise: It’s a great book and I would encourage anyone who’s curious about CBD to pick it up. It’s really easy to access and there’s just it’s just packed full of amazing information. So if listeners come away from this podcast with one thought or one piece of information, what would you want that to be?
Dani:Well, I think CBD is not going anywhere. I think it’s a wellness, it’s a wellness trend in some cases. But I think it’s also kind of a revolution in botanical medicine. So I would say if you if you’re having any of these period problems, in addition to managing your stress and looking at your diet and your lifestyle as far as a single botanical that I would consider, including, it would probably be CBD. So you can check it out, you can just go to a reputable company. There’s a whole section of the book on how to pick a CBD oil as well, not by brand, but by what’s actually in it. And just see for yourself and just do what you do with any kind of wellness routine, just track how you’re feeling. I have a whole section there about tracking your symptoms and tracking how you’re feeling. And I think the messages botanical medicine is about empowering yourself, about your health and wellness, taking control back.
And that’s where I see CBD being a part of it.
Le’Nise: What a great message to empower yourself. I love that. And I know listeners will too. Thank you so much for coming on the show. If listeners want to buy the book, where can they grab a copy?
Dani: So it’s in many bookstores, big and small, but because of COVID, that’s not been as possible for many booksellers. So Amazon. So if you go on Amazon, it’s it’s there. If you go to my Instagram, I have a link to it. So should be pretty easy to find.
Le’Nise: And where can listeners find out more about you?
Dani: So Instagram, I’m @drdanigordon and there’s a link there to my blog and I post videos there, educational videos and all the information about upcoming talks I’m doing and all that jazz.
To round out season 3 of Period Story, I’m really excited to share today’s episode with twin sisters Lauren Lee-Crane and Catherine Lee. They are the founders of Semaine, a health and wellness supplement for people with painful periods. I loved our conversation and am really grateful they shared their story of living with endometriosis, going through various surgeries, being Asian in the ballet world and of course, the story of their first periods.
Catherine said that her first period was very memorable because her mom made homemade Frappuccinos to toast the occasion! Within a few months, she said that she was already asking for a hysterectomy. Lauren says she got her period after Catherine and really didn’t want it.
We talked about being bunheads, which is the term for girls who do ballet at a relatively high level and how they navigated this very structured, hierarchical and rigid world. They were often told that they were too exotic for the ballet world and that they didn’t have the right ‘look’.
Lauren talks about how as ballerinas, they learned to suppress and numb themselves to any pain they experienced and this translated to the endometriosis pain as well. Lauren says they thought of it as just another pain they had to deal with.
Both Lauren and Catherine shared their endometriosis journeys, with Lauren getting diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis and Catherine getting diagnosed with stage 2 endometriosis. Lauren described the pain she experienced as ‘a bouquet of knives sort of sitting up in her pelvis’. Catherine describes her pain as ‘feeling like she had a bowling ball in her uterus’.
Catherine and Lauren shared stories of their pain being dismissed by doctors and health professional in quite critical moments and how they’ve learned to advocate for themselves in health situations. Catherine says that it’s important to become an expert in your body and Lauren says to trust yourself and advocate for yourself. Thank you so much, Lauren and Catherine!
Lauren: I’ve had painful periods since I was 15. After decades of believing the immense pain I experienced was normal, I was diagnosed with endometriosis and underwent multiple surgeries. I don’t want other women who have painful periods, endometriosis, adenomyosis and PCOS to go through what I have. Finding a natural way to support women’s health and voice their stories are the reasons we started Semaine: a health and wellness supplement for people with painful periods.
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Catherine: In my late twenties, I started to experience worsening symptoms from endometriosis. In 2015 I elected to have surgery and was diagnosed with stage II endometriosis. I see learning to live with endo as a journey – taking care of myself, listening to my body, and voicing what I need to be healthy. Normalizing the conversation around periods and period pain, is exactly why I wanted to start Semaine with Lar and her husband Matt.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise: On today’s episode, we have Lauren Lee-Crane and Catherine Lee. They are the founders of Semaine, a health and wellness supplement for people with painful periods. They started Semaine after both being diagnosed with endometriosis and undergoing multiple surgeries. Lauren says that she doesn’t want other women who have painful periods. endometriosis, adenomyosis and PCOS to go through what she did. Catherine says that normalizing the conversation around periods and period pain is exactly why she wanted to start Semaine. They wanted to find a natural way to support women’s health and voice their stories. Welcome to the show.
Lauren: Thank you so much, Le’Nise, so happy to be here.
Catherine: Thank you, so excited.
Le’Nise: So can you both start off by telling me the story of your first period?
Catherine:Yes, this is Catherine. I will tell my story first because I got my period first, which, I was very upset because I thought as twins we were supposed to do everything together.
And I think I got my period almost like 6 to 12 months before Lauren did. And I remember it very vividly. We were, so we grew up outside of Washington, D.C. and Maryland. And every summer, our extended family had a beach condo in Ocean City, Maryland, which is on the eastern seaboard.
So we were at the beach, of course, so we were at that condo. And I still remember there were two bathrooms in that condo and the bathroom where I discovered I had my period. It had all these like orange and brown daisy wallpaper that I feel like that’s like stuck in my mind. But anyways, so I was like I started my period and I was like, oh no. And I remember I told my mom and she was like, so excited, at least that’s the impression I got. Like, maybe she was like, oh my gosh, what’s going on? But I remember it was when this is gonna age us for sure, but it was like a couple years after Frappuccinos came out in Starbucks and there were no Starbucks in Ocean City at the time. But my mom had found like a recipe to make Frappuccinos at home. So I remember she made, like, took out the blender at the beach condo and like made Frappuccinos. And we all, like, cheered to my womanhood. I was mortified and I was just like, I don’t want this. And I think eventually, like within those first couple of months of having my period, I think I asked my mom for a hysterectomy. Like, I don’t really know what it was. I just thought it was like it meant you didn’t have to bleed every month. So my mom was like, “but you’re going to want to have babies and all the things” and I was like, “Not worth it, don’t want this, get it out my body.” And I was just like, not. And I had I remembered, like, you know, with reading like articles like reading teen magazines and stuff and books like women were or young girls were so excited to get their periods and I was like, I can’t really I don’t I don’t want this at all. And I know, like, Lar, you can talk about it, but I know you were like, equally mortified for me.
Lauren: I remember. Oh Cath was twelve. Yeah. So we were a little bit older, I feel like when Cath got her period, I remember I was just like, ‘Oh my God, thank God I don’t have mine yet. And I, I think the reason why we felt that way is we were both dancers. We wanted to be ballerinas. I feel like most little girls at some point want that. We continued to want that until we were 18 and we danced all the time. We, we did like twenty five hours of ballet every week. That was our life. And as a ballet dancer, anything that’s going to cause you inconvenience or make it harder for you to be a ballet dancer, whether it’s to develop breasts, you know, you just want to be skinny. You just want to be able to move the way that you’re used to moving when you’re 11 to 17. And I remember, it’s like a period is going to be such an annoyance because, you know, you have to wear a tampon, you have to wear a pad. So I remember when Cath got her period and she was saying like she was so embarrassed. It was just me and my mom and my dad there. It’s not like we had other people at the condo with us. And I was so embarrassed for her, like, ‘oh, my God, why are we talking about Catherine’s period? I’m so glad I don’t have mine.’ Catherine’s right. I did get mine six months after her and I actually had mine when we were doing The Nutcracker. So every December, you know, every bunhead in the world does The Nutcracker at some point. And Cath and I were getting changed. This is a, you know, a couple hours before you went onstage and I was putting my costume on and I notice there’s like a little bit of blood on my tights.
And I was like, “No, I think I know what this is though. Why is it happening now?’ Cause of, you know, happening right before you’re going on stage. You’re already sort of like nervous and excited and then getting this thing that, Catherine and I obviously we never wanted. I know there are women you’ve had on your podcast and our friends who are excited to get their period, that was never our experience. And I think a big part of that was being ballet dancers and being so focused on on wanting to do that in the sort of strange culture that the ballet world is.
You know, I mean, it’s not like our ballet dancer teachers ever said, oh, getting your period is bad. I just remember hearing older ballet dancers talking about it and how painful it could be and how, you know, like I remember the Sugar Plum Fairy one year having to ask the costumers just to keep taking her out of her tutu because she had to go put a new tampon in. And I remember I was like, oh, my God, that sounds like such a headache. So that was that was our experience with with periods and ballet.
Le’Nise: Talk a bit about being bunheads. So for people who don’t know what that expression means, typically it refers to girls who do or who do, is it ballet and does it include gym, gymnasts as well? Or is it only ballet?
Catherine: I think I’ve only heard it used with ballet and when you’re a, if you’re doing ballet at a relatively high level, like a pre professional level like you, it was until like probably we were 16 that we just assumed we weren’t going to be going to university, that we would immediately go into a company or if if we were lucky enough, maybe we’d apply to Juilliard, you know, which is a very well-known school. But if you did ballet specifically, not modern dance or something like that, you essentially go in to a company as early as, like 16, depending on where you are.
And it wasn’t until we were 16 or 17 that we realized maybe we should get a college degree.
Le’Nise: Tell me a bit more about the ballet world. I did ballet when I was really little. But the only thing I really know about ballet is Christmas equals Nutcracker or. And then Black Swan, the movie. That’s it.
Lauren: That is totally understandable. I feel like that’s most people’s experience with ballet. And to be honest, Catherine and I have never seen Black Swan on because we were like, ‘it’s going to hit too close to home.’ So we’ve never watched it. But really, I feel like how it changed for us is when we were about eight years old, we decided, you know, this is our life. We started when we were about 3 because we had seen Baryshnikov, famous male ballet dancer dancing on television. And I thought he was flying. And I was like, yes, that is what I want to do. So I think a lot of people assume it’s like the pretty tutus or the pointe shoes. But for as we saw Baryshnikov and we like. That’s it. That that is life. And so we took like sort of the classes everybody takes when you start ballet and there’s like tap and jazz when we were younger and when we were eight, we went into this pre-professional academy. And so we would go to ballet anywhere from like when we were younger, it’s like three days a week, by the time we were in high school or about 13 – 14. We were going, you know, five to seven days a week and even leaving school early in order to go to class longer.
And it’s a very it’s a very, very structured, very hierarchical and very sort of rigid world. So each year, you’re trying to progress to sort of the next year. And within those years, you’re also doing performances. So The Nutcracker is the big one in the winter, but we’d have multiple performances in the spring, in the summer as well. And then in the summer, you’d also be applying for workshops with bigger companies like the Royal Ballet, if we were in the UK or American Ballet Theater, we would do workshops with the Joffrey Ballet Theater. We were often considered a little too exotic for the ballet world. We were told that multiple times. So we didn’t have as much luck with some of the bigger companies because we didn’t have the quote unquote look. This was in the 90s. Things have definitely changed now. Not as much as they should. But, you know, Misty Copeland’s out there, which is awesome. But that was very different for us. And sort of the mid, late 90s, we were just told we wouldn’t fit into the corps very well. So this was happening when we were sort of in our later teenage years. And one of the reasons why we ended up getting out of ballet and going to university instead just because of some of the discrimination we faced. But it’s in when you’re in that world, it just seems like even though you see that discrimination, you see, you know, the body dysmorphia that can happen. And obviously the way we thought about our periods was not particularly healthy. It was still such a dream for us like that, still having such a passion for something that almost nothing else mattered. You knowing you were just going to do whatever it took to get to where you wanted to be. And Cath and I were lucky to have each other because it’s a very, very competitive atmosphere that, the teachers are not particularly supportive. And we never competed against each other as twin sisters. It was like if Cath did well, I felt like I was doing well, even if she got a better part than me. But for the most part, you know, it’s not like a team sport. You are very much sort of alone in trying to be better than the next person next to you. So it’s it’s a very yeah. It’s as sort of a strange way to grow up because that, you know, we weren’t focused. We always had to do well in school because our parents were like, if you don’t do well in school, we’re taking you out of ballet. So we, we got the straight As or whatever we needed to do in order to stay with ballet. But really, that wasn’t important to us. It was just, do as well as you can at ballet. Nothing else really matters. And that’s you know, most people are going to parties when they’re teenagers or doing things like that. And we didn’t. It was just like ballet, ballet, ballet all the time.
Catherine: And a big part of it, too, was like Lar was saying about the teachers. Like, a lot of it in that world is just like you’re so desperate to get approval from all the teachers that you have, because they’re the ones who, like, you know, can help push you into a company. They’re the ones that give you better roles and different ballets and stuff like that. And then along the same side, of course, and you have the whole, like, body image aspect of it, which you always hear about with ballet.
Lauren and I were very lucky, we never had to worry about weight problems. I think that’s the Asian side of us. You know, we were naturally skinny, so we were very lucky in that. But we also didn’t have, like, Lar said there, we didn’t have the looks and we weren’t blond and blue eyed. And then on top of that, we didn’t really have the body type either. We’re tiny, we’re like 5″3 on a good day and and ah, you know, our pointes, our feet weren’t exactly like perfect. Our legs didn’t come up to our shoulders. We didn’t have super long legs. I think our torso and legs are kind of even. So it was all these things. It was funny because it was like we were very lucky. We had friends that, you know, suffered with anorexia and stuff and we didn’t have that. But for us, it was like growing up, knowing our bodies weren’t quite right for that world. So, like. And then on top of that, you have you get your period at 12, 13.
You know, and so it’s like one more thing to contend with. And the worst part was when, like, bloating started. I don’t think I started bloating. I don’t know. I can’t really remember. I was not in touch with my body at all at 12 and 13. But, you know, you can’t like suck in your stomach. And I remember dance teachers, you know, you want to tell them you were on your period and they would constantly tell you if your stomach was sticking out, you know, you’d be like, this is not my stomach. This is my uterus.
Le’Nise: Can you guys both can you both talk about how you feel if you start thinking back to what you went through and the comments that were made about your body so to the bloated belly, from what we know now, is endometriosis and the comments about you being, quote unquote, exotic, talk about how you feel looking back on that now. And whether that had any lasting effect on your, the way you view yourself.
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. It definitely does. We are now in our 30s, so it’s been almost 20 years since we’re in that very dysfunctional world. But for sure, I still, I still remember the comments that the teachers made either when we were on our periods. And I remember the times when I had such painful periods. But you still had to dance.
And I remember the idea was you just shoved down whatever pain your body was feeling and you did what you had to do. And that is still the idea that stuck with me, I think, through my 20s for sure. So even when my endo pain was getting a lot more acute, it wasn’t just super heavy, painful cramps anymore. I was getting sharp jabbing pains in my pelvis. I remember just thinking, ‘OK, this is another pain I have to deal with. You just take some painkillers and you go to work. You know, you just keep doing what you have to do.’ And, you know, part of ballet is, is discomfort and pain. You know, whether it’s pointe shoes, you know, your feet always hurt or just what you’re how you’re using your body is. You know, it’s like any athlete. You’re, you’re also creating a lot of wear and tear on your body because of how demanding it is. But that sort of pain and rigor is sort of, it feels normal. It feels like part of what you have to deal with. And for me, painful periods. And because I feel like a lot of the women who were dancing with also had painful periods. And I don’t you know, I don’t think most of them had endo, but I don’t know if it’s like a body fat thing. You know, you had really irregular periods because you didn’t have a lot of body fat on you and you were probably stressed out a lot. Your body is physically stressed a lot. So I remember just thinking periods were horrible and painful and abnormal and could be super heavy one month and then you wouldn’t get it the next month. And now that just seem like a normal thing to me. And we definitely never talked about that side of our bodies with our teachers. You know, the teachers. It was all physical appearance, like superficial appearance. If you were looking a certain way and I think you know, the other ways that they told us, you know, being too exotic, being too short. And I remember they said our legs weren’t straight enough. And that’s always stuck with me cause my legs were slightly bow-legged, which I don’t think you would normally think about if you were a normal person who had done ballet. But I remember one of our teachers being like, we could have fixed that if you had told me about this when you were younger and now you always have bowlegs and no company is gonna take you. I remember thinking, just like…
Catherine: If you look at Lauren and she does not, I don’t, I don’t think you have bowlegs. That’s the thing, it’s like these little things that get stuck in your brain. You know, for mine, it was like, you know, our arms didn’t straighten all the way or in the right line and our legs didn’t. But like, I didn’t know you had that bowlegged thing. She also has, like, very subtle scoliosis. And it was so subtle that teachers just thought she was not stretching her neck out enough so she couldn’t turn her head. So it’s this constant thing where it’s like it’s on you, you know, to fix things that are wrong with your body. The responsibility is on you. Obviously, we couldn’t do anything about our ethnicity. We never felt ashamed of the way we looked. But it but it was just accepting. There’s a lot of stuff we accepted back then, I think, because we were kids and it was the 90s that nowadays I don’t think they could have gotten away with it, like, you know, just accepting like, oh, yeah, we’re we’re not blond and blue-eyed. So that’s we’re not going to get certain roles, are, you know, or since their bodies aren’t exactly right, we’re not going to be the teachers aren’t gonna pay attention to us the same amount away. And that was just accept, that was to us that was part of the world. We just stayed focused on it.
Le’Nise: You both have mentioned pain quite a lot, and something I find quite fascinating about ballet dancers is, you mentioned the pointe shoes and how you just have to, it’s painful and you’re putting your foot in a really unnatural way and basically balancing on your tip toes for like, what, 5, 6 plus hours, however long you’re dancing that particular day.
And do you think that that going through, having to go through that or deal with that pain on an ongoing basis, kind of numbed you to the endometriosis pain in the beginning?
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. I just remember thinking that, you know, as a dancer, you know, your feet are sort of shaped a certain way and you have a lot of pain. But it’s also something you learn to sort of pull out of a little bit. There’s ways that make it a little less intense. But I think you’re absolutely right using that word numbing because it’s kind of a weird contradiction, because as dancers, you are very self-aware about your body, you know, just in the ways we were saying, because your things are constantly pointed out to you, but also just moving your body and being able to move through space a certain way and control it a certain way. You’re very aware of your, the way your muscles move and the way your centre of gravity is. But at the same time, you do numb yourself out to any discomfort or any pain because that isn’t going to help you, you know, perform. So it is it’s this weird dichotomy of, of being very aware of your body. But at the same time, if there’s pain, or things that are hurting, that’s something to ignore or push down rather than say, I wonder why I have really painful periods. I wonder why my cramps are so intense or is I didn’t even ever question if that was normal. Our mom also had a really, really intense periods and right, I’m sure she had endometriosis. It was probably not the same stage that maybe I had it, but that was another thing. You know, in our household, it was sort of normalized that periods were painful. And my mom is also a very stoic person. But I wouldn’t say I’m stoic. She is a stoic person. And so she never really complained. She would just say, oh, you know, my period’s really hurting right now, but I’m going to continue to cook food for our entire family during Christmas or, you know, clean the house. It’s just part of what you have to deal with this pain.
Le’Nise: Can we talk about your both of you, your individual endometriosis journey?
Because so, Lauren, you said you had painful periods from the age of 15. And then, Catherine you said that in your late 20s, you started to have worsening symptoms from endo. Can you talk? So you both had endometriosis, but very different experiences. So can you individually talk about what happened to you?
Lauren:Yeah, so my endometriosis story is like a lot of women with endometriosis. It took a really long time to get diagnosed. I think the average time for women to get diagnosed is about 7 to 10 years. For me, it was about 15 years. And the reason why is because I think, culturally, we normalise period pain and a lot of ways, you know, not just in the ballet world or not just in our family, but I feel like whenever I went to a doctor and said, oh, yeah, my periods are very painful, they be like, oh yeah, that’s too bad. You should you know, you can go on birth control or, you know, just keep taking ibuprofen. Like, that’s all you can do. So even at the point when, you know, being fifteen years old and my periods were starting to get really painful and it was for me it was mainly really, really, I could have really heavy periods and then I’d have really, really intense cramping where you had to lay down like, I just could not sit up straight. I mean, my body was just like bent double and that didn’t happen every single period. But it happened, you know, often enough. And I always dreaded getting my period. It was never something I was excited about or just thought, oh, hey, I’m bleeding now. I always knew when I had my period and it was painful. I didn’t, I don’t remember skipping school or anything because, again, I thought you just keep doing what you need to do. So, you know, this is something that’s going to happen every month or every other month. If it was erratic and you just had to deal with it and then like Cath and I both had the experience, we were as we move through early 20s, that pain sort of shifted from really heavy cramping. To me, it was a lot of sharp stabbing pain. Like I explain it as sort of it feels like you have a bouquet of sharp knives sort of sitting up in your pelvis. That’s how endo felt to me. And I was lucky in the sense that I’ve only ever had the pain during my period. I know a lot of women with endometriosis, you have pain throughout your whole cycle. And I felt so lucky that it was just that week. But then you have a quarter of your month is something you absolutely dread. And at the time, my husband and I were moving abroad. We went to the UK to live in Edinburgh. And at that point, I was like, you know what, I I’m pretty sure I have endometriosis. I Googled it. I talked to my doctor about it. She’s like, “Oh, yeah. I think that’s what you have.” I mean, that was the conversation. That was it. And so, again, it was something where it’s like, OK, I just need to deal with it and figure it out on my own. And so I tried changing my diet. I went vegan and gluten free, dairy free, all the things. And my pain just kept getting worse because I think at that point I had so much scarring with my body. I also had an endometrioma, which I didn’t know about, which is a specific type of cyst you can get with endometriosis, especially in the later stages. So endometriosis, for those of you that don’t know, are stage similar to cancers of stage one, two, three and four. And I ended up having stage four. I didn’t know that at the time and no one had told me about these different stages. But as I was experiencing worse and worse pain, I would go to my GP in Edinburgh and tell her like it’s getting worse and I don’t know what to do about it. And then at the point that it was about six months before my first emergency surgery, I remember feeling a lump on the left side of my body around where my left ovary would be. And of course, that freaked me out. I just assumed it was ovarian cancer. And I told my GP and she said it’s not really anything to worry about. I don’t think you have to worry. And I really had to push her to get me an appointment to see an ultrasound technician. And I finally got that like, a couple months later. And the technician was like, “oh, honey, I’m so sorry. You have an endometrioma.” And I was just so happy it wasn’t cancer. I was like, I don’t know what that is, but that’s I was fine. And she’s like, but you’ll need surgery. And I was like, okay, you know, I’m OK. Take it out. And I had no idea what it was like. I just I just was like, OK, it’s not cancer. We’ll schedule surgery six months from now. Great. We’ll get it done. And I don’t know if it’s just like experiencing pain. You’re just like, oh, surgery. Yeah. Massive surgery doesn’t sound like a big deal because let’s just let’s just do what we need to do. And before I could have that surgery, that endometrioma ruptured. Again, I didn’t know that’s what was happening at the time. But it it felt like something had kind of broke or snapped in my body. And I just had so much pain flooding into my pelvis at that point. And I remember this is really early in the morning and Matt had to call, my husband had to call 999. And the EMT came and I was lying on the floor. And the guy was like, you kind of look OK, essentially, like he took my vital signs or whatever. And he is like, You look OK. And I was like, I can’t get up off the floor. And he was like, well, you know, you probably have like a sore tummy. Like it was it was a really odd experience. Like I was like, no, I literally like, I’m in so much pain. And he started to like, get ready to leave. And I was like, I have a heart condition, cause I have mitral valve prolapse, which is very common for a lot of women, and it’s never something that bothered me. But I knew if I said I had a heart condition, they had to take me to the hospital. And so he was like, oh, OK. So then they took me to the hospital and they even though I told them I had to be an endometrioma, I have endometriosis. They were like, we think it’s appendicitis. And I was like, OK. So it took them about 24 hours to decide what to do with me. And I finally ended up in the gynecological ward. And I think they thought I had an STD like I was in so much pain. And they did an exam on me with like a speculum. And it hurt so much. And they still kind of didn’t believe what was going on. And I started running a really high fever. And that happened over the course of a couple days. And then during those couple days where they still couldn’t figure out what was going on, my stomach swoll up because of all the fluid that was pulling into my pelvic cavity. They basically it was the endometrioma had ruptured and was like irritating everything. So my body was trying to protect all my organs. I looked about six, seven months pregnant, and that was when they were finally like, oh, OK, we need to do an ultrasound and see what’s going on. So this is like day five of being in the hospital. And they were like, oh, OK. You have 500 milliliters of fluid. You need to go in and do emergency surgery and pull all that out. And after the surgery was when they were like, yes, you have endometriosis. It was a ruptured endometrioma. This is what happened. And so I was in the hospital for two weeks, and that was after the EMT almost didn’t take me to the hospital. So it’s such a bizarre experience to to by your GP, by everyone being told like it’s no big deal. You know, and then this thing happens. It’s very traumatic, big experience happens. And so that’s, it’s just it’s been a hard, hard journey. And since then, I’ve done a lot more research. And a year after that first emergency surgery, I learned about excision surgery, which is, quote unquote, the gold standard for endometriosis treatment. At this time, there’s no cure. Where they go in and they essentially I’m sorry, probably saying this wrong, but laser out sort of like cut through even healthy tissue to get out a lot of the endometrial tissue that’s where it shouldn’t be. And we found an excision specialist in Atlanta. And I had my second surgery about six months later. And since then have had way less pain, you know, instead of being a 10 plus off the charts. Now, my period, I have about like a three or four, which is amazing to me because I never, never thought that would happen. But it’s been a very long, painful road.
Le’Nise:What you’re saying about how the EMT didn’t, didn’t. He said, you look normal, but you’re, yet you’re saying to him: “I am in so much pain. I need to go to the hospital.” And every single time I hear a story like that, it never fails to just make me really angry at it.
Just believe women, believe women when they say that they are in pain. And it so absolutely enraged and enraging.
Lauren:Yeah. And I know that. Yeah. That’s not an uncommon story to hear, you know. And even if it’s not as extreme and you get to the hospital even talking to your GP and saying this is what’s happening, I never had a doctor say, oh, maybe you have endo or maybe there’s some other complication we should look into, even though my my pain was extreme. That was all my own research. And at that time, there weren’t. I’m so glad there’s so much more out there on the Great Interwebs right now about endometriosis. But at the time, there wasn’t that much. And I remember just trying to scour through pages and listen to, especially chat forums where other women were talking about this. I was like, OK, so I’m not crazy. I’m not alone. This is an actual thing because I didn’t get that experience from any doctor that I saw. And and sometimes people ask, like, oh, was it a male gynecologist? I’ve had tons of gynecologists. They’ve all been women. And none of them none of them took my pain seriously.
Le’Nise: That I mean, I it’s not you would say it’s unbelievable. But it’s not. I like it. I’ve heard this so often. Cath, can you talk about your story now?
Catherine:Yes. Mine is slightly less or significantly less traumatic than Lar and I, it’s a lot of that I give credit for Lar for basically being the guinea pig between the two of us because her, we don’t know if it was partly because she did get off birth control. And that’s kind of what triggered more of an endo pain because I never got off birth control. So when she and her husband had moved to Scotland, I was still on birth control. And by my late 20s, like Lar, I started developing more pain that wasn’t just cramping. I mean, all throughout my teens and twenties, certain periods would be, the cramps would be so bad I would feel like I had a bowling ball in my uterus, like, you know, like it’s such a weird sensation. And I just assumed, especially with our mom, who had painful periods, I was like, wow, this is what every woman goes through when they say they have cramps. So like that, I never even though it was hard to like stand for long periods of time with that sensation, I was like, this is just being a woman. And then by my late 20s, it was actually when I would have my period, on my period, like, wow, I was lucky I didn’t have pain off my period, but on my period when I’d have a bowel movement, the pain like in my pelvic region and I guess around my colon was so extreme that I thought I would pass out. And what’s funny is like, you know, you see movies and stuff. People get so much pain and then they pass out from the pain.
Like, I was like, why couldn’t that happen? I could not pass out. I would just have this extreme pain, you know, like where I would see stars and. And so that’s. And this is all while Lar was going through everything, which was horrendous and it was horrible too not being close to her and and not understanding the NHS system too, I was so confused by that. They didn’t let her have visitors at night. Like also like in the US, which, by the way, has a very broken medical system, too. I’m not like, I think the NHS is great compared to us, but in the States because everything’s charged to you. And they try to get you out of the hospital as soon as possible. They do like a million scans that first night. You know, they would have realized what she had sooner if she had been in the States. But that being said, she would have still been dismissed. So. So that was very like hearing from a distance, hearing her whole experience was kind of mind boggling to me. And I was, I remember being like, well, I just got to keep my periods not super painful. I don’t know what I would say. I mean, obviously, I couldn’t do that. I would take ibuprofen when the pain got really bad. I did start taking one or two days off of work. And that’s when I was like, OK, this is this is affecting my lifestyle. Like, I had to accept it. And then it was when the pain was getting so bad by my late 20s. And by then I think it was right before Lar had discovered that the Center for Endometriosis Care, which is in, which is in Atlanta with a great surgeon, that that’s when I was like, OK, you know, I think I’m going to have to do this, too. So it was a whole year after Lar had her excision surgery that I got it done too. And I have stage two endometriosis. So a significant amount of endometrial growth in my body, but obviously nothing to the extent that stage four would have. They did remove my appendix, funnily enough, because they did see endometrioma cells on my appendix. So I still remember, it was like they had given me that like horse tranquilizer right before my surgery. And then they come with this clipboard and they’re like, oh, just sign here. It basically says, we’ll take your appendix if it looks kind of weird.
And I was like, oh, you know, I’m high on drugs. I did. I was like. But the other thing that you like for the surgery prep, especially as I told them, I had so much pain around my colon, was there was a potential for colon resectioning which like by the time I was getting my surgery, I had so much pain, I was like, do it. I don’t know, you know, not really thinking the ramifications. And surprisingly enough, I didn’t, I think they found some endometrial cells around my colon, but not to the extent that they had to do any type of resectioning. So I was very lucky in that sense. And like Lar, since that surgery, I have not had that pain. When I go to the bathroom, the pain is definitely instead of being like a 10, it is now during my period, it is like a 3 or 4, nothing to the extent where I feel like I have to take off work or just lie down. Ah, I don’t even need to use heating pads, which is kind of amazing because it’s like I feel like I always had to use those beforehand. So definitely Lar kind of paved the way for me. We we both grew up knowing somewhat what endometriosis was. We had heard it because our mom had kind of self diagnosed. But we it to us that just meant like literally you just had painful periods. And so it wasn’t until Lar did all her research and she was telling me about it. I mean, I for me, I think maybe it was because of ballet. Maybe it was just growing up as a woman in the 90s, as a teenager. Like, to me, it was just like deal with it, press it down, kind of what Lar said, not being in touch with my body in the sense like I always use tampons, so I won’t even have to, like, feel myself bleeding, you know, like all that stuff. And then.
Yes, so similar to what Lar was saying, like pushing the pain down, trying to ignore it or just like, quote unquote dealing with it. To me that was like from that all the way to, like, even using tampons all the time instead of pads. So I don’t feel myself bleeding and stuff. And it wasn’t until my pain got so bad. And I think my, I was just so inflamed. Every time I was on my period, I could almost, I couldn’t really use tampons or if I did, I could only use the light tampons. And before we went on birth control, I think we went on, I can’t even remember. I think it was in our later teens and it was mostly for acne and it didn’t do anything for me. But once we started birth control pretty consistently, our periods weren’t super heavy. But when we first our periods first started and we were doing ballet so much, our periods were so heavy. I remember classes were like an hour and a half to two hours and I would have to use the bathroom at least once or twice to change out like a super tampon. But by the time it got to my surgery, which I think I was 29, I can’t do the math right now, but late 20s. I wasn’t even able to use tampons at all. So that’s, I mean, that alone, I was like, okay, something’s more serious here, but yeah, just the whole experience. I mean, it was traumatic. Lauren and I, actually one of the similarities we did have is after surgery, we both got post operation infections, which even our surgeon, who was a great guy, he was like, oh, you have less than one percent chance of getting a post up infection. And I remember Lar had gotten one after hers. And I was like, oh, I bet I’ll get, I’ll get one too. And the doctor was like, no, no, no, there’s no chance. Totally did. And once again, it was that that experience of being dismissed. I remember the doctor they kind of put me with after the surgery. It’s not the surgeon. You know, I would constantly call him because my, I had this low grade fever that just won’t go away. And something felt wrong. I think this was like a week and a half after my surgery. And I would call the hospital and be like, this is, I would call the doctor and say, you know, this isn’t right. Why am I having a fever? I can’t really keep food down. And I remember he just kept saying, oh, this is part of, like, surgery recovery. And he would brush it off and brush it off and brush it off. And then finally, I was talking to my mom. I was like in tears. My mom was like, that’s it. We’re just going to the emergency room. And sure enough, they like, there was an abscess. They had to drain an abscess. And I was in the hospital for another three days, which in the US, being in a hospital for three days is a long time, like Lar was in the hospital for two weeks. You know, the NHS, that’s a long time. But like three days in the US, they try to get you at a hospital as soon as possible. And it was just recovering from that. And I remember it. And the antibiotics that I had to take from that probably made me feel much worse than any surgery ever did. And I couldn’t eat. But you had to take the antibiotics and stuff. So we both, Lar and I both had that experience, too, which was us, so we, our recovery took a lot longer, I think, than most women. But just, you know, that’s another example of being kind of ignored, like after you’ve been through this very intense surgery. And like knowing your body, knowing like this doesn’t feel like just a recovery. Something’s going on. Like, my head felt like I was on fire 24/7, I think from the fever and just being dismissed after having gone through all of that, you know, and it, it just blows my mind. And then even today, like Lar was telling you, you know, I’ve had male and female gynaecologists. Before my surgery, I would tell them I had endometriosis and they would always say the same thing like Lar said, just take birth control, take pain meds. And then even after I had my surgery where I was like I have proof I have stage two, you know, and I would tell different gynecologists. I specifically remember when he was just like, oh, yeah, that’s oh, that’s rough. Like, that was literally the response. It wasn’t like, okay, well, like we understand that you stayed on birth control to kind of manage that and, you know, talk. There was there’s no discussion. I even had, I have some scar tissue. I think it’s up towards like the top of my vaginal wall. So it makes penetration with sex very painful, like full penetration. And that I didn’t start feeling until like six months after my surgery. And I remember going to the gynecologist and just, like, crying, because I was like, I don’t know what to do about this. And like the for some reason, it wasn’t my normal gynecologist. It was another woman in the practice, who was like, I think a robot. And she basically was like, well, you’re just going to have to get surgery again for that scar tissue. And I was like, but cutting away scar tissue causes more scar tissue. And she’s like, Yeah. And that was it. She was just like, you need to talk to your, and this is after and in the US, like our surgeon wasn’t covered by any insurance. He was outside that. So you’re paying so much money. I mean, a lot of women can’t get the surgery in the first place in the US because they can’t afford it. Their insurance obviously is not going to cover it. Or they cover a specific surgeon who maybe doesn’t do full excision surgery. They just do ablation and that’s not getting to the root of the cause. So, I mean, there’s all these things where you’re dealing with this medical world, too, that does not want to support you at all. But then, like, when you’re going to a gynecologist who’s supposed to be, you know, knowledgeable and be focused on female bodies, there’s like there’s it’s more like indifference than anything, which just blows my mind.
Le’Nise: I mean, I’m nodding along as you’re talking and everything you’re saying. I am. I keep thinking it’s just trauma and then more trauma and. I want to know, everything you’re going through now. And I want to talk about the company you founded to help women have better periods. But before we talk about that, I just want to talk about how you have gotten past or if you’ve gotten past the trauma of the surgeries and everything and dealing with the various doctors and medical professionals who questioned professionals who dismissed your pain or tried to downgrade your pain.
Lauren: Yeah, I would say that I’m still working through that trauma in a lot of ways, I think it’s almost been one of the unexpected advantages to starting a company sort of about period pain is I’ve had to think about my experience more, which has been hard, but also a really positive thing, because otherwise I would have reverted back to my usual, just push it down, don’t think about it. And I still like, I think on a day to day basis, like now Cath and I talk about it so much and we have a whole community of other women who have endometriosis pain in Atlanta, but just also online and just talking to women about their period pain in general. It’s so like life affirming and empowering in some ways because you don’t feel alone. You realize everybody is different. You know, you experience pain differently. Even if I talk with another woman who has stage four endometriosis, their experiences are completely different. So there’s, there’s so much good that’s come out of this, too. But Cath and I still talk about how before we go to gynecologists, even for just a normal routine exam, like we’re like we know we’re gonna cry in the office. Like, I don’t generally especially you, Cath, I don’t think you’re a big crier, but like, I just know I feel so vulnerable in that situation. And even if I talk through with my gynecologist and I usually bring my surgical like photos, like photos from inside of my body and I’m like, this is what I had. I’ve had the experience like Cath, where it’s still sort of worn off. And so you just always feel the sort of vulnerable existence when you’re in the doctor’s office and that you have to fight like, okay, I need to get my fighting face on because I need to make sure they believe me. I need to advocate for myself. But at the same time, I’m not completely over the trauma that’s happened to me before. So I know I’m going to feel really sort of teary eyed and then the doctors aren’t going to take me seriously and all this stuff that’s usually still was playing through my head. So, yeah, I would say I’m still working through the trauma, still working through some of that pain, but there’s been a lot of positive having to go through it.
Catherine: And I think the other thing, too, is that it seems sort of like the dark ages, but like any an gynaecologist you go to, their focus is on fertility.
And if they you know, they they, most gynaecologists have very little experience or got very little education on endometriosis. My guess would be the same with adenomyosis and PCOS and all the other things, PMDD. And to them, it’s at least the ones that I’ve met, it to them means potentially could affect your fertility. And so even when I try to have these conversations with the gynecologist, they always turn it around to like, well, I think you could get pregnant, or especially now, since we’re with, like, geriatric moms if we ever got pregnant. Right. We’re 37, 36, 37 in two weeks. We’re 36. And so, like, when I go to the gynecologist, every discussion, it’s always like, do you want to freeze your eggs?
Which in the States takes I think it’s like at least $20,000 to start out and like they talk about it so casually, like everybody has that amount of money, but also that that’s always how they focus on your body as basically as a baby making machine. And it I feel like even the surgeon too who we loved it, it’s still like he’s very used to having the conversation around fertility. Like, how does your endometriosis, how will that affect your fertility in that kind of thing? And both obviously, neither one of us have kids. We’re not. Neither one of us have decided whether we want kids, even though, you know, it’s getting a little late for us. But to me, it was always like, no, I. I want to focus on fixing my body first before I could even think of having, you know, a parasite. You know what I say? I was like, why? Why, why am I going to focus on kids now when, like, I’m in so much pain? But it’s just funny. The whole like the whole dialogue around it, even at doctors offices, even if they like, you know, kind of ignore your pain. It is always about fertility and how you’re basically worthy as a woman because of your level of fertility. That’s how I see it. And like Lar, I always have to prep myself before I, actually have my annual is on Monday. And I know, like, I’m going to get there early, I’m going to do breathing exercises. I’m going to be ready for the doctor to just dismiss me. Ah. You know, I want to talk about freezing my eggs again, even though I told her last time I saw her I was like, you need to write down in my file do not talk to me about freezing eggs. And even when I said that, even when I met with her last year, she was like, Really? Are you sure?
And I was like, come on, lady. You’re educated, listen to me.
So, like, it is still is like it’s something we deal with. And I think Lar said starting Semaine has kind of forced us to have those difficult conversations and revisit it. But I think that’s very healthy and something that we need to do. And it’s been so empowering and hearing other women’s stories and knowing that we’re not alone. And the fact that we could we could create this thing with Lar’s husband that actually helps women through their pain.
Le’Nise:What you’re saying about having to prepare to go and see your doctor, to see your gynecologist. I, you know, I think it’s really important because in an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to do that. We could go and our doctors would have the time to spend with us and have the time to ask questions and really figure out what’s going on in the moment. But certainly in the UK, there’s 10 minutes and you have to make the most of those 10 minutes. But I love what you’re saying about, you know, you do your breathing exercise. You’ve got your notes. Lar, you were saying you take the photos of your prior surgery. You know, you you you tell them to refer back to the notes you ask them to make on your file before. I think all of those are really important for women to remember. They have to go in prepared and be prepared to advocate for themselves. And if they don’t feel comfortable doing that, bring someone with them who can do that for them. I want to go on to talk about your company. So is it Semaine? Because I’m thinking French Semaine means week or how do you pronounce it?
Lauren:You’re completely right and you’re saying it correctly. As Americans, we say Semaine. So, yes, it is. It is the French word for the week, but, we, we, we. But you’re an American French. Oh, yes. That is the name in it. It came from from the fact that the supplement that we created, which is a plant based anti-inflammatory, is just for the week of your period or whenever you have the most pain on your cycle. Generally, even women who have sort of pain throughout their cycle, that might be the worst pain is during ovulation, maybe or maybe it’s right before your period. But for me personally, I’ve always been really bad about taking supplements continually. And so when Matt, my husband and Cath when we were creating this, I was like, I am not going to take something every single day. I won’t remember. And I don’t like the idea of having to take a pill every single day, even if it is all natural and plant based. And so because we were focusing on the inflammation aspect of period pain, rather than balancing hormones, making sure you have more estrogen or less estrogen, we we could really focus lowering that inflammation when you need it the most on your period. So in general, this is something that I had no idea about before we started Semaine. My husband did, he’s a research scientist. He has PhD in bioengineering, that on your cycle over the course of 28 days, roughly. Of course everybody’s different, but that your immune system sort of works that quickly as well. So when you’re moving into your ovulation period, your immune system pulls back a little bit, just in case you are you have foreign DNA that enters your body, you know, and you’re impregnated. So your immune system’s like, okay, we don’t we don’t want to attack that. Let’s pull back. And then if you’re not, if you’re not getting pregnant, your immune system kind of comes roaring back in the next two weeks and reaches its peak as you start to bleed. And a lot of the times with that immune system, that that causes a lot of inflammation, that your immune response and inflammation is connected. And so those of us with painful periods, not just with endometriosis, but with just painful periods in general, you’re having sort of a stronger immune response and more inflammation. So the thinking behind creating an anti-inflammatory is we’re lowering that inflammation levels So it’s all about, you know, like helping your body do its thing, have its period, but with sort of supported help of lowering the inflammation markers that are happening and causing a lot of pain. And that has been tremendously helpful for me because I know I was always sort of nervous about taking different things that regulated my hormones because there’s not a lot of research behind endometriosis, behind PCOS, behind any of these period related conditions. I think there’s not a lot of understanding of exactly how our hormones are sort of out of whack and that that can vary from person to person. So I really wanted something that could address the pain without having to be like, I don’t know, is my estrogen too high? You know, a lot of people do think endometriosis is estrogenic. So there is a link there, but they’re still not sure. I mean, again, because this is a, quote unquote, woman’s disease. The research is starting now. There’s a lot more research than there used to be, but there isn’t a lot of you know, there hasn’t been in the past. And just generally in medical history, you know, there hasn’t been a lot of research on women. I think a lot of people probably heard that that study about how women experience heart attacks different than men. But the symptoms we’re taught to look elsewhere are the symptoms that men usually have. And I remember reading, this is a study done like, you know, ten or fifteen years ago on cervical cancer. And they they tested the drug just on men who don’t have cervixes, you know, so it’s like. It blows your mind when you learn about this stuff. We were like, wait, you have to be doing these studies on women. And a big reason they don’t do the studies on women. And then prior to human subjects, why they don’t do it on on like female rats is because the hormones and having menstrual blood is very complicated and it complicates the results. And you’re like, yes. But the people taking it 50 percent plus are going to be people who have menstruated at some point and have these complex hormones. I, even when I was in the hospital actually in Edinburgh, it was a female doctor who was super sweet. But I remember at one point she said, you know, it be so much easier for us to figure out what was going on with you if you were a man, because all your bits are on the outside.
And I was just like wait what? What is it? Oh, my God. Like, this is the extent of of medical knowledge. Sort of like really a big community. I was like, we don’t have a chance in hell. Like, how is this, this is like the the response? In starting Semaine, we’ve learned that up to 80 percent of women have painful periods in their lifetime. So this isn’t abnormal. You know, it’s like everybody has has pain and you experience at different levels. Definitely our stories are a little more acute. And having endometriosis is is something that not all women have, though. More than 10 percent of women do have endometriosis. So none of these things are super unusual. And the fact that there aren’t hardly any pharmaceutical drugs specifically for women’s pain or even a lot of like natural things that we can do on the market right now, is really telling to me the fact that women’s pain isn’t taken seriously. If there’s, if PMSand endometriosis and all those conditions were something that men experienced, we’d have gobs of research. We’d have so many, you know, if they’re 5,000 pills for erectile dysfunction but nothing for, you know, period pain specifically, except for maybe Midol or Pamprin, which hasn’t changed in the last twenty five years. Something’s wrong. Something’s broken with with innovation in health care for women.
Catherine: I always think of that line in the show Veep.
Did you ever watch it? I don’t know. It was. I don’t know if it would come if it was in the UK at all. Because it is very specific to the US. But it’s the main character at one point. She was like, you know, if men got pregnant, you could get an abortion in an ATM by now, you know, and that’s what I always think about. It’s like it’s like it’s so true. What I think is so cool about Semaine is that so, Lauren and Matt, after Scotland, they moved to Seattle and that’s when Lar was especially, even now, when we get cramps and stuff, I think we’re a little triggered by experiences before we had our surgery. So even though we know the pain is not going to get as bad, it’s still very triggering. And so Lar’s husband, he’s a scientist. He has a PhD and was working for the University of Washington at the time. And he started doing research and reading up on white papers and peer reviewed papers on anything that could possibly help. So he started getting all these like extracts like in powder form and adding them to her smoothies. And it was I always joke that like the few times I would like go and visit them and see had all come to their kitchen. They had all these like jars of random powders or things going on. So he played around with the formula, I would say like that two years. Right. So and Lar was telling me how much of a difference it was making and I was like, send it to me because I, you know, I’ve been in Atlanta this whole time. And they literally sent me, it was a jar you sent me like a little scoop. And with like Lar’s handwritten instructions like how many scoops they should put in a smoothie each day. And I remember the first period I had using it, like my pain was reduced so much. And when I was and it wasn’t until we started talking about it, we were like, well, if this works for us, then maybe it’ll work for other women. And that’s how it got started. Like literally from them having a kitchen full of jars with powders in them.
Le’Nise: Wow. And so then you found that this worked for you. And then what was your, talk about the process of getting it onto the market?
Lauren:Yeah, that was that. That’s been a long journey because we started, Matt and I started testing those different plant extract powders. So it was like powder of green tea and curcumin. And I feel like those people have maybe heard of us as far as being good anti-inflammatory as are antioxidants. But we were testing other things, like some thing called resveratrol, something called boswellia, which is from frankincense. Matt had been doing research at the University of Washington about chronic inflammation and aging. So that’s how it was sort of in his mind already about like maybe we don’t address hormones, but we address the inflammation that’s happening every month when you’re on your period. And so after about two years of trying this and Cath and I being the guinea pigs, we opened it up to a larger test group of about 10 women who had period pain. So a couple of them did have endometriosis, but most of them just had general period pain. So not just pelvic pain and cramps, but maybe they got migraines or leg pain. You know, there’s lots of different types of pain that are associated with getting your period. And we had really good results from from that test. And so after getting those results, we’re like, okay, let’s start this as a business and let’s see if we can launch this as a product. And so originally it was, we were just putting the powers in pills ourselves, but we found a manufacturer and we, Matt and I quit our jobs in Seattle, moved to Atlanta, where we’re now living with Cath, so fun. And we focus on this full time. And we started an Indiegogo campaign in the fall to just sort of raise awareness and also a way to raise a little bit of money, but mainly to get sort of the name out there and make sure people are hearing that we’re doing this thing for period pain. And then in February of this year, we launched full time. And so right now, we sell Semaine directly from our web site: semainehealth.com. But we’re hoping to branch into retail so it’s more readily available to everyone. We do ship internationally, but most of our subscribers right now are in the States just because international shipping is really expensive. But we’re hoping, you know, eventually to expand and we could have distribution centers in the UK and Australia specifically because we get a lot of great feedback from those countries. But that’s how that’s how it started. It was literally trying to find something to fix my pain. We weren’t thinking of it as a business at all. But then when Catherine was like, it’s working for me. And the woman we had in our study was like, yes, you need to make more of this. We were like, OK, we want to help other women. You know, it was such a relief to have less painful periods, the fact that we are now helping other people have less painful periods, like I couldn’t ask for a better purpose in life, really, because I just never thought that was possible. I don’t know if it was because of years of being told that, oh, this is the only thing you can do. You can go on birth control. You can take ibuprofen. That I just thought that was kind of it. It didn’t even strike me that, why aren’t there more products out there for women? You know, and I think it’s such a great time now because people are talking about periods more openly. You have this wonderful podcast where people are talking about their first periods and hearing the differences and those stories are amazing. I think it’s so great to normalize those conversations. And I think that will change the way innovation help, that happens around women’s health care. Just the fact that, you know, people are making organic pads or reusable menstrual cups and like all of like The Honeypot Co. I don’t know if that’s big in the UK yet, but it’s here in Target that, you know, having said feminine care wipes like that, you know, something that’s in like the vernacular that we growing up, you know, we’ve never talked about that sort of thing, you know, and that wasn’t on the shelf at Target. And now you see that and women are interested in trying more natural solutions or just any solutions to try to make their periods better or more manageable and not this hush hush taboo thing that you can’t talk about.
Le’Nise:I think it’s incredible what you you both have done. And I love that you you took an issue that you had and you then created something that would not only help you, but would help loads of people with the same problems. So amazing. I can’t wait to see it here in the UK, but to round up our conversation. You both have said so many amazing things. What would you want someone to think to take listening to the podcast, to take away from what you individually have said?
Lauren: Such a great question, Le’Nise. I would say, as hard as it is always trust yourself and advocate for yourself. You do know your body better than anybody else. Better than any doctor. Better than anybody in your family. Being in tune with your body and knowing something doesn’t feel right. Push your doctor, push your health care provider to give you answers. If I had known that when I was younger, I know I just always assumed, oh, this person went to medical school and is a doctor, they know way more than me. If something was wrong, they would tell me. And I think, you know, doctors are amazing and they’re great. And I’m so glad we have the health care available that we can go to them. But that doesn’t mean that they know you better than you know yourself. Listen to your body if something feels wrong, you know. And also listen to yourself and not just assume that because one treatment works for one person, that that’s what you need to do. I think a lot of the time in the health and wellness space, we’re like, oh, I found this diet that cured me of this thing. You know, my endo is so much better because I stopped eating gluten. That is amazing. And that works for a lot of people. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work for you and you have to do that same thing. If birth control works for you, if you need to be able to take that in order to get to day to day life, you know, do that. Don’t ever feel ashamed because people are pushing a certain solution on you. I think that’s so important.
Catherine:At the same exact thing, reiterate, advocate, advocate, advocate for yourself. I think that’s the big thing.
IF I could go back in time and talk to my 12 year old ashamed self with my period, just giving myself grace, but also telling myself, like, you know, trust yourself and be comfortable with your voice, especially when you’re with doctors. And then the other thing. What Lar said exactly, we’re identical twins and we’ve had very different experiences. You know, I compared to Lar, I eat garbage, you know, like I’ll eat fast food. I love I love to drink Coke. But Lar is much healthier than me. And part of that is driven by the pain that she had and kind of the PTSD left over from her experiences. But for me, diet does help. Absolutely. Without a doubt. But if I had just started looking into not just endometriosis but period pain and seeing all these like wellness warriors who can, you know, eat just kale for a day and, you know, that works for them, that I would feel kind of alienated from that. So I think reiterating what Lar said, like you figure out what works for you and then give yourself grace. You know, you’re not going to be this perfect pinnacle of health and you’re gonna have bad days and good days and and just celebrate the things that do work. But, yeah. That that some women don’t want to use tampons or don’t want to use hormonal birth control. And that is great. But some women would do. And that’s also great. So giving yourself grace and and figuring out, like Lar said, become an expert of your own body and what works for you.
Le’Nise: Thank you so much. I honestly feel like I could talk to you guys for another hour. It was just so brilliant.
Lauren: Thank you so much, Le’Nise. So much fun.
Le’Nise: You mentioned the website URL before. Can you just mention it again? So listeners know where to find out about Semaine.
Lauren: Yes, thank you. It’s semainehealth.com And we’re also very active on Instagram. So and that’s just @semainehealth. So thank you so much , Le’Nise. Yes, that’s where you can find us. We’re there all the time. We also have a chat on our web site, and that’s us answering questions. We love when people pepper us with questions about Semaine. So please feel free to do that.
On today’s episode of Period Story podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Maria Purcell, the co-founder of the Hood, who recently launched their teen wellness journal (a period and mood tracker!), Girlhood: The Story. Listen to hear our conversation about Maria’s experience navigating her period as an athlete, her decision to come off the pill, how she used tracking to help her better understand her body as she was trying to get pregnant and of course, the story of her first period!
Maria says she hid her period from her mum for a few months, because she felt that she could deal with it all herself and thought it was no big deal. Listen to hear how often Maria first thought she was going to have a period!
Maria’s experience as a student athlete shaped the way she thought about her body and her belief that periods were something that needed to be ‘dealt with’. She says that when she stopped taking the pill, she finally began to tune into her body and said that it was challenging because as an athlete, she was so used to being in control of her body.
We talked about how Maria started tracking what was happening to her body and how this helped during her fertility journey. She says that all the planning and tracking came naturally to her and helped her feel more confident and better about herself.
Maria shares how she lost her period at one point and what she did to get it back. She says that all the tracking and learning she did around her menstrual cycle and fertility eventually led to the idea to launch a journal for teens to help them understand their moods and eventually their periods, when they arrive. Listen to hear how she was inspired by her niece and how the journal helped them connect.
Maria says we need to learn about our menstrual health from a young age, so that we feel empowered and we understand our bodies. She says this will change the narrative and reduce the stigma around female health issues. Thank you for coming on the show, Maria!
Maria Purcell is a commercial business leader with extensive experience in the fields of strategy, growth, advertising, sales and marketing. She is committed to challenging traditional business models and ways of thinking, and to helping customers to find the solutions that work for them. With over 13 year’s experience gained at businesses like Facebook and Uber,
Maria is a results-oriented digital expert with a passion for all things tech. Maria has a Bachelor’s degree in Advertising and Media Production and a Masters in Design. A dedicated mother of 2, Maria was recently recognised as one of the Top 50 Sales leaders in the UK and is the founder of The Hood, who recently launched their teen wellness journal, Girlhood:The Story.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise: On today’s episode, we have Maria Purcell. Maria is a commercial business leader with extensive experience of strategy, growth, advertising, sales and marketing. She is committed to challenging traditional business models and ways of thinking and to helping customers find the solutions that work for them. As a dedicated mother of two, Maria was recently recognised as one of the top 50 sales leaders in the UK and is the founder of the Hood, who recently launched a teen wellness journal, Girlhood: The Story. Welcome to the show.
Maria: Hi. Thank you for having me.
Le’Nise: So let’s get into the question that I start each episode off with. Can you tell me the story of your first period?
Maria: Yeah. So my first period, I had my first period when I was eleven. And it was a pretty much a non-event for me, mainly because I was so focussed on something else that day when my period actually came. It was more of a “I’ll deal with that later”. I do think , I’ve been telling loads of people this recently and it shows my age as well. But 101 Dalmatians had come out at the cinema. And me and my mom had this thing because I had older brothers and sisters, but I’m kind of just always missed out on the stuff that they were old enough to do. When they were just old enough, I was still too young. So it was like New Year’s Eve. I think it was that everybody was out, you know, doing their thing with their friends. So my mom was like, okay, well, we’ll go to the cinema. And I’d been so excited about the fact, I love the cinema, I always have, I was just so excited, I was going to the cinema. I was like, you know, all day I was obsessed about it. And then just before we were about to leave, I quickly popped to the loo and then my period had started.
And I was like, Oh. OK, no problem. So I got a pad because I shared a bathroom with two of my sisters. Got one of the pads, popped it in, didn’t say a word to my mom because I was like, I want to go watch this film. And I know if I tell my mom she’s gonna make a big deal out of it, we might not be able to go to the cinema. So I just completely didn’t say anything and just kind of carried on as per. I remember having just terrible cramps in this cinema, but really focussing on the fact that I wanted to see this film, which wasn’t even that good anyway. But and it was until months later that my mom found out that I had actually started my period. And I remember she was just like, ‘oh, wait, what? Oh, my God.’ And she felt so shocked that I hadn’t said anything. And I, you know, was typical, typical young girl, ‘Yeah, right. No big deal. Get with it. Whatever.’ That was, was pretty much it, that was how I started.
Le’Nise: Why did you wait so long to tell your mom?
Maria: I think, to be honest, at the time, I generally didn’t think at the time it was that big a deal.
I don’t know why I maybe because being with my older sisters all the time, I just knew I was going to come at some point. And also, yeah, actually, I also remember when I did have a conversation with my mom and she was like, ‘you know, you’re a woman and all this stuff is going to happen. Do you want to talk about it?’ And I was like, ‘No it’s fine. I don’t get what the fuss is about. I got the pads. Sorted it out. And then you, what I’m going to have to do this like once a year or something?’ And she was like, ‘what do you mean, like once a year?’ And was I like, ‘you know once a year, once every six months?’ And she was like ‘No, no, this happens monthly.’
And then I was like, ‘wait, what?’ And she was like, ‘yeah.’ And I was like, ‘to everyone?’ Yes. And everyone knows this. Yes. And I was like, ‘for how long?’ And my mom was like, ‘well pretty much for the rest of your life.’ What! And I remember being like, ‘Wow, this sucks.’
And at the beginning your periods are so irregular, right? You don’t really, you know, put it on, and it’s only when you’re like this is really rubbish now. So yeah, I think I was a bit like, what’s the big deal? Whatever.
Yeah, very much realised. It’s a pretty important part of your life. Once a month, you know, for the rest of your life.
Le’Nise: And are your are your sisters older or younger?
Maria: Yes. Yeah. I’m the youngest.
Le’Nise: And part of your your confidence around your first period. Do you think it was also because your you had seen what your sisters had been doing?
Maria: No, I hadn’t. You mean my sisters are actually talking about this the other day and I hadn’t actually seen what they were doing. There was no talk. There was no chat. I remember one time at the dinner table, my sister, you know, mouthing off to my mom. And my mom was just like, hey, just because you’re on your period doesn’t mean you can be a B. I remember the whole table being like ‘oooooh’.
Oh, really? have no idea why I didn’t. I mean, we’re all we’re a bit of a cocky bunch. Me and my sisters, you know, we’re pretty confident, you know, three Black females. All within a couple of years of each other in teenage years. Not a fun place to be for my mom, but confident about everything, to be honest. And also, I think you had that feeling back then that you kind of just dealt with it. It wasn’t a ‘let’s enjoy this. This is so special.’ This is it was more like, let’s just get it done and carry on with our lives. So I think that’s why I didn’t think it was such a such a big deal at the time. But yeah, no, I’m not sure why it wasn’t more of a more of a thing.
Le’Nise: And when you had that conversation with your mom and you, she told you that you get your period every every month. And how did you then get more education about what was what was happening to you?
Maria: Well, I remember thinking and this is probably a common theme throughout throughout my life. I remember thinking how how is this such a big thing and no one talks about it? I remember being like, really monthly. And this to me, sounds like this is important. But I remember being like eleven, twelve, being like, what do I know I’m eleven or twelve. And and the first thing I did was talk to my friends. So the first thing I did was like hop on my phone and I text my friends being like, hey you started your period? I just talked to my friends about it and then I played a lot of sports. I was really, really into sports. So I think the people I was in the teams with, the girls I was with, teams, I think I relied more on the conversation with them because you’re naturally in the changing rooms. You know, you you talk about your bodies quite a lot because your you’re athletes. So I think it kind of came with them. And again, because of that athletic nature. Athletes are very much like, if I want my body to do something, I then have to do X, Y and Z. And I have to train this way. I have to eat this way so that I think athletes are just a lot more body confident because they understand what their body responds to. And so I think being in that environment helped me just have more open conversations with people. OK. I want to do high jump, but I’m on my period. Suggestions? People being like, yeah, yeah, just use tampons. And I think I graduated to tampons very, very quickly, which I think well, from the research that we’ve done from the from the book that we were looking at, for young girls, we realise that actually that tampons are not necessarily such an early entry product for this age, but for me and non-applicators tampons are also very much far down the line. But for me, it was like non-applicator tampons about three or four months in, again, because I just, I want to go swimming. And yeah, I think it was my network of friends like my my gang of girls I hung around with, they were they were the definitely the ones that gave me most information and even products. Right. So we build on that side shuffle of, you know.
Le’Nise: Do you think that playing sport, you said playing sports should make you more confident and athletes or female athletes are generally more confident? Do you think that that had and did it have any effect on your period?
Maria: And yes, I think probably that’s why for a while they were maybe not as. Probably not as disruptive. I think to my everyday, because I think I had other things I was focussing on and like some cramps, for example, you know, a lot of people have really bad cramps and things like that. But I had bad cramps. But then I also had really bad muscle pain in general from playing sport like every single day. So I think I just kind of lumped it all in together. Which in hindsight, I wish I hadn’t done I wish I’d focussed on it more, but in my mind, I was just like, that’s just how it is, you’re an athlete and get on with it. And I definitely think I had a lot of girls that were in my kind of circle of athletes on. Funnily enough, actually, I’m not sure this is anything but none of my black girlfriends complained about it. But then I do remember, there was a lot of my white girlfriends, my Caucasian friends. They said they would have like debilitating cramps, that they couldn’t even come into school. You know, it was really, really bad. And I just I do actually remember thinking, like, why doesn’t that affect. I mean, you know, like Black girlfriends. Why does it affect this group of girls but doesn’t affect them? I mean, I can’t really explain it. And then that and they were all athletes.
Le’Nise: And do you think that your Black girlfriends, they had them, but they just didn’t talk about them? They didn’t complain?
Maria: Yeah, I think so. I think I because we’ve I’ve grown up with these girls and we talk about it now. We definitely complain about it now. But yeah, to be honest, I think there was a maybe in our culture there was more of a, kind of the things that you don’t really talk about or I think we’re Black females are kind of given this, ‘you know, you’re strong, you’re a strong Black female, you’re a strong Black woman’, you know. So I think that’s kind of rammed down our throats a bit more and we aspire to be like that. I know, I know I aspire to be like my sisters who are badass, very strong, physically and emotionally. So I think yeah, I think that definitely had an impact.
And also, I think, you know, we just had other things to talk about.
I don’t remember any of my of my friends having a day off because it was that bad or or not not competing or not playing sport because it was that bad.
Le’Nise: And when you did you play sports all throughout school and then university?
Maria: Yes. So I, I, yeah, I did I did sport all the way through high school and then I, I kind of switched over from college into more dance gymnastics style and then at university carried on the gymnastics kind of element. So it was at the time it was it was called, competitive cheerleading, but it was the acrobatic style of it. So there’s a lot of being thrown in the air and wearing very tight spandex, that kind of stuff. So again, very physically intensive, which I didn’t stop doing until I was about 24, 25 years old.
Le’Nise: So there’s a lot of research that shows that female athletes who do a lot of intense activity, especially gymnasts. They have issues with missing periods. Did you ever have that happen to you?
Maria: No, I didn’t have any, I didn’t have any issue with missing periods. I’ve always been very regular. Even when I was trying to conceive, even after having children, my body goes very quickly back to its kind of template of this is how we operate. So which I’ve been very lucky. Lucky in.
But from for the ages of 15 to 24, 25. No actually, longer than that, 28. I think I was on the pill the whole time and that essentially meant no period for the type of pill I was on. I mean, I would stop and I would get a few periods and obviously they would come back with a vengeance. I would be like, oh my. So there’s a large chunk of my early days where I didn’t have this kind of. Appreciation or exploration of my body. In that my female health, I kind of again, just like, oh, it’s something to be dealt with. And oh, I can have a pill that stops it completely? Absolutely. With hardly any education around what I was taking, and really why I was taking it. And so when I got to 28 and then I stopped taking it. And then I started to really get into tune what was going on. And that’s when I’m to think about, you know, I was going I was getting married the next year and I was like, I know I’m going to want to have kids and I hope I can, my cycle goes back to normal, like quickly. But you hear those stories where it take years and years and years to get back to normal. So, yeah. Unfortunately, I didn’t I didn’t have much of that in my younger life, but just basically because it was in my my periods or something to be dealt with, periods were just something to move along and the pill for me at the time was the answer to that.
Le’Nise: What made you go on the pill when you were when you were 15?
Maria: So I think it was one: the no periods and that was a few of my friends was like I just take the pill and I don’t have periods and I was like oh, that sounds good, magical pill. But then also I think the all around kind of I guess it’s all kind of wrapped into one. But the whole education around, you know, sex and getting pregnant and all of that kind of stuff really is rammed down your throat when you’re, you know, in that age is like you have sex, you will get pregnant. And again, when I was there trying to conceive, I was like, that’s not the… But if you have sex, you will get pregnant. Here is a pill. Do something. And nobody wants to be carrying around like, you know, going in to buy condoms, just like sweaty, sweaty palms and asking the guy, you know, all about everything. A little classic narrative of like just being like ownership of your body and ownership of your sexual preferences. This wasn’t a thing when you were a teenager, you know, later on in your life, you’re like, hey, no glove, no love, so do one kind of thing, but you don’t get to have all of that. So I think the pill was also a way of all of the kind of female health, all of the kind of female reproductive stuff pushed to the side dealt with one pill. Go about my life, which is actually quite sad when you really think about it.
Le’Nise: You you you’ve used that phrase dealt with. Deal with it. You just needed to deal with your period. When you came off the pill when you were 28, how did you transition away from this idea of just dealing with your period?
Maria: So I, I’ll be very honest. It took me a long time to actually. Well actually the reason why I came off my contraceptive was because I was like, I’m going to get married and I know I want to have kids. And my husband at the time was in the military. So he was in the Air Force and he moved around loads. We weren’t always together. So a few months at time, sometimes we wouldn’t see each other. So I knew that was it. I wanted to make sure that timing, if we decided, let’s go now, we could not, we didn’t have that luxury of time. So it was so uncertain of what we were doing that point. Let me just take off and, you know, fully in the next five years or so, then my cycle, be it. We’ll start to think about having kids, but actually the way the things that, life never kind of goes to plan, obviously but the way that things have kind of happened was that my husband shipped off to Afghanistan pretty much straight after we got married. So whilst he was away, we missed each other so much when he got back I was like I want to stop this now, I want to get on this baby making thing right now because we know it’s going to take a while. And, you know. I miss you and I want to get on with my life, and it actually was really difficult for us. And it took three miscarriages before I was able to successfully carry my, to term, my daughter, Bernadette, who’s four now. And it was at that point. That was the real kind of when the penny dropped. I was like, I don’t understand my body. And it was a real struggle for me because my as I said, like, I was used to being an athlete. And I I knew that if I did this to my body, it did this. If I wanted to learn a specific skill, I knew I had to practise and I would do it. I would get it in the end. So it was very disturbing for me to not be in control of my body and also to not understand it because I’m one of these people. If something’s going bad, someone something’s wrong. I’m very much like, OK, cool, but what’s the plan or how do we? What’s the formula? How do I deal with again or work around it. How do we find a solution? And yeah, there wasn’t one. And when I was talking to doctors, they were like, yeah, well you know, sometimes it just happens. I was like what do you mean, it just happens. Surely there are studies, surely there is data. And they were like, not really no. And I was like what? Could the pill have contributed to this? I’ve been on the pill for, like, however many years. And he was like, maybe. I was just like whoa. It was just such an eye opening moment for me, so I, I basically did what every kind of mom trying to conceive does and just go like headfirst into Google, Pinterest, anything that I could find of information. And I start to catalogue just everything from menstrual health to diet and nutrition to kind of mindfulness and anxiety and stress and cortisone levels, just everything. And very interesting. And I’ve never kind of looked back, but that was really the moment I realised, well, this is I’m never touching anything to put in my body ever again. I will never put hormonal. I’ll just never touch hormones, basically any kind of medical hormones. I did have to again when I was pregnant. But that’s a different story. But I was just like, what the hell? This is when you really read about what’s in it. Yeah, I was going through all of the type of things that you put into your the most absorbent part of your body. It was a real mind, can’t say the F word.
I remember just getting so woke and really quite annoyed at myself. I think, you know, it took that to quite a horrible part of my life to actually start to listen and be interested in my own body.
Le’Nise: But you know that that’s quite common. Typically, women who are trying to conceive. That’s a point where they come off the pill or they come off hormonal contraception and then they start to get more in tune with their natural cycle and know what menstruation actually looks like for them. What ovulation looks like. So you’re definitely not alone. But I want to just go back to what you’re saying about all of the kind of extensive tracking that you were doing. Was it kind of like an iterative thing when you would start to look at one thing and then you would keep on things on?
Maria: Absolutely. I think. So obviously, when I first started tracking, I love as I said, I love planning. I just kind of put things together. As an athlete as well, you make a lot of training plans. You make a lot of that kind of stuff. So to me, I had like a whole binder, journals thing that I would like do and it kind of made me feel confident and make me feel better about myself that I was writing this stuff down. I could flip through it. So at first, I was like, when does my period happen? Like, that was kind of it. And then I was doing more reading and it was like, OK, what’s what’s the temperature? What’s your temperature changes? And I was like temperature changing, That sounds pretty militant, every day taking your temperature. But then I spent several weeks on cervical mucus. That’s a terrible word. Obviously, a man came up with that because it’s called cervical mucus. All right, cool. I’m going to have a look at that. And then it was my oh, this is my day of ovulation. OK. This is where I’m at in my cycle. And actually, it was, it was a means to get pregnant as well. It wasn’t a, cause I was interested in it. It was this is the means to get pregnant. And and then I had medical assistance to get pregnant and then I had to take hormones and things like that because they that’s what the doctors advised. Again, probably not something I would do again, but that was something that. And then that kind of through my cycle out of whack. And it was only because I’d been tracking it. And then when I took that, then I had to take quite a few different drugs. But when I took I really started to see how my body then went completely out of whack. And so then when I had these mood swings and when I was having, like, hormonal breakouts and all this kind of stuff, I really did start to connect the dots as to. Oh, this is what’s happening here. OK. And I could say to my doctor, no, this is throwing me out of whack. I know this because every month like clockwork, this is what happens. And I’ve missed this point. I mean, maybe take my little scrapbook and look and see what’s happening. And so, again, it was a means to an end to get pregnant. But then when I was pregnant and then I did have my daughter afterwards, then there’s a whole other kind of stuff of like, oh, my God, nobody tells you about all the other stuff that comes after the pregnancy and children and just how your body react reacts.
That’s a whole nother podcast. But what I wanted to do was get back to normal. So then I really started to more appreciate what that looked like in terms of how do I get back to being me? And how do I get back to being pre mom me, which never really happens. But in my mind, that’s what I was thinking. And my cycle, was a massive part of that, it’s a huge indicator of, yes, your body is now back on track. It’s not just thinking you’re here to feed and host another being. And that’s when I started to read more about just the cycle. Just just to kind if not not for a goal, not for anything else, just to generally know what to look for me. And how does that kind of affect everything else I’m doing? That’s really was the kind of, I’d say, the second inflexion point for me.
And kind of getting getting into it.
Le’Nise: And all of the all of the information and the tracking that you’ve done, have you? I know you have a younger child. Have you? Did you take that into trying to conceive your next child?
Maria: Yes. Yes. No, I was very much. I knew that when my second child I kind of the goal was that I would love to not have to have, the medical assistance. I knew there was loads of things that I, linked with diet and things like that, that really, really helped me. The first time around, so about six months before I was even thinking of conceiving, I was like, I would need to get my diet in check. And the diet I was doing was a low sugar diet because I had a lot of inflammation. Again, I think from doing a lot of athletics and things, I had a lot of inflammation in the body, so reducing my sugar, really helped just tons of things. And then but that I really I noticed again, I was I was removing all the sugar and then I actually started to lose a lot of weight. And I think I got down to like the lowest I’ve ever probably been, like in my adult life. Just from just removing sugar, not really doing exercise or anything like that, but just removing sugar. And then my period stopped. OK. I was loving this diet I was on and it was giving me so much energy and I looked great and I was fitting into my clothes. It was cool. And then my periods stopped and I thought, whoa, that stuff is the messing with my body. And so then I started kind of easing up into when my period then started tocome back again. OK. But again, that’s like a whole new view on food. And what that can do and how that connects. So so I did take that into account. And I didn’t need the medical assistance to the same degree to to get pregnant. I did need it make much, much later on in the pregnancy and towards the end. But right at the beginning, it was we actually got pregnant accidentally. We were actually like, OK cool, we’ll have a baby, we’ll start at Christmas. I end up having my baby at Christmas. And again, I do put it down to the fact that one, I’d had a test from before and I knew what I was kind of doing this time. But also I was just so hyper aware of everything that my body was doing and not doing. And then like adding that extra layer of nutrition onto the tracking of what I was eating. So there was a lot of tracking. But that really did then help me find my my natural groove, I think.
Le’Nise: When you say that you lost your period because you had cut out sugar, was it just like sugar, added sugars into food, or was it carbohydrates as well?
Maria: Yes, carbohydrates as well. So it was first, it was like sugars into food. It was kind of like a process of elimination. So I was having blood tests done as I was cutting things out. We kind of we didn’t really know what it was going to end up looking like. But the nutritionist I had spoken to was just like the best thing to do is just start by process of elimination. And first, it was just like gluten. And I was like, what is gluten? And I thought, oh it’s in everything! But it was gluten, didn’t really have an effect, so I got the gluten back, which was brilliant.
And then, yeah, it was like sugars and then it was carbohydrates.
And then when it was with the sugars I saw, I did see a little step of there was like a reduction in my T cells, how they reacted and they just started to get a little bit less aggressive. So a lot of them and they were very aggressive and they wanted to take the sugar down to kind of chill them a little bit. And then when I took out the carbs, pretty much the numbers of them dropped and they just completely relaxed. So the levels of inflammation in my body started to kind of drop. The more I eliminated all these different things. But, yeah, like like I say, brain fog completely disappeared. When I got rid of sugar because I really suffered from that post, my first baby, like brainfog, I would be talking and all of a sudden it was like when I was like completely like two years later I was still doing it. So it was a really weird moment for me. But then the getting rid of sugar is like really, really helped. But then, yeah, I was eliminating, eliminating, eliminate, eliminating. Then I knew I’d gone too far when my period started to go very light at first and then a little bit erratic and then just it was like two months. I actually thought I was pregnant cause I started to think, well what’s going on? And I wasn’t pregnant. I was like, OK, let me just, I’ve lost a lot of weight. Let me just try and put some weight back on and see if they did.
Le’Nise: What you’re saying is so interesting because, you know, there is a real, especially with women. There’s a real fear around carbohydrates. And I hear this a lot. You know, if I just cut out carbs, I’ll, I’ll lose weight. And this and that. But then what? A lot of people don’t realise just how important carbohydrates are for menstruation and a healthy menstrual cycle. So it’s really interesting because a lot of the research around this is actually being done on men. And so things like no carb diets and also like intermittent fasting. The studies are typically focussed on men and not that have not been done on women because the researcher say, well, it’s too it’s too comp complicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we see lots of things saying, oh, well, the research shows say low carb diets are great. But that research is on men. Yes. Oh, yeah.
Maria: Forty five. Forty five to forty five. White male.
Le’Nise: Yeah. Yeah. So how long did it take you to get your period back?
Maria: It didn’t take me that long, actually. It took me probably about two months or so, I’d say. I remember being really worried that I’d done some lasting damage, like oh God. But luckily, it took not that I think because I wasn’t training at that point in my life. I was exhausted because I had a three year old. But it didn’t take that long and I, I knew which dial to kind of amp up. I did very gradually, I didn’t just switch because I knew that would throw my body into craziness as well. So I did it by gradually, bit by bit. So I think that helped. Yeah, it took a couple of months, but I was pretty, I was four weeks in before I realised. And then so all in all, I’d say I had a probably a gap of about three months of no period.
Le’Nise: And thinking about all the tracking that you’ve done, your first and second pregnancy, did that feed in to the idea that you had for the journal that you’ve.
Maria: Oh, yes, massively. Yeah. So when my niece saw the whole the whole the story, it all came about because my niece got her period when she was nine.
And my niece is very different, do you remember I was talking about that confidence that I had when I was younger with my sisters. We still have that, if anything has been turbo boosted as we got older. And my niece is very much not like that. She is not yet a force. She isn’t like, you know, kicking your arse and on your case. Which me and my sisters definitely were and are. But so for me as her auntie, I really wanted to connect with her anyway, just in general. I want to connect with her. And I want to be like I want her to feel that kind of like sisterhood. She doesn’t have any sisters. And it’s always been very difficult to reach her, so it’s been having to kind of kind of get in there without being like, you know, not cool or embarrassing. And I never had this problem with my nephew. You know, he’s like this is fine. But my niece, it’s always been slightly awkward. So when my sister messaged us and said, sisters, it’s happened, I was like, well, she’s not pregnant because that would be a national manhunt.
And I said what she started her period and said, yeah, we were like, oh, my God. Because we knew it was coming. We could see me, my sisters. We could start to see the changes in her. Even then, we were like, now you’re all safe. So I knew she likes she loves drawing. She loves journalling, she loves like anime. And I love that. When I was younger, I love the drawing and the doodling and making characters and all this kind of stuff. And I also really love now. You know, the kind of mindfulness colouring that you can do and bullet journalling and that kind of stuff. So that’s really where and Girlhood came from, because I thought, what if I could try and make something for my niece that kind of doesn’t feel like it is a hey, here’s a book of periods.
We all got that book when we were younger. It was like 70s style with full on full frontal nudity and you’re like, oh my God.
And I didn’t what that. I wanted to give her something. What she was like, oh, this is kind of my half journal, half education. And that’s how we talk about it, part journal, part guide. And in there, the first thing we start with the tracker, is there is a period tracker that you can colour in. And again, just by the habit of colouring it and you start to see the shape, you start to see more visually what’s happening. I think not everybody is like a day ahead and not everybody is kind of doesn’t leadings to technology. And even on the period apps. I have a lot of period apps I’ve used and they’ve always been lacking that certain realness to me, it kind of feels like I’m just dealing with I’m just putting it into an app that I’m dealing with. I’m not really exploring what’s happening. So the we start we have this period track. But really, the emphasis in the book actually is the mood trackers that are there every month, because that to me is really the hormone signal. When you’re a teenager, those mood swings are so much more. If anything, I had more problems daily with my mood swings than I did with my period. My period was like, okay, well, you played. Here’s a product. Take some painkillers. Moods, there was there was no product for that. And that probably more shaped my relationship with my body, with my self esteem, with my confidence, which in turn then kind of knocks on to how I look at my my female anatomy and how I look at everything to do with being being a woman. So really, for us, the mood tracker, it was something we wanted to add as much opportunity to colour and see a pattern that is kind of aesthetically pleasing, but also feels like you accomplished something when you’re colouring it in. And that’s the mood tracker, it actually is more of the focus and the period tracker’s kind of like a you know, as an add on to the book. It’s in there, but the focus really is the mood tracker, because that will that will happen for months and months and months before your period actually starts. And we wanted. I think the best way to say is that when you talk to everyone, I’m sure you have, like six or seven people about the first period. It’s very rare I hear somebody say they were prepared for it and that it didn’t just happen to them. And most people’s first periods stories are absolutely hilarious. Like, I’ve listened. I don’t even know how many because Girlhood: The Story has loads of them included, some really cool women into that. We talk to a lot of people about their period. I’m known now as the period, the period lady because you know what happened. And they’re always hilarious. But at the time they’re pretty much mortifying or embarrassing. And that’s usually because they were unprepared or they hadn’t noticed what was like. They were prepared for it, that they hadn’t really noticed what their body was doing to go something’s about to happen. Oh, here we are. Great. And what we wanted was a journal that essentially somebody could give their daughter, sister, niece, friend before the period begins so that by the period of time the period starts, they can start to see.I think I’m going to start my period soon. And then when I do, I know all of this stuff already. And I know where to go. Like, there’s even a page in there about all the different period products, cups, pants, pads, tampons, because, again, you just I don’t want my niece to have to justdeal with it.
And again, talking about period products. One of the most one of the most hardest things when you talk about periods is that you have to stick something in your vagina or in your pants. Yeah, I talk about blood, and that’s a lot of where the friction comes from about having these open conversations, because a lot of people can’t even say the word vagina. They don’t know the difference between vagina vulva, like all of that kind of stuff. And so we wanted to show that in the book. So it was just like it’s there. So my niece might. Well, now my niece doesn’t use tampon. She uses period pants and she knows, cool, I’m on my period I use these pants when I’m not my period, these pants.
And how easy is that compared to the conversation you have with your parents were like, well, this goes here. And if you pick the leg up like this. No, it won’t fall out. It was, you know, kind of stuff. It’s just a lot more easier. So. Yeah.
The tracking element really does guide through the book, but it’s wrapped in all of this kind of colouring and stories from other people and places for them to jot down their own story at the book. What’s your story? So they can remember it and maybe even show it to their daughters when it’s full of friends or whatever. So, yeah. And the tracking element, they’ll probably graduate to an app as well, which would be brilliant. But knowing a bit more about themselves before, because, you know, you put in a lot of data into those apps and you don’t really get much back from. Yes, it’s on Thursday. So you really get it.
Le’Nise: I used up my Apple Watch to track my menstrual cycle and I got a notification that said your period is due in the next ten days. And I was just thought, like, how is that helpful?
Maria: Yeah. Thanks for that. Yes. In the future. Yes. Yes. So this plan. Yeah. Yeah.
Le’Nise: Where can people find the journal if they want, if they listen to this and they’ve really connected with what it’s all about. Where can they find the journal?
Maria: So listeners can’t see this right now. But I’m currently in the Hood HQ, which is the top of my house, and I’m surrounded by journals and books because they all arrived yesterday. So we actually did a Kickstarter campaign to kick off the Girlhood journal.
Because we made one for my niece. Right. But then lots of people said I want want one of these.
And then we’re like, OK, well, let’s do it big over there and we’ll just do a Kickstarter and we’ll see. And that arrived at yesterday, which is fun for me. So you can go to We are the hood dot com. And on that there is the ability to buy the book. And it was pre-orders. But now, as well as of next week, it will be that you can order it and get it within a few days. And we’ll also be listing it on Amazon soon, that will be going off to a fulfilment centre soon. And also, on www.wearethehood.com you can download those two downloads. One is the book as a download, just if you want to get. A lot of people have their own binders, stickies and with washi tape and they like to customise things a lot. And there is also a lot more affordable, the printable. And so the actual journal itself is 20 pounds. We’re trying our best to get that lower, but we can only do that when we have volume coming in so that we can now. Our aim is to get it as low as we can, but it’s leather bound comes and three colours. Really lovely silk coated pages because we want this to be a special gift. Not the textbook horrible brown paper. We wanted it to be really lovely, but we did understand that there are people who like my mom with three daughters.
She’s not about to whack out 60 quid on a journal. So we said, okay, well, here’s the five pound option. And also, it gives more people the chance to customise, add in things that they want. And then also we have a free downloadable, which is just the period tracker. So you can kind of get a taste of what that looks like. It doesn’t come with the stories or anything like that. It’s just like a one to print out on an A4 and start to play with, which we’ve had over 500 people download the free tracker. And about half of them have gone on to even buy the digital download or the book, which has been brilliant. It’s a great way to kind of start the conversation with your daughter or nieces, whoever is. Hey, would this be interesting? Is this cool? So that’s all available. And wearethehood.com and it’s the only product that we have on the site. So it’s pretty easy to find but should be available soon as well.
Le’Nise: And I’ll put all the links in the in the show notes. So if if listeners take one thing away from everything that you’ve been saying, what would you want that to be?
Maria: I think, um. I think the biggest journey for me, having gone through this all myself, but then reliving this when we were building the journal with my co-founder and the team very much is I mean, education is power. It’s not covered off in our curriculum. So we shouldn’t rely on schools and teachers to have this conversation with the.
And I think from a young age, if we care about what’s going on with our body, not just from our biology lesson or whatever, but from female health, if we can start to install that, hey, this is the kind of the way that you can self learn self teach. So it’s naturally embedded in all of us to want to know more about our bodies. Want to know more and take ownership of it. I don’t think it’s about sitting down and saying, OK, I’m going to give you a lesson now, OK? This is how it is. I think you should empower all women to want to know. It should almost be a, you know, as cool as knowing, you know, a different language or as cool as it should be, like. Yeah, I know. Or, you know, what the hell is going on.
And I really think that’s how we change the narrative. Change the stigma around a lot of female health issues. . But I think just having that knowledge is, they haven’t read a lot of people be a bit too old for Girlhood now it’s kind aimed at more of the pre-teen market, but a book I’d really recommend it. I’m sure you cover this many times is Period Power by Maisie Hill and it is like my go to I had like a whole list, of a whole bookshelf of go to books for females like always like to reference.
Like Becoming by Michelle Obama, Period Power by Maisie Hill and that one is really good because it’s again, it really does put you back into your shoes when you’re younger and your whole life going. That’s why I never fall. It really does help you to then get that hunger to know more about this.
I’m not going to accept anything less than this, this and this. You know, empowering yourself, young girls to want to learn about their female health is probably the first step or the most important step, I think, in really making progress in this area and really starting to. Just build a more confident, more happier generation of women. Get a book, any book and start reading and start start learning. I would say, I guess if they’re anybody listening to this podcast, they’re already on that journey.
Le’Nise: There’s a lot of women listening that will, or mothers. And she’ll have sisters and nieces and all of that. So everything you’re saying about education and empowerment, they’ll be able to pass that on to them, their generation. Thank you so much. Oh, OK.
Maria: Sorry. Before just before we did, I just remembered this and actually so we had a load of teachers downloading our resources this summer and I reached out to one of them and I said, hey, you’ve got a book. You downloaded the digital version and you download this free planner. I’m not sure at this school. I’d love to have feedback. We’re trying to make some more resources for you guys. And she came out with a really useful information. I did not I wasn’t aware of. She said, actually, yeah, we were looking to put this in the curriculum next term because in PSHE it’s only PSHE has only just started to be mandatory in all schools as of this term, which I wasn’t aware of. I thought everybody had to do PSHE. And she said, and even then, the female health topics, you can choose what you teach. So which I didn’t know that either I thought there was like a curriculum, a set curriculum that you had to teach and that you had to teach PSHE. So it even more so I was just like, whoa. So a lot of parents, I think, assume this stuff is covered off in class. And it’s really important when you’re talking to teachers, when you’re looking at schools for your kids. Ask them if, you know, if you want to, ask them, is this covered off? Because if it isn’t, then that’s on you to really go out there and make sure they have it. And if it is. Have a look at what they’re teaching. Because that really that I mean, it’s very hard to undo. Have a look at the resources.
There was a mom’s group on WhatsApp that someone shared our book there and all 50 of the moms bought the book. And they will put the book because they were like, I’m not taking this into my own hands. I’m not leaving this. They do not teach us in our schools. So they got it. And they all just boom done. And it was so empowering and so cool for me to see these these mothers just just taking it into their own hands and being like, we are not leaving this up to anybody else to educate our daughters. It’s so important. So it’s, I think if you come across that really it’s something that needs to be addressed, that this absolutely should be taught, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t be taught in biology. There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be taught in PSHE, and there should be a really good framework for what’s put into schools on this. That’s just the other thing that I learnt that I think I learnt about a month ago. I thought I knew everything. And then I was like, what? And that’s just something. For all the moms out there.
Le’Nise: Yeah, I didn’t either, but it was mandatory as well. So that was very eye-opening. And I think that I don’t think that parents should be leaving this to the schools. And that I mean, that’s a whole other topic about the taboos around this. But having a conversation early and often. So your children, even your your sons as well, because they need to know know about this. I talk to my son, about this because they need to be comfortable and they need. It’s about helps them connect with their own their own bodies and minds.
Maria: My husband, he’s been a he’s been going through that. But I mean, he’s been surrounded by period stuff now.
Actually, Shawna’s dad had an amazing relationship with her around when she started her first period. And he was actually the one that was showing her the products. And as well as my sister, he was there, too. And I think that also kind of made a big difference for her. But we’ve had a lot of dads buy the book as well, because they’re like, this is great I have no idea how to just start the conversation. This is just a great way to just give it to them and say, hey, I thought you might like this. And by the way, I’m here if you want to talk about this kind of thing. And so we’ve had such a great response for dads as well, because it’s just so nice and easy. And, you know, just lovely way to start that relationship off of your daughter who’s all of a sudden kind of become, you know, into their teens. And, you know, who don’t want to talk to you very much.
Yeah. It’s kind of a good tool to start the conversation.
Le’Nise: Brilliant. Well, I definitely will be recommending it to all my friends. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a real pleasure to hear your story and hear more about the journal. I’ll put all links in the show notes so listeners can find out more about where to get their hands on the journal. Thank you. Thanks again.
Maria: Thank you very much for having me. It’s been great.
On today’s episode of Period Story podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Trisha Barker, a life coach who helps people manage and overcome imposter syndrome. Listen to hear our conversation about Trisha’s endometriosis journey, how she fought for a diagnosis, how she manages the endometriosis pain, how she’s incorporated menstrual cycle awareness into her day to day work life and of course, her first period.
Trisha says that when she was shocked when she first got her period. She had a stomachache and thought to herself: “Am I dying?”. Her mum was there to reassure her and explain to her what happened. Trisha says that she felt really embarrassed and ashamed about what was happening to her and it took her until her forties to get past the shame.
Trisha went on a long journey of trying to deal with her heavy and painful periods, for years using the pill to do this. She eventually decided that she didn’t want to be on the pill because she didn’t believe it was good for her health. After she came off the pill, her period pain boomeranged back.
Listen to hear what happened when Trisha tried to get the bottom of what was behind her excruciating period pain and the moment where she refused to leave her GP’s office until he gave her a solution that didn’t involve more pills.
Trisha explains that coming off the pill helped her connect with her menstrual cycle. She says she wanted to be back in tune with her own body. Trisha shares how she was able to spot patterns through her menstrual cycles and adapt her work accordingly.
Trisha shares some advice for people struggling with imposter syndrome and the key questions they need to ask themselves to move past it. She says that we can ask ourselves better questions and start to find evidence to prove that our imposter doesn’t know everything. Trisha says that when you change what you believe about yourself, you change how you show up in the world. Thank you, Trisha!
Founder of the Imposter Syndrome Solution, Trisha is a Life Coach and NLP Practitioner who is on a mission to help people stop doubting their abilities and believe in themselves, so they can thrive in their career and life.
Trisha’s work brings together her training as a Life Coach and NLP Practitioner, a 20 + year career in Human Resources working for some of the largest FTSE 100 companies in the UK and her own personal pursuit of dissolving imposter syndrome and focusing on her personal wellbeing.
She works with organisations and individuals to help them understand how Imposter Syndrome is impacting their business and careers, whilst helping them to build a toolkit to manage and overcome Imposter Syndrome.
Le’Nise: On today’s episode, we have Trisha Barker, founder of the Imposter Syndrome Solution. Trisha is a life coach and NLP practitioner who is on a mission to help people stop belittling their abilities and believe in themselves so they can thrive in their career and life. She works with organisations and individuals to help them understand how imposter syndrome is impacting their business and careers, whilst helping them to build a toolkit to manage and overcome imposter syndrome. Welcome to the show.
Trisha: Hi, thanks for having me.
Le’Nise: So let’s get right into it. Can you tell me the story of your very first period?
Trisha: Yeah. A little bit of a blur. I can’t remember the exact age. I think it was about 11 or 12. So very, I see that as a young age to start. And I’d been at a friend’s sleep over. It was a friend’s birthday. We’d all gone to have a sleepover. And I remember having really bad stomach pains. But I didn’t want to leave because it was this party. But in the end, the girl’s mum had to ring my mum to come and collect me. I went home and just thought I had a stomachache. And then I actually went to the toilet at some point and saw blood. And I remember at the time, thinking, “Am I dying?”. Well, I, I if if I was taught about periods beforehand, at that moment in time, I didn’t remember any of it. Like I just didn’t know what was happening to me. And I remember calling my mum and my mum coming in and saying, “it’s OK, you’ve just started your period, here are some sanitary pads.” And that was my literal experience.
Le’Nise: So your mind just went blank in that moment?
Trisha: Thinking back now. I’m not sure whether it went blank or I’d never had. I can’t remember whether we touched on these subjects at school. I can’t remember ever having a conversation with my mom where this was normalised for me. I can’t remember. I just remember at the time being so shocked that I thought I was dying.
Le’Nise: And then what happened after you got over your initial shock?
Trisha: We just didn’t know, in the house, and it’s really weird because I was brought up in a house full of older sisters, just so it wasn’t a subject we spoke about. You know, I was given the sanitary towels, told it would happen each month, and then that was it, really. And then you just carried on. And like I said, I was quite young. So starting to have periods at a really young age at high school was quite a horrible thing. Like it was. I felt so shameful. I don’t know whether other people feel like that, but you’ve got this thing that’s happening to you and you don’t really understand what’s happening. And you’ve got to go around your day to day thing. We know that actually the energy and how you feel at that time, you don’t really want to be going out there into the world, but you’ve got to go out. And back in those days, it were really big, fat, thick sanitary pads. So you’re trying to wear those in your school uniform and you had a skirt on, so you felt a little bit like vulnerable. So, yeah, it’s just I just remember that at that time in my life, I just felt like they were horrible and I felt really embarrassed and shameful about it.
Le’Nise: How long do you think it took you to get over that shame? Get past that shame?
Trisha: Oh, till I was in my forties. Oh, yeah. Because I think you go from school, then you go to college or whatever career path you take, and then you go into the workplace and in the workplace, it’s still a thing that we don’t talk about. I always say this to people. You know, you used to put your Tampax up your sleeve to go to the toilet, you just, in the workplace, it’s another taboo subject. So in school and in the workplace, it’s just as women we’re trying to hide this thing that happens each month. We’re trying to be, peppy, you know, and act like our energy is high when actually we feel really low in energy. And yeah, I just think it’s this whole thing until I was in probably my 40s and started to understand about periods, then that was it. I just I will talk about it to anybody and everybody know that.
Le’Nise: I want to go back to what you said about you growing in a house with your mum up in a house with your mum and your older sister. But it wasn’t really spoken about. Why do you think that is? Why do you think you didn’t have that? That those conversations?
Trisha: It’s an interesting one. I’m not really sure because we are very open about lots of subjects.
I don’t know whether it was the time.
Whether it’s the education now that I think it’s so important that we should be talking about these subjects. I just think it was the time that we just didn’t talk about those sorts of things. I don’t think there’s any particular reason why it was avoided.
No, not sure.
Le’Nise: You didn’t really have the conversations at home and you said that you didn’t really remember being taught about it in school. So how did you learn about what was happening with your body?
Trisha: Really to really understand what was happening again back in my 40s. When I spoke to my mum, she told me that I would have a period every month and I would bleed for a few days. So once it started to happen, we had that conversation. She did tell me that. That’s all I thought it was. I thought there was this period of time that I would bleed each month and that was it. But never do we really understand as a woman what happens in our body each month and what are the different cycles we go through in that moment. You know, every woman who I speak to now, they know about the maybe PMT, before they have a period, they know about that period. And that’s it. So I think even anybody at any age, the education of what happens to us women is really limited.
Le’Nise: So for you personally now, you know, you’re talking about going beyond what happened during period and that week before. Yeah. What was that light bulb moment for you? Or was it more of a gradual kind of learning about what was going on?
Trisha: Yes, I think for a long time, I sort of masked what was happening in my body, so when I was I would say late teens, the pain I used to have with my period and really heavy periods when I was at that age. My mum took me to the doctor and the doctor decided to put me on the contraceptive pill because that would be a really good fix to stop that happening. So for a long period of time, I didn’t have that natural cycle. It was being driven by a contraceptive pill. So for a long period of time, you get out of sync with your body, don’t you, because you’re not really in tune with it anymore. And I wish now we would have said, no, that’s not the reason. That’s not the solution to the problem. Let’s find out what the problem is. So for many years, I used the contraceptive pill. It was only sort of, I would say, in my mid to late 30s, I decided I didn’t want to spend so much time on the contraceptive pill. It’s not, I didn’t think it was good for my health. And that’s when I really started to feel again, what happens each month? And I went to the doctors. I remember it was about, about five years ago, still having these horrendous pains are trying to, you know, I had a job where each month I was just hoping and praying that I wouldn’t be out and about somewhere because the pain was excruciating. Like, I’ve never had a baby and I’ve got a really good pain threshold. But that first day of my cycle is horrendous. The pain is so intense. Nothing stops it. And I went to the doctor and interestingly, again, tried to give me a pill. Well, we’ll give you an anti-spasm. And I was like, no, there’s something. I want to know why my body’s doing this. I don’t want the fix. I want to find what is the root cause. And I had to really push, really push. She was having none of it. And I ended up getting referred. And in the end, I went through this whole process of different tests and I had endometriosis and I probably had it when I was a young girl. So that sort of sparked me into this whole, I need to know more about my body, like, how have I missed this all this time? And hindsight’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? But I think that sparked this whole interest. And I was chatting to someone about after, I had an operation for the endometriosis. So then I didn’t have the pain each month. But then I was chatting to someone about I felt like I was really full of ideas last month, last week. And I felt like I was really on top of things. And this week I just feel a bit sluggish. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, thinking there was something wrong with me. And she said, “Have you ever learnt about your cycle, your monthly cycle? And she recommended a book to me. And that’s when things started to change for me. So that was that was only like three years ago. Like, you know, I’m at a stage of my life where I’m not going to be. I’m moving into the stage where I’m moving towards the menopause. I wish I had known this earlier, but, I look at it now that I know this magic now and I didn’t know it before, but at least I do now.
Le’Nise: Going back to the pain that you were experiencing as a teenager. Yes. And then going on to the pill. Did the pill, you used the word masked. Did it feel like the pill masked the pain that you did you experience any pain or?
Trisha: No pain, took it away completely.
Le’Nise: OK. And then once you came off the pill, what was it like that transition of the pill to then having natural cycles and really and then experiencing the pain again?
Trisha: I think I felt much more emotional because, you know, I think for me on the pill, you don’t get those different fluctuations in the hormones, so you feel the same, all month long. And I remember coming off, I just felt a little bit like all over the place, like, should I just go back on it? Because I feel really bizarre. But I remember just thinking, let’s just ride through it and see what happens. I want to be back in tune with my own body. I don’t want to be taking this forever.
So, yeah. I remember at the time. Just feeling a lot of the feels like what’s going on with me?
I’m a woman and that’s what was going on with me.
Le’Nise: And getting that diagnosis of endometriosis so far into time that you have that you have your period getting that. How? How did you. You said that, you know, you wish you had known earlier, but how did that information impact, did it impact your day to day life or was it a feeling of, OK, now I know what’s going on?
Trisha: I think it’s the same with a lot of things, it’s just nice to sometimes have a label to understand what is going on. I think, you know, you go to see a doctor and you’ve got a 10 minute slot to explain what is going on with you. The majority of the time it’s a male doctor who doesn’t under really understand, they might know it from a medical point of view, but from experience in it, they don’t understand it. For me, it was just nice to, now I know what’s been going on, and I felt really proud actually that I’d fought to find out what was happening, rather than accepting another prescription of another different type of pill to mask the pain. So for me, it was a relief. It was a relief and a relief that actually I could, I had surgery. That was the thing that helped me, unfortunately, it has come back so I’m experiencing it again. But at the time, it was just nice to be heard and listened. The surgeon that worked on the endometriosis, he was like, “this is what I think you’ve got. And I am the only person who can find this. Any of the tests that they send you for will not work.” It took to speak to that specialist, to have that conversation about my body that everybody I spoke to along the way kept saying there’s nothing medically wrong with you.
Le’Nise: And you said that you had, so you had the surgery and then but now it’s come back. Did you change anything after you had the surgery? Did you did you change anything in your life or did it make the way that you approach your life any different?
Trisha: No. It just gave me, maybe not the fear. So sometimes, like I said, I was working in a corporate job at the time and I could be up and down the country. I could be in a really important presentation day. I never knew what was going to happen. And so that fear was I always wanted to try and work from home my first day of my cycle. So I think when the when I didn’t have the endometriosis anymore, I didn’t have the pain. So then I had this freedom of well, it doesn’t matter where it happens. Like, yes, I would prefer to be able to hunker down and, you know, feel into the slowing down energy. But, yeah, the fear disappeared because it was OK to be out in public and not worry about having to handle this pain situation that I wouldn’t have. I remember once driving along in my car when it started and I couldn’t drive like I couldn’t focus on driving and managing the pain and I had to pull over and wait for it to go. So I didn’t have any of that anymore. Like it was. It was such a freedom.
Le’Nise: And and now that you said that the pain, the pain has come back, so. Yeah. Is it as bad as it was before? And how are you managing the pain?
Trisha: I would say now it’s worse, when it does come back so. How do I manage it? Nothing seems to work like I’m very fortunate. I don’t know. I don’t think anything in life is a coincidence, but it always seems to work on a day where I don’t have much, I don’t have any client work or it’s a weekend day when I have no plans or actually I cancel the plans if I have got plans, now, I honour my cycle and know that I just need to rest. But yeah, I need to go back to the doctor’s. But until we can go back to having doctor’s appointments. But yeah, that’s one of the things that I need to push for because they all get into a point where, yeah, it’s really effecting me. And then because the pain is so bad, I’m exhausted for a couple of days afterwards because of the trauma of going through the pain, but also the sometimes that the pain is all through the night. So I miss a night’s sleep.
Le’Nise: So we’ve had on the show we’ve had three or four guests with endometriosis and a theme that has run through all of the conversations about their endometriosis, no matter what stage endometriosis they they have is this idea of being their pain or their experience being minimised or dismissed by health care professionals and feeling like they’ve really had to fight and advocate for themselves. What would you say in that in in that sort of theme, what would you say that your experience has been? You know, you mentioned the word fight earlier and to fight for a diagnosis. Can you talk a bit more about that?
Trisha: So when I went to, the doctors, they were very much of the mindset of you’ve got that 10 minute slot, I will give you a pill to fix the problem. And I took that prescription the first time, tried them when my monthly cycle came round again the first day of my period. I tried these tablets. They did not work. So I went back again and I remember him trying to give me a different prescription. And that was at the time that I just thought, this isn’t the solution. You’re trying to give me another, I don’t like taking prescription drugs unless there’s a real need for it. So I think that sort of pushed my decision that I don’t want to take these tablets. And I just thought, this is not the solution. I need a different one and I just pushed. You know, I remember sitting there and just said, I’m not leaving. I need you to refer me to somebody else. I don’t want to take tablets. I want to get to the bottom of this. And I remember I was just quite forceful in the meeting. Like in this 10 minutes slot that you have to refer me. I think he was just shocked.
And he did.
But even when I went to see different professionals throughout the whole of that time. They couldn’t understand that I could have pain without heavy periods, like I wasn’t having a heavy bleed, so I saw about three different people before I saw the surgeon who did my surgery for my endometriosis. But each different person who I saw, they were adamant that there was nothing wrong with me, but they just kept trying to tell me there’s nothing there. But I had this just sense of knowing that this is not this is my body. I’m not masking it with any drugs or pain relief. I know I had, I just had this sense of knowing that. This isn’t normal, I know. And I know there’s something wrong and I will get to the bottom of it. So I feel very fortunate that that happened for me. And. When I saw that final surgeon and he said, “yeah, I think you’ve got endometriosis”, it was just like just this massive sense of relief that someone was listening, that I was probably right, that actually there was something, there definitely was something wrong in my body. And there was a male doctor. That was understanding what was happening in my day. It is incredible.
Le’Nise: What do you think it took for you to be able to fight for yourself in those moments? You know, you mentioned the moment where you wouldn’t leave the surgery until they referred to what poor preparation did you do for yourself in that moment?
Trisha: I think you just get to a tipping point where enough’s enough. Like.
Like.
All the different pain relief you can take. You just decide that that’s not the solution. I think that’s when I decided I don’t want to keep trying to try all these different drugs. That’s not you know, I work a lot through the coaching to find the root problems of what why different things happen. So, again, it’s back to the root cause that’s what’s going to fix something. All of the prescription drugs, all it does is. Like I said before is mask it. So I just went I just as I I’m going into this meeting and I’m not leaving until I’ve been referred. I’ve got a ten minute slot and you need me out of here as possible. So I’m just going to try it and see what happens. And thankfully it worked, so just stick to your guns and just fight for what you want.
Le’Nise: I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about how you said that, now you honour your cycle. And you mention how through coincidence or not, on the first day of your period, you are able to shift shift gears a little bit and stay at home or stay close to home. Talk a little bit more about what else you do to across all of your your menstrual cycle to integrate that and how you’re feeling energy wise into your work and the rest of your life.
Trisha: So I like I said, someone recommended a book to me, which was Code Red by Lisa Lister. And that explained that actually what we’re taught very early on about, you know, we have this period of time where we bleed. I learnt that actually I have all this different magic that happens throughout the whole of the month and in different phases. You know, I learnt about there was a spring, a spring season, summer, autumn, the winter and in each of those, there’s different things happen in my body and different energies that I’m going to get. You know, I’m going to be masculine energy, feminine energy. It’s like a light bulb went off. I was like, we should get this at school. We should understand where we start our periods, what actually happens the whole of the month. So I started to. You got a download to track. So you just start to track on the first day of your bleed, and then you just started to notice what’s happened in my body each day. How am I feeling? How do I feel workwise? What’s going on in my head? I just started to track it. That’s the first thing I did. So I did it for the first month. And then the second month I would sort of look at, say, just pick a day. Day eleven where I might feel a little bit flat. And I’d look back at the chart of the month before and look at day eleven and realise, oh, actually on day eleven and I feel a little bit flat. So I started to realise that there was different energies that I was feeling in those times. So then I started to put the dates of my cycle alongside the diary that I have. So now it might say it’s the, you know, the twenty third today, but it will also show that I’m on day 11 of my cycle. So now when people are asking me if I can do things like I’m moving into perimenopause now, so my ability to plan as well as I did, so for about the last 18 months, I’ve had the same regular cycle. So when somebody asks me to do something, I think, where am I in my cycle? So I know that in autumn and winter I’m a little bit more in my feminine energy. So things might feel a little bit like I don’t feel as sociable, especially when I’m in my autumn. Being able to talk and communicate is a little bit more difficult. I struggle to find the words sometimes and articulate what I’m wanting to say. So I found that spring and summer was the times that I’m more sociable. Great for doing things like this. Speaking to you and delivering workshops, all of those different things, I realised that there was different energy like in all of those different times. There’s a time for planning. There’s a time for getting shit done. There’s a time for accepting invitations to socialise and do all of those fun things. And I started to just experiment with it. Like you can’t always do it. You know somebody, if somebody is running an event, you could say, well, I can’t do it because I’m going to be winter. But. I started to say, yes, I would do certain things, and if somebody asked me for a social thing, I’d think, well, I’m in summer now, so I’m dying to say yes to this because I’m in that energy where I want to be around people and be sociable. But when they want to meet with me, I know that it’s gonna be winter and I’m not going to want to feel so sociable. So it helped me to start to say yes and no to things I thought were right for the energy. And that worked wonderfully for about 18 months. Now I’m moving into a phase where my cycle isn’t as regular so I can have a 25 day cycle, I can I have a 29 day cycle. So the the ability to plan has gone a little bit. But I still use that. I still try and guess as much as I can. And the beauty is I will then go and tweak anything afterwards if then my period comes early. I then look at my diary for the week after and think, is there anything I can move around to make sure that I am using the my energy in this week in the right way? So yeah, it’s just for me. Like I said, I found this out at such a late time in my period journey that I. I wish I had known before about it. Like I said, hindsight’s a wonderful thing. It’s been the most amazing transformation for me. Instead of guessing what’s wrong with me, why can’t I do what I could do last week? Why is my inner critic really loud at the moment? Now I just go, Oh, I get it. It’s my hormones. It’s OK. It will pass. This isn’t me. This is my hormones. And ever since that’s happened, it’s just like this huge sense of relief.
Le’Nise: It sounds like you’ve learnt to really be tender with yourself.
Trisha: Massively, massively. I recognise that we we work in a, in a society that has been designed for men, you know, the working day is designed for a man, the 9-5 is based on the man’s body clock, like we are trying to fit into a man’s world. And we we want to be treated equally. But we have to recognise that we we have a difference like what happens in our bodies is different. And there’s magic in that. Like, if we can work to our cycle, we can be much more productive. We can perform better if we work with that energy. But we can not be in this masculine energy all the time to hustle, the pushing, always being switched on, always being a hundred mile an hour. We can do it, but there’s a consequence to it. Now I know that there’s a flow between the masculine energy and the feminine energy. I just try and honour it more and just always when I feel it in a funk or I’m feeling like I just, don’t have ideas today or I can’t find my words, I ask myself, where am I in my cycle? I just ask myself all the time. Yeah. OK, that makes sense. Most of the time is down to my hormones. It’s just where I am in my cycle.
Le’Nise: It’s amazing how when you start to tune into what’s happening to your body, you learn so much more about yourself and you move away from this idea of dealing with your body and dealing with what’s happening to your body to have a better understanding and maybe not embracing it, but being more understanding of yourself. I just wanted to just talk, for listeners who don’t know some of the terms that Trisha has used. So she’s talked about the summer, winter, autumn and spring. So those are the different phases of the menstrual cycle. And so winter is when you have your period. Spring is when you come out of your period with a follicular phase. Summer is ovulation and then autumn is the luteal phase. So this is the kind of terminology that some people use to to describe the different phases of the menstrual cycle. And it’s a nice analogy for what’s happening across the seasons.
Trisha: That really helped me Le’Nise, because I could think about, well, what happens in winter. Well, animals hibernate, like nothing grows. It’s a really quiet time for reflection in the shorter days. So for anybody listening, it’s really good to start to track that and think about what happens in nature, because that’s what happens in those light, how cool are women’s bodies like we go through four seasons of nature in one month. I just think it’s the coolest thing ever.
Le’Nise: I really wish that we had been taught this in schools or that there was much more emphasis on this in the schools because we spend so much time fighting it. You mention feminine energy and masculine energy and we spend so much time in this, especially when you have your own business, hustling and this kind of feeling like you have to work 24/7, never let up when really, you’re, this is not the way that our bodies were designed. We are designed to have rest. We are designed to be able to take our feet off the pedal a little bit and kind of tend to ourselves. And I do love the fact that all of these conversations are starting to become, yeah, maybe not mainstream, but these conversations are starting to happen more openly.
Trisha: Definitely. And it’s interesting. I love to talk about this subject. You know, I had a career in HR for 22 years in corporate companies that would not want to talk about this subject. And I love, I find this companies now that are interested in talking about these subjects that we haven’t spoken about before. And I hope that this is a shift starting to happen that we need to have these conversations. We need to help women in the workplace. Harness this magic as their monthly cycle. Like, let’s get out of this hustle and male masculine energy all the time, because I do think that drives our health. Like if we asked if our bodies designed to rest at a certain time, but we’re not honouring that, then it’s going to show up it it’s going to manifest in some shape or the other. And I do think it will come out in your health in some way.
Le’Nise: Absolutely. I want to talk about your work as a coach specialising in imposter syndrome and how perhaps some of the learnings you’ve gained about yourself over the last three years have tied into or fed into the work that you do with clients.
Trisha: Yeah, so I’m obsessed with talking to women about their cycles. So if if I have a client that has been, you know, they’ve made real progress, but then all of a sudden they’ve got a day where they’re feeling like really doubtful. The first thing I asked them before anything, what day what day of your cycle are you on? I do it with my friends as well. But I’m always asking people, where are you in your cycle? So I’ve I’ve been able to to carry on whilst it’s about, you know, my specialist subject is imposter syndrome. That’s why you’re doubting your abilities. Actually, there’s times in your cycle and where your hormones affect that. So there’s there’s two times in your monthly cycle where it will be louder than it normally is. And if you can start to understand that actually this is just because of your hormones. So I’m constantly asking my clients. I encourage them to track their cycle. And I actually don’t believe everything that you think, like this moment in time, don’t be making decisions because this isn’t the perfect time to be making decisions, because you’re being more led by your hormones right now. Maybe we can park that and come back to it. So I think it’s just for me, it’s given me a way to be more in tune with my body. And I encourage my clients just to do exactly the same. To start to understand what is happening with you personally. And yeah. A lot of the times it’s where they say. I just don’t feel it this week. And it’s not it’s the week of their cycle. You know, they’re having their bleed. And I’m like, so how are you going to build some rest in. Your body doesn’t want to be going a hundred mile an hour right now? So, yeah, I definitely talk about it with all of my clients, but also the people that I just speak to on a day to day basis.
Le’Nise: So you said that there are two points in the menstrual cycle where that inner critic, that self-doubt that it would be louder. Is it right before the period? And in the first couple of days of the bleeding?
Trisha: So it’s when you go into your spring. So if you think about spring, everything starting to come alive. And that’s when it starts to become like you’re wanting to move into getting things done and making plans and bringing things to life. That’s when it pops up. So I always say to people, if it pops up in spring, say, go away, you can come back in autumn. Now’s not the time. I haven’t got time for you right now. So come back in autumn and then we’ll have a chat in autumn. So, you know, kind of push it, to, I’ll have an appointment with you to come back in two weeks. We’ll have a chat then. Autumn is when it is at its loudest. You know, you get into your comparison. Should I be running my business? Should I go and get a job? Should I quit? Is my work as good as everybody else’s? That really good idea that I’ve been doing. Maybe it’s not so good. You’ve just got to watch. You’ve really got to be mindful and look at it. What’s going on with my thoughts this week? Because that’s all they all, we don’t have to believe everything. But that’s normally what happens. I know that if I start to doubt anything and I think, OK, well, that’s what’s happening now. But because my hormones are driving this, let’s look at this so I schedule some time for the week after when it’s out of autumn into winter and I think, or spring. Let’s have a look at this decision then. Is it still the case of most of the time it’s not.
Le’Nise: It’s interesting, what you said about that inner critic popping up in after you finish your period as you go into spring. Yeah, because you you start to your oestrogen starts to rise again, your testosterone starts to rise. And perhaps, I never really had looked at it this way before, but perhaps, you know, that that growing of kind of feeling, lots of ideas, starting to feel more creative. Back being back in your body, that can be a bit too much. Yeah. Your brain for some people, the brain wants to put the brakes on that a little bit like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s calm down here.
Trisha: Yeah. Because our brain is basically, it needs to keep us safe. So if we’re thinking of pulling ourselves out in the world more or being more visible at all of the things which is wonderful in this spring energy, our brain goes, well, this is a bit risky. This doesn’t feel safe. And it wants to put you back in to that comfort zone. And even if you’re miserable in it, stay where you’re safe. So it is it’s it’s it’s very interesting and it’s good that you put it like that. But it’s linked to certain hormones increasing, which is growing. So we want to grow naturally with that. And our brain goes, no. Let’s keep you safe. Let’s get the inner critic putting you down and hopefully you’ll listen to it and keep yourself safe. But you’ve just got to, like I said, just not believe everything you think or tell your brain. Like I said to my brain, sometimes it’s OK. I am safe. If I do these things, I will still be safe. Thank you for letting me know, but I’m OK. I’ve got it. So I chat to my brain and let it know because it, it, it deals like sometimes you can get frustrated with my inner chatter. So horrible. But it is designed to keep you safe. It’s trying and it’s got the best intentions. It’s just not helping you. So you just got to try and do it sometimes like you chat to a friend.
Le’Nise: Talk a bit about imposter syndrome and why you decided to specialise in this area.
Trisha: So imposter syndrome, I experienced it for a huge chunk of my life. Now when I look back probably from about the age of 10, I can link experiences of how I experienced it right throughout my corporate career. I had a really successful corporate career. And now I look back and think I missed it all because I was constantly waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and go, no you don’t belong here. You shouldn’t be here. You’re not as good as we thought you might have been. Your work isn’t up to scratch. We’re going to have to replace you. Like the whole of that time, I had that niggling in the back of my brain. So when I went to trade as a coach and I kept saying, you need a niche, you need you need to have something that you specialise in. I was looking around thinking I don’t know what it should be. And only through working with a coach, she would say, well, talk to me about what you experienced in the workplace. And I was like, yeah, well, I had all of this going on. And she said, that sounds like imposter syndrome. And I Googled it and I was like, yeah, that’s how I used to feel, wow. And thankfully I’d done lots of personal development and work on myself. So actually, I helped to move myself out of it. Like, I still experience it now, like I’m a recovering imposter. It still comes back every time. Like you said, every time I try and grow and elevate, it’s waited. Whoa, let’s keep you safe. And again, I’d I’d spent 22 years working in the corporate world where we didn’t talk about these things. There was no one I could like. I worked in HR. So there was no one I could go and speak to. But I knew people weren’t coming to me and saying, I’m really struggling with my own self-worth or my stable, my confidence. We were always training people in time management and customer service skills. We weren’t talking about the real stuff that sits underneath us as a human being that helps us thrive more in the workplace. And I was just thinking I experienced this. And I still experience it. You know, the intensity is mild now compared to what it used to be. So I will always be able to resonate with my clients. I’ll understand the journey they’re on. I’ll understand the workplace and how hard it is sometimes to battle with imposter syndrome, while you’ve got all the external factors going on, so I can resonate with that. I will always be working on it myself. And like I said, I’d just like to sort of push the boundaries of the workplace. Like, if we can start to talk about this, then maybe we can start to tackle it from inside the companies as well. A lot of people come to me one on one, but they’re paying for that themselves. But what if companies started to invest in, starting to tackle these things, it’s happening in the workplace. They can avoid it. But if you start to tackle this and let employees know that actually lots of us experience it and we can talk about it and we can look at tools and techniques that we can put in place and reviewing their systems and their processes, because a lot of companies, the way they operate. Actually, it’s a breeding ground. So if you can look at all your policies and your procedures and your ways of working in. You can also change things to help people thrive and overcome their imposter syndrome. Yes. It’s just to me, it’s this big mission of not just helping individuals, but how can we change this whole subject? How can we stop this taboo thing that we all so fearful of letting everyone know that we doubt our abilities? What if we just had these really open conversations? And it’s so wonderful if I do a workshop, you know, the relief that people feel that they’re in a room full of 40 people and then they realise that actually most people in there have those same sort of thoughts going around in their head. It’s such they realise they’re not alone anymore. So for me, it’s just this whole passion of a mission of just just changing the way that people think in their heads, but also that being able to transfer into businesses as well.
Le’Nise: I interviewed someone earlier in the year who said that imposter, her imposter syndrome. It actually motivated her and it helped her not to get comfortable with where she was in her business and her career. What would you say to that? What would you say to people who say that well actually, imposter syndrome isn’t necessarily a bad thing?
Trisha: That’s OK as long as it’s from a healthy point of view. So what I find sometimes is people say it helps me to push myself. It helps me to overprepare for things, make sure that everything is right. But you can fall into the trap then of perfectionism and overworking and having, you know, flaky boundaries. Like you’ve got to look at what is driving me. If it’s a good, healthy driver. But what I find sometimes is that you overwork. And what is the reason you’re overworking? You’re over working to prove that you’re good enough. So as long as you get to, is it a healthy thing, that imposter syndrome is giving me that absolutely. Hold onto it. I’m not saying get rid of it. I’m saying minimise it. But if you find it’s holding you back in any way and or it’s making you feel in a negative way or your negative chatter in your head or your behaviours are unhealthy, then tackle it. But if you’ve got a healthy relationship with it, I’m not saying let go of it. But it’s still definitely back to the, is it healthy for me to be constantly over checking and overpreparing things? You’ve got to ask yourself these sort of questions. I can’t answer for an individual. For me, I don’t think that personally healthy, because if I do that, then I’m not doing other things or it’s encroaching into my time where I should be resting, having fun or spending time with loved ones. I think you’ve just got to do a bit of an analysis on. What’s good about it?
Le’Nise: Yeah. What you’re saying is so interesting, because I definitely say that I have some imposter syndrome, like less so now because I really, really feel like the work that I’m doing. There’s a place for it and it’s important. But definitely when I was working in advertising, I was running a massive account. I was travelling all over the world. But I still had this feeling of this gnawing feeling of, well, you know why, I shouldn’t be here? Why, oh, why am I? Why am I this person? But now I know that, you know, when I go up and I do, I give workshops or do presentations, I know that I’m supposed to be there. They’ve been, I’ve been asked there for a reason. And I know this is the work for me. What would you say to someone who. You’ve given so many amazing tips to people who are feeling imposter syndrome and it’s holding them back. What would you say or your number one tool or piece of advice is for someone who feels crippled by their imposter syndrome.
Trisha: I think one of the first things I always found, journaling worked really well for me. That’s where I started my journey. And interestingly, I just started writing about what I was grateful for each day. It wasn’t actually even about myself. But because I started to look for things that were positive in the day, started to help my brain rewire and look for positives, and then I just started to journal about, instead of asking the questions, what’s wrong with me? Which is it? You know, we don’t know, but that’s a terrible question because our brain is designed to be, to look for the negative. So if you say what’s wrong with me, your brain is like a loyal servant, it goes, oh, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with you. I’ll give you hundreds of things to tell you. You’ve just got to start asking better questions. So I started to think, you know, I’m a coach, so that that’s what my job is to ask questions. So I thought, what better questions can I ask myself? So I started to. Write down these questions and start to write down the answer, and I find when you get out of your head, like when you just allow your thoughts to go round around in your head, it’s like you give them momentum. It’s like you give them power. And they the negative ones just they sort of like linked together. It’s like a big necklace you’re wearing. But I find when you put pen to paper. It’s like you’re letting that little, I call it like your inner mentor, you’ve got this inner voice inside of you that really knows what you’re good at. Who really believes in you. When you start, I found when I started to write things down, I was quite surprised about, oh, I, I can I write. I have got these skills and yes, I have got these strengths and I started to chip away at the belief that I had for me really all all imposter syndrome is it is a belief that you don’t belong. A belief that you’re not good enough, a belief that you’re not smart enough, a belief that you’re not cool enough to be in this space. A belief that you don’t know enough. It’s all driven by what you believe and your thoughts, your feelings and how you behave is driven by that belief. So you’ve you’ve got to tackle your beliefs. You’ve got to start to question what I believe in. Is this still useful for me right now? Like you’ve said, you’ve got to sit down and go, what are all these beliefs that I’ve got about myself? And I do that with my clients. You know, we we go on a treasure hunt, finding all these beliefs that are driving their thoughts, their feelings and their behaviours. And then you’ve got to start to break those down. And if you start to change what you believe about yourself, like you said, if you start to change how you show up in the world. So even if the first thing you do is just start to ask yourself better questions and write down the answers and start to find evidence to prove that your imposter actually, doesn’t know everything, might think it does, but it doesn’t know everything. And I bet you will have every single person I have never met anybody who doesn’t have skills, knowledge and experience that actually proves that the imposter isn’t right. But I think sometimes we’ve got to also recognise that actually we’re in an environment that can, like I said, can make us feel like an imposter. I was the first person in my family to go to college and work in the corporate world. So I was the first professional in my family, so I didn’t have a role model. So this is how careers go. I was the first one in my family. I worked in a real male dominated, white, male dominated environment. So lots of spaces you you go into was the first person and you don’t always feel like you belong. So it’s our own internal thing. We have to teach ourselves that no matter what the external is telling us, that we have to tell ourselves that we do belong in these spaces.
Le’Nise: We do belong in these spaces. I think that’s really powerful as a kind of affirmation. I belong. We belong. I love that. If listeners take one thing away from all of the wonderful things that you’ve said on the show today, what would you want that to be?
Trisha: I would say learn about your cycles like it’s been one of the most precious things that I have discovered in my 40s. So if you’re in your 20s or your 30s, even if you’re in your 40s, it’s good to know because you are surrounded by women in your life. You can help the next generation. We can stop this from happening to women of my age. But let’s stop it. Let’s make sure that we’re teaching the next generations about the magic of being a woman, about power and the energy that we flow in that cycle. If we know that that can change the way that we are. Let’s stop trying to be masculine energy all the time. Let’s. I hate the word hustle. Let’s just not let’s not talk about trying to be a man. Let’s focus on being women, because we are special. We have got something special to offer the world. Let’s use those hormones and all of that energy to drive that.
Le’Nise: Brilliant. Where can listeners find out more about you? If they want to tackle their imposter syndrome, where can they find you to do that?
Le’Nise: Brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Trisha: Thank you for doing this work for someone to be getting people like me talking about this. Your your you’re making things happen, you’re changing what it will be like for the next generations.
On today’s episode, I am so pleased to share my conversation with Leeanne Young, who bravely discusses her health journey from fibroids to hyperthyroidism and a thyroidectomy to an ice crunching obsession and back to fibroids. Leeanne’s story is really powerful and I really encourage you all to have a listen.
Leeanne shares her matter of fact approach to her first period and how she learned about what was happening to her body. We talked about the classic Judy Blume book, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret and Leeanne talked about the impact it had.
We talked about Leeanne’s very early endometriosis diagnosis. After a laparoscopy and medication didn’t work for her, she was given the choice of having a hysterectomy at 25 years old. She opted against this and said this taught her how to really listen to her body and tune into the signals it was giving her.
Leeanne bravely shared how she first discovered she had a 10cm fibroid after a miscarriage. She was led to believe that it would be difficult for her to have more children. Leeanne went on to have a daughter, who is now 12.
Leeanne become unwell again and was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and eventually went on to have a thyroidectomy. Listen to hear the symptoms that made Leeanne realise that something was wrong.
Fast forward a few years, Leeanne felt that everything was going fine. She had started a new job and life was good. Her periods then started getting so heavy that she became scared to leave the house. Listen to hear how Leeanne was able to persevere and get a diagnosis of increased fibroid growth after everyone kept telling her everything was fine.
Leeanne says that we know our bodies best. Our bodies are whispering to us, giving us signs that we need to listen to and I completely agree!
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LEEANNE’S BIO
Leeanne is a people person and classic obliger that operates with integrity and a sprinkle of sass.
She graduated from the school of hard knocks – and is essentially a grafter and thankfully, it paid off. She’s built a solid career in health and safety, specifically, within the utilities industry – which she’s spent the best part of 14 years in. She was recently promoted to Occupational Health and Wellbeing Manager for Morrison Utility Services – a leading utility service provider in the UK and Ireland.
She’s extremely proud and passionate about her current role as her main responsibility is to cultivate and sustain a culture where people are happy, energised and engaged at work – both physically and emotionally.
She’s spent the last two years delving deeper into health, wellbeing and behaviours that enable people to thrive. As such, she’s helped her employer ‘raise the bar’ in regards to increasing the awareness of health and wellbeing topics, dispelling common myths and reducing the stigma around mental health. They’re now embarking on a ‘step change’ that moves them from promotion (which is now fully embedded) to introducing a holistic approach for the effective management of occupational health and wellbeing.
Outside of work, she is responsible for raising a little queen with her extremely patient husband – he deserves a medal, maybe several. Eva is 12 and is her everything. She has been using some of her learnings to help her daughter build resilience through these uncertain times.
Last year she started working with a community organisation called Bro&co – which through food technology, science and mentoring, provides education and leadership opportunities to young boys of colour. She’s very excited about this work and for the forthcoming Sis&co.
Leeanne is also dedicated to her faith, and says without it, she’s nothing. While the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenging time, it has given her the space to pause and reflect; to practice gratitude, be more connected spiritually and think about how she wants to show up in the world in the future.
What’s on the horizon for Leeanne? She plans to study Social Sciences through the Open University later this year and then move onto Psychology. She wants to find out why we do all the weird and wonderful things we do in order to tap into how to really help get the best out of people and enable them (and her), to live their best lives.
Le’Nise [00:00:03] So let’s start off by getting into the question I ask everyone. Tell me the story of your first period.
Leeanne [00:00:09] Yes. So it was not eventful. I’ve been trying to dig back into the vault going back around 30 years. And I just remember that it was one of those events that, oh, okay, this has happened. I was very matter of fact about it, switched into autopilot, went to the shops, bought some sanitary pads, got home. And then I think I told my mom, I remember her being in the kitchen and I told her. And again, very matter of matter of fact for her. And then I think a few hours later, I remember my dad almost saying to me, “oh, so your mother has told me about your, um, you’ve started your menstrual cycle”, a very formal. And I just felt I just felt like I wanted to die. And he said to me, “Right, Leeanne. So you’ve got to keep your room tidy now and shower every day.” And literally, that was it. That was the extent of my first period.
Le’Nise [00:01:15] How old were you?
Leeanne [00:01:16] I think I was 12 or 13 years old when I first started. So, yeah.
Le’Nise [00:01:22] You said you were very matter of fact about it.
Leeanne [00:01:24] Yeah.
Le’Nise [00:01:25] Well, you went to the shops on your own. How did you know what to get?
Leeanne [00:01:31] I think it was just through ads on TV. I knew that. I remember actually looking in the chemist at tampons and I thought, well, can’t do that. Don’t really know how any of that works. So I’ll just buy sanitary pads, that’s safe. That’s easy. And that’s what I did.
Le’Nise [00:01:51] And then you have the conversation with your parents separately. And how did you learn more about what was happening to your body?
Leeanne [00:02:03] I didn’t learn anything about periods via my parents. I learnt all about it at school and in magazines. And I think Judy Blume was quite significant in my life and taught me everything that I needed to know about relationships, boys, periods, etc.. So that was it. I know, obviously, you know, the standard class that you have in high school when the teacher stands in front of 30 kids or an assembly and says this is what happens to girls. This is what happens to boys. That’s it. I actually remember being in an assembly and we were talking about periods. It was actually quite bizarre. And this boy said, “Miss, my mum said that she bleeds a bucket load. Is that true?” And it was that was the point where I learnt that actually you don’t bleed a bucket load. I remember her that saying that a woman bleeds probably half a, the entire time of that period sorry, can fill up like half a teacup of blood. And I thought, oh okay, I could deal with that. That was it, that was all I learnt at school. The rest was with my peers.
Le’Nise [00:03:28] Go back to Judy Blume. Yeah. What was your favourite Judy Blume book?
Leeanne [00:03:33] Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret.
Le’Nise [00:03:35] Oh, that is my favourite too.
Leeanne [00:03:39] She was quite significant in my upbringing and amongst, you know, my my friends at the time. We read to all, you know, all the naughty bits and the things that you can’t talk to your parents about. And it was it was really quite nice, isn’t it? And it’s nice to talk to your friends about things like that. And you all are sharing the same experience, aren’t you? All the same time and. Yeah. It was very systematic. No issue, no trauma. That was it.
Le’Nise [00:04:06] When you think back now to the conversations you’re having with your peers. Do you think about things that you said and think, wow, that was totally wrong? Or did you feel like you generally got it right?
Leeanne [00:04:20] I think that I generally got it right, actually. And it was when I think back now to my childhood, I, I think back very fondly because I, I sound really old saying this, but life was a lot simpler back then. I’m only 41, but actually it was. And we spent so much time with each other and outside away from our parents. And I remember I went to a friend’s house and I used to live in Bristol when I was quite young and we were going to go swimming in Henley’s Lake. And I said, “oh, I can’t go swimming because I’m on my period.” And my friend’s sister said, “oh but Leeanne, you can go swimming.: And I went, “how can I do that? My pad’s going to get soggy or something” and it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? But she said, “oh, no, if you tried these.” And I was like, “no, I’ve never tried it.” It was a tampon. And she said, “look, this is what you do.” And she she was the older sister. Right. And she showed me the tampon and she said, “this is what you do. Blah, blah, blah. And it will be fine. And we can all go swimming and it’ll be great.” So I was like, okay. And I remember feeling really nervous and thinking, oh, God, I’ve got to get this right. But then also I can go swimming. So I went to the bathroom, tried to figure it out, clearly did it wrong because I could feel it. Yeah. And I went I went swimming in the lake and I daren’t cough or anything, just in case the damn thing popped out. But, you know, it plugged me plugging it for a while and. And everything was okay. And then after that point, that’s when I started to use tampons a little bit more because I wasn’t scared of them. Somebody had introduced them to me and I thought, okay, here’s another option. So over the years, I just started to, I suppose, build my confidence in terms of what’s out there and what, you know, could suit me, how I could continue to live the life that I was living. Whilst I’m on my period.
Le’Nise [00:06:23] So, yeah, to you, that was a real turning point for you, that that moment with your friend’s sister. And then as you as you got older, did your relationship with your period change?
Leeanne [00:06:39] Yes and no. So like I said, it was never really a huge deal for me when I was younger because the environment was very supportive, as I said with my friends. I felt that I was part of a club. Everyone was going through the same thing. It was fine. Things started to change for me when I got diagnosed with endometriosis. I was 21 years old when that happened. And prior to the diagnosis, I thought, oh, this what is this tummy cramp? And I thought, well, as it’s down there, it must all be related to obviously my my, um, my reproductive system and periods and whatever. And that’s when I started to resent, I suppose, having to go through all of this, you know, being a woman, you know, what’s all this about? And then, you know, from dealing with excruciating pain and not understanding what that was to then quickly being diagnosed with endometriosis, to then being provided with options, which obviously at first was medication, just to see, you know, what happened with the meds, which was a variation of the contraceptive pill. And then that didn’t work. It didn’t work for me because I was very aware of how my how I was. I was acting differently, though the hormonal changes changed me as a person. I didn’t like it.
[00:08:14] I felt like I wasn’t in control of me. So I said, no, I can’t get on with that. And so then to go from that to. Okay, well, a hysterectomy and I thought, hang on a minute, I’m 21. I was quite, um, quite pleased through my upbringing actually that there were certain things that I just think, well, hang on a minute. No, that’s not quite right. I don’t agree with that. So I did feel like what was happening to me at the time was awful. I hated it and I blamed it on, you know, being a woman. Why? Why me? It was definitely why me. I don’t want to have to deal with this. So that’s when things changed for me. But then when I got the endometriosis more under control, I didn’t have a hysterectomy. What I actually did was I started to that’s when I started to really listen to my body and try to tune in to the signals that it was giving me. And so what I did was I controlled my endometriosis. And I’m not saying that, you know, everybody else can do this through a more holistic approach. Breathing techniques, yeah, to breathe through the pain. That’s what I did. And that’s what worked for me. And so the endometriosis didn’t go away. It’s still there. However, I’ve managed it. I managed it.
Le’Nise [00:09:45] I want to go back to your original diagnosis. So you were 21 and you said that you were diagnosed quite quickly. Yeah. You quite lucky, I have to say, because it it takes an average of between 7 – 10 years to get endometriosis diagnosis. Yeah.
Leeanne [00:10:04] Wow.
Le’Nise [00:10:05] But what I find quite interesting and actually very shocking is that at 21, the doctors are saying that you needed to have a hysterectomy.
Leeanne [00:10:13] Yeah. Yes, that’s right. Yeah. And I had. Oh, no, it wasn’t at 21. Sorry. But that’s when I got diagnosed. And then, when did I get married? I got married when I was 25. So actually from diagnosis through to having a laparoscopy through to the, you know, the hormone treatments or whatever. So that will happened over a period of five years. And then because nothing was getting any better really. They said, well look here, here, here are your options. And I said, well, I’m just gonna keep going as I am then, because I’m not going to have. I’m not going to have a hysterectomy at such a young age. And it was between the age of 21 – 25.
Le’Nise [00:11:05] That is I find that really shocking that that they would suggest that, because what I see a lot is that doctors typically want to preserve fertility and then it’s more when women are in their mid forties and beyond that they start suggesting hysterectomies for conditions like endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroids. And then it becomes a conversation about, well, you’ve already had your children or you’re past childbearing age. So you don’t need your these organs anymore, which we know is completely wrong. So it’s yeah, it’s very it’s very interesting that you have that conversation quite early.
[00:11:54] I want to talk a little bit about the techniques that you use to manage your endometriosis, because it is something that I certainly talk about it with my clients a lot.
[00:12:05] The idea that you’re you can you can reduce the pain, control the pain through breathing, but through different nutrition and lifestyles techniques. How did was it a case of trial and error for you to find the breathing techniques that worked for you?
Leeanne [00:12:24] Yes, it was. I laugh because when when I got the pain and it is excruciating pain which stops you dead in your tracks and you just can’t do anything.
[00:12:39] Your body tenses up everything, tenses and you and you’re just, you know, like a solid brick. And I just thought, well, I’ve seen on on TV, I you know, I’ve seen women give birth and they are doing they are breathing and they are breathing, doing the, you know, that kind of breathing. So I just thought, well, if if a woman is able to give birth and use this breathing technique and she’s obviously suffering, suffering with a lot of pain, then how about I try that? And that’s what I start I, I started doing. So I would I I’m just trying to think now whether I get any kind of initial signs, I think I kind of know when something’s going to happen. And as the pain sort of hits me, I then just start that and, and then get slower and slower and slower until it eases and it goes. And I try as much as possible to not tense, to keep my body tense. I tried to just let it go and just almost work through it. Yeah.
Le’Nise [00:13:50] There’s so much so many interesting things in what you’ve just said there. So firstly about breathing, we know that if we think about a practise like yoga, where breathing so the pranayama is a core part of the practise. And what we know is that when you regulate your breathing, so your the the inhale and exhale that can shift your nervous system and calm down so many different areas. So mentally but also physically. The other the other thing you mentioned, which I see a lot with my clients with endometriosis, is the tensing. Yeah. And you see that they often physiotherapy is really powerful for women with with endo because of that, that tensing and the that the effect that that has on the pelvis, but also on a biological level, because when you’re tensing, your body is using a lot of calcium. But then when you relax, you start to use more magnesium. All right. So that tensin, that process of magnesium and calcium doesn’t happen in the body. So what you’re saying is just it’s your, it aligns with so many other conversations I’ve had.
Leeanne [00:15:12] Oh, thank God.
Leeanne [00:15:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s very common with with women endometriosis. They they tense alot, but you then might introduce something like magnesium and other and some physiotherapy techniques that help unwind the body a little. You can make a massive difference.
Leeanne [00:15:36] Yeah. Yeah I’m sure. I’m sure it. I’m sure it can. Yeah. Pretty sure it can.
Le’Nise [00:15:41] So you got you got your diagnosis and then you use these various techniques to manage the pain and then. And then what happened next.
Leeanne [00:15:51] Right. So I got married and me and my husband lived in a lovely little marriage bubble for four years, which was great. And then we decided that we wanted to have a baby. So we fell pregnant. I fell pregnant very, very quickly after we started trying. And again, that was fantastic news.
[00:16:16] We were in a really lovely, happy bubble. But then I suffered a miscarriage. I woke up one morning and I just knew something wasn’t wasn’t right because I had a blood in my, um. In my underwear. Yeah. We went to the to the hospital and that’s when they told us that we’d lost the baby. And so that was obviously a really awful time. I remember that when they did the internal scan, they said that I had a 10 centimetre fibroid in my way and I was shocked, didn’t know anything about fibroids.
[00:16:55] And they said that that was what had caused the miscarriage. So I we said, okay, well, what do we do? What do we do now? And the I remember, this is quite a number of years ago, I remember the doctors saying, well, we have to, I don’t know, do some kind of investigation or or something. And we said, well, does this mean that we can’t have. Is it going to be difficult to have children, more children? And obviously, the stock answer, well, we don’t know. But it may inhibit or reduce the chances of a viable pregnancy. But anyway, I think I don’t know what happened. Me and my husband just decided to just crack on and fell pregnant again.
[00:17:43] And we had a viable pregnancy because I now how we have Eva. But I do remember again, having, well not again, but I had a very significant bleed quite early into the pregnancy and I thought again that I’d lost the baby I’d lost Eva. But luckily I hadn’t. And and we now have a beautiful twelve year old daughter. So yeah. So what happened with that, with that fibroid. I don’t know, but I’m sure we’ll get back, come on to that in a minute.
Le’Nise [00:18:20] So what’s interesting about what you said is that a lot of women get told who have fibroids is that they won’t be able to have children. And you, unfortunately, had a miscarriage due to the fibroid. But then you had a viable pregnancy. So it’s really interesting because they you can have different outcomes with fibroids. Talk a little bit more about what happened with your fibroids after you you gave birth.
Leeanne [00:18:53] So at that at that time, I, I gave birth to Eva and then I forgot about it. I didn’t do I didn’t consider it because I had my baby. I won’t go into it. But quite frankly, I don’t think it was the fibroid that was the issue. I think it was something else.
Le’Nise [00:19:12] OK.
Leeanne [00:19:13] And anyway, no, I won’t go into that because it would make me very angry. But I don’t I don’t think it was the it was the fibroid. So I left it. I left it for years and years and years continues just to live my life. But then I, I got unwell again. And this time it was my thyroid. So I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism.
[00:19:39] And my options at the time was to have oh, I can’t remember it now, but a radioactive ingredient that goes in that you ingest or to have the thyroid gland removed. So I was really suffering with the hyperthyroidism. For a number of years, I didn’t know at the time that why I was, you know, the symptoms I had and didn’t realise they were related. So it was, you know, extreme sweating, mood changes again, really quite extreme, you know, loss of memory, just erratic sort of behaviours. I was eating like a rugby player, but I was losing significant amounts of weight. I was never putting any weight on. It was it was quite ridiculous, actually, when I think back on it. But the worst thing was how it affected me emotionally. My mental health, I was really struggling at that time. And so, again, presented with an option to have the thyroid gland removed.
[00:20:48] And because the years before that were so hard with me and my husband, we thought that this was the best option for me. I had the surgery, but again, prior to that, they try a load of medication and whatever I did all of that, nothing worked for me. So I had a total thyroidectomy. Surgery went a bit Pete Tong. I had to I went in to had to be put into. Well, actually, the surgery didn’t go wrong. It was the after bit. Luckily, I was put straight into intensive care. That’s what my surgeon does routinely for all her patients after a thyroidectomy, I essentially started suffocating when they took out all the breathing apparatus. And so they had to intubate me and I was in an induced coma for four, five days. And and then obviously I came round and then dealt with after that sort of coming coming to terms with all of that and what happened, potential loss of life. I mean, my husband and my daughter went through maybe two, three years of trying to get our heads around all of that. And that’s when I realised, because then afterwards I was told that my parathyroid glands were damaged. So not only did I have to start taking thyroxine, I have I had to start taking a calcium replacement as well.
[00:22:19] And this is something that I have to do now for the rest of my life. And in terms of the the thyroids as well, it is very, very difficult. It is a long journey to get the balance right. To get the balance of thyroxine right. And I, you know, just completely exhausted by it. And again, that whole. Why me sick of this? You know, this is horrendous. So I forgot about everything else that was going on in my life because I had to focus on that because that was the biggest thing that was happening. I didn’t know what was happening with my periods. Really, I tuned out of that because actually up to that point, I was every 28 days, you know, regular as clockwork. No issue, really. And then I started to notice that my periods were getting really quite heavy, really heavy. But then I thought, well, this must just come with age. This is what happens. And then I started to pin everything on my thyroid issue, my hormones. And I thought, okay, this is maybe just something else. It’s related to that I’ll have to deal with. I’ll just crack on. So if we fast forward a couple of years. So let’s go to 2016.
[00:23:35] Yeah. I started a new job. This is about four years after my total thyroidectomy. Everything was going fine. After a year into that job. My periods were so heavy that I couldn’t. I was scared to leave the house for fear of driving. I’d live. I live in in West London, but I work in Hertfordshire. It’s a 50 minute drive from my house to the office. And in that time period, I would have filled up a maxi pad and also a super plus tampon in that 50 minute period. And it got to the point where I was so scared that I would get to work, get to the car park and I would have come through, that I would just have to turn around and go home. So really, there was no point in me going into the office when I was on my period.
[00:24:37] And that’s when things started to change for me, because I thought, well, hang on. This is starting to affect my my life. This is starting to affect my work. I can’t. I can. How can I phone up my director and say I can’t come into the office because I’m on my period? It sounds utterly ridiculous, but it’s the truth. So I had to suck it up. I had to deal with it. I had to do. I dealt well, I didn’t have to, but I dealt with the accidents, you know, the embarrassment, the. This is this just what what’s happening to me right now.
[00:25:11] And then I started to notice other things. I started to notice a change in my eyesight. I’d be driving and the right side of my eye was which I would almost lose a bit of my peripheral vision, which starts to frighten me. I started to notice that I was extremely tired. I’d go to sleep. I’d wake up and it wouldn’t would I feel like I hadn’t actually slept. And I thought, what the hell? What’s going on? Didn’t connect the dots at the time. Just thought, oh, Leeanne, you know, you’re a mess, but just keep going. Right. So I kept going until I just thought, no, this is probably dangerous. Now, me, me driving, don’t know what’s going on. I started yoga and was loving it. Bikram yoga. Absolutely fantastic for the mind and the body. And then I started to feel really faint in my yoga, in the yoga classes every so I just saw what’s going on. Is it because it’s too hot? But hang on. I’ve been doing this for a while now, but literally feeling like I was just gonna pass out. So I stopped. I stopped going to yoga. I went to the GP. They sent me to I went to the GP, went to the opticians. And obviously everything. Nothing came back sort of conclusive. You know, you’re fine. Everything is okay. But then so I thought, okay, fine. Kept going. Kept going. Things were getting worse. It was worse. I started to speak to my sister when I whenever I speak to my sister in a sign she said, “Leeanne, are you running or something?”
[00:26:51] I said, no. She said, “Why are you so short of breath?” And I said, “Really? I said, No, I’m not doing anything. I’m just walking around the house.” So shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, loss of memory, not able to concentrate. You know, I could list all these things. Classic signs of anaemia.
[00:27:13] So I went to the doctor again and had another blood test. I was used to these because of my thyroid condition. And the doctor said to me, “wow, Leeanne, your iron and your haemoglobin and ferritin levels are so low. I actually need to admit you to hospital, like, right now.” So I said, “what, what? What the hell? What what’s all this about? What’s going on? Why?” And she said, “well, tell me about your periods.” I said, “well, you know, they’re really heavy and blah, blah, blah.” And she’s like, “right, okay. Well, I think we need to do some investigation work to find out what’s going on, because it sounds like your periods are too heavy.” So I thought at that point I’m gonna go via private healthcare. Yeah. Because I’m so privileged that I have this facility. So I thought, okay, look, let’s let’s go down that route and and see what happens, what comes of that. So I saw a gynaecologist and had a scan and the gynaecologist said to me, “oh, you’re presenting four months pregnant. You have about six or seven fibroids in there all the size of a small tangerine. This is what’s causing your heavy periods.” When she said to me, “what are your periods like” and I said, “well, I use a super plus tampon and a pad and I have to change that every hour.”
[00:28:45] And she went, “Whoa.” And I said, “Is that not normal?” She said, “No.” it sounds ridiculous. Well, I didn’t know. I thought that was normal. I thought that’s what we had to go through.
Le’Nise [00:29:01] But it’s interesting because at the beginning of the conversation, you said that you remember this lesson from school where they talked about 1/2 a teacup. So what you thought was normal changed for you.
Leeanne [00:29:17] Yeah.
Le’Nise [00:29:18] Based on everything you had been going through.
Leeanne [00:29:20] Yes. Yes. So I pinned it on the experiences over the last five, six years. Right. So I thought, well, it must be that I’m getting older. I’ve had, you know, thyroid surgery. I’m taking a load of hormone tablets. So I think tablets are affecting my hormones. It must be these things that’s causing, you know, the heavy the heavy periods. You’re absolutely right. I don’t know why I didn’t even think about that. So. So, yeah. So that happened. This was just last year. All of this happened. So the first thing was to have an iron infusion. Yeah, to to actually help me feel better sort of immediately. And then my gynaecologist suggested I should have a Mirena coil fitted. So I had the Mirena, the Mirena coil fitted in November last year. Yeah.
Le’Nise [00:30:19] And what did, the iron infusion I mean, just to give a kind of clinical perspective, to have an iron infusion. You have to have a ferritin level of, I think it’s of below something like eight.
Leeanne [00:30:35] Yeah, yeah.
Le’Nise [00:30:37] I can just imagine how you were feeling at the time. The heavy bleeding, the the extreme fatigue. And I see that a lot with with clients with fibroids. That iron infusion, how did you how did you feel afterwards?
Leeanne [00:30:57] So the haemotologist said to me, he was a great, great guy. I’ve actually met a load of really great doctors and nurses throughout this this crazy process. I’ve been through a crazy journey, should I say. He explained to me that I would feel I would start to feel different after, you know, two, three weeks, because essentially I was I’d be making new blood. So that would then be oxygenised. I don’t even know if that’s a word, in my body I would just start to feel the benefits then. One of the things that I noticed so I have suffered from anaemia throughout my my life, I suppose, since I started my periods.
[00:31:49] And it’s always been up and down. Yeah. And I have been going to GPs and saying, “oh, I’m feeling tired.” Not as bad as as, you know, what I’ve experienced recently. Really tired. Oh yeah. Yeah. You you have anaemia. You need to take some iron tablets. And I keep on, I kept on saying to them, these iron tablets really aren’t agreeing with me.
[00:32:12] I am getting really bad cramping pains in my stomach. I feel nauseous. It’s just awful. Is that no alternative? No. Here’s another alternative to an iron tablet. Okay, fine. I’ll take them off you, but I won’t take them. Yeah.
[00:32:34] So I tried to introduce iron rich foods into my diet. However, you know, those will only take you so far. Yeah. For me again, in that whole time I used to crunch ice. I used to eat ice. Yeah. All the time. And it annoyed my entire family. Right. And I thought what I do when I want it just felt like the most normal thing for me to do. I’d, you know, go into the freezer, get a load of blocks of ice, sit down and just go on eating all this ice. Right. And the most significant change that happened to me after that iron infusion was I stopped eating ice. I can’t even begin to explain to you how huge this is in my life. Right. Whenever you see Leeanne in ber comfort, you know, in her comfortable space, you see Leeanne with a glass of ice. Right. The ice went. I didn’t know that was a symptom. It’s one of the symptoms of of anaemia. Right. One of the weird and wonderful symptoms. That was the biggest thing that I noticed and stopped eating ice.
Leeanne [00:33:47] And then slowly but surely, I started to get some energy back, which is quite remarkable. I was able to go for walk to the park with my daughter. Without me, you know, feeling like I was going to pass out. So, yeah, it was quite significant, significant change.
Le’Nise [00:34:04] So this symptom that you mentioned, it’s something called pica, where you want to eat things that are non food related because your body is just has this intense need for this for whatever the mineral is. In this case, it’s iron. So it’s interesting. I don’t see that a lot. But that’s very interesting that you had that. So you had the infusion and this is all last year. Yes. And then what did they say to about the six or seven tangerine sized fibroids? And I just actually, for listeners who don’t know what fibroids are, they are non-cancerous growths that can be in the uterus, within the muscular lining of the uterus or outside of the uterus. And they can be as small as a cherry and they can be as big as a watermelon. So for you, what what was the next step with addressing the fibroids?
Leeanne [00:35:04] So the next step with well, the next step was addressing the bleeding. So that’s why we opted to go to have the Mirena coil fitted. So the gynaecologist were recommended having that procedure first and actually seeing if it would stop the bleeding because or reduce it significantly, because obviously then that’s what was causing the anaemia, which then was why I was getting tired of blah, blah, blah. The fibroids have never caused me any pain. So my main issue was the heavy bleeding. So that’s what we thought we’d treat. So we have that. I had that done in November. In so I have the Mirena coil fitted, she said. The gynaecologist also said that if she could, whilst she was fitting the coil, she would also try to remove any fibroids that were in the cavity of the womb. Yeah. And I thought, brilliant. Yeah. Double whammy. Excellent. Let’s go with that. Came round after the surgery and she said we couldn’t. None of them were in the cavity. It was just too difficult. They’re all in the lining, as you said. Subserosal, submucosal. Yeah. It couldn’t be got got to in that way anyway. So she said, let’s just see how you go. And we’ll just keep an eye on it. So I did just that immediately after the surgery. They give you medication, transexamic acid. I was taking to stop you from bleeding too much so that you don’t so that the body doesn’t distort the shape, you know, the the embedding of the of the coil. I stopped taking that in at the start of this year and I thought that everything was OK. I thought, okay, I can deal with this level of bleeding. It was every day. But I knew that there was a certain period that I had to go through whilst the coil embedded in my body. So I went to see the gynaecologist in February this year and I said, “look, everything seems okay. So far, so good.” She said, “Great, fine. Off you go. We’ll just continue to monitor.” And then what I noticed was at the end of April. I. So I was bleeding every single day. Yeah, every single day. Not really heavy, but every single day. But I thought that’s okay. But this is what’s supposed to happen for about six months. Or it could could happen for about six months.
[00:37:54] This is what I was told.
Le’Nise [00:37:56] You were told that you would have daily bleeding for 6 months.
Leeanne [00:37:59] Yes. So I thought, okay, that’s that’s fine. I’ll I’ll keep going with that. But then towards the end of April, the bleeding got really, really heavy. And I don’t want to put anybody off their meals if they’re having meals at this time. But I started to pass blood clots the size of my palm.
[00:38:20] And I started to get really scared because I thought, I don’t know if this is if this is if this is meant to happen. And the bleeding wouldn’t stop. And it was like I was a leaking tap, but a very quick leak. So this was nothing like I’d ever experienced before. And all that I kept on thinking was, you know what, thank God we’re in lockdown and I’m forced to stay at home, because that would be absolutely no way in the world that I could go to work or do anything right now.
[00:38:54] I called the hospital. Obviously, we’re in lockdown. I did not want to go into hospital, but I had to call them. And I said, this bleeding is really bad. It’s not stopping, I’m passing these clots. I don’t know what to do. They said call, they said call, you might be better off contacting,the you know, your gynaecologist, the person that fitted the coil, whatever. I obviously explained all the history, contacted the gynaecologist. And I said, look, I just want to know if this is to be expected or if if something has gone wrong here. So she arranged for me to have some and some scans, internal scans. I went and had the scans and the fibroids had changed. They had grown more. And I looked at the lady that did the scan and though she had a mask on her face, I could tell that she thought, well, I really don’t think anything’s worked here. Don’t think you’re going to stop bleeding. And I thought, oh, for goodness sake, you know. I was really upset.
Le’Nise [00:40:00] Yeah.
Leeanne [00:40:01] So I then had a follow up with my gynaecologist. And then was presented with some options. She confirmed that my fibroids had changed. They’ve grown even more. I now developed polyps in my womb. And so she said, we can do a hysterectomy, again. A myomectomy. And she also mentioned to me, taking an injection that would reduce the fibroids. So these injections every once once a month for I think a period of three months, something like that. However, they would bring about menopausal symptoms. So I thought, I don’t want to do that because, you know, my history now, I can’t be dealing with any of that. So the decision was between the myomectomy and the hysterectomy. And because everything was just horrendous, I at the time we discussed I discussed it with my husband and said, “I’m done with this. I want this over. I don’t want to deal with any more issues to do with periods, fibroids, further surgery.” If I opted for the might for the myomectomy, they would remove the fibroids, but then they might grow back. So there might be more surgery that follows. And I thought, I can’t be doing with that. I’ve done enough. So I said, I want it over. I’ll go for the hysterectomy. As soon as she wrote that down, I knew that actually maybe no. But she wrote it down. I left the hospital. Me and my husband spoke aloud at everything to settle. And I think I just needed a bit more time. I started to think about my options. Is this really what I want to do? And luckily, you came into my life and you suggested something that I’d never heard of, which was the UFE, uterine fibroids embolisation. I emailed my consultant and I said, is this an option for me? We discussed it. She said that it could be, however, because I have multiple fibroids. I might not be the ideal candidate for that. So where are we today?
[00:42:36] I pressed pause on everything. I said to the consultant. I need more time. I actually just want my body to settle because it’s been through a lot. I had another iron infusion. I had that two and a half weeks ago because obviously I know the symptoms now in terms of anaemia. So I knew I mean, you imagine if I’d been bleeding since the start of the year. And then, you know, sort of mid to end April. It was a very, very heavy month.
[00:43:06] I spoke to my mum. I spoke to my mum. And I said, “Mum, this is what’s happening.” And she said, “oh, yes, I remember, you know, so and so”. One of her friends suffered with fibroids and she would be bleeding like a slain mule. Right. Slain mule. Oh, my God.
Le’Nise [00:43:25] A graphic image.
Leeanne [00:43:26] Right. And I’m thinking, oh, my God. But. But. Oh, my God. Yes. That is exactly how I was bleeding. Yeah. No one should have to deal with that. Yeah. Okay. So but then what’s really interesting. So.
[00:43:42] So at the moment what I will say, is I’ve pressed pause on everything I feel I’m starting to feel much better because I’ve had the iron infusion. And it seems like my body is starting to settle down. Yes. Significantly. Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen in in a month’s time or even in a week’s time, but at the moment, I think I’m okay with where I’m at right now. Having a hysterectomy is a major decision. Even at 41, having any kind of surgery. And and that’s the reason why I don’t. Although I said I want it over. I don’t actually take these things lightly. I’ve had surgery. And now I know when you have significant surgery, you remove a part of your body. It doesn’t just affect that part of the body that it’s being taken from that’s being impacted. It impacts your entire body. Yeah, it impacts your mind as well. And for me, having gone through what I went through with my total thyroidectomy and knowing that these tiny little glands are massive and I wish to God that I knew more about it at that time because I don’t think. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I don’t think that I would have opted to have that surgery if I knew more about it and the impact it would have on the ongoing impacts they would have on my life. And, well, what I will say as well is when I did go back to my to my GP at one point and I said to her, I asked her, I said, “Look, in terms of anaemia, so do I. Do I have any other options here? What are my options here? You tell me more. Don’t tell me about medication. Is there. Is there anything else? Can I do my own. Can I take my own stuff? I’ve done a load of research and I know that. And I know that everyone keeps on talking about it now. But, you know, sea moss and bladderwrack and dandelion and Burdock and all these things, I said, you know, can I can I take all these things and will they give me what I need?” And she said, “Leeanne, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know enough about that.” Yeah. She said, “I don’t know enough about it to advise you, on it?” She said, “By all means, yes, do that.” But she said because of the stage that you’re at right now, I can’t recommend that for you. Yeah. You need to have you need to have something now. And I thought, okay, I hear you.
[00:46:19] But the learning from that is if you allow yourself time, if you tune into what your body’s actually doing, there are alternatives. Yeah, I do. I wholeheartedly believe that there are alternatives. And I think those alternatives need to be explored.
Le’Nise [00:46:38] What you’ve gone through is is quite a journey. And what’s really interesting is throughout, as you’re describing it there is this what you just described as you just had to get on with it. You kept going. You kept going. What do you think you would say to someone who is going going through something similar?
Leeanne [00:47:01] I would say talk to talk to as many people as possible. But experts, I think. If talking about it helps because there are things that other people may be going through that you could probably learn from. I wouldn’t have known about the UFE had my best friend not had a conversation with me about a period podcast. And then, you know, your introduction and then you were so brave to come forward and say, but have you considered this. Right. Um, I think that it’s about time, isn’t it, that we had open conversations. I’ve just said to you that I learnt everything that I knew about period through the conversations that I had with my friends in the playground when I was young. Yeah. And reading Judy Blume books. Why is it that that conversation stops as we grow up?
[00:48:03] Yeah. Why does why do we stop talking about it? Why do we feel shame or embarrassment? We shouldn’t. As soon as I started talking about the coil. Right. Everyone. Well, most people. Oh I have that. Oh, I have that. Oh, is it, really. What was your experience. Yeah. Oh, it changed my life. Oh, there’s this is really awful period that you’d have to go through where everything is embedding. But actually, when you get past that, it changed my life. These are the conversations that people were having with me almost after the event. If I had those conversations prior, I think they probably would have helped. Yeah. I probably would have done a little bit more digging. Would have been more informed. Yeah. Probably would’ve felt a bit more comfortable about what was happening at the time as well. So I think it’s important to have those conversations with people. Yeah. Yeah.
Le’Nise [00:48:59] What’s one thing that you want to leave listeners with? You so bravely shared your story today. And I know that my listeners will take a lot out of what you’ve shared. What if you kind of had to distil everything that you’ve said into one thing? What would what would you want that to be?
Leeanne [00:49:19] I think it’s that we know our bodies best. Yeah. And I remember somebody it might have been a yoga teacher saying something about your body is whispering to you all the time. Yeah. And you just have to listen to it. And as wishy washy as that might sound to some people, it’s actually very profound because your body is telling you it’s giving you signals and it’s giving you signs. And what I’ve learnt is and this is the way that I’m trying to have this conversation with my daughter. I’m trying to get her to understand her body, understand it, you know it best. So don’t have people tell you, oh, you, you need to do this or you need to do that. No, you pose some questions. If I do that, what’s the impact? Yeah. What do other people do? What are the alternatives? Is this the only way? Is this the only method? If you know your body and you do your research, you’ll be able to have very informed discussions with experts. And I say that in inverted commas about stuff. Yeah. So I think that’s the one thing that I would I would say to people.
Le’Nise [00:50:39] You know your body best. I, I think that’s really powerful and that really helps helps women understand that they when they’re going into these situations with healthcare professionals and they feel like they’re being dismissed or diminished that it gives them the impetus to push on.
[00:51:02] Because if your body is whispering to you. And my yoga teacher said that to me as well. One of my tutors when I was training, your body gives you whispers and you need to listen to the whispers. And that’s where how we’ve gotten to the situation where there’s pain and this bleeding that so many women experience has become normalised. And we need to change that and go back to the idea of listening to your body. But really listening. And really taking those learnings.
Leeanne [00:51:35] Yeah. Can I tell you one really quick thing?
Le’Nise [00:51:39] Yeah.
Leeanne [00:51:39] I remember the first time I had a conversation about periods with a group of older, older women. Yeah, I was with my group book club friends. Yeah. And I don’t know how we got on the topic. We were reading the most horrendous book at the time. I won’t tell you what it was called, because it’s so embarrassing.
[00:52:02] And I actually brought it to the table. But anyway, it got us talking about periods and what not. And one of my friends said that she lost a tampon cord and she couldn’t bloody, you know, get the tampon out and she had to get a partner to come and find it. And then somebody else spoke about a cup that they used rather than using tampons and stuff. And you know what? We were laughing. We were laughing. We were joking. And we were having very honest conversations about what is the most normal everyday thing. How about we do more of that.
Le’Nise [00:52:40] Thank you so much for coming on the show. I again, thank you for your bravery. Thank you for your honesty. And I really hope that you find the healing that your body needs. So thank you again.
Leeanne [00:52:53] You are most welcome. Thank you for having me.
On today’s episode of Period Story podcast, I’m pleased to share the wonderful and very expansive conversation I had with Allysa Rochelle, the Vulnerability Queen and founder of TING. We talked about trauma and its effect on menstrual health, the vulnerability spectrum, why Black women need to embrace softness and of course, Rochelle shared the story of her first period.
Rochelle says that after she got her first period, she kept it secret for 4 months. Eventually, pain become a big part of her period life and she learnt to just get on with it, which she says was part of the negative programming she had around her period quite early on.
Listen to hear about the pivotal moment where Rochelle changed her perspective on the pain she was experiencing and the role trauma played in this.
Rochelle talks about a light bulb moment when she realised that she had been ignoring her needs because she had always been in service to other people. She says that she had to get really still and ask herself: ‘what do you need? what are your needs?’
We had a fascinating discussion about the stereotype of the strong Black woman and how important it is for Black women to embrace softness too and let themselves be vulnerable.
Finally, we talked about Rochelle’s self-styled title, ‘The Vulnerability Queen’ and how important it is to lean into vulnerability in a very intentional way.
Rochelle says that we need to hold space for ourselves and never ignore what we’re feeling. I completely agree!
Allysa Rochelle is the vulnerability queen, she is a podcaster, and the founder of TING, a social enterprise for young creatives. She combines her experience of significant trauma in her childhood and her love for creativity to curate content that inspires people to begin their own healing process.
Le’Nise: On today’s episode, we have Allysa Rochelle. Rochelle is the vulnerability queen. She is a podcast and the founder of TING, a social enterprise for young creatives. She combines her experience of significant trauma in her childhood and her love for creativity to curate content that inspires people to begin their own healing process. Welcome to the show.
Rochelle: Hey, how you doing? Yeah. Good.
Le’Nise: Good. Let’s start off by getting into the story of your very first period. Can you share with us what happened?
Rochelle: Yes, I can. Oh, I just want to kind of like preface before I even start talking and just be like I. My story of my first period. So I am so happy that you asked me to be on this podcast has actually got me thinking about my period. And and I just want to put some trigger warnings in. Now, there’s a lot of stuff that might bring stuff up for other people. Yes. So I just kind of say that before I start. So, my first period, I think I was about year seven, so like 11, 12, that time of age. And I remember being in my lesson and, and being in, like, uncomfortable, but sometimes something’s happening and it’s like a belly ache because obviously as a kid, I’m like, oh, this is a belly ache. And then I remember at some point in the day, going into the toilet and noticing that something was in my pants and it wasn’t red. It was like blood red. It was like, brown, that kind of colour. So I remember being really embarrassed and being like, Oh, my God, have I shit myself type thing, like that’s just the truth? I literally thought that I had, but I’d also be like I definitely haven’t like, I would have know if I did and just not knowing what it was, it was that there was no I had no information as to kind of what was happening into my body.
So, for the next few days, it kept on happening and I just kept on being confused, like watching my knickers at home and hiding them and then just going through that whole process. And that happened. And I said nothing for about I’d say about four months. And then it got to a point when I was like, something keeps happening to me and I’m not I don’t know what it is. And so, like, just kind of I kind of come back to tell me about your first period. When I think about that, I think about how did I, how was I not prepared for that situation? So, yeah. That’s who it was like. It was traumatic. And I suppose it was my first entry. No, it wasn’t my first entry, I was very used to shame by then. But it was like a massive, shameful thing for me because I was unaware of what was happening to my body. I was in a lot of pain and I wasn’t speaking about it at all to anybody.
Le’Nise: So your friends hadn’t had their periods yet, or it was just that you just weren’t having that conversation with your friends.
Rochelle: I think if we had spoken about periods at that point, it was like the same way, like kids talk about sex, it’s like nobody knows what they’re talking about. You’re just saying the words trying to sound like an adult. So if somebody had said something about a period, I probably just pretended I knew what was happening. But I think it was. I don’t know. I probably need to dig into this a little bit more or maybe not, but I don’t know why I never correlated the two, like something. Maybe I didn’t realise it was happening monthly. It was just happening randomly. I mean, I you know, I didn’t have enough information to kind of put the pieces together to figure out that it was it was my period.
Le’Nise: So when did you figure out what was happening?
Rochelle: I think eventually I am. I told my mom, the mom, myself, my mom didn’t have a good relationship because she is extremely religious and extremely conservative. And eventually I spoke to her. She was just like, that’s your period, why didn’t you tell me? And I was like. I suppose it’s like how how, how, why did I not know that? Well, also, like, how did you not prepare me to know that type things? There’s a whole lot of stuff going on. So eventually when I told her, she kind of basically just gave me some sanitary towels and told me to get on with it.
And then I didn’t know is. Once I realised what it was, it. I didn’t. I don’t know if the pain got worse, because I remember I was in pain before I knew what it was, but after I knew what it was, the pain became like. I don’t know, a big part of my period life. Like anybody that knows me, knows that Rochelle has very bad periods. I I’m at times unable to walk. Not much now. And, yeah, lying down. Not going to work. How lucky. It stops my life like that. I got to a point in my life where I was like planning for days off, a month of doing nothing because I physically couldn’t move. And I remember like because of her cultural stance and religion, as I am, say like you get on with it. You do what you need to do. You don’t get to be in pain in you’re a woman now type thing. And so there was a lot of negative programming around my period very early on.
Le’Nise: This idea of just getting on with it. Your mom gave you the sanitary towels, told you just to get on with it, and you took that message even though you were in significant amounts of pain. So four days of pain a month where you plan to do nothing. That’s 48 days a year. I mean, that’s that’s a month and a half of your year being in pain. And, you know, when I talk about pain a lot with my clients and the rest of my work. And being able to put your pain in context like that and say, you know, for 48 days a year, you expect to be in a lot of pain. And the fact that you you have this and you’ve been and you’ve internalised this message of, oh, I just need to get on with it. It says a lot about our culture and how we’ve tried to normalise women’s pain.
And I want to understand a little bit more about. So you said that things are different now. What have you done to change the pain or change? Your expectations around the pain.
Rochelle: Good question. I think it’s also I think I have to say this point, you know, it’s a kind of make my next point. So actually, after I started to have my period. I was probably say after like a year or six months, I started to then be sexually abused. And so I think that. And that lasted a very long time. And I think that my. Because I am I have more of a spiritual kind of like lens on life now. I think that the pain I was experiencing probably got a lot worse because of the trauma was experiencing at the same time. Yeah, I probably would. I’d say I’d probably put money on the fact that it did and my body was reacting. And so now I my, my period pains have only been, I would say, bearable, like I’ve been able to. I remember the last time I had to go home, because of my period. It was last year. So that’s that’s quite a long time for me. Just to have that amount of time not be completely like, on bedrest is a really good time. I would say in the last year or so, I’ve been able to do stuff like that I’ve actually planned to do. And I think it’s because I realised how much trauma I had still stored in my body. And I started it’s kind of like pay attention to it and do like exercises and be mindful of the fact that, like adapting to lose your mentality around pain isn’t normal and maybe the pain is a residue off like, somebody said to me once. And I really hope that I can experience in the way that people understand. She said to me, I was on a retreat and this was in 2018 and the retreat was 8:00 in the morning until 6:00 at night. So we had had lunch and we were supposed to come back and do some activities. I came on my period. And I’m a person. I’m not extroverted. I’m not a look at me type person, I was in so much pain. I couldn’t take part in the afternoon activities and they couldn’t move on without me being in the room. And so one of the founders came upstairs and she said, when you experienced. She came up with magnesium, to give me some magnesium, which is like when you experience trauma, especially in that womb space. She says everything in the universe expands and contracts is how we like things move expansion and contraction.
And the same for your womb. And she said it’s possible that it’s contracted so tightly that it needs to expand for your period, it struggles to do so.
And it just gave me a different perspective because I had never you, don’t I? I just had never seen my body in that way, or I never. I was still working out how everything was interlinked and everything is connected like everything. And I’m still I’m still understanding that now. It still blows my mind how much one thing can really affect another. And I just had this kind of image of like my womb just being so tightly held together, tightly constricted because of years of trauma in that space.
And then. All the pain made so much sense then I was like, well, of course, if you if I if I have to be on my period and my body needs to go through this process, and this used to be because I’m actually quite tight, naturally, as a result, I had to hold it up. And so, yeah, I think since 2008, since I had that kind of realisation and I’ve been more mindful about how the body holds trauma. I think my periods have got better. I think I started to eat better, I’ve started to move my body. I think just having an awareness has shifted for me. So. So, yeah, my period are painful 100 percent. But I realise now it would be for four days. I’m I’m day three and I’m still screaming, you know. I mean now I reckon it’s probably like one day of extreme pain, maybe a bit of pain the next day. Half the day. And then I’m OK. Yeah, it’s it’s not it’s not completely I’m not pain free and there was still time, so I think I take co-codamol like for the pain that I have. But it’s nowhere near as bad as it was like 10 years ago.
Le’Nise: That’s interesting what you say about magnesium, because I see this along with some of the women I work with who have really severe period pain or who have things condition such as endometriosis or adenomyosis, where it’s a contraction in their body and the pain. It also it almost causes them to kind of hold in like tighten everything and kind of they get so used to doubling over in pain or contracting themselves into a ball because, you know, when there are a lot of pain, you kind of all you want to do is lay down. And I know this from my own experience. You want to lay down and you kind of just contract into that kind of. You’re into that foetal position that can be so comforting. But that contraction is a kind of scientific level. You’re using a lot of calcium in the body and then magnesium. It helps. It’s a relaxing mineral. So it helps to release everything. So magnesium, I mean, I recommend it all the time. It’s one of my favourite supplements. But it’s interesting that you’ve seen being able to identify that kind of contraction and having a tool like magnesium and other things you’ve been doing to release that has been so powerful for you. I want to ask about the pain that you’ve been experiencing. Did you ever speak to anyone about it? Did you speak to a doctor?
Rochelle: Yeah. So I have been I’ve been to the doctors. But that’s such a good question as well. I think there’s this thing about doctors not really paying attention very much to black women in pain. And so that was my experience. But I’m also very, very desensitised to support and the system. So I kind of just go in there knowing that, you know, this is awful. But I’m just going to call it out. I expect the bare minimum because I’ve been I’m used to receiving it, if that makes sense, especially when it comes to systems like education and health care. And so I had kind of done my own research beforehand. They never went through like I’ve never been tested for endo. They’ve never liked to do this. It’s just never been anything more than contraception. Here you go. And so I was very I didn’t want to do be on the pill or anything. I tried the pill once and I was so sad. I remember the day. I felt like I was heaving like wanting to vomit. And my stomach because I have IBS as well. I have a dodgy stomach situation, believe it came out really and it was really hard. And I was like day one. I was like, I know you probably could try this for like seven days and it might get better, but I’m not going to do that. And so the contraception that I decided I would take was the patch because it just wasn’t internal and and it allowed my periods to stop and less pain.
So when I so I did that and it worked. But then I just. I just wanted to be more natural. And so I kind of just the idea that, like hormones I have like a weight issue, I gain weight quickly. And I just I’m not on top of my health enough to kind of then add hormones. And it’s like I kind of know that, like, this is a slippery slope. I’d rather deal with the issue. So I stopped using the patch probably around the same kind of time, 2018. After the years just doing it. And yes, that was that’s basically all the doctors have ever kind of like offered me. It’s never been more of a conversation around other things. I do have friends who have endo and they’ve had to tell me they’ve had to fight to be taken seriously about the pain that they’re experiencing. And I do. And I have wondered sometimes if it could be something more serious, maybe have PCOS or maybe, you know, maybe you have. And I’m also very aware that like that I have to call it out, I’m on a journey. This is why I call myself the vulnerability queen. For me, it’s a process like I. I know that I have to get to a process where I prioritise myself enough to kind of like kick down the doors at the doctor. Well, just to kind of like connect that again to my upbringing, I wasn’t really taught that your kind of needs matter, if that makes sense, just to kind of go right to the example of my mum being like here’s some pads, just get on with it. And so I think there’s definitely a remnant of that kind of thought process and programming when it comes to my own needs. Even today, I’m continuously working on so, you know, and maybe in the future I will go to the doctor if I can’t fix it myself. I’ll go to the doctors and I’ll probably get tested for something. And I don’t know what it could be, but I know that there’s something not right there.
Le’Nise: I would really encourage you to explore that because, you know, the pain that you you are experiencing isn’t normal. And I really wouldn’t I don’t want you to continue to live like this. Everything you’re saying is like ticking off certain boxes in my mind. I don’t want to do the whole thing.
It’s like you’re not one of my clients and I don’t want to go down that road on the podcast. But I would really encourage you to speak to a health care professional and explore what options are available for you for testing, because there’s so much there and it’s. It is part of that journey of you knowing that your needs matter. And I want to ask you about that, that that whole idea of growing up and seeing, hearing this programming of all your needs, your needs, they don’t matter. Talk about how you started to understand that your needs do matter and what you’ve been doing to explore that and reinforce that message to yourself.
Rochelle: So that retreat that I went on in 2018 is called The Bridge. The Bridge Retreat. Yeah. If anyone wants to search it up on Instagram, The Bridge Retreat they’re amazing. And it’s all about grieving like things that happened to you. So it could be anything. It could be the fact that you has your house burn down when you were a child and you lost absolutely everything each could literally. We don’t grieve, and that’s the problem, that we’re not naturally like, oh, society doesn’t allow us to grieve in the way that we should be. So in that I understood that just kind of telling my story and having a space for me to be heard. How much I hadn’t been heard up until that point. And. That was just I mean, this is two years ago. I think it is a bit of a light bulb for me. Oh, wow. Like, I have been ignoring my needs and I’ve been in service for other people because my job is always in service. I help people. I support people. That’s what I do. And so kind of like looking at my co-dependency and all the things that have come out of the me not knowing what my needs are. So the first thing was to kind of get really still and ask myself, what do you need? What are your needs? Which is a wild question. If you have if you don’t like, you realise you don’t know the answer to that question. It’s like. I don’t know it can be like bomb drops. How could I not answer that question for myself?
And I’m still learning how to answer that question. I ask my question because I asked myself that question consistently now that what do you need at this moment? And you can start off with something like you’re dehydrated, you need to drink water. You know, I mean, I drink because because you need the water. And and you and your programming would actually tell you to complete a million different tasks for other people before you drink that water. You know you need that or you need sleep now or you need rest because you’re tired and you’ve done enough for today or or you need to be seen in your relationship by your partner in a way that they haven’t seen you because you’ve not said that you need to be seen in this way. Do you know what I mean? I think it is just like it was many different ways of identifying what I needed for me to kind of start feeling like my needs were worthy.
And then because I think another thing as well is that this. I just think the way in which society is formed is so detrimental to people like because this whole thing about ego. I mean, there’s there were massive conversations about ego. But I think when it comes to kind of like people being really firm in who they are and what they need, it can come off as quite abrasive to other people. And so I think as women as well, you’re consistently like ‘oh no, I’m okay, oh no, I’m okay’ because you just don’t want to be this abrasive kind of abrasive, egotistical kind of person. And also being a Black woman. You don’t want to be aggressive or whatever, or all of the things they put on you.
Le’Nise: Quote, quote, unquote, “aggressive”.
Rochelle: Yeah. So I think, like figuring out your needs and then voicing them. It’s a task in itself and then especially for people that are from similar backgrounds as me, but then doing that and knowing the way in which society kind of sees Black women. And the way we’re seen as, once again, aggressive, attitude problems. I don’t know. A lot like that. You have to grapple both of those things at the same time. And, yeah, it it becomes political. Like when you just want to be healing, like you just want to be working out like who you are and how to be. good. And you’re now navigate these identity politics at the same time. It’s just it’s just a thing. And so, yeah, I think just kind of identifying my needs and working out what they were was just a series of me asking myself questions on a daily basis. What do you need right now? What do you need right now? On a very simple level, was like water but on a deeper level when it comes to the part I play in relationship with people. Getting really real with myself about how I do too much for other people. Why? Why I do too much. And what does that take me away from doing for myself? It’s journey, isn’t it? It’s an ongoing journey. And yeah, I think it’s just a long journey.
Le’Nise: What do you think about the the idea of the strong Black woman? And how do you think this plays into this? This idea that we as women, we tend to put our needs second anyway? I think that’s the kind of thing that a lot of women do. But as this idea of a strong Black woman, you you feel like you you can’t show vulnerability. You have to be so-called strong all the time because loads of people are standing on your back trying to get ahead. What do you think about that?
Rochelle: I think the strong Black women like stereotype is mad interesting is what you said is the strong woman, the Black woman is quote unquote strong because she puts everyone else’s needs. Is that strength? Is that strength? And it’s like, why is that stereotype being perpetuated so strongly, you know, because it’s it’s like the Black woman I know are strong. If I thought generationally, when I think about the elder women that I’m aware I’m aware of in my family, they’re very much so women that do carry their families on their backs, for example. Is that is that strength cos I would have preferred to see strength of a woman that put herself first. But then, like I say, it gets it gets political when we start thinking about the reasons why Black women had to pay those role. You know, the fact that Black men are way out of it, especially in America. I need to know more about the way in which the family structure was affected by systemic racism in the UK. I know within America like the men were like taken out of the houses. And obviously you’ve got mass incarceration and other things. So many things paint into kind of why women have to become these strong, but I think it’s strong by default.
I especially like, within a little aside, like a commercial break. I was on a date once with this white guy from a dating app. I would just let me just try. Let me just try something different. Right. And I realised at that moment this is not I can’t do this because I sat with him and talking and he said that he loves Black women because we’re strong. And I felt fire in my chest when he said that: I love Black women because they’re strong. And I was like, do you know why we have to be strong like that? I was like, you can’t like, this is not, it’s not. What is that? What is that? This is ages ago before I kind of, I suppose, had the vocab to really understand it myself. But the idea that, like Black women are seen as martyrs that carry everybody and everything and forsake themselves is not strength to me. And I hate that it’s romanticised in a way and kind of like it doesn’t allow for softness. Yeah. And. I can see what you want about me. I’m very, very formidable. I’m like, I’ve got this, like, energy. People think that I’m strong and whatever else, I want to be soft, too. Mm hmm. And I don’t want to be around people that don’t allow me to be soft because I’m a strong Black. I’ve had exes that have said that, oh, you’re you’re so intelligent. You’re so strong and I’m just like you, this is where the relationship ends because I just don’t like it. I also quite zero tolerance. What I’m doing was I just like you need to be able to see beneath that. So I think I think it’s damaging.
But I think that I think that the strengths and stereotype comes from a need to support a family because society has failed the Black family for a very long time. That’s basically that. And if the society wasn’t failing Black families then the strong Black woman wouldn’t need to exist.
It’s a must read it, it’s so good. So there’s a scene in it that’s similar to the way that your date went, when she goes on the dating app, she meets this guy and then he talks about how he loves Black woman and he loves strong Black women.
And it just kind of the date just kind of descends into chaos from there. Yeah. But yeah, I agree with you that it’s damaging and it leads to this idea that we can’t be soft and it’s also damaging internally because you feel like you can’t be vulnerable because people are expecting so much more from you. And it’s certainly an issue that I’ve had in my life. You know, this idea that you have to be strong, you have to be strong. So many people are depending on you, but this leads into what I want to ask you about, you call yourself the vulnerability queen. Tell me why you tell. You talked a little bit about that in the beginning of the podcast. But just tell me where where this comes from. The Vulnerability Queen.
Rochelle: So I started a podcast, The Vulnerable Podcast in 2017. And it came about because, like I said, my job, I’ve always been in service. I work with people and young people especially. And the role I had at the time was head of pastoral in the school. So I was like looking after the needs of the whole school. And that job was like a combination of all of the jobs I had done that was similar up until that point. So my job has always been everybody else’s needs. And what was happening is I was kind of hearing a lot of stories about people’s, you know, traumas and stuff. And I was realising that I was hearing the same things over and over again and that we were all going through the same things. And shame stopped us from like experiencing those things. Shame stops us from sharing those things with other people, because you didn’t want to, I suppose, feel embarrassed about them. So that was like that was like one point. I was like the reason why I started the podcast. But then I reflected on my own experience with vulnerability and the way how I was raised to, like, not have any vulnerability at all. You do not speak on things that can make me to be seen like I don’t at an extreme level. Like I feel like when I think about my mom and even the way she conducts himself now, I’m just like. It’s really sad that nobody, she doesn’t let anyone in to hurt her person. And it’s a shame and it’s that guilt that stops having been very vulnerable.
And so to me, I was like, no, no, ma’am. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to lean into my vulnerability and encourage other people to do so, too. Specifically, people that look like me, that are from places that are similar to where I’m from because shame eats us up so much, so much more. And, you know, I think it’s easy. I think it’s fair to say they it eats Black people up way more because outside of kind of like, the internal shame in your community, you’re dealing with the racism externally and how that shame can manifest in other places. In your work life, in your education, in life. Do you know I mean, is you’re managing so many, you’re spinning so many plates? And it’s killing us because we know that stress turns into sickness. Do you know what I mean? And so for me, vulnerability, I think where it’s like. You get to kind of release things that you shouldn’t be carrying for yourself or holding something that isn’t yours. And by no means am I like some kind of guru. I’m figuring this out, but I kind of.
I want to call it a thing like I want to say that I am. I am consciously and intentionally working in vulnerability on a daily basis to support other people, to kind of decide that by actually modelling, that to me is really important. And not just to find, just to be like, really, honest if I’ve had to find some balance with that. Because when you’re coming from trauma initially, when you think about vulnerability, it’s like I’m going to tell the world everything about me and everything that’s happened to me. And it’s going to be some type of oil spill of trauma everywhere. Right. Because initially, that’s what vulnerability is like when you first step into it. And on the healing journey. Oh, no, I, I don’t have to say all the things, but I can still get to model vulnerability in a different way. So I’ve had to kind of on the vulnerability spectrum, let’s figure out where is the safe space for me to do the work that I know that I’m here to do, but in a safe way for me. And that’s just something I’ve been able to pick up on and develop my therapy and stuff. Yeah, that’s my thing. I think it is modelling vulnerability. And it makes me think I hope one is my ex-students DM me a couple of days ago, I was just talking about the things that she’s been experiencing and the books that she’s been reading and how she likes my Instagram and stuff like that. And I’m like imagining an 18 year old Black girl from South London is so typically not what you would put together. But she’s able to kind of like see the types of things I am posting and kind of apply these things to her own life and her own personal healing journey. And that’s that’s the kind of I that’s the kind of that’s how I kind of want to that’s what I want to do.
Le’Nise: It’s hard to be vulnerable. And it’s hard to. I love how you said that there’s a spectrum to vulnerability, because I think that a lot of people think that to be vulnerable, you have to completely open yourself up. And if you’re used to holding things for yourself and having everything internalised for so long and the idea of even opening up a little bit is really it’s really frightening. Well, I want to ask, is that spectrum of vulnerability that you mentioned? How can someone who is listening to this and thinking, I connect with that, I connect with that need to be more open, to be more vulnerable. And vulnerability isn’t a bad thing. How can they start on this journey?
Rochelle: I think journalling. Well. I was thinking, like of some big items and I was like, no, there’s no big answer. I think journalling means is helps me to to tap into those kind of feelings that I don’t want to say out loud to everybody. And. Sometimes I’ll just be, there’s journalling that you’re encouraged to do at night. And when you wake up in the morning, there’s that. And that should definitely be done. I think it’s important to do that before you go to sleep. And when you wake up in the morning, put this to me. I’ve caught some of my best like vulnerable, I think best vulnerable moments not like that there’s some type of like race. Like in the middle of the day when something just bubbles up and it just comes out and I’m like, whoa. And it almost brings me to tears. And then I write it down because that needs to it needs to leave. I find that I think giving the vulnerability a space is important. So when you’re having a moment where you’re feeling vulnerable and it’s come out of nowhere, for example, society’s programming will have you bury it and put it back down. And I’m like, create a table for it. Like, let’s put it on a long time. What is going on? Like the like like you would serve dinner on, like a table that’s set. Like, let’s bring that to the table. Do you know I mean. And what is that about. Write it down. You don’t need to know what it’s about right now. But but I think it’s important to pay attention. And I like the ritual of paying attention to me is writing it down. I think people can start there.
I would also encourage, I find friendship really interesting because I have had the most phenomenal friends in my life. People that I can I can speak to about anything. And I am more mindful now that a lot of people do not have that. A lot of people have really superficial friendships. And that, to me, makes me feel claustrophobic. How do you not get to share a part of who you are? So I would say if you’re in a friendship circle and you feel like you don’t get to tap into that part of you that you’ve seen and heard, then make a new friend like put yourself out there. I’m very much just say, like, I need somebody who I can be friends with and be myself with. Write that down, call in and then go out to these places and meet someone that you that can be your friend in that way, because it’s important that outside of yourself that other people are able to hold space for you too you know, in a way, it’s kind of like validation of who you are because we’re not islands are we as people like we feel the things that we feel. But it’s incredible to be supported by someone else. You know, if you don’t have that family, I don’t, it has become my friends. And if it’s not your friends, then your partner. You know, I think it’s important to have someone. I think it’s important to take inventory of who is in your life and who is actually able to show up for you. And if there isn’t anyone you can identify, call someone else in. You have to. For me that’s a non-negotiable. You have to have people around you that are that allow you to be your complete self.
Le’Nise: It’s interesting, you talk about details about journalling and then you talk about how you relate and how you’re vulnerable to others. And this idea, it’s two types of vulnerability. It’s being vulnerable to yourself and acknowledging how you feel and really going there and going deep into certain thoughts and feelings. And then also allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable with others and finding that that support network. I think those two areas are really interesting and really powerful and give people a good starting point. So journaling is something that anyone can do. You can do it on your phone. You can get a book. You know, a bit of paper, doesn’t matter. But this even writing a couple of words down and then thinking about those words is really powerful. So I love. I love those two options that you gave there. I want to talk more about your work. So tell us about your your business, the social enterprise Ting.
Rochelle: Yes. Like I’ve said, I’ve been working with people for a really long time. And in 2018, 2018 was a really pivotal year for me. I keep saying it, don’t I? I look at my chart, my solar chart or something and see what was happening there. And so I left education that year because it became too much. Once again, like we don’t get to separate identities. And as a Black woman working in majority white spaces, it was way too much for me. And supporting Black students at the same time, so it was kind of being asked to support these kids and then fighting for my own kind of like humanity. And if I could, I could no longer do both things.
So I left and I went to work within the creative industries supporting people to get mentors in the creative industries. I realised that and realised that the issue that I faced in education existed outside too. So spaces weren’t safe for Black and Brown people. There was a lot of opportunities created for marginalised groups in terms of like an internship programme and here’s a mentor or here’s some funding. And it was kind of like plasters on wounds. Let’s just give them something. So we feel good. We feel benevolent. And I was just like this doesn’t feel right, because I’ve spent I’d say the best the best part of the last 4-5 is hooking people up with the most phenomenal opportunities, but also having conversations with them about their ability to access those opportunities. So, for example, their family is being made evicted and they’ve just got this mentor and they really want to make use of that opportunity, but they’re unable to do so because of life and the similar things that are coming up over and over again. Mental health is a big thing that comes up, not having jobs for young people. Massive. And how that’s affecting their mental health. And so I was having those conversations way more. And I’m realising that my job title wasn’t paying me to kind of make do with that kind of pastoral stuff. I was just doing it and realising that if we could kind of put some support in place for that, a kind of an equity piece that allows these young Black and Brown people to access these opportunities and then thrive.
Then that’s like a that’s a big piece of work that could literally change a lot. In which the way the industry is because they like you know, everyone talks about retention and recruitment and we need to be more diverse. And it’s kind of like. I just want to get into the nitty gritty of the reasons why. And I just didn’t feel like anybody else saw. And to be fair, my jobs and my life experience have allowed me to see things in ways that people can’t. So it’s not like me throwing shame on the industry, it’s more maybe like let me take my lens and what I know, to be sure and do something. So Ting is essentially a personal and professional development service for companies and young people. And so with companies that might look like, what, I’m going to come in. I’ve had conversations with companies that have internship programmes that I just like, ah yeah, a director gets an email and then we just kind of find it two weeks a month. I know this is nepotism first of all, you know. I mean, like, that’s not going to support diversity. Like, there’s so much going on there. And it’s like, OK, I can come in and help you to develop that internship programme and create like an internship scheme that allows you to kind of get into more diverse communities because I have access there.
And then I can work with the young people to prepare them to go into your space because they need to know they need to have resilience to be in that space. We also need to be a safe space and receive them and know what you’re both kind of working with. So that’s why I’m saying my life has kind of allowed me to see things on both sides and Ting is that we provide the personal and professional for companies and personal and professional for young people. And it’s at the beginning stages. And so I’m kind of at the stage and I was kind of starting sounding like a new entrepreneur, figuring out like the best ways in which to kind of get this done, it’s super new, but I feel like it’s I think it’s going to be really good.
Le’Nise: Yeah. I think it’s incredible. What an amazing idea, because you’re right. These companies have these diversity programmes, these internships.
But it’s kind of like it’s this idea that you, the the young people going in, they need to be prepared to code switch and they need to know what that code is that they’re switching to. It’s like I think I used to work in advertising for a long time, and the example that always sticks in my mind as young people from various backgrounds coming in and it’s the sushi with clients example, you need to tell them that they need to learn how to use chopsticks and that they might have sushi with clients. And some people say, oh, they’ve never had that in their life. They have no idea that how to use chopsticks and kind of need to have that conversation with them. And there’s a million other examples. Yeah. I really love that.
Rochelle: It’s the cultural capital. It’s like they’re not coming to the table, like you say, with the same utensils that everybody else has. Because if you think about the advertising is extremely middle-class, extremely white. And if you think about these young people that work in advertising, it’s very likely that they’ve had dinner parties with other people that work in advertising when they were like 12. I mean, I have been in conversations about things and pitches and brands and stuff, and I didn’t know anything about that until two years ago. I’m that person who had to learn how to eat with chopsticks pretty quickly because I had to be able to understand it and explain it to younger people that were coming in. And I think I’ve just got to a place I suppose, once again, going back to the beginning of this conversation about needs and worthiness.
I’ve I’ve I’m starting to kind of understand that I am the best person to do this job. And like, I don’t get to opt out of that because of my own lack of self things that I’ve had growing up. It’s like, oh, no, this is time to step into who you are now. And in spite of everything, it’s I know this is this is what is that you need to be doing, at least for now. And it requires you to show up in full health. So you’re right. I do need to check out my my period situation. I need to do a lot of things because I. Yeah. When you get to a place where you’ve been doing the work, wherever the left looks like for you and you and you have places like this tells me is actualisation. You have to know that you have to step into that wave, firing on all cylinders, operating on your best health, hydrated, well fed, it’s the only way. Because the truth is this: I can be. I can be as ambitious and romanticise this new thing that I’m about to do all I want. If I’m not healthy, it’s not going to work. And the young people I want to support, they’re not going to get the support. So there’s there’s no there’s no, there should be no trophies for martyrdom. And I think I think that this is why this is the the programming and I’m doing the vulnerability for me. I am so just like I have been taught. I have seen a million times so many women from my community have been martyrs, so many because they didn’t know any better. And I do. And to me, it’s like I definitely have been a martyr for so long. And now I’m like, I don’t want to do that anymore.
Luckily, I’m still alive and I still have my my faculties in place. And I still have I’m so young enough to kind of switch it around. And so I think that there’s definitely a strong call to be like that. We need to kind of, you know, get our house together and really start into the next the next phase of my life.
Le’Nise: And so to round up our conversation, if someone’s listening and you want them to take one thing away from all the amazing things that you’ve said, what would you want that to be?
Rochelle: Hold space for yourself. I haven’t said that explicitly, but I think the whole conversation, there’s been examples of me holding space myself and not all the time did I action anything because I didn’t have the tools to action. I suppose even when I was 11, like having my period, like four months before I even said anything, I was I was present and something was happening and eventually actioned it. And I just think that if you can hold space with yourself and be honest about how you’re feeling good and bad. I call the thing a thing like this is not it’s not something that should be ignored. Do not ignore what you are feeling. Hold space for yourself. Do not ignore what you’re feeling. Write it down and speak about it to someone that you trust. And that and that is on everything. Anything like it. There’s nothing too small. Too big. Like literally anything. It’s so important.
Le’Nise: Thank you so much. I think that’s so powerful. Where can listeners find out more about you?
Rochelle: You follow me on Instagram at @allysarochelle. And I’m quite active on Instagram. So follow me there and then you’ll find links to everything I do.
Le’Nise: Great and all of your links will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Rochelle: Thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation. It’s allowed me to tap into a different part of my experience. And so thank you so much. Amazing. Thank you.
