SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hello and welcome back to Empower Your Menopause, the podcast that turns midlife myths inside out, shakes off all the outdated advice, and brings you empowering insights to thrive in your 40s and beyond. It's coaches Julie and James here, and today we are inviting you to try a little bit of time travel for something different. So not into the past, but into your future, the one where you get to choose what that looks like and how it would feel for you. So what kind of life are you looking for? Given that the menopause journey is going to take up about a third of your lifespan, possibly more, isn't it worth making a plan for yourself? So that's what we're going to be talking about today, how to visualize your post-menopause life and your goals and how to start becoming that beautiful woman who is your future self right now, today. So let's dive straight in. James, do you want to take first uh the first piece of this?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Sure, why not? So, you know, one of the things that Julie and I note a lot with the women that we coach is that when they first come to us, they tend to be stuck somewhat in a loop, you know, trying the same routines, work out on food rules that might have worked back in their 20s and 30s, and they tend not to cut it anymore. So there's an element of confusion that comes there. Then you've got this sort of invisible emotional load, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on. We talk about this a lot, there's pressures on women in general, but even more so during the menopause transition. So you're parenting, trying to be good at a job, um, being there for friends, wanting to be there for their partners, maybe parenting up as parents are getting older, all that kind of stuff creates an additional emotional load to an already emotionally challenging journey. And that's why quite often you might find yourself snapping at your partner or your kids, and then you feel guilty a few minutes later. Wonder why you're so emotional over you know the toaster being in the toaster for a second too long and coming out, like all those kind of things. And so, quite often when women come to see it, I feel as though they've lost a spark and not sure what's happened and kind of want it back, and that's kind of where we step in. And amidst all that confusion, I think it's important to talk a little bit about why this idea of future visioning is important, I suppose. You know, the tired old truck, and again it's a tired old truck because it's true, is that you wouldn't set off to get to a destination in your car without knowing where you want to go. And so that is certainly an element of it. This idea of setting some goals, seeing what you look things are like in the future, trying to aim for some things. Today we're gonna talk, touch a little bit maybe on goal setting, but it this is more about sort of from an esoteric point of view, where do you want to be? And emotionally, how is that gonna make you feel down the line? And people may call this kind of stuff woo-woo. We've got a very good friend who says don't poo pool woo-woo, and that is a saying we all should adapt because you know there's a lot of stuff out there that we don't quite know how it works. Now, I'm not saying that you can envision a better menopause and it's just gonna happen or you can manifest it, or whatever it may be, but certainly your mindset plays a huge role in this. So, we want to talk today more about having this vision idea, is so important, and if you go to sort of like tribes in South America and things like that, where the view of a woman during the men and post-transition is much different to what we have in the West. Here in the West, it tends to be a thing that everybody, including the women, are going through it. There's long been this idea that it's the start of a downhill phase in life, that things are coming towards a natural ending, and just because you're more than or approaching halfway through your life, or more than halfway through your life, that doesn't mean that it's the end is nigh. If you go to South America, remote tribes and Mayans, etc., they view a woman reaching menopause as a rite of passage, as something to be that women should want to achieve, because when you get there, you're in this position whereby you've accumulated loads of knowledge, you've got lots to give, and therefore the tribe considers you an elder. And so there'll be other elements that play into this as well, of course, things like nutrition, diet, movement, etc. etc. But having that more positive mindset about the menopause transition and what it actually means to a woman moving forward means that they tend to have fewer symptoms, and particularly those symptoms that many of the women companies are complaining about, you know, the feelings of overwhelm, the feelings of anxiety, etc. So there's a challenge there that we have with Western societal views. Um, so that's kind of where we're starting off from this. We're going to take you through, you know, the next 25 minutes or so, kind of like why this happens and what we can do about it, and and talk to you a little bit about actually setting yourself, call it a destination postcard, if you like, you know, going forward into the future and seeing if you can envision what you look like, and then have a clear goal as to where you want to be, because then you know how to start moving towards it. So, Julie, why don't you tell us what's going on here from a physiological and a mental point of view? Let's just recap that again. Start the menopause transition and what that actually means for a woman from a mental state point of view. You've actually been through this yourself. Um so obviously you can talk about it with much more detail than I can.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Sure. Yeah, and you know, we have to understand that this is something that we're not going to avoid, um, but we do want to understand what's happening in our body. And I know my my menopause, my journey through the menopause day and uh the some of the years after was really rough because I didn't understand any of this when when I started into it. There was no one to explain it to me or or and I didn't have a lot of resources. So I think understanding what's happening helps a lot so we can reframe our the way we're thinking about it. Because you're right, this isn't the ending of anything, it's the beginning of an opportunity to reinvent ourselves and determine how we want to live that last third of our life and into our golden years. But what happens is there's a lot of internal chaos going on physiologically that we can feel, but we we can't necessarily see. So we talk about all the time as estrogen begins to drop in perimenopause, but when that happens, your body's stress response becomes a lot more sensitive. So because estrogen has a regulating effect with cortisol, which is one of your stress hormones, um, when you have less estrogen, your body becomes a lot more reactive to even smaller levels, lower levels of stress. And that's important because things that we used to be able to just let roll off, you know, or disregard start to become those moments when we feel emotion, a lot of strong emotions. And it might be sadness, it might be rage, it might be anxiety, it might be any kind of emotional tsunami. So, you know, things that are simple, like the there's a a cute cat video and we start to cry, or someone cuts us off in traffic and we start just screaming, you know, as as you said, James, maybe we have a an interaction with a partner, family member. And these these things can add up over time because we don't realize it's coming. It's like watching this happen from outside of yourself when you're experiencing it. And it also, of course, this whole change affects your sleep. So when you're waking up at 3 a.m. and your mind is racing or you can't fall asleep, everything feels worse because you are less rested and less resilient. And so all of those things take a greater toll. So then you throw in some of the other more common menopause symptoms, which, and these are true in paramenopause as well. So we might be having some brain fog, we're having very unpredictable mood swings, as we said, um, and just kind of some some feeling really flat, maybe sad, things that show up out of nowhere that we've not experienced before. So we can think to ourselves, oh my gosh, what's wrong with me? But the truth is that nothing is wrong with you. It's just that we're we don't have the user manual for this phase of life. So then when we look at the contextual load of our lives at this phase, um, you know, hormones aside, we've got busy careers, we've we've got uh aging parents, we're raising maybe teens, maybe we're at the point where we have grandkids, you know. Um partners uh are maybe not changing at the same rate that we are not understanding these things. And we've got home and the dog and communities and friends and all of the other things that are going on. So we're stretched really thin. So all of these layers of responsibility pile on top of each other, and we still put that pressure on ourselves to be able to do it all. So we feel like we're supposed to be able to do it, we feel like we're supposed to be thriving, but all of this stuff that's going on to our bodies inside of our bodies is making that feel even more overwhelming because we're less resilient to the stress. So, you know, and all of this ends up in a knowledge gap. Doctors don't really know very much about menopause. A lot of them have stated they got either zero education about it, other than saying it's a life phase when the ovaries stop uh producing um eggs, or they got maybe an hour of education in medical school. So that's not really a great place to get us a lot of support. And let's be blunt, most of us don't know what this is or that it's happening until we're deep inside of it. So there's been a lot of silence around this. We're finally starting to see more conversation, but even that leaves people feeling sort of disconnected and and still maybe even gaslighted or dismissed because the the information that's out there isn't always reliable and it can be very one size fits all. And every woman experiences menopause differently. So when your body's acting strangely, you feel like your mind is acting strangely, you don't have any control over these mood swings, weight gain, libido goes away, like all of the different things we experience, then you start blaming yourself, right? But it's not your fault. So if you're listening to all of this and thinking, oh, no wonder I feel like I'm losing my mind, as so many women tell us, um, you're absolutely right. It doesn't have anything to do with discipline, you're not lacking willpower. This is a biological thing. So we need to keep things in in context and learn how to prepare. So once you understand what's going on, then you can start talking about okay, where do we go from here? Because we do have a lot more control over our health and our symptoms than we may think. And you do get to choose what comes next. So given that background, James, do you want to share some of your thoughts about how women can start connecting with that future vision of themselves?

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Sure, and thanks for putting that in context. I think that's really useful for people to kind of understand a little bit more about what's going on and why it's understandable to actually feel as though you've lost track or you're off kilter or you're in a different place at this time of life. And so we offer this all the time. You know, we do free calls with our prospective clients or people who might want to talk to us and want some some help from us. In the first instance, we do a free call with them, and I tend to break those down into really three different sections. First one is where do we want to get to, second is what's already working, and the third one, which is usually where I step in and give them some advice, is where do you think you need the most help? Where what do you think you're you're lacking in? And so the first question that I always ask is, and maybe you could do this while you're listening to to the podcast if you want, grab a pen and paper. Um, and by the way, if you do want to book into one of those free calls, it's freecall.fabulousbeyond40.com, little plug there for our free call service. Um, but you know, I'd say close your eyes and think a little bit. Six months down the line, if we hadn't seen each other in the in six months and we met up again and everything had gone perfectly, what would have changed? What would life look like for you six months, six months down the line that you'd be so excited to see me and tell me about? And I think that's a really interesting question. A, because the first thing that people tend to do is talk negatively about the situation that they're in right now, right? And the question, I understand why that happens because that is what's on top of people's minds right this minute, you know, ah, the rage, the anxiety, the hot flushes, all that kind of stuff. It's natural for people to want to go there. But what I want to do is ask people what it might look like if all that stuff has gone away. So what would have changed? And then usually the first answers to that response are along the lines of I'd like to have lost weight, I'd like to feel more energetic. They're kind of great answers and part of the puzzle as well. But then what tends to happen is that there's no figurative context around them. So if you want to lose weight, how much weight would be the next next question. But then, key to all that is not just looking at the because that is more about goal setting. How much weight do you want to lose? How can you put feeling more calm, more confident, how can you put that into a context that is actually measurable? But then the key thing is how does that make you feel? That is the next part of it. That is the really, really important part of it. So, what would achieving all those goals make you feel like? Because that then is real connection when it comes to a future vision. It's not just arbitrarily saying I want to lose weight, it's not just arbitrarily saying I want to lose 20 pounds or 10 kilos in the next six months, it's more about what does that give you? Does it give you confidence if it does why? What is the underlying thing behind that? So I think it's really, really important. There's certain prompts that you can use here to sort of like try and flesh this out a bit more for yourself. In six months' time, what have you stopped tolerating? What is the stuff that is really getting on your nerves right now that you've stopped allowing yourself to do? What do you now say yes to instead of no to? Because they're the kind of things that help build this vision. How do you eat? What's your movement like? How are you talking to yourself? It's so so so important because we all get, and irrespective of man, woman, any other gender, where you are in life, we condition ourselves to speak negatively about ourselves, and it's a real, real mental health challenge across the board, even more so given all the stresses that you just put into context there, Julie. So, how are you talking to yourselves now? How you being how you being kind to yourself? Again, it's one of those flippant phrases, isn't it? You know, you see it on uh uh in frames on people's walls, be kind to yourself, or t-shirts to say, be kind to yourself or whatever. But beyond that just being something that you glance at on somebody's wall or see on somebody's t-shirt and think, oh yeah, I should be kinder to myself, what does that actually look like? So you know, bearing in mind that within all this, that your goal when it comes to future visioning is not perfection, but just having some freedom, some clarity, and some confidence around these issues of what it feels like where you want to get to. Um your future self doesn't need to be perfect, you just need to make a start on it. And nobody's perfect at this kind of visioning stuff. When I first started doing it for myself, I was dreadful at it because it's the kind of thing that, like any other practice, needs some kind of practice. You know, you don't just walk into a yoga studio and end up being the most flexible person in the world within five minutes of being there, and so those first sessions are a challenge when you do yoga, and likewise, the first time you try and visualize something and do positive visualization, that's a challenge as well. So we work a lot with our clients on this. We'll tell you at the end of this session about a training that we have called Mind Your Menopause, which is a future visioning practice that you can take. If you're interested in this kind of thing, it's a free mini course that we offer. If you're interested in this kind of thing, we'll take you through some more detailed steps of how you can get into the real nitty-gritty of this and come up with what we call a menopause vision statement moving forward. But Julie, I I wonder what you what are your thoughts on what happens if you don't have future vision, if you're not taking these steps to do more than just some basic throw-it-in-the-air goal setting techniques.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, this I think the the biggest piece of this is you know, we say we we don't like where we are, but we aren't gonna get to where we want to be if we don't get started, as you said. It's just about taking that first step. And you cannot become that future version of yourself if your schedule never includes time for you. If it doesn't, if you're not part of that that vision, if you're not part of your own schedule, it's gonna be pretty hard. So, so if nothing changes, then nothing changes, right? And one of my favorite sayings that is all I also find somewhat annoying because it's so overused, but it's true is failing to plan is like planning to fail. We spend so much time planning our um vacations, we plan weddings, we plan important parties and anniversaries, you know, we plan for so many things and we forget to plan for life. And this is a really, really critical part of our life. So it needs a plan around it because as we go through menopause and we lose the protect protective effects of estrogen, we are looking at a number of health risks that are increasing as we go along. They don't they don't just go away because we decided, you know, we didn't want them around. And the earlier we start to take control of this plan and execute the plan and take those little tiny steps along the way that are going to build over time, the sooner we get started, the more likely that outcome is to happen. Um, so so putting that plan in place is going to be really, really critical. And of course, taking action. A plan is only as good as the action steps that that happen to make it to make it uh real. So, so you know, the the fatigue you're feeling, the the joint pain, the other things that you're going to you're going through or maybe going through at this early stage are only going to compound and get more intense if we don't take those steps to do. So the longer we wait to do something about it, the further away that that vision becomes. And this isn't about putting pressure on ourselves. As James said, it's not about you know being perfect, it's about giving ourselves permission to finally put ourselves on that priority list, to finally schedule the time to do these things for ourselves. It's about understanding that we are as worthy of the time and energy we give to everyone else. We deserve that too. And when we can learn how to appreciate who we are and who we want to become, then it allows us to give ourselves the permission we need to take those steps. So, so where do we start?

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Yeah, well, the idea of scheduling is quite important. You mentioned before that you know you can't become your future you if your schedule never includes you in it. And I'd expand that a little bit by just saying key thing that we get told all the time by people is I don't. Have time to do this, and really, if you cannot spend 15 minutes finding the time for yourself every day, you need to take 30 minutes time for yourself, so double it, right? Because that means that you really, really need it. Because if you're so max, if you think you're so maxed out, then finding times to time to unmax and look after yourself and schedule time for yourself is super super important. Okay, so you asked, How do we start? And again, that's a common question. Like I said, that little visualization exercise there, just start off by thinking what might like life look like if it went perfectly. That doesn't mean that it will go perfectly, but if everything happened that you want and everything changed, let's start there. And then you know, within all this, there needs to be an element of awareness, I suppose. So, some tips for that are you know, maybe start tracking how you feel. I think tracking is really really important. Just grab a little diary or a notebook, and you know, people track various things at other times in life. I remember when my wife and I were trying to get pregnant, tracking Laura's cycle and where we were in the month, and doing things like temperature gauges and things like that were critically important to that process. And this is no different just because the aim is not to procreate at the end of it. So start tracking things, see how you feel, record how some foods make you feel, think about your energy, your mood, and your and your and your sleep. And I suppose you know the kind of obvious one that we talk about a lot, but it's worth just mentioning again because I think this is one of those things that is easier, I suppose, for many people to just say, Right, I'm gonna start a diet tomorrow, than it is for somebody to say, I'm gonna start future visioning as of tomorrow. Because one is something that we're familiar with, and one is something that we're kind of a little bit scared of because we've not done before, we might not know a lot about it, or we might be challenged when it comes to actually getting pen to paper and writing that down. And I think some of that comes from what I alluded to before, and that's that this idea of all or nothing mindset that we have to be perfect the first time we do this, that that first thing is going to be some sparkling essay that you write down that paints an amazing picture, and that in six months' time you're gonna reach that amazing picture. This is not about this, this is about sort of like trying to massage your thoughts in a more positive way and having an idea of what the future could look like, and then as usual, choose the smallest thing that you could do to change things, and whether that is taking a journal and writing something down, whether it's tracking your energy mood or sleep, whether it's starting to think about this future vision statement, that destination postcard, jump in and just do it, whatever it may be. You know, we talk a lot about PMA, people think that's positive mental attitude, it's not it's positive messy attitude, just dive in and bloody give it a go. It doesn't really matter. You don't need a really rigid plan, and you don't need permission from anybody but other than yourself to do this, yeah? And then some clarity and some support. Asking for help, I think is key. If you feel as though you're you're challenged, we do offer that free call, so feel free to to jump on that if you want. It's 45 minutes of our time that we give you for nothing. It's not about selling you a programme at the end of it. If you do want to hear about what we work like, we can explain that another time. But we do offer a free call. So if you want to ask for our help, ask for it. It's a real sign of strength. And if you don't want to ask for our help, ask for somebody else's help. Speak to a friend who's a little bit more woo-woo than than you are, and and and talk about future visioning and see how it can work out. You know, that is a it's a real strength to ask for help, and then being realistic and having some supported change is also really really important. It's why so many women love being part of Club Fabulous Beyond 40, our low-cost membership, because we help them go beyond that vision, turn it into reality with our coaching, our community, and all those tools that we offer for our for our clients as well. And I think it's worth just saying that when you actually start on this kind of thing, it can trigger warning, become a little bit of a tsunami of writing. I remember speaking to one lady when we were talking about future visioning maybe 18 months, two years ago, and she was cast iron against this, but her self-confidence was was at a real real low. And so I said to her, look, just try this for and try it on and see if it works. And if it doesn't work, that's fine, you don't have to ever do it again. So I scheduled a call with her a week later, and we jumped on this call, and she came, she actually answered the zoom call like this, with a big put it there in front of the camera for people who can't see it, a wad of papers in her hand, and it was front and back writing on both sides. Three, four pages about what a future vision was going to look like, and she painted this most amazing, clear picture of what she could achieve, and she was pleased with herself and proud that she'd done it because she knew that it was an achievable picture. Because once she actually mapped it out and wrote it out, she realized not all that much at its heart needed to change, it just needed that attitude of jumping in, that attitude of putting herself first, that idea of taking steps that work for her, all those things, and she went on to have great success with what she was doing over the coming years. So it's really, really important, I think, to just give this kind of thing a go. Doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be amazing. Just try it, and if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't it won't work for everybody. Not everything works for everybody, we're all individuals. We say that so many times. What works for your best friend is not going to work for you. We find that having some idea of a future vision is a great first step with the clients that we work with. So I think we might just about have exhausted an outline there. Of course, we do have that um mind over menopause training if anybody wants to go into. So, Julie, do you just want to sort of like wrap things up for us before we head off? Because I think we're about coming up to, yeah, 29 minutes. I didn't even look at the clock, but my future vision told me we're about 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Excellent. Yeah, and I, you know, setting aside that time and for yourself and asking for support, I mean, how would you feel if a friend was going through a difficult time and you knew you could have helped them, but they didn't ask you for it? Wouldn't that be frustrating? So don't let that happen to you because the people who care about you, people who love you want you to be happy and healthy and living the life that you want to be living. So reach out because you're not only helping yourself, you're helping everyone else whose lives that you touch. So um, I guess we can just wrap up by saying remember that your future you is actually waiting, but she cannot show up if you keep leaving yourself off of your own list. So next week we will not have a live episode. We do invite you to come and review your favorite episodes or some that you might have missed yet. And um when we do come back, we'd love to hear from you about how this exercise went. Please share maybe one small step that that you've taken. Um, you know, just write it down. Get get yourself a notebook or take out that and dust off your journal, whatever, whatever it might be. Um, of course, we would love to have you as part of our our membership. It's a great low-cost membership at Club Fabulous Beyond 40. So you can see that at club.fabulousbeyond40.com. And if you're interested in that mind over menopause course, of course, we'll leave the link in the show notes for you to access that. It's free. It will take you step by step through some of this visioning work. So if you feel like you're not sure how to get started, that would be a great place to begin. And then, of course, as James said, anytime we have our free calls available, so that's also going to be in the show notes. So we look forward to hearing from you. Let us know how you're doing. Let us know if there's any specific topic you'd like us to address. And in the meantime, we are coaches James and Julie from Fabulous Beyond 40, reminding you to stay strong and stay fabulous. We'll see you next time.