SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hello and welcome back to episode forty-six. We've almost done a whole year of Empower Your Menopause, the podcast that helps you take charge of your health, your hormones, and your happiness. So, as usual, it's James and Julie here from Fabulous Beyond 40, and this week's topic is one that can be challenging for all of us, but I think especially for women, as it touches on some of those deeper beliefs and emotions that go along with the ageing process. So, for those of you who've looked in the mirror and wondered when you disappeared, or as some people say to us, I'd never thought I'd look in the mirror and see my mum staring back at me, this one is for you. You know, that fight of a battle with your younger self doesn't have to go on forever. So we're going to talk about stories that we've internalized about aging, how they can hold us back, more than probably the physical changes themselves ever will. And we'll also talk about where the stories come from, how we can spot them, and how maybe we can start rewriting some of them. So this is an important subject we both feel, which is why we're talking about it today. So I'm just going to bring Julie straight in to talk a little bit about how women start internalizing some of these thoughts about the aging process and where it actually comes from. So Julie.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, this is this is a big topic, and and you know, I love talking about this stuff anyway. Um, I think one of the things that really hits home for a lot of women is when we look back, we think about how society looks at women, how we're expected to be. The images you see on screen, the images you see in advertisements. I mean, I remember back in my day, I don't even remember what the product was that was advertised, but there was a woman who looked like a model walking in her high heels and suit, swinging a briefcase, and the theme song was talking about I can bring home the bacon, then fry it up in a pan, and never ever let you forget you're a man. And I don't, I don't even remember what the product was. It was Virginia Slims cigarettes or I don't know, something. But the the whole idea that gets perpetuated and has been for so long is that we're supposed to do it all, we're supposed to look perfect, we're supposed to, you know, always dress just so, and our makeup has to be and our hair has to be, and all these things. Because there's some somewhere along the line, there's this warped idea that that youth is the gold standard. I'm here to tell you that we're none of us are getting out of here alive, right? We're all gonna age, we're all aging every single day. Yeah. So so why is it that somehow the 20 or 30 something is the ideal, knowing that it's an impossible standard for us? And I and I look at some of these aging actresses, and I think they're absolutely stunningly beautiful, they're exceptionally talented, and a lot of them only get better with age. And and yet you see in the tabloids and in the news, and somebody has really let herself go, or oh my gosh, here's this really unflattering picture of so-and-so, and she's got cellulite. Oh my gosh, you know, or that whole she still looks good for her age. Well, uh, is there a specific way you're supposed to look for your age? And then unfortunately, all of these messages come at us from so many different angles we don't even realize, and we're hanging on to those in our subconscious mind. And then we take those out and berate ourselves and beat ourselves up with them whenever we don't feel like we're measuring up. As our body changes, we don't look the way we think we're supposed to look. So we feel like we're a failure at dieting and looking after ourselves. Um there comes a time as as we age that we want to slow down a little bit. We want to enjoy everything we've worked for and everything we've spent time developing over our lives. But yet when we slow down, we have this idea that somehow we're lazy. Um, you know, and youth is is overrated, I think, because we forget about how much wisdom and experience and knowledge and skills we gain as we age. I mean, think about it. When you're looking to get some advice on something, or you've got a big life event happening and you want to talk to somebody about it, are you going to go to someone who's in their 20s or 30s and ask for their guidance? Or are you going to talk to someone who's got that experience and got that wisdom, who who understands what it is that you're going through? So I think these are some of the things, or I'm sure there are lots and lots of other things that that we could talk about here. So it being able to find ways to reframe this, I think, is makes a huge difference in our ability to embrace this process and embrace who we are becoming and and love ourselves. We only take care of things we love, right? So we have to find that that inner glow that that we want to take care of ourselves. Because, you know, you can't hate yourself and thin or happy.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Absolutely no. It's interesting, isn't it? Because it strikes me that the social narrative around this is stronger and more negative towards female aging than it is towards male aging, you know. Men uh silver foxes, women are letting themselves go. It's a real difference in in the attitude towards it, and even the term that I'm seeing bandied around quite a lot at the moment, which is this idea of anti-aging, it's almost setting up the aging process as being a negative that you have have to battle against rather than what we should really be focusing on, which is if we want to live a long life, it's longevity, right, rather than rather than anti-aging, because yes, we can try and slow the aging process down so we're around for longer and we have longer lives, but anti-aging kind of sets it up as this kind of like battle that people have to go through. So I think the expectations are quite often unrealistic. Um, you talked about aging actresses there, and I read so many interviews with people, and I used to be a celebrity interviewer in a past life, where people would say once if they're in Hollywood, once they hit a certain age, they almost become redundant. You know, their roles go from being young, sexy, and vivacious to being old and decrepit. And there aren't very many roles for women in that middle area, which effectively is a third or more of most women's lives, right? And there aren't many empowering roles. So I think society almost sets up women for a fail when it comes to this kind of thing, and then of course, the flip side of the image side of celebrity and everything else is this idea of a health and beauty industry that is trying to get women to spend a lot of money to try and recapture that ininverted commas supposedly lost youth or whatever it may be. And we've talked a lot in the past, but just talk about it again. You know, the diet industry particularly is one that sets people up to fail rather than it does to win based on these really um outmoded ideals that capitalise on people's fear and shame. So it becomes a real challenge. And the truth is that because of the way that society looks at at aging when it comes to females, that many women actually blame themselves for what's happening. So things that are total totally normal as you get older, like your metabolism slowing down, therefore, you gain some weight, your estrogen levels start to drop, then you might feel for you might feel fatigued, or you might get brain fog, or you might might get hot hot flushes. Women tend to end up blaming themselves for those things because that is kind of the narrative that's been dictated to them. Not often in a very clear and direct manner, but often in a sort of like under in subtle undertones, microaggressions, if you like, that are just dropped in every so often. And the you know the truth is that shame doesn't help you change, compassion does. So starting to think about how you can feel better about yourself and be more compassionate and kinder to yourself around these narratives that have been drip-fed into your head is a really, really important um part of the process. These things are something that's been installed into you, and you know, you can choose to try and deprogram them if you like. So why don't we talk about some of the ways then perhaps that women can um identify their own stories? Do you want to take take this bit, Julie?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Sure, sure. Um, you know, one of one of the easiest places to start is just ask yourself, what are your personal beliefs about aging? What do you think about it? I mean, I I love to watch these women when they they have this. Well, I like to say once we hit menopause, our give a damn meter gets shut off, right? So we have a lot more um confidence. There are it does happen. There are women who have a lot more confidence. There are women who have that, I'm going to start really being myself now. And that that kind of energy, I think, really makes a difference in our ability to take care of ourselves. Like I said before, you know, you can't hate yourself healthy or happy. And the more we embrace this and the more we say, This is who I am, or this is who I'm becoming, the easier it is for our beliefs to sort of come along with us. And and, you know, don't you don't have to believe everything you think. A lot of those beliefs that you have that were programmed, as you said, James, that were programmed into you, you know, who gave them to you? Who, where did they come from? Think about that for a while. Think about your own family dynamics, think about your relatives, think about your social circles. How do people talk about aging? If you're hanging around with a lot of people who are in the oh, ain't it awful club, then you might want to think about making a change there because the more you repeat these things to yourself, the more your brain, your subconscious mind is going to work to make it right. Because your brain wants to be right. So it's going to find the conditions for you. So you have the power to change that. Neuroplasticity is a beautiful thing. And when we change the way we think, we can change our energy, we can change our attitude, we can change belief systems, and you know, but starting to bring awareness to that, I think, is a really important place to start.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

I think it's important you mentioned there that idea of neuroplasticity. So for readers, for listeners who might not know what that is, it's the concept of you being able to change your thought patterns of over time and reframe some of the traditional ways you might think about things. That idea of sometimes who you hang around with and how other people speak about things and how that's reflected back on you from your past, from your early years, is really, really important to think about that as well. So, does it come from your parents? Is it from the media? Is it from a doctor that said something to you? Who's who's who's talked in a way that has brought these ideas into your head? I know one of the things from my point of view, one of the reasons I feel so passionate about women's health and the ageing process, is that my mum is absolutely fearless when it comes to this stuff. You know, she's 92 years old next birthday, and she's telling me that she's buying an exercise bike next week because she wants to stay as fit and strong for as long as she can.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

So I love it.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

You know, that doesn't mean that you can think yourself younger, but certainly you can think yourself to feel as though you're older and convince yourself that these stories, these narratives that are being put to you are are a reality. And they aren't a reality, the reality is what's what you're actually thinking about yourself. And we hear these things all the time from our clients, don't we? You know, things like my best years are behind me, it's too late for me. Um, I've never been consistent with my health, so I never will be. And if you tell yourself those kind of stories all the time, they're the stories that stick. The story only changes when you start telling a different story, when you change the narrative, when you make that decision to make the change. Yeah, it doesn't come um, it's not going to be given to you on a plate. It's it's more about reframing your own thoughts. This is one of the reasons that we talk so much within our four pillars of health about the think pillar, how you think, being so important to this whole process, because yes, how you eat, how you move, how you live your life in general are all really, really important. But it's how you actually think about things that that can make can can make the biggest difference, I think. And it doesn't have to start massively, you know. You I invite you to go and journal right now or when when we're done and think about maybe what's one thing about aging that you've never questioned, and might that actually not be true when you fleck reflect on it and see if you can't start to do some reframing. Now I know that one of your favorite books is the upgrade, right? So tell people or tell our listeners a little bit about that because there's some really good stories about how to reframe the narrative in there.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah, and and I I love I just love the whole idea of looking at menopause as an upgrade, right? As you said, this is this is a full third to one half of our lifespan. So that's a big chunk that we need to decide how we're going to live it because we get to decide. And yes, there are going to be some things that happen with our with our bodies as we as we age, but the way we take care of ourselves will determine how that plays out. And our brains are literally being rewired as we go through menopause. This is part of that neuroplasticity. So our attitude, our awareness, the things we focus on are going to make a difference in that. So we can rewire ourselves for better clarity, for more confidence, for feeling better in our skin, for being more creative, for blossoming into the women that we are meant to become, the matriarchs, if you will, whatever it is that you see yourself as. And, you know, I see myself as a badass granny at some point. I'm going to be paddleboarding and hiking and cycling until I drop, as far as I'm concerned, like your mom. I want to meet your mom so badly. But but this doesn't have to be a decline. I said before, we've got all this wisdom and experience and these new skills these skills we've accumulated and um developed throughout our whole life. So we can be transitioning into our own personal power, especially as some of these other responsibilities transition out when our kids are growing and moving away from home and we have more time and we have more ability to decide our futures. Um, the brain does remain plastic, as we said, neuroplasticity. So we can change at any age, at absolutely any age. And um as we said, it it it the neuroplasticity means that the neural pathways in your brain fire differently and wire differently when you think differently. So I, you know, I had a an experience with a client, and I I remember when we first talked, she was in tears because she just she couldn't stand looking in the mirror, she couldn't stand herself, she ate and drank her emotions away, she didn't know what to do, and she was pretty sure there was no hope for her. And um, as a full-time caregiver for a um significantly disabled son, um, it was really a lot of pressure on her. She didn't have a lot of time for herself. And I asked her when we first started working together to write down some of the things that she heard that she told herself, some of those things she repeated to herself day after day, just you know, a few minutes a day, not to focus on it, but just for a few minutes a day, when that inner bully starts, just write those things down. And when we got back together after a couple of weeks, um she was reading through it and she was again in tears, she said, My gosh, it's no wonder I feel the way I do. I would never speak to another human being like that. So over time we reframed some of those things. We fought, I don't want to say fought back, but we we quieted the inner bully and replaced that those phrases with with more supportive things. And it was amazing just to watch her blossom from that one shift. It made such a difference in her life. And she started exercising, she started eating healthier, she started wanting to do those things because suddenly she realized that she actually did like herself, and she went from refusing to even look in the mirror to enjoying shopping and putting on her new clothes and modeling and you know for her husband. And and uh so yeah, it it was a huge change, and we started just with those thought patterns. So the the other thing I'll say, and this isn't specifically in in the the book, The Upgrade, but one of the things I find is a lot of times we have this identity that we're hanging on to, and that's ourself, because I hear a lot of women say, I just wish I could be like I was when I in my 30s, I want to be myself again. But we our identity is changing along with us, we're evolving, and it's okay to grieve the loss of that woman you were, and it's perfectly okay to let her go. It doesn't mean you have to let everything go. Take the parts that worked really well, let go of the things that didn't, and and bring those parts of her along with you, but but it's okay to have that little bit of grief just to live there, but allowing yourself that opening because it frees you up to look forward. And I said this in a training we did once that you know the the rear view mirror is a lot smaller than the windscreen for a very good reason. You want to be able to look at where you've been and your surroundings and keep track of what's going on, but the real focus is forward at where you're going. If we keep our eyes in the rear view mirror, we're gonna miss out on all the good stuff that's that's ahead. So that's my deep philosophy for the for the moment. But yeah, it's it's not a it's not a crisis. Midlife can be a real catalyst as we evolve into who we want to be. So, how can we do that? That's the question.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah, well, lots of ways, really. The mirror analogy is a good one, I think, because you know the mirror test where we're comparing ourselves to where we were before is always a challenge, isn't it? That means don't look in the mirror ever, obviously. Um, but what it does mean is that constantly trying to compare compare yourself to what you looked like 10 or 20 or 30 years ago is a real challenge, and you know rather than focusing on on that, actually looking at ways it can identify that you've been powerful in your life, so identifying the the the powerful you instead of looking for the flaws, and there are a number of ways of doing that. One of them, one exercise that we do with some of our clients, is called the mirror test, but it's it's a different kind of mirror challenge, the one that we advocate people do, and that is actually looking at yourself in the mirror and being kind to yourself, telling yourself. That you you love yourself. It's a real, really hard thing to do. Just try it tonight. Now, before you go to bed, you brush your teeth, you're just about to go to bed, look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and tell yourself that you love yourself. You know, offer yourself that same kind of kindness that you would offer a friend of a friend of yours. So by by telling yourself that you actually love yourself, it's a real, really good way of changing that neuroplasticity. When it comes to the power that I talked about, another exercise that we work with a lot with clients, and again, I invite you to try this if this is something that you'd be interested in, is an exercise called 100 wins, where you write down a hundred things that you've done in your life that you consider to be kick-ass or that you've done really well or that you're proud of. So, ways that you can prove to yourself that you do have power, that you're a powerful woman who's who's achieved things. Doesn't matter when you achieve them. You know, if if getting out of bed this morning was a challenge but you managed to do it, that is a win. Stick it on your list. You know, it doesn't all have to be graduating from university 30 years ago, whatever it may be. But try and find a hundred wins so you can remind yourself of how strong you are because you're exactly as strong as as you were when you achieved all those things, but even more so now because you've also got the benefit of all that wonderful experience that you've done. So that is another thing that I do. You can also um we've got a really good future visioning exercise in our mind over menopause training where we talk about creating an identity statement for the menopause, your menopause vision statement. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to be? What is it about your future self that you want to love and achieve and that you're still going to do rather than looking backwards? So, again, taking that big view out of the front windscreen rather than looking in the bast in the back, and also you know, just you don't have to do all this kind of stuff all at once, just the trying that mirror challenge every day for for a month takes what 30 seconds a day, if that, but it can produce some really really big results in your mindset. So here's a little bit of a takeaway prompt for you before we before we before we wrap things up. Grab a piece of paper and finish this sentence. The story I want to tell myself, uh the story I want to tell about myself this summer is, and then write something down, or voice memo on your phone or something, because that is the beginning, your first step in changing your narrative. Julie.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yeah. And I just to wrap up, I mean the big takeaway we'd love you to have is just that the stories we tell ourselves really do matter, but they're not permanent. The story can always change. Um you can rewrite that at absolutely any age. Um, it's completely up to you. You have control over that. The other thing I would love to tell you is that um we're offering a summer transformation program called Feel Fabulous and Five, and that opens for registration today as the podcast airs. If you'd like support rewriting your story, um, your body, your mindset, your daily life, we would love to coach you through it. It's a great opportunity to get some good habits in place with eating simply and healthily, moving your body in a way that feels good, and then getting support, of course, from both of us and a really cool community. So the registration is it's gonna be uh in the show notes. We're charging 49 pounds for just five weeks for all of this stuff that you're getting. And uh if you join before Monday, we'll have a little coupon code down in the show notes as well that you can save an extra 10 pounds. Join before Monday, June 9th at 9 a.m. in the UK. Um, so yeah, just would like to say thank you for listening today. Know this can be a bit of a challenging subject for for some people, but know that you're not alone. As we keep saying, it's it's never too late to start looking after your needs so you can enjoy this really important phase of your life. So on yeah, on that note, we'll just say we're coaches James and Julie from Fabulous Beyond 40, reminding you to stay strong and stay fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

See you next time. Take care.