Wise Women Conversations

In this week’s episode of Menopause Conversations, I have Clarissa Kristjansson as my guest. Clarissa is a Mindful and Menopause Expert, Author of the bestseller The Mindful Menopause and the host of Thriving Thru Menopause Podcast. Clarissa believes that life transitions give women the opportunity to explore life differently. In this episode we discuss the important topic of menopause in the workplace and how you can not only keep your job but thrive. Some of the topics that we cover in this episode include: - Why it is important to take a kinder approach to ourselves through peri-menopause and beyond - How to shift from blaming and criticising ourselves to self-acceptance - Clarissa shares her journey through menopause while she was in a high level corporate role - Some mindbody practices to help you to manage your symptoms To follow Clarissa and learn more about the work that she does visit Website Email LinkedIn Instagram Podcast If one of your concerns around menopause is weight gain that won’t shift reg

It is time to get a better understanding of the role that the thyroid plays in some of t he symptoms that are often associated with menopause, particularly weight gain.  In this episode of Menopause Conversations, you will discover: - The role your thyroid plays in keeping you healthy - The specific nutrients you require for a healthy thyroid - Why the liver plays such an important role in keeping your thyroid functioning well - How you can support your liver through food and nutrition Weight gain is one of the most common symptoms that women complain about when it comes to menopause and while the thyroid might be playing a role there are several other factors that are also impacting your weight and importantly your ability to lose the extra kilos.  This is why I have written an ebook called The Secret to Getting Rid of Your Meno-Belly, you can grab your free copy HERE [insert ]

Sandy Davies is the creator of the menopause balm called Happy Pause and is affectionately known as the Vag Queen. Sandy is on a mission to open the conversation around vaginal health as women age. Sandy is also full of life and vitality; this conversation was so much fun to have. Join us as Sandy shares her story around menopause, what her beliefs were and how much they have changed now that she has moved through her own menopause transition. This menopause conversation goes in many different directions, just like menopause itself really. The underlying message from Sandy is that menopause and midlife are opportunities for women to connect to their inner wisdom and embrace their next stage of life. This is not a time of life to be held back by conditions such as vaginal dryness and whether you experience dryness or not every woman deserves to feel great ‘down there’. Why not take the Happy Pause Challenge that Sandy speaks about in this episode, to learn more visit www.happypause.com.au. You can also follow

This is the next episode in the Understanding Menopause series and today I am chatting about the role that your liver plays in keeping your hormones balanced and you looking and feeling great. Most women don’t realise the importance of optimal liver function when it comes to balancing their hormones. This is something that most doctors don’t talk about probably because they don’t fully understand the link between your liver and your hormones, or they simply don’t think that it is important enough to talk about. Most women understand that the liver is where you get rid of toxins from your body, but it also plays an important role in the manufacture of new hormones and the break down of old hormones. You could say that your liver is a manufacturing and re-cycling plant all in one. How amazing is that! Some of the common signs that your liver is not functioning at an optimal level are: - Weight gain - Foggy headedness - Skin rashes - Digestive issues - Hot flushes and night sweats - Sleep problems - Joint pain -

From the very first moment of this podcast Rachel Lankester and I are talking about a controversial topic – the conversation around menopause that is currently taking place in the UK. With the push to get more and more women in the UK taking HRT and which has resulted in a shortage of HRT that has left many women feeling abandoned. Rachel jumps on her ‘soapbox’ to share her view on what is happening and her sadness that the dominant conversation around menopause is one of struggle and horror. Rachel was diagnosed with early menopause when she was trying to fall pregnant, as you can imagine this was a complete shock to her especially when she didn’t really think there was much wrong with her hormones. After following some great advice around her diet and lifestyle Rachel was able to reverse the ‘early menopause’ diagnosis but sadly didn’t go on to fulfil her dream for another child. This experience sent this avid researcher on a mission to learn more about menopause and the midlife experience that many women g

It is easy to blame symptoms such as hot flashes, weight gain, moodiness or sleep problems on Menopause or even your hormones but neither are the “real” cause of your symptoms. In this episode of Menopause Conversations, I bust through the common myth about what the cause of your symptoms are. Menopause is not the cause because it is simply a stage of life and not a physical thing. Hormones are messengers, they receive messages from various cells and tell other cells what to do. Hormones simply react to the nutrient status of the body and other external inputs. If you can’t blame menopause and hormones, then why is that sometimes you feel terrible as you move through your menopause transition? To find the answer you need to look below the hormones to what the hormones are reacting to. In this episode I share with you the 3 primary causes of all symptoms that are commonly associated with menopause and the best thing is that you can control each of these causes with your choices. If you are struggling to get ri

Many women are looking for change as they move through mid-life, whether it is their job, their relationship or just the way in which they show up in the world. In this episode of the Menopause Conversations podcast I have Juliet Dyer (Leadership Coach) as my guest. This episode is a recording of a masterclass that was delivered to my embrace Inner Circle members. Some key points from Juliet: - If you invest in yourself, you can create anything in life so long as you back yourself - The difference between natural talents and strengths - Traditionally we have looked to find out what is wrong so that we can “fix” it rather than focussing on our strengths and natural talents - Everyone has a talent; it is the essence of who you are being - To turn a talent into a strength o Name your talent o Claim your talent o Seek ways to actively put your talent into practice until it becomes effortless - Don’t ignore your weaknesses, be aware of them and own them and lean on your natural talents to overcome your weaknesses

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the need for HRT to manage symptoms associated with menopause but is this really your only option? Plus, I have heard that some Drs tell women that if they stay on the oral contraceptive pill that they will not go through menopause, this is simply not true. In this episode of the Menopause Conversations podcast I share some of the history around HRT as well as what really happens to your body when you take the OCP. The topic of taking HRT can be a very divisive one with women sometimes being very rude to each other as they take one side or the other. This situation saddens me mainly because it is being driven by pharmaceutical companies who have a big agenda when it comes to the sale of HRT. Prior to the controversy around HRT a few years ago, HRT was the highest sold prescription medicine in the world. Then the Women’s Health Initiative study stated that synthetic hormones increased the risk of a woman developing breast cancer. As you can imagine this put a b

In this week’s episode of Menopause Conversations, I am chatting with Ange Sinclair the Digestive Detective all about gut health and hormones. Ange had lifelong issues with her gut but it wasn’t until she started to change the food that she was eating that she started to get improvements. Some of the key points that we cover in this episode are: - The importance of specific gut bacteria to metabolise oestrogen - How we can manipulate our gut bacteria to influence our hormone levels - The connection between poor gut health and conditions such as PCOS, endometriosis and breast cancer - The difference between probiotics and prebiotic foods and why it is essential to include more prebiotic foods in our diet - The importance of a diverse diet that is high in plant foods and includes all colours of the rainbow - Switching your meals to be primarily vegetables with the meat as a ‘side’ or condiment portion - Investigating some traditional diets and how our ancestors ate food One of the key take aways that Ange share

In this episode of the Menopause Conversations Podcast I discuss some of the other hormones that are important to consider as you move through your menopause transition. It is not only oestrogen and progesterone that are impacting the way that you look and feel there are also other hormones at play. These hormones include - Testosterone - TSH, T3 and T4 (thyroid hormones) - Cortisol (stress hormones) - Ghrelin and Leptin (appetite and hunger hormones) Understanding the role of the hormones in your health wellbeing will help you to know the correct steps that you can take to navigate your menopause transition with ease. If you want to learn more about your hormones and more importantly what you can do to re-balance your hormones so that you can navigate your menopause transition with ease why not put yourself on the waitlist for the next round of the Secret to Thriving in Menopause Workshop. During this 5 day workshop not only will you discover the real cause of your symptoms and weight gain (and it is not all

In this week’s episode I am chatting with Erica Webb from the Self-Kind Hub. Erica is a mindful movement coach who uses Somatic Exercise, Yoga and Mat Pilates to support women to shift tension and reconnect with their body through a lens of self-kindness and curiosity. Erica’s approach to movement is one that centres simplicity and gently moving beyond our subconscious habits. She believes that movement doesn’t have to be complicated to ‘count’ and is a big fan of using bite-sized movements to bring more movement into the everyday. This conversation with Erica went in many different directions including - The difference between exercise and kind movement - Learning to trust that your body is doing exactly as it is meant to, even if that isn’t what we want it to be doing - Taking responsibility for self- healing rather than outsourcing this to others - How to use somatic movement to tune into your body and to heal your body You can connect with Erica here: Website  Instagram Podcast: SelfKind with Erica W

A lot of the focus when it comes to menopause and changing hormones is around the decline in oestrogen levels, but for many women this is not the real issue. Many of the common symptoms that are associated with menopause are due to excess oestrogen levels in relation to progesterone. In fact, even before women start their menopause transition high levels of oestrogen can be a major concern. Many women experience what is known as PMS (pre-menstrual symptoms) just before their period these are due to what is known as Oestrogen Dominance or higher than expected oestrogen levels. Each month both Oestrogen and Progesterone cycle up and down and ideally both hormones are kept in relative balance with each other. As one hormone rise the other declines and vice versa as you move through your cycle. Due to stress, diet and exposure to hormone disrupting toxins over 80% of women experience oestrogen dominance which results in symptoms such as: · Bloating · Weight gain · Mood swings · Heavy bleeding · Insomnia · Migrain

Do you experience low back pain or the inability to stand for extended periods of time? These are 2 of the signs of a weak core. In this week’s episode of Menopause Conversations, I am chatting with Peta Green who is a fitness expert who specialises in keeping women healthy and mobile as they age. Many women I talk to tell me that they experience body and joint pain, and this limits their ability to be able to exercise and can often result in them putting on weight, which gives more pain and they exercise less and the cycle continues. Peta is on a mission to get women off this cycle or what she calls the “slippery slope”. Peta focuses on 3 basic foundations of movement – stability, strength and power. You need all three of these foundations to be working together otherwise you will find your body out of balance and likely to be in pain or have limited mobility. We discussed these foundations in details particularly as I shared that whilst I was strong and had the power, my stability has not been the best in t

The second hormone that I will be discussing in this Understanding Hormone series is Oestrogen. Oestrogen is often also known as the nurturing hormone and the sense of “not giving a damn” about certain things as women age is often attributed to a woman’s decline in oestrogen. Most of the focus around menopause hormones is on declining levels of oestrogen when in fact in the peri-menopause stage of life oestrogen levels are quite high as they fluctuate wildly form day to day. It is the up and down changes of oestrogen that is the trigger for many of the symptoms that women experience, and once women are post-menopausal and oestrogen levels settle at their new lower level most symptoms simply disappear. This is why it is important to support your hormone production via your adrenal glands (refer to the episode on progesterone for an explanation of this) during your peri-menopause years so that there is not such a big fluctuation in your oestrogen levels. Role of Oestrogen includes: Builds muscles strength St

While my primary message is that you can navigate your menopause transition with ease, this wasn’t always my story when it comes to menopause. I have had those dark days when I had no idea what was happening to me, feeling frustrated because my body seemed to be breaking down and there was nothing, I could do to stop it. I have experienced the shame that comes with putting on weight even when I was eating a relatively healthy diet and I hid my body with the baggiest clothes that I could find. I have spent night after night trying to get to sleep but not being able to because of the amount of pain that I was in. My menopause transition wasn’t always easy, in fact it was often far from it. But the pain, the shame, the sleepless nights sent me looking for answers. I knew that what I was going through wasn’t normal (even if it is common) I wanted to find a different way. I was lucky I did find a solution that resulted in me dropping the weight, getting rid of the pain, and sleeping through the night again. Once I

Over the next few episodes, I am going to be sharing a series of presentations that I created which cover each of the different hormones and how they impact the way that you look and feel as you move through your menopause transition.  Today you will discover more about progesterone, it’s role each month and what happens as your progesterone levels start to decline.  In fact, progesterone is the first of your reproductive hormones to start to decline since you have a dwindling supply of viable eggs, and you will not be ovulating every month. Role of progesterone Support the growth of egg and first 3 months of pregnancy Provides a sense of wellbeing Promotes restful sleep Anti-anxiety Calms the brain Natural anti-inflammatory Builds bones Protects the heart Increase metabolic rate Normalises immune function Low progesterone symptoms Mood swings including anxiety and depression Problems sleeping Joint and body pain Weight gain Tendency to auto-immune conditions Fatigue

This is a fun episode with Jai Harvey-Yin, where she shares with us her tips for living a “fabulosity” life.  First a little bit about Jai... Jai has qualifications in business, beauty therapy, teaching, disability and so on one hand, she quite traditional. She also has a huge passion and empathy for the human spirit, in particular women. She has this drive to see women step into their own confidence, beauty and take control of their destinies. Jai is also a reiki practitioner, light worker, an energy healer and spiritual student, so in her words “I’m quite woo-woo”. In reality, Jai is just like you – everyone is at different stages of life. Jai is real, sometimes raw, sometimes a little chaotic, mostly calm, always honest, kind and most of all, loving. Her passion is to share her insights and unique spin on life with women who are drawn to work with her. In this episode Jai give you permission to “strut your stuff” the best way that you know how.  She also shares the 3 steps to the Fabulosity Flip,

Many women think that menopause is a single event that happens when in fact it is a time of transition. This transition can take up to 12 years (maybe even longer) to occur and for most women this transition generally starts in their early 40s. This is when hormones gradually start to shift, and some symptoms might start to occur. It is important to note that every woman’s transition is different, so ages and symptoms could vary. If you have had a full hysterectomy or some cancer treatments then you will likely skip all four stages and go straight to post-menopause. The 4 phases are as follows: Phase 1 – Very early peri-menopause - Can start in late 30 to early 40s - Generally last between 2-5 years - Cycles can shorten to 21-26 days - Less progesterone - More oestrogen which can lead to heavier periods, increased period pain, migraines and sleep problems Phase 2 – peri-menopause - Starts around mid 40s - Can last up to 5 years - Your cycle can start to become more irregular - Progesterone is lower, due to mi

Join me as I chat with Fiona Keary from Style Liberation as she shares with us how you can find your own style personality so that you not only look good but you also feel comfortable in the clothes you are wearing.  Fiona recently chatted with my embrace Inner Circle members and she said that I could share this presentation with my wider community.   In this presentation Fiona shares - what is a style personality - the 8 different personalities  - how you might be a combination of more than one style personality - once you know your personality what is the next step Fiona has also shared her presentation slides with me if you are a visual person and need to see the different styles photos, here is the link where you can download the slides - https://angelacounsel.com/Style-Personality-Slides.pdf If you are not sure about which Style Personality you are, you can do the Style Personality Quiz at https://www.styleliberation.com.au/style-personality-quiz Fiona is also running some free webinars on

I am back after 12 months break with a re-vamped podcast.  New name and new content.  As I re-launch this podcast it is International Women's Day and the theme for this year is #breakthebias and I thought that I would talk about the bias that happens in healthcare and medical research.  For too long women have been dismissed when it comes to what is considered complicated health problems.  The terms hysteria, attention seeking and emotional are words that are often used when women speak to their Drs about the way that they feel especially when standard testing doesn't reveal anything significant.  Unfortunately many Drs simply don't understand enough about women's hormones and particularly the changes that happen as women move through menopause.  It is time for this bias to stop! I am passionate about educating women about how their hormones work because I believe with knowledge comes power and when women have a better understanding of the changes that are happening in their body