Become the Archaeologist of Your Own Beliefs

This is an episode about the stories we carry — and the moment we finally put them down.

Dr Kirstey Holland shares why healing in perimenopause isn’t about doing more, but about releasing what’s been weighing you down. Through personal reflections on food addiction, shame, autoimmunity, and nervous system survival, she invites you into radical honesty, simplicity, and self-compassion.

Your body is not against you. Your symptoms are not your identity. And your vitality is closer than you think.

Transcript

Speaker 0:02

To borrow from Glennon Doyle, we can absolutely do hard things. I think sometimes we think that, you know, waking up at five o'clock in the morning or six o'clock in the morning to go to Pilates or to go for that run or to go for that swim is a hard thing. I tell you what, the women in the Vitality clinic are blowing me away like, like I've never been blown away before because they are brave enough to look at the stories that they're telling themselves. And I'm gonna share an incredible piece by a patient that I spoke with yesterday for the very first time in a one-on-one, initial consultation. And. The clarity that she was able to glean from the right questions and from doing the work, from doing the really hard work. So, I just said before, we think waking up at six o'clock in the morning or five o'clock in the morning to go to the Pilates class is hard. I tell you what's even harder. It's so hard to be radically honest with yourself and to take full responsibility for where you are at in your life. And this is why for the very first time, I honestly shared my story and it's only a little snippet of the story, in my book, that publishers in, in, in June. But that's besides the point. The point that I'm trying to get to is that we often create these incredible, boundaries for ourselves. We can jail ourselves by our thoughts and by the stories we tell ourselves, to. It's just the, the, the me story so often becomes the we story. And I'm finding on a regular basis that the more and more I share about the fact that I'm a recovered food addict, the more that I share about my body dysmorphia, the more women soften. And start to see that they don't need to hide these things. They don't need to keep these heavy secrets. in my book I talk about the hierarchy of healing and how we need to repair, rebalance, and reclaim. There's actually a fourth pillar to the hierarchy of healing, and that is release. And I'm finding that release is one of the most powerful pillars to this hierarchy of healing, particularly for midlife women. We carry such a huge burden, and we're seeing this in the, in the outer sphere, as well as in the inner sphere. this is the macrocosm of the microcosm or the microcosm of the macrocosm. So borrowing from Glennon Doyle, we can do hard things. We can look at the stories that we tell ourselves. We can look at the fact that we're not taking responsibility for our own healing journeys and that we are looking externally for, something to do to heal us. we are looking for red light therapy or we are looking for some kind of bro biohack, and really what we truly need is simplicity. And as alongside simplicity, we need clarity and we need awareness. So once we start to ask ourselves the questions, once we start to excavate archeologists, the stories where we went wrong and how we've developed this understanding of who we are and, What, what we are capable of, and how we restrict ourselves. That's really where the true change, that's really where the true transformation happens because you actually have this incredible power inside of yourself. You have this incredible intuition that you can tap into. You have this incredible knowing. It's just a matter of remembering. It's remembering who you are. It's tapping into, Your 8-year-old self and your 80-year-old self. I spoke in a workshop, at the end of 2025 talking about consciously closing out 2025 and ensuring that you have the most vital 2026 possible. And I'm here to tell you that. Part of your healing journey is to become radically honest. In order to have incredible clarity and awareness around what it is that you need to address change, soften into. This is not about harder. This is not about more, this is actually about less. This is about taking tools and implementations, micro changes. This is about actually mattering to yourself. There's an incredible new book out called Mattering, a highly recommended. It's part of the recommended reading that as well as Ellen Re's book, the Anatomy of Anxiety. Is actually gonna be pretty important this year with the, with the, the story and the energy of the young fire horse coming into 2026. So I urge you to. To be radical about the peace that you are gonna create in your life, and I urge you to simplify. I urge you to start striking out the things that you actually do not need to do. I urge you to first say no and then reassess. So the idea is, is that you say no so that you protect the white space in your life because in midlife. In this incredible transition, and this, this, actually, this is actually pertinent from a biological perspective, even for the women who have graduated or transitioned over into menopause because the perimenopausal symptoms are where the, the fireworks display is as Professor Gerald and Pryor calls it. or where the shit show is. If we're gonna be really honest about it and these, these symptoms can carry over into menopause if we haven't actually transitioned successfully. Now, the successful transition is so important because unfortunately one of the biological changes is, is that we actually shift into a more insulin resistant state in perimenopause. So we develop this pre-diabetes presentation, and so often women with this pre-diabetes presentation. Have a high a LT, in ratio to a ST in your blood test results, which shows that there's this potential for insulin resistance, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and then pre-diabetes or metabolic syndrome. So pre-diabetes is type. Two diabetes, Alzheimer's and dementia is type three diabetes. So we need to stop these biochemical, kind of, disease states in their tracks, in, in midlife. And we need to do that to be, we need to become completely conscious. And completely aware of how we're feeling. We need to be completely, appropriately assessed because perimenopause is a diagnosis of, it's a symptoms based diagnosis, but we need the right assessments and we need the right questions, and we also need the right data. So often women come into my clinic and go, oh, here are all the blood test results. Nobody's tested thyroid properly. Nobody's tested. TSH plus T three, T four, reverse T three thyroid antibodies, and if your body is attacking itself, you also need to ask yourself why Not only from a biochemical perspective, but from a bio-psychosocial. A spiritual and emotional perspective, yes. If it's something as simple as molecular mimicry and it's due to gluten, that your body is actually attacking your thyroid because the molecules look so similar. So that's a, that's a hypothesis called molecular mimicry. Quite often when we take in gluten, the body can get confused between the gluten molecule and the thyroid molecules. So some women reverse their autoimmune conditions by just removing gluten and sometimes dairy too. Other women are actually attacking themselves. They've told themselves a very, very deep story that actually doesn't hold true, and that story is making them unwell. I spoke to a beautiful woman yesterday, the kindest, most gorgeous soul, and I said, I'm gonna share her. Her, review in just a moment, and the real work is when we start to ask ourselves the questions that we need to embody and become aware of, we need to become aware of. I know there's a coach out there called Melissa Ambrosini and she calls her your inner mean girl. And I really appreciate that because there was a time in my life where my inner mean girl was so loud, I was completely unconscious. I was somewhere between the ages of 15 and 16 when I developed an eating disorder. I was using food to numb. my, my family. it was an awful divorce. I'd been sent away to boarding school and the only connection that I had to my family was this tuk locker. So no matter what was in that tuck locker, whether, whether it was a whole bag of apples or whether it was a box full of raisin bran, I would take it, I would sit, almost in a, a seated squat position. And I would literally just repetitively put my hand into the Raisin Bro band into the raisin. Raisin brand box and eat the Raisin brand. It is so difficult to overeat Raisin brand and it is also so difficult to overeat green apples and believe you me, it's an unconscious mechanism which, which numbs and, and, and quietens and grounds the nervous system. So. Long term it is not good for us. And of course, I didn't know at the time that I was using food to numb, but what it was actually doing was causing a major insulin resistance in my body. And then because of the insulin resistance, the, the cells in my ovaries started to produce more androgens, and I developed polycystic ovarian syndrome and the story that I was also telling myself around the polycystic ovarian syndrome. Was the fact that children would handicap me. that was a story that I'd been, I'd been given. I'd been told that children would handicap you. I'd been told that children would be so hard, I'd been told that they'd get in your way. yeah. And it's a sad story, it's a sad story and it's, it. It's okay to to look at it, and it's okay to figure out where it comes from and forgive the people that told you those stories, because really that was just them telling themselves a story that they'd made up because life is hard. Life is so difficult. But I'm here to tell you that you can start to look at that stuff when you start to feel better. Sometimes it's the easiest possible way to start with the biochemistry first, because as soon as you start to feel better, your psychology can shift. And when you wake in the morning and you're having credible energy levels, and it isn't hard for you to wake up at five o'clock in the morning anymore, or six o'clock in the morning anymore to go to that Pilates class and to get that endorphin hit. And to work out your muscles so that you can be fit and strong and feisty, and you can live independently for the rest of your days, and you can ensure that you've got enough muscle to mop up that glucose so that we don't get ourselves into that pre-diabetes state so that we don't get ourselves into metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance where. If you don't know whether you have insulin resistance or not, having a look at a LT and having a look at fasting insulin on a blood test is really, really helpful. I highly recommend doing homer ir, doing fasting insulin. Your doctor will usually test your glucose, your blood glucose. But insulin can actually ta change 10 years prior to your blood glucose. So it's really important to know your fasting insulin. I think a a a A glucose tolerance test alongside fasting insulin and having a look at that a LT and then having a look at the symptoms that come along with the insulin resistance, like. Are you putting on weight without changing the way that you're eating or exercising? Are you actually craving sugar after eating? Have you got to a point I did, I got to a point where my leptin and ghrelin was not sensitized, so I had no off switch. So basically ghrelin is the hormone that makes you pick up the fork and eat. And leptin is the satiety hormone. So it allows you to put that fork down. And unfortunately, Laura Bryden talks about the fact that we, she's an incredible naturopathic doctor. She lives and works in New Zealand. She's written many books, inclu, including the Hormone Repair Manual. She talks about the fact that we are sort of stuck in this modern food environment. And unfortunately, anything that is in a packet, a box with a barcode is generally scientifically engineered to. To bypass your leptin and ghrelin sensitization in order for us to consume more food. And then what happens is, is we bypass that leptin and ghrelin sensitization. We can't tap into our satiation, so we can't tap into the fact that we've had enough. So we override that. And then on top of that, if we're trying to numb the pain in a subconscious way, I was, I had no idea I was using food as medicine when I was, I just knew that I was. Deeply, deeply sad. I knew that I had a a, a darkness and a deepness inside of me that made me feel so ashamed. I was so angry. back in those days, this is the 1990s, my father didn't believe in counseling. he was like, there's nothing wrong with us. Counseling is for crazy people. There was no support, zero support. Nobody spoke to me about the breakdown of my family and about the divorce. It was like, oh, the family home has been sold. Your mother and your sister are gonna go and live in Cape Town and you're going to a boarding school in Stellenbosch, and we'll see what happens. And basically. the family home was dissolved in 2.5 seconds and I was never to live with any of my family members Again, that was incredibly traumatic and not to have any talk therapy, not to have any somatic therapy, leaving a little girl by herself. I find it so, insulting, that there is actually a, that it's controversial to, to be a food addict. some people don't believe in food addiction, and I can tell you right now that my 16-year-old self was absolutely using food to numb. And I can tell you that there are thousands of women in my clinic that do the same, and I know that their husbands do the same too because they tell me, and it's such an unconscious thing, we can numb with booze, we can numb with food, we can numb with Netflix, we can numb with shopping. We can numb with SEX, we can numb with so many different things, And I think this is not about shaming ourselves out of those behaviors that are not, that not kind of serving us long term. But this is about softening. This is about awareness. This is about becoming aware because only when we are completely honest with ourselves and bring that ultimate awareness to the stories that we're telling ourselves. This is really just me asking you to please challenge the story that you're telling yourself. If there's a story that you're telling yourself and you are feeling ashamed, if you're embarrassed, if you have a story, if you have pain, it's time to release it. The research actually shows, and I talk about this in the book and I cite all the articles, prefer, who else talks about this? Sarah Godfrey talks about this a lot. young women that have had, or that do have a high ACE score, which is an adverse childhood event score, often have more autoimmune conditions and often actually have a harder time in perimenopause and have a very difficult time to graduate successfully into the calm of menopause because. There's this potential link between the brain and the ovary, the HP axis, and that ovarian reserve and us producing progesterone. Progesterone was always difficult to make, Because we need to be calm, we need to be collected, we need to be safe. We need to be nourished on all levels, and this goes for the way you eat sleep. Move, think, connect. It's the people around you. It's the safety you feel in relationships. It's the fact that you feel seen. It's the fact that you belong. And I just wanna say to you that if you're feeling lonely or if you're feeling you don't belong, I just want you to know that this is definitely for you and this is not, this is not happening to you. This is happening for you because we are also all on Earth School with an individualized curriculum. And it isn't happening to you and no one else around you if people aren't talking about it. It is just because the environment hasn't. Hasn't been there in order for them to be seen, in order for them to soften when the environment is right, when the trust is there, when people can soften. We all have a story, and, and the reason why I share my story is not because, oh wow. Look how great I am. I come from all this pain, all of this adverse childhood event, this food addiction, this obesity, this cystic acne, this polycystic ovarian syndrome, this Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and have cured at all. I don't want the applause. This is about the fact that the me story is the we story, So things happen to us and then we make them matter. If somebody has diagnosed you with something, I also want you to hold that diagnosis lightly, I don't want you to hold it and make it your identity. If I had held onto that diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome, I would never have been able to be open to the fact that I could release myself from that diagnosis. If I have a blood test, if I have a scan today, I no longer qualify. For the diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome, I no longer qualify for autoimmune conditions. If you've been told that you cannot reverse an autoimmune condition, that's absolute baloney, And if you have not felt safe, and if you don't feel cool, calm, collected, if you feel anxious, if you're hot mess, if you can't sleep, if you're putting on weight, kind of, those tuck shop arms or just below the belly button, particularly between the ages of 35 and 55. I'm here to tell you that quite often it's due to progesterone dropping and having this actually an androgen excess presentation in relation to your progesterone. So that can actually be androgenic weight gain. If you're starting to experience additional chin, chin, chin hairs, or you're experiencing the mum agro or the relationship agro, or that rage that just comes out of nowhere, that real anger, I want you to know that. Your adrenals need some support, your adrenals need some help, and particularly if you've had that high ACE score, it will come and tap you on the shoulder. Not to re-traumatize you, not to force you to look at ugly things or to go into the shadows or the darkness or the cupboard, But to release it finally for good so that you can live your most vital, vibrant life. So if you need any support with any of the following. Please start with the awareness, start to track. If you're not sure whether you're in perimenopause, I think the comment is quiz. You're welcome to comment, quiz, you'll get access to my perimenopausal symptom, my, my, perimenopausal self-assessment quiz. I also have a perimenopausal symptom tracker so that you can start to track your symptoms so that you can see where you are in your cycle. And please know that the apps aren't actually there yet. Your app cannot tell you whether you've successfully ovulated or not. For that, you need temperature and an old fashioned method, Sometimes the old fashioned methods are good and don't over complicate. Don't think that you need red light therapy or all of these crazy kind of bro hacks. You just need to simplify. You need to work out how you need to eat, sleep, move, think, connect with the people in your life. Test and then prescribe beautiful botanical nutraceutical and psychobiotic medicine. The pharmaceutical industry needs you. You don't necessarily need pharmaceutical medication. Yes, I understand. Some are important. Please don't stop taking your pharmaceutical medication, but also understand that your body wants to be well and it is on your side and there's always a way out. But I think the true healing really comes when we start to ask ourselves these questions, when we start to become radically honest and when we take full responsibility. For the symptoms that we are experiencing, and we actually put ourselves at the top of the to-do list. Women are conditioned to serve everybody else before they serve themselves. And I just wonder like, is it time that you just sort of sneak yourself, you know, just a little higher on the top, on the top of that to-do list? Is it time that you potentially look at the stories that you're telling yourself? And is it time for you to release those? Is it time for you to put those down? Is it time for you to allow your beautiful biochemical processes to work with you and not against you? Because I'm here to tell you, when you have your metabolism on board, when you have your mitochondria on board, when you have your energy systems and your a TP on board, when you have a beautiful gastrointestinal tract and you have fixed your digestion and you've cleaned up your microbiome and the, and the beautiful garden inside your gut is growing roses and not weeds. You no longer have an inflammation in the gut and an inflammation in the mood and the mind. They're so intrinsically connected, and this goes for your children and your partners too, Kids are so easy to treat. I used to have a pediatric clinic as well. As soon as the children start eating and sleeping, they are so vital. They are so vital. Unfortunately, we have. Both a darkness and a lightness deficiency in our culture. We are having too much light at night in our eyes and not enough beautiful light during the day. So it's time to reset your circadian rhythm. It's time to get enough darkness. It's time to get enough lightness. It's time to start to. Shelter ourselves from the modern food environment. As Dr. Laura Bride says, it's time to shelter ourselves from screens. It's time to be radical about the peace and the simplicity that we wanna create in our lives. So I urge you to please protect yourself. Protect yourself from what you're putting in your eyes and what you're putting in your ears. It is so loud out there at the moment, and it is. Such a circus and there's so much transparency, and I think transparency is good, but I also think that sometimes we need to protect ourselves from some of the. The kind of b barrage of, of what's coming at us. we have social media platforms all over the place and there's a lot that is coming out of particularly America at the moment that can be very, very traumatizing for lots of women that have had a high ACE score, who have had, all sorts of, unfortunate experiences in their lives. But I'm also here to tell you that these things are not here to define who you are. They are to enrich you. They are to support you. So that you can learn what it is that you need to learn so that you can uplevel and so that you can transform, so that you can grow, so that you can literally graduate to the next vibrational level that you choose. I want you to think about your vibration. I want you to think about the joy. I want you to chase the joy, and I want you to chase radical peace. I really think it is so important for us to, I started. Last year when I was really in the thick of 12 months of writing my first book, I started to really protect the white space in my diary. Particularly because in perimenopause, we have to take care of ourselves in a way that we never, ever have done before in order to protect our brains. Because this is a neuro neuroendocrine transition state, So you are transitioning from one phase of your life into another, and in order to do that successfully, you need rest. And you need peace and you need nourishment. You need to be nourished on all levels. You need to be getting all of your micronutrients. You need to be getting enough protein. You need to be focusing on your beautiful muscles, your beautiful brain, your beautiful thought processes. And I'm here to tell you that once you have your biochemistry online, your psychology will be working for you and not against you. And from that place, you can truly, truly create an incredible social experience because health. Is bio psychosocial. So if you need to change your life, if you need to change something about it, please start with your biochemistry so that your psychology can follow. Once you have a beautiful mind, a beautiful mindset, anything is possible. We really rarely can do hard things, and I said, it doesn't have to be hard. We can soften into it. We can do it with loving kindness and we can treat ourselves well. I got to a point where my inner mean girl was so loud. There was literally a day where I was beating myself up and I thought, I, I'm so, I'm so low, I'm so down. I'm so. I honestly felt broken. I never believed that we are broken and I felt alone, and I never be believe. I don't believe that we are alone. I think we are all connected, and I think we're connected to a beautiful energy if we choose to tap into that. But in that moment, I thought, I wonder, I was just playing a game with myself. I thought, well, I wonder what would happen if I tried to be kind to myself, if I tried to forgive myself for the, the physical state that I'd found myself in. because I was blaming myself so much about that, looking at my body, hating it, being negative towards myself, and I started to shift just slightly into. no, I have a beautiful functional body. So that was the first step for me. I was able to focus on the fact that my body was functional and the fact that I was grateful that I wasn't in a wheelchair, and the fact that I knew that my body had this intrinsic internal capacity to change if I gave it what it needed. And I thought, well, let me try that, because clearly up until now, whatever I've been doing hasn't been working. So if we soften with forgiveness and we forgive those around us, and we forgive ourselves and take radical responsibility, we actually know what we need to do. And you, it's you and I. When I say you, I mean. Us, all of us, we have this incredible knowing. We know what we need to do more of. We know what we need to do less of. Stop giving your power away, stop giving your power away. Bring it in. Figure out what works for you. This is an N of one experiment. This is an N of one experience. The women inside my clinic are just so incredible and, and. they're so honest. I had a, a beautiful woman on the call just on Tuesday going, yeah, I'm definitely drinking way too much. I saw the most unbelievable amount of alcohol consumption in my clinic during COVID, and because I'm a private clinic and I'm primary health, I was open. Okay. And I had psychologists, I had psychiatrists, I had nurses. I had, I became the practitioner's practitioner during COVID because none of my records are available to the mainstream kind of machine, if you like. People were drinking a bottle of red wine a night just to get through. I am not going to judge a human being that is having to self-medicate. To that point, can you only imagine how much pain that human being is in if they're having to self-medicate? To that point, this person is not broken. This person is not bad. This person is just trying to move away from pain and towards pleasure, but unfortunately, the tools that they have aren't working for them. so without judgment. You have to, or we have to work out what works for us. This is an N of one experience. This is an N of one experiment. You need to take the tools and, and work out what works for you. You need to work out how to eat, sleep, move, think, connect, test, and prescribe in order for your beautiful, vital, and vibrant life. Bring your biochemistry online so that it is working for you and not against you. Bring your mindset and your psychology online so you can have this incredible brain, mood mind so that you can truly live the life that you want. And if you do have desires and if you do have goals and they are unmet, I want you to start to work towards them today. Because if not now, then when I think I'm gonna get the name of the book wrong, but it's. It's something 4,000 weeks. And in this book, he talks about the fact that if you are in midlife, write down the top 10 things on your bucket list that you wanna do. Cross off the bottom seven because you've got time for three, And if your biochemistry is on your side, if you feel insane, the chances of you writing that book, going for the promotion starting to date again. Hiking Kilimanjaro, starting the podcast, whatever it may be, being here for your grandchildren, literally, your why is your why, and there is no wrong why, But I, I encourage you to put yourself at the top of your to-do list and become radically honest with why it is you're experiencing the symptoms that you're experiencing, and your body is on your side, and it is. Unbelievable how quickly biochemistry can change when you give your body what it needs, when you are ultimately nourished from every single capacity in your life. Spiritual, emotional, physical, biochemical, et cetera. So I'm here to say that I don't think waking up at five o'clock in the morning or six o'clock in the morning to go to a Pilates class is the hard thing to do. I think the harder thing to do is to become radically honest. Fight for your peace. Chase the joy and really excavate and. Become the archeologist in your story so that you can understand how the stories that you are telling yourself are actually working against you and not for you. My name is Dr. Kirsty Holland. I've been in clinical practice for 26 years in Melbourne, Australia. I'm a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine with a double degree in acupuncture and herbal med. I'm also a practitioner of environmental and nutritional medicine. I'm a functional medical p and a trauma-informed health coach and mentor. I've been studying for so many years. I specialize in women between the ages of 35 and 55, gut hormones and metabolism. I've just finished writing my first book called, this is Perimenopause. It is due to be published in June, 2026, and I run something called The Vitality Clinic. Online globally. we meet on a, or I'm live basically on a Tuesday and a Thursday, at 11:00 AM and 6:00 PM Australian Eastern Standard Time. I have an incredible global audience. I support women globally, through my coaching, and I support and supervise these end of one experience. Experiences and experiments, and I teach women how to work out how they are meant to eat, sleep, move, think, connect, test, and prescribe so that they can work out what works for them. This is an individualized precision medicine medicine protocol. These are not a one size fits all protocol. There are tools that you can use and implement and see whether they work for you, But it's all done through assessment, through questions. I'm available to answer your questions four times a week across all the time zones and, I have lots of lone wolfs in my clinic. I actually call myself a lone wolf. If ever I've done a course, which I've done many of online, I barely ever turn up live. I always listen to the replays because my life is busy and I have a family. And, I, I listen to, I listen to the replays a podcast when I'm doing the family shop or when I'm taking a walk with the dogs or whatever it is. So if you're somebody that prefers to listen to things, after the event, please feel free to do that. You can always send your questions in through the online clinical platform or through our, our, email addresses. say hi. If you'd like to have a chat, I have a discovery call. It's a 15 minute chat. I think it's$47, but don't quote me. You're welcome to have a look at the website. It's the holland clinic.com. I am Dr. Kirsty Holland. Thank you so much for being here for me, with me this morning. And please make time to put yourself at the top of your to-do list because you do matter. And, yeah, if you're interested in the anatomy of anxiety, have a look at Dr. Ellen Voya's book or have a look at the new book called Mattering. So, We need to matter to ourselves. After all, we take care of the things that matter to us. and this is your one precious life. You've been gifted this beautiful human suit, and it really wants to work with you and not against you. So please give it what it needs, take it easy, and have a beautiful day. Thank you so much for being here with me. So much love.