The MiDOViA Menopause Podcast: Real Talk on Hormones, Work, and Wellness for Midlife

Episode 041: Mental Health in Menopause

• April Haberman and Kim Hart • Season 1 • Episode 41

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How do hormonal changes during menopause affect your mental health? This question has remained largely unaddressed in conventional healthcare, leaving countless women struggling to understand why they suddenly feel like strangers in their own minds and bodies.

Psychotherapist Kim Crispeno joins us to shed light on this critical intersection. As co-founder of the Aftermath Agency, Kim's approach to mental health during menopause emerged from her own personal journey and professional expertise. She explains how hormonal fluctuations directly impact brain function, triggering everything from brain fog and memory issues to anxiety, depression, and irritability that can strain relationships and diminish quality of life.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn as Kim introduces the concept of shame in menopause. What if our changing bodies become the "dysregulating other" that triggers profound discomfort as our previously reliable cognitive functions seem to betray us? This perspective helps explain why competent, high-functioning women suddenly feel destabilized during this transition.

Kim offers practical strategies for navigating these challenges, emphasizing the power of community, self-awareness, and reframing menopause as a doorway rather than just a loss. Her advice to simply "notice" what's happening without judgment provides a gentle first step toward self-compassion. She even writes "permission slips" for clients – tangible reminders that it's okay to prioritize their needs during this transition.

Whether you're experiencing perimenopause symptoms without realizing their source, fully immersed in the menopause journey, or supporting someone who is, this episode provides valuable insights for approaching this significant life transition with greater awareness and self-compassion. Kim's parting wisdom to be "kind and curious" with ourselves may be the most powerful tool for transforming how we experience menopause.

Kim’s contact info: https://www.theaftermathagency.com/

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MiDOViA is dedicated to changing the narrative about menopause by educating, raising awareness & supporting women in this stage of life, both at home and in the workplace. Visit midovia.com to learn more.

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April Haberman:

Welcome to the MiDOViA Menopause Podcast, your trusted source for information about menopause and midlife. Join us each episode, as we have great conversations with great people. Tune in and enjoy the show. Hey everyone, welcome to the show. Today we have Kim Crispeno, with the Aftermath Agency, with us. We're super excited about this conversation because we know Kim professionally, but we also know her personally and she's our neighbor, so we're all in the same neighborhood. We've known each other for years, but professionally we have high regard and respect for Kim and what she does. So I'm going to dive right in and, kim, have you hop in here and introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and why maybe you started the Aftermath Agency.

Kim Hart:

Great Well, thank you both for having me. It's fun to be in a professional context with the two of you.

April Haberman:

Yeah, for sure.

Kim Hart:

So I, as you mentioned, I'm a psychotherapist with the Aftermath Agency, which I co-founded and that we co-founded. It's a group of licensed and certified professionals who focus on well-being from a number of different angles, because we believe that health and wholeness and well-being from a number of different angles, because we believe that health and wholeness and well-being you don't just approach from one angle, you have to hit it from a lot of different angles. So that's kind of where I am right now. I also the reason we started Aftermath. It actually begins with story, with my family's story. I have a child who had some significant mental health issues that manifested themselves when they were a preteen, a teen, and that led us on a journey that we probably weren't very well equipped for. But both my partner and I consider ourselves to be, you know, high functioning, resourceful, educated, and it was a full time job for both of us, trying to manage care and figure out what would help.

Kim Hart:

And then it launched us into. Basically, that child was a detonator in our family for everything in our system that needed to be looked at and examined and healed needed to be looked at and examined and healed. And out of that we, because we had financial resources that we could use, so grateful for that. But there were some unique circumstances in our situation that allowed us to access some state funding. That was huge. To access some state funding, that was huge. But we realized not everyone gets this kind of care or cannot, can't even figure out how to find this kind of care, excuse me. So we thought, could we provide something that offers more wraparound care, resourcing, help for people who are in situations where it's kind of overwhelming? So that's kind of the vision behind it.

Kim Hart:

Yeah, it's so inspiring. I mean, there's so many families that are faced with those things and are not sure what to do, and, especially as the mama, it just tears you apart when you can't find the resources for your child. So I love that you took that and said let's help others, because it was such a journey of learning and navigation. So that's so inspiring, kim. Thank you for sharing that story, because I think that really sets the stage for the conversation.

Kim Crispeno:

Yeah, well, you're welcome.

April Haberman:

And you see so many people through the Aftermath Agency. We've been fortunate enough to see your space and it's beautiful, and we just had Tricia, your co-founder, on the podcast as well recently. But I know you also have a lot of women that are in midlife that are coming through your practice in one way or the other, and I'm curious because it is Mental Health Awareness Month and that's why I wanted to have you on the podcast to specifically address midlife and menopause and mental health. How do you think that menopause influences mental health among midlife women? What are you seeing in your practice? What are you hearing? Tell us a little bit more.

Kim Crispeno:

That's a large question.

April Haberman:

It is A loaded question. How long do you want to unpack that yeah?

Kim Hart:

well as, as you both are well aware of, hormones don't just control our bodies. They shape our mental and emotional worlds and, um, they have a profound effect on our mental health because they directly affect and influence our brain function and menopausal women, partly because they are coming in and they are raw, they are honest, they are feeling vulnerable and most of them are like just open, like what can, how can, can you help me? You know I need some help. Some of them are like just open, like what can, how can, can you help me? Um, you know I need some help. Some of them are pissed off.

Kim Hart:

I think, uh, that feels to me like that's a little bit later in the stage. This doesn't always show up initially in perimenopause. Um, because I think often what I'm noticing in perimenopause, women are coming in and they have these symptoms that they're they think they're mental health symptoms and they are, but they're very connected to what's going on in their physical bodies and they haven't yet made that connection Right. I think back to when I went into perimenopause and I, I think I didn't know I was in it and, um, and I remember I don't know what your both of your experience was, but I think the initial symptom for me is I started dropping all the nouns. I could not for the life of me remember names, proper nouns, other kinds of nouns, and so like my conversations were just a hot mess and my kids were like mom, you know, do you have some early onset? I was actually a little bit scared about that.

Kim Hart:

Yeah sure, alzheimer's in my family, and I didn't initially make the connection to hormones. What was going on in my body. I just thought what is going on I must you know. So that was my experience. I'm curious about the two of you, like when you kind of noticed.

April Haberman:

Well, kim, you, you go, cause you've had. You had the brain fog too.

Kim Hart:

Yeah, brain fog, sleeplessness, uh, anxiety, um, uh, incessant, incessant worry, um, yeah, those and. And the brain fog for me was I don't have a problem talking, I talk. And the brain fog for me was I don't have a problem talking, I could talk all day long, just me, to everyone, by myself, and I didn't want to open up my mouth because I couldn't remember the words and I felt stupid all of a sudden because I couldn't. I like the nouns, that's like you couldn't remember what it is that you're saying. And that happens occasionally now, but nothing like what it was, and it was sort of an out of body experience really, just to try and manage myself and my brain during that time. I'm still dealing with the sleeplessness and the anxiety and those kinds of things, but because I've gotten help, it's so much better and manageable. But yeah, it was a. It was a scary couple of months as I was trying to figure it all out.

April Haberman:

Yeah, it's so interesting to hear everybody's story too. Right it's, for I went through early menopause, kim. I don't know if you know that or not. I don't know if I shared that with you, but you know it was.

April Haberman:

It was extremely frustrating because healthcare professionals don't necessarily look at that as menopause, perimenopause right, you're too early for that, so we're not looking at that. No one was really looking for that. So I was really at a loss but a little bit of brain fog. But I had heavy flooding, bleeding I call it crime scene bleeding. Couldn't leave the house you know gym in the middle of the night. My husband, we were like what you have to help me, right, I think I'm dying in the bathroom here. And fortunately I had a flexible working environment so I didn't have to show up in the office.

April Haberman:

But I had anxiety, I had depression, I was irritable. I had depression, I was irritable. I look back on that now in hindsight and think you know a lot of the, a lot of the challenges and just anger that I had in even in my marriage and frustration with the kids was menopause and I didn't realize it at the time until I started hormone therapy. And for me that was a good choice because I reached early menopause and for long term health I wanted that choice. But you know divorce rates are high in individuals between 40 and 60. And that very well could have been where I ended up, so that anxiety, the irritability, the depression is real.

April Haberman:

And I was on antidepressants. You know that the doctor said here you go, take Lexapro, let me know if you feel better in a couple of months. So I'm wondering, you know, as we're kind of shifting back into that mental health conversation, do you see that where midlife women are coming to you not having the information from their healthcare practitioners, and are they coming to you in more of a state of desperation? How do they get to you and what are you hearing when they arrive at your doorstep?

Kim Crispeno:

A lot of women come because they are experiencing the mental health impacts of perimenopause menopause and they haven't yet fully connected the dots to physical health. And so if you have a good mental health practitioner, they should always be ruling out a physical source of what's going on in your body. So when I'm working with any woman 30s onward or actually anybody but they're coming in and they're presenting all these different symptoms, I am always saying, hey, we need. Are you working with someone on your physical symptoms? Have you had blood work done? Have you been looking at these things? Because it goes hand in hand.

Kim Crispeno:

There still is the mental health aspect that we can I can help with, but I always see that we need the physical care and I do find a lot of women struggling to find competent care, care that where they are not dismissed with what they're feeling, where it's not all in their head, where there's a lot of women have had trouble, and one of the things that again, we're trying to do at Aftermath is create a robust database of resources, of people that we trust, that we can send people to, and we have a resource specialist. Her name is Meredith, she's wonderful and she's available free to the community to help you resource if you need it, and we're like working with those relationships. Who are the people that are going to take you seriously when you walk into?

Kim Hart:

the office.

Kim Crispeno:

That is so important, I think, in all aspects, for women in particular. In a lot of our experience we've been invalidated, we've been told, oh no big deal, you should be able to figure this out. And we tell ourselves that too. We dismiss our own experience readily, experience readily. And so a lot of women come in and they don't even. Oftentimes they're like thinking they're crazy or it's. You know they're. They're just looking for somebody who will to get their experience to, who will take them seriously yeah.

Kim Hart:

Yeah, it's, it's a thing we hear all the time and we talk about. It's okay to divorce your doctor to find a good doctor. It's okay to go get you know, get your team together so that you have your therapist and you have your support system around this for so when the when this happens to you, you know, you can imagine that you probably get the same thing, but we get everyone's stories because they know it's a safe place to be able to talk about it. Have you identified any specific patterns or triggers that happen for women that exacerbate these mental health symptoms during menopause?

Kim Crispeno:

I would think that there are a few. If a woman has a pre-existing condition, if she's already struggled with anxiety or depression or even paranoia or things like that if there's a previous condition that's being treated, then oftentimes that is worse, it gets much worse, and there's an interesting study out of that was published in, I think, cambridge University Press in 2023, where and you, I know you all know this, but that if you have a pre-existing condition, usually it gets worse. That's connected to hormones. It gets worse during menopause and the treatments that may have been managing it don't manage it in the same way anymore and you need to make adjustments. So that's one thing I would say. Another pattern is if there's an escalation and stress in any part of a woman's life, that also exacerbates things. If a person has a lot of trauma and this is where I don't know if you, um, our listeners are familiar with a window of tolerance probably they are unpack that a little bit.

April Haberman:

I'm not sure that everyone knows what that is yeah, okay.

Kim Crispeno:

So a tolerance is basically a concept in psychology and neuroscience that describes the optimum or optimal zone of arousal where a person can function most effectively. So when you're in that optimal window, you can think clearly, you can feel and process your emotions without overwhelm, you can respond rather than react to stress and you can engage socially and make decisions. So when people have trauma or a lot of stress, whether it's chronic or acute, or if they're excuse me if they're feeling bad in their bodies, whatever oftentimes our window of tolerance is small.

Kim Hart:

Right.

Kim Crispeno:

And so anything can push us to the edges or outside of that. And when we get to the edges of it or outside of it, then we find ourselves in a couple of states ourselves, in a couple of states, so hyper arousal, which would be fight excuse me, fight or flee, you know or a hypo arousal state where we kind of shut down, we're overwhelmed, all of those things. So that's, you know. I think most of us are familiar with that.

Kim Crispeno:

And so what happens is like in therapy I am working with to help a person identify what their window of tolerance currently is and what's going to help them stay in that, so what tools, techniques, things can help them stay in there and what they need to pay attention to. And then, but also in the therapeutic space, I'm actually working to try to expand their window of tolerance. But that, I think, has to be done carefully, right? We're working to increase our ability to tolerate distress and it really helps if we have a person who's regulated, who's helping us do that. So I don't always try to get my clients to do that on their own outside. I want them to stay in their window as much as possible on their own and then in space where I can help them work to increase it. So those are some of the things that I think I'm seeing when women come in that are patterns or triggers.

Kim Hart:

We get a lot of questions about you know, how much should I suffer before I go and get help? Like we're always saying, there is no need for suffering here, like suffering is an optional thing. What strategies do you help women have to better understand and articulate how these mental health experiences are affecting them during menopause and and you know from the suffering point of view, when do you, you know, when do you put up your hands and say I can't? You know, from the suffering point of view, when do you, you know, when do you put up your hands and say I can't? You know I can't do this anymore.

April Haberman:

How much is too much? Yeah, we hear oh, it's not that bad, you don't have to suffer.

Kim Crispeno:

Yeah.

April Haberman:

Great Thanks for bringing that up.

Kim Crispeno:

Yeah, I, sooner that we can get intervention and help, the, I think the less we will suffer, right, and so one of the misconceptions that I see coming up with women is that we can figure this out on our own.

Kim Hart:

I'm smart. I've been able to do things before. I have figured things out up until this point.

Kim Crispeno:

This is a thing that I can just put down I don't need help.

Kim Hart:

Yeah, I'm smart, I've been able to do things before.

Kim Crispeno:

I have figured things out up until this point. This is a thing that I'm I can, just I don't need help. Yeah, I'm good, right, right and and I don't need help. Or there is, I think, another level of um. This is where I think shame pops into the picture that we feel like there's something we're doing wrong.

Kim Crispeno:

And so kind of like, as women, we dig in our darn heels and we're like I am gonna figure this out, because you know, there's something wrong with me that I can't figure it out, and so we do stay in that state of not asking for help longer. So I think I would like to say a little more about shame, because I've been thinking about that in relation to this conversation, and, uh, renee brown, as we know, did a lot to, I think, help people understand the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt I did something wrong or bad. Shame says I am wrong or I am bad, and I think that's helpful for common understanding. But there's a woman, patricia DeYoung, and she wrote a wonderful book on shame called Understanding Chronic Shame, and her definition I'm like. So she talks about shame as always being relational, so shame is one of those things that we experience in relation to someone else, so it triggers a feeling. Something triggers a feeling of I am, something is wrong, and it's usually me. Um, and her definition, though, is really interesting.

April Haberman:

She says um, shame is the felt sense of a disintegrating self in connection to a dysregulating other wow, that's okay oh, I know you got to tear that apart, I think say it again and maybe like let's, let's give, let's unpack that a little bit.

Kim Hart:

So first of, all.

Kim Crispeno:

So she says shame first of all. The first part it's a felt sense. So it may not be true, but it's what we're feeling right it's a felt sense that we are disintegrating. We have a disintegrating self. Something you know is is is is kind of, yeah, disintegrating in us, like we're breaking down.

April Haberman:

I mean, are we? Is this your self-esteem? This is?

Kim Crispeno:

right, yeah, but it's in the um in relation to or in the presence of a dysregulating other.

Kim Hart:

So that's somebody else that's causing this, for it happened to you or something else.

Kim Crispeno:

Yes, and so, for you know, like a lot of times, like if you're oftentimes shamed get its hold on us in childhood. Gets its hold on us in childhood. So we experienced a lack of attunement from a primary caregiver who doesn't read what we need, and so, you know, in our young brains we can't sort things out. So we begin to think, oh, something's wrong with me. Yeah, so, but what? My question around this, why I wanted to bring this up, is what if in menopause and this is I'm taking this loosely but what if in menopause, the dysregulating other is ourselves?

April Haberman:

Yeah, that is a good question yeah, that is a good question.

Kim Crispeno:

And so, in relation as ourselves, are dysregulated in our bodies and are all of the things because of what's happening chemically in our bodies and then we experience a sense of disintegration I can that Like.

Kim Hart:

If you take my brain fog example, I was. I was ashamed that I couldn't come up with the right words and I didn't want to talk because I felt like I would appear as not smart or not together or whatever. So I can see that shame really came in for me in that me in that case.

Kim Crispeno:

Yeah, and so what if we could reframe menopause? And you know, think about it as oh myself is going to be dysregulated in this time Right, and we can begin to understand that and see menopause as a doorway into understanding more A our own patterns of disintegration and then what is needed for integration. And unfortunately, women have this much harder, in my opinion, than men, because we have all this stuff going on in our bodies. And um, I just wish you know how they have those um period pain simulators that they attach to men.

April Haberman:

Oh, we do have a um hot flash simulator.

Kim Crispeno:

Oh, you do.

April Haberman:

Okay, I was hoping, but but there is one um, there's a mental vest that um, that you can, you can put on and simulate hot flashes, but um but what about the other symptoms, all the others? I like that.

Kim Crispeno:

That's just one right One there's 34 things that are like all happening at the same time for us and this like yeah, sure, the hot flashes are miserable, but they are flashes. They're over fairly quickly. They may come a lot depending on how well, how much estrogen we've got going on in our system.

April Haberman:

Right, kim, I love this conversation about shame and menopause and reframing it and menopause being the doorway, and I'm really thinking about you know what, your thoughts and brain fog and being. We're used to functioning at a high level and what's wrong with me and it's my fault. I think there also is shame that can come with the need to talk to someone, the I don't need to see a therapist, I don't need to see a therapist, I don't need to see a mental health specialist, because then something is wrong with me, right? Then I'm labeling myself and I've attached this label when in reality we know that seeking the help that we need is so beneficial in so many ways. But I love the idea of looking at it as a doorway. Right, just walk through the door, open the door, crack the door and see what's on the other side, see what's inside.

April Haberman:

For you and I often picture doorways myself I'm a very visual person, as Kim knows. I have to stop and I have to visualize things. But for me, in that midlife stage, when I went through menopause and it was awful I felt like I was closing one door and I was standing in an empty hallway and it was dark and there were a couple of other doors that were cracked open, but I was afraid to go through them and I so I stood in the middle, right. I stood in this blank, dark space for a long time before I had the courage to go through one of the other cracked doors.

April Haberman:

And it's that transition that I think is the hardest sometimes because it is there is shame associated with it, right, so we can look back and we might have shame from our childhood that we're trying to maybe shut that door and we're trying to move forward, but there's shame in seeking help and we're lost. And that's what I think is the saddest for me in this whole conversation and what we do with women in menopause, because it can be liberating and sometimes there's hard work that needs to be done. Oftentimes there's hard work that needs to be done, but it can be liberating and freeing and beautiful on the other side. So, in that context, what would you say to someone if they are in that place and not quite ready to make the next step, or they're carrying shame with them? How do we encourage our listeners to take that next step to seek the help that they need?

Kim Crispeno:

So I'm curious, what helped you move forward, what helped you go into another doorway?

April Haberman:

if you can think of that, yeah, that's actually a really good question. For me it was the tribe, kim, you talk about this a lot. Build your tribe, build your community around you. It was the friends, it was the encouragement that I had there, the, you know, the spiritual support from my, my besties, and really a lot of introspection, which I think can be scary as well. So I mean I journal every day, I put my thoughts down on paper, I go for long walks and that's my, you know my time to think and unpack and I'm not afraid of that self self reflection and work. But I'm not sure that everybody knows how to do that. Right, we have, if you haven't practiced that for years, even that's foreign looking at a blank piece of paper and like what do you mean you journal, what do you mean you unpack that? So I had a support network and I I to self-reflection, but I don't know that everybody has that.

Kim Crispeno:

Right, yeah, no, that's helpful and I think you articulated a couple important things in there, so I do actually really like the idea that menopause has the word pause in it.

Kim Crispeno:

Yeah, the word pause in it. Yeah, because I think menopause is an invitation both to pause and to move, and at different parts in different times in that story and in that journey we're we're doing different things, right? And so you're describing a moment of pause where you know, like you are like in this blank space and I think, along with shame, there's grief sometimes. That attends to. That comes with menopause, even if we're not necessary. I mean, I was never sorry to let go of that period. I'll tell you that one right now. See you later, go right ahead and leave.

Kim Crispeno:

But there's also this sense of, oh, I'm getting older, I'm aging, my body is changing. There are certain things now that are inaccessible to me forever, and not that I necessarily wanted them, but so there's grief there. And so I do think that in that pause it is important to stop and notice what is there, stop and be able to, you know, attend to what is there. But what you said that I think is so crucial is a lot of women do not know how to do that well on their own, because we've been so freaking busy doing everything in our lives to keep everybody else going and to help everybody else along and to slow down and attend to ourselves. It's just something we don't have a lot of practice at.

April Haberman:

Yeah.

Kim Crispeno:

So that's where community is really important. That's where starting to build some supports, um and the women I uh feel most concerned about that come into my space are the ones that really lack support.

Kim Crispeno:

yeah, um, because, and so that's one of the things we do part of my like at least, mental treatment plan is how can we build support? How can we um help this person find connection, find community, find validation, like so they realize they're not alone, yeah, in this journey. And then at some point it I think women want to move, um. Yes, they don't want to stay standing still too long, which is it's good, because I think our bodies are designed to move us into new things, to new places. And I love um eric erickson.

Kim Crispeno:

The stage that he has a psychosocial development here is um generativity versus stagnation. So that's this age range that you're in and that's the stage that's most associated with this stage, like 40 to 65 or something like that. And it, you know, that's the invitation in actually menopause and we can get stuck in those that stagnation place. But if there are others around us supporting, at some point we're going to say wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to be generative, I want to move into this next season with um. I want to move into this next season with taking, letting, like all of that I mean all of that stuff burn away, those hot flashes, let them burn away all of the stuff that no longer serves me and move into a new season with, you know, some generativity, with some creativity, with some curiosity.

April Haberman:

What's next?

Kim Hart:

yeah, it's interesting because we, uh, we have a friend, a doctor, who talks about asking our patients what do you want? And most of the time at this point in your life, it doesn't.

Kim Hart:

It hasn't mattered what you wanted because, you had to raise kids and do a job and, you know, take care of whatever the things you needed to do. And all of a sudden you're at this inflection point where you're like, okay, maybe I get to choose what I want to do next. And that can be scary for people who've never had to do that before or don't even know how to do that before. How do you, you know, how do you approach this with mental health and menopause, with women who are, you know, at this, you know hallway or fork in the road or whatever it is that you're facing from what's next for you.

Kim Crispeno:

Yeah, I noticed that Tricia Wilkerson in her podcast she said this, but this is my favorite word actually with clients. If you work with me, you will hear me say this again and again, and it's notice.

Kim Crispeno:

Yeah that hallway. I just invite them to start noticing. Start noticing, and they don't have to do anything about what they notice. I am just saying notice, is there anything that you're like? You have a flicker? Oh, that sounds kind of interesting.

Kim Crispeno:

Oh, no, I don't want to go to that social gathering. Mm, hmm, you know, just starting to notice those things, and then the next step is to start acting on those noticings. You can stay in the noticing for a while but then say, okay, so I don't want to go to that social gathering because I actually feel like crap, social gathering, because I actually feel like crap. Then you have to decide to not go. And another thing I'm really good at doing with therapy is I have a little post-it. You know some post-its and I will write permission slips for these women. You do not have to go to the social gathering, you know, because, again, we aren't so good at giving other people permission to not do things. We learned how to do that for ourselves, yeah, and it's just really helpful to have a little piece of paper, and I sometimes do that for myself. I bring myself little permissions. It helps.

April Haberman:

I love that. I feel like I could put that on my bathroom mirror, like you have permission to yeah.

Kim Hart:

Yeah, I often say to people when I'm coaching, when they're like I don't know, I'm like well, pretend you do know, let's just pretend for a minute. You know what door you'd go through. Why don't you go be curious about that Right?

Kim Crispeno:

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like a miracle question. It's a miracle question which is like if everything could do whatever you want, have whatever you want you know, everything would go away, but what? What's left, like what you know, and if people can, yeah, it is, um, yeah, fun to to do that.

Kim Hart:

It's a gift to yourself that you haven't figured out how to do you give or get before, and so it's a little scary, but also it's a little exhilarating once you figure out that. Oh, you can notice you can do something different.

April Haberman:

Yeah, it's freeing yeah, for sure well, kim. I'm just wondering, as we begin to wrap up the conversation what, what changes would you like to see? I'm sure you have many, as society addresses the intersection of menopause and mental health. What, what would you like to see?

Kim Crispeno:

Well, I'm seeing it with the two of you and what you are doing to educate women and workplaces and men and all the you know, all the people about what's going on. I definitely see that that is so needed. The more that we talk about this, the more that we see creative ways to go forward. I'd love to see more research more funding for women's mental and physical health.

Kim Crispeno:

I mean, I don't know, there's that book Invisible Women. I can't remember who it's by, but it's just atrocious in terms of the lack of funding for women's health studies and things like that. So I'd love to see more of that. I'd love to see us enter into more of a playful space around like this idea of seasons and transitions and normalizing that we actually change is a good thing and that sometimes it sucks how it happens and it's not. There's uncomfortable things that happen, but if we can reframe change as being, yes, it can be scary, but there's an invitation always, I think, embedded in change.

Kim Hart:

Yes, for sure, just a whole other podcast.

April Haberman:

Yeah, oh yeah yeah, it'd be a good one, though, so we'll come back to that one, kim. Yeah yeah, those are all good, kim, and we completely agree with you on all three of those, especially that research piece. We need that Again could be a whole other podcast as we unpack that. But before we let you go, we have our last question that we ask everyone what is the best piece of advice that you've ever received or given?

Kim Crispeno:

That's a hard one and I'm going to answer it in a kind of menopausal way. Um, in the sense that it depends. It depends on the on the day, or the mood, or what's going on in terms of what is the advice I most needed to hear. But I think consistently and this is so is so silly and so simple, but it is something I returned to again and again and it was my own therapist who basically just kind of drilled into me to can you be kind and curious to yourself and about your experience?

Kim Crispeno:

And kind and curious and I can do that for other people, but I have always struggled around that for myself, and even last night I had an experience. I was at a social event and I went into a complete shame spiral and I'm still like this morning, like in that place, but I've like been like oh, can I be kind to myself about this? Can I be kind and curious around why? This was why I went into the spiral? Well, it triggered that, and so that's, I think, where I come back to a lot. Is that kind and curious about myself?

Kim Hart:

yeah to myself that's such a good thing to do for yourself too.

April Haberman:

We don't do that very well no, but it's good, kind and curious and that, I think, really applies to women in menopause.

Kim Crispeno:

I mean, like, can you be kind to yourself, what does that look like? And in this moment?

Kim Hart:

And then can you be curious, yeah that feels emotional to me a little bit. I'm honest, right, can you be kind to yourself? You know, I don't know if we, if we think about what that would mean. So I appreciate you bringing that up because I think that's a little like thing we should just keep in our head in those moments Like, okay, what would this be like if I was being kind, kind, kind, kind. We know how to be kind, just not to ourselves, not to ourselves.

Kim Hart:

Oh well, kim, what a great pleasure to have you on. We wanted to do this for a long time. We think the world of you, obviously, but the work that you're doing is so important. And thank you for creating community, for helping people find their truth, for supporting people through trauma big T, little t trauma, because those are hard things to get through. So where can people find you?

Kim Crispeno:

They can find us at the aftermath agencycom. We're on Instagram, we're also on LinkedIn, so they can find us that way. Perfect.

April Haberman:

We'll put all of that in the show notes. Thank you again for your time today in this rainy Friday, seattle weather, and until we meet again, everyone go find joy in the journey. Thanks, kim, thanks Bye. Thank you for listening to the Medovia menopause podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe for future episodes, leave a review and share this episode with a friend. Medovia is out to change the narrative. Learn more at medoviacom. That's M-I-D-O-V-I-A dot com.

People on this episode

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April Haberman

Co-host
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Kim Hart

Co-host