The Motherhood Mentor

Hormones And Health As A Mom With Leisha Drews 

• Rebecca Dollard: Somatic Mind-Body Life Coach, Enneagram Coach, Speaker, Boundaries Coach, Mindset • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Ready to transform your understanding of hormone health? Join us for an enlightening discussion with Leisha Drews, a holistic hormone health coach and nurse, who opens up about her personal journey through the ups and downs of birth control and hormone imbalances. Leisha shares how her daughter’s asthma diagnosis led her to embrace holistic health, ultimately revealing the critical role hormones play in overall well-being and motherhood. Discover how understanding and managing hormone health can dramatically improve your life and family dynamics.

Ever wondered if your body is trying to tell you something? Leisha helps decode the complex world of women's hormones, emphasizing the significance of our cycles and how symptoms like stress and blood sugar imbalances signal deeper health needs. Learn to appreciate your body’s signals, shift your mindset, and see your body as a communicative entity that requires care and attention. This conversation is a must-listen for mothers striving to prioritize their health, understand their cycles, and foster a healthier relationship with their bodies.

But it doesn’t stop at hormones. Leisha and Becca delve into the holistic approach to women’s health, discussing the importance of nourishment beyond just food. From balanced nutrition and the right kind of breakfast to the benefits of sleep, movement, and sunshine, Leisha offers practical tips for enhancing hormonal health. We also explore the importance of educating women and young girls about their menstrual cycles, empowering them to manage their health effectively. Tune in and gain valuable insights that could change the way you view your hormonal health and overall well-being.

Tune into more Podcasts with Leisha and Becca : 

Healing the Relationship to our bodies on Happily Hormonal with Leisha Drews

About Leisha: 
Leisha Drews is mom of three, RN, FDN-P and Holistic Hormone Coach and host of the Happily Hormonal Podcast. She brings a unique understanding of how our body systems work together and how stress on the body and mind impact overall health. 

She believes that as women we can have it ALL when it comes to health and motherhood, and helping women restore energy, balance hormones and feel good in their bodies again is her passion. 

Hormone balance doesn't have to be overwhelming, and she is here to empower women to understand & trust their bodies again to create change for generations to come.

Find Leisha:
Website

Instagram



Join us next time as we continue to explore the multifaceted journey of motherhood.

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Stay connected with us on social media and share your thoughts and experiences tagging @themotherhoodmentor

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a holistic life coach, mom of two, wife and business owner. This is a podcast where we will have conversations and coaching around all things strategy and healing that supports both who you are and what you do. So grab your iced coffee or whatever weird health beverage you are currently into and let's do the damn thing. Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Today I have a very special guest with me, my good friend, Alicia Drews. I have a hard time always introducing her because she's so many things, but one of the things that I know her most for is that she is a hormone health coach and I would love for you to just introduce yourself a little bit. We were laughing right before we started recording because her and I are also friends and we've worked together both as client coach, both ways for us, and so we always have a good time, and even the conversation before we recorded was great. But go ahead and introduce yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so thanks for having me, becca. I'm excited for this. My name's Alicia Drews. Like you said, I am a holistic hormone coach. I'm also a nurse. I feel like I'm about to renew my nursing license and I'm like am I really a nurse anymore? But you know, I think that nursing has such a large scope outside of just the hospital, and I haven't been in the hospital for a few years. So I'm a nurse, I'm a mom of three. My kiddos are nine, six and two and a half, and I love to have fun, and so that's what I'm here for today.

Speaker 1:

You're like the best seven in the world. All of the fun things. That's my goal. That is the goal. But today we wanted to talk a little bit about well, we'll talk a little bit or a lot about it, depending on how many side quests we go on. But how do moms improve their hormone health and why? Why is hormone health so important in motherhood specifically?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I will go into a little bit more of my story because it kind of illustrates why I care so much about hormone health. But when I I was working in the hospital, I worked in the hospital almost 10 years as a nurse and when I started, when I got pregnant with my daughter, or even back up, just a little more than that my first couple of years of being married, I was trying out birth control. I was trying to like figure out how to not get pregnant because my husband was going through school and the first time I went to the OB doctor she I did my like exam and all of that. It was terrifying, it was the worst ever. I was like a 20 year old or however old I was, and, um, she was so kind to me and she was just like really reassuring and I just felt like I could really trust her. And I asked her like you know, I don't really want to go on birth control. Is there a natural way that I cannot get pregnant? Just like this sweet, innocent question that I had. And she just was like, oh, sweetie, no, like there's not. And that was the conversation. I was like okay, like you know, you've been nice to me. So I believe you essentially and so I decided, okay, I guess I have to go on birth control and kind of had some side effects from birth control, went on and off of birth control the first couple of years that I was married my cycles were kind of irregular. I didn't really even know that they were irregular somehow. So I would take like seven pregnancy tests every single month Once I got past 28 days, even though it turns out my cycles were like 35 days every time. So I just would like stress myself out for like an entire week taking pregnancy tests, so much so that my best friend bought me like a stack of 10 pregnancy tests for my birthday one time, just because she wanted to laugh at me. Um, and so I just like really had no idea what was going on in my body and I didn't know how to find resources about it. And I did have one pretty crunchy friend who I kind of thought was like a little too crunchy for my liking and she kept recommending that I read taking charge of your fertility, which now I'm like I'm the crunchy friend who's like you should read taking charge of your fertility. It's the best book ever. And if I had listened to her a little sooner, I probably would have like had a few less stressful months thinking that I was pregnant when I wasn't, all that to say, as a as like, truly fairly educated woman.

Speaker 2:

I went through high school, I went through nursing school, took a ton of science classes anatomy, physiology I still had no clue what was going on in my body until I started really doing my own research and it really took. For me it took getting to a place where my oldest daughter was when she was about two. She was having some pretty significant asthma issues and this does get back to hormones eventually, I promise but she was having some significant asthma issues and we went to the doctor for her and she was, and the doctor was like, oh, you know, she's too young to diagnose with asthma, but she's going to have asthma. So here's like three inhalers and I just had this like hard stop in my body and in my spirit and I was like hell, no, like this is not happening to my daughter. This is not right. She's my perfect baby and she's not going to be sick. And I just had that that stop, and I was like this is this is not going to happen for her and we need to find more answers.

Speaker 2:

And that it took, you know, maybe I, you know I had the same experience for me with multiple things throughout my teenage years and early twenties where I was kind of like getting brushed aside and and that was really the turning point for me, for my health and for hers, because we started to, I started to research and I started to find I found a functional doctor who was kind of like the first step in helping me understand how big of a deal gut health was and like what foods were bothering her and things like that. And so from there it was just this like cascade If you're a crunchy mom listening, you kind of know it's like you know you like dip your toes into gluten-free and then like, pretty soon you're, like you know, in natural grocers 24 seven and like looking at the back of every container, of every single thing. And so it was just like it goes. You know we go through all of these um patterns in our lives. But, with that being said, I really took a like kind of a big moment in my motherhood to say like this is not what I accept for my family, and as I started to see my family's health change.

Speaker 2:

From the things that I started doing and I was still working in the hospital, I was seeing people come back sicker and sicker and I didn't have the time or really the support in the hospital to teach them even just like basics of good nutrition or like, hey, maybe like we had, like the people who walked around and I told them to stop smoking, but like there's just so much that needed to be done, education wise, to keep these people out of the hospital, and I wanted to do that, and so I went back to get my functional practitioner so that I could help people stay out of the hospital.

Speaker 2:

And this is where we finally get to moms and hormones.

Speaker 2:

As I started working with people on that health and nutrition and, you know, looking at what was going on underlying in their bodies that were causing all these symptoms, I realized that when I worked with moms I loved working moms and I loved working with kids, but when I worked with moms, it impacted the health of their entire family in such like a magnificent way, and I really, obviously, as a mom, I connect with moms and I understand, you know, the stresses that we have as women and when we look at our bodies as this, like beautiful creation that is meant to work well and that's the standard that we have for ourselves.

Speaker 2:

It really makes sense why our bodies are not working well in the medical system we live in, in the nutrition system we live in in the just like stressful lives we put ourselves in, or sometimes they're put, you know, there for us. But as women, we are created to be nurturing, we're created to be, you know, creative and kind of in this like a little bit more flowy state that we typically are not in. And when we're just so far out of that, our bodies respond. Our bodies respond to stress differently than men's bodies do, because we're we're the ones who are giving life to new babies and our bodies have to be in a pretty stable place to be able to do that safely. And so our bodies know that and they throw out all these red flags or our bodies, you know, they throw out these red flags when there's something going on under the surface. That's not right.

Speaker 1:

And so about our cycles, we haven't even we were saying, with going through being a nurse and I even know for me I don't think I really knew I knew quite a bit about my cycle, I think comparatively, because I had a mom who taught me pretty well. But even I remember, like as an adult, when I started learning about cycle syncing, I was like wait, there's more than just like period and not period and there's these. You know what's actually happening in PMS and before my period and what your hormones are doing and what these symptoms mean. Like it's a whole vital sign of health, of what's going on, of what we need.

Speaker 1:

And yet you know, you and I, you and I love talking about, like the health system, and I think there's this approach of pathology, of let's just cover up what's wrong, versus like actually getting us to health, of, hey, these symptoms are a sign of what you're needing and what we can do to help you. And you helped me so much being able to pay attention to what I actually need, because there's so much, there's so much out there around what we should do and what we shouldn't do with health and with our hormones. I think hormones is a new topic, thank goodness, but I still think your average woman, your average mom, doesn't know what her body really requires and how to take care of herself. So so what? What for you are like the big things that impact a woman's hormone health?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So the biggest kind of like umbrella term that I'm going to say is going to be stress, and all of us are going to roll our eyes at that because it's like, well, we all have stress, right, and so you can't just live in like this little perfect bubble, and I think that sometimes that can be an excuse for us to say, you know, to not examine what our stressors are. So when I talk about stress, I'm not just talking about like, do you feel stressed in the moment, do you feel anxious? Have you had a busy day? I'm talking about stressors like blood sugar imbalance. That's a huge one for women because so much of the time we're in this go go go lifestyle and we're told that restricting is better, eating less is better, being smaller is better, and so we get in these patterns oftentimes of restricting too much, where we're not getting balanced meals, we're not getting them consistently, and that is a really big red flag for your body, essentially because when you have these blood sugar drops, it causes a big spike in cortisol. It's truly an emergency in the body when you have blood sugar drops and when you have these spikes of cortisol throughout the day, maybe like once or twice a day, every single day, because you're not eating enough or consistently enough to fuel your body, then your body, your brain, is getting those signals of like emergency, emergency, emergency, on top of all the other emergency signals that we're getting throughout the day. So blood sugar imbalance is a really big one. Another really big one is the liver not functioning well, because it's just kind of like, typically overloaded by all kinds of things that we've put into our bodies and, you know, have been around us in our environments, and so liver support is really really important for hormone balance.

Speaker 2:

But I think that just realizing that what your body is telling you like you were saying, like your cycle is a vital sign and the symptoms that you're having are because your body is trying to tell you something.

Speaker 2:

I think that that's just such a mindset shift for us from you know, my body hates me, it's working against me, it sucks to be a woman. I hear that. I hear that a lot of times and I can see, you know, when you're having a lot of hormone symptoms, how that can feel really true and when we look at it as my body is telling me something because it wants to work with me and it's trying to alert me that something is wrong. It's a lot more like your child is next to you and they're saying like, mom, mom, mom, mom, and you're just not listening to them, right? Well, what's going to start to happen is they're going to start to get louder and they're going to scream and they're going to throw things and they're going to like throw their bodies on the floor because they're trying to get your attention, and so that's why sometimes, symptoms will get bigger as you go on if you're not addressing the root cause.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, and what you just mentioned of, I think, as women in general, we can often be so disassociated and disconnected from our bodies and I think one of the gifts that's a really hard gift of motherhood is that, for so many, motherhood brings us back to our bodies in a way that, like it becomes unignorable, like we no longer have the capacity to ignore the signs and signals like we used to. Or maybe because we're seeing our kids and we're seeing the way that we're caring for them and nurturing for them. And then we realized, like wait, I'm not doing that for myself. That, I know, for me has always been big light bulb moments, both, you know, early on in motherhood, seeing my daughter and being like, wait, I would want her, like, would I want her to not eat Because I think she thinks she's fat, like just that coming out of my mouth feels disgusting. And yet there's a reality that, like, as grown women, we are treating our bodies as things, as objects, and we've disassociated from ourselves as these worthy beings, and that our body is valuable and reconnecting to listening to what our body says.

Speaker 1:

And I think you do this in such a beautiful, powerful way because so many experts, so many teachers. They only tell you what to do. They're like here's your plan. There's no like let's see what your body needs. And it's like one size fits all and it's someone else telling the woman what her body needs, instead of asking what her body needs, letting her body speak up for what it needs.

Speaker 1:

And knowing that, like you know, one of the most profound calls we had are like pretty sure, I cried and it was like okay, we're done here. No, but you looked at me and you were like I trust your body, like I trust, like I trust what your body's doing. And that's such a different approach to health and wellness and especially hormones, of knowing that, like my body's not at war against me, I'm not at war against my body. Like my body wants to be healthy, my body wants to have healthy hormones. So how do we get to that? We we have to find a way to get to that place of taking care of our body. What are the ways that you see that we can like take care of our body? What are the ways that you see that we can like take care of our bodies that we maybe haven't been?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that for many of us, it comes down to looking at nourishment, and I talk about nourishment with food, of course, but also like, how are you nourishing yourself otherwise? Like with sleep, with movement, with sunshine, with connection, like all of the things that we need to be thriving and to be whole as women. To be thriving and to be whole as women, I kind of going back to your point of like, we'll do these things for our kids, we'll make sure they have food, we'll make sure they have, you know, activities and they have a bedtime routine and they have, you know time to run around and like all of these things. We'll do those things for our kids, but we're not even checking in with those basic things for ourselves. And so much of the time, I find that even the women who are, you know, kind of like quote unquote eating healthy and exercising, are missing some really vital things when it comes to eating well, to balance hormones. It's not always that you're eating the wrong foods, but are you eating them in the right combinations for your body? Are we looking at you know? How did this? Just because this breakfast was on Instagram and they say it's a hormone balanced breakfast. Well, it may not be a hormone balanced breakfast for you, if that food isn't digesting well for you, or if your gut is messed up, or if you ate it at the wrong time or you know like you worked out super hard afterward and that was just like a snack. There's so many different factors that I think it's so important for women to be able to have healthcare and that was just like a snack.

Speaker 2:

There's so many different factors that I think it's so important for women to be able to have healthcare. That isn't this like one size fits all, like you talk about. Like we have to look at what are the factors for you that are causing these symptoms to come up in the first place. So when I start looking at supporting women, I look at like number one is always are you eating breakfast? Are you eating within an hour of waking up? Do you have carbs and protein together at your meals? Those things are very basic and I mean I would say definitely. More than half the time those things are not happening and it's really truly incredible, even just that one little step of like learning to create a balanced breakfast and having it consistently every day within an hour of waking up, how much.

Speaker 2:

I can just like flip the switch and this goes back to your question earlier of like, why are hormones so important in motherhood? In my experience, you know, I started this out, started out working with women on hormones just to be like, oh, you can have better periods, you can have less PMS and better energy. Well, all of those things are beautiful and I love seeing those things for my clients and they, like, really are truly important because it gives you your life back. And when you have energy and you're not like on the couch for three days with your period and you're not PMSing for a week, where you're like, who am I?

Speaker 2:

Even Like I've got one to two good weeks out of the month when you start to come out of that, your capacity increases dramatically. When you're not having to constantly, you know, be like essentially fighting against your symptoms, just to like be able to make dinner, just to be able to pick up the kids from school, just to be able to not yell at them, like you're trying so hard when. But when things are balanced with your hormones, you don't have to try as hard and that gives you more capacity for other things that you really care about, whether that's showing up in motherhood, or it's showing up in your work, or it's just having the creative capacity to have fun or have dinner with a friend and not just be completely exhausted. It really, truly is life-changing when your hormones are given the ingredients that they need to work well, because your body completely changes and shifts out of that fight or flight mode into more of a like state of thriving.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Well, and our bodies? I I think most people would agree there's like this. I think culture would call it a mental health crisis, and yet we're completely ignoring that our mental health is completely coupled with our emotional and physiology, Like it's not just happening in your head, it's happening in your body. It's happening in your body in the like somatic, emotional sense, but it's also happening in your actual biology of you know your stress and your sleep and how you're taking care of your human body, Like you're a whole person.

Speaker 1:

And I love that you bring that holistic approach, because so many moms, I think we're looking at. We're looking at we need it to look better on paper, not necessarily like, wait, I'm a human and I deserve to feel good, and when I feel good, I actually behave better. Like so many, so many of us were just trying to act better. But we don't look at like, well, I'm not acting well because I don't feel well, Like there's a need here that's not being met. There's there's something that I could do or not do that's going to help me feel better and that's what grows the capacity.

Speaker 2:

And it's like the inner toddler that you talk about all the time, like we don't expect toddlers to act really well when they haven't eaten, they haven't slept, they haven't you know, like add what they need. I think that that's the like, the as a mom, your child starts acting up and you're like okay, like have they eaten, have they slept? Because if not, like you don't have to blame yourself. It's just like, oh look, they have something that they need. Right, it's not that I didn't teach them.

Speaker 1:

You know how to walk down the sidewalk and you know stand up, you know there's just so many of like muscle, no amount of like willpower is going to make a toddler who's having a fit like know how to behave if their needs aren't being met. And I think oftentimes, as women, we treat ourselves that way. It's like I'm expecting myself to feel good and act good when I'm not even meeting some of my most basic needs. Or even, like you know, there's there's seasons where stuff happens and life isn't perfect and things get off, but it's like, okay, how could you have grace and do what you can instead of just making it this all or nothing? I think motherhood is one of those seasons where all or nothing is one of the biggest things that gets in the way. What are, what are the things that you see getting in the way for women to actually change things to impact their hormone health?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that it's a couple of things that you've already said. One of them is like treating this like a checkbox and like just wanting it to look better on paper so that could look like you know you're getting hormone testing and you're like oh, my estrogen is low, so I must need to take some estrogen. Or, even more common, like progesterone is low, I'm going to just like supplement with progesterone in the second half of my cycle, or sometimes all cycle long. And while that makes it look better on paper, we're not looking at what's actually going on under the surface. And that happens with breast control all the time too.

Speaker 2:

I had this just like moment a couple of days ago. My friend showed was like hey, will you look at my labs? And I looked at her labs and her doctor had checked her estrogen and progesterone. And, um, as far as I can, as far as I know, didn't ask like where she was in her cycle, but just like checked her estrogen progesterone. And then the doctor's little note. It was like your progesterone looks a little bit low. To help boost that, you could take a progesterone, only birth control. But when I looked at I knew where she was in her cycle. Um, because we're syncing up in our cycles and I looked at it and I was like, didn't you just take this a couple of days ago? Like you just got off your period? Look at this. Like it says, in follicular phase, this is normal progesterone. But like the doctor didn't look at that, she just said, oh, your progesterone is low, you need birth control.

Speaker 2:

When, like this friend of mine, like she would like to get pregnant sometime in the near future, like birth control is not the answer for her, but the, the answer that was given is just such a bandaid and sometimes the most. I mean, in my opinion, that's like the most basic mistake to make when you're checking someone's work. Like a woman's hormones, our hormones change throughout the month, continually. You have to know that, to know if it's normal or not. Like that's the first question to ask. And it's just so easy for that to be overlooked when we just are kind of like slapping band-aids on these, these things.

Speaker 2:

And I think, even when we look at the effect of birth control on women as a whole, having a cycle and like having our hormones change is such a such an integral part of our physiology and I know that it's just so common to be like, oh, like, I'm just going to take birth control, so my symptoms are better, but it's not asking the why it's not asking well, like why do you have that period? Is it because you're short on birth control? No, it's not asking the why it's not asking well, like why do you have that period? Is it because you're short on birth control? No, it's not. It's because there's something going on with your gut and your liver and, like your estrogen.

Speaker 2:

And what we can do is we can help you build the like, have the ingredients to make those hormones Well, and we can help you have the ingredients to detox those hormones Well. And once you have those two things ingredients to detox those hormones well and once you have those two things like things can change for the better really in not that much time and then they can stay better. So some of the biggest roadblocks I see for hormone balance are just women not understanding their hormones obviously guilty, like I was there. So no judgment by any means.

Speaker 1:

And we weren't taught it.

Speaker 2:

We weren't taught anything about our hormones other than you have a period every month, like is what most people are taught, yeah, yeah, and my mom my mom like really did try to do a good job too, and like she, she taught me about my cycle to some extent, but even like with my irregular cycle, she was like, oh yeah, our family just kind of like has long cycles, like that kind of thing, and it's like you know, just she didn't know what to look for either, and so I think that that's one thing that we can do for our daughters.

Speaker 2:

So much better is like we'll learn about our own bodies. So they're not learning this when they're 30 and hopefully they're not going on birth control, you know, in their teens for bad periods, or you know that cycle in their brain and their bodies isn't just being shut off as soon as it gets turned on, because it really is such a valuable part of our womanhood and like the way that our hormones change throughout our cycle is a huge part of truly like who we are as women and like our real personalities and who, like what we really love and who we love. Like all of those things are tied to our hormones. Even our like memory and focus and cognition, like all of it's tied to our hormones. So I just think that, like we're missing something really big when we don't give that the value that it has.

Speaker 1:

Like one of our vital signs of health that oftentimes isn't seen as that. And even coming back to this friend who went to the doctor, I think I've heard a million times and I've had this experience. I've had both experiences One of like you go in and say this is what I'm struggling with, and they're like here's birth control, Now you're better, which that led me down a whole awful path which don't really want to get in, Don't have the time for today, the time for today. But I've also had the experience where I went in like postpartum and I'm saying like my energy's low, I don't feel good, these are the things. And they like run a really quick basic lab panel and they're like you're fine and I'm like, but I'm not. Like they're not asking me what I'm eating, and like back then, like I was healthy ish, Like I was decently healthy, I would say, and yet like I didn't feel good.

Speaker 1:

And instead of helping me understand why I didn't feel good and how I could feel better, it was basically just like you're fine, You're like everything on paper looks good, Instead of being like oh wait, your symptoms would say something's off and you could need some support. There's this listening to the body and your physiology as a wisdom, and then working with your body instead of just saying, no, you're okay, here's a bandaid. Pretend it's not happening, which that's not to say it's bad to use those band-aids or to have those things. And when you're looking for, when you're wanting something different, it's so good and reassuring to know that there are ways to help support your body other than just birth control Cause I think for so many of us, we haven't been taught how to have a cycle even yeah, that's so true and I want to.

Speaker 2:

I want to, you know. Just say I'm not necessarily a hundred percent against birth control. Truly, I am getting closer to a hundred percent than I used to be, but, like, there are circumstances where I think really my biggest thing is I want women to have informed consent, and so, if you understand, this is how it works in your body. It's not really fixing symptoms. You can prevent pregnancy without it. It's not the only option, and these are the side effects that could potentially happen, or these are the very common side effects that do happen. Would you like to take it? Would you not? Absolutely. Every woman should have that right to make her own choice. I'm fully supportive of that, and informed consent is not something that happens often. It's very much like oh, your progesterone looks slow, you should probably take this birth control, it'll make you feel better. That's not informed consent on any level.

Speaker 1:

No, I mean, I even look back to even just a piece of my story. I was put on birth control really young I want to say middle school, like it was very, very young and one of the things that I experienced is, after a while I started having pretty intense psychological things. And I'm pretty convinced it wasn't all the birth control. There was also life things happening. There was also some trauma things happening. But I know that later on in life, when I went back on birth control after being on it, I started having depression again. When I went back on birth control after being on it, I started having depression again.

Speaker 1:

I started having these things that can be associated with the pill. Not once did my doctor give informed consent or even like when my parents took me to the doctor and they're like she's having these side effects, not once did the doctor say huh weird, we just put you on a medication that literally says here on the label because I've had that experience with birth control, but I've also had that experience with medication for mental health that I was given of like huh weird, this is literally a side effect of this medicine we just gave you. But not once have we mentioned that we're just going to put a different pill on it and not actually address what's happening. We're not really going to listen a different pill on it and not actually address what's happening. We're not really going to listen to you, we're just going to make the problem quieter so that it almost felt like just know, you're fine, you're okay, here's the pill. You're fine. When it's like, wait, no, why, why is this happening when it wasn't before? That's not informed consent. That's not good care for women, and I've I've also heard so many stories of women saying that like they go to doctors trying to get off of birth control and saying, like I'm experiencing these symptoms, and the doctors are basically like no, you're not.

Speaker 1:

It's like no, but like she's experiencing these symptoms, so, but you can't help her. And it's that's why I'm so passionate and in love with what you do is giving women information that empowers them to know to make a choice that's actually a choice, and knowing that they can be empowered around their bodies and their health, especially around our cycle, which is not something that very many women have. It's not something that we used to openly talk about. Well, now it is. If you're in my circle, there's like regular conversation of like what phase you're in and yeah, exactly which.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I think that that gives us such a better foundation to understand. You know what we're experiencing and I had that same experience with birth control when I tried an IUD and she actually did tell me a couple of side effects when she put the IUD in. She was like you, you know, you might get some more headaches, you might be a little more moody, and I think I had some like bleeding stuff too. I can't quite remember it's been a little while, but I had. I had some like bleeding stuff too. I can't quite remember it's been a little while, but I had it in for like two to three months. I was having more headaches, getting more moody. I asked my husband like I promise I won't kill you if you answer this Like am I?

Speaker 1:

crazy.

Speaker 2:

Like yes, um, just like really quietly, like I'm sorry to say this, but you're having a hard time, and and my husband was like very supportive, was great about all of it. But I was like I think it's the IUD. And he was like I think it is too. And so I went back to her and I was like listen, I'm having these side effects. I want the IUD out. And she kind of gave me the oh honey. She was like it's probably not the IUD, but if you think it'll make you feel better, I'll take it out for you. And I was like get it out, I'm never coming back. And that was the end of that.

Speaker 2:

But like, it was like just kind of like it was just very maddening, honestly, where she had told me like you might have these side effects and put in this IUD. And then I went back and I'm like I'm having the side effects. And she's like oh no, you're not, it's not that you do. And I'm like, literally, you were the one who told me this could happen. So in that circumstance, like most of the time, I feel like there's not even that much you know information beforehand. But it's just like, man, there's gotta be there, there is a better way. I was going to say there's gotta be a better way, but now I've learned there's much better way.

Speaker 1:

And even just education on what's happening in our bodies throughout the different phases of our cycle. This is something that, like, I've become so passionate about teaching women of like how different our biology, our emotions and our minds are working at different phases, and knowing that, like there's nothing wrong with you and that there's something different about you, and actually addressing what's going on instead of just making it this flippant like oh, she's PMSing I feel like that was such a big narrative, especially like in high school or you know those things with teen girls especially. But even into like women is like oh, I'm PMSing, versus like a lot of times, you know, as a coach with women, I'll talk to them like, hey, what phase are we in? Okay, this might be a little bit elevated, you might feel more sensitive to it. You, it might feel a little bit like extra dramatic, but that doesn't mean that like nothing's happening. That doesn't mean it's not real. It doesn't mean it's not real. It might mean that, like right now, we need to journal about it instead of talk to your husband about it. Like you might need to wait until you know there's different things that we need in different phases, but actually having the permission to know, this is what I'm going through and this is how I support it, instead of pretending like it's not happening or making it seem like, oh, once a month, for a week, I'm just crazy, and the people in my household get to act like I'm a ticking time bomb. How do we actually support women to care for themselves?

Speaker 1:

Well, even from the time they're girls I mean me and you have talked about our passion of like teaching young girls for starting their periods. Like not just here's your period, here's the pad, go for it but like here's how we're going to track your cycle. Hey, have you noticed that a couple of days before your period, you feel these things, you notice these things? Okay, what can that mean in how you take care of yourself? What can that mean in nutrition? What can that mean in how much sleep you need? It's really not that complex, like I feel, like I'm I'm hearing this conversation of like someone listening to this podcast who doesn't know about hormones or cycle syncing, and it's like it might sound complex. It's actually so simple, but it's only simple when you're honoring the nuance, and I'm trying to think of the word. It's not complex when you're honoring the complexity, like when you're honoring the fact that it's not the same every day.

Speaker 2:

Right, exactly, yeah, and I think that I have even gotten away from kind of traditional cycle thinking, because what I really focus on is simplifying hormone balance for moms and when. With cycle thinking, I think that there's so much about it that can be great and it's like something to keep track of all the time and, depending on how you do it, you know, like if you're seed cycling or if you're trying to eat like specific foods each week of your cycle like for me, that got a little extra, I got a little overwhelming, but when it's. But what I like to do is like let's look at what nutrients your body needs to build hormones Well, all month long. Let's look at what ingredients your body needs to detox hormones Well, all month long. And let's be consistent with those. Because what I see is when we try to get too fancy, we just are not going to be able to do that long-term. Typically, it's just really easy to, you know, be really excited and be like look at my seeds. Here I go Right, and then I mean some of you might be seed cycling for years and years, and good for you. And like I think that sometimes we just have to peel back the layers and be like okay, well, what are we even doing with the seed cycling? We're trying to get these nutrients, and is it necessary that you only have them in half of your cycle and the other half of your cycle, or could we just like have foods in your diet all the time that have these nutrients all the time, so you have them when you need them and your body has stores Like? I think that that's where I like to like not overcomplicate it.

Speaker 2:

But when we look at the emotional side and I think that one thing that I love to do with cycle syncing is understand, you know, during your period week, yeah, you might have lower social energy, you might have lower physical energy, but did you know that you also have strengths in that phase and like, you can analyze, you can plan, you can be introspective. All of those things are strengths that go along with lower social energy and lower physical energy, because you can take the time to like, plan, to analyze, to journal, like you can just pull back a little bit on some of the other things you're doing and like really get deep. And in your follicular phase you know, sometimes I think that's the one that gets like the best rap, where it's like follicular is like all good and sometimes it is, and sometimes women like struggle during that phase too if they have estrogen imbalances. But when we just look at, I think just not um, trying to like make it so black and white where it's like this is good and this is bad in your cycle, but it's like we have essentially like maybe it it's, maybe it's positive and negative, but like just being able to look at like this is just how it is.

Speaker 2:

Like maybe lower social energy is good because you need to like take a break. Sometimes it'd be lower physical energy is your body telling you you need a little break. And that doesn't mean like you should be at a place where you're just like lying on the couch or whole period week because you have no energy. No, like that's extreme. But if you happen to just notice like hey, I'd love to take a nap day one and two of my period, what if that was something that could be seen as beautiful and accepted? And like you just scheduled a little time in for that right, because then we're not fighting against ourselves anymore, we're just saying like oh, look, it's my period, I'd love to take nap. I look forward to taking a nap on my period Right, and then here you are a couple of days later back to your regular energy, without it being something that you have to feel like shame or guilt or whatever for, and you have to try to push through.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, and that consistency I think so much with consistency is so many women don't realize they're like I'm so consistent until I'm not. It's like this, this all or nothing that really comes from perfectionism of I have to do it all perfect or I'm not going to do it at all, and I think we massively bring that to health. And I think there's a lot of different reasons. I think a lot of that is just diet culture in general carries so much shame around. There's so much morality involved that, like it's not logical, it's not women are logically. Well, that's not true.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we're having, like the mental battles with diet culture, but I think a lot of it is just embodied of I'm bad If I eat this, I'm good if I eat this, when consistency with our health oftentimes looks like what does my body need and what actually feels good, like how does this actually impact me? And noticing that flow of the feminine, of it's okay to have dips and peaks, but how can we make those not so dramatic and not such a roller coaster? Like how can you support yourself in the dips and the peaks in a way of health, instead of trying to just constantly be at a hundred percent and instead of taking this like I love that you called it fancy where, like you're trying to do everything perfect and yeah, you can do it for a while, but then something happens that like gives you a blip or it's not working. You can do it for a while, but then something happens that like gives you a blip or it's not working and you just throw it all out the window, versus saying like, oh, maybe I just need to simplify it or maybe for this week, I just need to keep it simple.

Speaker 1:

Those are things that are totally accessible, but we often miss them because we're so focused on finding the fancy, perfect on paper solution. Because we we have this culture, this like influencer social media culture, where it's like clearly there is a perfect five-step strategy that will perfectly heal your hormones or perfectly make your business how it's supposed to be, or make your motherhood how it is, and both of us know that like it's not that simple, but it's a lot more individualistic. It's a lot more simple when we bring it back to that individual.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that perfectionism is one of the things that I see as one of the biggest roadblocks outside of just like women not even knowing what to look for, knowing, like, what is normal and what's not with hormones. But perfectionism is something that comes up a lot for my students, for my clients, for myself, like for all of us right Um, where we just are holding ourselves this kind of like impossible standard, and even just that like causes a lot of stress on the body, and so I have learned throughout the last five years of working with women on hormones, like consistency is queen and I know it doesn't sound sexy or like, oh, it's this. You know, I always call it like the happy flow supplement. If there is a happy flow supplement, I'm sorry, back to that company, but like you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1:

You get on Instagram about a literal company.

Speaker 2:

You're saying like idealistically like you get on Instagram and it's like here's your happy flow supplement. If you take this, you won't have any bloating or PMS or whatever you know what. Sometimes those supplements can help, but they're again. They're just like it's too shiny, it's too quick fix oriented, but like there's a reason.

Speaker 2:

Your hormones are imbalanced and it's something that you're doing or something you have done, and so changing your patterns is something that needs to happen, and the only way to do that is with taking small steps and taking them consistently. And, again, like as much as no one's gonna be like if I made an Instagram ad that says to fix your hormones, take these small steps consistently, everyone's going to be like scroll, like boring right, like I just want the shiny thing and that's what works. So being willing to maybe even I don't know if it's humility, necessarily, but just being willing to like change your expectations a little bit, where you're not just like oh, I need this like one fancy thing to fix myself, but it's like how about I just take a step back and see if I'm eating food?

Speaker 1:

I actually I love that you use the word humility, because I think humility the way that I think of humility is bringing yourself back into your humanity. And what I noticed with coaching is like, even with my long-term clients and even with myself, like I'm giggling, like thinking of a call just a couple of weeks ago with my coach and I was literally crying. And then we're like doing all of this deep work and I'm like, wait, so you're literally freaking, telling me that basically everything we're going to do is coming back to like I had to feel something uncomfortable, I had to take action according to my values, and like there's nothing new and shiny here that I had to learn from you. It's like literally just coming back consistently over and over and like processing my feelings, like taking a light action, like there's nothing like shiny or revolutionary and yeah, there's like new, different ways to learn that and apply that, and like I think we can grow in the depth that we can do that in and at the same time, over and over and over again in my work and it sounds like in your work too it's coming back to this like this isn't some shiny, fancy, overnight thing, like there's actually.

Speaker 1:

There's some humility and humanity of like yeah, life is going to be hard, you're going to have to show up day after day. It's like you can have the best oral health ever, but if you stop brushing your teeth for three weeks, your oral health is going to decline. If you miss one or two nights you'll probably be okay, but like if you stop, if you forgot to brush your teeth last night, you're not going to not brush your teeth tonight. And yet I think that's the mindset that we bring to health, whether that's like mental and emotional health or even just our biological hormone. Health is like oh, I messed up this one time, versus like okay, brush my teeth today.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, I think that's such a big one where we're like even even what you said of like oh I've, you know, I've been good, I ate this way, or I've been bad, and like hearing someone be like like oh yeah, I haven't been that good with food, like it is truly not a moral issue.

Speaker 2:

And I believe there are moral issues, I believe in like black and white, right and wrong in some instances, but not with food, because when we're making it about that and we're making it like an equivalent of like I ate, you know whatever ice cream, brownies, pizza, and like that is sin in my life. No, it's not, yeah, it's not. And so, thinking about you know, essentially and I think the thing that I see that I think is the most skewed in our thinking with food is that, like essentially what you said, like well, I had pizza tonight, so might as well have ice cream too, because the day is shot Right, and it's like, no, like you just had pizza, like a lot of that perfectionistic good versus bad, moral, moral high ground of food, versus like what this food does to you, how it makes you feel, how it works.

Speaker 1:

Just like this thing is neutral, like it doesn't make you a bad person and I don't. There's so many women who they don't have that logical thought in their head, but they feel it in their body. There's this, there's there's shame associated with it and it's like we beat ourselves up thinking it'll help us be better but it ends up just making just stealing all of our joy and energy of you deserve to feel really good and take really good care of yourself, and that doesn't mean needing a moral high ground. It means taking really good care of yourself consistently, even when you don't feel good, and learning what that relationship to food can look like. I feel like we should do a whole podcast on like the emotional.

Speaker 1:

You know that like I love the emotional, mental side of food because I think for so many women we have a really hard time with health, with diet, because it has been so moral and emotional and even, like you know, without getting into a whole whole trail of like just trauma, but also the way that like we dealt with things, the way that we felt good, the way that we felt bad, the way that we punished or rewarded, the way that, like, we felt good in our bodies, and learning to update all of those stories is so important, and I think you do that in such a beautiful way of like giving information that's based on like you're valuable and you deserve to feel good and have energy.

Speaker 1:

What's if you had to give one simple thing that makes a difference for moms that they could start with? And I love that, like there's so many good things you do that are individualistic, but I I love that, like there's so many good things you do that are individualistic, but I also know that you're so good at knowing, like simple basic things, where's a good place for women to start.

Speaker 2:

So, especially if you're someone who's like I'm already taking care of myself, I'm eating well, I'm exercising, I would love for you to just get a piece of paper, take a note in your phone and just write down everything you eat for a couple of days and when you eat it, because sometimes we have these like standards for ourselves and we're like, oh, I eat organic or you know, whatever it is, that's like your standard, but a lot of times there's big gaps that you could be missing.

Speaker 2:

So being able to just like, take a little bit of um, take a little bit of perspective and just be really honest with yourself of like, oh, look, this is what I'm eating and I skipped lunch all three days, who knew? Or like every single night I had this craving for something sweet or something salty and like ended up eating more of that than I wanted to. And like, oh, maybe that's not just once a week, maybe that is every day, right, whatever that looks like, it's really helpful to be honest with yourself in that way, so that you can come to a place to get information with a little more idea of where you are. So that's something that I I think can be really helpful.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I love that because it's starting with, instead of having, oh there's a problem, let's fix it, it's like, let's make sure we actually know what the problem is Like, let's actually grow awareness around the problem, because then we're actually bringing a solution to it that matches. So I love that. That's so good. Is there anything else that you would want to like name that we've talked about? That like feels like a loose end. Before we finish up, you know.

Speaker 2:

I think that one thing that I just want to be really clear is if you are having hormone symptoms, so you're having painful periods, heavy periods, you're having mood changes around PMS, breast tenderness, bloating, stomach issues, a lot of fatigue, like hormonal acne, just really not feeling like yourself anywhere in your cycle.

Speaker 2:

To be honest, a lot of times those things show up like around PMS time or like around your period, just knowing that doesn't have to continue, that doesn't. That is not actually normal. I think that's just a takeaway that I would really want you to have that having stable cycles looks to me like having like kind of those, like having those gentle ebbs and flows that we talked about, versus it being like a roller coaster. Or you're like at the beach during a hurricane and that's like how your waves feel, just knowing like, okay, that's my body telling me something. Like I'm going to start to look for information, start to look for support so that those things can change, without it being like something's wrong with me, I'm doing something wrong, like it's just information. So I think, understanding that clearly that there's there's a different way and you can have those symptoms improve, even if they've never improved before, it doesn't mean it's just you or that's just how it is for your family, like there's something that we can do about it.

Speaker 1:

And I love that. You said it's just information. It makes it less scary of like I did something wrong or something's wrong with me or it's going to be this way forever. I know I had I felt so much better after we worked together and you know, if you are interested, leisha has a great podcast. It's like super informative. Her social media is awesome. She has like a really great program that you can do. But definitely go check her out. She is such a wealth of information.

Speaker 1:

But I think what I love most about you is you have the information like. You are seriously so I can never get over how smart you are when it comes to this stuff. But you you are so caring with the person that you're sitting across from and you're so encouraging and life-giving and like the reality of what it feels like to make these changes and like meeting the person where they are. I think that's something that can often be missing from this space is the the care and compassion about like what it's actually like for that person. So I just appreciate you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

That's yeah. Thank you for being here, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Well. Definitely let us know if you guys have any more questions for Leisha. If you enjoyed part of this, please go leave a review, send it to a friend and definitely go check out Leisha's podcast. Thank you for being here today. Thank you, Becca. Thanks for hanging out today on the motherhood mentor podcast. If you loved today's episode, share it with a friend or tag me in your stories on instagram so that we can connect. Take up audacious space in your life and I'll see you next time.

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