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The Motherhood Mentor
Welcome to The Motherhood Mentor Podcast your go-to resource for moms seeking holistic healing and transformation. Hosted by mind-body somatic healing practitioner and holistic life coach Becca Dollard.
Join us as we explore the transformative power of somatic healing, offering practical tools and strategies to help you navigate overwhelm, burnout, and stress. Through insightful conversations, empowering stories, and expert guidance, you'll discover how to cultivate resilience, reclaim balance, and thrive in every aspect of your life while still feeling permission to be a human. Are you a woman who is building a business while raising babies who refuses to burnout? These are conversations and support for you.
We believe in the power of vulnerability, connection, and self-discovery, and our goal is to create a space where you feel seen, heard, and valued.
Whether you're juggling career, family, or personal growth, this podcast is your sanctuary for holistic healing and growth all while normalizing the ups and downs, the messy and the magic, and the wild ride of this season of motherhood.
Your host:
Becca is a mom of two, married for 14years to her husband Jay living in Colorado. She is a certified somatic healing practitioner and holistic life coach to high functioning moms. She works with women who are navigating raising babies, building businesses, and prioritizing their own wellbeing and healing. She understands the unique challenges of navigating being fully present in motherhood while also wanting to be wildly creative and ambitious in her work. The Motherhood Mentor serves and supports moms through 1:1 coaching, in person community, and weekend retreats.
Follow on IG: @themotherhoodmentor , send me a dm and let me know you found me through the podcast!
Website: https://www.the-motherhood-mentor.com/
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The Motherhood Mentor
Balance, burnout, and hormones. What to do when you are already doing all the right things and it's not enough with Erin Trier
Are you a mom juggling business, family, and trying to optimize and prioritize your own health and wellbeing? If you are like many of the women I know, you have already doing so many of the right things and feel like it's not working anymore or it's not doing enough. Join me and my guest Erin Trier as we talk and deep dive into all things health, wellness, hormones, and burnout.
How does our health need to evolve with our goals and stages of life? How can we honor the cycles and seasons of what we need? In a world that tells us to do and have it all, Erin emphasizes the significance of individual needs and fluctuating expectations.
Explore the dynamic world of women's health as we discuss the concept of "inside out health," which encourages women to understand their unique physiology and hormonal cycles. With Erin's guidance and the Empower Method, learn how to track cycles, recognize hormonal fluctuations, and build hormone-supportive habits. This episode highlights the importance of balancing the physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual aspects of health, and how embracing imperfect balance can nurture overall well-being. Discover how aligning fitness and nutrition with hormonal cycles can enhance energy, mood, and productivity.
In a world that often pressures women to have it all, Erin emphasizes the significance of understanding personal capacity and recognizing life's natural ebb and flow. As we navigate perimenopause and other transitions, we discuss the necessity for stress-reducing practices and the importance of tuning into personal needs. Erin's insights remind us that fulfillment and balance come from honoring our unique journeys, allowing for rest and rejuvenation, and building a supportive foundation for long-term happiness and health. Join us for a conversation that empowers women to prioritize what truly matters and find grace in life's seasons.
About Erin:
Erin Trier is an expert women's wellness and empowerment coach revolutionizing the way moms prioritize their wellness and self-care. Specializing in women’s health, Erin focuses on helping overwhelmed mothers simplify the health process and get intentional with their nutrition, fitness, lifestyle, mindset and tuning into their unique bio-individuality.
With a Masters in Social Work and certifications that include NASM-CPT, Pn1 Nutrition and SYNC for Women’s Health, Erin brings over a decade of expertise to her practice. Alongside her professional education, Erin has successfully built a personal wellness business, generating over six figures in revenue while fulfilling her role as a devoted mother of 4.
Find Erin:
Join us next time as we continue to explore the multifaceted journey of motherhood.
Thank you for tuning in to The Motherhood Mentor. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us.
Stay connected with us on social media and share your thoughts and experiences tagging @themotherhoodmentor
Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a somatic healing practitioner and a holistic life coach for moms, and this podcast is for you. You can expect honest conversations and incredible guests that speak to health, healing and growth in every area of our lives. This isn't just strategy for what we do. It's support for who we are. I believe we can be wildly ambitious while still holding all of our soft and hard humanity as holy. I love combining deep inner healing with strategic systems and no-nonsense talk about what this season is really like. So grab whatever weird health beverage you're currently into and let's get into it. Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Today, I have an incredible guest with me and we are going to be talking about hormone health and just health and wellness, especially when it comes to longevity and what it means for us as individuals, and I'm just so excited for this conversation. So, Erin, will you introduce yourself to my audience?
Speaker 2:I sure will. Rebecca, thank you so much for having me today. I feel so grateful to connect with you and for the opportunity to just share my heart, share my story, talk a little bit about my passion for health and wellness and how I serve inside the women's health space specifically. So a little bit about me. My name is Erin Trier. I'm a mom of four. I'm a women's health coach and a podcaster. I'm also a medical mom and I have a really deep passion for serving people on their health and wellness journey.
Speaker 2:I actually am someone who started in the health and wellness space and working in the health and wellness space and more of a business model that was focused on one size fits all strategies and here's the cookie cutter messaging and here's the quick fix mentality and that served me for a portion of my life until it didn't and I had this really profound shift happen for me.
Speaker 2:That kind of led me down this road of totally uncovering different levels of education and knowledge and certifications on how I wanted to grow my expertise on how to really support women when it comes to their longevity wellness and how do you really shift into not only lifestyle habits but also tuning into kind of your inside out symptoms and understanding how your health evolves over time. And, in a nutshell, I learned the hard way how what I was once doing was not going to serve me for the longevity of my life. And so that's kind of where my heart sits today, with wanting to talk to women, wanting to connect with women on our authentic stories and the realness of how health has felt and essentially talk about how our health has evolved and what do we need to do together to learn and grow through new levels of understanding, habits and lifestyle and so much more that really serves us for long term. So that's really a little bit about me.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so good. One of the things you were talking about that I heard is like these different seasons of health and like how it changed, because I was under the assumption that once I just became an adult, I would just like have things figured out and then I just do that till I die. Turns out for the positive and the like really hard for me as someone who wants to have a plan and then just keep executing. Everything shifts at different seasons and we were talking before we started recording about like that, before we started recording about like that, that season of having babies and kind of that. Like that pregnancy and postpartum season where we're really thinking about like fertility especially.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of women become alive to their own individual health when it's when someone else is dependent on it for better or worse. Like it does awaken new levels of like oh, what am I feeding my body? How do I work out and in a, not just how skinny, how fit do I look, it's like. Oh, how do I feel? I'm curious your journey as a mom and just like from your health, what like the different seasons have been and what, what made you?
Speaker 2:shift. What made me shift? That's such a great question. So, as I said, I'm a mom of four and every single one of my postpartum journeys was drastically different, so some of them were easier than others. Some of them were really hard physically, some of them were really hard mentally, and so I really got a glimpse into different layers of how I had to get honest about taking care of my wellness as each postpartum journey happened. But then also, like you said, as I was evolving through different seasons and as I had more kids and as we built our family, you know I had different levels of things I was managing. I had more than one kid and then I was also trying to continue out how to figure out building into my passion more and continuing to serve inside the wellness space, and so I was managing these different levels of being an entrepreneur, but also watching my health shift as I went through different postpartum seasons and as I got older. So for me, it really was this awakening, like you said, about trying to understand what do I need to shift in my day-to-day that really serves my inside out health. My fourth baby after my fourth baby he was basically a COVID baby. He was born at the end of 2019.
Speaker 2:And at the beginning of 2020, I remember the world shutting down and I remember feeling really heavy mental health specific hurdles. I remember feeling like debilitated in my day to day. I remember having so little energy. I remember that, like all the healthy habits quote unquote I was leaning on like exercise and trying to get good sleep and trying to fuel my body well with energizing foods and things like that. Like nothing was working, nothing was adding up for me and that was really my first big glimpse into my health is changing Like this is a different season, not only because the world was kind of weird and there was a lot happening outside of our control in the larger society we were in, but it was also in my own journey and in our family and it was just this profound shift where I realized like I had to go deeper.
Speaker 2:It was no longer about like here's the exercise program I can just follow that comes in a box or in a plan that I can blindly just follow along with. No longer can I like exercise, these extreme types of nutrition strategies or cutting out food groups or doing things that I thought were getting me to where I wanted to go in the past, like none of it was really helping me the same, and, like I said, before we even started recording today, I had a season where all of that worked fine, like I just followed the calendars, blindly, did some extreme nutrition strategies. You know, I kind of was just doing what I always knew how to do because it worked and it made me feel good and it made me kind of quote unquote get my body back or whatever the messaging was or whatever the goal was in that season. But, like I said, my fourth baby just rocked my world and it totally changed my perspective on health for my longevity, because the mental and emotional component felt so debilitating to manage. And so in 2020, into 2021 and beyond, is when I started to really figure out how can I get more education around this idea of learning about inside out health and wellness for my longevity, and how do I get into understanding how to nurture my health in a hormone supportive way and what does that really truly look like when it comes to not only day-to-day habits but also in the capacity of nurturing my own bio-individual physiology.
Speaker 2:And that's the biggest thing I've learned on my own personal journey after my fourth baby is that each of us are wildly individual. We're all made up so uniquely, and with that in mind, we have to really figure out how do we tailor our day-to-day habits. How do we tailorday habits? How do we tailor our lifestyle? How do we tailor what we're leaning on most in a way that really feels good to us?
Speaker 2:Not necessarily what's being marketed in the wellness space, not necessarily what's being said to be the thing that you need in order to be successful in health. It's the reverse. How are we empowering ourselves as women to understand how to learn about what's hormone supportive for our longevity, but then adopting it into our lifestyle and figuring out what really works for us? And so that, for me, was the most transformative season, because it forced me to learn way more than what I was doing. I was doing a lot of surface-level type health strategies. I was blindly following the plans rather than learning what is my physiology need and what feels good based on my uniqueness. And so that's really the profound shift that I went through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something you just said resonated so deeply in me. I think there's an early part of this journey in my experience where it was like I just wanted and needed someone to tell me what to do. Yeah, and that worked for a while and then I realized like I can know what to do, I can figure out what to do and I can learn how to trust my body. And I think it's wild that we live in a culture that is so raw, raw women's empowerment and yet we still have this overhaul system of healthcare, especially where it's like women have never been taught how to trust and listen to the most basic instinct of am I hungry? Am I full? How does this food make me feel? Am I emotional eating or am I eating because I'm hungry?
Speaker 1:We're just, we're outsourcing all of our information and knowledge to give me the plan, give me, give me the 10 steps that will, that will give me the health and the wellbeing and the energy and the capacity that I want. And it's like I I get why we want that. I get, we want those quick, easy fixes. But the reality is is when those don't work, we blame ourselves Like we're the problem, when we can't be, when we can't be consistent anymore, and I've seen that, that I've seen myself go through those cycles so many times of trying to follow the plan and then, when the plan stops working, I think there's something broken in me, versus I'm in a different season and I need something different and this plan doesn't work anymore. And so, helping women to understand and feel in their bodies is this working for me? Is it giving what I need?
Speaker 1:And you even mentioned like you were in the season where you're doing all of the right things, you were going through the motions and yet it wasn't enough, it wasn't adding up. And I know I think of my own journey and especially, I've been in a season again where I'm looking into dialing in my health of what's been working, has been working, and I know I'm about to be in a new season where I want even more energy and focus and clarity, and I know that there's going to have to be some changes in the way that I'm eating or moving my body or taking care of myself in If I want to give more and do more. And I refuse to do that on the back of my burnout or my body's stress or cortisol or on the back of the end of my marriage or my parenting falling out. I have to invest more in me, like I am not a machine. I can't just keep producing and never looking at what feeds me, what gives me energy, and that's not like you said, it's not just physiological, it's mental, emotional, spiritual, but all of these things.
Speaker 1:You're a holistic person and if we're trying to separate health as just in your body and we're not talking about all of the different facets of your health, something is going to be missed. And the thing missed is you like you as a whole holistic person. So I'm curious, you're using the phrase inside out health and I'm curious like, what does that mean to you? Like, what does inside out health for a woman look like and feel like?
Speaker 2:For me, that is first and foremost teaching women how to understand their unique physiology. So I, in my coaching program, I have a method that I coach women through. It's called the empower method, and each step is more or less us peeling back the onion on how do you really start to understand what your physiology needs? And part of that is starting to learn how to track your cycle or be in tune with your cycle. That is a huge piece of knowledge, and you touched on this that women don't really have education around.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you, but I didn't learn anything when I was 14, 15, and I was in health class in middle school. I learned here are the ways that your body's going to change. You're physically going to see changes, you're going to eventually get a period and here are the ways you can get pregnant or not get pregnant, and that was really the extent. It was nothing deeper dive on. Here's what happens with your hormones and here's what happens when your hormones dive towards the end of the month and how that can affect how you feel mentally and emotionally. And here's how this specific piece to your physiology can affect your overall well-being. This is knowledge I literally have not learned until the past four or five years, and it's phenomenal to me to really unpack it, especially as a mom of girls, because I wish I knew now, like knew then what I know now. Because if I knew then what I know now, I feel like my entire health journey or like chasing all of these arbitrary goals that really didn't serve me. It would have just been a totally different experience because I would have had a much better glimpse of what is my physiology actually doing. As women, we are physically different every single day because of our hormonal fluctuations, and when we have that knowledge we can give ourselves more grace. We can understand like okay, I get why my energy is in the tank right now, because I'm literally almost about to start my next cycle and all of my hormones are starting to get into the gutter, like they're depleting, they are falling at the end of my cycle. And as you start to gain this knowledge again, it gives you more of that deeper understanding of your uniqueness.
Speaker 2:And so in my empower method we start with something called embracing mind and body literacy and we learn about how do you track your cycle and if you're not cycling, how do you start to tune into the energy of the moon. That's a really significant thing for women. We are lunar beings, which I know sounds a little nuts, and even for me I was like I don't know about this, like I'm trying to really understand, like what all this means. But the more I research and the more I learn on my own journey, the more I'm uncovering how powerful this is. And so that's like really where we start. We start to figure out, like paying attention to your cycle, simple things like actually tracking it, actually understanding your symptoms, actually understanding your energy, and then, as you start to learn that, starting to figure out how do you, in this very imperfect way, start to balance out where you're pouring into different buckets of your health, alongside what your physiology is doing. So that's kind of.
Speaker 2:The second step of my program is this mastering the art of imperfect balance and figuring out like here are the different facets of our health.
Speaker 2:Like you mentioned, rebecca, we don't just have the physical bucket, we have mental and emotional health, we have relational health and what's happening with our connections around us. We have spiritual well-being, emotional well-being and, above all, mental health. And so it's figuring out how do we slowly identify our needs inside of these different facets and imperfectly figure out these different areas we need to nurture in order to help ourselves really start to feel better inside of our physiology. And then, over time, we start to build into what are hormone supportive habits and how do we figure out what we want to focus on day to day. And then how do we build sustainable routines alongside that. So my program goes deeper dive into all of these facets, but above all, we start with what's your unique physiology doing and how can we start to help each of us learn the power of really getting in touch with our hormones, our energy, our mood, and really how we can adapt that into maximizing how we feel energy wise in our day to day life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I'm so glad. I love hearing that you start here, because I'm just like. There's so many women we want to jump into the fixing it. We want to jump into, like, solving the problem, and I think what happens is we start solving for the wrong problem and we try to solve the problem in the same way that the problem was created in the first place.
Speaker 1:Because there's a lack of awareness, there's a lack of where am I? Where am I and what's going on with my health? What's going on internally? Because I don't know if you found this, but so many women are hypervigilant with themselves and they have a lot of awareness around what they're doing and what they're producing and how they're showing up to their career and motherhood and to what other people want and need from them.
Speaker 1:But there's, a lot of times, a lack of connection to how is this all feeling? How is my experience of my health and my sleep and my sex drive and my hunger and my energy and my emotional ability, which you know? Those two things are so inter. You know your biology, your physiology and your emotional health and wellness. You know you're not just this floating mind. Your mind is a part of your body and I'm so, like so many women. We're in an age where, like, it's getting more common for women to understand their cycles, but I think I'm you know, so many of my clients and my colleagues and my friends are very aware of their cycles that I forget that it's actually really not common knowledge anymore. Yeah, or yet I should still say.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's been so cool to teach my daughter. It's like I didn't just say like here's what's going to happen in a period. It was like here is your entire menstrual cycle and here's how we track it. And hey, have you checked into your app lately of like how you're feeling and if your hormones could be impacted. When I tell you, when I learned the information about the different cycles specifically for me, with luteal, I had PMDD and I had no idea that the whole reason my mental and emotional health was dropping significantly was PMDD. It was my hormones. And yet I thought I was broken. I thought I was effed up, especially because most people, when they would talk about their cycles, it was, oh, my period's so bad. And yet I was over here. Like as soon as I start bleeding, or 24 hours before I start bleeding, I can tell you I'm about to start bleeding, because I feel like myself. It's like a light switch goes on and I'm like I'm me again. I feel like me again and it's so powerful for me to be able to have that information of what my body's actually doing, because that empowered me to be able to understand what my hormones needed.
Speaker 1:No-transcript quote. Unquote. I'm heavier than I was years ago. But I look at, I no longer have any disordered eating, like it doesn't take willpower, I have more energy, I have more clarity, I have a better sex drive Like all of these things in my body feel so good now because I was able to understand what my body wanted and needed, what actually made it healthy, and I started focusing on this, like long-term health and wellbeing, not just quote, unquote how I look in these jeans or fitting back into those jeans. And I'm someone who's been pretty onto diet culture BS from a pretty early stage in motherhood. And yet I was still driving, I was still chasing that carrot Only in sneakier ways.
Speaker 1:I think diet culture just became health culture and then kind of rebranded itself. But I want to come back to this hormone piece, because you said something before we started recording of how consistent you've been able to be and I'm curious if you can speak to that, because I think so many women are terrified of the up and down cycles, of honoring the fact that you don't have the same energy or capacity through the entire month or season. Because, at least for me, I have found that when I honor my capacity as a piece of my consistency, like even right now in my business, I'm having to slow down. I don't want to slow down Mentally, logically, like my ambition does not want to slow down, but I am keenly aware of my body and my soul and like there's something happening in me that if I keep pushing at this pace I will burn out and that's what's going to kill my consistency. So I wonder if you can speak to the four different phases of our cycle, just for people who are, if that's new to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is such a great question and something that I've also experienced, so I didn't even really touch on this. But total burnout was also a part of my big story and one of the reasons why I knew that there had to be a better way, like there had to be a level of education and knowledge that I did not understand, because I was burning the candle at both ends. I was a mom of four, I was an entrepreneur, I was a podcaster, I was trying to be a present wife, I was trying to volunteer in my community. I was trying to literally do it all, and I was stressed out to the max and completely unaware of what was actually happening with my body every single day.
Speaker 1:But you were succeeding it sounds like you were doing it all on the outside right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on the outside See, that's the thing is like we think we're succeeding quote unquote but when we don't really address, how is our day-to-day feeling? And are we really taking a moment to redefine what success even means? We're not actually hitting the mark, like we're missing it. And that's another thing that I had to go through. Like I feel like I've been able to grow because I've gone through it, I hit major burnout. I thought I was succeeding, but everything felt terrible In my day-to-day. I felt depleted and low on energy and stressed to the max. Outwardly I was sort of putting the pieces together, but inward, on that inside-out health piece I talk about, I was a mess. I was a mess.
Speaker 2:And so, like I talked about inside my coaching program with this idea of the empower method, one of the things that I teach women inside of the piece about prioritizing hormone supportive habits is how do we understand what habits serve our physiology in different phases of our cycle? Right, so we obviously have our bleed, our cycle, and then we go into follicular phase. That's when our estrogen starts to rise and we start to get more energy, we start to feel more energized, we start to feel more social, et cetera. Then we get into that ovulation phase which is kind of right around the middle. Typically, if you have a typical 28 day cycle, it's right around the middle. Then we move into luteal or luteal People say it differently and that's more of our estrogen starts to drop, our progesterone starts to rise and we kind of get into this dance of hormones which can lead to either calming effects or more stress and irritability effects. It depends on how your hormones are actually balanced and optimized, and what typically happens, especially in perimenopause, is the ratio between estrogen and progesterone becomes really out of balance and that can lead to all kinds of symptoms, like you expressed, pmdd that's a huge one for women, and what often doesn't happen is the link between hormonal imbalance or the ratio of hormones not being really optimized and all of these mental and emotional symptoms that you can't make sense of. That's very, very common for women. And so then, once we get into late luteal and into our next cycle, our hormones start to bottom out and we feel different kinds of energy, right. So for me, I'm really helping women get educated about what actually serves you in these seasons or in these different phases.
Speaker 2:So for like days one and two, for example, of your cycle. You should always be resting, like your hormones are bottomed out. You should be resting and paying attention to the energy that you feel there as you get into follicular. That's a great time to start to build in more strength training, build in more socialization, build in more great projects. It's a time for creativity, things like that Ovulation. You're kind of still in that realm of follicular.
Speaker 2:Sometimes women have drop-offs in their hormones that can kind of dip energy or dip mood. I know I've had that experience. But again, every single day of our cycle we feel a little bit different because our physiology is truly different every single day. So that's why it's valuable to start to track and understand what are you actually feeling every day? When are the days when you feel awesome energy? When are the days that you feel really low and kind of pinpointing that against where you are to see if it makes sense alongside where your hormones are potentially fluctuating.
Speaker 2:And then, after you get over ovulation and into luteal phase, that's a time to get into more restorative. You can like little bursts of HIIT training and things like that. On the fitness side, you know you're always focusing on different levels of nourishing foods and whole food nutrition pretty much throughout your whole cycle. I mean, there's a lot of research around how you can strategically fuel at different phases, but I like to focus a lot on, like what just feels good, right, how are we focusing most on what feels good to you? And ebbing and flowing in this very imperfect, fluid way, but luteal is more restorative, right, and starting to slow down and honoring that. And then, as you get into your next cycle, it's really slowing down and giving yourself permission to rest.
Speaker 2:And I never did any of that for years and years and years, until like the last four or five years, like I said, and I always wondered, like why did I always feel like I was kind of hitting a brick wall? I was going against? I felt like I was kind of like going against the grain somehow, like I was just continually powering through and powering through and somehow it just started not to add up and it really led me to this place of significant burnout, significant stress to the max. My adrenals were totally taxed and in the in the like, totally in the shitter, and I had to really rebuild myself in a pretty significant way by slowing down, completely, backing off of working out and having to heal, very intentionally because I wasn't paying attention. And you know, the more I go into this in my own personal journey, but the more I walk alongside my clients, I'm learning how significant this can be for women.
Speaker 2:When you start to understand your unique energy and you start to understand how you really feel day to day, the biggest thing is you can start to maximize your effort and your energy, but you also can give yourself grace. Like we talked about, it changes the mental and emotional soundtracks that so often we can get into. You spoke about kind of beating yourself up and getting into that headspace of feeling like I'm broken or I can't do this or why am I not able to power through or why am I not able to get all of this done. But the truth is we're not meant to, we're not supposed to be in that headspace or be in that energy every single day. And I have found personally that the more I really start to work with my physiology, so to speak, the better I show up in my day-to-day life, most importantly for myself and then outwardly for my family and for the things I'm managing and beyond.
Speaker 1:So hopefully that kind of gave you a snapshot into just some of the things women pay attention to so good, and I think what so many women need to hear is that, when you're honoring these phases, I've become more productive, but not at the sake of everything else I cherish, like presence, and like my body knows how to rest now, because I'm not just, like you know, I used to feel like I was pushing the gas and the brakes at the same time. I was like my nervous system and emotional health was just so out of whack and here I was trying to heal trauma when I was like creating new trauma. Essentially in my physiology of like I look back to like seasons long, long ago where, like I was spending two hours in the gym, like an hour and a half in the gym, almost every single day through my whole cycle, and when I was on my period, I would literally be drinking pre-workout all day as if it was just like juice to try to get myself through, and I crashed pretty hard and my body revolted, like in pretty strong ways and it took a long time to restore back, just to get me back to normal one. But also, like now I look at myself and I'm like I am. I am more sensitive to and aware of, like those small, subtle shifts of what I need. And what's really cool is, when you honor those rests, you enjoy the work cycles more, because it doesn't feel the way that I described this to women and this applies to like health, but this is also just the way they run their lives of.
Speaker 1:I love driving 75 on the interstate with my windows down, blaring music in the summertime. That feels great. But if my car is going 75 in a school zone and I have a toddler in the summertime, that feels great. But if my car is going 75 in a school zone and I have a toddler in the back screaming that 75 miles an hour, that feels terrible. That feels terrifying. And it's like we need to be able to access the gas and the brakes in our car. We need to be able to intentionally choose and have agency of what is working for me and when.
Speaker 1:And a very simple example is you know, when I'm in my luteal, I've realized I'm more hungry, I need more food, I need more fats and, for me at least, I crave more carbs and so like I need more of that in order to feel good, especially with how sensitive I am to like the PMDD stuff, if I want to feel good. Sensitive I am to like the PMDD stuff. If I want to feel good, I have to slow down, I have to honor those needs. And you know what? My life is not perfect. I don't have this ability to just cancel everything that week that I'm luteal, I'm still working, I'm still mothering Like my kids don't just leave me alone right.
Speaker 1:But there's things. There's small little shifts that I can make in the margins. I can bring a heat pad, I can bring hot tea to the call, I can slow down and make sure I'm getting my meals. I can make easy meal prep that week. There's small little things that I can do, even though there's some things that I could change them. But I'm not going to. I'm still going to show up to my life and my motherhood and my business. You can still show up consistently. You just honor your cycle and you start honoring that inside out health that you were talking about. I'm curious if you can touch on perimenopause. I feel like this is a new. It's not a new topic, but it's another one of those that like it's getting more talked about, which I think is so good about, like what's changing in us hormonally and how does that shift how we show up to our health.
Speaker 2:Such a great question and something I am learning about more and more every single day. In a nutshell, perimenopause is kind of termed second puberty. So what's essentially happening is our body is starting to prepare to not cycle anymore and, as I kind of spoke about when I was speaking through, you know how do you ebb and flow your lifestyle alongside different phases of your cycle and how do you really think about what your hormones are doing, especially like the ratio between estrogen and progesterone, right? So what happens often in perimenopause with women we all go through it and we'll experience it in some way. It's a hundred percent going to happen to all of us. It's just a matter of what are our symptoms going to be, what are the things that we're going to essentially go through? But what happens is our hormones. They just don't do their unique dance as calculated as they once did, right? So I am not a hormone health expert and I can't necessarily dive into exactly what our hormones do and when and how they all work together, but I do know, like what essentially starts to happen is they start to ebb and flow a lot more irregularly than they once were, and so that is what leads to all kinds of unexplained symptoms. You know, for me personally going through perimenopause, I had uncovered through testing and working with knowledgeable practitioners and some of the people I partner with inside my practice, through testing, like what was actually happening with my sex hormones specifically, and I learned that I had really low progesterone and really low testosterone and that was leading to potential symptoms like really intense irritability and rage, really low mood, really high anxiety, like my progesterone was so low the back half of my cycle my anxiety started to feel debilitating, and so the biggest thing that women can start to understand when it comes to this topic of perimenopause is symptoms. Right, that is really how you start to identify.
Speaker 2:Are you potentially in this season of your hormones getting into this place of fluctuating more and potentially becoming imbalanced because they're not in that perfect synergy of the ratio that they once were in when we were maybe having a perfect 28 day cycle or in that season of you know a calculated period every month, and I know that's not the story for all women, but most often, if we're in that typical 28-day cycle, our hormones are essentially doing what they're supposed to do and in perimenopause, as we start to taper off into this season of not having a cycle at all anymore by going through menopause. Our hormones just kind of fluctuate all over the place and I kind of want to speak on this too, rebecca, because I know we talked about this too is like this concept of stress and this is one of the most profound things that I've learned in my own life, but also as I coach women in kind of the 35 to 45 year old range, essentially what that means when our hormones are fluctuating, they're in a stressed out state, right Like that is causing more stress inside our body. And so when you hear people talking about well, here are the lifestyle things you should focus on inside of your wellness journey when you're in this season, most often it has to be strategic and it has to be looked through in the sense of how do we diminish stress, how do we diminish adding even more stress to a body that is starting to get into this hormonal fluctuation season? And the thing is like so often women lean on habits or lifestyle that actually ends up adding more stress. Like for me, I was doing cardio all the time. I was going to all these intense bootcamp classes, I was doing all these HIIT workouts. At the end of the day. That's taxing on the body, that's adding more stress. Or I was intermittent fasting for a really extended time, or I was cutting out carbs on certain days. That's adding more stress to our physiology.
Speaker 2:And so what we need to be understanding as women, especially in this season, as we get into this second puberty, our hormones are fluctuating. It's not in that perfect synergy as it maybe once was. How are we trying to strategically think about lifestyle and minimize the added stress that we're putting on ourselves? And that's so incredibly important because if we don't, it will lead us into even more symptoms, even more fatigue, even more irritability, even more potential burnout. It just adds to the pile, if that makes sense. Burnout it just adds to the pile if that makes sense. And so for me, it's just been really interesting to learn how our physiology changes on a very deep level in this season and why we need to be paying attention to not only things like targeted testing and really understanding what your body's doing, but how do you match your lifestyle to also make sure you're nurturing your body well?
Speaker 1:All of that was so good and I'm so. The concept of second puberty I'm still just like sitting here in that concept because I've worked with women and I have a lot of friends who are in that season of perimenopause where they're starting to have some of the like symptom, like they're starting to go hmm, is this what's happening? And thinking of it as a secondary puberty is interesting because you know, I'm not a health coach and I do talk I don't, we do talk about physiological wellbeing and like habits and stuff like that and food and sleep and those things do come up because, again, it's holistic. But I'm so, I'm so curious about that because you know, when I think of a teenager going through adolescence, I'm thinking they're becoming something new physiologically, women are becoming something new at this season in their life. And I think of women after menopause and I'm like damn, like they don't give a fuck. And I'm like damn, like they don't give a fuck, like in the best way possible, like there is this and I just I can't help but wonder, like if mother nature like knows what she's doing.
Speaker 1:But we have this life that is not meant for nature.
Speaker 1:We have this life where we're supposed to button up and do the same thing that we always did. We're supposed to fall in line, we're supposed to keep working and living and parenting in the same way, and I think there's something happening in our culture where we're going like wait, maybe nature knows what's up. Maybe there's something to not just being in this era where we and know and not getting into, like the systems part too much. I want to pull myself back of like. I'm just curious if this season for you has like taught you something new about yourself and like this new trust, or even this new like where what I'm getting at is it seems like it's another season where we lose control of what we thought we had control of and something that we thought we had to have is stripped away from us and we have to learn how to be with our wildness. We have to learn how to be with our rawness, because we can't, it's not enough to just keep going. I don't know if that resonates with you, but I'm just curious at that.
Speaker 2:No, it totally resonates and I think that's really important to just kind of embrace and speak about, because so often you talked about this at the beginning of our conversation was we kind of feel like, once we get into this season of being an adult, like we should just have it all figured out and we all the things should fall in line and like all of these things are dictated to us as as what we should focus on in order to be successful, in order to be healthy, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And I think, above all in this season, as I've personally gone through this wild evolution of my health, it's just given me way more permission to say what do what like feels good to me and what do I want to really focus on most in this season and how do I want to prioritize, not only what I'm doing in my day-to-day life, but how I'm showing up for the people around me and you spoke about this too.
Speaker 2:The idea of once you get into menopause, the after party, this idea of being born into something new that really is, in a lot of ways, how I feel, like who I was even 10 years ago and what I did for my health even 10 years ago it's not even applicable.
Speaker 2:It's not even close to who I am now Like I have evolved that much, mostly because I've had to. If I wouldn't have, I would have continued to be in this incredibly stressed, burned out, not fulfilled place of not feeling like I could really figure out how to press forward and feel good for my longevity so I can show up the way I want to in my life, and so I absolutely resonate with that and I think that it's really just this idea of embracing it and giving yourself permission to lean into you figuring out what feels good to you and you figuring out how you want to really lean into things that actually serve not only your health but your life, and it's just kind of this forward for failing forward practice of really just trial and error and, you know, kind of slowly getting in tune with it more.
Speaker 1:I think it's. I think it's growing up. Yeah, I think the generations before us kept growing up in age, but we forgot that we keep growing up, we keep changing and shifting and hopefully maturing in every area. And it's like when you were sharing what you were sharing, I kept thinking like health begets health, begets, health begets health. I think there's so many women who are.
Speaker 1:If you're still in that postpartum season, if you're still in that like having baby season you know, obviously this is a podcast for moms it's so easy to think when health versus what can I do now, starting where you are and not jumping ahead, because I can think of seasons of my life where I had to start with such basic, simple things that now I think of some of those things and I'm like man, it's been a long time since I made that mistake, or it's been like what feels easy now and you know, now I'm dialing in my health to a whole different level.
Speaker 1:But it's like you just have to be where you are in that season, figure out what are your needs. I'm curious If there was like a one size fits all way that women honor their health and maybe it's not like a prescriptive do this or do that? Are there some general things that if someone is like okay, I want to build this inside out health, are there some general ways that they can start doing that? That isn't like here, do A, b, c, but like there's got to be some things that they can start with that. That isn't like here, do A, b, c, but there's got to be some things that they can start with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we spoke on this. But the first is just starting to track your cycle and I know that sounds so basic and probably a little cliche, but it will be really transformative as you start to really figure out what's really going on and understanding how do you actually feel. Alongside that, that is a huge part to our physiology that we've never really been coached through or taught changes how we feel every single day as we, even as we grow up, even as we grow older, like it becomes more of a thing that we need to even pay attention to so much more as we grow, grow up. And so I think that that's the first piece is like that is one of the easiest things you can start to do. You know, the other thing that I like to coach my clients through is like picking three simple things you want to do just for yourself every single day, and it can look different, but it's three things just for you. It's not like I'm going to pick up the house so the house is clean. I'm going to make sure that I make these appointments for my family and my kids.
Speaker 2:It's what are you doing truly for you? Is it movement, Is it journaling? Is it quiet time? Is it connecting with a friend? Is it what is actually going to fill your cup? Like just taking a moment to give yourself that space and time to evaluate on what's really going to fill your cup and focusing on three simple little things a day, Like even that can be a great start with trying to get the ball rolling alongside, like your physiology, because you will learn as you kind of dive into those three simple things a day, you might align one of them with your physiology and it might not fit.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's like I wanted to go to this really hard bootcamp class with my friend and you wake up and you're like you know what I'm at this point in my cycle and my energy is here and this isn't going to work. And when you can start to discern that it just starts to become this really great gift in your wellness and this level of permission and embracing that you're really in charge and you can start to craft what feels good to you day in and day out. So that's kind of where I would say to start is tracking physiology, symptoms, energy, where are you at, mood wise, and then picking three simple ways to pour into yourself day to day and just start there.
Speaker 1:That's such a great place to start and I'm curious too do you have a favorite way for women to track their cycle? Is there like an app? Do you do paper? I'm sure you have your own way, but, like if they're new to this, where would you have them start?
Speaker 2:If you are brand new, I love the Stardust app. They have a great free app. I haven't heard of that one. Yeah, it's called Stardust. The reason it's cool is you can track your cycle or, if you're not cycling for some reason, you can track the moon. It gives like the whole moon cycle right in there. It's all integrated. The free capability is more than enough and you can track symptoms, you can track mood, you can track all of those things energy, where you're at.
Speaker 2:If you want to pay for the paid version, there's like all these kinds of deeper things inside of the app as far as capabilities to kind of help you understand, like, where your hormones at, why might you be feeling the way you are? How do you potentially share this with a partner or your spouse or something like that, so they're kind of aware? Like that is a really great place to start. I love that app. I have some paper trackers and stuff. Honestly, you can download pdfs everywhere. Yeah, it's just kind of what works for you, like are you a visual person and do you like pen to paper or can you do it more digitally on an app? But I would say like the key is like just trying to start to get consistent with it so you can identify again mood, energy, symptoms and really how you're feeling day to day.
Speaker 1:You're a Google sheets girl. Sorry a Google calendar girl. You can keep track on your Google calendar. I use, I like, the period tracker app for tracking. I'm trying to think I want to say it's the flow app.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the flow app is another good one that kind of like teaches you about your different phases and it kind of gives some hints, because I know, for me too one of the cool things when you're paying attention to this, you might also go to do one of those self-care things that day and you're like, oh, that's too slow and low and boring.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like you might find yourself going to do something that's like a slow health and find like, oh, I want something faster. Like instead of going for a walk, I actually want to go do like heavyweights with some rap music. Like what actually feels good can sometimes be like faster or slower than what you had originally planned, so I love that like daily checking in. I'm curious really quick if you can speak to women who are on birth control and like as far as tracking their cycles when they're not technically really having a real cycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're not technically cycling. So my understanding and everything that I've learned from the experts that I work alongside is when you're taking birth control, it essentially just depresses or suppresses your hormone fluctuation. So it's really hard to really understand exactly what's happening with your physiology when you're on something like birth control. However, you can still moon cycle. You can still track the energy of the moon and see what you can potentially identify alongside the lunar cycle. I will say, most often it's pretty tough because, again, you're in that kind of depressed state and your hormones are not fluctuating the way they typically do or they synergistically do when they're in the natural physiological cycle. But that would be my best advice is, if you're someone who just wants to even start to slowly get in tune with what your body or how your physiology is potentially ebbing and flowing, follow the moon a little bit and see how you can potentially start to identify things.
Speaker 1:Well, even as you were talking I was just thinking too you can still track your cycle and see if there's specific. You know cause it's going to depend what you're on. There's so many different types of medication but you could start seeing what your trends are and what you're feeling, depending on where you're at in the pills or, you know, whatever that might look like for you. But even just witnessing your cycles of health and noticing what's going on with me and how am I feeling internally and I think that's the important part, because I think there's so many women who have learned how to high function and over function and essentially bypass what's actually happening internally it's like you've just learned how to high function over what's happening for you. So even just taking that time to check into how you're feeling so even just taking that time to check into how- you're feeling your hunger, your energy, your.
Speaker 1:You know I was, I'm trying to oh, I can't think of what I was listening to. Oh, it was Dirty Alchemy's book. What is it? Oh, it's literally right in front of me Regenerative. It was Regenerative Business by Sam Garcia, and she was talking about like a woman's cycle, is her fertility like her fertility, like her sex drive, her, like all of those things. So it's like checking into the different facets of your fertile wellbeing. Yeah, even if you're not trying to have babies, yeah, exactly one big thing too if things aren't working, you'll be aware of it before you hit this massive, crazy, big burnout. I think so. So many women.
Speaker 1:I think we see it a lot in our culture and I don't know if you see this, but I think it's actually weirdly.
Speaker 1:People profit off of the cycles of burnouts because there's this whole thing in the coaching realm where they're like I had this six-figure business and I burnt out, here's how I'm rebuilding.
Speaker 1:And then they like rebrand their rebuilding but they never talk about the fact that they just had this massive amount of burnout that crashed their business and their whole lives and it's like well, wait, I don't know about you, but I'm like I'm not trying to get there, like I'm trying to do this without burning out right as much as possible.
Speaker 1:You know, there's always like the human cycles of like death and rebirth and, yeah, those mini, might minuscule, like um prescribed burns, if you will, yeah, where small little things burn out, but you, you notice it sooner you smell the smoke, you see the smoke and you go, oh huh, something is trending in a direction before it becomes this chronic thing where there's like all of this deep work. I mean, I know, when I'm working with women it's like sometimes we're unpacking years of stuff that has been ignored and it's complex and it's complicated and it's confusing. It's like sometimes we're unpacking years of stuff that has been ignored and it's complex and it's complicated and it's confusing and it's overwhelming because it's taken, it's been so long and everything's intertwined and I'm thinking with health. There's that similar thread of you start paying attention to the subtleties and you're able to catch it quicker and shift and move with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's maybe the biggest gift you can give yourself. I really believe that I have and hold a lot of regret because of how burned out I let myself become and I was always striving for more and trying to hit the next goal and trying to be the next. You know, whatever I wanted to dream up as success and I missed a lot of things. And you know, my kids are older now and I hold some level of regret because I wasn't paying enough attention to the signs of trying to just overdo it and power through to the point of completely neglecting what I really truly needed and I see this with my clients.
Speaker 2:I've obviously experienced it myself and you're right, rebecca, like it's something inside our society that we need to keep talking through, because when you can get to a place where you understand yourself enough to know this is not the time for me to push.
Speaker 2:I know maybe this is the time to push or this is the time to strive here or this is the time to get to the next thing, but if I can ebb and flow in a way that helps you stay in this place of feeling imperfectly balanced, if you will, you won't hit that place of burnout and you won't potentially miss out on things that you may never get time back for. And, as a coach, it breaks my heart when women go through this, because I've seen it happen and I've also gone through it, and I just want to make sure that women are slowly feeling empowered to understand that we are meant to show up in our lives in a way that feels fulfilled and grounded, and if we are going after all of the things or showing up in our life in a way that actually sacrifices our personal wellness, like we're missing it, in the end we're missing. We're missing the whole thing.
Speaker 1:That's so good. That permission that you just gave is so good, because I think it's interesting. There's a certain piece of my business that I've been pushing and I like was voxering my friend the other day and I was like I feel like I'm just like pushing this boulder up a hill and I was telling her. And I was like I feel like I'm just like pushing this boulder up a hill and I was telling her. I was like I want to just let it go, but I like also want to just keep pushing, and I know I can keep pushing. That's the thing. Yeah, I know I can keep going. I know I can get this boulder up the hill if I push hard enough and long enough.
Speaker 1:And as you were talking, I was just like who, if I was sitting across from a woman and she told me that I would be like is that what you want? Is that like really what you want and need? Because there I think I think women who have learned you know you were sharing your story I think women who have learned how to work hard and how to double down when things get hard, I think it can feel scary, anxiety-inducing, awkward, weird, uncomfortable when we start letting balls roll down the hill when we start pushing the brake and not the gas, when we start honoring that we want things that we aren't willing to sacrifice what it takes to create that. I think we have a culture that says you can have it all, and I'm like, yeah, there's a cost though.
Speaker 2:There's a cost.
Speaker 1:There's a cost and some people have the privilege to pay that cost, some people have it, and there's all those different levels of capacity, of time and energy, and who your partner is, and how healthy your kids are, and the family support and the financial. And you know, did you already start with money when you went to do this? Did? Did your partner? You know there's, there's so many things that go underneath, like can we have it all and how do we build it? But I think there's this really important conversation of like what is the the cost and are you willing to pay it? And also like the longevity of your health.
Speaker 1:It's like do you want this built on the back of something that's pretty fragile? You know, when we're building something with that much cortisol and stress and intensity, it's like it doesn't have this root, deep roots of health. And like thinking back into nature of like you know my, we never tore out my garden, so it's all just like really gross and dead. But I've actually really loved it this winter because it's reminded me that like there is a purpose in seasons where, like it can't always just be growth and expansion. All of the time there has to be these seasons where things die off or there are no's said to good things so that we can create this deep, rich soil, this healthy, fertile ground that when spring comes, it's not like devoid of all nutrients and it doesn't matter what we plant in it, it'll die and listen.
Speaker 1:I'm not even a gardener, but even I know that it's like there has to be this composting, there has to be this nutrients, and I love what you're doing for women, because I think you're teaching them how to build that. You're teaching them how to build up this, like you've said, that inside out health. That really matters and helps them be more present. So thank you for doing what you do and just for sharing. I feel like there were so many good things that you shared in here. I'm curious if there's something coming up in you that we didn't touch on or something else you would say to wrap this conversation.
Speaker 2:To wrap this conversation.
Speaker 1:I would say what did we miss?
Speaker 2:We didn't.
Speaker 2:I feel like we unpacked a lot, which was so great, I think, for me, from where I sit now in my life I'm a 42-year-old woman and man I have gone through some layers in my own health, like just chasing the wrong, just chasing all the wrong things, like the aesthetic goal that in the end didn't really fulfill me the way I thought the extremes, the feelings of this is going to help me feel happier or successful or whatever, and I can confidently tell you like none of that is going to matter in the end if you're not really getting deep rooted in what makes you feel good.
Speaker 2:Like you said, rebecca, like we have to be building that house of bricks. We have to be really building a foundation that's going to serve us for our longevity, and so sometimes it has to be this concept of giving yourself permission to say like I've done all that I can. And now it's faith, now it's whatever's meant to happen, now it's trying to make sure that I'm really taking a pause to figure out how this feels, because I don't think we've done it enough. I think so often it's a different message and it's this feeling of we have to do more in order to prove something and I just want women to know like you have nothing to prove, like you are amazing and unique and beautiful just as you are, and getting grounded in that in order to empower your life and empower your health is really where I want women to focus most.
Speaker 1:That is just so, so good. And you know what's interesting? My trick that I have for myself and my clients is when you can't find that for yourself, I know you can find it for your kids.
Speaker 1:I know you can look at your little baby and be like you are amazing just for existing. And because you are amazing, I want you to be able to do all of these different things. You don't need to do all of these amazing things to prove that you're amazing. You just are worthy enough. Incredible just by like. You know, when you just like stare at those babies and they do nothing but poop, cry and scream and eat.
Speaker 1:And you just look at them and you're like, how could anything be more valuable than this? Yeah, when you learn how to live your life from the from, this like at least, at first it might not feel like it, but that's why, like you externalize it. I'm like, okay, if I can believe this for her, how would I act? How would I show up? How would I nourish her? How would I feed her? It's like it. I think that's one of the gifts that motherhood gives us is that it creates this potent in your face. This is your worth. This is when you look at that little kid, you get to look at yourself in a new way. So thank you so, so much for everything you shared. It was so powerful. I'm so excited to keep listening to your podcast. I listened to like a couple episodes the other day and it was so good and I was like, oh, I'm so excited to have her. So definitely go check out Erin's podcast. You're working with people one-on-one for the most part right now, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have one-to-one coaching. I also just recently launched my first group coaching program, so I will have another round of that coming later this year. But above all, like I just I love connecting with women. I want to hear your story, I want to hear your truth, I want to hear how your health feels in your day-to-day and where you feel like you need more support. You know, that's what I'm passionate about, and I would love to connect with anyone that wants to just kind of talk more about Inside Out Wellness and nurturing your longevity as women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much. And, listeners, if you loved this podcast and you will, you share it on social media. Tag Aaron, tag me, send us a DM. Let us know you listened. If you have questions, we want to hear your aha moments. We truly do want to connect with you. Aaron, thank you so so much for being here. I love this conversation thanks, rebecca.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you, my friend thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Make sure you have subscribed below so that you see all of the upcoming podcasts that are coming soon. I hope you take today's episode and you take one aha moment, one small, tangible piece of work that you can bring into your life, to get your hands a little dirty, to get your skin in the game. Don't forget to take up audacious space in your life. If this podcast moved you, if it inspired you, if it encouraged you, please do me a favor and leave a review, send an episode to a friend. This helps the show gain more traction. It helps us to support more moms, more women, and that's what we're doing here. So I hope you have an awesome day, take really good care of yourself and I'll see you next time.
