Ep. 74 Turning Point: Choosing Yourself Through Perimenopause

Hey friend,

There comes a time in every woman’s life when she looks around and realizes—

she’s been pouring into everyone else for years… and her own cup is bone dry.

🎙 In this week’s episode, I’m sharing:

👉 The emotional toll of motherhood and why perimenopause often feels like an identity crisis

👉 How your hormones are reflecting the story you’ve been living

👉 The invisible grief that comes with midlife—and the freedom on the other side

👉 The mindset and biology of choosing yourself without guilt

🎧 Listen to: “Turning Point: Choosing Yourself Through Perimenopause”

Because healing your hormones isn’t just about labs—it’s about reclaiming your life. 💫

In health,

Tracy Erin

Registered Nurse + Integrative Health Practitioner

Balance your hormones. Elevate your life.

Transcript

0:05

There comes a time in every woman's life when something shifts. She looks around and she realizes she's been pouring. Into everyone else's life, and yet her own cup has been empty for years. So today we're gonna talk about that turning point. The one where you stop waiting for the perfect time and you start choosing yourself.

Speaker: 0:40

Welcome to the Balance Hormone Solution Podcast. If you're a woman 35 plus feeling exhausted, struggling to lose weight, and wondering where your libido went, this is for you. I am Tracy Aaron, a functional medicine practitioner who helps women balance their hormones naturally. Without prescriptions, guesswork, or trending Nonsense.'cause here's the truth, your symptoms aren't random. They're signals. And if you know how to listen, you can fix the root cause and start feeling like yourself again. If you're ready for real solutions, let's get to it.

1:19

If you've been on autopilot, serving, striving, doing, and you're starting to wonder, where did I go? What happened to me? Then this episode is for you. There seems to be a quiet breaking point that happens for so many women in their late thirties, forties, and even into their fifties. On paper, everything looks fine, family, career, house, a full life, but inside. There's this ache, this question, is this all there is? Like you love your people deeply, but somewhere along the way your joy. Your own spark, your sense of you got buried under the weight of responsibilities, and that loss of self doesn't just affect your emotions. It ends up affecting your biology too, because your hormones are listening to the story you are living. And if the story is all stress and self-sacrifice. Your body is gonna stay in survival mode. If the story shifts towards presence, pleasure, purpose, your body shifts too. And what I notice is that it finally can exhale. I remember standing in the kitchen one night after everyone had gone to bed. Like dishes were done, laundry's running, and I stood there just staring out my kitchen window and I thought to myself, have I disappeared from my own life? Here's the thing, this is honestly how I felt I had become the dependable one, the strong one, the caretaker, the peacemaker, but under all of it. No matter how much morning energy I had springing outta bed every day doing everything that needed to be done, there was a part of me that was exhausted. So it's not just that physical tiredness, it's that emotional, spiritual, hormonal. Exhaustion, and that's what so many women feel in this season. It's like we've been holding our breath for decades through all the pregnancies, maybe even a career homeschooling, parent meetings, aging parents, and every invisible task, no one else even sees the mental. Space, the mental margin, it really can take a toll on all of us. And then boom, perimenopause hits. And it's like your body says, enough. No more pretending that you can do it all. No more living, disconnected from your own needs. It's time to rewrite the script. So here's a couple things that I want to talk about today in this episode. And here's number one, the motherhood era. I love it. There's nothing more beautiful, right? And yet it can be depleting at the same time because for years, when you're in that motherhood era, you've been in the giving phase. Every ounce of energy went to building a home, nurturing others, keeping things running, keeping everything on track. You are the point person and everyone depends on you and biologically. That makes sense. Actually, estrogen and oxytocin are driving connection, caretaking, empathy. But when that's all you do for years without replenishment, cortisol quietly becomes the ruler of your world. You begin living in that output mo output mode. And while it's noble, it's very respectable and it looks perfect from the outside, it's purely not sustainable. And let's talk about the emotional toll. You end up stop you. You stop feeling seen, you stop dreaming, and you simply start existing. And this is because when your body perceives that constant giving and no restoration, it keeps giving stress hormones that keeps them high, which is ultimately gonna shut down your sex hormone production. It's literally harder over time to feel joy, desire vitality because your biochemistry shifts into the protect and survival mode instead of. The create mode and then what happens? There's the perimenopause pivot, right? This is when your biology and your soul has the opportunity to align, because perimenopause often hits right when your kids begin to need you less, but your body starts demanding your attention, and it's not coincidence. Wisdom this season, it's like an invitation to turn you inward, to reclaim your rhythms, your energy, and your identity beyond everyone else's needs. So you may notice things like irritability, mood swings, and restlessness. I want you to pay attention to those. They're not failures, they're messages. Your body is saying, you have outgrown this pace and it's time to slow down. It's time to function differently. And the reason is, is because as estrogen begins to fluctuate in perimenopause, serotonin, and dopamine drop, which can magnify this emotional weight that you have been carrying, and this is why the smallest stress feels huge, because your nervous system has been begging for recalibration, not judgment. It's time for grace for yourself. The next thing is, is that there's this identity shift. And some women experience what I like to call invisible grief. This is where no one warns you. That midlife, this whole season that we're in comes with something called invisible grief. Maybe the mourning of who you used to be or what you thought your life might look like. You might miss that girl who laughed easily, who ate whatever she wanted without gaining weight. The mom who had toddlers on her hip and who just had to be in control of meal times, scheduling naps. Maybe the woman who didn't question her worth.'cause you knew exactly what you were supposed to do every day, which was just to keep those babies alive. But here's the reframe. Every loss of identity gives you an opening. And you get to decide who you become next. And here's the biological truth. Your body mirrors that as old hormonal patterns fade. New balance can emerge, and if you stop fighting it and start partnering with it, just imagine who you can become. Let me give you a little bit about the science behind this shift. As you're getting older and Progest progesterone begins to decline your capacity to people please goes down too. It's literally biochemical friends that calm and carry on hormone drops, and suddenly you become less tolerant to the things that drain you, and that's not you being moody. That's your biology, starting to protect your peace. And the last thing is, I want you to think about this like a reclamation season. How do you choose yourself without guilt? Because this is where the magic happens. Girls choosing yourself is not abandoning others. It's not a either or. It's anchoring yourself so that you can love them better. It's saying yes to things like rest, nourishment, joy, boundaries. It's the courage to ask. What do I actually want for myself right now? And from that place of alignment, your hormones, your nervous system, your relationships, everything starts to recalibrate. And the biological reason for this is that when you begin to move from that chronic stressful state to self nourishment, your cortisol levels normalize, insulin sensitivity improves, and your sex hormones can finally find rhythm again. Here's the truth. Your physiology follows your rhythm, follows your choices. So tonight I want you to do something radical in its simplicity. Sit quietly for five minutes, no phone, no noise, and just ask yourself this one question. What part of me have I been neglecting that's ready to be seen again? Write down one small way you can honor her this week. Maybe it's a walk alone. Maybe it's saying no to something that drains you. Maybe it's booking the appointment you've been putting off. It's not about doing more. It's truly about learning to listen to yourself, returning home to yourself. So this whole stage of life that you might be in, if you're 35 plus this perimenopause that we call it, it's not your breakdown. It's your breakthrough. It's your cue to stop living everyone else's life and start living your own. I'm not asking you to neglect the people around you, but you matter too. You've spent years building, giving, serving, holding. Now it's your time to receive replenish. And rise. Your hormones will follow your lead because when you choose yourself, your biology is listening. So think of this like your turning point, and you, my friend, are allowed to take up space in your own story.

Speaker 3: 11:28

That's it for today's episode of the Balanced Hormone Solution Podcast. If this resonated, don't just listen. Do something about it. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you know another woman who's tired of feeling like a stranger in her own body. Send her this way for more support. Check out the show notes. I've got resources to help you get started. Just remember, your body isn't broken, you just need the right tools. See you next time.