Making Sense Of Menopause

One Step at a Time — Navigating Your Menopause Journey

• Roberta Bass • Season 2 • Episode 6

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In this empowering episode of Making Sense of Menopause, women’s health physiotherapist and menopause mentor Roberta Bass helps you make sense of the menopause journey — a unique and often unpredictable path that looks different for every woman.

Roberta uses the metaphor of walking along a bright, sun-filled path where you can only see a few steps ahead, reflecting how perimenopause and menopause can sometimes feel uncertain. Through the Empowerment step of her SENSSE® Method, she shares how to prepare, plan, and move forward with confidence, even when the way ahead isn’t clear.

You’ll learn how to build resilience, gain knowledge, and take small, meaningful steps that help you feel more in control of your health and wellbeing.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why menopause is best viewed as a journey rather than a single event
  • How to prepare for and navigate the perimenopause transition
  • Practical ways to set small, achievable health goals
  • The importance of empowerment and mindset during menopause
  • How the SENSSE® Method can guide your next steps toward feeling better

Resources & Links:

Episode takeaway:
You don’t need to see the whole road ahead to move forward. Even one small, positive action this week can help you feel more empowered on your menopause journey.

www.thriveandshinewomenswellness.co.uk

Free Masterclass: Is Perimenopause Causing Your Symptoms? → Click here to watch

Supporting women’s health transitions with physiotherapy, menopause mentoring, Pilates and subconscious mindset tools.

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Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to talk about the journey of perimenopause leading into menopause.

So I always think of menopause is a journey and a journey that can look very different for every single person. So it could be really straightforward to think right up the motorway, no traffic and we find ourselves at the destination, no problems whatsoever.

However, the majority of people may meet some traffic on that motorway that might get in their way, maybe slow them down a bit. It might be some people get stuck in massive traffic jams and they're sat there for a long time. ⁓ and they get really frustrated and it makes the journey really difficult. Some people, might come across an accident and it's really stressful. So a journey, even though we are all headed to the same destination, is gonna look very different. Some people might take a scenic route and it might be really long winding road to get to that same destination.

And it can be quite overwhelming to know that that journey is ahead of you. So in terms of perimenopause, that journey can last a couple of years. It can be anything up to eight to 10 years. Now, if we think about the average age of menopause when our periods stop for a year is 51, but anything from 45 and over is considered normal for menopause.

So if we're thinking eight to 10 years, we could be getting symptoms in our mid thirties.

But sometimes we don't realize that they are symptoms of perimenopause, or maybe we don't have any symptoms until a couple of years before, so late 40s. But we need to think about this journey and being prepared for the journey.

I go for a walk with the dog most mornings, and this time of year, it's really bright. So the sun is quite low and in certain directions, you can almost not see where you're going. And this was happening the other morning. I just think this really is very similar to the journey of perimenopause, because I couldn't see where it's going. I could see maybe a couple of steps ahead. I could see where I've come from. I looked behind and I could see and then I can barely see where I was going. Just a few steps in front.

Every so often, the sun was blocked by a tree or a house, and then I could see the path laid out in front of me. And I just liken that to those things that block the sun, even if it's momentarily, are things that you can do that would help you see that path a little bit clearer. So in terms of peri menopause it might be getting some support to help plan out that journey. It might be... ⁓ you setting yourself some small little goals and actually know where you're headed. But it's really important to know even if you can only see a couple of paces ahead of you, that's still okay and trying not to become overwhelmed. There are things that we can do that will help us see that journey to the end and make it a smoother journey. or maybe just making it clear of where we're headed.

So that's what I'm going to talk about today is the empowerment step. So if you've not gone through the first series, I did a whole episode on the sense method and I will cover that again as we go through this season. But the sense method is the method that I have created to help women navigate menopause. And actually it applies to any hormonal journeys and not just perimenopause, could be things like endometriosis, problems with our periods, anything really this will relate to. So it stands for subconscious empowerment, nutrition, stress management, sleep and exercise.

So I really want to think about that empowerment step today. And that is covering a few different things. So that could be empowering yourself in terms of gaining the knowledge, knowing where we're headed, learning about what's happening. So it's not as scary and overwhelming, but it's also empowering yourself by setting goals and making those small steps forward.

So where do we start in terms of this?

I would recommend thinking where you are on your journey. Have you just started getting symptoms? Are you nowhere near it yet? Even if you're listening to this and you've not reached the stage of getting perimenopausal symptoms, it comes to every single woman. So you need to be prepared. So if we think about if you're going on this journey, upper motorway or the scenic route, generally you have some preparation.

If it's a long journey, say you're going on holiday and it's going to take you a few hours or longer to get there, you wouldn't necessarily just jump in the car. Or you might do. And you might be that kind of person in the spare of the moment, just rush off. That's fine. But generally, if we are prepared, then we have a smooth journey.

So you might want to make sure that the car itself is functioning properly, that we've got petrol in it. So we are fueling the journey. This might come down to the nutrition side of it, making sure that we are eating properly to have a smoother journey. We make sure that the car is functioning in terms of the brakes and make sure the tires have got air in it, make sure the body work is working. So it might be, we relate this to actually us doing some exercise, make sure that our body is as fit and healthy as it can be. And then it might be that we are taking snacks, we are making sure we've got some money with us, that we've got our phone in case we need some help or support or assistance on our journey.

And that may be related to us in terms of our health journey, thinking where can we gain that support from? Is that from just listening to this podcast? Is it doing some investigation online? Is it reading books? Is it talking to other women that going through the same thing? Is it coming to see me and getting some support one to one? or going to see somebody else, going to your GP. So there's lots of ways that you can get support. And it might be worth just investigating where you can get that support from.

So there's several things that you can do to prepare yourself for that journey. nowadays, we've got Sat Nav to tell us where to go. even that can be a little bit dodgy sometimes if it doesn't always register where roads are closed. That happened to us once when we were trying to get somewhere and it didn't register that this road was shut and then we got all the way there and then it wouldn't come up with a different solution. could not acknowledge that that road was shut. It kept on trying to bring us back to that road.

So it is having a bit of a plan maybe. look at the map to think where else could we go In terms of that in your health journey, it might be planning ahead, looking at where we are headed and how we're going to get there. So that could look like making some goals. So we know maybe we want to get fitter or we want to improve our nutrition or just to feel better or improve our sleep. There's various different things that we might want to work on.

If we go with the fitness journey, then maybe you want to get back into running or start running, then you may not know where to start. If we think, ⁓ I'm going to run a marathon and okay, today is my first day. I'm going to go out and run 26.5 many miles is in the marathon. Your body would probably not be able to do it, but it certainly wouldn't appreciate it. If you did manage to do that, then your body would be suffering somewhat afterwards.

However, if we think, okay, what is that first step for me to achieving that marathon? So maybe you have a date in the future that you're going to run a marathon. and maybe working back from that to help us plan out that journey. And then the first step might be literally to plan out what days am I going to do the training? Is it going to be every day? Am I going to actually have a rest day, which is probably better? And then look at other exercise that you should be doing. So if you want to get into running, I wouldn't recommend just doing running. You need to strengthen up the rest of the body. That's probably another podcast, but looking at how is the best way to achieve this goal, looking at it in terms of time and being specific about how you're going to get there, how long it's going to take you, but it's one step at a time.

So thinking about that bright light is maybe stopping you from seeing all the way into the future. Then maybe we just hit that one step forward. So that first small thing.

And if we're thinking about just health in general, that small little step forward might be something as simply as drinking more water in the day. Our hydration is really important. So how could we get more water in? Could we have a water bottle that we carry around with us? Maybe you just have a jug of water in the kitchen.

Or maybe you want to just increase your exercise. So you go out for a five minute walk every morning or a few times a day. Maybe that'll be a ten minute or maybe increase that. But anything that you can do to make progress is going to slowly get you to that goal and to the destination that you have set. And it doesn't have to be perfect.

Any progress, it might be that you take a step forward and then one back and then maybe two forwards and then one back. It doesn't matter as long as you are getting towards that goal.

So what I want you to take away from today is realizing you don't have to be perfect. We may not always see that end goal or that end destination and that can be overwhelming, but it's trying not to get overwhelmed about everything that might happen within the perimenopausal journey and thinking okay what change can I make to potentially make the journey smoother. There's going to maybe be lots of bumps and things that get in our way, but what one thing can I control you can't control the traffic on the motorway you can't control how other people drive, but what you can do is.

prepare yourself for the journey as best you can. And then making preparations if things are going awry. Seek support or make a plan. And what one thing can I do today or tomorrow or this week that is potentially going to get me one step further to my goals or to just a smoother journey or just even just feeling a little bit better.

without worrying about doing everything.

So that's it for this week, but I just want you to decide what one thing you're gonna do today or this week that is going to make some progress. So thank you for listening, take care and I will see you next time.