Five Body Wisdom
Five Body Wisdom is designed to emphasize the deep connection between our five bodies—physical, energy, mental, wisdom, and bliss—and how they work together to promote a life of balance and fulfillment. Inspired by and for women over 55, this podcast delves into the specific challenges and opportunities of this transitional life stage, offering inspiration, guidance, and practical wisdom.
Each episode weaves together personal stories, insightful interviews, and practical techniques to empower listeners to embrace their true selves. The show is hosted by Delia Quigley, an experienced yogi, meditator, intuitive artist, and author with over 40 years of experience in helping women find clarity and purpose in their daily lives. Her compassionate approach and deep understanding of life’s interconnected aspects position her as a trusted voice in navigating change with grace and authenticity.
Listeners of Five Body Wisdom will gain valuable tools to restore balance in their lives, enhance self-awareness, and reignite their sense of purpose. Delia shares her personal journey and expertise, offering techniques for nurturing the body, calming the mind, connecting with intuition, and embracing spiritual growth. The show also features interviews with everyday women who have discovered their inner strength and wisdom, inspiring listeners to do the same.
By tuning in, you’ll join a supportive community of women dedicated to living with intention and joy. Whether you seek practical advice, soulful stories, or a spark of inspiration, Five Body Wisdom provides a roadmap for thriving in the second half of life.
Five Body Wisdom
A Woman's Warrior Stage
Menopause isn't a medical condition to be "fixed"—it's a powerful initiation into the warrior stage of a woman's life. This episode challenges everything you thought you knew about this profound transition.
When estrogen levels naturally drop, something remarkable happens beyond the physical symptoms. That vital life force that once supported fertility undergoes redistribution, creating energetic turbulence that can manifest as hot flashes, emotional shifts, and sleep disruptions. But what if these aren't problems to medicate away? What if they're messengers pointing to deeper wisdom?
We explore natural approaches with holistic health coach Andrea Beeman, who shares how phytoestrogenic foods like beans and seaweed, herbal teas including red clover and hawthorn berry, and even the occasional hoppy beer can support this transition without suppressing its transformative nature. Rather than pushing away emotional changes, we discuss the value of sitting with them, asking: "What needs to change in my life? What unresolved issues are surfacing now?"
The warrior stage represents women reclaiming power that's been systematically suppressed. Drawing from Sidra and Hal Stone's work on sub-personalities, we examine how the emerging warrior energy conflicts with the "guilty daughter" archetype—that voice constantly worried about what others will think. This liberation from external judgment opens doorways to authentic self-expression, creativity, and spiritual growth.
Sharing a powerful story of warrior initiation from Africa, we illustrate how women have always recognized and honored this transition across cultures. Far from being the beginning of irrelevance, the post-menopausal years can be when your true life begins—when accumulated wisdom and experience become your greatest assets.
Ready to reframe menopause as empowerment rather than decline? Listen now and discover how to embrace your warrior energy with grace, purpose, and power.
Welcome. I'm Delia Quigley. Join me as I take you from my beginnings as a humble yoga instructor to a multi-trillion dollar business. Delia what, delia? Is that true? Who tells the truth anymore? We do, go on, tell them. Fasten your seatbelts. Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to meet women in the warrior stage of their life here on 5-Body Wisdom. Warrior stage. Delia, what did we say about that warrior word in the last episode? Wise woman yes, warrior, one moment. A woman is juicy and sexually relevant. When she walks into her room, men still look her over and give her that flirtatious gleam in the eye, hoping for a green light. And the next minute her estrogen is dropping so fast like a loose pair of pantyhose and her testosterone is sitting there like it's just waiting to take over and she becomes fierce and she becomes a warrior and she starts sweating like crazy and she starts sweating like crazy.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about a hot topic. That topic for many women is menopause.
Speaker 1:Literally, they get all heated up For your listening pleasure, I invited holistic health coach Andrea Beeman to weigh in on a woman's transition into her warrior stage of life transition into her warrior stage of life.
Speaker 2:First and foremost, menopause is when the female body naturally dumps a lot of estrogen because we are no longer sitting in our fertility. We're moving toward our wise woman stage. As we move beyond our fertility, which is the transition from fertility to menopause. Right, we're moving beyond the fertile stage of the female life, then our body naturally dumps estrogen and when it dumps that estrogen, just like when you were a teenager, your body's going to go through shifts. It's going to shift. It's that dewy, moist plumpness that was created by the boost in estrogen. Now that we're dumping the estrogen, we're going to be less moist. We get a little drier. We stop producing menstrual cycles right, our menstrual cycle starts to go away as our water element in Chinese medicine, as our water element gets a little dry.
Speaker 1:Yes, sirree, and that's what's happening in the physical body. In the meantime, the energy body, a woman's energy body, undergoes a profound transformation. This phase, which is marked by menopause it begins with menopause, all right is not just biological shift, but an energetic initiation into deeper wisdom and personal power. This vital life force, your prana, your energy body is redistributed, resulting in some serious energetic turbulence.
Speaker 2:So I kind of sailed through menopause, and not entirely. There were some shifts, you know, as my estrogen was being dumped, I did have some shifts in my body, mind and spirit. For those specific shifts, I just was conscious that I'm dumping this hormone and my body is going into a drier stage. So I need to moisten using external moistur. Anything from the the bean family is moistening to the body. Seaweed is moistening to the body. Um, all of the phytoestrogenic foods that's the bean category, even tofu, very moistening and cooling right. So when women are going through hot flashes and their water element is drying, that's a really good time for tofu and vegetables. That's a really, really good time for tofu and vegetables because it's moistening and cooling.
Speaker 2:So when I was feeling dry, you know when I would start to feel a little bit dry, I'd feel it in my eyes, I'd feel it on my skin, I'd feel it in my hair. You know the natural drying process not completely dry, but you know, vagina, things get a little drier. But when that process started happening, I would increase my phytoestrogenic foods and herbs. So every day I would drink tea. That was good for menopause. It included red clover, which is phytoestrogenic. It's part of the Fabiaceae family or bean family. I would use hawthorn berry because in Western medicine, as a woman goes into menopause and beyond menopause, she's more likely to have a heart attack, and part of that reason is because the water element is not flowing as well in the body, so you get heated and the heart can't take that. So for me, I would have tea with red clover and hawthorn berry and I throw in some lemon balm to calm my nervous system. Oh, I put licorice root to support my liver and I would, you know, drink a daily tea, two, three cups a day, and that would help ease any menopausal symptoms.
Speaker 2:And then there was, as I was going through menopause, there was a couple of times where I couldn't sleep at night, meaning like on a monthly basis there would be two to three times that I wouldn't be able to sleep in the night or I'd be uncomfortable, you know. And that's when I would go for harder stuff. I would go for something like passion flower, which is almost like a sedative tea, right, just to calm my system down and moisten. I would have wild lettuce, which is another sedative, a natural sedative. It's also called like natural opium. Although it's, it doesn't. It's not like opium at all. So I would make sure that I was well hydrated and drinking my teas. And then if it was really bad, you know like even my teas wouldn't help me sleep, that's when I would pull out the hard stuff. And then, if it was really bad, you know like even my teas wouldn't help me sleep, that's when I would pull out the hard stuff.
Speaker 2:And when I say hard stuff, I really mean like a beer, like a hoppy, hoppy beer. Hops is extremely estrogenic. You know, the hops is how you create beer. And if there was a night that I couldn't sleep, I would open up a very hoppy beer, which is usually a um, uh, you know, like one of those little micro brews that are made. They're extra hoppy. I would open up a beer and I would sip on that beer and I'd be out like a light within 15 minutes. And, um, and it's funny, uh, my husband used to say to me you're going to turn into an alcoholic. And I would always say to him not on three beers a month, I'm not going to turn into an alcoholic on three, three cans of. So that was Andrea's experience.
Speaker 1:I, on the other hand, had a whole other experience going on. So when I turned 50 and I was moving into menopause, I didn't have any hot flashes. I did have weight gain, and I went to see this Tibetan healer and he said you know, your system's too cool, we're going to have to induce hot flashes. No, I wasn't really excited about that, but he put together some Chinese herbs and I took them. I guess about a week after I started taking those babies, I woke up in the middle of the night, covers flying off of me, sweat pouring out of me, and I thought oh, this is what the girls are going through. So I must have taken those for about three months. And then I said that's enough, I am done with hot flashing.
Speaker 1:On the other hand, the weight gain I put on a good, probably a good solid 10 pounds, and no matter what I did, it wasn't going to budge, until I realized I had this conversation with my physical body, and my body told me you know, I need this weight. I need it because I'm pulling estrogen from the fatty tissue, and so I thought all right, you can have it. I made peace with it. I said no more than that, though. We're done here, and there was a certain point after I'd finished menopause and for me it was probably a good I don't know 8 to 10 years and I just started losing weight naturally, like that weight I had put on during menopause just came off and all was well in the world for Delia after that.
Speaker 2:So one of the other things that happened during menopause was emotions would come up Like I'm a sensitive person. I'm a very sensitive person and I'll cry at commercials, right, I'll cry in the movies. You know, something touches me. I'm the first one to cry and what I noticed in menopause was I had extra tears for a lot more things and I didn't. And also some sadness and a little bit of depression came in and, rather than try and push those things away, my wise woman said what is that? Why is that there? What is not resolved? So instead of taking an antidepressant or you know, to try and lift the spirits unnaturally which doesn't actually work, it just suppresses stuff but instead of doing anything like that, I just would feel it. Well, what is this here? Why is this showing up now in my life? What do I need to clear from my system, or resolve from my system, so I could step into my wise woman age right, without the baggage that holds us back from becoming the vibrant woman that we are after menopause? You know, we lose the fertility, but we step into wisdom. That's the way that it works, and I'm not passing judgment on other women, but I encourage my clients and my friends to not take prescription medication to boost their hormones back up, to put the estrogen back in. You know, the bioidentical hormones, all that stuff. I encourage them not to do that, but to sit with their symptoms. Why is this symptom coming to the surface? Why is this emotion coming to the surface? Why is this depression coming to the surface? Why are these things coming up? Is there?
Speaker 2:Do I need to change my diet and my lifestyle? Do I need to change my relationship to myself or to the people around me? Do I need to change my diet and my lifestyle? Do I need to change my relationship to myself or to the people around me? Do I need to choose a different job, a different place to live? Do I need to release anger from the past? Do I need to resolve unresolved business with family members or old lovers or whatever it is? So when the emotional stuff would come up, I sat with it, I would sit with it and I would try to understand it. I'd write about it, I'd journal about it, I'd try to resolve it, because who wants to carry that crap into their elder years? I would like to transition into the wise woman and then at some point I will transition out of this body and back into spirit.
Speaker 1:Delia, it is story time. What do you have for us today? Well, you know, we're talking about becoming a warrior and in reality, becoming a warrior for a woman takes years. She's first got to gather the scars needed to strengthen and toughen her for the years ahead. But somewhere in that time I'm talking in the 30s and 40s she will experience an initiation by an elder, an older warrior, someone who's a tribe leader. When it happens, she may not even know the extent to which she has been chosen. She might think it's a great story to tell her friends, or a memory that she buries, until one day it surfaces and in that moment she understands the importance, the significance of what happened. This is such a story. It was my initiation into the warrior clan, and it wasn't until many years later that I came to understand the significance of that encounter. So let me begin.
Speaker 1:It was the early 80s and I was traveling in Africa with a group of African art collectors. I'd been hired as a photographer to document their journey and we were in the final week of our trip and, at this particular day, exploring the marketplace in Kotonou, benin. Now, I had spent part of my childhood in Thailand, so I was familiar with the wonderland of exotic food smells and items to be found in a local market. On this day, though, I was particularly interested in finding fabrics. The rich colors and prints African women wore as everyday apparel really fascinated me, and after some pantomime charades, a shopkeeper pointed me toward a large cement building at the edge of the marketplace. It had no windows and only one door leading into the dimly lit interior. My friends were busy hunting for fetish dolls, or some of them were discussing the many ways to cook bats. When I slipped away into the cool darkness of the building, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Then I climbed one flight of stairs, followed by another, until I reached a long corridor, framed by long corridor, framed by alcoves, where women were selling fabrics in every color and design. Even in the dim light, the colors just exploded in my eye. The women wore these fabrics. Their heads were wrapped, their ears adorned with long golden earrings and multiple strands of colorful beads around their necks and wrists. Their faces were so dark they blended into the shadows. I was captivated. Some of the women were sitting behind the counter, and behind them were stacked just impeccably stacked these beautiful folded fabrics. Other women lounged atop their counters, munching on dates and nuts, and I smiled. And they smiled back, beckoning me forward to see what fabrics they had to offer.
Speaker 1:As a lifelong shopper, I knew to wait for that certain something, just to catch my eye. So I slowly made my way towards the end of the corridor, where I noticed a figure sitting in a chair in the middle of the aisle. She was dressed and embellished like all the others, but there was something more that undefinable power a leader exudes effortlessly. She raised her right hand and beckoned me forward. A broad smile lit her face and the yellows and reds radiated off the fabric she had wrapped around her head and her large body. I looked to my left, to my right. Was she beckoning to me? As I glanced to either side, I could see that the women had silently come out of their alcoves and were moving up from behind, curious to see how this scene would unfold.
Speaker 1:In that moment I sensed I was approaching a woman of importance, a leader, a warrior. Her smile and beckoning hand continued to draw me forward and at one point I remember thinking I hadn't told anyone where I was going. Now I'm not a shy woman, nor do I frighten easily. Approaching this woman, this warrior was a show of respect. But as a lone white woman, a stranger in this land and to this tribe of women, I knew I needed to proceed with caution. I was not in Kansas anymore.
Speaker 1:I slowly moved into her boundary space. She reached out to shake my hand, that big smile never leaving her face. I in turn extended my hand and she grabbed my wrist hard. She pulled me forward just enough to throw me off balance and in that moment I became afraid. My body went rigid. My face froze. I could see out of the corners of my eyes that the other women had moved in closer, forming a semi-circle around me.
Speaker 1:The leader held tight, but her smile changed. Her eyes were strong, hard black, powerful, but not unkind. I could feel her energy run up my arm, to my heart, causing it to beat faster and faster. And then suddenly I knew she was just fucking with me. I immediately relaxed my body and smiled at the mischievous glint that appeared in her eye. She let out a hearty laugh and the other women joined in, some patting me on the shoulder, while others exchanged that knowing look aware they had a story to share later that night at home with their husbands and their families. I laughed too.
Speaker 1:I had been tested. I didn't fully understand the initiation I had just passed, but I did know in my heart that whatever she had communicated to me in that connection was for me alone to carry out of that building and into the life I was yet to build. When she was ready, she released my wrist and, with a wave of her arms, signaled for me to go explore. Explore what her women had to offer. I backed away, stood in front of the first alcove, I came to, picked some fabric I probably would never have chosen and, as casually as possible, I made my way down the corridor towards the stairs. What the other women said to me along the way I have no idea. Some spoke their language, others made sounds. It was as if they were reliving a moment they would long remember.
Speaker 1:When I was nearly at the end I turned. She was still there, sitting large and regal, at the center of the action. I bowed my shoulders, my head, in respect. This elicited from her a broad smile that I matched with one of my own. The observing women made a sound of approval, a few even applauded, and I turned and made my way down the stairs and out into the light.
Speaker 2:For me, menopause wasn't so bad. It was actually. It was pretty breezy, and I wish that for other women around the world, because we have been taught for too long that menopause is not natural. The things that you experience are not natural and not normal, but they are and they're a wake-up call for us in our wise woman years. Do I need to change my diet? Do I need to change my perspective? As you're going through the change, what else needs to change or what needs to change to help you make it through this period in your life without so much drama and trauma?
Speaker 2:I feel that women are much more powerful than we have been led to believe for many years. Right, men have been in control for a very, very long time, have been in control for a very, very long time. Women have been put into the back corner and told to keep it down and keep quiet, and please don't become hysterical, because we'll give you a hysterectomy to stop you from being hysterical. And now women have come up to the forefront, but they're in positions of power, just like men. It would be nice if we had women in power that really held on to those beautiful qualities that make us the most amazing creatures in the world. We're the birthers of humanity. I know that men have something to do with that as well, but it's very little, tiny, itty-bitty little speck of sperm. And then the woman, the woman does all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1:So, delia, what about your warrior stage? You know I love my warrior stage. I was thinking that my mom told me that when she turned 70, she felt that she could just speak her mind. And she certainly started. But I felt that way when I turned 50. And maybe it was because I was just sick of the restrictions I'd put up with most of my life, you know, not being able to express my opinions, or feeling I couldn't really express my opinions, or not feeling confident enough in what I had to say. But then, as I entered my 50s, I became so much more clear on who I was and what I wanted. And that's when I bought an old, 100-year-old schoolhouse. Ironically, the name of that schoolhouse was Dark of the Moon Schoolhouse and I began my holistic school, stillpoint Schoolhouse.
Speaker 1:I wanted to share with others all the things I had learned. I learned the hard way A lifestyle based on good nutrition, yoga, meditation, care for the self and in a woman's ability to care for herself. Then she's able to care for those around her. So during my reproductive years, much of my energy was directed outward, supporting fertility, caregiving and societal roles. But then, as menopause set in, this new energy was no longer channeled into the reproductive cycle. It became available to be reclaimed, for self-nourishment, for creativity God, I was really creative and for spiritual growth. And, like me, in those years, many women experienced this internal awakening, a sensing, a surge of personal power that demands expression in new ways. It happened to me and to many of the women that practice yoga with me over the years. So, what I call this warrior stage, I also saw it as the spiritual warrior stage, since this turning inward begs the many questions that arise from that. One question who am I, delio? What's running a woman during her warrior stage of life? And by that I can mean what emotions are running her or what sub personalities are surfacing? All right, okay, let's be clear. The warrior stage can be a time of female empowerment or it can be a tumultuous battle between what Sidra and Hal Stone write about in their voice dialogues. It can be the warrior energy coming forward, dominating, or it could be what they call the guilty daughter.
Speaker 1:So we have a book here to include in this segment. Do we? Yes, we do. This is amazing work the Voice Dialogues and, in Sidra and Hal Stone's book, embracing Ourselves. Okay, I just want to be clear. I came upon this book, or this book came to me after I named and began my podcast. So I'm very, you know, I'm fascinated with how I'm attracting all this information, attracting all of this to share with you.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what about the book? Well, sidra and Hal Stone's work is about identifying and literally conversing with your many, what they call sub-personalities. So you mean that there's literally a warrior voice? Yes, there is, and this warrior has been disowned in women for millennia. Well, we kind of know that, right. Okay, so why don't we just go ahead and read part of this text to people?
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is from the chapter the Empowerment of Women. Until recently, warrior energy was considered unfeminine, castrating or, worse yet, some form of devilish possession, and we can clearly see how necessary it is for self-protection and how powerless a woman can be if this energy is disowned. And before accepting your warrior energy, there is another energy that many women identify with, and that is the guilty daughter, and this is another energy pattern encouraged in women since Eve was created. Women, after all, were responsible for humanity's expulsion from paradise, and until the feminists drew attention to the belief system this inspired, women have, to a greater or lesser extent, lived as the guilty daughter. Eve was guilty of curiosity, independent thought and wishing to expand her horizons. She was punished for her disobedience and thus paved the way for the birth of millions upon millions of guilty daughters.
Speaker 1:This archetypal energy is quite concerned about upsetting the collective. It worries constantly about what people will think. For hundreds of generations, mothers have asked their daughters what will people think when their daughters want to deviate from the accepted norm? It is obvious that the guilty daughter does not have much clout. Anyone can judge her, anyone can shame her. She is an ancient, powerful archetypal energy and it is time for women to disidentify with her. It is time for women to stop identifying with the energies within themselves that keep them disempowered.
Speaker 1:Repression does not only come from others. It comes from our sub-personalities as well, the ones that lock us into a powerfully judgmental patriarch century after century. It is time for women to become truly empowered from a position of consciousness and to accept full responsibility for themselves and their actions. Well now, dewey, that's quite an earful for the women listening, but I'm sure that it's food for thought and it's going to get a lot of women thinking about who they are and their place in the world right now, and you know it's important for women to think about their place in the world and not reverting to the guilty daughter. And what will everybody think? Balance their warrior nature, that warrior energy, with their vulnerability, with an aware ego, and all comes together beautifully, awakening her to consciousness. Women will say to me what do I do now, after 30 years of struggling to reach the upper echelons of a male-dominated corporation? And then suddenly she's staring down the empty years ahead, the gray area that older women are told to navigate until death claims them, when really, to me, in fact, these are years when your life can truly begin.
Speaker 1:First of all, they don't call it men-o-paws for nothing. With all that wisdom and all the experience, your possibilities are endless. And with your retirement savings to fund your journey, there are countless ways to contribute and to support the things that make your heart sing. So, delia, any final words for your listeners yes, be true to yourself, be bold, be brave, be bold, be brave. Use that grit that you have accumulated over these many years, be defiant, be determined. Love your life. You've just got one turn, one chance, one life to live. Live it fully. Live it full of love. I'm Delia Quigley. Thanks for listening to Five Body Wisdom a woman's warrior stage. In episode four we'll explore those crucial years when a woman leaves childhood and becomes, yes, a woman and, for many, a mother. My special thanks to health educator and all-round fierce warrior woman, andrea Beeman. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.
