Self Defence for Women - Live an Empowered Life

Emotional Self-Defence in Menopause: Resilience & Boundaries

• Julie Waite • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Menopause can mess with your mind, drain your energy, and leave you doubting yourself — but you don’t have to stay stuck.

In this empowering episode, Julie Waite is joined by Juli Madacey (menopause coach and Co-Founder of Fabulous Beyond 40) to explore the emotional, psychological, and identity changes that come with menopause — and how to build emotional self-defence from the inside out.

From medical gaslighting to setting boundaries at work and home, this is your permission slip to speak up, protect your peace, and stop apologising for it.

“You’re not lost. You’re finding your way back to who you truly are.” — Juli Madacey

Find Juli at Fabulous beyond 40

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👉 Head to Streetwise Defence to grab your free resources and start your journey today.

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Julie Waite (00:00)
Welcome to Self Defence for Women Live an Empowered Life, the podcast that helps you stay safe, feel strong and take control, physically, emotionally and mentally. I'm Julie Waite, Women's Safety Advocate and co-founder of Streetwise Defence. Today's episode is about something rarely discussed when we talk about self-defence, the emotional and psychological storm that can come with menopause and how we build resilience, set boundaries and protect our wellbeing during this major life transition.

and I couldn't have a better guest to help us unpack it. I'm joined by Juli Madacey, co-founder of Fabulous Beyond 40, a platform that supports and inspires women to thrive in midlife. Juli is a menopause coaching specialist, master health coach, holistic health practitioner, and personal trainer. She's an advocate for women's empowerment and a vocal leader on topics like menopause, mindset, body image, and midlife transformation.

Her mission is to help women over 40 reclaim their confidence, power and joy on their terms. In this episode, we're diving deep into how menopause can impact our emotional landscape and what to do about it. From medical gaslighting and being dismissed by doctors to emotional overwhelm, workplace pressure and the deep identity shifts that many women go through. This is an open and empowering conversation for anyone in the thick of it. So,

Let's start with the emotional side of menopause. Juli, what was your experience and why do you think this part of the journey still isn't talked about enough?

Juli Madacey (01:40)
Well, it's interesting because my own personal journey is the reason I got into doing this in the first place. I was already a certified holistic health practitioner when we moved to Italy 11 years ago and I was in the throes of my own menopause transition. I didn't understand what's happening with my body and I went through so many different emotions. Of course, I had an international move in learning a new culture and language to add on top of that, but it's 10, it was

Julie Waite (02:06)
Mmm.

Juli Madacey (02:10)
well, 11 years ago now. This was not a topic that was ever discussed. And while it's being discussed more broadly now, it still really isn't part of the conversation because there's still a lot of taboo around it. And because of our fluctuating hormones during this phase of life, starting after age 40, all the way through post-menopause, and I think this is something that affects women a lot because

Julie Waite (02:25)
Yeah.

Juli Madacey (02:38)
Many women don't even understand how this phase of life works. Menopause itself is one day. Once you've gone 365 days without a a menstrual cycle, that next day is your menopause day. Then everything after that, until the day you die, is post-menopause.

Julie Waite (02:53)
Mm-hmm.

Right, I don't think a lot of people kind of understand that

do they?

Juli Madacey (03:04)
No, they really don't. And I know some women feel like, oh, I don't have to worry about this yet. It isn't affecting me. And other women say, well, I'm already through that. I don't have to worry about that. And that couldn't be further from the truth. understanding that paramenopause can start 10 years before our menopause day. So usually we say around 40, because the average menopause age for most women in Western society is 50 to 51. So we say once we hit that

40, our ovaries are going to be trying to kind of dwindle down. We have a specific supply of eggs.

that our ovaries produce throughout our lives. And so as that production starts to fall and fluctuate during that 10 years before the menopause day, it also means our hormones are on a massive roller coaster. So we're going to have huge spikes in estrogen and huge valleys in estrogen throughout this 10 years. So we end up with mood swings. We all know about PMS.

But those kinds of things can be really heightened during this phase of life because of those great fluctuations. Up until then, things tend to stay fairly steady throughout the monthly cycle. And when that happens, we get into this.

Julie Waite (04:13)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Juli Madacey (04:29)
emotional chaos and we can experience things like brain fog and some cognitive disconnection I like to say where we just feel like am I losing my mind? Our body is changing in very subtle ways and we don't realize it. We might start to gain weight. We might not have energy like we used to. Our sleep is disrupted and all of those things play into how our emotions express themselves. And then when you add to that the pressure for

society that's always telling us, know, keep a stiff upper lip, know, never let them see you cry. We have to maintain this steadiness as we look after our families and our work and our communities and our friends and everyone else in our life and we still end up at the bottom of that list because that's what is generally expected.

Julie Waite (05:06)
Yeah.

Juli Madacey (05:26)
add all of that on top of these changes to our body and it ends up

⁓ into this big emotional disruption, ⁓ I like to say, because we, first of all, we aren't very good at expressing our emotions in a healthy way anyway. And then you add all of these additional pressures on top of it and all these other fluctuations, and it just magnifies ⁓ all of those things. So that can result in things like anxiety, feelings of anxiety, feelings of depression, feelings of rage.

Julie Waite (05:43)
Yeah.

Mm.

Juli Madacey (06:02)
that's becoming more common because emotions have to be expressed. It's our body's way, our nervous system's way of putting itself out of that fight or flight mode and into the rest and digest mode and engaging our parasympathetic nervous system. So if we don't close that loop by expressing those emotions in some way, they will find a way out. So whether that's fluctuating emotions,

Julie Waite (06:16)
Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (06:30)
fluctuating moods. There's a great book called The Body Keeps the Score and I can't pronounce the author's name but emotions we don't correctly express especially when it's something that could be even traumatic for us they will find a place to reside in the body.

Julie Waite (06:36)
Yes.

Juli Madacey (06:49)
until we can express them. So a lot of these symptoms are exacerbated by unexpressed emotions. Sorry, that's a very lengthy answer to a simple question.

Julie Waite (06:56)
Yeah, and they can then cause the... Yeah, no, it's... Well,

it's a lot to take in and as someone myself, you know, I'm 47, you know, definitely in that perimenopausal phase of my life and I've noticed it probably for about four or five years now physically, not quite so much emotionally yet, but ⁓ I can see how when you've got things like the...

Juli Madacey (07:03)
Yeah.

Julie Waite (07:25)
not being able to sleep as well, and the brain fog and all of those other things, you start to question yourself and I think it can lead to this kind of self-esteem, self-worth and just like wondering what, where your place is in the world and how to deal with that.

Juli Madacey (07:48)
Yeah, and in the meantime, we're just getting on with things, right? We just, make ourselves sort of push through it thinking that if I can just get to the other side of this, not realizing.

Julie Waite (07:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, but 10 years or

and beyond is a long time. I know my mum, she went through the menopause around 50, but when she was 70, she was still having hot flushes. So she'd had 20 years and night sweats and things and she'd had like 20 years of that. So it's not just like, like you said, ⁓ it's over within a few years. That's not the case, is it?

Juli Madacey (08:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's crazy.

No, and it's...

Julie Waite (08:26)
I mean maybe

for some people have an easier time of it but it can be very prolonged.

Juli Madacey (08:32)
It can be, the bulk of the symptoms tend to...

aggregate what I want to say around like two to four years on either side of the menopause day, but that's not to say that those symptoms don't or can't happen all the way through. every one of the things that becomes frustrating is that every woman is going to experience menopause this whole transition differently because of our health status, our genetic predisposition to these things, the environment that we live

in, the stress, our ability to manage our stress, the kind of food that we eat, the kind of activity that we do. There's so many different factors. The good news is, because I know right now it sounds like lot of doom and gloom, but the good news about this is that we have a lot more control over these things than we think. So when we look at those factors that are involved and we look at the things that we can control, it gives us the ability to navigate that transition

Julie Waite (09:16)
Mm.

Yeah.

Juli Madacey (09:39)
and choose how it's going to feel for us.

Julie Waite (09:43)
Yeah, and what are some of those things that if someone's kind of in the thick of it now and they're feeling a lot of those emotions that we've just talked about, what are some things that people can do just to try and, you know, make life a bit easier for themselves and make the transition easier? Are there some practical things that people can do?

Juli Madacey (10:03)
Sure,

sure, absolutely. I think the first thing to look at is how you sleep, because sleep affects everything. All of our body's maintenance and ⁓ maintenance and repair things are done during our sleep. And that affects our hormones, that affects our...

Julie Waite (10:13)
Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (10:27)
⁓ digestion, affects our immune system, it affects our ability to store and recall memories, and of course it affects our energy. So looking at sleep hygiene I think is a really important thing. what is your bedroom setup like? What is your nighttime routine like? Do you have a way to wind down? How close to bedtime are you eating your last meal? Are you looking at screens?

right up until you go to bed or maybe even while you're in bed. These are all factors that have a big impact. So tidying up the sleep routine, I think is a great place to start. We like to coach our clients on, we call it a three, two, one method. So no food three hours before bed, stop eating. Two hours before bed, no more work. And one hour before bed, no more screens. And

Julie Waite (10:58)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

That's an

easy way to remember it, isn't it?

Juli Madacey (11:26)
Yeah, and

that isn't something that probably most people can just do overnight, ⁓ as it were, but it's a great goal to get towards. So maybe focusing on one of those things. If you tend to eat late, can you eat a lighter meal? Can you eat earlier? Because especially when we get into sleep, if our body, our body's going to always prioritize digestion, and if we're trying to digest food when we're supposed to be repairing and rebuilding and restoring,

Julie Waite (11:31)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (11:55)
then we're going to feel really fatigued when we wake up. It's going to affect our hunger hormones, it's going to affect our stress hormones, and the quality of sleep that we get is not going to be nourishing. And that can have long-term impact, a long-term impact on our health generally. So I think sleep is a really good place to start. And again, just choose one of those things to focus on. Screens, to me, the clients I've worked with, think getting the screen

shut down at least an hour before bedtime has had a major impact on their ability, the quality of their sleep. ⁓

Julie Waite (12:34)
Right, okay.

think a lot of people, it's hard isn't it, you get in this habit of just check the messages before bed or you get into bed and just check everything and turn the phone off. I know I'm guilty of that. But it becomes a bad habit then doesn't it? Time passes by so quickly when you're on the phone and then before you know it you've spent 20 minutes, half an hour on it.

Juli Madacey (12:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, and that blue light stimulates your brain to say, hey, it's daytime, you need to wake up. So we don't produce the melatonin that we need to tell our body that it's time to go to sleep. It interrupts that cycle. And I worked with a client and she said, I can't because I can't do that because when I wake up in the middle of the night, I don't have anything to do. I get restless, so I play games on my phone. And I challenged her to leave the phone outside of the bedroom.

Julie Waite (13:24)
Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (13:25)
⁓

because she could still hear the alarm when it went off and it would help her get up and out of bed on time. And she came back a bit sheepishly and said, that's the best week of sleep I've had in years. ⁓ Because, yeah.

Julie Waite (13:39)
Well, yeah, you do need

sometimes just a bit of disruption to your routine, don't you, just to be able to go, okay, I've been doing it, I've always been doing it like this, now I actually need to make some changes.

Juli Madacey (13:55)
And change is hard. We know this. Change is hard, especially after we have how many years of practicing the same habits over and over. So that's why we encourage people always to take small, simple steps. ⁓ None of this has to be complicated or difficult, ⁓ but we do owe it to ourselves to give ourselves the kind of care and support that we need at this phase of life to help make it easier.

Julie Waite (13:57)
Mm.

Okay.

Yeah. And with you mentioning there about giving ourselves the care and support that we need, I know that a lot of women experience lots of different symptoms, some of them physical symptoms, and then they go and go to the doctor, go to the GP to try and get some support. And it can be very hit and miss what level of support, what attitude you get depending on

Juli Madacey (14:28)
Thank

Julie Waite (14:55)
you know, who you go to, who you see. And there can also be a lot of dismissal of women going with these symptoms, a lot from the medical profession. And we know we've talked about medical gaslighting during menopause. So what's kind of your experiences of that and what do your people that you're coaching saying about that? And is there something that women can do when they do go to, when they...

Juli Madacey (15:06)
Mm-hmm.

Thank

Julie Waite (15:23)
go to go and ask for help because it can actually can be quite a big step to go and ask for help and then you go and ask for help and you get dismissed or you're made to feel like you're being silly or exaggerating. Are there some tips around that or what's your kind of thoughts on that?

Juli Madacey (15:34)
Right.

Sure, and I've experienced this for myself, so I can appreciate what that's like. What I would advise women to do is, first of all, keep some kind of journal or list or just a note page ⁓ and start to pay attention to the symptoms that you're having or the concerns that you're having. And watch for...

Julie Waite (15:42)
Right.

Juli Madacey (16:03)
any particular cycles or any particular trends but keep track because the best thing you can take to your doctor is data. Most doctors get less than an hour of education throughout all of medical school on menopause.

Julie Waite (16:12)
Right.

It's

so shocking considering, you know, you've got half the population that are going to go through this. It's, I mean, it's shocking in one way and then in another way it's not because women have always been an afterthought in the medical system anyway.

Juli Madacey (16:24)
Yeah.

Women's health

has only been directly researched for about 30 years. So we don't have the data. In most medical recommendations, physical training recommendations, medical research, women are treated like small men. And we're not, we're very much not that. doctors don't do it out of malice, they just do it out of ignorance. They just don't know. And what they're taught is you have these symptoms, here are the medications to treat them.

Julie Waite (16:45)
Mm.

Juli Madacey (17:02)
and send you on your way. And especially now I've heard in some of the medical health systems, when you make an appointment, you can only talk to the doctor about that one thing. Now when you have eight, yeah, and that's just, it's just.

Julie Waite (17:13)
Yes, I've heard that, yeah.

Juli Madacey (17:17)
It's terrible. It's terrible. It's a terrible disservice to humanity, I think. But when you go in with information to say, I want to talk about perimenopause or I want to talk about menopause, unfortunately, there isn't a test. because of the symptoms that women have, especially the emotional symptoms, the anxiety and symptoms of depression, 30 % of women, more than 30 % of women are misdiagnosed.

with depression or anxiety and put on SSRIs and other medications when in fact these symptoms are related to menopause. again, because doctors just don't know. They think, ⁓ you're feeling sad here, take some antidepressants. You're feeling anxious, take some anti-anxiety medicine. But when we look at this phase of life as a whole and some of the holistic things we can do to support it, those medications often aren't necessary.

Julie Waite (17:54)
All

Juli Madacey (18:15)
Now of course there's a time and place for these things. I'm not dismissing medicine as a whole, but when you have eight minutes with your doctor, maybe 12 if you're lucky, you need to go in prepared to give them the most information you can so that they can help you because that doesn't give them time to understand your history, your experiences, all of your symptoms, ask you questions about your lifestyle, different factors that might be involved.

Julie Waite (18:20)
Mm.

Yeah.

Juli Madacey (18:41)
their hands are very tied. So going in and being your own advocate. The other thing I would say is if you feel dismissed, find someone else to talk to. Look for someone who is a specialist in menopause because there more and more doctors ⁓ who are taking this specialization now and offering these kind of specialized services. And even if it means going private, I know that can add up to a big expense from time to time, but when you look at your longevity,

Julie Waite (19:01)
Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (19:11)
your quality of life and your long-term health, it's worth that investment to find somebody you feel comfortable and you can trust and who can guide you, who's knowledgeable about what happens to your body in menopause because there's a lot of misinformation about ⁓ menopause hormone therapy and hormone replacement therapy. ⁓

Julie Waite (19:14)
Yeah.

Juli Madacey (19:36)
because of one study that was done with synthetic hormones and ⁓ enormous doses that caused breast cancer, and so many more women can get relief there. Maybe it's not the answer for everybody, and it probably shouldn't be the first ⁓ thing that people try. But again, a lot of these options aren't offered to women because doctors just don't know. So, yeah.

Julie Waite (19:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah and that was, I remember,

I've heard of that study, that was a study that was many years ago wasn't it, but it got such big media headlines that it's stuck ⁓ and then there's still this big fear about ⁓ hormone replacement therapy and a lot of doctors have just kind of stuck with that haven't they?

Juli Madacey (20:07)
Yeah.

Yes.

They have, and bioidentical hormones aren't available everywhere, but they can be very helpful for women. When you think about it, we have estrogen receptors through our entire body. We have them in our brain, we have them inside of our lungs, we have them in our digestive tract, we have them all over our body. So all of these symptoms that we're experiencing are very related.

to the drop in estrogen and when we look at the long-term health consequences that women are dealing with after we get to postmenopause, increased risk of heart disease, increased risk of dementia, and cognitive decline, increased risk of diabetes, increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures. in the Royal Osteoporosis Society in Britain has done a study that shows that one in 50 %

of women over the age of 50 will experience ⁓ a fracture related to the decline in bone density, which is directly related to the decline in estrogen. you know, but again, now we learn that weight-bearing exercise can help us build bone and keep our muscle strength and keep our mobility and flexibility and help us avoid those consequences later in life.

So simple things.

Julie Waite (21:51)
Yeah,

it's a shame that this kind of information isn't being given out by the health service, you know, but I guess that's another discussion for our health service. It's more like you've got a problem, here's a pill to solve it, you know, but at least we've got people like yourselves who are out trying to help and educate about this because I think a lot of women do feel quite lost during this time.

Juli Madacey (21:58)
Yeah.

haha

Yeah.

Julie Waite (22:19)
If you went to the doctors and you were dismissed or just offered an antidepressant, you might feel like that's your only option if you've not got the education and knowledge about it.

Juli Madacey (22:24)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly. there's so much conflicting information out there and that's what makes it really difficult. That's why we focus so much on science-based information that we share with people because it doesn't need to be complicated. You don't need a miracle supplement.

⁓ Something that works for your aunt Sue isn't necessarily going to work for you because your experience is different. But when we get down to the basics, and that's how we coach, four pillars, right? Think, eat, move, live. How we think affects our experience through this transition and our ability to do the things that our body and mind needs to support us. How we eat, obviously.

majorly affects our health generally. And it also can affect how we experience menopause symptoms. Some of the common triggers are caffeine, sugar, and alcohol. Now, who doesn't want their morning cup of coffee? Who doesn't want a glass of wine occasionally to wind down in the evening or those cravings for chocolate? It's not that those things need to be off limits, but we need to understand how they affect our body because we've become out of tune with how

Julie Waite (23:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Juli Madacey (23:47)
we feel when we eat and drink certain things, the way we move.

Julie Waite (23:50)
And if you're feeling a bit

overwhelmed and fed up with things, what do you go for? You go for the comfort, or the coffee, or the wine, or the chocolate, or the cakes and biscuits. You go for those kind of comfort things, don't you? You're thinking it's going to make you feel better, but underneath it's not really doing you many favours.

Juli Madacey (23:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

It isn't, but one thing to understand about that, because again, when we look at emotions, when we look at the way we eat, there's a lot of shame around there and it's unnecessary. We don't set out, I don't know a single human being who sets out to cause problems for themselves.

Julie Waite (24:20)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Juli Madacey (24:30)
what the actions that we take are designed to help us in some way. And it may be from old belief patterns that we learned as children, like you fall down and skin your knee and mom gives you a cookie to make you feel better. It doesn't take very many episodes of that happening before you learn that cookies make me feel better. And that's in the back of your brain, even though you're not consciously thinking about it. So when we have stress, when we're struggling with things, it's a natural

Julie Waite (24:43)
Mmm.

Juli Madacey (25:01)
a natural thing to want to go to those things that bring us comfort that we remember from childhood. There's also, this is really interesting, I'm gonna geek out a little bit, but there's a nerve network called the trigeminal nerve, and it passes behind our jaw, behind our ears, and goes into our brain. And when we chew, that is stimulated, and our brain releases neurochemicals that make us feel better.

Julie Waite (25:27)
⁓ I did not know that. ⁓

Juli Madacey (25:29)
Yeah,

and so that's why certain textures of foods you find soothing and comforting. Some people go for crunchy foods when they're stressed or angry or when they're sad they want something that's creamier and it's stimulating that trigeminal nerve and you find it, you look at when babies are upset they put things in their mouths or when animals are upset they chew on things. It's that

Julie Waite (25:37)
Mmm.

Mm.

Juli Madacey (25:54)
innate sense of bringing calm to ourselves. So we're kind of wired that way. And once we become aware of it and we become aware of, again, I want this chocolate or I want this glass of wine because it's going to make me feel better right now. And then we start to tune in to how did that make me feel afterwards? Did I enjoy it as much as I thought I would or was I just going through the motions because that's what I usually do when I feel this way.

Julie Waite (26:00)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (26:23)
How did I feel an hour afterwards, two hours afterwards? Was my energy tanking? Did I feel, did I get a headache? Did I feel bloated? And starting to tune into those things, we can start to make those connections a little bit more easily for ourselves to find out. Because not everything affects everybody the same way.

Julie Waite (26:41)
Mm-hmm.

No, it doesn't. Yeah. It's interesting you said about the four pillars that you teach with and one of them being think. We teach self-defense with four pillars as well and one of them is mindset. And it's just, you know, a lot of what we teach, they like the emotional self-defense and the physical. It's about kind of...

Juli Madacey (26:51)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Julie Waite (27:08)
understanding and believing at your core that you're worth protecting, that nobody has the right to encroach or cross your boundaries. ⁓ And a lot of women that we teach just have this view of, ⁓ people quite often say things like, well, so long as everyone else is okay, then I'll manage, so long as the family are okay.

Juli Madacey (27:13)
Yes.

Julie Waite (27:36)
so long as they get what they need and putting themselves last. And I know we kind of mentioned that at beginning when we talked about the emotional side of things, but are there things that women can do during this life phase when they are feeling quite vulnerable, just to be able to maybe set some boundaries that will help them deal with this? Because I know a lot of women might have teenage kids at this time of life. You might have elderly.

Juli Madacey (27:41)
Yeah.

Julie Waite (28:06)
parents that you're looking after, you've got work, know, a lot of, just a lot of things going on. Is there anything around that, you know, around like the boundaries or the emotional resilience advice that you can give to women for this?

Juli Madacey (28:22)
Sure, we talk a lot about boundaries because it's so important. And I think one of the interesting things is that we often say, it's okay to say no to people, but we don't tell people how to say no to people. Because as women, again, we're expected to take care of everything. We're expected, we're still the majority of the caregivers. We're expected to just juggle it all and do it with a smile.

because of the changes that are going on in our brain and our body at this phase of life, we are less resilient. So our level of tolerance for these things is declining. one of the things that I think is the most helpful is to decide where in my life am I doing something that I don't really wanna do that maybe I'm feeling even a little bit resentful about. And that's a good place to start. And then being able to...

Julie Waite (29:14)
Right, yeah.

Juli Madacey (29:19)
to back off a little bit, to not say yes every time, to give yourself some room. And you don't necessarily have to say no immediately to things, but maybe learning some responses like, let me check my schedule and get back to you. Or, now isn't a great time for me, but I could maybe look at this later on. Or, have you thought about contacting so and so instead? Being able to bring that space in.

Julie Waite (29:23)
Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (29:49)
I promise you there will be some guilt feelings when you first do that, especially because you're not used to it. And because people have this expectation of you to always say yes. So it be difficult for them as well. But we have to start somewhere. And I often advise people to practice with someone you're comfortable with. And if you can't find someone to practice saying these things to, ⁓ then practice in the mirror.

Julie Waite (30:03)
Yeah.

Juli Madacey (30:18)
Because then when you're presented with the opportunity to say, that's not gonna work for me right now, or one of my favorite lines is from one of my coaches who always says, my schedule is as full as I'd like it to be right now. Thank you for, but thank you for asking. You don't have to be mean. Setting boundaries isn't mean. Letting yourself get burnt out is mean. Because you end up giving people whatever happens to be left of you.

Julie Waite (30:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Juli Madacey (30:47)
rather than giving them the best of you. And I look at setting boundaries and self-care as our number one responsibility. Because if we're not at our best, how can we possibly expect to look after everything else that's going on in our lives? And I did work with one client who was really struggling with this. And she got to the point where she was resentful of her.

Julie Waite (30:56)
Yeah.

Juli Madacey (31:13)
husband and kids because she never had that moment of peace. So one of the first things she did was she decided to try a five minute, I love the five minute habit because we all can find five minutes in the day. And if we can't, then we have bigger issues. yeah, so what she started to do was take five minutes when she got home from work at the end of the day to say, I want this five minutes to go and decompress.

Julie Waite (31:30)
Yeah, you have.

Juli Madacey (31:43)
and she would go up to her bedroom and taught the kids because there were times when they tried to come in anyway, she said, I want this five minutes, give me this five minutes and then I'm all yours. And that five minutes led to ⁓ not only her feeling better, but the family ultimately respecting that time. And if she needed time elsewhere in the day or weekend or whatever, she could just say, I'm gonna go decompress for a bit. And they knew.

that it was her time to be left alone. And that worked really well for the family. Again, it took a little adjustment, but they did it. And that five minutes led into 30 minutes over the course of about six months. So that became her time to do some yoga or to do some journaling or to get in a quick workout. And when she started doing the yoga and the workout, her kids saw her doing that.

Julie Waite (32:21)
Mm.

Juli Madacey (32:43)
And then they started getting involved as well. So she started teaching them these healthier habits. And again, this didn't happen overnight, but it started with that five minutes and just making that request. Say, look, I really need your support here. ⁓ Are you willing to help me? I mean, if you ask for help, just are you willing to support me and give me five minutes? And somebody says no.

Julie Waite (32:46)
Mmm.

Juli Madacey (33:11)
then you might wanna reevaluate that relationship. ⁓

Julie Waite (33:14)
Yeah, yeah,

that's a great idea. That's a really good place to start because you can feel like, I know I've been thinking, I'd like to do some yoga or different things and you think, well, I just, can't think of where there's any time in the day, but if you can start small and build up and then I think as well, you're not, don't feel like you're asking for something unreasonable. Not that it's, not that it's unreasonable to ask to have some time to do yoga, but that's kind of like a mum's perspective of.

Juli Madacey (33:37)
Right.

Julie Waite (33:42)
I've got all these, you know, I've got to take people here, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. But if you can start with five minutes and then I liked what you said about practicing in the mirror and having some responses because I think if you've not thought about your response or how to say no in a nice way, if you've not got that prepared...

you feel like you're going to be mean or you're going to be going to be kind of like more guilt around it so if you can have something that you can say that's a nice kind response that frames things from your perspective that's a really good tip for people to try.

Juli Madacey (34:21)
For sure, and once you've practiced it, it will come out more naturally. It won't have that sort of blurting out or that angry response, you know, that sometimes we let things build up until we just can't stand it anymore and then we blow because we haven't given ourselves that space. So that practicing that to make it feel more natural, I think is important. Because especially if we say, you know, I'm not really sure.

Julie Waite (34:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Juli Madacey (34:50)
We're leaving that loophole for people to push us and to push back at that boundary. And the way I look at it is if we had a loved one, a child or a partner or even a pet, and someone was pushing and pushing and pushing at them and not relenting, wouldn't we jump in to defend them? We wouldn't want to see them treated like that.

Julie Waite (34:52)
Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Juli Madacey (35:18)
And in the end, this is what we're allowing to happen to us because people will treat us, people will push us as far as we let them. So by gently backing off and gently establishing those boundaries, it's again, change can be hard, but when we do it in a kind way, when we do it in a gentle way and understand that we deserve the same time and energy that we give to everyone else.

Julie Waite (35:22)
Hmm.

Mm.

Yeah, and I think at work as well this can play into it because you might be having lots of things piled on you at work but then you're feeling like you can't cope at work and you might need some extra support and workplaces do have a duty of care towards their staff and they should be supporting you. Some are getting better at it. I've seen, you know, menopause policies and things and...

menopause champions in some workplaces, but then in others there's kind of very little understanding. So I think that's another place where women have to feel able to stand up for themselves.

Juli Madacey (36:28)
We really do. And if somebody's interested, I was just attending a ⁓ webinar yesterday, and there is a standard, and I just want to find it, for the British Standards Institute, and it's 30416. And it's the menopause and menstruation standard. And it's got a way for people to start looking at how to adapt that and adopt that in the workplaces.

And it's obviously a work in process, but there are some really big companies like Virgin Media and Marks and Spencer's who have taken this on board and are creating these more supportive policies. And ⁓ the way I look at it is, okay, first of all, we don't have to share really personal symptoms and experiences, but we can say things like, I really could use some support with this, or I'm having some health issues that I...

Julie Waite (37:15)
Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (37:24)
I need a more flexible working schedule or I need to take a few moments on my own or whatever that might be. ⁓ But if you never ask, the answer is always no.

Julie Waite (37:28)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah and the more women that start to ask and start to talk about it the the easier it should get.

Juli Madacey (37:46)
Yeah, this needs to be a normal conversation. This is one third to one half of our lifespan. This isn't something we just get over. It's not a medical condition. So this is something we need to start to talk about openly and normalize because it is normal. There isn't a, if you were, if you have or have ever had functioning ovaries, you will go through menopause.

Julie Waite (37:48)
Hmm.

Juli Madacey (38:10)
at some point in your life. And even if you haven't had or have never had functioning ovaries, you will be associated with, related to, or somehow connected with someone who is going to go through menopause. So this affects everybody.

Julie Waite (38:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, and it's good for men to understand. I've been telling Dene about it and other family members so that they can understand and support. Otherwise, it's just this kind of whispered taboo subject that men feel scared about as well and they shouldn't have to. If they know about it, they can talk to you about it and support you with it.

Juli Madacey (38:47)
Yeah, things are much less scary when they're out in the light.

Julie Waite (38:50)
Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I'm sure that advice will be really helpful for women that are perimenopausal or post-amenopausal or in that whole part of their life. If there was maybe like one key piece of advice that you'd give to women in this time of life to help them be more emotionally resilient, there one kind of thing you'd suggest for them?

Juli Madacey (39:22)
I would say remember that if you're starting to feel a bit lost, you aren't lost yourself, you're finding your way back to who you truly are. You've played all of these roles all of your life and you've met with all of these expectations and it's time to, this is a time of reinvention. It's okay if it's messy, it's going to be messy. So when you can have a vision of

who it is that you want to become and start stepping into that. ⁓ Advocating for yourself when it comes to medical care, advocating for yourself when it comes to being able to set boundaries and stop being invisible because you're not invisible. You're becoming who you're meant to be. And please, please get support, get help.

and don't be afraid to ask for what you need because again, if people don't know you need help, they'll never be able to give it to you.

Julie Waite (40:31)
I love that, that's so positive and inspirational and I think that is just a really lovely way of looking at it, like finding yourself and coming back to who you are and who you're meant to be. I think that's a really positive way of looking at it. So thank you so much for your time. Before we finish, could you tell us a bit about the Fabulous Beyond 40 and how you support women? Because I know that the...

having a community to go to and having people to be able to ask questions of is so valuable. Can you tell us a bit about that and where people can find you as well?

Juli Madacey (41:08)
Sure. My business partner, James and I are, we have our company called Fabulous Beyond 40 and we coach women through this whole transition to help them be confident and resilient and find that pathway to who they are becoming. again, we navigate through those four pillars. So we look at how do we think, how do we eat, how do we move and how do we live?

We take this 360 degree approach to whole holistic health and managing this important phase of life. And we love it. We have a great community. We have a membership that we offer women where we coach around those four pillars. And we have different success paths as we've outlined because we've got so many resources that it's hard to know where do you start, right? So we look at

Julie Waite (42:04)
Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (42:05)
What is someone's goal? What is it that they're dealing with that's bothering them the most? For a lot of women, it's their weight. For a lot of women, it's their energy. For other women, it might be getting into exercise or just looking at their longer term health. So we've created success paths to help guide them that way. And it's really fun because when you've got that support, especially when it comes to coaching, you've got a more objective.

Julie Waite (42:25)
Mm-hmm.

Juli Madacey (42:34)
well-educated view of what's happening, you can learn a lot about yourself. And then being in a community of like-minded women, there's a ⁓ tremendous amount of support. And we call it the tribe membership because we really do feel like this is an important piece of that. Women are looking for information, women are looking for support, and we...

As coaches, we were looking for resources to share with our clients, and we couldn't find anything out there that we trusted, that we thought had the robust kind of support that women need during this phase of life, so we just created it ourselves.

Julie Waite (43:06)
Yeah.

Great, well that's often the best way isn't it? can't find it out there so then you can kind of create it to do exactly what you need it to do.

Juli Madacey (43:28)
Exactly. And so we wanted to make it accessible and affordable for everyone. And so that's what we've done. So it's a really great membership. We've got learning sessions. We've got guest experts that come in and talk to us. We've got ⁓ group coaching. We have workouts. We have the community support and it's all done in our own, in our own, on our own software platform. So it's, it's a lot of fun. ⁓

If anybody's looking to get some more information, to get in touch with James or myself, we offer a free coaching call for women. So they can go to a website, it's freecall.fabulousbeyond40.com and they can book a time with either one of us there and ⁓ whether they decide to work with us or not, we'll make sure that you get a pathway forward, that you have a clear view of what you can do to take back.

your control of your journey and ⁓ make it more positive.

Julie Waite (44:27)
Great, well I'll link that on

the episode website so people can find that. And are you on Facebook and Instagram as well? We'll share those too so people can find you there.

Juli Madacey (44:38)
We are.

Terrific. And we look forward to talking to people because this is important. It needs to be supported.

Julie Waite (44:50)
Absolutely and I'm sure the advice you've shared today is gonna you know it's got me thinking about things already so my mind's kind of going all right I'm going to try this or that so I'm sure it's going to be helpful for people so thank you so much for your time and if you have enjoyed this episode please share it with people share it with women that need to hear this and like the episode subscribe

and it'll help us be found by more women. Thank you, until next time.