"Menopause Hit Me Like a Truck" - Why Midlife Women Need to Be "Selfish" to Heal - with Jacqueline Perez

This episode is a true gem. I'm so honoured to welcome back Jacqueline Perez, the heart-centered force behind Cool Life and a powerful champion for women in midlife. 

Jacqueline is the embodiment of everything we talk about here on Thrive After 45™: that our second act is where we truly rise into our power.

Jacqueline gets real about her own menopause journey, which she says hit her "like a tractor trailer" and shook her physically, emotionally, and spiritually. 

Instead of letting it defeat her, she chose to face it head-on and transformed it into a global movement to normalize aging. 

We talk about the importance of being "selfish" in your healing process , and how that choice ultimately benefits everyone around you.

She also shares the story behind her beautiful new book of poetry, Metamorphosis in Stanis, which she wrote as a way to process a series of difficult life events. The book is a woman's midlife companion that includes QR codes for each poem, so you can listen to her read them and feel the full energy behind her words. 

Jacqueline even reads one of the poems, "A World in Three Crayons," which is a perfect reminder that we can do amazing things with what we’ve been given, even if it feels like we only have "three crayons".

This conversation is a permission slip to see yourself as a masterpiece in progress, to embrace every season of your life, and to believe that the best is truly yet to come.

Go follow Jacqueline:

🖥️ Website → https://kuellife.com/
📕 Get her poetry book "Metamorphosis in Stanzas" 

Thank you for spending time with me today on the Thrive After 45™ podcast! If this episode spoke to you, be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss one.

And if you loved it, I’d be so grateful if you left a review - it helps more amazing women like you find this show!

Your journey doesn’t stop here - let’s keep the conversation going! Connect with me at denisedrinkwalter.com, and follow @thethriveafter45podcast for daily insp, tips, and support.

Remember, midlife isn’t the end - it’s just the beginning of a new, exciting chapter! Keep thriving, keep shining, and I’ll see you next time!

Transcript

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Welcome to Thrive after 45. The podcast for women ready to expand, embody their truth, and shine unapologetically in the second half of life. I'm Denise Drink Walter Heart Whisperer, midlife mirror and mentor. Every week I am honored to share energy and space with inspiring guests whose stories reflect so many possibilities of thriving beyond 45. Together we'll uncover the whispers of the heart, the power of midlife transformation, and the wisdom that fuels expansion. What if everything you've been told about fading, shrinking, becoming invisible in midlife was a lie, and this is the moment you rise into your fullest power. What an honor and a privilege to welcome our returning special guest, Jacqueline Perez, to our show today. Jack is the embodiment of the truth that midlife is where you rise to this fullest power. As the founder and CEO of Cool Life author, an unapologetic pro aging champion, Jack transformed her own menopause journey. One that shook her physically, emotionally, and spiritually into a global movement to normalize aging, reclaiming women's visibility. Since 2017, she has impacted well over 100,000 women worldwide. Through her platform, Sunday Roundup newsletter, podcasts, and published work with more than 36,000 women and growing. Following her on Instagram alone, she has built a thriving international community that amplifies. Women's voices challenges outdated narratives and provides the resources to boldly reinvent health relationships, health, relationships, careers and personal growth. Jack's mission is clear and powerful to dismantle the myths that hold women back and prove that midlife is not the end. It's the most extraordinary. Beginning. Welcome to our show today, Jacqueline. Thank you, Denise. I'm a little worried after that intro I'm like, maybe I should just say that. That's all folks. I mean, I don't Sure follow up, but, okay. I, I will do my level best. We are in the room to have some incredible conversations and when I ask every guest, um, to just give me a bit of background, something you talked about was how menopause hit you, like a tractor trailer changing everything like your physical, your emotional, even your sense of identity. How did that experience. Take you from where you were to whom you are now in shaping this incredible vision behind your community of cool life. It's funny, Denise,'cause menopause, it happens to every other human on the planet, right? I mean, it's not, it's not a weird thing, it's not an unusual thing. Mm-hmm. And I know many, after seven years of being in this field, I know hundreds of women wear menopause. Didn't, didn't bother them all that much, or they noticed it a little, but they got kind of through it and they were fine. I, unfortunately, or in my case, fortunately mm-hmm. Because I'll let you know right now, I would not be a pro aging champion on a mission to normalize aging. Had I been one of quote unquote the lucky ones. I wasn't. I I, I was at the weight of the day that I gave birth to my son. I didn't wanna get outta bed. My anxiety was over the top. And I am not wired as an anxious person. I am wired as almost a Pollyanna kind of person. Losing that. And then, and then the attributes that come with aging, looking at yourself in the mirror. And it was, it was all too much. And I was, what? 52? I thought, Hmm. Hmm. My organs are healthy. I'm a healthy human being. I could be here for quite some time. Is this how I wanna spend the rest of my time on this planet? No. Yeah. The answer was no. I began to look for answers selfishly for me. Yep. And perfect. Right? Because honestly, that was the motivator. Fix Jack's life was my motivator. I, I, I am not that altruistic, ladies. I apologize. During the course of figuring out what worked for me, I started realizing, hmm, what about women out there who are suffering like I was suffering or was suffering, and for whatever reason, they're not wired to, or they don't have the time, or they don't have the bandwidth. To kind of look at it from a more 50,000 foot level. I, I did. I thought, well, if this is happening to me, I'm not that special. I bet it is happening to a lot of women. And that is, that was the primary motivator for me to begin the path that has led me to where I am today. It was. To help solve the issue for other women to at least bring them the information in a way that they could trust and in, in, in one rep repository. My issue at the time, now, mind you, this is seven years ago, right? Things have changed a lot for the better, for the better, right. Uh, but we're not there yet. No, exactly. Yeah. The demand far outweighs the supply. For relevant, accurate, kind, actionable information for women during this season of life. Mm-hmm. Menopause, the physiological change, Denise, as you know, is one attribute of myriad of new opportunities and challenges that present themselves during this phase. Yeah. And while the, while the physical one, I, for me was so palpable that that was my motivator, right. I soon realized that there were many, many issues to deal with and many, mm-hmm. Many topics to cover to help women navigate what I truly believe is the most fabulous part of my life anyway. Yeah. You know, you mentioned the importance of. How it hits and how it hits differently for everyone. And I recognize and know that many women, like you suggested, have major life shifts through menopause, and others just seem to fly through it, like life. Oh, is this what's happening? Oh, I didn't even really realize. Thank goodness for what you went through and how you took it to empower yourself. And I love that you have a broader vision to know that this is important information for a much wider audience. And you know you're no longer alone. And I love that you were selfish. In the beginning, because in order to do that, I'm guessing based on women as who we are as a collective, we do not naturally, um, show ourselves as being selfish, as giving back, okay, I need to figure this out. For me, it, it, it many times comes against, uh, you know, a big thrust in our lives where we're hit against the wall. It's like, ah, I can't do anything else. I gotta do me. And isn't it too bad that we have to do it that way? Like, thank you for doing what you're doing, because then people don't have to hit that wall first. They can have the information prior. That is my goal. Yeah. My goal is that our younger sisters, yeah, will have other issues to solve when they get there, but this one won't. One of them, I'm sure there will be others. There's, there's no way you don't get away and stage. There's always something around the corner since aging is normal. Menopause is normal. My goal is to normalize this aging process so that it's, it's the options are there for women, whatever, whatever they choose. However, path works for them. Without the judgment, without the criticism, and with an armed with valuable, accurate science and spurts that, that they can actually. Make changes for themselves in, in for, for the positive. And it's funny'cause you said it was a good thing that I was selfish. Well, yes and no. I wasn't of value to anyone. I was a terrible mother. I was a terrible partner. Who I was, I was a shadow of who I am. And so, yes, it was selfish'cause it was for me. Everyone else around me benefited as well. Sort of like the whole put the mask on. I hate this analogy. There's gotta be a better one. You know, you put the air mask on your oxygen mask on yourself, first on the airplane, and then you handle the people around you. That's kind of, that's kind of the same thing. I mean, there's a reason we say that because it's accurate and true, right? There's so much around, um, energy and when our energy is zapped. Everybody else around us is affected. When our energy is on point, everyone else around us is affected. Right. So I love what you're saying in terms of Yes, it was a good thing, bad thing isn't life always like that? You can always look at glass half full, glass, half empty. Absolutely. Yeah. Jordan sorrow live in the same, right? Yeah. Yeah. They live in the same container. Yeah. Yeah. And it's right. I know, but it's a, it's, it's life. It's, well, it's just, it's part of the human condition. Exactly. And pretending, pretending that you're not human is, yeah. It's kind of a fruitless endeavor if you think about it. Yeah, it'll, it'll be an uphill climb forever. Yeah. It's just a thin task for sure. Yes. Right. Yeah. I'm looking behind you and we need to jump into the brilliance that you have taken all of your collective writing thoughts, energy, ideas, experiences, and. Encapsulated them beautifully into your book, metamorphosis in Stanis. Tell us about that. Tell us about the journey and then I know there's one in there that you're gonna read for us. It's going to land for every single listener, so jump in, I hope. Yeah, so we, we were talking about what initially motivated me and drove me to create. Platform cool life. Right? Well, and we also talked about joy and sorrow living in the same container. The other thing that we all need to realize and remember is that it's cyclical, it's evergreen. You don't solve a problem, put it on the shelf and go, woo, all done with that one. Let's move on. Right. Yeah. I, I had a myriad of things hit me again last year. Uh, my son, I, the whole empty nest thing. Yep. I didn't think it had hit me as hard as it did. I had some distractions when my son left home. Mm-hmm. Because when he left home, I had a pretty bad skydiving accident that left me with, um, three broken vertebrae. I focused mostly on healing my body when he had walked out the door and put the, oh my God, I, I no longer parent someone kind of in the, in the back. Closet. Right. Well, thing with stuff like that is you can get distracted for a period of time. Mm-hmm. But if you don't deal with it, if you don't go through it. Right. If you just lock it away somewhere and sometimes you have to and sometimes you have to because of circumstance. Right. But then it's just there waiting for you. And it came up last year, my sister, we have shared. We had our babies 10 days apart. And that was not by accident, Denise. That was on. Yeah. That just shows you the level of commitment that we had to each other. Well, she made a different decision and moved away 3000 miles, and then I lost what I had believed was going to be a lifetime relationship with a friend. And I didn't realize that you could break up with friends, but you can. And, and we were grown up about it. We were both, we both held ourselves accountable. We had conversation and we both realized it was, we were better off kind of just kind of putting it on hold. Yep. That was devastating too. And I didn't know what to do with all of those emotions. And as you said, I'm a writer, I'm an author. Mm-hmm. However, I have written, I'm an essayist. I'm gonna essay this. I have hundreds and hundreds of things out there under the umbrella of Jack's smack, okay? Yep. Right. So hundreds of essays, and I write a lot about the midlife, you know, the midlife condition, and I'm pretty cheeky about it. Self-deprecating. Your tongue in cheek, kinda like I have a bizarre perspective on the world. Well, when I went to process. What was happening to me in this season of my life. Mm-hmm. Came out wasn't essay, it was poems. And had I ever written poems before? Hmm. Outside of the ones that my teacher made me write when I was junior, senior in high school. Yeah. So much. But I found myself at like three o'clock in the morning writing poetry. Then I decided, well, okay, I'm gonna challenge myself 30 poems in 30 days. And I did it. And then I published, what I realized I had created was a woman's midlife companion. Hmm. Amazing. I was seen my truth, but when I sent it out for, you know, edits and. Comments and should I publish this? What I got from my community basically was I saw myself in so many, mm. I just, I, I, I could, I could hear my own thoughts through your words, and I know, Denise, that poetry is not commercially viable. A lot of people, a lot of people are like, Ooh, poetry. Mm, not sure. Not a big poetry fan. Well, what I did was I recorded them all in my closet, and then I have included QR codes for each poem. Nice. That way if a woman feels like, huh, I'm not sure I get this, or I'm not sure what she's trying to tell me. All you have to do is put your little phone up to the QR code and listen in, because I am happy mm-hmm. To share with you what I mean in each of these poems. I love that. I love that. So what the audio is, is a reading of each poem. Yes. Not, not the whole book. Right. I mean, there's, there's prose in the book that describes. You know what, what I was thinking when I was writing the okay poem, but with the poem itself, on that page, there's a QR code that literally just has the poem. Hmm. In an audio format. I know a lot of women prefer that. So, uh, my educator brain is jumping right in there going, this is brilliant, because those who are auditory learners will really connect with that. Not only that, but the energy that you bring as you read it.'cause your whole self is involved in that reading. And it's funny, I haven't. I don't know how the idea came to me about sticking the QR code in there. Well, I know how it came to me because I had recorded a few of them and put them on TikTok just for grin and giggle. This is before, this is before I realized I was making a book. Right. I mean, I had no idea. Sure. Making a book. No idea. I just needed to create this format to process the crap that was killing me. It was just hurting and it wave. So much I couldn't carry it. Yeah. I had to get it out and that's really, yeah. So then I stuck it, a few of them on TikTok and I got such a positive response from TikTok that I thought, Hmm, what if I just, what if QR code in the book? And to my know, I haven't seen that yet. I mean, maybe it's already out there, but I haven't really seen a lot of that. Mm-hmm. Can I invite you. To share in our energy here today, one of whichever one you wanna choose. Can you read one for us so that the audience, so the audience can actually a access the fullness of and the richness of your right. I would be, I would be honored and I'm gonna read one specifically. For your audience, I know that you help women really navigate their sovereignty during this midlife mm-hmm. And beyond, period. Yeah. And I know that we would all like to have a plethora of the tools we need every time a situation comes up. We also know that by this stage in life, that we don't always have every tool available to ourselves. That doesn't mean we can't continue. That doesn't mean we don't need to continue. We have to make the best of the world with what we've got. And that's what this poem speaks to. Nice. And it's called A World in Three Crayons. And I don't, I don't know if this is an a visual, but this kind of shows you where the QR code. Is absolutely in the page. So the YouTube channel will absolutely show the visual. And I'll just briefly say that you just shared the book and showing Exactly. It's beautifully laid out, by the way. No surprise. It helps. It helps when the B FFF is a graphic designer. Oh. And she can't say no to you. There you go. Bonus win. Absolutely shout out to Nancy Knight because she couldn't say no. She had to help me, so love it. Love it. Oh, um, A world in Three crayons In life, we dream of vibrant hues, a box of crayons vast to use. The 1 52 with colors bright. Each shade defined each line just right with built-in sharpener to hone, we'd craft a masterpiece our own, but often fate. Hands us a pack. Three waxy crayons, colors, lack, no golden rod, no midnight, blue, just red and green, and wanna skew. With crayons from a diner's tin, we fight the fight with what's within. No time to sharpen, no grand display, just scribbles made in shades of gray. We armor up with what we hold. Our tools are weak, but hearts are bold. And though we wish for hues, untold for pallets, rich. Silver, gold. We face the world with what we've got and hope to color life's blank spot. So here we stand, our crayons worn with simple tools or spirits worn. Yet in these lines, rough and undefined. A deeper beauty, we still find. Just three crayons. Dull and bear. We sketch our stories. Choose to dare though. Colors bleed and lines. Miss lay, the heart remains in light and play. Hmm. Thank you for that. Oh, you're welcome. Wow. Thank you for allowing me to share that. Beautiful, beautiful. And if that resonates, I know it did in my body. I could feel it. I could visualize all kinds of things. And if people listening you wanna share in the comments, we'd love to hear how that reading came through for you. Jacqueline, I had a woman tell me once she could smell the box of crayons, right? She had, when she was a child, she could literally smell the Crayola box. Yes. I'm like, wow, lady, you've got a great imagination, right? It's, and, and that's the beautiful thing. What you've put out there came from your heart center and it's now reaching the world's heart center. So thank you for bringing that light. To the world through your book Metamorphosis in Stanis. So beautiful. Thank you, Denise. Thank you for allowing me to share it with your audience. Absolutely. If every woman, woman that was listening to our conversation today and to your beautiful gifts and to everything that you have put so divinely out into the world, if we could walk away with one unshakeable truth about ourselves in midlife, what would you want that truth to be? What I want for every woman who is my age, we're a little bit younger'cause I'm, I'm not really a midlife anymore. Right. I'm sorry. I'm in that beyond midlife part. What I would want every woman to feel inside is that this is the best season thus far. Mm. That somehow we were told a pack of lies. Yeah. That. We were declining, that we were becoming invisible, that we weren't very useful. Oh my goodness gracious. Enjoy the fact that you're not that useful anymore. So what? Be useful to yourself. Do what you want. Be the person. Be the woman you wanna be. You have it in you now, and everyone's gonna, you have more room now to do that. Yeah. That's what I would want every woman to really not, not think it, not frontal lobit Denise, not frontal lobe. Right. Thank you. Not frontal lobit. I want it to be the reptilian brain. The back, I mean the gut that you understand that you have been given this gift of a, of a lifespan that women in the early 19 hundreds didn't get. Yeah. And now we get it. Mm-hmm. We get this extra lifespan. We can do anything we want. Yeah. And don't miss out on the opportunity that's sitting right in front of you, which is to Do you now, just like you say, Jack, do you? The world needs us. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for being with us today on Thrive after 45. I would love our listeners to take a moment, breathe and notice what touched your heart today. That's your soul, whispering your next step. If you feel called to go deeper into your journey, I've opened up the ME Academy portal. It's a space where women embody radiance and really thrive. In the second half of life, you'll find the links everywhere over my social media. You can't miss it. Always message me. I've got you. Until next week, keep listening. Keep expanding and keep honoring all of those quiet whispers that live within. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Jacqueline. Thank you, Denise.