Rise Again Episode 14 | Emotional Health

Welcome to Episode 14 of the Rise Again Podcast: Emotional Health.

Emotional health is an essential part of navigating perimenopause and menopause, yet it's often overlooked. Hormonal changes can affect how we process emotions, respond to stress, build relationships, and experience everyday life.

In this episode, we explore emotional wellness during midlife, learning how to recognize emotional triggers, build resilience, regulate stress, and create healthy habits that support lasting emotional well-being. This conversation is about giving yourself grace while developing the tools to navigate life's transitions with greater peace and confidence.

If you're experiencing emotional ups and downs, mood changes, overwhelm, burnout, or simply want to strengthen your emotional health during menopause, this episode is for you.

The Health Pillar continues with a reminder that healing isn't just physical. Your emotional health deserves care, too.

#Menopause #Perimenopause #EmotionalHealth #MentalWellness #Women'sHealth #WomenOver40 #MidlifeWellness #HormoneHealth #MenopauseSupport #EmotionalWellbeing #StressManagement #HealthyAging #RiseAgainPodcast #BeautifulOnions

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Why am I acting like this? Why do my emotions feel stronger than they used to? Why? Why do I feel fine one moment and then the next moment I'm overwhelmed, irritated, and just completely done? And the part that is the hardest to explain is it's not something big. Sometimes it's small, a comment, a delay, a conversation, a sound. And suddenly my whole emotional state shifts. Yes. And you're sitting there thinking, hmm, where did that come from? Why does this feel so intense? This is not how I used to respond. And that is what we're going to be talking about today.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

This time every scar tells silence.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

So welcome back to Beautiful Onions. This is your girl, Andrea, in the new series that is the health pillar. And this this episode is the emotional. We've already talked about the physical. And here's what you need to understand. Hormon just affect your body, they affect how your emotions show up. So if your emotions feel strong, quieter, or heavier, it's not random. There's a reason behind it. But first, let's grab a scripture. Proverbs 423. Let's ground this in truth. Above all else, ground your heart for everything you do, flowing from it. Not just your actions, not just your decisions, but everything's flow from your heart, your emotions. Okay, let's get started in section one, which is mood swings and the emotional shifts. Let's start here because one of the most talked about and most understood part of mood swings, one moment you're fine, the next moment you're irritable, then the next moment you're crying again, you're calm again, or then suddenly you might be crying and emotional, and you start questioning yourself. Hmm, what's happening? I ain't never did this before. I know. But here's what is exactly happening. Again, hormones, especially estrogen and progestrogen, are fluctuating. And the hormones directly affect your brain chemistry, your emotional regulations, and the stress response. So what feels like random emotions is actually your body adjusting in real time. This is not that you're losing control. This is just the system shifting. Okay. Got me on a little hat today, trying to keep it on the head. Feel like it's slipping up. That's okay. What to pay attention to? This is what you have to notice and pay attention to, is when your emotions shifts. What's happening when your emotion says? The next thing is, is it a certain time of day? Or is it after a certain situation? Or is it around certain people? Hmm. Okay. Because that can make some emotional shift too. Simple actions that you can take is number one, I've been saying this and I'm gonna keep saying it throughout health. Start noticing patterns and and and not judging your reaction. So you need to understand by what made me do this, what what's what what's happening to make me jump off, my emotions move differently, or me say something that's crazy. So you gotta start noticing that. Pause before labeling yourself. I'm just moody. No, just just stop because you could have had a shift in your estrogen, and maybe you need to just pause, take a nap, go to time out before it you take it to another level. Give yourself a moment before responding. Give me, give me a moment. That's my best one. Give me a moment, and I just go quiet because what what what is in my brain, I'm trying not to let come out my mouth sometimes. So I just stop. So, with that being said, a reflection question is Is this emotional coming from the moment or from a buildup? Is this emotion coming from a moment or a buildup? Yes. So now we're gonna move on into section two, which is gonna be irritability and low emotional tolerance. I have this. Don't worry, I have this. My kids know. But when when when I answer the phone, they even know what mood I'm in. They'll be like, hey, I'll call you back later. My low emotional tolerance normally kicks in round about 1:32 o'clock when me and grandson need to go take a nap. So that's when the low emotional tolerance, I can't take it no more. And normally he can't either. So he goes right on to sleep too. Now, let's talk about irritability. This is the one that sneaks in quietly. Your patients feel shorter. Things that didn't used to bother you, hmm, now do. Noise. I can't stand noise. I had my grand, the baby, the three-year-old over here, maybe a week ago, and he was just talking loud, just everything. Da da da da da da da. I could not take his voice no more. I was like, look, you need to turn it down. And I know me of all people, I'm I talk very loud, but grandson noise had done irritated me. So I went to my bedroom, left husband with the grandkids, and I shut my door and got as far away from them in my bed with the cover over my head because I couldn't take the noise no more. Then comes uh interruptions or people asking too much. I don't like have too many questions thrown at me. I know this that now. And when I get to the end of the day, I don't like a lot of questions or a lot of things I need to follow because I don't feel like following. I don't feel like listening, I don't feel like comprehending that much. So I know when I go into the afternoon, my irritability of communicating and gathering information goes down. So why am I easily irritable? That's that's that's what you ask yourself. Here's the reality: your emotional tolerance is lower because your system is always carrying more. So, like I said, in mental fatigue, which was in 13, and then physical changes that was in 12, the hormone shifts and life responsibilities, all that mixed stuff together, small things feel big because your capacity now is already stretched. So, so things are already, by the time we get to emotions, the mental part of hearing so much is already tapped in, and we're just tired. So you need to pay attention. This is what you pay attention to. What drains you faster? Like, is the noise the irritable or is somebody talking? What drains you the fastest? What environment overwhelms you? And what conversations trigger irritations? What what what the conversation be that look, I'm tired, and I hate keep explaining, so that's another one. If I got to explain something to you more than twice, I'm irritable. Baby, you you need to get it the first time. All right. So simple actions that you can take is reduce unnecessary noise, literally and emotionally. Build small breaks in your day, maybe every three hours. Give yourself permission to step away without explaining everything. Okay, so the reflective question I need to ask you is Am I reacting to this moment or to everything I've been carrying all day? Because sometimes things don't happen early in the day that I did not react to, but I'm still processing it. And it could be some of that. We're moving on to section three, which is emotional overwhelming. I had to get that out. Or, like I say, overstimulated and shut down. Yes. Now, going deeper into this, because sometimes it's not just irritability. Sometimes it's you just can't take it. I just can't take this whole conversation. And being overwhelmed doesn't always look loud. Sometimes it looks like I start crying unexpectedly. Why? I don't know. It's just a lot going on. I'm feeling emotional. I'm out to withdraw. That's when I start walking away. Feeling emotionally tired. I'm going to my bed. Shutting down completely. That's when you stay in the room for days. This is your nervous system saying, I had enough. When emotions stacks without release, your body will find a way to release them. And if you don't create space to process, your system will force a pause. So what you need to pay attention to is do you push through everything without pausing? Do you ignore emotional signs until you break? Or do you feel drained even when nothing big happened? Think about that. But some simple actions I got for you is scheduled a quiet time. I've been saying that. This is the third one in the series. Uh, I should say, you gotta sketch a quiet time. All emotional release without judgment. Do not judge yourself or beat yourself up. This is a season of changing in midlife, and you have all of these are together in part of your health. So you got to be able to make the small changes and understand, hey, I'm making these changes because I know my estrogen is lower and my cortisone could be higher. So name what you're feeling instead of suppressing it. I I'll say I'm crying. I I call my daughter and say, hey, how you feeling today? I'm crying. I'll be like, oh, we almost be emotional today. So I name it. I don't suppress it. I then I go take my medicine if you have some. But uh the reflective question for this section is when was the last time I actually sat with how I felt or how I'm feeling? So sometimes you sit and think. Sometimes I think about how I'm feeling and what's going on and what what things I might need to do so I don't get this way again, or a change, or something that is is irritating my brain that's making me emotional. Okay. Section four emotional awareness versus emotional reaction. This right here is where growth happens. This is the difference between feeling and emotional and reacting from an emotional. Motions are not the problem. Unprocessed motions are. So emotional awareness says, I feel this, let me understand it. So my grandsaw kids left and went out of town for a couple of months. I knew I was feeling weeping. I feel this weepiness, and let me understand why is because I was missing them out of my day. So then what I did do is call and say, hey, I want to be able to speak with my grandkids on this day that they schedule a time to see them. So emotional reaction says, I feel this. Let me act on it immediately. Sometimes you can't act on it immediately unless you know what you need to say and you can say it and it don't get blown up. Sometimes you might need to think about it before you say it and make sure your emotions are in check. That's all I gotta say about that. Midlife gives you something powerful if you choose to use it. And that is the emotional maturity. You're not perfect, there's no perfection going on, you're not suppressing, but you're aware of this. So when you become emotional or mature, you know how to not pop off and take it to another level where things can get even more intense, even with the next person you confronting or the confrontation gonna be with. So you just have to be careful with that because it can it can it can get in bad sometimes. What to pay attention to, and you can hurt others' feelings, especially if it's your spouse and your children and family members that people are close to you or a business that you work with. So you just have to be conscious of that and pay attention to uh do you react quickly or do you pause first? That's something important. And the next thing is do you understand your emotions or just experiencing them? Like that popped off, and I didn't know what that was about, or I did that. See, I know now that I don't been through and somebody don't identify where I'm at at menopause and how I act. So now I know and what I'm feeling is okay, this ain't how I always act, I always have a mouth, but not pop off and just do crazy stuff all the time. So the simple action is pause before responding, even about 10 seconds. That matters because you're thinking in one moment. Ask yourself, what am I actually feeling? You know, is is this really me or is this something else? And separate and then it's separate the emotions from the situation. Try to determine, okay, I'm not fit to scream and holler and cry or whatever the situation is. Me begun or say, hey, give me a few days, I'll get back with your next situation because I'm not quite sure. Or let's or let's talk about this more in detail and try to bring about some questions for the other person to ask. So then you can slow the pace of your emotions and bring yourself more under control. Reflective questions. What would this response look like if I gave myself a moment first? So that's the reflective questions. I'm always trying to stop and think about everything before I get to answering a question. So I don't have to uh say, I'm sorry, forgive me, blase, blase, blase. So that is my reflective question. The section five, rebuilding emotional stability. Now, let's bring this all together because the goal is not to eliminate your emotions, the goal is to stabilize your responses to them and don't pop off. Okay, that's where we at. Emotional stability doesn't mean you don't feel, it means you don't get carried away by every feeling. You build rhythm by creating space to process it, you recognize the patterns, you reporting, uh you supporting your body, and then you supporting your mind because these emotions that thoughts that came through, and then you just pop off. No. So we we we are supporting this in creating space to be able to manage our emotions. You are not trying to control everything, you are learning to create calmness inside the movement of the moment. Okay, that's it. That is emotional health of how to combat emotion. I have always been slow to respond. Think about, give yourself time, create calmness. So it it so let me integrate this into the last of episodes. This is the third level. The first one was physical, your body, giving yourself time to make those movements, changes every day, just a little at a time. I do my 15 minutes. I haven't been to the gym in a week, so I'm feeling a little sore because I've been doing stuff at home and swinging weights up and down, so it's a different movement. The next one was your thoughts. So that was your mental health that we talked about. Always pausing, giving yourself time. And today we're talking about emotional health. So those are the three health that we have covered. Your body is shifting, your thoughts are adjusting, and your emotions are responding. So let's be clear: you are not too emotional, you are responding to internal changes that need support. In midlife, we got a lot of things going on. So we gotta take our time with this. We gotta slow this thing down. And if you're riding with me, we're slowing it down because I'm slowing it down. I'm always somewhere trying to have peace in my life and listen to something that that I ain't fit to pop off. Always calmness. Self-reflection. Take a moment to ask yourself what emotions have been showing up the most lately, and where have I been reacting instead of responding? So, this is where that awareness becomes powerful. This whole series in health is about our awareness of all these different health areas we have. You have to start tracking them, you have to write them down, you have to journal. Beautiful Onions, drop the journal out there. And and also the mental, the natural mental police healing toolkit is out there. If you don't have nothing to journal or track, you can go to beautifulions.com and go to resources or the vault and get some of these things to have in your life because the season we're in now, we want to control this and manage it much better. And your emotional triggers, your reaction, and then your patterns. When you connect emotional thoughts, and your physical state, you begin to see patterns, and patterns bring clarity. Also, that small daily choices create power for transformations. So that's why journaling and writing down things, I can make a small change. Now I know it by heart. I just stop. When I feel it going up, I know I need to pause. I'm pausing because I know my mind ain't right and my mouth getting ready to say something it shouldn't say. So I just stop and tell them, give me a minute. So, in closing, let's come back to the scripture. Proverbs 423. Above all else, guard your heart for from everything you do flows from it. Okay? Guarding your heart doesn't mean shedding down your emotions, but when the emotions come up and somebody says something you don't want to pop off, and then you feel guilty or feel like you've been judged by somebody or people looking at you like what's wrong with her. So just guard your heart. Just you stop and say, Let me stop and understand the emotion that I'm having. So you can understand that health emotion. Understanding it and supporting it. Pay attention to what flows through you. Okay? Pay attention. Your emotions are not your enemy, they are your signs, they are your information, they are part of your healing. If you learn how to listen to your body in this season, the season of midlife, you're not becoming unstable, you're becoming aware. And awareness is where the peace begins. That's it. Okay. In our next week, we'll be doing episode 15. We're going into the talk about behavior health. This is the behaviors. We have explored how your thoughts, which is mental and your emotional, influence your actions. And now the choices we make every day. Because sometimes the behavior we see on the outside are revealing some things deeper happening in our insides. Alrighty. Until then, be gentle with yourself. Give yourself grace and remember that healings happen one layer at a time. This is your girl Angela with beautiful onions, peeling back one layer at a time. See ya.