Ep 40: Rewiring Midlife—The Brain, Identity & Becoming with Judy Dutton

What if midlife isn't a period of decline—but a season of transformation?

In this episode of Rewired, Tiffany sits down with Judy Dutton, founder of Transitions Coaching LLC, Certified Professional Empower Coach (CPEC), and women's midlife transition coach, for a powerful conversation about what really happens when women enter perimenopause and menopause.

For many women, midlife arrives with unexpected changes: brain fog, shifts in energy, changes in confidence, emotional fluctuations, and a quiet but persistent question:

Who am I now?

Drawing from emerging neuroscience, women's health research, and her own professional journey, Judy helps us understand that what many women experience during this season is not a brain in decline—but a brain in transition.

Together, Tiffany and Judy explore:

• What current neuroscience reveals about the midlife brain
• The role estrogen plays in brain health and cognitive function
• Why so many women experience an identity shift during perimenopause and menopause
• The difference between surviving midlife and intentionally thriving through it
• How coaching can support women through seasons of transition and reinvention
• Why understanding the neuroscience changes everything
• Judy's own journey from Fortune 500 HR executive to coach and entrepreneur
• What she learned through her Certified Professional Empower Coach (CPEC) experience

Whether you're navigating this season yourself, supporting someone who is, or simply curious about how our brains continue to evolve throughout life, this conversation offers hope, validation, and practical wisdom.

Because midlife isn't the end of the story.

It may be the beginning of a whole new chapter.

About Judy Dutton

Judy Dutton spent more than 20 years as an HR executive inside Fortune 500 companies before founding Transitions Coaching LLC, where she helps high-performing midlife women navigate perimenopause and menopause while staying competitive and thriving professionally.

She is a Certified Professional Empower Coach (CPEC) and is currently completing her Perimenopause and Menopause Certificate through the Integrative Women's Health Institute (IWHI).

Judy brings a rare combination of organizational leadership experience and women's health expertise—the kind that comes from having been inside the rooms where expectations don't slow down, even when the body is changing.

Connect with Judy

LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/judy-dutton

Email:
dutton.judyj@gmail.com

Schedule a Conversation (and mention Rewired):
https://calendly.com/dutton-judyj/30min

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Dr. Lisa Mosconi

Director of the Women's Brain Initiative and Alzheimer's Prevention Program at Weill Cornell Medicine

Website:
www.lisamosconi.com

Book:
The Menopause Brain (2024)

Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Board-Certified OB/GYN and Certified Menopause Provider

Website:
thepauselife.com

Books:
The New Menopause (2024)

The New Perimenopause (2026)

Gail Sheehy

Books:
Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life

Silent Passages

Integrative Women's Health Institute

Perimenopause and Menopause Certificate Program

Website:
https://integrativewomenshealthinstitute.com/

Find a Menopause-Informed Healthcare Provider

The Menopause Society Certified Provider Search:

https://menopause.org/patient-education/choosing-a-healthcare-practitioner

Listener Offer

If something in today's conversation resonated with you and you'd like support navigating your own midlife transition, connect with Judy and mention that you heard her on Rewired.

Judy is offering listeners a complimentary 30-minute "Know Your Transition" consultation—no strings attached.

Connect on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/judy-dutton

Or schedule directly:
https://calendly.com/dutton-judyj/30min

If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who may need this conversation.

Because understanding the brain changes how we understand ourselves.

And that understanding has the power to change everything.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Rewired. I'm your host, Tiffany Grimes, with Empower Coaching and Training. This is a brain in transition, not a brain in decline. Those are the words of my guest for today's podcast, Judy Dutton. I can't wait for you to listen to this conversation. It was so insightful, both personally and professionally. Judy is a certified professional empower coach, a CPEC graduate from our very own CPEC Coach Training Academy here at Empower and is currently completing her perimenopause and menopause certificate through the Integrative Women's Health Institute. What I love about Judy's perspective is that she brings together organizational leadership experience, coaching experience, and women's health education in a way that is both practical and deeply empowering. And I know that you will agree as you listen to her and what she's bringing into this world. In this conversation, we're exploring what the science actually tells us about the midlife brain, why so many women experience an unexpected identity shift during this season, and how understanding both the neuroscience and the human experience can help us move from simply surviving to truly thriving. Whether you are in the middle of this transition yourself or supporting someone who is or simply curious about the incredible capacity we all have to grow and evolve throughout our lives, I think you're going to find a lot of wisdom in this conversation. So settle in and I would say grab something to write with because there were a lot of things, even during the conversation, I was taking notes and join me for this episode of Rewired, Rewiring Midlife, the brain, identity, and becoming with Judy Dutton. Judy Dutton, welcome to the Rewired Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Oh, Tiffany, thank you. I am so thrilled to be here and to have this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, I'm so excited. I'm so excited on so many levels. One, you know, your CPET grad, which is just like warms my heart, and a recent CPET grad. And then in our kind of graduation, prep for graduation, I learned this whole bit about you that I didn't even know, that you were really interested in paramenopause and menopause and hormones. And, you know, as a 52-year-old woman, I was like, you're speaking my language. This is what every girl's night out has turned into is we're talking about these things and where we're at and what's happening. And did you know? And read this book. And so I'm just thrilled to know that that is the direction that you're taking your coaching business. And I'm excited for this conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I am too. Thank you, Tiffany. And CPEC, the Empower program was just such a perfect match for my coaching skills and bringing it together with all of this work that I'm doing with women. So it was a great fit.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Thank you. Well, we always start the podcast the same way with the same question when we have guests on there. And the question is about empowerment, no surprise. But what does empowerment mean to you right now in this season of your life? And what feels empowering to you today? Today.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Empowerment to me is really about self-care. And it's about taking control of our own life, me taking control of my life. And I really reflected on this that it's important to make informed choices, both personally and professionally, because ultimately then we get our deepest growth because we're in control of that. What is empowering me most today is the connections I have with people, refound connections and new ones. I'm getting this through all of the new learning that I've done, being in your program, through my new coaching clients, through the workshops that I lead. But also I'm feeling empowered because I've found time for my own loves around gardening and crafting and strength training. And they've all just fit into each other. And that's what's making me feel so strong now with everything I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Oh, I love that. I love that. We just did the ICF Oregon chapter had a conference, and we went up there and helped sponsor that and got to learn and be a part of it. But their theme was creativity. And somebody was sharing, you know, when do you get more the most creative? Or when do you when do you engage in creativity? That's what it was. When do you engage in creativity? And what I realized was it's I give myself permission if I've got everything else done.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

So the work is done, the kids are fed, the di-da-d- the worked out it, done the things, and now I can knit a row in my hat I've been making for five years. Or like it's so I love how you said that. It's showing up in these, I've made space for this stuff. That's just yeah, yeah. And what's it?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

And Tiffany, I am the same as you, right? These are kind of refound loves. If you and I had had this conversation three years ago, I I couldn't have had it. But it's it's fulfilling me across my whole life. It's not separate. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

That's amazing. I love that. So you kind of talked about this just now. Like if I if we had this conversation a couple years ago. So let's let's hear a little bit about your turn. Like what has brought you to this body of work? And I want to talk more about that work in a moment, but you were just sharing these, you know, you did CPEC, you're also doing the getting a certificate through the Integrative Women's Health Institute. You have you just left a long-term career in corporate HR. So just kind of walk us into this moment of duty.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Tiffany, thanks. Well, and I'll turn into it briefly. Yeah, as you said, I I spent over 25 years here in Silicon Valley. I'm I'm based in California as a corporate HR executive, primarily in high tech. But I started to have this unsettled feeling in myself a few years ago that there was more for me professionally. And I made a wonderful pivot into women's health. But there was still something that I knew I wasn't grounded in myself anymore professionally, the way that I wanted to be. And it was making my own pivot that also solidified what the work was I wanted to do. And I think like many of us that move into this type of work, I live this myself. I have this lived experience. So you've probably said I changed jobs. I left a job entirely to build this new career. But I had always been a high performer. I'd excelled in my work, senior director-level jobs, VP jobs, coaching senior executives, working with high-level teams. But what happened was I was suddenly questioning my ability to communicate, my leadership skills. I wasn't sleeping, which was probably the worst and created this cyclical effect. I was so stressed out, and I thought it was burnout. And that's what I see in the women, the clients that I work with, the workshops that I lead is we think we're burned out. My doctor prescribed me an antidepressant. There was no conversation a few years ago. My symptoms were here's an antidepressant. And actually, at a later conversation, which now I know really was about my perimenopausal symptoms, I was actually told that a glass of wine might help me relax. So I knew there had to be something better. And that's why I built transitions coaching. And that's why I just took the leap of faith and started all this. The women's health grounding for a little over a year showed me that the women needed the support. I founded the menopause employee resource group there with other like-minded women in that company, which was such a beautiful circle of women. But everywhere I go, I meet people at the peak of their career and they're not sure how to navigate these changes and they're questioning their ability. They want to stay strong. But you know what else? There's there's also financial implications on this. Women that leave their jobs typically are at the highest salary that they've been at, or even have more growth potential. And so this work allows them to continue that trajectory. And so I've got the tools personally and professionally now to help them do that.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah. God, you just named so many important things. I think, I mean, A, the medical community is beginning to catch up a little bit. And before we were recording, we were talking about Dr. Mary Claire Haver's work. And, you know, I was reading that book as I was in my own lived experiences. I loved how you named that. And I just profound to me this what women have been told, you know, it's A, it's all in your head, it's nothing insurance won't even cover, just a menopause appointment. Like some of these things that I just my mind was blown. And so then you're left kind of alone, wondering what in the world is going on. And, you know, it's I think now I think some of what is happening with the medical community catching up is it's given women permission to then talk about it, right? So the more we're talking, the more like things are happening, and aha's are connecting and these ideas of like, oh, you're experiencing the same thing I'm experiencing. Maybe this is more than burnout. Absolutely. And let me keep going in this career I've built and the work I've done, and let me get the support of whatever that is to navigate this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Right. And part of it is grounded in, you know, we could have many podcasts on this, and there are many professionals who have done it, but our mothers didn't have the language, right? What had happened with women's healthcare at midlife, there was a massive trajectory change in 2002 with kind of the research on hormone therapy. And so as women of this age, we are rediscovering a new language and we're making it safe to have these conversations. And that's what is so powerful about this work is giving us the language and the tools to have conversations with our sisters, our friends, our doctors to normalize the language and to get the care we really need. It's gonna be revolutionary. It's gonna be a game changer for the women younger than us because it it will go back to being normalized. And so we're we're just in the middle of it right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah. I so agree with that. I when I was reading that book, I had a moment of just I shed some tears for my mom, you know, of like I watched her struggle 20, 30 years with insomnia and restless leg and all of these things that like I know now that that woman needed some hormones, or or you know, I know I'm not that everybody does, but for her, I know that when and the windows closed now. And you know, it's like I just think about all of the women who didn't, and like you said, I get so excited because what this opens up for my daughter, and you know, who is 13, and in just in the beginning of this journey and the conversations that we can have and the access she'll have. And if the world needs anything, it is a bunch of empowered women right now, right? Like we need to find that powerful place and keep doing the good work that the world needs from us. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Yeah, Tiffany, absolutely. I'm I'm the proud mom of two amazing young men. And I'm so I'm doing it for their future partners or their children. But yeah, like these these younger women are gonna have it very different than we are. So that that gives me the motivation to keep kind of forging this path for them.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Yeah, yeah. So that's amazing. So, all right. So tell me a little bit, I guess before we totally get off of this transition that you've been going through and actually get into the work that you're doing. Oh, I have one more question, which is this new version of you. You know, you said if I talked to you a couple years ago, you would have been a totally different person. What has surprised you about you now, this version of you?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Thank you. I in a way, I both feel like the me that I always knew, like, oh my gosh, there she is again. Yeah, which is around the joy that I find in life again, and how I feel good, the focus and the clarity that I've regained. And part of that is through managing my health and making these improvements, learning the types of things we've talked about, Tiffany, the how to manage my sleep, the the pain, the fatigue, the the brain fog, all of that. Like those are better. But also doing this, like finding what I wanted this next part of my life and my career to look like, has just like reestablished a new me. And that's that's a big part of what we're gonna talk about is like maybe we can find parts of ourselves that we had forgotten, but it's also an opportunity to create like an older, wiser version of ourselves. I remembered how much I love learning, learning through your program with our amazing mentor coaches, getting my menopause certificate through the Integrative Women's Health Institute. The learning is vast and like it's brought up a focus in me and a question in me and a restlessness to learn more and apply it. And I'm I'm having fun and being creative again in ways that I haven't seen for a really long time. And that's surprised me. I should show you my like Bohemian sashiko jeans and my garden art. Yeah. Because it's so fun, it's just so fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

That's so great. Yeah. And the older wiser, like Lobody knows we don't need another 20-year-old version of Tiffany, but portions of her can come back in the older wiser vessel. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, so let's talk about this through a neuroscience perspective and really thinking about midlife through the brain and through hormones and all of these things. So, so many women fear they're declining cognitively. You mentioned this, this like brain fog, but the research tells a different story. And so, what does the science actually show us about the midlife brain and hormonal transitions?

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Absolutely. The science is there and it's growing. And that's something as people, but especially as women, we really want to celebrate, is because a lot of the research is only just coming, but there is this science. And so I've learned a lot about it, as I mentioned, through the Integrative Women's Health Institute, but especially Dr. Lisa Muscone. She's a renowned neuroscientist and the director of the Women's Brain Initiative and Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic in New York. And she has a tremendous book called The Menopause Brain, which really is the science of midlife women's brains and the hormonal transition. And what it's grounded in is she's done over like 40,000 brain scans to compare the brains of different genders and to look at midlife women's brains. And so what she really comes out, I kind of bubble this down into three key takeaways from her. Okay. And this was one, as you and I were saying earlier, this actually really blew my mind. I would think about estrogen and it managed my fertility, right? It was centered in my ovaries. But the health of our ovaries are linked to the health of our brain, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

So as women, we can't separate this in our bodies. We have estrogen receptors all over our body, frozen shoulder, estrogen receptors, brain estrogen receptors everywhere. And so if we really ground ourselves in her research that says the female brain runs on estrogen, our brains are hardwired to receive it, not just to support fertility, which actually isn't even relevant for all women. And Dr. Muscone's work really talks about that maybe three-quarters of all women can develop some sort of brain symptom during menopause. Some women never get it, right? And the degree to how people experience varies. But there are some women who think that they're literally going crazy. And so what I want to reframe it is, is what I was starting to talk about a couple of minutes ago, is we're actually getting new brains during this phase of life. What's important for us to know is it's a transition. We're learning more every day about how we keep our brain strong and vibrant now and longer. Because think about it, if we're in our 40s or 50s and women are living well into their 70s or 80s or beyond, we want to make sure our brain and our bodies are as strong as possible. And so that's why we want to just think about it. It's more than just hormones. And you said it. I'm not here to, you know, say everyone needs to. And certainly there are some women who aren't able to be on hormones, but there are many very holistic lifestyle strategies, but also a number of evidence-based medical strategies to help us that our mothers didn't have. Let me go through the other two pieces that I see the neuroscience in the brain has. Okay. So the second piece is what happens during midlife and perimenopause is our brain and our ovaries start misreading signals from each other. And so I think a lot of us recognize with the onset of perimenopause for many women in our 40s, our estrogen fluctuates and declines. And so what the brain does is it's actively reorganizing its energy use because earlier it was used to a much, for many women, a much more cyclical regular cycle. But now it's misreading these signals. And because it's having to reorganize its energy, women get brain fog or memory lapse. Anxiety increases, depression increases. A lot of women experience a loss of libido and disrupted sleep that is all having to do with our brain. The last conclusion I want to bring from this is these kind of mood-related symptoms of perimenopause are biological, not just psychological. And that I that I think was so key. Many women don't realize it. Their doctors haven't even suggested it as an explanation, but it's normal. It might not be fun. And not everyone will experience, but it's very normal. The research is there. It's a brain in transition, not a brain in decline. And there's very targeted interventions that can help.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Wow. So much to unpack there. I I want to come back to this transition versus decline, but I want to go back up to what you were talking about first because the first thing it made me when you said the ovaries in the brain are connected in terms of like, you know, the connection and the communication. So if there's decline in your estrogen levels, you're going to experience in the brain. And we don't talk about that. That's what I think this is what you're bringing forward is this like I'm I'm ready for my cycle to change or my body to change. That I'm kind of prepared for. And so then we suffer. We suffer in this in silence, and we think this is something's going on with me. I'm not at my prime anymore. Start telling myself these stories because we're story making machines. And what you're saying, backed by all of the science in these doctors, is that this is part of it. This is all normal.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

It is.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah. You've summarized it just beautifully there. And again, if we consider, look, and all women all over the world have very different experiences, but the majority of clients I work with are professional women who are really kind of growing and peaking in their career. It's it's the women I've worked with in high tech for over 20 years. And what are they dealing with? They're getting promotions, they're getting bigger jobs, their children are aging and growing in their relationship. Maybe they're in the sandwich generation. They're starting to be caregivers. And so I'm not sleeping well because my work is stressing me out. I I'm losing my words because I'm just so busy and I'm not sleeping well. And I'm anxious, and maybe I'm a little depressed because my life is so busy. Well, yes, those things are. And also, but there is there is also a biological piece of this. And that's that's what you know, some of the different evidence-based strategies, hormone treatment is one of them, but also very holistic. Look at how we manage our lives can help this.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit. So if we keep this idea of the brain is in transition, not in decline. I love that. What changes for women when they begin to understand their experience through this lens? What are you experiencing? I'm imagining this shift of shame, like especially if it's libido or depression or these things that maybe we're not, we don't want to talk about at Girls' Night, maybe. And so a shift out of shame and fear. I mean, what are what what happens when we start to look at ourselves through this lens?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

You and I talked about it just a little bit right now. The women I talk with have a sense of relief. It's not just me. I'm not doing something wrong. That there's a validation and a reason why that they can explore more. They let themselves off the hook a little bit and are less hard on themselves. Because it's not just that they're working too hard or they're struggling to manage all these responsibilities. And also, you know, maybe if they've never had anxiety, depression in their life, or if they have and it's gotten worse, like that's not underlying that something deeper is going on there. Women I know in their 50s were also worried with really significant cognitive delays and brain fog. The conversations I was having, people were saying, Am I getting early dementia? It's not just stress or aging, right? So if we root these in biology, there's there's actually medically things that we can look at and do to improve these things. I I know a lot of women wish that they had often gotten support and help earlier because you talked about it, they might even be afraid to bring these up with their doctors. And then the double-edged sword of it is many of the doctors weren't equipped to discuss it. To talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

You didn't want to bring it up and I don't want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Exactly. And I know when I first went to my doctor about my anxiety went through the roof, there there was no question about my age or my other symptoms or what was going on. It was here's a here's an anti-anxiety, antidepressant. And now I realize I have different language. I would have advocated for myself differently, I would have talked about it differently. And I think the good news is we're seeing more and more practitioners that are addressing this differently. I want to tell you one of my favorite stories that Dr. Moscone talks about in her book, The Menopause Brain, because it just stuck with me so strongly on this worry on is it just brain fog? Am I just forgetful, or is this something more serious? Dr. Muscone says, brain fog is I can't remember where my keys are. Right? Okay. What did I walk into this room for? I can't remember where my keys are. There we go. Dementia might be something more akin to I don't know what keys are or what they're used for. Like, do you hear that difference? Like, I don't know where they are. I forgot where they are versus I I don't know what they're used for. Yeah. And so there are there are tests that people can take to evaluate these kind of things. And again, I am not a doctor, I'm not a clinician, I'm an educator. I want to make sure that people know what's available to them. And so that they can be more equipped when they're talking to their doctors to kind of peel back and uncover what might really be the root of this. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Oh gosh, so much. I just, there's just so much. And oh yeah, I'm so glad you're doing this work. I'm so glad every person who is in this field right now is doing this work. It's just yeah, just to differentiate that, just to have that little question that you just talked about that Dr. Muscone talks about, is like it can settle a brain, right? I can quit questioning myself or right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Well, and let's, I mean, let's just talk about the scale of it for a minute. The millennials, like women who are between the ages of 30 and 45. Right now, it's estimated there's like 35 million of them in the US alone. And if the average age of perimenopause in the US is about 52, perimenopause can start seven or 10 years before that, at least those symptoms. That's why this level of education is so critical right now to it. And even if you do nothing in your early 40s because you don't need to, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

And yeah, okay, I I want to just mention, I don't want to get down this track too far, but just the, you know, I think about my own journey if, you know, through just puberty and beyond, right? And like it would definitely, I had no talk about it. I figured it out all along the way and messed up most of the time. But then at 38, I wanted to have a child. I got pregnant. And it was the first, I was working with a midwife, and it was the first time that I worked with somebody who I'm, I want to say, like, loved my body because it was female and it's sacred. And I had never been in the space of someone so deeply as I was with her. And she, you know, I started tracking everything about me, my cravings, my cycles, my everything. And it was so powerful for me just to see all these things that I thought were just personality traits of me. I'm tracking them and I'm like, oh, fascinating. That always happens about the same time. Isn't that interesting? And this like hangry is connected to a hormone dip that happens. And it was so empowering. And, you know, of course, like I'm already nearing the end there when I get all this information, but I've I'm I'm like primed and ready. You know, when I had my child and she was a she, I was like, okay, this was not all for naught. You know, I want to empower this young woman with the ability to get to know these really wonderful bodies of ours and how they function. And yeah, ah, so grateful for the sports you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

That's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

And so I I want to talk about because I know you think about this and talk about this a lot, is how all of this then translates into identity.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

So talk to us a little bit about that and how identity becomes such a central part of this midlife transition that we're going through.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Yeah, Tiffany, and that is really the intersection of so much of this work. And it's been amazing to see the women that I've been working with, some that come to me with very clinical questions about their transition that they want to understand, right? How can their sleep be better? But actually, even more women are just saying, I don't recognize myself anymore. I don't know who I am. What can I create in this in this next phase of my life? And I think it's really because I tend to think in threes about everything. There's kind of three key parts to this identity. The first part is the roles that have anchored us in our life are shifting, right? So I'm talking midlife. I'm in my late 50s. This certainly started for me, you know, as as my boys were graduating, moving on to college, we were empty nesters. But our we're anchored in our kids, our career, our relationships, and those structures that told us who we were, they stopped working about this time. And underneath that is a question that we've maybe not asked ourselves, which is who am I when I'm not performing a function for someone else? Who am I when I'm not this person's mother or this person's employee? So at that same time, like the second piece of this, so that our roles are shifting. The second piece that's shifting is the time horizon shifting. All of a sudden, time feels a little less finite. There's an urgency now and it's real. Yep. And then this third piece, I could have made it the first one, but we've been talking about perimenopause. I put that as the third piece here of this identity, this neurobiological changes that we were talking about in our brain. What it does is it changes our capacity so that kind of curated, edited, performing version of myself is just not as satisfying anymore. I got a client the other day, and she said, I Judy, I just can't tolerate people who are superficial with me. I'm hungry for a deeper level of authenticity. And I can't show up for not being my true self anymore. And what I say is that's a signal, right? And so Tiffany, you know, like as coaches, there's a signal. Our brain is making that cost of inauthenticity too high to keep paying. Our brain's tired of pretending. And so that signal, like, I don't know who I am anymore, isn't a crisis. It feels, it can feel like a crisis, but as a coach, I say this is the first honest question you've had the time and space to ask yourself. And so it's it's not about rebuilding that old identity, it's about discovering what was within you all along.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Yeah, yes. I love your patterns of threes. I love them. That I mean, that, yeah, the way you just described all those. And I love thinking about that as a new brain, you know, this like this doesn't serve me any longer, and I'm not gonna do it. Like, and I don't really I don't need to manage your emotions around that. I just am like, this is this is a new brain that I get to be in where I just not gonna tolerate it anymore. It doesn't feed me. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, what an amazing place to step into for sure. Yeah. And I love and the one about this kind of timing, suddenly seeing I've I've had this, I was just sharing with somebody the other day where, you know, I've started my professional career in my early 20s. And I remember I started with a company and I was literally 21, you know, and they were saying I had to fill out all my paperwork for retirement. And I remember just feeling like this will never happen. I don't know. I mean, I'm putting the money away because people say I should, and I'm doing this. And then we were meeting with a financial advisor. This is a couple of years ago, but they were saying, you know, about how how about what age do you want to retire? And I gave them an age that was single digits from my current age. And I I just remember feeling shocked at myself that I'm here. Oh my gosh, how and when did this happen? And what I only have this many more years to get in this many more countries and what you know, it's yeah, it's amazing. So to live to stop being so performative, to really be with the people that make me feel good and be the person that makes me feel good. And yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

And and most of us, we want to live rich lives of quality, and right, that's what I want. And I like I say to myself, like, long is strong. I need to be strong because I do, I want to travel and you know, I hope one day I'll I'll be able to pick up grandchildren or you know, what just whatever it is. I want to be active. And these are decisions as as any human, but as a woman, I want to be making now. I wish that I had been a little more informed 10 years ago to make them then, but it's not too late now. But yeah, that financial conversation when I when I quit my job last fall and I I knew I was gonna start a business, but people would say to me, Are you retiring? And I was like, I am not ready to retire. How old do you think I am? Plenty more years than we left.

unknown 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

So great. So, as a coach, then, what shifts when you understand both the neuroscience and the identity transition happening at the same time? And how does that change the kinds of conversations you're having with women in these beautiful coaching uh moments?

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Thank you. The role as a coach doing this perimenopause and menopause work is a really great blend of education and coaching. But I always want to try to bring coaching to it first. And actually, one of my favorite things about the Integrative Women's Health Institute is they say, come to this as a coach first. So that really helped. But I think about it this way: how are many women navigating their health in this time of life? They might see their gynecologist for homeowns, maybe an endocrinologist, maybe a general practitioner. They get these heart palpitations, which yes is a perimenopausal symptom, but they might see a cardiologist. So every provider sees one piece of you and they might have 15 minutes to do it. So to your question of like, how am I managing this as a coach and how does it change my conversations? As a coach, I hold all of this at once. And I actually have the time to build something with you, like not a health protocol, but a strategy that fits your life. And so I I really try to hold the neuroscience and the identity shift together, but I'm I'm well aware of all of the medical things that are happening happening. But I like I'm not a clinician, so I don't pathologize anything I hear. And if a woman says to me, I can't focus, well, I'm not going to treat it as a productivity problem. It's biology.

unknown 38:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

If a woman says to me she doesn't recognize herself anymore, I don't think it's a mental health crisis. I know it's identity and it's the work of this second adulthood. So holding both of these lenses, or actually all of these lenses, means I can ask better questions. And instead of to kind of say, Well, what's wrong with you? What are your symptoms? What I really want to know is what's your body telling you right now? What does the season want you to become? And so I just find that women much more deeply are gravitating towards this better vision and version of themselves. But it also, with the education I have, allows us to tap into, from a neuroscience point of view, what's happening in their brain biologically, what's happening in their body physically. And so they really come with a very holistic lens to different protocols, different strategies that they can do to improve their health. Yeah. Yeah. They're very different conversations, right, than they're having anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Yeah. Just the question, those you said, what's what's your body asking of you right now? Is that what you said? What's your body asking for you to do? Yeah. What's your body actually telling you right now? Yeah, what's your body telling you? I mean, what a beautiful coaching question. It's this there's wisdom. It's a bit, it invites me to think about my body differently instead of this is what's wrong with it. It's hot, I'm sweating. You know, like it's I can talk about all the symptoms, but it's also that question is inviting me to really think about the whole transition I'm going through. I love these reflective questions. Yeah. Who are you in this season of your life? And really inviting you to bring all that you are in this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Oh, and that's where we tap into our deepest joy, our deepest love, our deepest creativity, and and being someone that we care about ourselves, right? It's I've always believed that we have to love ourselves. And this has been a time of life that I know I haven't always loved myself. And I meet other women who don't either. And I remembered, oh yeah, I do. I do really, I do really love myself. And I want other women to learn that too.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Relearn that. Relearn it.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. I, you know, one of my symptoms, I have always been the same size since eighth grade, except for my pregnancy. Beyond that, I've been, I was like a larger eighth grader, bigger bodied. I'm five, nine, and I just remained pretty much the same weight my whole life. And then I hit menopause. And my body shifted. And it was so fascinating to me to watch these body image issues that I had met that version of me in my early teen years re just re-emerge right there, ready to let me know what that meant about myself and the worthiness and what I was now going to wear or not going to wear. And again, just learning that for me, the science of menopause and learning, reading the books that I read and listening to all of the mini podcasts I did, and just learning to just go, okay, I'm I want to be the healthiest version of me. And also I remember having this conversation with one of my best friends. It was feeling like, okay, I can I can give up a few things. Like I'm okay with that. But I also am not okay with living the rest of my life feeling disconnected from my body or starving it. Like I love sourdough bread, and damn it, I'm gonna eat it. And chocolate chip cookies, they're getting into this body. Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

I did not know we were the same. I made, I made uh this is part of my creativity. Last night I made sourdough garlic knots. And oh God. I'll be right over. I knew my younger son loved them. They're gone. They're gone.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Yeah, and that's joy. And I think that's part of what it's also joy. I'm not willing, I'm learning how to love and be with this version of who I am and have joy and have rest and have creativity. And the more I do that, the better I am at work and the better I am as a mother, right? All these things that, yeah, it's a sweet season of life.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

It really, yeah. I agree with you. It is so much. And it, I, as I was thinking about talking with you today and really framing this up, and it just it all fits into the circle. You know, we've talked a lot about Dr. Mary Clare. She and a number of the other medical professionals that are really changing the conversation around this, talk about let's be strong, not skinny, right? And so what we know is how important strength training is to us. And you know, I do hope for younger women. And it to me, it was like, how many step classes could I get to? Like that would happen. But I I thought of this commercial, and I know a few years older than you. I don't know if you remember, there was a perfume commercial in the late 70s, and the woman would sing. I can, I don't, I don't sing, so I'll just say it. She said, I can bring home the bacon, write it up in the phone.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

The bacon, write it up in a pink.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Okay. So you know it. And right, you know, maybe your sisters, your friends, your mother, but that wasn't just selling perfume. Right. It was a contract, right? And so speaking to us as Gen X women, you can have a career and run the home and be available to everyone who needs you, like, not instead of what women were doing, in addition to. And I same as you, Tiffany, I spent 30 years trying to be her. And 10 years ago, my mind and body were like, enough. Yeah. And I just thought it was because I was running it at capacity. But what I realized is like Perry Menopause arrived at that time to say, like, stop and reflect. What do you really need to stay healthy, to stay strong, to stay smart? I love to think about vitality and being vibrant. And that's what managing my health and helping other women manage their health brings about for us. I want to keep working with women who are exactly where I was 10 years ago. Yeah.

unknown 45:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Yeah. Yes. I love the word vibrant and vitality and thinking about that this season can feel like that. And that the women who came before us overwhelmingly, at least the women in my life, suffered through this version of life. Right. And and we don't, we we know more now and we can do things. And as you mentioned, it could look a lot of different ways. It doesn't just have to be a hormone replacement therapy. Right, right. So tell us a little bit just about your business, about what you're doing, how people can find you. Are you doing workshops? Just tell us how we get more of you. And and if you can't see, Judy, she's got her own shirt on, her own swag, which says menopause is hot.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

There we go. Menopause is hot. I needed to wear that. Yeah. Tiffany, thank you. Yes. I founded Transitions Coaching last fall, around the same time that I met Tiffany and joined CPEC Empower to move through to get my international coaching federation. I'm a proud graduate. The focus, as you've gathered, is I help midlife women navigate through this. And I really don't want to bring this workplace perspective to it. I know what happens inside companies. I saw how women, particularly high-performing women, how they were evaluated, how they were promoted, and how they sometimes got lost in their professional journeys. And so I'm really here to help them translate that. Right now, the best place to find me is on LinkedIn. I am just a few weeks away from launching my website. Right now, what I'm doing is one-on-one coaching within companies. I'm offering workshops to companies, but I know as the summer moves along, I'll be offering workshops, particularly in conjunction in October with International Menopause Day. I'll be making sure I'll be kicking off some workshops then. But both virtually and in person, I strongly believe that women really thrive in communities of other women. You and I talked about Tiffany. I've I've been involved with and designed and led women's leadership programs for a number of different companies. And that's what I want to replicate is that very safe, trusting space for women to be with other women on this journey. So you can find me on LinkedIn, and that's where you'll see my contact information to get in touch about coaching or workshops.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Okay, beautiful. And we'll put all those links in the show notes as well. And before we close out, I always love to leave our listeners with some tools. And so I want to ask if there's a woman listening right now who feels disconnected from herself, maybe exhausted or changing or uncertain, maybe even grieving parts of who she used to be. What would you want her to know about this season of her life, Judy?

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah. Tiffany, thank you. I the first thing that I would say to any woman like that is you're okay. And it's a normal transition that any woman who lives long enough is going to experience that there are absolutely strategies and support to help you with this, and you don't have to do it alone. Educate yourself, advocate for yourself. Part of working with me or others at a coach is we can help you have those conversations with your doctors. We can help you understand in an effort that gives you more time, a way to really build this out. I I kind of I guess the last piece of three I'll leave it with is of course. I know my last piece of three is I just want women to think about like the first thing is like know this. Know that it's normal, know that it's okay, that it's neurological, it's biological, it's not a personal failure, right? Find an informed menopause practitioner and don't accept any more dismissal as a diagnosis. So know and then reclaim, right? There like working with me or just through the huge variety of information that's out there, you can move on to reclaim your authority, uh, reclaim your sense of self. Nobody knows you better than you know yourself. So trust the signals that your body is sending so that you can make really informed decisions with your doctor. And then finally, especially working with professional women, is this is your chance to lead. Apply to yourself what you would apply to others in the workplace. You've probably built playbooks in the workplace, you've built strategies. Lead yourself through this and build it, your support team and treat this season of your life like build a strategy and a playbook for yourself that you follow because you'll see improvement and you'll get there.

unknown 50:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Oh, yeah, so beautiful. Yeah, I would underscore, I don't know what number it was in there, Judy, but the community. Don't do this alone. And it even if it's you in a book, you in a podcast, right? Like find whatever version of community, you and a LinkedIn group, you and a you know, somebody online or working with a coach, or yeah, find that community. It's just so empowering to know even frozen shoulder. Like, I would have never thought that that was something connected to estrogen. And yeah, so amazing. Well, thank you, Judy. Thank you for your time. Thank you, especially for the generations of young women who are going to be impacted. Like you said, our lives are changing and we are impacted by this, but bringing this knowledge forward and bringing this into the world for all genders to be able to understand that this is natural, normal, can be vibrant and wonderful. And we're doing something magical with all these, all these women in this new season of life.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Tiffany, thank you. Thank you for um helping give voice to this topic and engaging in such a safe space with me on it. It's just been my pleasure. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

All right. Well, we'll see you many times, I'm sure. Okay. All right. I mean, that was good, right? I told you it was gonna be a good conversation. So wonderful. So let me point out a few things before you leave us today. One, we have all of the links to the things that Judy mentioned, included include including Dr. Muscone's work, a link to Mary Claire Haver's work. We've got information on the Integrative Women's Health Institute in case that's something you're interested in. If you are interested in finding a menopause informed practitioner, we also have included a list to that. And there is a listener offer that Judy wanted to pass forward, and I am so happy to put that there. So if you are interested in having a conversation with Judy and exploring if this is really something that was of interest to you and you want to learn more about, you can schedule a 30-minute complimentary conversation and consultation with Judy. So again, we will put those links in there. There's some keywords you're gonna want to mention so she knows to pass it on. And then there's also a calendarly connection in there, a link as well where you can schedule yourself directly. So take care, everyone. Be good to yourself, be good to each other, and we will see you next week for a solo episode. Rewired listeners, if this episode resonated with you, I'd be so honored to stay connected. Follow the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio. Share an episode with someone in your life, and leave a five-star review. It helps people access these tools and this work and grow our community. At Empower Coaching and Training, we believe that when you understand your brain, you gain the power to change your patterns, your relationships, and your life. If you're ready to go deeper, you can always learn more about coaching and resources at yesempower.com.