Obstacles and Openness to Thriving

Karen shares an epiphany she had with a patient recently. Her patient was doing really well but then the things that had been working just stopped, seemingly out of nowhere. They had to work together to find the obstacles to healing so that she could start improving again. 

This made use think about how often this is true in perimenopause, and the ways that we can even become our own obstacle to thriving. 

Some questions arose that we realized we need to ask ourselves: 

• What do we use to sense our worth or to see ourselves as valuable?
• What are our unspoken agreements with ourselves?
• What ways do the unspoken agreements end up draining you, and maybe even making physical symptoms worse?
• How can we take power back - empower ourselves - by breaking these unspoken agreements with ourselves?

We talk through some of our own answers to these questions and how this is showing up in our lives. Saying it loud is powerful, and we invite you to join us. 

Chapters

00:00 Integrative Care in Midlife Health
05:25 Navigating Hormonal Changes and Empowerment

If our messy is your kind of messy, we would love for you to rate, review and follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

We would also love to know what is on your mind. If you were to join us, what would we be talking about? Email us at messymidlifepodcast@gmail.com or message us on Instagram or TikTok @messymidlifepodcast.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Real women.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Real talk. Real messy. This is Messy Midlife. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Messy Midlife. Hi, Lisa. Hi, Karen. Jen is not with us today, uh, but we have something on our minds. We do.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Well, Karen, you you were talking a little bit about your recent kind of, I don't know if we want to call it an epiphany, but your recent realization with your patient. Do you want to talk about that for a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Yeah. Yeah. It was a brief moment, but it was very striking to me. And I thought it might be helpful, we thought it might be helpful to share it on the podcast because we've been talking a lot about hormones and we've been talking about testing and care in midlife. And what came up in this appointment was um a success that we were celebrating, which was this person had been responding very well to homeopathy. And then there was just a very abrupt stop where they couldn't get any movement with a remedy. And so we were all collaborating together and we found some nutritional deficiencies and made some medication changes. And all of a sudden, new remedy, who dis. You know, it was just like a completely new experience for them in terms of their symptom picture. And it was just a really wonderful opportunity to highlight the importance of integrative care and comprehensive conceptualization of a case. And although that's relevant in all of health, I think that in perimenopause, it is non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Well, and so I was thinking about that because I think oftentimes we're really focused on the physical symptoms, right? And I think homeopathy can be so lovely because it takes everything into account. But I feel like we also have to be doing that for ourselves. And I had a conversation, I would love to hear your take on this from a kind of therapy perspective, not so much a medical perspective. I was having a conversation with one of one of my teachers, and we were talking about how we sense our worth. What are the things that we kind of check off our checklist of things that we do to make us feel like we're valuable? And we were talking about what well, one of the things she said was that we have unspoken agreements with ourselves. And so one of what I realized is like one of my unspoken agreements is I take care of everything. I control everything, I keep everything in the box it's supposed to be in. I do it for myself, I do it for my family. I was doing it in a really unhealthy way, actually, in my last relationship. And both for my partner and daughter. And realizing that that's what keeps me feeling like I have worth, which is a really say messed up, but it's messed up, right? Like we have worth just being ourselves and who we are. We don't have to do things. But I think that we can get really caught up in that. And I think that's one of the things that when we're talking about healthcare, when we're talking about our hormones, and when we're talking about our energy and our sleep and everything, I think that's really important to look at because those unspoken agreements can be things that are really draining. Yeah. Like for me, this one really, really was and has been for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Yeah. Well, good for you for recognizing that and identifying it. Awareness is the key to change. And it can be so difficult to look at those things at first, and then it becomes life-changing once we start to chip away at it. And it it really sounds like it what in homeopathy is called an obstacle to cure. But this is, of course, a you know, psychological process, and it keeps us from having success with other interventions, potentially, is what you're what it sounds like you're describing.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah. Well, you know, and I think a lot of times when we're like dealing with chronic pain and dealing with other like physiological issues, and I think especially with autoimmune disease or autoimmune conditions, there's this very like strong emotional, like mental emotional connection between those things, right? We talk about why is it women in their like 40s that are typically diagnosed with autoimmune diseases or autoimmune conditions at a much higher rate than any other time in our lives, any other age, any other gender, right? And so I think there is something about that where we're holding it all together for everybody else, but that kind of putting ourselves last. Yeah. And I see that especially with, you know, all of the changes that are happening with paramenopause. It's kind of like the expectation from from the outside, whether it's family, friends, colleagues, whatever, is that you're able to just keep going how you always were. And I think for a lot of us, we were able to keep going before hormones started shifting. And then once the hormones started shifting, it's like a whole new game.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

But there's not that understanding necessarily from the outside. So we're trying to keep up with everything that we've been doing and everything that we're holding together without the understanding that there is a significant shift going on in us, physiologically and also mentally, emotionally.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah. Yeah. And I I mean, I can so relate to the unspoken agreements. And I think at this stage, it has been an opportunity and also not really optional. We can look at it as an opportunity, which it is, but it has not felt like I had much say in it. And really looking at because things stop working at this state, at this age, right? And and that's what was highlighted in that session with the patient. But that's what happened for me is that things stopped working. And even though I've done a lot of work on myself, I know you have as well, it's just different. It just hits different. And to be able to take a step back and say, okay, we need to look at it at this in an even bigger picture from a from an even broader perspective, um, has definitely highlighted some of the very similar, very similar unspoken contracts in my own life.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Well, and I think that there is it partially it's about like taking power back when you're recognizing that there are these agreements that we've made with ourselves, right? And recognizing how to shift those and how to move through those. I feel like there's a lot of, it's like not power, like it's empowering ourselves, right? Because it can often feel, I mean, I think it does for me, like, how do I do this? How do I navigate this? Right. It feels like I don't want to say helpless, but in a way, it's like trying to do the things that I know how to do that have worked before, but they're they're not necessarily working now. Um and I think there is there is a sense of like there is a sense of power of being able to say, okay, I can actually control this, like decide that I am going to let go of that agreement. That like that's not working for me anymore. I am choosing to let go of that. Um, and I think it's really common. I mean, I think it's common in women, I think it's common in eldest daughters, right? Um, I think it's common in moms. It's like we're we're always the people that hold everything together for our families. And I think a lot of that can stem from insecurity in a way. Um, I was listening to the Gabor Mate, and I don't remember his exact wording. So it's this isn't like the quote, but he was talking about how when he was a young child and he was born in Europe during the war, his mother basically handed him over to another woman, to a stranger, and said just like, you know, to take care of him, right? Keep him safe. And so he, you know, struggled with the feelings through his life of feeling unloved, of not feeling important, of feeling like he could be given away. And he said, So, you know, what do those of us do that that feel not worthy or that feel that we're not important? We become physicians. Because then we hit we're important, right? We're inherently in the work that we do. We're needed, we're necessary, we're relied on. Um, and I realized that about myself too. It's like, well, if I am doing everything, like you you can't you can't move on without me, right? Like you can't get rid of me. I'm so important, right? Job security.

unknown 9:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

In the personal life as well. Exactly. Um, and I think that's what a lot of us, a lot of my patients that I talk to, and a lot of like most all of my friends express that too. Like they're always the one keeping everything together, keeping like family calendar, dealing with the finances, like the one who like they're really like the president of the company when the company is your family. And whether that's, you know, partner children, whether that's your parents and siblings, like there's there's always a dynamic of that where it's kind of the one who's like captain of the ship.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yeah. Um I'm definitely finding myself in that same place of I I recognize it for the most part. I mean, it still creeps up on me. Um it definitely still creeps up on me. And I'm in the struggle that I'm in, the specific struggle that I'm in, because there's so many in the transition, is I'm not quite sure what's next. I know that I overfunction, as we have discussed at great length on the podcast. I know that, you know, very similar to what you're describing, hold trying to hold things together through creating experiences for people or being the manager of the household or of even friendships. And that's that's actually some place that I just I love our friendship because we look out for each other in that way. And it's beautiful and and it's such a blessing. And although I have very close friendships that I love dearly, that's not the dynamic. And that's, I think, one thing that is really beneficial about our friendship is that, you know, I met both you and Jen as an adult. And so we come as whole people, adults working on our own stuff, and we can really show up and love one another in that way. And when you have relationships that start when you're so much younger, it's messy. You know, there's just there's so much growth that has happened. And sometimes that growth shows up in the relationships, sometimes it doesn't. And I'm navigating this, okay, I overfunction and I recognize that I want to show up differently, but I'm having to evaluate and reassess what these relationships look like and how I want them to look, and if they're capable of looking a certain way, and my own understanding of what other people bring, because everybody has different love languages, you know, and what does reciprocity look like when people have different things that they contribute and what feels balanced and aligned. And I guess I I guess I just want to highlight how murky the the middle, the transition period can look and feel, and how that is totally normal. And I have to remind myself of that. It is okay to not know what the next step is. You're doing the work, you're staying aware and calling yourself on, you know, certain behaviors that you want to be different. And the next step will reveal itself if we keep showing up with that openness and willingness to shift.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, and desire to shift, right? And desire. I think they're how like that's a big part of it is having like understanding what isn't working and then understanding how we can change that. Because I think you're right. Sometimes I kind of feel like like we don't have the tools or we don't know what we're supposed to do. So we're kind of waiting for that next step to be revealed. Um, but I think having that desire to shift things. And even if it is talking about it, like I feel like just like saying it out loud. And I think that's what so many of, you know, of our friends and our family, it's like it's saying those things out loud and giving it kind of a voice that helps the change too. So yeah, that's what we do together.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Yeah. Right. We say these are the things that are hangups for me or that I I want to heal or grow. And we hold such a wonderful safe space for one another and support the process. So having that is oof priceless. Thank you for being my ear to listen today.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Love you so much. I love you too. Grateful for you. I'm so grateful, so deeply grateful that we get to do this and that we get to touch other people's lives and bring them into this really sacred space. You know, I don't know that we've called it that before, but I it feels that way. Very, very sacred. It certainly is to me. It is to me too. All right, everyone. That wraps up our episode for today. We will see you next time. Bye. Bye. Love you. Love you, bye. If our messy is your kind of messy, we'd love for you to rate, review, and follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

We'd also love to know what's on your mind. If you were to join us, what would we be talking about? Email us at messy midlife podcast at gmail.com or message us on Instagram or TikTok.