WOW: Wise Older Women
“Wisdom That Grows Louder with Time.”
Welcome to WOW: Wise Older Women a podcast dedicated to raising the status of ageing women and dismantling the narratives that silence them.
Here, older women speak with authority, beauty, depth, and fire. Their stories challenge, inspire, and illuminate.
In a world that too often ignores, isolates, or diminishes older women, we choose to listen. To revere and celebrate the brilliance, courage, humour and tenderness they bring along with plenty of high‑vibration wisdom carried in their words.
These conversations aren’t just stories, each one of them is a teaching. A personal map from the past, forging the way ahead, full of magic, medicine and momentum.
This storytelling series presents ageing not as decline, but as ascent. It’s a platform where older women don’t need to hide. This is where they are honoured, uplifted, heard and held; with reverence, respect, and wonder.
Their voices are powerful, their wisdom is vibrant, and their stories are a gift to us all.
Welcome to the podcast. Settle in. Let their voices guide you.
WOW: Wise Older Women
S1 Ep4: Christina Covington
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Long-time local, dancing devi, businesswoman and Ayurvedic alchemist.
Known for her presence on the Byron Shire dance floors for over 25 years and as the creative force behind the inaugural We Dance Festival in late 2024.
Christina was Founder & previous Owner/Director of Hari Har Chai and winner of the 2017 APAC awards for her innovative approach to business.
She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Flinders University, Adelaide, before studying Ayurveda while living in India.
Having reached the 'other side' of Menopause, Christina shares positive perspectives from an Ayurvedic as well as personal viewpoint.
Traditional storytelling at its best with wisdom and knowledge shared through the age-old art of conversation.
This is a CBF grant funded project in collaboration with BayFM Byron and Plantation Studios.
Executive producer Rasela Torise.
Music www.purple-planet.com
First of all, it was racism, and then it was sexism, and now it's ageism. So I've got to fight three battlefronts.
SPEAKER_02Wisdom's not something you can buy a book and learn. It's not something you can grab off Instagram. It's not something you can you can buy in a course.
SPEAKER_06I needed that courage when I was being threatened, kidnapped, raped, almost murdered.
SPEAKER_03As I'm speaking now, the tears just rolling down my cheeks. Tears of futility. Stuff you can't change. So important.
SPEAKER_08And the work is so much now is actually supporting your knowing, your wisdom. And in that, there's a possibility that the madness of the world before away.
SPEAKER_07The most important activism right now is information for yourself and others. And that's why I'm so happy to be on a community radio initiative to raise the status of older women. Because older women in almost every community carry knowledge and gifts and experience that are of real value in the real world, in the economy, in the culture that we all care about.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to a new series. Across six episodes, we celebrate the profound value of older women and their essential role in society as wisdom keepers, culture carriers, and the voices of lived experience. Through intimate, thoughtful conversations, this series honours the knowledge that only time can teach. In this episode, we meet Christina Covington, longtime local, dancing Devi, businesswoman, and Ayurvedic alchemist. For more than 25 years, she's been a vibrant presence on the Byronshire dance floors. And in 2024, she became the creative force behind the inaugural We Dance Festival, a celebration of movement, community, and embodied joy. Christina is the founder and former owner-director of Hari Ha Chai, recognized with the 2017 APAC Award for her innovative approach to business. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Flinders University and later immersed herself in the study of Ayurveda while living in India, weaving ancient knowledge into modern life. Now, on the other side of menopause, Christina brings both Ayurvedic insight and personal experience to a refreshingly empowering conversation about this profound life transition, one too often misunderstood, yet rich with possibility. This series brings you traditional storytelling at its finest. Wisdom shared through the age-old art of conversation. Join us as we listen, learn, and celebrate the voices of women whose insight enriches us all. After you were a cell in the cave of humanity and you came through, can you tell us a little bit about your early childhood in in small country towns around Australia?
SPEAKER_02I feel like I lived a pretty middle-class, blessed Australian 1970s childhood of riding my bike down the street, playing in the dirt and running around the neighbourhood with all the kids playing marbles in the in the park, and I moved around a little bit in different towns and then had my teenage years in Bendigo before going and studying chemistry in Adelaide.
SPEAKER_00And there was a time where you lived across the road from your grandmother, who I know you have a special connection to. Can you describe that connection and perhaps some of the lessons or life lessons that she gifted you with?
SPEAKER_02My grandmother was uh Earth Mother, and so I was blessed to be living in my early childhood, being able to run across the road to my grandmother. She would take us yabbying, she would make cow pats to put on her roses, we would be bottling at bottling season tomatoes and peaches and pears, and my grandmother taught me that life's here to learn and that you're never too old to learn and to be curious to life. She would take us on big bushwalks in nature, and she was a an earth mama.
SPEAKER_00How different was that to your parents?
SPEAKER_02As we do when we grow into ourselves, we want to be different to our parents. And so my grandmother being the Earth Mama and everything, my mum was very materialistic, loving and trying to be loving, but their life in Australia in the 80s started becoming this consumeristic culture. But I I lived a normal parenting life. I was a little bit of a wild child and wanted to be curious and free, and being a mother of myself now, I understand the want to protect your child. But when you're the child, you don't understand that.
SPEAKER_00Were you able to be a little bit more curious and free on some of the family travels around the world that your parents took you on? Can you remember any kind of memorable moments that started to reshape the way you saw the world or at least the possibilities within it?
SPEAKER_02Well, I was very blessed that my parents did take me travelling. We constantly went on family holidays, we constantly went to new places. They didn't liven me in the beauty of travelling around the world, and they took us around the world for a year into different places. Yeah, that definitely sparked my my love and curiosity for the world. I was given a permission to have a sense of adventure as a child.
SPEAKER_00Were you though given permission or supported during your age of you might want to call it rebellion or a feeling of really not fitting into the family? Can you describe yourself in terms of your willpower and your self-drive? And what led you to believe you were destined for life as a healer?
SPEAKER_02I was strong. When I look at myself in Ayurvedic eyes, I'm a strong Peter woman. And Peter women have a an intensity, they have a sense of action. They're the fire. I was a bit like a wildfire in my young, younger years. And hot, powerful, and ready to conquer the world. But I there was a part of me from when I was a very young child. I would always play the doctor. You know, you're six and you're playing nurses and doctors and and that with your friends. I remember I always play the doctor. And I now reflect back and go, that was my word for healer. Doctors were healers, that was the only thing that I'd ever been introduced to as a healer. And my parents weren't alternatives, they were very mainstream Christian Australians. There was always part of me that knew that that was there. But it's probably taken me to now that I actually sit in it. And it's been a long and convoluted, twisted path for me to actually land in myself, knowing that I'm a true healer, and I think that when we move into this place of age as a woman, we've got wisdom, but this beauty of wisdom it lands in you. Wisdom's not something you can buy a book and learn, it's not something you can grab off Instagram, it's not something you can buy in a course. You have to understand the beauty of letting go to allow the space for wisdom to come in. I feel like I finally landed in that healer. There's always known she's there.
SPEAKER_00Do you remember the first time you experienced some alternative modality?
SPEAKER_02It was a slow process of unfolding and always being naturally curious of myself, always wanting to discover more about myself. And then I just had this calling to need to go to India. Having a taste of an alternative culture and seeing cultures by living with the Bedouins in Egypt, I started to realize that there was something different in the world. That opened up more as I stepped into India and meeting what I needed to meet. Life and healing was more than just the body. It was a connection of the mind, the spirit, and the body. That Western medicine didn't offer in its story when I looked at studying Western medicine.
SPEAKER_00But I'm really interested in, you know, you mentioned living in Egypt. These are all things that maybe at the time were quite adventurous and they could be loaded with fear of being in these places that are exotic and unknown. But you did describe earlier your way of walking through the world. I'd love it if you could just elaborate on that a little bit of owning your own walk and what it was like for you as a younger woman being out there in the world. How would you describe yourself back then, walking into those exotic worlds?
SPEAKER_02As a young woman, I got on a plane by myself and flew across the other side of the world. This was late 80s. I didn't have phones. Well, you had phones, but you had to find a payphone. You wrote letters. You know what? I had a backpack on my back and a one-way ticket. You're allowed to buy one-way tickets then. It was a joy. We were quite free in the world. And went off on a journey. I didn't have a sense of fear of the world. I was curious. I was a wanderer. I was curious to what life gave, what we could see, culture. The world was big and I was ready to see how big it was. The physical world or walking in the physical world. I I didn't understand fear. Today had an exciting chapter to explore. Like a present. I heard the quote one time, you know, that life's a present and every day we've just got to open it and see what it holds. So I just lived my life like that. It got me to some far away places and some pretty out there. I travelled the highlands of Pakistan by myself as a single woman up in the high hills of Pakistan with no phones and no internet and no cameras or anything. That was pretty hairy. But it was also amazing. I walked the length of the Nagabati, one of the famous rivers of India, just on a pilgrimage. I walked from one end to the other, going to towns that had never ever seen a white woman. There's only the radio at that stage in India. And so I've I've never had a fear of travelling the physical realms.
SPEAKER_00Do you think in some ways a sense of curiosity, really innate curiosity, almost overrides any kind of fear and the energy that you're putting out with your authentic curiosity to new people and new places and new experiences? Gives you some kind of protection against fearful episodes?
SPEAKER_02I had an innate common sense. I could walk to the edge and I was really good at walking along the edge. I felt protected by my own trust and by a bigger picture. There was something connected with me. There was something that I now understand as I was in alignment with what I was meant to do in this life. You know, where I was meant to be, because I just flowed with the connection and trust of the universe and it held me. It took me to places that were a little bit edgy, but it always held me to get out of there safely. Because I just knew there was a part of me that would listen to my intuition when it was time to leave. So I wasn't dangerous. It kept me here.
SPEAKER_00Have there been times in your life where that inner trust and belief have withered for any reason?
SPEAKER_02I had this inner trust in myself and will and drive in myself in life. But as I kept moving into life as I got later into my twenties, it started whittling away. My trust in humanity. I'm a sensitive person, so my trust in the emotions of humanity, wanting to control the wild woman. This control of the wildness of who we are. It's like trying to contain a wild river. We want to keep people in boxes so that we know how how they're gonna behave. Society needs to do that. It's a way of making them feel safe. So other people tried to make themselves feel safe by trying to control me. And I took that on to a point where I squashed my fire. I put my fire out so I could try and belong to the world in the right way. And that's a journey in itself. But that came with a lot of not so healthy relationships and quite violent relationships.
SPEAKER_00Did you find that that was more when you were back home in Australia, or did that also occur when you were overseas travelling?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, in Australia. And why why why do you think that is? Sitting back in the place of wisdom, the place of understanding my journey more. It scares people if you're so free. To be free in who you are, and to be free and bright. And I find in Australia we really don't like bright people. It's really difficult. So if you go into a room and you light up the room, it's scary. And then if that fire's a little bit out of control, then it's a little bit scarier for people. I respect the fact that I did need to control my fire. A fire that's contained in its beauty and stays in its fireplace brings light to the world, it brings warmth, it brings a softness and it attracts people. A fire that's not contained in the right way will burn and cause destruction. So me learning the elemental makeup of myself and how I operate in that pit of time where it's a full fire, a double fire, is what I had to navigate. And yeah, I think that now as I sit as an older woman, I realize the times when I burned and the times when I had a beautiful fire. I really appreciate that learning. The journeys I've been on, some of them very, very intense and very painful. I overlook them now and go, that's made me who I am today. If you don't go out the door and experience something, you don't be curious to who you are. When you come to our age, to this age, then what have you done in life? Those bumps and creeps and crunches and bits, they're who you are. They make up your beauty. They make up the arms of your tree. And when I look back and I look at it from an Ayurvedic perspective, I'm really grateful now that I can contain my fire. That internal flame, the tajas of your being is a spark in your eyes. It's the glint of who you are, and it keeps transforming me on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00You traveled to India, as you mentioned, um, from Egypt. Can you describe your first time waking up there and what you felt?
SPEAKER_02I arrived in India and I woke up in the morning and I opened the window and I looked out and I saw the Himalayas and I'm like, I'm home. My whole body took an outbreath. My whole body just went, Welcome home. And I walked down the streets and I was just like, I'm home. This is wild.
SPEAKER_00Had you felt that in any other country in your travels?
SPEAKER_02I felt that in Egypt as well. I lived out in the desert with the Bedouins. I felt comfortable with the natural people, with the tribal people. India's just full of tribal people at that time. It was an innate welcome home. And the journey in Ayyveda just slowly unfolded with me as I started to go to see the philosophical side of this country and started looking at it. And I lived in the Himalayas in a small little village where we would go and collect syllogit from the mountains, herbs from the hills, and slowly the village people knew that we were here and we had herbs to heal them, and they would come and get herbs from us. I met my first husband in cave in the mountains. Yeah, then started this fascination with the elements and how nature can heal this, how the herbs can heal this. And I've always, always, always had a fascination with the body and the mechanics of the body. It was just natural that I got it. Ayurvedo is a complete healing system of the body, mind and spirit. Whereas when I looked into Western medicine, it was just the body and it just didn't fit with me. I fell into it as a way of life. When I first went to India, I didn't even know how to light a fire. But I found a way of living because, like you said, Ayurveda is the science of life, and I really started turning to it as a way of daily living. To me, it's a guide. It's a guide of how to live life. If we follow the guides of how to live life and stop abusing our bodies, our body intelligence will just heal itself and our body intelligence will work in the right way. So we've been given these guides to be able to naturally keep ourselves healthy. But it's a daily practice, it's regularity, it's it's about just living this as a daily practice of aligning your body, aligning your mind, aligning your spiritual life. And this is seen in India. Every day there's prayer, every day there's connections, and it's living close to nature and and the elements. But I just now understand that life is to live by the elements and in alignment with the macrocosmos. And really, when we're in alignment with the macrocosmos, we are the microcosmos of the macrocosmos. So when we are in alignment with those things, then we flow with a natural essence of time.
SPEAKER_00People may relate to perhaps just one part of it, for example, taking on an Ayvedic diet and changing their food and that's as far as they go, but it as you mentioned earlier, it's such a holistic ritual, really, daily ritual life practice. And in that way, it's also can be very spiritual for some people. And how different was the spirituality of India compared to your very Christian upbringings?
SPEAKER_02Well, actually, to to tell you the truth, there was one aspect of Christian upbringing that I loved. And I loved the devotion, the high on those days when the cathedral would be singing gloriously and all the incense would be going and everybody would be in devotion. I appreciated that. I really, really did, and I think that that's where I could appreciate the reverence and devotion. In India, and still I integrate that devotion into my life every day. I wake up and I give devotion to the elements every day. And that sense of devotion was something that was installed in me all my life from my parents, my grandparents, and I feel blessed that that was given to me. I feel like my time in India it just gets richer and richer because I just meet the devotion of it. It's not a blind devotion. Devotion is a doorway to a connection. It actually creates space in us and a pause in us to actually connect with something bigger than ourselves. And so for me, learning devotion is something in, not an external, was probably the biggest lesson of being in India in their spirituality compared with the Christian upbringing that spirituality is outside yourself. That spirituality was something you did every day and you did in auspicious times and you did in moments that you felt you wanted to go to the temple. There was a lot of constructs that Christian upbringing dissolved by discovering this rich culture of spirituality that has fun with it and it's not shamed and and has so many stories and aspects that have not been squashed by control. And I think that's what I really loved about and I do love about the Indian culture. Ayurveda really is beyond that too, because even though it's rich and steeped in Indian way of life and philosophies, it is its own separate identity. You don't have to embrace all the spirituality of the deities to embrace a an Ayurvedic lifestyle. It's a way of living and a way of seeing the world from an elemental place. And so yeah, it's just a beautiful additive, the Indian cultural aspect of it, which is gorgeous.
SPEAKER_00Can you talk a little bit about leaving India with this new way of life and living and where you took that? Did you continue with furthering your education in that and and learning in order to be able to spread the ripples wider?
SPEAKER_02So India gave me a gift of making chives. India opened my alchemist. After studying at school to be a chemist, I really just did dive into alchemy. When I came back from India, it was well before yoga and Ayurveda were even a word in the Western culture. I tried to sell Ayyvedic products, but no one really knew what Ayurveda was. So I started a chai business to nourish people. Being that strong pitter woman that was able to drive things and spread the word. I made chai for over 20 years, spreading the love of nurturing people and nourishing people. I see it as a subtle, subtle way of just getting nourishment into people and opening their eyes to a little bit more spice in their life. And in that I slowly kept cultivating and learning Ayurveda as it came to me, refining my living Ayurvedically. And that was wild. You know, I had a great time too, with like free spirits and life. So over those years I kept cultivating but building the chai business. But always the core essence of those chai gifts to the world was Ayurveda. It was always my base. And so in the early 2000s, even though I'd learnt a lot of Ayurveda through just living in India and being in India and feeling and tasting and touching and collecting the herbs, this is lifetimes of learning. And I have had many experiences where I've felt like I've I've lived these lifetimes several times. I came back and I studied in Australia with a renowned Ayurvedic doctor in Australia. Again, it this is a lifetime of learning, so it's another step. It feels like I often say it's like Ayyved is like an ocean, and you dive in that ocean and go and have a swim and collect some knowledge and feel satiated by it and then integrate it. So uh I just kept diving in the ocean and I love diving in the ocean every day, but it took a while to make that every day. I continue to keep growing in this field and growing and understanding it till I finally realize that there's no end point to this. We tend to study things in the West like I've got this degree or I've got this bit, now I'm finished. I know the knowledge, now I've got to use it. That's the way I was taught how to have knowledge, but it's not. It's an integrative process, and I just so know that until you actually integrate this into your being and your cells of your body, the cells of who you are and the way you walk in the world, you can't really help another person. It's been a long process of integration and satiation of who I am and peeling away the layers, peeling away the potholes that I'd fall down along the way. Then I had the pleasure of studying with Vasant Lad, who's one of the world's renowned Ayurvedic practitioners in India a few years ago now. And I know I'd walk that past thousands of lifetimes when I was with him. It was another layer of learning and understanding. Yeveta, but being with the masters of this lineage of healers was phenomenal. And again, recently I went back for another training in India and a deep cleansing process. She keeps calling me back, and she keeps calling me back to keep aligned with the Dharma that I'm meant to be here for.
SPEAKER_00But if there's maybe something relating to, you know, your own life of living without any fear and and walking out there in the world and not expecting but imagining that your children may be the same as you. What are some of the lessons that they've gifted you along the way?
SPEAKER_02My sons gifted me a mirror of myself, and that was often a clash and a beauty at the same time. And my beautiful daughter, who is very generously gifted to me, she's taught me so much compassion for myself and a gift of learning the gentleness, learning the beauty of the soft waters. I often say that my daughter is me with a feather, not a sword. She's taught me how to have compassion for people that maybe don't have the same warrior style, fearless drive that I have. Meeting the opposite of who you are, you have to learn another way of holding yourself. And I think that she was a really big lesson in learning how to hold the part of me that I ignored.
SPEAKER_00This leads us very nicely into your more unproductive ears as far as children goes. Menopause. Something that you not only have already travelled through, but have a great gift of sharing with others. What do you want to share in the world currently about menopause? Like if you had something to say that hasn't been said, how would you describe menopause?
SPEAKER_02It's a dismantling and an undoing of ourselves. I'm a big advocator for human pause. I am so fed up with it being just menopause full of women being crazy. This is a complete and utter upgrade. It's a time for pause. It's a time for self-reflection, and it's not just women that have to do this. It's humans. When we get to the top of the mountain of 50, let's take a moment to take in what's there. Let's take a moment to give ourselves congratulations that we got there. Don't keep pushing through it. Like let's actually celebrate this achievement. It shouldn't be just men and women that go we're all weird about it. We need to do it for b everybody. There's two different aspects of it, and I could talk for hours about it. But I really feel like menopause through the Ayvetic eyes again. It's a time of resetting and rebooting. It's a time of us taking base in ourselves. It's a transformational time. So as a woman we have three different transformational phases in our in our life. We've got menses in our teenage years from girl to woman. And then we have a birth time where we'll be coming to her mother. And then coming in the menopause time, we have this change in time from woman to what I call crown, not crone, because we're owning our crown. These transitional phases are an opportunity for us to realign with who we are. It's a time where we're reseeding. We need to take a pause in this time. Like seasons take a pause. It's a change time. It's virtually like putting ourselves in the ground again and reseeding. Seeds take time to sprout. I see menopause as a time that we're reseeding ourselves into a new version of the same plant. It still has the same energy. It's a seed of the same plant, but it it's regrowing. And so you've got to sit in the ground. You're going to be pulled into the underworld of the earth and asked to sit there and just sit in that seed. And sit in that seed until it cultivates and slowly starts to pop. And it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable because the roots are going to pop out uncomfortably and you're going to shed a skin and and move in different ways. But you're transforming something that's new, the new view, like that analogy of the cocoon and the butterfly. But this seed time is so important in menopause to actually spend the time, spend the time undoing, dismantling ourselves and our core identities so that we can actually p pick the pieces up of who we are that we left along the way or chocked out because we thought it wasn't important and put them back into our place. So that we enter this place of being a full-bodied woman, a full-bodied human full stop. The changes in women we're we are in this change of physical change. We're a bit more blessed as women because we go through physical change. But men tend to in their menopause go through emotional. It's a more emotional, subtle change. But but taking the time, taking the time to just be in time, to just drop into what it is to just sit to recede, to give ourselves softness, to sit in the earth and rest into the earth and know we're held by something bigger than ourselves. The elements of Earth, Earth receives, Earth transforms, Earth is soft and gentle. And when you think about Earth and you think about how it receives the roots of everything, but menopause is asking us to do that for us to sit on the earth and allow the earth to receive our roots of who we are. And then for us to then start drinking the essence of the earth into ourselves so that we know how to self-nurture. This isn't a time of lack and finish. It's a time of pause. Pause. It's a time of you know that whirly thing on the computer when can't compute anymore? That's the time. This is menopause in the computer system. It's rebooting. We're not losing anything. There's nothing lost. It's a complete upgrade going on. It's a complete reshifting of our hormonal system. It's a reshifting I tell you now, when I got dismantled in menopause and completely side-swiped in a 180 degrees direction. It was hard work. I was undone. But I look back now and go thank you. I look back on a daily basis with a gratitude of thank you. I'm glad the upgrade's completed. Because now I see I've watched my new sprout sprout. I've watched my new leaves sprout out. I've watched my my new self start to bloom. And I've watched my new flowers blooming in who I am. I know that I'm I'm my best kept secret now. Well I know I'm on my side. I know that I've got my own safety. I'm not extending myself out to anybody else to get safety. I'm safe in my roots because I've planted myself. I'm here like I've never been here before.
SPEAKER_00Why do you think there's so much fear? It's a fear of change. Would that be fair to say? You have a very different take on that, don't you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's the beauty, it's a juice of who you are. There's nothing more beautiful than a empowered, full-bodied, sensual woman. This heals the world. A woman that's come through menopause and owns her juiciness and created the fruits of who she is, she feeds the world. This is something that unfortunately in Western society we've been sold that menopause is a lack of something or we're gonna miss out. You know, we're done. There's no lack here. This is a complete upgrade. This is upgrading the model. This is like rebooting the system to bring out your new operating system. And that's what I feel like. I feel like got to a point where upgrade complete. Your new operating system's working. I've test drived it. I've test drived it drived it and yeah, there was a couple of times where the the old patterns tried to kick in and you just give them compassion. It's like no upgrade complete. And that doesn't mean that life stopped. It's like upgrades completed into this new cycle. It's settling in like summer settles in after winter. As the cycles change and the seasons, we feel the winds come in to change and you finally feel like you've settled into summer. It's the same sort of thing. One of the really key points of menopause, I think, is to give ourselves time to drop into that beauty. There's no hurry. Each of us is such a unique being and a unique has a unique connection to the elements and connection to the seeds and to life. That we all take a different process and a different time to bloom and to not hurry that time. You'll take the time that you take in the underworld. You'll take the time that you take to reseed yourself and no one can hurry you. And no, you shouldn't be hurried. The key to menopause is letting go, letting go of the mind, letting go of the shoulds, letting go of the I should do this, I should do that, and actually listening to your heart. So it's actually like a resetting of the heart-mind operating system. Because in the pitter age, we need to be more in our mind of doing an action. But as we go into the Vata age after 55, we're in a place of connecting with our heart and our creativity and our intuition and our spirituality and our lightness of being. So there's a a switch in the way we operate. This takes time to do that. So allow it. Allow this space. Allow yourself to let go. There's a few poor things in menopause, but let go. Let go.
SPEAKER_00I think you know, being a woman, we travel through life having to deal with physical changes on a monthly basis through pregnancies as well. And you know, I love it that you were speaking of the three seasons as a woman as your body transitions and changes and refines, you know, we refine ourselves and come out as this wise woman during menopause. And also this connection, this connection with perimenopause, the care that we need to take, um, with menopause itself, and how it marries with postpartum care, you know, body transformations coming out as a mother. So there are many physical changes, of course, but there are also role changes within ourselves as well, aren't there?
SPEAKER_02The three seasons of a woman is the fact that we are role-changing in those times. And each of those transition times, there's a time to address the things before we go into that role is to look at the the path that we've walked and collect the things, check the report card to be able to go into the next phase. And it's a time for care. Going into menopause and perimenopause, if we actually start looking at self-caring in that time when we first start menopause, then we're going to move easier into menopause time. Starting to address our health issues, our health, our well-being, our way of our life, our diet and lifestyle. This is gonna make for life's better experience in the times coming up to menopause and afterwards. And this care and especially the the last quarter of menopause where we've gone through all the hard work and we do this in birth and and menopause. Growing the baby, we've given birth, we've done all the work. Then there's postpartum. This is a time where you've got to care and nourish yourself the most because this is the it's the juice that if you don't give this juice now, it it affects you for the whole rearing of your child. And so giving the ultimate care in those postpartum times after birth is the same as giving the care at the end of menopause. You've come into yourself, you've bloomed this new flower, and then at the time of deep, deep, rich care and nourishment to yourself to slowly learn the new operating system and the juiciness of that, it's the same story. So there's a postpartum care time and menopause as well. But we are the nourishers of that, we need to do that. The things that do that are connection, a touch, oxytocin, and doing the thing that we really want to create in this world. You're going into your last phase. What do you want to put in the world? What do you want to actually really do? Not even do, because it's really about undoing. It's actually what's deeply richly in your heart and your creativity that you know you have to give to the world. There's nothing else. It's unquestionable.
SPEAKER_00And this I guess brings us also to the value of time as we're getting older to compare it to our younger years when we have the whole world ahead of us and we're not really so aware of time and what we do with that time, it seems like it's endless. And so coming out of menopause, I know you used a great analogy earlier where it's like you're given a cup of I don't give a fuck and things that used to matter don't matter as much. Where are you at with that? Do you feel like you've got your cup of I don't give a fuck full? And you're brewing another pot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I always said at fifty, you get a cup of I don't give a fuck. And I agree. We get this cup and we drink it. But now I get it. It's actually gotta digest into yourselves. Because it's not about you not giving a fuck. Because you give a fuck more than anything in the whole world about the important things. But it's taken time for that essence of letting go of the things that don't really matter. Letting go of the control of things that you just can't control people's opinions of you. What's in the shops, whether the dishes are done or not. There's a letting go to allow a bigger picture of life that's important. And that I think is allowing the I don't give a fuck to actually sit into the cells of your body that give a strength like an old tree's got a strength.
SPEAKER_00What about energy levels? How are you feeling now that you've come out the other side of menopause? Given yourself the time, you know, giving yourself the rest, all that you need. Do you feel lighter in some ways or or where where's your energy levels sort of sit at the moment?
SPEAKER_02From Ayurvedic perspective, you're going from a Pita age to a Vata age. Pita's a fire, it's doing, it's action, it's movement. Vata is a wind and lightness of being. So there's a change of your grounded strength to a lightness of being, to a more connected spiritual area feeling. So you're going from a a doing to a spiritual path more. And for women, we can't do what we used to do. We can't we don't have the strength that we used to have. All our hormones are changing, they will change the different we don't have the physicality that we used to have when we were younger. Accepting that's really cool. I've been enjoying the beauty of being an older woman and and being offered, can I carry that for you? Sure. Can I do that change of tire for you? Sure. I love being able to receive some help. Receive it's one of the key things to learn as we go into menopause, just learning how to receive. Receiving without thinking we have to give back. Just receiving because we're allowed to receive that we don't have to do it all. And realizing just let go and we don't have to do it all.
SPEAKER_00So you mentioned that you've put your new upgraded system to the test. Uh tell us a little bit about where you took yourself last year and what that revealed to you.
SPEAKER_02You know, I I was wondering whether this upgrade was complete or not. And there was times in this when I was giving myself space, I was like, can I do less than nothing? It's like I'm doing so little. And then there was times where I was like, hmm, well, I might just go and sit on the floor now. I've sat on the couch for a few hours. Like I got to a point where I was just like completely in service to the other hand uh to move me. And then it moved me. And it moved me to really test the upgrade in the world. Like, okay, right, you think your your upgrade's complete, well let's just test this operating system, check out all the new programs that they're working. And so I ejected myself out for eight months and went dancing around the world, um, put myself in unusual situations, met old friends that I hadn't seen in 30 years, went dancing till 4 a.m. in the morning in Paris in the park, and went walking the Camino for three weeks, and then I went to India for a a big stint. Then I went to Bali. I just gave myself permission to wander the world like I did when I was younger, but with a bag of wisdom in my back pocket and a light in my heart and my being that I finally accepted was bright and beautiful. I loved the new operating system because I felt at home everywhere. I felt like I was home in myself, home and comfortable in myself more than I'd ever been in my life. It was a great test. It was old patterns that showed up occasionally, but I had the awareness now to acknowledge them but not to engage in them.
SPEAKER_00In your travels, maybe not only through the world, dancing around the world there, have you come across any kind of ageism or an environment where you've experienced something that was quite different to when you were this young, fiery, wild, hot woman. Not that you're not that now, but as an older version of that.
SPEAKER_02I took up partner dancing when I was 52. After dancing many, many different forms of dancing. I love dancing and I love dancing on a especially when you would play tunes. I love dancing on a good dance fly. I love the freedom of dancing and everything, but I'd never partner danced before. And that definitely challenged my ageisms because in partner dancing you get chosen to dance, you know. It it's a beautiful ritual in that the league comes and asks you to dance, but I was going to dances and I'm the old girl. And I don't think I'm an old girl, but the young blonde that was 30 would get danced on the dance floor all night and I'd be sitting there twiddling my thumbs, going, Can someone ask me to dance? You know, so it was very confronting to be an older woman on the dance floor in that scenario where it was a variety of ages all the time on the dance floor. It was definitely a challenge sometimes and and and definitely very obvious sometimes. But I think that that's the case of us letting go and I think that's a case of us accepting the change. I don't think it would matter where we went. When we sit into that we're changed as a person and we're in an elder stage of our life and I don't think I'm old. Although the kids on in the beach the other day said, Oh, hey old girl and I went, Yeah, I'm an old girl. I'm older than what I am, but I'm still a little girl, you know, I'm still this young girl. So I was like, I had a bit of a laugh. I think that we when we let go and just acknowledge uh the stage of life we're at and keep shining in the knowledge that we're in this new phase of beauty and that it doesn't matter what age you are, uh things are beautiful in you, and to keep cultivating every day the beauty of who you are, that that never changes. You can see that regardless whether you're eighty-five or fifty-five. You'll see the light in your eyes, and that comes back to that devotion, the practice, the daily rituals of honouring and being in devotion and in acceptance of the self. And that takes practice. And that takes time and practice. And we're all given that opportunity to do and I love the beauty of women as we encourage each other. And I've been blessed to have women a generation older than me that I can look at and go, Oh wow, they're older women. I want to be like that when I'm that old. You know, and I want to be that for the younger women. I want to be an inspiration for women that are forty and thirty that see me and I feel a bit of fear of getting old and they see me and they go, Wow, how old are you? Really? Okay, I want to be like you when I get older. I want to be that inspiration. I've had women that have done that for me. I think it's a beautiful gift we can give each other. The connection of it's okay. This transition's okay, you'll get through it. I've got you. It's a gift to give each other. It's a gift to give humanity.
SPEAKER_00Christina's blend of science, Ayurveda, and embodied joy leaves us with a fresh, empowered view of aging. May her insights remind you that transformation doesn't end, it evolves. The depth, resilience, and wisdom carried by women aged 55 to 85. Women whose lived experience enriches our communities and strengthens the cultural fabric of this country. Join us for the next episode as we continue honouring the voices, insights, and life journeys of extraordinary women. This is a Plantation Studios production, executive producer Rasella Torres, and music from Purple Planet Music.
SPEAKER_04We are drenched in ageism in our culture. Drenched in it. I believe we are in an extraordinarily ageist culture. Racism is being talked about, sexism is being talked about. We haven't even begun to talk about ageism.
SPEAKER_07So I very definitely noticed this becoming invisible. It is really something that we should try to understand as this sign of a culture that is rejecting the most important things in life.
SPEAKER_06So I sometimes notice that judgment of like you're just an old lady. But then I'm a lot pushier than I used to be. So I don't mind kind of playing the old lady card. I think you just gotta work it so you have fun with it, yeah.
SPEAKER_08I haven't felt discriminated. Maybe it's been sometimes dismissed, but I think it's been more undervaluing, and I have undervalued myself.
SPEAKER_01The more I experience it, the more I like fighting back. And I'll show you your bugger. I'll show you. You think I'm useless? I'll show you that I'm not. I don't know if it's the Mexican-Italian in me, the Yank in me, I don't know what it is, but I don't let anybody put me down or ignore me.
SPEAKER_02When we let go and just acknowledge the stage of life we're at and keep shining in the knowledge that we're in this new phase of beauty, and that it doesn't matter what age you are, things are beautiful in you, and just keep cultivating every day the beauty of who you are that never changes.