Episode 11: Rediscovering yourself in perimenopause – Sam’s story
In this episode, we’re slowing down and stepping into a different way of looking at perimenopause – not as something to manage or “get through,” but as a chance to reconnect with who you truly are.
Dr Peta Wright and Dr Thea Bowler sit down with co-host Sam Lindsay-German, who’s in the heart of her own perimenopause journey.
Sam shares how, at 50, she’s using this phase to tune into her soul voice, deepen her inner calm, and let go of beliefs that no longer serve her.
This intimate conversation invites you to listen in on Sam’s personal insights and experiences with mindfulness, yoga, and self-reflection – practices that have helped her find peace and purpose during this time of change.
🎧 Listen in to hear:
🌿 Sam’s honest take on why perimenopause feels like a spiritual awakening and how she’s choosing to listen to her inner wisdom more deeply.
🌿 Simple practices from the yogic perspective that can help you feel more grounded and in tune with yourself, especially when everything else feels in flux.
🌿 How small daily rituals like yoga, mindfulness, and quiet time have transformed Sam’s outlook, helping her embrace this phase rather than resist it.
🌿 Open reflections on self-acceptance, letting go of the “shoulds,” and approaching midlife with a little more ease and confidence.
Tune in for Sam’s grounded, soul-centered insights and feel inspired to step into this next phase with curiosity and self-compassion.
Resources to complement this episode:
Listen to our previous episode – Insights from the World Congress on Menopause.
Research paper about the impact of attitudes towards menopause and symptom experience.
Red School’s The Menstruality Podcast – How We Become a Force of Nature in Menopause.
More about Sam Lindsay-German and her healing work with women.
Join Sam for Sadhana recorded live each weekday at 5am in The Calm Room.
We would love to hear from you.
If you have any questions about you’d like us to answer on a future episode of the podcast, please email them to hello@verawellness.com.au or contact us on Instagram @verawellness.com.au.
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Episode transcript:
Ep 11 - Rediscovering yourself in perimenopause with Sam Lindsay-German
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[00:01:00] Today, we're going to be talking about some of the lifestyle things you can think about as you start to embark upon the perimenopause transition. And we have Sam with us today, who is in the midst, like right smack bang at 50. In the midst of that transition, and she is probably the most mindful, healthy, amazing person we know, who we'd like to aspire to be when we're in our perimenopause transition, so we want to sit here with you and soak up your wisdom, so that everybody can benefit.
We get to, we get to soak up Sam's wisdom most days, but I think that all the women need to soak up some of Sam's wisdom. Well, firstly, what I wanted to say about being in perimenopause and menopause from a yogic point of view, we enter, truly enter the stage of perimenopause, it's actually [00:02:00] not even a word in yoga. It's just, it's not even a word. I don't even like it very much. I know. I was just going to say, I think maybe take this episode as we hear so much about menopause and perimenopause through the lens of medical pathology. And this is not that. This is an episode where we want to look at through a much Perhaps a wiser lens.
I actually saw I rather perfectly timed, saw something written again by the Red School talking about their opinion on why they don't mention perimenopause. Did you read it? Maybe we can link that because I really like the words. And it really spoke to me because I really detest perimenopause. I don't like it.
It sort of implies that I am perimenopause. That something bad is happening to me and that I'm, I don't know, breaking or that I'm going through a stage that I should be ashamed [00:03:00] of or worried about. And I just don't see that to be true. I've, I've spent my entire life looking forward to being 50, which is really interesting.
And maybe not my entire life. I mean, that's a lie, isn't it? I definitely wasn't doing that when I was 18 or younger, but I just mean, I've, I always thought to myself, and certainly after I turned 36 and found yoga, that I felt that something would happen when I became 50, that there would be a, a shift that would help me to be able to be more in my truth and more in my power than I have before.
It was just a knowing that I had. I think that's so beautiful, Sam. And such a amazing reframing of what midlife can be, because there's so much fear out there. And we always talk about a study that has shown that the more negative your attitudes are towards midlife and the menopause transition that the worse your symptoms are.[00:04:00]
So that that anticipation and fear actually results in worse symptoms. So how wonderful if women Other than fearing menopause, could look forward to it. as you know, entering their wise years, like you say. And also interesting that you had a different context and a different lens through which to view this time that many, because of your yogic training which many other women don't get because it's all through that like fear of aging capitalist patriarchal lens.
So I want to hear from you about that. Yes. Like what, what is. The yogic philosophy around. Yeah. Well, I was thinking it's, it was always for me, the idea of actually being able to share from a place of wisdom that I feel like, you know, for me, and I've spoken to this to you about this, uh, before, but I, I really do look to find women who are [00:05:00] at least 10, maybe 20 years older, older than me to see where they're at and listen to them because I feel.
They have moved through my stage of life and I have always known that although I can help women who are younger than me, I don't want to pertain to help people who are older. So therefore it's been a sort of, I know that this is going to be a stage of life where I will have accumulated wisdom that will then be of benefit.
And I will be able to share it in the same way that it's interesting. I used to really want to, you know, do pregnancy yoga and things like that. And now I'm, I don't really want to do that because it's not, it's not where I've been through. It's not my immediate place. Now I'm much more interested in helping women who are sort of struggling in that stage where they've got teenagers or, you know, where I've been through and I've now come out the other side.
So I don't ever think we should really be. You know, getting in the nitty gritty of where we're at because it's, it's an interesting time and that's partly why [00:06:00] maybe I wince a little about being, uh, sort of doing menopause well, because I haven't got to, I mean, I'm still bleeding, so I haven't got to the end and I sometimes think, well, Who knows how that will go for me.
I'm not worried about it, but I do also think it's still a journey for me. So there will come a point where my wisdom will be even greater on this, I'm sure. And I loved what you said about looking for women that are older than you to talk to them to gain their wisdom. And I think that's, you know, historically, if we had red tents, if we had times when intergenerational women would have gathered.
You know, young girls would have heard about periods and teenagers would have heard about pregnancy and premenopausal women would have heard about, you know, being the wise woman and there would have potentially been much less fear in that sharing of knowledge and information. And I think, you know, in this very siloed lives that we live at the moment, probably a lot of women don't have a [00:07:00] wise woman to talk to, to actually get, uh, an individual role.
Kind of experience of what that time of life might be, because probably it would be overwhelmingly positive. Whereas when you listen to the media, it's quite the opposite. Yeah. All the echo chambers of all of the women who are in it Like panicking and being terrified and just like all concentrated in one area on the internet.
You can see why it's really scary because we don't have that balance with the people who've been there. And also who have a viewing this time and aging with a, through a lens of there's power and there is wisdom and there is value to be actually gained in moving through this rather than, Oh my God, all the things that I'm about to lose panic, which is of course, like going to create more anxiety and fear.
And we know more symptoms of menopause. I just, well, firstly, I was like covered in goosebumps saying that, because I think that's so [00:08:00] true. One of the things that I contemplate is I, I don't sadly have a good relationship with my mother or my grandmother. So therefore I don't have that feminine lineage to lean on, which I really have done a lot of work on so that I can hopefully be that female lineage for my girls.
And, and I feel that's you know, emotional. No, I think if it's okay, it's like you were saying on the one last week, it's hard for people to show up. As they are hard for people to show up with emotions and with struggle. And we have to normalize people feeling all of the emotions because this is that time.
And we're all here for you and we're all here for each other. And I think that's it. We don't, in our society, we just don't, we don't have grandmothers, you know, just there giving us wisdom and they're not there helping with our, I was just talking to my daughter [00:09:00] about it and saying, I just hope you can you know, when you get married, you can live close enough that I can help you, you know, so that we can do what we're meant to do. But I do feel like it's. It is very, and that's what I mean about, you know, I'm in it is exactly the same as if we went back to when I was having children and someone had asked me to talk, then I would have been hugely emotional and the same way that I do about closing the bones, I find those things touch me because there's so void in our world and we spend so much time on the superficial that we miss the So these moments when we can actually sit deeply together.
The rites of passage. Yeah. And then we're walking alongside each other on those rites of passage. Yes. And actually seeing the sacredness that is inherent in these transition points in our lives. So that's right. Even when there's suffering and [00:10:00] even when there's loss and there's grief and that's part of that, how we talk about, you know, Sharon Blackie who says about going into the fire and then burning away everything that is no longer yours.
That's a, that's a hot flush. Yeah, I know. But tell us about the yogic philosophy of of this time of life or how it can be, you know, we often say, well, midlife is that time where you want to optimize your health in all of the ways, but how can we actually get back to the simple things that are going to improve our health and probably, and we'll talk about studies and things that do show it can benefit.
You know, cardiovascular disease and mood and sleep and you know, dementia risk and things like that. Yeah, absolutely. So I think firstly, I, I don't think I actually thought about perimenopausal symptoms until quite recently because it was just not around very [00:11:00] much. So no one was talking about, and I didn't think I was having any, but now when I think about it, perhaps I was, but I was not I was okay with it, interestingly. So I just want to say that, that I, I have not lived clocking lots of perimenopausal symptoms. It hasn't been on my radar to do that.M, for me and from a yogic point of view, I. I have seen that you know, turning 40, uh, really from 36, I would say, yogically, we really start to say, you will experience, or in Kundalini Yoga, we talk about that being quite a big transition from the age of 36.
It's normally around then that women will have some kind of wake up if they're inclined to do so, where they might start to feel a yearning to get back in touch with their soul. I would say if we took a good look at what we were doing or what was happening in our life around 36, we normally find yoga.
I kind of found yoga properly. And also I was going through a really hard time. My husband was [00:12:00] away in Afghanistan, blah, blah, blah. There was a lot of trauma as well. And it was not a sort of fun, happy time. It was really a point where I started to ask the question, who am I? And what am I doing with this life?
And it's there that I think we, and it's interesting because now in the media, it's all, you know, sort of menopause can start from, you know, that kind of age. But if I look back to that time, I can see that it was a time when I was under a great deal of stress. And so potentially I could have. Connected with some symptoms maybe, but at that point I was fortunate enough to become, uh, to find yoga in quite a big way and to decide even though it wasn't particularly convenient in my home to become a yoga teacher.
And so I embarked on and I'm very fortunate that my husband was supportive. I don't know if he was supportive actually, I think he just thought. This woman is going crazy. I need to do what I can to help her. And this is what she thinks is going [00:13:00] to help her. So I did yoga teacher training. And I did vinyasa training then at around that age.
Uh, would have been No, it would have been around that stage. And and also then decided that vinyasa training, which at the time I did on the Gold Coast, and it was very about being physically fit. And one of the things I'd want, I think this is important, but one of the things I wanted to get out of my yoga teacher training had actually at the time been to get fit in my body.
It wasn't actually to become yogic, I now realize. And I remember asking my yoga teacher at the time what she thought because I had separation in my tummy muscles and I'd been to see a doctor who had said I could have it sewn up but I was really not sure that I wanted to have something fake in my body.
And it was interesting because her response was, gosh, I would a hundred percent get it sewn up so that I could look good again. Oh, wow. And that was the point that I thought, this isn't the yoga that [00:14:00] I'm going to keep going doing forward. So how did you find Kundalini then? Well, I'd already found, well, I'd already found Kundalini yoga before that, but what it made me do, but I couldn't do the training because we'd arrived late in Australia.
And so I've done this other training, which has been brilliant because it's meant that I can be more mainstream and work in mainstream yoga studios because Kundalini wasn't really recognized. So I then went and did my Kundalini teacher training, which. And the reason I'm sort of comparing the two is because it's, it is much more spiritually aware.
So the act of being a Kundalini yoga teacher at the time you know, I threw myself into that, probably transferred many of my sort of, uh, relative addictions and sadnesses and coping strategies, coping strategies. I transferred it. Onto Kundalini Yoga, because it gave me something to do that [00:15:00] meant that I had different coping strategies that were healthy, inverted commas.
But I mean, I, I'm quite an obsessive type person. That's why Kundalini Yoga is really so good because it helps with this type of personality. But It also meant that at the same time I was actually changing, changing what was happening for me by doing the yoga. So it was, it was working to my benefit, even though I was probably throwing myself in quite hard initially.
So, in that we do things like sadhana, we get up every morning and do a practice. And it's really, since I started my yoga teacher training back then that I've done a daily. practice. Back then I would have got up really early before my children were up and I would have gotten hidden in a little closet that I had to do whatever it was that I was doing at the time.
And I just did not miss a day. And it was probably on the outside, looked quite obsessive [00:16:00] as well as Doing lots of things like I I was a vegan. I stopped drinking. I really changed the way that I was eating quite dramatically. I was definitely entirely plant based. I was doing a lot of yoga as well as doing other exercises as well, which I just enjoyed.
I used to run every day. So I feel like that was the way that I walked in. To this stage of my life, which I feel quite lucky to have done, but I'm not saying that it wasn't, you know, it was a full move in, which I think is something about that stage of life, something in me needed to switch. And I was able to do that.
I can see that it would be equally as easy, maybe just to stay stuck. So, you know, I'm, I'm not, I moved to the other side of the world too, so it was really big. But as I came into my forties, I then started to go understand this concept that it's then walking down the corridor of your forties. In [00:17:00] Kundalini Yoga, we talk about cycles of life being.
The seven year cycles, the 11 year cycles, and the 18 year cycles. So we have a seven year cycle of consciousness, and then an 11 year cycle of intelligence, and an 18 year cycle, which is our life cycle. So if I think about that, that's why 36 is so prevalent, because we have a big life cycle shift there. It's massive because you think about the difference between 18 and 36. Huge. And so that's why I feel like in, in our society we have that real moment of shift. There are other things that come in at that stage as well.
But then if we think about 42 and 44, we've got a seven year cycle at 42 that we go into, which is the sixth, seventh year cycle, which is really the precursor to the one before menopause. Mm-hmm. at 49. And then we also have the fourth cycle of intelligence at 44. I feel this is what we call, I call when I see [00:18:00] people, the first midlife, is where most people are really going, okay, I had a bit of a wake up call when I was 36, didn't really pay much attention, even though maybe you might have got divorced or changed your job or done something very major, lost a parent, and then at 42, it really does, it, it can get a grip of you and you can actually have to, you Start to take stock of what's happening in your life.
I think that's what happens around that point. Some people don't do that. They'll just keep the doors firmly shut. And that's the point in which I think. We, we feel that inside of ourselves. And so it's got to come out somehow. So how is it going to come out? So in yoga, we say, well, and I've definitely taken this in the yogic studies and developed it a bit myself.
But we say that when you have these symptoms of menopause, which, if we think of one of the main things women talk about is hot flushes, That is basically where [00:19:00] something is trying to get out of you. That is when a heat is driving out of the body. And if you're suppressing all the stuff that's not feeling right in your life, it's going to really fight to come out.
We say that menopause is the point in which a woman is going to have a natural Kundalini awakening because of the shift in the Aparna and the Prana. The AANA is the downward flow of our energy. That's things like bleeding, winging hooing, vomiting, anything that's gotta come out. And then the prana is the inflow, which is all the breath and the good food and joy, and the things that, you know, happy conversations and things that uplifts us.
So the upward move of energy when these two are moving like this, when you have that movement that creates. A push and a drive of what we say is the Kundalini energy, but we could also say Shakti or feminine energy is roused within us even more. I think that's what happens. We [00:20:00] have a conflict within us.
We want out, but there's too much in, you know, so what's going to happen? It's like two magnets forcing themselves against you. It's going to have to implode somehow. So therefore it comes out and things like, you know, not being able to sleep, not being able to think straight. It's very common. It's not that we can't think straight.
It's that there's so much going on. We cannot see what we're even thinking. So we continue to walk through those years and we can either do it starting to take a look at what is behind all the closed doors. And for me, I certainly, that was the point where I took a deep breath and, Found myself a psychologist that I could trust, which took a lot of years after what I spoke about in a previous episode, and I worked with her for about a year to do talk therapy alongside what I had done already to help myself, which was Kundalini yoga.
And it was, it didn't take long. In fact, she mentioned several [00:21:00] times, this is very quick. You're getting this very quickly. I couldn't see things. I call them black blind spots. So really it could have been anyone. It could have been a really good friend or maybe a grandmother could have said, my dear, this is shame but I can't, you can't see that yourself.
So you have to have someone show you. And then from there. You can start to do what you need to do and learn things like, Oh, nonviolent communication. That would probably be quite helpful in my relationship with my husband rather than accusing the other all the time, actually taking a moment to realize that I've never, because I've been a mother and raised children, considered what my own needs are or what it is that I'm feeling.
You know, so I'm, you know, these are things that aren't necessarily connected to yoga, and yet they are. And the reason they are connected to yoga, and the reason I want to bring this back to yoga is because one of the things that helped me see this [00:22:00] was that every single day I sat with myself on my mat and I did some sometimes blissful practice and sometimes not blissful practice.
And I would do the same thing for 40 days. At one point over this period, I did the same thing for three years. Sudarshan Chakra Kriya, which is a very powerful practice, which I did because one of my teachers said she was going to do it and then interestingly, she stopped. Which I felt was really interesting because it pulled everything in me.
What am I gonna do? Am I doing it for me? Am I doing it for her? These are really important things. Who are we doing these things for in life? So it made me really question a lot about who I was. So when you sit with yourself in a yoga practice every day, as we talk about, and we can talk about your experience is true too, but for me you start to see What is happening in your mind and how some of those thoughts are just the [00:23:00] same thoughts day in day out It could be and in my case many of them were worries about what other people thought of me. And they would just play on my mind and I'd sit there and go why are you still there?
Why is that thought still there? Why am I wasting my time with this and it wasn't that that just miraculously stopped it from being there But I almost became bored of the thought
And myself, because maybe it wasn't myself, do you understand what I, that, that wasn't you outside looking in at the thought and you could then realize it was just a story. It wasn't true. It's so interesting that you talk about that yearning to connect with one's soul, which I think is, you know, in any life, meaningful life, that is the point, right?
In our society I feel [00:24:00] like there is, you know, very limited avenues for one to sit and connect with one's soul, given that, you know, you know, we are mostly, there's, we live in a secular society often, you know, our mainstream big religions are, you know, often not helpful in, in learning to sit with our soul.
There's just dogma attached to that. But I also think, you know, Then the busyness and the fast pace of life, where even if you would want to do that, there's absolutely no time because there's the distractibility, the jobs, the constant productivity, the constant looking after other people, and you think, is it any wonder why this time of our lives can feel so chaotic?
We are more likely to experience potentially, you know, More chaos with our mental health, with our sleep, with those feelings of overwhelm when, as you said, there's no time to [00:25:00] connect with one's soul and then to be able to release some of that stuff. Like, it's just so interesting. So interesting and I'm interested in, could you just spell out for us what you think, for you, the benefits have been?
Of finding my soul. Of connecting with your soul. Well, one of the things I was thinking is, first of all, it's quite hard, it's one of those things, we say soul, and then we start to go, I mean, what, what even is that? And I, I think it's one of those sweeping words that we use in spirituality, and I don't really go in for those types of things, but I don't really have a better word for it.
So we, sometimes it's referred to as higher self. I mean, I'm sure there's other universe. Well, it's not the universe because it's, my big thing is when we come into this world and I, I said this to a lady the last week, actually, when we come into this world, we take our first breath. That's prana. Yep.
Coming in. So we take that prana in and we're here [00:26:00] and it's us. It's us in, in our complete pure state and there's nothing, we're just there watching. Everything that comes after that is an imprint. Every single thing. You know, we, we look, someone starts to say our name, they'll go, Thea, Thea. Yeah, you just, they're like, who are you talking to?
But eventually we learn that when we smile or when we do something, when we hear that name, we get a response. So we are immediately taught to acknowledge or do things that get a response from the person who is there caring for us because we need to survive. So we do these things, but we are constantly being imprinted.
Even just, you know, think about the way that we're taught that that's a table. There's a table in the room, but I mean, seriously, who says. Why? Where [00:27:00] did we all get that from? Anyway, these are deep things, but this is where I go, this is what we've got to come back to, is the question of how do we even know the chair's a chair?
And is it a chair? Because actually it's just a, uh, well, you know, there's certain sciences that say that that's just a bunch of moving particles that I can just see this way because of my eyes, but it's not actually that. And because your brain has been told that that's what it is to identify with it.
That's right. Anyway, so for me, what I think is we have from there, from that, we journey through this life and sometimes we can get further and further and further away from this first place. Now that happens a lot, especially in our society, our particular western society, in our culture, because we are taught in our culture, and that comes from religion as well Christian religion, sorry, I just want to emphasize I only can only speak about Christian religion from my point of view Where we're told that something [00:28:00] outside of us is judging us, that there is constantly something, not only that, but something outside of me is, is constantly able to understand or know my thoughts.
It doesn't even have to hear them. They can know the thoughts in my head and they're constantly there judging me. So I've been brought up in that type of tradition, which means that I am going to need two people, please, in order to fulfill my role in society, because something outside of me is going to give me validation.
Nothing inside of me is going to do that. That's shocking to me. Yeah. And our schooling system, all the other things seem to support that too. So we literally hand our children over. They go through a process. I've done it with my children. Although they did do alternate schooling, they went to Steiner for a period of time, but they went back to normal education.
But I like to think that I've questioned things. I'm a questioner [00:29:00] and it doesn't always bring peace in my life. I have to say, but I question things and that's because of my own early trauma and other things that I've been through and it's made me question a lot. So I question what we're doing in this world.
And I started this understanding that. What we are doing when we get to this 36 and then into our 40s is actually beginning to realize that our beliefs aren't ours. They're what's been imprinted on us. By our parents, by our teachers, by our peer groups and their parents, you know, and, and it goes on. And so we become these sort of walking robots who are functioning to provide what it is that we're meant to provide in order to work in this society and be useful in this society.
But this society isn't serving me and it's certainly not serving many people. It's failing. And yet all I've been educated [00:30:00] towards is. Being what I've been told to be, which is a useful member of this society. Working nine to five, raising my children to go to school, blah de blah de blah. So, what happens is we wake up and we start to go, but hang on, I'm nearing 50.
And I think sometimes this happens because we have a death of a parent, which we can see as being a terrible thing, but we have to realize that sometimes the first point where we realize our mortality. Or sometimes people go through it in other losses, but you understand it's very, it's why I think having to having pets when you have children is so important.
They must understand about mortality, that nothing is permanent. And the only way they can do that is to be in the real world. Which is why having to having animals being, you know, if you can do those things is really good for them, teaching them what's actually happening in the world. But at that point, when you realize, Oh, I'm not going to live forever.
You start to think about the last breath. The last breath is where we [00:31:00] go. It's a parna. And we have a great fear of that. If I was to tell you all to take a deep breath and exhale your breath out and hold it out, it's, it's shocking for some people. They don't like it. They get quite scared about it. I'm not like that.
I'm one of these weird people that quite likes holding my breath out. But I think that's because I'm interested in journeying to that place and understanding what it is that takes us there. And that's because I'm in that stage of life where I'm moving more towards that than I am towards the first inhale.
And I don't, I'm not scared of the last breath. I feel that the last breath won't be the last part of my experience because I believe that when I came into this body, It was my soul that came in, an aspect of me that took on, I call it, which might not go down for some of you, but I call it like Some people say body glove, but it's like a, a meat suit.
And [00:32:00] we all have different ones. Yeah, the people suit is probably much nicer. Well done, Randos. That's much nicer. But, it's that point. So, in this, where I'm saying this is, The soul is what's inside the people suit. The soul is normally, and I had this realization probably about five or six years ago it's the whispering voice.
So, in my case, she rarely shouts. And she's not there all the time. If the world is too busy and I am too busy, preoccupied with people pleasing, doing what I should do, should, should is such a big word. That's the word, that's the, that's the, that's the word that's doing us all the damage. If I'm getting preoccupied there, there is no whispering voice.
But when I find peace in the morning, [00:33:00] And I can hear the birds, and I've done some yoga practice. There is a quiet voice within me, and that's the voice that's telling me exactly what I need. Sometimes she just says, if I ask her, what do you need today? She'll say, really we just need to do nothing. And I'll go, well that's not terribly convenient, because I've got this, this and this.
But I try and say, okay, well let's try and find some time to do nothing. Does that help? Yes. And I think you got to that realization and all that waking up probably through the process of sitting and listening to that voice. So you could then realize, start to question even, you know, maybe the questioning was there before, but the making time to listen.
To tune in, and like you say, it, it's almost like when you make that time to listen to the whispering voice, then you can start the process of unlearning and letting go of all of those imprints that you've had. [00:34:00] I think actually questioning, well, is this a thought I have, or is this a thought that the world has, or a value that the world has told me to have?
Yeah. And it's so powerful because we think we have been told or the way that we're brought up is that the mind is in charge. So therefore we listen, we listen to this noise, this noise that says, I'm not good enough. I'm fat. Oh, she hates me. Oh, I'm, you know, Oh, I'm not as good as the other person, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever it is.
So we listen to that and we think that the mind, the mind has got it right. But the mind is not in control. We are in control. The we, and by I mean that we could say that the big I rather than the small I, I get very confused about all these I's. I don't do that. I just think it's the, the quieter voice within you knows what you need and [00:35:00] you have to realize that you don't have to do what your mind's telling you to do because the mind is the part of you that's been programmed.
And it's the only way that you can actually see that is by stepping outside of it to witness it and see that you are not those thoughts. And the only way you can do that is to get quiet and to spend that time. And I know that we sound like we're very deep here, but we actually think that this is the whole point and there is just no point.
Well, I mean, everything else is a distraction, right? And yes. And I think it's so hard though, for people in. The world that we live in, you know, where, where there is no quiet, where they're constantly pleasing, pleasing, doing, doing, running, running, running, running, it's hard to, for people to figure out how to connect in with that quiet voice.
And if you start to question, then you have to sometimes make changes, which can be inconvenient and [00:36:00] difficult for those around you. Well, I think I do want to say that. One of the things I contemplate and maybe as I've now turned 50, I'm beginning to feel it's okay to start saying it is it's not hard.
We, we say this a lot. We say it's hard. For us to do that, it's hard for us to do this. It's, you know, and the answer is, well, you know, is it, or is it hard to be unhappy? Is it hard to be miserable? Is it hard to be in the marriage you don't want to be in and the job you don't want to be in continuing living the life that is making you sick and miserable, those things are hard, like doing a yoga practice every day, that's not actually hard.
And or changing your life to make you feel more content and enable you to live rather than just walking towards death. In my mind, it's not hard. And what we do is we have been programmed [00:37:00] to believe that it's hard because that keeps us doing what we're doing. And to be honest, society needs us to keep doing what we're doing because otherwise everything is going to have to change. And it's like, I have said many times over. We do need to change and things do need to change. And the only people that can make the change is us, we cannot expect anyone else to do it for us. We cannot do it for anyone else. And if you really want to make a change in your marriage, if you think that there's something wrong with your mother, your father, your husband, your children, you have to come back and start dealing with the harsh reality that you have to do the work on yourself. And we can feel angry about the fact that, you know, for example, we were sitting at this menopause conference on the weekend, feeling like going to the next lecture about, you know, weight loss drugs and hormones for everybody. And although they weren't saying that, but that, that, that [00:38:00] healing and, you know, statin drugs and all of that and thinking, why aren't this, is, is society not spending money on changing society rather than developing drugs that will help to make us slightly healthier in this sick society that we're in, whilst also making a huge amount of money for corporate industry, right? But at the end of the day as well, we can't sit around and wait for governments to change and for society to change. It all has to be started with us.
And, exactly like you say, like, to do a yoga practice. Early in the morning is free. You can do it before you start the day. It takes nothing. I sit on the carpet. I don't even have a yoga mat. It's accessible. That's right. Yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, that's part of the problem. No one's profiting from it.
So it's not actually. You know, out there being [00:39:00] pushed because it's, it doesn't have any benefit to the societal machine that needs to be, for some reason, kept going. And the, the truth is, I've been thinking about this, just listening to us go through a few of these episodes and the truth is that you know, I believe that it is women at 50 or women moving through their 40s who, and the fact that there has been, there can't be a mistake in the fact that there's such a big thing at the moment around perimenopause and menopause and that women's stuff is becoming so big an industry.
And we really have the opportunity to make the change now. It's about us all choosing where it is that we are giving our attention to and spending our money. And. It's as simple as that. So we spend a lot of life being distracted. We get [00:40:00] distracted by what I call shiny baubles. This current trend to be fixated with perimenopause and menopause is a shiny bauble that is distracting you from connecting to your soul and being the woman that you're meant to be.
That's spot on and making you think that If we are not distracted by it, like if we don't pay attention now, uh, or, or by paying attention to this particular thing, we're going to retain our body, our physical body exactly as we are. And that should be the point, which is actually very, very boring and limited and not true as well, like completely false.
And why do you think so? Cause I always love hearing you talk about like your ideas around why we change this way at menopause. Why do you think shift occurs at this age?
The the way I see it is that we were meant to be at home When we were younger, so we [00:41:00] We go through puberty, uh, at puberty, we take our first bleed and at this beautiful time we're maidens and there we are, my girls are, you know, lush and beautiful and they, you know, frolic around and look free and happy.
They're meant to look like that. They're out attracting and that's what they're meant to do is an attractive time and they're attracting a mate so that they can make children and they can carry on. The evolution of our species. That's what we're designed to do. Once we become pregnant, we move into the mothering stage.
The mothering stage requires us to be at home to care for our children. I mean, I think there's a few things now with the brain and everything showing that estrogen keeps us at home. It's designed to keep us at home and also designed to make us more community orientated so that we can fend for, well, not fend for ourselves at all, but not have to fend for ourselves so we can work with others.
I mean, sometimes people we [00:42:00] don't even like, let's just be honest. I had friends when I had small children who I would not be friends with now, but at the time they were my absolute best friends who I spoke to every single day because we had children in common and they helped me survive. But it was a, you know, a friend for a reason and a season.
That's really important as women. So we go through that and then we come to this point now where my children are all, because I had my children younger, and this is another big thing that's happening in our society that I think is causing challenges, but I had my first child when I was 27, which I sometimes wish I'd started earlier.
And I think my last child around 32. D. That means that now my children are all virtually adult. I've only got one child that's under 18 living at home. I still have three children living at home, but only, only one is under 18. So the others really, you know, they're adults and I don't get involved as much as I used to need [00:43:00] to.
So the point is I'm now at the stage where I am not needed to be at home. I'm not needed to have to look after them, to be as, to be as good in society or to be as polite in society or to do the things that I should do to serve society because I don't care that much about society, which is a natural stage of this point of life so that I can move on and start to share the wisdom that I've gathered over the last 50 years. So this is the point at this point where we actually become very useful in society. I think the most useful that we can be as women. And I think that both of you, I'm really looking forward to you being 50 year old doctors because you won't have small children.
You're actually going to be able to speak your truth more than ever. Thank you. And you're going to have so much knowledge and therefore you're going to be able to help women. You're going to have more energy to help women. You're going to [00:44:00] share stuff that you feel very passionate about and that you know about because you've researched it on yourself.
And at this point, we have what I call. We, I got this from Jane Hardwick Collings, but the Marga years where actually we become very useful in serving society with the true gifts that we have. This is when we step into what I call our Dharma. So we could say raising children is Dharma, but for many of us, it's not.
We have children, but we feel like there's something missing and that's going to come to you when you realize your Dharma after you're 50.
And if we allow it, you know, like if we allow the time and the space. And so, actually, what we're doing at 50, what I'm meant to be doing at 50, I'm not doing podcasts, is pausing.
Mm. So that I can realize what it is that I'm actually meant to be doing with the next bit of my [00:45:00] life. The next bit of my life that I have to serve my community. Back in the day, this had been the point that I would have taught younger girls and mums where they need to go to gather berries and where it is that we've got around our community the types of food that we can forage that will keep us going in the winter months.
That's what I would have done. I would have shared that type of wisdom and I would have cared for the small children and done that. You know, other jobs that I could have done around the home and really that's what I can do now in society, but now I'm going to share yogic wisdom and, you know, anything and, you know, other stuff that I do, but it's just important that we take a pause.
That's what menopause is about. It's actually about saying in order for me to do that, I actually do need to take a rest because I've been working very, very hard and society doesn't really encourage that either, but if I think about it, I've been in a job, I [00:46:00] mean, I actually haven't been in a job like that since I was 18, but a lot of women that I see have worked in corporate jobs since they were, you know, they've gone to uni.
They've put a lot of pressure on themselves and then they've gone through that all the way up to 50. And then they sit with me and say, I'm bone tired. And I think, of course you are. You're exhausted. You've raised children. You've looked after your home. You've also held down a corporate job that you're not really enjoying because you can't enjoy it because you're exhausted.
And now you're telling me you're bone tired and you want me to help you to not be bone tired and to be able to get on still. And the truth is, there is no quick fix. What you need is rest. You need to rest for a bit, and pause, and take stock, and un learn. And this is when women will come to us and say, I'm tired, I've got all the things, I need all the hormones, I need all the things, and those things can help, but that's not the crux, that's not the point.
I think [00:47:00] hearing you talk about This in this way is something that very many women won't have heard before, and it's not the point of view is commonly or at all shared. No, that's, it's not culturally accepted. It's not. At all. It's absolutely not. Because again, it's like, d I think it's just incredibly, incredibly important for women to hear this because they need to understand just what the opportunity is here and conversely, what the consequences can be of not listening or realizing Because we are asking things of our bodies that I don't think we have asked at other times in history, you know, and of course we feel like we're failing or we're not living up to the standards that have been set with us for us because they're ridiculous.
They're completely ridiculous and they don't make any of us happy, let's be [00:48:00] clear. And the more women that actually give themselves the space to wake up and the, and the permission to say, no, this doesn't work for me. That's going to be the catalyst for change. Because we've been sold the idea that if we went to, studied really hard, we went to uni, we did these jobs we would be successful and we would make the money and we would have all the things we needed to have.
And people would, We would feel validated externally and people would say, yeah, you're smart or you're, you're achieving all the things and you're on all the committees. I mean, that didn't make me happy, make you happy. And I see every single woman that I see, well, many of them, It's not making them happy either, but I think they don't have the time to realize that because they're not sitting with themselves instead It's coming out in all of these other ways.
Yes, because everyone's exhausted Yeah, and their bodies are telling them that and we're putting the blame onto menopause. [00:49:00] Yeah Absolutely, and and I was thinking as you're saying that if we get back to that point And and I think what you said was so important You've done all this study to become who you are and then I'm saying You Now you need to rest.
What, what happens? What's the fear that comes up in that? So just imagine that you hadn't changed your , you were still working the, the way that you were previous to this. What, what would be your fear be? The fear is I didn't know who I was. That's the fear. I have no idea what, but what's the fear about stopping?
What, what if I told you you have to take a year off work? I wouldn't know what my identity was. What good would I be? What would, what would your career? Yes. What would happen to your career? Mm, yes. You, it would be a fear of like your relevance and what people would think that's what it would be. And whether you would be passed over, whether you would lose your place on the great ladder of success because you've been told that's what you're working towards, you know, and you've already struggled [00:50:00] because you had children, so you've already had to fight harder to be maintain your place on the ladder of the great ladder of success.
And now I'm saying, Oh, but you need to rest now. Like, well, what will happen if I rest? And the truth is nothing will happen. Except you might meet your soul, which can actually be probably scary for many people, but also like, I think when we talk about, you know, we're coming from two probably type a perfectionist because that's what we felt like we had to be to survive.
And Ticking all the boxes and doing all the things. Yep. And I think you're right, like when you think about looking forward at 50, because I've actually really cut back a bit on my hours so that I can be there for my small child who I had later in life, because I don't think I was ever even given the, given the opportunity.
I mean it was all about, you're not going to have children young, you have to go and do these other things. So it wasn't something that I prioritised. And I didn't find, and [00:51:00] I didn't find the right person public because I didn't prioritise it, a Um, buth, looking forward to that time at 50.
Really actually having the energy to, that outward energy to, to teach and all of that. Yeah, I can see that, but I don't think I would, will get there unless I had been able to sit with myself and see, there's a thing that Sam does when you're doing sadhana at the end of meditation where she says, now just be still and sit with yourself eye to eye.
And I just imagine that there's, there's that higher self version of me, that pure. It's not polluted by all of the conditioning that's sitting right in front of me. It's like mirroring me and our foreheads are touching and it's just this, it's just such a beautiful moment where you then know who you are and you can hear that whispering voice and it's just like so [00:52:00] profound because if you don't get that opportunity, then you continue to think that the things that you need to do are.
Uh, uh, uh, subscribed or assigned to you by all the other voices and then you're running around like a headless chicken trying to achieve all of that and knowing, never feeling that peace. That's right. And I love Sam, what you were saying about you know, midlife being when we realize our own mortality, because I think that is such a powerful, powerful, uh, motivator, you know?
And we think, hang on, like, this is my one life to live. Do I want it to be working 10 hour days and running a home and feeling tired and not having a sense of joy in the day to day moments, or do I want to actually do the thing that's going to help me make the change? Towards happiness and towards a fulfilled [00:53:00] life and towards your dama.
And I think sometimes the conversation about perimenopause and menopause and the distraction of it all makes us not think about that for a moment and think if we do all these things then that maybe that mortality isn't gonna happen, but it is gonna happen and, but we are going to have spent so much time.
Mindlessly consuming or running away from that point that we're not able to tap into the most meaningful experience we can have on this planet. Well, most of the time, as you're talking, I was just thinking it's, it's about, again, not aging. We have a fear of what's going to happen to our body, and again, I just want to reiterate that.
This is the body glove. So it's not, it's not, it's not who you are. And the aging, you know, I've always thought how weird it would be not to have wrinkles, not to have my frown lines from when I frowned at my children. Cause I've definitely done that. [00:54:00] And, you know, and I don't want that to not be there because it reminds me, oh, I was, I was quite harsh on you sometimes and I can see that I did that because I didn't listen to what I needed and that's why I was frowning all the time.
I don't want to not be reminded. I want to be remember that when I look in the mirror that I want to smile more. I think smile lines are beautiful and There's something that you should be able to see and seeing the face of someone who's 10, 20 years older than you. It's very rare that I look at a face of someone who's 10 or 20 years older than me and is naturally aged that I think anything but how beautiful it is to see that age in their face.
The same with their body. You're never going to be happier with your body than you are now. I guarantee that because if I was to show you a picture of you 10 years ago, you And you're going to have been happier with the body then that you look at now. Does that make sense to you? You're, you're never going to have this moment again.
[00:55:00] Your body looks brilliant as it is now. And that's the thing we have to get used to. Yes, things are going to change. Yes, your skin is going to get saggier. Yes, you're not going to have as much muscles. Yes, you might have wrinkles. There's a number of things that's going to happen to your body, but it's not what makes you beautiful.
What makes you beautiful is who you are and what you're doing with this life. And if you're in joy, you're going to be more beautiful. If you are at peace, you're not going to have as many wrinkles. If you meditate often, it really does change that quite significantly, interestingly. So it's just thinking I am being sold a story that is keeping me distracted from really realizing who I am and what I am.
And that story is actually meaning that we just Spend so much money on unnecessary things like beauty, products, clothes I don't know, going to see therapists, going to see doctors. I [00:56:00] mean, they, they're all things that cost money that if you didn't have to do that because you were actually living a life that made you happy, you wouldn't need to do the work that you're currently doing.
And I know that sounds idealistic. But I'm pretty sure I could prove that on paper, you know, because that's what I believe that we are seemingly spending a great deal of money. Trying to find happiness outside of ourselves. Yes. And resisting change, not allowing life to unfold, but resisting. Yeah, that's right.
Hmm. Because we're scared of change. Yes. We're scared of, because we don't, because ultimately, and this is why this, this point of life is so important. Every month when we cycle, we go through a sort of mini menopause. They talk about this in red school, but it's the point where we bleed. I want you to just contemplate this for a moment.
As a woman, we bleed. We [00:57:00] outwardly bleed. If we didn't know what it was, we would be scared because it would feel like we're about to die because we're losing blood. So we effectively face our mortality each month and we're invited to be stiller and be quieter. We're tired. We have an opportunity to go inward and really ask ourselves each month whilst we're still bleeding.
Who am I? What am I doing with this one life? If I get an opportunity to start a new cycle tomorrow, if I wake up from my sleep tonight, what will I do with that life? And this is what I think menopause is, is a much bigger version of this, a much bigger point where we say, Yes, I'm not going to live forever.
So am I going to carry on doing it the way I'm doing it now? And do I want to spend most of my time worrying about the fact that I've got a little bit of a hodge around my belly or I've got stretch marks or what people call cellulite? Blah, blah, blah.
The [00:58:00] thing is, the thing is we can embrace it and we can lean into it and we can learn from it and we can experience profound shifts in the way we move through the world, or we can resist it. We can turn it off. We can take medications, numb it, numb it in an attempt to keep things as they were.
But also the thing is, if we think that this physical body is all there is, which is what We're told then that amplifies the fear and the fear of change, the fear of wrinkles, the fear of aging.
But if you understand that there's more to you than the physical body, that is probably cyclical in a way that we don't quite understand until we get there either, then we don't have to fear that. And I think that is also the value of being able to access and meet our soul, that part of us that is eternal and unchanging.
Which, you know, which I think midlife is that opportunity for us [00:59:00] to turn towards and meet. And if we're continually distracted, we're never going to meet part of us and we'll always be scared. That's right. And always chasing and clinging on to this ridiculous thing. And it's not new. It's like, you know, elixirs of youth or whatever have been around for a long time.
But I think this going inward is the point, because it shifts our philosophy, shifts our whole outlook on this part of life.
In our previous episode, when you, so I just want to go back to that because it was really interesting to me that. You were saying that at the conference you went to, they showed brains and they showed a shift in the brain.
Can we just recap on that? And then you said, Oh, that's where they're showing wisdom coming in. Can you just recap that? A very well known researcher was talking about her longitudinal studies on women [01:00:00] before menopause. During menopause and after menopause, and in fact, she found that the changes in cognition and what we might call brain fog during the menopause transition were actually uh, correlated with rewiring going on in the brain from being You know, predominantly using one side of our brain to a massive increase in connectivity between hemispheres and within the hippocampus of the brain and with a really big increase in efficiency, so the way that that messages were sent within the brain and Your take on that, Peta, was just like seeing an image of the gaining or the getting of wisdom.
That's what it looked like. It was, and it's just counter to all of the things that we're told about brain health and menopause. That's right. And, and I also think if we can. Uh, if we are continually distracted by the need to be young, to be doing the things we've always done for [01:01:00] nothing ever to change, we can not take advantage of that getting of wisdom and that sharing of wisdom with our community as well.
Like we're just, we miss it all. We miss that. S. So yeah, I think we've, this has been a long episode, which was going to start off being holistic treatment, but I think we'll change, we've changed it. It's called spiritual dimension of perimenopause. Yeah, and I, that's what I was just thinking too.
This has gone on longer. We haven't really talked about any of the things that you can do. We can do that in another episode. Yeah. One of the things I just want to say is I feel like sometimes when we talk like this and it's deep and it's spiritual, it can sound like, you know, it's It's not grounded. D that it's not coming from that place of understanding and living.
And one of the things that I will honestly say is that I'm very grounded in my life. And I feel that I am very [01:02:00] grounded in the fact that I have four teenage or no, not 14, eight, well, one's an adult now, but children who keep me very grounded and keep me real and call me out on some of the concepts that I have quite a lot.
And the reason I'm saying that is because I am not someone who goes in for airy fairy or the sort of way that spirituality has been made to become so materialistic recently, I don't think that that's necessary. I don't think that you, anyone needs to go and buy lots of crystals or start using sage or doing any of these other things.
And actually, even the fact that I practice Kundalini yoga is not something that I would say anyone has to do in order to find themselves. There are many ways and it could be that you just decide to go and sit with a tree each day. Or dance for three minutes a day or for however long, it's not that there is just one way.
Yes, or [01:03:00] journal, that's right, sit and journal. So what I'm trying to say with this is, you know, sometimes it can sound like this is becoming prescriptive and I don't think it's about that. I feel like we have to, as we've said previously, follow the breadcrumbs that come to you. Start to listen to what it is that you're being called to.
If you don't feel happy in your life, start to sit for a moment and ask yourself why. In yoga we call this self inquiry. I think it's called that probably in other realms as well, like psychology and psychiatry, but it's very much an important aspect of awakening is where we have to ask of each belief, is that true?
So when we have the belief, we ask, is that true? I can't leave my job. Is that true? I can't change the way that I eat. Is that true? I can't possibly get up at 5am every morning. Is that true? That's what I was going to say, like on the topic of groundedness and things being airy fairy. [01:04:00] You know, Peta and I have both gone from working in incredibly busy jobs, coming to Vera, you know, I guess over the course of the years discovering a spiritual component to the way we in the way we practice medicine.
And, you know, both of us have small children, but we've both joined you in doing sadhana and that daily spiritual practice, which we both do at five o'clock in the morning before the kids get up or often with kids climbing all over us. And. You know, have found it to be absolutely transformative and really profound and actually like an integral part of being able to work and live in alignment.
D it's simply just that sitting with yourself each day. And that's right. And and I believe that's incredibly true. It is just that finding that space. [01:05:00] And that's why I believe we just need to understand that to a certain degree, I think that a spiritual life has been made to be woo woo, to be something that isn't possible, or something that is too left field to and it will make you look unprofessional and uneducated.
And I think that's part of the destruction. Mm. But also, if you can find that peace, You know, like there's been a bazillion, million studies on meditation and the effects on cognitive function and stress and our nervous system, which we then know if we have a nervous system that's more easily regulated and flexible, that our immune system works better, our gut health is better you know, everything functions better better in our body and there's, there's scientific evidence about that, you know, and I just would [01:06:00] like from a personal point of view that this, like that sitting with myself, that practice has allowed me to be a better parent, to be a better doctor, to be far more easily remain in that window of regulation and not lose my shit.
And then, you know, then that helps anxiety, it helps so many things.
It's helping with the relays in your life. Yes, and that's the relationship. So our lives because we are humans we co regulate each other.
We are to a certain degree co dependent on each other. We, we do need each other, but we are also taught bizarrely to try not to, or that that would be bad to rely on someone else. But I'm not being funny, but if anything that you do in life relies on someone else, if you go to the supermarket, if you buy clothes, if you, you don't do that, you, you don't make everything.
You don't provide yourself with everything. We need each other. And [01:07:00] This learning how to relay how to have a relationship with others, whether it's our children, our partners, the people we work with, that is actually mastery of this life because life is a relay. And the problem is that we've got confused by thinking that we Need the other to love us, to need us, to that to validate us.
And the truth is once we understand and sit with these real relays, we realize that we're the one that we need to come back to and to love ourselves, to validate ourselves, to listen to ourselves and to make time for ourselves. When we start to do that. The other relationships just strangely get better.
I think that it also helps you to question what beliefs are mine and what beliefs are not mine and then make changes that are actually going to serve you and help you to be in alignment with where you are now and where you [01:08:00] want to go. Because without making those connections, you will continue to do the same thing, be on the same treadmill and then nothing ever changes.
So it's like the crux of everything is to sit with yourself eye to eye as Sam so eloquently puts it and we'll leave it here because it was a big heavy episode.
So thank you so much for sharing Sam and being so vulnerable again, because I think so many women can learn from the power of your words and your story.
And I think so many women will be incredibly inspired as well, by your journey and where you come from and where you're going and where you are now. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you. And please, if you like this episode, share it subscribe or and you can also find us on our Instagram, VeraWellness.com. au. Any questions to hello at VeraWellness. com. au. Thank you so much. [01:09:00]
DISCLAIMER:
This podcast is for information and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
