Naomi Watts On The Bermuda Triangle Of Women's Health [re-release]

You're listening to a mother and Mia podcast.

Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. Hello, it's Maya popping into your ears to share another interview with Naomi Watts. Well, it's kind of an interview. So many of you loved the conversation that we had earlier in the week about her book Dare I Say It, and her experience with early menopause and what her life has been like.

Scroll back in your feet and listen to that if you missed it. But I wanted to drop this episode back into your feed because you might have missed it from last year. It was a conversation I had with Naomi and Alison bray Dado, who used to be a Dolly model and has become a menopause advocate like Naomi, and also doctor Ginny Mansberg, who's written a brilliant book

I knew nothing. I did know that my mother went into menopause, but no other information surrounding that. I didn't know that she had a number of years leading up to that point that she may or may not have suffered. I didn't know that she possibly had a myriad of symptoms. I didn't know that it occurred on a day, you know. I just knew nothing, and what happened with me. My symptoms mostly that occurred were around shame and fear and anxiety because I happened to go to my doctor and say, look,

A blood panel.

I took the bloods and the blood suggested that I was close to menopause, and so that's where the panic came in.

I literally fought old with you.

I was thirty six, So that was the first uttering of that comment being introduced to me. I went to my mother and said, what the actual beep? Why didn't you tell me more? And she said, well, these were the conversations I never had with my mother because she never had them with hers. And so the cycle went on, and that just flawed me, like, how has that happened? When we know that half the population will get there at some point, as you said, how is that actually possible?

Allison? Had you talked to anyone about minnopause or perimenopause before it happened to you? How old were you I was?

I think I was about forty five forty six when I got my first symptom, and that was just a change in my cycle that was really radical. Might go from two weeks to heavy bleeding to no bleeding. But I hadn't even heard the word perimenopause. That was a brand new word. I was like, what the hell is that? And I thought menopause was just your period stopping. I

Was all there.

So I was deeply shocked, and that was the reason for writing the book and researching more about it, because it was something that I had two older sisters, a mom not a word, group of women not a word. I was just left very alone in that as well, and I think a lot of women feel that way if they haven't been you know, explained symptoms and what can go wrong and what can go right as well, but a real sense of loneliness.

Ginny Australian women. I'm told love to say I'm going to get my hormones checked because I think that's when I noticed changes in my cycle. I also just assumed that menopause was like a slow turning off of the tap. In actual fact, my tap turned on, which I really wasn't expecting. I'd always had pretty light periods and then

So a lot of people don't realize this. Menopause is a single day. So it's a day that happens twelve months to the day from the first day of your last period. Only you didn't know it was your last period because at that point they're all over the place. You didn't know whether another one was coming in three months or six months or two weeks for all you know. So if you are, you know, switched on enough to remember,

That is the absolute car crash.

And there actually are two phases of perimenopause.

We're just skimmed right over that. I know there are two phases.

The first one is when ovulation kind of goes and you're not ovulating that much. If you don't ovulate, you don't get a lot of progesterone see progesterine levels drop. But at that point your brain is still trying to kick your overariaes into gear and so it's putting out heaps of stimulating hormone. So your estrogen is going up and down like a yo yo. So I could do a blood test for you at nine am Monday morning, do the same blood test Tuesday afternoon, and the levels

But we also know that your.

Blood levels of hormones correlate very poorly with your symptoms, so it's a really unhelpful test. We know that individual women, I see maybe ten new patients a day with pery and menopause symptoms, I have never met to the same.

Everybody is different.

That makes it really difficult to manage because getting support from your friends can be really difficult. But at the same time, the hormone tests don't bother. It's really a waste of time.

Can you explain to everyone what estrogen is responsible for in the body? That is, you know, how long is a piece of string in every single organ of your body, from your heart to every joint to your skin, to every bit of collagen in your joints, in your bones, in your muscles, through to your brain.

Unbelievable numbers of estrogen receptors in your brain, in your guts, in your lungs. Receptors are everywhere, and they do different things in different body parts. And that's why when I started specializing in menopause, I think we had seven symptoms of menopause. We just cracked fifty three because we just added chronic cough to the mix, which is a brand new one. Welcome to the club, chronic cough. That feels

Some of the more physical symptoms like hot flushes, insomnia, those kinds of things a fairly well known, you know, cycle irregularity. I think what was a shock to me and a lot of women is the emotional changes. Alie. Can I ask you what was your emotional and mental state, like when you were going through Perry.

Well, that for me was you know, if someone asked me what was the hardest part of perimenopause, it was absolutely the emotional toll that it took on me. And I always thought of myself as a fairly optimistic person, but I became severely anxious. I became depressed. There were days I did not want to get out of bed. There were days that I thought it'd be better off if I wasn't around. I take too much of a toll on my family. I couldn't see that I was

Like what is happening right now?

I got myself to a therapist at that point because I'd never had those kind of thoughts ever, and there was no reason for it, you know, it was just my hormones just but that was by far the hardest part for me. Naomi, what about you, Yeah, I think so this timing of the pregnancy thing, like I was

I wasn't a candidate for IVF, inseminations weren't working for me, cloonate nothing, so I did natural interventions. Mercifully, I was able to get pregnant. As soon as I had my second child. I basically went into hardcore symptoms, and like you said, perimenopause was not a word that I knew of or my doctors were using. I then went into the shame part again. I went into oh my god, I'm finished. I'm no longer sexy. I work in Hollywood, you know, and if you're not fertile, you're unfuckable.

And I'd actually heard.

That term from an agent from long ago. You better get going, you better put your pedal to the metal. Work, work work, because you've only gotten till you're forty. And I said, what is that why? And he goes, well, you know, you become unfuckable and you can't play a leading lady.

So that was just shocking to be so for you. It had career implications for sure.

So the shame and the panic and the loneliness. But as I said, my doctor was well educated and walked me through it. I trusted my doctor, so the symptoms that I had were dealt with pretty quickly. I've been on HRT for a lot of years now. I'm a big advocate of it because it's all a cycle. I couldn't sleep, You then get brain fog, you then get depression, You then get all kinds of things, so you're on a cycle of going nowhere fast?

Did anyone else have rage? Just me? Then rage and weepage? No?

No, no, I'm with you.

So we know that one in three women will get anxiety and all depression around this time, and what a lot of us never talk about. And in this country we rightly acknowledge perinatal and postnatal depression, anxiety, and it's really well funded, which is great, But the peak period of vulnerability in a woman's life is actually around perimenopause

You know.

It's not a great inspiring figure out there. And we know that the main symptoms because it does look a bit different, the anxiety and depression, and it often hits people who've never had a mental health issue ever in their life. But what we know is the rage is a big one, you know, that just pissed off with everybody, the weepiness, extreme anxiety, These are the sorts of things

And then throw in some teenagers.

Just to top it off.

Doesn't Mother nature give us teenagers at the worst time of our lives and elderly parents as well, because we're all like, you know, you've got to take mum to the doctor. And then take the kid to another call from the principle again.

Yeah, I wanted to ask about identity because it does happen at a time when you are aware that you're becoming invisible in society, when our culture is telling women to get in the bin because we are no longer fertile, we are no longer in our early twenties, and we live in a very youth obsessed culture. Allison, you are a model. You literally earned a living from the way you looked. What kind of reckoning was this time for you in terms of identity and self image?

I mean I was lucky in the sense that I'd left the modeling industry and was doing other work that was more well, it wasn't based on my looks, so that actually helped me going into perimenopause. But at the same time, I had moved back from America, so I was in Australia when all the perimenopause and menopausal stuff hit. So I was very much recognized as that old Dolly girl, Cosmo girl model. So it was really interesting for a while.

Felt very let down by you.

I know, I remember you mentioned that to me.

I'm so disappointed in you. My god, how.

Dare you age? I've moved through that.

I thought there's no way I can stay in that space and it's just not a good place to stay in. So we will get to the plus sides of metopause eventually, but you know, I had to really sort of dig deep into myself in a way and go, well, who am I? It really made me look at myself as a woman menopause and just go, Okay, who am I? Who do I want to be? And really, it's not about how I look. It's got to be how I feel. It's got to be how I feel. And I would say that over and over again, and how do I

Sigh, sixteen fourteen. It's great. As long as I feel good, and that was my goal.

Ginny, Allie and I were all with our partners pre and during and so far post Harry, I'm not there yet, oh okay, which was challenging in many ways. Naomi, you were dating at that time or with new partner, What was that like to navigate? Because this was not someone who'd seen you give birth and you know, had gone through all of those things with you, and you talked about feeling, oh, you've got to be young and hot, and what was that like?

Yeah, and I'll go carefully here to protect the privacy of my relationship, but I will say it was a very awkward time because of the points you just made. I didn't know how squeamish he would be, and like, you know, the idea of exposing such personal things so that I knew I felt ashamed of how would he feel? Ultimately, keeping secrets is too exhausting.

And it's hard to hide a patch when you're in had to hide a patch.

It's hard to hide the moods.

It's hard to you know, just show up in the ways that you may have in your twenties and thirties. And so ultimately I made the decision. I thought, well, this is a great litmus test. Let me see how it lands with this. And I just got really honest with him, and he was like, oh wow, cool, just tell me how I can help. What do I do? And empathy straight away, and you know, a few jokes

And now we're married, and I've seen the way he looks at you, and everyone should have someone that looks at them like he looks at you. So it clearly was not an impediment to your relationship.

Just to add to that, I would say anyone who's going through that, because it is common. Marriages do break down, marriages will change, and people are meeting their second partners, and I think communication is absolutely key and it's the only way to educate. It's not a failing. It was always supposed to be part of what would happen with your hormonal cycle. And leaning into it, like you said, and owning it is just the only way.

To deal with it.

And the more people understand it, the more we normalize and open this conversation just get used to it the better.

And I also think talking to our kids. I mean, you know, gen X, we do like to talk. So my kids. I remember one poor one of them one night just said, I'm just wondering how long actually does perimenopause last. I got very angry. But they know a lot about it. You know, my teenagers and my oldest son, they know a lot about it. So that will be good for both the boys and the girls of the

So I'm going to do a really quick reader's digest I know I'm a boomer, a reader's digest version of what happened and to make HRT get linked to cancer and why so many women are terrified of taking it today. So back in the nineteen nineties, a lot of American studies, which were population studies, you took entire groups of people they had found that in fact, women who were taking hormone replacement therapy. Back in those days, it was synthetic

But there is this fear that has pervaded all of the.

Women, and to this day, to my horror, there are still black box warnings on every form of HRT that most.

Of us here what to back box warning.

So that's a mandatory government led warning that says this thing can give you breast cancer. I mean you, and I will chuck out the packet inserts and.

Just say, don't that on my packet. I ignore it. But they are there.

Those warnings are there, and for women who take their hell seriously and actually read the packet inserts, that's terrify.

Before we move on to identity, and I'm going to ask about this reinvention stage of life, which is one of the most positive things that come with being this age and going through this What should someone do, Like, if there is so much misinformation out there, what do you do? What's the first port of call?

So I think, as I said, there are no two women who are the same, and even getting the right HRT formulation, it can take a lot of kissing a lot of frogs to get your handsome prints and get you to the place where you feel right. And you need to work with a doctor who will listen to you. Not everybody needs or wants HRT, and there are other options out there. It's not the only thing. The problem is with that fifty three symptoms that we talked about.

Up next, we talked about a lot of things that kiss us off, as you just heard, but there are actually a lot of positives to going through this phase of life. Stay with us because we're going to talk about those. I would like to talk about the freeing nature of what can happen in this life stage because we've talked and been honest about some of the more negative things, and hopefully there are more women won't go through it because there are more women speaking out now.

But you decided to start.

A business at this life stage. You know, there are a lot of actors and celebrities who are doing skincare and doing makeup. Starting a line of menopause products is not the most sexiest choice you could have made. Why did you choose? You know, with the launch of Stripes to do this.

I think given that I had been living with the secret for so long and feeling that shame and not being able to discuss it even amongst my friends. I did sort of crack jokes with my friends about having an estrogen dep and it was always met with a nervous laugh, you know. So I was like, Okay, that was a feeler check. No one else is in menopause around me, so I'll keep quiet. And I think after a certain number of years, you just get bored of that. And then I started to really just become my own

This is Vadge of Honor. Yeah, can we talk about badges because I know everyone's been so excited to talk about badges. The Vadge moisturizer ile in the in the chemist. It's just not it's not one that you will find easily, and it's not one that you will probably be comfortable asking the very young, usually males, sales assistant to help you find.

And it's not one you want to bump into anyone else.

No, you don't want to pause too long there, and because of all the shame. You know, there's a lot of things to It's not just about your top, it's also about the bottom areas. I love that you've got two Vadge products. Yeah, what do they do?

There's a lube as well, which is somewhere else. What's it called play oil oil? And it's called oh my glide and my Glide.

Yeah.

We've tried to have fun with the names because I love that you've heard us bitch and moan here and about all of the negatives. And they look they will look nice next to your bed or in your bedside table. Yes, that's not something that you have to necessarily hide. I wanted to have fun with the names and the color palette and feel like this is actually a vibrant time in our lives. Look at all of you women here, You're all doing fantastic things. It's not the end. There's

Alie, I wanted to ask you about you know, you spoke really movingly and thank you for sharing that about your rock bottom essentially. But then when we were talking in the green room about what happened after that and what benefits this life stage is brought to you, can you speak a bit about that?

Yeah, Well, I think, like anything in life sometimes is sort of like what can menopause like do for you? And that was my as I said, that was my goal was sort of like I knew I needed to move out of this depressed state. I knew I needed to help my body, and in doing that, there was so much that.

Happened during that time.

I can honestly say I'm so grateful I've went through perimenopause and menopause, and I feel like it's something that it can feel like a doom and gloom thing on your horizon, but there's like an allocating of your tools that start to happen as well. That's what I found. Like I'd always been this outgoing give a give a giver who needs this? That who needs this? And I was bottom of the list constantly, And when perimenopause and menopause hit, all of a sudden, I became top of

Like what changed? What took you to the top of the list? Just because you were so unpleasant to be around? Everyone else went away? That's what happened to me.

It was just those things of going what do I need? Just it was that simple question what do I actually need? Because I'd felt so crap and I was like, what do I need to make myself feel better? I need to pull back from work, I need to have a massage. I need to go for a walk. I need to just go to my room and just cry for a bit. I need to go read a book, and it was just it was little subtle things, and you know what I really needed to do. I really needed to start

Can you just be nice? Just be nice to yourself.

So I really pulled back on that self critical talk, and I felt so much free them and that I said no when I wanted to say no. I said yes when I wanted to say yes. And I started trying new things. I picked up different careers, I let go of fear of things, and so I actually found an incredibly invigorating to go through perimenopause and get to

I'm happier now and healthier now than I ever have been.

Ginny. One of the things that a lot of women experience around this time is a change in libido, and sometimes they feel that it might be that I don't love their partner anymore. And it's no accident that a lot of women get divorced at this time. What do you see and what advice do you give to the women that you see in terms of managing that, because it might not be in concert with the partner in their life if they have one.

Okay, so a couple of things. First of all, your vagina, we have to talk about her. Your vagina has estrogen receptors, kind of said that they're everywhere. They help her to make the self cleaning fluid that is the vaginal discharge five meals is normal.

You never miss it so.

Much until you don't have it, because sex is really uncomfortable and you're not going to get libido happening if it feels like your vagina is being rammed by sandpaper covered battering ramp, it's just not going.

To be fun, not sexy.

No, write that down. So note to self, Reno the VJJ first.

Okay.

The other thing is, if you are feeling really hot, another body on top of you is just your worst nightmare. And if you are exhausted and your hottest bedroom fantasy involves a sleep mask and a pillow, it's just not good for the libido. Let's say you've worked all of that out. There are two types of low libido. Low lobido number one is I really don't want this. I'm going to make an excuse. I'm going to be on the phone. I'm going to be brushing my teeth for an hour, hoping.

He falls asleep.

But then occasionally you give in, you do it, and you go, you know what, that was actually quite good. I should probably do that more often. We call that being married. That's very common.

Okay.

Low libido number two is quite different. Okay, that is, well, that's ten minutes of my life. I don't get back. I didn't orgasm, you can't orgasm, you have no sexual fantasies, and you never ever masturbate. Now we never talk about this, but that is called hyperactive sexual desire disorder. I ask all my new patients about this. They're just horrified, predible, and ask them about their masturbation.

But when we do.

Ask, there's a reason because if you meet the criteria for hyperactive sexual desire disorder, which.

Is more common. I'm not asking for a show of hands, but statistically, but if you want to but where about ten percent.

Of the population fit that criteria and you have low testosterone levels, the advice of the International Menopause Society is that you would benefit from testosterone. Now, in the case of women, we are very lucky here in Australia. We have a product that's formulated here and manufactured.

Here in Australia.

You put a little bit like on kind of around your bikini line, keep changing it otherwise you're going to grow black hair where you don't want it on your belly.

As if the patch is not off putting enough.

So is it a cream or it's a cream and you put one meal on a day and then we retest your testosterone levels. But it is a game changer as to whether it gives you other benefits. Brain benefits, gets rid of your brain fag, gets rid of depression. Have any of you heard of doctor Louise Newsoen in the UK. Yes, I'm a big fan of hers. She runs multiple clinics in the UK, and she has actually a data scientist working within her clinics, so everybody has

Throwning Wow, it's a lot to take in. Yeah.

Actually, I'll say I just added that to my routine. I had tried it earlier on and I didn't like it at the time that I tried it, And this is just a testament to what you said before about hormones going up and down, and obviously I didn't need it that much. I even got like a little bit of that, oh you know, like the male kind of rage, I suppose, so I stopped it, and then recently I've added it. In America, we're given drops. Do you not like those?

Just not great absorption? Okay, just stock up while you're here, because because they sell me. But I actually I'll give you negotiate your tree to.

Speak to the brain fog.

Yes, it makes me clearer and more focused in say a meeting or you know, a situation where you have to be more on top of things, more in control.

And because we're not trying to turn you into a man, we're not giving you the kind of testosterone levels that are going to actually make you turn into a bloke.

We're trying to get.

Your testosterone levels up to a premenopausal woman's test austerone levels.

That's all I've heard.

It can if you overdo it, your clitoris can change.

It does it grows, You can grow a penis. Don't do that.

Not Attractive's so many things today, But will continue to monitor your blood levels.

We're giving you.

Really tiny amounts, hopefully not mandatory for every menopause check. If you want to avoid the doctor, that's.

It's an option. I wanted to ask all of you actually about the brain fog because for me, that was one of the things I struggled with most, and it's responsible for a lot of women leaving the workforce. We've seen data on that it does happen. I know that in terms of my self esteem it really affected it because I, you know, trying to run a business. I pride myself on being pretty sharp, and I just really

What is our brain? Yeah? Absolutely definitely.

And I was always the one that held the memory in the partnership between me and Cam, like always got brain fog, so he would always rely on me to remember people's names and birthdays and stuff, and I just that just started slipping away. So yeah, that was definitely something, and it's still there, like it's I'm not.

As sharp as I used to be for sure.

But on that topic, I was just sent just recently a preview of a book it's coming out next year. She's a neurologist, a top neurologist in Australia, Lisa mcconysconi Miscony. She's written a book called Menopause Brain. And they actually do imaging.

Remember I'm glad between the four of us we could remember the names.

I'm so excited.

And they did imaging of perimenopause, menopause and post menopause and how the brain actually changes, and it was I thought that was so interesting because you know, this idea that we're sort of left as women that I'm going crazy or I don't know, I just feel off. And that's why I think part of the challenge of going to a doctor is because you can't often define what

So yeah, long answer, but yeah, I had brain fog. No, that was great.

And if I can add to it, like we should start this conversation in sex ed at school when they start the conversation about puberty. This is the bookend. It's an adult version of it.

You know, take it. That's us puberty, right. Yeah.

Basically, I know I've sat here making jokes about hormones and everything. I take it very seriously, and I know it's not everyone's choice or possibly not safe for everyone, but to have your doctor walk you through it is absolutely key to if we could have just a simple medical alignment on what's going on. Because there are so many doctors that disagree with each other and still uphold this bad messaging. We need to know that we need better research for women.

It's just not enough.

We're living longer, so why can't we be better set up? And you have to be a little bit of your own best advocate. But you also need to demand more from your doctors. And it's absolutely true. I've sat in many of these panels and watched surveys play out. They are not trained at all. It's up to them to get their training.

So you have to trust yourself.

But now with all of the information just arising as this conversation's opened up in the last couple of years, you can go at least equip with the right amount of questions and advocate for yourself.

One of the things that I think has just been so fantastic about living in this time now is we all talked about the secrecy, the shame, the stigma, the lack of information. I know when at Noma MEA we did the very very summit a few years ago, and there were tens of thousands of women that were like,

Like you guys, I hadn't heard of perimenopause, and I had a lot of misconceptions doctor, and I'm a adult doctor and I was doing women's health. And I'm so ashamed now cancel me for saying that. I know she's a woman, I know she's not a girl. But I feel now that I let the patients down because I had no idea what was going on.

And I'm really lucky.

That I host a podcast which is educational for doctors, and we had so many menopause specialists coming on, and every time I would hear someone like John Eden or Professor Rod Baber or Professor Susan Davis. Australia's got an unbelievable menopause specialist, I would think, I don't know any of this.

This is a black hole in my knowledge.

When the publishers of this book came to me and said we would like you to write a book on menopause, I was.

Like, fuck off, how old do you think I am? Yeah? And then and then I was like, oh wait, fifty yes, but were you a bit like that's not really Oh how I see myself?

I was like, I'm young, like joe't you want me to write a parenting book on toddlers?

But no? But then I was like okay, and I like fell into that.

You're like, there's so much to know and now there's like a network of like doctin most phenomenal handbook.

Thank you.

So when I first started practicing in menopause, because.

It hooks you in, because you can do more.

Good for people in this space in life than you can for any other group of people at all.

It's so addictive.

When I first started in this space, people would be very tentative coming to see me and really sheepish and what else could I do?

I don't really want to do hormones.

Now I'm very likely to have a forty one year old woman who says, Hi, I'm crying all the time. Can I have hormone replacement therapy? I'm like, wo, tanto, tell me about your periods.

But a lot of that.

I am really great full to the other three women on this panel who've made an enormous difference. I think starting with you may I remember when we first started talking about the Very Pery Summit. I was like, that is so brave. You're going to go out there and say that you're perimenopausal. And I think Ali's book coming out, but also I think particularly to Naomi, because the world has changed because of you and everybody in this room, and everybody is.

A beneficiary of that. So thank you. Just to wrap up, I wanted sort of just go through and ask each of you to sum up where you're at, you know now, with your symptoms, with your outlook, and what's great about being in your fifties.

My people, please, is pretty much gone to sleep. I find myself feeling way more creative than I ever have before. I feel like I'm ready to sort of try new things. It's a weird thing, like I think I'd had this idea that you got stuck in one line of work you just you couldn't change. You're too old to do this. For me, I could go do another course on something, or change complete careers and do something else that invigorates me. So yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to be a grandma.

So, yeah, I'm still in perimenopause and I've had a very easy journey. I feel very guilty about saying it. My worst thing was very heavy bleeding, so I needed.

To have How do you know you're still in perry Because I've got regular periods, so reasonably regular ish. But if you have a marina like I do, I do. Everyone wanted to know that, it can be hard to know. So a marina for those playing along at home is an IUD. Why don't we get the adoptor to tell us where the marina is instead of me?

So it's a little device that sits inside your uterus and it has progesterone that comes out every single day. It is a synthetic jestone, one of the old school ones. We don't have an available marina with the new body identical.

It means that you don't get your period, so it can be heart well, sorry, it's for some of us. Yeah people, I mean I still get my period because that's what it's got one too. Yeah, I've had one since my daughter was born. And she's twenty six now, so I just keep changing it every five years. But I definitely knew something was wrong when I was hosting radio at two GB. If anyone knows anything about.

What two GB is, it's not the radio station where it's really easy to do the walk of shame.

I imagine there aren't free tampons in the bathroom. There are.

I'm coma where they've worked out that no nobody steals tampons when you keep them at work. We actually, the Sisterhood says you just have respect for the fact that nobody wants to do the walk of shame. So when I had a massive flood into my jenes in the middle of a radio show and had to do the walk of shame, and you know what, is there anybody else in the building with a vagina and a tampon? No, and no was not able to go to the local seven line and just had to use a stacker toiler baker.

Naomi, want to finish with you. You've come out, you've overcome the stigma, the shame, you've launched a business, you've remarried. It's a pretty exciting time of your life from the outside. How's it feeling on the inside. Great?

But first, I'm married for the first time.

I will say first, yeah, which was really lovely white Well we all saw were so sheep.

I feel so and I lovely Sorry, Oh thank you, I think so too.

I feel like being on the other side of it now, understanding everything we've been through.

Everything.

Part of the reason I called it stripes was that this is a time to shine. This is a time to feel your best and feel like you can hold your head high. Your cumulative experiences matter, and you've earned your stripes. And so I wanted to sort of reinvent this narrative and make us feel like proud of this time. We do get to the other side and feel like

Sometimes. HRT is not a.

Silver bullet, but it is the gold standard and it's safe for me.

So I feel good.

I feel my best. I'm open to trying new things. I'm leaning into saying yes to as many opportunities and things that I haven't tried before. I don't care about the small shit anymore, or I give you less shits about it, And I feel like alive and like there's

I hope you enjoyed that. We certainly did. We had such a good time as I hope you could hear on that panel. I highly recommend follow all of these women on Instagram if you want to hear more from them, and we've got so many more resources at muma mia. If you are going through perimenopause or menopause, we'll put a link to those in the show notes. The executive producer of No fil Day is Kimberly Bradish, with sound production on this episode by Teagan Sadler and Madeline Juanni.