Yallo Yello yello. Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, It's Melon. Want Hello everybody Hello, Hello Hello. Maldy Meldy. That's what I used to call my producer from three pm pickup beautiful mal. We used to call her Maldi because she loved Aldi so changed, right, Yeah, obsessed with Aldi, Like she would strategically go like have her dad and a friend. They do different. Aldis for the specials dedication.
It's so hitt and miss, isn't it. Because some things you've bought from Aldie are great. Others yeah, so shit, anything that was a waste of money.
Totally. I wish I had the organization and desire and capacity to do my initial shop at Aldi and then do the rest at the supermarket. Like I totally admire people who do that. I couldn't think of anything worse. Same, same, And also because I don't go to Aldi. When I go, I feel really foreign there, like I don't know how to do it. If you you know, and think different brands and it rattles me.
That's the thing. It takes so much longer. You're not familiar with where things are and the chaos. We've spoken about this before, the chaos of the checkout is just too much stress.
It's too mucheep. You got to just throw it in the bag yourself.
Tu much, it's busy.
Oh talk about stress. The little things just stress me out. Like even the thought of that stresses me out.
Yeah, it's horrible. Well, well you know what you need. This is the first thing I want to talk about today. I saw this post on my Instagram that Sally Obermeda who you actually interviewed on the couch for Show and Tell years ago.
Yes, she lovely, lovely, she's a breast cancer survivor. Yes, she had this thing on her instagram. This idea of this dopamine menu. I'll play a little grab.
In order to get that dopamine hit. I'm going to build a dopamine menu. Let me talk you through what this is. So number one is an entree, So this is like a quick boost of dopamine. So it could be for example, playing with the dog or listen to like, you know music. Then you move on to what's called
like the main course. This is something where you have to allocate sometimes, so going to the beach for example, or infra red sauna, so something like that where it's going to make you feel good, or maybe it's like reading a book.
So, especially if you are someone who suffers from depression or ADHD or something where your dopamine isn't always as high as you like it to be. Just this thought of writing down things that you can do to because I guess one of the ways that we do try and get dopamine is, as she said, this doom scrolling stuff or just that mindless scrolling on social media.
Which I hate it so much because I find I get angry at people if they haven't even updated. Do you know what I mean? Why is there not enough good content here for me? Like I get frustrated with the whole. I get annoyed at myself. I get so annoyed at myself. How often I have the phone in my hand.
Yeah, I hate it.
It's very hard habit to break as well, because there are I will say, there are also good things about it, like how many times I laugh on Instagram. I see stuff I find so funny and I'm like, well, that in itself is a dopamine here, I think, yeah, totally. But it's also if you're chaotic, Like if I think of how many saved I save, I reckon I would save about one hundred things a day. Oh that's good, that's good. I have to remember that. And then I
just never go back and look at them. I reckon, I reckon, I'd have thousands of saved.
Wow, I don't have a save. I never. I don't even think I know how to save them, don't you know. Never. I screenshot things if I want to chat to you about it, and then I'll go back and find it save them.
Oh okay, well yeah, but just this, just this idea I think is really good of sort of productive ways to get your little dopamine hicks. And as she said, you know, there's varying degrees. One might be a massage or something.
Which is not possible to do all the time. Well, no, and so what are yours and what's your entree? I guess stuff like listening to a podcast that I keep pulling off and going, I'll listen to that later. I'll listen to that later.
Just little things. And that's another thing that's probably toxic is buying.
Oh bye, the buying, because it's such a bing, it's such a dopamine here and at the moment, I'm not bringing in any cash and I'm spending and I'm just seeing my bank account dwindle down because I bought another shirt which I definitely don't need. That just gave me that dopamine here, I feel like it's extra it is. It's hands down extra challenging if you've got ADHD, because your brain just craves dopamine more than the average Joe.
And I look at my kids and I'm like, they're so addicted to those YouTube shorts because it's just like bang bang bang, and so then nothing can give them that dopamine hit like those like it's their crack. But I get it.
I find that really worrying as well. Like my daughter's sixteen, and I notice things that I know that I go too far into things, but like she'll say to me, Oh, did you hear Monty Diamond got breast implants?
Right?
She'll say that, and I'll go, oh did she? And I'll ask her a question about it. She never goes beyond the headline yes, And I'm like, you have to read that, that could be clickbait. It's like they just don't have any attention at all, any know, to look into the facts of things, or they just accept everything and it's always quick. Everything's got to be quick.
Quick, quick, quick, But it's terrifying them not knowing what to do out like outside of that for the dopamine hit, but I also find it challenging too. I just really like even the simple things like lighting a candle does give me a snippet of a dopamine hit, but very minor.
Well, even if it is minor, I think that's the point, because there is the trap you can get into. If I look at myself. I used to be a smoker, right, that was a dopamine hit. Oh had eating There's very toxic ways that it can come out drinking too much alcohol. There's so like even if you become then obsessive with exercise, exercise is good for you, but when you're obsessive about it, it's not good.
Now.
I wish that I was more obsessive with exercise though, But things like a clean kitchen give me a dopamine hit. When I look at my house and it's clean after I've vacuumed the floor, that gives me a dopamine hit. Mine's quite cleaning related because it's a control thing that gives me it, you know.
And it makes you probably feel clearer in your mind, whole space is clearer.
I cannot function in a messy space like I hate it. It's such it clutters my brain so much when there's so much Like our house is so minimalist. I said to Sam this, our house is like too minimalist. It's it's quite boring. Where I need to get more plant, I need to get more around. But the more stuff we have, the more cluttered my brain gets.
Yeah, even even plants are punished because they get.
Dusty, they get dusty, and also watering them, like I kill so many plants, but I love plants. I'm like, I want to have something living in every room, but I can't even be bothered going and doing that.
Yeah, it's another thing on your to do list, But I think it's more even the idea of taking time out for yourself that we rarely do anymore, to do something that's not just looking at your phone like this is a stupid example, but even just like beating bracelets.
Yea's something that is mindfulness. That's why I when I love painting, but what turns me off doing that is setting it all up up and then packing it all up. And there's always like if ODI's around. He's like, I want to go on. I'm like no, like, no, this is my thing. But I do love doing it and it puts me and if I put music on and paint, I'm probably one of the happiest. I like in the happiest state that I can be in. Yeah, I don't do it enough.
Isn't it so funny that that is? Oh, this brings me to another thing that we can talk about. I was listening to we talked about this not long ago, the Diary of a CEO podcast, and he was interviewing doctor Martha Beck, who is like Oprah's life coach.
Wow, right, imagine being Oprah's life coach.
No pressure, Oh, no pressure, because.
She just outsmart you all the time. That's why Sam my partner does he can't click with the psychologist because he's done so much work and grew up kind of facilitating and facilitates a lot of people. Now he knows the start's a psychologist. Yeah, so it's like he's just he would never say that, but I'm like, that's why you don't want to do it.
I think it's when you're very self aware. If I go to a psychologist, which I've sort of given up on because I sit there and I'm like, when you say something and then they stop talking and there's silence, and then you need to feel the silence. I'm like, that's a strategy to keep me talking and see where it goes. Like it's like I'm always thinking they're out to trick me.
Ah, which they're not. They're there to help you.
Of course, but like you know, and they go, oh, yeah, but you're doing such a great job or whatever, and I'm like, I'm not here for that. I don't want you to tell me that. Yeah, I want you to help me.
Yeah, just how do we be a bit normal? Can you just fix this as you bind your main like I just sometimes might I just want to would love to take a tablet that just completely rewride my brain.
Oh amazing, imagine.
Yeah.
But yeah, So this doctor Martha Beck was saying to this guy who was interviewing her, how the trick to overcoming anxiety is to engage the right side of your brain, which is your creative brain.
Right.
So she does this exercise with him where they're talking. She asks him a scenario that makes him feel a bit anxious, and he was telling her, oh, maybe when I get home and I can see my girlfriend is annoyed about something. I ask her what's wrong. She doesn't tell me, and then I start ruminating on what's wrong with her or whatever. So he goes through how what makes him feel anxious? And then she says to him, Okay, I want to do this exercise with you. Close your eyes,
and she starts talking him through. Imagine you've got an orange in your hand. You can smell the orange, you can feel the peel under your fingers. Like she's very descriptive in what she says. And then she says to him, how's your anxiety now? And he goes like, I didn't even think about it because he was so engaged in the sensory stuff around the orange.
Right.
Yeah, So I think what she's saying is to shift gears to start that, she said, because when that creative side is fine and you're engaged in something, you can't be anxious while you're doing it. So if you are someone who loves painting, for example, I see it with my son when he's drawing. It's almost like I don't know, like I know people call it hyper focus, but I don't even think this is what it is, it's just you're so mindfulness.
It's not exactly what it is, but.
It's almost like you're not thinking.
Yes, your thoughts have stopped because you're just concentrating on what's in front of you. So yeah, it totally stops your thinking, which is so great. Another little trick that helps me sometimes because it's always about your breathing too.
When you're feeling anxious, it's like, take deep breaths. And so it's the five rule where you name five things you can see, Name four things that you can hear, Name three things that you can touch and smell and tap, and then you go, you know, to smell one taste. It's actually quite good because if you do it slowly, it takes a little bit of time and so it
just slows down that anxiety a little bit. Yes, there's so many little tricks like that, but it's so hard to do it when you're in the thick of it.
Yeah, because if you've got a very talkative brain, it's almost like you feel like there's a devil in an angel there and like you're trying to say, okay, I'll concentrate on the five things, and it's almost like then there's a voice going, Nah, how are you concentrating on that something very bad's gonna happen?
Shut up? Oh my god, that's funny. I don't have that. I don't have the very bad, but I have that. You can't be bothered doing this? This is bullshit, Like, just why stop? Yeah, God, we're our own worst enemies. We're so we're so basic yet so complicated.
Imagine you could harness those negative feelings that you have into good feelings or whatever, just into.
Proactive feelings, you know what I mean, Like it's just the Yeah, if you could twist them into them being more positive. Some people are wide like that. You and I are, hands down not wired like that.
This is why we are a great combo because we understand each other, but also a potentially very bad combo because I think we could feed off each other definitely.
Oh, hands down and we do.
How bad's life?
Fuck?
This is shit?
Yeah, changing years. I just want to get up a message that one of you legends wrote to us. It was Madison. Hey, Madison, thank you for sending messages. Love love love. Hearing from you guys like that gives me dopamine hits. So Show and Tell online is where you can find us on Instagram, but we talk a lot about perimenopause here. I'm currently on estrogen. I've got the Marina and I'm taking testosterone as well. Start. I started it a while ago. I'm not I'm still feeling extremely irritable,
and I did start. I wanted to go on it for my migraines. But I do think the other stuff I've been doing for my migraines is possibly helping more than this. But I'm too scared to stop anything because I'm having a good run. Yeah, but you've noticed quite a difference, haven't you. Well, I haven't started testosterone yet. I've actually got an appointment with her on Friday tomorrow.
I'm seeing my hormone specialist, and she had mentioned to me my testosterone was quite low, which felt a bit confusing because and when I say this sometimes I know I sound like hyper sexual. I'm not, but that part of my life is still very active, right. But that is one of the One of the symptoms of low
testosterone is low libido, which I don't have. But there's many other things like low mood, and there's also for people that do have ADHD, there's an additional complication there with there's things that you struggle with, emotional regulation, all that sort of stuff, and is testosterone meant help with that?
Well, it's meant to.
So she said, next time we'll start start you're on a little bit of testosterone because I'm not on estrogen anymore, because I aw because I think, well, the way she explained it to me, we first started on Does anyone care about this?
Yeah, I do.
Okay, we started on estrogen. And then when I saw her like a month later or whatever, they did my bloods and my estrogen was too high, and she said to me, stop the estrogen, and you like and because I wasn't having physical symptoms for me, it's all in my head, right, So she's like, one of the first things to start fucking up is your progesterone. So when they talk about estrogen dominance or whatever, it's just that your progesterone is too low, right, So I am on progesterone.
But she said, we're going to add in the testosterone and see and then once the physical stuff starts happening, then we'll add the estrogen back in.
But she said a lot of.
The time at the start of perimenopause, it's the mind stuff.
Right, which is why people can get confused. Yeah, okay, right, yeah, because I don't have many of the physical symptoms, very menopause, but my yeah, my brain fog for example, and my irritability, my capacity to yet have any I don't know, just everything. I just feel like, oh my god, I just need to be in a room by myself because everything and everyone irritates me. But that's why I'm like, maybe it's that hormones not working for me because I don't feel any different in my mental state.
They you should be getting sort of semi regular blood tests, right for them to check your levels. So if if you get your next one and they see, oh, your estrogen is high, well then there's probably no use in you taking the estrogen if it's too high. You know, also like, could it just be my personality? You know what I think is confusing as well. Our stage of life that we're in, especially for you. You've got a teenager, You've got Odie who's very small. You've got three kids,
all with different needs, different personalities. We're all in the same boat, right, Like we're parenting kids that like and there's so much pressure on us now get it right. Don't fuck them up, don't give them white bread, don't let them look at their phone. Don't It's like, I think a lot of it is also pressure, and it's hard to know the difference between is this something with my hormones? Is this just life actually does feel really hard right now when I'm having trouble coping.
Yes, yeah, totally, And it is. It's so hard to know, isn't it, Because so many people are like, you shouldn't have to feel like that. So that's why I think, oh, maybe it is perimenopause, because I just feel burr. Yeah, I'm not feeling a huge amount of joy, and I'm so irritable at my kids and I'm just like, fuck,
you're being very average at parenting. And then it gives me the guilty you know what I mean, Like I'll be I get so short at them the smallest thing like make your bed, and if they don't make their bed, I'm like, I don't have to keep asking you to do things like that's my tone with them all the time.
So it's exhausting. But I find it hard to let things go because I'm like, I have to teach you as well that you've got to have some responsibility, you know what I mean, like, just make your fucking bed. But they're not making their bed or something so simple drives me insane.
But do you know what?
That also then goes back to the social media stuff because you see stuff about you know, like videos come up and say, oh, kids that do chores are more successful later in life, and you're jumping ahead and I'm.
Like, you do, I do?
Yeah, they can't get this, then fuck, what's gonna happen when they're twenty.
You're not going to know how to make a bed or your spiral with it? Yeah?
Yeah, where all it is is a bed not made. But you do me, you do make it? Mean, Oh, I'm fucking them. They're lazy. They're not going to do anything like I totally do that. I'm like, no, I need to instill everything in you now so then you're a good adult. But in the process of doing that, I'm ruining my relationship with them because it's not it's not balanced because I don't like have a huge amount of energy because I've got chronic fatigue. My time is spent just telling them off.
Which is shit.
And that's why you feel shit because totally you think I said to my kids the other day in the car, I started ranting about something and then one thing I will say that I'm good at is I will apologize, right. So yeah, afterwards, I took a breath and I said,
I'm sorry, I'm just stressed out and whatever. And I said to them, you know, the thing that upsets me the most is that if tomorrow something bad happened to me and they said, oh, what are your memories of your mum, you'd probably say she was always yelling and she said, fuck a lot.
That's what they would like.
I know. I I think that too. I'm like, I'm a bit unlikable to you guys. Yeah, like why would they want to hang out with me? You know? Anyway you need to, apparently to have connection with your kids. Literally eight eight minutes a.
Day, I mean, I know, And what a low bar that is.
It's such a low bar. And so like this morning, I played Snap with Odie and I was like, there we go. That's that was eight minutes. But I'm conscious of the clock. I'm like, I want to sit here and play another round Snap.
I know. And the thing is, too, it's like I feel like they're needy because they're saying, oh, Mom, can we do this? And I'm like, no, I don't have time for that or whatever. And I'm like, all they want is to spend time with me. I'm gonna want that soon because they're not gonna want it anymore.
But also every.
Time I say to them, I've got too much work to do, I'm saying to them, that's more important than you.
You I know.
Fuck.
Yeah, it's so And we're so far from alone most people because life is busy, you know, and a part of me, yeah, it does go if I just if I do that, I'm gonna get behind with dinner and this and that, and then the night gets out of control and that makes me feel out of control. None of it fucking matters. But it's so easy for us to sit and talk about that, but then it's really it is hard to put it into action and break habits.
And like Sam is like, you need to get something in common with them, because Sam has music and books with Baxter, and they just riff off each other with that. They'll listen to, you know, in the car music together and they really connect over it. But Sam's also invested in that, you know what I mean. Like he's made an effort to and he'll drive two hours to take backs to a concert where I'm like, oh my god, never like music is not my thing. But he's a
thirteen year old boy. But it's like, you've got to find something that they're interested in and really double down on connecting with them over that.
Well, this is Sam's unlocked.
The whole fucking secret to it is that if it's common ground, it's like they know when the ViBe's off, when you're like going, oh okay, let's play trucks and you're sitting there like going bebef and they.
Can see fucking miserable.
But if it's you love painting, they can see you're enjoying it. So it is and it's not a punish for you, but they feel that your energy is good.
I think that. But I do think it's more us meeting them at what they're interested in and than me going look, i'm happy, come and have a paint with me, when they've got zero interest in painting. Anyway, So back to this, Yeah, the perimenopause stuff. Yeah, Madison wrote, OMG, did you know you lose your labia during menopause? I think it's called Lynchon sclerosis. It's all over TikTok at the moment and all right back, no way. I do not believe this, And then I looked it up. Menopause
triggers changes to more than just the vagina. It can also all to the look of the vulva. We see an actual thinning and flattening out of the LaBier manora. Over time. Someone then completely lose their labia manora.
So what is it just nothing in there, like just no flat. I don't know.
I can't even picture what it would be like. Is the labia minora the flaps, the inner ones, the inner ones. Okay, yes, so it flattens out in there.
But I would say that this is where if you even if you don't want to do HRT vaginal estrogen, which you know can be a cream or whatever, and you're getting to that point where maybe you're getting a lot of uties because the tissue gets thinner there. Maybe you've stopped lubricating and you're dry, like there is so much horrible shit that happens down there, like you know, like a deep dive into all this shit, and like all the specialists are like you have to look at it,
like skin care. You put more moisturizer on your face because you want to take care of your skin. Say, it's the same thing with the skin down there. You can prevent this stuff from happening.
Can you? And can you? Really? Yeah?
You can? You can.
And it also doesn't get absorbed systemically, so it's not like if you don't want to take hormones, if you put you know, like I don't know, vaginal estrogen in there or whatever, it's not going into your bloodstream like HRTs. It's just localized in that area. So it's is localized. Yes, yeah, so it's just keeping all the tissue there for want of a bitter word, plump and you know, like new to stop those things from happening.
So menora, look at my plump. Moot, that's that word moot is I love the word moot?
I hate it? You know what I think of? Moot sounds dirty to me. It sounds like a smelly, unwashed, dirty feet, dirty fanny. Did you my mum used to say that or someone I used to say that? Yeah, dirty feet, dirty fanny. You hate that word, even though do you prefer mot or fanny? I don't like. I don't like either of them. But that F word is my I can't I actually can't say it.
Say it once.
No, I'm not, I'm not. I hate it, I do know, I just I hate it. My sister's the same.
What do you call it pussy? No, I don't call it pussy, just vagina.
I love that your mom called it pussy because again, to me, that's sexual.
Yeah, of course it's sexual, but not when you're a kid, like she didn't mean it as sexual, like if yeah, I've gotta saw pussy. That's so fucking cruel. I told you when I did drive radio, we called her and made her say it on national radio.
Oh my god, Oh that's hilarious.
Anyway, I want to jump to you know how we were talking about your kids would if you died tomorrow. Remember you was yelling or saying fuck all the time. I love it when kids learn that word fuck. You know, when your kid, yeah, is young, and it's just so much joy for the whole family at the moment, because Odie is going through a stage where this is a new word for him, and just seeing it fly out
of a little kid's mouth is so awesome. So we're in the car the other day and he's in the back of the seat, in the back seat, and he just starts with this, and so I got out my phone, of course and recorded it.
Of course, fuck.
Hell yeah, it's not just fuck, it's fucking hell, fucking hell AlOH, say fucking hell.
It's the absolute like the polarity of the completely innocent baby voice.
Oh my god, it's funny.
It's so good though.
The boys don't laugh, but we all look at each other and like our eyes go wide and we have to turn around. But I'm like, do I say fucking hell? Mine is more for fuck's sake? When I go, yeah, he hasn't. He hasn't ripped out that yet, but fucking now, fucking out. The other day he goes, fucking now, I'm hungry, and I was like the word, like starting to put it in sentences.
But also like, I mean, okay, there'll come a point where you'll say to him, Okay, well that's not nice to say or whatever, and he'll he'll learn that you can't say it right. But for now, who hasn't laughed at their kids when they're oh, I know.
It's one of my favorite things of them growing up is going oh, like here comes as swearing.
It's yeah, it's cute as enjoy it.
It's so cute.
Enjoy it.
The other day though, so Arlo's got these gob stoppers. He went and bought gob stoppers. So he's starting to do more jobs around the house because backs. How the other week I said, backs, my thirteen year old has got a little job, so he's starting to make money. And now alas like, well, I want to make money anyway, so I'm giving him extra jobs of folding dishwasher blah blah blah. And he got a what are they called?
Do your kids have those cards? Spriggy cards. It's like a kid's visa basically, but they can see that, you know, keep track of their money and stuff like that. Anyway, I've got one coming in the post. And so the other day he went used his money though and got gobstoppers. And I'm like, mate, you're not I'm not giving you money if you're going to go off to the shop and buy treats, which I know is so awesome as a kid, but this kid all he eats is like
Natella sandwiches and lollies. So I'm like, no, your money is not for buying treats. So we put these gobstoppers away. And the other day he sees the gobstoppers and Sam and my sister are in the room and he's like, ah, there's my gobbies. I just kept saying Gobby And he's like, Dad, are you taking my gobbies? Dad? Are you eating my gobbies? And we laughed. He's like, what's why, God, what does goby mean? We're like, nah, we're not laughing at that.
We laughing. Dad said something or I don't know, but the way he was wording it, I want Gobby's Dad, I want you to give me gobbies. It was so fucking awesome. I loved it.
That is so funny. Don't you think you're still childish like that in that way?
Like my God, yes, even just like a stupid word, like sometimes if I have to go to a mass or something, there seems to be the word come is in mass a lot and someone will get up and do a reading and they're like, and he said come coh.
Yeah, it's a very religious thing. Think of his come on your tits? Remember that? Why was that ever? Like come on your tits?
What do you mean? Like people would say it?
Yeah?
I think, yeah, I don't know.
It's so aggressive. The word come is so aggressive? But how often are you going to mass?
Oh? Like, my kids go to Catholic school, so if.
They sometimes mind you too. And I've been twice and I wanted to I stabbed myself in the eye. And I'm like the poor kids who have to sit on the carpet there. My little boy who can't sit still for two minutes is sitting through like a forty minute mass. I'm like, this is like so outdated, an archaic. You have a captive potential, captive audience there. Why are we not modernizing this.
Because they think that's how it should be. Like, It's just this is how it is. It's so boring. I had a funeral the other day. Can I test his funeral, Mark's uncle, the priest. It was like his fifth service, his fifth funeral or something. He the way that he was saying, firstly the name, but the way that he was talking triggered something in me. I went into a laughing Oh no, listen, I'm like three rows from the front.
Shit.
I was laughing so hard that I was crying, which was probably perfect blessing. And the I my head down and my shoulders were going up and down like I was crying, and I reckon people going wuck, she's getting here fucking emotional to him, Jess. They must have been so close it was I could not stop laughing. It's like those laughs at very inappropriate.
Oh my god, man, there's nothing better and nothing worse, you know what I mean the feeling because it's so naughty and uncontrollable that it feels exhilarating. But you're like, oh my god, I cannot this cannot be really obvious or I'm fucked. It's like in school when you would get the giggles or yeah, if somebody says something like my friend told me his dog died, and I just fucking laughed and laughed, and it was I get bad news. Laughed so badly.
Yeah, I know it's a I think it's a nervous respect to that news laugh because you don't know how to react. But yeah, it's yeah, it was very inappropriate. And then my son sitting next to me, and he sort of starts laughing, and then my daughter, who is the mother of all of us including me, is like, she's looking.
Stop it, stop it so good.
All right, We're out of here. Everyone, Thanks for listening. Get in touch with us anytime. We love hearing from your show and tell online. If you can give us a rating wherever you listen to us, or a comment, it's so helpful for us. It just bumps us up. So more people find us and we can have more people in our gaggle of greatness. We'll see you soon, Bipe and out, love yous