MenoPause S2E7: Soothing Our Nervous Systems Francine Forde

France Forde is a Craniosacral Therapist, Intuitive Channel, and Facilitator who provides her services In person (London, UK) and Worldwide. Fran also happens to also be neurodivergent and coming to us from the "other side” — yes indeed people, Fran is post-menopausal!

Transcript

The years leading up to and during menopause are a rite of passage.

The wise woman inside of us is calling to slow down,

To take stock,

To speak our truth,

To burn away all that no longer serves us ready for our next cycle of life.

The good news is with the support,

Community,

Connection,

And most of all sharing our stories and being truly seen and heard,

We will travel through this powerful,

Sometimes painful heroine's journey and out the other side.

Welcome to the Menopause Podcast,

Real and raw stories of midlife and mental health.

I'm your host,

Kylie Patchett,

Menopause self-care coach and storyteller,

And I am so glad you found us.

Let's get on with the show.

Hello,

Everybody.

We've got a slightly different episode today.

I'm feeling very,

Very chillaxed and you will hear why in a little moment.

I have the beautiful Francine Ford here.

Hello,

Francine.

How are you?

I am very well.

Thank you.

How are you?

I'm delicious.

I'm delicious.

And I feel like I'm inside of one of those little Coke bottles,

Which we'll explain in a second.

For the people that do not know what you do for spaceholding,

For those of us who need support,

How would you describe,

Because I don't have words yet for what you just gifted me,

So how would you describe what you do?

Well,

I am a qualified craniosacral therapist,

And I am going to be completely honest,

I always struggle to describe it because it sounds really strange.

I basically balance out your nervous system,

Try to help ease the stress in the body.

Our nervous systems are so often firing in all cylinders and we don't even realize.

And I help bring space back into your body so you can live more harmoniously.

And it sounds very woo-woo,

But it's not.

It's not like Reiki,

Which is more energetic.

It's actually a lot of training,

Anatomical training,

Understanding how systems of the body work.

And it's just about bringing ease into bodies that are quite often struggling.

So it just helps with pain where that's physical,

Emotional.

It helps with recovery from surgery,

Tinnitus,

Headaches.

I mean,

It just there's nothing that craniosacral therapy doesn't help with.

Yeah.

So I do that.

It's soothing and it's balancing.

That's how I would try and explain it.

Because when you your central nervous system,

Which is your brain and your spine.

Yes.

The fluid that floats around it.

And when you have stress or trauma,

Accidents,

Injuries,

You get blockages and kinks.

So I basically even that out so your craniosacral rhythm flows more efficiently,

Which allows your body to work more efficiently.

Your body knows what it needs to do to heal.

I'm not doing anything magic.

I'm literally ironing out the kinks so your body can work more efficiently.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

I love that.

I feel like.

Sorry.

And then I said to you earlier that on the back of it,

When we went into that global pandemic that we had.

Yeah.

But working virtually,

Which I had a lot of training for,

Was a big part of my training.

Yeah.

And then I realized that I actually had a lot of guides and a lot of.

I worked in a much more intuitive way than I ever really given myself credit for.

Yeah.

So I guess that's where the bit of the woowoo comes in now.

So kind of I marry the two.

I was interested before you said to me.

Those intuitive gifts were quite clear when you were younger,

But they were squished by parents that didn't kind of get the woowoo,

Which I definitely relate to.

Definitely relate to.

I used to have these dreams when I was little of being in a circle of.

I would always say to my parents in a circle of witches,

And as soon as I said the W word,

It was like shut down,

And I just learned really quickly,

Yeah,

Like not to be even open to.

That type of stuff,

So I wouldn't call myself intuitive,

I feel like I've got a good gut instinct a lot of the time,

But I feel like maybe if I hadn't been shut down so quickly.

So quickly,

Yeah,

And felt unsafe in the way that I was shut down,

That maybe,

Yeah,

There would have been more flow there.

Yeah,

Because I from a very young age,

I have this knack of always knowing when someone pregnant before they do.

Me too.

Which is really weird.

And as a very young child,

Like three,

Four years old,

I used to say to my mom,

Oh,

She's going to have a baby.

And I was always told,

Don't be stupid,

Shut up.

That's not a thing.

I was always right.

And it was little things like that,

Things that would,

You know,

Happen in the news.

I can remember this huge assassination and coup,

I can't even remember what country it was in,

I was so young.

Yeah.

And I remember having this,

What I would describe as a night terror.

And I described it,

You know,

In detail to my mother in the middle of the night.

And then we woke up the next morning,

Turned the radio on for the news.

And exactly what I had seen had actually happened.

Whoa.

That's it.

Was it Tiananmen Square?

I feel like that's the one that stood out for me.

Yeah,

No,

I think this was in Iran.

Iran.

Okay.

Yeah.

And it,

But it was,

I was so young.

I think I was about six.

Yeah.

So I don't even fully remember it.

Yeah,

Of course,

Because you were trying to just remember her.

I can remember her looking at me,

Just turning,

She'd,

Why did you get up in the night to watch the TV?

And in those days,

Like we didn't have all night TV.

That's,

That's what I always remember thinking,

Like,

Where would I watch that?

You're like,

Yeah,

That was,

The news channel used to have that,

Like the colors and the squares thing.

Yeah.

Like we didn't even have,

Like we literally had the six o'clock news and the morning TV program that would cover news.

There was no like ongoing.

So,

Um,

And I knew then I probably shouldn't talk about things.

She just gave me that motherly look of this ends now.

And it did.

That's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But having,

I guess.

We kind of could say that COVID was a bit of a gift in that respect,

But I know it was also,

Um,

Right at the end of your own experience of perimenopause that you were just saying,

And I was just like,

Far out,

Man,

Perimenopause is challenging me enough,

Let alone throwing a pandemic in and let alone,

You know,

A complete change in business model from a very full in-person clinic to having to sort of pivot to and adjust to,

You know,

Doing,

Um,

Sessions online.

How,

What was your experience of perimenopause?

How did it manifest for you?

Because we kind of have a similar kind of stuff going on on multiple levels,

I think.

Yeah.

I,

Well,

I went through a very early menopause.

I,

I started to be perimenopausal in my thirties and it would kind of kick in and that would dissipate and they would kick in.

Um,

So when I reached my forties,

I just remember being really hot all the time.

And I can remember because one of my best friends who I just happened to catch the bus with most mornings on the way to work,

She was going through it at exactly the same time.

And I can always remember us on the bus just sweating,

Just sweating.

Just,

It was like,

It got embarrassing.

I had proper sweats and it wasn't,

Um,

You know how they say you have like a hot flush?

No,

I was just hot day and night all the time.

There was no flush.

There was no ease.

It was just hot and sweaty constantly.

Yeah.

And I found that really difficult because I,

I do not regulate my body temperature.

I've got ADHD,

ASD,

And some of us regulating your body temperature when you're hot is a really difficult thing.

So as soon as I would feel hot,

I would just go into panic mode,

Which would make me even hotter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I remember that being really disorientating and I can remember going through those moments and then I would panic and then I couldn't think clearly.

I thought I was losing my mind.

I would get lost in places that I knew really well because I was panicking.

So I had probably four or five years where I just literally felt like a hot mess.

I,

My memory started going,

I was working as a photographer's agent and a lot of being an agent is holding a lot of information in your head.

No matter how good your database is,

You have a lot of information in your head.

And it really started to affect my work,

Which was difficult.

I was going through a separation at the time,

Fighting for my home with my two teenage kids,

So it was all kind of like,

What is going on?

I never really knew whether I was coming or going.

I wasn't sleeping.

I wasn't eating properly.

I was binge eating,

Put on a ton of weight,

Which was really unlike me.

Like I put,

I put on six stone,

So like the last two years I've managed to lose it.

But so I had,

I was hot and sweaty.

Yeah.

Didn't know my own mind,

Thought I was going into some sort of early dementia.

Didn't recognize myself because I'd put on such a huge amount of weight,

Lost my home,

Broke up in a relationship,

Then decided to leave my career as well.

Far out,

Man.

It was a shit show.

Prairie menopause.

And then I felt completely free.

Once all those symptoms stopped,

I was just like,

Breathe.

So do you feel like the sense of freedom is just from the stopping of symptoms or the fact that all of those things collided?

And,

And we talked about this before we started recording is that like sense of being set free from things that bind you or,

Or keep you in patterns of this nervous system,

Just being on high alert all the time.

Was,

Was it just the physical cessation of symptoms?

Cause I imagine if you're that hot,

Then that's a bloody big relief.

Or do you feel like all of the life changes and the separation end of things from the things that obviously were no longer what you wanted or,

You know,

No longer serving you,

Is that what gave you the freedom?

What,

Do you have a sense of that?

I think the physical aspects definitely kind of heightened my awareness of how,

Um,

Not in control of things.

I was,

I couldn't control the hot flashes.

I couldn't control the sleepless nights.

I couldn't control disorientation when I was out walking my dogs in an area that I've always walked them and couldn't find my way home.

Yeah.

And I think it was at those moments where,

Because I had so many different things going on in my life that I was unhappy with,

But I would have just trundled,

Trundled along.

I I'm a people pleaser.

I would have just kept on going to make sure everyone else was happy.

And I think it was at that moment when I realized,

Christ,

Like I,

I literally have no control over anything that's going on in my body or around my body.

Something's got to give.

And as difficult as it was,

I'm very grateful that I interpreted things the way I did because I,

I'm not a big drinker.

And I,

I went out one night,

Had a probably half a bottle of wine with a friend and just said,

Like,

I hate my job.

I don't want to be producing anymore.

You know,

I just,

I'm getting no enjoyment.

Like I was getting up in the mornings and crying before I even left my bed.

Yeah.

And I know that was perimenopausal,

That kind of depression and the impact it has on mental health,

Which a lot of women don't realize.

But it really made me think,

I can't do this for the next however many years.

And I can remember my daughter who was probably 20 at the time.

And she said to me,

She said,

You look like you're dying.

She said,

You look like you're having a breakdown.

You're depressed,

Which you won't acknowledge.

She said,

I've never seen circles like that under your eyes.

You look really unwell.

Like fix up basically.

Wow.

And I,

I did.

I just,

I was out with this friend and I just thought that's exactly what I need to do.

It was the first time I ever honestly sat with myself and thought,

But what,

What do you want from?

It's like,

You've always lived your life for other people.

What do you want?

And I went home and it was about midnight and I got on my laptop and I enrolled right then and there on a craniosacral training,

Three and a half year training.

And I was like,

Right,

We're doing this.

Yeah.

And I do think it was,

It was because I felt so out of control with everything that was happening to me.

And I just thought I somehow have to get some,

Something back just for me.

And that was something.

Do you know,

As you're speaking,

What is coming to my mind,

Festival always.

The gift of perimenopause and being held in the fire of discomfort where we cannot control anything that we used to think we could control or that we could control,

Or at least give a semblance of control.

And we talked before about,

You know,

Control and seeking safety and all of those things.

But as you're talking,

I've got a friend,

Nick Little,

Who's been on a couple of times on this podcast.

And she talks about this moment where she was literally brought to her knees with really severe mental health issues had had lots of things colliding,

Same thing.

And she had a moment where she said,

If I cannot like,

I cannot influence any of the clusterfuckery that's happening at the moment,

But I will not go through this and not make it mean something positive.

And so she went and enrolled,

She borrowed money and enrolled in a psychology bachelor program.

And now she's actually working as a research assistant looking at doing her PhD,

If I'm remembering,

Or maybe master's,

But I'm pretty sure PhD.

And it's the same sort of thing.

It's like if I am this unwell in myself and out of control and out of balance and unhealthy,

Like so many things that I cannot sort of fix.

Yeah,

Then there's a,

There's an invitation of like,

Okay,

What,

What do I,

What do I pull from this?

And do you think everyone does that?

Or is there some people that go,

I don't know?

No,

I,

I don't think everyone does get to that point.

And for a couple of reasons,

I was lucky.

I had my children in my early twenties.

So my kids didn't really need that day in day out doing,

I didn't need to be cooking dinner for them.

I didn't need to do the school.

So I was very lucky in that way that,

You know,

My daughter was living on her own outside the home.

My son was still at home,

But he'd finished school.

And I think that makes a huge difference because I know a lot of women when they hit perimenopause,

You know,

Women as women,

You go down two roads,

You either become a parent or you have something else that kind of takes that day to day time,

Whether it's nurturing a business or you like to travel or whatever.

Yes.

So I'm not saying this just as,

You know,

A mother,

But that was my story.

So I gave so much to my kids and I,

I really felt that,

You know,

I just,

I just had to call it back.

And I,

But I was so,

I saw a lot of my friends around me who were a little bit older and had kids a little bit later.

They were going through it,

But they still had to do the school run.

They still had to be at the doctor at 8 a.

M.

On a Sunday morning,

Even though they had no choice in it.

And this is where I get so angry about the lack of choice that women have in their own health care.

And a lot of people go,

No,

You've got choice,

You know,

You live in England,

You've got all this great stuff.

And really you don't,

Because a lot of times you have to make decisions that benefit other people in some way.

Yeah.

And so I don't think a lot of women do have the opportunity to recognize that,

OK,

This is a shit show,

But I can do something useful with it because they're still very much stuck in running a business,

Running a family,

Running whatever it is that their life is busy with.

Has been,

Yeah,

Around.

And I think that must be incredibly hard because I don't know,

Maybe my experience would have been easier if I still had that kind of direction of I still had to do things every day.

I was kind of in this weird limbo state where my kids were older.

I knew I was probably going to leave my career,

Didn't know what I was going to do.

So I guess it can work both ways.

But I do look at a lot of women around me and a lot of clients that I've had that feel completely helpless because they're so desperate to.

To make a change,

But they can't because of what their lifestyle is dictating to them.

Yeah,

Because I like to think that you can do whatever you want,

Whenever you choose.

It's not always that easy.

Do you know what I mean?

If you've got a mortgage and three kids,

You decide to quit your job and completely retrain to do something because you've come through this perimenopausal state and you feel like you can conquer the world.

And see more light.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah,

I agree.

I've.

It's quite frustrating.

I have a few friends that had kids much later,

And so they've got primary school children and they're in perimenopause and holding down jobs and all of the busyness that,

You know,

The day to day grind of just being a parent and dropping kids and getting them down to school sport and stuff.

And I am so grateful that that has not been my experience because I did leave my corporate career in October last year,

And it was absolutely a choice.

But it also was blaringly obvious that I could not keep going.

Like I was crying,

Literally bawling my eyes out every morning for the 40 minutes it took me to drive there and every afternoon,

Like it just the cost was.

And now looking back,

I'm like,

Oh,

My God,

You are so depressed.

But I didn't I haven't really had that awareness until just recently.

And but I was very,

Very lucky,

Fortunate,

Grateful.

And we are doing without because of that decision.

But to me,

The cost of that to my own health,

I couldn't pay it anymore.

But my kids have also like both of them are out of school.

One's out of home,

One's just actually harvesting cotton in South Australia now at the moment.

So quite a way away.

But,

Yeah,

I didn't have that day to day responsibility.

And so I have been able to really and what's happened for me is that because of decades and decades of keeping as busy as what I did,

I really,

Really recognize now that that was my coping strategy to not look at pain or trauma.

Like just keep yourself busy and don't feel anything.

Yeah.

Don't stop.

Don't stop.

Busyness is the ultimate masking.

Oh,

Absolutely.

And it's also the ultimately rewarded thing in a capitalist society because exactly.

Yeah.

Keeping you busy and unconscious of the pain that you're in is the way that you keep the machine running.

So like because God forbid you sit back and go,

Hold on,

I need time out here.

What?

Hold on.

I need time out.

Do I really need this huge house that you've got me convinced that I need?

Maybe not.

And that's really damaging.

And I think a lot of women never get to that point and they do just keep pushing through unless you have a total breakdown.

I've had two friends that were running very big companies and through their menopause had total emotional and nervous breakdowns.

And it was exacerbated because of the menopause,

Because they were struggling so much with.

Keeping on top of everything,

But it was their memory,

People,

You know,

People talk about the hot flashes,

People talk about,

Oh,

You know,

This these minor little things,

What people don't understand is.

For some women.

The mental health cost of menopause and perimenopause is huge,

But we're not allowed to express it because we still as a society think that,

You know,

If you're in touch with your emotions and your mental wellness,

You're failing somehow.

Yeah.

But watching my two friends go through these full breakdowns where they had to give up their careers because they've needed two or three years to recover from their poor mental health.

Yeah.

You know,

You think how many other women out there are just barely hanging on because maybe they're the sole provider.

Like both my friends were very fortunate that they were in partnerships where their partners bring in vast sums of money.

So they feel not having their wage,

But they're not destitute.

They haven't lost their homes.

Yeah.

Not all women are in that situation.

And it's,

You know,

As a society,

We need to be more aware of it's not just hot flashes and a bit of weight gain.

Like for some of us,

It is a deeply impactful time of our lives where we're not going to be the same people.

That's always a bad thing.

But after menopause,

There should be a shift.

Like you've kind of you've done your time,

Guys.

Yeah,

Gotcha.

And it's an initiation point.

We meant to be shifting from one version of ourselves to another,

Like just like we did at puberty,

Just like we did,

You know,

If we labored and gave birth,

You know,

Whatever the initiation point is.

And we need to celebrate it as well,

Because a lot of women think,

You know,

A lot of women still think that once you have gone through menopause,

You just dry it up and done.

And I don't.

I just see it really freeing.

And it's just like,

OK,

What's happening next?

What what is this next chapter of my life going to be?

Yeah.

What is the next season?

Absolutely.

And like we've discussed,

Like there's a for the first time in my life,

I've actually got the time,

Space and,

You know,

Resources to some extent to actually look at what do I need,

Who do I want to be,

What feels good for me,

What is the source of pleasure in my life,

What connections are most important to me and what connections are no longer healthy or whatever.

And I think that's why I'm really,

Really consciously choosing to talk about mental health,

Because for me,

By far,

That's been the most impactful so far.

And it really does need a discussion because it's not just you.

It's happening to everyone in your family,

Everyone in your inner circle.

Yeah.

And again,

It's just not talked about.

And also you can go to your doctor and say all of these things and it cannot be acknowledged.

And this is where I get really angry,

Because unless you have a doctor who really understands,

You're just going to get farmed off.

Yeah.

You know,

I was lucky that I had a doctor that recognized my depression before I did.

I mean,

It turns out my depression was undiagnosed ADHD because I didn't get it diagnosed until I was 51.

Me too.

She introduced something into the conversation that I would have not considered.

Yes.

You know,

Whereas I know a lot of women that go to doctors who are told,

Oh,

Maybe try to get more sleep,

Do a bit more exercise.

But when you are feeling like you can barely even breathe,

You're not going to exercise for 40 minutes a day.

It's not going to happen.

We all know it'll make us feel better.

Yeah.

But if you barely get out of bed in the morning without sobbing,

You're not going to take yourself to a gym or walking the dog.

For me as well,

I think I've always struggled with certain elements of anxiety,

But my anxiety through menopause went through the roof and I've never recovered from that.

My anxiety now is just a huge part of my life.

It's amazing that we go through these changes and it's like a different set point.

I have never had anxiety before,

But I had really bad palpitations,

Feelings of panic and then catastrophic thinking.

And when I was talking to my doctor about it for the first time ever,

They were saying,

Oh,

That's anxiety,

That's the symptoms of anxiety,

That what you're talking about is anxiety.

And I'm like,

What the hell?

Like when I'm out of balance,

I know that I get depression.

I've always known that about myself.

So I make sure that I'm,

You know,

I thought staying self-aware.

Yeah,

Maybe not so much.

Anyway,

But yeah,

I think it's important that we are not just talking about the physical symptoms,

We're talking about those,

The mental health end of things and the fact that it annoys me sometimes when,

Because the general consensus is all these symptoms will go away once you hit menopause.

And as you just raised,

Sometimes,

Sometimes not.

Yeah,

Sometimes some poor people are hot flushes until they're like forever past.

Yeah,

I'm lucky that stopped because that was really terrible for me.

But I don't.

You know,

I don't think I'll ever,

Obviously,

If I get the right support,

But here in the UK,

Our system is so broken at the moment that,

I mean,

There is no support for mental health unless you are very wealthy and you live privately.

Yeah.

So,

You know,

If you are a woman going through really difficult menopause,

It can be challenging to get extra support.

And for some of us,

The mental health impacts are so huge that it does change.

And I'm not trying to scare anyone.

But it's just it's just to be aware of it because it is much more than just the traditional symptoms.

I think the mental health impact is much greater than the traditional symptoms,

But nobody's freaking talking about it.

Yeah,

Well,

That's why I consciously decided to really.

Yeah.

I think,

Too,

To me,

The mental health and the changing identity and the realising that life isn't fitting me and my kids might be leaving home and holy shit,

I can't keep on top of my job because my brain just does not even want to plug in in the morning,

Like all of those things together.

I mean,

I guess we could say that they're all mental and emotional health.

But to me,

That's been the most destabilising.

And a doctor that I spoke to early on in the podcast used the term falling off the confidence cliff.

And that's definitely been like a really big thing for me that's gone along with the sleep and the depression sort of feeling is this like,

I don't know what to do.

Like,

I don't I don't even know if I have anything decent to offer the world.

Maybe I should just go back to bed and pull the covers up.

And,

You know.

And that's the thing,

Because I am like I've I'd like to say I'm trying to lift myself out of it.

I've had a massive dose of that recently,

But I've come through my menopause.

But do you know what I mean?

There's no conclusive test that says,

OK,

You're done now.

All I know is,

You know,

I've not had periods in like six years.

All the physical symptoms have stopped.

Yes.

But stress since being locked in my house for two years has heightened my anxiety and my stress.

Yeah,

Of course.

Sometimes it's hard for me to understand where my menopausal symptoms stopped and just the hell of a pandemic.

Yeah.

Kind of picked up.

Yeah.

But yeah,

It's really it's challenging to understand.

How to move through different elements of it,

Because,

Again,

There's very little support because out of fairness to doctors.

Unless they have a specific interest in women's health,

They get about four hours training in menopause and they're supposed to keep on top of everything.

Yeah.

And they like so you can't even really blame them because they're just not qualified to understand.

No.

So it is.

It is.

It's I just find it really challenging.

You know,

It's hard to understand yourself when you feel like you're in chaos and your nervous system is doing all kinds of things.

And that's a really powerful thing.

You know,

When your nervous system is so dysregulated,

You are not going to feel like you've got a grip on anything.

Now,

Menopause is one of the most unstabilizing times for your your body and your system.

You know,

You just have a few symptoms internally and on a cellular level.

Your body's looking at you.

Yeah.

And it's really hard to kind of come to grips about where you fall in that and how you can move through it in a productive and healthy and less fearful way.

Yes.

And I think that's why it's so good that we are talking much more about all the different range of experience and symptoms.

And I also am equally as concerned because I think we're also in the middle of monetizing and medicalizing menopause as well.

And it's like,

You know,

Part of me wants to say it's a perfectly natural,

Normal process.

And yes,

It's painful.

And yes,

We might need extra support.

And yes,

It's absolutely fine to choose whatever mixture of supports.

But I just I'm concerned that there's starting to be this talk of like oestrogen deficiency.

It's like we're not oestrogen deficient.

And a girl at six is not called oestrogen deficient because we wouldn't expect her to have high levels of oestrogen because she's not in her reproductive years.

Similarly,

When you are post your reproductive years,

You are not oestrogen deficient.

You're just changing into a state where there is naturally lower oestrogen.

So that worries me a little bit,

But I just want to say go back to sorry.

Can I just say briefly,

It's really when you're going through those moments of feeling quite confused and your confidence goes,

You will.

I'm not saying this in a judgmental way.

So apologies if it comes across that way.

You will literally look for anyone and anything that can support you.

So you will.

Because I've seen some crazy courses online,

And I think because I have come through the other side of menopause,

I'm like.

You really don't need to pay that person to do those things like you don't,

You just like you just don't know.

Don't get me wrong,

There are some amazing women out there supporting in a really beautiful way.

Yes.

But some of the things I've seen that are charging insane amounts of money.

And when you are in a place as a woman where you don't know your ass from your elbow and you've lost all of your confidence,

You just want somebody to help you.

And that's where I think it's really cruel,

Because you're going to part with a lot of money and you're still not going to feel any better.

And you actually may feel worse because this is the other thing that I was just having this conversation with a friend who actually teaches a specific course on yoga for the stages of menopause.

Same conversation.

So I was on Facebook the other night and I was just doing like not working Facebook,

Just catching up on my personal Facebook and an ad pops up in my feed.

And it's this,

You know,

Very,

Very life perfectly proportioned,

40 something year old yoga teacher in a ridiculously bendy pose saying,

If you're in perimenopause,

The only thing you need to do to have a natural menopause with no symptoms is this course.

And it was three and a half thousand dollars.

And I was just like,

Number one,

There's no way that you can back up any of those claims.

But number two,

You are preying on people that by definition are vulnerable.

Yeah.

And it's this whole discussion around natural menopause as well.

It's,

You know,

Because for me,

I can't do HRT because of a family history and they won't even mention it around because they're beautiful.

But I know like my experience of ADHD,

I resisted and resisted and resisted for years.

Right.

And I was like,

Never going to go on the meds.

I'm going to do everything that.

Yes,

Yes.

You know what?

I know there's a lot of arguments and a lot of,

You know,

A lot of people disagreeing with medicating and with HRT.

That was a game changer for me.

I now have a completely different life.

Yep.

And I've seen women because I've always worked in a very holistic space.

So I know this is a lot of people off,

Right?

I've had friends,

The yoga teachers,

The this,

The that,

That won't even take an aspirin.

And I'm telling an unnatural menopause has been a game changer for them.

Would they finally gone?

I'm about to get divorced.

My kids aren't speaking to me,

Haven't been able to work for six months.

I'm having a breakdown and they've gone on the HRT or whatever supplementation that the doctor has recommended and it has saved them.

So I have a real issue with these people that are selling.

If you want to do a natural menopause,

By all means,

Try it all.

Because you know what?

That bendy yoga pose might work.

Please do not.

Completely ignore.

What,

You know,

HRT or other supplementation might offer you and don't let anyone else when you are very vulnerable and desperately looking for answers,

Sell you something otherwise,

Like really check in with yourself,

Check in with your friends,

Ask what they're doing.

There's a lot of women on HRT that would never admit to it.

Yeah,

I've got I am now,

But I started same thing.

And it almost feels to me like and I think I've talked about this on the podcast before,

But this when I had my daughters and I was like 100 percent,

I'm going to have a natural like my plan for my birth was completely natural.

Try to do it with no medication,

Et cetera.

And I ended up in a completely surgical emergency situation where,

You know,

Abby,

My first daughter was very unwell.

And that very quickly changes your opinion about,

You know,

Birthing.

Right.

But it almost feels the same as the cesarean versus natural debate and the bottle feeding versus breastfeeding debate.

It's like,

Can we stop making each other our sisters going through this really tricky period?

Wrong.

Exactly.

And what is what who is benefiting from us turning against each other?

Exactly.

But also it's it's what you're doing to yourself.

Yeah,

You're not letting yourself down by exploring every option.

Obviously,

You need to do it in a safe way.

Obviously,

You need to consult with your doctors.

But if you've been a completely holistic living,

You know,

Ayurvedic,

Biopathy kind of person like I always was,

You're not letting yourself down.

You're not letting the side down by going down a more traditional route.

And I think women need to be kinder to themselves because for some of us,

Menopause is terrifying because we do not know what is happening to our bodies and our minds.

Yeah,

I agree.

And whatever,

Like your example of birthing.

So I've taught hypnobirthing for years.

And the one thing I always say to my very holistic families are you have to listen to what's happening on the day.

And if you need to go in for emergency procedures,

That is the way you have failed.

It doesn't matter how that baby comes out.

You are still giving birth.

Correct.

And I think the same thing for.

And menopause treatments,

Just explore all your options and don't shut the door to anything,

Because that thing you shut the door to might be the thing that literally saves your life.

Well,

I feel very strongly about that with the HRT for me.

You've been struggling and lose so much.

And you might actually be able to get the help that you need.

Listen to what other people in your communities are saying about don't do that.

Now,

Just do you ask your nearest and dearest what they're doing,

Have a conversation and feel it through.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I think that's a very good point.

And I think that there's no there's not ever one.

One answer and and and always,

I will say,

And I'm sure that that you would say something similar is like stay connected to your body and how you're feeling moment to moment,

Day to day,

Because.

You know,

Once you sort of try it,

Once you think that you've got it figured,

I've had this multiple times since I've been conscious that I'm having menopause,

I think I have been for a few years,

But I would say from 47 to about 18 months of very like clear,

Significant changes from normal.

But just because I've chosen to go HRT because my depression symptoms were.

Like out of control,

I'm also not giving up all of the lifestyle factors that I know can influence me having a more grounded,

More healthy foundation to be able to pass through menopause.

So we you know,

I think that that's important,

Too,

Is like stop othering other women the way they're doing things,

Do things in a way that feels good and as much as you possibly can with your current life.

So like try,

Try to take care of you as much as you can in the middle of like you said,

You know,

If you fall off the confidence cliff and you've got anxiety and you've got like that's it very easy for me to give those words much harder when you're in that state.

But we know ourselves best.

And I think looking for those quick fixes or the,

You know,

Giving your power away to someone who says that this will be the magical cure,

Just.

Because I can promise you five affirmations in the morning is not going to stop your menopausal symptoms.

No,

It's not.

Might make you feel better.

It's not going to stop your menopausal symptoms.

Exactly.

Exactly.

That's just it.

Like you need to.

It's really hard,

Though,

When you are lacking confidence to remember who you are within all of it.

Yes,

Absolutely.

And when your nervous system is firing on all cylinders,

It's really hard.

So I'm not diminishing those experiences,

But just be open to all the options and keep trying things until you find something that makes you feel better,

Because if you can make yourself feel better,

Your nervous system is going to calm down.

And I promise you,

If you can calm your nervous system a little bit,

Other things in your life feel less intense.

This is actually how my doctor who recommended this particular medication actually described when I was trying to weigh up and I still was really laboring over.

But I really don't want to be medicated.

Same thing with ADHD for me as well.

And the way that he described it to me was sometimes medication or supplementation or whatever it is,

Just provides the bridge to get you to the point where you're actually able to take care of yourself a little bit better in terms of,

You know,

Are you moving?

Are you getting your sunlight?

Are you having fun?

Like all of those general things,

Which are really hard to do when you are in bed crying for days on end.

And people don't acknowledge how much self-medication goes on.

You know,

I know women who have gone through,

And again,

I'm not trying to sound like a judgy bitch,

But I know women that,

You know,

Will have five cups of coffee in the morning because they've had four hours of sleep the night before because of the hot flashes and they'll drink coffee like solidly until noon.

And then in the evening,

They'll crack open a bottle of wine so that they can sleep.

But to me,

There's no difference if you're self-medicating or if you're on a pill,

Like it's all how you think is the best way forward for you.

And I just want people to be aware of the things that they're doing to make their lives easier that aren't a traditional route,

Because five cups of coffee and a bottle of wine at night to a lot of people would be problematic.

And again,

I'm nervous system,

Not to say this in a judging way.

It's just being realistic about where you're getting your comfort from,

How you're trying to ease your symptoms or,

You know,

Enhance your sleep or whatever.

So just look at the full picture and be open to all the possibilities and do your research.

I go on things like PubMed.

Don't go on TikTok to find out about instant,

You know,

Instant flash,

You know,

Symptom relief.

Like look at published journals.

Look,

You know,

It's all out there online.

So much easier these days.

Yeah.

When I did my original degree and you had to do like,

You know,

Back up things with research,

You have to go to a library,

People.

And now it's just all at your fingertips.

Encyclopedias?

Yeah,

I know.

I had encyclopedias.

I used to love them.

I want to come back,

Fran,

To talking about the state of your nervous system,

Because I.

Having just experienced one of your treatments,

I'm like feeling very.

Like loosey goosey in terms of like the edge of that relaxation feeling that I get when I've kind of laid on the ground in the sun for 20 minutes,

That kind of like.

I'm like,

You know,

Nothing needed.

I'm,

You know,

Calm and at peace.

And I feel like I want.

I want to help people understand about this whole because the nervous system and somatics and the vagal nerve,

Like they're,

You know,

They're on this tsunami of like Instagram fame and TikTok fame,

Which is brilliant.

But can we break it down into terms that people can understand?

And we talked before in when you were asking me questions before the session,

We talked about when you grow up in a chaotic environment and your nervous system is set at firing.

We actually don't have any sense of how it feels to be calm,

And that's certainly something that feels very true for me and my patterns of keeping busy,

Pushing across boundaries of being too tired,

Sitting at my desk too long,

Ignoring needing to go to the toilet,

Like all of those things to me is just more of the same chaos that I kind of grew up in.

Can you speak a little bit about that and what you mean by firing all the time?

So kind of I feel like it's like high alert,

Antennas up,

Ready to pump or ready to defend,

I guess.

So on a cellular level,

Your body remembers every single experience.

So for me,

I grew up in a house with a lot of trauma.

I wasn't abused physically or sexually,

But I had a lot of neglect.

My mother was a drinker and a partier and I had neglect.

So my body has stored that and has stored that story that as long as I'm busy,

I will not see how much I was neglected.

And that's from day one.

Oh,

That's right between the eyeballs.

So my nervous system from day one recognizes chaos.

And I remember the first time I realized that I was in a totally chaotic state.

I had two small children and there was about five women that we all kind of met up and met through a one o'clock club here in London.

And we thought,

Wouldn't it be nice to go to a day spa?

I'd never done it.

This was,

You know,

My daughter's just turned 30.

So this was probably 26,

27 years ago.

Like that was a new thing.

Like now there are spas everywhere,

But then it was a really decadent thing to take a day out from mothering to go to a spa.

And we did it.

And I can remember sitting there feeling absolutely miserable because I didn't recognize silence or stillness.

And I felt so uncomfortable in my body.

And I felt so uncomfortable with just sitting.

I was like,

I've got five hours of sitting next to this waterfall thing,

Drinking green tea.

Like,

Are you fucking nuts?

I hated it so much that that was such an eye opener for me because I thought,

Because one of my friends said,

Why is this so difficult for you?

And I realized that I'd never done that.

I've never done it.

And when my son was very young,

I wanted to do the cranial sacral training then,

But lots of reasons got in the way and I couldn't do it until my kids were much older.

Yeah.

But watching their experience of how it helped them,

I just thought,

Why does nobody tell us how important stillness is?

Why does nobody,

All through these years of school,

All these doctor's visits,

All this,

That,

And the other,

Why is nobody saying,

Have you tried just to sit quietly for 20 minutes to see,

Not if you can do it,

But to see where the pain points in your body are?

And what I mean by pain points is you've got physical pain points,

Emotional pain points,

And spiritual pain points,

If you're that way inclined.

Not everyone is into spirituality,

Which I fully accept.

But by sitting in stillness,

And when I say listening to the pain points,

Feel where the restrictions are.

Like if you're sitting in a chair,

Can you feel your feet on the floor?

Which sounds silly,

But if you feel more what's going on in your head,

And you're constantly distracted what's going on in your head,

And you struggle to feel your hands and your feet,

It's because you're used to being in a heightened state of chaos.

Yeah.

You don't need big trauma to live in that state.

You can be somebody that had their appendix out when they were eight,

And your body recognizes that as trauma.

I talk a lot about trauma in my work.

My daughter's always like,

Oh,

Jesus,

You're always talking about trauma.

Why?

And I'm like,

Well,

One,

It's very relevant,

Because a lot of us are highly traumatized,

But we don't recognize it because we're gaslit by everyone in society.

Yes,

We are.

Just,

You know,

It's fine.

We all have problems.

We all have issues.

Yes,

We have,

But our bodies recognize it as,

Get me the hell out of here.

This is unsafe.

And what I've noticed in the last,

Particularly after the pandemic,

Nervous systems are never quieting.

The pandemic,

I work in a secondary school.

So it'd be equivalent to like an Australian high school.

So I work with teenagers during the week.

What we're seeing in education settings is such a heightened level of trauma in our children,

And it's purely from lockdowns.

We're seeing more anxiety,

More eating disorders,

And more self-harm and substance abuse in the 13 to 17-year-olds than we ever have before.

Exam season here in the UK has seen what we're now calling ghost children.

These are children who are unable to access education because they are so stressed and anxious,

They can't get into school.

So they've actually named this section of kids.

We've got this pandemic,

If you like,

Of ghost children who since lockdown has lifted,

Have not been able to return to the classroom setting.

That goes through all of society.

You know,

I think it's fair enough to say that I know clients,

I've got family who have PTSD from lockdowns.

I'm not blaming everything on COVID,

But before COVID,

Many of us were already living in a very heightened state.

And to the point where stillness feels uncomfortable.

You get so used to being comfortable and familiar in an agitated nervous system.

Things like sitting in a day spa,

That felt noisy to me.

Silence felt noisy.

Silence felt intrusive and difficult.

And I know a lot of people that resonate with that.

And then when you lock people away,

That's just heightened how the agitation in our nervous system is.

And when I say agitation,

When I put my hands on someone or I do a virtual session,

There's a lot of heat that goes around your nervous system when it's agitated.

Occasionally,

I will treat someone who,

Because people tend to either become physically agitated or they disassociate where everything goes so quiet.

That when they're in a room,

They're not taking anything in around them.

They shut down and your nervous system feels dormant.

And it's just trying to very gently realizing that your cells have remembered everything.

Your brain might be saying,

Yeah,

I'm fine.

I'm coping.

I'm back at work.

I'm going to the pub on a Friday night with my mates.

We're good.

Your nervous system is telling you something different.

But unless you're actually listening to it,

And that's not easy.

You also have to understand,

Give yourself tools to listen to it.

And that's where meditation does come in.

Don't get me wrong.

I am the worst meditator in the world because of my ADHD.

I go through waves.

I go through waves.

At the moment,

I'm in a downward slump with my meditation.

So for me at the moment,

Meditation is sitting somewhere with,

I'll choose three of my favorite pieces of music and I'll just listen to it.

And all three.

And if I start thinking about what's cooked for dinner,

Or did I take the laundry out,

Or what I've got to do at work,

I will make myself focus on how my body feels when I'm sitting.

Feel your sit bones.

Feel the weight going through your body.

Because I promise you a lot of times you're not feeling.

And when you actually pull the attention to,

How does my butt feel on this chair?

Can I feel my feet on the floor?

Do my elbows feel heavy?

That's when you realize you haven't felt any of those things for a long,

Long time.

So it's that kind of being intentional and being mindful.

And this can take three minutes a day.

Like it's not,

You don't have to spend hours doing this.

Like I appreciate,

You know,

I remember having kids that were under 18 months apart.

There's no time to sit down for a 20 minute meditation.

You're lucky if you can see in silence.

But it's just stealing moments when you can to just feel your body.

Because it's in those moments that you recognize your nervous system is telling you something very different from what you think you know.

Yes.

And what you're reminding me of,

Well,

Actually a couple of things.

I have actually figured out,

And I'm not sure if this is helpful,

But if anyone's listening,

Who's also neurodivergent,

What has opened up meditation again for me,

Because I used to do it in a very rigid,

Like you need to sit your ass down and you need to like,

Like very,

Very metallic energy of like,

You know,

This is a task that needs to be achieved,

Which of course defeats the purpose.

Well,

Not defeats the purpose,

But certainly isn't the right.

Exactly.

But I have found that if I move first,

I can meditate.

So as long as my physical energy has been dispersed,

I can,

Yeah,

Drop in.

And that's as simple as jumping up and down for 30 seconds.

Yeah,

Exactly.

It's going through a workout.

It's just expelling that energy,

Having that tactile,

You know,

Rubbing your hands down your arms and your legs,

Just to shift the energy to recognize where you are.

Yeah.

There's no,

You know,

When I teach meditation,

I'm,

I'm so the opposite from that rigid because it puts so many people off because a lot of people can't sit still,

Whether you're neurodivergent or not.

Or not.

We programmed not to sit still.

Sitting still is a bad thing.

Yeah,

It's lazy.

Yeah.

Not productive.

You go into like a corporate office and say,

I want you all to sit.

We're going to sit for 20 minutes.

And I can see the fear on some people's faces.

They're like,

That's not going to happen.

Like,

Oh,

I've got my phone to check my,

You know.

Yeah.

That's when they check out of the room.

Yeah.

You know,

And it's just that thing of,

I just want you to sit still.

And I want you to,

Every time you get distracted,

I want you just to look around the room.

What can you hear?

What can you see?

What can you smell?

What can you feel in your body?

Just breathe.

That's as simple as it needs to be.

It doesn't need to be this.

I need to completely clear my mind.

That is rarely going to happen.

You have to be a very skilled meditation person to completely clear your mind.

Yeah.

But just sitting and feeling and focusing on your breath when you start thinking about dinner and laundry,

That is meditation.

Whether you want to stand up,

Lie down,

Go for a walk,

You know,

Walk yourself up in a chair.

I don't care how you do it.

Just do it.

Just give yourself a minute.

If you've got three or four kids running around and you managed to get a chance to pee on your own,

You can do it in that minute.

Yeah.

It's just that moment of just feeling something other than what you're used to that.

Because being in that comfortable space of constantly being agitated,

You don't even recognize it.

It's when you intentionally start to think about,

Hold on,

My back feels really tight or,

Oh God,

My neck is so tense.

Your hand over your heart,

Your other hand on your stomach and feel what that feels like.

Because a lot of us as well go through days where we have no touch with other people.

We don't touch people.

And this is,

Again,

Where I found being locked down so difficult because a big part of my work is touching people.

It's touching,

Yeah.

And I wasn't even allowed to hug my kids,

They were telling me.

It was like,

That's not going to work for me.

I remember those days where my daughter was living out of the house.

She wasn't even allowed to come into my house.

And I was like,

Well,

That's not going to work.

That's not going to work for my mental health.

That's not going to work.

And I can remember when we hugged for the first time and just thinking,

None of us should be in this position.

This is weird that we've not done this.

And it's that that we're still feeling.

So a lot of people,

If you're working 60 hour weeks,

How many of those minutes in a week are you actually touching someone,

Especially if you're single,

Especially if you're living on your own?

How much,

And not just shaking hands or bumping into somebody on a train,

How much time are you touching someone?

And so if you feel that real kind of abandonment of tactile senses,

You can do it to yourself in a non kind of sexual way.

If you want to be turning yourself off,

That is very,

Very relevant in the world,

Is that pleasure in women is massively relevant for making you feel connected with yourself.

And masturbation is one of the best ways to connect with your nervous system and give yourself that calm that you cannot find anywhere else.

Sometimes it's as simple as coming out of a meeting or coming out of whatever busyness of your day and just putting your hand on your heart and other on your stomach and taking three big breaths in.

And it's the exhale,

As I was saying to you earlier in our session,

As women,

We are programmed to never let go,

Never show emotion,

Never show annoyance,

Never show feeling,

And we hold our breath in.

So just by placing your hands on your body and exhaling helps you ground in,

It can take 30 seconds.

And by that,

You are speaking to your nervous system.

And it might feel really awkward to do it.

It's because you're so comfortable in that space of constant agitation where your cells have remembered every little trauma,

Whether it was a bully in a playground or a partner telling you they didn't like your hair or whatever.

Those are little things that we store and that all impacts on our nervous system.

So during this session,

So when you're saying you're storing everything in the body and my automatic response is,

Okay,

How do I get rid of it?

How do I let it go?

How do I dump it out type of thing?

And when you were,

So you were asking me in the session to like breathe in,

Like there was a wave that traveled from my feet all the way up my body to my crown and breathe out in the opposite direction.

And then you also added in that kind of,

Well,

I think at least this is what I made it in my head because I'm so visual,

But like the wave coming over the front half of me and then washing down the back of me type of thing.

And so I was making it into this really lovely sort of rhythmical cycle kind of thing.

When you were doing that,

You were using language,

Like imagine all of the parts of your body and your emotional state that feel like stuck or sticky or stagnant or tight,

Like they were sticky notes and they were being taken away by that.

So those types of prompts,

I find them really powerful because I don't know whether it's partly because I'm a visual person,

But also as soon as someone takes me into a session like you just did,

I'm like,

I guess there's a bit of a benefit from the moving and then dropping in because as soon as I'm like,

Okay,

I'm in a space where I'm,

You know,

I feel safe and I feel completely held.

So I can actually just be completely internal.

I don't feel the need to sort of be checking in.

That is a new thing.

Definitely.

It's not something that I've always been able to do.

When you give those prompts,

Are you inviting the sensation of letting go?

What am I trying to ask?

I guess when you want to be letting go of stuff yourself,

How do we continue to do that process?

And obviously we see healers and helpers like yourself to release things.

And particularly what we were just working on for me is something that's quite big.

I've been working on it for quite a while and it kind of still feels a bit,

You know,

Was feeling a bit stuck in my body.

If people don't have access to that sort of support,

What can we do ourselves to continue that process of,

Like,

Is it as simple as imagining that yourself?

It's funny because it's,

I always say,

I have a real issue with the wellness community because there's a lot of,

You know,

If you do this,

You do this and it'll all work out.

I don't really subscribe to any of that.

I think for me,

It's tapping into the small joys in your life.

Whatever makes you happy,

Right?

So for me,

Walking my dog in the trees helps me get to those moments because to sit on my bed and kind of tell myself,

Right,

We're going to do this and then I'm going to feel fine.

I was just setting myself up.

So if you like walking,

If you like swimming,

If you like zoning out in front of Netflix,

You know,

It's in those moments where you just see those fleeting moments where you feel completely relaxed and it almost takes you off guard.

You want to invite as many of those moments as you can into your week because it's through those moments that you have fleeting moments of little messages,

Downloads as I call them,

Where your brain will tell you something that very subconsciously sneaks in and it can be the raising of an emotion.

It can be confronting and startling,

But it's in those moments where you find that split second of joy,

You are able to relax enough that you can let these downloads come.

So however you find that in yourself,

If you do really struggle to find that in yourself,

Go for a massage,

Go for something that distracts your brain because the process that I use,

I use waves because that's how I,

I'm not a visual person at all.

I feel it.

The waves to me are,

When the waves start to come in,

It's because I'm feeling your cranial sacral rhythm starts moving.

And when you are a cranial sacral therapist,

You work with different rhythms and tides,

They're called.

So the waves was what just instinctively came to me.

I started doing this years ago.

Not everyone sees it that way.

Not everyone is a visual person,

But if you are a visual person and you can get to that space,

Whether it's through meditation or just these fleeting moments of finding that stillness in your body,

Really again,

Feel,

Yeah,

Where do you feel stuck?

And it doesn't need to be a big conundrum.

Like literally,

Where do you have a kink in your body?

Is your shoulder blade feeling tight?

Is your lower back feeling tight?

It might be that you've injured yourself and that's why.

But as I was saying to you in the session,

Quite often,

If we have an injury at some point in our lives,

That's where our emotions build up throughout our lives afterwards.

Even if you're completely healed,

Again,

On a cellular level,

Unless you've done some sort of somatic work to really help it eat out,

That's where things get stuck.

So in those moments,

Feel where it's stuck.

If you're a visual person and you can assign a color,

Or like I said,

A colorful post-it note to it,

Just sit for a minute.

And as you breathe out,

Just imagine those post-it notes getting picked up on a weight or on your breath and washing away.

Move your body around.

And again,

Touch your body,

Like rub your body.

When I say jumping up and down for 30 seconds,

I used to do this with kids when I was a nursery nurse.

Kids have a tantrum and a wobble,

Even though you're giving them everything they want and you know,

Bowing down to all their demands.

And they're still just so emotionally dysregulated.

I used to just start jumping.

Yeah.

And they would always look at me like,

What is she doing?

You know,

You get a three-year-old that's throwing a paddy and all of a sudden there's a six-foot grown woman jumping in front of you.

And within seconds,

They would start jumping as well.

And I promise you,

Within 30 seconds,

They'd be on the floor laughing.

That works to any age.

So when you're having a moment of not knowing how you're feeling,

Or you're frantic,

Or you just feel awful,

Jump.

It sounds ridiculous.

It's getting that energy moving.

And it's just little things like that that can help just shift that stagnant energy,

Whether it's emotional,

Physical,

Or spiritual.

You can't jump because of some sort of physical thing.

Do something,

Whether it's like tapping on yourself.

Yeah,

I was going to say,

I tap often.

So whole Meridian,

You know,

If I'm wanting to shift something or shaking,

Whatever.

It all sounds silly and almost too simple,

But we are so used to being,

You either are a person who never stops,

Who cannot sit still physically,

Or you're a person that's behind a desk all day and your brain never stops.

Either way,

Those are bad for you.

We need to get back into a practice of somehow waking up our nervous system.

So whether it's for a dog,

A swim,

Jumping,

Taking an ice cold shower for 30 seconds,

Just something to wake you up.

Humming.

Humming is one of the easiest ways to engage your vagus nerve,

Which runs through your body and really balances everything.

So just hum.

It's little practices like that,

That I can't believe people don't talk about this stuff because there's just these little things that we can introduce.

You can do something like that 20 minutes or 20 times a day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you are someone who is always busy,

Always an overactive mind,

Get some little colorful dots,

Those little sticky dots and put them in places around your home,

Around your workplace where you stop regularly.

So whether it's by a kettle or on the toilet or where you brush your teeth,

Whenever you see a dot,

Think to yourself,

Can I feel my feet?

Where do I feel tight?

And take three deep breaths in.

Just those really simple,

Mindful moments help you return to yourself.

There's no magic answer.

If you can get some sort of somatic work done,

Brilliant,

Because I'm a huge advocate for talking therapy.

It's amazing.

And I think everyone at some point in their life should experience a really good therapist because there's nothing like it once you get into your head.

But because your body stores everything on a cellular level,

You can't clear everything through talking therapy.

You just can't.

Because if it's stored in your body,

You can talk until the cows come home and you're not going to be able to release things that are held in physical discomfort.

So that's where we go for a massage,

Get some cranial sacral therapy,

Do some Reiki.

Something like that can really,

Really help.

I know it's not for everyone.

I know some people don't like touch.

Some people can't afford to it.

Always look for low cost programs.

A lot of colleges do clinics,

Your training clinics where you can go and get sometimes free sessions,

Sometimes really,

Really cheap sessions.

A lot of clinicians as well.

I have clients that when we went into a really hard financial crisis here in the UK this past year,

I had clients saying,

I just can't afford you.

And I'll be like,

Here's my PayPal.

Come for the session.

Pay me what you can.

A lot of clinicians will work that way because as somebody who works in this space,

We don't want people to feel that they can't access our work.

Most people aren't in this for the money.

We're in it because it's something we feel we have to do.

Yeah.

Always worth asking.

You know,

Somatic work is so powerful and it is going back to those just like the sticky dots and the breathing and stuff.

Those are just little things you can do to yourself.

If you've got an animal,

Hug your animal.

You regulate with your puppy.

That's one of the most powerful ways to settle a nervous system.

Yeah.

I've got one,

I've got two daughters.

One super loves long hugs and one didn't really ever.

But now that she's moved out of home,

Her hugs are longer.

And sometimes I just like.

Yeah.

And then I just wait for her to feel like,

But I'm like,

Oh,

The oxytocin and the chilling vibes.

Exactly.

It's all that oxytocin and like aroma can do that as well.

If there is a perfume that your granny who you adored wore,

Get a bottle.

I've got a really old,

I'm looking at it now,

A really old Jurgens hand cream.

Yeah.

Pump that sat on my great grandmother's kitchen window all through growing up.

And when I open it,

It still smells exactly like it did.

So like the power of aroma is huge.

If there's an essential oil that remind you of the old flowers that you walked through on the way to school that always made you happy,

Buy a bottle of that.

And when you're feeling heavy and struggling,

Breathe it in.

Yeah.

You just reminded me,

I've got the laundry detergent that is the same company,

But when I was little,

There used to be this eucalyptus spray.

And my dad,

If I had a snuffling nose,

Would spray a whole heap on one of his old hankies,

Like,

You know,

Fold up the hanky spray and then put it in my pillow,

But sort of underneath where I was.

So help clear your nose.

And I was doing the washing the other day and I opened the laundry detergent and just obviously had it closer to my nose than I usually do.

And I was like,

Dad,

That's dad.

And being,

You know,

Wrapped up in a bed,

Feeling cozy,

You know,

Just about moments.

Yeah.

Really taking care of.

The nervousness for a moment just went,

Oh.

Yeah.

Those little things,

Because once you start incorporating these little things,

It becomes easier to access that part of you that needs the attention.

It's like it builds your capacity,

Isn't it?

Like it,

The chaos becomes less now.

You know,

Mindfulness,

Meditation,

However you want to look at it,

It's a muscle you have to build,

Particularly as women.

Because like I said,

We're programmed to go,

Go,

Go.

We're programmed to give everything to everyone else.

And it doesn't matter if you've got period pains.

It doesn't matter if you've got migraine.

It doesn't,

I mean,

Hell you give birth and in the Western world,

We're back at everything like within a week.

Yeah.

In America,

You're literally back at work within a week in some places,

You know,

We push through everything and don't honor ourselves.

Yeah.

And it's just those little moments of just the little reminders of what makes you feel settled because by feeling settled,

Your nervous system is letting go of some of that constant firing.

I think that's such a beautiful,

Just anchor for all of us,

Whether you're going through perimenopause or whether you're going through any time when you feel even more vulnerable to stresses or anything like that,

Just do what you can.

I've just discovered that I've always loved water,

But I don't live anywhere near the ocean and the ocean is my happy place.

So I'm like,

That's three hours away.

So I can go on the weekend,

But it's not like every day.

And I love having a bath,

But we've been in drought for so long.

And then so it's like,

Yeah,

Well,

You don't waste water on a bath,

But I've discovered that there is a float place near me.

And so I have become a floater.

And when you were talking about the day spa,

If you had said to me in my twenties or thirties,

I had to go and be suspended in magnesium rich water in the dark with no sound and earplugs in,

I would have said,

I would rather stick a fork in my eye repeatedly.

But now I'm like,

Oh yeah,

Sign me up.

That is like,

I just love it so much.

I cannot describe it.

I am back in the womb and it is the womb of my choosing and I am safe and I am calm and I'm warm and I'm held and I'm supported like all of that beautiful.

And my nervous system is just like,

Ah,

Like just in a puddle,

You know,

Life is demanding and hard.

And as you start to go through menopause,

Perimenopause,

Your nervous system kind of cranks it up a notch because you're not sleeping.

You're probably not eating properly.

You're probably rowing with a lot of people around you or you're worse.

You're holding it all in.

So your nervous system,

If you've already had a stressed life,

Nervous system is then uber stressed.

And honestly,

It is so difficult to regulate your nervous system when your body is fighting against you,

Whether that be through hormonal changes or illness or whatever manner of things is affecting you.

So it's really important to,

Like I said,

Just claw back these little snapshots throughout your day.

And they can be 20 seconds here,

A minute there.

One of the things I used to do with my kids when they were losing the plot for whatever reason is just to stand still.

And this is a really powerful thing in hypnobirthing as well.

When you're like,

Everything's intense,

Just stop.

And literally it's like four things.

What can you hear?

What can you see?

What can you feel?

And what can you smell?

And it sounds so simple,

But it's just enough to break that cycle of overstimulation.

Because we live in an overstimulating world.

We are bombarded by everything.

It's toxic the way a lot of us are living,

But we're normalizing it.

And our bodies are not coping.

No,

They're not.

That's actually one of the reasons why we decided to move more.

Like we made a conscious decision to move to a country town,

Have a smaller mortgage,

Grow our own food,

Do things in a more simple way.

Because I was craving simplicity,

But I was also craving just not being at the threshold of losing my shit every minute.

And when we lived in a city,

I was also working in a really ill-fitting and stressful job where there was a lot of very,

Very,

Very strong time demands.

And it was just,

It was addictive because I was so used to living in chaos,

But it was so hard to keep up the pace.

And that was only my twenties.

And then we were like,

Okay,

We don't want to raise kids where it's normal that people are on all the time,

Permanently on.

Adrenaline is addictive.

Adrenaline junkies are that way because of the endorphins and the rush that they're always getting.

But what people don't realize is that daily we are adrenaline junkies.

Our worlds never stop.

And unless you intentionally remove yourself.

So when I was going through my separation from my marriage,

I could have moved a mile down the road and had a big house and a little bit of,

Not calm,

But I would have been in a busier area.

And I intentionally stayed in the area that I'm in now because one,

I'd built a lot of support networks here.

I'm in a much smaller property,

But I'm surrounded by trees.

And I just thought,

I don't want a bigger house next to a busy road.

I literally need to step out because if you live in a city,

Wow,

Your nervous system,

Even if you are a person that does a lot of things to calm yourself,

Just that daily bombardment.

And again,

It becomes so comfortable and so familiar to be in that state.

And so that's why I always say to people,

I occasionally give people homework to do between sessions.

And I'll just say,

I just want you just to sit for like five minutes a day,

Whether it's when you first get up in the morning and just sit with your feet on the floor and just sit and let it feel uncomfortable and ask yourself- And see how much resistance you have to doing it.

Yeah.

Why does it feel uncomfortable?

And over the weeks you kind of,

At first it's a bit like,

Oh,

This is stupid.

But over the weeks you then start to land in a different emotional space of,

Oh,

This feels uncomfortable because maybe,

You know,

When I was three,

My grandmother used to make me sit in the corner when I was naughty.

Do you know what I mean?

And it's just giving yourself that space because it's like that onion I mentioned earlier.

The layers of the onion start to unpeel.

Yeah.

And we get to notice them.

Yeah.

Like I'm not a big,

You know,

I'm one of these people that says,

You must keep a journal.

If gratitude journal is good for you,

Knock yourself out.

What I do say to a lot of my clients is free writing.

Just sit down on your favorite music and just put any word that pops into your head on a page because what happens through that process of not having to form sentences or beautiful penmanship or grammar,

Any word that pops in,

No matter how ridiculous it is,

You're taking yourself out of that fight or flight situation.

And eventually you're starting to tell yourself a story.

You can put a time limit on it.

I,

Number seven is my number.

I do it for seven minutes a time.

I don't do it daily.

I might do it weekly,

Sometimes not even that.

Yeah.

When I'm really struggling with something,

I'll set the timer.

I might listen to some of my favorite music before,

And then I just sit for that seven minutes and write anything down.

The first couple of times I did it,

I thought you're losing your mind.

This is the most ridiculous thing.

But what it did after kind of three or four sessions for me,

I started remembering things that I hadn't given attention to in years because they were so hidden,

But they were things that were still really impacting me on an emotional and cellular level.

Yeah.

And a lot of emotion came up and we need to feel our feelings.

We've been conditioned to never feel.

And the way societies are changing,

We've got AI coming in,

Which is terrifying.

It's going to encourage us to feel even less.

And I'm all about bringing the feelings back in because we can suppress things to the point where they're not even on our radar.

And things like free writing,

Things like meditation,

If you can get into it,

It's those hidden downloads again that come up that will raise something.

And if it's being raised,

It's because it's being held within your system.

Yeah.

And it needs to be acknowledged.

Yeah.

I went on the weekend.

I was meant to have a friend come for the weekend because I got sick and then her dad got sick because she didn't end up here.

And I had this choice of like,

And I still kind of recovering from that funny bug thing.

And I thought,

Hmm,

I've either got the choice of just kind of battening down the hatches and hibernating.

But I kind of had a sense that if I did that,

I might start a slide back to that kind of more flatter emotion.

I thought,

No.

And so I played this game with myself on Saturday and the game was,

What would joy do?

And then I just got to do the next thing.

And it was really interesting what joy had in store for me is not what I would have kind of like predestined or whatever.

And it looks much more like head to the farmer's market,

Buy some fresh fruit and vegetables.

And then I was like,

The sun is just gorgeous in wintertime.

It's like just perfect.

And so I went and laid on this grass and I thought,

Oh,

I'm just going to close my eyes for a bit.

I ended up sleeping in the sun for an hour and a half,

Because that's what joy wanted to do.

And then after that,

I went for a bushwalk.

And then after that,

I went,

You know,

Read and,

Oh,

So good.

We don't have time in our days to experience joy.

And we also are being sold this absolute con that every day has to be meaningful and impactful and,

You know,

Larger than life and a great experience.

And we see this a lot with our teenagers at school.

So if you know you don't want to be a doctor or a vet or a lawyer or a dentist or whatever,

And you're a bit like,

Oh,

I don't know what I want to do,

Those kids are in crisis because they are being constantly told that every day is going to be fun.

Don't ever do anything that doesn't bring you joy.

But nobody really understands what joy is.

They're just words that are being spoken to us.

But adults are getting that as well.

It's like we have this thing of every day's got to be full of something meaningful.

No,

Like a lot of days are going to be sucky and really bloody boring.

But yeah,

You're going to find a great sunset or look at those flowers.

I haven't seen those in a long time.

That is enough.

We do not need.

And it took me a long time to untrain my brain from thinking,

You know,

That I was going to be like the next Gabby Bernstein,

Or I was going to be like delivering a message to the masses,

Right?

I got really stuck in that around menopause because I was like,

I've got to give my life meaning and yadda yadda,

Doing a lot of these things that I hated doing.

And it's now that I've pared everything back.

That is where the fun is.

And that's one of the biggest things I can say to people is just turn the volume down on all that crap noise.

Even if you're not on social media,

It's filtering through society.

You're getting it one way or the other.

And be really aware that this is what your kids and your teenagers are really,

Really struggling with.

Yeah,

I know.

Because they don't see what the point is of pursuing something if it's not immediate gratification or joy.

And as parents,

As mothers who are probably menopausal,

We're supporting kids through that and it's confusing us as well.

And it all then becomes this huge clusterfuck where we're just like,

Nobody knows what they're doing.

We're all lost within it.

We're still trying to figure it out.

Just turn the volume down on all this crap around us.

Is that it took a couple of years to really intentionally retrain that in my own brain.

And I think what you're saying before about the little things I was reading,

I can't remember what her name is.

I think it's Dr.

Catherine and then she's got a double barrel surname,

But she's written a book on trauma.

And she's got this thing that she does on her social media,

Which is,

I think it's little joys or tiny joys or something.

And I've always said about squeezing the joy out of life.

And I don't mean these catastrophically joyful,

Crazily amazing moments.

I mean,

The blue,

That precise blue in that sky and the feeling of breathing deep into my chest after a session with you,

You know,

Having flannelette sheets when it's a cold winter's night,

Like that type of stuff is notice,

Notice,

Notice.

Yes.

And maybe turn it,

Turn the volume down on the noise and turn the volume up on noticing.

Just noticing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just noticing,

Just noticing.

Just being here.

I have immensely enjoyed our chat and I have immensely enjoyed my session.

Thank you so much.

And where can people find you if they'd like to know more about your online sessions and where you are in the world?

I am the most basic human being.

I haven't ventured into the world of websites yet.

So my social media,

I,

I,

Most people connect with me via my Instagram page.

Okay,

Great.

I have the links to your Insta and your Facebook.

It's just Francine Ford underscore,

Or you can just email me directly.

So it's just info at Francine Ford dot bomb.

It's forward with an E.

I've never needed,

I've never found a use for a website.

Another thing that I will get sucked into and spend four years building.

Yeah,

Exactly.

And simple is good.

My question is always,

I've actually got my words,

My,

My guiding words are clear,

Committed,

Simple.

That's it.

Just that.

Just that,

That is more than enough.

Thank you for starting your day with me.

And thank you for ending mine.

It's been really lovely.

I know,

Weird.

I know.

I know.

It is really weird.

It's so weird.

Cause I then this morning,

I started my day with someone in the States.

And so I'm like,

I'm just like living around the clock at the moment.

That's funny.

It's really good.

We can do this.

Yes,

It is.

It is very cool that we've got the ability to.

Thank you so much.

It's been lovely getting to know you and your work in the world.

Thank you.

And thank you for what you're doing in this space.

No worries.

Thanks so much for listening into today's episode.

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As I hope you do,

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Listen to this.

Did you know this is normal?

I really,

Really,

Really would love to get these beautiful stories into the hearts and ears and minds of so many more midlife mavens and your help spreading the love is truly,

Truly appreciated.

Thank you so much.

I'm Kylie Patchett,

Your host,

And have a spectacular day.