Dr. Valerie Rein: So all these restrictions have been in place

for many, many years and imprinted, literally imprinted

in our consciousness, imprinted in our psyches, in our

subconscious, and transmitted as a survival instruction from

great grandmothers to grandmothers to their daughters,

to their daughters, etc, because the survival was predicated on

being accepted and being, frankly, pleasing and desirable

to men, because men were the only way for women to survive.

Hello, my loves. I am very excited for you to hear

this week's episode with a dear friend of mine, soul sister and

author of patriarchy stress disorder, Dr Valerie Rein is in

the house to help all you women over 40 who have a very

important message that you're about to hear. Dr Valerie was on

the podcast a few years ago, so this is the second time she's

been on the new truth. And she's the author of the book

patriarchy stress disorder. Now this is a game changing book.

She also coined the term patriarchy stress disorder after

a couple of decades of working in New York City as a therapist,

she worked with so many women, and she kept seeing the same

burnout, the same issues, and she realized that women were

traumatized from living and working and being raised inside

of a patriarchal system that teach it, that treats them like

they're men. And so as she wrote this book, it's absolutely

phenomenal. I've given it to lots of clients. I've read it

many times myself. I highly encourage you to get this book.

And since she and her husband Jeffrey, have developed a system

called the thriving method to help women break free and heal

from patriarchy stress disorder, which so many women have. So she

talks all about it in this episode. Dr Valerie has been on

NBC, ABC, PBS, Psychology Today, she's done tons of media found

on many podcasts. She's an absolute legend. She's so

beautiful, she's so sweet, she's so just real and and and open

hearted and, but absolutely freaking brilliant. And this is

the work that she developed. So I'm so excited to share it with

you today. Share it with all of the women you need to know who

are over 40, and if you're not over 40, this episode is for

you, because one day you will be over 40. But there's so much

that we need to know going into this transition, and I hope you

enjoy and spread the word. Of course, you Hello, beautiful.

I'm so excited for this episode. I have back a dear, dear friend

of mine, soul sister from well, I guess we go. We go way back,

way back. It was a while ago. I was almost going to say, like

five years ago, but no, this is like, way back. I'm so happy to

have you here again and to share your magic and your wisdom and

your incredible gifts with my community, this community and

yeah, just to unpack this very important conversation for women

over 40? If you're not a woman over 40, this is still relevant

for you, because you, one day will be a woman over 40, so

definitely stay stay tuned. But I'm so happy to be with you

again. Dr Valerie was on the podcast like three years ago,

maybe a while ago, and we promoted your book, and we'll

talk all about that today too.

Dr. Valerie Rein: But welcome back. Thank you. I'm thrilled to

be here, and yeah, we go back. I want to say at least a decade.

Yeah, it felt like a heartbeat, and so much magic unfolded when

we met, and so much magic unfolded since, and I'm thrilled

to be meeting as this at this very important juncture. It

feels like an hour work in the conversations that are unfolding

through us and what's happening in the world right now, what's

unfolding feels like a very catalytic, powerful moment to be

connecting and having this conversation so grateful for you

and grateful for everyone who is in this conversation with us.

Me too. Yeah, I was actually thinking so we went to

mama Gina's weekend together, the weekend of Donald Trump's

inauguration when he was president the first time. That's

when it was and we met before that, but that's when we went to

that weekend together. Isn't that wild? And here we are

again.

Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah? Chills, and here we are again. Oh my

gosh.

Who would have thought it would happen twice?

Not our podcast, Donald Trump being the president. I. Wow,

yeah, today our conversation is going to be about the number one

thing women over 40 need to know. And this is, like, this is

your jam and your book. I mean, I've given your book to so many

women. It is such it's like a Bible with every woman. So it's

called patriarchy, stress disorder. But do you want to

where do you want to start? Do you want to share? Like, I'm

sure you'll weave stories all the way through, but do you want

to just reveal it now, or leave them hanging?

Or about the number one thing,

you're in charge. You're in charge. Oh my gosh,

no. Or some lead up, yeah.

Dr. Valerie Rein: So what happens right when we are in our

late 30s and that that's that. That was that period of time in

my life when you and I met, and the things that unfolded from

there have been so, so powerful. I really felt like my life, and

you were just reflecting on that when we chatted pre recording,

that I was feeling stuck. I was feeling stuck in my life, and

that was my reason for seeking and going places. You and I met

when you were on stage and you just you had such beautiful,

beautiful, powerful energy, and I just felt like I needed to

connect with you, and I'm so happy that I followed that

guidance and wonderful things unfolded from there. So I think

this is one of the first thing I want to share when you're

feeling stuck, when you're feeling confused, when you have

this even small, little voice that maybe there is more to your

life, maybe there is more to discover. Trust that you may not

know it. Oh gosh, I did not know anything at all, like what it's

going to look like, where the path is taking me. It's just the

next right thing. And what is the right thing is what feels

right in the moment we connected. It felt exciting and

felt enlivening, and felt like I just wanted to have a

conversation with you, and that conversation led to hanging out

together that weekend in New York City that sent other

dominoes forward, and that's what I want to really share with

women, because I know there is so much conditioning surrounding

us, always, every step of the way our entire lives, about how

we should be, how we should be, how we should look, how we

should act, how we should be in every role. And I feel midlife

is that magical period in our lives when that we begin to

question, that that begins to crack, that begins to peel back,

and it may feel disorienting. It may feel even sometimes, like a

crisis, as something's gotta give, something's gotta go. And

I want to share this message of perhaps hope. Don't be afraid of

that. Don't be afraid of the earth quaking. Don't be afraid

that things are opening up and feeling disorienting. Follow

that thread of enlivening excitement, even if it's really,

really small. Follow that little spark, and don't be afraid to

discover what it has for you. And we can talk about all, all

the possibilities there that we can get to in this time

together. Yeah, you

know, it's interesting, because when I

think about so that you're talking about this. 40s is like

a potent portal. It's a powerful time. And 50s, you know, it's

midlife really, when we start to no longer give a fuck. That's

not exactly how you phrased it, but you were a little bit more

close enough the softer version of that, but the no longer give

a fuck energy. It's so interesting because, isn't it

when patriarchy, which is your your specialty, your secret

sauce, isn't it when patriarchy starts to devalue women and

women now women are, you know, freezing their faces and not

allowed to age and gotta look a certain way. I mean, we've

always had to look a certain way according to patriarchy, but

like, all these standards in its 40s, all of a sudden there's all

this pressure, because our value goes down in patriarchy, and our

value goes down. Then why? Because we actually come into

our power then, like, isn't that? Is that like that for a

reason?

Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah, you expressed it so eloquently.

Yeah, it just had this visual of the stock market right when the

value like, there's the red line trending down, down, down.

That's the woman's value after quote, unquote, a certain age,

in the eyes of the patriarchy and. Hidden there. What's not

visible on that cultural chart is the opportunity for this, the

actual value, the authentic value, to skyrocket. But we need

to pull back the veil. We need to see through the delusion of

this cultural programming, and it's easy said than done. So

this is, this is what I've been unfolding. What has been

unfolding through me, my journey has been this awareness that the

impact of patriarchy over 5000 years? 10,000 years, different

people put a different number on it. But how long patriarchy has

been the way of life in this culture? We now know from the

research in the science of epigenetics that trauma is

genetically transmitted, and if we accept that oppression is

traumatic, that for women to not even own our bodies for the bulk

of that time, not own our bodies, Not own our destinies,

not own, the means of production, aka not being able

to make our own money or to even have our own bank account, which

was the case even in the United States up until just a few

decades ago, or Up until late 80s, a woman could not borrow

money

for her 60s, late 80s,

Dr. Valerie Rein: late 80s, yeah, yeah. Without a male

cosigner, a woman could not take out a business loan. So all

these restrictions have been in place for many, many years, and

imprinted, literally imprinted in our consciousness, imprinted

in our psyches, in our subconscious, and transmitted as

a survival instruction from great grandmothers to

grandmothers, to their daughters, to their daughters,

etc, because the survival was predicated on being accepted and

being, frankly, pleasing and desirable to men. Because men

were the only way for women to survive.

Oh my gosh. I've never heard anyone phrase it

like that before, unless you said it last time, and I don't

remember that hit me so deep. Can you say that again?

Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah, men have been the only way for women to

survive, aka being pleasing to men, being approved by by men,

being desired by men.

It was survival before, and now we're doing it,

and we don't actually have to do it, but it's still ingrained in

us to do it. And actually like survival because you had no

rights, no voice, no money, no and no power, no

Dr. Valerie Rein: legal rights, oh, my God, and no right to

vote, no right to own property, no legal rights to own children.

And up until 1960s or so, 50s, 60s in both us in the UK, and I

imagine other countries as well, a husband could send his wife to

mental asylum just because, just because, like, maybe he was

having an affair and she was being disagreeable,

unreasonable, so he could lock her away. It's unconscionable,

right? When we start peeling back those layers, and why do

that? Some women may say, Well, why do this? Because things are

different now. We can make our own money, we can decide our own

destiny, and we don't even have to if we're not straight, we

don't have to pass for straight to survive. We have the freedom

of sexual expression. We have all that right and and it is

amazing that we do. It's beautiful that we do. It's

important to recognize, even if we don't believe any of that BS,

that we need a man to survive, we need anybody to approve of us

at all, to survive, to be accepted, to thrive, to be okay,

to be loved, to belong, we may not consciously believe any of

that what drives our. Our thoughts, our emotions and

actions, behaviors, is our subconscious. It is our

subconscious that drives it, and in our subconscious imprinted

are those survival instructions. They have not been updated and

upgraded because they they're rooted very, very deeply, and

our survival programming is not changed just because the

environment changes. And even that is kind of questionable

right now, like the changes in the environment right now, what

we have the political climate right now. Is that really

conducive to women feeling safe and relaxed and free? We Yeah,

we can consider that too. So it's kind of it's a mixed bag of

news, good news, bad news, good news is also like, yes, this

awareness may sound like bad news, but it's not. Your freedom

begins at this point of awareness, understanding that

whatever is holding you back that you might have been trying

to, quote, unquote fix, with therapy, with personal

development, work, reading self help books, doing all that good

stuff. I'm sure you've benefited from it. It has all been helpful

for your growth, but maybe you haven't felt like yourself,

fully yourself. I can you. You can fully be free, unencumbered,

unbound, in your life, in your relationships, in your work, in

the world, it is not your fault. It's not because you've been

failing at that. It's not because you haven't worked hard

enough. It is because there's something deeper. There's this

missing piece that most frameworks don't consider,

therapy doesn't consider for the most part. Maybe there are a

handful of outlier therapists that work with that, but not in

general, right? So understanding that missing piece is there,

perhaps can help you get yourself let yourself off the

hook of, oh, I have failed. I cannot do this and consider,

well, I haven't really addressed this yet, great, and it does not

dissolve just because we are aware of it. That's another

piece.

And hold on, is the missing piece? Specifically,

just to be clear, patriarchy, stress disorder, would you say?

Is that or the impact of patriarchy. That's the missing

piece.

Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah, I I've come to call it patriarchy

stress disorder. That's the wording that came through, yes,

when I was becoming aware of that and working on the book.

You can call it whatever you want to call it. Really, it's

understanding that there are intergenerational patterns,

intergenerational and collective patterns that affect us, of and

they're seated in the subconscious. They didn't start

with us. We're not responsible for creating them, but they

affect our thoughts, emotions and behavior, because that the

subconscious drives the bus. The subconscious drives the bus. No

matter what we think up there, the subconscious always wins. So

knowing what's there and not just saying, Oh, I don't believe

that, but actually looking at, well, what are my thoughts, what

are my emotions, what are my actions? And if there is a gap

between how you desire your life to be and how it actually is,

consider maybe you haven't been failing. Maybe it's been your

subconscious driving the bus in a different direction, and

perhaps it's not your fault, but it doesn't mean that it's not

within your reach, and I would even say your responsibility now

that you know that to heal it, to heal it for yourself, because

we also know this from epigenetics, that we can heal

this trauma. And there are practices that have been you

know that they've been tested and practiced, and we've

collected everything we could get our hands on me and my

husband, we work together on that in we've collected it in

the system that we call the thriving method. And there are

other methods as well that work with intergenerational

collective trauma. We just happen to specialize in PSD,

because that has been the thing that had not been unpacked

before, and we're just in the very beginning of who sending

that healing and awareness through the world, because it

needs to happen. It has to happen. That's why I say it is

our responsibility, because we have the privilege of having

access to. To this information, to the science, to these

practices, I feel it is our responsibility to set ourselves

free from the inside out, and by doing that, we create more

freedom in the world. We create more freedom for others,

regardless of gender. Yeah, and that's the beauty of it, healing

the collective trauma we and all participate in

it, exactly. And though, I think the only way,

you know, there's still so much you know, trying to change the

systems externally, but I think the systems will only change

when we change parts, when we stop participating in them

internally, and do the healing internally. I have a couple of

questions for you. So first, I would love for you to define

patriarchy for it, because it's a word that gets thrown around a

lot. I feel like some women might not even fully grasp the

concept, and then following that we talked about when we first

reconnected today, you you mentioned, like, it's worse than

ever, right now. You know it's like, we think, Oh, we've kind

of let me too movement. We've, like, healed everything. We're

good, like, we've changed. We've changed. Women have rights, yay.

But like, how it's actually sneakily, like, infiltrated

everything now. So let's talk about both those two things.

Dr. Valerie Rein: Awesome. Yeah. Great question, Kate, what is

patriarchy? There are many definitions, and to give like a

life kind of snapshot, like, if you Google patriarchy, I don't

know if it's still the case. I don't know what AI will bring

up, but it used to be, last time I did it, a couple of years ago,

that Google would bring up the first match would be something

along the lines of, it's a boogeyman that feminists

invented to blame all their shortcomings on what? And that,

in a sense, that is a meta right answer to that question, what is

patriarchy? This is patriarchy. That patriarchy is a system of

oppression that historically has owned everything. Has owned

information. We could talk about how you know it's being infused

in AI, etc, etc, has owned morality, what's right and

wrong,

go into that. Go into everything,

Dr. Valerie Rein: not my field directly, but one, one of our

brilliant clients, actually brought our attention to it,

because she's been one of the leaders in it, in information

technology, for years, and she saw that coming years ago, that

patriarchy and racism are being literally coded into AI and,

yeah, what does that mean? I mean, we're just in the very

beginning stages of finding out what that might mean. But I

don't want to spell out doom and gloom, because I I am

optimistic. I do feel that the more we are aware and the more

we even communicate with AI, and the more we put out our thoughts

out there. We can tip that scale. We can tip that balance.

I am optimistic. It's just predicated on us using our

voices, right? And that that comes down to doing our own work

internally and finding that voice. So, yeah, patriarchy is a

system, is a system of oppression, where, historically,

all the power, the power financial power, political

power, religious power, the power of information, legal, all

kinds of power has been in the hands of men, with The exclusion

of other groups

and the exclusion of caretakers, that's women.

Dr. Valerie Rein: And I also want to put a sidebar, an

important sidebar there is that I'm not seeing women as I Oh,

it's a tricky one, because I know women have resistance.

Also, oftentimes I get this question, or I get this

pushback, like women don't want to see themselves as victims.

And on the one hand, I fully agree with that. We're not like

I don't, you know, I I'm not in favor of any victim mentality

and blaming all. Let's sit around and blame men. This is

not about blaming men at all, or blaming other women who support

this patriarchal establishment, unconsciously or consciously by

you. We can talk about why women do that, again, comes down to

survival, but there are so many expressions that we consciously

or unconsciously participate in, or we are pained by when we see

that in other women, this is not about blame. This is about

clarity of recognizing the historical impact and trauma

created and perpetrated across the board, across the gender

spectrum, men have been harmed by patriarchy as well, in

different ways. Patriarchy has put men in boxes where the only

emotions allowed for men are anger, competitiveness, if

that's an emotion. So essentially, all the qualities

that patriarchy consists considers to be more feminine,

qualities like nurturing, compassion, connected community,

right? More softer values. They have been pretty much eradicated

from what a good, good participant of club patriarch, a

male participant of club patriarch is allowed to express

and that severely harms men that limits their wholeness as beings

as it limits our wholeness as beings, as women and everyone

across the gender spectrum. It really. It doesn't really, I

want to say it doesn't really matter. It's a paradox. Yes, it

matters where you fall on the gender spectrum in terms of

privilege, because you have been traumatized differently. And

that's why it doesn't matter, because we all have trauma from

it, even people who are really privileged through patriarchy.

And we could, can include racism and white white supremacy in

that as well, because it's a similar effect, even those who

benefit from it are still traumatized by it, although

these people have more privilege, so it's complicated.

What we can agree on is, perhaps, or this is my thesis,

anyway, that as human beings, the systems of oppression have

traumatized us all, even though some people have more privilege

under them, right, and that privilege is also harmful. Yes,

yes. Differently. It harms people differently. Harms people

with more privilege differently, with than people with less

privilege, no doubt about that. So I don't want to, like, dilute

it, yeah, pretend like we're all, like, equal etc, etc. But

there is the common humanity that is harmed, and it's harmed

differently for people across the spectrum of

I'm seeing like I'm really feeling it, just the

imbalance, like, you know that all everything being masculine,

without the feminine and without women, that hurts men too,

because they need the feminine, and we need the feminine and and

just thinking about how I mean, it's all it, and we often look

at it through the US against you, men, against women,

division, which the fear based systems keep us divided, Keep us

fighting against each other. But actually, when we look at the

animal kingdom, like speaking, we were talking about Africa

before, the animals are so interconnected. All the the

masculine, the feminine, the the and the women are the ones who

are the most powerful, like the female lions are the ones out

hunting and killing like they're that they're actually and that's

true, it's all backwards in nature to how we've learned from

patriarchy, but the interconnectedness is, is

everything to the harmony of life. So you see how, like, I'm

just getting this for the first time, just hearing you talk,

it's like I'm seeing that the destruction of the world happens

because of the the loss of the feminine, yeah, the repression

of the feminine, yeah.

Dr. Valerie Rein: I'm going to blow some minds right now,

because my mind was blown. Maybe I am a, you know, slow learner,

which I tend to be, but here it is anyway. So as this download,

this awareness came to me about patriarchy, stress disorder,

this intergenerational trauma, I started working with that my

husband and I both working with that we're working with our

clients. And then little by little, I started getting into

working with animals and working with plants and working with

nature in these deep healing ways, and this awareness

deepened for me that perhaps the fundamental split began in terms

of systems of oppression began with species. Ism, when humans

decided that humans are not an equal and interconnected part of

everything in nature, but somehow we are superior. We are

the quote, unquote, top of the food chain. And that was the

fundamental split. And if somebody you know has a

different take on it, I would love to hear that. Maybe I'm not

looking far enough. But to me, this is, this is where my

awareness is at right now, speciesism, positioning

ourselves as humans in the center of the universe or above

everything else, or separate from everything else, is

extremely harmful, and all other systems of oppression became

possible because of that mentality. Well, if I as a human

being somehow have the right to abuse or exploit animals, right

for for gain, for profit, for my convenience, and plants and the

earth, then I can decide, and that's, that's how racism came

about, as white people decided to dehumanize people with darker

skin color and say, well, they're they're like animals.

They literally had to dehumanize humans to because there was a

precedent with animals, because we are abusing animals so we can

abuse other humans. And that's what Hitler then did. Also like

further dividing, like the Aryan race versus all other races, the

Aryan race, being pure, all others not being good enough,

dehumanizing them, right, so that those atrocities and abuses

became palatable and possible. So it sounds kind of crazy, but

if we look at that right, that that healing that divide needs

to start or go to like healing our separation from everything

that is and restoring our place in the family of things as an

interconnected being. And I will go further and suggest that even

our epidemic of not belonging, loneliness, that that is so

present right now, and perhaps covid really highlighted that,

and and now The advances in technology right have been,

unfortunately driving, driving that as well, or supporting that

as well, I feel that can also be healed by healing that original

divide and separation and remembering who we truly,

authentically are Beyond all conditioning again, even if we

don't believe it, like you and I may not believe that we are

somehow top of the food chain, and we can, you know, we're

separate from everything else, but that conditioning is so old

and it lives there, and we need to uncover it with compassion

and create opportunities to healing like for me. You know

animals like I work with horses in equine facilitated therapy,

in equine facilitated learning formats. I learned so much about

myself from horses because they hold such a clear mirror. I was

able to go deep into my humanity and then with plants also. So

anyway, healing opportunities are many. Healing opportunities

are many. And what you referenced before is that right

now, patriarchy is like patriarchy and racism and the

abuses of the earth that is all escalating. I can say it's worse

than it's ever been. We still have made progress, but I can

pretty confidently say it's worse than it was when you and I

had our previous interview. The pendulum went all the way to the

other side in terms of women's rights, the rights of people

with darker skin color. What's going on right now in the US is

just beyond, fill in the word beyond, whatever so many words

cross my mind, and certainly beyond what I thought, and many

people thought would be possible in this day and age, and yet

here, here we are, right in terms of our collective

consciousness, that is what is happening. So he. Healing is

parabound right now, and for those, I also understand

privilege in a way that if we have the privilege of access to

this information, if we have the privilege of time and resource

to participate in this healing in whatever way we can right? It

is, you know, I feel it's like walking if we only give to

others. When we're walking with one leg forward, right, we'll be

walking around in circles. If we only give to ourselves, we'll be

walking around in circles. We have to pour into ourselves, we

have to then spread it around and share with us. We can only

share as as much as we've experienced ourselves. We can't

leapfrog that. So I'm a fan of walking in a balanced way so we

can actually move forward in our own life experience and in our

cultural consciousness.

Yes, so, so in terms of women over 40 and

patriarchy, what do you see? How do you see it impacting women

over 40 and this big transition you're talking about that you've

been going through, and how like, where we can focus on

taking our power back or shifting?

Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah, okay. I'm so glad we're talking about

this. This is a very powerful time. I almost said exciting

time, but I want to be sensitive to all the challenges that come

up for us in our 40s, and it's the time most of us, if not all

of us, are in perimenopause, which happens for years before

we even start seeing changes to our monthly menstrual period, it

can still be regular. We may not even be tuned into from that

perspective to anything changing. So it may sound

strange, but experts now say that if you're over 35 and some

experts say even over 30, those hormonal changes have already

begun, right? But we we're very busy in our 30s. We're very

active. We're building our lives, building our careers. So

maybe we're not as focused on other aspects, some women maybe,

and some women were just so out there in the world, serving,

giving, creating. And then there comes a time when our biology

itself begins to pull us back, sometimes gently and sometimes

not so gently, when these changes begin to show up in our

thyroid function. For some women, they show up as

autoimmunity, chronic fatigue, some physical expressions come

up that may really pull the rug from under us, or personal

losses. For me, it was the loss of my mother in that, yeah,

occurred when I was 43 and that, that was the big domino that

sent, sent me on this journey. What is this journey? And yeah,

I just wanted to name a few other circumstances that can

happen. Can be a career change. You may feel stuck in your

career, and it's time for a change, and maybe your kids are

at the age when they don't need you as much anymore. So your

role is changing as a parent. Maybe your marriage feels stuck,

um, or maybe you've gone through a divorce, or maybe you just

feel lonely in your partnership, and feels like you know, is that

all there is right? Or is there a possibility for a great

unfolding? Or maybe you just have feel like everything is

good in your life, but you feel there could be more. There could

be more, and you feel guilty or ungrateful because, well, look

at you, you have everything anyone would want to trade their

lives with you, but you're still kind of restless. And I feel

these are the gifts of 40s, because life delivers that call

to adventure in different ways. It can be in a way, of this

longing, right excitement for a new adventure. It can be in the

way of feeling dull and and bored, frankly, with some

things, or in a crisis, health crisis, or a loss of a loved

one, or a relationship, or a career changes, integration, so

so many. Things can call us on this adventure. And what is this

adventure really about? I feel 40s is this magical portal. When

we are full grown adults, we've done things in life, we've tried

things in life. We've gone down these shiny paths and learned

what we learned, and maybe, frankly, we're a little bit

disillusioned, like I thought, like making more money will make

me happy. We've followed that path and we learned what we

learned. I thought, you know, being in the relationship will

make me happy. Well, I followed that path. I learned what I

learned. I thought being a parent or not being a parent

will be that part of my identity that will make me feel authentic

and make me happy. We learned what we learned, right? Etc,

etc. We learned a lot of things by the time when you know

happily ever after line, it's like, as if happy is

some destination.

Dr. Valerie Rein: So we kind of, we know, we know a lot, and

that's great. And we'll also have because of also these

biological changes, they're magical. And I don't want women

to be mad at me. It's okay if you do get mad at me. I do say

it with compassion. I've gone through these experiences

myself, because the biology can can get really become a rough

ride, a rough ride. And I've had days and weeks when I couldn't

get out of bed, you know, on this ride, felt very desperate

physically, like my body feeling unrecognizable to me in terms of

everything, the looks and the function and the energy and the

motivation, like everything was changing. And so with all this

compassion, I say our biology is also supporting this journey of

transformation in this wonderful way, because it pulls the rug

from under us, and it makes it so what we used to tolerate

becomes intolerable. What we used to tolerate and tell

ourselves, my life is good enough. This is normal. Nobody

has a perfect marriage, nobody has a perfect career. Most

people don't have it even like as good as I do. It's normal,

and that that kind of has been causing us to settle, to quiet

down, to not make waves, and then life pulls the rug from

under us, and our whole biology goes, No, I can't fucking

tolerate that shit anymore, whatever that is, whatever that

is. And that is a call to adventure. Yes, it needs this

adventure needs to be navigated with a lot, I feel a lot of

support, yes, having these enlightening conversations, as I

hope this one is, in some ways enlightening for some listeners,

and also having tangible support, reaching out for that

support. You know, having your support on the medical and

wellness side, and also having your support through this

journey of transformation. I feel that this is something that

is overlooked in this conversation about midlife right

now. They're not as many voices, or not as many voices elevated

to, like, really high platforms with a lot of reach. I hope it

will be changing. It is changing now that talk about the inner

journey, the inner journey of transformation that our physical

health symptoms, mental health symptoms, relational symptoms,

etc, may be pointing at there is an increase in conversation

about our hormones and what we need to pay attention to, in

terms of our diet changes, physical activity changes, etc.

It is all very important because there was no conversation about

it before. And it's not the whole picture. It's an important

part of it, but it's not the whole picture. And for me and

for so many of our clients who came to us during this period of

time, their symptoms began to shift when we they really

started listening to those symptoms and following them as

guides, not as nuisance to be got rid of not not kill. The

messengers? Yeah, we're not here to kill the messengers. Symptoms

are messengers, yes, sometimes they're wrecking havoc. I'm not

saying just sit here and listen and do nothing, right, but

approach them holistically with all due support and respect, but

not only medically. Okay, because there is a lot more, and

I feel we owe it to ourselves, because I feel our entire

biology is set up so beautifully, our

transformational journey is encoded in our biology from

prepubescent then going into our puberty and development when we

get our period, and then as we go through different stages of

our life, our cyclical nature has so much wisdom. And when

that begins to change in our 30s and our 40s, that has profound

wisdom as well. This is not just to be silenced. This is not just

let's get rid of those symptoms and then go on as if we were

still in our 20s. That's not the goal. Well, at least that's not

the goal for me, it's maybe the goal for somebody. But this is

also the danger of this fork in the road. If we are not aware of

how the psych, the patriarchal programming, is affecting us, in

our subconscious, the fork in the road is okay, take the red

pill, whatever color it actually is, but take the red pill. Just

focus on anti aging,

or not aging,

Dr. Valerie Rein: not aging and and just die trying, essentially

right fight tooth and nail to look younger and everything, and

that's that's the red pill, and patriarchy wants us to be lost

in this land of distraction. And it's a multi, multi, multi,

multi, multi, multi billion dollar industry, all anti aging

crap, and the philosophy that guides it is playing right into

the hands of patriarchal power structure or The blue pill,

which is okay, let's look through this. And actually, this

is the greatest opportunity we've ever had to begin this

journey or continue this journey, take it to the next

level, the journey toward our authentic selves, to find our

truth, that new truth, right of who we actually truly are, and

that's a journey that doesn't take, that doesn't, you know,

it's not an instant hack. It's not just like you listen to this

podcast or read a book and something shifted for you, yes,

a little bit, maybe, hopefully shifted, but you're not going to

be there for me. It continues every day. I discover more

hidden programming. And I go, Oh, my God, I'm the mother of

PSD, patriarchy, stress disorder. I had no idea I had

this. I had no idea it was affecting my thoughts, emotions

and behaviors. And it's always humbling to discover another one

of those. My husband and I will work together. He discovers the

shit within himself too, and we go, oh my god, humbling and

liberating. So that's, that's the blue pill journey. And, you

know, don't, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying just like, oh

yeah. Don't be concerned at all with like, how you look, how you

feel physically, not at all, but do it

from love. Do it for love. From love. I'm

talking, I'm imagining, like, what's gonna I just imagining

all these little girls who are, like, talking to these grandmas

that look like they're 25 but they're like, 75 like, what are

we doing here? What are we doing? Like, we need elders. We

like the just and I think that, I mean this whole conversation,

this is so powerful. I'm so happy that we're doing this. I'm

just like, so so much is happening over here. I'm just

sitting back, like, taking this all in. I think this is why I'm

so called to Africa. Because in Africa, I don't even look in the

mirror. I don't even like there. I didn't have a mirror in my

tent, and I spend all my time in nature, and I feel more the

reality is I feel more people are like, Whoa. You're the most

beautiful you've ever been when you're in Africa. Because I'm in

alignment, because I'm in sync with nature, because. I'm eating

from the land it it. So it's like, that's what we actually

need, and that's where all the lessons are in the medicine, as

I loved when you shared that part about your journeys and and

Peru and your travels and your like, the medicine is in the

interconnectedness that we are not separate from nature. I've

had that thought so many times the last couple of years, just

before consuming Zach Bush videos and like, I just was

like, Wait a second, why do we think we're separate from

nature? We're the same. We have the same the birds flying to be

and their sea is affected by the moon. Like we're so

interconnected, but people are so far away from themselves and

their bodies and our interconnectedness with nature.

So oh my gosh, this is amazing. And I think when you say

reconnecting with into always rediscovering our authentic

selves, your authentic self is like who you are today and and

may you be vibrant and alive and and radiant, because you're

you're loving yourself, and you're caring for yourself, and

you're learning about yourself you care. Like, even just

hearing you about this phase is like, I loved when you kept

calling it. I kept getting goosebumps, a call to adventure.

Like, what a reframe, rather than all the women that are

like, Oh, I'm in perimenopause now, and like, Oh yeah, I'm a

victim of all these things, and I'm just gonna go to the doctor

and take all these pills and I'm, you know, just going

through this phase and life just sucks, versus like, or you could

do the death and rebirth thing, and like, actually go through

the portal and awaken to the next level of your wisdom and

Your power and your sexuality, and her sensuality, and all the

things that come with going into the darkness, which I think so

many people fear. So can you speak on that? How do we do it?

How do we do it?

Dr. Valerie Rein: My gosh, oh my gosh. How to make the descent? I

don't know. I don't know. I feel that like you know when you're

cold, and I can just say it, I feel this journey is not for

everyone. Not everyone is going to take this journey. Not

everyone is going to say yes to the call to adventure, not in

this lifetime. And that's okay. That's just how it is. And I

feel also when you hear the call to adventure, that's privilege

right there. And I'm not saying privilege in a negative sense,

because it has gotten that connotation, right? White

privilege, etc, like we're somehow ashamed of our

privilege. No, it is privilege. Acknowledge it and leverage it

in a way that is beneficial for everyone, for you, for everyone,

right again, we go to that non separateness. If you're only

using privilege to benefit you as a separate being, whatever

that is, nobody is a separate being. But if you're functioning

in that, in that way, then it is incorrect, and there's going to

be undesirable, uh, consequences, right? But use

that privilege with the awareness that you're

interconnected with everyone, and your healing is also there

to heal, to promote the healing of our cultural consciousness,

our interconnectedness, our relationship with nature, with

animals, with plants, with each other, with the soil, every

right. So it's not for everyone. And when you get that call to

adventure, it is privilege. Recognize it, and if you have

capacity to answer yes, oh my god. Oh my God. Now we're

talking that also is privilege, because you have that capacity.

You have the capacity of courage, you have the capacity

of that desire for that adventure. Well, even if you

feel you're being dragged on that adventure, you you don't

want to go. You still, you know, you still have capacity to

participate in it. You have sources of support, or you have

capacity to reach out and build your support crew in that your

fellow journeys. And we do our best to do that because it's not

a journey to undertake on your own. Again, back to that

delusion of a lone wolf or like a lone cowboy, whatever a self

made person perpetrated in this culture. It is such a delusion.

It's actually for women. We need other women. We

need community.

Dr. Valerie Rein: We need community. And I like to say

that collective trauma requires collective healing, and I

recognize that so many of our wounds originated in the

collective because it has been so infected by all all the

poisons in our society, right, all the traumas and some women

are very hesitant to even approach a community of women.

So we've been very deliberate about cultivating a community of

women who are all on this journey together, who are all

working on that, healing for themselves, for others, and that

is a very different experience, that's different from an

experience I've ever had in my life, and and it means it's

possible. So I'm just putting it out there. It is possible. And

if you do go on this journey, yeah, it's not going to be all

rainbows and sunshine. And I think you already know that,

because you're listening to this, you probably have a sense

that there's going to be challenges, there's going to be

meeting wounding, wounded parts. There's going to be going into

dark places and with support, with love, with compassion, with

the tools that go beyond just how we think about things, but

they actually help rewire our nervous system, reprogram our

subconscious, so that we can move that intergenerational

collective trauma out of our systems for good and create that

shift in our collective experience. You can do that.

So tell us about your community, so you and

Jeffrey have a community and how so if I was a woman who's ready

to burn the patriarchy and heal these old traumas and and start

to live my life and actually listen to that call to adventure

and heal through this time instead of stay stuck. What?

What would, what would working with you both look like?

Dr. Valerie Rein: Thank you for asking and sharing that vision.

A good place to start is with checking out my book, because

there, there's so much there that can actually show you, also

with stories and experiences practices that are there in the

book and also on my website that you can download and follow,

that can show you what it might feel like, that, what it might

look like and Dr valerie.com, that's D, R, V, A, L, E, R, I,

a.com, forward slash book. That's where you can find the

book. You can download the first chapter, free to just check it

out, kind of dip your toes in, see if that resonates with you.

I also have it on audio, and you'll get both PDF and audio

versions there. It's also on Amazon as hard copy, if you

prefer that. And on the website, you can download the practices

that are there in the book, and this way you're kind of in our

ecosystem. You can also read our newsletter, see what we have

going on, what community events we have coming up, and

opportunities to work together that start with easy entry level

journeys that you can go on for just a few weeks and see if it's

for you, and then we have more in depth immersion programs for

a few months a year. Some clients have been with us for

multiple years. Kind of evolving right, evolving together. And

this is what motivates me, very, very deeply. It's not only their

spectacular transformations, but it's that they have found their

best friends for life in this community. To me, this is

everything, because also female friendships have been so just

torn apart from us by patriarchy because it has instilled all

this kind of self hate that we carry in our subconscious

comparison, like feeling like we don't belong, or

competitiveness, or whatever it is, even if we don't believe any

of that crap, we may share this experience of not always feeling

at ease in groups of women, because that is just so tends to

be so present outside, even outside of what we believe in.

And so it's nobody's fault you. There is this real opportunity

to uncover what's in our subconscious and heal it so we

can have a community and doesn't have to be an exclusively

feminine community, it can be an inclusive community. As we bring

those values out into the world, we've seen massive changes in

women's relationships with their male partners and female

partners and gender fluid partners, and in their

relationships with their kids and co workers and their

business is going to the next level, even though that was not

even the goal, right? The goal was feeling there was something

more for her, in her authenticity, in her expression.

And it's just once we tap into that things just organically

blossom. It's like plants that are allowed to be in fertile

soil with the amount of sun and water and air that they need to

thrive and the space, all of a sudden, they kind of surprise us

with, yeah, I've seen the same plants that we may have here,

like Jasmine arrived little flowers, and I would Go to the

jungle, and I saw jasmine in that in that area where, like in

the womb of the mother, huge flowers with massive flavor. And

I was like, What is this plant? It smells so familiar. It's

Jasmine. I would have never recognized it like flowers like

like this. And so we can surprise ourselves what's with

what's possible with the right conditions, the right support,

the right nurturing and removing those blockages to our growth

that a lot of that comes from that intergenerational

collective trauma that I've come to call patriarchy, stress

disorder. We can call it whatever we want, but that

invisible, little something or big something, right that maybe

has not shifted through all your valiant work on your patterns,

which I'm sure all your listeners have been engaged in,

as have I for a long time,

yes, yeah. And it's just another layer. And I feel

like when a woman is has entered her 40s and beyond, it's like

we're actually ready to face it. Because you're such a byproduct

of it still when you're in your maiden years, that it's like,

kind of, you know, it's, it's more challenging to face it, but

once you get to the it's so fascinating how that happens

after 40 where it's like, no longer give a fuck, or even if

you still are giving a fuck, there's like, this voice inside

the screaming, like, I don't want to give a fuck, like rebel

comes out and we're ready to burn it all to the ground and

and, you Know, be the phoenix rising.

Dr. Valerie Rein: So it's a gift, it's an opportunity. And

again, I say it with compassion, because I know there are also a

host of challenges, but perhaps, if it resonates like, give this

framework, give this just like 1% of a chance that this may be

true, right? Just open that door just a little bit, that it's not

all doom and gloom and it's just something that perimenopause

until we go through menopause, and we're postmenopausal, we

just need to hold our breath for a decade or 15 years or 20

years, however long it takes, and then it will

get better. And then you die because you hold

your

Dr. Valerie Rein: breath Exactly.

That's the irony. Yeah, it like he'd heed the call

and, and, yeah, oh my gosh. It's, I just think, like coming

back to nature, just, nature just is in its cycles. It's

never, it's never denying the natural cycles and rhythms and

seasons and how we constantly are in at odds with and fighting

and denying these natural transitions and seasons and

changes. But when you actually embrace them, it makes me think

of the quote, a miracle is a shift in perception, like when

you when you actually just are willing to look through a

different lens. And you know, on the this, this self love healing

journey, you have to learn to embrace pain, you know, and to

be willing to feel and welcome all of it, because you can't

grow without it. And you know. And then when you embrace the

pain and the feelings around it and you you just embrace going

through the rebirth cycle like actually birthing all the way,

what's on the other side is magic. And then you're connected

to your own magic, and the next version of you, the. Newest

version of you, because we're always becoming new and new and

new and new. There's so many versions of ourselves we get to

be. Isn't that the beauty of life and patriarchy wants us to

just be one dimensional, carby version that doesn't ever

change.

Dr. Valerie Rein: It is the beauty. It is the beauty and

and, you know, after a certain age, whatever the age, you know,

a Saturday Night Live. I think it was in the SNL context, or

maybe outside of that context. But like Tina Fey and the bunch

of them, right, had had this kid called the last fuckable day

where they were, like, celebrating the last or

grieving, or whatever, the last day, like of whatever age,

right? The patriarchy puts its stamp on again, this is it, and

after that, you're no longer of interest to us, because you're

not producing babies and you're not producing without

questioning, like whatever widgets, right? We want you to

produce it, whatever volume we want you to produce, etc, etc,

etc. So, yeah, I mean, that is it. That is a journey. Do you

call that a Phoenix, right? A Phoenix time. And it is, in a

sense, like allowing those old identities, working with these

old identities to disintegrate, to essentially be burned down to

the ground. It doesn't have to be a violent process. It can be

a supported, conscious process. And I feel the more willing we

are, perhaps, you know, the more productive and hopefully fun it

can be especially with support in a community, when human women

are one of the very few species who stop their reproductive

ability before the end of their lives, only like a couple of

other species in in the entire natural world. Wow, that have

that. So that points at something really important, like

we essentially die. Like that version of us dies, in a way,

and is reborn into another creature. I had, another being

with gifts and magic and capacities and wisdom and fun

and love and yes, sexuality and adventure,

the call to adventure and the I just think,

like, this is what's going to heal the world. This is what

patriarchy needs, like Matri, matriarchy is not women running

the world. It is everyone together, collaboration. We are

all there is no hierarchical systems. We are all in

collaboration, in harmony, like nature interconnected. That's

matriarchy. So women being in their power, like women actually

coming home to our gifts and owning who the fuck we are,

instead of pretending to be something else, is what will

heal the world, and that's what the world needs mount now more

than ever, more than love, sweet love.

Dr. Valerie Rein: Thank you for speaking to that. That's also

like sometimes I hear this kind of objection to the

conversation. Well, do we want to just replace patriarchy with

matriarchy, where women are oppressing men? No, no, and you

spoke to it so well. It is about restoring the natural harmony.

It's not about replacing one system of oppression with

another system of oppression. No, this is not a coup, okay,

yeah, overthrowing one dictator and replacing it with another.

Because women don't oppress. We're the hearts. The

feminine is the heart, like we don't, we wouldn't oppress.

That's not like that's that's the thing. We've been oppressed,

but it would be a very different world if more women were

influential in bigger

Dr. Valerie Rein: ways. I just want to put a caveat on that,

because I can also feel that, you know, we've all had

experiences of being oppressed and abused by women as well,

yes, yes. So I just want to put a caveat on that right that

patriarchy has also been very powerfully upheld and

perpetrated by women, consciously or unconsciously by

living out that programming, not questioning that programming,

just playing the game we were handed. This is how you succeed.

These are the rules, the oppression, the domination, etc,

etc. Again, nobody's fault, but I do believe it is our.

Responsibility, yes, that yeah, and make a dent in that. So yes,

I agree with you that it's core, neither pure masculine nor pure

feminine, like as pure energies, right?

Yeah, they from the heart. Well, it's the feminine

like Living from the heart. And I mean women leading who are in

their hearts, not women leading who are in Man suits, in the in

the patterns and the the protection, but, but it's the

same with men, too. Men being more connected to their

feminine, like the it's the interconnectedness that will

heal the planet.

Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah, I fully agree with you. When we're

outside of these patterns, when we dismantle these patterns,

neither the feminine nor the masculine is actually interested

in oppressing, dominating, you know, screwing anyone over, but

everybody is interested in this ecstatic union, right? Ecstatic

union, whatever that looks like, right, just living our lives in

full expression, yeah, like nature does when left to its own

devices.

Yes, oh my gosh. That's so beautiful. Living our

lives in our fullest expression like nature does. I love that

this has been so beautiful we, I mean, we could just keep going

and going going, but I'm I just want to say thank you so much.

I'm so happy that I got the spark and the hit to reach out,

and I just feel so happy to reconnect with you. I love you

so much. Oh my gosh. I treasure our time together back in the

day, and have just been so honored to witness your journey

of transformation, of you, claiming like, remembering you

because you were a therapist for 20 years and then, and then

discovered or patriarchy stress disorder came through. It's just

like, wait a second, a Pat, this pattern I'm seeing over and over

again, and you coined your own I mean, that's so powerful. The

book title is your own term, your own psychological term. I

just, I think it's incredible, and you're brilliant, and I I

love also seeing the next level of your journey and where you

are now to where you were when I had you, when we had you on the

podcast a few years back. So I love you, and I'm so grateful

for this conversation.

Dr. Valerie Rein: I love you too, Kate, what a what a joy.

And our connection has been hugely catalytic from the start,

hugely catalytic and life changing for me. So I honor your

magic, your power, your vision and the courage with which

you've been walking the path of your truth and helping others

connect with their truth and live this glorious life of

adventure. So very grateful for this connection, this

conversation and all all those in the community tuning in right

now and allowing themselves to feel a different sense of what's

possible.

Perhaps, yes, I love that. Thank you so much.

Love. And definitely, we'll link everything below. So there's

those free meditations that you said, meditations, right? Yep,

we have meditations available on your on your website, so we'll

link all that below, and in the book, there's exercises. So

obviously, this is a big conversation, a heavy

conversation, so it's it can be confronting to talk about. So

yeah, just lean on all the resources. And you've held a lot

of women and men through this, through this work and and you'll

be an amazing hands. So we'll connect everything below any

final words,

Dr. Valerie Rein: just breathing as those structures imprinted in

us, somewhere in our subconscious become more

transparent, more hologram like as we shine the light of

awareness on them and setting that intention that all benefit.

All beings benefit from this awareness, from this work, from

this healing and yeah, more courage and love and support to

everyone on this journey.

Love it. Love your heart. So beautiful. So as

always, spread this message. Share this podcast episode with

every woman you know who could really benefit from this message

today, and and Dr Valerie's incredibly generous, beautiful

heart and message. And thank you so much, and we'll see you next

week. Thank you.