Dr. Sonya Jensen: So in this particular book, I created these

three different archetypes where you can look to see where you

sit with your hormonal identity. So are you like the anxious

overachiever right now? Are you the silent struggler, or are

you, you know, a perfectionist that's having to pay like a

greater price because of that perfectionism? And once you

start to understand where you're at, then you know what type of

movement you need. So an anxious overachiever, if I tell her to

do yin yoga, that's not going to go really well, because she's so

in her mind. So she probably needs to lift weights first, to

get grounded in her body, and then bring in a few minutes of

shavasana, or legs up against the wall, or something that will

give her a glimpse of what that can feel like. We know she needs

the opposite. We know she needs a restorative and the Yin, but

she will get there once she can access that connection with her

body. So that's where it comes down to even understanding

yourself, where you're at, and what type of movement is going

to actually bring you that nourishment that you need.

Hello, beautiful. I am so excited for you to hear

this conversation with Dr Sonya, who I had on the podcast just

over a year ago. She is my naturopathic doctor in

Vancouver, and she's an incredibly powerful advocate for

women all around healing their hormones and her well, she's

actually just written her second book called heal your hormones.

Reclaim yourself. How aligned reclaim yourself? So she is a

naturopathic doctor, international speaker, author,

embodied healer, who guides women to reclaim their power

through hormonal wisdom, emotional depth and ancestral

healing. She's really the full meal deal the embodiment of

being a woman who's in alignment with what phase in life she's

in, and helping women understand their bodies on a deeper level

and their hormones and how it affects relationships. So this

conversation is so powerful, and we really unpack the impact of

where we're at in our hormonal cycles and our cycles as women

in relationships. So really, really powerful conversation.

Enjoy it. Spread it to all the women you know who need to hear

this message, and I'll see you soon.

Hello, beautiful. Welcome back to the new truth. I am so

excited for this conversation. You are here one year later.

Welcome back. Dr Sonya, has it been a year? It's been just over

a year. Because, guess what? Last year you were you were

January, 1 episode. That's right, you're right. Has been

almost a year. Yeah, and I still talk about our conversation with

many women and ask them to listen to it. It just felt like

one of those really heartfelt conversations that everyone

needs to hear. So yeah, thank you. I just didn't realize it's

been almost a year. Wow, no, over a year. Because now, okay,

not yet, because we're recording this early, but when this

releases, it will be February, and we had us. I think I feel

like it came out New Year's Day, or maybe it was New Year's Eve.

It was like right around the cusp, and it was such a powerful

conversation. So for those of you who haven't listened to our

New Year's episode last year, 2025,

New Year's, I should have checked but anyways, you can do

the research yourself. It's whatever episode comes around

the new year. And I think I feel like we called it New year, new

you, or something like that, and we talked a lot about

perimenopause and menopause, and just all of I feel like there's

so much more awareness around the hormone conversations

starting to happen. But isn't it wild that, you know, it's only

starting to happen?

Dr. Sonya Jensen: No, and I really feel for the generation

before us, because they didn't have these voices and these

platforms to talk about these things. And I'm just so glad

we're doing it for the next generation. I feel like it's

going to be so much easier for them,

so much easier. I'm actually spreading, spreading

the news over here in Kenya, I've talked to some women that

have no idea, and just talking about, like, having

conversations about how even that thing I can't I don't know

who talked about it first, but the the conversation about how

we've been educated, I think a lot of health practitioners are

talking about it now, but how we've been educated? Well, the

health industry studied men, we probably talked about this last

time, and how women are so misunderstood and so confused

about our cyclical nature, and we're here trying to work in the

corporate world, but we're not designed to work the same every

single day. And how so many women have crazy energy levels,

and that's the conversation I often find myself in with women

just letting informing them. And it's surprising how many women

just still don't know this that like, oh yeah. They know we're

different, but yeah, they haven't heard people talk about

it yet.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah. And you know, you just trust what the

doctor is giving you. You trust what people are telling you that

are doing the research. But when you start to realize that

research was only done on men, even when it comes to men.

Menopausal research or hormones, they're looking at male rats, or

they're looking at men, because of our cyclical nature and how

quote, unquote complicated our hormones are. It's been

difficult to look at these studies, but now the

conversation is happening. Now there's more money going into

that research too, so there will be more data that will be

applicable to us women, including medication. We've been

overmedicated because of the dosing is meant for men rather

than women. So when you take into a woman's frame, her

hormones, her cyclical nature, her weight, everything should be

adjusted just like we do adjust for children when it comes to

giving them medications, but that hasn't really been done

when it comes to women. So I think creating these

conversations and having these conversations will allow women

to have more discernment and tap into that intuition again, of

like, something doesn't feel right here. So I'm really happy

remembering who we are, isn't it wild? We've just

been lost, and we're finding ourselves again, though we're on

our way back, sir, come back. Come back time. That's right,

yeah. And also the conversation about, you know, with feminism,

like Thank Thank God. Thank Goddess for my, my, my friend,

who has a PhD in goddess mythology always says, thank

Goddess. Thank Goddess for all of the women before us who did

shatter glass ceilings to for us to have rights and to be able to

be where we are today. And the next level is reclaiming what

was lost in the becoming men for a little while, strapping on Man

suits to try and to shatter glass ceilings, and now I feel

like the next level of maybe we're not even calling it

feminism, I don't know, but the next level of in is integration,

of reclaiming all the parts of us that are lost, which, I guess

that's your book, reclaim yourself, heal your hormones and

reclaim yourself.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, that's really what it is. It's

reclaiming those parts that have been either shut down or lost or

forgotten, that we know we have internally, and often we feel

that internal struggle, but can't put words to it, or don't

understand what's going on when we're trying to do that nine to

five every single day and trying to raise families, trying to do

it all, and yet, we're not meant to act in the way that men do,

because their hormonal story is different, their physicality is

different, their the way their brain works is so different. And

so the more we understand ourselves, the better decisions

we can make for ourselves, for our health, for mental health,

emotional and even relationship health, totally.

And then I think the Kinder we can be to

ourselves, like the more women understand. I just think of how

many women you know before even hearing this conversation, and

conversations like these, are just beating themselves up

because they're hanging by a thread, trying to keep it all

together, trying to work and raise kids and do all these 10

million things at once and and beating themselves up because

they don't have the capacity,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: yeah, to keep up in a man's world. And, you

know, I catch myself doing that even with my husband, and maybe

there's a competitive nature there, or whatever is going on.

It could even be, you know, fasting, for example, when we

first started fasting, he would do these long fast for like,

seven days. And I'm like, why can't I do what he can do? And I

beat myself up for it, or he would do a cold plunge and do it

for longer, and he'd do all these things. And you know, when

I started to sit down with myself, I'm like, Well, I'm not

a I had just given birth at that time when we started fasting, I

was two years in postpartum and still nursing, and there's all

these things are going on in my body that's trying to reset

itself, whereas he didn't have that same experience. So of

course, it's going to be different. So I think if we stop

trying to fit ourselves into these little boxes that society

has laid out for us, and we start really bursting out of

them and understanding who we are, we can then reclaim those

parts that have been tucked away for so long.

Yes, oh my God, hallelujah. Ditch the boxes.

Ditch the script. This podcast is so much about dating and

relationships and love, but I don't talk about marriage that

much. And so I feel so happy that we're doing this episode

for all the married women that listen to the new truth and and

I love that. You so. Dr, Sonia was just telling me a story, and

she's she used the word we say we saved their marriage. And I

was like, best secret to saving your marriage. So do you want to

share that story? And we'll start there.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, absolutely. So this was years

ago, back in 2012 is when I really started diving into

hormone health. We had a mentorship with an OB GYN, and

we were really starting to understand how hormones do frame

everything in our health.

And we as your husband, your husband nicking

you, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: So we started. Diving in. So then naturally, we

started treating more individuals for their Hormonal

Health. So we were treating this couple, and I was working with a

woman, the wife, and he was working with her partner, and we

did our thing. We got them on hormones, we did some detoxing,

we helped support them, and all the ways that we could, we did

dive into the emotional stories. But I have to say, at that point

in my career and even in my own journey, I couldn't take women

as far as I can today because I wasn't there yet. So I took her

as far as I could and then referred her out for some

counseling. And a few months later, a friend of theirs comes

to the clinic and wants to do some IV therapy, so I'm putting

his IV in, and all of a sudden he's like, just pauses and looks

at me and he says, Do you realize the two of you saved a

marriage? And I just stopped like, Well, what do you mean

that couple that came to you, they were at the brink of

divorce, and after working with you, something shifted,

something changed in the relationship, and they were able

to find themselves and then each other again. And that is when

there was a huge light bulb that went off in my mind of, okay,

there's this huge link between our physical health, especially

our hormones, and how we feel and how we perceive our life,

how we perceive our partners how we perceive ourselves. And so if

our physical health is influenced by stress and toxins,

all these things, our relationship also will be

influenced by those same things, because those decisions and the

actions that we're taking are based off of how we feel. And so

that really changed everything for me in how I communicate with

my patients, and the things that we tap into when it comes to

their Hormonal Health always translates into their

relationships with themselves or with their children, their

partners, with a colleague, getting that voice back or that

courage back to speak up, speak up for themselves at their

workplace. So it's all so interconnected. And, yeah,

that's where that title came from. How to save a marriage.

You saved a marriage. How crazy is that?

It's like, not a therapist, not a, you know, marriage counselor,

whatever. It's so cool. And I just think, how many women,

especially like what? What age do you sit? Would you say that

our hormones affect, start to affect our relationships

and our lives. Yeah, so it's amazing, we're always

affected. There's actually a lot of

Dr. Sonya Jensen: absolutely so a lot of research done on even

like women that are on birth control pills, and how that

changes your perception of your partner and who you attract. So

women on birth control, we look for different traits than women

off of birth control. So that's the initial phase.

Yeah. Can you explain the science behind

Dr. Sonya Jensen: that a little bit? Yeah. So there's a great

book, actually called your brain on birth control, by Dr Sarah

Hill, which I would definitely put into your notes for everyone

to read. She goes into a lot of research around birth control,

and there was one experiment that they did with women on

versus off, and they would show them pictures of their partners,

for example. That was one study where they see pictures of their

partners, and there's different parts of your brain that would

light up when you saw that picture. And for the women that

were on birth control, nothing would really happen. There would

be this, like numbness in their reaction to their partners, even

though they've been with them for a while, and healthy

relationships. Whereas the women off of birth control, there

would be this change in their like emotional center and their

their center, where they feel excited. And none of that was

happening with women on birth control. The other thing they

noticed was that women on birth control look for more feminine

traits in their partners, because the change that happens

in your brain due to the type of birth control you're taking will

change your perception. Women off of birth control were

looking for features that are quote, unquote more manly and

like even the smell that they were looking for was different

than women on birth control.

So I've heard that piece about smell before, that

when you're actually okay, I want to say furtively, but I

don't think that's a word, compatible with someone when

you're compatible for till, like your your sperm and eggs are

compatible. Like something about the pheromones, yeah, when you

love the smell of someone, but if you're on birth control, it

distorts your ability to smell. Yes, when you are not. So you

kind of discernment if this is at because they see this is what

the study was. I think my friend told me this it where you're,

what's the word? Is it like, not vertical, but like you're more

compatible for me,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: compatible, yeah? Compatibility.

Mean, I kind of like vertebral I think we should

just make that a word. I mean, who decides what words are?

You're more affordable with someone if you, if you, if you

love the smell of them, not cologne, not you know, but like

their flower, you know, their soap or whatever, but, but

actually they're raw, rugged smell. But then, if you're on

birth control, it distorts it.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: It distorts it. And so there are women that

will come off of birth control, example, Exhibit A right here

where my whole perception on my ex husband changed when I went

off of birth control. I can stand his smell. And so I know

that as like and of one experiment on myself, that that

is absolutely true, and it does take away that discernment, so

you make different choices. However, internally, when

conception is happening, the egg itself releases chemicals to

test the sperm, so the sperm often will not pass the test if

there isn't that connection with the pheromones, because that is

the test of like, Will this be a good mate? Will this be a good

father? Will this be someone that can provide security and

all those things and all that's happening chemically, and if we

don't, when we're on birth control, that gets a bit shunted

unfortunately. Yeah, wow. Yeah. So to go back to your question

of like, when the hormones shift? I would say, throughout

our seasons of life, there's moments where they're changing.

So that's one change that happens when we're younger, when

we're making those decisions around birth control, and then

if you decide to have children, there's going to be changes in

your hormones. And then come perimenopause from, you know,

age 35 up, where hormones are drastically changing, there's

going to be lots of changes in how you perceive yourself, life

your partner, because there's such a decline in the hormones

and even divorce rates, I've seen to go up between ages of 45

to 55 and it's mostly women initiating them in that age

range. And so you have to kind of question like, well, what's

happening at that time? Are women just finding their voices

at that time? Are they starting to understand, after raising

their kids, all of a sudden now they're having to create a new

relationship with their partner, that maybe they were all just so

engrossed in their children's lives that they had forgotten

themselves. So there's many nuances and layers, I think, to

all of it, but there's a huge connection between how a woman

feels in her body and the changes she's going through

hormonally that will influence her decisions about her

relationship, right?

And like you and I were talking about before we hit

record. How you know, even if the decision ends up, even if

you do do all the things to try and save your marriage, which

you know, okay, marriage counselors often are like, You

need to listen more to him. You need to change more to make this

work, rather than like, heal thyself. And then, you know,

come home to thyself as the new truth is about in every episode,

and fall in love with yourself, and then bring that version of

yourself to your relationship and see what happens. But even

for women who end up deciding, okay, this relationship is still

out of alignment, once our hormones are imbalanced, once

our body is healed and they're they have a healthy relationship

within you leave with so much I imagine you leave with so much

more peace and certainty that you made the right decision when

you, when you make the decision from that healthy, clear place,

like you got that couple to that ended up having a new

relationship and a complete turnaround. Like, either that's,

that's the benefit is, like you heal yourself, and then either

way, you win, because you either have a completely brand new

relationship with your partner, who you might at the in the

moment, not even want to look at right, or you leave with

confidence and clarity, absolutely.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: And I'm sure many of the women that are

listening have had that experience of even different

times of their cycle, where all of a sudden you were super

attracted to your partner, and then now you can't even stand

him chewing beside you, or him breathing too loud or eating and

the spoon hitting that bowl. You know, there's these like little

things that start to happen, and you're just like, why am I with

him? And you start to question yourself and your decisions. And

then all of a sudden you bleed, and you're like, Oh my God.

You're like, Oh my God, he's amazing. And I can't, you know,

do life without him, and it's total turnaround. So when you

start to notice that there's these ebbs and flows and how you

feel, even about yourself when you're looking the mirror, and

also your partner, you start to see, okay, there's a huge

influence that these changes are having. So that pause, that

power of the pause, where you can have discernment, creates

certainty, so you can make those right decisions of what you

need, right?

Yeah, oh my gosh. Okay, so, so what if you were to

boil down the secret? What is the secret? I.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: So the secret, I think, is what you said is

heal thyself. And that is nuanced in its way. Well, what

does that actually mean? Like, how do I heal thyself? So one

thing that I created was the hormonal hierarchy of healing.

And so in this little pyramid, the physical body is at the

foundation of it. So when you're not feeling well, when you're

feeling tired, when you're groggy, when you have brain fog,

when your libido is really low because of vaginal dryness or

there's pain when you're having intercourse because of a fibroid

or a cyst or whatever it might be, inflammation when you're

gaining weight around your belly, and you know you're

having to be intimate with your partner. You're not feeling

good, you're not going to be present. So when you start to

look at the physicality of how you're feeling in your body and

start to nourish yourself, start to treat these things, whether

it's through, looking at testing for your hormones or your gut or

your immune system, whatever your body needs at that time,

and bringing in tools to help support that. So I have these

like 5m that I always go through with my patients. The first one

is meals. So looking at nourishment like, how am I

nourishing myself? Is what I'm eating nourishing me or

depleting me? Then there's mindset.

We gotta write them down a little bit more. Okay,

nourishing. So how do we know if something is nourishing us?

Like, do you, do you have your go to things? Or do you think

it's intuitive individual what? What's your

Dr. Sonya Jensen: I think it's all of that. So okay, looking at

your relationship with food, first understanding why we make

the choices we do. Am I distracting? Am I in pain? Am I

comforting, or am I craving? You know, really starting to discern

between all of that and understanding why we're making

the choices. How do I feel in my body when I make that choice? Do

I feel bloated afterwards? Do I feel tired now, or do I feel

energized by the food that I'm taking in. So that'll be your

first clue. And then there might be

fasting has helped me with that so much. Being able

to have the like noticing that the habitual, like wanting to

eat because, yes, to fill time, because it's the time we're

trained to eat, or because there's boredom, or because

there's like, just the habitual things, but also having more

breaks in my eating. I'm noticing lately that I'm more

attuned to something that I had these, these protein balls.

They're like dates and nuts, and I don't know, something I got

here in Kenya, and they're really clean and simple made,

and they taste really good. But I every time I ate them, I was

in the shower. I had one, and then I was just noticing how

bloated I was and how much pain my how much my stomach hurt, and

I muscle tested, and it was like, Nope, I knew it was that.

And I think because I have a little bit more spaciousness

now, because I do intermittent fasting, yeah, I can feel when

something is I'm sensitive to it,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: yeah, because then it's not your normal. There

might be women out there that are eating throughout the day,

maybe six meals a day, and constantly snacking and feeling

bloated all the time, but that's just their become their normal,

and they don't know what different can feel like. So

bringing in like fasting or just time restricted eating, or just

having like the two to three meals a day and no snacking,

simple things like that, can create that space that you were

speaking of. So you can have discernment around, okay, that's

really healthy, and yet I'm reacting to it. So there's

something in there that my body's not loving at this

moment. So then we can do further investigation too. You

can do a food sensitivity test. You can test your microbiome.

You can test for parasites, fungus, whatever it might be,

you can go down that route if needed. When it comes to this

confusion and this noise around food as well, because when we're

in it, it's really hard to discern. So sometimes we need

some form of testing to tell us like, this is what your body is

reacting to. So let's work on it from this perspective and then

create some change.

Yeah, totally love that. Okay, meals, that's the

first one.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: That's the first one, yes, and the second

one mindset is one of them. So looking at the belief system

around essentially everything, but more so about yourself, you

know, where, where am I allowing somebody else to narrate my

story? What beliefs am I carrying from the ancestors

before? So a lot of what I speak to is stress and generational

trauma and the stories that we carry, not just the trauma, but

also the wisdom. And so tapping into, you know, when I'm walking

through life, is it the culture, the society, the the shoulds

that are navigating my choices, or is this choice actually mine?

So that creates some more room for you to start accessing that

intuition and understanding what that even feels like. Because

when you say intuition to. Somebody, they may not even know

what that means. And the way I relate that those two things

together and that physicality is when your body is whispering to

you, it's it's your soul whispering saying, like, hey,

there's some things we need to do that's a little bit

different. When it starts to scream at you that's through

those bigger symptoms, so we don't want to get there, and

when we do get there, that means it's a huge sign that we haven't

been listening. So to change the mindset around what success is,

changing the mindset around who I'm supposed to be or how I'm

supposed to behave. And this doesn't happen overnight. It's a

journey that we go on. But even those like little things of

making, maybe having a reaction in the moment, but asking

yourself, like, Where does this reaction actually come from? Is

it my own? Is it something that was learned and it was modeled

to me? Is it how I'm supposed to react? So those simple questions

can start to change our mindset around the choices that we're

making.

And I bet there's so much mindset confusion now

with all the mixed messaging because of the information age

and like technology, like all of these places, all of these

amazing at, you know, the the blessing and the curse, like all

these amazing places where we have so access to so much

information now about health, but then there's like, this

trend and that trend and this trend and that trend. So I

imagine that feeds the mindset stuff. It's like, oh, that's

that thing is bad, this thing is good. But like, okay, kale is

really good one week and then the next week, oh, it's super

bad for you.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: I know it's like those videos that people

put up of like eating healthy, and then they're here something

now they got to not eat the eggs and not eat the kale. Yeah, I

know it's confusing out there. There's a lot of noise, and

that's why I think this conversation is so important. Is

to understand thyself so that you can have discernment for you

and what works for you. Because everybody is in a different

season of their life. Everybody has different stressors that

will influence their choices and their body. And I think it's so

important to understand yourself, so you can make those

choices and you can gather information, but then you can

discern through it, and not just you can try different things.

It's kind of like what I said before the end of one experiment

of yourself, you can experiment with different things. Like,

does this actually sit well? Not because somebody told me, but

because it actually feels well in my body, and I'm getting the

results that I actually want?

Yeah, I feel like that's where I'm at now, which

is like, for years, I had digestive issues. And you and

you know that. I think everyone who listens to the new truth

knows that intermittent fasting has helped me so much, has been

so significant in my healing. But not just intermittent

fasting also, well, learning about eating for hormones and

also eating pain like I did, that spaciousness has allowed me

to listen more to my body, and there's just and maybe because

my life also where where I live, and that I don't even have calls

till 3pm every day. So I'm I have so much spaciousness built

into my life now versus when I lived in North America, I just

am so much more attuned to myself and my body. And so I've

noticed, like I shared with you, I'm even trying eating meat now,

and I haven't eat meat in like, 25 years, and I I'm adding that

back in, and I'm noticing a significant difference in how I

feel, and that was huge for me to do. But I'm, I'm at the point

where I I just, I love my body so much, and I just And because

the more I love my body, the more my body feels good. And I'm

now addicted to that, instead of what most women and what I used

to be addicted to punishing my body, now I'm addicted to

healing my body and loving my body and learning more about

her, and she's always communicating. And it's amazing

how good I feel better than ever. And I'm 44 Yeah, and I

don't have not knock on wood, but I haven't felt any

perimenopause, like all that, like, I just feel amazing,

better than I've ever felt.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, yeah. And I think what you said was so

important is like you've tuned in, like you've tuned into that

voice and you're hearing her. And I think the greatest gift we

can also give ourselves is flexibility in the mind. Because

when we're flexible, we can change. We can be in that flow

and not be so rigid. Of, you know, being someone okay, I'm

vegan or I'm vegetarian, I'm not going to change and when, which,

you know, we were just talking about before getting on the

call. I was vegetarian for 15 years, and then started eating

meat, because a my youngest kind of brought that on to the

family. He wanted meat, and so we started experimenting

with that. But then my body's talking about his teeth.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Talk about literally born with canines

ready, ready to get in there.

He's like, I'm a carnivore, and I'm here to bring

it back to the family.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: I know there was no way he was going to be a

vegetarian, and so that too. It's like, I really had to check

in with myself. I'm like, What am I teaching him? So here we

are a family of vegetarians. So my husband and I, and even my

oldest son, like the vegetarian lifestyle, and here he is

wanting to eat meat. So do I force him to fit into our box,

or do I help him explore what his body is speaking to him? And

so that was a really big lesson for me in being flexible. And so

if we're flexible with with everything, with every belief

that we have, but we just don't hold on to it so tightly, we

wouldn't have the conflicts that we have in the world, especially

within and it would just create so much more clarity, so much

more confidence and so much more connection.

Yeah, so true. And if only, my God, every parent

was like that. Think of how many parents are like, You need to be

more like. I think of human design, like all the little

projectors out there that only parents are like, go play

outside. You need to play more like. This is me as a kid. I'm

like, I'm tired.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, I know it's a hard one, because we do

it to ourselves so much, and then we project it out to the

kids. So I have to check in so much with myself. I'm like, am I

passing especially when I'm doing the generational trauma

work, it's, you know, really at the forefront of my mind. I'm

like, What am I passing down and and they're going to have their

own story too, that they'll probably need to heal as they

age. But that's it.

Yeah, like to all the parents out there, because I

also hear this, the thing with conscious moms now, like, once

they wake up to their own stuff, then they feel this, like extra

moms already have, like, not good enough, you know, not a

good enough mom. And then on top of it, now you have to, like,

give them the perfect childhood so you don't traumatize them,

which is not the human experience, like we're supposed

to. It's part of it. It's part of the do you do your best,

whatever that is.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, that's right, yeah, because that

adversity is also what's going to allow them to grow, whatever

that adversity may be for them. Yeah. So mindset,

if you give them a perfect childhood, that's not

setting them up for real life.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: It's not No, no, not at all. We talk about

that often where they don't have enough stress, but maybe, but

that's our perception. I mean, who knows what's going on

internally for them and their story? Yeah, yeah. So that's

where that mindset piece comes in. Yeah. So the next one that

where you know where we want to travel to is like the morning

and evening ritual. So this is something so simple that can

support women in creating space like you said. You don't have

calls until you're it's 3pm for you, so you can bring in more

rituals. But when we don't have time, it's really hard to do

that. So this could just be simply breathing in the morning.

This could be a cup of tea at nighttime or a simple walk. So

these like little rituals that are just yours give you that

empowerment of time, and also it starts to tell you that you're

important, that you are worth it, that you are important

enough to take this time out, even if it's just five minutes

to reset your nervous system, because that nervous system is

everything, because if we don't, what women do often is we step

into resentment. And so I didn't get time to do this. I wasn't

able to do this for myself. I'm sacrificing for my family. I'm

sacrificing for work, and that does not put us in a mood for

connection with our partners or connection with ourselves. So if

we have these little rituals that can bring us back and help

ground us, we are showing up in our relationship so much

differently.

Do you have any suggestions? I hear a lot of

women, and probably this is mostly coming from women in

their 40s and 50s, so probably perimenopause, menopausal, with

women that have sleep issues. Really common nowadays. Any

suggestions for rituals before bed, and also, I imagine too,

the energetically unnaturalness of sharing a bed, even though

we're told, like, if you don't share a bed, there's something

wrong with your relationship, but it means but, but like that,

I sleep so much I'm single, sovereign, and I sleep so much

better when I'm by myself.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, yeah. I think there's definitely

something to that, because especially if you are a bit of a

light sleeper, or you're like, tuned into noises, tune into

movement, that's going to play a huge role. And that age group

that you are speaking to there is that hormonal piece. So as

progesterone declines, that actually changes your sleep

pattern. And so it's either harder to fall asleep, or women

are falling asleep, but then getting up in the middle of the

night, between one and three, usually around 3am and having a

hard time falling back asleep. And so one of my light bulb

would go out and say, well, we need to test her progesterone

and make sure she's getting progesterone or some sort of

support to help her on the hormonal front before bed. And

in terms of rituals, I would say. Day, all day, we're revved

up. You know, most of us, unless you're weaving in tools

throughout the day to help us feel grounded, but we're in this

state of survival a lot, where cortisol is running high when

we're trying to just get through the day, and that could just be

sitting in traffic or meeting a deadline, or picking up the kids

and taking them to their activities when we're in that

heightened state, it's really hard for the body and the mind

to come down from that in the evening. So bringing in rituals,

whether it's like a warm cup of, you know, golden milk with some

like turmeric and some herbs in there to help support your body.

Oiling, I feel is really great. It's an Ayurvedic ritual where

you take sesame oil and you're heating it up, and you're oiling

your hands, so the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet,

the back of your neck, right before bed, putting a little bit

in your belly button. It just helps.

Right when you say, warming it, where? How like it,

just in your hands. Or how do you warm it?

Dr. Sonya Jensen: You could just do it in your hands, or I like

to put it on the stovetop a little bit, warm it up and then

cool it down just slightly, so it's not burning my hands like

you pour the oil in a pot, yeah, oh my gosh. Okay.

Someone told me to put, someone told me to put, sorry for

cutting off. Someone told me sesame oil on organic cold

pressed sesame oil on the bottom of my feet and my nostrils when

I fly. And I always tell my clients to do that when they're

coming to Greece or to Kenya. I'm like, Yeah, with the sesame

oil, put it on the bottom of your feet and in your nose, and

in your nostrils, it's to protect your immune system,

right?

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, because the mucus membranes there, so

it's protecting that. And then on the bottom soles of your

feet, it's just grounding. And if you put it in your belly

button, so the nerves kind of end up there. It's helping to

ground you then too. And in Ayurveda, they also use um ghee

in the belly button, and that's supposed to be very nourishing

and warming for the body, and especially for women, depending

on season of life and season we're in, like we want to bring

more warmth, according to Chinese medicine and Ayurveda,

into our system. So that's where that warm tea and that warm like

self massage can be really helpful.

Yeah, like, I need a sweater just dropped, yeah,

warmth. Okay, wait, okay. Wait, okay, say that again. I'm sorry.

I just got slightly distracted by this pattern. I'm really into

this content, too. So you're saying the warmth, like, when

we're in our 40s, plus, like, warmth is really important,

yeah.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: So in Ayurveda, there's three

different stages of a woman's life. So the way I relate to it,

like, the first stage is your curiosity phase, and then you

get into your vitality phase, and then your wise woman phase.

And Ayurveda, it's there's constitutions that we have,

vata, pitta and kapha, which have certain traits to them. And

in perimenopause and menopause, we're in our vata state. Vata is

quite cold. So vata requires warmth. So that's where, you

know, women will start to experience changes in their

joints. Maybe they're a little bit creaky, or their temperature

is dysregulated because of hot flashes and night sweats. And so

you might think it's counter intuitive to bring more warmth

in when they're already feeling really hot, but what that the

warmth is doing is actually bringing nourishment to your

nerves and bringing more grounding into your nervous

system, which will then translate into your cortisol,

coming down into your nervous system feeling more regulated,

into all the regulation that we need for our mindset as well. So

bringing warmth in in the evening can be really important.

And the other thing something so simple, just putting your legs

up against the wall for five minutes, just that yoga pose,

will help to also calm the system down as well. So those

are, I would say, those are the muscles before bed that can be

so simple, done in a few minutes and any woman can access

and what legs up the wall before bed. What it's

calming is that the main benefit, yeah,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: like the blood flow is coming down, you're

draining. And it's really calming for the nervous system.

It's a restorative

yoga pose, yeah, yeah.

I love legs up the wall. Just, actually just did it

my in class on Saturday. Okay, so we've got meals mindset and

morning and evening rituals,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: yes, and then movement. And I would say that's

the medicine for me. Every morning, no matter what I have

to do some form of movement to get into my body and out of my

mind. And this could be even in the evening too, for women doing

some yoga poses just to get the blood flowing a little bit, but

movement, I think, has so many benefits. In terms of

hormonally, you're increasing your testosterone in the

morning. You're ramping up the cortisol the way it needs to to

get you more energized for your day, get you motivated, bring

that dopamine level up in your brain so it just helps your

brain and your body feel. Really good. And so dancing, walking,

running, whatever type of movement fuels you, is so

important to embody every single day.

And so what fuels you, what kind of movement?

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, so I grew up dancing, and I actually

just started my master's in Kathak, which is, it's a

classical Indian dance, and it was one that I wasn't allowed to

do when I was young. There's this stigma around it in my

culture, anyways, in the Punjabi culture around Kathak, and it's

very feminine, so it's been an interesting journey for me to go

from very masculine dances that I was doing and teaching to all

of a sudden I would do hip hop as well, and

what you were teaching dance? Yes, I did not

know this,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: not recently. This was, this was in my youth,

I used to teach dance, yeah, oh my gosh, that's amazing. A

dancer from a very young age, and I feel like that it's the

one time you know, everyone has that one thing that helps you

not forget the world, but gets you so connected to source and

to yourself, like dancing has always been that thing for me.

And I feel like I lost that for several years, and just this

last year, I something in me woke up and I was like, I need

this in my life again. And I found a teacher, and now I'm

doing my training as a student. Amazing.

Wait, so you're gonna teach by August when I

come home, are you guys over

private class? Yeah, yeah. I don't even know what

this dance

is, but it sounds amazing. And, you know, I

actually think all women there's, like, certain dances,

if we allow ourselves to grow it through the discomfort of, like,

the stories in our mind, the only can't dance, I have two

left feet. Blah, blah. Like, you know, if we go back in in time,

yeah, everybody could move and make and sing a chant. And, you

know, it's just these stories we carry from being shut down at

different times in our childhood that we we think we can't do

something. And I, honestly, I think all Maybe humans, but

definitely women. Yeah, I don't want to say should love that

word, but at least, at least explore different types of

dance.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: It's such a movement, yeah,

or even, like five rhythms, or ecstatic dance, or

something with that doesn't have. Some people don't like

choreography because then they get in their head. But there's

so many types,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: yeah, there's so much freedom in movement, and

there's so much connection that happens with your body. With

movement too, you start to really tune into those signals

that we were talking about in the beginning. Like that your

intuition that you can access it more deeply when you're tuned in

to your physical form. Yeah, and

movement, what's flute, that's feminine, that's

not like so rich, because a lot of women do, I'm actually

starting to do add weight training, because I've always

done, like, pilates, family, Pilates, yoga, dance, like,

those are the things that I've always loved. And so now I'm

also adding weight training and stuff. I think it's important

that I've heard it's important, which I'm sure you'll talk

about, but, but I think for so many women who live in their

masculine and live in their heads and have these busy lives

and busy schedules, the medicine that comes from moving in a non

linear way,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: yes, yeah. And I think what you said there is

really important. So in this particular book, I created these

three different archetypes where you can look to see where you

sit with your hormonal identity. So are you like the anxious

overachiever right now? Are you the silent struggler, or are

you, you know, a perfectionist that's having to pay like a

greater price because of that perfectionism, and once you

start to understand where you're at, then you know what type of

movement you need. So an anxious overachiever, if I tell her to

do yin yoga, that's not going to go really well, because she's so

in her mind. So she probably needs to lift weights first, to

get grounded in her body, and then bring in a few minutes of

shavasana, or legs up against the wall or something that will

give her a glimpse of what that can feel like. We know she needs

the opposite. We know she needs a restorative and the Yin, but

she will get there once she can access that connection with her

body. So that's where it comes down to even understanding

yourself, where you're at, and what type of movement is going

to actually bring you that nourishment that you need.

It's like the the weight training is, I got

goosebumps, and you're sharing that it's the gateway, like the

gateway the door. So then, then she can keep going deeper,

instead of trying to force yourself to do something that's

so opposing to how your patterns are currently

Dr. Sonya Jensen: structured, yeah, because that in itself

creates fear, that in itself will create stress, and that's

the opposite of what we want. To do.

Yeah, right, right. What are the other ones? Can you

say the last? Dr Sonia just wrote an amazing book. So we

will tell you more about that they don't even know yet, that

you Oh, that's right. In the book,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: the last one is Mojo, and that's where the

relationship piece comes in. And I do think the quality of our

life is so dependent on the quality of our relationships,

and especially that relationship with self. So having those

moments to yourself, like having prompts to journal, or having

exercises to do with your partner or alone to help you

tune into that there's a story I share in the book. It's a Sufi

teaching about the heart and how, if you tune it, or if you

look at a couple, for example, that's fighting, maybe, and

they're really loud, and they're speaking loud to each other,

it's because their hearts are so far apart, and the loudness is

trying to make up that distance. And so when you're in tune with

yourself or with others. Just a whisper is enough. Just silence

can be enough, because you can tap into the energy of yourself

and the other person. And so when you start to understand how

you are relating to you, how you're relating to food, how

you're relating to others, it can have a massive

transformation on those relationships, because then

you're coming to them with that softness, with that knowing of

what you need to do for yourself first so you can show up for the

other

that's so beautiful. And God, I just think

about how many couples, it's heartbreaking. Because I always

say this like nobody gave us some relationship manual. How

insane we learned so many ridiculous things. Has anyone

changed what we learned in school? Like we learned so many

insane things in school that we never use. And how many couples,

you know care about each other and love each other but have no

idea how to drop into their hearts, like, if you're not as

you're saying, nourishing your heart and getting to and healing

your own body, and you're just in your patterns. And so if your

partner, if you have 20 years of resentments built up, or even

five years the resentments built up, and you don't know how to

communicate vulnerably, and you don't know how to be in the

silence without it being guarded, or without it being

distant, you know, like, how many or fighting, like, how many

people are just relating from their protection, and don't know

how to actually move through stuff from the heart. And I just

love all of that, because the more, the more you feel, the

more you feel good, and I want to find a better word than good,

the more your body is thriving, the easier it'll be to be in

your heart with everyone.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And like,

imagine the world and how different it would be when we're

not in that reactive space or just trying to survive or trying

to overpower and it really does go back to looking within again.

It's like looking at that inner child, looking at those

patterns, looking at the generational stuff that's been

passed, and understanding that that is not you, and that you do

have a choice in every second of the day to choose differently,

but when we're in stuck in those patterns. It's really difficult

to do that. So these conversations and these tools

and they can just create opportunity for you to

understand yourself a little bit more deeply. So then the next

time, because we're still human, we're still having that

emotional, human experience, we can respond instead of react,

and we can learn from every single one, because it's not

going to be perfect. What's not meant to be perfect, we wouldn't

grow if it was. But you can just give yourself permission have

more grace for yourself, then you will have grace for the

other. It's like that. It's the yoga one of the call it a rule,

but just a philosophy of Ahimsa, of non violence, and that's if

you're violent towards yourself, if you are thinking that you're

not enough, if you're believing into that that same will show up

with the other. And so the more you love yourself, the more you

reclaim yourself, the more you can do for those in front of

you.

Is so true. One of my favorite things to do I

always talk about is when I'm in my Uber I mean, I take a lot of

Ubers here, like to the gym every day, yeah, and, and, I

mean, Kenyans are so open hearted, but I do this

everywhere I go, that occasionally there's someone who

seems guarded, seems closed, seems like they're not

interested in a conversation, but I just get Curious and ask

questions, and keep asking questions, and then they crack

every time they crack, and then there's so much beauty inside of

everyone. And it's like to be able to be and I know it's

because I'm living in my heart and feel good in my body. So

then that ripple effect goes it gets spread every. Where I go,

and I think, yeah, imagine the world like that, of people,

because everyone God, especially in North America. But, I mean,

everywhere, really, but definitely in that Western Go,

go, go, do, do, do, hustle, grind, pace, where everyone is

slotting time. I mean, I even do this when I even do this when I

go to Vancouver, I'm like, oh God. And then I'll squeeze you

in here and squeeze you in there and and it's just like, how,

what? How does it just like you I just get, like, swept up in

the energy of over scheduling, over busyness, slotting things

in, and then we're mostly, it's so it's so much more challenging

to be where you are because you're already like, Oh, I got

to get to this next thing, and I got to get out there, and I got

that meeting over there, and I meeting over there, and I got

that thing over there, and then, you know how exhausting that is

and how all the like layers of the stuff that's happening

inside when we're living like that,

yeah, and that's how we treat each other from that

Dr. Sonya Jensen: place, I know, and that's why those little

moments in between are so important I find so my boys play

sports, so week, nights, weekends are really about taking

them here and there. And it's those moments in the car and

that in between where I can close my eyes and I can take a

deep breath. It's the morning ritual that I have that keeps me

going for the day, keeps me grounded so that I can show up

differently, because if I'm exhausted, then I'm not going to

respond to them the way I really want to, and that's going to

create drifts in our relationship. And so I think it

is those micro moments, especially when we're in a

season of our life where there's busyness, and bringing those in

can make a huge difference in how we're operating,

for sure. And your spouse, if it seems like the

spouse gets everything gets taken out on them, like, if

you're feeling shitty in your life, it's like they're the ones

who get the worst of it. And your kids, because your kids are

like, little narcissists, for lack of a better word, like

officially. But kids are supposed to be, they're self

centered, right? Because the healthy place to be, we're all

self centered in the beginning, and then we get taught to be

selfless or selfish or whatever. But like, kids need a lot,

right? So they're because they're not sovereign, they're

not on their own. They don't have choice yet. They're,

they're, you know, and so they're taking, and so it's easy

to snap on them or take our stuff out on them, and then your

spouse is the one usually most in most relationships gets like

the worst of the worst,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: the leftovers, the leftover energy, the Yeah,

the the resentment, the everything that you're feeling

that's been like banked all day, because that often is the safe

space to feel all of that. And so when you can reflect that

back to one another and have that understanding of like,

Okay, where am I in my season? So our last conversation we had,

we had, we talked a lot about like women in their cycle, and

what kind of conversations to have when, because of our

hormonal story and even a season of life. So if you are busy with

kids, if you are still in your career, and you're doing all

this to have these set aside times in the week to have

conversations. So in the book, I actually create some exercises

that couples can do to understand that about each

other, where they are in their season, what percentage they're

actually able to give in that day or in that moment? And like

I said, we're still working on it. I mean, you teach what you

have to learn, right? So we're in that busy season. My husband

and I, we have a clinic together. We're raising kids

together, and sometimes it feels like we're doing side by side

life, instead of, like, really integrated. So we have to take

those pause moments. We have to take those micro moments to be

able to do that and have that understanding of what the other

is going through. Like I'm going to perimenopause. Men go through

andropause. Their hormones change as well. So understanding

that their testosterone is changing, their capacity to

manage and resilience to deal with stress is changing as well.

So if both of you are changing, both of you are navigating

stressors from the past and patterns, there has to be some

grace for each other.

God, I've never heard that term andropod, yeah.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: So you know their hormones start to decline,

starting age 25 just as ours do like testosterone, for example,

will slowly decline. Theirs doesn't decline as drastically

as ours does, and they have a 24 hour cycle, whereas we have that

monthly cycle. So they're replenishing pretty quickly. But

looking at our world today, and from the foods to the other

stressors to stresses they carry in their mindset and their

beliefs that fuels how much testosterone they have. So we

kind of live in a world that where there's more estrogen

dominance because of food, pesticides, plastics,

environmental things, and so they're not going into this

later phase of life as balanced as they would have maybe 50. 30

years ago, sperm count has gone down by 50% like there's so much

that their body is also navigating and fighting. So now

imagine both people going through that, but not being able

to put language to it or understanding it's going to

create difficulty in a relationship, because now we're

being reactive because we're tired, maybe not getting enough

sleep, so then we're not intimate with each other. So

there's like, disconnect. All of that can show up because

physically, we're just not feeling like ourselves anymore.

God, people just don't know what they don't know,

and then they blame their partner. It's the easiest thing

to do for all the I think, of all the men that like, I've

asked so many men, like, what do you want in relationship? Yeah,

and they're like, I just want her to be happy. I just want her

to be happy. Meanwhile, it's like, nothing I ever do is

enough. She's like, you're not doing enough. I want more. I

need more. Yeah, and it's just like, everyone just feels like

shit, and then they're

Dr. Sonya Jensen: I know it's the easiest thing to do, yeah,

it's harder to access all of this or to, like, mulch away the

stories and the beliefs and everything and so if you're on

the same page, it can be so much more helpful to support each

other as you're navigating it.

So Wow. Okay, this guy, this these conversations

are always so good, but we're gonna do one at least once a

year. Yeah. So your book that has just come out or is coming

out on the 22nd of February, so this episode, I think, is coming

on the 17th, so it'll be out on the 22nd heal your hormones,

reclaim yourself. Tell us about the book. Tell us about your

journey with the book. Anything, anything you want to share.

Yeah, like I was sharing.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: I think we teach what we need to learn

ourselves and being in practice and being in front of women and

holding their hands and crying with them and understanding

these transitions and how difficult they can be. The first

chapter, I share a story of a woman, and the first thing she

said to me when she walked in one day was, you saved my life.

I'm now going from like, marriage to

life, your lips surgeon and a relationship miracle.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: When it was this, like, eye opener, of like,

you know, you just never know how you're going to impact

somebody's day or life or decisions and choices. And I

just kept getting mirrored back the same kind of archetype in

front of me, like a woman that's in that sandwich generation

taking care of elderly parents that are aging and young

children, but still working and, you know, just being spread so

thin and still wanting to feel good, wanting the energy to do

life, but doesn't know how to access it. And so I myself,

found myself in that same place of like, feeling drained and

burnt out and doing all the things. So I'm like, something

needs to shift here. So as I started doing my own work and

work with the patients, I'm like, this needs to be shared

out. We're not talking enough about the amount of stressors we

carry, the amount of traumas we carry, the amount all of that

impacts every part of our life, not just one. And so if we can

first understand ourselves, we can heal all these parts. We can

heal our hormones, we can heal our relationships. We can

release the old stories that are still tugging away at us. So the

first part of the book kind of goes into the science of

emotions, the science of hormones and relationships, and

how all of that is interconnected. And then the

second part of the book is something called the her method.

So hormones, emotions and relationships, and that's all of

those things that we were talking about in terms of what

to do in your everyday life, what to do, what questions to

ask when it comes to your health, what testing to get done

so that you can start to implement things very quickly

and understand yourself. And I even think I do

encourage women to once they understand their bodies, their

cycles, their rhythms, their needs, to share that with their

partner too, so they understand like men don't understand us

either, like we don't understand ourselves. So then for sure,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: oh for sure, yeah, just communicating that

piece is huge in relationships. Yeah, we got a woman just last

week. She was like, you know, this part of my cycle, I was

feeling a little bit irritable, and it was her boyfriend that

was like, oh, okay, this is you're in your luteal phase, so

that's probably why you're reacting to me. So even that,

you know, a woman can take that in two ways, of like, Oh, don't

tell me where I am. But she was like, Yeah, you're right. I

didn't put the two and two together, and then that opened

up a whole conversation about other things for them, amazing.

It is amazing because, yeah, the more we know,

the more we can share my last partner, Patricio, who I've

talked lots about on the podcast, he because I would

teach him all the things I learned from Dr Mindy's book.

He. And fast, like a girl, so eating from hormones, yeah. So

he was like, my love your it's your premenstrual week. We got

to get some potatoes and sweet potatoes in. We got to feed

progesterone. And he was so, yeah, it was like, at first he I

would try and tell him things like this, and he would be like,

what? And he thought it was weird. But then eventually he he

got on board, and it was so cute, and then, and it's

amazing, because, you know, good men want to support us. They

want to understand us. They don't understand us. We're from,

you know, they're from Mars. We're from Venus. They don't

understand us, especially if we don't understand ourselves.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, those create so much peace in your

inner being and also your relationships too.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh, it's

amazing. So heal your hormones, reclaim yourself. We'll link

everything below this episode in the show notes. But any like

websites you want to talk about, where to get the book, how

Dr. Sonya Jensen: you can get a heal your hormones, book.com,

and you can also follow me on Instagram. My handle is Dr Sonia

Jensen, and there's more information there as well.

Amazing.

And so any final, final words about coming back to

marriage and your you know your journey with your husband, your

all the, all the marriages you've saved and lives you've

saved. I love it. Saving your marriage any final, yeah,

Dr. Sonya Jensen: I think just knowing that everything's

temporary, you know that reaction that you're having, the

feeling that you're having, the story that we might be carrying,

everything is temporary, even life is temporary. And so if we

can look at it from that bigger perspective. I think we can make

different choices that help us really enjoy the moment that we

do have on this earth.

Epic, so beautiful. You're so special. I love you so

much. You are so special. I saw many naturopaths over the years,

and like no none stuck until I met you. I mean, I don't live in

Vancouver anymore, but and now you're my friend, and I love you

dearly. I think that your work and who you are, and your

essence and what you bring to the world and to women is so

special and so unique, and everyone can feel it in this

episode and in our other conversation, you care so much,

and you're so connected to what you're doing and the impact

you're making, and it's incredible. And I love you, and

I'm so happy to share you with everyone here and to all the

women listening spread this episode to every woman you know

who is, whether you're married or in a relationship or even

want to be one in one one day, God, we need to know this to

have healthy relationships.

Dr. Sonya Jensen: Yeah, thank you. Thank you, and I love you,

and all the work that you're doing and giving this kind of

work a voice which is so important, and being that voice

for other women to to step into their power and to themselves.

So thank you beautiful.

Thank you so much my love. So go, grab heal your

hormones, reclaim yourself, give it to every woman you know. For

valen, no, Valentine's Day has already happened. What's the

next holiday? Easter? Yeah, for their birthday, whatever. Get

together, you know, and and, yeah, spread the word. Thank you

so much, and we'll see you at the same time next year. This is

our annual episode.

Love you. Me too.