Lisa Marie Rankin:

Hello, beautiful ones. Have you ever felt that your body was broken or that your body needed to be fixed? Maybe you were experiencing hormonal symptoms, maybe your metabolism has started to slow, or you're getting aches and pains. And your first reaction was immediately, why is my body failing me? What is it doing? Well, today, in this episode, I want to flip the script on what many of us do when we feel that our body is feeling us. And instead of thinking that your body needs to be fixed or that you are broken, your body is trying to communicate to you. Your symptoms are simply a way of your body telling you that you're not living in alignment and inviting you to experience the world in a new way. So welcome, my friends, to the Goddess School podcast. And as I said, this episode's gonna be all about flipping the script on how we view our body and, more specifically, how we view our body when we are being presented with symptoms that we don't necessarily like. Now I'm gonna talk a little bit about symptoms in midlife because I know that much of my audience are in midlife.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

So as we transition through perimenopause or menopause, there's many symptoms that we experience. They could be, like, dry skin, hot flashes, anxiety, low libido, insomnia, weight gain. Right? Just to name a few. And it can be easy at this point to say, oh, no. My hormones are completely out of whack. They need to be fixed. My body is malfunctioning. But instead of that, and stay with me now because I will tell you how, actually, you can you can resolve these symptoms as well too.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

But instead of thinking that your body is broken, what if these symptoms are really inviting you to experience the world in a whole new way where you get to minimize the stressors in your life, prioritize pleasure, rediscover the things that turn you on and light you up, and share your wisdom. Now, in episode number 4, I talk about the 4 phases of life, the 4 ashramas in the Vedic tradition. Now, if you haven't listened to that, definitely go back after this episode and check it out because that really is aligned with what we're gonna be talking about today where in each life phase, we're we're being asked to live a little bit differently. We're gonna be asked to have we'll have different goals, different aims in life. Now the phase of 25 to 50, that's called the Grahastha phase or the householder phase. And that's when we are very much focused on creating a family, getting ahead in our career. We're building. We're busy.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

We need a house. We need stuff. So it's this very, like, fiery time of life. And then the phase from 50 to 75 is called vaniproast or forest dweller. And we can think of this as we have 1 foot in the mundane earthly realm, the householder phase, and then really 1 foot in the more spiritual realm. So we're starting to slow down, but not in a way that we think of as negative. It's like, oh, I get to experience the world differently. I get to rediscover the things that turn me on.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

I get to pursue pleasure. I get to share my wisdom from a life well lived. So there's just different things that our spirit, our psyche are looking for in this phase of life. So I just wanted to give that little bit of an overview. Now back to the symptoms. So I wanna talk a little bit about our hormones and why we may experience the symptoms. I'm gonna keep it pretty high level. But starting at 35 for a woman, our estrogen and progesterone start to decline.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Right? They're just going to start to decline. This is when we start to experience symptoms. We start to think that our body is malfunctioning. Now I don't know about you, but I believe that God, goddess, the divine nature, they didn't screw up and that your body is not malfunctioning, but it is inviting you to experience the world in a new way. Now, we all should still have enough estrogen and progesterone to feel juicy, sexy, alive in midlife and beyond because we're no we no longer need as much because we're no longer reproducing. So there actually should be enough that we still feel good. But here's what happens. When we're younger and when we're in that grass to phase, we can often deal with so much and we can get so much done.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

I remember in my thirties, I was working full time in the corporate world. I had 2 young child children. I also had a retail store. It was a pet grocery and dog wash. And I'm 49 now. I look back at that time and I'm like, oh my goodness. I don't really know how I did it. I probably did it because I had a lot of estrogen and progesterone.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Right? So we can deal with a lot. But as that starts to decline, we also have to make sure that the stressors in our life also decline. So we also have to look at our stress hormones, so cortisol and adrenaline. So in our twenties thirties, our estrogen and progesterone help to balance out those stress hormones. But as they decline, we need to make sure that our stressors decline as well too. Now, often, they don't. And, in fact, in midlife, there might be an opportunity to even be more stressed. Many people are getting divorced once their kids are going to college.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

They have to figure out how to pay for college. They might have aging parents to care for. So it almost seems like at this time in midlife when things are starting to get easy, for many, it might seem like you have more stress than ever, and you're gonna experience more symptoms as well. So what we need to do is if our symptoms are communicating to us, and in this instance, they're saying, hey. We need to we need to minimize stressors. Can you do more of what feels good and less of what doesn't? Can you prioritize pleasure? Can you slow it down? Can you rediscover different things that are gonna give you more enthusiasm? When we start to do that, you're gonna see your symptoms start to disappear as well too. So we will have another episode on stress and managing stress and perceived stressors because you get to decide whether something is stressful or not. But really starting to look at your life and where can you calm down, where can you minimize the stressors, where can you prioritize self care.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Maybe you need to take more walks, you need to get out to meditate, you need to take a nice bath. But when we start living aligned with this phase of life, with the forest dweller phase, we're not gonna see all of the same symptoms because we'll have reduced the cortisol and adrenaline in our life and our hormones will feel imbalanced. So that's an example where when we actually live more aligned to the rhythms of our life, it's not just our symptoms that clear up, but our life is gonna be better as well too. In this instance, we're not gonna have all the stressors. We're gonna prioritize the things that we really enjoy. Now I wanted to give you another example as well too about how our symptoms our body symptoms are really a way of communicating. And when we resolve them, we're not just resolving the symptoms, but we're actually setting ourselves up to live more in alignment with with our soul, with our spirit, with our psyche, and to have a better life. All areas of our lives will improve.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Our body is just telling us. They're kind of, like, on the ground floor saying, hey. You're doing something wrong. So I'll give you another example. One day, I was going to the dermatologist, and I actually see the dermatologist quite a bit as I was a bit of a sun worshiper in my teens twenties. So see you see her a lot. Now one day, it was a different dermatologist than I normally have. It was, a man, and I actually thought my skin was looking pretty good.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

I went there without any makeup. Thought I thought everything was fine. And he was like, oh, well, I can see that, you know, you your rosacea is really flaring up. And, like, so I paused for a moment and I was thinking, I'm like, well, I actually have been a little bit stressed lately, you know, and I haven't been sleeping well. So I need to look to see, you know, how I can start to feel more at ease. I can how I can start to get a better night sleep. I'm also like, oh, I should probably, you know, maybe cut down on the red wine and the spicy food. And he was like, oh, don't worry about that.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

You know, I can just give you a prescription. I can give you an antibiotic to apply. And, you know, I I politely declined because here's the thing. I knew some of the things that could make my rosacea flare, stress, insomnia, drinking too much red wine, eating spicy foods. Now if I can manage my stress, if I can get better sleep, if I can drink less red wine, my skin's not gonna just look better, but my whole life is going to be better. Because if I get a good night's sleep and I'm not stressed, I'm gonna be able to make more discerning decisions about my life at large, about my health, about my relationships, about my money. So we can really think that our symptoms, it's not just a physical problem. They're usually identifying other areas in our life that we're not paying attention to or maybe we are trying to mask.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

So everything starts to get better when we start to resolve our physical symptoms. And that's why I really love working with the body, and I really do believe that feminine spirituality begins in the body. And I know that if you are on a personal development path or a spiritual path, you might wanna go right to the crown chakra. Right? You might think that the spirit is so much more important than the body because the body is transient while the spirit is not. But I really encourage you to shift that, that, yes, even though the body is transient, it is your gateway to the spirit to the spirit. It is how we experience the world, and especially for feminine spirituality, we experience the sacred in every day. It's birthing babies, it's tending to the dying, it's in the garden, it's making dinner, it's interacting with others. It's very much a physical experience.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

So I really encourage you to think of your body as your teacher, your spiritual mentor, your guide, and start to look at your symptoms, your physical symptoms, whatever they may be, as an indication that there's something out of whack in your life. And when you start to resolve that, not only will the symptoms in your body start to resolve, but your life is going to get better and more more purposeful as well, too. So I wanna just start maybe leaving you with a few few tips so you can start listening to your body and realigning with your natural rhythms. First, just take note of what are the symptoms that you are experiencing. And, you know, you can list them all out, whether it's symptoms with your skin, with your digestion, with your weight, with your with how your bones feel when you get out of bed. But what are the symptoms that you are experiencing? And then consider, what do you think these symptoms are asking you? Or what are they inviting you to do a little bit differently now? And then 3rd, what would you need to shift in your life to start to resolve these symptoms? And what else will change? Right? What else will shift in your life when you start to resolve these symptoms? And really start to think about that. So your body is, like, your guide and coach that is with you all the time, and it's gonna let you know when you are going off track. So rather than trying to mask it with a quick fix, you know, really look what do I need to change in my life for these symptoms to resolve, and how else is that going to improve all areas of my life? And, lastly, to really start reconnecting to the wisdom of your body, just listen to what it needs on a basis.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

If you need to go pee, get up and go pee. If you're thirsty, have a sip of water. If you've been sitting too long in your chair, get up and go for a walk. Tune in throughout the day seeing how your body feels and then really asking asking it, what do you need right now? What do you need to feel better? So in conclusion, your body is not broken. It does not need to be fixed. It is a messenger. It is your spiritual guide, your wellness coach. It is your teacher.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Really look at your symptoms as a way of communicating and as an invitation to experience the world a little bit differently and consider what else is going to shift in your life when you do that, when you start to resolve these symptoms. Alright, beautiful ones. I hope this was helpful. I hope it helps you to maybe shift the way that you consider your body and really approach it in a whole new way. I will see you very soon. Be well.