Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:00]:

Welcome back to the God of School podcast. In part one of my conversation with the lovely Mary Thompson, Ayurveda teacher and practitioner, we explored the psychospiritual initiations of midlife and menopause. Today, in part two, we're getting into the body. Hot flashes, low libido, weight gain, anxiety, these symptoms are often brushed off as just part of getting older. But in this episode, Mary brings clarity, compassion, and Ayurveda wisdom to help us understand what's really going on and what we can do about it. So if you've ever felt like a stranger in your own skin during this transition, you are not alone. This conversation is your reminder that your body isn't betraying you. It's trying to guide you home.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:46]:

Let's dive in. Welcome to the God of School podcast, where Eastern wisdom meets Western mysticism. I'm your host, Lisa Marie Rankine, author, teacher, and Ayurvedic wellness coach here to help you reclaim your feminine superpowers, and I am so glad you're here. Listen. Women are magical. They are intuitive, creative, wise, and magnetic. However, in today's fast paced world, these gifts often get buried under a more masculine way of life. Together, we'll awaken those powers.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:01:21]:

In each episode, I'll take you through sacred teachings like Ayurveda, shadow work, and the mysteries of archetypes and rituals so you can live with more clarity, synchronicity, and joy in all realms of life, like relationships, health, money, and more. So let's dive in so you can make the most of your one mythic life. The veil is parting. Let's begin. Hello, beautiful listeners, and welcome back to The Goddess School podcast. And today I am bringing back Mary Thompson. So Mary Thompson is an Ayurveda practitioner. She is also one of my teachers when I went to Shakti school.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:02:04]:

I think it was back in 2020. And when I had Mary on the first time, and if you hadn't had a chance to listen to that episode, you can go back and listen. We really talked about the psycho spiritual components of midlife and getting older. But today we are going to dive into the physical symptoms and what to do about it. And of course, please, you know, always consult with your doctor before ingesting any herbs and just making sure that, you know, anything that you hear about here is really for educational purposes only, but welcome back, Mary.

Mary Thompson [00:02:40]:

Thank you. Thank you. It's so great to be back. I did feel like last time. Oh, we, we didn't get to the meat of it to talk about what could people actually do. So I'm glad we made it a time to make this happen.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:02:49]:

Yeah, me too. And, you know, I, I do tend to probably lean heavy on the psychospiritual components just because I always think there's messages in our symptoms. Like that's just the way that whether it's a physical symptom, whether it's a mental symptom, it's always to me like, what is this telling me about my lifestyle? What is this asking me to do how to realign? So I am really happy that that is where we started because I know aging can be challenging. I'm gonna be 50 this summer and, and yet we can also think of it as a rite of passage of a threshold when we stay open and aware to to the symptoms of what our body, what our psyche might be telling us. And I know I have many women in my community are like, okay, Lisa, can you just tell me, how do I deal with the hot flashes? I haven't slept in years. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. And Mary, I'm not sure if you had a particular place that you wanted to start, but. I think hot flashes might be a good place to start.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:03:52]:

Cause I do hear from a lot of women that it's really affecting their lives, their sleep, and it's really preventing them from how they want to show up in the world.

Mary Thompson [00:04:03]:

You know, hot flashes is kind of a universal recognized symptom of perimenopause and menopause. And so it's, it's a great place to start. What's tricky about hot flashes. The thing that's going on is really weird. Estrogen plays a role in the body's ability to regulate our body temperature. So what happens when the estrogen is gone? You know, what happens when it goes away? Well, one thing, when the body is spending estrogen, when it's using estrogen, you're metabolizing. And so the hypothalamus, the center of our endocrine system recognizes when the estrogen drops, it's kind of a weird thing. It thinks you are metabolizing a lot.

Mary Thompson [00:04:47]:

And so what happens when we metabolize a lot, our body temperature goes up. So the hypothalamus is not registering what your temperature is. It's registering what it thinks your temperature is based on the level of estrogen that's running through your system. Your body in response to this drop in estrogen opens up all the blood vessels. This is intended to get the blood to the surface so you can use evaporative cooling. But what do we feel when the body opens up all those blood vessels? We feel heat. We feel intense heat. And of course, it's doing it like opening a flood gate and we're getting flooded.

Mary Thompson [00:05:24]:

So we get our face gets flushed and we begin to sweat and the body's going, woah, oh, it's so hot here. And it's all because your body isn't yet used to this drop in estrogen that's going on. And from an Ayurvedic perspective, we look at it as there's a challenge with what we call AMAA or toxicity in the blood. And it's interfering with the body's ability to see clearly that it's not that we've dropped estrogen. The estrogen has dropped out. And we will get to that point where the body recognizes that, oh, this is an unreliable marker for body temperature, and it will start to go to secondary and tertiary markers for body temperature. So what can we do? Well, one of the things it looks at is how can we remove Ama from the system? How do we get rid of this? And that's keeping the diet clean, whole fresh organic seasonal foods and exercising. Because by exercise, we do naturally increase the metabolism and the body begins to recognize, oh, this is a marker that I can use.

Mary Thompson [00:06:34]:

We wanna be in charge of when we sweat. We don't want our drop in estrogen to be in charge of when we sweat. And this is what's waking people up at night is they're comfortably sleeping in bed. Estrogen has dropped. The body is kind of clearly seeing now that the estrogen has dropped and it raises your heat and you start sweating and soaking through the sheets. So one treatment that I have fused that has worked really well is something simple. You can buy at trader Joe's. If everybody's got a trader Joe's nearby, but you can buy it at any health food store, which is aloe Vera gel.

Mary Thompson [00:07:04]:

One of the factors that will help to remove UMA from the system is your liver health. And so the aloe vera supports clearing toxicity out of the liver and cooling the system down. So I've had people start taking, you know, one to two ounces of aloe vera in the morning and in the evening. And that has helped many women. Another thing we look at the fluids in the body that run through and carry the estrogen. We call them MRASA. It's your plasma, your lymph, and all those fluids. So we wanna have really nice, clean, healthy Rasa.

Mary Thompson [00:07:39]:

And to that end, we might look at how do we hydrate ourselves. For some people, coconut water is really very hydrating. It hydrates the cells. And so that can be something that you include. You could also look towards herbal teas, like licorice tea or slippery Elm tea. Again, you'd find these at, at most health food stores. And so you could start hydrating and avoiding the dehydrators. So things like wine and coffee are really dehydrators and they create more concentration, I guess, is the best word in the plasma.

Mary Thompson [00:08:13]:

And that leads to the body misunderstanding what's happening. So there on the one extreme, you could say, that's it. I'm gonna swear off wine and alcohol and wine and alcohol coffee, I should say. On the other hand, you could say I'm gonna make sure that I'm gonna hydrate. So if I have a glass of wine, I have a glass of water. If I have a cup of coffee, I have a cup of water. Keep the body as hydrated as possible, especially in the face of these dehydrators. Overall, the hot flashes are a Vata symptom.

Mary Thompson [00:08:46]:

Now a lot of people think that they're pitta because they're heat. But the problem is there's not heat, really. That's the body's problem. It thinks that there is heat, but there's no heat. So it does what it would do where you overheated. So imagine you're working in the garden and you're overheated, you're in the sun and you're working physically. The body is gonna open those blood vessels and you're gonna feel cooler because it's gonna give you the opportunity to actually release that heat that you're holding. In the case of hot flashes, you're not hot.

Mary Thompson [00:09:18]:

You're just, you're just living your life. You're sitting in the living room and all of a sudden you feel hot. And that's what is that's what makes it Vata. It's the flash of it that is the Vata, the heat of it. It's just the body's, you know, kind of releasing heat, but you don't have heat at the core because you're not overheated. So So it's a lot about pacifying Vata dosha. And this means regular waking, sleeping routines, reducing stress, keeping yourself fully hydrated, like I mentioned. And when you're doing exercise, you know, bring that sweat up.

Mary Thompson [00:09:50]:

I know a lot of women because of hot flashes won't exercise because they think I don't wanna exacerbate this problem. But what you're really doing is taking control of your body's temperature regulation system, and you're teaching your body not to rely on estrogen levels to determine whether or not you're overheated.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:10:09]:

So interesting. Thank you so much for that. Few things I wanted just to touch on. So I know you mentioned aloe, I'm not sure. I thought you might've said aloe gel, but it's aloe juice, right?

Mary Thompson [00:10:21]:

To, yes, it's going to be an aloe juice, a beverage, not the aloe gel, like you might squeeze out of the plant. That's a concentrated form of it. And the juice is made from that gel.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:10:30]:

Okay, great. When does the hot flashes resolve itself? Like how long can a woman, because I feel like there have been some women in my community who are well through menopause and they're still experiencing it. Like how does the body start to finally recognize, or is there anything that we can do to speed up that process?

Mary Thompson [00:10:50]:

Well, the best thing you can do is clean the system out. So if you wanted to go through a cleanse or something like that, that would help speed it along. We have a lot of what are called xenoestrogens in our, in our world. And these are largely found in plastics and in processed foods. And then in other ways, in a xenoestrin, xeno means foreign. So it's not an estrogen your body recognizes as you. It recognizes that it's an estrogen, but it doesn't quite know what to do with it. So that's another thing is I have people look at what they might be taking in as far as xenoestrogens go.

Mary Thompson [00:11:26]:

The big thing, and I might have mentioned this last time, I'm not sure, but we kind of focus so much on the hormones because it's the loss of the hormone, especially estrogen that drives these symptoms. But as long as we're not interested in procreation, we don't need estrogen for balance. So the thing that drives our metabolism during our reproductive years is estrogen. And now we have to be doing daily exercise, including stretching and strength training and aerobics. We have to be doing things that are gonna drive our metabolism. And I don't know, it would be a case by case basis because there are other things that will interfere with the body's regulatory system. But if it is linked to menopause, then it's the body hasn't habituated yet to the concept that there's no estrogen there. And it might be because they're getting, you know, estrogens in other forms.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:18]:

Oh, interesting. I really like how you say too though. Cause I have heard women say like, I can't really walk or I can't really exercise because because I'm having the hot flashes, but that actually might help with the hot flashes.

Mary Thompson [00:12:31]:

Yeah, it really does. And it's weird because I've had women who get hot flashes and they don't get them when they exercise because their body is doing what it's supposed to do. It's recognizing that there is this rise in metabolism and cooling you off. And it's funny to think about it. I know I used to believe this way that there was something in the brain that registered what my temperature is like a, a thermometer kind of thing in my brain. And it was responding to that thermometer, but it solely relies on the chemicals that are present and the chemicals that are released when I exercise are different than the chemicals that are released with estrogen. And so it begins to turn its attention towards, oh, this is the one that I can count on for actually cooling the system down.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:13:14]:

Okay. You mentioned, wine, and this is kind of moving a little bit away from the hot flashes, although maybe not, but why do women seem like they can't really drink as much anymore as they age? Like they might be able to have a couple of glasses of wine, but now it makes them feel really bad. Is there, is there something with the estrogen and progesterone going on at that time, which is making, making women and maybe men too, I don't know, but not being able to metabolize alcohol as much as they age?

Mary Thompson [00:13:43]:

Well, that's interesting. There's a number of factors that could be at play. One of the things that happens as we age is that our digestive fire weakens and wine, especially red wines, highly acidic. And so it's going to raise more heat in the digestive system. I I'm, I mentioned this. Sometimes I say the same things over and over again. So forgive me if I repeat, but I found a woman who lives in a French, a French area. And she said, you can always tell when it's an American movie because they're sitting around drinking wine and there's no food, you know? And I think it's something we do.

Mary Thompson [00:14:16]:

We might go out with friends and have wine and we're sitting around under be at a bar or someplace else, even when we have friends over the wine brings in a liquid that's highly acidic, which is going to disturb the digestive tissues. And we take them in away from food. The body prepares for food in a way it makes mucus to protect your internal organs. It doesn't prepare for wine. It doesn't prepare for liquids. And the amount we get all at one time is different. I might take a bite of food and that's going to get digested or it's going to move into this system and another bite and another bite. Whereas with the, with the wine or with something, some other drink, I'm just pretty much going to drink it.

Mary Thompson [00:14:56]:

You know, I might sip, sip, sip, but it's going to be kind of a concentration greater than the body was expecting all at once. So the first thing is that the digestive system might be weakened. So I know a lot of women who say I can't drink red wine anymore. I gotta drink white, because they get digestive upset. The second thing is about the liver. The liver processes everything. Anything goes in your mouth, in your skin, in your nose, it's all gonna have to be processed at the liver and the liver as it gets older, gets more and more tired. It's kind of like, I can't deal with all this stuff anymore.

Mary Thompson [00:15:31]:

Add stress to that and the stress hormones. The liver has about 500 metabolic jobs it does. And alcohol tends to skew those jobs and make them a little bit harder for the body to do. So over time it weakens and it weakens because of our lifestyle because of pollutants in our area, because of processed foods or things that we put in our body that aren't, I'm putting air quotes here that aren't healthy, you know, so you could, we could look at it and say, it's one more thing that's there. And thinking about beverages, you know, it's, it's a flush, right? I put this thing in and is it going to serve the body, make it healthier? Is it going to cause the body to have to work to break it down? And that's what alcohol does, but it's also what juices do or sodas or anything that's highly sugared. The exception would be things like herb teas, trying to sell my products here. I don't really have any herb tea products, but it's like the idea that, you know, herb teas are designed to support the body systems, depending upon the herb, you can take an herb tea that's gonna support the liver and its function. You could take a tea that's gonna support the digestive system as opposed to somebody that's gonna pull energy away from the system or from the organ.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:16:46]:

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, it's interesting. Cause that does come up quite a bit in conversations and I know that, you know, as women age, they are looking to drink less as well, too, for, you know, a lot of, a lot of different reasons.

Mary Thompson [00:16:58]:

The next

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:16:59]:

one that I would love to talk about. Well, there's actually, there's actually a few. Let's talk about low libido and I, I could go off on a psychospiritual tangent about why I believe women in midlife have low libido, but I would love to, I'd love to hear from you maybe with more of like the physical aspect of libido.

Mary Thompson [00:17:18]:

It's that, it's that pesky estrogen again. Okay. So estrogen comes up, it peaks in the body right before ovulation. And again, there's a little bump before menstruation, and these are natural libido enhancers, right? It's the times when you might feel more sexual because there is a possibility, especially at pre ovulation, there's a possibility that you could procreate. So as a survival mechanism, libido is an act that causes the body to feel more receptive to sexuality because the estrogen's high and the body knows when the estrogen's high, that we're really fertile. And so that's the, that's the big thing. The other thing is we are bombarded with sexual imagery, you know, through advertising, through videos, through music, it's always stimulating. It's always bringing up these urges.

Mary Thompson [00:18:14]:

So even if it's away from ovulation or away from that bump at menstruation, you might feel frisky. It might feel libido as, I think that's the best word for it. You might feel the libido rise more often because when you read something that stimulates those receptors, then you're more likely to say, oh, I'm feeling sexual. And so we interpret a lot of this, but the estrogen is the, is the key. As long as the estrogen is there, we're gonna respond to that kind of media in a physical way. Now menopause and the estrogen gets pulled out of the equation. So if the woman is waiting to feel sexual in her body in order to identify that now is the time I wanna have sex, it often doesn't happen. The estrogen was the one knocking on the door, and we took the estrogen away.

Mary Thompson [00:19:08]:

And now I'm in the house, but nobody's knocking on the door. Maybe my husband he's knocking from the outside going, you know, what's going on? What we realized with women as they enter menopause, they might have lost the physical urgency to have sex, but they still have the relationship urgency. They still have the mental urgency. But now the things that used to kind of spur interest don't really spur their interest as much. They have other things they're working on. They got lots of stuff to do. And so it, it ends up taking a back seat. So what I've talked with women about when they feel that loss of libido is about, could they take their sex life on as a creative project? Could they take their relationship on as a creative project? So looking at how do they create intimacy in their relationship that is nonsexual since they aren't feeling sexual? What if this sounds really, I don't know.

Mary Thompson [00:20:01]:

I don't know a good word for it, but making a date saying, okay, we're gonna have sex this weekend. What can I do this week? That's going to make me want to have sex this weekend. You know, how can my partner and I have interchanges, which are fun and playful and intimate and help me to feel more ready for this. One thing I hear from a lot of women is that when they initiate sex, when, and I don't mean they have to initiate, like I'm gonna be this, the motivational force, but when they start having sex and they start doing something sexual, then the body responds. So it's kind of like that idea is if I wait for motivation, motivation may never show up. But if I start moving in that direction, the motivation comes up. So I think the biggest shift and the hardest part is for many women, they're waiting for the physical drive for procreation and their body knows procreation is not going to happen. There's no estrogen, there's no egg, there's no uterine lining being made.

Mary Thompson [00:21:00]:

And so the body is kind of shut down the physical urgency and we are now creating a psychological urgency. And that's gonna be based on the relationship that you're in and, you know, finding new and different ways. There's an author named Vinod Verma, V E R M a who wrote a book about women's health and sexuality. I think it's called Ayurveda life, love, and sexuality, or I'll find the right title so I can get it to Lisa Marie to put in the, in whatever things she puts out there. But it gives, it talks about feeding all your senses, being sensual with your partner. You know, it doesn't have to be sexual. It can be sensual. And then once you and your partner engaged in intimacy, the libido comes up.

Mary Thompson [00:21:43]:

It's kind of like, we're waiting for this loss of libido. It's like it's hidden somewhere in the house and I've got to go find it. But really it's just that I have to redefine it and redefine my sexuality.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:21:54]:

Yeah. Oh, I love that, Mary. And I love thinking about it as a creative project and not necessarily waiting for the strong physical urges that you have in the reproductive phase, but really thinking of it as a psychological and sometimes, yes, just getting started starts to kind of increase and insight that. And, you know, one of the things, and, you know, again, we're trying to talk about the physical body and I'm taking it to the psychospiritual level, but, you know, it's almost like less of like that mother, this biological urge to procreate. But how can I use my sexuality as more of like this priestess energy to create intimacy with my partner, to connect with my body, to connect with the divine? So I feel like there's still lots of motivation to want to stay connected to your sexuality. It just might be different than it was in your thirties or

Mary Thompson [00:22:44]:

forties. And if there's discomfort, like that's another thing we kind of segue into, or we kind of could have segued from vaginal dryness to loss of libido, or we can loss libido to vaginal dryness, that it's the use of some supports, a lubricant that could be a natural lubricant, something. So, you know, we always talk about things being juicy and, and unfortunately, as we go through menopause with that loss of estrogen, we're just not as juicy, you know? And so we wanna have something on hand that will help us. The vaginal tissue can actually atrophy, which means it loses its muscle tone and it becomes painful for intercourse to happen. And so it's more important, like that concept of foreplay that we, you know, maybe it was not as important when we were younger because we had so many fluids that, now it becomes real important. And so it is about the relationship and it's about the whole act, not just the penetration, but the whole act being loving, nurturing, and joyful and not being this is, this gets hard. So I think we have so many things that we feel like we lose with menopause and losing this vaginal lubrication and losing the muscle tone in the vagina. It's more looking at, I'm bringing back the heart centered aspect of it.

Mary Thompson [00:23:59]:

And I've got a tool, I've got some lubricant that I can use. That's going to support me in this and not longing for what I had when I was in my thirties or my twenties, but recognizing, I'm glad I've got support now because there were time periods where they didn't have easy access to different things that would help, intercourse be more comfortable in menopause.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:24:22]:

I have also heard, and I think it, I can't remember who said it, but I can try to find it. I think it might've been on a podcast, maybe like a tantra teacher was really talking about too, that she sees women who are more engaged with their sexuality have less symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. And I am, I'm going to be 50 this summer. And I would say I have a pretty good sex life and I feel like I have minimal symptoms as well. So, I mean, this is just a use case of one here, but I would love to get your, your thoughts on that as well, too. Is it kind of a use it or lose it type situation?

Mary Thompson [00:25:02]:

You know, unfortunately with vaginal health, it is, you know, and that's not an, I don't wanna go into the symptomology part of it because I haven't researched that at all. And that's interesting, but as far as vaginal atrophy goes or, you know, definitely the, with fluids, that's a whole different thing too, because that is RASA. That is one of the body fluids and basically the body's prioritizing where those fluids need to go. And so if I'm not having sex, then the vagina falls pretty low on the list of where fluids need to go. And it utilizes that those fluids for saliva and for mucus lining of my respiratory system and my digestive system and my urinary system. And so the vagina kind of takes a back seat at that point. If you're continuing, an active sex life through perimenopause, you are going to tell the body it is important for me that you keep fluids going down here. So it's kind of a double edged thing, which is one, I have to tell the body I want more fluids here and I have to make sure I'm hydrating well enough that it has extra fluids because pretty much all the time, the vagina's fluid component was a little bit lower on the list for the body over saliva mucus, respiratory mucus, or digestive mucus.

Mary Thompson [00:26:16]:

It's, it's still the same kind of fluid, but, you know, if I'm not using it very often, it's kind of says, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna come back to you later. It's interesting to think that women who are in touch with their sexuality, which is interpreted as a woman having lots of sex, you know, or I, I'm not sure what that means because

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:26:35]:

having an erotic life or probably having, yes, probably having some, I would assume some like, yes, using, using your sexual muscles and living an erotic life and enjoying, enjoying sex is probably what was meant by that.

Mary Thompson [00:26:51]:

Yeah. And that makes sense. Using those erotic muscles. I love that, that term. And it's like keeping the kegels tight and that may be in, but I think there's a part of it too, that women who are more invested in taking care of their body for whatever reason are gonna be more likely to move through menopause more comfortably. You know, I don't know if I would say symptom free, but being able to recognize one of the terms in Ayurveda is Swastah being established in the self. And what this means is I check-in with my physical body and I'm willing to make changes. If my physical body needs something that doesn't have in the moment, I'm willing to check-in with my emotional self and to see if there's something I need to do and check-in with my mental self.

Mary Thompson [00:27:35]:

So this concept, some people use it for perfect health, but like Swast is kind of sinking into the body and making choices that will serve the needs of the body. And I think if I'm involved in tantra, I'm probably already having that kind of examined life where I'm in touch with my body and I want to sink into it and I want to meet its needs. And the more I do that, then I'm going to address imbalances earlier so that I don't end up waiting till I'm fully full on symptomatic before I say, what can I do about this?

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:28:08]:

Yeah. Great. Thank you. I want to move on to the next symptom, but I guess I also want to think, I just want to leave women with, okay, here I am going through, you know, went through menopause. Like how do I reconnect with my sexuality? What would you say?

Mary Thompson [00:28:24]:

It's interesting. Cause it's, it's one of those that you would say nurturing yourself through the whole body. It could be like we do IV, IV, IV self massage, which is a way of self care. It's not neurotic massage at all. It's really just putting oil onto the skin and making sure that it, it gets that opportunity to sink in. But I think we can become very judgmental of this body as it changes. Our breasts drop a little bit. We gain weight.

Mary Thompson [00:28:51]:

We look more like our moms, our cheeks. You know, we lose muscle tone in the face or muscle tone under the arms. And it's easy to step into judgment around that and be disdainful or at the very least not really accepting of this body in the way it is. And so what we wanna do is to find that way to love the body and to find, and that could be incorporating like really wonderful massage oils and putting scents in there that make you feel really wonderful. Look at how can I appeal to all my senses? What, what do I look at that makes me feel good about myself and in touch with myself, kind of to my heart center? What came into mind for me when I said that was like flowers, roses, and surrounding myself with beauty, whatever form that takes, what am I listening to? Am I listening to things that help me to feel good about myself or critical? What's what am I smelling like essential oils or things that really bring the lusciousness into my environment? I think the more we get in touch with our senses, the more we will also awaken our sexuality. In Ayurveda, there's another word that we use called Ojas, which is our physical strength, stamina, stability. And what I often find is when Ojas is high, when we have a lot of strength, libido is fine. It's when Ojas is lacking, when we don't have kind of strength in the body and stamina and stability, then, you know, sex takes a lower priority.

Mary Thompson [00:30:21]:

And so hope hoping that, or helping people to cultivate OHS through diet and lifestyle is gonna be the best way. And what I often tell them is we'll know when the OHS is back, when you start to feel higher libido.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:30:35]:

I thank you. And I love, using the senses as a gateway. You know, I think sometimes when we say the word sensuality, like maybe our culture pictures like Victoria's secret model, but no sensuality is experiencing the world through our senses. Like what feels good on my body? What smells good? What can I gaze at? That's beautiful. Can I stop and slow down and savor the taste? That's sensuality. And it does, it involves like slower slowing down involves being present. It involves being grateful for the experience, but it really becomes a meditation, a spiritual practice to kind of reconnect with the senses in that way, which I think is really beautiful.

Mary Thompson [00:31:13]:

So it's kind of like the idea of recognizing self as goddess. How would you treat yourself differently if you're truly behaving in a way that you are a goddess? You know, would, would I take a goddess to McDonald's? You know, it's kind of the question, what would I feed a goddess? If I had a goddess coming for lunch, what am I gonna make? I get the opportunity to do that every day. Again, and, so looking and taking care and concern for the self because you're worth it, you know, it's like you deserve this. And if no one else is treating you like a goddess, at the very least you should treat yourself like a goddess and they will begin to follow suit.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:31:50]:

Yeah. I love that you said that that is actually the entire premise of my IRB program, a radiant goddess, where it's like, that's the way that I introduce you're going to treat yourself like a goddess for ten weeks, really, you know, connect with that divinity and take the time to care for yourself. Take the time to nourish yourself and check-in and give, give yourself what it is that you need.

Mary Thompson [00:32:10]:

That's what I

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:32:10]:

love about Ayurveda. You know, it's such, a beautiful technology to amplify your physical health, protect, preserve, optimize it, and while doing so, connecting to your own divinity and remembering that you're important, that you matter. Yeah. So then the next, the next one, let's talk about weight gain.

Mary Thompson [00:32:33]:

Oh, weight gain. That's a bane. It's really funny because you can go almost anywhere. If you see a group of middle aged women and you can tell who's in men who isn't by the shape their bodies have taken and what's happening here. Oh, it's that pesky estrogen again, that estrogen drives metabolism. So when we're younger, if you have that thought about yourself that, oh, when I was in my twenties, I could get eat anything and never gain a pound. It's because the estrogen was helping digest all that food or helping to metabolize all that food and turn it into tissue or turn it into energy. And it was fueling your work.

Mary Thompson [00:33:10]:

So here comes menopause, the estrogen disappears and we drop our need for calories. Ayurveda doesn't talk a lot about calories, but I think it's the easiest way in the West to kind of explain what's going on. That when we metabolize, we burn energy and that energy we take in in the form of foods and those foods have certain caloric values. If in the and I don't know if this is correct, but I know that the food and drug administration recommends for a woman of childbearing age 2,000 calories during a day. And I don't know that every woman needs 2,000. Some may need more. Some may need may need less, but that's kind of the number they give you. Now menopause hits and your caloric demand drops by 25%.

Mary Thompson [00:33:58]:

So suddenly you've cut out an entire meal pretty much. That's pretty substantial. Yeah. It is. It is. Cause it's like 500 calories, which is a whole meal. And, but did you, did you change anything when you went through menopause? If you ate the same foods you're eating before in the same, in the same portions you were eating before, continue to have snacks, continue to have other high caloric calorie beverages, then what's gonna happen? Well, your body's not metabolizing them. And so you say, oh my God, what just happened? And it happens pretty quickly.

Mary Thompson [00:34:30]:

It happens usually around that in the forties, it starts. And then by the time menopause hits, it's it's a full blown problem. There's a double whammy with menopause itself, which is each cell in the body that has a metabolic function has a receptor site for estrogen. That receptor site is shared by another metabolic hormone called thyroid hormone or t three or t four. It's actually t three. So what that means is when you go through menopause, the estrogen doesn't come, but the thyroid hormone comes. And all your thyroid hormone drops because it's all now got before you had both estrogen and thyroid hormone coming in, estrogen's not there. So more thyroid hormone is being pulled out of your system.

Mary Thompson [00:35:19]:

So women going through menopause, actually late stage perimenopause, they go low thyroid. Now it doesn't mean they've got Hashimoto's or they don't have a medical condition. It's again, the body hasn't figured out yet what's going on. So we drop the thyroid hormone and that's gonna also be a metabolic driver. So we, we kind of lose the ability to metabolize really well. Body fat, especially your omentum, that fatty pad over the abdomen is an estrogen maker. So it doesn't make the same estrogen the ovaries do, but it does make an estrogen. And so your body kind of wants to maximize this production.

Mary Thompson [00:35:59]:

So a lot of energy gets shunted to the momentum. And so women get that, the belly fat that they get in menopause, which is also exacerbated by stress. And so again, my body is no longer operating at high estrogen level. So I have less tolerance for stress. I have less tolerance for lack of daily routine. Can't deal with those late nights anymore. I just laugh when somebody says, oh, something starts at ten and it was like, I'm gonna be in bed. Maybe in my twenties, that was a nice time to start doing something, but now it's way too late.

Mary Thompson [00:36:33]:

So there's less tolerance for these shifts in routine for external stresses. And we end up having a problem, right? Because we, this, the stress hormones tell the body to build more belly fat. The more belly fat there is kind of the less productive it is in the production of estrogen. And so we end up dropping the estrogen again even further. So there's this it's a it's a complicated machine that's going on here. So the first thing we have to do is take control over our foods and our portion sizes, because we wanna go to getting the highest nutritional value from our foods. That means like half of our plate should be vegetable matter. It's gonna have high mineral vitamin density, smaller portions of proteins and carbs.

Mary Thompson [00:37:19]:

Some people do well with even fewer carbs drop the carbs because the sugars drive fat production too, especially if I'm not too active. Because that's the other, that's the other thing with the formation of tissues in the body Supply is the food coming in. Demand is what I do with it. How I build that tissue and demand it is usually exercise to build healthy fluids in the body. I need to sweat. I'm not gonna sweat just by sitting in a chair. So I gotta do something that's gonna bring up a sweat. To build healthy blood, I need to increase my heart rate.

Mary Thompson [00:37:53]:

So, you know, apart from my husband coming out with jump scares every once in a while where I can raise my heart rate out of fear, you know, I'm not going to have that heart rate get up unless I'm doing something to bring that heart rate up. For the muscle tissue, I need to be doing some form of strength training. I need to use those muscles to tell my body, put the energy in the muscles. For fats. You know, boy, I don't know that we need to do anything to tell the body to make fat. Every extra calorie goes to fat. So it's like, we don't have to do anything there, but sweating helps to reduce the amount of energy that goes into fat tissue. With the bones, we need weight training.

Mary Thompson [00:38:31]:

We need strength training. We need something where we're holding our body weight that tells the body we need bone density. So when we wanna build these tissues, we need to be doing something physically. And that means every day. And depending upon the person, it might be a couple of times in the day, go for a walk in the morning and again in the evening. Or do the walk in the morning and strength training in the afternoon. You know, something that's bringing in all these different activities. Beauty of yoga is it's stretching and it's aerobic and it's strength training and your body loves it.

Mary Thompson [00:39:02]:

So you can do that, but not everybody loves yoga. You know, there might be other things. So say, how can I incorporate this? This gets into another recommendation, which is have it be fun. Whatever you're doing, it should be something you enjoy and want to do. If you're out there walking going, oh, I hate walking. I can't believe I have to walk. This is the most boring thing. Then, you know, sure.

Mary Thompson [00:39:24]:

It might help your body, but it's not gonna help your psyche. What do you wanna do line dancing? You wanna learn how to ballroom dance? You wanna go bike riding? You've got all kinds of different things that might be more fun or go hiking, do the walk, but someplace beautiful. You know, finding ways against gets to the sensory experience of it. Because you want something that's gonna call you to do exercise. That's gonna call you to do to be physical, to do that. So we cut down the food, we increase the exercise, and we might wanna take, you know, a look at the food choices that we're making, make sure that they are, we wanna limit the ones that are high calorie, low nutrition. Because since we took out 500 calories, we wanna make sure that we're still getting all our nutritional needs met. And, you know, that can be, that can be tricky.

Mary Thompson [00:40:13]:

It's it's always, you know, it's always a work in progress. People are doing it and then get the thyroid checked after menopause, get it checked because Hashimoto's is the, almost the number one diagnosed condition in women 50. It's a common autoimmune disease and it will skew your metabolism as well, leaving you with extra weight. And I think that's it. You wanna have more questions on weight? There's weight.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:40:38]:

I don't think so. I think that that was great. I think it just really just shows, you know, again, the diet and lifestyle really thinking about, and I know like, you know, a key tenet of Ayurveda is that food is medicine. And just going into, is this going to actually nourish me? Is this life affirming or is this life weakening and just becoming conscious where, like you said, maybe in twenties and thirties, you know, you could eat whatever you want. That's just simply not the case anymore. And I just love the emphasis on moving your body because I think sometimes we say like, oh, I don't have, and you know, one of the things that I work a lot with women on is they'll be like, I don't have the time to do this. And, you know, I don't have the time to move my body. I don't have the time to walk or meditate or, you know, go to a yoga class.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:41:19]:

And I like to say that the time it takes is also part of the medicine as well, too. It's like, yes, we're moving, you know, we're increasing our cardiovascular capacity. We are building, you know, strength in our muscles, which is helping our bones. And the time it takes is you reaffirming that you are important and you're not checking your phone and you're not checking the news. So it's almost like some rewiring that we need to do where it's like, you are not just here to check off all of these tasks, but you're here to like, live a good, strong, fruitful life as well. And I think that's really important for, for women to remember that, like, don't think of the time as the obstacle. Think of the time that it takes as, as kind of the point as well.

Mary Thompson [00:42:04]:

And a lot of these things like with, with movement, it's a stress reducer. If someone was to tell me they don't have time to do anything, they have way too much stress. You know, I've, I might claim that I don't have enough time, but then if you find out, oh, well, what did you, you know, how much time you spend doing your word puzzles? You know, it's like, I've got time to do things. I just prioritize it differently. The other thought I had is that comment that, you know, maybe an eighty twenty rule where you, so if we say, okay, I really wanna cut sugars out of my diet. The first thing I wanna do is say, I don't wanna not have a piece of birthday cake at my son's birthday party. You know, it's like, allow yourself those indulgences. Life is to be lived.

Mary Thompson [00:42:44]:

And if something is a painful choice, find a way to make it less unhealthy. You know, what can I do if if most of my food is great? And then I have this aberration when I go out of town to a wedding, you know, that's that's what it is. It's just an aberration. And I'm gonna go back to my diet and I'm gonna be fine. It's like, we don't have to become, there's a, a term in, health science, which is orthorexia, orthorexia when we become so attached to the rules that we forget to live a wonderful life. And so it's like saying, it's, it's not the thing we do once in a while. That's gonna cause our disease. It's the thing we do day after day after day.

Mary Thompson [00:43:21]:

Yeah. You know,

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:43:22]:

such a great point. And I know we're getting close to times, but I just wanted just to touch on one last, one last symptom. And I actually think it really goes into everything that we have talked about regarding like hot flashes, low libido and weight, but it's just that sense of stress and anxiety. And I think, you know, we kind of come back to diet and lifestyle to manage that, but I would love to, you know, kind of hear just a few of them, kind of any quick tips about managing, it seems like, you know, more anxiety, more stress as you age.

Mary Thompson [00:43:56]:

Well, I think it's, you know, I think when someone's dealing with a lot of stress, first of all, it does help to talk to a third party. It helps to talk to someone who has a different view of your life than you do because so often it's like, I have to do this. I have to do this. There's a technique I use with my clients that I think has worked really well, where I have them check-in different times during the day, say for three or four days up to a week, they're gonna check-in four or five times a day and think back. How have I been since the last time I checked in and how what's the stress level in my body right now? Where's my mind? Is my mind caught up in fear, anger, sadness? Where, where am I in the past? Am I in the future or am I in the present moment? There's no stress in the present moment. I'm just dealing with this right now. And I haven't got any stress with it, but in the past, or there's that argument I have with my partner, there's the, the thing I have or the future, the thing I've gotta get done, my deadlines. Oh, the things I'm procrastinating, the things I'm avoiding.

Mary Thompson [00:44:54]:

I mean, there's all these external stresses, but they're not here in this moment. So if I'm feeling stressed in this moment, where am I? You know, what is it I need to do? So in talking to that third person, they might help you to identify because you're the one who has to identify it. You know, what is this stressor? Is it a stressor that I can develop a strategy around? Maybe it's a stressor that I can just simply let go of. You know, I've been in book clubs before and I always get stressed because I haven't read the book by the time the meeting is coming. And then I put all this pressure on myself to get the book read before I get there or to pretend that I've read it, read a cliff's notes version version of it, and then go. And it was very stressful. Quit the book club. You know, I have an app.

Mary Thompson [00:45:40]:

I have an app that's gonna follow me and tell me what you a productivity app, but it causes me stress because, my God, it told me again that I have to get up and, and do something. It's like, quit the app, delete the app. You don't need it. So you can look at what are some stressors in your life that you're bringing in that you don't need. Maybe there's a person who's who bullies you is is an unpleasant person. You don't need to engage. So you can see what can I cut out? But what about all those stresses we have that we can't just cut out? You know, we've got the relationship, we've got the job, we've got the kids, we've got whatever, whatever the thing is that we may find stressful. Then we do self care before and self care after.

Mary Thompson [00:46:24]:

If I know that I'm gonna have a difficult conversation with my boss, what can I do before that to be low stress, take care of myself, make sure I've eaten, make sure I'm well rested, make sure I'm calm and present and focused? Now I can have the conversation, but without bringing in everything else, I'm in the present moment comfortably. Then what do I do? I've arranged after the meeting with my boss that I projected was gonna create stress for me. And I booked time for me to take a walk for me to talk to a friend for me to go get some food for me to do some kind of self care. The stress exists, but it exists kind of in a vacuum. It's just that moment that's stressful. But my tendency is to wake up already worried about this meeting and to bring all this stress into my life before the meeting. And then after the meeting to have all this angst in my head about the meeting. Whereas what I wanna do is to kind of isolate the stress between these times of self care, whatever self care looks like.

Mary Thompson [00:47:25]:

Maybe I've got a hobby I engage with and I can just be present with that. The only time I need to be stressed is when the stress is there. Now there's the third kind where it's just, my life is chaotic and that's all very overly stressed. Then we wanna create times in the day in which we can do self care and start to, I'm reminded of a story which I'll tell very quickly. My niece went to a retreat and she was at a woman's house and she said, this woman's house was amazing. Just lots of art, lots of flowers. The colors were beautiful. And she went to her and said, you know, I want to create this.

Mary Thompson [00:47:58]:

How did you do this? And she said, you start in one place, someplace that's already beautiful and you just make it more beautiful. And then that spills over into the areas next to it. And that will spill over into the areas next to that. And before you know it, your whole house is beautiful. And I think of that with our, our calmness and our presence and our, our focus. Start from one spot that is already calm and present and focused and carry that calm as far as you can away from that moment. And then life happens, your life gets stressful and you come back to, okay, I'm gonna create a calm moment again. I'm gonna pull back away from it.

Mary Thompson [00:48:38]:

I'm gonna do some kind of self care. Maybe sit with a warm cup of tea and, and just gaze at my garden. And then I'm just gonna let that be beautiful for a while. And I'm gonna try and carry that mindset into my day. And it's gonna go for a while and then it's gonna disappear because of stress and I'll pull myself back. So it's kind of like finding that space in your day that is low stress and see how can I carry this mental space further and further away? And before you know it, you will naturally have let go of those stresses that don't serve you. And you'll have found ways to take care of yourself around the stresses that you have. That's the biggest thing.

Mary Thompson [00:49:14]:

It's really about awareness of what the stresses are and then the commitment to saying, okay, I'm gonna find a way to take care of myself, even though there is stress. Yeah. I

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:49:24]:

love that. One thing that I also work with some of my students and clients on is. Thinking of some of the stressors as perceived stressors. Like, are they really stressful or is it the narrative that we have? And I always get this example. I remember one morning I had a couple of stressful, I'm using air quotes listeners, emails that I had to send. And I had this like narrative in my head, like, oh my God, I can't believe I have to do this. This is so stressful. But then I was like, but wait, is it like I'm sitting at the kitchen table? The sun is coming through the windows.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:49:54]:

I have my dog at my feet, a cup of Earl gray tea. Like, is it really that stressful to take ten minutes and send off these emails? So really kind of looking at the story that we have around things. And can we drop the story, do what needs to get done and move on? But starting to, I think sometimes we're like, oh, this is objectively stressful, but it's actually not like I might have stressors in my life that you wouldn't even think twice about or the other way around. So I also like to challenge people like, is it, is it stressful or did you create a story around it? So just thought I would add that as well.

Mary Thompson [00:50:29]:

Yeah. It's the idea of projection. It's like I have this email to send and I project all my angst into that. And so now I'm stressed, but I'm not writing the email. You know? And so it's like, once you start writing it, it's then you go through this, it's all it's done. I've done it. And so it's, it's finding a way to, if you find yourself kind of futurizing and catastrophizing, whatever the thing is, you're the one creating the problem. The problem, the email just exists and your feelings are at, you could say, I'm trying to project my negativity into this writing leads emails.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:51:05]:

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Mary. It's been such a pleasure and you were just like such this like wealth, wellspring of information and inspiration. And I really love just, you know, how everything is just very practical and just like rooted in things that people can actually do, can actually incorporate into their everyday lives. Because I think sometimes, you know, you can go out there and there's all of these like tips and tricks, but they're a little bit challenging to integrate. So I just really appreciate your, your wisdom and the, the practicality of all that you offer us.

Mary Thompson [00:51:41]:

No, thank you so much. I really enjoy talking about, I I enjoy talking about Ayurveda, no matter what the, what the buy shoot, the shoot off is, but menopausal care and menopausal concerns are just like, I mean, I'm right there. I'm 65 and it's like seeing that you can move out the other side of it and still maintain health.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:51:59]:

Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much. And, yeah, hopefully I will talk to you soon.

Mary Thompson [00:52:04]:

K. Sounds wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lisa.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:52:09]:

Thanks for tuning in to the God of School podcast. I hope today's episode inspired you to reclaim your feminine magic. Now don't forget to subscribe to the show. And if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple. If you wanna dive deeper into divine feminine archetypes and reconnect with your power, check out my book, The Goddess Solution. It's packed with ancient goddess wisdom for the modern woman. You can find the book on Amazon and the link is in the show notes. And if you are ready to embrace these practices alongside a global sisterhood, I invite you to join my Divine Feminine Mystery School, Enlivened.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:52:44]:

It's a supportive space to embody these teachings with a fantastic community of like minded women. You'll find the link in the show notes. Remember, the Goddess isn't a deity outside of you. She's an aspect of your highest self, and you are the Goddess. Until next time, my friend.