Welcome to Mindset, Mood and Movement, a systemic approach to human behavior, performance, and well being. Our psychological, emotional, and physical health are all connected, and my guests and I endeavor to share knowledge, strategies, and tools for you to enrich your life and work. Hello and welcome. Today, I am talking about a fascinating subject, men, the misses and the menopause. Now stay with me here. It's a really important subject for men in particular. my female listeners, of course, it's super important for you, but I wanted to come today from this, from both the male and female perspective and bring in a specialist who really knows all about menopause and can really help both myself and all of us understand more. And there's. A lot of reason why as men, we need to know about the menopause because if you don't have a partner, you might have a sibling, a friend, a colleague, a coworker, someone with you is likely to be experiencing menopause at somewhere in their midlife area. And it's absolutely vital that we understand what's happening for both. Us as men for women and us as people together. So the whole thing together. so I'm delighted to be joined by Tanith Lee and she goes by the name Mrs. Menopause. So she is a super specialist. I've known Tanith a while and she knows so much about this subject. So I'm super grateful that she's joining us. Hello Tanith.

Hello Sal. It's so good to be here. Thank you for this opportunity

very welcome. They're very welcome. I'm delighted to, to get your wisdom and knowledge. and in some ways it feels slightly unusual for a man to be quite, forthright and outspoken about the menopause, but for, for, for all of us, I wanted to share them. And by the way, I have full, so full, full disclosure. I have full permission to talk about, my personal world. my partners have been happy to say this is okay. So in my own life, my partner's going through perimenopause and my Goodness, have we seen this has been a challenge, she's had huge challenge years and I'll bring some of the examples to today's episode. and as a man, I've had challenges because I'm part of that relationship too. it's not just happening to her, it's happening to us. So it's absolutely vital that we all understand this better so that we can make the best actions, choices, and processes. So Tanith, Can I, can I ask you a little bit more about where you are at with, with your work at the moment? Cause you, I understand you work with women and menopause, but give us a little bit more about how you're working with, with people you do and how you approach dealing with this big subject of the menopause.

Sure, thanks. do you want me to share a little bit of what kind of got me the name Mrs.

I'd love to. Yeah. Yeah. Let's take us back a little bit. So we understand your origin.

the, I was, diagnosed, that's a terrible word for it, but I can't think of another one to use with menopause in my kind of mid to late thirties. and I'm now 51. So a little while ago. And, being the person I am, I'm quite honest and open and like to share this stuff. And I was doing that on social media and, people wanted to know more about it, particularly my peers at the time. I'm in, I teach a little bit of fitness. And so my peers were really interested because back then really nobody was talking about menopause at all. And, the name came about my mentor at the time. Someone's talked to him about asking about something about menopause and he said, Oh, you need to talk to Tanith. She's Mrs. Menopause. And that is literally how, how the name came about. And I went, Oh, that says what it is. So let's, let's just go with that. And literally, that's how it all started. I started talking about it from, from then. so I was just sharing blogging. really about my own experience, my struggle to get help, my struggle, to understand what was going on for me. And, and the more I talked about, as I say, lots of people want to understand it. And then I thought, I can help, I can help other women with this. I can, I can do that. So it started with exercise and then I knew I wanted to work on a bit of a deeper level. So then I decided to be trained as a nutritional therapist. which is so much more than just nutrition. It's, lifestyle coaching and stuff as well. and then I, then I started to learn how I could really help women on a, on a much deeper level. So I work one to one. I like doing group work as well. I like doing both of those things and that's, that's really how I help women with their, with their menopause stuff.

Got it. Cool. That's really good to know. And, and of course we've, we've, I've known Tanith for, over the years, in various, respects and. And of course, it's very easy for the unknowing, whether you're male or female, it doesn't matter, there's a lot of myths around, a lot of not knowing, and of course I've been pulled into this, not just for my personal life, but my sister as well, my older sister, a lot of my female clients, so I'm very much around perimenopause understanding conversation from a man's outside perspective, so I'm not going to say I understand what it what it feels like. But I understand what it's like to be with that in many contexts. And of course, there's an idea, isn't there? That, this happens to ladies in their late fifties of a certain age. You know, all these horrible cliches, and that you get some hot sweats. And it's okay, that's just, we need to stop this rubbish. and I found, I know someone. She also went through an early menopause. I think in her late late twenties. So we need to be understanding that this can happen. there's certain... Bandwidths aren't there roughly around 40 to 60 is the bandwidth but it can happen at different ages And so we want to bust some myths today and one thing that strikes me It's important as a man whether it's your partner or your your friend or your colleague You might notice something going on because I noticed something going like you seem a bit different at the moment and Seem a little bit edgy or whatever it is And I think it's interesting as a man if we see something Have the understanding that there may be menopausal process starting to happen, say perimenopause, as it's called. And Tanith, you've said to me, and I'd like to get your deeper thoughts on it, but perhaps from a woman's point of view, you may not actually understand what's happening as the start of the menopausal, the perimenopause, but as a man, you might observe these changes. So what, what on earth are we going to be looking for from both an outside perspective and from a woman's perspective?

Such a good question. if anyone Googles the symptoms of menopause, you'll get so many that there's, there's many, many different symptoms. So it can be quite hard to spot. It doesn't help that the menopause, perimenopause, so the perimenopause is the years leading up to when women's final period is. So it's those, there's those years leading up to that final, final menstruation. And that tends to be where many women, not all, will experience various, varying degrees of these different symptoms. some women don't, about they've potentially about 20, 25% of women don't actually get any symptoms, but we don't, we don't hear so much about that, do we? So I just thought I'd put in that it's not a. it's not necessarily guaranteed that a woman's going to experience all these symptoms. Not at all. That's not how it works. So The symptoms generally in the perimenopause when you're the closer a woman gets to her final period The more the changes will start to happen so before that it may be just as you said subtle changes like mood So that would probably be the most obvious one, and it's the kind of feelings you get, a woman may get when she's, before her, before her period, that PMT type feeling, a bit irritable, just maybe a bit sad, a bit, feeling a bit low, those kind of symptoms we're used to women going through in cycles because of the, because of the changing hormones, so that may become more apparent more of the time. and there's no, generally it's very erratic, which for a lot of women is unsettling because, it can feel like one day they're feeling okay, the next day they're all over the place. And it's, it is very unsettling. And so that would be the main kind of symptoms I say with mood changes. As a woman gets close to a final period, other symptoms, I know this is not, hard and fast kind of rules, every woman's experience is different. This is what makes it so tricky to understand, but what can happen then is the more common symptoms of the perimenopal hormone changes are the change in temperature. So women feeling hot, they may get, hot flushes or they may sweat, night sweats because the, the body is changing these different hormones are fluctuating. So the body's trying to work out what's going on and also, periods actually might start to change. A woman's cycle length may change. She may start to miss a period. Her flow may change as well. So these are all fairly kind of common signs that something is changing. And these changes can happen, Hormones are changing, from a woman really in her thirties, because if you think about how fertility works, fertility rates start to, start to change in a woman's thirties. So hormonal changes are already happening. And then as we get into our forties, that then starts to change as well. So it's, it's, yeah, it's quite, it's quite hard to spot because it's quite subtle sometimes. Not for women to say, sorry. It's when we just say, just, they just don't feel quite. Just don't feel quite themselves is a

Yeah, and, and of course it must be so destabilizing and, and I, as I want to talk about this from the female perspective that I've understood and had privilege to talk with other women about, and obviously from a male perspective as a witness to that. I worked with someone once and she, she told me that she was absolutely fine. Regular periods, no idea, early forties. The idea of menopause wasn't even on her radar and she just suddenly developed allergies, like really big allergies to I think like tree pollen or something like that and came out with these huge hives of allergy things and it was someone I was working with and they just didn't get it. How am I having these allergic reactions? And it was actually part of this perimenopause mix that was going on. Now, to the outside, of course, you went to the doctor and the doctor's you probably got anxiety. Let's prescribe some medication. It's whoa, let's just slow this down a bit. And by the way, I have a whole beef around this, but yeah, giving some meds for anxiety rather than understand why the body's going to a stress response is a. is a really naive idea. and yeah, why the histamine levels are pumping up, why the sensitivities are pumping up. So I saw that from someone I work with. And of course they shared it with me. I was like, my goodness, isn't, isn't that fascinating how you wouldn't really attribute, allergy to this. And yet it was exactly that because then she went through this whole process. and then suddenly it was like, Oh, Oh, I see. This is what's going on. And what I found from that story was fascinating that she, she went to a job, a doctor. And they, unfortunately, they didn't sound like they have any comprehension of this was on the radar. They were looking at the symptoms of allergy and anxiety and going, let's medicate it, rather than a better question like, what's going on for you? do you have children? She didn't. So early menopause was more biased towards her because of not having children. And, and I think this is one of the things I want to get out. It seems really important to me is that when stuff's happening, rather than it's a symptom, they need to solve it. I think the symptom needs to be a signal. Okay. What's going on with me? Yeah. Is, is, is, is there something going on? And if you're, if you're a man and you're working with a woman or it's your partner and you're starting to see symptoms that are, could be anxiety. It could be, could be shut down, which other people call depression. It could be these things that are happening without seemingly obvious causation. I think that's some of the signals I would say, Oh, get interested. Is this, is this actually starting to blend into a perimenable state for my partner or for my colleague or what have you? And I'm really interested, Tanith, what are some of the, so we've spoken about some of the symptoms to look out for. What are some of the big things that you've seen through your own experience and with women that, as a woman, they need to know? And then we'll go to the men after this, but as a woman, what do you need to know about this forthcoming perimenopause experience and the menopause if you're, I don't know, let's say thirties, and you just don't know anything about it? What do we need to be prepped and ready for?

Great question. And I just want to just touch on what you just said about those signals, because I try not to use the word symptoms too much in my language, because I just think it and the word diagnosis, because it just makes it sound like it's some kind of medical condition. I use the word messages, but I like signals as well. And I think that's. It's just language, but I think it just reframes it. So I'm really glad you brought that up. I think the first thing to think about, with menopause for, for women who are younger is for it not to be feared. So we've, we're in our age now that, if there's information everywhere. And we're surrounded by all this information and it's great, it's good menopause is talked about and that's what we need to, it's good. We need the awareness and when we need to feel open and I meant to talk about it as a part of a normal aging, transition. But, I think the, it's quite imbalanced. It's quite a negative, negative messages around menopause. So I think If we can start to see it as not necessarily all a negative transition, because it's if we're going, if we're going into something with fear and worry, and it's, it's probably going to make the situation worse. But if we can go forwards thinking, okay, if I can look after myself in this way, X, Y, Z, which we can talk about, then it's going to make my chances of the transition easier. And if I start to think about. The benefits of menopause, because there are some, and of getting older, I think that, I think, is, is, is really important for women, and, yeah, I think there's an element of that, and I, you, you touched earlier about stress, and the stress response. And, that, that stress will make a woman's, menopause much worse. and we hear that all the time. You need to, less stress, de stress. And it's trying to help women actually see how that really does affect a woman's, hormones. So that will therefore affect her experience of, of the menopause as well. so I think those, those are two things. And I think If we can learn to look after ourselves and give ourselves the care and attention we deserve as human beings, that will make the transition easier as well.

Yeah. nice. Really nice. and I wanted to, to speak about a couple of things that caught my, really caught my attention with what you said there. we have this, there's a quite a common narrative, certainly in our culture around, take care of yourself, manage your stress levels. And I think it's, it's like a really ambiguous concept. So our nervous system, stress is not good or bad. It's a response. It's a response system to, to stress. Potential threats, whether they're external, like things around you, or internal, such as thoughts. And, one of the things I find about stress, having, using this, the mind, mood, movement process that I, I work with, is everything affects each other. Having worked with yoga, and seeing people down regulate, and find things nice, that's brilliant, that's really, really good. The problem I have with that, is it doesn't give permission to go into a fight state. Now, just caveat that, I'm not saying punching people, I'm saying the, the fight state of the fight flight. And really what we're talking about here is you, if you have a lift in your. hormonal chemistry of cortisol and adrenaline, that kind of stuff. You will, you'll be biased to take action. And I think it's absolutely vital for permission to be there to take action. And that might look like I'm going for a run, which is a way of expressing the flight response. It might look like I'm going to go boxing, which is something I'm interested in. about allowing permission to express. It might be that I'm going to speak up. All of these things are moving towards something. And I think if we create that space around get rid of, get rid of shame, get rid of silence, because they go together, add in permission, add in conversation, and communication, doesn't matter how rough it is, let's get something going, we start to loosen up all this stuff, this hidden narrative, men shouldn't talk about it, absolute nonsense, men absolutely shouldn't be talking about this. And women. it's a transition, right? It's going to happen. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's a transition. So as you beautifully said, if you honor that, work with that, that's going to change everything versus resistance, not speaking about it, burying it really, really important stuff. And that's what I see from a psychological, emotional perspective about people creating those changes. So we spoke about what to look out for. So for us, us boys, us men, eyes on. You're starting to see stuff like, okay, I know what I need to look out for because I've been in the mix, but what are you, what would you suggest Tanith for men to both look out for in women and perhaps themselves?

Okay. So I guess it depends on people's level of what their relationships are like, aren't they? yeah. I don't want to talk about my relationship or not. We did talk about this last night actually. And, my, my husband just, he, he didn't know what to do. So he chose to ignore it in his own way because he just didn't know. He just didn't know what to do. And of course, that's, that's just, and I think that's maybe a common, a common response to it because, if you're not used to talking about these kinds of things. it's interesting. I think as a woman, we need to understand what we need. in the time, at that time, because it's going to change. Sometimes we'll need to be left alone. Sometimes we'll need a hug. Sometimes, we'll, we'll need something. And I think that's the first step is for women to try and identify that. Sometimes that's not, that's not always possible, but trying to identify that and then communicate that to our loved ones. And I think that's the bit I missed. If I had been able to do that better, my husband then would have known what to do. So I, I think, I think there has to be an element, there has to be some kind of responsibility for the woman to be able to say what she needs. Otherwise, how is anyone gonna know? and if she doesn't know, to say she doesn't know, I think the more a man can. He's not going to experience it, so it's going to be really hard to get that true empathy, but somehow maybe just by listening to podcasts like this, to doing, doing a bit of research, there's some great, there's some great information around. And so there are, there are some bits and pieces around written for men, what to spot for, but it's just, I think it's. Doing a little bit of research yourself to understand that it's so much more than a woman getting a bit grumpy and feeling a bit hot and, her libido goes because, that's a big concern. That was a big concern of my husband's and, that there is more to it than, than that. And I think it's been able to have those conversations. yeah, I think that's probably the best thing they can

Yeah, that's really, really nicely put.

Can I just add, just pick up on something Sal, you mentioned earlier, when you were talking about the stress response, the narrative is, for women, I think at menopause, is to calm everything down. Just calm, just go and zen out, and I, and I think there's a lot to be said for that, and I know we've talked about this before, but I think that That deep menopausal rage, that is a thing, we can't suppress that. It's not time to be the good quiet girls anymore. it's time, and I really, we do, that needs to be expressed in a way. and I think what you said is great, boxing, anything like that, or whatever it is, somehow to just get that rage out in a safe, productive, a good way, I think it's really important to let, as you said, you said you use the word permission, not that we need permission, but it's I think women need to know that it's okay to feel rage and to feel anger and to let it out because a lot of that might have been suppressed for a long time and as those oestrogen levels go down and change our natural maternal instincts start to lessen and all of a sudden I'm going to say we. I'm going to talk for me. I'm like, actually, I am really annoyed and whatever about these situations and I am angry. I've been doing this, this and this or whatever it is. And I think it's okay to express that. but obviously in a way that's not going to cause any, any harm to anybody else. I think that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah.

yeah, absolutely. And I'll echo that because it's going on in my personal life. It's going on with some people I'm working with. If we start to, if we start to shame things like anger, like it's not okay to be angry now, which is a caveat again, we're not saying that you should be screaming at people and taking it on people that's not managing this emotion. yeah, that, that can be moving towards quite a, an aggressive state and we're not suggesting that, but we are suggesting is if there's rage, if there's anger, it's a bona fide emotion. It's coming up, trying to suppress it by zenning out. May not be your best strategy, so it might look like, and so boxing works very well because by default it uses, it's a contact sport, I'm not saying boxing in life, but just do a boxing class, but there's something about when we fire from the chest muscles, that's a very sympathetic nervous system, that's a fight response space, when we push from our upper body, that's a fight response space. seven billion. Okay. Most people don't know this. If you push like pushups, you are activating the fight response and you're pressing away. You're going to do a hundred press ups. You're gonna feel a lot better. Now, you might not be able to do a hundred, but you, if you push out seven and you're like, ah, you have given permission for that, for that biochemical electrical, psychological process to go full circle. And my sister, my sister spoke about how she had to deal with her. Perry Rager, she called it. I've seen it my partner and some of the women I've been working with. And I think this is so interesting around suppression. So when I blend into my psychotherapeutic model, anything that's suppressed is bad news. It's been shown in multiple circles that you're likely to move towards illness from this. So suppression is bad news, full stop. How you express is important. So you might get some therapeutic work done. you might talk to a coach, you might talk to TANF, a specialist, you might talk to your mate. It doesn't matter, but if it comes out and it's expressed, then we don't suppress. And then I think it's a really important thing for health and both mental and physical health. Yeah, I just find it fascinating. One thing I was going to say, I've got another client, the information is private here, but they said to me that they've had a lot of anger coming out and they went, they went some therapy a while back before coming to my coaching practice. And they realized that they buried a lot of stuff from when they were a teenage girl, when they were going through a menstrual cycle coming on. So what they found was is that she's going through another, hormonal transition in her life. The echo from the past is coming back up. The unfinished business was ready to be done. And it was like, Oh, that's really interesting. Thanks. She worked with a trauma therapist and they did a lot of processing. And again, there's stuff coming out in the, in the ecosystem of the mind body. This ain't just a medical condition. This is a, this is a whole hormonal psychological condition and I just wanted to call that out because I've seen this from this almost professional perspective from different angles and that really intrigues me though. If we understand this and work with it better, I think we want to just call it out. Taniff, okay. I'm a man and us men, we like to fix things. I'm a coach and I do my best to not fix things. I help people. by default men are fixers. So for us fixing men who think gonna, solve this menopause problem with the misses so as men who are biased towards fixing things, they have a fix it mentality or, a sort of a, some people can be a hero archetype or saviour archetype, they're very, let's do something about this, do. When doing isn't the right thing, what should us men be? Considering, Thinking, Knowing.

From my personal experience, I think being heard and if not empathise with kind of, seen. not being ignored. I think that is, that was my personal experience. and being listened to. And I think asking perhaps a woman what, what it is she needs would be a good starting point. She may not know, but it would be, even being asked that question. means that you've been seen and heard. And I think that's important. But practically, I mean, there is, there's loads of things that, you know, if a woman is, if she's not sleeping because she's up, maybe insomnia, maybe night sweats, she's, she's up and down, up and down all night. She is exhausted. That in itself, fatigue, exhaustion, will affect any human being on any level. Add that into all the other things that are going on hormonally. It's no wonder women are feeling just absolutely knackered and stressed out and just, not sure what's going on. So I think actually there is, men can't fix the menopause, but I think they can do practical things to support a woman. How she's feeling, so if she's tired. Maybe ask if she needs more practical help doing things, lighten the load. Maybe it's doing more, doing more in the house or, or I don't know what that would be. It depends on someone, but I think that would be really helpful. I think there, there are practical things some, men can do or partners can do to help their, their menopausal partner. Yeah, so there are, there are things, don't worry, there are things you can fix if you want to, don't panic, there's a list, I'm sure if you've got your partner draw up a list, there'll be lots of things that you can be getting on with, so careful what you ask for.

Exactly. Yeah. Do you know, because we're laughing at this, but, and, and I think you need to see the funny side when, things are good. so between my, myself and my partner, we should be going through these roughly three month windows or cycles and three months, things are pretty good and she's, she's who she is. I know her and three months she's, she's off. scaly lady. with the one with the scales and you know it's don't go near do not drop a joke like that at that point it is not going to go well and and like we can joke about it when all is good and rosy but it's it's yeah find some find some lightness when you can but what i heard in that and i just want to echo is you need to know what you need oh you need to be able to ask it both as a woman as a man like like what do you need and it probably needs to bounce back to the man so like what what do you need and I know my own, buttons have got pressed. So one thing I've found as a man is that when your partner changes and they are not the person you, you met or you got with, they, they become a different version of that, of that woman. It can feel, or it can trigger, it's something that triggered for me, some old patterns of rejection. And that was really tough to deal with, about how, how my stuff was coming up and colouring my thinking and emotions. which has nothing to do with what's going on, but it was completely triggered by the experience from my side. And, and I think that's important. We need to understand what our needs are, both, both sides and be able to speak of that. It's just because we're not mind readers. Just, just stop it. No one can mind read. You have to ask the question and just get used to that. What do you need today? And it could bounce back. Yeah. Okay, cool. What do you need? Fine. We now know, even if you don't know what you need, the question, as you beautifully said, you've been seen. You've been seen and that's so important. and perhaps even for, if a man's in a sort of a insecure moment, yeah, I see you. I don't know what I need, but I see you. And that's, that's beautiful. Talking about separating our stuff. And this is coming from, from my space. So as a man, it's easy to get triggered when the person that you know is different. And you, your stuff comes up. My, my take on it is you gotta do the work and I have my own coach and therapist and I, I'll continuously do the work that I do with other people because why not? I go to the gym all the time and, I do my work all the time. It's, it's how you stay well and strong It's deal with that stuff that's coming up for you. If it's, if you're a guy and you're getting triggered, notice it, it's really important because you need that, that care as well. And it's a great opportunity to, to deal with. Some unprocessed stuff. And this brings me into something more sensitive. Intimacy. Ah, okay. suddenly we're not all super lovey dovey anymore. The intimacy might be going about the window, libido's gone slightly downhill. Okay, let's talk about that, that subject which perhaps doesn't get spoken about so much. What's it like from a woman's perspective when you know who you are, you know how your body feels and how you are in your relationship and suddenly you don't feel the same. What's that like for you?

hmm. So I, I can talk from my own experience. the menopause experience for me was more psychological. So I didn't really have so many of the physical issues to start with. they're catching up a little bit now, but I didn't have. hot flushes during the day. I had terrible night sweats. but I didn't, I didn't, I never tallied the two things together. Why would I was in my thirties? Why would I be thinking about menopause? I just didn't think about it. so a lot of the time I was in my own head, I guess is the best way, going through. Feeling, having depressive kind of thoughts and all those, and it took me to, suicidal ideation. let's, let's be honest. We're here to be honest, right? So that's where it took, it took me very, yeah, that's where it took me. So when I'm in, when I'm feeling like that, the last thing I want is to be intimate with someone and the answer's no. That was my answer. it's, and interesting. I was talking to my husband about this last night and he's, and you said earlier about rejection and he said he felt, he would have been, he would have been in his thirties as well. So it was really tough for him. He was still a young man, not an old man now, he was a young man and it was, it was really, it was really tough for him. He said it was really tough because he took it as a personal rejection. So not only are women, not only was I not feeling like I wanted to be intimate because I was just I felt so closed down. I then felt guilty because I wasn't, I wasn't able to bring something to that side of our relationship, so it just added to it and we didn't talk about it because we didn't have the tools back then, it's only now we can reflect on it and this is why it's important we have these conversations right because we just He went off and did, he dealt with stuff in his own way. And I just shut down. So that that's my experience. Now, I've heard of people who actually, it goes the other way. All of a sudden, their libido gets, increases and they get more, women get more confident in themselves. All of a sudden they're getting older, they've got more experience, they're feeling, feeling more at ease in their body. Now that's not as common, but again, I just want to try and keep the balance there a little bit around women's experiences. And I think again, it's the same thing. I think. Oh, it's so awkward and tricky for a lot of people to talk about this stuff, but finding a way to, to discuss it, I think is the way, is the way forward, that is not an area of my speciality, at all. but I think conversations and the one thing I have found about having awkward conversations, because it's a running theme in my relationship, is to change the situation, where we have a conversation. So for me, rather than just sitting there. Opposite each other, which is quite intimidating, going for a walk has really been helpful and talking about it, and actually on the phone as well, that's something I've just recently discovered, that having a, talking on the phone about stuff feels easier as well. but I will say, I'm, I'm a few years post menopause now, my libido has come back, stronger than ever. So if that gives a little bit of hope for the fellas out there, yeah, just hang on in there. I think hang on in there, lots of cuddles, lots of reassurance, lots of touching, and, and that kind of stuff I would say for, for that and try not to take it personally as a personal rejection. It's just. It's just something else that perhaps a woman can't think about in that time. We've got priorities, and it's just, I think that's, that's my all I can say from my experience and a couple of things I've heard from clients as well.

Thank you. Yeah, that's really, really interesting to hear and thank you for being so candid and honest. yeah, it's interesting that you make such a strong statement about, try not to take it personally. The problem with that is that if it's encoded emotionally, so if we've had a very difficult upbringing or changing upbringing with attachment issues, so if you don't know about psychotherapeutics, there's some principles around how we experience connections to our parents, particularly mother, but can be father as well. How that affects us when we're young, how that whole experience was for a young man. can create a certain attachment style and there's like avoidant attachment, there's all these kind of different attachment styles. Put it this way, we don't need to get caught up in the psychotherapeutics of it, but what we do know, if you get triggered, you're having a high emotional response, you feel rejected or feel hurt or very confused. Don't bury it, because it's happening. It's a little like we were suggesting, if a woman's feeling raged, don't bury it. Express it, but find a good way. So for men, if you're like, oh god, I feel literally rejected. I don't know who my wife is, or my partner is, or it could be your business colleague. I don't know who my business colleague is anymore. Just, whoever's being, feels like a kind of rejection. Attend to the experience of rejection because that's going on for you and that, again, if we suppress that as a man, that's just as unhealthy. So if it looks like, go get some therapy on it, go speak to someone who deals with this stuff. There's plenty of skilled people that can navigate you through that tricky bit. And by goodness me, as soon as we know something, us men, we're like, Oh, okay, that's how this works. Our wonderful brains come online and we can start to process the emotions. And actually then we're not adding to the menopause problem, a subtle difficulty where we are dealing with our stuff. And you're, the woman in your life is dealing with her stuff. And then there's a growth together. I think there's quite a powerful thing about change equals growth, but you have to choose growth, right? You have to choose it. If you deny or bury it with your man or woman, Oh no, this is fine. No, it's not fine. This is happening. That's what we do about it. Okay, cool. With, with intimacy, I think again, it's coming down to having those conversations. I love what you said about going for a walk cause it's a little less intimidating. I think one of the things I would add to that a bit more skillful conversation is to talk from the first person. So if it's a case of I say, you're not touching me anymore and you don't want to, be intimate, that's a quite a blame orientation where if it's, I want to touch you, but you don't like that. Or, I want to be with you intimately, but you're, you're, you're not giving me the signals. We're talking from the first person's experience. It is undeniable and it's not about blame. And if we change that nuance, just, I'm feeling. I feel rejected. I feel like I want to, I feel I miss you. Whatever it is. If you say from I, my goodness me, it just helps smooth out the conversation. It gets rid of blame and argument and it gets into what true communication is. I have the right to speak and I have the right to be heard, and you have the right to speak and the right to be heard, and we together will do a lot better if we do this, than just throwing stuff at each other. Cool. Tanith, perhaps I can get your thoughts on some things we haven't touched on so far, about the whole experience, the menopause experience, the run up, the experience. What else would you like to bring today and really help us understand better?

I think, it feels like. I think the more we can understand menopause before women are going through it, and it's a tricky one, I think women are, we're becoming more aware of cycles, and women are tracking cycles, and, and what's going on with their body, which is great, that seems, that, that, that's really good, and the more we can start to understand that, perhaps, younger, in our, thirties and forties, then, then it's going to, Pretty much guarantee that it's going to be an easier transition when we get to that because we're looking at where we're more in more in touch with our bodies, we're more in touch with our cycles, we know what's going on. I think because of contraception, which of course is needed. A lot of women are completely unaware of their cycles, and we even cycle after we finish our periods, so it's, it's. really understanding our bodies and what we have in our needs. There's a big movement now, even training exercise in, in, with the, with your cycle in certain phases of your menstrual cycle, because we are, we don't do go through cycles. And if we can start to identify how we're feeling and what we need in those cycles, then, and, and, and, and, and implementing those things. Then as we, get into menopause, coming towards menopause, we're much more, attuned to what's going on. And also probably we've started to look after ourselves a little bit. So it means our body is going to be. Nourished in all ways, so whether that's through food, whether that's through relationships, whether that's through whatever, whatever area of a life, not feeling nourished, I think is a really lovely word to use in, in, in menopause. So awareness of what's going on. And also I'm a big, big advocate when I work with clients is making little changes. Because I think if a woman has got two perimenopause and it feels like she feels hopeless and she's really struggling, any big change is going to be really tricky, really tricky. So I think little, little, little micro changes I think are really, and we don't value those micro changes, but those little changes... done over time can really add up and make a big, make a big influence to how a woman's feeling. I think we feel like unless we're making some big, grand, massive, transformational gestures and changing this and radically changing that, that it's not going to make a difference. And actually it really does. And it feels much more doable for somebody who is knackered. all up and down moods and maybe, different food cravings, just, just feels more doable. So don't underestimate small changes and also the power of, power of eating well. And it doesn't have to be perfect, but just adding in some more of the good stuff can make a difference. We, our body has such, different needs at different times of our lives. So it needs more, particularly the body, because it's a stress, it can be felt the body can perceive it with the stress, so we can add more nourishment into our body. It's going to help the body give it the nutrients it needs and a cellular level to be able to perform basically. so I just, I, I, I'm a great advocate of adding in, just add it. So I don't, for working with clients. I've got a client at the moment, actually her first, yeah, all we're doing with her at the moment is just, I said, look, I don't, I'm not going to say to you, you're going to have to eat a different type of meal to your family. You're going to cook a separate meal because that's just crazy, right? Because that's just adding so much more stress to your, to your day. Let's just kind of like pimp up your meal a little bit. Let's just add some more bits and pieces in that feels doable. and then, that, that's just an easy way to do it. So it's just those easy wins, I think is, is, is. is what can be really helpful and we hear about exercise and movement. We are designed to move and even more I think, as we're getting older, our bodies are changing and it's not just menopause, is it? We're getting older and it's looking after our bodies. So it's, we hear about resistance training, mobility. looking after our heart health, so cardiovascular, all these things. But again, we can keep it simple because sometimes that can all feel a bit overwhelming. Like we think, I've got to be in the gym every day and it doesn't have to be like that. Again, 10 minutes of doing something is better than no minutes. 10 pushups, as you said earlier, it's better than no pushups without, even two pushups. is better than no push ups because they add up and you said and that's really interesting what you said earlier about that push response to the stress. I didn't know that so I've really learned something new today, but I think that that just those don't underestimate the little changes I think is probably the take home.

Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And, because you're so experienced in this field and you've seen it in nutrition, you see it with exercise, you see it with the women you're working with. you're, and it's something. I've seen, I think what we're talking to here is a bigger, like a meta thinking process, a boom and bust, it's the sort of 12 weeks to a beach body, which is just ridiculous. It doesn't happen, right? Give it 10 years, you'll get it, right? 12 weeks, to get it. It's not. And I'm all about consistency. If you look at any literature, any research around fitness, health, nutritional changes, body composition changes. Consistency is key, and as you beautifully alluded to, small steps, but consistently applying that, whether you're adding some, some, some, whatever nutrition you need to be, B vitamins, whatever the thing is, and same with movement. Forget the big grand gestures, do the work every day, small steps and as you rightly said, it goes to compound interest, the idea of finance is that you save like a couple of quid every day and it's compact, but over time like you get a lot of return. A health pension is exactly the same. Invest small and often and don't start, you will get so much reward and I want to, I want to speak to the movement part. So much of work I, I do around human performance. Yes. I look at psychology. It's a huge part. Emotions. Absolutely. Fundamentally run how we're thinking, but our body is our mind. We are embodied. We, we don't live in a body. We live through our body. So if our body is in not good shape, because you've been busy being a mom, you've been busy with work, all this stuff. Okay. But the minute you wake up and realize it's not quite as it needs to be, it doesn't feel the way I want it to be, that's the minute you want to start making some changes. As you've said, Hannah, it's small changes, but keep repeating. And Daily Yoga. I'm, I'm no spring chicken, I say it a lot, I'm, I'm, I'm pushing hard, I've gone a half a century already and yes, I'm not a woman, I'm not in menopause, but to, to other men, I now, I now live like an athlete, I train all the time and now sometimes I can't do as much, I'm not a kid, but because over the last probably eight years, I've really been steadily building up, building up, building up, my body's okay, we get this, we can do what you want to do now. If I tried to do what I do now, like in, in, even in six months, I'd just be injured. I'd be in a terrible state. So I think the, the sort of take home is get connected to your body. Definitely. And there's many ways somatic therapeutic work, yoga, Tai Chi, and, for women, and I was at the gym this morning and I really applaud all the women there, a lot of weightlifting going on. And one thing I'll say to any people who don't understand exercise, it's not how you look. That's when you're younger. It's how you feel. It really is. And yes, body composition change is nice, but you can't beat feeling strong. You can't beat feeling connected. You can't beat feeling assured in yourself. And yeah, you might, your body might look a bit nicer or not as nice as way, but the feeling supersedes the image by such a large amount. So if you're really struggling with how you're feeling about yourself, I feel one of the go tos is go to exercise. And any exercise we'll do at the beginning, just anything will give you the moving forwards. Because if you get a relationship with your body that's strong, you are in relationship with yourself. And that is obviously one of the hardest things that I see, is that the relationship with ourself is falling apart inside. So if the relationship between mind and body happens, we go there. What's your thoughts on that

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been, I've taught various types of fitness since, I think it was 2005. So it's been, it's been a while and that's changed. And what I've noticed with my, I used to be into the body transformation and I've done that, I've done that, I've done all of that stuff. but I think anybody that's starting with exercise or somebody that's perhaps coming back into exercise, which is my experience, because I've been getting so many different injuries and it's put me off doing the stuff I used to love, which would be lifting heavy stuff. For me to re regain that spark. I just thought, what do I love doing? And actually it's constant about a bit with music, exercise to music. Do you know that's, that, that's what kind of gets me. 'cause it's the music, it's, that's what kind of, and and, and it just reminded me of just what you've said about that connection and that joy, and then, and a little bit of, it feels a bit fun and I get that lift. And from there then that's, it feels like that kind of. Fires up my brain then to explore other stuff. and weightlifting is fantastic. and my own personal experiences. It's so frustrating that I can't at the moment do it as well as I do it as much as I could. because if I get so many injuries and that. As a woman goes through menopause, the estrogen levels, when they drop, it changes our muscle and it changes our tendons and our ligaments. And we get more prone to, to injuries. So I would always, Make sure we're following a program that takes into account a change in women's body if you're, if you're, if you're, especially if you're new to it. but yeah, there's, there's so much evidence, isn't there, about exercise, resistance training and, and. And what you said about feeling strong. I still want to be able to go in the garden and lug out, lug the massive bags of compost. I still want to feel that strong. I've, I've, that's powerful for me. So that's my kind of motivation to do that, to feel strong. Not so much, how it looks. Yeah, if it happens, it's nice, but it's just, it's the feeling. of it. And I think that, that changes my motivation as well. Then it changes how I train a little bit more rather than just the aesthetic. I've had a six pack. I've been really lean. I've done all that. It still wasn't enough. I still looked in the mirror and I still thought, so it's more than that for me. And I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with body transformation, all that. But I think, it's just finding for women, finding a way that works, works for them. So if you need to go and do Zumba or anything like, dancey, go and do it. If it gets you moving and it makes you smile and it gets you a bit hot and sweaty, great, because it just, it's invigorating and I think on a cellular level when you get into that.

Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. And a word you said there which is so important, certainly if you're having darkness and difficulty, is joy. joy is such a vibrant human experience and it's not happiness. When it's about buying things that's, that's, joy is this depth. You can't change it. Joy is this sort of inner radiance, inner loveliness. That is just so wonderful. And if you're really struggling. If you can find moments of joy, then they're kind of like, I imagine like a, lily pads, which is like a beautiful frog would hop and that joy lily pad. You can jump onto it. Yeah, it's a bit of rubbishy water in between, but let's hop onto the next joy lily pad. And. and that's what I've seen from my personal, in my personal life, and some of the clients I've been working with, is finding those points, so they're almost way points, so if you're in a difficult place, know that there's a good bit coming, you might be going to the gym, you might be going to Zumba, you, whatever it is, You might be speaking to your other half and saying, you know what, tonight I need you to go, or I need a foot massage or we need to the pub, whatever it is. And, and that permission, that, that communication, that openness, it seems to me to be some of the most important constituents to navigate, menopause and that whole experience in a more healthy way. So we're not saying it's going to magically be better. That's just silly. it's going to be difficulty, but if difficulty is balanced by some joy and some connections and growth, then. there's a lot of spiritual masters that talk about suffering is beautiful if you understand it well. So we're not talking about living in misery. No, of course not. But getting through adversity. but with understanding and learning that creates post traumatic growth. Disoppression and not understanding stuff, confusion can create more like a post traumatic response. So if we aim for growth, it's like, how do I make sense of this? How do I have people on board? And everything we've covered today, hopefully will be some of those constituent pieces.

No, I love that. And I love what you said about, I can't remember the exact phrase, but for what you said, but I've got the analogy of the lily pads and I love, and I love that, that I can, I'm quite a visual person, so I can really see that. and my, my daughter, she, she's 20 now, but she probably said this about a year ago to me, when I was going through a little bit of, Feeling a bit, feeling a bit low and stuff. And she said, Mum, she goes, I have to have something to look forward to every week that I'm going to do or, with someone. She goes, otherwise, what's the point? And those words have really stuck with me because I just thought, that's it, isn't it? It's just finding those little things. that we can look forward to, even if we're feeling really rubbish, even if it's small, doesn't have to cost money, none of that. You're just having those little things to look forward to, just so we can take our eyes from the ground and lift them up to the sky. Just have a little bit of, a little bit of hope. And I think, yeah, what you said about, hopping from the lily pads. I'm going to take that with me today. Thank you for sharing that.

You're very welcome. You're very welcome. I'm going to sum up something from a man's side, and I'd love for you to sum up from a woman's side. so as a man experiencing, say, my partner going through menopause, it's been really hard, and I've learnt a lot about us, and I've learnt a lot about tolerance, I've learnt a lot about what I need to work on in me, and, and I've also learnt that nothing lasts forever. So if you're having a difficult month or whatever it is, it's yeah, this is tough. But here's the thing, nothing lasts forever, it doesn't biochemically, it doesn't psychologically, everything goes through cycles, so know that if you're in a tricky spot, you're gonna, you're gonna come through it. But what can you learn about yourself? Speak up, listen up, and create that communication. Those are the things that have worked and made things better in my personal life. I've had a lot of the female clients I've worked with echo similar things, so that's what I've seen from a male perspective. Tanith, what would you like to close on for, for your thoughts and your wisdom?

I think the menopause is just a part of aging. We haven't talked about what happens to men when they go through a hormone. It's not as, as, as, as obvious, but change, it's just change and it's just getting older, isn't it? And it's just noticing that. and you, you just use the word wisdom and I love that. And I really do think there is so much wisdom For women, we've got so much to give, and we do ourselves a disservice as we go through menopause. And if you think how long we're living now, potentially half our life post menopause. Potentially. That's huge. And a lot of women are writing themselves off. They like saying they're not, don't feel sexy, they don't feel seen, they don't feel, worthwhile, all that stuff, which is just, unfortunately, like a script we've been fed because it isn't like that in the whole world. There are parts of the world that the elder woman, is revered and, she's full of wisdom and strength and she's, she's someone to be admired and looked upon with, for, yeah, for the wisdom. So I think it's taking that with, with that. It's understanding our own menopause script and how we can start to change that for ourselves and for those around us and perhaps for the generations to come, because We can rewrite it because we could have so much to give and I think we have to go through this change. Mother Nature just needs, it's given us a little bit of a whoop, a little bit of a take notice. you've got opportunities here to grow, to learn and to, to, to without sounding too cheesy and cliche, step into, this. Older, wiser version of yourself, and it's all possible. So I think that's really what I'd like to share.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Love that. and if we're only halfway done, we need to invest in everything, ourselves, everything, isn't it? If you're only halfway there, do not write yourself off. I, I, I'm a big advocate of this in midlife. I'm like, okay, midlife, people talk about midlife crisis. people don't understand the word crisis comes from the Greek krisis, which means choice. Decision. So you have a decision at midlife, whether you're male or female. What are you going to choose? Because choice is power, right? It's the ultimate gift of consciousness. If what we choose, how do I, how do I work with this? What do I do? Choice is power and what you said there is just mind blowing. Yeah. Okay. God. Yeah. We're only halfway done. Thanks for reminding me. Of course we are. And if you're halfway done, there's a lot of good stuff to come. So yeah. Amazing. Wow. thank you so much for sharing some of your thoughts. Of course you are super knowledgeable on this. we will put Tanya's details in the show notes for anyone who wants to reach out and learn more because she obviously has vast amounts of knowledge, more than I do. And, and obviously an absolute specialist. it is lovely to see you. Thank you. And, My dear listener, I hope you have collected wisdom, insights, and perhaps a few nuggets you can implement into your life with a man, with your man or woman, whether it's your partner or your colleague or friend, take action, make your own choices, and I'll see you on the next one. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and if a friend would benefit from hearing this, do send it on to them as well. If you would like to get in touch yourself, then you can go to my website, which is sal jeffries.com, spelled S A L J E F E R I E s sal jeffries.com. Hit the get in touch link and there you can send me a direct message. If you'd like to go one step further and learn whether coaching could help you overcome a challenge or a block in your life, then do reach out and I offer a call where we can discuss how this may be able to help you. Until the next time, take care.