Hi, I'm Cara. I believe every woman carries a
vision of who she longs to become, and that's
no accident. Grab your favorite beverage and
settle into a cozy spot, because this is that
kind of conversation. That quiet knowing you're
meant for more? It's not wishful thinking, but
a calling on your heart. And every soul calling
deserves an answer. Not some day, today. Right
now. Together, we'll explore what it really means
to be her now. The healing, the worthiness, the
work, the becoming. Because none of us were meant
to figure this out on our own. Whatever brought
you here today, trust it. You belong here. Today,
we're talking about perimenopause. And before
you skip ahead, stay with me. Because whether
you're already in it, or approaching it or loving
someone who is, this conversation is absolutely
for you. It's important to note that when perimenopause
hit for me, I wasn't checked out. I was trying.
I was doing all the things. Maybe not perfectly
and maybe not always consistently, but I was
absolutely trying to take good care of myself.
And what I noticed was that when I fell off track,
even a little bit, My body's response was far
more dramatic than it had ever been. Recovery
took longer. The consequences came faster. Things
that used to be a minor detour started feeling
like a full derailment, and I couldn't figure
out why I was working harder for worse results.
Here's the part nobody warned me about. The habits
that had carried me through my 30s, the ones
that had always worked. the ones I could return
to when I'd gone off track, they had stopped
working the way they used to. Or they'd work
for a little while and then just stop. Or they'd
work so slowly that I'd lose interest before
I ever saw any results. I thought I just needed
more discipline, more consistency, more willpower.
What I actually needed was an entirely different
map. Because somewhere between my late 30s and
my early 40s, the terrain had completely shifted
underneath me. Quietly, without announcement,
and I was still navigating with directions written
for a place I no longer lived. That's what today
is about. It's about the terrain shift. It's
about what's actually happening in your body,
and why the old rules don't apply anymore. It's
about why you're not broken, you're not behind,
and you're not failing. I have a dear friend
who grew up in Mexico, and when I was sharing
with her some of my trials and tribulations,
she said something to me that I have not been
able to stop thinking about since, and I've shared
with so many people. She told me that in her
culture, there's a saying about perimenopause.
The way you come in is the way you go out, meaning
the way you came into your perimenopause. Your
perimenopause mirrors your puberty. I've sat
with that for a long time, and the more I've
looked back, the more true that has proven to
be, at least for me. As a teenager, I had extremely
intense migraines, super painful, very debilitating,
and they would take me out, usually around my
period and ovulation. They went completely away,
and I spent most of my 20s and 30s largely migraine
-free. and I really didn't think much about it.
And then in my late 30s early 40s they started
coming back exactly where they'd been before.
The heavy cramps I'd had as a teenager gone through
my 20s and 30s totally back now. I've always
had cravings when I'm PMSing but now they're
so intense they feel almost primal. They have
this emotional intensity that can catch me completely
off guard. It's almost like I'm on the same roller
coaster I rode in middle school, but the peaks
and the valleys are five times the size, and
there's about a quarter of the number of peaks.
Most of the ride now has been valleys for quite
some time. And here's the part that I think is
so important to name. I feel just as frumpy and
uncomfortable in my body as I did as a teenager.
That awkward, nothing -fits -who -even -is -this
-person feeling is completely back. Just with
a little more life experience to temper it. Maybe
with just enough perspective to look at it and
say, okay, I've been here before, I came through
it before, I'll come through it again. But that's
what the saying is really telling us. This process
of going through perimenopause and stepping into
menopause is not chaos. This is a full circle
symmetry and it's so important and helpful to
remember that your body has done something like
this before. It knows the territory even when
you don't. The way you came in is the way you
go out and you made it through the coming in.
So let's talk about what's actually happening
because I think one of the most disorienting
things about perimenopause is that nobody tells
you it's coming until you're already in it. And
by then, you've been googling your symptoms for
two years, wondering if something is seriously
wrong with you. Here's what I want you to know.
Perimenopause is not something that begins at
50. It's not something that begins at 45. For
many women, it's beginning in their mid -30s
to early 40s. And that number appears to be trending
younger and younger. There's growing evidence
that this is connected to the state of our nutrition,
to our food system, to the chronic stress most
of us are living under and the toxic load our
bodies are carrying. Our grandmothers may have
entered perimenopause later, partly because their
food was less processed, their nervous systems
less chronically activated, and their bodies
were less burdened by what ours are navigating
every day. So if you're in your late 30s and
something feels just off, your cycles are changing,
your moods are shifting, Maybe in ways that feel
bigger than just PMS. Your sleep is disturbed.
Your body is responding differently than it used
to. Your mental health feels off. Please do not
let someone tell you you're too young. Don't
let anyone dismiss you. You know your body. Trust
what you're feeling. And please find a practitioner
who will actually partner with you. Someone who
looks at the whole picture Someone who believes
that healing is possible for the systems that
are going to support the most comfortable journey
towards menopause. Not just someone who monitors
your numbers and then sends you home. Someone
who is willing to dig into nutrition, gut health,
hormones, your nervous system, the full picture
of what your body is moving through. That person,
I can assure you, exists. Keep looking until
you find them. And when they've walked alongside
you as far as they can go, change them. You are
allowed to outgrow a practitioner that is on
your health team. You are allowed to need more
or different than what they are currently providing.
I want to say something that might be a little
countercultural, especially coming from someone
in the wellness space who loves to try the new
and shiny things to help improve her health.
But the conversation around perimenopause has
opened up enormously in the last several years.
Women have collectively decided to stop suffering
in silence. Practitioners are talking about it.
There are podcasts and books and Instagram accounts
and entire product lines dedicated to it now.
And that is genuinely beautiful. The shift really
matters. But I want to name something I've been
sitting with. There is an entire industry being
built around this transition. And like most wellness
industries, it has a way of quietly reframing
what is a very natural process to be a problem
that needs to be solved. This thing that we have
to fix. A thing to optimize, to manage, to push
through and to survive. And I'll be honest, I
fell for it. I went looking for the thing that
would make this stop or at least make it look
like it had stopped. The supplement that would
balance my hormones permanently. The protocol
that would get me back to feeling like myself
at 35. And here's the freedom I found on the
other side of that search. This, perimenopause,
is not something I'm going to fix. Perimenopause
is not a disease. It's not a malfunction. This
is a sacred threshold. One of the most significant
transitions a woman's body will ever move through.
And the question isn't, how do I stop this from
happening? The question is, how do I cross this
threshold with as much grace, support, and self
-awareness as I can? That single reframe has
been one of the most liberating things I have
come to in this whole season. And I want to be
very clear. I'm still actively looking for things
that support me. I have not given up on that.
But I am being very selective now. I'm making
sure that what I try feels aligned, that it's
what my body is actually asking for, and that
I'm not feeling victim to the idea that there's
a fix -all solution out there, or that I'm going
to heal myself out of experiencing perimenopause
or menopause entirely. That's not the goal anymore.
The goal is to move through this passage as supported,
as aware, and as lovingly as I possibly can.
Because here's the other side of the mirror.
Here's what's also coming back and what's arriving
brand new. My inner world is opening in a way
I did not expect. I feel more creative than I
have in years. Ideas come faster. My intuition
feels sharper and more trustworthy and more present.
I have a deep resonance and connection with something
bigger than myself with what I might call the
all or the collective. that I genuinely did not
have in my 30s. It arrived quietly and it has
stayed and it continues to deepen and become
more rich steadily as time passes. I care so
much less what people think of me. And I say
that not as a small thing. For someone who spent
decades people pleasing, who was raised as most
of our generation was to make herself smaller
and more palatable and more agreeable, Carrying
less is an enormous freedom. I'm stepping to
the beat of my own drum more loudly and more
often than I ever have. I no longer feel the
need to explain my no's. No is actually a complete
sentence. I have boundaries that feel very solid
and real and mine. I feel alive with possibility
in a way that is almost electric. Even when my
body doesn't feel capable of supporting it all,
even when I'm exhausted and achy and foggy brained,
underneath all of that, there is something very
awakened me that wasn't there before. In many
traditions, traditions much older and wiser than
the culture I was raised in here in the United
States, and that of many Westernized cultures,
this phase of a woman's life is not dreaded.
It's revered, this arc of a woman's life through
maiden, mother, and crone. And the crone is not
the diminished woman. She's not the woman who's
past her prime. She is the seer, the guide, the
elder, the woman who has stopped performing for
the world and started living from her own knowing,
the woman who trusts her knows and her yeses.
There's actually a theory and I find it one of
the most beautiful ideas in all of human evolution,
that we developed grandmothers for a reason.
The women were designed to live well beyond their
reproductive years precisely because the wisdom
they carry is essential. Not just useful, but
essential. The grandmother is the keeper of knowledge,
the one who has crossed the threshold and come
back with something the younger women need. Her
value was never in her fertility. It was in her
knowing. And that knowing only deepens with time.
That is who is being forged in all of this. You're
not losing yourself. You're being renovated and
reinforced and rebuilt from the inside out. She
is not being taken from you. She is being reborn.
I want to spend a moment here on something that
I'm genuinely grappling with because I think
a lot of us are and we're not saying it out loud.
My body has changed and the vision I had of what
her body was going to look like, that future
self I've been visualizing, the woman I'm becoming,
I'm realizing that vision may need to adjust
too. And here's the thing, our bodies change
so dramatically in every single decade of our
lives. From zero to ten we arrive in this world
entirely new dependent, discovering, just beginning
to understand what this body can do. By the end
of that decade, we are walking and talking and
thinking and feeling and navigating an entire
world. The transformation in that decade alone
is extraordinary. From 10 to 20, puberty arrives
and everything changes. Our bodies reshape themselves.
Our emotions intensify. We become someone new,
sometimes faster than we can keep up with. It's
disorienting and beautiful and confusing and
really enormous at the time. From 20 to 30, most
of us begin to settle into ourselves a little.
We start to feel at home. We figure out how to
dress this body, how to move it and feed it.
There's an energy in that decade that feels almost
limitless. From 30 to 40, I'll be honest with
you, that was the decade I felt most beautiful.
I felt strong and capable. like I had finally
figured out who I was in my skin. And somewhere
in the back of my mind, I think I assumed I would
just stay there. I know, I laugh at myself about
that too, but I think a lot of us quietly believe
that once we arrive at a version of ourselves
we love, we get to keep her. But here's what
I want for myself and for you. I don't want my
30s to have been my peak. I want to love myself
in every decade. I want to find the beauty of
each phase even as my physicality changes, even
as the rules change, even as the body I'm in
becomes someone I'm still getting to know. So
yes, from 40 to 50, the body changes again, dramatically
in many cases, and I was genuinely shocked by
it, even though I had watched my body transform
through every single decade before this one.
Of course it changed! Of course it has. Why would
this decade be any different? So the question
I'm sitting with, and I'm inviting you to sit
with too, is not how do I get my body back? It's
how do I love, dress, move, care for, and adorn
this body now? The one that's here, the one that's
doing the hard work of this transition, the one
that despite everything, is still showing up
for me every single day. Not the body I had when
I was 32, but this one. And I think there's something
deeply sacred about that question, because it
asks us to stop waiting to love ourselves until
we look or feel a certain way. It asks us to
start here, to find what makes this body feel
good right now, to dress her in a way that honors
her. to move her in a way that works for her,
to feed her in a way that lovingly supports her,
to adorn her because she deserves it. Not when
she gets back to where she was, but in each moment
now until forever. Okay, I need to tell you about
what happened just before my last cycle because
I think this might be the most important thing
in this entire episode for some of you. I had
my first follicular phase in at least six months.
The follicular phase, if you're not familiar,
is the part of your cycle after your period ends
and before ovulation. This is when estrogen upticks
and you start to feel vibrant and beautiful.
And this one lasted four days. Four glorious
days. And in those four days, I felt incredible.
I'm not exaggerating when I tell you I felt like
a completely different person. So much energy,
so much joy, so much clarity. I felt like I had
cracked the code, like all the work I'd been
doing had finally paid off and my body had healed
and I was back. And then, fast forward to my
next cycle, and as soon as my period ended, I
jumped almost immediately into ovulation and
then straight into my luteal phase, which, impairment
of pause for me, now runs about two weeks, and
everything went back to what I thought I'd just
fixed. The cravings came back. The fatigue came
back. The emotional weight came back. And I was
at day 68 of clean eating. 68 days of doing the
work. And I opened the gate. I talked about that
in the last episode. If you haven't heard coming
home, go back and listen. But what I want to
add here, what I want to name specifically, is
what that four -day window did to my expectations.
It created a false sight. It made me believe
that I was further along in the healing than
I actually was. And when the luteal phase hit
hard, the drop felt so much bigger because of
how high I'd just been weeks before. This is
the non -linear nature of healing, and perimenopause
makes it more pronounced than almost anything
else I've experienced. It's important to remember
that progress is happening even when you can't
see it. Your body is doing something even in
the plateau, even in the hard weeks, even when
you fall off track and have to come home again.
The recalibration is happening underneath the
surface quietly, almost the way roots grow underground
before anything happens above it. And the impatience,
I say this with so much love for both of us,
the impatience is the thing that makes us abandon
the process right before the turn. I think about
the way I've learned to trust a nudge, the way
I've learned to follow a pull, even when it doesn't
make logical sense, even when I can't see where
it's going. That practice of living in conscious
communion with something bigger than myself,
staying in that constant conversation, feeling
into my life instead of just moving through it,
that changed everything for me. What would happen
if we brought that same trust to our bodies.
Your body is not your enemy. It is not failing
you. It is doing something you cannot fully see
yet. And it has been doing that your entire life,
building you, healing you, carrying you, re -birthing
you, mostly without your conscious involvement
at all. What would it mean to trust your body
the way you've learned to trust an edge? Now,
before I get into the practical support piece,
I want to say something about community, because
I think it might be the most underrated part
of this whole transition. Until very recently
in human history, and still in many cultures
around the world, women moved through this transition
together, in community with one another, surrounded
by women who had already crossed this threshold,
women who were crossing it alongside them, women
who were approaching it and watching and learning.
there was a transmission of wisdom that happened
naturally, generationally, in relationship. It's
only in modern times, in the kind of isolated,
individualized lives that so many of us are living
now, and on the heels of a few modern generations
that were taught never to speak of this inevitable
change, that we've found ourselves navigating
this passage alone. Behind closed doors, quietly,
wondering if what we're experiencing is even
normal, wondering if anyone else feels this way.
And that isolation gap is exactly the space that
an entire industry moved into and said, we have
what you need, buy this, take this, fix this,
when what we're primarily hungry for is connection
with each other. So please talk about this. Find
the women in your life who are in it with you
and talk about it out loud, without shame, without
performance or having it together. You will be
amazed at how many of us are quietly navigating
the same terrain and feeling completely alone
in it. Community is not a luxury in perimenopause.
It's medicine. Okay, let's talk about the practical
support because you do not have to do this alone
and you were never meant to. First, Find a practitioner
who will actually partner with you in this. Someone
who looks at your whole picture, someone who
believes that healing is possible for the systems
that support the most comfortable journey towards
menopause. Not just someone who monitors your
numbers and sends you home, but someone who's
willing to dig into nutrition, into gut health,
hormones, your nervous system, the full picture
of what your body is moving through. That person
exists. Keep looking until you find them. And
when you've walked alongside them as far as they
can go, change them. You are allowed to outgrow
a practitioner. You're allowed to need more.
On the supplement front, I want to name some
areas worth exploring with your practitioner
because this is genuinely not a one -size -fits
-all and I'm not a doctor. But these are the
categories that have come up again and again
in my own research and experience. Magnesium.
Most of us are deficient and it touches everything
from sleep to mood to muscle function to migraines.
Adaptogens like ashwagandha for nervous system
support and stress response. Omega -3s for inflammation
and perimenopause is an inflammatory process
in many ways. Hormone support. Whether that's
something like progesterone cream or seed cycling
or some other approach, it's worth exploring
what your body actually needs. Gut health and
leaky gut support because your gut health and
your hormone health are far more connected than
most of us realize and mental health support
Therapy community honest conversation with women
who get it. I want to be transparent here I'm
still actively adding things that feel supportive
to me, but I am being very selective and I'm
making sure that what I try feels aligned and
that my body is actually asking for it I'm not
chasing any fix -all solutions. And I'm not trying
to heal myself out of perimenopause. I am trying
to support myself through it. There's a difference
and it really matters. I want to say this clearly
and without shame. If medication is part of your
support, whether that's physical or mental, that
is not a failure. That's not weakness. That is
you using every tool available to you to get
through a genuinely hard transition. For me personally,
the migraines that came back in perimenopause
were so severe that I was taking a leave like
candy just to function. I'm actually currently
managing my migraines with Botox while I continue
looking for something more natural that works
long term. That's a tool. It's not a forever
answer for me and it's not me giving up on finding
something better. It is me choosing not to suffer
while I keep looking. Whether your medication
is HRT, support for mood and anxiety, migraine
treatment, or something else entirely, normalize
it. Take it if it helps. But at the same time,
don't write it as a band -aid. Don't let it become
a reason to stop doing the lifestyle work. Use
it as a bridge. Use it as the support. that gives
you enough stability to show up for the other
things. Medication and lifestyle are not either
or. They work best together. Let's bring this
back to the four pillars. Movement, sleep, hydration,
and nourishing your body, mind, and spirit. Because
I think perimenopause asks us to look at each
of these with completely fresh eyes. Movement.
I'm learning this one in real time. So I'm going
to share where I am right now rather than where
I think I should be. What I've come to understand
is that my body needs low cortisol spike movement
right now. High intensity workouts, the kind
that feel like you're really doing something,
like you're earning it, can actually spike cortisol
in a way that works against you in perimenopause.
And I ran into that again and again. Your adrenal
system is already working over time. You don't
necessarily need to add to that load. For me
right now, that looks like walking. It looks
like lifting weights a couple of times a week
on my own terms at my own pace. And I'm about
to try beginner mat Pilates and see how that
feels. I'm trying to remain curious about what
works for my body on a weekly basis and adjust
accordingly. My energy fluctuates so dramatically
right now that I've found that to be the best
approach. I just keep recalibrating, doing what
I can do, meeting myself where I am, Occasionally,
that means more rest and getting moving again
as soon as I can. My invitation to you is this.
Be willing to try something. Stay consistent
with it unless it is genuinely beyond what your
body can hold right now. And if it is beyond
you, that's information, not failure. Try something
else. Trial and error is not failure. It's how
you find what actually works for this body in
this season. Sleep. This one is a non -negotiable.
Perimenopause attacks sleep, pain and simple,
through night sweats, through racing thoughts,
through hormonal shifts that pull you out of
deep rest. And then poor sleep makes every other
symptom worse. Protect your sleep fiercely. Make
it a priority the way you make eating a priority.
And if you don't make eating a priority, then
make this more of a priority. This could mean
starting a bedtime routine that removes screens
a couple of hours before you head to bed. It
may mean limiting caffeine, especially at or
after lunchtime. Be open. Be willing to experiment.
Your nervous system, your hormones, your mood,
your cravings, all of it is downstream of how
you slept. Hydration. More essential than ever.
More overlooked than ever. Quality filtered water
matters. I know groceries are expensive, and
I know doing everything perfectly is not always
possible, and that's okay. So just do the best
you can with what you have. Even small upgrades
matter. A filter on your tap, an extra glass
before you reach for your coffee. It all compounds.
Finally, nourishing your body, mind, and spirit.
Whole organic foods as much as your budget allows.
Anti -inflammatory eating is your friend right
now. Not the perfect diet, but your friend. And
cycle tracking. as a tool for understanding yourself.
I've talked about the book Period Power by Maisie
Hill, and I cannot recommend it enough. She also
has a book called Perimenopause Power, and I
draw from the wisdom of both of these at this
phase of my life. Understanding where you are
in your cycle, what your body needs in each phase,
treating that knowledge as the superpower it
actually is, that changes the way you relate
to yourself and your spirit. Your spiritual practice
is not a luxury in perimenopause. This is your
anchor. When your hormones are unpredictable
and your body feels unfamiliar and the ground
keeps shifting, coming home to something steady
and bigger than yourself is not optional. It
is the thing that holds you. Prayer, meditation,
time in nature, devotion, whatever that looks
like for you. Come back to it, especially on
the hard days, especially then. I want to leave
you with this. Your body has been changing your
entire life. Every decade has asked something
different of you. Every transition has required
a new map. And you have navigated every single
one of them. Maybe not perfectly or without struggle,
but you have come through. This one will be no
different. Except that this one comes with something
the others didn't. This one comes with the beginning
of the crone. The seer. The woman who has stopped
asking for permission. The woman who trusts her
no's and her yes's. The woman whose inner world
is rich and deep and alive in ways it has never
been before. The woman who is finally, finally
stepping into the full weight of who she's always
been becoming. A dear friend told me something
her culture has known for a long time. The way
you come in is the way you go out. And I want
you to hold that close. Not as a warning, but
as a promise. You have been here before in a
different form, in a younger body, at the beginning
of becoming rather than the deepening of it.
But you have been here and you found your way
through then. You will find your way through
now. You're not broken. You're not behind. You're
not failing the healing journey because it isn't
moving in a straight line. You are in the passage.
the passage is doing exactly what it's supposed
to do. She's not broken. She's doing what she's
supposed to do. Until next time, be her now.