Middling Along

Skylar Liberty Rose wants us to bloom in midlife and beyond

My guest this time is Skylar Liberty Rose, a writer and coach who helps introvert women embrace their 40s and 50s with joy and confidence.  Born in London, Skylar moved to New York City when she was 40, and reaching her mid-40s, she found herself feeling despondent about aging and struggling with her appearance. It was this experience that prompted her to disentangle herself from the clutches of an anti-aging culture. She now helps other women do the same through her Visible course and You to Bloom membership.

 

We cover a raft of topics including:

• How it felt to change her birth name post-divorce and why it was the best decision she’s ever made for herself - though we don’t recommend doing it three weeks into a new job! 
• How midlife and menopause hits a little differently for introverts - we may feel the urge to spend a lot of time alone, but this is a time when we need to connect and find our community
• Trading NYC life for the countryside
• The societal pressures to keep our looks and age gracefully (whatever that means!) we are so used to it we rarely recognise or question it any more…
• Her brain tumour diagnosis, surgery, and recovery
• Comparing notes on starting HRT - and Skylar’s struggles with anxiety
• ADHD - masking, coping, and overwhelm…perimenopause can be a time when the cracks start to show

You can find Skylar at https://www.skylarlibertyrose.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/skylarlibertyrose/

 

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

 

Join our newsletter, The Messy Middle, for fortnightly goodness into your Inbox: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/323784/90772270045202190/share 

 

We’re delighted to be listed as one of the Top 25 podcasts for midlife and menopause here: https://www.lattelounge.co.uk/podcasts-about-the-menopause/

 

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-1 coaching and workplace training. 

Get our free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources 

Bonus Episode Stephen Thomas on a partner’s eye view of menopause

Join us this time for something a little different: earlier this year I sat down with my husband Stephen, to get a partner's view of peri/menopause...we weren't even sure whether or not to release it, but hopefully it makes for helpful listening for other partners out there...we talk about how his fears of menopause have been (mostly) unfounded, how the male urge to fix things isn't always the most helpful approach to perimenopause, and some tips for how to actually support someone in your life if they are struggling in peri/menopause. 

Hope you enjoy it!

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

 

Join our newsletter, The Messy Middle, for fortnightly goodness into your Inbox: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/323784/90772270045202190/share 

 

We’re delighted to be listed as one of the Top 25 podcasts for midlife and menopause here: https://www.lattelounge.co.uk/podcasts-about-the-menopause/

 

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-1 coaching and workplace training. 

Get our free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources 

 

Thalia Pellegrini wants us to hold our wellbeing sacred

My guest this time is registered nutritional therapist Thalia Pellegrini. After a decade as a broadcast journalist for the BBC, presenting programs including Newsround and The Travel Show and reporting for Holiday, she followed her passion and retrained at the Institute of Optimum Nutrition in London. Her specialist interest is women’s health with a focus on perimenopause.

In our discussion we cover:

• living with chronic fatigue syndrome/ME in her twenties and how working with a nutritional therapist allowed her to go back to living a normal life;
• the role of permission and self-compassion as an antidote to guilt and overwhelm;
• Midlife as a powerful opportunity to invest in our longer term wellbeing
• stress management - how stress trumps everything. It impacts digestion, hormonal balance, weight gain, sleep... the list goes on. 
• How losing two good friends in just three years brought her own midlife health into sharper focus
• Tips for dealing with bloating and constipation

 

One thing that will stick with me from this interview is Thalia’s invitation to ‘Hold your own wellbeing sacred’ - midlife is definitely a time where we need to recognise that prioritizing our health and happiness is not selfish - quite the opposite.

Thalia has a list of breakfast ideas available from her website https://discover.thaliapellegrini.com/5-minute-breakfasts-for-mums-in-a-hurry/

You can also find her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thaliapellegrini_nutrition/

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

 

Join our newsletter, The Messy Middle, for fortnightly goodness into your Inbox: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/323784/90772270045202190/share 

 

We’re delighted to be listed as one of the Top 25 podcasts for midlife and menopause here: https://www.lattelounge.co.uk/podcasts-about-the-menopause/

 

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-1 coaching and workplace training. 

Get our free 'Guide to your GP appointment and Symptom Checker' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources 

 

Rosamund Dean on Reconstruction - life after breast cancer

I’m delighted to welcome today’s guest, journalist and author Rosamund Dean. Former Deputy Editor of Grazia magazine, she’s the author of Mindful Drinking: How Cutting Down can Change Your Life, and her latest book, Reconstruction (How to rebuild your body. Mind, and life after a breast cancer diagnosis) which is a pragmatic but positive handbook for anyone navigating a diagnosis of primary breast cancer. 

 

Rosamund’s book is not only an exploration of her own personal experiences of breast cancer, but a warm, relatable, practical guide to what to expect at each stage, even down to what to pack in your hospital bag…

 

In this episode we’ll cover:

• How it feels to receive a breast cancer diagnosis (in the middle of a pandemic!
• The crushing fatigue of cancer treatment and being forced to stop and rest - and how this impacts on someone’s identity
• Dealing with early menopause symptoms when HRT isn’t an option - and the reality of how poor the provision of information is for cancer patients
• That treatment can induce a second menopause in post-menopausal women who undergo treatment for BC
• Menopausal symptoms and their similarity to the side effects of chemotherapy - disentangling which is which
• The treatment that Rosamund is now taking to strengthen her bones
• The strain of looking out for symptoms of recurrence of the cancer
• The important of exercise not just for multiple facets of physical and mental wellbeing but for reducing risk of recurrence by between 30-60%
• Life - and living well - after breast cancer treatment

 

You can find Rosamund on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/rosamunddean/ and Reconstruction (https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Reconstruction-by-Rosamund-Dean/9780008585204) is available wherever you like to buy your books! Rosamund also has a regular newsletter, Well Well Well, which you can subscribe to here: https://rosamunddean.substack.com/ 

 

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

 

Join our newsletter, The Messy Middle, for fortnightly goodness into your Inbox: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/323784/90772270045202190/share 

 

We’re delighted to be listed as one of the Top 25 podcasts for midlife and menopause here: https://www.lattelounge.co.uk/podcasts-about-the-menopause/

 

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-1 coaching and workplace training. 

Get our free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources 

Helen Tomlinson on menopause in the workplace and creating cultural change

My guest this time is Helen Tomlinson - Head of Talent Development at The Adecco Group and the UK government’s first ever Menopause Employment Champion.  

In this voluntary role, Helen’s focus is on encouraging employers to create more supportive environments to help women experiencing menopause to stay and progress in work. 

We discuss some of the changes that Helen is hoping to enable over the next few years, to help organizations of all sizes support menopausal employees. There are exciting developments on the horizon, including a new hub for sharing and disseminating best practice, and a national allyship program, to provide support for those who are working in SMEs that simply don’t have the same resources available as larger companies.

We also talk about the free support already out there, including the new BSI free standard on menstrual health and menopause in the workplace (available at https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/standards/understanding-menopause-and-menstrual-health/) 

We cover the ‘less visible’ symptoms - loss of confidence, brain fog, not sleeping, anxiety - which can have more far-reaching impact than physical symptoms on those in more senior roles. Symptoms which are not only harder to articulate, but harder for employers to practically support with reasonable adjustments  - which makes it even more important for employers to find individualized solutions to allow them to remain in their role.

Helen gives us a great personal example of how a manager leaping into solution mode and making assumptions can actually be counter-productive.  

We also delve into the many ways companies can help create cultural change:

• senior people sharing their experiences
• top-down support
• vulnerable leadership modelling openness to others within the organization 
• allyship 

 

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

 

Join our newsletter, The Messy Middle, for fortnightly goodness into your Inbox: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/323784/90772270045202190/share 

We’re delighted to be listed as one of the Top 25 podcasts for midlife and menopause here: https://www.lattelounge.co.uk/podcasts-about-the-menopause/

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-1 coaching and workplace training.  

Get our free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources

Madeline McQueen on adjusting our crowns and cultivating more confidence

My guest on the podcast this time is coach and speaker Madeline McQueen. In a career which spans 35 years, she’s inspired the workforces of brands ranging from Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy to Google, Sky and Nike. If the hormone rollercoaster of midlife and perimenopause is messing with your confidence levels, buckle up - Madeline has some great advice for you! 

 

So often when we start a new job or move on to a new challenge we feel like we’re starting over (when of course, we’re generally starting from experience!). Madeline is a big proponent of ‘evidence-based confidence’ - keeping track of what we have done, skills and learnings we have gathered along the way, as a way to damp down the anxiety we often encounter when we start over. Tune in to find out more about the ‘pink envelope’ and how it can help us. 

 

We also talk about the four stages of competency that we move through each time we do something new: unconscious incompetence > conscious incompetence > conscious competence > unconscious competence - again, helpful grounding to remember, we’ve done it once, we can do it again! 

 

We’re very much on the same page too when it comes to the need for us in midlife to put ourselves at the top of the To Do List - and learn to say no more often - something else we can lean in to more and more in midlife. 

 

One of my favourite quotes of our interview is her insistence that we not “Own the Problem in the Room” - too often, as women in the workplace, we are quick to jump in to fill an awkward silence and offer our services up for the ‘emotional labour’ of the workplace that does us no favours when it comes to progression. 

 

Last but by no means least, I ask Madeline about her advice for raising strong, capable daughters - her answers will resonate with you whether you have daughters, sons, nieces or nephews! 

 

You can find Madeline at https://www.madelinemcqueen.com/ and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/themadelinemcqueen/ 

 

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

 

Join our newsletter, The Messy Middle, for fortnightly goodness into your Inbox: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/323784/90772270045202190/share 

 

We’re delighted to be listed as one of the Top 25 podcasts for midlife and menopause here: https://www.lattelounge.co.uk/podcasts-about-the-menopause/

 

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-1 coaching and workplace training. 

Get our free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources

Natalie Lue helps us discover The Joy of Saying No

Join me this time as I chat to ‘recovering people pleaser’ Natalie Lue - author of The Joy of Saying No, and founder of Baggage Reclaim, one of the longest-running self-help blogs in the world. 

 

Most of us (as with our own parents) will have been raised during The Age of Obedience - socialized (especially if we identify as women) to be good and compliant - little wonder then that so many of us exhibit people-pleasing behaviours. 

 

Perhaps it hasn’t been a huge issue for us before, but perimenopause impacts on our ability to ‘multitask’ in the way we might have managed before now and for many of us holding up our people-pleasing tendencies can become exhausting, even debilitating. 

 

Natalie talks us through the five different styles of people-pleasing: gooding, efforting, avoiding, saving, and suffering - how these tendencies might have arisen in the first place, and helps us to identify which style we most identify with. The chapters that focus on the five styles also highlight ‘things to watch out for’ and some ‘quick shifts’ to help the reader start changing their behaviours. 

 

The later parts of the book provide a framework for instituting healthier boundaries and troubleshooting when we might get pushback from others or indeed from ourselves! Natalie also suggests invoking ‘the power of the pause’, and explains the difference between a ‘hard no’ and a ‘soft no’ - and when we might want to use each of them. 

 

Last of all we discuss why saying ‘No’ to some things opens up space for us to say ‘Yes’ to the things we truly value and find joyful. 

 

I’ll leave you with this little nugget of wisdom from the book: 

“Every time you do something from a place of guilt, fear, or obligation, it always leads to resentment. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon.”

 

The Joy of Saying No is out now, published by Harper Horizon, and you can find Natalie at www.baggagereclaim.com and https://www.instagram.com/natlue 

 

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at www.middlingalong.com  

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-1 coaching and workplace training. 

Get your free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources 

Sarah Williamson from Women Wise helps us futureproof our midlife bodies and minds

Joining me this time on the podcast  is Sarah Williamson, co-founder of Women Wise. Sarah is a nutritional therapist and researcher: with first hand experience of the limitations of current menopause support and after getting increasingly frustrated and worried about friends' difficult menopause experiences, she was determined to do something about it.

She carried out two and half years of research in the process of designing the Women Wise product from the ground up - motivated by her fascination with why people experience menopause symptoms in such different ways, and determined to create a solution that would also include those who could not use HRT, chose not to, or found that it provided no significant benefit when they tried it.

As part of my research for this episode I trialled the full Women Wise service, which includes a comprehensive symptoms questionnaire, testing for cortisol levels, insulin sensitivity, Vitamin D levels, thyroid function (TSH, T3 and T4) and iron/ferritin levels, plus the (optional) genetic tests which offer additional insights including an assessment of how well we metabolise and clear oestrogen from our bodies (tune in to find out exactly why that part is so important!). 

I found the whole process fascinating and insightful - not least because I was lucky enough to go through all my results with Sarah herself and got a detailed understanding of what my test results meant and what I could do to improve my health outcomes. 

The results include a detailed action plan - which I’m gradually starting to implement - and ongoing support for 12 months afterwards. 

To find out more about what Women Wise offers go to 

https://womenwise.health/ 

https://www.instagram.com/womenwise_health/ 

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

 

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-2-1 coaching and workplace training. 

Free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources 

Dr Zoe Schaedel on sweet, sweet sleep - how we can get more and better sleep in midlife

Join me this time as we chat to Dr Zoe Schaedel: Zoe is a GP and an accredited British Menopause Society Menopause Specialist.  She is currently a member of the British Menopause Society’s Medical Advisory Council, the Primary Care Women Health Foundation’s Education Committee and NHS England’s Menopause Improvement Programme Clinical Reference Group. She has developed a special interest in sleep and sits on the British Sleep Society Education Committee, is the co-founder of The Good Sleep Clinic, and has published articles on Menopause in The Lancet and Post Reproductive Health.

 

What a great, informative episode this is: did you know that sleep disturbances are one of the most common symptoms of the perimenopause? 40-60% of women report difficulties staying asleep, and waking more during the night! 

 

We’ll cover:

• How our bodies need to stay at a low and stable temperature to stay asleep
• The impact of our symptoms (such as anxiety, needing to wee more, and hot/cold flushes and night sweats) on sleep and getting back to sleep between our 90 minute sleep cycles
• Sleep hygiene tips (including light, temperature, and bedtime routines - bath, book and bed isn’t just for the kids!)
• Why alcohol (yet again) is not our friend and leads to less REM sleep and more ‘micro-wakings’
• What is sleep drive and why is it important? 
• The role of adenosine in sleep drive, how to increase it, and how caffeine acts on adenosine levels
• How ‘putting the day to rest’ can help stop our busy brains keeping us awake and running through the mental load list at 4am!
• How HRT can help with sleep in perimenopause
• How CBTi works even on chronic insomnia

 

You can find Zoe at https://goodsleep.clinic/ and www.mylahealth.co.uk and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/zoemenopausedr/ 

 

The CBTi based sleep apps we discuss in this episode are Sleepio and Sleep Station.

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

 

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-2-1 coaching and workplace training.

Free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources 

 

Tracy Acock on new beginnings and getting more out of midlife

In this episode I chat to Tracy Acock, founder of The Wellbeing Wisdom Club. Tracy retired from a career in breast cancer nursing and retrained as a women’s life coach with a focus on health and wellbeing. Whilst maybe not an obvious career pivot, she uses many of the same tools to work with her coaching clients - such as mindfulness, meditation and EFT (emotional freedom technique, or tapping).

 

We cover such a wide range of topics including:

• the benefits of cold water swimming
• how we are often disconnected from ourselves in midlife and how to get back to who we are and what we want
• changing our mindset to break free of negative self-talk and our cosy comfort zones
• looking for the things that light us up
• building more movement into our lives 
• Tracy’s own menopause experience ten years ago and why the conversation is so different now…

You can find Tracy at  https://wellbeingwisdomclub.com and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thewellbeingwisdomclub/ - but be warned, all those beautiful photos of Cornish beaches will make you want to move there if you don’t already!

 

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too! 

You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-2-1 coaching and workplace training.

You can get our free 'Guide to your GP appointment' at https://www.managingthemenopause.com/free-resources