Middling Along

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 

Victoria Hardy on using her experience of surgical menopause at 33 to help others navigate the Big M in a new way

This time on the podcast I’m joined by Victoria Hardy (otherwise known as @GingeUnhinged on Instagram) as she talks us through her experience of medical and surgical menopause aged just 33, the breakdown that followed, and how she has used her experiences to help others going through the same situation feel less alone. 

 

She has now gone one further and written a book ‘My Menopause, My Journal, My Rules’ to be the friendly guide and confidante that she would so dearly have loved 7 years ago…  

 

We cover:

• The process of going through first medical, and then surgical menopause in her early 30s, and how ill-prepared she was by the medical establishment
• How the lack of support led her to a breakdown, then to therapy, where she turned her creative flair and a way with words into an outlet for processing her grief and trauma, that ultimately became a source of support for others on social media
• Why connection to community on social media is so important
• How and why she decided to write her book and why it’s different from most other menopause books out there already…not least because it’s partly a book you write yourself (40% of the books is journaling space - you’re even encouraged to rip out certain pages if you feel the urge!)
• What was the hardest chapter to write - it might not be what you’d expect

 

You can find Victoria on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ginge_unhinged and the book is now available to preorder from gingeunhinged.com 

 

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

Dr Katie Barber helps us get to grips with testosterone dos and don’ts

This time we go all in on testosterone with Dr Katie Barber.

Katie is the Clinical Lead for the NHS Community Gynaecology Service in Oxfordshire where she continues to work as a Women’s Health GP and Menopause Specialist alongside her work as Clinical Director of Oxford Menopause. She’s also part of the British Menopause Society Advisory Council.

 

We do a deep dive on everything you might want to know about testosterone including: 

• what being prescribed ‘off license’ actually means
• why there are no products here in the UK designed for use by women and whether that is that likely to change
• why testosterone is only licensed to treat low libido
• why doctors don’t prescribe testosterone on its own without systemic HRT
• the three products available here in the UK on the NHS
• why low libido is a multifactorial issue and why that is important
• what blood tests and checks are routinely carried out before and after prescribing
• future research planned to look at testosterone use for other symptoms
• what to do if your GP is reluctant to prescribe testosterone 

You can find Katie at https://www.oxfordmenopause.com/ and on Instagram @oxfordmenopause 

 

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 1-1 coaching and workplace training. 

Kirsten Miller on channelling our inner rages and cultivating our power

In this episode of the podcast I’m joined by New York Times bestselling author Kirsten Miller to talk about her debut adult novel The Change – described on her website as “Big Little Lies meets The Witches of Eastwick—a gloriously entertaining and knife-sharp feminist revenge fantasy about three women whose midlife crisis brings unexpected new powers—putting them on a collision course with the evil that lurks in their wealthy beach town.” 

Kirsten spent twenty-five years as a strategist in the ad industry – an experience that inspired several memorable scenes in the book as we flash back through protagonist Harriett’s career and the events that have led her to develop some rather unorthodox new hobbies that are ruffling the feathers of Mattauk’s residents. She is soon joined by Jo, whose perimenopausal rages manifest in unexpected ways, and Nessa, who hears the voices of the dead girls who bring the trio together, sending them on the dramatic hunt for answers that puts them at odds with the powerful men of Mattauk. 

Power is the thread that runs through this book, from the new-found powers the women are learning to channel, and to live with, to the traditional male power that takes what it feels entitled to (and fully expects to get away with whatever damage it causes as it does so). 

As Kirsten points out during our interview, Gen X - the cohort of us that are now coming into our menopausal years - are the most powerful generation of women in the history of the world. We are in uncharted territory, and only really learning the full extent of that power, and how we pass it on to younger generations. As a consequence, there are many places where this has led to a backlash that will try to squash and push back those hard-won rights and powers. 

 

We talk too about shame, and how we absolutely need to be embracing conversations about our bodies without shame – Kirsten contrasts the experiences of her own teenage daughter’s generation, so much more fearless and so unwilling to put up with stigma around topics like menstruation. She likens perimenopause to “a wave you have to ride” – which I absolutely love. We also touch on the topic of rage: perhaps, Kirsten suggests, there are very good reasons for us to be angry, and instead of ‘treating’ the symptom, instead we need to channel and focus that anger, harness it and feel its power. 

Kirsten is currently working on her next two books. The Change is published in paperback here in the UK on 13th April. https://www.kirstenmillerbooks.com/

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes/subscribe to the newsletter 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 1-1 coaching and workplace training. 

 

Steph Douglas on mum guilt, parenting preteens and building her brilliant business Don’t Buy Her Flowers

This episode I’m joined by Steph Douglas, CEO and founder of Don’t Buy Her Flowers. I’ve been following Steph online since the early days of her blog, and then watching DBHF go from strength to strength, so was really excited to sit down with her and talk to her not just about building a business, but a whole raft of other topics. 

 

I’m always intrigued to hear about how people launch and grow a company: DBHF launched in 2014 with three packages for new mums, but really ‘went viral’ when Sarah Turner from The Unmumsy Mum mentioned the business to her followers. The small matter of the Covid pandemic landing in all our lives right before Mothers Day in 2020 was another enormous turning point for the business, and we discuss what it was like navigating that alongside parenting three small children (remember those heady days of ‘homeschooling’ - shudder…).

 

We also touch on:

• The step-change of going from 2 kids to 3
• Mum guilt
• The pros and cons of social media and why ‘Instagram holidays’ help Steph manage overwhelm
• Why gratitude journaling ended up surprising her with its effectiveness
• The mental load and de-programming relationship stereotypes
• Parenting preteens in the social media age

 

And with Mothers Day right around the corner, maybe now is the perfect time to have a look at https://www.dontbuyherflowers.com/ for gift ideas! 

You can also find Steph at https://www.instagram.com/steph_dontbuyherflowers/ where she presents her wonderfully unvarnished take on parenting three kids and juggling that with running her business with a big dollop of humour…

 

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