Middling Along

Lu Featherstone on her radical midlife reinvention and the self-love revolution

My guest this time is Lu Featherstone - aka Luinluland: fashion legend and accidental midlife influencer who is proud to be growing old disgracefully!

Lu’s story of midlife reinvention is simultaneously hilarious and heart wrenching. Tune in to find out how and why a vicar’s daughter ended up leaving behind her marriage of 20 years and driving from one side of the USA to the other in a bus with over 400 vibrators on board!

Lu and I talk about:

• how moving to America was the catalyst for the breakdown of her marriage
• the dramatic event that sparked her mission to drive 6,000 miles from one coast of the USA to the other in a converted school bus…
• the story of how Lou came to own Susie the 32 foot long converted schoolbus and create the Self Love Revolution Tour
• the most defining - and hairiest - moments of her US trip
• what she misses about living in the US and what she definitely doesn’t
• and much, much more besides!

You can find Lu at:

https://luinluland.com/pages/about-me 

https://www.instagram.com/luinluland

 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Tanith Carey on why we might be feeling ’Blah’ and how to overcome it

My guest this time is Tanith Carey - an award-winning writer and author of 12 books on psychology, parenting and social history, her writing has been featured in the Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Spectator and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Her latest book is called ‘Feeling ‘Blah’?: Why anhedonia has left you joyless and how to recapture life’s highs.’

 

In this interview we cover:

• How she noticed a ‘lack of joy’ in her own day to day life and subsequently discovered the term “anhedonia” for the first time whilst late-night Googling
• the clash between our 'cave-dweller brain' and our 'always-on/more, more, more' modern world of comparison culture and how this hijacks our dopamine reward circuits to create a perfect breeding ground for anhedonia 
• what dopamine is actually ‘for’ - it may not be what you think…
• our inbuilt ‘negativity bias’ and how to combat it
• “glimmers” - little moments of joy that can help reduce cortisol levels
• how oestrogen and our other hormones impact the 'feel good chemicals' in us as cyclical beings and especially in peri/menopause
• how stress is the greatest enemy of joy there is…and how anticipation of ‘planned in’ activities that bring rest, enjoyment, or feed our ‘spark’ can make such a big difference to how we feel
• how joy is actually made up of three different components, rather than being just one thing
• how behavioural activation works 
• how we 'get our mojo back' - the ‘water pump’ analogy
• the impact of exercise and gratitude on our mood
• the difference between anhedonia and depression

 

And much, much more!

You can find Tanith at https://www.instagram.com/tanithcarey and https://www.instagram.com/no_more_blah_book and you can buy Feeling Blah fromhttps://www.waterstones.com/book/feeling-blah/tanith-carey/9781801292375 or wherever you buy your books!

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Katie Windle on how hypnotherapy can help us empty our ’stress buckets’ and live without anxiety

My guest this time is Katie Windle: Katie is a qualified hypnotherapist and psychotherapist and uses solution focused methods to help those who are being held back in life by anxiety and limiting beliefs to get control back and live a life of joy and ease.

Katie’s own experiences with anxiety, brain fog, overthinking and sleep problems, combined with a stressful teaching career caused her to seek both a solution to her symptoms, and ultimately a change of career. 

In this episode we cover:

• How our brains work under stress and why living in constant ‘survival mode’ with a full ‘stress bucket’ creates so many problems
• How getting back into the intellectual part of our brains makes us calmer, more motivated, happier and can cope more easily (sounds good right?!)
• How our brains work whilst we sleep to empty our ‘stress bucket’ and how hypnotherapy can help us to do the same – and create new patterns of responding
• How long it generally takes to create new neural pathways in the brain
• The range of issues that hypnotherapy may be able to help with

You can find Katie at https://www.thehypnotherapyden.co.uk/ and https://www.instagram.com/thehypnotherapyden

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

 

 

Steve Rawlings on keeping us cool through clever technology

My guest this time is Steve Rawlings, founder of Cool Embrace. Steve and his wife Lisa moved from London to leafy, rural Shropshire after Lisa suffered a brain tumour, to get away from their hectic business life and adopt a slower and more tranquil way of life. They were both involved with the fabric industry, Steve in a career spanning 50 years, mainly in specialist textiles relating to military, police, aerospace and temperature-controlling applications.

When Lisa started having night sweats, Steve harnessed his knowledge of the use of these types of fabrics to invent the Cool Embrace intra-blanket, as he couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer. After Lisa tried the intra-blanket for the first night and slept through for 8 hours straight, she was determined that he should share this revolutionary invention with other women who could benefit from it’s permanent cooling properties. 

Steve talks us through how the blanket works - which is a combination of heat dissipation and moisture control - fascinating if you’re a science geek like me! The blanket has five different layers which in combination help to move water and heat away from the body and spread heat throughout the blanket to ensure the user stays at an optimal and comfortable temperature all night. 

I’ve road-tested the blanket myself over several months, and whilst I don’t suffer from severe night sweats, I can definitely see a difference in how well I sleep and, let’s say, ‘comfort levels’ especially on hotter nights. Cool Embrace has a couple of versions of the blanket in different fabrics and sizes, as well as a silk pillow case that incorporates the cooling technology. 

They have kindly offered listeners a 10% discount code - just enter MTM23 at checkout. They also have a full money back guarantee if you find that the blanket does not work for you - that’s how confident they are that you will love yours too! 

 

https://coolembrace.com/

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Clare Bourne on pelvic floor health and building Strong Foundations

My guest today is Clare Bourne - Clare is a specialist pelvic health physiotherapist and author, based in London, with a passion for supporting women and men throughout their lives. She believes in talking openly about taboo topics and ensuring everyone feels comfortable to get support for problems that may feel embarrassing to talk about.

She worked extensively in the NHS before starting up her own private practice she’s the co-founder of the Pelvic Health Practice, a specialist team of pelvic health physios providing home visits across London and the founder of All About Mum which provides postnatal education cards, webinars and ebooks to support women with all the information they deserve.

Clare is also the author of Strong Foundations: Why pelvic health matters, an empowering guide to your body, which aims to support women to understand their bodies better. 

 

In our chat we’ll cover:

• Why our full life story - from childhood onwards - it critical in getting a full picture of our pelvic floor health
• Why the first part of her book looks at basic biology and unpicking the lack of understanding we have around our own anatomy
• Constipation in childhood and later in life and why this is so important to address
• The importance of oestrogen for our pelvic floor health
• Why kegels are just one tool in the toolkit and what is the bare minimum she recommends we do daily…
• Clare’s three part strategy: Fluids, Fibre, and Movement
• Prolapse - it’s more common than you think, and how to advocate for yourself with your GP

You can find Clare at https://www.clare-bourne.com/ and her book at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strong-Foundations-Clare-Bourne/dp/0008604223

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Jackie Jarvis on solo travelling and the lessons we learn on the way

Jackie Jarvis is a Walking Business Coach and author of Transform Your Life by Walking which documents her time walking the various pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. She runs Netwalking events, and helps business owners and professionals use ‘walking and talking’ as a transformational tool to stimulate clarity, change, strategy and greater wellbeing. 

After the breakdown of her relationship, Jackie took the decision to go solo to walk the rest of the Camino routes, and we talk in this episode about all the life (and business!) lessons that her solo travels to date have provided. We cover:

• lessons in letting go of the things get attached to (ie too much stuff, people, a plan);
• solo travelling as a woman, learning to love the silence, and getting out of your comfort zone;
• trusting the process, and trusting ourselves;
• advice for anyone considering a solo walk like this (including the Buen Camino app which Jackie used to navigate);
• what was her one non-negotiable travel ‘luxury’; 
• the liberating joy of less.

You can find Jackie at https://www.walkingbusinesscoach.com/about-jackie-jarvis and buy a copy of her book here https://theendlessbookcase.com/books/transform-your-life-by-walking/

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Paula Rastrick on our brain--body connection in perimenopause - could you be an HSP?

My guest this time is psychotherapist Paula Rastrick, creator of The Brain-Body Method - an integrated trauma informed approach to menopause for Highly Sensitive Women.

 

Paula’s story has a good many twists and turns - from a career in HR to moving into sports science and medicine working with a Premier League football team, to then setting up her own physio, yoga and pilates business…in her own words “a high-functioning stress-head”, she started to unravel as she unwittingly hit perimenopause. 

 

An ad for a private menopause clinic in 2017 led her down the path of believing HRT would be the answer to her prayers, but unfortunately for her, the high dose of oestrogen that she was started on only led to further ‘unravelling’ - including leaving her husband and young son for a time.

 

Persistent heavy bleeding combined with the psychological symptoms that were worsening eventually led to the realisation that the prescription she had been given was out of balance - with high oestrogen unopposed with sufficient progesterone. Her subsequent research, delving into her own history of complex childhood trauma, and how this, combined with being a Highly Sensitive Person, made her more susceptible to the impacts of oestrogen have formed the body of her current work on the interplay between trauma, SPS (Sensory Processing Sensitivity) and perimenopause. 

 

In this conversation we dig into:

• What it actually means to be a Highly Sensitive Person (aka someone with Sensory Processing Sensitivity) - how many of us may be HSPs and how that impacts on the brain and nervous system
• How unsafe environments, particularly in childhood, prime our nervous system to be hypervigiliant, and trauma rewires the developing brain
• How HSPs may be more sensitive to medication - including hormone therapy
• How repressed trauma often pops us in perimenopause
• How “shoving the sh*t back in the cupboard” tends to backfire eventually…

 

If, like me, you’re fascinated by the interplay between trauma and menopause symptoms, then you won’t want to miss this one!

 

You can find out more about Paula’s work at https://thebrainbodymethod.com and find her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/mrspaularastrick/ 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Fiona Clark on why she has launched the Menopause Research and Education Fund

What more fitting way to end this week - which included World Menopause Day - than to release this interview with Fiona Clark, Founder of the Menopause Research and Education Fund.  

Fiona is an Australian journalist who previously worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and was a correspondent in the Soviet Union at the time it collapsed. She returned to Australia and worked as a reporter on and then supervising producer of its equivalent of Newsnight before leaving the ABC to move to medical publishing in the early 2000s. She then moved with her family back to Russia for what was supposed to be a year, but ended up being around 10 years. She then moved to London where she set up Harley Street Emporium with the aim of delivering evidence-based information about skincare to women, but which quickly evolved to cover menopausal health and for the last 5 years she has carried out thousands of interviews with menopause experts and many amazing women about their experiences.

Most recently she has launched the Menopause Research and Education Fund and that’s why I asked her to come and tell us more about why such a charity is needed and what their plans are for the future.  

MREF is fundraising to obtain charity status and its mission is to:

- fund independent research into menopause (including topics such as migraine, HRT post-cancer, mental health, joint pain, impact of longer term HRT usage and more)

- make sure all healthcare professionals have the education they need to help women adequately and appropriately and,

- that all those who go through menopause have the evidence-based information they need so they can make informed decisions.

 

With so many of us likely to live over a third of our lives in a post-menopausal state, it’s critical for our understanding of long-term health and wellbeing that all aspects of menopause and perimenopause get the independent research that we are crying out for. 

To find out more about MREF and donate to their work visit https://mref.uk/

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Dr Lucy Ryan on why so many midlife women are revolting...

My guest this time is Dr Lucy Ryan, Lucy is a leadership coach, consultant, author, and a passionate advocate for women’s professional development. She has a Masters in Positive Psychology, lectures in Positive Leadership at the University of East London and is an honorary research fellow at the University of Liverpool.  Her doctoral research project explored the phenomenon of midlife for professional women and resulted in the publication of her latest book gloriously entitled Revolting Women: Why midlife women are walking out and what to do about it 

In our conversation we talk about:

• How Lucy struggled to get a University to accept the topic of her PhD
• The ‘tsunami of stuff’ that converges for many of us in midlife forcing many to a point where they feel they have no choice but to step out of their role
• How elder care is ‘flying under the radar’ in terms of workplace policies
• How the ‘Career Clock’ typically looks different for men and women
• How women are ‘revolting' against the insistence on full time work
• Lucy’s Ten Provocations for Change in organisations (including normalising conversations around menopause, adding gendered ageism to their diversity data, finding out why women are actually leaving, and conducting midlife check-ins for all employees) 
• The need for conversation around creative solutions for job flexibility, squiggly careers and the 50 year career
• Why sponsorship (as opposed to mentorship) matters so much

Can't waitr for you to listen!

You can find more about Lucy and her work at : https://www.lucyryan.co.uk and find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlucyryan/ 

 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Karina Antram on how you can Fix Your Fatigue

Joining me this time is Karina Antram - registered nutritionist and executive coach, and author of Fix your Fatigue. Karina is hugely passionate about health and wellbeing after her own health struggles led her to seek out naturopathic practices. After being diagnosed with IBS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Lyme Disease, Karina tried out a multitude of tests, diets, health practices, different foods and herbs to try and combat her debilitating symptoms which, at times, led her to being hospitalised. Karina is now recovered, having made numerous changes to her diet and lifestyle, but is fully aware that consistency and continuity is key.

Fix Your Fatigue is designed to be easily accessible, helping the reader identify what is draining their energy and begin to take action.

In this episode we cover: 

• the difference between ‘normal’ levels of tiredness and fatigue
• energy leaks - what they are and how to address them - including some that might not be obvious
• the impact of stress and exposure to toxins on our mitochondria and how well they function to provide us with energy
• micronutrients in our food, why they are so critical for our energy production process, why we might not be absorbing them well, and when we might think about supplementation
• using nudge theory to help ourselves with healthier habits and making changes
• Karina’s tips for making water more palatable, making your own healthy ‘nutrient toppers’ and other health hacks
• What to do first if you’re really struggling with fatigue…

Fix Your Fatigue is published by Penguin https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454007/fix-your-fatigue-by-antram-karina/9781405954693

 

You can find Karina at https://nocohealth.co.uk/ 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/