Speaker 1: I'm Shonda Rhymes, and we're bringing the Dominant Stories created
Speaker 1: by Shawn Land Audio in partnership with the Deft Self
Speaker 1: Esteem Project. I don't think of menopause as the cessation
Speaker 1: of being able to have biological children, although I understand
Speaker 1: that that is part of it. I really do see
Speaker 1: this as much more of a transition for women. As
Speaker 1: you said, we do start to feel less concerned with
Speaker 1: external validation and much more concerned with our own standard
Speaker 1: and measure of self worth. Hey, I'm Jess Weener and
Speaker 1: this is Dominant Stories, the podcast that helps us reclaim
Speaker 1: and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about
Speaker 1: our bodies, our beauty, our creativity, and our identities. Today's
Speaker 1: show is a topic near and dear to my heart,
Speaker 1: my soul, and my you riss yep I said it,
Speaker 1: and my uterus. It is all about aging. Well, we
Speaker 1: know that aging happens to everybody. It really is often
Speaker 1: women who bear the brunt of judgment, misinformation, and even
Speaker 1: stigma about growing older. But we all could develop dominant
Speaker 1: stories about aging. So we're going to talk about what
Speaker 1: we can do to embrace our body image as our
Speaker 1: bodies change. What stories are we currently telling ourselves about
Speaker 1: our age and our ability, and how do we stay
Speaker 1: feeling visible when we are often so disappeared by the
Speaker 1: media as we age. On the show today, I have
Speaker 1: the perfect guest to have this conversation, the incredible Stacy London.
Speaker 1: Stacy is a woman I have long admired and you
Speaker 1: likely have to from her time as co host on
Speaker 1: the iconic TLC show What Not to Wear, and now
Speaker 1: in her current role as founder and CEO for State
Speaker 1: of Menopause, a company dedicated to making the state of
Speaker 1: menopause easier. Thank you. She has written two books, Dress
Speaker 1: Your Best and The Truth About Style. I can't wait
Speaker 1: for you to hear this conversation, and of course, please
Speaker 1: let me know what you think by subscribing and writing
Speaker 1: a review wherever you're listening. Stacy London, when I reached
Speaker 1: out to you to come on this show, you already
Speaker 1: began to change my life. Where I said to you,
Speaker 1: would you come on and talk to me about aging gracefully?
Speaker 1: And you said yes. I just have to tell you
Speaker 1: I don't believe in aging gracefully. I believe in aging period. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Look, I think gracefully is an interesting adverb
Speaker 1: because to me, reeks of this kind of gendered femininity.
Speaker 1: We don't really talk about men aging gracefully. We talked
Speaker 1: about women aging gracefully, and so that pisces me off,
Speaker 1: first of all. Second of all, I mean it's graceful.
Speaker 1: It's not graceful, it's aging. I don't know where grace
Speaker 1: certainly plays a role unless we start talking about it
Speaker 1: from a much more superficial vantage point, like, oh, she's
Speaker 1: aged really gracefully, meaning what that she's had enough botox
Speaker 1: not to look her age. Listen, I'm off for it.
Speaker 1: Do the botox, get the facelip, use the filters. I
Speaker 1: don't care. But what's actually happening to you. Isn't changing
Speaker 1: your aging to kind of dress it up in these
Speaker 1: kind of cosmetic terms really bothers me because it doesn't
Speaker 1: get at what the real issue is is that women
Speaker 1: are punished for aging men are not. That's right. And
Speaker 1: you know what happened when when you said that back
Speaker 1: to me, I also realized, like, wow, look at how
Speaker 1: easy it is to fall into those dominant stories about
Speaker 1: how I'm supposed to age. Of course, and then I
Speaker 1: just thought, screw it, You're absolutely right, Like we're aging
Speaker 1: period full stop. Yeah. The one thing that I would
Speaker 1: say where grace really us make a difference is in
Speaker 1: our perspective in relation to ourselves and aging. In other words,
Speaker 1: we don't as women generally give ourselves enough grace and
Speaker 1: space to deal with the kind of negative self talk
Speaker 1: that we have internalized been taught to think about aging
Speaker 1: and be able to kind of untangle that very messy
Speaker 1: web of what it means to be gracious and kind
Speaker 1: to oneself, what it means to be gracious and kind,
Speaker 1: and accepting of what age gives us, not rejecting of
Speaker 1: what age takes. And that is the narrative that we've
Speaker 1: always been taught, and changing that narrative is nothing short
Speaker 1: of revolutionary. And that's why when I saw your announcement
Speaker 1: around the launch of State of Menopause, I was just
Speaker 1: tickled and delighted because as somebody actively in the throes
Speaker 1: of perimenopause and started at around forty six and a half,
Speaker 1: what I noticed when I read that like this was
Speaker 1: your newest venture, was it really allowed me to reflect on, like, okay,
Speaker 1: what has been my story since going into perimenopause and
Speaker 1: like transitioning quite abruptly by the way into that space.
Speaker 1: It was like nobody really asked me, where was I ready.
Speaker 1: It was like, boom, I thought menopause was optional. So
Speaker 1: that's how much I understood about it. And when I said,
Speaker 1: when I tell you that, I truly did not understand
Speaker 1: how unbelievably unprepared I was for menopause. Same for understanding it,
Speaker 1: for being able to connect the dots when it came
Speaker 1: to the issues and the effects of menopause, when it starts,
Speaker 1: how long it lasts, what it means. Right, all of
Speaker 1: these things were absolutely illusory to me. Like even though
Speaker 1: all of these things were going wrong, right, I attributed
Speaker 1: all of my perimenopausal symptoms either to the physical trauma
Speaker 1: that I experienced after spine surgery or the emotional trauma
Speaker 1: of losing my father. You can literally write off almost
Speaker 1: every effect of menopause as thing else related to something else. Right,
Speaker 1: So my anxiety, my stress, my mood changes, things like
Speaker 1: that were very much easy for me to say, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: it's fine surgery, of course I'm anxious. Of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I was very short tempered. I was very you know,
Speaker 1: not understanding that progesterone is one of the hormones that
Speaker 1: decreases first. That's related to mood directly. It's not nature
Speaker 1: versus nurture, of course, it's always both, And certainly the
Speaker 1: menopause experience is experienced by people differently right how you
Speaker 1: get to it, whether it's chronological, age, surgical, medical People
Speaker 1: like Dr Jen Gunter, who wrote The Menopause Manifesto, said
Speaker 1: even a childhood trauma plays into the way that you
Speaker 1: experienced menopause. So I looked at the physical and emotional
Speaker 1: trauma and realized how much that activated the very severe
Speaker 1: menopausal symptoms that I have less of now but still
Speaker 1: really didn't understand at all. Of the time, I felt
Speaker 1: like I was going crazy. And part of it it
Speaker 1: was that, you know, all of a sudden, I kind
Speaker 1: of missed a news cycle. I just somehow wasn't in
Speaker 1: the loop anymore. And you know who the hell is
Speaker 1: Emma Chamberlain from YouTube. I mean, it felt like, whereas
Speaker 1: I have been in the center of understanding kind of
Speaker 1: pop culture and fashion trends and style and all of
Speaker 1: the things that I have always talked about, I felt
Speaker 1: that I kind of, you know, got left behind. And
Speaker 1: for me, it was very hard not to dive into
Speaker 1: this sense of negative self talk, of feeling completely worthless,
Speaker 1: of thinking that wow, I never got married, I never
Speaker 1: had kids, all of these kind of markers of achievements
Speaker 1: for women, which is also kind of ridiculous. I like
Speaker 1: to think of menopause as a huge opportunity, a gateway
Speaker 1: to safeguard the next forty years of your health. And
Speaker 1: part of that is because we were going to live
Speaker 1: so much longer than our mothers did or our grandmothers did.
Speaker 1: And if our average life spectancy is going to be
Speaker 1: in our eighties or nineties, we're going to be older
Speaker 1: a lot longer than we're going to be young. So
Speaker 1: enough aging gracefully. We're just aging right, and we're aging
Speaker 1: a lot longer than we did before. So what do
Speaker 1: we do with this time in the middle. This is
Speaker 1: the perfect moment for a transition and a reinvention. You
Speaker 1: know what strikes me is that I think there's this
Speaker 1: move for me. I'll speak for me. There was a
Speaker 1: move from the external to the internal at this period
Speaker 1: of my life in in aging, and some of that
Speaker 1: is about focus. It was about my focus on external appreciation,
Speaker 1: validation goals into an internal communication with my body as
Speaker 1: things were starting to shift and change in the dominant
Speaker 1: stories that were coming up for me during the beginnings
Speaker 1: of perimenopause forty years old choosing not to have children.
Speaker 1: Have always known that that was not a life path
Speaker 1: for me, and then my dominant stories were like, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, I'm really going to not be fertile, like
Speaker 1: last chance lady, like eggs or drop in, what do
Speaker 1: you want to do? And like, you know, all these
Speaker 1: stories started coming up that I don't even know where
Speaker 1: my stories, but they were the dominant stories about my
Speaker 1: worth or my value about like oh, you're on the
Speaker 1: decline of your life. Well, but you know, just to
Speaker 1: be clear, I don't want to invalidate what you're saying,
Speaker 1: because I think what you're saying is very real and
Speaker 1: very much a part of this experience. We don't actually
Speaker 1: as a society recognize the kind of realization that we're
Speaker 1: no longer able to have children. Right. This is something
Speaker 1: that even as a person who did not want children,
Speaker 1: there is something about the fact that knowing you can't
Speaker 1: do it is different than having the option too. That's right.
Speaker 1: In addition, I think societally and culturally we have a
Speaker 1: tendency then to reduce a woman's worth to her reproductive health.
Speaker 1: We are not just ovens for buns. Women in particular
Speaker 1: are absolutely being looked at through this patriarchal lens as
Speaker 1: defective once we can no longer have biological children, And
Speaker 1: to me, that is the deepest, most ungraceful way to
Speaker 1: think about it. Right. I don't think of menopause as
Speaker 1: the cessation of being able to have biological children, although
Speaker 1: I understand that that is part of it. I really
Speaker 1: do see this as much more of a transition for women.
Speaker 1: As you said, we do start to feel less concerned
Speaker 1: with external validation and much more concerned with our own
Speaker 1: standard and measure of self worth. Yeah. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about the way that I was introduced to these concepts,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking about who welcomed me into the
Speaker 1: aging process, you know, like I knew my mother hit
Speaker 1: menopause when she was fifty, and my mother just says like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just I just stopped, and I just never had my
Speaker 1: period and always well, we talked about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: We certainly talked about puberty. I tried most of my
Speaker 1: life not to get pregnant, right, So we talked about
Speaker 1: sex and sex education from a preventative measure. But this
Speaker 1: sort of natural progression in a woman's life we didn't
Speaker 1: talk about. And I'm curious what that was like for
Speaker 1: you growing up, and did you have different kinds of
Speaker 1: conversations around aging with the women in your life. No,
Speaker 1: I mean to be completely honest with you. The one
Speaker 1: thing that I want to say about that is that,
Speaker 1: you know, my mom did not she had a radical hysterectomy.
Speaker 1: I did not know that she went into menopause. I
Speaker 1: did not know. She didn't tell me anything about it.
Speaker 1: She talked to me about burning her bra not burning
Speaker 1: up right. She talked to me about what it was
Speaker 1: like to be able to take the pill. You know,
Speaker 1: what what a revolutionist was in the seventies, The fact
Speaker 1: that she could have her own credit card after in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two. I mean, these are the things that
Speaker 1: she talked about, and how far her generation had to
Speaker 1: kick the can down the road for us. And now
Speaker 1: I find it very important that we continue to change
Speaker 1: and more this conversation about what aging and revolution looked like. Um.
Speaker 1: And the one thing that I'll say about menopause is
Speaker 1: that I think menopause and aging are conflated they're related,
Speaker 1: but they are two different things. And Scientific American did
Speaker 1: a study that I quote quite a bit that says
Speaker 1: that the lowest point of happiness in a woman's life
Speaker 1: was forty five to fifty four. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that's by accident. We either have children or empty nest
Speaker 1: syndrome where we never had children and maybe are feeling
Speaker 1: that loss. We have elder care or dying parents. We
Speaker 1: are in the middle of, at least for women, the
Speaker 1: potential for our earning to decrease significantly at this stage
Speaker 1: of life. These are heavy, hard things. Put on top
Speaker 1: of that, anxiety, depression, mood swings, brain fog, night sweats,
Speaker 1: hot flashes, I mean, weight gain, weight body distribution, joint pain,
Speaker 1: muscle fatigue, and we put chin hairs in their chin hairs,
Speaker 1: food allergies, and all of these things make it sound
Speaker 1: like menopause is a disease and not an opportunity, right,
Speaker 1: And that's the problem, right. I will never sugarcoat the
Speaker 1: fact that the menopause experience for of post menopausal women
Speaker 1: said that they experienced the jumps that were hard, not impossible, hard.
Speaker 1: And if we are educated, if we have understanding of
Speaker 1: our own agency, or choices around what works for us. Well,
Speaker 1: then that hard journey is going to be a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot easier. And that is really why I
Speaker 1: started my company. I think that menopause has an effect
Speaker 1: on the way that we feel about this age, not
Speaker 1: vice versa. I love it, and I also think about
Speaker 1: the additive layer of loneliness when you're not in communication
Speaker 1: about these things. Right, well, I'll tell you Google analytics
Speaker 1: most questions surrounding perimenopause during COVID went up. It is
Speaker 1: not because I think more people went into menopause. I
Speaker 1: think there was nowhere to go for help. There was
Speaker 1: no one to ask. You couldn't go see your doctor
Speaker 1: and create a support system around ourselves that you know,
Speaker 1: the minute that I was given some tools, it made
Speaker 1: life a lot easier for me to deal with this stage.
Speaker 1: When you were back at some the first moments that
Speaker 1: you were feeling these changes, and I've seen you write
Speaker 1: a lot about this, but I was curious if you
Speaker 1: could voice or articulate like what the narrative sounded like
Speaker 1: in your own head at that time, if you remember,
Speaker 1: like do you remember what the dominant story was about
Speaker 1: that for you? All of it, I mean you know. Look,
Speaker 1: I started my career as a magazine fashion stylist, as
Speaker 1: an editor, and then I was in television right for
Speaker 1: fifteen years and what Not to Where is the show
Speaker 1: that I'm most known for. But I did Love Luster Run,
Speaker 1: I was on the View for a bit, I did
Speaker 1: Access Hollywood. I was a correspondent for the Today Show.
Speaker 1: I was on Oprah and Rachel Ray and I mean
Speaker 1: it went on and on and on. I did campaigns
Speaker 1: for Panting, for Well, like for Dr Schulz. There was
Speaker 1: a point where you could turn on your television there
Speaker 1: was a thirty percent chance I would be on your screen.
Speaker 1: And to go from that to feeling like I kind
Speaker 1: of faded away was incredibly painful. And there was an
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult time for me where I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not worthy. I really lost my way, and I feel
Speaker 1: like in a lot of ways, I was put in
Speaker 1: a box like she can only do this, she is
Speaker 1: only a fashion person, and fashion makeover shows are no
Speaker 1: longer in style, so she has nothing to offer. And
Speaker 1: these were the kinds of stories that nobody told me.
Speaker 1: This is what I was saying to myself, right, I
Speaker 1: was trying to rationalize where I found myself, this idea
Speaker 1: of growing older, of starting to look different, of looking
Speaker 1: in the mirror and not being like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't drink too Martini's and wake up the next
Speaker 1: morning looking bright eyed and bushy tailed, I look like
Speaker 1: a hag, and understanding that my skin was changing, that
Speaker 1: where it used to be sort of bright and dewey,
Speaker 1: it got sallow and dry. And I just didn't feel
Speaker 1: like myself, which is probably the number one thing that
Speaker 1: I hear from other women who are experiencing pre menopause, perimenopause,
Speaker 1: or post menopause. They don't feel like themselves. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I wrote in my book The Truth
Speaker 1: about Style, was that you know, there are times where
Speaker 1: you have to step away from the mirror, no matter
Speaker 1: what age you are, no matter what transition you're going through,
Speaker 1: and look for your reflection elsewhere, not in a mirror,
Speaker 1: but in the example that I gave, I said, look
Speaker 1: at your reflection through the eyes of the people who
Speaker 1: love you, and understand that what they see is not
Speaker 1: what you see and what you say to yourself. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you need others who love you to remind you
Speaker 1: of who you are. And honestly, the last six years.
Speaker 1: That has been a real journey for me. What I
Speaker 1: really had to think about was what do I have
Speaker 1: to offer? What have I always been able to offer?
Speaker 1: And how can I find a vehicle in which to
Speaker 1: continue serving the needs of communities that I care about.
Speaker 1: I got a good idea. Let's take a moment to
Speaker 1: reach hard and we'll be back in a flash. H
Speaker 1: We're back, ready to conquer your dominant stories. Here we go.
Speaker 1: For me, part of my long time story has been
Speaker 1: my worth is my work. And I think where it
Speaker 1: all became conflated and like piled up for me was
Speaker 1: when my desires changed around that hustle, and it coordinated
Speaker 1: with a time where my body was slowing down or
Speaker 1: softening up or wanting different things. And then it became
Speaker 1: a matter of like reckoning with myself. You know, hunger
Speaker 1: has always been a theme in my life, both metaphysical
Speaker 1: and physical, but the the hunger that I had to
Speaker 1: want something new, and I hear that in your story
Speaker 1: as well, and it came side by side with this
Speaker 1: is what people know me to be and my journey
Speaker 1: is taking me in a slightly divergent direction. Do I
Speaker 1: have permission to go there? What will it look like?
Speaker 1: How will I be relevant? And then on top of
Speaker 1: all of that, I'm heading into the middle passage of
Speaker 1: my life and all of these other things are happening,
Speaker 1: and so it's not just one thing, and I think
Speaker 1: it gets wrapped into fertility, productivity, connection. My relationship to
Speaker 1: my body has changed, not in just around these things
Speaker 1: we're talking about, but into an appreciation of it's quite frankly,
Speaker 1: it's functionality over its adornment. Yes, I'm so with you, right,
Speaker 1: I have had body issues my whole life. I am
Speaker 1: five Well, I don't know if I'm five seven anymore
Speaker 1: since this fine surgery. Let's just say at five six,
Speaker 1: and I have been eighty nine pounds in my life,
Speaker 1: and I've been a d eighty pounds in my life.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty broad range of sizes. And I can
Speaker 1: look at anybody. I can. I can look somebody up
Speaker 1: and down. I can I can know what size they are,
Speaker 1: I can know what will look great on them. I
Speaker 1: know what colors work for them. But you know, we're
Speaker 1: always a little bit blinded by looking at our own reflection.
Speaker 1: And for me, I've always had issues with body dysmorphia.
Speaker 1: This is something that I've struggled with my whole life
Speaker 1: on any channel, on any show, on any in any
Speaker 1: project where I've had to help somebody kind of create
Speaker 1: their own sense of style. The compassion that I naturally
Speaker 1: had for people who were struggling was something that I
Speaker 1: never gave to myself. And yes, I definitely think that
Speaker 1: part of aging has been about that compassion, and not
Speaker 1: for nothing. This hustle culture, this capitalist culture that you're
Speaker 1: talking about, it is really pervasive. And this whole idea
Speaker 1: of being lazy or just bored or tired or not
Speaker 1: wanting to participate is not necessarily a sign of depression.
Speaker 1: Being able to opt out and say hey, I need
Speaker 1: a break, I need a rest, that is something we
Speaker 1: don't talk about enough. I agree. I did not make
Speaker 1: this decision at fifty while I was fifty one when
Speaker 1: I acquired the company, because I was like, wow, I
Speaker 1: need to reinvent myself to be relevant. What I realized
Speaker 1: was that the relevancy really was about what my existential
Speaker 1: crisis led me to. It was about what is going
Speaker 1: to bring me joy, satisfaction, happiness, contentment in this next
Speaker 1: phase of my life, and maybe maybe that will be
Speaker 1: done in five years maybe it won't be. But what
Speaker 1: I realized is this desperation, this fear that like I
Speaker 1: had nothing left to give, was something so palpable and
Speaker 1: so scary that I just started to see everything in
Speaker 1: my life through the lens of loss. You used to
Speaker 1: be able to get pregnant, was the least agreed. It
Speaker 1: was like you used to be some of the people
Speaker 1: wanted on television. You used to be attractive, you used
Speaker 1: to be a size this you used to be, and
Speaker 1: never looking and appreciating what was actually happening in the moment.
Speaker 1: And I even still carry regret that I didn't appreciate
Speaker 1: what happened to me in the moment when I was younger.
Speaker 1: But the fact is, I don't think you start to
Speaker 1: appreciate the present until you start having less of it.
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think what happens to as I'm
Speaker 1: talking to friends and menopause and we're going into paramenopause,
Speaker 1: is yes, we're going to live a longer life. And
Speaker 1: I think at middle passage we start to reckon with
Speaker 1: death differently. At this point we've likely had more losses
Speaker 1: than perhaps we had in our youth. Although I understand
Speaker 1: people have lost in their youth quite a bit. So
Speaker 1: when you say we can't quite appreciate this from maybe
Speaker 1: a younger station in life, I really get that now,
Speaker 1: and I want to make it easier for our next
Speaker 1: generation to have these stories, as I imagine you do too,
Speaker 1: because you know, all of the work that you're doing
Speaker 1: is about democratizing this story for people. Right. Yeah, And look,
Speaker 1: menopause has to be something that we don't just normalize
Speaker 1: as a conversation, but we optimize so that by the
Speaker 1: time Gen Z gets to be this age, this will
Speaker 1: no longer be a conversation we need to be having.
Speaker 1: This will no longer or be a conversation where nobody
Speaker 1: knows what to do, how to get help, how to
Speaker 1: ask questions, and what to be ashamed of. I mean
Speaker 1: everything that you know, the things that women talk about
Speaker 1: being ashamed of. Right, you know, there's this whole conversation
Speaker 1: now around younger girls and getting their period and talking
Speaker 1: about not being ashamed to go to the bathroom with
Speaker 1: a tampon, And I'm like, well, why do we have
Speaker 1: to be ashamed of going to the bathroom without a tampon?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Here is something where you
Speaker 1: can start saving all the money that you were spending
Speaker 1: on pads or cups or tampons, and buy aarrings, choose
Speaker 1: a new chair. I want people to think about what
Speaker 1: is possible, not what is no longer possible. Yes, and
Speaker 1: the thing is that you can only do better when
Speaker 1: you know better, right, And that is true of the
Speaker 1: way we talk to ourselves. So if you are not
Speaker 1: spending any time thinking about that negative loop that is
Speaker 1: going on, that voice in your head that is telling
Speaker 1: you that you're not good enough, that you can't do something,
Speaker 1: that you're not qualified, you're too old, that you have
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome, or whatever it is. All those are thoughts
Speaker 1: that get in the way of you doing whatever the
Speaker 1: hell you want. You know, you and I share so
Speaker 1: many things in common. I am seeing more in this conversation.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that we share is people
Speaker 1: come to us for advice and we're in the expert
Speaker 1: role quite a bit all the time, all the time.
Speaker 1: So here's my question for you, miss Stacy London. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I find that it's a role that I love to play.
Speaker 1: It's something that I value of being of service to people,
Speaker 1: and it has been tricky for me being in an
Speaker 1: expert role because in my own relationship to that it
Speaker 1: has stopped me at times from being vulnerable about not
Speaker 1: knowing and being able to say sometimes like I'm in progress.
Speaker 1: I'm in process. I don't know, and I'm curious if
Speaker 1: you've ever shared that feeling and what your relationship is
Speaker 1: as a current and former and future expert in the
Speaker 1: space of not knowing. Yeah, I'm a big believer now,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I wasn't always a big believer in
Speaker 1: not knowing. When I went from magazines to television and
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be considered an expert, I had
Speaker 1: no sense of humor about myself. I was like, I
Speaker 1: have to be the authority. People need to take me seriously.
Speaker 1: I can make fun of them, they can't make fun
Speaker 1: of me. This is my job. I'm supposed to do this.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. I have this whole set of ideas
Speaker 1: about what I was supposed to appear like on camera
Speaker 1: and not being able to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: relaxed and you know, open to questions or even constructive
Speaker 1: criticism about what I was doing right, I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. I'm in charge. I got
Speaker 1: this the moment for me, when I realized, like I
Speaker 1: have to say I don't know. I wasn't really in television.
Speaker 1: It was when I realized, Okay, I'm going to step
Speaker 1: into this role as CEO. I have no obvious qualification
Speaker 1: via CEO, and I didn't know anything about infrastructure or
Speaker 1: e commerce or law or all of the things that
Speaker 1: you know you have to learn in order to run
Speaker 1: a company. But the thing is everybody is capable of learning.
Speaker 1: If anything, I believe more now in neuroplasticity than I
Speaker 1: ever did before. And what I realize is that you
Speaker 1: have to go in being able to say I don't know.
Speaker 1: I surround myself now with people as smart as I
Speaker 1: can find them, definitely smarter than me, because all I
Speaker 1: get to do is learn. All I get to do
Speaker 1: is take this knowledge and soak it up like a sponge.
Speaker 1: And being able to say I don't know is one
Speaker 1: of the strongest, most powerful things I've ever been able
Speaker 1: to do. It is that kind of vulnerability that actually
Speaker 1: kind of creates progress in relationships in business everything and
Speaker 1: not knowing is kind of exciting. Yes, I feel the
Speaker 1: same way, and actually being able to say I don't
Speaker 1: know is one of the power tools that I offer
Speaker 1: people around challenging their dominant stories because it opens you
Speaker 1: to questioning. Right, So even if your dominant story is
Speaker 1: like you're not qualified to be in this business, lots
Speaker 1: of people have that dominant story actually being able to say,
Speaker 1: I don't know, am I I don't know? Is that true?
Speaker 1: It's just a gentle questioning. I find as a technique
Speaker 1: that I used to say, like, I hear you voice,
Speaker 1: I hear you loud and clear, but I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's true. Why what do you mean? Give me
Speaker 1: an example? Why did I want to do this? Why
Speaker 1: do I think I can do this? Why do I
Speaker 1: think I can't do this? Why you keep asking? Why?
Speaker 1: You finally get to the kernel of truth? And this
Speaker 1: idea of you know is sort of opening that door
Speaker 1: to why bingo? Right, I don't know if that's true?
Speaker 1: And so they're really connected and I never thought about
Speaker 1: that before. Yeah, me neither. And I like it in
Speaker 1: this kind of conversation because I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that we say about growing older, which I do
Speaker 1: believe is true, is all of this earned wisdom. I
Speaker 1: get that, and I want to insert the part where
Speaker 1: we don't also feel like all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: hit a certain age and then doom. You're supposed to
Speaker 1: like know it all. I think what I'm hearing in
Speaker 1: our conversation is a discovery, is a process, is a journey?
Speaker 1: Is that's where the grace and space comes in. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think of discovery like falling in love. Right Nobody
Speaker 1: there's no book that teaches you how to do that.
Speaker 1: And when you are falling in love with a person, certainly,
Speaker 1: it's layer after layer, it's moment after moment. It's an
Speaker 1: incredible process of understanding another person. You know, for me
Speaker 1: to say that, like what is my girlfriend's favorite food
Speaker 1: was part of falling in love with her? Or you
Speaker 1: know where her favorite place to go is? It was
Speaker 1: part of falling in love with her. I feel the
Speaker 1: same way about where I am in my journey right now.
Speaker 1: Discovery is like falling in love. I think about falling
Speaker 1: in love with your life. It is the opportunity to
Speaker 1: learn and open your eyes even more to things that
Speaker 1: you may have looked at a thousand times, but there's
Speaker 1: always more to know that. To me, just the idea
Speaker 1: of discovery is grace. Aging is a fact. Yes, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have it doesn't have a descriptor attached to it.
Speaker 1: But what you can do while you age, now, that
Speaker 1: is what can be done with grace beautiful. All right,
Speaker 1: you know the drill. It's that time. I'll be back
Speaker 1: before you know it. Hey, hey, we're back now, let's
Speaker 1: get into our convo. Let me set the stage. It's
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. It's one of many Oprah appearances, and
Speaker 1: you are talking to this woman about dressing for her age,
Speaker 1: and so let me play a clip and then I
Speaker 1: want to come back and hear what you think. Okay,
Speaker 1: here is my problem. Okay, you are dressing a little
Speaker 1: inappropriately for your age, my dear. Okay, So okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So where is it written? If you has a dressed
Speaker 1: a way when you get older, we can update your
Speaker 1: style and make it look like you are ageless and
Speaker 1: timeless and classic. So I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: things like this don't happen. Okay, all right, let's go.
Speaker 1: So the things like this you're pointing to a little people,
Speaker 1: I think on her shirt. Um, but this is fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, and I'm curious where where you go when
Speaker 1: you hear that. Now I cringe a little bit, to
Speaker 1: be honest, with you. It's not that I'm sure that
Speaker 1: that woman was probably dressing in a way that didn't
Speaker 1: suit her body as well as it could or wasn't
Speaker 1: as bigure flattering as it m have been. But it
Speaker 1: also wasn't really my job to say, you know, she
Speaker 1: asked the right question, She asked the question fault who
Speaker 1: says right. At the time, it felt very important as
Speaker 1: an expert to be kind of creating these rules and
Speaker 1: guard rails for people to follow and educate them. And
Speaker 1: the thing is, I think I might still say the
Speaker 1: same thing with the caveat that you can look however
Speaker 1: you want to look, you can age however you want
Speaker 1: to age. And what I what I still feel is
Speaker 1: that if we are dressing in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to suit us. In other words, if people react
Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't kind of match the way
Speaker 1: we expect them to in the way that we present ourselves,
Speaker 1: there's a disconnect there. And what I always think that
Speaker 1: is an issue when it comes to women who are
Speaker 1: getting older and whatever age they could be thirty, I
Speaker 1: don't care just as they age that there's this sense
Speaker 1: that they're still in the style that they wore in
Speaker 1: their youth, that they hold onto the style that they
Speaker 1: were when they felt best about themselves, even if that
Speaker 1: style doesn't actually suit who they are now. In other words,
Speaker 1: isn't as flattering, isn't as powerful, doesn't give them a
Speaker 1: sense of themselves other than I wish I was still young. That,
Speaker 1: to me is where the mistake that I made comes in,
Speaker 1: is that I should have said, is this look the
Speaker 1: look that you loved when you were twenty five? Or
Speaker 1: is this the look that you truly love now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but to give yourself space and grace too. Would you
Speaker 1: have known to do that at that time where you
Speaker 1: were at in your life. Like I think, as those
Speaker 1: of us who dole out advice, we do what we
Speaker 1: do best in the moment we're doing it. I agree.
Speaker 1: And I also think that like there was a formula
Speaker 1: for what not to wear? Right, it was like we
Speaker 1: really were asked to be experts in our field. We
Speaker 1: had to make sort of black and white statements in
Speaker 1: order to make it clear what our objective was. And
Speaker 1: the thing is that that's what would be you know,
Speaker 1: tricky about a show that was just telling people what
Speaker 1: to wear. Now, that's it wouldn't fly in the same way,
Speaker 1: because we have to honor who people want to be, right,
Speaker 1: I learned to be more expansive, And of course there
Speaker 1: are lots of things that I look back at and
Speaker 1: cringe and think, oh god, none of that would fly
Speaker 1: now me too, right, But it was what it was
Speaker 1: in the moment. When you know better, you do better.
Speaker 1: And certainly even my choice to change roles instead of
Speaker 1: doing something that was solely based in style, to do
Speaker 1: something that's based much more in wellness and feeling good
Speaker 1: as opposed to just be looking good is part of
Speaker 1: my own evolution bingo, And that word is really important
Speaker 1: I think for us to remember, too, is the combination
Speaker 1: of looking and feeling. That's a guide post for me
Speaker 1: to say, how do I feel in this? I let
Speaker 1: that guide a lot of my choices. Now. Yeah, well look,
Speaker 1: I mean one of the things that I say now
Speaker 1: about style right is like take the suit right. People
Speaker 1: are like, oh a suit. You're always saying, get a suit.
Speaker 1: What is it that it matters? Right? What matters about
Speaker 1: the suit? Now, if you're let's say, going on a
Speaker 1: job interview and you want to be a dominatrix by
Speaker 1: all means, where the latex cat suit if you want
Speaker 1: to work at like an old stogy corporate bank where
Speaker 1: the pinstripe suit, use the language, the visual language that
Speaker 1: is going to get you what you want. I do
Speaker 1: not make the rules. I just want you to win
Speaker 1: the game. I just want you to get where you
Speaker 1: want to go. And if dressing in a way that
Speaker 1: makes you feel like you are being your full person,
Speaker 1: your full self, and you're getting where you want to
Speaker 1: go in life, then don't let anybody stop you. Amen
Speaker 1: insert just pumping hands in the air. I love it,
Speaker 1: you know. I wanted to ask you something a little
Speaker 1: bit switching gears, but something that you made me think about,
Speaker 1: and I want to say before I forget, which is
Speaker 1: also a ps part of my growing older journey is
Speaker 1: brain fog, brain fog. It's a little brain foggy. But
Speaker 1: I was thinking about because it's not very often actually
Speaker 1: that I get to speak so publicly, or I've chosen
Speaker 1: to speak so publicly about my choice and now my
Speaker 1: husband and my choice to not have children. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking about how we mark time as and I
Speaker 1: know that a lot of my friends who have children
Speaker 1: mark time differently. They do it by the developmental stages
Speaker 1: of their children, right, It's like it's first steps, it's kindergarten,
Speaker 1: it's first food, it's whatever it is, right. And I
Speaker 1: also marked time and milestones by watching my my friend's
Speaker 1: kids grow up. So all of a sudden, I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, he's ten years old. I remember when
Speaker 1: she was pregnant. How the hell did ten years go by?
Speaker 1: I think it's different when you're not raising children inside
Speaker 1: of your home. I think the relationship to time aging
Speaker 1: progress is also uniquely different. And I just wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you if you've noticed that as well. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean I can't believe that some of my friends kids
Speaker 1: are graduating from college. Yes, I graduated from college two
Speaker 1: days ago in my in my mind, but anyway, yes,
Speaker 1: I do think that that's true. And I do think
Speaker 1: that for me that was a little bit tricky because
Speaker 1: so many of my friends had kids that I didn't
Speaker 1: feel that I could relate to them the same way.
Speaker 1: And a lot of my friends became a lot younger
Speaker 1: than me because I had freedoms that, you know, my
Speaker 1: friends were no longer had, and so for a long time,
Speaker 1: I was only spending my time with younger people, much
Speaker 1: younger people, and in a way. I think that did
Speaker 1: some damage to me as well, because I started to
Speaker 1: realize that their opportunities were still on the horizon in
Speaker 1: a way that mine were not. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: any particular job. I just mean the opportunities that come
Speaker 1: with having more days in front of you than days
Speaker 1: behind you. I had to kind of write the ship right.
Speaker 1: I had to spend time with my friends who do
Speaker 1: have kids. I just spend time with friends my own age.
Speaker 1: I just spend time with my younger friends with the
Speaker 1: perspective that I now have that I am where I
Speaker 1: am and they are where they are, and that this
Speaker 1: tendency that we have, this terrible tendency that I've always
Speaker 1: had to compare myself with others, made so much worse
Speaker 1: by social media, does nothing but devalue who you are
Speaker 1: and where you are. And when we love somebody, we
Speaker 1: have to love them unconditionally, not in relationship to how
Speaker 1: they affect us. And that was what I sort of
Speaker 1: I had to kind of re establish my relationships with
Speaker 1: people from a different vantage point and to offer ourselves,
Speaker 1: as we've been talking about throughout this conversation, the grace
Speaker 1: and love to be where we are in those moments.
Speaker 1: It is really important to remember that we can do
Speaker 1: things that are challenging that ultimately wind up being incredibly fulfilling.
Speaker 1: And even when you are negatively self speaking, that you
Speaker 1: have the potential and the power to step in and say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not sure why all the things
Speaker 1: that you preach are things that we should be talking
Speaker 1: about at this stage of life, particularly where we have
Speaker 1: wisdom to maybe answer those questions a little bit more
Speaker 1: deeply and a little bit more profoundly than we could
Speaker 1: in our youth. Exactly. I have one last question for you,
Speaker 1: and it's one of my favorite ones. I'm going to
Speaker 1: hear what you're gonna say about this. What part of
Speaker 1: your body could tell the story of your life? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that is a very interesting question. And I
Speaker 1: would say the part of my body that probably tells
Speaker 1: the most about my life is my skin. And I
Speaker 1: know that that's a pretty big organ, actually the largest organ.
Speaker 1: But you know, my body is riddled with scars from operations,
Speaker 1: from topical steroids from my psoriasis as a child. My
Speaker 1: skin has been at the center of my story since
Speaker 1: I was three years old when I was diagnosed with psoriasis.
Speaker 1: And I had no idea what that meant, except that
Speaker 1: I was told that it was chronic, that I would
Speaker 1: always have it, and that something was wrong with me.
Speaker 1: And that is very difficult language for a child to
Speaker 1: understand or to really process, other than to know something
Speaker 1: is wrong with me. Right. I was covered in soo
Speaker 1: rised this from my neck down from the time I
Speaker 1: was eleven to thirteen, after incredibly bad battles with strap throat,
Speaker 1: and I was made of scales. I wore white turtlenecks
Speaker 1: and long black pants every day, even in the summer.
Speaker 1: I had to cut my hair. It was much longer
Speaker 1: than it is now. I had to cut it into
Speaker 1: a crew cut because the cold tar that we were
Speaker 1: using on my scalp. My mom used to scrub it
Speaker 1: out with or acid. It was always about my skin.
Speaker 1: It was, in some sense, always about the visible, which
Speaker 1: is why the internal work of validation has been so
Speaker 1: hard for me and so necessary. And so I would
Speaker 1: say that my skin really does tell a story. My
Speaker 1: scars tell a story. It's one thing to say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, they're badges of honor. I'm a warrior, I've
Speaker 1: been through all that. Blah blah bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, right,
Speaker 1: what it is? It's my story, That's all it is.
Speaker 1: It's my story. And rather than put a value judgment
Speaker 1: on it, rather than saying I'm brave or how courageous,
Speaker 1: or oh, it's amazing that you've gotten past this, or
Speaker 1: oh poor you boo, who look at that scar? That's terrible. Whatever,
Speaker 1: It's just my story, just like your story is your story,
Speaker 1: and the best thing that we can do with the
Speaker 1: story is fucking tell it. And when the story doesn't
Speaker 1: serve you, to change it. Change it in, chuck it,
Speaker 1: change in, chuck it and challenge it. This is the
Speaker 1: whole point of this show, Stacy. Where can people find
Speaker 1: out more? Where where can we send people to get connected? Sure? Well,
Speaker 1: of course our website State of Menopause dot com. Our
Speaker 1: new blah is up now so you can read articles
Speaker 1: from some of our medical experts who are on our
Speaker 1: medical Advisory Board, as well as for products. You don't
Speaker 1: need to know where you are in the menopause journey
Speaker 1: to see if there is a product that will work
Speaker 1: for you. There is a search engine so you can
Speaker 1: shop by issue rather than just by product. We are
Speaker 1: shop state of on Instagram and Facebook and obviously you
Speaker 1: can find me Stacy London, you know pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 1: Stacy London Real on Instagram, Stacy London on Twitter, Stacy
Speaker 1: London on Pinterest, Stacy London Official on on Facebook. You know,
Speaker 1: they make it hard for you to always have your name.
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you so much, thank you, just
Speaker 1: thank you so many great gems from Stacy London. But
Speaker 1: I think number one, we got to talk about this more.
Speaker 1: Whether we're talking about the process of aging, the ups
Speaker 1: and downs of aging, and of course body changes in menopause.
Speaker 1: We just have keep normalizing that conversation. So talk about
Speaker 1: it with somebody you love and trust, ask a doctor,
Speaker 1: talk about it with your friends. I think the more
Speaker 1: we can normalize it, the better. I also really got
Speaker 1: the sense that we, and I know I do, need
Speaker 1: to get more educated about these things. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it has to be a big homework assignment. You
Speaker 1: don't have to kind of like absorb a whole whole
Speaker 1: book about it. But I say, you know, look up
Speaker 1: an article, try to get some expert specific facts because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff out there, So be diligent
Speaker 1: as you look up and get educated. But let's get
Speaker 1: educated and then, of course, the big part of our
Speaker 1: conversation today with Stacy was challenging those dominant stories, the
Speaker 1: things that say, who are you to run that company?
Speaker 1: Or you know you're not as vital or worthy anymore
Speaker 1: as you're aging. She has an approach where Stacy would ask,
Speaker 1: why why am I thinking that? Why do I believe that?
Speaker 1: I have an approach where I say, like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: is that true? I'm not sure that's true. I like
Speaker 1: to get curious about those dominant stories. But either way,
Speaker 1: I think let's challenge those negative voices that tell us
Speaker 1: these life changes are signaling some ing terrible and instead,
Speaker 1: as Stacy so beautifully said, we're all aging aging period.
Speaker 1: But how we do it, how we can embrace it.
Speaker 1: That's where the grace and compassion comes in. And if
Speaker 1: you're interested in exploring more about your dominant stories and
Speaker 1: how you can challenge them and change them, I teach
Speaker 1: workshops on this stuff, so you can always sign up
Speaker 1: at Jess Weiner dot com. You can follow me on
Speaker 1: Instagram at I'm Jess Weiner. I really love the community
Speaker 1: that we're creating. I love the stories you're sharing and
Speaker 1: the questions you're asking So if you want to tell
Speaker 1: us about your Dominant Stories that you're rewriting and working on,
Speaker 1: you can email us at podcast at Dominant stories dot
Speaker 1: com or leave us a voicemail at two one three
Speaker 1: five nine three zero three three. And don't stress, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put all that in the show notes. And next
Speaker 1: week we're going to talk about creativity with my talented
Speaker 1: and kind and super genius friend, Alex Blackamore. Alex is
Speaker 1: an award winning music director, arranger, composer. You know he's
Speaker 1: done some like small but successful Broadway shows like Hamilton's
Speaker 1: Dear Evan Hansen in the Heights. Yeah, those shows. Alex
Speaker 1: is incredible. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks so much for being here, and please
Speaker 1: don't forget to write a review wherever you're listening. It's
Speaker 1: super duper duper helps us out. And remember we're always learning,
Speaker 1: we're always growing. Dominant Stories with Jess Winer is a
Speaker 1: production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.