WEBVTT - Aging. Period. w/Stacy London 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.840 I'm Shonda Rhymes, and we're bringing the Dominant Stories created 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:05.120 by Shawn Land Audio in partnership with the Deft Self 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:13.440 Esteem Project. I don't think of menopause as the cessation 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.600 of being able to have biological children, although I understand 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:18.880 that that is part of it. I really do see 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:22.120 this as much more of a transition for women. As 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.680 you said, we do start to feel less concerned with 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.600 external validation and much more concerned with our own standard 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:35.920 and measure of self worth. Hey, I'm Jess Weener and 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.680 this is Dominant Stories, the podcast that helps us reclaim 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.840 and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:55.560 our bodies, our beauty, our creativity, and our identities. Today's 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.480 show is a topic near and dear to my heart, 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.560 my soul, and my you riss yep I said it, 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.760 and my uterus. It is all about aging. Well, we 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.000 know that aging happens to everybody. It really is often 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.839 women who bear the brunt of judgment, misinformation, and even 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.200 stigma about growing older. But we all could develop dominant 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.080 stories about aging. So we're going to talk about what 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.000 we can do to embrace our body image as our 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:27.200 bodies change. What stories are we currently telling ourselves about 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.039 our age and our ability, and how do we stay 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:34.520 feeling visible when we are often so disappeared by the 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.039 media as we age. On the show today, I have 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:43.360 the perfect guest to have this conversation, the incredible Stacy London. 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.959 Stacy is a woman I have long admired and you 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.120 likely have to from her time as co host on 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.040 the iconic TLC show What Not to Wear, and now 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.680 in her current role as founder and CEO for State 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.600 of Menopause, a company dedicated to making the state of 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:06.560 menopause easier. Thank you. She has written two books, Dress 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.720 Your Best and The Truth About Style. I can't wait 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.840 for you to hear this conversation, and of course, please 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.800 let me know what you think by subscribing and writing 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:27.800 a review wherever you're listening. Stacy London, when I reached 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.240 out to you to come on this show, you already 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.120 began to change my life. Where I said to you, 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:34.960 would you come on and talk to me about aging gracefully? 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.320 And you said yes. I just have to tell you 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:43.519 I don't believe in aging gracefully. I believe in aging period. Yeah, 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:48.079 you know, Look, I think gracefully is an interesting adverb 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:54.800 because to me, reeks of this kind of gendered femininity. 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.160 We don't really talk about men aging gracefully. We talked 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.640 about women aging gracefully, and so that pisces me off, 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.840 first of all. Second of all, I mean it's graceful. 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.440 It's not graceful, it's aging. I don't know where grace 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.320 certainly plays a role unless we start talking about it 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.320 from a much more superficial vantage point, like, oh, she's 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.800 aged really gracefully, meaning what that she's had enough botox 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.480 not to look her age. Listen, I'm off for it. 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.040 Do the botox, get the facelip, use the filters. I 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.400 don't care. But what's actually happening to you. Isn't changing 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.120 your aging to kind of dress it up in these 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.840 kind of cosmetic terms really bothers me because it doesn't 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.360 get at what the real issue is is that women 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.800 are punished for aging men are not. That's right. And 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.240 you know what happened when when you said that back 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.400 to me, I also realized, like, wow, look at how 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.760 easy it is to fall into those dominant stories about 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.520 how I'm supposed to age. Of course, and then I 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.160 just thought, screw it, You're absolutely right, Like we're aging 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.480 period full stop. Yeah. The one thing that I would 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.560 say where grace really us make a difference is in 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:06.880 our perspective in relation to ourselves and aging. In other words, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:13.200 we don't as women generally give ourselves enough grace and 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.599 space to deal with the kind of negative self talk 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.159 that we have internalized been taught to think about aging 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.880 and be able to kind of untangle that very messy 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.320 web of what it means to be gracious and kind 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.360 to oneself, what it means to be gracious and kind, 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:35.520 and accepting of what age gives us, not rejecting of 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.360 what age takes. And that is the narrative that we've 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:43.360 always been taught, and changing that narrative is nothing short 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:47.560 of revolutionary. And that's why when I saw your announcement 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.800 around the launch of State of Menopause, I was just 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:55.159 tickled and delighted because as somebody actively in the throes 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.800 of perimenopause and started at around forty six and a half, 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.320 what I noticed when I read that like this was 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.880 your newest venture, was it really allowed me to reflect on, like, okay, 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.359 what has been my story since going into perimenopause and 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.640 like transitioning quite abruptly by the way into that space. 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:13.960 It was like nobody really asked me, where was I ready. 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:19.200 It was like, boom, I thought menopause was optional. So 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.360 that's how much I understood about it. And when I said, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.400 when I tell you that, I truly did not understand 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:31.880 how unbelievably unprepared I was for menopause. Same for understanding it, 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:33.680 for being able to connect the dots when it came 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.799 to the issues and the effects of menopause, when it starts, 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.520 how long it lasts, what it means. Right, all of 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.839 these things were absolutely illusory to me. Like even though 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.760 all of these things were going wrong, right, I attributed 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.560 all of my perimenopausal symptoms either to the physical trauma 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.520 that I experienced after spine surgery or the emotional trauma 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.880 of losing my father. You can literally write off almost 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:02.320 every effect of menopause as thing else related to something else. Right, 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.159 So my anxiety, my stress, my mood changes, things like 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.240 that were very much easy for me to say, Oh, well, 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.479 it's fine surgery, of course I'm anxious. Of course, you know, 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:14.839 I was very short tempered. I was very you know, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.680 not understanding that progesterone is one of the hormones that 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.960 decreases first. That's related to mood directly. It's not nature 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.640 versus nurture, of course, it's always both, And certainly the 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:31.240 menopause experience is experienced by people differently right how you 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.680 get to it, whether it's chronological, age, surgical, medical People 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.120 like Dr Jen Gunter, who wrote The Menopause Manifesto, said 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.919 even a childhood trauma plays into the way that you 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.680 experienced menopause. So I looked at the physical and emotional 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:50.239 trauma and realized how much that activated the very severe 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.400 menopausal symptoms that I have less of now but still 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.119 really didn't understand at all. Of the time, I felt 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.320 like I was going crazy. And part of it it 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.719 was that, you know, all of a sudden, I kind 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:07.520 of missed a news cycle. I just somehow wasn't in 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:09.880 the loop anymore. And you know who the hell is 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.120 Emma Chamberlain from YouTube. I mean, it felt like, whereas 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.720 I have been in the center of understanding kind of 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.520 pop culture and fashion trends and style and all of 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.400 the things that I have always talked about, I felt 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.320 that I kind of, you know, got left behind. And 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.600 for me, it was very hard not to dive into 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.640 this sense of negative self talk, of feeling completely worthless, 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.320 of thinking that wow, I never got married, I never 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.720 had kids, all of these kind of markers of achievements 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.720 for women, which is also kind of ridiculous. I like 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.080 to think of menopause as a huge opportunity, a gateway 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:52.080 to safeguard the next forty years of your health. And 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.680 part of that is because we were going to live 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.600 so much longer than our mothers did or our grandmothers did. 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:00.840 And if our average life spectancy is going to be 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.040 in our eighties or nineties, we're going to be older 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.200 a lot longer than we're going to be young. So 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.800 enough aging gracefully. We're just aging right, and we're aging 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.440 a lot longer than we did before. So what do 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:13.680 we do with this time in the middle. This is 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:18.720 the perfect moment for a transition and a reinvention. You 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.080 know what strikes me is that I think there's this 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.160 move for me. I'll speak for me. There was a 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.280 move from the external to the internal at this period 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.360 of my life in in aging, and some of that 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:34.319 is about focus. It was about my focus on external appreciation, 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:40.120 validation goals into an internal communication with my body as 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:42.840 things were starting to shift and change in the dominant 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.760 stories that were coming up for me during the beginnings 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:50.319 of perimenopause forty years old choosing not to have children. 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.480 Have always known that that was not a life path 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.160 for me, and then my dominant stories were like, oh, 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.000 my god, I'm really going to not be fertile, like 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.720 last chance lady, like eggs or drop in, what do 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.400 you want to do? And like, you know, all these 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.240 stories started coming up that I don't even know where 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.680 my stories, but they were the dominant stories about my 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.200 worth or my value about like oh, you're on the 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.800 decline of your life. Well, but you know, just to 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.520 be clear, I don't want to invalidate what you're saying, 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.360 because I think what you're saying is very real and 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.960 very much a part of this experience. We don't actually 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:27.080 as a society recognize the kind of realization that we're 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.839 no longer able to have children. Right. This is something 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.280 that even as a person who did not want children, 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.520 there is something about the fact that knowing you can't 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.040 do it is different than having the option too. That's right. 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.720 In addition, I think societally and culturally we have a 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:47.079 tendency then to reduce a woman's worth to her reproductive health. 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:52.000 We are not just ovens for buns. Women in particular 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.520 are absolutely being looked at through this patriarchal lens as 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:00.280 defective once we can no longer have biological children, And 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:06.160 to me, that is the deepest, most ungraceful way to 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.360 think about it. Right. I don't think of menopause as 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.240 the cessation of being able to have biological children, although 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.720 I understand that that is part of it. I really 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.199 do see this as much more of a transition for women. 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.880 As you said, we do start to feel less concerned 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.040 with external validation and much more concerned with our own 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.760 standard and measure of self worth. Yeah. I was thinking 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:36.239 about the way that I was introduced to these concepts, 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:40.160 and I was thinking about who welcomed me into the 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.400 aging process, you know, like I knew my mother hit 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.120 menopause when she was fifty, and my mother just says like, yeah, 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:48.040 just I just stopped, and I just never had my 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.520 period and always well, we talked about a lot of things. 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.720 We certainly talked about puberty. I tried most of my 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:54.679 life not to get pregnant, right, So we talked about 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.800 sex and sex education from a preventative measure. But this 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.160 sort of natural progression in a woman's life we didn't 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.560 talk about. And I'm curious what that was like for 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.920 you growing up, and did you have different kinds of 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:09.840 conversations around aging with the women in your life. No, 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.600 I mean to be completely honest with you. The one 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:14.480 thing that I want to say about that is that, 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.360 you know, my mom did not she had a radical hysterectomy. 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:19.880 I did not know that she went into menopause. I 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.360 did not know. She didn't tell me anything about it. 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.280 She talked to me about burning her bra not burning 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.680 up right. She talked to me about what it was 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:29.840 like to be able to take the pill. You know, 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.280 what what a revolutionist was in the seventies, The fact 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.240 that she could have her own credit card after in 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.600 eighteen seventy two. I mean, these are the things that 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.439 she talked about, and how far her generation had to 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.000 kick the can down the road for us. And now 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.720 I find it very important that we continue to change 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:52.200 and more this conversation about what aging and revolution looked like. Um. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.800 And the one thing that I'll say about menopause is 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.559 that I think menopause and aging are conflated they're related, 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.600 but they are two different things. And Scientific American did 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.440 a study that I quote quite a bit that says 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.120 that the lowest point of happiness in a woman's life 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.760 was forty five to fifty four. And I don't think 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.839 that's by accident. We either have children or empty nest 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.320 syndrome where we never had children and maybe are feeling 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.600 that loss. We have elder care or dying parents. We 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.480 are in the middle of, at least for women, the 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:27.640 potential for our earning to decrease significantly at this stage 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.480 of life. These are heavy, hard things. Put on top 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.280 of that, anxiety, depression, mood swings, brain fog, night sweats, 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.520 hot flashes, I mean, weight gain, weight body distribution, joint pain, 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.160 muscle fatigue, and we put chin hairs in their chin hairs, 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:47.000 food allergies, and all of these things make it sound 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.480 like menopause is a disease and not an opportunity, right, 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.120 And that's the problem, right. I will never sugarcoat the 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:58.319 fact that the menopause experience for of post menopausal women 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:03.439 said that they experienced the jumps that were hard, not impossible, hard. 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.400 And if we are educated, if we have understanding of 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.040 our own agency, or choices around what works for us. Well, 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.640 then that hard journey is going to be a hell 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.080 of a lot easier. And that is really why I 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.800 started my company. I think that menopause has an effect 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.480 on the way that we feel about this age, not 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.720 vice versa. I love it, and I also think about 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.679 the additive layer of loneliness when you're not in communication 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.080 about these things. Right, well, I'll tell you Google analytics 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:41.520 most questions surrounding perimenopause during COVID went up. It is 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.440 not because I think more people went into menopause. I 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.600 think there was nowhere to go for help. There was 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.880 no one to ask. You couldn't go see your doctor 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.679 and create a support system around ourselves that you know, 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.520 the minute that I was given some tools, it made 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.800 life a lot easier for me to deal with this stage. 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.760 When you were back at some the first moments that 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.000 you were feeling these changes, and I've seen you write 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:05.920 a lot about this, but I was curious if you 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:10.920 could voice or articulate like what the narrative sounded like 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.680 in your own head at that time, if you remember, 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:15.800 like do you remember what the dominant story was about 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.480 that for you? All of it, I mean you know. Look, 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.520 I started my career as a magazine fashion stylist, as 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.680 an editor, and then I was in television right for 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.600 fifteen years and what Not to Where is the show 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.960 that I'm most known for. But I did Love Luster Run, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:33.280 I was on the View for a bit, I did 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.440 Access Hollywood. I was a correspondent for the Today Show. 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.840 I was on Oprah and Rachel Ray and I mean 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.360 it went on and on and on. I did campaigns 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.640 for Panting, for Well, like for Dr Schulz. There was 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.480 a point where you could turn on your television there 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.040 was a thirty percent chance I would be on your screen. 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.440 And to go from that to feeling like I kind 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:58.560 of faded away was incredibly painful. And there was an 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.600 incredibly difficult time for me where I was like, I'm 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:05.760 not worthy. I really lost my way, and I feel 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:07.040 like in a lot of ways, I was put in 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.040 a box like she can only do this, she is 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.280 only a fashion person, and fashion makeover shows are no 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.240 longer in style, so she has nothing to offer. And 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.920 these were the kinds of stories that nobody told me. 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.280 This is what I was saying to myself, right, I 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.160 was trying to rationalize where I found myself, this idea 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.400 of growing older, of starting to look different, of looking 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:30.480 in the mirror and not being like, oh, you know, 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.200 I can't drink too Martini's and wake up the next 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.520 morning looking bright eyed and bushy tailed, I look like 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.040 a hag, and understanding that my skin was changing, that 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.480 where it used to be sort of bright and dewey, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.760 it got sallow and dry. And I just didn't feel 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.960 like myself, which is probably the number one thing that 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:53.040 I hear from other women who are experiencing pre menopause, perimenopause, 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.440 or post menopause. They don't feel like themselves. One of 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.280 the things that I wrote in my book The Truth 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:02.600 about Style, was that you know, there are times where 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:05.280 you have to step away from the mirror, no matter 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.440 what age you are, no matter what transition you're going through, 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.640 and look for your reflection elsewhere, not in a mirror, 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.200 but in the example that I gave, I said, look 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.400 at your reflection through the eyes of the people who 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:22.760 love you, and understand that what they see is not 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.840 what you see and what you say to yourself. And 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.280 sometimes you need others who love you to remind you 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:33.080 of who you are. And honestly, the last six years. 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.400 That has been a real journey for me. What I 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.800 really had to think about was what do I have 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.720 to offer? What have I always been able to offer? 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.480 And how can I find a vehicle in which to 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.600 continue serving the needs of communities that I care about. 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:53.640 I got a good idea. Let's take a moment to 0:16:53.720 --> 0:17:00.360 reach hard and we'll be back in a flash. H 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.800 We're back, ready to conquer your dominant stories. Here we go. 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.400 For me, part of my long time story has been 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.800 my worth is my work. And I think where it 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.840 all became conflated and like piled up for me was 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:34.359 when my desires changed around that hustle, and it coordinated 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.199 with a time where my body was slowing down or 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:42.320 softening up or wanting different things. And then it became 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.359 a matter of like reckoning with myself. You know, hunger 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.160 has always been a theme in my life, both metaphysical 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.159 and physical, but the the hunger that I had to 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.280 want something new, and I hear that in your story 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.520 as well, and it came side by side with this 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.920 is what people know me to be and my journey 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.919 is taking me in a slightly divergent direction. Do I 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.320 have permission to go there? What will it look like? 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.679 How will I be relevant? And then on top of 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:09.800 all of that, I'm heading into the middle passage of 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.480 my life and all of these other things are happening, 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.560 and so it's not just one thing, and I think 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:20.639 it gets wrapped into fertility, productivity, connection. My relationship to 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.240 my body has changed, not in just around these things 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.320 we're talking about, but into an appreciation of it's quite frankly, 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.600 it's functionality over its adornment. Yes, I'm so with you, right, 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.440 I have had body issues my whole life. I am 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.040 five Well, I don't know if I'm five seven anymore 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.399 since this fine surgery. Let's just say at five six, 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.720 and I have been eighty nine pounds in my life, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:44.600 and I've been a d eighty pounds in my life. 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.280 That's a pretty broad range of sizes. And I can 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.439 look at anybody. I can. I can look somebody up 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.920 and down. I can I can know what size they are, 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:55.679 I can know what will look great on them. I 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:57.880 know what colors work for them. But you know, we're 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.160 always a little bit blinded by looking at our own reflection. 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.560 And for me, I've always had issues with body dysmorphia. 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.800 This is something that I've struggled with my whole life 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.560 on any channel, on any show, on any in any 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:14.159 project where I've had to help somebody kind of create 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:18.639 their own sense of style. The compassion that I naturally 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.320 had for people who were struggling was something that I 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.480 never gave to myself. And yes, I definitely think that 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.840 part of aging has been about that compassion, and not 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.240 for nothing. This hustle culture, this capitalist culture that you're 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:36.360 talking about, it is really pervasive. And this whole idea 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:41.600 of being lazy or just bored or tired or not 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:46.879 wanting to participate is not necessarily a sign of depression. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:49.720 Being able to opt out and say hey, I need 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.359 a break, I need a rest, that is something we 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.120 don't talk about enough. I agree. I did not make 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.760 this decision at fifty while I was fifty one when 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.239 I acquired the company, because I was like, wow, I 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.480 need to reinvent myself to be relevant. What I realized 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.760 was that the relevancy really was about what my existential 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.800 crisis led me to. It was about what is going 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:19.840 to bring me joy, satisfaction, happiness, contentment in this next 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.320 phase of my life, and maybe maybe that will be 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.520 done in five years maybe it won't be. But what 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:28.600 I realized is this desperation, this fear that like I 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:33.720 had nothing left to give, was something so palpable and 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.600 so scary that I just started to see everything in 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.679 my life through the lens of loss. You used to 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.520 be able to get pregnant, was the least agreed. It 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.320 was like you used to be some of the people 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.879 wanted on television. You used to be attractive, you used 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.280 to be a size this you used to be, and 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.320 never looking and appreciating what was actually happening in the moment. 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.760 And I even still carry regret that I didn't appreciate 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:02.760 what happened to me in the moment when I was younger. 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.119 But the fact is, I don't think you start to 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.840 appreciate the present until you start having less of it. 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.200 I agree, And I think what happens to as I'm 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:14.800 talking to friends and menopause and we're going into paramenopause, 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.360 is yes, we're going to live a longer life. And 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:19.920 I think at middle passage we start to reckon with 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.120 death differently. At this point we've likely had more losses 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:25.560 than perhaps we had in our youth. Although I understand 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:27.679 people have lost in their youth quite a bit. So 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.720 when you say we can't quite appreciate this from maybe 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.920 a younger station in life, I really get that now, 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.880 and I want to make it easier for our next 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.840 generation to have these stories, as I imagine you do too, 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.359 because you know, all of the work that you're doing 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.520 is about democratizing this story for people. Right. Yeah, And look, 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.520 menopause has to be something that we don't just normalize 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.199 as a conversation, but we optimize so that by the 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.000 time Gen Z gets to be this age, this will 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.639 no longer be a conversation we need to be having. 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.000 This will no longer or be a conversation where nobody 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.320 knows what to do, how to get help, how to 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.880 ask questions, and what to be ashamed of. I mean 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.560 everything that you know, the things that women talk about 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.040 being ashamed of. Right, you know, there's this whole conversation 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.159 now around younger girls and getting their period and talking 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.280 about not being ashamed to go to the bathroom with 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:21.280 a tampon, And I'm like, well, why do we have 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.000 to be ashamed of going to the bathroom without a tampon? 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.600 You know what I mean? Here is something where you 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:28.639 can start saving all the money that you were spending 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.320 on pads or cups or tampons, and buy aarrings, choose 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:36.119 a new chair. I want people to think about what 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:40.960 is possible, not what is no longer possible. Yes, and 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:43.280 the thing is that you can only do better when 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:45.639 you know better, right, And that is true of the 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:49.480 way we talk to ourselves. So if you are not 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:53.280 spending any time thinking about that negative loop that is 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:55.720