Empowering Women Leaders: The Key Role of Interoception

As a Self-Aware Woman Leader, you’re likely aware of the external challenges that comes as a woman in your position — navigating workplace dynamics, managing teams, and getting results (in addition to all the other hectic life stuff – aging parents, young kids, pets, social life, book club, extra-curricular activities and of course the non-stop group messaging for parents!).

But what about the internal landscape? How often do you tune into your body’s signals, understand what’s going on so that you can connect with your deepest sense of self? These internal processes, often overlooked, are foundational to leading with confidence and authenticity.

What is Interoception?

Interoception is your body’s ability to sense its internal state. It’s the awareness of signals from within—like your heartbeat, breath, hunger, or the butterflies in your stomach before a big presentation. Interoception plays a crucial role in how you experience emotions, manage stress, and make decisions.

For women leaders, honing interoceptive awareness can be a game-changer. It’s not just about noticing what’s happening inside; it’s about interpreting these signals accurately and responding to them in ways that align with how you want to be as a leader. To your team, to your kids, to the world.

It's common to feel ‘something’ in our bodies before, during or after something that’s taken us out of our comfort zone. It might be that we can’t pin point exactly what you’re feeling and so our brain looks to make meaning of this ‘something’ inside of us.

Sometimes it’s things like ‘You don’t know enough to present this to the board’ or ‘You’re asking too for too much of a pay rise’ or ‘You need to say yes to this to prove you’re worth it’.

This is where knowing about interoception and how it relates to your nervous system can help you quash these thoughts so that you’re not acting from a place of fear or self-doubt.

Why Your Nervous System Matters

Your nervous system is the command centre of your body, constantly responding to internal and external stimuli. It operates in different ways when you experience stress or a challenging moment (such as going out of your comfort zone) and you’ll either move into a survival-led state of fight, flight, freeze or fawn (people pleasing).

When you’re aware of your nervous system’s state, you gain insight into how stress, anxiety, and external pressures affect you. Often we have patterns that have been deeply embedded since childhood and are used over and over. More importantly, you can develop strategies to regulate these states, allowing you to respond to challenges with clarity rather than reacting impulsively and from survival-led place.

Understanding and managing your nervous system enables you to remain calm under pressure, communicate effectively, and lead with poise. This awareness is not only essential for your well-being but also for the well-being of your team (or family!). A regulated leader can create a stable and supportive environment, fostering trust and productivity.

Using Self-leadership

The concept of “Self” in IFS is akin to the “Sage” in Positive Intelligence (of which I am a coach). Self represents your core essence—the calm, confident, courageous and compassionate part of you that can stay present, no matter the circumstances. Leading from Self is distinctly different from leading from the many other parts of you that may be driven by fear, anger, or insecurity.

When you lead from Self, you’re not reacting from a place of anxiety or stress. Instead, you’re grounded, regulated, clear-headed, and aligned with your values. This state allows you to respond to challenges with wisdom and empathy, making decisions that reflect your true leadership potential.

How to Cultivate Interoception and Lead from Self

1. Practice Orientation: Regular orientation practices, such as meditation or breathwork and focussing on your senses, can help you become more attuned to your body’s signals and your nervous system’s state.

2. Body Scans: A body scan is a simple yet powerful practice where you mentally scan your body from head to toe, noticing any sensations without judgment. This practice enhances interoceptive awareness and helps you connect with your physical self.

3. Self-Inquiry: Regularly ask yourself questions like, “How am I feeling right now?” or “What does my body need?”. This practice fosters a deeper connection with your internal state and supports leading from Self.

4. Conscious movement: Taking time for moving with a real awareness of how all the muscles in your body are experiencing this movement and getting curious about how moving something a millimetre affects the sensations allows you to be present and connect with your Self energy, enabling you to access your inner wisdom and lead with greater clarity and purpose.
   

The Impact on Your Leadership

When you combine interoceptive awareness with an understanding of your nervous system and knowledge of your self-led behaviours, you’re not just managing stress; you’re transforming how you lead. By cultivating these practices, you develop the ability to stay centred in your Self, making decisions from a place of confidence and compassion.

In a world where women leaders often face unique challenges, leading from Self isn’t just a strategy—it’s a necessity. It empowers you to navigate the complexities of leadership with grace, ensuring that your decisions and actions are aligned with your true values and vision.

By embracing the power of interoception and your nervous system, you can step into your full potential as a leader—grounded, confident, and ready to inspire others from a place of authenticity and strength.

If you need support in getting started with learning and accessing more of your Self, check out my programme ‘Authentic & Confident Self Leader’.

I Just Don’t Feel Like Myself Anymore - A Peri-Menopause Journey

It was New Years Day 2022, I was 42 years old.

I woke up hungover, feeling a bit shit and I got a very clear message from my body that said:

'I don't want to do this anymore'

This was the start of my peri-menopause journey.

Over the next few years I would go on a path that would lead to me learning more about this phenomenon that every woman's body goes through, how the symptoms showed up for me, the research, the myths, the highs, the lows and the HRT. 

This is not the kind of thing I usually write about, I’m an Executive Somatic Coach. And yet lots of women I coach are going through this phase of life and because every woman's experience is different, I'm writing this so that you or someone else you know may read it, perhaps identify with parts of it and then do your own research, take your own path through this time.

That New Year's day was the last day that I drank alcohol. I firmly believe looking back that on that morning, my body knew the year that was to come in relation to symptoms on this peri-menopause journey and it was telling me in no uncertain terms that I didn't need alcohol muddying the waters. I wasn't a massive drinker since having kids, more of a binge drinker on a good night out, maybe once or twice a month. But that once or twice a month was followed by three days of feeling shit and tired and overall rubbish (so roughly 9 days a month feeling crap). So I stopped and haven't drunk since. I found it easy, which is different to a lot of the stories you hear and I will write a blog about this!

That same year I started a somatic (body wisdom) coaching course that saw me tuning into more of what my physiology needs and wants by slowing down, observing what I needed, cultivating safety from a physiological sense and regulating of my nervous system.  So I was in a really good place when everything started, I had loads of support, loads of tools and strategies and was working on myself in big way. I felt like I knew a lot about myself.

But when the symptoms started, there was a definite sense after a few months of ‘what in that I-don’t-feel-like-myself is going on here?’

On 'The Balance App', designed by Dr Elizabeth Newson, a leading menopause specialist, there are SIXTY FIVE symptoms of peri-menopause that you can track daily to see how they are affecting you. They are:  

Abdominal pain | Acne | Altered sense of smell | Anxiety | Bloating | Brain fog | Breast pain or tenderness | Cramps | Crying spells | Diarrhoea | Difficulty concentrating | Difficulty sleeping | Dizziness or feeling faint | Dry eyes | Dry hair | Dry skin | Facial hair | Feeling nervous | Frequent urination | Hair loss or thinning | Headaches | Hot flushes | Incontinence | Irritability | Irritable legs | Itching | Joint pain | Lack of interest in things | Low libido | Low mood or depression | Low motivation | Memory problems | Migraine | Mood swings | Mouth and gum problems | Muscle pain | Nausea or sickness | Night sweats | Panic attacks | Pressure in head | Tingling hands and feet | Tinnitus | Tired or low energy | Weight gain | Wind | Allergies | Brittle nails | Burning mouth | Cold sweats | Constipation | Difficulty breathing | Excitable |  Feeling tense | Heart Palpitations | Heartburn | Numbness in body | Numbness in hands or feet | Pain passing urine | Painful sex | Sagging breasts | Skin crawling | Vaginal bleeding | Vaginal dryness | Wrinkles

What an awesome list eh??

Some of the symptoms are not ones that you even want to admit because of how society views them as a woman. And of these 65 symptoms, I was experiencing 45 of them! Soooo many times I tested myself for covid because I thought that's why I must be so tired. The tests were always negative.

And yes, it's fair to say that when you read the list above, it can be like 'well that's just getting older', which it is....but I found that what I was experiencing were symptoms that hadn't EVER been a thing in my life that  were now impacting me on a daily or weekly basis and making my life a lot more challenging from within myself.

So here are the symptoms of peri-menopause as I experienced them. Some were everyday, sometimes a couple of times a week, sometimes more would occur all at once. A lot of the time there was no rhyme or reason.

• I was bone tired. A lot. I could wake up from a 10 hour sleep (not even waking in the middle of the night to go for a wee) and then in the afternoon, I'd be falling asleep at my computer and simply have to have a 30 minute nap where I was 'dead to the world'.
  

• I had a lot of anxiousness for seemingly no reason. It would start in the morning a bit but by the time I’d drop my kids off at school I’d have this feeling in my stomach on the drive home and it would last all morning, sometimes all day. No matter what strategies I had learned to try and be more mindful, present, calm, the anxiousness would come straight back once I finished the exercise. And then suddenly it would go when I hadn't been trying anything.
  

• The only other time in my life I had experienced the same type of anxiousness was after my daughter had been born and they related it to hormones - this was a key for me in identifying that it was peri-menopause. Before I realised this, I had been examining lots of areas of my life and trying to come up with 'stories that made sense' for why I was feeling anxious. The only story there needed to be was that what I was experiencing was scientific and it was my hormones causing this anxiety.

• I had diarrhoea most mornings even though I wasn't ill. (this is one of those ones I found hard to talk about because who wants an image of someone on the shitter each day - I now realise no-one actually cares 🤣)

• I started getting hair on my chin (this is also one of those ones that I found hard to talk about because of the stigma, but I'm over that now. My kids help me pluck my chinny-chin-chin sometimes cos their eyesight is better 😆)

• I was never sure that I was smelling stuff 'right'. If my kid would fart, I couldn't always smell it (this was a benefit but also one of the ones that made me think it was covid). If I was cooking food, I couldn't smell it so if I was cooking people might say 'it smells yum in here', but I couldn't smell it.

• I was never sure I was tasting stuff 'right'. I could add salt to a meal and not really notice the difference. People would say 'this is so delicious' and I would think they were just being nice. (this is one of the ones that made me think I had covid)

• I would get stomach cramps for no reason. I tried relating this to food I ate, but the timings never made sense and no one else would get a sore tummy.

• Terrible acne on my chin every month. Like pimples the size of Mt Fuji. Awesome.

• I never really knew what brain fog was. People talked about it and I just thought I was lucky that I didn't get it cos it wasn't a fog for me. Then I realised for me it was 1,000 bunnies jumping around in my head flitting from one thing to the next, making me forget what I was doing mid 'doing or putting the milk carton in the dishwasher or the dirty dishes in the fridge without a second thought.

• The breast pain....ooooh the breast pain. I remembered having breasts this tender not long after giving birth (which had been 10 years prior). The thought of someone touching them would make me wince. This time it was things like my daughter running in to give me a hug and her head bashing against them and I would cry out in agony. Or accidentally bumping my nipple. Or my daughter rolling over in bed and knocking my chest.....yeoooowwww!!!

• I'd get cramps in different parts of my body that I'd never been susceptible to before.

• I'd cry and cry for no reason, for like a whole day. I couldn't pinpoint any reason for being unhappy, but it was a deep sadness that would come for a day and then go the next and it wasn't linked to a particular part of my menstrual cycle.

• Because of the bunnies in the head, I found it really hard to concentrate on anything and flit from thing to thing - so much so I started looking into whether I had ADHD (still a possibility but I was directed down the route of peri-menopause after a consultation with an ADHD screener).

• I'd wake up at between 2am - 4pm many mornings. Many times it was 3.43am exactly.and for no apparent reason e.g. I didn't need to go to the loo.  Getting back to sleep was impossible until about 6am and then I'd be woken up from a really deep sleep to start the day.

• My eyes sometimes felt like they were on FIRE....so dry and no amount of weeping seemed to stop the burning feeling.

• My hair went dry as hell and started breaking off at the ends so has never really grown longer than just past shoulder length. It definitely thinned out.

• I'd feel nervous about stuff, but not sure why - it was a fine line between nervousness and anxiety. They say that nervousness is excitement without the deeper breath, but this was definitely not excitement.

• Hot flushes - I had two - more about them later, they were awesome.

• I started not being able to hold in my wee. Bearing in mind my kids were 10 and 12 at the time of all this going on, the only time I'd had trouble with leakage was when I was jumping on a trampoline, but now I was getting to the point of almost full on wetting myself if I needed to go to the loo - it was like I couldn't hold it in anymore.

• The RAGE - there were times when my husband just had to drink a glass of water and the sound of him drinking I wanted to rip his head off. Or chewing. Some days I could wake up and feel so much RAGE it was unreal - I'd never experienced this kind of thing in my life and have always been quite a calm person. I think I kept most of it controlled using lots of breathing or leaving-the-damn-room strategies, but it was sooooo hard. I remember listening to story of a woman in peri-menopause saying she was so angry she threw the vaccum cleaner through a closed window so it smashed it and landed out on the lawn and at the time my thought was 'that sounds like completely understandable behaviour' 🤣😂

• My legs and torso would itch so bad. I would end up red raw from scratching even though there were no 'bites' or anything.

• Many mornings I would wake up and get out of bed like a 100-year old woman. My joints and muscles would be so stiff, I would walk to the toilet hunched over at the waist because it was hard to straighten up.

• I had a big lack of interest in things - it had to be something really freakin enticing to keep my attention otherwise my mind would wander. This included talking to my kids about their day - so hard to concentrate.

• I put on about a stone (7kgs) in weight out of nowhere. I had been the same weight for 12 years and was still eating in exactly the same way and then all of a sudden was about a stone heavier over the course of a couple of months. It didn't matter what I did, the scales just kept going up and up and stuff that had worked in the past to 'lose a couple' did nothing to change the situation and still havent!

• Low libido - yep - had no interest.

• Out of nowhere I started having migraines - I've had headaches in the past from drinking but with these I couldn't even lift my head and just had to go and lie my head on a pillow in a darkened room and sleep it off. These would be around once every 1-2 months.

• I had problems with my gums - they'd ache or be really sensitive.

• I thought I was getting dementia - my husband would talk about things we'd discussed to do with logistics and I would have no recollection of the conversation. Sometimes I thought he was making things up. Mid sentence I would not be able to think of a word. This is the only symptom I remember my mum having (she didn't know it as peri-menopause) because my sister and I used to think she was getting Alzheimer's when we were teenagers.

• In the morning my daughter used to jump into bed and I remember her saying 'Mummy, why are you always so sticky now'. Night sweats happened really frequently, waking up dripping with sweat, even when it was a cold night. Night sweats were not enough to diagnose peri-menopause - more about that later.

• I had a few panic attacks - I've never had these in my life and haven't had them since being on HRT.

• The pressure in my head some days, it felt like my head was going to explode.

• But the best part - the wind! There were some rippers out both ends!

So as you can see, life was pretty fun! When it all started, I had written a blog '10 things I believe help me create more joy in my life' a few months previously and then all of a sudden, even though I was doing all those things and I had been in a super joyful place, they didn't feel like they were working as well at all. I felt like a fraud even having that blog up. I didn't feel like myself and nothing was helping change that for good.

So I finally decided to do something about it from a medical perspective and I'd heard about the menopause documentaries done by Davina McCall and thought 'I'll start there' and watched them - there are two. I can't remember the story exactly (go memory ha ha), but I remember being moved to tears by a woman saying something like 'she wouldn't', but she felt like it would be easier if she was just no longer here on this earth. I don't remember feeling EXACTLY like that, but I remember thinking 'holy shit, what if I got to that, I can see how I could get to that if this goes on' and I sobbed and sobbed for this woman.

Then there were the female scientists in the second documentary (that's more about peri-menopause) who had been studying the brains of women going through peri-menopause and menopause and found that the decrease in oestrogen directly correlated to the decrease in brain activity in peri-menopausal brains they scanned. They said that once someone has been through menopause, the decrease in brain activity could be PERMANENT. Their message was 'don't wait' to get started on HRT.

These two things were what made me take action. I think before then it was a classic woman thing of not putting myself first to get this sorted out, putting up with feeling a bit shit and also 'just getting on with it' and 'sucking it up'.

But fuk me, permanently decreased brain activity? No thanks bruv.

So I rang my local GP, asked who was the menopause specialist and made an appointment (I was living in the UK at the time).

By this stage I hadn't heard of the Balance app, but I had done a bit of research and had a page of about 20 symptoms on a piece of paper with some notes and went armed with this to the appointment. I'd heard through the documentary and from joining a facebook group that doctors at the time didn't know a huge amount about menopause and would palm you off or that it was common for you to know more than them so I was kinda prepared for this. Plus, I was still accessing a lot of good stuff with coaching, nervous system regulation, knowing myself inside out etc. But not to worry, I was going to see a menopause specialist, so surely they would just see it straight away for what it is, no?

At the appointment the doctor listened to my experience and looked at my page of notes and said that they would suggest testing thyroid and doing blood tests to check that there wasn't anything else going on. She asked if I was having hot flushes (at the time I wasn't) and that because I wasn't having hot flushes, I was too young to be going through peri-menopause (I was 42 and still having regular periods).

When I asked her how all these other symptoms could be explained she said she thought I was depressed. Having just finished my somatic coaching training, I was so bloody well resourced it was untrue. I had been having 1-2 coaching sessions a week with my peers so talking about stuff all the time. We had no financial worries. My business wasn't overly stressful, I had a nice life. Sure I had kids that pushed my buttons, but could kids really be the source of all these symptoms (hmmmm…maybe ha ha).

The reality was that I was feeling unhappy at times because of all the symptoms that were being caused by the hormones, which felt similar to the hormones post natal....I was not fucking depressed. I knew that, but even I felt a bit of a waiver of certainty about this.

In far less colourful language and very calmly (because I was so regulated combined with classic good girl conditioning) I relayed this to her. And what of the night sweats, how do they relate to depression? This held no sway apparently they are not the holy grail of peri-menopause - hot flushes you have during the day are. Disappointed but resolved to 'do what was needed', it was arranged that I would have the blood tests and meet with her in a month to see what the results were and decide a way forward given the evidence.

During that month I had a trip away to Wales with my husband and some family. I was in the hotel sitting down to breakfast and all of a sudden I noticed my calves were sweating. Like I could actually feel the beads of sweat on my calves through my leggings, it was bizarre, and when I touched my calves they were damp. This sweatiness and heat moved all the way up my body to my face, to the point that I just HAD to take my jumper off (it was November in the UK - cold!) and I asked everyone 'is it just me or is it really hot in this room', to which they confirmed it was not hot at all, cold if anything because it was only about 3 degrees outside!

The only way that I can describe my first hot flush....was that the sweatiness and heat rose up my body, it felt a bit like what I imagine a re-birth might feel like. Like an uncloaking....I got a real sense of me stepping out of one phase of my life and into the next phase - and I felt like I was a fucking powerful, wise, regal goddess ready to take on the world. It was UNREAL and I LOVED IT. I know not everyone experiences it this way and I looked into it a bit.....however in some cultures, they see the menopause as a huge time of celebration as you move into the wise woman era of your life - you become a wise elder and I LOVE this idea. This is exactly how it felt for me.

(and there was also a part of me that was like 'take that doctor', because I knew armed with the holy grail of the hot flush, she would start listening to me about peri-menopause)

I walked into that next appointment having had two hot flushes. My blood results were all normal (I don't actually know what she was testing for, but I have since learned that testing for hormones are pointless as they fluctuate so much in the day - which is why some of my symptoms would just disappear!). My thyroid was operating as expected. And I'm not gonna lie, I sat up a little straighter and didn't quite give her the eyebrows when I said 'I've had two hot flushes baby!'. (ok I didn't say baby, but in my head I did)

Well that was it, she put me straight on the HRT, not another question asked. Who knew hot flushes are the be all and end all of the peri-menopause. It didn't matter that by that stage I'd found out through research that I had another 25 symptoms to add to my original count of 20 symptoms. The two hot flushes trumped them all.

In January 2023 almost a year to when my body told me to quit alcohol, I went onto a Everol 50 patch - a patch that releases oestrogen and progesterone over the course of the day - I would change mine Tuesday (after hockey training) and Saturday (after a hockey match) otherwise they would fall off from sweating so much. Much like a smoker you stick the patch to your butt or hip (not scientific, but I found it better when mine was on my hip so have a play around with this).

After about three weeks, I started to feel better. My symptoms lessened. And then some of them went. I didn't experience anymore hot flushes. Diaorrhea mostly gone, no night sweats, anxiety almost non-existent. Started to feel more myself. Still tired, but not so fatigued I'd need so many naps in the day.

This lasted for six months before some of the symptoms started to increase again. I went to a different doctor who specialised in menopause and straight away when I told her my symptoms she said 'we'll up your dose of oestrogen and you'll feel better within a week'. And she was right.

I moved on 75mg of oestrogen (patch) combined with progesterone tablets that are used to stop the lining of the womb getting too thick. Every 28 days or so, I have what they call a withdrawal bleed that is aligned with the HRT but isn't necessarily aligned with the 'cycle' of how I feel or experience energy and creativity. I found with this higher dose that one day of my withdrawal bleed I had pretty bad stomach pain, that's something I'm experiencing less now that I've been on it a while, but I did get fibroids and adenomoyosis checked out and I was all clear, so still not entirely sure what that is.

I'm learning more about my cycle - there's lots of people out there who can teach you about the different seasons of your cycle (winter, spring, summer, autumn) and how that can map with your energy levels, how creative you are, how you might feel more self doubt at a certain time of month or feel like you just want to be on your own and slow vs times where you feel really social and crave connection. And also how this can also align with the moon phases. It's fascinating and something that I wish was taught to girls in schools, maybe it will in time.

The period between noticing symptoms, doctors appointments, getting a diagnosis, trialling estrogen to me feeling better was probably about six months. During that time, something that helped me massively was playing hockey. Every Tuesday I did NOT want to go to training and every Tuesday I went so that I didn’t let my team down and I felt better. Every Saturday felt hard to get up the energy to play in a match, but going because of my team helped me feel better and I feel a lot of emotion when I think about how that helped me through that period of my life, those young players, those players my age would not even know the impact they had on my wellbeing because I’m not sure I even knew then. Even the days when I was so dog tired I could barely run around on the pitch, it helped. Having other women who were going through the same thing and talking about it with them helped. Getting up and going for a walk helped. It would have been so easy to stay in bed all of those times and there were definitely days where doing that helped too. Tune into your body.

Because I talk about this with most people my age that I meet (from all genders), I’ve heard and learned a few things that stuck out to me too:

• A senior leader taking a new recruit around the office to introduce people and not being able to remember any of their names despite working with some of them for 20+ years.

• A woman reporting to her CEO and the board and in that meeting going completely blank about what she was talking about and having to let her team take over because she couldn't remember.

• A woman who got her HRT sorted that for six months she was as randy as hell and jumping her husband any chance she could get - it's not all low libido!

• That 7/10 divorces occur because of peri-menopause and the menopause (see experience of RAGE above to give an insight into why that might be 🤣)

• Testosterone can help with energy.

• This shit can last for 7-14 years.

RESOURCES

If you only do one thing today, download this research into women’s brains so that more research can be commissioned….

20th June 2024 a ground-breaking new study was published by neuroscientist Dr Lisa Mosconi @dr_mosconi and others in Nature, one of the top scientific journals in the world.

For the first time ever, they have been able to put tracers in the brain that tracks estrogen activity in women’s brains. The brain as well as ovaries can produce estrogen. The results show how estrogen receptor density changes in women’s brains during the menopause journey.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-62820-7

Clicking and downloading this paper shows the major science/medicine journals that studies relating to menopause are important and more should be published.

Here’s Dr Mosconi’s take: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8cSVQzMXyw/...

Dr Mosconi talks about it more here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8cdDMLu6TF/?igsh=MXhxZHhkdm55dXB5dw==

1/5 women will leave their career due to symptoms of peri-menopause / menopause and so far most of the research has only been done on mice’s brains not actual human women’s brains 😲 Funny story (sarcasm ) this research shows mice’s brains are different to a woman’s as they found estrogen receptors in parts of women’s brains that were not present in mice.

There is evidence that the higher your total lifetime of estrogen exposure means less risk of developing Alzheimer’s so this study shows that during peri-menopause and menopause, rather than declining, the estrogen receptors are lighting up as they are hungry for estrogen! But unfortunately estrogen production declines during this phase..

So many more studies are needed…

The DOAC podcast with Dr Lisa Mosconi:

My takeaways from this were:

• Peri-menopause is a brain condition, but the professionals that prescribe and diagnose are not trained in the brain (e.g. Gynaecologist)

• Black and brown people suffer more greatly with peri-menopause and professionals don't know why because…..it's never been studied (this was like wow WTF and I hope that more is done asap). 

• Menopause that is surgically induced (e.g. Cancer patients) also affects trans people who have had a hysterectomy to transition, which can be as a teen in some cases.

• When the media originally reported that HRT was dangerous and increased risk of breast cancer, they didn't tell the whole story in that the group of people being given HRT in this study were 70-80 year olds, which yes, HRT is not beneficial then. Now the research shows the risk is minimal.

• Get rid of as much plastic in your kitchen and toxins from your home, skin, beauty.

• Eat legumes.

• What women have been saying for YEARS is now backed up by science. Trust women.

 
The Davina McCall documentaries:

• Sex, Myths and The Menopause

• Sex, Mind and The Menopause

The Balance App - download this to track your symptoms - you can then present this information to your doctor.

Follow Dr Lisa Mosconi, Dr Elizabeth Newson, Dr Naomi Potter on socials.

Find a Facebook group in your area so that you keep in the loop about what works with the doctors, products and you hear how it affects others and their solutions.

It's now June 2024 and I'm currently noticing after a year of being on the higher dose that a few symptoms have increased. During the writing of the blog where I went through the symptoms (which had mostly all gone away) it's made me realise it could be that my HRT needs a tweak. It's an an ever changing beast unfortunately, not just one pill and solved. I also looked into testosterone for increasing energy as I know people who swear by this, but for me, a few stories of women losing their hair on the top of their head freaked me out too much to delve too much further - that may change, who knows.

At the time of writing there is a national shortage of oestrogen patches in NZ (I moved here last year) and they don't expect it to be resolved in the next six months so I'll be moving to the oestrogen tablets and will have to see how they go as some people don't get on with them. It's a bit daunting that something you rely for your wellbeing can be unavailable so this has prompted me to start looking into alternative methods of reducing the symptoms (but as it stands, because of the decrease in brain activity thing you may have to prise the HRT from my dead lifeless hands before I give that up).

My story is not to say that you or someone you know experiencing symptoms need to go onto HRT. Maybe what you read you can relate to and it and it will help you on your own journey. I know people who have gone onto HRT, then done lots of changes to lifestyle, diet and detoxes and come off the HRT because that is what they felt was best for their body. It's a completely individual thing.

I talk about my experience most chances I can get because I don't want others to suffer thinking it's just them, that perhaps they're losing it, that they're no longer good enough and would encourage all women to do the same to raise awareness.

Letting my family in on what's going on has helped their understanding of what I sometimes go through and made them more empathetic.

Clients going through this phase talk to me about losing confidence and wanting to get back to 'how they used to be'. A big part of the work I do with women is helping them remember themselves so that they can live life more easefully, more confidently and calmly. We work on tapping back into the self belief, increasing self worth and regulating your nervous system so that you come out of survival mode.

If this is you and you'd like to learn more, drop me an email on hey@jennischanschieff.com.

Otherwise, best of luck on your journey - feel free to drop me a line on socials if you have any questions.

How do I feel inner confidence?

Confidence is what you believe about yourself. 

You may not feel this yet, but deep down, your body knows exactly who you are and who you're not. 

And inner confidence starts with embracing this fully.....consciously and unconsciously going 'yep this is me and I bloody love it'.

So when you go out with colleagues, instead of stressing beforehand about whether the clothes you're wearing look good enough, are appropriate and spend time worrying what people think of you, you wear what feels good to you and don't give it much of a thought.

When you walk into a networking event, instead of dreading the thought of walking into an already formed group and joining the conversation, you just do it.

When you've got to deliver a workshop or presentation, instead of procrastinating on getting it sorted because thoughts of 'no one cares about what I have to say' stop you from getting on with it....you know from within what you have to say is powerful and you just do it.

To be able to feel more inner confidence, it's likely you're going to have to work through the layers of limiting beliefs that you have gathered along the way in life. 

These limiting beliefs can come from your lived experience:

• If as a six year old the teacher didn't choose you for an activity, you might have taken on the belief 'who I am and what I have to offer is not good enough' and find it hard to believe you are good enough to step outside your comfort zone and make your dreams come true by taking a big step in your life/career.

• If as a child struggled to make your voice heard by your family, you might take on the belief 'what's the point in speaking up' and find it hard to speak up or speak your truth in a meeting, when there are differences of opinion etc.

• If your decisions were always questioned (out of concern by a parent), you might take on the belief 'I'm never going to get it right, so why bother' and struggle to make decisions, often looking to others for confirmation of what you should do.
  

Limiting beliefs can be absorbed from people around you:

• If you grew up with a parent who struggled with parenting, you might take on the belief 'I'm a bit useless, so what's the point'.

• If your parents were fighting when you were a child and didn't listen to you when you tried to get them to stop, you might take on the belief 'it's not safe when I'm not in control' and find that you need to control a lot of things in your life and work.

Limiting beliefs can also be been trapped in the cells of your ancestors and passed down generations, so yep, there can be layers of shit to get through. But it’s totally possible and then things start to feel easier, the inner critic quietens down and you start behaving differently in ways that support what you want to go after in life.

The majority of these limiting beliefs are unconscious, so you don't realise how much they dictate how you behave on a daily basis. And unconsciously, behaviours such as procrastination, people pleasing, over-thinking, over-analysing all take up precious, precious hours of the day.

You know the thing...you've got an important email to send to a colleague, but you spend an unnecessary amount of time reading, re-reading, changing, re-reading and re-reading the email again to check it's just right. So that when they read it, because you’ve taken so much time to word it so amazingly that there is no possible way they can be pissed off and not like you. A two minute job has turned into 20 and then as soon as you send it, you're sweating it out waiting for their reply. Imagine typing that same email, proofing it and then sending it. Without worrying about whether they’ll still like you.

Or when you've got something that's a bit out of your comfort zone and without realising it, you're cleaning the house, watching Netflix, scrolling social media....anything BUT the thing that would push you out of your comfort zone. Anything easier unconsciously gets your attention and before you know it, it feels like another day wasted where you haven't moved forward with the really important thing. Imagine just doing the thing outside of your comfort zone without the procrastination and worrying if you’re good enough.

Limiting beliefs are the reason that although you've got all the skills on paper, it feels like something is missing and you don't know why you feel like you're not good enough or that you don't know enough.

Bringing these beliefs into conscious awareness and shifting them so you're not holding yourself back is a truly transformative process and what will help you feel more inner confidence.

It can be beneficial to go on this journey with someone else because they can help you bring the limiting beliefs out into the open and then support you to shift them.

If you think it's time for you to find your inner confidence, the invitation is there to contact me to set up a free call to find out more about how my 1:1 confidence coaching programme could help you or your employees.

Case Study: From catastrophising every day about money to a heaviness lifting

Due to the personal nature of what is being shared, my client wanted to remain anonymous.

Sasha (not her real name) came to me with a real worry about running out of money. She felt uncomfortable and anxious about money and it was lowering her energy. It consumed her thoughts at times and filled her with dread on a daily basis.

We uncovered a limiting belief related to not believing there was enough money to feel safe, related to a trapped emotion of feeling on edge.

This belief was stopping her from being present, she got so worried thinking about the future and was worrying about stuff that might not even happen. She was constantly catastrophising and it was stopping her from doing the things she wanted to, at times feeling apathetic about her business.

In one session working together, we cleared the limiting belief surrounding money and input new beliefs designed to help her to feel a lot safer and believe there was more abundance out there.

Here's what she had to say about working with me:

What results, mindset or energy shifts have you noticed since?

I feel much more positive about this issue. I felt a huge energy shift - a heaviness lifted. My thoughts have changed - I'm able to rationalise and reframe quicker and easily.

What's the most important thing people should know about working with me?

This is for everyone! The body has a lot of wisdom. Belief work is powerful.

For people on the fence about working with me, what would you say to them?

Try it! You'll be surprised. Be open minded. It's a really interesting experience and you're safe with Jenni.

“Jenni is warm and explains things well. She is fun and puts you at ease. I really enjoyed the time taken to explore different feelings. She used a variety of different tools some of which were new to me. She had a real belief in you and you felt whatever came up, you were safe and it was ok.”

If you’re interested in finding out how you can work with me to overcome beliefs that are holding you back, connect with me on LinkedIn and drop me a DM or book a chat below.

10 things I believe help me create more joy in my life

I remember a while ago talking to a mum friend about my mindset coaching for moms and saying to her; ‘I feel happy for no reason most days’. And she was like ‘what the actual hell….is that even possible?’.

And it’s totally understandable to feel that way, I used to as well…being a mom is really fucking hard and for sure some days in the past I was like ‘is this it?’.

This list is not to say that I never experience shitty things, life can be shitty lots of times…it’s just that our brains are wired to look for the negative in life, so I’ve been actively trying to do stuff that I believe helps creates happiness for no reason.

It’s not to say that I was morbidly unhappy in the past, it was that I used to get my happiness from external things. Meeting up with friends, buying a new thing, having a new experience etc. All those things still bring me happiness.

But now I have moments where I feel happy for no reason. I’m still getting used to it, but it happens most days and feels different, almost overwhelming good when it pops up.

So it got me thinking about what I do differently now and I wrote a list.

They’re in no particular order and sometimes they’re done a few times a week, sometimes daily. And that’s the whole point, I don’t beat myself up, I just accept that I’m where I need to be and move on with the next day. Because if my child has woken up five times in the night because of bad dreams, I’m sure as hell not going to be getting up at 5.30am like those gurus do and practising yoga on my head and meditating for an hour.

If you prefer audio, it’s all on my TikTok, click here.

1. Constructive Rest

Constructive Rest is for regulating my nervous system. So often our bodies are in a state of stress - much like when cave people feared threats from wild animals because they might die - and these days stress can be caused through our busy environments but doesn’t necessarily mean we’re actually going to die. It’s like a smoke detector going off but you’ve only burned the toast.

To do constructive rest, you lie on your back with your knees bent so your back is flat on the floor. This lengthens your psoas muscle and tells your body that you are safe. From here you notice your connection with the surface underneath you, what you can feel through different parts of your body, how you know your alive, how your breath makes your body feel. Getting curious as to any tingles, warmth, gripping - just noticing - no judgement.

I do this most days for about 10 minutes, but you can do it for much longer if you like.

2. Shaking/Dancing

Shaking or dancing freely is a great way to get out of your mind and into your body. It’s fab for moving emotion through the body and often I’ll have a release of tears: I’m not sad, it’s just energy that needed to be released. If I’ve had a tough morning with the kids it can sometimes leave me feeling a bit uneasy and this is a great way to move through this feeling.

It looks pretty wild, so just let yourself go and make everything wobble, move and shake as much as you can in whatever way feels good to you. If something feels good, play around with doing the movements bigger, smaller, faster, slower….get out of your mind and into your body.

3. Work on Limiting Beliefs

Working on my limiting beliefs has massively helped me to be more chilled about life.

I used to believe things like ‘every time I play with my kids it turns to shit’ because that was something I had experienced when they were little and every time it happened as they grew up, it reconfirmed what I thought.

I had the limiting belief that I should put other people before myself because I believed that was what I should do.

I found it hard to bring up issues with my children’s school because I wanted the teachers to like me, not to be that ‘difficult parent’.

I would get stuck re-reading emails to make sure they were exactly ‘right’, because I thought I needed to be perfect otherwise people won’t like me.

I’ve changed those beliefs (and many more) and it brings me soooo much more ease into my life.

When there is an issue with school, I get straight in there, say it how it is with far less emotion attached to it. Because I don’t need to be liked by them anymore, I’m much better at facilitating change that helps my children get the care they deserve.

Now I put myself first in situations where in the past I felt like I ‘should’ put others first.

Now I play with my kids and we have fun and if it does turn to shit (it still does sometimes, cos, y’know, kids!), I’m far less attached to their drama so my mood is less affected.

Now, I write an email, do one quick check and then send it off and don’t look at it again.

Lots of these issues stemmed from minor incidences in my childhood, where I made the meaning of not being good enough, not feeling like I could get things wrong etc. Some of the beliefs were absorbed from other people. Some were inherited. Some were mine. But all of them were unconsciously driving my behaviour 95% of the time. You can read more about how limiting beliefs hold you back by clicking here.

Releasing limiting beliefs is lifechanging and is what I do with my clients as a mindset and self belief coach.

4. I believe ‘I am time’

I used to believe AND say to myself, my kids, my husband ‘I don’t have time’. I then read about Einstein time in the book ‘The Big Leap’ by Gaye Hendricks. It’s flipping the narrative to believing ‘I AM TIME’. And honestly, don’t even ask me how it works, but it does.

When I have like three things I need to do and only a 15 minute window, in the past I would have though ‘I don’t have time to do those things’ and so might do one of them and it would take 15 minutes for that one thing. Now I say ‘I am time, so I’ve got time to do them’ and crack on with it. I always have enough time and usually have a couple of minutes to spare. It’s wild!

As a result, I’m more chilled about time now. Because ‘I am time’, I don’t stress about there not being enough.

And hand on heart, the times at the beginning where I slipped into ‘there’s not enough time’, there never was, I was rushed and stressed!

So I invite you to give it a go if that feels like something you need in your life 😊

5. Observing myself

Taking time to observe how my bodily sensations ‘are’ during a challenge or a good patch allows me stay curious, experiment with how I ‘am’ and do things differently or savour the good feelings.

6. Orienting

Orienting is about going out into your environment to feel different, ideally better!

Whenever I feel an influx of emotion (seems to be mainly related to kids 🙈) or if I feel like I need to relax, I get in the present moment using something called orienting. It’s basically about noticing where you are in the space of where you are. You can just talk through where you are to start with ‘here is the door, here I am, here is the chair, here I am).

This means you’re not thinking about the past or what has just happened, you’re not thinking about the future, you’re in the present. Let your eyes wander around the where you are, bring a softness to your eyes. If something feels good to look at then let your eyes hover, but there’s no judgement if they want to move on.

For me, even just a couple of minutes when I wake up feels good to me.

Here’s some other ways for you to orient to your environment when things get intense.

7. Conversations - look for when people light up

It’s our default to look for ‘what’s wrong’; it’s just how our brains work. I would invite you to notice it when you’re speaking to your friends.

To make for a completely different conversation experience, I look for when people light up and then focus in on that. It’s great for kids too - asking them ‘what was good today’.

8. Playfulness & Pleasure

How can you find more playfulness and pleasure in your life? And by pleasure I don’t mean a bit of the old sexy time 😜 although go for it if you want!

I’m talking about little things that make you smile, how can you access playfulness with your kids and in your life everyday, even if it’s a beautiful flower that brings about a nice feeling. I used to think that people who did this were unique, but now this is me. I can look at a beautiful sky and a feeling of wonder and awe washes over me. What can you notice today that brings you pleasure?

9. No Alcohol

Not really sure how popular this will be for some people and that’s cool. For me, I was never a massive drinker since I had kids, but I’d do it once or twice a month and then put up with feeling shit for a couple of days afterwards. Once I drank three days in the month and felt rubbish for three days after each session - that’s 9/30 days and was when I went ‘yeah, I don’t want to feel like this anymore’ and stopped.

So when people ask me ‘do you feel better for it’, it’s more about the fact that I never feel physically shit in the way that alcohol makes you feel. I think this helps to have a baseline level for feeling good that is never depleted by alcohol, so when I feel joy, I’m not topping myself up, I’m just feeling even happier!

10. Curiosity

I know they said curiosity killed the cat, but it didn’t. The cat just didn’t assess the risk properly and did something silly 😂

If I get a funny feeling in my tummy or have something that feels negative come up in my body, I get curious and think ‘ooh, what’s going on there’, ‘what could be happening’. So instead of focussing on feeling rubbish, I get more curious about what’s going on and it helps me remove the emotion from it.

If someone acts in a way that brings up resistance, jealousy, anger - it allows me to be more empathetic - what might be going on for them to act this way? What might be going on in me to act this way? Then I explore.

Why limiting beliefs hold us back…

Everyone has limiting beliefs! Sometimes you know what they are and how they affect you and sometimes they appear out of nowhere.

What is a limiting belief?

A limiting belief is something you believe about yourself that can hold you back. What you believe about yourself impacts how you think, feel and behave.

It might be that you struggle to speak up in a group because you hold the belief that 'no one cares about what I have to say'.

It might be you find it hard to do a presentation or workshop because you hold the belief that 'I don't know enough' or 'I'm not an expert' or 'They might ask me something I don't know'.

It might be that you stop yourself from doing a course in a subject you're interested in because you hold the belief 'I don't have enough time'.

Limiting beliefs are totally standard in our lives as human beings and they affect everyone differently. If they're not getting in the way of what you want, then you might not even know you hold a limiting belief about something. 

But when they are very real for you, they can keep you from seeing new possibilities, following dreams and take you away from the amazing, creative person that you are.

Why do we have limiting beliefs?

Experts believe that most of our beliefs about the way the world works are formed by the time we are 8 years old. In the psychoanalytical theory and method of 'Transactional Analyisis', this is called our Life Script.

This involves making sure we survive by fitting in with the adults around us. Just think of how much there is going on at any one time in someone's life - family, culture, faith, community, society....the whole world. As children, we're thinking 'how must I need to behave to fit in, to get my needs met, to survive'.

It's thought that in the first two years (and in the womb), children are in the Delta brain-wave cycle. When you're deeply asleep as an adult, this is the state you are in. Even as you get to 1 year old, you're mainly in and out of this state. This means as a baby, you are taking eeeeeeverything in as you learn about the world, there's no filter at all.

From age 2 - 8, it's thought that children will mostly be in Alpha and Theta brainwave states, which is what you're in while you're under hypnosis or perhaps meditating. So basically at that age you're going about your day hypnotised, open to everything that is being presented to you. Being able to be rational when something goes wrong or think critically is not really a thing your brain can do yet, so you're still in a high learning state. Between five and eight years old, this is when your analytical brain starts forming and you start to interpret and make meaning from your environment.

• If as a three year old you heard a nursery nurse say 'you're so clumsy', you might grow up thinking you're clumsy even though that was bestowed on you age three (when most three year olds fall over a lot anyway!).

• If, as a 5 year old you heard your mum say to a friend 'he/she is not very good at reading', you might take that as fact.

• If, at six years old your teacher tells you 'stop being naughty' when you're fidgeting in your chair, you might take on the belief that your need to be moving to make yourself feel calm is bad.

• If, when you were 7 years old, you asked your dad if you could have a toy when you were at the shop and he got annoyed and shouted 'you can't ask for those kind of things!', you might grow up with the belief 'I can't ask for what I want'. You're not sitting there going 'I appreciate my dad spoke to me like that because money is tight and he has an electricity bill due tomorrow'.

If you feel like you're holding yourself back in certain areas and you don't know why, it might be that you start to take a look at what limiting beliefs you have and notice how they are serving you.
 

Examples of Limiting Beliefs

Once you start tuning into what a limiting belief could be, you'll start to hear people saying them everyday. They're everywhere, so take some time to notice them and get curious.

Sometimes they can start with 'I'm not...', 'I can't...', 'I'm always...', 'I'll never...', 'I'm too...'

• I'm not good enough

• I'm not ready

• I'll never be successful

• I can't fail

• I'm too old

• I don't have enough experience

• I'm not smart enough

• I can't be who I really am or people will judge me

• I can't ask for what I want because the answer will be no

Other times they can be more specific, for example in the workplace:

• I need to know everything that goes on in my team

• I don't have enough experience to go for that role I would be amazing at

It might be that you write them down and get curious about where they may come from.

Limiting Beliefs about Money

Money mindset and limiting beliefs about money are really common, but let's address the elephant in the room - it's never about the money! I'll write another blog about this one day.

• You need to work hard to make money

• If I've got money, people will ask me for it and I won't be able to say no.

• If I'm rich, I'll be too busy

• If I'm rich, my children will be spoilt brats

• I am not good with money

• Being rich is selfish

• If you're rich, you're not a nice person

• You have to be greedy to be rich

Again, you might like to get curious about where these beliefs come from and check out if they are serving you.

Secondary Gains

Sometimes we benefit from holding onto a limiting belief. We are not normally aware of this though, it's an unconscious thing.

For example, someone might want to give up smoking, but if they did that, deep down they might believe they'll miss out on social interactions with colleagues and not want to lose that connection.

You might like to take a look at the benefits you get from holding onto your limiting beliefs, get curious and ask yourself 'what's going on there?'.

Can we change our limiting beliefs?

Coaching can help us to update our Life Script by questioning the way we think, feel and behave and in my experience they can be changed.

As a very surface level example, I used to have a messy bedroom ('it's hard to keep my bedroom tidy') and could never figure out why. Notice my language - 'I used to have a messy bedroom', this indicates a belief has changed.

Keeping my room tidy always felt like SUCH hard work and I tried to, for years and years, tell myself 'just keep it tidy'. I would go through a massive clean up and be like 'right, I'm doing it, I'm keeping it tidy' and then three days later it would be messy again.  It wasn't until I started looking at the belief behind why I had a messy bedroom that I was able to change it.

My mum had always told the story about how she'd never been able to keep her room tidy even at university. So it was partly a belief I'd taken on board from her, but also, I got down to 'if I don't have a messy bedroom, I won't be like my mum and that would be bad!'.  This was a massive 'holy shit' moment for me. No wonder keeping my room tidy felt SOO hard. My mum is amazing by the way, but clearly I'd formed something along the lines of 'must always do as I'm told' as my Life Script was forming in those early years! I found the emotion behind it and was able to change the belief.....much to the relief of my husband 😂

I've given you quite a surface level belief (It's hard to keep my bedroom tidy), but even with that you can see how deep it can go. If I'd have just stuck an affirmation on the wall of 'it's easy to keep my bedroom tidy', I wouldn't have gotten very far if I hadn't gone further into the reason and emotion behind what my belief was.

In summary, limiting beliefs are all around us, they're completely normal and we can change them once we know what they are and where they come from.  And yes our children are forming limiting beliefs everyday no matter how amazing we are as parents 🙈

If you're interested in a belief session to help you change a specific limiting belief, do get in touch!