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Steel Roses Podcast
Steel Roses is a podcast created for women by women. Social pressures for women are constant. Professionals, stay at home moms, working moms, we are here to tell you that you are not alone! This podcasts primary focus is providing real honest content shedding light on the daily struggles of women while also elevating women's voices.
All women are experiencing similar pressures and hurdles, and yet, no one is talking out in the open. If these topics continue to only exist as whispered conversations then we further permeate a culture of judgement and shame.
Join Jenny weekly as she discusses topics that effect women in a relatable, honest way.
Steel Roses Podcast
Embracing Change and Building a Supportive Community
What if embracing the challenges of perimenopause and menopause could lead to transformative growth and self-care? Join me as we explore the unexpected journey of these life stages, enriched by personal stories and insights from a remarkable author whose work on menopause has deeply resonated with me. Together, we’ll unravel the lifelong habit of "powering through" adversity and the pivotal realization that self-care is not a luxury, but a necessity during this transformative phase. From setting up a thoughtful tea station for my husband to managing fatigue and brain fog with nutrition and vitamins, each small act of kindness and self-awareness can pave the path to rebirth and wisdom.
This episode marks the debut of the Jenny VIP Thought Series, where I share candid reflections to build a supportive community among women navigating similar journeys. Amid unexpected challenges brought by Mother Nature, I recount my attempts to organize and connect with you, our valued listeners. We will celebrate shared experiences while providing uplifting insights and content. It’s all about creating connections and fostering dialogue to remind us that we’re not alone. Explore our full episodes with phenomenal guests and co-hosts for more enriching discussions and inspiring stories. Let’s embrace this phase with grace and encouragement, and remember we are all in this together.
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Welcome to the Jenny VIP Thought Series. This is just like a little mini-sode series that I've been developing over the past few months. Essentially, I just want to be more in touch and be more transparent and, honestly, more alignment with all of you who've been listening to the podcast. These little episodes are really meant to give you all just real thoughts, snapshots in the moment, things that I think you know, that I'm struggling with or emotions that I'm going through. I want to be able to share them with all of you, because I want you to know that we're we're all going through this and you know, if you're having a particularly rough week, like maybe one of these little mini, so it's might, um resonate with you, because we all have them. You know, um, life has tons of ups and downs and I think it's just important to know that you're not in it alone. Um, and this is really what the point of all these are. So, um, you won't see you, you won't hear the same topic over and over again. Most likely it's going to be very different from episode to episode, but I really hope that you find them helpful and, you know, I would love to hear from you on them. So let's take a listen.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody, this is Still Versus Podcast. This podcast was created for women, by women, to elevate women's voices. I hope all of you are doing very well. I'm incredibly excited about the growth and reach of the podcast, so for I wanted to just take a moment and thank all of you for listening and for tuning in weekly and really sharing this podcast amongst people that you think would find it interesting or people think would find it entertaining or helpful. Even really was the original goal. The fall series is underway and launched. I mean, we're mid October, so you've gotten quite a few episodes at this point for the guests who've been, who are going to make up the fall lineup. They're really phenomenal women and it's it's really an honor to have them on this medium and and that they even selected me for their interviewer and to come onto this podcast. It really is an honor for me to be able to do that for people and to connect with people like that.
Speaker 1:I wanted to take a moment, though, so my original thought was okay, I'm going to set it and forget it for the fall. So, meaning like, pre-record all my episodes, get them set, make sure that they're all scheduled, schedule the promo, you know, do like, do all the admin work that I normally do weekly. And then my thought was okay, I'm going to do all this admin work up front and then it's going to free me up for other projects and it's going to be great and I'm going to be able to have all this time. And I'm laughing because I need to tell you about how Mother Nature had totally different intentions for me for the fall. I need to tell you about how mother nature had totally different intentions for me for the fall. Thank goodness, I did all of that work over the summer and got everything set up so that it could be plug and play for me for the fall. The reason why I say this is not so much because I've been able to get so much done. It's because I've gotten so little done, and let me shed some light on that.
Speaker 1:So, um, for those of you who have been following along um, who have been following the podcast and gotten to know me, um over the past year and a half, um, you know that I am, um the kind of woman who, for most of my life, has powered through um, powered through adversity, powered through situations that I didn't like, powered through situations that were trying to tear me down. Just power through it, get through it, you'll be fine. Just keep your head down, keep going. When I'm, my kids are babies. Power through, power through this crazy whirlwind experience where you're getting two hours of sleep a day. Power, you can do it. You can do it and I've had this whole life of powering through. Now flash forward.
Speaker 1:I turned 40 last year, I'm turning 41 this year and I'm aware of menopause. I was lightly aware of perimenopause, not really, because you know, women are not well, not just women. None of us are educated really on what's about to happen to us and we're told very minimal information. So I had the great fortune and I truly mean this I had the great fortune of having an author reach out to be on the podcast and her book was focused in on menopause and her menopause experience. Now I'm a little bit young for menopause at this point, like for full blown menopause, but I was intrigued because I know that this is going to be something that I go through and that everyone goes through at some point to different degrees. And her message was very interesting because she looks at menopause from a different perspective. And I don't want to give too much away because her episode airs on December 1st, which is my birthday. But when I got to interview her, I shared with her and you'll hear it on the episode that I felt like it was meant to be, that I was connected with her, and part of the reason for that was because her book. As I read it, I had the distinct feeling that I needed to read it and that's why this was being presented to me.
Speaker 1:Now I have been lightly experiencing perimenopause. I believe I have to go and get official blood work done, which I am going to get done, because this is the time to take care of myself. Um, so, I've had some light, you know. Um, light in my opinion, uh, in comparison to what it could be. Um, some light symptoms here and there. Now I will say I was confused between like is this perimenopause, is this endometriosis, or is this just straight up PMS? I don't really know, but I am going to lean a little bit more towards perimenopause because of the amount of flash fatigue is what I call it that I get.
Speaker 1:Now. Flash fatigue for me is essentially I will be mid activity, mid-task, mid-out shopping and all of a sudden it will feel like my body is shutting down. I've talked about this before and actually, now that I'm saying it out loud, this has happened to me before. So when my kids were babies and I was pushing myself just too damn hard and I was only getting a couple hours of sleep at night, I would have moments where my body would just shut off and I would have to literally just go and go to sleep. Back then I used to power through and I would go to sleep because in those instances I didn't have a choice.
Speaker 1:What I experience now is this fatigue hits me like a. You know, this fatigue hits me like a brick frigging wall or a bag of bricks. That's what it feels like. And now, armed with Miss Wendy Alexander's book Internal Uprising, I lean a little bit into the symptoms that I'm feeling. And again, I don't want to give too much away from that interview or from the book, but I would say check the book out and pick it up, because if you're around my age, if you're in your early 40s, you most likely are going to start experiencing some symptoms too, and it will get misinterpreted as like do you have a vitamin deficiency? Are you drinking enough water? Did you get enough rest last night, you know, like there's loads and loads of stuff that people can talk about.
Speaker 1:The reality of the situation is perimenopause, and menopause is something. It's a change in our bodies that is preparing us almost for the next phase, and that's how I'm looking at it now, and I am incredibly grateful to this author for connecting with me and bringing this message to me, because now I'm looking at this differently. So, whereas before I would have been frustrated, I would have been upset, I would have been devastated, I would have been pissed off to be perfectly honest with you that my proactivity and my energy was being stripped from me, because it feels like an attack on my body and it feels like an attack on my person. And, if you've gotten to know me, and for those of you who personally know me that are listening, anything that slows me down really enrages me, because I have so much to do and I mean that in a really big way. I have so many things I want to do, there's so many things I want to do with this podcast and there's so far I want to go. So it's very upsetting to me when these things happen, but the message that I want to highlight here is that, if you are same age range and you're going through some things and you're kind of leaning towards hey, I think this might be happening to me. This is the time to take a moment and not try to just power through it, but this is the time to really listen to what your body is saying to you.
Speaker 1:And the idea that I'm taking away from the book is that, because I pressed myself so damn hard for so long, my menopause, my perimenopause symptoms are really focusing in on brain fog and fatigue. Those are the two major things that I have been experiencing. Now I absolutely have been looking at supplements and taking supplements to help, you know, help me get through, because I do work. I mean, y'all, I have a job and I work in communications. Like I need to be able to think through situations and I've had two days thus far where I was barely able to string sentences together. Now this is a huge concern for me because it literally means I'm useless. I'm just useless for the day, basically. So there's that, that I'm like having to figure out and everything as that happens. But the fatigue thing, you know, like that's a big deal. So today, as I record this, it's a Sunday I was out running errands and I said a couple things to do nothing major. Again, I am taking this phase of my life as a sign that I have to listen and I have to slow down, and I never did it before and it is uncomfortable for me and it's something that I'm struggling with a bit.
Speaker 1:Prioritizing rest and relaxing is not in my area of expertise. I'm going to be honest with you. It's probably like the exact opposite of my area of expertise. Like I used to know, I used to think I used to literally like line up my little caffeinated things that I was going to take throughout the day to help me like get through everything. Like it's wild what I used to put my body through. So today, what I do is I I acknowledge what I'm feeling. I almost prepare myself for it, in a sense like okay, well, what's my hot priorities for today that I really need to do, and then what can like kind of fall.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of things that I didn't get done this weekend that I really, really wanted to prioritize but, truth be told, like you know, it wasn't something that I was able to do. So that's okay, like I'm, I know I'm going to push it tomorrow morning. I seem to now be better in the mornings than I am in the evenings. Um, so well, by far. I used to be able to work until three o'clock in the morning, and now I'm like no, at nine o'clock I'm like where's my bed? Like I have to, that's it, it's a wrap. Um, is anyone else going through this? I really want to know, because this is like this is probably like one of the most hardest things for me right now is having to deal with this.
Speaker 1:So today I'm out and about running errands with my daughters and we're just kind of, you know, just regular stuff, and I wanted to. My husband likes tea, so I was setting up a little tea station upstairs for him so that we don't have to constantly be running up and down the stairs to get tea. So I was setting up a little tea station upstairs for him so that we don't have to constantly be running up and down the stairs to get tea. Not that that's a big issue, but I just wanted to do something nice. So I was trying to prepare that and so I was getting the little bits and bobs for his little tea station and I stopped at a place to get my daughters their favorite little treat.
Speaker 1:On the way home, and while we were waiting for their little treat to be served to us guys, I almost fell asleep in the place, and it was maybe five minutes, it's like. I rested my head back on the wall and I closed my eyes and I'm certain that the other customers must have thought that something was wrong with me. But I, I just couldn't do it anymore. And one of my girls looked at me. She's like oh, mommy, are we going to go home after this? And I was like we need to go home after this.
Speaker 1:And I came in the house, put the bags down that I had my purchases, I put everything down and I hightailed it up to my room and I didn't even say anything to anybody, I just laid down and I took a nap for about 30 minutes and that was the little boost that I needed to get through the rest of the day, because otherwise I was going to be a wreck. Like I'm still actually kind of fatigued right now, even with that nap. I've never taken a nap before when the kids were little and I had gone on like one or two hours of sleep. Like I really destroyed my body back then. So what I'm doing now, with all of the knowledge that I have and all of the things that I've learned from all of the amazing guests that have come through the show, I am taking a beat and acknowledging I'm tired and acknowledging that I do need to recognize I'm a little going to limit things a little bit more so now.
Speaker 1:So it's important to recognize that and this phase of life is a rebirth for me and for anyone else out there that's going through it. This is not a time to get pissed off. This is not a time to be thinking of yourself as like oh, I'm drying up, I'm old, it's over, it's over, I'm drying up, I'm going to be an old hag. No, actually, what's happening right now is you are a phoenix being lit on fire, quite literally with hot flashes, and the phoenix will rise from the ashes and be even greater and more wise than you were before. And that's really what the key takeaway here is, and I think that we all need to really start thinking through and thinking differently about how we look at menopause.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're a young girl, before you get your first period, you're excited. In some instances I wasn't. I really didn't want to be bothered, but all of my little friends were excited, everybody was thrilled, everyone wanted to be a woman and that's like the first phase like that's like phase changing one for women. That's your first Phoenix. Rebirth is when you get your period and you start to get all those hormones. Your next phase that phase runs for a really long time and then your next phase is when you're a mother and you are doing your mother energy and you're you're really entering into that phase and then you have your menopause phase and this is just another rebirth for ourselves. And a birth is hard, a birth takes a lot of energy. A birth and all of these phases that women go through we don't acknowledge and celebrate them quite enough at all. We don't do anything for it, and that's where we're failing ourselves.
Speaker 1:And so I want to share this journey with all of you and the struggles that it's entailing, because we need to be able to lean on each other and we need to be able to talk about this with each other, and I'm hoping that if any of you are having any of these symptoms, that you're nodding along and saying you know what? Maybe I, maybe I am going through this like what do I do? So I will say this vitamin D and vitamin B12 were the first stops on my my, my journey, basically for the fatigue. My doctor recommended them to me. I recommend you talk to your doctors if you are feeling brain fog and fatigue. Brain fog is the pits. I'm still trying to figure out, like what to do about that. I drink a lot of green tea during the day now because I read that's really helpful.
Speaker 1:Start looking at your nutrition. It's a huge, huge factor. If you are not eating well and I'm not talking like you know you need to be eating at five star restaurants. I sure as hell don't do that, but I try to make sure that I'm limiting the amount of garbage that I eat and thus I'm leaning heavily on well. You all know I'm a vegetarian, but leaning heavily on soy Berries are huge for women. If you don't like berries, whip up a smoothie. We need to do something for ourselves, people. We cannot just be trying to ride this out, because the more you try to push against it, from what I've understood, the worse it might be. So lean into it, accept it and work with it and see what you can do from it, see where you can go from here.
Speaker 1:So I'm only in like the really, really early stages, but this is where I'm at at this point. So I'm hoping that as I share the story and as I go through this with you all, you know, maybe some more answers will be found For those of you who aren't quite there yet. Don't worry, there's gonna be many episodes where I don't talk about this, but it's just something that was top of mind for me that I really wanted to share with all of you, especially since, like I literally had to crash today and just pass out, like there was no option. I literally just had to pass out for like 30 or 40 minutes and that was all I needed to get myself to the next point. So, thank you all for tuning in. Greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Check out the Sunday episodes. Those are all the guest episodes, um, you're going to love them. They're really awesome and um, continue, you know, listening in and please, please, please, be sure to share um any episodes you think would be helpful with other women. Specifically, I have quite a few episodes on postpartum depression. Um, I think some of them. There's another one coming up for the full series that you'll want to check out. That is a huge, huge hot button. For me, postpartum depression is massive. Take a look through the episodes. Scan through them. I know there's a lot of episodes in there.
Speaker 1:If you are interested specifically in a topic and you want to know if I have it, you can always email at steelrosespodcasts at gmailcom. You can message me through the steel roses women website. Check out the links in the episode description here. You can also shoot me a text. If you are looking for something specific, shoot me a text message through the podcast app that you're, you know, listening on and send me your email address or handle or whatever, and I can point you to the episodes where we have experts talking about certain things.
Speaker 1:You are not alone in this. That's why this podcast is here and that's why I'm trying to build this community and working towards building this community. So I hope you found this episode informative. I am excited to continue on this journey with all of you and I will catch you on the next one. Take care, with all of you and I will catch you on the next one, take care. Thank you for listening to um Jenny's little VIP thought episode. Um, I hope you did find it helpful. And um, again, these are little mini, quick hits, so, um, won't take too much of your day and um, I hope that it just brings you some clarity, some peace, maybe some joy in some instances, knowing that you know we're sort of all in this together. Check out some of our full episodes, which have guests and my co-hosts, and you know lots of great things in them. But I hope that these mini-sodes are helpful to you. Thank you and take care.
