Women: Self Care and Self Love

Daniela's segment only, from 3:34:47 to 3:59:05. From the YouTube captions, lightly cleaned. Some words and names may be misheard.

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Global namaste, Daniela. It's so nice to see you again. Thank you so much. I've been so looking forward to this and I so appreciate the invitation. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. So, Daniela has works with women across many ages and life stages. Above all, she is a midlife mentor and the heart of her work is guiding women between 35 and 60 through one of the most profound and least supported transitions of a woman's life. This season spanning perimenopause, menopause and the years beyond is not a problem to fix. It is an initiation. And most women have been profoundly undereducated about what is actually happening in their bodies, minds, emotions, and sense of self during this time. I'm really looking forward to hearing all about this and hearing more about you and the work that you do. Thank you so much. I love the title of this of this afternoon, self-care and self-love. And I sat with the word self-care this week to really feel into, well, what is that really? And I think if I had a magic wand, I would give back the word self, the phrase self-care, because I think there's an upgrade.

You know, somewhere along the way, at least in the United States, self-care got a little small. It became a bath, a candle, or a product that you buy when you're running on when you're already running on empty instead of your daily practice that would have kept you from running on empty in the first place. there's a physician that I greatly respect, Dr. Sara Gottfried. And she said, 'A steward doesn't own the land. A steward is accountable for its condition. A steward doesn't own the land. A steward is accountable for its condition. So if I had a magic wand, I would upgrade the word self-care essentially to self- stewardship because it is so much more than a spa day. It is a woman's daily relationship with her body and it's built on the foundation of attention, not neglect. You know, and neglect can be innocent and on long-term thinking instead of whatever gets you through the next hour. But a good steward, first a good steward, they walk the land before planting anything.

And then a steward of land waits and watches to see how it responds. A steward doesn't mine the land for one good season and then leave it exhausted for another 10 years. A good steward of earth works with what keeps it producing year after year and decade after decade. So for the next 20 minutes, we're not going to talk about, you know, taking baths or having a glass of wine or booking a massage. And notice as we go, every layer that we're going to walk through has now a self-care version, which in the United States can often be more about soothing and coping. And everything has a self- stewardship version. They are not the same pra they and they are not the same practice wearing two different names. Okay? They actually ask completely different questions of a woman. So let's first talk about the four layers that every woman and what they need to steward for themselves as a woman in midlife. A woman needs to steward her physical layer, the mental and emotional, the spiritual and the relational. So I want to start with the physical layer because I think that's the foundation upon which everything else really is built and connects.

So the one thing about tending land about there's one thing about tending land that we haven't actually walked. You can't steward what you haven't read yet. And many of us have not in midlife been taught about our own biology or how to read it. Currently in the United States, one in six women is living with an autoimmune condition. And for many of those women, it re it reveals itself in midlife. In midlife, one in four women in the United States is on an anti-anxiety or an anti-depressant medication. This is often without anyone ever checking their thyroid or ferritin or hormones, especially testosterone, or her cortisol. So for women in midlife in the US, we're treating more of the smoke But we're not looking at what's causing the fire. I lived this myself. I'm in my mid50s. And for seven years, I was told by very kind, well-meaning doctors that all my labs were normal. However, I had fatigue that didn't lift. This very common for women in midlife. Brain fog severe enough that I Googled one night the symptoms of early onset dementia. My hair was coming out in the shower. And I was bloated every time I ate. And every single time I was told everything was fine. But underneath what was going on for me, I it turned out there was something that nobody talks about. What's going on for women in midlife? And this is where I want to pause and speak to inflammation.

This is a huge problem for women in midlife. Again, we don't we're not talking about this. You know, an inflammation is not some mystery illness. It is your immune system's alarm response meant to run for just a few days and then to shut off. But by some estimates, as many as 70% of us right now are walking around with some level of chronic inflammation, known or unknown. And it's now considered to be a root driver of most modern illness and disease, not just a side effect of it. So most people often innocently think well inflammation means red hot and swollen when you touch it. Now true this is acute in inflammation. It's the kind you can see. Chronic inflammation which is so common for women in midlife never looks like that. It look chronic inflammation looks like fatigue that sleep doesn't touch. It looks like brain fog, joint aches that that move around without any clear cause. it reveals itself as skin that doesn't calm down, hives, acne, eczema, random rashes or a stomach that's bloated after anything you eat. inflammation also looks like weight that doesn't move no matter what you cut out or restrict.

Inflammation in midlife looks like headaches that show up like clockwork, mood swings that you really can't explain, and waking up as tired as when you went to bed. It can look like getting sick more often and healing slower when you do. So for women in midlife, there's so much on their shoulders, none of what I just mentioned reads as an emergency. So for a lot of women in midlife, this is the problem because it runs low and quiet for years and then inflammation that's been chronic finally has to land somewhere. For many women in midlife, it lands in the thyroid, the joints, the gut, and that's when it finally gets named. For many women in midlife, this becomes, oh, you have an autoimmune diagnosis. But what that really is often is inflammation that has found an address within the woman that has found a home. So underneath mine, I had a gut lining that had been damaged for years, letting inflammation run like a current through my system until it did become an autoimmune condition. Now my doctors, they weren't negligent. They were reading the right data through the wrong lens. And this is another issue that's happening on the physical layer for many women in midlife in the US. They're we're told that our labs say everything looks normal. But normal ranges and optimal ranges are two completely different questions. Conventional medicine uses normal ranges and normal ranges are built from a sick population average. Normal ranges say, 'Are you sick enough to treat?' Optimal, on the other hand, says, 'Where do your numbers need to be when you get your labs for you to actually thrive?' This is the same blood, the same woman, and two

Entirely different questions. Now for women in midlife, perimenopause can begin as early as 35 and it unfolds for as many as 17 years. Progesterone is the first hormone to go and sometimes a full decade before menopause. Think of progesterone as the calming hormone. So when it drops, naturally a woman in midlife is going to feel levels and sensations of anxiousness that she isn't used to. There may be a the sensations of restlessness or feeling tired during the day and wired at night. So this is where women are inadvertently being given anti-anxiety medication or sleeping medication when no and nobody has checked her pre her progesterone. So the stewardship question that's different than the self-care question, right? Self-care says, 'What can I do for myself today that's going to feel good?' Stewardship asks, 'What does my body need to keep generating the energy and clarity that I need for decades?' Now, for many women in midlife, the second thing that is imperative that they have checked is a full thyroid panel, not just TSH. We need free T3 tested, free T4, reverse T3, thyroid antibodies, TPO, TgAb.

We need to know what our ferritin levels are because a improperly working thyroid and low ferritin is going to mimic anxiety or depression. So, we want to be asking our doctors for these full panels. And it's not a big ask, friends. There's nothing ridiculous about asking for these. we want to ask them by name. We need to know what our numbers mean and not if they only fall in the normal range. We want to understand what's optimal. Now, here's what many women are never told in the United States. If you have a ferritin level of 15, it is considered normal through conventional ranges. However, through functional lens, anything under 50 will have you losing your hair as soon as you enter midlife. And you often need your ferritin levels closer to 70 before it even grows back. So, women are being told who have a ferritin of 15 or eight, it's just a little under normal. But what it feels like, if those are your numbers, you're going to feel like you are dragging through your entire day. Everything you do is going to feel like a push. So, conventional medicine is not entirely speaking this same language yet.

More often in the US it is our homeopathic doctors, our naturopathic, our osteopaths and our functional medicine practitioners who are a little bit ahead of the curve serving women in midlife right now. So I thank them. you know we can't spend as women in midlife 30 years running our bodies on caffeine and willpower and then wonder why is this not making the energy that I need of my body? You know, stewardship means reading the land long before it collapses, not after. So, let me talk for a moment about what actually drives this collapse because it's never just one thing. And some of us may not love this list, okay? One of the first drivers of inflammation in our culture is sugar. It is processed food and it is chronic stress that has been running for so long you don't even identify it as stress any longer. You know if you had actually asked me in my 30s or my 40s whether I was a woman living in chronic stress I would have try wondered are you are you looking at me are you asking me I wouldn't have understood that or related to the question. Now looking back, it's almost hard to bear how much chronic stress I was carrying and how normalized that was at the time. So the hormone shifts of midlife itself, they quietly remove one of the body's breaks, the built-in brakes on inflammation, estrogen. Estrogen is an anti-inflammatory. So when it declines in perimenopause along with progesterone and in menopause, inflammation loses one of its strongest checks. So here's my own rule that I that I give my clients. and it costs nothing. You'll all get this. If your great-g grandandmother does not recognize what's

On your plate as food, it's not food. Here's the second rule, and it's just as simple. How many things that you put on your skin, your shampoo, your lotion, your makeup, would you actually eat? Because if you can't eat it, think twice before you put it on your body every single day because so many of the products here in the US are hormone disruptors and they're carrying toxins into our bodies and our body has to hold it somewhere. So, I actually went through and had my own toxin levels tested. Half expecting someone to tell me all of what I'm saying is a little overblown and it's not really a big deal. My results came back off the charts. So, I consider getting knowing how healthy you are to be stewardship, especially in the US. These are small daily unglamorous steps of stewardship. But I say this to you as somebody on the other side of it. I get to live caffeine-free. All of my food is only fresh cooked. I have under 10 grams of sugar a day. And I have more energy and clarity in my 50s as a woman in midlife in the United States than I did in my 30s. So, let's sear the following phrase into our memories, okay? And pass it on to others. The quality of your energy will always determine the quality of the experience of your life. I don't say this like as a motivational phrase, right? This is a biological fact. Now, there's a the mental and emotional layer of the woman in midlife is also impacted significantly. The mind and the heart because this is really where self- stewardship gets practical fast.

So much of midlife arrives as an identity question that nobody tells us about. It's not a crisis, it's a question. We have these body composition changes with no real education and often no change in what we're eating. And a woman who once felt like she knew who she was might suddenly feel unrecognizable to herself. So the question underneath it in the US currently isn't who am I in my well-being. It's more like who and what am I in my weight gain, my hair loss, my fatigue, my overwhelm and my bloat. You know, there's an innocence in our not knowing this about ourselves in our culture, in our country. This is not a personal failure. This is a whole systemic failure that can be changed one woman at a time. So, and nobody may have handed you some of you listening to this a map, but this is a map you can trust. You know, self- stewardship asks something of our mind also that self-care never does. Stewardship asks you to read the signals instead of managing them away. When you hit that wall in the afternoon between 3 and 5, midlife women oftentimes think, 'God, what's wrong with me? Am I just lazy?' But that's your body giving you data. Or midlife women may be feeling dread before saying yes to one more thing.

Before your mouth even finishes the sentence. This is data, too. What you feel in your body when asked to do something, to put something more on your plate. women may be feeling an appetite that feels like it's gone strange, louder or more quiet. You know, all of this is information. And for most of us, it's been coming to us for years, but we didn't know what to call it. Self-care says, 'Push through or numb it with whatever gets you through the hour.' I did that. Chai, mate, Swedish fish. Self- stewardship asks a different question. What is this feeling actually telling me about what I've been asking about my body and my mind to carry? And what is it asking me to finally shift in my life? You know, there's a question I love from the Ayurvedic tradition and it works for everything. Does XYZ strengthen and nourish me or does XYZ deplete or weaken me? That can be what you're looking on. That can be about food, what's on your plate. It could be about your schedule. It could be about the people in your life. It works on everything. Does XYZ strengthen and nourish me? Or does XYZ deplete me and weaken me?

Truth rises faster than thought. That question will never steer you wrong. You may not like what you hear, but the truth is there. [snorts] and I want to share with you one more practical tool because our body is always talking to us. And oftentimes through the phrases, you may catch yourself saying to your closest friends and those you trust. Listen to your language in midlife. If you hear yourself saying things like, 'Well, I'm just hanging in there.' Or, 'I am tired to my bones.' This is not a figure of speech, friends. This is data. If you hear yourself or your friends, your sisters saying, 'I don't feel like myself.' Don't rush to explain it away. Get curious because our bodies are giving us information. And self- stewardship is about deep listening to ourselves. And one more piece that is important to touch on the brain fog that that women experience in midlife where that word won't come. Standing mid-sentence reaching for a name that you've said a thousand times but it's just gone. For many women, this isn't a decline. This is her hormonal system asking for support. And for most of us, it actually improves when the body is resourced once again.

And then there's the emotional weight that so many midlife women carry in the United States. The highest rates of anxiety, depression, feeling unrecognizable show up in this season of life for women. This is also when the season of life when the suicide risk peaks for women. I say this because it's important that we all know that about ourselves and about our loved ones because, you know, if what I'm describing today for you or someone in your life, you can see it feels heavier than just hormones, we don't want to carry that alone. We want to reach out to someone. Now, self-care might say, think more positively about it or, everybody's tired, just keep going. But stewardship asks you a harder question. What has my mind been carrying maybe unsupported for too many years now and what would it take to give myself the real support the real support that I need? Now lastly I want to talk about the spiritual layer for women in midlife. Joseph Campbell said we are not just here to simply feel happiness. We are here to feel the rapture of being alive.

His holiness the Dalai Lama said when asked what is the purpose of life he said to embody the transcendent. You know we can't relax into our transcendental nature when our mitochondria are running on fumes. You will not a woman in midlife is not going to feel the rapture of being alive when her nervous system is locked in survival. You know the body isn't like the footnote to our spiritual life. The body is our access to our spiritual life. It is the vessel through which every experience of grace of connection and of love actually moves through. So when I say s stu stewardship is sacred I mean that literally not poetically. You know, taking your own upkeep this seriously is never about vanity or indulgence or self-absorption. Taking your own upkeep this seriously is the necessary precondition for actually being able to inhabit your own soul. You know, a depleted body cannot hold a resourced spirit. This is physiology. You know, I know this because I lived I lived this and on the other side of it. And when my system was so inflamed and dysregulated, I felt dense. I felt disconnected. I felt separate. What used to be my direct experience of spirit, of God, felt like a memory because something that I knew that was real, but I no longer could feel it. I couldn't feel it settle inside me anymore. And it was heartbreaking. So, this is the reframe that I want to leave you with this layer. Self-care asks us sometimes to escape our body for a moment. Again, in

The United States, it's common that self-care is considered a bath, a glass of wine, or just kicking back and relaxing and scrolling through our phone. Stewardship asks us to return to our body. So spirit has somewhere wonderful to land, not an escape hatch, but home. And I like to think about this kind of like a woodworking shop. You know, we can't build anything of value in a shop that has no power, no working tools, or no light. The craftsmanship, the meaning, the beauty, all of that depends on a working shop first. So think of your spirit as the craftsman, your body the shop and stewardship is the daily work of keeping the lights on so that the craftsman has somewhere else to work. Thank you.