Landy Peek (00:00)
Welcome to the Landy Peak podcast. I'm your host and friend, Landy Peak, and I am thrilled to have you join me. In each episode, we will explore what makes life truly fulfilling. Happiness, deep connections, and self -discovery. Together we'll uncover that happiness is not a destination, but a way of living. Now, let's dive into today's episode.
Landy Peek (00:33)
Hello and welcome to the Landy Peak Podcast. I am your host and friend, Landy Peak. And this is a very special episode. It is the very first episode of a brand new series I'm launching called Me in the Middle. And I couldn't be more excited to have you with us today as we dive into this Me in the Middle phenomenon.
unique challenges and triumphs women face while navigating their 40s.
In this series, we're tackling a topic that resonates with so many of us. That happiness dip where happiness seems to bottom out alongside this new roller coaster ride that's perimenopause and questioning everything in our world about us.
and almost recreating a new identity of who we want to be instead of who we think we should be. In this series, I'll be speaking with incredible women navigating the complexities of this stage of life, balancing careers, kids, and aging parents, all while going through the internal shift that we're surviving. We'll hear their stories.
their struggles, and the strategies they've employed to thrive amidst the chaos. You'll find inspiration, motivation, and perhaps a little comfort in knowing that we're all in this together. You are definitely not alone. But that's not all. We'll be joined by a special guest, a leading functional medicine doctor and nurse practitioner who specializes in perimenopause.
She will shed light on the science behind what's going on inside of our bodies during perimenopause. We'll talk about the hormonal changes that can affect our mood, our energy levels, and our overall well-being. This conversation was so incredible. I cannot wait for you to hear it. If you are a woman, if you have a uterus, you need to hear this.
This conversation is crucial for anyone wanting to better understand what their body is going through and how to effectively manage these changes because there's a lot of new science out there that is life-changing for us as women but really goes against old beliefs.
around hormone replacement therapy. spoiler alert, birth control is not your friend during this time of life. So if you're feeling like your ambition has taken a back seat, or if self doubt is creeping in, stick around.
We're going to unpack some strategies to help you shift from feeling stuck to thriving in this transformative decade. During this time of life, many women find themselves feeling really adrift. We start questioning our purpose and confronting a myriad of changes in our bodies and our lives. But here's the silver lining.
You are not alone in this journey. And together, we can reignite that spark. As we explore this pivotal decade, it's essential to understand the U-curve of happiness. This concept suggests that our sense of well-being dips in our 40s, rising again later in life. And there are a lot of factors that contribute to this dip, including
an internal shift with our brains that is helping us shift our priorities. We also have life, career, mom pressures, and the emotional toll of all of the life transitions that are going on within us. For many women, this decade becomes a time of reevaluation, reflecting on what we've achieved and contemplating where we want to go, who we want to be.
what lies ahead for you. During our 40s, you may transition from a mentality focused on doing, achieving, to one that is more centered around receiving, opening, and a legacy that we're leaving. This shift can be profound.
instead of relentlessly pushing ourselves, pursuing those accomplishments, you might begin to see and feel that you're seeking deeper connections, more personal fulfillment, and a meaningful impact on those around you, as well as a shift to really focus on you.
Embracing your internal wisdom becomes crucial, as happiness can often stem from the relationships that you've nurtured and the lessons that you've learned, rather than merely our career milestones.
And we all know that the 40s are not a piece of cake. This is a decade that we're contending with so many different challenges. When we look at just the challenges that perimenopause brings in, and one of the things I learned, perimenopause can actually start in our 30s.
we have a host of physical and emotional symptoms that come with perimenopause that many of us are not identifying as perimenopause. I know I wasn't. Things like extreme fatigue,
including shifts inside of our body, such as headaches, vaginal dryness, sleep disturbances, mood swings or even weight changes.
This is a lot for us to deal with. These changes can complicate our emotional landscape as well. It's like, remember when you went through puberty? But we had, mean, in my case, my mom gave me a book. So we had a book to go by that's gonna explain, right? You're gonna have the emotional shifts, you're gonna have physical shifts inside your body. Like it's a huge.
of our lives and we have a lot of support around it. We have a lot of information around what is normal and what is not normal. And now a lot of us are hitting perimenopause and it's like being slapped in the face. We had no idea what was coming. I mean, I'd heard about menopause. I really hadn't cued into perimenopause, how early it can start and the different impacts it would have in my life. I was waiting for hot flashes and
Night sweats. None of those are happening. But extreme fatigue, feeling really unhappy, different symptoms that I had no idea were connected to perimenopause are presenting themselves. And I was writing them off like sleep disturbances to dogs and kids. I wasn't queuing in to what exactly was going on with my body. And it wasn't until I did queue in.
that I was able to get support. And we're going to talk about the different supports that you can bring in that can really change your life.
All of these changes can make it difficult for us to navigate our feelings. There's a lot more anxiety that comes in. There's a lot more self doubt that comes in. our brains are going through these incredible changes, our strategies from the 20s and 30s, what worked for us in our 20s and 30s, no longer works in our 40s. That's why so many women hit their 40s and
all of sudden are getting diagnosed with ADHD, it's because we had coping strategies that worked that just don't work anymore. And so one of the things I never cued in to perimenopause was that now I'm super distractible, especially at certain times in my cycle. And a new one that popped up for me as I talked to my provider, that word recall.
You know how you're trying to find words and it just won't come and you feel like, my gosh, there's something wrong with me. Right before my period, the few days before, I have such a difficult time with word recall. Do you know why? Because it's a dip in estrogen. So as we learn about our bodies, as we learn about why our energy tanks, low testosterone,
we can start to be able to support ourselves in a better way, making us physically feel better, mentally more sharp and attuned, which allows us to better support that happiness dip that's happening, as well as all of the different things around our identity crisis that happens for so many of us.
We also add in societal pressures to maintain youthfulness, vitality, our weight. There's so much shame around our bodies that we grew up with. If you were born in the 70s, 80s, we grew up with such a diet culture. And I have a specialist that I brought in for this series to talk about that body shame and what we can do to be able to support ourselves.
The social structures that we live in can exasperate our challenges. They can leave many of us feeling really isolated and overwhelmed. I was embarrassed and worried about especially the brain fog, the fatigue, the word recall. Those were really significant struggles in my life that I could see were cyclical, but I didn't wanna talk about them. And so,
As I'm going to my provider and saying, I am so freaking exhausted and I just don't know what's wrong. And I looked into a provider who said, I think this is bari menopause whips out her charts and shows me what's happening in my body with my hormones and how progesterone dips first and then testosterone and then estrogen just goes wacky. But knowing that and knowing the symptoms that we're not talking about,
opened my eyes to how I can better support myself.
but it took talking, it took sharing, it took courage to talk to my friends and say, this is happening, is this happening to you? Where I love it, my daughter's in that prepubescent time, she's already talking to her friends. I love this because this was not my experience. She's already talking to her friends about puberty. They're already talking about bras.
They're already talking about periods. And she's nine.
Because when she got her very first zit, she went in to tell her friends and they're like, I got one too. And then she comes home like two weeks later and she's like, my gosh, this friend got a zit. I love the emotional support. They're going through this together. That wasn't my experience when I went through puberty. It was, this is happening to me. I kind of noticed this is happening to other people. I had a bestie that...
You know, when I got my first period, she was the one that I told, she was the one that helped me get pads. I never told my mom and I love that my daughter is a talking to me about this stuff and her friends. There is a huge support system there and I want that in this time of my life as we are going through this huge transition that nobody's talking about. There's not books out there talking about all of the different things that are going on in our bodies.
Current research that is coming out around hormone replacement therapy is not disseminated system wide to doctors. There are still a lot of doctors out there who are talking about come in for perimenopause symptoms. I'm super tired. This happened to one of my friends. She goes into her doctor, talks about I am so exhausted. And her doctor talks about
You can get on birth control and you need better sleep hygiene. No, she has perimenopause. She needs testosterone. We need different hormones to boost our systems. and Ashley Schrader, who's the functional medicine doctor that I have coming on the podcast, explains all of this. She's phenomenal. So I'm so excited. I want to open up these conversations with you.
so that you have that support. So you have the knowledge of what's going on and we're not just going in blind. We're not just feeling isolated of, my gosh, I'm going crazy and it's just me and I'm overwhelmed and I'm alone. You're not. We're gonna talk about this.
This is a time for growth and transformation, but it feels hard. It feels down, it feels low. So in this podcast series, we are embracing conversations around these issues. We're sharing experiences to foster connections and to provide that vital support. This period can be an opportunity.
to really redefine your sense of self. I think so many of us are going through an identity crisis in this stage of life. We're reevaluating what happiness means, who we want to be. We're gonna talk about engaging in self-care practices, but we're not talking about just massages and facials and taking out whatever time for yourself. We're gonna talk about leaning into your community.
and exploring new passions that resonate with your evolving identity, which can be so empowering. As we journey through our 40s.
We're not just going to focus on the struggles, but we're also talking about the beauty of this transformative phase. By talking about a shift in our mindset to one of acceptance, this is where we are. And that's such a huge part of our happiness is being able to just accept this stage and gratitude. We can uncover new layers of joy and fulfillment.
so I invite you to embrace this chapter as a chance to cultivate perhaps a new legacy that really reflects your true self. To remember that happiness can indeed be reclaimed one moment at a time. Together, we're gonna navigate these waters and we're emerging stronger, wiser with our spark back and ready.
to shine. Now we're also going to talk about something that's very close to my heart. And especially if you were like me, born in the 80s or the vibrant 70s, remember those days, mixed tapes, the neon fashion, unforgettable music, but also it was filled with unwritten rules that we seem to live by. We grew up
with a set of expectations that often didn't align with our true selves. I take a moment to think about it. How many of us actually had parents
who sat down to discuss boundaries and
How many of us had parents
who we really felt respected us? They expected respect, but did you actually feel respected?
Did you have someone that encouraged you to stand tall and say, hey, this is me and I'm wonderful and perfectly okay with who I am?
I bet the answer is not many of us have. I would wager to bet most of us grew up with high expectations. We were raised with that good girl idea to always be polite, always be nice, always prioritize everyone else's needs over our own.
We strive to be the best, to be perfect, to really shine,
allowed to really have emotions. We weren't allowed to really step into who we wanted to be, who we are. So then we fast forwarded, so then fast forward to our 20s and what did we do? We carried all of that baggage right into our relationships and our careers. We became
experts at putting ourselves last.
at adapting to fit others' expectations.
hoping that we'd find our worth. But did you ever truly feel respected or valued for who you were at your core? Likely not.
Here's the exciting part, my friends. Now that we're in our 40s, all of this stuff that's going on in the midst of it, we're beginning to wake up. We're starting to see the cracks in those old beliefs and we're questioning. We're asking ourselves some big, beautiful questions about who we are and what you truly want from life.
This is the time that we get to examine our family values, our religious beliefs, our political beliefs, courageously asking, does this still serve me? It's as if we're deconstructing a lifetime of being told what to think and who to be. And you know what? It's about time. We are a generation finding our voices. We're embracing our individual identities. And it feels
absolutely empowering. So if you're on this journey too, know that you are not alone. We're all in this together. And it's perfectly okay to question everything at this stage in life. It's absolutely fine to redefine yourself and bloom into your unique, beautiful identity. This is our moment.
and I can't wait to see where this journey takes us.
Are you ready to rediscover the vibrant, passionate woman who still resides within you? Let's embark on this journey together. And I promise we will find ways to help you reignite that spark. Welcome to me in the middle. Here's a little preview of what store for you. We have an incredible interview with Ashley.
Who?
Married when she was, think, 19, super early, was married for 20 years, and now in her 40s is finding herself single, dating, holding an incredible career where she is helping her community in such a powerful way, as well as raising kiddos and redefining who she is.
We have Nicole who has had an amazing career as a physical therapist. And in this 40 space is picking up from a place that she's lived for like 12 years and completely moving her family. Getting curious about how her business starts over. Does it look the same?
We have Melissa who is traveling full-time in a van with her family, who went back to school later in life and looking at how she can create a career while on the road and her incredible journey as she is reinventing herself.
And we have Katie, who is an incredible and inspiring woman who has experienced trauma in her life and has really thrived beyond that and how that doesn't have to define you.
We have Anna who is coming on the podcast to really talk about body shaming and how being raised in the diet culture has shifted our perspective and how we can really take confidence, have confidence in our own bodies.
Landy Peek (22:23)
And this is just a few of the incredible conversations in this Me in the Middle series where we will talk about adults, friendships, feeling isolated, burned out, perimenopause, body shaming, the struggles and transitions that we're often feeling in our 40s.
In each interview, we will make sure to share tips and tricks that have helped each of the women I'm talking with and also may help you. Make sure to join us next week for our incredible interview with Ashley Schrader, who is a functional medicine doctor and nurse practitioner specializing in perimenopause. And we're gonna kick this off talking all about...
hormone replacement therapy, what goes on in our minds and bodies, and the health benefits that we receive from having hormone replacement therapy. I am so thrilled for this series and I hope you join me for every single interview.
Landy Peek (23:25)
because I truly believe each one of us as adults need to hear someone else say, because especially as eighties, seventies, eighties kids, probably nineties kids, it's not like we heard people say, you are smart, you are creative, you are fun, you are talented, you're energetic, you are worthy, you are deserving, and you're making a difference in somebody's life by just existing.
I am so grateful that you are in my life. I love you and I like you. And I will see you on the next episode.
Landy Peek (24:03)
Hey, before you go, just a little bit of legal. This podcast is designed for educational purposes only. It is not to replace any expert advice from your doctors, therapists, coaches, or any other professional that you would work with. It's just a chat with a friend, me, where we get curious about ideas, thoughts, and things that are going on in our lives. And as we're talking about friends, if you know someone who would benefit from the conversation today, please share.
Because I think the more that we open up these conversations, the more benefit we all get. So until next time, give yourself a big hug from me and stay curious because that's the fun in this world.
