#323 Reframing Menopause as Renewal with Shira Averbuch

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions.

Dr. Doni Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body, but with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Doni Stress Recovery Protocol. On this show, you're gonna hear from doctors, nutritionists, and experts along with Dr. Doni who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is How Humans Heal.

Hi and welcome to How Humans Heal. I'm Dr. Doni Wilson, and in today's episode, I'm so excited to cover this topic with this guest. I'm introducing you to Shira Averbookh, and she is a naturopathic practitioner based in Israel, founder of Shira Med Center, and she's the author of this book, The Moon Within: A New Perspective on Menopause as a Time of Renewal, Growth, Wisdom, and Reconnection to the Body. Um, this subtitle says, "A Journey of Discovery and Connection to Menopause." It's so beautiful. She's also an artist, a podcast host of Inspired to Be Higher, and so much more. So thank you so much for joining us today, Shira.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for the introduction and for endorsing this. You are so generous. I really appreciate it.

Of course. I mean, I've been reading your book and I I just think you have such an amazing way of bringing a perspective on menopause, but also bringing a new perspective on a book, because so much of the time, you know, a book is just, you know, like black and white, turning the pages, and you've really brought the artist in you and so many beautiful analogies, and even you bring the book to life by formatting it around the season. So maybe we can just start by Just how did you come up with the idea to write this book in this way?

Okay, thank you, thank you. It's a lovely question and I love it. And really, it was a huge part of why I decided to write this, because I wrote The Moon Within because I wanted to create a shift in a paradigm and to frame menopause really as not as punishment but as a gift. And I I tried to use this structure of the— it's 4 seasons, and then there's 3 chapters in each season. And it's really, every chapter begins with the new month of the year. And the reason is because a woman's life is not linear. We live in a culture where everything is go, go, go, you know, achieve. From one point to another, and it's very a linear perspective of how things should go. But a woman's body and a woman's life is a spiral, it's cyclical, and it's connected to nature, which is always cyclical and spiral. So, and that's why I also called it The Moon Within, because In many cultures, the moon is connected to femininity because the cycle of the moon and the cycle of fertility in women is the same. It's 28 days. And it's not just that. It's, you know, the emptying and the filling. And there is so much, you know, meaning in all of that. And what I'm showing in the book is that when we connect back to nature, when we connect back to this rhythmic living, then we can find the moon within because it's always— the light is always inside. And once we connect back to it, we can light and we can— because people are very distracted by the symptoms. And I'm not saying, you know, I don't want to gaslight anyone. I suffered from menopausal symptoms and they're harsh and they can be even dangerous sometimes. It's, it's not a joke. But what I want to say in the book is that we are focusing on the symptoms like we are victims. And in reality, we are not because nature doesn't make mistakes. And the fact that there are symptoms, it should be like a light that we need to look at and ask why. Why are we suffering? Is it what nature meant? And I don't think so. I don't think it's a mistake. I don't think we are supposed to decline and to suffer because there is another way, which I teach in the book.

It's beautiful. It's so, yeah, I also, of course, Also with a background in naturopathic medicine, like, you know, it's all about like, how do— what can we learn from nature? What can we honor about nature? What— how can we— how can nature show us and reflect back to us what's inside of us? And, and to look at these processes like menopause as a natural process, not a, not an illness, right? And yet I love in the book how you, you do talk about the, the different symptoms that women experience, and you share a lot of case stories of, you know, women you've helped through this process. And, and so maybe we just touch on what, what are some of the common experiences that women have during menopause? And are you, are you, would you say, I mean, I get the impression from, from the book that you're talking about the whole, like, from perimenopause through menopause, and, and really becomes with all the women's life, right? Why have specific years associated with it.

Yeah, right. So when the sex hormones start to decline, usually at our 40s, but it can be even sooner, even before or after, women start to say we don't recognize ourselves. We become irritable, we become— things change and they can be anxious or exhausted or disconnected to themselves. They can feel, you know, there are hot flashes and night sweats. And it's true that it's the hormones going up and down. It's a roller coaster that they're feeling like things are happening and they're not themselves and not in control. But What I'm trying to say is I don't judge this. Again, I felt it myself. And what I'm saying is you're not broken because there is like a concept of the body speaks loudly, suddenly. It's true. And you have to hear it. And if you just put Band-Aid on it, which is okay. Sometimes things are so— it's a crisis that you have to use something, maybe HRT, maybe medication, maybe herbal medicine. It's fine. But still, even the herbal medicine is, for me, a band-aid because we have to ask why. We have to understand that there is an underlying cause for everything. And in my case, it all started when it, you know, it's deeply personal. Of course, I wouldn't write it otherwise. It started when my father, who was my soulmate, a very, very special and spiritual man, died of cancer. And I was, because of his illness, I was studying the metabolic approach because I wanted to you know, help, but I didn't. We lost him. But when we did, I found out that I was really going through this period of intense grief and chronic stress. And this emotional and physical depletion really just pushed me into night sweats and menopausal symptoms. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't just go on with my life, and I had to stop. And that was when I, you know, my instinct as a naturopath pushed me to— the first instinct was to just grab my herbs and supplements and calm these symptoms. But then I realized that something is underneath it all. And just a remedy is a band-aid. And I want to understand what am I addressing really. So what is the root cause? And this experience brought me deeper into the metabolic approach. And that's when I started realizing that the entire terrain, the blood sugar, the insulin, the cortisol, the inflammation, the sleep, nutrition, all of it, the nervous system, everything, all the regulation of everything is so important to treat because otherwise we're just chasing the tail of the dragon. We are not really treating ourselves. And what's more important than that is that we just cover the symptoms and we don't really make the huge changes that the body is asking us to make. And it's really— quieting down the symptoms is dangerous in my opinion, as it always is with any chronic problem. So, age itself is— and the drop in the sex hormones, is not the real reason, in my opinion, why we suffer. It's just simply the unveiling of what's underlying the problems that we have already, that's been hiding for years, for centuries even. And that's so important. And nature doesn't make mistakes. It's why we have to live in accordance to our nature. Otherwise, we're just gonna suffer. We're gonna develop all sorts of chronic illness that we know that we become more in danger of. So this is the idea behind the book, the chronic conditions that the body is asking us to look deeper and to treat. Suddenly, I mean, it looks like suddenly, but it's finally really, finally.

Yeah, it makes so much sense. And, and, and I love the way you explain it, you know, to be like, yeah, it's very tempting to be like, oh my gosh, this night sweats waking me up, this hot flashes is interrupting my day. And so we just look for something to stop it in the moment. But is that— that's not really allowing us to go, okay, what is my body trying to tell me? Is there, is there something that needs attention in my diet, you know, the way I'm feeding my body, or my digestion, or my, my, my cortisol levels, my, my, you know, something deeper underneath, my, my sleep, my, you know, my adrenal glands. And, and you cover all of this in the book. You— I, I love, by the way, how you use the analogy of an orchestra. Like, you, you use, um, not only artwork in your book, but you also use music to explain what's going on with the hormones. And maybe you can describe a little bit of that now, like the— between, you know, cortisol and insulin and, and how— and, and then also the sex hormones and how— and how you're saying now, like, all of a sudden it gets discordant, and then we're, we're like, oh my gosh, I gotta do something about it. But we can If we can understand deeper and give the body what it needs, we can bring this balance back again.

Right, right. So I love this question. And I will just add that in the book, the illustrations are mine and I personalize the hormones. The, like, I draw cortisol like a very tired, lady who's working around the clock and never resting. And I, I— so this is cortisol, the, the stress hormone. And I draw, um, oxytocin, which is the binding, the love hormone. So she's drawn like a woman who is caressing a cat. And so, and we have insulin that is supposed to take the glucose, and we have sugar cubes in the drawing that she's trying to enter to the, like, a cell door, but it's blocked. It's— there is no entering because the idea is that once the sex hormones drop, there is a huge— it's like I said, the sex hormones are like a buffer. As long as we're fertile, it helps everything. It helps insulin with the glucose. It helps lower cortisol. It helps all the hormones. Once they drop, it's really suddenly a cacophony. If we go back to the metaphor of the music, And we have to be able to, to bring back harmony to the whole orchestra because there isn't just one thing, you know, using HRT, just giving us estrogen or progesterone, just one thing is not enough to bring the harmony back because the body is so complicated. And we have like estrogen receptors on every cell almost. And, and it's so— it affects the brain, it affects the bladder, it affects everything. So it's very complicated. And only once we really tend to the terrain, then things calm down. And estrogen, for instance, loves fasting. And in general, what is fasting? Fasting is Give your body a rest. Give your digestion system a rest because we, again, we are in this culture of go, go, go, and the food is always available and there's always going to the fridge and just taking something and all these empty carbohydrates that we have available everywhere in beautiful packages and everything is filled with sugar and everything. So there is no rest for the body and there's no rest for the insulin and there is no rest for anything. And so when I talk about fasting, it's not just intermittent fasting, which is very important. We'll talk about ketones and how much of a relief they are for the body. But it's not just that, it's so much more than that. It's, it's giving ourselves a break from, from too much information and from too much negativity that's being bombarded in the news and from, from being like sedentary because we have to move. Nature, made us with the need to move all the time to, you know, to survive. But today we are so out of that and arrest from being inside because we have to, to see, you know, the sun and we have to be out and we have to go out to nature. And so there is so much more than just the nutrition side of things, but nutrition is the basis. It's very, very important to understand that only— okay, I'll just make a short explanation. Let's do it.

Yes, I'm glad you're going right into that. It's perfect. Yes, because I think it's so important to understand, you know, what we mean by metabolic health and and fasting and ketogenic diet, because I think it— they all can get misconstrued as well, and especially when it relates to women's health. And so it's like, it's not a one-size-fits-all, right? And it's like, never. How do we, you know, use this wisdom of how to feed ourselves but without pushing it too far? So thank you. Yes, please explain how you've how you guide people in this way. Okay.

So, so first of all, the connection between the hormones, the nutrition, the stress, the sleep, metabolism, we have to understand it's all interconnected. And it's during the fertile years, the, you know, the orchestra of the HPO axis, like the hypothalamus and pituitary and the ovaries. They make this beautiful music of, let's say, ballet, you know, because the woman is fertile and soft and outgoing. Always the nature wants us to be like a flower that attracts the bee. It's natural. It makes sense. So all the reproduction, all of that beauty is on that you know, axis. And at the same time, we have the section of the orchestra that is HPA axis, and that's the hypothalamus, pituitary, and the adrenal, which adrenal makes the stress hormones. And it's the stress, let's say it plays the music of cortisol, which is like jaw, like tense, thriller soundtrack. And it's about survival and alertness and urgency and pressure. And we should have both things. But in a healthy body, there is like communication between the two and they play together. And then when the one drops, when we stop being fertile, or at least the— there is a drop in the sex hormones, then all of a sudden there is so much, uh, the sense of urgency and, and all of that is way too much, and there is no softness, and we have too little sleep, we have too much sugar. All this is going on at the same time because this is the culture that we live in. And the processed carbohydrates, like we said, it's too much and we're running on empty. And that's when really we are starting to feel the unveiling of the mask because we cannot handle this anymore. It's like we could use, we could, when we were fertile and in our 20s and 30s, we could go out and party and drink alcohol and not sleep night and we would be fine. It looked like it, but it's not something that we can live this lifestyle anymore. And suddenly we feel everything. So the exhaustion and all of that, and anxiety, and the brain fog, and all of that is the result of that. And what do we have to do? We have to nurture our bodies back. So the ketogenic diet is something that we can use and we should use because But, but as you said, we need to personalize it. And what is the meaning behind this? We are a hybrid machine. Our bodies are hybrid. We can create fuel either from carbohydrates, which is in the body turns to glucose, or from fats. And we cannot make the same. I mean, if we, as long as we consume carbohydrates, will never use the fats as fuel because it's so much more easy for the body to use the carbohydrates. It's like an immediate fuel. So it will always prefer it and to store the fats. The fats are like so precious for the body, so it will store it. And then we really exhaust this engine. The, the, the, the— sorry, the carbohydrates. And the insulin becomes— we, we become insulin resistant and we become even more stressed because there is no— the, the cells are starving. We eat because we need the energy. We're exhausted and we eat all the time, but the insulin is already too tired or the cells are too tired, or there is a mechanism there that doesn't allow the cell to get nurtured. And we— the cells are starving, although we eat and we accumulate the fat around the midsection, and there's a lot going on. But what is the saving of this? It's ketones. Ketones are what we make when we lower our carbohydrates and we start working on the fats. And it's— in this condition, it's safe, really, for the, for the body because it is so tired of this whole procedure. And I have a community of women that I work with And once they get— this whole thing is about flexibility in these two engines. If the body is able to go into ketones making and to the fat-burning mode, everything becomes so much easier because it, you know, it goes around this very tired mechanism And suddenly there is new energy, there is new, and everything stabilizes because there's no crashes, there's no sugar crash, there is no, like, the energy doesn't crash and the mind becomes so much more clear because again there is no crash. So the, and ketones are very anti-inflammatory. So this is again something that we are dealing with in menopause, in perimenopause, and menopause, and postmenopause. So it's the— this whole thing is like a save for our bodies. It's huge. And it allows the healing to go on. Now, it's not that I think that, you know, starving ourselves or fasting like forever is the ideal. It's not. It's about the flexibility that we lost and that we should have, and it's important to have in order to heal. And it's, it's, uh, you know, and once you do heal and you feel better and you are stronger, you can go in and out of ketosis, or you can try different things. And the idea is to try it and to experiment with your own body and see what works for you. But to just to— but I have to say, you know, the proof is in the pudding. What happened to me was I, when I started a low-carb diet and ketogenic diet, everything stopped. It was like magic that I couldn't believe. Now, of course, as a naturopath, already my, uh, my terrain was tended to. So I think it was very fast because of that. I just gave my body the, the ketones, the, the energy that it needed, and everything quieted. And it's not that fast and that easy for everyone, and, and we have to give everyone the corrections and the things that they need. But the idea is that this thing is the key. It's the key because it's the basis for everything else, as I described. And once we establish that, then we can build on it and we can really empower women to have such an amazing midlife and after and to become something even that they can't even dream of. I mean, it's not a story of decline. It's a story of really empowerment and, and, uh, I think I feel like it's a new birth.

Ladies, high-risk HPV virus doesn't have to control your life. I'm Dr. Doni Wilson Wilson, and I've been at the forefront of women's health for over 20 years. I've helped thousands of women to clear HPV naturally with my proven protocol. And this isn't about just managing the virus, it's about eliminating it for good. Join my workshop and take control of your health and your body with an expert guide by your side. Click the button below. Beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, it, it really can be a new birth, and it's a And it's a new, like, knowing of oneself, you know, that can happen when you can connect with your own body, connect with what your body needs, get into your own routine of how you're feeding yourself and when you're sleeping. And like, because as women, right, we're so often distracted and paying attention, taking care of everybody else and taking care of our children. And, and, and we're taught that way. We're taught to Oh, don't, you know, don't pay attention to yourself and don't listen to your body and, and, and you just have to make it through. And so, you know, when women get to this point in their life and they're— and the body is really causing them to not be able to be distracted anymore, right? It's like, okay, now you have to pay attention to your own body and, yeah, and learn how to feed your body and, and and, and all the other things. And I, I love how you're describing this. I mean, what I find too is that it can really make a difference when we say we, we get the idea, okay, I want to start to go to more low carb, or I want to go toward a ketogenic diet, that, that you can go gradually, right? So you have a chance to listen to your body and go, okay, let me, let me just look for the main sources of sugar in my diet and start to find ways to remove them. And then Let me see how I can look for ways to bring in more healthy protein and fat. And then it can be kind of a transition. And then also, you know, thinking about like, I mean, I don't— I'm curious if you find this too, but I find that one of the things that makes the biggest difference is just not eating at night, but, you know, like within a few hours of bed, right?

Yeah, that's a huge thing. So the other thing other than nutrition, the other huge thing is not just what to eat, but also when to eat. Because this is also a— like, melatonin is a hormone too. And the hormones all influence one another. And when we eat after sundown, it's very difficult for the body to understand what's going on. We confuse ourselves. It's not only that we sit in artificial light all day, not being exposed to the sun. Also, we eat almost until we go to sleep. There is no way the body knows that now it's sun. The sun is already way past its sundown time. And it's like so confusing and the sleep is not good. And you're not supposed to digest when you sleep. You're supposed to really rest. And then the liver has so many important other things to do other than, you know, the digestion, but to clean your— everything has to go through it. And it's— there is a whole process that goes on at night that should be— you, you need to have your downtime. And the way you signal that to your circadian rhythm is when you wake up in the morning, you need to go out and be exposed to, exposed to the sunlight. And when the sun is down, you need to stop eating. It's so important. It's not the time to eat anymore. And, you know, it's our Paleolithic ancestors didn't eat at night. They didn't, they weren't able, they didn't have light bulbs and electricity. So, and we're not that different from them. We have to respect the cycles of our bodies. Morning and night is also a cycle. And like the 7 days of the week is also a cycle. 7 is a number that's very connected to nature. And the 7th day is Shabbat. It's the day that we are supposed to rest. And 7 times 7 is the year that the land is supposed to rest and we're supposed to not work the land. And I mean every 7 years, not every, not 7 times 7, but 7 times 7 years, the 49th year coming to 50 is Jubilee. And Jubilee is when we, you know, traditionally the slaves were being freed and the commitments were broken and Everything was about letting go and about freedom. And this is exactly what women are experiencing when they really honor being able to let go and to start. So women can suddenly ask, what do I really want? Why am I so tired? Why Did I abandon myself? Or why am I carrying everything? And what do I want to do different from now on? And this is an opportunity, really. It's a, you know, so being 50 meant a puzzle usually, or starting, or just, it could be a huge empowerment in that sense. And traditionally, it was also a seen that way. Like in the Mayan calendar, they have a very intricate way of calculating, but every 52 years, the two calendars collide and there is like a rebirth in the Mayan calendar.

Wow.

Yeah. And it's in many, many different cultures, we can see that 50, around 50, is something very remarkable that's happening. And it's, I think we have to look at it and be inspired. And I want to also add that there are 5 species of mammals in nature that women are like going through menopause, but also 4 kinds of whales are going through menopause. And what's so astonishing is that when they stop being fertile, let's say they're 50, they're approximately reaching their 50s, they go on living for many, many years, 60 more years.

Wow.

Being the leader of their tribe, their group, and they move and lead the way in the oceans. And this is so, I mean, it's not a, like, you know, people think it's a mistake of nature. No, nature has a meaning. Nature wants us to take the lead or become the teachers or the storytellers or to, you know, to share all this knowledge that we accumulated over these 50 or whatever years. And this is our time to give back, but in our way, the way that is right for us. And so it's not a collapse. It's really a beautiful gift if you connect to your own voice and you can speak yourself, and you can, you know, ask your body, what do you need? And to honor it.

I love it. We're talking about Shira's book, The Moon Within: A Journey of Discovery and Connection to Menopause. And this is her painting on the COVID of the book, which you see beside, next to her here. And it's, and it's, it's really beautiful how you bring together physiology and some things that are complex, as complex as like understanding insulin resistance and the ketogenic diet and fasting, and you're bringing it together with what you were just talking about is this spirituality really of menopause, like looking at it as a spiritual experience and looking to history and cultures and even other species to help inform us, right? We don't have to feel— because I think a lot of times women feel like, oh my gosh, I don't know what's going on. I feel lost. I feel in the dark. I feel alone. Right? We can feel like this is unfamiliar territory. And yet you're reminding us, hey, it's not unfamiliar. We've got a lot of examples we can learn from. Yes.

And you know that in Japanese, they don't have the word for hot flashes or You can see that in different cultures, it doesn't exist as much. Or so you can learn from this. And what I really want to go back to is when, imagine your shirt that you're wearing catches fire. Would you stay and say, okay, I'll take care of it after I finish my emails? No, you drop the You roll over, your instincts kick in. And this is what we're going through with the menopausal passage because, yeah, it's like you're burning from the inside. It's very, very— sometimes I started saying it can even be dangerous. I mean, Most suicides in women occur in this shift in life because it's difficult to navigate sometimes. And the depression or the anxiety or all of this can be a total, like, overwhelming and difficult. And it's no joke. And I don't want to dismiss any of this. It doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And we do have to take care of it. And sometimes we do have to use external means. But, but going back to the burning shirt, it has to— I mean, it stops you, it stops you in its tracks and in your tracks, and you have to address it. And this is, I think, so, so beautiful about menopause because you cannot continue what you were doing before. The body shows you This is not the way. You cannot continue with a burning shirt. Stop, reevaluate, and look for what the body is trying to say. And the language of the body is the symptoms. That's all it is. Don't be mad at your body for speaking to you. Listen, try to understand, try to learn. About what the body is trying to say. And because really the other side of it is really empowerment and joy and clarity and being very like in a stable mood. It's amazing. I mean, really, I suffered from being very unstable in my 40s. I was I really, I didn't understand myself. I didn't understand that this is what I'm going through. And it was just very difficult times. And today when I look at it, I'm so calm. I feel like this is smooth sailing. I want everyone to know. I want to, you know, to spread the message.

This is possible. And just as you share with, in the book about your life story where Like sometimes it's in the middle of our life here that we lose a loved one, like you, you lost your father or, or a relationship. Sometimes it's when we realize, hey, this, I need to change this relationship I'm in, or the, your career for that matter, right? Sometimes it, we, when we start actually paying attention and, and we start to see these truths of like, wait a minute, I'm staying in this situation that I'm in is, is only creating more stress for me and to be able to, you know, be able to make changes that can allow you to continue to unfold in your process, right?

Right. And that's why I love the burning shirt image, because unlike the other side of it is the boiling frogs, you know, that's the image that people always refer to. When, you know, you put Band-Aids on your symptoms, then you are staying in the same position and you're not, you don't realize that you're actually boiling, but you don't feel it because there's the things that, and it's very, you know, it's natural to look for the, for something that will calm you and will make it easier. But no, don't fall to that trap. Your shirt is burning. Stop everything and try to understand what's really going on underneath, what's the underlying cause. And once you get to the root cause and, and, you know, after living for 40, 50 years in this culture that we're at, things will be not right. I mean, we're not supposed to eat the way we eat. We're not supposed to live this and to be in this tension for so long. So there's a lot to fix and there's a lot to do. And I don't want to put people like, oh no, there's so much to do. It's so much hard work. No, it's great. I mean, I want you to fall in love with taking care of yourself and nurturing yourself because it feels like nothing else. I mean, this is all you have, yourself. And this is the time that you can do it. You, you, you know, you finished projects or, or the kids are grown or, you know, things can now rest and you can tend to yourself.

And I'm, I'm also, you know, reflecting on women who might be now in their 60s, 70s, 80s, because sometimes they, they're thinking, oh, I'm, past menopause, but I always like to go, oh, that's— that is menopause, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's the same. It's the same condition. It's the same. You, you go through everything and, and you experience it. Some women do earlier, some later, but after you go through the shift, it's always the same for everyone. So we're all in this together.

Yeah, it's beautiful. And to know that you didn't— because sometimes if you may be listening and you're in your 70s or something, and you might be like, oh my gosh, I, I missed it. No, you can— as soon as you kind of become aware of, oh, this is what this is, then you get that opportunity, right, to look at it differently.

Yeah. And I have a few characters in the book that are much older and, and they're dealing with all kinds of different things because we're, you know, We're women, we're all the same, and we have to understand our nature and our needs. And, um, there is so much to unpack. I mean, it's, uh, it's for everyone really. I think even women in their 30s should read it because, or, or just go into this conversation because it would have helped me so much if I knew that this is what I'm going through. You, you have no awareness. You just go through ups and downs and you don't understand that this is hormones and this is. A part of this age and, and that it shows you something underlying and, and it's so important to understand. Um, but this is why women our age need to spread it, need to talk about it, need to, and show also the— I'm so optimistic and so loving of this stage and, and I really want to make it clear that no, you don't have to be, you're not a victim of anyone and anything. And absolutely don't treat nature as your enemy. On the contrary, as much as you can embrace nature, you will be embraced back. And a part of it is being in a community of women like you do so beautifully. You support women and all around the world with your work, and it's just beautiful to watch. And this is what we need. I mean, when women compete, like, it's again something that, that society has brainwashed us to do. All these behaviors are so harmful to us. We need to to stick together as sisters. And, uh, because the community is also something that's so important. And again, the oxytocin, the, the hormone that I referred to, the love hormone, the binding, the connection hormone, this is the, the hormone that regulates women. Men need dopamine more. But our society, we doom scroll, we do all these dopamine-rushing activities that are so harmful because this is not what we're built for. It's— there's a reason why women are so much more talkative and so much— because we need the oxytocin, we need the connection, we need to be with each other and to, you know, to get this from one another. And this is how we thrive. So the hormones are really being explained in the book, and I really hope women will be able to, because of the illustrations and the, you know, the metaphors, it's easy to read. It's not like too scientifically, like, you know.

Absolutely. I really— it's a book where I feel like I just like, when I'm in the evening and I'm like, oh, I can just sit down and like enjoy, and yet you you do bring in the science and you do explain cortisol and you do explain, like you are now, of oxytocin in a new way and with beautiful analogies. And so, um, I definitely, you know, uh, anyone listening, and please share with others, The Moon Within, which you can find on Amazon, on Amazon and wherever you would normally look for a book. Um, and, um, and to be able to connect with Shira as well because you're— you have your podcast and speak Aspire to Be Higher. And I'll put links down below as well so people can find you, because if women want more direct support from you, they could reach out to you.

And absolutely, absolutely, I'm building a community of women. And yes, I would love that. I mean, I love working with women, and I get such good, you know, feedback about the book and It being helpful means the world to me. So I would love to hear anyone who reads or has questions. I would love to hear from you.

Well, thank you so much for opening the conversation in such a beautiful way, you know, because when you, when you're sharing from within and you're opening your heart and you're opening up all this information that you're sharing, then I think that's what breaks down these walls, right? In the competition, because you're saying, hey, I'm not here to compete. I'm here to share and and, and help and, and go through this together. Hey, we're here in this lifetime together, why not connect about it and support each other through it? So thank you so much.

And, you know, and I also think that no one has monopoly on the truth and, and what's right. And I, I'm not here to fight anyone, and whatever is good for you, do it. I'm sharing from my experience and the experience of The women that I work with, my community, my patients, and the stories are in the book, all kinds of nice stories of women that I worked with. And it's just really, I love it. If you don't agree with something I say, that's great. Tell me and let's talk about it. I really know today things that 10 years ago were the complete opposite of what I thought. And, you know, things change. I changed, I changed my mind about so many things. So, and I love it. I am so happy and grateful that we are just in this abundant place today, that there are all kinds of options, and, and we should be really grateful for that.

Absolutely. Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much for joining us here today, Shira. I'm so glad to get to talk about your book, and I can't wait for others to get to read and enjoy it and learn from it and inspire their own, yeah, thoughts and, and in conversation within themselves and in their communities. And, and thanks again for everyone for joining us here at How Humans Heal. If If you are new, then welcome, and I encourage you to, to sign up for my newsletter list so you find out about the next episode. And thank you again, Shira, for being here.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. I loved it.

You're welcome, and take care, everyone. We'll talk soon.

Thanks for listening to How Humans Heal. If you If you liked this episode, leave a rating and a review. And for more resources, visit drdoni.com.