Pivot Your Power In Perimenopause, Business and Life with Dr Nicole Cain

But then after a while of making more cortisol, your adrenals are going to get fatigued, they're going to get burned out. And then without cortisol, now you have even more blood pressure. Crashing.

1, 2, 3, 4. You're listening to the Simplicity Sessions podcast. I am your host, Jen Pike. Join me for weekly doses of simplicity, education, conversations and inspiration all around. Women's health and hormones, movement mindset, motherhood and business. All of the audacious elements of who I am, what I bring to the world, and quite honestly, a permission slip for you to do the same. Together we are going to create more simplicity and ease in all that you do while living your most audacious life in business, your health and building your wealth. Don't forget to leave a rating and review as well as hit that subscribe button so that you never miss an episode. And while you're at it, take a screenshot and tag me enpike to share on Instagram. I will reshare that baby out to the community and once a month I'll be doing a draw from those reshares and be sending you something pretty special. Thanks so much. Now on to the show.

3, 2, 1. Hello everyone.

Welcome back to the weekly episode of the Simplicity Sessions podcast. I'm Jen pike, your host. I actually feel like I want to sit on the ground for today's because this is a part two with Dr. Nicole Kane that I had on back in September. We recorded and we got about 50 minutes into our hour and 15 minute call and I was just like oh my gosh, I feel like our conversation just started at that 52 minute mark and it is because we really cracked open this new paradigm, this framework, it was new to me of how to really understand and interpret the stressors our body is feeling. And you know, I grew up in a world and I was taught as a practitioner that we have, you know, four responses. We have Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn. Nicole had talked about flop and fracture and I was just like I've never heard of this, let's go a little bit deeper. And when she went into the depth of explaining, which if you have her book Panic Proof, we're talking about what's going to be found on page 89. That this to me is what the majority of the women that I support in perimenopause, whether it is in their health, it's practitioners in perimenopause, it's business women. And in my own body as a 45 year old woman and mother and business owner, And I just came away from the episode and was like, we absolutely have to do a part two. So she is here today. Welcome back.

I am delighted to be back. This is gonna be great.

It's gonna be awesome. And what's really cool, and we've never done this on the podcast before, and we're like 460 episodes in, is we are gonna be creating a visual for our listeners and now our. Our watchers. That's not the word. What are they called? Our audience, like that is going to be watching this because we're going to create a video of this as well that we're going to release out because you're going to be sharing your whiteboard and really illustrating, you know, what it is that we are talking about. So before we get to that part of the episode today, let's back up a little bit and let's talk about and define what these six responses are in our body.

So, as you said, we typically talk about the fight, the flight, the freeze, and the fawn. And so just to revisit those, just really briefly for those who this may be new to, is that when the body goes into a stressed state, we call that, in medicine, we call that autonomic arousal or sympathetic nervous system activation. And so when your body gets activated, it can show up a little bit differently, just depending on the circumstances or your unique body. So some of us, we fight. And so that's where you get agitated and you want to maybe punch or kick or strike. We see this a lot in kids. You know, they have a tantrum and they're like, biting and they're flailing and they're hitting. And as adults, oftentimes we learn that we can't be violent to. To get our needs met. And then we have flight. And so think about the. The need to just run and get away. It's claustrophobia. It's. It's a deer that sees you and after she's assessed the situation, just bolts. And so that's flight. And freeze is when your body is frozen and it's trying to survey the situation. And so this is when we come upon the deer. And you see that deer will lift their head and they're not moving. And part of that is, maybe my predator won't see me or maybe I need to just figure out if I can fight or escape or if there's another response. So you might find that you freeze. In freezing, we often see that someone may ask you a question, you feel put on the spot and your mind just goes blank. But physiologically, I want to point out what's happening in freeze, because this is going to really matter for flop, which we'll get to in a moment. Is that when that deer standing there and not moving and not blinking and not flicking her tail or anything, or when you feel put on the spot and you lose all your words, it's a freeze. If your heart rate is fast, your blood pressure is raised, your body temperature is raised, it's an activated state.

So like anxiety, would that be one way that this would work itself out?

Yeah, you can definitely feel anxious. And a lot of these, we see these in really intense anxiety, is someone may go into a panic attack and they're just frozen in the spot and they can't move, they don't know what to do, what to say. But when we measure their biomarkers, like blood pressure, et cetera, we'll see that it's more of an aroused state. So cortisol will be high, adrenaline will be high, et cetera. And so then we have the fawn, which is when we try to appease the person or the entity that's in an authority position, like kissing butt, if you will, or laser. People pleasing. That's a much lovelier way to say that.

Yeah, well, it is what it is. I, I think it's like we may not, it may not even be doing this to like people of authority. But like, I know there's times where I'm, I'm people pleasing my kids, I'm people pleasing my, you know, where it's like, really, like I'm the authority, I'm the mom, but I'm doing things in a way to like kiss my kid's butt.

Yeah, because you're, there's, it's a self protective mechanism because you may be by doing that, helping to motivate them for an outcome that you need in that moment. Like if I just make them happy in this moment, maybe they'll put their shoes on and get out the door.

Or you're trying to avoid the fight part of it, the reactive part.

Yeah, exactly. And so then the last two are flop and fracture. And that's where we're going to focus today. And I see this so commonly, especially in perimenopausal and menopausal women. It can happen to any of us. It can happen to animals. Flop. Sheep flop, for example. When a sheep gets stuck on a fence, the nervous system will go into a flop response. And so this is different from a flight or a freeze or a fight response because we're going to see that instead of going up, the blood pressure is going to go down. Instead of the heart rate going faster and you feel it pounding, the heart rate's going to slow down. The body is going into a shutdown. The sheep is still terrified. But it's in polyvagal theory. This is like the peak of the curve. This is when I can't fight my way out of it. I can't run away from it. I can't fawn my way out of it. I. This is it. This is the end for me. We don't have the resources. The body's just giving up. And so that's a flop.

And this is what a lot of women we talked about this last time would describe as the adrenal burnout, the adrenal fatigue, the apathy like, I don't care anymore because I can't care anymore kind of energy.

Yes. And I really think this is so important for you. Listening is if you feel. Feel like, oh my gosh, I just don't have the bandwidth to care. And then the world is like, you're a bad insert whatever x, Y or Z, you should care or you should work harder or just go to the gym. Maybe you're just not getting enough exercise to get you going. Is that, first of all, that's. We gotta delete that because it's. It's not seeing us as humans that are doing the best we can is very invalidating. And secondarily is that if our body is in a flop, is forcing the body to do something that's going to add more stress as opposed to nourishing the body will very likely make you worse. So if you're in a flop and your friend is like, I want you to go and do CrossFit, that's probably not gonna be valuable for you. It will probably make you worse. And we'll get into the nuance of what to do. And instead that will actually help put you back in a balanced state emotionally and physically. And then fracture. We should talk about fracture. And we can, like, dive into these in more detail. But fracture is something that we used to just focus on in behavioral health psychology counseling when it was really extreme. And so we would look at people with multiple personality disorders or dissociative identity disorder, or maybe even just dissociation. And in one extreme, somebody can be so fractured that one part of the self may not be aware of the other part of the self. But dissociation can happen on a spectrum as we're seeing that it's not all or nothing. In fact, every one of us dissociates to a degree. And so for you listening, like, have you ever gotten angry at somebody and then you just lose your mind and say all of the things and then you feel really guilty and bad about it later?

Yeah, well, I. I think. I think that's perimenopause. I think that is.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, I also feel like that is when women feel like they have more serious pms. That is pmdd. There's definitely. I mean, we know this and look at data, literature and studies that when we have the fluctuation of progesterone dropping out estrogen to elevated or just a direct imbalance in the ratio or how these hormones work together along with neurotransmitters. Premenstrual dysorphic disorder. This is the disassociation. And you are, like, witnessing yourself behave and be in a certain way where you're like, who is this? What is happening? And then your period arrives and now you're back to. So women can oftentimes feel like they have split personalities. How many times do we see women being medicated for depression, for anxiety, for their mental health, when in reality it was a nervous system fracture, it was a hormonal issue that was going on. It was depletion.

Exactly. And the other really interesting part about this, which we're seeing more in the recent few years, is that the goal doesn't necessarily have to be whole integration, because being able to go into, like, mama bear mode and lift the Cadillac off of the trapped baby, like, that part should always be available to you if you need that or that part that just is able to just, you know what? I need to take care of this or that part that's like, right now I have to let go of everything and lay with my crying child or whatever it is that we're asked to do as women. It's endless. Is having parts of ourselves that are able to go into these states really efficiently is brilliant. But what we want to do is we want to pivot the power so that you're not feeling like you're fracturing off and losing your power, but rather that you have those resources available for you to slip into when you need to. And we can definitely get into the nuance in that. So let's.

Because I think it's like, now we've defined the six different, you know, F words that we're talking about and how the nervous system responds. So we've defined it. So now let's Talk in terms of strategies and potential solutions for us when we are recognizing, because we talked a lot about this in the first session, the first step is awareness. You actually have to be open and aware to the fact that, like, that this is. You have to take responsibility. This is how I'm acting. This is how I'm showing up. This is what I'm doing. Okay, and now what can I do about it?

Exactly. So awareness, acknowledgement, curiosity. And we're pivoting the conversation that these symptoms aren't the problems. The symptoms are your body's solution to a deeper imbalance or an unmet need, whether that is more nutrition or more rest or whatever it is, is that we look at it with curiosity. We acknowledge it as a solution. So then we can say when the body has lots of symptoms. Oh, thank you, bodies. You are communicating so thoroughly. And I hear you, I honor you, and I'm listening. So acknowledgement from a place of compassion, curiosity is huge. And that's, I want to point out, to really valid in terms of that connection between the body keeping the score of the relationship between our thoughts in our body and our identity with our body. And in my family story, I have a family member who had an unwanted pregnancy or an unplanned pregnancy. She wanted it. And she grew up in a culture where if you're 17 and you're not married and you're very Dutch and you're very religious, this is a bad thing. And so there was a lot of shame for her. And she held that shame in her body. And so she had the baby. They made her give it up for adoption. It was very, very, very deeply traumatic. And ever since then, she had a ton of menstrual irregularities. She had terrible menstrual pain. She felt so ashamed. She felt so bad. She wasn't responding to treatments. And so then the doctors were like, well, then let's just take it out. So she had a full hysterectomy, an oophorectomy, and she still, even to this day, somaticizes. And what I mean by that is she still feels like that womb is there, and she still feels pain and grief there. And I think that a big part of her healing physically will come from if and when she's able to do that healing emotionally. So I think it's really important as we're looking at the physical mechanics of this, what's happening in our soul and our emotional mechanics.

I. I knew that is where that story you were sharing was going to go when you talked about that, because in the line of work that I've done, I've had very personal, intimate conversations with hundreds and probably thousands of women at this point who have, you know, they are trying. They're asking for every ultrasound, X ray image to find the reason that they're in pain in their uterus or in their cervix or in their ovaries or that they're throwing up and have the headaches every time their period comes on and they're not seeing anything in there, and they're trying to just, like, keep seeking and seeking and. And when we start to have the conversations and they share that either, you know, they were never taught anything about their body. They were shamed about their period. It was made to be embarrassing. It was a dirty thing. There was that there was sexual abuse or trauma. There were pregnancies, there were miscarriages. There were things that. There was infertility so that they. When they wanted to get pregnant, they could not. And then part of not being able to get pregnant is now the pain and the issues started to come on. And it is, you know, the word issues. It's like the issues live in our tissues. And our whole story, like the life we've lived, our ancestral everything, you know, this is for me. I wish. I wish we could go back and rewrite the books for us to learn about our bodies, to understand that, like, as we're moving through the human experience, the physical expression of what happens, it's the final frontier. Like everything else is what contributes to our pain, our joy, our, you know, pleasure, all of that. And it's very difficult for people to understand because we've just been taught, well, let's test it. And if we don't have an image or we don't have a result and we don't have proof, if we do not have evidence from science, then it's not so. And it makes you feel crazy. But it's like the evidence is living in you every day, and the evidence is your life. So thank you for sharing that story because it created an opportunity to open up that possibility for other women listening. So when you talk about opening up ourselves to being able to do this kind of work, if we are a woman that is moving through a stage in our life, that is big transition, perimenopause, menopause, lots of other things happening, and we are identifying with this FLOP energy that you are talking about. Can we go into FLOP first? Because I think that there's a lot of women who are resonating there and then transition into Fracture.

Absolutely. And, and so polyvagal theory, it talks a lot about the flop, but it doesn't, it doesn't expand as much as I think it can, and it will as research continues to progress into the fracture. And also I think that the, the different parts that we go into may have different responses. And so I tell the story about my husband and he and I, we were having an argument one time, and oftentimes when we have arguments, he just, he handles it like a champ and he's amazing. But this one time I say something and I notice that he balls his fists and he stomps his foot and he's like. And he just stomps his foot. And I'm like, you're acting like a 10 year old right now. Like you're acting like a kid. And so he reflects on that experience and he goes, and he's doing some therapy and doing some inner work and he's like, you know what? The way that I was feeling in that moment was just like how I felt during the specific incidents when I was 10. And so what can happen, what we're seeing is that we can go into different activated states and those states can have its own unique set of physiological mechanisms for that state. So somebody, when they go to work and they have somebody, they have a deadline, but they need that paycheck, they may fawn, but then when they go home and they feel like they're in the safety of their home, they may fight with their spouse. And so I want to, I want to mention that we may not feel like we fit into one of those boxes, but I do often see, as women go into menopause and perimenopause, I do see quite a lot more of a tendency to a flop. So, so all of that being said, I see much more flop, and there's biological reasons for that is because the body has very likely been helping you through 40 plus years of a stressful life. And if, if your life was extra stressful because of trauma or loss or grief, then it just adds to that even more than just the general human experience. And so going into a flop may be all that your body has left. And, and so I actually think this would be a great time to transition to that whiteboard. And so if those who've been listening to this on the podcast, this, you'll see this whiteboard when you go and you listen on the video here. But I want to talk about why in perimenopause and menopause we may be more apt to go into A flop. And so we start with lowered levels of estrogen and we know that that's one of the first thing that changes. Progesterone will drop, estrogen levels will drop. And we love estrogen. Estrogen is anti panic attacks, estrogen is anti anxiety attacks. Estrogen is anti ptsd, post traumatic stress. They found. We talked about this, I think in our last conversation. Yeah. So emergency contraceptive with estrogen is really protective for us. Estrogen is also an anti inflammatory. So when your estrogen levels drop, your inflammation, it will go up. So we'll just say increase in inflammation. And so now that you have higher overall levels of inflammation, your body is like, oh, we can't have unchecked inflammation. So the body is going to release stress hormone primarily, it's going to release cortisol. Right. And so now we have high inflammation. We have, the body is trying to react to that by releasing cortisol. Cortisol and estrogen tend to teeter, totter each other anyway. And so then as estrogen rises, it can suppress, or as cortisol rises, it can suppress estrogen even more. And so that can make that whole domino phenomenon worse. And so now you have high cortisol. So here's the other thing that can also happen when our estrogen drops is we'll come back to cortisol in a minute. But this is also important is as your estrogen drops is your blood vessels get less flexible. So when we're younger is that we have beautiful stretchy skin and our, our complexions look really good and we have more muscle tone and your blood vessels are able to dilate and constrict. And so then as estrogen goes down, you have less flexibility in the blood vessels. And so this is going to be an entry point for a strategy for us. So I'm going to put a box around that because this is great. And so when we look at flexibility of the blood vessels, we think about the blood vessels in the skin and we think about how when we get a hot flash, those blood vessels dilate. And so your face feels hot, your body feels hot, you're sweating. But also that affects our heart. And so when we have lower amounts of estrogen and less flexible blood vessels is then we have less amounts of heart rate variability. So heart rate variability, what is that? So a lot of people, they think that the heart rate should be like a metronome. They think that the heart rate should be very even and very precise. But we're actually, we found the opposite is true, that you want your Heart to vary in speeds between beats because as you inhale, your heart rate should speed up. As you exhale, your heart rate should slow down in. It's sort of like a yoga heart versus like an armed guard heart. Right. You want to have it be really flexible so as your estrogen goes down, you have lower heart rate variability. And so when you have lower heart rate variability, that will cause you to feel more anxious and more stressed. And so now we have more cortisol. Right. So so far, I want to take a pause here and make sure that this is making sense.

Oh, yeah. To me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And see, like, it is. It is this. I mean, it's a cycle, right? There's an upside down. The cycle of it. So we get. And we get stuck in this loop of this cycle, right? So it's like we have.

We stuck in the loop.

Yeah. We have the physiological things that are happening in our body as we age as women, where all of us are going to go through that period of time where we will no longer be ovulating. We don't have the rich level of progesterone coming in. The adrenals have been taxed in the life we've been living. We're not producing as much dhea, we're not producing as much estrogen, we're not producing enough testosterone, which further converts and aromatases into the estrogen. Our adrenal glands are not just producing our cortisol, but supporting an adrenaline. We don't have the adrenaline coming through in the same way. And now it feels like I talk about it to clients, it feels, you know, sharper, it feels a little bit more ferocious. It doesn't have the same hang time that it used to. So it can leave us feeling like the highs and the lows and then we have our poor thyroid that when all these things are happening, can't be well supported. And so, yeah, all of this makes so much sense. And, you know, one of the. I don't know the issue is the right word, but one of the things I'm witnessing right now in the world is that, you know, here we are, we're sitting at the end of 2024 and perimenopause and menopause have had quite the year in social media and so is hormone replacement therapy. And I'm so grateful that the conversation is now mainstream and more women are asking and having accessibility also. We cannot just take hormone replacement therapy and think that this loop is going to be fixed. Like, we have to participate. We have to Participate. And you know that that's a statement. So now then, the question that follows that up is, okay, so how do I participate in my foundational health so that if I'm taking the hormone replacement therapy, I can be better absorbing it, my body's utilizing it, and I feel better longer.

Yeah. This is brilliant. And the other thing that goes into this with the hormone replacement therapy is how is your body metabolizing those hormones? Is. Is. So if. If we add estrogen to the system, but we still have high amounts of stress hormone, if we still have a lot of environmental stress, and if your body has been burning the candle at both ends, which is the case for many of us, especially in this era, is that it's almost like adding fuel to the fire. And so we. We have some really, really cool opportunities to go in here, and we can do more. So if you. If you do hormone replacement therapy, I. I have no affiliation with Dutch, and so I feel comfortable saying, like, I really love Dutch testing. I know you and I talked about that. Yeah. And it will look at how your estrogen, in particular, is getting metabolized. And so if your estrogen is getting broken down into an inflammatory, like a 16. Oh, then I would be really reticent to just add hormone replacement or add estrogen replacement until that gets corrected. And so I really appreciate the nuance of what you're saying in that, but there is a whole domino effect. And so with the flop, what's ending up happening is that you have this whole loop that's coming, and you have less blood vessel flexibility, you have slight changes in estrogen. You have these hot flashes. And so now your estrogen changes a little bit. You get this hot flash, and your blood vessels aren't very flexible. So it's. They kind of like pop open, if you will, as opposed to, like, deliciously stretching and contracting. So there's a rapid change, and then your blood pressure can crash. So your blood vessels may dilate your blood. Your blood pressure may crash. And then your body isn't able to get that blood pressure back up as quickly because those blood vessels are. They're less springy, they're less adjustable.

Right.

And so your blood pressure crashes. And so now we start seeing the flop. Your blood pressure goes down. You can measure it. You may feel dizzy, you may feel weak, and so then you may see. Experience what feels like a vasovagal reaction. And so you could feel nauseated, you could feel dizzy, you may feel like you are gonna throw up. And so how do we deal with this? Whole process. So we wanna think number one is where did this begin, where did this start? And it very likely didn't just start with perimenopause, it very likely started before that.

Yeah.

And so I, I really encourage, as you're listening to this is maybe draw out your timeline is try to figure out like what, what is my origin story, what was my nutrition like, what was my stress like, what was, did I go through any adversity or trauma? If I did, how did my body and my habits and my coping skills adapt to that? Because all of that is serving a foundation for what is kind of like the peak of that curve, that flop response and then in, when we think about the specific organ systems, this is the best part. So if we look at inflammation for starters is this is why a lot of the diets that look at anti inflammatory, like Mediterranean diet and you know, maybe a plant based diet, why they tend to work really well for most people is because they're generally more anti inflammatory. And so when there's inflammation in the brain and the body is trying really hard to get that inflammation down, maybe because your estrogen is lower, it's going to try to make more cortisol, but then after a while of making more cortisol, your adrenals are going to get fatigued, they're going to get burned out. And then without cortisol now you have even more blood pressure crashing. So one of the upstream things that you can do is work on bringing inflammation down. And so tangible ways to do that would be adding in leafy greens, adding in fiber. Fiber is really, really valuable, not only in bringing down inflammation, but it's going to change the microbiome in your gut so that it shifts away from inflammatory bacteria into bacteria that will actually heal that gut brain access. And I emphasize this because research is just coming out. I actually just did a video about this where they've discovered that we have a microbiome in our brain. Did you see this yet, Jen?

I did and actually it's so awesome we're having this conversation. So yesterday I had a meeting because there is a lab that we are working with for the next round of the perimenopause project in February. And we are going to be part of one of the first studies in perimenopause and the gut microbiome changes. And we're doing two controlled groups, omnivore and plant based, and looking at what are the differences, if any, that we notice in certain markers, inflammation being one of them. And as we're Talking about this, what's also so important is that that inflammatory signaling and triggering from the body when we don't have things like stable blood sugar, both the inflammatory trigger is going to be elevated and the cortisol response is going to be elevated. And the other thing about is that the role that fiber plays, like yes, protein is the most important macronutrient for blood sugar stability but we can't negate the role that carbohydrates and fibrous carbohydrates are playing because without that, that relationship of your protein with your carbohydrates, you really won't have stable blood sugar. And this is another thing that I think we've gotten it kind of backwards is we're so proud, protein focused, that we've made this the shining star. And, and it has to be in a way because it's the hardest macro to get in, you have to prep it. But we've diminished the role that carbohydrates and fiber plays. And so when you talk about things like our heart health and our, you know, HRV and capillaries and vasod, all of that, like if we don't have the fiber, this is also impacting this as well. And so I think it's such an important point.

You're, you're so brilliant. You guys are so, so fortunate to have Jen as a resource. I'm in admiration. So your biggest hack for the inflammation is exactly what you said in adding in really good healthy plant based fibers. Chia seeds, flax seeds, green veggies, all of those things. And then your second inroad is what can we do regarding cortisol? So we don't want to suppress cortisol. Cortisol because cortisol helps you get up in the morning, cortisol gives you energy, cortisol helps you have a libido, it helps you feel excited. But of course if cortisol is too high then we get this fight flight freeze which in perimenopause ends up in a flop many cases. So we don't want to necessarily increase cortisol for everybody but we sure as heck don't want to decrease cortisol. So what we want to do is we want to, oh I bet I can type this out and that'll be so much cleaner is we want to use adaptogens, A, D, A P, T, O G N S. And so adaptogens are, it's an activity of a plant that can actually help to restore health to the adrenal glands. And there are Adaptogens that are more stimulating for somebody who's in a flop and they need a little bit of oomph. But there are also adaptogens that are a little bit more relaxing if you feel that kind of wired and tired. So if you're in a flop and you feel tired, your blood pressure drops, you feel sick, shaky, weak, exhausted, then you're going to want a stimulating adaptogen. And so I would think about panic ginseng. I love that. I think that's really good. But my very, very favorite would be you and I talk. Did we talk about wild asparagus or shatavari?

We talked. I don't know that we talked about wild asparagus. I feel like we've talked about Shatavari. We were just talking about this yesterday, too. We had a guest expert who studies ayurvedic medicine that came in talking about this one. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. So your audience, like everybody. I'm obsessed with this plant. It's. It's like the Ashwagandha, but for women. And it's so good for. It hits on the inflammation piece, it hits on the cortisol piece, it hits on the libido. It's an aphrodisiac. It's a hormone balancer. So if your estrogen is getting metabolized into the 16 oh or other problematic ones, it can help with that. It's also great for your blood vessels. So we think about the reduced blood vessel flexibility that can happen as estrogen levels decline. We want to think of herbs that go well with that. A great companion herb to shatamari for the blood vessels would be gotu kola. Are you familiar with that, friend? Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's. Its other name is Centella, and that one is studied to have anti aging benefits. It helps with hair, skin and nails. Who doesn't want that? It's so good for your vasculature. And these pair really well together. And then maybe round out the formula with a little bit of Hawthorne and contagious Hawthorne and that. I just gave a bunch of it to one of my colleagues over here because she's going through a really stressful time. And so contagious is good if you're feeling a little lethargic, you feel like you're in a flop, you feel kind of depressed, you just don't feel that joy in your heart anymore. Maybe you're doing that fracture work and you feel like there's been a lot of trauma and you just feel like you're not quite quite in that centered positive agency where you feel in control. Contagious is so emotionally and physically wonderful for that. And so like a panic. Shatavari go to Cola Hawthorne blend would be a way to target all of these different changes in a flop.

Now, do you have a specific blend that you recommend that has all of these or do you recommend that people go to their local health food store where you can go and get some of the different powders and the herbs together and then how would you create this as, you know, a blend for someone?

Yeah, I teach about how to make your own herbal tincture. So if this is like a lot and people are getting out their papers.

Okay, now we're going to have to have you back on for a third episode.

Yeah, I would love that. Is that I typically recommend that you buy the Mamas. And so that would be like the mother tincture or if you'd rather a tea or glycerite is you get the Mamas and you pick them based on your exact needs. That's why it's so fun to learn how to be your own medicine maker. Is that you can mix and match whatever you. You think is going to be best for you. Of course, talk to your doctor and all of those disclaimers. But I would go and get the Mamas and then a good general formula would be equal parts in. In the book I teach you 40, 30, 20, 10. But we can totally dig in how to make your own tinctures. So we can come up with like four different women, like sample women. And you can maybe poll your audience and see like, what are their main physical and emotional concerns. And we'll build tinctures for them. Okay.

We'll put that into the list for the new year with, you know, with different shows now because this is all, you know, what I love about things like this is you as the woman are taking the power back because you're getting your hands in it. You are, you're putting. You're part of alchemizing and bringing all of this together instead of just going to the pharmacy and going and picking something up. It's like you really get to intuitively create these blend with guidance obviously. Because we want to make sure that reason the right blend that's for us. If we have somebody whose stress and blood pressure is sky high, we're not going to, you know, be giving them the same blend that we're talking about for the person who can't get up off the floor. So I think that there's that, you know, really beautiful personalization of it when we talk about. So I just want to actually kind of go through high level, some of the things we've talked about for the individual with the flop. So again, always there's the awareness and the curiosity, there's the timeline therapy, which is really trying to help understand, like, at what point did the tension, you know, really get to its maximum in my body? And did I shift out of a different state into this flop state? What am I doing to nourish my body as a whole in terms of nutrition and blood sugar? And am I getting proper rest and hydration and am I focusing on breath, work and my maybe meditating, those kinds of things? We talked about the adaptogenic benefits of this. Now for that woman, because we have about 10 minutes left who is in the fracture state right now. Can we come back and define what the fracture state is and what she can be doing?

I have an exercise that I really would love to teach, and we could do this in, in a very short amount of time. And that's the cool thing about this, is doing this kind of. You're becoming your own trauma informed therapist. And it doesn't have to take years and years and years of therapy and thousands of dollars and time on a couch. You can start doing this today. And so fracture is where we have different parts of ourselves that are trying to step in and run the show. And the key is, is whether or not it's in your agency, in your sense of personal power, or is this happening outside of your control? Like, am I people pleasing? Because I just need to get my kids to do what I need them to do, or am I people pleasing from a place of feeling fear and disempowerment and maybe just sheer exhaustion.

Right.

So this exercise is called Meeting Place, and I'm borrowing this from EMDR, which is. Was created in the 1980s. Francine Shapiro. It's amazing. And so for those who are listening, what I want you to do is I want you to set an alarm on your phone and let's set a first 60 seconds alarm. And the alarm, the point of the alarm is going to be so that you don't feel like you're losing time. And oh my gosh, how long is this going to take? So set an alarm for 60 seconds. And then I want you to close your eyes and if you feel comfortable is I want you to cross your arms like a butterfly hug. And so your right hand is going to be on your left shoulder and your left hand is going to Be on your right shoulder. So I'm demonstrating it with butterfly and then you're going to tap left and right for the remainder of this exercise. And this is because self touch can be very grounding. It also brings us back to the present while we're activating the memory stores of our brain. So you're going to do that this whole time. And what I want you to do for the first 60 seconds is I want you to imagine the most amazing room, the most amazing place place, the most amazing venue or location that you could come up with. And this would be a place where you can imagine feeling calm, feeling safe and feeling in control, or feeling happy. It doesn't have to be all of those, but I want it to be one of those. And so if you're, if you're listening and you're like, I've never felt safe, I have no idea, then maybe you just imagine that you're just in this room with me and Jen and you're sitting and you're hanging out with us and you can just listen to my voice and that's okay. So what you're going to do is you're going to imagine that room for 60 seconds. You're going to do the decor, you're going to get yourself tea and snacks in this room, whatever you want. Your alarm will go off, and then you're going to set it up for another 60 seconds. You're going to drop back into the room. Entering the second 60 seconds, I want you to invite all of your parts, say all the parts of me, all of who I am, my kid selves, my adult selves, my fearful self, the self that flops in the ground and throws up all of your parts. And I want you to imagine, use your mindful imagination on what that might look like, who might come through an imaginary door. And your parts will tell you who needs to come. So that's, that's your second 60 seconds. So you're just going to allow and invite them all in. Your alarm is going to go off, you're going to take a breath and you're going to set it for a third time. So this third time I want you to drop back in the room, be with your parts, and I want you to look around and then you can invite a part to share with you. And so let's say that in particular your goal of the session is I need to figure out who is causing me to dissociate while I drive. Like I drive and get my kids. I know I drove safe. I got Here, but I don't remember any of it. I just zoned out. Right. And then you're going to use your mindful awareness and you're going to imagine a part of you coming. And so let's say that in this third 60 seconds, nobody volunteers, nobody shows up, is that there's, there's a little side door hack for, for that is you can invite. Because I like to start open ended. Is anybody who's, who's zoning out while we're driving. And then that part will come. But if nobody volunteers, that's okay. We're just getting to know your parts. We're practicing. If nobody volunteers, a side door would be okay. No one's showing up, that's fine. We're just going to go down the timeline and imagine you're getting on a spaceship that takes you back in time. And the earliest moment that you ever remember that happening where you felt like you super zoned out. And then whatever image or age or memory, that's gonna be the part. So it's kind of a secondary way to do that. So you set up your meeting place, you've invited your parts in, you've identified the part, and now this is your last 60 seconds. So we've only been at it for four minutes here, right? So your last 60 seconds is you're just gonna build a relationship with that part and you're gonna timestamp it. So when that part comes in, when you identified that part, however you did it, you're going to say the following to your part, whatever words that you want. I hear you. I see you. I acknowledge you. And I want you to know that I'm listening. And I'm so grateful that you're sharing with me through whatever ways that your voice knows best how. And I want you to know that I'm all grown up now that I'm no longer in the situation that you were in. Now I have resources now that you didn't have. And it's 20, 24 or whatever year it is. And I want to ask you to trust me, to know that I've got you and that I will take care of you and I will protect you. And I want to ask you to set down your heavy burden of trying to take care of me. And then I like to add a tangible visual to this. So while you're reassuring that part, you're honoring that part. You're thinking that part, you're telling that part that you're in the present, that you have all the resources you need, that they don't have to do this for you anymore is give them a backpack or a box where they can put in that pressure that they had that they've been carrying and visually ask them to put that in there and then set it aside or take it or some people send it to the sun.

So we're really talking about something that can take us a matter of four minutes.

Yep.

To move through. And it's so beautiful. And also these are the kind of four minutes that almost every human will bypass and dismiss as not being powerful enough.

Yeah, yeah. And the research shows that it only takes four minutes. And if you do this every day for four minutes, maybe while you're brushing your teeth, whatever it is, is this will change your life. It may take 90 days. It may take 90 days because the brain takes approximately 90 days to reprogram itself to create a new habit. But this will. This will change your life.

You know, I can't remember if we had this as part of our first conversation. I feel like maybe we did. Is that traditional therapy that we've been taught to go to, which it's incredible. I love being able to talk to someone who not emotionally connected to, and I can just like, let it all out. But the repetitive nature of always going back and bringing up the same things again and again and again, it doesn't actually set us free. Right. When we're talking about some of these things that you've brought in. Because again, there's this, like, ownership and it comes back into us. You know, it's like, it's so incredible to be able to have practitioners to work with, whether it's a talk therapist or psychotherapist or, you know, EMDR that you were talking about, whoever it is, like finding. Finding your person, finding your happy place where you can find. Feel safe enough, but then also being able to have some of these amazing tools that you've given that like, you're with you all the time. You can do this four minute practice.

You know, do you find for people.

In the beginning when they're doing this, do they need to do this multiple times in a day? Is it like, what do you normally recommend for people?

I think in the beginning there's this feeling of fake it till you make it, because it's. Your brain has been programmed since likely before you were born because you inherit a microbiome from your mother who inherited from her mother, et cetera. And then there's like RNA and all the studies of epigenetics. So you've been being programmed your whole life and with exercises like this, when you are the one in charge is you're, you're writing a new program, you're creating new software, and then you're changing your literal brain and nervous system so that it is what is in integrity with who you are now and who you want to become. And that's unfamiliar. And the brain loves the familiars. They always say, like, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Right. And so in the beginning, this is going to feel really foreign and it may feel weird and fake and wrong. And so if that's the case, then just give yourself a break and four minutes a day. But if you find that you're craving it and you want it and your parts are all. Now they're all talking to you, then lean into it more. Maybe you begin your day and you end your day with that, but give it 90 consecutive days, even if it's just once a day, give it 90 days.

I love that. That's really good advice. Really good. We've come to the end of another episode and I'm like. I said, I'm like, well, now we have to do a third. I actually think that this would be a really good teachable inside the Hormone Project Academy for the practitioners, the, the, the tincture workshop, because it's going to give them a new tool and a resource that is not, you know, this, this doesn't feel like a supplement to me, even though it is. It is supplementing the body, it's supporting the body. It feels energetically, very, very different. And I think as practitioners, we have to have more expansive tools that we are working with. So I want to say thank you again so much for being here. For listeners, can you remind them where the best place is to connect with you?

Yes, Instagram. And we're going to be going through the tincture making stuff in the book. And so find me at Dr. Nicole Caine on Instagram. And then if you have a hanker and to get the book, you can find that anywhere books are sold. It's called Panic Proof.

And we will link all of that up for you ladies in the show. Notes, as always to everyone listening here every week to help to create more simplicity and more ease in all that you do, we will see you back here next time. Make it a beautiful day. Take care, everyone. One, two, three, four.