Woman Unleashed - Understanding Your Hormonal Blueprint with Dr. Sonya Jensen

Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the gutsy gynecologist. I'm a triple board certified, OB, GYN and Functional Medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyne health and your overall health. And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more band aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome. Hi ladies. Oh my goodness, this is going to be a great episode. So please stay tuned and if you have to pause it and come back to it, definitely come back because this is a really important episode and I'm really excited because my guest, Dr. Sonia Jensen, I've known her for a long time and she is just doing beautiful work. Like she's doing really deep, important stuff. And she finally wrote her book and got it up to the world. And I'm super excited to share it with you guys because it's going to help you understand why your body is in hormone chaos. Seriously. So she wrote this book, woman unleashed. It's release your story, revive your hormones, reclaim your freedom. And she talks about how the things that we experience as far back as being in our mother's womb creates our physiology. The experiences that we have down to simple, like interpreting facial expressions as a toddler from our parents or our caregivers, really imprints and changes the chemical reactions that happen in our body and the resulting hormonal releases that happen. And over time, these, you know, experiences create our physiology and get us into a pattern of behavior which then even drives that pattern deeper into our psyche and into our physiology. And that becomes kind of our hormonal blueprint. And it's, it's amazing. All the work that's going on with neuroendocrine science and all of these things and I just love how she expressed explains like this is what's going on with women, especially in the United States, is that we are being given the wrong signals from a very young age. And it's really inhibiting our normal hormonal physiology and it's manifesting as disease. It's manifesting as cysts and fibroids and endometriosis and infertility. And then you go and add, on top of it, medical interventions which are, you know, making this situation worse, like synthetic hormones and such. So this book is super important for you to understand why are you in the place that you are right now? And more importantly, she gives you tools to get out of it. Like, let's acknowledge what's going on, but then let's figure out how to move through it and change. Change our hormonal blueprint and live a better, more vibrant, amazing life. So I'm just really excited about this book because I am here to bring the truth to you ladies. I am here to, like, open all of our eyes and help us see that the medical system is broken, and we don't need the white coats telling us how to feel better. We need to listen to our body's innate wisdom. It has innate intelligence that knows what it's doing, and we need to remove those impedances and those interferences and break those patterns of dysfunction. And so I'm just really excited about this episode. It's so good. You're gonna have a couple surprises. You're gonna be like, what? Really? Oh, my gosh. I did not know that. So. So it's really important for you to listen to and share with every woman you know, especially women who are raising young girls, because we need to break this cycle. We need to do things differently in this country going forward with our younger girls. We need to help them embrace becoming women. So let me just sing Dr. Sonia's praises before we get into it, but please share this episode with everybody that you know. I'd be super honored if you hit the subscribe and the five star and even leave me a review that lets itunes know that this is important to you, and, you know, you're on the mission with me to reclaim our health, take back control of our health, because the medical system is not doing it for us. So. All right. Dr. Sonia Jensen. She's a naturopathic physician. She's on a mission to change the way women understand their bodies and themselves. That's why I connect with her so much. She believes that women are the center of their families and communities, and therefore, by supporting them, she is creating a ripple effect that will support the whole overall. Dr. Sonya is a mother of two boys, a yoga teacher, a workshop and retreat leader, a podcaster. She runs her practice with her husband, where they help their community move into a state of thriving and not Surviving. She believes it's everyone's birthright to live a happy, healthy, joyful and abundant life. I believe that as well. And I know that can happen for you. You need to believe that's where the shift needs to happen, is you need to believe that for yourself. And Dr. Sonia is going to help you figure out how to do that. So here we go. Well, welcome, Dr. Sonya, to the Gutsy Gynecologist show.

Oh, thank you. It's so great to see you.

I know it's been too long since we connected last time and you went and you wrote your book, Woman Unleashed. I'm so super excited for this conversation because what you have really, you know, unveiled is a big deal. It really is. And I'm excited for you to talk about it because not enough people talk about what we're doing to the women and the girls in our country. So what even prompted you to write this book?

Yeah, so many things. And I do feel like it's such an important conversation that we're not having enough of. And my own personal story prompted me. And also just the work I've been doing with women now for so many years and just seeing the pattern that has developed, the imprints, the beliefs that hold us back and just kind of reverse engineering why women experience what they do, like why they're getting sick, why they're feeling like they're not worthy of a healthy body or a joyous life, and really trying to understand the psyche of where all that begins. And what I came to, it really was these deep rooted and embedded stories that started maybe generations before and then in the womb. And then as we're growing up, we start to learn these identities that aren't even ours, that really frame our entire existence. And from that place, it really does intersect with our physiology, which then changes our personality, which then changes the actions we're taking for ourselves, and it just. It just takes over. So I really think it's time for us to take that power back that was either taken from us or we kind of gave because we thought we had to so that we can really thrive in this time, this time that we have on this earth. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh, I love that so much. And I completely understand what you're saying because I too have been studying it and really trying to investigate and figuring it out for my patients. But explain to my listeners, what do you mean? Like what happened to you in the womb or as a child growing up, all of that trauma, those little traumas, how does that shape us as women? And Affect our hormones and our physiology.

Yeah, it's a great question, and I'm glad you brought up little traumas, because often people think when we say trauma or stress, it has to be something huge that's happened. But when we're in the womb, we're gathering information from our mother's hormones. So depending on her stress levels and how she's experiencing life, that's going to dictate our foundation when it comes to our hormonal blueprint. So then as we come into the world and we start to observe our environment and just how people are responding to us, maybe it's something, you know, where you're running and waving your hands in the air and you're screaming and you're just being yourself, and then all of a sudden you look to an adult and they're giving you a disappointed look. That in itself is a trauma, a micro trauma that tells you, hey, if you express yourself, if you use your voice, you're going to disappoint someone. If you disappoint someone, you may feel like you're going to get kicked out of your tribe, and then you're not going to feel safe. You're not going to feel like you belong. And this is all happening in that subconscious space. And as we're gathering this information, the brain is so intelligent that it's really starting to understand your environment and what feels dangerous and what feels safe. So it starts to categorize. So now that we have these triggers in our environment, maybe it's a smell, maybe it's like a facial expression that we see on somebody as they're moving through their stuff. It could be anything. And the brain's like, okay, I got you. The amygdala starts to wake up. It starts to ask your limbic system for information of like, where have we felt this emotion before? And what did that experience feel like? What was that experience? It goes to your hippocampus to gather that memory, and then all of them signal your hypothalamus, which then signals your pituitary gland to release the stress hormones or the appropriate hormones to deal with that moment. But imagine being in that moment all the time when we're doing the simple things in life, like making a lunch for our kids, taking them to school, maybe getting ready for a meeting in a boardroom, or maybe we're sitting in traffic, or maybe we're just looking in the mirror and we're having all these thoughts show up. That same response is happening. So then we get stuck in that state of surviving instead of thriving. So now cortisol is up, adrenaline is up, insulin is up, like all these other hormones are up. And testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, these hormones that help us thrive, they kind of take a back seat. And it really isn't until we experience symptoms. Right. Like these are women that you work with all the time. It's like, whether it's like fatigue, we can't figure out. So the adrenals are maxed out. Pms, fibroids, endometriosis, all these different manifestations and these symptoms, they really do have a story that started long ago.

Oh, my goodness, I hope women are like, click, click, click right now because it's so important to figure out why you feel the way you do and why you behave the way you behave, because that's the only way to change how you feel, right? Is with your behavior. And that has to go back to how you're thinking because that changes your feeling and your behavior. And you laid that out so beautifully. So, you know, for women, I feel like we need to go back and start to change how we talk to our children, how we talk to girls. And I see this all of the time with moms wanting to put their girls on birth control pills and just like dampen the signals that our body's trying to send us and talk to us as opposed to getting in tune with them and listening to our innate wisdom. Right. So I would love for you to just like, explain how do we go about instead of getting caught up in the micro trauma memories of those moments, like, shift it and change the narrative.

Yeah, yeah. I think self awareness really is key. And educating ourselves on the fact that that does have such a huge influence on who we are today. And so when we have those moments show up in our life, maybe it's like I said, a trigger from a smell or something we're watching or anything having a pause. So Viktor Frankl talks a lot about that pause in between stimulus and response. And that is where our true freedom lies. Because we have like a microsecond to make a decision. So we're either going to react or we're going to respond. So if we can strengthen that space in between, we then can ask a question. So I like to see questions, okay, I'm having this reaction. Who does this belong to? Where have I felt this before? Is this actually mine? Is there truth to this reaction? How I respond will determine what's coming next. Do I want that? Right? So asking yourself these questions or when we're going to feed ourselves, asking yourself, is this going to nourish me? And that feeding can be with a thought, with actual food, with what we're watching, with who we're having a conversation with. Seeding these questions in ourselves gives us this moment to observe ourselves rather than caught up in the emotion. And then we can use that emotion for information. We can use anger as fuel for action. We can use grief to understand love even more deeply. We can use sadness to understand what we feel like we're lacking or where we feel safe, stuck. So we can use it as an opportunity rather than it taking control over us, which I understand when you're hormonal, when things are happening, right? So for some women, it might be in their PMS period, Some period. Or some women, it's perimenopause, menopause, and you're feeling like you have no control even over those pause moments and thoughts. So then it really is checking out your physiology, like, looking at, okay, where are my hormones sitting so I can support myself so that I can dive a little bit deeper?

Yeah, for sure. And it's so important to recognize that by not doing that work and acknowledging all that, that's how you got into hormone imbalance in the first place. Right? You talk about, like, the story of your hormones. Can you talk about that a little bit more?

Yeah, for sure. And you know, that story starts, like I said, in the womb and even in our grandmother's womb, Right? Because when we're growing in our mother's ovaries, when all of that is existing already, the imprints are already being embedded. And so to understand that that story and that blueprint has already started long before, so that, you know, people might think, well, okay, then I can. Can't do anything about it. But yes, we can. We can change how we're responding to that imprint. And then as we come out, we are again navigating our environment according to the signals we're getting from it. So when we're having that first surge of DHEA at around between three and six years old, if we're under a lot of stress, we know that DHEA and cortisol have an inverse relationship. So if there's a lot of cortisol surging through you, maybe because of a stressful environment, your first foundation of DHEA is going to be low. There's been studies done of Holocaust victims, and their children are born with adrenal insufficiency. Again, understanding that story about yourself gives us more grace, too, so that we know that, okay, this is why I feel this way there's nothing wrong with me. This is just the communication that's happening. I just need to change that communication in my hormones. And then as we're moving through those first few years before our period before puberty, just understanding that there's different hormones that play there before even your estrogen and progesterone start to rise. And like you were saying with birth control, once a woman has her first period, that first moment, it takes up to 12 years for ovulation to regulate itself. So if you throw birth control in the picture now, you've already taken that wisdom away that you were speaking to. So a good friend of mine, her little girl, had her first period, and I took it upon myself to make sure I called her, I FaceTimed her, and I'm like, look how amazing your body is. Look how powerful you are. So I really think changing the narrative that we are planting in young women's minds is also going to help that story of their hormones as we age, because so many things are going to influence it, as you know.

Yeah. So without a doubt, if we are empowering our girls, as soon as they start having their periods, wouldn't you agree that their hormones are more likely to be imbalance and they'll less. Be less likely to have cramping and pain and PMS and all of these issues that are so often associated with young girls and their periods? Because I think that is them fighting against what's naturally supposed to be happening as opposed to embracing it and figuring out how to thrive with it.

Right. Yeah. I love that. And it's really. We started ourselves because I think we all fight it, and that's just the conditioning of our culture. You know, if. If we moved with the rhythm of our cycle, I think everything would be so different. But the environment that we're in, the culture we're in, the society we live in, is more of that patriarchy society, which didn't really understand how to move with the rhythm of a woman. So if we were moving with the rhythm of a woman, then her first two weeks of her cycle really would be when she'd be working more or doing all the actionable things and the luteal phase. And during her period, she's really slowing down and being more internal, and we're not really given that opportunity. But if we can teach young women to listen to that and we can teach them that you don't have to expect yourself to have the same amount of energy throughout the month, the same abilities throughout the month, again, we're giving them More grace towards themselves and understanding that, oh, I'm cramping. Okay, so what was it this month that maybe influenced my body? Like, am I not getting enough magnesium? Am I not eating well? Is my gut not working well? What can I do to shift that? It's so empowering to give them that information.

Yeah. And it sucks that it took us 30 years to figure that out. More than that.

Yes.

So, like, let's pass on this knowledge and not let girls get caught up in this anymore. You know, I have young kids as well. I have a daughter and a stepdaughter who are 11. And this is, like, all ahead of them. And I just really want them to learn how to embrace it and not, you know, go on the birth control pill and try to suppress the cysts symptoms and go down that whole path of leaky gut and vitamin and mineral deficiencies. And you know that one study that mentioned that it changes the type of man you desire?

Right.

Oh, my goodness. Tell my listeners about that, because this is real, ladies. It's a big deal.

It's a huge deal. And we don't think it because we're not given that information, but it really changes how you perceive your world. So there was a study done. There's a few studies done. There was one particular one where, you know, women were taken. There was half of them didn't have birth control, and the other one were on birth control. And when you see a picture of your partner or somebody that you're attracted to, there's a part of your brain that's going to get signaled and aroused and there's going to be changes in the rhythm of your brain. And when they study these women, they saw that the women without birth control, yes, you see those normal changes and patterns happening. But the women on birth control, you didn't see any change. And they started to notice that women on birth control will choose partners that are a little bit more yin. They have more of that yin, feminine energy and quality. Whereas women off of birth control kind of choose men that are a bit more yang and more steady and just have different qualities. So imagine you're in your 20s, right? You're on birth control. You might be going to school or you might be working. And, you know, that's the time where you're really seeking out this partner. And yet, if you're on that birth control, it may actually change who you may have chosen if you weren't. And that. That's a story that I dealt with. Right. I share that in the book, too. That as soon as I came off of birth control, I was like, the pheromones change. Like everything shifted. How I was seeing myself shifted. And I was like, who am I with? You know, it just changed my whole reality. And not to say that's going to happen with everyone, but knowing that is important. So you can question some of the things that are showing up in your mind.

Oh, my goodness. Thank you for sharing that story. I think it's so important for women to realize, like, this literally changes how you feel about yourself, how you feel about people around you, how you function in the world. I mean, I remember having a patient who just had maybe her third baby. She went back on her birth control pill and she wanted to divorce and leave her husband. Like, she just couldn't stand him at all. And she kept chalking up to postpartum depression, but she didn't know how to not hate him. And I said to her, let's just go off of the pill for a little bit. Let's just see, maybe that will change something. And it was so dramatic. Like, I will never forget that as soon as she came off of that pill, she loved her husband. She felt hugely guilty and wanted to repair everything she had done the past couple months. She was attracted to him and wanted to have sex with him. I mean, literally, that's how much her physiology changed. Because it suppresses your testosterone, it suppresses your natural hormones, it gives sends these warped signals to women. And I just, you know, I'm thankful for the birth control pill, right? That's how I went to medical school, that's how I became successful. But it would been really helpful to have some informed consent to know what I was signing up for because I wouldn't have been on it so long and I wouldn't have had my patients on them for so long, you know, So I, I think you're bringing up so many important things in this book, and one of them is that women just don't know what they're signing up for when they go to the doctor and get handed that prescription. Right?

Yeah. I mean, I mentioned in there, even the studies that are done on women in quotation marks are actually done on men. Right. Like that big study that was done about heart disease and menopause, there was not one woman that was in that study. So understanding that when you're walking into your medical doctor's office, that even they don't have the actual knowledge about your body that you should have. Right. So taking that self responsibility of like really taking time to empower yourself is so important. And now we're kind of living in that age of knowledge and information that it really is at our fingertips. And it can feel confusing. Absolutely. But just taking the time to understand yourself so then you can ask the right questions, you can get the informed consent that it's so necessary. Because if you're on a pill that's depleting your magnesium, your zinc, it's creating dysbiosis, all these things you're going to be running around trying to fix your gut, trying to do all this, and yet the culprit is that little pill that you're taking every day. And so, but if you know that, then you can do other things to support your body while you're on it. So it really just is being able to understand yourself so you can make the right decision for yourself.

Yeah. And unfortunately you're probably not going to get informed consent from your conventional doctor. You know, birth control pills were like days away from being available as an over the counter medication like Tylenol, which thank God that didn't happen. But that is how flippantly the medical system sees birth control pills. They don't see the damage that it causes. And I had a, like a moment this morning where I was like, why did I become a doctor? And I was like, I became a doctor to save people from other doctors. And I thought, oh my gosh, that's crazy. But that's how I feel. Like the word needs to get out. People need to know what they're signing up for when they go into their doctor's office. It's not as benign as it's made out to be. So yeah, thank you for that tangent. It's super important. I mean, it changes our physiology. And you know, that's just one piece of your book. I, I want to talk more about, like, how do women figure out that they even have all these little stressors and traumas, that they've created these thought patterns and behaviors and changed their physiology? Is it something you need to like go through and unpack and deal with or do you just need to like start shifting and making changes going forward?

Yeah, I think there's a little bit of both. I think the first step is shifting and going forward and really working on that physical body and then you can actually have space to unravel what needs to be unraveled. I don't think we need to sit in our stories. I don't think we need to. I think we need to look at them, especially if there's pain there. It's Important to look at it, understand it, understand the gifts that you've received from it, even the challenges. So then you move through it instead of distracting ourselves from it or disowning parts of ourselves that maybe are still lost in that pain. I think accepting that that was a part of our life is what's going to help us move forward. So then we can start making these decisions. But really it comes with that first decision of like, okay, I'm ready to self discover. And that can mean I'm ready to understand what my cycle is like all month. Like, what foods do I need to eat, what herbs do I need to take, what support do I need that's going to support my body? So, you know, the first, you know, I'm noticing the first two weeks of my cycle, I love my husband. All of a sudden I ovulate. I could care less about him, right? If those things are happening, you're finding there's that day where something switches inside of you. You know, there's some pattern that needs to be unraveled a little bit. So taking that first step of seeking help, seeking that knowledge, is going to give you space to kind of open up and start to understand your hormonal blueprint. Because everyone's story is going to be so unique and different and, and it can feel scary to unravel things, right? Because we all have a story and we've built an identity and a life on that story almost because it gave us this framework. And that framework now is known and familiar and to go into unfamiliar territories. Maybe we don't have time. Maybe you have young kids, a business and a practice and all these things. But what we have to understand is if we don't give ourselves that time, it's the body will start to show us, right? We're going to start creating those cysts, those fibroids, that discomfort and that dis ease because our soul is trying to whisper all of these signs to us. So it doesn't have to be hard, right? It could be these little things that we do. It could be gratitude every day. It could be looking at ourselves in the mirror and just saying, you are worth it. Whether you believe it or not. You're just taking that step to say, hey, yes, you are important. It could be a cup of tea that you have by yourself for a few minutes. Like the little simple things that you do. Keep telling yourself that, yes, it will reinforce that I am worth it. I'm worth it. And then you'll seek the right help and then you'll get the guidance, and then that is where the journey begins.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I love that so much. I think, acknowledge what you've been through and that you don't want to be there anymore and you're tired of feeling the way you're feeling and just make a choice that you're going to do things differently, and that requires acting differently. You know, gratitude was a major shifter for me, that's for sure. Like, five things. Just start rattling them off as soon as you realize you're awake in the morning, before you have any other thoughts, before you get out of your bed, and then at the end of the day before you go to sleep, like, thank you, God, for my family, for giving me patience to get through that situation, for giving me energy to work out today and make different choices. Like, that was a game changer for me because it shifted my energy from negative to a positive. And that changes your physiology. Right. So, yeah, for sure. I would love for women to just, like, embrace this idea that, okay, that stuff happened to you. Now let's change the narrative. Right. Are there, like, actual steps and tools that in your book that women can use to make that shift?

For sure. I have these pause moments in each chapter, and some of them include a visualization you can listen to or meditation. There's. There's some yoga sets that you can also use just to kind of get anchored into your body. And there's some other exercises that kind of help you, again, self discover that story that is yours and then utilize those tools to kind of move through them and start to, again, ask the different questions that we spoke about in the beginning. Okay, where did this come from? How is it serving me now? What is it that I'm attached to? There's also a questionnaire in there that. That helps you figure out where you sit in the triangle of disconnect. Are you the duchess, the diva, or the damsel? Like, how are we operating in our world today? And where that. Where is that operating system? Where was it born? And how can we utilize the strengths of each one of those archetypes so that we can move forward again, not negating what we've learned and who we are and parts of ourselves, but utilizing it in a way where it's really going to help momentum forward?

Where do you see with your patients the biggest obstacle? Where are women getting stuck in this process?

Yeah. So one big thing is if they don't have the support from their family, they feel alone. So this is where I try to create community. So I have a group of women, even now that I'm taking through the book, so that they don't feel alone, and they understand that there is this common theme and thread that weaves between all of us women and our stories may manifest differently, but really there's such a commonality there that you are not alone. So understanding that, but before they can understand, it's such an obstacle, because then. Then it brings up all those things, those beliefs, like, oh, maybe I'm not worth, you know, living that life that I was meant to live, or I don't have the resources because I can't get the resources. So I would say that is the biggest obstacle, because we're so used to putting everyone else before our own needs, that to unravel that one is the most, I would say, the biggest challenge.

Oh, my gosh. I completely agree. And I. I think that we feel like we're the only ones. You know, when I started reading your book and I saw you talking about taking your life at 13, and you were so miserable, you hated your life, and I felt the same way, and I had those same types of moments, and I just thought, I wonder how many women out there can relate to this, because I know it's a lot. And we just need to share our stories more and lift each other up and realize that, like you said, we're all going through, even though it's manifesting different, we're kind of all feeling the same experience. Right?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think what we've been taught is, is to compare and compete.

Yes.

Right. Because we were compared when we were young, or just that imprint is there, and we forget that vulnerability really is our superpower, and that that is the connector. And women are meant to connect. Like, you know, you and I know oxytocin is the hormone of connection and love, and that is the ultimate healer for the world. And I think the world's been, like, put into this space of such disconnect that we have forgotten that every individual on this planet is connected. And the more connected we feel with ourselves, the greater ability we have to see the gifts in another and see them as ourselves as well, and then want to lift each other up instead of our insecurities or our ego or stories wanting to climb over top of somebody, but actually we want to, like, bring them up together. Actually heard Brene Brown talking the other day, and she was talking about how she describes the inner flame to her kids, and she gets them to cup their hand, and she says, this is your flame that you have to protect. And you want to surround yourself with people that will. That won't want to turn that flame off. And when there's wind, they come and they cup it for you as well to protect it. So that's who we want to be around. And that's what we want to also exude into the world so that we get that back. And I really think that is what's going to move everything forward.

Yeah, without a doubt. And I just love the idea of teaching our children this, especially our girls, because like you said, we are so competitive and we're so judgmental toward ourselves, toward each other. You know, I grew up with such judgmental friends, like, everything, you know, and it's ingrained into me till this day that I just judge every little piece of me when I look in the mirror. And you have to, like, mindfully go and undo all of that crap every single day. You know, it gets easier, it gets less often, but it's still there. It's, like tattooed, you know?

Absolutely. Well, before we got on, you asked how I feel about the book, and, oh, the vulnerability hangover. After that, I was speaking to and all the insecurities and. And, you know, I shared on my Instagram the other day, too. I just. I have such a challenge receiving. So as I've been receiving all this amazing feedback and women sharing their stories, it's still so hard for me to open my heart up, to actually take that in, because for so long, I had to protect my heart. But I honor that. Like, I understand that part of me, and I'm really trying to just say thank you instead of deflecting everything that, you know comes my way. So it is. It's an effort every day.

Yeah. I remember my ex husband now, but he would get so angry, like, why can't you just accept this compliment? Like, I am trying to tell you how beautiful you are, and I just think you're perfect. And I couldn't accept it. I couldn't. You know, it was always deflected, like you said. And I just think it's so important. I hope everyone listening hears you. Dr. Sonia. Like, you to this day. You wrote the book and you still have issues. It's. We're a work in progress, but it's worth doing, right?

Yes. Yeah. You just learn so much about yourself, and it just gives you hope every single time. Because what comparison and judgment does, it takes hope and faith away. And when that's taken away, like, what are we left with? Right? So it just instills more and more of that in you. When you start to recognize that this isn't me, this isn't even my voice that's coming through. This is an old pattern. This is, you know, probably even my mother's pattern or my grandmother's pattern. There's so much I'm carrying that I don't have to carry. It's no longer mine. And it's a journey. There's no such thing as perfection.

Yeah. And some women, they don't necessarily want to go so deep. I understand it's, it's hard, it's a lot of work. But I want women to understand, like, you literally can't heal a body you hate. If you're frustration is that you want to lose 20 pounds and you can't do it, this is why. Right?

Yeah. That relationship with self. Right. When, especially when it comes to food, my goodness, that relationship is such a reflection of our relationship with self. Like, I have a saying, like, how you digest life is how you digest your food. So if you're not able to digest this life that you've created, you're not going to be able to digest or give yourself nourishment with the nutrients that you're trying to. Even if you're trying to do all the right things the right way, there's always that voice behind you saying something else. So it's really important to understand where it's coming from.

Yeah, I see that all the time. Like we do the gut healing work, we do the detox, we do the intermittent fasting. But if you have thoughts and old belief patterns stuck on repeat up there, things will not shift. Or they'll shift for a moment and they'll go right back. You know, I talk about like, long term hormone balance is not something that you're going to get by giving hormones. You know, it's by doing the bigger work. Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah. And it's always changing. Like your story is always evolving and changing as you age, as life shifts. So I think another misconception is like once you balance them, they're balanced.

Balanced, yes.

But really that's the starting point. Now you understand what balanced feels like. So when you know that, you know that. Okay, so this month I had a little bit extra PMS or my breasts are swollen a little bit. Oh, this is going on. My hair feels a little bit different. You start to understand that, okay, maybe these are the different hormones that need a little bit of support. I mean, both you and I teach a lot on hormones and I would say this month is probably my worst cycle. I'VE had in so long. And I think it is because of the book and because of the vulnerability that I'm feeling and all the different things. I'm like, okay, I need to slow down and assess what, you know, what's going on for me and, and do all the right things, but really take time for myself to understand that better.

Yeah. Oh, I think that's so important. Like different seasons of your life are going to require different behaviors and different, you know, needs. So I think that's really important. So share with my listeners what a typical day looks like for balanced women like yourself.

Yeah, so my morning is so important to me. It's my non negotiable. I think we all need a non negotiable depending on again what stage you're at. If you have a young infant, that might not be a reality for you, but maybe that's in the bathroom for just two seconds, right? Yes, you have a non negotiable. That's just yours. So I wake up in the morning, I have that gratitude practice of like thank you for another day. And I put my feet on the ground and I get really settled into the earth. So I ground myself, I do my morning thing, I drink some water and I have a morning practice. So sometimes that's a hiit workout, sometimes that's yoga. Sometimes it's actually just sitting and meditating depending on where I am in my cycle and what energy I have. And then I am an intermittent faster. So I don't eat right away. But then, you know, then I got to get the kids ready, get the day going, get myself settled and then I have a cup of tea by myself. And that is, that is my moment. That is really my moment to ground into myself. And then I go through my day and I usually don't start eating till 11 or 12. Some days, some days it's two again depending on where I'm in my cycle. And even with diet, it'll change. First half of my cycle it'll be a little bit more keto. Whereas the second half of my cycle I'm going to have healthier carbs come in at that time too. So know it'll change. And the big thing, my other hack that I do a lot is sauna and cold showers. Cold showers I will always try to end on. But definitely in the Canadian winter right now it's a sauna, then a culture. Yeah. And then, you know, throughout that I take my supplements and all the things. But I really am a believer of like seasonal like you were talking about like different seasons of my life. I'm going to need something different seasons of the year. So winter, I'm making sure I'm having warming foods and all the things and then differences into my cycle as well.

Oh my goodness. We sound. You sound like you're describing me. My day is like, like the first one to two hours. It's about filling my cup, filling me up, giving me what I need. And that includes moving my body, getting in touch with God, you know, maybe having a shower with my husband, things like that. And then really being intentional throughout your day and taking that time. And I love intermittent fasting, but I'm like you, it totally matters where I'm at in my cycle. And I've gotten to the point where I know where I am based on my appetite. Like, yes. When I am like, oh man, I'm starving, it's 11 o'.

Clock.

Oh, duh, you know, like I'm gonna be on my period soon. Like, it totally makes a difference. And now that I live this way, it's like so easy. Before I felt like I was always fighting and struggling and now it's just like innate and I'm just so in tune and it's easy and I eat when I'm hungry and I, I no longer like, grab for the comfort and go on that roller coaster of the sugar ride. And like, it's amazing when you really get in tune with your body's innate wisdom, how beautifully life can flow. Right?

Yeah. It takes the shame away because I find when we're so rigid and trying to be a certain way all the time, it takes the shame away and we give again that grace piece. So like, we just understand that our libido isn't going to be high throughout the whole month because of our hormones. Our appetite is going to change throughout the month. It just makes it so much simpler and easier.

Yeah, exactly. And I'm, I'm going to be honest with you, I eat gluten free Oreos the day before my period almost every month and I just have to feel shame about it. Like, I just got over that shame because I realized like, that's something that I like one day a month and it's not impacting me because like, I feel amazing the rest of the month, you know, and like just releasing that hurtful emotion, set me free, you know? And I think if women can figure that out, they'll be so much better off.

Yeah. So much happier. Right. And I think the other piece is important to communicate your season to your family, especially your Partner. Right. So they have an understanding of where you're at in your season, so they can also support you. I think that's one gap that we need to fill because we're often just in our own world experiencing what we are. But it's. The more we share that with our partners, the easier the flow in that relationship can also be.

Yeah. And I find, like, if you help them understand, sometimes they're more observant and they'll let you know where you're at quicker than you'll.

Absolutely.

Right. You know? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. If you're just little bit short. Okay, I got it. Yeah. You need some space this week.

Yeah, exactly. And I love that you mentioned, like, I might not be interested in having sex right now because our testosterone isn't at the same level all month. Like a man's is errors goes up when we're going to procreate. Like, the purpose of our physical body is to procreate. Right. So our testosterone ebbs and flows. And if we can get in tune with that and really support our relationship during that time and then not feel guilty that we're not in the mood. Right.

That's right. Yeah. I had this one woman come to me. She's like, you know, like, right after my period and up to ovulation a little bit, I'm totally into it. And then all of a sudden something happens and I just don't want to, and it's affecting my relationship. I'm like, well, that's normal. Right? Like, that's. That's what's supposed to happen. I think what's lacking is just the communication to your partner. Yeah, yeah.

Well, in their own understanding. So that's when you, like, focus on massage and other things that you can enjoy about each other. It doesn't always have to be sex, Right?

That's right. Yeah. The care that can come with just touch and just being close.

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. So many good things. So I want everybody to get this book because I think it's super important for women to realize that their thoughts and their behaviors drive their hormone physiology, drives health or disease. Right. We got to get out of this disease focused mindset of like, what's your diagnosis? What do we need to treat and just, oh, my symptoms and focus on that. And we need to focus on, like, how can we heal from the crap we've been through and just move. Acknowledge it, move through it and move forward. So I just love everything that you've done with this book. So tell my listeners, like, where do they get it? How can they hook up with you and do this work?

Yeah, absolutely. So it's womanunleashedbook.com you can get the book from there and you can find me at Dr. Sonia Jensen.com and my social media handles are all the same. Dr. Sonia Jensen.

Awesome. Well, all those links are in the show notes, so I hope everybody gets this book because the more that we can start to understand what's going on in our own bodies, the more that we will be in control and we won't need to go to the doctor because we won't have disease. We will just have health and a vibrant life. Right.

And freedom.

Yes. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much. This is awesome.

Thank you. It was so great connecting with you.

Oh my goodness. I hope you got so much out of that. I love talking to Dr. Sonia. She has really taken the time to do the research and understand what we're going through as women. She's been taking care of, of patients for a very long time and she saw this in her practice and she knew there was something to it and so she went and she figured it all out. And so her book, Woman Unleashed is amazing. And I really hope that you'll read it because the more that we can start to understand ourselves and understand how we as women got to this point, we're just, we're gonna make so much more headway. And I love that she has figured out how all of these little micro stressors and mini traumas and just experiences throughout her life really do create this hormonal blueprint that we are experiencing. And so her book is really helpful because she actually helps you get through that process and heal and change. And so I would invite you to, you know, do the read the book and even do the group with her. So she runs a six week book group where she takes women through the book, chapter by chapter and teaches them how to gain control and, you know, change that blueprint. So it's pretty amazing. I'm really excited for her. So this is good stuff. So hopefully you got something out of that episode. Please let me know, please let me know what else you want to hear about because I'm here for you. I do this for you. You know, we're all in it together, rising each other up, sharing our stories, our struggles, our difficulties so that we can learn from each other. And I'll come out on the other side, our most amazing selves. So go do something for yourself today if this was it good. I'm proud of you. I'm excited that you're taking the time to learn and more about your body and your mental and emotional health, your spiritual health, all of it. It's so important. So thank you so much for your time. I'm truly honored. I would love it if you would give me some love and let me know. You know, you can rate me, send me a review and share this with everybody. You know, like, that's the most important part, is we just need to get the word out. So go have an amazing week, you guys. I love you so much. Bye.