12: The Hidden Purpose of Menopause Symptoms

We all know that our hormones shift during menopause, but what if there's also  something changing that's much deeper? In this episode, we uncover the hidden spiritual purpose behind the physical symptoms.  

What if those hot flashes, restless nights, and waves of emotion aren’t just symptoms, but signals… calling you back into alignment with your soul?

There's a reason why some of those symptoms just seem to hang on no matter what you do - there's a spiritual or emotional connection to them that hasn't been resolved.  

In this episode, we'll walk through some examples of how this works, what's actually happening in the body physiologically when there's something spiritual or emotional that needs to shift.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How your sex hormones have been quietly protecting you from stress and from your own misalignment.
• Why the drop in hormones during menopause is actually a spiritual initiation, not just a physical change.
• The deeper reason your body no longer tolerates what it once could (and how that’s guiding you back to truth).
• How to work with this awakening instead of fighting it, so you can live in full alignment with your essence and power.

You can also find out what your most prevalent midlife frequency is by taking our quiz!  Take the quiz here.

Get the details for our Midlife Red Tent Retreat in the Sacred Valley of Peru. 

Find us on instagram:

Jen: @jenreimercoaching

Sheri: @sherijohnsoncoaching

Transcript

Today, Jen and I are exploring a side of menopause that we haven't really talked enough about and a part that we don't really hear anybody else talking about.

Sure, hormones change, sometimes show up, but beneath that, there's something else really profound happening. For years, in our 20s and 30s, hormones play a role.

other than reproduction as well. They act like invisible protectors. They cushion us from stress and disease and they even hide misalignment between our human selves and our soul.

So we're going to talk more about that. These are places where our outer life isn't really matching our inner intuition.

Now, when the hormones begin to fade or begin to shift as they do in midlife, that buffer, that protective aspect, it disappears.

And what's been hidden for years, decades even, comes rushing to the surface. So in this episode, we're going to talk about how menopause is just a physical transition.

It's actually a spiritual awakening calling us to live in a line. Welcome back. Okay, today Jen and I are going to open up about our own journeys through perimenopause.

And we're going to talk about the sometimes messy, confusing, and surprising chapters, because they really do sometimes feel like chapters, that no one really prepared us for.

And we're going to show some personal stories that revealed just how deeply our emotions and spirit and soul are connected to the symptoms that our bodies actually feel.

And when you start to see the link, you're going to realize as well that menopause isn't just a physical transition.

It's actually a whole body, a whole life, even transformation. And you'll see in this episode that when you start to look at menopause this way, you are going to set yourself up for health far beyond menopause because this isn't just about menopause.

It's about the rest of your life, this last or second or I don't know what we want to call it, chapter.

And we want you to feel that. So, Jen, we were talking before this, as we usually do, and I know you have a personal story that we both do, but I think yours is a really great example that will help people to see how the messages from the body show up in midlife and how to kind of interpret them.

@7:25 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay. I'm a little nervous about sharing this with the public, I have to admit, but I think it's important.

So to talk about, because it feels so personal. So one of the things, Sheri, I mean, you know about this.

One of the things that I experienced when I was going through perimenopause was bladder infections, UTIs, or urinary tract infections.

And they're like, for some women, they're like dreaded UTIs. And they're quite common in midlife. So I have, I've had them like a few times throughout my life.

Physically, they tend to come from having . And we get them more often in perimenopause because we're getting dry down there.

So there's a lot more uncomfortable stuff happening down below. So here's what happened to me. You'd like to say it happened for me, but it felt like it was happening to me at the time.

So I got a bladder infection. I got it the fun way. However, and I, you know, when I get them, I get even like a fever there for anyone that hasn't had one.

@8:53 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

You haven't had one ever, have you? No, never.

@8:57 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay. So here's what it feels like. Like it feels like your pee is on fire and it feels like you have to go constantly.

@9:03 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

It's awful.

@9:05 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And because it's a bacteria that has gotten in there, it usually can sometimes be accompanied by fever or even feeling kind of fluish, which is the way I felt in this one.

And if, and a number of times I did. So, so got this UTI, went to the doctor, um, got some antibiotics and it was supposed to go away.

From the antibiotics as they usually do. And it didn't. And it went away sort of enough that I could bear it.

Like I just felt like I had to go all the time. It didn't feel so burny anymore. But it never went away.

And I went back to the doctor and I got retested and he said, there's no bacteria. So you're done.

Sorry.

@9:56 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Can I just stop you there for a quick sec, Jen? Because I actually, like, I have a lot of friends who go through this.

Where they've, you know, they're, they're getting recurrent UTIs or it never feels like it's really, truly gone. And they go to the doctor and, and tests show that there's nothing there.

So I just wanted to highlight that because I think that that is actually really common.

@10:19 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Could be. Yeah. I'm not even sure. Cause I, I haven't, this is a conversation we haven't really had with our clients all that much.

@10:29 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

No, that's true. We haven't talked about this one enough.

@10:32 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. So, okay. So I went on a mission to try to find whatever supplements and other options that I could find.

So the typical ones out there are D-Manos, Cranberry, of course, and I have forgotten the other one because it's been so long now since I've had a UTI.

And if you wait till the end, I'll tell you how I fixed it eventually. So, and the other thing that I did is I went to my Chinese doctor.

So every two weeks I had an appointment with my Chinese doctor and she would give me a bunch of herbs and do some acupuncture, and it would go away for about two weeks.

And towards the end of those two weeks, it would start coming back. Hmm. And it was, I can't even tell you how frustrating it was.

This went on for months. Like it was six to eight months. And this happened to me three times. It's like torture.

@11:34 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

It really felt like torture.

@11:37 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And along with it, there were other symptoms that came along with it, which I started to notice. So I had, like when I woke up with one, like I'd always kind of wake up with it in the morning.

I would also wake up with a very, like I couldn't think straight, a really foggy brain.

@11:54 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Hmm.

@11:56 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Um, exhaustion. And yeah. Um, so those were, those also went kind of alongside of it.

@12:06 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

The foggy brain is interesting.

@12:10 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. My Chinese doctor explained it this way. She said, first of all, she said, she kept asking me how stressed out I was.

And I'd be like, I don't know, like seven out of 10, think this is out of time. I was quite stressed.

I was actually like a 10 out of 10 on stress and didn't realize how much I, how burnt out I was.

And so, um, And she kept telling me, you don't have any juice was the way she put it. And what like, so in Chinese medicine, the way they describe it is dampness in the lower pelvis area, which can also be related to candida.

One of my doctors said, are you sure it's not a yeast infection? Why don't we test for that?

@12:52 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And it wasn't a yeast. I was like, I think I know the difference. But anyway, there's a whole other topic by itself.

It's just the way that doctors dismiss the knowledge that women have about their bodies.

@13:08 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. And they've started to, in Canada, at least, they've started to actually recognize that a lot of women who have UTIs, they know it.

@13:14 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So we can actually just go to the pharmacy now.

@13:17 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

don't actually have to get a whole test to actually just get the antibiotics. So she kept saying, you don't have enough juice.

This is, it's dampness in your lower pelvis area, and your body needs to lift that dampness up. putting of In

into your head, like lift the dampness out and the energy has to go up into your head. So that's why the foggy brain was associated with this dampness in my body.

Like you shouldn't have, you shouldn't have that much dampness in your body. should have a balance between dampness and dryness.

@13:50 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right.

@13:51 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And, and in Chinese medicine, uh, uh, between cold and heat, there should also be a balance. And mine was way out of whack.

So what did she mean by juice?

@14:00 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Is that chi?

@14:02 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yes.

@14:03 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Okay. Yeah.

@14:04 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Like, and it like just energy, like she was like, there's no chi in your body. You're like, and, and I also went to another, like a couple other alternative modalities and they would just say like, you're completely burnt out.

@14:16 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Your adrenals are burnt out. Um, there's no chi in your body.

@14:20 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And I got, like, just kept going. Like even the one, there was one day when I woke up, it was the first day.

So, okay. Actually, there was one day that I woke up and couldn't get out of bed with this thing.

And it was the first day after a holiday.

@14:43 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yes.

@14:44 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I had come up. This would happen every time I came back from a good weekend away on the Monday while I was traveling back.

It would hit me full on.

@14:57 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yep. I remember talking about this a while back.

@15:01 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And so there was the day after, it was like the day after New Year's and I was getting, I was like starting work again.

was starting, I was starting work, which was a consulting job, my academic teaching. was teaching at a college and my PhD.

So I was coming back after a week's vacation and couldn't even get out of bed. So I stayed in bed for a couple of hours, tried to get up and go sit at my desk, tried to do some reading for my, for my thesis and then had to go back to bed and then kept getting up.

And eventually I pushed through and I sort of got through it.

@15:34 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Like I muscled my way through. Yeah.

@15:37 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Still felt the UTI, still felt the foggy brain. I just kept pushing through.

@15:42 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Hands up, listeners, if you've done this, muscled through, whether it's a UTI or some other symptoms, some other sickness, illness, whatever.

@15:53 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. So, Sheri, I think we should stop there for just a second and talk about the body aspect of this, and then we can link it up in a little while with the spiritual aspect of what was happening, how I linked all that up.

Yep. So what I, and so the other thing my Chinese doctor kept telling me is she said, we know there's no bacteria there.

You've been tested and this is not caused by a bacteria. This is caused by the fact that you are burnt out.

@16:23 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

It's all the same chakra too, right? Like when you talk about, like, it's interesting. Okay, we weren't going to talk about this, but I think it's interesting that Chinese medicine is interesting.

And, you know, they're linking up what's going on in the pelvis with, you know, you need to bring that dampness up to the head.

And so you're feeling symptoms in the head and you're feeling symptoms in the pelvis. And we know in chakras, so more like that framework for energy and the body, I don't know what else to call it.

But we know that UTIs and adrenals like that, that's all lower chakra, your first chakra. And each chakra has a corresponding chakra, which for the first chakra, it's the seventh, which is up in the head.

So it's interesting to me how I just wanted to sort of highlight that for people who aren't familiar with Chinese medicine.

And this, this aligns with chakra medicine or chakra, the chakra framework. with chakra energy and healing. Yeah. Yeah.

@17:37 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yep. And so then share what you and I have learned since then. So this was five years ago, four years ago, is that before we hit perimenopause, our hormones are shielding us from these.

So estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone work together to help protect our bodies from disease and from stress and from a lot of things that happen in our bodies, like illness, ailments.

And this was one way that my drop in hormones, because I was going through perimenopause at the time, my drop in hormones stopped shielding me from this disease.

And the second thing that was happening was my adrenals because we're so burnt out. That my adrenals weren't taking over in producing the precursors to those hormones.

@18:38 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right.

@18:39 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So like estrogen is made and released by your fat cells, but your fat cells need the precursor that is made by your adrenal glands.

@18:49 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Estrogen is actually made by a lot of different parts of your body, which I don't think most people know.

Yeah, that's true. We know that our ovaries make estrogen, but estrogen is actually made by all kinds of other parts of your body, which is why, you know, if anybody went through fertility treatments and were told they needed to lose weight, that's because your fat cells are making estrogen and you're actually too high in estrogen.

@19:16 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Yes. So, and we've talked about this before that your adrenals need to take over some of the production process when you are going through perimenopause.

My adrenals were so burnt out, they couldn't take over. So there wasn't any estrogen in my body that was protecting me from this.

So there was certainly a physical aspect to this that was happening. And I was so burned out that my body couldn't heal.

My immune system was shot. I was getting sick all the time with other things.

@19:54 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

With everything that my kid brought home, I got sick and she'd get sick for a couple of days and I'd get sick for three weeks.

Yeah. I think that's the other thing that women don't connect. And so let's make that connection. When you are stressed, and most women are, whether you think that you're the 7 out of 10 or the 10 out of 10, we are all under an enormous amount of pressure that we're not even recognizing.

But when that happens, it's the norm. Exactly. And when we're in fight or flight. or freeze or fawn, your body's releasing cortisol and adrenaline and those hormones, the whole purpose of them is to tell your body to shut down all those non-essential functions like digestion, like the immune system, drive, so the reproduction, your breathing changes.

Like those hormones affect all of those systems so that you can, so that it can send all this energy to your muscles so that you can fight or flee and to your brain so that you can think about like, so that you go into like, okay, there's a threat, move or freeze or whatever it is.

So there's no energy left. You know, people have gut issues in an immune system issues and they don't connect that to.

Adrenal burnout. Well, it's because your body shut those down. If you're full of cortisol.

@21:39 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Yes. I mean, we should, like, there are lots of women who do know about this now, but yes, many who, who don't, don't realize it.

So, so that was what was happening physically in my body. Um, so now I wanted to talk about how I came to the realization that this was also a spiritual problem.

@22:01 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Well, can we just take a step back, Jen? And maybe we should talk a little bit about the actual roles that those hormones play as protectors.

@22:12 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Do you want to get into that? Okay.

@22:16 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Like what estrogen actually does. So people can kind of start to connect those dots.

@22:21 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay. So estrogen shields the cardiovascular system, the bones, the brain from stress and disease. So it's like, it's, it buffers.

And actually, so does progesterone. Progesterone is needed to produce GABA, which you can take as a supplement, which is a natural anti-anxiety agent.

So it soothes the nervous system. So estrogen and progesterone work together to keep your body calm under pressure.

@22:58 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Mm-hmm.

@23:00 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And as we know, you can feel stressed from so many different things, right? You can feel stressed from your situation, but stress can also build up in your body if you are not aligned with what your soul actually wants.

So if you're saying yes to a whole bunch of things that your body actually wants to say no to, and you're feeling resentment about that, and you're feeling tired about that, that's stress because you're misaligned with what you truly desire.

It's inner conflict.

@23:28 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Like it's, and I think most of us are actually- There's times when we're not really aware, but if we pay attention, we actually know when we're saying yes to something we really want to say no to.

@23:40 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Absolutely. And it does cause stress.

@23:43 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. It causes this pressure to like, oh, I feel like I should say yes to this, but I really don't want to do it.

And I don't know how to say no. That's going to make me seem like a bad person or it's going to put them out.

So I should really do this. Like that's conflict. It's stress in your body. Your nervous system's firing up. You're all that anxiety.

@24:06 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Yeah. So then we also have testosterone, which supports our motivation and assertiveness. So this is the hormone that helps us navigate life's challenges.

Really, it helps us take action. So that's the motivation part. And it supports vitality.

@24:27 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, that's something we don't talk a lot about. Like we know testosterone provides us with. testosterone drive. But it's testosterone that invites us to take action.

@24:41 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Motivation to do things. Yes. And if you go back to last episode where we talked about masculine and feminine energies, that's exactly why men have more masculine energy in their body because they have more testosterone than we do.

@24:58 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

But we need a little bit of that to actually get through life. Yeah. Oh, you know what? want to...

Okay. We weren't going to talk about this either, but I have... I read this book. We did this book in Book Club called She's Not Here.

And I'll have to get the name of the author because I can't remember. But it's a book about a man who goes through a transition to become a woman.

And what was really fascinating... It's a true story. It's a memoir. And... What was really fascinating was that once the man started taking hormones, like female hormones, and had some of the physical surgeries done, he described, or she now, described the changes in emotions.

And like, he actually felt all these changes in, in thinking, in emotions, in reactions. It was really interesting because it, we think that those things have to do with personality.

And a lot of the time they actually have to do with hormones.

@26:19 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Which we know, because we always, I mean, you know, we talk about premenstrual syndrome, and like we talk about, we talk about emotions and all that, and we know that women are more emotional, but that is so.

@26:32 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Interesting. We have to put that book in the show notes. Yeah, it was a really, and it came out like this book was written quite a while ago, like before the movement, the LGBTQ plus, you know, I don't know the additional letters.

Yeah. So it was quite a fascinating book.

@26:55 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Hmm. Okay. So that just kind of brings it all together that these hormones, from a spiritual standpoint, they allow us to tolerate misalignment between what our, what our actions are and what we're truly feeling.

@27:16 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah.

@27:17 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Or, and what we're truly, what we truly know, like our inner wisdom.

@27:23 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah.

@27:24 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So we can get through the first, you know, decades of our adult life, over-serving, people-pleasing. Perfecting everything, pushing through, even though we know intuitively that we need a rest, for example, right?

But we can keep doing it because we have these hormones protecting us. Suddenly when we hit perimenopause and those hormones drop, we're less able to tolerate this misalignment between our soul and our actions.

@28:02 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Well, and it's the misalignment that's causing the drop in the first place because your estrogen, you know, like it's the ovaries that drop their production of estrogen.

But the only reason we feel an overall drop in estrogen is because the adrenals aren't kicking in and to their production of the precursor.

And it's this conflict, this constant conflict of, I want to do this, but I don't really want I'm going to do, I think I should do this, but I don't really want to.

This should versus the. That's so true.

@28:40 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

It's a vicious cycle.

@28:42 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Yeah. As everything is in our body. Right. And by the time the ovaries begin their drop in production, then you're already set up for failure.

Not for failure. I don't want to call it failure. I don't really like that word. But for, for issues, for, yeah.

@29:05 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

You know, because you're not. Symptoms and challenges.

@29:08 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah.

@29:10 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Very true. So, so this is what, I mean, we're going to go back to this UTI thing in a second to make that link back.

But this is why the spiritual part of menopause is so important. Like we can, we can say like, of course you and I think spirituality is important because we love it and it's personal growth.

All Thank And I'm fascinated by it. And it's what's helped me get through the symptoms.

@29:39 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right.

@29:39 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Like my symptoms, my UTI stuck around until I started to understand the emotions and that inner conflict that was happening.

@29:55 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. you have to.

@29:59 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

That was when I healed it.

@30:00 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yep. Yeah. And we're going to, we have a couple more examples that will help to sort of show, you know, some different ways that this can show up.

Because UTIs is one, but there's like all the, all kinds of other things. But what I was going to say about that was, oh, when we talk about spirituality, I think we've talked about it enough.

But I feel the need to just reiterate that it's not about religion. It's It's about connection. It's about spirituality of your own understanding.

It's not going to church.

@30:44 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

It's not necessarily.

@30:47 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Necessarily. That might be for one person. But if you're someone who does not feel like you have a religion or a background in that, or you're not resonating with this word spiritual because you don't go to church or because you don't believe in the Bible or because those things, you can still be a spiritual person without all of that.

@31:11 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yes. And so in this case, so let me go back to this UTI, Sher. So in this case, it was our, we share our spiritual coach, guru, who helped me actually figure this out.

So actually, it was a whole combination of people. Chinese doctor, an Irish Chinese doctor in South Africa, who said the very first time that I went to him for a UTI, he said to me, who are you pissed off at?

@31:44 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Literally.

@31:46 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Yeah.

@31:47 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And I went, I know exactly.

@31:49 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And I knew exactly who it was in that moment. And this was way before perimenopause. And that UTI went pretty quickly without the need for antibiotics.

Like my Chinese doctor healed it.

@32:04 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah.

@32:06 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So in this case, like the six month long one, actually it might even be longer, was I had to go back to that.

was like, okay, who or what am I pissed off about?

@32:21 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And it took me a really long time to figure that out.

@32:26 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Partially because I didn't want to admit it.

@32:29 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Mm-hmm.

@32:31 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So I was kind of blocking right. it. But part of it was myself. So I was pissed off at myself for taking so long to do my PhD.

@32:47 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Oh, yeah. You never told me that part.

@32:51 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And then, so I had three of these lengthy UTIs. Another one was I was actually pissed off at my supervisor because I actually believed that he, he didn't do enough to support me.

And I found that out sort of towards the end of it when I talked to other PhDs who were like, well, my supervisor is like checking my, he read my introduction, like my literature review as soon as it was done.

And my supervisor refused to read any of it until I had a complete first draft. So I never knew if I was, yeah, I never knew if the right track.

Yeah.

@33:32 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I never knew.

@33:32 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Like, we had conversations every two weeks, but I felt very unsupported and I was really mad about it. And so this is how I eventually healed that.

I went out to my husband's boxing bag and I did multiple sessions where I hit the boxing bag. I learned how to, I knew how to box already from previous, like Sherwin taught me ages ago.

We used to box together. was fun. So I started hitting the bag and I started shouting while I hit the bag.

And I don't know how many times, I must've done it four or five sessions of this where I would end up like on the floor, on my hands and knees, sobbing because I was so upset.

@34:23 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Letting out the emotion.

@34:24 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I was letting out the emotions. And when I finally did that, I yelled at myself. told myself. And I yelled at my supervisor.

I yelled at mom. I had all this pent-up anger at her. And then I did a forgiveness exercise, a Hawaiian Ho'opono Ho'opono exercise where I started to forgive.

And when I got through that, I got through the UTIs.

@34:59 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

It's so fascinating. So one of the things that I wanted to just call to, so all of that is really fascinating.

And I see the link there. Like we can do everything that we, we can do so many things that are physical for the physical ailments, but if they are hanging chronic, particularly chronic issues, if they're hanging on and not responding to, whatever supplement or medication or would.

Whatever it is that you're trying to use to fix it, then you know that there must be something else there.

There's a reason your body is still sending the same message. So it's a matter of listening to the message.

And one of the things that you, like just a little tip that people can use to sort of, I don't know, as a clue to figure out what's going on.

And you, you know, we talked about how your Chinese medicine doctor said, like, who are you pissed at? Like, literally, the UTI is, like, we're talking about the mechanism through which.

Right. And some of the other things that, of course, Susan, our energy guru and healer, used for me was, she was always using those metaphors.

And they. always helped. So, you know, one time I showed up with a cold sore and actually, I think you might've even been the one to say this, like, well, what are you beating yourself up about?

You know, literally you have this thing that looks like you've been beaten up on your mouth. And so, and I was totally beating myself up about something.

@36:55 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Or they come from, cold sores also come from, like, when you're having relationship issues, like who you don't want, who don't you want to come close to you and kiss you?

@37:05 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right. And why?

@37:06 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Like when I, when, when Sherwin and I broke up, Jen, start that over and say it without his name.

Yes, we're all going take that out. Um, so when my husband and I broke up, um, I had multiple, I, I kept getting cold sores throughout that process.

@37:31 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yep. You didn't want him.

@37:34 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

It was not even just that, but it wasn't that I didn't want him near me. was that I, yeah.

I mean, we don't have to get into that here, but yeah. I just had multiple. Yeah.

@37:52 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

When you're having a relationship and you don't want to be intimate. Yeah.

@37:56 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

That is kind of what it is.

@37:57 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

There's a couple of others that I just want to kind of throw out there because a common one is shoulder pain, particularly midlife shoulder pain, frozen shoulder, that all like joint pain that comes up during midlife.

And so shoulder pain has to do with shoulds. And we're always telling ourselves to, we should be doing this.

@38:26 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

We should be doing that. And it's literally the spelling of shoulder.

@38:32 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right. So that's a way to, just a couple of ideas for you. Like the, there's so many parts of the body that actually have a sort of link to a, like a metaphor in our language.

@38:51 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@38:56 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Parker's barking. I'm hoping that's not coming through on my audacity here.

@39:02 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Hmm.

@39:03 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Do you want to wait a second? Yeah. Give me a quick second.

@39:08 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay. Do you want to stop audacity?

@39:12 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Uh, sure.

@39:13 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And we'll just reclap.

@39:15 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

do a three, two, one again.

@39:17 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Okay. Stopping it. Okay.

@39:28 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

He stopped.

@39:31 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay. Like, if Okay. Oh, nope, he didn't.

@39:34 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Hang on.

@39:35 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay.

@39:38 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Okay. Yep. Let's start the audacity recording again, and then we'll do the three, two, one.

@39:44 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay. All right. You ready?

@39:49 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Three, two, one.

@39:56 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Can't remember where we were now. Oh, you said there were examples. Yeah.

@40:02 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I have one last little story of my own to sort of show how, first of all, one of the lesser known symptoms in perimenopause and menopause is joint pain.

So I had tennis elbow for a very long time, and tennis elbow, it didn't come from playing tennis, actually.

I think it came from weightlifting, or at least that's what I believed. I thought I had lifted, like done some curls in the wrong way.

And so I went to a physiotherapist. Okay. Really? Yeah. done. And I went to the chiropractor, I went, I did all these things, I was taking anti-inflammatory herbs and essential oils, and nothing was quite, like it was helping a little bit, but it really wasn't moving the needle as much as I thought it should.

And after a while, you know, anything chronic, like I said, anything chronic is, there's usually an emotional connection to it.

So when I finally started to look at, what's the emotional connection to this? When did this start?

@41:14 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So that can usually be a clue, like when did this start? And what's happening, like what was happening at that time in my life?

@41:20 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And I realized that it started when we decided to move to the next town over. And then I started to realize, I'm not listening to my intuition.

I don't actually want to move to that town. That doesn't feel right. And we had an offer on a house there, and as soon as we decided, you know what, I don't think this is the right move, we – and the offer fell through.

But that was when everything shifted. That was when the tennis elbow started to go away. It took a few more weeks to kind of really go away.

But as soon as I realized it, as soon as we made the decision, okay, we're not going in that direction, and that's what arms are about.

You know, you use your arm to point in a direction, and your elbow is all about the direction of your life.

And I didn't want to go in that direction. Literally, I didn't want to go in that direction.

@42:23 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

In the direction of that town.

@42:24 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. That is so cool.

@42:28 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So also need to say that we are not advocating for, like, not going to a doctor because we need Western medicine and naturopaths and everybody else.

to to in direction. I'm go go But what this understanding your body and your symptoms and what they are telling you is what can really help you, it can support the other things that you're doing.

@42:53 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, especially if it is something that keeps hanging on, there's usually an emotional-spiritual connection.

@43:03 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. What it means is that your body is no longer tolerating this misalignment. Yeah.

@43:10 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

There's consequences now.

@43:11 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

That's exactly what that was, was a misalignment.

@43:14 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

My soul was actually like, I knew my intuition was telling me that this isn't quite right, or at least not now.

And I wasn't listening. So there was a misalignment there.

@43:30 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Mm-hmm. And that causes the stress.

@43:34 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah.

@43:35 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yes. And it shows up somewhere in your body. And I think that's part of what it is. It's like, it shows up in your body where there's a weakness and where there's an emotional meaning.

Like your body's, like your symptoms are like an alarm bell signaling. Like they're telling you what the problem, what the emotional part of the problem is.

@44:01 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. And it's when we don't listen that they get louder.

@44:05 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. It just gets worse. So just to kind of bring it around then, the spiritual connection here is that menopause forces this awakening.

It forces us to look at the old ways that we've been operating and to start listening to what your soul wants.

And that's why it's like this spiritual awakening. It's not, feels like a crisis because our bodies are not, are out of control, but.

Um. It's pointing you to your deeper self. It's the time to do this work, the spiritual work.

@44:45 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Exactly. That's why I think there's so many women who are sort of awakening and feeling called to do more of this work and feeling like there's something more to it.

Mm-hmm.

@45:01 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So we've got sort of four or five ways that we can make these parallels really clear between this hormone changes and spirituality.

So let's go through those and then we will wrap it up.

@45:17 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Okay.

@45:19 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So first one. Yeah, you go ahead, Jen. Okay. The hormones protect our body from stress and cortisol. As we said, they mute the cortisol.

And then from a spiritual aspect, this is the protection. Of your soul from fully facing misalignment. So when you have all like the raging hormones in your body, it's okay.

It allows you to tolerate the misalignment.

@45:54 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

That's the first one.

@45:56 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So that's the first parallel.

@45:58 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Well, and that's what allows us protection.

@46:01 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@46:02 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

It allows us to be the people pleasers. allows us to say yes, when we mean no and tolerate the results of that.

@46:10 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yes. And so then the second one is like, it allows us to push through. It allows us endurance. It gives us endurance.

@46:19 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yep.

@46:22 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

But then as they drop, we don't have that endurance anymore. We can't push through.

@46:28 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And so we try. Yeah.

@46:31 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

We keep trying to live that way because we're used to it and it doesn't work anymore. And, and then, so then that, that.

Living life where you're out of alignment becomes louder. Yep.

@46:45 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

The stress becomes louder, right? Okay. The next one.

@46:53 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Another way to say it, it's actually really another way to say it, is that our hormones mask the signals of discontent before they drop.

So when we're young, we can, we can people please, if we're not happy, we just, we can just push it aside because we have these hormones that act as masks.

But they also mask our spiritual, the nudges, the, the, our intuitive hits.

@47:25 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right.

@47:25 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Like so many women tell me that they're disconnected from their intuition or sorry, they tell me that they don't have, they're not intuitive is what they say.

What they really are is just disconnected from. Their intuition. They're not listening because we don't listen to it. We're told not to listen to it.

@47:44 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right. Well, and that's a whole other episode by itself.

@47:47 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Well, we talked about this when we talked about masculine and feminine energy.

@47:51 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Masculine energy tells us to be fact-based and logical.

@47:55 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And our general Western society tells us to be that way and don't listen to our intuition.

@48:01 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

But we could also get into the witch trials and all of the societal conditioning and the history that has also led us to actually be fearful of our own intuition.

@48:19 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. It's true. We don't trust it.

@48:22 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

No. And it feels unsafe.

@48:25 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

We don't believe in the safety. Yes.

@48:27 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

That's what I mean.

@48:27 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Not everybody, but yes, it's hard to... Yeah, you're right.

@48:31 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. The witch word.

@48:32 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

We all have it. Yeah. So then the hormonal decline in hormones... The hormones triggers the physical symptoms, so there's a very physical aspect of that, and it triggers this spiritual awakening.

So we know that as estrogen drops, our tendency physically, physiologically to nurture, to want to nurture, also declines.

@49:01 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Mm-hmm.

@49:03 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And that triggers this, it's not even just a spiritual awakening, it's a desire to focus on self instead of nurturing others.

@49:13 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that that's okay. Like, this is something that's actually, it's physically happening and it's spiritually happening in your body, and it's normal.

I think we resist that because women are supposed to be nurturing, we're supposed to keep, you know, but this is okay.

It's, you're supposed to feel like this. You're supposed to start focusing on yourself.

@49:37 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

That is so... Doesn't that just give you permission to allow yourself to nurture your own self or to focus on yourself without feeling selfish anymore?

@49:50 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. So if you're listening, you have permission. That's it.

@49:55 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

It's your body actually telling you you have permission. So all of these things just buffer against complete collapse. And that, like for me, I had a complete episode of collapse.

@50:09 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right. Where you couldn't get out of bed. Yeah.

@50:13 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

My hormones weren't protecting me against that anymore.

@50:17 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah.

@50:19 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And in order to get out of that, I had to step into my own authenticity.

@50:28 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Which is listening to your intuition, listening to your soul. It is.

@50:32 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And it's also listening to your emotions. I didn't want to, like, we are told not to be angry. We're told to be nice.

Women. So be kind, be nice. And I felt, so then anytime I felt anger or being pissed off at somebody, I pushed it down.

And it was all sitting in my bladder because I wasn't allowed to feel those emotions. When I allowed myself to express them to a punching bag, I never expressed them to the actual person that I was angry at.

I didn't need to. I just had to feel them and express them. That's what it's all about.

@51:12 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

It's just feeling them. You have to feel, we suppress so many of our emotions, all the negative ones. And that's like all those emotions, they're chemical reactions.

It all sits in your body somewhere. Yep.

@51:29 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. So let's wrap this up.

@51:32 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yep.

@51:35 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So let's just sum up, I guess, our overall message. Here is that your symptoms are a call to listen to your body.

They are messages from your body about what needs to be healed emotionally and spiritually.

@51:56 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

That's a great way to say that.

@51:57 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And yeah, and signals of where you are misaligned from what your soul truly desires.

@52:05 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Right, which is another way of saying intuition. You know, you're not listening to your intuition. You're not listening to, maybe you don't even know what you desire.

@52:14 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I certainly didn't. was too busy focused on what everybody else wanted.

@52:18 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I didn't even know what I wanted. Yeah. Yep.

@52:22 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay, how can we help women do this? Yeah. So if you, our listener, are in the throes of menopause and literally throwing everything at it, like all the supplements, diet.

Okay. Over-exercising, and not seeing the results that you want, then that's a sign that there's likely something spiritual in the way.

And the way that we can help you is that if you want to know what's in the way, take our free quiz.

It'll help you find out.

@52:56 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

new. It's brand new.

@52:58 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

First time that we are sharing this with the world. It's a quiz that will tell you what your midlife frequency is.

Your frequency spiritually, and what your body is vibrating at so that you can start to heal.

@53:18 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Perfect. So we'll link that up in the show notes.

@53:21 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yep.

@53:23 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Go take the quiz.

@53:25 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So go take the quiz. Click the link in the show notes now. And next week, we're going to talk about, we're going to dig into people-pleasing and how that is, what it does physically.

During midlife and spiritually. So stay tuned next Thursday when we release that episode. And if you, if this helped you, and if you had some aha moments, DM us on Instagram.

We would love to hear your aha moments and share this episode with a friend. And that's all for now.

So we'll see you next week.