Raising Wild Hearts
An inspirational show focused on growth from challenge and ideas to take the path less traveled. Ryann Watkin interviews experts and shares resources on education, creativity, nature, spirituality, mental health, relationships, self care, and more. Ryann is a passionate speaker, mom, wife, and educator who asks questions that provoke self-awareness, meaning, and purpose. Psychology, spirituality, family— and where they all intersect— is the heartbeat of Raising Wild Hearts.
Raising Wild Hearts
A Holistic Approach to Navigating Perimenopause with Marjorie Nass
Today I'm joined by Marjorie Nass, a women's perimenopausal health expert. We emphasize the critical importance of self-care during perimenopause and menopause, highlighting the beauty of aligning with nature's rhythms. Stress, overgiving, and neglecting self-prioritization can exacerbate symptoms, but simple practices like taking a few minutes for breathing exercises can make a world of difference. Our conversation is packed with practical tips for busy individuals, especially mothers, to integrate self-care into daily life, ultimately benefiting not just themselves but their families too.
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from a simple perspective knowing that the example that you're setting for your kids and the way you're going to be being healthier and happier and more patient and just feeling like a better person that that is actually giving.
Speaker 2:Welcome, revolutionary Mama, to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. I'm Ryan Watkin, educator, mom of three, rebel at heart and passionate soul on a mission to empower and inspire you.
Speaker 2:Here we'll explore psychology, spirituality, parenthood and the intersection where they all come together. We'll discover how challenges can be fertile soil for growth and that even in the messy middle of motherhood, we can find magic in the mundane. Join me on my own personal journey as I talk to experts and share resources on education, creativity, self-care, family, culture and more. I believe we can change the world by starting at home, in our own minds and hearts, and that when we do, we'll be passing down the most important legacy there is healing, and so it is. Hello friend, welcome back to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. So happy you're here. I have an amazing interview to share with you. Today I am speaking with Marjorie Nass. With a journey rooted in personal transformation, marjorie embarked on a path of healing that led her away from the pressures and confines of a corporate life to discover yoga and its wellness branch, ayurveda. She healed from her health challenges through holistic practices with a combination of yoga, nutrition, movement and breath techniques. Learning to manage the pressures of life was a crucial component of recovering her physical and emotional health. Marjorie was inspired to help other people and has dedicated the last 25 years to doing so. Through simple yet impactful teaching, marjorie advocates for women to embrace their role as stewards of their own health, instilling confidence in their choices. She firmly stands for women's agency so they can advocate for their true wellbeing through the next era of their lives. So Marjorie is just an absolute wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 2:I reached out to her because I started to have perimenopausal symptoms, in that my cycle was just really not predictable and I was like this is not my normal, and so I started doing some research. I talked to a couple of different practitioners and ultimately found Marjorie and was so excited to invite her on the podcast. And we talk about a ton today. You guys are going to walk away with so many different tips and tricks and really just feeling inspired to, like I said in her intro, take charge of your own health. I love Marjorie's holistic take on menopause and how she says that we really just are the creators of our life. She talks a lot about mindset, we talk a little bit about Ayurveda, we talk about daily habits, we talk about sleep and the huge importance of sleep. Yeah, so, without further ado, let's just jump in to my interview with Marjorie Nass. Marjorie, welcome to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me, Ryan.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm so glad you're here and we were talking a little bit before I hit record on the fact of how I found you, which was selfishly from my own questions and my own confusion, really, because to give you guys, the listeners, like a little bit of a background story, within the past, I would say six months, my cycle started to be really, really wonky and if you've been here at the Raising Wild Hearts podcast for a while, you know that I'm super big on cyclical living and I track my cycle and I track the moon cycle and I'm like really into it and it's really helpful for me in daily life. And all of a sudden my cycle started going up and down and long and short and here and there, and I was like what is going on? And after a bit of research and then talking to my midwife, who's my care provider, I was like holy shit, I think I'm in perimenopause and I had absolutely no idea this was coming. I didn't even know perimenopause was a thing. I had heard menopause. I knew it was coming, never gave it a second thought.
Speaker 2:So, to go back even further a decade, I started taking a holistic approach to my health and then I was pregnant with my first daughter at the time, and so it really started with birth, like the fact that I wanted to focus on a holistic way of being, and over the past decade it's been quite the journey on that, like everything from getting rid of the plastic Tupperware to all the things that you read about and hear about. So, of course, marjorie, when I found you and I saw the word holistic, I was like yes, I need to talk to her, and so I guess the first place we'll start is why the holistic approach to perimenopause and menopause.
Speaker 1:Great Well. Again, thank you for having me and for sharing that, because you are not alone. And I think menopause is being talked about a little bit more but women don't realize that perimenopause can start in the late thirties and perimenopause itself can last yes, eight, you know, three years, 10 years can be all those symptoms, because perimenopause is actually one day. It's a day after your last cycle, actually one day, it's the day after your last cycle. So all of these changes that go on before.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of why I teach it from a holistic perspective, I look at things from the cycles of nature as well.
Speaker 1:So we're very much in alignment with that and this is from my background in yoga and yoga's one of the science, ayurveda, which is very much in following nature's rhythms. So, whether it's the monthly cycle, the daily cycle, the seasonal cycles and the annual cycles and the cycles of our life, and if we are not in alignment with those, our body is going to send us messages and the messages have been coming throughout our lives and we get busy and we're living in Western culture and we tend to push through those by not listening to our body's messages. So, from a holistic perspective, if we can live from that alignment, our body starts to follow along in a way that it doesn't really react. And I find that the women that are pushing and not prioritizing themselves, they're going to get really the harder symptoms, the more difficult symptoms, and then they're more likely to quickly want a fix and want to go for a quicker fix. And that's a whole conversation we can have about hormones. But I say, is that it's beyond your hormones, it's about the way you're living your life.
Speaker 2:So good. What comes to mind for me is I've got three kids under 10.
Speaker 2:And so life is like super lifey right now and it's always like that right, but it's like a very children's centric season for me right now, and I'm giving and giving and giving some more and giving a little more, and so I've been for a while, and in different seasons it's a little bit better, a little bit worse, but I've been putting myself on the back burner, right, and I'm in a particular season of stress right now. We moved in December and actually it's around the time when my cycle started to go wonky right and I'm going, oh my gosh, it's like perhaps the stress that I'm feeling and the overgiving that's happening and all of these different transitions that are taking place in my life, some of them good, some of them challenging, right, but I just think that we've been raised to push through, suck it up. We're in a patriarchal culture and it's interesting that even I've somehow managed to turn motherhood into a patriarchal system in a lot of ways. Even though I'm very conscious about it, you know, I still am very aware of what I'm doing and how I'm feeling in a day-to-day life. So I guess you know.
Speaker 2:My next, like natural question that would unfold is like how, when we're so flipping busy and I'm putting that in quotes, cause I don't love that word but how, when we're just so focused on everybody else, do we prioritize ourselves and what are the most important things to do? Is it different for everyone? Is it like know thyself, and we should know what helps you know? Keep us a little more regulated.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a really big question. We've talked about this question for the rest of the rest of the time. But, from a simple perspective, knowing that the example that you're setting for your kids and the way you're going to be being healthier and happier and more patient and just feeling like a better person, that that is actually giving to your children and to your husband, for the listeners who have one that taking and it could be five minutes, you guys, it doesn't have to be like a day-long retreat, it could be five minutes that you're taking. Five minutes, you guys, it doesn't have to be like a day long retreat, it can be five minutes that you're taking. Five minutes to yourself to gather yourself, to do um, to do a breathing exercise, for example, where you are going to come out and and you will replenish. And you like the.
Speaker 1:You use the word depleted. I don't like being depleted, but it's a perfect word because you're depleting your gas tank. If that's a, you know, an analogy that you want to use, you're depleting your gas tank and unless you give it a little bit more, it's going to go into the danger zone. I always have my car, you know, filled with at least with a quarter tank, right, I had COVID and so I didn't you know, I wasn't driving that much and then I like the light went on for the first time like in a year, and I was like, oh my God, I have to fill my tank up because, like there's going to be that signal Right and if we don't listen to it, the messages are going to get louder. You know, you don't want to get to a point where you run out of gas completely and that's where our symptoms can get worse.
Speaker 1:And through our 20s and 30s we can get away with a lot of things, right, we can go on less sleep, we can go a few days without like eating really well or, you know, not taking care of ourselves at all, whatever that looks like for you. And there are going to be those times. But without those moments, without that 15 minutes, without that hour of putting yourself first, everybody around you is going to be like mom was patient, she was a little snippy with me, she didn't seem like she. You know I asked her something and she didn't really have the time. So I think recognizing that this is a gift for everyone around you is really a way to look at it.
Speaker 2:I love that reframe because I personally, much of my personal growth has come for my kids. It's for me I'm prioritizing myself, but it's really because I want to show up for them and model for them what's possible, right, and maybe some of the things that I didn't have modeled for me. Yes, I love that reframe. It's helpful for everybody in the house when mama is happy and calm and relaxed and peaceful and joyful. The list goes on. Right, I have been committed to not taking on the narrative of aging that we hear in our culture, right? So I'm 41 and I'm not afraid to say how old I am. I'm not like, oh, too bad, I'm not 20. I was like, thank God I'm not 20 anymore. Right, I'm like I've earned this gray hair, like I've earned these little smile lines. I'm good, right. So I'm trying not to take on that narrative. However, when my cycle started to get funny and I started to research perimenopause, I went huh, so perhaps there is something to be said for. Well, it's just not the same, because you hear it so much. It's just not the same. Wait till you turn 40. Wait till you're in your late 30. Wait till this. And there's kind of this like oh, you just wait, young child you know, till this time. And so perhaps part of that narrative is because if we're not taking care of ourselves, these symptoms really can A come out of nowhere and then B kick us in the butt and really deplete us. So talk to me a little bit about that narrative, your take on the narrative, and then let's get into some proactive things to do.
Speaker 2:You mentioned breathwork Love it. You mentioned 5 to 10 minutes of breath work. Love it. You mentioned five to 10 minutes of, you know, just peace. Love it. Maybe some other holistic tools that we can have in our toolbox to use.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, this idea of getting older actually can contribute to and looking at that as a negative can actually contribute to our symptoms, because when our mindset is like that, there's no difference in how we're thinking and how we're taking it. It's all connected. So if we start having these feelings, we're going to be noticing the aches and pains, we're going to be noticing that we're snippier, we're going to notice all those um, all those physical, mental and emotional symptoms. There's like this um it's so funny because it was a teacher, one of my first yoga teachers, I think she was like 51 and she used the word mental pause. You know she'd be teaching and she's like, oh, I forgot what I was going to say. That's mental pause and I never really heard that before, but I think it's, I think it's perfect, so we can call it perimental pause. So what I call it is a perspective, pivot, because if we go into these years, like thinking and this idea of you just wait, you know, of mothers and older sisters and friends saying just you wait, just you wait until you're waking up in the middle of the night, soaking wet, and just you wait until you're having a hot flash and you're dripping wet and all those sorts of things, and it like scares women, and we know about a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if we think it's going to be that bad, it's going to be that bad. And if we're surrounded by people who aren't taking care of ourselves themselves in the way that we are, that also, can you know, develops this fear.
Speaker 1:I'm really interested in the cultural differences between different you know different, different societies, and in Western culture symptoms are definitely definitely worse. Some of that is how we're taking care of ourselves, some of us, some of that is the pace that we're living, but a lot of it has to do with how we revere our elders. And in Western culture it's like you're getting old, women are getting old, you're invisible. Quote unquote. Um, and older people are don't tend to be a part of our lives, especially much, much older people. But in Asian cultures, for example, the families are living in intergenerational households, so it's totally normal for a grandmother or great-grandmother to be around their children. In certain Asian cultures they don't even have a word for hot flesh because it doesn't exist. I find that so fascinating. And of course, it's not just one thing, it's diet, it's how they're working.
Speaker 1:But there are all these studies about people who are older, who have intergenerational friendships or family connections, that they're happier and they help, healthier and they live longer. So this idea of, also from the gratitude I get to live longer, I get to have these gray hairs We've all heard about somebody in our age that didn't get to be this old so looking at it as a privilege that we get to be here, we get to be here fully for our kids and that we are healthy. One of the things I say is perimenopause and menopause they are not diseases. They are not diseases. Every woman is going to go through this. So if we can look at it like this is a phase of our life, it's not to be feared. This is a phase where we're going to get to be able to do more things when we're on the other side of it, when our kids are older. And looking at it from that perspective, I think also is a perspective pivot, like I say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love what you just said. A couple things came to mind. I just found out this week that a friend from college family and felt that, god, I'm so happy I'm here right now and gosh, it's just such a perspective shift. And then my grandmother turned 97 this week as well and so just like so many highs and lows here this week and so much to see and witness, you know, I went out to dinner with my grandma and just watched her, you know, beaming and blowing out her candles and laughing, and just it's like what a gift, what a gift to live to 97 years old, right? So I love that you put it like that. There's nothing to fear. We're so lucky to be here, we're so lucky to be watching our kids grow and there are challenges and we get to address those. We get to learn from those, right, that's something that I talk a lot about on this podcast is learning from those messy moments in the middle and, um, you know we're not perfect, and good thing, because life would be kind of boring then, right, exactly.
Speaker 1:One more thing I cause. I like, um, you know, changing the the words that we're using. Instead of I have to to say I get to or I choose to Yep, I choose to, I get to. To say I get to or I choose to Yep.
Speaker 2:I choose to, I get to. Yeah, it's interesting because we are so conditioned to speak a certain way and we don't realize the words that we say things like oh this, you know deadline is killing me, or oh this, whatever in traffic. And it's so interesting just this simple shift of words. And something else I heard you say thoughts create our reality and then also so do our words right. Our thoughts ultimately become our words and then we speak our words and that becomes our life. And so look around, like everything that's here around you right now, look around, like everything that's here around you right now you've created, and that's like the good news and the bad news. We have so much power, no-transcript. I think that can be a challenge for many of us to step into and really take the ownership of. Well, I get to create it. Can't put it on anyone else if it's not going well or if I'm stressed out, or this or that you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the words that you're using every day. Your kiddos are so young that they hear those words and so you're. You're modeling everything that you're doing. So if they see you taking care of yourself or saying this is what I need right now, and they're going to understand that you know I really need. This is what I really need right now. And I had the privilege of working when I was just teaching yoga one-on-one of seeing women have their babies and have their children grow, and they would, you know, they'd text me and they'd say my daughter just said she has to go put her legs up the wall, you know, because that's what they would see mom do. Or if she was like a little testy, they'd say mom, go put your legs up the wall so that they see that that's a tool that they have. Because she said I have to go put my legs up the wall for five or 10 minutes and that's what we do to take care of ourselves and that's so powerful.
Speaker 2:That's right. My seven-year-old just made me a book yesterday, book of ideas when you're mad, and she drew like a little mom stick figure with the little mad eyebrows and the first one she knows. Like this is what I do. Take a walk and like, cause, that is definitely my go-to. Like a walk helps me ground, it's out in nature. I'm like breathing, you know, the blood is going, the endorphins are going. So I thought that was really cute and I think that's such a testament to they see what we do and from zero to seven we are literally programming them like lit, like they're literally blank slates, and so they're being programmed, so they hear and see and feel and do ultimately what we do and what they see us do, which is wild to me always.
Speaker 2:So I've got like five more years with my, my smallest guy. He's two. Well, he's almost three now. So I've got like five more years with my smallest guy he's two. Well, he's almost three now. So I'm always like, okay, a few more years, like I got it. And then I'm like sad that my nine-year-old is out of that phase, but also a little happy. So yeah, Um, let's get into the nitty gritty, like we mentioned in the beginning. But the difference between perimenopause and menopause? Just to confirm, menopause is the day after you, the day that you never get a period again, correct it's?
Speaker 1:actually a year after that. So we don't know that we're officially in menopause until a year goes by, and sometimes six months will go by and we think that's it, but then we'll get another period and that's totally normal, totally normal.
Speaker 2:Okay, does everybody go through perimenopause? Or can some people skip right to like, oh my cycle's done, it's been a year, I'm done, or is there like some sort of fluctuation?
Speaker 1:Well, most women do because it's a gradual change in our hormone levels and that's why it's more difficult to conceive when you're older, because your hormones have changed and for some women, you know in their late thirties, they can't conceive any longer without some kind of intervention hormonal intervention, medical intervention. But some women get pregnant when they're 45, naturally. So every woman is different. Just like we went through puberty at different ages that this can all. So for most women it is gradual. For somebody who is in their late 30s or early 40s who all of a sudden stopped getting their period I'm not a doctor, but that's something that probably needs to be checked out. Usually there's some sort of irregularity throughout and menopause can start where it's just like all of a sudden in one year. And that's a woman that probably has been taking really good care of herself and it was just a gradual change in her hormones. She didn't have any symptoms. She was probably her cycle was a little bit different, but she knew that that was okay, and then one day it stops Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, so I'm just like framing this through my experience and I'm going okay, I know the things, like you've already mentioned many of them, like eating well, exercising, taking care of yourself, like noticing your stress level, having some sort of routine like a self-care routine, daily correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for a lot of people, they think self-care that's going to be like two hours in the morning before you get up. That's not what's most important. What's most important is giving your body an expectation of what it needs. So, from a perspective of being tired, okay. So if we're tired in the evening, what are we doing? Are we finishing? Are we ignoring that sign and are we cleaning up around the house, doing extra things, doing extra emails and pushing through that fatigue? That is ignoring your body's message. So if you have to pee, like you also might be waiting.
Speaker 1:I always use the example like if you're on the highway and you have to go and you see the exit, you're like, oh no, I can wait till the next exit. It's like, no, your body is giving you a message that you want to honor, otherwise it starts to get dysregulated. Otherwise, it starts to get dysregulated that we don't know when we're tired because our all of our sleep hormones have gotten dysregulated. So I think the first thing that for women to do is to start paying attention to what their body's telling them, and they might not have done that before, other than maybe giving birth and being like I have to give birth, I'm not going to wait.
Speaker 1:This is time, just like it's time to go to sleep, and one of my teachers she had young children the whole time that I was working with her like four or five years, I think. She started when her daughter was three and she was like when I'm falling asleep, and I feel like I'm falling asleep, I go to sleep, because when we go to sleep and of course you're going to take care of your kids first, but anything else is going to be easier in the morning, yeah, so if you get a good night's sleep by going to sleep earlier, you're going to wake up, you're going to feel better and then you're going to be able to take care of those things. The other thing is that everything takes longer when you're tired. Everything takes longer when you're tired, it just does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so true, sleep is a big one. That's such a good example because we're so also like we're so conditioned to not listen to our bodies. I mean, if we're being honest, we have to wait to go to the bathroom when we're in school, we have to raise our hand, we have to ask for permission. We're in my house and I feel like in our culture in general, feel like in our culture in general, a lot of praise was put on the intellectual capabilities and really being in our head and being problem solvers and figuring it out, and I think that tended for me to continue the cycle of not really being embodied, so not really feeling like what's going on in my body. Am I frustrated, am I sad, am I tired, am I hungry, am I this? And so it's really just like.
Speaker 2:Self-love is like just meeting our own needs. Go to sleep when you're tired, have a glass of water, take a walk, go look at the sun, just really simple things that make our day better. So, yeah, I mean this is, this is a big one and again, to echo what you said in the beginning, like when we can have that self-love for ourselves, our kids will fall in line ultimately, and that's what we want for them. We want them to love themselves. We want them them to treat themselves like their most beloved person. So I love this conversation. I want to talk. What do I want to talk about I?
Speaker 1:have so many questions.
Speaker 2:Okay, here we go. What role I mean we've touched on this a little bit, but emotional and mental health what role does that play for us as we start to get into our late 30s, 40s? How is it affecting, when we hit perimenopause, what our symptoms are and how severe the symptoms might be?
Speaker 1:so everything's connected physical, emotional, mental, right. It's all physiological, it's all how we're taking care of ourselves. So for some women, being tired comes out as frustration and anger and snippiness and like that. And for other women, if they're not sleeping, they're going to be more forgetful, they're going to have trouble focusing, and for other women, they're the ones that are going to get the hot flashes, they're the ones that are going to get more aches and pains, if that makes sense. So once we're tired and we're irritable, everything's affected. Our kids are affected, our relationship is affected.
Speaker 1:We start not to feel good in our body about how we're looking. So I think that for women and this is not scientific, but I think for women that have a tendency towards anxiety and depression that that can start to happen because we see these changes in our body. We are tired, we are more fatigued and we know all of that is connected with our mental health, so it can get bad. Now the other thing is that for some women, when they are going to the doctor, automatically they're given an RX for that. When, when, if they can, um and I'm not against that at all um for the right things. But some are being prescribed um RX for hot flashes that are really meant for something else, off label. And if we can think about it, that's all fine. But let's take care of ourselves first. Let's get our sleep in line, let's get our eating in line, let's get our emotional regulation in line, because if we're not handling the stresses of life which exists, and Leon's idea, like stress management, it's not about getting rid of the stress, it's about how am I going to approach this. How am I going to approach this move, which is one of the most stressful of the top three or four stresses in life is moving. I moved a few months also and it's just like, all of a sudden you're like in this different environment, you don't know where things are Like. Of course it's going to be stressful and how are you going to reframe that? I got to move, like I can have like a new start in this new space, whatever. So this idea that this is my body, this is changing and this is going to affect all areas of my life A lot of women talk about like this rage and this anger, and we all have more tendencies.
Speaker 1:That's a whole Ayurveda conversation. We all have more tendencies. Some women are going towards anger, some are more going towards depression about what's happening. What does it mean to us? And that's where this idea of I get to live the second half of my life and it's going to be different. What do I want it to look like? What do I want it to be when my kids are teenagers? And the things that we're doing together? What's it going to look like if they see me honoring, because we all know what it's like If your kid's overtired. It's the same thing for us. It's the exact same thing for us, exactly. So how can we first get these rhythms of nature where our body knows when it's going to be sleeping, it knows when we're going to be eating. Those just so simple things help regulate our emotions Hangry, if you're hangry, like you haven't eaten, you haven't made that a priority, and I talk a lot about that in my coaching.
Speaker 1:It's like what are you making a priority? Like nourishing your body, and it's not just what you eat, it's how you're eating and when you're eating. So it sounds so simple. And just because something's simple doesn't mean it's easy. And again, looking at the bigger reason, why Are you prioritizing your health? Your family needs you, your family needs you, your family needs you, your family needs you. Happy, and if that means going to sleep without the kitchen being perfect I'm just giving one example it's going to seem easier in the morning. I know like we want everything to be perfect for some women, for some women not want everything to be a certain way, but it's all going to feel better and more doable if we're more rested and we're nourished and nourished can be eating. It can also be nourishing our mind, nourishing our soul.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned prescriptions. One of the things that I've had in my mind is like, if I just went to like a doctor, kind of a traditional practitioner, what would be? What's like the standard protocol for perimenopause and then subsequently menopause? Like what's the standard operating procedure? Is there one Like what would the recommendation be?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, it totally depends on the doctor that you see. If you're seeing your primary care doctor, they don't really have the training. I mean, I just heard it. They're like 10 hours, just like nutrition. The doctors in medical school get 10 hours of nutrition. They get 10 hours of training on perimenopause and menopause, a little bit more with the OBGYN.
Speaker 1:So they might say things like there's nothing you can do right now. There's nothing you can do right now. You might hear a doctor say this is all normal and you know, you just have to kind of suck it up. I hear these stories all the time. You're a puriator, right, so that might be what it is. Another doctor might say okay, great, let's test your hormones, which okay, but your hormones are different every day and they're different every time of the month. So how much information is that really going to be giving us?
Speaker 1:And at some point a doctor, depending on their training, might say you know, try this RX, especially if there's hot flashes.
Speaker 1:And then they're going to talk about hormone replacement, and hormone replacement can go from being a patch. There are topical hormones and there are oral hormones which have to be digested, and the topical hormones go right into your bloodstream. So and they don't have to be digested, and there's been, you know, so much going on with studies that were disproven and there's always something a little bit different and some women swear by them, but I believe it's because they didn't, not that they didn't try. I want to change that. They might have gotten to the point where their body was so depleted that that actually helped a lot, which is great. But I also say that if you're just doing that without changing any of your lifestyle changes, any of your lifestyle factors and how you're taking care of yourself, it's not going to address the emotional ways that you're approaching, get it feeling about aging. It can be great, it can be, but it's still a band-aid without addressing how you're living.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense. Yeah, totally, totally. It's just addressing the symptoms and not the root cause of the quote unquote issue, right? So we're not addressing that we haven't slept well for a decade or we're not nourishing our bodies with the food that they need to stay healthy for sure. So I just think it's interesting, because I think the culture is to partially blame here, with the conversations that we have and the expectations that we have.
Speaker 2:Of course, the marketing that we see on TV and the ads and all the things the marketing that we see on TV and the ads and all the things. Like you know, we have this collective pressure to be like forever young, right, and so, not only that, we want an easy fix. So many times, you know, like you said, like those are the people who are likely to do the hormone replacement, that it comes out of nowhere and they're're like, oh my God, help me fix this. What's going on, instead of taking a look at the lifestyle? So I'm just hearing you really say that this is like a lifestyle shift. This isn't like one size fits all, it's not like taking the easy road. It's just like really tweaking your lifestyle or integrating the things that are going to make you feel good on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And I just want to add we're talking about a doctor, like if you're going to a naturopath or a chiropractor or an acupuncturist. I think all those things are great. Some of them are just going to focus on supplements rate. Some of them are just going to focus on supplements which can help, but again it's you know it's a pill I mean they can be supportive. I take herbs all the you know for all kinds of different things. We're living in 2024, things are depleted, you know our nourishment is depleted, but that's not without addressing that, as I said, but that's not without addressing that, as I said, from a medical perspective it's the same thing. And a doctor, an MD, is not going to have the time to talk to you about your lifestyle and how much you're sleeping, and they're going to only look at your symptoms and your numbers. That's the Western perspective, which is, as you said, is not looking at the root symptom. And now I forgot the last question you asked me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's all related too, right, we were going on I don't know, but what came up and no, it's totally fine. I, you know, I think about. So, first of all, I think about like the practitioner should have time to sit down and to talk to us about our lifestyles, right, and you know, I've met only I want to say one who is just phenomenal at what she does and she's amazing. She's a medical doctor and my kids see her and she has a family practice and so I see her too, but anyway, she is always like very thoughtful, very wants to listen, wants to sit down, blocks off a full hour of an appointment, and I guess my this could be an invitation to like, if your practitioner isn't giving you the time of day, isn't really having like a full, thoughtful conversation with you, that there are other practitioners out there. Oh, and then one more thing that that made me think of is I tried a functional medicine practitioner, probably five years ago now, and I walked out of her office with like I think it was like 11 or 12 supplement recommendations and I thought, well, this doesn't really feel good either, and I get that there are times when we do need to replenish and we thought, well, this doesn't really feel good either, and I get that there are times when we do need to replenish, and we do, you know, but I'm like 11 pills in a day.
Speaker 2:How could I possibly have enough time in the day to take all of these pills and I just I. That didn't sit right with me either, for some reason. Yeah, and there's so many different methodologies. I mean, you mentioned Ayurveda, which I would love to get into a little bit, but we've got a little bit of time left. Could you give us like the 101 on Ayurveda and how it's?
Speaker 2:helped you in your life.
Speaker 1:I'll try to. Well, first I just want to say that when I learned about Ayurveda, the world made sense to me, and I guess I was like 40, 44, 45, something like that when I learned about it and the world made sense. So it's yoga sister science, it's yoga's wellness science. The word itself means science or knowledge of life, which is like how to live in a body. So Ayurveda aligns with nature's rhythms.
Speaker 1:So, simply, there's a day, there's the middle of the day there's the end of the day and then there's the night, and if you take it back thousands and thousands of years, there wasn't light, there wasn't artificial light. So we slept when it was dark and we got up when it was light, and that was pretty much what life was like for the vast, vast majority of the human species. And now, all of a sudden, we've got these lights. We're staying up late, we're sleeping more Some people are sleeping more when it's light out than when it's dark out and that throws off our circadian rhythms. It just does. And that's where we're not going to be digesting properly. It's going to be harder to sleep when it's. It's going to be harder for us to sleep when I'm going to start that again, okay, so. So if we're so, say, it gets dark at seven o'clock now right, and it gets light at 6am. So if you're sleeping from 11pm tom to 8 am this is just an example because it's summertime, your body is not going to be naturally waking up with the sun. That sets our rhythm. We wake up. That's why the best thing you can do is watch the sunrise and watch the sunset, if you're lucky enough to be able to do that. It sets our body's rhythm. It's time to wake up, it's time to go to sleep.
Speaker 1:And that's why they say, if you're jet lagged, the most important thing is you want to get outside so your body recalibrates, and the other thing is to start to eat when it's easier to digest.
Speaker 1:And this made sense to me too, because it's like if we look at the sun and you're talking about moon cycles, we're talking to the sun cycle is the daily cycle, right? So the sun is higher in the sky. In the middle of the day there's more fire, it's hotter, and that's the same in our body, so it requires heat to digest. There's why, if there's too much heat, we get acid, we get acid reflux, we get heartburn. But when we're eating in the middle of the day, our digestion is stronger. If we eat the same thing at nighttime, it's going to be harder to digest and that's going to affect our sleep. It's not just about the three hours in between. There's so much more to it and that's why I call it a lifestyle lift, because it's learning about these things, and it's remarkable how much things can change quickly when we start following nature's rhythms.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I was lucky enough to see the sunrise this morning. We went down to the uh, the ocean we live about five minutes away from the water now Um, and it was just magnificent. We pulled up right as the sun was peeking up and it was just, it was beautiful. And so and I, every time we do it, I'm like, oh my gosh, we should do this all the time, we should do this every day.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just, it's such a beautiful start to the day and, you know, I think this is such an invitation for women to feel into what's resonating about this for them and, of course, you know, leave what doesn't resonate but also to really pay attention to, like you said, when you eat certain times of the day, how are you feeling? What's your energy level like, what's your natural wake-up time? If you're going to bed at a normal, reasonable hour, what's the time that your body wants to wake up? Because lately it's so interesting, my body's like a little clock. I just normally start to stir at 5 am, like my husband's alarm is set for 5.30 and I'm like, oh, it's almost time. I can feel it. You know, I start to kind of wake up and it's just interesting when you really pay attention to your body's signals. She is speaking to you, she is sending you information and you know we don't need to judge it or condemn it or analyze it, even just pay attention. How are we feeling when we treat ourselves this way?
Speaker 1:Yes, and 100% when we're feeling. And this is where I want to talk about the breathing a little bit, because if anybody is hearing this and feeling a little overwhelmed by all these changes, I talk about just making one small change at a time, like, literally, if you're feeling tired and you can get to bed five minutes earlier, great, if you can notice when you're hungry and if you're eating when you're not hungry, or if you're getting too hungry, just notice that. So one of the simplest ways that we can help to respond to the pressures of life is by breathing. So I call the difference between a reaction and a response a breath. So that reaction is that split second reaction where we're not thinking, something's just coming out, and a response is where we can just take one deep breath because that actually changes our nervous system. So for feeling really frustrated or tired or something like that, where we just don't feel right, taking a few minutes to breathe is possible.
Speaker 1:Now, you can do this anywhere. But for people with little kids, if you can get into the bathroom without the kids for a few minutes, that's often the best way because you can close the door. Just do the best that you can If you have to do it and close your eyes while you're standing there. It's fine Breathing in and out through the nose. There are more unique, more complicated, if you will. Breaths Right.
Speaker 2:Like the box breathing or the 478.
Speaker 1:Right, there's, so many, there's so many and they all have amazing, they're cooling breaths. We're having hot flashes, but if you're just feeling, especially if you're feeling tired, especially if you're feeling overwhelmed, taking a few minutes to breathe can completely change everything. It changes your energy level, it changes your mindset, it changes your focus. The simplest way to breathe is to put your hands on your belly, breathe in through your nose so that your belly's moving out, and exhale through your nose where your belly's moving in. You can count. If you get distracted, don't worry about it. And just taking a few breaths like that, if you can do that for a minute, great. If you can do it for three minutes, great. Just notice how that breathing changes everything. It gets you out of your head and into your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as you're talking about it, I noticed that I was holding my breath a little bit. We're so used to habitually just holding our breath and feeling constricted, and so I started to breathe a little deeper, and it is so grounding and it is so, it's just so loving for ourselves, which I appreciate, you know, and it's not complicated, it doesn't cost money, it doesn't take two hours. It takes, you know, five seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, right, I love that as a place to start. I think that is a beautiful place to start to wrap up this beautiful conversation, and, as we do, I'm going to ask you the three questions that I ask everybody at the end of the interview. Before I do that, though, marjorie, how can we find you and follow you and watch the beautiful, amazing work you're putting out in the world?
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. So my website is just marjorynasscom and I'm on Instagram at Marjorie Nass, and I love working with women who want to make changes in their life in the best way that they can so that they can be healthy and they can be happy, and so I just want to get that message out there that it doesn't have to be difficult, that we can manage how we go through our lives and go through this important phase, and that is possible. It is possible and it doesn't have to be complicated.
Speaker 2:I love that and it doesn't have to be complicated. I love that you said doesn't have to be complicated because like it's like anything worth doing is really hard, you know, and it's like let's just we can just make it easy, we can, it can be easy right. It doesn't have to be hard. Doesn't have to be a struggle, beautiful. So, marjorie, the questions I have for you now are what's bringing you joy?
Speaker 1:So what's bringing me joy is the five-month puppy that I am raising. His name is Carson and I am raising him to be a service dog, so I'm his puppy raiser and so I get to have him for a year and a half and then he goes off to professional training and having a puppy and being having a puppy and that you know, physical touch and that face and that joy is just very joyful.
Speaker 2:So oh, how fun is that? Uh, what, if anything, are you reading right now?
Speaker 1:So I am a big fiction reader. I listen to audio books a lot and I'm reading a great book right now. It's called real Americans by Rachel Chung I hope I'm saying her name correctly and it's about three different generations in a family and it talks about what being an American lives, how Americans live, what being American lives like, and it takes place really from the 60s up until the future, and I'm almost finished with that. I highly recommend the saga oh cool, that sounds good.
Speaker 2:And then the last question I have for you before we officially wrap up, is who or what has taught you the most?
Speaker 1:who or what has taught you the most? I'm going to say my father. My father taught me the most. My father lived till 96 and a half and he really had his own interests. He had his own loves.
Speaker 1:He, you know, was very successful professionally, but he was also a musician. He was a violin player professionally, but he was also a musician. He was a violin player and as busy as he was, he always made time to play music, and play chamber music, even up until the time he was 95. I think he still was playing, even through the pandemic. They played with masks on outside and just that joy and that purpose in life and he was somebody who lived in gratitude. He was actually in World War II, in the Navy. He saw combat and he told me that he came back from the Navy and he was like everything else is extra because he saw his friends who didn't make it, who didn't make it home, and he came home as a 20-year-old and he was like I'm good. So he was always, always very optimistic and grateful for the life that he had.
Speaker 2:So Right, Talk about a perspective shift. Thank you so much for that and for this entire conversation. It's been absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 1:It's been my pleasure. I love speaking with you, Ryan. Thank you so much. It's been my pleasure. I love speaking with you, Ryan.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Hi again, friend, if you're listening to this, you made it to the end of a Raising Wild Hearts episode. Yay, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so you can hear more amazing conversations just like this one. And here's the deal. If you made it this far, go ahead and hop down on your podcast app and rate and review the show. Your words and five stars truly mean the world to me. Thank you for your support of the show. Thank you for showing up and listening. Week after week, I will be dropping new episodes every Monday, so tune in then and I will talk to you soon.