Embracing the Pause: Liz Valloor on Menopause, Emotions, and Life's Transitions

Today on the Menopause Uprising Podcast I am talking to the lovely Liz Valloor. Liz is an Author, Radio Presenter, Parenting Coach and much more! We had an honest chat about her menopause, how she moved through it and the different challenges we can all face through this period in our lives.

Liz is an absolute joy to chat with…her wisdom is endless and I know you will get golden nuggets of wisdom from this chat.

Top Takeaway for me is the importance of the Pause.

I love how Liz talks about her menopause tantrums resembling those of toddler tantrums..learning the language of our feelings. How important acknowledging your feelings is to your health in life.

You can find Liz's book HERE

Transcript -Automatically Generated

Hi everyone and thanks for tuning in to another interview. Um, today I'm thrilled to be joined by, um, Liz Valour, who is a radio presenter and also our author of, um, Taking Flight, The Caged Bird. Um, Liz is a mom of four. for kids who are all living out of the country, Liz. And, um, uh, recently Liz interviewed me on the Conscious Living show, um, on the radio program.

And, uh, we had a great chat. on menopause. And what I loved was, um, Liz, your approach. I guess I'm very used to the typical questions about menopause, whereas you came at it from a different angle, which I found just so refreshing. Um, you know, and it's, uh, thanks for coming on and, um, just chatting today, because I think you've so much wisdom and information that we can, We can all learn from.

Um, so, I think, you know, we'll chat about life, menopause, your thoughts, etc. And I know we were chatting earlier about personal awareness and how important that is, um, at this stage. So, I don't know if we You know, it's what saved me. Personal awareness. Of course, I had no clue what it was like. I didn't until 1994.

And you know, like everything else, like if you're going to wake up, you need a good crisis. You know what I mean? So I was no different because why would you bother if everything's going well? I mean, why would you bother go through huge big change when everything in the garden is hunky dory? So I view the crisis of my life as the ones that have brought me the greatest peace and joy eventually, you know?

Once you get through them. Once you get through them. Yeah, I had a lovely old spiritual friend. Some people might remember Paddy McMahon. And he wrote under the name Patrick Francis. And Paddy always said, Liz, hail the Urker. They're your teacher. At the time, it was a little difficult to digest. But, you know, I got through it.

realized now as much as you might like it. Um, but when you see what it is, you're being asked to look at, and I was being asked to look at all these things when I was going through perimenopause. So everything was being turned upside down. At that particular point, you know, I had teenagers who were fighting to be heard and I had me who had learned as a child to keep me safe, to shut down.

So, you know, so when you shut down as a female, you shut down all those feelings, all those emotions, all those ideas, you know, everything is just, A lid is put on them, but you see to me children are spiritual teachers because You see they still have the magic and the wonder in them They still have the alive that they still have that black and white like, you know I know better than you and you control me and you know, they still have that Energy, it hasn't been beaten out of them.

Yeah, they have that buzz. Don't they have that buzz for life? Yeah, as you see It's still there. It hasn't been knocked out of them. No, it hasn't. So what they're really showing you is where it has been knocked out of you. So instead of you trying to change everything there to make them conform to you, to what keeps you safe, because, you see, that's what you did before, you always shut things down.

So going through menopause, you're a bit like a teenager, you see, you can't shut it down anymore. It's you, like, can I wonder, like, I was like Shirley Valentine looking at the wall, and thinking, hello wall, is that it? It's you. You know? I mean, that was me. When I was going through that, that was me. Like, I really did look at it and think, I sat, people were telling me Shirley Valentine is the funniest film ever.

I sat in it and cried. I said, oh my god, that's me. You know? Have you ever seen that film? I have seen it years ago, years ago. I remember, I do remember thinking parts of it were very funny. But I probably I must watch it again, actually, because I'd say I'd look at it in a different light now, say to watching it 10 years ago or so, you know.

Well, you see, you start to look at your life at that stage of the day. Is that, is that it? Like, am I meant to be working all day long and then coming out here and then picking up after this one and bringing that one there and doing this and being treated like a doormat? And and you're you're doing all these things because you're going to make them happy somehow or other, you're going to make them all happy.

And they're getting more disgruntled by the minute, and you're getting more disgruntled by the minute. And the whole thing is just this crazy mess until you actually see what's been played out. And once you see that, then at least you have a shovel and a spade. You know where to work. You know where to go.

You know what to do. You, you know that the only one you can change is you. Yeah. Yeah. The relief in that is amazing. I don't have to change any of these characters outside me, because I have no power to change anyone. And I read that in Antonino Mello's book Awareness. And when he said that, I was ready to hear it.

Yeah. And I was so relieved to hear that if I change something in me, that my outer world would change. And that's where it all began. So that's where Anthony D'Mello awareness. teenagers and menopause all combined together. And do you think, because when you look at that and you kind of, you know, like I would, I would think very much like you now that, um, the only person I can change is myself.

But I think, and it's such a simple, it is a simple statement, but don't you think, Liz, it takes years to actually get there? To actually, or it takes something, uh, to I'm still learning. I will be going into my box still learning. I will, every single time, I'll see another aspect. There won't be a day goes by, kind of thing, Hmm, I see it again.

You know what I mean? I see where I'm holding me back here, or Why? Like what's that fear about? And then I always say fear is always about ego. Ego is afraid of something. So what are you afraid of? Why are you afraid to speak that to that person? You know, you're going to get a strong reaction from them.

And then you stop and think, well, why are you worried about the strong reaction? Because I fear conflict. I've never liked conflict. And the reason I don't like conflict, that goes back to childhood. Okay. So am I going to allow this control me like I was controlled before? And I think, right. Is this person, is this worth the fight?

Is it worth it in this situation? Is it going to change anything for me? If it is, then I learn to speak about it. If it isn't, and it's only somebody that's passing by in the street, I let it go. So I'm not, I'm choosing where I speak or where I don't. There's a conscious, you see, the thing is, The whole thing that I learned around that time was that, see there's a powerful reaction inside my body, and I'm the only one that knows what's happening in there.

Because everybody outside there would have thought I was the calmest, most peaceful person. No one would have suspected the turmoil that was in there. So when I would talk to people about it, I'd always say to them, you're the only one that knows because no one else knows you like you know yourself. And you're the only one that knows.

And even though there were nine of us in our family, Every last one of that nine, if you put them into a room and said, what was your relationship to your parents, to school, to whatever, every one of us would have a different. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, when we were with my mom, when she was dying, we were all in the one room.

So you had me at the upper end who had experienced her as a young woman and the youngest at the lower end who had experienced her when she was exhausted. Okay. Yeah. We had very different perspectives. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, we, the only one we owe it to is ourselves to take a look inside because it's our life to live with as much joy because there'll always be joy and sorrow in equal measure.

Yeah. Yeah. But, and the sorrow is in there and we learn so many things. So if I don't look at joy as being the only one, if I look at them all as just ways of being present in a moment, rather than always wishing for the joy. Yeah. If I'm wishing for the joy, I'm missing out on where I am right now. And I'm missing out on being present right now.

I'm missing out. I'm way out in the future. Or way back in the past. I mean, none of us can control the future. No, no. Yeah, yeah. The past is gone. I was, I was listening to Oprah on one of her super souls recently. She interviewed, um, is it Scott Peck? You know, the author of A Road Less Travelled. And they talked a lot about his opening paragraph, which he basically starts off with life is difficult.

And he talked about, you know, why. He started off that way and so forth. And, and what I, there was a great conversation around it, and it was kind of, you know, it was, when you read that statement, Life is difficult, but if you, if you kind of have that understanding, that then, um, you appreciate those precious moments more.

And I think like you were saying, um, I mean, we've all had events in our lives where, uh, that have caused us turmoil or changed us in some shape or form. And when you're in it, it's not easy, but when you get to the other side of it, you then you are a different, you are a different person when you get to the other side of it, you know.

And you know, I have had friends who've gone through, let's say, a friend whose husband died young, and she had two small children, and she said of those years while he was dying of cancer, and she said to me, Liz, I never knew I had it in me to survive. Right. Yeah. We don't actually know. It's our difficult moments.

It's almost like what they say about the diamond. I mean, it has to be put under so much pressure to produce a diamond. Yeah. Yeah. But it when, when I was put under the pressure of when, see what happened was when I was going through all those emotions at the time, I realized that I was facing my life through the beliefs habits.

and ideas of my parents, my teachers, and my everything, right? And I realized that everything that was going on inside me was Was actually their words. You can hear your mother coming out to you. You can hear your father coming out to you. You can hear your teacher. You can hear their fears. You can hear all these things.

And I realized that I was nothing more than a puppet. So if you say a certain word to me, I'm upset. If you say a good word to me, I'm up. If you're safe, whatever. And I realized I am just a little body of reaction for her going on in here. Um, when. I read that if you look at the reactions and ask the question, Is that really true of you?

Are you really stupid? What have I got to lose? you know, or what have I done so far? It just says that this is not true. And I began to look at all these little reactions or whatever, but once I saw what was going on, I'd take a little step forward and I would either speak about something or do something.

So I began to learn new skills. I began to learn. Now the interesting point that I found in it, as I changed, and as I began to find a voice, my quiet child began to find a voice, but as I began to find a voice, I was able to put a boundary for the louder child. And what happened was, she was looking for that.

She was actually looking for the boundaries. She was looking for the safe space. She was looking for you to be a leader. She was looking for you to be a role model. But what she was seeing was somebody who was afraid of conflict, somebody who was afraid of speaking up, somebody who was afraid to stand up to authority.

But she was my amazing teacher to show me the importance of finding your voice. And all that time around menopause is almost like your opportunity to be the hormonal teenager again. Your feelings really come to the fore then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can feel you're blocked out. You begin to, they begin to emerge during menopause?

Big time. Yeah. We, during, um, menopause week, which was um, back in October, I did an interview on that, on kind of past trauma and how if it's on resolved and you, you know, you have some kind of, um, issues outstanding from the past, they will come back in menopause. Whether we like it or not, they will come back and it's literally like.

Banging on the door. You got deal with me. You know you got steel with me. , you've been able to hide me up to now. Yeah, but you're not even anymore. Yeah. And think of it's, if you see this, if you see what it's saying to you, if you've seen it saying to you, do you know what Liz? You were this amazing little kid and you love to have fun.

You loved to be out in the fresh air, and you loved to play. You absolutely adored nature, and here you are now, at this stage of your life, blocking out that part of you. You loved to be able to sit there, sing your little songs, and do your little stuff, or whatever it be, and you were full of fun. And now, Where is it?

Life has gotten so serious. You are only thinking of the negative things that can happen. Well, you know, you're not able to really let go and have a bit of fun with your kids. No. And then what these are showing me is how much I had lost. My children were showing me how much I had lost. And the day I realized my children were my spiritual teachers, and the children in the school where I taught, any time I got too serious, they absolutely made me have it.

Because they were able to bring me back. And children will bring you back to that childlike fun. Where you have the capacity to lie in the sand and do these angels. And the capacity to be an idiot and not worry about getting things wrong. You don't have to be perfect anymore. Yeah. The frozen person tries to get everything perfect.

And isn't, isn't like, if you look at, Say, you know, for most women when they go through menopause, perimenopause, it tends to be at a time when either, you know, maybe their kids have left home or their kids are teenagers. And so it's kind of, um, in a way, It's, it's very difficult to be able to be in this, in that space, because when you have all of these emotions, which can be quite intense at, at times, and the, you know, the, the, the symptoms that, you know, can be quite tough for many women, um, it's very hard then to be able to think, well, bit of fun on top of that, that ain't going to happen, you know.

Such a state at the time. I mean, I went through this at a time when some of mine were beginning, when I was really in the throes of menopause, I was going through a time when some of mine were leaving home for good. And they weren't just leaving home, they were leaving the country. Yeah. Like my first daughter headed to Japan.

And I remember standing at the airport with her, and she wasn't completely sure of all the arrangements that were supposed to have been made for her. But I remember giving her a big hug and said, Every part of me wants you to be here. But I know that if you stayed here because of me, and because I'm so upset, I would push you in through that departure door.

Because you've got your life to live. But the thing is, here you are. With your beloved child, and there's an ending in that mother daughter relationship. She's gone, she's out to Japan to live her life, and you're wondering, like, where am I? You know, where am I in this? Now, Only a couple of months later, right, her brother heads.

He's gone to New Zealand.

Right? And then shortly after that, like, they came back for my other daughter's wedding. And I, all four of them, the last time I had all four of them together was in 2005. Oh my gosh, wow. Yeah, right? You've got, you're going through all this of they finding their way into their lives. Yeah. At the same time, you're finding your way home to your life.

Hmm. Hmm. The time when you're able to flip it and be able to see, you know, I've done my job, even though I've made mistakes and done all the various things, I've done it to the best of my ability, right? But now, who, who am I? I mean, I know when I went into a shop to buy clothes after they were all gone, I didn't even, like, what do I even wear?

Or, like, what is even my style? Or, you know, where do I even begin to find who I am? So you just do it in little bits. You begin to find out, you begin to take notice of the things where you can say, God, I really like that song, or I really enjoy being here. Or, you know, you begin to notice things you hadn't time to notice before.

And it's your own self discovery is going on here as they're going through there's there. And I guess, um, so I guess I, I, I, for me, um, my kids are quite young, like eight up to 14. So I have the whole teenager, the puberty versus menopause thing going on. But I find that, um, I would have different outlets of friends, right.

You know, friends from school, college friends, the mom friends, all that type of stuff. But it's interesting. I have my running group and the running girls that I run with, and they're completely separate to my family as such, as in, I don't know them through the kids. I don't know them through the husband, my husband, I know them through me.

And it's, we're always kind of saying the, the friendships there have come at a different stage in our life because, um, we're there because of who we are as opposed to somebody, someone, you know, somebody's wife, a different generation. My mom had no life outside the house and I saw that I was recreating that pattern.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I thought I was doing the same. It didn't appear as if I was, but I was. Yeah. Yeah. And I noticed that. So I had some friends, but they were friends that I had, alright, but it was all about children. It was all about this and that. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I had to begin that process again.

And start anew, which was very difficult. very, very, very, very different. But you know, the other thing too, Catherine, I used to find was because I had shut down on emotions and I shut down on feelings, like I put a good seal on them. When they began to come out, they were coming out like detonators. You know what I mean, grenades.

I didn't know which end of me was up. I didn't know because this was so unlike me. I mean, it was almost like I was throwing grenades. I was like the two year old who happened the language. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the toddler tantrums. Toddler tantrums were my menopause tantrums. Because I I had no output because you see when you shut them down completely.

Yeah. You don't have the language to express how you really feel. Yeah. Because you're not familiar with the expression because my generation wouldn't have been familiar with that. You would have always to be told to shut up and put up. Yeah. Yeah. So it's learning the language of your feelings and learning to know that they are to be It's near that, at your peril.

They are your feelings. This is how you feel. This is important to you. And if somebody else is uncomfortable with it, that's their discomfort. Yeah. But it's your feeling. It's a very important feeling and one that you're going to acknowledge. But you just learn to wait until the grenade hits you. calms down and then you express how you feel.

You know through the reaction in the body you are sick to kill because the emotion is so strong because you've held on to it, held on to it, held on to it. You don't want to express and then one day there'll be one thing that's said and that's it, you're gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, there's always a trigger.

There's going to be something that's going to open the pressure cooker and the steam will, the steam will come out. And just like when we were talking there earlier, one of the things that I always say, and I'm really, really passionate about this is, and because it's because I see a lot of women who are lonely, Like menopause can be lonely and I often say like that's, um, you know, I guess, and maybe it's part of my generation or maybe it's the stage I'm at in terms of, you know, say with my running group, which, um, uh, I got involved in over the last two, two and a half years, but having a social outlet, whatever it is, is so important.

I think as you go through menopause, because what I'm finding is, is that You know, sometimes, um, you know, women need a difference. outlet to be able to voice what's going on and how they're feeling. And often what happens like, like, and, you know, we, I sometimes can be in a bit of a bubble thinking that, you know, there isn't a taboo about menopause, but in all reality, there's still a huge taboo on menopause.

And for that fact, a lot of women don't even want to sit down and have the conversation with their best friends as to how they're feeling, you know. If you're only beginning stages and you don't know how it's truly going to affect you, you can be scared of it. Yeah. What's it going to do to my job, to my family, to my this, how am I going to be, how am I going to be affected by this?

Like I was quite fortunate in it, that even though I had these feelings, there wasn't going around permanently with hot blushes or whatever. I was really, really, really lucky, you know, but I mean, I was also part of a group of friends. Don't talk to me about that. I don't want to know about it. Yeah. And it doesn't exist.

Yeah. So it was like a different But to me now, it's that ability to see what's happening inside your own body. And to recognise that maybe, you know, I would take I did things like this in that I took myself off to ACL for about four days on my own. Because I didn't want to be near anybody. But what I do in those times that I take time out, or if I go off on a long walk in nature or whatever, I am taking time out for me to recalibrate.

Yeah. So that I'm able to listen to what's going on inside of me. And be either communicated, Or not communicated to see by the time I've sorted it out. I may not need to say anything or I can communicate whatever it is in a different way in a camera way. Yeah, but the pause. That pause to, it's like when you hit that reaction, you open a lift, you're like in one of those, you know, the skyscraper lifts that in New York or in Toronto.

Like that. Bullets. Right. But, you know, when you wait for the lift to come down. You know what I mean? Yeah. It does in this pause moment and when you can pause and hold a breath and wait till it calms down and when it calms down and that space that you're in when it calms down allows you, just allows you, see what's happening and always communicate what's going on in a very, very different way.

The solution is always found in the pause. Yeah. Because it creates a space around you. But when you go into the detonator, you go into ego, and you battle it out with somebody else's ego, and I mean, nothing can be found there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The third thing you want is to be understood. And you want to feel that you're heard, right?

But when you go into ego, into the lift going up, and you're battling it out there. The very thing you don't want is disconnect, but that's exactly what you get. Yeah. Yeah. If you don't wait for the pause. If you don't wait for the pause, you get the thing you fear most. The disconnect. The dismissal. Oh, it's that time of the month again.

Or, oh, you know what, it's one of those, isn't it? You know, and that dismissal is enough to drive you crazy. Yeah. You know, and But when you can just hang in there for the pause and hang in there and just say, no matter what, I'm just going to take a breath and go to remove myself from here for a while. And then wait till it calms down and just then voice what's going on for you.

It is very powerful. And I think that's where, um, I would find it's really, really important. to take time out. Um, and, you know, like sometimes the whole self care thing, I, I sometimes think, um, has become a kind of a word that's, you know, not maybe isn't the depth behind it isn't really realized as in maybe there should be another word to it but I would find for many women in menopause it's it's detrimental to their symptoms if they don't have that time out in terms of yeah the good lord needed to come at me from a different angle right the my Achilles heel would always have been children and probably because my own childhood experience right okay Now, when I discovered by my being a taxi, taking my kids everywhere, by my feeling that I needed to be there for them, or they needed this, or needed that, or needed the other, or whatever it was, they would.

And therefore in that thing, I wasn't looking after me. When it was flipped on its head, and I was told, By you doing too much for your children and you doing things for them that they're capable of doing for themselves, you are creating dependent children. Yeah. Your kids will not thank you for the fact that they now, because you've think you're so important to them that you have to do everything for them.

And you have to clean up after them and you have to bring them here and bring them there and you are responsible for, oh, I better not have them to do this because you have to study for their Leaving Cert. And so it goes on, right? Yeah. Yeah. By they not participating within the house, the very thing that you want for them, that they feel an important part, that they feel contributors, or that they feel they have skills, that they have capabilities, by you doing too much, you're stripping them of that need.

Yeah, yeah. Oh my god, I never looked at it like that. Now, when I looked at it like that, then I began to say, No, you're, you're able to, you've made an arrangement to do this and you're able to do it. I know you're able. I remember my son being on the computer at 2 o'clock in the morning or whatever. He was meant to meet somebody in town and he said, Oh God, Mom, can I have a lift?

Can I have a lift? I said, Well, you know, The score on this, that we're changing this one around. Can I learn the lesson next week? And I said, no, you know what I mean? But the thing about it is they learned so many skills because I backed off. Yeah. Some survive in Toronto, New York, Melbourne, Wellington at the moment.

But when you do too much for them, it's telling them they're not capable. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can insist on doing everything. The message you're giving is, you're not capable. Yeah, yeah. And I think I was doing that. I said, hey, now I can understand. I can actually look after me. Yeah. Now I'll have a place to look after me.

But I needed it to come at me from a different angle. Then, of course, I was told by all these people, oh, you have to look after yourself. If you don't look after yourself, you can't look after them. Right? And it was always, you can't look after them. So my thing was like, Oh, I need to be doing more. So I was a human doing.

I mean, I wasn't a human being. I didn't stop to feel. I didn't stop to do anything. You know what I mean? I was just a doer. Let me do this for you. Let me take you here. Let me get you this. What is this? If you need this, you can have it. Like, Oh my God, will this help you in this? I can get it for you. Like, we'll find a way.

Don't you worry about it. I'll find a way for you. All right. Right? But there was no room for them to find a way. Yeah. There was no room for them to solve anything, because I was there. And I think, I think, do we, is, do we fall, do all mothers fall into that, or is it the Irish mothers? Where you try, I think it's all mothers.

Is it? Yeah, yeah, it is because, like, if you listen to the program, I was listening to Brian Tupper to talking to somebody. Uh, on The Lately Show once. It was, he was a footballer and he said his mum had died recently and whatever. And he said she was so amazing, he said. Do you know she never thought of herself?

And she'd be there for us all the time. And she would be there cheering us on and doing this. And Ryan said, isn't she, wasn't she just a fabulous mother? And I was saying, oh good night. No wonder we're as programmed as we are. When you think that to nearly, not to negate yourself for able bodied individuals and tell, tell me that that's good, that that's money.

Yeah. I often say to him, I wanted to scream at him, Ryan, would you wake up? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that, and that's setting the bar very, very high, isn't it? In terms of for all those mere mortals. I know. I landed into a church one day and I was going in just to light a candle, but suddenly there was a funeral and there was somebody speaking.

I said, I can't leave now as they're speaking. And they said, you know, up to last week, she even sent a text to say, can you remember the bins? So they all followed the coffin and they left all their water bottles on the front pew, on the front pew. Right. And I was thinking, oh my God, she's not here to tell them to bring it with them.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do we kill ourselves? Doing for individual for her. So the best thing we could do, I discovered for them was to get them to do as much as they were able to do. Yeah. And they actually felt good about themselves. Yeah. Because we're now getting skills. They were now able to survive. They were now able to go places.

You know, okay. Yeah. Life skills, life skills. Yeah. I, I, I had to go through huge, huge fear because I was such a control freak. Like I'd be first outside the school door just to make sure that my child didn't escape. You know what I mean? I was a super control freak. So I had to come out of all of that. You know, yeah, that's it.

Yeah, that's perfect timing. It's a, it's a, it's a hard one, isn't it? Like I'm very conscious and, and I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Mary Ryan. I mean, she talks huge amounts around this and empowering ourselves and our children and so forth. But, um, it's, it's, it's a great thing to be able to do.

Um, I, I have to say you, Yeah. You're looking. They're seeing. Monkey see, monkey do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, I realized, you've got to find a voice, Liz. Yeah. You've got to find a way to express these things because I was watching, I was watching some of my kids not having a voice. Not being able to say what they wanted.

Because that is what they were witnessing. They were witnessing me like that. So as they began to see me begin to find a voice. And me begin to say something. And I remember when I did my first trip to India. Um, which was huge. Now this was huge. I was leaving my children to be abandoned. forevermore, never to be seen on the planet again, because I was going on this trip.

Right. And when I got as far as India, I was deported because I didn't have a visa. So I was sent back. So you can imagine the learning. Oh my gosh. Just, we won't even go there right now. But anyway, my, one of my daughters said, Mom, I have the visa arranged for you. All you have to do is go into the Indian embassy and we can get you back on that plane again.

And we did. Now, her thing was that, in my, my youngest daughter said to me, it was an interesting thing, she When I came home, I went up and we were having ice cream and we're skipping down the road. And she said, you know, she said, before you went to India, all I thought was that I was going to have a life like yours.

And we know what that's like. But now that you've gone, now I see it's going to, it's so much different. And here was I, thinking in my head, Oh, you'll be at home all day long, every day long, and you're going to be there for your kids, da da da da da. And here's, in their heads was, show me how I can live my life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. Yeah, cause that is, yeah, isn't it? Imagine. Yeah. So that would have been, uh, 2001. She was 13. Gosh. Yeah. So that's what she was, this is what she was saying to me. I'll never forget it. I will never, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that, but this important thing, I mean, I know when people say be your authentic self, well, who is that?

Like, I'm kind of, it's another word, it's another buzzword, it's be your authentic self, but like, and I understand what it's saying, but it's, when will I ever know, like, all I'm doing is chipping away. All I'm doing is chipping away at something and I know it through a fear and then I know it through what I'm afraid of and then I move through that fear and then I discovered that there's something else there.

So that movement through the fear. That leads me to another part of me. And that's, that's, that's menopause in a way, as in, you know, the whole, you, you do go through different stages, you feel different things, different things come up, you know, whether it's physical, mental symptoms and so forth. And, and I think, you know, that rocks your foundations.

It does, it kind of, you know, things happen that maybe you You know, have never happened to you before. You feel things that you haven't felt before, which can be very, very scary. But I think it's your world. You have been in a way, I was able to make my world a little bit black and white. Hmm. But I tell you one thing, when you hit menopause, it was like, where am I?

What planet? This was like in a faraway tree. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was like, oh my God, like, you know, what I think it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, I'm, I'm always talking about, it's getting, once you get a handle on the symptoms and once you kind of get your treatment protocol together, you know, whether that's HRT, terror therapies, lifestyle, and so forth.

That there is a huge awakening, and nobody, I, there's no one I've ever spoken to who, who has said that's not, that, that it, this doesn't happen. It does happen. We're living proof that it happens. Exactly. Well, isn't it exciting though? Like, isn't it exciting that this black and white life where you were able to control and make everything according to wherever you planned or whatever it be.

And the whole. Blessed thing gets upended on you completely, which is scary, right? Then you begin to discover, like a new you, you begin to discover, like, I am not that person before. I am not that person that was easily intimidated. I am not that person that feels I have to go there just because she's going to have a tantrum.

I am not that person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember once, like, I used to go to visit an elderly aunt, and she'd ring me and she'd say, I'm so lonely, I'm so lonely, I'm so lonely, and I'm here with the four kids and trying to do whatever I'm doing, right? And I would go in. And I remember once going in, and there was a lady with her, and she just said, Why aren't you going?

Because Liz is here. And I just thought, Are you for real? So anyway, one day she rings me with the I'm so lonely and I say to her I really can't go in and I could feel the guilt was coming in spades It was being lathered on like butter. So anyway, about five minutes later. She rings. Is that you Mary? I realized I was top of her list She had a list of individuals, of people she was ringing.

I was not the most important person, and yet, up to then, I would have been Guilt ruled my life. Yeah. Guilt and fear ruled my life. Amazing. You know what I mean? And yet, when I came out of this at the other end, it might appear, but I'd say, hang on a minute, do I really want to do this? Is this important?

Yeah, does this person really need me or is this just, you know, whatever? And so I can go in that particular way. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where you, you, you, I, I think you become much more of a no person as in you're able to say no and not feel uncomfortable about it. Um, you know, like my previous note, can't you see I'm so excited.

Yeah. Yeah. Have you an eye in your head? Like as one daughter said to me, mom, Your job is to say no. Mine is to chance mayor.

Was that the same 13 year old? She's pretty profound. No, she was another one. My job is, that's what she said to me. My job. And this was, she was my good child. She was my one that I least expected. But because she was learning to say no through me, She was learning to say no to. Yeah, yeah. As I began this, being able to say no to things.

See, I was addicted to approval. Yeah. My addiction was approval. I had my whole sense of self through what other people said or thought about me. Because my self esteem was in my boots. And in a way too, my self esteem was also caught up with my children. That if I gave them all these things, and if I did all these things for me, I would be loved by them.

But in actual fact, if you keep giving and doing and you don't take care of you, the thing you want from them, you're not going to get. Yeah, there's nothing left for you then. Nothing left. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, the addiction to approval is a huge thing with people all over the world. And it's that need for it that has you saying no to things that are important to you.

You will also say your need for approval can stop you getting a promotion because you'd be afraid to upset that person. Yeah. Yeah. It comes at you in different angles. It's not just this thing of saying no to something, you know, I'm saying no to somebody. It's you're actually saying no to opportunities, to things that are so good for you.

You're saying no to. But the other thing too is, when you are offered certain opportunities, you also, your ability to say no, it also equals your ability to say yes. So when something good is coming your way, to feel, I can actually say yes to that. But the old you wasn't able to say yes to it because you didn't feel you were good enough to receive it.

Yeah, yeah, so it's the balance between yes and no is very important. So I've seen a lot of the ability to say no, but I've not seen anything on your ability to say yes, to allow yourself to be, to, to enjoy. Good, nice, enhancing opportunities and things that I have a friend of mine and she's fantastic.

She's got a fabulous attitude to life, but she always says to me, you know, always say yes. You know, if you're asked to go anywhere within obviously reason, but if you're asked to go anywhere, if you're asked to for whatever, you know, say on an outing or something new that you haven't done before, she's, she would always be like, always say yes.

You know, because you're kind of, you know, you're, you're keeping yourself as stimulated. You're kind of, and plus you're meeting new people, you know, difference. And it's a wonderful thing. Like, like, I mean, I wouldn't be doing the radio show. It would never have been, I'm a bit like baby basket like this. I never really have this five year plan.

Because in some respects, some parts of my life have happened, and opportunities have come in that I would never have thought about. It was never on my radar to be a teacher. Yeah. Never in a million years. And yet it came around through serendipity or whatever, and opportunities came. Do you know what I mean?

So, Like, and certainly presenting the radio program, that definitely, right in the book, you've got to be joking. You've got to be joking. You know, and yet, No, I think that that's, and say for me, Liz, I went to college, I studied business, because most of my family did business. I, um, I was, yeah, I was in investment banking for over 20 years.

And now look what I'm doing, you know, um, I went completely back to my roots because, um, I went, my mom and my dad to a certain extent as well would have been very open to, um, kind of looked at life through very, I guess, It's an open view and like, you know, I can remember them when we were younger, um, you know, being involved in like, you know, going to acupuncture, going to reflexology, different things like, like that.

And I, I, um, probably forgot all that for many years. And then I went back to it when I was in my late thirties and I went back to college again. Um, you know, so I think we can. Life, like, you're right, like I couldn't have a five year plan now, not in a month of Sundays, because if I look at what I've done in the last year or two, God knows what's going to happen in the next year or two, you know.

If someone said to me when I was 21, because I wasn't sporty at all, that I was going to run a marathon, I would have said, yeah, good luck to you. And I ran a marathon a year ago, you know, so I think you have to be, um, you know, We have to not be so black and white as you said earlier. Absolutely, and the other thing too is, if somebody had said to me on those earlier years that all four of my children would emigrate, that all my grandchildren would be between Melbourne and Wellington, right?

Right, if somebody said that to me, my, I would have felt, I want to give up on life because I had the image of being around them and being in their lives and being that mother that was going to be looking after their kids and doing their stuff, whatever. That was my vision. Right. They would all settle down in or around or whatever, they'd all be in or around someplace.

Not flung to the far corners of the world. It's like one. of my daughters came home for four years, but went back to Australia, but my abiding memory will be her little son turning around in the departure gates and giving me a little wave and it's never easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But at least we have Zoom and we have FaceTime and we have all these things that are never easy.

But I'll tell you one thing about Zoom. Zoom is good and I'll be chatting to the kids, but the kids are, have their own little busy lives. Yeah. Now, when I get out there, right, and I might only get out there, or be, if I go to Wellington, I'll hop over down to Melbourne, right, and I'll do with the kids there, and you'll hear the kids roaring and shouting, Um, uh, you're here, you're here.

So it's absolutely, every second I am there, I am. Yeah. Present. Yeah. I enjoy every last minute and the laugh and the crack and the everything with the kids is there's no comparison between it and Zoom. Yeah. Yeah. I gotcha. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing like the physical hug and the bit of laugh, you know, the crack.

The crack. Me playing the card games with the kids or whatever, and God help my innocence, I was saying to. My older one, Finn, I said to Finn, Finn, we'll go easy on Oisín. We'll go easy on him because of this, like, he's only so, if he was seven at the time, he's only seven, I said like that, he won't be able to remember where all the cards were.

Well, he beat us hollow. I said, Finn, no mercy. No mercy. We have this ability, they remember that. When they get here, I thought they're not going to be wanting to the Hill of Tarrow with me and up in La Cruz this year because, like, of that, they're no longer. They were plotting it on the plane. Ah, lovely.

Plotting it on the plane. Of the time out that we have. Yeah. I tell you one of the things that came to me during menopause that I realised was very, very good. For me and for the children. One on one time. that when you do one on one, there's only you and that one child. And when I did it regularly, I was able to see them individually and to see their individual, not in competition with their other siblings.

The one-on-one time and that one-on-one time was so helpful to me and so helpful to them that the connection I built with them during our, what we call our one-on-one time is what has carried us through being able to be deeply connected no matter where they are. Where they are. Yeah, that's great advice, Liz.

That's great advice. The one-on-one time. And I used to have this thing, what we called was a well day. This was at Christmas, and they even practice it out now, no matter where they are, the well day. And the well day was a day I took them out of school before Christmas. And we, it was a day that we were well, we didn't need to be sick to be out of school.

And we headed to the bus, or dart, or whatever. And I would take just two at a time, and we headed into town, and we saw Santa, and we saw everything, and we went to a film, and we had something to eat. And that day was absolutely focused on what they loved. Not what I loved, what they loved. This had nothing to do with me, this had got to do with me.

And my son said to me, he said, you know, I still remember. The excitement of wondering, what day is she going to say to us, it's her well day. I didn't know what day it was going to be. But one morning I go in and say, get up lads, it's your well day. Wow, that's fantastic. And did you always do it around Christmas, Liz, or no?

It was always Christmas. It was always around about Christmas, because Christmas had the Christmas films on for children. It had the windows, it had the shops, it was fantastic. window, you know, it was magical. Lovely. That's lovely. Always around about that time, but they didn't know when. It was going to happen.

And they didn't know what day in December it was going to happen, but it was one day, I would just say. And the absolute joy would, and the coming home, the chat, and you'd sit there on the tram and chatting to each other. The two youngest, the two older ones. And, but they still do it. They still do it. Great.

Yeah. It's a lovely idea. Lovely idea. You see, the thing is my changing and being able to get less serious. meant that you were coming out of being that parent that was always either directing, ordering, or whatever. And all children love fun. All children love to play and to be able to stop and play. So coming out of menopause, I was coming back to that Liz of that kid, that kid that could bring in the balance of play.

I was finding her again and having the crack with the you know what I mean? So Why some grandparents will enjoy their grandchildren more. Yeah, yeah. Because the parent could allow them to have a bit of fun. Yeah, exactly. And they can, they can, you know, there's less pressure. There's, you know, it's not as intense.

It's not as intense. It's not as intense. But, it doesn't have to be as The moments That I did the well days, or the one on ones, I found that the behaviours I was worrying about all, they stopped. Yeah, you often hear that, yeah. Because once they got that The attention, the one on one. The one on one, meant they didn't have to fight for it.

Yeah. Yeah. Or behave in certain ways to be heard. Yeah. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. There's loads of that goes on in my house. Three boys. Great crack. I noticed with me that the only way I got heard was when I ended up sick in hospital. Okay. Yeah. So I was in for major surgery every 10 years. Yeah. And it was like the only way I gave myself permission to be rested.

Was when I was in hospital. I mean, it's the madness of what goes in here. Yeah. The madness of the program. So like, to me, when all these feelings are coming up in menopause or whatever, as much as you might say, Oh, can I not get through this? Or like, does it have to be like this? Just know that you sit and rest and rest yourself within it.

in somewhere and take a bit of time out away from the others. Just take a bit of time out in nature, take a walk on a beach, do something. It doesn't have to be major. Yeah. Yeah. A bit of time out for yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And just acknowledge I am feeling really tough. It's tough right now and I just need to get out.

And whatever it is that does it for you, it could be running, it could be walking, it can be in nature, it could be a hot bath, whatever it is that does it for you, that is possible for you to do, you do it. Yeah. Yeah. Great advice, Liz. It was lovely talking to you. We'll definitely have to do this again. And I know that you're working on some new, some initiatives at the moment.

So we're going to have to talk again about that too. Life. Well, next birthday is the 70th. Wow. Oh my God. You know what I mean? I'm just saying that how life has changed, but if you embrace it, if you don't resist it, if you embrace it, there are good changes there. Yeah. Yeah. There are changes there. There's, I'm like, you know, just thinking like, where will it take, like, you know what I mean?

Where will it go? Where will it take you? So that it's almost like, The old self is dying, but the old self needs to die for the new self to come through. Yeah. And the old, and the old self is, all that past stuff all and it'll come up through your actions. Look, it's your life. Yeah, and we've only got one, so we've got to live it right.

Um, Liz, it was lovely to talk to you. Thanks. Thanks a million. And thanks to everyone for watching. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And I'm sure you'll have gotten some lovely pearls of wisdom there from, um, Liz. Um, I certainly did. So Liz, thanks a million again. Thank you. Pleasure. You're welcome.