Sexy Menopause — With Lisa Fitzpatrick

What happens when menopause, heartbreak and a crisis of identity collide and the life you thought you were living suddenly disappears? 

In this episode of The Resilience Movement Podcast, Donna Moulds sits down with physiotherapist, pelvic and sexual health educator and author Lisa Fitzpatrick for a candid conversation about menopause, desire, relationships, ageing and rebuilding your sense of self. 

Lisa shares the deeply personal experience of her fiancé ending their nine-year relationship by text while she was already navigating the physical and emotional changes of menopause. 

It left her questioning far more than the relationship. 

Who was she now? Was she still desirable? What did ageing mean? And how do you rebuild when the version of your future you believed in suddenly no longer exists? 

Lisa takes us into the messy middle of that experience from feeling invisible and undesirable to travelling alone through Laos for five weeks and beginning to rediscover her own worth, independence and appetite for life. 

Drawing on more than three decades of professional experience in pelvic and sexual health, Lisa also challenges some of the narratives women have been taught about menopause, ageing and sexuality. 

Together, Donna and Lisa explore why menopause can be more than a collection of symptoms to manage. It can also become a threshold into greater authenticity, confidence, pleasure and personal power. 

In this conversation, you'll hear about: 

•  Rebuilding identity after heartbreak and major life transition 
•  Menopause, ageing and the fear of becoming invisible 
•  Why there is no one-size-fits-all approach to navigating menopause 
•  Sexual health, intimacy and changing desire in midlife 
•  The conversations couples need to have as their bodies and relationships change 
•  Radical self-care and learning to listen to your body 
•  Why desire doesn't have an expiry date 
•  How an ending can become the beginning of an entirely different chapter 

Lisa is the author of Sexy Menopause: The New Science and Soul of Midlife Desire, launching 27 October 2026.

Her message is powerful:

Menopause doesn't have to mark the beginning of your decline. It can become an invitation to meet the most authentic version of yourself yet.

Whether you're navigating menopause yourself, supporting someone who is, rebuilding after a relationship ends, or simply standing at the edge of a new chapter in your life, this conversation is about what becomes possible when you stop treating change as the end of your story.

Lisa Fitzpatrick

Lisa Fitzpatrick is a physiotherapist with more than three decades of clinical experience, a pelvic and sexual health educator, keynote speaker and author of Sexy Menopause: The New Science and Soul of Midlife Desire.

Pre-Order Sexy Menopause 

Lisa's new book, Sexy Menopause: The New Science and Soul of Midlife Desire, launches 27 October 2026. 

If this conversation resonated with you, continue the conversation with Lisa and explore a different perspective on menopause, desire, confidence and midlife. 

Pre-order your copy of Sexy Menopause today: 

Pre-order Sexy Menopause 

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

Okay. Oh, good morning and welcome to the Resilience Movement podcast. I'm so excited for another episode. And I'm really grateful to have Lisa on the podcast because Lisa's story sits at the intersection of so many of the conversations this platform exists to explore, you know, like identity, loss, resilience, aging relationships, building and what becomes possible when life doesn't actually unfold the way we expect it to. But that's life, isn't it? So uh what particularly resonated with me was Lisa's willingness to speak openly about her own experience of a devastating um uh life experience where her fiance left her for a younger woman. And whilst she was also navigating menopause and midlife, and how something that initially felt like an ending ultimately created the possibility of a more fulfilling life. And Lisa also brings more than three decades of clinical experience and professional expertise in pelvic and sexual health. The combination of lived experience and professional knowledge gives us the opportunity to go beyond a conversation about symptoms and menopause education. And I have to tell you, I'm really excited about this one. This conversation is about the woman behind the transition. You know, uh, what happens to identity, desire, confidence, relationships, and our sense of self when life does actually change and how we begin to rebuild. So the questions below, uh, you know, I'm gonna ask Lisa a lot of questions and explore this much deeper. Um, but for now, let me just give you a bit of deeper information about Lisa. Uh, she is a physiotherapist with more than three decades of clinical experience and pelvic and sexual health educator, keynote speaker, and author of sexy menopause, which I really like the sound of that. The new science and soul of midlife desire. So Lisa believes that menopause presents a threshold into greater authenticity, pleasure, confidence, and personal power. Her central message is that desire does not expire, and women are allowed to love their bodies even more as they age, no matter what age or stage you are in. So, welcome, welcome, Lisa. Thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Thank you so much for having me, Donna. I'm so excited about this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Uh, you know, the conversation's coming up more and more, which I really, really like. So I I love the fact that we can explore this. And um, you know, in terms of who Lisa is, if you could say um who you are today, just share with the listeners a bit more about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yes, yes. So I'm a post-menopausal woman. I'm about to turn 54 in December, which is hard to believe because I feel like um I am entering a very sort of nubile era of my life, Donna, where I'm feeling actually pretty youthful at the moment, which I never thought I'd say. Um, I work in two different clinic spaces, offering my women's health services to women. I love my job with an absolute passion. I get women of all ages coming into my clinics with their own incredible stories of resilience. Um, they have helped me to navigate so many of my own milestones over the three decades that I've been working in the women's sort of empowerment and women's health spaces. Um, I think I learn more from my patients sometimes than they learn from me, to be honest. Which is great. Yes, it is. It's wonderful. And I feel as though I'm living my life purpose, um, which I don't think I could always say that, even though I've always been in the same kind of area of work, it's always been a mystery to me, this idea that we all come in with a soul purpose and that as our life unfolds, it becomes clearer and clearer what we're here to actually be and to do. And I love that about getting older, that we we can sometimes step even more into it the older we get. And we never passed our point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah. Do you think that's partly because um, you know, as the change happens, we we stop caring about stuff that doesn't matter. It mattered so much back then, and now we kind of go, why did it even matter? I guess that's do you think that's part of it?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

I really do feel that's a massive part of what the gift of estrogen winding itself up gracefully in our systems gives us is this capacity to be more efficient and to let go of the extraneous noise that estrogen, which literally translated to the Latin, means gad fly or busy buzzy little fly that we're um running on for our whole younger um years of life. Um tending to babies, tending to partners, tending to, you know, parents. And I think um as oestrogen winds up and it's be it really becomes non-negotiable, you know, to have where we put our energy has to be really carefully considered, um, even if we choose to supplement um with hormone replacement therapy, you know, which will help, but isn't at the end, it's not a solution to everything.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah. Yeah. And isn't that interesting how um, you know, there there used to be this stereotypical, here's the symptoms you're gonna have when you go through menopause. But when you actually go through menopause, because I'm 57, and when you go through menopause and you go, Oh, okay, so where are the hot flushes? Uh I mean, I I had lots of other symptoms, so you know, um, but I didn't have any hot flushes, and yet my mum, who is 79, still gets hot flashes.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yes, yes, yes. That's fascinating to me that we're only just starting to properly address the wider picture of symptoms that are often spiritual, mental, emotional, um, you know, not just physical change, but um so many seismic changes on so many other levels too, which um, you know, really get overlooked because the narrative loves to reduce women to their bodies and their physical symptoms. Society and the medical model loves to make women wrong for their symptoms. Um, the symptoms are often very natural, healthy responses to an incredibly difficult world that women are trying to operate in. Um yeah, it's it's it never ceases to amaze me how quickly women are to shoulder the blame and say, oh, this is my fault, my body's failing me. And I think, oh, I wish we knew how intelligent those symptoms actually are at telling us that we are in an unsafe relationship or we're in a you know a really overly stressful life that needs to change. Yeah, very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

So let me ask you this when you let me take you back to um when your relationship the the unfolding of what happened, tell us a little bit about that and what that was like for you to be in that.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah, yeah. Look, it was um it was one of those classic cases of the frog in the water that got slowly warmer to the point where it was boiling, but I wasn't really aware of it. So, what I mean by that is I was in a situation where I've never felt unhealthier in my spiritual, mental, emotional being, physical also. I'd put on 12 to 17 kilos at some point. I was fluctuating with this extra weight on my body. I had achy knees, I had um really difficulties, a lot of difficulties sleeping. I felt my nervous system felt like it was on edge all the time, anxious, panic attacks at the dentist. Um, I've been to the dentist all my life and never had panic attacks, and suddenly here I was sitting up telling them to get everything off me because um, and I thought, I actually thought at that time, you know, my fiance, my partner of nine years, was the only real solid moot point of um of contact with, I guess, a feeling of normality that I felt I had. So I was kind of heavily reliant on this relationship to get my reality validation. And there was a day, and I knew that he with that we were struggling with I was struggling with menopause, what I thought was menopausal intensity. Um and we were having relationship problems, but I I I was absolutely blindsided when I got a text message in my kitchen one day to say, I love you, but I'm not in love with you anymore. And um, you know, I think we're better off going our separate ways. And I remember my entire body felt like it was going to collapse underneath me, and I I literally was um hardly able to function for quite a few months actually. I'm still back at text message. Oh, oh, you got a text message. I got a text message.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Um like, wow, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I'm my brain was back there. I so you're in your kitchen.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yes, next to my water filter. Um, and I I just I literally felt like my entire future timeline that I'd planned, thinking I'm 51, we've done our really hard yards almost a decade together to get our kids. We have four four boys between us, three dogs, all of the hard life that we've lived, the hardworking life that we've we've you know worked so hard towards this promise of a little bit of ease post um menopause. Yeah, yeah. And it felt like that entire future timeline was just ripped out in one text message. And I can't even tell you the loss of like orientation, the disorientation that I felt was it took me months and months to pick myself off the floor. So I I think I can mark my life quite safely in the before menopause category and the after menopause category because you have a clear, um, you know, uh I guess uh a stone or a line in the sand, isn't there? Well, there was a clear line for me. There is for other women a longer process. Um, and curiously, when that line was drawn and there was no going back, the old many literally and figuratively died that day because the person that I had to become to pick myself off that floor, um, I think there was no way I could have ever predicted that two years later I'm sitting here feeling like I'm in the best place that I've ever been in in my life, and that post-menopause, there's no longer these awful seismic fluctuations, um, possibly in hormones, but also in my environmental um structures and relationships and things that are around me now that are very supportive to my own resilience and well-being. It's become essential for me to examine well, why did I get into that nervous system space that wasn't able to handle the symptoms of menopause? Was that, you know, to do with my physical body really picking up on a very unsafe environment, relationship, and set of circumstances, I guess you could say, that was not so sustainable for me as a person. Um, the weight fell off me, a lot of the symptoms disappeared, and a sort of a part of me that was was probably slightly asleep for a long time started to come alive again. And I guess the vitality in that um is ironic to me, Donna, because for me, I've always taught the women in my clinic that it's really important for them to stay connected to their bodies and to their truth, and that the body never lies, you know, the pelvis never lies. So I do about 30 to 40 vaginal examinations per week as a pelvic floor physio, and I hear and feel and see what's happening in women's nervous systems and their bodies. And I think for me personally, to face this very real thing of, oh my gosh, I'm on the subject of my own advice now, what will work for me? Because anything I used to use as my crutch or my support no longer worked for me.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I think that's a really important segue there in respect to um, you know, finding what works for you. And I think we we can hear all of these things from other people. And I do this and I do this, and then I do this, and I take this, and but you really have to find your own, what works for you. And I think that's really important, you know, try all these things because then you'll find what works, what feels good, um, what resonates with you. Yeah, I think that's really important. Like, and and what do you find uh for your clients? What's a starting point for them to be able to do that?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah, the biggest starting point really is around how they are situated inside their own um attunement and nervous system. So the nervous system resilience is seriously um challenged by the changes in our hormones. And so so if we're carrying a level of stress that was probably quite manageable before, it can often, for a woman's nervous system, become untainable and unmanageable during menopause. And the way that shows up in the pelvic physiology is often in a, believe it or not, more of an overactive pelvic floor muscle physiology rather than a an underactive one. Now, an overactive pelvic floor is a problem because, and it's also a problem because a lot of women are also fixated on this idea that if I've got a strong core, I can hold myself really, you know, firmly in the center of gravity in my body, and I can prevent back pain and you know, create good posture and all of those things. And there's definitely truth to that. But what a lot of women are missing is that it's actually okay for us to also let go and stretch and open and soften, because it's in the softening that we also allow blood flow to the pelvic organs and to the reproductive system. We also allow blood flow to um improve our sex lives, which tend to be a little more challenging as we go past the menopause bridge. Um, yeah, there's a lot of reasons why the nervous system attunement is probably a keystone that no amount of protein, powder, weight lifting, um, all the advice will fix if that's why my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

But let me just take you back for a for a second though. Um, when your fiancee left, did that challenge more than the the relationship itself? What did it bring up for you around aging, desirability, identity, self-worth? Talk me through a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah, so I didn't discover until maybe four months into being almost paralysed by grief, pain, and suffering that I'd been replaced by a 20 a year, a woman who was 32. So she was literally 20 years younger than me. And I'd kind I hadn't had a a menstrual bleed for I think three months at that point. So I was kind of entering menopause, but I wasn't quite there yet. Um that woman um was also um unbeknownst to me, possibly, I don't know for sure, on the scene for some time. I'm not really sure about the details, but I remember thinking that I'm absolutely over the hill. There is no way I'll ever have sex again, even though I recommend to my pelvic patients that sex is a very healthy and positive thing for the pelvic floor, especially during menopause. Um, I felt like um there was some kind of taboo about a 51-year-old woman going on dating apps to find a partner because I love being in relationship. I didn't want to be a single woman at this age. It felt like, wow, this this happens to everyone else. And now it's happening to me. It's like, you know, you you hear about women finding out that there's an affair, you hear about women finding out that um I love you, but I'm not in love with you. You never think it's gonna be you until it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I mean, I guess I felt like I was finished. That was me, washed up, I'd become a crazy dog lady. I even bought a book called Um How to Not Die Alone. If it wasn't for my two sons and my two dogs who really kept me out my me regulated, I would have probably um well, I nearly didn't make it. And that got me curious about the stats because the stats show that 45 to 55-year-old women are the highest incidents of suicide risk, as well as being the highest incidence of divorce and relationship breakdown. So suddenly I'd become a stereotype to something that and a statistical normality to something that I never, it was like my worst nightmare, Donna. I cannot tell you how many tears I shed that year and how much pain I had to live through. And I I'm more curious than anyone what it took for that post-traumatic growth factor to kick in for me to realize that actually I'm free. I'm liberated from something that was probably an old life that was never meant for me. Um, I forgive, you know, I forgive that past um transgression, that situation. If I'd lived with the unforgiveness for the, I thought I would be a bitter old lady. That's what my picture was. And there was this point I reached, I think about 12 months in where I thought that's actually a decision you're going to have to make for yourself. You have to make a choice for yourself, Lisa. And I think what was really beautiful in that time was also then finding this statistic that women in their 60s and 70s are the happiest they've ever been. And then I was seeing these patients walking in. And um I, some of them I've known for years. Uh, one elderly lady, Shirley, said, Lisa, I can tell there's something not quite right for you. What's happened? And I actually told her my personal life and thought, gosh, I never normally take the professional hat off and share like this. But she was so leaning in. And um the yeah, she she used a really, really serious swear word. And she said, Well, I'm definitely on your side with this one. But she just said, Honestly, Lisa, um, I've lived enough life now to know that you're gonna be okay, and this will probably be one of the best things that ever happened to you. And I can honestly say she's right about that. Um, and I think also those women who are in their 60s and 70s and 80s, they still have sex, they still have relationships, they still, you know, laugh a lot and um and have got a few really interesting tales to tell about how they got through some really hard stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah. And it's interesting you say, you know, when I often hear people say, you know, you'll get to when you go through hard stuff, you'll get to a point where you're grateful it happened. And, you know, there was one moment in in my life recently, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, sure, whatever. Um, and here I am, and I'm moving through that that stage of like, well, that was really hard. But yeah, like I've been able to um really reflect. On some things and really move into a different stage and move past the bitterness and you know, because we're allowed to have that for a little while, just not too long.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Just not too long. We we can absolutely suffer betrayal trauma in our life. Humans will let us down. Um, we will go through some almost eye-wateringly painful circumstances. Um, and I and I think it helps us to know as women that we're not trying to sugarcoat anything by saying that it's not hard crossing one of these major milestones, you know, where our whole cycles are are winding up, which is is just it's it's underestimated, I guess, how powerful that is. And we are we are under mess underestimated by the narratives in our society around how very powerful our entire spiritual beings are in order to navigate some of those symptoms. We are we are being reduced to symptoms often by the narratives. We're not actually being lifted to the wise, you know, um uh spiritually powerful women that I guess every woman who's crossed that threshold with some degree of lucidity, she's accused of being crazy quite often because her intuition's on point. And there's a fair amount of fear-mongering about women being, I guess, powerful and on point and seeing through some of the charades that you know that happen. And I think um we can only move forward and change that by allowing ourselves to be visible as we cross the bridge, because a lot of us would definitely feel a lot of fear about standing up and being visible. And so as a result, in our media, you know, we don't tend to see older women speaking up or even um having the conversations about how they still have desire, they still have purpose, they still feel, you know, that they are here for a reason. And, you know, that's um that's inspiring whenever we see those role models in front of us that traditionally were not not given to a lot of the previous generations.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah, yeah. I have this uh visual now that you've just implanted in my brain of this crossing over this arched bridge into the other side of menopause. And I think that's great, I think that's a great analogy. And you know, I I've had conversations with my own mum, and I said, Mum, did you talk about menopause? Did you talk about what was happening? And she goes, Oh, I did with my friends, and I'm like, but what about me? Um, you know, because I really had no clue what was what was coming, and all I knew was hot flashes and I didn't get any. So but a funny thing happened is my daughter said to me, one of my I had three daughters. One of my daughters who was in her 30s said to me, she goes, damn mum, you weren't crazy before menopause, but I'm already crazy. What am I going to be like? And I said, I said, Well, I don't think I'm crazy now, am I?

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Classic. I love it. Oh my gosh, that's incredible. And that's also the beauty of um of wisdom, I guess, is do we become more attuned and attenuated to keeping a level of, you know, sort of a sense of being, you know, at peace with ourselves and uh a lot in life, or do we choose to be continue to beat ourselves up and listen to some of the awful feedback that society gives women about oh, you know, um, there's there's a myriad of things that women are uh are able to blame themselves for, including their bodies supposedly failing them when really the intelligence of the body is giving very, very robust feedback that something has to change. Um I I see it a lot with bladders in particular, Donna, where you know, where that there's a um a condition known as an overactive bladder, which is part of the genito-urinary syndrome of menopause. That, you know, even the names of these conditions are so um sort of catastrophic for women to hear in a medical office. And at the same time, that particular bladder is showing a high level of cortisol stress in that woman's life, and it's showing that her nervous system is working on overtime and hyper-vigilant. And if we can only just settle this down and downtrain things in the physiology, then and bring ourselves to a state of peace, a lot of that will actually correct itself without needing medications and all of the things that pharmaceutical sort of intervention will promise. Um yeah, it's fascinating really that we're still working with this idea that we need to stop blaming women and start looking at the bigger picture.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Yeah, and and you know, uh, I think that the more um we learn to be in touch with our body, but be in touch with our mind and what we need, and really asking that question because I can tell you, you know, well before menopause, I was go, go, go, no matter what. I it was just keep going, keep going. You've got so much to do and so many people to take care of, and and you know, uh you have all these responsibilities, and you just ignore the fact that your body is saying, hello, um, I'm over here, and you know, and so I think that when you get to that point where you go, Oh, what do I need? I need to rest. You know, I I was going through a season where it's like I'm tired and I'm gonna have a nap. And now I need to do this, and now I need to do that. And when I started listening to what I needed, that's when things started to change, and that was really amazing. So let me ask you this then. What did give us some examples of what rebuilding actually looked like? Um, you know, and and don't give us a polished version, give us the hardcore version of what does rebuilding look like?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Oh yes, gosh, great question because the rebuilding process was messy, it was hard, it was almost humiliating. Um I was on the phone to a lot of friends and family, um, you know, sort of probably the most open I'd ever been in my life about how I was failing at healing and how I just couldn't see a way through it. Um I will say it was a rock bottom for me in terms of needing to rely on the supports around me and being very cognizant of the fact that I'm very fortunate to have a beautiful community and family and friendship group that I could rely on, and that that's definitely um hit home to me that there's so many women that aren't resourced in the way that I'm I'm I'm resourced. Um, my my loved ones actually um supported me to take some long service leave. I got a backpack on. I went to Lao, um a place I've never been before, but I've traveled a lot in Southeast Asia. I did a five-week backpacking trip around um the Malay, Laos sort of um areas that was really terrifying. I needed to have anti-anxiety medication to actually do it. And I had this realization that the last time I'd been on a backpacking trip was 26, half my age, before I'd had my sons who are now 25 and 23. Right. And it was like a a full circle had happened. And I was wandering around those, those, that trip thinking, all I want is to repartner, all I want is to not end up a solo woman in this at this age, all I want is to have sex again someday. And I was so embarrassed to think, oh my God, what's a woman of my age thinking about sex like that for? This is so terrible. Um, and then there was a point I reached where I thought, I actually thought, wow, I'm really enjoying my own company. I'm enjoying being solo. Why would I want a relationship? If that person was next to me right now, they'd be insisting on a certain meal or a certain direction or a certain thing on the agenda. I don't have to talk to anyone, I don't have to be answerable to anyone. I I really started to enjoy my own company. And I realized that um something much bigger is at play quite often in our lives that is a very benevolent thing. So for me as a deeply spiritual person, I did have to have a pretty seismic shift in my belief system, which used to believe that when bad things happen, you have somehow done the wrong thing. You've done the wrong, you've taken the wrong turn in your life. You've you've messed up, you know, and so very quick with the self-blame, with like a lot of women, I think. But I think where I felt that the big um shift spiritually happened was in this idea that actually something bigger than me loves me so much that it was not prepared to see me slowly wither in that last life where the boiling point had been reached, the thermostat was blowing out, the frog in the water was well and truly cooked. There was something completely benevolent at work to support a very, very positive shift so that I can retrieve my nervous system health, I can start actually healing from some childhood trauma that I hadn't faced before. So the nature of being pushed that dark and deep into your own shadows, I think really supported me to look at some things that I've probably been carrying my whole life that I haven't addressed. And I think that was a big part of it too, Donna, was getting the right support from really good therapists to reframe things. Um but for me, primarily it's the spiritual support, the contract that I feel I've got with my own soul that said, look, if you can come back holding something holy in your hands, um, you will be able to make sense of this. And that's why I wrote sexy menopause because I was the unsexiest menopausal woman on the planet when the idea came to my head that how could you possibly be sexy in menopause right now? You're overweight, you're you know, you're done for. Um terrible narrative, terrible, terrible narrative, not serving anyone.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Oh my goodness. Let me ask you then. So you work professionally in pelvic and sexual health. How did going through your own midlife experience, the way you understood women sitting in front of you, did that shift?

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Yeah, that definitely shifted because the way that I can see women um blaming their bodies for the dysfunctional symptoms is completely different, I feel. So that so the I've always practiced with a lot of kindness and compassion and gentleness, but I think the idea of moving to an entirely deeper level of tenderness towards the fact that when we see the incredible messages that our bodies and um, you know, our our own souls are actually delivering to us, I I can read, I feel like I can read my patients with a level of um, I guess, um understanding and compassion that I might not have probably been able to offer previously. And a lot of the advice I've often given has been, you know, research-based, evidence-based, scientific information. But what this experience also did for me was it supported a level of wholeness in the subjective experiences of the women. So it's easy for us to put a cookie-cut uh approach on menopause and say, look, you just need 75 micrograms of estrogen and a progesterone pill every night. You'll be right, love. You know, it's so much deeper than that. And every woman um is in her own individual way. Um I think the benefit of understanding that we don't necessarily need to add to our lives to make menopause an easier experience. Most often, and certainly in my case, this was true, we need to start subtracting things that no longer serve us. And some of the things that we used to feel were really necessary for us, they have to go. They have to go. There's grieving, you know, that has to be done around that too. We have to let go of some things that we might have held on for our whole younger lives. And the grief is real, that's a real part of it. Um, women grieving, and then women realizing um that there's post-traumatic growth, which I don't think is is is talked about enough in therapy work, where once you've been through some kind of trauma, and I think menopause is quite traumatic for a lot of women, and pelvic health is very traumatic, and sexual health is very traumatic for a lot of women, there's a growth factor that comes out of that experience that we can often palpably see where your perspective is um more tolerant, understanding, deeper, more compassionate, but also that's what the big that's what the getting of wisdom is, right? Yeah, yeah, you hope.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

I mean, yeah, the the wisdom that comes with it. And and it's really interesting because um when if collectively we all got together and said, um, here's what our experience was when we went to the doctor, here's what our experience was when we said, here are our symptoms, and we had some doctors sitting in front of us, they would be shocked to hear how we actually feel about how we're treated, how we're not heard, how things aren't explained, how you know. I mean, when I first started going through menopause, I went, I can do this all naturally. Well, you know what? That wasn't for me. And if it is for others, that's fantastic too, because this is our own journey. And we really have to find what works for us. I think that's really, really key.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Um, I think with that one too, the um interesting concept that I'll still get 10% of my menopausal patients coming in that have absolutely no, you know, symptoms and just sail through it. And then there's everything in between where it can be absolutely massive for someone, and then it can be really, really um quite an easy fix with natural remedies too. And uh yeah, everyone's everyone is so individual in that way that I I think we'll find as time goes on that this idea of plastering a few hormone replacements um of a certain strength to every woman's, you know, um kind of treatment plan is not necessarily a smart way to go about hormone replacement either.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Yeah, yeah. And and it doesn't work for everyone, and that's you know, uh, like when you when you go into a doctor's surgery with your experience, oh I actually had the difficulty. I'd had the same doctor for 17 years. Unfortunately, he got very unwell, and I had to find a new doctor. And going through menopause and finding a new doctor was a whole level of complexity that I wasn't even prepared for. But let me ask you this. So we hear women talking about becoming invisible as they get older. Uh, becoming invisible, is that something that you experienced yourself? Um, and what do you believe about visibility? You've spoken a little bit about wanting, you know, having desirability, wanting to uh have still have be sexually active, to um be in a relationship, you know, when we talk about visibility, desirability, aging, um tell me a bit about what that was like for you and what message would you really like the listeners to hear? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Uh what I what I love about this um reframing, I guess, of visibility as we get older is that the soul, and again, I'll come back to this idea that we're here for a purpose quite often as women. If you watch someone who is really operating inside her own authenticity and she's comfortable in her skin and she is living on purpose and she's really present to what she's doing, and she's in love with life, a lot of those physical things that are pinned onto a very stagnant, you know, image are redundant, they're moot points that that none of those physicalities really matter after that first impression. So um I think seeing seeing the life force coming alive in my own self when I was realizing, wow, I'm living a life that's actually more true to me. I didn't even realize I was being slowly coerced into a life that was more suited to someone else's agenda than my own. I didn't even really realize that I wasn't necessarily being truthful about what it was that I really needed to feel like I was in a healthy space and living in a healthy way with um with a I guess a comfort in my own skin. Because I was just constantly um, I was constantly anxious and I was constantly in a state of self-loathing. So everything that happened to me was um a feeling of, oh, you've gone and failed again. The self-loathing was at a peak. And to actually regain the sense of, okay, um, I feel like I'm more capable of putting healthy boundaries in place and a bit more capable of being authentic, it's meant that I've been able to show up more visibly than I did in the last 10 years to do the media campaigns for the book, for example. I I was I would have been terrified of doing that when I was in the height of my anxiety, but because something bigger than me is, I guess, working its way through this situation. Um, and again, that to me is my spiritual belief. Um, I feel as though visibility is secondary, a secondary concern. It's not of really major concern to me either. Um, I feel more passionate about what's happening from the inside out rather than the outside in. And that I feel is the key to the reorientation that women um often say they don't give a flying F anymore about what people think of them because oestrogen's kind of that hormone that makes you tend and befriend everyone around you and look after everyone. But when you're reorientated with menopause, you have a more vertical axis towards your spiritual beliefs, but you also have a more vertical axis down towards your physical body. So your physical body will show you a lot more of the way, you know, forward. Um, you have to modify your life to suit those physical needs that your body's screaming at you to finally honour. Um, and that then becomes a case of, well, I don't really care what the cameras see. I don't really care what other people are thinking or judging. Um it's really more important for me to do this work that I'm here to do. Um purpose, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 43:03

I feel and and you know, our purpose changes. I call it chapters. We have different chapters of our life, and you know, and that's when your uh chapters before children, during children, after children, you know, they're all different chapters. Um and so yeah, finding purpose again, I think, is um uh a real key that I heard from you there.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Yes, absolutely. Finding purpose again, finding a way to be purposeful um without being a martyr. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

So Lisa, sex and desire in midlife are still difficult subjects for women to talk about openly. What conversations do you think women and their partners need to become more comfortable having?

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Uh, the very real um possibility that sex will change and become less comfortable is something. That a lot of couples definitely need a more open discussion with about the fact that when we are going through the menopausal bridge, which can last 10 years, the tissue changes that we experience due to hormone change will often increase vulnerability to pelvic conditions like pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence, the less sexy subjects that also affect women's confidence in the bedroom. When those changes happen and a partner's involved, I'll often get the distressed partner coming into my clinic along with their partner. And if they're a good partner, they often will say, I just want to help her through. But there's grief for that partner. A lot of the men will I've had them in tears saying, I just want her to be like she was before, and I want things to go back to how they were before. And I have to have the conversation that we won't go back to that ever, but we will go into a new normal. And the new normal is capable of deeper levels of true intimacy. So true intimacy is where we are actually emotionally supporting each other as a couple to navigate these changes. We're actually crossing this bridge together. Um this, you know, this idea that um that the sex can't be better after menopause is a is a myth. Um, and secondly, a lot of women when they get when their body's symptoms tell them that um sex has to change, don't realize that there's a lot of 60-year-old women out there who have fully crossed the bridge and get this for a wonderful picture. They're no longer having to worry about any kind of hormonal fluctuation. They don't have to worry about period pain and pelvic pain. They don't have to worry about getting pregnant. So they can have the sex they like without contraception. They don't have to worry about um tolerating bad sex because they know exactly what their bodies um like and don't like. And I think um the liberation I see for that once the bridge has been crossed during the changes, it's tricky if the relationship can be preserved. I've had a few high fives in the last few weeks where uh patients come back and say, We're back. Hubbie's just sending the words through, Lisa, that he's really grateful to you because we're back on track with our sex lives. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

I mean, that would just be such a great thing for you to hear. Like, you know, that's another marriage survived menopause, right? Correct, exactly. I you know, there are so many more men talking about what their wives and partners are going through. And I think that's really uh beautiful to hear, but it's not happening enough, right? The more conversations, the more normal it becomes of you know, uh being understanding and being curious about it too. What must it be like? And you know, very interesting. So now let's talk a little bit about your book, Sexy Metapores, The New Science and Soul of Midlife Desire. So bring science and the human experience together. What can you know, is there a couple of significant things that compelled you to write it? You've kind of briefly given us some of that information. Yes. But what what's what's a couple of really key things that you would like the book to achieve to accomplish?

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Yes, I'd love for more women to realise that when you do maintain a healthy, um, regular sex life of some sort, whether that's through self-pleasure or through a partner, um, you will be preserving your pelvic health to some degree. And so when we just shelve it and say that's um over for me, I'm not um I'm not dismissing someone who chooses celibacy, by the way. Please know that. But if we do um know that when we do have regular sexual engagement, we're strengthening pelvic floor muscles, we're supporting tissue um health in the area, we are supporting pelvic health in general as well. So that's a big one. Um secondly, that you're never too old to keep working on the pleasure of your pleasurable sensations of your body. So a lot of women um don't even realize what their bodies are capable of until menopause. And sometimes that um that that need to take more time to arouse a body and then to bring a body to climax, that will often be something that um enables a woman to get more curious about the pleasurable sensations her body's capable of. And some women um find that they wish they'd found out those secrets a lot earlier in life because they're good secrets to unlock.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

And I has where has Lisa been all my life? That's what that's what they might be saying, Lisa.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Oh, that's so interesting. I mean, I've been asking that about myself, so where have I been all my life? Um, but yes, and um, and I guess I do cover the very real issue with um my memoir sort of interludes in the book of just how real the struggle is around us intimately relating with our men and what it means for men to support us. So my hope for the book is to reach some men. Um, I did have a an early reader reach out yesterday, um, my one of my friend's husbands who is reading the book who said, Look, it will be super, super helpful for so many men to read this. He he has it on his desk and he's a counsellor of males. He said, So many men have seen that book on my desk and said, I need that. I mean, what man doesn't want a sexy menopausal woman, right?

unknown 50:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

And I think it's the fear of asking the questions, the fear of becoming curious, because you don't know what's going to come out of Pandora's box, right? So I think, yeah, if they could become more curious, then that would open up that opportunity. So I love that.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Yeah, I love that because I will add too. I have a new boyfriend, I have a partner, finally. I've done my work. Anyway, he's read the book. I said to him, This book is being released at the end of October. Um, I think you should read it because it's quite personal. It might change your opinion. You might ghost me. It's a thing in this modern world ghosting. Um my goodness. Yeah. He he read the whole thing, he finished it last week and he said, I am so surprised. And I said, What are you so surprised about? And he just said, How much women go through, you know, just how many women go through so much trauma that I've never considered before. And I think um he's still in contact. You haven't been ghosted. And yeah, he saw it as an important part of the conversation, is that women go through a lot.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Yeah, yeah. I think um uh, you know, when it comes down to um uh uh being curious, I I'm not sure that a lot of men might understand where to start, like especially if they maybe a relationship has ended and they can reflect back and go, oh, it it might have been menopause and maybe we could have moved through that. I don't know. And also I come across uh women who aren't curious enough about their bodies, and that's not everyone, it's a very small percentage of women that I've come across who aren't curious. Yeah, um, but I think if we become more curious ourselves and and have the conversations more, I have journaled my entire menopause journey for my daughters to read. And there's moments in my journal where I have written, um, because I have a son and I've gone, Bradley, you don't want to read this bit. You don't want to read this bit.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Oh, classic. Yes, our sons are pretty the boys of the new generation, like my son's in their 20s, they're they're they're I've been quite surprised at how uh well they've taken the book title of sexy menopause and the whole concept of it and said, We're really proud of you, mum. And I think, well, that's a new generation of young men right there. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

Yeah, very much so. And um earlier in the conversation, Lisa, you said that parts of you um had to die. And I certainly know that. I've followed some of you know Peter Crohn's work where he says a version of you has to die for the next version of you to evolve. But he doesn't, he says it much much more graceful than I do. But uh, do you believe there are some versions of ourselves we have to lose um to move through that? And how are we, how do we become okay with that?

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Yes, um, the versions of us that were particularly quick to drop healthy boundaries or you know, go into a codependency in our relationships, I think that's a big one. Um, that is it's really it's really hard when the people around you expect you to be a certain way and you are navigating the identity shift, not only in yourself, but in the people around you being so accustomed to you um being a certain way that you the the grief can extend into the fact that certain relationships won't also cross the menopause bridge with you as closely or as intimately. Even relationships that you might have had your entire life sometimes, I think, can be affected by your willingness to put healthy boundaries in place in order to support your well-being and and and give you the capacity to live your life to the fullest because when the golden goose gets cooked, there's no golden eggs for anyone. So it doesn't serve anyone for us to self-sacrifice to that level where um we're possibly, you know, staying in some unhealthy patterning. Um, how does that, how do we navigate that without uh losing our center and without feeling like the most selfish person on the planet, which is often what women struggle with a lot. Um, I think having these sorts of conversations with each other, um, exactly what we're doing right now, where we sit down and we talk about what feels normal for us, you know, and what we feel is presenting its biggest challenge to us as well. So hearing other women's stories about how they actually picked themselves up and moved themselves through these hard times. Um hearing women that also I think are at least 10 years ahead of us, who can say to us, this is how I did it. And then also thinking about what our future self would say if she was on her deathbed and she was looking back at us now. What would she urge us to, you know, to to consider about what what what's important in our lives? What prior what priorities do we have?

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Yeah. I really love that. Yeah, what's important to us and hearing from someone who's 10 years older, like that's so powerful, isn't it? It really is. If our listeners who are listening to this podcast could remember one thing from this conversation, what would you want them to remember most?

SPEAKER_00 56:37

I would love for them to remember that it's perfectly okay for them to start to love their bodies, radically love their bodies, like um radically self-care for their bodies and their physical well-being. Um, that'd be the main thing, I think. And also that menopause is a powerful initiation into your most powerful self, your greatest expression of life and your greatest years are possibly ahead of you, not behind you. Um, so see this as a new beginning and a new chapter and a wonderful new season. Um, the second spring, you can be a spring chicken again. You might feel like you're you've you've had it. You can bounce back and feel useful and exuberant and vibrant again. It's possible.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Yeah. What I'm going to remember from this conversation is one, it was so beautiful to have this conversation with you, but the fact that this is the beginning of something new, not the end. You know, I just think that's really, really powerful. So thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. Your wisdom. Uh, I really, really wish you all the best with your book. Is it launched this October?

SPEAKER_00 58:02

This October, it's available for pre-order as we speak from sexymenopause.com. But yes, this October 27th of October, it will be in the book bookstores. Um, yeah, by your by your your girlfriends the copy. Um, enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Yeah, fantastic. Look, thank you again to our listeners for joining us because without you, we wouldn't have a podcast. And again, very grateful for you joining us. Thank you so much, and we'll talk to you again very soon, listeners.