July 23, 2025 • 13 mins
Entrepreneur Jodie Mathews was suffering from debilitating symptoms of Perimenopause, and when she couldn't find an off-the-shelf solution, she joined forces with her BFF! This episode is an inspirational story of you doing you!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, this is the story of the inspiration. Two girlfriends,
one struggling with infertility, the other with the crippling symptoms
of perimenopause, looking for a natural therapy alternative. One Jodie
Matthews was burnt out from a corporate life in the
beauty industry and sought solace to the northern beaches of
(00:20):
Sydney to embrace the physical and mental health benefits that
came with a coastal lifestyle. Along the way, she and
bff Chavorn developed their very own range of products and
shared them with other women, and so a shire was born.
Here's her story. Menopause, It's coming for you no matter what.
(00:44):
Let's build a village of support.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Why is it so damn hot in here?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Menopause is so hot right now? I think them in
menopause women just want to feel heard. Rage against the menopause.
I'd like to welcome now to rage against the menopause.
Jodie Matthews. This woman is so inspiring. She's a natural
therapy advocate for menopause and also a former CEO, but
(01:09):
she has an extensive history in the corporate world as well. Jody,
welcome to rage. Thanks for having me you're welcome. Tell
me what was your You have got a long history
in beauty, the beauty corporate world. What was your lot?
And this is what you're doing now, which we'll get
onto is vastly different to that lifestyle. What was your
(01:33):
light bulb moment that said to you, I don't think
this is working for me anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah. Look, it was in my early forties and I
had worked, you know, in a pretty big career for
close to eighteen years without a break, and you know,
I was just feeling really burnt out, washed up, and yeah,
not feeling like myself anymore. And I, you know, at
(02:01):
early forties, I felt like there's got to be more,
Like I can't be done yet, you know, I've still
got so much left in me.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
But I was literally running on empty.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And I think it was a combination of just corporate burnout,
unhealthy lifestyle that often goes with those big jobs.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Like you know, I was never cooking my own meals, I.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Never exercised, you know, late nights, way too much alcohol,
a lot of travel, and a lot of stress, and yeah,
I was completely burnt out. I was a shell at
about forty two years of age. So I knew I needed,
I needed to take charge, like I was the only
(02:42):
one that could change my situation.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So I left the corporate world and took I.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Guess a bit of a break to get my health
in order, which has you know, led me down this.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, very very different path.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So running on adretaline, I think a lot of women
can relate to that. I certainly can, like running on
a shoe string. So were you in perimenopause at that stage,
had you had children, what was your sort of health story.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, look, I'd had a lot of guynological issues, you know,
through my twenties and thirties.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I've had several surgeries for bladder issues.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I had my uterus had prolapsed without anigh pregnancy without
childbirth yep, wow, which is really really unheard of generally
you have prolapse after several births, Yeah, pregnancies.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
But i have.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
A history of prolapse in my family. So I've got grandmothers,
great aunts also great aunts that never had children prolapse.
So I had a real weakness in my whole pelvic
floor area, which caused me a lot of problems. So yeah,
I'd been in and out of hospital every couple of years.
Kind of through my twenties and thirties put things back
(04:00):
together and keep my luck.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I call that my waterworks, all my pipes down there working. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So, yeah, I guess i'd been through a bit of
a ringer in terms of that. And I think I
hadn't even heard of the word perimenopause. And my mum
had had a full hysterectum in her late forties, so
she hadn't gone through menopause. And so when I was,
you know, at this really low point and I'd walked
(04:27):
away from my corporate career, you know, I went to
my GP, and you know, I was on our whole
host of stuff for not being able to sleep anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So I had some sleeping pills.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I was just riddled with anxiety, so I was given
anxiety medication and then eventually, you know, it leads into
a bitter depressions, so then antidepressants. And at not one
point was even my hormones discussed, Like, there wasn't even
a discussion around, hey maybe we should check your hormone profile,
let's see where you're at. When was the last time
(04:58):
you had a period. None of that was ever discussed.
And at forty two years of age, My period.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Was all over the place.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I'd have it and I wouldn't have it for three
or four months, and then it would come back. And
so I was definitely very very irregular. And so I
actually went and saw an Aavidic practitioner because I remembered
buying a book on aveada many many years ago. It
was the Avidic doctor, doctor Yoshi, that Princess Diana used
(05:25):
to see.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Can you explain what is that form? What is eveader?
I've never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Aaveada is the It's Hindu Indian way of its science
of life. So it's basically like Chinese medicine. Aveada is
medicine and the way of life for Indian and Hindu people.
And its sister science is yoga. So Europeans have readily
(05:51):
adapted to yoga and made it part of everyday lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Well, Aveda is.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
The I guess, the healing, the medicinal side that is yoga.
And so I found, you know, many many years ago,
a lot of wisdom in this avertic book that I'd read.
And I did the detox and I felt really really good,
and so I thought, maybe I need to try that again.
So I actually met with an avedic practitioner, and I
(06:17):
did a full punch of karma, which you'll see like
a lot of celebrities are talking about punch karma, like
Avidic medicine and Avidic spas are gaining a lot of traction.
I think there's an amazing one down in Melbourne. There's
plenty over in La. You know, LA tends to be
the trendsetter in terms of wellness, and so I did
an avid punch of karma and the Avitic practitioner. One
(06:40):
of the first things she asked me about the hormones,
when you know, what do you watch your cycle like?
And she pretty much determined just in that first initial conversation,
without even doing any blood testing, that I was perimenopausal.
So she actually put me on some herbs to actually
support my hormones alongside doing this intense detox, and within
(07:03):
that month I went back well. Following that month, I
went back to twenty a normal twenty eight day cycle.
I got my cycle back, and I honestly got all
of my energy back and I'd never felt better. And
so it just started then this curiosity around the power
(07:25):
of plants, the power of herbs, particularly these avitic herbs,
that I was taking, and you know I could, I
could see very quickly that I completely turned myself around
in a four week period. I went from being really
down and out to feeling better than.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I ever had before.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So yeah, it's it's an incredible it's an incredible set
of I guess lifestyle elements that I've taken on board
from Abata and I continue to do so. But you
might have heard it at pats with you know, your
Dosher type, whether you're a Varta, a pit or a
(08:04):
Cafa like, your kind of your body constitution.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Then determines, you know, the foods and.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Lifestyle choices that are better suited to your constitution and
the times of the year that are better suited to
your constitution.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
So yeah, it's very it's a very interesting science.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I do want to bring in your grandmother's influence because
all these plant extracts and natural remedies weren't sort of
a mystery to you at all, because tell me about
your grandma and her influence on that.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, well, I grew up in rural Tasmania, so you know,
I grew up surrounded by.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Farmland, living off fresh produce.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You know, we never had takeaways liken unheard of. We
might have had fish and chips every now and then,
but ye have drive thirty or forty minutes to get that,
you know, walk to the school bus to get to school.
And my grandmother, she grew up on an island in
Bass Strait called King Island. So my grandmother grew up
(09:11):
in an even more rural part of Australia, very very isolated,
and had a dairy farm and lived off the land.
And as a young girl, being the eldest of four,
I spent quite a lot of time with my grandmother
as my mother tended to my younger brothers and sisters.
(09:32):
And my grandmother had a real passion for herbal medicine.
She would go down to the local little health food store.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Every week.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
She was down there talking to the resident nature path
about what is a natural way to deal with whatever problem.
So my grandmother had a tincture, a vitamin, a mineral,
a formula for literally anything you could possibly come to
her with.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And you know, she had.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
This little reference book sitting in her in her cupboard
that she would write notes against different you know, different
herbs or different vitamins and things that she'd been taking.
And she was kind of known as this woman, you know,
within a community.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
And my mother. Look, I lost my.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Beautiful grandmother, yeah God, about twenty seven years.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Ago, and my mum has given me her little herbal
book with all her.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Beautiful handwritten notes in that. So it's really really quite special.
So I think, yeah, you know, even as a young girl.
You know, my grandmother had me on Carli Foss, which
is a sell soult which is really good for anxiety.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So I think they know this.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, so there's some things that I still take that
she swore. Swears by the Hilda Hems Swedish Bidders, which
is a herbal tincture full of literally every amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Herb you could possibly have. That is a cure all
for everything.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
You know, you've got a sore throat, you gargle it,
you know, you cut your hand, you put a little
bit on your hand, you know, on a saw. It
was just the one thing that she had in her
cupboard all the time. And I still have that in
my cup and I still go. It's not as easy
to find anymore, but yeah, I still get it.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Wow, So tell me how did it go to building
this amazing brand?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You know, back five years ago, there really wasn't anything
in you know, your herbal stores or your pharmacies that
you could take for all your perimenopause symptoms or all
your PMS symptoms.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
You know, there was the odd.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Brand that had something, but as a category, hormonal health
really wasn't being catered for.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
So we knew that there was something in it. And
I think also coming from the beauty industry and working
with you know.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Large groups or office full of females, we knew that
we weren't alone. I knew that every woman that I
knew in their forties was also feeling like I was.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So the contrast between corporate life for you in the
beauty industry to what you're doing now is so so
vastly different, isn't it. It's like not evevery comparable.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
No, no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I think you know, when you would work for big corporations,
you know, it's.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
All about the sales, it's all about the profit, it's
all about growing that year on year.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And I think you know, when you walk away from
all of that and start doing something on your own,
but you're doing it because you genuinely want to help
other people. You know, Our brand was born out of
the fact that we wanted to share what we were
experiencing with other women, like we didn't want to keep
it to ourselves. We knew that other women were suffering,
and we knew that there wasn't a lot out on
(12:51):
the market, and so we genuinely wanted to help other
women with their hormones.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
As Shy co founder Juddy Matthews, there and check out
her website. Do your hormonal balance queiz to see where
you're at. Of course, always get your doctor's advice, and hey,
you do you. Relief looks different for all of us.
I'm Petrina Jones, and this is rage against the menopause.
Rage against the menopause.
Well, this is the story of the inspiration. Two girlfriends,
one struggling with infertility, the other with the crippling symptoms
of perimenopause, looking for a natural therapy alternative. One Jodie
Matthews was burnt out from a corporate life in the
beauty industry and sought solace to the northern beaches of
(00:20):
Sydney to embrace the physical and mental health benefits that
came with a coastal lifestyle. Along the way, she and
bff Chavorn developed their very own range of products and
shared them with other women, and so a shire was born.
Here's her story. Menopause, It's coming for you no matter what.
(00:44):
Let's build a village of support.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Why is it so damn hot in here?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Menopause is so hot right now? I think them in
menopause women just want to feel heard. Rage against the menopause.
I'd like to welcome now to rage against the menopause.
Jodie Matthews. This woman is so inspiring. She's a natural
therapy advocate for menopause and also a former CEO, but
(01:09):
she has an extensive history in the corporate world as well. Jody,
welcome to rage. Thanks for having me you're welcome. Tell
me what was your You have got a long history
in beauty, the beauty corporate world. What was your lot?
And this is what you're doing now, which we'll get
onto is vastly different to that lifestyle. What was your
(01:33):
light bulb moment that said to you, I don't think
this is working for me anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah. Look, it was in my early forties and I
had worked, you know, in a pretty big career for
close to eighteen years without a break, and you know,
I was just feeling really burnt out, washed up, and yeah,
not feeling like myself anymore. And I, you know, at
(02:01):
early forties, I felt like there's got to be more,
Like I can't be done yet, you know, I've still
got so much left in me.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
But I was literally running on empty.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
And I think it was a combination of just corporate burnout,
unhealthy lifestyle that often goes with those big jobs.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Like you know, I was never cooking my own meals, I.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Never exercised, you know, late nights, way too much alcohol,
a lot of travel, and a lot of stress, and yeah,
I was completely burnt out. I was a shell at
about forty two years of age. So I knew I needed,
I needed to take charge, like I was the only
(02:42):
one that could change my situation.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So I left the corporate world and took I.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Guess a bit of a break to get my health
in order, which has you know, led me down this.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, very very different path.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So running on adretaline, I think a lot of women
can relate to that. I certainly can, like running on
a shoe string. So were you in perimenopause at that stage,
had you had children, what was your sort of health story.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, look, I'd had a lot of guynological issues, you know,
through my twenties and thirties.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I've had several surgeries for bladder issues.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I had my uterus had prolapsed without anigh pregnancy without
childbirth yep, wow, which is really really unheard of generally
you have prolapse after several births, Yeah, pregnancies.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
But i have.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
A history of prolapse in my family. So I've got grandmothers,
great aunts also great aunts that never had children prolapse.
So I had a real weakness in my whole pelvic
floor area, which caused me a lot of problems. So yeah,
I'd been in and out of hospital every couple of years.
Kind of through my twenties and thirties put things back
(04:00):
together and keep my luck.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I call that my waterworks, all my pipes down there working. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So, yeah, I guess i'd been through a bit of
a ringer in terms of that. And I think I
hadn't even heard of the word perimenopause. And my mum
had had a full hysterectum in her late forties, so
she hadn't gone through menopause. And so when I was,
you know, at this really low point and I'd walked
(04:27):
away from my corporate career, you know, I went to
my GP, and you know, I was on our whole
host of stuff for not being able to sleep anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So I had some sleeping pills.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I was just riddled with anxiety, so I was given
anxiety medication and then eventually, you know, it leads into
a bitter depressions, so then antidepressants. And at not one
point was even my hormones discussed, Like, there wasn't even
a discussion around, hey maybe we should check your hormone profile,
let's see where you're at. When was the last time
(04:58):
you had a period. None of that was ever discussed.
And at forty two years of age, My period.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Was all over the place.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I'd have it and I wouldn't have it for three
or four months, and then it would come back. And
so I was definitely very very irregular. And so I
actually went and saw an Aavidic practitioner because I remembered
buying a book on aveada many many years ago. It
was the Avidic doctor, doctor Yoshi, that Princess Diana used
(05:25):
to see.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Can you explain what is that form? What is eveader?
I've never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Aaveada is the It's Hindu Indian way of its science
of life. So it's basically like Chinese medicine. Aveada is
medicine and the way of life for Indian and Hindu people.
And its sister science is yoga. So Europeans have readily
(05:51):
adapted to yoga and made it part of everyday lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Well, Aveda is.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
The I guess, the healing, the medicinal side that is yoga.
And so I found, you know, many many years ago,
a lot of wisdom in this avertic book that I'd read.
And I did the detox and I felt really really good,
and so I thought, maybe I need to try that again.
So I actually met with an avedic practitioner, and I
(06:17):
did a full punch of karma, which you'll see like
a lot of celebrities are talking about punch karma, like
Avidic medicine and Avidic spas are gaining a lot of traction.
I think there's an amazing one down in Melbourne. There's
plenty over in La. You know, LA tends to be
the trendsetter in terms of wellness, and so I did
an avid punch of karma and the Avitic practitioner. One
(06:40):
of the first things she asked me about the hormones,
when you know, what do you watch your cycle like?
And she pretty much determined just in that first initial conversation,
without even doing any blood testing, that I was perimenopausal.
So she actually put me on some herbs to actually
support my hormones alongside doing this intense detox, and within
(07:03):
that month I went back well. Following that month, I
went back to twenty a normal twenty eight day cycle.
I got my cycle back, and I honestly got all
of my energy back and I'd never felt better. And
so it just started then this curiosity around the power
(07:25):
of plants, the power of herbs, particularly these avitic herbs,
that I was taking, and you know I could, I
could see very quickly that I completely turned myself around
in a four week period. I went from being really
down and out to feeling better than.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I ever had before.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So yeah, it's it's an incredible it's an incredible set
of I guess lifestyle elements that I've taken on board
from Abata and I continue to do so. But you
might have heard it at pats with you know, your
Dosher type, whether you're a Varta, a pit or a
(08:04):
Cafa like, your kind of your body constitution.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Then determines, you know, the foods and.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Lifestyle choices that are better suited to your constitution and
the times of the year that are better suited to
your constitution.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
So yeah, it's very it's a very interesting science.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I do want to bring in your grandmother's influence because
all these plant extracts and natural remedies weren't sort of
a mystery to you at all, because tell me about
your grandma and her influence on that.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, well, I grew up in rural Tasmania, so you know,
I grew up surrounded by.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Farmland, living off fresh produce.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You know, we never had takeaways liken unheard of. We
might have had fish and chips every now and then,
but ye have drive thirty or forty minutes to get that,
you know, walk to the school bus to get to school.
And my grandmother, she grew up on an island in
Bass Strait called King Island. So my grandmother grew up
(09:11):
in an even more rural part of Australia, very very isolated,
and had a dairy farm and lived off the land.
And as a young girl, being the eldest of four,
I spent quite a lot of time with my grandmother
as my mother tended to my younger brothers and sisters.
(09:32):
And my grandmother had a real passion for herbal medicine.
She would go down to the local little health food store.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Every week.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
She was down there talking to the resident nature path
about what is a natural way to deal with whatever problem.
So my grandmother had a tincture, a vitamin, a mineral,
a formula for literally anything you could possibly come to
her with.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And you know, she had.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
This little reference book sitting in her in her cupboard
that she would write notes against different you know, different
herbs or different vitamins and things that she'd been taking.
And she was kind of known as this woman, you know,
within a community.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
And my mother. Look, I lost my.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Beautiful grandmother, yeah God, about twenty seven years.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Ago, and my mum has given me her little herbal
book with all her.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Beautiful handwritten notes in that. So it's really really quite special.
So I think, yeah, you know, even as a young girl.
You know, my grandmother had me on Carli Foss, which
is a sell soult which is really good for anxiety.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
So I think they know this.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, so there's some things that I still take that
she swore. Swears by the Hilda Hems Swedish Bidders, which
is a herbal tincture full of literally every amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Herb you could possibly have. That is a cure all
for everything.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
You know, you've got a sore throat, you gargle it,
you know, you cut your hand, you put a little
bit on your hand, you know, on a saw. It
was just the one thing that she had in her
cupboard all the time. And I still have that in
my cup and I still go. It's not as easy
to find anymore, but yeah, I still get it.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Wow, So tell me how did it go to building
this amazing brand?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You know, back five years ago, there really wasn't anything
in you know, your herbal stores or your pharmacies that
you could take for all your perimenopause symptoms or all
your PMS symptoms.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
You know, there was the odd.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Brand that had something, but as a category, hormonal health
really wasn't being catered for.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
So we knew that there was something in it. And
I think also coming from the beauty industry and working
with you know.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Large groups or office full of females, we knew that
we weren't alone. I knew that every woman that I
knew in their forties was also feeling like I was.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So the contrast between corporate life for you in the
beauty industry to what you're doing now is so so
vastly different, isn't it. It's like not evevery comparable.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
No, no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I think you know, when you would work for big corporations,
you know, it's.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
All about the sales, it's all about the profit, it's
all about growing that year on year.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And I think you know, when you walk away from
all of that and start doing something on your own,
but you're doing it because you genuinely want to help
other people. You know, Our brand was born out of
the fact that we wanted to share what we were
experiencing with other women, like we didn't want to keep
it to ourselves. We knew that other women were suffering,
and we knew that there wasn't a lot out on
(12:51):
the market, and so we genuinely wanted to help other
women with their hormones.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
As Shy co founder Juddy Matthews, there and check out
her website. Do your hormonal balance queiz to see where
you're at. Of course, always get your doctor's advice, and hey,
you do you. Relief looks different for all of us.
I'm Petrina Jones, and this is rage against the menopause.
Rage against the menopause.
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