May 30, 2023 • 37 mins
Today we speak to Sarah Connor, who hails from Hawke's Bay. She grew up on a farm between Hastings and Taihape on the Ngaruroro River, not far from the Kaweka Ranges. But now she resides in the Capital City, Wellington.
Sarah is the Founder of Menopause over Martinis, a movement and invitation for friends, family and colleagues to talk and learn about perimenopause and menopause at home, work and in the community.
As well as Menopause over Martinis, Sarah writes online content, as well as facilitates conversations in workplaces and communities to raise awareness and understanding of menopause, and writes children's stories.
We talk to Sarah about her experience with menopause, how Menopause over Martinis began, and her top tips for helping women going through menopause.
You can read more about Menopause over Martinis here: https://www.menopauseovermartinis.org/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Black Heells and Tractor Wiel's podcast, where
we are sharing stories from a range of women from
around New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
For nearly a century, Rural Women New Zealand has been
dedicated to strengthening and supporting women and children to become
empowered members of their communities.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
We hope that by hearing these stories from inspiring women
all around the country, you'll feel inspired yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
We're your hosts, Emma Higgins and Clan Williamson and would
love for you to join and subscribe to our podcast
so you don't miss our rural stories. Sarah, Welcome to
the Black Heels and Tractor Wiel's podcast. We are so
so grilled that you've joined us today and we have
a bit of a chat about your life and what
you've been up to with a wonderful organization that you've
(00:52):
put together to support women who are going through metopause.
So I'm really excited to delve into this. But firstly,
can you cast your mind back a few years and
tell us a little bit about little Sarah, Young Sarah,
what she did, the stories that you experienced over the years,
(01:15):
and sort of how you've got to where you're at.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Now, well, that's a big question and I've got a
lot to say. I'll try and keep it snappy. So
I now live in Wellington, but I grew up on
a farm on the Napier off the Nappier tay Happy
Road between Hastings and taire Happy, I guess, on the
Nada Loro River, not far from the Coworker Ranges.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
That was in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Because I'm fifty now, and it was a sheep and
beef and cropping farm and I'm one of three number
three sorry off four children and went to my local
country school which was called Crownfall. And it was a
very free range kind of childhood, I guess, which is
pretty typical for kids living.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
In rural.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I know, I had a bike, I had a horse.
I spent a lot of time outside. We all chipped
in with doing things on the farm pretty much every day.
It was a pretty simple and peaceful and quiet kind
of childhood, I guess, and felt very blessed to spend
so much time in nature, you know, just surrounded by
trees and plants and things growing and changing and different seasons.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
You know, it's very.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Obvious when you're living early to experience all those things.
And I guess while it was isolated in one sense,
you know, in a physical sense, it was a really
strong community, really strongly connected with our neighbors, with you know,
family would have visit if they lived in town. We
sort of had a really strong community around us, a
(02:46):
local hall where you know, everything happened happened there or
at our school, and yeah, we were just Yeah, I
think it was a real privilege to grow up in
that environment and to have, you know, my mum and
dad around. Dad worked on the farm and was building
our home, our guarden in our community as well. So yeah,
(03:06):
I feel very lucky for that. And yeah, I'm not
sure what else to say about that. I mean, there
are just so many other things to talk about, but
I guess in terms of how I got to where
I've got to now, I left Hawkes Bay as a
first year university student and went to Canterbury University and
ended up doing my undergraduate degree at Lincoln University.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
I started commerce and.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Management and marketing and always loved the creative side of business,
I guess, and so ended up working in marketing comms
roles and that was the best way for me to
use my creative side, I guess, working with designers and
photographers and working on ad campaigns and you know, all
kinds of branding projects, all kinds of things in that
(03:50):
creative world. So yeah, that's how I've got to doing
what I'm doing now. I guess I set up before
I had my children to be a freelancer so I
could choose around, chose the hours that I worked in,
more flexibility around that kind of thing. And yeah, I've
been working as a freelance writer probably for the last
(04:10):
about fifteen years or more, and then became an accidental
advocate and speak it about menopause and perimopause.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Yeah, a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I love that word, accidental advocate. So that actually leads
really well into how you got started with this wonderful movement.
I'm going to call it called menopause over Martinis.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
And I was.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Actually really struck when I looked at your website about
how you said martinis are obviously optional.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Looking to alienation in non drinkers here, but yeah, tell
us the story of your accidental advocacy.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, so it started when I was forty six, so
a few years ago now, and I landed in pyramid
pause without knowing what perimenopause was or meant. I grew
up knowing the word menopause, but not really knowing what
it meant. I thought that I wouldn't get my periods forever.
I knew that they would stop at some point, and
(05:13):
I kind of had an idea that I might feel
a bit warmer or hotter at different times, but that's
really all I knew. I could sort of imagine my
mum's throwing off Riccardi one day after cooking a Sunday
roast in midsummer and throwing off your Cardian and saying,
you know, is it hot in here or is it
just me? That kind of thing that was that could
have been a hot flush, who knows, But I didn't
really understand what she was going through, and it was
(05:35):
something we never talked about. And so I, you know,
I was fit, I was happy, I was healthy, I
loved my work, I loved my family.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Everything was going really well.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
And then yeah, one day I was just driving home
and felt really faint and like my head was on
fire when I was driving, and thought that I might
pass out, which was really scary and it passed within
a few seconds. I managed to pull over safely, fortunately,
and went off to see my doctor and saw a
locum actually who mentioned the word perimenopause, and I just thought,
(06:06):
what's that.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
I don't know. I barely know what menopause is, let
alone peri menopause.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
And so yeah, I was kind of sent on my
way with not to not too much information. Unfortunately, it
would have been a great opportunity to have had a
whole conversation, but because I didn't have anything else going on,
My periods were still quite regular, nothing else had really changed.
I just said this moment in time, so I didn't
think too much about it. And then over the next
(06:31):
few months I just started to experience this high up
of symptoms, which started with insomnia, not sleeping well, not
being able to go to sleep, and not being able
to get back to sleep if I woke up in
the middle.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Of the night.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
So yeah, that led to petty really anxious physiological sort
of anxiety wasn't attached to any particular thought, and really
different from just having butterflies in your stomach. It was
like a full body experience of anxiety that led to
a couple of panic attacks.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
So that was pretty scary as well.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I had never had any of these things before. I'd
really love blood pressure. I felt really tearedful for no reason.
I just yah could just cry for no reason what
seemed like no reason at the time. And yeah, after
a while, I just thought lots of doing and frying
with my doctor and thinking, I just don't feel like myself,
this is not this is not me. And finally worked
(07:24):
out from talking to older women actually about their experiences
and going back to and forth to my doctor that
hormones were at play and perimenopause was the stage of
life leading up to somebody's period stopping, and this is
the period of life.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
So I was on it. I just didn't know enough
about it. I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I didn't know where to go to get the right
support other than my GP and talking to friends, and
it was just confusing and worrying and yeah, really really
a bad time, which for a few months. Took a
few months to work it out, and finally got to
see a menophorse specialist who put everything into perspective and
gave me the context for what was going on, and
(08:02):
so I got back on track. I started home and
replacement therapy or menopause homotherapy, and learned a lot of
other things along the way, about using my breath, you know,
to calm myself, to get myself back at sleep, back
to sleep one night, being able to meditate, making sure
I got exercise first thing in the morning, eating really well,
(08:23):
which is something I did anyway, but just making sure
all those lifestyle things were going well. And then I thought,
once I've got myself back on track, I really wanted
to celebrate fairing well again. So I invited my friends
who had totally you know, wrapped their arms around me
for quite a few months, and my older friends who
had been amazing and just giving me a lot of
(08:44):
hope to keep going and to keep asking questions and
keep going until I found a solution.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I thought, I'm going to have a dinner party.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I'm going to call it menopause over my teenies because
I wanted to be fun and I thought there was
a bigger chance that they might tune up for dinner.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And it was a pot luck dinner, so really easy
to do.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I didn't really do anything excepts at the table, and
we just had this amazing night with eight women from
early forties through to early seventies and a bunch of
us in the middle, all just sharing what we knew,
asking questions about what we didn't know, having a really
good laugh, which was really important, and just saying, you know,
this is an normal stage of lives, this is something
(09:23):
that everyone will go through. We need to make sure
that we had the right information and that we feel
well supported.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So that led to more dinner parties because other friends
then said can I come to the next dinner party,
which is not something I ever planned. It was at
one off pot luck dinner for me and my friends
and got to the third dinner and I thought, I
can't do this every Saturday night. I've got a partner
and family, and you know, we need to share our home.
So I leading up to World Menopause Day in twenty twenty,
(09:54):
I created a website Menopause over Martini. So I shared
the invitation that I'd sent so my friends to come
for dinner. I edited some basic facts and resources and
information that I wish I had known at the time,
and the idea was that other people would be able
to host dinners themselves or have conversations amongst their own
(10:15):
friends and family. So it was a way around me
having to host dinners every Saturday night, and also to
empower other people to just have the information and have
the understanding and support that they needed, either in advance
of getting to Pyramumphores or because somebody was actually going
through it at that time. So that's how it got started.
(10:36):
It started at my dinner table and has grown into
something else.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Yeah, that's amazing. I have to say.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
One of the things I loved the most when I
looked at your website was actually how people can sort
of empower themselves to be involved. So here are the
ways that you can experience this movement, basically is what
I sort of got from there, and I thought that
was a really unique approach. And you can tell that
you've got so much writing experience and copyrighting experience because
(11:04):
it lost looks perfect. But I'm interested in just a
couple of things here. So the first one is what
can we do as daughters, sons, partners, friends, colleagues to
support women who are going through this change because it's
(11:26):
you know, it's almost like the opposite of when when
we're nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen and we're going through
that first part of puberty, it's like the opposite. So
how should we be looking at this as as a community,
I suppose.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And just to follow up on your comment about puberty,
some people do talk about menopause as the reverse of
puberty or the opposite of puberty. So when I think about,
you know, my children going through puberty, now there's a
whole lot of hornes, you know, charging through them and
they're fluctuating all over the place, highers and lows and
everything that we know about togs.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
They need more sleep.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
They can be really happy one minute and not the next.
And we're actually quite good at understanding that now because
we understand, you know, brains, developed, bodies change, and we
just need to apply that same thinking to midlife. And
so I think the first thing that people can do
is actually understand what menopause is. They can get used
to saying the word out loud is the first thing,
(12:24):
I think, and then understand what menopause is. And it's
not just menopause doesn't happen overnight. It happens over many months,
many years, and for twenty percent of people, they don't
really experience or notice that they've experienced any symptoms and
they just wake up one day and realize that they
haven't had a period for twelve months, and that is
(12:45):
the single day and when someone can say that's rough menopause.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
But for the other.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Eighty percent, they're going to have moderate or severe kind
of symptoms. And I say symptoms, it makes it seem
like someone's got the flu. It's more changes or experiences
to somebody's mind or body, I guess through that time
and fluctuating hormones. So yeah, to understand it for what
it is, it's a normal and an inevitable stage of
life that every woman, some non binary and transmittal experience
(13:17):
as a moment in time in terms of a single
day where someone hasn't had a period for twelve months,
but then the rest of our lives.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
To look forward to.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
And whenever I talk to older women, they've told me
that they have more energy than ever. They have a
much clear idea about who they are and what they
want to be. It's almost like becoming a different version
of yourself. Yeah, So understanding it for what it is,
and then I think what's really important is to ask
somebody going through peri metaphors and menifors what it is
(13:46):
that they need in that moment. So the experience isn't
the same from day one to the end. It changes
all the time as hormones are changing. So just starts
and so on in a really open way. Are you okay?
Is there anything you need right now? And whether that's
at home or at work or in someone's community, I
think that's a really good place to start. Once you
understand what's going on and what someone needs, then you
(14:08):
actually know how to support them. So for me, for example,
at home, there was a time when I'd wake up
in the morning after not enough sleep and I would
just need an extra hug. I would just say to
my partner, I need a hug right now, or actually,
another day I would need to just leave the house
and go for a walk around the block and be
completely on my own. It really did change depending on
(14:29):
how I was feeling at the time. And I guess
in workplaces it's really important whether you're on farm or
in an office or any kind of environment we're working
with other people to just make sure there is an
opportunity to be open about it. One of the single
most important things I think is to be open about
it so that people don't feel like they have to
hide what their experiences. They don't need to feel fearful
(14:53):
or embarrassed or ashamed about it, because that just takes
so much energy and makes you actually feel worse because
you're going through something that could be challenging, but you've
got no way of saying to someone, hey, this is
a bit tricky right now, or I'm feeling really flat,
or I'm feeling bit anxious, or I'm feeling really exhausted
for someone who is on sleeping well, for example. So
(15:15):
just being really open to what someone would like to
share and then ye listening, listening to that and acting
on the things that you can do to help, yeah,
and not making assumptions about what someone might need.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
I think it's really important because.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
We're all so different, and everyone experiences metopause differently, in
the same way that everyone experiences puberty or pregnancy differently.
There's no right or wrong way to go through the
stage of life.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that doesn't surprise me, because you know,
everybody experiences pregnancy differently, everyone experiences puberty differently, and so
that actually it makes a lot of sense that this
is another thing that is quite case by case.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
I'm well aware that.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
You are not a medical doctor, but I'm interested and
the I suppose the hormone support medical side of things
in terms of if you are having trouble with symptoms
or how you're experiencing perimenopause or menopause. It sounds to
me a little bit like you maybe struggled a bit
(16:19):
to get that support with your GP.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
I'm not sure if I've heard that correctly.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
But what can other women do if they are experiencing
those symptoms and they think that perhaps something medical or
hormonal might be able to support them.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, so I think the first thing is to have
a really opened conversation with your GP, and it pays
to work out in a practice, depending on how many
gps are in a practice, to first find out it's
the GP that you were used to seeing, you know,
across metopause and has had enough training and is up
the latest research because it's changing all the time, and
unfortunately not all gps have had the training that is needed.
(16:56):
It's changing now in our medical schools, but you know
it wasn't some years ago. And so the first thing
is to find a GP who is really open team
in the conversation, and then to be really honest about
how it is that you're being impacted. So if you
have a list of five or six things that are
really impacting the quality of your life, you know you're
not steeping well. You might feel anxious, you might have
(17:17):
aching joints, your moods might be changing all those things.
Don't just go in with one thing and say, oh,
I've just my parients changed. It's a bit more, it's
a bit heavier, or it's a bit lighter. Go in
and explain absolutely everything, because that paints a really good
picture of really what's going on. And for me, there
wasn't really anyone to join the dots until three months
(17:39):
down the track, and I was just thinking about each
individual thing in isolation. And because of that I was
sent off in one direction to a cardiologist and then
sent to a counselor for the anxiety, or I saw
a hypnotherapist, thinking that that would help with my sleep
and calming myself when I felt anxious.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
When actually all of those things really.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
We're working together or against each other, against me at least,
and I needed someone to put them all together and say, hey,
this is looking really more minal, which is in the
end what my GP said, this is sounding really unlike you,
and it's sounding like peri menopause. So yeah, that would
be my suggestion is to talk to a GP who
really does understand what's going on, and it's open to
(18:23):
all suggestions. So I was initially told that I was
too young to be on menopause HORRN treatment because I
was forty six actually and I was still having my periods.
But actually perimenopause can kick in any time from someone's
early forties onwards, and it's totally appropriate for most people.
I mean, GAVE will take different people's health situations and
(18:47):
conditions and family histories. For most people, it is totally
fine to explore woman replacement therapy or menopause woman therapy,
which is what it's called now. And then there are
many other things like life style changes, so you know,
making sure that someone understands SEP hygiene, which by the way,
doesn't mean to change your bedlinen more often, it means
(19:08):
to go to bed on time and have a really
regular bedtime routine. And you know, if you do wake
in the night to get up and go to a
different place, we'll go to a caller room.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Those kinds of things.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Make sure you're eating really well and exercising often, and yeah,
doing all the things that we know are good for
us at any other stage of our lives, but really
focusing on self care around that stage of bike as well.
It's not I think HRT something like that. It's not
a silver bullet. It was a life changer for me
and is for many people, but there are so many
other things that need to be built in around that
(19:39):
that we can take control of and really make a difference.
And actually, just one other thing is you'll be a
lot of people tuning and will be in regions that
may not have GPS specialists. So you know, I'm lucky
I live in the middle of Wellington. There's a metaphorse clinic,
but not every region has one. So the Australation Menophors
(20:00):
Signy website has a list of doctors throughout New Zealand
and every region that have either a special interest in
menopause so theyre a GP with a special interest, or
they're a specialist doctor like an endocrinologist or a gynecologist
or something like that. And some of those GPS you
can self refer to in some specialist sets as well,
but sometimes you need a referral from home GP and
(20:22):
some are doing online consults nationwide, So if someone is
in a region and they can't access someone, likely you
can actually look for someone who's offering online consults.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, that is fantastic advice on all accounts. Yeah, it's
something we're really struggling with in the rural space in
both maternal health but in other smaller sort of pockets of.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
Health as well for women.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
And it's actually great because it feeds in really well
to what's quite topical at the moment in the women's
health strategy that we're currently going through the submission process
in supporting some advocacy than our organization. So that's just.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
Absolutely perfect in terms of timeliness.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I'm actually just going to pivot a little bit because
I'm really interested in your life as a freelancer.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
I'm interested in that.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
World in terms of work, how what it means in
terms of income, how you seek out your opportunities to
connect and essentially work do good work, and actually how
as you grow and get be sure and more popular,
how you then stiff that down to what you want
(21:35):
to do. Because I think it's something a lot of
people are starting to do these days. So it would
be really useful to unpack that, given you've got so
much experience.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Yeah, so I guess.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, like I said earlier, I really did start freelancing
that many years ago before her children, because I couldn't
imagine in finding an employer who was going to give me,
you know, two days a week, which is all I
wanted to do to get back into work time off
for both children. I couldn't imagine then finding somebody to
inform me for kindy hours which were like twelve hours
(22:07):
a week over three days and then, and so freelancing
for me was really all I could see is the
option to be the parent I wanted to be in
quite a hands on way as well as keep my
mind engaged and you know, stimulated by the things that
I really love.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
So I started by just door knocking.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Really, I guess I've been a door knocker for most
of my life and certainly through my career, and just
found a couple of local businesses that I really liked
and was inspired by and knew that they weren't they
were either startups or at that stage of their department
where they didn't have the capacity or the money to
pay full time marketing COMMNS person to do everything. And
(22:52):
I think actually my rural roots mean that I'm really
able to throw my kind of just turn my hand
to lots of different things. I'm just used to say, yes,
I can write the news editor. Sure, I can update
the website. Yeah, I can write a press release. I
can send that to some editor or some magazine.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I can get that done.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And I just I just started doing all these little
bits and pieces for a couple of regular clients until
that was enough hours across my week to get yeah,
to get enough hours and enough and come from those two.
And then if one dropped off, then I would look
for another one. Sometimes it's you know, it's either all
on or it's all off. So you know, sometimes i'd
(23:30):
have I'd get up to three or four clients. I
think this is crazy, I've only got you know, ten
the hours or school hours. But I just kind of
worked it out that I could get enough hours from
two or three clients mostly.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And the other big commitment for me was that I
wasn't going to work the school holidays.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
So initially I was really upfront and I still am
actually with clients when I take on new work, I
just say this is the deal. I'm available from nine
till two thirty each day. I work during the term times,
and I make sure that I give people the schedule,
because you can't assume that everyone is working to the
school terms, that the school year, that everyone who'se a
(24:08):
parent is working to. So I just made it very
clear when I was available that I wasn't going to
be taking phone calls at five o'clock at night, that
I wouldn't be replying to emails after dinner, and that
I wasn't going to be available during school hot days.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
And I was really.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Pleasantly surprised. I guess that everyone said, oh, yeah, sure,
that's totally fine. Really respect that's what you need to do.
So over all those years, I've just got these systems
in place, I guess to make sure that the people
I'm working with really understand what I need and they
also trust I guess that I'm going to deliver what
I need to deliver when it needs to be delivered.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
So I've been really lucky to have long term clients
and really good relationships with clients that are really respectful
of that. And I guess getting into the menopause may
it was really me thinking, well, sure I can build
a website, and sure I can write a press release.
And I've never talked to on radio New Zealone before,
but I've listened a lot to radio in New Zealand,
(25:06):
so it should be okay to do it into you
and sure I'll be on a podcast. I mean, I
just started saying yes to a lot of the things
that typically I was recommending my clients do for their
own promotions. And then I thought, actually it's time for
me to step up and not be the person making
the recommendations, but the person doing the doing, because I
(25:29):
was so passionate about other people not going through this
experience with so little information and so little direction around
where to go.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, I think there's something really strong And two things
that you said there. One is having a why it's
a bit bigger than yourself. Yeah, in terms of getting
that confidence to keep moving forward and sticking with your vision,
I suppose over time, and secondly taking your own advice,
(26:00):
maybe feeling a little bit of oh this is a
little bit scary, but I've seen it done and I've
facilitated it, so why not. Yeah, And that's just a sneat.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
It's really great.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Yeah, And I guess going back to how I chose
my clients early on, I really did consciously look for
businesses and organizations that I really identified with and that
I really valued their copaper and thought, I want to
be a part of that. For me, it's really important that,
you know, we've got a limited number of hours in
our day, that I was committed to working on projects
that I could get to the end of the day
(26:33):
and say that I'm really pleased that I spent my
time doing that. That's going to make a difference to
not just the organization, but their clients or customers or
suppliers or you know, and everybody in their world. That
was that was one thing that was really important to me.
So working with good sorts doing good things. That's kind
of how I describe who I work for when people say.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Who do you work for?
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Yeah, I love it. That's great, You've got some great
catch phrases. Yeah, A good store.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah, And I know that that's really broad and you
could say, well, what's the definition of that, But it's
just up to me to decide. It could be a
wholesome food company, it could be, you know, an organic
certification organization, it could be, you know, changing the world
of metaphorse.
Speaker 5 (27:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And what's really cold too, I think is that thing
you picked up on which was too really find organizations
that you connect with and you kind of believe in
the Coke Peppa and then you're wanting to do the
best for them. You're always going to do better, I
think better work in situations like that, which is fantastic.
(27:42):
I'm gonna ask a question around what is coming up?
What is what does the future look like for this
organization and work that you're doing, but also what is
the next twelve, eighteen, twenty four months look like for
you as well as a freelance writer, as an advocate,
(28:06):
an accidental advocate, someone who is building I suppose a
profile and in a small organization.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
What does that look like for you?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:16):
So I guess it's probably going to continue to be
quite an organic process, quite an evolution that you know.
It's not like I'd sat down one day and thought, right,
what I'm going to do is host a dinner and
then I'm going to launch a website, and then I'm
going to start a Facebook group and then you know,
I just didn't have a plan at all. It was
just so so so just about me responding to what
(28:38):
was happening in the moment. So I can kind of
imagine that it will continue to be like that. But
at the same time, I've become much clearer around the
fact that I still really love writing and educating.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
So that's really different.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
You know, sitting at my laptop interviewing someone, or you know,
going to interview someone, sitting at my laptop writing a story,
writing something that might end up on our clients website
or social media. That's really different from me stepping out
from behind my laptop and going into a workplace, or
going to a business conference or a leadership summitch or
something like that putt into workplaces about menopause. That's it's
(29:17):
a really different It's a different environment and it uses
a different kind of energy. I'm sharing my knowledge of menopause,
my personal experience, my lived experience.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
I'm drawing on the science of it.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I'm thinking about the social, emotional, and cultural aspects of menopause.
It's just it's really different from sitting in the comfort
of my of my own home, at my dining room
table crafting a story that might end up in the world.
So it's become really clear in the last probably the
last six months, that I really want to make sure
that I balance my writing with my speaking work, and
(29:53):
I alsoso want to keep learning because this is the space,
which is the research into menopause is changing all the time,
so I need to make sure I'm really well connected
with people who who are medical practitioners or researchers or
health writers, all of those people. So staying connected is
definitely something I will continue to do. I definitely want
(30:14):
to speak to more workplaces. So I think I've spoken
to about twenty or more now across the country, either
virtually or in person, and it's just amazing to see
the impact and that well, firstly the openness of people
to have the conversation, and then the impact of that conversation.
So to get feedback from the survey afterwards to say, wow,
(30:36):
I had no idea that I was going through perimenopause.
All of these things are starting to make sense. Or
my wife's going through perimenopause. And you know, a guy
the other day got off a call and he put
in the chat function. Thanks so much, I'm going downstairs
to hug my wife. He just, you know, just all
these things kind of started to make sense to him,
and he readized that he could actually be really useful
(30:57):
and helpful now that he had the information.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
So I definitely want to do more of that.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
And I'm also looking to explore my own creative writing,
so not just the writing I do for my clients
and not just the speaking I do around menopause, but
my own creative writing. And that could be a short story,
it could be a poem, it could be some flash fiction.
It could be a personal we say, it could be
(31:25):
a list of tips for people. Just a whole lot
of different things that I'd like to put my time
and energy into and put together some way. Yeah, I'm
not sure exactly where and what shape or form it's
going to end up, but that's the thing that I
like to work on next, alongside the Facebook group, which
is recently I will just explain this how you might
(31:47):
need to eat it this a little bit. But I
started the Facebook group when I launched the website, and
it was called menopause over Martiniz and it was a
deliberately public group. So a lot of menopause groups are private.
Really makes sense for a lot of people. But because
my copuffer is all about breaking the taboo and making
this conversation as open as possible. I decided I was
(32:09):
going to make it a public group, so people were
putting their names to things that they posted, all things
that they commented on, and I've just been blown away
by how it's grown. It's grown as of today to
three thousand, seven hundred members, but the moderation role of
that group has ended up taking up a lot of
my time. So as of Mondays, I've set up a page,
(32:34):
a Facebook page rather than a group. So I'll still
continue to post useful and empowering articles and research and
stories and all things that I have been sharing, and
people will be able to comment on the page and
still be part of the community, but it just won't
operate as a group.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah. So I really want to keep.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
That conversation going with the public because I want to
reach as many people as I can, and obviously social
media is great way to do that because people share things,
they comment on things, or even if someone's not on Facebook,
they might start a conversation with someone because they've read
something or commented on something.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Yeah, so a raft of things.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
Yeah, I love it. That's great. That's great.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It's something for us to look forward to as well
and sharing and watching and seeing what your journey is
and where it takes you. So yeah, that's just fantastic.
I actually understand that you have written a few children's stories.
Are those are those available to.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Or access?
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:36):
They are, And that they've been published in the School Journal,
which are the books that go into schools.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
Wonderful.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
So yeah, that's one of my products.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I sometimes get commissioned by the School Journal to write
stories for children and I've written three things in the
last year or so, and I think two of them
have gone to print. I think one's about to go
to print. One was the recent one was about the
pros and cons of psycho ways through New Zealand. So
I would see quite a controversial issue for some people
who are really are anti you know, cyclists and psycho ways,
(34:08):
and some who are totally pro. So I had to
interview six different people children, adults, pedestrians, drivers, cyclists about
what cycho ways mean to them. And another one was
interviewing a Wellington guy who's probably about fourteen r who
was born with a rare skin condition which meant that
everything every time his skin was touched or bumped it
(34:28):
kind of was damaged or would be basically injured. Yeah,
really sensitive skin, and he ended up his fingers ended
up just kind of melting away. And he's become an
incredible advocate and online gamer or disabled people in the
online community globally. So I wrote a profile about him
and about living with adversity and helping kids understand difference
(34:52):
and having empathy for others who might not live the
same lives as them but then relate to maybe being
a bit on the outside.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
So fantastic.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yeah, those are the kinds of things that I'm doing
when I'm not talking about menopause, youth.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
And you're so multitask, multi talented. Sorry, I love it.
I actually really respect people who have what I refer
to as a portfolio career. Yes, have a range of
different things that you look at in and I think
it allows for real creativity. What you mentioned quite early
on in this chat about how that was sort of
(35:30):
invoked in you quite early on, and I think coupled
with your country upbringing and just getting things done and
I can turn the hand to anything, it's made a
great It's giving you a really great grounding for starting
a fantastic organized I.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Think I've only had one permanent job in thirty years.
It was a great job.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
It was for two years, but then I went overseas
and decided that I wanted to have the freedom to
travel and work in different different sectors and different organizations
in different places. So yeah, it's worked for me to
continue to bounce around the place and have lots of
different experiences.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
But in a.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Way, it's all communication, just in a different different shape
and form.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
So if there is one piece of advice that you
would give to someone who's going through menopause, what would
it be.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
I actually have three things, which is a bit sneaky,
but I'll start with the one thing, which is just
embrace it. That's the one thing. But then I'd like
to say three things within that, which is to learn
about it because knowledge is power. It's just so important
that we understand our minds and bodies at any age
or stage of life, and perimenopause and menopause is just
another one. And the second thing is that we need
to get comfortable talking about it because when we talk
(36:44):
about it, it becomes something normal and we can then
get the support that we need when we need it. Yeah,
just to keep talking and keep supporting either yourself and others,
whether it's at home or at work or wherever you are.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Hey, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us on
the Black Hiels and Tractoris podcast today. We one appreciate
your time, but to really appreciate your insights and I've
I've learned a lot also. Yeah, I've also had some
real sparks of interest in who you are and what
you do, and I've really appreciated your openness and just yeah,
(37:21):
just friendly disposition. It's no sort of surprise to me
that you're out there speaking with people all the time
because it's so easy to get to know you, which
is thank you lovely.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
So, if you've enjoyed this chat and the others that
we've held were fantastic real women, then please support us
by joining the sold Just see to
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Our website Rural womanzed dot in zed or check out
the show notes to sign up and be part of
shaping future generations for women in rural New Zealand.
Welcome to the Black Heells and Tractor Wiel's podcast, where
we are sharing stories from a range of women from
around New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
For nearly a century, Rural Women New Zealand has been
dedicated to strengthening and supporting women and children to become
empowered members of their communities.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
We hope that by hearing these stories from inspiring women
all around the country, you'll feel inspired yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
We're your hosts, Emma Higgins and Clan Williamson and would
love for you to join and subscribe to our podcast
so you don't miss our rural stories. Sarah, Welcome to
the Black Heels and Tractor Wiel's podcast. We are so
so grilled that you've joined us today and we have
a bit of a chat about your life and what
you've been up to with a wonderful organization that you've
(00:52):
put together to support women who are going through metopause.
So I'm really excited to delve into this. But firstly,
can you cast your mind back a few years and
tell us a little bit about little Sarah, Young Sarah,
what she did, the stories that you experienced over the years,
(01:15):
and sort of how you've got to where you're at.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Now, well, that's a big question and I've got a
lot to say. I'll try and keep it snappy. So
I now live in Wellington, but I grew up on
a farm on the Napier off the Nappier tay Happy
Road between Hastings and taire Happy, I guess, on the
Nada Loro River, not far from the Coworker Ranges.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
That was in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Because I'm fifty now, and it was a sheep and
beef and cropping farm and I'm one of three number
three sorry off four children and went to my local
country school which was called Crownfall. And it was a
very free range kind of childhood, I guess, which is
pretty typical for kids living.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
In rural.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I know, I had a bike, I had a horse.
I spent a lot of time outside. We all chipped
in with doing things on the farm pretty much every day.
It was a pretty simple and peaceful and quiet kind
of childhood, I guess, and felt very blessed to spend
so much time in nature, you know, just surrounded by
trees and plants and things growing and changing and different seasons.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
You know, it's very.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Obvious when you're living early to experience all those things.
And I guess while it was isolated in one sense,
you know, in a physical sense, it was a really
strong community, really strongly connected with our neighbors, with you know,
family would have visit if they lived in town. We
sort of had a really strong community around us, a
(02:46):
local hall where you know, everything happened happened there or
at our school, and yeah, we were just Yeah, I
think it was a real privilege to grow up in
that environment and to have, you know, my mum and
dad around. Dad worked on the farm and was building
our home, our guarden in our community as well. So yeah,
(03:06):
I feel very lucky for that. And yeah, I'm not
sure what else to say about that. I mean, there
are just so many other things to talk about, but
I guess in terms of how I got to where
I've got to now, I left Hawkes Bay as a
first year university student and went to Canterbury University and
ended up doing my undergraduate degree at Lincoln University.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
I started commerce and.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Management and marketing and always loved the creative side of business,
I guess, and so ended up working in marketing comms
roles and that was the best way for me to
use my creative side, I guess, working with designers and
photographers and working on ad campaigns and you know, all
kinds of branding projects, all kinds of things in that
(03:50):
creative world. So yeah, that's how I've got to doing
what I'm doing now. I guess I set up before
I had my children to be a freelancer so I
could choose around, chose the hours that I worked in,
more flexibility around that kind of thing. And yeah, I've
been working as a freelance writer probably for the last
(04:10):
about fifteen years or more, and then became an accidental
advocate and speak it about menopause and perimopause.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Yeah, a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I love that word, accidental advocate. So that actually leads
really well into how you got started with this wonderful movement.
I'm going to call it called menopause over Martinis.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
And I was.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Actually really struck when I looked at your website about
how you said martinis are obviously optional.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Looking to alienation in non drinkers here, but yeah, tell
us the story of your accidental advocacy.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, so it started when I was forty six, so
a few years ago now, and I landed in pyramid
pause without knowing what perimenopause was or meant. I grew
up knowing the word menopause, but not really knowing what
it meant. I thought that I wouldn't get my periods forever.
I knew that they would stop at some point, and
(05:13):
I kind of had an idea that I might feel
a bit warmer or hotter at different times, but that's
really all I knew. I could sort of imagine my
mum's throwing off Riccardi one day after cooking a Sunday
roast in midsummer and throwing off your Cardian and saying,
you know, is it hot in here or is it
just me? That kind of thing that was that could
have been a hot flush, who knows, But I didn't
really understand what she was going through, and it was
(05:35):
something we never talked about. And so I, you know,
I was fit, I was happy, I was healthy, I
loved my work, I loved my family.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Everything was going really well.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
And then yeah, one day I was just driving home
and felt really faint and like my head was on
fire when I was driving, and thought that I might
pass out, which was really scary and it passed within
a few seconds. I managed to pull over safely, fortunately,
and went off to see my doctor and saw a
locum actually who mentioned the word perimenopause, and I just thought,
(06:06):
what's that.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
I don't know. I barely know what menopause is, let
alone peri menopause.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
And so yeah, I was kind of sent on my
way with not to not too much information. Unfortunately, it
would have been a great opportunity to have had a
whole conversation, but because I didn't have anything else going on,
My periods were still quite regular, nothing else had really changed.
I just said this moment in time, so I didn't
think too much about it. And then over the next
(06:31):
few months I just started to experience this high up
of symptoms, which started with insomnia, not sleeping well, not
being able to go to sleep, and not being able
to get back to sleep if I woke up in
the middle.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Of the night.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
So yeah, that led to petty really anxious physiological sort
of anxiety wasn't attached to any particular thought, and really
different from just having butterflies in your stomach. It was
like a full body experience of anxiety that led to
a couple of panic attacks.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
So that was pretty scary as well.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I had never had any of these things before. I'd
really love blood pressure. I felt really tearedful for no reason.
I just yah could just cry for no reason what
seemed like no reason at the time. And yeah, after
a while, I just thought lots of doing and frying
with my doctor and thinking, I just don't feel like myself,
this is not this is not me. And finally worked
(07:24):
out from talking to older women actually about their experiences
and going back to and forth to my doctor that
hormones were at play and perimenopause was the stage of
life leading up to somebody's period stopping, and this is
the period of life.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
So I was on it. I just didn't know enough
about it. I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I didn't know where to go to get the right
support other than my GP and talking to friends, and
it was just confusing and worrying and yeah, really really
a bad time, which for a few months. Took a
few months to work it out, and finally got to
see a menophorse specialist who put everything into perspective and
gave me the context for what was going on, and
(08:02):
so I got back on track. I started home and
replacement therapy or menopause homotherapy, and learned a lot of
other things along the way, about using my breath, you know,
to calm myself, to get myself back at sleep, back
to sleep one night, being able to meditate, making sure
I got exercise first thing in the morning, eating really well,
(08:23):
which is something I did anyway, but just making sure
all those lifestyle things were going well. And then I thought,
once I've got myself back on track, I really wanted
to celebrate fairing well again. So I invited my friends
who had totally you know, wrapped their arms around me
for quite a few months, and my older friends who
had been amazing and just giving me a lot of
(08:44):
hope to keep going and to keep asking questions and
keep going until I found a solution.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I thought, I'm going to have a dinner party.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I'm going to call it menopause over my teenies because
I wanted to be fun and I thought there was
a bigger chance that they might tune up for dinner.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And it was a pot luck dinner, so really easy
to do.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
I didn't really do anything excepts at the table, and
we just had this amazing night with eight women from
early forties through to early seventies and a bunch of
us in the middle, all just sharing what we knew,
asking questions about what we didn't know, having a really
good laugh, which was really important, and just saying, you know,
this is an normal stage of lives, this is something
(09:23):
that everyone will go through. We need to make sure
that we had the right information and that we feel
well supported.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So that led to more dinner parties because other friends
then said can I come to the next dinner party,
which is not something I ever planned. It was at
one off pot luck dinner for me and my friends
and got to the third dinner and I thought, I
can't do this every Saturday night. I've got a partner
and family, and you know, we need to share our home.
So I leading up to World Menopause Day in twenty twenty,
(09:54):
I created a website Menopause over Martini. So I shared
the invitation that I'd sent so my friends to come
for dinner. I edited some basic facts and resources and
information that I wish I had known at the time,
and the idea was that other people would be able
to host dinners themselves or have conversations amongst their own
(10:15):
friends and family. So it was a way around me
having to host dinners every Saturday night, and also to
empower other people to just have the information and have
the understanding and support that they needed, either in advance
of getting to Pyramumphores or because somebody was actually going
through it at that time. So that's how it got started.
(10:36):
It started at my dinner table and has grown into
something else.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Yeah, that's amazing. I have to say.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
One of the things I loved the most when I
looked at your website was actually how people can sort
of empower themselves to be involved. So here are the
ways that you can experience this movement, basically is what
I sort of got from there, and I thought that
was a really unique approach. And you can tell that
you've got so much writing experience and copyrighting experience because
(11:04):
it lost looks perfect. But I'm interested in just a
couple of things here. So the first one is what
can we do as daughters, sons, partners, friends, colleagues to
support women who are going through this change because it's
(11:26):
you know, it's almost like the opposite of when when
we're nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen and we're going through
that first part of puberty, it's like the opposite. So
how should we be looking at this as as a community,
I suppose.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And just to follow up on your comment about puberty,
some people do talk about menopause as the reverse of
puberty or the opposite of puberty. So when I think about,
you know, my children going through puberty, now there's a
whole lot of hornes, you know, charging through them and
they're fluctuating all over the place, highers and lows and
everything that we know about togs.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
They need more sleep.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
They can be really happy one minute and not the next.
And we're actually quite good at understanding that now because
we understand, you know, brains, developed, bodies change, and we
just need to apply that same thinking to midlife. And
so I think the first thing that people can do
is actually understand what menopause is. They can get used
to saying the word out loud is the first thing,
(12:24):
I think, and then understand what menopause is. And it's
not just menopause doesn't happen overnight. It happens over many months,
many years, and for twenty percent of people, they don't
really experience or notice that they've experienced any symptoms and
they just wake up one day and realize that they
haven't had a period for twelve months, and that is
(12:45):
the single day and when someone can say that's rough menopause.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
But for the other.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Eighty percent, they're going to have moderate or severe kind
of symptoms. And I say symptoms, it makes it seem
like someone's got the flu. It's more changes or experiences
to somebody's mind or body, I guess through that time
and fluctuating hormones. So yeah, to understand it for what
it is, it's a normal and an inevitable stage of
life that every woman, some non binary and transmittal experience
(13:17):
as a moment in time in terms of a single
day where someone hasn't had a period for twelve months,
but then the rest of our lives.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
To look forward to.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
And whenever I talk to older women, they've told me
that they have more energy than ever. They have a
much clear idea about who they are and what they
want to be. It's almost like becoming a different version
of yourself. Yeah, So understanding it for what it is,
and then I think what's really important is to ask
somebody going through peri metaphors and menifors what it is
(13:46):
that they need in that moment. So the experience isn't
the same from day one to the end. It changes
all the time as hormones are changing. So just starts
and so on in a really open way. Are you okay?
Is there anything you need right now? And whether that's
at home or at work or in someone's community, I
think that's a really good place to start. Once you
understand what's going on and what someone needs, then you
(14:08):
actually know how to support them. So for me, for example,
at home, there was a time when I'd wake up
in the morning after not enough sleep and I would
just need an extra hug. I would just say to
my partner, I need a hug right now, or actually,
another day I would need to just leave the house
and go for a walk around the block and be
completely on my own. It really did change depending on
(14:29):
how I was feeling at the time. And I guess
in workplaces it's really important whether you're on farm or
in an office or any kind of environment we're working
with other people to just make sure there is an
opportunity to be open about it. One of the single
most important things I think is to be open about
it so that people don't feel like they have to
hide what their experiences. They don't need to feel fearful
(14:53):
or embarrassed or ashamed about it, because that just takes
so much energy and makes you actually feel worse because
you're going through something that could be challenging, but you've
got no way of saying to someone, hey, this is
a bit tricky right now, or I'm feeling really flat,
or I'm feeling bit anxious, or I'm feeling really exhausted
for someone who is on sleeping well, for example. So
(15:15):
just being really open to what someone would like to
share and then ye listening, listening to that and acting
on the things that you can do to help, yeah,
and not making assumptions about what someone might need.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
I think it's really important because.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
We're all so different, and everyone experiences metopause differently, in
the same way that everyone experiences puberty or pregnancy differently.
There's no right or wrong way to go through the
stage of life.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that doesn't surprise me, because you know,
everybody experiences pregnancy differently, everyone experiences puberty differently, and so
that actually it makes a lot of sense that this
is another thing that is quite case by case.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
I'm well aware that.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
You are not a medical doctor, but I'm interested and
the I suppose the hormone support medical side of things
in terms of if you are having trouble with symptoms
or how you're experiencing perimenopause or menopause. It sounds to
me a little bit like you maybe struggled a bit
(16:19):
to get that support with your GP.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
I'm not sure if I've heard that correctly.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
But what can other women do if they are experiencing
those symptoms and they think that perhaps something medical or
hormonal might be able to support them.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, so I think the first thing is to have
a really opened conversation with your GP, and it pays
to work out in a practice, depending on how many
gps are in a practice, to first find out it's
the GP that you were used to seeing, you know,
across metopause and has had enough training and is up
the latest research because it's changing all the time, and
unfortunately not all gps have had the training that is needed.
(16:56):
It's changing now in our medical schools, but you know
it wasn't some years ago. And so the first thing
is to find a GP who is really open team
in the conversation, and then to be really honest about
how it is that you're being impacted. So if you
have a list of five or six things that are
really impacting the quality of your life, you know you're
not steeping well. You might feel anxious, you might have
(17:17):
aching joints, your moods might be changing all those things.
Don't just go in with one thing and say, oh,
I've just my parients changed. It's a bit more, it's
a bit heavier, or it's a bit lighter. Go in
and explain absolutely everything, because that paints a really good
picture of really what's going on. And for me, there
wasn't really anyone to join the dots until three months
(17:39):
down the track, and I was just thinking about each
individual thing in isolation. And because of that I was
sent off in one direction to a cardiologist and then
sent to a counselor for the anxiety, or I saw
a hypnotherapist, thinking that that would help with my sleep
and calming myself when I felt anxious.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
When actually all of those things really.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
We're working together or against each other, against me at least,
and I needed someone to put them all together and say, hey,
this is looking really more minal, which is in the
end what my GP said, this is sounding really unlike you,
and it's sounding like peri menopause. So yeah, that would
be my suggestion is to talk to a GP who
really does understand what's going on, and it's open to
(18:23):
all suggestions. So I was initially told that I was
too young to be on menopause HORRN treatment because I
was forty six actually and I was still having my periods.
But actually perimenopause can kick in any time from someone's
early forties onwards, and it's totally appropriate for most people.
I mean, GAVE will take different people's health situations and
(18:47):
conditions and family histories. For most people, it is totally
fine to explore woman replacement therapy or menopause woman therapy,
which is what it's called now. And then there are
many other things like life style changes, so you know,
making sure that someone understands SEP hygiene, which by the way,
doesn't mean to change your bedlinen more often, it means
(19:08):
to go to bed on time and have a really
regular bedtime routine. And you know, if you do wake
in the night to get up and go to a
different place, we'll go to a caller room.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Those kinds of things.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Make sure you're eating really well and exercising often, and yeah,
doing all the things that we know are good for
us at any other stage of our lives, but really
focusing on self care around that stage of bike as well.
It's not I think HRT something like that. It's not
a silver bullet. It was a life changer for me
and is for many people, but there are so many
other things that need to be built in around that
(19:39):
that we can take control of and really make a difference.
And actually, just one other thing is you'll be a
lot of people tuning and will be in regions that
may not have GPS specialists. So you know, I'm lucky
I live in the middle of Wellington. There's a metaphorse clinic,
but not every region has one. So the Australation Menophors
(20:00):
Signy website has a list of doctors throughout New Zealand
and every region that have either a special interest in
menopause so theyre a GP with a special interest, or
they're a specialist doctor like an endocrinologist or a gynecologist
or something like that. And some of those GPS you
can self refer to in some specialist sets as well,
but sometimes you need a referral from home GP and
(20:22):
some are doing online consults nationwide, So if someone is
in a region and they can't access someone, likely you
can actually look for someone who's offering online consults.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, that is fantastic advice on all accounts. Yeah, it's
something we're really struggling with in the rural space in
both maternal health but in other smaller sort of pockets of.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
Health as well for women.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
And it's actually great because it feeds in really well
to what's quite topical at the moment in the women's
health strategy that we're currently going through the submission process
in supporting some advocacy than our organization. So that's just.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
Absolutely perfect in terms of timeliness.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I'm actually just going to pivot a little bit because
I'm really interested in your life as a freelancer.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
I'm interested in that.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
World in terms of work, how what it means in
terms of income, how you seek out your opportunities to
connect and essentially work do good work, and actually how
as you grow and get be sure and more popular,
how you then stiff that down to what you want
(21:35):
to do. Because I think it's something a lot of
people are starting to do these days. So it would
be really useful to unpack that, given you've got so
much experience.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Yeah, so I guess.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, like I said earlier, I really did start freelancing
that many years ago before her children, because I couldn't
imagine in finding an employer who was going to give me,
you know, two days a week, which is all I
wanted to do to get back into work time off
for both children. I couldn't imagine then finding somebody to
inform me for kindy hours which were like twelve hours
(22:07):
a week over three days and then, and so freelancing
for me was really all I could see is the
option to be the parent I wanted to be in
quite a hands on way as well as keep my
mind engaged and you know, stimulated by the things that
I really love.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
So I started by just door knocking.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Really, I guess I've been a door knocker for most
of my life and certainly through my career, and just
found a couple of local businesses that I really liked
and was inspired by and knew that they weren't they
were either startups or at that stage of their department
where they didn't have the capacity or the money to
pay full time marketing COMMNS person to do everything. And
(22:52):
I think actually my rural roots mean that I'm really
able to throw my kind of just turn my hand
to lots of different things. I'm just used to say, yes,
I can write the news editor. Sure, I can update
the website. Yeah, I can write a press release. I
can send that to some editor or some magazine.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I can get that done.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And I just I just started doing all these little
bits and pieces for a couple of regular clients until
that was enough hours across my week to get yeah,
to get enough hours and enough and come from those two.
And then if one dropped off, then I would look
for another one. Sometimes it's you know, it's either all
on or it's all off. So you know, sometimes i'd
(23:30):
have I'd get up to three or four clients. I
think this is crazy, I've only got you know, ten
the hours or school hours. But I just kind of
worked it out that I could get enough hours from
two or three clients mostly.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And the other big commitment for me was that I
wasn't going to work the school holidays.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
So initially I was really upfront and I still am
actually with clients when I take on new work, I
just say this is the deal. I'm available from nine
till two thirty each day. I work during the term times,
and I make sure that I give people the schedule,
because you can't assume that everyone is working to the
school terms, that the school year, that everyone who'se a
(24:08):
parent is working to. So I just made it very
clear when I was available that I wasn't going to
be taking phone calls at five o'clock at night, that
I wouldn't be replying to emails after dinner, and that
I wasn't going to be available during school hot days.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
And I was really.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Pleasantly surprised. I guess that everyone said, oh, yeah, sure,
that's totally fine. Really respect that's what you need to do.
So over all those years, I've just got these systems
in place, I guess to make sure that the people
I'm working with really understand what I need and they
also trust I guess that I'm going to deliver what
I need to deliver when it needs to be delivered.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
So I've been really lucky to have long term clients
and really good relationships with clients that are really respectful
of that. And I guess getting into the menopause may
it was really me thinking, well, sure I can build
a website, and sure I can write a press release.
And I've never talked to on radio New Zealone before,
but I've listened a lot to radio in New Zealand,
(25:06):
so it should be okay to do it into you
and sure I'll be on a podcast. I mean, I
just started saying yes to a lot of the things
that typically I was recommending my clients do for their
own promotions. And then I thought, actually it's time for
me to step up and not be the person making
the recommendations, but the person doing the doing, because I
(25:29):
was so passionate about other people not going through this
experience with so little information and so little direction around
where to go.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, I think there's something really strong And two things
that you said there. One is having a why it's
a bit bigger than yourself. Yeah, in terms of getting
that confidence to keep moving forward and sticking with your vision,
I suppose over time, and secondly taking your own advice,
(26:00):
maybe feeling a little bit of oh this is a
little bit scary, but I've seen it done and I've
facilitated it, so why not. Yeah, And that's just a sneat.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
It's really great.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Yeah, And I guess going back to how I chose
my clients early on, I really did consciously look for
businesses and organizations that I really identified with and that
I really valued their copaper and thought, I want to
be a part of that. For me, it's really important that,
you know, we've got a limited number of hours in
our day, that I was committed to working on projects
that I could get to the end of the day
(26:33):
and say that I'm really pleased that I spent my
time doing that. That's going to make a difference to
not just the organization, but their clients or customers or
suppliers or you know, and everybody in their world. That
was that was one thing that was really important to me.
So working with good sorts doing good things. That's kind
of how I describe who I work for when people say.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Who do you work for?
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Yeah, I love it. That's great, You've got some great
catch phrases. Yeah, A good store.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah, And I know that that's really broad and you
could say, well, what's the definition of that, But it's
just up to me to decide. It could be a
wholesome food company, it could be, you know, an organic
certification organization, it could be, you know, changing the world
of metaphorse.
Speaker 5 (27:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And what's really cold too, I think is that thing
you picked up on which was too really find organizations
that you connect with and you kind of believe in
the Coke Peppa and then you're wanting to do the
best for them. You're always going to do better, I
think better work in situations like that, which is fantastic.
(27:42):
I'm gonna ask a question around what is coming up?
What is what does the future look like for this
organization and work that you're doing, but also what is
the next twelve, eighteen, twenty four months look like for
you as well as a freelance writer, as an advocate,
(28:06):
an accidental advocate, someone who is building I suppose a
profile and in a small organization.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
What does that look like for you?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:16):
So I guess it's probably going to continue to be
quite an organic process, quite an evolution that you know.
It's not like I'd sat down one day and thought, right,
what I'm going to do is host a dinner and
then I'm going to launch a website, and then I'm
going to start a Facebook group and then you know,
I just didn't have a plan at all. It was
just so so so just about me responding to what
(28:38):
was happening in the moment. So I can kind of
imagine that it will continue to be like that. But
at the same time, I've become much clearer around the
fact that I still really love writing and educating.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
So that's really different.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
You know, sitting at my laptop interviewing someone, or you know,
going to interview someone, sitting at my laptop writing a story,
writing something that might end up on our clients website
or social media. That's really different from me stepping out
from behind my laptop and going into a workplace, or
going to a business conference or a leadership summitch or
something like that putt into workplaces about menopause. That's it's
(29:17):
a really different It's a different environment and it uses
a different kind of energy. I'm sharing my knowledge of menopause,
my personal experience, my lived experience.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
I'm drawing on the science of it.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I'm thinking about the social, emotional, and cultural aspects of menopause.
It's just it's really different from sitting in the comfort
of my of my own home, at my dining room
table crafting a story that might end up in the world.
So it's become really clear in the last probably the
last six months, that I really want to make sure
that I balance my writing with my speaking work, and
(29:53):
I alsoso want to keep learning because this is the space,
which is the research into menopause is changing all the time,
so I need to make sure I'm really well connected
with people who who are medical practitioners or researchers or
health writers, all of those people. So staying connected is
definitely something I will continue to do. I definitely want
(30:14):
to speak to more workplaces. So I think I've spoken
to about twenty or more now across the country, either
virtually or in person, and it's just amazing to see
the impact and that well, firstly the openness of people
to have the conversation, and then the impact of that conversation.
So to get feedback from the survey afterwards to say, wow,
(30:36):
I had no idea that I was going through perimenopause.
All of these things are starting to make sense. Or
my wife's going through perimenopause. And you know, a guy
the other day got off a call and he put
in the chat function. Thanks so much, I'm going downstairs
to hug my wife. He just, you know, just all
these things kind of started to make sense to him,
and he readized that he could actually be really useful
(30:57):
and helpful now that he had the information.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
So I definitely want to do more of that.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
And I'm also looking to explore my own creative writing,
so not just the writing I do for my clients
and not just the speaking I do around menopause, but
my own creative writing. And that could be a short story,
it could be a poem, it could be some flash fiction.
It could be a personal we say, it could be
(31:25):
a list of tips for people. Just a whole lot
of different things that I'd like to put my time
and energy into and put together some way. Yeah, I'm
not sure exactly where and what shape or form it's
going to end up, but that's the thing that I
like to work on next, alongside the Facebook group, which
is recently I will just explain this how you might
(31:47):
need to eat it this a little bit. But I
started the Facebook group when I launched the website, and
it was called menopause over Martiniz and it was a
deliberately public group. So a lot of menopause groups are private.
Really makes sense for a lot of people. But because
my copuffer is all about breaking the taboo and making
this conversation as open as possible. I decided I was
(32:09):
going to make it a public group, so people were
putting their names to things that they posted, all things
that they commented on, and I've just been blown away
by how it's grown. It's grown as of today to
three thousand, seven hundred members, but the moderation role of
that group has ended up taking up a lot of
my time. So as of Mondays, I've set up a page,
(32:34):
a Facebook page rather than a group. So I'll still
continue to post useful and empowering articles and research and
stories and all things that I have been sharing, and
people will be able to comment on the page and
still be part of the community, but it just won't
operate as a group.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah. So I really want to keep.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
That conversation going with the public because I want to
reach as many people as I can, and obviously social
media is great way to do that because people share things,
they comment on things, or even if someone's not on Facebook,
they might start a conversation with someone because they've read
something or commented on something.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Yeah, so a raft of things.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
Yeah, I love it. That's great. That's great.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It's something for us to look forward to as well
and sharing and watching and seeing what your journey is
and where it takes you. So yeah, that's just fantastic.
I actually understand that you have written a few children's stories.
Are those are those available to.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Or access?
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:36):
They are, And that they've been published in the School Journal,
which are the books that go into schools.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
Wonderful.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
So yeah, that's one of my products.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I sometimes get commissioned by the School Journal to write
stories for children and I've written three things in the
last year or so, and I think two of them
have gone to print. I think one's about to go
to print. One was the recent one was about the
pros and cons of psycho ways through New Zealand. So
I would see quite a controversial issue for some people
who are really are anti you know, cyclists and psycho ways,
(34:08):
and some who are totally pro. So I had to
interview six different people children, adults, pedestrians, drivers, cyclists about
what cycho ways mean to them. And another one was
interviewing a Wellington guy who's probably about fourteen r who
was born with a rare skin condition which meant that
everything every time his skin was touched or bumped it
(34:28):
kind of was damaged or would be basically injured. Yeah,
really sensitive skin, and he ended up his fingers ended
up just kind of melting away. And he's become an
incredible advocate and online gamer or disabled people in the
online community globally. So I wrote a profile about him
and about living with adversity and helping kids understand difference
(34:52):
and having empathy for others who might not live the
same lives as them but then relate to maybe being
a bit on the outside.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
So fantastic.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yeah, those are the kinds of things that I'm doing
when I'm not talking about menopause, youth.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
And you're so multitask, multi talented. Sorry, I love it.
I actually really respect people who have what I refer
to as a portfolio career. Yes, have a range of
different things that you look at in and I think
it allows for real creativity. What you mentioned quite early
on in this chat about how that was sort of
(35:30):
invoked in you quite early on, and I think coupled
with your country upbringing and just getting things done and
I can turn the hand to anything, it's made a
great It's giving you a really great grounding for starting
a fantastic organized I.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Think I've only had one permanent job in thirty years.
It was a great job.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
It was for two years, but then I went overseas
and decided that I wanted to have the freedom to
travel and work in different different sectors and different organizations
in different places. So yeah, it's worked for me to
continue to bounce around the place and have lots of
different experiences.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
But in a.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Way, it's all communication, just in a different different shape
and form.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
So if there is one piece of advice that you
would give to someone who's going through menopause, what would
it be.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
I actually have three things, which is a bit sneaky,
but I'll start with the one thing, which is just
embrace it. That's the one thing. But then I'd like
to say three things within that, which is to learn
about it because knowledge is power. It's just so important
that we understand our minds and bodies at any age
or stage of life, and perimenopause and menopause is just
another one. And the second thing is that we need
to get comfortable talking about it because when we talk
(36:44):
about it, it becomes something normal and we can then
get the support that we need when we need it. Yeah,
just to keep talking and keep supporting either yourself and others,
whether it's at home or at work or wherever you are.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Hey, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us on
the Black Hiels and Tractoris podcast today. We one appreciate
your time, but to really appreciate your insights and I've
I've learned a lot also. Yeah, I've also had some
real sparks of interest in who you are and what
you do, and I've really appreciated your openness and just yeah,
(37:21):
just friendly disposition. It's no sort of surprise to me
that you're out there speaking with people all the time
because it's so easy to get to know you, which
is thank you lovely.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
So, if you've enjoyed this chat and the others that
we've held were fantastic real women, then please support us
by joining the sold Just see to
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Our website Rural womanzed dot in zed or check out
the show notes to sign up and be part of
shaping future generations for women in rural New Zealand.
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