Hi, everyone, it's Sophia.

Welcome to work in progress.

Welcome back to work in progress friends.

I hope your January is off to a fantastic start.

I know so many of us think about this time of year as a time to go inward, learn about our health, our mental health, our bodies, maybe our families, the world around us.

And today we have a guest.

Who I adore, both personally and professionally, who is managing to take some of her own curiosity and turn it into a resource for all of us.

Today we are joined by Jeanie Mei.

She is an Emmy winning television host, producer, cultural commentator, and she's built a career around honest conversations because she consistently uses her platform to explore the intersections of womanhood and well being.

And now she is an executive producer of the docuseriies Balance Peri Menopause Journey.

It's a series that's confronting the stigma, misinformation, and systemic gaps surrounding this life stage.

And this is important because, let's be honest, Peri menopause is something every woman will experience, yet most of us don't really know what it means when it's happening.

When it's entered, it's often with confusion, a lack of preparedness, and life with feeling dismissed or alone.

It's a transition that reshapes women's bodies and emotions and work and identity, but one that all of us women have been taught to kind of shrug off as inevitable.

Absolutely not.

Advocates and experts are finally breaking the silence and bringing this long overdue conversation to the forefront and with Genie at the home, this show feels incredibly personal because her curiosity, lived experience, and deep commitment to helping women makes her the friend we all need to help us wrap our heads around such an important topic.

Genie May is the person you want in your group chat.

She is the person you want producing your content, and thanks to this incredible docu series starting January thirtieth, we get her in both of those roles.

Let's dive in with Genie May.

Is it your birthday today?

It is?

Oh my god, I know, I was like sitting here for your birthday.

Thank you so much.

I'm like a shiny brand new forty seven and I'm getting into the skin right now as I'm like, what does it feel like right now to be forty seven because that age is so crazy to me, like it's so grown up.

I'm still not, like, you know, I don't even know what I'm feeling.

I don't think I caught up since forty two maybe, so I'm still like, you know, it's crazy, it's crazy.

So thank you, thank you so much.

I totally get it.

It's weird.

It's like I turned forty three in July, and uh huh, it's such an incongruous feeling because I'm like, but am I older than thirty three?

Like I don't even know what is being an adult?

Like I still I know, I still want to like look to other people for answers for.

Things totally, especially when our definition of grown ups back then.

By the way, can you hear me.

Okay, yeah, I can hear you.

I want to make sure because you're getting a like real life like a live footage of menopause and perimenopause because this is my mom's I love it, your bud, and she's done some things to it, she's tricked it out, and I'm like, hey.

Together, I'm not sure.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's great.

I remember like when we were kids, and the grown ups that were like our authority figures were our teachers.

Those people were like thirty two or twenty nine and looked to me, I thought forty seven.

I thought they were Yeah.

And so now when I look back at like Miss Austin and Miss Clark, I'm like, you were twenty nine, you were thirty two.

Wait, what's going on right now?

This doesn't make case.

So like I'm still and I feel like we're redefining age.

Like actually, this whole generation and I'm so proud about is redefining what aging looks like, what totally agreed or means or sounds like.

So I'm actually really proud that I'm forty seven and I sound talk look get this, you.

Know, Yes, I feel that too.

I feel that from you too.

Yeah, one hundred percent.

It's like not to be a complete apphole.

But sometimes I look at myself for my life, and I'm like, I'm so much cuter than I was ten years ago.

Things are so much more dial than they were.

We've always been told that aging was going to be this thing where we would like become invisible or you know, be shunned from society.

And it's like I think we're having a great time.

Yeah, I totally agree.

I mean, obviously, given our discussion today, having some more information and medical you know, attention and help in the right areas like that would be make the journey so much more fun.

But having the sisterhood and the solidarity and podcast like yours and the work that you're doing allow us to feel like, Okay, we're not crazy.

We got each other.

We're going to If you're not gonna help us, we're going to figure it out.

You know.

Well, that's just it.

It's like and I don't think there's a coincidence.

Nia and I were talking about this, and I think about our our sort of like overlapping beautiful Venn diagram of friend groups.

Yes, like we all spent our twenties figuring out how to work in media and be activists.

And I'm like, y'all thought our generation was going to go through this and not fix the medical system like.

You please please take a seat, just watch if anything, take notes.

I know.

Well, it's interesting that you.

Talk about reflecting about your birthday because my favorite first or early question to ask people is the following.

And it's I think it's even more special around a birthday, which is you know, when you think about your life at this moment, you've done all these incredible things, You've had, all these incredible successes.

You've made it over the humps of the hard days.

And if you look back at your inner child, like if you could meet your inner eight or nine year old Genie on a playground today, are there things that you would recognize in her, like things you carry with you as the woman you've become in your adulthood that have been in you since childhood.

Ad Absolutely, not only is that a beautiful question on my birth day, but also it I can't help but align that with what I'm noticing in my vivacious, little four year old that's changing every single day in front of me.

Because I heard one time that your personality is your personality from the get when you're born.

Whatever you're exhibiting at that young age is who you are, and then life, people, society start to shape that good or bad, right, And I didn't believe that until I saw so many qualities of Monaco, my daughter that I remember like it's almost like DejaVu.

I see myself when I first discovered cotton candy, or when I first got burnt, or when I first was freely, not really freely, but my mom was looking the other way, but able to open up her langcomb jar of cream and just get into the lather and the succulence of putting, you know, cream on myself, Like I remember the quality that that gem I had one, two, three and moving on.

Was vivacious curiosity like insane why why?

But then why?

And then so then what made that?

And why?

And also extreme love for people and relationships, like I really loved meeting somebody finding out how they got here, who do they know?

What are they doing here?

Why are they wearing?

That?

That was always like I felt like a gift, you know.

And the reason why I'm sensitive when I say it now is because I notice that along the way some of that, without the right tools, was either taken advantage of or judged, and me not understanding that that was a gift turned into a little bit of guardedness and apprehensiveness and trusting myself.

So today as a mom, that looks like as a forty seven year old and a mom, it looks like reintroducing myself to that curiosity, that natural urgency and fire to understand and love and know, with the wisdom of what I understand, you know, where people can hurt people and things like that.

And now I'm also teaching my daughter that, you know, like every question is great, keep on coming.

I love every one of them.

And we're going to teach you how to learn, understand and still build that discernment so that you can understand where it's safe and okay to ask and where it's safe to apply.

You know.

Yeah, it's a really cool awakening that I've gotten to.

That's really special.

It's striking me as you say it that, you know, the moment our generation finds ourselves in so much of the advocacy for our age group and for the women coming after us.

You know, we were just talking about like the shifts we have to make in the medical system.

Yeah, and as you were talking about your daughter, I'm thinking, oh, of course, because for us, as young girls, we were still in such a moment in society where being liked was paramount to everything.

So the discernment.

Was maybe a little suggestion, but not really part of how we were cultured to live in the world totally.

God forbid, you offended someone or or stood up for yourself in a way that would make you, you know, unpopular or whatever, right, And I think that's really beautiful.

It's like the thing you're advocating for yourself at your age, you are also instilling in your daughter in a way that will give her the ability to advocate for herself for her whole life.

It won't be something she has to learn, It'll be something she knows how to do.

Absolutely.

I think the greatest power we have that is also the detriment to being alive if you lose it, is the ability to trust yourself, to trust your body, to trust your feelings, to just trust that you know you can you will.

And somewhere along the way, relationships, you know, people, experiences unfavorably happening, you know, just life can really test that and take that ability to trust yourself away.

And so the constant reminder to yourself throughout life is to actually too up the voice that is talking or whispering sometimes within you, because it depends.

Like I remember in times that I was really confident in doing well and I had all of my environment working for me, my voice inside was loud, clear, defiant and audible.

And then when I was in environments that wasn't healthy for me, it was a bare whisper, sometimes a little less annoying urge in the back that you're like, no, now going going, you know.

Yeah.

And so that's my job to teach Monaco to not tune out that voice and to make it so clear that the clarity sounds like a very audible voice that you recognize all the time.

But it's also the job for myself to make sure I'm tuning into her.

And now a word from our sponsors, who make this show possible.

You just said things that took my brain.

In three different directions, including the fact that when you are in a great environment, your voice is louder, and when your environment is unhealthy, your voice shrinks.

Yes, and I think there is something very societal for women, right We're taught to shrink, We're taught to take up less space.

We're taught to be pretty first and speak second, all the sort of bulk stuff that our grandmothers and mothers grew up with.

And as you were saying that, I.

Was like, you know, because I'm reflecting a lot on I did a whole bunch of like we're ending a nine year, we're going into a one year, Like what do I need.

To look at from the last ten years.

And I was really reflecting on a period in my life that was the absolute most awful for me, and the environment was terrible and inexcusable.

Things were excused, And what I realized is the nugget, like the core of the thing that I carry from that time is shame about my own patience for it, and also shame about the moments when I'd been backed into a corner to a point that I lashed out in ways that hurt me and hurt other people that I cared about.

Yeah, and what dawned on me when you said that was, Oh, who you become when you're being smothered is not who you are.

And the thing that nobody wants to talk about is the longer you are in an unhealthy situation, the more unhealthy you become to yourself and others also.

And so I think there's also this like layer of yes, we have to do this for us, and we have to do this for our daughters, but we also have to do this for the people around us, because everyone around the bad gets affected by the bad.

Yes, even good people with the best intentions.

And it's like, I don't know, I think I think there's a really powerful correlation when you consider the sort of sphere of what society is, yes, for all people, because to be clear, it's not working for men either, but certainly for women.

Right of course, we're in a revolutionary moment about how we are treated or not treated, when we are literally stepping into our most powerful, clear selves.

Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that women going into perimenopause and menopause have been shunned by society because at this point we know it all, we've seen it all, and we're too wise to give a fuck anymore.

Right, And of course you want us to be quiet now, Right, It's mind boggling how where the chicken or the egg begins because our upbringing and our mother's mother's mothers have all been taught to suppress or have been taught to believe otherwise when it comes to legislation, healthcare systems, everything that we had to eventually fight for to get to where we are standing even today and still fighting but right now doing a docuseries about the realities of perimenopause and this whole long, sometimes could be ten year journey up until the actual one day of menopause.

All of these feelings that you've been feeling have been all either diagnosed or misdiagnosed or dismissed as other things, and you've never had a word to define what this feeling was until the one day you have an actual signal from your body that goes okay, period stopped, and you never realize that that whole last, however many years it took to get to that hormonal shift, could have been any of the by the way, not just hot flashes, fifteen to twenty other symptoms that have absolutely permeated or affected your relationships, your communication levels, your emotional regulation, your parenting, your workplace, like all of these other things.

That's insane to think that the whole time you've me being forty seven now suppressed or just dealt with it, or have been led to try other things from herbal teas to like it's postpartum, or it's this and my daughter's four, and sure it could be, but then also, why have no way has nobody told me it could be paramount of baus, Like they're just the rap race of trying to figure out what it is until somebody puts language to it, until somebody who hopefully has a platform so other people can hear its language.

It's just crazy, it's wild.

And the gaslight in between this journey is it is so real.

It's so real that we so we have to take a second for ourselves and actually like each other out to be like, no, sis, what you're feeling is real.

What you're feeling are symptoms to a greater thing.

Every woman, not just some every woman is going to experience perimenopause.

So let's talk about this.

Let's open the group chat up like that's insane, insane.

Well, and when you consider, to your point the laundry list of symptoms, and there's a sort of societal eye roll or well that's just how it is, or oh that happens to women, and that's what makes me feel a little crazy, where it's like, no, you can't roll your eyes at fifty one percent of the population going through a universal experience.

And when you start to think about some of the hard data we have, including back in the day they made a birth control pill for men.

And to be clear, a dude can get a girl pregnant every day of the month.

Women can maybe get pregnant two days a month, right, but they pulled it off the market because the men got nause right, nauseous.

One side of that dead And I'm going, I'm so sorry.

What, like you want to talk about nausea cramps like period diarrhea, but like.

All the what y'all got nauseous?

Like So if men aren't even allowed to be minorly inconvenienced by a tummy upset, I'm taking a pill every day that, by the way, most of us have taken every day.

Ye Like, why are we supposed.

To be inconvenienced by every single experience from physical to emotional to psychological?

The double standard again isn't working for us, but it's it's not working for the world.

So yeah, how how did you guys decide to do this?

Like at moments like this, I'm like, I know I'm telling you things you know and hopefully some people at home are like, wait, I did not know that about male birth control, But like, you have the information, you've had the experience at what stage in the docu series, which for our friends at home, it's called balance a perimenopause journey.

It's so incredible.

From the first moment, by the way, I was like, oh, this is not what I expected and I was excited and.

I still didn't know what I was in for.

Yeah, as a person who's trying to figure out, like am I there yet?

Am I not?

People keep saying like, well you'll know, and I'm like that's that's the medical diagnostic, Like, yeah, that can't be right.

So how did this come together?

This amazing story you guys as a team?

What happened?

Yeah?

To be honest, I have to thank the very team that brought it together to wake me up to understand that I was in perimenopause.

These beautiful filmmakers, Yeah, yeah, these beautiful, beautiful filmmakers, two of them award winning on a Bouti and Sadali.

They are they are monks, but in Aka to me, they're angels.

We have worked together to create a few phenomenal pieces of work to fight anti trafficking years ago and today, as we've gotten older, we keep in touch.

They send me birthday wishes, they check in on my daughter.

They begin to recognize that they're going through perimenopause, and they're like, wait a minute, I feel different.

I don't like my body.

I feel out of touch with what's going on, and these what's what's fascinating is these ladies live such a regimented life with their with their work on their sanctuary, and the way that they move every day is pretty scheduled, whereas my Monday every day is a different Monday schedule.

I can't remember what I did, but I also don't have the same schedule being an entertainer.

So when they started to be able to recognize that their bodies were changing, and their emotional needs were changing, and their behavior towards each other was changing because lived in a a again, a very scheduled, traditional everyday life together, they were sound enough and aware enough to say, wait a minute, something's changing.

I'm reacting differently towards you.

Your needs are different from from before, Like what's happening right now?

They begin to take a more investigative approach towards what this is and realized that there's this thing called perimenopause that they've entered into.

All of the symptoms they're having are checking off, and why is nobody giving them the direct right answers on how to treat this Because at the end of the day, your entire makeup is built off of hormones, and when your hormones are out of balance?

Who won't tell you what are you taking?

What are you doing about it?

This doctor will tell you five different things.

From this doctor.

All of the doctors will actually give you a different read on it.

Nobody actually calls out what perimenopause is and what is the answer you find it by the way.

And so both of these brave women take this two very different journeys to give us a close in depth understanding of what is perimenopause, How do you know if you're in it, what are the options out there?

And what really works?

So they talked to the best experts in the world to really get down to the answers and called me along the way to tell me what they were experiencing.

And at first, when I heard the word perimenopause, I was honestly thinking hot flashes.

Like that's how archaic My understanding of it was totally.

I was like, I'm not getting hot flashes.

I actually get cold a lot.

I actually, you know, I don't experience I want to get hot.

I'm like, if I got a hot flash, i'd probably be excited about you know, what else could it be?

And they're like, actually, that's like the least of the of the side effects or the symptoms.

The symptoms of perimenopause could be memory loss, emotional dysregulation, disruptive sleep patterns, insomnia, weight fluctuations, extreme emotional volatility, dizziness, nausea.

The list just went on and on in such a way that I was like, wait, yes, yes, yes, go back to the memory lost part, okay, extreme yes, brain fog, yes, And then going down to explaining things like walking to a room and forgetting exactly why you came there, saying something like being as sympatic and as expressive as I am being in a conversation, and completely forgetting like as if you fell off a cliff where you were going with it.

These were actual things, tangible things that I could remember just in that day that I was experiencing, and I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is perimenopause.

Are you serious?

And when I began to listen to the doctors that were responding to to our docuseries and to hear how important hormones are and how much they fluctuate, sometimes severely, sometimes as early as thirty five, I began to actually be able to see my life as this timetable and see where things started to happen, where I almost could track where perimenopause started for me, because I know how sharp and how capable and how like on it I was.

I saw on your Instagram, Sophia, that you posted this adorable picture of you on a horse, and you were like, it's the year of the horse.

I'm so ready.

I was bored on the year of the horse in Vietnamese culture.

And the horse is strategic, it's it's super sensitive to all the needs around them.

It's a go getter.

It's it's just it's it charges.

And I was not charging for the last five years.

I was.

I was wandering.

I wasting because of my wandering, and I was confused, and I was in many ways angry at myself.

My inner dialogue began to get very shaming and impatient.

And God, why why would you forget that?

You literally set an alarm for that.

How could you have missed that?

And and and why doesn't this make sense anymore?

I used to remember this.

I I know this like the back of my hand.

Why am I needing more help here?

I feel stupid like my my I recognized that the that the talk around me just started to become very very vicious.

And I would also see you know, times in my in my everyday you know, work and and and exchange with people like flashes too where you know, I get a little short on this or I'd have to call a friend and be like, you know what, I'm sorry, that came out of nowhere and that wasn't cool, Like I apologize, and from that I would go into like.

Two or three days of just like shame spiral.

Yeah, yes, the rumination of like, what's going on?

What's wrong?

So when Sadali actually gave me a call and told me about her findings with Perry metopause and that they were so extreme and so awakening that she was like, we have to do something about this.

We have to tell everyone, not just women, but men, healthcare systems, workplaces, I was like, wait, I'm one of them.

I want first row access to all of these answers.

Count me in, but also tell me more.

I need to hear all of it.

And then one month of signing on to help my dear friends and join this community, I was immediately exposed to the incredible doctors on our docuseries that had so much concrete answers that were backed by years of experience and historical knowledge that we've known but hasn't been told.

My algorithm on my social media changed where every day I'm getting now friends and community and people that talk about perimenopause and share their everyday experience or their new findings.

I've met men who care and have told their stories about in their marriages, what it's felt like, or how they hold space for their wives or their partners, like just from joining the documentary so that I could help spey the word, to be a part of the answers and ask questions as well.

So I can't even imagine what it would be like if we weren't talking about it, if there weren't a documentaries, if my algorithm was over here still talking about nail trends, and not that I'm not doing that.

I love a good nail trend, and I love what we can do culture right right, But come on, as soon as I'm in the right circle in conversations, I'm getting all the information towards me.

That's what I wish for everybody out there, so that you don't have to go searching for it after it feels too late.

And now a word from our sponsors one of the things I think is interesting.

A friend of mine who's in her mid fifties was talking to some of us about this at a dinner recently and saying, you know, I'm ten years ahead of you all.

I've been through the full spectrum of this experience.

And she said, what drives me crazy is remembering times when I was clearly going through this in my forties and I let people dismiss it.

I dismissed it.

I said, well, look at the state of the world.

Look at the election we just lost.

Things are so bad for women.

Of course, I'm burnt out, but burnout is different than your entire internal physical system changing.

And so often women pile more on their backs.

They say like, I can pick up the slack.

I can pick up yours too, and they just keep going and we don't have.

To white knuckle it so hard.

Yeah, yeah, especially when white knuckling it is always aligned with shame.

White knuckling it, sucking it in, swallowing it down and just and keeping it to ourselves comes with this shame, embarrassment, self doubt, all these things that we then put upon ourselves because we don't have the answers.

The whole point of the docuseries is to provide answers so that we change your shame to having agency.

Yeah, that's the whole point.

We want you to know that you have access.

We want you know that you can do something about this because it's not going away, but neither should we.

No, And that's the kind of alchemy I want to see.

I mean, shame to agency feels like a really great direction, and it actually reminds me of something you say in episode two that is so funny to me because you're just.

Like, what the fuck?

Yeah, and you said, how come nobody told me perimenopause feels like puberty going backwards, dude, and it just like it really made me laugh, And like, obviously the idea of shame transforming into agency is the right direction.

Perimenopause, I know, feels for so many people.

Like the wrong one.

But like, how did that dawn on you?

Like?

What made you realize that was the experience you were having?

Yeah, all of a sudden, in the very moment that the symptoms of perimenopause was was read out to me, whether it was through my research online, through doctor Mary Claire or through chat GBT, I immediately felt like I'm okay, wait, I'm I'm normal, I'm good, I'm allowed like that right there.

Having that feeling should not be the first reaction, Like I wish my first reaction was ooh, okay, so I'm I'm I'm feeling you know, a little, a little tired, more tired these days, or I'm not able to sleep.

I've gotten up at three the last few days.

I know about this thing called perimoutopause.

I've heard about it.

I know which doctors can help about it.

I've heard some ways that you can go check your hormone levels and see if you need some help, let me go make an appointment.

I wish it was that, you know, I mean, just like if I had a cough or a sore throat, I know immediately that I can have an elderberry, or if I want to go more natural, or I can go and get you know, some some assistance from my ear nose and throat doctor, or like like there's access to it because some things are normalized, and more and more and more talk about this, wasn't that, and so that I started feeling my memory loss and my brain frog, my brain fogs severely.

At thirty eight, it was really bad.

It cost me some jobs, It cost me some very important conversations that I didn't know how to ease myself through because of the unnatural patterns of my emotions at the time.

That would bring me to tears wow having to describe, because it felt like you're trying to talk, but you don't act physically have the words.

Your body is overwhelmed and angry at yourself to be able to be the vessel to carry your feelings, and so you burn off people and relationships around you because you're just like you feel unrecognizable to yourself.

That started at thirty eight for me, and I remember just kind of hiding out to myself, giving it time, hoping it never comes back again.

Almost like it was like a almost like it was a like a monster that rears its head, you know.

Well, and that goes back to the shame thing, right, you think it's my fault, I'm doing something wrong, I'm feeling I'm I'm suddenly incapable, rather than I need a little bit of support like I would going to see an E and T for a sinus infection or seeing an ob where I getting you know, were I pregnant, Like it's a.

It's a really interesting mindset shift.

And I'm curious because I'm sure there's so many people at home listening to us have this conversation going okay, but where do I start?

Right?

Like?

You know, and you guys address this so beautifully in the series that so many women feel dismissed in medical settings.

So I'm curious if somebody were to ask you, where should I start to go to be taken seriously?

Is that an obgyn?

Is that a rheumatologist?

Is that a like?

Where do women need to go first?

And what should they be asking?

What questions should they be asking?

I guess yeah.

I think it's also important to remember that we women are taught to normalize suffering, and medical systems are trained to silo systems symptoms.

So when you start to experience things like fatigue, anxiety, brain fog, or mood changes that show up separately, they are then treated separately instead of being seen as part of a hormonal transition that deserves context and education and compassion.

You know.

So this is a hard one because I'm myself am still trying to find that right doctor for me.

I'm still in that journey and I'm just going to point out the realities right now.

You know, I'm somewhat of of a name in my career here.

You know, I have friends and connections.

I'm having to access those connections and those celebrities and those who's who to get to the right person more than someone I can just call out of Yelp or checking out my Google.

That is something that is still really hard for women out there today.

So in your own area, what's great about the Our Doctor series is We've got the most incredible doctors that are going to give the information on the questions that you should ask specifically, so that you're narrowing down your doctors and seeing how they answer to see if they're the right.

Doctors or you.

Yeah, not to be crass, I actually mean this genuinely.

It's almost like dating.

You have to date a person before you know if they're the right match for you, yes, And you do that by spending time asking questions, seeing how they handle emotions or you know, any sort of life event, And essentially you have to do the medical version of that with your doctor and see, I would say, first and foremost, if you're being listened to yes in the first place, I'm really curious because you know, it's still exciting that we're in a moment where we're having greater conversations around medical transparency, and we all know the flip side of the coin is that there's now like a four x industry to the size of pharma under the quote unquote wellness umbrella, and a lot of it is like snake oil salesmen who have like kits and supplement brands and whatever else they're doing that.

So it's like, in a weird way, I'm like, oh my god, but how how do we make sure we're trusting actual medical science and information while demanding more research for that science, while looking at, you know, more functional ways to treat our bodies?

And how do we avoid people who claim to be medical experts who aren't.

Yeah, that's so true, especially because our healthcare system often treats women's pain as anecdotal instead of diagnostic.

So if your lab work looks normal, well, then women told they're fine, even when their lived experience says otherwise.

And that's why our docuseries balance.

It validates that disconnect that for me is to start just being validated and feeling seen in my own body, for me to be able to understand the information and go, wait, okay, this, I'm right where I need to be.

Now where do I need to go from here?

That's a really important acceptance because most of the time we women are managing having children or not at least ten different things in our lives on a daily basis, you know, and the people around us, we're most likely to be taken care of more than ourselves, and so having that validation and that understanding is so vital, so that you are tuning in the attention and the energy that you're giving outwards to yourself and then beginning to ask the smart, smart questions and being able to discern who are the right people who understand perimenopause the way it needs to be understood today to get that help.

Yeah, it's really it's like kind of a fascinating moment to be in because we're solving problems that have needed solving and it all feels a little bit like the wild West, you know.

Yeah, well, think about it.

When you're sleep and your memory and your emotional regulation are disrupted.

It literally affects everything and every person, you know, how you show that work, how you communicate with others, like at the end of the day, when you miss the mark on things that you've been doing so well in your twenties and your thirties, you start to internalize that as failure instead of physiology.

Yeah, oh, I love that, And that's another reframe, right, it's physiology not failure, right, right, correct, That's so important.

I'm really curious.

You know you talked about obviously folks you can reach out to and your algorithm even shifting, but like has as being on the producing team of this series also just changed your conversations with friends and family, like what's going on around GI's dinner table?

Now, Yeah, this is insane that you're asking this, because for me, it's all about the group chat, Like it goes down in the group chats.

I am so thankful that because of today, I have a very live group chat from different age groups, my girlfriends that are in their sixties and seventies to my girlies that are in their early thirties that are like, are you sure that's a thing, And I'm like, I'm trying to help you out.

You don't even know, you know, like listen to your elder you know.

But on a serious note, like we're having a premiere coming up for our docuseries, and I literally was sitting there having like a out of body moment.

I was I was talking to I was working out at the Alo gym, and all the girls there are so cute.

They're holding their Haley Baber shakes and they're you know, their whole conversation of life is what I remember at that time of being like totally twenty eight to thirty five.

And I started to share about this docuseries and they it was insane the type of questions they were asking me, because they were like, Okay, we get that that's a thing like way down there, but you're going through this, and I understood what they meant.

I appreciated that honesty because I know, back to our earlier conversation, like I don't look like what I thought my teacher looked like at the grown up age, you know, And I'm having the conversation, I'm drinking the Haley Beaver shakes, I'm doing all the things, and they picture what if they picture perimenopause to be like, oh, it sounds like you're at home with some some you know what are those called?

Yep, yeah, yeah, cold cream.

You've got your hair yellers, you can barely walk your your backcracks like all these things that I'm like, low key, that happens too.

But don't neglect that what you can learn and what I can teach you now will allow you to prepare for it.

I've had so many exchanges with people where I know the menopausal symptoms affected me in a way that I would have handled those so differently.

And I hate that.

Yes, you know, I know now because I know myself, like because I've tuned into listening to myself so much more, And I see myself asking the questions in my group chats, and I see myself talking with my friends so vividly about about how we handled this situation because we know this is happening.

So we've you know, we've taken the nap, we've gone asleep earlier, We've done the changes and and and also went and saw this doctor and got a you know, just you know, one of my friends even just being as real as telling me the testosterone level that she found she was so low on and needed to replenish differently with her new intake of her testosterone, Like how stronger she was in a new business that she started opening up and that she this business that she started she had to close down at first a few years ago when she didn't have this information, and as soon as she started hormone therapy, she immediately started the business back up in three months.

And I was like, I can now navigate this so much differently because I saw exactly where I wasn't strong before, and I talked myself down and beat myself up to the point of no return because of how badly I didn't understand myself.

Now, if I feel the memory fog, I know where to administer this.

And if I feel like I'm getting a bit of sleep fatigue, I know where to go to bed earlier and put a little melotonein and magnesium on my feet.

And she's just got it all dialed where she knows now almost like a DJ, where to crank it up to get the best pure sound in her everyday activity.

And I was like, yeah, I want to be there, like get me there, you know.

And so because of that, because of conversations like that, we're able to exchange doctors are things we're trying.

And even with the directors of the film Sadali and ATABOUTI there, they're constantly, you know, suggesting to me different things that have worked for them.

And and it's great that we have I have a community that I can navigate this through with, but I keep thinking about my mom or my friends that aren't in Hollywood that don't have that access, And that's the point of molence.

We want to create that agency so that it's accessible and tangible to everybody at any place that you live with, any workfield that you're at, or any home that you're operating out of.

That's so cool.

It's really really cool.

I mean when you think about that, you know, because we're talking about shifting conversations, taboos, healthcare, industry, medical research, what are the broader shifts that you hope this project is going to spark?

Like, what would your best case scenario be to see in the follow on news about this thing, like sixty days after your premiere.

Yeah.

I hope that women leave feeling seen and informed and less alone.

I hope that the people who love them also leave that are equipped to listen.

You know, I think that knowledge doesn't change out.

It restores trust in your own body, which is the greatest reward we already have, but we don't always tap into And I also think aging is a big thing.

I love that our docuseries reframes aging as a transition that deserves preparation, not punishment.

You know, I think that we shouldn't look at our bodies and perimenopause as a decline.

It's about recalibration.

It's about women deserving support through that recalibration and celebrating the understanding and the acknowledgment and the triumph of being where we are because we've earned every single bit of our life that we gain towards.

It just shouldn't feel like a decline.

Yeah, because it isn't.

There's no way that so many women say that their forties and then their fifties are the best decades of their lives, that they only get happier, smarter, you know, fill in the blank.

Ye, And that for some reason, the story in society is that it's a decline.

It also needs that alchemy, it needs that redefinition.

Right, And that's why it's important to remember that, like when millions of women are navigating this biological transition without having the information or the adequate education, this can cause a ripple effect.

This is not just a single woman's issue.

This is a societal issue that affects homes, workplaces, health systems.

Everybody is involved in this conversation.

Yeah, I think that's so important because there are no issues that are.

Just women's or just men's issues.

They are our issues, and particularly for women that are in relationships with men, like the men need to know what is up.

With their lands.

Yes, it's so important.

And I have more respect to when when when men taken an open, energetic, enthusiastic approach to this.

Yes, the energy shifts when a man also just takes heat to understanding this that.

You know, we talk so much about what gentlemen look like opening the door and you know, letting women in before them pulling out their chair.

But like my definition on that has changed so much today.

I'm like, that is the most basic Come on right exactly now, I'm like, wait, you asked what you can do for a woman who's going through perimenopaus.

What are the signs that you can see and how can you support a woman?

What are the right questions to ask, like to like clothes, Like wait a minute, you know what I'm saying.

And now a word from our wonderful sponsors.

It's so interesting like we obviously saw so many relationships that formed and fell apart, like particularly during pandemic times.

Yeah, but I think they're what I'm finding in a lot of my group chats.

And by the way, now I'm like, you need to be in my group chats and I need to be in a chats girl, like what are we doing it?

But it's like we the number of women I know that are like, oh, it was the big life event thing that I realized no matter what he said, his actions didn't show up for fertility, new parenthood.

I'm sure perimenopause.

Like women are done being in relationships where they are expected to do all of the suffering and all of the work.

And so I hope that your series will also be a wake up call for the men to go like, oh, yeah, we we have to show up, not just with the flowers, the or the you know, dinner date planned on Valentine Essay, but like we have to show up to actually be these like chivalrous men we say we are for our partners when they actually need us.

And this is one of the littlements.

Yeah, you know, postpartum, perry, menopause, like you your person needs you in these times totally.

That is one disclaimer I'll have for all my sisters out there who we're going to watch the docuseries when it's out on January thirtieth.

Notice what you're going to take as compliments and gestures that feel that feel like a man is actually extending himself.

Like I remember my girlfriend she cut her hair from like a lob to like a pixie and she was like, oh my god, you know, my man noticed my haircut.

And I was like, he never even notices anything about me.

I was so like touched, and I was like, I'm going to need my man to notice like my sleep.

I'm gonna need to be able to feel a little bidy.

I need to notice if I haven't had some food and I want some, you know, some help because I'm working overtime over here as a single mom, and I need you to go get a meal for me.

Like it's it's I think it's there's a really fun way to have have some levity in this.

And and I know in my group chats I am with my girlfriends.

You know, I know that now that we understand what these symptoms are, we're actually able to We're keeping a daily diary with each other and we're joking about it, and when we feel like, you know, when when our girls off like we can come in with such love and care, and the husbands that are around, you know, some of us, you know, talking out loud and joking about this.

There they feel welcomed when we make it light and and not make it light as in it's not serious, but actually just call it out before they do, so that we can all have anything.

Because the last thing we want anybody to do is to make us feel like we're crazy or make us feel like we're invisible because of this, you know, And and that's that's that's that's important.

Well, I can't wait for the show to come out.

I know it's January thirtieth, and for our friends at home, it's incredible because it's going to be everywhere.

It's Amazon Prime, it's Apple TV, you have multiple places you can watch this.

Make sure when you watch on January thirtieth.

I'm super active in my DMS and I'm going to be want to I want to have a live discussion about this together.

So when I post about this, you guys go into my captions armside of my comments, let me know what you think.

Let me know what you're experiencing.

Because our filmmakers, said Dali and on A Bouti, and all of the doctors, doctor Lewis, doctor Vonda, all of the doctors together docture.

We're all so we're so on fire about making sure that everybody gets answers and feel seen and supported in whatever neck of the woods that you are when you watch.

So keep in close touch with me on my Instagram and also follow Balance docuseries on Instagram as well, and that's where we'll be able to tend to your very questions.

The girls, they're actually on their live all the time.

Doctor I'm sorry, on a Bouti and Sidali, the filmmakers, they are always answering every question.

So just know that as you're watching this, this is a conversation.

This is an actual group chat we're inviting you to, so don't feel like you're just watching the docu series and then figuring it out yourself.

We are getting out of the answers.

We're going to find you all the support that you need until we get systems in place where it doesn't have to be this hard.

That's amazing.

I love that.

And my final and favorite question to ask everybody.

Which feels especially auspicious at the top of the year and on your birthday is as you look at the air ahead of you, what feels like you're work in progress?

My work in progress.

So that's a good one.

I feel like my work in progress is my healing, my healing.

I've had a tumultuous last couple of years, and I would like to be honored with the understanding of healing from here until my last day.

I don't want to ever stop healing.

I don't want to ever feel like I've reached the point.

I just want to continuously feel the evolve and the elevation of my understanding and my tools and my resources.

And the fruit of that will be my daughter.

The fruit of that is seeing her come out of a household that's very different from what I grew up in, seeing my mom reparent herself that's very different from her country and the conditions that were there when she grew up.

I am very thankful to say that my healing will get to show up right in front of my eyes with my family, and that as a Vietnamese American woman, I hope will permeate to my community as well.

That's so beautiful.

This was a really beautiful conversation, such thoughtful questions.

I was really excited to talk to you because I love your work.

Me too, and every time I see you out in the world, I'm always like, oh my god, I want to hang with you more.

I know, I know, same, same, same