Divorce Lines, Disappointment Lines: Your Face Has Been Keeping a Diary of Every Hard Year

Welcome to the Menopause Summit 0:00

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Future of Menopause Medicine Summit. I am your host, Doctor Sharon Stills, and I am super excited as always to be here with you all. This is our fifth year of hosting the Menopause Summit and we've got new faces, new information, and we're just here to help your menopause experience journey, dance, transition. Be one that is full of health and empowering you on every level. And today I've got a dear friend and colleague and someone new to the Menopause Summit, which is exciting.

I always like to bring you the latest and the greatest, and we're going to have a conversation about some of my favorite topics. We're going to talk about skincare, but we're going to talk about it through the lens of lymph and fascia and put it all together. So no one better to do that than Cathy Goldstein. She's an acupuncture physician and founder of True Energy, which is a science based skincare and wellness brand with nearly four decades of clinical experience. Her work bridges functional medicine, skin biology, and human communication.

She developed functional, a systems based approach to aging that focuses on restoring biological function, expression, and vitality. She's served on national exam committees, lectured at the university level, and has been featured in publications including Vogue International, Ageless Living Magazine, and Best Holistic Life. And I think she is a walking billboard for her products because look at this beautiful lady and look at that flawless skin. So, Kathy, welcome to the summit. I'm so excited to have this conversation because we are we're part of a holistic leadership council together, so we know each other on a personal level.

Cathy Goldstein's Path to Holistic Skincare 2:06

But I've never gotten to interview you and I love your product. So I'm super excited. So welcome. Great. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. Like you said, this is my first time on your summit and I have I always love our conversations. I always love kind of where they go and just not unfolding naturally. So let's see where we go. Yeah. So tell us, I guess, you know, you're an acupuncturist, but yet you're in the realm of skincare and fascia and lymph. So take us across that bridge. How did that happen?

Yeah. Okay. So I originally was studying pre-med, and I got really sick and ended up in the hospital for three months. And I realized that through this process of this experience that I realized that allopathic medicine really didn't have a healing system. So it really kind of brought me to this full position of saying, where does healing come from? And acupuncture was a venue that totally blended for me because I very I'm very into like the energy medicine component of that. And that's actually super exciting to me too, because I use a lot of energy, technology and things like that in my practice.

And so in the beginning I was treating really sick people like myself, you know, and how I got into acupuncture. So autoimmune disorders, pathogens, you know, like significant inflammatory issues. And I found myself at 49, catching myself in the mirror, having that mirror moment and going. My gosh. When did that happen? Right. I mean, have you had that experience? I mean, I miss everybody has where like like, wait a second. This isn't this isn't what I thought I was, you know, that I was experiencing because I, I look like my mother.

How did that happen? Yeah. Right. Right. And I was doing all the right things, you know, I was eating well, exercising, getting treatment and things like that. And so somehow this wasn't matching the whole, you know, the whole picture for me. So it really kind of sent me back to the blackboard, so to speak, and thinking, all right, well, you know, I know people are getting better with the treatments that I'm doing, but what is the difference on the face? Why does the face not respond exactly the same way as the body?

And so I looked into like, really more deeply in the muscles of the face, what they're for, you know, lymphatics, the fascia, all of the things that the, the body is the heavy lifting, but the face is all emotions and expression. So all of our traumas, all of our experiences are just wrapped up into stuck areas in our face. And that's what I was seeing. So when I went back to the blackboard, I was like, okay, one is I was doing a lot of emotional work in my practice already, and I, you know, so I knew that that was that was, you know, a significant segue.

But the other was, is that I was hearing like, oh, well, maybe you need to start using Botox, maybe you need. And I was like, that's what I, I'm in holistic medicine. I, I want to look good, but I just can't cross that line, you know? And we all want to age well, we all want to look good. So it's not like I was going to go, what the heck, right? I wanted to figure it out. So what I really realized is after going through all of the losses, potions, motions, you know, everything that you could use for your face is that I never stuck to anything because I wasn't getting the results that I was looking for, you know, and what I wanted.

And so I used all of my energy medicine background. And you know what? We're in big need of a natural facelift system. Something that actually releases all of this stuckness that we have, you know, on the lines of, you know, disappointment in life and our divorce lines on our forehead and all the things that are just stuck there. So where are these divorce lines? Divorce lines are up here in the head. Right. And this is around the mouth is life's disappointments. So are the are the radiating like from your lips?

Are those life's disappointments? Oh, yeah. So I think of it more like, like, you know, when we brace and we frown. The lines that go from the corners of the mouth down to the chin and create

How Facial Muscles, Fascia, and Lymph Affect Aging 6:28

that what we call what we ever so politely call, you know, the Marietta lines. That's the area that we really kind of hold in brace. And that's where all of those muscles tighten. The fascia titans around it, the lymphatics don't move. And now you're stuck with that and you lose the jawline. These lines stay there. The apple gets pulled down. So there's all kinds of trickle down effects from, you know, all the things that we're holding on to. And, you know, I mean, we're going into menopause with the conversation as well.

And that's a huge factor as well. I just have to like take an Excel and be like, I mean, I love this. It's like you never hear skin care or the face spoken about like this. It's usually just like we have wrinkles. And if you put this on, it should get rid of them. So. Right. Tell tell us more like tell us a little bit of, you know, maybe explain the fascia and the lymph for those who are int aware or never really thought about it like from a facial perspective. Right. Like we think about our lymph in our legs or you know we got to walk or jump on the rebounder.

But kind of give us that story because that's beautiful. Yeah. Well, first what I'd like to do is kind of start from how we view our face from a, from that mirror moment moment. And I'd really like to say that we, I would love to shift the conversation that women are having with each other and with themselves in our social media into what is the what is my face trying to tell me? Like, what is the communication? Rather than looking at it as something that needs to be fixed. Right. So it's more like that.

Yeah. That, you know, there's a communication there, right? It's trying to tell us something. So it just gives us a little bit of softness towards ourselves and towards others. So I'm kind of passionate about that you know direction in our conversation. So from that perspective, when we talk about the muscles of the face, the muscles of the face in two different folds is are that if we're having a conversation, I'm going to subconsciously reading your nonverbal cues communication that you're giving me.

And my micro neurons, my, my neurons in my brain are going to go back into the limbic, the emotional part of the brain, and tell me how you're feeling. So I don't gather the information from looking at facial expressions. I'm gathering the information, as we all do, from micro mirroring your expressions so that my brain understands what that means. So the muscles actually give our emotional brain information about the conversation. So it's a little bit different than we think about. But that's also an important factor as well.

Because you know, when when I talk about the muscles of the face are the all about emotion, unlike the muscles of the body, that they do get stuck. So the muscles of the face don't have opposing muscles like the muscle of the body where we have lengthening and contracting the base is not like that. It has, you know, muscle to bone, our muscle to muscle. Right. So there is nothing that's opposing like a lengthening of a joint. So when we have experiences in our life that are stressful, they show up on our face.

It's our communication with each other. That's why we can read our best friend and say, what's going on for you, even if they're putting on their best face, you know? You know what I mean? Yeah. So so that is really where the conversation starts and what happens with the muscles, where we're contracting them. And the more we contract them, it decreases fluid circulation and lymphatic circulation. And the fascist starts tightening around that. And when the fascia titan's around that it locks it in.

And now we have a decrease in in that in that ability for the for that area to detox. We have an inability for it to hydrate. Well. And when you think about it, the fascia is a collagen producing machine. And the lymphatic system moves that college into the areas that the body needs to repair all body, not just the face, the whole body. Right. So if that's congested, how that's going to show up in what we might see as premature aging is it's not about the lines and the wrinkles. It's about the sagging and baggy.

Right. So losing the jawline, dropping the apple sagging here, you know, and then and then the tension in the muscles that create lines that aren't technically skin. You know, skin lines, you know, from from dryness or age, I mean, that's always a factor, but it goes way deeper in that, which is why I could not find anything that did what I wanted it to do, because I was looking for a miracle at the time, to put on a load and have it change the, you know, the underlying tissue. I'm trying to stay focused, and I'm also like looking at my I'm like, well, I'm there.

What's going on over here? So I don't know if this is a left field question, but this is how my brain works because you talked about like freezing. So I just want to bring into the conversation right now like fillers, Botox, like these are things I'm like you, I'm very natural. I'm not interested in. But could you and no judgment if like you're listening and that's what you do. But could you educate why those may not be the best choices? Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. And so and I do speak from a, from a completely different perspective than, you know, a, you know, a holistic practitioner that might be saying,

Why Botox and Fillers Can Disrupt Expression 12:24

you know, we now know that those toxins travel down the nerve to your brain. We now know that decreasing muscles also decreases Acth. Like we know there's a chemistry to it because they're not the right. Well, exactly, exactly. I mean, any neurotoxin, you know, or in a filler that that actually takes up space between the muscle and the fascia. So you're actually releasing the fascia. So the adverse outcome to that is is potentially more sagging or migration. So which we see a lot of but this is the thing is, is that I agree with you.

As far as it's not about judgment, I get it, I get it. There is so much pressure from our social media. It is a multi-billion dollar industry for mildly or minimally invasive procedures. Right? So we are targeted and it it drives the information in our brain. And as we age, I mean, imagine being back in the dating scene, the first thing you're thinking of is smooth face. It means being attractive, being beautiful and being attractive. But I can tell you that that we're getting a beautiful shift here, which is great.

And we can talk about that, you know, as we go. But to go back to the original question is, is, is that what what we are talking about when we talk about freezing the muscles of the face, is that part of our job? As for example, as a mom, whether it's an infant or a child or a grandchild, is is that we are teaching this little brain to regulate. Right? And of course, what teen doesn't need emotional regulation. Right. So the emotional regulation of a teen has to do with our ability to be able to show facial expressions so they can read us.

Now, let me put that in the application. Right. So if a teen well here's one. Right. So you always used to be able to tell from across the room whether I need it to shut my mouth from the look my mom was giving me. Right, right, right. You know what I'm saying? So. So that is part of how we learn. Like a females brain doesn't develop those mirror neurons fully until they're 21. And as a boy, 25. This directly relates to emotional intelligence, because emotional intelligence is about being able to have those soft skills that enable us to connect with people and relate with people, and that happens in this 70% nonverbal world.

So in a functional MRI, if you have a teen in the functional MRI, watching videos of people who have Botox and fillers, their brain actually fires up in that amygdala, their emotional stress area, as if they are under stress. So it fires up red. And my interpretation of that is, is that they can't interpret how that person feels, so they don't know if they're safe. They don't know if they're angry, they don't know if they're loved. They don't they can't regulate what's going on. Wow. That's fascinating.

Super important right? Yeah. Super important. I know people like, well, you know, make jokes about it or whatever, but yeah, this is you know, it's kind of it made me think of when, like when Covid was happening in the masking. And I know there was a big issue with children like the the Covid era children who were growing up and how they were missing what you're speaking about because they couldn't see facial expressions. Right. And you know what? I think the interesting part of that is as well is, is that in addition to that, we were also creating separation.

And I think that that is part of this, you know, the process that when we cannot connect with each other, we will ultimately separate from each other because we don't feel like we're relating. Right? Like on any relationship, if I can't connect with someone, I'm like, oh, that was fun. But, you know, not right. Next. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So, you know, when you connect with people because you have that feeling that you, you know, and that's from, from reading their facial expressions, from connecting, from having that energy.

So the physical space that we were creating was a huge factor as well. So this is such a fascinating conversation. You can tell why she's a friend, but I'm going to shift it a little because for those who are astutely listening, you said natural facelift system. And we want to know what that means, right? Because I'm not going under the knife to get a facelift. But if there's something natural I can do to perk things up, you've got my attention. So and I also want you to talk about I told you this is not your everyday skincare because you beautifully gifted a bunch of us in our group some of your products, which I adore.

The Natural Facelift System and Energy-Based Skincare 17:28

And you know, you also have like body care and stuff. I love the body cream so but there's these little green balls in your skincare and your moisturizer. And so I want to really, you know, give you the floor right now to she's got one on her, you know to like talk about what are you doing. Like what is this true energy skincare. What is natural facelift. Like you have lymphatic tools like this is this is this is the bomb diggity, people. We've landed. So I mentioned earlier that energy medicine was a huge thing for me in my practice.

And so if I do an acupuncture treatment or any other type of treatment and emotional treatment, what my patient then goes into what I, what we call an integration room and the integration room means that they are then integrating with different frequencies or vibration, whether it's from sound, laser, light, crystal by photons, whatever that frequency is, that we're helping their nervous system integrate into that vibration, because the longer they stay there, the more their body gets it right. So and you're very familiar with adding your practice, right?

It's about it's about, you know, that exposure. So we know that for example with one acupuncture treatment you might get some benefits from that. And they might last a couple of hours or a couple of days. But the concept is, is let's get your body to function on its own by learning how to vibrate at a healing frequency. Right. So that is the the my interest in energy medicine. And that is what I took, you know, on the other trail to making the little green bead and the energy tools like the facelift one and the, the body stone, and I imprinted those with the frequencies that I was working with to optimize the benefits of not only the ingredients, but to actually increase college and production to.

It actually has hundreds of thousands of different frequencies in it, because I want it to have the cell repair to it, which means it has to detox it on every level, and it has to be fed on every level, and it has to be know how to regenerate on every level. So I actually being a little bit of the same path as you, a little bit of a detailed person on the science aspect of this is, is that I did a third party study with Doctor Piglets because I wanted to know, like if I was doing this in my practice and I'm seeing the results I'm seeing, can I actually put these tools in people's hands, have them do it at home and get the same results because, you know, it can be different, right?

So I did that and Doctor Piglets actually called me after 15 days and said, I have no idea how you're getting these results. These women look like they've had many facelifts after 15 days. And he knew nothing about the frequency. He thought it was like the little 800 gals magnets that were in the tool or the germanium. But it's the frequencies that help our system, right? So the the outcome was great. 23% increase in college and production in 30 days. It doesn't. It takes like 45 days to just begin the production of collagen.

So this really validated it for me, which was really important for me because you take something out into the world, it should do what you say it should do. You know what I mean? You know, stand behind your product. And that's so I was excited about that. And I definitely was ready at that point. And this was years ago to really go, okay, let's let's have people put this in their hands and, and get the results that they want, because otherwise they're paying for either Botox or things that aren't good for them or, you know, $350 for like a treatment that they have to do ten of.

So it's just costly. This is manageable. I love that I mean yes we could talk frequency and regulation all day long because that is the name of the game. And I you know I was just when you were saying that I was thinking about like the integration room and the integration and something that always makes me sad is when you go to yoga and it's time for shavasana, and you see people getting up and leaving and it's like, so yoga was just a check mark on your very busy schedule, and you missed the juice of integrating or jumping off the table after you get a massage.

Right? It's like I, you know, no, you need to lie there and then you need to have a shuttle home so you can just keep on keep on grooving. Right? So it's so powerful. So take us through a little bit about, you know, your products and your system. How, how how does one do a natural facelift. Yeah. You know, so I don't know how your audience feels about the concept of a download, but I definitely feel like the, the protocol was a download from some someplace because it really was super intuitive and innovative in the sense that, you know, I had I had the knowledge in the background, but when I when it really kind of laid out in this perfect protocol, it has to do with with moving the lymphatics first. Right?

You have to dump the toxins before you can put the nutrients back in. Right? So moving the lymphatics first, and that in itself, after ten days, if someone's holding a lot of a lot of toxins in there, they look like they've lost 10 or 15, 20 pounds because we hold it in our jowl and in our neck if we're, you know, on those toxins on the face that doesn't move. Right. And then the next part of it is lengthening the muscles that are, you know, managing our stress and holding the bowling ball on top of the neck and all of the areas that are contracted from our stressors.

So with the with the lengthening of those muscles, we're releasing the emotional stress from those as well because we're releasing where we're holding it. So that's a part of that protocol as well, where I think of it as length and length and lift length and length and lift. Right. So you have to be able to lengthen the muscles on the neck, lengthen the muscles around the mouth to relax. Now you can pop the cheeks. Now you can get the, you know, cheeks back up because it's not being dragged down by the neck and the jawline.

And then the same thing with the forehead is, is, you know, lengthening the muscles that are contracted in our forehead that gets shorter and shorter and make us, you know, those are some of the aged areas and between the eyebrows. And by lengthening those, it allows the eyebrows to pop. So and then the skin care itself, like you said with a little green be my ingredients. I'm really, really particular about ingredients. And the way I really see ingredients is that it can't just be one hero ingredient, it has to be a hero formula.

And so the formula has all of these really high

How the Protocol Supports Skin and Cellular Health 24:58

active ingredients at the percentage that they perform. So what does that mean? So if we're doing you know someone's doing research on one particular ingredient, you can start at a lower percentage. But there's going to be one percentage that it starts hitting where you're actually changing the effects and getting the results that you want most. Skin care. Do they just put the name on it and the percentage is not a factor for me, it's a factor. It either has to be an active ingredient or a support ingredient.

So I we do an herbal formula, right? Yes, yes. Well in fact actually you make a good point. You make a good point because when in clinic when we think about functional medicine, functional nutrition, functional herbs, we're talking about doing a like a functional. Let's do a supplement right. A functional supplement that gives the body information so that it can perform like I like to use the thyroid as an example for that. Right. I'm not going to give thyroid medication. I'm going to do proto morphogenesis, you know, of like pituitary or thyroid gland.

Right. So I'm giving glandular to try to feed the gland so it can start producing what it needs to produce. Right. So that's kind of the functional medicine. This is like functional skincare. Exactly, exactly. So that's exactly how I think of it I I'm not going to put a collagen in it because collagen is a large molecule. It can't really be absorbed. It's not going to get. And what is your body going to do with the College of Molecule? You know, so what I do is I use ingredients that say, hey, here's how you produce collagen, here's the ingredients that you need to make that collagen so that your body starts really feeding the cells from the inside out.

I love, you know, you're giving the information, right? We're giving the impulse and allowing the wisdom of the body. It's, you know, it's how I it's how I practice medicine. Right? It's beautiful. So I have one more question that I was just thinking, like, you know, you're talking about this natural facelift. And the good news, ladies, is that. And I didn't say this in the beginning, but Kathy is one of our sponsors. So we bow to you because without sponsors we couldn't provide all this free information to you.

But Kathy's going to be at our after party, and we're going to have a webinar, and we're going to be able to go into a lot more depth and a lot more detail. And she's going to answer questions live. And so keep your eyes open for that invitation, because the summit is amazing and the after party is fun. And so we can just dive deeper. But I was thinking while you were talking about, like, the facelift and how like it makes you look better, but what about like the medicinal? Like what is it actually also doing for you?

Because I know, you know, just from what you're saying, it's not just about looking better and having a higher gel. So could you just speak to that? Yes. My favorite topic. Right. How did I know? Right right right right right. Because, you know, we we talked a little bit about like fashion lymphatics and, you know, the muscles and things like that. And and that is definitely a part of it. But when we like, when you and I talk about how the body feels, the only thing we can do is provide information, right?

That body can does what it does based on its overall organization, if you will, of information. So what I think of is is organized information and organized frequencies produce an optimal situation for the body to become resilient and know how to and use that innate healing. Right. So this body knows how to heal. It's an amazing, amazing piece of equipment here we live in. So really everything that I think about when I'm like imprinting frequencies or I'm doing a protocol and why I say it's not, it's not so much about looking at our faces, something that needs to be fixed, but something but a line of communication.

And so if we can really start viewing ourselves as a line of communication, we might start seeing like, I'm really not getting good communication on, you know, through through my lymphatics, you know, or because and then we're symptom based. That is just the nature of, of us humans. Right. So we're looking at the puffiness, the dullness, the lines, the heaviness. And those are just symptoms. But the underlying is is what I'm looking at as far as resolving and communicating and really getting our body to communicate.

That's what I love about the body Stone is that it repairs the lymphatic system. But it's not just really the lymphatic system that we think of on a superficial level. There's so many different layers to that, because when our system is moving, when our system is working the way I know it can, we're increasing our nutrients that are being carried by the lymphatic system, because a lot of people think of the lymphatic system as just detoxing, but it's not. It has to do. I mean, it saves our life every day, every second, every millisecond.

It saves our life, you know, and it develops nutrients and it supports our immune system, and it makes sure that there's not too many extracellular fluids. And it actually provides nutrients across an embryonic, you know, path to give like probiotics to a fetus. So there's all kinds of amazing things that our body can do if we can move the stagnation of fluids, of the fashion tightening up and start like redirecting that circulation, and then our body innately takes over as it knows how to do. While you were talking, I was thinking, you're like, truly a skin doctor. Oh, right.

Like, you need PhD, the doctor of the skin. Like we think about the skin, doctor. We go and they look. But you are truly doctoring the skin. I'm giving you a new PhD. Thank you for that. Well, I see it as a system, right? You're right. Yeah. It's superficial. You and I see it as something as part of a system that doesn't work independently. It's beautiful. So, I mean, when you embrace the true energy skincare line, it's like you get to see the outer beauty change that you're looking for, because we are very visual creatures, but you're getting so much more benefit that goes along with it for your lymph and your fascia and your connection.

And it's it's amazing. So where can invites. Yes. So where can the audience work in the ladies learn more. I know we have a link for them to get a discount which is lovely.

Where to Learn More and Final Takeaways 31:58

Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's true energy skincare com slash doctor stills. So true is true. There's no at the end of that. So true energy skincare. Stills. Awesome. Well thank you for that I am I haven't gone through the natural facelift yet so I'm really excited to do that. And when we follow up, we'll dive deeper and we can take you through that process. So it's just I'm just like, I'm just so blown away. I love people who, like, see an issue and then start a company to fix it. The true entrepreneurial spirit here.

So with so much wisdom, you know, you walk your talk. And so thank you for being here. Do you have any one last word of wisdom or anything you wanted to say to the ladies listening? Yeah. You know, I often think about, you know, what vitality looks like, you know, and you know how when you see someone from there, from the back and you have, like, no idea what age they are, but you can just tell by their energy, by their step, by their, you know, how they move. And all of a sudden that person is just, like, amazingly vital and youthful, and then you might see their face and be very shocked at their age.

But the, you know, but the real truth on that is, is that what we're attracted to is that vitality. And I think that I also want to say that it is never too late. I have women who've done Botox their whole life. I've had women who are in their 80s 90s. My mom uses true energy and she's in her 90s, so it's never too late. Yes, a beautiful message. We say that for hormones. We say that for health. We say that whether you have an extreme diagnosis or like it's never too late. Magic, miracles, healing, you know, connection, communication, information is always available.

You just got to step into step into the field and allow it to flow. So that was amazing. So again, it was true energy. Just one e skincare with a forward slash doctor stills. You go check out her website. You know and if it's something that interests you which I mean it's just so fascinating. And then is there do you hang out on Instagram or anything like that? Yes. Yeah. So Instagram is under the true energy skincare. All of the social medias are the true energy skincare. Then there's also a Cathy Goldstein on on Instagram where you know like some of my speaking engagements.

And then the other is, is I do monthly webinars for people who have who used true energy. So I'm definitely a very present hands on kind of person. Awesome. Well, go check her out. Well, we'll all come back to next year's summit looking quite different. So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for your contributions and your beautiful products. I'm excited to dive deeper myself and thank you everyone for being here. What a great conversation. And so you just never know what's going to happen on the summit and what you're going to learn, how you're going to learn it.

And I appreciate all of you being here. I know time is our most precious commodity, and I don't take it lightly that you choose to spend your time with us learning and growing. I know there's a lot of information out there, and I, I take it to heart that you're choosing to come and learn and grow and heal alongside of me. So I'm sending you all love, appreciating you for being here. And get ready. We'll be back with another talk. And until then, we'll see you soon.