How To Make Menopause The Sexiest Time Of Your Life

Welcome and menopause as the best sex 0:00

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of our Summit. I'm your host, Dr. Diane Mueller, and libido expert. And I'm so, so, so excited to have my friend, my colleague, the amazing Dr. Sharon Stills menopause, hormone, sex expert with us on the show today. So thank you so much today for being with us. Oh, thank you. It's always fun to come and chat about sex. Yes, it's the best conversation for sure. So we're going to talk about why menopause is the best sex, plus a lot of other amazing things.

So let's start there. Why can menopause for people who are their whole life be some of the best sex they have had? Well, and some of you may be going, is she in same sex? It's dry, it hurts. I don't feel good. I have no libido. And so I just want to put the context in that when you are working and have balanced hormones and you're on the right, bioidentical hormones and you've been feeding your vaginal tissue estriol and making it moist and plump again, and when you're sleeping and not sweating and all of those things and if you want, we can go into more detail about that later.

But like when that's all happening. And so you've reached you've reached like the physical and your balance. Then it's like, well, now that you feel good, now you have the energy for sex. And I think to me and what I hear from my thousands of patients after over two decades in practice is that one like you don't have to worry about getting pregnant. So that's that's a big one. I mean, I remember those days. It's like, you know, oh, that definitely takes the edge off the the sexy when you're worried about getting pregnant, when you don't want to get pregnant. And women always ask me, who are younger?

What's the solution for natural birth control? And I always say, if I had that solution, I'd be I'd be talking to you from my private island, with my private jet. And I'll, you know, perfect solution. And birth control pills are certainly off the table for me. They're just have too many side effects and too many ramifications down the road. And so so that's another topic. But yeah, so you don't have to worry about getting pregnant. And I also think at this point in menopause, you, you're in your late forties, your fifties, your sixties, your seventies.

There's something about just coming home to yourself and and being present with who you are and accepting who you are and being comfortable in your own body and that you can just let go and explore and hopefully you've learned. And if you haven't, here's your opportunity right now that self-care self-pleasure it's not a luxury. It's not selfish to me. It's it's mandatory. It's it's something that we all need to be doing as part of the human experience. And so sex can be this really fun, playful time.

And I often am a real big proponent of like self sex and masturbation, whether your partner or not partnered and to really know like we have to. What do they say? Like when you're looking for a partner, be the partner you want to look for, you know, and I'm saying kind of sassy, but it's true. Like you have to be what you want to attract. There is that law of attraction and it is a universal law and it really does happen that we attract what we're putting out and the level where vibrating out. And so if we're expecting to have sex with a partner and for them to just automatically know what it is that floats our boat and gets our rocks off like we have to know ourselves first.

And so it can be this really beautiful time of coming back because I feel like menopause and I always write it with the parentheses around the pause is this time to pause? And so it's a time to pause, not just to go to the doctor

Why menopause can improve intimacy and confidence 4:30

and get on the right bioidentical hormones and to shore up your adrenals and your thyroid and so forth. But it's also this time to pause about your life, about what you're doing, about what you're not doing, about who you're doing it with, about who you're not doing it with, about where you're doing it, why you're doing it, how you're doing it. And it's really this important opportunity. And I think sex has to be on the table. There. We often the way physiology works is we our body promotes staying alive and preferentially goes down biochemical pathways to keep us alive, to keep our our muscles moving and our blood pumping to run away from danger way before it says, well, yeah, you know, lie down and have a good time and feel good.

And so we, we need to kind of go back and look and be like, have we been in that fight or flight? Have we been in that fear, in that stress mode? And have we been too tired for sex or not having time for it or not thinking about it or not prioritizing it? And if that's the case, why? And it's also a really good time for women. So men, men connect through sex, right? I want to be close to you, baby. Come here, women. We connect emotionally, intimacy first. And then we're like, sure, come on, you can come inside.

And so it's a different thing. And so it's a time to also really look at your relationship, because a lot of times, if you're not interested in sex, there's things between you and your partner that are either, like out on the table or not working or have been brushed under the rug for many years and are not working. And it's this really good time to reevaluate the relationship and repair the relationship or remove the relationship. You know, there's many different options there. So it's this really to even look and we all have different levels of sex drive.

Some of us are super horny, you know, some of us not so much. But even within that I say to really check in like, have you just decided, Oh, I'm not really a sexual being. I don't really have a high sex drive? Like is that the truth? Is that something you've just told yourself? Is that something you've been conditioned into because men are studs and women are sluts and no, they're not. That's not true. Like we get to enjoy sex just as much and we we have these physical bodies. We're one of the only species that has sex.

Not only to have a baby, to make a baby, to further the species, but to just feel pleasure and to feel good and like, what's wrong with feeling good? You know, bring it on. I want more of that. Yeah, there is so much as you said there that I love and let's, you know, kind of pick it apart one by one because I think we can go a lot of different directions. I want to first just come it on the menopause with the pause being emphasized, because what I'm hearing what you're saying, it's kind of like a reframe of a midlife crisis, right?

We talk you read online like, okay, midlife crisis, things are going out of balance and people want to change their lives and their careers and everything else. We call it a midlife crisis, but I think a reframe to that is basically what you're saying. Like, why not actually take the pause and then can take it to it might not be hormonally driven in the same way to actually really reevaluate the, you know, life and say, well, what track do I want to be on for the next phase of life? And I really appreciate the reframe you're doing on confidence and on some of the value we see in what has happening at this time.

Like more confident, getting more used to once one's body and those sorts of things. So how do you feel from a standpoint of inner relationally with a partner like say, somebody has been with a partner, you know, at menopause, many people are with a partner. We're talking about menopause. We're talking about women. Many people have been with a partner for a very, very long time. At this point in life, that's quite common. And so for somebody that's feeling like, oh, sex is not for me, I don't care anymore.

I know a lot of people at menopause just get to a point where it's like, Whatever, I'm just going to focus on other things. Can you talk to us about like the value of coming back to a sexual experience at this time of life, of maybe it's been loss, like what that provides as value for a person as well as in a relationally why they should consider that. Yeah, good question. And I just before I answer it, yeah, I want to say, yeah, I love how you put the reframe in with your midlife crisis because I never really think of midlife crisis because I just think so what's the next chapter where we turning the page and you bring up men, right?

And then have Andropause like we said,they're testosterone. So yeah, men. Your men can pause to an open invitation for everyone to pause. The pause is powerful. No matter what your sex or, you know where you're at. So and then as far as your question as to why it's important to bring sex back into your life, I think there is a few answers to that if we're looking at from a physiological perspective. So orgasm, one of my one of my favorite prescriptions other than prescribing bioidentical hormones, I don't prescribe pharmaceuticals.

And, you know, both Diane and I are natural Catholic physicians and I have the ability to prescribe pharmaceuticals. I just never need to because I can handle it with natural means. But I so I love to use my prescription pad for fun. Things like, you know, orgasms, that's your heart rate for the day as you're leaving the office. And so the medicinal benefit of orgasm releasing endorphins and DHEA and oxytocin, the the love drug hormone, the bonding hormone, the anti-anxiety hormone, the balancing hormone to too much cortisol and stress.

I mean, that's my favorite thing. Like you're having a trouble sleeping. Yes, we'll get your progesterone. But like, let's start having an orgasm. And I can see how how well that fares against taking an Ambien. I and it's more fun and it's not addictive doesn't have side effects and it doesn't ruin your overall mortality and lessen it and so on. So, you know, so there's the benefit. There's the benefit of orgasm strengthening your pelvic floor like you got to use it or you lose it. So we strengthen the pelvic floor.

We protect and prevent urinary tract infections. We can burn calories. We it's strengthening.

The health benefits of orgasm and sexual activity 11:30

It's strengthening for our cardiovascular system. It increases our secretory IGA, so it enhances our immune system. So there's like all these physical logical benefits to having sex, to having an orgasm that are really important, that we think about these things and we never stop to think, Oh, an orgasm. Like I, you know, I have a talk that says an orgasm a day, keeps the doctor away, you know, forget the apple to orgasm with onboarding. So, you know, we think, oh, my cardiovascular system will let me go see the cardiovascular doctor, cardiologist and let me see if I need to take some medication or let me see Dr.

Stills and Dr. Mueller and let me see if I need Kochie ten or so for Hawthorn or whatever. But it's like we I want you to start thinking about like all these beautiful activities as human beings we get to engage with whether it's stepping out into nature or it's harnessing the power of your breath, or it's enjoying an orgasm and sexual contact that also act as medicine in just as powerful, if not more powerful way. So from a physiological perspective, to answer your question, that's why it's important to start embracing sexual activity again.

From an emotional perspective, I think it's kind of what I alluded to a little before that if you are shut down and not wanting to engage with sex with your partner or yourself, like what's going on? Are you just tired or are you in a trauma response and you know, trauma and sexual health, that's that's like a topic way bigger than we're going to dove into today. But if you have had, you know, a lot of women, I don't know the percentages, but a lot of women have had sexual abuse in their past and that can cause a freezing and a blocking.

And so that's a lot of unwinding and doing with a professional that needs to happen, but that's really important. On your healing journey for yourself as a person and your emotions in general, not just so you can enjoy sex again. So you have to, you know, you have to look at that. And if that's you, you know, my heart goes out to you and no one should have to endure that. And there is professional help. And that's not a journey you should take on your own. You know, if you want to start playing with vibrators and figuring out that's a journey you can take on your own.

But if you have trauma, like I want you to have people who love you and support you that are professionals that can hold you and guide you. So that being set aside, you know, you have to look at like, am I just too tired and why am I too tired? What's going on with my mitochondria? What's going on in my extracellular matrix? What's going on in my fashion, my lymphatic system? Do I have infections? What's going on with my adrenals, my thyroid, my hormones, blah, blah, blah, my gut on my liver, my bile, you know, on and on and on.

And so making sure that you are, you know, it's an opportunity to like, look at all the systems in your body and really help your health from a global perspective and emotionally like what's going on in your relationship, what's going on in your heart, what's going on in your throat are your shot. You know, are you not speaking your truth? Are your chakras blocked? Are you not feeling your heart? Are you not coming from love and experiencing love and bathing in joy? And what is that from? Where is the hurt and is this coming from our parents? God bless them all.

But like, you know, I think it's just this contract we sign, it's like, I'm going to be your parent. I'm going to love you more than anything in words. I can never explain. And I'm also going to damage that. God would do things to you that are going to make you need therapy. And so like what's unresolved and what needs to be and then, you know, and how is that playing into your role and your relationship with your self and your own self beliefs and your own self-love and your own self-worth and your own self-confidence? Yes.

And how is that been playing out if you are in a partnered relationship with your partner? And are you using sex as a negotiating tool or are you using it, you know, are you withholding you have to really you know, it's time, ladies, like if you're approaching menopause or past menopause, like this is not the dress rehearsal. We get this one precious life and we have to start really looking at these things and looking at them honestly and getting support where we need. But we've created such a taboo around sex in our society, in the States.

And I know a lot of you are listening from other places and like, you know, I was just in I was just in Europe, in Germany, and I went to and then I went over to Austria and I was at a spa and, you know, it's Europe. So like there's this big old guy who's doing my treatment and, you know, I get like a little paper string bikini and I'm naked and I'm used to that and I'm fine with it and I'm comfortable, you know. Then you come to that. I came back to the States and got a massage and you know, the towels are so wrapped so tightly around me, God forbid anyone should touch my breast or see my breasts.

And, you know, there's so much like the breasts need a lot of there's so much lymphatics that needs to be moved and drained. And, you know, it just doesn't happen here. And so we have a lot we have a lot of programing, a lot of talk going on, chatter going on in our brains around sex. And so it's a really good time to kind of unpack it at this point. Yeah, I love that. I'm reminded of a comment my friend made when she was starting to date a Brazilian and a Brazilian man and this beautiful man says to her when she put on a bikini for the first time to do whatever they're going to do.

And he's like, Oh, man, American bikinis are so boring. And it's that right? It's like in thinking about these different cultures and the programing in Brazil, like that, you know, the way that we're covered in America, although things have been changing in bikini fashion, but it's very, very different in sexes. No, you know, no different around what's happening in different areas of the world will dramatically impact how we are actually programed around sexuality and childhood, like you mentioned, all of these things.

So we were talking in some ways, you know, my question is like, okay, well, things are changing

Emotional blocks, trauma, and relationship reflection 18:30

and what are the benefits of continuing to have sex and menopause in menopause? And I ask that in part because I think as sexuality and impulse changes, the way we get it back in part is by understanding the value, right? So it's like mentally we understand the value, the emotional, the physical, the inner relational. All of these great things that we can really decide that we want to heal on a deep, deep level. And for the people out there that are listening that really have lost their sex drive, they're like, okay, I can get this intellectually.

What do you give them for advice to how to get their sexy back? Like, how do they begin to do this? Like now they're oriented to all the great reasons why getting sexy back is good. But, but how do people do it. Mm. That's a, that's a good question and there's, there's a lot of answers so and you kind of were reading my mind because I was thinking, I got to say this. So first thing I'll say is that if you don't have a sex drive, it could just very well be that your hormones are out of balance. And so it's very, very common perimenopausal.

I mean, even before, like if we look at the the hormonal journey of a woman who has a hard time getting pregnant, who has fibroids, who has premenstrual issues, who have endometriosis, who has PCOS, you know, on and on and on and on. Like these are all hormonal imbalances. And so they show up in all these different ways as we are journeying towards menopause. So if you don't have a libido, it could just very well be that your hormones are not properly being balanced and those of you that have heard me speak before, no, I'm a huge fan of bioidentical hormone replacement and especially for perimenopausal postmenopausal women, because it then it's not a it's not a disease.

It's not oh, why your hormones low? It is a normal natural process that our hormones are winding down. It's just that we get to live longer. We can live to our end, well into our hundreds and beyond. And so we want to replace them wisely and I'm not going to go into that all now. And I talk about that everywhere and nauseum, in-depth about how to properly replace them and measure them and test them and all of that. But that is just something you really need to be thinking about like. And it's not just testosterone.

You have to really think about your estrogen for women and your oxytocin and your DHEA and your progesterone and your adrenals and your thyroid. And it's a nice little web that's all we have together. And so making sure that's on board is really important. I often say illness or disease or imbalance starts out here in the energetic realms, and then it comes in until it's physical and we feel it because like we need to be hit over the head with a hammer to actually take action often as as lovely human beings that we are who are awfully busy.

But when it comes to balancing the body, I often feel like also, you know, let's get the physical, like let's get our meat suit balanced. We have this vessel, let's balance it and then let's see. And so if your hormones are truly you're working with someone who understands what they're doing and your hormones are all truly balanced and you still don't have a sex drive, then you want to start looking into more emotional, spiritual, mental things. And so what are some of the things you can do to just start bringing the juice up?

You know, starting to to get in touch with your sensual side with all of the the flavors of the senses. And so you can with your eyes, you know, you can watch like ethical porn. We've been told that porn is bad and addictive and in the hands of certain people. It is. But there's also like ethical porn that's more women friendly and done by women for women and not degrading. And so sometimes just watching be like, Oh, I feel it. So I can go down there. So that's something you can do touch, you know, taking a feather and running it over your naked body or an ice cube or melted chocolate, you know, playing around and just starting to feel moving your body dancing is one of my favorite things to just kind of, you know, you have to get into your body because sometimes often when we're not feeling libido, it's because we like we like we live in our heads, right?

So we're not even connected to our body. We haven't. So even just meditating, I'm a big proponent and teacher and fanatic of mindfulness, mindfulness based stress reduction and mindfulness meditation. And so even just starting to meditate and coming home to your body and, you know, touching your body and paying attention, you know. So mindfulness is the act of paying attention on purpose, moment by moment, while being kind to yourself without like beating yourself up because you didn't do it right.

And so, you know, just feeling what it feels like, you know, that feels good, you know, with food, bathtubs, candles, poetry, there's so many different ways to just start, you know? And it could be. Digging in the earth. It could be lying on the ground, connecting to Mother Nature, could be swimming in a stream or at the beach or there's so many different ways to get in touch with just the beauty of the senses, of seeing, of hearing. So music, you know, and it's like I always talk about so like my, my brand, my thing is red hot, sexy menopause and red stands for reinvent Your Health.

So that's like the physical, that's like what we're talking about, balancing the hormones and so forth. And then E stands for exploring your spirit. So that's like the mental emotional getting clear on your traumas and really, you know, investigating where you're at and where you're blocked and why you're not speaking. And the D stands for discovering your sexy. And so and I always say, like, what's sexy is to me like, is not going to be what sexy is to you. Are you, are you, are you? And I don't want it to be I want it to be like, what's for you?

Because sexy is about how you think. It's about how you participate in the world. It's about how you move. It's about how you smell. It's about how you hug.

Reigniting desire through hormones and sensuality 25:30

It's about how you dance. It's about how you love and share like I like my red lips beware. That's just my thing. You know, for some women, that's really important in make up or having the perfect perky boobs are perfect, but or like, that's fine too. It's all fine. Or having like a sexy dress or but it's all different for everyone. And so I want you like at this point in your life to go on a journey of really discovering what is sexy to you. How do you embrace your sexy? And to come to this place where like my sexy is good enough for me, I don't have to be worried about what your sexy is.

We're not 12 anymore. And that's why I always say, like, I don't want to go back and be 12. I don't want to be 18 or 20 or even 30. I, I don't want to be like getting fueled by drama. And, you know, I like being a wise older woman and it just keeps getting better and better as I age. It's like we truly are like fine wine. Yeah, I totally agree. And I really appreciate the relationship of the senses. Like, one of the things I like talking to women about is like, okay, who who listening? Is everybody listening? Like, who here has ever been having sex?

And all of a sudden the mind is like grocery list. Make sure you add apples, right? So it's like this is so I feel like sex and meditation are actually similar in many ways. And it's our ability, like you're saying, to be present. And if our mind is wandering to the grocery list probably happens. Most of us or something. But that's just a sign that we're not embodied, like you said. And the more we get inside of our body through the senses, the more sex becomes amazing. So, so. And it's almost there. Yeah.

I want to add to that also, you know, I talked about the big O and orgasm and but like sex can also just be about touch or it doesn't always have to be with the orgasm in mind. And so really learning to commune with Kate and to discover what your needs are like. I know personally, like I love a good orgasm, but there are times during sex where it's just like, you know, I'm just feeling so connected and it's like I cares about the orgasm and so, like, really learning to flow and be okay with where you're at and being open to it, being different every time because that's something that a lot of people can fall on too, right?

Like sex becomes like a, B, C, D, this is exactly what we do. So spicing it up, whether it's with yourself in your own self pleasuring practices or with your partner and being like, Hey, honey, you know, we're going to do a we're going to do D before A and we're going to skip AA and we're going to add an H. Yeah. You know, looking at us, it's just like, I don't know, maybe you do, but I like to go try different restaurants. I mean, I have my favorites and I have my dishes, but I also like to venture out.

So, you know, you can come back to your tried and true, but venturing out and trying different things and seeing like, ooh, that was really good. We're going to make that part of the regular plan. Yeah, yeah. As a carol who wrote the book Mating in Captivity, she always says it's like novelty is not about having a new partner. It's about like looking at your same partner with different eyes, right? So it's like in these situations where we've been together with somebody for a long time, how do we continue to find those new restaurants, those new dishes, all those things like you're talking about?

I want to circle back around to to this idea of Self-Pleasure, because I think it's a really important topic for people because for anybody listening, that's like not in partnership. I know there's a stat that says that we actually have that, that people that are not in partnership. There's one stat one research study found that they were more sexually satisfied from Self-Pleasure than people that were actually in relationships. So I think that's really, really, really important. So can we go more deeply into the concept of self pleasuring?

And, you know, if people have never really experimented with like vibrators or any masturbation at all, like where do people start? Where do people begin? How how do people begin this journey? And I currently am not in a relationship, so I'm like the Queen of Self-Pleasure currently. And now any nice single men. Miles Adams interview. I love it. As I educate you, but you know, if you happen to know anyone, you're like, Oh, I think she'd be a good match. So anyway, yes. So and that is an interesting sort of sad sort of not sad.

Depends how you look at it. But I think, as I said before, Self-Pleasure, you know, sex, it does begin with yourself. So even if you are in partnership, really taking the time and where does it begin? It begins. It begins where you feel comfortable and like so I we mentioned just a bunch of things, you know, whether it be taking a hot bath. So I so there's too much information in the bath that I was talking about in Europe. They have all these jets. They are list bath towels. And I was like, goodbye to you, Mr. Mann.

You know, you're like, I'm out of here 40 minutes for like, yeah, that was a great opportunity to to manipulate the jets and have myself a nice little orgasm in the Alps of Austria. And so, you know, so there's opportunities everywhere and, you know, playing with different vibrators and, you know, maybe you're not up to like penetration yet and you just want to start with that even on your nipples or outside and getting your clitoris and or maybe you just want to use your hands or maybe you just want to watch some of the ethical porn or whatever.

You know, you watch whatever kind of porn you want. I'm not you know, that that's between you and you and you can read, but, you know, you just want to make sure you're not using porn as a way to not connect with yourself and others. But there's so many different ways which you can enter. It could be just getting a massage and like allowing yourself to just feel the pleasure and just, you know, and even if it's not sexual, but just even just pleasure in your body, it can be sexual dance. There's so many different ways it can, you know, it can be just starting with a mirror and you naked and maybe you're not ready to be naked yet.

Maybe it's you a mirror in a boring American bikini if you're listening from the States.

Self-pleasure, toys, and exploring your body 32:30

And if you know in touching yourself or looking at yourself, maybe it's a mirror between your legs. This is something that I often have done in private practice with patients is like actually show them their vagina because many women have never even seen it. It's not like the easiest thing to bend down and take a look at. And so just getting familiar and understanding what it's composed of and what it looks like and accepting, they all look different and some don't look so great, but that's okay.

You know, they look like they look and accepting what they look like and realizing they're just a beautiful flowers and there's many different varieties. And so it really it really starts, you know, wherever you feel comfortable starting. I wouldn't say like go out and, you know, it could just be taking a trip to a sex toy store and kind of seeing what intrigues you and what you want to try out and you know, and that could be in person or always or it could be online. And I always I always laugh because like when you order something online, you know, the taboo like is pervasive, right?

So they ship it to you in a very plain box, a.s.a.p, embarrassed. And so it's, you know, it's checking in. Am I comfortable enough to I feel comfort enough to like, walk in, you know, in plain daylight to a sex shop and shop around and see what they have and look at yoni eggs and look at the different options and look at the different kinds of vibrators and the different sizes. And, you know, you can you can go down a whole rabbit hole. There is lots to choose from. So it just, you know, any journey is a journey so it's not necessarily about the destination, it's about the journey and it begins with the step.

And so what is that step going to be for you? It may just be that you listen to this whole interview and you didn't turn it off. It may be that you listen to this interview and you kind of got embarrassed and now you're going to go back and listen to it again and you're going to keep listening to it until you can take it in and melt into it. It could be that you're going to start journaling. It could be that you're going to start talking to your partner or professional. It could be that you're going to go get some pelvic floor therapy because you have pain there and that's been blocking you and you want to resolve that.

And so, you know, and it can be that you buy the biggest old vibrator, you can find it and you just go go to town and see what that feels like. It really, you know, there's no right or wrong way to do it. I would say the only wrong thing to do would not to be to get on the journey, to take one step, to start exploring, to investigating it within yourself. I love it. I hear so much around. Just be curious, right? Just be curious about doing something that maybe is pushing the edge that might feel a little bit out of your comfort zone because anything new right is going to feel out of our comfort zone.

So I really love that so much and that I wanted to also touch on the whole genital image thing because I think this is a really important topic and especially since it's connected to porn. One of the things that I've seen happen some times for people and for women in particular. So it's like you said, we don't see our genitals is watching porn and and being like, well, my vulva doesn't look like hers. All right. So I really just wanted to, you know, hone in on all Volvos are different. They're all beautiful.

Like, there's actually very, you know, I shouldn't say very limited studies, but there's research connecting how we feel about our genital image with how we actually are enjoying sex. So what you're suggesting around looking at it becoming, you know, become in love with your own vulva, right? However, it looks as perfect how it is and whatever is happening with everybody in the porn industry. If you're watching porn, you're like every vulva looks the same. If that's the type of porn you're watching, like that's not a good representation of all this, right?

Like media in general, right? Like everyone's that no one's really looks like that. And I think just to say to kind of put a bookend on it. Yeah. As far as body image, right. So are you able to have sex with the lights on or only in the dark because you don't like your body? And I think there's there's a fine line and a balance, like with everything. And it's if your body is that out of shape and it's not healthy, then that's probably something you want to address because that means you probably have insulin resistance going on and cardiovascular disease and all these things that are building that can end your life or seriously impair your life and your health.

So that's one thing. But, you know, if you have a little flab or, you know, a little flab on the arm here, like a life is too short, you know, these arms, they give the best hugs. And, you know, these are they remind me of my Jewish grandmother. And it was just the body I've been given. You know, they're strong. They lift they lift my grandbabies, they lift weights and, you know, decide what you're going to waste. You're like mental chatter on because I'll tell you, when you feel good about yourself, whoever you're with, if that's your self or a partner, they're just going to see the way you move and the way you carry yourself.

And they're not going to give a I don't know if I'm a lot of curse, but you know what? I'm they're not going to get they're not going to care if you have an extra pound here or a little flab there. If you're focused on it, they're going to pick up on that and they're going to pick up on the insecurity.

Body image, beauty, and redefining sexy 38:30

But when you. Yeah, like, hey, baby, this is me, you know, then they're going to be like, Oh my God, I love this. She's so comfortable in her body. She's so powerful. She feels so good. They're going to feel that, too. And so that there's really a fine line between accepting yourself and also making sure your your health and taking care of yourself. Yeah, I see. I love that too, because I feel like there is this this sense of like we can't maybe be healthy at any size because of the fact insulin resistance with obesity and some of these things.

Right. So it's like that to me is personally questionable, that sort of theory that I hear going around. But beauty is different, you know, and I really feel and like what I've seen in humans is that beauty is a large reflection of how we are showing up in our body with confidence and the ability to be in our body and move and all those things. And so even if we haven't figured out how to get to some of the root causes of maybe why we're having insulin resistance or cholesterol problems or whatever, it's going on, while we're figuring that out, we can still feel into the beauty of who we are in that moment and so much bodies are.

I mean, I have patients who are, you know, 100 pounds and have insulin resistance. And I have patients who are not you know, we have different constitutions. And, you know, if you look at it from an earlier Vedic perspective, you know, there's Vata and pitta and kapha and like couples are bigger boned and they're a little, you know, but they're they're like love bugs, you know, they're they get lost in a calf. They're, you know, they're either, you know, and so different shapes and sizes and shapes as long as you're healthy, that's what's important.

And so that is another, you know, undoing and misdoings of society and media. And, you know, you look back and and I don't know, because I wasn't like, say, Marilyn Monroe is a doctor, but like a size eight or ten. I think that's what she was used to be considered. Gorgeous. Yeah. And it would have been interesting to see like did she have insulin resistance or what was going on, but she had a beautiful, sexy body and so on. So, you know, we just we have to like my goal is for like a mass movement of women going through menopause, postmenopausal, who like just take back their power.

They get clear on their belief systems. We redefine and are okay with individual definitions of what sexy is.

Resources, giveaway, and closing remarks 41:00

We Redefine what aging gracefully means. We redefine that aging and the sacred second act we're in is a beautiful time. One to look forward to, not to fear like these are. Some of this is why I do the work I do because I believe we we are the tribe that can do that and then it will ripple down and it will change the generations that look at us and it will change their beliefs because they will see the aging population as a population who is happy and healthy and active and contributing and passionate and all of these things.

I love everything about what you just said, and I think that's a perfect book. And as you said, for our time today together, but I want to make sure that people know about how to get a hold of you. You have a a give away. You're giving away. So that's redundant. But you do if you do something, a book that you're giving away that I want to make sure everybody knows about as well. So can you tell us about how people find you and what you have for them today? Well, I too part of the DrTalks family.

So I hosted the yearly Mastering The Menopause Transition Summit. And you can find me at drstills.com or Dr. Sharon Stills on social media, which I'm doing my best to be more active on. And yeah, download my free giveaway because it's all about being sexy. It goes into more depth things we talked about here. There's lots of great journaling prompts and so it's a really good guide to help get you started.