In this episode, Jill, Aja, and Laiya talk about the experience of perimenopause. To learn more about connecting the physical and spiritual process check out this article from Veracityselfcare.com https://veracityselfcare.com/knowledge/body/menopause-goddess-phase
For more info on how to treat symptoms check out this article from Menopause.com https://www.menopause.org/for-women/menopauseflashes/menopause-symptoms-and-treatments/menopause-101-a-primer-for-the-perimenopausal
Call 866-HEY-JILL and leave us a message with your comments on this episode!
Welcome to J dot L, a production of iHeartRadio. Well hilarusy here here, Hi, everybody, Welcome back to J dot L the podcast. I'm here with my sister friends. You know him La Saint Clair. That's how I felt, I don't know Adria Graydon Dansler were starting with o's okay, how about this one? Oh oh oh no, that was Johnny Gil. I couldn't get the right note at the beginning. But we're working out. Y'all knew what I was saying, don't you know? If you know?
You know?
Anyway? Hell and oh, this is Jill Scott and I'm sitting here with my sister friends. You always wonder like why is it that we don't why is it that we don't have a video. Well, currently I'm sitting here taking my braids out, preparing for what I got to do next, Hunty, and I was thinking about that moment, that black girl moment when you cut your braid too short and end up cutting your own damn hair. Oh lord, I told you, I'm I'm I'm ridiculous. Cut below shoulder all at all times. I know not that long. I know it has not under any circumstances grown that long. But I just I do it anyway, do you.
It's for the potential.
You're in a low Asian.
We all do it. It's like maybe I had a growth.
Maybe I had a grocer first. It's the delusion for me, don't want to cut my hair.
Right.
Looking at your hair and it is long. I see where you've cut the braid right, yeah, And I see where your hair is, and I understand, yes, you're you have you got it like you know the right one. Girl, It's not.
Going shorter than a bob. I'm not cutting this shorter than a bob.
Go to the We've all made that mistake at some point and cut the cut the wrong length. That a ruiny day because the style that you have underneath your braids now no longer works because you've got a whole chunk cut out and what was right ain't Yeah, I protected, it.
Was protected style. I don't feel protected.
I feel I feel yeah. So you've got to take precautions not to do these things to yourself. You don't want is to have a full day of being a bitch ass bench.
I said it.
A whole day just being because it's a good reasoning that happened to you, I don't know all bitch.
Today we're going to talk about why these bites? When is it? Why that that the break too short? What's your problem?
Sir?
Well, what's up with you?
All of it?
Is it really up to us to understand it ain't always our fault. I'm not saying yeah, of course, it's not always or even sometimes our fault at all. But sometimes something happens, whether it's external, sometimes it's internal that messes us up. And all of a sudden, we're walking around with this bitch ass attitude. And when I say that, like I know, people like, hey, that's not the one, that's not her, that's not her. Talk about her, we love her. We talk about with the hefty bee ooh it talking about about that nasty attitude and that confrontational spirit that just want to you know, bark huh, you see it, you see it? You want to bark anything and anybody stank when you be in your joy and it triggered you and you be like what.
Right?
Like that you have to check yourself because you don't be used to it. You be moving through the work, You're like, wait a minute, hold up, did she.
Steal my energy?
And my joy, bitch down.
It's a talent. That's a talent that's not the loving hat. No, it's not that. It's that it's that other energy. And you know, some people definitely act like it doesn't exist. I don't know how that works because they out here. I've had my moments. Anybody else have the moments where you're like, oh, I'm being a whole bitch right now. Yes, I definitely have those moments. But guess what I do? I shut down? Well, see, I've had a moment where I can I get outside of myself and I can actually see and I'm like, oh wow. And you know how you emotionally have a moment where you outside yourself and you actually see yourself being wild and you can't stop it, and you be like, oh wow, I'm I'm wilding, Like you see yourself going down the road and you're like, I'm wild I can't myself you know what I'm saying. You know how that that lyric and time after time she says, I see you when you're walking too far ahead. It's like you can see your own self walking way too far ahead, and you're just like I can't stop her. She's gone you're just gonna.
Have to do the apology tour. That's what I do. I'll come back the apology ter er. I'll be like i'd have done that a couple of times, like I'm did I because you know I didn't mean?
And then I'm sorry, I don't. I don't know where that came from.
This is this is the good part about growing up, you know, as the only child. Oh, because this is where I separate myself. I'm like, Okay, nobody needs this, then nobody needs this. If I can just shut down, you know what I mean, if I can put these headphones on or this is these earbuds, if I can, you know, I isolate myself because I can't make any promises. Today is not the day. I'm not having a good one. And nobody wants to hear, you know, especially a stranger or somebody driving next to you. They don't want to hear what happened. They don't want to hear what happened. They all they know is that right now this bitch is wilding or being I haven't been alone in twenty five years.
Agent don't be believing, Jill, what you mean. That ain't true.
That ain't true. What but I'm like what you just said, Okay, the only child, the only child.
Wow, it is admirable somehow that bitch will seep out in places around people that you just you can't help it.
And this is Jill.
So what she's trying to say to me and you aga is is that ain't nobody ever really seeing her?
Bitch nigat all?
You said this only child go inside, put her headphones on. You know, she tried to go and because she don't want nobody to see this, because you know I don't.
It's not so much I don't want you to see it. I don't just want you to experience Oh.
Yeah, because okay, I don't.
Want you to experience it because I know it's primarily it's my inner shit. I don't have anything to do with you. I might have just got my cycle today. You know what I'm saying today, And that's not it's not an excuse, it's a real it's factual. I'm hurting. My downwards are hurting.
You know.
I'm hot, I'm agitated, my my stuff, that stuff on me that's swollen for mysel I'm bloated, like I don't feel like being pleasant. I'm mad, I'm agitated. What I'm taking away from what you're saying is that it's like having an understanding of what's going on with you and then taking that space for yourself is like the number one issue around even controlling your own bitchiness. And then you know, and then it informs kind of the way that you receive someone else's But let's not talk about someone else's in this point. My point is that that self awareness bit is really good, and at this age, very easily we can switch from being it could be on the first day of your period and then before you know it, it's it's the start of the last days. Oh boy, the last days of the last days of said period.
Because let's do and then you don't have that self awareness because that that that them last days sneak up on the.
We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back.
It takes us to a certain point in our life to even understand how to navigate around the PMS.
I don't know about y'all, but.
I started playing things like now that we have apps, I'd be like, Okay, I'm not gonna make these decisions because I know I'm gonna be in PMS or I ain't gonna really tap too many passionate conversations with him because I know where I am right. But right when you get to that point and you start to understand it, you can, you know, maneuver around it. Forty five, I'm just telling I didn't turn forty five in January.
Bitch.
I ain't seen my periods as February child, I don't know what is going the fuck.
Let me tell you something.
When you don't know when your period is coming, you.
Want to talk about the emotions and the confusions.
About my whole life.
Seriously, Jill, what's you're talking about?
What you jonas? My period disappeared when I was about fourteen, We talked about it. We stay away until I was thirty three. Okay, occasionally like one too every now and then, but it just it just disappeared.
But is it different now now? Is your quadunari right now? Es quaternarian?
Yes? What that?
What that looking like?
I'm not experiencing some of the things that my peers.
Are because you did it earlier, That's.
What I'm saying. I feel most of my life that's crazy. That's what I think. Like my home, it's always been you know, Iffy, you know what's been really interesting, you know, would be really interesting as scientific scientific level, medical biological level, is that, like so Amber sent us some really awesome articles about paramento pause, and one of the main things they talked about is like the switching of the different hormones, Like you're kind of wired hormonially during a certain period of your time to be a giver to mother, whether you choose to mother or not, right that you're kind of wired that way hormonally to prepare for something like that, for this like optimum time to mother, which is interesting a story about that later. But and then as you go into perimenopause, you have a different kind of hormone and it's a specific hormone which they call the queen hormone. That's just like a nickname for it. Don't get me into what it's actually really called. And then you you kind of turn in word and start thinking more about yourself. Now, what I would love to see is that this time has passed already. But my curiosity, my geek curiosity, wonders, at the time that you weren't having your period, what type of hormones were you experience? Were you experiencing these highly giver mother hormones regardless of not having you know, having had the actual period happening, or were you always experiencing the queen hormone?
Your bitch factor is that shit is crazy, your bitch factor everywhere de'll night if you I'm.
Just I'm not saying, kurrent you know what I'm saying.
But it started like if that's the case, what Asia is saying, like, yeah, your shit.
Is all.
Saying it could have been here. Here's the key if we are if we are correlating bitch behavior with queen behavior, see, let's get into it is bitch behavior actually just behavior that prioritizes the self, because that is what queen queen behavior is. Right he said, well according to this nickname of this hormone. Right, So, how many people can relate to the fact that, Okay, over forty you start maybe getting creative, taking like a war class, yeah, traveling more, getting less attentive to like the needs of your family, and starting to think more of yourself, which is not a negative thing.
Right.
So our perception of bitch behavior because it can be very anti towards what society says women should be, which is nurturing at all times, right, and so that that bitch behavior could not necessarily be negative. It could just be that we are socialized and we are indoctrinated into believing that women should behave in this way that's kind and nurturing and welcoming all the time, and when we don't, it's it's you know, it's it's an affront. Y'all.
Asia just broke it down.
She just said, some man created the word bitch and told us what it was.
Yes, she did. Did you hear that?
I heard it?
Did you say that I did?
She said? It makes sense, It makes sense. And here we are judging one another, having these interactions in which we decide who we are as people based on what a standard of what. Ooh, I haven't said it. I haven't said it alone, weird girl. I can feel it coming up through my toes, up to my chest, through my throat and through my lips, through my throat. Oh, white supremacy. So what you're saying, I did this? You know this is partially biological? Yeah, that we have this hormone initially because we're fertile and young and we are our bodies know that it's time to you know, make babies that you that you have that nesting period where you settle down. Yeah, you know all of these things. And once you hit a certain age when you're going you know, when you hit forty five or so, you know, you've got a queen hormone which no longer focuses on family and having children, like you said, and you know, because your kids are primarily grown or older, so they don't need as much, you know, that kind of thing. So now, but you've got this yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, it.
Isn't an a pause.
That's that's us like losing estrogen, right, like our testosterone.
So I don't know, y'all, isn't this kind.
Of some testosterone and estrogen. We have a lot of boats in the first you know, earlier stages, right.
And so it's interesting because I'm just thinking of it from a male perspective because I'm like, okay, so we start growing hair in places that men may grow hair, and this is just the cons I'm sure there's some beautiful queen pros, but I was just thinking about the likeliness to men.
In that way.
I wonder what happens to them.
It's like, are we getting some of their traits as we begin to mmm, that's what it made me think of in a way, right, It's like, not only are things changing hair, places, mouth, chest, chin, this is happening. As that's happening, we're starting to care more about ourselves. You're saying like men, I'm I'm not saying.
Oh man, but I'm just saying, like, I mean, this is an interesting conversation about biology versus social you know, you know, like what parts are part of our social understanding of ourselves and our behavior, and what is like really a biological you know thing, because really we're all women, and we all have a different experience. And Jill herself, who's a human being and identifies us as a woman, was born with with female genitalia, had a completely different experience in life as it pertains to those parts of her body. And who's to say also too, I'm sure maybe I'm not. I mean, I never I never said that out loud to a group of people, you know what I mean, anybody that's listening. It's not like I'm like, yeah, I didn't get my period for years and years, you know.
I didn't.
I didn't say that to anybody, So maybe I'm not the only person or of women who you know at some point they're cycle went away. I just thought it was interesting that that's what I prayed for and that's what I got.
You manifested something and you received it.
Is that what you said? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. I asked guy to take away my cycle because it was painful and I didn't like any parts of it, and then bring it back to me when he was ready for me to have a baby. Shit it girl. They went away and it came back when I was thirty three years old on the day. I'm just curious when we had the African ancestry, who in your lineage is the souths theyer is the medicine woman child. But I do think also too, I want to be careful because like so many types of women listen to this show and say that we're not we're not also saying that you cannot tap into a high level of nurturing at having children at in your forties because because of women have children in their forties. But I actually think when I in the fifties two, a lot of times when I see women who have children ate quote unquote late in life, life like another societal thing. But like who have children late in life, sometimes I feel like they're more prepared to have kids. They have potentially more patience in my opinion sometimes, So I don't know if that I think, you know, I mean, I feel like biologically we're talking about something that probably applies to a large portion of women. But how can we really know because women really we're not talking about this enough with the data.
I will tell you this, it is an interesting mind fuck to have your fabors taken out one year and then the next year and not get your period no more, mentally die you know, you try, especially as a person who receives God and all their messages and.
Is trying to follow the path that is set. So you just gotta know that you believe God is doing all the right things for you.
So in that way of a forty something woman, I do wonder if women are like me at this age and that, who are considering kids.
Hey, I still am in the.
I don't know.
I'm like wherever God leads me.
But it's a mind fuck if you're going through this and you are consciously trying to make babies, like imagine like, but then also it's also a mind fuck because it's easier, they say, sometimes it's easier to get pregnant because you don't know when that that fucking period coming. So they a lot of there are a lot of menopause babies.
Oh tons of them.
What are they calling them?
Uh A changed baby, change baby, we got unicorn, change rainbow. I love it.
I love it.
Yeah, it's just changing.
You know.
I know you haven't seen Jurassic Park, but like life finds a way, life gonna find a way. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. But I think, you know, just having that kind of sense of you know, perspective active on when we're dealing with one another or even like I said, really mostly when we're dealing with ourselves, they understanding of ourselves. And I do think this, like there's a lot of negativity around perimenopause and a lot of feelings of like what you're going to lose and what type of like intense things are going to happen to you, but having this perspective about it being like a renewal because in one of the articles it was talking about how like even some of the symptoms are really indicative of the high stress levels that certain women have particularly in like American society, because in Japan they didn't even until recently have a word for high flash. Their word for menopause is like a word meaning like renewal or rebirth, you know what I'm saying, And that and that hormonally because of the changes, you can get huge sparks of creativity and like really kind of fine and redefine a new portion of your life. And so I think I think that that immediate kind of you know, the reputation that is more indicative of the highly you know, structural issues that happen in this country that are just freaking stressful, and as our bodies and minds are pushing back on that. So some of the bitch behavior is, you know, a form of resistance in a lot of ways. It's like I should be enjoying the benefits of this time and not having to push back on a society that continually want that wants to drain me, shame me. Fel like I had enough.
I definitely go back and forth, But I also understand, you know, I feel like being parry. Menopause is going to be the new period in the sense that even the way we started our new season and talking about like we're talking about our Cusi's on.
TV right lately, finally, finally, So lately I'm.
Having a lot of conversations because I had to find I had to find my extra bind and I had to find my yam. So I have been sweating a lot, you know, just in public and the interaction with people when they writteness your sweat is something.
Now.
First of all, I would like to shout out my mother because this is clearly a payback. I didn't know she was going through perry menopause in my age, and I would always ask for if the she needa towel, and Mommy your sweating.
I always let her know like she ain't. No.
Now I understand that was wrong. I also understand that it's a lot of us going through these things. And I just think, like, I don't know, y'all we got commercials for these things. Now we got I don't if y'all seen the new commercial for parent even pari menopause is a commercial for some drug, and I say you should take it. But it all starts the conversation and talking to the younger generation, and so this all.
Gets better, all gets better, honest.
And I sell every now when I talk to women, I'm really sitting here like thinking, okay, so how old is she is? She's being a bitch. I'm trying to be conscious of all the things. Like it's just a it's a process that I think we getting there.
Gets like this though. First of all, I didn't even know perry menopause was a thing until a couple of months ago. Okay, forgive my ignorance, but I never heard the word before.
I was like, our mothers didn't have a name for it.
Popped up in the script and I was like, what is that? That's one and the number two. You know, so we're all learning about this thing that is inevitable. You know, it's inevitable. So there's a there's another portion to this, like there's always a reason, you know, there's always a reason for a thing. Nothing just really happens because it happens, you know, the rainfalls, the seed is is nourished and fertilized in the soil, the sun hits it, eventually it's going to start to grow. Right, This is kind of how life works. One thing begets another. How is it that we you know, the explanations for everything kind of gets it kind of gets I get weary, get weary. There's always a reason for a thing, you know, I get that part, But it makes you feel tired. Don't nobody cares about Like I said, they don't really care about your reasoning. You just do you think that the reasoning? Do you think the reasoning maybe makes you feel to hell the space like you haven't been able to hold a space for how it makes you feel, Because I think sometimes what I hear when people say I'm tired of the excuses, I'm tired of the reasons for everything. How I think that, how I process that is I just need to feel my feelings without knowing any other things first, you know, because I'm a perspective like a junkie, you know, And so in listening to you, like partially what that kind of feels like listening to you is like I just want to feel my stuff, you know what I mean? Like if you did something and I witnessed you in a space and that triggered me, or that made me feel some type of way, like I don't have time for the why it made me feel like this period.
That's because that's the easier thing to do, though sometimes too, I don't know in my mind, and you know, not just you, Jill. I think sometimes people do think that way too, because it takes a it takes extra thought to.
Actually to actually overthink things like that.
Like it takes thought to be like and sometimes you just want to go. Sometimes you just want to like you said, I guess you just want to have emotions. But you also you got to consider that we have words and stuff or things that we haven't had before, and we have we do have explanations for things that we.
Couldn't explain before.
So I don't know, I feel like there's a gray in there. I know it's a weird balance, but I'm in the gray all the time.
It's a both. It's just a both to me, like you know, not to be a typical Libra in this moment, but I think it's I think it's a both. You know what I'm saying, Like, yes, hold space for your feelings, like take a minute. Yeah, and if you don't like some shit, don't don't like it, you know what I'm saying, And you don't have to engage in the perspective of it at that moment, you know what. I at that moment, maybe I too need a little bit of time to deal with whatever it is that you're projecting on to me or whatever. Maybe I need a moment to figure that out. But these are This is what I'm talking about specifically, is that there are moments when, let's just say, as a as a parent, or someone who is even babysitting a child. Okay, you've had a hell of a day. Your your ankle hurts, I don't know, you've you've been sneezing. I don't know all the reasons are, but you have to find it in yourself to have patience with this child until you can put that child to bed. The goal is to feed the kid, watch the kid, read the story, knock that kid out, so go to sleep, and then you can deal with it. You can deal with the things that are are oppressing you at the moment or on your spirit.
That's a kid, that's a kid.
What's the difficult Everybody, Like I said, it's a both, friend, it's a both. What's the difference? Because we end up having to deal with stuff all the time, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean eventually it's a circle back, no matter what it's like. Saying that as a president of the United States, or or whatever country. I've heard this over and over over the years. You know, people with that shit. Or I wouldn't want a woman president because she's got to deal with her period. Let me tell you something. We deal with a lot of things, okay, And you can't tell me that a woman cannot be rational or cannot think the bigger picture in the middle of all the stuff, you know what I mean.
That's an interesting argument, Jill Man, Okay, are you Are.
We really saying that?
No?
So if I'm having a hard conversation with me and I'm in the middle of a bitch episode that I don't have to be responsible enough to know that I need to walk the fuck away. I need to walk away because I'm gonna say something or I'm gonna do something. But if you don't have language, if you don't have language for that, then you can't create systems to support it. So it's like, eventually the conversation about what's really happening to you got to happen. Absolutely more conversation after the break.
If you don't have language, are you excused because you don't have the language and you're just reacting?
But everybody knows this is what's going on with.
You, or they know something is going on with you. Well, I feel like this. Everybody will use who you are and what your experiences are to create a box for you to be in because they need to be able to predict your behavior, tell you what you can and cannot have. That's just a habit of a capitalist society. They just trying to do that. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you create a culture around conversation and around understanding, then it doesn't say that. Okay that and also too again, let me just put this out here. If we have even the idea of having a president and not having or not having a situation where there's a joint decisions to be made and that it's not a decision of a single person, is problematic, right, because even if you're a man, that's a problem because even men can have emotional breakdowns, mental illness, depression, any number of different things that might be bowel syndrome. Yeah, everything that they could you know, X.
Y and Z.
Hopefully that's why we got checks and balances, you know, juditial legislative, right, but checks.
And balances in the world, it's a checks and balances issue. You can't have those checks and balances if you're not willing to have conversations and create language around it now in the process of that. Yes, if somebody's being a bitch to me and I want to cuss this bitch out because of the way she's treating me and because I'm triggered by her behavior, then okay, I have my moment. She had her moment. We had our moment. It's the circle back that counts, whether it's the sun the two of us, whether it's a circle back between the two of us, or a circle back within our personal conversation with ourselves in which we all take accountability. And now we say, hey, you know what, let me check this calendar right quick, let me let me think about right, let me think about let me give myself the proper perspective around where I am. You understand what I'm saying. And so that's kind of what I was getting from Jill, is that let's hold space for both. Let's hold space for the fact that reacting to raggedy behavior is a natural thing to which we sometimes need to allow ourselves the ability to do, particularly black women, because we are constantly talking ourselves down from our actual.
Feeling I'm about to say, I might have talked myself down to the point where I don't think I'm allowed to. But I hear you.
I'm working when.
We talk about this and the rage again in the Race the Machine episode where it was like being able to tap into the realness of how you are responding to some stuff in the world. Right, So I don't even think it's really like I said, it's not an ore, it's not a choose this or this again. I'll bring this back up. It's that binary thinking constantly. It gotta be one thing on the other. No, I was in the gray, in the gray, and I wouldn't even say gray. See gray indicates unsureness, okay, gray indicates that, oh this is this is clouded. It is not clear. No, this is clear. To think in a circle is clarity. To think in a binary or in a linear is not.
But it's also it's clear to a point.
Because Jill brought up a good point, like I'm sure, I mean, I'm sure there's a low order episode to back me on this.
There has been an episode come.
On Where Love where the.
Defense wanted to use free minstrel syndrome as a reason because physically things happen, and literally, as y'all talking, I'm reading through this package that my doctor gave me after my visit on all the things I can do about my my my menopause, and these these things cover antidepressants are in here, you know what I'm saying.
Like there are some real I mean mind and they come to my doctor.
She gave me herbal treatments as well, but mind body other treatments. Vaginal dryness that can piss me off too, and that's not even faginal.
I'm sorry.
Anyway, we had a conversation about bagial dryness. Y'all please use that muscle or else it will dry. That's a side note.
But my point is is that if a woman does not have a hold on what is going on.
With her at all, like if all the stuff is happening and she doesn't have medical coverage or going to a dot, or she doesn't have anybody or her mother to ask her, what's.
Your minstrel story?
Like you don't even know that this is the time that your mother with this, because y'all, that's real. My doctor did say, ask your mama. That could lead to a little bit of unsettling things. I could see someone reacting from these things. Yeah, so that's why I say, and so I'm so that's why I say there's some gray because if you don't have this knowledge.
Are severely you know, impacted.
What you do.
So so what we're saying here, well what I think we're saying, I'll say what I'm saying. How about that.
Damie took their hair off fast, amazing black woman, that was magical?
Thank you?
Is that.
That we have to care about being a woman. They're apps for this. There's sights, there's conversations that are being had that if you you know, we're loud, we're proud, we're women. All of these things are happening to our bodies or naturally, And if we care about the people that are around us and the and and how we present ourselves and not not as a robot you know, I'm not. I'm not talking about pretending to be anything. I'm talking about being all of yourself and all of ourselves in order to get it, then we actually have what again, some work to do. Yeah, but I think that's a small nuance there too, that we should that we should mention that as long as this kind of information is like she said, is not used to oppress us or to further subjugate us or further put us in certain boxes. Then in that but that that information is used to create larger structural changes around structural changes and like societal changes around the culture changes, around the way we look at women and their bodies and their evolution and their biology and all this other kind of stuff. Because needless to say that if you are a trans man, you have all these same things going on inside your biologically, and so you might also experience this as well. And you know, depending on what your experience is, you will also.
Therapy they go through.
That's interesting.
And what if you don't take any of the hormones? Right, what if you're a trans you just present that way. But my point is, my plan is at the end of the day, I mean, that's a whole other conversation that's outside of our personal wheelhouse, definitely, But I just wanted to just to put it out there in terms of like the bigger question for I mean, the little nuance in there is that yes, we should talk about it, yes we should have language about it. But the minute that people start trying to flip the damn script, okay and use that as an opportunity to do us foul. We gotta be able to check that it's no different than if we talk about things culturally with being black or being whatever. Yes, these things might be true, but when people try to shift and switch the narrative, it's our job to pull the coattails on it. But I think ultimately we can only benefit from more conversation. Then we cannot benefit from more conversation.
Asia, you could not be more true, because I'm gonna tell y'all some of the best moments, and it's hard to say best moments impairmental and in the same sentence, but some of the best moments I've had in this perimenopause journey is when another woman, sister or not like comes to my aid, and not in the sense of let me do something for you, but even in the sense of, bro, I know what you're going through, Like even that little thing right there, it just makes you feel like, Okay, so I don't look crazy out in these streets, you know.
Or it's somebody I'm somebody got a.
Fan because now I travel with fans now, but if somebody else got a fan, they fan in me. Or I see somebody else weating, and I'm just like, girl, take some of this, you know, like it's just the little things. And then we start a conversation of yeah, girl IV and I'm working on these jams.
But we you in, you know, just like let's just let's talk, y'all.
Let's just if you well, that's a good thing. What are you doing? Because that's a good thing in terms of like just I know that people listening to this probably do have their own stories, like and so you know, we got us a little wanting hunt and number you know what that is. We know, like what y'all are doing to cope? My sister, what are we doing? What should we do with the herbs we should be taking?
Yes? Is it the black cohash or the blue cohash?
Because they confused me.
Is it's always gonna be something, It's always gonna be we all, she said, it's always it's always ogonda.
But the yams, I'm just gonna tell y'all funny is funny real quick?
Sex and the City was that the movie?
Part one?
Sex and the City won the movie? I don't know, y'all, remember Sam and girl that ain't nothing but the truth. When she was like the yam the yams. They work, y'all, and they come in a pill form. I have organic jams that I got, So I'm just saying between that in the extra vent my sheets.
Are so much drier, honey sweet, Because he don't know that that needs to be a remix. I'm so serious it is.
He has a remix already.
No, no, no, we need there's a special come on jail, come through you don't want to.
And I get a night Sweats remix. I don't know if I'm experiencing that quite yet.
You ain't going to You were so exceptional girl, I don't know.
I don't know.
I bet.
Exceptional tribes.
I bet you. Hey, listen, if you had your cycle go away for years, drop drop a little message and let me know, please, because I've been feeling alone out here, like what kind of thingy thing am I?
You know?
I would love to know you. I just want to get back to the bitches real quick, too, okay, because what I'm getting at is that we're giving a lot of reasons.
You ain't got time for your excuses? What what what?
What you want from the what I want? What I want for us? And I'm definitely including myself because come on, y'all. I'm a people. I'm a people, and what I'm looking for is some accountability. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. It's like, you know what, one time, I'm gonna say a name because because just because I met Terry Vaughan.
Who is lovely right, yes, lovely yes.
I met her at a thing and I was absolutely in the middle of a lot, and I didn't really want to be there, but I also wanted to be there, you know what I mean. You've had those moments. And I went to this thing and I just did not have it in me to talk to anybody about anything. And when she started to talk to me, I said, I cannot talk to you right now. I would by myself. I was by myself, and I saw her, I saw her coming from across the room. I was like, she's gonna talk talk to me. I knew that and I and all I could say was I cannot talk to you right now, okay, you know. And I felt terrible about it because you know, in this story, you were the bitch, and this story, I think I would think that I was absolutely What accountability do you think you owed her in that moment? Is it happening now. And I didn't think I got old her anything. But I saw her years later mm hmm, and I was like, you know what, I remember that day that we met, and honestly, I just was having one. I was having one and I just couldn't. I couldn't, I could not engage. And she was like, girl, everybody go ahead. Oh I can see her saying that. So let me flip the script on you. What if she said to you, I don't really want to hear about your excuses. That was fucked up what you did, I would have to say, okay, okay, okay, like everybody ain't for everybody that's number one, school or friends or and I know that, you know, first impressions are lasting, but sometimes it's not the day. Sometimes that's not the person. Sometimes you're not the person.
And it is what it is.
I mean, that's what we're saying. It's pretty cut and dry. Sometimes it's just not. But that's that's the thing. That's the overall thing here is that if that was something that we all kind and she for her, it was a basic understanding. She had that understanding already, whether you knew she did or not, she had that understanding of that. Oh, everybody has those days, you know what I'm saying, And I just you know, I think at the end of the day, for me, I just want us to kind of move through the world like that, not saying that it's okay to be X, Y and Z, but that there's a thing where we understand that this is a thing that happens whether we like it or not, it's going to happen. You're going to roll up on a woman of any age, but particularly of a certain age, and you might get, Yeah, what you get, Damn.
That's that same thing happened to me with India. That is so crazy, you know what I'm saying.
What you get, whatever it is that you get at that time, doesn't necessarily define the person forever. No, no, no, And it's something you on the other side.
Shout out to the NDII Raca.
She me and her had that same conversation once because I had I had a similar cinemon to running with her, and I just shout off the sisters for the circle back, because sometimes it takes a lot to actually approach the person who you felt like approached you wrong, and it takes a lot to approach you know to respond to when you know you was wrong, you know what I'm saying.
So I just everybody don't get the circle back.
I'm gonna tell you right now, that's true. Everybody don't get it.
And some folks should be like, we'd be all right.
I know I was wrong, but I ain't. I was at a casino somewhere. I don't remember what I was exactly, but we were rushing. Everything had gone wrong. I was missing some back line, you know.
It was.
It was stuff. It was a bunch of stuff. And I think I may have been in the middle of a divorce. I'm not sure, but it was a bunch of jam, you know what I'm saying, as life will hand you sometimes. And I remember going through this, this through the casino, I'm not expecting to see anybody, and we're all moving fast that time, and we're moving really fast, and this woman comes up with her daughter and they were so sweet and they had so many feelings. But I did not have time. I didn't and I did not have the right energy to be engaging with a child either. I didn't. And this is a sweet, seet little little thing, and I hate that moment, like if I could go back to a moment. I hate that moment because I know that they will come in like it genuinely, you know, to say something positive or you know, to give a hug or something. And I wish that I could have been a little more mature in that moment. I wish I could you have an extra element of things you have to deal with. Okay, so let's you know what I'm saying. Yes, all the things we're saying apply to all of us, but for women who are public, oh, I'm just saying, jail, jail, jail, jail. Seriously, that's a little bit extra responsibility and it's rough. Yes, right, that's that's a rough one for you because then you have to navigate other people's feelings in a different way, and it's more likely to happen at a time when you really can't and the people who you're involved with you're likely not to see again.
And impression.
Yeah, that's a lot, that's a lot to that's a lot to carry. I will say to you as a friend, just you know, and not that you haven't released it, but that's a part of your life that's unique to your life, and you're going to have to let that one go because at the end of the day, it's like, I don't even remember.
Where I was.
Yeah, you remember that feeling. Understand that that's going to happen in your job. That's like, you know sometimes, but you just made an excuse.
For being a bitch.
Though you sure did. You didn't make it's a it's a reason. I just there can be a reason. No, no, it could be a reason though not an excuse.
There can't be a reason.
No, I'm sorry I used us.
I used the wrong word. I should have said if there is a reason, and you know you had a reason, and sometimes other bitches have so maybe sometimes you could just you know, agent, can you finish this sentence in that real literate.
Way you do it? Go ahead, girl, stop? No, you did.
You did the thing?
You bought it for circle, because that's what I was thinking. I was like, but him, this is what we've been saying from the beginning. It's like, yeah, the reason and a lot of these reasons are the ways that we cannot take things personally.
And the person that you that person that you projected that to, has no idea of your reasons. They just know your Jill Scott, you your joy and love, they love you, and this is the one in a lifetime experience walk around on rose petals.
So I'm gonna go clean the toilets. This really was a clear I'm a normal person and I have a job that's highly stressful, and I still have to engage with you, you know. And and it's very similar, even though these people are not quote unquote public people. But it's the same thing as being in a service job when all you do all day is interact with other people, and your job can be so like janky on the background of it, but you still have to go, hello, hey, how man, I help you? How are you doing? How could I be a sir? See you today? Right in a minute? That you know, and in the back they could be paying you thirteen cents an hour, but.
You still need me to smile so you can be so you can feel good about buying this product right right right.
And I'm telling you for women who are out there, and I never forget this. During the pandemic, with the early part of the pandemic, y'all remember that picture that went viral of that woman who was working at Popeyes and she was sitting outside on the bench and she was looking exhausted, and it was just like this. It started circulating kind of as a joke about people being Oh no, it wasn't the pandemic. It was when people was in line for that chicken. Yes, and shit was exhausted, right, and people like laughed about it. But can you imagine, like I said, the circumstances to which our fast food we were.
Stealing them sandwiches.
People was doing everything.
You imagine the pressure, Oh you imagine being forty two oh.
At Popeys during the height.
Smile at the window chicken gate.
Oh, that's like the perfect metaphor, at the at the height of the chicken gate. What nothing like that trying to be pleasant or wanting to and just can't girl, just just can't like because they started at nine this morning. As soon as we stopped making.
It an open look in a lot, it's a lot of.
And y'all nasty. Ain't mad at me when we run out, like I ordered the chicken.
Come on, I think she got a reason, she got a reason.
Just un lets I talk about who primarily holds some of these service jobs. Hello, and who they are, what they look like, what's their color, and what's their gender? It is with it there you're gonna come.
In there fighting people because your sauce ain't right.
Girl.
It's a lot, it's a lot more conversation through the break. So in terms of we had a discussion about our discussion has been about kind of identifying, giving language to our experiences and you know, humanizing our bitch behavior to a degree, not excusing it, but humanizing it. Thank you. But in order to kind of move forward and create this culture of understanding, we also have to take some accountability to making ourselves feel better and doing the things that we can do that not only make us feel better but also improve our interactions with one another. So that being in the spirit of such right, I'm going to go back to this little list, which I'm not going to take credit for. Amen, we give this credit to Amber Amber who says, and it all comes back to rest a couple of things. Doctors can help you navigate your hormonal imbalances. So please talk to your doctor. Don't be afraid, you know, open up or if you see a like a homeo not homeopathic, what is it called a natural? That's not a doctor doctor, right, go to talk to your person. Write whoever your healthcare specialists. Is talk to them. Eat more foods that are high in photo estrogens like flat seedy and to food and uh, these can be consumed through natural food sources or supplement. So you can do this in a supplement. So you take your a pill if you're a pill person, if you like to eat it, you know on something you can do that. You got the black cohash, which I don't even know nothing about it. I have to look into that. Fore, you got macha, which I think that's how you how you pronounce it, but it's.
Spelled m a c a machel root.
Something called vitext is that it? And of course I favorite the Oshua goss. That's what I'm gonn name my daughter.
Sounds like I like it.
I like, but you gotta say it like that, can I guess? And last, but not least, we got the red clover. A review of studies found that red clover isoflavone okay supplements may help reduce the daily frequency of hot flashes from a baseline of three per day. Now I'm gonna put my little last one on here. Remember that the hot flashes and some of these symptoms are unique to the United States of America. Because of our culture of creativity and our culture of stress, depression and everything else. I can imagine that if we are intentional about changing the way we move through the world and not allowing those stresses to lead our lives, that we might see some improvement in these kinds of things as well. I want to refer back to one of our lovely guests whom I love so very much, the Nap Bishop herself, who told us in so loving a way to set your bitches down and take a nap, sist nap.
But don't at chocolate before you do it, because there are also foods that are let them to sweating, and chocolate is one of them. I would just like you to also dig into that and see the things that.
We eat the ad to sweat.
AND's last last tip is yams sweet yeas.
Okay, oh, I didn't realize. I just think in front of y'all that just okay. I'm glad I did it and didn't think about it.
It was I don't have a tip because you ain't got it. I don't. I don't have a tip, but I just I just want to throw that out here to try your best. If you're if you're feeling like you're moving through the world in a in a way that isn't positive. Pay attention to to where it's all starting from. Pay attention and do some investigating. Honey, you know, I mean, you gotta you gotta know, you gotta feel it, you gotta see the energy around to change because because because you on one, you know what I mean, take a minute, You got to excuse yourself in any way, like A just said, take a nap. Maybe try to eat the right foods, have a little more water, you know, whatever it is that you need to do, because don't nobody want to experience that. Nobody know, nobody wants, No, nobody really does. Okay, So whether it's me or anybody else, I'm gonna try to hold on, hold on the mind, the bitch on my outer bitch.
Still, don't implod, don't implode, jail, don't implod never, okay never.
Thank you so much for listening to j dot L the podcast. It is our pleasure to have conversations that sparks conversation and action. Bless y'all.
How do you eat an elephant?
One by time?
Hey, listeners, it's Amber the producer here. I just want to reiterate that we are not doctors, so run any type of supplements or treatments by your care team, and if any of you can relate to Laya's journey with perimenopause, I hope you embrace this as your godd it's yours. I'll drop a link in the show notes to an article that gets deeper into that queen hormone and it kind of spiritualizes that transition that Aga mentioned earlier in the episode. Our bodies are so deeply intelligent and the shifts so beautifully designed by the creator, So don't let patriarchy and capitalism get you messed up. Embrace the queen hormone and dive into you in any little ways that you can shift focus and take care of you and the little moments that you have. Again, if symptoms are heating up, there's a link in the show notes with all of the supplements that we talked about in this episode. Having a uterus, being a black woman or femme.
Shake gets complicated and layered.
For sure, But remember there is so much divine magic in every season, So do as Sweety does and tap tap tap in.
Love you. Oh, and if you have.
Anything to share about how you move through this season. Call us and leave a message at eight sixty six. Hey Jill, and share this episode with anybody that you know who is hitting that periment of pause age.
Yeah yeah, Hi yeah.
Hi.
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