Chapter 13 - Release. What Your Body No Longer Needs To Hold.

Perimenopause can feel like your body has turned on you, but what if it’s doing the opposite, pushing you towards the kind of healing that finally sticks? We talk about “release” as the point where you’re no longer in deficit and you’re strong enough to lay down what your body, mind, and life can’t keep holding. That includes the sneaky stuff: perfectionism, people pleasing, old stories about not being enough, and relationships that keep your nervous system on high alert.

We unpack the biopsychosocial model of women’s health in plain language, because hormones don’t exist in a vacuum. Gut health, cortisol, inflammation, trauma history, and your day-to-day environment all shape the symptoms you feel. When the ovaries begin to retire and the stress response system is already overworked, the “secret load” of unresolved trauma can surface hard, sometimes as anxiety, sleep issues, or a sudden intolerance for living out of alignment with your truth.

You’ll hear a moving healing story, a raw reflection on forgiveness, and a practical set of journal prompts that cut through the noise: what are you choosing, at what cost, how do you want to feel for the next 50 years, and will this choice support that feeling? We also explain ACE scores, what research suggests about long-term stress and chronic disease risk, and why none of this means you’re broken.

If this lands, share it with a woman who’s carrying too much, subscribe for more conversations on perimenopause and trauma-informed care, and leave a review so more people can find the support they need. What are you ready to lay down today?

Transcript

Release And Laying Down Burdens

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Chapter 13 Release, what your body no longer needs to hold. A parigraha is the laying down of burdens that were never yours to carry forever. Bhavani Silviamaki, The Yogi's Roadmap. Although this final chapter is not an actual phase within the hierarchy of healing, as a woman steps into reclaim, the idea of release is critical, and it's something I've seen manifest in my patients time and time again for over two decades. Reclaim so often becomes the moment when a woman finally feels vital enough to lay down what she no longer needs to carry at a biological, emotional, and social level. At this point in your healing, you've done the work in repair and rebalance to stabilize and bring your biochemistry back online. You've reclaimed more than your metabolic flexibility and body literacy. You know how to eat, sleep, move, think, and connect in a way that best serves your body. You've reclaimed your vitality. It's almost like once you've gathered all your parts and pieces back together, and you are no longer in a deficient state, in this new reclaimed vitality, you are now strong enough to lay down what no longer serves you and heal at a biopsychosocial level.

Healing Through A Biopsychosocial Lens

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Throughout this book, in my story and in several healing journeys I've shared, you've seen how our health and vitality live at the intersection of three interconnected domains biological, psychological, and social. This is the biopsychosocial model, and it's the lens through which I view every woman who walks into my clinic. The bio, biological, is based on your genetics, hormones, biochemistry, immune response, nervous system, metabolism, and the physical machinery of your body. This includes your gut health, your hormone levels, how your body processes stress through cortisol, and your physiological response to food, sleep, and movement. The psycho is determined by your emotions, thinking patterns, memories, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and stress management strategies. This is how you process experiences, the stories you tell yourself, the chronic stress you carry, and the way past trauma lives in your nervous system. The social consists of your work environment, family dynamics, relationships, trauma, life events, support systems, upbringing, status, location, culture, workplace, profession, and traditions. This is the context in which you live, whether your environment feels safe, whether your relationships nourish or deplete you, and whether your needs are being met. Where these three circles overlap is where true healing happens. You cannot fix your hormones without addressing chronic relationship stress that keeps your body locked in survival mode. You cannot heal your gut without managing the psychological stress that damages your intestinal barrier. And you cannot reclaim your vitality without acknowledging that your body keeps score, remembering every experience, every trauma, every unmet need across all three domains.

Truth, Letting Go, Perimenopausal Culling

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An invitation to lay everything down. This chapter is my invitation to the vibrant, vital woman you are becoming, to lay down what your body no longer needs to hold. To lay down every burden you no longer need to carry. There's a beautiful teaching from yoga, the yamas. There are five in total, and together they serve as a kind of moral compass, a guide for how we carry ourselves in and interact with the world. As I write these words, two feel especially relevant. Satya, which means truth or truthfulness, and a parigraha, which means non-hoarding or letting go. Without going too deep into yogic philosophy, I offer them because these two yamas remind us to finally release what we have been grasping onto and carrying for so long, both in our bodies and in our lives. This letting go allows us to step fully into our truth and into our most authentic selves. The woman each one of us was meant to be. This part of your healing is what I often call the perimenopausal culling, the purposeful thinning of what no longer serves your body, your spirit, or your mind. Think of Cecilia, whom you met in the last chapter. As she stepped in to reclaim, it was as if she could no longer tolerate living in a way that was incongruent with her truth, her true self. This showed up in how she ate, how she loved, how she cared for, and how she valued herself. She felt called in a way to release what no longer served her, to lay those things down, guided by the wisdom of letting go, so she was able to live in her truth. Part of this perimenopausal culling, and what I want to speak to next, is that during this transitional phase, when you experience massive shifts in your biochemistry, unresolved trauma or a high ACE score will often tap you on the shoulder. As we've discussed earlier, it can manifest in an intensification of your symptoms, or as feelings of anxiety resurfacing as you bump up against an issue demanding to be seen and addressed. Finally,

When The Secret Load Gets Heavy

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when the secret load becomes too heavy. As women, we can carry this secret load, this unresolved trauma in the shadows. We mask, numb, and paint on a smile that everything is fine, and we push on to get through our days as mums, professionals, wives, daughters, all the roles we play in our daily lives. But it is still there, the secret load, lurking in the shadows of our minds, our hearts, and in our bodies. I want to take this concept back to biology for a moment. During the stormy season of perimenopause, this transformation often requires us to reboot the systems in our bodies. Just like with technology and our devices, when something is offline, it often requires unplugging it completely so we can reboot the entire system. The same is true for your body during repair and rebalance. We unplug and begin to restore your foundational health. I want to revisit something we discussed in Sophia's case study. There we touched on what Professor Pryor described so brilliantly in perimenopause. The ovaries are trying desperately to retire. They have already done their work throughout your fertile years. Perimenopause is their grand finale. If you remember, Dr. Pryor compares it to the dramatic close of a fireworks display. When the ovaries retire and ovulation ceases, completing this transitional phase, the adrenal glands and peripheral tissues take on a greater share of hormone production. They do not produce hormones at the same levels as the ovaries did, but they can still contribute enough to help support overall health, particularly brain, bone, and metabolic function. But this handoff from the ovaries becomes tricky when the stress response system, including the adrenals, has been dysregulated for so many years of being overworked by carrying the secret load of a high ACE score. My hypothesis is this. When the stress response system has been on overdrive in its production of cortisol, taking on this new task of producing hormones is too much. The burden of the unresolved trauma simply becomes too heavy to bear for your already overworked stress system. There is no longer room for this extra baggage. In that moment, when you have never been more inflamed and running on the least amount of energy, your system can't carry the weight anymore. It simply doesn't have the reserve. And the results show up as disruptions in your bodily systems. That is when your body will invite you, gently but firmly, to finally lay it all down. If you remember Clara's health journey from chapter 11, I spoke about Dr. Bessel von der Koch's work, the renowned psychiatrist and trauma expert and author of The Body Keeps the Score. And, as we discussed, the inseparable connection he believes exists between the psyche, the mind, and soma, the body. His research shows that trauma is held in the body. He describes it as an interior discomfort gnawing to be released. That internally, in the body, alarms are sounding, warning signs that something isn't safe. If the mind cannot find a way to make sense of and address the trauma, the body will hold the cost. That's why it's so important to lay down the old burdens and coping mechanisms. Here's the question I ask many of the women who come into my clinic. If you don't have the energy to carry this load anymore, why would you choose to? Followed by what is it you want to carry into the next fifty years of your life? As

Maisie’s Story Of Long-Held Trauma

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you take a moment to reflect, I want you to meet Maisie. She's a beautiful woman, now seventy-five, who answered both of my questions with I want to let go. She's finally choosing to free her body of the cost of holding on to trauma for over sixty years. Maisie's Healing Journey. When Maisie came to see me, she described her upbringing in Spain. She was the oldest of four daughters in a busy household. Maisie first suffered sexual abuse by her piano teacher. As the abuse continued, her father died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving her young mum alone and overwhelmed with four young children. In this turmoil, no one had heard her cry for help. Looking back, Maisie could now see that her mum didn't have the capacity to hear or believe her, let alone the energy to investigate her claims. As I listened to Maisie's story, I thought her mum most likely shifted into survival mode, traumatized herself by the sudden loss of her husband. I believe her mum did do the best she could with what she had at the time, but it wasn't enough to protect Maisie. The abuse continued, this time with her grandfather. However, I believe that by speaking her story, giving light to her remembering, Maisie began to make sense of all that she endured as a child. She began to recognize the connection between her abuse and longstanding self-loathing and sense of unworthiness. She saw how these old thought patterns showed up in relationships she later chose. Maisie described how she chose two different men who were emotionally unavailable. For her, that felt strangely safe. The men's words easily confirmed what she already believed about herself. She wasn't pretty enough, strong enough, good enough, not this enough or any enough. These beliefs became the stories she told herself, that she wasn't worthy enough to be loved the way she deserved to be. I told Maisie After carrying these false truths and beliefs for so long, I invite you to lay down every one that is no longer and never has been true. What I wanted, what I still wish, was for Maisie not just to rewrite her chapter but her entire book, to nail the old one shut, because that narrative doesn't serve her anymore. Maybe it did at one time. Maybe those stories helped her feel safe or protected her in some small way. Maybe they helped her survive, and she did. But now I told her now it's time to lay everything down. I then asked Maisie, what does little Maisie, that young innocent girl need from us today? Without hesitation, Maisie answered She needs to play. She needs to be funny. She needs to be seen and heard, she needs to be believed, and she needs to be loved. As my heart broke just a little bit more, I added She needs to forgive herself and to know that what happened to her wasn't her fault. I wanted Maisie to finally, at seventy five, stand in her truth that she had always been enough, and to let go of the pain and the coping mechanisms she once gripped so tightly to feel safe. I want this freedom, freedom from the hold of the past for every woman and for you, beautiful. My work with Maisie confirmed something deeply important. One critical part of this healing, the true heart of laying it down, is forgiveness. To

Forgiveness And A Mum’s Mirror Moment

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explain what I mean, I want to share a personal story with you. My son's tiny hand. Although my son is an adult now, one image still stands so clearly in my mind. My son was four. Like any typical night he was brushing his teeth. Unconsciously, as we sometimes do, I was hurrying him up, impatient to get him into bed. I caught myself being a bit hard on him. Suddenly I had this moment. It was like a light shone on this tiny little hand holding the toothbrush. I looked at his fingers, soft and dimpled at the knuckles, still plump from babyhood, yet already the hand of a boy growing up so quickly. His tiny hand made me pause and sent my thoughts racing to memories of four year old me, hiding under the dining room table, my small knees pulled tight to my chest, hoping to escape the fighting and the risk of any violence. Then, the memory of being left alone in a hospital for six months came to mind. I was eighteen months old with my leg in traction, shattered from the accident. How could someone leave their toddler alone to heal? To be honest, those are only a few of the memories that flooded my mind. Standing there in the bathroom doorway, I thought, how could my parents have done this to this little girl? So young and so unable to defend herself. In that second, I realized that what I had experienced, what I endured, was wrong. It should never have happened to me, and none of it was my fault. I forgave myself for ever thinking it was. I forgave my parents because they did the best they could based on what they had been shown. Beyond that, I knew I wasn't going to be asked for forgiveness by my parents or anyone else who had hurt me. I had to have that conversation with myself, and realize forgiveness on my own. And that is the gift. If my story resonates, or Maisie's does, it is also what you must give yourself to forgiveness. As I tucked my beautiful boy into bed that night, I remember making a conscious choice to parent in a way that completely rejects any chance of repeating even a piece of that cycle of abuse I experienced. I knew I had to be conscious enough, self-aware enough, to let go of the shame, the pain, and the guilt I'd carried from what happened to me as a child. Looking at my son, at the sight of his tiny hand, I recognized that when I did decide to parent the way he deserved, I could begin my own hero's journey as a mum, and as the practitioner I wanted to be, a woman determined to serve others. I recognized something else. If trauma can be passed down throughout generations, so can stopping the cycle. I offer this personal story as another invitation for you to pause for a moment and take a look at where you are today. I recognize that not every one of you will have suffered physical, sexual or emotional abuse. However, I don't know of a man or woman who hasn't endured some type of adversity in their lives. Whether that showed up as loss, illness, heartbreak, or a hard thing that happened and left its mark, something that impacted you not just emotionally, but also as a whole human, your psyche and your soma. And if not, then you are one of the lucky few. For the remainder of the chapter, I'm turning the focus to you, to your life and to your personal culling, your own thinning, so you too can begin to rewrite your book, to step into your own hero's journey, free from the weight of the past. It starts

Responsibility And The Choices We Keep

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by looking at where you are today, wherever that may be, and truly feeling proud of yourself. Proud of how you made it from your beginnings, your childhood, your young adulthood, and finally to this moment. Perhaps there are things you still want to change, and that's okay. There will be time to do that as the vital woman you are becoming. But for just one minute, be proud of the woman you are right now. I want to prepare you that as you begin excavating, the questions you will have the chance to ask yourself, or beyond these pages, in therapy, breathwork, yoga, or whatever path you choose to explore, what might be surfacing in perimenopause, it won't always be easy. You will be asked to take responsibility for the choices you have made in your life, both the good and the not so good, and to bring into the light the things you're still choosing in your life that might not best support you the chocolate bar at 4 pm because your energy is crashing a bit, the unavailable partner who doesn't make you feel you're a priority, a job you wake up dreading, that bottle of wine on yet another Tuesday night, or whatever it may be that is not serving you. Here's the truth. If you are not changing it, you are choosing it. Why does this matter? Because only you can change what you choose. Only you can choose to draw the line in the sand and commit to doing the work to change your biochemistry. And once you've made that choice and you feel vital, once your foundational health is restored and your hormones are balanced, only then can you take the wheel to control the other parts of your life, to begin to choose only what truly serves you, and to release what comes at a cost to you in your body and in your life. The amazing news is this it is absolutely possible for you to heal and reclaim your vitality so you are able to lay it all down, to release the past, the limiting beliefs, the old stories, thought patterns and coping mechanisms. So let's get to it. Let's discover exactly what it is you want to take with you into the next 50 years of your life. What do you want to carry into the next 50 years of your life? This final section is filled with self-reflection and questions. My final invitation for you to have your mirror moment, just like I did while reflecting on the tiny hand of my son. A space where you can courageously look back through a lens of retrospect at the choices you've made. Do it with self-compassion, without judgment. The intention is not to dwell in the past, but to question how your thoughts around what happened can change. To understand, not to blame. It's about inhaling the brightest future and exhaling any darkness of your past. This is about gaining clarity so you can make better choices that are more aligned to your truth, your satya, as you move forward to step into your power. But before you begin, I want you to do one thing. Find a mirror. Look into your own eyes and say aloud, I love the woman I have become because I fought hard to become her. I borrowed those words from Casey Dane because they are part of her. Powerful, and because something that I believe with my whole heart is that the words you speak will become the house you live in. So beautiful, with those words spoken, let's begin. As you answer these questions, grab a journal, a notebook, or your healing journal, and write your answers down, pen to paper. As you look at what you've been choosing, whether unconsciously or consciously, do so always with honesty and compassion for yourself. Question

Four Journal Questions For Clarity

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one At what cost For this set of questions, here is the prompt to follow What is something that you are choosing to do or accept? Then follow that question with at what cost? Let me show you what I mean. You continue to tell yourself that you don't know how to take care of your body, your mind and your spirit at what cost? You keep giving your power away at what cost? You continue to choose to accept what you no longer want in your life because you believe you don't deserve better. At what cost? Your answers may look something like these examples. I'm busy, so I continue to skip meals and instead grab potato chips or a chocolate bar from the pantry when I'm so hungry I just need something. At what cost? My focus and clarity, a healed and sealed gut, and a feeling of having boundless energy. I continue to stay in a relationship I've been in for four years. I'm invested, and I'm choosing to stay with a man who makes me feel unseen and not enough. At what cost? My self-worth and not feeling like I'm enough? I continue to say yes to everyone and everything to please those in my life. At what cost? Peace in my life and in my nervous system. Now, moving forward, I hope that in every decision and choice you make, you will ask yourself, at what cost is this to my well being, my time, my peace, my spirit, or my sense of worth?

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With this idea in mind, you're ready for the second question. Question two.

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How do you want to feel in your life for the next 50 years? I believe this is one of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself. Healing isn't just about what you want in your life. It's about how you want to feel, and then your ability to make choices from that place. However, to stay anchored in that feeling you desire, you need to understand why it matters to you. Here's how. The five layers deep, why technique. Write down how you want to feel in your life for the next 50 years. It can be one word or a phrase, and you can have more than one.

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For example, vibrant, empowered, lovable, strong, peaceful. Now, ask why do you want to feel this way?

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Write down the reasons you want to feel, let's say, vibrant. Then, looking at your reason, ask why again. Why do I want to feel vibrant? Repeat this process a total of five times. I was asked to use the same technique when my son was in his final year of high school. Here's what I said I wanted to feel for the following 50 years of my life. I want to feel like I'm the mum who will always make my son a priority. Why? I want my son to feel supported in every area of his life. Why? By being supported, I can help set him up for success in anything he wants to do in his life. Why? I want him to know what support looks like and feels like. Why? So my son will learn to support the people who are important to him in his life. Why? Because in my life I never felt supported by my mum and dad. That why was a powerful aha moment in my life. Another example might be, I want to feel powerful. Why? Because I have four siblings, and I've felt invisible and unheard most of my life. Why does that matter? Because when I feel invisible, I get quiet, I keep myself small, and I don't speak up. Why? I want this to change because I want my daughter to see what it looks like to be seen, to live boldly, and to use her voice.

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Why? Because it was never modeled for me.

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Why now? I'm done waiting for someone else to give me permission to be seen or to use my voice. Now it's your turn. Once you've uncovered how you want to feel and the deep why behind it, you can begin to ask the next vital question. Question 3. Will this choice support how I want to feel? Through a lens of retrospect. Write down three recent decisions, habits, or relationships you chose to engage in. Ask yourself, does this choice support how I want to feel in my life? Or does it sabotage it? Now look at your answers. Can you identify any patterns? Old patterns of thinking. Stories you tell yourself. Feelings and beliefs that no longer serve you. Does it impact your physical or emotional well-being? Once you're able to identify any patterns that are keeping you from supporting how you want to feel, and we all have them, then you have the power and ability to make changes. Here are a few examples. I want to feel calm in my life. I was out with girlfriends and had that third glass of wine I didn't need just because everyone else did. Did this choice support how I want to feel? No. I woke up in the middle of the night, the red wine sending my anxiety into high alert. I want to feel respected in my relationships. After every call with Susie, I feel drained and criticized. She never asks about my life, and what's worse, she tells me what I'm not doing right in our friendship. Does this choice to interact with her support how I want to feel? No. It doesn't give me the kind of respect or create the kind of connection I want in my relationships.

One Brave Choice This Week

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The final question is a big one, and it's what we begin this chapter with. What do you want to lay down and what do you want to carry with you into the next fifty years? Question four What do I want to carry forward? This is your life, and you get to decide what you carry with you, and what you choose to lay down. From a place of truth, abundance and self-awareness, decide what exactly it is that you want to carry with you into the next fifty years. Not goals, not shoulds, but truths, relationships, or acts of self-care. The list can go on, that support how you want it to feel. Then write down, and I challenge you to be as specific as possible what those things are. Don't be afraid to get very real and honest. What is worth carrying forward? What do you finally want to lay down? Here are more examples to get your mind turning. I want to carry forward my commitment to rest, to hold healthy boundaries, to trust myself in the decisions I make, to increase my connection to nature. It's time to finally lay down perfectionism, people pleasing, shame around asking for help, keeping myself small, that belief that I'm not enough or worthy to be loved the way I deserve to be. One brave choice. As you finish these questions and as you continue to reflect, I want to pose a challenge to you to accept or not. It is your choice after all. Ask yourself, What is one brave choice I can make this week that supports how I want to feel and aligns with the woman I'm becoming? I'm not saying to completely overhaul your life today. This challenge is intended for you to make one choice. A first step that supports how you want to feel, your next bite of food, holding a boundary with a sibling, showing up on your mat in yoga class, or whatever it might be, make the choice confidently, knowing it is in alignment with your truth and how you want to feel in your life. This is your one precious and vibrant life. If you want to be free from your past, free from the toxicity in your body and in your life, if you want to feel vibrant every morning when you open your eyes, and if you want to have an undeniable and contagious zest for life for the next 50 years, so you can go on the greatest adventure of your lifetime. First, you need to get quiet and ask yourself those four questions above. Once you have your answers, once you know what you want to lay down and what you want to carry forward, then this is my greatest wish for you that you choose to eat, sleep, move, think, prescribe, and connect in ways that won't cost you the way you want to feel, but instead support you in becoming the vital woman you are. I

ACE Scores And Perimenopause Explained

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wanted to close this final chapter with an opportunity for you to learn more about the ACE score assessment, should you choose to take it, to better understand the secret load you might be carrying as you navigate perimenopause. ACE score self-assessment. Understanding how childhood experiences shape your health. Beautiful woman, if you decide to take the ACE assessment included in the resources I've provided, I want you to know something important first. You are not broken and this is not your fault. The ACE assessment is a widely used screening tool based on the landmark CASA CDC study that helps us understand how early life stress may be impacting your health today, particularly during perimenopause when your body is experiencing a profound reboot of every system. What is the ACE assessment? The ACE study, conducted by Dr. Vincent Velletti and Dr. Robert Ander in the 1990s demonstrated that adverse childhood experiences significantly increase the risk of chronic health conditions in adulthood. The research is groundbreaking because it revealed the dose-response relationship between childhood trauma and adult disease, meaning the higher your ACE score, the greater your risk for health problems. Key research findings. For every additional ACE, autoimmune disease risk increases by approximately 20%. ACE scores more than two are associated with 70 to 80% higher hospitalization rates for autoimmune disease. Childhood trauma is associated with elevated inflammatory markers. C reactive protein, interleukin 6, tumor nucrosis factor alpha in adulthood. Childhood trauma can significantly alter HPA access function with effects that may persist into adulthood. ACEs are associated with accelerated cellular aging and increased allostatic load. If you make the decision to take the assessment, please know it requires courage. If you find it difficult to complete, that's completely understandable. You can always seek support from a trusted practitioner or therapist and return to the assessment when you feel ready. Whether you choose to take the ACE assessment or not, I still want to break down what different scores mean. Understanding your ACE score. Score of zero. You did not experience these particular adverse childhood experiences. This doesn't mean your childhood was without challenges, but these specific traumas were not present. Your nervous system likely developed with a more regulated stress response, though other factors can still impact your health during perimenopause. Score of 1 to 3. You experienced some adverse childhood experiences that may have impacted your stress response and nervous system development. Research shows even scores in this range can affect long-term health, particularly during times of hormonal transition. Supporting your nervous system and addressing stress patterns will be important in your healing journey. Score of 4 to 6. You experienced significant childhood trauma that has likely influenced your nervous system, immune function, and stress response. Research consistently shows that scores in this range are associated with significantly elevated inflammatory markers, increased risk of autoimmune disease, altered HPA access function, and greater difficulty with the perimenopausal transition. This information is empowering, not limiting. Understanding this connection helps explain why perimenopause may feel particularly challenging for you and guides us towards trauma-informed approaches to healing. A score of 7 to 10. You survived profound childhood trauma. Your nervous system has been in a sympathetic dominant state for most of your life, and your body has carried this secret load for decades. During perimenopause, when your adrenals are asked to increase hormone production, they may be too depleted to manage both stress and hormonal shifts effectively. Please know, you're not broken. Your body developed exactly the survival mechanisms it needed. But now, in perimenopause, you're being invited to finally lay down this burden. Trauma-informed care, nervous system regulation, and addressing the biopsychosocial aspects of your health will be essential. How your ACE-score impacts perimenopause. The biological connection. When you experience childhood trauma, your body develops what we call allostatic load, the cumulative wear and tear on your body from chronic stress. Your sympathetic nervous system becomes dominant, keeping you in constant fight or flight mode, which means you can experience the following. Chronic cortisol elevation from years of stress dysregulates your stress response system, HPA access. Inflammatory markers, C reactive protein, interleukin 6 remain elevated, worsening perimenopausal symptoms. HPA access dysfunction makes it harder to regulate stress and hormones. Gut permeability increases via mast cell activation and stress signaling. Mitochondrial function declines, reducing cellular energy production. A message of hope.

A Message Of Hope And Closing

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Beautiful, my own ACE score is very high, and I want you to know healing is possible. I lived in a sympathetic dominant nervous system state from childhood well into my forties. I understand what it feels like to carry the secret load, to feel like your body is betraying you. To wonder if you'll ever feel at peace. As I mentioned, I'm nearly 50, and I can tell you that for the first time in my life, I truly know what it feels like to live in a peaceful nervous system state. That same possibility exists for you. Perimenopause is not just about hormones declining, it's about your body inviting you to finally lay down what you've been carrying. The unresolved trauma that helped you survive as a child no longer serves you. In fact, during perimenopause, when you're already inflamed and running on minimal energy, your body cannot carry this weight anymore. This is your moment. The tap on your shoulder is not a burden, it is an invitation to finally heal.