I be a mom that’s, you know, so isolated and scared and introverted? And I think looking at them was a big factor also to say, I want them to remember me as someone that gave her all, that didn’t give up, that didn’t quit, and without knowing what I was doing, I slowly started to rewire my brain from the event that happened to know this is who you are, which are two completely different people. So, you know, I will say this. It is a horrible thing that happens to anyone. It was a horrible thing that happened to me, but there was such a positive effect that came out of that. So I won’t say I’m grateful for it at all, but I will say that it changed me in ways that I didn’t know I could I could change, or things I could achieve that I didn’t know I had it in me.

 

Manon Bolliger  08:00

I mean, I think that’s sort of what happens to with, you know, illness or disease. It for it’s not that, you know. I mean, I guess I have heard people say they’re grateful for it, because the change is so positive. But when there’s violence, it’s hard to say you’re grateful for violence. You know, story, but you know, the, just the potential that we have to to look deeper, feel deeper, change more. It’s, it’s almost like we’re, you know, we’re living more superficially, in the sense that, until you’re challenged, you don’t know really all that you are correct.

 

Dr Kelly Baron  08:44

You don’t know what’s deep inside of you, and some people never know that, right? It just, it is. It’s scary. Sometimes you have to look at yourself. You have to face yourself. That’s not fun. A lot of the times that that’s it’s very, very scary to do, but a lot of things live just in our mind. And if we can learn to to be more open in our thinking and the possibilities of who we are and what we can achieve the better and part of and that’s why I see that in this, especially in this age group of women, we start to shut down thinking our biological clock has, you know, is definitely getting louder and louder. Our reason for being, our biological reason for being on this planet, is no longer functioning, and women start to get wrapped up in this well, what is my purpose in life, and what do I do? And start to sort of withdraw, and then they go through all these symptoms and the hormones, and they’re not having anyone to really support them, so that you know, that is where my drive comes from. Now to say, look I, look at me. I. I couldn’t fight my way out of a paper bag on every any given day, but I spent years and learned how to do it. I couldn’t lift heavy weights, and I did it. And so you there’s I’ve done quite a few things, and so can anyone else.

 

Manon Bolliger  10:16

So what do you think is so difficult about menopause from the woman that you help, like, what it? What is it? If you could sort of summarize it, or, you know, exemplify Why is that such a difficult period for women?

 

Dr Kelly Baron  10:37

Well, you know, each woman is is different. So the physical symptoms of menopause are all over the board in terms of what a woman will experience, the intensity, lack of intensity, that she will experience this physical symptoms, what I see most though, is is the mental aspect of it, because so many things lead to depression or a lack of self worth, loss of confidence. It runs, you know, it runs an array of things. If you if you start to gain weight because your hormones have changed, and you’re doing all the things that you think are right, or that used to do, and it just won’t go away. That starts to really wear down on a woman her physical appearance is, is what she deems as as one of her biggest assets, her change of hair texture, loss of hair, things like that. When that starts to happen, it’s more about, oh my gosh, my hair is falling out. Am I not pretty anymore? What do I look like? And then when you go into the GSM area, if you have, say, urinary incontinence or pain during sex, and you start to become withdrawn from your partner, and you feel you don’t feel sexy, you don’t feel worthy anymore. So I think the biggest and the most troubling thing for women is that mental aspect. It they go into it with a very negative thought process. And to be fair, the world is is treating menopause more as a not a somewhat of a disease or a condition, versus a rebirth and a transition of the woman that you are a woman. And I learned this not too long ago. We spend, I believe it’s 74% of our lives in transformation. We’re constantly changing our hormones, and there’s no like, there’s no move from I was born, and I can have a baby till I can’t have a baby, I’m gonna die. That’s pretty much how women set it up. I have two phases. I can have babies, I can’t have babies. But that’s that’s not true at all, and this is just a phase, and now we’re in this rebirth where the children are likely out of the house now, or they’re in college or late high school, you’re not having to run after them. You have time. You can spend time with your partner or your friend. It’s a time of self care and doing the things that you wanted to do that you didn’t do before, whether it was your job, your family, whatever it was, but now it’s all about you. So I want women, and I My mission is to have women know their support out there. You can talk about the things that are very uncomfortable, and this is a time of your rebirth. Look at it positively. If they do that, things change. In Japan, they have maybe 15% menopausal symptoms, but they view menopause as a celebration, and when they do have these symptoms, they’re greatly reduced, because they’re the way that they go about it, their mental thought process about it is just it. It’s okay. We have this, but it’s not that bad. And I’m going to get to this stage, and I’m going to be wise, and I’m going to, you know, I’m going to be this beautiful woman in my 50s and 60s. So that is where I think we need to start change our thinking.

 

Manon Bolliger  14:22

Yeah. I mean, it’s really like a cultural yes stereotype that I think probably through movies and television and all of that, that, you know, I never had a television so I don’t, you know, I don’t know this, and I experienced menopause as a non like, you know, there was one period of like, Whoa, that’s a lot of flow. And then, holy potatoes. And then it was kind of like, Okay, that’s it, you know. And I would say, like, three months where I went hoof. Okay, this must be what’s going on and, you know, but it never affected the person that I am or any of those aspects. But I don’t think I was trained the way that, you know. I’m bit of an outsider to the culture, so I don’t know all the Hollywood actors, and I’m not in that world at all. I don’t know how you’re supposed to be, because I just am who I am. And it really isn’t a big deal, but I think it’s really and obviously, when I was a naturopath, I met people that were not like me as well, and I I’m really aware that we’ve been cultured to then look down on ourselves, or to think that, you know, the transition of losing hair or going gray or it, they’re all problems. Well, not, not really, you know. It depends how you look at it, like, you know, you can say, embrace the gray like, you know, awesome, right? You know. Or you can say, well, you know, makes my face look older. I’m going to paint it up a bit for another few years, whatever you choose. But it’s like, it’s, it’s the ability to to love yourself and take care of yourself your whole journey. You know, absolutely, that’s what it is, right? And, and I think it’s really important, you know, to to support the woman who, yeah, they they’ve been caught in this propaganda.

 

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Manon Bolliger  17:36

you of how it should be, you know,

 

Dr Kelly Baron  17:46

right, and that, and that’s very true with social media and and movies and television, and even with this emergence of awareness for menopause, which is a fantastic thing. Everybody’s talking about it now, and it makes for just a really good space for women when they felt like they weren’t heard by their doctors, or they were told it was just nothing, or go take an Advil. That is wonderful, but there’s negative messages coming through within that awareness. As we hear you. We know you’re suffering, versus we hear you. And let’s celebrate this. Let’s, let’s find, let’s find things to to ease the symptoms, reduce what you’re going through, and look towards the future of what lays beyond, however long that you go through this transition. So you’re right if, if you were unaware that menopause was a, was a, an actual thing that we went through, if you didn’t have a name for it, you just knew, like, just like childbirth, we celebrate that, and yes, a little prize at the end of it, but a lot of not so fun things happen during pregnancy. But yet we’re like, oh, it’s so great. You know, I’m cramping in half. Harper and I cannot wait for this baby to come. If we if we didn’t know, if we just thought, Okay, this is just a process of human beings, of what we do it would we probably sail through it a lot better than we are doing right now.

 

Manon Bolliger  19:25

Yeah, no, I think so definitely. I mean, they said, you know, what you think and how you feel about things affects also the degree of pain that you can experience and and the resistance to change, you know? I mean, change is also culturally. You know, most people, that’s their number one fear is change, right? They they want safety, or so called safety, which really means no change and right, we are change. We we change every ourselves. You. Innate, you know, continually different cells in different parts of her body have a cycle of, you know, 21 days or seven days. We have brand new everything you know exactly part of us being alive. You know, so

 

Dr Kelly Baron  20:16

and I, sometimes I try to break it down for, for some women in a very, like, just rough, real world, like real world. Ways of explaining it, I’ll tell them. So listen, you know, you have this, like, amazing factory going on. It’s a it’s a steel mill. Steel mills up. It’s running. It’s doing great. Those are your baby years. But they have to close the steel mill down, and that takes, you know, you just don’t shut the doors. I mean, you’re working with chemicals and metals and things like that. So it’s going to take a little while to fully shut that plant down. And that’s sort of like your body. You were up, you were running, you were built to make babies, whether you had them or not, that’s what was going on now. Now the factory shut. We’re shutting down now, and it’s going to take a little bit of a transition till that’s fully done. And sometimes those transitions can be uncomfortable, but they’re not forever. And women aren’t being told that either. They’re not being told that once you get past menopause, symptoms do subside. Some symptoms pop up for a little while, some linger, and then they subside. And there’s a whole other phase of your life. I think they view it more as well. This is it. Then. This is me forever. I’m just one hot flash after another. But that is not the truth.

 

Manon Bolliger  21:43

And what about, like, the impact on on sexuality? Have you had a lot of women complain about that?

 

Dr Kelly Baron  21:53

Yeah, that that is a that’s a big one, and that mostly, if you again, if you take away any of the physical symptoms that they’re experiencing, a lot of that is going to come down to mindset. It’s going to come down to so if you have vaginal dryness, typically the doctors, they’re either going to prescribe vaginal estrogen, but more often than not, they’re just going to tell you to get lubrication or moisturizer, something right off the shelves, and add that in. But women are afraid, because they think not all women, but a lot of women, especially in this Gen X age group, are afraid that, oh well, that that means I’m a failure, because I can’t get aroused that way, or so I have to use this. I feel, I feel like I fail by having to use something. Or they just, they’re they’re tired, their hormones are going a little crazy. There’s their cortisol is through the roof. They’re stressed out. And they just, and they don’t take the time. So I try to tell women that sexual wellness and sexual health is not broken down to just the physical, physical act of sex. It could be 10 minutes of just laying there, cuddling your partner, just physical touch, holding hands wrapped around each other, that’s intimacy, that’s that’s wellness, if that’s all that the two of you can bring to the table at that moment that is beautiful, quietly talking, that’s beautiful, spending time together, that all is intimacy. So if we start thinking we can bring things into the bedroom. We can try new things. We may have to try new positions, or this or that, or different ways, or we simply can just touch and be in each other’s presence. That’s all intimacy, if you take the expectation of there needs to be an outcome for sexual wellness. So we need to do, there has to be an ending, and it’s one ending and one ending only if we if we get rid of that and put no pressure and just say the ending might be just cuddling up and peacefully falling asleep and being so grateful for that time. That’s intimacy. So I try to tell women, don’t, don’t put these expectations on yourself. And when they start to open up and they start to say, wow. Think, think outside the box and think, what is it really that I need and I want out of this moment, things start to feel a lot better, and their approach to their sexual wellness, their sexual health, really starts to improve drastically.

 

Manon Bolliger  24:39

Yeah, no. I think that’s definitely an element that is how you see, what the expectation you know. But I think again, you know, a lot of our generations you know, have been raised, directly or indirectly, with like a pornography vision. Of, this is sex, you know, and, and therefore, you know, that’s what you that’s what it’s all about, right, right, you know. And I think that’s, yeah, I mean, it affects young people, absolutely, because they can’t, they can’t. They learn not to feel what they’re actually experiencing in the moment, exactly. And they then have visions of, that’s the part we should be looking forward to, or that’s how, you know, rather, entire thing. And I think it’s a, it’s a bit of an unwinding that happens, you know, in menopause, but there’s also, I know, with some of my my patients, I would say, Well, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.

 

Dr Kelly Baron  25:50

Absolutely, absolutely, one of the best things that you can do for for your sexual health is have sex. It truly is because so many things you know, you you know this, so many things happen. Chemicals are released, hormones, all the good things in life. It’s like working out all the things that help keep you young, that help, that helps keep your tissues young. And again, just like you said, there, there, doesn’t have to be this big Disneyland fairy tale ending to it every time you just have to enjoy the moment. Find the pleasure in what it is that you’re doing. But yeah, it is true. Use it or lose it is a true statement.

 

Manon Bolliger  26:36

And the thing too is, you know now there are, if your partner, because it’s not just the woman that can be, oh, right, it’s usually the other way around. Then it’s like, there are, there are things that, you know, you can purchase, and still really, boy, and you know, so it is really self care and just opening up a bit that paradigm, that it has to be a certain way and it could be another way. And, you know,

 

Dr Kelly Baron  27:05

and this is a time for women and men, but really women to be creative in their sex life. We were wise. We’re just we it’s not like, like, Oh, you have 15 minutes where parents come home, or we’re out in the back of a car, things like that. We can set the mood. We can take long baths before we can do all these things that we you know, you have the kids running around and can’t do any of that. There’s all these wonderful things we can do for ourselves first, and then, if we expand our thinking and look at it as a journey and very creative, we can help our partner, and we can help ourselves. And it could prop I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this could be the best time sexually in your entire life. I know everybody’s going to roll their eyes and be like, Ah no. And I’m going to say if you put the effort into opening your mind and living in the moment, it could be the best part of your life.

 

Manon Bolliger  28:07

Well, I don’t know if your experience would concur with this, because, you know, you’ve seen a lot of people and this is your focus. But I know that during menopause time, I, you know, I’ve treated quite a few patients, and not specifically for that, but that’s part of what they’re going through. And it’s also a time where old traumas, sexual traumas, resurface, right? Whether it’s to the man who had you know was abused or molested by some priest or some, whatever it is, whatever the story is, you know, or an uncle, or whatever that and same with a woman, right? And or, you know, the beliefs of that may have existed before, of this is naughty and this is not, and whatever, all this, this weird teachings that we’ve had, and I think a lot of stuff comes out then, and it’s really an opportunity to deeply heal from that.

 

Dr Kelly Baron  29:13

I agree, and yes, I have heard on both sides. I’ve heard where things will surface, but again, because we’re older, we’re wiser, we understand these things, these this opens up communication. It’s, it’s, there’s nothing else that you can do for each other. It’s communication, and you end up healing and working through them together by being open minded, by understanding this. This doesn’t feel so good anymore, mentally, physically, because something’s popping up from, you know, from my past, and it’s causing this. And it may never have been a part of your lives, up until then, 30 years later, all of a sudden, it’s popping out for whatever reason that it is. And in, yeah, you. Can you can heal together. You you can heal alone, but you have to be open to what’s happening to yourself, allow yourself to feel it and allow yourself to work with it and through it.

 

Manon Bolliger  30:13

And I think just adding what you brought to the conversation at the beginning, it’s you’re not. You don’t have to be the victim of this. It’s really you are holding the transformation right, all the possibility you know yourself, right? I mean yourself with your partner, whichever way you want to do it, but it’s you’re you’re rewriting a story that may have been hampering you without you realizing it

 

Dr Kelly Baron  30:42

exactly you need to give yourself permission at this time again, that experience is always written in you because you experienced it however. You can rewrite that story and you can give yourself permission to finally let go. And a lot of people holding on to that is comforting. It’s very comforting to hold on to that. So the act of letting go is very scary, and this is the time to give yourself permission to let go and rewrite your story.

 

Manon Bolliger  31:21

Well, our time is up. I was going to give you just like the last words, and how do people get hold of you, or how

 

Dr Kelly Baron  31:30

they can get a hold of me? Instagram. We I answer Instagram all the time. It’s my tempesta, so m, y T, E, M, P, E, S T A or our website, my tempesta.com or you can always find me on my instagram. It’s I am CAL FIRE. That’s it.

 

Manon Bolliger  31:52

Okay. Well, thank you for sharing your your experience,

 

Dr Kelly Baron  31:56

and thank you for having me on. It’s been a pleasure.

 

Manon Bolliger  32:00

So just an observation after talking to Kelly, is really how menopause has become a type of diagnosis, and with a diagnosis, there’s like a diseased state and all these symptoms, which, okay, it’s good to know what you can experience, but it doesn’t take into consideration, except because of hormones that affect your mood. But it really does. It’s not big enough to understand the whole sociocultural components of menopause and all that it entails, and just, you know, the life of a woman, basically. So I found that, yeah, a very inspiring conversation, and that’s how I would look at it, you know, do we really need to diagnose this once again?

 

ENDING: 

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