In this episode, Sally sits down with Dr. Lara Briden, naturopathic doctor and bestselling author of Period Repair Manual, Hormone Repair Manual, and Metabolism Repair for Women. She’s been called the period revolutionary—and after this conversation, you’ll understand exactly why.

We talk about the massive paradox in women’s health:
Society suddenly worships estrogen and progesterone when women hit their mid-40s…
…yet spent the last 60 years casually switching those same hormones off in teenage girls.

Yep. We’re going there.

What We Get Into

• Why regular ovulation is not just “nice to have” — it’s literally how young women make hormones
• How we got stuck in a 60-year loop of shutting down women’s ovarian function (hint: the pill’s “regulate your period” pitch started as a cover story)
• The weird disconnect between medical guidelines that say periods are a vital sign… and the normalization of medicating them away
• What a healthy period actually looks like (spoiler: it shouldn’t hurt and it shouldn’t require you to white-knuckle your way through PMS)
• Why so many modern symptoms aren’t “women being women”—they’re the result of environment, lifestyle, and a system that never prioritized female physiology
• And the big one: Did menopause evolve? Or is it some biological glitch because women are living longer?

The Mic-Drop Moments

• Lara breaks down why menopause absolutely evolved on purpose—and why humans are more like killer whales than we think
• The “grandmother effect” and why older women have always been essential for the survival of the tribe
• The wild fact that among the Hadza, and other traditional-living communities, menopause brings zero symptoms
• The reality that our cycles are meant to be signals, not punishments

If You’ve Ever Thought…

“I guess this is just how my period is.”
“This is normal for my age.”
“Maybe my hormones just hate me.”

…this episode might flip your worldview upside down (in a good way).

About Dr. Lara Briden

Lara practices in Christchurch, New Zealand, helping women navigate PCOS, PMS, endometriosis, perimenopause, and other hormone-health challenges. Her work bridges biology, history, anthropology, and real-world clinical wisdom.

📲 Connect with Lara:

Website: https://www.larabriden.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/larabriden/

Sally's Links:

Email: info@sallygarozzo.com

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Bespoke Transformational Hypnotherapy & Coaching:

Send me a direct message

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Everything went wrong before this interview even started: lagging audio, frozen screens, “Can you hear me?” chaos… which, honestly, became the perfect metaphor for today’s topic: women being told to accept dysfunction as normal.

And fittingly, this conversation marks a huge milestone — our 200th episode! Two hundred episodes of unlearning, reframing, and giving women permission to trust their bodies. And today’s guest delivers exactly that kind of truth.

Because once Nicole Jardim (women’s health coach + author of Fix Your Period) finally got connected, she dropped a truth bomb most women never hear:

👉 Statistically common doesn’t mean biologically normal.

Cramps, mood swings, missing periods, heavy bleeding — we’ve been conditioned to believe it’s “part of being a woman.” Nicole is here to burn that narrative down.

In this raw and revealing conversation, Nicole takes us back to where it all began — age 12, pads in the backpack, intuition on point — and then straight into the trauma, the chaos, and the hormonal storm that followed after the sudden death of her father. From survival-mode teen years to being handed the pill as a “solution,” Nicole walks us through the cascade of symptoms that no one connected to the pill, stress, genetics, detox pathways, or trauma.

This episode breaks the script. We talk:

• Why period pain can be a red flag
• How trauma + puberty + synthetic hormones created a perfect hormonal disaster
• The COMT gene, stress metabolism, and why some women feel like live wires
• Why your period is basically your body’s early-warning system
• The hidden stressors no one warns women about
• Why we’ve normalized suffering — and why that needs to end

Nicole doesn’t sugarcoat. She also doesn’t catastrophize. She reframes powerfully. Because the same genetic profile that makes you sensitive to stress might also be the source of your creativity, drive, memory, intuition, and fire.

If you’ve ever been told to “just deal with it,” this episode will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about your cycle, your symptoms, and what your body has been trying to tell you for years.

This is your permission slip to stop normalizing pain.

And to start listening to your biology instead of fighting it.

📲 Connect with Nicole:

Website: https://nicolejardim.com/

Nicole’s Membership - The Fix Your Period Collective: https://www.fixyourperiod.com/

Nicole’s Practitioner Program: https://instituteformenstrualhealth.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicolemjardim/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicolemjardim/

Sally's Links:

Email: info@sallygarozzo.com

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.co

Send me a direct message

Support the show

Perimenopause can feel like a 10–15 year hormonal remix, but why is it so much harder for women in 2025?. Dr. Jessica Drummond busts myths, challenges outdated narratives, and explains the overlaps nobody talks about: long COVID, autoimmune flare-ups, endometriosis, stress overload, digital overwhelm, and why so many women enter midlife already running on fumes.

🔥 The Big Myth That Needs to Die
Perimenopause is NOT:
✨ “Menopause-lite”
✨ A single moment in time
✨ A sudden cliff-drop hormonal event
✨ A one-size-fits-all hormone prescription
✨ Something you can fix with a supplement stack from Instagram

💥 Why Perimenopause Feels Harder Now
Women today face extra layers:
• long COVID risk
• autoimmune triggers
• endometriosis
• digital overstimulation
• constant work-life overlap
• the “3–5 full-time jobs” workload
• modern toxic load
• stress culture
• chronic under-resting

🚨 The Overlap Nobody Talks About
Fatigue, brain fog, pain, mood swings aren’t just hormones — they can be:
• viral injury
• metabolic dysfunction
• autoimmune activation
• chronic stress fallout
• endo flare-ups
• nervous system dysregulation

🌡️ HRV: The Underrated Biomarker
Heart Rate Variability shows stress resilience — and many women in their 40s have HRV scores of someone in their 90s. Rest isn’t optional; it’s vital.

💆‍♀️ Skincare = Self-care
Gua sha, facial massages, and skincare rituals aren’t just vanity — they support the vagus nerve, lymphatic system, and nervous system. Ten minutes a night can do more for your hormones than you think.

🧠 Integrative Medicine, Demystified
Not woo. Not extreme. Not pills or plants. Science + lifestyle + nervous system + personalized care — because every transition is unique.

💬 What You’ll Walk Away With:
• How hormones ACTUALLY change in midlife
• Why symptoms feel inconsistent or contradictory
• Why one-size-fits-all prescriptions fail
• How viral load, toxins, and stress complicate perimenopause
• What HRV reveals about resilience
• Why rest matters
• How integrative care supports the whole woman
• Practical strategies for real resilience

🌙 There Is Light on the Other Side
Stable moods, better sleep, grounded energy, and a deeper sense of self — it’s possible, and worth it.

📲 Connect with Dr Jessica Drummond:

Website: https://integrativewomenshealthinstitute.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/integrativewomenshealth

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£497]:

Send me a direct message

Support the show

💥 THE DISRUPTION

Forget the pastel “self-care” nonsense. This episode gets raw about perimenopause, womb work, and what it actually means to reclaim your creative power from the inside out.

Sally sits down with Melanie Swan, a true rebel priestess of womb wisdom, healer, author, and embodiment guide, currently thriving (and sweating) her way through perimenopause in Northern Thailand.

They dive deep into the real feminine: the kind that doesn’t float in flower crowns but breathes fire, bleeds with purpose, and knows when to pull the curtains, strip off the bra, and waft.

⚡️ WHAT WE EXPLORE:

• Why Melanie left the chaos behind to do “absolutely nothing” and how that saved her sanity
• The radical beauty of perimenopause as a pause from men, noise, and overdoing
• The misunderstood magic of womb work and why it’s not just woo-woo poetry
• What the womb actually represents (spoiler: it’s way more than baby-making)
• How our cycles are ancient maps for creation, rest, and power if we’d only listen
• Why “the feminine” isn’t all softness and how divine masculine energy lives inside us too
• Melanie’s unfiltered take on Instagram spirituality and “the feminine is flowy” clichés

If you’ve ever felt the urge to burn everything down just to breathe, this conversation is your permission slip.

It’s not about hormones or hot flashes; it’s about coming home to your body’s wisdom and reclaiming your sovereignty as a creator.

🔥 ABOUT MELANIE SWAN

Melanie helps women heal the physical and metaphysical womb, restoring the divine balance of masculine and feminine energy. Currently writing her first book, The Sacred Womb, she lives in Northern Thailand, where she swims, writes poetry, and celebrates the art of doing absolutely nothing.

📲 Connect with Melanie:

Website: https://www.thesacredwomb.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_sacred_womb

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredwombmswan

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£497]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via WhatsApp: https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Send me a direct message

Support the show

Forget everything you think you know about periods. This conversation blows the lid off the cultural conditioning, shame, and linear thinking we’ve been fed, and replaces it with a radical new paradigm: menstruality as a source of power, creativity, leadership, and spiritual awakening.

In this episode, Sally sits down with Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, the visionary co-founders of Red School and co-authors of Wild Power and Wise Power. With over 60 years of combined experience, they’re not just talking about women’s health; they’re pioneering a whole new language and leadership model rooted in the menstrual cycle.

🔍 What We Explore

• The Calling Within – Alexandra shares how deep menstrual pain cracked her open to a deeper intelligence, triggering a spiritual awakening that’s governed her life’s work. Menopause, she says, didn’t slow her; it unleashed her.
• Creativity Flowing Through the Cycle – Sjanie describes how regaining her cycle post-contraception reconnected her to intuition, emotional truths, and her life’s purpose. The menstrual cycle became a living conduit for creativity and confidence.
• Four Inner Seasons = Four Powers – How menstruation (inner winter), pre-ovulation (spring), ovulation (summer), and pre-menstruum (autumn) mirror nature, and how honoring these phases restores your inner ecology and breaks the burnout cycle of “more is better.”
• Death, Rebirth & the Menopause Initiation – The transition into menopause is a profound psychological death. Surrendering to it allows a rebirth into your most powerful, purpose-filled chapter.
• From Inner to Outer Evolution – When you reclaim your cyclical nature, you deepen empathy, reorient your relationship with nature, and become a catalyst for collective change. It’s not just personal, it’s planetary.

🎯 Why This Conversation Is a Must-Listen

If you’ve ever felt pressure to hide, suppress, or push through your cycle, this episode flips that paradigm. Alexandra and Sjanie are not simply reframing menstruation; they’re inviting you into a radical new way of living, leading, and creating, one that is cyclical, embodied, and in harmony with nature.

This is not about coping.
This is about activating the wild, wise power that’s always been inside you.

🔗 Want to Go Deeper?

If this conversation lights something in you and you’re ready to step into more understanding, embodiment, and power around menopause and the cycle, I invite you to explore Menopause: The Great Awakener by Red School. Use this link (affiliate) to learn more or sign up:
👉 Menopause: The Great Awakener

📲 Connect with Alexandra and Sjanie:

Website: www.redschool.net

Instagram: www.instagram.com/red.school/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/redschoolonline

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Deman

Send me a direct message

Support the show

Are You Living on Autopilot or Riding the Genius Wheel?

What if your life wasn’t random chaos… but a seven-year cycle that secretly shapes your growth, transitions, and genius?

In this conversation, Sally sits down with Lulu Minns, author, coach, and creator of The Genius Wheel, to smash the myth that “genius” is reserved for Einstein-types. Instead, Lulu unveils a radically different framework that reclaims intuition, feminine power, and the cycles we’ve been taught to ignore.

We dive into:

• Why midlife isn’t a crisis, it’s a pivot point into a new genius phase.
• The three kinds of genius (and why you’ve probably dismissed your own).
• How to spot when you’re in your personal winter phase, and why it’s not failure, but power.
• The invisible skills patriarchy ignores: intuition, charisma, deep listening, and how they’re actually genius at work.
• Lulu’s journey from burned-out criminal lawyer to cycle-led coach and author.

Forget “hustle harder.” Forget “stay in your lane.”

This episode invites you to trust your body, follow your cycles, and redefine genius on your own terms.

🎧 Press play and discover how to finally ride your Genius Wheel instead of fighting against it.

📚 Special Offer: Get Lulu’s book The Genius Wheel at thegeniuswheel.com — use code FRIENDS25 for a discount!

📲 Connect with Lulu Mins:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luluminns/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegeniuswheel/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thegeniuswheel

Substack: https://luluminns.substack.com/

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£497]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via WhatsApp: https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Send me a direct message

Support the show

👀 This isn’t your average convo about "that time of the month." This is about the hormonal chaos no one’s talking about and how it’s silently wrecking the lives of neurodivergent women.

💥 What You’ll Walk Away With:

• ADHD & hormones? Oh yeah, they're very much connected. Especially in midlife.
• The Perfect Storm Study: Adele Wimsit exposes the black hole of research around women, ADHD, and perimenopause.
• Why progesterone is your nervous system’s BFF and what happens when it ghosts you.
• Estrogen dominance is real, and it’s not cute. Mood swings, fatigue, and brain fog? You’re not “just aging.”
• The wild card: methylation and how your body processes hormones matters more than you think.
• Trauma, ADHD, hormones = 🔥? We connect the dots.
• Why generic advice doesn’t work for women and what to do instead.
• GABA, calmness, and why your brain might be starving for balance.
• You’re not broken. You’re not crazy. But you might be overdue for a hormone reality check.

🧬 This episode is a permission slip: To ask better questions, demand better care, and stop settling for “normal” when your body’s begging for help.

💡 Final Word: If you’ve ever felt dismissed, misdiagnosed, or misunderstood, especially as a neurodivergent woman, this episode is a wake-up call wrapped in science, empathy, and fierce advocacy.

👉 Listen now. Share with every woman you know. And remember: you’re allowed to ask for more.

📲 Connect with Adele Wimsit:

Website: https://harmoniseyou.co.uk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harmoniseyou/

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£497]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via WhatsApp: https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL

Send me a direct message

Support the show

💥 Ever said yes when you meant no?
💥 Ever lost yourself just to keep the peace?
That’s not people-pleasing.
That’s FAWNING—and it runs deeper than you think.

In this raw and revealing conversation, Dr. Ingrid Clayton peels back the layers of complex trauma, unpacks the hidden cost of fawning, and gets brutally honest about what it takes to stop abandoning yourself, especially during midlife shifts like menopause.

This isn’t self-help fluff. This is a nervous system truth.
This is unfawning—and it might change everything.

🔑 What You’ll Walk Away With:

• Why fawning is not your fault (but IS your responsibility to unlearn)
• The difference between “clean pain” and “dirty pain” (and why one heals, the other festers)
• How menopause can resurface unresolved trauma
• What happens when you finally stop performing and start reclaiming your needs
• The invisible grief of self-abandonment—and the messy power of coming home to yourself

👂 Listen if you’ve ever thought:
“I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
“I’m tired of betraying myself just to be liked.”
“This transition in life feels like a breakdown, but maybe it’s a breakthrough.”

📌 Tag us when you’re done listening. Let’s talk about the things we were never taught to name.

📲 Connect with Dr. Ingrid:

Website: www.ingridclayton.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ingridclaytonphd/

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On Demand Masterclass 2 hours] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£447]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/rapid-transformational-therapist

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via WhatsApp: https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Send me a direct message

Support the show