I'm Not Blaming Everything on Menopause

The ground feels like it’s moving under your feet, but it isn’t only hormones. Coach Nik opens up about the real forces behind midlife overwhelm for women over 40—shifting priorities, deeper reflection, and the sudden clarity that comes from decades of lived experience. We dig into why nostalgia hits harder now, how seeing our parents differently changes our story, and what it means to parent grown kids while building a future that finally fits.

Rather than giving menopause all the credit, we zoom out to the bigger landscape: goals that evolve, careers that pivot, and relationships that ask for repair or renewal. Nik shares three practical anchors that keep you grounded when emotions surge and brain fog tries to boss you around. First, acceptance: less is more and you don’t need to prove your worth. Second, honoring time: close loops, set firm boundaries, and let wisdom lead your calendar. Third, intentional stillness: a true pause that calms the body and clears mental noise so decisions come from clarity, not chaos.

You’ll walk away with language for what you’re feeling and tools to manage it—breathwork that actually resets, simple boundary cues for your week, and a kinder lens for your past and present. We also preview upcoming conversations with expert voices to keep this dialogue honest and useful. If you’re ready to stop blaming everything on menopause and start curating a life that reflects your values, this one is for you.

If this conversation resonated, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review to help more women find their footing in midlife. Your story—and your pause—matter.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage Beyond Menopause
• 1:35 Midlife Mindset And Memory Lanes
• 3:10 Parenting Grown Kids And New Parallels
• 5:15 Refusing To Blame It All On Hormones
• 6:35 Three Anchors For Midlife Clarity
• 8:00 Accepting Less Is More
• 9:30 Honoring Time, Wisdom, And Boundaries
• 11:05 Practicing Intentional Stillness
• 12:45 Recap, Next Steps, And Guest Tease
• 15:45 Share And Stay Tuned

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

I'm not blaming everything on menopause. Hear me out on this, especially beautiful out there, women over 40. This change in life, I know menopause has an impact, but for the next few minutes in this brief conversation, I'm just going to talk about a few other reasons why we could be feeling emotional overload and overwhelm as women over 40. And not just because of the crazy hormonal fluctuations that uh occur naturally in us from menopause. I'm going to go a little bit, I'm going to go in a different direction. And then as you all know, this is just a conversation that's going to lead to more conversations later. And I'll talk about that towards the end. But what I'd like for you to do is just for a moment, you know, just dive into your, dive into your feelings, dive into your thoughts throughout this conversation, right? Because we know just the basics of menopause. It can create some emotional imbalances, the hormonal imbalances that affect our physical health as well. The brain fog, thinking we're crazy, all that stuff. But one thing that has been on my mind, especially getting ready to stretch into my 50s, late 40s, 50 is knocking, less than a year away. I thought of naturally as a woman who's getting ready to enter into midlife, our thought process is different. Let's take hormones out the conversation for a second. You've lived more than four decades, and now you're in a place where it is possible that the way that you think is also plaguing on you emotionally. And I'm going to break that down and I'm going to use my notes too, because I wanted to be able to stay on topic with in this brief conversation. Some things to think about. Stay with me, ladies, right? Because midlife is happening. That means we're in another chapter of life where time is everything. We're seeing things from a different perspective. That's not just hormones. Life looks different. And now have you found yourself reconnecting back to childhood? Nostalgia feels a little different. I know for me, born and raised in West Baltimore, but spent some of my childhood in East Baltimore, and it's wild. I decided to raise my family on another side of Baltimore. But when I'm in certain areas and certain places, it feels different. Are you going back to childhood and recognizing things and connecting the dots to the way that you think or emotions that maybe maybe you've been suppressing things for so long and finally in mid-life because you're thinking different, that you're making the connection? So could it be that some of the overwhelm, some of just trying to figure this chapter out, is also that now you're in a place of heightened awareness. Now you're filling gaps and connecting the dots. You're sitting still and maybe thinking back to childhood and seeing our parents different. Understanding why certain things may not have been the way that we hoped them would be, or recognizing with gratitude why they were able to take care of us or bring us up or raise us in that way because now through wisdom and experience, and now we're in their place, in the position that they were once in, that we see things clear. When we think about midlife, for those of you who have children, maybe now you have grandchildren. I'm in my grandma era. But we are looking at, okay, what does life look like for us for the next 20 years, 30 years? Realistically, the way we look at goals change. What we want to accomplish, it changes. There are a lot of powerhouse women out there making career changes, jumping into entrepreneurship, just changing some things because we're looking back and we're recognizing through gratitude and acceptance that this is also an opportunity for us to be able to do some of the things that we may not have been able to do then because our responsibilities and the weight of what we needed to do was different. But I'm going to go back to my notes. So just think about that. Are you finding yourself reflecting more on childhood? Are you finding yourself diving back into relationships, things that have happened in a relationship, and building more self-awareness around your role and maybe why you decided to do certain things or not do certain things, right? Are you diving deeper into the psychology of your own relationships? Um, even with our children. So again, I said if we have children and our children are now adults, it's a unique chapter, it's a different chapter. Some of us may have more periods where we're excited and happy because our children are honoring us by going along life and living life beautifully. They're not perfect. But then there's that other side of the coin where we may find ourselves in a situation where with our children we recognize parenting does not end. It's just done in a different chapter. And maybe in your heart you're dealing with some things that only a mother knows, that only a mother can connect with when you go back and you reflect on maybe how things were when you were raising them. And now you're seeing maybe even parallels in your own life when you were their age, when you were younger. Y'all, I'm not blaming all of this on menopause. In midlife, we're we're in another chapter. And before we can turn a page, we can't get to that next page until we read the full story. And so some of the emotional changes and fluctuations we know that come with menopause that can naturally affect us emotionally as well. I just want to focus on our thought process and how we're in a stage of life that may be filled with a lot more reflection that we have to feel it. We're feeling it, it's waking us up. And it shouldn't feel crazy, but for so long, because it's a heightened sense of awareness. Um, and I'm going to share why, right? Because we're in a pivotal point. I'm not going to give all the madness to menopause. It's affecting us. But I'm not going to give all the madness to it, right? Because there are things within that system that we that we can work on, right? But for right now, this is about us and where we are mentally, emotionally, right? We're we're in a place, we're in this halfway point of life. So then where do we go from here? I have three things that are helping me. Maybe they'll be of assistance or support to you. But really briefly, the first one is to accept we're not in our 30s anymore. And I'm glad. I loved me at 30. I loved the Nick at 30. And yeah, if I could take some of that energy from my 30s and dump it into this almost 49th chapter, watch out, right? But no, I know, watch out. Because what I'm I'm doing, I'm accepting this new chapter, and it's called Less Is More. We no longer have to prove that we are capable of doing things. You've been here for four decades, plus you've already done that. This is really about. Um, I put a note here, and I love it when I go back and can't read it, right? Less is more. Our productivity looks different. It has to look different. We don't have to feel like we're here, there, everywhere. This is a period where that feels more frustrating because it's against the norm for this chapter. So accept the less is more. It feels good. Second, honor this time. We're aging naturally, right? Life, this part of life is an aging process, period. So there should be I'm I'm writing this out, y'all. Um, you know, more time, honoring this time by recognizing it is, you know, a great opportunity to connect with people and loved ones at a different level. We honor this time with wisdom because we've learned a lot. You know, we've been wrong. Right? You've you've said some things, you've done some things. Um, if there are uh gaps, things that need closure, unstuck that stuff and get it out, right? You're gonna honor this time because the beauty of this time is it really is is a revealing. And you wanna enjoy it. And we can enjoy it when we're in a space where we recognize if there's some things we need to tighten up, this is the time to do it. Honor that. Um, recognize when we honor that time as well, that's where those boundaries come in. We honor what we can do. I know that's a little bit similar to the accepting where we are, right? And recognizing that productivity is not based on doing all the things, it's actually doing less things well. But in that second one, where we honor this time, is that we can take away the negative context of aging. We can take away giving menopause way too much credit for how we feel when how we feel was in the reverse of happy. Uh, we're honoring the privilege of being able to just breathe life and still be here and learn from lessons, mistakes, all that stuff, and even becoming more of the bigger person in situations, if that's what it's gonna take in order for you to honor your time and your family, quality time, being fully present in the moment is important. And a third one is truly my favorite, and and that's the pause, that's the stillness. I'm not talking about when we say, okay, I'm gonna take a break, I'm gonna just take this moment, and you go, and maybe even you lay down, but in your mind is everything you have to do for the week, or in your mind is everything you have to do once you're no longer in this period of the pause. You're sitting still, but your brain is not. That's that's a different that's not pausing. It's not, it's not that type of pause. Number three is intentional pausing, the type of pausing that creates a stillness that gives you a chance to take deep breaths. And as you inhale and on those exhales, you're able to take out all the noise, all the distractions, the to-do list. Everything is leaving. It's almost like that workout, y'all. You know how you're getting ready to go in for a good workout, you are in the flow, but that instructor is a good instructor, and they're not gonna have you just jump in and do this high-impact workout, Zumba, hit, whatever it may be, without first warming up your body to be able to receive the true benefits of the energy you're about to expend. And so when I say pause, when I say stillness, I'm not just talking about the physical part of sitting still, sitting on a bed, laying down, pulling out a chair. This is mind work, it's the mental work. Number three, in your pause, in your stillness, you are breathing, inhaling to calm the body, exhaling the thoughts, the things, all the stuff. And you are giving yourself a chance to breathe. Now, how long you're in that stillness is up to you. For me, periodically throughout the day, I have to pause. I look forward to times every few weeks where I can just eliminate distractions for a number of for a number of days, still working on that myself. Um, we need the stillness because we need to gather our thoughts. We know that with menopause, things feel can feel like a yo-yo from time to time. But as women, we also like to be in control of our time. We like to be in control of the things that we do. We like to be in control of our thoughts as much as we can. And so, number three is hyper important because this is how we are able to make wise decisions, be in the clear, fight the scatter, fight the brain fog when we're able to think deeper and we give ourselves an opportunity to refresh and reset mentally and emotionally. So I'm gonna do a quick recap because I just went a little deep. And in the midst of me taking an intentional pause in this conversation, I feel amazing. So let me wrap it back up in true coach Nick fashion. So I'm not blaming it all on menopause. It's midlife. You've lived on this earth more than four decades. There's a lot of experience, there are a lot of life lessons, there are a lot of joys, there are a lot of things beyond the hormonal fluctuations that we need to find time to tap into. So in this moment, go back and ask yourself, whoa, have I really been, you know, deep thinking? Life has changed, life is lifing, our circumstances are changing on a regular basis. And are you taking a moment to just get a little more clear with you and where you are? Outside of menopause, are you accepting this new chapter of Less Is More and setting boundaries? Are you honoring this time? This is a special time. Get excited about having wisdom and the ability to be clear and to be able to mend some of these broken pieces that we've been suppressing and holding on to. And last, love yourself enough to pause. Let the system heal and rejuvenate, sis. Oh, we got this. Now, this was just Nick's rant, and I'm gonna do this periodically because I am the little lady with the mic, and I always have something to say. But at the end of the day, this conversation is gonna continue, and I'm gonna bring in some special guests to keep the conversation going as well. You all know my favorite doctor, favorite menopause naturopathic physician, Dr. Day of Healthy Days, and my favorite menopause health coach is Levon of Cheeky Geeky Menopause. We're gonna get together. We're gonna invite a few other guests along with this conversation because we're gonna keep it going. But right now, for this moment, we're not blaming it all on menopause. We're gonna carve out some time and honor ourselves today. So I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Share this with a friend. You know there's somebody out there that needs to hear this information or need to see this video. Stay tuned for the next Beautifully Well Conversations with your girl, Coach Nick.