Episode 28: What I Got Wrong About My Own Perimenopause for Over a Year

What I Got Wrong About My Own Perimenopause for Over a Year

I was standing at the front of the room getting ready to teach yoga when suddenly…

I couldn't find my words.

Not because I hadn't prepared.

I'd taught that sequence plenty of times. I knew the cues. I knew the transitions. I knew exactly what I wanted my students to do.

But my brain felt thick.

Slow.

Like the words were somewhere in there, but I couldn't quite get to them.

I'd been awake between 3 and 4AM again that morning. And there I was, standing in front of a room full of people preparing to guide their bodies while mine was basically like:

Ma'am. We have a problem.

That was when I started realizing I had a blind spot.

And I'd been living inside it for more than a year.

On Paper, I Was Doing Everything Right

This is what made it so confusing.

I'm a yoga teacher.

I was practicing breathwork.

I was moving my body consistently.

I wasn't staying up all night, skipping meals, or completely neglecting myself.

I had tools most people are told to use when they're stressed.

And I used them.

So when I started waking up around 3 or 4AM, feeling more irritable, craving something sweet every afternoon, relying more heavily on coffee and noticing my energy slowly disappearing…

I assumed I needed to do more.

More practice.

More breathwork.

A longer restorative session.

More patience with myself.

More effort.

Because that's what we're taught, right?

If something isn't working, try harder.

Except harder wasn't what my body needed.

Good Tools. Wrong Season.

This was the realization that changed things for me:

The tools weren't bad.

Yoga wasn't failing me.

Breathwork wasn't failing me.

But I was using individual stress-management tools while ignoring the bigger ecosystem of support my body needed during perimenopause.

That's a very different thing.

I could spend 20 minutes doing restorative yoga and feel great afterward.

But what signals was my body receiving during the other 23 hours and 40 minutes of the day?

How was I eating?

How was I sleeping?

What kind of movement was I doing?

Was I recovering from that movement?

How was I pacing my days?

How much activation was I carrying without even recognizing it as stress anymore?

Those questions changed the conversation.

Because I realized I had been giving my body good individual moments without changing enough of the patterns surrounding those moments.

My Symptoms Weren't Separate Problems

The 3AM wake-ups.

The afternoon cravings.

The irritability.

The brain fog.

The slowly disappearing energy.

I'd been responding to them individually.

But once I zoomed out, I could see the bigger pattern.

My body needed more than another trick for getting back to sleep.

It needed consistent support across the entire day.

That's why I now think about health in terms of the signals we're repeatedly sending our bodies.

Movement can be a signal.

Rest can be a signal.

Eating enough can be a signal.

Recovery can be a signal.

Breathwork can be a signal.

Sleep can be a signal.

Your body is always receiving information from how you live—not just what you do during your designated “wellness time.” That idea eventually became central to how I teach women to work with their bodies instead of constantly fighting them.

Things Started Changing When I Changed the Bigger Picture

It wasn't overnight.

And I think that's important to say.

There wasn't one magical yoga pose or supplement that suddenly fixed everything.

The 3AM wake-ups gradually became less frequent.

When I did wake up, I wasn't awake as long.

My sleep started feeling restorative again.

The afternoon cravings weren't screaming at me the way they had before.

My irritability softened.

My energy started coming back.

And that brain fog?

It started lifting.

Slowly, I started feeling like myself again.

Not because I finally found the perfect wellness hack.

Because I finally stopped asking:

What else should I add?

And started asking:

What does my body actually need in this season?

You Might Not Need to Try Harder

This is what I want women in their 40s to understand.

You can be doing a lot of things “right” and still need to change your approach.

That doesn't make the things you were doing useless.

And it doesn't mean you weren't trying hard enough.

Sometimes the thing that worked beautifully for your body before isn't enough for what your body needs now.

And piling more onto an already overwhelmed body isn't necessarily the answer.

You may need to zoom out.

Look at your sleep.

Your food.

Your strength.

Your everyday movement.

Your stress load.

Your recovery.

Your mindset.

Your life as a whole.

Because your body needs an ecosystem of support—not one perfect habit. That same bigger-picture approach is at the heart of the work I teach now.

And sometimes the most powerful realization isn't:

I need to try harder.

It's:

Ohhhhh. I finally understand what my body has been trying to tell me.