The War We Wage With Ourselves (And Why It's Time to Call a Truce)

I need to tell you something that might feel uncomfortable: most of the women I work with are at war with themselves. And I don't mean this metaphorically—I mean it in the most literal, physiological sense.

They're fighting their bodies for gaining weight. Fighting their brains for forgetting words. Fighting their energy levels for crashing at 3 PM. Fighting their emotions for being "too much" or their boundaries for being "not enough." They're arguing with their hormones, negotiating with their nervous systems, and generally treating themselves like adversaries that need to be controlled, fixed, or overcome.

And here's what I've learned after nearly three decades in the fitness industry and my own brutal passage through menopause: this war is killing us. Not dramatically. Not all at once. But slowly, steadily, in ways that show up as inflammation, as brain fog, as that bone-deep exhaustion that no amount of sleep seems to touch.

What If Nothing Is Wrong With You?

Let me offer you a radical thought: what if nothing is actually wrong with you?

What if your body isn't betraying you, but responding exactly as it should to a world that was never designed to support your biology?

What if your brain isn't failing you, but adapting to decades of being told to override your intuition, ignore your needs, and push through signals that were meant to protect you?

We live in a world built on masculine circadian rhythms, masculine stress responses, and masculine recovery cycles. The research studies that determined "normal" metabolism? Done on men. The workday schedule that assumes peak productivity from 9 to 5? Based on testosterone cycles, not estrogen. The medical guidelines for "healthy" hormone levels? Often derived from data that excluded women entirely, or treated our cyclical nature as a confounding variable to be controlled for.

Is it any wonder we feel like we're constantly swimming upstream?

The Body Keeps the Score (And the Brain Pays the Price)

Here's where my training as a somatic healing practitioner fundamentally changed how I approach health coaching: I finally understood that you cannot separate what happens in your body from what happens in your brain. They're not two separate systems having a business meeting—they're in constant, intimate conversation.

When you're at war with yourself, when you're constantly overriding your body's signals and pushing through fatigue and ignoring the whispers before they become screams, your nervous system doesn't just register this as stress. It registers it as threat. And a threatened nervous system is a dysregulated nervous system. And a dysregulated nervous system is an inflamed brain.

That inflammation doesn't just make you tired or forgetful. It actually changes how your brain processes information, how it forms memories, how it regulates emotion. It affects your mitochondria, those tiny powerhouses in every cell that generate the energy your brain desperately needs. It disrupts the very chemistry that allows neurons to communicate with each other.

I've watched brilliant women convince themselves they're "losing it" when actually, they're just exhausted from decades of internal warfare.

The Grace That Comes From Listening

I went through menopause like walking through fire. Brain fog so thick I couldn't find words I'd used my entire professional life. Anxiety that came out of nowhere and everywhere. A body that felt foreign, like I was wearing someone else's skin. And I did what we're all trained to do—I tried to fight it. I tried to willpower my way through. I tried to be "stronger" than my biology.

It nearly destroyed me.

What saved me wasn't more discipline or a better morning routine or another supplement protocol. What saved me was finally learning to listen.

To actually inhabit my body instead of just commanding it. To develop the kind of physical self-awareness that goes deeper than tracking metrics, to cultivate an intuition that's rooted in sensation rather than fear.

This is what somatic healing gave me, and it's what I now bring to my work as a health coach. Because you can't heal a relationship with your body by treating it like an enemy. You can't restore your brain health by continuing to ignore every signal it sends you. You can't find your way to wellness by following a map drawn for someone else's biology.

Turning Up Your Volume

So here's what I'm asking you to do: turn up your voice. Not the voice in your head that's been trained to criticize and compare, but the voice of your actual lived experience. The one that knows when you're tired, when you're hungry, when you're overwhelmed. The one that recognizes the difference between genuine need and manufactured urgency.

Turn up your strength, but not the kind that means pushing through. The kind that means standing firm in what's true for you, even when it's inconvenient for everyone else. The strength to say "this isn't working" or "I need something different" or "my body is telling me no."

Turn up your humor, especially about the absurdity of trying to exist in systems that weren't built for you. Laugh at the wellness industry telling you the answer is more green juice. Laugh at the productivity gurus insisting you need to wake up at 5 AM. Laugh at every message that suggests your worth is tied to your ability to perform masculinity in a female body.

Turn up your kindness and gratitude, particularly toward yourself. Can you find even a sliver of appreciation for a body that has carried you through everything? For a brain that has adapted and compensated and protected you through decades of stress?

Turn up your love for yourself, not as some abstract self-care concept but as a practical, daily practice of actually respecting what you need.

Receptiveness as Revolution

One of the most powerful shifts I've witnessed in my work is when women stop trying to force their way through life and start becoming receptive instead. Not passive—receptive. Not compliant—open.

Receptiveness means being willing to have new experiences instead of white-knuckling your way through the same old patterns. It means truly connecting with others instead of performing connection while your nervous system stays locked in protection mode. It means developing the kind of physical self-awareness that lets you feel the early warning signs of dysregulation before they become full-blown crises.

This is revolution disguised as receptivity. Because a woman who trusts her body's wisdom, who honors her brain's needs, who refuses to go to war with herself anymore—that woman is dangerous to every system that depends on her self-abandonment.

The Transformation No One Tells You About

Here's what most wellness programs won't tell you: transformation is rarely about the hormones, the weight, the movement protocol, or even the meditation practice. Those things matter, yes. They're tools. But they're not the transformation itself.

Real transformation happens when you reconnect with yourself. Not the self you've constructed to be acceptable or productive or manageable. Not the self that fits neatly into wellness narratives about "better versions" of yourself.

I'm talking about reconnecting with your actual self—the one who has desires you've been too afraid to name, needs you've been too busy to honor, dreams you've dismissed as impractical or impossible or "not for someone like me."

And here's the uncomfortable truth: allowing those desires to be revealed can feel absolutely terrifying.

Because what if reconnecting with yourself means admitting you want something completely different than what you have?

What if it means acknowledging that the path you're on isn't the one your body and brain actually need?

What if it requires you to consider possibilities that feel impossible from where you're standing right now?

I've watched women discover through our work together that their crushing fatigue isn't just about their hormones—it's about spending decades doing work that depletes them.

That their brain fog isn't just perimenopause—it's their nervous system finally saying "I can't keep pretending anymore."

That their body's resistance to their exercise routine isn't weakness—it's wisdom, trying to tell them they need something entirely different.

These revelations are deeply uncomfortable. Because they demand we look at the gap between who we've been told to be and who we actually are. Between what we think we "should" want and what we genuinely desire. Between the life we've constructed and the life our body and brain are literally begging us to consider.

Considering Every Possibility

As women, especially as we navigate the massive hormonal and neurological shifts of midlife, we cannot afford to leave any stone unturned. We must be willing to consider every possibility that touches our health and well-being in some way. Not to overwhelm ourselves with endless interventions, but to distill down to the most potent changes we can make in our habits, our environments, our relationships, our work, our very lives.

This is where most approaches fail us. They give you a protocol: take these supplements, do this exercise, eat this way, meditate for this long. And if it doesn't work, they tell you to try harder, be more consistent, have more discipline.

But what if the problem isn't your commitment? What if the problem is that you're trying to fix something that isn't actually broken, while ignoring the thing that's actually asking for your attention?

What if your brain fog isn't asking for another nootropic supplement—it's asking you to stop scheduling back-to-back meetings with no break? What if your weight gain isn't about calories—it's about chronic stress from a relationship that constantly activates your threat response? What if your insomnia isn't about sleep hygiene—it's about the fact that nighttime is the only time you're allowed to exist without someone needing something from you?

When we're willing to consider every possibility, we can start asking different questions. Not "what's wrong with me?" but "what is my body trying to tell me?"

Not "how do I fix this?" but "what needs to change for me to actually thrive?"

And then comes the hard part: we have to be willing to act on those answers, even when they reveal paths that feel different or impossible. Even when they challenge everything we thought we knew about who we're supposed to be.

The Most Potent Changes

This is why my work isn't about giving you a one-size-fits-all protocol. It's about helping you develop the physical self-awareness and intuition to know what your body and brain actually need. It's about creating the space to let your deepest desires surface without immediately dismissing them. It's about considering all the possibilities—biochemical, neurological, relational, vocational, environmental, spiritual—and then distilling them down to the changes that will be most potent for YOUR specific life.

Sometimes that means optimizing your mitochondrial function with targeted supplements and fasting protocols. Sometimes it means setting a boundary with your mother that you've avoided for forty years. Sometimes it means both, because your inflamed brain and your inflamed relationships are feeding each other in ways you couldn't see until you started actually listening.

The transformation I'm talking about isn't comfortable. It's not pretty. It doesn't fit neatly into a 30-day challenge or a before-and-after photo.

It asks you to be willing to see what you haven't wanted to see. To want what you've been afraid to want. To become someone you've never allowed yourself to imagine.

And it starts with the radical act of reconnecting with yourself—all of yourself, not just the parts that are convenient or acceptable or easy to manage.

Expanding Your Capacity for Grace

Every difficult experience I've had, every moment I've grappled with my changing brain, every time I've felt lost in my own body—all of it has expanded my capacity for grace. For myself. For my brain. For this beautifully complex, ridiculously resilient, absolutely imperfect human experience.

This is what I mean by BrainGrace™. Not just understanding the neuroscience of what's happening in your menopausal brain, though that's important. Not just having the right supplements or the perfect protocol, though those can help. BrainGrace is about fundamentally changing your relationship with your brain and body from one of control to one of collaboration. From warfare to partnership. From judgment to curiosity.

It's about recognizing that your brain is doing its absolute best with the resources it has, in a world that often feels like it's working against you. And instead of demanding it perform like it did when you were 25, or comparing it to someone else's brain, or treating it like a problem to be solved, you extend it the same grace you'd offer a dear friend who's going through something hard.

The Different Kind of Health Coaching

This is why my work looks different from most health coaching. Yes, I bring the science—the neuroscience, the functional medicine, the longevity research. Yes, I understand metabolism and mitochondria and the intricate dance of hormones and inflammation and cognitive function.

But I also bring my training as a somatic healer, which means I'm not just looking at your bloodwork or your food journal or your exercise log. I'm helping you develop the physical self-awareness that lets you actually feel when your nervous system is dysregulated. I'm teaching you to listen to the sensations that signal when you're moving toward health or away from it. I'm guiding you to trust the intuition that your body has been trying to give you all along.

Because here's what I know: you already have the answers. They're stored in your tissues, encoded in your nervous system, whispered through your gut feelings and your physical sensations and your sudden knowings. My job isn't to give you a protocol to follow. It's to help you remember how to listen to yourself again.

Your Invitation

So this is your invitation to stop fighting. To call a truce in the war you've been waging with yourself. To get curious instead of critical. To develop the kind of physical self-awareness that lets you actually inhabit your body instead of just occupying it.

Your brain is not your enemy. Your body is not your adversary. They're your allies, doing their absolute best to protect you, to carry you, to adapt to circumstances that were never designed with your needs in mind.

Maybe it's time to start treating them like the friends they've always been.

Maybe it's time for a little grace.

If you're ready to stop fighting yourself and start working with your brain instead of against it, let's talk. My BrainGrace™ Method combines cutting-edge neuroscience with somatic healing practices to help midlife women navigate their changing brains with curiosity, compassion, and actual results. Because you deserve better than another war with yourself. 1:1 Coaching

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