Ep 16 - The Missing Piece in Perimenopause

Karlie kicks off a mini-series on perimenopause and menopause, exploring why this transition is so much more than a hormonal shift. She reveals the deeper emotional and nervous system patterns that drive symptoms—and why addressing these is essential for practitioners working with women over 35.

Perimenopause isn't just about declining hormones—it's a rite of passage, an identity transition, and a release of decades of emotional load.

What You'll Learn

• Why supporting hormones alone isn't enough during perimenopause
• How fluctuating hormones trigger nervous system threat responses
• The identity crisis hidden beneath perimenopause symptoms
• Why decades of emotional residue surface during this transition
• How to reframe perimenopause from "problem to fix" to "rite of passage"

The Real Problem

Clients eating well, taking supplements, moving their bodies, even on HRT—yet still experiencing fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and disconnection. The issue? It's not always something missing in the prescription.

What's Really Happening

Nervous System Under Threat Fluctuating estrogen and progesterone impact neurotransmitters and the entire nervous system. The body interprets hormonal shifts as threats, triggering elevated cortisol and adrenaline—creating anxiety, insomnia, temperature issues, and inflammation.

Emotional Tsunami Decades of unprocessed grief, resentment, anger, self-betrayal, and self-rejection stored in the body, tissues, and nervous system—all surfacing now.

Identity Crisis Old identities (perfectionist, people-pleaser, achiever, fixer) suddenly don't work anymore. The body makes it clear: these old ways of being are no longer allowed. Perimenopause is the bridge between who you've been and who you actually are.

The Missing Link

Women fear losing their purpose, validation, and identity. They worry about disappointing others if they slow down. Without addressing these subconscious patterns through tools like ERT (Emotion Release Technique), even the best protocols fall short.

Why ERT Changes Everything

ERT helps:

• Assess nervous system and subconscious responses
• Create safety in the system
• Process decades-old patterns
• Work with identity shifts
• Provide specific, individualized understanding

Results: Reduced anxiety, improved sleep and energy, greater self-understanding, clarity, confidence, and renewed relationship with self.

For Practitioners

When you address these deeper layers alongside hormonal support, you get:

• Faster, more dramatic results
• Better client retention
• More referrals
• Competitive advantage

Bottom line: Perimenopause is a rite of passage that needs proper support. It's not a problem to fix—it's a powerful transformation waiting to happen.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Real Ease, the space where we go beyond surface level fixes and into the real lasting shifts that change everything. I'm Carly McKean, naturopath and the founder of Emotion Release Technique, a powerful method that identifies and clears subconscious patterns stored in the body. In this podcast, we explore the emotional drivers, identity blocks, and hidden stress responses that shape our health, business, and behaviour. This is where coaches and health practitioners evolve and real transformation begins. Let's dive in. Welcome to today's episode. This is one episode of a mini-series that I'm going to be doing all around perimenopause and menopause. I think it's such an amazing time to be a woman and having so much more understanding and awareness and education. Coming into perimenopause and menopause hasn't always been like this. So I think the more that we can become educated as women, but also as practitioners working with women, it's really important to help people navigate this really important time of our lives and something that's inevitable. The more that we have education, understanding, we get to help the bigger picture because there is a bigger picture here. And this is what I want to speak to over the next few episodes around seeing perimenopause and menopause in a very expansive way. It's supposed to be. This is a really natural evolution for us women. However, a lot of things come up at this time, and it's coming up because it's really supposed to. It's just that we've got to learn to navigate it in a little bit of a different way. We have to take note of all the different layers and parts of the puzzle so we can navigate this time in a really important way. So this episode is for health practitioners and coaches. If you are working with women over the age of 35, this is an amazing episode that you want to tune into. So I find that practitioners and coaches, you know, we see it over and over and over again. We see that clients are eating well, they're taking their supplements, they're doing all the things that's been expected, you know, moving their body, and maybe they're even taking some HRT. But even with all of these things that have been implemented and focused on, there's still those symptoms of feeling tired, foggy, anxious, depressed. And the biggest one that I see is this disconnection from self. So unfortunately, as practitioners, what generally happens here is that you know, you might start questioning your approach, or you might be questioning if you're really helping, or if what you're doing is actually helping the client in front of you. So they think, and I've seen it time and time again, that they need to tweak what they're doing, or maybe they need to add more things in, or they've got to add in, you know, lots of different layers, and really questioning their approach and how they're helping these women. And the truth is that it's not always something missing in the prescription. Sometimes it is, and obviously, looking at a prescription, looking at supporting the hormones is a really important part of helping navigate this time. But I want to be talking about this missing piece that health practitioners don't always see as a really big priority. And again, because it's not through the lens of a prescription and you know, almost like a cookie-cutter approach. We actually have to be looking at the individual in front of us. And for everybody, you know, there's usually a lot of history that's that is connected to that. There is generally something deeper going on within the nervous system and the subconscious that hasn't really been addressed. So that's where my conversation is going to go over the next few episodes. We actually have to understand that this physiological shift in hormones is a really big time for the body, right? It's a massive hormonal recalibration. It is a normal response. We have to understand that. But there is so many underlying things happening here that we have to not forget of the impact on this to the nervous system. So the fluctuating estrogen and progesterone, it doesn't just affect the reproductive system, it affects neurotransmitters, the brain, like the entire nervous system is affected by this. We know that you know estrogen affects different neurotransmitters, and this can affect our mood, motivation, pleasure. We know that progesterone also impacts neurotransmitters like GABA. So it can affect how calm we are, what our sleep, how good our sleep is, how regulated we feel. And when these hormones fluctuate, you know, the nervous system feels really unstable, and the body starts to interpret this as a threat. Even having a reduction of these hormones can actually trigger off our threat response in the nervous system. So we have to understand that there's a lot going on within the body in these deeper layers. So this threat activates the brain in a big way, and this heightens stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline. And this is where we can actually experience a lot of symptoms where our clients can produce and create a lot of symptoms, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, issues with temperature and regulating that temperature, fatigue, inflammation. So even though the practitioner is supporting hormones, or you might be supporting the hormones, a lot of the time the nervous system is not addressed in the way that it needs to be. Because you might be addressing the nervous system, you might prescribe some herbal medicine, you might be, you know, prescribing some sort of mindfulness. It just that we have to go into that deeper layer of the subconscious to actually create the safety within the system because these prescriptions are sort of missing the primary driver that's actually setting off the system because it's perceiving some sort of danger. And what's also interesting, it's not just these hormones that are having an impact on the nervous system, the brain, the neurotransmitters, it's actually creating a lot of symptoms in the body. We have to also understand that this is almost like a rite of passage. This is a time in a woman's life where things dramatically change. And again, they're supposed to. The problem is that there's generally like decades of emotional load that's actually coming out at this time. So it's it's a really big deal because with fluctuating hormones, fluctuating neurotransmitters that is affecting the mood and how regulated we are, that then obviously a lot of this emotional residue that's coming up, unprocessed grief, resentment, anger, suppression, self-betrayal. This is a really big one that I see. Self-rejection. This has literally been stored in the body, in the tissues, in the nervous system, and the energetic field. And this is a time where it's all coming up. So oh my gosh, we can even just feel the pressure for women going through this time. It's just so much overload in every single area. Things are coming up, things are dysregulated, the brain's not working properly, hormonal, you know, balance looks very different as well. So it's huge. And so during perimenopause, you know, when these hormones start to shift, what's actually shifting at the same time is an identity transition is beginning as well, right? So there's there's already lots happening with in the subconscious that things are happening in the background. And what happens for a lot of women is that they start to notice that they feel a little bit different, or they don't really feel like themselves, like they can't put their finger on it, that something's different, that they actually start to feel a little bit lost within themselves. But this is essentially the identity transition happening in the background. These emotions are starting to come up, it's active, the body's, you know, in a huge change. And a lot of women see this as a regression or that it's a time of emotional upheaval where there's like a more almost like a midlife crisis. And it's really, we've got to start seeing it. This is actually women having a going through their rite of passage, it's a release, it's a reclamation. We we want to actually help these women go through this time and really be in their power because this is what this entire transition is for. But when people are not educated on what this is all about, it's all the language that people use is around, you know, the symptoms and how bad they are and how dysregulated they are. And, you know, it's really talking to the pain and the suffering and the resistance and you know, not wanting to, not wanting to go through this time. And yes, we want to be honest that, you know, those things come up, those feelings come up, and it is very real. But there also needs to be a plan and a strategy to actually bring the power back into these clients, these women that actually is like desperately trying to find themselves, trying to ground within themselves. And in a time where they feel so dysregulated, our conversations need to help them to build their power in themselves. It's the most perfect time for this to happen. Because those masks that someone has been playing for most of their lives, it doesn't play, it isn't it's not able to cut it now. It's that that that way of being just just it won't be allowed, which again, it's not a bad thing. The people pleasing behaviors that have always been now that doesn't really it's not allowed. Those types of behaviors are just someone doesn't have the patience for that anymore. And the body and the the hormones will actually make that really, really clear. Really helping women to find themselves in a time where they feel very dysregulated. But our role as health practitioners is helping them to find themselves, to find the power, even if they are experiencing symptoms, to actually see this as a way that the body is trying to communicate, that the body has probably been trying to communicate for a really long time. And this is a time where you don't really get to mask up anymore, that the body is going to scream if it has to. And we want to start to see that symptoms can be an important way of starting to listen, starting to listen to your needs, starting to listen to your desires, starting to listen to and find that inner truth that maybe has been ignored for a really long time. This is why I love working with ERT is that it helps us to have these conversations because we're really opening up the subconscious, we're really getting an insight to the nervous system, we're actually starting to unpack some of these patterns that have been there for a long time. And when they're able to be seen and when they're able to be processed, it is very powerful. It's very, very powerful. And by actually seeing these ways of being that's been there for a while and actually understanding that this is a time of huge change and transformation, and we're actually working at the level of the nervous system, we really can create a lot of safety in the body. We really can integrate a lot of these responses and patterns and programmings and mindsets and ways of feeling and ways of being so that our clients and our women start to feel more regulated, where they actually have a little bit of hope that they're actually, you know, they're actually addressing what is really important during this time. And with ERT, we get that insight, we get that understanding, we understand the patterns, and we also get to help our clients to feel, you know, a huge shift in a relatively short amount of time, literally, even in the consultation that somebody can actually feel the difference of, you know, these integrations of these emotional responses. It's it's a really big deal. And the more and more we can create safety in the body and a concept of feeling relaxed and calm, and somebody notices that and somebody feels that, even in the consultation, it's a really, really big deal. We are really making a big change in the hormonal, you know, balance, whether that is the sex hormones or whether it is the stress hormones, we're really creating a lot of that safety in the body. And the body really returns to that balance. And rather than just constantly responding to their world because their nervous system's in a particular state. But getting back to another big key part of uh perimenopause and menopause is the concept of identity shift. I love working with identity in the work that I do because I actually think it's some of the deepest work that we can do. When we're working at the level of really claiming parts of ourselves or even parts of ourselves that we would desire in the future, we've got to claim this as an identity before we actually start to embody those behaviors, mindsets, ways of being. But the thing with this rite of passage is that this is coming whether you've consciously chosen this or not. So I think I just mentioned that it's it's the integration of these identities of, well, I'm perfectionist or I'm a people pleaser, I'm an achiever, I'm the fixer, I'm the rescuer, like whatever these identities might have been. Perimenopause really is the bridge between who you have been being that's not in alignment to who you really are, to the bridge between like I actually know who I am and I know what I want, and this is actually, you know, who I am, and this is okay, and I'm okay if nobody, you know, accepts this because I do. And I think that's a really amazing power. It's like, who are you becoming? This is the transition of perimenopause. Who are you being? Who are you becoming? And for a lot of women that are not getting this particular type of support, it can feel very unsafe. It can feel very all over the shop. It can be feel like they're very lost and almost worried that they've lost themselves or they're going a bit crazy. But it's not this at all. It's just that women that are experiencing these types of feelings is because it's not harnessed in a way that's making them feel like they're in their power. As I said earlier, it's the way that people communicate around menopause or perimenopause is that, you know, it's a it's something that we want to resist. It's not good for us. It creates all these symptoms and it's really hard. And of course, that uh of course that is a truth to some level, but we have to be bringing the conversation around how incredibly important this is to be conscious. Incredibly important to be addressing the stuff that we've been carrying for a long time. It's important to be redeciding our identities and what's actually going to help us move forward. This is also why I love working with women over their lifetime of addressing these things. So they don't just come to perimenopause and then get hit, you know, feel like they've been hit by a bus because they haven't been conscious and addressing these layers over their lifetime. But if you have women in front of you and they're getting into this place where there's a lot of stuff coming up, we have to be addressing this for them. And this is not about just having a conversation. It's not about writing a prescription, even though those two things are quite important. And obviously, you know, a prescription is necessary. I'm a naturopath. So verbally supporting them, nutritionally supporting them, making sure they're eating well, making sure they're moving their body, making sure that they're, you know, they've got a really solid plan, absolutely important. But if you're not addressing the deeper layers, the nervous system response, the subconscious response, the emotional triggers that are actually influencing uh the behaviors, the thought processes, and even the functioning of the body, we are missing a very huge piece of the puzzle when we're working with women in perimenopause and menopause. Also, what's so interesting about this whole identity shift is that when somebody perceives that they're going to lose their identity. So when somebody start knows that they need to slow down a little bit or they've got to be in a different energy in their day, a lot of the time it triggers this fear around losing their purpose or losing their validation from other people. They might fear that if they start saying no to some things, that they're going to disappoint people, or they might be judged from people, because that's a really common fear that happens over someone's lifetime. Crisis of being really lost around if I'm not doing all these things, then who am I? So these are really important assessments that we can be doing with ERT around how someone has been being and actually where they need to be, or you know, what that looks like on the other side of this. And we want to integrate any responses that are happening in the body because it's going to give us a really clear indication of where the sabotage might come in or where the overwhelm might come in or where the anxiety might come in, because, or actually, to be quite honest, we can get very specific to the emotional response. We're not even guessing, it's actually very specific of what actually comes up when we, you know, when we do slow down, when we actually say no, when we actually start to listen to our own needs, and we start to prioritize ourselves because it's, you know, it's important. We get to, we get to see what that internal resistance is. We get to understand and integrate that so that we can create flow with these new ways of being because we want to, again, help the body feel safe with this change, with the change in behaviors, with the change in mindset, and absolutely with this change in identity. When people are not supported in this way, when women are not supported in this way, they can feel very lost. They can feel all over the all over the shop, they can feel the pressure is just so much because they're trying to be and they're trying to operate in the same way they always have, but the body is significantly different and changing quite rapidly. The hormonal change, the neurochemical change, the neurotransmitters, the brain, the nervous system, like everything's changing. So there needs to be a change in how someone is being, and this is why it cannot be avoided, it cannot be ignored. So, as a practitioner, you know, I want to just commend you. We are doing incredible work, but the conversation that I always want to bring is that we we can't be ignoring these underlying drivers because we don't know what to do. And if that's the case, then it's a really important part of your care for your client that you that you do need to refer out to practitioners that can do this deeper work. You might take over and do the prescription and work with, you know, helping to support someone, you know. From a hormonal perspective and the brain and you know the diet, that's amazing. But this area really needs to be addressed. Or if you feel like this is something that you know sort of is ringing a little bit true for you, I encourage you to, you know, learn ERT so you have the ability and the skill set to be working with this part as well. And I find that when we're able to work in this part of actually assessing the nervous system, looking at the subconscious response and actually make a change in this area and actually integrate this, you also get a lot of insight to this person, your client. This helps to build so much rapport, but not just about rapport, you get to really understand your client, seeing them as an individual, seeing them for their, you know, their entire timeline, which really helps us to understand how we need to be working with them as well. So that missing link isn't just another part of this prescription. It's not another supplement. You know, it's really the ability to create safety within the nervous system. We need to make sure that the subconscious responses are in alignment to this shift and change. We want to be working with the identities and claim these new identities and clear any response that might create resistance or panic or fear or anxiety to really support our women having this very important transition. So ERT gives us an amazing framework, this amazing process to identify these emotional drivers behind these symptoms, because again, we have to understand these symptoms are a way of communication. We get to regulate the nervous system so the body can really start to heal a lot of past responses that the body stores. The body stores. A really big thing is that we want to feel in our power as practitioners around this time of a woman's life where they're going through this important transition. And we want to help reframe perimenopause and menopause to exactly how it's supposed to be. It's a rite of passage. It's a rite of passage. We want to bring the power back into our women that actually this is for them, this is important, this is something that's happening, and we want to get them back in their power, really grounded in themselves, because this is what this time is really calling off. It's not a problem to fix, it's something that we want to help our clients get back into their power. We want to support that release of hormones, trauma, old identities, old ways of being. We don't have to relive any of the trauma. It's just that it needs to be released in a safe and effective way. And this is why ERT is so amazing when we're working with women with, you know, that are going through that transition. And I know to be true that when we're working with the emotions, when we're addressing the nervous system, when we are constantly helping our clients reframe certain things and to really regulate their system, the physiology in everyday life is different. So hormones do change. Sleep does improve because we're actually supporting the stress hormones. And it allows someone's behavior, our women and their behavior to be also different because it's more aligned into a physiology that's more balanced. So we're not just managing symptoms here. As practitioners, this is not really the goal that we're trying to focus on. Of course, managing symptoms is important, but the goal is actually working with the entire system of somebody that we're working with. And that includes all the pieces of the pie. So ERT, addressing the nervous system response, addressing behaviors, addressing someone's mindset, addressing these identity shifts, addressing the overwhelm and the panic of this change happening to the body really needs to be addressed. And this is through addressing the level of the nervous system that it is being triggered from, this deepest layer. And when we get so much insight with ERT, it really opens up so much understanding and so much healing. And significant changes can happen so dramatically when we use this. You will find clients experience so much more regulation within their system, reduced anxiety and overwhelm, which is amazing, improved sleep, improved energy, understanding themselves and actually starting to feel more in their power, feeling calm and having more clarity, more confidence, and more self-leadership because they are in their power. A sense of safety in their body again, which I think is really important, and really starting to build a relationship with themselves again, feeling like that is incredibly important. Practitioners, I think for you, it's really clear, like if you're working with this level, when you're working with women in perimenopause and menopause, you get really amazing results, faster results. Like the things that can shift in a short amount of time is unbelievable. So if you're getting these results with these women, I'm telling you, they're gonna be telling all of their friends about them, about you and what you're doing. Because I guarantee women that are going through this and finding it really hard and challenging, when they start to feel some relief and some change and they're getting some results, they're gonna tell all of their friends. So you'll find that there's more referrals coming in. The retention is better because actually these women are actually starting to really understand themselves. They're actually starting to find some really big change happening. They're actually feeling so much more regulated and they're committed, right? These women that are actually going through this, they need support. They need somebody to help them go through this transition. And this is why retention can be so great, because again, clients are committed. I'm really passionate about sharing this aspect when we're working with clients. And really, it doesn't matter if you are whatever health practitioner you are, or even coaches, as I said, like this is essential that we can support women in this time of their life, which is one of the most important transition a woman can go through. And it needs to be supported, or otherwise, this out-of-control, unsafe feeling, it actually doesn't feel good. It impacts families, it impacts a person's relationship with themselves, it impacts their future self in a big way as well. And so if we can really support someone going through this transition in a really powerful way that's so that benefits the greater good for everybody involved, I think that it's a really important focus for us. So I look forward to sharing my next episode with you. And if you're ready to go deeper into this work, check out the show notes for more information on ERT, resources, and other ways that we can connect. See you next week.