Unshakable Confidence: Breaking Free from Body Image, Perfectionism, and Playing Small with Tamsin Broster

Are you struggling with visibility in your life or business? Do you question your worth and ability to show up confidently? In this episode, Tamsin Broster discusses  why so many brilliant women stay stuck on the sidelines, watching others succeed while doubting their own expertise.

Tamsin, host of the Unshakable Confidence Podcast, shares her powerful journey from 20 years in the Ministry of Defense through burnout, perimenopause, and motherhood to becoming a sought-after coach who helps women overcome their inner critic. This episode dives deep into breaking free from beauty culture expectations, navigating hormonal changes during midlife transitions, body image struggles, the invisible mental load women carry, and stepping fully into your power—whether that's in your career, your business, or your personal life.

If you're tired of letting perfectionism, body image concerns, or midlife changes hold you back from living the life you deserve, this episode is your permission slip to stop playing small and start showing up authentically.

Key Takeaways

Unshakable confidence isn't about never doubting yourself—it's about trusting yourself enough to be centered and stable even when external factors try to knock you down

Body image and visibility are connected—making peace with your body (instead of constantly trying to "fix" it) frees up energy to show up boldly in your life and work

Midlife brings a reckoning—when perimenopause, motherhood, aging parents, and career collide, it forces you to stop giving endlessly and start prioritizing yourself

You're not responsible for everyone else's health and choices—women carry an invisible mental load managing other people's lives, and it's time to put that burden down

Stop waiting for permission—whether it's podcast invites, speaking gigs, or anything else, no one's coming to save you. Ask for what you want.

Playing small keeps you stuck—perfectionism, body image concerns, and waiting to be "ready" prevent brilliant women from being seen and claiming their expertise

Tamsin Broster is a confidence and visibility coach who helps women break free from the pressure to look perfect and be palatable so they can show up boldly, speak with authority, and grow a business that reflects who they truly are.

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Rose Wippich bridges ancient wisdom and modern life, teaching people how to tap into their natural healing abilities. As an Energy Alchemist, she guides women towards vibrant health and helps them rewrite limiting narratives around aging and step into their sovereign power. Discover how to protect your energy, honor your boundaries, and reconnect with your true desires. Your journey to energetic sovereignty starts here. 👑

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Produced by Rose Wippich | Chat Off The Mat Podcast

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Episode Setup
• 0:39 Meet Tamsin: MOD to Mentor
• 2:06 Burnout, Body Image, and a Reset
• 4:06 From Dieting to Body Peace
• 8:22 Naming What’s Really In The Way
• 11:29 Identity Shifts and Family Roles
• 15:07 Self-Trust Over External Approval
• 18:13 Confidence at Work in Perimenopause
• 21:24 Joy, Rituals, and Reframing “Odd”
• 24:59 Morning Triggers: Stress and Shame
• 28:12 Fasting, Autonomy, and Listening Inward
• 33:03 Unshakable Confidence Defined
• 33:52 Offers: “Known,” Podcast, Freebies
• 41:56 Closing Gratitude & Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Ready to unlock your most vibrant, authentic self? Welcome to Chat Off the Mat, where holistic wellness meets practical wisdom and extraordinary transformation. I'm your host, Rose Whippich. I'm a Qigong instructor, yoga teacher, and a Reiki master. So get ready for inspiring conversations with wellness experts who understand your unique journey, plus practical tools for energy healing, life transitions, and conscious and soulful living. Your journey to radiant wellness starts now. Let's create magic together. Tamson Broster is a confidence and visibility coach who helps women break free from the pressure to look perfect and be palatable so they can show up boldly, speak with authority, and grow a business that reflects who they truly are. After 20 years in the Ministry of Defense, Samson knows exactly how exhausting it is to hide who you are to fit in. Now she brings that experience alongside deep work around body image, menopause, and self-confidence to help women dismantle the voice in their heads that says, Hey, you're not good enough. Her work is for women who are done with hiding, done with shame, and ready to grow their business and stop playing small. Welcome, Tamsin. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Me too. So we'll just go right into it. Um, talk about your journey, how you got to being the um the coach of uh unshakable confidence.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41

Yeah, I'm trying to give you a shortish story, I suppose. But I was in the MOD for 20 years. At 18, I got my first full-time job. I left college, went into that job, and I climbed my way through this very male-dominated space that I was in, but I really, really loved it. And then when I got to about 38, I was I had my second child, and I was in probably the most senior position I'd ever been in, and I'd worked my way up to that. And perimenopause hit me, motherhood hit me, um, burnout hit me, trying to survive in a role that was not created or designed for me in an office that wasn't designed for me. And my mother got sick and everything collided, and I had a very serious burnout and left. And I had some time off, and I really needed it actually. I really needed to come back to myself, find out who I was, working out my new identity with these two young kids that I had, you know, and I was just trying to find my myself and my way. But I had always been very focused on how I looked. I was very worried about always worrying about my weight. I was always really focused on like I was always on a diet, I was always talking about what I was doing to get thinner, I was always trying something new, and I was just constantly in this kind of war zone with my body. And that downtime, that quiet space of just being at home with the kids made me realize that I was putting so much time and effort into worrying about what I looked like and how my body was shaped, that actually was taking me away from the things that I could enjoy. And actually, I was just constantly fighting against my body. And I did a lot of work on body image and really helped get myself to a place of peace. And yes, that meant my body expanded, but actually it I really just started to enjoy my body and started to really understand that I couldn't force it or fix it or do all these things. But like most women, I loved that message so much and I loved that piece that I had found. I wanted to give it to other people because that's what we do. And I suddenly started loving working with women and I set up my own business about 12 months after I had left my full-time job. And I still hadn't really decided that that's what I was going to do forever. But um I realized that I needed to go all in and not go back to my other job. So I decided to resign officially and really, really actually, you know, pull the plug on that career. And it's just been evolving for the last five years. It's just been evolving into this, you know, amazing thing, which I still talk about. Body image, it underpins a lot of the work that I do. But it's not the only thing that I talk about because lots of women struggle with like their self-worth and their confidence in so many different ways, and in so many different scenarios, whether it be building a business, whether it's building your career, you know, when your life changes and you get to those like later sandwich years when you've got young kids and you know, older parents, aging parents, and all of the stuff that life throws at us around this um age group, that's kind of what I focus on now. So, yeah, that's that's how I've got to this point.

SPEAKER_01: 4:41

Yeah. So through your personal experience, you were able to gain some of this um, I guess, confidence in yourself to go out and help others because you identify that there's a need.

SPEAKER_00: 4:51

Yeah, definitely. There, and and because I hit all those different things at the same time, and I see this with my clients now, they all of these things just collide in the same space. You don't usually, it just suddenly starts to have this kind of domino effect, like one thing and then it's another and it's another. And then all of a sudden you realize that you have been giving and giving and serving and serving. And then when you need that back, it's not coming. Your estrogen's dropping off a cliff, and you're no longer putting up with it all. And then you just have all this stuff going on, maybe shame, guilt, and you know, this kind of reckoning with yourself. That's the only real way to describe it. It's like this becoming, but we sometimes resist that and end up kind of, you know, wanting to get back to how we were and be the nice girl that we were, and you know, don't want to kind of let that be. And what I help women do is just just to say, actually, this is just not, this is not about going back. This is about trying to meet who you're gonna be, who you are, who you're becoming. And um, when we've got the self-trust, that brings the confidence in ourselves. We really, really deeply trust ourselves and have that inner knowing that we can block out all that noise and we can, you know, move forward in whatever direction it is that we're going.

SPEAKER_01: 6:04

Yes, it's this acceptance that we have of who we are and who we really uncover, who we want to be as well, because we go through changes just like you did when you worked. And I just want to clarify you worked at the Ministry of Defense. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Which was uh a huge job, right? And and then you have kids, and then you're the your kids are older, so these transitions, you're you're almost um burying yourself every time, you know, in in these earlier years of your life. And then you're opening up to this like, who am I, where am I, where do I want to go?

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

And then you discover, well, maybe I'm afraid to do anything because I haven't done anything or I've always done stuff for everyone else, and I forgot what it's like to be ambitious and do something that I just I knew who I was who I was expected to be, but I had never experienced being who I wanted to be, or being or just existing in a way that I wanted to be. I always knew that you know, be you know, dieting plays a role in that. And I know that people can't always make that connection, but you know, dieting was about becoming someone society wanted me to be, about fixing my body in a way, and in in eating in a way nobody cared, nobody cared whether that meant that I was struggling, whether that meant that I had enough energy to look after my kids, whether that meant that I was healthy or happy as long as I was getting thin, nobody cared. And actually, it's it's not just dieting where that shows up. I had a job that was sucking the life from me, and yes, sometimes I loved it. Um, and there were many years that I loved it, but I didn't mean I was always gonna love it, but it was expected of me. Nobody really cared about that because it was like, well, you've got the house and you've got a good salary and you've got all this stuff, and you know, it means that you've got it was like one of those jobs that was kind of had a bit of like substance to it. So when somebody said, What do you do for a living? And I'm like, Well, I look after helicopter contracts for the military. Well, great, you know, that sounds good. That sounds good, yeah. It's like, wow, that sounds interesting. I'm like, yeah, it's not not really. Um, and it just kind of sounded good. So I knew that society was praising me, but I didn't know what I was, I didn't know how much peace there would be. I just thought I was going towards that. I thought I was were on the right path as such because it was ticking all the boxes, but not mine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:22

Well, that's uh great story. Um so let's talk a little bit about um how women can identify if what is holding them back. So you work with women to create this unshakable confidence. And what's the first step in first identifying, hey, I'm not really confident. Well, how does that show up for people or for women?

SPEAKER_00: 8:44

Yeah, I do know. I was having this conversation with somebody else actually just yesterday when I was talking about what I do and we were talking about how clients come to find me. You know, in the early days, I used to talk a lot about binge eating and emotional eating when I first started my business. I don't actually go into that much anymore, but it was interesting because I can remember a particular client in those early days who came to me because she was like, I just cannot get my hands out of the biscuit tin. When I'm at home and I'm working on my own, I just can't seem to hold back and I seem to have all these things. That led the coaching that we went through, led to us finding out that she had a really real kind of fear of being seen because of an operation she had which changed how she looked significantly. And it's so interesting that we started off over here talking about eating too many biscuits, but actually she was really having she was soothing herself. She was using food to soothe herself through the traumatic experience of something that had happened to her post-having children. And I always still find that fascinating that we can go from one place to the other. So the way that I start when I talk to people is I just ask questions. I am a bit like an investigator. And I ask questions a bit like the doctors do, that don't always seem relevant, but they are to me because I'm listening for something. And I that's the key skill. As you know, when you're coaching, you're listening. You're listening more than you're talking, and you're asking those significant questions. And then I will reflect it back to people, and there will quite often be like this massive aha moment, like, oh my God, that's what's in the way. And once we know what's in the way, once we have that awareness, then we can change it. But when we're moving through it, think she could still be out there thinking, I've got a problem with biscuits, I've got a problem with biscuits. And when I say biscuits, I always wonder whether people know what I'm talking about because it's a British thing, like, you know, it's cookies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cookies, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So she could have been really trying to solve that problem. And how she would solve that problem is she would diet harder, she would restrict more, she would move her body more, she would exercise more. But actually, when we got to it, that wasn't the thing. It wasn't about that. It was there was so much more behind the reasoning why. But once we brought her awareness to it, the binging and the and the eating, the emotional eating stopped because she was able to go, I'm just doing that to try and soothe myself. What are the other things that I can do to help myself feel confident in the body that I have now got that I cannot change because this thing has happened to me and how can I deal with that? You know, is it therapy? Is it um, you know, being just just working on her confidence in in her appearance? Is it that she might dress differently, that she might have a haircut or something? I don't know, whatever it might be. But it we're not focusing on the wrong thing. And this is what I find, especially with business owners as well, or people in their careers, they seem to think that their problem is some one thing, and they're working so hard towards that, and it's not doing anything. And then when we work through it, we realize that actually there's something else, and we can then focus on that. And it makes it the route to kind of clearing that is so much quicker. It you're not messing around with things that aren't working anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 11:49

Yeah, that makes so much sense. You know, I'm hearing you, and I'm thinking of I'm thinking of my own binging eating that I do, and I eat a lot of crisps, and I'm wondering which are chips here in the US. And I'm wondering, well, okay, well, what's happening with that? Like, am I bored? What's going on? And and um, so I need to figure out what's what's what's what the deal is with that too. There could be some underlying things when you're doing something habitually, you're not realizing it. Um and there's also this this feeling of judgment and criticism that you can often get from someone else if you're when you're trying to put yourself out there, make a change or do something, you're worried about someone else saying, Hey, this is not you, or why are you doing that? I'm sure you often come across that as well.

SPEAKER_00: 12:36

Definitely. And I think, like for myself, let's take me for an example. I had an identity. I worked for the civil service, I'd worked for them my whole life. I was married to, and I still am, married to my military husband. And, you know, we have four kids between us. We have two together, and his, he's got two from a previous marriage. We, you know, we live where we live and we, you know, do the things that we do, and we had those identities. So when um things change or things are different, it's unsettling for other people, and quite often it's that question of, oh, is that the right thing to do? And you get those kind of quizzical things, you know, especially, especially with me, no my whole identity was built around being thinner. My whole family always knew that I was on some kind of quest to get thinner, and it was always like, Oh, you're working so hard, well done. And depending on where I had got to on the scale, well done. You can imagine me doing a full 360 and going, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not doing that anymore. I don't my body can just be how it is. I'm gonna concentrate on my health, I'm gonna make sure I'm eating the way that nourishes me. That means I have energy to show up in my life fully. That means I can go for the runs that I love doing, that means I can go and lift the weights in the gym. Like I need to be able to, I need to eat to be able to do that. I cannot be existing on coffee and diet coke like I was and protein shakes. Yeah, and just trying to and calling it health. Yes, it's not happening anymore. And of course, people start to then worry, but what about your health? But what about the, you know, what what about you know what the doctors might say? What about and then they start to do that, but that's not about me. And I have had to learn this. This is this is about them and their fears and what they don't want to let go. And sometimes when your whole family have got you in their category, in that box where you fit, you'll find that when you decide to break out of that, which naturally you will at some point with something in your life, whether it's a career change, whether it's a relationship breakdown, people will question whether you're doing the right thing, you know. I remember leaving my ex-alcoholic long-term boyfriend who I owned a house with, and my dad was not concerned about my what I had been through and why I was breaking up with. He was more concerned that I was losing my house. And but well, hang on, what about for the financial gain? And I understood where he was coming from. But do you see what I mean? That was about his fears, his fears of losing a property and losing money. I did lose a property, I lost a lot of money, but I gained my health, my mental health, and my freedom.

SPEAKER_01: 15:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 15:03

And that to me was more important. But for my dad, he thinks differently to me. He's very logical, he was very um, you know, he was always worried about concerned about the five. It's not because if I had to turn around and said to him, no, you know, I need to leave because of my own safety and sanity, he would have absolutely understood. But his first reaction was about what he was worried about because that's so that's what we have to remember. Anytime you're making a big change or a big shift in your life, or you're you know, absorbing like a new identity, you have to realize that you won't take everybody with you. They will drop off, they will change how they see you. They've got to fit you into a new category now, and that's okay. We have to just that's not for us to manage.

SPEAKER_01: 15:48

Right. Yeah, and and and we can and it's the same with other people. If they need to make a change, we need to realize that's their their their journey, their path. How did you feel once you decided, hey, I'm good, I'm gonna just do what makes me feel good. I I have accepted who I am. How did that must have made you feel like you you know it's so good?

SPEAKER_00: 16:11

I think it's the headspace that you get when you're not thinking in numbers every time that you eat and you're not weighing out every single thing, and you're not, you know, it's it's the headspace and the freedom and the the space to just be and like letting go of the job and discovering who I am. But then alongside that, there are some things where you doubt yourself and you can think to yourself, well, is this the right path? Should I stick with that sensible nine to five? And you know, I still sometimes it crosses my mind now, and I think when you have a difficult month in business or anything like that, you suddenly think, Oh, is this the right path? Am I but I just trust myself to lead myself and lead the way and not kind of um I I want to make sure that even when I make a decision that it's my own peace and that my own energy is protected, because that I can't buy that. There's nothing that I've never had that before, and I don't want to let it go now because it feels so precious, having that space in my brain to concentrate on living.

SPEAKER_01: 17:11

Yeah, it's a it's a mindset, and and I love what you said about having your energy. Um I forgot what you exactly what you said, but you're at peace and you have your own energy, and you know, you've worked at getting to this point, and it feels good. It's work to get to that place.

SPEAKER_00: 17:29

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's it is so unique and different for everybody because everybody's in a different position. I help people that are in careers that want to stay in those careers but are struggling with their confidence, maybe have hit perimenopause and are suddenly struggling to speak up in a meeting, or finding that they are second-guessing themselves, they're finding their brains not as organized as it used to be when they were in their 20s, and suddenly things are muddly and we're forgetting things and we can't think on the spot, and and we're climbing that ladder but in our careers, but maybe not feeling as confident in ourselves as we go further, and that is very common. Um, but I also help people who are maybe starting out and doing that transition specifically from like a job where they have that identity, where that is they know you know that paycheck comes into the bank, they know what they're doing at work, but it's sucking the soul from them and they they have found something new. And so often I help people move from a little bit like I did with like a military background career, um, and having that very formal, kind of known career into something that's a bit more kind of soft, coaching, you know, things that are like, you know, where they might be getting into more kind of spiritual side of things, like crystals and and you know, thinking about um you nourishing themselves through different rituals that maybe their family just don't see them as that kind of person. It's a new identity. So we're helping, you know, I'm helping people move from that space but with confidence to really own it and say, Do you know what? I don't know what I'm doing, but I want to explore it and I want to be okay with that. But they have to be okay with that in themselves first. So quite often people will think it's actually about what other people think of them. What we uncover through coaching sessions is it's actually not, it's about what you think of you. And it's the it's the barrier you have about that identity and the things that you hold up, the same with weight and the same with body size. It's the identity shift that you have to do for yourself, not necessarily other people. Does that make sense? Like, so yeah, for me, I was always trying to be thin. I was either thinner than I am now, or I was trying to get thinner. So I was being a good girl if I was uh ever in my plus size body. I was always on track as heading to away from it. So everyone was like, oh, it's okay, because you're trying. I was either trying or I was getting there. And then when I stopped trying and I just existing in this body, I had to accept that that was okay. And there's a tendency when people first do that work and they work on themselves with their relationship with food and their body and feel like they have to really prove that they're healthy. And I was like that in the first bit. I was really like, but I you know, I'm still doing this and I'm still doing that, and I had to, I don't prove anything to anyone anymore. Like that's just too much for my energy. And I that's what help people do. You don't have to prove anything to anyone, and it's the same with anything. I've got a client at the moment who's transitioning from a very safe job, um, respectable job, into being a coach. And she is feeling like she's got to prove that she's not doing anything um silly, she's not taking too much risk, that she can still earn the same amount of money, but she's got to prove it to herself because until she can get to the place where she believes that in herself, she won't, she will struggle. She will just sit in this place of struggle where she's trying to, you know, prove to her loved ones, her partner, her family, that she's not doing anything silly. Women are always we don't want to be seen as silly, taking risks. We're not, we're not, we're not socialized that way. So that's the process that we go through is this un, this like shedding of these beliefs, but they're your beliefs, not other people's, because we can't control other people. And it's letting go of like what we I can't control what people think of my body. I can walk down the street, and some people would be like, oh my gosh, she looks great, you know, and won't won't, you know, say that I am fat or plus size or anything else. And then other people will think that I'm huge because that's their perception of body size. It does I am not in control of them, it matters what I think of me, and that that's all that counts. And it's taken me a very long time to get to that place.

SPEAKER_01: 21:39

It can't. And a lot of people, and you're talking about women who are transitioning and not feeling confident, but there's a lot of this imposter syndrome, and I know this is a term that gets tossed around a lot. And even when I became a yoga teacher and I first learned how to do that, I was so worried about teaching because I'm like, who am I to teach? I just learned, and but I knew it was something that I needed to do. It was like a life's purpose or a part of my life's purpose. Even when I became a Reiki teacher or a Reiki practitioner, like people are like, What's Reiki? And I'm like, I was afraid to talk about it. But I knew in my heart this is what I'm intended to do. Now it's more mainstream. But um, you just have to own it.

SPEAKER_00: 22:18

Yeah. And that and that's what you're right in what you're saying about imposter syndrome. You know, some people sort of say it's made up, and I agree with that, but it's still a term that people recognize and understand, so it's still talk about it. Because it is something that I think women are linked to much more often with this imposter syndrome, because we are not taught to, we're not taught to be like owning our identities, are we, or things that we love, our passions. They always have to come last. The kids have to come first, the partners have to come first, and then even careers have to come first. We're always, everyone's always talking about what we're doing for other people, and we're not taught to really lean into what lights us up or what brings us joy, especially if that is seen as something a little bit kind of odd to other people. Whoa, whoa, we're odd. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I try not to use that term because I think it's just it's just joy. That's all it's that's all we're talking about. When I sit here with my, you know, oracle cards in the morning. Me too, zero idea whether this is like I will be honest, I don't really sit and think whether it's something that is real or not real. It doesn't matter. It brings me so much joy to just get those cards out and say, what message do I need to hear today? You know, and I love the fact that I keep getting the same card every day for the last week, driving me crazy. But I agree, doesn't it? It's just something that I take pleasure, it's not harming anyone. And I think we I see loads and lots of women, especially around that sort of age where they sort of come into perimenopause, wanting to lean into more of those things. We're searching for something, and we want some purpose and we want some um guidance and we want to feel that way, and we often look to dieting, beauty, those kind of things to give us that. And that is why we still feel like we're chasing something because we're clinging on to something that's kind of making other people money, and it's not really fulfilling for us. We think we're gonna be fulfilled when we get rid of all those wrinkles and we lose that weight, and actually we get there and then we realize it's not actually true.

SPEAKER_01: 24:21

I know you you also mentioned perimenopause and menopause, and how does that impact? Well, I'm gonna say women, entrepreneurs, uh, their confidence and self-image. So I want to talk a little bit about you know, transitioning into that and embracing the changes that occur. How can women do that?

SPEAKER_00: 24:40

Perimenopause is a big shift. It's a big shift in identity. You can feel it. There's something different, there's this anger, there's rage, there's a lot of like I call it our good girl hormone, Easterden, decides to leave the building. And when she's gone, you are unfiltered and you are like rageful. And I think I had, I think I can't remember what I called the episode now, but I had a podcast episode of like, you know, are you perimetopausal or do you just literally hate the fact that your husband's leaving his socks on the floor? Because actually, sometimes we blame our hormones, and my mother always said this to me. Sometimes she said it is your hormone. She said, but more often than not, it's because someone's being an idiot and annoying you. And actually, we've got to stop blaming ourselves and our hormones. But actually, it all it's doing is removing this layer. So there's so many different things that go on for women as they're going through this stage. Our bodies are changing and our identity is shifting, but we've also got lots of other things going on externally to that. So there's lots of things like we are probably at the height of our career, we are probably in the most senior position that we've ever been in. We have probably got other people that are starting to rely on us that we have not had that before, like maybe aging parents, maybe um young kids, maybe teenagers or kids going into adulthood that are relying on us in different ways. And there's so many layers of things, and then all this stuff going on in our body. And our bodies change. And because society pushes women into this box of we should look like this, we should act like this, we're still trying to fit ourselves into that mold, but all of these other things are stopping that from working. And it's, I call it like a it's like a wake-up call. It's like nature's way of saying, no, no more. That's it. You've done your time, you've done all the stuff for everybody else. Now is the time to come back to yourself and come home to yourself. But that's so difficult because we're still going, but I've got to be as thin as possible, but I've got to be as good as possible, but I've got to be, you know, and then we've got we see the poster women for perimenopause. And I'm in the UK, it's like Davina McCall. I don't know what you've got maybe in the States, but this woman is amazing, but she is like washboard abs, she's like running marathons, she's doing, do you know, like most of us? I mean, not absolutely not. That's what we're that's what we're comparing ourselves to. That's what we are told. You know what? If you just work hard enough, this could be your reality. And in in truth, it's not that. There's so much at play. Genetics, there's um economic status, there's education, there's there's so many other factors that are at play. This is why I'm always saying to women, like, what do you want? What would you enjoy? You know, I've taken up weightlifting in my um 40s because I know it's gonna help my body, my perimenopausal body. And it makes me feel so strong and so I love it. Right. But I never would have got there beforehand because I wasn't interested. And now I love it, but it doesn't, it's it you've got to do the things that light you up. I have time for that, I have the money for that. Like there's so many other things. And we've got to stop blaming ourselves. Like, what would feel good to you with the resources you have, in the body you have, in the time that you have, what would feel good to you? And it that's what that's what this kind of time is is about. And I think the other thing that I didn't mention there was quite often women at this stage of life get um their you know, diagnosis with ADHD, autism, all the things that were missed when we were covering it up all of our whole lives. Some of those become, they rise to the surface, everything just floats to the surface.

SPEAKER_01: 28:00

Yes, that's true. I and we have to get rid of, but we we still have to get rid of some of these labels. Like, I don't like when people say, Well, I'm menopausal and perimenopausal, that's why I'm doing that. I'm like, yes, but don't take that on as a label, you know, it's okay with what you're going through. Accept it and and allow it to happen, but don't say, you know, don't don't because then other people will just say, Oh, she's menopausal. That's why she's raging, or that's why she's acting that way, or whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 28:29

And that's the problem, that we don't then get the help that we need. We don't have to make it our entire personality. It can be something that we are working through because there's so many different phases, and lots of women sort of, you know, come out the other side um and think, well, what was that? And then some women don't come out the other side, it just becomes their new normal. So it's very individual and not there's not a one-size-fits-all at all.

SPEAKER_01: 28:52

It is hard navigating the menopause, perimenopause environment because I mean there's a lot of information out there more now than there ever was. Um, the support is there. Seek support. Don't feel like you're navigating things alone. I think that's another thing. People don't ask women. Women don't ask for help. Women are like, I got it. I've got this. I've raised children, I've had a job, I've done this. What about like people like yourself that they can reach out to, someone that can help them, doctors. Maybe there's a maybe not, I don't know. Not so many doctors that help with perimenopause and menopause. But there's gotta be resources out there that help you.

SPEAKER_00: 29:30

There's there's a lot. I we I um I'm part of a menopause group on Facebook actually, and I, you know, there's there's many experts in there, and I provide the confidence side of things and talk just about that. And there's other people that do like the HRT and the you know the natural remedies and the relaxation. There's like there's loads of help out there. I think you're right, we have to stop thinking that we've got to struggle alone because this is a time of our life where it can get dangerous to struggle alone. It can get really dark and really hard, and you think you're broken and you think that you're Body is failing you, or you know, at least um being unfair to you. And actually it's because of the expectations externally that we're putting on ourselves. When we come back, come back to there, you'll find that actually your body's just doing what it needs to do.

SPEAKER_01: 30:16

Yeah, you know, when you said that about fixing ourselves, I mean, my whole body just was like it hit home what you said that because I feel like constantly, maybe me personally, I just feel like, oh, there's always something I'm trying to fix, whether it's like my body or my health or my image or my words or my mental. Every day, sometimes I'm like, oh my god, please, Rosh, just stop talking in your head.

SPEAKER_00: 30:41

You know, just turning that internal chatter off, or turning that internal chatter into. I always think you can't actually turn her off, like she's part of you, not really. Um, but you can let her speak, and when you let her just have her say, and I just like to disagree with her and go, Yeah, yeah, I get I get what you're saying, but actually, I've got this. Like, I'm okay. I'm gonna do it my way because that just is, and then she's just quieter. And I always talk about this like balance of wanting to bring that quiet, knowing, self-assured part of you, which is in there. She's just quieter, so we've got to let the noisy one speak, and then when she's had her say, she will be quiet, and then the other one can kind of come through. So it's but most of us live our lives with just this constant noise of you need to be thinner, you need to be faster runner, you need to be doing, you know, educating more, you need to be, oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 31:35

Like, there's such a list of things we're so hard on our on ourselves. I've tried to manage that voice by saying, Listen, you know, when it starts to say something like, I've got this, okay, I'm good, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00: 31:46

Yeah, that's a great way to approach it. Because I think sometimes we don't even start. Women typically don't even start things. Meditation is a perfect example. The amount of women I come across, they're like, Well, I tried it, but I don't really know how to do it. It's because they're trying to make it look like it could be put on Instagram. Like it doesn't, that's not how it looks in real life. Actually, we we're not cheating if you go for a guided meditation. If that's the only way you can switch your brain off, do it. I never ever left guided meditation. I've never got into anything else because that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01: 32:15

Guided meditation is fabulous because it really helps you, it really is a great way to start. Yeah. And I just wait I every morning and I started this ritual, and it really helps me. Before I get out of bed, even I just, I just I have uh either a crystal next to my bed or something, I put it on my heart, and I just like, you know, pray or ask for guidance.

SPEAKER_00: 32:36

It's karma. You're starting from a karma position, and this is what I talk about in terms of morning routines. It's not necessarily what we should be doing because everybody's gonna feel different in their routine. It's the things that bring us like stress or shame. Like going on our phones, first of all, and getting all that information that we don't really need to be looking at at that first point in the morning, or you know, telling ourselves in our head that we're not allowed to eat until a certain time because we fear what that means, or as soon as we put our feet down off the bed thinking, I'm gonna go weigh myself to see how much I weigh today. Why? All of those things are just bringing you shame and stress, shame and stress, like over and over again. And that is when you start removing those things and you start your day in like a calmer way, like you're saying. I think people think their morning routine should look a certain way, and then they get hung up in that, and then they feel like, oh, I can't do it. So they but actually it's not about that, it's like removing the things that actually create that feeling, and then you'll start to replace them with what feels good for you, and that could be anything. If we take away some of those, you know, stress and shame-inducing triggers that plan out the rest of our day completely, because especially like for things like you know, I encourage women to give up the scales because when you're always in the morning that we step on them, and actually that dictates how you feel in your clothes, how you're gonna talk to yourself all day, what you're gonna eat or not eat all day, you're not gonna nourish yourself, you're panicking, thinking, oh, if I just skip another couple of meals, and then by the end of the day, you're so tired and you're just diving into all the food and you're thinking, Oh, start again tomorrow, and then you just feel gonna go to bed with that shame. So you're going up with that shame, go to bed with the shame. Like, we've got to get out of that.

SPEAKER_01: 34:16

So terrible cycle, yes. You start hitting the biscuits and the crisps, and that's it, you're done. No, I I have to start ditching that scale because I'm convinced that scale is messing with me every day.

SPEAKER_00: 34:26

Yeah, it's just uh it's just another stick to beat ourselves with.

SPEAKER_01: 34:30

It doesn't tell us anything. You know, I know that nutrition and diet is a whole nother topic that uh is is constantly changing, and we don't have to dive deep here, but you know, I'm starting to to hear more about so so fasting is a big topic, and like I said, we're not talking details here, but people talk about fasting, but for women to do something like that, I'm learning that it's not um not the correct form of dieting for them because fasting may actually cause harm for women. So I I guess this is just me saying to women out there before you start going down the hole or the or a program that may not be the best thing for you, just kind of tune in to notice like how you're feeling after doing it for a couple of days. Not about losing weight, but how how are you feeling? Like, is it messing you up? Yeah, it can mess it, mess you up.

SPEAKER_00: 35:22

I've had some good conversations about this actually, and and I think it's I think it's probably I'd just give it just give you a sort of uh a little kind of snapshot of my thought process on this, because I obviously don't advocate anyone doing anything to to do with their body. And as we're in this world of weight loss drugs now, with like this is here, and people are taking that left, right, and centre, even people who don't need to take it. Yeah, and that is a frightening time. And for perimenopausal women, I did a whole episode in this on my previous podcast about weight loss drugs because the effect it has on your bone density is very alarming and concerning if you don't manage it the right way and you don't have those tools. Like we're gonna you're gonna be start losing muscle and you're gonna start losing bone density, and that is frightening because we, as we know, osteoporosis and all that stuff happen around that menopause agent, it could accelerate that significantly. So that's the only thing I'd say about that. But I think what I would come back to is you always have body autonomy. This is what I always say to people is I'm not here to tell someone that they should or shouldn't diet because you know how you feel in your body. Like I am in the biggest body I've ever been in, but I actually feel healthy and energized. Now, if I didn't, that would be different. Because I would maybe be thinking, well, how can I feel energized and healthy? Because there's no good, I don't want anyone to say, well, I'm not gonna diet anymore, therefore sod it. Like that's not that's not fun. That's not a fun place to be where you're just saying, well, I just can eat everything I want. In fact, if I have clients that come to me and say that, that's a bit of a red flag to me. What you we want to be saying yes and no and maybe and not now and tomorrow and you know another day for food and things with nutrition because we're thinking about that bigger picture. But when it comes to things like intimate fasting, exactly like you said, if there are like signs that it's not working for you, it's not giving you the thing that you wanted in terms of like energy and sleep and all of those things, and all you can think about is like you're clockwatching to the time that you can eat, and then you're getting all the food in, and you're like, I had somebody who I was talking to, she was like, Oh, I love fasting, and she was talking to me about it, and I was like, Oh, great. And then she was like, Oh, I just wish I could stop just eating so much when I am allowed to eat. And I was like, but it's because you're it's because of the it's because of the restriction that you're if you can fast and then calmly, calmly eat in a normal, relaxed way, great, fine. If it feels that would feel good, that would be fine. But I don't I don't recommend or not recommend anything. I think everybody has autonomy to do whatever they want with their body, but you've got to just go inwards. We've just this comes back to the same thing. Going back to yourself, going back to what works for you, because what works for one person won't work for someone else. And with especially with things like diets and fads like this, the information of you should be doing this is just wafted around freely. Never does anyone ever say, How does that feel in your body? How can that fit into your life? Does that work for your family dynamics? Does that work for how you what you're doing for a living, the shift work you might be doing, whatever it might be? Like you've gotta, we've gotta come from an internal place.

SPEAKER_01: 38:21

Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?

SPEAKER_00: 38:24

No, I don't think so. I think we've covered just such a wide range of stuff. Like thing, we just keep coming back to the same thing, which is which is coming home to yourself. And that's really what I try to do with this unshakable confidence. And the reason I talk about unshakable confidence is because that's what I want you to find is the confidence that can't be knocked by something external, like it can't be like wobbled around, because actually it then goes back to being stable again because you're centered and you are really you trust yourself and you believe in yourself and all the things that you want and you don't mind getting it wrong. And that that's when you know you could see a million social media posts that tell you you've got to be thinner or you gotta look a certain way, but you're in you you're in your own knowing. You you're not you're unshakable, you're not moving.

SPEAKER_01: 39:08

Yeah, I love that. Um, talk about what you offer then too, or your offerings and where we can get it.

SPEAKER_00: 39:13

Yeah, well, at the moment I'm working with um business owners who want to stop holding themselves back because of how they look or maybe how they feel about themselves. And I've got this program coming up called Known, which is about helping them get known for what they do. So they may have some expertise in a certain area, and they can really shed this idea that they have to be small, charge, you know, very little, wait for speaking gigs to come along, you know, wait for the podcast things, wait to write the book, wait for the PR. They can do it themselves. Like you're no, we're not waiting for people to save us anymore. Known is about getting known for what you do and really owning it. And um, that starts on June the 3rd. So I've got that coming up. And then I have a few kind of freebies. My podcast is one of them, which is the Unshakable Confidence Podcast. And I have another freebie, which is how to pitch yourself a podcast that you can guest like I do. Um I kind of package that up into something because people were asking me, like, how do you get so many? I'm like, Well, I just kind of listen to some I like, and then I reach out to the person and I'm like, Can I come on as a guest? And these are my so I I put it in a PDF so people could do it themselves. Lovely. Because um so many women are like, oh, no one ever asked me. And I'm like, no one ever asked me, though. I asked myself. You know, that's how I get out there.

SPEAKER_01: 40:24

I think you get to a certain age, and I even tell people, just ask, what do you got to lose? It's costing nothing. Exactly. Yes, it's great. If they say no, then it's not meant to be. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 40:35

So often you think about, well, people must know this, right? And then I realize they don't. So I put it in a um put it in a file, and somebody messaged me the other day. Uh, she's a really good friend of mine, actually, but uh but owns her own business. She was like, This is gold, like this is just contains so much you should have charged for it. But it is my freebie. It's just one of the things that people kind of get when they sign up and come and into my world and get a little bit more confidence. So uh yeah, lovely.

SPEAKER_01: 40:59

Uh this has been great conversation, Samson. I really appreciate you being here. And um I just encourage everyone to go out there and find you and listen to your podcast because I it's great. I've been listening to your podcast as well, and I love it. So thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you for having me. I've loved it. Thank you for sharing this sacred time with me today. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd be so grateful if you'd share it with the friends who might need these gentle reminders. And speaking of support, your reviews help other women find our community. So please take a moment to leave one wherever you listen to podcasts. Ready to go deeper? Visit rosewippage.com to explore my personalized healing sessions, courses, and workshops. Until next time, remember, you are exactly where you need to be.