What to do during perimenopause: Starting the Journey Through Perimenopause

Welcome to the podcast.
In this series, we’ll explore perimenopause through a unique lens—drawing from female wisdom across cultures, lived experiences, and identities. We'll look beyond just symptoms and science, and instead focus on how you can define your own version of health and claim your power during this transformative time.

As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist trained in systemic thinking, I bring a different perspective. While many podcasts focus on hormones, medications, and clinical terms, this space centers the emotional, social, and cultural systems that shape how we experience perimenopause—and how we’ve been taught to understand womanhood itself.

We’ll talk about hobbies, health, identity, nutrition, and so much more—all with a focus on insight and empowerment.

This podcast is created for all women—trans women, cisgender women, biological females, women of all ethnicities, disabled women, single or partnered—and for the people who love and support them.

Join me on this journey, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s grow through this together.

Transcript:

Welcome to the First Episode: The Introduction

First and foremost, this is a shame-free space. I’ve been nervous about starting this, but I knew I needed to create a community for women in perimenopause—as well as those pre- or post-perimenopause—who are looking for education, validation, or connection.

I also wanted to offer an example of a professional in her 30s. We’re too used to seeing successful women only later in life—after decades of emotional labor and often very little payoff. I’m not a model, a house-flipper, or a clean-with-me YouTuber. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist, and—claiming my own power—I’m really good at what I do.

Why I Created This Space

I wanted to begin this series with a proper introduction and give you a sense of why this space matters. I’ve identified as a feminist since I was young, shaped by some painful and scary experiences. It was never something I was rewarded for—if anything, it was considered a headache. But living under patriarchy? That was the real burden.

Let’s be clear: No one thrives in patriarchy. It creates deficits for everyone, not just women. Take a look around—when you walk into most medical offices, how often do you even see images of women unless the practice explicitly focuses on women’s health? Why are women’s bodies so often hidden behind unrealistic beauty standards?

Patriarchal systems are experts at hiding female power—through embellished stories, erased histories, constructed norms, and outright lies.

Not in this space.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel—we’ll draw from the beautiful, powerful, and healthier ways women’s strength has been honored throughout history and across cultures.

Real Examples of Female Power

Let me share one of my favorite examples. In Mie, Japan, there is a group of women—often over the age of 60—who dive into the freezing ocean to gather seafood, holding their breath for over a minute with every plunge. These women, known as Ama, have been doing this for generations. Wetsuits weren’t even invented when this practice began thousands of years ago.

When wetsuits finally came along in the 1950s, a few men joined the dives. But those women? They said the men couldn’t handle the cold without the wetsuits. It was a job only women could do.

These stories matter. They remind us of what women are capable of—what we’ve always been capable of. But we have to keep uncovering them. We have to stop letting them disappear.

You Deserve Support

This space will prioritize representation. It will also explore how we can turn the grief that so often accompanies perimenopause into education, empowerment, and deeper self-understanding.

Let’s name what’s happening in our bodies and our lives. Let’s name it with care, without shame, and without apology.

What’s Next

Thank you for joining me for this short but important beginning. In the next episode, we’re starting with something basic but surprisingly overlooked: hobbies.

You’d be shocked how many clients tell me they have no hobbies—almost all of them. But hobbies are more than downtime. They’re how we connect with ourselves and with the natural rhythms around us. Hobbies loosen the tightness in our lives. They refresh, awaken, and reconnect us.

Without hobbies, life isn’t life.

Until next time.

[ID: Every female in perimenopause needs a good hair expert, active hobby, experiential psychotherapist, and friends. She needs all the advocates she can get that empower her to be her own greatest advocate. Quote by Katherine Linscott, LMFT. End ID]