The menopause connection with Beth Kruger
Episode Links
In this episode we discuss...
- Hormone balance and imbalance
-Lifetyle choices that soften menopause symptoms
-The importance of advocating for your own health
-Movement, sleep, and nutrition and how they affect your menopause transition
And so much more...
https://www.bethkruger.com/home
https://www.bethkruger.com/hormone-balancing (for my progesterone freebie)
Soldiers marching
Transcript
The Work IN is brought to you by Savage Grace Coaching and Kinetic Grace Resilience. Personalized trauma release and resilience training that meets you where you are.
Ericka Thomas 0:32
It's time to stop working out and start working in. You found The Work IN podcast for seriously stressed out professionals and the fit pros who serve them. This podcast is for resilient wellness professionals and they're ever curious clients who want to connect the dots for lasting wellness. I'm your host Ericka Thomas and I help outstanding individuals like you find natural ways to shake off stress, tension and trauma to burn out proof body and business of life. The Work IN is brought to you by Savage Grace coaching, bringing trauma release and yoga together for resilience through movement. private sessions, small groups and corporate presentations are now open. Visit savage Grace coaching.com To schedule a call and get all the details.
Hey there and welcome back to The Work IN today. I had originally planned to do a solo episode to talk about the connection aspect of reclaiming your health and resilience. This four part series was inspired by my interview with Jason Sapp and our discussion around taking back control of your own health. We talked about sleep, nutrition and movement and the things that you can do the small simple things that you can do every single day that can have big lasting effects, not just on your physical health, but also your mental health. The last piece of the puzzle is connection. And it's a big piece bigger than just one solo episode. So I thought I'd bring in some examples of how we can find connections between our health choices and our health and resilience.
So connection could mean mind body connection, from simple curiosity to a growing awareness of yourself and what you need from moment to moment physically, mentally or emotionally. And it could be connecting with other people, building friendships or finding a community of support. Like your tribe of people who always have your back in the context of trauma, recovery, addiction recovery, and other types of recovery. Interpersonal connection is critical because it's one of the first things that's lost when the nervous system is overwhelmed. And that makes sense because you can't trust other people when you're in a state of Protection. live too long in that state and you lose the ability to trust yourself too. And that makes it even harder to stay connected to others. So we're going to be exploring some of those things deeper over the next few episodes.
But I did an interview the other day that I think gives an interesting overview of how the systems in the body are interconnected. Specifically for women throughout stages of our lives from puberty through childbearing and into menopause. It's interesting to me because a lot of times we don't recognize that our stage of life has changed or is changing until our body makes us pay attention. And even though we don't have control over the fact that our hormones change through the course of our lives. We can affect how we experience the symptoms of those changes by making intentional health choices around sleep, nutrition, and movement and of course community connection.
My guest today is Beth Kruger. Beth is a women's Wellness Educator, yoga instructor and coach. She spent her career supporting women through childbirth, lactation, pregnancy and fertility. She's a business owner and entrepreneur and has led many women's wellness retreats all over the world. Her current focus is on menopause and helping women over 40 through this transition. Please welcome my guest, Beth Kruger. Hey Beth, thank you so much for joining us today.
Beth Kruger 4:41
Thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Ericka Thomas 4:44
Wonderful. Well, Beth, I am really excited to talk to you. This is a really interesting topic. And I want to get into it. But first, can you take a moment and just kind of introduce yourself to the audience? Tell us who you are and how you got into this particular area of coaching and wellness.
Beth Kruger 5:10
So I am a women's Wellness Educator. This is what I call myself anyway these days. I'm a women's Wellness Educator and retreat leader and a coach for women and I basically began working with women almost 17 years ago exclusively with women.
Ericka Thomas 5:30
So when you're working with women as a women's wellness coach, I mean women's wellness is big, like that's a big topic. It could be many many different things. So let's, let's kind of frame that for people. What exactly does that mean? When we're talking about women's wellness?
Beth Kruger 5:51
Yeah, sure. So I came into the wellness industry. When I was extremely stressed out myself as a mid 20s. I was in my mid 20s And I was in a graduate program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, studying to be an interior designer actually. And I was really burnt out really pulling all nighters to get projects done to try to finish my work and feeling really inadequate in my studies. Just through you know, maybe it was a combination of my my professors and like what, what I was what I was doing in the program, but I just felt really exhausted and at the end of that first year of school, and so I started to really dive deep into yoga. As like a heat way of healing my body and my spirit after this really grueling year of study. And so I came into the wellness industry in that way and I started I took a year off of graduate school I actually never went back and I decided to do a teacher training program to just immerse myself in this practice of yoga which I had found so appealing and rejuvenating for my body and my mind and spirit. So that's kind of how I came into the wellness industry. And then after completing my teacher training, which I never really thought that I wanted to become a yoga teacher, but I just wanted to deepen my knowledge. After finishing my training, and starting to teach, I became pregnant pretty quickly. Maybe within a year or so. And I just became fascinated with pregnancy, birth, this experience this transition from going from a young woman that was very focused on me and my life into this whole new this whole new realm of becoming a mother and just realizing how unprepared I was for that experience. And that's how I really came into the women. That's why I call myself like a women's Wellness Educator because I just realized there was so much I needed to learn, number one, about my body and the changes in my body and what I was going through what I was experiencing as a pregnant woman, and then a new mother. That really became my focus for like further study and further work.
Ericka Thomas 8:39
So did you feel like there was an adequate amount of education available to you at that time? Or is this something that you are seeing, like there's a missing piece here and someone should step in and kind of fill that void?
Beth Kruger 8:55
You asked me if I felt like there was a missing void in my education or what I knew, and I felt like there was a huge missing piece in that. I didn't really know anything about childbirth, or what my body would be experiencing or even really how to be a mother in the beginning or like how I wanted to parent and how I wanted to birth really. So that was one of and in my experience with with life up until that point, even through my yoga practice, like there was really no conversation about that experience of women going through going into pregnancy and going into childbirth. So I felt like there was this missing piece for me for sure. And that's why I started to go into it. And I eventually after a few years I became a birth educator and so I kind of mixed the prenatal yoga stuff that I had learned into the childbirth education piece as well because I felt like that was really, really important. Way to help women transition.
Ericka Thomas 10:13
Yeah, I think that that is really important because I don't I mean for myself, the education I got about that came from the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting, like you just you read the books that come in and I don't know when that happened in our society where we just sort of started assuming that because we are in female bodies that we automatically know and understand everything that is going to come up for us when we become pregnant. When we have children. Like that is not innate knowledge, something needs to like we need to really kind of explore that a little bit more maybe. And the interesting thing for me now when I look at the newer information about how the nervous system responds to all, all things, everything that it responds to, if you put that information over childbirth, you can see how you know, you can see where things like postpartum depression can come from because childbirth and pregnancy is a big strain on the nervous system. But we are not really taught that or prepare for that by our OB GYN. You know, it's just at least it wasn't when when when I was pregnant with my kids, like there was no there was no discussion about that. Or you got messages from outside of that saying, well, just because you're pregnant doesn't mean you can't still do this, this and this, you know, you can still have everything do everything be everything as as a woman so So I find that really interesting. So in your experience with your clients with your coaching, have you seen other areas where you know, people are struggling with anxiety or depression or things like that, that are directly related maybe to some of these transitions that we go through as women?
Beth Kruger 12:36
Yes. 100%. I mean, this is one of the reasons why I've now transitioned from the pregnancy and postpartum world into this menopause world. Because, as you said, just a few moments ago, really eloquently like we just don't have that information that's not really given to us. As we transition from even from like the first time a woman has her menses, her menstrual cycle, like as an adolescent, it's like hidden we don't talk about it, and maybe a little bit but it's just not really shared. And then maybe a woman chooses to have a child, maybe she doesn't. But if a woman has a child, again, there's not a lot of information that we're given, where there's not we're not really given information on how the birth process actually works. And like you said, how stress and environment affects our birth process, and then how the birth process then might affect our breastfeeding experience with our child and the feeding process and how that all is intricately tied tied into how we feel about our birth. is how we feel about ourselves as as a mother as a person if we had a traumatic birth experience that can affect us really deeply for many years. And then beyond the motherhood stage of you know, there's a long period there where you're really in the trenches, so to speak of being a mother with a small child. It's now transitioning from Okay, now, I'm moving into a different phase of life and there's very little information I think out there for women in their 40s in mid 40s to 50s. There's different ranges of when women go through menopause. So there's just very little information, very little support out there for women to know what's going on. With their bodies. And we're just sort of told to like, oh, yeah, just expect it's just normal. Like this is normal. This experience is normal. You're just going through this. And we don't have the information. I think there's even less information about midlife and menopause than there is for pregnancy and childbirth. To be honest with you.
Ericka Thomas 15:04
Yeah. And that that phrase, well, this is just normal isn't always true. We've come to expect certain symptoms of menopause. I was speaking with a friend about this a couple of weeks ago. And I'm not so sure that it is normal. I mean, just because something is common doesn't make it normal. And even when you are outside or maybe especially if you are outside the typical years, when we think menopause happens, you can have these crazy fluctuations in your hormone levels that are maybe related to not necessarily menopause but how you eat and your overall lifestyle. And so unless you have the awareness to be able to ask your doctor and your doctor knows the answer to those kinds of things. There's you may end up stuck, you know, we may end up just stuck with those mood swings and night sweats and you know, all of these things that really we don't have to live with. So, what kinds of things are you coaching women about? In in that 40 plus age range? What would you say would be like the some of the major things that that women are dealing with there?
Beth Kruger 16:42
Well, I think the major things are just awareness number one, like awareness and knowledge of maybe the range of what one could expect to be be facing or dealing with. I think that's one just knowing what what's possible. And that you're not like maybe not alone. Those are those are some, those are like two big ones. And then in terms of like the, the specific ways that we can navigate the symptoms I think are the other are is another large way of of how I work with women is there are completely natural lifestyle choices that you could make to help to not make the symptoms go away. But to transition more easily and make the symptoms more manageable. And then there's also the option to to do things like hormone replacement therapy. That would be more of a medical thing. I don't help someone choose what that's going to be but I can help guide them towards learning more about that, and figuring out how to ask for it and getting the information and the support that they need. So those are really big things empowering someone, giving them that knowledge and helping them create lifestyle routines and maintain those routines to help with the menopausal stage of life.
Ericka Thomas 18:24
So let's talk a little bit about some of the symptoms that are really common for women that maybe I mean, some of us know some of them, but maybe we don't know all of them. Right. And there might be some aha moments in this conversation for people. So can we can we kind of give a general overview of like, what is the expectation there and maybe kind of where those symptoms are coming? From if you are able to share that kind of thing?
Beth Kruger 18:57
Yeah, so mostly all of our symptoms are coming from hormone changes in the body. I mean, hormones are responsible for everything basically, from puberty to to this stage of life as well. To our from our and they're basically our human growth hormones or sex hormones. It's estrogen, testosterone, and then we have progestin or progesterone so those hormones are found in our our bodies, and they are responsible for all kinds of functions of the body. So estrogen is probably like the most common and the one that we all hear about. As we lose a lot of estrogen during this midlife phase, and estrogen is set helps to stimulate bone growth. So that's the hormone you know, when we're when we're prepubescent. We grow a lot. It does also maintain the strength of our bones and lubricates our joints.
Ericka Thomas 20:09
So that would be that would be why like for perimenopause and postmenopausal women, why bone density is so important, right. So that is like is that what is our estrogen level? Is that key to that bone density level?
Beth Kruger 20:27
Yes. So estrogen is key for estrogen and testosterone actually. So we do lose testosterone as we age. And testosterone is also responsible for improving bone growth and strength and muscle mass. So we lose estrogen. We stopped producing estrogen as we age and so that affects our bones creating osteopenia and osteoporosis eventually later. So what we want to our body as our body kind of takes estrogen from other parts of our body, rather than the ovaries which produce the estrogen because they stopped, they stopped producing the estrogen. So our body gets estrogen from our adrenals it makes our adrenals start to produce estrogen. And then also we take estrogen from our muscle tissue. So we take our muscle tissue and create estrogen from that muscle tissue. So to replace the loss of estrogen in our body, so that's why you see muscle mass decreasing as we age, and that's why you see bone density decreasing as we age, which creates the brittle bones. And so we really need to work against that by increasing our strength training, if possible, and really being conscious about what we're putting into our body and making sure that we're doing some weight bearing exercises. We're working on balancing. They're saying that balancing has a lot to do with muscle with bone density now as well, and shaking exercises and things like that. So estrogen is responsible for that. Also the estrogen does is responsible for vaginal lubrication. So when we are experiencing vaginal dryness and all skin dryness, really estrogen is also responsible for really dry skin, brittle nails, dry hair. That loss of the of the estrogen affects that that area of the body as well. And then lastly, for maybe most importantly, I think for many of us, estrogen is also helps to regulate our mood, helps to regulate our body temperature. And maintains helps us helps us to maintain memory and cognition. So as we lose estrogen we become this is very common. I think for many of us in our 40s and 50s. We're moody, were experienced a lot of highs and lows. Perhaps maybe we're irritable. Maybe we have what we call minnow rage like we get really angry for like no reason. And this is all responsible for because it's all due to the estrogen loss and our body is more like I was just listening to Jen Gunter speak about this, our body's like going on this kind of hormonal roller coaster. It's not like we have no estrogen anymore. We just don't make it regularly. So when we're going on this roller coaster of having some estrogen and then not having really much at all, our body is really fluctuating in in its cycle. So we have these big swings where things can be really great, and then they're like not great. So those are some of the ways that estrogen really affects and you'll see that directly in the symptoms.
Ericka Thomas 24:00
So I can Yeah, so so I could see how choosing really specific and intentional types of exercise and stress reducing movement could really benefit women in menopause, like, like, make a huge, huge difference. And so one of the things that stood out to me from what you were talking about, some things I didn't realize I did not realize that we made more estrogen from the adrenals and in our muscle, I think that's first of all awesome, number two. Number two, the adrenal piece is interesting because we have that HPA axis that can get really overwhelmed with excessive amounts of stress. And so the adrenals are pumping out other stress hormones, too. And if I mean I can see how that can be overwhelmed, right? Like not only are those adrenals taking over some of the estrogen production, but they are also now you know, in charge of everything else like getting us including getting us up out of bed to go and do whatever it is that we do, like those stress levels for adrenaline and cortisol and all of those other things and now estrogen on top of that, so So what is the connection if there is a connection to kind of an overwhelmed nervous system or really chronically high stress levels, and some of those symptoms that are naturally occurring? From menopause when we put those two together?
Beth Kruger 25:50
Well, I think it's sort of like this perfect storm, right? Like because we're at this stage of our lives where we have probably more stress than ever before, right? Maybe we're career women were really good, really high level of our career. Or maybe we have grown children that are needing our help or we have a parent that's aging that we need to take care of these things all that increases our stress level enormously and our body now has less reserves from which to draw from to be able to navigate the stress. So I think that it's important to, to think about the things that we can do to lower those stress levels. When you were talking about movements. I think, you know, there's not a magic pill that's going to make everything better, I think with movement and you want to try to find this great combination of strengthening the body and also finding really conscious ways to relax the body. Which for many of us who are Yogi's or yoga teachers or, or whatnot, it would be something very restorative something very inducing deep relaxation. Maybe yoga nidra or other forms of rest that we need to just integrate into our lives instead of just go go go all the time, which is which it feels like we won't get the things done that we need to get done. If we don't go for it, then we'll crash and burn if we don't rest so we need to have a way to integrate the two.
Ericka Thomas 27:43
Speaking of rest, let's just a little aside. So I'm curious about sleep during menopause because I hear a lot from from some of my clients about how they just really struggle to get good sleep at night. And I'm just trying to wrap my head around like what is the process of that? I mean, typically, you would just say, Okay, well your nervous system is on high alert still. So it's telling your brain that you need to stay awake for whatever reason it thinks you need to stay awake. And this is why it's difficult to get to sleep. This is why it's difficult to stay asleep. But it seems to be a lot more common for women in menopause or as they're coming into menopause. And so is that simply related to the estrogen to estrogen levels or is something else going on there?
Beth Kruger 28:43
Well, it could be estrogen or progesterone and it could be related to mood and our hormone loss but it's also a lot of lifestyle stuff. I think that comes into play. If you're drinking coffee still, you probably should stop drinking caffeine. Maybe we should eliminate caffeine from our diet. Another thing that's a big culprit, sorry. I'm not ready to give up my coffee either. But I perform best when I can get eight hours of sleep. I do. It's tremendous. So trying to give up caffeine will be great. Alcohol. Alcohol has a ton of sugar in it. And alcohol is often a big contributor to insomnia, night wakefulness and night sweats. So if you could cut out the alcohol that would be a big help. Modifying your diet by reducing sugar again would be really helpful because it helps the adrenals to calm down and heal.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Beth Kruger 30:02
Other things that we could do, maybe supplementally. There's quite a bit of evidence out there that says that magnesium will help with some sleeping at night and some lightweight wakefulness. You can try doing really basic things like shutting off the TV, shutting off the phone, you know, at least an hour before you need to go to bed and trying to create an environment that's really calm. Some women I know sleep with earplugs, because any little noise at night might wake them and then it's really hard to fall back asleep, but if they can have the night of the earplugs in, it'll help them sleep more soundly. Maybe having a fan near the bed, because usually we have that. For some reason at night, we get night sweats, many of us and so those keeping the room cool, and making sure that you have lots of air flowing around you can help you have a better night's sleep. No synthetic underwear, no synthetic nightwear that you're wearing. cotton sheets, like everything that you can do to to make sure that you're not going to be overly hot. Yeah, those are like the big ones and then like I already mentioned that shutting off devices but like creating some kind of nighttime ritual or routine. That is if you're if you're able to do some deep breathing or maybe you're able to do a little bit of meditation before bed or something like that, just to like clear the mind. Those sort of rituals can be really helpful herbal tea, warm, hot beverage or something like that. That's not caffeinated. To be very helpful in creating a better nighttime ritual and trying to like go to bed at the same time. Wake up at the same time. Those things will be would be really helpful for that.
Ericka Thomas 32:12
Yeah, so all of that stuff sounds amazing. But we need to kind of put a little asterisk it's not a one and done thing, right? This is not like a magic pill. You can't just do one of these things one time and expect it to work work instantaneously. This would be something that you would give what how much time a month,
Beth Kruger 32:34
your lifestyle choices. So I would say I would expect at least three months of doing something regularly to see a result. It's not a great answer because we have to do something. We have to do a lot of these things for a sustained period of time, right? We should be recording along the way so we can really see the difference. My dentist so I wanted to whiten my teeth at one point years ago and my dentist gave me the two things you know one for the top teeth and one for the bottom teeth and he was like Okay, so why in the top teeth first and then you can widen the bar you know do about you know few weeks at the top team and then you can see the difference because apparently if you whiten them all at the same time, you will notice how much wider your teeth are interested it happens so gradually over time that he really wanted me to see a difference between the top teeth and the bottom teeth because the whitening is gradual and it happens over time. It's the same thing with improving your sleep routine. Sometimes if we can try recording, like over time, you'll see in three months that by eliminating these things or changing this habit that you've had, you'll actually say oh yeah, I actually getting an extra 90 minutes of sleep every night than I was three months ago. Right? You you might not notice it if you don't make that record of where at
Ericka Thomas 34:13
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. I mean, why? Why would you notice because that will just become your new normal. And then I mean for many people the way they that the lack of health that they have been living with is normal like that feels normal to them. And sometimes it's difficult you have to be with the new healthy you for a while before you notice that it is a different than what you were before. So yeah, yes, for sure. Okay, so that's fantastic. That's great advice around sleep. I think that is so big for so many people and it's one of the accepted things that happens and it doesn't have to be you don't have to. You don't have to live in a chronically sleep deprived state for any period of time. So we mentioned some of the these lifestyle choices that can influence sleep, right. What are some other some other lifestyle things that maybe we could do that maybe have a better influence on hormone balance overall, because really, you know with menopause you're those hormones are changing. You can't necessarily control that roller coaster of estrogen. But what are some, there has to be some things that we can do on a regular basis that may soften that those hills and valleys a little bit.
Beth Kruger 36:01
Yeah. I think the big ones are exercise, some some form of movement, some form of movement, every day, whether it be walking, movement, like yoga, or some strength training. Like trying to integrate a routine like that diet. So taking on a form of eating that really takes into account like your age and your hormonal needs. So eliminating a lot of processed foods, trying to eat no sugar or much less sugar than you had before again for the adrenal support. And then with that mindfulness about what you're eating, you'll be able to maintain your weight much more easily. Which is important for our heart health. We really want to be mindful of that as we're aging. And then those two things really it's the diet and the lifestyle and then adapting some sort of sleep routine. And lastly, I feel like creating a community of other women are being a part of a community of other women that are going through the same thing that you are going through is really really helpful because of all of the the mental changes that are going through our lives, we end maybe more anxious, maybe we're moody maybe we're depressed, like a lot of women go through depression in this period of life as well as perhaps transitions from a partnership. You know, maybe we're getting a divorce, maybe our partner is no longer with us. So we need to surround ourselves with a really supportive community of other like minded women. So I think being a part of a community is really important when we're when we're going through any life change. Like this.
Ericka Thomas 38:06
Well, I think even if you're not going through a life change,I think people need to be connected to other people. Ithink we discount how big of an impact that can have on your overall health and wellness, just by having a few friends you know, that you can turn to and it's interesting because, you know, as you as you go through life, we all go through these different kinds of stages. So you know, single young parents or young married couples without kids and then parents and then you know, you're in the, like you mentioned earlier the trenches of you know, raising these kids. And then menopause. Empty nesting all of those things require kind of shifting how we take care of ourselves, and shifting the group of people who is around us. So I'm 50 years old. I would never hang out with a bunch of moms of one year olds. It would make me insane, like, I think they're fantastic. But that's not my tribe anymore. Like I can't hang out there anymore. I need I need my own people. Now. So I think being open to shifting those things, shifting those. Those areas of focus for your health, I think it's really important. I think what you mentioned about choosing your diet and exercise that are age appropriate and that will bring you what you need for where you are in this moment, not where you were when you were 25 I think that is really, really an important point to make, that we are not the same as even though we might feel like we're 25 on the inside. We are not the body is just not there anymore. And so it requires different things, different things. Let's talk a little bit about how you would recommend women, you know, proceed in menopause if they don't feel like they're getting the kind of health care or support that they need.
Beth Kruger 40:31
I mentioned already keeping a record or keeping some sort of journal. I think it would be really useful for women to start recording their symptoms. And how that relates to also get their eating, how much they're sleeping, all of those things. So kind of like what did I do today for exercise? What did I eat today? How do I feel like what's my mood? And then how much did I sleep? Right and just sort of recording those things over time to sort of see what the pattern is. And then I'm speaking to your care provider about like bringing that document bringing that information in with you when you speak to your care provider to talk to them about what's going on for you. Your care provider could be a general general practitioner. Maybe you see a naturopath who knows right we see a lot of different all of us women along the spectrum we'll see different people for different things. You're not necessarily going to go and talk to your OBGYN or your gynecologist about all of your menopause stuff. It's more of like a general health kind of thing. So they don't always necessarily have specialized knowledge of menopause and I think that it's really important to go in there with an open mind, approach them with, this is how I'm feeling this is what's going on for me and then take a moment and listen to their response to you if they're supportive. And I'm going to give you some great tools to use or suggest some things like maybe there's herbal supplements you could use and lifestyle choices, things that we've talked about here, just in the last few minutes. Those are all great things if they're willing to if they just immediately prescribe like an antidepressant. And just say, Oh, it's normal, it's menopause, then I would suggest trying to find another care provider. Someone that would help you through the menopause stage of life. Some providers are great and they say I don't know. I really I don't really know enough about menopause to be able to support you Well, during this time. I'm gonna recommend that you go see a colleague of mine who specializes in this area. That would be that would feel really supportive to me. Even though you've had a long relationship with somebody perhaps they might not be the best fit for you now in this part of this stage of your life. Does that answer your questions? Yeah,
Ericka Thomas 43:19
absolutely. Yes, yes, absolutely. That was really, really helpful I think for I mean it feels sometimes like the health care system in general is really designed to just send you to a specialist like to kind of divide up the body into a lot of different parts, right. So if you are having kidney stones you go to see the kidney doctor and if you're having, you know, stomach issues, you're gonna go to the GI and then you know, it's all these different people. But when we're talking about something like menopause, this is really a whole Body, Whole Person kind of thing and everything about it will affect every system. So it's a can be very confusing and overwhelming and people can get really frustrated when they're trying to find solutions. But I love what you said that was those are really tangible things that people can do. And you're absolutely right, having some kind of record not just for yourself but also to be able to show your medical provider says look, this is not always been this way. There's nothing going on here that needs to be addressed. And yeah, I love that. I think that's that's great and, and we need permission sometimes to go get a second opinion.
Beth Kruger 44:55
Well, I think the most important thing to remember is as women and I think that this is really important. Through all life stages, this is always what I used to talk about in prenatal prenatal care when I was a birth educator. When I was a lactation counselor, it was always about educating yourself on the options that you have that are available to you. And we have to do that for ourselves. And then we need to be willing to advocate for ourselves to get the kind of care that we need and that we want instead of just listening to what somebody tells us. Oh you need this. Oh, just take this. Just take that. I won't prescribe that. Or any of the other things that you might be receiving as answers from your care provider. You need to be willing to advocate for yourself. I mean, many of us haven't experienced that. Maybe we experienced it with a child, write where we had to advocate for our child, get them the care that they needed, get them the education that they needed. Maybe we've had to do it for an aging parent, advocate for that parent, get them what they need, but we haven't really done it for ourselves and we really need to learn how to advocate for ourselves and realize that we know our we know what's going on with our bodies better than anyone else. But we don't necessarily know the answers to help us feel better in our bodies or sort of mitigate some of that stuff. And we have to keep being willing to look for the right thing and go to the right person. So yeah, getting a second opinion and advocating for ourselves is really important.
Ericka Thomas 46:42
I love that. I love that. So, so Beth what kinds of things do you have coming up? Where can people find you?
Beth Kruger 46:53
Well, I am online. I'm on I have a website. It's called the best kruger.com Really easy to find my website. I have some retreats coming up. So in person international retreats coming up at the end of this year 2022. And then I have one coming up in 2023. And those are women's retreats for women, you know in midlife basically and learning and talking about all of these things that that we're talking about. Here in a more casual setting, inserting some travel culture, food and wellness into the experience. And the retreats are awesome. They're just like a break from life. Which can be really helpful to reset and start fresh. When you come back on I also have an online I do some online coaching and I have like an online studio platform where I offer one on one and group services to women.
Ericka Thomas 47:59
So tell me first of all, just I looked at some of your retreats and the Morocco retreat looks incredible. Just amazing. Yes. So oh my gosh, that would be fantastic to go to Morocco. Incredible, incredible experience I'm sure. With your coaching with your one on one coaching. Can you explain for people like how can having a one on a one on one coach like you help for whatever in whatever stage of life people are in.
Beth Kruger 48:40
So I think coaches are really helpful in in obviously being someone to listen to, to to sort of see you as a whole as a whole person. We we have, say a therapist, right or a general practitioner like to oversee our general health or we see our our gynecologist for our specific reproductive needs or or beyond. Health Coach can kind of help you look at all aspects of your wellness. And think help you figure out what are most important to you right now. And what do you want to put a focus on right now? And then? I mean, it's not, there's no prescription. I don't tell people what to do. I really just offer a listening ear and some really specific guidance guided questions to help my clients think about what they want to address and work on. And then I'm there with them holding their hand helping them be really accountable to themselves and me, they told me they're going to do certain things. So they're trying to see how that goes. So I helped them become really accountable. And then I like to try to connect my clients with other clients that I have so that they can communicate with each other and really have like another person to journey along in in their health and wellness journey. And it's helpful for anyone at any stage of life. But I think when we're in midlife, it's it's extra special time so it's it's great to think about ourselves for for once or maybe the first time in a really long time. To be able to focus on yourself again, is really important. So that's that's how I help. Yeah, that's amazing.
Ericka Thomas 50:51
I just find you to be an incredible coach. I love watching everything that you have been doing. And I really hope people will go over to your website and check out those retreats and check out what you have to offer. All of those links are going to be in the show notes, but I always finish my interviews with guest and ask what is your work and that thing that you do for yourself that brings you joy or balance to your very successful life?
Beth Kruger 51:33
Well, I was thinking about that because I saw your question. Isn't that I do that's not about like, I love that phrase. It's not on the outside, and I've always been like a huge reader and I love to read actual physical books. Oh, I have started trying to integrate like a novel into my life again, because I used to read a lot of novels and a lot of fiction and I stopped doing a lot of that when I was gathering tons of information over the last 15 years or so. So started reading a novel again and also to myself to the Sunday edition of The New York Times and I try to sit down and I read The Sunday Times like kind of all week because it takes me almost a week to get through the whole newspaper. And that feels very nourishing to me to actually sit down with a with a piece of paper or a book in my hands and not a screen and not a device and just read. And then the other thing is growing things I've really gotten into plants and growing and I love my plants. I love cutting the ends of my plants off and propagating a new plant and growing a new plant. I love planting seeds and watering them really religiously and thinking it's never going to come up nothing's gonna happen and then lo and behold, it grows I think so. That is really fulfilling for me to grow something from the seed and like feed it eventually it's pretty awesome. So those are my two top things that are like, on my list of favorites. For my gosh,
Ericka Thomas 53:23
I need to talk to you about the plant thing. My house is like where plants come to die. So interesting conversation.
Beth Kruger 53:34
I think you can learn you can learn a lot for sure.
Ericka Thomas 53:38
Well, I'm starting small with the air plants. there those are pretty easy and my Lucky bamboo. Thank you so much. But I really love to having you today. I cannot wait for this episode to com out. It's going to be fantastic.
Beth Kruger 53:55
Oh thanks Ericka. Thanks for having me. I was happy to be here.
Ericka Thomas 54:01
Thanks for joining me today on The Work IN everyone. And remember, you can find all of the links from our guest today at savage Grace coaching.com forward slash the work and have a great day and I'll see you next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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