Dassie Abelson

I was born in 1944 in what was Palestine at the time, but is now Israel. We were still under British control. It was the time of the Second World War and there was very little we knew about what was happening in Europe. Immigrants to Israel were attempting to enter the country, but the British didn’t allow them. These were people who suffered tremendously, who were able to escape because they wanted to be alive and find a place of safety. They didn’t know anything about the country except they were hoping for freedom and a better way of life. My mother was one of those people.

My mother, Sara, was an artist designing clothes in Europe, in Hungary. Sara moved to Palestine in the late 1920s to be with her sisters. By the time she arrived, one sister had died and Sara’s life became chaotic when she became responsible for her sister’s children; their welfare and survival became her primary focus. She wasn’t ready for that.

Two of Sara’s brothers, David and Norman, managed to emigrate to the United States prior to the war and at the end of the war, they were the only 4 siblings to survive the holocaust—the rest had perished.

My father, Shlomo became a farmer when he came to Palestine from Poland in 1925 with his mother and stepfather. Amazingly, we found copies of his passport to confirm this passage. My father was a twin and his brother stayed in Poland to serve in the army but did not survive WWII.

Shortly after Sara’s arrival to Palestine, she was introduced to Shlomo and they married, mostly out of necessity. They respected each other. They had a good life. They were able to purchase some housing in the Tel Aviv area and open a bed-and-breakfast type of place. They were picking people from the street, more for generosity, and really didn’t charge them. My father was very outgoing and caring and my mother just wanted to help people.

I had two older brothers, Chaim and Dov, who were 10 and 12 years older than me. My mother always wanted a little girl so even though I arrived a bit later than my siblings, here I am.

When I was born, Israel wasn’t established yet so there were a lot of Zionists who were doing things to create a homeland. My father was one of them. He was like the American cowboy who went West and did “whatever it is, whatever it takes” to find the gold. He dreamed about having a farm, which he did, outside Tel Aviv. Back then it was just wilderness, right out to the ocean. They happened to have some groves of oranges. That was the dream.

My mother and father never told me, “Don’t do this, don’t do that, you should do that.” My mother was very quiet, a quiet woman. She never talked, she never hugged me, but she was always there watching me every second. So I always knew I was loved, even though there wasn’t real conversation, there wasn’t hugging and kissing and I love yous. But I knew; if there was a man who was suffering down the street or hungry, my father would bring him home for food. There was always food in our house.

As a child, I was not aware of the war in Europe or ongoing attacks in the area or how dangerous my surroundings were, because my parents and brothers were protecting me. I didn’t know any of that. The bomb shelter was my playground. I was a little girl playing in a bomb shelter with my friends and that was normal life at the time.

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In 1948, Israel’s independence was established following the end of WWII, and things began to change. When the country became independent, Hebrew became the national language. Until 1948, Jews lived here and there, scattered around the world. They maintained their identity with their religion and traditions, but this was the first time in thousands of years that they came to the land of their roots. The land was the size of New Jersey. Jews were arriving in the worst shape because of the war. They couldn’t even talk about the horror they went through and survived. Those who survived now had a place to go and begin again. Ben-Gurion became the first Prime Minister and he said, “Everybody must speak Hebrew. Everybody must have a home. Everybody must be able to make a living.”

As a young girl, I always knew who I was: I’m in Israel, I’m a Jew, and I’m free. Nobody hated me for these things. So I was a happy kid. My parents didn’t argue. There was always food on the table. When you experience starvation, the most important thing is food, not even clothing or anything.

The hospital where I was born in Tel Aviv was created in honor of a woman named Henrietta Szold who came to the country from Maryland in 1912. She saw how much sickness there was but no place to get healed. So, she organized volunteers to help create some kind of medical system for everyone, whoever they are, no matter what color, no matter what shape, whatever they need—because there was a lot of disease. She called this organization Hadassah. It comes from the Hebrew word for a healing flower.

I was born around the holiday of Purim, a big festival, which celebrates Queen Esther. The biblical book of Esther tells the story of a young Jewish woman living in the Persian diaspora who finds favor with the king, becomes queen, and risks her life to save the Jewish people. To hide her Jewish identity, she had changed her name to Esther, but her real name was Hadassah. So that’s how I got my name and in Israel, we don’t have nicknames.

Our house was built by a Turkish designer, a famous designer, but because of all the bombing there was a lot of damage to it. But on the floor there was a beautiful mosaic design; I was always looking at this mosaic. When you talk about Tel Aviv at that time, it was just 4 or 5 streets and the buildings were kind of unusual. Our building was higher than most of them, so I was able to see the ocean. There was a huge terrace in the back, it was where my brothers’ bedrooms were, and there was a railroad below. My brothers used to say, “If you misbehave, I’m going to throw you down there on the train!” That road started in Italy, went to Greece, to Turkey, to Syria, Lebanon, Israel all away to Alexandria, where Egypt is. Three different continents! In ancient times they went with camels and horses and buggies and whatever, you name it. By foot even. And what happened? The British made it into a railroad. And to think that in my backyard was that road!

By the way, in my house, we spoke German, English, Yiddish, Hungarian, Spanish, Russian, Polish, and of course, Hebrew. My mother’s native language was Hungarian and my father’s was Russian and Polish. But he also spoke some Yiddish and German, and so did my mother. But my next door neighbor spoke only Spanish. If I needed water, I asked in Spanish.

Education was the highest priority and I went to an all-girls school. But the teachers studied Hebrew in different parts of Europe—wherever they came from—and so they didn’t speak the same language, the same dialect of Hebrew. And some biblical Hebrew doesn’t have modern words. I’ll give you one example: television. How do you translate television into an ancient tongue?! When I came to this country, I didn’t even know what language to swear in!

So we learned poetry; we learned history. We had so much to learn over the 2000 years of journeys of Jews in different countries, different cultures, making different adjustments, different experiences.

There was no telephone or television at home, but I had lots of friends. We gathered daily to study and dance and that’s where I met my best friend, Tzila. She was blonde and I was brunette, and we were competitive and pushed each other. Music was a big thing. I remember it was Elvis at the time. I didn’t like him. I didn’t appreciate him. He was not someone I could relate to at the time.

But you know, the closeness you have with people—I can’t even describe—I never felt like I was missing anything. Honestly, it wasn’t about clothing and things; it was just being with people, being with friends who love each other.

In 1949, when I was 5 years old, I traveled to the United States with my mother to visit her 2 brothers she hadn’t seen in more than a decade, since before the war. Upon arrival, my mother became very sick and had to be hospitalized so they put me in a Jewish home. I was in first grade and went to school, but I hated it and ran away. I gave them a lot of trouble because it was difficult and foreign to me, but I learned English and actually almost forgot Hebrew.

We ended up staying a year in the U.S. and when I returned to Israel, I was embarrassed because I couldn’t remember Hebrew. My friends asked, “What do you know in English?” So, I sang “tea for two, two for tea. One for you, one for me” and I never forgot that song.

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When I was in high school, my mother’s health declined again, and by now she was blind from glaucoma among other ailments. It was hard to watch her suffer, but she didn’t want to hold me back and encouraged me to keep moving forward.   

Israeli citizens, regardless of gender, were required to participate in military service (and still are). I went with kids my age from all over the country and I hated it, because it was tough. But always, I still say, that was the best school I ever had in my life because you had to be disciplined. I learned safety, skills, and courage. I learned how to survive in the desert, pitch a tent, sleep with a gun, and how to shoot it. It was empowering and life altering.

I’ll tell you something about women and men in Israel: we didn’t have issues with equality. We had a woman Prime Minister, Golda Meir. In this country, you still can’t get a woman to be a president!

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Israel was evolving. People who come from different parts of the world with different cultures, different food, different ideas, they knew maybe one word in Hebrew. That was a difficult situation! How do you integrate all of these people and make them one? It’s impossible, right? So what happened? They built kibbutzim. The kibbutzim was all around. The settlers created agriculture, they built buildings, they lived a life of togetherness, and then we protected that.

While in the army, I was required to take tests and assessments to discover my best skills, and I was told I would be a good teacher. I was always interested in my education so I took courses at the University of Tel Aviv for 2 years, but life changed, and I was on to the next adventure before I was able to finish my degree.

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So in the year 1964 when I was 20-something, I came to this country. I always say I came with the Beatles. And I did like them very much. I stayed with my cousin, Rivka, in New York City. Her marriage was arranged by a matchmaker, and she lived in an ultra-orthodox  community in Brooklyn. It was culture shock for me, and the rules were too much. I couldn’t take it. So, I contacted my uncle David who lived in Los Angeles and got on a plane to stay with him and his wife, Evelyn. They didn’t have children and they weren’t accustomed to a young independent woman with experience serving in the army. The first thing Evelyn did was pray to God that I “find a doctor or lawyer and get married and get the hell out of my house!” That’s what she told me!

It was the first time I ate cereal in my life, I have to tell you. And it was the first time I ate an apple. We didn’t have apples. And we didn’t have the cereals that puffed up and made noises. The only thing I ate that I loved was ice cream and fruit. I don’t know how I lived on that, but I just was not a big eater.

It was culture shock again just on a different coast. I used to go to the beach a lot, that was my escape. I babysat, waitressed, and did odd jobs at the Jewish Community Center. Evelyn introduced me to a friend who lived near Venice beach. This girl said, “On Sunset Boulevard there’s a coffee shop with Israeli food. I think you like very much to go there.” I said, “Anything Israeli, let’s go!” That’s where I was introduced to this boy Murray from Rhode Island who was in L.A. studying law. Murray had recently spent 6 months in Israel, so he was happy to meet me and practice his Hebrew. We went on a few dates and my aunt Evelyn was thrilled!

A few weeks later, I was at a house party with Murray, and he offered me a beer. I was not a drinker, but everyone around me was dancing, drinking, and getting crazy. Murray had too much to drink and got sick. I wanted to get the hell out of there. Murray’s roommate, Ken, comes to help me. The savior!

Ken and I started dating. While he was in law school, I began a course in hairdressing. I took a course in hairdressing because I wanted to go and have my hair done, so I might as well learn how to do this. You don’t live until you try it all. I moved out of my uncle’s apartment and roomed with some Israeli girls I’d met. But my visa was expiring, and I needed to return home to Israel.

That’s when Ken said, “No, you’re not going. We are going to get married. I’m going home to tell my family and they’re going to love you, the Jewish girl!”

Ken flew home to Providence, RI to share the exciting news with his family, transfer to a law school in Boston, and get things ready for my arrival. We had a small wedding on September 11, 1965. Only a few of my cousins from New York came to the wedding. We didn’t even have a honeymoon because he went back to school the next day. We had the weekend. But you know, to me, education was always first: education, education. So I’m telling you this: But I’m strong enough. I’m living with the love of my life.

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I didn’t know how to cook, and we didn’t have much money, but we bought some cookbooks so I could learn. Ken likes leg of lamb, so I get a recipe and it says to put rosemary on it. I put the whole jar on it! It was a disaster, the smell, the smoke! Then, suddenly, the lights went out! I thought Oh no, I shut the power down! But it was actually a black out in the entire city!

Never have I  used rosemary again!

We lived in Brookline, MA, until Ken graduated law school. After graduation, we moved to an apartment in South Weymouth because it had high ceilings and lots of light and was near beaches.

It was tough at first to find my way but then, I met Kelly in 1970. She and her husband, Ernie, lived on the first floor of the same apartment building, and we immediately bonded because we were both pregnant. Kelly came from a wonderful Greek Orthodox family who welcomed us. Kelly was a teacher and taught me all the nursery rhymes, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” I remember. Ernie and Ken commuted daily to Boston together. Today, still, we are family.

Our 2 daughters were born a week apart and then we both got pregnant with our second children at the same time. We bought houses on the same street and delivered our second babies exactly a week apart. It’s 54 years later, and I can’t say enough about this beautiful person and the special bond of friendship that we continue to share.

When my kids were younger, I went through a terrible phase of depression. I wanted to learn the culture here, but it was very difficult for me because I had such pride. I’m a very big achiever. But I got very depressed and I suffered from tremendous migraines. I was in a store one day and was talking with a woman. I said, “I try, but I don’t know where I’m going and I am not sure about my future here.” This country, the golden land, whatever—money and the trees, and all this baloney—you know I just couldn’t find myself. She said, “You know what, you’re very lucky. You have a culture, a rich culture, and you have a culture here. You just have to cross the bridge when you’re here, learn about here. When you go home, take the bridge back home.” And that helped.

The bridge is okay with me. I can be myself. I have an accent, yeah. I speak other languages, yeah. I know about other cultures. This is who I am.

Sometimes I can misjudge, but I’m not perfect. I try to get to know a person and realize the goodness in them.

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With 2 young daughters, we were looking to connect with other Jewish families in the area. We saw the name Levin on a mailbox (“Are you Jewish?” “Yes!”). So one thing leads to another, we strike up a conversation, and they invite us to join the local congregation.

There was no actual synagogue, it’s just a group of people gathering in the Old Ship Church parish house and in peoples’ homes for services and holidays. It was cozy and welcoming at first, but as the group grew, we knew we needed a permanent home. The opportunity arrived to build a place for us to gather. Ken and others made a plan to find the money, the land, build a temple, and find a rabbi to make it happen. We finally got our home.

Teaching was never an interest of mine or in my plans, but with my second child, we needed to start a Hebrew school and no formal education plan was in place at our new synagogue. I knew what I had to do. And with the support and encouragement from then Rabbi Benjamin Rudavsky, I contacted the Bureau of Jewish Education in Boston, explained the situation, and they connected me with a wonderful educator and mentor named Esther Karten. Together we designed a curriculum and program to support the needs of our growing Jewish community.

Funny story: a few years ago, I was in South Shore Hospital, and a doctor came by again and again. He finally stopped and asked, “Are you Dassie Abelson?” And I said, “Yeah. Why?” He answered, “You were my Hebrew teacher at the temple in Hingham! Because of you, I moved to Israel. I made Aliyah. I joined the Israeli army. Do you know what you did for my family?”

I know as a person that I was teaching people. It wasn’t just teaching a language. I was giving these kids—who come from all kinds of backgrounds, who are Jewish, who didn’t understand the value of who they really are—their history. I had a mission to give them that. Because of parents like my parents, we’re still here. 6 million are gone. There could have been more and we would be over.

The best way I started my classes was singing the song [the national anthem]. When I was teaching, I realized the kind of treasure that comes from learning from people who escaped hardship and who were dedicated to their heritage. To the tradition. So yes, connection; I have plenty. The more I see that we aren’t alone, the more I feel blessed.

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I’ve had a passion and appreciation for art as far back as I can remember. I love experiencing art (in all forms) from other cultures, attending artist talks, going to museums, and supporting the arts. The walls of our apartment and just about every surface are covered in paintings, pottery, and sculptures that Ken and I have collected from all over the world. We love it!

I have also been a painter for more than 40 years and while I’ve tried a variety of mediums, I currently focus on acrylic on canvas. My favorite thing to do, and what keeps me going and motivated every day, is to set up an easel and paint outside in the fresh air, especially near the ocean. I also love painting anything with flowers. My favorite spots are in Hull and Provincetown. And I love to revisit the same places again and again to paint them from different perspectives.

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As I age and deal with health issues and losing lifelong friends and family, I’m grateful that I have a husband with whom I can share this journey, and we can kvetch to each other. Sometimes it’s not easy, but we do have each other. I take art classes at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, and I spend time with my daughters and grandchildren (kvelling!). My biggest issue is my connection to Israel and not being able to visit as often as I wanted. Tel Aviv is my special place and that’s where my heart is.

Mellara Gold

For more than 20 years, the Australian-turned-California-girl-turned-actress-turned-South Shore-Mom has worked on healing from a childhood she didn’t ask for (but one that trained her for tough choices in her adult life). It is through the practice of Hatha Yoga, mindfulness, and Meditation that Mellara Gold connects with her authentic self.

When I spoke to Mellara earlier this year, she mentioned that if she’s comfortable with a person she’ll notice her Australian accent creep into certain words and I was thrilled to hear it come out while we spoke! Mellara’s memoir, “A Life Worth Living,” was striking to me because she took the feelings she had as a neglected child and found words for those feelings as an adult with a strong practice in yoga and mindfulness. It’s a gift to be able to visit those childhood wounds, connect with them again, and heal them after so long.

Our conversation begins here:

Your book is incredible. Thank you for writing it. One of the themes that I noted right away was all of the connections you’ve created in your life. You and I are having this conversation on this particular issue for that reason. The connections with your family, your teachers, your grandparents, even with the ocean. But then at times, I sensed it was perhaps the disconnect—the broken relationships with your parents, men, your peers—that struck me as well. Did those disconnects affect your formative years?

Yeah. I feel like I didn’t know any different. That was just my life and I always felt like a weird person, and that I didn’t belong. Not until well into my 20s or 30s did I realize that weird is cool [laughing] and to embrace that this is absolutely where I’m supposed to be. But when I was little, I didn’t know what that was about. I just thought something was wrong with me. I couldn’t figure it out. I’ve done and continue to do a lot of work with astrology and love working with Vedic astrology to help me understand more about myself. I was born into a Saturn Dasha. Saturn always helps us to go over things and learn. It is a transformative period in an individual's life. It can encompass profound experiences and growth opportunities. Through self-reflection and discipline, one has the potential to emerge stronger and wiser. It kind of gets a bad rap, but in the end, I think it’s trying to get us on track. So, I feel like the loss of connection I had with the people in my life ultimately helped me find the most real connection that any of us, I think, look for in life: with ourselves. I mean, those years when you’re supposed to have a good attachment with your mum and with your dad made me feel almost like the world was unsafe and I didn’t understand that I could be who I really was. I didn’t think I was good enough to be who I really was.

Was that what your mother was telling you?

Yeah, she was definitely wounded herself, so it was like 2 children bringing themselves up. I mean, someone might say that 20 years old is old enough to know better, but it’s sometimes not. When you are wounded and you’ve gone through abuse in your childhood and then a child comes along—you know, I just have great compassion for her and great compassion for my dad. I mean, he was 20 as well. He was just trying to find the best waves and probably to have the best parties and have sex with my mum and others. [laughing] So I can’t blame them in that context. But as a child, I held a lot of anger, a lot of disconnection, and I spoke very poorly about myself inside.

I’d walk into a room and feel insignificant. And I think it’s because when you don’t have—it’s more on the father’s side there for the little girl, for me—when you don’t get daddy’s love and reassurance at a young age, you just don’t think that you’re worthy. At least that’s what happened to me. So it’s bizarre because I did come into the world with good looks and a cute little body, but didn’t think I was that. I couldn’t. I didn’t really understand, right? So you’d get the women feeling weird about you because—I mean, you’re just being yourself—but they’re going through whatever they’re going through. And so those years were extremely hard. And the connection that I longed for was a long time away. A very long time away, I’d say even into my marriage, with ultimately the best husband in the world. We’ve been married for 17 years now. I would say I was still looking for a connection. I was healed enough to find this wonderful person and we have 2 beautiful children together. But then I was still missing something. My first book takes us into another stage that I kind of call my “coming of age spiritually” and also coming of age in the sense of re-writing my narrative inside myself, “You know what? I do matter and I always have. I have an authentic connection and it’s with myself. That’s enough and I’m enough.” I’m 48 now. So it didn’t happen quickly.

I recently had a conversation with someone who had a defining moment in their life and refers to themselves as “me before that moment” and “me after that moment.” And “that moment” being their new baseline.

It’s definitely not an overnight process. It takes a lot of making bad decisions and learning from them, speaking poorly to someone, writing the wrong email, or saying no to something when you probably should have said yes. But when you don’t fully trust yourself you rely on advice from the outside of you, and it’s our inner self that truly knows which way to steer the ship. So I think that the time that I spent with my [then] teacher who I talk about in the book, Channa Dassanayaka, helped me to trust. Not because that’s what he taught per se, but because I deferred to him more times than not. And I eventually realized that I’ve been actually ‘knowing’ all along what I’ve needed and that I am my own best teacher and can feel into what’s right for me today.

I suspect that because I never got much validation as a child, I never realized that I actually did know and that it was me that can make decisions for me and that, no matter what, I was and am always enough. So, I think it took me to go through a very intense and sometimes rollercoaster of a  time with this teacher—who could have been a priest, who could have been the dry cleaner down the road that you really, really want to hang out with because they’ve got all this wisdom—but it was Channa. I felt that in hanging around him in the teacher role and with him in his personal  life I was able to see that even Channa doesn’t always know. That was a big deal for me to understand this, because after our time together I realized I had projected onto him and also made him into the parents I didn’t have. And I write all about this in my book. Deep inside I truly felt like, He must know better. He can be my mum and dad now. This wasn’t  me knowing this consciously at that moment, this realization came much later.

Then when I started to see that he actually was human, like all of us, that he actually wasn’t this godlike person that I really, truly thought—and that’s not diminishing who he is. He’s an incredible person—but my perspective was that he could do no wrong. So when I started to realize he’s human, and just like me. Guess what! I gave myself my own power back that I think I just wasn’t ready to hold all on my own. This is when my journey on trust began again. And that was a long process. It probably was even 3 or 4 years after I finished writing my first book and going into my second, “Living in Awareness.” So the book is another time, like you had mentioned: before I met Channa. I even know myself after the Channa stage. When people pick up that book, they need to go to the second book, too, because there are more discoveries. It is a continuation of my life unfolding with practices and rituals I learned that assist us in remembering who we are. These things are what helped me along the way along with a little bit of the update of how I’ve been progressing inside.

In your book, you wrote about giving him power and then taking it back. This is very much a natural parental “thing.” As parents, we hold and balance the power and then allow our kids to take it from us and send them out of the nest. And since you didn’t have that, it seems natural that you would allow another powerful person in your life to take that role for you.

Thank you so much for saying that. I got major chills when you just said that. And I call them truth bumps because that feels like what happened. It’s almost like I needed that lesson. I don’t always like using the word lesson for some reason, but it is that. I needed that again. I needed that understanding because I was still searching outside of me. Even though he has, and did have, a lot of wisdom for me, it was me all along who was connecting with my truest self. Being in his presence helped me to see who I am, the mirror was loud and clear. And then when I was out of his presence and 2 or 3 years after the book was released, I could see that, Oh, I get to trust myself. Now I get to follow my path. Thank you. Thank you for being in my life.

I kind of feel like if we don’t understand something—the consciousness or source energy, God, whatever you want to call it, I believe we’re co-creating with the universe—I feel like it manifests these people and these situations in our lives so that we truly come back to who we are. Without that experience, I don’t know if I’d be sitting here talking with you today. So I’m very grateful for that experience. It was a very challenging experience with some happy moments, and I would never take it back or change it just like my own parents. I just don’t have any regrets because I’m the kind of person who falls in with both feet and asks, “What do you need? I’m here for you.” And that’s just how I rolled with this chapter of my life, too.

I don’t think that you see yourself the way that I see you. All of the decisions you made for yourself: to move across the ocean, find a place to live and settle in a new country, meet your basic needs, get a career started, go to auditions, become caretaker … It must have been interesting when you were done with the book to look back at your life. It’s very dissociative, isn’t it?

I love, I love that you said that. And I would disassociate a lot in my childhood. It was the only way that I could not feel the pain of it all. But see, that catches up with you after some time. The beautiful thing about how I’ve gone through all of this is that the most rewarding thing that I get to do is turn my pain into gold by supporting others with theirs. Either in the form of yoga, mindfulness, or meditation. I can really say that I am living my best life, not a perfect one, but one that is true to me. It’s quite remarkable because there are people who are sometimes similar to me in a lot of ways, who have gone through big stuff in their lives—all kinds of difficulties, situations, trauma—and because of it all I’m able to be present with them and in their pain. I am so grateful and honored that I get to have this kind of opportunity. It’s life-changing for me. My life has come full circle. All I went through is for something. Something greater than what happened.

And I grow, too, with the folks who are drawn to the work that I do. Healing is not linear. It’s 3 steps back, 4 steps forward, 2 steps back, 1 step forward. And that’s why I love that we’ve moved here [to Massachusetts] as well. It feels healing to live here today. I feel like who you are attracts the right people. So it’s like your magazine; you are attracting the right people, so other people can learn something and help them grow, too. We all benefit, by learning from observing and supporting one another.

You were at a low point physically and mentally at one point in your early adulthood and took way too many pills one day. But you didn’t realize what you were doing as it was happening, that it wasn’t intentional. What clicked when you woke up in the hospital?

Okay. I was so depressed. First, I have 5 bulging discs from L1 through L5 and was diagnosed when I was 17. And metaphysically, when we look at the lower back, we see that it is the feeling of not feeling supported, like a fear of our own survival. And so when things come into us physically, I believe that they have already been in our aura field for quite some time and if we aren’t conscious of what is happening and don’t somehow make the changes necessary, they can manifest into our physical form. I’m pretty sure this is what happened to me.

So at 17, the straw that broke the camel’s back was in a dance class. I went to Lee Strasberg, the wonderful acting school in Los Angeles. And I was also waiting on tables—I was more waiting on tables than acting, but I did get a few things here and there [laughing]. Right out of the gate, I played Peter Fonda’s girlfriend in the movie “Don’t Look Back” which ultimately gave me the taste for more, but I was just so depressed and didn’t know it at the time. Because of my back pain, everything hit a precipice where I physically couldn’t do things. It was like God, universe, source energy—whatever you want to call it—wanted me to get to know myself. And I was like, Are you joking with me? I just want to be an actress! I’ll show you! Yelling at God and the world like, “You want to abuse a little kid? Well, don’t worry, I’ll be a big star!” I was very angry. I was just so angry and felt alone in the world.

And so I was in this bathtub, and I just thought, You know what? I’m just so sick of this fucking pain. I’m just going to take more of my Vicodin or Soma. I was taking a combination. I just kept taking them and was just like, fuck it fuck it fuck it. And I wasn’t understanding that I was really going to hurt myself. I kind of knew, but felt like, yeah, whatever. I’m not worth anything for anybody anyway, so it doesn’t matter? No one will care, that kind of thing, a huge pity party in action. That’s really how I thought. But then when I realized I had taken too much—because I started to get dizzy and I started to kind of pass out in the bathtub—I got nervous and thought what have I done? So I took some Tylenol PM so that maybe I could sleep it all off. And then it didn’t really do anything. So I took 3 and I just kept taking them. I was very thin, very actress-y  and I remember running out of the bathtub naked. My first husband was there. I was very disoriented and then passed out.

At the time, we were managers in a Section 8 building because I thought it would be good for us so we could get free rent. I could do the acting thing during the day, and waitress at night. That’s another story and it’s in the book. Getting your stomach pumped is absolutely horrendous. It’s so painful. And when you come through all that and you’re laying down … I just felt so terrible. I didn’t have parents that I could rely on. So I’m like, This is not smart. And I started to beat myself up inside. I always knew that I had to have health insurance living in the US. I always knew I had to have certain things. And this was not in my plan because I was very good about being good [laughing], being a good girl and making sure I’d be okay because I didn't have anyone to rely on. And so I was like, Fuck, this is crazy. So when the psychiatrist came in, I said, “You know, I really can see what I’ve done, I really would like to go.” And when he said, “No, you’ll be here for observation for another 3 ½  days.” I just felt broken. That was the moment where I thought, I can’t ever do this to myself again. I had it rock bottom.

You wrote about changing your mind about a decision or getting yourself out of a bind in the 11th hour. One example is with a photographer who wanted to take advantage of you. That’s big insight for a young woman. And by the way, I fully believe that a woman can change her mind whenever she needs to about anything.

When you’re put in a situation to be a caretaker even unconsciously and at such a young age, you just kind of realize what it takes to take care of yourself. On a good day, I’ve heard my mum say, “You brought yourself up, girl.” And this is not entirely true because I feel like I had my grandparents and my mum wasn’t horrible all the time. She was quite a beautiful soul, troubled yes, and such an incredible artist when it seemed like she felt regulated, even joyful at times. But I just think that I was put in too many adult situations at a young age and so I had to grow up quickly. And that probably helped me to realize what was right and what was wrong. I fell on my face a lot but I think all of that helps me to work on healthy boundaries today, which is something I didn’t know much about. And it’s true, I would get myself out of trouble at the 11th hour, yeah.

When you were a little girl, where did you go for comfort? I know that your father was a surfer. Both your parents love the water. Was that a respite for you as well

Oh, yes, for sure. One of the biggest reasons that my New England husband thought that the move out here to the South Shore would be wonderful is because of the water. Water helps me remember the vastness of life and who I really am. And it helps me to see a broader picture of life itself. Even today, meaning my life is not perfect. I’m still challenged. I don’t believe life will ever stop that kind of thing because it seems to do what life is going to do. It’s always going to challenge us to help us grow and evolve. But it’s how we respond to it. But I feel like when I was little, I was connected to nature. I can see myself right now as a little 5-year-old and I’d be running through the long grass and just kind of grazing it with my fingertips and just laughing. I was always seemingly a very happy child, and probably it was an unconscious protection that I put in place for myself, bizarre in a way and yet so very human. My grandfather would call me the smiley girl. And when you look at my pictures, there are some smiley pictures. There’s also some melancholy pictures. Don’t have that many.

Wholeheartedly, I believe that we are all intrinsically joyful at the core. I do believe this. I don’t think we’re always happy. But I do think that underneath the layers of who we are not, is the joy of us. And I think that I used to connect with that a lot as a kid and being more of a healed person that’s what I connect with today. Swimming in the ocean I feel this connection so deeply.

You know, I think that we’re all intrinsically connected to source energy and each other. I do believe that. Like we are here as this one energy, yet at the same time we’re these individual souls just, you know, doing the best we can.

I sensed a lot of joy in the early discovery of how much you love yoga and the practice of mindfulness.

It’s interesting because, you know, I would talk about all these vulnerabilities that I had inside. And maybe not everybody around me really saw them. Because I thought that I was quite good at showing how successful I was on the outside. So that’s the funny thing about this healing thing. No one has to know or does know what you’re really going through. So, I had a strong private yoga practice throughout my 20s, even though my personal life was in turmoil. I think I did, and still do, lean on my yoga practice and while I didn’t choose it for myself, I’m so grateful that it chose me.

I’m mostly a heart-opened human being, and I think that is helpful for my continued healing. My heart, you know, it does get closed and hurt just like everybody else’s. But the cool thing that I’ve discovered is that I can also move on pretty quickly. But I think that’s not always healthy because we also need to sit with our pain. Not to bring on more pain, just as a way to cultivate self-compassion and a kind of acceptance. And I never really wanted to do that because it would trigger me, and sometimes take me back to what happened to me when I was little, you know. Like most my own age I also had regular joys along the way and as I got older loved changing my hair and coloring my hair [laughing] and going shopping and getting some clothes.

When I sit with folks in a depth session, as I like to call it, or in their group yoga and meditation practice, there’s something that happens within me. I’m completely present and nothing can touch that space. It’s as if  I’m  reading the room and I am so with you that we are just sharing this amazing moment together. My yoga teaching brings me joy. I remember in my 20s I used to get my matcha tea—with two shots of espresso, mind you—at 3:00 in the afternoon to go teach my gentle yoga and restorative class. [laughing] I’m a firecracker! I’ve got that fire in me! I loved teaching that class, people just loved it probably because they loved how they felt. I could go home feeling good about that. My personal life was up shit creek without a paddle. But I felt like I was contributing to someone else. My pain wasn’t for nothing.

What is it like for you being a mom?

I just love being a mom. I feel like it is one of my biggest gifts that I get to have in this lifetime and I’m so grateful for that. [My kids] are my everything. Just like my husband. He’s my everything, too. It’s a very special thing to be a mother. “Thing.” There’s no other word for it. I don’t know what to say. It’s just a lovely and meaningful role to experience. But it’s a really hard role, too … I wasn’t the mom that would do the cry it out thing. I couldn’t. I felt like when they cried my instinct was to hold them and perhaps that stems back from not being held as a child. You know, my mum didn’t mean to not hold me, she just couldn’t hold me. That’s the big difference, and 2 totally different things. So I made a point to hold my children and hold space for them. And I’m very straight up … it’s just, it’s bizarre. It’s totally different and it’s not perfect. My husband drives me absolutely bonkers [laughing] and … I’m menopausal now. In that perimenopausal mode of life. It was raining so hard here the other day I was so mad with everybody, practically for no reason by the way. So I just went out and I said quite abruptly, “I’m walking in the rain. See yas later!” And I went and then came back and was fine, just very wet … I’m not the perfect mother. I’m present with them, but that doesn’t mean I’m perfect. It’s a big difference and that’s ok with me.

That’s how I think life is. We have these joyful moments. We have hot flashes. Like even during this interview, I’ve already had a hot flash! We have these incredible, inspiring moments. And then we have grief that really bogs us down and helps us to remember that we’re human and to be kind to ourselves.

Are you grieving your parents?

I think I might always be doing that. It’s kind of strange, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t know if you think it’s strange, but I think it’s strange. They’re not passed away. They just live on the other side of the planet. We don’t talk. I don’t know if there will be a day that we will talk. I don’t plan on it. And also don’t say no to it. But what I do know is that it’s important to me that I keep practicing on protecting my peace. Maybe I’ll be there on their deathbed. Maybe I won’t. I just have had so many different moments where I’ve tried and really tried. And if I don’t feel that I’m seen, if I don’t feel heard, then that’s my answer. I’m going to be courageous enough to remember that I matter, and that’s why it is the way it is.

Am I grieving? Yes. Absolutely. Will I change my mind to see them just to change it? No. No.

But you might change your mind, you never know.

Yeah, I could change my mind. And I always leave that open. I think that’s the beauty of our life and I also think that sometimes there’s too much black-and-white thinking. There’s too much right or wrong. There’s too much short or tall. Big or small,  rich or poor. And so, yeah, I love that. I can play with that and sit with it and feel it through in the moment. I can imagine that if I continue to trust myself, I’ll know if and when it might be the right time to do something.

So I’m working on letting little Mellara be seen. She matters. Maya Angelou said  “When you know better, you do better.” And that has stuck.

That stuck with me.

Mellara holds one-on-one depth sessions online at www.mellara.com and in-person at the Scituate Salt Cave as well as yoga classes at Open doors Yoga Studios; Norwell location.

Nina Coslov

Data.

That is all Nina Coslov wanted. Data to explain the changes in her body (was she experiencing the change?) Surprisingly, she found there wasn't a lot of data for women to educate themselves on hormonal changes,  perimenopause, or menopause. She recruited a friend, doctors, and collaborators to create Women Living Better, a consumer-friendly research and education organization. Her work has become a movement, really, and a portal to the answers from thousands of women (All together now: "Thank you!")

Editor's Note: When we spoke to Nina this spring, the word "menopause" was in the air. There are stories everywhere about validating a woman's feelings about her body changing. But when Nina's data came across our desks, we knew there was a story about a woman who had to know more. We had to know more about this story.

Our conversation begins here:

Can you tell us how you and your co-founder started Women Living Better? As a young woman, you were sort of brushed off by your doctors about some symptoms you were experiencing, that you wondered could be related to menopause, is that right?

I want to be a little careful about the “brushed off” by doctors because I think we have to step back and realize that sufficient research about perimenopause just has not been done. So most of our medical providers are doing the best they can with what they know. The lack of validation of our experiences—that’s happening. Whether we call it being “brushed off” or dismissed by health care providers, it really goes back to the fact that there isn’t ample research to create a basis for medical education, to have them know that women could be starting this process while their periods are still coming monthly nor about the very broad range of symptoms that can occur. I think once you’ve skipped a period or have an irregular period, then healthcare providers will look at what you’re sharing and say, okay, this sounds like you might be in the menopausal transition.

So yes, that was the situation for me. I was about 43 or 42 and the first thing that happened to me was I just stopped sleeping through the night. I’d fall asleep, but I’d wake up around 2 a.m. I joke that it was predictably somewhere between 2:08 and 2:11 a.m. and that went on for a long time. The other thing about it was I would be very awake. It wasn’t just like I’d wake up and get back to sleep easily or go to the bathroom and go back to sleep easily. I had a revving feeling; I had a lot of energy. And so I was awake for long periods of time. That led to some sleep deprivation. I had three young children at the time and it just seemed like something had sort of shifted for me, physiologically. Nothing really else in my life had changed. And so that was puzzling to me. Then I’d say maybe 3 or 4 months after that—and whether this was related to the lack of sleep, because certainly mood and stress responses are related to sleep—I noticed a feeling of fragility. I remember thinking, this isn’t me. I just don’t feel like myself. I was worrying about things I hadn’t worried about before. I think we tend to put these feelings in a kind of general anxiety bucket, but it wasn’t typical anxiety. I did not feel a sense of doom, my heart wasn’t pounding. I wasn’t sweating. I just felt less able to cope with things.

A really cool thing about it is that by virtue of creating Women Living Better for others, it helped me know that my experience was normal. Even the words others shared on the site about their experiences, helped me better explain what I was experiencing. Women Living Better does 2 main things. Primarily it offers information about how hormonal patterns change in perimenopause and what those changes can lead to (i.e. what symptoms can arise) for some people. But, we purposely also have many places on the website, polls and open-ended questions for women to share their experiences of and their questions about perimenopause. For example, women’s descriptions of feeling less able to cope were:

“I feel like I can’t calm down on the inside.”

“I feel like my fight or flight response is more sensitive.”

“I startle more easily.”

And those descriptors totally resonated with me.

So, back to how we got started. I mentioned these experiences of sleep disruption and what I’ll call a new, and not like me, fragility to both my primary care doctor and my OB-GYN. Prior to those appointments, I had done some digging in PubMed to see if I could find something that might explain my experience, and there wasn’t much, but there was a little bit to suggest that possibly my experience could be related to hormonal changes. So, I asked both providers that very question: “Could this be perimenopause?” The first question they asked me in return was, “Are you still getting a monthly period?” And I said I was. And so immediately they said, well, then this is not perimenopause.

My primary care physician offered me something for sleep and something for anxiety. And I left and I thought, this doesn’t make sense to me. My gut said there’s something else going on. I was telling all of this to my good friend, Jo, and learned she was having a similar experience. She was still getting a monthly period but was experiencing new irritability and she is a very even, calm person! It felt all of a sudden, out of the blue, and not like her. So I talked her into looking into this with me and that’s how Women Living Better started. In the process of trying to understand our own experiences, we learned so much even about our normal menstrual cycles that we didn’t know. And we thought, Gosh, our bodies have been doing this our whole menstruating lives, why do we not know this? We started connecting with experts who were interested in our idea that symptoms may start for some before noticeably irregular cycles and changing periods.

We did an initial survey in 2016 to test whether others felt like there was a gap in knowledge about perimenopause and menopause. We asked people, 35 to 80 years old, about their cycling status, what they knew about perimenopause, what they wished they knew, and so on. We got a flood of responses. In 3 weeks we had 400 surveys completed. And we had open-ended questions where people were writing and writing. And so we were like, “Wow, we have hit on something here. We’ve got to do something about this.”

The first thing we did was create the web site, an educational resource, with what we had learned. It’s the resource that we wish we had found. The site is evidence-based and cites and explains the relevant research in accessible language. Some people ask, “Can’t you just give me 3 bullets about what to do?” I can’t. Perimenopause is complicated. It’s different for each of us. And because we’re in a transition from a reproductive to a nonreproductive state, things are changing all the time. It helps to be aware of what’s happening in your body and be willing to tweak what you are doing to feel better over time. I like to say that Women Living Better is a kind of do-it-yourself, explore-for-yourself, educate-yourself resource.

It’s so interesting because as early as health class in high school, we’ve always been told that the menstrual cycle is all about bleeding. Right? Even though we know that hormones are involved, it’s always about bleeding.

It’s good point. So much is focused on bleeding, but there is so much more to know that I didn’t! Two key learnings for me that when taken together form an “Aha!” moment: first, that we have hormone receptors, estrogen, and progesterone receptors all over our bodies. They are in our skin, our eyes, our brains. Everywhere. We created an image of this on the site, Hormone Lady. It really drives the point home. Second, a wonderful study—that was done as recently as 1997, looked at hormone levels in a perimenopausal woman’s urine daily for six months. A graph of this, also on the website, illustrates the considerable fluctuations in hormones. This was the first study to challenge the narrative that estrogen declines during perimenopause. In many people, estrogen does not decline during perimenopause but actually rises higher and fluctuates more than it had previously. When you couple these fluctuations with the fact that there are estrogen and progesterone receptors all over our bodies, you start to see why perimenopause can be a really tricky time.

Now that you are educating a woman about her own body, the things she didn’t know she needed to know, how is this affecting the practice of medicine? How are the doctors taking this information?

That’a good question. I mean, I hope that most healthcare providers are glad when someone comes in with more knowledge about what’s happening to them, their hypotheses about why it’s happening, and what things they are interested in trying to feel better.

We are the experts on our bodies and how we feel and what has changed for us. We need to know that. I wouldn’t be comfortable with a health care provider that wasn’t willing to have a discussion about a path forward. They are the experts on what the options are and have a knowledge base of all the women they’ve seen go through this phase. That is important, relevant information but it’s half of what needs to be considered.

For that reason, in addition to the site offering education, we strongly recommend tracking menstrual cycles if you are still menstruating and any symptoms and their frequency.

An addendum to my story: Had I been tracking my periods, I would have noticed that they were coming closer together. That shortening of your cycle is a sign that hormonal changes are afoot. I’m still not sure whether my health care providers at that time would have seen my shortening cycles and said, “Oh, maybe it is perimenopause,” but they might have. We sort of dumb it down to either regular periods or irregular periods but it’s more subtle than that.

Detailed information about changes to periods, like heavier or lighter bleeding, changes to days of flow, amount of flow, and changes to cycle length can provide an opportunity for a more informed discussion with your health care provider as well as shared decision making if there are therapeutics to be considered.

While it seems like there is much more information about perimenopause out there, and there is, so many people still don’t know what to expect and don’t know what is happening when it begins, so there is lots to be done. There aren’t enough healthcare providers trained in perimenopause and postmenopause care. And, to your question, if you read much of the coverage in mainstream media, many stories are about women still being dismissed. I’m hopeful that the increased discussion about perimenopause has highlighted the need for much more support.

I hapen to believe that normalizing a patient’s experience can be a big help. I know it would have helped me to know that sleep and mood are often wonky during perimenopause. And I think for some people, just coming to Women Living Better and spending time on the site can do just that.

So tell me about your research.

After we got the first version of the site built, Jo moved on to another project. It was around the time I was realizing how vast the knowledge gap about perimenopause was. There were—and are—so many unanswered questions. I wondered whether I could do something to help fill that gap.

My biggest question, based on my personal experience, was whether for some people symptoms start before noticeable menstrual irregularity, that is while periods are still coming monthly. I wondered whether symptoms before a noticeable change in cycles were similar to or different than those later in the transition, closer to menopause, the final menstrual period. I decided I wanted to do some research. I was lucky to be able to connect with Dr. Marcie Richardson. She is the founder of the Atrius Menopause Clinic in Boston.

I asked her questions about what research there was on symptoms starting early and she put me in touch with an amazing researcher from the University of Washington in Seattle, Dr. Nancy Woods. Dr. Woods has been a pioneer in midlife women’s health research. I shared my idea about symptoms starting before menstrual irregularity and that some people were getting brushed off or dismissed and turning away from mainstream medicine because of it. Dr. Woods thought this was interesting and related to her previous work, but she hadn’t explored it directly. She agreed to look into it further.

So in 2019, we started a research collaboration, the 3 of us, that is still going on today. We started with a very large, cross-sectional survey in 2020, and we’ve now published 6 papers in peer-reviewed journals based on that data. We are currently working on a 7th paper. Our first paper really answered the question: What is the symptom experience for some people while they’re still getting monthly periods and how does that compare to once they’ve started having much longer cycles or a skipped period?

That survey and the whole paper are on the WLB website. Interestingly, we had to do a GoFundMe campaign to make it open access and available, because I never thought about it being stuck behind a paywall. I was just so focused on getting it done. Now the whole paper is out there and I tell people, go look at tables 3, 4, and 5. They strongly support the message “you are not alone.” There is really such a broad range of symptoms that arises during this time. It’s important to note that at the same time we are making this reproductive transition, we are also aging. Research hasn’t yet linked many of these symptoms to hormonal changes per se. But we know that many midlife women report them.

So if I had to say the top 3 things that the first paper found, they would be: 1. For some people, symptoms start before periods are noticeably irregular. 2. The symptom experience is very broad. We all expect it to be a hot flash or a night sweat. It isn’t. It’s in fact, much broader. 3. 59% of respondents said they expected changes associated with menopause to begin at age 50 or later. So, we’re not expecting them until 50. And, we’re really just expecting hot flashes. So when other things arise well before 50, we’re thinking, something is really wrong with me. We don’t have an explanatory model for what’s happening.

And this isn’t to say we don’t still have to rule out other things—other issues crop up in midlife, other health conditions that are important to rule out. But, I think if we can understand what is normally associated with this hormonal transition, we’re just so much better prepared.

Women are thinking “Do I need an antidepressant? Some of these women could be facing mental health misdiagnoses.

Yes, I want to be very careful to say that if anything interferes with your life, you should seek advice from a health care provider. But if you’re noticing mood change, feeling more tearful or more irritable, and you’re tracking when it occurs and you notice these mood changes are ebbing and flowing with your cycles, which are also changing in length, just having the knowledge that this can happen in perimenopause can provide an explanation of what’s happening. I mean, this answer is unsatisfying for some people who ask, “What can I do and how can I feel better and what pill should I take?” That’s not really what I’m doing. I am trying to sort of change what we know, how we educate, and how we frame this period of life, so we know more what to expect. I’m not saying it’s all going to go away, because it’s a transition and, you know, it’s the reverse of adolescence. That’s not an easy transition either. But we didn’t have families depending on us. We weren’t trying to balance a million things. We can kind of just be a teenager and let those changes take place. And it’s much harder at midlife to do that.

You specifically mentioned antidepressants. I think there is some data related to antidepressants and their role in treatment. In our research about how perimenopausal health care interactions went, many women were unsatisfied because they were offered an antidepressant when they were sure their symptoms were due to hormones. For hot flashes and night sweats, collectively called vasomotor symptoms, there are antidepressants that in research are close to as effective as hormone therapy (estrogen or estrogen and a progestogen, if you have a uterus) in terms of treating hot flashes. For women who can’t take hormone therapy or with health care providers that aren’t comfortable prescribing hormones, this is often offere

Not to mention what we do know about menopause before we do the research is what we learn culturally. Is it Golden Girls or is it Sex in the City? Then we start looking online, going to doctor Google and we’re inundated with these products that relate menopause with sexiness. Because that’s what we’re all thinking when we’re bleeding for 21 straight days and putting on 10 lbs, right? “How do I get sexier right now? [laughing]

Oh, exactly. Yeah. [laughing] It’s insulting really, the suggestion that we should be concerned with being sexier just as we’re dealing with this wide range of changes. It can be a vulnerable time and many products marketed to us at this time are just taking advantage. It makes me mad.

The other thing I should do, because we haven’t covered this and it can be confusing, is talk about definitions. The technical definition of menopause is 1 day. It is the final day of your menstrual period. It’s a very weird “look-back” definition because you don’t know that you have had your final period until you have not had another period for 12 months. Technically, even in those 12 months, you’d say you were perimenopausal because you don’t know that you’re in the last 12 months. After you’ve had your final menstrual period, you’re postmenopausal. That is the very technical definition but often the term menopause gets used very broadly to cover everything related, the whole lead up to menopause and all the symptoms. Everything before is perimenopause. Also sometimes called premenopause.

Now, the strict definition of perimenopause, also called the menopause transition, is that you have persistent seven-day differences in your cycle length. So that would mean you have a 35-day cycle followed by a 28-day cycle. For it to be persistent, it has to happen twice within ten months. My belief is that we should change this definition to include the time when cycles start to shorten and symptoms arise for some. But as of today the persistent 7-day difference is the technical definition of when perimenopause starts.

We should be educating women when they’re a little bit younger.

Yes, I think we should start educating before all of these things begin. I would love to see some kind of education around 35. To your point, how much better equipped would I have been if I had gotten information about perimenopause at 35? Now, I had a child at 35, and many of us are having kids later and people say, “Nina, 35 is way too young for this message, people don’t want to hear this then.” But I don’t agree. I think we do women a disservice by not preparing them for what might come. Maybe the right age is somewhere between 35 and 38. But, by 40 for sure!

The ideal script goes something like, “Listen, in the next 10 years, your body is going to begin to make this transition from your reproductive years to your nonreproductive years. For some people, that is a non-event. Their bodies kind of absorb the fluctuations and they just suddenly realize they haven’t had a period in 12 months and they’re done. But for other people, those fluctuations have impacts all around their bodies (brain, bones, muscles, skin, hair). And here’s the range of symptoms we’re starting to uncover in research. I just want you to be aware of them. If any of them start to get in the way of your relationships or daily life or work, please come see me. We don’t have perfect solutions to them, but we can try things and then tweak them, and I’m here to support you.”

That could be a game changer and it is a super simple conversation. It’s 3 minutes during a well-visit. And maybe here’s a pamphlet, here’s a website—these are evidence-based. If you have questions, go there first. But again, reach out to me if anything interferes with your daily life, relationships, and/or work.

The other thing that we’re up against here is that the Office of Women’s Health wasn’t established at the NIH until 1990.

There’s an Office of Women’s Health? [laughing]

Well, yes, I’m here to deliver some good news—there is an office of women’s health. [laughing] But, the bad news is, it wasn’t established until 1990. Soon after that, these really important—the first longitudinal—studies about midlife women began. And then it takes research, on average 17 years, to make it to clinical practice so that is a long time. What I’m trying to do with Women Living Better is fill that in a little bit. Now, I’m not going to change clinical guidelines, but if I can take a study or a couple of studies and say, “Look, this is what this research is showing,” I think that can help women. Again, I’m trying to normalize and validate what women are experiencing, but we need more data on the experience of the path to menopause—much more! There’s just so much to be learned.

I sort of joke that Women Living Better is crowdsourcing the menopause transition. We’re collecting lots of data from women about their experiences but we’re not taking blood samples and correlating the symptoms reported with hormones which needs to be done. What we can say is, “a lot of women are having this experience.” That is what I can do with my resources: raise questions, do this kind of research, and share it back with women to help them.

So now there are going to be a ton of questions like, “Is that why I can’t drink wine? Is that why I’m gaining weight? What else do we need to know about menopause?

Many women report not being able to process alcohol in the same way in perimenopause. It is certainly true for me. Weight gain is very tricky. I don’t think we have the answer yet to what causes it at midlife. A recent study showed that metabolism doesn’t change until we reach 60. Research does document a loss of lean mass and an accrual of fat to our mid-section, waist area, during the menopausal transition. There is no one reason that is understood to be the reason behind weight gain, so many of the diets/programs promising weight loss based on some definitive understanding about how things work are unfounded. I think there is too much focus on women’s weight to begin with. Also, there’s chronological aging and there’s reproductive aging happening at the same time. It’s very hard to tease out what causes what.

You spoke about how it affects our bodies and the importance of physical fitness. What we need to know about is what will naturally happen to our bodies in a healthy way versus what we think we need to do to keep lean.

From what I’ve read, this is not my area of research, continued movement, lifting weights heavy enough to build bone and preserve lean muscle mass, and anything that helps with balance to prevent falls will allow us to be able to do the things we want to do into our later years. We’re learning that perimenopause and menopause are both a body and a brain thing. I think our future health is more linked to our midlife health than we knew before.

It all starts with questions. You’ve got to keep asking.

You have to, really. I just did a post trying to help women be wiser consumers of studies. So many kinds of media outlets grab a study and add a sensational headline to get clicks. When we read about new research, we should be asking how many people was that? Was it 30 people or several hundred, several thousand? Usually the more the better. What kind of study was done? Was it randomized controlled? You get interesting information from an observational study, but it only tells you that 2 variables are associated. Only a randomized controlled trial can tell you about cause and effect. It’s really tough to be a perimenopausal woman right now. You brought up the whole thing with products and programs. With social media there’s all this stuff out there and a lot of them are just not tested to prove they work or that they’re safe. It’s just an influencer or a marketer’s claim. And we’re vulnerable.

We’re vulnerable because we’re all feeling like we’re supposed to look like this. And how do I get there? Is there a magical pill? Is it because of this?

Well, you don’t feel well and you read about something that purports to help with what you are dealing with. In the beginning of my perimenopausal journey, I tried a bunch of different supplements. I would take them and think maybe I’d feel a little better. It’s tricky.

It’s so hard to make time, but I think our bodies need a little more support during this time. It’s all in the “self-care” realm but not spa-type self-care, more the basics. If we can create a little more downtime, get outside for a walk, eat and drink more selectively, be really deliberate about sleep, and find a way that works to manage or calm our nervous systems. Just learning to breath, with deep belly breaths, for 5 minutes at a time can go a long way. We are starting to learn that these hormonal changes affect our stress response and our stress resilience. Whether it’s walking or running or yoga or breathing or mindfulness meditation or some kind of breathwork—I think it can be a helpful and important part of trying to find some balance and feel better during this transition.

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