84: Empowering Choice in Menopause After Cancer: Dani Binnington

Welcome to Dear Menopause podcast, where we discuss the menopause transition to help make everyday life a little easier for women. Hey there, this is Sonya and I am the host Dear Menopause. Today, I am bringing you a wonderful chat with a wonderful woman, introducing you to Dani Binnington. Danny is the founder of the Not-For-Profit Menopause and Cancer based in the UK, and she is the host of the Menopause and Cancer podcast. I really hope you enjoy this chat. I loved getting to know Dani. She's so kind-hearted and so insightful. You are going to get a lot from this conversation, Dani. Welcome Dear Menopause . Thank you for having me. It's my absolute pleasure. Dani, for anyone that is not familiar with who you are, how about you give everybody a little intro into Dani Binnington is?

Yeah, hi guys, thank you for having me and for listening to the conversation. I was born in Austria and I went to London in the UK, on a little trip after I finished my A-Levels, my school. I stayed and ever since then I've stayed in England and I've absolutely fallen in love with this country. I went to university here, I met my husband. We had our three children, and when our twins were two and my eldest daughter was four, I found a lump in my left boob and that lump turned out to be breast cancer. Up until then, I was really one of those people that thought life is just going to be great for me. I am one of those people who wakes up in the morning feeling quite okay, I was a go-getter, I was always finding it quite easy from one job to the next. I have a big group of friends and I kind of thought I'm going to make my life good, my life is in my control, I choose how I live, and all of that was wiped away with my breast cancer diagnosis and I really have changed as a person since then. Now I talk a lot about cancer. I talk a lot about the menopause, because a few years later and I'm sure we'll get to that. I was put into menopause early but if anything and I was going to introduce myself I'm a real girl's girl. I love having conversation with women. Women are absolutely fabulous. I love listening to their stories and I can't ever chat for long enough. I always want to know what's going on in other people's lives.

I love that so much. And as soon as you said I'm a real girl's girl, we're sitting here recording. It's super early in the morning in Australia you are in the UK, obviously that you've got this beautiful, bright pink jumper on we call it a jumper and you are literally just blowing through the screen. So, danny, tell us a little bit about your cancer diagnosis.

Yeah, I think one thing that was so weird is when something takes you so by surprise. I almost didn't want it to be real. I had my investigations. I found a lump. I had an ultrasound. I remember going for the mammogram and I was kind of told oh, it doesn't look bad, but it's probably nothing because you're really young. So I just heard it's probably nothing because I was young and I had those three young children to look after. So I went to the appointment myself and I'm not sure I would suggest that to any of my dearest friends. If they say I'm going to get results from a biopsy on a lump in my boob, I'd say it's mad, why would you go on your own but anywhere? I was so adamant that this is not going to be anything. I went on my own and I almost couldn't get out of the chair and all I remember was saying to the doctor I'm so worried, will I make this? Will I make this? It is very weird. I'm almost embarrassed about these words, but they just came out and instead of saying you can do this, because you can do this can mean many different things. It doesn't mean you have to survive this, you can do this. The teacher said I'm really not, we're not sure. And I think that first sort of we're not sure. Of course I know no one can give you certainty over what is going to happen. You could be the healthiest person, no one can give you certainty but I just needed to have a bit more reassurance and I think that really flawed me from the very beginning and for a long, long time I was very nervous, very anxious, very frightful cancer patient that was just told to do and I just did what they told me to do. My brain switched on much later, I feel, in taking part in my recovery.

Yeah, I can imagine that, particularly sitting there by yourself as well, hearing that would have really had a significant impact on your whole philosophy, going into your diagnosis, your treatment after that as well. So your treatment did you talk us through? Did you have surgery? Do you chemo radio? What was your kind of treatment plan after that?

Yeah, I had surgery to remove the lump. All of my lymph nodes came out. That was quite a big recovery then. And then I had chemotherapy and radiotherapy to end it and it was kind of like all wrapped up in that year. It was that particular one year and we got to the late autumn and I was kind of wrapped up with everything and after that my life crumbled. My doctors were sort of saying to me we'll see you again I don't know in six weeks or in eight weeks for your next checkup, and I just didn't know what to do with myself. I had panic attacks and I just didn't think that my doctors had done enough, and not that I didn't trust them, but I didn't trust that what they were doing me and what the service they provided me was enough to get me through this. And so I became crazy. Three o'clock in the morning, dr Google, sleepless nights I was up. I was looking at clinics in Mexico. I was looking at cottage cheese diets. I was looking at all sorts of mad things that you could possibly do IV infusions, mistletoe therapy. I was going everywhere thinking now I need to get my shit together excuse my language and now I need to become active and a lot of the things I did. I can't even name them all because I didn't leave a stone unturned. But I didn't scientifically research anything because I haven't got the brains necessarily for that. I was reading stuff on Google. There weren't like all medical documents and so I just changed my diet from one day to the next. I changed so many things about my life and the irony is that of course, cancer changes you as a person. Right, once you've had a cancer diagnosis, your life gets altered. But I would say the same is true when women go through perimenopause naturally and a lot of the people listening to us now they might think, yeah, my life has really changed. You have those external changes and internal changes and life becomes different and you're either catching up with it and changing as well, or you're stuck in your habits and then you're feeling out of sorts. What happened to me? I had this big external change that was my cancer diagnosis, and on top of that I made loads of changes. So of course I turned out a different person and the crazy thing was that from then onwards, all I thought I wanted to work towards was getting my old self back. Like silly, I just wanted the old Danny back.

I totally get that. Your whole everything you've described is so incredibly similar to what I went through as well, and you know it's one of the things I often talk about is I. It wasn't for quite some time after I'd finished my treatment and I'd really had to, like you, take my way through what was going to be right for me, moving forward in terms of, like lifestyle and, you know, healing physically, spiritually, emotionally, all of that. But it took me quite some time to realise that I was. I needed to grieve the loss of the woman that I had been post cancer pre cancer to actually fully embrace the woman that I am today, post cancer. So I kind of break my life up into I feel like it's two really distinct chapters there's life pre cancer and there's life post cancer and, like you, I am absolutely a completely different woman as a result of you know everything that I went through and that's for so many reasons. But I love that you've drawn that parallel between women through their menopausal transition as well, because there are so many women that come out the other end of their menopausal transition. When they post menopausal that go. I am a different woman today. I am not the woman that I was five, six, seven, eight years ago and I don't think we talk enough about that transition.

And I also think we often think we don't have agency over that transition and who we become right. And so if we just look at normal perimenopause or menopausal transition, often symptoms creep in slowly and you might get to the end of the year and think, actually all of the autumn I didn't sleep that great, it wasn't awful, but my sleep habits have maybe declined or I'm just not feeling as rested, maybe a mood has changed. These are really fine nuances in our personality almost, and it takes a while to pick those up. So one of the things for me after my menopause and I know we'll get to that was definitely that lack of confidence, not a feeling of being upset or sad or anything, but kind of like feeling disconnected, loss of joy and the feeling of not much. And it took a long time for me to realise I was feeling like that. It took a moment on holiday sitting with my husband and really at that point everything was great None of my parents, there were no issues, my children were well, I'd gotten through five years plus since my primary cancer, I was in a good relationship with my husband and I was feeling nothing and I felt so upset because everything was good and I had no feeling of joy, I felt very disconnected, and so those feelings took a long time for me to realise and notice, grasp and then put into words and express, and they've been creeping up on me for probably the majority of that year. And then perimenopause transition can be very similar, and so things change, we change. We often don't know how to change our lives so that we can keep up with those internal changes, but suddenly something seems out of kilter, and that's exactly what happened to me as well Today. I know I had much agency over who this new Danny was going to become. I didn't always like the version I became in that transition, and sometimes she was a bit angry and sometimes she was just maybe more outspoken than she should have been, and there was definitely this feeling of rage which I've now turned into a roar, and that's a good thing. But I think once we remember that we have agency, it's exciting and that we don't need to become this good girl. I think we're conditioned to become good girls when we're children, when we're young adults, that we perhaps should all end up in a relationship, that we perhaps should have children, that you go through your education and then you will have a job and that job will pay your bills. And so there are all these expectations of being this good role model. It's good to citizen, it's good wife, it's good woman. God knows if that changes. For us it's really difficult to sort of break through that stigma and those personality traits and what society expects of us, and I think the expectation shouldn't be that we need to get out the other end being this good woman. The expectation should be that we become the true version of ourselves, the true speaker of what is right and wrong for us. And that is empowering. And often we hear it older ladies are a bit grumpy. I think they have every right to be grumpy because they say as it is, and so we have much agency and we don't need to be the good girl for all of our life.

No, and one thing that I definitely believe is that life improves in multiple fold when you do free yourself from that expectation of being the good girl and you really step into the freedom that comes from being your true self. It's an incredible part of life. I love you know. I truly believe I am in my best years and I get excited about what's ahead of me because I know that I am just you know, really starting on this journey of being empowered and free and confident and really happy with where I'm at in my life.

I think if someone is listening to this and they've got loads of menopausal or perimenopausal symptoms and they haven't quite figured out a good way, a good tool box, an action plan of how they can help themselves to feel better whether those are medical treatment options or lifestyle options it might seem that this point will never come. But it is just around the corner and a really good starting point is to think how and what do I need to do to really feed myself and nourish myself the best way I can, and myself criticism always says Danny, you're not good enough, you're not good enough, you're not doing enough. But I've really learned over time to sort of dial into that self-compassion and ask myself what do you need? What do you need? Do you just need to say no to your whole family because you don't want another Sunday lunch and you can't be asked to cook for them? Yeah, you need to say no. Let someone else take over.

Yeah, and we do carry that load still, how old are your children now?

My eldest is 15 and the twins are 13. Actually, we just spoke about mental load the other day as a family and I got laughed at. I was saying to them look, there are many jobs we do in our home, from emptying the dishwasher to doing the washing to walking the dog but there are also jobs that are to do with the mental load. I said to them I carry all of your mental loads. On Sunday evening I'm already thinking are your things for your PE, for your school sports stuff? Is it washed? Have you got money on your cart for your lunches in school? Have I got birthday presents for next Saturday? We've got my mother-in-law's birthday. All of those things are always in the back of my head. My mental load is heavy. No one shared that with me.

And it's really interesting. My children are older, so mine are 23 and 20, both still living at home, and I am amazed at how much mental load I still carry for them as adults. The things have changed where I'm thinking ahead for them, like I'm not worried about whether they have clothes for school, but I ensure that they have clothes washed to go to work in. And my husband and I had a conversation last night. Our youngest is going to Japan on holidays early in the new year and we're like, oh, we need to have a conversation, we need to make sure he's got enough money saved for his holiday. And you know that mental load, just it's constantly there.

It's constantly there, and I wonder if people are listening to this conversation of how heavy is their mental load. Because I do really think that mental load adds a subtle layer of chronic stress to our everyday life, and we do know chronic stress is really not very helpful for any of our mental causal symptoms. Over time it can even decrease our bone density and make our bones less good if we have, if we live in a state of chronic stress over decades. And so that mental load for me definitely adds. I don't start my week on a Monday and I don't start work with like a clean sheet. I don't walk away from the home thinking that's it. I'm now embarking on work. I've always got this mental load. It's like the drum of a washing machine whirring away in the background.

It's such a great analogy.

And I think it's recognizing that, because there are many people listening to this conversation who might not have jobs that pay them money. That's okay. We do so many things, we have so many other responsibilities and it can be stressful, regardless of how we spend our days.

Yeah, and it's such a shame that it is the society that we live in, the culture that we live in. But we do have this opportunity going back to what you said earlier to take some agency over that, to have the conversations with our family, with our friends, with our loved ones, to kind of say, hey, we need to share this load a little bit more evenly. I'd like to dive back into your menopause experience, because your treatment at some point in time now you were Bracka one is that right.

Yeah, so whilst I was going through chemotherapy, the doctor suggested genetic testing and the test came back and the doctors said you've got an increased risk of ovarian cancer and more breast cancers, and so letting go of my boobs was kind of okay. For me it wasn't a big deal. I was never like the really boobies sort of person and so I thought that's okay, they'll be fine in the sports bra. I was doing a lot of yoga by then and I thought it's fine I can do this.

Did you stay might or did you have a reconstruction?

I had every construction. So I woke up from surgery with implants and I had a very good surgeon and I had quite a smooth recovery. I didn't ever make a big deal of surgeries. They sort of impact perhaps me less, and so I thought I'm going to embark on my ophrectomy, so the removal of my ovaries, in the same way as I did my daparmystectomy. And so I chose my surgeon. By then I knew how to work the national health system in England. I knew I could get a second opinion. I chose a hospital. There was a really amazing surgeon who knows lots about women in my situation with that genetic mutation and we planned for the surgery. And I kept saying but what about becoming menopausal at the age of 39? That happens from one moment to the next and it was kind of talked about. But everyone sort of said yes, and we'll see how you do and let's just see how it goes, and it was like we can't just see how it goes. What are my options? And because I'm a cancer survivor, I didn't really get any clear answers what exactly my options were and everyone kept saying yes, it'll be a multidisciplinary decision between your oncologist and your surgeon and us, the menopause specialist. So I did have a team assembled around me, which was great, but no clear answers, and so I actually changed the dates to my surgery because I really wanted to see a menopause specialist, so a hormone specialist who was really, really knowledgeable about menopause and really knew a lot about people with a history of cancer, and that felt okay. I was really happy to embark on that surgery, having had that appointment. But I know the majority of women don't get that consultation and I really had to push for it because I knew, because we had a menopause conversation was already booming in the UK or it was starting to flourish. It was starting to flourish and I thought hang on a minute, danny, do your research, and I'm so glad I did. And then I thought well, I'm just going to ask a few other women what's happening in their world. So I've set up my first Facebook group and within weeks there were hundreds of cancer survivors who were really struggling with the menopause and all of them were echoing what I was experiencing. To one extent, everyone was saying I've had no help. I've got terrible symptoms, I have no idea what my options are. The general practitioner pushes me back Oncology. I've been dismissed and many years on. I don't even see an oncologist anymore. No one really takes my case on. I have no idea where to go. And now there are thousands of us and I then started to host workshops and programs founded and not for profit founded the Menopause and Cancer podcast. So my whole life now is really I'm spending so much time ensuring or trying to help women have more support, access to information to how to manage menopause after a cancer diagnosis. Not a single week goes by where I'm not really outraged at the lack of education and the lack of support, and it's a big bug bit of mine and it's crazy, it's mental, that we put women into menopause as part of their cancer treatment and we don't give them help. It doesn't make sense. But the same goes for women managing menopause and perimenopause. Naturally, it does not make sense that for decades we've been telling everyone just to put up with it. I'm really happy that we've been doing what we know how much work, how much concern we have towards what we learn.

Yeah, it's not good enough, is it? It's really not, and you know we here in Australia experience exactly the same situation, although I feel that we are three to four years behind where you're at in the UK. But I know from my personal lived experience and the conversations that I have with women on a regular basis that lack of support still exists between being put into a forced menopause and, you know, being kind of let out into the world by yourself to just literally pick up the pieces and work out where you go from there. One of the conversations that we had before we hit record was around the offering of HRT, or MHT as we call it here in Australia for breast cancer survivors, and the conversation I feel in the UK, in the US, is changing and the options for women are changing. You've still got to go and seek it out, you still have to push against the system a little bit, but here, unfortunately, it's constant no's. It's constant doors being slammed in your face. It's constantly no, you know. And there's this misconception, which I only learned about through listening to Louise Newsom and Avron Blooming speaking that for someone like me who had an estrogen and progesterone positive cancer, you're told or you're led very strongly to believe that, well, estrogen caused your cancer, so therefore you can't take any estrogen into your system, and that you know that's a blanket estrogen. They talk about phytoestrogens and they talk about you know it's not just down to HRT, it's any herbal or complementary medicine as well. Anything that might create an estrogen response in your body is an absolute no-no, but there's so much research out there now that disproves that and it's so disheartening to hear. You know women that are really, really struggling with their menopausal symptoms or their postmenopausal symptoms that are just left on their own with no support whatsoever.

Yeah, and I wonder if we can extend that feeling to everyone. Listening to our conversation is how many people are feeling supported, like if you are listening to our conversation right now. I don't know what your audience does actually when they listen to your podcast. Are they out on a dog walk? Did a? Did a washing up?

and that's what I hear folding the washing out for a run, walking, driving.

That's it. And I wonder if everyone can think do I feel supported in my own perimenopause, menopause transition, whether that is caused or after a cancer diagnosis, whether that is bang on on average and you're in your early fifties? Do we feel supported as human beings going through this transition? Is there anyone that's got our back, that is saying in a non-judgmental way look, these are all your options, regardless of your risks and benefits. It doesn't matter, because everything we do or don't do in life has risks and benefits. It's not just what we do that gives us a risk. Is also not doing things that can give us a risk? Right, Absolutely. It's really important to sort of look at it from a really sort of holistic angle, and I wonder whether we need more clinicians to really say look, these are all of our true options, it doesn't matter what you do, You've got to start somewhere, and I think women often think they need to start just with themselves, as if they need to fix everything for themselves. Women often say to me Danny, I've tried everything, I'm exercising like crazy, I've got all of these lovely meals prepped. They're making it really, really hard work for them. It's as if they're then a failure if all their good efforts haven't sort of paid off. But all of your best efforts might not be enough for you to get rid of all of your symptoms and that doesn't mean we haven't tried hard enough. That doesn't mean we failed, we're not good enough, we're not strong enough. That just means this is how our body works. There will be women who have a really smooth perimenopause and menopause transition and there will be people who have really really suffering and of course there are many things we can do to help ourselves. But it's not all down to us and I think women really take on that responsibility backpack far too easily and readily and we're perhaps not always good enough to go hang on a minute and who is there to really help me and talk me through my options? It's not really our doctor's choice what we do. They just need to guide us and they need to tell us what our true options are. The choice is ours.

So true, the choice is ours, but we need to often, as you've already mentioned, be empowered and given a little bit of guidance around taking hold of that agency, because I think that's where, as women you know, we just have lost through the years, through culture, through the patriarchy, that ability to really step into that agency.

My biggest piece of advice is to don't stop knocking on people's doors until you have all the answers that you need. For me personally, no one doctor was ever going to give me all the answers I personally needed, and so if you put me in front of the best menopause specialist in Australia, the best one from America, the best one from the UK, I probably wouldn't have still not had all of the answers, because, as a human being, that is emotional, we're all three dimensional, emotional, human, complex human beings, and everything that has happened to you and me and everyone listening to our conversation up until now is going to impact our decision making and how we decide and what we want to do with our lives, your history, your past. Who influences you? The fact that I have had many, many people in my family or my dad said, pass away from ovarian cancer very early made me decide to have my ovaries out, and it was an easy decision. Many women they might have the same genetic mutation with no family history. It might be harder for them to say you know what? I'm not ready to let go of my ovaries. If you haven't had children, for example, you might really not feel ready to let go of your ovaries. So everything that's happened is going to muddle into your decision making process. And on top of that, it's really important to think that healing, recovery, hormones, hermenobores, cancer really needs a multifaceted approach to getting through to the next stage, whatever the next stage might be. And I think if we focus only on going to our general practitioner and maybe only focusing on hormone replacement therapy is going to fix all of my problems, or if we're only going to focus on I need to see a natural path. I'm going to change what I eat, I'm going to change my sleep, and that's going to fix it. We're not really giving ourselves the best chances to success If we explored all of the options a little bit and then went with our gut feeling and think what do I want to do first, and allowing ourselves to change our minds, we're going to have a growth mindset. That is then going to give us more options in the future. If you're listening to this now at home and you've made your mind up and you think I know it, I will never go on hormone replacement therapy, or MHT like you say it. That's okay. You've made your mind up, but you're not going to serve yourself next year or a year after or in four years time, because who you are today is not who you're going to be in the future, and you can only serve your true self in the moment. In the time where you are at right now, allow yourself to learn, to be told that perhaps what you thought five years ago isn't relevant to you anymore today, to change your mind so that you can serve your true self in the present moment. And that, for me, was really true. I did loads of crazy things in the past and they were good for me then, and I became vegan from one moment to the next. I stopped drinking alcohol and all of that was perfect and I was a good vegan. I did not touch a single drop of anything else that wasn't fully plant based. I just had a really lovely piece of salmon tonight and I've really enjoyed it. And in those 10 years I've been eating many different ways and I am not going to let anyone give me labels anymore. I just do what I want to do. I go through phases where I eat plant based and then I will have a lovely piece of fish. I don't need a label, I don't owe anyone an explanation, and the same goes for how you manage. Go on hormone replacement therapy. Try it. It might work for you. You don't need to tell anyone if you want to stop it again. If it hasn't worked for you, you do you. We just need to sort of let go of thinking that because we're doing one thing, we are that person You're not. We're not defined by our actions, your actions aren't you, and I think that was the best. Sorry, that's a really long answer, isn't it? But that is really my best piece of advice of how I really was continuing to look after me, to allow to keep the options open. It's like an advanced calendar. I just want to keep opening doors and eating the chocolates out of different you know homeopathy or I don't know reflexology and diet and hormones. Everything is in there and I want to do what I want. It's quite a nice feeling.

That is so incredible, like it's not the answer I was expecting, but, wow, it is incredibly powerful and I was reflecting while you were speaking about you know how who we are today is not who we're going to be tomorrow or in a year's time or in five years time. And it is. It is so true, and we forget that and we do put ourselves in these boxes and we feel the need to give ourselves these labels, and you know it's such a shame because it really does that rigidity of thinking and that you know inability to have a growth mindset around those you know aspects of your life are ultimately going to be a little bit stark and potentially hold you back from experimenting with or or trying something new that may unlock another part of your longevity. Thank you, thank you.

Because you never know what might work for you. You never know what might be the next thing that is going to truly change your life. You've got no idea until you try. It might be Zumba, it might be I don't know something else, it might be paddle tennis or whatever people do. You've got to go out there and you've got to try a few times to give it a chance. Whatever it is, it's the same with holistic healing. It's the same with recovery. It might be journaling for one person, it might be going through counselling or hypnotherapy for the next person. But we've got to try to know and find out for ourselves.

Powerful, empowering thought, and I love that. That's the message that we're sending through today to anyone that's listening. With your work that you do today, your advocacy, your not-for-profit, you're very passionate about supporting and helping and educating other women. What's the most important or the most surprising thing that you've learnt along that journey?

I think my biggest goal is to bring all of these experts that I think we need to hear from to our community, and so we bring together a community of experts to a community of women, and it's our mission to bring the experts into the conversations that have expertise in menopause and expertise in cancer. There are loads of great dieticians out there. In general, I know lots about menopause, but when you speak to one who's also got experience with the cancer population, you're like wow, everything makes sense and I really want to bring those amazing experts. I think the biggest thing that surprises myself is how many of us there are, and initially I thought I'm always only going to speak to a small audience and I might have five people in a workshop. We recently had a pot of funding and we had six online workshops on different topics. So one was on bone health, one was on sexual health, where the oncologist talked to us about long-term endocrine treatment and how we can assess the risks and benefits of those brilliant workshops. We had over 300 people join us and they were sold out within 24 hours and we thought, wow, there are too many people that have no idea what their true options are or where to start to figure out how to put together this action plan and of course, it's a negative surprise, but it spurs me on even more to do better. No one wants to be in the cancer community, I get it. No one wants to be part of the menopause and cancer club, but once you're in it, everyone is amazing. People are incredible. Yeah, I'm a proud member Not a role I've chosen really for myself, but I'd never think life would unfold like that. But here I am and getting the opportunity to talk to you and your amazing audience, and I know everyone listening to our conversation today is thinking how can I do this better for myself? Otherwise they wouldn't be listening, and that alone is well done. Like you're here, you're learning, you're trying to maybe change or better an experience or turn something round for yourself, and that's all we can ask for.

Well said. I absolutely love that. I feel that often in the conversation publicly, from our health professionals, from the media, that women that have experienced menopause as a result of cancer feel left out of the conversation. Very often the conversation is worded in a way where it really only captures those that have been through natural menopause and I hope that by listening today that anybody that falls into our cancer and menopause team does feel less alone or supported and a little bit empowered to perhaps look into finding more support connecting with your organisation. Even though we're here in Australia and you're in the UK, we're not that dissimilar and you and I have already talked about potentially working in a way where we can bring some of your UK resources to an Australian audience, because there really is a lack of support for women here. So I hope that every listener today takes away a feeling of hope and support and feels less alone in this kind of club that we found ourselves in.

And any life transition can be isolating for whoever, whatever. Whether it's a divorce, people often say oh, I just felt it was me. Whether it's financial difficulties, whether it's a perimenopause, or whether it's a life threatening illness or a different illness, it can often feel that it's just us and lonely. And it's so nice to learn from one another. It's so nice to be speaking truthfully about what we experience, and I do think that's a superpower women have and we do have that over men. I feel the way we talk, the way we can chat, like tomorrow we're going on, we're walking a marathon. So all of the women in our community, many of us have decided to do a fundraising walk for our nonprofit and we have loads of women out on the streets in England and we've decided to walk a marathon. It's really cold here in the UK and I know we're going to be talking and chatting for the good 10 hours that we'll be out on the roads and I will love every single minute of it. It'll be hard work, but I can't wait to talk to everyone and to really share our experiences and for everyone listening they can't really part. I would love to talk to everyone that is listening to our conversation really is maybe using this opportunity and talking to anyone else about their experiences and just being honest, because when we start to be honest and share what's going on for us, beautiful things happen and other people can be honest back with us and that might just be exactly what they need. We obviously run the menopause and cancer podcast, and so if anyone wants really, really specific conversations with doctors, medical experts, they can tune into those. But I think, before anyone does that it's the best to talk to someone who is in real life with you and have those conversations and open up.

Yeah, and I think that's so powerful because we don't have to have a microphone to have a conversation. You can literally open up that conversation and you'll be surprised who's willing to and grateful for you for opening up that conversation often. Yeah, danny, I'm excited about your marathon tomorrow. I didn't know about that. So good luck and thank you. I mean it's your evening, so you're giving up your evening before your marathon walk to chat to us. So thank you for that. I often wrap up my interviews with a question, which is what are you reading, listening to or watching right now? That is bringing you joy, but I know you have something very special to bring to us today, don't you?

So I'm also a yoga teacher, and it's one of the things I won't ever let go of, regardless of what life brings. It brings me so much joy, and I read a lot of poems, and I've got a poem to share with all of you. I don't know who the author is, because it landed in my lap and so I want to share on this gift. She is strong not because of how much she can lift, but for how she lifts others up when they're at their lowest. Not because she's capable of withstanding the storm, but because she'll navigate the storm and then show you how to do the same. Not because she's indestructible, but because, after every fall, she will always, always rise. She is strong Not because she chose to be, but because the world demanded her to be. She has walked through hell, faced battles most will not comprehend and yet, despite it all, she still chooses to be kind, to be soft at the hands of the world that tried to break her. Her strength comes from within, from learning how to turn pain into power, chaos into peace, wounds into wisdom. Strong is she who knows her worth and refuses to settle for less. Strong is she who will not back down, who will fight for what she believes in. Strong is she who has love wrapped round her heart, courage knitted in her bones and fire running through her veins. This is for all of our strong, strong listeners today.

Wow, Dany, thank you so much for sharing. That is incredible. That's a really beautiful piece. I wish we knew who the author was, because that definitely deserves to be recognised as a really powerful piece of writing.

Maybe someone will send you an email and tell us who the author was.

Maybe, and if you do know the author of that piece, please do reach out and let either Dany or myself know, because that is written from a place of experience and, yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing that so much. Thank you for having me on today, dany, it has been a pleasure. I hope everybody listening has enjoyed our conversation, the different places it's taken us, and feels a little bit more supported and empowered as a result. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for listening today. I am so grateful to have these conversations with incredible women and experts and I'm grateful that you chose to hit play on this episode of Dare Menopause. If you have a minute of time today, please leave a rating or a review. I would love to hear from you, because you are my biggest driver for doing this work. If this chat went way too fast for you and you want more, head over to stellarwomencomau to see why it feels like midlife is messing with your head.