During one of my spiritual pleadings early on in perimenopause, I vowed that I would not let another woman suffer through peri like I was, if I just made it through it!  

Ever pray to the porcelain gods?  It was like that but the nauseating head-spinning feeling did not end in 24 hours or less...

I was having a very difficult go at it and looking back, I’m not sure how I held on in the beginning.  I’m still in the throes of peri, but I am no longer suffering, nor am I going it alone.  And you don’t have to either.

I found that the source of my suffering was awash in stress, wading in past trauma, and clinging for dear life to the side of the hormone pool.  

Once I dialed in a workable approach to all three aspects at the core of my suffering, I began to heal, really heal.  

I’ve experienced, and continue to experience, the kind of healing I’d only flirted with before.  

I thought I was “doing the work” by attending seminar after seminar, reading book after book, and taking course after course.  I was just rearranging the furniture in a hoarder’s house.  

If I only knew then what I know now.  

Though Brené Brown says you cannot manage an unraveling in her seminal blog post, "The Midlife Unraveling", I believe you can minimize the fallout.
 
In this episode I share how I put an end to my suffering by getting my head, my heart, and my body into congruence.  As a result, the suffering stopped.  And the clean up from the unforeseeable and unanticipated fallout continues.  

“You can’t read the label from inside the jar.”

A phrase I initially heard from a wise business coach.  And though thought-provoking, not until years later have I understood the wisdom it imparts.  

In a nutshell the phrase means we can’t see what’s transpiring when we’re in the thick of it (in the jar).  From relationships, to business, to perimenopause, when we’re smack dab in the middle of it, it is challenging to gain perspective (read the label). 

We can't get a full 360-degree perspective when we can't see from the outside-in. 

To round that perspective out, Dr. Joe Dispenza notes if we want to create a new personal reality, then we have to start thinking about what we’ve been thinking about, and change our inner narrative. 

Without guidance and mentorship, we are left to fend for ourselves.  

We have never been taught how to take inventory of past experiences and the emotional residue left behind (the unresolved trauma).  

We carry that stuff with us everywhere we go.  

The term “baggage” is so spot on!  

Prior to doing my own inner work, which is a continual work in progress, I was lugging around a full set of Samsonites.  I’ve got a carry-on and a backpack now.  Much progress has been made, and more is yet to come.

I dive deeper into how a subconscious decision I made in childhood was running my life into the ground in this week's edition of the Unraveling Together podcast.  

Allow me to paint the scene for you…in it, there sits a woman.  She could be anyone you know.  

To the outer world, she is strong and centered. 

She is the one everyone else turns to in times of trouble. All the while, she sits at rock bottom. Where she slips silently into a deafening internal echo chamber. 

You may know her.  You may even be her. 

I was. 

Back in 2017, I found myself in a really dark place.  Alone with my thoughts that were anything but kind. 

If you're a midlife woman experiencing what feels like a mutiny within, sit a spell.  I have something to share, heart-to-heart.  

I am committed to being “a brave space” for myself as well as others. 

Unlike “a safe space”, a brave space is where we embrace our deepest darkest as our true selves, flaws and all.  

If you’re new to me, I’m Samantha “Dr. Sam” Graber.  

I’m an author, podcast host, keynote speaker, and a Holistic Perimenopause Strategist for women who are ready to stop sacrificing their health and wellbeing as they relentlessly pursue success.  

I advise forward-thinking organizations on wellbeing and menopause related policy creation, and provide their workforce with online resources as well as small group coaching.  

The organizations I choose to work with are ready to up their level of support for the women in their ecosystem. From the private sector to the publicly-funded, as well as nonprofits, these entities value the collective wisdom of women. And they want to retain the leadership and talent lost all too often because women lack the resources needed to optimize their wellbeing. Therefore, they are left with no other choice than to seek support elsewhere.

I help organizations empower women, by choice.

After a multi-decade career as a holistic chiropractor, I’ve orchestrated my own transformation from burnt out doc to impassioned community curator.  

The Unraveling Together Community is where midlife women connect and pursue a more holistic approach to our changing bodies and minds.  We focus on our wellbeing, our metabolism, and our menopause experience during as well as after we hit that magical milestone. Through masterclasses and co-working sessions, we cultivate more meaning in our individual lives while tapping into the collective wisdom of women.

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