As we know, menopause is not a downfall, it’s a metamorphosis, and Petra Coveney—former BBC journalist, founder of Menopause Yoga, bestselling author, and unapologetic menopause rebel—joined Sally to tear down every stale narrative about “the change.”

And trust us… this conversation goes there.

Petra went through perimenopause early, alone, confused, and dismissed by doctors who had nothing to offer her except a pat on the head and a “good luck.”
The frustration, shame and rage… she tapped into all of it.

And what came out of that fire?

Menopause Yoga—the world’s first specialist yoga program built to support the physical, emotional, and psychological rollercoaster of perimenopause through second spring.

In this episode, Petra breaks down:

🔥 Why rage is a superpower (and what it’s trying to wake up in you)
🔥 The moment she realized NO ONE was helping menopausal women—and why she decided she would
🔥 The resistance she got from BOTH yoga studios and doctors (spoiler: everyone thought she was “too much”)
🔥 Why community circles are non-negotiable for healing
🔥 How yoga, breathwork, and evidence-based education can literally rewire your menopausal brain
🔥 The truth about “brain fog” and why it might actually be your brain upgrading itself
🔥 Why we need to stop whispering the word menopause and say it out loud—with pride

Petra’s mission is bold:
Break the taboo. Reclaim the narrative. Connect women back to their power.
Menopause isn't an ending. It’s the doorway to your second spring—a phase of clarity, leadership, and fierce selfhood.

If you’re in the weeds of perimenopause, waking up drenched, snapping at your loved ones, losing words in the middle of a meeting, or wondering “Is it just me?”—this episode will feel like a giant exhale.

And if you’ve ever felt ashamed of these changes?
Petra is here to hand you permission to drop that shame today.

ORDER PETRA’S BOOK WITH AN EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT

Get Menopause Yoga and Wellbeing: A Daily Practice Guide
Use the discount code: %PETRA25
Only valid on the Singing Dragon shop.

If you loved this episode…

Share it with someone who needs to hear:
“You are not losing yourself — you are becoming someone new.”

📲 Connect with Petra:

Website: www.menopause-yoga.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/menopause_yoga
Facebook: Menopause Yoga

Sally's Links:

Email: info@sallygarozzo.com

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Bespoke Transformational H

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In this episode, Sally sits down with Dr. Lara Briden, naturopathic doctor and bestselling author of Period Repair Manual, Hormone Repair Manual, and Metabolism Repair for Women. She’s been called the period revolutionary—and after this conversation, you’ll understand exactly why.

We talk about the massive paradox in women’s health:
Society suddenly worships estrogen and progesterone when women hit their mid-40s…
…yet spent the last 60 years casually switching those same hormones off in teenage girls.

Yep. We’re going there.

What We Get Into

• Why regular ovulation is not just “nice to have” — it’s literally how young women make hormones
• How we got stuck in a 60-year loop of shutting down women’s ovarian function (hint: the pill’s “regulate your period” pitch started as a cover story)
• The weird disconnect between medical guidelines that say periods are a vital sign… and the normalization of medicating them away
• What a healthy period actually looks like (spoiler: it shouldn’t hurt and it shouldn’t require you to white-knuckle your way through PMS)
• Why so many modern symptoms aren’t “women being women”—they’re the result of environment, lifestyle, and a system that never prioritized female physiology
• And the big one: Did menopause evolve? Or is it some biological glitch because women are living longer?

The Mic-Drop Moments

• Lara breaks down why menopause absolutely evolved on purpose—and why humans are more like killer whales than we think
• The “grandmother effect” and why older women have always been essential for the survival of the tribe
• The wild fact that among the Hadza, and other traditional-living communities, menopause brings zero symptoms
• The reality that our cycles are meant to be signals, not punishments

If You’ve Ever Thought…

“I guess this is just how my period is.”
“This is normal for my age.”
“Maybe my hormones just hate me.”

…this episode might flip your worldview upside down (in a good way).

About Dr. Lara Briden

Lara practices in Christchurch, New Zealand, helping women navigate PCOS, PMS, endometriosis, perimenopause, and other hormone-health challenges. Her work bridges biology, history, anthropology, and real-world clinical wisdom.

📲 Connect with Lara:

Website: https://www.larabriden.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/larabriden/

Sally's Links:

Email: info@sallygarozzo.com

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Bespoke Transformational Hypnotherapy & Coaching:

Send me a direct message

Support the show

Everything went wrong before this interview even started: lagging audio, frozen screens, “Can you hear me?” chaos… which, honestly, became the perfect metaphor for today’s topic: women being told to accept dysfunction as normal.

And fittingly, this conversation marks a huge milestone — our 200th episode! Two hundred episodes of unlearning, reframing, and giving women permission to trust their bodies. And today’s guest delivers exactly that kind of truth.

Because once Nicole Jardim (women’s health coach + author of Fix Your Period) finally got connected, she dropped a truth bomb most women never hear:

👉 Statistically common doesn’t mean biologically normal.

Cramps, mood swings, missing periods, heavy bleeding — we’ve been conditioned to believe it’s “part of being a woman.” Nicole is here to burn that narrative down.

In this raw and revealing conversation, Nicole takes us back to where it all began — age 12, pads in the backpack, intuition on point — and then straight into the trauma, the chaos, and the hormonal storm that followed after the sudden death of her father. From survival-mode teen years to being handed the pill as a “solution,” Nicole walks us through the cascade of symptoms that no one connected to the pill, stress, genetics, detox pathways, or trauma.

This episode breaks the script. We talk:

• Why period pain can be a red flag
• How trauma + puberty + synthetic hormones created a perfect hormonal disaster
• The COMT gene, stress metabolism, and why some women feel like live wires
• Why your period is basically your body’s early-warning system
• The hidden stressors no one warns women about
• Why we’ve normalized suffering — and why that needs to end

Nicole doesn’t sugarcoat. She also doesn’t catastrophize. She reframes powerfully. Because the same genetic profile that makes you sensitive to stress might also be the source of your creativity, drive, memory, intuition, and fire.

If you’ve ever been told to “just deal with it,” this episode will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about your cycle, your symptoms, and what your body has been trying to tell you for years.

This is your permission slip to stop normalizing pain.

And to start listening to your biology instead of fighting it.

📲 Connect with Nicole:

Website: https://nicolejardim.com/

Nicole’s Membership - The Fix Your Period Collective: https://www.fixyourperiod.com/

Nicole’s Practitioner Program: https://instituteformenstrualhealth.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicolemjardim/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicolemjardim/

Sally's Links:

Email: info@sallygarozzo.com

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.co

Send me a direct message

Support the show