Embracing the Mystical Journey of Menopause with Rebecca Campbell

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I bring you Rebecca Campbell now. Rebecca is a prolific writer. She’s also does oracle cards. She has been in the spiritual community for years as a channel, an artist, a poet and a mystic, and it was really her new book that drove me to bring her to you all. And the book is called, your soul. Had a dream your life, is it? And when I was gifted this book a few months ago, I picked it up out of curiosity, and what I found in here is what I would call a mystical guide to the menopausal journey. Now I don’t think Rebecca would call it that. I think she wrote it from her own experience of her own life journey as a woman, but when you dive into these pages, you start to see so much wisdom around moments of transition. And so I wanted to bring her to you to talk about this mystical experience of moving from your reproductive years to your post reproductive years. And I feel like in this day and age right now, we have this beautiful conversation emerging about women’s experiences going through menopause, and we are looking at it from such a physiological lens, but what we haven’t really given language to is the mystical journey of Going from again your reproductive time to your post reproductive time. So I believe that Rebecca is the person to really give us language so that we can all talk about what we’re feeling as we move into what Jane Fonda would call our third act of our life and the back half of our life. So in this conversation, you’re going to hear us talk about the, what do you do when old versions of you are falling away? How do you handle the discomfort of these old versions of you, and how do you make room and create safety for a new version of you to emerge? You’re also going to hear us talk about how do you express that to other people? How do you talk about that with other people? This is something I have found in my own menopausal journey, as I am no longer willing to please everybody around me, and I feel an inner stirring inside of me of a new version of me to have voice. I have been looking for ways to to share what I’m going through with those around me that I love dearly, and so in this conversation, you’re gonna hear Rebecca and I talk about this spiritual experience that we can embrace, about the new versions of US that are just dying to come forward about this really interesting time in the world right now where women are finally using their voice to speak out and say what our hearts are really wanting to say. It is a beautiful conversation. It is not science driven. It is definitely more on the woo, woo lens, but I have tried to give you some neuroscience to explain the woo, woo that Rebecca is going to embrace and embark upon you in this conversation. And I think together, the two of us did the best job we could to talk about the initiation of menopause and how profound this process can be if we’re willing to go into the mysteries of life. So Rebecca candle Campbell and her new book, your soul had a dream. Your life is it and as always, I hope this touches you deeply and moves you in a direction that serves you well. Enjoy.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back. This is the podcast for you.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I want to start off by saying that I love to read, and books have changed my life on both reading and writing books, and your book touched me in a way that a book hasn’t done in a really long time. So not only am I excited to have you here, but I just want to say thank you, because your words were piercing, and I can’t wait to have this conversation with you. Wow. What an intro. I am very honored by that. Thank you so much. I think.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Hmm, yeah, you know, I’ll tell you a book about books changing lives. I when I was in my like, 1920 years old, I had chronic fatigue syndrome, and medical profession had pretty much given up on me and said there was nothing that we can do for you. And my mom had taken me to a holistic MD, who put me on a bunch of supplements and IVs and like these things weren’t popular back in the 1990s when this was going on, and my mom took me to a bookstore in LA called East West, no, called the Bodhi tree, and I was sitting at the bottom, like, like, hanging out when my mom was shopping, and literally, this book jumped out at me, and it was called Living in the light by Shakti Goan. Do you know that book? I do, yeah, and I had never really understood at the time the power of how the mind could heal the body. And I was only 19 years old, and I brought that book home, and I did. I followed the prompts, and I read the whole book, and within three weeks between that book and some diet changes, I was like, back, like my energy was back. I had gone back to college, like it really was like a transform, transformative time. And what I learned from that is when we are looking at the healing journey, the physical healing journey, that we have to bring the mind into it, and we have to start to think about how our brain, our thoughts, are creating our physical reality. When I read your book, I started to really think about what my soul’s expression was, and what did I really think about the soul and and did my what purpose do I have for my soul? And so what I really want to start off with in this conversation is, do we have even a definition of our soul that we can all agree upon,

Rebecca Campbell  

no, it is one of the greatest mysteries there is it. I mean, from Plato to all of the great, great, great, great, great mystics through the ages, scientists, the illusions. It really crosses all different industries, and it is the greatest mystery there is. And so I think I’ve always been really into the mysteries, but the older I get, the more I’m convinced that the soul is not separate to nature. You know, we see the soul as, like, this kind of mysterious thing that’s like, not in our body, but actually, it’s when we take our first breath that I believe the soul enters, and then we release that last breath, these gates of life, which I know you and I have spoken quite a bit about on Bucha, where you know one moment there is life, the Next moment there is not like that mystery captivates me so much. And I really, really believe that the soul is connected to this intelligent pulse of life, that same intelligence that tells the flowers when to open and close, the seasons, when to come and go, us to grow in the waters of our mother’s womb monthly cycle, if we have one, when we have one, and then it stops, like there is this great mystery that is as physical as it is ineffable. And I love that, and it completely captivates me, this great mystery as it does me and like we will go, you know, go into this that, you know, I’ve had a near death experience, and I feel like in that experience, I started to really understand the mysteries of life and really see that there was more than what we are seeing in our everyday reality. And when it comes to the soul, I have asked myself multiple times throughout my life, but especially after my near death, which is, what’s the soul’s purpose? So do you do you feel like every soul comes in with a purpose, and does that purpose change throughout your lifetime? Yeah, yes and yes. I believe that all souls come here for a reason, and some souls come here for multiple reasons. I have had regression and lifetime before. Lifetime experiences myself where actually experience receiving my purpose for being here, and it’s different from like, this way that we use purposes in like, there’s this one question that where there’s this one answer to what my purpose is, like for you as like to be this mega, mega, mega, amazing, amazing leader, author. Like, it’s, it’s that, oh, once you become an author, you’ve done your your purpose. No, no, it’s my.

Rebecca Campbell  

Much more than that. But I believe that many of us have our individual purpose, as in our souls, come here to grow and learn and experience things on a personal level, or a personal soul level. But I do believe, particularly now, I think, that we come here in teams, in waves, and many of us are here as part of a collective purpose. And what I see happening over and over again, for those of us who resonate with that concept, like I know that I’m here and not just for me. I want to be part of this rebirth for I would say, humanity, not the earth, because the Earth is just as good as good enough on a road, it’s us that needs to the waking up. Yeah. But I think those of us who feel that call for that greater purpose, particularly these times where there is so much happening, it can feel so overwhelming, because the way that we have all been raised because of the time that we chose to come into separation is so evident here and individualism and so it’s as if, like, oh, I have this collective purpose, but it’s like no, no. And what I believe I’ve been receiving over and over again, particularly these past like five years, where things have really heated up, where it’s like we all hold a thread for the healing and rebirth of humanity, trust the one that you’re holding. So it’s not like this great, big thing that we have to take the responsibility on individually. It’s this beautiful weaving, re weaving that is happening. It’s interesting because I’m deep in research and writing my next book, and one of the one of the questions that I’ve asked myself over and over again is, you know, what is the purpose of menopause? Because there, it seems to me that there has to be something transformative, purposeful about the fact that as humans, we live 42.5%

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

of our life as women in our post reproductive years, and that I don’t think is by mistake. And so I’ve been on this quest literally for like, you know, I’m 55 years old, so for the last decade, I’ve been just like, why does the reproductive system shut down? And then there’s this new evolution of a woman that emerges. And I’ve been really looking at that lens and then coming over and looking at how as women, we are conditioned in this world. And there’s some really interesting information from a feminist philosopher who talks about how women are really taught to be selfless in this world. You know, if you want to be a good girl, you give to others. And the reason I bring it up in this context of this, of this discussion, is I feel like this, the reality of this world constantly pulls us away from our souls full expression. And I feel like menopause is the moment we can pull back and start to really look at ourselves. We have time. We have mental energy, physical energy, and we can really go into a new expression of ourselves, and maybe the truest expression of ourselves. So in that context, how do you know your soul’s desire? How do you know know your soul is speaking to you like? Are there ways? Is it a hunch in your body? Is it you light up when you do something like, there’s an energy that we’re not always pulsed into that I feel like you could, you do such a great job of putting words to that, if we could have some tangible context behind this is your soul screaming at you. This is your soul wanting you to fully break free. What would that language be?

Rebecca Campbell  

I love it. So first of all, the best way to have a relationship with your soul is to spend time with it. Think of it like a new friend that you’ve you’ve you’ve just met. You know you’re not going to be able to recognize their their voice in a busy room at a party or whatever, or unless you hear it over and over again. So you start by giving yourself that time, which I think is interesting with the menopausal and perimeter puzzle, where that self sacrificing begins to become harder to hold on to, right? There are many different ways our soul speaks to us, I think at first, the soul is subtle. It’s not like it’s this big, big, loud voice, but through our body, we can hear it as well. So we have senses which are like inner senses, right, which are the same as our other senses, like, see it, clairvoyance, clairaudience, Clair sentience. So that’s.

Rebecca Campbell  

Clear, seeing clear, hearing clear, feeling Clear, clear, knowing and but it’s all through the body that we experience. Most people see the soul and intuition as this wishy washy, woo, woo thing. But it’s not. It really is not. It is so physical. It’s just sometimes subtle, and the more we get to develop a relationship with it, the more in touch with our body’s senses we become, particularly as women, it’s essential. It’s the senses sensual nature, and so many of us have been cut off from it. But here’s the thing, and I think this really happens. I think this happens in postpartum. I think it happens in, well, with a monthly cycle, and it certainly happens in perimenopause and menopause, where this sacred rage starts coming up, yes, and I think we don’t understand how sacred that is, how holy that is. This is like the mama bear, the grandmother bear, coming in to say, No, this way, not that way. And so it doesn’t have to be. And of course, the soul also speaks through what brings you joy, what lights you up. You know this concept of, say, light worker, which I think some people understand, some people aren’t, but it’s essentially being of service. You don’t have to overthink it so much of like, How can I do things that again, that’s putting it on yourself? No, if you follow what lights you up, you will light up the world without even trying. And so, but it’s the sense through the senses that we receive. Our intuition, which I call the voice of the soul. You know, what’s really interesting is in study or in researching for this book that I’m writing, I have been looking at all the different neuro chemical changes that happen to women as they go through menopause, and one of them, as we know, is estrogen goes down. But what is not being expressed or talked about enough is that estrogen going down is not just it’s not just estrogen that is being affected. She has a whole series of neuro chemicals that she stimulates. So when she goes away, these other neuro chemicals go away too, and one of them is oxytocin. And so estrogen amplifies oxytocin. So I ended up down a path of research that I found that women have three areas where we have the densest oxytocin receptor sites, our brain, our heart and our bones. And I started to think, oh, that’s why, when we are like, I feel it in my bones when you are in a place where you are in your truest expression, my guess is, if we could take what you’re saying about the soul, and we could talk about this body expression, that actually when you are in your soul’s journey, you are actually creating A neuro chemical change that you can feel in your bones, and that’s all done through oxytocin. Yes, oh my god. I love this. I love geeking up. Do you know what that’s made me think of? Yeah, please. Okay, let’s, let’s riff on this. You you unpack the science of this, because I think there’s something in it. So, yeah, you know that it’s your soul’s voice, but the biggest question I get asked is, How do I know if it’s my head or my soul? Right now, my number one way to know if it’s your soul’s voice, like when you’re speaking, because I do this in my workshops, we do a thing called inquiry, and you say, My soul is calling me to and you fill in the blank, right? I know it’s my soul’s voice. When it drops deeper, the cadence goes slower, and there’s, I’m not pushing or anything. It just like is, there’s a resonance, right? Yes. Versus the head tends to be like this. You can feel it when you’re saying it. It’s kind of tighter and further up here. But when the soul drops in, that’s that’s how I know it. And I’ve seen it happen over and over again, right? Soul’s not pushing it, just is, right? Yeah, you can feel it in your body. You’ve kind of expand a little bit. You can feel truth when you hear someone else speak from their soul, or it has that resonance. You’re like, there’s an openness to it. Now I know that the throat is connected to the womb area as well. Yes, yeah, this the vocal cords and the cervix were actually the same tissue, and they’re this in utero, they were the same tissue and then they separated. But if you actually take a picture, you look at those vocal cords and the cervical tissue, they’re exactly histologically the same, right? But so what is that? Because I know that that menopausal women in particular are off the charts. Intuitive, yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yes, so I wonder what the science is there. Well, it’s so this is a lot of what I have been really thinking through is that I really feel like menopause is a coming home, back home to yourself. It is an initiation. It is a rebirth, which is why your book, to me, should, maybe the subtitle should have been how menopausal women can step into the fullest expression of themselves, because I read it through a menopausal lens, which is, there is a old version of me that I can no longer participate in. And she wrapped herself up in all kinds of pretty bows, and she came from her head. Let’s go back to your expression. She came from her head, and from that place she was doing all the things that she thought she should do. But when she goes into her post reproductive years, everything sort of comes from more of a body place, and it’s coming from an inner knowing that I can’t operate that way anymore. There is a new way for me to unfold, but that change is really scary. And I also think your book is a lot about the art of change and like, how do we actually work with our body and our brain and now our souls expression. How do we work with the change of that so that that’s kind of where I tied and like the vocal cords and the cervix, you know, fascinating that you know, women who have had been raped or sexually abused lose their voice and and, you know, vice versa, you know, if you damage the thyroid, there’s a lot of belief that the thyroid is injured, and it’s like you’re not actually speaking your voice. So I think all of those are connected. But what are, where I’d like to go with this conversation is if we have this intuition that is emerging as we go into menopause. How do you navigate when your body and your soul is screaming at you to live life differently, to to show up differently? How do we have, like a recipe or a formula on how we navigate that moment? Because I can tell you, it’s terrifying.

Rebecca Campbell  

So I think the first thing to do is to make sure you’re coming back to the body and being conscious with the body, right? So if you’re feeling rage, if you’re feeling grief, whatever the emotion is, find ways to express it. Now, I know you can work out. I’m not saying working out isn’t good. The type of expression I’m talking about more is more feminine. So like putting on I’ve got an artist that I love called Sia. I don’t know if you know her, she, she, she is able to express so many multi layers of emotion. I just put if I’m feeling something that I’m unable to process, I’ll put her music on and just for three minutes, or even two songs, I’ll try and move it out of my body. Because what happens if you’re if something’s rising within you and it’s it’s scaring you as well. You kind of gonna push it back down. You’re gonna push it back down, which is obviously going to affect your health. It’s going to affect your anxiety, too. And so it’s like, we have not been taught to be moved by the feminine soul, right? We have not been taught how to Marion Woodman, who is, I’m sure you’re aware of her work, she’s passed now, she was a Jungian analyst and just epic, epic teacher. She spoke about the marriage of the feminine soul in the body, and how imperative it is, particularly for the conscious feminine. And she spoke a lot about the crowning of the elder as well, and how in our society, we don’t have many elders. We don’t have many true Yes, Elder grand mothers, which has no nothing to do with whether you’ve birthed children yourself. It’s about and I think this is because we have been starved of these feminine rites of passage being ceremonially, or at least consciously acknowledge these initiations. An initiation means to cross a threshold to be not who you once were. And also, in order to cross the threshold, you have to face that I don’t know who I’m becoming. I don’t know who I will one day soon be in my shamanic training, we were taught that the purpose of life if you.

Rebecca Campbell  

Really, really want to live fully consciously, is to learn to die while still fully living. Wow. And on your death bed, whether you know it’s coming or not, to actually die young. And you die young because you’ve allowed yourself to die over and over and over again and be reborn over and over and over again. And I really believe, like having experienced so much stuff with my health as well, like chronic illness and many, many things, I really, really, really believe that us not living in congruence with the soul us resisting what is dying within us is us resisting nature, which is us resisting life. And so you’re actually saying no to life

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

and yes to death, but not rebirth, you know. And so slowly we contract, yeah, yeah, you know. And you know the statistics on autoimmune conditions for women, like 80% of autoimmune challenges happen to women, and there’s a lot of physiological explanations for that, but it’s also an autoimmune condition is a turning on, on the body is attacking itself. And so I was thinking, as you were talking about, if it would, what I would love to see is a world where menopause is looked at like an initiation. It is looked at like not just your estrogen is going away and progesterone you are actually this older version of you is going away, and that there would be some kind of ceremony that would actually allow for an initiation process to begin. But we have, we and I’ve, and part of my concern right now with the menopause conversation is it’s become all about estrogen and patches and creams, and I’m I’m over here, thinking, No, this is a dying and a rebirth. Yet we don’t have a culture that allows us to change. We don’t. We fear change. We don’t We want everybody to stay the same. I can tell you, for my own self, like as I’ve changed, it’s been hard on those people around me, because they’ve been like, wait, I felt good with a certain way that you were, and you’re now showing up a different way.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So when we look at that initiation, is there a way that we can you, and I have talked about this, is there a way we can start to talk about it publicly with the people we love, like this old version of me is dying and this new version is is coming forward. Is there a way to actually share that with those people close to you that you have found successful? Yeah, I think, I think that then, first of all out, I so love this conversation, because I totally believe where we avoid change, and just as we avoid talking about death, you know, even even birth, if you look at birth, it’s all about, like the delivery of the baby. It’s not about the transformation of the mother, you know, yeah, it’s not about the fact that, like, women have been doing this since the first baby existed. You know, yes, anyway, don’t get me started on that

Unknown Speaker  

one. Oh, maybe that’s another.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Or maybe get me started.

Rebecca Campbell  

But anyway, I digress. So, so okay, the thing about change is that I think it’s because we’ve disconnected ourselves so much from nature. Like you look up net nature in the dictionary, it literally says,

Rebecca Campbell  

stones, plants, animals, but not, but not humans. Like it says that we are not nature, but we are. And we know when we look at the seasons and all indigenous traditions and and even if we don’t have indigenous traditions that are alive now because they’re being snubbed, snubbed out, we all have them in our ancestry. We all have them. And I think that we are desperate, hungry, starving for that. And I think it’s our belief that nature is separate to us that makes it okay for us to conquer it, or to see it as this, like evil force, you know, yeah, but it’s actually in us recognizing that we are nature, and like nature, we are ever changing this, I think that that healing can happen. So that’s like a bigger conversation. How that relates to us in our day to day life. Is that when you’re in a relationship, right, and you know that you’re changing or that other person is changing, it can feel like.

Rebecca Campbell  

A personal thing versus like spring going into summer, going into autumn, going into winter. It’s just nature. It is part of

Rebecca Campbell  

our true nature, and we are no different. We are not meant to stay the same. And so I think the more open, the more we can understand, and this is why your book is going to be so so needed. It’s so needed giving people a vernacular to be able to talk about it. And I think that this conversation is coming back to us, and so it can be a little bit more normal. So that’s already happening, but I think navigating where you are in that map, so you’re making the map, and then people saying, Oh, wow, I just learned this. So bringing people along in the journey, so I know that, like people pleasing is a is a big, big one, and and even myself, I’m a, I’m I’m an older mother, so I’m perimenopause, and so that self sacrificing urge that I had in my 20s and my 30s, which I actually devoted to my work doesn’t exist. And so I was feeling so guilty that, oh, why are all the other younger mums able to just like, give and give and give. And I definitely have a lit music because I work. What is it? No. And so then having that language, which I’ll say, talk to my husband or talk to my friends or my mom or whatever, and just say, Oh, I’m finding this difficult to navigate because I know being perimenopausal, I’m actually right on track, and I’m feeling guilty. Same thing if you are a people pleasing person who’s always been, you know, I’ll drop everything at the at the drop of a hat, just to help whoever wants me to you could bring it into the conversation of so you’re not distancing, you’re not making it personal. And you’re saying, My gosh, there’s I’m really changing, and there’s something that I’m working on, which is not being such a people pleaser. You don’t have to say it in the moment that you let them down, but you’re bringing them along the journey with with you. And then, you know, not all relationships are meant to stay as they are forever as well. And you know, if we look at things like, if we look at ourselves as nature, right, it is like, if you if you keep going, it’s like you’re betraying yourself instead of that person, right? And you know the health, the health risks of doing that, that you’re also if you are denying yourself and you’re still in relationship with with that person, maybe you’re denying them of something as well. Because if they want that people pleasing then, and you can’t give it, then someone else will enter their life that maybe is meant to or maybe they’ll be empowered to take care of themselves, and something else will come as a result. So this is the web like once you connect in with the soul, and the soul leads you physically in the body. It’s like there’s this golden thread that’s woven through your life, and other people are woven around you as well. And so you you’re saying, then, from that perspective, if you looked back this, I like this idea of a golden thread, like, if you look back, there is an inner knowing you’ve had your whole life, and what I’m interpreting from what you just said, and what I’ve experienced in my own menopausal journey, is that inner knowing starts really screaming at you it once you hit Those post menopausal years and you can no longer put everybody’s needs a hell ahead of your own. And you start to really, you know, come into this place of, this is who I am, and but in that there, it’s like, I think of it like a crystal, you know, the caterpillar coming out of the chrysalis. It’s painful, and if you look at the statistics, my audience has heard me say this over and over again, but they’re haunting that between 45 and 55 is the most common decade for women to commit suicide, and 65 to 70% of divorces that happen after 50 are initiated by women. When I look at the just those two statistics, I look at the neuro chemical changes that are happening, and then I hear you talk about this way that the soul wants to express itself. I think really the challenge that we have is that we are not putting language to this massive initiation into the truest version of yourself.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

And so the more we can talk about it, the more women can experience it, and the more we can all men and women make room for it. So talk to.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Me, because I know many of your books have been about initiation. Are there are there strategies? Are there golden rules for initiation when you know you’re at the beginning of an initiation process? Oh my gosh. Well, the first thing about initiation is that if you say yes to it,

Rebecca Campbell  

the phrase that I say, I text my friends when they’re like, oh my god, I’m fake. I’m on the edge. I can feel this initiation happen. I can feel the fire of it. And I say, well, you’re going somewhere sacred.

Rebecca Campbell  

And I think this is really important. Like that analogy of, like, going into the chrysalis as well. Like, we know that that if you were to slice the chrysalis open in the in between of of being the caterpillar to the butterfly, it’s just going to be messy, gunk and organs. It is, it’s, it’s not pretty. It is not pretty. Birth is not pretty. Yes, birth is not pretty. It’s beautiful, though. And, yeah, and so I think the first thing is, is that it’s not a lot of people see transformation, you know, particularly if you’re like, I just want to meet read the trans transformational books, awakening books.

Rebecca Campbell  

It is not a pretty process. It is a beautiful process, though. And it is the most natural thing in the world, too, yes. And so I think that that, that I think the most important thing is to work out, what is your ground what can you rely on? What is holding you, and I think that’s why when people are faced with initiatory experiences, whether it is a rite of passage, like like menopause, perimenopause, or if it’s something like a heartbreak, deep grief, end of a career, children leaving home, which often happened at the same time as the the hormonal changes as well. We need to, I think, so often we find spirituality. We find different communities because we’re we need something to hold us yes, in a deeper way than before, right? So we need that those deeper roots. So, yeah, the first thing I would say is, what is holding you? What can you what can you lean back on that isn’t necessarily like your existing friendship or your existing whatever? How can you give yourself the depth? Yes, and then also, what I heard in what you said, is understanding when you when you said your friends are like, I’m at the beginning of an initiation, is understanding that the discomfort of things changing is actually the beginning of new versions of you and life that are emerging. And I think we hold on to the disc. You know, we don’t want we don’t. I can tell you for me, I, let me just say I’m not a fan of discomfort.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I don’t, I don’t. And so I can hear,

Rebecca Campbell  

so I can hear what you’re saying. And then I’m like, yeah, and discomfort sucks. So even if my self is like, this is an initiation, I can’t wait to see who I’m gonna become. Let me go find my tribe of people to support me in this the discomfort is still really a difficult place to live, and in menopause, a lot of women live in that discomfort for a decade. Yeah. So you know, is there a language we can help women understand. What do you do with that discomfort? Well, I think, I think the first thing is, is I always go looking to nature. First of all, I think this human journey is full of sweetness and ecstasy as well as grief and sorrow and agony. I wish it wasn’t, but the polarity is real on this planet. And whenever we have a decision to make or an initiation to say yes to or no to, like, I don’t know anyone who’s going to say yes right at the beginning, no one is going to do that. We’re going to be in the contraction until it becomes more painful. So I’ve got an example of when I knew I needed to change my careers. I knew I was being called to do this work, right? I resisted it, resisted it, resisted it. I knew from when I was a teenager, it wasn’t until I was in my mid 30s that I was like, Finally, like, Okay, I’m gonna go for this. Like, fully go for it. And it was because the only thing harder than not, than answering the call, for me, was not answering it exactly. So we come up to this point where, how much, which, Which am I going to choose? It’s going to be uncomfortable, no matter what I can pretend it.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Not pretend it’s not for however long, but how can I let How can I open through this? This is why birth has been such a great teacher for me, because if you think about what happens when you are giving birth, is it’s the contraction and the expansion, contraction and the expansion, the same thing happens when we’re processing trauma as well, expansion, and then we contract, but then we expand a little more. Contract, and then we expand a little more. Same thing happens with the awakening process. It’s all coded in NS that’s so well said. And so you know what I hear in that, from a like practical standpoint, is when you’re feeling that urge to step into this new version of you, yeah, getting into nature, getting around connection, slowing down, understanding the soul is trying to express something. These, these are, this is menopause. That’s menopause. And yet we have a very medical approach to this transition, just like birth, just like birth. So I’ve been really geeking out lately on the word liminal. And I love liminal spaces. Like I think that there’s a liminal space between when you’re awake and you go to sleep. There’s like when you get into bed, there’s sort of like you’re, you know, you’re moving from one state to the next. I think the morning is the same thing. There’s a liminal space from waking up into from asleep until into where you’re awake. And I’ve been thinking that we don’t give enough conversation to the power of insight in those liminal spaces, which is what I what I hear you talking about. And so talk to me a little bit about

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

where, because I think the soul is telling us something in those liminal spaces, and you talked about it being in the body, but when an insight comes in, like a thought in that liminal space or a inner knowing, is there a way we can grow that insight into into something that’s more tangible for our life. Does that? Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. So the it’s the difference between knowing in your mind and you know knowing right? So the moment you’re trying to be certain of something, you’re coming from your head, the moment you go into I wonder

Rebecca Campbell  

what a mystery. Like curious about it. Yeah, you’re in the soul. And I think it’s interesting around that. Think the older we get the first and particularly on the spiritual path, the first part of your spiritual awakening, I call is awakening of the mind. You are like, Oh my gosh, like you might find about out about past lives, or life between lives, and you know, all of this stuff. And you’re like, I need to find the purpose of life, as if there’s this finite answer that you’re going to reach the further you go along your spiritual journey. You realize all there is, is the great mystery. But in that great mystery, all of the codes of life, and I think it takes a certain maturity to be in the I wonder, but when you’re in the I wonder, you’re in surrender, you’re in the merging with spirit. So actually, it’s like a contradiction, because the more you open to it, the more you will receive that you will have that inner knowing for so it’s like the the classic statement, the more I know, the less I know, like the more I go, the more I realize I don’t know, yes, yes. But then the more, the more you loosen your grip on having to know, the more you will know that’s right, that’s right. Fascinating. That’s the other side of it. Oh my God, that’s That’s so good.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Now I want to go into because I know you have written about this. I heard you on Nancy Levin’s podcast talk about the mother line and the ancestral energy that comes through mother line. And you said something on that podcast that just blew my mind. And it was around this idea that our eggs are developed when we are in our mother’s womb, and our mother’s eggs were developed when she was in her, your grand her, you know, your grandmother’s womb. And I started to think, yeah, that makes sense, that our the eggs and our ovaries are this genetic connection to all our mother, our grandmother, our great grandmother, like it is a connection through the whole line. So I had this thought.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So that what happens when you go into menopause and now you’re out of eggs? I’m just, just for the sake of simplicity, you don’t have any more eggs. I think that that is also a time to release yourself from the mothering that came through your ancestral line, and it’s an opportunity to actually step in and Mother yourself that there is something energetic there that we cannot miss in this shutting down of this reproductive system that was created through the maternal line.

Rebecca Campbell  

I completely agree, and I think that when, when I wrote this book, that I wrote, I wrote it as an older mom, but I had a I’d had a mystical experience years before around the mother line, right? So I had this imprint from that. But then, when I gave birth to my son, while I had already I was entering perimenopause, I saw that. I saw my separation. I saw the inherited rage, grief, etc, from my feminine line all the way back to the original mother, including gifts and all of that as well. But in my postpartum period, it all erupted out. And I was always confused as to, is this postpartum or is this perimenopause? Oh, yeah. And I think it was both. I think it was both. And for me, it was a period that was extremely intense at the beginning, I go all in when I’m in something

Rebecca Campbell  

very, very, very, very intense. And I remember the day that it finished, and I had this experience. I was literally just driving through the countryside where I live here. I’d just been to a somatic session with my body worker. Uneventful. I was feeling really chilled, but all of a sudden I had this experience of my my my soul coming fully in and going back down the line all the way to the to the original point when I had my son and gave birth to him, and I started experiencing a lot of ancestral stuff. My grandma was also near end of life, and there was definitely something happening between her, my mum and I, and it was almost like my grandma and I were expressing this rage together. It was incredible. But that felt like it was, it was coming from the line through me, but this moment was

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

and I knew it was over, and then it was literally to the day that I knew I need to teach on this now, like, Yeah, I had no desire to, but it was like, Yes, and it’s done. And I think that while my experience was quite full on, I do think many, many, many of us are going through it, and some of us are experiencing it through rage and grief. Think we’re also experiencing it at a time when the collective is experiencing this too, and so it’s more intense. It really is more intense. I’m also fascinated by the midlife transits as well astrological transits, Pluto Pluto Uranus opposition, which lead into those years of of perimenopause. Interesting, you know, you know, the ancestral inheritance that we have is really interesting, because science can prove this. And so just to kind of pull the people who are listening to this that are a little more science oriented, you know, I I’m I have, when I’ve heard of ancestral trauma or ancestral energy, I think with ancestral trauma, my brain is like, look, I have enough trauma already going on in this world, like I don’t need to take on like that ancestral trauma, but when we look at neuroscience, it’s really interesting, because they’ve done studies where they’ll take a rat in this horrible study, but and they will torture the rat, create pain, and then they will put the smell of cherry blossoms into the rat’s cage, and what they have found, and it’s a female rat, is that when you gave cherry blossom smell to the four generations down to the rats that came out of that female that cherry blossom smell initiated.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

The same reaction. So there is something that happens in that handing down of ancestral trauma, and I think it’s we don’t give it enough oxygen. And so then that leaves me with the question of like, well, how do you know you’ve said rage a couple of times now, and I’m thinking, How do we know if rage is just our soul being like I want to actually speak my truth now, or, Hey, I came from a lineage of women that have an expression and are angry about something that is coming through me. Is there a way to know the difference between that. I’d love to add another layer to that. Yeah, please, particularly for us as women, which is we, not all women on the planet, but a lot of women on the planet actually have a voice now. And so those generations before us weren’t able to express it, weren’t able to say no, weren’t able to speak their inner truth. Had to be quiet, be nice, be pretty, you know? Yeah, just, let’s just box it in. And so this is what I mean by the collective moment that’s happening. It’s so multi faceted, and I think unprecedented as well, yeah, and that’s what I noticed with

Rebecca Campbell  

this, like this image I kept seeing when it was happening to me, of my grandmother. She was, she had dementia, you know, she’s as but it’s she, it was classic dementia right at the end of her life, and she was yelling and screaming and upset, and I was experiencing the same feelings at night time I’m like, What is this? You know? And I think this is like the privilege of who we are right now, that we actually there are ways for us to express it and begin to talk about it, whereas previous generations, you just couldn’t. And so, you know, it’s like when I do a I used to teach workshops, right? I still do now, but I remember the first retreat that I did, and I texted my friend, because it was here in Glastonbury, and there was between a couple of women, some sisterhood stuff came out, and I’d never experienced it this intensely before. And I texted my friend earlier and said, I’m really upset. Like, I’m like, What have I missed? Like, how have I not held the space right? And she said, By any chance, is there? Do you have more support than you’ve ever had before? And I said, Yes. And she said, the more supported and safe people feel the more stuff will come up and rise to the surface, because the container is there, and that’s what I think is happening right now, collectively. Oh, so you just answered something for me, because I have also been looking at cultural trends and asking myself, like the Okinawa women, we look at these women with such such respect, because they have, you know, Okinawa has some of the most centenarians compared to any other place on the planet, and most of those centenarians are women. And when I’ve dove into like, what do they do to get to that? So many of them get to 101

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

of the things that they do is they create mo eyes. And mo eyes is a gathering of women where we share resources. So as I’m listening to you talk, I’m thinking, I am seeing these gatherings of women, and in a time like we’ve never seen before, and I’m also seeing the rage in women come out in a time in which we have never seen before, and you just explain that like when you feel supported, then there is a safety in which for that rage To come out, but yet, we live in a culture that doesn’t like our women to be angry. So is there an appropriate way to express rage?

Rebecca Campbell  

So good dancing is my favorite way, like excellent moving your body in whatever way that you want to, ah, I I’ve done a lot of screaming into pillows. I’ve also started doing practices in my groups where we collectively release it. Because sometimes we’re, we’re releasing stuff that is not just ours, you know, right? Maybe it is as well, but it’s way more than that as well. So using your voice, and I know that, you know, maybe don’t do it in in your house without telling anyone, yes, you can go out somewhere in nature, for example. You know, I, I used to do this with a friend of mine, my friend, Amy Firth, she’s.

Rebecca Campbell  

Used to be in my Podcast Producer. Actually, I went to university with her, and she really has been. She does the work of the feminine like me. We’ve always been big feelers. When we were in our 20s in London, we were definitely, like, tapped into that feminine rage. I think, like growing up, I think it’s connected as well with that adolescent rage, I think it exists in different hormonal times in our lives, what we used to do, oh, my God, I don’t know why we did this. There were two things that we would do, and it was when we were drunk sometimes. I think this is yeah, because why do a lot of us drink and stuff get filters, but it also allows us to express things that we box in. And so we used to when we would be walking home through the streets of London. I don’t know why we decided to say this, but we would, literally, I wrote it in my second book, rise this to rise. We’d walk down the street and she would yell out, I’m a who I’m a whore, basically, right? And I would pack up laughing, and then it’d be like, you go, you go. And I would say it too. It was really It had nothing to do with what we were actually doing, but it was all to do with this wild woman power that was within us that had no where to be expressed in our lives, yes, right, yes. And we would do another thing when my friend Blair passed, he passed very suddenly, and we were grief stricken, just like you know. How could this happen to someone so young? And again, it was when we were drinking, because it just let us do it. And together with our other housemate, Jackie, we would, we would call it, I now know the cultural practice of my ancestry is keening, where you would grieve together openly. And so we would do it, and we we’d just call it wailing. And we would, we would sound, the sounds in our body, and then, like, laugh so much because it was just ridiculous what we were doing. Yeah, that our body had the memory that that’s what we were meant to be doing. We needed to drink to give ourselves permission to do it isn’t that interesting. Yeah. And then now I’ve been on this journey of unpacking these ancestral indigenous traditions that are from my ancestry that were definitely not passed down, and we all had them. And I think that that that deep down, we do know how to take the lid off, and I think it’s why a lot of us drink.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it is really, it’s sad. And, you know, there’s a, there’s a real interesting movement right now to everybody is like, stop drinking, stop drinking. And I feel like we need more context to that conversation, and part of that needs to be especially for the perimenopause menopausal woman, I the more I study this, the more I am convinced that the drinking, the anger, the crying, the all of that is because you are shedding an old version of yourself and you’re in confusion, and there’s a new version that’s coming out. And so now society has been like, and you don’t drink, don’t drink, yeah, and I’m not advocating that people drink, but I think there needs to be like, I would love to take every 40 year old woman and just be like, it’s you’re about to go on a journey you’ve never experienced for before, and it’s really a journey back to yourself, and it’s going to have a lot of highs and lows, but if you stick with the process of it, you’re going to love who you become in the nd on the other side of that, it’s really, yeah, so, so interesting. And I think, you know, I put an example regarding alcohol on the other side. My I drink. My husband doesn’t. He didn’t drink regularly, but he struggled to, like, you know, once the switch, the off switch was on, he just loved having a good night out, I think. But knew it wasn’t, it wasn’t beneficial for him, so he made that decision. But after it, I noticed that he had a lot of anger, that he needed to have a place to go. And he it was, it was he pushed it down. And there was this one time where, remember, he, he expressed himself the it wasn’t at me, but he expressed anger, right? And I called up my friend Binny Dansby, who is this the wisest person I know. She’s in a mid 80s, and I called her and just said, Craig just did this. And I expected her to say, Oh, how terrible, how terrible. And she said to me something that redefined my understanding of anger. And she said, how wonderful that he feels safe.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Enough to express yeah and not keep it bottled up. Beautiful, beautiful. That is so beautiful. What? What do you say? I mean this. This is what you know, large reason why I wanted to bring you to my podcast was a to expose people to the book, because I think this is a tool I know I have picked up multiple times since it came out, and I found some Oh, this explains what I’m feeling. But really, this is a mystical conversation of a transformation through the lens of menopause. And I believe that a lot of people would be like, Oh, this is so Woo, woo, but there is so much we can learn from the woo, woo. So talk a little bit about what you would say to somebody who is listening to this and thinking for the first time about menopause as a mystical experience, not as a physiological experience. Are there words of wisdom we can give that woman? Is there, you know, you know something that we can leave this conversation on that launches women in to really embracing this incredible time.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Well, the first thing I would say is that this whole life is a great journey for the soul, and that we have these thresholds, which are really invitations, opportunities for us to say yes and more fully live. And so I would say it’s a spiritual invitation as well as a physical invitation. And the physical is inviting the spirit to come even more fully in. And you know that word inspired just means in spirit, to live, to be a spirited person. It’s that. It’s that’s the spiritual journey, yeah, yeah. And I think that’s the journey of menopause, and that is what I really am hoping that we don’t lose now in this new opening of a cultural conversation that has been like, let’s put some cream and patches on. I’m not saying don’t do that, but I’m hoping what people will glean from this conversation is that there’s something deeper here. Let’s not miss it. Let’s not miss it. It’s uncomfortable. But if you can stick with it, and you can get into nature and gather your people around you that create safety for you, you can actually emerge into a whole new version of you and back to you, what you said about wise elders, I think this is what the planet needs right now. Yes, really, literally, I totally agree. Like, yeah, we need you. We need you initiated. And maybe you haven’t had someone to initiate you, so you initiate yourself, so you can then initiate someone else. The children of the world and those yet to come are craving it, aching it, needing it. The planet is needing it. Bingo. That’s it. That is exactly it. So thank you for that. And again, I have so many questions, because I’ve just really thought about this journey from so many angles, and where can people find you? I will. I mean, I literally cannot say enough go run out and get your book. Your soul has a dream, and your life is it? I don’t know if people would would initially think that this is a transformation book, A Guide to transformation, but that is absolutely how I read it. So how do people find you? How do you find your other work? So they can dive into, yeah, just head to my website. I’m Rebecca campbell.me.

Rebecca Campbell  

And yeah, I’m all over social media, YouTube and all of those places. I’ve got lots of books, oracle cards. What are you doing on YouTube? I love YouTube. You said, Yeah. I mean, I’ve taught my podcast, returning with Rebecca Campbell, this amazing episode with Dr Mindy on there. You’ll just love it. It’s the spiritual side of fasting. We had so much fun talking about it. And yeah, it’s really just videos for your spiritual journey to really invite you to just love your life and to live with more meaning and purpose. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Well, go, go check out Rebecca’s YouTube, because I think YouTube offers you can take a conversation like this, and then you can really start to look at it from a bigger lens. So appreciate you so much. Rebecca, thank you everyone.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.