Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - When the Life You Built Starts Speaking Back

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

There comes a point in life when the roles you've spent years perfecting no longer fit the way they once did. You’ve changed in a way that what once felt meaningful may suddenly feel draining. Relationships you've maintained for years can begin to feel one-sided. The goals that once motivated you may no longer inspire you. And underneath it all, there's often a quiet but persistent feeling that something inside is asking for your attention. In this episode of The Language of Love, I sit down with Michelle Oravitz, practitioner of Chinese medicine and women's health expert, to explore what happens when midlife invites us into a new relationship with ourselves. Together, we discuss the internal shifts that often emerge during this season of life, shifts that can show up as restlessness, irritability, emotional intensity, or a growing inability to keep performing versions of ourselves we've outgrown. We talk about why so many women reach a point where external validation no longer carries the same power it once did, and how learning to listen to the wisdom of the body can reveal a deeper sense of clarity, authenticity, and purpose. This conversation isn't about reinventing yourself. It's about remembering who you've been beneath the expectations, obligations, and identities you've carried for years. In this episode, you'll discover: Why emotional intensity in midlife is often a signal, not a symptom What your restlessness may be trying to tell you How external validation can quietly shape your choices—and what happens when it stops working The connection between body awareness, intuition, and decision-making Why certain relationships suddenly feel exhausting or misaligned How authenticity begins to replace performance as you grow older The surprising overlap between desire, irritation, and inner knowing What changes when you stop reacting to your life and start listening to it Simple practices that help you reconnect with yourself and hear your own truth more clearly If you've been feeling like something is shifting inside you even if everything looks the same on the outside this conversation offers language for a transition many women experience but few know how to describe. Because some of life's most important transformations don't arrive with a dramatic announcement. They begin as a whisper. And over time, become impossible to ignore.. For those drawn to embodied approaches to women’s health and midlife transition, Michelle Oravitz’s work in Chinese medicine offers a grounded way to reconnect with the body’s intelligence and navigate this next phase with more clarity and ease. And if this episode is opening up questions about how you relate to yourself and others, explore Quantum Love as a next step toward understanding your emotional patterns and building deeper self-awareness in relationships. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and celebrities about love, sex, and relationships from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. And that way, my goal is to awaken your mind, body, and soul. It's time to become fluent in the language of love.

Michelle Orvitz, thank you so much for joining us on the language of love. Thank you, Laura, for having me. I'm excited. We've been kind of communicating on DMs and emails and connecting for a little while now. So I was so glad that we could finally get you on. And I feel like this topic that we're going to talk about in this episode really applies to so many women. So, you know, whether they are currently in perimenopause or menopause, whether you love

someone who's in that midlife transition, whether you're hovering close, maybe in your early 30s, right, and you're seeing it or starting to have some of those little, you know, sleeplessness symptoms or moodiness symptoms or irregularity symptoms, I'm really excited for you to be here with us because, you know, Michelle, this idea of the menopausal transition and the perimenomidlife, let's just call it midlife transition because it doesn't have to be tied to menses ceasing, right? Yeah. But this midlife transition, I remember a Chinese medicine doctor said this to me years, maybe 10 years ago. And I, you know, he was someone I really, I do really respect. But he said that in Chinese medicine, the theory is that for

a woman's entire life, her chi, her life force is flowing from all parts of her body toward the center, toward her womb, which energetically makes sense when she's building into adolescence and building potentially, theoretically, a family and fertility, those years of fertility. And that part of the upheaval in midlife and especially around perimenopause and menopause is that the chi is actually from being flowing in this one direction. It's now changing direction so that now the chi in midlife begins flowing to all the other parts of a woman's body and heart and mind and soul. And in most indigenous cultures, and I think certainly in our culture until we became industrialized and westernized and patriarchy and whatever you want to say, you know, this was a

time in a woman's life where she moved into the way she no longer had to worry about kids and raising kids. And she moved into leadership positions and into wise woman positions that has not quite caught up in the Western world. So with all of that in mind, I love folding into that and around that, what you say about how midlife is part of this transition is rebirthing your purpose because so many people are taught and are certainly our mothers and grandmothers model this idea of slowing down. It's an ending. I'm just sitting around knitting now. So how, talk to me about this idea of midlife as a rebirthing. Yes. So in Chinese medicine, the core really symbol of what we look at is the yin and the yang. And ultimately the yin and the

yang are two opposing forces that constantly turn into each other, balance each other out. And so there is no ending and there is no beginning. Or if there is an ending, there's also a beginning, if that makes sense. So within every seed, there is like really life. And then even as plants, you know, grow, they bring down the seeds and then new life comes out. And so we're constantly in this ebb and flow of life. And so long as we're here, it may not look the same, just like you were mentioning before, when you spoke to the Chinese doctor, when he was saying that it's not that the chi just dissipates completely, it's just, it changes its direction. So I think that a lot of it, like you're saying, in this industrial, like modern world, a lot of the wisdom that maybe our ancestors grew up with or many cultures still hold is not exactly something that, you know, is common or we see on social media.

You know, it's, it's something that we're always kind of looking in our culture for this youthful look or this kind of like what is considered to be beautiful. And me personally, I will not, you know, I don't go for that. I really embody and embrace this time. I'm in that time. I'm 52. So it's a choice. We don't have to go into kind of like that aspect of it.

like, okay, so our physical body is not fertile anymore, or it's moving into a different place, but it's such a magnificent time to really discover yourself. Because a lot of times that is, it's kind of like a new phase that you're coming into life where kids have grown up, you know, you're, you're kind of like moving into a different transition. And with that, I feel like anytime there is kind of a sense of completion, it also comes with so much opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to talk about that because it is first, let's just talk about this idea of holding on to youth. And I think that's our, you know, we do that to each other. We do that to ourselves and society reinforces it. But there's this idea that, you know, what is considered beautiful, admirable, aspirational, powerful, whatever, is youth, you know, and the symbols of youth. Right. And the symbols of, frankly, fertility, dewy skin, no wrinkles, you know, all the things that a woman, you know, between 15 and 35 would be exhibiting.

right? And then we are now spending more than half our life or at least half our life beyond that phase. And thanks to modern medicine and healthy lifestyles, we are living very active, very vibrant, very cognizant, very powerful internal lives. And yet the world around us gives us all these messages that were irrelevant. I will never forget. I think I must have been when I moved, I moved back to LA from Chicago, probably I was just turning 50 and I went to meet with my agent who had a new person on staff that he wanted me to meet with. And they were going to pitch all these shows and blah, blah, blah. And I sit down with the guy and he literally said to me, well, you know, we do, I love all these ideas, but I think we should find someone

young and hot that can co-host with you. And I kind of was taken back. I was like, wait a minute, I'm not young and hot anymore. Like I could not get that out of my head. And it really shocked me all of a sudden because I didn't realize I wasn't like me. I knew I wasn't young, but I didn't think I wasn't hot anymore, but evidently. So I really made a decision at that point. Fuck that. I am hot. And who's to say that the younger you are, the hotter you are, or the closer to your end of your life with all this wisdom and all this life lived and all of this to offer that you aren't hot. And so I made a decision no more because I had been doing some of the fillers and plumping and whatever and Botox. I was like, no more. I if even if I'm the only one out there, I am going

going to claim my hotness with my wrinkles, with my softness. These are my war wounds. These are my signs of all the smiles I've had and all the life I've lived. And it's beautiful. And if we don't start thinking, we do this to each other more than men do it to us. If we don't start thinking of ourselves that way, who will? So I love that you're with me. High five. Yes, high five. No, 100%. And, you know, when you really look at like, what is considered amazing, and ultimately, it's a lot of it's superficial, like and superficial doesn't really last. And it's kind of like that internal essence that you have. And, you know, that whole thing that's going out the trend of baby pictures that people put up. And yeah, so you look at the pictures,

but sometimes you see an essence in your eyes when you look at yourself. And you're like, that's still me. And all of that changed was my exterior. It's just, it's just an exterior. It's a vessel that we're living in and that's not who we are and never will be. It's just a vessel. And I think that when we get too concerned with that vessel, we're missing the point. We're missing that connection. A lot of people say, you know, I'm very spiritual. So I like watching those shows where people like die and come back. And it's always interesting to me. So a lot of times though, I do see a theme and the theme is, is that you don't take with you the stuff. All of those things just are not really as significant. We can like really put

our focus on it, but it's not really what it's about. What it's about is the essence that we hold. It's the meaning that we have, the purpose that we use, and also the connections that we make with other people, the relationships. Those are the things that you take with you. It's that energetic love. And so if we're constantly like living and we have the choice, we have the free will, we could be living in a very surface dimension where we're just focusing on those things. However, those things don't last. Those things are fragile because it's just, it's a vessel and it lives for a certain amount of time. So I think ultimately that's really making that choice of living a life that's deeper, that it has more meaning and also is

unshakable because then once you're connected with that beauty within yourself, nothing that anybody can say can really mess with that. You know, like that's the level that you're holding yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to talk to you. I'm going to make myself a note to come back to this tapping into the beauty within yourself. Cause I think that's easy to say, right. But We'll talk in a minute or maybe we talk now about how, you know, I have some ideas to share, but I want to know from you, like how, cause it's, I agree with you 100%, but you know, for somebody listening, they're like, okay, tap into the beauty. Like, you know, how do I do that?

How do I access that ephemeral central essence of myself and how beautiful she is and how connected and tapped and in tuned and she is underneath all the noise and all the chaos and all the judgment and everything else, you know, how do you begin to access that? That's such a great question. And it really is actually something that I utilize in my work. I often encourage the patients that I work with, the clients that I work with to get back in tune with the intelligence of your body. How's your body? Like literally your body's constantly communicating with you. And sometimes by listening and developing that relationship with your body as it is, and really thanking it for everything, like getting into a state of gratitude,

literally, because we have a choice. We can choose to look at what's lacking, or we can choose to say, you know what? Thank God. Like, cause trust me, like on days that I'm like, my back hurts, or I throw out my back. I'm like, why do I take this for granted? Like, you know, I don't realize just how important like every single vertebra is, or if I like burn a finger, I'm like, why do I take it for granted? Like, those are the things like, thank God my body works, right? Thank God all of these things are able to, like, I can utilize this to get through life. So really connecting with your body, having more love, opening up, and then I can give you some actual real like life practicalities is even heart math, which is the heart brain coherence. Heart math is

Institute where they do a lot of research on the connection between the heart and the brain, which is actually in Chinese medicine, we've been talking about for thousands of years, not we, you know, I'm learning it. It's they've been talking about it, but basically the heart houses the mind and the heart is actually a very important organ energetically and also physically in so many different ways. And part of it is really coming to yourself. And of course, you know a lot about oxytocin and really having that bonding connection. So when you're connected to yourself by just listening to your body, getting into meditation, even like somatic work, movement, you know, really kind of coming back, honoring yourself, knowing when to say no, like really,

truly giving yourself more emphasis than you do other people's opinions. And of course, you're not going to totally cut that out. We're sensitive. We're people, you know, we're not islands. So we're going to get influenced by a lot of what people say, but like having that connection within your own body and your own internal intelligence and your own intuition over time will help you figure out what's in alignment and what's not. So if you hear somebody like you heard say to you about like, what's hot, your internal intuition said, hey, that doesn't align with me. Like that doesn't feel right. So the more you get in tune with that, the stronger that inner voice, aligned voice becomes. So heart math, there's

certain exercises you can do to really increase, and this is all measurable, your heart brain coherence. And the more coherent the heart and brain are, studies show that you feel more at peace, more at ease, more organized mentally. Life feels a lot more fun. Yeah, I call that home frequency. And if you guys go to healwithlaura.com, and we're going to put all Michelle's, I'll put this in the show notes too, but we're going to put all Michelle's resources too in there. But if you go to healwithlaura.com and you click on the quantum love tile, there is an open-hearted meditation, I call it, which will move you into coherence. And basically what's happening is that the electromagnetic field of your heart and your brain are moving into coherence. It's a state of

energetic, emotional, and physical health. And it's a master manifesting state. And it makes me magnetic for really beautiful things as well. And I love, I love all of that, that you just said. I would add to it that one of the things that I've been doing for the past couple of years is when I'm brushing my teeth, you know, I can't see without my glasses, but when I'm brushing my teeth, I go to my magnified mirror and I go and I stare deeply, deeply,

like I basically soul gaze myself. I stare deeply, deeply, deeply into my own eyes. I don't look at the wrinkles around my eyes or anything out the pores or anything else. I'm staring into my eyeballs. And if you stare even for 10, 15, 30 seconds into your own eyes, you will begin to see that essence that Michelle is talking about your soul self your higher self

your essential self you will start to see you know it's hard not to be in awe of that part of ourselves and when you start to tap in and tune into that more in many of the ways you're saying right I also love to use which is a somatic practice I love to use dance and movement grounding in my own body, the more you start to do that and create kind of practices for tuning into your body and tuning into your soul self, your higher self, it's really hard not to feel beautiful, right? Even if you don't match what you see in the airbrushed images on Instagram, or the filtered images, you see and you feel how worthy of love you are. All of us are, not just you and me, but like each one of us. And I think that's important all of our lives,

but what's really beautiful to me about the midlife transition. And I honestly think this is part of why, you know, all the jokes are out there and it's true. I mean, it's based on truth about the moodiness and the rage comes up around this time and how women are, you know, men are all scared of menopause and she's, you know, she's ready to rip her husband's, you know, there are all these memes about she's ready to rip her husband's head off. And a lot of that has to do with not being adequately hormonally supported. But I honestly think it serves an evolutionary purpose because what's happening is that all this shit that you've been putting up with because you're busy and because you're child rearing, because there are other fires to put out because

whatever, because you've been sticking your head in the sand, suddenly you're like, hell to the no. Yeah. This does not serve anymore. Right. Yep. So I think it's a really powerful teacher. Like it's time to restructure some things. It's time for me to require something different from people and for me to not stand for things I stood for before. So there's like a profound power underneath that rage that I think we can harness. I agree. And I think what you just said before was so powerful when you said that you're looking in the magnifying mirror and you're choosing to ignore the wrinkles and look into the aspect of yourself that's ageless. Yeah. And ancient at the same time. Yeah. You know, it's really beautiful. I highly recommend it. You know, this idea you've

talked about, you know, we've communicated around rebranding your life in midlife, because as we're saying many women, as we reach our forties, fifties, we're realizing we are not the same person we were in our twenties and thirties. So how does someone consciously rebrand their lives during this phase? Such a great question. I love your questions because one of the things that I think makes it so hard is that we're such creatures of habit. And we can be in such a strong habit for things that used to be good for us, but no longer are. And then as we get older, we have more time that we're doing the same repetitive behavior. And then it gets harder to come out of the habit. But what I find to be the antidote to any habit, because habits are

unconscious is presence. So the more you are present, the more you are free. And that's why the ancients have always said, that's where you find nirvana. That's where you find spiritual liberation. The reason is, is because when we're truly present and, and, you know, there's many people in Tibet, you know, Zen Buddhists that they really dedicate their whole life to create and to teach themselves and to practice complete and true extreme presence. I call it extreme presence. And when you're present, you are not really tied to your history. You're not tied to the future. Your full attention, which is your energetic consciousness, your life force vitality, your chi fully inhabits your moment. And you're really in a portal where you're able to access a

lot of energy. So I think that when you get to that state and you're connecting also to your purpose, you're able to connect to that intelligence of what is aligned for you. And that is where you find the new brand. And it's not something that you're just kind of finding or trying to kind of fit a picture. It's about being aligned and what's best for you and what your soul is seeking and really listening to the soul, which ultimately comes with connecting with that intuition because we're so divine and we're connected to such divine intelligence. it's always around us whether we want it to be or not it's always flowing in yeah it's always flowing in and i believe that we're always creating so whether you think that you're

creative or not you don't have to be a painter to be creative you're always creating but most of us create by default because we're not conscious of it or we can create when we're conscious of what we do want and ultimately i think that the things that kind of last because we've all been there where we've dated people that weren't really good for us and we thought we wanted something, but then found out it wasn't really good for us. That was because we were desiring something that was unaligned to our highest self.

So it's always important when you do create that you're creating from the state where it's aligned with your highest self. Yeah. And I want to talk in a minute about how, you know, because I think we can talk about this stuff, but people are like, well, how? I don't even know how I get to my hires.

I mean, I, I can share some ideas and you can too, but I want to back up a little bit around this idea of habits and patterns, because what I have learned doing, you know, being a therapist, helping people through so many transitions in the darkest times in their lives for 30 years, and also having been through many, much pain and many transitions already in my life as well, is that, you know, these things that, first of all, these AFGEs, as I call them, another freaking growth experience, these pain points, whether it's divorce, losing a job, somebody dying, financial woes, health traumas, like these things that can break us apart can also break us open. And I find often in midlife, if we aren't already having,

you know, parents getting sick, ourselves having some inflammatory or health issues, somebody we love doing it, some divorce, cheating, crisis, whatever. That's a time in life where we're starting to really things are coming to critical mass. And even if they don't, we are now facing the pain of being marginalized by society that doesn't see us as valuable anymore. And for many of us women who have children, this is also the time that we are stepping out of or having to forced to step out of parenting roles as we start to move into an empty nest phase. So there are all these external changes and pain points, I feel, are almost divinely designed and give us an opportunity, you know, for many of us, I always say this, the things that can either

break you apart or break you down. And the difference is in, if you're going to break apart you're going to reconfigure into this whole new version of yourself which is kind of what we're talking about but it does require a letting go of what was and there is this I always call it the pause I've been through many of them in my life between where you were and you know it's changing and or you want it to change and you've stepped into the change but you have no idea what it looks like yet. So like the seeds have been planted, they're underground, they're germinating, but they haven't sprung forth yet. And you don't even know what it's going to look like. And I feel like midlife is a beautiful universally, no matter who you are, whether you have kids or don't get

like pretty much universally, it is a pause, which is ironic menopause, right? No, but it's a pause because it's an opportunity. And I love this idea of getting really grounded, really kind of in the present because everything in the future is made up. We have no idea. Take it from me, what's going to happen five minutes from now, much less a year from now. And the past is mostly in our imagination. Science has proven that we aren't necessarily even remembering facts. The way the brain works is we're remembering contexts of things. But if neither one is real, the only thing that is real is this now moment, right? So even saying to yourself in this now moment, I'm fully here grounding yourself in your body. And there's so many beautiful practices

on my, you know, on that quantum love page. I'm sure you have beautiful practices for coming into your body and being present with your body. And I love to say to myself in this now moment, I have absolutely everything I could ever need because it's true. If I think about the future, I can think of lots of things I may run out of or not have. And if I think about the past, I can think of lots of times I didn't have what I need. But right here, right now, I have absolutely everything. And that's the only thing that's real. And I think that's a really beautiful reminder. And to also look at, so to me, there's like, and I want you to help me unpack this. There's like the 3D stuff, which is our habits and our patterns. Like where am I

abandoning myself? Where am I? Anger is a sign that something isn't serving, right? So where am I feeling angry in my life and what isn't serving? How do I want to reconfigure the roles, the jobs, the chores, the dynamics, the relationships in my life that are making me frustrated and angry and don't feel like they fit anymore, right? And what am I willing to let go of so that I can open up to the pause and start getting clear on what I might want to call in? And to me, that's an evolution, but it requires kind of creating that space. So from the 3D standpoint, you're looking at what you want to let go of, what you want to change, what doesn't serve, as well as maybe things that are gently calling you. Like I just, you know, three years ago decided to start

diving into ceramics. I'd never done it in my life before, you know, but I'd always wanted to. And I was like, screw it. I'm going to do it. And it's been such a life force giver to me. Right. So what's something, one thing that maybe you're curious about that your body says yes to, right. And then there, so that's all in the 3d realm. And then there's the energetic, right. What we might call the 5D realm, which is where you're talking about the coherence and gazing at your soul and attuning to your higher self. And we're kind of doing, in my opinion, both at the same time. Yeah, we're totally doing both. And I think that what we see in the 3D is often a reflection of what's happening in the 5D. Most of the time, we're not really paying attention to it because

it's too abstract. It's very hard to see. And when our attention is very much in beta, we're very much. That's a brainwave that like really gets us like hyper focused, more like sympathetic, which ultimately I think the modern life kind of brings out of us. It takes us away from really what's happening behind the scenes. And you were saying, Laura, like that a lot of this can really reflect a lot to us. It's about sometimes moments happening that break us open. And we could see them, of course, as something horrible that's happening. And yes, they are, you know, in many respects, but also at the same time, there's so much that we can learn from it because sometimes it reflects something that maybe we haven't let go of. Maybe it's just giving us a little pointer

of what it is that maybe we haven't really observed or witnessed within ourselves or allowed to express. So it's amazing how life could be such a metaphor. In Chinese medicine, we see the body the same way. Each organ has an emotion, a spirit, an energy. So everything that reflects physically many times is a metaphor to what we're experiencing. I see a lot of people with thyroid conditions having a hard time speaking. And I literally, if I can say maybe 90% times, I say, How do you feel? And separately, they forget the reason I'm even asking, do you express yourself easily? Is it something that you feel comfortable with with your family? Nine times out of 10, there's always some kind of communication difficulty. Yeah, it's so interesting you say that and use that example, because I started thyroid medication, probably in my mid 30s, because I had hypothyroid. And I was not expressing my truest I mean, I could talk anyone's ear off and was, you know, out in the public, you know, speaking my truth. But in my deepest high stakes relationships, especially with men, my father, my husband,

I had never learned how to really be. And I was also a severe codependent back then. You know, I started recovery maybe in my 40s. So what is so cool about it is that I have done so much deep work. I'd already done a ton of work before I lost my son. And then through that breaking apart, breaking open, turning to mush, like reconfiguring my entire being, I really found my voice at first because I had to out of survival to like stand for myself and him. And then eventually and because everything it felt like my whole life had fallen apart internally, I almost felt like I had nothing left to lose. So I was like, screw all of you. I'm speaking my truth. I'm crying out loud, whatever it is.

So meanwhile, I just went and got my thyroid checked about six months ago. Totally fine. Wow. I decided about three months before that test, I decided I don't think I need this medication anymore. I am going to see what happens if I titrate off and get off. And I'd been off for about two months when they took, and I was like, this is going to, and I didn't tell my doctor.

I don't advise people. I'm not telling you to do this, but I'm just, you know, I'm someone who works a lot with hormones. and feel comfortable with it, but I decided to try it and see, and I made sure they measured my thyroid function and it's totally fine. That's incredible. Yeah. Well, we see those kind of things happening a lot with, um, I'm a big Dr. Joe Dispenza fan. I go to a lot of his retreats, which are so powerful. And by the way, I've been watching, I watched you, I followed along with your whole process and the somatic release that you did. Like I've shed tears. I've

really like watched your journey. And I thought it was so powerful. I'll be honest, I was really in awe at how you allowed yourself, you shared your raw experience with so many people. I'm sure there's so many people that were really moved by it. And it allowed them to also, you know, find that space of release to allow themselves to just be with their emotion. It's powerful, And it takes a lot of courage. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I did that with that intention.

I remember the first time I didn't intend, I wasn't planning it. It wasn't something I was like, oh, well, let me just put my pain online for everybody to see. But honestly, it was my son. I had been sitting there, you know, maybe a week or two after he left. And, you know, after he, after he died and he was, I was like, you know, communing with him or, you know, reaching for him. And he, we were in deep connection from the beginning and he just said, I was crying and

shaking and moving. And he said, turn your camera on. And I was like, well, okay. And I just turned my camera on and I knew that meant post it. And I was like, you know, this feels a little self-indulgent. Like that's what I was thinking at the time. But I do what I'm told when, when anyone on the other side or any guides or angels tell me something, I really believe we need to listen.

and follow through especially if we want to keep getting the guidance and so I did it and then I was like oh I told this is this is to model this is to show people what you know if I can do it you can do it too and and nobody knows how to do this right and so I think that yeah that was the beginning so no it landed um I'm telling you like that's that was my I thought I thought it was one of the most powerful things. And I really followed you. Like I followed along like every post and it was just really, cause it's so, it's so real. It's so real. It's something that people go through and it, you know, and so for people who are going through this alone to see this and to realize, oh, wow, like this isn't just me. Yeah. I thought that just by itself was so

extremely powerful. Yeah. Thank you for that. And it's the same thing with this. Like, you know, I think going, there is grief that comes up when you realize, for instance, this is a really common one for women in midlife, where you suddenly realize you've been living your whole life for everyone else, right? Or you've been bypassing your own needs, or you've been bleeding your energy to so many other people and not feeding yourself, right? Or that you've been investing in relationships that really aren't honoring you. Like there's an awakening that really seems to happen, a reckoning that seems to be available to us. If we accept the call, you know, we can grip on for dear life to what was, or we can move into the pause, right. And begin to reclaim our own

identity on our own terms. So I want to talk to you about that because I know you've shared, you know there's so many non-negotiables for you that keep you in your body that keep you in your creative practices that keep you grounded you know so for women who feel a little lost because they're facing a roles change or they're having these you know aha moments where they're realizing how much of themselves they've been bypassing or burying or giving away or maybe their kids have left home or their careers shift. What do you recommend in practical terms, the rituals and the practices that can really support a woman through this transition? You know, the first thing that comes to my mind is community, connecting with people that are going through

the same thing as you. Even online, there's a lot of people that are searching for that. So just like you might be feeling alone, like there's other people feeling the same way. and are wanting to connect. I've seen this kind of with my fertility work, a lot of people going on communities and finding other people, whether it's through workshops or even going to yoga class or something, you know, really connecting with other people, going through the same thing. I find that to be one of the most powerful things because you're not afraid to be real because you know that the person in front of you understands exactly what you're doing. I get it.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think community is actually really powerful because when you have somebody that's going through the same thing and then you guys get to grow together, then that's even more helpful. And then doing new projects. I mean, something as little as something that really, like you, you were saying about ceramics, finding something that you've always wanted to try. And maybe you had a preconceived notion that you have to be really good at it. Throw that out. You don't have to be good at it. If it's something that you're curious about, You've always wanted to, or if you find something that you admire in someone else, my theory is that if you admire it in somebody else, it means that there's a seed inside of

you that really wants to do it for yourself or wants to express that. So like things that you found, even public speaking, that's like a fear of mine, but I admire it. So I'm like, I want to do Toastmasters maybe and go and start doing that, like kind of pushing myself out there and then meeting new people. There was a book called The Luck Factor, and they actually did studies to see people who are lucky. One of the things that they noticed about people who are like, quote unquote, lucky, and they were like really lucky. Some of them won like multiple times like lottery and things like that. And what they found is that they went out of their way. They're a little more proactive about meeting other people. Because when you start to meet

other people in your community, there's more chances that by chance you'll meet somebody who introduces you to something or opportunities arise. So I feel like that's a beautiful way to really step into this new phase and perhaps discover things within yourself that you may have not realized before. Secondly, it also takes you out of your normal routine, which sometimes can remind you of things that you don't want to remember and you want to kind of break out into a new way of behavior and way of being. So it's always good to do like new things, new projects and not to be afraid of that because that ultimately naturally just by its nature will get you to grow. Yeah. And keeps you young and is good for your brain and your body. And also

sort of those, you know, I always talk about the six pillars of healing, but it's really like the six pillars of health. And this has been key for grief healing, but I think is key for any kind of healing. It's creativity, which you have been talking about community, right? Being with other people who get it and who understand and who are walking a similar path. Being in nature is really key to regulating your nervous system and staying grounded in your body. Some form of spiritual practice, which, you know, doesn't mean have to be religious, but kind of, it could be meditation, journaling attuning to your you know soul self your high self exploring different meditation practices or guided meditations you know your angels your guides whatever it is it does I mean

and maybe religion if that's something that you subscribe to and then like all the cognitive restructuring of like challenging your assumptions learning to speak your truth building new habits I don't know if I said all six, but there's, but like there are these different components that I think you're mentioning and creating daily rituals around that. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And have you ever spoken to Dr. Lisa Miller? She'd be a great guest if she hasn't been already. Yeah. I know her. I don't know if she's been on the show, but yeah, we've spoken at conferences together through the years. Yeah. And so she basically has seen, you know, they do a lot of research on spirituality and how that impacts the brain and what they found is that people who are spiritual

and it doesn't have to be a religion it just really is having a relationship with something higher than yourself or at least acknowledging that there's something else and people who do have more of a spiritual inclination or practice are protected from depression their brain is protected from depression based on actual studies and research that's pretty yeah that makes sense to me as one who woke up reawakening. I was, I was awake as a little kid, but it got pounded out of me, but I, I woke back up in my early forties and I can attest to that. You know, I've heard you say something that I think is really important in terms of love and relationships too, is, and we've been talking about self-care and self-love and recognizing how lovable you are and how worthy

you are and how beautiful you are, regardless of what anyone else, you know, whatever's being reflected in the collective back to you, right? So I've heard you say that self-care and self-love are the foundations of any meaningful relationship. So I wanted you to dive a little deeper into that. Well, if you love yourself and you care about yourself, just like when you have a relationship, you are accepting yourself in your entirety. You're accepting your authentic self. And typically when you are around somebody who loves you, you're going to be a lot more comfortable being authentic. And I think that authenticity is really what comes to mind when it comes to relationships. When you are authentic, you are able to show up for people. You're able to express

yourself from a place that is not, um, maybe not as resentful because you're, you're speaking your truth. So you don't, you feel good. You know, you feel like you're able to say it in a way that's just real. And so I think that really any relationship that is really strong and lasting comes from a place of authenticity. I think you're absolutely right. And you can, it's funny because I was just speaking, I did an event with Lindsay Jill Roth, who wrote a book about the 250 questions. It's called Romance and Practicalities. And she created these questions as she was falling in love and dating this guy to really get to know yourself authentically,

what you really want in life and love and what the other person does and really get to know each other on a new level. But one of the things I loved about her story in reference to what you're saying is that she was someone who was not lucky in love. She realizes retrospectively now because she was bending herself into pretzels

to be whatever she thought, whatever guy she wanted to date wanted. And she wasn't being her true authentic self. She wasn't even starting there. But what ended up happening is she meets this guy. She's really attracted to him. But like on their second or third date, he finds out he's getting transferred back to the UK from New York where they were.

And now it seems like there's no way this relationship is going to go anywhere, but she really likes him. So she's just like, screw it. You know, I'm just going to be my true self. This isn't going to go anywhere. And in being her true, authentic self and showing up as her true, authentic self, he fell in love with that person. She's got the chills. That's so cute. Yeah. And she continued to fall in love with him.

And it was all because the stakes were so low to her at that time that she accidentally ended up creating this beautiful love story by being her true, authentic self. And I think that's such a cool testimony to that. You know, there's so many stories like that. And you're absolutely right. I mean, I've been with my husband for 25 years. And I often say the poor guy has been married to at least seven different women in that time. Yeah. And each time I'm like, I change the rules. You know, it's not just that I'm changing. It's like I am now expecting different things from him. and each time I've been like, I don't know if he's going to be able to hang with this. Like this is not our standard operating procedure. This doesn't even seem like something he would be willing. And each time so far, he rises to the occasion.

And I think that's the only reason we're still married. I mean, he's changed the rules a few times too. Not as many as I have, but I think that's part of being an authentic relationship is like honoring your needs, not only honoring them, getting clear in the first place, being internally directed rather than externally directed about what isn't serving, what do I really want? What do I need here? Who am I now? What's changing? And then in relation to that, what do I need over here

in our interaction, in our exchanges, not only reactively to how they're showing up, but proactively, right. And being authentic about that. Yeah. I think that's really more likely to find the right partner because if you're bending over and pretzeling or whatever you know to try to get like the wrong person to like you then it's not it's it might not be your person you're they're having a relationship with an illusion yeah and eventually your authentic person's going to show up and then watch out the wheels start to come off is there anything that i forgot to ask you before we close or anything else that you think is important to talk about I don't know if there's anything I don't even remember, like what we were supposed to talk

about. But I think this is a great conversation. I just think that really what it comes down to is know thyself. I guess that that would be the perfect thing is really to once you really understand yourself, know yourself, become aware of yourself. And sometimes that doesn't have to be it's not always roses. Like sometimes it's going through the really difficult times of just being honest and truthful, it's about really tuning in and listening. And so, you know, you could do it, like we said, you know, through meditation, through connecting with nature, sometimes nature reflects to you, you really feel a lot of like a connection and it helps your nervous system so that you're able to start to read your body and connect with your messages

because your body's always speaking to you and your body's kind of like an aspect of our subconscious mind, your subconscious mind, which is connected to your higher self. So the best way is really to give yourself those rituals like you had mentioned, and having those daily, so that it's not something that you're just doing once in a while, something daily that you're doing that you're feeding your soul and your body and yourself as a normal habit. Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your wisdom. If people want to learn more about your offerings and explore them. Where should they go? Thank you so much, Laura, for having me. And basically michelleorbits.com is my website. You'll find my Instagram, which is at thewholesome

lotusfertility. I'm most active on that of all social media. I just happen to love Instagram. I get a kick out of the reels too, you know, so that's usually where I hang out. And yeah, and I have a fertility podcast. If you know anybody who's trying to conceive, that's like my thing. It's called the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. And I've had Laura on there speaking about intimacy and the importance of that. Years ago, I should probably have you back on. But yeah, thank you. Of course, we'll put it all in the show notes. And yeah, I hope you found this conversation inspiring and hopeful, because that's really the intention that this is an opportunity for reinvention, regrounding, recalibration,

stepping into the pause to discover who you're going to be in your most empowered, authentic, beautiful, gorgeous, hot self in the second half of life. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you for watching.