Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - Your Cells Are Listening: Women's Health, HPV & the Healing Power of Story - Dr. Elizabeth Goldspink

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

If 80% of women have HPV, why aren’t we talking about it?This conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Goldspink cracked wide open what so many of us feel but don’t say: women are lonely, overwhelmed, and often dismissed by a system that wasn't built with us in mind.We talk cervical health, perimenopause, trauma, and the stories our bodies hold onto when no one is listening. Spoiler alert: your nervous system is screaming for rest, not hustle. And you’re not that good at doing it all alone — none of us are.This one’s for the women walking each other home. 💥Follow Dr. Elizabeth Goldspink:@drgoldspink@wellex Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back in for another episode of Unlone. I'm Dr. Jody Carrington, and I am so briggin, glad you're here because this one, this one, this one, this one, Dr. Elizabeth Goldspank is joining us today. And I didn't see this one coming, okay? When I read the intro, this was Patty Leverett Reed, who there is an episode, I'm going to say it again when I open the show, but she suggested she knows Elizabeth well, and they'd been on a, show or something together and she said you really need Elizabeth on your podcast and I was like I don't know that I do and I read over the things and I was like yeah okay and she said no really like she's brilliant and so listen this is an episode that's that warms up and at the end like I just was so fired up by the end of this episode because she just kept she's gentle she's kind and she's

measured and she's brilliant so dig into this one she I'll tell you a little bit about her. So she's a naturopathic doctor, researcher and founder of a wildly successful company called Wellex, a clinically backed supplement brand addressing often overlooked women's health concerns. So she has nearly two decades of experience and she combines evidence-based natural medicine with cutting-edge health science to help high-performing professionals feel energized, hormonally balanced, and mentally clear without burning out. She is currently leading a Health Canada-approved human clinical trial on the regression of abnormal cervical cells, one of the first of its kind in North America. And I think, so she's a graduate of the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine and has completed advanced training in mind-body medicine at Harvard and is a published researcher and frequent expert guest on programs like CityLine and Breakfast Television.

Her work centers on bridging the gap between science and empowerment, helping women reclaim agency in their health with clarity, compassion, and compassion. clinical rigor. And I have to tell you, like I, we speak a lot in this episode about the, the connection to our bodies and communities when we're trying to heal and how none of this is supported by traditional medicine in a way that it needs to in a world that's so noisy. So she blew me away. I got to tell you, with a lot of her, her conversation today. And I just, I mean, I took notes. I was circling things. We tape this episode the day after I turned 50, and I was sort of like humming and honing about that. And she's like, oh, listen, you need to understand. And she'll tell a story in this episode about, you know, a Japanese culture that really doesn't step into sort of some of the second half of your life with anything other than considering it, the renewal years.

And she reminded me today that your cells are listening. Everything you speak and say to yourself, your cells are listening. So be careful. enjoy and um this one this one this one left me thinking well welcome back welcome in to another episode of Un Lonely today. Listen, I need you to buckle up because we're going to have a conversation for women about women, about loneliness. And women and loneliness are something that, you know, we talk a lot around here about, mostly because we've never had this much access to resources or research, but we've never felt so isolated in our journeys as women, as mothers,

as certainly as aging women. I can attest to that, new to the 50 Club. And, and you know, and And I am not loving it and loving it all at the same time. Okay, so that's probably for another episode. Now, I met this woman today through the connection of Patty Leverett Reed. You've heard her episode. If you haven't, she's a friggin rock star. So go back and listen to that one. She said to me, Joe, do you really need to meet Dr. Elizabeth Goldspink?

And I said, really? And I took, we did some look, a look at her work. She's a naturopathic doctor, easy for me to say, researcher, founder of something called Wellex, and I'm going to put all the links in the show notes here, but a phenomenal company, a clinically backed supplement brand addressing sort of often overlooked women's health concerns. And we've just had a little bit of a chance to catch up before the start of the show. And I just, I'm so interested right now as we step into this place of health care. And, you know, we're keeping in mind we're in Canada, the resources that we have, all of those things compared to what women, you know, are up against globally in this moment. It is, this is such a lonely place.

You know, you said to me, 80% of women will test positive for HPV. And then the ramifications of that on their body are often not talked about clearly and freely. And you've done, you've, you've done phenomenal research in this way. So tell me everything. Why did you start in this space, first of all? I want to know the backstory. I want to know everything about Elizabeth before we get into Dr. Gold Spinks' brilliance. Okay?

Thank you, Jody. I'm really excited to be here. I love your show and the work that you're doing. So thank you for having me. And so the way that this all started was actually by no intention of my own. It was about 17 years ago. My very best friend was told that she had HPV. HPV is extremely common.

Up to 80% of the population will be diagnosed with, you know, HPV or have HPV. So it is the most common sexually transmitted virus. And it in most people causes no manifestations. So you don't know you have it? That's right. And unless you get, you know, an HPV test, which has just been unrolled across Canada and in the States last year and in Canada this year, we're now doing HPV testing. Prior to that, we were just doing PAP tests. But HPV testing is more specific and it catches more abnormalities in PAP testing. So it's actually a great initiative that the governments in the states in Canada have ruled out. But what can happen in a certain subset of people, so there's high-risk HPV strains,

and those can lead to cervical cancers in women. And in men, it's leading to rapidly increasing rates of oropharyngeal cancer, so cancers of the throat, the tonsil, the oral pharynx. Yes, and that is, in some demographics, those rates are actually rising beyond cervical cancer rates in women. And a lot of people aren't aware of that. And so you'll see a lot of men, typically over the age of 40, who will be getting these oropharyngeal cancers that used to be rare. And it's the HPV virus that is, you know, implicated in the disease progression of that. Exactly. Got it. Yeah. Got it. Wow. So 17 years ago, my best friend had rapidly progressing

abnormal cervical changes. So she went, she got her pap smear. She was told, okay, abnormal, pap smears of undetermined significance, went back several months later, was told, you know, it's it's now sin one. So cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia level one, but back six months later. Easy, super easy. Level two. So that means not awesome, but not super bad yet. One is kind of like lower of the range. That's right. So it means you have these abnormal cells on your cervix that are changing from normal, you know, on that spectrum towards, you know, pre-canceristic cancer, but they're level one. Then she went back, they were level two. So once you hit level three, you know, you're looking at, okay, now you're on the cusp of cervical cancer. And, and,

once you hit level, you know, two or one that's persisting, there's often interventions that are, you know, that are employed. So you might see something like a cone biopsy or conization when they literally cut out a part of the cervix or, you know, there's cryotherapy, there's like freezing or ablation. So, you know, removing some aspect of the cervix in some way is what's done. And so, you know, and women typically as they're on this continuum are told to watch and wait, That's the standard of care, right? So you go and you get your pap smear and, you know, it's abnormal and you're told to watch and wait. Yeah, don't panic.

That's right. And then, and, you know, sadly still now to a large degree, there's not any guidance on nutrition on, you know, how immune function can actually help you to optimize your cell function on a cervical level and help help those cells regress back to normal. There's no recommendations on lifestyle. But of course, we have data to support it. all these things. We have data on, you know, nutrition, on immune optimization, on lifestyle. So it's an unfortunate lost opportunity. And in a way, it's a microcosm for a lot of things in women's health, right? Sort of a lost opportunity in terms of these gaps that exist in women's healthcare where we have an opportunity to really turn things around early and prevent the need

for invasive procedures, not just with cervical health, but on so many different aspects of women's health, right? And so... Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say it speaks to a need of like filling gaps in a much bigger picture than just this. I would agree. And I, so Peter Adia's book, Outlive is something that I've talked a lot about around here, mostly because my physician, you know, when I stepped into sort of paramenopause and had, I mean, I needed a blood transfusion, my hebo glum was at 50, we couldn't stop the bleeding, all the things were happening as things were changing. And so, you know, he's, we're like, like, let's have a conversation about, you know, what do we need to be looking at earlier in our lives

instead of just treating, you know, we knew for a long time that my iron levels were dipping, the A1C was going, all these things were changing, but it's like, it's okay, it's okay, you're pre-everything, so let's not to, you know, worry about it. But I think this is such an interesting shift in a time where we have access to so much more information, what we do about it. There seems, as you said, gaps in the system between, okay, so this is good, but it's not flagging anybody really yet. So we're just sort of waiting.

And is this true? This is true also in obviously in this space. We should circle back to how this relates to women's health, you know, largely. We can come back to menopause, for example, and some of these other things. So in the case of, you know, my friend, it's kind of circling back down into this cervical microcosm, she was told, watch and wait, there's nothing actionable you can do, you know. And she had this, it was a conization procedure that was scheduled for about five, five and a months out from this day where she called me and said, I need your help. I know you're studying

medicine and I know that you know you have access to these doctors who focus on what I'm going through. Could you consult with them? And, you know, you have access to PubMed. Could you see what's going on? What are other countries doing? What are they doing in Japan? What about medicinal mushrooms? Where else is there something I can do actionable that's actionable while I'm waiting for this colonization procedure? So I did. I contacted, you know, there's this doctor in Portland, Oregon named Tori Hudson. There was another doctor in New York. They focused on this work and they published research on it. So I consulted with them and I consulted with PubMed and I pulled together this protocol for her that incorporated, you know, what is it optimal immune supporting diet lifestyle look like? And we pulled in some evidence-based supplements that were used, things like, you know, folic acid that had showed, you know, some optimization of cervical cells compared to, you a placebo in a human clinical trial, you know, rishi mushrooms, a few different nutritional things that you could take in supplement for them. And when she wanted for her conization

procedure, not just a follow-up to look at the cervix, but for her conization procedure, her OB-beguine said, your cervix looks clear. This is very strange because it was rapidly progressing abnormalities. And now it looks clear. So this is strange. And, you know, she had this acetic acid acid solution she applied that enables you to visualize the cervix more clearly or the abnormalities on the cervix more clearly that looked clear she did a repeat pap smear that came back a few days she called my friend that was also clear at that point she called me and said this is strange what's going on and i said oh i'd love to send you you know what tory hudson and what this other physician are doing and this this research that i found and what my friend was doing and i sent it

altar. She was like, oh, this is fascinating. I actually never seen any of this before. And, you know, it'd be nice if you could make this publicly available. So that was the start of my sort of pivot, because I obviously never intended to, to focus on this direction. But through that, we made all of this available online. And, you know, down the road later, we had a realization that instead of, you know, spending $300, $400 to buy 10 things, we could make this super affordable and find a lab to put all of these things into one in their therapeutic form. And so we ended up doing that. And that was what, in the beginning of Wellex, which is a women's health brand that I founded from the inception of this story.

And yeah, and what this taught me is that. Elizabeth, that's amazing. Thanks, Joanie. I mean, okay, so what it taught you, I want to know that too. And then I, you know, I have a question more about Well, X. But okay, so tell me, like, again, this is the inception of this beautiful company that you've then now just blown up. But what was that early lesson? And what, you know, what, yeah. And I mean, you know, the funny thing is it sort of blew itself up. You know, I mean, there was this sharing of information and sharing from my friend and sharing from that of a guy. But actually, it was just the fact that women were, they started storytelling. They started sharing. We don't have really forums anymore to my knowledge. But back then there was these forums. And my friend would share her story. And then women would start the protocol and then they'd share their story. And it wasn't like we were paying anybody to talk about this or that we were monetizing it in any way. But.

It was the storytelling of the women and the sharing and the listening and the, there was something therapeutic and, you know, emotional work that was done in that that really also led to healing. And I think cervical health and other aspects of women's health, there's a deep stigma attached to it. Women don't want to have these stories. You don't want to go to a dinner conversation and say, hey, I got an abnormal papyr. You know, I've got HIV. But if 80% of people have it, why are we not talking about it, right? And the talking and the community, that really can change outcomes because then people, you know, they feel empowered and they feel like they're not alone and they feel seen.

And so what it taught me is, you know, ourselves are listening. And sometimes in addition to these empowering things we can do on physical planes, there's also something deeply healing about this deep emotional work, the sharing, the storytelling, and the community. Tell me more about that. because I want to know. So, I mean, Wellex is obviously founded on, you know, empirically supported data and, you know, you've done this beautiful job of sort of combining naturopathic medicine and the data that's irrefutable to come together. And so tell me a little bit about that company. So not just specific to this one cervical solution, but there's many things. This is huge. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, for example, for the cervix and working with clients afterwards

when I came into clinical practice, when we began doing, of course, we would do all the actionable things we could do in terms of nutrition, optimizing for immunity lifestyle. But when we actually started to work around, you know, some of these more energetic elements, so the cervix I came to find, and I never would have found unless I experiencedly worked with women, but it's really energetically, symbolically linked to boundaries, trust, identity. It's a literal and a metaphorical threshold between the outside world and the deepest part of yourself, right? Amen. And so, in many traditions view it as a gateway and it's tied to your voice, your truth, your

self-expression. And I've seen the cervix as a storehouse for trauma. So, you know, there's many women who have, you know, sexual trauma or medical trauma from, you know, uncomfortable pelvic exams or uncomfortable discussions with, you know, with physicians. Yeah, or birth complications. And I'm guessing. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And even something as simple as a pap smear or a cervical procedure, like a culpaws, can be something so basic can really reactivate shame or a sense of vulnerability in women,

especially if they've experienced any kind of that, you know, trauma, lack of consent. And so what I found in this work is that when women begin doing the emotional work of setting boundaries, speaking up, you know, sharing stories, releasing that old shame, I would see a parallel in their physical outcomes. So I would see a parallel in these hard and fast, tangible outcomes, like, you know, shifts in their cell markers, shifts in ultimately, you know, we measure six months out typically, but shifts in pap smears. And, you know, it would be, you'd be doing these therapies and you'd see the cells regress alongside this really physical emotional work. Oh, and I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with this. I talk about this all the time.

So the body keeps the score best of Andercolk's work. is, you know, sort of the trauma Bible for me as a psychologist. And I think that, you know, oftentimes, to your point, we never, we are so far away from understanding, I think, you know, medicine 2.0 in combination with what happened to the neurophysiology. I know you're probably familiar with Gabor Matte's work, you know, where we talk a lot about women in particular, you know, how so much more of the experiences that seem to be psychosomatic. in so many ways. And, you know, we talk about things like, you know, I mean, you're just kind of being silly. This is depression. This is, um, a fibromyalgia. This is something that, you know,

like we really can't put our finger on it. There's something going on here, but we're not sure. So we try to treat it traditionally with medicine and the pain management and control all of those things. And rarely, we ask this question all the time in psychology, which I think in medicine is, is the biggest downfall is what is wrong here instead of what happened here. I love that. And I think you've highlighted something else that you stand for, Gabor Matte stands for, I stand for. We're not talking something woo-woo here. This is not about magic. We're talking about biology and safety, right? When your nervous system feels safe, your immune system responds. And when your body feels heard, it stops screaming at you with symptoms. Yes. Yes. And it's like a kid. So I often talk about this like, you know, when you, you know, we were just talking about this off, you know, both of us have kids, young kids, and when they're like, mom, mom, and if you're busy on the phone, like these days, we're completely distracted most of the time, they don't just sort of wait for us to let the distraction go, right? There is this sense that they're going to turn it up louder and

louder. And if we say just a minute or here's some goldfish, that's only going to work for so long until they start to throw, punch their sister, right? And that's basically how your body works, is that it's going to give you these little clues that something's not quite right here. So if you look at it early, then the meltdown doesn't ensue. And sometimes we're too overwhelmed, distracted, all the things are happening that we don't have the capacity to look inward. So then pretty soon, our body was like, you know what, fuck you. I now I'm going to have to turn it up so loud. And I think I love this work. And how do you think it's being interpreted, welcomed into sort of the traditional medicine community? How hard is it for women to get

their voices heard. Are we still at the infancy in those things? Do see shifts happening in this space? I still think there's a lot of room for improvement. Yes, good. Because people say this all the time. We're doing good. No, we're not. It's 2025. Exactly. I think part of it is just, you know, the time constriction. If you've got seven minutes to sit with a patient, how much can you really listen? How much can you be present? How much can you hear what's beneath the words and help them to, you know, take action on that, provide resources on that, right, to direct them to where they can, you know, receive healing that's beyond just a prescription. And I think, you know, sometimes if we're, if we're not heard or, you know, worse yet,

we're told to stay silent or to endure or to wait quietly. Our cells are like little gatekeepers, right, and the gate tightens. And I think when we have a chance to really speak to, you know, to be in groups, to be heard, we begin to trust ourselves again, right? And the gate opens. And that's truly where the healing begins. So I think there's an opportunity there for more information to be available, more resources, more community and conversation around some of this stuff where the information is there. We have it available to us, but we just need to get it into the hands of the women who need it. Isn't that true, right? This isn't, I think, in this particular generation, an issue of

not having enough information. That's right. It's what we do with it, how we disseminate it. And I think that to order, like, so you've said, you know, you've witnessed in your clinical practice and your research, the emotional stories behind the lab results. And I really love that, Elizabeth, because I think so much about this is the narrative work that so often doesn't happen in traditional, you know, the end of 300. And we're looking at P values to try to decide whether this medication is effective or if this

research, this clinical trial is going to move forward. You know, we look at the hard numbers all the time. And I think this, the qualitative nature of how we understand how people respond is going to be much more harder to come by because we're becoming so efficient with AI and numbers. And, you know, the scary shift for me is that we're, we're really going into this place where it's so efficient to get information quickly on systems that are built typically by white, straight, able-bodied humans and we're getting algorithms that allow us to get things done very quickly in this world where we're over or underwhelmed with resources and what I hear you say and what I hear you know every other guru in this space say like Gabor and Bessel and I can name you a thousand

others what we need is more human connection if we want the people we love the most to not suffer I think that's spot on yeah and I'll like two more things number one clinical trials often exclude women. A lot of women don't realize that. That a lot of these clinical trials, even on diseases that affect women more than men, are still done on men. So we're utilizing this data for treatment and our protocols that was done on men for women, right? Even cell studies. A lot of these animal cell studies, pre-clinical data often not done on female cells. So it's so important that we change that. And women are less likely to receive, you know, pain relief, leave for to have their symptoms dismissed as stress related than men as well, which is interesting.

So in the autoimmunity community, for example, it takes women about four years longer to receive a diagnosis than men because things are dismissed as. Four years! Yes. Stop. On average, four years longer for a diagnosis for autoimmune disease in women. Oh, my God. Okay.

And so I think, you know, often clinically we're, we are focusing more on surveillance. over support, right? We're surveillance over these scans, over these labs. And often we need this balance of, you know, surveillance. Yes, absolutely. But we also need support, right? We need guidance on emotional processing support where that's relevant, you know, and in particular in areas of stigmatization like cervical health, HIV, right?

And we need more guidance on things that are actionable that we have good evidence for, you know, in terms of what can we do to optimize nutrition for this type of a condition? What can we do to optimize the immune system function? Different lifestyle tips, right? More of this preventative, action-oriented, empowering information that can be supplied. And just when you're focusing only on surveillance, you're creating a feeling of health assist, right? And when you're rounding it out with this processing, emotional support, at least providing

people with resources and putting them in the right direction, that's where you enable healing at a deeper level. Okay. So, all right, so just to sort of pull that together, because I think that's, that's, those things are important, I think, to highlight. So if you were, you know, you had to pick your top five of the things that we need to be doing yesterday in terms of orchestrating those of us in this health care field, human services field. What we're looking at is things like you're seeing massive evidence around creating communities. Yeah? Group work. Taking a look at really what we're, what we're, what we're, how we're, how we're, feeding and speaking to our bodies. Tell me, tell me some of the things, you know, that those specifically, have you seen things that people are implementing? Where can we start? Where would people, if I'm really struggling, you know, with my health and my disconnection from the health system, what are some of the things I want to be doing today to start to think about how I'm going to be

here longer? Yeah, that's a great question. A lot of the stuff we're talking about is beyond what you can do in this moment, right? We're talking about, you know, shifts to the system. We're talking about support being offered, you know, and conversations being initiated and you being directed to resources that are sort of beyond you. But I think something important that I think is actionable for each of us today. And this is a rising because last night I did a, I was invited to speak on the topic of perimenopause and menopause at a retreat. And yeah, it was awesome. And I think a lot of the women who were there, you know, the conversation started out talking about, you know, labs that you, you know, when you know, you're in menopause, what the abnormal labs would look like and what the symptoms are. And a lot of things that make, you know, I was like, what do I feel in my body right now? I feel fear. I feel scared. I feel like all these abnormalities and all these symptoms and brain fog and, you know, vasovascular symptoms, hot flashes. And what would I like to feel? You know, I would like to feel moving through perimenopause and as I move into menopause. And, you know,

I would like to feel empowered. And I drew some parallels between, you know, Asian cultures. And in particular, Japan, how they view menopause versus how we in the West view menopause. And it's quite striking because in Japan, for example, they talk about menopause as the renewal years. The renewal years. How beautiful. A time of recalibration. A time of resetting your intention, where you're going to place your, you know, your power, what choices you're going to make,

choices you're going to make, what you're going to focus on for this next chapter of life. And they don't even have a word for hot flashes. They have a word called no boost. I'm sure I'm butchering the translation, but it means a feeling of warmth. And so just the lens through which they view. The narrative shift. Yes. Like even as you said that in my body, Elizabeth, because I mean, we started this. I just told you this, this will air later, but I turned 50 yesterday. And I'm pumping the break so hard because of the narrative that is like, all right, it is nothing but like I said to my husband this morning like holy shit like we're running out of time we got to get stuff done and then just even as you speak about it in that way like no this is

the renewal years this is where you're going to be at your best I feel the shift in my body yeah right and it's that shift in your body that's where we can all start today right because if we're so focused on what's external to us that we can't change about the you know the symptoms that we're feeling about the potential, you know, worsening of these states and these conditions, then your cells are listening. It feels really disempowering. But if you take time each day to try to reframe, tell yourself a better story, see it through a different lens. You know, the Japanese example is the lens through which they're viewing menopause, right? Which makes me feel really empowered as a Western woman, especially after, you know, I spent an hour listening to a fear-based story. And I think we can pull,

we can all pull that in, you know, whatever form we choose for that to take. So in my case, I do, I wake up and I do a 15-minute meditation every day. And in that meditation, I make myself feel how I want to feel, which is empowered. I tell myself that we feel a sense of vitality, of vibrance, of I tell myself a really good story in that meditation. And you know what? I come out and I believe it. And it makes my day better. And so that's an actionable thing that we can all do that has a transformational effect. I love that. And I think, I mean, again, your cells are listening.

And I thank you so much for that, because that is such a great reminder of just how we speak to ourselves. And I think there's such a pushback. And I guess maybe this is, I'm outing myself here, but like, you know, again, to this woo-woo concept of not being sort of clear in the data. And I got to say, like, I'm so. new to this game around energy and, you know, the universe and the connection of spirits and the multiple generations of cells that are, you know, sort of transferred into our bodies on all the

women, all the men, all the humans that have come before us. And I just, I'm so interested in this idea of being still in your body. And I can't remember somebody said that to me, you know, like if meditation is a scary word for you, all I want you to do is think about being still for five minutes, 10 minutes, right? 15 minutes. If you can swing it, start at five, start at five. Because what happens is if you think about this, we're the first generation of people where everybody has access to us, 24 hours a day. Very few of us charge our phone away from our bed. We go to sleep with our Apple watches on or like charging by or whatever. The accessibility to your nervous system to the world is so something we're not designed for.

And unless, I think the greatest intervention in this next generation is going to be rest, not hustle. Absolutely. I think that is so well said. And I've been listening to Eckhart Toley, and I've listened to his books many times over the years, but I've just come back to some of his teachings on, you know, he's got this book called A New Earth. and he talks about exactly that.

It's just taking this time to get back to a state of silence where you can just feel like you're fully present and not distracted by all the noise of everyday life. And just bringing yourself back to that place intentionally, even if it's five minutes a day, but just bringing yourself back, enables you to eventually not just enter that state when you're trying to be there,

you know, when you're sitting on a mat or when you're in a meditation, but it enables you to bring that state of presence to your entire day, to your entire day, to your entire state of being. And people feel that too, you know, as a clinician when you're sitting with a patient, as a mother when you're with your child, or, you know, with your aging parents

or that state of presence that arises from you intentionally, you know, sitting in silence and freeing yourself with distraction and just being completely present, that has such a healing impact, both, you know, on yourself personally, but on everybody around you. Yeah.

And I love that. You know, like if the motivation isn't big enough to do it for yourself, you know, if you're not okay, the people you love don't stand a chance. And I think that particularly as a provider, as a clinician, as a mom, the, this concept of self-care has become so bastardized, I think, because it's not the idea of, you know, take a bubble bath and, you know, drink some kale. Because you can do all that shit. And if you're doing it in a disregulated body, it is a waste of time. And so the idea. of, you know, checking off boxes. I did this.

I did my workout today. I, you know, I drank my 18 glasses of water. You know, all of those things that we're trying. We've done historically for women in particular and men, I think any human, to sort of try to, like, here's the things you need to do to be able to be healthy. I think we've really come off in this place of being like, okay, I'm check, check, check, check. But I didn't sleep. I am racing from one activity to another because I feel like so much. And here's what I thought a lot about Elizabeth, because,

the idea from me, you know, I just lost my father to dementia. We buried him two months ago. And I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I always louded the fact that I got my work ethic from him, you know, like I wasn't just going to get a degree. I'm going to get, I'm going to get a PhD, and I'm going to be the best that's ever been, and I'm going to do 50,000 million things and watch me. And I, it is, it is a complete full-time job to have the conversation in, my body about it's okay to rest it because the note has always been rest means lazy and what i think we forget is they are they one generation away from the fact that if you didn't work solidly during daylight hours then you were lazy because you had no access to anybody after that when my dad came

home nobody could get him and now nobody cannot get me so there needs to be a change in that narrative if we're going to continue to be as successful as our forefathers and our four mothers because they lived in a completely, in just one generation, a completely different neurophysiological experience that I don't think we're talking about enough. Absolutely. I agree. And I think also, you know, especially as we're seeing women enter perimenopause and menopause, we're seeing so much anxiety, right? We're seeing all these mood shifts, sort of ups and downs and, you know, in some cases, depression, in many cases, anxiety, right? As we're entering that life phase, and what's the number one thing we can do to shift that, right?

It's a regulated nervous system, right? If we have a regulated nervous system and we're taking the time to do what you said, which is slow down, get rid of a lot of these distractions, stop telling ourselves this story about how, you know, and I tell myself this story and I'm trying not to. I'm so busy, I have so much going on, I've got this to-do list of, you know, 30 things, and, you know, at some point, I realized, well, that's a really bad story. I'm going to change that. I have chosen this path. I have chosen this life.

I have chosen those 30 things on my to-do list. And taking the victim out of it and putting myself in the driver's seat of, this is the life I've chosen. And I'm grateful for it. And I'm going to choose to slow down now. And I'm going to choose to maybe take 20% of the stuff off this list and not do them. And that's going to be okay. But something about both the reframing, you know, seeing it through a different lens, the slowing down, and the empowerment angle of, I chose this. Really, for me, that's what caused a significant shift in my nervous system, away from this feeling of like hustling and low-grade anxiety to a feeling of peacefulness.

Oh, I love that. And you're much softer at your approach than I would in my perspective. practice because I'll tell you the title of my next book is you're not that good and it is a liberation for the broken, the brilliant and the bone tired. And it is the, I think, message that we need to be very clear about in this season is that this is not about somebody else. This is about you and you're not that good. You are not that good to undo multiple generations of abuse neglect and trauma. You are not that good to single-handedly be responsible for how your babies are going to show up in this world you're not that good to keep your marriage together all by yourself you are not that good so stop

trying and it is not a criticism it's a liberation because when we when we recognize that right when we give permission what happens is your nervous system follows and i've seen so many people say to me really i can't no stop all i need you to do is the next best right kind thing that's what i love that I love that. And a lot of us feel broken, right? And because of the system, the societal expectations that we live in, right? And I always say to women, you know, you're not broken. You're carrying a system that never fully saw you.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And you're rewriting the story for our daughters. You're rewriting the story for our sons. And I think, again, that is a shift for me that becomes really powerful in this space of like, this isn't just trying to survive a, you know, misogynistic. patriarchal system that we're just trying to sort of navigate, it is the rewriting of it that

becomes really important. So that's why, you know, banding together with people who have a voice, having conversations, creating community, having a platform where you speak. You know, this is how I have conversations about, you know, how are you away from your children so much? Or, you know, do you feel guilty about those things? Absolutely not. Because if I, I cannot tell them how to be amazing, I have to show them. And so if I want a better world for them, then I have to create that space for me so that I can show them how to do it. You can't tell them, right? And I think that oftentimes that is the burden of mothers in this season is to hang on to the rural clarity that was so beautiful when you were born just one generation ago, right?

If you showed up in this world with a vagina, here was your job. And there's so much less anxiety when I know exactly what I'm supposed to do. it has zero freedom, okay? So in one generation, we've switched into tons of freedom. You can do anything you want. Oh, my God, you could, you're the CEO of your own company. You can have babies if you want. You can have them by yourself.

You can do it without what doesn't matter. Love who you love, huh? The cost of that is a lack of real clarity. So we're not supposed to, we don't know who we are, right? Like, if I am the CEO of my own company and I've got a PhD and I can change the world and I can travel and I can do all these kind of things, oh, just a second. Am I still expected to be at the PTA? Yes.

I mean, with conversations with women, I respect very much, like my mother, my mother-in-law, like, okay, so when are you going to slow down? When are you going to, you're going to quit now, obviously, because Aaron's got a good job and we're going to, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not. And I'll tell you why, because we're in a completely different season, right? Then you were one generation ago. And I think the clarity around relationship connection, the fact that, I mean, I, you probably know this quote, but it's my favorite of all time, so I say it on. like every episode, is Ram Dass's words when he said, you know, we are all just here walking each other home. And I think if you're in a position to be a walker for somebody and we all are, that becomes the holiest work on the planet. And it has to be done from a regulated nervous

system perspective. So you matter more to me than anybody else. Full stop. And when we consider that, not as selfishness, but as the necessity to rewrite the scripts of the next season for our children, It gives us, I think, even more permission to believe we're not that good. Only the next best right kind thing. I love that. I love the title of the book. I think that it is just so compelling and contains exactly what this generation needs to hear. And I think, you know, I see so many people with all these, you know, we'll call them bucket lists of things.

Here's all the things that I want to read and here's all the things I want to accomplish and work. And here's all the places I want to travel. And they expect that they should actually complete everything on all of those. bucket lists and and sometimes what I say to them it's almost like giving them the permission to reframe those buckets as rivers you know okay now that that's wonderful it's great that you have all these aspirations to do all of these things but the reality is we're confined by you know if you're 40 and you're gonna live to 80 you've got about 2,000 weeks left in your life and so the reality of

actually being able to accomplish all of those things to a meaningful degree might actually be inhibiting you. So how about if we view these as rivers and we pluck from them what delights us along the way as opposed to thinking of them as fixed bucketless items that we need to check off on every list and sometimes that just allows people

the freedom to think, oh, yeah, I can lean into doing these things with passion and joy and I can drop the obligation to feeling like I need to do all of these things. isn't that that is beautiful and you know we're stepping I'm not sure when this is going to air but like we're just our kids are finishing up school we're stepping into the summer and I'm already like you know most people are like okay we need to do we need to do we need to do and we miss everything and I think that you know in any particular season that's so true so I oh my gosh I Dr. Goldsmith you are amazing I loved I loved everybody this conversation you know that you are such a a warrior for women's health and the work that you're that you're doing is just phenomenal. I'm going to put everything in the notes with respect to well-ex and where people can find you and follow up with your work. What's next for you?

What's the biggest focus now? Thank you. So we actually were approved two weeks ago for a human clinical trial with Health Canada. So we are finally on a level where we have the ability to fund a large-scale, statistically significant human clinical trial, showing that a lot of these things, which are not, we're not talking pharmaceuticals that we've patented here and are, you know, to make millions of dollars out of so it's cool to be just doing it because it's the right thing to do and empowering women but we are going to be embarking on that human clinical trial now we're in the recruitment phase now that we've got all of our approvals and my hope personally as a clinician as a researcher as somebody who's worked with thousands of women is that

we stop whispering about women's health from the hallways and we start speaking about it from center stage oh love it start speaking about it from center stage All right, girl. Well, I got you. I'm here. I will continue to scream from center stage. And I also hope we get to work together because I think you're just, you're going to change the world. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Alongside you, Jody. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, I loved it. Okay, everybody. Listen, share this episode to anybody you love because I think this is how we do it. We create community and have conversations about the things that sometimes they're not easy to talk about. So listen, drop your shoulders, wherever you are in this moment, get back into that body of yours.

You are loved by so many, and I am so glad you're here. Until next time, I'll meet you right back here. You know, the more we do this, people ask, why do you have to do the acknowledgement in every episode? I got to tell you, I've never been more grateful for being able to raise my babies on the land where so much sacrifice was made. And I think what's really critical in this process is that the ask is just that we don't forget. So the importance of saying these words at the beginning of every episode will always be of utmost importance to me and this team. So everything that we created here today for you happened. on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta.

It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made up of the Siksika, the Kainai, the Peking, the Titina First Nation, the Stony-Nakota First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3. Our job, our job as humans, is to simply acknowledge each other. That's how we do better, be better, and stay connected to the good. The Unloanly podcast is produced by three incredible humans. Brian Seaver, Taylor McGilvery, and Jeremy Saunders, all of Snack Lab productions. Our executive producer, my favorite human on this planet, is Marty Pillar. Soundtracks were created by Donovan Morgan, Unloney branded artwork created by Elliot Cuss.

big PR shooters, our Desvino and Barry Cohen. Our digital marketing manager is the amazing Shana Haddon. Our 007 secret agent from the Talent Bureau is Jeff Lowness. And emotional support is provided by Asher Grant, Evan Grant, and Olivia Grant. Go live! I am a registered clinical psychologist in Alberta, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended. as specific therapeutic advice.

The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, education, and the one thing I think we all need the most, a safe place to land in this lonely world. We're all so glad you're here. Thank you. Thank you.