Why Didn’t They Tell Us‪?‬ Leslie Randolph

“When we take time to slow down and really tap into our cyclical superpowers,” says Ashlee Sorensen, certified menstrual and hormone coach, “We start to realize that we are divinely created, that we have a purpose. And it looks different for everybody.” Every point in a woman’s monthly cycle heightens different traits and provides different opportunities, including the opportunity for her to retreat inward, introspect and receive what Ashlee calls “divine downloads” which help us better align with who she is and what she wants. The problem is, most of us are “rushing women,” competing in a man’s world, and are encouraged to push through our physical and emotional menstrual symptoms. Yet, by becoming more aware of our own cycles and those of our daughters, we can better communicate with each other, show compassion to each other when we need it, and help lift the stigma and mystery that still exists around menstruation. 
 
Some women may be in menopause or perimenopause while their daughters are menstruating, another major era in a woman’s life that continues to be shrouded in mystery and shame. Menopause, too, provides opportunities for evolution and rebirth, and for confronting issues that may be leftover from adolescence. Again, fostering awareness of these changes can help mothers parent better by establishing boundaries and taking time out for self.
 
Everyone’s “cycle strategy” for optimizing their hormones is unique, but Ashlee offers some general tips that can be helpful to all of us, including certain dietary restrictions and avoiding using birth control to manage period symptoms. Join the discussion to find out how to slow down, and tap into your body’s natural window for resetting and growth. 
 
Quotes
• “When I say it's going to help you find your purpose, it's because really the menstrual cycle is an initiatory process. It has the power to take us from where we are currently and transform us, renew us, every month.” (8:44 | Ashlee)
• “Your hormones literally affect everything and nobody's talking about it. We live in a man's world and we're just expected to function as such. And that's not fair because we're not men. That's why so many women feel overwhelmed and stressed out. And you know, like they aren't enough because we are women trying to survive in a man's world.” (18:51 | Ashlee) 
• “It's not a permission slip to check out on life. It's an opportunity for introspection.” (19:35 | Leslie) 
• “We can start paying attention to our needs, we can start doing the introspection that is needed for personal evolution, and we're not honoring it. And that's what I mean when I say like, oh, that's why so many women feel resentful. Because we're not taking that time to come inward. And there's literally a space designed in the menstrual cycle to allow you to do that.” (20:35 | Ashlee)
• “Perimenopause has been called the second puberty because our body is changing…if things weren't handled, like maybe you've got body image issues or, you know, issues around food, that stuff can creep back up when you're in perimenopause.” (35:41 | Ashlee)
• “How cool is it that we get to push the reset button? Quite literally, every month when we start a new bleed. What do I want to do differently this month?” (40:27 | Ashlee) 
 
Connect with Ashlee Sorensen:
A Bit Better Every Day podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-bit-better-every-day/id1563496116
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyashleenoel/?hl=en
Courses: https://ashleesorensen.podia.com/

Connect With Leslie:
Six Steps to Help Your Teen Cultivate Confidence: https://www.confidencecoachforgirls.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_coach_chronicles/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachChronicles/
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“Try as we may, we cannot control the world.” On today’s solo episode, Leslie shares a story of the time she played a sprite in her high school’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. As fondly as she recalls her time on stage, she also relives the panic she felt when something went terribly wrong during a live performance. It was her friend and fellow sprite Jessie’s reaction to the situation that taught her an invaluable lesson about self-confidence. Confidence is one of the most important tools a person can have in their toolkit and is required when doing everything from forging new friendships to starting new chapters in life. 
 
At its core, self-confidence is a matter of trusting oneself and one’s ability to cope. Contrary to popular belief, certain people aren’t born confident, while others are less lucky. Rather, self-confidence is a skill that anyone can build starting with our mindset and the way we talk to ourselves. 
 
Women especially need to work on this skill as we’re taught to believe we can’t handle adversity. Leslie offers tips on writing your own unique self-confidence script to help you start to build your confidence today!

Quotes
• “In my 40 years of lessons learned, this is one that I know for sure, my friends: life will never go exactly as planned.” (6:47 | Leslie)
• “While we can't control the world, we can always control who we are, and how we respond when things don't go as planned. And that starts with what we think.” (8:09 | Leslie) 
• “Notice how those thoughts of ‘Uh-oh,’ or ‘I don't know what to do.’ Those thoughts are roadblocks to action. They induce panic. They keep you stuck, confused, paralyzed–fill in your flavor of feeling.” (9:06 | Leslie)
• “Self-confidence is contingent upon self-trust.” (10:52 | Leslie)
• “Self confidence is available to all of us. Self confidence is not a genetic lottery ticket that some of us win at birth. Self confidence is a choice you make when you choose to love, trust and believe in you. And that's a choice you can always make.” (12:52 | Leslie) 
“We as women are conditioned to believe we can't, in fact, handle it.” (13:58 | Leslie)
“Why don't they tell us that the thoughts we think will determine how we show up on stage and in life?” (19:04 | Leslie)
 
Connect With Leslie:
Leslie's Self-Love Library: https://www.coachchronicles.com/lovelibrary
Six Steps to Help Your Teen Cultivate Confidence: https://www.confidencecoachforgirls.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_coach_chronicles/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachChronicles/
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“As moms, we’re big problem solvers,” says Kate O’Rourke, certified life coach and host of the Reclaim Your Life with Kate podcast, who joins Leslie on the show to discuss the increased rate of anxiety experienced by teens–particularly girls–in the wake of the pandemic. As a school psychologist, Kate is well versed in the issues anxious teens face as they return to school–including a major resistance to doing just that. 
 
As a single mother of two, she also understands the tendency for mothers to feel guilty about their children’s anxiety issues and their often ill-advised attempts to solve the problem. Recognizing that anxiety is a natural and necessary response, she explains the difference between a “normal” level of anxiety in response to, say, tests and grades, versus something more debilitating. 
 
As the ones who know their children best, parents should trust their instincts to tell them if something is off and whether it’s time to seek professional guidance for their kids. For their part, moms can practice modeling, validating the child’s feelings (something parents often fail to do when they think they’re being “supportive”), asking the child to gauge the severity of their perceived threat, and engaging in co-regulation. Teen girls, especially, are facing increasing pressure to be perfect, and parents should be honest about where those pressures are coming from. 
 
Your teen may not necessarily respond right away and that’s OK, too. The point is to take self-inventory without any of the shame or guilt moms too often place on themselves. 
 
Quotes
• “We all have anxiety. It's there for a purpose, right? It's for survival. If we weren't anxious about the noise that we heard in the bushes, if we didn't worry that it might be a tiger and act and run away, we're getting eaten by the tiger. So anxiety is a survival technique that is still necessary.” (8:26 | Kate) 
• “In situations where if you think that you would be nervous or anxious about something, it would be typical that your teen would be anxious in that moment. But when it's really impacting them, if they're not going out with friends anymore like they used to, if  they love basketball, but they won't try out for the team, if it's just really impacting the things that they used to enjoy and they're, they're not able to get over those hurdles, then it might be a sign that it's time to reach out and get some help.” (10:53 | Kate)
• “It's very easy to question as a mom, when your kid engages in what are just typical developmental behaviors, if there's something really wrong, I need to be concerned, this is a problem I have to solve.’ We're big problem solvers.” (13:26 | Kate) 
• “As a mom, what we often want to say is, ‘Oh, sweetie, you have straight A's, you're so smart, you're going to be fine.’  You're gonna find that can feel really invalidating to someone that is in that spiral. It can also send the message that you shouldn't feel anxious right now, this is something wrong with you.” (16:18 | Kate)
• “I say this with so much love as an anxious mom that has an anxious child, we model that for them. And so the best way to help your kid is for you to go first. If you recognize this in yourself, if you even related to the anxious spiral that we're talking about, the best way to help them is for you to go first and learn about your own brain and your own system and why anxiety is there and how to handle it because then you can offer that to them.” (24:44 | Kate)
Connect with Kate O'Rourke:
https://calendly.com/kateorourkecoach/60min?month=2023-08
 
Connect With Leslie:
Six Steps to Help Your Teen Cultivate Confidence: https://wondrous-leader-9073.ck.page/bc048dbe7b
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_coach_chronicles/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachChronicles/
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“We are all built with and for magic,” says Kanoa Greene, internationally celebrated fitness trainer and outdoor adventurer. As a plus-sized leader and new face of the industry, Kanoa is breaking down barriers and introducing much-needed representation, inclusion and belonging to those spaces. Though she was trained as an opera singer and was a success in the corporate world, Kanoa followed her authentic desire to take up fitness and inspire others by sharing her story. Bringing diversity to every aspect of fitness, she has since worked with several major brands and become the first plus-sized trainer to appear on Good Morning America. 
 
Forging your own path is rarely a linear journey. You will make mistakes and that’s OK. Kanoa relied on a supportive network who believed in her–even when they didn’t understand her mission–until she could empower herself. Now, she works to inspire others to empower themselves in return. 
 
Everyone has a story that the world needs to hear. Kanoa’s story proves that even without a roadmap, by following your own inner voice and overcoming your fears, you can tap into your own unique brand of magic. 
 
Quotes 
• “As fearful as I was in taking those steps, I just continue to do it. I continue to show up for me. And over time I realized I was helping other people. I was helping my mother, I was helping my best friend, I was helping my best friend's mother. It was just all of these little things and then I got to see value in in me, right? Even in the body that I'm in right now, even being on my own journey, I still have sparkle in me that is shining and can help someone else on their journey.” (11:12 | Kanoa)
• “I had to spend time alone just knowing in my heart that I made the right decision and that the right thing is going to come to me. It worked out when I left the music amazingly. So I had to believe that following my gut was the right thing and that the right thing was going to open up.” (15:49 | Kanoa)
• “It’s okay to doubt and it's okay to have a lot of fear and to struggle through it. I mean, I would say it wasn't pretty. People would look at maybe my social media now and just seems like oh, it's all glamorous. But it was not glamorous early on, butI think it was extremely important for me to have the people that truly had my best interest at heart and were going, they were in it. It was like heels in the ground. They were going to help propel me forward with as much love and support as they could until I was ready to fly on my own.”  (20:26 | Kanoa)
• “When you're younger, especially when you're in your teens, there's a lot of insecurity. For me, I never felt like I belonged to my body. Iit felt so awkward and it felt like navigating through life was hard. It was challenging” (37:38 | Kanoa)
• “I felt inside of me that I was made for something bigger. It’s like sometimes you just feel like you are special, but the outside world tells you that maybe you're not and you really don't know where you belong or how it's gonna play out. And you don't have the answers, so you don't know that it is gonna work out. What I would tell myself is that feeling inside of you, it is so valid and it feels big for a reason because it is big. It is bigger than anything anyone could ever imagine for you. And so it's gonna feel awkward because you have this big ball of magic inside of you that is bursting to come out.” (37:57 | Kanoa)
 

Connect with Kanoa Greene:
Find Kanoa on IG: https://www.instagram.com/kanoagreene/
 
Connect With Leslie:
Six Steps to Help Your Teen Cultivate Confidence: https://www.confidencecoachforgirls.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_coach_chronicles/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachChronicles/
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“Even the most successful person feels doubt and anxiety. No one is free of it,” Leslie explains on this solo episode of “Why Didn’t They Tell Us?” Doubt and anxiety act as an alarm system telling us something is wrong. But when we experience these feelings in everyday life, as a result of our negative thoughts, and worst-case-scenario thinking–”I can’t do it and here’s everything that will go wrong if I try”—they act as the greatest barriers to our self-confidence and to our goals and dreams. Luckily, our thoughts are not truths and we don’t have to believe them. In fact, our brains don’t want us to fail or feel negative emotions– so when we feel them (which we will) it only leads to more feelings of danger. 
 
Yet, we all feel anxiety and doubt—at an astonishingly high and persistent rate as it turns out–including Leslie. The point is not to resist them–which only makes them grow stronger–but to learn to process them, and on today’s episode, Leslie gives us the tools to do just that. She gives us N.E.R.V.E.--a five-step approach to turn the volume down on the negative emotions so that we turn the volume up on the good stuff.
 
Self-confidence is a journey and not a destination. Anxiety and doubt are part of the package. By giving them their rightful space without giving our whole selves over to them, we create more room for self-confidence and the pursuit of our dreams and goals. 
 
Quotes
• “The truth is, that every feeling– the good and the bad, self confidence, doubt, courage, bravery, fill in your flavor of your favorite emotion, or least favorite–they're part of the human experience. All of them. No human alive is immune to feeling all the feels.” (2:29 | Leslie)
• “Remember: it's not the emotions that are the issue. It’s what we do and don't do when we feel them, and what we make them mean about ourselves that becomes the barrier to self confidence.” (7:24 | Leslie) 
• “Self confidence and self love are subtle. It's almost like a whisper, ‘You've got this. I believe in you.’ But doubt and anxiety, and the thoughts that cause them are louder. They're boisterous. They demand our attention. It's an alarm sounding, ‘Something is wrong. You aren't equipped for this. You can't do it.’” (9:22 | Leslie)
• “The goal really is to stop emotions from stopping you.” (16:48 | Leslie) 
 
Connect With Leslie:
Sign Up for Yes You Can: Self-Confidence Simplified: https://wondrous-leader-9073.ck.page/07162712a8
Six Simple Steps to Help Your Teen Cultivate Confidence: https://wondrous-leader-9073.ck.page/bc048dbe7b
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_coach_chronicles/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachChronicles/
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

In this episode of Why Didn't They Tell Us?, Dr. Lisa Folden, a licensed physical therapist, behavior change specialist, and anti-diet health coach, shares a powerful message: "We're more than a body." Growing up, Dr. Lisa was influenced by the persuasive tactics of the diet industry, which led her to believe that weight determined both health and happiness. However, her perspective drastically changed after becoming a mother to three children, transforming her relationship with her body and her approach to her profession.
 
Dr. Lisa provides valuable insights and practical advice for mothers who wish to nurture healthy self-esteem and body image in their daughters. She emphasizes that the words we choose to speak, as well as the ones we leave unsaid, significantly shape our children's perceptions. Moreover, our actions when we think our children aren't watching also have a profound impact. Dr. Lisa advocates for the separation of weight and food from notions of health and morality, encouraging parents to allow their children to make autonomous food choices.
 
Acknowledging the current generation's focus on diversity and inclusivity, Dr. Lisa highlights how this mindset naturally paves the way for body acceptance. She further emphasizes the importance of recognizing that our bodies are designed to change throughout our lives. Ultimately, Dr. Lisa reminds us that our bodies should be the least fascinating aspect about us, and that our true worth resides both internally and externally.
 
Quotes
• “So many mothers, we are trying our very best. None of us have it all figured out…and that's okay.” (17:51-18:31 | Dr. Lisa)
• “We won't comment on our children's bodies directly, but they hear us commenting on ours.” (19:12-19:17 | Dr. Lisa)
• “Oftentimes our children are picking up on the subtle things that we do…even though we don't ever directly say ‘Being fat is bad, don't get fat.’” (20:07-20:54 | Dr. Lisa)
• “We’re creating a culture where we think it's OK to comment on other people's bodies or make suggestions about their bodies.” (25:50-26:12 | Dr. Lisa)
• “Engaging in these conversations, kids can understand that bodies are supposed to be different…nothing's wrong with them.” (27:59-28:37 | Dr. Lisa)
• “Food is not moral…for ourselves or for our kids.” (37:51-38:06 | Dr. Lisa)
• “Nothing is forever. Your body is supposed to change…you will do yourself justice as you age.” (40:13-40:46 | Dr. Lisa)
• “You are far more valuable than what your body looks like.” (41:17-41:20 | Dr. Lisa) 
• “If you don't believe in affirmations…get yourself some affirmations related to body image.” (44:02-44:31 | Dr. Lisa)
Connect with Dr. Lisa Folden: 
Learn more: https://www.healthyphit.com/
Instagram: @healthyphit
YouTube: @HealthyPhitPT
Facebook: @HealthyPhit

Connect With Leslie:
Six Steps to Help Your Teen Cultivate Confidence: https://www.confidencecoachforgirls.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_coach_chronicles/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachChronicles/
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm