Transcript

Kylie: [00:00:00] Hello, hello and welcome back to the Hormone Hub. We are so excited to have you back for this week and you know, I do appreciate every week when you guys tune in. I love the feedback that I get and I know that you are gonna love today’s episode. I have actually, I don’t think I’ve had a return guest on the podcast before, but this week we have got the lovely Edwina Murphy Droomer coming back and like many women, Edwina’s Metamorphosis sprung from her darkest hour as a suddenly single broke mother with four children with no choice but to sit firmly in the driver’s seat of her own life. Edwina set back taking control of the life she dreamed of living. Now as a professional interviewer and women’s life coach, Edwina is a powerhouse in the vision in the fields.

Sorry, I’m losing all my words. No, uh, Edwina is a powerhouse in the fields of vision building and transformation. She’s supported thousands of women to create an exciting [00:01:00] vision for the life they crave. Now Edwina, welcome to the show. 

Edwina: Thank you so much for having me back.. 

Kylie: My goodness. And I am so excited, and I know that our listeners will be too, about the upcoming series that we have, you know, that you’ve planned and I’m gonna be a part of.

And I’ve always loved working with you. I love the clients that come from, you know, when we work together, because it’s always, yeah, there’s just something magical about the, the energy that you bring to everything that you do. So, welcome Edwina. 

Edwina: That is such a lovely thing to say. Thank you. 

Kylie: Oh, my pleasure. So let’s jump in.

So the upcoming, well, first tell us a bit about you. So for the people who haven’t heard our interviews before, what would you like to share us a bit about your story. 

Edwina: I guess if I, if I start with, you know, the, the business story and how I came to be, you know, in this, in this online space doing [00:02:00] interviews with people, it was really born from, having qualified as a naturopath and then doing functional nutrition and having this burning, burning passion to support women to really understand the power of food and how we can move away from reliance on pharmaceuticals and synthetics and, and this great push. And turn back to, to basics, turn back to Mother Nature for the wisdom that she provides in how we feed ourselves. And really that then evolved as my children became teenagers, particularly my teenage girls.

And I started to see this great wave of miserable, sad, unhealthy teenagers, and I could see patterns in how they were eating, how they weren’t outside connecting with nature, how they were, you know, the, our lifestyles just seemed to be becoming more and more unhealthy. And I was seeing this great wave of [00:03:00] anxiety and children cutting themselves and it’s just so distressing and heartbreaking, and I think most parents were just completely bewildered by it.

And so I took my passion for Alternative medicines and all, and, and food and nutrition and combined that collaborated with a whole lot of other people and created a series called A League of Extraordinary Mothers. And it ended up becoming a three series and there was 70 something interviews in it.

And the first one was how to lay a strong foundation for health and happiness in your teenage daughter. 

Kylie: I need to go back and review those. 

Edwina: They’re, they’re my website, Edwinamdtv, but, it, it, I never, I know I, I can remember, you know, thinking at some point along the way, gee, it’d be so fun to be Oprah. I wanted, you know, quietly coveted Oprah’s job.

And whilst I certainly am no [00:04:00] Oprah, I do love interviewing. I think we gain so much more from lived experiences and from women’s stories or from stories, and we learn through that so much. There is much more powerfully than we do through books. And you know, I’ve been to, you know, I’ve, I, you know, my studies in naturopathy and wherever, you know, wherever you learn from lecturers and books, I’m not dismissing that.

Yeah. But I do feel that there is a depth of knowledge that gets passed on through stories and lived experience that is so much more powerful. 

Kylie: 100%. I couldn’t agree with you more. And I currently have a student, student naturopath, you know, working with me and you know, she’s amazing, ’cause obviously her knowledge is a lot fresher than mine.

I know what I know, but it’s just also, you know, sometimes what we believe to be true as practitioners isn’t actually what the [00:05:00] client needs. Yeah. And it’s, it’s having that, and I think this is the problem too with like that whole kind of the medical paradigm as well is they’re, they’re not necessarily connecting with the woman sitting in front of them and listening to what she’s saying.

And I think when women get dismissed as, oh, Just a part of getting older. It’s normal. Don’t worry about it. Everything’s fine. You know, you’ll be right. Let’s wait and see. You know, like that’s, that’s not helpful. And that’s not listening to the story of the woman sitting in front of you. So when I hear, you know, that someone’s exhausted or they’re, you know, depressed, or they’re just feeling overwhelmed with life, like, that makes me stop.

And I’m like, okay, where are you? And then how do we create a plan just to, and not to necessarily overhaul your life in one go, but what’s the next baby step? Yeah. What’s, what’s that first step that we need to, to look at? And for me, like as a nutritionist, it’s not, oh, you know, eat more vegetables, you know, [00:06:00] that’s not going to be helpful.

So it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s how do we help you within, you know, the way you feel about yourself right now, how do we take that forward? So you actually wanna then go and eat the vegetables. 

Edwina: Yeah, that’s right. And it’s, it’s a much more holistic way of looking at things. You know, we’re not cars that need a new spark plug, so you can’t just change the wheel.

And I think that’s the way that a lot of mainstream medicine has gone, it’s like, you know, symptom A, pill B, and you, you kind of cross your fingers and hope, but there’s so many other pieces and we know it’s not just a woowoo. We know now that our thoughts and emotional state affect our physical state.

It’s not, you know, it’s not a, it’s not a pie in the sky idea. It is fact. And so to take that out of the equation and not include the idea that, you know, people have got, uh, dealing with deep grief or trauma [00:07:00] or, you know, like all these other things that lead to ill health. Yeah. It’s, it’s just criminal to not be able to, you know, for, for people to not get that kind of holistic care that they need.

Kylie: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and I think, yeah, you know, you can, we’ve sort of been conditioned to focus on diet and lifestyle, you know, or diet and exercise. You know, I’ve got the perfect diet, but I keep putting on weight and it’s sort of like, yeah, well, you’re stressed at a hilt and you’re holding on to all of the, the trauma and the grief and the Yeah, like you said, so, you know, there’s, there’s definitely a, a lot more to it, that’s for sure.

Edwina: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Kylie: Alright, so sort of along those lines, you’re just about to launch your new talk series and like I said in the introduction, I’m so excited to be part of this. So the reconnection revolution is coming. So I would love you to share. Oh my God, I’m so excited. I would love you to share uh, with [00:08:00] the ladies listening, what is coming up? 

Edwina: Well, just as you know, all previous shows that I’ve done, whether, you know, it was a League of Extraordinary Mothers, or Unleash the Audacious Woman within, or phenomenal feminine entrepreneurs, all of them are born from things that are going on in my life and where I have a level of expertise, but there’s pieces missing and there’s other things that I wanna bring in, in order to get, get a lovely, well-rounded conversation going.

So the reconnection revolution has come about in two separate steps and I’ll, I’ll tell you what they are ’cause it, it feels like a really exciting kind of call to action. And the first part of it was hearing the Dalai Lama say in, I think it was 2009 or 2010, he said the Western woman will save the world.

And I can remember hearing him saying that and seeing the, the quote come up on social [00:09:00] media and kind of, you know, feeling pretty disconnected from it. My, my experience of, of what I see as the Western woman, if we create a general picture, is is not a picture of saving the world. I feel like there is, you know, there is this overconsumption and, and epidemic of ill health and feeling lost and you know of all the clients I’ve worked with over many, many years, the first thing I say is, what do you want? Yeah. And the vast majority are like, I don’t even know. I don’t even know. There’s this sense of being disconnected from what we want and from life. Yeah. So this picture. Made me think, what on earth was the Dalai Lama thinking?

Yeah. 

Only it is in Eastern countries where they have this lovely deep reverence and wisdom. You know, it feels like that’s.. 

Kylie: Matriarchal wisdom. [00:10:00] Yeah. 

Edwina: It feels like that is, that would be a clearer picture in my mind that I could create. And then last year I, I happened to pick up a book called Lost Connections by Johan Hari, and as I was reading that book, it was such an emotional experience because I felt like he had put into words a deep truth, a truth that I have seen through all the interviews I’ve done, through raising my four children, through living my own life over 51 years. And so Lost Connections, he started that book and I don’t know if you’ve read it, Kylie, have you read it? 

Kylie: No but I’m certainly going to hunt it down. 

Edwina: Yeah. So he started it as a, as a deep dive into looking at the causes of anxiety and depression because he’d been on antidepressants for many years and changing from one to the next to try and, you [00:11:00] know, get on top of this feeling of Ill ease in his, in his being.

And so what started as that evolved into looking at how we’ve been very misled to see anxiety and depression particularly as an individual’s disease. It’s like a biology that’s gone wrong. It’s that picture of the car that needs a new spark plug. Something’s malfunctioning. Yeah, and what he discovered, which seems so blaringly obvious to you, and I once it’s said, is it’s a societal problem. It is the way that society is now running that is causing this. It’s not an individual problem, it’s a society problem, and it is all born in disconnection. Disconnection from people, disconnection from the natural world, disconnection from meaningful values and meaningful work, disconnection from [00:12:00] how to process traumas that we all have. Every single one of us has traumas that we carry. Whether it’s a teacher that said something thoughtless and mean when you’re in school, or whether it’s a physical or abuse, or whether it’s the death of a loved one or a broken relationship, or you know, we can dismiss things that’s seemingly not important, but they’ve actually wired into our system.

It, it causes us to react to things in certain ways, and it limits our potential to live the life we wanna be living, and they’re simple things. They’re simple things. It doesn’t mean it’s easy. And I’m always really clear with this. It’s like, well just eat salad, you know, revolunitionise our diets. It’s so seemingly simple.

We have all the information. It doesn’t make it easy. And what makes it easier is not doing it alone. So it’s when we connect with other people, it’s when we lock arms, when we [00:13:00] hold hands, when we put ourselves in care with, of other people, not care for them to fix us. It is a a collaborative experience.

Whether you sit down in front of a naturopath or a coach or anybody, it’s equal responsibility. You know, we, we get to take responsibility for the journey that we’re on. And so that is how this whole series has come about, and I’ve broken it up into four separate masterclasses to try and, you know, make it a little bit more manageable.

And the first one is a back to basics conversation in supporting us to reconnect to the most authentic and highest expression of ourselves. Highest expression being the vitality, the foods we eat, how we breathe. How do we come to a place in our lives where we need to be taught to breathe again? Yes. You know, it’s such a picture of how [00:14:00] off track we’ve become.

Kylie: Yeah, yeah. And that’s right. And like if you think back to our grandmothers, you know, it was. Oh, let’s sit down and have a cup of tea. Yeah. And it was just, just that, that was their, their version of breathing, you know, stopping and breathing. And I think, you know, we do so many things on the go and we’ve just got, you know, it’s go, it’s go.

We are pushing. And I speak to women all the time who are just exhausted, who they’re not sleeping at night and they live their life because As women, we, we push through and they, they just have to push through and do the things, and they’re so used to that, that, you know, they’re exhausted, they’re pushing through, they’re, they’re surviving, you know, they’re not living, they’re surviving.

And it’s, it’s sort of taking a step back, taking a breath, as you said. And, you know, I’m a big believer that the way we nourish our body is, you know, one of the most basic forms of self-care. If we are nourishing our body, then we don’t have [00:15:00] cravings. Yeah. If we, you know, like cravings to me is a sign of, okay, well what’s, what’s missing?

 And it’s not, you know, ’cause you’re missing broccoli, it’s what’s missing over as you, as a whole person. Yeah. And yeah, and I, I just love this whole idea of connection and I think it’s, uh, you know, you sort of throw the whole without wanting to go there, I’m gonna go there. You know, you throw covid into the mix and with all the lockdowns and everything, and we talk about, you know, everyone feels disconnected after Covid and all the lockdowns. But did we actually learn anything from that? No, I don’t think we did. I think we just picked up where we, where we left off.

Yeah. And we’re just back to pre Covid crazy, you know? And I think, I think we didn’t, we didn’t take anything away from that. And, you know, we are back in the, the crazy throw of, of life again. 

Edwina: I think the thing that we did take away, if you know, and every time I say we, I wanna preface it with this kind of very blanket statement, but I talk about the, you know, it’s [00:16:00] the western world and, and I think the thing that we did take away is just more fear. You know, it’s more fear. It’s this constant focus on what we get to be afraid of next. The constant focus on the thing that keeps us distracted from what we really wanna be focusing on. Yeah, that constant looking, I call it doom scrolling, you know.

I got, I got caught up in, during covid, I’ll, I’ll admit it. I created a whole course to support people with what I did to pull myself back out of the, the black hole because it was a black hole. Oh, absolutely. There’s been literally two times in my life where I have got to the point where I didn’t wanna wake up the next day.

And that’s a, you know, that’s not a fun thing to admit, but I think in talking about it, I can support other people who’ve had that experience. The first one was after my, after my first husband walked away, I had four children under eight. And there after it was, it was I think 18 months or two [00:17:00] years after that experience, I remember getting to the point where I was so, so exhausted and so depleted from the endless.

Worries about finances and everybody needing me, and I didn’t have anyone to lean on. And it was, I remember getting to a point, I didn’t, just didn’t wanna wake up the next day. I just couldn’t face another decision. Yeah. That was a horrible, horrible experience. And then the other time was during Covid and I felt the, the, the thing that really was my undoing was feeling like our autonomy was being taken away.

It was the ability to make the best possible decision for ourselves, what we felt was the best possible decisions for ourselves. And we were being forced to make decisions that I didn’t feel aligned with. Yeah. And it was really challenging, really challenging for myself, for my children, for, for clients.

And then during that whole time, the Black Lives Matter bl ew up [00:18:00] in the US and I had a lot of clients in the US at that stage, and it just felt like the world was in such turmoil. Oh my gosh. 

 But it was, the reason I tell, I’m telling that story is going back to this obsession with what to be scared of next, because it was during that time that I went, I can’t change this. I can’t do anything about this. I need to take care of me. Yeah. So I can take care of everybody around me. And so I turned everything off. Yeah. I didn’t look at the news. I didn’t look at anything on social media that wasn’t cute puppies and cows, and flowers. 

Kylie: That’s kind of those, those falling goats. Those fainting goats, yeah. 

Edwina: All the, all the stuff that just made me smile. I started meditating again every day. I spent time in nature. I grounded, I breathed, breathed fresh air and got sun on my skin. Yeah. Found reasons to laugh and suddenly I was back. I was back. [00:19:00] Excited to be alive again rather than dreading the next day.

Yeah. Yeah. These things aren’t complicated. This is the stuff that I just want to really get across. Yeah. It’s the solutions that we are looking for aren’t complicated, and 99% of the time they don’t cost anything. You can’t patent it, so nobody’s trying to sell it or advertise it. You can’t patent, you know, they’re, they’re trying to genetically modify all our food now.

So you can patent it, but you can’t patent an orange. You can’t patent fresh air and sunshine and, you know, yeah. 

Kylie: Bare feet on grass. 

Edwina: Bare feet on grass. Yeah. So this is the conversation that I want to really come back to in the reconnection revolution. It is reconnecting to the things that support a happy and healthy life.

Kylie: Absolutely. Oh, I’m so excited. I can’t wait. So I am going to put in the show notes, I’m gonna put the link to join Edwina’s, [00:20:00] uh, reconnection Revolution. And it is free to join. So, you know, I really do encourage anyone, well, all of you, but especially if you’re feeling, you know, that disconnect, if you feel, and often I think, you know, if, if something’s not aligned in your life and you can’t figure it out, it shows up in, you know, we know it because we, you know, something’s shown up in our health or something’s showing up in our relationship or something’s, you know, showing up and it’s just not sitting well with us.

You know, that’s where we need to, to pay attention to those things and, you know, how can we change it because we do get to choose change. It’s, and like you said, it’s, it’s a choice, but it’s not easy to do it on your own and to do it with a, a community and know that you’re not alone. I think that’s a big one too.

Particularly, you know, for a lot of my clients are going through perimenopause and menopause. And they, they just feel that this [00:21:00] is the o, they’re the only ones that this is happening to, or, you know, their symptoms are worse or their symptoms are weirder, or, you know, whatever it is. But it’s actually, you know, it’s, it’s something to pay attention to.

And it’s sort of like, okay, you’re not alone and you don’t have to figure it out on your own either. Right. 

Edwina: And you also don’t have to fear it. Let’s come back to that because it’s, you know, this, this, this wave of belief that we get to live in dread of perimenopause and menopause. But how about we look at it with reverence?

Yes. And embrace it as a privilege as somebody who, you know, my sister died at 49. Yeah. She didn’t get to go through these changes. She didn’t have the, the honor of these rites of passage that those of us that are alive do. It’s a privilege. 

Kylie: Hundred percent. Yeah, no, I agree. And yeah, a girlfriend of mine who’s been through breast cancer treatments, so she yeah, went into sudden menopause.

 And her symptoms were awful ’cause she was also on the, the hormone suppressive, drugs. And, [00:22:00] but her at, I loved her attitude. She was like, actually, don’t care. She goes, every single hot flush I get reminds me that I’m still here. So she goes, I’m good. I’m okay. Yeah. So, yeah. And I just thought, yeah, it’s all in your perspective as well.

Yeah. And you know, sometimes you just need the, the windows open for you so you can see that there is another perspective too. 

Edwina: Yeah. I’m reading a fabulous book and as I say this, I wish I had my hand on it because I can’t think of her last name, but she’s a doctor. Dr. Gladys, do you know she’s 102? 

Kylie: Well, Oh wow. No, I haven’t. 

Edwina: She is fabulous. She is fabulous. She’s 102 and she’s written a book. She’s been a doctor for 80 something years. Yeah. And 

Kylie: Wow. And a female doctor. 

Edwina: Yeah, a female doctor. I know. Yeah. Yeah. And she started in India. Her parents were osteopaths. But if we think [00:23:00] about, at 51, that makes me halfway through my life halfway. And if we think about perimenopause and menopause being, you know, signaling the end of our lives, it’s absurd. Yes. It’s not We’re we’re halfway. And that’s wisdom that we’ve accumulated now and utilize that to create another 50 years.

Imagine how. I don’t even have the language for it. I’m so excited.

Kylie: So why don’t we start loving it, you know, and, and celebrating all the beautiful things that’s done. And, you know, I don’t think any of us have the perfect body and, you know, do really, do we care about that? I don’t know. 

Edwina: And what is perfect? 

 It’s [00:24:00] a, it’s an interesting conversation and one that’s, you know, come up with the, this barbie movie, dare I bring that into the conversation because it’s become so, so, anyway, I think it’s gone slightly nuts, but it’s raised lots of interesting conversations. But yes, who’s to, who is to say what’s perfect? ’cause what looks perfect to one person doesn’t, you know, it’s in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.

Kylie: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And then, you know, you talk to women who are, you know, you sort of look and you just think, oh my God, you know, she looks amazing. But then the, the trauma involved in and the self-hate that she may or may not hold, or, you know, so everyone’s kind of got their own stuff going on. So I think there’s a, and again, it’s sharing the stories that make you kind of go, oh, okay.

Edwina: Yeah. 

I think we, you know, we, we get to this point in our lives where we can see very clearly that beauty comes from an inner light. You know, if you, if I think about the, the people that [00:25:00] everybody would possibly know who they are, the Judy Dench’s of the world, and, you know, it’s like she would not fall into the traditionally beautiful character, characteristics, but she’s just so divine.

She’s so, and there’s this, there’s a self-assurance that is So attractive and an inner light, you know, there’s a sense of love for life. Yeah. 

Kylie: I love her authority as well, because no, no one’s messing with her. 

Edwina: Yeah. It’s that self-assurance. She’s not gonna get, she’s not gonna get pushed over. Yeah. And this is, by somebody else’s opinion.

She’s got her own, and this is actually gonna be one of the conversations that we have in the first series is about values and it’s about standing so strongly in your values. Yeah. And everyone has their own unique values, but you can’t be moved. Yeah. This is, this is who I am and this is what I stand for and this is what I’m here to create in the world.

And, and once you’ve got that clearly and it’s, you know, I think of it like planting you like an oak tree [00:26:00] in Mother Earth. It’s like, this is who I am. 

It’s a good feeling. 

Kylie: Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. This is gonna be such a good conversation. I cannot wait. Alright, well thank you Edwina, so much for, for coming on the Hormone Hub.

 Like I said, I will pop the books that Edwina has mentioned, the Lost Connection and also the Well-Lived Life. I will pop those in the show notes as well, as well as the link to join the Reconnection Revolution. So, 

Edwina: If I could just mention before, before we wrap up there, is once the, the interview series for the Reconnection Revolution is completely free for anybody to join, but then there is the opportunity to join the Reconnection Revolutions three C community.

So that’s connection, collaboration, and celebration. So we’re gonna be celebrating every step because I’m a big believer that it’s the celebration in all the tiny steps that makes the difference, not [00:27:00] just when we get to the finish line, because the finish line is actually when we die. Yes. So the celebration of the journey every step of the way.

So the three C’s community is a paid community and inside there, they all the speakers are offering beautiful resources, deepening conversations. We’ve got a grand prize that’s very exciting that you automatically go in the draw to win, but it really is the place for people to practice What you can learn in the, the interviews, because it’s one thing to take in information and to hear it, it’s another thing to put it into practice.

So if you want to put connection into practice, then the three Cs community is the place to be. 

Kylie: Fantastic. And I will be inside that community so I cannot wait. Alright, well thank you so much Edwina and everyone. Stay tuned next week, starting August the 21st is series one of the Reconnection revolution, [00:28:00] so make sure you grab the link and sign up.

Alright, Edwin, thank you so much for coming on and I will see you next week in your interview series. 

Thank you. Bye.