Becoming Your Warrior

From Menopause Breakdown to Breakthrough with Ayurvedic Wisdom

• Emma Ritchie • Season 3 • Episode 1

Share episode

18 months ago, my health plummeted.  My cycle stopped, and six months later, I was told by doctors that I'd gone through early menopause.

I tried everything to align my body, but no matter what I did, my headspace and body were just not right.

Get ready for the plot twist!

Guided by Dr. Shivani’s expertise in Ayurvedic medicine, I found that my symptoms were tied to a Vata imbalance. 

By adopting specific dietary and lifestyle changes, my cycles came back in five days ( after being told I was post-menopausal) I revitalized my energy and zest for life. 

This episode underscores the significance of understanding your dosha for personalized treatment and celebrates the transformative power of self-love and continuous self-improvement. So, grab your favorite cup of herbal tea and tune in for a heartfelt conversation filled with encouragement, positive affirmations, and a reminder of the incredible strength within you.

You can follow Emma at:

https://www.instagram.com/emmaritchiewellness/
https://www.facebook.com/emmaritchiewellness/


Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Becoming your Warrior podcast. This is the place where you get to feel inspired and empowered to step into your very best life. Hey, hey, it is Em. Welcome to this episode. It's been a while, right, it's been a really long time, so sorry for my absence. This episode is definitely going to explain everything, and it's also going to be an episode which is a huge invitation to you to really, really, really pay attention to your health, to keep seeking answers, to keep going If you're not feeling great at the moment, if someone in your family isn't feeling great, if there's some sort of disease or something going on. Please, please, please, share this episode. Please listen to this episode because, yeah, I've been on a real, a real journey. So, yeah, just to. I mean, I guess I will start by saying, thankfully, it didn't turn into anything more serious, but understanding what has been going on with me is just put me on even bigger mission to help people to clear their minds and also work to clear their bodies. So let's just get into it, right, because it's a bit of a bit of a story and a half, but essentially, 18 months ago my well, actually, no, let's go way back. So probably since 2020, there's been a lot of stressful things going on in a lot of people's lives, but in mine, I would say, in each year there's been some sort of big thing. So I guess 2020 was obviously, as we all know, it was COVID.

Speaker 1:

I live in Australia, all my family are in England, so, as, like a lot of people you know, there was a lot of, you know, questions when am I going to see my family again? All that kind of stuff. And for probably about six months I really was trying to get back home and every time I tried to, it was getting knocked back, cut to when I got home I'd actually was going through a breakup with somebody in Australia and when I got back home I found out all this stuff and it was really awful too awful to kind of share here. But yeah it, basically that relationship just gave me such a kick in the a kick in the teeth, I guess you could probably say, and I went into even when I was back in the UK I had a huge amount of anxiety and fear and just so much old, old, old, old wound stuff came up. So, again, really stressful. When I got back later on that year, I got work. I was working on Australian Idol, I was racing around the country doing the audition tour and that's when I found out that my investment property that I own with my friend back here in Australia had been absolutely trash.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to cut through this story because it's you know, I'm not here trying to get sympathy. It is what it is and it happened, but it ended up costing us close to $60,000 in repairs, which, you know, just kind of wiped us both out a little bit. You know it's a lot of money and anyway. So there's been a lot of stressful events that have been happening in the last few years. So, cut to a year and a half ago, my cycle stopped and I was over in New Zealand. I was working over there on a series called Alone Australia where I was like the wellness manager and taking care of everyone when they came out, and it was an amazing job and I was in the most beautiful location.

Speaker 1:

But I just didn't feel right. I like really was struggling, uh, with my energy levels. I was really struggling. Yeah, I was just struggling. It was, I don't know. I just did not feel like myself.

Speaker 1:

When I got back, I went to the doctor and kind of explained look, I've had a lot of stress, basically my cycles have stopped. I think it's connected. And uh, they took a blood test and then they told me with the results of the blood test that I had gone through essentially early menopause. So just to clarify in the medical world they can't actually say to you you've gone through menopause until you're without a cycle for 12 full months. So at this stage I'd probably gone about six months. So my doctor didn't actually say to me at that moment in time you have gone through menopause. But she said, based on your results, it's very, very unlikely your cycles will ever come back. And it does look like you've gone through menopause. They've obviously got to be very careful.

Speaker 1:

So after that what happened was like I got vertigo for like three weeks straight where I thought I was going to just fall over. I had really bad depression like something like I've never had it before, like literally complete hopelessness, lots of anxiety. I had to stop working. I didn't work for like two and a half months and I was just a mess Like. Honestly, I was a mess Like I've never been like that and I've always prided myself on mindset because guess what? That's what I do, right? I know all the tools, I know it's mind over matter, I know all this stuff, but nothing was working for me and it was scary. It was really, really, really scary.

Speaker 1:

So after a few doctors, you know, offered to put me on antidepressants and I said no, that was just a personal choice for me. I fully support anyone's decision, you know, it's life saving medicine and it has a place. But the other option for me was hormone replacement therapy, which is what I went on. So, anyway, hormone replacement therapy helped. It's basically just a gel and a pill One's oestrogen, one's progesterone. That's the the easiest way to explain it. I know there are other forms. You can have patches and all this kind of stuff, but just to make it really simple, what hormone replacement therapy does is it replaces the hormones that have been lost when you go through menopause. So you actually your serotonin, which are massively connected to your hormones, um, are stabilized, and that's what got me functioning again. So very grateful for that.

Speaker 1:

However, I still didn't feel right. Yeah, so I was going to acupuncturist, uh, which really helped. Um, I was um, you know, I I'd been vegetarian since I was 12. So I basically chose to start eating meat again because everyone was like you really need to get protein into you. So I made all these big changes and I was having lots of salads and you know, just trying to be healthy, and stopped cardio which was you know, and and just took up weights, but I still didn't feel good. I just did not feel great and I was just like this can't be the rest of my life. So here we go.

Speaker 1:

This is where the plot twist starts, and so I was doing a course, an online course, with a wonderful, amazing human being or just, I don't know, just an angel. His name is Peter Krohn, c-r-o-n-e. If you don't know who he is, just jump on YouTube, put Peter Krohn in and get ready for your mind to explode. He's an incredible human being, and one of the health workshops that I did with him was him talking about Ayurveda, ayurvedic medicine, which is a 6,000 year old ancient medicine from India, very similar. If you know about Chinese medicine, ayurveda, you know this crossover, but it comes from India and there was something about what he was saying that made me really wake up and pay attention, and so I did some research.

Speaker 1:

I jumped onto a website, I started pumping in all these answers to all these questions and essentially I was just like I need to actually go and see someone. I've just got this feeling. So I found an Ayurvedic doctor Dr Shivani, shout out to you who is in Seaforth in Sydney, near Manly, and her company is called the Healing Ayurvedic the Healing Ayurveda, sorry and you can just jump online and find her work and book an appointment, which I highly recommend. So this is where the plot twist is coming in. So I went to see her. I didn't go to see her because I'd gone through early menopause.

Speaker 1:

I went to see her because I had these symptoms that nobody in Western medicine could explain. I was like why am I still feeling anxious? Why have my eyes broken out in styes? Why is this happening? Why is you know? Why am I not sleeping? Like what is going on? I'm doing all these things, you know, why am I not sleeping? Like what is going on? I'm doing all these things.

Speaker 1:

And so I went to see her about anxiety. I went to see her about these other symptoms and within 20 minutes she had explained to me more than I could ever imagine about my body and what was going on with it. And her face was very she's got a very poker face, but everything I was saying I was like this is happening, this is happening, this is happening. And by the end of it she said you have what is called a Vata imbalance. And she felt my pulse, she looked at my tongue, she asked me a lot of questions. She looked at my build, my body type you know my asked me lots of questions about my digestion and she said you've got what's called a Vata imbalance and it's affecting your liver, your colon and your large intestine, which is why you've needed to get iron infusions, because your large intestine isn't working properly, it's not absorbing nutrients and it's also not absorbing all these other things. And then your liver is really sluggish because it's picking up the work and your colon is really sluggish as well. Liver is really sluggish because it's picking up the work and your colon is really sluggish as well. So you're basically your digestive system is not working and because of this, my brain has been very clever and switched off anything that is non-essential, hence my cycle. So I'm you've got to kind of imagine. I'm sort of sat there going what, no, no, like I've got the evidence, I've got the blood test that shows this. I haven't had my cycle in 18 months, what the frick? And at the end of it she just said look, you know, let's focus on getting you balanced. That's the first stage. She said, but I think you'll get your cycles back. And I was just like I don't know what's going on, walked out of there. I was just like, okay, I'm just going to follow it to the T, I'm just going to do everything she asks of me. Did it all five days into it and my cycle comes back.

Speaker 1:

After 18 months of not having a cycle, after being told I had gone through early menopause, after being offered, um, you know, antidepressants, all this kind of stuff, all of these symptoms were connected to my liver not working properly. The sluggishness, the sleepiness, the low energy, the lethargy, the depression, the anxiety was all being caused because my organs, my digestive organs, were not working, my body wasn't absorbing what it needed. And I would look at everyone and be like how do you have so much energy? I really, I just really need energy. I just don't know what's going on. I'm eating the same as you, I'm doing the same as you, I'm working out the same as you, I'm sleeping the same as you, and everyone else seemed to have all this energy and I just didn't have it and it was all liver. So my cycle came back. I called the doctor, dr Shivani, and she was. She kind of laughed and she was like, well, I didn't expect it to happen so quickly, but that's a really good sign that your body is now healing and so we're now just continuing with this plan.

Speaker 1:

I I I'm very reluctant to kind of share what I'm doing, and it's not because I don't want to share that information, but I think this is the danger. This is very specific to what is going on in my body. So, with a vata imbalance, there's three doshas in ayurvedic medicine. Um, you can just do a quick crash course on on google, um, but there's three doshas there's vata, pitta and kapha and, um, everybody is has a little bit of all three made up into them, but some people have are more prominent in others. So I am more of a vata dosha, which is a body type and a type of digestion, than I am a kapha. And again, I don't want to. I'm not an ayurvedic doctor, so I don't want to prescribe.

Speaker 1:

But essentially, with a vata imbalance, it means I have too much air and too much dryness and too much cold in my body. So me eating salads is the worst thing I can do, or having a cold drink it's the worst thing I can do for my body. It's going to actually aggravate the imbalance that's already there. So instead you have to do the opposite. So I have to eat. All my food has to be warm. My body has to be warm. I'm wearing Ugg boots all the time, even though it's starting to get warm. And, yeah, I have to have lots of oil because my body is dry. If you have dry skin and cracking joints and again, this is just a throwaway comment, but you've probably got a bit of Vata in you, you know, and that might be worth something to have a look at.

Speaker 1:

So, long story short, I don't know what's going to happen with my cycle. I'm being completely transparent. I have no idea if that's going to come back completely. I have no idea if this was like a one off. But one thing I can tell you more than anything else is I feel like I used to feel five years ago or even 10 years ago. I have so much vitality, I'm so happy. I want to spend time with my friends, which I really have not wanted to see anyone for ages. I'm planning more trips, I'm organizing stuff. I'm so productive at work, I'm just absolutely smashing things out the park, and it's all because my body is now starting to heal itself.

Speaker 1:

And so if you know anyone who is going through something, either hormonal, it doesn't have to be hormonal. If they're going through insomnia, if they're going through I don't know like, they keep breaking their bones, right, all of this stuff will come back to their doshas. It will come back to that. So my advice is, if you don't know about Ayurvedic medicine already, or if you don't, if you're not following it, please start looking into it. It has completely given me the answers that I've been searching for for such a long time, and I'm so grateful for Dr Shivani. I'm super grateful for Peter Crone, which is where I've, you know, really found out about this, but I am shouting this from the rooftop right now.

Speaker 1:

I've got 15 of my friends who have already gone to see. I'm not even exaggerating when I say 15, I counted them today. 15 of my friends have gone to see Dr Shivani in the last four weeks and every single one of them is just coming out with answers. You know, there's beautiful young girls who are having had issues with their cycle for 10 years much younger than me, and have been told they're going through early menopause and it's absolute bs. They're coming out with the exact same diagnosis that I am, which is the zavata imbalance.

Speaker 1:

So if you have like dermatitis on your skin or you get eczema or flare-ups, it might be pitta imbalance, which is too much fire in your body, and then kapha is um again, I don't want to do a hash job of this, but it's more. You're more prone to depression if you're out of balance in a kapha body. So there are a lot of other symptoms and a lot of other elements and I don't want to do a hash job of this, but I highly recommend just jumping on Google and trying to find an Ayurvedic doctor in your area. It's much more beneficial for you to go and see a doctor, because they do need to see you, take your pulse, have a look at your tongue, all that kind of stuff which you know. You can't get diagnosed yourself online. I actually thought I was a different. I actually thought I was Pitta Kapha and I'm not. I'm Vata Pitta. So it's a really good job. I went to see a doctor in person.

Speaker 1:

Big share, right? Big, big, big share. So going forward. It's you know we are just moving into this land of wellness. Now, mind, body, soul. I am on the train. I am on the train and you know you are very welcome to jump on the train free of charge with me. I will happily take you wherever I can go and whatever I learn, I'm always going to be really happy to share with you and hopefully inspire you into taking action in your own health yourself.

Speaker 1:

So, without further ado, I'm going to sign off. I love you, I think you're awesome, I think you're so cool and just know that you are healthy, you are well, you are an incredible human being. So much love, so much compassion, so much kindness for you and, um, you know, if you are feeling like you're not any of these things, then just start taking action towards it. That's, that's all I can say, and I'm here with you. So so much love to you. Have an amazing morning, afternoon, evening or sleep wherever you are. Lots of love. Thanks so much for listening. If you don't want to miss out on feeling inspired, then just remember to subscribe or follow the Becoming your Warrior podcast and turn your notifications on so they get delivered directly to you.