This podcast episode featured Dr Peta interviewing Dr. Siri Erickson, a certified menopause doula and clinical EFT practitioner who developed the Meno EFT method. They discussed the biological changes during perimenopause, including hormone fluctuations that can lead to anxiety, sleep issues, and other symptoms, with Siri explaining how declining progesterone and erratic estrogen levels impact the brain and nervous system. Siri shared her personal journey through perimenopause and how she discovered EFT as an effective tool for managing anxiety and other symptoms. They explored how EFT creates a safe space for addressing emotional challenges during menopause, with Siri noting that the method combines somatic experiences with compassionate conversation to help clients develop self-compassion. 

The conversation covered common misconceptions about menopause, including the belief that estrogen deficiency is problematic when hormone sensitivity to fluctuations is often the real issue. They discussed the importance of considering both psychological and biological factors when addressing menopause symptoms, with Siri emphasizing the need for integrated approaches that include medical testing for issues like iron deficiency. The episode concluded with information about Siri's upcoming Meno EFT online course, which will provide structured guidance for applying EFT techniques to menopause-related challenges.

Takeaways

• Siri's path into menopause support began with her own severe anxiety and energy crashes, which she later discovered were driven by perimenopause — not a mental health condition.
• Declining progesterone and erratic estrogen affect multiple body systems, contributing to mood swings, anxiety, sleep difficulties, and even confidence issues like driving anxiety.
• Many women are misdiagnosed or dismissed during perimenopause, with hormone testing proving unreliable during this transitional phase and medical treatment often addressing symptoms in isolation.
• Hormonal changes create a biochemical environment where suppressed emotions and long-forgotten memories resurface, making perimenopause a significant time for unprocessed grief to emerge.
• EFT is particularly well-suited to menopause support due to its combination of somatic processing, compassionate communication, and portability as a self-use tool.
• Research shows that tapping on negative symptoms naturally generates positive outcomes — explicit positive focus is not always necessary for EFT to be effective.
• Siri's Menno-EFT method integrates menopause knowledge with EFT, while also accounting for biological factors like iron levels that can amplify symptoms and are often overlooked.
• Menopause triggers significant brain remodelling, and EFT may support this rewiring process — making it a promising complement to, or alternative for, CBT in perimenopause care.

Please note: this transcript is unedited. 

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Let's go.

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Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of The Fourth Wave in Therapy. I'm thrilled today, and we were just having a little chat off-air, I'm so excited about this conversation, because I think it's so timely. But I'm joined today by Dr. Siri Erickson.

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Now, Dr Erickson is a certified menopause du lure. You'll know where we're going to take this today. And also a clinical EFT practitioner, but she's the creator of the Menno EFT method.

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and the Foggy to Fierce Framework, and that was literally just what we talked about off-air. Her work integrates menopause science with clinical EFT and nervous system-informed care.

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She's the founder of The Compassionate Way, a holistic coaching practice supporting women in midlife through the menopause transition. Based in Minnesota, in the lovely part there of the United States, she works with clients virtually all over the US.

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All of Siri's details are below, and a further bio, but you've probably already picked up that the topic I'm so excited to dive deep into today, and to take it beyond the conversation of symptoms, is the area of menopause. So, welcome, Siri, and thank you so much for joining me.

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Thank you, Peter. It's a delight to be here in conversation with you today. Thank you. And maybe if we just head off from the start, like, you started in…

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chemistry, that took you into the divinity and consciousness, contemplative science, practice sort of area, leadership, and now you've come round to this kind of menopause area in life. What led you there? Tell us a little bit about your journey.

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Yeah. Well, I never thought I would be here, to be honest, but…

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I was working in higher education, and I was a chaplain.

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And, you know, it was great work, I loved working with students and everything. But after about 8 years, I found that my anxiety got so high. I've never really been that much of an anxious person. My anxiety was through the roof, my energy crashed.

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And it got to the point where I could hardly even function in my job and in my life. I have two kids.

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And I had no idea what was going on.

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you know, my doctors ran the tests, and they're like, oh, you're fine, everything looks good, and I'm like, I'm not okay!

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And so, I needed an off-ramp, because I just really wasn't functioning, and so I left that role and took a part-time consulting job. Meanwhile, my sister-in-law, who's a physician's assistant.

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when I said, you know, I think I'm dying, I feel so terrible, she said, well, it could be perimenopause.

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And I'd literally never heard of that. I didn't know what it was.

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And I was mid-40s at the time.

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And so, I was just so desperate to get my life back.

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And I started doing research, but I first found my way, actually, to EFT because of the anxiety, and I listened to some podcasts with Dawson Church.

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and, you know, purchased his online anxiety course, and just found the EFT practice to be so helpful and compelling, and then I signed up for EFT clinical certification.

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And worked with practitioners, and my anxiety in that period just… was completely reduced. I mean…

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I just… I can't even believe it, you know? I mean, you know how powerful EFT can be, but…

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I uncovered some long-standing health anxiety that related to a series of fainting episodes that I had had in my teenage years and young adult life, and worked on those issues, and…

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After a number of sessions, my anxiety was just… much more manageable.

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But I also was having other symptoms, and that led me, with my kind of chemistry background, to dive into perimenopause, the biochemistry of it.

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And that just led me down a rabbit hole of interesting science, because so much more is

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Coming into the public conversation right now.

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And one day, I just thought, you know, EFT and menopause have so many interesting intersecting…

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kind of neuro and physiological scientific overlaps that I…

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decided, well, what if… I wonder if there's anything called a menopause doula?

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And so I found the menopause school in the UK,

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And took the doula certification course, and just learned so much more about the science and how…

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The menopause transition impacts our brains, and every system in our body, and our nervous system, and our mental health, and…

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all these things that I had never heard about before, really, nobody had prepared me for those possibilities, and so eventually, once I was feeling a lot better, I opened up my business in order to help others.

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Oh, there's so many things I want to unpack there. So, Navy, before we get into the EFT kind of intersect, and maybe how that can be so beneficial in this phase.

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Let's go back a little bit, in case anyone's listening and kind of going, I'm relating to the anxiety bit.

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the perimenopause being, you know, a transition period before menopause, or post. Right. And obviously, we're not giving medical advice, and everyone should go off and have their hormones checked and, you know, talk to your doctor.

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Right. But what are… what is happening? So, whether it's mid-40s, late 40s, 50s, whatever, you know, family genetics are suggesting in your line, what is happening during these phases, and why… why is anxiety a feature, and what are the other symptoms that someone might be aware of?

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Yeah, great question. So…

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For anyone who has ovaries, when we go through puberty, those ovaries start cycling on a regular basis, and a part of that cycle is a nice rhythm that starts happening in our bodies with these sex hormones.

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Estradiol and progesterone being the most…

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common ones. And for most of our reproductive years, that cycle, for most people, has a kind of healthy rhythm to it. And then when we hit the ovarian tipping point.

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where our ovaries start heading down to wind down their monthly cycling, then those hormone levels start changing. And so, in a typical kind of… when we're in the height of our reproductive years, we would ovulate, you know.

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11 or 12…

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10 or 11 out of our 12 cycles, but once we hit that tipping point, we aren't ovulating as frequently, so we might ovulate every 9…

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Out of 12 cycles.

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And that kind of winding down of ovarian activity changes the hormone levels in our bodies. And so, progesterone starts to decline.

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estrogen… Typically becomes erratic.

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And it's that combination of erratic estrogen levels and declining progesterone in the perimenopause phase.

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That can lead to so many of these different symptoms, in part because we have receptors for those hormones in… all over our bodies, estrogen in all major 11 systems of our bodies.

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Our brains are significantly impacted by these changing hormone levels, and progesterone in particular in early perimenopause.

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Is a calming hormone?

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In our bodies, and so when that starts to decline, we are less able to regulate our emotions, we can have moods, more mood swings.

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Anxiety can come up, people can experience sleep difficulties, either falling asleep or staying asleep at night. Night sweats.

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So there's kind of this early cluster of symptoms that…

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You know, everybody's different, of course.

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But, if people are in their…

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Early 40s, mid-40s, and they start having multiple ones of these symptoms together.

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Including anxiety, potentially.

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It's probably related to this dynamic of declining progesterone and erratic Estrogen in the perimenopause phase.

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And it's interesting you say, like, your own experience, and I know I shared off-air, and I'm happy to share that I'm post-menopausal myself, so yay! Got there! Yay! You made it! I think we should have parties for people! I think so, too.

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And sometimes it can be, like, if I reflect back, because my mother and grandmother were both mid-40s, late 40s, so I followed the… and so did my sisters followed the same trajectory.

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a younger sister actually went through it earlier than me, so there's definitely some… something there from a genetic point of view. Yeah, yeah. But sometimes it is that radical shift that you said you were not an anxious person. I have done tapping for 25 years, so my nervous system is not an anxious one either. Yet, one thing I noticed…

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Which, it took me a while, again, to connect, because you suddenly think, what is wrong with me?

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was I felt driving my car a lack of confidence, and I don't know if I've really told anyone this, but I was like, why am I feeling less confident driving my car?

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And when I reflected back, and obviously that has sort of gone away now, but I think that was part of that

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kind of phase as well, with symptoms that it, to me, probably wasn't anxiety, but it probably was, that there was this confidence, and I…

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have reflected, talked to some other, you know, friends in the same sort of stage of life, and they have talked about that confidence thing as well. And I'm like, it's really interesting that the hormones play such

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And it truly is biological, isn't it? That it's having such an impact on all of our, you said, 12 body systems, or at least 11 of them.

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Yeah. It's no wonder that… We're feeling the psychological symptoms, but actually being driven neurologically and biologically, aren't they?

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Right, exactly. The car thing is so interesting, because I have… I had that issue myself, and I've talked to other women, and some of my clients, even, who just become terrified to drive.

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Yeah. And… That is… that is an interesting one, but…

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You know, if we think about anxiety being related to not feeling safe.

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cars are kind of dangerous, you know, places to be. But, yeah, it is interesting how that shows up for different people. Yeah, and I wonder whether…

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I don't know, maybe we become more aware of, you know, not just safety, but, you know, where you are in your life. I wonder if there's reflection that goes on anyway, unconsciously about, you know, maybe you're halfway through, kind of.

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your working life and things like that as well, and maybe you're reflecting backwards as well as forward, kind of going, have I achieved everything? Meaning-making. Is that coming into play, where we're aware of our…

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yeah, longevity? I don't know. I don't know any of the answers here, but, yes. Yeah, it's a really interesting sort of space, because you kind of think, you know, men, too, obviously experience some decreases in testosterone as they age, but…

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I'm not sure any… I've ever heard any of them say, oh, I'm suddenly frightened of driving, but… Right. I know. So, yeah, it's such a good conversation.

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What… What is typically, in your experience, you're a menopause doula, but also, obviously, in this space supporting women.

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What misconceptions do you think

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and maybe it is cultural as well, but what misconceptions are women told about this transition phase that maybe we need to, like, correct here? Yeah. Are you aware, or do you hear any that come from clients? Yeah.

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I think… There's a lot of misconceptions, but a few of the big ones are this idea of

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estrogen deficiency being bad. Or, you know, it's… in the perimenopause phase, what's happening is not necessarily low estrogen.

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For some people, estrogen is actually higher than it's ever been.

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And for people that are sensitive to the fluctuation of those hormones.

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It's actually the sensitivity to the changing levels that…

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And different people being sensitive in different ways to the changing levels that creates so much variation from woman to woman about their experiences.

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So, like, I talked to my mom, and she barely remembers her perimenopause experience, and seemed to… you know, some people just sail right through, and others struggle more, and there's a variety of reasons why that can be, but that's one thing, is just kind of…

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Most people don't know where they are in the timeline, they don't know what's happening from a biochemistry standpoint, and they don't know that it's affecting their whole body, even though they might have a lot of different symptoms.

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And one of the places that I think our way of organizing medical practice has kind of failed in this

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stage of life is that we treat symptoms.

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And we haven't gotten good yet.

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At treating, kind of, the whole cluster of symptoms.

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in more of an integrated way through this menopause transition. Yeah, yeah, it's, and anyone listening in that can relate, you may have experienced that yourself, that might kind of be drawn to go to the doctor for a symptom.

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and maybe be given something to help that symptom, but perhaps there's, yeah, more of a whole-person kind of approach that, I'm excited to kind of unpack with you with the Meno EFT program, because to me, I feel like that's where…

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this kind of, you know, approach has come out of your own experiences, and your understanding, and things like that. So, yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. So…

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Is there misdiagnosis, do you think, goes on as well? Like, you talked about…

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you know, being in your mid-40s, anxiety, you know, I've talked to friends too that, you know, and I experienced this, I don't mind sharing. I was pretty much going to divorce my husband for a short period before I knew what was going on, and then kind of went, oh, and I'm like, he hadn't done anything wrong, and, you know, he's like, why are you so mean? And I look back and kind of go, oh, I know what was going on there.

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But had I not, kind of, at least reflected on a bigger phase of life, I may have misinterpreted

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Or even been misdiagnosed.

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not kind of having my hormones checked and things like that. Do you think that happens? That there's misdiagnosis? Someone's like, oh, I suddenly got a label of, I don't know, generalized anxiety disorder at the age of 50, when I haven't been an anxious person my whole life. Like, is that what's happening, or, even some…

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I don't know, anger, dysphoria, or something like that?

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Yeah. Yeah, that definitely… there's still… a lot of the solutions that are offered first to women who come in presenting with a symptom are…

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solutions that address that symptom, so, like, anxiety might… you might be offered an SSRI, that's what I was offered.

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I am a… I'm a person who's very sensitive to medications of all types, so I was on a quest to…

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find anything else I could that worked before I went that route, even though that can be a helpful tool for people. Everybody's different in how… in terms of how their bodies work with.

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different medications. The thing… the…

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the things I hear the most from my clients are that they're told they're too young.

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To be in this phase of life, or to…

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be evaluated for menopause hormone therapy. So there's still a misperception that, you know, you need to be older somehow in order to… Is there a… do they have a gatekeeper age that they look for, or is there a magic number?

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There isn't really a magic number, because people's timings through the transition are so different.

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So… And, like, hormone testing, depending on which

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stage of the timeline you're in doesn't always give you a clear picture. Unless you're postmenopause, then it will be a pretty definitive pattern, but when you're in perimenopause, your hormones can look normal on any given day, or maybe not on a different day.

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So, that's not always the most reliable, but I think there has been this misperception in… culturally.

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That it's older women who are in menopause.

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And so, when somebody who's 38 or 42 comes into a clinic.

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With anxiety and insomnia and fatigue, let's say those are a common triad.

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they will just be told, like, it's stress, or you're too young for this to be menopause. I mean, it's not menopause.

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Menopause is one day, 12 months, you know, after you've had your last

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Period. Yeah. But it… it probably is…

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an indicator that somebody's reached that ovarian tipping point, and they're in a new part of the menstrual health timeline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. It's a very common one I see, and then there are kind of extreme opinions out there, like, some providers are… are very…

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Anti-hormone therapy, and there's lots of reasons for that.

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Which could be a whole other conversation about how we got there, and then there's other people online, especially influencers and stuff, that are out there telling women, everyone should be on hormones, it's magical.

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So I tell my clients, like, those are my three red flags. If somebody's out there saying, everyone should be on hormone therapy, or no one should be, or you're too young, then…

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find somebody else to talk to. Yeah, and I think you raise a really good point, because I follow someone in the EFT world who had shared about their own, menopause journey and, HRT, and they were…

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celebrating, obviously using HRT. And I think it's an interesting point, because the social media space, or indeed anyone that may be an influencer at some level.

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Sometimes, like, in the sharing of that kind of information, from that point of view, it's only a single person's point of view.

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Seems to have an impact that perhaps we need to kind of remind everyone to step back and kind of do due diligence and actually go get medical

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investigation, and yeah, expert opinion, and not follow everything, yeah. So I just want to put that out there, because it comes up all the time, and it's like, well, I, you know, saw this person that I really like, and I really kind of respect, and…

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she did it, so therefore I should do it. And it's like, well, not one size fits all, is what I'm hearing you say. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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So…

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We've got lots going on here, then, from a biological, neurobiological, but a whole nervous system kind of point of view. It's… anyone with ovaries, it's kind of a given, it's gonna happen, you know, at some point, and…

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Timing is going to be different for everybody.

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somewhere this leads you in your own journey to tapping and realizing, huh, okay, I've got this regulation tool that seems to make a difference, and, you know, whole nother podcast on what's the science behind how that works, and obviously, all of that exists out there. So…

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Why… why EFT, then? There's lots of nervous system regulation activities out there, we've explored lots of other ones in different episodes here, but why do you like EFT? Because ultimately, men know EFT, as a program.

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is being offered to, you know, people in this space. But what is it that you like about EFT?

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Yeah.

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I love that it combines a somatic experience with…

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A way of talking about the realities of what people are experiencing without shame, without judgment, and in a way that ultimately leads people to have a greater sense of self-compassion.

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And I think… So many people feel disoriented when they're going through this transition.

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they feel crazy, they… there's a lot of self-judgment that happens, like, why can't I handle all the stress I used to be able to handle, and why can't I remember words, and why can't I perform?

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you know, certain tasks in the way that I used to be able to, or why is my body putting on weight in weird places that I don't want it to, right?

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There's so many things that do attack Confidence?

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and cause self-doubt, self-judgment, and EFT, I mean, I think that's one of the things my clients…

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say at the end of our sessions that's…

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having the biggest impact is that in the course of an EFT session.

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They come to a felt sense.

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Of having compassion for themselves.

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it's not fake, it's not forced, it's not a mantra that they're trying to, you know, force onto their body. It's like, we start with the real problem.

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They're… whatever it is, they're feeling anxious, they're grieving, they're having challenges in their relationships.

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So many different starting places, and at the end of a session.

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when I check in with them.

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It's that self-compassion that emerges so naturally and organically and beautifully from tapping.

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that I think, is part of why I have embraced tapping…

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as such a cornerstone part of my practice as a menopause doula, because, I mean, I love getting massages, I love craniosacral therapy, I see a chiropractor, I walk, I try to optimize nutrition, you know, all the things.

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But there's nothing else like EFT that creates that felt, genuine sense of self-compassion. I love that, and… Yeah. Yeah, and I know people kind of…

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often ask about, you know, can we tap on the positive? And…

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To me, in all the years that we've done of research trials in lots of different areas, that is… there's almost, like.

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Yes, you can at the end of the whole process, but sometimes you just don't need to, because to me, if we're peeling away all the symptoms someone wants to get rid of, that could be the anxiety feeling, feeling in their chest, you know, headache, pain, whatever it is. And if that all dissolves, it's almost like coming back into alignment, isn't it, with

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Yes. You say self-compassion, sense of self, and it's kind of like you peel, peel, peel, however long that takes, and then you're just like…

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I'm okay. And it's almost like you don't need to do tapping on very positive, because you're almost, to me, and it happened in the food craving research, where

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People tapped on all their, you know, naughty food cravings that they didn't want to eat anymore.

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And what happened was, over time, and we followed some of them up for 2 years.

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they didn't have to tap on increasing interest in healthy food options or drinking more water. It happened naturally. And I pondered that and kind of went.

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I wonder if that's just coming back to your true sense of knowing what your body needs, because never once did we get the apple or the carrot or the salad and go, oh, let's tap why I don't eat it. It just happened. People… even teenagers were eating more vegetables, and we're like, okay, but I wonder if it's what you just said, that it's…

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We peel it away, but then we just come back to who we are, and…

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you know, we just have that sense of compassion, or kindness, or knowing. I don't know, is that your experience, or is that just what I've noticed?

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Yeah, no, that's absolutely what I've noticed, and I think it is…

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it's such a counterintuitive thing about EFT. I think, you know, we understand from the science of why it works, but I think for the average person, it's so counterintuitive to

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Actually create space to feel the harder thing that they're feeling.

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And to name it, I mean, my clients say…

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I feel seen, I feel heard, I've never talked about this before.

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And I just think we don't have a lot of truly safe and compassionate spaces.

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That are free of judgment.

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And free of self-judgment, even.

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to name the experiences that we're having that are causing suffering.

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And so EFT provides that beautiful healing container, because you're regulating your nervous system.

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with your hands… While you're creating space.

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For these true feelings, and experiences, and memories, and… Thought patterns…

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To just be vocalized and named and held.

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lovingly, and I think… Yeah, it's just an amazing…

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It's an amazing gift that people can give to themselves.

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you know, that's the other thing that I think's so empowering about EFT. When… in perimenopause, especially when people feel like their bodies are betraying them, and they feel like they're going crazy, and all this stuff, to know that actually at the power of your own fingertips.

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you have the ability to create a sense of calm within your own body. 100%, and it's portable. You can take it with you wherever you go. Yes, so true. Yeah, yeah. I found… I find it curious, and in preparing for this, I kind of obviously read a little bit about your work.

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And it is something that I haven't experienced myself, but I'm curious about what comes up with clients. But you mentioned grief. Like, I mentioned the anger bit, because, you know, I wanted to divorce my husband, poor guy. He's still here, it's all right. Got past that.

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But grief. And you've mentioned that this is probably a common thing that maybe is coming up. Like, what is this about in this whole transition phase? What is grief about? What have you noticed?

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Yeah.

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So, it can be multifaceted. Sometimes it's…

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Grief for relationships lost, or people who have died.

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In the past, distant past, or recent past.

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That hasn't been fully processed.

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You know, a person maybe had to keep their life going and didn't…

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You know, they weren't able to take a lot of time and space to grieve and…

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Feel all of those emotions that were coming up in process through the complexity.

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That is often intertwined with grief.

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And… there's… There's something about the hormonal environment with the declining progesterone and the erratic estrogen.

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That makes it actually harder for our brain to stuff.

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emotions that we've been able… That's interesting. Okay. So it's like we've got leakage happening. Yes. Oh. Yes, or I sometimes call it the volcano effect, like, we've been able to keep…

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The volcano from erupting, but… When the hormones shift, it creates a biochemical environment that

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Remodels our brain, and creates instability in our prefrontal cortex, and heightens our amygdala response, and makes our nervous system more sensitive, all those things, and so it just creates this environment where these un…

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Unhealed, untended wounds.

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are harder to keep at bay. And so, I see that with my clients.

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you know, some people will say, I mean, I haven't thought about this memory, I thought I was over this, I haven't thought about this…

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Thing that happened…

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when I was 15, I haven't thought about it in 40 years. Why am I thinking about this right now? Why am I having such an emotional response to this very old memory? And so, that's a very common…

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pattern that I see with my clients, and again, where EFT is so…

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Beautifully positioned as a tool to help people go back to those very specific memories that are coming up.

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and tap on those with curiosity. Like, we don't know why this memory's coming up, but it's coming up, here it is! What… what is it here that needs to be explored? And EFT allows us to do that.

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That's amazing. And…

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certainly EFT will get you there, even if you didn't think so, because sometimes just the whole tapping process calms down the amygdala, so the memory center can actually go, oh, here you go, so that can happen without you even planning for it.

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Tell us, then, about the Menno EFT method. So, what you developed, and what that sort of looks like, if somebody was interested to kind of, you know, explore this further.

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Yeah, so this is my attempt to combine all of the menopause knowledge that I have as a doula with what I know about EFT and how it works. And so, in practice, what does that look like? Well, in a session.

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We will often talk about, you know.

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what's happening in your body, what symptoms are you experiencing, and then I'm able to provide kind of that scientific explanation for

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Why that might be happening, and then…

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when we transition to EFT, just really able to guide clients

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with an awareness of that biochemical reality of what's happening in their bodies. And so…

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It's… it's a lot of, you know, the common clinical EFT tapping techniques.

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combined with… Science about what's happening in the body with…

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the menopause transition. And then I also do bring in, other kind of holistic recommendations and…

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advice for people when they're going to doctor's appointments and things like that. A common example, you know, if somebody's presenting with anxiety, feeling tired but wired.

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They're not sleeping very well.

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It could be that their ferritin is low.

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And… especially if a client says, yeah, my cycle… my periods are closer together, they're a lot heavier than they've ever been.

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They're losing more blood, that can affect iron storage, ferritin isn't

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Super commonly tested, as a matter of course.

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And so, sometimes I give recommendations like that, like, You might have anxiety because…

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your ferritin's low. You know, it might not be some deeper, you know, trauma, big T, little t trauma, it might not be that, it might just simply be because…

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you're losing more blood every month, and you need to do iron supplements. So…

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as powerful as EFT is, it can't solve every issue, right? Yeah, I'm so glad, I'm so glad you mentioned that, yeah. And so, part of my method is also to try to discern with clients where can EFT be really helpful, and then…

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What other tools, resources, and providers do you need to be working with in order to really

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feel better. I mean, that's… people don't want to suffer and…

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struggle for years and years and years, right? They… they want to live their life, they want to…

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Take care of their families, they want to travel, they want to enjoy their careers.

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So, my goal is to…

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help people find their way back to the life that they want, and or create a new, you know, a new chapter, right? Because as… as we kind of started this conversation.

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We are… we do get a brain remodel during this transition.

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That includes a newfound sense of freedom, wisdom, confidence.

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You know, and so you want your body to be feeling good so that you can enjoy the benefits of that brain remodel, right? I love that. That's so good, yeah, yeah. And I'm so glad you mentioned that bit about, and we say too.

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all the psychological tools out there, you know, all the ones we use, including EFT, they're not, yeah, they're not the answer for every presenting problem, and even with

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my psychology students that we teach, and they're all seeing clients in their master's program. You know, our lens is psychological, and so

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they learn this off by heart. They're like, oh, if you ever have to write anything for me, they have to write, in the absence of any diagnosed medical issues, the client appears to, blah, blah, meet criteria for whatever. Because I'm like, you…

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anxiety could have so many biological underpinnings, but if someone just goes to the MD, the GP,

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just says anxiety comes to the psychologist, that's the only lens that they're looking through, and I'm like, man, we have to kind of have a wider lens here. So I'm so glad you raised that, because

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it makes sense that iron might be low, and iron… low iron… I had… one of my daughters was vegetarian for 7 years, and that just plummeted her iron, and she would describe

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that her legs and her feet felt heavy, and she thought that was normal. She thought everybody walked around with heavy legs and feet, and when she told me, I'm like, no, that doesn't sound right, let's go just do a full medical checkup. Lo and behold.

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She didn't even rate in the iron rating she was that low. They couldn't even give her a number, so she was less than 4.

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Yeah.

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Immediately, we corrected that, and she ultimately has stopped becoming a vegetarian, so that is right for her body.

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And her brain came back online, and she's like, oh my… like, within, sort of, you know, 6 months, a year.

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She was… she had different conversations around the dinner table. Her academic work went through the roof, and we were all, like, going, oh my goodness, all of this was iron, and we didn't know. Felt really bad for a brief moment as a parent, because I'm like, we didn't know, we just thought we just catered to her dietary choices in life, and…

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but unaware that it… the biological effect for her, and now she looks back, and she's obviously in her master's degree herself, and she kind of thinks, I don't know how I got through school, and we're like, we don't know either, so…

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It is really important, if anyone listening in today, you know, to, yes, you know, be aware of the symptoms that are going on, but also make sure that medically, yeah, yep, you ask for that wider lens and things to be checked.

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Yeah. Yeah, because we… I mean, we know that stress…

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affects the body, but also other things happening in the body can affect our perception of stress. It's a two-way street, and so that's part of what I really try to emphasize with my Meno EFT method, is that

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The mind-body connection, and really tending to the whole person.

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Absolutely, and I think that's what women need to hear as well, you know, having been through this myself, lots and lots of girlfriends same age.

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friends at different stages. And having those conversations and that connection and community, and I think you're right, you said earlier, there's way more conversation about this now than when my mother went through it, or, you know, her mother, even my grandmother.

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That connection, to me, seems to be…

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well, we know through social support research, you know, it's just so good for you every… for all sorts of things, but maybe particularly in this phase, knowing that

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Other people are going through the same thing, and… The connection part might help.

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kind of the support, because, yeah, I mean, I hear, and I even just did an interview myself yesterday just for news, but it was around lonely, like, latest stress workplace survey that's been done in Australia, is flagging loneliness.

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You know, and loneliness, we know, actually can have an impact on the cardiovascular system, like smoking does. So, people don't realize that, yeah, having people to kind of talk to, or listening to this conversation going.

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I have some of those things, and I've never been assessed for perimenopause.

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Might just, you know, be the starting point for someone to sort of explore further.

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Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. So good. So, Siri, where can people learn more about you? Like, if someone was like, I want to connect with you, and I want to take the next step, what would be appropriate here?

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Yeah, so they can go to my website.

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And it's thecompassionWay.com. Love that. And there they can find more about me and my services, and at the bottom of the website, there's a little box that says Menno EFT, and you can put in your email address, and that's an easy way to just…

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get on my email list and learn about the work that I do and different things that are happening, and then…

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I'm very excited. In a month or so, I'm going to be launching my Menno EFT course. So it's an online course, and that will be… it will have tapping videos, tap-along audio, and some…

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Instructional videos as well, to really…

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help people who are in this menopause transition and want to learn about EFT and how to apply it to different aspects of the transition. It's just a quick way for people to kind of

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get in there and start tapping with me in that course, and so I'm very excited to launch that soon as well. The timing will be perfect here, so we will absolutely be, releasing around when that comes out, so that is perfect. We'll make sure that that's linked below as well.

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And that's thecompassionWay.com, everybody, that link is below as well. So, I just love that. Again, it reflects

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you know, I think the holding of the space around this kind of transition time that, you know, we were saying before we jumped on and hit record.

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that it can be, yeah, a time of… I love that you said the brain is rewiring, like, the last neural pruning stage really is teenage years, when you think about it. But if we're going through that now.

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you know, I'm in my early 50s, and

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You know, the sense of, kind of.

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I don't know, power that can come with this, or strength, or sense of self. That's what I'm now experiencing myself, and you know, my boss is running a little bit scared at the university, because he's like, you know, she's really assertive all of a sudden. I'm like, yes! And I don't care what people think. And I think…

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That framework of kind of going.

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yeah, what do I want to create now, moving into the next phase of my life? Or what I've noticed in myself that I've gone through a…

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physical pruning of things in my life, as in maybe, you know, programs I oversaw, or roles I played, or whatever, that I'm like, no, that's… I don't… I don't want to take that into the next phase, which has been a surprise for a lot of people, but…

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It's been true for me, and I kind of think if we can encourage more people in this

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you know, transition phase to sort of go, what do I want to create instead? It could be a really powerful time. And it's so funny you mention wisdom, because when you think about cultures around the world, and

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the people who are the wise counsel in a community, they're often the wise women. Now, I know there's exceptions to that, but they're often…

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The women in, you know, these cultural settings who…

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might be there to assist with, kind of, you know, the raising of children as well. But they are the ones, and it's like, they're the ones that people go to when they have their worries or concerns or problems. Yes. It's the wise woman, and I'm like, there must be a reason for that. There must be something that we… Yeah.

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Yeah, and I think EFT can help kind of supercharge that whole process, because Perimenopause creates

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the brain remodeling. It gets it going, and it's happening.

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And… EFT also can rewire.

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the brain, and so I think it can just help the remodeling process go more in the direction that you want it to go, and help you feel more a sense of empowerment and control over what you want the next phase of your life to be, and

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So, yeah, it can… that's just another kind of cool intersection between the EFT tool and then the…

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The biochemistry that's… Creating the remodel.

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I love it, I love it, and I love that you've got a course, so more and more people can reach, you know, your work and put themselves through that, so we'll make sure that that's below as well. If anyone's brand new to EFT, you know, you can look at our resources. I'm sure you've got all the beginner bits about how to, how to actually do tapping, and yeah, explore that first, you know, if they're somewhere in the world where they can't

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access you. So.

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Dr Erickson, thank you so much for coming on and having this conversation with me. I just knew that this topic would be wonderful to dive deep into and learn a little bit more about, reflect back on my own journey as well, and hopefully anyone listening in, you know, maybe have taken a gem out of that and kind of gone, oh wow, yeah, I didn't know that, and…

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maybe there's something that could influence their journey moving forward. Thank you so much for today.

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Well, thank you so much. It's been a delight to talk to you.

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Thanks, everyone. All of those links are below. Please go off and explore Ciri's work, and we look forward to seeing you on another episode of The Fourth Wave in Therapy.

 

 

Siri's Menopause Course: https://menoeft.com/foggy-to-fierce-menopause-course - plus get $20 off with the code PETA

Website: https://www.thecompassionway.com/