You are listening to Hit Play, Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.

I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help

you feel and perform you best no matter what your hormones are doing. This show is a production

of Live Feisty Media. Hello, strong, feisty women. Today, we're talking identity, specifically

what can happen to ours as athletes during the menopausal transition.

A few of you have messaged me struggling with what can only be called an identity crisis.

One woman writes,

I can't run marathons until I figure out this fatigue and joint pain.

But who am I if I don't run marathons? I'm a marathoner.

Another wrote, who am I if I don't race bikes, noting that her motivation just wasn't there right now.

Who is this woman staring at me in the mirror? I hear that one a lot. And if you listen to the show with Jeannie Wall last week,

you heard a lot of discussion about how it can rock you to your core when you have one

impression of what you look like in your mind, and it's met with a very different reality in the

mirror. This week's guest, Lisa Hess, who is a life and wellness coach for athletes, refers to this

collective unraveling as a life quake, which she is clear to note is a term she didn't make up,

but it certainly fits the circumstances. And we dive into all of it, how menopause affects

us as athletes who experience our life and much of our joy through

our bodies, defining ourselves as we make changes through this transition, and how to find

solid ground when the earth seems to be shifting under our feet every five seconds. Lisa is a nationally

board certified health and wellness coach, an international coaching

federation professional coach, a self-described neuroscience nerd, and a big believer in the idea

that is never too late to change our narrative while honoring what we bring with us from the past.

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