Setting The Stage: Part Two

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to part two of my very rich conversation with Dr. Carrie Ann Pierre. In part one, we talked about professional well-being and how culture shapes the way many of us approach work. In this part of the conversation, we go deeper into regulation, expectations we carry into professional spaces, and how we begin redefining what balance and well-being actually looks like for ourselves. And if you missed part one, be sure to go back and listen as this discussion builds directly on that foundation. Enjoy. The reality is the symptoms that people experience in menopause then fluctuate and then mildly is like is is like the Pacific Ocean, the the gap like of the experience. I know the thing that has concerned me particularly for menopause um perimenopause is that you see anti-carry recall can't touch this like empty amma. Yeah, something I remember everything from a little mother uncle said, Oh, you remember that? Well, the breeze was blowing this way, and grandma was there. Like that's me, right? But when Mr. Look Pan somebody else said, I know your name, but me can't bring out your name right now. Yeah, that the first level is panic because you know, dementia, early onset, Alzheimer's, those are things that family members have had. So that's where your mind goes to because you're like, I know what it is. I the brain is just not telling my mouth to say it. You know, I can't find the words. And so part of me is like, imagine me at work and this happened to me. They're gonna look for me like, my girl, you can't do a job. You know, so that's one thing that I think about, but in the context of what you just explained with burnout, bore-out feelings linked to perimenopause, that's something that we're not talking about. You know, I I was talking to Kenisha the other day, and I said everything around menopause is funny, and I and I'm not knocking that delivery because sometimes you have to take bad things make jokes in order to, you know, bring awareness. So everything about perimenopause right now is about jokes, but you are opening a different aspect that I didn't consider that the feelings or the emotional cycle or swings around work could be tied to this part of it. I never thought of it. So, like, is there anything specifically that you're so like when you're at work and you feel this way? Have you checked? Maybe this is a perimenopause thing. Yeah, let's talk about that.

Brain Fog And Performance Anxiety

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with perimenopause, there are so many things, right? Is it's really a um a market basket of things. Um, in the workspace, you can find yourself possibly the brain fog, right? Like you're mentioning, that not remembering kind of, oh wait, where did I put that file? Or where was I in putting this meeting agenda together, or where was I in reading through this report? Sometimes the brain fog can creep in very suddenly, and it just takes a moment to kind of reset, particularly in the workspace. You know, step away for a moment, come back, type of thing. Um, so brain fog is one thing. You may have physical symptoms. I know for me, for instance, I'll talk about me. I sometimes feel like something is is crawling along my leg or or biting my you know, ankles and and and calf and that kind of thing, like an itchy feeling. So you have those, like it's a nerve, apparently it's like nerves, nerve endings doing things.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Listen, maybe that's why I said, Why my neck has scratched? Maybe I may have eat rash, and he looks at my neck and go like I don't see nothing.

The Body Keeps Score: Odd Symptoms

SPEAKER_00 3:50

It varies, yeah. It varies, it can be these body aches. I have uh what we what they call frozen shoulder, and I've been having this now for the past I don't know, two months, two, two and a half months. I said to myself, well, I'm sleeping at AC, so that means uh at night time my shoulder gets freeze up. Is that frozen shoulder? Like I said, what the hell is frozen shoulder, right? But basically, it you're you're a pain, a pain in your shoulder, and you can't lift beyond a certain point, or you can't rotate your shoulder anymore in a certain way without having these pains. So maybe I have frozen shoulder girl, brand new. You may also feel out aside from the funny pains and creepy crawly feelings and the brain fog. I also know that some of my clients in perimenopause having, of course, very common things like the heat, body heat, feeling that kind of thing, which is very similar to what's going on for women in menopause itself. Some of us have that heat thing, um, or we get cold suddenly. So it's one of the two. I also recognize too in my clients, many of them are reporting migraines for the first time. And they're like, I've never had a migraine. Now, mind you, migraines could be a very um important sign of overwork and lack of quality sleep, but for some women it is um a symptom of perimenopause.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah, this is great. This is cause if you never said that out, like I'm like, Neka, scratch me. If he may have heat rush, and he's like, I don't see anything. It's winter. Oh, yeah. I'm in too much blankets.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah, it's strange, it's a strange, and it's things that never before. You never had these things before. Oh, another one that I have going on with me for the past year bumping into things, like coming in and out of a room is dangerous for me. No matter how many times prior, I would come in and out of that room. All of a sudden, I bump it into the the door hinge, the door frame.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

This it's a stumbling for me. All of a minute I'm like bump my foot on the stumble. Like, what is going on?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

So strange. So, your center of your balance also shifts during in in perimenopause. Again, these are not for every woman. This is this is some women experience in these things.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah, yeah. The the thing that has been bothering me for about a year, um, over a year at this point, is that my left knee and you know has been bothered. Like when I walk on flat, it's fine, but try to go up and down the stairs. And I remember when it first happened to me, I was going down the step in the subway, and I felt like, wait, what go on? Like, what's happening? And I have insurance. So I said, Listen, I doctor, look here, please come check out this. We need to x-ray my knee or foot. Something is going on. And they're like, we don't see anything. So I ended up having to go to physical therapy because they're basically saying some ligament is weak, and so I needed to do physical therapy to strengthen it. So here the man said to me, Um, when you exercise, you have to ex you have to warm up a bit longer.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Look at 10 minutes for the warm-up. It's serious. It's serious.

Heat, Cold, And First Migraines

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Oh my goodness. No, this is this is great. So the I guess the follow-up question is yeah, the burnout world, right? Because these are things that I interrogate personally, journal, all these things because they're cultural and ambition and striving, right? At the beginning, you say you have ambition, right? And ambition, and um, I remember I had a t-shirt very early in carry on friends that says ambition up like seven. It's very interesting because culturally, listen, no man, nobody tells us here I've no ambition. My gosh, is like it's like a curse, right? Whereas in other cultures, if someone says you're ambitious, it's almost it's it's an insult, right? Versus in our culture, somebody tell you ambitious, thank you, thank you, you know, like of course, you know. So this idea of striving and I guess ambition are you know cultural in you know in nature, but like some of us might have a personality that defaults to that. And I personally feel like when you're the older child, and the older child is a girl, you know, like you know, all those extra, you know, things just bubble up and ball it up to be perfect. So, um, how do you address Caribbean women with this? Some right, because we all got to the access the exception, this idea of ambition and striving contribute to our burnout and this idea of bore out. And at what point do we say, like, um, take your foot off of the gas, my girl? You know, like you know, so with the ambition and striving, like, because I imagine we've been doing this for years, so it's gonna be very hard to stop doing something that it's been our default setting for a very long time.

Balance Shifts And Everyday Stumbles

Knees, PT, And Aging Realities

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, it is very much a default setting, right? No matter how we put it, um, we saw our mothers do it, we saw our grandmothers do it, and they saw their mothers and grandmothers and great. So it is it is just in us, it is imprinted in our DNA for real to this to this keep going push-through dynamic. Um it's great to be ambitious, it's great to to be tenacious, it's absolutely wonderful, right? We go far with it, but we go far with it to our own detriment. And I've seen too many women talking to me about the burnout, they don't have enough time for themselves, they don't have enough time for their family, uh, they they've lost themselves, they don't know who they are anymore, all this kind of stuff, right? And this is where I say it's good to be ambitious, tenacious, and all those things, but there has to come a point where you know, them come to Jesus moments, them reconciliation moments of I can only do this for a time. That is the part where we don't we don't reconcile that very well. We feel that we must drive, drive, drive, push, push, push from 25 all the way to 75 for some of us, right? And that is not how biologically we are wired, which is why we have things like our periods, a week each month where we are supposed to be quiet, where you're supposed to sit down and get to know yourself again. Honestly, that is how biological rhythms work, right? And I know everybody's gonna be like, girl, a whole week to just sit down and do nothing, that's a dream. Yes, it is a dream. Now, back in the day, it was a norm, right? Listening to our rhythms and our cycles are very important. So, our periods are a point at which we need to listen and deeply listen. Perimenopause are umpteen years for us to listen and to learn how to recalibrate, shift the tenacity and the ambition to now serve yourself. That's what perimenopause is teaching you, right? And it's a whole process of recalibration, a whole process, and then in menopause, it's a whole nother process of self-lex exploration and being ambitious and tenacious in a different way, right? But we don't seem to understand for some reason, we don't seem to understand that these phases and stages of life are for us to calibrate differently around our ambitions and tenacity at these different points. You can't keep the same gear going for 25, 30, 40 years. It does not make sense, it's not feasible, right? And at no point am I saying do not be ambitious or tenacious, it is a matter of calibrating, recalibrating what it means each time, each phase of your life.

Culture, Ambition, And Burnout

SPEAKER_01 12:33

So I'll let me say, Dr. Kerr, middle of the conversation here because you know, the work for myself and thing. Um, what you brought up, I think is very important. So let's talk about trade-offs. Because I've made some trade-offs, right? My girl, this is what you have to do because your busybody over here, so and you can't take on certain role, you can't take on certain role because you have things that are going over you, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. But every now and then the ambition and striving rear it head and say, My girl, yeah. You understand? You understand? Beaches, you know, yes, yes, and and it's like it takes a lot to do that recalibration to remind yourself why you've made certain choices, right? So, like you said, we we need to recalibrate, decide what the trade-offs are, but you know what I mean so the trade-off them easy. I mean, there it there comes moments where you realize that oh McCandy Sun that is it, you know. Like I know that why I don't want to be a manager anymore. It was very hard work. I don't want to, I don't want any of it. It requires a level of stress that and you know, politics that me not really do enough in a younger age. I don't want to do it. But yeah, what happens is you are still up here in your level of experience, and you you you kind of can't help but see certain things need to be done, you understand? Yeah, and it's like you know, a real yourself in and say, Okay, my girl, listen, pump your brakes. And so, yeah, I've I think I've said it on the podcast. No, my co-worker know about it. That's why I've created the grading system for myself. Me, I tell us, you know, go to school at Jamaica, you pick up some things, anyway. So I had I I had to figure out a way to regulate my my emotions at work or frustrations at work. So listen, we're gonna work for five days, um, 20 pints for each day, and we start at 20, you get back frustrated, you start minus points, right? So, in my head, listen, if if if if me not end up at the end of the week with some peace and score, we have to recalibrate like my girl, we have to do different things.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

I love that so much.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

I have an Excel spreadsheet. My co-workers that you're serious. I'm like, listen, my other Excel spreadsheet, and I'm I'm gonna put in my score every day. I put in my score, and you know, people might say it's excessive, but I am aware of how I am. I know that I'm a hard worker level of excellence, and I need to kind of reel it in because I don't like the person I become, and then I look crazy to everybody else. Like, why is she carrying out it's not that serious? And again, they don't understand it's the default cultural setting that is is causing me to feel this way, and it's excellence, or I don't want to say excellence because we overuse excellence and resilience, and we need to keep quiet. Are we like we say in Jamaica, tan tori? Um right, so I do this to help me calm down. Some people do it better than others. I admit that I don't do it very well. I mean, I need tools to help me. So, you know, calibration is a great idea, but it's very hard to execute.

Biological Rhythms As Strategy

SPEAKER_00 16:01

It is, it is. I agree with you that it is a hard one in terms of being consistent and figuring out how to measure you know what structure to measure yourself by. So I'm happy to hear that you have something that works, that's awesome for you, and uh this touches on another aspect of work, which is why I love the fact that you you brought it up. So, one of the big things, too, uh in my work as a psychologist is the ways in which our regulation occurs in the workspace. How do you go from zero to a hundred and then regulate yourself? Like when you're when you're upset about something, or when suddenly something is dropped on your desk and you have to maneuver differently now. How do you come down from that type of high? And so your nervous system, the nervous system work is so critical, and this is something again through lived experience of my own process of having to regulate and manage, um recognizing that you know a lot of calibration of myself has to be done on a daily basis at work, right? On a daily basis, because no two days are alike, and so some people will tell you things like well, do your mindful breathing, count to 10, um, go into the bathroom. How which job dem I work? I don't know where they work because none of those things work for me. So those things people will tell you. Yes, there is value in breath work, right? Um deeply breathing and kind of helping your vagus nerve, which is one of the largest nerves in your body, coming from um your brain stem down, right? So getting that anchored through breath work is important, absolutely. But the other thing is also recognizing and kind of renegotiating with yourself what am I doing in this place? Because if every day I have to be calibrating and regulating to a high level, then there is something environmentally that is going on I need to reassess and either remove or I need to remove myself.

Trade‑Offs And Saying No

SPEAKER_01 18:29

You you make a strong point because I I find that is very helpful for me to just stay focused and just like, yes, I'll get frustrated, but you know, not that my co-workers, my colleagues are not bad, but sometimes when you share a frustration that gets amplified, and so to manage the amplification of certain frustrations is just like keep it to yourself and just like okay, and uh find other ways to kind of soothe or work through some of that. So listen, yeah, you have a BX playlist, a God force playlist, something to diffuse your anger, you know, as you have to, yeah, have to because like I said, no two days are are going to be the same, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

And again, remember, you know, 35 to 55, you're in a perimenopause window. So the perimenopause process is also going on as you are being frustrated and taxed at work. So the regulation process has got to be adjusted, right? It has to it has to maneuver and flex with you as you're going through these daily journeys of yourself and the daily work process. So it's it's important to do that nervous system work for sure.

unknown 20:01

Dr.

A Personal System To Regulate

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Kerry, you may have to come back for the show because we're gonna get to the this is like I need to ask you this question, but we still have a bunch of other stuff. Okay, okay, no problem. So we talk about the exceptions. We don't say I know everybody a hard worker. We every Caribbean person knows somebody who don't work hard. We know this. We know this, we know this, we know plenty, yeah. Some yes, oh they come so like yes, I'm saying it stay all this time, yeah. Right, and everybody is on this you know, Caribbean woman excellence type level. No, and everybody, not even every Caribbean man excellent, you know, there's some people who just my god, you'll it ain't lazy, man. That's that's different, however, there's of in addition to being fearful of calling, you know, like somebody say, you know, I've no ambition. The other word, what we don't like to be called is lazy, lazy, yes. Are you idle? Oh Lord, and and even you see how my work up is set to the word lazy, because it's it it it was used to weaponize your when you were younger, right? The out the no ambition, idle and lazy, yeah, not intentionally, or maybe I don't know if then didn't know this is what was gonna happen because I strongly believe that some of the things we did here as Pitney, we we we still carry them today. I don't like to be late. I mean I like to be late because as a little pitney, I learned that if you are late, they're not gonna lock you out of the door from school until they've done devotion and let you in. And I don't want to be standing out there with the whole school and look on the bunch of putting them out of door.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

You remember that line out of the gate?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

You remember that line in the sun in the morning sun hat you out of door looking like. Like prisoner, can't come in school grounds because you're late.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Oh gosh, listen to me.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

So I don't like to be late because, and and I said to my husband, like, babe, it's not you. I just don't like it because I'm holding on, my body has that memory of what it means to be labeled late if going to school in Jamaica. I mean I talk just high school, may I talk as even as infant school, primary school, yeah. And then the pit them call you late, but you understand? Like, you don't want that. So no ambition, lazy, idle. These are things that we don't want. And I think in some aspects, you feel like Lord, that's just lazy. Things that we consider are just lazy. Other people I said, no, that's being smart with your time, you know. Hire somebody for do it, and we're like, what?

Nervous System Work At Work

When Environment Must Change

SPEAKER_00 22:55

You know, so yeah, you have to delegate, you have to learn about it. You have to delegate our something, right? I was gonna say it's a different space and time, right? Because I would say, well, let me back up. I'm sure you have seen the um what do you call them now? Promotions, statements, remarks, what you whatever you call them about the high-functioning woman, right? And how high-functioning women operate like this and they do things like this and yada yada yada. And oftentimes it is a flip, this high-functioning woman statement. I have come to recognize that it is a flip on the reality of overextended women. Women who have overextended themselves, we're nicing it up by saying high-functioning women. They are burnout, all health, right? Um, a lot of them are physically going through some severe illnesses or or about to become very ill, right? These high-functioning women. Um, some of them have moved into a state of now being um very well calibrated. And the well-calibrated woman is the woman who delegates work, she delegates tasks to other people, frees up her time so that it's not necessarily laziness, it is now more she is taking care of herself in a very intentional way, right? Where rest is a priority, and rest, as I teach my clients, is a tool for good leadership and good stewardship in your household, right? So this whole drape of high-functioning woman coming from the overextended, overworked woman, moving into now a well-calibrated woman based on her delegation of tasks and better management of time. So we're squashing laziness in that regard. The laziness traditionally that we know about are people who we just don't see operating in the same way as we do. Like, why you not have nothing to do? How you not have nothing for do? Why you know under something with your time, right? How you mean on the work? How you mean on the work? What are you talking about? These are so that wait, wait, wait. You need something for do me find something for you for doing something for you for do. So I understand though that the lazy trope oftentimes gets put on people who honestly just have a different rhythm of effort, right? It's not that they're not doing anything, it's just that the way they go about doing things is on a very different rhythm than what you are doing, and sometimes if we took a page out of those people's books, we might be better off because they maneuver in a way, oftentimes, not all the time, not all the time, there are exceptions, but many a time they maneuver in a way where self-regulation is their priority, and so they spend a lot of time regulating themselves prior to their engagement in certain efforts, and so that period of regulation, we call that laziness because we're on the outside looking in and we just never see them do nothing yet. So you wonder what you do with your life, but they have been doing some really amazing things, right? They just regulate first and then effort versus those of us out here with like myself as a recovering a-type personality who was always into effort, effort, effort, and then had to learn how to regulate, so yeah, but I may tell you the learning to regulate, the actual regulating and the re-regulate is yeah, all there.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Let's see. All right, so as we come to the wrap-up of the main show, but we're gonna elaborate a little bit in the after show. Yeah, I want you to ask you a little fun thing, and we call this segment here.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

All right, me know better, all right.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah, you know, like what was one thing you learned about work? And now that you know better, what's the actual advice you would give about work? So, like something that I went into work thinking about it this way, and now me know better. Let's this is how we should view this.

Lazy Or Well‑Calibrated

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Wow, um, well, at the top of this, I was saying, you know, that what we we often forget is that we're whole. Um, so I would stick to that again. Now that I know better. Well I feel like it's not like an exam question, Carrie Ann Lord.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

No, my I'm gonna give you one, I'm gonna give you one, right? So all right, I know better. Everybody talk about me. No, you hear this too. Culturally, with parents still say, Listen, got the people them work, not cause no trouble, hold your head down, do your work, and you will you we you will be successful. You and I know better, say that formula.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, that formula don't work here. Well, yeah, that that whole idea in the US in particular, just go and get you a good government job. No, sir. No, no, no, no. Because we did a good government job, and the people that mad me in other place, mad me in other place, honestly. You know, when we get these messages, question. I think that is a good rule of thumb. We hear these things like go and get your good government job, or it's just so it go at work, so just you know, just stay quiet, hold your head down, and go on and push through. Why question these things? I think we need to do better at questioning because when things again follow your spirit, if it not takes your spirit, if it not resonates with you, you need to find a way to leave it. You either go and walk real wide, like you said earlier, or just leave it all together, find a new plan. Um, so even that working with with with coaching clients and developing a pivot plan, like how to get out of a space when you realize this is not it. Um, because I know better, I'm going to do better, but you need to figure out what a strategy is. Yeah, I think leaning into that more often than not will serve us for the long haul.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Wonderful. Yeah, man. I just love having this conversation. Like I said, we'll go laboration after. So I'm gonna wrap this up and Dr. Kerry, tell the people then where they can find you and know about all the things you're doing.

Delegation And Rest As Leadership

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Logis. Um, so knowing about all the things I do in LinkedIn is definitely where you'll see most of my things. So I am Carrie Ann, K-E-R-R-I-A-N-N, one word, P-E-A-R-T on LinkedIn. So you can find me there. And I'm also on Instagram, not as much, but you can find some random things that I do on Instagram at dr dot carry k-e-r-r-i underscore p P Zn Paul. Also, I have another Instagram handle called at naked morning. So naked, like you spell the word naked, and then morning as we do in the Caribbean, M-A-W N-I-N. And that is a space where I leverage a lot with a um sister friend of mine from college about Caribbean things, life in the Caribbean. So can follow me there as well.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Wonderful, wonderful. Dr. Kerry, it's so nice to talk to you. We never ever tell them so we we come from similar places because you know, as a movie person, I have a chip on my shoulder because everybody, yeah, I shouldn't say everybody, Kingston people love call everybody outside of Kingston, country people, country, and I'm like people, I mean, adjust your language, and two, we have the same alma mater, the school on the hill.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yes, oh gosh, man, the glorious brown and blue, love it, love it, going to bed.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Oh my gosh. Um, you know, I think mornings when we had to sing that school song, and as kids, you know, your remix of school song, like you know, when they say give us a cheer, rah rah, that's what everybody was like, yeah, anyway. Um, but we'll continue to elaborate, and um, as I love to see at the end of every episode, walk good.