Balance Your Hormones Naturally with Dr. Alexandra Swenson-Ridley

Dr. Alex is a formerly burnt out, and now retired, chiropractor and 7 figure business owner known for setting figurative fire to the business which, at the height of its success, became like a prison to her.

She learned a lot of hard lessons in the process, including healing from an eventual bankruptcy and the physical and emotional after effects of burnout as the universe tried to get her to pay attention and redirect her professional path from the one she was on. On the other side of unearthing layers of trauma from the career and business she was supposed to love, but that led her to build a business and a quality of life she didn’t really want, she developed what she calls the RISE method.

She now helps other women heart-centered entrepreneurs work through their own RISE journey so that they can transform their experience from one of sacrifice and burnout, to unadulterated joy and passion.

In our conversation today, we'll talk about hormone regulation and the effect of hormones on womens' health, wealth, and weight. 


Connect with Dr. Alex online: https://www.emergentwomencoaching.com/

Transcript

Magic Barclay: 1:00

Welcome back to a magical life. I'm your host, Magic Barclay, and today Dr. Alexandra Swenson Ridley joins us. Can I call you Dr. Alex today? Yes, absolutely. Perfect. Welcome

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 1:13

Dr. Alex. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be

Magic Barclay: 1:17

here. Pleasure. Now listeners, Dr. Alexandra Swenson Ridley is a thought leader. In Outside the Box and Natural Approaches to Women's Health and Hormones, she focuses on what she has termed the selfless syndrome. After suffering her own health challenges that resulted from focusing on everyone and everything but herself, her work turned Towards helping other driven women navigate the world of fatigue, thyroid issues, anxiety, and depression, difficulty losing weight, gut health, and more without the use of medications. She is the founder of Emergent Women Coaching and Health Consulting and is building a business that serves both her clients and her health while helping other women do the same. She's the host of the podcast, Emerge, the health podcast for busy, high performing women, the creator of the Emergent Women Method and Chrysalis Health Consulting Program, and a PhD candidate in integrative medicine through Quantum University. Her mission? To help women break through the constraints imposed by misinformation society and a lack of self worth and to step into the awesome power of who they really are. Oh my goodness. I'm so glad you

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 2:44

are here. I'm really glad to be here. I actually haven't heard that bio read in a little while. good to be here.

Magic Barclay: 2:50

Now, let's quickly talk about. The selfless syndrome. I think a lot of us fall into that trap. I know my two hands are up at the moment and you know, we tend to just give and give and give till we're an empty vessel and there's that old saying, you can't pour from an empty cup. Why do we do it? Is it, is it society? Is it how we're raised? Is it just years or decades of misinformation that women just have this. Never ending source of stuff for other people, like what is going on

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 3:26

there? that's a really good and interesting question. and when I've, I've been ruminating over a bit myself lately, you know, I think it, it comes from multiple places. there's a societal component. There's a, you know, the fast paced world that we live in today component and women are bridging this place of having. to nature or society or whatever you want to call it, you know, always been in this more caretaking, nurturing role. And now we, we bridged the two worlds of also being in the working world and, you know, having careers and having other things that drive us. And most of our solution to that has been to just do it all when it's completely unrealistic and often leads to breakdown. So I've actually identified like underneath selfless syndrome, there's five archetypes that I see common in women that really. Drive them to the point of burnout or of, you know, starting to have some serious health issues as a result of it. And I'd be happy to share those. Please do I have a quiz out. So I, I've seen like the, the most common one that I've seen coming through is what I call the resigned woman. And that's those of us who have just reached a point where. We've decided nothing's ever going to change. This is just how life's going to be. We're almost apathetic and going through the motions, but completely exhausted and frazzled in the process. So, you know, a lot of women probably identify with that. There's what I call the controller, and this is the one I fall fall into more. And, you know, we're the ones that. We just do everything because it's easier and more efficient than trying to rely on other people to do it. And so that can spill over to our jobs to our work to, you know, chores around the house. All those things we always have to be the one driving the car, right? Like, we don't let other people help. the third is slightly different from that. It's the perfectionist. And the difference there is the driver is not so much that we have to be in control of it all. It's that it has to look a certain way. And if it doesn't look exactly like we think it should, then it's not done right, or it's not perfect. And so those are especially with self care. Those are the women that like, if they can't fully embrace meal planning, or, you know, all the stars aligned to get them to their workout or whatever that is, or meditation or, you know, whatever you're doing to take care of yourself, they just give up. The fourth is the martyr, and they're the, you know, at this point, you literally don't matter. I've met several women who just have the conversation of like, I'm not important, not from a really negative place, though sometimes it can be, but it's more, you know, Everyone and everything else is more important. They have no identity outside of themselves. They don't really know what fills them up, what their hobbies are. And it can be a hard place to come from. You know, if we look at the analogy of, you've got to have to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others, the martyr has a really hard time. Implementing that and so their cup is truly depleted and empty. And then the fifth one is the yes woman. And so that's the woman who literally doesn't know how to say no, you feel guilty if you say no to anything. And so your schedule ends up just full of other people's stuff and things that maybe you don't even really want to be doing, but you find yourself committed to and really lacking the ability to. Not commit to it. So, you know, underneath all of those essentially what they are is a state of being and whether that's driven by society or upbringing or, you know, all of the external factors. A lot of it is just unconscious programming that runs into how we be in the world. And so a lot of. How I approach hormone imbalance and all of this stuff is actually getting to the root of, you know, unearthing what's really driving us and what's running the show and helping women create something new in a different way of being in the world where it is possible to have some semblance of balance. I don't really believe balance is a true thing, but, you know, a place where you don't feel overwhelmed and stressed and. Exhausted and like, you're barely hanging on as so many of us do.

Magic Barclay: 7:12

Fantastic. Now, as you were mentioning those archetypes, I think I could take a couple of them. So, you know, is it possible that we can be those different archetypes at different points in our lives?

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 7:26

Yeah, absolutely. I think we can kind of weave in and out of, of many of them, you know, I can recognize myself in, in many of them and a lot of the clients I work with, like one will typically come through the strongest. It's like our true default. Patterning, but others can also be under the surface. Similar to, I think there's other examples of things where, you know, we're not necessarily just one thing, but one of them might speak to you the most strongly. What's cohesive about all of them is that, you know, they all lead us to this place of. Exhaustion, body breakdown, and starting to have some health issues.

Magic Barclay: 7:59

let's get on to our standard three questions. Now, Dr. Alex, we ask all of the guests three questions, and everyone gives a different answer. And I know yours are going to be fantastic. So here's your first one. What can your expertise do to accelerate health? Not just physical health, but also emotional and spiritual health.

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 8:20

the emotional and spiritual part is such an important piece and something that's so ignored. And so I would say, you know, where I come from with this is we always want to go to everything outside of ourselves, right? We want to, we want the diet, we want the new supplement, we want the exercise routine that's finally going to work. And what we find is frustration because Inside of that, we are still the same person showing up and inevitably failing generally at those things. So it's, it's that shift in what I would argue really accelerates is the, the people who are able to embrace and understand and do the inner work first. And that was my own journey. And so a lot of what I teach now in my approach, so hopefully that answered your question.

Magic Barclay: 9:01

Definitely. Now, question number two is around wealth. People think it's just the financial, but of course you can't have. Any wealth, unless you have personal and emotional wealth. So what are your top three tips to creating

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 9:15

wealth? This is something I've been exploring for myself recently, actually, both in the world of finances, but also with health. You know, we, we tend to look at wealth as money in a bank account. and I challenge anyone to look at wealth as your energy bank account, your, you know, your physical bank account, your emotional bank accounts, like how, how full are, are all of those. And the biggest. Tip I have is to really identify for a lot of us. It's learning how to rest and how to save. And so you can interpret that in whatever facet of, non financial wealth, you want to look at, but rest and I don't mean sleep, but I mean, activities that are rejuvenating and rebuild. Our reserves, essentially, because that's really where wealth comes from, is how, how deep our reserves and how full is our cup. rest is a big one. I, I would say not overwhelming yourself as well. You know, we tend to go in as all or nothing. really. Being willing to take the baby steps. This is something I, I have struggled with and a lot of who I work with are, you know, busy women who identify as being high performers. And so it's like, we want to do all the things at once. And we have to recognize that this is a process. Over time, and so you're making small exchanges in moving in the direction that you want to go without trying to take everything on at once. It's, it's like the opposite of a new year's resolution mentality. It's slow incremental change so that you're actually creating something that's sustainable and not that's going to crash and burn your foundation has to be strong. so that would be the next. The next big 1 and then the 3rd, I would actually say is how this is a competition. I have frequently having grace for yourself in the process, recognizing it as a process. It's not always going to be perfect. And it's not always necessarily going to happen overnight. We didn't get to where we are overnight and. We're not going to undo it in one day, but it's, having the patience to build a new habits, new routines, new things that incrementally build your wealth and then having grace for yourself when something happens or, you know, when you inevitably don't do everything perfectly, because that's going to happen to all of us. It's about learning and growing through each situation and circumstance.

Magic Barclay: 11:31

Yeah. There's always a whole lot of other people in our worlds ready to tear us down. And we don't need to do it ourselves.

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 11:37

Yep. Yeah, definitely.

Magic Barclay: 11:39

Fantastic. Now, our final standard question is around weight. Many people, particularly women battle with their weight, whether they gain it, whether they can't gain it, there's always a situation when just not happy in our own skins. And I know a lot of that comes from our childhood and from conditioning and society. And like, there's a whole lot of factors there. I think a lot of people. When they're looking to coaches or doctors or whoever they need to work with, they see the skinny, gorgeous person and think, well, they're not going to understand they've never battled. So have you ever battled your way? If so, how did you win the war? And if you haven't, what can you offer the listeners? So that comparison that we've been raised with doesn't keep rearing its ugly head. That's a good question.

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 12:31

There's so many layers. So, the answer is yes, I have battled with it both just psychologically and also, up until about a year ago, I, I'm 5 foot 4 and I had topped out at 182 pounds, which was 30 pounds more than I weighed when I was. Eight months pregnant. and my battle was really, you know, for a long time I ignored it. I didn't relate to myself as the person that I would see on camera or in the mirror. You know, I would catch glimpses of myself and just kind of be like, Whoa. And the turning point for me was really, I actually got measured for a bra because none of my bras were fitting. And I was. One and a half sizes bigger than I had ever been even when at the peak of breastfeeding my child. And, you know, at that point I was like, okay, something is wrong and I need to figure this out because I'm also someone, I was already working with women, coaching them and helping them lose weight and, you know, having their hormones balanced and all this stuff. And I, I was doing all the things like, I know all the stuff I've got. Way too many certifications and degrees, a lot of that driven by imposter syndrome, which is a different conversation, but I couldn't figure me out. So I finally pulled my head out of the sand after about three years of, you know, being in that place of just feeling really unhealthy and my weight just going up and up, no matter what I did. And in the process of that, I got really clear that I'd actually never related to my body as. Being healthy, even when I was running marathons and actually wore a size zero, which, you know, most women would be ecstatic to be at that point. Right. But I still always, you know, I remember looking back at the pictures I see of myself and thinking how fat I was or that my pooch was bigger. All this really negative stuff that we would never say to anybody. So a lot of my. Winning the war. I now can say I have, I lost about 30 pounds in 13 weeks, doing some dietary stuff and, but the, bigger, the deeper piece was kind of what we opened up with was really getting clear on who I was being in the world and what unconscious things were driving me and really doing a lot of inner work on that. Body image conversation. And so, you know, I, I'm now down. I, I have some more weight. I could lose, but I'm comfortable. I'm confident. I'm happy. I feel good. I have energy. My periods aren't crazy. Stucky and all the things that I was experiencing and it just gives some context. You know, I, I women's hormone testing. Like I know you're in Australia in the U S and most Western worlds. It's Western countries. I should say the Western world is Not really looked at in terms of like, if you're looking at traditional medical care, and so, you know, they don't really research. It's like, unless you're in full blown menopause or you're really have been struggling with fertility for a long time, they're not going to test your hormones and they don't look at that and they don't look at ratios and all that. So what had happened for me was my thyroid was a little off and I found estrogen dominant. Which that is the experience that I described with. I just woke up one day and none of my pants fit because I put on a bunch of weight and my hips and my belly and I couldn't get it off. And you know, I've met many women who experienced that and that can be caused either by estrogen being too high or progesterone going too low. There's all these different nuances. And so a lot of times when you're, frustrated or have been on the journey a long time, it's, you know, it's double faceted in that it's, you mentioned with both the physical and the emotional and spiritual side of healing, like you really have to address all of them. And before you really engage in any process geared at specifically losing weight, I really strongly, you know, suggest and, and teach in my process with the women that I work with doing that inner work first, it has to start there. Otherwise, we still experience that nothing we, we do works. So that's the big thing. And then the other is to recognize that most science and, Weight loss stuff and all that a lot of women don't realize in the United States, women weren't included in clinical trials until 1993. And so understanding women's bodies and physiology has not really been a part of medicine until very recently. And a lot of the knowledge and the stuff that's taught out there is geared at men's physiology. And it's just different, you know, they can think about losing weight and. Drop 20 pounds. Like for women, it's, it's a lot different. And it's just, our physiology is different. And so there's recognizing and finding the people who are actually educated and what that looks like is the other huge piece of the pie.

Magic Barclay: 16:47

A lot of these studies that were done over the past decades were only done with 20 to 30 year old. Caucasian males. So even for depression medications and things like that, they were done with that demographic only. And so, you know, many women will say, well, I'm taking this medication and I'm getting worse, not getting better. I'm getting these side effects because it actually wasn't designed for you. And same with our hormones. I know with my clients, one of the first things I do is I say, have you ever had a Dutch test? And they're like, what's that? And so it's a dried urine analysis test. For hormones and guys can get it done too, but it's really the only test that gives us a really clear picture of where the female hormone cycles and conversions of those are. And yet so many people get a blood test to Test their estrogen. Well, that's not going to be accurate and it's only picking up one estrogen out of three. So, you know, there's a whole world in the medical world there that really does need restudying or at least pulling apart for what it actually is.

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 18:03

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I get frustrated and my clients get frustrated around, if you can get a provider to agree to do hormone testing, they typically just do it anytime. And it does matter where you're at in your cycle. as long as you're still a cycling female and haven't fully hit menopause, and then the ranges are just way too broad and they, they really don't narrow it down. And there's like so much missing. So I, like you, I really love the Dutch test as well. You know, my go to at least once just to understand how your hormones are metabolizing and really what the whole picture looks like. It's the only thing I found that really gives that perspective.

Magic Barclay: 18:41

something I've struggled with pretty much all my life. Having just turned 50, it's like, that's nearly 50 years of weight going up and down, and it wasn't until I got my Dutch done that I realized I had very little estrogen, I wasn't converting anything properly because. I'd lived on cortisol for so long that cortisol was driving any hormone production. So it was kind of, you know, like trying to, guess, blow out a candle from 10 meters away. It's just not going to happen.

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 19:15

Yeah. No, not at all. And you know, some of the things I'll just add to your story with what I learned from the Dutch test, you know, I had the experience of, I have a nine year old at the time we're recording this, but he was born five weeks early and no one could tell me why. And I, you know, I was searching and searching and searching. And I finally, I read a study out of Australia, actually, that talked about toxic stress because cortisol will steal. Pregnenolone, which is what creates all of your other hormones, and specifically it'll actually, progesterone will convert into cortisol. And so I had super high levels of stress when I was pregnant and it tanked my progesterone enough. I went into labor, like when your progesterone drops, that's when labor starts. And looking at the Dutch test, I can now see that like that has always been an area where I've just kind of always been low and it's due to stress and due to, you know, due to other things and our bodies can shift and change. But a lot of what I talk about is. how prominent stress is at the root of all of this stuff. Because, you know, if you look at how our primitive brain works, which is where the stress response comes from, it's part of our autonomic nervous system. when we perceive stress, our brain like intellectually, we can differentiate like, Oh, I'm stuck in traffic and late. So I'm stressed from, you know, the tiger's trying to Eat me and kill me, but our old, old brain process doesn't. And so our body's physiological response is the same in both situations. And in our modern worlds, we have very little relief from that stress response because we're just always going at that level. And I really make the argument, you know, that's why we see, we have such high prevalence of, issues going into menopause and difficulty losing weight, and a lot of these symptoms that we've normalized are not actually normal, but. Everyone has just either because the medical research is lacking and, you know, just the way society operates. It's like, Oh, that's just normal here's a pill to skip your periods or here's some hormone replacement therapy, but we actually have no idea what your hormones are doing already. So good luck not to be cynical. let's get into a separate episode,

Magic Barclay: 21:19

we've really hit something here that the listeners. Really need to be aware of, and that is that taking a synthetic. HRT or taking the pill, these things change our terrain, our landscape, our hormonal landscape. And so I'm seeing in my practice, people that have been on the pill for 20, 30 years, they've come off it and now they're going into menopause. They actually don't have, you know, I try and describe it like going for a picnic. The picnic ground is rocky. It's full of thistles and rocks and you don't have a blanket and now it's just started raining. So it's also muddy and you don't really particularly have your weather gear on. So you're trying to have a nice, sunny, beautiful picnic surrounded by flowers. On a muddy, rocky, thistle filled field, like, this is kind of what it's like, listeners. So, Dr. Alex, what are some key ways that people can find some hormonal balance naturally before they go down this awful picnic route?

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 22:31

Yeah. Well, you know, I think one of the most important things is recognizing what's happening early enough that you've got time to do the natural stuff. Like I, I definitely am not an advocate and I should couch this in like under my licensing. I cannot give any kind of recommendations around prescription medication. so my, my big stance is you have a choice. It's not your only option in that choice. You know, a lot of it requires some. Yeah. Work and some commitment on your end. It's doing things like, you know, progesterone, for example, one of the ways that you naturally increase that is cuddling with a spouse or a kid or a pet. you know, any of those help naturally bolster your, progesterone levels. There's quite a bit of research, even in the, you know, more traditional medical fields around gluten being a big thing that can impact and, mess with your hormone balance. Same with. high levels of sugar, which there's sugar hidden in lots of places in our world. and continuing on, you know, there's, so there's these things that you can do, but they, they require some lifestyle change. And so those, those are just like some very basic, examples, eating plenty of fiber, that's another one, like aiming for 35 grams of fiber every day. and a lot of those are geared at more of the physical side of things and diet and nutrition and whatnot. You know, there's also the inner work that we've been talking about on this as well of really, I've gotten kind of fed up with the whole term, like, manage your stress levels. Because similar to go lose weight. It's like, okay, well, what does that mean? So it's, it's finding the things that, that really work for you. It's not about that. You have to meditate for, you know, an hour every day or, necessarily do all those things like yoga and all that stuff. It's, it's finding the ways that you reset and refill your cup. A lot of them have to do with, you know, where you express yourself. creatively, like, for example, I play the violin. That's one of my distressors. you know, you could do art. You could do some sort of crafting thing. Next. Talking with girlfriends, going for a walk. All of those are things that ultimately help balance your hormones. Getting outside first thing in the morning, I could give you a whole list,

Magic Barclay: 24:32

so ultimately it comes down to filling your own cup first, which is where we started our conversation that you actually need something there to be able to help anyone else. And so this comes back to. You know, our, our archetypes that we started this episode with, it's really making sure that you have that balance and that you have your needs met before you can help anyone else.

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 24:58

Absolutely. And it, you know, it's so counterintuitive for us, but I think I alluded to the airplane scenario where. They say, put your own oxygen mask on before you help others. And the reason is, if you're passed out and unconscious, you're no good to anybody. And, you know, so we have to recognize that we're only as good to the people and things that we love and care about as we have something to give. And, you know, those, especially who feel maybe guilty about making time for yourself or like, it's just not an option, really the reframe is like, You'll have more to give if you make some time for yourself, that's ultimately what it comes down to.

Magic Barclay: 25:33

Exactly. Now, something we haven't talked about and we're just going to touch on it very quickly. And that is the thyroid. Many people think the thyroid is the problem, but it's often the symptom. It's the reaction to something going on. How can people address thyroid issues? Without, I guess, going down that rabbit hole of focusing on

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 25:59

purely thyroid. Yeah. So the thyroid is such an interesting animal and I've, I've studied it quite a bit. it's another one of those things that is just grossly misunderstood and mistested and you know, not examined well in Western medicine. And you have to understand that there's three, pathways that affect the thyroid. So there's what happens in the brain with the hypothalamus telling the pituitary that it needs thyroid hormone. And then there's the thyroid actually releasing that. And then there's that Thyroid releases T4 and T3, and then T4 is turned into T3 largely in the gut, and that's where most of our usable thyroid hormone comes from. And so Without necessarily focusing on thyroid, like you can ask yourself, well, you know, am I dealing with lots of brain fog and like signs that my brain maybe isn't working the way it should high stress, that would be another thing that's going to interrupt that hypothalamus pituitary pathway, either goes to your adrenals and produces other hormones or goes to your thyroid as well. You know, is your gut off. And if both of those are good, then it might actually just be at the level of the thyroid itself, but you can. Impact all of that by focusing on things like your stress, focusing on things like your gut health, focusing on things like inflammation. It doesn't all necessarily have to be like, Targeted right at the thyroid. Is that answering your question?

Magic Barclay: 27:18

Yes, it does. And that leads us to our final thing. And that is we love freebies. What can you offer the listeners and where can they find it? Oh,

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 27:28

I've been in the process of creating so many things recently. So I think the most applicable to this conversation is I just put together a quiz, that is essentially it's called what hormone imbalance should I be focused on? And so it will help guide you to. The thing that is maybe the, I, I would argue that if you have one hormone and melanin balance, you've got multiple, but it will guide you to the one that will make the biggest difference for you if you focus on that. So I can get you a link to put that in the show notes magic, but that's a free fun little quiz you can take. And there's some resources included.

Magic Barclay: 28:00

And Instagram at Emergent Women Coaching. You're also on LinkedIn at Dr. Alex Ridley. Do

Dr. Alexandra Swenson: 28:09

you have a website? I do have a website. I just redesigned it. It's emergent women coaching.com.

Magic Barclay: 28:17

Fantastic. Listeners, please do reach out to Dr. Alex. She certainly is. Talking all things, music to my ears, and I know she can help you to Dr. Alex, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Pleasure and listeners. Thank you for your time as well. Go forth and create your magical life.