The Capacity Crisis: Why Women Feel Emotionally Exhausted in Midlife with Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur, RD

Why are we SO drained in midlife? Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur returns to unpack the exhaustion so many women feel—not just from perimenopause, but from decades of overgiving.

Most of us enter this phase already running on empty, juggling work, family, and endless to-dos. Add hormonal shifts, and let’s be honest- something has to give. That irritability and bone-deep fatigue? They’re signals, not flaws.

We break down the "energy budget"—because just like money, energy isn’t unlimited. Sarah shares practical ways to escape the exhaustion trap: setting one true priority, doing daily "capacity checks," and sprinkling joy into your day before burnout hits.

If you’re caught in the cycle of perfectionism and depletion, this episode offers both relief and a way forward. It’s time to reclaim your energy for what truly matters.

Connect with Sarah
The Website: https://drsarahv.ca/
Instagram: @sarahvadeboncoeur
Podcast: The Fatigue Fixer

Links Mentioned: 

Links Mentioned: 

EP 62: How to 'Do Less' and 'Be More' in Midlife with Wendy McCallum

EP 96: Why You're So Tired in Perimenopause and Menopause with Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur, ND

EP 99: How to Make Room for Connection in Your Relationship in Midlife with Carrie Cohen

EP 112: How to Stop the Burnout Train in Midlife with Dr. Leigha Saunders, ND

EP 132: Why You Need to Put Capacity, Self-Compassion, & Self-Care on the Menu

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr. Jenn Salib-Huber. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rules. Come to my table, listen and learn from me trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. And if you're looking for more information about menopause, nutrition and intuitive eating, check out the Midlife Feast Community, my monthly membership that combines my no-nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community, so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife.

Why Emotional Exhaustion Hits Hard in Midlife

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 0:50

Why am I so tired? That is a question I hear from listeners all over and from feasters and from patients and pretty much anyone who I interact with. We have a conversation about energy, fatigue, exhaustion, and everybody wants to know why. That's understandable, and my guest today is Dr Saravata Bunker. She is a naturopathic doctor in Canada and she joined me for part one of this conversation a while back, which we'll link to in the show notes. And today we're exploring more than just the physical causes of fatigue. In part one, we talked about things like iron and food and all that kind of stuff, but part two we're talking about why are we so emotionally tired and what does capacity have to do with it, and how do we lower the bar and lean into doing less but getting more out of this season of life? As always, this is a great conversation If you are feeling like you're stuck in the messy middle, if you're feeling like you're being pulled in all kinds of different directions. Some of the things that we talk about values, capacity, lowering the bar, choosing a priority instead of you know, 10 different priorities are all things that I help women manage in the midlife feast, and we even have a feast framework that is designed to help you do just that. So if you're looking for some help around food and capacity energy management, you should consider becoming a feaster, and you can find the links for that in the show notes too.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 2:36

Big welcome back to the Midlife Feast, sarah. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, as always. So your episode, part one why we're soired in Perimenopause was one of the most popular episodes and continues to be in the top 10. I think that this idea of being tired and it being connected to all the stuff that's happening in perimenopause is really relatable, like it's validating, I think, that it's a problem that a lot of people have and want solutions for. So we've linked that episode in the show notes. If you haven't heard that one, give it a listen. But I am equally excited to dive into part two, which is going to kind of take a little bit of a detour from the physiological experience of perimenopause and a little bit more into the midlife experience. Let's do it so yeah, so let's talk about it. Why are we so tired?

Moving Beyond Physical Fatigue in Perimenopause

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 3:34

Part two yeah, so go back and listen to part one.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 3:38

Like Jen said, for a lot of the like, very physical reasons, but a lot of us are mentally and emotionally also very tired, in addition to maybe being tired for very physical reasons.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 3:51

Oh yeah, and so what I love about the work that I get to do is that once we have you on your iron supplement or your hormones or whatever you might need in terms of like stuff to keep your body working properly, that's when we hopefully have the bandwidth and the.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 4:09

You know we're open to exploring the mental, emotional stuff, because this is such a huge part of what is making us tired in midlife is that we have, for many of us, for decades, leading up to when we kind of enter into perimenopause, we have been over giving energy in many different parts of our life, and what I see with the women that I work with is that when menopause gets added to that overgiving of energy, it creates a massive problem and women start to realize this is not sustainable, this is not working. I don't want to be doing this anymore, and this is where we often see the resentment and the irritability and the anger which you and I have talked about, like if you're starting to feel a lot of irritability, anger and resentment, that is probably a sign that you have been over giving for a long time and that resentment is one of the ways that your body is saying this doesn't work for me anymore. Can we please try something different?

How Overgiving Drains Your Energy and Capacity

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 5:29

And it often is shouting that at us. It's not whispering, it's not giving us subtle messages, right, and I'd love to talk about some of the ways that that might like show up practically. I know that, for we talk about it in terms of capacity, so in the Feaster community and people who listen to the podcast have probably heard me talk about capacity, and so the weight of those expectations and the weight of overgiving is the biggest drain on your capacity. That takes away from the things that you actually want to do. But it's really hard when you have been the person, when you've been the overgiver, and people expect you to continue to be the overgiver and you feel like you're letting people down if you don't do all the things that you have done. But it leaves you with nothing left for yourself.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 6:24

It doesn't. And we also are not actually helping anyone around us when we overgive, because what we do, when we overfunction, we force other people in our lives into an under functioning role. Our partners, our children often are able and allowed to continue to under function because they know mom's going to deal with it, mom's going to do it, mom's going to fix it, mom's going to pick up the things, mom's going to do the things. And so when we continue to over function and we push our people into under functioning, what happens when we start to rein it in?

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 7:07

Number one, it feels deeply uncomfortable for us because we don't like a dirty kitchen, we don't like socks on the floor, we worry that our kids are not going to do the thing we want them to do.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 7:17

We worry our partner is going to eat enough vegetables, like we worry that if we don't control the whole thing, terrible things are going to happen. So that feels deeply uncomfortable for us. But then it also feels deeply uncomfortable for the people, like you said, who have been used to many forever that mom is just going to do it. So it brings you into what I call the messy middle, which is where things are going to feel uncomfortable. They're going to feel uncomfortable for you, they're going to feel uncomfortable for the people around you. But if you're not willing to hang out in that messy middle discomfort, you will forever be the person who is doing all the things. And that is why so many of us continue to do all the things, because, even though that doesn't feel good either, for a lot of us it doesn't feel as bad as the messy middle. So we just keep doing it and we exhaust ourselves.

Why Resentment and Anger Are Important Messengers

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 8:14

Oh my gosh. So relatable and I think what that, what it also brings to mind, is like those moments of menorrhage where.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 8:21

I think that for a lot of people who are really kind of entering into the thick of perimenopause and are experiencing a lot of the mood changes, hormone changes and you know, one of the most familiar but also really uncomfortable moments is when you have that moment of I can't do this anymore and it just comes out as like this ball of white, fiery anger and it's really upsetting in the moment when you're the person who is exploding. It's upsetting to the people around you but at the same time it is valid. The reasons why the anger exists is valid. It is not irrational, it's not that's so hard to like come to terms with right. And so when I talk to people who are like I'm so tired and I'm so angry, I'm like, oh, let's talk about that.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 9:18

I know I'm like great, this is great. This means that you are starting to realize that what you've been doing doesn't work. I love anger and irritability and fatigue in the sense that for most of them, sadly, it takes that deep discomfort of being exhausted all the time, of yelling at your kids, of wanting to divorce your partner every month, for us to sadly be like okay, I need to change something. This isn't working and I agree. I think if you actually look around and realize how most of us have had to function in our workplaces, in our homes, in our relationships and in our parenting, when you actually look at it, when you actually look at it, of course you're enraged, because the reality is that women are still doing 75% of the world's unpaid work. So, when you talk about capacity, most women, when we get up in the morning, we don't have a full cup. Sadly, whether you're not sleeping well, whether you're iron deficient, whether you have depression, whether whatever is going on, a lot of women wake up and they're already in a bit of a deficit. Their cup is already not full. They're not at full capacity, right, the battery on the phone is not fully charged, yeah, and what we do is we get out of bed and we just start giving. We make the lunches, we pack the things, we reply to the emails, we do all the things. That can be very rewarding, but they all have an energetic cost.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 11:00

And so I was talking about this on the weekend with another mom on my son's hockey team and we were saying, like after 8pm we're angry moms because we have no capacity left. Right, I have been up since 6.30. I have been giving, I have been doing all the things that I need and want to do. But if my capacity was not great to begin with, of course, by 5 pm or 8 pm or whatever your time is, you're done. And if you still have to parent and partner and do all the things, you're drawing on nothing. And this is where we get really impatient and irritable, because we have no capacity left.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 11:43

And, the saddest part of all, that's usually the only time of day that we have set aside to do things for ourselves. And so now you're trying to do self care. When you're pissed off, you're angry, you're tired, the only thing that most of us can handle is looking at a screen which is to me more of like a distraction and a numbing Like. I don't know about you, but I never walk away from scrolling Instagram, being like I feel amazing, like that was so great. My cup is full, right? No, but because we are so drained and that's the only time we've set aside. This is why the next day, you wake up and you have no capacity, because you actually have done very few things in the day to put capacity back in right. If the only time you're resting is sleep, your cup will never be full. It's just it's not enough. It's not enough.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 12:40

So I'm sure that people listening to this are nodding their heads along, maybe even like screaming into the void yes, that's me. Where do we go from there? Because I'm going to like play devil's advocate and I'm going to tell, I'm going to say the things that I hear all the time when I point these things out or when I have these discussions, and I'm sure you hear them too. And the first is but there's just so much to do. I can't like, if I don't do it, then it doesn't happen, and that's going to be more of a burden Like this, this feeling that we're carrying something we can't let go of.

Managing Your Energy Budget and Prioritizing What Matters

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 13:17

Yeah, so, and that's a very valid response so obviously there are things that we must and want and have to do on a daily basis. So part of what I want you to think about with your energy is I want you to think about it like you have an energy budget right. Your capacity every day is your energetic budget for that day. You need to look at your life and say what are my main expenses? Where are the places where I know I'm going to need to put energy? For most of us, it's going to be work, it's going to be family parenting, whatever your big things are. So, of course, we need to keep to do those. However, what we don't need to do is do each of those things at a gold star level, right? Yeah, I don't know about you, I haven't gotten a report card in over 15 years. No one comes to my door and hands me a shiny sticker because my kitchen is clean. It's not happening, right? A lot of this is self-imposed. It's societally imposed a hundred percent, and that is why we feel like we have to do it all, because that is what we've been trained to do, and when we don't do it, we feel bad. But look at your big things that you need to do in the day and decide how much of my energy am I going to give to each of those domains.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 14:45

Because if you ask people what matters to them, work is not usually number one. Maybe it is, and there's nothing wrong if it is, but most people don't say work. They might say family, they might say health, but when we look at how we spend our day, you would never know that. Because we say our health matters, we say our kids matter, but our actions are not aligned at all. Because, again, we have this desire and society has told us, when you're at work, you better be 100% there. You have to do it perfectly. So number one is can you take your foot off the gas pedal a little bit? Still be good at your job, but it doesn't have to be A++, like a B is probably good enough for your work and nothing bad is going to happen, other than you're going to be uncomfortable about it.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 15:42

And this is the real work that I find I'm doing in midlife and that most of my patients are doing is adjusting your expectations and realizing that there are trade-offs. Yeah Right, just like you probably don't have enough energy or enough money in your bank account to buy every single thing you want. We also I personally don't subscribe to the have it all, do it all all the time. I think that was a terrible thing that we sold as an idea to women, because that is a big part of why we feel we have to and should be able to do it all, because we were told we could.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 16:23

And I'm super happy to have a lot of opportunities, lot of opportunities, and I also know when I've tried to be gold star in every single area, I'm exhausted and I'm overwhelmed, and it's also impossible. You just cannot spread your energy in that many directions and expect good results. Right, because again, you only have so much. So that's like the spending part. Look at where you're spending your energy. Get really clear about what is actually important, and if it is your family, you have to not give all your energy from nine to five so that you have some left from five to eight or whatever your parenting times are.

Why Lowering the Bar Leads to Greater Fulfillment

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 17:06

Which is really the lower the bar philosophy that I talk about all the time. A hundred percent, just really the lower the bar philosophy that I talk about all the time. A hundred percent. Just need to lower the bar. I don't know where or how or when this 100% bar was set, but for those of us who are perfectionists and I'm speaking for myself here this idea that 99% isn't good enough or that 60% isn't good enough we really just need to let go of, because there will be days when 60% is great, whatever it is. You have to start by evaluating your capacity and then decide what you're going to do. Not decide that you're going to do 100%, no matter what, because you can't pour from an empty cup. You just can't.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 17:57

You can't, no, right, and that's why so many of us are in an energy deficit, because for too long we've poured from a cup that was not full and now we're really struggling to recover. Because the second part of this conversation so again one is like look at where you're spending your energy and, again, lower the bar. I love that. Part two is that you need to deposit energy back, and there's different kind of categories that I speak to my patients about. So the first one is the physical bucket. Again, go back and listen to our previous episode. We talked a lot about the physical reasons why you're tired, but if you're also not taking care of your, like, mental energy, so especially right now, I ask everyone like how much time are you on your phone? How much time are you watching the news? How much time are you reading comments on the internet of people being super mean and aggressive to each other? Right? How many emails? I just did this yesterday. I was like unsubscribe, unsubscribe. How many minutes a day are you spending deleting emails that you're never going to read, right? So how can we do things that put mental energy back into your body? How can we do things that put energy back more into like your emotional cup.

The Four Energy Buckets You Need to Refill

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 19:11

For most of us, that is time with people we love, which is something else we don't do because we're so busy. Yeah, and I just find that really sad because, to me, like that's what life actually is is spending time with the people you love, and somehow we have convinced ourselves that that is doing. We have to prioritize social time for that like energetic, that emotional, sorry bucket, and obviously the caveat is you need to spend that time with the right people. And then there's like this spiritual bucket right? This is like why are you here? Right? I don't know about you, jen, I'm not here to spend my whole life going through my to-do list. But that's what most of us feel like. We feel like every day we wake up, we put 100 things on the list and we just do our best to try to check it off and then we never finish it because it's impossible. And then we feel like a massive failure, like that's not why you're here. You're not here to finish a never-ending to-do list, right, jen? You're here to teach women about intuitive eating and to help them move away from diets, right? I'm here to help women fix their fatigue and if you're listening, you're also here for some reason. It might not be a public-facing reason, but you're here for a reason beyond doing a bunch of to do's for the rest of your life.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 20:51

So how do you connect to that? How do you put things in your day, whether that's meditation, whether it's reading a poem, whether it's reading self help, like what are the things that are going to help you feel more spiritually connected? And that could be religion, but it can be not religion. And then the other piece that I think we don't talk about enough is like the sexuality and like sensuality, like forgetting that we have a body that's here not just to carry our giant brains around, but like reconnecting with your senses. Right, how many women have no sex drive? That energetic cup is dry, and it's by no accident because, again, if you don't do anything to prioritize and fill that cup and you're giving giving, giving, of course your body's not prioritizing, it doesn't care. It's like girl, I just ran a marathon all day and now you want me to have sex. Are you kidding me? Like no, I'm not interested.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 21:59

And it's amazing how often that is not brought up in healthcare conversations in midlife. So when women go to their healthcare practitioners and say I have no sex drive, my libido's at a minus 200, can you give me something for it? They're 100% blaming their hormones.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 22:18

And then when we explore the bigger picture and all of these other things come up, it's like they're at like minus 200 capacity. They don't have any. Intimacy is physical, emotional and and spiritual, and if you have nothing left in those buckets, how can you possibly give or receive? Um, in that situation? Yeah, and you know, and it and it's also just the whole patriarchal concept of like libido and that it's like, you know, it's just like gas that you put in the tank and you know, start the car and go like. That is not how intimacy works, and I think that that is actually is a gift of midlife, is that it takes us out of that biological drive. Intimacy, you know, where ovulation does its thing to help the species reproduce, right, it really takes us down to the core of like what is intimacy, down to the core of like what is intimacy, and and I think that that's that's an uncomfortable place for people to be in if they've never they've never explored that kind of energetic side of it right, 100%.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 23:18

And again, this is a time where all of your empty cups make themselves known, right, like if you haven't poured any energy into your spiritual self, if you have not prioritized relationships and intimacy with yourself or with a partner. Yeah, of course, those cups are empty and again it feels uncomfortable, but you have to remember that discomfort is here to shine a light and to help you do something Right. If we, if we felt great all the time, then we would never need to pay attention to these things. But going back to the capacity, like I always use, the example of like tabs on my computer and like most women's brains, is also looks like the tabs on our computer, which is usually there's 100 tabs open, right? So, coming back to this idea of trade offs, if your libido is one of those tabs, but it's the one in the corner that you opened eight months ago, but you keep going to the email and the other tabs like it's getting no attention. So, again, if you want more whether it's that you want more libido or more intimacy, or you want better sleep or calmer brain or whatever it is you're looking for you have to look at all the tabs, which is, again, all the things that most of us are trying to do in a day and you need to pick and choose.

Embracing Trade-Offs Instead of Chasing Perfection

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 24:44

And I think this is also really hard for women, that we don't like the idea that there's trade-offs. We've been sold that we can have it all and we don't need to trade anything off, and I think that's super harmful and very unrealistic. And going back to us gold star, perfectionist, high achievers for a long time we were able to do all the things theoretically, so it also is deeply upsetting when we can't do it because we really have to adjust our expectations. But I think it's also a massive opportunity to reevaluate what actually matters to you, and I've said this elsewhere, like I will always choose to sit down and do a puzzle over having my kitchen being sparkling clean, yeah, right, yeah, that matters more to me. That fills my cup more. So you need to figure out what fills your cup. What are the things that are going to put energy back in and give you that capacity, and they need to happen not only after 9 pm, when you're exhausted and you're grumpy and you're ready for bed.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 26:01

I sent an email out last week Well, it won't be last week by the time this comes out and it was talking about why we're so tired. And one of the things that I talked about not even thinking about this conversation, but it's super relevant was that you know, we start our week on Monday and we don't plan for moments of pleasure until the end of the week. And the question that I asked people was how likely are you to call your best friend for lunch on a Monday compared to a Friday? And why do we wait? Why do we feel like we need to earn that? We need to welcome moments of pleasure every day, little pleasures, like puzzles and like calling your friend and just saying like hey, I'm just calling to say hi, or literally stopping to smell the roses. You know all of those things. Are these little moments of pleasure that fill our buckets, that fill our capacity and help us to be more present and help us to kind of really step into whatever life that we're trying to reach with our overdoing?

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 27:07

down, which most of us don't like. We really struggle and I know I've struggled with this, really trying. You and I were talking before we hit record of how I've been like playing around with my schedule, because one of the things that I've realized really helps fill my capacity is having some unscheduled time in my day. Yeah Right, and for most of us that is so rare to have that unscheduled time in my day. Yeah Right, and for most of us that is so rare to have that unscheduled time. But even if it's five or 10 minutes where you are like you're just voice noting a friend or literally smelling the roses, I love like.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 27:45

One of my practices is when I go for a walk, I smile and I say hello to everyone that I pass, and some of them are lovely and say hello back. Some of them look at me like I'm crazy, but it's like it's all these little interactions and all these little things that actually make life so enjoyable. And again, when we're on this like treadmill of the never ending to do list, this like treadmill of the never ending to do list, we don't do any of that. And then we get to the end of the day and even though we've done so much most of us have done more than enough we still somehow feel like we haven't done enough and we're not fulfilled Because, again, your purpose in life is not to complete a to-do list. I know that parts of that do feel satisfying, don't get me wrong. I love highlighting and crossing stuff off my list, but again, if that's the only pleasure that you're getting, life is going to feel pretty unfulfilling.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 28:45

So how do people get started? So we've talked about a lot of things, but if somebody is, you know they've pulled over on the side of the road to listen because, oh my gosh, we're talking about them, we're in their head. What's the first step? How do they like take the next step?

Daily Capacity Checks: A Simple Strategy to Protect Your Energy

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 29:00

Yeah, the first step is to be really clear on your priority and I'm using that singularly on purpose priority, and I'm using that singularly on purpose.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 29:15

Priority used to be a singular word that meant the most important thing, and with the industrial revolution, all of a sudden it was priorities, because now apparently we could have many. The problem with having multiple priorities is that when they compete with each other, we don't know what to do. Priorities is that, when they compete with each other, we don't know what to do and if we're not very conscious, we will default to our patterns, which, for most of us, is people pleasing perfectionism, saying yes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, number one, I want you to get really clear on what your actual priority is. Yeah, the second thing I want you to do, and Jen is yeah, the second thing I want you to do and Jen, you said this a bit earlier when you wake up in the morning, I want you to do a capacity check. Yeah, it'll take you 10 seconds. So think of your phone battery. Am I fully charged? Am I on 10% low battery, where it turns yellow and everything doesn't work well, like, where am I on my capacity? Where am I on my capacity and, based on that, how much energy today am I putting into that priority that you've identified for yourself? There are going to be days where it's going to be zero, because that's real life.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 30:25

But if you are more intentional about it, you're probably going to be able to give more of your good energy to the things that actually matter. It will require that you get comfortable giving a little bit less energy to those things that are not your priority. Yeah, but you are going to feel so much more satisfied, right? I always use the visual of like if you take your energy and you kind of like spread it in 100 directions, you're going to make basically like 1% progress in 100 different places, which doesn't feel super satisfying, right. 1% progress at work, 1% progress at the gym You're just like this sucks. If you take 50% of your energy and you put it into your work, if that's your priority that day, or you put it into your nutrition or your partnership, it's gonna feel a lot more satisfying because now you're actually making progress in those places that matter.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 31:31

Yeah, and you just again, not easy, but you learn that those areas that are not a priority like, you just have to learn to get comfortable that they're going to be just okay and that's where the trade-offs come in. Like my toilets right now. They desperately need to be cleaned. There's probably a bunch of crumbs on my kitchen floor Like do I like it? No, but is that my number one priority? To have a clean kitchen? No, so I'm comfortable, I'm like it's not great, but I'll survive with a few crumbs on my floor so that I can go to my personal training that I did this morning, so that I can go for my walk, so that I can have patients left when my son comes home at 3 pm. Those are the things that matter a lot more to me.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 32:19

And I love that you brought up the clean kitchen one, because this was something that I made peace with a while ago that I'm not a clean. I don't want to say I'm not a clean person by nature, but like I'm not one of those who is like internally motivated and rewarded by having a sparkling clean kitchen.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 32:40

I'm not. For years I had this internal conflict about, well, why can't I do this? I should be doing better, we should be trying. And I would have these moments of you know, like anger and whatever, and I finally just realized I'm like you know, it's okay, it's okay, and decided to divert time, resources and money into having somebody help out with cleaning, Right, and just realizing that you know it's okay to not have a clean kitchen, it's okay to have laundry that's not folded. We live out of laundry baskets of clean clothes most of the time. I'm okay with that now, but you know, so much of our energy is just sucked up by the shoulds of what we believe other people's expectations are of us.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 33:28

I know, and I just want to acknowledge the women listening who are like I deeply love a clean kitchen, because I know you're out there. I know you're out there. My question to you would be why? Why is that so important? And is it actually something like? I find that to be usually connected to some kind of control. Yeah, when we feel like other parts of our lives are out of control we can't control our children we surely cannot control our partners. Maybe the world is spinning out of control.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 34:03

I do see that, like the clean kitchen thing, like I just it's no accident, let's put it that way. It is no accident that women love a clean kitchen. I doubt you were born loving a clean kitchen, but you learned somewhere along the way number one that a clean kitchen was a sign of goodness. Mm-hmm, clean kitchen was a sign of goodness and it it probably. There's something about cleanliness that makes you feel in control, which is probably why you're hanging on to your clean kitchen, like I don't know.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 34:41

I think there's like something deeper about the clean kitchen. It is, it is it's like learned and it's completely that like of how many men are obsessed with a clean kitchen my partner actually. This, but not, not sparkling, but not. He's definitely the like cleaner of the two of us, um, but that's pretty rare, right? So, like I would just question what is under that need for the clean kitchen, because I don't believe for most of us that that is our like true purpose to have a clean kitchen. Maybe it is for some people, um, I just see so many women not feeling like they have time for things that would fill their cup probably a whole lot more than cleaning their kitchen, and if you're spending your whole evening cleaning your kitchen, you're doing unpaid labor and again you are probably over functioning and going back to the people in your life, they are under-functioning.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 35:53

I think that's a great place to end this one. I'm sure we're going to have a part three at some point.

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 35:57

Let's do it.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 35:58

But so for people who want to learn more about how you might be able to help them, where can they find more info?

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 36:04

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram at Sarah Vadbankar, which I'm sure Jen will spell out and link in the show notes, and you can also come to my website, which is drsarahvca, and that's where there's all the information about my practice and some of the programs that I run. And I almost forgot that I have a podcast too, the Fatigue Fixer podcast, which you can listen to wherever you are listening to this wonderful podcast.

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 36:32

Amazing. So do you remember the question that I ask everyone? What do you think is the missing ingredient in?

Dr. Sarah Vadeboncoeur: 36:41

midlife. I don't remember what I said last time. What is the missing ingredient? I'm gonna say like contentment. This is something I'm really that was like my word for the year is being content, being more content with what I already have, being content with the way things are and really trying to tone down that like striving part of me. That again is wonderful and I activate her when I need to, but I don't want her driving the bus anymore. I'm really practicing contentment and I think that ties into the like, the trade-offs, like can we just be content that some things are not going to be perfect but that opens up so much time, space and energy for other things that are gonna make your life so much better?

Dr. Jenn Salib Huber: 37:32

I love it Amazing. Thank you so much for this conversation and I'm sure it's going to help a lot of people to get some clarity around what is actually making them tired. Thanks, sarah, you're very welcome. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Midlife Feast For more non diet, health, hormone and general midlife support. You're very welcome.