202 The Rage, the Rewiring, and the Rebirth: Menopause Yoga with Petra Coveney

As we know, menopause is not a downfall, it’s a metamorphosis, and Petra Coveney—former BBC journalist, founder of Menopause Yoga, bestselling author, and unapologetic menopause rebel—joined Sally to tear down every stale narrative about “the change.”

And trust us… this conversation goes there.

Petra went through perimenopause early, alone, confused, and dismissed by doctors who had nothing to offer her except a pat on the head and a “good luck.”
The frustration, shame and rage… she tapped into all of it. 

And what came out of that fire?

Menopause Yoga—the world’s first specialist yoga program built to support the physical, emotional, and psychological rollercoaster of perimenopause through second spring.

In this episode, Petra breaks down:

🔥 Why rage is a superpower (and what it’s trying to wake up in you)
🔥 The moment she realized NO ONE was helping menopausal women—and why she decided she would
🔥 The resistance she got from BOTH yoga studios and doctors (spoiler: everyone thought she was “too much”)
🔥 Why community circles are non-negotiable for healing
🔥 How yoga, breathwork, and evidence-based education can literally rewire your menopausal brain
🔥 The truth about “brain fog” and why it might actually be your brain upgrading itself
🔥 Why we need to stop whispering the word menopause and say it out loud—with pride

Petra’s mission is bold:
Break the taboo. Reclaim the narrative. Connect women back to their power.
Menopause isn't an ending. It’s the doorway to your second spring—a phase of clarity, leadership, and fierce selfhood.

If you’re in the weeds of perimenopause, waking up drenched, snapping at your loved ones, losing words in the middle of a meeting, or wondering “Is it just me?”—this episode will feel like a giant exhale.

And if you’ve ever felt ashamed of these changes?
Petra is here to hand you permission to drop that shame today.

ORDER PETRA’S BOOK WITH AN EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT

Get Menopause Yoga and Wellbeing: A Daily Practice Guide
Use the discount code: %PETRA25
Only valid on the Singing Dragon shop.

If you loved this episode…

Share it with someone who needs to hear:
“You are not losing yourself — you are becoming someone new.”

📲 Connect with Petra:

Website: www.menopause-yoga.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/menopause_yoga
Facebook: Menopause Yoga

Sally's Links:

Email: info@sallygarozzo.com 

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On-Demand Masterclass] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On-Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine 

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Bespoke Transformational H

Transcript

So today I'm joined by Petra Coveney, the founder of menopause yoga, the world's first specialist yoga program designed to support women through the physical, emotional and psychological changes of the menopause transition. Petra is a senior yoga teacher and trainer.

a member of the British Menopause Society and an international speaker who's trained hundreds of yoga teachers globally to deliver menopause informed classes. She's also the author of the bestselling book, Menopause Yoga and Wellbeing, a daily practice guide for perimenopause to second spring. And she's a real passionate advocate for breaking the stigma around midlife and menopause. So Petra, welcome. I've wanted to talk to you for ages. How are you?

Petra Coveney (01:14.111)
I'm so well and excited to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me on to have this chat.

Sally (01:20.927)
You're very welcome. So, Petra, what led you to creating menopause yoga? Was it your own journey or was it something that you were particularly noticing within your students?

Petra Coveney (01:33.993)
So thank you for asking. I went through my perimenopause a bit earlier than my friends and family around me. My mother had passed away already, unfortunately. I was approximately 43 when I started to really notice the symptoms. But none of my friends and my older sister were experiencing anything, not that they acknowledged.

So I felt very lost and alone and didn't really understand why was I getting burnt out and fatigued, why was I getting anxious. The only time I really noticed something that I would call menopause was when my periods became more irregular and I started having night sweats. So not hot flushes, but night sweats.

that was so debilitating that I didn't sleep at night, I'd wake up dehydrated, exhausted, and then I'd go into my job. And at the time, was working part-time as... Actually, no, was working full-time at the time in a corporate world. And I also had two very young children and I was married.

I was really struggling with the lack of sleep and the confusion and not knowing what was going on. Then I became very irritable, especially around my small children, which made me feel very ashamed and unhappy. Anyway, time went on. I did go to my GP and say, am I in the menopause? They did a blood test and said, well, yes, you're in perimenopause.

There's nothing we can give you, nothing we can do to support you. We don't like giving HRT, so we won't. And therefore, off you go. And I said, well, okay, but I'd really like to talk to someone because I feel, you know, that I'm too young. Why am I going through this so early? I even felt ashamed, Sally, to tell my husband the diagnosis. I felt like he would find me unattractive and...

Petra Coveney (03:48.032)
It just really challenged my sense of self. And I don't think we should be ashamed to say these things. You know, the idea of menopause in our society is such a dark taboo up until recently that many of us who go into menopause early may feel resistant to the changes. Anyway, I did say, is there anyone I can talk to? Are there any support groups? Do you have any?

Sally (04:11.022)
Hmm.

Petra Coveney (04:17.607)
nutritional advice or herbal remedies. And the doctor said no. And so then I actually said to the doctor, I went back to the doctor later and I said, I am really, really struggling here. Could I set up a menopause group and bring it into your clinic? And they said, no, health and safety, can't do that. So there was, you know, there was some resistance, but also not a lot of understanding in the medical world.

Sally (04:22.85)
Wow, okay.

Petra Coveney (04:45.757)
Now what this did, and I think anyone who has experienced menopause, rage and irritability, myself included, anyone who's experienced this will know this feeling of feeling so angry. It was a genuine rage, an outrage. How dare they not be anything, not just for me, but other people. How are other people coping? How are they surviving?

Sally (04:56.494)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (05:15.335)
Why is there not even anyone to talk to? So I did actually go up to women in cafes who were older than me, who I heard, I overheard them chatting about things like black cohosh and her sage and things like that. And I actually shamelessly went up and said, can I talk to you? I need some help. I it's funny to think of it now. But as a result of that, I did lots and lots of research.

And Sally, I am a former BBC journalist and producer working in radio and television. So I knew how to do research. I researched all over the world to get this information back in the day when there wasn't much available and we hadn't broken the menopause taboo. And then I just decided, okay, I'm going to create a holistic practice.

That includes yoga and nutrition and herbal remedies and CBT counseling, because that had helped me as well, and Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine and bring it all together. And because I felt so outraged about the treatment of women and people at this stage of life, I then used that outrage to create a positive program

that was also about women's empowerment. And here we are, more than 15 years later, it's been wonderful.

Sally (06:52.024)
Yeah. Congratulations. It really sounds like it's come from the heart, you know, it's come from your experience, your emotions. And like you say, that righteous rage that w that comes up when we don't feel heard or understood can really be extraordinarily motivating for sure. So when you first started talking about menopause,

Petra Coveney (07:07.891)
Hmm.

Sally (07:17.622)
and yoga in the same sentence, how was it received by your yoga world that you were in?

Petra Coveney (07:24.851)
now this is a really interesting one, Sally. people, so I, I'm going to just rephrase this, because it was a little bit of a funny one. So as a former BBC journalist, I like facts. I want to know, okay, my body is changing. Why is it changing? What are my hormones doing? Why do we have hormones? Which hormones are changing? I wanted to have information and...

Sally (07:34.487)
Yeah.

Sally (07:40.429)
Mm-hmm.

Petra Coveney (07:51.528)
As I was creating this program for other people, I thought, I don't want to do them a disservice by sharing information based on myth. So I did my research. And when I brought menopause yoga into yoga studios and told them that I was now working with the British Menopause Society and working with doctors, there was a lot of resistance.

You know, we don't want doctors and medicine in here. Menopause is just natural. I'm like, yes, it is. But some of us need a little bit of help, guidance, support, community. And medicine, exactly. And there can be medical health conditions that come at that same time of menopause. you know, it's not everyone is having hot flushes. There can be some serious...

Sally (08:34.398)
Mm, and medicine sometimes and some of us do need medicine. Yeah.

Petra Coveney (08:51.167)
health issues going on as well. So there was some resistance from the yoga studios and the yoga community. Some of the yoga community just said, well, I got through my menopause, no problem. What is all this nonsense? And the other hand, you also had the doctors and clinicians in medical practices where I would say, can I bring menopause yoga into your surgery, into your clinic? And they would go, yoga, that's woo woo nonsense.

So this is a while ago, but I really stuck to my guns. The other thing I faced Sally was the taboo around the word menopause. And we are going back nearly 16, 17, 18 years, but the yoga studios did not want me to use the word menopause because they said it would put off people from booking the classes or the workshops.

But I got to the point where I just thought this is part of the problem. So I said, I'm going to do what it says on the tin. It is menopause yoga. Out and proud. Yeah. And actually when we started marketing it and telling people about it, back in those early days,

Sally (10:02.094)
Love it. Love it.

Petra Coveney (10:13.983)
I was teaching at a studio called Try Yoga in Camden Town and also in Soho in London. We had so many people trying to get into the workshops, we had to turn people away. People were begging to get in. People were flying from South Africa, from Canada, the United States, all across Europe to come to these workshops. And I just thought,

Sally (10:35.544)
Hmm.

Petra Coveney (10:43.475)
this is crazy, why is there nothing out there in these other countries? So it really kind of grew and grew from there. And then as a result of that, because people were coming up to me and saying, well, I'm going back to Canada, I'm going back to South Africa, I'm going back to France, where are the local teachers where I can practice menopause yoga? And I said, there aren't any.

So then I worked with the British Wheel of Yoga and developed a professional training course. Yay!

Sally (11:18.786)
That is fantastic for all yoga teachers that want to have access to it. Yeah. I wish there were more. I really do wish there were more. I go to a lovely yoga studio, but when I look at the timetable, there's, it's, it's very like Ashtangaree heavy, like power yoga heavy. And I just wish there was a little bit more actually for.

Petra Coveney (11:42.409)
Yeah.

Sally (11:42.527)
specifically menopause and actually I want to talk about this now because I'm very very curious to find out from you someone who's a specialist and who's really devoted their time and energy to menopause yoga what are the ways that yoga can help with perimenopause and menopause both physically and emotionally

Petra Coveney (12:05.919)
This was such a big question for me when I was creating Menopause Yoga. And before I officially launched it into the world, I did do a couple of years of trial and testing and getting feedback from people, which was so helpful. And what became apparent, not just from my own experience, but from the people attending the classes and workshops, was that what they wanted were...

but the opportunity to come together, so a sense of community. So women's circles are part of menopause yoga. Obviously I do run classes where we don't have time for big discussions, but the workshops include the discussions in a women's circle. And that's to break the taboo and to invite people to share experiences.

Sally (12:40.365)
Right.

Petra Coveney (12:57.181)
And at the end of all of those workshops when I was trialing and testing, in the feedback they would always say, what I would like more of is more time to talk to other women about this because it was so liberating and reassuring to know that they were not alone and they weren't going insane. So one aspect is there's a sense of community and discussion.

Sally (13:14.35)
Bye.

Petra Coveney (13:26.207)
Another aspect is that we have very specific yoga classes with poses, movement, breath work, meditation and mantra, which have been curated carefully and modified for people going through the different stages of the menopause. So it's a very specialist approach, acknowledging, you know,

common physical conditions, emotional states of being that can come up. And that's why it really benefits people to come to a specialist class where their needs are going to be acknowledged. So it's community specialist yoga classes with that content, but also that factual information and also

Sally (14:09.761)
I see.

Sally (14:15.938)
Hmm.

Petra Coveney (14:22.281)
that women's empowerment, this umbrella that comes across everything of women's empowerment, which the people say attending that they really enjoy the positive view of menopause as an awakening, an awakening and preparation for you to step into second spring, which is an ancient traditional Chinese medicine concept.

of women stepping into wholeness, stepping into leadership, finding their voice, which I just absolutely loved when I was going through my perimenopause. So that second spring concept runs through everything I do in a very positive way.

Sally (15:11.884)
Yeah, then you know that the struggle is going to be worth it in the end, don't you? If you've got that. Like I was thinking to myself, what would I like to tell my younger self, my sort of late 30 year old self? And one of the things was, it's all going to be all right. It's actually, it's all going to be okay. Like you will get, won't be the same person. You'll be better. Like.

Petra Coveney (15:15.772)
You do.

Petra Coveney (15:30.793)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (15:35.2)
yes, well, I love that. And that's actually a lovely positive concept from the world's leading neuroscientist, Dr. Lisa Moscone, who specializes in women's brains and the menopause. And you may be familiar with her book, The Menopause Brain Sally. But one of the phrases I love from her book is she says that our brain is changing.

Sally (15:55.149)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (16:01.427)
due to the decline of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and it's being rewired. And we are letting go of what we no longer need to know. The brain is letting go of information. The body is letting go of functions that no longer needs to use as it prepares to get leaner and keener in your post-menopause second spring. So I love that idea too.

Sally (16:31.054)
So feels like a brain pruning, doesn't it? Like a bonsai tree, you're just kind of pruning the neurons. And it's true. think Kate Codrington talks about this, where brain fog, you can reframe brain fog as actually like a mindful moment where you just forget and all of a sudden you're just in the present moment. I love that. I'm like, oh yeah, just.

Petra Coveney (16:53.907)
Hahaha!

you

Sally (16:57.986)
Just relax, like don't worry about it, just be. And yeah, I've loved that.

Petra Coveney (17:02.367)
Do you know what's so lovely, Sally, is that when I was haranguing those older women in coffee shops and saying, you know, please give me some advice, one of the things that they said was, if you have that temporary memory loss, you can't retrieve, it's not memory loss, memory retrieval. If you can't retrieve that word and you can't remember the name of the thing that wakes you up in the morning or

Sally (17:21.4)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (17:31.57)
or in my case, the name of my son, that you just pause, smile, relax. The word's going to come back to you later, so don't stress about it. But being a little bit serious for a moment, Sally, if we're in a workplace situation, especially people who are in corporate roles where maybe they are directors or managers or leadership.

role positions, they may be in that meeting, that big board meeting or something, and they can't remember the word, and they feel embarrassed and ashamed. And that really saddens me because that also happened to me, Sally. And I didn't find that my colleagues around me were understanding at that time. That was quite a long time ago, over a decade ago, more like, yeah, over 17 years ago.

Sally (18:14.86)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (18:30.195)
And we do know that according to the Fawcett Society, one in 10 women leave their jobs for various reasons that they link to the menopause. So it can be pretty serious too.

Sally (18:42.444)
Yeah, yeah, it does have, you know, ramifications. But I do think things are changing now, actually, I do think it's, it's, it's okay to say, I'm just having a moment, or I'm having a hot flush, or, you know, I mean, I'm quite outspoken. And I haven't, to be fair, I haven't done, I've only ever done three years of self employed work in my life. I was a beauty therapist for a year.

I was a vehicle sales administrator for a year straight out of school. And then I worked selling singing courses for a vocal school. I'm pretty out of the picture in terms of what it's like to be in an environment, in a professional environment where you have to sort of uphold a certain status or you have to uphold an image or something. I would hope that I would be.

a bit carefree in those situations, but you just don't know. You just don't know.

Petra Coveney (19:41.696)
Yeah. Well, fortunately there are more, there is more menopause awareness at work. I actually run corporate workshops where we talk about what is the menopause and that's for male and female and other line managers as well as staff. And you just share some really simple breathing or meditation techniques or stretches. And again, like you said, reminding them it's going to be okay.

and using that concept of second spring and getting an upgrade. So yeah, that's all available now in the workplace. So hopefully things are changing in the UK and other places. But Sally, you did ask me, you asked me and I didn't fully answer you. You asked me, how can yoga help specifically with menopause? So just to come back to that.

Sally (20:15.789)
Yeah.

Sally (20:21.272)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sally (20:34.381)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (20:40.335)
Menopause is an inflammatory process. It creates inflammation in your body. This is because estrogen is an anti-inflammatory. So when you get fluctuations and then a sharp decline in estrogen, then inflammation can increase in your body. And inflammation can show up in many different ways.

It could be the heat, the hot flushes, digestive issues. It could be the brain fog, inflammation in your joints such as frozen shoulder, aching in the joints around the knees and hips. There are so many different ways that inflammation can show up. And inflammation is also made worse by stress. So why is it that we're talking more about menopause

Sally (21:33.155)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (21:38.028)
One reason might be that we are more outspoken. You said yourself that you're quite outspoken. So maybe we're breaking those taboos. But maybe it's because we are leading more stressful lives in the sense of the daily stress. And we know that stress, the stress response in the body is to increase your cortisol and adrenaline.

Sally (22:05.154)
Mm-hmm.

Petra Coveney (22:05.513)
But what hormone-related doctors will tell you is that as you increase your stress response, your cortisol, it steals away from another hormone called pregnenolone, which is a precursor that helps to facilitate estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. So the more stress in your life, the less availability potentially you have to those hormones. So that as you're going through perimenopause,

rather than being able to ease your way through the perimenopause naturally, you may find that you're getting much more extreme severe symptoms because you don't have that access to those hormones because your stress is so high. And what we also know is that as we're going through menopause, cortisol becomes harder for us to process.

So harder for us to bring back into balance. I also, this is an opinion alert, opinion, not science. Yep, yep. So in my opinion, the fluctuations and decline in your estrogen especially, but all of those hormones too, that this creates an internal stress response because we need these hormones not just

Sally (23:05.73)
Yeah.

Sally (23:11.232)
Love an opinion, go for it.

Petra Coveney (23:31.69)
for fertility and reproductivity, our brain tells our ovaries to release those hormones every month for the daily function and wellbeing of every single cell and every part of our body and brain. So that it kind of makes sense that if those hormones are not available anymore in perimenopause and menopause,

then your brain is going to send a message to your nervous system saying, alert, alert, stress response, something isn't happening, we're not getting what we need to function. So the reason I say that is, Sally, I see people with heightened sensory awareness as they're going through menopause. They might notice a heightened sense of smell and taste.

but also touch. We find we don't want people to come into our close proximity, like being on a crowded bus or an underground tube or on the street. But that's all to do with our heightened stress response, looking out for external danger. Sound, we don't like banging loud sounds anymore. Our tolerance goes down. So I find this really interesting.

Sally (24:50.392)
Yeah.

Sally (24:54.572)
It's so interesting.

Petra Coveney (24:56.753)
I have digressed Sally, I hope you can edit this.

Sally (24:58.542)
Okay. It's fine. We don't need to. It's all good.

Petra Coveney (25:02.335)
So that was a big explanation because I love explanations to understand things. So yoga, 100 % research shows that it can reduce stress to help relax your nervous system. So if you're in a fight and flight stress response, it can bring you back into a more balanced state. Fact, fact not fiction.

Sally (25:07.617)
Yeah.

Sally (25:25.518)
Yeah, especially if you go to a yoga class that is designed for menopause because some of the like Ashtangary type classes can over stimulate you, can't they?

Petra Coveney (25:39.392)
Yes, yes, and also hot yoga, if you're having hot flushes is not appropriate. Ashtanga could aggravate inflammation in the joints and muscles and trigger more of a stress response. So yes, it's about finding the appropriate style of yoga for your stage and your symptoms. But just to say then, so that yoga can reduce stress,

Sally (26:03.181)
Yeah.

Sally (26:07.682)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (26:07.869)
and we've already discussed how that's gonna help your body access the hormones it needs to ease its way through. By reducing stress, that's also going to help reduce inflammation. Remember, that can be present in many ways in the body and brain.

By reducing stress and inflammation, you may be able to sleep better. So there are research studies showing that it can improve your sleep. And sleep is a major problem, as you know, for people through menopause. And if you improve your sleep, that's going to improve your energy levels, your food choices the next morning, your ability to work, your levels of irritability.

with the people you live with or the people you work with. And so you can see that actually there are so many really good positives just from a simple yoga practice. And then in addition, we also have the meditation. meditation is pure gold, helping to soothe the mind, calm the mind. And just finally in menopause yoga, we have

Sally (27:08.344)
Yeah.

Sally (27:17.059)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (27:25.875)
different classes for different symptoms. And that includes a class for cooling hot flushes, a class for soothing menopause rage. And it's not about dousing the flames, it's not about pouring water on the emotion, it's about embracing ourselves with that emotion. It's about accepting our human emotions. But it's also about finding a way to

Sally (27:29.473)
Okay.

Sally (27:38.03)
Petra Coveney (27:55.508)
just bring you down from that hot emotion, just bring you down enough so that you can channel the message that you want to send to people. And so instead of exploding, you're communicating in a more calm and controlled way, which will probably get you the result you want rather than shouting.

Sally (28:07.118)
Yeah.

Sally (28:19.436)
Yeah, that's very true.

Petra Coveney (28:21.097)
So we have different classes for different symptoms.

Sally (28:24.094)
that's brilliant. Yeah, because I was wondering about that, actually. was wondering, you know, for example, the lion's breath is very good for like discharging that rage.

shaking really good for sort of anxiety, yoga nidra, yin, yin, sort of passive restorative yoga, really good for insomnia and hot flushes. And I think there's some breath work that you can do that really cools the body down as well, isn't there? So there's lots and lots of tools that yoga can really give us to actually specifically target those symptoms.

Petra Coveney (29:03.135)
And so what I've done, Sally, is I've drawn on all of those techniques available to us and curated them into specially designed classes so that rather than picking and choosing everywhere, you've actually got it all in one place.

Sally (29:21.996)
Yeah, you've curated it. I love that. I love that. Now, just going on to a slightly different tangent, do you ever feel that yoga is dismissed as kind of just stretching when it can actually be quite a radical form of real medicine for the body? Have you ever come across that in your world?

Petra Coveney (29:47.284)
definitely. Yes, yoga stretching or yoga as creating the body perfect, you know, looking like Madonna. I just actually, by the way, I just want to say to everyone out there, I am a very real and relatable person. And when I returned to yoga in my 30s, after I'd had children,

The reason I got into yoga was because I saw an amazing photo of Madonna looking really ripped with her muscles and I thought, I want to look like that. So I'm not against people wanting to have strong, bodies. But yes, yoga is not just stretching and it's not just about looking strong or body perfect. It is about reconnecting with yourself.

Sally (30:23.798)
Yeah, of course.

Petra Coveney (30:41.463)
reconnecting with your inner wisdom, finding a place of balance in this chaotic and imbalanced world so that you can maintain optimum health and wellbeing at whatever stage of life you are in. But one of the beautiful things that I love about yoga is the way that the philosophy and meditation mesh

beautifully with some of the Buddhist practices. And one of the Buddhist concepts is the concept of change. The concept that like a flowing river, the time is constantly changing. Everything is constantly changing. And that if we try to stop change, it's a bit like putting your hand in the water of a fast stream.

You're not going to stop the water. You're just going to cause yourself anxiety or frustration. And so in menopause yoga, we actually encourage the idea to accept change. And one of the ways I do that, because not everyone wants to lean into Buddhism or philosophy, but one of the ways we do this is we simply say, well, look at nature.

Look at the seasons of nature. Every season changes. Every season has a purpose and a reason. And we actually work with the concepts of spring, growth, youth, summer, your adulthood, your time of productivity, maybe reproductivity, autumn as the concept of perimenopause, letting go of what you no longer need.

whether that's functioning in the brain or hormone, reproductive hormones. And then we come into winter, that deep time of rest, which nature uses to conserve its energy and resources. And then having the energy then to reemerge into your second spring.

Sally (33:02.476)
Hmm, what a perfect explanation. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. It's so much more, isn't it? Than, just stretching. know every time I go to my yoga class, always gain something philosophical or just gain a little mindset tip or a just a, deepen my relationship with my body, you know, which is a really beautiful thing because it's so easy to become disconnected from our body in this fast paced, technologically based.

world that we live in. Yeah.

Petra Coveney (33:35.004)
It's interesting you use that word disconnection because that does come up so much in the menopause, especially perimenopause, where this body that we've been used to living with, and yes, we have monthly changes, but we've kind of got used to those changes. But then it stops working and weird things start happening at irregular, irrational times. And it can feel as if you're

body is separate from you. Some people find themselves getting very bloated or putting on weight or just aches and pains. And some people may have incredibly long menstrual bleeds or painful bleeds. And so they start not loving their body. So yes, it's about inviting ourselves to reconnect with our body very softly, very gently and sending it a bit of love.

Sally (34:10.734)
Yeah.

Sally (34:32.332)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. think it's a beautiful thing to do. What do you think about the HRT first narrative that we see quite a bit on social media, you know, and just in any media actually that is, is, I don't know, pushed, if you like, around, is the first

The first port of call when it comes to treating menopause sort of has to be HRT. What do you think about that?

Petra Coveney (35:07.623)
It's so interesting, isn't it? Because back in the day when I was going through perimenopause, the doctors resisted giving you HRT. Now it is often the first option that is given. In actual fact, I'm a member of the British Menopause Society, which is for health practitioners, and their guidelines are lifestyle first. And in my new book, there is a whole chapter

written by a menopause doctor who's also from the British Menopause Society. And she will say, yes, HRT has a place and can be so helpful for many people, but lifestyle changes first, see how you get on with that, then come and get HRT. So it's, in menopause yoga, I'm not pro or anti. I'm what do you need? But

Let me help you find out what you need. Let me help you to get more in touch with your own body, listen in, tune in to your body's needs and changes, and then help you to make an informed, empowered choice.

Sally (36:28.152)
Yeah, yeah, that's perfect. Those are my thoughts exactly as well when it comes to HRT in general. think, and I think a lot of menopause doctors now are really taking on this idea that it's totally multifaceted. HRT is one thing that we can do to support the transition. It doesn't have to be the be all and end all. There is so much more that we can do to really help ourselves.

on many, many, many levels. I mean, I do a lot of the deep work, a lot of the sort of childhood trauma work and how that plays into menopause symptoms severity. So, you know, that's just one small facet of this big change that we go through as well.

Petra Coveney (37:13.535)
Absolutely Sally and for me, I'm glad you brought that up because the...

I have worked for over 15 years specifically with women and people going through this stage in life. And by the way, my language is sensitive to the fact that cisgender women go through menopause, but also transgender men go through menopause and so do non-binary people. So women and people going through the menopause can find that past trauma comes up to the surface.

Sally (37:42.188)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (37:49.908)
And if it's not past trauma, just past memories that were unprocessed, maybe because you were a child and didn't have the power or capacity to process it at the time. And we could see this as part of the brain spring cleaning. It's, you things are coming up, memories are becoming closer to the surface. I believe it is the hippocampus with memory and the hippocampus in brain scans lightens up.

Sally (38:15.192)
Yeah. Yeah.

Petra Coveney (38:20.255)
as we go through the perimenopause due to the rewiring of the brain. And when this happened to me, actually it was an opportunity, an opportunity to pause. I mean, that is the wisdom of menopause, isn't it? It's in the word. The wisdom to pause, take stock and give yourself time to maybe seek professional support.

Sally (38:37.985)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (38:47.999)
I went to a CBT counselor who I personally found very, very helpful and who helped me to look, allow these memories to come to the surface and in a safe way, revisit them and understand them. And then, ah, let them go. So yeah, so that they no longer were tying me to the past. And Sally, one of the things that I say to...

Sally (39:06.699)
Let them go now.

Sally (39:12.483)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (39:15.473)
my clients and students is actually based on real life as well. I say to them, you're coming into your second spring, this new stage, what do you want to bring with you? Do you want to drag everything from the past, know, every, the wardrobe, the bed, the kitchen sink, all the boxes in the attic you've not looked at for years, you know, or do you want to have a lighter load? And this beautiful house where I live now in Brighton, I used to live in London.

When I moved, I had to really downsize and I literally had to prune away and come down to the essentials. What do I want to take with me into this new stage? And also making space for new things, you know? New paintings by a lovely local artist, you new furniture, things like this. And so I think Sally, I know you'd agree, it's an opportunity to process.

Sally (40:06.466)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sally (40:14.676)
Yes, and I think talking about that, really do think that menopause itself is not only a physical transition, it's a spiritual transition for many people. Many people do experience it as a spiritual transition in a similar way that puberty is, but I think we're too young to possibly, well Gen X is probably not so much the young kids of today, but we're probably too young to really understand that fully.

as we were going through that. Well, having said that, I did pick up my first Louise Hay book at 14, so maybe it was, you know, I was going for an aware spiritual transition, but I mean, it's just, it just feels like it's every layer is being changed during this.

Petra Coveney (41:06.087)
Absolutely, and as I said in traditional Chinese medicine, they call it stepping into wholeness. And they also talk about your teenage self reconnecting with your post-menopause self. It's not me, another very clever woman coined the phrase, teenager to queen-ager, which I love. So we're now the queen-ager in our...

Sally (41:27.833)
wow.

Petra Coveney (41:32.048)
Well, not all of us go through menopause in our middle age, but a lot of us do. So, teenager to queen-age. And what I love about that in terms of traditional Chinese medicine is they're actually saying, look, your body has become your own again, just like it was when you were a pubescent child. But you've now got all the wisdom and knowledge of living your life.

Sally (41:39.222)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (41:58.974)
And so your body becomes your own, your bits become your own to choose how you want to do with them. I really love that idea, so stepping into a wholeness. And one of the things, Sally, that I do in some of my workshops, when they're focused on second spring, I invite my clients and students to remember their teenage self and say,

Sally (42:09.504)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (42:27.313)
Is there anything that your teenage self wanted to do in life, but somehow that messy bit in the middle called adulthood, there were different priorities and you never got to do it. Yeah. And, you know, is it something now that in your second spring you could make time for, to devote yourself to, put some resources to?

And I've got some great stories about what people have actually done afterwards.

Sally (42:58.862)
could you share a couple? Yeah.

Petra Coveney (43:01.691)
I share a couple and then I'll share one of my own. Okay, these are real life women's stories. So one woman contacted me after a workshop and she said, Petra, I remembered that me and my husband, we've been going through a bit of a rocky patch, know, marriage not great after about 40 years, but we remembered that when we were in our 20s, we rode through India on motorbikes.

Sally (43:05.869)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (43:31.313)
And she sent me a photograph of her in her mid fifties, wearing full leather jacket, know, trousers, boots, and a helmet. And she and her husband had just been across India on their motorbikes and it really brought them closer together. So that's one. Yeah, I have, I have, I'll go give you a couple of other quick ones. So quick one.

Sally (43:54.03)
liberating.

Petra Coveney (44:00.74)
one woman who was a parent felt quite resentful about having children and clipping her wings because she used to be a travel writer. And then after the workshop, some time later she messaged me and she said, my daughter is now 18. We've decided to take a gap year together and we're going to travel and write a travel book together. I know.

Sally (44:22.524)
Lovely.

Petra Coveney (44:25.565)
Okay, and another woman, she said that she'd been feeling very low and depressed in her 50s. She was a yoga teacher. And again, that was kind of the resentment of I've given everything in my life to everybody else. What about me now? And she remembered that when she was a teenager, she loved riding horses. She'd never been able to do it since then. They just didn't have the money. So now in her post-menopause, she and some friends had clubbed together.

and were renting a horse and a stable, and they would take it in turns to go every other week to go and groom and ride the horse. Isn't that a wonderful image? This woman in her late 50s riding the horse, her hair blowing in the wind. I just love that. And then one of my little ones, I hope it's okay to share my own personal story.

Sally (45:03.982)
Bye.

Sally (45:11.448)
Yeah, I love it.

Sally (45:18.88)
Of course, yeah.

Petra Coveney (45:21.119)
So when I was a teenager, I wanted to be a tap dancer. I wanted to be like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, to dance like Fred Astaire but wear Ginger Rogers dresses. And actually this year I met a wonderful man and he's a dancer and very spontaneously he said, oh, I'm going to, why don't we go and I'll teach you how to dance.

on the big bandstand on the beach in Brighton. And I went, okay. And we danced on the bandstand and I felt like Ginger Rogers. It was so wonderful. So there you go. And we're still together.

Sally (46:01.899)
my god.

Sally (46:07.426)
Wow.

That is, those stories have just, I can just feel the goosebumps all down my right hand side when you're telling me those. They are so wonderful and it really has made me think actually. I'm sort of tuning back into my child, my teenage years and it dawned on me actually what I wanted a lot of the time during my teenage years was a lot of space. I won't go into all my childhood trauma but I needed a lot of retreat.

and I wasn't really allowed. Well, I was, but not as much as I would have liked. So I think now that's why I'm rebelling and really leaning into that under-functioning part of me. That's like...

maybe having a bit of a lay in, maybe going at a slower pace, you know, not going out as much, cocooning a bit more. I absolutely love winter. So for me, this is just like the perfect season. Going into the winter, it's dark and gloomy and rainy. I'm like, yes, it's my time to get cozy, to take my power back, to not have to go out and to just be. But also like you, do, my teenager wanted to be on stage quite a lot.

So I have been doing some dance lessons. I've also been doing some calisthenics, which is like gymnastics. So, and it's just dawned on me, perhaps there's a link between the teenager, because I think I was actually, it was before my teen years, I was probably like 10, 11, I was doing gymnastics, but I never felt as good as my friend who was way more flexible than me. So doing it now.

Sally (47:52.527)
at my age 49 soon to be 50, it feels like, yeah, I'm stiff, yeah, I'm rubbish at it, but I'm making progress and it just feels fantastic. It feels very liberating, like my body is my own, as you say.

Petra Coveney (48:07.077)
Exactly. And the great thing about being that age, your age, is we don't care what other people think. We're not in competition with our so-called best friend or anyone else around us. And that is so liberating, isn't it?

Sally (48:11.808)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (48:19.032)
Yeah.

Yeah, really is, really is. So I'm just checking the time, we've got about 10 minutes left. Could you tell us a little bit about your book? Because I know in your book, because there are some people I think, it looks beautiful, it's pink and it's the perfect colour with a great big sun on the front as well, it looks like a sun.

Petra Coveney (48:25.193)
and

Sally (48:44.446)
Sometimes people can be afraid of going to yoga classes. They've never done it before. They might be slightly intimidated. Now I know that your book offers a different kind of solution. Do you want to talk us through if somebody was to buy your book what they would find inside?

Petra Coveney (49:01.065)
So this new book, the pink cover book with the positive golden sun, the idea of renewal and second spring, this new book is designed for the public. And you don't have to have practiced yoga before. You could be new, could be level one, level two, or wherever you want to be. It has simple yoga practices designed for beginners.

Sally (49:13.548)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (49:30.661)
It has five minute classes, 15 minute classes, 30 minute classes, because I thought about myself and my clients. I'm a yoga therapist as well. And we are busy people. So the book is Bite Size Classes for Busy People. The aim is to give you classes which specifically target

Sally (49:53.74)
Love that.

Petra Coveney (50:00.16)
various symptoms that you may have, but also there are practices here for post-menopause strength, whether that's muscle strength, bones, balance, mental health, so that you can go into the next stage of life feeling strong and empowered and in charge of your own body. And it feels good in your post-menopause to be strong. But as I said,

This book has easy accessible practices for everybody, modifications for any common injuries or conditions, and you only need to be a beginner with an open mind. Also in the book, there are hand-drawn pictures with easy to read instructions, and each class

Each meditation, each breathing technique is accompanied by a QR code that links you to a video showing you how to do the practice.

Sally (51:09.838)
that's so good. That's so good. You can just get your phone out and go straight to it. You don't have to type in a long link or anything like that. Yeah, that's wonderful. I really do think it makes yoga much more accessible. And yeah, I wanted to talk to you actually around this idea that yoga often comes with this image of super, you know, young, bendy,

bubble butt, flat stomach, not that there's anything wrong with that, like I'm all for it. If that is your body, mwah, amazing. But yeah, how do you challenge that narrative with menopause yoga?

Petra Coveney (51:57.248)
So number one, in the book, when you click on the QR codes, it will take you to videos which feature real and relatable models. They are all actually yoga teachers. They're friends of mine and they represent different ethnicities. So a whole range of ethnicities, different ages. We have people in their 40s, 50s, early 60s, different body shapes.

Sally (52:11.875)
Mm-hmm.

Petra Coveney (52:27.165)
different conditions because some of them do still have menopause symptoms that they're working with. And I hope that that makes the videos and the book feel real and relatable to the public who are reading them. Little note here by the way, Sally, people have this idea that yoga teachers are all kind of on the pedestal living in harmony with the universe.

The truth is, and I know this from 15 years of working with people, and since 2019, I've been training teachers all over the world. And what I can tell you is that menopause symptoms affect people all over the world, including yoga teachers. Yeah, we're just the same as everybody else.

Sally (53:14.584)
Yeah.

Sally (53:19.136)
Yeah, yeah. it's, you know, hot flushes, insomnia. It's not always to do with things that you might blame yourself for, for like eating too much sugar or being overweight or being too stressed. You know, it might, it might just be what your body is doing because that's what your body wants to do for whatever reason. And we might not even know what that reason is. Sometimes it's just very random. Yeah.

Petra Coveney (53:44.553)
Yeah.

Petra Coveney (53:48.648)
I would say, by the way, that there is a pretty reliable research now looking at the experience of Afro-Caribbean with British women born or living in the UK from childhood who have grown up with the daily attrition of racism, which increases their stress response.

Sally (54:12.386)
Mm-hmm.

Petra Coveney (54:15.729)
And what we do know from research is that that particular demographic and anyone else who has experienced daily racism, that they go into menopause earlier and they experience more symptoms like hot flushes and inflammation. Because the stress of the menopause is hitting that already heightened daily levels of stress. So interesting, isn't it?

Sally (54:27.587)
Yeah.

Sally (54:42.41)
stress on top of stress and yeah I think I read that as well actually that there is that link there with with that with racism and you know the Afro-Caribbean culture and that the high levels of stress that that actually creates in the body feeling different feeling out not feeling safe I mean that's already flipping your nervous system on to

into that sympathetic mode, jacks up the cortisol, the adrenaline and deprioritises those sex hormones right from an early age.

Petra Coveney (55:24.211)
And the same for people, as you well know, who've experienced trauma and also people with neurodiversity.

Sally (55:32.227)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because it's because you're not fitting into the modern or that you're not fit. You're not playing to the gallery. You're not fitting in with what society says a typical person should be or how it's not as easy to fit in, is it? I'm mincing my words a little bit here, but I know what I mean. Yeah, it's not as easy to fit in. OK, so right, we need to wrap things up.

Let me sing. If you had just five minutes a day to do yoga for yourself, what might that look like?

Petra Coveney (56:13.433)
would do first of all I'd start in a child's pose stretching out my spine and then I would do cat cow that movement through the spine. Spinal health is so important and sets us up for the day and those discs between the bones really need to be stretched in order to get them lubricated. So I do child's pose cat cow, cobra pose, downward facing dog.

Yeah, I might do that a few times and then I would sit and I would do some abdominal breathing, either seated or lying on my back so that I can bring my awareness, draw that breath down into the abdomen through the body. And then I would just take a maybe two minutes of meditation. I have a little technique in menopause yoga where we balance a block or something on the head, little weight on the head. And in just...

Sally (56:49.134)
Mm.

Petra Coveney (57:09.619)
Two minutes, you can find that you're calming your mind, your nervous system. So that whole practice I've just described there could take you 10 minutes. So easy, a simple part of your day. And you can either start your day with that, but you could also end your day with that. Or you could bookend your whole day with that. Really simple techniques.

Sally (57:31.054)
Yeah, that's lovely. Thank you so much for sharing. Well, particularly that last offering, because I think that I know that's something that I could definitely pop into my life. Just doesn't have to be a great big class. Doesn't have to be like an hour or 90 minutes. I don't have time for that, but just something that you can do to wake the body up, calm the body down, and just to say, just to really recognize your body and what your body does for you.

Petra Coveney (58:01.512)
and be present. Yeah, before your mind starts racing ahead to all the things you need to do in the day.

Sally (58:03.383)
Yeah.

Sally (58:09.77)
Yeah, yeah, because that happens very quickly if we're not careful. Thank you so much. So where are you most active on social media and how can people find out about you? Where can they buy the book?

Petra Coveney (58:22.079)
I am mainly on Instagram at menopause underscore yoga. My name as you know is Petra Covini. My website is menopause hyphen, excuse me. My website is menopause hyphen yoga.com where I have lots of online classes, workshops and teacher training courses as well as retreats. And if anyone would like to buy the new

pink book, go for the pink one, not the yellow. You can buy it from the publisher singingdragon.com and I'm going to give you a 25 % discount code for your listeners. Or if you want to get it even quicker, you can buy it from Amazon Books. That gets delivered to your door quite quickly. So two different choices there. And I hope, I really hope you enjoy it.

Sally (59:06.67)
Wow.

Petra Coveney (59:21.671)
I hope you enjoy the videos and the content and the positive message.

Sally (59:26.902)
Lovely, thank you so much Petra.