Transcript

Rowena
Absolute powerhouse Dr. Bron owns a boutique high vibes, osteopathy clinic focused on a holistic and positive approach to each woman’s whole health and well being journey. Her own brand of sunshine big laughs and real rawness is a breath of fresh air and the often stuffy world of medicine, get ready to be inspired to focus on the most important part of your business. You. So, Bron, can you introduce yourself for those that don’t know who you are? And what you do?

Bron
Okay, well, my name is Bron, or I’m affectionately known as Dr. Bron. So I’m an osteopath in East Brisbane, I own my own little clinic. I mainly focus on women’s health and chronic pain and complex pain problems. I’ve been doing it for about five years now. And yeah, I love it, it’s just the best working with people who you know, are a little bit lost or they’re in pain, or they’re needing direction or support or nurturing and just not knowing where to go and being allied health professional, but also primary caregiver means that they can access you without needing referrals from their GP. So sometimes we are the first port of call for people with pain before hospital or before, you know, not so much hospital, but in acute cases, yes. But you know, it’s that access for the community to be directed to where they need to go. So we are manual therapists. So we work hands on, basically. And it’s the thing that really, I guess people get confused with is what’s the difference between you and Chiropractic and physio therapy and massage therapy and all the cool little manual therapy options that are out there. And I guess for us osteopathy, it’s just always coming back to the fact that we’re looking holistically at problems, you know, when we’re treating the area that’s symptomatic, but we’re looking at the big picture. And we’re looking at the impact on more than just one system. And we’re looking at how all the body systems interact with each other, and that they can affect each other. So it’s, more holistic, and definitely patient centred. It’s not a treatment plan that you’re going to get that the next person gets and the next person gets. It’s about what you need at the time, and what your body needs. So yeah, it’s it’s great. It’s a really cool career.

Rowena
Now, being that this is the profesh issue. One of the things that I’ve been talking to a lot about a lot of people is that every industry in this sort of space seems to have some stereotypes around it. And what would you say are some of the stereotypes that you typically get around your industry?

Bron
There’s many we, I guess we get called a little bit like that, you know, from from some people in the medical professional profession. Sorry, a little bit witchcraft, he, you know, just like witch doctors, or, you know, they do spinal manipulation and rubber rubber. And I totally get that they might have valid reasons for that. But it’s, you know, we get definitely kind of pushed in that area or kind of glorified massage therapists. And it’s just that so it really grinds my gears a little bit because we we work so hard with what we do. But yeah, that would probably, I guess, yes, stereotype and a lot of people think just bones, you know, when they look into osteoporosis, like osteoarthritis, and that’s totally valid as well. It’s Latin for bone, but it’s really that’s old terminology. These days, it’s actually the whole body that we look at now and how everything connects.

Rowena
I have to admit I’m definitely one of those people that I’m like, put a lot of things into a woo woo category until I’ve experienced it myself and then like I’m a complete and utter convert and like who was that person? Yes, like Believe in this stuff, like, Yes, I’ve had a lot of experiences in that space and now my mind is so open to the stuff so I’ve had yes experiences in a Bowen therapy space with acupressure,

Bron
Beautiful. I love Bowen therapy.

Rowena
Honestly, like my story, I swear by it now, I always thought, woo woo, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Yeah. And I had a baby that was refusing to drop, even though I was in full blown labor, and had a bowen massage. And six hours later, I had a baby.

Bron
There you go, baby.

Rowena
Those sorts of things. And the same with the chiropractor, like I’ve had years of, of, and it’s really finding, yeah, like somebody who treats you no matter what the profession is, I feel treats you as a whole person.

Bron
Yep. And that’s what we’re trying to, I guess, you know, move away from a little bit. And that’s certainly not what I focus on in my clinic, because I get asked all the time, you know, should I see the chiropractor? Or should I see the pelvic physio? And I’m like, Yeah, absolutely. If you feel that they are providing you with the care that you need, if you’re just going because you feel like you have to do or, you know, you’re you just go every month or you know, you love the chat and things like that, then, you know, you have to kind of think, am I getting what I need out of this right now. And I think you should always have, you know, a health practitioner that’s got your greatest interests at heart, looking, you know, sometimes I go, I’m not the best professional for you, you know, I think it would be better if you did see a pelvic physio to help you with that, and then come back to me, and we can rebalance this or that. So you know, I think having letting go of all of that, you know, I’m going to hold on to this patient, and I’m going to, you know, keep them in this scheme of like systematically getting them in, it’s just, it doesn’t work. And it’s not truly advocating for the patient and their problems. So I think at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what practitioner you’re seeing. They have to be a practitioner, that’s, that’s genuinely got your goals with your health, for your business in mind, that goes for everybody. For Business mentors for everything.

Rowena
I feel like it’s so true, like, and I think a lot of the time, you can’t realise that until you’ve moved yourself out of stereotypical systems.

Bron
Yes, yes. You know, you can see from the outside looking in

Rowena
hindsight is 2020. Isn’t that what I say? Now, that’s it, you focus on women’s health, I know that you work in paediatrics as well, but you focus on women’s health, and being that majority of people who are listening to this today will be women. And yes, as a woman who is edging gracefully towards 40. Who is starting to feel the things that age, apparently, you know, it was always so far in the future, and suddenly the futures now, what can I Hi, what kind of advice do you have, especially for women in business, who have a tendency to not always put themselves as a first priority? What sorts of things can we be doing? Not necessarily to avoid seeing health professionals? But what sorts of things can we do to take care of ourselves so that we can have the most control over our well being?

Bron
Yeah, I think, you know, women in business, we are the hardest working people of all time. Like, it’s the amount of juggling that you know, and self sacrificing, and things that happen that over time that everything that happens, you know, something everyone talks about, Something’s got to give, you know, it’s such an art, Something’s got to give, you know, you’ve got to either give up your side project or move on or, you know, get help. But I think if you shift that, and your business is always a reflection of you, it doesn’t matter if it’s actually you, or it might be skincare products, or whatever, it’s always a reflection of you. And as much as we try to separate ourselves from our business, we can’t, in those first few years, it’s just us, it’s just us, you know, and it’s a lot of women in our kind of late 20s, you know, late 30s, it’s that stage of our lives where you’re either birthing a business or you’re birthing a child, you know, it’s or you’re just chilling out, and that’s cool, too. But it’s, you’re either focusing on something and you’re nurturing it, and you’re growing it, you know, and then in 40s, and 50s, you’re living it, you’re reaping the benefits of what you’re selling. So if you flip it and think if I invest in myself now, and I look at what I need to do for me, and I actually flip it instead of Oh, I need to do that for my business, then flip it and think, you know, I need to do it for me and it’s going to flow to my business. So if you’re not nurturing yourself, it’s going to reflect in your business. It’s going to reflect in the uphill slog to get business to focus on your marketing, to find connections. Cuz your energetics are down, you’re not aligned with where you want to be. So you might not be associating or networking with people you want to be right now, you might like, why am I not in that crowd of people that I look up to right now? You know, it’s because your energy is not where it needs to be focused, and that is always inwards. So I think if you start looking at your calendar and looking at your schedule, and really treating yourself like a business and transactional and going, when can I schedule this time into myself, that’s a busy week, right? The next week, I do a half week or whatever, just balancing that it doesn’t have to be, you know, signing up to a gym and slogging it out, it doesn’t have to be paying for crazy amounts of courses to do to help you. It’s within you. And I think you just need to create quiet, to figure out what works best for you. You know, figure out what nurtures you the most.

Rowena
I feel like you’re speaking right to me right now. I have an aching shoulder and a neck here and stuff like that at the moment. And yeah, it’s always been, but I have work to do. And it’s like, yeah, yeah, suddenly, you really only Look at this, when you start to go, Oh, yeah, I must have that sore shoulder because I was a dumb ass and I was working on my laptop last night, or I wasn’t sitting properly in my chair, or I haven’t been eating as well as I should be. So therefore, I had a cold last week.

Bron
Yep. Can I just say we’re all human. And we totally do it as well as health professionals, oh, my God, we drop the ball a lot of the time. But you know it, then it affects everything. Right? Your productivity? Yeah, everything.

Rowena
And it really comes down to a saying that I saw on your website that really spoke to me about how what you do differently is that you educate, you examine and you empower. That’s a huge part of your philosophy. why do you feel like that’s so central to what you offer, and why it’s so important?

Bron
I think, for a long time, women’s health issues are kind of being swept under the rug or kind of dis dismissed a little bit, as you know, I think endometriosis is the perfect example of that, you know, like, oh, sorry, you’ve got period pain, you’ll you’ll be right. You know, that’s, that’s normal. It’s not, no, no, period, pain is normal. But, you know, just dismissing and I think now, with social media, definitely, with that access to information from technology, and people really, really going out and looking for support communities to get the best information for them, is starting to happen. And I think people are waking up and they’re starting to advocate for their health more, because they’re going to these appointments and not getting the help that they feel that they need. It might be that the practitioner didn’t know or quite understand the kind of help that they were after. But in saying that, you know, that you can always tell I think, as a patient, if they’re not your kind of vibe, or anything like that, or if they don’t pick up what you’re putting down. It happens a lot. But yeah, I think just not treating people and patients like they’re stupid, a lot of the time, like, I am just talking for the 60 minutes that, you know, initial patient is with me because I’m like, what are your goals? What’s your medical history, let’s understand what your body’s talking about. And as I’m treating them, I’m explaining exactly why I’m doing what I’m doing. Just because I don’t want them to sit there and kind of you know, it’s not a massage, it’s not to chill out, it’s to understand and drop into your body and feel where those areas of tension are and feel them relax. We are changing your nervous system. wereWe’re changing patterns of behaviour and posture. So I want you to be aware of it so that when you go out of my treatment room, which is only an hour in your whole week, that you’re aware, and you’re like, That’s what Bron said, when I was breathing and my diaphragm is really tight. I need to be aware of that. That’s where change happens if you’re not educating people on their bodies or telling them what’s happening with their bodies. I don’t know how many people walk into my room after seeing a different health practitioner and still don’t know their diagnosis. And that breaks my heart. Because if they don’t understand what’s going on, how are they meant to help themselves? You know, they’re wandering around feeling like they’re not getting what they need. So they’re lost and they they start to, you know, go down a self sabotage path of going it’s all in my head kind of thing. Yeah. So I think if we really spend the time and osteopathy was really big on this less is more the body’s intelligent, less is more. The key I always find is in the conversation. You know, the conversation, the amount of information that your hands get in treatment is huge. But the amount of information you get from the minute someone enters my treatment room, I’m picking up on their energy, and I’m looking at their body language, because it tells you where they’re at. So I think it gauges what information or how much you need to actually share with them today, or if it’s just a treatment for them to just relax a little bit more. And, yeah, I think it’s a huge part to their healing, to do all of that.

Rowena
And awareness is such a key thing, I talk about it so often, until you have that, and it’s in so many different parts of your life where information truly is power. And so if you can actually learn about something, it’s kind of creates all those new pathways in your brain. And so it’s connection that’s there. And it’s like, it’s that whole body connection, and that whole body awareness. Like Yeah, yeah, sure, my shoulders still giving me grief, I’m sitting here, and I’m moving it around a bit pointing at you. And I’m still like, oooo. But I’ve noticed now, but you know, awareness is a huge thing that I’ve learned since being in business myself, but even like, and I love what you said about the fact that working in conjunction with other therapies that work as well, like, for instance, I found that going to a psychologist was a huge eye opener for me. And it really opened me up to things but it literally released a whole bunch of things. And I’m not kidding you, my body suddenly, like suddenly started releasing a whole bunch of tensions and a whole bunch of sort of like a spiral started happening. And again, yeah, like I said, I, the woo woo side of things, part of me, the practical part of me would always be like, you know, whatever, you know, take a pill fix or whatever. But once you actually start to see results from this type of thing, whether it’s in your business, and you take action, and something happens in your life, or whether….

Bron
Its empowering.

Rowena
And that’s where it comes back around to the word buy, you want to empower, because you need to empower people to want change, you know, and know that it’s possible.

Bron
Yep. Or you’re just pushing everything uphill. It’s just hard work. Yeah. It’s hard work. Yeah. And I think you know, you have to be at that point where you need help, or you want help, I should say, you know, that there has to be meeting halfway with the patient, but, you know, it’s comes back to really investing in yourself and really, you know, working. the same pathways as stress and anxiety, are the same as pain and inflammation. You know, they’re hand in hand. So, if we’re achy, tired, sore, and we keep pushing it all to the side, the body is going to go Alright, I was whispering now I’m gonna Yell. So then and that’s when I usually see people go I had a migraine for three days. I’m like, um, you know, I just bent over it, everything fell apart. So it’s just one of those things where it yet and it just ended up it always happens with this so much going on in your life and everything’s due and you know, it’s all been emotional week at home with the family or something like that. But um, you know, it’s gonna if we don’t listen to it whispering then we’re going to listen, you know, we’re going to hear it screen. Yeah, so it’s just, you know, listen to the niggles when people see me, and they’ve got a lot of niggles going on it, this and that, and this and that, they’re not moving enough, you are not moving enough. It’s stiffness, it’s facial tightness, it’s congestion, you need to move you need to breathe, you need to, you know, dead and it doesn’t people like oh, I don’t want to go to the gym. I’m like, you don’t have to why does everything have to be the bloody gym? Like it just it can be anything that you get the endorphins and the enjoyment from, it doesn’t have to be something you should, you know, sign up to, it can be something you enjoy. And it does, it can be small bursts of that it doesn’t have to be an hour long or an hour, two hour gym session, it can just be 15 minutes a day. But that consistency across the week, helps you and balances you rather than the full commitment, you know, and that will build over time, the better you feel that will get better. And those times will increase. So, you know, baby steps.

Rowena
It’s so true. My word for the year is happy and joyful, right? So like, I realised how many things I was doing that weren’t in that space. you know, the world had put all these shoulds and coulds, and I was like not the world, I chose this. I can choose happy, I can choose joy. And yes, what you just said about like, I have to admit, like I feel like this whole conversation is directed at exactly where I am in my life right now. You sort of when you don’t have to go to the gym to take music on and have a dance party with my kids. That’s way more me.

Bron
and what a way, you know what a way to start shifting more into a feminine space. You know, being more present with your kids and being a mom and dropping more into that feminine, soft, fun, playful, you know? nurturing energy on a more regular basis. And it does absolutely mean you put on Cyndi Lauper and lock yourself in your bedroom and dance, you know, until you break out in a sweat. Yes, you do. You do that, because then you walk out and the rest of the day, you’re like, I feel damn good, you know, and it’s just, it doesn’t have to be anything crazy. You know, it could be singing in the car, you know, like, anything that’s going to change your vibration on your energy like that, it will change the tone of your day. You know, it doesn’t have to be anything epic.

Rowena
And potentially save you a lot of money in the long term. Let’s be honest.

Bron
Let’s be honest, a lot of money, a lot of money.

Rowena
So you take a really gentle approach to your treatment instead of the outdated No pain, no gain notion.

Bron
Yeah, yes, yes, I do. Yes. So, in in kind of osteopathy world, we have kind of two camps of, you know, techniques that we might use with patients. There’s a more structural direct techniques which are more like you know, soft tissue massage, stretching, you know, moving the joints and muscles around a little bit and doing spinal manipulation or joint manipulation as well. So that’s a very direct approach. And then there’s another side of osteopathy, which is indirect, where it’s very gentle, it’s very subtle, it’s, you know, no more than just a little bit of light pressure on your own arm. And it’s just really listening to the more fluid body system and listening to the nervous system a little bit more and the breathing patterns that you have. And we do cranial osteopathy as well in that field. So a lot of people know what craniosacral therapy is, but osteopathic cranial field is where that has come from. So it’s a gentle approach and a lot of people will know of this through paediatrics or you know, I had a baby who had a tongue tie or had a flathead or breastfeeding issues will know of the chiropractors and the Osteos who work with the cranial work. So, you know, as what I love about osteopathy is we when we arrive at a destination with this massive, massive bag of you know tool bag with tools that we can use. And it doesn’t mean we’re limited to only a certain camp of that have that kind of technique, we, we pick and choose what the body needs on that day with you. And at the end of the day, you’re the patient, and you get the final call, because you can be like, I actually don’t like any joint manipulation, and we go, cool. Next, you know, it’s all good. We’ve got heaps of techniques that do amazing things as well, that don’t put you into that stress state going, Oh, my God, I really don’t want this, I don’t like how much pressure they’re using. I don’t like the adjustment. It’s all about how you feel, and how and we can tell any good practitioner at that time with their manual therapy and palpation skills should be able to feel if a patient is just not not enjoying all of that, you know, and you can tell when their body is not liking the style of treatment they’re having.

Rowena
Something you just reminded me about. You have those doctors that stick out in your head, like theres ones that potentially you don’t have a positive experience with. But there’s also the ones that you suddenly just go, you are in the right calling. And I remember speaking to this woman, Indian doctor, and she was fabulous. I went to her for as long as she stayed at that surgery, but she said something really, she’s like, when a child is sick, we rush them and make sure that they’re as well as possible. And we make sure that we support everything that we can because we are responsible for them. You are responsible for you too. You know, why not treat yourself as you treat your child like, you know, I was always tagging on my appointment at the end of my kids appointments where I’d spend, you know, 10 minutes talking 20 minutes talking about them. And I’d just sort of be like, I just need this, you know? Yeah, yep. Yep. No, you need to flip those priorities because it just 100% stuck in my head. And yeah, it’s just come flowing back.

Bron
Yeah, this comes from the idea that, you know, the medical professional were caught, they’ve kind of flipped it in a sense that it’s the focus is on the child, and that is great and needed and necessary. But at the same time, you’re absolutely right with what you’re saying it’s flows from the mom, we have to look at Eastern cultures and how they absolutely nurture the mother, that 30 to 40 day rest period that they have in China. I mean, that Yeah, nurturing the mum through postpartum provisions, like, you know, I mean, we don’t have to go as excessive as sponge bathing the mother, but, you know, looking at the end, I see this in my clinic when I treat as well is the fact that when they come in for breastfeeding issues, they book their child in and they’re like, please help, you know, and I totally get that. But most of the time, I’m rebooking the mother. I’m looking at the birth strains in the child. They’re the same in the mom. I’m looking at the feeding pattern issues and I can see the issues could be perhaps coming from the mom as well. So I, it’s a mother baby diad for a reason. And so this is where I want you to take back and think about what we said about the business being your child, because sometimes it gets as much nurturing and time as a child. And you have so much passion and love for it. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? That you need that you need to put as much love into yourself, because it’s going to grow that way, you know, it’s going to, it’s going to grow.

Rowena
One of the most confronting things I’ve realised, as a parent is exactly like, any time my, I have a problem with my kids typically fix your problem with me. And that’s like, the biggest realisation that I’ve even had in business as well. Whereas like, if there’s a problem with my business, this potentially is something I need to work on for myself.

Bron
Yeah. Yep. And that’s what a great, you know, it’s so powerful to have a tool like that, to reflect on that and go hang on a minute, could it be that I wasn’t in a headspace when I booked that appointment, but you know, to meet with them to talk about marketing, or, you know, and then you got there and they weren’t aligned with you. But you know, you’re not, you need to make business decisions from a place of gut more than your head, because all of the time going with the flow doesn’t really work. So it’s just you kind of have to be the squeaky wheel sometimes, and just drop into your gut before you make all of those big decisions. And actually, I said to someone the other day, who was a woman who’s opened her own business, she said to me, what should I do with my business? And I said, What should you do with you? Like, you know, what are you going to do for you? And she’s like, Oh, I didn’t, I won’t have time for that. And I had to do the big chat about what we just talked about. But yeah, it’s, it’s interesting.

Rowena
And even like, we’ve just met today, yeah. And your vibe is so high, you just need to jump on to your your online space and stuff like that you have this really high vibe positive approach. It’s refreshing in the often sterile world of medicine, like, there’s a lot of, from even from a branding point of view, there’s like a huge amount of like, stereotypes around what a medical professional should look like, and how the look and feel should be. Yours is full of color and sunshine and light and real rawness around things that have been really stigmatised for women as well. Yeah. And you’ve just had a new look online? How important was it to embed who you are, into your new look and your recently opened clinic as well?

Bron
Yeah. For me, it was a real, it was a real decision that just kind of come out of nowhere, because I didn’t ever expect, you know, in my, you know, fifth year out of uni, that I’d be doing this, but that I’d still, you know, that I’d be actually you know, and by mean that opening my own clinic, it’s, it’s crazy. But I think with me, it was more I worked at a clinic with multiple practitioners when I first came out. And that was great, because you got to see every type of condition or not every type, but a lot of conditions, all walks of life, you’re working with a team, everyone has different skills and interests and passions. And I loved it, because you kind of got to see a breadth of things. And you at some point, I think you might, maybe first year out, I started to get more of the women’s health stuff coming through the door. And I was thinking, why is this happening? Because it never was my intention. It really wasn’t. I was just like, I love Osteo. I will do I’ll treat anything. And it just kind of happened that we need more of this, you know, I’ve got this friend, I’ve got this colleague, I’ve got this mum, you know, some a family member. And it just occurred to me how under-serviced women’s health is and I was like, I need to do this especially in Queensland, especially in osteopathy world. A lot of our beautiful practitioners are in Melbourne, and new South Wales, but it’s quite a Victorian New South Wales I should say. But not all in Melbourne. they are scattered. But yeah, it’s just it was really, really limiting. And I thought, okay, I’ve got to do something here because you know, I had a sister, I have a sister who’s had endometriosis, fertility issues, miscarriages and pelvic pain. I’ve had a mother who’s had a hysterectomy and pelvic pain and possibly endo. So I just thought to myself, this is a space I’m passionate about actually. And I can service people in this area. And when I was thinking of doing of opening my own clinic, I was like, I couldn’t think of a name that took forever I’m, you know, I’m a Capricorn, and a Pisces and a Gemini. And it’s just, you know, to make a decision was intense, and I just got i was i can’t think for now, and the amount of like, I think I come up with body mechanics. At some point. I was like, No, this is just terrible. I’m pulling the plug on this, you know, this is a bad decision. And I just thought you know what people just call me Bron. People call me Dr. Bron. You got to see Bron, you got to see Dr. Bron and I thought, you know I’m just going to call it Dr. Bron osteo. I’m just calling it that. And I was like, Oh, this is really terrifying because it’s me, and it’s my face. It’s my body. And it’s my weirdness and my colour. I was like, Oh, I, I really couldn’t see myself doing it any other way, though. If I did it another way, I feel like it would be exhausting. And I just be putting the mask on and just pretending and how exhausting is that every day to have to pretend you’re being this person that you’re not. So I thought, nip, I’m just gonna be me. And I’m just gonna brand it how I want. And when I was talking to my beautiful graphic designer, Claire from Flamingo creative, she helped me so much because she was Yep, same as you just working in your own business and just, you know, kind of starting to really invest in her business. And she’s done so well. She said, You’ve just got to do, you’ve just got to do you, you’ve got to really get down to your values. And what you’re doing and why you’re doing it was I had to actually buy a journal and start journaling. Because I was like, why I want to get to the core of why not just cause and because there wasn’t enough out there doing that. I just wanted to get to the root of why I wanted to do it. And so that my values were clear, my intentions for my business were clear. And I guess my goals were clear. So just yeah, I guess, a self reflection on me before I started doing that. But for me, it was like a no brainer to not do that. When I when I come to the conclusion. I was like, of course, it keeps it so easy. Yes, thanks.

Rowena
It gives people a mission to do the same thing and return like I do very much the same thing. I started off my business doing the shoulds, the coulds, the have to’s. And it’s normal each time I step up as more myself. It’s like, Oh, my God, the power like and one of the big words like, I’m not kidding you before I got into business for myself, I feel like this Next word was the word. And I know it’s very central to what you do in your business. I feel like this word is just bandied about. But it was empowering. Right. Like, it’s a word that’s so bandied about and then gets Yeah, every time you hear it, it almost like makes you cringe a little bit like pivot and 2020 Yeah, to be honest. Yeah.

Bron
Yeah. Yeah.

Rowena
But like, what does empowerment? Like? I always like this question for people because like, What does empowerment mean for you? Because I know that what I’ve realised is that everyone has their own definition.

Bron
Yeah, yep. I think empowerment for me is being and making decisions from a place of being grounded, being authentic, feeling supported, informed about what you want to do, or what you want to talk about. It’s making decisions from that place. It’s those gut decisions where you’re like, my head told me to do that. But now I feel like I’ve you know, that decision was so right. That’s when you made a decision from a really empowering place. When you made a choice from a really empowering place, you feel a sense of peace and calm, because you know, it’s the right thing to do for you. So I think empowerment is yet it’s a process more than anything. Yeah.

Rowena
And it’s not just like something that you suddenly are overnight, like you said, it’s something that, you know, it’s almost like a breaking down and a building back up.

Bron
Yeah, people call well, definitely. And I think 2020 was a collective dark night of the soul. But you know, it’s you will always have a dark night of the soul or a really terrible kind of, you know, time that really tests you. But on the other side of that is always going to be this massive reward for going through that because you come out with another layer of empowerment and knowledge about yourself. And you go, Well, I need more boundaries, or I need to work on my communication, or I need to invest more in my health. Yep. Cool. I’m picking up what the universe is saying. And I’m putting it into action. I’m empowering myself. And that, I think if you want more of that self empowerment, you need to do more self reflection work. You need to look at the stats in your business and look at where you were in your cycle, your mental health, your emotional, your physical, your family life at that time, and kind of go, aha, that’s why it’ll be there. Yeah,

Rowena
I’ve never been more in touch with my cycles since being in business. Like Yes. And like, I’ve realised how strongly My body is connected to like a whole bunch of stuff that I just never really got, again, the woo woo side of things like, very, like, whatever. And then like, I remember there was like some sort of like crazy, like pile up of retrogrades A while ago, like about a year and a half ago.

Bron
Yeah. And we had six in a row.

Rowena
Yeah. And it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, and I just felt like I was spinning around a circle like going Once you start to realize those things, and if nothing else, it gives you a really good excuse.

Bron
Oh, yeah, it’s always blame that

Rowena
bloody retrograde.

Bron
Yeah. Where is it? I’m getting my app out

Rowena
ready to whack it around a little bit like where’s that bloody mercury? What mischief is it up to now?

Bron
I’m starting I’m starting to feel very sorry for Mercury, she gets such a bad rap she means Well, sometimes, you know, but it’s just yeah, it’s rough out there with when it’s happening.

Rowena
And you could like, make yourself felt somehow. Oh, yeah.

Bron
Oh, absolutely. I think we only have one. I think we’ve already had it. I think our last one we just had is it for the rest of the year? I, I’m pretty sure my astrologist said that so I’m happy about

Rowena
that. Yeah, that one that piled up. I just remember just every group I was in on Facebook, wherever everyone was just like something off this Week, like everyone, like all the people that like Yeah, all the other practical souls as well. We’re like, what’s going on? Yeah, like, I’m like that with the full moon now. Like, I can tell when the full moon coming. I’m just like, it’s like are almost do that thing. You know, when people look at their watch, and they’re not wearing a watch. It’s like, you look at the sky, like, Oh

Bron
where are you? Where are you? How full are you? I know. I’m very similar.

Rowena
And it’s like, I think, as women as we grow older, as well, we become a lot more in tune with these things, especially if we take the time to listen, like you said, and take that time. Yeah, to step back and really see what’s going on around us and actually get down to the root of it. Because as women we have a tendency to plow on through.

Bron
Yeah, and it’s doesn’t work. No. And I think it’s important because you mentioned your age earlier, which I’m, I don’t believe for us. And it’s, you’re in a you’re in a perimenopausal space. So while I’m assuming a lot of you know, the women that are listening might be in that same area, and it’s a space that’s not advocated or, or spoken about enough. And there, it’s it’s the second period, it’s the second you know, Menzies it’s that it’s like having your first period, but all over again. So it’s just Yeah, but changing your body is changing fun times. And obviously, trying to manage all of your business stuff, too. And it’s just one of those things where I think yet nurturing more of that space and looking more into that will help because yeah, you’re a Marga, you’re moving into that next stage of your life 40 up, where you’re, you’re becoming the teacher, for other people, you’re not the student anymore, you’re actually teaching from or offering wisdom or doing what you’re doing, like helping other women and going, I’ve learned this, let me share it. That’s the next stage you’re moving into. But you need to be able to do that from that centre, that centred space as a woman because we’re not like men, we’re cyclic. So we’re seasonal, we’re cyclic, we’re, we’re Moody, for a reason, because our cycles affect us, and that and what else is cyclic, the moon, so you know it, it all is so interlinked with this stuff. And I think that the wiser you get, and you move into that Marga space, like you’re moving into, it all becomes so much clearer. And I think your decisions are much clearer, we have the highest rate of divorce in above 40. Because women are like, hey, this doesn’t serve me anymore, or I don’t want to be in this anymore because I’m, I know who I am now I don’t need this. I deserve more than this or whatever. So I think Yeah, nurturing those transitions for yourself is always going to be coming back to your health and like I said, reflecting and self reflecting and going, how am I going through these transitions? How am I feeling?