?You asked your teenager to do something unload the dishwasher put the shoes away get off the phone and there is that roll their eyes You say something sharp they fire back and ten minutes later you are both upset Doors are slammed Everyone may be in tears and you're wondering how something so small became such a big fight you love your child so why does parenting feel so much harder than it used to And why do you sometimes react in the ways you barely recognize Here's what I would like you to take from today Why the clashes with your teens are hitting so hard right now and why it's not just them and that's just not you It's two nervous system in two hormonal storms under one roof and once you understand that a lot of what has felt personal starts to become more easier and make sense ?Welcome to Balance Through Menopause with Iwona Gerner. Here we'll look beneath the surface, combining neuroscience, trauma-informed insight, and somatic wisdom to show how your nervous system and your hormones are shaping your experience in perimenopause, menopause, and the years after. With over 20 years of supporting women through this passage, and my own journey, I'm Iwona Gerner, and I'm here to guide you to steadiness, relief, and agency as you move through your own transition. Let's dive in one of the things I wish more women understood is that you may be living through one of the most challenging overlaps in family life Your teenager is going through a major hormonal transition and we all know that right The brain is being remodeled The emotional centers are developing faster than the parts responsible for planning perspective regulation They feel things intensely They react quickly They don't always know what to do with what they're feeling and that's not just bad behavior That's a teenager nervous system doing exactly what it's designed to do So Your teenager is going through hormonal transition And so are you Your hormones are shifting Your nervous system has less of biological buffering it used to Your nervous system honestly doesn't know either what to do with all the changes and is trying to adjust sometimes in very awkward way Your alarm system fires more easily You recover takes longer Any comments you would brush off years ago suddenly land much harder So now they are Two nervous system two hormonal storms one house one kitchen one conversation that somehow becomes a fight No wonder things feel harder And you would And before we go any further I want to tell you something that m many women desperately need to hear You have not become a worse mother You have not suddenly lost all the parenting skills you spent years building you are navigating one of the most emotional demanding combinations there is Your transition and theirs at the same time The reaction that surprise you are not evidence that you have failed They are signs that two nervous system are carrying more load than they know what to do with If you have a daughter this can sometimes feel especially intense Her body is filling with estrogen just as yours is learning to live without the steadiness it once produced So she's moving towards these symptoms you are moving through them And sometimes it can feel as though you are speaking in the same language and triggering each other alarms at exactly the same time That doesn't mean there is something wrong with your relationship It means there are powerful biological forces moving through both of you simultaneously Which brings me to something important Most of the blowups are not actually about the thing you are arguing about Not the dishes not the homework not the attitude not the eye roll They are two alarm system get activated and each person creates a story that explains why they feel the way they do The story feels true but the activation comes first and the story came second Once you begin to recognize that everything starts to look a little different cause instead of asking What's wrong with my teenager or What's wrong with me You can start asking What is just happening in both of our nervous systems And there is a very different conversation even though you don't find all the answers in the moment but that question itself gives you the space to step away And before we go any further please remember this the love hasn't gone anywhere It's underneath of all of it even on the worst days especially on the worst days What's changed isn't your love for your child What's changed is the buffer your nervous system used to have And when you understand that and remember that the chaos stops feeling like a proof you are failing It starts making sense Wherever you are in this transition this holds ?thank you for listening to Balance Through Menopause with Iwona Gerner. If this episode spoke to you, please share with one woman in your life who needs to hear it. If you want more, there are two free things on my website. The first is a short assessment to find out which of the five patterns is yours. The second is my free training video, A Balanced Way Through Perimenopause, Menopause, and the Years After. It walks you through the nervous system roots of what you are living and gives you an approach that makes the difference between a transition that wears you down and one you move through steadier, healthier, and more in tune with your body and yourself.
