Welcome to #TalkAboutIt, straight talking lady to lady about topics related to your health and happiness.
We are just jazzed to get this community of women up and out of my head and into the world. For years I have wanted to provide a safe space for women to go for support, education and wisdom from real life experience. While Flourish Rx is first and foremost a product brand striving to provide exceptional products with you in mind, its also a place for women to find answers from a trusted knowledgeable girlfriend.
My Journey
I thought I’d start this off with a small part of my own personal story and how one of the products I created was born.
You must be wondering how I got started with all this CBD yoni oil biz? In October of 2015 I had a oophorectomy due to a breast cancer recurrence. I was 36, had 3 young chilkdren, and had already battled cancer once. I wasn’t planning on having any more children and figured that having my ovaries out wasn’t gonna be that big a deal after chemo and everything else I had went through.
Boy was I wrong! We all hear about how miserable our friends in their 40’s and 50’s are but I didn’t believe it and thought for sure it would be different for me. I entered this stage fast and hard and much like most women completely unprepared and unsupported. Within 5 days my body and brain were starving for those familiar sex hormones. This left me in tears and a depression I had never experienced before in my life. After surviving a 3 year battle mostly positive and happy, this day 5 days after my ovaries came out I was devastated.
Feeling crushed and like someone died, maybe me. I couldn’t seem to get over what had happened to my life. Friends came from near and far to help me cope with this deep depression. My husband and children stood by hugging and loving me along the way. I felt terrible for my children, worried about my marriage and mama wasn’t too happy much in those first few months. It was like I fell in a hole with no ladder to get out. I struggled alone and really need to #talkaboutit!
Double Life
After a few months I was living what felt like a double life. On the outside I was successfully running a Holistic Nutrition and Wellness coaching business as well as working corporate gigs and helping other people make amazing strides towards happier, healthier lives. I definitely wasn’t #TalkAboutIt
On the inside, I was struggling with the most stress and change I ever experienced in my life. The effects of estrogen loss were taking a toll. Recovery from chemo, radiation and the loss of 20 lymph nodes had too. Enter “new me” swollen, tired, hot flashing, night sweating, losing hair and quite moody. In those days my “lady parts” made big changes too. My doctor had warned me that things would change but I didn’t even have a concept of that at the time. What I didn’t expect or know is that when your skin lacks estrogen it shrinks, changes texture, loses sensation and blood flow. Yikes!! I had always been the spicy Italian, Czech, Latina in our relationship and I couldn’t quite let her go without a fight!
Enter CBD
Introduced to CBD oil when I was undergoing treatment infusions to ease some difficult bone pain. I was also using essential oils as part of my overall healing protocol. One day I started tinkering with oil combos to help my body cope with all the hormone changes. Speaking to my doctors, a chemist, my amazing CBD farm, healers and teachers about what I had created. Then continued on to discover a blend that really helped to support female balance. I was applying the serum nightly on my Yoni (sanskrit word for female bits).
Over the years I had tried so many serums on my face to help cope with aging and stress so why not my vulva? It quickly bridged the gap I was experiencing in peri-menopause. I also used it on my belly to help heal from trauma and cramping, it was like magic for me. Most importantly daily use boosted my confidence and demeanor, helped with comfort and calmed my nerves. I was feeling a lot more like myself again.
Building Community
Even though I had made something that was really helping me thrive, what was saddest of all about this time was that it felt very lonely. Its not a topic we as women really discuss, there’s a veil of negative emotions surrounding women’s aging and little positive press about the whole process.
That’s why #TalkAboutIt is my blog, created to encourage opening up, talking and supporting women with PMS, postpartum, peri-menopause and menopause are crucial parts of my FlourishRx mission. It is really important for us to band together as women and discuss “taboo” subjects. At the very least within our own trusted circles of friends + family. After all peri-menopause, menopause, postpartum, endometriosis and other female struggles happen to all of us at one point for one another. Flourish Rx is here to stay, support, educate and empower women to know their bodies and be armed with the skills to Flourish.
Goddess Time
Over the course of a few months I was using Goddess Glow nightly to help me feel better about my body and increase my confidence. Its powerful topical blend of CBD and essential oils containing fatty acids were creating balance and the change I was looking for at the time. Amazed at how much better, calmer, softer, hydrated that my skin down low felt after just a week of use keep the momentum going. I looked into my medicine cabinet filled with face serums and thought why on earth have we never thought about how this skin changes, ages and experiences trauma. So then I started to #talkaboutit with my trusted clients, workshop participants and honestly any woman that would listen. What I found out was amazing!
The next 4 years I went along using my oil, afraid to talk about aging and menopause because I knew its not culturally accepted. Then I came across a 55 year client who was experiencing lots of the same symptoms that was and I decided to share a bottle with her. Could it be that I was not alone in my struggles? Could it be that women need to #TalkAboutIt?
Can’t wait to share more about my story in another post…
