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It can be easy to focus on the negatives of getting older. But menopause expert Dr. Sharon Malone wants you to know there is so much to celebrate, too! Dr. Malone tells Reshma why she thinks there’s a “unique freedom” to being in midlife that is immensely powerful. They also discuss how women like Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris are changing the perception of what it means to be an older woman, why women find it particularly challenging to navigate the healthcare system in this country, and what we need to do to address the mental health crisis facing mothers in America. Plus, how to advocate for yourself in the doctor’s office.

Follow Dr. Malone @smalonemd on Instagram .

You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.

Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife

Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Dr. Sharon Malone, Reshma Saujani

 

Reshma Saujani  01:28

Welcome to My So-Called Midlife – a podcast where we figure out how to stop just getting through it and start actually living it. I’m Reshma Saujani.

 

Reshma Saujani  02:00

It can be easy to focus on things we lose as we get older, things that are changing in a negative way. But it’s important to remember what we also gain as we age – wisdom, experience, perspective, discernment, resilience, humility, gratitude. Dr. Sharon Malone says that there’s this unique freedom during our mid lives, because we’re just released from a lot of things that have occupied our mental and physical space. Many of us have shed the people pleasing aspect of our personalities, and we’re just able to focus on what we really want and what we really need. Let me tell you, there’s a real power in that. Dr. Sharon Malone is a nationally known expert in women’s health and the New York Times best selling author of grown woman talk. She’s the Chief Medical Advisor at Alloy Women’s Health, a telehealth company that focuses on women over 40. Before joining Alloy, Dr. Malone was a partner at one of the oldest and most successful OBGYN medical practices in Washington, D.C. I call her the OG of menopause advocacy because, believe it or not, as commonplace as it may feel to have all these conversations about hot flashes and hormone replacement therapy, it just wasn’t talked about until recently. Dr. Malone, she credits her friend Michelle Obama for helping her put menopause on the map. Back in 2020 they did a podcast together where Michelle talked about menopause, and their conversation just really got the ball rolling. I’m so glad they did, because now we’ve all benefited (all of us), from a more open and honest conversation about our menopause symptoms. Let’s listen to my conversation with the truth teller herself, Dr. Sharon Malone.

 

Reshma Saujani  03:56

Dr. Malone, we talk a lot on the show about our midlife mindset and how it varies basically for everybody. What is this time in your life mean to you? I want to just bring up. I interviewed Brooke Shields recently, and she said you’re either the hot girl at the bar or you’re the lady in defense, which I thought was so funny, right? What does this middle part mean to you?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  04:24

The middle part to me, to be quite honest with you. Well actually, let’s be clear. I’m beyond the middle. I’m probably in the fourth quarter. Let me remember the middle. The middle part can be difficult, and I say those years, (between 45 and 60), they can be hard. It’s a lot going on in your life at that time. It’s also adjusting to not being the hot girl at the bar, and realizing that you’ve got a new identity. I think the when you get to be really happy is when you realize you don’t have to be the hot girl in the bar, you can be the smart girl at the bar.

 

Reshma Saujani  05:06

Last year, you wrote this article in Ms. Magazine about Kamala Harris and how she was changing the perception of what it means to be an older woman. You’re also very good friends with Michelle Obama. I’ve always wanted to be just like Michelle Obama, she’s so incredible (another conversation). But, when I look at Kamala and I look at Michelle, they make me feel excited about aging. What do you think is the common thread about them and aging, or other women like them who you really see them kind of crushing in every aspect of their life the older they get?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  05:49

I think it has to do really with the mindset. If there’s the mindset, then there’s also the part about keeping physically active and healthy. Because if you feel good and you’re healthy, then you’re able to do all these great things in midlife and beyond. I think that our visual image of what an older woman or midlife woman is supposed to look like. Powerful women? We’re thinking Margaret Thatcher. We’re not thinking Kamala Harris, and we’ve always been out there. But the difference, people haven’t been owning that space. We spend a lot of time in this youth obsessed culture trying to pretend like you’re not as old as you are.

 

Reshma Saujani  06:30

Right.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  06:31

I think that we are all now getting to the place where you’re like, “You know, I’m 66 years old”. Deal with it. I am better now than I was 20 years ago. That’s no question. We’re reinventing ourselves. You’re not saying that. It’s not our parents and grandparents generation, where you think of retirement is something like when you’re done.

 

Reshma Saujani  06:53

Yeah.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  06:54

And you just wasting time until you die. No, we’re still thinking of new things and exciting things to do.

 

Reshma Saujani  07:01

Now, I know a little more about Michelle Obama’s workout routine because she talks about it, but you made an interesting point there. It feels like physical vigor is a big part of it. Deciding when you get to a certain age of like, “I’m going to be in the best physical shape of my life, or I’m going to commit to my physical fitness, even if the world is telling me my bones are supposed to be cracking”. Do you think that’s a big part of it?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  07:28

Well, I want to be clear. There are people that are at levels that many of us will never achieve, let’s just be clear. We can’t all be Halle Berry. We can’t all be Michelle Obama.

 

Reshma Saujani  07:41

Right. Not her arms. I want to be her. I wanted her arms, right?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  07:44

But, you know what? We can always be our best selves, and that just means simple things. You don’t have to hire a trainer and spend 1000s of dollars on workout routines and protein powders and elixirs. It’s just a matter of being able to do functional things. That’s why I said being active, being physical in your daily life, that’s why I want people understand. It’s functionality that we’re looking for as we age, not necessarily focusing so much on how we look. It’s great to look great, I understand that. But as we age, the most important thing that you should be focusing on is, what do you want to be able to do?

 

Reshma Saujani  08:30

Right.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  08:31

It hits me all the time, because as I’m in and out of airports all over the country, those wheelchairs line up when you’re on the get way.

 

Reshma Saujani  08:41

Yes.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  08:41

And I’m like, “No”.

 

Reshma Saujani  08:42

I want to be able to walk out of this. It’s funny, you say that this morning. It was a family friday, so I took my son to school. His public school, he’s on the fifth floor. There was so much gratitude that I had, being able to walk up those stairs with him and match him and get to the fifth floor, not be heaving. I think that’s the point about functionality. Is there anything that you recommend? Is it as simple as, when given the option walk, don’t get an Uber or when given the option, take the stairs.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  09:17

Exactly. It’s figuring out how to be active in your daily life. I’ll give you an example. I’m the youngest of eight kids. My mother, imagine eight kids. I’m the last of eight.

 

Reshma Saujani  09:29

Wow. She’s just like, “I’m done”.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  09:31

She was more than done. She was 45 when I was born, actually. My mother didn’t have an exercise plan. She was a busy woman – she cleaned, she worked. All the things that you normally do, that we don’t do for ourselves anymore. That was her exercise plan, just being physically active. I think that we live in a very sedentary world. Particularly now that we’ve got zooms and we don’t even have to get in the car and go somewhere. Be intentional and give yourself a little bit of grace and just say, “I’m not doing this for a particular visual outcome”.

 

Reshma Saujani  10:15

Right.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  10:16

I’m doing it because this is how I want to be. Everybody, I’d like to look like I did when I was 40. That’s not gonna happen.

 

Reshma Saujani  10:26

Right. Every time I know that I can go for a run and I can make it for 40 minutes, I just give you so much grace to God for that. My body being able to work. Margaret Mead once said there’s no greater power in the world than the zest of a post menopausal woman. Why is that true biologically, Dr. Malone?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  10:47

Well, because you’re released from a lot of things that have occupied your mental and physical space. It takes a lot to run a household, to raise children, all of those things that really suck up your mental and spiritual energy. Once you get to the point where you “Wow, kids are gone.” Your relationship, it is what it is. You have given up that possibility that you’re going to turn somebody into someone else (you are not), let me be the first to tell you. You’ve got it and you’ve made peace with a lot of things in your life. There really is something to be said about losing that people pleasing aspect of our personalities as women. You get to this point in life and you’re like, “No, I don’t want to do that or Yes, I really would like to do it”, and shed all the reasons why we don’t do the things that we want to do. It’s not just saying no it’s saying yes, and we get that unique freedom at this point in our lives and you’re freed from the male gaze. You get to be a person, not a woman. That’s looking for someone else’s approval of who you are and that’s immensely powerful. Let me tell you.

 

Reshma Saujani  12:09

It’s funny we were meant to talk today. I’ve just been really been thinking about how you can turn that switch on, because I think a lot of women in my life, they’re still longing for the male gaze. A lot of the conversation is about, “Oh, I could be naked walking down the street and nobody looks at me anymore”, and they’re doing all the things to get the male gaze even though we intellectually know there’s enormous freedom. The amount of time I have to spend doing my hair, my makeup just to walk out the door is insane. I get that time back, because ultimately it’s about time. But, I stilfind how you make that real switch, authentically, honestly from knowing what you know and genuinely feeling that. Doyou have any wisdom on that?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  13:05

I think it’s wisdom. It’s experience. Because there is a point in time where you realize there’s nothing you’re going to do that’s going to get that back (not at least the way you may be looking for it), and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not like, “Oh, throw my hands up in the air and I give up” No, you get to do the things that are pleasing to you. I wear things because I like it, or I think it’s cute. It may not be, “Is it going to involve cleavage and bare midriffs” no, it’s not.

 

Reshma Saujani  13:45

Yeah.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  13:46

You really get the power to be able to say, “I’m dressing for me. It’s comfortable. I like it. I think I look cute”. My girlfriendand I talk about this all the time. He said, “We we’re not trying to compare ourselves to a 30 year old”. I just want to say,let’s get graded on the curve.

 

Reshma Saujani  14:08

Yeah.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  14:09

If you look at that and you say, “Hey, I can feel really good about myself, because I am not trying to be 30. I’m trying to be the best 60 year old woman I can be”. And there’s a lot of confidence that you get from that.

 

Reshma Saujani  14:29

Some of the women I’ve interviewed, it’s actually had the reverse effect. It’s actually created attracted more attention, because when you start doing it for you, there’s a sense of swag. A sense of like, “She’s got something extra”. It’s appealing, right? People will be attracted to that, because it’s not about letting go, like you’re saying. It’s about doing it for you. I think there’s a really powerful thing in what you’re saying. I think there’s just an opportunity to really kind of teach and move culture. Do you think that the culture is going to allow us to do that? Is it moving in the right direction?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  15:14

Let’s see. I think that as more and more of us as middle aged women and beyond, step into that, own it, we’ll get used to seeing what that looks like. I think that people will be okay with that in rather than trying to turn back the hands of time. Again, everybody wants to be attractive and feel good about themselves. But you don’t have to try to chase something that’s never going to happen to feel good about yourself. That’s the message. As we see women who are out there, role models are very powerful. When you see Michelle Obama, Naomi Watts, Brooke Shields and Oprah, when you see how these women are not just trying to be older versions of their former selves, they’re really stepping into who they are now. Once you see that growing older is not something to fear and I think that’s what most women deal with. I will be irrelevant. Again, I’m not going to be attractive or whatever. When you see that and say, “Wow, there’s a lot of life that’s ahead of me”, and I’ll give you a great example. I’m here at the vineyard because one of my dearest and oldest friends, we went to high school together. She just graduated yesterday from Harvard. She got her master’s in education at 65 years.

 

Reshma Saujani  16:38

That’s incredible.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  16:40

And we’re here to celebrate.

 

Reshma Saujani  16:42

That’s incredible. There’s so much life in this period, so much to do. I think that’s really inspirational.

 

Reshma Saujani  24:14

You wrote an incredible book last year called “Grown Woman Talk”, and the book jacket says it all right. Grow Woman Talk is for every woman who has felt marginalized or overwhelmed by healthcare system that has become more impersonal, complex and difficult to navigate like, “Wow”, did that resonate with me and I’m sure every midlifer. I have apersonal story I want to share, but first I want you to talk to me about why so many women find it hard to navigate our health care system.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  24:50

Well, you have to go way back to the beginning of our health care system. It was never designed really for women. I don’t think it really took into account or our needs. It never really gave the seriousness that our health concerns should have received, just the mere notion that women weren’t included in medical research until 1993, just the mere notion that most of women’s things that we complain about and we know to be real. We get told, “Oh, it’s all in your head or you’re just being hysterical, or there’s an eye roll when you complain about certain things”. People even saying, “Okay,  you have it”. What are you gonna do? Deal with it. That’s sort of been the history of how women have been treated for time immemorial, this is not new. We also as women are often intimidated. The male, female balance about who your doctor. Now, we’ve got many more female doctors than there ever were before. There’s that patriarchal thing. The doctor says, “Don’t bother the doctor, don’t pay, don’t waste their time”, we kept a lot of things. That’s the history of the doctor patient relationship, which is changing and must change. Here’s the rub, now that we kind of know that this is not the way it should be. Well, we’ve got other forces that are interfering with that relationship, and that is what I call the corporatization of medicine.

 

Reshma Saujani  26:42

Tell me more.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  26:46

I was in practice for 30 years. I was in one place. I saw generations. I grew up. You know me. I know your parents. I delivered your children. That’s no longer going to be the lived experience of most women, because doctors now, by and large, are employees.

 

Reshma Saujani  27:03

Right.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  27:06

The point of the book was to give you a little bit of a heads up about that, because however you thought the doctor patient relationship was supposed to be, it’s not that now, and it’s not going to be. It’s more important that ever that you know how to interact in this system, because it has changed. Doctors now they’ve got 15 minutes.

 

Reshma Saujani  27:30

Yes.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  27:31

15 minutes is not a lot of time. Your appointment is 15 minutes so you’re going to spend at least half of that time getting dressed and undressed. The real amount of doctor time is really very short, so we’ve got to be a little bit more organizedand a little bit more innovative about how we deliver care, because healthcare in 2025 is not what it was 30 years ago.

 

Reshma Saujani  27:58

How do we change the relationship that doctors have about women in their pain? I’ll give you an example. I had a breast cancer scare a couple months ago. I went in for my routine mammogram. They saw something. I needed to come back for a biopsy. As I was getting the instructions for my biopsy, it’s not a big deal. You can come in. It’s a little pinch. You know I mean? It’ll be fine. They’ll hurt a little bit. My husband’s like, “I need to come with you”. I’m like, “I got it. We’regood”, you know what I mean? Didn’t have anybody come with me. Didn’t cancel a meeting. I had a speech that night. As you know, breast biopsies hurt like a bitch, right? It was painful. Like I was should not have been doing anything for the next day, maybe two days. I definitely should have had my husband there to take me home, and it’s vulnerable, because you’re also still waiting to hear whether your whole life is going to change. What I wrote about this, because I’ll share with you. From girlhood and well into midlife, women are made to feel, are made to believe that perfection is the gold standard of success. We’re taught to shrink everything about ourselves that challenges this impossible ideal. This relentless pressure shows up all over my life, from miscarriages to C sections to now during my breast cancer scare. My question to you, Dr. Malone, why do we do this to ourselves? Why you’ve treated so many women, especially women of color? Why do we do this to ourselves? How do we change these age old misconceptions that we have about women’s strength or women’s care? Is there a deeper, more insidious reason? How do we shift the cycle?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  30:02

I’m going to make a big generalization here and that is like, where do we derive our self worth from? I think for women, we are constantly having to justify our worth, because just being a woman is not enough. You have to prove to the world, you’ve got to work harder, you’ve got to get out there, you’ve got to show that you can do it just like a man can inevery aspect of your life. You have to say to yourself, “I’m enough”. I’ll give you a great example, not to get political, but the way that we as women approach things as opposed to how men do (generalization). You get offered a big promotion at work, and obviously you’re offered it because they think you deserve it. You go through all these machinations about, “I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe I don’t have enough experience to do this”, you’re questioning all these things about whether or not you are capable. A man in that same situation with half your qualifications will say, “Hey, do you want to be CEO of this company?” Like, “Yeah, I can do that. Sure”. We see that time and time and time again. I think that we don’t really trust our innate ability. We have it. But you know, this is how society has really made us feel as women, we’re socialized this way. Our value is based upon what we can do for other people, not who we are and what we are, just innately being so. We start, we’re chipping away with it with the next generation. But, you know, I have daughters and they kind of have the same thing. They don’t walk into a situation say, “Sure, why not? And that’s the the boy, girl thing. That’s a big one.

 

Reshma Saujani  32:19

I call it swag, right?

 

Reshma Saujani  32:21

It is really about teaching swag especially in the onslaught of the attack on DEI. You already before that had over qualified women and people of color walking in those rooms and still thinking that they don’t belong. Now, we’re making a lie about meritocracy. All of that feeling, I would say a con, that we’ve been told that we don’t belong there is going to be amplified. I tell my young women or girls who code all the time, like, “No more,. You don’t get to ask the question about, Do I really belong”. You had to be twice as good to be here. We step over that piece. We can’t entertainthat anymore, right?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  32:21

Yeah.

 

Reshma Saujani  33:08

Isn’t it ironic that the people that are so gung-ho about eliminating DEI are the least qualified people in the history of America to ever make that judgment about other people. It’s pretty interesting, I should say.

 

Reshma Saujani  33:26

It is very interesting. I would agree. But, this point about was so powerful. What you said, Dr. Malone? This point about trusting ourselves and our ability. Teaching that is more important than ever before.

 

Reshma Saujani  39:40

I want to ask you something, Dr. Malone. I’m sure you saw the new study that came out this week found that mothers in America are facing a mental health crisis. According to the report, 64% of moms are experiencing a substantial decline in mental health. Mothers are now reporting that they’re in fair to poor mental health, higher than ever before. In these declines started before the pandemic. What is happening?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  40:17

It’s interesting. When I was doing a little bit of research and we were looking at this disparity data, I was saying, “Okay, what are the number one reasons for maternal deaths?”. That includes, pregnancy delivery, and then six weeks afterwards, some even go out as far as a year. Overall, the number one cause for maternal deaths was mental health.Either addiction, depression or something related to mental health. That huge. We don’t talk about that aspect of it. Fo black women, the number one reason for maternal death is cardiovascular disease.

 

Reshma Saujani  41:00

That’s interesting.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  41:03

Yeah, it’s cardiovascular disease. Again, sometimes and not being adequately treated for that cardiovascular disease, even during pregnancy is problematic that’s why I said we need more education as far as doctors and parents, because they need to know that. What I think is happening for women and about the mental health is we are often alone raising our children. You come home, you’re a new mother. I don’t know about you, but I did have family. I’m working.

 

Reshma Saujani  41:43

Same. I had incredible caregivers that helped me, but I didn’t have my mother popping in to.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  41:49

No, you don’t have that community that sort of wraps you up and takes care of you and make sure that. I don’t know how this is doing their motherhood, really. When you say it takes a village, it really does. It takes a village to support a new mom. Too many of us are alone and overwhelmed. Even the most well meaning spouses or partners, it’s never 5050. It’s you. It falls to you.

 

Reshma Saujani  42:19

I think we’re also supposed to not complain. I have these conversations with my friends who are moms of like, “God, we love and hate. We hate our children all at the same time”. If you’re being honest, sometimes you’re just like, “I want to smoosh you and love you. Sometimes, like, “Ah, you ain’t me? Where can I go away? Where can I hide?”. When you’re honest about that, if I were to say that on Tiktok, I’d be taken down, right? They will come for you. There’s some amount of policing of the honest, authentic experiences of what it’s like to be a mother in America, that’s deeply problematic. I think that’s why women suffer silently. I think this is a deeply cultural reason, we’ve just made it so damn hard.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  43:15

It gets back to what you were saying earlier, where perfection is the standard. Now, I can guarantee you this. I’m the lastof eight children. The things that we worry about as parents would have never occurred to my mother. She’s like, “Yeah, whatever, go do that”. There’s so many rules, in a car seat, you need to have this, you can’t have cow’s milk before. That’s a lot of pressure, and there are a lot of opportunities for you to feel like you’re failing.

 

Reshma Saujani  43:48

My parents were refugees. My father was a civil engineer, so he would go visit sites. He would like take us, leave us in thecar, lock the door, and go do his job because he couldn’t afford childcare. Can you imagine you? We didn’t have a nice car. It was like you couldn’t do that, but they did whatever they had to do to put food on the table and to make it work.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  44:17

I guarantee you, all the stuff. What makes it even harder for new mothers is that every time I had a baby, my kids are only two years apart, I have three. Every time I had another baby, there’d be a new device, a new rule, something else you had to buy. I’m like, “Wait a minute, didn’t I already do this? No”. Can’t put them asleep that way. You got to put them asleep. That’s all you’re going to kill them. It just kept and it’s too much. I don’t know that we’re ever going to get back to a simpler way, but there’s a lot of judgment. I remember when my kids were in elementary school, and if you livein certain environments, then there’s the competitiveness amongst the moms.

 

Reshma Saujani  45:08

Yeah.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  45:09

You mean your child’s not doing that? You’re going here, they’re not signed up for this. That’s a lot.

 

Reshma Saujani  45:15

It’s a lot. I don’t even know half the time was happening at the school. I have to rely on all these other amazing moms right to be like, “Wait, when’s the school play try out? Or Did I miss the audition?. It’s just you got to give yourself grace.  can’t let you go without tapping into your wisdom, because you are a menopause world renowned expert. I thought it was interesting that you credit Michelle Obama with kind of kick starting you into public menopause advocacy. How didthat happen?

 

Reshma Saujani  45:48

She was OG menopause, that’s so powerful. Using her platform to live out loud.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  45:48

She and I have talked about this for the longest time, because we started this conversation. Believe it or not, even way back in the early days, even when I was delivering babies, I always had menopause as part of my practice, because I inherited a practice from the two older doctors. From day one, I had women who were 80, I had 18 year olds and everybody in between. That was always a part of what I did. When we would have our little gatherings, we’re all womenof a certain age at that point, and we always talked about menopause. When she did her podcast, that was five years ago, she said, “Yeah, that conversation we we’re going to have it on the podcast”, because I think that people don’t get this. As I said, own where you are. To open up about it, and to have this conversation, because so many women want it.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  47:01

I used to look at people all the time. I’m like, “Girl, why are you suffering?” I don’t get it. Particularly, when we know that we have something that will fix this and it’s not new news. We’ve known this for quite a while, but there’s another conversation about how the conversation got lost.

 

Reshma Saujani  47:21

Do you think it’s gotten lost?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  47:23

It definitely got lost. Absolutely. Because hormone therapy has been around since 1942.

 

Reshma Saujani  47:31

Not new, right?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  47:32

Not new. But, there was a study that came out in 2002 and that’s when it started linking, “Oh, hormone therapy and breast cancer”, and that was such a powerful negative that women were like, “No, I don’t want it”. Again, you fear breastcancer more than you fear heart disease.

 

Reshma Saujani  47:53

True.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  47:54

Which you’re more likely to die of than you are to die of breast cancer. But, that really shut down the hormone conversation for 20 years. I kept having it and I kept saying, “You know, that’s not true. It didn’t say that”. But, you know how hard it is to put that genie back?

 

Reshma Saujani  48:09

Have we been able to put it back in the bottle?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  48:11

We’re doing it. I think that a lot of it has to do with a lot of the public conversations there are. People on social media who are talking about it. Brooke Shields talks about it. Naomi Watts talks about it. Once you normalize that conversation, you have to get your information from trusted sources, because now that the marketplace has awakened to the fact that, “Oh, menopausal”. Women of a certain age have symptoms? Well, then let me sell you something for that. You’re bombarded by a lot of stuff.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  48:53

I think we are going to have more of the prevention conversation, because I think that too much of medicine as it is practiced today, is treating diseases and symptoms. Even when I was in my practice, when I talked about menopause, it was a conversation that I had with women when they were 40. I didn’t wait till you were 50.

 

Reshma Saujani  48:53

That’s not good to record. There a lot of snake oil salesmen, right? Selling you creams and this and that. Dr. Malone, you’re an OG truth teller. I feel like you see around corners before other people see them. What are we kind of missing inthe midlife conversation? What’s going to come?

 

Reshma Saujani  49:29

Right.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  49:37

Because there are a lot of things, most things in life. If you enter them in better health, you’ll weather whatever that is. Yes, you’re still probably going to need some hormones. Just generally speaking, there are so many things that you need to start preparing for old age. Like I said, you can’t wait till you can’t lift your luggage.

 

Reshma Saujani  50:00

Right? You gotta put in that strength training when you’re 35.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  50:03

Right.

 

Reshma Saujani  50:04

So earlier.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  50:06

I think that’s really what we are going to start to do. I say a lot of things. No one’s coming to save you, and don’t wait until something’s broken before you try to fix it. Just be a little bit more proactive about things. Again, it’s not hard. This is not rocket sciences. I say this all the time, don’t exercise because you’re trying to lose weight, because you’re not going to. I hate to tell you this, exercise because, you’re trying to be intentional and functional. I want to live and I want to be strong. If you understand that, because I’ve had a million conversations where they go, “Oh, I went to the gym three times this month and I didn’t lose any weight”. And I’m like, “I know, you don’t”. Just know that.

 

Reshma Saujani  51:04

But you’re so right. I think the focus is really going to be on longevity and strength instead of reacting to what you’re experiencing. How do you get ahead of that? I do want to ask you one thing for you, I really didn’t ask you this. You’re such a huge champion for self empowerment. I want to go back to my breast cancer biopsy situation. There are so many women I wrote about it, reached out to me and been like, “Thank you so much for sharing that with me”. If you were to take go back to that scenario, what are the questions I should have asked? And what does advocacy look like for women who are invariably going to find themselves in this situation?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  51:50

I’ll tell you how I approached it with my patients, because there is that moment when you get an abnormal mammogram, when the abnormality could be very small. I would say, a lot of doctors don’t like to say anything, because they don’t want to be wrong. I don’t want to do right. I don’t know what you have, but let me tell you that based on this findings, nine times out of ten, it’s nothing. Just understand that. Let’s tamp down the anxiety a bit here. Even if there is something, it’s early, this is the whole point of doing this. You’re going to go on and live the rest of your life. Most people get an abnormal mammogram, and they’ve already gone to I’m dying, dead and sick. I’m gonna be dead.

 

Reshma Saujani  52:44

I’m gonna widow, my children, my husband, right?

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  52:46

Again, as I told you, we’ve had far more success. Think about it, 90 plus percent of people with stage one breast cancer, which is the whole reason why we do mammograms in the first place, will go on and live the rest of their natural lives. Does it mean? Okay. Cancer, it’s sort of reframing that conversation. Don’t give cancer that out breast cancer, the outsized part of your life. Remember, that’s how my sister is no longer with us. She let it take over everything. I think just a little gentle reframing on that always helps. The other thing I always do with my patients, I said, “You know what, as soon as I get the results, I will call you and we will talk about it”. I’m not going to say, “Make an appointment, come backtwo weeks from now”, because that’s two weeks of anxiety that you’re sitting there waiting to find out, “Oh, it’s nothing”. As a good or bad, we’re going to have that conversation. When you ask questions, you’re like, “How is this going to be handled? When should I expect my results? How are you going to communicate them to me? Do I have to come back? Are you going to tell me?” Because a lot of people don’t like to give news over the phone. In my way of thinking, you’ve already thought the worst.

 

Reshma Saujani  54:10

Right.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  54:10

I’m going to tell you and then we’re going to make a plan for what’s that thing.

 

Reshma Saujani  54:16

I love that. That is so helpful. Thank you, Dr. Malone, this is such a wonderful conversation. I’m blessed for you, your wisdom, your advocacy and for your time. Thank you so much.

 

Dr. Sharon Malone  54:27

You are so welcome. It was quite fun.

 

Reshma Saujani  54:35

Thank you so much to Dr. Sharon Malone for talking with me today. Make sure you check out her book, because it is awesome – Grown Woman Talk: Your Essential Companion for Healthy Living. One last thing, thank you so much for listening to My So-Called Midlife. If you haven’t subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now’s the perfect time, because guess what? You can listen completely ad free. Plus you’re going to unlock exclusive bonus content like me and Katie Serino talking about when we first started having negative self images of our bodies that you won’t hear anywhere else. Just tap that subscribe button on apple podcast or head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe on any other app.That’s lemonadapremium.com. Don’t miss out. Thanks. We’ll see you next week.

 

Reshma Saujani  55:23

I’m your host, Reshma Saujani. Our associate producer is Isara Acevez. Our senior producer is Chrissy Pease. This series is sound designed by Ivan Kurayev. Ivan also composed our theme music and performed it with Ryan Jewell and Karen Waltuck. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neel. Special thanks to our development team, Hoja Lopez, Jamela Zarha Williams and Alex McOwen. Executive Producers include me, Reshma Saujani, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Series consulting and production support from Katie Cordova. Help others find our show by leaving a rating and writing a review and let us know how you’re doing in midlife. You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife. Follow My So-Called Midlife wherever you get your podcast or listen ad free on Amazon music with your prime membership. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week. Bye.