Speaker 1 (00:01:08):
Hi. Hi. How's it going? Good. How are you? Can you hear me okay? I can hear you. Amazing. Let's see here. Hopefully some ladies will be joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:01:22):
I just realized that I never responded to your email about approving assets. Oh,
Speaker 1 (00:01:28):
Wow. Yeah, I figured after I posted them, you would tell me, and I'm glad that I looked at them again because of course I spelled your name wrong in the first one. I'm like, okay, it's all right. We're all here. Here we go. Here we go. Yep. So yes, hopefully the setup here is we have this community of women. Hopefully some of them join, but I'm kind of double dipping the content here for, we'll put this on the podcast. We'll put this in the community. We'll put clips out. Great. So let me make sure I have it on. Well, I might have to change it to gallery view if people show up. Is there anything you don't want to talk about or anything you do really want to talk about?
Speaker 2 (00:02:19):
Open book.
Speaker 1 (00:02:21):
Okay. How are you? I'm doing all right. I have a labrum tear in my hip, which I don't know what I did. I don't know how it happened, but I'm standing all the time because sitting makes it worse, and I'm just hoping I don't have to get surgery. It's been over six months that it's been going on. Brutal. I'm sorry. That's a bummer. But other than that, chugging along here. How about
Speaker 2 (00:02:54):
You? It was winter wintery.
Speaker 1 (00:02:57):
It's actually been pretty mild. I
Speaker 2 (00:03:00):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (00:03:01):
It's really cold in Jackson, but it has not been cold or snowy here.
Speaker 2 (00:03:05):
I'm actually spending this winter in Arizona, so I have no idea what it's doing in Jackson.
Speaker 1 (00:03:11):
Amazing. Better. I think it's been negative 20, so
Speaker 2 (00:03:17):
Yeah, I think it has been cold. I've been seeing, I still have my house there, so it's rented, but the snow removal bills have been large. Wow. Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:03:33):
Okay, so we're a minute out here. What else is going on with you?
Speaker 2 (00:03:40):
I started 2025 with an amazing allergic reaction that I couldn't figure out what it was, so I've just been in histamine hell for three weeks,
Speaker 3 (00:03:52):
But
Speaker 2 (00:03:53):
I think I finally uncovered that it was the water here. So now I'm on the up and up. I finally have stopped itching, but it was a solid three weeks of not good.
Speaker 1 (00:04:08):
So interesting that you think it's the water that would take a minute to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (00:04:15):
Yeah, the water softener. So I'm living with my boyfriend and the water softener, I had put salt in it. The hard water was irritating me, and he hadn't had salt in this water softener, and I did that two days before it happened, and so I kind of had correlated that and then we realized that the water softener there was an issue with it.
Speaker 1 (00:04:36):
Yikes. Okay, well glad you're sorting it out.
Speaker 2 (00:04:41):
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (00:04:43):
Not fun histamine itching, and also major impact on your symptoms. It'll be interesting to see how your luteal face is.
Speaker 2 (00:04:52):
I know. I'm terrified and I'm supposed to be in Hawaii that week. Well, not supposed to. I'm going to be in Hawaii, so I'm just doing everything I can now to be like, okay, we're going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (00:05:09):
Well, we have some ladies joining us here. Let me see if I can make sure this is recording in the right way. I think so. Okay. So what I'll do is I'll introduce you and then with your bio and then we'll kind of launch in from there. We're already recording, so we'll just cut this whole part out before I hit record. Emily and Lydia, if you have any questions as we're going drop them in the chat, I'm going to open the chat and we'll leave a little bit of time at the end to answer any questions that come up and, okay. So hello. Today we have Monica here with us. Monica's a hormone health coach, a certified personal trainer, and the founder and CEO of Mere. And after struggling with awful period symptoms and PMDD for over 17 years, she found relief from nutritional and lifestyle changes. It has since been her mission to help free women from P-M-S-P-M-D-D and period symptoms with support of comprehensive, convenient, and quality nutrition and education on the small habits that make big changes. Hi, Monica.
Speaker 2 (00:06:19):
Hi. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm so excited to be here and just share in our mutual love of these topics.
Speaker 1 (00:06:27):
So exciting. So let's maybe zoom all the way back. When do you think you first started experiencing symptoms that were falling out of the normal and healthy category?
Speaker 2 (00:06:41):
Truthfully, I would bring it all the way back to when I was like 14, 15. I got my first period at nine, so I'd been cycling at that point for five or so years. And I just remember my teenage years being, the only way I can describe them is manic and out of control. I remember asking my parents genuinely being like, I would like to see a therapist. I need help. Something is just wrong. I feel so manic. But at the time I was on birth control and no awareness of cycle. I mean a 15-year-old, I don't know that I could ask a 15-year-old today to have much awareness about their cycle because it's not taught to us. But that was really, I remember my teenage years being really tough
Speaker 1 (00:07:36):
Mostly. Would you say psychological symptoms or also physical symptoms?
Speaker 2 (00:07:41):
That's a good question, and I don't even know if at the time I would've had the awareness to correlate that early on, I'd been put on birth control because of very heavy periods and some acne for sure. I definitely struggled. It wasn't cystic by any means, but just very consistent, bumpy skin and heavy periods and a lot of cramping was pretty normal for me at that point. But psychological was the mood symptoms were the toughest part.
Speaker 1 (00:08:22):
A lot of door slamming in your teenage years.
Speaker 2 (00:08:26):
Yeah, actually, funny story, my dad actually removed the door from my bedroom because I slammed it so much, and he said, okay, you no longer have a door. So I just had some nice beads hanging over the opening to my door for privacy.
Speaker 1 (00:08:43):
That is amazing. Hearkening of PMDD before you knew what it was. He's like, problem solved. Yeah, we're removing the door. Sorry. Wow, that's hilarious now. Probably not so hilarious at the time.
Speaker 2 (00:09:00):
It is a joke now. It is surely a joke now.
Speaker 1 (00:09:04):
So how did this play out? How did you put the pieces together that maybe there was something more than just moods?
Speaker 2 (00:09:12):
I think I didn't even think about getting support or going to that next level of needing support until I was out on my own after college in my, I was like 25 ish and at that point was in a long-term relationship and really struggling, really, really struggling to maintain that relationship, feeling manic out of control still, especially well now, I know, especially the week before my period, but what triggered it for me with even going the next step and asking my therapist and trying to diagnose the overall situation that I was feeling was I was working on a film about a bipolar athlete. I worked in the outdoor sports space and we made films about athletes and this athlete was bipolar, and I just remember, so my whole body was like, this is it. This is me. And I wasn't really familiar with bipolar disorder before.
(00:10:29):
I hadn't known anyone that had it. I hadn't learned much about it until I was working very closely on this film about this athlete. And so I, I remember my next therapy appointment, I was like, this is it. I figured it out. I'm just bipolar polar. And she was kind of like, alright, pump the brakes. Okay, let's do some exploration here. And she was the one that was like, question, have you ever tracked these symptoms with your period? And so she got me tracking and we tracked for a couple of months, three, four months. And it was very obvious at that point that it was correlated and it felt like such a weight, such a relief. And I talked to a lot of women now with PMDD and I kind of asked the same thing. I'm like, did it feel like a relief or a burden when you were diagnosed? And for me it was a relief and I could see it going the other way too of like, oh, now I have a name for this thing that could feel really heavy. But for me, I was just like, okay, now the work can begin because at least we know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (00:11:43):
It's so fortunate that your counselor or your therapist even knew about PMDD. It's unbelievable. I'm sure you see this now, how few practitioners are ever asking, how do these symptoms match up with your cycle?
Speaker 2 (00:11:59):
I'm amazed and feel so grateful that she did know. And it does turn out that once we uncovered this, she actually wasn't the right fit for me to keep working with because of some of the recommendations she had next. She wasn't fully aware of how to treat or support it. And so while I'm so grateful she was aware that it existed, you still come up against that frustrating practitioner care. What are the next steps element of a diagnosis with PMDD?
Speaker 1 (00:12:38):
Yeah, yeah. Was it kind of here are two options for you situation?
Speaker 2 (00:12:44):
Yeah. Yeah. And she wasn't prescribing anything, but she was like, what I've seen with PMDD is most often women get supported by antidepressants or birth control, and she's like, other than that, we can keep doing therapy. But yeah, she was kind of like, I would recommend probably trying an antidepressant. And the initial kind of suggestion with that was to cycle the antidepressant with the luteal face, and I just couldn't comprehend putting my body on that roller coaster of being on an SSRI for a week at a time out of the month. That just felt more invasive than even being on it consistently. I just couldn't fathom it, and it's not my style to just immediately medicate. I was like, okay, great. That's an option. Thank you for sharing this option with me. Wonderful. But there's just so much more that you can try first. And I was curious about figuring out what that could be.
Speaker 1 (00:14:10):
Yeah. It is wild how when it comes to treatment, it just goes straight there and there's so little else usually offered, but it's also wild how you recognize that it was a mood disorder based on bipolar, knowing that, okay, that's the most common misdiagnosis for PMDD and you were clued in. I remember going to counselors and therapists and trying to figure out, is this a personality disorder and getting evaluated for that and then being like this, you don't have a personality disorder. I'm like, are you sure? Because something is really wrong with me. I just can't figure out what it is.
(00:14:48):
But I was diagnosed as bipolar and treated with antipsychotics in my teen years because that's what they thought it was at the time. How was it for you? I am curious just were you able to recognize the cyclical nature of it? Because for myself and for so many of my clients, you just kind of get sucked in and it's happening and there's not a lot of self-awareness of like, oh, this is a pattern and it's a pattern that's linked to my menstrual cycle, obviously, but it can be so hard to see that connection. How did that play out for you?
Speaker 2 (00:15:26):
I definitely had no awareness prior to being told, okay, what your experience is PMDD or this potentially could be it. Let's track your cycle. I had no cycle awareness. I had no cycle education. I wasn't curious about it enough. I'd been on birth control for a super long time, so to me I was like, I don't even really have a cycle. What? So it felt out of nowhere. These manic mood situations felt out of nowhere and I couldn't control it. It was just not correlated to anything in my mind, completely random that all of a sudden it would be on and then all of a sudden it would be off like a light.
Speaker 1 (00:16:20):
Yeah, such a ride,
Speaker 2 (00:16:23):
Such a wild ride.
Speaker 1 (00:16:26):
Well, and now you've come to a different place with it, which we'll continue to go through the journey, but it is interesting when you do come to a place with it where you're reduced and managed looking back and the perspective that you have in retrospect of the experiences, really interesting. So I do want to hear how that played out, but let's keep it chronological. So you found out it was PMDD, you didn't want to jump on the SSRI train immediately. What happened next?
Speaker 2 (00:16:58):
So I went to my nurse practitioner and my nurse practitioner is what I consider my primary care lady doctor, if you will. I haven't seen an OB GYN, I've seen np. And I was like, all right, we've kind of figured out that what I'm dealing with is related to my menstrual cycle. It's this thing called PMDD. And she was like, okay, I'm familiar. And I was like, again, blessing from the above that the practitioners I was dealing with knew what this was and she had a recommendation for me. She was like, okay, again, gave me my options. We can do a birth control, we can do antidepressants, we can do, she's like, I've had really good success with some of my patients taking, and she pulls out a scroll, literally a scroll, these supplements.
(00:18:05):
And I was like, oh my God. But I was an athlete at the time in my twenties, I was a competitive professional athlete and things like nutrition and exercising and supplements. I was like, great, this seems like my jam. This seems something I can tackle. And I found this out later from her, but I was like, how did you know that these supplements were the ticket? And she's like, I'd actually, another practitioner had suggested or had shown it to me because I had some patients that had PMDD, so it wasn't even her concoction, it was just a recommendation from a recommendation, which looking back, I'm like, this is wild that practitioners aren't even going out and trying to find a solution for their patients themselves. They're just kind of trusting what another practitioner tells that might work. So that was kind of a learning in itself.
(00:19:11):
But anyways, I went out immediately went to the natural grocer or whatever and spent $250 buying B vitamins separately and magnesium separately, and selenium separately and zinc and all these things and piecing them together. And I had a 12 pill supplement routine that was so expensive. But literally by my next cycle, first month of being on this regimen, I had a completely different cycle. Completely different was not in that for me. I would notice motivation ebb a lot. I'm a high achiever, go, go-getter, get a lot done. And that week I would just be like slob, like slush puddle couldn't function so that I was able to maintain motivation and didn't have this reactionary just rage anymore. So that was pretty powerful to feel that within a month. And of course I'm like, okay, maybe this is just a good cycle, so let's keep on rolling, let's keep on seeing what's happening.
(00:20:38):
And I stayed consistent and it was like I'd start to notice that months where I wasn't consistent because eventually the routine became so burdensome that you, I forget what it's like to be symptomatic, and so you stop doing the thing that's helping you. And I notice I'd have bad cycles. So for me, that was enough to just be like, okay, this is it for me. This is what helps. And reflecting too, I can see that I had more energy, so I was able to show up for myself all month long, which in itself is just such a huge piece of the puzzle. I was exercising more regularly and able to be consistent in all of my routines. I was more motivated to do things like cook for myself and that luteal phase, you're like, I need to go to the grocery store, but am I going to go right now? Absolutely not. So I'm just going to eat that box of macaroni and cheese that's already in the cupboard. So all the habits just kind of followed because overall I was feeling better.
Speaker 1 (00:21:52):
The compound effect is real and it can go up or it can go down. You can spiral down really quickly, really fast. You can spiral up in the same kind of way. Just we rarely get to experience the spiral up. I'm curious, did she run any lab tests for you before she made these nutrient recommendations? Why is that? I mean, that's so disappointing to me now that as a practitioner myself, we're going to give you recommendations without looking at what's going on, but obviously there were deficiencies. So with the micronutrients, I think it's less can be less harmful. Harmful, yeah, totally. So those micronutrients made a huge impact for you immediately. The supplement regimen, I have some props here to share with you ladies. Amazing. I brought my pill pack. So before I started using meraya, I have four weeks of these. So this is one day. So I have a pack, it's like a pill suitcase of seven of these, and I have four of them because I was like, I'm not doing this every week. I cannot fill these every week. It's so annoying. So I just would fill them for the entire month and then carry this around all day and take the supplements this way for someone who's dealing with A DHD or has a life or
(00:23:14):
Is alive, this is so obnoxious, so obnoxious, so obnoxious. And it really is, especially when we're getting to the micronutrients and individually supplementing them. I mean just more expensive of an option, but if you're targeting certain things, this can be a helpful method if you need a more personalized supplement regimen. I love hearing how this played out for me from a coaching perspective of taking the supplements made a big difference, but then I felt better. So then I stopped taking the supplements and then I realized how much they were helping. And so often clients come to me and they're like, I'm a failure. I failed to take my supplements and now I'm having symptoms. And it is actually such a good learning moment where you're like, oh no. Okay. The supplements are helping, first of all, great piece of information to have that creates coherence to the regimen, but it still just isn't super sustainable to be on a regimen like that. And I think it's, before we get into talking about micronutrients, I think it's important to point out that yes, we always want to take a food first approach where we can, but soil degradation, a lot of things happening in our food systems. You could have the most perfect diet. You could be eating a whole food diet and still be shockingly and disturbingly deficient in some of these micronutrients. So for you specifically, I'm hearing minerals, B vitamins, what?
Speaker 2 (00:24:46):
Yeah, I think underlying for me too was a little bit of a gut issue. And so like you're saying, I had a relatively healthy diet, but I wasn't necessarily absorbing all the nutrients that I could was at that point in my life, I was younger, had less of a budget, so probably eating way less organic and more processed foods than I do now. So I also had traveled a lot and had to be on antibiotics at different points for travel bugs and things like that. So there was a lot at play for my gut at that time, and I don't think that I was absorbing nutrients the same as a healthy microbiome would because I had not amazing poops, looser stools. Things were going through me very quickly. So I think that even though I'm sure that that was occurring even with a supplement, just getting that extra
Speaker 3 (00:25:54):
I,
Speaker 1 (00:26:12):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:26:13):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:26:14):
Could you
Speaker 2 (00:26:15):
Hear me there?
Speaker 1 (00:26:16):
I heard just getting that extra nutrients is where you dropped off.
Speaker 2 (00:26:20):
Yeah, getting that extra nutrients I think was really beneficial to me to having that little bump. So I think for me that was the big element of seeing the difference was maybe a little bit of a gut issue in there as well.
Speaker 1 (00:26:41):
Yeah, so I mean, so common that's so important to point out. Yeah. Okay. Are you getting the nutrients in the food and then are you able to assimilate, digest, utilize the nutrients properly? There can be so many breaks in the chain as we're going through the process of digestion and getting those nutrients in. Now that you're on the other side of this, why can you explain to us why micronutrients are so important for PMS and pmm DD symptoms? And obviously we just touched on the fact that we're lacking those, but it's a huge part of the conversation if we really do want to feel better in the longterm.
Speaker 2 (00:27:23):
I think foundationally, it's such a huge part of, like I'm saying, having good energy and being able to properly detoxify estrogen and make sure you are pooping regularly and having normal bowel movements. So that's a huge part, supporting the liver, supporting that full body system in allowing our hormones to rise and fall in a natural way because once our hormones have risen, we have to be able to excrete them to then support not being estrogen dominant. We also need to be able to build up and give nutrients to that corpus lium as it's developing over a 90 day period until that follicle is dominant and is the corpus lium, and that is what's releasing our hormones. So giving that the nutrients that it needs to grow and develop and become a powerful, beautiful cell that can release our hormones. There's just so many bodily systems that rely on the micronutrients to function, and our hormones are those little messengers doing all the messaging for all the systems. And so if we're not supporting the foundation with the micronutrients, the whole system starts to crumble. It's like building a house on sand.
Speaker 1 (00:28:46):
Yeah, it's key. So let's get into the juicy bit of how Moray was birthed into the world. We kind of stopped at, okay, I'm doing this elaborate supplement regimen, it's working, but I can't keep it up. What happened next?
Speaker 2 (00:29:05):
Yeah, so that's when I have always had this mind of in my background is marketing, and I've always been waiting for the thing that the business that I was going to be able to build that I could be lit up about. And maybe that sounds bad because I am out here looking for a business to build or money to make or whatever, but I'm someone who I'm going to start a business that I can be passionate about for a very long time because business doesn't happen overnight and I want to lead a life of purpose. It is such a core value of mine is to be doing something that I can help other people. And so I wasn't just going to create something that was able to have a high revenue, the dollar amount and put a bunch of money in my pocket. I wanted it to be something that could bring me so much joy and light and I could be passionate about.
(00:30:05):
And so when I had this problem, so I had the problem of having the symptoms and then finding a solution, but the solution wasn't right, and that's what I realized. I was like, interesting. I'm going to be really curious about this. Okay. So I've found that kind of problem solution, but there's something about the solution that wasn't created for, I'd say women wasn't created for me, for someone who's active and busy and has a life, like you said, you just held up your pill case and you said, this isn't sustainable for anyone who has a life. Okay, now add females into that equation who have kids or have a job that's really demanding or want to build a business or have any kind of goals in life, which most of us do. Amazing that we're at a stage in the world where us as women can flourish and do as we please.
(00:31:14):
And I was like, this solution could be made better. I want to make something that was convenient and easy and accessible and costless and could also do some of the educating that I was missing. Because in my journey, I still hadn't really learned that I had four phases of my menstrual cycle or that all these lifestyle things played a role in how I was feeling. There was so much that was missing. There were so many educational gaps. And that was kind of the moment where I was like, this experience has been really interesting and I've learned a lot and I want to share about it. And I have two ways I could do that. I was like, I could become an influencer and just start sharing my whole health journey, or I can make a product that's created for this problem and can do some of the educating along with it.
(00:32:17):
And I just decided to go the product route, which is funny because the influencer thing came later, but I decided I wanted to create something that I could put my hands on and make it more convenient and easier and truly a better product because I had learned so much about selecting supplements, I'd learned so much about the forms that I should be looking for. And we don't all have that information that's so hard. We just go to Target and buy a B vitamin or a B complex or the gummy that's there, whatever, and we don't know what to look for. And I didn't either. So that's when I was like, okay, I need to find someone who knows more about this than I do. And I started to reach out to practitioners and dieticians and just tried to bring on some of the knowledge and see if it was feasible to create a product that was easier and could combine all of these nutrients into one. Originally I thought it would be a sachet that had five pills in it or something that was a little grab and go, and then I realized, I was like, wait, I think there are a lot more benefits to it being drinkable. And we started to go down that route. So we created the powder and the drinkable and now I'm so much happier that we did that because I think it's just a better product that way.
Speaker 1 (00:33:49):
Yeah, I mean so many people struggle to take pills. It's just not their favorite form of administration for supplementation as well. So that makes it easy. And then you get the added benefit, let's get real. It tastes good. It's like a fun little part of your day. Okay, I get to drink this medicine. That actually is really delicious.
Speaker 2 (00:34:13):
I'm so glad you said that. Thank you for saying that. It does taste good and it is fun. And I'm a drink girly. I have three cups on my desk right now. I have my spin drift, my tea and my hydration water. It's just I'm a drink girly. It's so nice. And it has more benefits too. A lot of times capsules in supplements, they're supposed to be tested before they go to market for how long it takes for the actual capsule to break down. But as we know, supplements are very dirty industry and a lot of these brands aren't doing the necessary testing. And so a supplement sometimes won't break down until it's too late through your digestive tract, and then you're not getting the same benefit of those nutrients, whereas the powder, you're not having to break down a capsule first, so you're getting to the nutrients faster, you're getting the nutrients more absorbable and it's a more enjoyable experience, I think,
Speaker 1 (00:35:20):
And less ingredients overall too because some of those capsules right there, some of them are more gelatin based. There can be additives to make the capsule happen. So you're just removing a whole element there. That's totally quite nice. I'm wondering, as you've implemented this, I know it's been, how long has it been
Speaker 2 (00:35:46):
Since Maria? We launched in 2020.
Speaker 1 (00:35:52):
Okay. That's what I was thinking. So we're going on year five here. What feedback or results have surprised you the most from your customers using Mariah?
Speaker 2 (00:36:04):
I think they're just amazed every day at the people and the amount of times that I've heard the words, this has been life-changing. And I think that of course, I'm not going to sit in front of your audience and say that everyone has had results. That's not true. Not everyone is going to have results because what works for me isn't necessarily going to work for you. And so that is no different in this scenario either, but it is going to work for a percentage of people, and so the people are having that experience of mind blowing, life changing. I got my life back, I have more energy. It is that same experience where they are truly seeing the results that I saw and then able to implement some of the other things. And so the results continue to amplify because you're just building that foundation, a strong, solid foundation to be able to build off of, and like you're saying, the compounding effect. So the reviews and feedback of life-changing tears every time that happens, and we have almost 800 reviews now of people saying things like that.
Speaker 1 (00:37:19):
So exciting,
Speaker 2 (00:37:21):
Which is incredible. Incredible. And we get bad reviews too. I'm not going to bullshit you. For some people, they have digestion upset with the product and some supplements do that to people. Our guts are all different. So I like to be transparent that it's not a quick fix and it's not the right fix for everyone, but when it can be supportive and it is a good piece for your puzzle, it really does amazing things.
Speaker 1 (00:37:59):
Yeah, it is great to have another option on the table, especially something that is designed by someone who is experiencing severe PMS and PMDD for those of us who are experiencing PMS and PMDD, and not just you, but the group of women that helped you design this as well. A lot of those women come from the PMDD community, so it's cool to see a product come out that is by us for us kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (00:38:25):
Yeah. Yeah. Mandy er actually, she's one of our lead formulators and she also, she's a dietician in the PMDD space. She has PMDD and she's worked for supplement brands before, so she's very familiar with creating supplements, which has been such an amazing resource for us. I'm so grateful to have her, and we're always, we actually just had a meeting this week to be like, okay, let's review all of the feedback that we get. Let's see what percent of customers are saying they have digestive upset, or is this something with the formula that we need to change or is this just a natural result of someone adding a new supplement to their routine? So I think what's amazing too about us being a small team with these experts in the seats who are dealing directly with patients in the space and have the clinical experience is that we can also make updates very quickly. So two years ago, I think maybe a year and a half ago, we released a formula update because we'd gotten some feedback and we wanted to make some changes. There was some new research that had come out and we wanted to update some forms and some quantities of different nutrients. So we are truly always listening and taking in the information as well so that we can improve the product if that's what's needed, and make sure that we're basing it off of the research that is coming out.
Speaker 1 (00:40:02):
Yeah, it's awesome for it to be so dynamic.
Speaker 2 (00:40:06):
Yeah, big companies can't do that. There's too many hoops to go through and they're like, eh, there already exists. Let's not change it now. But I think being someone who has experienced and experiences the kind of problem, if you will myself, I truly want to have the best product we can, and that means iterating and being really mindful of new research because how amazing is it that there is new research?
Speaker 1 (00:40:40):
Yeah, it's so exciting and more to come. We're only getting started getting, so I just want to share, I provide Maria to all of my one-to-one clients who I work with, and so I see great results using it with them. It's super fun to have an option, a drinkable, easy option for those clients who are really busy, especially moms, other women working in corporate America, nurses, anyone working in the medical field, anyone with A DHD neurodivergent clients who struggle to swallow pills and don't like that sensory experience. So it's been really fun to share Maria with the population that I'm working with and get their feedback. But I'm kind of wanting to in shift gears a little bit, and I'm wondering about the C-E-O-P-M-D-D world because that's not something we get to talk about very often. There aren't very many. I mean, I don't know how many there are, but I think entrepreneurship and PMDD fit hand in hand, so I would love to just dance around that topic a little bit and see how that has been for you, how that's working for you, how that plays out.
Speaker 2 (00:42:02):
Definitely, and this is something that I like to tell our community often too, is just because I personally have, whether it's me or whether it is someone else who's been able to manage their symptoms, it doesn't mean that every month is gravy because it's not. Every month is different, and I know when I've been working too much, when I've been slipping on my eating habits, my routine's off when I've been traveling, I have bad months still. I'm not cured. Being a business owner plays into that. I have to remind myself so often that when I'm having a spirally moment, I'll be like, oh, this is a great moment for me to be curious about what day of my cycle it is.
Speaker 1 (00:43:05):
Yeah, it is like the convergence of, okay, the micronutrients really matter here, but the education is so important, the education about your cycle, what impacts it regardless of what job you work. I think that
Speaker 3 (00:43:23):
Probably 20 minutes, 20 minutes,
Speaker 1 (00:43:28):
That is something that we just continually come back to. I think, and that's something that I really admire about Maria and I admire about your work is that it's not just about here take the supplement and it's going to fix your problems. There's so much more to it of, okay, I have to really zoom out and understand and check in and continue to build self-awareness and continue to be kind with myself.
Speaker 2 (00:43:53):
And I think that that's the word, right? Awareness for a lot of us, maybe in the beginning of our PMDD journey, and I know this was true for me, but I had no awareness, I had no body awareness, I had no emotional awareness. And so that becomes really hard because not only is there this sensitivity to the chemical change in your body and the hormonal change that's uncontrollable, but what we can control is our awareness of it. And I didn't have that. It was just exacerbating, I can't say that word, but you guys know what I mean, the whole cycle because when I was experiencing the emotion or when I was overwhelmed and I couldn't correlate it to my period and be like, okay, it makes sense. I'm feeling this way. Even just saying that now when I'm in those moments of this makes sense. It makes sense that I feel like I'm a failure right now because I experienced PMDD. Okay, so what can I do about it? I can let myself know you're not a failure, you're just feeling a little heightened at the moment and this too shall pass. And then you're like, ah.
(00:45:21):
Just having that moment with yourself, that little internal dialogue and having the awareness I think makes a huge difference as well.
Speaker 1 (00:45:33):
It's so important. I mean, it creates context. So instead of just being there and being like, I'm worthless or fill in the blank, some version of that, that's what comes over us very commonly. You have a context of, okay, there are all of these things that impact the menstrual cycle. There are the different phases. I'm going to be experiencing things during different times. You start to get the measure of, okay, where is this falling outside of the scope of normal and healthy? And it ultimately just creates distance between you and the automatic negative thoughts. I mean, that's really the automatic negative thoughts are so sticky, they're so consuming. And then it starts that downward spiral. When we're in those automatic negative thoughts, we behave differently because we're no longer connected to what our core values are. It's it is that downward spiral rather than the upward spiral.
(00:46:29):
And I think that's something that's so hard to do. It's impossible to do without education and awareness. How can you create that distance between that voice in your head that's summoned by hormonal changes and lots of other things, blood sugar dysregulation on and on. If you don't understand why it's happening, how it's happening, you're just in it. You can't get out of it. There's no way out. But creating that distance and starting to change the narrative and do that mindset work, it kind of all sounds vague talking about it here, but it is one of the most life-changing pieces. The micronutrients and all of the things you can do with lifestyle and diet are so important. They help you get your head above water, that extra work. But I don't think that either of us probably would've gone to where we are today if we didn't receive the education in tandem with the nutritional support.
Speaker 2 (00:47:29):
Totally. It is so, so important. And it's not like it is truly the work life's work because I think even if you don't have PMDD, having awareness is a challenging thing, but especially with something like this and trying to run a business and function like a normal human, you just have to be able to separate the thoughts from reality and bring yourself back to what is real. And I think now there is a lot of information that goes out there around, okay, if you're going to be successful with managing your cycle, then you should cycle sink your work. And I personally, I understand the good of that information, but it feels like a burden and too much to me, it's too much input of like, okay, well this week I am going to be in my luteal phase until Wednesday and then I'm going to get my period, so Monday and Tuesday, should I schedule this organizational work and admin and then holy shit, does that not sound absolutely a lot to manage.
(00:48:47):
Instead, I'll be like, oh, cool, feeling a little bit low energy this week. Let's see what are my top priorities and see if I can get those things done and let the other things kind of fall by the wayside and not beat myself up if it all doesn't get done. But again, it just comes back to having awareness about your own personal experience throughout your cycle and applying that as opposed to it being this rigid, here's your cycle thinking form and here are the tasks that you should only perform in this phase. That was, I think took me a while to learn and then learn that I didn't have to do it that way.
Speaker 1 (00:49:29):
Yeah, you have to find a way to personalize every piece of advice or it's not really for you totally. Everyone's lives, everyone's bodies are so different, and I think it leads to so much victimization because then you feel like, well, I tried it and it didn't work for me, and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's so much context. How did you try it for how long did you try it? Why did you try it? A random suggestion or something that was specifically recommended to you based on some sort of evidence? Yeah, I feel like I ended up in that trap a lot of like I'm doing it all. I'm doing it all right. And it's not working without, it's like the Dunning Kruger effect of you don't know what you don't know kind of thing. And so the awareness is tough because you don't know where you're not some point it's crowded.
Speaker 2 (00:50:25):
I think too, I like women so often are perfectionist personalities or the achiever personalities, especially entrepreneurs, and it's in that you can be like, okay, well they told me to do it this way, so I need to do it exactly that way. And then when it's not working what's happening, but you're like, oh wait, I get to ask myself does this work for me? And I think the best advice I was ever given was when something's not working, instead of going out and seeking more answers, consult yourself. Just come back and even visualize yourself sitting across the table from yourself and being like, what should I do next? But asking yourself that question, and I think that it's such a powerful thing to be able to tap into your knowing, and this is something all the time in my health coaching with clients, I'll just ask, what do you think you should do next? Nine times out of 10, they know the answer. We know the answer of what feels best for us, and it's that same thing of if you're sitting in the doctor's office and they're like, well, your options are antidepressants or birth control, you can ask yourself, does that feel like the right option for me? And if your gut reaction is not really, that's a great answer.
Speaker 1 (00:51:51):
Yeah, I mean I'm just seeing so much curiosity in your whole journey, always bringing curiosity in asking how not only is this right for me, how is this right for me? What are some other options? And I think that's another place where we can really get trapped with PMDD and treatment and the diagnostic process of being told you have two options and then us just believing, oh, I have two options. Instead of asking where do I only have two options here in this context, in this from this provider, this practitioner are offering two options where really I have endless, completely endless options. The curiosity can be so hard and the trusting yourself can be so hard with PM dd as well because you're like, which version of myself do I trust? And it can get murky, but keeping the curiosity alive is judgment is
Speaker 2 (00:52:47):
I have a piece of paper, it's taped to the window in front of me and it has my values, my commitments, and my North star on it, and right under the values, it's curiosity, every situation. I think that's one of my leading values is just approach every situation with curiosity because it removes a reactionary state and instead opens the door to even just being like, what's true? And they're like, okay, is this really true? Is it true that I only have two options? No. Okay. What could be more okay in this room? I might have two options like you're saying, but I can always seek another opinion. I can do some personal research. There is more out there. Curiosity is a superpower.
Speaker 1 (00:53:40):
Yeah. Yeah. It's a one way bridge away from the downward spiral. Let's take that. I think of the candy land game we that way, curiosity bridge. I mean sometimes I literally, I feel like I should have, I need to make a graphic for this, but I try to bring that curiosity in for myself all the time too. And I'll have a visualization moment where it's like, okay, I'm having this perspective on a situation. How does that feel? Don't love it. Next, what other perspective could I have? How does that feel worse next? And I just keep going until I find a perspective on the situation that feels better to me because if I go down one angle of perspective, it can lead to very dark places versus the same exact situation. I'm just looking at it through a different lens and it can give me the motivation to continue forward without abusing myself with my mind.
Speaker 2 (00:54:42):
Totally. And our minds can be very abusive.
Speaker 1 (00:54:47):
Yes, they can. Okay, so I want to show the Maria, if you're watching this on YouTube or if you're here with us today. I have my, Marias
Speaker 2 (00:55:00):
And Jess has tropical right now, but we are out of stock of tropical at the moment.
Speaker 1 (00:55:04):
Oh, that's too bad. It's so good.
Speaker 2 (00:55:07):
It'll come back. We'll be back in the next few weeks, but this has been happening a lot. One or the other flavor has been selling out because things have been going quickly off the shelf.
Speaker 1 (00:55:22):
That's amazing. Helping so many women. I can't pick my favorite flavor. I like the lemon because it's more mild. Some days it's smooth, but the tropical flavor punches and it's really delicious, especially in the summer. We have some comments coming in. They love the tropical. I don't think you can go wrong though.
Speaker 2 (00:55:47):
I really love, so I'll be curious just to hear your routine with it. But mine is like I make it at night while I'm making dinner, and so I get dinner going and then I make my little drink to drink while I'm making dinner. I like it as an evening thing just for me. For some people they're more sensitive to the B vitamins, so it's maybe better in the morning. But for me, the magnesium is great for night and I do the citrus with tart cherry juice, just a little splash and that mix of the two. It's so yummy, and I love it with ice. It has to have ice in it.
Speaker 1 (00:56:27):
It does. Yeah, it needs ice. Okay, so I haven't tried this. I've seen you posting about the tart cherry. I love tart cherry, but I haven't mixed it with aea, so I'm going to try that. I usually do it in the morning with collagen is how I usually have it just because it's bright and I'm like, I have four beverages on my desk right now, so there's never too many. But I like the mocktail vibe too. I was thinking about mixing it with some sparkling water and seeing how that tastes.
Speaker 2 (00:57:00):
I will caution on the sparkling water. It will foam up a little bit. It's totally fine. Just do it. I checked with our chemist, I was like, is change
Speaker 1 (00:57:11):
Anything
Speaker 2 (00:57:11):
This activating anything? Are we good? Totally good, but I've just added slowly. You may get an overflow.
Speaker 1 (00:57:19):
Okay. We do a little science experiment. Well, yes, I am curious to try it at night and see if that impacts. I did write red light therapy the other night at night and I was like, I'm just going to see if I can't sleep after this. Yeah, I couldn't and I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (00:57:34):
Really? Wait, I do my red light at night all the time.
Speaker 1 (00:57:38):
Really?
Speaker 2 (00:57:39):
Tell me, is there research around it keeping you awake?
Speaker 1 (00:57:45):
You wouldn't be exposed to that type of red light at night.
Speaker 2 (00:57:50):
Kidding. Therapeutic is not
Speaker 1 (00:57:51):
Great. Yes. So some people say that it impacts their sleep and others say that it doesn't. There could be other factors that impacted my sleep that night, maybe ovulation and estrogen being high and all of that, but
Speaker 2 (00:58:05):
I'm not going to try it again. Again, like absolute dirt last night and I'm like, oh, cycle day 12. That makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:58:13):
Yeah. Okay, wait a second. Where am I? Yeah, I'm on a 12 too, so you're probably on 13 now, but we're synced in. I have to tell you something before we wrap this up. I've been meaning to tell you, I don't think I told you this before, so if you're listening, Monica and I both lived in the same town for a period of time, but we didn't know each other. I moved away and then Monica started and I was a fan girl for her, so we started our little relationship here. We started meeting, but I don't think I've told you I saw the exact same nurse practitioner as you who we both love, love her, but this must have been before she got the recommendations from the other practitioner because she did not offer me nutrient solutions. She offered me birth control and SSRIs and those were the only options. And so I went back on a birth control that I had previously been on, and it took my symptoms from being during the luteal phase 14 ish days to the month. I had a terrible reaction, which is weird. I had taken that birth control for years before and I don't know if I had the awareness that it was impacting me then, but dismantled my entire life led to my rock bottom. That then led to me learning to reduce and manage my symptoms and start her mood mentor. So the same nurse practitioner influenced us started both of these businesses.
Speaker 2 (00:59:44):
Yes. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy, man. She could be making some good money off of the, no, I'm just kidding. Interesting. Yeah, I wonder if we could look back at the years that we saw her and she could be seeing when she started recommending, because I have a few other friends who've seen her as well, and they did get the supplement regimen, so I wonder if you just saw her before.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
It must have been
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Because she got the supplements from a naturopath that I think she'd met at a conference.
Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Okay, well, I just thought that was so funny. I was thinking about that the other day. I'm like, I don't think I've ever told Monica that that's how this shook down.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
I remember in the building of Maria, I had asked her, I was like, Hey, can you provide support to the brand from a medical standpoint? And she was like, those weren't even my recommendations. No, I mean, and I'm like, thanks for being honest. I'm like, great. Well, I'll just keep doing my research, keep asking around if this is a legit thing because truthfully, I am not the medical side of this brand by any means, and I had to go and find people and literally be like, do these nutrients really help with this? Can you confirm that this is real?
Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Yeah, I mean there's so little research around PMDD specifically and nutrients, because who's going to pay for that and who's going to benefit from that? No one you can,
Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Although I did, I haven't gone and looked yet, but IMPD, I-A-M-P-D just had a workshop about all of this research studies that came out last year on PMTD and there were over 4,000.
Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
So the research is coming and I think even though, yes, it's still not as much as it could be. I think it's improving a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Yeah, I can't believe 4,000. I'm going to have to go back and look and see if I can find that training. I did get an email from them recently about trainings, but I can't get logged into my account with them where you can access, you can be a part of the as a practitioner and they share all of their trainings with you and all of that. So I'm curious to see that. I would love to hear what they're saying.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yeah. Well, I'm so grateful for you having me here and for letting me share about Maria. I hope if anyone's listening and has questions, please come and ask them. You can come to my personal Instagram at Monica Groene Maria's Instagram or customer service truly anywhere, and my life's mission is just to support women and feeling normal truthfully. So while, yes, I created a brand, I'm still very shy to sell our supplement very directly because I want people to know that what I'm selling is not a quick fix and it's not like, take this and you'll be healed. It's foundational micronutrients that can help you go from zero to one and build off of, and if we can help women do that, it's a win. And if we can help provide some educational along the way or have people come to us and learn about what we're doing and then meet people like Jess or other practitioners that can help them even more, that is such a win. And all of us together collectively can make such an impact if we're willing to collaborate, and that's why I'm so grateful for Jess.
Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Well, it's wonderful to have you here. It's so exciting to have this product, like I said, to be able to share with my students and with my clients, and yeah, we need all of the practitioners and the service providers in the MDB space to rally together and it's so nice when it's like it doesn't feel like a competition because it's not. We're all here to help each other and the women in the community and everybody needs different things, and so how can we rally together to do that? If you're interested in trying Moray, I have this linked in our PMDD community in the resource center. I'm going to drop a link in the chat if you want to check it out. We have a coupon code for you to take a little bit of the cost down on your first order, but it's an option. You have more options than two. This is a great one, a tasty one, and we're curious to hear how it is for you. It's been so fun, Monica, to see some of my clients sharing stories last week, two of my clients on the same day were sharing stories about how much they love Maria, and it was great for us to chat back and forth Monica and hype up like, yeah, they love it. It's wonderful. So exciting. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
So amazing. It's so fun to be able to have a solution that is a third option and yeah, I love hearing all the feedback. So good, bad, whatever. We are all ears if we can improve on the product, we're so happy to.
Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Amazing, Monica. Well, I'm sure we'll be chatting much more, but thanks for coming in today. Thanks for sharing a bit of your story with us from P-M-D-D-R to CEO of Maria, and thanks for bringing so much value to the PMDD community. We love you for it.
Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here.
