Stacy London: Episode Link
TRANSCRIPT:
Colleen: – Welcome back to Hot Flashes & Cool Topics today. We are so excited to be
welcoming back Stacy London to the show. Welcome back.
Stacy: – Hello, my old friends. I’m so happy to see you. It’s been a second since we’ve been on a chat.
Bridgett: – I know it really has and you have been busy. We have been watching you and you have been busy.
Colleen: It’s just, you know, we kind of got started in the menopause world around thesame time.
Stacy: – Yeah.
Colleen:- And it’s so much fun to watch how everyone is growing andexpanding and changing. And, oh my gosh.
Stacy: – Even the menopause industry is growing and expanding and changing. I mean, people come up to me and still say they don’t know anything about menopause, which I’m like, really? Just open any newspaper or any magazine. go on any website and somebody’s talking about menopause. And on the other hand, you know, I think that as a vertical, menopause has gone through a lot of different iterations since we started
Bridgett:. – Right.
Stacy: – And it was really, you know, it’s
really picking up momentum now in the way that I think it always should have,
rather than just be about companies that were offering either services or product for
menopause. We are now talking about menopause and the physiological implications of
menopause as we age as something that we need to study and understand in order to
have preventative care in order to know what’s happening to our bodies at any given
time of our, you know, age cycle, life cycle. And because we didn’t know about
menopause, I really am very struck by the fact that Gen X has sort of taken it
upon themselves to get to this age and say, we will not stand for this kind of
ignorance. We want clinical research and we want products that will help and we want
to understand hormones and we want to understand their connection to breast cancer or
not their connection to breast cancer. And I think that for the first time in a
long time, I’ve seen a big population of people reclaim a kind of freedom in order
to discuss things that have always been, you know, talked about in shadows and in
secret and out of fear or shame. And those things are really changing.
And that I think is wonderful.
Colleen:- Yeah, I love that about Gen X too.
I think that I hope that they’re looking to us to lead the way, but I think that a lot of
topics, they’re like, we don’t care if we’re gonna hit it head on whether it’s I’ve
been sexually harassed or this has happened to me. What I’m going through, I demand,
like you said, more research and I demand more research on women. I think that that
is really something. I’m so proud of them. I’m so proud to see that happening. And
I think a lot of people have sort of settled into their spots.
Stacy: I think looking back now, me trying to run State of Menopause was not the right company for me to really do what I wanted to do. And the minute that I realized that we were getting millions of hits to the site, and very little conversion, was when I realized he
kind of can’t make menopause a beauty problem. And that’s not to say there aren’t
great products out there that have unique ingredients that are for aging skin or for
menopausal skin or anything. But that’s not that’s only one aspect of this.
And to really advocate for people experiencing menopause,
I think it is much more about what are we doing on the medical level? And what
are we doing on the policy level? And it has less to do with whether or not I
had the right face oil, because that’s not going to help you if you’re having a
nervous breakdown, right? If you’re having like a complete mental breakdown, lavender
face oil is not going to help you. And I realized, you know, I didn’t feel like
our ingredients were unique enough or specific enough. And to be quite honest,
I felt like I did not want to be on that side of the coin solely because I felt
like I was profiting off of suffering in a way that I wasn’t as helpful as I
could be in another way. I don’t want to profit off of suffering. I want to profit
off of people stopping suffering, right? And so I much prefer the idea that once I
got out of the product lane, I was much more able to advocate with like real
conviction and real passion ’cause I’m not worrying about any bottom line. And it
really also brought me back around to why I wanted to leave fashion, why I wasn’t
interested in styling people anymore, style in general. And it brought me back around
to talking to people more about not just the physical, at the emotional aspects of
menopause, and not simply the skin or hair or what we would consider more beauty
aspects of menopause, but much more about this sense of identity,
that there was a real loss of identity and self -esteem, who I was is not who I
am, I don’t know what I’m gonna become, this is scary. I don’t feel the same. I
don’t look the same. And really finding a way to regenerate that self -esteem that
we may have had as insecure teenagers, that we may have had at many times in our
lives, there’s a real drop in the way that we perceive our own worth.
And that’s societal and cultural, and we’ve internalized all of those things. So to
come out on the other side of this and find not only a new interest in fashion
again, but an interest specifically in looking to the needs of people in our
generation who are either going through the hot flashes and things like that, or are
really experiencing an identity crisis of I want to look relevant, I want to look
fashionable, I want to look powerful, but I don’t know how to do that. I did that
at 30 and at 50 it doesn’t feel the same. I did that 35 at 55. I don’t feel the
same. How do we ebb and flow with sort of the changes and our taste preferences
over time? And I really feel that there’s a lot to say here at this moment when
we are sort of least physiologically able to think well of ourselves or, you know,
pull ourselves up by our bootstraps is when you need style and things that are easy
to make you feel good, just to make you get out the door. And that’s where I
landed.
Colleen: Well, there are so many layers to what you just said over the last couple
of minutes that I want to unpack. But what I wanted to start with was you did
have the brand state of menopause. You kind of went into more advocacy at that
point. point. And like us, you kind of got to see who was rising up in the
conversations and who was kind of almost just pivoting to something else.
What we have found is that there is the medical conversation.
Like you said, there’s the personal conversation. There’s how do I feel about my
body? How do I feel about myself? Who am I if I’m not a parent, if I’m not a
CEO. And there’s so many layers to that. When you pivoted outside of, let’s say, a
brand per se, what did you find as far as your focus? What drove you with more of
a passion?
Stacy: – Well, I think the thing that really drove me was what I like to call
the big feelings of menopause, the big ones, the anxiety, the depression, the rage.
In some cases, I think there’s even a lack of empathy. We get so caught up in
what we’re going through that it can make us so irritable with others, with
coworkers, with family, whatever it is. But it was those big feelings and the fear
of those feelings and the fear of not understanding those feelings or the fear that
there was nowhere safe to express those feelings is when I really started to get
interested in that aspect, right? Well, you’re talking about what I would say is the
more psychological aspect an emotional aspect of menopause rather than the physical.
And I think that is because even on what not to wear when you know it’s not like
we were constantly we didn’t have a menopausal person on every week. But we were
dealing with the same kinds of issues in that you lost your way, or you don’t
recognize yourself, or you don’t believe in yourself enough to be the person you’ve
always wanted to be. And sometimes you just need a little kick in the butt or a
great blazer to remind you. You are the badass that you’ve always been, but you
have got to be kinder and more gentler with yourself as you age. All of these
things that I had to learn, I feel are things that I want to impart as information
to people who are much younger than us, to people in their 20s and 30s and 40s,
so that when they’re here, there is no crisis, right? We’ve been talking about a
midlife crisis since the beginning of time. Why? Why do we have to have this
midlife crisis? If we had a plan for what to do in each stage of our lives,
whether or not we want to get married, whether or not we want to have children,
whether or not we want to adopt all of these things, why can’t we say we’re going
to treat our health and make kind of future plan decisions, women are much better
at preventative care than men are, right? They only go to the doctor when something
hurts. We go, we get mammograms every year, you know, we do all of these things
for preventative health care, that I think that is going to start to be the
standard in the way that we look at menopause, that people will understand there are
ways to improve the menopausal experience before you get here, and we will have
given you all of that information. So to me, I like to talk like, Hey
Perry, the community app that is so wonderful.
And part of the reason that I love it so much is you can jump on and be like, I
am feeling crazy. Somebody talk me down off a ledge. Like I want to tear my hair
out and it is falling out. And you can write your rant. And all of these people,
thousands of people who have experienced something exactly like this, don’t have to
speak your language to understand where you’re at. And connection and community is so
essential when we are lost, when we feel adrift, when we feel confused.
And that’s what I’m starting to see, is that the biggest coup that we have created
in getting people to talk about menopause is getting people to connect with each
other on a level that I think they feel they were never allowed to connect.
say to someone starting out in this journey like let’s say a 40 year old or a 42
or 43 year old is Like I was when I was 42 or 43 and I thought what’s happening
to me at night. Why are my sheets so good wet? What are what are some things you
would say to them as an advocate? well, I would say the minute you start to see
anything changing in your body that is significant and
Pretty consistent is something that you should start to write down. If you never
used to sweat when you slept before and all of a sudden you’re waking up in a
pool of sweat, that’s something to take note of, right? And what I learned from the
esteemed Dr. Jen Gunter is that you should write down, start noticing feelings,
physical symptoms, things like, you know, joint pain, things that you might not
normally have after a gym visit and then all of a sudden you feel really lousy.
You just start to note changes in your physical and emotional states that you don’t
recognize from before or you don’t recognize like just like snapping into a rage.
That’s not really like you. Things like that. I always say it’s the things that
don’t feel like us are the things that we should be writing down and that can mean
I don’t look like myself. Like I have crow’s feet or “My eyes are starting to
sag,” or whatever it is that is related to a change, a transformation into where
you are. You’re going from one phase to another, and that takes some acceptance. And
then when you can look at that list, you can reorder it into the things that are
making you the most uncomfortable, the things that are disrupting your day, the
things that are making it difficult for you to deal with other people. And let’s
just say you said hot flashes were number one and insomnia was number two,
and followed by a close second of rage. You can bring that to a doctor when you
only have an average of 11 minutes with your physician and five of those minutes
are taking clothes on and off. You already have the two biggest issues that are
causing you difficulty in your life that a doctor can then take a say, well, you
know, maybe this, if you’re in the right age, this is probably hormonal. We don’t
need to do any testing. If you fall outside the average age, maybe we do a hormone
panel and see, you know, what your hormones are up to. And then we can talk about
like what are the things that you can do to be proactive in this experience. And,
you know, we’ve got amazing doctors now who are really leading the charge in terms
of having those conversations. But what Jen said to me, and several doctors since
Dr. Jessica Shepherd said this as well, is that if you come in with those two or
three big changes, the first time you see your doctor after you’re starting to
experience things you’re not used to, that really helps a doctor understand what to
focus on. And then a lot of the other symptoms or issues that you may be
experiencing might disappear if the big ones are treated. So it’s always important to
kind of go in with a priority list, know ahead of time what you need to say.
This is not an adjunct to your physical once a year. This is an appointment with a
gynecologist, ideally not an OB gynecologist, somebody who specializes in gynecology
for midlife and older, who can really sit down, talk to you about your options, and
really understand the things that you’re talking about. This is not just a 15 minute
conversation. This is also still a lot about our own agency to do our own research
and to find reputable doctors and to really do our homework so that we aren’t being
fooled by the grifters that come along with any huge explosion in a vertical.
Bridgett: – Right, we’ve heard the doctor say, the door handle question, these are not the
door handle questions when they’re ready to walk out the door. And if your doctor
is not addressing that, go to menopause society,
find a doctor and break up with your doctor. – And find a doctor on menopause
society.
Stacy: – Absolutely, NAMS is a great resource. I also say, Elektra Health is a
great resource. You know, ever now,
Colleen: – Midi, midi, so many, health. They’re really all
doing things that are for your benefit, right?
Stacy: I mean, in terms of giving you
information, you don’t have to buy anything. You don’t have to get hormones from
them. I think it is really important that we start to recognize it’s not just NAMS,
that there are other places and companies and platforms that are really doing what
they can. Tamsen Fadel just did the M -Factor documentary. If you can see it,
see it. These are things that are meant to be educational tools for the lay person
who really doesn’t know what’s going on. Like all of a sudden they feel weird and
different and this these you know I feel like this wave of people are the ones who
are spreading the most germane information that is very easy to share with others
and you know that’s what I do. I get phone calls now all the time by my friends
like I wasn’t paying attention to you when you were really talking about menopause
but help me now, right?
Bridgett:- Right.
Stacy: – When they get there, when I’m like, girl, if you
would start listening to me at 35, you wouldn’t have been in this place.
Colleen: – One of the things that I’ve been hearing in your voice is this wonderful new passion, it seems, that you have generated again. And in the beginning of our interview,
you said that you had kind of lost a passion for style and then it came back. We
are talking to a lot of women who are either hitting the menopause day and being
post menopause, that are finding that passion again in their lives. They’re either
discovering it from before that it was quietly in their lives or it’s kind of
knocking on their door. What was your journey like?
Stacy: – I think my journey was, I think my journey was several fold. And, you know, I think that part of it was losing my father. I think that part of it was having a very extreme perimenopausal set of experiences that I didn’t know were perimenopausal. And so I felt very much outside the loop. Like I just was constantly doing mental gymnastics to explain what was going on to me. And yet none of it made sense. So
set, you know, you don’t, you don’t, you can’t get sea legs when you don’t feel
stable in any way. For me, the way out of those things is to talk about them.
For me, the way out of not wanting truly, like having even some suicidal ideation
in menopause, was to say, I can’t be the only one. And if I can’t be the only
one, then what am I doing to find the others who are going to need help too?
‘Cause maybe we can help each other. And I really believe that now I am not a
person who asks for help and I was just in a situation that was so painful and so
uprooting that I finally, I raised the flags,
I got the sirens going, I called all of my friends and I was like, I’m not going to
be able to make it through this one by myself. First time I ever asked for help,
because I was so afraid that somebody would turn me down or trivialize how sad or
upset I was, and every single friend came to the rescue. Every single friend came
to the rescue. And I also feel like part of that passion that you’re talking about
isn’t that I just found style again. I never thought that I would lose style
completely. I knew she’d come back. But this idea that my friendships are fewer and
more meaningful than they’ve ever been in my life was what I needed,
what I needed to learn. What I needed to learn is, like, A, you can let people
in, and B, you don’t have to let everybody in. There are people who don’t deserve
your time or your energy, and maybe they did for a while and they don’t now,
whatever that is, you can keep chipping away until you have the ideal friend group
that you can be yourself around, that you can laugh with, that you can cry with.
And that I also think is a huge important lesson for women as we age. You know,
we say, you can’t, we talk about having it all, which, you know, Randy Zuckerberg
wrote that book about, like you can have three things. You can’t have all the
things, right? You’ve got to pick and choose. But I think that certainly as I get
older, not having children, not being married, I recognize the importance of
friendship and community in a completely different way. And those feelings of
competition or unworthiness or comparison, that was for my youth.
I don’t care about that stuff anymore. I want to be around like -minded, intelligent
people who something to say and do want to help and do want to contribute to
society. The thing that I really did find is that I love working, Really, like I
loved working on State Of. I really loved it, but it wasn’t the right thing for
- And now that I’ve been doing all these other things like designing for QVC and
working on a show for Amazon, not only am I back in my element of what I grew up
knowing, I’m in this element in a completely different way, with a completely
different mindset, and it’s changed the way I style, it’s changed the way I think
about clothes, it’s changed the way I think about aging. And I think that anybody
who is willing to lean into this process is going to realize there is hardship and
it can be difficult, but there is so much to be gained from this moment.
There’s so much self -acceptance and realization that happens after menopause. I almost
can’t, I don’t have terms for it, you know. It’s so big and I really think it
does. We’ve mocked it for so long because we’ve mocked this particular time of life
for so long. And that, for me, that is over.
I’m down for a great laugh, but I’m done, I’m done making fun of or trivially
trivializing as maybe a better word, this kind of midlife experience. It’s a massive
experience. And it can be both challenging and absolutely breathtaking.
If we do it right.
Colleen: Right. Mike drop. That’s a mic.
Bridgett: Yeah. Right there. I saw was watching you and Mally on QVC. I was watching that. And you said something,
I thought, I loved it. It was about the stages they call the maiden and the
mother. – And you’ve inserted one.
Stacy: – Yes, the archetypal stages of women are maiden,
mother, and crone. Now, normally, I think after menopause, you get put in crone,
whether you feel like a crone or not. And thank God for modern day haircuts and
cosmetic dermatology, we don’t look like the golden girls, right? Even in the 80s,
we look way younger than they did then. And what I think is that we missed a
category. We missed a stage between mother and crone. And, an executive producer I
was talking to said this word because a lot of people have said it’s the witch. I
get that. It’s like we don’t care about patriarchal rules anymore so it’s easy to
kind of villainize us and that sort of makes us this kind of mean character. I
call it the enchantress because I believe this is when we are absolutely creating
something alchemic. This is only for us at this time of life and it is a big
wake -up call.
Colleen: That’s amazing and we’ve been speaking to, We have naturally been
pivoting over the last year to kind of the post -menopause conversation because when
we were in the beginning, as you were, we were going through it. We were in peri
and we were experiencing all that. And then once you get post, it’s like you’re
coming out of this fog where you were so overwhelmed with everything in life. And
there’s a clarity, there’s a beautiful kind of confidence that comes out of you.
And we have seen, we have talked to so many women who have felt that, seen that,
chose their friends more wisely, like we were talking about, maybe found something
that they were interested in their 20s and 30s that they didn’t think they would
ever be interested in again. And it’s just kind of a resurgence. Like you reignite
this passion of life.
Stacy: So I agree with you. I think there’s, Bertrand, I say There’s
some secret sauce when you turn 60 that it’s like your badass era. – I mean, I’m
really looking forward to that
Bridgett: . – I am, so are we.
Colleen: – We keep saying three years, we
can’t wait. – We’ve got three years.
Stacy: – I mean, Jody Foster, I heard her talk a lot
how the fifties, like I think that my late forties were the much more difficult
sort of identity crisis for me. But, you know, she said she really struggled in her
fifties. She really didn’t know what she wanted or whether or not she wanted to act
anymore and she turned 60 and like some light bulb went off and just everything
became easier. And I really do think that’s if you’re leaning in, if you’re
listening to yourself, if you’re trusting your gut, all of the things that we’ve
been told never to do, particularly as women, I think we need to start learning
what’s best for us. not what’s best for hustle culture,
not what’s best for an attention economy. I think we need to figure out where we
are going to thrive, especially since in the very near future, we’re gonna have five
generations in the workforce for the first time ever in history. I don’t know what
that does to work. I don’t know what that does to age. I don’t know whether we
you know, wise and needed in companies that are going to have younger people who
still need to move up the ranks, or if you’ll buy, you know, if you’ll hire
younger people for cheaper rates and have them learn on computers that we don’t
understand yet, I don’t know. But I think it’s gonna be very interesting to see the
way multi -generations have got to work together. And I really believe now being on
the other side of menopause and still post -menopausal will always be post -menopausal.
I think two things have come up for me, one that I am hopeful that the way that
we start to evolve and change and lean into what I’m going to say is the fear of
what’s happening to us because we’re maybe not cognizant of everything that it is
and also the grief of saying goodbye to who we were and maybe to the people who
we were, you know, during that time in our lives. But what I think is if you’re
leaning into this, it is going to, right, I always say it’s like you can worry
about it or you can wonder about it. You can like, you know, sit at home and
freak out about it or you can, you can have, you can be inquisitive,
Right? I say I’m in my inquisitive phase, not my acquisitive phase. I’m done with
things. I don’t need to buy any more things. I don’t need more clothes or more
property or what. I don’t need that. What I need is to do something that’s much
more internal that allows me to look at the external differently. I have no care in
the world about the way that I’m perceived by other people. It is really about
whether or not I’m doing the work myself. And this is the first time I feel really
free and able to do that.
Bridgett: – Right, you know, that goes in turn with your friends,
who your real friends are the ones that you want to stick around. When you don’t
worry about how you’re perceived, your true friends are the ones that are there for
you. That makes, yeah.
Stacy: – And as a people pleaser, my entire life, I think as most
of us have been, especially our generation, you know, and generations before us even
worse, you know, it’s very hard for me to be myself, just myself around people. My friends
who knew me before I ever did television probably know me better than anybody who
met me after television, because television, I kind of constantly felt I had to be
- I felt I had to meet a fan’s expectation level or, you know, I would
disappoint somebody somehow if I wasn’t being that Stacy. And all of my friends
know I’m not that Stacy. All of my friends know like I can be snarky for sure,
but that’s not who I am. And as I’ve aged, the more I know myself, the less
people I want to be around.
Colleen:- Right there is the quote we’re gonna be using for this podcast.
Stacy: – And it’s not anything. – I’ve made some great, don’t get me wrong, I’ve made some great, their experiences alone, but that’s not to say I reject everyone and everything,
but I’m able to reject now the things that were never for me to begin with,
that I forced to be mine, or that I forced to do, that I forced myself to do in
order to make somebody else happy. Instead of recognizing, “No, this is not or,
you know, I shouldn’t live here or whatever it is pushing those feelings down
instead of saying, you know what, you’re better off telling the truth and figuring
it out from there than people pleasing everybody and actually making no one happy.
And we go back to it just seems like there is this light bulb that goes off
post menopause that we just have this inner like just an inner knowledge of what is
acceptable for us as opposed to what should be acceptable for everybody else and
live within that. – I feel like if we were some kind of fine technological
machinery, right? It’s just that we’ve been recalibrated. Like there’s a new normal
for us that changes our perception about everything else. And things that I would
never have admitted to friends, God, when I was in my 20s or something, when I was
so embarrassed about everything. I’m like talking hours to them about like,
“Oh my God, you should have seen me fall down this step “of stairs, it was
amazing.” But just things that would have made me feel self -conscious or stupid or
idiotic, I don’t care anymore.
Bridgett: – Right, right.
Stacy: – I don’t care, what difference does
it make? And I will be very honest, I’m at the end of this week, I’m going to
speak at something called the end well symposium, which is and well as a platform
to talk about death and dying. And one of the things that menopause has really
truly done for me has changed my relationship to mortality. And it’s the first time
I ever really thought about it. When I was in peri menopause, and my father died,
and I thought, Oh, there’s nobody left. I’m next. You know, that’s,
generationally, I just watched the closest member, you know, of my family leave.
And it really made me start thinking about the value of life, the value of the
time we have here. But the fact that we don’t talk about death as anything other
than scary or morbid, when we didn’t even talk about menopause at all and look at
us now. And I realize that one of the things that I find very interesting is
looking at new business verticals that have a social context to them, that will have
a social and cultural impact to them once we stop making them so taboo.
So for me, this idea of talking about menopause, we’re well on our way to, we’re
going to be out of business ladies because nobody, we’re not going to have to
advocate on behalf of this anymore. We are going to have to advocate on behalf of
accepting death, what death is going to look like, how we prepare, how we prepare
our families, how we can look at what they’re doing in psychedelics or what they’re
doing with death doulas or even end -of -life care and what it means to be a
caretaker. All of these things are coming up because Gen X is having to face them.
We’ve been caring for our parents. We’re not going to live in retirement communities
that are all like little white houses in Florida. A lot of us are like, hey, we’re
not going to be able to afford to retire. Let’s all move in together. Like
intentional communities, I think, are going to be a very big topic of conversation
for our age group. And so why not start talking about them now? Like somebody was
like, you’re going to go talk about dying? Yeah, I am going to talk about it
because we shouldn’t be afraid to the same way we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about
menopause. It is not professional suicide to look at the things that you cannot
avoid, which is, you know, as I found out menopause, if you have female physiology,
death and taxes. Now taxes, I don’t know enough about and it’s so boring to me
that I could never talk about that, but other and it’s not a taboo topic. We just
complain about taxes. But menopause and death are. Right. And I don’t know why.
Because if we were less afraid and more knowledgeable, then we wouldn’t fear what we
don’t know. Right. That’s just the way I think about it.
Bridgett: Yeah, we’ve had, we’ve had
a few people.
Colleen: We’ve had several of that. Bridgett knows I have, I’m kind of obsessed
with the whole concept of death and the acceptance of it and walking into it.
And I just find it fascinating ’cause like you said, it’s just that taboo topic
that no one wants to talk about. And it’s, people are afraid of it.
And it’s a shame because if we talked more about it, if we took, like you said,
changing your fear into wonderment and wondering what it’s gonna be like, then maybe
we would value the present moment more, because we, exactly. And so bravo to talk
to that end of life.
Bridgett: – I need to be wondering a lot more right now because I had
trouble sleeping last night because I started thinking about things in the short
term. And I started thinking about them and ruminating in my head and I was like,
oh my goodness, you know, I need to wonder more.
Stacy: – Yes, – It was fast and I will say just for, you know, anybody who may be dealing with an ill parent or somebody
who’s passed away very recently, there were two books that really saved me that I
read while my dad was ill. And one of them was Atul Gawande, Being Mortal. – Yes,
amazing book, love it. – And he is an amazing man. I am very lucky enough to have
spent some time with him. And after I read this book, I was so completely floored
by what we could be doing for the elderly community, by how we could change their
well -being so drastically in such simple, inexpensive, and effective ways.
And then the other half of the story is that in the middle of writing this book
about how we can take better care of the elderly, his father gets ill. And it
really was very similar, very similar story in the way that his father sort of went
downhill. But what was interesting was that he taught me how to treat my father
when he was alive, not worry about how I was going to feel after he died. He was
sick and I was with him pretty much every day for the six months before he passed
away. and I can remember almost every single one of those days because I tried my
hardest to be there and I tried my hardest not to think of him as somebody already
gone and you know sometimes he was out of it and sometimes he wasn’t but he would
tell me what he wanted to do that day for example um he would want to walk to
the office and the man could barely walk across the street at that point you know
he had a lot of trouble, breathing, catching his breath. And I normally,
what families do is like, “Come on, dad, you can’t walk to the office. Like, let’s
watch the game.” Right? But what Dr. Gawande taught me was that you say, “Okay,
we’re probably not going to make it all the way to the office today. But let’s
walk in that direction. And if we make 100 steps in that direction,
tomorrow will take 101. And I would encourage my father in that way and dignify his
wants and needs above my own fear of losing him. And it really changed the way
that I was able to accept his passing. And the other book is called Seven Brief
Lessons on Physics by Carlo Revelli, which was all about
Astro mechanics and quantum physics, which does sound a little heady and weird, but
seven brief lessons on physics, Carlo Revelli is a poet as well as a physicist.
And so he is translated from the Italian, but he writes so beautifully. And he
talks about the fact that, you know, energy can change form, but it can never die.
And I thought, oh, when I look at the sky, And I know that I made of the same
stuff as stars. My dad is still with me. He’s in the air. He’s in the soil. He’s
in the trees. He’s in the stars. He’s everywhere I am because I’m not going to
lose his energy. It just changed form. And for me, that was also such a deep
comfort knowing that like the world, the universe is like filled with questions we
don’t have answers for. We don’t have to have the answers in order to have the
experience. Rather than be afraid of the experience, we can just have the experience.
Bridgett: – And so many of us are having it as Gen X.
Colleen: – We are. – Yeah, it is. – I have my
mom living with me, Bridgetts got her father -in -law that’s going through stuff.
Bridgett: – He’s going through stuff. He’s not living here.
Stacy: – Oh, sorry. It’s so hard. But
it’s just a of life and it’s, it’s, everybody has their own personal experience.
But like we said before, when you feel like you have support around you, when you
say, I can’t do this alone, I need support, it makes a world of difference. So
opening the conversations up and saying, yeah, I’m going through this too. What did,
you know, what helped you? What did you, what did you read? Who did you talk to?
We talked to David Kessler a couple of to go about the five stages of grief. And
he added a sixth for meaning finding
Stacy. – I thought there were nine now.
Colleen: – There might be. He got approval, yeah, finding meaning. Because for all of his grief expertise,
Bridgett: when he lost his son, he had to go to grief groups with a hat and a sunglass.
‘Cause he didn’t want people to know that it was him. He was just a dad. – His
books were on the table of advice and he didn’t want them to know that’s me that
wrote those books because I need help.
Stacy: I remember, did I see this?
I may have said this in another interview today because I feel like I’m having
pain. But I remember when I was going out, I was doing my book tour for The Truth
About Style. This was like 2012 or no, it was 13 or 13 or 14,
I don’t remember. Anyway, the point being that when I went out on that tour, I
went away to a spot like just to get relaxed and like get ready ’cause I was a
very grueling travel itinerary and I went to a place called the Golden Door which
is in Sandy, outside Sandy. – Oh, right, okay. – I love the instructors there. I
really, I learned so much there, but I was taking instructions with Tai Chi
instructor. And I was saying how nervous I was to go out and do this book on the
truth about style when I didn’t feel very good about myself. I gained a lot of
weight and I was like, how do I go talk about style when I don’t look stylish and
I feel bad about myself and how can I give people advice when I’m not coping with
this well.” And he said to me, “We teach what we need to learn. And if you can
embody the lesson, then you’re doing the teaching.” He was like,
“Stop worrying and start talking about the fact that look what you had to learn in
order to be able to teach what you’re saying.”
Colleen: Again, there’s – Another quote that’s
going in the social media posts.
Bridgett: – But it is just like, you know, where it came to
menopause in this time of life, we wanted to learn more. So, we’re learning more,
we’re trying to advocate. – The next generation won’t need to work as hard as we
did.
Colleen: I would add a third, we had actually Catherine Mannix, Dr. Catherine Mannix.
We had her on probably a second season and she wrote a book that I was looking up
for With the End in Mind. And she has been a hospice doctor for 20,
30 years. And she just, she actually does like a five minute video on YouTube that
shows you what death is like to take the fear away. Because she said, more people
die the same way than you think. And it is a process just like life is a process,
death is a process. So we would, listeners, we would Markman, that third book.
Bridgett: – Yeah, she was the best.
Stacy: – Yeah, that sounds great. I need to read that.
Colleen: – Yes, Dr. Catherine Manick, she’s amazing. We love her
Stacy: – I’m sure you’ve had Dr.
Sharon Malone on.
Bridgett: – Oh, yes. – Yeah.
Stacy: – Her book, “Growing Woman Talk,” is not just
about how to take care of yourself post -menopause. It really is. She discusses what
to do in terms of writing your will, what to do in terms of burial plots. It’s
“Growing Woman talk because these are things that at our age we should be talking
about and this idea that they’re morbid or that we don’t appreciate the life we
have is just bull that just drives me crazy that when people hear me say something
about death they’re like a good time Stacy i’m like you your perception is exactly
what needs to change you think that the way you think about death and the way most
people think about death is the way to think about death because that’s how
we’ve always done it. That doesn’t do anything, right? You know, we grow, we evolve,
we learn new ways of speaking and being and reacting. And I find it very stressful
that people consider death to be such a taboo topic. And so I’m out to change that
as much as I’m out to talk about menopause. And really, for me, that triangulation
between menopause and its relationship to death really happened when I started to
think about my cognitive, my cardiac, and my bone health, and how many things can
go wrong if I’m not taking care of myself, which really leads you down the path.
Your brain is going to do this naturally. Why don’t we give your brain some
guardrails? You don’t go flying off the cliff and start spiraling out of control
that you’re going to die tomorrow, but that you understand that this is a natural
phase, just like panopause are born.
Bridgett: – And the things that are preventative are the things that we can do now that we
are in our 50s and our 60s.
Stacy: – And like one of those things, you know, Dr. Frank
Lippmann wrote that book, How to Be Well. And it’s a lovely textbook. And, you
know, of course it has the nutrition and the sleep hygiene and exercise. But
community and meaning, Again, to your point, Colleen, are essential to live a good
life. They are essential. And as I age, I don’t wanna lose meaning. I don’t want
to lose purpose. That is exactly why in Atul Gawande’s book,
when he talked about a nursing home, he said they brought in, I think six dogs,
eight cats, and everybody got a parakeet in this nursing home. The amount of
medication distributed every day went down 50 % because people had a reason to get
up in the morning. They had something to take care of. Even if it’s a plant, we
need each other. We need a community in order to keep each other well. And I think
the more we understand what’s happening politically, what’s happening technologically,
it is important that we stay connected to each other in physical ways.
It’s extremely important.
Colleen: – Dan Butner, the Blue Zones totally agrees with that.
His nine power levels, one is community and another one is faith, if that’s what
you’re into, because it builds community. –
Bridgett: Yeah, it doesn’t necessarily have to be
religious. It could just be-
Colleen: – – No, but faith -based communities and just because
you’re connecting and you’re communicating and you’re feeling a part of the world.
Stacy: – Yeah, and I really envied kids who went to church every Sunday or temple every
Saturday, only because they had a community always, always ready to go to,
always ready to help. And I did not grow up with religion. So for me, I was like
a complete atheist for a long time and a real existentialist. And,
you know, I was like, I, you know, Nietzsche’s right, God is dead, right? You know,
and I’ve been, I guess maybe because of my dad, I don’t think of God as like a
white man with a long beard. You know, my interpretation of God is science and
math. It is the universe. It is everything that we are experiencing right now.
The phenomenon itself has no explanation. So that, even in itself to me,
is reason to believe.
Colleen: I watched on Oprah years ago where someone was explaining it as everyone has a
frequency like a radio. I know we’re going old school now people, there’s AM,
there’s FM. Right, you guys remember.
But everyone has a frequency and when you tune into their frequency, it’s an energy
that you connect with. So when they’re gone, you still feel that connection because
their frequency is still there. And I think – That’s a great way to think about
’cause like you, I didn’t grow up really with religion, Bridgett, I don’t, you were
maybe a little—
Bridgett – I went every Sunday. – Then that, yeah, you did. – I grew up
Catholic light. I did not go to Catholic school.
Stacy: – Yeah, I got it. – Catholic light,
I got it. – Yeah. (laughs) But it’s still, there’s just, there’s so many ways to
view this time of life and whatever brings you comfort, and whatever works for you,
whatever resonates with you go for it because that’s what I just said to me to
step on you Colleen but I think I got very excited because that really resonates
with me.
I think you know whatever it is that you want to do at this point or what makes
you feel good is what you should go with is learning what does. I feel like part
of what menopause does I always say is Mother Nature’s way of like getting you to
sit up and pay attention to yourself. But I also think it’s like, why do you like
what you like? You have to re -examine what it is that you want. It’s not just in
the wanting. It’s in the self -investigation that you have to do at this phase of
life to realize like how you’re going to get to the next part. There is a lot of
soul -searching that I think is really good for us to do right now, by ourselves,
with our friends, about what we want. Because truly, in this country, we are going
to, you know, have to have some kind of resistance to some of the things that are
going on. And how are we planning on doing that for each other? And not just like,
I’m not talking about political policy. How are we gonna be there for each other?
How are we gonna have shoulders to cry on. How are we going to hug the ones that
we love? How are we going to take care of people and really just not saying like
this is the time to find what comforts you and what feels good for you. This is
the time to figure out what comforts you, what feels good for you and and how to
stay you know connected to the people that you care about.
Bridgett: Right. I mean I feel
like at this time there’s so many like okay me personally my little life Nothing
too bad is happening, but I love so many people that scary things could happen to.
Sure. How can I be happy when they can’t have a good life?
I cannot be, even though, so what? This is happening to me. I can’t feel 100 % if
bad things are happening to them.
Colleen: Well, that’s where community comes in. That’s – The
community, yes, that’s where we have to do that.
Stacy: – It really is hard when you think
about the idea of people that you love being ill or passing away or whatever it is
and you love them so much or they leave your life, like it doesn’t have to be
death. You can grieve the end of a friendship, relationship, anything. I think that
is very much about staying in the moment. And that is very much accepting what the
end is going to be for all of us. And hopefully that adds value to the present
moment, right? Knowing that you won’t have it forever allows you to have that value
in the present.
Colleen: This is why I love conversations with women in our demographic. Because I have no patience at this age for small talk. I really don’t, I wish I did, but I sit
there going, “Really? Really? This is cute.” But, you know, conversations that are
rich and make you think and make you maybe rethink some of the things that you
believed or thought, it just, they, they just are so enriching in your life. And I
love that, but I also want to make sure we talk about your new clothing line,
because—
– Oh, well,
– We would be remiss.
Stacy: I mean, it’s not super new. It came out
in August. – Oh, that’s super new. – I mean, you know, but it is a perfect time
for you guys to go and buy it because not only are things going on sale for the
holidays, I have one more collection that is dropping. I’ve had a ball. I mean, I’ve had such a good time
doing this, and it has been so glorious and so wonderful. It’s made me connect with
lots of different type of people, and I want to bring younger people back to QVC.
It’s not your grandmother’s QVC anymore. I mean, they are an unbelievable shopping
hub for some of the best in -house brands, some of the best national brands that
I’ve ever seen. And I just don’t think I realized until they approached me about
the age of possibility, which is the platform that they’ve created for women over
50, what we’re doing, what we’re accomplishing, how we’re moving through the world,
all different kinds of women, which I think is just wonderful.
It’s changed QVC into a very different type of experience. It’s not just like, oh,
at three o ‘clock in the morning, you’re buying a fake diamond, you know, really is.
The quality is incredible. the prices are extremely competitive. And I really think
that it’s just a fun way to shop. You’re shopping with friends, you know, you know
the hosts, but to me, it’s very important for women our age and younger to
understand that is a great shopping option. It really is.
And once you have an understanding of your size in QVC sizing or the brand tells
you what, you know, how to size yourself, you can consistently buy and you won’t
have a problem with sizing. They’re very strict about it. So it is really helpful.
Um, in a lot of ways, it makes the shopping process much easier.
Colleen: Yeah. Well, we were recently on with Mally as well on over 50 and fabulous had the time of our lives. She’s hilarious. She is so much fun. And I used to buy a lot from QVC when the kids were younger and I would be home with them and I would shop. And being
on that set, it was so like different than I imagined it to be. And there were so
many great brands that were just coming on. Like we’d be talking to the CEO of a
company and they’re like, just give me a minute and they’d go on and they’re proud.
Yeah, they – It was amazing. – What just happened? – Exactly, they all visit each
other sets. – Oh, they do. – It was so funny and crazy to me. And it is, I call
it the Olympics of live television because there’s live television like, today’s show,
Good Morning America, whatever. But when you’re trying to make friends with an
audience who can’t see and try and sell them something at the same time, that’s
hard. Again, I wanna know that I’m doing it for the reasons. I want to know that
I’m introducing something into your wardrobe that will bring you joy, utility, and
hopefully both, right? That’s the idea. And, you know, you think an hour is a long
time to sell the clothes. It’s not. It’s never enough time. It’s never enough time.
I want to show people the five different ways they can wear something. And there’s
no time for that, you know? So I only get frustrated by that. And I have fallen a
little bit behind in my how to and get ready with me’s, because I’ve been a little
loopy lately, been a little busy the last two months have been pretty brutal,
I’m not gonna lie.
Colleen: – Oh, yeah, you do the best you can without judgment.
Bridgett: – Yes, that’s right.
Stacy: – I’m crying. – I’m really crying. – It did not come through to
me, it has not come through to people who watch.
– We’re blinded by the beauty of
your pink outfit.
Bridgett: – I know, I’m wearing it. – By Stacy London. – It
is by Stacy London that is,
Stacy: what you’re wearing is the pink Ponte oversized jacket
that we first started selling in August. We, people love the fabric ’cause it’s so
soft. The pant is a lantern pant that it matches and it pulls on, has pockets,
easy peasy. I I’m not of the, I no longer hold on to the idea that if you don’t
have hard pants, you’ll gain 10 pounds ’cause you’ll just, you know, you’ll just
wear an elastic waist. At this stage of my life, I just want a pant that I can
put on and go. So I cut them so that when you wear them as a pull-on pant, they
still look like a trouser and they still give you that sophisticated effect. A
blazer is still gonna look great. You could wear that pink blazer with trousers with
trousers or jeans, they want you to have options so that while you are reevaluating
this stage of your life, you also have fun playing dress up and figuring out like
what appeals to you now. So a lot of what I did was kind of experimental, you
know, colors and cuffs that come off the shirts that you can switch and change out
or lapels on coats that you can switch out and change color, things that give you
kind of ground for grown -ups meets transform. (laughing)
Colleen: – But that’s such a great
idea to be able to change the color or change, you know, I love that it comes
into your head because we would sit there and never think of that. – You know what
I mean? – Yeah, but you know what, that just is that one thing. I will tell you,
I’ve wanted to do addables until
Since 2007 was the first time I brought up the idea of addables.. So look, it took
only how many 17 years to make that dream a reality,
Bridgett: but they’re they’re out now
and you can go and get them and they’re easy to travel with because well, that’s
the material.
Stacy: Yeah, yeah, they are. The Ponty material does not wrinkle very much.
It’s very easy to steam if you need to. It’s almost, you know, my velour suits
which are coming out this week are I think those might be my favorite because
literally you look like you’re going to a cocktail party but you feel like you’re
getting into bed to watch football. Yeah.
Colleen: Okay. You sold me up into the football. I
was getting, getting into watch safety. Okay.
Stacy: That’s, you know, right now probably would be the holiday baking championship. Okay,
Colleen: I’m down with that the holiday baking channel.
You could watch I yeah, I was
actually to go to sleep last night I put on great British It’s so calming,
I’m like, I don’t care what they look like. I just like hearing everybody’s voice
It’s so good, but you’re the line is so cute We cannot wait to see the next and
honestly that that might be
Bridgett: – Oh, you know, yeah. You know, what Colleen was
laughing at me while we were waiting to go on at QVC. I was ordering from QVC on
my phone.
Stacy: – That’s the danger of being at QVC. – I know. – It’s something I like,
and then I can just buy it right there. Like I can just pull up the app and I’m
like, oh, it’s on this rack.
Bridgett – That’s what I was doing. – I’m like, who’s this? And
then I just go and buy it.
Stacy: So the problem with that is, if you were ever trying
to sell clothes on QVC as a way to make money, I don’t, because I just buy them
back in shoes. I don’t know if it’s a really sneaky business model.
Colleen: – It sure is.
– It’s kind of a brilliant one. And I was a little sad that the store closed. I
was all excited to go see the—
Stacy: – Oh, I know, but I think they’ve just been too
busy. You know, they’re involved in so many different programs and doing so many
shows on the road. I really think, you know, QVC is coming more and more into this
modern focus. And I feel really lucky to be part of that family. And I think that
all of the people who are working there and the designers that are already there
are so remarkably talented. It’s like humbling to be around that. And I,
you know, I just hope to learn more and do better. And so if you are wearing my
clothes, please always feel free to DM me on Instagram because I really,
I love to help people find things that fit them. And I also, I love to hear
complaints. If you don’t like something, I want to know about it. All right? I
don’t want you to need to me.
Bridgett: – No complaints.
Colleen: – Okay, Bridgett
Bridgett. – No complaints.
– This is important. – Because my first order of my clothes were too big. So I was
like, oh, I need a smaller size. So I returned it and got, which I’m going to
learn the QVC sizing.
Stacy: – Yes, because – I’m telling you, QVC has a size chart which I tell
everybody to look at before you buy anything because it is not like no, there’s
very few standardized clothing sizes out there. QVC does their best to have the same
size across all fashion brands. So that you’re not talking about a different size
for each brand. You may be talking about a different cut, like one may be a crop
pant and one may be a long pant, but you should be the same size in both. So it
takes a second to learn if you are, you know, doing sizes from other brands that
are not on QVC that are all different.
Bridgett: Right. And in my, you know, my ego got a
little bit stroked there because it was a smaller size. And I was like, I like
this a lot.
Stacy: Okay. But you can, you can let go of that pressure because it doesn’t.
It doesn’t. It doesn’t. – Just cut the tag and enjoy life. Just don’t even look.
Bridgett: – My mental, my mental brain.
Stacy: – And that’s not, I really, I made the clothes
specifically so that size isn’t what you’re thinking about. – Right, right. – Which is
great.
Bridgett: – It’s great. Yeah, it’s great. I have the pants on too. Yeah. – Just got
the whole little set. – Yeah. – So you also have a show coming out next year.
Stacy: – I do on Amazon with my old partner in crime. – Yes,
we’re both old. So yes, Clinton Kelly and I are doing a show called Wear Whatever
the F You Want on Amazon. I can’t say that much about it yet, but what I will
say it is not a remake of what not to wear. So if you were looking forward to
that, I’m sorry, you will be experiencing something quite different. But I like to
think of it as the modern day makeover, which means that the makeover needs a
makeover, right? The makeover genre needed a makeover. So I think that’s where we’re
- That’s exciting. I’m really– We’re going to look forward to that. So that’ll be
so cool. I think it’ll be– I’m not positive. I’m sure this– when I have the
information, I’ll give it to you, but I think it’s April 2025.
Colleen: OK. Oh, that’s
awesome. Stacy, please don’t wait another four years before we get to talk again.
Stacy: – Oh my God, has it really been that long?
Bridgett: – No, I think we’ve run each other.
We’ve run each other. – Okay, all right. – We’re always like all doing 5 ,000 things.
Stacy- Exactly, and you know, you can always call me and tell me to come on. I’m always
gonna come on. (laughing)
Colleen: – Thank you. – Thank you so much. – We are so excited to
see that passion in you and you living your best time of life ’cause you deserve
it and so much more. So thank you so.
Stacy: – Thank you, it’s the same to both of you.
And honestly, again, this is what makes me so happy, right? When we connect on this
level, like now I know you are dealing with your mom, you’re dealing with your dad
and your father -in -law. Like these are all things that if we know that about each
other, we can check in. – Right. – We can just say like, you’re doing okay, you
need anything. My friends have been amazing to me. They were amazing to me when my
father passed away in the exact same way. I’ll tell you the one thing that somebody
did for me, oh my God, I could start crying thinking about it. One of my best
friends who’s known me for about 35 years and the day after my father died,
I don’t even remember that when I was in the hospital, I was just texting people
saying, dad died, dad died, dad died. I don’t remember who I texted who I told and
the next morning when I woke up there was a bag at my front door that had a
snuggie and fuzzy socks and like a hot chocolate mixer or something and she was
like I find that when I’m grieving, I need to wear something soft and it feels like
a hug you don’t need to open the door you don’t need to come find me you don’t
need to thank me Let’s talk when you’re feeling better. And honestly, every time I
think about that, I think I need to send fuzzy socks to somebody or I need to
send the snuggie to somebody if they’re going through it or if they’ve lost somebody
near to them. What I also do just to keep my dad’s memory alive is I have like a
little atomizer of his cologne and I spray it on all his old sweaters and then I
put the arms over my shoulders and I get myself a hug. – I love that.
Bridgett: – That reminds me of you, Colleen, in the story about–
Colleen: – Yeah, I’m gonna cry, y ‘all. – How beautiful is that? –
Bridgett: I do have, yeah.
It’s been golly, my dad died in ’97 and I still have one of his flannel shirts.
So I kept it in plastic for a long time so I could smell it too.
Stacy: – I know,
’cause you don’t want to lose the sense. – ’97, so it has– – It’s so true, it’s
so true.
Colleen: – I just think these conversations have So much more value and and really
help each other and like is now we’re going to think snuggies, Bridgett and I are
always going to think we got to get snuggies for some
Stacy: Yeah, you know, you get you
can get them anywhere. Yes, and sometimes they have snuggies It’s
just the gesture of recognizing that something tactile and soft Would be an aid in
terms of grief is something that never would have occurred to me but I have such a
highly empathic emotional intelligent emotionally intelligent friend she was like I
learned this and I’m passing this on to you and I and now I try to do it
whenever anybody needs it and that’s kind of honoring your dad because you do it
because it was the memory that you have with your you know of your father passing
so it’s kind of sweet
we just get better with age we get more thoughtful, we get more considerate. And we
just know what we want. Agreed. Agreed.
Colleen: Thank you so much for coming on.
Stacy: It was my pleasure ladies. Oh my god, it was so good to see you both1
You look great in pink.
Bridgett: Oh, thank you. I love pink. I love pink.
Stacy: Wonderful. Well, you’re rocking it!