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Megan Mary: Okay, everybody welcome. Today I have Cara Bradley. She is a mind, body, teacher, motivational speaker, and author. And she’s built and sold multiple wellness businesses.

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She now coaches high, performing women to harness the changes during menopause and to claim their vitality and power.

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Megan Mary: Welcome, Cara, I am so privileged to have you here today? Well, Cara has been so inspirational in on my spiritual journey that she was the first woman that I reached out to, and said, you have to be on my podcast. Because I want everybody to share in your wonderfulness and be inspired by your awesome, just energy. So Cara, tell me what you think enlightenment means to you. It’s such a great question.

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I. The first thing that comes to mind is a liveness

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Cara Bradley: really, to feel. To be enlightened is to be fully embodied in our alliveness. From our toes to the top of our heads and beyond

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Cara Bradley: beyond our physical bodies. So that’s what I would. That’s what I would say.

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Megan Mary: Okay, that’s

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Megan Mary: that’s an amazing explanation. And I I I resonate with that as well. I think being being alive is so much also part of being present. It’s it’s so much what you speak about the positive mindset, but also just living in that moment and not letting it pass you by

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Cara Bradley: 100%. Yeah, I think I’ve always experienced a liveness in different ways as an athlete. I was an athlete for most of my life.

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Cara Bradley: and so I think athletes are so embodied most of the time that we don’t realize that most people

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Cara Bradley: or people that aren’t athletes

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Cara Bradley: don’t feel that all the time.

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Cara Bradley: and I would say it’s probably goes to artists and musicians, and anybody who has a craft or a skill that they find flow in

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Cara Bradley: are able to access that alliveness more often than that, I think.

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Megan Mary: Yes, absolutely

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Megan Mary: so. Tell the listeners about your enlightenment journey, and what that pivotal moment was that brought you to where you are today?

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Cara Bradley: Oh, there’s been so many pivotal moments in my life! I remember growing up on Long Island in New York. We had a little bungalow by the beach by the Long Island Sound, and every night in most mornings I would go by myself like a you know. I could walk by myself right. We were allowed to do that back then, right down the street, and I would sit and watch the sunset or the sunrise, and I was enthralled

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Cara Bradley: and enraptured by the sunsets and the sunrise, and I think that’s something that

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Cara Bradley: imprinted on my soul imprinted on my being and my entire life from there. I I guess it’s a pivotal moment, but there’ve been other moments that have shifted me into a remembering. I think that’ll enlightenment

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Cara Bradley: waking up being more aware it’s really more of a remembering than anything a remembering of who we are

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Cara Bradley: down at the core of our soul. And so some people have these big Aha! But for me, I think it’s been more of a subtle

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Cara Bradley: remembering over and over and over again.

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Megan Mary: Yes, that’s so beautiful, and I couldn’t agree more. I felt that way so much when I was called to begin this podcast and on my journey, that it was not a something, I found it was something that I was returning to.

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Megan Mary: Yes, absolutely.

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Megan Mary: And that’s just that’s and and you’re right that the the spiritual journey isn’t isn’t a destination. It’s it’s a journey. So it’s never ending. But there’s there’s wonderful has along the way. And you know, fortunately, wonderful people to surround you all along that path that can say it’s okay

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Megan Mary: you know, what you’re going through is you’re not alone in that. And I think that’s what’s so. Part of what’s so wonderful about what you’re doing now is really being that light for other women.

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Cara Bradley: Thank you. Yeah. I feel really called

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Cara Bradley: to do whatever I can

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Cara Bradley: until my very last breath to help people remember who they are in any way to just remember that they are divine. They are genius, they are

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Cara Bradley: energy and impulse flowing 24, 7 it is an endless stream until our very last breath, and then we we we don’t really know what happens then. But I can only imagine it’s magnificent.

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Cara Bradley: So yeah, you know, it’s interesting that you say that the light, because I often feel

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Cara Bradley: like, and these are some of the things that come to me in dreams and in meditation

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Cara Bradley: is holding a torch is just, is just holding a torch to show. Oh, this is the path forward for you not that I am in any way better or above anybody else? It’s just I I often picture myself as just standing on the side of a path holding the light for people to see what’s next.

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Megan Mary: And you are, because that’s how I think of you. So it’s it’s a wonderful metaphor. And and I. I’m so glad that you brought up dreams, because I think, of course, you know, our. Our dreams are are filled with metaphor. I mean that it. They are stories of metaphor, and

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Megan Mary: just everything about them is is is a beautiful story that’s met to tell us something that we need to grasp on to and many times. That is our purpose. Many times we can discover our true purpose and our true happiness, and the light within us by looking into our dreams because they they know what we’re supposed to be. They know our higher self, they know our true self, they know our pure light.

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Megan Mary: and all of that is just buried underneath the the ego and all of the other entrapments of life and expectations, and it and I think meditation has really helped me channel into that and connect with that true self and really

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Megan Mary: understand better what I’m called to do and what I’m supposed to be doing.

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Cara Bradley: absolutely 100%.

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Megan Mary: So talk a little bit about your experience as a as a mindset mentor, I I wanna our listeners to know a little bit more about that, because I think that your your experience doing that owning the Yoga studio all those different things in your life path

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have really culminated and brought you to where you are today to help women through this next transition in life. So let’s go back a little bit on down your road and and hear a little bit more about that.

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Cara Bradley: Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve had so many different roles and responsibilities in my life and my career. But they have always started in the body.

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Cara Bradley: And so you know, lately I’ve been landing on calling myself a body mine teacher. more so actually. And I may have it on my website as a mind body, but more more body, mind than mind, body.

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because

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Cara Bradley: and I’ll get to some of how I came to this in a moment, but

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Cara Bradley: our mind and body are constant in constant communication through different systems, and some of it is energetic, and some of it is actually physical. But 70% of the information that is on this super highway channel is actually going from body to mind.

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Cara Bradley: and 30 is going from mind to body.

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Cara Bradley: So my whole life I have been really interested in how

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Cara Bradley: we can read what our body is telling us to use that as good information for whatever it is we’re doing.

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Cara Bradley: so I’ll give you an example. Is, I was a figure skater in the in New York. I was very average, so I will say you never. So I really was. I really was We had limited money to spend on skating, and I, just, you know, kind of stayed at a certain level. But

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Cara Bradley: back then we did something called figures, or take your eights, and we were given skaters would be given a, a, a blank patch of ice, and a scribe which is like a big compass, and you so you would draw out a big figure 8, and then you would spend an hour going around that figure 8

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Cara Bradley: on an edge backward, forward, insideage outside edge. They the pick your skaters don’t do it anymore, because

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Cara Bradley: too many figure skaters absolutely hated it.

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Cara Bradley: It was very boring. I, on the other hand, absolutely loved it, and this is at like a 1112 years of age, and it would be before school early morning, and there I was on on this ice in the quiet.

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Cara Bradley: and what I noticed

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Cara Bradley: as an 1112 year old. Of course I didn’t have this language.

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Cara Bradley: but what I would notice, and it was like a game for me is that if I was thinking about something I would go flat on my blade. and if I wasn’t thinking if I could be fully

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Cara Bradley: down in my foot the one foot that was on the ice on that one edge of a blade, I would be able to hold it, and I really believe this was the beginning of my interest in the body, mind, connection in mindfulness, in awareness, and in building mental awareness as

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Cara Bradley: a a capacity for mental performance, for you know, competition for for the things that I did, I did further on in my years.

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Cara Bradley: So, yeah, so that’s a. It’s a a long story. But I think it’s an important story, because so many of us have these experiences as children and young adults that really steer us, or at least highlight. What makes us come alive

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Cara Bradley: and Unfortunately, in our culture

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Cara Bradley: it’s often not

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Cara Bradley: supported or

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Cara Bradley: you know we we often are just steered away from some of those loves that we have as children and young adults that actually may just be our souls calling. Now, I wasn’t destined to be an Olympic skater. But But there was good really good clues there. As to what

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Cara Bradley: I I think I believe I’m here to do in this lifetime.

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Megan Mary: Yes, yes, I I love that story, I think. And I can just envision you doing the figure 8. And you know there’s obviously a meditative quality to, because that’s the infinity symbol.

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Cara Bradley: Absolutely so. I mean, that is sort of a mindful meditation in itself

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Megan Mary: that you are experiencing, not even really possibly knowing it at that time. So

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Cara Bradley: absolutely, it’s amazing.

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Megan Mary: And then you went on to just

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Megan Mary: coach other people, organizations, corporations, sports, teams, all kinds of things.

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Cara Bradley: So what happened then, when I was in my college years, I was a runner. I ran track in college, the 800 again. I was very average. I really really was, and My last college track race. I had a flow experience

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Cara Bradley: where I was so embodied and so focused and so

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Cara Bradley: fearless that I shaved seconds off of my 800, which is, you know, it is a a race of milliseconds. Not second. So Something happened to me during that race that changed my life because it reminded me of days on the ice.

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Cara Bradley: but it also was so visceral for me, and I remember I I. The race was hardly even over, and I realized, Oh, my gosh! Like, there’s something about what just happened to me, and I’ve got to understand what it was, and I knew in that moment, if I could understand how to access it on demand.

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Cara Bradley: I I would be, you know, I could do anything, and so it took me on a journey to understand how to train the mind. And literally went to the library. So this was pre Internet. And I found books on Yoga and meditation, and I took them out, and I started to study out of a book

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Cara Bradley: Yoga, which is, you know, an ancient discipline that has a rigor to it, and I wanted a rigor as an athlete. Meditation as well, you know, deeply studied.

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Cara Bradley: So that’s when I went in on that route to learn and practice, and then eventually teach. And I open to Yoga studio in a meditation center. from there I also started to infuse these principles in these practices into athletes. at the university level. And this was before

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Cara Bradley: Oh, before most sports teams were doing this. Now everybody’s doing this, and so, you know, it’s always like one thing after another. But I’ll tell you, Megan, that The

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Cara Bradley: at the ground of it all is my

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Cara Bradley: deep desire, and also my deep joy

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Cara Bradley: in helping people

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Cara Bradley: come alive in helping them drop or release, or let go of or dissolve

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Cara Bradley: anything that’s holding them back in a step forward into who they are meant to be in this in this lifetime.

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Megan Mary: That’s that’s so so inspirational. I mean, I love hearing. I love hearing that those stories and I and I, I think I can see your path, and and where you’ve come from, and how it’s led you to where you are now. And I think I think it’s amazing what what you’re doing now. specifically, with women, too. So that’s the next thing I want to talk about because

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Megan Mary: my, you know, gifts are completely in the realm of women. And one of the things that I help other women with is something that I call the crossroads.

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Megan Mary: And that’s basically where you’re at a point in your life of transition. What or loss, whatever it might be. And your dreams are starting to tell you things about that that you might not understand, because your your subconscious is 95% of your mind, and your conscious is only 5. And so, as you’re going through all these changes in your life, your.

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Megan Mary: your, your dreams are trying to help you, and they’re trying to show you the way.

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Cara Bradley: and So I think it’s amazing what you’re doing now. with with women and menopause. So let’s talk a little bit about that. Yeah. And this, I know, it’s amazing. and I just want to encourage everybody listening, you know, to.

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Cara Bradley: To just allow.

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Cara Bradley: Allow yourself, during a transition, to to sit in space, because you will, either through dreams or meditation, or a poem, or your next book you will get answers. And so I like like you said earlier. You know, I’d been training high performers, Ceos and professional sports teams, college sports teams.

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Cara Bradley: really, people that that very, you know, high level of their lives for a long, long time. And then I stopped.

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Cara Bradley: and for about 4 years. I really

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Cara Bradley: kind of lost myself. To be honest with you. I lost my confidence in that in that arena. I felt like it really wasn’t. I wasn’t making progress. I wasn’t My words were not landing out there, and so I also went into a bit of a funk myself, and it was during the time of the pandemic and everything. But it was only recently, and I sat and I prayed, and I

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Cara Bradley: practice, and I dissolved and I let go of, and I really just allowed myself to sit in space.

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Cara Bradley: And I realized that as I was starting to come out of this dark place, which we will go through

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Cara Bradley: over and over again in different cycles in our lives. I believe. was exactly where I am, which is a 58 year old. Woman in post. Mana. Pause.

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Cara Bradley: ha! Realizing how much those years of Perry menopause menopause, you know, will be in post menopause for the rest of our lives these years.

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Cara Bradley: How much our body mind is reorganizing and adapting to an evolutionary process. and you know it was hidden in plain sight for me as I started to think about my own journey, and then to look at and speak with and start to coach women just like me.

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Cara Bradley: It it was like one of those huge ha! It like Oh, my gosh! This has been here all along like the this is exactly the population I should be working with

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Cara Bradley: And and it it feels like I’ve never felt so right. So really what I am helping women to do is to navigate.

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Cara Bradley: navigate this massive reorganization of our body, mind, and it goes through all the systems in our body. But one thing that is often not talked about. Of course the the topic of menopause is so under researched, and we’re so under educated as women, I had no idea

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Cara Bradley: but

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Cara Bradley: There are such incredible changes that happen in our brain during this time, just to changes in in estrogen levels, which is known as our memory molecule. So unfortunately, there are a lot of women, I would say. Probably most women who

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Cara Bradley: think it’s all in their head, and they think there’s something wrong with them, or they’re losing their mind, or you know they they fall into depression, into having a lot of anxiety and insecurity, and it pains me like literally pains my heart. Now, now that I have come out of my funk, I can see where I was.

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Cara Bradley: and felt very much alone. Just like you said early on Megan is that unless we’re speaking about it, we can feel like we’re the only ones in it. and I. So what I’m doing now is educating women on physiologically, what’s happening

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Cara Bradley: again? The body, mind, connection, but also how to also flip the switch on how you view menopause and turn a maybe a fixed mindset

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Cara Bradley: into a really positive and transformational mindset. Because I believe that, and and many others as well, will speak about this

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Cara Bradley: this time in our lives which can start in our late thirties, actually, because our brains start to change before our bodies start to change. due to hormonal shifts. But This, this evolutionary transition

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Cara Bradley: could be used for extraordinary transformation to really step up and into who we are meant to be, to step up and use our wisdom and life, experience and voice and power and passion

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Cara Bradley: and time, perhaps to to really offer something special, our unique gifts to the world. So that’s a little bit about what I’m doing on in different ways, one on one coaching group coaching. I’m on tik tok every day, really playing there as a great platform, and we’ll see what happens.

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Megan Mary: Oh, thank you for for sharing all that. I I think our listeners will greatly connect with that, I know. And I I feel like there is so much that happens in in our lives as women. I had haven’t written a blog about this where the the 4 stages I feel like we’re told there’s 3, but I I really feel there’s 4, and I feel like everybody’s missing out on on the seeker.

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Megan Mary: and the seeker is is where we are now, and we need to embrace that moment where we’re all seekers, where, you know, we know that we’re no longer who we were, and we don’t know yet who we are. But then we go seeking, and that’s when we can find what our our true gifts are, and what our next purpose in life is, and we

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what we can share with everyone else, to uplift everyone else, and to not be so alone, and to really embrace the change. I think that that’s and celebrate that the change

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Megan Mary: and use it as a catalyst. So I I love what what you’re doing, because I feel like that really resonates with with that. what mode of thinking?

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Cara Bradley: Yeah, I think

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Cara Bradley: it is. If we really just look at it as an evolutionary process. we can be. I think there’s a little more peace in our hearts that this isn’t something that I’ve done to myself. It’s actually something that it happens because the intelligence in my body I believe that women have been done a great disservice in not being educated and prepared.

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Cara Bradley: but change is coming, and I believe that we are the generation of women that have really fully invested so much in our careers and our lives and our health that we are not going to just lay down and accept

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Cara Bradley: feeling like crap for the rest of our lives, basically. And so and it’s my hope that we will be be prepared enough to go through this gracefully and to really like, I said, step up in our power, but to then also start to educate our younger women. My daughters are 28 and 29, and I want them to be fully prepared

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Cara Bradley: for. all of the symptoms and, like you said and celebrate some of them, I mean they are inconvenient, but with proper lifestyle practices, which is something I teach a lot about. with simple, proper lifestyle we can keep things at day, and then we we we can have resources to know what to do if things are extreme.

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Megan Mary: Yeah. And I think it’s also important to understand the the role that estrogen plays in in so much of that, but also in our dreams. It’s most people don’t realize that, you know, as our estrogen rises and falls, it affects our dreams.

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and the more estrogen that we have, the more we remember our dreams. But our dreams change, and the themes of our dreams change as we go through these different stages of lives, because our body is changing and our our whole mind is changing and our whole spirit is changing. And

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Megan Mary: so the the types of dreams that we have will reflect those changes in our lives, and the changes in our body will also reflect

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Megan Mary: the themes of the dreams, and how we can interpret them and how we can use them. And so there’s a lot of correlation there. And I think that

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Megan Mary: dreams is just another avenue of self-care that everyone should consider, because it’s it’s another way to tune in and to really listen to

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Megan Mary: that little voice that you’re you’re not really paying attention to. But it’s always there for you.

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Cara Bradley: Yeah.

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Cara Bradley: Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, so many women struggle with sleep during certain times of the menopause cycle. And so I think it’s very, very important for us to learn how to protect our sleep and to prepare our body and to work with our Circadian rhythm, so that we can have not only the deep steam cleaning of our brain during deep sleep.

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Cara Bradley: but also to be able to have those vibrant dreams, and to remember them.

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Megan Mary: Yes, absolutely, sleep is essential.

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Megan Mary: So what should everyone stop doing? And what should everyone start doing?

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Cara Bradley: I know you’re gonna love that question. Well, I guess this is overall in or not. It’s directed toward Menopausal women. I would just say,

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Cara Bradley: one of my favorite practices, And I wrote about this in my book is to practice glimpsing

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Cara Bradley: and recognizing moments of aliveness. recognizing those little short

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Cara Bradley: spontaneous delights that happen, and they are happening. By the way, we’re often just driving too quickly in our day to recognize them.

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Cara Bradley: But they are those delightful moments when perhaps you catch the sun on the top of the trees, or you meet somebody’s gaze in the grocery store.

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Cara Bradley: Those short little delights when your heart just skips, and it just feels like life has slowed down or come to a standstill for a moment.

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Cara Bradley: perhaps it’s just a song that just makes you feel joyful, or the your afternoon run. It doesn’t matter what it is. It can come in so many different forms.

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Cara Bradley: And then as you’re going to sleep. In addition to a gratitude practice, or you can replace it every once in a while to think about the the moments that day that made you come alive.

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Cara Bradley: What made me come alive today? What what sparked my soul today? because once we can start to notice them?

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Cara Bradley: we can start to, we’ll start noticing more and more. we’ll start to lean into those moments and recognize that actually, all my daily tasks are just what happens in between those moments of aliveness. And and I believe that when we, when we experience those moments

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Cara Bradley: more often, we are just happier, and more compassionate and more generous to others. So that’s what I would say to start doing. Wonderful.

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Megan Mary: And of course journaling is a a fantastic way to track that, because the more you start keeping track of all those little moments, those synchronicities, those seeming coincidences that you wonder. Hmm! What if there’s something to that? Because there is the more you keep track of that, the more you start to see all those little miracles you start to understand the guidance that’s happening.

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Cara Bradley: and you feel more tuned in. That’s right.

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Cara Bradley: So what’s next for you on your journey? Big question.

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Cara Bradley: I have no idea to be completely honest with you. I have just begun

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Cara Bradley: this

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this new phase of supporting women through the menopause continuum

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Cara Bradley: and I believe that I’m going to be here for a while. I just don’t know and I’m I’m really finally at the place in my life

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Cara Bradley: where I know that over planning

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Cara Bradley: is going to stunt the growth. I I’ve been such a do work, planner. I’ve been a business owner for my whole life, and raised 2 kids, and, you know, just been like a worker be.

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Cara Bradley: and I want to experiment with not being a worker. Be right now, and really offering up the space for my soul to step forward and to guide this next iteration of my work.

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Megan Mary: Yes, we. We do need to step aside and let it flow right. Yes, yes. So 3 takeaways. You hope listeners learn from this interview.

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Cara Bradley: One is glimpsing aliveness, noticing moments of aliveness. I think you’ll be surprised. The second is to remember that how you feel isn’t all in your head

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Cara Bradley: that your body is constantly changing. The chemistry in your body is constantly shifting, which is going to impact your mood states. So

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Cara Bradley: so it’s not all just what’s going on above the neck.

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Cara Bradley: And then the third thing I would say is to sit back and look back at your childhood and go explore

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Cara Bradley: what some of those moments were for you like my sun rises and sunsets, or my skating moments because you have them.

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Cara Bradley: Maybe it was with a a grandparent or a best friend or a loan, but just to allow yourself, because there’s so many clues back there.

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Cara Bradley: and it doesn’t have to be

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Cara Bradley: what you’re going to do in your career. I think we’re so work oriented in our culture. It could just be your what brings you alive and helps you towards that feeling of being awake in this world.

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Megan Mary: Yes, yes, I we were so close to the spirits

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Megan Mary: when we were a child, and that that is, we should hold that and carry that through the rest of our lives to really keep that connection

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Cara Bradley: absolutely

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Megan Mary: wonderful.

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Well, where can people find you, and

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Cara Bradley: how can they connect with you

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Cara Bradley: and Find me over on Tik Tok, because I am having one heck of a time over there building community. so you can message me through Tik Tok or any of the other social platforms, or you can just reach out to me on my website as well. I answer, those emails

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Megan Mary: amazing.

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Megan Mary: Okay, well, thank you so much for being here today. I truly honor what you are doing for the world, and I think that all of my listeners will resonate with it as well. I really appreciate you sharing with us today.

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Cara Bradley: and thank you for being here. Thank you, Megan. My pleasure.