The Divorce Chapter

EP83 The Pip Talks Chapter: Midlife, Menopause & Taking Your Power Back

• Sarah Elizabeth • Episode 83

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💡 Ever felt like midlife is a crisis instead of an opportunity? Like your confidence is fading, your body is changing, and you don’t even recognise yourself anymore?

🔥 That ends today.

This week, I’m joined by the brilliant Pippa Matthews, a midlife coach who helps women reclaim their confidence, navigate life’s transitions, and rediscover their power…. whether it’s after divorce, menopause, or a complete life overhaul.

🎙️ In this episode, we talk about:


 âś¨ How Pippa went from a corporate career to coaching thousands of women through transformation.

 âś¨ The unexpected symptoms of perimenopause that no one warns you about (brain fog, itchy skin, exhaustion… sound familiar?)

 âś¨ How to spot the real signs of burnout and midlife crisis… and what to do about it.

 âś¨ Why divorce doesn’t have to be a disaster….it can be a doorway to your best chapter (and why Pippa and her ex-husband are the unicorns 🦄)

 âś¨ The "Happiness Buffet" strategy….Pippa’s simple but powerful way to start choosing yourself every day.

🚨 If you’ve been struggling to feel like yourself, this episode is the reminder you need: Midlife isn’t the end. It’s your chance to do life on YOUR terms.

🛠️ Resources & Links:

I LOVED chatting with Pippa, I hope you enjoy listening too đź©·

Loads of Love,

Sarah x

🌸


Want More? Join The Divorce Book Club!

📚 This April, we’re reading The Midpoint Plan by Gabby Logan

The blurb says:

It will help you to:

- keep yourself fit and healthy into older age

- keep your brain firing on all cylinders

- improve your sleep

- deal with anxiety

- thrive in your career

- navigate changing relationships (whether that's empty nests or aging parents)

- cope with illness and loss

- be a healthier, more productive, creative and happy older person


With a Midpoint Action Plan (MAP) at the end of each chapter, it contains all the tips and tricks, habits and practices you need for a positive mindset, a healthy body and a happy life. It's a must-have manual for all midlife men and women.

So what’s stopping you? 

Because life after divorce doesn’t come with a manual…. but if it did, this book club would be i

THE DIVORCE BOOK CLUB
 
https://patreon.com/thedivorcebookclub

FREE Guide to the 10 MUST read divorce books after divorce

https://thedivorcebookclub.com/free-resources/

INSTAGRAM

https://www.instagram.com/thedivorcechapter

Sarah Elizabeth  00:00

Hello and welcome to the divorce chapter podcast where we turn the unexpected divorce shit show into our best goddamn glow up. And this week, we have a fabulous guest to help us do just that, the fantastic Pippa. Matthews. Pippa helps women in midlife find their confidence, reignite their power and unleash their true potential. I'm here for that. Welcome. Pippa, 

Pippa Matthews  00:24

Well, thanks, Sarah, thanks so much. I'm excited to be here. 

Sarah Elizabeth  00:28

We're excited to have you. So, Pippa, how did you get into this world? We'll talk about how kind of how you specialise, but essentially now you focus on women in midlife, right? 

Pippa Matthews  00:39

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So my background, I had a big corporate career. I was in retail operations for the majority of my working life, and I've always had a weight problem, and I did the body coach plan back in 2015 2016 and lost quite a lot of weight and found a love of weight lifting. Came across a guy called James Smith, a PT online who is actually huge now, and I replied to one of his daily emails. Got chatting to him. Cut a very, very long story short, I shared some of James' content into Joe wicks, his body coach, Facebook group that I was an admin of, and James, kind of very kindly in his second book, credits me with giving him his big break on social media. I felt it was really kind of a small thing that I could do, but and I ended up working for him. I retrained into being a nutrition coach. I then quickly understood that, alongside that mindset is is huge, and as part of my own kind of journey, I guess going into realising in 2019 that I was smack bang in perimenopause, and having quite a rough ride with that, really realised that mindset for midlife women, particularly, there's so much change goes on kind of between some people, it's their late 30s, but mainly in your 40s and 50s and onwards, that the the opportunity to impact as many women as I possibly can is is my goal. Really, I want to be the person that I needed back in 2018, 2019 to as many women as possible. If that makes sense. 

Sarah Elizabeth  02:15

Absolutely makes sense. I love that. I say that I want to be the woman that I needed back in my divorce. Funny enough. So, yeah, that's yeah, synchronicity there, yeah, definitely. Well, that's actually where I first came across you, which ironically, was probably from that post in the body coach group, because I did the body coach back in 2017 it was around 2017 time, and then I found James Smith, which was probably through you, and then in the pandemic, in the James Smith Facebook group, you did your PIP talks, daily lives, daily Facebook Lives, which was amazing, 

Pippa Matthews  02:53

That Facebook group was mad. It was like herding feral cats, amazing, and honestly, so much fun at a time when I just really needed it. I think we all probably needed it then. But yeah, I did a thing where I was coaching in James's Academy at the time, and you were seeing people coming through on coach chat that obviously the UK had gone into lockdown, and people in coach chat were just losing their shit, people that lived on their own, and there was a lot of single people, or single mums, particularly some single dads, but people that were on their own, and they were just like, absolute blind panic. And my instinct, I'm a bit of a right, how can I help? How can I fix this for people? And my instinct was like, What can I do? What can I do? What can I do? James was in, he was in Oz at the time, and kind of, I'm just said to him, is it okay if I just go live? He said, Yeah, sure do it. Oh, I'll come in and do a couple, but I just decided that the first one, I just went live at lunchtime, and I just chatted and answered questions. And some days, I chatted about absolutely nothing. Other days, you saw what was going on with my dogs. I was locked down with my ex husband. We were separated, then my dad was living in the flat above the workshop. So you saw my dad sitting reading in the garden. We did cooking stuff. We taught gardening, but literally every single lunch time. I thought, I think I did it from when we locked down in March, do I think I did it to July? Yeah, maybe August. I went live every single lunch time. I think I missed one. 

Sarah Elizabeth  04:18

It was so amazing. And I was on my own then, and it was, you know, it was just that something to look forward to, and something to take away from the crazy shit of life like queuing at Sainsbury's for your loo roll, you know, all that, all that fucking crazy world that was going on. Then it was just something different to kind of hold on to, yeah, 

Pippa Matthews  04:38

When I first started it, my my ex husband said to me, and he just said, You're gonna do what I mean, I'm gonna go live in James's Facebook group. And it was like, Oh, is he alright with that and I said well yeah he seems to be but actually, the feedback was amazing. So I just kept doing it. Know what I talked about some days, knowing me, just random chatting shit.

Sarah Elizabeth  04:58

I love it. Well, obviously that gave you the grounding for becoming a coach yourself now, 

Pippa Matthews  05:03

Well, yeah, and I still, I mean, at that time, I'd already qualified, and I was coaching in his academy, and I had my own one to one clients, but only on a fat loss kind of basis. But actually realising that that was at similar time, the year before my perimenopause hit me like a 10 ton truck, and I legitimately thought I was losing my mind. I I'd had symptoms that I didn't really relate, at the time, to perimenopause, and because now you Google it, you get so much stuff. Everyone's talking about it. There's it's on podcast, it's on Instagram, it's on Tiktok, it's on Facebook. But 2018 2019, nobody was talking about it online. No one at all. And I didn't really realise that was it. My mum had ovarian cancer, and she passed away when she was 54 so she also had a hysterectomy. They left her ovaries, and we didn't talk about menopause. I just was never really aware of it was a thing. I know that when my mum's mum used to take to a bed quite a bit when I was younger. And now, correlating that back, that's probably when she was having some tough times, but you just didn't talk about it. And I genuinely thought and it culminated on so many symptoms that now straight away, I realised were absolutely I probably been perimenopausal for about 18 months. That was culminating through so all the time that I separated from my husband of 23 years, and all of doubts and insecurities and paranoia and feeling awful about myself, I think there was a huge contributing factor there in my menopause symptoms contributing to that feeling of, I don't know, it's kind of like a blind panic. You get to a lot of feelings for me of not being a good wife or the person that he might have wanted. No criticism of him. He was a good husband. He really was, but yeah, I ended up in a heap on the kitchen floor in 2019 with both dogs crying my eyes out and ringing Ian at work, bearing in mind we were separated, saying you need to come home. And he's like, why? Because I really think I've now completely lost the plot. I think I've got early onset dementia. Oh, my mind. I think if we go to the doctor, I think he might section me, and Ian, bless him, came home from work, took one look at me on the floor. He said, right, let's get you off the floor. Then he rang the doctor, he got me an appointment, and we went over that afternoon. He came with me and my family doctor, bless him, no word of perimenopause, still no friction for antidepressants and some talking therapy. And I went back home, and I said to Ian, I went, he's giving me antidepressants. I went to the waiting room, and then you're not depressed. He said, I know what you were like when your mum died. Mum died. He said, You're not depressed. He said, This is something different. So I started doing a lot of research online, and I came across Dr Louise Newson online, yep. And started really reading a load of her stuff. And by this time, it was kind of like Christmas 2019, probably into January, and I hadn't taken the antidepressants. Now that's probably just been being a stubborn ass, but I kind of knew I wasn't depressed. I knew there was something else going on. And I started to read up all of her stuff, and she was holding a one day clinicians conference for first line clinicians, and I messaged her on Instagram, and I said, Look, I'm not a first line clinician, but I'm a coach. I coach a lot of women explain what I did. Will this guy over my head and can I come? And she was like, it might go over your head a little bit, but sure, you can buy a ticket. So off I did. I went to went to Warwick, to a hotel in Warwick, or was it Straford upon Avon, it was one of the two, and went to a one day conference all about menopause. And, oh my god. It was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, light bulb going off everywhere. I was like, Oh my god. This is me. This is me. This is me. And I was sat next to a nurse, practice nurse from a surgery. And at the break, I just went, I feel so stupid. I said, because actually I'm not a nurse, but actually this is me. And she went, oh my god, I'm a nurse. This is me too, and I didn't realise either. Wow. So I took all of my notes and stuff from that day, and I scanned them all in when I got home that night, and I emailed them to my GP with an email, and it took him two days, but to be fair to me, replied. He said, I think you should come in. He said come in tomorrow morning, nine o'clock, and we went in. So I've raised everything. He said. I spoke to Dr Newton yesterday, fair play to my GP. He said let's get you on some HRT.Within three weeks, I started to feel more like me. We had to tweak it a little bit. And the patches I've got the skin that patches don't stick to, if you've got everelle patches, they just don't stick at all to me or whatsoever. But I got on some gel, some sandrina gel, and start, and within probably four or five months, I got me back and I could function again. And it's been a bit of a journey. If I'd have my HRT adjusted a few times. But yeah, that was a very long, long winded answer. So sorry. 

Sarah Elizabeth  10:00

No, I think that's it's so interesting, isn't it, because I think that you're, you're absolutely right. People don't talk about it. You know, my my mum, interesting. My mum had ovarian cancer as well. She ended up actually dying of Motor NeuroneDisease, but she had ovarian cancer, and she never spoke about the menopause at all. She had a hysterectomy again. It was just not spoken about. I remember my mother in law, my ex mother in law, should say talking about night sweats a little bit, but nothing about all of the other symptoms. And there's so many other symptoms, isn't it? 

Sarah Elizabeth  10:31

Yeah, and it's weird. So I I got the occasional hot flush. The night sweats came really early for me, and then they went even before I was on HRT. I only had them for a very short period of time, but the bits that were made was the brain fog. I couldn't string a sentence together. I couldn't concentrate. My mood was horrendous. It was all over the place. The itchy skin was enough to drive me insane. I kept thinking that we got fleas in the house because I just couldn't stop itching. I got a real thing about it. My hair went really thin, my skin was all of a sudden really dry, and my nails wouldn't grow, and I felt like getting out of bed in the morning. I felt like a little old lady in 93 honestly, that's how I would pronounce. So I'd like trained like Since 2015 I'd gone through my journey with weightlifting, and I gone from like the body coach weightlifting plan to one of James's plans to then doing some CrossFit for a while. Then, as you do, you injure yourself. Hello, shoulder. Ended up doing CrossFit. So then I've gone back to but then I got into strongman training. So in 2017 I was strongman training twice a week. 

Sarah Elizabeth  11:37

Oh, wow. 

Pippa Matthews  11:38

So I was like, chucking axels around and doing loads of calories. I was doing double body weight. Yoke carries Bloody hell. And doing some like, body weight in each hand, farmers, walks 140 kilo deadlifts. I was I was in it. I was there. So I was training like five or six days a week, two of those being strongman sessions. And my body was recovering. And then it started to just slowly, like, No, I can't do that anymore, what's going on? And I just by the 2018 I was struggling to get to the gym probably three times a week, really struggling. And you kind of don't realise that, because your recovery is impacted as well. So things that you think, why can't I do that anymore? Being women were then really down and hard on ourselves. And actually you can't, because your woman's are having a party at your expense or haven't. Expense. They're having a complete riot your expense. And if you don't know what's going on, it can be really, really, really brutal, plus the fact that then if your cognition and your mood isn't good and your sleep's disrupted, it's like this perfect storm for thinking you're having some sort of manic episode or a breakdown, or that you've got something really, really, really wrong with you? 

Sarah Elizabeth  12:43

Yeah, absolutely. I've got friends that will say that they think they've got early onset dementia because of the brain fog. And, you know, walking into another room and not knowing why they went in there, it's interesting. You say about itchy skin, because I get really itchy skin. I was saying I'm 53 this year. And, yeah, I was kind of, I don't know, and I've said for years, I'm always hot, right? But it's not hot flushes. I like, you know, I'm always hot. It's kind of one of those things, but it's so interesting, because there's all these, like, little bits that have kind of happened, but you attribute them to some other things. So like my mood, if I'm feeling a bit down, like attributed to something else going on in life, or I've got Crohn's disease, so if I'm got fatigue and all of the rest of it, it's Crohn's rather than.

Pippa Matthews  13:33

Yeah, it's really weird, isn't it? And there's things that now I can look back. So I went through a phase in 2016 2017 where I kept getting vertigo. Vertigo, all your vision goes swimming, and you just lie down. And I remember, at the time, I remember mentioning it to my ex husband, and he just said, You sure didn't have to have too much wine last night. old, girl, you know. And then you think, Oh, maybe I did, but, and I didn't get it lots, but I got it like, probably every, like, six to eight weeks. I'd probably get it for two or three times in a week, and then I wouldn't get it again for another six to another six to eight weeks. And you just think, well, because I was at the time, having a regular cycle still, yeah. And you think, Oh, it can't be menopause, because my cycle's still regular. And people don't realise that you can still have a regular cycle and have huge perimenopause symptoms. The symptoms can last for 10 to 12 years, in some cases. 

Sarah Elizabeth  14:22

And I think as well, there's so much scare mongering around HRT, because eventually I was talking to someone at work about it, and we've got a Bupa menopause service with the day job that she was like why don't you just go on that see what they say. And I went to see this menopause doctor. She was amazing, and she just explained it all, and she was like, Look, it doesn't really matter where it's come from, whether it's Crohn's, whether it's circumstances, whether it's something else. The fact is, do you or the age you are, you are more likely going to be perimenopausal. So. So there is no harm in having some HRT. I've got the Mirena coil, so I only needed the oestrogen bit. And so she gave me the gel. And I'm quite good with my skincare and stuff. So it wasn't like I needed to remember to do it. So I was like, Yeah, that's fine. Works for me? And it's kind of like, well, if there's no harm, then.

Pippa Matthews  15:20

Yeah, I think the thing is, it's about perspective, isn't it? It's about where you get your information from. So if you get all your information from social media, and particularly if you follow a lot of, I'm trying not to generalise here, but a lot of American led influences, yeah, some real scaremongering still going on in America around HRT, massively, there's some great work being done over there. There's some really amazing doctors, if you want to follow one on Instagram, Dr Jen Gunter, she is amazing. She what she doesn't know about the female body isn't worth knowing. Wow. But the original study that gave all the fear mongering about HRT was carried out with the old style HRT on a group of white, obese Midwestern women. There was no control. It wasn't particularly good study. It wasn't particularly well thought through, and it was just so such a snapshot, and it was quite a small study, and the mainstream media picked up on it, and that was the one that was featured in The Daily Mail, probably in the early 2012 onwards. That's the one that they referred to for donkey's years. You know that, oh, the risks of HRT are this, this, this and this and this. And to be honest, when you look at it, if you drink, if you drink alcohol, your risk with HRT of all cause mortality is exactly the same as if you drink a glass of a standard sized glass of white wine every day.

Sarah Elizabeth  16:50

So Wow. So it's exactly the same. 

Pippa Matthews  16:53

Yeah, that's, that's how Dr Newson put it to me. And when you look at it, it's, you know, the risk. You've got to make your own informed decision. And yes, if you have a family history of female cancers, then or female lead cancers, then you need to be really informed and cautious. But that's a conversation for you and your family GP that knows you, and if your family GP has run out of talent, as mine put at the time, he said, I didn't have the talent at the time, but now I know, lovely bloke,

Sarah Elizabeth  17:22

I think, to actually phone Dr Louise Newson. That's amazing. 

Pippa Matthews  17:26

If your GP doesn't have the information, then go to a specialist. Because what the what they will do is they will explain to you the balance of probability of of what the risks are with taking HRT and what the risks of not taking it are, because we talk a lot about the risks of taking it, but the risks of not taking it. So for me, yes, my mum had ovarian cancer, so there is kind of like a bit of a risk around. Was it definitely ovarian cancer? It could have been endometrial or womb cancer. So that's a bit of a risk, but actually, the progesterone that I was taking mitigates that, and now I've bulletproofed it by having a mirena coil, which is the safest, biggest protection you can have if you're an HRT. Then if they offer you a mirena coil, I'd snatch their hands off every time. Yes, it's painful having it put it.

Sarah Elizabeth  18:16

Yes it was for me,

Pippa Matthews  18:16

it's a bit grotty afterwards, but once you've kind of settled down after about six weeks, best thing ever. But for me, it's, it's, you know, my dad's side of the family, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and a little bit of dementia. My mum's side of the family, osteoporosis, dementia, so oestrogen is going to protect me, or help protect me. It's going to minimise or lower my risk of those diseases. So, like osteoporosis is no joke. You know, my mum's sister lived till 80. I think she was 84 and she had a little hump. My grandma, my mum's mum, she had a hump. My great grandma, who I can still, I can remember, she had a little hump, what they used to call a widow's hump at the back, osteoporosis. So although I don't know that my mum would necessarily have got it that she was a smoker, so it's likely, and she had the hereditary thing. I don't smoke. I never have done but actually, I need to mitigate my risk of that. So yeah, it kind of, I think it's a balancing act with all of these things that you just need to figure out what's right for you, and there's no right or wrong. But don't kid yourself that a supplement you buy from, I don't know, Holland and Barrett, or from some influencer on Tik Tok is going to replace HRT, because it won't. You can do a lot of things around diet and exercise and sleep and stress management and making sure you eat enough varieties of plants, that you're eating a protein rich diet, that you're getting enough fibre, all of those things are hugely important anyway. 

Sarah Elizabeth  19:53

Yes, yeah, I was gonna say they're good for your health, 

Pippa Matthews  19:56

massively important anyway, but they are not going to replace what HRT would do.

Sarah Elizabeth  20:02

So I think it's really interesting, and I think it's really important to know as well, because we're not that well informed. And you know, for me, like I said, my mum died from ovarian cancer, but I'm actually adopted, so she she's not my genetic mother, even though she's my mum. Do you know what I mean? So I don't actually know any of my birth history, my medical history, so it is really important with these kinds of things clearly being informed. Because I didn't actually know that about the Mirena coil, I had mine because of fibroids, so I didn't know that. 

Pippa Matthews  20:37

Yeah, so it just shows how there's just so much information and getting the right information and knowing yourself what you need to do for your health. Absolutely that. It's quite strange. And I, you know, we talk about all of these things of women's health, and then I think I shared something. I did share something on my Facebook the other day about breast cancer risk, and I don't drink anymore. I've been next week, 1000 days sober, or 1000 days, every time I say 1000 days sober, my ex husband or something, or every time I say sober, he'll always message me, you were not an alcoholic. Would you stop saying that people think alcoholic? The difference is, I don't actually give a shit what people think.

Sarah Elizabeth  21:20

No I don't actually I wasn't an alcoholic, but I stopped drinking. I did dry January in 2023 because I caned it a lot. In 2022. I drank a lot after my divorce, and then in 2022 I was 50, so I was like, I really caned it. So I did dry January, and I've just never, I've never gone back. So that's that's amazing. So 1000 days is like, 

Pippa Matthews  21:45

Then you've done the same as me. So by choosing not to drink, you have reduced, or you have almost eliminated, your biggest risk for breast cancer. 

Sarah Elizabeth  21:55

Wow. 

Pippa Matthews  21:56

So the only reason I know that so one of my very close friends is a gynae gynaecologist Charlotte, the lovely Charlotte Dr Charlotte, and we were just chatting one day about something we're saying about breast cancer. And she said, Well, you've you've mitigated, you've reduced your biggest risk. Have I? How have I done that then? HRT? She went, No, no, no, no, no, should you don't drink. 

Sarah Elizabeth  22:17

Wow. 

Pippa Matthews  22:18

What? She said it's the biggest risk for women, particularly in midlife, for breast cancer, alcohol.

Sarah Elizabeth  22:25

See that is not widely, that's not widely out there is it?

Pippa Matthews  22:30

No, absolutely not and you know, and it's quite, is it really interesting that we do all these things about, you know, check your boobs every month for the lumps we have mammograms, we do all of these things. But actually, when you get into midlife, if someone says that to your new 30s, you're going to think, Oh no, that's going to be a bit overplayed. I don't drink that much. Blah, blah, blah. When you get into late 40s and early 50s, you actually hang on a minute, and then you'll look into it, and you'll think, oh my god, they're right. Yeah, well, actually, I I've at our age. Unfortunately, I've already lost two, two friends to breast cancer, and I've had probably another three or four friends know that. I know that have gone through it. And I think you really just need to just kind of, then that kind of statistic, if I ever thought about drinking again, which I don't intend to, that kind of thing, is enough to like, actually, no, it's not worth the risk. 

Sarah Elizabeth  23:17

It's not worth it. 

Pippa Matthews  23:18

It's not worth it at all. 

Sarah Elizabeth  23:19

No, it's not worth it at all? No, it is wild, isn't it? You've mentioned, obviously, you've mentioned that you were, you were married for 23 years. Yeah so was I. There's a lot of synchronicity. You are the unicorn of divorce, though, in that you divorced amicably, like it's, it's not that common. You are the unicorn, and you stay friends with him. 

Pippa Matthews  23:42

When we when we spoke about this, we're still friends. He's, I invited him and his fiance and her daughter round for Sunday dinner before Christmas. His fiance is lovely. She's really lovely. I think it's how you look at these things. Had I not done a lot of work on myself, would it have gone like that? I don't know. But when I, we kind of grew apart, yeah, really, he had a life changer, or he had a motorbike accident, probably about 15,17, years ago, now, nearly died. And, you know, we've been through some stuff, but actually, when you look at it on balance. So I have a stepdaughter who I met her dad when she was, I met Ian when she was three. And I never wanted to be in the situation where whatever happened in her life in the future, she would think that she couldn't invite her her dad and me to be in the same room at the same time, and that was always my overarching thing in my head. Having had parents that loved each other to death, but were also quite volatile with each other, I just never wanted that situation to arise. Yeah, so when we separated, it was a bit grim for the first three months, but then kind of we got over ourselves, and we decided to be grown ups. We had to share a house, still financially, I couldn't afford to buy him out, and we had to be grown ups about it. We got to a point after doing lockdown together in that kind of summer where he was already seeing somebody else. I'd started dating a little bit. We'd agreed nobody back to the house, but it all just got a bit weird and and I remember saying to him, I don't know how we're going to do this, because I can't afford to buy you out yet, but it's almost like one of us needs to move out before we fall out. And he said, Yeah, couldn't agree more. And I think that's normal. It's natural. You know, you can't move out because your dad lives over the workshop and he needs, he said, so I've got to move out. So we had to kind of figure that out. And as a family, my dad helped out a little bit and helped him a little bit to buy his canal boat, which he still lives on, he's very, very happy on, but it's kind of for me, the whole divorce thing, I went through the financial chaos, big style, and I'm still not I'm clear of it now, but that's kind of left quite a big mark on me, that uncertainty around finances, I think. And I think that's true for a lot of women, whatever your circumstances are, absolutely and it is for me, until I moved into this house in January last year, I'd never, never bought a house by myself. My first flat I bought, I bought with the guy I was engaged to at the time. Yeah, didn't go well. Ian and I bought, obviously, a couple of houses together. We bought into my parents house after my mum died and my dad moved into the flat, we did all the stuff on the thing. But until my dad passed away, I'd never lived on my own, so I was in that part of the house on my own. My dad was still in the flat above the workshop, and it's so the growth probably emotionally in the last two years, and the sheer blind panic sometimes you do, sometimes just feel like, God, it's just me and that thing of having just to rely on yourself. I haven't got any siblings. I'm an only child. I have a great relationship with my stepdaughter. Still. We see each other, and I've got some really good girlfriends. But if it wasn't for my girlfriends, I don't know how I would navigate it. Certainly not since my dad died. Yeah, so, yeah, it's been tough. 

Sarah Elizabeth  27:23

It's really hard, isn't it, to learn to do life on your own. 

Pippa Matthews  27:30

It is particularly when you've I mean, I got married when I was 24 and that's quite telling that I got married when I was 24 and I didn't go out to university, but I'd never lived on my own. I'd gone from my parents house to living with my first boyfriend to then coming back to my parents house to then moving in with my then husband to be and I'd never lived alone. I'd never had to, you know, and my ex husband's a very, very practical guy. He can fix pretty much. Quote from my daughter when she was like five, Dad, you can fix anything. He is one of those guys that can fix anything, yeah, and I try not to take the mickey, but when I first moved into this house, it's an old house. It's a Victorian house, and there was like, some real panic stricken focals and, you know? And I'm grateful for his grace and patience, and for his fiance's grace and patience, you know, because and they both came around when I moved in. I've been in about four or five weeks and and I said, like, I hate to ask, I said, but I've got this. I'm trying to learn how to use a drill. I said, I'm really worried about hanging this really big, heavy mirror. He said, I'll come and do it. I said, Well, do you want to bring Sarah? I'll make, make some brownies and have a cup of tea. And we did, and they came and saw the house and stuff. And it's other people have a bigger issue, big issue with it, because I think that's not normal. Well, actually, we didn't do anything to hurt each other, and he was my best friend for 23 years. So cutting him out of my life, would that be normal? 

Sarah Elizabeth  28:54

I don't think there is any such thing as normal. I just think it's, it's the, I like to think of it like the you're the unicorn. I do think they say it can happen. It can happen 

Pippa Matthews  29:06

Shall I do a little unicorn pose.

Sarah Elizabeth  29:11

You know, it's a great story, and it's a great example, and especially you know that you're still there for your stepdaughter. 

Pippa Matthews  29:19

Oh, God, I love her to bits. She's married. She's got her own life, yeah, but we genuinely like spending time with each other, with the most blissful Saturday morning a local garden centre last week in breakfast, catching up, having coffee, spending far too much money on plants that we hadn't planned to buy. We're going to do the same this Saturday, because we both love a garden centre. 

Sarah Elizabeth  29:40

So good, honestly, so good. You could, you could be the, I'm the one that goes fucking cheating lying wanker, and you, you're the one that goes no divorce is okay.

Pippa Matthews  29:50

I'm not gonna give myself kind of like angelic proportions here, if there had been anything like that, and I'm gonna say that with the then the breakup from the guy that I met after Ian and I separated, yeah, that I was engaged to. Did I behave with grace and decorum then? Absolutely freaking not. Like, don't kind of give me this halo that I don't deserve.

Sarah Elizabeth  30:19

We'll give you the halo. We'll give you that unicorn, the unicorn horns. We're giving it to you.

Pippa Matthews  30:22

That's gonna be my new thing now.

Sarah Elizabeth  30:29

But how much do you think, though? Because you've got the whole men midlife crisis, because that's where I thought my ex husband was, you know, that's all the research and shit that I was doing when we first split up, it was like, Oh, my God, he's having a midlife crisis, because that's the thing. And I think they're now talking about the manopause, aren't they? They're now talking about the you know, because men have got to have it as well. But how much do you think the menopause and midlife and that whole life change for men and women does influence because there's so much divorce in couples over 50, yeah, particularly they call it the grey divorce. But over 40,50, and people I've seen it in my own network that have been together 20 plus years, and then suddenly, and you think that they're the perfect marriage. People thought that about me and my ex husband. 

Pippa Matthews  31:29

People thought that about me and my ex husband. Nobody could believe it 

Sarah Elizabeth  31:32

It's so interesting. It's like, how much do you think that the whole midlife menopause impacts that? 

Pippa Matthews  31:38

Hugely because I think, I think if you have a really open relationship where you discuss a lot of things, and you are used to talking about how you feel, and you're used to having adult conversations about navigating difficult situations, and you're used to that kind of communication, you're on a great footing, yeah, because there's a buck coming if you haven't got that, what can happen is, as a and I know this, obviously, from a woman's perspective, you feel differently. You don't really know what's going on with your body. All of a sudden, if you've had a different a good relationship with your body, you're like, What the hell's going on? But if you've never had a good relationship with your body, because you might have had body issues, image issues, let's face it, if you're our age, you grew up with Kate Moss saying nothing tastes as good as skinny feels for fun.

Sarah Elizabeth  32:31

Tyler banks on supermodels saying the size 12 was fat. 

Pippa Matthews  32:35

Yeah, you've probably done every diet under the sun, so your relationship, your body, is not going to be perhaps the best. And so then perimenopause comes along, and you might not realise it's that, but all of a sudden, everything feels different. Your body doesn't really feel like it's everything's changing. It feels like your body shape might change, because our fat stores tend to move a little bit. We tend to store fat a little bit differently. We have a big propensity to put on fat, we tend to our symptoms give us low energy and low mood. So therefore you're less likely to want to go to the gym, to want to exercise, to want to eat. Well, your motivation is going to be low. You've got stuff going on. All of a sudden, you might see wrinkles in the mirror, grey hairs, a chin hair. Oh, my God, let's not even talk about grey pubes, because, like, the most depressing thing ever, your first full wax. Well, I think, I think everything changes, and when you are not secure in your relationship, or you haven't got that open line of communication, you know, if you are changing a lot of darling, this is, I don't feel like sex tonight because my body just doesn't feel like mine. I don't feel attractive, I don't feel sexy, I feel weird. I feel, you know, and and I feel like I want to cry all the time or scream. And if you kind of haven't got those open lines of communication going the menopausal rage will take over at some point, because it always does, and you just want to rip people's heads off or scream at them. And if you haven't got those lines of communication that your partner is can say, Whoa, darling, Where's that coming from? And not bite back, because they know it isn't normal behaviour for you, yeah? And if you kind of dressing in baggier clothes, or being low in mood, or trying to hide your body or not wanting to participate, maybe in life, as you have done because you're struggling to navigate all of this and you don't feel able to talk about it, they're just going to think you don't want them, yeah? And that's they'll see it's a rejection of them, and if they are not secure, if you're both not secure in that relationship to start with. And I don't want to say the male ego is fragile, because everyone's egos can be fragile, but actually being rejected by your partner in a way that they then feel they can't come back. And say something, because they're going to get their head bitten off. Yeah. That's kind of like building a wall between the two of you. Yeah. And I would kind of see menopause as very much if you're not in a good place before you get into that period of your life when women go through that, and then they come out of it with some HRT and they find some other female kind of friends online, and some badass females they start following on Instagram, and they're actually, I'm not putting up with that shit anymore. Yes, this isn't what I want for me. Yeah, I can have something else, and that might not be that you've got a bad marriage, but actually what I had, I realised that actually that wasn't what I wanted for me. Going forward, I wanted something different. That doesn't mean I wanted a different man. I just wanted a different life for myself, Yes, and I think that's a really interesting thing, because a lot of the time, a man will assume that if you don't want them, it's because you want someone else, and it is. It's actually you choose yourself, and you choose you. That's the biggest thing. Isn't and women don't do that throughout their life so much. We're not taught we weren't our generation. Weren't taught to do that as kids. We weren't taught to put ourselves first in our teenage years. We weren't taught to, you know, we went through, I mean, I don't know about you, but when I first started work, it was still perfectly acceptable for some for a male manager to smack you on the ass as you walk past. Yep, you know. And you kind of you go, you've gone through all of that, but all of a sudden, navigating this mid part of your life, you get this choice, I think you can roll over and play dead and just go along with it and exist and hope that you know, maybe your grandkids or your kids carry you through and you find joy in that. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. If that's what you're happy with, or actually, a lot of us, we go, No, I don't want that anymore. Want more. I'm not having this. I'm not having this. I want to do that. I

Sarah Elizabeth  36:59

 call it the fuck it 50s. Let's do it. 

Pippa Matthews  37:02

Fuck it. 50s, because 50s, and I think that social media has really helped that happen for women and giving them that voice, because a lot of the time, if you've got before social media came along. A, how on earth would we all have known about perimenopause so much? But B, the other thing is, like your female friends, you know, if you'd have gone to one of your other friends, I just thought, oh, you know, I kind of there's something not right in my life. There's something missing, you know, certainly, and I'm not knocking the friendship group that I had at the time. My friendship group has changed quite dramatically. A couple of ladies have stayed constant, and primarily Catherine and Charlotte, Catherine's my best friend, but actually, some of the ladies that I was hanging around with at the time, they were just still, just have another glass of wine, yeah, and, and, you know, and it's kind of, you got a choice then, don't you? I think midlife is this choice choosing point and a lot more women actually do you know what? I choose me. I choose me, and that's what I'm going to do. And yeah, it's tough sometimes on your own. The sheer joy, though, for me, of leaving my house tidy and coming back to it tidy,

Sarah Elizabeth  38:18

Could not agree more, 

Pippa Matthews  38:20

The sheer joy of a good night's sleep, and the only snoring that will wake me up is my dog, and I will forgive him for that, not agree more, you know, and I think it's you also get to that point where you then find that your female friendships are the ones that give you the most joy, yes, and they, they ground you. And I've got male friends well, and I, you know, I'm a, I'm Team male supporter here, because I sound like I'm probably not, but I am. I love blokes. I love male conversation. I love chatting to them, spending time with them, and all the kind of stuff that comes with that. But you know, the absolute rocks in my life are my female friends and my female network, because they are the women that show up for me every single damn time that I need them. And I think there's a power in that that all of a sudden makes you think, yeah, I can, and I want to. I want to, you know what? I just want different. I want something different. And that's okay. 

Sarah Elizabeth  39:19

It's so empowering, isn't it to actually choose yourself, yeah, and put yourself first, probably the first time in ever. Yeah, and talking of empowered, let's talk about your community Mpowered. 

Pippa Matthews  39:35

So my married name was McKean. My name now, obviously I've gone back to my maiden name, which is Matthews, but Mpowered came about with we talked about Pippa power quite a lot in the early days, but then, like Matthew's power, or McKean power Mpowered. M and then powered is my free Facebook community for women, completely free. I rock up in there a couple of times a week. I did lives. I did Q and A's. You can always get. Help or support, or you can always go in if you are want something to celebrate or you're having a tough day. We set intentions on a Monday. We kind of celebrate our wins on a Friday, but it's a it's a safe space for women. So if you one of my core values is I talked about wanting to be the woman that I needed back in 2019 but one of my core values is that any woman can get some support and help, no matter what her economic situation. So if you are up shit Creek financially and you can't afford a coach or a programme or whatever, then it's free. And you can tag me, you can ask for help, and I will answer and support as many people as I can. There are a few other coaches in there. I've got a lovely admin team, Stacey, Deb and Hilary, and we will just help and support and be there for women. And I think that's really important. 

Sarah Elizabeth  40:49

That's beautiful. I love it. I love it, and I'm in that community.

Pippa Matthews  40:52

I know I was like oh Sarah's joined.

Sarah Elizabeth  40:57

So in terms of, like, getting our confidence in midlife and starting to kind of move into that choosing ourselves. What would be your one top tip for someone listening now that is probably going for a divorce, if they're listening to this podcast, they're probably going for the menopause as well. They're probably feeling quite shit, and don't know where to start in choosing themselves. What would be your one top tip in moving forward? 

Pippa Matthews  41:26

I think a lot of the time, women, particularly, we, tend to compare our current version of ourselves to a past version of ourselves. 

Sarah Elizabeth  41:35

That's so true, 

Pippa Matthews  41:35

and the past version of ourselves might have been, well, we'll have been younger. They might have been at a different time in their lives. They might be premenopausal. They might not have had kids at that time. So you're trying to latch on to this idealised version of you that you're holding in your head, and you're thinking, I just want to get back to that. And my biggest bit of advice would be, meet yourself where you are right now, if you are constantly trying to convey it back to a past version of you, you will be endlessly disappointed, because you won't have, perhaps, the energy, the body composition, the hormone levels you had then, but now You're different because you have life experience. You have that desire to change. You have that kind of impetus of like, Whatever has happened to you, you need to develop that inner knowing of, I'm going to be okay. So actually stop with a comparison and actually think about, what do I really want? What do I really want? And most of us, what we want is to be happy. It's a simple thing. We want to be happy. And we think that to be happy we might have to be particular size, a particular scale, weight. We might live in a particular house, driver to particular car, have a particular job. That's all bollocks. It's absolute bollocks. So if you are really out of your out of your comfort zone at the moment, and you feel like life is kicking your ass. I want you to sit down and write down a list of as many things as you can think of that just make you smile, that make you feel happy in that moment that might be for me, it's coffee in the sunshine in the garden. It's playing catch with my dog. It's the feeling when that first sip of a brew in the morning, first thing in the morning, it's chatting on the phone with my best friend. It's having a bubble bath. It's reading a really good book. It's, you know, being able to sit and watch a film uninterrupted. It's lighting the fire on a cold night and making myself a nice cup of tea and curling up with a book. It's sunshine coming through the window on a miserable day when you just get that little glimmer of it come through the clouds. Some people call them glimmers. I got this from my original coach, Paul Mort, but he calls it a happiness buffet. You know, if you start that list of all the tiny things that make you smile. Yeah, all of them, whether it involves other people, they've got to cost money, but the tiny things that make you smile. And every day, plan to do at least one of them, just one of them. And if you think you get up in the morning, I've got nothing to look forward to, you just look at your list, and you think, Oh, can I get two or three of those in today? For you, it might be spending time with your grandkids. It might be FaceTiming one of your grandkids, but just plan to do one or two of them every single day, because then what you'll realise is that actually, the happiness is there. It's all around you, and it's in your life. The joy is there already. You're just not taking the time to notice it or focus on it. That would be my advice. 

Sarah Elizabeth  44:45

I absolutely love that. That's such brilliant advice. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll leave the link to your Facebook group. And also, do you want your Instagram? 

Pippa Matthews  44:56

Yes, please. So on Instagram, I'm I am that Pippa and that came about because I'm in the back of James's second book.

Sarah Elizabeth  45:03

I'm that Pippa, and also Pippa Matthews, you've had some challenges with your name because of a certain other Pippa Matthews, claimed your name. 

Pippa Matthews  45:18

I know, rude. It's quite, quite difficult, really, because I wanted, like a Pippa Matthews on Instagram, but actually, no, apparently that you know someone else. I like Princess of Wales, sister, how rude she married someone called Matthews But I did get, I did get Pippa matthews.com as my domain. I don't know how I manage that, but I did get in it. 

Sarah Elizabeth  45:37

That's yours. 

Pippa Matthews  45:38

Yeah,

Sarah Elizabeth  45:40

I will leave all the links in the show notes. I've got one last question for you, as you know, I run the divorce Book Club, which is a monthly membership podcast based book club based on all things divorce, relationship and personal development. Yep, if you had one book which I think I know what it is, if you had one book that you could recommend, what would it be and why? 

Pippa Matthews  46:03

Yeah, you did warn me about this. I think we talked about this already, so I've actually bought it here for it. I love it. So this book, it's girl, wash your face by Rachel Hollis, if you are in kind of the pit of despair, which I read this in, I want to say 2018 might have been early 2019, trying to remember now, but this book is about the lies that we tell ourselves as women. And before everyone, anyone was talking about, I coach on, like getting rid of limiting beliefs and on over, getting over procrastination and overwhelm. But before anyone was talking about, kind of really online, about limiting beliefs, about letting go of societal expectations and patriarchal expectations, and that need to be, to be a good girl, you need to read this book, and it basically goes through the lies we tell ourselves, or the lies that society tells us of what we're supposed to conform to as Women, and it debunks every single one I read this in one sitting. I started it at about five to eight at night, and I finished it at four o'clock in the morning. Wow. Cried so many times I went through a whole toilet roll because it was just it just spoke to me. So if you are in a bit of despair and you need to pick up and you need a bit of girl power. Rachel Hollis, girl, wash your face. Recommend it to anybody, everyone. I recommend it to loves it.  

Sarah Elizabeth  47:27

I've got it on order because you'd already mentioned it to me. I've got it on order. And if it's going to make me cry, the book club quite used to me bawling the eyes out. We've just done a book Know your worth, by Anna Mathur, and it's just like I bawled my eyes out on about three episodes of that one. So we love a bit of bawling. Pippa, it's been absolutely amazing having you on. Thank you so very, very much. 

Pippa Matthews  47:51

Loved it for being here, and I will be back in beautiful earbuds of the listeners again next week. So thank you.

Sarah Elizabeth  47:59

Bye. 

Pippa Matthews  47:59

Bye.


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