What I learned about my body during menopause made me realize how much information most women never get.
When I found myself deep in menopause, my body suddenly felt like it was operating by a completely different set of rules.
I couldn't sleep.
My joints hurt.
My brain fog became so bad that I actually worried I might have early-onset dementia.
HRT helped enormously with my hot flashes and a potent apathy that had set in.
But it didn't solve everything.
And this is where I got lucky.
I was already surrounded by information that most women don't necessarily have access to.
My husband, Guy, had spent decades working with cannabis and cannabinoids, and for years I'd heard him talk about something called the endocannabinoid system, or ECS.
I knew it was a system in the body that cannabinoids interacted with. I knew it was involved in regulation. I knew Guy had spent years researching it and developing cannabinoid formulations.
But if I'm being honest, I had never really thought about what any of that had to do with me.
Until menopause made it impossible not to.
The Connection We Almost Missed
As I started learning more about the ECS, I began to recognize something that stopped me in my tracks.
This system is involved in regulating so many of the things I was suddenly struggling with; sleep, mood, pain, inflammation, cognition, stress response and more.
And there was another connection I hadn't understood before:
Estrogen and the endocannabinoid system interact.
As estrogen fluctuates and ultimately declines during perimenopause and menopause, that changing hormonal environment can affect endocannabinoid signaling, too.
I started to see my experience through a completely different lens.
Not as a collection of random things going wrong.
But as a body going through an enormous biological transition. Oone that I hadn't been given nearly enough information to understand.
And because Guy already understood cannabinoids and the ECS so deeply, I had something else most women don't necessarily have:
Someone I trusted who could help me explore what the research was saying and what options might exist.
He began developing formulations specifically around the things I was struggling with.
And for me, they made all the difference.
My sleep improved.
My body stopped aching.
My brain started to feel like mine again.
Eventually, those formulations would become the foundation for CLEA Midlife.
But something else happened that ultimately mattered just as much to me.
I realized how much I didn't know about my own body.
What if I hadn't been married to someone who knew so much about the ECS?
That's the question I couldn't stop thinking about.
Because even with someone in my own home who had been talking about the ECS for years, I hadn't understood what any of this might have to do with my own changing body.
I didn't know what questions to ask.
I didn't know how estrogen and the ECS were connected.
I didn't know what research existed around cannabinoids and women's health.
And I certainly didn't know how to separate what was actually being studied from the enormous amount of noise, misinformation and assumptions surrounding cannabis.
I started thinking about all the women who don't have someone like my husband in their lives.
How was the average woman supposed to know?
How would she know that the ECS even exists?
How would she know that our hormonal environment and this system interact?
How would she learn what cannabinoids actually are beyond everything we've been taught to associate with “cannabis”?
How would she know what the research says, where it's promising, where it's limited, or what questions she might want to ask?
And perhaps most importantly:
How can any of us make an informed choice about an option we don't know exists?
That question became part of the reason I created CLEA.
Not because I believe cannabinoids are the answer for every woman.
I don't.
I believe women deserve information.
Credible information about our bodies. About the science. About what's being studied. About what we know, what we don't know, and what questions are still unanswered.
And then we deserve the ability to decide for ourselves what belongs in our own toolkit.
That's a big part of why I created CLEA.
One Week From Today, We're Talking About It
The more I learned, the more I realized my experience wasn't really about cannabinoids.
It was about access to information.
Information about how many women move through perimenopause and menopause without ever being given a complete picture of what's happening in their bodies.
About how many potentially useful conversations never happen because we don't know the questions to ask.
And about how difficult it can still be to find thoughtful, credible information about plant-based options for women's wellness.
This is why I'm so excited about ELEVATE HER, a FREE virtual gathering happening October 1st.
We're bringing together an extraordinary group of women across health, wellness, medicine, research, education and plant-based care to have conversations that can still be surprisingly difficult for women to access elsewhere.
We'll be talking about our bodies and intimacy.
Mind, mood and relief.
Midlife and longevity.
The endocannabinoid system.
Plant-based options.
What we know.
What we don't know.
And the questions women deserve to be able to ask openly.
I'll also be giving the closing keynote, Women, Wellness & the Information Gap, where I'm going to dig into something I've become increasingly passionate about:
Why is so much information about women's bodies and some of the options available to support them still not reaching women?
That's a much bigger conversation.
And I don't want to give it all away here.
But I do want to invite you into it.
You don't need to know anything about cannabinoids.
You don't need to arrive with an opinion about any of it.
Just come curious.
If you've ever found yourself wondering...
What else is available to support me?
...this conversation is for you.
ELEVATE HER | October 1st
FREE + VIRTUAL
REGISTER FOR ELEVATE HER
Bring your questions.
And maybe bring another woman with you.
So much love,
Anea xo
