Hey, friend!
I’m Charmaine Shaw, your menopause ally.
I’m In Your Corner
I know firsthand how menopause can be difficult, especially for Black women, and my goal is to help you take control, feel better, and improve your health.
Here’s My Process to Take Control of How You Feel
Understand How Your Body Changes
Empower yourself with knowledge about the natural changes in your hormones and bodily systems, so you can begin the process of managing your well-being. You live in your body; therefore, you need to understand its basic functions so that you can effectively manage it.
Cultivate Awareness and Recognize Triggers
Everything in and around you now impact your well-being differently – your thoughts, your diet, the temperature, and so on. Learn to recognize your personal triggers at work, home, or on the go that influence your symptoms, and you will increase your sense of control over how you feel, anytime, anywhere.
Incorporate A Holistic Approach That Enhances Balance
Get help so you can access the support and guidance needed to identify the tools and practices that can effectively enhance hormone balance, relieve symptoms, and improve overall well-being. You may feel overwhelmed by the changes, but know that there’s a solution to help you feel better.
Embrace A New Way of Living and Being
Align your lifestyle and mindset to embrace this new stage of life. In this way, you can easily make the changes necessary to support your well-being and feel more like yourself: rested, clear, calm, confident, and energized to do the work that matters to you and fulfill the dreams of your second half of life.
My Story
THE PERIMENOPAUSE YEARS
Here’s how I learned to take control and thrive.
As with so many other women, I was wholly unprepared for the midlife shift about to challenge my well-being back in my early 40s.
Not mincing words, I was flat-out scared when my body started acting up. My thoughts, mood and sleep had become a roller coaster and I felt like I had lost control. I was hot, then sweaty, then cold, and then hot again, but I didn’t have the flu. Night after night, I woke up in the middle of the night wide awake and unable to fall back to sleep, but I had to still get up sleep deprived and go to work. It was just awful—I was failing miserably at it and feeling ashamed about what was happening and pretending that I had it all together.
Most doctors fail Black women in menopause, gaslighting their difficulties and misdiagnosing issues.
I was told it was allergies, it was GERD, it was fatigue. After numerous tests and lab work that produced nothing, I remember relating my symptoms to my doctor for the umpteenth time, with the whole thing feeling like a matter of life or death to me yet of little consequence to him. While scribbling down some notes, he looked at me and said, “I believe you’re in perimenopause.” I asked him, “When am I going to feel better?” Right? That’s all we want to know. He responded, “When your period is finished in a few years, you will be back to feeling like yourself.” Just like that, I was unceremoniously ushered out of the office with a bag of pills to help me sleep, but without any explanation to fully understand the strangeness that had taken over my mind and body.
Despite the medication, I struggled, and my doctor was pretty much useless. I sought the help of herbalists and nutritionists to ultimately take the edge off, so I could tap into the energy to work again. Shortly thereafter, however, my symptoms returned with a vengeance. It was at this point that I decided to give progesterone hormone replacement a try, which did help, and for a while, I thought I’d found the magic pill! Not so fast… symptoms crept their way back in.
What you are told about menopause isn’t the whole story.
It is so much more than hormonal changes and the end of your period and reproduction. Think about this: menopause signals a profound change in you—physically, mentally, emotionally, and even your very identity. There is so much more to this biological change than simple relief treatments to cope with symptoms while hoping for the best.
It’s a personal transformation. So many factors in your life now impact how you feel and function.
Having decided to take my well-being matters into my own hands, I embarked on a journey to empower myself. As I immersed myself in understanding the biological changes my body was undergoing, I also began observing and journaling everything that I did and experienced as I wanted to figure out the root causes that were driving my symptoms. Over time, I started to gain insights into how much my thoughts, feelings, diet, sleep habits, environmental factors, and even stress influenced my symptoms.
I remember once having a long, exhausting day and noticing myself thinking, “I am so stressed,” a thought I had had hundreds of times before. But now also noticed that I actually felt more stressed and anxious while having this thought, and I experienced a hot flash as my body temperature increased. And as I began practicing redirecting my thoughts, I noticed I started feeling calmer, cooler, and more like myself. That was a powerful moment for me, as it was the first time, I realized how much my thoughts control my body, but that I also have control over my thoughts, and in that, I can self-regulate my hormones to feel better. I wasn’t a victim of my changing body; I just needed to understand how it works.
You now have to learn to cultivate balance by aligning your lifestyle to support the internal shifts and changes.
As I started to understand more about my changing well-being, I also became more aware of the imbalances in so many other areas of my life—work, relationships, friendships, finances, home life, etc.—that were also contributing to my symptoms. Cultivating balance to feel better now was essential. As I started to create changes in all areas, along with incorporating symptom relief treatments, loving the woman I was becoming, I began to feel like myself again.
My discoveries inspired me to become a menopause coach.
Whether your goal is to reduce hot flashes, improve sleep, lose weight, or enhance your overall well-being, I am here to provide guidance, education, support, and evidence-based strategies to help you relieve symptoms and improve your health and vitality to live fully in the second half of your life.
A Few Quick Facts About Me:
I’m a certified menopause, health, life, stress, sleep, and more!
I worked as a corporate executive for 20 years and, along the way, received an MBA from the University of New Orleans.
I’m a published author, speaker, and host of the Blackgirl Menopause Wellness podcast.
Born in Jamaica, I am a Los Angeles resident, a Gemini, a moonlight dancer, and an exercise lover who enjoys a good laugh.