#48: Embracing Feminine Energy To Heal From Stress with Teresa Lodato

Teresa:
It was almost like it was, it was celebrated in a sense, even though it wasn't. Yay. You're so great. It was wow. You're doing a lot. And I felt like that's what it means to be a woman is to be everything to everyone. That's what our role is. Boy was I wrong.

Michelle:
It's time to stop being the victim of your over-scheduled life and become the most powerful version of yourself. Welcome to she's got power. No, it's a common theme. Women who hit rock bottom with stress induced illnesses typically have been living a very go, go, go kind of life. Now, I don't know about you, but I kind of grew up with the idea that yeah, as a girl, I could do anything just as well as a boy, which is really wonderful. You know, that confidence was always there. I think it was instilled in our generation, but it meant taking on those more masculine qualities or enhancing those more masculine qualities within me, you know, of, of strength and perseverance. And the thing is that each of us have both feminine and masculine qualities. Everybody does the yin and the yang, right? But we live in a world where the masculine is rewarded. The achieving, the pushing, the doing the interview that I'm sharing today is a perfect, perfect example of this. Theresa Lodato is a woman who was able to take on any and every challenge from an intense career in finance to joining the Navy. But when her health collapsed, she had to find a new way. And as you're going to hear her, describe embrace more of her feminine energy. She's got an amazing story. Let's get to it, Theresa. I'm so happy to have you on the show today. Welcome. Thank

Teresa:
You. I'm so happy to be here.

Michelle:
I love sharing stories like this because it helps our listeners see that no matter where they are on their journey, someone has been there before. And from what I already know about your story, I know this is going to be a good one to share. So will you start off by telling us when you knew that you had hit rock bottom?

Teresa:
Oh goodness. There are actually two points. But the first one was when I had my first hemiplegic migraine episode and I didn't know what it was. My ex-husband had contacted my, we were married at the time and he had contacted nine 11 because I was experiencing stroke-like symptoms. And they rushed me off to the stroke hospital, which was like four hospitals away, which was, you know, riding in the ambulance was scary enough. But when I had spent five days in the hospital at the stroke hospital and I finally received my diagnosis, there was a team of neurologists and they presented my diagnoses, hemiplegic migraines. And then my doctor said, and you'll probably never work again with this condition. And that just sank for me because I was so wrapped up with who I was in my career. And then the second thing that happened right after they left, I started thinking through, you know, how is this going to impact my life?

Teresa:
And then I realized my husband hasn't come to visit me the entire time that I've been in the hospital. And I talked to the nurse and I said, has my husband been here? And maybe like missed me. And she lowered her eyes and said, no, he hasn't. And I said, has he called? And she just, she just shook her head. She couldn't even like raise her eyes and looked at me. And I thought to myself, [inaudible] it was already a challenging marriage. But at that point I thought, oh gosh, darn it. Now, what am I going to do now? I can't work.

Michelle:
Yeah. That

Teresa:
Guy. And how am I going to support myself and my young son through this process? And it was, it was just like this downward spiral where my mind was just trying to go a million miles a minute to try to absorb all this information. But it just I'm getting chills all over again. The fact that he didn't even come, he didn't even bring my young son. I mean, my son was four at the time. He didn't even bring him to the hospitals, see me, but that wasn't even on his mind. It's just my,

Michelle:
Okay. I think we feel you, we feel you on how that was like messed up. So, um, let me get this straight you're in the hospital. You're being told you're never going to work again. And up until that point, you had been working in private banking and investments, right? Yes.

Teresa:
I was an executive at a large wall street firm.

Michelle:
Okay. So to me, I don't know a lot about the industry, except when you say that to me, it sounds like you were probably walking around and some killer suit and you know, maybe long hours a demanding job and probably something that you had to fight for. Cause is that not a fairly male dominated industry?

Teresa:
It's definitely a male dominated industry. It was. Um, and you know, the late time and service was really what made the executive role. But, you know, I was working with clients that, um, you know, I was supporting the financial advisors who worked with clients that had, you know, the Steve jobs and, you know, all these top CEOs as their clients. And so I was doing functions. I was structuring loan deals. I was, you know, so they could buy the fifth Ferrari and the 10th vacation home. And, you know, so I was really trying to support them in their role, but absolutely expensive suits. You know, high heels was very much in that world, long hours. I would wake up at 3 45 in the morning so that I could work out at night and then catch the Bart train. Cause I live in the San Francisco bay area to get up to San Francisco.

Teresa:
So I could be in at like 5 45 before, you know, market opened and everything, and then I'd work until four. And that was actually leaving early. Cause you know, some of my assistants and other team members would be still working, but I had to leave. So I could take the almost hour Bart ride home so that I could pick up my son from daycare at five and then take him home, make dinner, spend a little time with him, put him to bed. And then at nine o'clock I was in bed again. And then at 3 45, I started that. So it was wash and repeat every single day. Yeah.

Michelle:
That's a lot. That's a lot. Did I hear you say you got up that early, so you could exercise before work?

Teresa:
Um, yes. Yeah. I hear

Michelle:
That so much from women. And I have to say like for everyone listening, if you have to choose between getting a full night's sleep or exercise, get the sleep. Absolutely.

Teresa:
I know. Looking back now, I think what the heck was I thinking? Well, you were

Michelle:
Trying to do it all. And I think that's very, very common. Wow. Okay. So now you're in the hospital and when you were telling that story, like my mind just lit up with this memory of mine from my own life. When I had gone to the gym and I had actually passed out in the locker room and that's sort of my, that you know that for you, it's these migraines, like my story always has revolved around fainting episodes. So I had not had a fainting episode in many, many years, but under a severe amount of stress, I suppose I didn't even realize it. I had a fainting episode, not that long ago and guess who we couldn't get ahold of my now ex-husband in fact it was crazy. A friend came to get me after, you know, after I'd been checked out by the MTS and everything. I was actually, a friend came, still cannot get ahold of my ex. And later that evening, when he walks through the door after of course there had been messages, there had been texts. There had been, you know, everything. He just looked at me and said, Hey, what's up? And I said, you didn't even check your messages. And I thought to myself, I need a new emergency contact.

Teresa:
I need a new, a lot of things, first starters.

Michelle:
So I feel you big time on that. So you must have started to think, not only okay, what's happening today, I'm not going to be able to work, you know, tomorrow, but how did that is this part of how I got here? Like what are all the things that led me to this point? So we've already talked about some of them, like the hours you were keeping the stress at work, this marriage that was perhaps not the best. What else? When you look back, what else got you to that point in the hospital?

Teresa:
You know, I think it was just a culmination of living. So my father died when I was eight and I was a daddy's girl if there ever was one. And it was just my sister, who's six years older and my mother and when my father died, I not only lost my father, but I also lost my mother in a sense, because she went from being, you know, really fulfilling those feminine roles of, you know, more nurturing and, you know, taking care of certain things so that I could, you know, just spend time with, with two parents, she had to shift to, you know, not only did she lose the love of her life, but then she had to start working. Cause my father had his own business and, you know, made all the money. So she had to start working. And then she also shifted into what I now recognize are some really distinct beliefs and perspectives that she had been raised with.

Teresa:
She was a child of the depression. She was born in 1928. And so she had a lot of fear-based thinking and she just, you know, control was a big thing. So when she, when I lost my father, she lost her husband. She shifted into this person that I didn't know. And she started relying heavily on my sister because she was a teenager at the time. And so they kind of became the family unit and I became kind of the third wheel and it wasn't her intention of course, but I felt now looking back that I'd actually been abandoned twice. And so I think that's really where it started. And in fact, talking with my neurologist, we can trace back my symptoms all the way to when I was nine, which was shortly after my father passed away. So really the migraine journey started back when I was nine after these things happened.

Teresa:
And you know, throughout my life, I was worked in male dominated industries. You know, I was in the Navy for a short time because I, I wanted, um, I was able to be an exchange student in high school and my mother widowed mother couldn't afford it. And so I wasn't able to do the exchange and I've always had this thirst for other cultures and traveling and, and I always wanted to communicate with everyone I wanted. I was just hungry for that. And so since I couldn't afford to travel, I joined the Navy and I traveled graduate at the top of my class, got choice of orders. Um, it just was, you know, the luck of the draw that I got a civilian oiler, which was basically like being on a cruise ship in the Navy. You know, I had, uh, a waiter, I go down to the dining hall and there'd be a waiter and there were white linens on the table and they would take your order.

Teresa:
You know, it wasn't the typical, but typical Navy, you know, I had my own room, it had a window. Um, I had my own bathroom. So the experience itself, as far as the setup was like being on a cruise ship. However, the stress of being in the Navy of, of having to be so structured of having to be so disciplined of, of having this chain of command and, and these rules and regulations that you had to follow, it was easy for me because that's the way my mother raised me because she was very controlling and had, you know, strict discipline. And she was a strict Catholic on top of it. However, I ended up getting discharged, honorably discharged for medical reasons because migraines got activated really aggravated bad. And so I didn't even make the connection at that time. It wasn't until I, you know, my 20 year career in financial services was ended on that fateful day that, you know, I started to pick up the thread and follow it. And, and that really is the journey, uh, over the last 10, 11 years of, of bringing me to where I am today.

Michelle:
Wow. So this too is very common. Um, in fact, we've done whole episodes about early trauma and childhood, really being a precursor to chronic stress as an adult. So in your case, feelings of abandonment, and when you look back, can you see how you compensated for that or how you were dealing with that? Like how did it shift your personality?

Teresa:
It made me very independent and, and in that, which now I recognize that it's not such a good thing is that I felt like I had to do everything myself. And so I think that is what the key that really, that, that belief within myself became how I lived my life and how I lived my relationships. I didn't feel like I could trust other people to be there for me or to do things for me or to help me. I felt like I had to do it all on my own. And with that kind of pressure, I mean, imagine nine-year-old little girl, when we moved from Illinois out to California, you know, my mother was obviously, you know, trying to figure out ways of, of getting kids involved in something so that she could work without paying daycare. And she and my aunt bought my sister and I, uh, two horses and they were, you know, just five or $600 horses.

Teresa:
They weren't anything fancy. And got, we got hooked up with a woman who, uh, did competitive trail riding. And so that woman kind of became our mentor, our kind of our, she wasn't really a babysitter, but she was the one who helped us. And so for me, because I couldn't rely on my mother to be there, to drive me to the ranch each day, I would walk. And I, gosh, I don't know what the actual mileage was, but it took me about, about an hour to walk. And I remember I had to walk down this down this road and then I took like a shortcut with just up and over this huge hill and down the other side to make it to the ranch where the horses were. And so I would do that every day. I would walk, you know, that hour after school and then, you know, do clean stalls to, you know, help pay the board for the horses, you know, do my training.

Teresa:
And then my mom would pick us up around, you know, six 30 around dinner time. And so already I was doing for myself, you know, my mother wasn't there. She was never a big cook anyway, but she definitely wasn't there to cook. So I took on the cooking in the household, you know, I would prepare the dinners, you know, I would, you know, do the, the Crock-Pot or the casserole when my sister would help some times, um, or I would just make myself food, you know, I'm 10, 11 years old and, and I'm doing that. So I was basically like a latchkey kid, I guess, is kind of the terminology. And so I think that that just grew, you know, and as you know, I got in different relationships. I recognized that that element of trust and that element of not being able to depend on anyone else was really showing up even in my relationships, but I wasn't even fully aware of how it was impacting me, like I said, until these last 10 years.

Teresa:
So there, there is a lot in that, that trauma where that loss early on that I think sets a pattern in a cycle. And if you're not aware of it, it can be, it's like running in the background of your life and it's making decisions for you, you know, in the work I do. Now, it's all about bringing consciousness awareness to that background noise so that you can make conscious choices. And I think really in doing that is what provides you the freedom, because when you're aware of it, I still have abandonment issues that pop up from now in and out, or time to time. You know, if, if, um, like if I have a, uh, you know, a not really a fight with my husband, we didn't really fight, but you know, if we have a disagreement about something that inner instinct in me is, okay, it's time to leave. That's just, that's just my go-to response. But now, because I've done so much work, I don't leave. I leave the room. I don't leave the relationship, which is what I had a pattern of doing mostly through my life.

Michelle:
Oh boy. Okay. I definitely teared up when you were talking about feeling like you had to do it all on your own, because that's very similar to the feeling I had growing up. And I hear this so often from women it's seen as a good thing, you know, like you were independent, you know, you, you clearly were able to do so much with your life. You were smart. You were at the top of your class. Like all these things are seen as positives. And if you look at someone who's the opposite and you say, oh gosh, they have everything handed to them on a silver platter. I think it's celebrated. It's very often celebrated to be someone who is so independent and does do so much and is a go getter. And yet there is this flip side to it.

Teresa:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And not only celebrated in society, but celebrate it even within my family, because the men had died off in my family. And so there we were nothing left, but these really incredibly strong women and, you know, it was no look at how great, you know, Theresa's doing, oh, she's getting straight A's oh, she's, she's doing this. And you know, she's going in the Navy, she's doing, gosh, she can't ever, you can't ever lock her down. She's always doing something we'd never keep track of her. It was almost like it was, it was celebrated in a sense, even though it wasn't yay. You're so great. It was wow. You're doing a lot. And I felt like that's what it means to be a woman is to be everything to everyone. That's what our role is. Boy, was I wrong? Yes.

Michelle:
Yes. And yes. And so it is this weird dichotomy of like, it, it is a positive character trait and it, maybe it's not, you know, maybe you're actually running from something else. Maybe we're hiding up hiding from something else, maybe all this. Well, anyway, it comes back to bite us in the long run. So for you, it was the migraines that started when you were in the Navy and became much worse as you found yourself in the hospital. And so now talk to us about what happened next. How did you step out of that hole and begin to heal?

Teresa:
Yeah, well, for that, it was about a year after the hospital, when I was diagnosed with hemiplegic migraines, which by the way, are a rare and serious form of migraine. Obviously I get stroke like symptoms down the left-hand side of my body, where I am completely paralyzed on my left side for an hour at a time. And then along with this are the migraine symptoms. So nausea, um, you know, intense head sensitivity to light, sensitivity to sound. And then what I would come out of the paralysis, the pain got even more intense. So, I mean, these are, these are things that would take me down for two to three days. And of course at that time, the only thing that they could do is manage the pain and I happen to be allergic to opioids. And so I had to take this, I called it my migraine cocktail, you know, it was, uh, you know, heavy duty, pain killer, like Dilaudid.

Teresa:
And, and then I had to take an anti-nausea in an anti-itch and crosscheck and a muscle relaxer. And there was, oh, and then the migraine abortive pill itself. So, I mean, the migraine itself would take me down, but then all the side effects of the medications would further take me down. So this was, you know, really an impactful time in my life. I was also part of hemiplegic migraines is, um, passing out and also, uh, vertigo and dizziness. So I couldn't drive for a year after I was diagnosed. So I was really put into this point of being completely dependent on everyone else that kind of, that your life lesson, right? The thing that you need to learn, if you don't learn it on your own life says, okay, we're going to make it happen for you. Yeah. What a gift. And during that time, you know, I really worked on creating a relationship with my ex-husband because I knew I was going to divorce him.

Teresa:
I was just like, you know, the hammer had fallen the last straw on the camel's back in the hospital. And so I was really prepping my time during that year of, okay, how am I going to do this? You know? So by the end of the year, when I got my driver's license back, you know, I told them, okay, we need to get divorced. I didn't get much pushback for him. I'm sure he was ready to be done with me. And I actually had also been in the process of filing for permanent disability through social security. Cause obviously, you know, the state disability, you know, once you exhaust that, that's your next step. And that was actually my second real bottom is when I had to appear before the judge. And you know, he at first said, why are you even here? This case should have been automatically approved.

Teresa:
And he said, well, since you're here, we'll run through the numbers. You know, how many days a week, you know, uh, how many days you're sick, you know, each month, you know? And it was something ridiculous, like 20 days that, you know, I couldn't work during the month. So it was, that was shocking to hear it all laid out before me. And then at the end, you know, he declared, I declare you permanently disabled. And when he did that, I started to tear up already just thinking about it. I just, I started to cry and my attorney was like, nudging me, stop crying.

Teresa:
Well, and this is a good thing. Just shut up. And the judge just looked at me and he said he was there anything you'd like to say? And through my tears, you know, I said, who am I, what am I supposed to do with my life? If I'm not my work? I mean, this is, I had gone to college for this. No I'm crying. I needed this years of my life that I had wrapped my identity. And it was such, you know, this, this moment of gosh, who am I? And the judge was so sweet. He goes, well, maybe you can do some volunteer work. I'm sure people could mentoring. And I walked out of the courtroom, but really has it set in when, when someone tells you, I mean, it's bad enough, the doctor's saying you're never going to work again. You know, I kind of, I think part of me was like, eh, yeah, you say that, but you don't know me.

Teresa:
I, I can do anything because I do everything right. I had that mindset, but when a judge tells you, okay, you, you are now permanently disabled. And, and you know, there's also that whole, all those issues that we have around being disabled, that word disabled, which I completely understand why people hate that term because it's just like, no, we're not, not able to do things. We just can't do some of the things that everyone else can do. So it's more that we're just challenged in certain areas, but that's a completely different topic. But at that point, when I realized that I thought, you know what? This is, this is my absolute bottom. Okay. I'm at the bottom. There's only one place to go and that's up. And so I started working with, you know, a top, uh, neurologist who specializes in, in my illness. And from there, you know, I got some relief, but I didn't get a whole lot of relief.

Teresa:
And so then I just started exploring Eastern and Western modalities, you know, different ways of healing, you know, exploration, you know, part of me, I thought, well, maybe if I just change careers, that's maybe that's, that'll do it. So I attended grad school studying psychology, you know, I thought, you know, comp, uh, counseling psychology, maybe that'll be my new career. Um, at the same time I was studying consciousness and transformative psychology because I wanted to learn more about myself and learn more about all these different ways of, uh, heal and, and mindset and, and everything. How can I get to know become more aware essentially. And through that process, you know, I have another story that we probably don't have time to share, but I was actually, um, at St. Mary's college in Moraga and in one of my classes on the weekend, and I had a migraine episode and it was at lunchtime when the whole class was gone and I was in the room and I had this episode and, you know, I was all kind of curled up in the corner.

Teresa:
Cause of course I couldn't move half my body. The lights were dim because my teacher knew that it was a migraine and there were kids outside that looked in and saw me sitting there and they said, oh my God, do you think that person's okay? You know, she's is she alive? And when they said that I could hear him and I gave him a thumbs up and they said, oh my God, she's so creepy. Look at, she looks like she's dead, but she's, you know, she's giving a thumbs up and I just started, I, you know, crying of course. And I thought then, and there, you know what, I need to really take time to, to heal.

Michelle:
So maybe not jump into another

Teresa:
Master's program because, you know, Hey, uh, and it really was, it was learning all those feminine qualities. You know, I realized in grad school studying this dichotomy that we all have within ourselves, these masculine and feminine qualities and how I was really like, if there were a, uh, a barometer or a, um, a graphing system of these two levels within me, I was maxed out on those masculine qualities. And I realized I really needed to invite in the feminine. And so what that meant to me was pausing, relaxing, letting go, getting quiet, going within, going with the flow and the work that I had to do to allow myself to do that was really the, the climbing out of the deep hole of that, you know, that I had bottomed out into. And, you know, I remember talking to some of my friends and they would say, Teresa, just let it, let it go.

Teresa:
Just, you know, let, so-and-so do whatever for you. You know, if I wasn't a relationship, let the guy do whatever it was so challenging to do that. So I understand the struggle that, that people go through when they have to do something that is so against how they have been living their lives up to that point. And I remember one of the assignments that I had been given by the coach that I had at the time was for my boyfriend to plan the entire day for me, that was my, and it was challenging. Just let him make all the decisions, you know, and I had to just, okay, it was like the liar liar movie, um, where, you know, he couldn't lie. He had to say yes or her, there was another movie. I can't remember if that's the one, but you had to say yes to everything. It was one of those moments in time. And through that process I learned, and it is through her experience. Isn't it that when you experience something that's different and you realize it's going to be okay, you may not like it, but you're going to make it through. It's going to be okay. That's the lesson that I was able to take away and build upon. That has gotten me to the point where I am now,

Michelle:
What a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I literally tear it up at least three times during this conversation, I can relate to so much of what you've shared and I really just blown away by everything that you've been through. And the, the way that you're able to describe these, the masculine qualities. And you can just trace that right back to what you said about your mom, having to take on the role that your dad left. It all makes so much sense. And yet women out there are struggling. They're somewhere along this path, not seeing the light at the tunnel. So thank you for showing that to us.

Teresa:
You're so welcome. It's quite a journey, but if, if I can do it, my goodness, any woman can do it. And so I'm so happy to be able to share my story. So thank you for giving me that platform so that I can help others too, to recognize their gifts.

Michelle:
Amazing. Theresa, thank you. And we will put a link to your website in our show notes. Thank you so much for joining us. [inaudible]

Michelle:
All right. So now's the hard part where I think after hearing that story, we have to confront where we're living hard, like where in life we're pushing, perhaps more than we need to and wonder where can I soften even just a little bit for notes on this episode, head over to she's got power.com/podcast. And if you found this episode useful, please take a moment, leave a written review on apple podcasts. This is how we get this message out to more women around the world. So I appreciate your help so much with that. And I'll be back next week.