Why Does Perimenopause Make Leaders Feel Like They're Losing Themselves? | Nick Kettles Leads a Real Coaching Session with Christie Mann

Summary:

If you've ever felt like your own body stopped taking direction from you, this one's for you.

This week on The UpLevel Podcast, join us for a deeply personal coaching session as Christie Mann, executive coach, leadership educator, and co-founder of UpLevel Productions, steps into the client seat as Master Certified Coach Nick Kettles, who has spent more than 25 years working with grief, transition, and ancestral healing, guides her through one of the biggest transitions of her life.

Together they explore the grief of letting go of an identity built on capacity, achievement, and always having it together.

This conversation is about far more than hormones. It is about what happens when the version of yourself that has carried you for decades can no longer carry you the same way. It is about learning to rest without guilt, discovering a different kind of strength, and trusting that wisdom often grows when productivity slows.

Nick brings together Co-Active Coaching, grief work, constellation practices, trauma-informed coaching, and ancestral healing to help Christie make meaning of this threshold. What begins as a conversation about fear gradually becomes an exploration of possibility, elderhood, and giving ourselves permission to become someone new.

Whether you are experiencing perimenopause yourself, supporting someone who is, or navigating any season of profound transition, this episode offers language, compassion, and hope for what can emerge when we stop fighting change.

In this episode, we'll explore:

• Why the exhaustion of perimenopause might be making room for something deeper than physical rest

• The difference between leadership and eldership, and why one requires letting go of the other

• What it means to "own" your energy, your work, and your worth without deferring or diluting it

• How ancestral trauma and ancestral vitality both live in the body, and how naming your lineage can be part of healing it

• Why so many women in this season describe feeling like Bambi: new, unsteady, and strangely innocent

• A moment of real grief work, honoring a great-grandmother lost to suicide and the silence that followed

Coaching Grief and Loss Masterclass | Oct 14th for 5 weeks 

Reserve your slot here: https://phoenixconsulting.eu.com/coaching-grief-and-loss/

UpLevel with Grace | Substack

Read Here: When the Estrogen Has Left the Building

Order of Topics:

• Setting the Stage for Coaching

• Honoring Lineage and Ancestry

• Naming the Topic and Setting Intentions

• The Threshold Experience

• The In-Between Space

• Embracing Innocence and Rest

• Facing Edges and Redefining Capacity

• Rest, Depth, and Female Wisdom

• Permission, Possibility, and Creating Wholeness

• Eldership and Ancestral Wisdom

• Grief, Lineage, and Healing

• Ownership, Agency, and Commitment

• Integration and Closure

  
  

Action Items:

• Reset Relationships with Intent

  • Begin important conversations by acknowledging past experiences and setting a fresh, co-created context.

  • Use permission-based frameworks to ensure openness and respect.

• Honor Your Ancestry

  • Acknowledge your ancestors as sources of strength during transitions.

  • Name them in moments of reflection to feel grounded and supported.

• Embrace Biological Changes Openly

  • Discuss life stages like menopause/perimenopause openly to break societal taboos.

  • Recognize these phases as identity thresholds offering new possibilities.

• Connect with Inner Parts

  • Dialogue with different aspects of yourself (e.g., younger self) for validation and reassurance.

  • Allow physiological responses to guide your understanding of safety and truth.

• Shift from Fear to Possibility

  • Reframe overwhelming feelings as opportunities for growth rather than deficits.

  • Give yourself permission to inhabit transitional spaces fully, embracing both grief and celebration.

• Reclaim Wisdom through Eldership

  • View life transitions as steps into eldership, where wisdom is valued over linear progress.

  • Engage with traditions that honor the depth gained through lived experience.

• Own Your Contributions Boldly

  • Transition from collective language (“we”) to personal ownership (“I”) when discussing achievements or needs.

  • Set clear boundaries around energy distribution in various relationships or contexts.

• Balance Innocence with Wisdom – Honor the coexistence of innocence (curiosity) alongside earned wisdom in decision-making processes. See this balance as necessary for authentic leadership and creativity.

• Commitment Through Tangible Actions – Identify concrete actions that align with your current identity stage—like creative projects—that reflect inner work done on innocence or transformation themes.

• Foster Collective Healing – Share personal processes publicly when appropriate; it can offer healing permissions not just for you but also inspire others navigating similar journeys.

About Nick:

Nick is a Master Certified Coach, and healer of 25 years experience in the human potential movement. In a desire to escape an awkward and painful past, throughout his life, he frequently mistook his own adaptive and often reactive life strategies as evidence of a purposeful existence.

Today, however, he increasingly finds delight in finally moving slow enough to discover that our purpose and indeed our spirituality can be found at the heart of our messy humanity. This realization guides all his work whether as a coach, trainer, designer or writer.

Website: https://nickkettles.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickkettles/

Coaching Grief and Loss Masterclass | Oct 14th for 5 weeks 

Reserve your slot here: https://phoenixconsulting.eu.com/coaching-grief-and-loss/

🎉 The UpLevel Podcast was listed as one of the Top 10 Best Coaching Culture Podcasts!!! https://podcasts.feedspot.com/coaching_culture_podcasts

🎉 It was also ranked #4 among the top 50 Best Workplace Mental Health Podcasts! https://podcast.feedspot.com/workplace_mental_health_podcasts

About UpLevel Productions: Founded by Christie Mann, MA, CPCC, PCC, and Rachel Baldi, CPCC, PCC, UpLevel creates, produces, and delivers Transformative Experiences, Workshops, Training, Events + Media that develop leaders who make our world a healthier, more alive, and connected place to be. As Associate CTI Faculty Partners, UpLevel is licensed to sell, produce, and deliver Co-Active coach training and leadership development programs around the world to support the transformational growth of individuals and culture inside the workplace and organization. www.uplevelproductions.com Instagram @uplevelproductions Facebook & LinkedIn @uplevelproductionscompany