Oct. 13, 2026

Perimenopause as a Sacred Passage: Embodiment, Energy Work & Hormones [VIDEO]

Show Notes

What if your symptoms aren't the problem? What if they're a message?

Harmony Slater and Russell Case welcome Allison Lorne, a certified nurse midwife with 25 years in women's health who guides women through perimenopause and menopause as a sacred passage rather than a set of symptoms to silence. Allison is also a spinal energetics practitioner, so the conversation moves between the clinical and the energetic: what hormones are doing, what the body is asking for, and how to come home to it.

Allison explains why she calls perimenopause "adolescence in reverse," how the history of hormone therapy shaped what women were told for two decades, and why emotional symptoms like anxiety, irritability, and sleeplessness often arrive first. She shares her own first symptom, why it took her years to recognize perimenopause, and how a lifetime of intuitive healing work led her from hospital nursing to private practice. Along the way: the grandmother hypothesis, a coven on California's Central Coast, dandelions, and a simple practice for tuning in to your inner wise woman.

In this episode

Why perimenopause can feel like adolescence in reverse, and what the big feelings are asking you to look at
How hormone therapy went from widely prescribed to widely feared, and what Allison says the reanalysis of the Women's Health Initiative data showed
Why Allison describes hormone therapy as comparable to insulin or thyroid medication, and why she says the decision is case by case
The emotional symptoms that often come first: anxiety, irritability, sleeplessness, a sense of doom, rising feminine rage
Allison's own first symptom, and why she did not recognize perimenopause for about ten years
How relationships change when children leave home, and why communication and intimacy matter in midlife
The grandmother hypothesis, orcas, and why menopause may be about purpose rather than decline
How spinal energetics keeps a client alert and engaged, and why that matters for lasting change
Why empaths need to learn "what's mine and what's not mine"
A simple daily practice for meeting your inner wise woman, using the elements of water, fire, earth, air, and ether

Key takeaways

Perimenopause is a whole-systems transition, not only a hormonal one. Emotional symptoms are information.
Allison's view: hormone therapy decisions are individual, and the greatest benefit is seen when it starts before 60 or within ten years of the last period. Talk with your own provider.
Midlife is an opportunity to take inventory of what has been pushed down and to choose embodiment, self-awareness, and nervous system regulation.
Women's health research has lagged behind, and community is part of the remedy.
Time in nature, even gazing at the sky, helps the brain settle into the states where insight arrives.

Guest bio

Allison Lorne, CNM, is a certified nurse midwife with 25 years in women's health. After two decades in hospital and clinical practice, she opened a private practice three years ago, where she guides women through perimenopause and menopause with a blend of clinical education, somatic work, and spinal energetics. She leads a three-month coaching program for women in midlife and lives on five acres on California's Central Coast.

Connect with Allison