Hey friends, it's Rosie.
Welcome back to Radio Headspace.
Let me take you into a moment I wasn't prepared for.
I was standing in front of the mirror one morning and I didn't recognize myself.
Not in the Wow, I'm having a bad hair day kind of way.
Not even in the uh, I need more sleep kind of way.
It was deeper, terrifying actually.
My face, my body, my energy.
It all felt unfamiliar.
Almost like I was looking at a stranger.
And that's when I realized I had stepped into perimenopause.
No one had prepared me for how disorienting it could feel, not just physically, but mentally.
I didn't know at the time that my brain literally could not process all the hormone shifts that were happening.
What I saw in the mirror wasn't reality.
It was distortion.
But at that moment, all I felt was self-loathing.
And this, in Buddhist philosophy, is known as the super-secret enemy,
that deep hidden voice that turns inward and attacks convincing us that we're unworthy,
that we're broken, that we're somehow not enough.
It's the most dangerous kind of enemy, because it lives inside us.