Mother of All Menopause Summits - The Power Pack Podcast

In this short meditation filmed from sunny Marrakech, Yasmina Cherquaoui helps you step out of “busy brain” and back into your body — quickly, gently, and without any spiritual performance required. She’ll guide you into a comfortable upright posture, soften tension in the jaw, shoulders, and face (because apparently we’ve all been clenching since 2009), then bring you into calm, steady breathing with tiny pauses that naturally slow the mind.As the practice unfolds, Yasmina uses simple grounding tools — noticing breath, relaxing muscles, tuning into sound, smell, taste, and physical sensations — before finishing with a lovely gratitude and joy focus to leave you lighter than you started. It’s a brilliant five-minute reset for any time you feel frazzled, scattered, or like you’ve been living in your head all day.

During perimenopause, our bodies need a little more intention after exercise — especially when it comes to energy, muscle recovery, and blood sugar balance. One of my favourite, quick post-workout snacks that supports hormones and feels like a treat, are my Chocolate Tahini Energy Squares — they take no time at all to make and use just a few powerful ingredients!

Change, from perimenopause to empty nests, all follows the same framework. In this presentation, anthropologist Veronica Zora Kirin breaks down her research on paradigm shifts to give you the tools for managing change without the ground falling away beneath you.

In this presentation Jennifer Mo (founder of Pura Collagen) shares how collagen became central to her own menopause journey, explaining that collagen production drops after our mid-20s and can decline further as oestrogen falls in perimenopause/menopause. She positions collagen as a “whole-body” support tool, not just for skin, hair and nails, and walks through the logic behind her condition-specific blends:Glow: skin-focused collagen peptides + supportive nutrients (e.g., vitamin C, biotin, hyaluronic acid) in an unflavoured powder.Balance: positioned around bone support plus botanicals and adaptogen-style ingredients, designed as a refreshing drink.Sleep: a bedtime “treat” style drink with collagen plus calming-support ingredients, used as needed.Flex: joint/tendon/cartilage-focused peptide approach, emphasising consistency over weeks.Digest: collagen + prebiotic (GOS) angle for gut comfort/bloating.GLPure+: a sachet product positioned for steadier blood sugar/meal response support.Protect: collagen plus immune-support nutrients (vitamin C, zinc, B vitamins) as a daytime pick-me-up.She finishes with her story: decades in formulation, building products during lockdown while navigating a personal transition, and a focus on “credible data” and practical daily use.Download the Pura Collagen data sheets hereAbout JenniferJennifer Mo, is a nutritional formulations expert and founder of multi award-winning Pura Collagen.Jennifer launched Pura in 2021, the only condition specific collagen supplement brand, after 25 years of working in the active, sports & health and wellness nutrition industry.With experience in performance nutrition, anatomy and bioscience, she has advised professionals from leading athletes and government ministries to Navy SEALS and Hollywood A-Listers.Having held key leadership roles within 3B+ turnover businesses, she has a great understanding of the health industry across the globe.puracollagen.co.ukinstagram.com/puracollagen

In Get Your Sexy Back — and Beyond: Confidence, Sensuality & Power in Midlife, Valerie Jacqueline Ritchie invites women to reconnect with themselves during midlife through a grounded, compassionate lens.The session reframes confidence and sensuality as inner states rather than external standards and introduces Valerie’s Three Pillars of Reclaiming Confidence: breaking free from societal expectations, reconnecting with sensuality and aliveness, and reclaiming power through self-care.Rather than offering quick fixes, the presentation creates space for reflection, self-trust, and gentle integration. Attendees leave feeling reassured, seen, and empowered to take one small, self-led step toward greater confidence, presence, and alignment in their lives.Access your free Gratitude Journaling Sprint Challenge, designed as a gentle, supportive next step to help women integrate what resonated from the session and begin rebuilding confidence, steadiness, and self-trust in midlife.

Many women reach a point where both work and home feel much harder to manage than they used to, yet they keep going, assuming it is stress or simply part of a busy life.In this powerful and practical session, Michelle Rowlinson explains why menopause and perimenopause can so often leave capable women questioning themselves, quietly adapting at work, and feeling stretched behind the scenes.Drawing on her own experience of both perimenopause and the role of a mum with a busy career working as a senior physiotherapist and menopause wellbeing practitioner, Michelle explores why so many women feel confused, start doubting themselves, and quietly struggle in professional settings.She unpacks how menopause symptoms really show up day to day, why they are so often misunderstood or misread at work, and the simple, practical adjustments that can make life feel more manageable without having to step back or suffer in silence.This session is about making sense of what is happening in your body, rebuilding confidence, and knowing what to do next, so you can stop second guessing yourself and feel more in control.

You should really try and have some protein with every meal. Not only does it keep you satiated, but it’s important for so many functions in the body: blood sugar support, weight loss support, muscle health and immune function are just a few.Breakfast is a good time to get a healthy serving in as it will help you stay fuller for longer and reduce mid-morning cravings, yet so many of us stick to a simple bowl of cereal.This dish might not be quite so instant, but you can pretty much bung it in the oven while you get on with other tasks. Using our Tomato Fondue Brilliant Base, it is protein, vitamin and mineral dense, as well as having good fats from both the avocado and eggs, as well as lots of lovely vitamin D.By using smoked tofu as well, you not only get a real flavour boost but a healthy dose of hormone friendly phytoestrogens.

In this short breathwork session, Yasmina Cherquaoui guides you through three simple breathing practices designed to calm the nervous system and bring you back into focus — the kind of reset that’s genuinely useful on a busy day (and doesn’t require a yoga mat, incense, or a personality transplant). You’ll start with rib breathing to create space in the lungs and encourage deeper, steadier breaths — especially helpful if you’ve spent the day folded over a desk like a prawn.From there, Yasmina takes you through alternative nostril breathing with gentle breath holds (with clear options to skip the holds if you’re pregnant, have high blood pressure, feel dizzy, or it’s just not your vibe today), and finishes with a “square breath” to settle the mind and soften tension. Use this before bed, before a presentation, or before an “uncomfortable conversation” where you’d quite like to stay calm and not launch into orbit.

Mid-afternoon is when many of us women in perimenopause feel our energy drop, our concentration dip, and that’s when the dreaded cravings can kick in! One of my favourite snacks to get through that window feeling steady and nourished are my Energy Balls — they’re quick, portable, and designed to support your blood sugar, mood, and hormones.

As hormones shift during perimenopause and menopause, many women are told to slow down, be careful, or “just walk more.” In this session, Susan Isichei explains why that advice is not only outdated — but potentially holding women back.Susan, founder of Bodytonics, makes a clear, empowering case for strength training as one of the most important tools women have in midlife. She breaks down how muscle loss, bone density decline, joint instability, and reduced confidence aren’t inevitable — and how the right kind of strength training can protect long-term health while improving energy, posture, balance, and everyday resilience.This isn’t about lifting heavy for the sake of it or training like you’re 25 again. It’s about building a stronger body that supports you through menopause and beyond.If you want to feel capable, confident, and physically robust in midlife, this session reframes strength training as essential — not optional.

Imagine returning from maternity leave and being made redundant within days. That moment was the catalyst for Rachelle Atkin to build a business around her — just as she was settling into life as a new mum and, unknowingly, heading into the menopause transition.Today, Rachelle’s Yorkshire Marketing Company is one of the standout marketing businesses in the north of England, supporting female business owners in midlife to create businesses that fit their energy, confidence, and real lives — not outdated expectations.In this interview with James Ellis, Rachelle shares why midlife is actually a powerful moment to rethink your personal brand, how confidence and visibility often take a hit at this stage of life, and the simple shifts that help women show up more clearly and comfortably as the face of their business.If you’ve ever felt like you’ve outgrown the version of yourself you built your career around, this conversation will land.

Procrastination and self-sabotage often show up during midlife and menopause — not because you’re doing something wrong, but because your system is under more strain than ever.In this session, Stepanka explores four common habits that quietly undermine confidence and make it harder to follow through on the changes you want to make. She explains why “just trying harder” rarely works at this stage of life, and why motivation and willpower alone are often the wrong tools.Drawing on her work as a clinical hypnotherapist and subconscious mind coach, Stepanka helps you understand the deeper patterns driving procrastination, avoidance, and stop-start behaviour — including the role of stress, hormonal shifts, and nervous system overwhelm.This practical, compassionate talk offers a different approach to change. You’ll learn how to work with your nervous system, rather than against it, and how to create small, supportive habits that actually last — without pressure, pushing, or self-blame.

The Power of Alignment: Authentic Living Through Your Human Design is a ~25-minute reflective and educational talk that reframes menopause as a profound neurological, hormonal, and identity recalibration—particularly for high-achieving women whose old “push harder” strategies no longer work.Rather than offering symptom management or productivity advice, the session validates women’s lived experience and introduces Human Design as a practical framework for alignment, self-trust, decision-making, and energy regulation in midlife.The talk is affirming, sovereignty-centered, and non-clinical, helping participants understand that feeling destabilized is not failure but an invitation to live in deeper alignment. It is best placed mid-to-late summit, following foundational menopause education, as a bridge into identity, nervous-system awareness, and personal integration, leaving attendees feeling seen, relieved, and empowered about this next chapter.

In this practical, confidence-boosting session, Bori Bojthe explains why so many capable women hate photos of themselves — and why it’s rarely about confidence or how you look. It’s about how cameras work.She breaks down the most common reasons we don’t like our photos: phone cameras flatten depth, exaggerate whatever is closest to the lens, mirror images feel “wrong,” and small technical mistakes (distance, angle, lighting) can completely distort how we appear. When no one explains this, we assume the problem is us.Bori then shows how to fix it, step by step. She covers simple but powerful tweaks: cleaning the lens, looking into the camera (not at yourself on the screen), increasing distance from the camera, using eye-level angles, tilting the camera slightly toward you, managing background clutter, and using natural light instead of flash. She also explains why positioning and framing can instantly make you look more like you do in real life — not bigger, flatter, or harsher.The takeaway is reassuring and empowering: you’re not “unphotogenic.” With a few adjustments and some practice, anyone can show up confidently on camera — for photos, video, lives, and business content — without dreading it.Slides for this presentation can be found in the resources sectionDownload Bori's free guide Say Goodbye to Double Chins hereAbout BoriBori Bojthe is an award-winning portrait and personal brand photographer with over 14 years of experience, specialising in helping women reconnect with their confidence through photography. She teaches women how to take control of their own image using simple, realistic techniques that work in real life.Known for her honest approach to camera confidence, Bori helps women work with the camera’s limitations so their photos and videos reflect how they look and feel in real life — not a filtered or perfected version of themselves.Through her workshops and online programmes, she supports women in overcoming camera avoidance, building confidence, and showing up consistently, without relying on heavy editing, filters, or perfection.www.boribojthe.co.ukhttps://www.linkedi.com/in/boribojthe

Dawn Pfingston (Just Doing My Best) is all about making midlife makeup and skincare simpler, cheaper, and way less rage-inducing. Her big reassurance up front: if your makeup suddenly isn’t behaving on menopausal/mature skin, you haven’t “forgotten how to do makeup” — your skin and face have changed, so the method needs to change too.She tackles three common midlife makeup frustrations:Makeup settling into fine lines (or looking crepey/cakey)Her fix is less product and more strategy: let skincare + SPF fully sink in, hydrate the under-eye with a balm (she likes one with caffeine for puffiness), then apply foundation in light layers using a brush and a stippling motion (no swiping). She also skips foundation directly under/over the eyes because that thin skin can’t handle a pile-on of products. If needed, she uses colour corrector first (to do the “heavy lifting”), then much less concealer, tapped in gently with a finger.“Everything is falling” (lifting the face with makeup)She suggests a simple rule: imagine a horizontal line from nose to ears — blush/bronzer/contour stays above it. Placing blush higher (closer to the eyes) lifts the face. She also shows a quick eye “lift” trick: a tiny swipe of concealer under the outer eye/liner, angled toward the temple, blended out to clean up and lift the shape.Longevity and staying smooth all dayIf makeup separates, looks rough by evening, or pores are screaming for attention, she recommends a primer as the under-makeup “spackle” — not magic, but it smooths and helps makeup grip. Then apply foundation with a brush (again, stippling) to avoid pilling. For wear time, she’s a big fan of setting spray, applied before mascara once it’s dried down.Skincare-wise, she keeps it practical: vitamin C (daytime, under SPF), peptides and hyaluronic acid (day or night), retinol (night). She mentions budget-friendly brands like The INKEY List and Naturium, and “done-for-you” options like Clarins Double Serum and Total Eye Lift if you don’t want to think.Nice closing line too: menopause doesn’t take away your beauty — it just changes how you approach it.See Dawn's PDF with her top five videos in the downloads sectionAbout DawnDawn is one of the most prominent content creators when it comes to make up in midlife thanks to her Instagram and YouTube page which have thousands of followers.A 57-year-old wife, mother, and grandmother, she lives with her family on a small hobby farm in Tennessee. She has been creating beauty content for mature women for more than a decade and her primary focus is simple makeup tips and affordable products that work on mature skin.justdoingmybest.com/youtube.com/justdoingmybest

This overnight oats recipe has been a labour of love in the Ellis household. Over a couple of months, James, his wife Laura and their kids, Martha and Gracie, tweaked, tested, and fine-tuned it to perfection — ensuring that it's not just healthy, but genuinely delicious. The goal? A nutrient-dense, protein-packed breakfast recipe that keeps you full and fuelled, without tasting like a chore to eat.  What makes this recipe elevated? We’re using organic jumbo oats for their superior texture and slow-releasing energy, while chia seeds bring in a dose of omega-3s, fibre, and gut-friendly goodness. A high-quality protein powder gives it muscle-supporting power, and full-fat Greek yoghurt delivers the perfect balance of creaminess and gut-boosting probiotics. Instead of refined sugars, we’re using Grade A maple syrup, which brings natural sweetness while adding trace minerals. And, of course, there’s the pop of vibrant mixed berries, packed with antioxidants, vitamins, and natural tanginess to balance the flavours. This recipe is quick to prep and easy to customise, making it an ideal go-to for meal-prepped breakfasts. Whether you're grabbing it straight from the fridge on a rushed morning or sitting down to enjoy it slowly, it's a satisfying, elevated way to start the day.

In this gentle gong soundbath, Yasmina Cherquaoui invites you to slow everything down and give your nervous system a much-needed reset. You’re guided to get comfortable, close your eyes, and simply listen as soothing sound vibrations from the gong and Tibetan bowl wash over you.

During perimenopause, many women feel like they have to choose between eating for their hormones or enjoying their food. This is one of Marcia's favourite ways to do both. Her Chocolate Orange Dessert for Breakfast drink is nourishing, blood-sugar supportive, and it genuinely feels indulgent! The PDF for the recipe can be found in the downloads section of your member area.

In this session, Juli Madacey, summit organiser and co-founder of Fabulous Beyond 40 teaches “school-run-proof” time blocking: a simple way to protect your priorities in a life that refuses to behave. It’s aimed at busy working mums, but it applies to any woman over 40 because perimenopause and menopause add their own brand of chaos: brain fog, fatigue, sleep disruption, decision fatigue, and that annoying feeling of being busy all day but somehow achieving nothing.Her key point is that this usually isn’t a motivation problem, it’s a structure problem. The solution is to treat what matters like an appointment, not a vague intention. Time blocking means putting your priorities into the calendar so you’re not living in reaction mode, bouncing between messages, emails, and everyone else’s demands. (Also: multitasking isn’t a superpower, it’s a stress response.)Juli shares a five-part framework: anchors (non-negotiables like school runs, meetings, meals, bedtime), outcomes (1–3 needle-movers for the day), focus blocks (single-task deep work, sized to your energy), admin blocks (contain life shrapnel like emails), and buffers/recovery (the secret sauce that stops the day collapsing when life throws a curveball).She shows how she plans using both a digital calendar (colour-coded) and a weekly paper brain dump, and she finishes with a 10-minute challenge: list your anchors, choose one outcome, block one focus session, one admin session, and add two buffers. The takeaway: calm is a plan. Protect the time you have, and put yourself in the calendar first.

In this powerful session, Michelle shares a fresh perspective on how to navigate the emotional and energetic shifts of perimenopause and menopause. Using her version of the S.T.O.P. framework, you’ll learn how to slow down, tune into your body, and clear what’s no longer yours — so you can move forward feeling grounded, connected, and fully yourself.Major Takeaways: • Learn how to recognize when you’re operating on autopilot — and what to do instead • Understand how to use your body’s signals to discern what’s true for you • Explore tools like truth testing, clearing statements, and reframing • Discover how to pivot away from old patterns and toward the woman you’re here to become

In this session, James breaks down why sleep matters so much during the menopause transition, not just for feeling rested, but for brain function, memory, metabolism, immune health, and recovery. He explains that there’s a “Goldilocks zone” for most people (roughly 7–8 hours) and that both too little and too much sleep can affect how well you think, learn, and cope day to day.He also connects the dots between menopause symptoms and sleep disruption, highlighting how things like hot flushes/night sweats, low mood, stress and insomnia often show up together and can feed into each other. The good news is that improving sleep can help interrupt that cycle and support overall wellbeing.James then simplifies sleep improvement into three areas you can actually do something about: your internal environment (food habits, caffeine/alcohol, stress, gut health, breathing), your external environment (light from screens, bedroom temperature, noise, bedding/clothing, keeping phones out of the room), and your sleep schedule (consistent bed/wake times and a proper wind-down).The key takeaway is practical: pick one or two changes, try them consistently for a few days, and track whether sleep improves. He also shares a simple “3, 2, 1” wind-down routine to help you build an evening structure that doesn’t require a personality transplant.

In this thought-provoking session Elaine Godley challenges one of the most entrenched menopause narratives head-on.Instead of framing menopause as years of inevitable struggle, Elaine invites you to see it differently — not as a long decline, but as a single transition point that doesn’t have to derail your energy, clarity, or confidence. She explores how lifestyle choices, nutrition, and stress exposure shape symptoms like fatigue and brain fog far more than we’re often led to believe

In this pre-recorded session Sherry King (founder of Sandwich Generation Support) puts a spotlight on the pressure-cooker reality so many midlife women are living in… even if they don’t have a name for it yet.She’s joined by nurse Hilary Gupte, who’s lived it herself while juggling care for an older relative, young kids, and work. Together they explain what the “sandwich generation” actually means (and why it’s not just one neat scenario), then hit you with the uncomfortable truth: loads of people are carers without ever calling themselves that. If you’re doing the prescriptions, the appointments, the shopping, the constant checking-in — that’s caring, and it adds up fast.

In this opening pre-recorded session from The Mother of All Menopause Summits, James sits down with Yorkshire GP and NHS menopause-clinic doctor Dr Emily Muirhead for the kind of conversation many women say they wish they’d had years earlier.Together, they unpack what’s really happening during perimenopause and menopause — why symptoms can feel chaotic and unpredictable, and why so many women are left doubting themselves when blood tests come back “normal”. Emily explains, in plain English, why menopause is usually diagnosed through symptoms and history, not a single hormone number.They move into HRT without the drama or dogma. Emily is clear about why oestrogen isn’t the whole story, why progesterone matters if you still have a womb, and how real-world treatment decisions are actually made — from patches and gels to the Mirena coil. James also asks the question many women are quietly wondering about: testosterone. Emily gives a refreshingly honest take on when it can help, when it won’t, and why it’s never the magic fix it’s often made out to be.The session finishes where it should — with reassurance. Menopause isn’t an illness, but it can hit at the most demanding stage of life. Emily shares simple, sensible first steps women can take right now, and explains how to find the right kind of medical support if and when you need it.If you want clarity, not clichés, this conversation sets the tone for the whole summit.

In this video, James shows how to make the perfect perimenopause smoothie packed with good nutrition that can help with female hormone balance, including vegan protein, heart-healthy avocado and antioxidant-rich frozen berries.Please see your Power Pack members area for the full text