How to Transform Your Women’s Health Practice to Have The Flexibility You Desire and Get Great Sleep with Chantal Traub

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:00:03 Hi and welcome to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Jessica Drummond, and I am so thrilled to have you here. As we dive into today’s episode, as always innovating and integrating in the world of women’s health. And just as a reminder, the content in this podcast episode is no substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment from your medical or licensed health care team. While myself and many of my guests are licensed healthcare professionals, we are not your licensed healthcare professionals, so you want to get advice on your unique circumstances. Diagnostic recommendations treatment recommendations from your home medical team. Enjoy the episode. Let’s innovate and integrate together. Hi, and welcome back to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Jessica Drummond, and I am thrilled to be introducing you today to one of our long term students and graduates, Chantal Traube. Now, if you are a person working in health care who feels overwhelmed, exhausted by your job, exhausted by your schedule, if you feel tethered to your clinic, to the hospital that you’re working in, and you want a lot more flexibility, you want to define your work on your own terms, your own schedule, your own location.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:01:37 Chantal story is for you. This is a story of a radical career transformation. Without giving up the core tools and values that drove most of us to become healthcare professionals in the first place. Those of us who wanted to help people deeply heal, to have regulated and healthy nervous systems ourselves to have great sleep for ourselves and our clients. You are going to love this. So as you’re listening to Chantal story, I want you to think about could you take out a big wall year calendar right now? Mark off, you know, your kids school holidays or the holidays you most like to celebrate the couple weeks off in the summer, a couple weeks off around another holiday time, you know, a weekend to travel in the fall, a weekend to stay home and work your garden in the spring, whatever it is you want to do. Do you have the complete flexibility in your schedule to have a full time income, and yet be totally flexible in how you work? If this is something you want and you don’t have it yet, listen to this conversation with Chantal.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:02:52 It is so possible for you no matter what you’re doing now. And on the other side of this conversation, we’ll talk about your next step to make sure you make this happen in your own life. See you there. Welcome back, everyone, to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, doctor Jessica Drummond, and I’m so excited to introduce you to Chantal Traub. She has been with us for probably almost a decade, the Integrative Women’s Health Institute. She has evolved her practice from working as a hands on doula to doing still a little bit of that because it’s really hard to give up and watching new babies be born, which is awesome and being a big part of that. But also, she’s now much more of a birth and perimenopause coach and menopause coach, because she’s been a doula for so long that many of her clients now are in perimenopause and menopause. And I wanted to invite her here today to talk about the journey and our perspective here at IWA that really, women need this deep depth of integrative support through the entire lifespan.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:04:12 And perimenopause and menopause is such a it’s as exciting of an opportunity as when women transition into motherhood. It’s a next level transition where I say like, this is your opportunity to be that guidance counselor that you probably didn’t even get to talk to at 16 to review. Like, what do you want from your life? But it’s hard to do that when you’re exhausted and hot, flashy, and struggling with metabolic issues and chronic pain and fatigue. So welcome, Chantal, and share with us the story of how your practice has evolved in the last five years or so.

Chantal Traub 00:04:53 Yeah. So I was just actually thinking back when you said a decade, I think we met. It was a 2018. I mean, I started in 2018 or 2019. So. Yes, almost. And that’s what’s been so great is that I have transitioned my practice because in those days, it was just still the idea. I’d been wanting to, but it hadn’t actually moved over to be supporting women in the perimenopause menopause transition, but specifically more a form of telehealth, not so much as in person.

Chantal Traub 00:05:26 And I think going through the pandemic together, that kind of like helped make that pivot. But I moved from being an active, full time on call doula, which I have been for 24 years. So yes, it is very hard to give up. And at this stage I just take repeat clients or if there’s just someone I just absolutely can’t say no to, but so much less than, you know, in years before. It’s like a sprinkle as I made more space to build my perimenopause menopause practice. And so in the last few years, it’s been kind of developing that which are the areas that I’ve been supporting my clients with and the ones that they really come to me and struggle with are the ones that I actually found myself struggling with through perimenopause. And when I went through it, I would say like maybe 7 to 10 years ago, I was kind of going through it and we just didn’t have the information and the resources that we do today. So those areas that kind of helped me get into this kind of milestone ways was I became a doula, and early on in my practice, I just noticed that parents were struggling with the pushing part of labor.

Chantal Traub 00:06:41 And that set me down. This whole deep dive into helping them understand and support and educate. And I created my signature course, the Push and Power Workshop, where I help parents prepare their pelvic floor and how to push effectively and safely ahead of time. And it was through that and teaching, which actually and I’ll link to that in a moment. It was through teaching those classes. It started off small classes and then went on to like bigger platforms, which kind of sowed some seeds. Going out there and speaking more, because by the time I was like in perimenopause, those invitations to speak at bigger and bigger events kind of took some of the things that I was going through. So for my perimenopause journey, I had always been someone who struggled with sleep and going through perimenopause and then going through Covid like into 20. It really took it to a pinnacle where I was like, okay, if I don’t turn this around, I’m going to get dementia. Like, my dad would just also put me, like really interested in brain health.

Chantal Traub 00:07:47 So so I was struggling with insomnia. I was struggling with some anxiety. And I remember early on in my journey, I had gone to my Gyn and was saying, I’m having this panic attacks. I’m having so much anxiety. It’s like really unusual. There were times where I wouldn’t want to leave the house, but I would have to make myself go and shop for clients. And I thought, this is so strange. This is so, like, weird. Why is this happening to me? And all that she wanted to do was give me, antidepressants. And I remember saying, but I’m not depressed. I know I’m not depressed, but I have anxiety. And I thought for no reason. So that helped me kind of start going down that road a little bit more to understand that better and then learning how to overcome those. Myself, like I would say in the last 7 to 10 years, is when we were going through I think I met Doctor Stephen Porges in early 2019, also similar kind of at the end of 2018.

Chantal Traub 00:08:46 And when I heard him speak about the nervous system, I was like, oh my gosh, this is what my clients are missing for birth. So I started incorporating into my birthing clients because how can we learn to add regulation? A regulated nervous system in difficult, hard situations like that was like trying to help my clients learn that. And then when I got Covid, I got long Covid, as many women do in perimenopause. And some of my struggles were brain fog, the sleep and the anxiety. And it was through that dive in. I think we were going through it at a similar time. So showing up for the I sessions was just so incredibly helpful because I feel like we’re all just like in the dark trying to figure this out at that time. But that’s what helped me heal. And so I started incorporating that into my work, working with women in perimenopause.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:09:44 You know, one of the things I say quite often to our clients who are considering becoming students at I is that you are welcome to use yourself as your first client case study, because so many of us in health care, and particularly midwives and doulas and gynecologists who do have that kind of 24 hour schedule or on call schedule or Pas, NPS nurses, people working on that on call schedule by the time they hit perimenopause, sleep is a really, really big issue.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:10:18 And as you mentioned in the current day and age that we’re in. Very, very few women arrive in their mid to late 40s with absolutely no other comorbidities, like whether it’s post viral illness, long Covid, migraines, you know, you had other issues related to brain health and visual health. And this is not unusual. And so I think that you’re such a good example of really stepping into the program and then applying everything to yourself. Tell us about how bad your sleep was before and how great it is now, because that was a huge shift.

Chantal Traub 00:11:02 Yeah, absolutely. So it was always bad from a young kid. So I always struggled with insomnia. The way that I would manage it was I self-soothing, not a healthy ways to be able to knock myself out for the sleep. After I had kids, I’d be so tired I would be able to fall asleep, but then I would wake up. And so that was kind of the norm for me. And like seven years ago or eight years ago, when my father first got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I was like, I was already thinking to myself, if I don’t treat my insomnia, my sleep issues like a cancer, this is where I’m going.

Chantal Traub 00:11:36 And that really opened up my interest and my passion for brain health. And part of the journey was also taking this Mascagni’s Brain Initiative program here in New York City. I kind of offer my brain for science because I wanted to understand if I’d done any damage, but when I got Covid. And so it’s interesting how Covid hits one’s vulnerable point. So my symptoms were mainly brain fog and that Covid insomnia. So at that point it was like four hours of sleep. So I’m really struggling. And that was the point where I was like, okay, that’s it. I’m going to take care of it. And that’s when I really transitioned my practice because I couldn’t be up all night just perpetuating the situation. I was going to like take the bull by the horns and like, take care of my sleep. It took a while to figure out, like, understanding what it was, and it was really through a nervous system approach. When I began to realize that not only was I hypervigilant like from past adverse history, but on top of it, the job that I chose as a doula just I kept me hypervigilant.

Chantal Traub 00:12:43 I, you know, just being on call, I’d be ready to jump into my shoes like a fireman. Really like waiting for that bell and out the door. So just living in that kind of layers, I couldn’t really go deep into sleep. And so by dressing finally my nervous system, which also helped me with heal my long Covid, it really helped me heal nicely. And so I will say that I can sleep anywhere from 7 to 10 hours on a regular basis. I love sleeping and I used to hate it. I used to be so scared of it because it was such a struggle. That’s one of my favorite things. I can’t wait for like, 930. Okay. In fact.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:13:25 I love that. And you know, you really took advantage. I think one of the things is that the people who get the most out of our courses really participate in applying, showing up for the calls, tweaking things. Because you’re right, this wasn’t new. You know, it wasn’t just because of perimenopause.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:13:44 It was because of childhood challenges. It was because of the profession you chose. And so many health care professionals are in a time shifted or on call profession. And then even if you’re not in a profession like that, many women, by the time they’re in their 40s, they have little kids, they have to travel internationally, they have jet lag. They’re in a bigger, higher status kind of job, which requires global travel. Being able to get up in the morning and speak to 100 people and then, oh, wait, first you have to get your kid off to school. So there’s all of that going on.

Chantal Traub 00:14:20 Absolutely. Another thing that I kept thinking about was I was so looking forward to being able to sleep. And then when my kids, because I had my kids late in life, too. So that also adds to my story. So by the time they were finally sleeping through the night, then I wasn’t. I was waking up in the middle of the night, which, thank God, I don’t do anymore.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:14:38 So yeah.

Chantal Traub 00:14:39 It’s.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:14:41 Well and many of our students in our perimenopause programs actually work in fertility and postpartum because there is such an overlap now. You know, women are, on average, having children later in their mid to late 30s to mid to late 40s. So there’s a physiologic overlap between trying to conceive fertility pregnancy postpartum. And you’ve seen that in your doula population. Now that you’re working with women from more of a coaching angle who maybe have had their children but didn’t always quite bounce back, because we all know that’s kind of not true no matter how old you are. But certainly if you’re in your later 30s or 40s, it’s even more difficult. What are some of the biggest challenges that you help women overcome in your coaching practice now?

Chantal Traub 00:15:32 So many of the clients that I do see are clients or even say, their moms or aunts or friends or friends, and the biggest areas that they are struggling with is sleep. The seven weight gain and that frozen shoulder comes up so much it’s either hip pain or frozen shoulder.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:15:51 Just a note. Our last week podcast was exactly on that. It was on a case study of musculoskeletal syndrome and menopause because, like you said, many people don’t recognize that frozen shoulders, tennis elbows, shoulder and hip pain is often related to menopause.

Chantal Traub 00:16:09 Absolutely. And that is something that why I’m so grateful for that study. I had so wished it had been around when I was really going through that because I was having injuries, like I would say, after I had kids from my late 40s until my early 50s, I literally was enduring like every six months, I’d injured another part of my body and I didn’t understand it. And the orthopedic doctors that I went to didn’t understand it. I so I’m so grateful that we can have this information for our clients and help them now with their bodies. these.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:16:42 Yeah. So most commonly they’re struggling with brain fog with musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause, with sleep issues. Absolutely. Anxiety weight loss resistance. So when you work with women now what are some of the things that you like about this new career? Because you really have pretty much fully transitioned from being a doula to being a coach, other than being a doula occasionally, because it’s so wonderful.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:17:10 What do you like about the new job, if you will?

Chantal Traub 00:17:14 I love it on so many levels, but I mean, I really find it kind of helps me epitomise everything that I love about the nervous system, because you are working with another nervous system and I find like for myself, just in the role of the coach, it’s almost like a neural exercise for me, because when I’m working with someone, you know, one on one and even through, you know, face to face over zoom. We use in your eyes and your ears and your voice. And that is kind of a vagal neural exercise, if you will. And I find it incredibly regulating just for myself. And then with my clients, I’ve seen the extraordinary power of the social connection of being a co regulator to someone else and offering those cues of safety and seeing the transformation that comes up with the consistency of meeting someone, like every week or every other week, of building that trust of them, feeling safe. And then you can see the magic begin to happen.

Chantal Traub 00:18:23 And I find that very exciting.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:18:25 Yeah, I love it. I mean, of our seven step system that you learn in the Perimenopause and Menopause certificate program. We always start with nervous system regulation. And one of the things I’m always saying to practitioners is in our training as clinicians and wellness professionals, it’s very rare that you’ll ever have anyone care about your health and your nervous system regulation. It’s more just about show up, push through, power through, no matter how you’re feeling. It’s lovely when your actual day to day job requires you to practice quite literally in the session. What you are preaching so you actually get this benefit of doing nervous system regulation exercise all day long. To have the nervous system resilience, to hold space for other people.

Chantal Traub 00:19:20 Yeah, I think being a witness and helping our clients feel heard and understood, it is powerful work. And then of course, having the resources, the experience, resources to really help them and help them. Kind of like I love how you say like wrap them up in their resources like a cashmere blanket.

Chantal Traub 00:19:39 But that’s exactly what I feel like I’m doing on a daily basis, and it’s very rewarding. Whether it’s helping them find their team or helping them find what is the one main symptom that they really want to work on. Like, first, just help them figure it out and then actually achieve that over the time that we work together.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:19:59 Yeah, it’s just such a beautiful witnessing. And as you mentioned, and celebrating, you know, we always get this opportunity to celebrate when they make progress. I think it’s really one of the most underappreciated careers in healthcare, because it’s really about this patience and education, of course, and helping people prioritize what they’re going to change in terms of their healthy lifestyle behaviors, which is not always easy. So we have to overcome those barriers to change. If you think about your career as a doula, there’s so much that you just had the aptitude for being a coach. So if you think about how professionals out there who are curious about this profession, what kinds of aptitudes, what kinds of skills did you just already have that you were able to amplify in making this transition that other people might already have, but they’re sort of undervaluing?

Chantal Traub 00:20:57 Well, I think curiosity is a big one.

Chantal Traub 00:20:59 So being curious about oneself and being curious about another. So that came from my experience from birth. And so if we talk about, like you say, like the nervous system, we want to be curious about our own nervous system and what our own triggers are and where we’re at and what we need to self-regulate, and then be curious about another so that we can help them either come back to regulation or be able to offer those cues. So curiosity about their story, about what’s important to them, about their values. Staying open minded, I think, is important. I think kindness and empathetic. I think those are really great values because it’s so powerful. How offering kindness and empathy can actually be some of the seeds to healing for another person when they just when you really hold in space with true kindness, I think it allows someone to feel safe and drop their defenses so that they can start seeing inside and connecting their own dots. So those are small things, but they like kind of big.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:22:12 No, I think they’re really big.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:22:13 I think they’re so important. And because they’re kind of thought of as these like soft skills, I think often they’re undervalued. But really they are foundational to healing.

Chantal Traub 00:22:26 But I’ll say also you can give tough love. Like I definitely give tough love to my clients. Like you can offer firmness, but with coming from a place of love. I think it’s just so much more received than kind of a militant like, you know, to this, to that. So I, I’m not saying it’s a completely soft and a wash over, but I think that it can be softness within a container. you know, I’m expressing that because we do want to hold ground for our clients or be able to bring them back and also offer a mirror as well.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:23:01 Yeah, absolutely. And there’s that firmness of accountability of holding people to the highest vision of themselves, because sometimes actually it’s not that kind or empathetic to be like, oh, never mind. You know, you want to be like, well, wait, you wanted this, you got to do it, you know? So I think there’s a real balance of holding accountability, of celebrating those wins, of keeping holding people to their highest vision of themselves or the next level vision of themselves, which is really what makes this so rewarding.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:23:39 So I have one last question for you. We talked about how crazy your schedule was. One of the things I’ve seen you really evolve in in the last five years or so is being much more, I would say, committed to your own health and your own boundaries. One of the things I love about this career is it’s so flexible. And so for someone who might be watching this, like feeling like they’re trapped in a time related schedule or lack of flexibility, or they always have to be at the hospital or the clinic. Talk about how your practice has changed in terms of boundaries and flexibility.

Chantal Traub 00:24:14 I was working all the time, and I think one of my own barriers was this kind of compelling need to push through, take on, take on and, you know, understanding where that compelling came from has helped a lot to as well as being able to set those boundaries. So I remember for so many years I’d be working as a dual. I’d be on call, I would pay for flight, my husband on the kids to go on vacation, and I’d stay home tethered to New York City for my clients.

Chantal Traub 00:24:48 And it was so hard to, like, actually say no. So what I started doing was, I think maybe I learned it in one of our sessions, kind of like a vision board. But I love the idea of a year calendar, and I always get like, I get mine in September for for the, you know, 226 and I mark up the school holidays. Oh, I just marked them out, I blocked them out. And then that’s the first thing I do. And I’ve also I’m now really selective of what I say yes to in terms of speaking events, because just understanding on a really deep level what you say. Yes. Do what do you say no to. And when you say no, what are you actually saying yes to? And so it’s been really great that I can really prioritize that quality time not only for myself, but for my family as well. And then be able to take less clients in a way, but be able to give so much more energy to every kind.

Chantal Traub 00:25:42 So that’s been really exciting and joyful for me to be able to. Yeah, I had a hard time being able to say no, you know, and learning how to say no comfortably. Has has been really healing.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:25:59 I love hearing that. And I’ve really witnessed it in your journey and your transformation. And I think it’s because eventually you began to realize that when you weren’t saying no or didn’t have these boundaries, you weren’t getting that closeness with your kids. I mean, both of us have teenagers now, so, you know, you only have so much real time with them before they’re like off and running and, you know, to have gained all that time back to be to actually and I’ve seen you go on some really nice vacations with your family in the last three years or so, rather than paying for them, sending them off, and not being able to go with them. I mean, that’s a huge transformation in my eyes.

Chantal Traub 00:26:41 Yeah, it’s been really great. I love traveling with them and I really want to make the most of it because, yeah, my son told us last year for high school, they were, you know, I don’t know if you want to travel with me because university wealthy.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:26:54 Time flies. Time flies. Thank you so much for being here. Chantal. And where can people find you? If they would love to sit in your container of supportive coaching, or they want to follow your work or come to one of your speaking events. You’re you’re very prolific now, but in a way that I know is is really mindful. So how can people get in touch with you?

Chantal Traub 00:27:19 So my website my first and last name com Chantal. Com and that will list like all my classes, my workshops, my speaking events. I also have a lot of free guides and resources on my website, so there’s some wonderful ones. If someone wants to take an assessment on burnout, for example, or on midlife vitality, there’s a free assessment there. I have something on 14 days to better sleep or 21 days to heal your nervous system. So there’s lots of accessible resources there as well. And also on Instagram. So at Chantal, full stop.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:28:01 Trop excellent. I highly recommend working with Chantal if your sleep is your driving issue.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:28:09 She has really walked the talk. And for a woman in menopause to really love and get full deep sleep 7 to 10 hours every night. Now I’ve seen the evolution. I know you’ve internalized everything we’ve taught you. You’re actually doing it. So if anyone’s struggling with your sleep, I can highly recommend Chantal as a perimenopause and menopause sleep coach, among other things. But that’s an area in which I think you really shine. So thank you so much for being here today. Thanks everyone. Take this back to your practice and think about what it would feel like if you set some boundaries and really got clear on what you wanted your schedule to look like, it’s 100% possible for you.

Chantal Traub 00:28:54 Thank you.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:29:00 Oh my. I loved that conversation with Chantal because there are so many before and afters. In this conversation, she went from just not sleeping well at all for almost her whole life, but certainly a couple of decades to now, in her 50s, being able to fully, deeply sleep for 7 to 10 hours every night and love it.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:29:23 Wake up rested. You know, so many of us struggle with sleep. And I think that capacity. She came to our program not having that at all, and then really fully committed to doing the work, doing every day, like using herself as a case study and implementing everything she was learning for herself, healing her brain, healing her sleep quality, healing her nervous system, and then taking that wisdom, expanding it into her own practice. But most importantly, learning how to be fully flexible in her work and her life in a way that’s so joyous for her, in a way that’s allowed her to literally spend more quality of time that she’s enjoying with her teenagers. I mean, these years are kind of fleeting. And so whatever it is that you want to deeply have the time and attention for, this is so possible for you. So your homework this week is to simply pull out that big wall calendar, look at what you would be doing with your life and your time and your attention and your energy.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:30:34 If one year from now you were very well rested, you could sleep like Chantal, like a baby, like a teenager, not like a baby, like a teenager. And you had complete control and autonomy over your schedule while still making the same income. This is highly possible for you. And I want you to visualize that. And then I want you to join us in the perimenopause and menopause certificate. Confidence and complexity. None of our clients are textbook cases. They are all real cases with real challenges. Use yourself as that case. Study. Change and shift your practice in a way that allows you to have that complete flexibility. What would your calendar look like. Set the vision and then join us. The one thing I can say about Chantal, you know. Absolutely. Work with her directly if you want her support with sleep or anything else. But she has been so committed to the process for years and she made the transition at her own pace. This is so possible for you too. I want you to see her as an inspiration and know that we didn’t just wave a magic wand for this to happen.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:31:56 She participated. She showed up. She made the changes even when it was hard. She made mistakes, like all of us do, and she learned from them. And because her story is not unique is why it’s so inspiring. It’s because this is absolutely available to you. To you. So pull out that wall calendar. Set your vision and I can’t wait to see you inside the Perimenopause and Menopause certificate program. Confidence in complexity. Have that confidence to feel well in your life. No matter what you want your schedule to be, no matter who you want to support, no matter how exhausted you feel right now, this is possible for you. Have a great week. See you next week.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:32:50 Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. Please share this episode with a colleague and if you loved it, hit that subscribe or follow button on your favorite podcast streaming service so that we can do even more to make this podcast better for you and your clients.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:33:15 Let’s innovate and integrate in the world of women’s health.