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The Plant Powered Collective Podcast helps women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond live vibrantly and nourish boldly. Hosted by integrative nutrition coach Lori Willinski, each episode blends science-backed nutrition with approachable strategies for hormone balance, energy, and healthy aging. Rooted in lifestyle medicine and personalized coaching, Lori shares her story of thriving on plants since age 14 and managing autoimmune disease with nutrition. Discover how a plant powered lifestyle fuels not only your health, but also your leadership and your future self.
Welcome to the Plant Powered Collective podcast where we explore what it means to nourish ourselves on the plate, around the plate, and throughout every season of our lives. I'm Lori Walinski, integrative nutrition and lifestyle coach, entrepreneur, caregiver, and founder of The Plant Powered Collective. Before we begin, this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Now pull up a chair, take a breath, and let me begin with the question we return to often at Plant Powered Collective. What is nourishing you right now on and off the plate?
Speaker 1:And today I want to add another question. Is the way you are living supporting the woman you are becoming. Not simply the woman who gets everything done, not the woman everyone relies on, not the woman who appears capable from the outside, the whole woman. The woman with a body, a brain, emotions, relationships, responsibilities, ambitions, fears, values, and a future she still wants to create no matter what her age. Today's conversation begins with brain health.
Speaker 1:It moves into my personal experience caring for my father who has dementia and primary progressive aphasia. It continues with my own postmenopausal health and my decision to begin using hormone replacement therapy. And then it moves into a realization that has become increasingly clear to me. Powered Collective is not simply helping women make healthier food choices. We are helping women build foundations.
Speaker 1:Foundations for their physical health, foundations for their mental and emotional well-being, foundations for their relationships, work, homes, purpose, leadership and future. Because our health, our lifestyle is not separate. They are all integrated. Our health and our lifestyle is expressed through the way we live them. So pull up a chair because we are going to talk about brain health.
Speaker 1:Brain health can feel like an intimidating subject. For some women, it brings up fear. We may have watched a parent, grandparent, spouse, or friend experience cognitive decline. And I am in the deep end with this right now, and it does bring up a lot of fear, I will tell you. We may notice a word we cannot find or a name we cannot remember and immediately wonder what it means.
Speaker 1:We may experience brain fog during menopause, periods of stress, or seasons of poor sleep and begin worrying that something more serious is happening. The brain is complex. There is still so much we do not fully understand about why one person develops dementia while another doesn't. There is no single food, supplement, exercise or health practice that can guarantee a particular outcome. But that does not mean we are powerless.
Speaker 1:It means we need to think about brain health as a part of a larger foundation. The brain is not living separately from the body. It depends on blood flow, depends on sleep, it responds to hormones, it is affected by stress, it is influenced by nutrients available to it, it communicates with the gut, It benefits from movement, learning, purpose, creativity, and connection. It is affected by our physical health, our mental health, relationships, environment, and the rhythms of our lifestyle. This is why brain nourishment is both on the plate and around the plate.
Speaker 1:On the plate we focus on a diverse plant forward pattern of eating leafy greens, berries, beans and lentils, whole grains, nuts and seeds, colorful vegetables, herbs and spices, foods that contain fiber, foods that support cardiovascular and metabolic health, foods that help nourish the gut microbiome. These foods do not operate like individual medicines. One bowl of berries does not prevent dementia. One salad does not erase years of chronic stress. One smoothie does not compensate for consistently poor sleep.
Speaker 1:However, repeated patterns matter. Small shifts matter. That word repeated is important. You have heard me talk about greens before. You've heard me talk about beans and berries and walking and sleep and hydration and stress and connection.
Speaker 1:You may hear some of these ideas again in future episodes and in the brain nourishment book I am digitally publishing in September 2026. I'm so excited about this. But let's get back to repetition and small shifts. That repetition and small shifts are intentional. We sometimes believe that information is valuable only when it is new, but knowing something is not the same as living it.
Speaker 1:Familiarity is not the same as embodiment. You can know that sleep is important and still repeatedly sacrifice it. You can know that vegetables are nourishing and still reach the end of the week without eating many of them. You can know that walking supports your health and still struggle to make movement part of your day. Repetition and small shifts create familiarity.
Speaker 1:Familiarity creates rhythm. Rhythm makes a behavior easier to repeat. And repeated behaviors begin to become habits. That is how foundations are built. Not through one perfect day, not through a dramatic January reset, not through the newest health trend.
Speaker 1:Foundations are built through small actions, small shifts that become part of our lifestyle. So pause for a moment and consider. What health information do you already know and have not yet created a system to practice consistently? Is it eating more plants, drinking water, walking, strength training, going to bed earlier, calling someone when you need support. The answer may not require more information.
Speaker 1:It may require a more supportive structure. Around the plate, brain health includes sleep, physical activity, stress management, connection, learning, purpose, emotional well-being, and, yes, appropriate medical care. It includes protecting our hearing and our vision. It includes managing blood pressure, blood sugar, and cardiovascular risks. It includes limiting or avoiding substances that may interfere with health.
Speaker 1:It includes allowing our brains to recover from stimulation. It includes relationships that help us feel connected rather than constantly guarded. It includes creativity, and my personal favorite, it includes curiosity. It includes continuing to learn, and it includes having a reason to participate in our lives. Ask yourself, what is nourishing your brain beyond food?
Speaker 1:When did you last learn something new? When did you last have a conversation that made you think differently? When did you last do something creative without needing it to be productive? When did you last feel truly connected to another person? Brain health is not only about preventing something we fear.
Speaker 1:It is also about creating a lifestyle in which the brain is engaged, supported, connected, and nourished today. So brain health has become deeply personal for me because my father has dementia and primary progressive aphasia. As I've mentioned before primary progressive aphasia is a neurological condition that progressively affects a person's ability to communicate. It may affect speech language comprehension reading writing and the ability to find express words. For my father, communication is almost nonexistent.
Speaker 1:He cannot speak. He can indicate thumbs up or thumbs down for things that he wants and oftentimes only understands very simple sentences like stand up. Once he stands up, walk to the sofa. Once he walks to the sofa, sit down on the sofa. Sometimes he says no because somehow that is a word that he can say, but he doesn't necessarily mean no the way that we typically understand it.
Speaker 1:It may mean he doesn't understand the question. It might mean that he's uncomfortable, and it just could also mean that he's trying to tell me something, and that's the only word that can come out of his mouth. It may mean that he needs more time. It may simply mean I need to slow down. So I try to ask very simple questions.
Speaker 1:As I had mentioned, I use visual cues. I make grand gestures with my hand. You know, walk this way with a grand gesture with my hand showing the way to walk. I will show him a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I pay attention to his face, his movements, and his body language.
Speaker 1:I try to understand the need beneath the word because the word is no longer used. Sometimes I do it well, and sometimes I don't, and I give myself grace. These are the moments when I am patient and completely present. There are other moments when I'm tired and distracted and worried or trying to manage too many responsibilities at the same time. And anyone else that's a caregiver can understand this.
Speaker 1:There are moments when I have to remind myself that my father is not trying to make a situation difficult. The situation is difficult for him. That shift in perspective helps me return to compassion. But it does not remove the emotional complexity of caregiving. Caregiving contains deep love.
Speaker 1:It contains tenderness. It contains funny and unexpected moments. So, the other day, I was, switching out a a mattress, And this mattress one of the mattress that I had I've had for a very, very long time. And I was throwing it out, and my cats sleep underneath the mattress. So when we were moving the bed, one of my cats, mister Coco, a very robust black cat.
Speaker 1:He is about twenty pounds, and I didn't think he could move this fast, but he bolted. He ran down the stairs, jumped over the back of the sofa onto my father's lap, catapulted off my father's lap, and back over his head, my father's head. And over the back of the sofa, it ran into the other room. It literally happened in a split second, and it was so funny. I never thought he could move like that, mister Coco.
Speaker 1:And I left, and I said, dad, look at what just happened. Did you see mister Coco? My dad had no idea. And it was funny because it happened so quickly, and my dad, you know, didn't recognize what had just happened. And it was also really sad because he hadn't recognized what had happened.
Speaker 1:These times also contain gratitude because I'm able to be here for my father during this stage of his life. And it also contains frustration and grief and fear and sadness and resentment and guilt and exhaustion. Exhaustion like you never know. And a level of vigilance that can be really difficult to turn off. We sometimes talk about caregiving as if a loved one could erase every other emotion, but they can't.
Speaker 1:We can love someone deeply and still feel overwhelmed. We can be grateful for the time together and still wish the circumstances were different. We can feel tender and impatient within the same hour. We can laugh at a moment and then feel guilty for laughing because the larger situation is painful. We can grieve someone who is still physically present because the parts of the relationship have already changed.
Speaker 1:Two emotions can be true at the same time. This can be meaningful, and it can be hard. This can be an expression of love, and it can be exhausting. This can bring us closer to someone, and it can also create loneliness. So let me ask you.
Speaker 1:Where in your life are two seemingly opposite emotions or feelings or things true at the same time? Are you grateful and depleted, hopeful and afraid, excited about the future and grieving what has changed, proud of what you are building and uncertain whether you have enough capacity to continue? Some emotions are not problems that need to be solved. They are experiences that need to be acknowledged. Caring for my father has changed the way I think about brain health.
Speaker 1:It has made the subject more urgent and more personal. But it has also changed the way I think about communication, patience, presence, and leadership. I cannot approach my father by insisting that he communicate in the same way he once did. I have to meet the person who is in front of me today. I have to observe.
Speaker 1:I have to listen differently. I have to adapt. I have to respect his humanity even when his ability to communicate has changed. This experience is teaching me what it means to lead relationally. Not through control, not through force, through connection, curiosity, context, and respect.
Speaker 1:So as I am caring for my father, I am also building Plant Powered Collective. I am recording this podcast. I am working with clients. I am writing the first book in the Plant Powered Collective nourishment series. I am creating resources and programs.
Speaker 1:I am developing the Vantage Collective with my friend and colleague Doctor. Charity Godfrey. I am continuing my community and leadership work. I am building something that I believe can make a meaningful difference in women's lives. This gives me purpose.
Speaker 1:It gives me energy. It allows me to create, contribute, teach, guide, coach, and continue growing. It also requires concentration, creativity, planning, decision making, and emotional capacity. Caregiving requires many of those same resources. It requires attention, flexibility, patience, observation, emotional regulation, decision making, and the ability to respond when the schedule you carefully created is suddenly no longer possible.
Speaker 1:So tonight, we had pizza for dinner, my father and I. It's Friday night. So pizza. And I go to this fantastic little pizza shop in Fort Myers, Florida, which is where I live. And what should have just been, like, an easy thing to go pick up pizza ended up being a fifteen minute ordeal and getting into the car because my father didn't have his hat, but he always needs a hat.
Speaker 1:I needed to go in and get his hat. And then he got out of the car because he wanted to go look for his hat even though I gave him his hat. And then I realized I didn't have my phone. So I went to go look for my phone. I looked for it everywhere.
Speaker 1:I couldn't figure out what my phone was. And then I saw my father playing with a phone, and I thought it was his phone, but it was my phone. So all of these things happen, and we just need to realize that sometimes that schedule that should have happened so easily just was no longer possible. Entrepreneurship asked me to hold a vision for the future. Caregiving repeatedly brings me back to the needs of the present moment.
Speaker 1:Both are important. Both are meaningful. Both can be demanding. And sometimes they compete for the same limited energy and attention. There are days when I sit down to write and the ideas come easily.
Speaker 1:There are other days when I sit down and realize that my mind is still processing a difficult morning. There are days when I feel strong, capable, and deeply connected to my purpose. And then there are days when I question whether I have the capacity for everything I feel called to do. Many women are living with the same invisible tension. They are leading businesses, teams, organizations, families, and communities while carrying responsibilities that are rarely included in the conversation about performance.
Speaker 1:A woman may be sitting in a meeting while worrying about a parent with dementia or a grandchild who has a test at school. She may be responding professionally while privately managing anxiety grief or family health crisis. She may appear composed while using nearly all her available energy to keep multiple parts of her life functioning. So reflect on this. What are you carrying that people around you may not see?
Speaker 1:And what is that invisible responsibility costing you in energy, sleep, attention, or emotional capacity? This is not a question designed to make you feel guilty. It is designed to help you see the full context of your life. Because we cannot build a supportive lifestyle while ignoring the life that we are actually living. I want to get a little bit vulnerable with you guys here.
Speaker 1:Pull up a chair. I'm going to share with you some of my personal health journey that's been happening recently. Caring for my father has also made me think more intentionally about my own health. And it has brought questions about my future a lot closer because I am 61. I think about things like what am I doing today to support the woman I want to be ten, twenty, thirty years from now?
Speaker 1:Because, yes, I do wanna live to 100. How am I caring for my physical health? How am I caring for my mental and emotional well-being? How am I supporting my energy, my cognition, my relationships, and my ability to keep doing meaningful work? And am I waiting until something becomes a crisis before I desire I decide it deserves my attention?
Speaker 1:This has been a big one because I'm big on procrastination for some reason. And as part of this process, I found a new health care provider, because I do not have well, I was procrastinating because I don't have health care at the moment because I'm an entrepreneur and I can't afford it. And I found someone that was private pay through a friend of mine, and I went to go see her. And she ordered some lab work done, and the results confirmed what I already knew. I am postmenopausal.
Speaker 1:So, you know, I've already gone through menopause, so now I'm on the other side of that. And my hormones are still a mess. And guess what? It's not a disease. It is a natural biological transition, but natural does not mean insignificant.
Speaker 1:Hormonal changes, you know, for me, has influenced my sleep, my temperature regulation. I can be freezing one minute. And during the day and at night, I am still having night sweats. Sometimes my mood, most certainly my concentration. My body composition has regulated.
Speaker 1:You know, and thank goodness the hormonal changes have not affected my bone health, my cardiovascular health. But it has, you know, changed the way I feel in my own body. I'm starting to sag in places that I never sagged before. You know? All of those things that happen as we get older and as our body changes and our skin changes.
Speaker 1:Because no matter how much I hydrate, my skin is dry and there are just a lot of things that I don't feel in control of anymore. But after reviewing my lab work and the symptoms that I have and my health history and my personal needs, my new healthcare provider prescribed, hormone replacement therapy in the form of a cream. And I want to, speak about this a little bit carefully because HRT or hormone replacement therapy is not appropriate for every woman. The decision is absolutely bio individual and should be made with a health care provider. And I am not using HRT because I believe it guarantees protection from dementia or another condition because there are no guarantees.
Speaker 1:And hormone replacement therapy is only one part of my individual health plan. It's definitely not the entire plan. Nourishment is part of the plan. Movement is part of the plan. Restorative sleep is part of the plan.
Speaker 1:Minimizing stress is part of the plan. Living a nontoxic lifestyle is part of the plan because I really wanna be intentional about the quality of my lifestyle. I want to be the best version of myself. And when I say the best version, I don't mean the thinnest version or the busiest version or the most productive version or the version who proves that she can carry everything without support. I mean, the version of me who feels present in our life, the version of me with energy to do meaningful work, the version of me who can care for others without completely abandoning myself, The version of me who can think clearly, move confidently, and sleep more restoratively, experience joy, and remain connected.
Speaker 1:I don't wanna simply function because I want the capacity to live vibrantly in the way that I define it. For years, many of us have been expected to accept disruptive symptoms as part of aging. Poor sleep, hot flashes, changes in mood, brain fog, fatigue, changes in body composition, a sense that we no longer feel like ourselves. We often learn to function around those symptoms instead of asking whether support is available, and I did that all the way through menopause. So consider, have you normalized something simply because you have learned how to function around it?
Speaker 1:Have you decided poor sleep is unavoidable? Have you dismissed persistent fatigue because you have too much to do? Have you accepted feeling disconnected from yourself because other people appear to be managing? Have you postponed a medical appointment, an appointment with a nutrition coach because everyone else seems to need you more than you need yourself or are willing to give to yourself. Paying attention does not mean assuming every symptom is serious.
Speaker 1:It means deciding that your experience deserves curiosity. It means asking questions. It means collecting information. It means working with qualified professionals, and it means participating in decisions about your body and your life. My hormone replacement cream is just one part of that participation.
Speaker 1:My plant forward nutrition is another. Movement is another. Sleep, stress regulation, connection, purpose, and emotional honesty are also part of the plan. No single intervention creates a vibrant life. The foundation comes from the way all these elements work together.
Speaker 1:So as I started thinking about all of this and how Plant Powered Collective fit together with all of this, I realized that, really, what Plant Powered Collective is doing and what I wanted to do is build foundations. You know? Because moving through my father's condition with him, and caregiving and then putting on top of that entrepreneurship and menopause in my own health decisions. I know that Plant Powered Collective is about food, but it's not only about food. It's not only about nutrition.
Speaker 1:And nutrition is foundational because what goes into the body matters and plants matter and fiber matters and nutrients we consume matters. But a woman can eat a nourishing meal and still be chronically sleep deprived. She can eat vegetables and still feel emotionally isolated. She can exercise and still feel a constant state of stress. She could take supplements and still have no boundaries around her time.
Speaker 1:She can have excellent care for herself and still feel she has no voice in her own life. And she can look healthy from the outside while quietly feeling disconnected from herself on the inside. So Plant Powered Collective is building foundations for the whole woman. That foundation includes all the major pillars of lifestyle medicine, plant predominant nourishment, regular movement, restorative sleep, stress management, positive social connection, and avoiding harmful or risky substances. But Plant Powered Collective Foundation also intentionally includes mental health, emotional well-being, low tox living, purpose, joy, creativity, the home environment, relationships, personal values, and the systems that make healthy choices easy and possible.
Speaker 1:It includes what is on the plate, what is around the plate, who is sitting at the table, and whether the woman believes she has a place in the chair. This process has also helped me put language around several foundational Plant Powered Collective ideas. These words are agency, relational leadership, and stewardship. These may sound like formal terms, but they describe practical ways a woman can begin participating more intentionally in her life. At Plant Powered Collective, agency means a woman's ability to participate actively and intentionally in the design of her life.
Speaker 1:Means that she's empowered. Agency includes physical health, mental health, emotional well-being, relationships, work, home, time, purpose, creativity, reset, and rest, and the future she wants to create. Agency means she has a voice. It means her symptoms matter. It means her values matter.
Speaker 1:It means her needs matter. It means her responsibilities matter. It means her definition of success matters. Her definition of living vibrantly matters. Agency does not mean that she controls every circumstance because we can't.
Speaker 1:But what it does mean is that she lives within the real circumstances, including financial constraints, family expectations, health conditions, caregiving responsibilities, work demands, cultural influences, and access to support. Agency doesn't ignore those realities. What it asks is, Within the reality of my lifestyle, where do I still have empowerment? Perhaps you cannot remove your responsibility, but you can ask someone to share it. Perhaps you cannot change your job today, but you can create a boundary around what part of your time takes up that job.
Speaker 1:Perhaps you cannot prepare every meal from scratch, but you can keep several nourishing foods available. Perhaps you cannot control another person's choices but you can decide how much access they have to your energy. Perhaps you cannot remove stress but you can create ways for your body and nervous system to recover from it. Agency is not the belief that we can control everything. It is the recognition that we are not entirely powerless.
Speaker 1:Agency means taking a seat in the conversation about your own life. So ask yourself, where do I feel like an active participant in my lifestyle? And where does it feel as though my life is simply happening to me? Where have you stopped asking questions? Where have you accepted a pattern because it is familiar even though it no longer supports the woman you're becoming?
Speaker 1:Reclaiming agency may begin with a simple conversation at home, a boundary at work, a change in your schedule, a decision to protect your sleep, a request for emotional support, or a quiet recognition that the lifestyle you created for a previous season may need to be redesigned for the season you're living right now. The second term is relational leader. When we hear the word leader, we often think about a title, position, business, you know, responsibility professionally for other people. But to me, relational leadership is not limited to the workplace. A woman can be a relational leader in her health, home, family, relationships, community, career, and relationship even with herself.
Speaker 1:At Plant Powered Collective, being the relational leader of your lifestyle means making choices through awareness, curiosity, connection, context, respect. It means you do not simply impose rules on yourself. You build a relationship with yourself. You listen to your body. You notice your emotions.
Speaker 1:You pay attention to your energy and capacity. You consider your values. You acknowledge the season you are living. Then you use that information to design your next step. A relational leader does not only ask what should I eat.
Speaker 1:She also asks how will this way of eating fit my body, family, culture, schedule, finances, and responsibilities. She does not ask only how much exercise should I do, how much movement should I do. She asks what movement strengthens me, supports my health, brings me joy, and can realistically become part of my lifestyle. She does not ask only how can I become more productive? She asks, what is the level of productivity costing my sleep, relationships, physical health, mental health, and sense of purpose.
Speaker 1:She does not only ask, How can I manage stress? She also asks, What continues to create stress in my life, and does something in the environment need to change? This distinction matters. Relational leadership is not simply learning how to tolerate an unhealthy lifestyle more effectively. It is being willing to examine the lifestyle itself.
Speaker 1:A woman can meditate every morning, but if she repeatedly says yes when she wants to say no, the deeper stress pattern may remain. She can eat nourishing food, but if she is chronically lonely, her well-being still may suffer. She can exercise consistently, but if she is sleeping five hours a night, her foundation may remain unstable. She could be professionally successful, but if she has lost her connection with joy, relationships, creativity, or herself, success may no longer feel vibrant. Relational leaderships ask us how to see the parts of our lives and how they connect to each other.
Speaker 1:Being a relational leader also means recognize the humanity of other people. My father has taught me this in a powerful way. I cannot lead the moment by forcing him to communicate according to my expectations. I have to observe, listen, adapt, and meet him where he is. But relational leadership also reminds me that my needs remain part of the relationship.
Speaker 1:Caring for someone does not require me to completely abandon myself. Compassion does not require the absence of boundaries. Leadership does not mean endlessly giving until nothing remains. So reflect on this. Where are you leading your life through intention?
Speaker 1:And where are you leading through obligation, guilt, fear, or habit? Where are you listening to yourself? Where are you overriding yourself? Where could you replace criticism with curiosity? Being the relational leader of your life does not mean you always know the answer.
Speaker 1:It means you remain in an honest relationship with yourself while you discover it. And the third term that I've been thinking about lately is stewardship. At Plant Powered Collective, stewardship is the intentional care of life, health, relationships, resources, and opportunities entrusted to us. Stewardship includes the body, but it reaches much further. It includes our brains, mental health, emotional well-being, energy, time, attention, relationships, home, work, finances, natural environment, talents, values, and communities in the future we're hoping and helping to create.
Speaker 1:Stewardship means caring for these parts of our lifestyle with attention, responsibility, respect, and a long term perspective. It does not mean controlling every outcome. It doesn't mean optimizing every minute. It does not mean never making a mistake. It does not mean turning wellness into another performance standard, and it does not mean sacrificing ourselves in service to everyone else.
Speaker 1:Stewardship was not self neglect disguised as responsibility. It is thoughtful care. Stewardship may mean nourishing food, movement, restorative sleep, health screenings, or working with a nutrition coach. For mental health, it might mean acknowledging anxiety, grief, depression, or overwhelm and seeking appropriate support. Stewardship may mean nurturing connection, repairing, relationships, asking for help, or setting a necessary boundary.
Speaker 1:For our time, it may mean becoming more intentional about where our attention and energy are going. Stewardship asks sustainability questions. Can I continue my lifestyle this way? Can I continue giving at this pace? Can I continue neglecting sleep?
Speaker 1:Can I continue carrying this responsibility without support? These are not selfless questions to ask. They are stewardship questions. In my life, includes caring for my father. It also includes recognizing that I cannot care for him well if I consistently disregard my own health and capacity.
Speaker 1:It includes building Plant Powered Collective and the Advantage Collective because the work is meaningful to me. It also includes acknowledging that entrepreneurship cannot consume every part of my life. It includes investigating my postmenopausal health and beginning hormone replacement therapy under the care of my health care provider. It also includes, as always, plant forward food, movement, sleep, connection, emotional honesty, purpose, creativity, and the systems surrounding these choices. No single practice is the entire foundation.
Speaker 1:The foundation is created through the way the parts work together. So ask yourself, what part of my lifestyle has been receiving my best care? What part of my lifestyle has been living on what is left over? Perhaps your career receives your strongest attention while your relationships receive the remainder. Stewardship does not ask you to rebalance everything at once.
Speaker 1:It asks you to notice it. It asks you to be curious. And then it asks what needs my care now. So Plant Powered Collective also has the imagery of the plate, the table, and the chair that brings everything together. The plate represents nourishment.
Speaker 1:It includes the food going into the body and the daily choices supporting physical health. The table represents the full context of a woman's life. It includes her physical, mental health, emotional well-being, relationships, family, work, culture, responsibilities, finances, health care access, home environment, social connection, values, and daily rhythms. It includes the lifestyle medicine pillars of plant predominant nutrition, movement, restorative sleep, stress management, positive relationships, and aborting harmful substances. It also includes the Plant Powered Collective Pillars of Low Toxic Living, bio individuality, purpose, joy, creativity, connection, and the intentional systems that make a vibrant lifestyle more possible.
Speaker 1:The chair represents agency. It is a place in the conversation. Reminds you that you do not have to stand outside of your lifestyle waiting for someone else to design it. You sit down. You listen.
Speaker 1:You learn. You ask the questions. You consider the full table, and you decide what deserves priority. You design the next step. Agency does not mean doing everything at once, but you remain an active participant.
Speaker 1:You are at the head of the table. You are not required to disappear from the conversation about your own lifestyle. Relationship relational leadership shapes how you participate at the table through listening, curiosity, connection, context, and respect. Stewardship guides how you care for what is on and around the table over time. Together, they create a foundation for vibrantly living.
Speaker 1:Not according to social media, not according to a wellness trend, and not according to another woman's priorities. It's according to your values, needs, responsibilities, purpose, and vision for your lifestyle. So this is where the Vantage Collective, the program that doctor Charity Godfrey and I are building recognizes that leaders and employees are whole people. We do not lead in menopause, caregiving, grief, anxiety, nutrition, poor sleep, health concerns, or family responsibilities outside the workplace. We just can't because we're a whole person.
Speaker 1:Those realities come to work with us. They influence concentration, decision making, communication, energy, emotional regulation, engagement, absenteeism, leadership capacity, and performance. Doctor Charity brings expertise in mental health, emotional well-being, trauma, and the nervous system. I bring nutrition, lifestyle leadership experience, and the physiological foundation supporting energy clarity, resilience, and sustainable performance. Together, we help organizations consider the whole person, the whole leader, the team, and the systems surrounding well-being.
Speaker 1:We are not interested in wellness that simply checks a box. We are not interested in giving overwhelmed employees more information without examining the environment in which they are expected to use it. We ask deeper questions. What is affecting this team's capacity? What is contributing to the depletion?
Speaker 1:What support would improve communication, resilience, clarity, and sustainable performance? And what would change if well-being were treated as part of an organization's operating strategy rather than as an individual employee's private responsibility? The Vantage Collective's message is lead well, perform well, be well. Whole person wellness does not lower professional expectations. It builds the foundation from which people are better able to meet them.
Speaker 1:So these are just all the things that I've been thinking about and reformulating and having clarity on. And there's one other thing that I've been thinking about and working on as well, and that is a brain nourishment book that's going to be published in September. Because all of these things, the experience and ideas, are shaping this book. This will be the first book in a broader Plant Powered Collective Nourishment series. It will not be written like a clinical textbook.
Speaker 1:It will be written as a series of approachable conversations, An invitation to pull up a chair. We will explore foods and nutrients that support the brain, but we'll also explore what surrounds the food, sleep and movement, stress, gut health, hormonal changes, connection, purpose, caregiving, mental and emotional well-being, the home and work environments we we we create, the stories women have been told about aging, and the systems that help small choices become repeatable habits. We will recognize some ideas from this podcast that is intentional. Repetition creates familiarity. Reflection creates awareness, and practice creates change.
Speaker 1:The goal of the book is not to give every woman the same rigid plan. The goal is to help her build the knowledge, confidence, agency, and foundation to participate in the design of her own lifestyle. I want the woman reading it to feel informed, but I also want her to feel seen. And I want her to understand that she does not have to change her entire lifestyle in one weekend. She just needs a meaningful place to start.
Speaker 1:She needs evidence informed guidance. She needs some reflection of her own, and she needs some practical stackable shifts and permission to become curious about her body and lifestyle instead of constantly criticizing them. I will be sharing more about the book inside the Plant Powered Collective community as we move closer to its digital publication in September. So I hope that you will join the Plant Powered Collective community. And before we close, I want to leave you with three questions.
Speaker 1:You don't have to answer them all today. Just choose the one that is asking for your attention. Where do I need to reclaim agency? Where have you forgotten that your voice values and experience belong in the conversation? Where do I need to lead myself more relationally?
Speaker 1:Where can you replace guilt or criticism with curiosity, listening, and compassion? And the last question, what part of my life needs more intentional stewardship? Your physical health, your mental health, sleep, nutrition, joy, purpose, etcetera. There's no single correct place to begin. The best place to begin is the place asking for your care.
Speaker 1:And then choose one small action or shift you can repeat. Not once, not only when conditions are perfect, but what can you realistically repeat? Maybe it's adding berries to breakfast. Maybe it's walking for ten minutes. Maybe it's filling your water bottle before opening your email.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's turning off the screen thirty minutes earlier. Maybe it's writing down your postmenopausal symptoms. Maybe it's scheduling that medical appointment. Maybe it's asking someone to help with one caregiving responsibility. Maybe it's calling a friend.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's just sitting outside. Maybe it's creating something. Maybe it's saying no to one responsibility that no longer aligns with your priorities. Small shifts does not mean a significant. Repeated actions are important because they become rhythms, and rhythms become part of the foundation.
Speaker 1:So here's what I want you to take away from today's conversation. I realize I spoke on a lot of things. Brain health is not separate from the lifestyle you are living. It is connected to your food, hormones, sleep, mood, stress, relationships, mental health, medical care, environment, work, purpose, and the responsibilities you carry. I cannot control the progression of my father's condition.
Speaker 1:I cannot remove every complicated emotion from caregiving. I cannot build a business without uncertainty. I cannot control every part of aging. But I can practice agency. I can remain the relational leader of my lifestyle.
Speaker 1:I can steward my health, energy, time, relationships, work, and future with greater intention. I can care for my father and continue caring for myself. I can build a business while acknowledging that my capacity may look different during this season. I can use HRT as one part of an individualized plan while continuing to nourish the full foundation around it. I can acknowledge grief without abandoning joy.
Speaker 1:I can care for the woman that I am today while also caring for the woman I am becoming. And so can you. Your invitation this week is to join the Plant Powered Collective community. That is where I will be sharing updates about the Brain Nourishment book being digitally published in September along with practical resources, recipes, reflections, and conversations to help you strengthen your own Plant Powered foundation. In our next conversation, we will continue exploring the foods, habits, and daily rhythms that nourish the brain and support vibrant life.
Speaker 1:Until then, reflect on this. What is one act of stewardship that my future self will thank me for repeating? You do not have to change everything today. Choose one small shift. Repeat it.
Speaker 1:Allow it to become part of your rhythm and let that rhythm begin strengthening the foundation beneath your lifestyle. And always nourish boldly and live vibrantly.