Getting used to it, Midlife
Getting Used to It, Midlife is a show hosted by two executive life coaches, Beth & Suzee, who are also expert friends and are both getting used to midlife. From empty nesting and aging parents to painful sex, and let’s not forget the extra lubrication, we will sift through all of it, speaking our truth faithfully and vulnerably. Listen as we live through this in ourselves and our relationships in real time and tease through the “how to” of this next phase of life. As coaches, we have the tools, but as women in the middle, we may not have all the answers. Scratch that— we’ll have some damn good ideas, too. Join us, and let’s get used to it together!
Getting used to it, Midlife
Getting Used To It: Cougar Puberty: Laughing Through the Hormone Chaos
"Cougar puberty"—aka perimenopause—has gone viral. Suzee and Beth share their own second-wave puberty stories with humor, honesty, and plenty of laughs about the midlife changes we’re all getting used to.
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Hi and welcome to Getting Used To it where Susie and Beth, two live coaches in the thick of midlife ourselves, where everything's a little weird, occasionally hilarious and a lot unexpected.
Speaker 2:If you're wondering whether you're the only one Googling hobbies for adults, rankling emptiness and dealing with shifting hormones, you are not alone. We're here to navigate this wild chapter of life with you, so let's go. Hey, Beth Susie, what are we talking about today? Cougar?
Speaker 1:puberty. I just wanted to say that, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, I just don't know how I feel, and that's probably a sign of age. I'm a what am I? A Gen Xer, Because you're a cougar. Like I think I'm like an aging cougar. What do you call my stage of life? It's no longer. How come nobody gave my stage a sexy new rebrand? Yeah, I don't know. So cougar puberty everybody probably everyone knows what me is a rebrand for perimenopause, which I was okay with that term, but because it's not my term anymore, I'm more like postmenopause. I need something like-.
Speaker 1:We do need to come up with something that's post it's like sexy tiger, I don't know. I don't have one.
Speaker 2:But I feel like Hilarious, I love it. The rebrand term just like smacks of when the word bitch was rebranded. And I just could not adopt. I was like I cannot Like. The feminist in me could not go from bitch as a negative to bitches. I just couldn't do it. That's so funny yeah.
Speaker 1:Or wouldn't Would not do it, would not do it. That's so funny. Yeah, or wouldn't would not do it, would not do it. Yeah, um, yeah, it's it's. All of these terms hit people differently, right so like do you like it, don't you like it, keep it.
Speaker 1:If you like it, get away with it if you don't, yeah, um, but this term does come from comedian and author Christina Kuzmich I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, but with her friend as well, amy Picard. But I guess what made it go viral is TikTok creators at Radiantrewind. They helped it go viral by framing perimenopause as the read. This was like rebranding. They're like this is the rebrand A fish. And it's amazing AF. Yes, I feel so old when I say AF.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yeah, and it reads old on you. I think the point of the matter is humor, right, and I love that because I love anything funny. So I love that about it, the rebrand, and I love that it's women taking it back. Love that too. Cougar puberty I don't know, it just feels like when I think of puberty it just feels like, and I'm probably wrong, but it feels like high sex drive fun, and I don't think of perimenopause in the same way.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know it's so funny because I didn't think of puberty as like high sex drive fun. For some reason that's not good.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. It was more like pimples. I was thinking acne. Yeah, pimples and periods. I know, I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the way they said, the way they defined it was, it's the idea that it's a second adolescence, but with more swagger and often confusion.
Speaker 2:For sure, for sure. And the reason why you're so confused is because you're awake every night for two hours Exactly.
Speaker 1:You're so freaking tired. Actually, I haven't gone there yet, so things to come. So it also says people were resonating with this, or women were resonating this, because most women are caught off guard by perimenopausal changes, just like puberty.
Speaker 2:I was. I was like this is not going to happen to me like it happens to everybody else are caught off guard by perimenopausal changes just like puberty I was. I was like oh, this is not going to happen to me, like it happens to everybody else.
Speaker 1:And then boom, you're like why am I awake from three to five? Why am I so hot?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and they said it helped to normalize the experience and it makes it easier to talk about, because humor, sure, yeah, humor, humor is an icebreaker. 100 percent, um yeah. So you've not been in cougar puberty yet.
Speaker 1:I've been through it already like I said, I'm in, I'm in like I'm like in what would mine be like?
Speaker 2:babushka, babushka, cougar, babushka, puberty now there's no nothing. Nothing about puberty going on here. Um, yeah, so, yeah, yeah. So you have not yet experienced it I have not experienced.
Speaker 1:I mean, well, I'm just not on the other side of it. So I did have like the hot flashes, and you know, periodically that happens like my body seems to be a little bit slow to go through this process. It's resisting, really not wanting to go there.
Speaker 2:So I'm okay. Yeah, I didn't, I wasn't. I did not have crazy hot flashes or anything like that. Yeah, that's nice no yes, mean I. My version of a hot flash was if you, when my daughter was like menstruating. I'd be like, oh great, now I'm hot. Now I'm hot, oh, I'm more yeah I felt I found, if we were together, I found myself like trying to get on cycle with her, even though I was cycle free.
Speaker 1:I want to get on that emotional cycle with her. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how it does play out, and I think that's the most interesting thing about this, which is you just don't know which. I also feel like that's what puberty is like. So my daughter she did not have any acne or anything like that throughout high school, and then it wasn't until she started college that more of the hormones and everything started to kick in, which seemed so much later than everybody else. So you know, I feel like it is kind of like that right.
Speaker 2:I never had. I never had. I had some pimples, but nothing crazy.
Speaker 1:I never had acne yeah.
Speaker 2:My daughter had acne Like she had to take medication, but not in, not when she was in high school. Yeah, yeah, later yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So maybe we're both like late bloomers, I don't know, maybe.
Speaker 2:I'm totally a late bloomer. That's why you know I act like I'm 14 and I'm 61. That's called immaturity.
Speaker 1:No, it's not, it is not judgy. It's amazing, but so you know, I think it's just a very funny term because I think it has been so hush, hush for so long, to the point where people aren't even studying it. Really, that now it does make it easier to talk about, maybe for people, okay, but it's not being studied because of the patriarchy, for sure, no, for sure, no for sure but I think anything that's gonna help bring it out and have more people, totally yeah, yeah, right so for sure it was patriarchy, but yeah now but now with a fresh rebrand, because we're fresh rebrand because we're cougar puberizing, yeah, puberizing, yeah, and it's getting better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I definitely think, kind of like the first pubescent period in life. It comes on unbeknownst to you, so that's accurate so if you can, like quickly go, like it must be Cougar puberty, cougar Must be Cougar puberty. That's making me tired every day.
Speaker 1:Woo Woo, maybe it would help you know, oh anything, oh well, I even think that kids don't talk about puberty often either and they all are like really worried about judging themselves and their acne and then their hormones getting all crazy and anger and all that Like they. We don't even talk about that enough, honestly, because they do go through shit.
Speaker 2:How self-revelatory are you at 14?
Speaker 1:though Not, but I think that's why I should be talked about more. Like even maybe adults need to say hey, hey, and then put that out there more. You're probably feeling that because like that needs to be a TikTok viral.
Speaker 2:There you go, virality.
Speaker 1:Virus, you know. So I think anything that people are kind of scared to talk about, or it's been hidden and it really shouldn't be, and, like you should be okay, like let's put some humor behind it, whatever it needs to like, get it out there, because the truth is is no matter what. Um, it went viral, so now so many people are talking about it.
Speaker 2:That's great except it doesn't show up in my algorithm and makes me feel behind the times, cause you're a cougar, I'm still gonna. I until today, I probably would have been calling it perimenopause and people have been like, oh, cougar puberty.
Speaker 1:Same here. I do not think it came up on any of my things we, Beth and I, were literally looking for, hey. So what is trending right now with menopause?
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:Beth and I were literally looking for. Hey. So what is trending right now with menopause? Because we want to be on the tip of everyone's tongue with the right ideas, I just want it to seem like we're hip and in the know.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you. This could be our hippest show. This could be.
Speaker 1:The truth is, this could already be out and done with as a topic.
Speaker 2:They're like oh, my gosh, that was so yesterday.
Speaker 1:I hope it sticks around, because we need that we do we do, and I do want to hear other people's stories about their menopause experience too. You know their funny ones. You know what. That just reminded me. I've been seeing more commercials with women with menopause and how they're dealing with it, Like a CVS commercial or something like that. It was really cute. I'm like wow.
Speaker 2:We did a great episode a couple of weeks ago about menopause around the world and how other cultures deal with it.
Speaker 1:They deal with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So I'm glad to see in the US you're seeing it on a CVS ad, because I agree like it doesn't get talked about enough, right yeah?
Speaker 1:But I have to say I do love that. I am living in a time where it is now being talked about more. So at least I get some tools too Lucky me, lucky us. And we get to try out. So at least I get some tools too Lucky me, lucky us, yeah, and we get to try out. We're like forging the way. We get to try out some of these tools and see if they do really work for the generations behind us. So look at us trailblazers and then I think, no matter what humor is just such a great coping strategy totally I need more of everybody, but yeah yeah, it definitely is for me I mean a giggle a day.
Speaker 2:I think would be like a great thing to a great bar to sit. I know, know. One hearty giggle per day. How do you get it?
Speaker 1:I promise that I will do this every day.
Speaker 2:Make this help it actually would really make cougar puberty go down really nicely, I have to say. If you could laugh your way through it, it'd be amazing.
Speaker 1:Listen, most of my Instagram like I don't actually post. I'm so bad at the Instagram like posting part and reading, and, by the way, we're on blue sky, we're on blue sky, exactly. So if you haven't heard of that, go check it out. Check us out on there Also, but I do the reels because they're freaking funny. Those things make me laugh. So I know it could be like a time suck or whatever, but if you can just limit it to like a little bit of minutes per day, then, it is really fun, I just get a kick out of those things I just somehow in my um, in my feed.
Speaker 2:It's like pet humor, I love those too. Or like pet interspecies, pet love.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, yes, cougars. Yeah, exactly, yeah, all right. Well, I think the takeaway, honestly, is not necessarily just the cougar puberty, but how do you bring more humor into your life to then deal with the stuff that is harder? And then we also want to keep you all in the know, just in case you didn't know what the heck this was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Just in case you were sitting around going hmm, perimenopause Sounds like my grandmother's affliction. Guess what it is.
Speaker 1:It was.
Speaker 2:It is cougar puberty from now until we are here next week.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you, it's not Well, thanks for listening again, Yep.
Speaker 2:And humor your way through the day. See you later. Thanks for hanging out with us on Getting Used To it.
Speaker 1:If today made you laugh, think or just feel a little less alone, then we've done our job. See you next time, Because if we're getting used to it, you can too.