Science And Soul After 50 - Episode 337

Welcome And The Show’s Promise Sandy Kruse 0:02 Hi everyone, it's me, Sandy Cruz. Welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. For many years now, I've been a trusted voice for people in midlife and beyond who want a deeper, more honest conversation about wellness. One that includes the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the esoteric.

Most episodes are solo now because I want to bring you thoughtful research, lived experience, and grounded insight without noise or bias. And when I do bring on a guest, it's because their work genuinely adds something meaningful to the conversation. Here we explore the full spectrum of what it means to be well, how the body functions, how the mind heals, how the spirit expands, and how all of these layers shape life lived with clarity and joy. Thanks for being here.

And if this show resonates with you, please follow, rate, review, and share it. It truly helps the message reach more people. Hi Why A New Season Starts Now Sandy Kruse 1:32 everyone, welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen season six. And every year I change over the season in September after Labor Day.

And the reason I do that is to me, it always feels like a new year when we start in September. So this is why I didn't start a new season every January. By the way, it's actually going to be seven years in February since I began Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen Podcast. From Biohacking To An Enriched Life Sandy Kruse 2:10 So today, what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to give you a little tiny bit of a review of the last year.

And the reason I'm going to do that is I've really changed. You know, coming into seven years next year, it's going to be I'm a different person than I was when I started this a month before the pandemic. And if this is your first time here, welcome. And I have been doing this show for so long and it remains independent.

And I used to have way more guests before. If you look back at my catalog, I've had some amazing guests with amazing conversations. However, if you've been following my content, you'll see that it's changed in this past year. And the reason it's changed is I want to keep coming to you with true, real, authentic conversations, not to biohack your way and to live to 120, but to really, really live an enriched life.

People have become really obsessed with adding years. And this is why I become more interested in what we're putting into those years because I do not feel we can be so egotistical as to think that I, Sandy Cruz, am going to live to 120. This is why I'm all about science and soul. This is why I've changed how I approach my voice here in this space.

And what has changed the most, what's really underneath the change, and it's pulled at me the hardest. And I've had a lot of life lessons. And the biggest one is women in midlife and beyond, we're actually beyond midlife, I'm 56 years old, but we are refusing to disappear. I spent a huge part of this topic at almost the foundation of everything I've talked about in the last year.

So the real reason you're on edge in perimenopause and what cortisol and estrogen are actually doing to your nervous system. I've talked about vaginal estrogen, which is rarely talked about. We hear a lot of these sane conversations about bioidentical hormones, but I'm taking on topics I feel there's a gap in that are important topics in health and wellness, body, mind, spirit, soul, always science and soul, that are not as much on repeat. This is another reason why I don't have many guests.

And I do now and again, and I do still have some affiliations, but very few. I pick and choose this very carefully because I in the podcast space see a lot of the same guests on repeat, on repeat, same topic, same guests, same thing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And quite honestly, I don't want to bring you stuff that is biased. So it's okay to have an NAD expert come on and they own an NAD supplement company.

That's okay. I just want my content to be more original, more useful, and deeper, greater depth. So this past year, I've covered the usual stuff. I've even covered why you're not losing weight even when you're doing everything right.

I covered hair loss after 40. I actually even covered the organs that we are told are useless unless, you know, uh until they're taken out. And then you're like, holy shit, I don't function the same as I used to when I had a thyroid gland. Most of you know I started Cancer, Thyroid Lessons, And Credentials Sandy Kruse 6:30 this whole wellness journey in 2010.

My daughter was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma. This is a malignant tumor. She was five, and then exactly one year I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I have had to really, really explore and navigate uncharted territory at that time.

I mean, back in 2011, the I'll never forget my endocrinologist's face when I said, I did some research, and uh, you need to give me some T3 and not just Synthroid T4 because I'm under so much stress and I'm not converting the T4 to the active T3. By the way, I did write the Essential Thyroid Guide. You can find it on Amazon everywhere. It is not a clinical book.

If you want a clinical book, go buy one of those two-inch books and read through it. That's okay too, if that's your jam. This is simply a guide because I remember when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I was 41 years old.

I didn't even know what the heck the thyroid did. Like, this is serious stuff, guys. I'm not joking when I say this. And so this is what led me on my journey.

I started a blog. I started to really become so interested in wellness. I actually went back to college at age 46, uh, and I'm a registered holistic nutritionist. I have multiple certifications in health, certifications in endocrinology and hormones, in peptides, and anti-aging, and all the things, clinical nutrition, you name it.

But then I was like, okay, and I was very much involved in the biohacking community, which there's a lot of great people in that community too. It just didn't resonate. It felt like a big piece was missing. One big piece that I felt was missing was joy, because I had spoken on stage with you know some great people, but they lived so restricted, so measured, not all of them, but a lot of them.

And some pretended to. And then on the out other side, you know, they're having coke or diet coke every morning for breakfast. So my whole point is I had to branch off on my own because I was trying to put myself into a box. So I talked about a lot of things in the last year.

Hair loss after 40, which I mentioned, the organs that we're told are useless, which I mentioned, thyroid's one of them. I also covered the uterus, I covered a number, gallbladder, there's a bunch. But then there's the other side of what I covered Midlife Visibility And Reclaiming Joy Sandy Kruse 9:25 in the last year, and that is why women lose themselves in midlife. Then there's the female betrayal wound.

Is she really your friend? Then there's midlife visibility, where a lot of us might become almost afraid to shine brighter, and that was a big part of my journey. Like, you know, oh, I don't want to shine too bright. I don't want to be too outspoken.

I don't want to be too out there. Well, I'm not living by those rules. I'm living by my rules now. Then there's midlife visibility, there's embodiment, there's another thing that I talked about, it was a great length, is why we carry more fear as we age.

I also talked about joy and cultivating more joy because I don't know about you, but you know, I hear this all the time. Life is hard, life is hard, life is hard, and life isn't easy, but when we see what all of these things are there for, we kind of can open our eyes a little bit more. I'm gonna get into that. So I didn't even plan this whole cluster of topics, but looking back, it's kind of more obvious.

This became a place where women in the mid middle of their lives and older could be could come to and be treated like the whole intelligent and evolving, beautiful people that we are not fading, but rising. And this was a whole question, a whole episode this year, actually. Nervous System Work That Actually Sticks Sandy Kruse 11:10 And it turned out to be the thesis of half the season. And then the second thread was really all about the nervous system and the inner work.

There was inherited family trauma and epigenetics. I covered that, and by the way, go check that one out. It's with Mark Willin. He wrote the book, It Didn't Start With You.

Then there's why your nervous system gets stuck in fear and actually how to reset it. Rewiring the brain, the science and the soul of breaking old patterns. Then there's sensitivity, sensitivity as a superpower instead of as a defect. That's a big topic.

How many of you have been told you're too sensitive? Well, no, it's actually a beautiful gift. And I talk about how you can actually cultivate that beautiful gift of being that sensitive person. Then there was actually some interesting stuff where there's a lot of work that a lot of the wellness world skips because it's slow and it doesn't sell a supplement.

But this is the part that changes you, and you can optimize your blood work all you want. But if your nervous system thinks it's in danger, nothing's gonna hold. And then the third thread is the one I'm really proud of. I'm actually proud of a lot of the work that I do, and it's really the spine of everything now, and it's science and soul sitting in the same episode without apology, the science of love and oxytocin and attachment right alongside the everyday practices that build a bond.

Then I talked about karma, understood properly, instead of as that bumper sticker that you see. I also broke down ayahuasca in relation to the higher self, where actually I said the thing that most people won't, and that is that being cracked open all in one ayahuasca setting isn't the same as being ready to see what's inside. And this medicine is right for very, very few people and wrong for many. So I talked about that, and then the balance that I've been chasing for years is all about okay, let's, you know, you hear this expert talk about plant medicines and how great it is, but I actually always bring the other side because I'm coming to you without a specific bias where I'm trying to sell you Integrity In Wellness And Marketing Hype Sandy Kruse 14:00 something like a retreat at the end.

So another thread was integrity. And this one got louder in my head as the year went on. Longevity supplements and what's real versus what's marketing, smoking versus vaping versus nicotine pouches. Explained without picking a side for you, drainage before detox, the sleep advice that every single guru gets wrong.

Okay, and you're never gonna hear one of those uh guru special sleep people tell you what I tell you. Then there's whether HTMA actually holds up hair tissue mineral analysis. Okay, I've had a few of those done. I talk about that, where I put the criticism of it right on the table and then answered it instead of pretending it didn't exist and then trying to sell you a test at the end, right?

Which I don't do. And the one I just released to very close to the end of this season was the integrity crisis. Fake experts, AI-generated lies, the coupon code economy in the wellness space that has completely reshaped what people call wellness since I began my podcast in 2020. I care about this more than almost anything I do here because it's personal.

I built this show on passion over profit and no bias at a time when the whole industry was starting to tilt the other way, watching it get worse, watching people hand their power and their money to whoever has a discount code because they're talking about it and they're saying it cures everything. Okay, maybe they don't say it cures everything. I'm being I'm exaggerating a little bit, but we're giving too much power to these so-called experts. And it's exactly why I keep doing this, you know, no sponsor telling me what to say on my show.

And if I do have a sponsor, it's because I align with Men After 40 And Marriage As Medicine Sandy Kruse 16:18 them. And then here's another thread of what I covered in this last year: men and long marriages and protecting it. So I got into the quiet changes in men after 40 that nobody explains to regular guys. And I'm pausing here because a lot of the stuff we see online for health and wellness is that guy who still works at the gym, a really big health enthusiast, not the regular guy.

I also get into how Gen X men were taught to go silent and how to undo it, protecting a marriage after 50. That's a big one. Whether AI can save a marriage, and where the honest answer is no. It's communication that saves the marriages.

AI is just a patient translator when the two of you have stopped hearing each other. I didn't expect to spend this much time here, but my audience is largely women in 20, 30, 40-year marriages, in the empty nest syndrome in that roommate phase with their partner. And you can't talk about their whole person health and leave out the person that's sleeping next to them. Relationships are medicine, and I mean that clinically, not sentimentally.

This is like a part of Refusing A Niche And Rejecting Gurus Sandy Kruse 18:00 longevity. So if you've been here a while, you know that I came to this as a holistic nutritionist. And as you know, I wrote that whole guide on thyroid, but somewhere in the last year, and I can actually point to the episode, it was 300th. The I think it was my 300th journey, and it's the hero's journey one.

I stopped narrowing myself to fit a niche and started doing the opposite. I let myself hold all of it at once, and this is rare. And I've heard feedback like, what is she doing? She used to talk about only hormones and have all these hormone doctors.

I'm like, nah, I hold it all. The hormones, the nervous system, the energy work, the deeper, the esoteric, spiritual, metaphysical work, and the honest midlife conversation you have with yourself. And I stopped apologizing for that range. But I will tell you, for years now, especially when I was in that biohacking um, you know, click, I'm gonna call it a click.

Um, I felt like this was kind of a problem, like I needed to pick a lane in order to grow. And I'll tell you a little story. One day I sat there and I go, why don't I ever go viral? And I use some AI and I I asked, and and you know, I put in my podcast and everything and my platform, and they said, because you do not choose to take on topics that are clickbait, you choose real life stuff and you go deep on it.

And this, my friends, is where I feel truly aging better sits. It doesn't sit at the one thing that you're gonna take to improve your health span, it doesn't sit there, it sits at all of it, and I know it sounds like a lot of work, but that range that I talk about, that is the work, and I have lived in this space for so long now, and I've seen people who avoid the work. I like to evolve, I like to keep moving and growing as a person, I like my relationships to grow, and I actually have learned through a lot of deeper work to see things for as they really are. So the other thing that changed is that I got clearer about what I'm actually here to do.

I am not here to be your guru or your expert. I've said this more and more this year, and I'll keep saying it because all of it begins with you. You, not that person who's an expert biohacker. Your health, your healing, your power, and my job is to hand that back to you, not to keep it like I'm your guru.

I leave breadcrumbs all across every single episode that I release so that you are able to find your way, not so that you become dependent on mine. In an industry that's built on the exact opposite, that's maybe a strange business model. And I've heard some criticism. But it's the only one I can live with on this Sandy K nutrition platform.

I love everything that I embody, which is and has always been one, my hero's journey, and two, my passion over profit model. Subscribe For The Through Line Sandy Kruse 22:20 It's who I am. So I'm gonna ask you to subscribe because my show clearly isn't a series of one-offs, it's a trail for you in your life that you can follow. Some of it might be interesting to you, some of it might not, and that's okay.

Everything I just walked through in the last year connects. The nervous system episode makes the menopause episode land differently. The integrity episode changes how you hear the supplement episode. If you only catch one when it happens to cross your feed, you get a fragment.

But when you subscribe, you get a through line. And the through line is where actual change can live in your life. So, sure, there might be one or two episodes that you might skim through that might not be interesting, but when you subscribe, you have a choice. Okay.

So what you're doing too is you're keeping a no-biased show in existence in a space that has very few of them left. And subscribe because of where season six is going. More of the whole person aging better work that holds the body, the mind, the spirit, and soul in the same frame. It will build on everything from this year and more.

It's going to go farther. And I made you something, Sovereign And Owning What Is Yours Sandy Kruse 23:55 it's not out yet, but it's coming this season. It's going to be affordable for almost everyone. And it's the whole reason why I have evolved in this way in this last year.

You, as the final authority in your own life. Answering to no guru, dependent on no one's opinion of you, no discount code, and no, not on me either. You can buy this course once and never have to buy a single thing again from me. Use my formula, make it your own, and it'll change and evolve just as you do.

I built this from my own practice, and it does one thing. It teaches you to understand what's actually yours. So, which weight you've been carrying that was never yours to begin with. Who you keep letting back into your life that you already know needs to go.

Who's spent or sorry, who's earned a place next to you, and who's just been taking up space because you're too kind to say it. This is the story of my life. I've spent years giving people one chance too many, and I've learned to weed out what wasn't mine. And sovereign is handing you the shortcut that I didn't have.

No dependence, no reliance, no leaning on anyone else to tell you who you are, what you are, what you're doing good. Just you, sovereign, deciding who stays and who's done. It's coming and watch Boundaries And Not Carrying Others Sandy Kruse 25:52 for it. I'm gonna give you an example of how much I've changed.

I used to be so reliant on other people's opinions and energy. I'll give you an example. I was talking about my program Sovereign, and I was talking about it with somebody who I'm really close with, and they kind of brushed it off. And initially, my old reaction would be, why are you brushing it off?

Why don't you want to read more about it? Why don't you care to hear about it? I actually could care less what they thought, and I'm like, oh my god, Sandy, you've changed. The other thing for me that has changed is that I no longer take other people's emotions in and carry them as though they're my own.

This was one of the biggest changes for me because when I was doing that, I didn't know what's mine, what's theirs, why am I feeling this way, why am I taking this on? It has changed my life, my friends, and that's coming. So that's the last year. I've kind of done a quick year and review.

That's how much the season is gonna change. Six season six is starting now. So if you've been with me through all of it, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being here.

You have no idea what it means that you keep showing up for a solo independent show without any gimmick behind it. If you're new here, start anywhere. I have a big catalog, my friends. Make sure you're subscribing and let the breadcrumbs that I leave do their thing.

Remember that all of it begins with you, not with me, not with a guru, not with a discount code. It starts with you and it's always Science and Soul. Where To Follow And How To Get The List Sandy Kruse 28:07 Be sure you're following, share this episode with a friend, go back and check out my catalog and follow me. I've been on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, everywhere for a very long time.

It's Sandy Knutrition everywhere. And if you would like a listing of the last 12 months of the shows so that you know what to look for, email me sandy at sandyknutrition.ca, and I'll send you the list, my friends. Have a great week. Happy Labor Day weekend.

I hope you have a wonderful start to the new season. Let's call it a new season. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to share it with someone you know might benefit.

And always remember when you rate, review, subscribe, you help to support my content and help me keep going, bring these conversations to you each and every week. Join me next week for a new topic, new guest, new excited conversation. Help you live your best life.