You Are Allowed to Ask for More: How to Be the CEO in Your Health

If you've ever left a doctor's appointment feeling more dismissed than helped, this episode is for you. Shari shares the moment that changed how she advocates for her own health, and the simple shifts that can help you do the same.

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Key Takeaways

• If a provider dismisses what you're feeling, that's not the end of the road, and it's not a reflection of what's wrong with you.
• The healthcare system has real gaps. That's a structural problem, not a personal failure on any one provider's part.
• Taking care of yourself is advocating for yourself. Asking a different question, seeking a second opinion, and finding the right provider all count as advocacy.
• A small, repeated promise (Shari's sticky note: "Today is the day I start taking care of me first") can be the beginning of real change.
• You're allowed to keep looking until you find support that actually fits, even if it means looking outside your usual systems.
• Being the CEO of your own health means playing an active role rather than waiting for someone else to name what you're feeling.

Resources

• It's Your Turn, Shari's book
• Take the free Midlife Spark Type Quiz
• Companion Substack article: What Nobody Is Telling Women About Their Own Health

Transcript

The Appointment That Answered Nothing

[00:00:02] Shari Biery: You're listening to It's Your Turn with Shari Biery. I'm Shari, a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, bestselling author, speaker, and creator of the C.A.L.M. Method. Each week, this show is about taking your turn in midlife, embracing new purpose, new passions, and new possibilities. New episodes drop weekly, so be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. Now, let's get started.

In 2018, I sat in my car after a doctor's appointment, and I cried. Not because the news was terrible. But because the appointment had answered nothing.

I walked in with a list of symptoms I could no longer explain away. Night sweats, insomnia, weight that wouldn't move. And a deep fatigue that I just couldn't get answers for. And I walked out with a prescription, and a lot more questions than I went in with.

Now, I had worked in healthcare for a number of years, so I knew how to navigate a clinical setting. I also had family members who were in the medical care system as providers, and even they didn't have much knowledge of where to point me. I still could not find a provider who would really look at what was happening to me as a whole picture.

So, if you've ever left an appointment feeling dismissed more than helped, you already know exactly what I'm talking about. And today, I really want you to hear that you have permission, and you're allowed to ask for more.

The Note

[00:02:16] Shari Biery: Around that same time, I did something small. Something that turned out to matter more than I knew at the time. I wrote a note to myself on a sticky note, and I tucked it in my calendar, so that I would see it daily. Every single morning, I saw this Post-it note. And it had the words, today is the day I start taking care of me first.

Now, this was not an anthem that I had decided to follow, and it wasn't some grand plan, but what it became was just a quiet promise. I had to keep renewing every day until I actually believed it. And that note kept me asking and advocating for myself.

Finding the Right Support

[00:03:15] Shari Biery: Now, finding the right support is not easy. It took time for me to find the right provider. And I know most women that I work with, we navigate this together. It takes multiple providers sometimes. It's like finding the right fit.

But someone that you are really looking for in women's midlife health should be someone who looks at the whole picture. Who understands hormones and stress, and the way midlife can quietly dismantle a woman from the inside out, while she keeps showing up for everyone else.

Now, I know that's a big ask in our current healthcare system. So sometimes we have to look outside some of our regular systems, and that's what I ended up doing, and I found her. And that support changed everything. This was back in 2018. And now there are so many more virtual platforms that are really focusing on women's health.

So, something I want to put out there for you right now, because I hear this so often, is you are with a provider who may not be fully educated on perimenopause or menopause care, midlife care. And you're feeling either guilty, or you feel bad, you have a hard time, you don't want to leave that provider.

But if your provider is dismissing what you're feeling, or you're not getting the answers, it is not the end of the road. It happens more often than it should. And I want you to just, if you need to hear this, it's not a reflection of what's actually going on with you, and in your head, you might be thinking, something's wrong with me. It's a sign to keep looking until you find someone who will take you seriously, or who has the education to help you, especially as a midlife woman.

Taking Care of Yourself Is Advocating for Yourself

[00:05:50] Shari Biery: Now, taking care of yourself is advocating for yourself, and even medical care providers are really talking about this now, the system that we have in place right now has gaps. They are real ones. And that's not a personal failure on the part of any one provider. It's a structural problem that's been building for decades.

So, there are multiple things we could go into in this, and maybe in another podcast I will. We go into it a lot more in depth inside my community. But you don't have to wait for the system to catch up before you start advocating for yourself inside it.

Asking a different question at your next appointment is advocacy. Seeking a second opinion, or going to a provider who can help supplement what your current provider is doing, is advocacy. Finding a provider who specializes in midlife women's health is advocacy. And writing a note to yourself, and putting it somewhere so you'll see it every morning, knowing that you matter, is advocacy.

Taking care of yourself isn't selfish. It's the most direct form of self-advocacy available to you right now.

A Question to Sit With

[00:07:34] Shari Biery: So, just really think about this in your own life. Where, right now, have you scheduled that medical appointment that you've been putting off? Or have you gone to a medical provider and you're just not getting the answers you were hoping for? So, is it time to start thinking another way, or paying attention to something that you've maybe just brushed off?

So, what is one thing your body has been trying to tell you that maybe you're not fully listening to yet? Or you're dismissing, or it's being dismissed by someone else. Just acknowledging that, here, today, is advocacy.

You're allowed to ask for more. You're allowed to keep looking until you find the support that actually fits.

I talk a lot about being the CEO of your health. And it's really important that you play an active role in this, and not leave it up to the chance of someone else just saying what you may be feeling. So, you're allowed to put a note in your calendar and mean it.

Closing

[00:09:14] Shari Biery: So, from here today, there's a couple of ways you can go a little bit deeper if you want. You can take the free Midlife Spark Type Quiz at sharibiery.com/quiz. I always put this link in the show notes so you can go back to it. And that's just a fun three-minute quiz, ten questions, that will help you point the direction of what you're feeling right now and what your needs are recognizing right now.

And if this, what we talked about today, resonated, I wrote an article on Substack this week, so you can come over there and find that at sharibiery.substack.com.

I just want to say thank you for spending the time with me today. This is the conversation I find women are having more and more with each other, finally. Share this episode with that friend or that woman in your life who may need to hear it. That's how we help one another. That's how women know they can ask more questions, they can ask for more. And it will help this movement grow, too.

Alright, until next time, keep taking your turn.

If this episode resonated, take the free Midlife Spark Type Quiz. It takes about three minutes and will help you understand what you need most right now. Take the quiz here.

You can also read the companion article on this same story over on Substack. Find it here.

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