The Pink Canary

That spark, that radiance, that internal knowing that everything was going to be better, was the piece still missing. They still had a hard time engaging in the activities they remembered enjoying, they had strained relationships with their partners, and most of them still had less sex than they desired, if they even desired it at all. They felt if one more thing were added to their to-do list, they would break. You cannot truly be well as a woman unless health care addresses your pleasure, unless you are connected to that which makes you completely feminine. The woman each of my patients remembered as being their most authentic self was still missing. They were still not radiant, not fully content with themselves and their lives. Something was still missing. An insidious, internal alarm was still trying to alert them that something was missing from their life, the piece that is hardest to treat and is so often ignored altogether. Something was still holding them back from feeling whatever you want to call it: joy, happiness, fulfillment, enlightenment. I call it pleasure. Throughout this book, when I refer to pleasure, that’s what I’m talking about: joy, happiness, fulfillment, enlightenment, and more. And there it was: that acceptance and surrender; that part of getting older; that part of being a woman that means always being slightly miserable, overwhelmed, and exhausted. The worst part was that this was the norm and women weren’t even expecting anything more. Many times, patients would tell me “Of course I am exhausted and overwhelmed. I have two young kids/career I am trying to build/two elderly parents.” They truly believed it’s a normal part of life to say, “Sorry honey, I have a headache” rather than “Lock the door so the kids don’t catch us.” Should it be normal to sit around and complain to your friends about your partner, your kids, and your job? Rather than to share all the things going right in your life, like the promotion you just got or the marathon you just ran? I noticed this lack of fulfillment was what was left over at the end of my treatment plan. This was the piece still missing even after they had achieved what they’d said they wanted: the weight loss, more energy, and no painful periods or mood swings. It took women I’d been working with for months to finally feel comfortable enough to discuss it during our appointment: the wanting, the lack, the “I can’t quite put my finger on it but….” The dimming of our light, the loss of our joy and fulfillment, the lost interest in intimacy and sex is the warning sign we all missed months or years before our diagnoses. Over the years, I began to recognize this as the first sign of a woman being unwell. It was the check-engine light, the marker signalling danger ahead, that piece we’d all been missing all along. I could no longer ignore the pattern of women who came to me saying they were feeling off and missing something in their lives before they were ever diagnosed with a major health concern. I couldn’t ignore the women that said when they thought about it, they realized they weren’t having sex or hadn’t been enjoying it for years. Take, for example, the breast cancer survivors who recollected the months and years before their diagnoses where they felt so busy prioritizing others’ needs they were apathetic to their own and being intimate with their husbands less than once a month. Throw in a car accident or the stress of a husband who loses his job into that mess, and you have the perfect recipe for diagnosis/disease. Of course, there are women who complete my framework and find complete wellness: mental, physical, and spiritual wellness. So, what was the difference? Why did some women regain their physical health, but not their joy, while other women were able to make a total recovery? That brings me here. To the book I have written for those women who don’t know how to completely fill your cup and regain wellness. This book is for you if you feel like this: ● lost or sad ● like you have no one to talk to ● like something is off with your body or health ● not as happy as you used to be ● uncomfortable in your own skin, like there is something wrong with you ● your relationship is failing ● you are not good enough ● indifferent if you ever have sex again or perplexed about what happened to your libido This book is a warning signal. Like how a canary would warn miners of dangerous conditions, your lack of pleasure is warning you of the danger to come. This is my mission, my movement to wake women up, so they can hear their internal canary warning them to listen if they feel like something is off. Because you feel like something is off, it is. Our Pink Canaries are warning all of us. They are warning us of our disconnect from what makes us joyful and fulfilled, what makes us our most authentic selves. The internal knowing that something is wrong is begging all of us to listen. The danger is coming, and our health will suffer if we do not act now. Unless we intervene earlier, unless we recognize that women are fading away and being put on antidepressants at an alarming rate, suffering through years of specialist appointments without a diagnosis and years of couple’s therapy-the danger will rear its head. Something isn’t working. The current system isn’t working, but we did not have the answer. Until now.