The Hotflash inc podcast

🌿 Join us for the Emotional Fitness Retreat
Transform Perimenopause into Power
Wilson4Q x Hotflash inc
Menla Mountain Resort, New York 
June 4-7 2026 
Sign me up!

🔥 Need help right now?
Grab my free Fix It Fast Perimenopause List for quick, practical non-hormonal relief options, and get on the waitlist for  The Hot Truth About Hormone Therapy, a clear + comprehensive guide to understanding the entire landscape of options and empowering you to make your best decision.
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When I first heard Janice Taylor describe Emotional Fitness Intelligence, something clicked. It felt like the through-line of 15 years of therapy, books, experiments, backstops, progress and questions. Janice is the founder of Wilson4Q, and what she’s building – Emotional Fitness Intelligence – is her attempt to define, measure, and teach something many of us have been trying to figure out the long, hard way. It also happens to land right at the heart of midlife.

Quotable
"The moment you give anything power outside of yourself, you are operating from your emotional injury." – Janice Taylor

Connect with Hotflash inc
TikTok: @hotflashinc.menopause 
Instagram:  @hotflashinc
X: @hotflashinc 
YOUTUBE  @hotflashinc
Facebook:  @hotflashinc
Linked in:  Ann Marie McQueen

Disclaimer
This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your treatment, supplements, or lifestyle.

Emotional Fitness shouldn’t take 15 years

In this solo episode, Ann Marie shares a deeply personal story from her years in breaking news journalism and how unprocessed trauma shaped her internal world well into midlife. She explores why perimenopause can surface long-buried emotional patterns – and why traditional approaches often fall short. This is a conversation about awareness, nervous system reality, and finding a more complete path forward.

Highlights
The TV character that mirrored my internal reality
The moment at a crash scene I’ll never forget-
What adrenaline does in trauma – and what happens after
The coping patterns I didn’t understand at the time
Why I thought something was wrong with me
“How long have you been like this?” – the question that shifted everything
How perimenopause cracked open deeper self-inquiry
The “messy beach” and what hormones reveal
Why emotional fitness might be the missing piece

🔥 Need help right now?
Grab my free Fix It Fast Perimenopause List for quick, practical non-hormonal relief options, and get on the waitlist for  The Hot Truth About Hormone Therapy, a clear + comprehensive guide to understanding the entire landscape of options and empowering you to make your best decision.

🌿 Join us for the Emotional Fitness Retreat
Transform Perimenopause into Power
Wilson4Q x Hotflash inc
Menla Mountain Resort, New York 
June 4-7 2026 
Sign me up!

Connect with Hotflash inc
TikTok: @hotflashinc.menopause 
Instagram:  @hotflashinc
X: @hotflashinc 
YOUTUBE  @hotflashinc
Facebook:  @hotflashinc
Linked in:  Ann Marie McQueen

Disclaimer
This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your treatment, supplements, or lifestyle.

Naturopathic doctor and menopause specialist Dr. Kirsten Smith unpacks why perimenopause and menopause symptoms can feel so intense, where hormone therapy helps, where it gets overpromised, how stress, lifestyle, blood sugar and inflammation shape the experience, and why midlife often becomes a reckoning we aren't ready for.

Highlights
05:47 – Why midlife demands radical responsibility
08:46 – The deeper root cause: self-worth, self-criticism, and women’s relationship with themselves
11:10 – Menopause as sovereignty: freedom, boundaries, and becoming more yourself
16:41 – Hormone confusion on Instagram, soy panic, and how nutrition advice gets distorted
23:19 – GLP-1s, blood sugar, inflammation, and why this conversation is much bigger than weight loss
33:59 – Dr Smith’s own frozen shoulder experience, hormone therapy, and what this reveals about oversimplified menopause messaging
43:02 – Why hormone therapy can be valuable without being a cure-all

Fact check: 3 studies referenced
Cleaning at home and at work in relation to lung function decline and airway obstruction. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. doi:10.1164/rccm.201706-1311OC;  Oxalate (dys)metabolism: Person-to-person variability, kidney and cardiometabolic toxicity. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14091719 MGLP-1 receptor agonists for weight loss for perimenopausal and postmenopausal women: current evidence. doi:10.1097/GCO.0000000000001015

Connect with our guest
Website: drsmithnd.com
Instagram: @drkirstensmithnd

🔥 Need help right now? Grab my free Fix It Fast Perimenopause List for quick, practical non-hormonal relief options, and get on the waitlist for  The Hot Truth About Hormone Therapy , a clear + comprehensive guide to understanding the entire landscape of options and empowering you to make your best decision.

Connect with Hotflash inc
TikTok: @hotflashinc.menopause 
Instagram:  @hotflashinc
X: @hotflashinc 
YOUTUBE  @hotflashinc
Facebook:  @hotflashinc
Linked in:  Ann Marie McQueen

Disclaimer This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your treatment, supplements, or lifestyle.

This podcast originally ran on 17 July 2025

In this deep-dive episode, independent researcher and Energy Balance Podcast host Jay Feldman walks Hotflash inc founder Ann Marie McQueen through his bioenergetic approach to health, exploring how modern life disrupts our energy systems and misleads us around hormones.
Jay explains why perimenopause symptoms aren’t necessarily signs of estrogen deficiency, what progesterone’s underrated role is, and how metabolism, stress, and gut health all converge to influence the midlife transition.His work has been instrumental in helping Ann Marie connect the dots between her own thyroid, gut health, fatty liver, and hormonal changes. If you’re curious, overwhelmed, or stuck between conflicting advice – this one’s for you.

Highlights:
Why the mainstream medical model didn’t cut it for Jay
How energy production impacts reproductive hormones
The cultural lie of “eat less, move more”
Seed oils, PUFAs and what they’re doing to your metabolism
Sunscreens, toenail polish, and endocrine disruption
Why low estrogen blood levels don’t tell the whole story
What your liver and gut have to do with your hormones
Why estrogen replacement might be a band-aid, not a solution

Guest bio
Jay Feldman is a health coach, independent researcher, and the host of the Energy Balance Podcast. With a background in neuroscience and exercise physiology, he takes a bioenergetic approach to health that focuses on restoring cellular energy and dismantling modern myths around nutrition, metabolism, and hormones. Jay’s personal mission is to help people heal by reconnecting them with their bodies and understanding how modern life throws off our internal systems.

Work with Jay & explore more
Website: jayfeldmanwellness.com
Free Guide: jayfeldmanwellness.com/guide
Podcast: The Energy Balance Podcast

Join the Hotflash inc perimenoposse:
Web: hotflashinc.com
Newsletter: Hotflash inc. on Substack
TikTok: @hotflashinc
Instagram: @hotflashinc
X: @hotflashinc
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | Substack
See hotflashinc.com/privacy-policy for privacy information

Unlocking the Hidden Layers or Menopause: Trauma, Hypnosis, and Inner Work with Sally Garozzo

Join host Ann Marie McQueen as she delves into the transformative journey of menopause with Sally Garozzo, a clinical hypnotherapist and podcast host. Sally specializes in menopause, complex trauma, and the long-term impact of early life stress. She works with women who sense that menopause is more than just a hormonal disruption, helping them understand it as an identity and emotional recalibration. Sally hosts The Menopause Mindset Podcast and offers individual and group sessions to support women during midlife and beyond.

Highlights:
01:02 - The sense that menopause is more than just hormones
02:25 - Understanding menopause as a catalyst for emotional sensitivity
04:36 - The limitations of traditional medical paradigms for complex stories
06:54 - The metaphor of menopause as a tide revealing buried issues
09:20 - The impact of childhood and family dynamics on menopause
12:02 - The mind-body connection and how perspective influences symptoms
17:41 - Personal stories of anxiety, panic, and recognition of trauma
24:05 - The science of hypnosis: focus, suggestion, and energy work
31:20 - Skills training for mind and body—neurobics and perspective shifts
42:48 - How trauma and nervous system dysregulation amplify menopausal challenges
44:50 - Words of hope: deep work, attunement, and community support

Resources & Links:
Marisa Peer - Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT)

Connect with Sally Garrozzo:
Instagram
Website

Disclaimer: This episode emphasizes that menopause is not just a hormonal event but a profound inner transition. Healing involves understanding, acknowledging, and working through emotional wounds with compassion, practical tools, and expert guidance. This episode is for information and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as medical advice; always seek out an expert for proper medical treatment. 

Join the Hotflash inc perimenoposse:
Web: hotflashinc.com
Newsletter: Hotflash inc. on Substack
TikTok: @hotflashinc
Instagram: @hotflashinc
X: @hotflashinc
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | Substack
See hotflashinc.com/privacy-policy for privacy information