Empowered Plates Empowered Lives

Caring for aging parents? Don't wait for a crisis to have these three conversations.

When you're the person everyone depends on, it's easy to focus on everyone else's needs while quietly putting your own last.

Nicole Hilgenkamp knows that experience firsthand.

While raising her children, Nicole cared for her mother through dementia. After her mother's passing, she realized there were questions she wished she'd asked and caregiving resources she wished she'd known about sooner.

Today, she's the founder of Your Parent Keeper, helping families navigate aging-parent care with greater clarity and support.

In this episode of Empowered Plates, Empowered Lives, Nicole joins Jovonnie to explore caregiver stress, difficult family decisions, building a support team, and preparing before a crisis.

You'll discover three conversations to begin:

• With your loved one: What matters most to you?
• With your support team: Who can help us?
• With yourself: What do I need?

Because you can love someone deeply without leaving yourself out of the care plan.

2-Minute Life Impact Scorecard

How much are painful periods or pelvic pain affecting your everyday life? See what you may have gotten used to pushing through.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainImpact

20 Minutes · Complimentary

Tired of planning your life around painful periods or pelvic pain? Let's talk about what's happening, what you've tried, and what you'd like to change.

We'll explore whether personalized coaching is the right next step.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/FVNextStep

Guest: Nicole Hilgenkamp | Founder, Your Parent Keeper

https://yourparentskeeper.com/

Educational conversation; not individualized medical, legal, or financial advice.

In Loving Honor of Woodrow Ford Jr. ❤️

This episode is dedicated to my grandfather, Woodrow Ford Jr., in celebration of his birthday week. I honor his life with love and gratitude and extend a heartfelt thank-you to everyone who provided him with care, compassion, and support throughout the years. Your love and dedication will always be appreciated.

“My pain isn't that bad.”

How many women have said that because they can still work, manage their responsibilities, or get through their periods with medication?

Linda Jermacans, founder of OYVA, experienced period pain she considered manageable. But after an ultrasound revealed two large ovarian cysts, she eventually learned she had stage 4 endometriosis while already navigating perimenopause.

In this episode of Empowered Plates, Empowered Lives, Linda joins Jovonnie to discuss the symptoms women normalize, the challenge of overlapping health concerns, and what happens when trying to manage your health becomes overwhelming.

Linda also shares her experience of taking around 20 supplement pills daily and reconsidering her approach to nutrition and wellness.

Together, they explore how to recognize symptom patterns, ask better questions, and approach lifestyle changes without adding more pressure.

The takeaway: You don't have to wait until symptoms become unbearable before seeking answers.

2-Minute Life Impact Scorecard

How much are painful periods or pelvic pain affecting your everyday life? Take the scorecard to see what you may have gotten used to pushing through.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainImpact

20 Minutes · Complimentary

Tired of planning your life around painful periods or pelvic pain? Let's talk about what's been happening, what you've tried, and what you'd like to change.

We'll explore whether personalized coaching is the right next step for you.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/FVNextStep

Connect with Founder of OYVA Linda Jermacans: https://oyva.com/

@oyvaofficial on Instagram and Facebook

Always tired? Have you started assuming that feeling exhausted is simply part of getting older?

At 50, Axay Shah questioned that assumption and began exploring how his eating habits influenced his energy. His journey led him to a raw, plant-based lifestyle and, eventually, eight completed marathons.

In this episode of Empowered Plates, Empowered Lives, Axay joins Jovonnie to discuss mindful eating, aging, cravings, and the importance of noticing how your body responds to everyday food choices.

You don't have to become a raw foodist to take something valuable from this conversation.

Discover how to approach your next meal with curiosity instead of rigid rules, and consider one realistic change that fits your life.

Explore your impact

If painful periods or pelvic pain are affecting your work, energy, relationships, plans, or ability to care for yourself, take the 2-Minute Life Impact Scorecard.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainImpact

$0 5-Day 1:1 Coaching — Limited Spots

Tired of pushing through life with painful periods or pelvic pain? Get personal support to work on ONE thing you want to change.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPain5Day

Guest: Axay Shah, author of In Nature We Trust: A Raw Food Manifesto for Energy, Healing & Longevity. https://rawfoodiest.com/

When did pushing through painful periods or pelvic pain become normal?

After nearly driving into an 18-wheeler because of pelvic pain, and still going to work, Jovonnie began questioning how much she'd gotten used to doing just to function.

In the finale of The Patterns Behind the Pain solo series, she introduces five Hidden Survival Patterns: Push-Through, Disconnection, Always-On, Self-Abandonment, and Stuck-in-the-Cycle, and explores how they may be quietly shaping everyday life.

You'll leave with three reflection questions to help you recognize your own responses and consider what you want to do differently.

Because you deserve to enjoy your life, not just get through it.

Take the 2-Minute Life Impact Scorecard: 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainImpact

5-Day 1:1 Coaching — Limited Spots

Tired of pushing through life with painful periods or pelvic pain? Get personal support to work on ONE thing you want to change.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPain5Day

You’re still working, traveling, making plans, and showing up, but what does managing pelvic pain actually require from you?

Jovonnie explores why functioning doesn’t mean you’re not being affected, from planning around your period and pushing through pain to recovering afterward or quietly stopping things you used to do.

Because pelvic pain doesn’t have to completely stop your life to start shaping it, and you don’t only want less pain. You want more of your life available to you.

Take the 30-Second Pelvic Pain Survey using the link in the show notes.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainSurvey

Pelvic pain shows up right when you have somewhere to be. Do you push through, wait and see, change the plan, or cancel?

In this episode, Jovonnie explores why responding to your body can start to feel like surrendering something you want and introduces PAUSE → ASK → ADAPT, a simple way to create more choice when symptoms interrupt your plans.

Because taking care of yourself doesn’t always mean giving up the plan. Sometimes it means changing how you move through it.

🎯 Question of the episode: When pelvic pain interrupts your plans, what do you usually do FIRST?

Take the 30-Second Pelvic Pain Survey using the link in the show notes.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainSurvey

You finally stop and rest. Then you start feeling a little better, and suddenly you’re doing again. So what if rest sometimes feels like it’s never enough because it keeps ending at the first sign that you can function again?

In this episode, Jovonnie returns to the Push-Through Pattern to explore what happens when exhaustion becomes permission to rest and feeling better becomes proof that rest is over.

We’re looking at the push → drain → stop → feel better → go cycle, why it can be difficult to rest when you technically could keep going, and one question that can interrupt the pattern:

“Just because I CAN do more…do I need to?”

🎯 Question of the episode: What usually tells you it’s time to stop and rest?

Living with persistent pelvic pain? Take the 30-Second Pelvic Pain Survey using the link in the show notes.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainSurvey

You’ve tried diets, supplements, doctors, specialists, exercise, rest, and research for your pelvic pain, so why are you still wondering what you’re missing?

Jovonnie explores the Stuck-in-the-Cycle Pattern and what happens when searching → trying → hoping → disappointment keeps sending you back for another answer. What if you’ve genuinely tried everything you’ve known to try, and instead of something new to try, you need somewhere new to look?

🎯 What’s ONE thing about your pelvic pain you still haven’t been able to figure out?

Take the 30-Second Pelvic Pain Survey using the link in the show notes.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainSurvey

You’re the dependable one. The one everybody can count on.

But have you noticed how often you’re the one who gets postponed?

Your lunch can wait. Your rest can wait. Your appointment can move.

Your plans can change. And because you know you’ll understand, your needs become the easiest ones to keep pushing to later.

In this episode of Empowered Plates, Empowered Lives, Jovonnie explores the Self-Abandonment Pattern, when being capable, responsible, and dependable can quietly turn into repeatedly putting yourself last.

And this isn’t another “just put yourself first” conversation.

We’re asking something deeper:

Who becomes negotiable when everything can’t get done?

You’ll explore why disappointing yourself can sometimes feel easier than disappointing everyone else, why you can keep postponing yourself without consciously believing everyone else matters more, and how this pattern can become especially difficult to recognize while living with persistent pelvic pain.

You’ll also get one simple question to interrupt the pattern before your next automatic yes:

“What happens to ME if I say yes to this?”

Because you can be someone people count on without constantly counting yourself out.

🎯 Question of the episode: What do you keep postponing for yourself?

Living with persistent pelvic pain? Take the 30-Second Pelvic Pain Survey using the link below.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainSurvey

Empowered Plates, Empowered Lives is brought to you by Forward Vibrations—helping women with persistent pelvic pain build a life pain no longer defines.

#PelvicPain #WomensHealth #SurvivalMode #SelfAbandonment #ForwardVibrations

Your body is exhausted, but your brain is still planning tomorrow, replaying yesterday, researching symptoms, solving problems, or wondering what you forgot.

Why can’t you turn your brain off?

In this solo episode of Empowered Plates, Empowered Lives, Jovonnie explores the Always-On Pattern, when planning, anticipating, researching, and problem-solving stop feeling like choices and start feeling like your mind’s job.

If you’re living with persistent pelvic pain, chronic stress, or a constant mental load, you may be physically still without ever feeling fully off duty.

But what if your mind isn’t refusing to rest?

What if it thinks staying ON is how it keeps you prepared?

You’ll learn how to recognize what staying mentally ON gives you, what it may be costing you, and one simple five-minute practice to begin stepping out of the pattern.

Because not every thought needs an assignment.

🎯 Question of the episode: What does your mind have the hardest time letting go of?

Living with persistent pelvic pain? Take the 30-Second Pelvic Pain Survey using the link below.

👉🏾 https://bit.ly/PelvicPainSurvey  

Forward Vibrations — helping women with persistent pelvic pain build a life pain no longer defines.

VIBE WITH ME, Y'ALL. 

#Overthinking #MentalLoad #PelvicPain #WomensHealth #SurvivalMode  #ForwardVibrations