Taboo Talks

For decades, society taught women that menopause was just a phase of hot flashes you had to silently endure until your life was basically over. We are completely disrupting that narrative.

In this powerful episode of Taboo Talks, host Drenda Thomas Richards sits down with midlife mentor and microdosing guide Melissa Saubers to discuss the profound identity shift that occurs during perimenopause and menopause. Melissa shares her 15-year journey from severe anxiety, insomnia, and heavy drinking to a spiritual awakening that led her to become a healer. We dive deep into the reality of medical gaslighting for women in midlife, the cultural push toward using alcohol to cope with hormonal chaos, and why perimenopause is actually a massive portal for your intuition to come online.

Melissa also breaks down the alternative healing modalities she uses to guide women from survival mode into "thrival" mode, including conscious connected breathwork, quantum hypnosis, and working with plant medicines like psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca. If traditional Western medicine has told you "there's nothing we can do," this episode will show you that there is an entire world of healing waiting for you.

Episode Breakdown & Key Takeaways:

• The 15-Year Perimenopause Journey: Recognizing the early signs like anxiety, confusion, and insomnia that often get misdiagnosed as depression.
• The Gray Area of Drinking: Why so many women turn to alcohol to cope with the chaos of perimenopause, and how to identify when it's time to reevaluate your relationship with it.
• Medical Gaslighting: The shocking lack of menopause training for doctors, and the recent push for testosterone prescribing and better education for OBGYNs.
• The Midlife Identity Shift: Why menopause isn't an ending, but a portal to step into your power as a creator and oracle.
• Healing the Nervous System: How conscious connected breathwork can pull you out of chronic fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses.
• Quantum Hypnosis: Accessing the subconscious and the quantum field to find root causes of trauma and connect with higher guidance.
• Microdosing for Menopause: How sub-perceptual amounts of psilocybin mushrooms can rewire neural pathways, increase presence, and heal visibility wounds.
• Ayahuasca and Sacred Ceremonies: Melissa’s intense, heart-opening experience with the grandmother medicine and how to find safe, trained facilitators.

Connect with Melissa Saubers:

• Website: https://healandexpand.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissasaubers/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@melissasaubers
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healandexpandwithmelissasaubers/

Connect with host - Drenda Thomas Richards

• Web: https://www.drendathomasrichards.com
• Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/tabootalksdrenda

Spirituality doesn’t have to be sanitized, and some of the most profound healing happens when we finally ask the questions we were taught to suppress. Angela Shelby is a former pediatric RN who transitioned into a psychic medium, spirit guide channel, dream interpreter, and certified quantum touch practitioner. She operates at the often-ignored intersection of spirituality, sexuality, and real life.

In this episode, Angela breaks down the mechanics of the unconscious mind, explaining why inappropriate dreams are deeply symbolic rather than literal and how anyone can rewrite a recurring nightmare while wide awake. The conversation also confronts the toxic legacy of purity culture and the generational silence surrounding sexual trauma. Angela shares channeled messages regarding sexuality, emphasizing that shame has absolutely no place in spirituality and that self-compassion is the ultimate catalyst for healing.

In this episode, we cover:

• Covert Healing: How Angela used Quantum Touch energy work in a children's hospital to calm anxious patients and babies.
• Dream Interpretation: Why dreaming about someone inappropriate (like a friend's spouse) usually means you are desiring a specific personality trait they possess, not the person themselves.
• Rewriting Nightmares: The psychological life hack of consciously rewriting the ending of a recurring nightmare to give a new directive to your unconscious mind.
• Spirit Guides & Elementals: Understanding the roles of spirit guides, mischievous fairies, and elemental dragons, and why they require your explicit permission to intervene.
• Spirituality & Sexuality: Dismantling the belief that God and sexuality are separate, and why talking about sex is the fastest way to strip trauma of its power.
• The Comfort Zone: Why asking your spirit guides for help will inevitably require you to stretch your boundaries and change your daily actions.

Connect with Angela Shelby:

• Website: http://www.Angelashelby.com
• Live Event: Spirit Guides After Dark (Every Thursday at 6 PM Arizona time) https://www.angelashelby.com/events-1
• Course: Spirit Guide Communication Course - https://www.angelashelby.com/spirit-guide-communication-course-3

🚨 DISCLAIMER & TRIGGER WARNING 🚨 Please post this at the very beginning of the video and at the top of your show notes: Trigger Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of a fatal vehicular accident, severe physical trauma, and discussions of suicide. Please use discretion, and feel free to step away or fast-forward if this content is not safe for you today.

Society expects men to stay quiet, be the rock, and keep their struggles to themselves. But what happens when an unimaginable trauma shatters that silence?

In this powerful episode of Taboo Talks, host Drenda sits down with Jacques Delorme to discuss the horrific night of October 6, 2021. While driving on a pitch-black highway, Jacques struck a 24-year-old cyclist in an unavoidable, fatal collision that was later determined to be a suicide. Jacques candidly shares the graphic reality of that night, including witnessing two subsequent vehicles strike the victim and the profound lack of mental health support he received from the hospital and medical system in the immediate aftermath.

This conversation breaks down the visceral reality of living with PTSD, the debilitating physical triggers of severe trauma, and the crushing weight of "what-if" guilt. Jacques explains how he bypassed a broken mental healthcare system to heal himself using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), journaling, and box breathing. Today, as a certified life coach, TEDx speaker, and author of Driving Out of Darkness, he uses his H.E.L.P. framework (Habits, Emotions, Leadership, Purpose) to guide other men and first responders through their darkest moments.

If you are carrying silent trauma, navigating a divorce, or simply struggling to ask for help, this episode is your permission to speak up. It is okay not to be okay.

Episode Breakdown & Key Takeaways:

• The Night Everything Changed: Jacques recounts the unavoidable collision on a dark Canadian highway and the traumatic events that followed.
• The Failure of the System: The shocking reality of leaving a hospital after a fatal trauma without a single offer for a chaplain or psychiatric support.
• The Anatomy of a Trigger: How PTSD physically hijacks the body, spiking heart rates over minor stressors like a work email or seeing a cyclist.
• Alternative Healing: Why classical psychology wasn't enough, and how Jacques used NLP, meditation, and box breathing to regulate his nervous system.
• The H.E.L.P. Framework: Breaking down Jacques' method for recovery—Habits, Emotions, Leadership, and Purpose.
• Men's Mental Health: Dismantling the stigma that keeps men from asking for help during divorce, grief, and crisis.

Connect with Jacques Delorme:

• Website: https://jacquesdelorme.com/
• Book: Driving Out of Darkness https://a.co/d/05RJq3Yv
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/drivingoutofdarkness (Tune in for his "Raw and Real" sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays)

Connect with Drenda:

• Drenda Thomas Richards, Taboo Talks
• Web: https://www.drendathomasrichards.com
• Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/tabootalksdrenda

What happens when your body knocks offline, but you still have to lead a team, close client deals, and survive corporate politics?

In this powerful episode of Taboo Talks, host Drenda sits down with executive coach, career strategist, and former corporate executive Jill Griffin. After a devastating waterfall fall in Australia resulted in an insidious traumatic brain injury and vestibular damage, Jill spent 11 years searching for answers, enduring medical gaslighting, and fighting to maintain employer-sponsored healthcare to stay alive.

Jill pulls no punches as she shares the realities of navigating corporate culture with an invisible disability: being accused of day drinking, getting fired from a senior leadership role for refusing to board a client yacht, and living in fear of workplace judgment. Together, Drenda and Jill dismantle the corporate silence around non-apparent disabilities, examine why over 25% of the workforce will face a disability before retirement, and break down why asking for accommodations shouldn't cost you your credibility or your career.

If you have ever felt forced to hide your physical or mental health struggles to keep a seat at the table, this conversation gives you permission to put down the armor, demand what you need, and redefine what true resilience looks like.

• The 11-Year Diagnostic Wilderness: Why invisible symptoms exist long before medical science gives them a name, and how Jill navigated vestibular conditions (including BPPV, superior canal dehiscence, and MdDS) while managing high-stakes corporate accounts.
• The American Healthcare Trap: The exhausting cycle of having to perform at 110% at work solely to keep employer-provided healthcare to treat your chronic condition.
• The Cost of Non-Disclosure: The heartbreaking story of how Jill was terminated from a senior leadership position after declining an entertainment yacht outing due to vertigo—before she had the language or legal safety to protect herself.
• The Reality of Workplace Accommodations: Why most ADA workplace accommodations cost under $50 (or are completely free, like repositioning desks or replacing strobe-like fluorescent bulbs), yet remain underutilized due to stigma and fear.
• Your Legal Rights vs. Personal Privacy: Why you never have to disclose your medical diagnosis to human resources or your boss—only the functional accommodation you require to execute your role.
• The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower: How international tools like the sunflower lanyard are creating quiet safety for travelers and employees with non-apparent conditions.
• Resilience in the Rearview Mirror: Deconstructing the Hollywood myth of the "instant resilient hero" and honoring the unseen, messy moments that actually build inner strength.

• 00:00 – Welcome to Taboo Talks & Meet Executive Coach Jill Griffin
• 05:45 – The Australian Waterfall Fall: 11 Years from Impact to Diagnosis
• 09:15 – When the Vestibular System Fails: Vertigo, Sensory Overload & Fear
• 12:30 – "Griffin, Maybe You Shouldn't Day Drink": Confronting Workplace Bias & Gossip
• 16:45 – The Corporate Stigma of Invisible Disabilities in the US
• 20:45 – Workplace Accommodations: The Myth of Expensive Fixes
• 25:30 – Ginger Rogers Backwards & in Heels: The Reality of Cumulative Resilience
• 29:30 – Fired for Saying No: The Yacht Party and the Price of Corporate Ableism
• 39:00 – Stress, High Pressure & the Vagus Nerve Connection
• 41:15 – The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Lanyard & Navigating Travel
• 46:00 – Non-Negotiables and Boundaries for Executive Women
• 55:30 – How Managers and Leaders Can Cultivate Real Psychological Safety
• 01:14:40 – Jill Griffin’s Next Era Leader Framework & Closing Thoughts

• Guest Website: https://www.jillgriffincoaching.com/
• Jill's Podcast: The Career Refresh https://jillgriffin.buzzsprout.com/
• Executive Leadership Cohort: Next Era Leader https://jillgriffin.mykajabi.com/next-era-leader
• Resource Mentioned: The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Initiative (https://hdsunflower.com/)
• Host: Drenda Thomas Richards, Taboo Talks
• Web: https://www.drendathomasrichards.com
• Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/tabootalksdrenda

Today, 6/24/2022, the Supreme Court overthrew Roe vs Wade & set back women's rights 50 years.

Abortion is a moral and personal issue and should not be a criminal or legal issue.

A woman should have the right to do with her body what she wants. Whatever choice she makes will have consequences, and she will have to live with those consequences.

In this episode, I tell my abortion story. I had the right to get one.

If you've had an abortion and have never talked about it or are feeling guilt and shame, please reach out to someone. If you don't have anyone, please reach out to me. I'm on FB and IG @drendathomasrichards

If money was your lover, would you treat it differently?

Are you living out your grandparents' beliefs about money?

Where did your money beliefs come from?

Around the 31 minute mark, Heather explains Akashic Records.

Near the 40 minute mark, Heather gets fired up about women who feel guilty for taking a day for themselves but no one says anything about men taking the weekend off to hunt, golf, or watch football.

Debt is discussed starting at 46 minutes in.

Heather's thoughts on Dave Ramsey start at 58 minutes.

Bottom line, if you want to change your beliefs around money and debt, do it from a place of love & compassion instead of judgment and shame.

You can find Heather on IG @the_heather_doran or catch her podcast "Unblock Your Money Sh!t".

Is Hypnosis mind control? Are you allowing evil spirits in when you are being hypnotized? Maybe you have life-controlling issues that the church has been unable to help you deal with or overcome. Could hypnosis help you? Drenda Thomas Richards offers 1:1 coaching and/or hypnosis sessions. Book a free call with her to see if you're a good fit. DM her on IG @drendathomasrichards if you're interested.

Go behind the pole with me and meet Brianna, a sober dancer, who shares her story of drugs, rehab, redemption, dancing, and faith.

It took 8 stints in rehab for it to finally "click" for Brianna. She shares encouraging words for people who are struggling or who are addicts and for people with shaky faith: There's always hope.

We discuss her first time on stage, the various types of strip clubs, her move to Vegas, becoming a feature entertainer, what it's like dancing sober, and how her faith has evolved throughout the different chapters in her life.

Fun interview!

******

If you’re a disillusioned and/or doubting Christian, join me in my new Facebook Group called "Burned Out On Religion." It’s a safe place to explore and question what life (&/or faith) would be like without the dogma.

Padma Ali is a former couples/sex therapist who transitioned to energy medicine. She's all about helping people unlock their highest potential using Neuropsychology, Energy Healing and Wisdom.

We discuss everything from sexless marriages, why we marry the people we do, & how she moved from family therapy to energy healing. Fascinating discussion.

Nuggets from Padma:

It's never the other person's fault. It's a button pushed within you. Work on yourself first.

There's a reason why you were attracted to a person in the first place. We find partners to fill the void.

You can find Padma at the following places:

www.padmaali.com

IG: @padmaali

Podcast: Create Your Vibrant Life

We pick up part 2 with Candace's arrest.

She talks about prison life and praying for just one picture of her family while she's incarcerated. What is what like to spend Mother's Day in prison, and the surprise visit from her family.

With brutal honesty, Candace talks about life after prison and repairing the relationships with her husband and daughters.

She's also built a business that society wouldn't think would be possible given her background, but God ....