Perimenopause Brain Fog, Anxiety & Rage: My Real Mental Health Update at 45

She used to be the sharp one. Quick with words, organized, the friend who always had her shit together. Then perimenopause showed up and took the instruction manual for her own brain and lit it on fire. In this episode Brooke gets brutally honest about what's actually happening to her body, her mind, and her mental health at 45, and why the tools that used to work for her stopped working overnight.

This isn't a clinical breakdown of hormones. This is Brooke, live and unedited, walking you through a week that included a flat tire, a broken AC, four eye styes, a wildfire scare, and a brain that keeps losing words mid sentence. If you've ever felt like your body suddenly stopped cooperating with the plan, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Why "what goes down must come up" became Brooke's mantra during a genuinely rough week
• The brain fog and word loss that's making her question her own sharpness
• Why leaning into the mess beats fighting to be the old version of yourself
• The sound sensitivity spiral nobody warns you about (hello, cheer practice waiting rooms)
• How perimenopause is amplifying anxiety and depression she already had, not creating something new
• Why she's ditching shame and choosing to normalize normal instead
• The conversation she had to have with her husband about no longer being a morning person
• Why community and naming it out loud is the first real step toward feeling less alone

Resources mentioned:

• Upcoming podcast guests: functional doctors and nutritionists specializing in perimenopause (stay tuned)

🔗 Connect with Brooke: Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected TikTok: Brooke Jean Unperfected 🔗 Work with Brooke one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com 💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp -- first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

What if the thing you've been trying to fix about yourself is actually the whole point?

Brooke sits down with Brand Architect, Writer and fellow truth-teller Michelle Garside, the woman who helped birth the Unperfected brand, for a conversation that is equal parts gut-punch and liberation. Michelle's forthcoming book Not Awakened is exactly what it sounds like: a direct challenge to the personal development machine that told you to reach higher, manifest bigger, and sage cleanse your way to enlightenment while secretly still drowning in debt, body shame, and a hunger that nothing has ever quite filled.

This one will make your butthole clench and then set you free. You were warned.

In this episode, Brooke and Michelle get into:

• The moment Michelle was publicly declared "not awakened" in front of 200 people at a spiritual university in India and why it became the most important moment of her life
• How the self-improvement world can become just another tool to beat yourself up (not intentional enough, not mindful enough, not magical enough)
• The relationship between shame and specialness and why the most "broken" people are often the most magnetic
• What radical acceptance actually looks like in real life (hint: it's not a 72-step morning routine)
• Why the messiest parts of your story are the parts that will finally connect you to your people
• Dr. Richard Schwartz (founder of IFS/Internal Family Systems) and the question he asked Michelle that she answered with a hard no
• The "learn it, live it, give it" framework and how your deepest wound might be pointing directly at your purpose
• Why the truth, spoken out loud in a room full of people, is still the most powerful healing tool there is

Michelle Garside is a brand architect who has built thousands of brands, a longtime member of the Unperfected community, and the author of Not Awakened, available now on Amazon for pre-order. Her book blends raw personal storytelling with a message the self-help industry didn't see coming.

Pre-order Not Awakened on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0c5kuXsc

Or simply search "Not Awakened Michelle Garside"

Connect with Michelle: @themichellegarside on Instagram | Sub stack: I'll Go First | notawakened.com

🔗 Connect with Brooke: Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected TikTok: Brooke Jean Unperfected 🔗 Work with Brooke & Team: www.liveunperfected.com 💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp — first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

You know that feeling of being stuck in your head, running through the to-do list while your body is just... along for the ride? Like your life is happening at you instead of through you?

That's what this episode is cracking open.

Brooke Jean sits down with Brooke Yantzi, founder of Dance Alchemy®, intuitive business coach, and somatic healer who has been facilitating transformational dance and movement spaces for over 15 years and over 100,000 people worldwide. What started in the jungles of Costa Rica, with a whisper that something more is about to emerge, has grown into a movement spanning four continents, 130+ certified facilitators, and thousands of women remembering what it feels like to actually be in their bodies.

This one goes deep. We're talking divorce as a medicine portal, the father wound that kept showing up as a pattern in relationships, and why your anxiety might not be something to fix but something to listen to. Plus, why dancing together around a fire isn't ancient history, it's literally what we still need right now.

If you've ever felt like you know all the right things but can't seem to live them, this episode is your permission slip to stop thinking your way through it and start moving.

In this episode, we cover:

• What Dance Alchemy® is, where it came from, and why Brooke built it from 15+ years of work with over 100,000 people across the globe
• What "embodiment" actually means when you strip away the buzzword (hint: it's simpler than you think, and harder than you know)
• Why we get stuck in "healing loops," knowing our trauma but still repeating the same patterns
• How Brooke's divorce became the biggest medicine portal of her life and what she did instead of running away
• The father wound she uncovered and how inner child work finally broke a relationship pattern she'd been living for 18 years
• Why your body's anxiety signals aren't always a problem to solve, sometimes they're pointing you toward truth you've been avoiding
• How to start building self-trust through small daily acts so that when the big decisions arrive, you're ready
• Why dance has been woven into every culture on earth for thousands of years and what that tells us about what we're missing right now
• Brooke's big vision for Dance Alchemy®, thousands of facilitators, lights coming on all over the world, and a global movement of women rising in their bodies and their leadership

Resources & Links Mentioned:

• Website: www.brookeyantzi.com
• Dance Alchemy® info: www.brookeyantzi.com/dance-alchemy
• Brooke Yantzi on Instagram: @brookejillianyantzi
• Dance Alchemy Global on Instagram: @dancealchemyglobal
• Dance Alchemy® Level 1 Facilitator Training (8 weeks online, in-person options available)
• Dance Alchemy® 8-Month Somatic & Embodiment Certification
• Becoming the One by Sheleana Aiyana / @risingwoman on Instagram
• Mention you heard about it on The Unperfected Pod for a special discount on the certification!

🔗 Connect with Brooke: Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected TikTok: Brooke Jean Unperfected 🔗 Work with Brooke one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com 💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp, first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

If you've spent your whole life not quite fitting the box, bumping up against the edges, wanting to bring more of yourself to your work but feeling like you weren't supposed to — this episode is going to land hard. In a good way.

Brooke recorded this episode straight from a real conversation that sparked at a networking event with Jen Morris, founder of Renegade Motherhood. The question that cracked everything open: How are you breaking the rules?

And that question opens up something so much bigger. Because here's the truth. We are living in a moment of massive, irreversible change. AI is reshaping the entire landscape of how we work, create, and connect. And in this liminal space, the women who've always felt like they were "too much," too emotional, too intuitive, too hard to categorize, are actually the most equipped people in the room.

Your intuition isn't a liability. It's data. Your energy awareness isn't woo-woo. It's a skill set the thinking brain literally cannot access. And your refusal to be boxed in? That's not a character flaw. That's an innovation instinct.

In this episode, Brooke gets into:

Why so much change at once hits the nervous system like a threat and how to stay grounded so you don't miss the massive opportunity inside it

The difference between the 0.5-5% of your brain that thinks and the other 95% that your body, energy, and intuition are running from, and why women are uniquely positioned to lead from that place

Why "stay in your lane" is actively killing innovation and what it looks like to bring ALL of yourself to your work responsibly

How to begin unearthing who you actually are underneath the good girl conditioning, the shoulds, and the years of shrinking

What redefining success actually looks like beyond the spreadsheets, the titles, and the performance of having it together

The real reason women have been kept out of the rule-breaking, wealth-building conversation and why that ends now

This episode is a rallying cry. It's also a permission slip. And if your nervous system contracts a little when you imagine actually doing this, Brooke talks about that too, because the discomfort is part of the data.

You don't have to know exactly who you are yet. You just have to be willing to start looking.

Resources + Links Mentioned:

Jen Morris, Renegade Motherhood — check her out, she's the real deal

Legend Mastermind — fall 2026 cohort now forming. This is the container where you heal, reveal the truth of who you are, and rise from that place. DM Brooke or visit www.liveunperfected.com for details.

🔗 Connect with Brooke:

Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected

TikTok: Brooke Jean Unperfected 🔗

Work with Brooke one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com

💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp -- first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

When the Universe Rips Off the Band-Aid: Divorce, the Dark Night of the Soul, and Finding Your Way Back

What happens when everything falls apart at the same time?

Your job. Your house. Your marriage. Your whole idea of who you were supposed to be.

In this episode, I sit down with my friend Olivia Horoshko, somatic divorce coach and advanced breathwork facilitator, for a conversation that goes way beyond the surface of divorce. Liv shares the raw, real story of her "trifecta" — losing her corporate career, being forced to sell her family home, and receiving divorce papers all at once — and how that brutal season cracked her open into the work she was always meant to do.

This one is for the woman who's staying in something she's outgrown. For the woman wondering if the gut feeling is real. For the woman who's been told to just keep it together, when her whole system is screaming otherwise.

In this episode, we cover:

• What it actually feels like in your body when you're in the shock of separation — and why the first 6 to 12 months can leave you feeling like a zombie
• The "trifecta" moment that the universe uses to rip off the band-aid so you can finally become who you're meant to be
• Why the system of divorce is not built for grief — and what that costs women emotionally
• How breathwork and somatic coaching helped Liv move energy when talk therapy alone couldn't get her there
• What somatic "contractions" actually feel like in the body and why they're your source of truth
• The difference between "I am sad" and "I am experiencing sadness" — and why that one shift changes everything
• Why perfectionists fight to stay in things they've outgrown (jobs, marriages, identities) out of fear of failure and judgment
• The fault lines from childhood that show up quietly in our marriages until they can't be ignored anymore
• Is the institution of marriage even designed for modern women? We go there.
• What it means to love someone as a soulmate, not THE soulmate — and how that reframe can set you free
• The profound question from the book Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser: "What did you come here to learn?"

Resource mentioned: Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser

Connect with Olivia:

Olivia Horoshko is the founder of The Somatic Divorce Coach, where she helps women move through separation and divorce using body-based practices, breathwork, and nervous system regulation. After 25 years in corporate marketing, Olivia followed her long-time interest in alternative healing modalities, energetics, and spiritual practice into formal training as an advanced breathwork facilitator and somatic coach. When her own life shifted unexpectedly after her 24-year partnership ended, she experienced firsthand how the body holds what the mind can't yet process — and how the patterns we've carried since childhood often resurface in our most intimate relationships. That experience became the foundation of The Somatic Divorce Coach. Olivia now works with women from the earliest moments of separation through the longer arc of grief, anger, and release, offering body-based support that meets them where they are and helps them find relief, clarity, and a way forward.

📲 Instagram: @thesomaticdivorcecoach 🔗 Website: thesomaticdivorcecoach.com

🎁 Free Somatic Guide for women in separation and divorce — five body-based practices you can do anytime, perfect for moments when you need steadiness in five minutes or less 👉 https://www.thesomaticdivorcecoach.com/freeguide

🔗 Connect with Brooke:

Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected

TikTok: Brooke Jean

🔗 Work with Brooke and her team one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com

💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp -- first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

Brooke's next Dance Alchemy class is 6/14/26 at Wash Park, Denver CO

DM me to secure your spot!

You survived May. Barely. And now you're back with something real.

In this solo episode, Brooke gets honest about the funk she's been navigating and the lightning-bolt moment that cracked her wide open. What came through wasn't just inspiration. It was a truth she's been sitting with for years: one of the most overlooked reasons women experience depression and anxiety isn't chemical. It's misalignment. It's creative suppression. It's the slow suffocation of watering yourself down to fit into a life that was never fully yours.

This episode is equal parts real talk and reality check.

In this episode, Brooke covers:

• Why Maycember as a working mom is its own category of survival
• The pattern she keeps noticing between creative suppression and depression
• Why "the opposite of depression is expression" might be the reframe you've been waiting for
• What it means to be "creatively constipated" and how it's draining your energy
• How to treat yourself when you're down without bypassing OR checking out
• The critical difference between you and your thoughts (you are NOT your thoughts)
• Why contribution and purpose are some of the most underrated antidotes to low mood
• Where you might be watering yourself down and what your body is trying to tell you about it
• How to take aligned baby steps without burning your life down
• Why Dance Alchemy is one of the best tools for accessing what your body already knows

This isn't a pep talk. It's a permission slip. You can feel like sh*t and still show up. You can be in a funk and still be on purpose. And you don't have to have it all figured out before you start listening to what your soul is whispering.

Resources + Links Mentioned:

Dance Alchemy with Brooke Jean: June 14th at Wash Park. DM Brooke on Instagram or email her to save your spot.

🔗 Connect with Brooke:

Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected

TikTok: Brooke Jean Unperfected

🔗 Work with Brooke/ her team one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com

💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp -- first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

What if you didn't have to have your life together to start attracting the things you actually want?

This week, Brooke gets real. Like, rash-on-her-body, stye-taking-out-half-her-face, fingers-cracking-open, pulling-herself-out-of-a-depressive-rut real. And somehow, in the middle of all of that, two massive opportunities landed in her lap.

This episode is about the formula she used to make that happen, and why you don't have to be at your best to receive your best.

Brooke walks you through the four-step method she's built from years of studying psychology, neuroscience, nervous system regulation, somatic work, and energetics, and more importantly, from actually living it in the messiest of seasons.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Step 1: How to cast a vision that actually lands in your body (not just your head), and what to do when the vision goes dark

Step 2: The real meaning of "energetically aligned action" and why your pace looks different in a valley than a peak

Step 3: What surrender actually is (hint: it's not passivity), why you might think you're surrendered but still walking around with a clenched butthole, and how to soften even more

Step 4: The one skill that separates the women who make it from the women who quit, and why running back into the fire doesn't mean something is wrong with you

Brooke also gets into the nuanced, important conversation she's been having about the line between acknowledging what's real (mental health conditions, diagnoses, hard seasons) and handing so much power to it that it becomes bigger than you.

This one hits different when you're in the middle of hard.

Save the date: Brooke's 90s Hip Hop Dance Party Soiree is August 30th, 2026 in Erie, Colorado. To grab your spot, email [email protected] or DM her on Instagram. 💃

Legend Mastermind's next cohort drops fall 2026. Stay tuned.

🔗 Connect with Brooke:

Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected

TikTok: Brooke Jean Unperfected

🔗 Work with Brooke/ team one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com

💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp -- first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

The old school therapist archetype? It's stale. The stiff posture, the only-nodding, the "tell me how that makes you feel" energy? We are so far past that, and if you're listening to this, you already know it.

Brooke Jean is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a 10-year private pay practice she built from scratch by doing one thing really, really well: being exactly who she is, unapologetically, in every room she walks into. In this episode, she's pulling back the curtain on what it actually takes to carve out a niche, attract the clients you're obsessed with, and build a practice that pays you well for the deeply important work you do.

This one is for the therapists, coaches, service providers, and leaders who know they're meant for more and are ready to stop playing small.

In this episode, Brooke covers:

• Why comparing yourself to other therapists is costing you your most important asset (and what to do instead)
• The inner work required BEFORE you can find your voice and build your brand
• How to connect to your bigger "why" so you can keep showing up even when motivation disappears
• Why your most "inappropriate," unfiltered self is actually your biggest business asset
• How to build offers, programs, and funnels that genuinely light you up

Notable moments:

• Brooke shares the personal story behind leaving Target and how a decade of corporate leadership shaped the way she built her practice
• Why she never took insurance, never started in community mental health, and had clients from day one
• The ethical filter she runs everything through, and why she believes the old school rules were written by old white men and hold up the patriarchy
• Her take on why AI will weed out the therapists who aren't showing up fully, and why good therapists have nothing to worry about
• "Selling is serving." A reframe that will change how you think about marketing your practice forever.

Free Resource Mentioned: Join Brooke's email list at liveunperfected.com to be the first to know about her FREE fall masterclass: Finding Your Voice and Niche as a Private Practice Owner.

🔗 Connect with Brooke:

Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected

TikTok: Brooke Jean Unperfected 🔗

Work with Brooke or Team one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com

💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp -- first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

Okay, I know what you're thinking. "Brooke... a Justin Bieber episode?" Hear me out. Because when I sat with my coffee rewatching Coachella clips and felt something move through me at a bone level, I knew this was worth unpacking. And as a psychotherapist who studies human behavior for a living? Honey, there is SO much here.

This episode is your permission slip to care about pop culture AND your mental health at the same time. Because sometimes, a full circle moment on the world's biggest stage is exactly what we needed to feel something again.

In this episode, Brooke gets into:

What Justin Bieber's Coachella performance revealed about how starved our nervous systems are for something that actually feels GOOD right now, and why that matters more than you think.

Why raw, imperfect, unproduced realness is about to become the most powerful currency in business, leadership, and life (and what that means for how you show up).

The inner child healing moment that millions of people witnessed without even realizing it, and why a therapist is genuinely giddy about how many people are now googling those two words.

How to stop being a passive consumer of the internet's garbage and start choosing where your attention flows, without spiritual bypassing the real stuff.

Why your messy, wobbly, cringe-worthy beginning deserves flowers instead of your contempt.

The five takeaways from Brooke's Coachella debrief:

1. We are desperate for feel-good things on the internet right now. Our nervous systems are cooked, and this delivered.
2. Justin Bieber is exactly who he thinks he is. Talent is talent, and raw is real.
3. With the rise of AI, the ability to make people FEEL something is the currency. Full stop.
4. Inner child healing just got its biggest mainstream moment ever, and this therapist is here for it.
5. Stop believing everything you read online. Narratives are built for clicks. You get to choose what you feed.

Notable Brooke moment: "AI will never replace the feeling that you feel when you are with other human beings. That's gonna be the real currency going forward."

🔗 Connect with Brooke:

Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected

TikTok: BrookeJeanUnperfected

🔗 Work with Brooke or Meghan one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com

💃 Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp -- first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t

You've been trying to think your way out of your feelings your whole life. And it's not working. Here's why.

In this episode, Brooke gets back to basics with one of the most important concepts she teaches, and it's blowing her clients' minds: feelings aren't thoughts. They're physical sensations happening in your body right now, and the more you mentally spin on them, the more stuck you get.

Brooke breaks down exactly what happens in your body when you have a thought, why 80% of your 60,000 daily thoughts are negative and fear-based, what adrenaline and cortisol actually feel like from the inside, and why your emotional backlog is the real reason you flew off the handle over that one email.

She also walks you through a simple, practical body-based exercise you can use the next time you feel triggered, so you can start metabolizing emotions instead of recycling them on loop.

This one goes in the "I needed this 20 years ago" category.

In this episode:

• Why feelings are physical, not mental, and what that actually means for you
• The thought-to-hormone-to-feeling pipeline your body runs without your permission
• Why mentally spinning on your emotions makes them 10x worse
• What "window of tolerance" means and why yours might be slammed shut
• The antelope story that will change how you think about trauma responses forever
• A body-based breathing exercise to metabolize emotions in real time
• Why breathwork and dance are Brooke's current go-to tools for flushing stuck emotion
• What "declutter the gutter" means and why it's the key to not blowing up over small things
• An update on Dance Alchemy and the new virtual offer coming soon

Resources + Links Mentioned:

Dance Alchemy April 12th (bring your daughter for free!) and May 10th in Lafayette, CO -- $33 Register via Venmo @Brooke-Jean-1 or DM @brookejeanunperfected

🔗 Connect with Brooke:

Instagram: @brookejeanunperfected

TikTok: Brooke Jean Unperfected

🔗 Work with Brooke one-to-one: www.liveunperfected.com

Join Brooke Jean's Dance Crew (private WhatsApp -- first to know about Dance Alchemy classes!) 👉 https://chat.whatsapp.com/Jhp2VYLfZ0D8kQHwggSQ5c?mode=gi_t