Thinking Beyond Emotions in Midlife with Sophie Malahieude

In this episode of Midlife with Courage™, Sophie Malahieude explores the vital role emotions play in our physical and mental health, emphasizing that emotions are messengers rather than enemies. Sophie shares her personal journey through grief, her background in yoga and mindfulness, and practical insights on how to listen to and work with your emotions to achieve balance during midlife transitions.

Key topics:

• Emotions are neither good nor bad; they serve as messages from our body, mind, and spirit
• The metaphor of fire to understand the neutral purpose of emotions
• How societal views discourage emotional expression and the importance of authentic feeling
• The physical manifestations of emotions, especially in the lungs, breath, and tension in the body
• How suppressed and avoided emotions can lead to physical ailments and mental health issues
• The energy theory: everything around us—including our thoughts—is energy that can block or flow
• Practical steps: observing sensations, breathing, and mindful awareness to process emotions
• The significance of grief as a process to find peace with our feelings and experiences
• Connecting emotional health to hormonal and physical symptoms during midlife and menopause
• The importance of small daily practices for emotional awareness and release

Website: www.sophiemalahieude.com

Book: Beyond Emotions: From Overwhelm to Intentional Love

Transcript

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (00:01.053)
Hello everyone and welcome back to Midlife with Courage. I am Kim Benoy your host, and I'm so happy to have you all here. I'm also so happy to have my guest here with me today. Her name is Sophie Malahieude and she is gonna talk to us today about emotions and emotional balance. And I just cannot wait to jump into this. So welcome, Sophie.

sophie (00:20.962)
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Kim.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (00:23.877)
Yeah, why don't you just first well, you know what? Let's just jump in. We'll talk about you as we go because yeah, we'll tell your story as we go. But tell us about emotions. The one thing that we wanted to make sure that people hear the women hear is that emotions are not bad or good. Can we start there a little bit?

sophie (00:43.458)
Yeah. Yes, yes. And of course it comes with my my personal journey, but what I came to realize is that emotions they are not bad or good. They have a message for us to understand. I like to make a little metaphor with with fire. If you think of fire, fire has a purpose. The purpose of fire is to burn.

Depending on the experience we have with fire, sometimes we think fire is is bad when we burn ourselves, or fire is good when it warms our food or warms us. But at the origin, fire is only fire. It does what it has to do. Think of emotion. Emotions, they are not bad or good. Yes, we have emotions that trigger.

A difficult and challenging experience. Anger, fear, sadness. They are not emotions that we are super excited to feel. On the other time, on the other side, you have happiness, love. So we are looking for those. At the origin, what do they do? Emotion. They are giving us a message about ourselves that connect body.

mind and spirit. When I say it connect everything is that first of all, when we feel an emotion, we feel the emotion in the body. If we are angry, we are red, we are tense. If we are sad, we might cry. If we are fearful, we can feel tightness in the body. And on the other hand, when we feel happiness, we feel lightness, breath is steady. So all everything starts in the body,

And when we move from the body from what we we feel and we are experiencing, then we can understand where we want to go.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (02:52.017)
Yeah, I love that. That sometimes, you know, I think of myself as emotional and I I get stuck on that. But when you put it that way, that emotions are messengers and they're telling us things, that that really turns it around in my mind, for sure.

sophie (03:08.99)
Yes, I think also that unfortunately in the society we are living on, we see expression of our emotion as a weakness and we are not supposed to express what we feel. Since we are very young, we don't cry because we don't want to show weakness, we don't express our frustration, and instead of having a healthy relationship with what we feel, what we experience in life.

We suppress them. We suppress our emotion. We avoid them. So the the there is two two important aspects regarding emotion is that first we suppress them. So that or we think our emotion instead of feeling them. That well I was very sad with this episode or I lost a friendship or I lost my a parent or and so that it will be okay, it will be okay.

And we stuff it without processing it. So this is the first point. The second point is avoidance. When we are facing an emotion that is awkward, unpleasant, we we don't want to be there. Actually, nobody wants to be to be fully into their grief, fully into their sadness. So there is a th aspect is avoidance.

And we distract ourselves. We distract ourselves with an activity, it can be TV, reading, whatever it might be, seeing people, going dancing, and all those activities are very healthy. As long as we practice them to enjoy ourselves. As soon as we practice them not to face our emotion.

We avoid our emotions.

sophie (05:07.426)
So again, emotion they are not bad or good. They have they have a message for us. Yes.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (05:15.205)
Yeah. And I wanna I wanna get into how they affect us physically too, but I wanna go back and ask you, how did you come to this? How did you learn about this? K tell us your story.

sophie (05:29.31)
Yes, so that's that's a very interesting story. So since I was really young, I'm very curious about my mind. Always thought that the mind has big possibilities and we have to explore it. later on, when I was about 25, I started to be interested in yoga. because in yoga they they talk it's about the connection of the body, the mind, and the spirit. So I was like, yeah, very good, let's let's go there.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (05:58.59)
Ha ha

sophie (05:58.767)
And yes, and it is all of the above. but for me the turning point was in 2016, my dad called me early morning, which is very early for him. it was 7 a.m. here in the United States, to announce the passing of my mom. And it shattered my world.

But at the same time, still in the in the aspect of I have to push forward, I have to to carry the world I have to put it all together and I am strong. I did push forward. Now, if I notice if I explain a little bit my background in yoga, is that yoga helped me to really notice what's going on inside of me.

And I think this is this background in yoga, understanding my mind that gave me the impulse to move forward. But the wake-up call, if you want, was four months after my mother passed away. I went to to visit my yoga mentor and she asked me, how you you are doing.

And I said, everything is fine. That Remy was looking for a job, and he find a job, my husband, and then the children are good, and I finally made peace with the passing of my mom. Everything is fine. Okay, good, very happy to hear that. There is one thing though. Every time I go up the stairs, I am out of breath. I still practice yoga meditation every day. I teach.

and yet I am out of breath. I don't understand. and I went to the doctor for a checkup and he said that everything is fine and my lungs are clear, so nothing I didn't hurt myself. And she led me in the moment of silence and she said to me, Do you know, Sophie, that we hold grief in the lungs?

sophie (08:03.763)
And you know, in my mind it was, of course I know, of course I know.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (08:08.654)
Ha ha ha

sophie (08:10.296)
And then my second thought was, Of course I know, but did I pay attention? And when I was driving back from this meeting with my mentor, I I realized that I was trying to bypass the process.

And this is exactly what we do with our emotion. We have emotion every day. It's not about controlling the emotion. It's not about avoiding emotion. It's really to understand what they have to say. I was trying to bypass the process just to feel happy and and and and fine again.

and the process process for me was diving deep deep deep into myself so I would say that the the background of yoga, mindfulness, ayoveda helped me to at this point in 2016 to build all that process that helped me to move to the other side because there is no other side.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (09:26.459)
Yeah. Another a a good side. A good side. Yeah. That's such a good point. Because obviously you know, myself, I've done this before where something is really bugging me and I'm fine, I'm fine, it's fine. You know, just go go along, but eventually it's not fine. And my body tells me. And your body was telling you by that shortness of breath going up the steps. so we really

sophie (09:28.43)
Yes, yeah.

sophie (09:50.776)
Yes.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (09:53.64)
We really need to pay attention to that. How can we how can we go within ourselves? What if we're not a yoga person or we've been taught that? What can we do?

sophie (10:03.85)
Yes, yes. and most of the time because we we always look to bypass the process. You know, we we can go to see a doctor and so, yeah, you have a shoulder pain, so let's take some medicine, do physical therapy and then off you go. The thing is that if we we don't realize what is the shoulder pain related to

So we have to fix the shoulder and then the the the pen is going to move into another place. So before I explain how we can move for forward in a way that we stop and pay attention, then let's let's explain what an emotion is also. An emotion beyond being a messager, it's an energy. Everything around us.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (10:44.733)
Yes.

sophie (10:52.426)
Is energy the food you eat, the water you drink, everything is energy. Your thoughts are energy. You have good thoughts, everything is fine in your body. You are stressed, you have stressful thoughts, and all your your organs are going to contract. What is happening is that when when the energy is flowing, we are healthy, we are fine. When

The energy is blocked, that the process is disrupted, then it builds as tension. So that's very interesting to observe that in the body. You don't need to be a yoga practitioner or yoga teacher to understand that. You can feel in your body when there is tightness, it means that there is a flow of

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (11:40.691)
Mm-hmm.

sophie (11:49.877)
Energy that is not moving, that the flow is disrupted, disrupted, and so the emotion they are exactly the same way. So, how do you notice? I would say that the first aspect is to observe yourself how you are feeling and where do you feel tension, and there is you know, there is also little idea because when

Energy is not flowing. If you know, in my case, after four months, it was the beginning of my breath that was not working as naturally as we should be. it could have built into something more chronic illness. Who knows? it definitely would have built in anxiety and depression, because anxiety and depression is really linked to the breath. If you are not breathing properly.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (12:37.811)
Mm-hmm.

sophie (12:48.706)
Then you are not oxygenating your your your cells, your brain. And so it be anxiety. Think of every time you are afraid, you hold your breath. When you hold your breath, then there is no oxygen going to the brain. And if we are we are we become it become kind of a behavior, then it's a cycle and create a a a pattern in the mind. So the first the first point I would say that.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (12:59.857)
Yeah.

sophie (13:18.634)
A moment every single day to be mindful of what you feel in your body. I remember when I was a teenager, I was I don't know six sixteen years old, and I had this this teacher that I didn't like at all. It was an economy course that I was taking. And every time I started the course, and then at the end of the course, I had a little pimple on my on my cheek. And so

After a few time, after a few time, one of my friends who was always sitting close to me, she said, you know, Sophie, that's weird because every time we go into that class, you always have a pimple on your on your cheek when we leave the class, and one hour later it was gone. And I was like, my god, I am allergic to this teacher. And so and and that that that

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (13:48.946)
Ha ha ha.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (14:12.989)
Ha ha

sophie (14:15.768)
How the body communicates. So I'm sharing with you this funny story. But it's true for everything. Every time you you see someone, if after that you have a pain in your throat, you have a pain in your belly. I don't say don't see your friend. I said, what's going on here?

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (14:23.889)
Yeah.

sophie (14:38.964)
What is going on, you know, in my case, I can when I was moving all the layer regarding the grief of my mother, right? I was removing the first layer I had to remove was anger. From anger, I had to remove sadness. From sadness, I was removing regret, shame. And at the bottom of it was fear. And everything I was feeling regarding the relationship that I had.

With my mother, then I realized that at some point I didn't stand up for myself. So all the tightness in my chest, all the tightness in my throat, was not because my mother was not a good mother, she was a beautiful and wonderful woman and a great mother who loved me a lot.

I was not standing up for myself to say, you know what? You think this way, I still love you, I think that way. And when we observe how we feel in any moment in our life, then we receive the message. We receive the message. So

Let's go back to the example. You have a shoulder pain that you built for some months now. You went to physical therapists, you go regularly to the doctor. Keep going those. It's not about replacing one treatment over the other. It's just to move the physical experience into the mind and the body. The first way the the the emotion expresses itself, it's in the body.

So you want to help the emotion completed cycle. So I feel a hand in my shoulder. When did it start? Did it start when it I started this job? Did it start when I was in conflict with my friend? Did it start when I was starting to change my diet? Did it start because some of my friends or my children or my parents have an experience I cannot help? And I'm trying to help.

sophie (16:59.17)
So it's a burden on my shoulder that is not mine to carry.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (17:04.23)
Yeah.

sophie (17:05.034)
So it's very so it's it's a journey, it's a journey, but it can really start simply. You know, just observe yourself. Breathe in, breathe out. And then from here, support your body, your mind, your spirit to recreate movement.

If you feel the shoulder, and again, it's the shoulder, you fell down, you break your shoulder. yeah, of course, this is an accident. Yeah, we know. I'm just talking about the case we don't know. When when we have a recurrent situation coming always over and over. Same thing with the sleep. If sudden you know, slowly you you start to have a difficulty to

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (17:36.071)
Then we know.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (17:42.717)
Yeah.

sophie (17:56.189)
to fall asleep or you don't sleep very well or you are not having a restful sleep, ask yourself what's going on in my life?

what's going on in my life. And I would say if if there is three three points you want to check on a regular basis with yourself is the digestion, the elimination, and the sleep. This is the first place when we feel that ugh there is something going on there. Well digestion can be really very often related with what we eat, but it can be also related with what we we we feel, you know?

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (18:23.52)
huh.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (18:38.612)
Mm-hmm.

sophie (18:38.618)
I remember the day I I received the news regarding my mother in I I pushed it through the day, didn't talk to my children because I was not ready to talk to my children. Only my husband was aware of it, and I was cooking and I was all and I I sit in my kitchen in the afternoon and I gave myself permission to cry and feel miserable for everything. And then I was eating a piece of chocolate cake that someone

Gave me a few days ago. And and it was ashes in my mouth. It was feeling ashes in my mouth. And my god, it doesn't taste like usual. I mean, it's how strong the body can help us to understand. And then yeah, we have to be willing to go there.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (19:26.003)
Yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (19:31.933)
Yeah, we have to be willing to go there for sure. yeah, I love that, Sophie, that body, mind, spirit, that's so important for us to remember. One thing that I was thinking about too, as you were talking about, you know, if you break your arm, obviously you know the pains from that. But women that most of the women that are listening have either gone through menopause or they're in perimenopause, and we have all these symptoms going on from that.

So it's even more important to me what I'm what I'm taking from that is more important for us to really ask ourselves these questions. What is going on? Why am I having frozen shoulder or you know the hot flashes we know usually that's what that's from, but how does that all work with these emotional messengers as well?

sophie (20:15.982)
Yeah, yeah. And and again, it's so important, particularly in this period of midlife or when we move toward menopause, is that if you ask your doctor is always there, that's a menopause, it will go away. It's normal.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (20:32.338)
Yeah, it's normal.

sophie (20:36.746)
Well, like everything is a cycle, you know, for the hormonal system in in a woman, it it's fluctuating and it's evolving and there is a cycle as well. It doesn't mean that all the symptoms that we are receiving, like we have a we have hot flashes and then we have a hard time to sleep, and then we have we have health conditions that are different. Again, take the support you can receive and at the same time.

It's the body that is giving is a sign. now in my life, what I am ready for? Maybe I had my career behind me or I am in in shift in my career. My children, they they were at home, now they are not at home anymore. Maybe through my life I went through difficult relationship experience and I am divorced. And all that we keep pushing forward, think, yeah, tomorrow will be better.

Well, at some point, let's take and sit and grieve and feel. And particularly when we move through the menopause, we have all those emotions coming up. They are not because of menopause only, they are also because they were accumulated unresolved emotions that are using the opportunity to keep bugging, you know? Or let's say an example.

I divorced 10 years ago, but I pushed forward, didn't process the the the divorce. And then you move through menopause. And then in in in between your children are leaving the house. So and all that you we don't we don't take time to process. And as we don't take time to process, then menopause is arriving with all those fluctuation in hormones and that's a well it's very hitting me hard.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (22:21.748)
Mm-hmm.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (22:32.916)
Yeah.

sophie (22:33.128)
So let's take a moment, and I think menopause would be a beautiful moment. Do what you have to do to support your body. And in addition, take care of your emotion. What is unresolved? I remember one day I was leading a workshop about emotion, and one of the women at the end she shared with us. well, I came here because

I I I'm divorced for a few months now and I signed the paper and it is fine and somehow I am grieving and not grieving that my I'm not with my husband anymore because I'm peace with that. But what I realized I didn't grieve my identity. I didn't grieve the fact that I was a wife to a single woman.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (23:25.02)
Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (23:32.67)
Sure.

sophie (23:33.519)
And she realized how powerful she is as human being, and that being with a wife or divorcee or single, it's labels. It doesn't define who she is. And it's what is important for us to receive from our emotion is that actually I like the word grieving because what is grieving is a process.

a process to make peace with our emotions and we can grieve everything.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (24:04.392)
Yes.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (24:12.34)
I just had a little light bulb go off when you said that. Say that again because that's so important.

sophie (24:12.408)
Yeah.

sophie (24:17.206)
Yeah, grieving is a process. A process to make peace with our emotions. And we grieve every single day. You receive the visit of your friend or family member member for for a weekend. You have a fantastic weekend. And then the the on Monday you go to work and somehow you feel it all off. Take a moment, ten minutes, five minutes, thirty minutes, and say, my god, I had a such

Blessing time with my friend. And I feel sad, they are they are they are gone. Name your emotion. I am sad. Okay, I recognize I'm sad, they are gone. Inhale, exhale, let it go. And then you move forward. Then you move forward. And I would say that if you you are interested in integrating this process in your life.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (24:50.057)
Yeah.

sophie (25:17.246)
do it regularly with tiny thing. Tiny thing. You know? when I give my my clothes away I grieve them because I had such a great time in this dress. But this dress I don't wear it for five years. Doesn't make sense for me to keep it. So I donate it. And when I do that I have my little you know grieving process

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (25:21.076)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (25:27.22)
Ha ha

Yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (25:36.904)
Yeah. Right.

sophie (25:46.359)
I'm giving away someone is going to be happy with this dress, right? So start with tiny thing and then move on to what is more heavy in your life.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (25:50.174)
Yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (26:00.499)
Yeah. Yeah. I think we get stuck or I would get stuck anyway on you're okay, I lost someone or something, and I get stuck on that. Like I lost this person or I lost this identity or whatever it is or the dress I loved. And we get stuck on that, but if you turn it to the emotions, that makes so much more sense to to take that grieving and apply it there. That b that my gosh, yes.

sophie (26:26.326)
Yeah. Yeah, because the the then the the emotion can complete its circle, you know? Like I make peace by I'm not I don't have this dress is not my identity. I am who I am. I don't need the dress to be who I am. So when I make peace with that, I move. The thing is that probably we are very often it's

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (26:33.138)
Yes, yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (26:41.576)
Yeah. Right.

Right.

sophie (26:54.656)
A little thing that trigger all the emotion we didn't process. So all the emotion we didn't process when we move into midlife, and then suddenly a friend of us said, you know what, I don't want to to do this book club anymore because I I don't I do I don't get benefit of it. And that that book club that we do for three years, you don't and then it it's a big thing.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (26:59.657)
Right.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (27:19.892)
Yeah, yeah.

sophie (27:23.074)
But it's not because the friend is leaving the book club. It's all the emotions that we didn't process before that are coming up. So we have to blame our friend for our own misery. And so it's kind of a cycle and we are attached to everything when we have to, and it's a big topic when I work with people is understanding what is detachment.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (27:33.758)
Right.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (27:43.816)
Yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (27:51.015)
Yeah. Well it's easier to put that blame on someone or something else because then you don't have to deal with it. Yeah, because cause dealing with it is tough, but worth it. my gosh.

sophie (27:56.449)
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I I I can really understand that as I was opening the door of grief, the first emotion was anger and I was angry at my mother and and when when you you dig up you think well so I'm not

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (28:19.187)
Yeah.

sophie (28:22.686)
at my mother, I am angry at myself because I didn't do what I had to do. Yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (28:24.628)
That's that's myself. Yeah. It's so interesting. And I love how you do that in the book. You show those different layers. And I also what I love about the book is you it's your story. You intersperse it your story with the lessons that you learned so that you can share it with all of us. And I I love it when it's so much nicer to read for one thing and it's easier to connect with you as well. So very nice. Very nice job on that. So

sophie (28:51.982)
Well so thank you. And that that also every time I read a non-fiction book and I can relate to what the writer is is writing, then I understand the message better. I remember read book as a wow this author he he wrote the book just for me

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (28:54.227)
Yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (29:15.996)
Yes.

sophie (29:17.27)
Like thousands and thousand people might think, you know. And I wrote the book in the same spirit using my life experience and incorporating everything I learned over the years in mindfulness and yoga. and you don't need to be a yoga practitioner to receive from the book. The point is that you can relate to the experience and apply.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (29:20.349)
Yeah.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (29:39.538)
Right, right.

sophie (29:45.07)
Apply it on yourself right away. Yes.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (29:47.965)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny 'cause I always when I'm preparing for these interviews I take notes and you have covered everything that I wrote on my notes. So I love it. We're we are in tune. We are connected. So that's amazing. so where can people find the book if they'd like to get it? And tell us what it's called to. I don't think we've said the title.

sophie (29:55.63)
There we go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

sophie (30:07.454)
Yes, the name of the book is Beyond Emotions. Stop letting well so Beyond Emotion on Amazon you will find it. And even if Beyond Emotion, put my first name Sophie and my my book will will will pop up.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (30:17.169)
Okay.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (30:24.774)
Okay. We'll put the link in there too. And then do you have a website where people can find you?

sophie (30:29.926)
Yes, if you are curious about my work, you can visit my website. It's my full name, Sophimalayud.com. Yes. Yes.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (30:39.184)
And we will put that in the show notes as well. yeah, so wonderful. There's so many things I feel like we could this could be like a series of podcasts here.

sophie (30:47.616)
Yeah, we we d definitely we could do a a a series because when we think about emotion and we understand they have a cycle, they start in the body, they we assess them, we understand them in the mind, and we free the mind and the spirit and everything is aligned. Yeah, it's there is very step, one step after the other. Yes.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (31:10.288)
Yeah, it's beautiful and it's amazing. And thank you so much for sharing that with the world. So yeah. We do have to say goodbye, but before we do that, is there one more little message you want to give our listeners advice or something you didn't get to talk about?

sophie (31:16.568)
Thank you so much.

sophie (31:28.344)
Just repeating one sentence regarding the emotion. Emotion are messenger. They are not a punishment. They have something to tell us.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (31:43.39)
Thank you so much, Sophie. I hope that we get to talk again soon.

sophie (31:47.256)
Thank you, me too.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (31:48.913)
Awesome.