Why Women Need to Stop – Healing Lives in the Pause with Abby Valletta

Why Women Need to Stop – Healing Lives in the Pause with Abby Valletta

Welcome to the Peri Moon podcast. I’m Nelle Tamar-Manuel, and today I’m joined by my absolute dear, dear friend, Abby Valletta. And Abby is a somatic practitioner and body worker, and one of the most intriguing and interesting practitioners I’ve ever had the joy, absolute joy of working with. Abby, thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. I’m very glad to be here. Oh, bless you. Abby, I’m just gonna dive in because… you helped me out through my awful, awful divorce. And when I was deep in the sludge of it, um, I remember one day I was processing this huge ugly thing, and you said to me, “What are you going to do?” And I said, “I’m going to go and write a, a newsletter.” And you very elegantly were like, “No, no, no, no, no. Let’s… push the brakes.” And, um, that moment for me really was a critical circuit breaker as far as it had just always been part of my process was to metabolize things in a very outward way, and you really got me to sit with myself and sit in my being, and I’m so, so grateful for that. I’d love if you could speak to just the nature of women pushing through things in that kind of way if that calls to you. Yes, of course. I remember the moment you’re talking about. And I remember having this moment of like, “Wait, hold on. That’s not what we are doing with that.” Um, and I think so many women are in this position. Like, so many women need to take a beat. We’re so looped up in the doing, the doing, the doing, when the most healing and the most breakthroughs actually happen for us in those moments in between, in the pause. And I think it’s something I’ve seen in all aspects of the women I’ve worked with. Like, I saw it with you that day. We had a lot of discussion about how you weren’t taking care of yourself. You weren’t doing that well. And when I said, “Okay, so what’s one thing we could do?” you went immediately to, “Oh, let me do something productive.” Where the best thing sometimes is to go for a walk, go touch some grass, get in the shower, have a real meal, or a hot chocolate, or just something to slow it down.

Self-care after grief: How do you stay present instead of dissociating?

Yeah. It actually really kicked off for me. That was probably the first winter I felt like I’d done winter well… which was really interesting for me. I live in Queensland. We don’t really have winter, and the small winter we have, I’ve always tried to escape. That was the first winter where I was having like three baths a day. I remember you were like, “Put oils in the bath.” I got back into my body that winter, and it was very juicy as far as just sitting with myself, sitting with the pain, sitting with the grief, and being able to be conscious of that rather than just running from it as I usually do. I think a lot of women could benefit from finding more balance. I think it’s a lot of all or nothing I see women struggle with. As soon as something is off, the instinct is to go to the extremes of, “Well, then I must work, work, work, and I must hit the gym.” And it’s like… maybe a little bit of everything. Being able to step back from that pressure of doing. What that time taught me was how to be in my body, how to do nothing but still be present. And how to do little and still be present rather than pushing through. Exactly. Instead of escaping the feelings, escaping it all, and turning to the vices, it’s like how can you support yourself through it? You’re still gonna feel it. The grief is there. And how can you take care of yourself? Sometimes that’s as simple as a little chocolate, a bath, crying about it, letting yourself feel how you felt. And I think at that time, that was what you needed most over writing a newsletter.

Women, business, and burnout: What does feminine consistency actually look like?

I wanna add one bit to that. No one has done their best work from that place. So when our energy is low, and we are in our feels about something, and things are happening, and we’re about to get our period, we’re luteal, and we’re like, “But I gotta work, I gotta get this thing done,” it’s gonna take you so much longer than if you gave yourself what you needed, took a beat, and then came and sat down with it refreshed. I think we have this really masculine way about approaching business and about approaching consistency. That’s a big struggle I’ve seen with a lot of women. We think consistency means I need to do this thing every day regardless of how I feel. But women are much more cyclical. Consistency comes from a place of rules. You’re giving your body what you think it should need instead of what it actually needs. We have cycles. We’re much more cyclical. Things ebb and flow. The more that we can lean into that and let our consistency ebb and flow instead of saying, “I missed one day. I might as well not do my business for three weeks.” We really get into this extremism with it. I really would love to see more women let there be more flow in how they operate and more allowance for the ups and the downs.

Somatic healing and body awareness: How does reconnecting with your body change your life?

I love thinking. It’s so satisfying, but the more I do it, the more I think, “Oh, this is just dopamine popping off left, right and center.” After our time together, I really felt like I was in a more oxytocic place with things where I was deeper in my body and I could actually relate to the world, to my children, to my friendships, to my housework, to everything with this more profound and deeper experience of connection. So yeah, I think when it comes to disconnection from our bodies, that is just the start. When we start to disconnect from our bodies, eventually that becomes disconnection from listening to our inner voice, disconnection from gut instincts, disconnection from ability to make choices and to make decisions. And then that disconnect eventually becomes, “Okay, I don’t even know what I want. I don’t even know who I am.” It starts with the body. By bringing people back into their bodies, you’re able to reestablish that connection with your own inner truth and your own inner guidance, and that dictates everything else. I still don’t like doing the dishwasher, but I can sit with that discomfort more now. I’m learning to stretch my capacity for discomfort, which I feel is serving me across the board in so many experiences of my life. The more we allow for the pain in our life, the more joy we see. The more we can hold in our body the good and the bad and not dissociate from it. Feeling it all, I guess. Allowing ourselves to be in all of it and increasing our capacity to hold all of it helps everything to scale and grow.

Animal embodiment in somatic practice: What can animals teach us about resilience?

I’m in my flamingo era at the moment. We were discussing this a few weeks ago. You were telling me you were doing some work with elk. I would love to hear more about how you work with animals in musculature and the mythology and all of the brilliance that animals can bring to our lives. Absolutely. Working with animals is new to me. Civilization has been doing this since the dawn of time, embodying animals to take on their shapes, to learn the lessons, to learn how to hunt and navigate our world. We were given the assignment to choose an animal, but the animal really chose us. Elk is the animal who came to me. What I found really interesting is that elk is all about perseverance and staying the course and consistency. Elk can outrun a jaguar with consistency. Its lesson is: you may not get there the fastest, but you can go slow and steady, and you’ll probably get there the least burnt out. For myself, one of the daily practices is holding the antlers on the head. Elk is this big, strong animal that’s grounded, but with the energy of the antlers reaching up towards the crown. Holding my antlers high has become a way of embodying groundedness and staying steady no matter what comes at me. For me, the flamingo chose me too. I started noticing flamingos everywhere in my house. Something that’s been coming up is how much emotion gets released through my hips. And what I hear is that it’s not the movement itself—it’s the stillness. When you’re doing yin, you’re choosing containment. You’re sitting with what’s there rather than dispersing it. There’s a big difference between those two things. It’s the same lesson you keep teaching me: the power of stillness.

Intuitive eating and food freedom: How do you know what your body truly needs?

Women are not consistent every day. Our cycles change, our hormones shift, our energy shifts. It’s knowing yourself and knowing your body enough to know which days you should dance and which days you should do yin. It’s not one or the other. The more you know yourself and the more you know your body, the more you feel empowered to live in alignment. Most people struggle with intuitive eating. They can follow rules. They can follow a diet plan. They can follow food that’s pre-made. But it’s really hard to eat balanced and eat intuitively because it requires knowing moment to moment that today this might be good, and tomorrow it could be totally different. We’ve been taught to ignore ourselves. Sometimes I’m in a restaurant, looking at a menu, and I just want one thing. Then the rules start to show up. But we know what’s best for us moment to moment usually. That chocolate bar—the day you were like, “Just eat the chocolate bar,” I realized I just needed calories. I was trying to think what was the most nutritious thing. But my body was so low on sugar. I just needed instant sugar, the comfort, the memories, the experience. There’s so much involved with eating. It’s not just nutrients. I think society tends to villainise foods. Maybe it’s not that I can never eat dairy. Maybe there’s more nuance to it. I had orthorexia. There were so many rules I was following. In hindsight, I can see that the hard data was there—but I’m also a human. Now I’m at a point where I’m like, you know what? Have a processed food. Have a KFC burger. Have whatever you feel like you need. There’s so much nuance. You can’t nuance through science. Everybody’s so different. I think I feel better now having balance than when I was eating perfectly clean all the time. When I got breast cancer, people kept asking, “How did you get breast cancer? You eat so well and you meditate.” But I wasn’t eating well from a place of wholeness. It was from a place of deprivation. My being felt broken. I felt like I needed to purify myself to be worthy. That created an ecosystem of stress and dis-ease in my body more than eating a burger ever has. Demonizing your body creates an abusive relationship with yourself. Expecting to heal within that structure—it just doesn’t work. Nourishment is so much more than vitamins. It’s culture. It’s memory. It’s comfort. It’s love.

Perimenopause and somatic health: What should women focus on in midlife?

Every time I open social media now, I’m being told what I need to be doing in perimenopause. Weight-bearing exercise is one that I absolutely agree with. Is there anything from a somatic point of view that you would recommend for women moving through midlife and beyond? So many people take the stories they’ve created about themselves, the traumas, the stored emotions, the things they never got to say—and they carry them to the grave. That heaviness is at the root of disconnection from the body, from the self, from decision-making, from inner guidance. For women in menopause and beyond, it’s not too late to put that stuff down. Once estrogen starts to dissipate, so does our capacity for managing everyone else’s expectations. I see so many women making massive career changes during this season. The hormones are supportive of transformation. I wish there was a one-size-fits-all practice. There isn’t. Some people hold things in their hips, some in their jaw, some in their solar plexus. But finding ways to soften, moving your body, dancing, swimming, Pilates—whatever creates healthy movement—is powerful. If I had to choose one thing, it would simply be this: Be inside your body. You can’t heal a body that you’re not inside of. You have to be inside it to understand what’s going on, to become aware of your disconnect from yourself and your intuition. You have to be inside.

Stored trauma in the body: Why do hips, the jaw, and the neck hold emotional tension?

I think empowerment is the perfect word because we’ve been taught that disease is completely random. I see a lot of women where, if they reconnect with their spiritual mission, it changes their vitality. Just having the awareness that pain or tension is telling a story is profound. I spent years with a compulsive liar, and my neck was constantly locked. I thought it was my pillow. The moment I left that relationship, my neck miraculously healed. I realized every time I was being lied to, I’d tilt my head slightly to the side. That became tension. Neck and throat usually signify what isn’t being said. Are you not speaking up for yourself? What is unsaid? I see such clear patterns between what’s showing up in people’s bodies and what’s happened in their lives. The biggest pattern is hips and low back. Functionally, it makes sense—they’re the powerhouse of the body. But somatically, they’re all about security and support. Most women are doing too much. We’re working, parenting, cooking, cleaning, carrying everything. Most of us didn’t grow up feeling completely safe and supported. So the body braces. It locks down in the hips and back because it’s searching for support it doesn’t have. It’s your body’s survival mechanism. Even women with beautiful husbands are still taking on too much. I’ve started telling myself, “If it’s important, it’ll get done.” My kids are loved. My kids are fed. The things that matter always get done. Every time I’m in the mindset of needing to catch up, I’m snapping at my kid and staring at my computer. Sometimes my biggest breakthroughs come after a shower or a walk. When we’re regulated, efficiency becomes a byproduct. I focused on getting regulated again, and suddenly I could afford a nanny. Those expansive thoughts don’t happen in scarcity. As elk has taught us, you may not get there the fastest, but you’re going to get there the least burnt out. Laziness as a strategy. I swear by that. My last few clients all booked while I was asleep. Laziness is a strategy. I think a lot of people could benefit from taking a beat.

Closing reflections: Where can listeners connect with Abby Valletta and Peri Moon?

I think a lot of people could benefit from spending time with you, Abbey. I am so grateful to have had this time together. You exude relaxed and calm and wholeness, and I’m so grateful to have you in my sphere. Thank you so much for being with me, Abbey. Thank you so much for having me and for being a dear friend. I know you’re in the midst of a rebrand and a restructure and all those amazing elk things that are coming with slowing down and being more mindful and intentional with your energy. I’ll pop in my show notes where our listeners can find you. Thank you for sitting with us today. It has been an absolute joy. If you’d like to work with me or connect with any one of our beautiful guests, you can find everything at perimoon.com.au. And until next time, may you find yourself all the way alive.