I Should Have Been Saying This the Whole Time

What one client's question revealed about where my voice has been.

Something happened this week that stopped me cold. (Hi, Mere here) That said, you are going to hear a lot of honesty today and in being honest this wasn’t the first time this happened.

A client I've worked with for five years reached out and asked me, "Hey Mere, do you know anything about bioidentical hormone therapy?"

This is a woman who is currently on bioidentical hormone therapy. That I coordinate. That we have discussed in detail across multiple appointments. I've written about it. I've podcasted about it. I feel like others get tired of me talking about it ha ha. And she genuinely asked me if I knew anything about it.

I was speechless and dumbfounded

Now before I go on, I want to be incredibly, crystal clear: I was NOT frustrated with her. She's an incredible client and it was an honest question. What it did was make me sit with a harder one. If someone who works with me directly doesn't fully connect my name with this area of clinical work and support, what does that tell me about how present I've been publicly?

The honest answer is not present enough.

This is not a new realization. In fact, it's one I spoke about in the only personal IG post (linked here) I've put up in weeks, and one where I oddly enough shared photos of my body. That is not something I do. Ever! But it felt right, and it felt needed, because I realized something I had been avoiding for a long time: I am a product of my own product, and I have never publicly put that out there. I told myself it wasn't relevant to what I can do for others or to the education I provide. But it is. It absolutely is. How I show up for my own health, my training, my nutrition, my hormones, my body composition, the choices I make daily in my own life… that is part of the credibility and the proof of concept that my clients and my audience deserve to see.

And if I'm being fully honest with myself (ugh!), the reason goes deeper than relevance. I've avoided posting those photos because I didn't want to give anyone ammunition. I didn't want someone to look at a photo of my body and use it to take a dig at my morals, my professionalism, my education, my credibility. So I kept and the vast majority of my story off the internet and told myself it was a strategic choice. (insert me rolling my eyes at myself)

It wasn't strategic. It was avoidance. Boom, let the truth set me free ha ha. And the people I was protecting myself from? They aren't my people anyway. They were never going to be my clients, my community, or anyone whose opinion should dictate how I show up for the people who actually are. By staying quiet and staying hidden, I haven't been protecting anything. I've been keeping my clients and my audience from seeing what consistent training, nutrition, hormone management, and health prioritization actually look like on someone who does this every single day.

That stops now.

I've spent the last several months deep in client support and emails, lab reviews, protocol builds, mentorship calls, clinical deep dives. But this is the discussion nobody hears unless they're on the other side of a Zoom screen with me. To be clear, I LOOOOVE that work. It's where my clients get the most from me and it's where I operate at my sharpest. My heart and soul soars here! I feel like lightening here!

But (!) expertise that lives exclusively in private conversations doesn't reach the people who haven't found me yet. And as I've now seen firsthand, it doesn't always stick for the people who already have. A Zoom call and a few emails a week cannot compete with the thousands of swipes people are absorbing in 10 to 30 minutes on TikTok or Instagram, multiple times a day, every single day of the week.

That realization is what's behind this newsletter.

I have multiple multilevel clinical conversations every day that never make it into a blog, a post, a story or a podcast episode even though they should. I've attended countless hours of continued education and will continue to do so. I discuss Hormone health. Perimenopause. Lab interpretation. Brain health, Bone Health. Digestive health.. Peptide therapy. Metabolic repair. every single day. The things my clients and I work through in real time that could serve a much wider audience IF I actually put them out there consistently.

So here we are, hi!

First up: bioidentical hormone therapy. Because apparently I do need to say it more often and perhaps I do need to say it louder sometimes too..

I already have a plan for my next writing which will be in two weeks time, but I want to do this differently this time. That client's email left me wondering whether the information I'm putting out isn't reaching you, or whether it's not being presented in a way that actually resonates. If it's the latter, I genuinely want to know. One of my goals is to make sure I'm providing education that is useful, memorable, and easy to apply. Funny enough is this was actually a lot of the positive feedback we got from the thyroid webinar which tells me we need to keep going but…. I am all ears. 

So.....If you have a specific question about bioidentical hormone therapy that you've never gotten a clear answer on, I want to hear it. Maybe you're on HRT and wondering if what you are doing is actually doing what it should. Maybe you've been told you don't need it yet and something doesn't sit right about that. Maybe you've been curious but the information out there is either too surface level or too overwhelming to act on.

I created an anonymous form where you can ask us anything!!! yay! No name required, no judgment. Your questions will directly shape what I write next. I will answer YOU.

[LINKED: Ask Fortify Form Is Here]

Go fill out that form and have an AMAZING week!

Mere & Sarah