Finding potential through the peri-menopause
It has been on my mind for a while now, maybe because of my own age and the changes in my life over the last few years, but also because many of my students and clients have arrived into my life seeking support as they navigate the peri-menopause, to write a little about this stage in a woman’s life.
Incidentally, the peri-menopause is believed to begin about eight to 10 years before menopause. It usually starts in our mid-40s, but it can start earlier and I am conscious of friends starting to feel a shift as they transition into their forties. It can be a very discombobulating time but perhaps for good reason, as you can read below. Menopause incidentally, is when periods stop for good - it is diagnosed after 12 months without a menstrual period, vaginal bleeding or spotting.
I suppose part of my motivation for writing this, is to offer a different perspective from mainstream, which often paints a negative picture of the peri-menopause and finds women put immediately on HRT when any potential hormonal symptoms appear when they are in their forties.
Let me be clear though, I am not against HRT, any more than I’m for it, I just feel that the peri-menopausal shift can teach us an awful lot about ourselves and where we might be holding onto emotions, unhelpful behaviour patterns and mind sets, and negative thinking, all of which may be getting in the way of us actually thriving and living more of our potential here on Planet Earth in this lifetime.
It concerns me therefore, that it has become normalised now to treat symptoms – ease our perceived suffering – at the expense of us doing the deeper work to get to the root cause of whatever is creating or indeed pushing the peri-menopausal symptom in the first place.
And yes I know that probably sounds a little crazy to anyone who feels as if they are going out of their mind because of their peri-menopausal symptoms and are desperate to feel ‘normal’ again, and perhaps I am lucky in that regard, but I do know, that if viewed from a spiritual and developmental perspective, there is the potential for significant growth.
Plus let me just add that I don’t really understand this need for normality. And maybe it is this constant comparison with ‘normal’ which might get us into a mess in the first place. Because in trying to be ‘normal’ – whatever that truly means – may result in us denying our individuality and rejecting parts of ourselves, rather than celebrating our differences.
I am no expert, I just want to make that quite clear. And there is no perfect, we need to remember that. I have, however, been working with my menstrual cycle as a path to consciousness for a long old while now.
In many ways it was the intense discomfort of PMS in my late twenties and the suffering this caused, which acted as a catalyst for me to finally wake up and realise that I had choice, and that my life needed to change.
It was this discomfort which ushered yoga and Reiki into my life (and later Ayurveda) and you can read a whole lot more about this in all of my books, and any article you read about what brought me to spiritual practice in the first place.
The more I practised yoga and Reiki and ate well, coupled with the help of Ayurvedic herbs, and significant lifestyle changes, especially being outside in nature, the more the symptoms dropped away.
It was an incredibly enlightening time of my life and in many ways I am grateful for the suffering as it showed me a new way of being, one of potential that I might never have otherwise realised had I just started taking the pill or anti-depressants, which were suggested to me by the doctor at that time.
The menstrual cycle is quite remarkable. Us women are remarkable. Our body is incredibly intelligent and will show us the way if we let it. Every ailment has a root, and if we can get to the root, and make the changes required be that emotional, mental, psychological, physical and/or energet, then we can heal ourselves.
This is the reason I love Reiki, because as a healing modality is really helps us to get to the root cause of our loss of wellbeing. Yoga can help enormously too, just in a different way.
The PMS was there because I was living a life completely out of alignment with my truth; unhappy and depressed, full of self-loathing and self-hatred and not knowing that there was another way – I just thought that was my lot in life and that was that.
I am conscious that many women have no idea what happens from one part of their cycle to the next. And I can’t help feeling that the peri-menopause comes along and shakes things up a bit, tries to get women to take note of whatever they have been ignoring to date.
Essentially, as we enter the peri-menopause, we find ourselves at a crossroads, where we may reflect on our life lived thus far and decide what to take with us into the latter part of our life and what to leave behind.
We might find ourselves drawn back to interests we had when we were teenagers, before we might have lost ourselves to fit into the crowd.
We have a choice now to reclaim our true self and live our best life, letting go of old dreams, broken ones too, and start envisioning and realising new ones instead. Because let’s face it, if we don’t do it now when are we going to do it? At some point we have to take action to make our dreams a reality, to find our greater purpose.
Too many people live their lives without connection to purpose, believing that this is their lot in life and they have no power to change things, that they have to keep doing what is expected of them by society, parents, friends etc, to the detriment of their own heart and soul and indeed, happiness.
There is no doubt that life is greater if you live with purpose. Far too many women spend their days working at a job, which means nothing to them, for a corporation who really cares little for them (could drop them tomorrow), and living for their two days of freedom, and few weeks of holiday each year.
Many will go on spending sprees just to feel better about life. Others will turn to wine and partying. Some will lose themselves to gossiping and judging others. Others will use food as a distraction. Many will lose themselves online. Others will become a shadow of their former self as they settle into toxic relationships, just for the sake of the children.
But we have a choice.
It is entirely possible that a crisis ensues at peri-menopause, which actually has nothing to do with hormonal changes, but is more so about where we have directed our life thus far and whether we feel that we have been living more of our potential, following our passions, feeling an aliveness in this lifetime.
We are all here to make the world a better place and we all have the potential to make our experience of the world a better one too. We don’t have to settle for mediocre. We don’t have to keep loathing and hating ourselves. We don’t have to keep waiting for the life we’d like to live to arrive.
Working with women navigating the peri-menopause, together with my own experience thus far, has shown me that this is indeed a powerful time for us to let go of dead end relationships that lack the love and intimacy that we crave and deserve, to quit jobs which rob us of our energy and joy, and end careers that we have now outgrown.
As Dr Christiane Northrup writes in her fabulous book, “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom”, “I like to think of midlife women like myself as dangerous – dangerous to any forces existing in our lives that seek to turn us into silent little ladies, dangerous to the deadening effects of convention and niceness, and dangerous to any accommodations we have made that are stifling who we are now capable of becoming”.
As a perspective shift for many, might I suggest that the peri-menopause is truly an exciting time if we can find the courage to go within. This is where yoga and Reiki can be hugely helpful, spiritual life coaching too. Ayurveda and the magic Ayurvedic herbs are invaluable too, and can truly make a huge difference.
I really hope that if you are reading this and some of it makes sense, that you reach out for help and find the courage to go within, I know it might feel scary and it might be difficult to justify the financial expense, but the benefits will far outweigh this and remember – the universe always supports us to live our best life and fulfil more of our potential.
And the Planet needs you realising your potential, because then that helps everyone around you and the collective at large. If we all lived our potential, followed our heart and soul and kept our vibration high, just imagine what an incredible world we could create, just by working on ourself.
So perhaps reframe your symptoms into a gift and use them to help you navigate your life into something greater next.
