Happy menopause.
It does exist!
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Many of my Gen X clients are less than thrilled to head into menopause. They’re afraid. Nervous. Angry. It is a rare soul that says, I can’t wait to go into menopause.
I didn’t really know what to expect when I entered into early menopause, as my mom was of the generation who just didn’t talk about such things and those who did — whether personal or media — said jokes that denigrated and dismissed. We celebrate when girls become young women and yet swipe left when women become the Crone / Wise Woman.
It’s a huge fail that continues onward through the more enlightened generations of this time.
I find this unfortunate but understandable in a world that glorifies youth, ignores conversations around the amazing, ever-changing body of a woman — and is petrified of death.
Death, the great certainty.
I was confused by menopause because I didn’t know what it entailed and read horror stories, mainly about unwanted physical changes. I might be a natural woman, but I am vain. I feel 30 — ageless, really — and will keep that vitality until I drop, no matter what the calendar says. So yah, menopause brought up both a sense of curiosity and resistance. No one can stop the natural process of a physical body dying, so my resistance was a waste of energy. I began to focus more on the thrill of not having a period and gently commanded my body to start early menopause. She began to shut down the factory on her terms, long before most women begin the process.
Curiosity, rather than anger or fear, is what will change THE CHANGE.
I made lots of adjustments before menopause: no gluten/dairy, decaf tea/coffee, traded sugar for monkfruit or coconut sugar, little to no meat, cut down on food and ate my last meal before 5pm, upped natural medicine, bought herbs/tinctures that have been here forever for women and released relationships that caused heartbreak and stress.
I continued to learn how to love my incredible body — a truly wise and loyal friend — and listened closely to her needs.
With these changes, the horror stories were just that — a genre I didn’t indulge. Instead, I read Dr. Christiane Northrup’s books and found her approach as a OB/GYN refreshingly honest. I had difficult times, I won’t lie —such as vomiting on the side of the road, headaches and weird symptoms, like when I first started to have a period — but allowed rest and healing so that my body could adjust to this new reality.
And so she did. Beautifully.
More than the physical, I was curious about the changes with my sensitivity and insight. The Crone in play.
I’ve found that my psychic and creative abilities increase to the extent that I can trust them, and my trust has deepened. I’ve never been more powerful, sexy and self-assured. Life only gets better.
However, menopause is a deep and painful scraping of the past.
Call it Chiron Return or a reckoning that needs to happen to be your fullest self — but it will happen. I dealt with deep traumas from childhood/teen years, religious indoctrination, fear and curiosity of death, the ways I hurt and was hurt by others, abandonment and lack of belonging in this world. To name a few.
There’s no tincture to ease that. It’s a deep dive and I said, Let’s go. Clean it out. I want nothing to hold me back from the golden future ahead — because that pain has already been experienced and I won’t let it haunt me. When it arrives, I do my best to sit with it, rather than run away.
Menopause offers many gifts but it is the bridge we must cross to receive them. Women in menopause are also a huge, underserved market. The wise will make billions.
So, as a woman happily beyond menopause, I’d say to not be afraid as much as have a sense of curiosity. You never know what will be revealed in this new era of power and self-expression.