The menopause is such a hot topic these days. Celebrities front up documentaries expounding the many benefits for taking HRT, HRT prescriptions are now free but in such high demand there is a national shortage, forward thinking businesses are embracing menopause policies.
At any point 16% of the world’s population is at some stage of the menopause. The impact on the fastest growing demographic goes way beyond putting on weight & hot flushes. And many of us had no idea until we were up to our ears in the carnage.
It is all well & good talking about approaching it holistically & reframing menopause positively but for many women, myself included, by the time I realised what was going on I was way beyond the scope of a few flower petals. HRT was the sensible approach.
It hasn’t been the miracle cure: I have had to tweak the dose every few months but my mindfulness practices have helped me to become much more mindful of symptoms so I can nip it in the bud before it escalates.
HRT is only a very small part of the menopause puzzle for me.
Doing the inner work has been a much larger piece in the puzzle. My menopause journey has also been an invitation & opportunity to slow down & turn inwards, reflect, accept, let go, surrender & tentatively start to re-emerge.
But it wasn’t always like that: it was messy, chaotic, confusing, terrifying.
You see I didn’t acknowledge the lessons when they were a whisper. And so the Universe makes the lessons a little louder & more uncomfortable to catch your attention. Which is exactly what happened.
When my menopause symptoms were at their worst I was lost & broken.
My brain fog & memory was so bad I literally thought I had early onset dementia, which was terrifying.
I was 0-100 in a nanosecond on a good day. Bat-shit-f**kin-mental on a bad day.
I had panic attacks in my happy place, on my daily dog walk.
I stood by the by-pass willing myself to step out in front of a lorry.
When I realised I wasn’t going mad, it was just the menopause I knew I could do something about it.
HRT took the edge off to give me the head space to do the mental, emotional & spiritual work. My yoga & mindful training, combined with a passion for understanding the science helped me to navigate my way through it, guided by some inspiring teachers.
But you know what, the key is you don’t have to invest hours & hours in navel gazing self-reflection. A few short minutes every day investing in yourself is enough to start the process.
The other thing that I really learned in my own meno journey & in creating a life I love, is the importance of doing the work we are being called to do at each stage of the menopause. If you skip a season, you’re more likely to come a cropper next time round.
As I began to understand more about each season of the menopause, I started to reflect on my peri-menopause.
You see I am what the medical profession sensitively & poetically call a ‘geriatric mother’. I had my son at 37, 2 miscarriages in between my daughter arriving when I was 40. We lived overseas. My husband working long hours & travelling. I struggled to cope. Felt like I was letting every one down & that I was a cr*p mum.
I was diagnosed with severe agitated depression when my daughter was a toddler. It was a logical conclusion & it had been hard enough to get a diagnosis, let alone treatment. It took me 6 months to get treatment & I was advised that no-one would take me seriously unless I jumped off a roof.
Eventually I admitted myself into hospital. But of course the treatment was only partially effective because we had missed the point: it was peri-menopause as much as mental health. And we were missing a big piece of the puzzle.
Fast forward a decade & I realised with clarity a few weeks ago that I was peri-menopausal with babies & toddlers. Desperate to retreat, I couldn’t because I had little people dependant on me for pretty much every thing. And of course I just had no idea it was peri-menopause. It only began to cross my mind towards the end of last year!
So of course I hadn’t learned the lessons, done the healing & growth I was being called to do in my Autumn years because I was woefully unaware. Which is my menopause was so much more chaotic. To get my attention. And it did!
But I would not have been able to reflect & reframe so positively in the midst of it all. And that’s why awareness is the first step in any healing. I am so grateful we are beginning to turn the spotlight towards the peri-menopausal piece in the menopause puzzle.