Peri/Menopause Unplugged
I choose to trust the intelligence of my unique biology.
I do not believe that at a certain age my body will suddenly lose its intelligence and need external life support so that i can live the second half of my life with ease and grace.
( I also fully acknowledge that there is a time and place for interventions)
As a human with female biology you absolutely will go through a huge shift when you enter the portal of peri/menopause. And as a human with female biology it will not be the first (menarche and /or childbirth) major shift that you will feel. Your experience of those previous shifts in your biology may be reflected in how you experience peri/menopause. Chances are, depending on the culture that you grew up in, you may not have had a fully empowered experience of your womanhood. When we are disconnected from the language of our bodies or the intelligence of our biology it is difficult to trust in the process of life and healing and fear is often the default mode.
Most of us are not wired for change especially when we don’t understand it or it’s not comfortable.
I recently listened to a conversation with two highly accomplished and intelligent woman that centered on the extreme lack of research on the female body. FACT: most modern medical research has been done on the male body and then applied to the female body. The conversation went on to discuss how women are often gaslit, ignored, misunderstood, and generally not well supported in the medical system. I do not disagree. When it came to the topic of peri/menopause they went on to discuss how so many women are caught of guard by the huge changes that they go through, how many woman suffer in silence, and basically how their world is turned up side down and how the system it not serving them. A lot of truth in that as well.
The other gist of the conversation was that their current lives were being so disrupted by this shift in hormones and relief would come in the form of treatment that would alleviate the symptoms they were feeling so that they could keep doing what they were doing. Hint - life isn’t a straight line, we don’t stay 30 forever, we don’t stop living but we can course correct.
Having more understanding of the female body is great and obviously important. However falling into the trap that your body is no longer functioning as it should and that most woman will have to out source their health at a certain point in time is where I diverge. Also the message was that the life and work that they were doing somehow was more important than tuning into the subtle (or not so subtle) changes they were experiencing.
THE MESSAGES OF YOUR BODY ARE NOT A MALFUNCTION
The messages of your body are a gift.
We all get to choose our path and how we move through life. The point of this is not to tell anyone how to manage their life. The point is that we have options and there is no one size fits all.
I choose to feel into discomfort and weather the storms only to find rainbows on the other side. I choose to ride the waves even if I inevitably might fall. And as my friend Kristin Campbell says “no muck no lotus”
In a previous post I offered the Ayurvedic Perspective on peri/menopause. As I learn more about German New Medicine I find it fascinating to look at peri/menopausal symptoms from a new perspective.
From the perspective of German New Medicine (GNM), peri/menopausal symptoms are interpreted as biological responses to specific conflicts rather than purely hormonal imbalances or natural aging processes. According to GNM, each symptom corresponds to an unresolved psychological conflict, impacting specific brain areas and corresponding organs.
So by looking at your joint pain, hot flashes, fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, depression - from a fresh perspective you can gain valuable insight into what is truly going on mind, body, and spirit.
In a few weeks I will be offering sessions to “workshop” your symptoms at “student pricing”:) So if you are interested stay tuned.
Love, blessings and lifetime learning my friends