Seeing the Wood for the Trees

Well, it has been quite a while! I have been meaning to write but other things have been taking up my time and energy, which is a good thing because I have just enjoyed almost an entire month without major incident! My mood has really lifted and evened out and this has been a HUGE relief…

I seemed to reach a crisis point a few weeks ago and though I had managed to reduce my intense rages by taking Chinese Angelica, I was still feeling very depressed and anxious, especially on waking in the morning. I was so very close to going to the doctor’s for some HRT but really wanted to try and help myself as naturally as possible. So I decided to take some action; I went back to see my counsellor, agreed with my partner that he give me more space at home and started taking 0.5ml of Black Cohosh twice a day. I also started a (back dated) mood diary of the last few months so I could identify any patterns and the potential effects of herbs, hormones and the lunar cycles more easily.

I started the counselling right at the beginning of my last cycle. On the first session I had a good vent about everything that was bothering me, but I was still very much 'in it'. Around this time my partner had realised that our relationship was in serious jeopardy so he started to give me regular space to be alone and this also took some of the pressure off. But the most noticeable shift in my mood came when I started taking the Black Cohosh about a week into my cycle – the depression and anxiety lifted noticeably for the first time in a few months and amazingly, it stayed that way for the rest of my cycle – I didn’t even have any major premenstrual mood swings. What is really interesting is that when my partner suffered a couple of moody days, for the first time in months I was able to avoid over-reacting to him. Instead of feed-backing off each other and getting into a huge row, I was able to show my upset in a calm way and then take my space until he was ready to re-engage emotionally. This really is major progress!

My conclusion in all this is that I have definitely been struggling with a chemical/hormonal imbalance that has been severely affecting my mood, even to the point of making me feel suicidal. When I was ‘in it’ it was incredibly hard for me to really see this or to believe that hormones could be having such a huge effect on me; I really wasn’t convinced that there wasn’t some other terrible threat that was causing me to feel the way I felt. Looking at my mood diary entries, it is absolutely clear that the Black Cohosh has been the main factor in stabilising my moods, so I am putting my mood swings down to ‘hormones’ with ‘other factors’ having exacerbated things. To my great relief, my mental clarity also returned when my mood lifted so I was able to get on with other things – hence a welcome break from the 'blog of insanity'! 

If I wasn’t already completely convinced, I became so when I stopped taking the herb for a short break on the first day of my period and the next day my ‘morning anxiety’ returned with a vengeance. I think it is important to take a few days off all the herbs but I will definitely be going back on them tomorrow. (FYI, I also stopped taking Agnus Castus last cycle as I had been on it for over three years and my period didn’t suddenly arrive ridiculously early as I feared it would. Perhaps the Chinese Angelica and Black Cohosh are helping keep things regular…)

Despite my conclusion that I have been suffering a ‘hormonal imbalance’, there are clearly other issues that needed to be resolved and I am really glad I returned to counselling so I could start to address them. As long as I was ‘under the influence’ there really was no way out because no matter what I did, I could never seem to find my inner balance – not even sitting alone in nature which always usually works for me. I honestly believe if I hadn’t managed to get a handle on the hormonal imbalance, I would still be going around in circles in counselling trying to get relief from some other perceived threat. Thankfully, the Black Cohosh did work and as soon as the anxiety and depression lifted, it became much easier to see things clearly and to start to figure other things out. Yay!! :)

   

Goddess Blessings ♥

Death by Insanity

Ugh. I just want to sit here in a heap today and thank The Goddess I actually can. Not only has my client cancelled today’s work but my partner is out all day on a job… finally a day to myself with nothing but my own mind to drive me nuts!

My period has arrived two days early and I am in a lot of pain – more than usual. After waking abruptly with my partner’s alarm early this morning, I went back to sleep spent the rest of the morning dreaming disturbed dreams. I was woken by a tactile hallucination – I was sure someone was sitting on the edge of my bed as I could feel the mattress sink next to my legs. I had to open my eyes and check – of course no one was there. I closed my eyes and felt the mattress moving again though I am sure I was still awake – so I had another peek just to be sure… When I went back to sleep I started dreaming about having weird sex with Johnny Depp and then more of the usual ‘everybody hates me’ dreams I have been having of late… When I finally got out of bed it was because the pain woke me up and now I feel like I have been run over by a bus! I am SO glad I don’t have to go to work today…

I feel like I am living in my own special kind of hell right now. I thought maybe once I knew what was going on, i.e. my menopause, and had accepted it, that things would start to get easier. How wrong I was! I feel like I am on a demonic fairground ride that I can never really get off. Every so often it plateaus for a bit and I think the ride is over or at least calming down but then all of a sudden I realise that I have in fact been coasting along a great precipice and am now plunging full throttle into what can only be described as 'death by insanity'. I mean seriously, why the hell did no one tell me about this? I think describing this disturbing unreality as ‘mood swings’ has got to be the understatement of the millennium…

This past week I have been seriously considering HRT, if only to check if it really is hormones that are causing all this madness. I don’t even know how to describe it any more – no words seem to do ‘it’ justice or really describe how completely insane I actually feel right now. During my research I came across an interesting article which explains that during perimenopause – the time leading up to the last period – hormones don’t simply decline, they fluctuate violently. Pre-menopause hormones undulate in a gentle, predictable monthly wave and in post-menopause there is nothing happening at all, but during perimenopause there is a huge hormonal tug of war between your brain and your body which are no longer working in sync as they once did. To make matters worse they ‘feedback’ off each other which causes huge unpredictable surges in hormones – a bit like a couple arguing and things spiralling out of control as they feed into each other’s insecurities. Obviously this chemical process varies from woman to woman, both in terms of what actually happens and how we personally respond to the imbalances caused but clearly for many women, menopause is not simply an unpleasant ‘mid-life crisis’ or even an uncomfortable ‘eostrogen come down’ – for some women, when menopause kicks in we are taken hostage by a full blown chemical war that explodes inside our bodies, a war that we cannot see, cannot negotiate and have no real way to escape. No wonder I feel like I am going mad…

Not only do I have this enormous hormonal battle to contend with which is making any other stress or difficulty in life almost impossible to deal with but then there is the torturous ‘should I, shouldn’t I’ mental loop regarding the decision to take drugs to get some much needed relief. I can just hear the voices now; ‘Do whatever you need to do, no woman should have to suffer in this way!’ vs ‘Don’t succumb the Devil! Don’t be weak! You can do it without drugs!!’ I am beginning to imagine what women giving birth must go through with the epidural drip doctor looming under strip lights perched on one shoulder and on the other, the big mama midwife promising all the wonders of a natural birth; when you feel like you are dying, which voice do you listen to?

     

I am not going to indulge in a logical ‘pros and cons’ argument with myself about this because I know deep down that it is not a ‘logical’ decision that I must make. I used to be very ‘anti painkillers’ until I suffered two prolapse discs and it was no longer an option to refuse the cocktail of drugs they gave me. I fully accept there are times in life when we have to rely on medicine if only to survive and at those times it would be foolish not to, regardless of any potential health risks. I also know that if it came to the point I felt I really needed it, I would take HRT because I have no intention of being a martyr to the cause – my emotional and physical well-being is far more important to me than any health ideology. But having said this, I really want to embrace the ups and downs of menopause because I believe there is the potential for great emotional and spiritual healing which I fully expect HRT would obliterate in one fell swoop. (I am open to being wrong about this…)

The fact is I am in an unusual situation where I do not need to function normally on a daily basis and part of me wonders if I would be wise to take full advantage of this. If I had a successful career and/or children continually demanding my attention, then things might well be very different – as I feel right now I have absolutely no idea how menopausal women work full time or cope with the demands of a modern family. The truth is I have been caught up in a huge emotional / spiritual ‘process’ my entire life and have rarely had much time for anything else, and I have often lamented my apparent bad luck. Part of me is absolutely gutted that just when I felt I found some inner peace and stability in my life Kali should come banging at my door again screaming Her blood curdling battle cry. My reply is always the same: Why does this keep happening to me?!

Eventually I step back and look at it all from the other side – maybe I am not supposed to live a ‘normal life’, maybe my apparently ‘unsuccessful’ life isn’t some awful punishment for continually failing to be a fully functioning person. Maybe I am not supposed to ‘pull myself together and get on with it’; maybe emotional processing is my true purpose in life. Maybe I only reject this truth because I live in a Capitalist Patriarchal society which rejects emotions as being weak and shuns inner growth as being essentially worthless – one is only excused for ‘indulging’ in such perverse activities if we pay for it ourselves and fit it into our spare time like it is a frivolous hobby. The sad truth is inner work is only given any real value when it promises to enable us to re-join the human race and ultimately become more economically productive. Otherwise, what is the point of doing it? Apparently a life lived in the inner realm is no life at all…

I thought I’d come to terms with the unexpected way things have unfolded but I had still hoped that one day I could stop all the painful navel gazing and start my ‘real life’. This time a year ago – I thought things were finally on their way up (from my navel!); I had a permanent full time job in a busy finance office (OMG), a new relationship that looked very likely to stick, a nice flat and car that got me from A to B, hell, I was even beginning to save money! As I entered into June 2015, the only blip on the landscape that I could see was my relationship with my family that needed resolving and finally putting to bed. I remember going to see a counsellor and telling her that I thought my life is finally stable enough to cut ties with them and ‘get on with things’… No sooner had the words came tumbling out of my mouth than my new found stability all started to unravel; within days my partner’s estranged mother contacted him after nearly 10 years to say she was dying and wanted him to go and look after her in another country, which he did a few weeks later, but not before I was made redundant from my first permanent job in 13 years... a job I'd managed to hold on to for a whole 12 months! In the space of a month my whole life was turned upside down and as of yet I have been unable to turn it right side up again.

At first I thought menopause was just the cherry on this disastrous cake called ‘My Life’ but it is slowly beginning to dawn on me that perhaps it is something entirely different, that perhaps my menopause experience is in fact the whole point of it. Right now I feel I am standing at an important crossroads in my life; I can continue to chase a life that has always eluded me; to take HRT and any other drugs they will give me in an attempt to make me ‘normal’ again so I can become a fully functioning ‘successful’ human being and just get on with it. Or I can finally accept I am not even close to being the person I think I should be and my life is not going to ever ‘return to normal’ because there has never been anything remotely ‘normal’ about my life to return to! 

Perhaps menopause is the wake-up call that I have needed to see that I am in fact fighting a battle against myself and always have been. I have never really accepted who I am or the incredible and deeply challenging life that has unfolded before me. I have always felt I am missing out on something that everyone else seems to take for granted – a guaranteed position of being safely tucked up in the soft fabric of the human race. I have worked on myself incessantly, but always with the goal of winning my ticket out of ‘here’ – a place that to me has felt like a permanent exile from my real life...

If I were to stop worrying about ‘fitting in’ and truly accepted who I am and what my life is about, then I know I’d much rather stick with this menopausal process even when it gets really messy, scary and at times completely ‘dysfunctional’. If I was to accept that this is my life then I would see that I am already half way through it and I no longer have the time to sit around lamenting a life that clearly bears no resemblance to the one I was given. When I look at this important decision from where I am actually standing instead of where I think I should be, then I know in my heart that I would much rather take herbs to gently aid me in my process while taking as much time and space as I need to discover the wonder of the woman I already am and the life I already have:  

I am a Witch, a Shaman, a daughter of the Dark Goddess;

I am Persephone, Lilith and I am Kali.

I embrace everything about me that society shuns;

My life is unfolding exactly as it should.

I call upon the Great Goddess to fill me with love, courage and acceptance;

For myself and all that is repressed, wounded and disowned in the world.

I call upon the Divine Feminine in all Her magnificent forms;

To support and encourage me as I transition into the Crone I was always meant to be.

Ho! 

♥

Dealing with the Rage...

Today I am having to force myself to write, not because I don’t want to but because I am feeling so lethargic and defeated by a strange depression that doing anything at all feels like wading through treacle. But I want to write because I know it will make me feel better… so here I am.

I am beginning to get the impression that menopause is bringing up lots of stuff from my childhood – stuff I thought I’d dealt with long ago. I had another rage attack on Saturday, triggered this time by more of the seemingly 'never ending internet hell' followed by two days of people parking their cars in my parking space.

We have an ongoing issue with visitors parking in our spaces where I live, but it hasn’t happened to me for months. Then, on the day of ‘YMIH’ (Yet More Internet Hassle) someone decides to park in my space while I was out in the morning and then not leave until after I had gone to bed. The next morning I hadn’t even had a chance to move my car before some other f**ker had moved into my spot and then stayed for most of the day. Arrrrgh! I had to really talk myself down from going out and vandalising their car – instead I went berserk in the flat and ended up hurting my fingers. Why the hell is all this happening at a time when I am so completely incapable of dealing with it? It really feels like the Universe is conspiring against me right now and it makes me wonder what is it I am not getting?

While reflecting upon all this frustrating ridiculousness, it has occurred to me that I haven’t felt this enraged since I was 7 years old. At that time I was in a permanent state of impotent rage because my step mother, who I was unfortunately forced to live with, absolutely delighted in controlling, harassing, and humiliating me on a daily basis. Perhaps I have been experiencing the same feelings of utter powerlessness because in both situations it seemed like there was absolutely nothing I could do to prevent the relentless stress.

Feeling this impotent rage again is really freaking me out because it really doesn’t reflect the person I am today. Not only is my life generally very good, but I know that I am no longer a powerless child whose only recourse is to smash something in a rage when I get stressed by something. But these days, when I get triggered by any continued stress that’s exactly how it feels. It is as if something deeply primal and instinctive takes over and if I find I am unable to protect myself by resolving the stress fairly quickly, then I am overcome with the desire to destroy whatever is causing it or to ‘kill myself’ in frustration and despair. (Don’t worry, these suicidal thoughts are more of an overly dramatic mental loop than a feeling that I would actually ever act upon.) It seems to me that the hormonal fluctuations and imbalances caused by the menopause are simultaneously amplifying my natural reactions while pushing my stress tolerance level down so far that I find myself in cave woman ‘fight or flight’ mode far too readily.

The question has always been – is it ‘just’ the hormones? My answer to that is I really don’t think it is. Yes, the hormonal fluctuations are making it much harder for me to manage my emotional reactions and are apparently creating my primal ‘wild’ self to surface but there is always an external stimuli which triggers it – even if it is an apparent over-reaction to circumstances, my rage definitely doesn’t come out of nowhere. I’d even argue that my menopausal lack of tolerance for putting up with crap from other people somehow feels more authentic, the only problem is I still have to find a way to function in the world outside and I really can’t go around smashing up people’s cars! 

Perhaps more to the point, I wonder how much of this is simply the huge reservoirs of frustrated childhood rage bubbling to the surface? It seems to me that the menopause is pushing the darker, hidden aspects of my psyche to the surface while simultaneously reducing my usual capacity to handle it – a bit like going on a dodgy group therapy weekend and having everything stirred with no place to properly process, resolve or release the feelings after the event. (Yes, I have unfortunately been there.)

As I write this, I am wondering if perhaps this is a good time to re-enter therapy, especially as last year I finally completely broke contact with my family. Maybe the timing is absolutely perfect – the menopause is literally forcing me to deal with this stuff on a deeper level by holding me hostage with mood swings and self-defeating mental loops that are challenging me on an almost daily basis. Maybe I need to stop ignoring and overriding my feelings so that they build up into a volcanic eruption. Maybe I need to separate the stuff I can change from the stuff that I can’t; to try and deal with life directly instead of ignoring the stuff I am afraid of (i.e. leaving a job that is too stressful) and driving myself bonkers by focussing all my agitated attention on things I really am completely powerless over (i.e. telecommunications companies and selfish drivers).

*          *          *

I started writing this post a couple of days ago and since then have finally sent the difficult email to the person I was working for. The end result was a polite email exchange where we both expressed the belief that it would be better if we ended the arrangement. After receiving the reply this morning, the relief is slowly beginning to sink in…

I also had fun the other day scrawling ‘Private! No Parking!’ in thick black marker pen on a large ceramic flower pot which now lives in the middle of my parking space while I am out.

Woe betide anyone who decides to move it!! 

Goddess Blessings ♥

Good News Tuesday!

Some good news today… After a roller coaster couple of days, things seem to have calmed down again. Friday was anxiety central followed by a raging homicidal fury. Saturday was a heavy, hopeless blanket of depression followed by wailing tears at bedtime. Thankfully, Sunday was a lot more relaxed…

So, the good news? Well, over the last couple of days I have started to notice my sexual desire rising again. (Yay!!!) Is this perhaps the Chinese Angelica (Dong Quai) beginning to kick in? After my last (very late) moon-time had finished I started to take 0.5 mils along with my Agnus Castus and Sage in the morning. It feels like a pretty potent herb to me, so I decided to err on the side of caution in terms of dosage as I didn’t want to trigger any additional bleeding. I had been taking it for about week when the feelings sort of crept up on me and culminated in an unplanned trip to sex shop with my fella… I found myself getting into a conversation about menopause with the two twenty-something female sales assistants which was rather interesting!

Not sure if this recently increased libido is all part of the ebb and flow if the hormonal madness, but I have definitely felt more sexual and also significantly more emotionally balanced since Sunday. I expect it is probably way too early to tell what, if any effects the new herb are having, but I will keep you posted with any further developments.

The other good news is that I got engaged today! Not really menopause related news, except I thought you may want to know that there is hope for all of us wild menopausal women… Thankfully my partner is a Cancerian so he probably gets the whole mood swing thing better than most men. (Cancerians are ruled by the moon which also makes him very caring and affectionate when he is not being an irrational loony tune himself!)

Most importantly, despite all my recent madness he hasn’t been put off marrying me so whatever else may be going awry in my life, all is definitely not lost...

Goddess Blessings ♥

A Menopausal Wake-Up Call

OMG. Yesterday was the day from hell. Are these ‘mood swings’ for real?! I have never been the most easy-going person in the world, nor the most able to handle stress, but yesterday was truly awful and my emotional reactions went right off the chart.

It all started with another day at the office. I have been feeling really stressed by this particular job and was so anxious about facing the onslaught again that I woke up 2 hours before my alarm and didn’t really manage to get back to sleep. Not a great start as of course lack of sleep makes me feel worse and I have to drink coffee to get my brain to work – something I don’t usually do. I settled down to an hour or so of work by myself and then suddenly found myself having to ‘rush to the loo’ just before my boss was due to arrive. Really not a good sign!

After several hours of feeling like I was causing her a major inconvenience just by being there, I considered doing the grown up thing and talking to her about what was going on. I decided against this as I knew if I opened my mouth I would end up turning into a gibbering, sobbing wreck and I really couldn’t face any more humiliation. I considered walking out several times but even that seemed to be beyond my capabilities so instead I surrendered to being buffered around in someone else’s chaos and reasoned with myself it is only for one day.

Then ‘The Phone Call’. I could write a TRILOGY on my Orange / EE broadband saga but I'm not going to bore you with the details. All I will say is this, I have been having an ongoing issue with my service for over a year and I have been making a concerted effort to try and resolve this since February. I started this particular call after work as I had an hour and a half to kill before meeting a friend for coffee. I ended up standing in the office hallway with my bags for an hour and then having to continue with the call while driving (hands-free) to meet my friend because if I didn’t get to the end of it there and then, I would end up being trapped in a new one year contract that I didn’t want. Then there was a road closure right in the middle of town at 5pm on a Friday night… Thankfully I was so engrossed in the conversation with EE that I hardly noticed the traffic jam I was stuck in.

After a lovely catch up with my friend, I went home and enjoyed a take away and DVD with my partner. Then I opened my emails… and there it was, an email from EE with my name, and therefore my new username spelled wrong. That was when I hit the roof. I could not understand how the man I had just spent an hour and a half speak to could have created a misspelt user name after we had gone over EVERYTHING to make sure we both had it right, including the spelling of my name. Not only did I not want to have to call them up yet AGAIN to try and get this corrected but having been stuck with an old name for years because Orange would not update it when I legally changed my name, I had visions of having to cancel yet another order and starting from scratch. I’d rather gouge my own eyes out than go through all that again!!! (If you are wondering why I have stuck with EE there have been technical complications too long to explain here.)

That was when ‘tired, anxious, harassed me’ turned into a raging banshee. I was so enraged I didn’t know what to do with myself. To protect my partner, I left the room and ended up kicking in the door of my bedside cabinet. When this did not abate the rage, I decided to go out for a brisk walk up a very long steep hill and this thankfully helped me calm down (highly recommended for any future outbursts!) We were about to watch another episode of Heros when I spotted some unopened envelopes on the table... Among them was a new council tax bill. WTF?!!!! Again, weeks of careful planning and phone calls to make sure the direct debit was all set up to 12 monthly payments starting in April. We had changed the bank account the direct debits were to come out of and without notice THEY STOPPED THE PAYMENTS! And here was the brand new bill of 10 higher payments starting in June…

Utterly defeated, I sat on the sofa staring out of the window because I was crying too much to watch T.V. My partner sat there silently holding me as he didn’t dare open his mouth for fear of setting me off again. I was overwhelmed by this terrible sense of futility; what is the point of me doing anything? What is the point of my miserable life if everything I try to do just turns to shit? What is the point of bothering to live in a world where everyone else is selfish, unreasonable or just plain incompetent? I have visions of slashing my wrists because I feel so utterly trapped on this ferris wheel of stress, I seem to be completely powerless to stop it going round in circles or to find a way to get off. 

   

Ok, I know I am 'hormonal' but there is definitely something else going on here. I am a firm believer that life shows us things through events and if something keeps happening, then there must be a reason for it. Yes, I am ‘hormonally challenged’ so my reactions and feelings are heightened, but if the process of menopause has a spiritual purpose beyond simple biology then what is it trying to teach me?  Everything that happened yesterday pushed my stress levels way beyond what I am currently able to deal with. Of course I would have got stressed and angry even without the help of my hormones, but last night felt more than that, it felt like a wake-up call that menopause is literally screaming in my face.

The feeling of futility comes from knowing I am being pushed to change something but I can't for the life of me work out what or how. I am scared that if I walk away from this job, instead of feeling relief and pleased that I have taken care of myself, I will end up feeling like a complete failure and doubtful that I can do any work. I am scared that if I don’t manage to sort out this God forsaken EE issue, then I will end up with no internet options left and that will make my life even more difficult. In other words, I can't deal with the way things are but I feel frozen by a fear that whatever I do to try and resolve it will only make matters worse.

Right now I do not know the answer but I do feel a lot better for having written it all down. I have the house to myself today and absolutely nothing planned so I think I will get lost in some painting (something I have recently taken up again) and maybe some dancing and maybe even a walk…

Today I am choosing to trust that clarity will come in time.

Goddess Blessings ♥

Gaining Some Perspective...

A few weeks ago, when I first started doing research about the uncharacteristic anxiety and dark moods I was experiencing, I considered that it may be something to do with the menopause. Even I found all my symptoms on ‘the list’ but still wasn’t convinced because the feelings I was having seemed too extreme compared to my physical symptoms. I’d always expected that I might experience some hormonal mood swings once I was no longer menstruating or if I started having huge hot flushes during the day, but my physical symptoms really weren’t any different from usual so I couldn’t understand how these challenging feelings could have suddenly become so intense. I had also imagined that any hormonal feelings I might experience would somehow be obvious to me and ‘make sense’ so my overwhelming confusion and cloudy thinking made it seem all the less plausible that my feelings were being caused by the menopause.

Then I had my first missed period - a ‘phantom period’ lasting 5 days which was physically painful and an unexpected emotional roller coaster ride. I couldn’t sleep properly or concentrate on anything and all I wanted to do was run away and hide from the world. A few days later I got my first positive blood test result in 5 years confirming what I already knew to be true – I was ‘perimenopausal’. It was only then that it really hit me – maybe all the emotional stuff I’d been experiencing was related to my menopause after all, it had just came before the next wave of physical changes…   

The problem is no one really talks about the process. Yes, there is a well-documented check list of symptoms, but no one really explains how all these symptoms relate to each or how they might develop and change over time. There is little if any mention of the multitude of different layers to the changes or how these may directly and indirectly impact a woman’s life. In the end, a check list of symptoms and their possible remedies doesn't really help much when you are drowning in a process you don’t fully understand.

   

I also found that most of the online information that I found proudly states that ‘every woman is different’ as if this is somehow supposed to be reassuring. Unfortunately this sentimental vagueness offers no comfort when you are staring down from what can only be described as the precipice of your own demise. Offering this unhelpful platitude while systematically ignoring the depth and breadth of the menopausal process seems like society’s way of saying to women – ‘you are in this on your own – deal with it’. Telling a woman that her menopausal difficulties are ‘uniquely her own’ not only separates her from the reassurance of a common experience but also from the community of womankind which holds the only potential source of genuine support she is ever likely to receive.

When looking at it from a purely medical point of view, if menopausal women are found to be suffering from mood swings, then it makes sense to attribute them to hormones because they are after all the ‘root cause’ of the entire process. However, if we take a step back and look at the menopause from a holistic point of view, it becomes conceivable that perhaps some of that anxiety, depression and rage can be attributed to external causes such as a lack of support in relationships or at work or as a result of feeling rejected and ignored by society – in short, circumstances that have nothing directly to do with the woman or her hormones. It also becomes possible to see that although each women’s journey is unique, ultimately menopause is not an ‘individual experience’ because all women go through it if they live long enough. When we step back far enough it becomes clear that actually the menopause is the final stage of a collective feminine process, a process that quite literally makes the world go round! All women play a role in this human expression of the Divine Feminine and the collective patterns that are forged over time don’t just affect women, they affect everyone including children and men.

When you look at it this way, menopause transforms from a ‘private medical matter’ into an important step in the cosmic dance of life, a step that should be explored, embraced and perhaps even celebrated. But when these deeper emotional and spiritual layers of the menopause are denied or ignored by society, this empowering vision remains hidden from women’s view like a valuable treasure map buried in the sand. This leaves individual women isolated and emotionally vulnerable while going through what is potentially the most challenging Right of Passage they will ever experience.

Menopause does not have to be approached as a list of medical symptoms or as a private, individual experience. We can make a conscious decision to view menopause as the third and final stage of a life-long feminine journey that is deeply connected to our very existence on this planet. When we are prepared to dig a little deeper, menopause becomes so much more that a biological process measured by hormonal fluctuations; the process of menopause has the potential to be experienced as a powerful spiritual awakening that calls into question every single aspect of our beingness; - our sexuality and creativity, our inner emotional landscape, our relationships with others and even our collective position within society.

Over this past week of writing I have become aware of this exciting possibility and in doing so have started to feel infinitely better – not exactly sane – but definitely better! Since deciding to chart my own menopausal course against this newly found map, I no longer feel alone in facing this this wild and scary journey. Not only has meaningful support and sharing with other women suddenly become a genuine possibility but also I have realised that whether I am alone or sharing with other women, I can at any time choose to consciously draw inner strength and guidance directly from the Source of the Divine Feminine.

I am slowly coming to terms that I am likely to be on a roller coaster ride for a while yet and that I need to look at holistic ways to minimise any distress. I can see clearly that this means I not only need to nurture my physical body by taking herbs and supplements, exercising and eating well but also need to explore ways to meet my emotional, sexual /creative, mental and spiritual needs while I go through this life changing transition...  

Goddess Blessings ♥

An Anchor in a Choppy Sea

I feel I need something to anchor myself to, something that will remain a constant while I am going through this process. I am hoping this blog will become that anchor because writing has kept me sane through many other challenging periods in my life and it is something I can do regardless of how I am feeling in the moment that I start to write. This is what I am struggling with most at the moment – feeling I can’t hold a thought or make any solid decisions. My mind is floaty and confused, I have become absent minded, forgetful and at times totally incapable of dealing with any external stress. My feelings are extreme and seem to change every five minutes so it has become impossible to centre myself internally or ground into any sort of reality.

I have been feeling increasingly like this for a couple of months now and have been finding it incredibly frustrating and anxiety producing. Even as I write I am not completely sure this fog is part of my menopause – I have been racking my brains try to figure out ‘what is wrong with me’ while hoping that it would soon pass so that I could ‘get back to normal’.

But somehow it feels as though my life is slipping through my fingers and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. They say ‘if you can’t beat them join them’, so I have turned on some lovely floaty music with water and bird sounds in the background as I write my way along a gentle river. In this moment I have decided to go with the flow of my current experience and see where my thoughts and feelings lead me...

The only problem is, I know that surrendering to this floaty reality requires me to disengage with life ‘out there’, to relinquish all structure, routine and focus and this leaves me feeling very anxious, especially because I recently started working for myself. In January, after my 6 month employment contract came to an end, I planned the new business and started to get the ball rolling. By February I already had some paid freelance work - everything seemed to be unfolding perfectly and moving in the right direction. My partner was still abroad dealing with some family matters and I knew that after 7 months apart, it was going to be a big adjustment for us both when he got home. But what I was not banking on was this sudden and extremely unexpected twist in my menopausal process coinciding with everything else that is going on; the return of my partner, us BOTH setting up new businesses (he left his job to go and care for his dying mother last summer) and us planning our wedding.

At first I thought it was the adjustment process on my partner's return that was making me feel so strange, and I am sure that has played a big part in it, but somewhere along the line I feel I have lost my way and I can’t seem to find the way back. All the things I normally do to centre / ground myself seemed to have stopped working. I have tried to get into some routine but it feels impossible because the inner motivation, focus and determination just aren’t there for me to draw upon. At first I thought it was to do with suddenly being around my partner 24/7 but now he is getting his life together, I am just left sitting there feeling confused and incapable of making or keeping any decisions. How the hell am I supposed to run my own business feeling like this?

The option of getting another job is even less appealing. I feel overwhelmed, confused, anxious, absent minded and at times, extremely anti-social – hardly a good position to apply for or start a new job. The self-employment was supposed to involve working from home with minimal client contact but the work I have got so far involves going to my client’s offices. If I was already in a well-established job that I could just get on with I might feel a little less anxious, but the truth is, my life has never been like that and my usual ‘go getter’ resilience is no longer there carrying me through all the changes and uncertainty of my working life.

So, how do I navigate this conflict between what I need to be doing to ‘earn a living’ and what I feel capable of doing in this woozy-changeable-anxious menopausal state? Right now I mostly don’t feel capable of doing anything, and at times I feel like a mental patient on day release walking around in a daze. In some ways it feels like a blessing that so far I only have committed to 1 – 2 day’s work a week, but then I feel I should be working on drumming up more business on the other days. The guilt, anxiety and frustration soon kick in on my ‘days off’ but without some external commitment keeping me on track, and with lots of things currently distracting me, I just don’t ever seem to be able to get it together.

In addition to this extremely uncharacteristic procrastination, I have also started to feel overwhelmed by one of the freelance jobs which is much more pressured and stressful than I feel comfortable with, even under normal circumstances. Now, with my resistance to stress currently set at ZERO, especially during my recent 'phantom period', I find myself continually contemplating jacking it in.

Right now it feels impossible to find the balance between taking responsibility for meeting my financial and personal well-being needs - it seems I am being forced to choose one over the other. If I decide to focus on work, to try and ‘push through’ this mental fog, I know that I am going to get stressed and emotionally overwhelmed and will almost certainly have to give up at some point anyway. (And this will then make me feel like a failure as well as guilty for letting my client/s down.) If I decide to surrender to this process and only do what I feel capable of doing – which right now is to only deal with very low stress conditions – then I fear I will end up running out of money and / or looking ‘unprofessional’ by turning work down.

It seems to me that there is little room for emotional processes in the world of work and that we are also continually expected to be able to deal with high stress so that we can put food on the table and roofs over our heads. As a highly sensitive person, I have always struggled with this apparent ‘fact of life’ but now my sensitivity has become massively amplified through the menopause, I fear it has rendered me completely unemployable. What I really want is a way to make decent money that does not require me to abandon myself or to have to take medication to become able to tolerate unnecessary stress. I want to be able to work in a way that does not prevent me from taking care of my emotional, spiritual and physical well-being. I want to live my life in a state of balance that enables me to contribute to society without having to relinquish, bury or sacrifice my personal needs...

As a menopausal woman, it seems this deep inner desire has become something I can no longer over-ride or ignore.

Blessings ♥