Midlife Isn't a Glow-Up, It's a Death
Menopause is having its moment. Everywhere you turn coaches, nutritionists, influencers, and everyone in your world (if you're in the perimenopausal/menopausal demographic) is getting louder about how this change brings us more fully into our power as women. And I don't disagree. But the missing part of the conversation is what has to die before this more empowered, more authentic, more embodied version of you can emerge.
My work sits in that space in between. This is where I've lived most of my life, not just in the in-between but in the transitions where something dies or ends so that something new can emerge.
If you look at my Human Design chart, you'll see that I have gate 42 in my birth chart two times - in my unconscious Mars and Venus. And in the Gene Keys, these are the Vocation and Core Wound. I get a double dose…I not only have to experience it, but it's my life's work to help others move through their own endings.
So this transition into menopause, which can be lengthy, is a world I'm built for. When the world feels dark and heavy, I turn toward it. I look into rather than away from. I get curious. I get introspective for myself, and I hold space for others to do the same.
Grief work is the part of my world that has changed everything.
We can't simply jump from experience to experience without allowing ourselves time and space to move from the past into something new.
When we try to skip over the grief, or ignore the ending, we actually get stuck there longer, attracting more of what is making us sad, as if our bodies know that we need to actually feel it before we can move forward. It's one of the reasons why money stops flowing, relationships become more challenging, you trip and fall and contuse your knees because you're not fully present in the now. You're not being with what is.
But allowing the grief doesn't mean you have to be sad every day either. In fact, grieving can happen while you're moving forward and embracing new opportunities. It's just that the absence of grieving means we'll have to come back and pay the price sooner or later.
Grieving is simply allowing yourself to be with what is, as it is, without forcing it to be different. And when we do that, we actually allow ourselves to move forward with less force because our being has finally been met where it is, as it is, before being forced to move into positivity and action when it's not yet ready.
There was a long time in my life when I felt like “Why me? Why is this so hard, when it seems like others have it easier?" And to be truthful, I can still get caught in that feeling. But now, when it arises, I speak about it, process it, and allow myself to have those feelings, but I don't stay in them because I know they're not ultimately a helpful place for me to reside. But allowing myself to pause there every once in a while allows me to be with what's real.
So this idea that midlife is a glow up and you're just going to get some hormone replacement or new dietary and exercise approach and you're going to feel like a million bucks is bullshit. There is a whole identity death that is happening. The mourning of no longer being a reproductive being (which may have happened much earlier for you even). But there is finality to it, because the choice is no longer yours. Even if you never wanted to have children, for many of us, the choice was still an option, should we have chosen it or changed our mind.
Many women entering peri/menopause are becoming empty nesters, and some are leaving their partners and finding themselves solo again at the age of fifty-ish.
There are many big and little endings happening at this phase of life, and while many are good, those good endings can come with sadness, regret, longing, and more, in addition to the joy, freedom, and excitement.
When we allow ourselves to have the space and to be with what is, unplugged, which I know is so uncomfortable for so many of us, we actually get to process, heal, and then step more fully into our power as the Sage at this stage of life, and turn the narrative that says we're dried-up old spinsters into something else entirely. She reignites her sexuality and finds sensuality in a body that's different now - one that's carried children and relationships and life so long it's become an extension of her soul, no longer just about how it looks in or out of clothing. The sensuality she exudes is from being at home in her skin, her soul, where she knows herself best. She speaks up for her needs. Her boundaries are clearer than they've ever been - not because she is cold, but because she's finally warmed up to herself.
It's always so funny to me to go back to the 70s and 80s and watch TV shows that depict women who were in their 40s and 50s, even though they look older than a lot of 70-year-olds I know now. The story we’ve been telling is changing for the good.
Now is our time. But first, we must grieve before we grow.
