Musing on Menopause: Resonance & Deconstructing Linear Time
res·o·nance
/ˈrezənəns/
noun
1.
the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating.
"the resonance of her voice"2.
PHYSICS
the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object.
Resonance as in does it settle into your heart? Does it make sense in ways that are both explainable or not?
Resonance
I was with a dear client the other day. I have had the absolute pleasure of sitting, listening and working with her for some years now. When we started she identified a massive shift taking place in her life. Having had a full and successful career, working hard, going hard, she was interested in making some big changes. At 65 she was staring down at the next phase of life with a different sort of sentiment in her mind and heart. While she loved what she was doing and was also enjoying the independence of working for herself, she was feeling something else.
Unfamiliar terrain
Physical menopause had happened for her some 20 years back but to her awareness, not much changed around her. So she continued, working hard, playing hard and managing her life in the ways that she was familiar with.
When we first started working together she was getting the very strong internal message that retirement was coming into her periphery but in some ways she felt unprepared for it. What did life ahead look like? Where to live? How to live? What to do and why were some early musing she had been expressing. Having spent years in a full court press of work, unstructured time felt both exciting and also terrifying. And so that was how we began. Slowly we have layed the foundations of Ayurvedic and other ancient wisdom tradition philosophies that have given her time and space to consider things differently. She has used reflection, self study, treatments and therapies to help weave her braid, understanding how her life has brought her to this point and orienting her to the future ahead. This all has proved to be fertile ground. The preparations of the earth under her have been put into place and beautiful seeds have been planted.
And so the other day she said “I read your articles. They are very resonant. But I went through menopause two decades ago. Am I late? Did I miss the party”?
I paused. I sat down. I let the sincere question come into me in the ways I know to do. Deepening the listening. Sitting back to receive the message in response to such an important query. And then I saw this beautiful image step forward. An image of time as a gorgeous weave. It asked me to consider that time is never linear. Rather it is an amalgam of our life, life experiences and the teachings/learnings within it. And, if we try to organize it in the simplicity of a timeline where things only happen linearly, we might miss the weave. I think this could also lead us to believe that we missed something, maybe something really important.
But, I don’t believe we have to. In Right time and Right action we do receive the information and understandings in a way that we are ready to and the order it comes is unique for everyone. What I think is also worth noting is the frame of menopause as a time of highly transformational change and shift, a change and shift that will happen uniquely to each and every one of us that has not happened quite like this since we started menstruation way back when. And this, this has no timeline, no order of operations or explanation of how, when and why things come into our consciousness.
Resonance is a guide towards these shifts, especially when we are interested in making changes that are not necessarily easy to identify. Resonance can explain the unexplainable or the none-sensical and pick up the mystery that we didn’t know we may have benefitted from. Resonance offers the weave of our life to vibrate and drop us out of linear thinking and into deep hearted listening. This is the type of learning that makes sense to me. It is not hierarchical or in a straight line. It doesn’t require memorizing, or operating from a place that makes us feel like “we missed something”. It is a part of a paradigm shift I am very interested in participating in. My insides informing my outsides in a way that asks me to do some unlearning of the systems I have grown up with and participated in directing me towards a way of living that feels organic and alive, round and full. The direct opposite of a straight line.
These are important concepts and understandings that help me to consider the container of Wise Ways of Menopause: A Six Month Collective. We start April 22 and if you’d like to join us for this intimate exchange of considering the changes menopause can bring into our lives from a mental, emotional, spiritual and physical place using the wisdom of Yoga, Ayurveda and Natural World, please read more here https://www.livingartsayurveda.com/mentorship . As you can feel, there is no right or wrong time. If menopause is in front of you or years behind you but the work resonates, consider the message.