MENOPAUSE IS NOT JUST MENOPAUSE

Menopause is not just menopause. The words that ended our group from a teacher who I have so much admiration for, Dr. Claudia Welch. I sat still after she said them and after the call completed.

After

It was like the perfect strum of the sound bowl. The vibration with a life force of its very own, traveling into places not seen but certainly felt. Those deep places that I have tucked away for a later time, or for maybe never at all.

Menopause is not just menopause.

These images danced around me, like a great movie screen, the big kind that is panoramic. All the years of sitting and listening, of being present through the lives of incredible humans, some of you reading this…And so often there is so much more below the surfaces of the symptoms, but the symptoms are what keep us bound there, focusing on the physical discomforts that perimenopause begins to usher in and life becomes much different. But I am also thinking of the other things. The other things that middle life might bring like all the experiences and wealth of journeying that ushers us to this point. Chances are we have witnessed the death of those who have impacted our life, seen things we wish were not so and experienced moments that are transformational. We really begin to understand how finite life is and maybe even how tender is can be while maintaining our wits and wilds around us. It truly is the experiencing of our lives that have brought us to where we are now. Each one informing the other as well as our mind, body & spirit. So to pull on one means to pull on the others too. Can it become a beautiful woven bowel, shored up by the intention, the awareness, the understanding of how we have arrived here, now?

And can that beautiful woven bowl hold the life that is ahead, transforming the experiences into wisdom which casts the lines in the direction of where are feet are pointed.

Where are your feet pointed?

What is in the beautiful woven basket?

Menopause is not just menopause. It is a point on a map that is ripe for the deepening, the attuning, the gathering of your life so far and the experiences that have brought us here.

I think this is important. For menopause is not just menopause and while I think it can be easy to make it a meme or a joke about symptoms, it can also make it feel small. But it is not that. It is big and transformational. It is a call into the changing lens of matching your outsides to your insides, of being clear about who you are and how you will live with what your karma, your genetics, your everything, really, knows.

When I close my eyes, a small and funny little clown pops into my mind sometimes. This clown is from a different era, the clothing suggests the 1940’s. In full regalia and a face painted to exaggerate their expressions. They say to me each time:
Keep your eye on the prize

Keep your eye on the prize

Keep your eye on the prize

The reminder to remember what is important through these changing years. To remember the wisdom of the mind, body & spirit and how we might benefit from diving more deeply into their true presence. These certainly feel like “the prize” to me, in all of it’s messy, glorious, beautiful, difficult and heartfelt splendor.

Sincerely,

Danielle