Perimenopause: A Remaking of Ourselves

Perimenopause is the transition our bodies make as women, as we are moving out of our reproductive years and into menopause. Some women may start to notice symptoms related to this hormonal transition in their late 30’s.

Menopause officially begins 12 months after your last menstrual period. The normal range for reaching menopause is usually somewhere between one’s mid 40’s and late 50’s with the average being about 52 years old. Women who are thinner, have tended to overexercise, undereat or be more prone to stress, tend to lower levels of estrogen and tend to go through menopause earlier and may have a more challenging time with it. Body fat produces estrogen which helps ease the fluctuations of estrogen that come about as the ovaries re-equilibrate to a new level of function. Symptoms related to this hormonal transition may continue for a number of years after one officially reaches menopause, however the symptoms ease up and are usually quite a bit milder and easier to manage.

There are many symptoms that can be associated with this time of transition. The most common symptoms include disrupted sleep patterns, hot flashes, brain fog and a generalized sense of “not feeling good in your own skin”. This can manifest as increased anxiety, irritability, anger, or feeling ill at ease. For some women, this transition may also be accompanied by very heavy and/or prolonged periods.

For some women, the transition from their procreative years to that of menopause passes with little notice. They have few symptoms and this life change unfolds for them with relative ease. For others, the perimenopausal years and first few years of menopause can bring up challenging waters through which to navigate. Trust me. I’ve been there.

In our reproductive years, we are bathed in high levels of reproductive hormones that act like a kind of magic super glue, that allows us to hold it all together amidst the incredible challenges of that phase of our lives. Nature designed it this way in order to ensure the survival of the species ;) It’s why most women embody the superpower of doing everything for everyone else and forgetting that you actually have any needs. It’s really quite amazing when you think about it. But you know what - the transition out of our reproductive years frees us up in order to come back to finding ourselves, to unearthing what powerful creative pursuits we might put our time and energy into for the second half of our adult life.

At times the symptoms can be intense and need tending and support. Coming “off” this magical hormonal concoction can feel a bit like drug withdrawal and the most challenging part of it is that its often not a clean break. It can be a bit of a rocky ride for many as our progesterone wanes and our estrogen levels rise and fall in an often unpredictable and roller coaster like manner to finally level out. Every time our estrogen levels plummet the body reacts to that drop. The body keeps trying for one more kick at the can, to see if it can engage another estrogen surge in order to initiate another reproductive cycle.

Finding our new baseline as levels of estrogen and progesterone drop can be harder for some women’s bodies than others. While there are numerous environmental, lifestyle and epigenetic factors affecting this expression, I believe the largest contributing factor is the underlying depletion of our “reserve energy” from years of chronic stress and living our lives in patterns that are disharmonious to our overall wellbeing. From the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), it is our reserve energy that is called upon to pick up the slack when our ovaries make the transition to menopause. If our reserve energy has become depleted, there is no reserve to draw upon.

To learn more about reserve energy, and how it relates to the stress hormone cortisol and consequently our levels of estrogen and progesterone see my post about Reserve Energy here.

Once we find out new hormonal baseline of menopause it’s pretty sweet. It’s quite a process physiologically, energetically and emotionally as we move from one state of being to another. At times it may be hard to imagine that this renewed state of being is a gift. Our world deeply needs the wisdom and strength that menopausal women bring to the table.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), this transition into menopause is referred to as Second Spring, which is a powerful metaphor to keep in mind as we embrace this incredibly significant change in our lives. Moving us out of our reproductive function and freeing up our creative energies for other pursuits. It really is a time for renewal. And as in all radical change, there is an inherent dissolution that needs to happen as we let go of the old familiar, move through unknown territory, through the void, in order to make way for the blossoming of the new identity that we are waking up to. Kind of like the phoenix through the fire, heat and all.

I have shared much over the last few months laying the groundwork for us to be able to have this conversation. It’s a difficult conversation to have. In our world, where women, as they get older, often become invisible members of outer society. Within the context of home, family and grandparenting, this identity is of course different. But within society at large, there is a shift that occurs for women and the feminine as we move into menopause. And we as women often perpetuate this perspective by feeding into the belief that our only value as women is to be youthful and procreative. And that beauty is somehow only expressed through youth.

It is interesting to note that in many indigenous cultures, it is the elder women that made the final decisions for the tribe and for their society. The difficult decisions. The final decisions. The decisions that affect our humanity, the earth, our interactions with other beings on this planet, and ultimately our relationship with Source itself. And it’s because the feminine, when she gains the wisdom of life experience and has been freed up from her procreative responsibilities, that she has the potential to be a powerful force for good and for healing on the planet. Deeply wired in our survival physiology is the desire to protect life in all its forms. To nurture that life, to tend to the Source of that life. Because it is through our bodies, if we have been listening, that we become aware of the cyclical nature of life itself, of the interdependence of all living things on all other living things, and the deep responsibility that we have as humans to care for that life.

That is, unless we have been bowled over by our current society’s values and bought into the power-over structures’s belief that the purpose of our existence as humans is that of dominion over Nature and the accumulation of material goods at the expense of others and of the earth.

One of my mentors, the late Dr. Guéniot, often spoke of the gravity of this situation. He believed that it was extremely important for the wellbeing of our future existence on the planet for women to land fully into their strength as women. Which he believed they can only come to once they have entered menopause - surrendering to the deep wisdom that awaits us on the other side of this monumental remaking of ourselves through menopause.

A remaking that we will often resist. Kicking and screaming along the way. No. No. No. We do not want to give up the illusory power and control we have over our lives, to give up what we worked so hard to achieve. We do not want to give up the ways in which we have shored ourselves up in this world in an attempt to feel OK, to feel as though we have made it, that we have succeeded according to society’s standards of achievement and success. It’s like we are being broken open to find within ourselves our own truth, our soul’s own longing for what we may have left by the wayside, or put on the shelf. All the ways in which we may have abandoned ourselves in order to make it through our reproductive years and to tend to all the demands that our modern life puts on our plates.

Over the coming weeks I will be delving into supportive measures we can take to ease us through this transition and help us find a renewed sense of ourselves and our place in the world.

In the meantime, you might want to reflect on some ways that you can bring more gentleness to your being and more sustenance to your own wellspring.

Create time and space to connect to Source. Ask for guidance to help you through this monumental life transition. What is life asking of you? What is life all about anyways? In the end, when all is said and done, what will have mattered most in your life?

Begin to listen to the feminine that is longing to express itself through you. Listen deeply in order to understand what that means personally to you. Not according to someone else’s definition, but according to your own. Where might we have forgotten her, left her by the wayside or disenfranchised her expression in our lives?

See my post on Motherwort to learn about one of the many herbs that can help us through this transition in our lives.