Journey Through the Menopause

Many women are familiar with the physical symptoms and challenges of menopause, but what of the emotional and personal journey that women undertake at this time. I offer a framework which aims to provide insight and support at this time as women undertake their very own journey through the menopause.

What is so special about Menopause?

I have been fascinated by change for as long as I can remember. I love working with times of transition, the type of change where we find ourselves evolving to meet a crisis or to move forward in our lives. Menopause is a time of great change for women, both physically and emotionally. It offers us the opportunity to revisit who we are, our roles within the family at work and beyond, and how we live and look after ourselves. “The Change” offers us an invitation.

Finding a Useful Model for A Heroine’s Journey Through the Menopause

One Sunday morning some years ago I leapt out of bed, my head exploding with the excitement of an idea – that of the menopause being a heroine’s journey. I don’t think I am alone in this, it has probably occurred to a great many of us! I had been reading and thinking around these kinds of ideas and it had all fallen into place. Joseph Campbell’s work has inspired many, but it is very much a male model for the male psyche and experience [1]. Nonetheless, this framework provided a start point for my trying to pull together the seemingly separate but connected aspects of a woman’s time during menopause.

A feminine model has been developed with great insight and relevance by family therapist Maureen Murdock [2]. Her ten part model considers the obstacles and cultural issues that take us away from who we are as women. It looks at the psychological and spiritual pathway before every woman on her healing journey. It is a beautiful and thoughtful book that I wholeheartedly recommend.

Every woman’s experience of menopause is unique and there is great value in approaching this life-stage in a truly holistic way. Not just the totality of symptoms as a list, but embracing and supporting this period of change on every level of our beings. Taking into consideration physical constitution and the symptoms being experienced, how we feel and what else is happening in our lives.

It is worth mentioning that not every woman will struggle with menopause, and some of the challenges may be resolved more easily than others. This way of looking at menopause may still offer a useful framework that helps us in feeling happy and well, and in the making the most of who we are and what we are here for.

For those women who feel this is a somewhat heroic struggle and are looking for a supportive framework I wanted to think around a model that can offers flexibility, room for the individual and reflects the nature of this time in our lives. To try to make sense of the unfolding changes and challenges, a springboard for our thoughts and feelings.

I offer you a seven-stage model, which may be helpful in bringing coherence to this process, but it is only a model; perhaps the ideas contained within are of greater value than the structure. And, as we know, life and our experience of it, is not linear or one dimensional, so stages may not run in sequence and they may also run simultaneously.

This is not the first or last word on this time in women’s lives, merely an invitation to visit and re-visit this landscape in a way that is helpful to you.

The Seven Stages of a Heroine’s Journey through the Menopause:

The Call – the old self no longer fits – a life stage: “there must be more to life than this”, a chemical shake up and biological change.
Initial Resistance – self image, roles, not rocking the boat.
Helpers, Guides & Instruments of Power – people and resources to accompany us and offer support.
The Brink – the point of no return, where the personality will throw up its most powerful demons of self sabotage (major resistance) – working with these is transformational.
Stepping into a New World – Transition – a new place.
The Supreme Ordeal – rising to a challenge of our greatest fear(s), changes in our sense of self.
Journey to Ourselves – the reward, arriving at our True Selves, becoming our power.

“At menarche a young woman enters her power, throughout her menstruating years she practises her power and at menopause she becomes her power”

Native American saying [3]

Journey Through The Menopause: Stage One – The Call

Our heroine is summoned to her quest; a series of prompts or calls alert her to this change in her life. It may be a gradual shift or a sudden crisis that engages her attention. Menopause as a life stage can be a point at which to take stock, to review – the old self may no longer fit. I repeatedly find that it does not matter at what age, or apparent life stage women are at when we begin this part of our journey, it usually seems to arrive at a time when we are experiencing upheavals at home, in our relationships, and in our roles outside of the home. “The Change” can be all encompassing.

The heroine may ask of herself:

“Who am I?”

“What is my role?”

“How do I want the next stage of my life to be?”

Our spirit calls us in this place of change, ennui, or review – there must be more to life than this…maybe this is the way to the wise woman within us?

On our life’s journey our feminine milestones provide punctuation; we are in a state of constant flow and within that flow we are, as is nature itself, cyclic not linear. The exquisitely interactive alchemical hormonal soup that we are, is ever-changing, striving for an equilibrium far more subtle and delicate than we can ever dream of replicating with synthesised chemicals.

Menopause is a natural life stage where a woman’s hormone production and balance change over time. This is usually a gradual process, except in the case of a surgical or pharmaceutical intervention. I am increasingly of the view that the pace and toxicity of modern life is contributing to the tougher time many women now have at menopause, compared with previous generations. You can read more about your body’s hormonal Plan B for menopause and beyond in Natural Remedies for Menopause [4]. Believe it or not, you actually come designed to live through and after the menopause!

Although it is a process that takes place over a period of time, the actual word “menopause” refers to a fixed point in time, the date of our last period. However, for ease, we often refer to the time up to that date, as the “menopause”, but it can be referred to as the peri-menopause. In my experience, labels, stages and linear timelines need to be viewed very broadly, because every woman is different and her experience of menopause will be unique to her and may not fit into a neat, linear model.

Common Symptoms

Some of the frequently experienced symptoms of the menopause may not be solely as a result of a decline in oestrogen production. Perhaps not surprisingly, this is a more complex and subtle process than solely a change in hormone levels. Many women experience hot flushes, and the following list gives a range of other symptoms that women may or may not have during their peri-menopausal years.

It is important to note that this is not a compulsory list! Some women just experience feeling a little warm during menopause, and notice other minor changes. Others might feel they could tick every box. Either way, there are many steps we can take to prepare for this phase of life, and once there, there is much we can do to support ourselves.

Physical symptoms:

These can include hot flushes, night sweats, menstrual irregularities and changes, vaginal dryness, a dip in libido, weight gain, joint pains, changes in bone density, lack of energy, palpitations, headaches, changes in hair and skin.

Mental/Emotional symptoms:

Irritability, anxiety, mood swings, depression, insomnia, memory changes, lack of clarity/sharpness.

Our constitution, family history, environment, lifestyle and stress will all have their influence upon how we experience menopause. Some symptoms might be diagnosed as menopausal, when in fact they might be a result of other factors. There can also be an interplay between symptoms with one, perhaps exacerbating another, e.g. insomnia affecting mood.

There is considerable value in listening to symptoms, working with them and understanding their gifts. They are our body’s way of updating us – messengers from within. Ignoring or suppressing them simply means our system has to come up with a more dramatic way to alert us to imbalance. I often find there may also be a magnification of pre-existing health issues around menopause. As if more heat is put under an issue to potentially give us greater motivation and opportunity to address it. If we listen, these symptoms, whether physical or emotional, can help to point us in the direction we are meant to be going in. There are a great many ways in which we can listen and tune in to what our system needs and I will come on to this in future stages.

Our cars have warning lights on the dashboard which flash if there is a problem. Take out these bulbs or stick a plaster over them and we won’t be bothered by the flashing warning light anymore. Unfortunately we may then find our car breaks down.

Some symptoms are just low level indicators of change that need acknowledging, allowing for and support. Others are more akin to the oil warning light and we need to stop and pay attention.

Journey Through The Menopause: Stage Two – Initial Resistance

As women we are connected to and reminded of the milestones of our journey – the onset of womanhood at our menarche, our fertility and ability to create life and our move through menopause into the roles of wise women.

No wonder we sometimes enter these life stages feeling uncertain, negative or unsupported – resistant. Our society barely acknowledges these stages, let alone their value. They are spoken of in soulless functional medical terms. The medical model applied, it seems, is often one that is based on the unspoken acceptance that the male anatomy and psyche is the norm, and therefore deviation from that is pathological. Our physical and emotional landscapes as women are viewed, at worst, as a ghastly concoction of gynaecological mayhem in calling out for control and containment by means of surgery and suppressive drugs.

Within the last few years I was listening to a radio panel game and one of the male contestants was a young doctor. Speaking on an unrelated subject, this young spark cheerfully announced that he knew about women, who they were – “the ones without the willies”! My jaw hit the ground – young, academically bright enough to be a doctor and had come through his medical training with a Freudian mental framework that saw women as incomplete men. Presumably he is in practice somewhere giving out drugs and medical advice through that filter. Thankfully one of the other male panellists did point out that we “have quite a lot else going on down there” and may have given him pause for thought – one can only hope.

There are more women doctors, and I am sure some male ones that have a more enlightened view but I still find the system in need of a conceptual update. Women visit their GPs and are so often offered HRT and antidepressants just for the sheer misery of being a woman! Our menopause is viewed as a disease, something to be suppressed with drugs; not a life stage of great significance and value. Our experience is collectively denied but this in itself is part of our heroine’s journey.

A Quick Fix at Menopause?

Women are often offered the option of the apparent quick fix – drugs or surgery. All of which have the risk of side-effects and complications which may follow you into your post-menopausal years.

You can read my other posts on about the downsides of HRT, hysterectomies and the value of staying whole if you are interested in finding out more. So many women I talk to wish they had researched more at the outset.

It is understandable in the face of our own fears, our modern cultural values and the prevailing medical responses, to lurch towards the quick fix door. And yet – theses fixes are not always quick, they are not always a fix and they can bring their own woes. I am often reminded of what the writer and humourist Dorothy Parker said on opening her apartment door “What fresh hell can this be?” as the pharmaceutical industry serve up another hormonal brew for us to swallow.

Picking Up Where We Left Off in Our Teens?

With the first rumblings of menopause we may have heard the call, but this may well prompt resistance. The very fact that we feel resistance means that our journey is beginning.

And so, our feelings about ourselves emerge, often amplified by years of suppression or distraction.

How do we feel about being female?
How do we define female and femininity?
How do we feel about our role in our family?
How do we feel about our children? Or not having children?
How do we feel about our partner?
How do we feel about our role in the workplace?
How do we feel about aging?
How do we feel about our mortality?
How do we define ourselves?
How do we feel about our changing appearance?
How do we feel about the role models presented to us?
How do we feel about the cultural values of the society in which we live?
How do we feel about our own development, our own path?

One could view menopause as the time to pick up where we left off in our adolescence. Around menopause may be the first time in a long while that a woman starts to think of herself again.

There may be many feelings of guilt or fear, as a woman considers her own needs, and changes she would like to make in her life. Thinking she is being “selfish” for considering herself – maybe for the first time in years, or ever. She may not know what it is that she wants. She may fear moving toward her own power.

The monthly shift of hormones is familiar territory to most women, but in menopause this hormonal veil is lifted to a different level. The shifts that occur before our periods can give us an insight into our lives and who we are; where the frustrations lie, what we need to vent and why. For many these monthly messages may pass unheard, and so there may be more to work through later. When menopause duly arrives this becomes a full blown shift towards the full and rich expression of our purple-wearing selves [5].

The menopause is a natural female milestone and denial of its intrinsic value and our right to experience and be supported during this rite of passage merely adds insult to injury. In this space we find uncertainty and there is little comfort to be had from our culture at large; and often little useful “mainstream” support. Instead, we are encouraged to devalue our experience, to pretend that this “change” isn’t happening – to try to chemically cheat time, and to emotionally and spiritually avoid this life stage.

We can create our own framework in which our experiences and emotions are heard, valued and supported. To support and nurture our bodies with diet, remedies, exercise, connecting with nature or whatever helps us to feel happy and alive, exploring and expressing our creativity, and having fun!

Journey Through The Menopause: Stage Three – Helpers, Guides & Instruments of Power

Having heard the initial call at menopause, the stirring of change afoot and our understandable resistance we may find ourselves moving into stage three. Gathering to us whatever guides, helpers, guides & instruments of power feel the most supportive in helping us to move forwards. In my next post “Alternatives to HRT: Homeopathy” I will consider the supportive role of homeopathy but you can apply this model to whatever feels right for you at each stage of your journey through menopause.

Journey Through The Menopause: Stage Four – The Point of No Return

This is the point where our heroine steps up to the mark or walks away – her own personal Rubicon to be crossed, that step that takes us past the point of no return. Will she stay set in old patterns that rob her of the opportunity for own development and empowerment? The ego will try to make sure that she stays stuck by throwing up its most powerful demons of self-sabotage – I am not worth it, not good enough, not lovable, not strong enough, I have to put everyone-else first, etc. It will want her to stay where she is, unhappy or unfulfilled maybe. In a known framework, there is a status quo and the ego’s existence rests upon it.

Millennia of suppression led to the rising tide of feminism. But did we stop to think whether we were simply reacting to the male model of society? A reaction is not necessarily a connection with the feminine; it is a response still governed by that male model. So in truth, are we still working within the male model? Still trying to gain validation in a system that approves the male attributes and devalues the feminine?

If we do stop to ponder this we may realise that we cannot find fulfilment within this framework, it isn’t set up so that we can! If we play that game, most of us are doomed to drudgery, confusion and exhaustion. I consider myself a feminist but feel that now we need to evolve to a place that actually values women for being women, not as second-place runners up in the competition to be men.

How much has our heroine bought into our current cultural values? Modern Western “equality” means that not only “should” she be utterly and fashionably gorgeous, forever youthful, and constant in her good temper and ability to appease and care for others, she must also be able to work 24/7, achieving it all 100%, in and outside of the home, demonstrating all of these “attributes” as she does so! Is she going to martyr herself to all of these “shoulds”?

For each of us, in approaching the trickle or torrent of our Rubicon we choose to commit to a path where questioning these values and our own negative patterns can change us forever. The questions we ask ourselves about who we are, our role(s), how we live and what we value are powerful and for each of us have the potential to be transformative.

The fear that each of us has can be the tail that wags the dog – directing life choices without us being aware. Where issues have been avoided, or emotions suppressed they can present a cumulative challenge. Bringing symptoms and old patterns into our consciousness enables us to move forwards; whilst they remain in the dark, we are at their mercy acting out our baggage and recreating the scenarios we are trying to escape from. Fighting and denying change fuels the fire of menopause; moving towards and into acceptance eases the way.

The Journey Through The Menopause: Stage Five – Stepping into a New World

Having crossed her Rubicon, our heroine ventures further into a new and unknown world. This is a strange place, in which she may feel uncertain, may be uncomfortable as many old, redundant or unhelpful reference points fall away. She is in transition, a place of limbo as new reference points may take time to become clear. This may be exciting and frightening by turns and it is a period of exploration – how does she want the next stage of her life to be? As she explores this new world, she is creating a new framework for herself – who is she now? The constancy and support of her helpers and guides, her newly acquired knowledge and instruments of power will help her in developing sure foundations. As and when she comes to face her supreme ordeal, she is supported from both without and within.

Journey Through The Menopause: Stage Six – The Supreme Ordeal

During a journey of personal transition such as menopause, a woman may come to face a supreme challenge. This is when she will be tested; her personal dragon will need to be named and faced in order for her to be released from its power. For each woman it will be different depending upon her greatest fear(s), changes or losses in her closest relationships, work, home, and sense of self.

As our heroine’s deepest fears are activated and the points of resistance re-emerge, going ‘through’ the ordeal instead of ‘around’ is key. The often used adage of ‘what’s in the way is the way’ is so very true.

This release or revelation is a change within that will create change without. It becomes a defining moment not just in the chapter that is menopause, but in the whole book of our lives.

Journey Through The Menopause: Stage Seven – Journey to Ourselves

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets [6]

In some traditions, the cessation of bleeding was interpreted as the blood being retained, not as before to make a baby, but to make wisdom – “wise-blood”. It was a badge of honour to arrive at menopause, marked with ritual and celebration. The accumulated wisdom was precious and respected as such, and older women were not only sources of support and wisdom but also role models for younger women.

Today our heroine’s journey at menopause is one of separation from the mainstream cultural norms and values of prizing youth and materialistic superficiality, and of being marginalised and isolated from the thrust of our collective illusion of reality. This consensus reality is perceived as sanity, yet this version of sanity has brought us to a place in our history where many have too much, and even more have less than enough to survive. We have polluted and continue to pollute and deface this jewel of a planet. The earth and all that springs from her, is not considered sacred.

Our current cultural values have lost their connection with the sacred in general, and the sacred feminine in particular. Yet within ourselves, and our collective experience of being women, it is a gift we can all still feel.

“…Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.”

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis [7]

As we heal ourselves, and integrate all that is male and female within us individually, we move beyond that dualism, beyond separation towards wholeness, wisdom and compassion. Menopause offers women a gateway to walk through on their journey at “the change” to discover their true selves. Who we are and can yet be is forged in the heat of the fire of our menopause. This individual journey is at once our own path and also part of the global unfolding. Our individual transformations can collectively become the means of evolution for all. We are one – there is no separation – no me, no you, no us, no them. My change is your change and yours is mine. We are all interconnected; when a woman changes, she changes the world.

I hope very much that you have enjoyed reading about The Journey Through the Menopause and that you find it to be a supportive contribution to your own journey. In the references and resources below I have included books that I have found to be inspiring and enlightening as I explore this ever-changing landscape.

Please keep an eye open for my next post “Alternatives to HRT: Homeopathy” for more information and insights about the world of support available for you at menopause. I have also written my handbook ‘Menopause: A Heroine’s Journey, Powerful Help for Women’ principally for my fellow practitioners, but also accessible to any woman with an interest in taking resourceful and practical steps on her Heronine’s Journey Through Menopause [8].

Do leave a comment and you can also contact me if you would like to see if my approach might suit you – thank you.

Resources and References

[1] The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

[2] The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock

[3] The Wild Genie by Alexandra Pope

[4] Natural Remedies for Menopause

[5] Jenny Joseph’s When I am Old I Shall Wear Purple (But do ease up on the sausages!)

[6] T.S. Eliot Four Quartets Quotes – Good Reads

[7] Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

[8] My handbook ‘Menopause: A Heroine’s Journey, Powerful Help for Women’

[9] Circle of Stones by Judith Duerk

[10] Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes