As you enter your early forties, you step into a new life phase with a very different atmosphere and tone.
You’re shifting into a new paradigm, and you’re likely to notice both subtle and marked changes in your cycle and yourself, some of which may be startling or quite tricky to manage.
You might notice that you have less tolerance for stress, tire more easily, and that your trusty sleep pattern isn’t quite so trusty anymore. More and more people seem to be experiencing brain fog, memory issues, irregular cycles, heavy periods - the list goes on.
What you might notice is an alteration in your priorities, capacities and perspective on life. In our podcast today we share a couple of stories from the Red School community, including one from Lauren who says she’s feeling “a tug towards something deeper” and a “new call for my life” in her 40s.
Although disorientating, inconvenient, and bewildering, this life phase is a necessary and healthy shift in gear. Any increasing reactivity, irritability or intolerance for the status quo of your life, or change in your health, is a clear signal from your body and soul that it’s time to dive deeper, to enter a new level of self‐care and self‐inquiry. Your game is being upped.
Over the past three years, we’ve had several conversations that speak to these ‘Quickening’ years, so today we’ve gathered five of them together to help you through the stormy times and to inspire you to deepen your self care and cycle awareness practice.
For you if you’re struggling with physical or mental health issues:
One: The “Period Revolutionary”, naturopathic doctor and the author of The Hormone Repair Manual Lara Briden shares guidance for working with perimenopausal symptoms including anxiety, depression, irregular or heavier cycles, heart palpitations, insomnia, night sweats, hot flushes, migraines, and breast pain.
How to Feel Better in Perimenopause with Lara Briden
Two: This conversation with East Asian Medicine Pracitioner, Kris Gonzalez explores how Chinese medicine gives us a map of the spiritual dimension of this rite of passage, including how the ‘metal’ of perimenopause gives us a metaphorical sword to cut away the overgrowth of the earthy years of our 30s, so we can see a clear picture of what truly matters to us, and where we want to use our energy.
How Chinese Medicine Can Support You in Perimenopause with Kris Gonzalez
For you if you want to explore your power:
Three: In this episode we explore how to hold yourself when the anesthetic wears off in your 40s (just like in the premenstruum), so that you can invite in greater depth and self-responsibility, how our 40s call us home to our natural authority and power, and why the practice of ‘gearing down’ is more vital now than ever (and how to do it in a world which wants to keep us hustling.)
The Inner Autumn Powers that Awaken in our 40s (Alexandra & Sjanie)
For you if you’re parenting in perimenopause:
Four: What do we do when you’re experiencing significant changes physically, emotionally and spiritually in the years running up to menopause, and all you want to do is run far, far away, but you still have kids at home who need your care and support? Matrescence expert, journalist and coach, Amy Taylor Kabbaz, shares the gold from hundreds of interviews with authors, maternal health experts, teachers, and trailblazers.
Mothering, Matrescence and Perimenopause (Amy Taylor Kabbaz)
For you if you want to explore the spiritual power at work in your 40s:
Five: This conversation explores perimenopause as a kind of sacred preparation or apprenticeship for the great initiation of menopause - a series of unveilings that allow us to see what has been unconscious within us, including how old trauma can resurface in perimenopause, and how to deeply meet what is arising and support yourself to encounter the big emotions so that healing can take place.
Passing Through the Veils: Perimenopause as Sacred Preparation with Alexandra & Sjanie
If you're feeling the desire to go deeper with your Menopause journey, you can find our book Wise Power here.
