Menopause can feel like a chaotic, disorientating time, but there is a profound initiation at work - a process of awakening. Here are some of the new expanded states of consciousness that menopause is waking us up to…
You wake up to your Vulnerabilities
The initial stages of the menopause initiation, which we speak of as the phase of betrayal, can lead you into your deepest vulnerability, to your core wound. It makes you ask big questions: ‘Am I willing to take full responsibility for who I am? Can I keep choosing to bring kindness to my fallibility? Am I brave enough to stand in and cherish my full humanness?
You Wake up to the Impact of the Systems of Power in our World
You wake up to the full impact of what it’s meant to deal with patriarchal and capitalist structures all your life. To all the ways in which you’ve been conned or had to compromise or have held yourself back. And we’ve all done that - it’s as though a backlog of stuff on all levels of your being comes barrelling through, all mushed together into one mighty force of extreme feeling.
(And many who encounter Red School feel a profound sense of grief when they wake up to the full impact of having been denied knowledge and experience of their menstrual cycle as a spiritual path and practice. Crucial knowledge that would have prepared them for menopause. What a betrayal not to have had that.)
You Wake up to the Complexity of the World
In menopause you awaken ever more intimately to the recognition that the world and who you are can’t be separated, that everything’s interconnected and that what you do to another you do to yourself. Your wise self naturally recognises that we’re all responsible for the unfolding story of our planet. There’s no ‘them’ – it’s all ‘us’.
As with initiations, menopause has the potential to awaken us to a profound knowing and experience of all life as sacred, every element holding purpose and meaning and having a rightful place, the sense that we’re within something greater than ourselves. Call it what you like – Nature, Goddess, God, the Tao, the Universe, Great Spirit, Love, the Soul of the World – it’s a Divine ordering unfolding, within which we’re held and are serving. Such is the gift of great initiatory moments, and the potential gift of your menopause.
You Wake up to Who You Truly re
Fundamentally, menopause is a call for you to wake up – both to who you truly are, to your unique gifts, and to your responsibility for Life. It’s a personal initiation that also serves these times in which we’re living. Humanity is facing unprecedented pressures and challenges on many fronts: the very future of our planet is at stake. We need to rise to these challenges and bring new, creative responses to seemingly insurmountable problems.
When you’re in the darkest hour of menopause, it can almost feel that your life is over. The identity that you’ve so carefully crafted over the years now doesn’t seem to hold much water. Or worse, it feels like it’s completely come unstuck. To your everyday consciousness this isn’t great. However, to the deep, timeless part of yourself, it’s an opportunity for deep ‘soundings’ in the underworld of you.
You’re embarking on a time of excavation, exploration and examination in a bid to truly find yourself in a way you haven’t ever done before. You must let go of your usual ways of figuring things out (thinking) and listen to and trust more deeply your feelings and inner knowing (intuition and instinct) and let that guide you.
If you’d like support to navigate this menopause awakening, you can pick up your copy of Wise Power here.
