Perhaps one of the clearest signs of menopause is an increasing feeling that you’re living in a parallel universe.
On the outside you look entirely normal, going about your daily business, but on the inside, you feel increasingly separate from the world. It’s as if ‘life’ is going on out there and you’re inside something else. It’s almost as though you’re viewing the world from underwater.
The end of compromise
Your life may be ticking along and then one day a switch flips and you see all the ways you’ve been compromising or betraying yourself. It hits you squarely between the eyes. You get radical and give up the pretence of trying or wanting to make things work or hold things together.
You may or may not act, or change things right away, but a line in the sand has been drawn that you know you can no longer keep crossing for the sake of others. You say, ‘no more’. You have a new intent for yourself now that will shape your life from here on.
You’re entering a ‘death’ moment
At some point you come face to face with yourself, in all your ‘unglory’. It’s an intensely vulnerable place. You’ve stepped into the death moment, the first phase of menopause, seeing and feeling all the weight of you, your life – old memories, buried shame, unresolved trauma. The spotlight is shining on the worst parts of you.
Your reference points fall away, and you might feel as if you’re going mad or have fallen into the dark night of the soul. Don’t worry, you’re right on track: you’ve arrived in menopause.
Congratulate yourself. You have full permission to no longer maintain life as normal. The fierce encounter is a meeting with limits. We want to encourage you to meet your limits as an emissary. A gateway into expanded consciousness. It’s a warrior moment. Challenging and tough, but it’s waking you up.
How can you keep your life afloat when you simply no longer care?
If you have our Wise Power book, we recommend reading chapter thirteen for your ‘menopause triage’, a guide to living in two parallel realities: doing mundane life whilst undergoing a great initiation. But for now, here is a summary:
1. You have to take time and space for yourself: This is non‐negotiable. Your inner life isn’t backing down now. And if you’re unable to carve out even the smallest pockets of time for yourself here and there – and hopefully, see that expand more and more – it will feel distressing. (For inspiration, listen to this podcast episode with Tracee Stanley about getting rest in menopause).
2. Practise the art of snudging: Snudging is the practice of doing as little as possible while still meeting your commitments. On the surface you look impeccable, delivering on what you have to do, but all the ‘fat’ has been cut away. We imagine that you’ve already built up a very healthy ‘bank account’ of going‐the‐extra‐mile‐for‐everybody. Now it’s payback time. It’s all about you.
3. Trust: There’s stuff you know, but often it’s scary to know what you know because it might cause big changes. Menopause can be uncompromising; it won’t let you compromise yourself, even at the risk of causing big upheavals. You may not yet understand ‘the how’ of it all, but with time something will develop if you stay close to those ‘knowings’: if you trust yourself.
Trusting is easier said than done, of course. But it can begin with simply reminding yourself that there’s a meaningful process at work; that you’re held within something, and that the more you can dare to lean back into your needs and feelings, the more you’ll strengthen your ‘trust muscle’.
