My early menopause at 44

In January 2019 I reached 13 moon cycles without bleeding, my official, menopause. My early menopause at 44. It was my year of initiatory menopause —burning woman— burning up and as I did, burning all that was not fully in alignment or did not serve. An initiation into the depth of the sorceress, the woman who learns to trust herself like never before, the women who lets go.

In opening to this new way I took a huge step back to hold myself in what I knew I needed. In doing so I let go of the fear of not being loved or wanted or admired, I let go of not achieving what I had hoped within the time line I’d planned. Instead, I stepped into the deeper truth of knowing I am love and knowing I am powerful and not needing or seeking approval.

I let go of the cult of busy.

For me, this was a long shot from the ebb and flow of the cyclical yearning and energy output of my bleeding years; instead, an embodied knowing began to flow through my veins and embedded deep in my bones. In initiation I knew there was no coming back from.

There was a lot of what I wanted to do in this world that I put on the back burner as I honoured this mid life initiation, and all the things that came forth began to manifest from a place deep in my heart and womb. I learned the truth about longing, I grew into my self, into my truth, into the expanse of my womb that now holds my life force within.

I look around and I see huge amounts of shame and invisibility around this epic stage of life because of the infatuation with youth that dominates our culture. Women are told by GP'S and they tell each other that it’s ‘all down hill from here.' We have been programmed and we continue to program ourselves to be disempowered. One of the GP's I saw in this period approached me like I had a serious illness, telling me she was ‘sorry to confirm that I had reached menopause.’ These conversations happen because the identity of the middle aged woman is still mocked and humiliated, I hear it and see it and feel it out there in the world and my life work has become all about the liberation of this repression.

I am rewriting the story. When we take the time to listen deeply to the body at this stage of life, we come to understand that the stories around ageing, drying up, loosing libido, becoming 'less than' have been culturally ingrained to keep us repressed. While men age and become silver foxes and more visible, women have been becoming invisible and shamed.

NO MORE.

I'm not denying menopause is physically and mentally challenging, it asks a lot of us as we burn what needs to go. It's an initiation with no road map and we live in a culture where there is no acknowledgement or understanding of this. We need to create a culture where women are SAFE to burn and move through this stage of life fully empowered so that we may rise from the ashes... rise as women so spiritually and sexually empowered because we know the depth and truth of our energy, women so connected to purpose because we have a direct energy line from our womb through our heart to our desire. Women who refuse to please others before ourselves, women who learn to use their voice in a way they never have before; with grace, courage, vulnerability and power.

THIS is menopause, THIS is midlife.

It's death, it's grief, it's rebirth, it's sexy, it's magnificent, and I'm here to claim it.

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