The Menstruality Podcast - 112. Why Do I Feel like I’m Losing it in Menopause? (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Menopause awakens us to the vulnerability of our humanity. The structures that have long held us safe begin to crack, and we lose the mechanisms we’ve used to hold ourselves in place; our bodies change, our shifting hormones rewire our psyches, our long held identities are shaken.It’s no wonder we can start to feel that we’re “losing it” - all the layers of certainty that we’ve come to depend on are being deconstructed; from our health, to our careers, to our marriages, to even the deep meaning of our lives. The radical idea we explore in today’s conversation, is that this process of ‘losing it’ is a necessary - albeit very challenging - part of the menopause spiritual initiation. If you’re in the middle of this messy process, may this episode offer some supportive context, meaning and even solace to you today. We explore:Why your mind needs to be decommissioned for the spiritual awakening of menopause to happen. It’s not that you’re going mad, rather you’re finding a new kind of intelligence within you; a heart-mind knowing. The fear that arises as our minds change in menopause - particularly living within a consensus culture that values the mind above all and is rooted in a millennia-old collective denial and suppression of our intuitive gifts.The punchline of menopause… and it’s not what you might expect…---Join us for Menopause: The Great Awakener - an online course (with lifetime access) at www.redschool.net/menopause---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Welcome back. Thank you for joining me today. We're excited here because we're starting the 2024 live round of our menopause course tomorrow. It's called Menopause the Great Awakener.

And today on the podcast, we're exploring a question that many of the participants ask Alexandra and Sharni and this question also fills our inboxes and our social media. Why do I feel like I'm losing it in menopause? So throughout the conversation Alexander and Sharni explore how menopause dismantles the structures within us that have long held us safe. Our bodies change, our shifting hormones rewire our psyches, long held identities are shaken. So it's no wonder that we can start to feel like we're losing it. All these layers of certainty that we've come to depend on are being deconstructed from our health to our careers, to our marriages, to even the deep meaning of our lives.

And the radical idea that Alexandra brings in today's conversation is that this process of losing it is actually necessary, albeit incredibly challenging, but a necessary part of the menopause spiritual initiation or awakening process. So if you're in the middle of this messy menopause journey, we hope that this episode offers some supportive context and meaning, and even some solace for you today. And my personal favourite moment was towards the end, when Alexandra delivers the punchline of menopause, and it wasn't what I expected. Hey, welcome you two. How's it going for you? How are you doing today, Alexandra?

I am feeling well. I just feel a sort of soothedness and ease in my system. Steadiness there. It's just after full moon, which required a little mindfulness, but it felt good actually. But you know, it's a bit charged, that old moon. It was really beautiful. The full moon called in my bleed on day 24,

which I don't think has ever happened in my life before and I had two days where aid had taken arty away and I was at home painting the walls of our kitchen under the light of the full moon bleeding it was really luscious and I feel like you do I feel soothed by it because as a major introvert, you know, having as little time alone as I have in my life, all these pockets just fill me right up. You think it was the moon that called you to bleed. It was actually me. Because we had been synced all month long. And then I decided to bleed. And I thought, I can't lose you.

Come bleed with me. And across time and space you did we're both day three again which is really nice wow today I'm also I have this very deep stillness And also a feeling of teetering towards coming out of a sort of holding that I've been in. Like I've been up somewhere really high, but I've been so in the experience. Suddenly my mind has come in and I'm like, oh shit, don't look down. And occasionally like I realize how high up I am and I could you know I feel I could freak out I mean that has everything to do with the fact that I've just had the most extraordinary experience this bleed has sort of just taken me into a profoundly altered state

you know how we talk about having a big bleed which i think is a lot like you know a menstrual retreat where you kind of take yourself off well occasionally big bleeds just happen to you as you're going about your ordinary life and i've had one of those i've had one of those like the lining up of the full moon, the eclipse, coming towards like All Hallows' Eve and the thinning of the veils. The confluence of forces have just brought me into something quite stupendous. So I'm kind of in the glow of that, really. And trying not to look down.

Yeah, and trying not to look down. Yeah, and trying not to look down. Exactly, exactly. Trying not to look down. I'm wondering if we can pick off our conversation today, maybe just by sharing why it's so important to have a conversation about losing it in menopause and the way I'm holding that is just because so many people are feeling that and the suffering and the loneliness and the fear the terror is is real and it's so important that we face it and name it and talk about it

yeah you know when you say those words fear and terror i can feel it momentarily in my system it's very powerful and real need to sort of gently talk my way into this. All right, so at menopause, we are undergoing a huge change within our beings, you know, physically within our bodies. Our hormonal system is going through a massive gear change. So in any kind of change, there's disturbance. You know, we like things to be the same. I love it when things are just ticking over very nicely.

Thank you very much. Can we just keep this going? No. When change happens, it stirs up all sorts of things within our being. And the thing about menopause, the change of menopause, is also this added element of age. It's such a clear announcement of, oh, wow, I'm not going to live forever. You know, death appears on the horizon. And that can really organize things within our psyches.

So our bodies are changing. And we're having to encounter a whole lot of cultural stuff around how we're supposed to be, particularly as women, and this whole idea of getting older and who you're becoming, i.e. not as important, not as powerful, not as significant. Those are all lies, by the way, but those are the lies we're fed. And so to suddenly hit that moment or to feel that moment coming where you can feel your body is changing really starts to kind of rattle the cage of who we are. And one of the things that I'm very conscious of is in fact how vulnerable we all are you know just everything our whole life on this planet everything we human beings are extraordinarily vulnerable and

you know we build up all sorts of systems and things and stuff in a way to protect us from that vulnerability for knowing that vulnerability but when our systems start to crack when our psyche starts to then it's very easy for us to experience that vulnerability very quickly and um so when this is what's happening when we're coming into menopause. We're going through a change, and that change loosens the kind of structures, the mechanisms we have that we hold ourselves in place with. For example, that my body works, that I get sleep, that I know my body will deliver. You know, I don't have to think about my body. And, you know, and then the moment the foundation of your body gets shaken, actually, I know this because I've suffered quite strongly in the past with debilitating challenges in my health, how it then shakes the whole of your psyche. And so menopause, everything's being shaken.

And those other bulwarks that have helped you to, you know, keep vulnerability at bay is, you know, all the identities we wear. And as we are changing hormonally, that is rewiring our psyches. And so suddenly we're looking at our lives very differently and the identities that we have been wearing, if you like, suddenly don't look so attractive or so comfy or so right. Or they're just, it's like everything is up for grabs now. And so our bodies aren't with us.

We're feeling our identities being shaken. And then, well, this is how I have meaning. You know, this job I do, this is what gives me meaning. And if suddenly it's not doing it for me, then what's it all about? Yeah. So the gaps start showing and we are exposed to our vulnerability. And then I want to say, oh, hell, let's lose. But it shouldn't be quite hell.

But, you know, then what we've been keeping at bay starts to be our vulnerabilities are revealed. And that feels like losing it because we are, in a sense, you know, we're losing control. And here's the radical statement. This has to happen for the extraordinary initiatory process that you undergo at menopause. Because, you know, I've been talking about your physical changes and i've been talking in the sense about your sort of psychological thing you know identities and so on but accompanying all

that is uh there's a spiritual initiation that we are actually undergoing. And that spiritual initiation requires this vulnerability. It has, you know, our identities are all tied up with our egos. And bless her, I love my ego. It will always reign. It will always reign. It's always there. But it's going to go through a workout. And egos hate workouts.

They just want to be in charge. But it's going to bite the dust. And, you know, along with that, our minds, you know, what our minds, you know, with that our minds you know what our minds you know like to control everything and it's like oh you know i can't control i can't actually control it and this is the apps this is what has to happen for spiritual for the spiritual awakening that menopause is um you have to be we have to be undone all our identities are that will have to be undone and uh in that undoing that's what you know this is where all the crap, for want of a better word, emerges. So when people say to me, because I hear all sorts of things,

I feel like I'm going mad, feel like I'm going mad. And I say, that's a sign you're waking up. But it announces itself as madness first. Yeah, you're scrambled. Yeah, people just say, I'm losing it. I can't control. I can't manage things anymore. I can't do what I used to do.

I said, yeah, you're changing now. You're coming into a different life stream with different priorities, but you've got to undo the priorities you have. And then there's this huge loss of meaning, which is the most despair making. And I think that's the terror. That was where i felt terror i suddenly lost the substantiality actually i had a strong spiritual kind of world

within me and i sort of trusted that and that abandoned me and that momentarily it wasn't but it was very distinct and i could not i could not unthink it i could not unthink it um and i think it's you know loss of meaning is very terrifying it's a real existential crisis moment and i'm saying all this and i'm actually saying that this is part of the process of the spiritual awakening that is trying to happen at menopause hmm it's um just very sobering hearing you describe it in that way alexandra through all these kind of layers of certainty reliability um things we've come to depend on and trust and having all of that systematically deconstructed and how that ripples out into our life situation, you know, where the thing you thought would be forever, perhaps your career

or your happy marriage or your fill in the gap, suddenly you're faced with the kind of shocking possibility of it ending. And I bring that word in shock because it's something we often hear come to rely on the faculty of our mind yes and um you know I'm thinking about my cycle experience and how there comes a point in the cycle just before the bleed where my mind is utterly decommissioned which is what happens as you come into menopause as well this decommissioning of the mind you know could be brain fog could be loss of memory could be can't think clearly just not the same kind of rational capacities we've had and then in the loss of that faculty certainly my experience is I'm just left hanging in this unknown place where

if it's all the question. It's like there are no answers. There is nothing known anymore. It is really void, and that's where that void of meaning comes and void of something to hold on to, like a loss of control, really, in its truest deepest sense and that is the most terrifying thing for our egos um especially if no one's saying as you are which is why I so appreciate everything you're saying, Alexandra, especially if no one's saying this is necessary,

this is normal. And I don't think you said it exactly here, but I've heard you say it before. This is good. This is before. This is good. This is good. This is good. I'm glad you brought up that phrase, the decommissioning of the mind, because, yeah, your mind has to be taken out, so to speak,

for this spiritual awakening to happen. Um and you're not losing your mind so much as you are finding a new mind and I sort of say that with inverted commas around it. You're finding a new kind of, you're finding a new way of, a new kind of intelligence within you, a new kind of knowing within you. And I just keep thinking of the image of the heart, really. It's this journey from the mind to the heart.

But it's not that you it's not like you don't use your mind anymore on the contrary my mind is alive and well thank you very much functioning a little more liminally shall we say these days but you know it's it's working very well thank you very much and um i don't remember details in the same way but boy do i am i tracking big picture concepts and holding all sorts of things so your mind functions in a different way but it's this it's a kind of mind it's a heart mind intelligence heart-mind intelligence that you're really knitting together or forming at menopause. So I draw this from my cycle experience, which is in the first half of the menstrual cycle, the inner spring, inner summer, my mind is serving me and my will. And then in the second half of the cycle, in the inner autumn and inner winter which

is you know what we go through in our 40s and then in menopause is my mind starts to become the less dominant um faculty and now i am in service of a knowing that isn't about my will, but thy will. There's a different kind of service that's leading me. There's a bigger, wider, more connected intelligence that I'm leading with. And that's, yeah, that's what's happening at menopause, isn't it, Alexandra? That's the big shifting gear that is going to remain the new normal in the third act of your life. Yep, that's absolutely it.

That's a perfect summary of it shani yeah it's not about my will and my will is of course alive and well and i'm remarkably willful to be um but it is not about my will ultimately it's this sense of a larger will at work, a larger, it's a willingness within my being that I'm serving a greater force now. I love that phrase, this heart-mind intelligence that is being awakened in menopause. What it's making me think of is just the big cultural story over the last millennia, where one way of putting it is you could say that the feminine,

the deep feminine has been suppressed actively. You know, in this last several hundred years those women who were tapped into this intuition maybe this heart mind intelligence I'm thinking I'm so much of the madness that people feel sorry the fear the fear of madness that we have in our culture feels connected to those roots as in you know it feels so terrifying to to for the faculties of the mind to be changing because for so long these faculties have been actively suppressed and it's one of the things that makes me so passionate about menstruality because it's the best thing I've found for actually tapping us into these intuitive heart mind faculties but there's a fear that comes with it you know around people connected to their cycle too there's yeah you can see why there's fear here yeah yeah yeah you're bringing in the thing so we've stepping into a new kind of um way of being

and now you're bringing in this other thing of the kind of we're stepping into at menopause. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very real. Very true. So many of us, all of us really have had to learn how to live and think in a certain way in order to find our way in these cultures. And it feels like what you're saying to me is menopause is undoing some of that. And it's so scary because then our capacity to play the roles that we've been playing inside this patriarchal culture it's not they're not so available to us yes i'm just nodding my head with everything you're saying um soph. Yes. Yeah. I think there is a, I think what you've illuminated is the fact that there is an underlying terror that we drop into because we're losing the ordering that allows us to function within

consensus reality, which is mind over mind, rational logic, and the intelligence of the heart is intuition and knowing have been dangerous for us to have and that's just where we're going now yeah makes me realize how they demonize

older women now as mad as you know crazy yeah because uh we are really opening into this world beyond the rational when we go through menopause we're opening into the subtle non-visible world and unless our mind has a context for that um really we will be invaded by the terror of that our kind of our own personal fear around letting go in that way but also the what you're speaking to is a sort of historical fear of that you know I felt it this month when

I described that experience I had in the void just before bleeding which you know is what's mirrored in menopause we're in a void at menopause um we do lose part of that kind of material um culturally conditioned way of seeing the world you know alexandra spoke about the structures falling away part of that is that we are suddenly not operating in normal time space reality it truly is otherworldly and i had a moment of you know really questioning my sanity in that place of miraculousness and this is why I feel so passionate about us restoring menstruality these spiritual maps of the menstrual cycle the spiritual architecture of menopause because then we have a holding, a really dignified holding for what's happening. And when we're in those moments of profound unknownness, where we are now accessing

worlds that others don't necessarily see or know, when we're having these moments of awakening, that we feel safe in them, that we feel that this is the right order of things, this is welcome, this is timeless wisdom, this is timeless power. And in fact, this is the power that the world really runs on. It's not the power that we see with people in positions of power. It's the power that powers nature that we tap into. So as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, our Menopause The Great Awakener course starts tomorrow, Friday the 3rd of November. It's a beautiful course and you can actually come back for free each year. You have lifetime access so you can continue to receive the support of the

course and the community as your menopause process unfolds. The course will also help you to make sense of your menopause experience if you're on the other side of it. We offer a three-month payment plan and many people express the great value of this course including Debbie who said after last year's course, I just thought I'd share that I'll be back again. I've done the course several times now and it has offered me so much every time, supporting me in different ways at different stages of my menopause journey, from my cycling days through to now, well post-bleeding. I can't recommend it too highly and financially I thought it was so worthwhile just for the first time, but it keeps on giving and it's now working out as an absolute ridiculous bargain for each year. So we have a brilliant circle gathering already

and Alexandra and Sharni would absolutely love you to join us. You can take your seat at redschoolmenopause.com. That's redschoolmenopause.com. You've brought up something very, very important that I've actually been holding as we've been speaking because because, you know, you said earlier, Shani, how you quoted me saying, you know, it's good, this breakdown's good. in the darkness and despair right now that's not going to sound great and i wanted to speak to that but also to speak to what you have just said then about the importance of restoring a whole understanding of menstruality and the inner maps that we have and knowing about the spiritual architecture of menopause

because without this knowledge, without the preparation that your years of menstrual cycle awareness can give you and without knowledge of what menopause is about, then it's awful. You know, menopause can feel awful, especially when we're not resourced in any way. I mean, in material sense, but resourced at all sorts of levels. And I'd really like to just really speak to that now, because if one crashes into menopause, it can feel like a breakdown.

And I know there's one particular woman I know of who really had a huge adrenal collapse. And she was a mother of three children and she just couldn't function. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't care for her children. She was completely wiped. And it was utterly terrifying for her. And I think that her experience, you know, echoes many people's, you know, on different levels, maybe not as extreme as hers. and um so uh on a very basic level the crucialness of um taking care of our physical health our

energy and our nervous systems which is a menstrual cycle awareness can really support us with that um is everything coming into menopause you know to take care of your adrenal health and which is you know taking care of the state of your nervous system just is something really practical and important to do that can really, really make a huge difference at menopause. Now, the upside for me of having had shitty health, you know, a lot of my life, most of my life, was that I really, I stepped up to it because I didn't want to feel crap. And I really learned about how to heal my body. I stepped up to it because I didn't want to feel crap.

And I really learned about how to heal my body and what was needed and what was required. And so actually, when I came to menopause, I was, for me, in pretty damn good nick. And I didn't have that kind of physical collapse or anything like that. And so that was the upside of having chronic fatigue and so on. I really learned about self-care, basically. Yes. yes so the thing is that menopause sits on a huge arc it's a bookend you know that the other bookend is menarche our first bleed and that's the beginning of the journey and that's so important that that that that menarcharchy is a wholesome experience for every girl or person going through, child going through this,

needs to be resourced and have a wholesome experience to set the line. And then our menstruating years, the art and practice of menstrual cycle awareness and all the ways we teach at Red School. And, you know, people can find lots of resources on our website and podcasts. They can listen to other podcasts to get that information and our books, of course. Menstrual cycle awareness is this wonderful work

of building the muscle of self-care, but it's also building this muscle of inner knowing and self-development. It's an amazing personal development program built into your body. How great is that? And that you are each month, month after month, year after year, rooting down into yourself more and more using your menstrual cycle as this inner guidance system. And, you know, your menstrual cycle has this mission to deliver you home to yourself or to deliver you to the door of menopause where that home finally gets cemented in.

So it's, you know, there's a mission, there's a kind of thread running through your menstrual cycle process over the years that's deepening you into something, strengthening something in you. So you're building your self-care muscle, but you're also building your psychological muscle to take responsibility for yourself, to know yourself, to hold yourself, to soothe yourself. It's an amazing, complete process that's going on here. And so that when you arrive at menopause, there is a sense of readiness. And we have spoken about this, I think, in previous podcasts. I mean, i had a feeling of that i was outgrowing my cycle you know there was a sense that um i was over this now thank you very much i'm up for the next adventure almost um so you're readied and there's a feeling of, you know,

just thinking about how so many of us carry shame in our system and also shame about the menstrual cycle, you know, but just shame in general. But I think I believe it's really possible through menstrual cycle awareness to crowd out that shame, to clear it, to help us to release it from our system so that when we ending starts to show itself uh you have i want to say you have the notes to refer to as you go over the cliff it's like all right i'm going over a cliff

it's not it's just pretty shitty it's not great but you've got notes to self you've built up hang in there don't look down i i have fun here but there's a there's a kind of template in your being there is a template in your being now of course you know your life of course sits within a life context circumstance life circumstances you know environments that we live in and some of us live in more peaceful more supported resourced environments others of us don't have those resources and those that's a very vital part of it as well because if you don't have actual resources then yeah that that amplifies everything so uh i'm just saying for people who are still menstruating i hope you're hearing us loud and clear around really, this is all about really building up your health

and really meeting yourself and facing yourself and growing into yourself and doing the inner work that is calling within you to be done. Do all that because that's your deep self taking care of you and preparing you for this initiation of menopause. Now, for those that are in menopause right now and hearing this who are really feeling the awfulness of it and really struggling, I'm just really hoping that our words are in and of themselves just providing some sort of soothing and holding

and meaning-making for you. But we have some really good instructions in our book, Wise Power, around what we call the menopause triage, you know, just the immediate things you need to put in place. But just really one of the most important things is to actually name that you are in menopause, formally naming, yes, I'm in menopause and things are going to be different. I have to do things differently now. And to just think in very small steps.

We talk about the 1% changes, the 1% changes. What you require more than anything else in this breakdown phase is time and space for yourself. And when you don't have time and space for yourself, madness reigns, terror reigns. But the moment you have a little bit of spaciousness around you and you're going to do 1% by 1% by 1%, that spaciousness allows a number of things. There's a kind of settling. There's something that can just drop.

And when I say spaciousness, it's an agenda-free space where you have moments where you can abandon all responsibilities. You know, I'm talking half an hour here. I'm talking an evening to yourself. I'm talking turning off the phone and shutting the computer and getting a cup of tea and staring out the window and doing freaking nothing caring for nobody 15 minutes you can do that that's what you're needing. Moments of those and those moments generate more moments. Something will start to change in your psyche. And then the other element is rest.

Rest. Don't try to and don't try to work anything out this is not the time and space to work anything out you you don't have the wherewithal to go oh well if i'm not doing this job anymore what am i going to do if You know, or you're not in a relationship and you're feeling, you know, grief and loneliness and exposure and that you want one. Just don't try and solve or fix or rush out and do stuff. This is not the moment for initiating stuff or doing stuff. It will just complicate and mess things up.

Just you need, if the more you can give yourself spaciousness, the more you can rest, the more you'll be able to just allow yourself to undo. Because you're being undone right now, and you have to be undone to be redone in a new form. So, yeah, for want of a better word, you're dying, metaphorically, psychologically. And you need to just really let go, let go and let go and not know and not know. And it helps to have companions to not be alone, even as it's a process that is between you yourself and nobody else

it's so important to have context understanding that's why we wrote our book wise power we actually didn't we shani envisage this book as a kind of holding for you as you traverse each stage of menopause so you know don't have a copy get a copy it's it's a companion a friend somebody who will share the journey with you and hold you to the dignity of what you're going through yeah it's crucial and speaking of companionship you know you were we've spoken about how the context understanding the context of this spiritual initiation is so important but also having people around you who also have that context is so incredibly meaningful because while most of culture isn't, well, the stories around menopause are what we know,

very, very lacking. And so I'm thinking of The Great Awakener the red school of menopause online course that is goes alongside wise power you know it's the the way to come and embody the the teachings of wise power together with others and from what I see the being with other people who are experiencing this too, feeling lost, feeling mad, feeling confused, but then seeing each other, being with each other in that space is so balming, relieving, such a sweet relief. It's incredible. Yeah, it really is.

One, you know, oh, you're not alone. You're not, you know, this is the thing. Because when you're on your own with it, not good. But also, yes, there's a real balm in being with others, but also others who not only may be going through what you're going through, but also can hear you and witness you, because there's this gorgeous witnessing that goes on and affirmation of who you are.

It's very, very precious. That course, our course, The Great Awakener, is just, I don't know, I've got, it's just a really beautiful haven is my latest feeling about this course, that it's a genuine haven. Because, of course, you know, menopause takes place over time. So you can actually come back to the course year after year without having to pay any more money. It's free. So you pay for the first round

and then you can come back for free so actually you travel um through menopause with the course there as a holding for you and there's um another aspect to it which i think is also incredibly supportive is the community that forms as part of the great awakener spans um quite an age group and so not only do you have people who are where you are in the process because there are stages and phases to it. It really does shift and change. So not only do you have people who are by your side experiencing something similar to what you're experiencing, you also have people who are down the way on the road ahead who can look back and shine a light for you and really see you in the place

you're in and also be a beacon for what's unfolding and it's beautiful because we have women and people who are post-menopause you you know, some as, I mean, I think Alexandra might be the elder in the group, but I think we've had other people are close to 70. And then we've had some, you know, who are just in their very early forties and not in menopause at all yet. And they're kind of sitting on the sidelines quietly listening in. So it's the sort of generational time span piece that provides such a sense of community and hearing other people's stories. I mean, we've experienced this on, you know, in our menstruality leadership program where we've had those in menopause sharing their experience and just what a blessing that is for everyone else

to have these stories heard and named and normalized and for them to be really witnessed through the eyes of respect yeah it's such a powerful thing so that's um I think for me one of the very precious parts the question about another aspect of the of the losing it that can go on and this is inspired by two of the conversations I've had recently so one with Shamali Ardar last week on the podcast and one with Claire Dubois for our 13 days of menopause power and they both spoke of how in this great undoing and unraveling um and Shamley describes it as just brutal the experience they both were taken to very very young parts of them parts that they had left behind if they both felt that they'd

left behind that were now able to be I don't know seen or were showing themselves were pushing themselves through painfully for well in the context what we're talking about as a really important part of this spiritual initiation so I guess what I'm speaking to is perhaps or I want to ask you is perhaps a big part of this losing it is very connected to old traumas that are coming the heart of what's activating a lot of the terror and darkness. Yeah, I would say it's one of the key things that's at the heart of it. And it's very moving hearing about their experiences of being taken back to very young cells. I can relate to that strongly. It is, you know, yes, it is. Menopause exposes, it exposes the trauma that is in our system. And coming back to what you were saying right at the start, Alexandra, about the breaking

down of stability and structure. And when you spoke about it, you said how all those things have in some ways held at bay the truth of our incredible vulnerability and how in this shifting ground falling away experience of menopause that we then really land ourselves right in the belly of that vulnerability, those places of incredibly deep powerlessness are surfaced. There is a possibility there of being of holding to those places so rather than those parts of ourselves being orphaned or ignored or armored that they can then really be included in who we are that they can become um yeah a part of our inner life and so there's this kind of making whole process that on one hand, looks like a breaking down, which is in fact a recovery, a healing. And earlier when I said all of this is good, really the thing I was speaking to there is not that it feels good or that it's good in and of itself, but that it's good in that it is for something,

it's leading somewhere. And Alexandra, I would love to ask you from the vantage point that you are occupying now at 70, what is menopause for i mean what has it been for you what has it gifted you it's gifted me myself but it my my wholeness I'm just thinking how when those traumatized child parts of us are unattended to, it exhausts the whole system. It's wearing away at the integrity of our whole being. And what you're doing at menopause is you're setting yourself up for this extraordinary next chapter of your life.

You know, you've got considerable years of living and loving and doing stuff in the world. And menopause is this extraordinary opportunity to kind of, I'm going to put it rather crudely, clean house, but really come into ourselves and really face ourselves so that we can be ourselves more fully and more and feel more whole. Because I always say, yeah, maybe I don't have the same physical energy

that I used to have. But I have another kind of energy that has come on board, a power that comes from having made peace with myself and accepted myself. And a huge part of that work was reclaiming these deepest, these most vulnerable parts within. That to really, it was very humbling. And, but it's also, it's the key to freedom because you're not free if a part of you

is tied up in trauma. And it's not even that one gets rid of, exercises it out of one's system. It is that one, I don't know what the phrase is or the way of describing it, but perhaps just simply this making peace with, but also dealing with the fallout of it in terms of its impact on my nervous system and all those sorts of things. You know, that's the repair work that one can do. But it's releasing it from its dungeon that brings light into the whole system. And when you've got more light in your system, you've got more power.

You've got more capacity. You've got more power you've not you've got more capacity you've got more freedom so yes menopause takes us down into the deepest darkest parts of ourselves in order that we might really heal something and find peace with who we are and you know the punchline for me of menopause is finally going you know what you're okay you're good you're all right you're fine just as you are oh thank you for being with us today thank you for listening all the way through to the end thank you for being part of the community gathered around this important conversation around this podcast we are all sending so much love and support to you as you navigate whatever part

of the menopause process you're in if that's the life phase that you're in at the moment and if you'd appreciate some like-minded and like-hearted company come over to redschoolmenopause.com and take your seat for menopause the great awakener we're starting tomorrow friday the 3rd of november okay that's it for this week i'll be with you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm