The Menstruality Podcast - 166. How to Navigate the Menopause Dark Night of The Soul (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Many of us are turning up at menopause stressed, exhausted, overworked and under-nourished, often managing multiple care and work roles simultaneously. And then we hit the “death” moment of the menopause initiatory death and rebirth process. The challenges of the menopause initiation can often be compounded by key relationships ending, bereavement, or other extreme life changes. It can all form a kind of perfect storm that leaves us feeling shipwrecked.Alexandra and Sjanie refer to this as “Betrayal”, the first of five phases in the psychospiritual process of menopause which they’ll explore in their upcoming course, Menopause: The Great Awakener. Today we unpack how the challenge here is to meet this great betrayal, this great dark night of the soul, and let yourself be undone without annihilating or abandoning yourself.We explore:How your main task during this dark night is to dare to trust that the complicated messiness and the imperfections of the life you’ve lived to date is somehow the perfect alchemical mix for really stepping into who you are. The big question that is being asked of you here: are you going to abandon yourself? When you find your way to stay with yourself, you can turn this process into a radical opening of self-acceptance and self-responsibility. The key self care practice to bring into the forefront of your life at this phase of menopause: saying no to others, and yes to yourself. ---Join us for a free even on October 23rd: How Menopause Awakens Your Power - 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. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for tuning in today. It's a menopause conversation today about a topic that comes up a lot in our community because the truth is that many of us are turning up at menopause feeling stressed, exhausted, overworked, undernourished

and often managing multiple care and work roles and responsibilities simultaneously and then we can hit this death moment of the menopause initiatory death and rebirth process. The power of the initiation can often be compounded by key relationships ending, bereavement or other extreme life challenges, and it can all form a kind of perfect storm. Alexandra and Sharni refer to this as the betrayal phase of menopause, the first of five phases of the psycho-spiritual process of menopause, which they explore in their upcoming course, Menopause, The Great Awakener. And today we're unpacking how the real challenge here is to meet this great betrayal, this great dark night of the soul, and let yourself be undone without annihilating or abandoning yourself. Good morning, you two. It's great to be with you. We have a big conversation coming up.

Let's start, as we always do, with a cycle check-in. And I wonder if, Alexandra, you could kick us off, especially because this is a conversation about menopause. What cycles are you with in this post-menopause day that you're in? Well, I'm very much affected by the moon cycle at the moment because it's full moon today. And to be honest, you know, sometimes I feel a bit exhausted by this moon. I haven't been able to rest in it, in the energy of it. I felt the charge through my being. So I'm feeling weary. But also, I do feel very expansive and very inside big forces at work. So that's another reason for me to be very present. And I have to be very

slowed down today so I can manage these different elements yes yeah I'm also weary I'm on day seven of my cycle but the cycle that I'm most connected to is the sort of creative process I'm in at the moment that is keeping me up late at night oh no because there's a lot to do but there's a lot of creative charge coming through me so I'm also underslept and feeling a bit weary with you there. So we'll see how we go. How about you, Sharni? I used to wonder if it was a myth that people stayed awake when it was full moon, but the three of us seem to be proving it fact because I had, yeah, also last night, I mean, I was very peaceful when I went to bed, but then ka-ching, and I just felt like I was lying under this, like, illuminated globe in the sky, and there was no way I was going back to sleep.

There was nothing much going on in me, but it was like, doink. So I have the weariness of having also been awake. And I'm day 19, and I think I've said, I think I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but I'm noticing now as I'm in 19, and I think I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but I'm noticing now as I'm in my late 40s, the influence of the moon is getting stronger on the experience of my cycle. And it's interesting because we talk about when your menstrual cycle stops, that you can start to kind of pace yourself by the rhythm of the moon it almost feels

like there's this um changeover this handover but like passing the baton like from the cycle to the moon that happens you know as one gets closer and closer to menopause i certainly that's what i feel it's like oh i'm getting to know the moon cycle much more strongly now so I've got that going on and the moon energy is like go go go and then my day 19 is quite cynical and tough and discerning and impatient and I can feel that if I'm not careful and if I'm not going slowly enough, I could be a real pain in the ass at the moment. Alexandra's like quietly nodding away to herself. Well, let's see what this conversation is.

Yep. What an interesting mixture of feelings and states we're bringing to this then. It's reminding me of the experience we had live recently with a lot of women in menopause, which was at this Heart of the Rose Festival where you two gave this beautiful talk about menopause and I was watching the women entering the tent and there was a look of seriousness a look of weariness and a real discernment like they were striding in with their chairs with their notebooks I know where I'm going I'm going to learn about menopause it was there was an atmosphere and it was it was striking and it was incredible to see that I would say a hundred women all squeezed

into this very hot tent on a very hot day to hear about you know your teachings on menopause and there was a very profound moment when you were speaking about the topic that we're going to explore today, which is the betrayal phase of menopause, where this like a veil of seriousness or like gravity fell over the room to really feel the challenge of this part of the menopause process yeah you remember I remember very very well yeah it's um it's actually something Alexandra and I are very acutely aware of that when we talk about menopause really talking about the first phase of menopause what we call betrayal is a very delicate dance because it is the death moment in the death and rebirth process. And it's a lot. It's a very grown-up, very serious, very big conversation.

And I remember, Alexandra, when we were writing Wise Power, you and I, we had a moment where we sort of, I can't remember if it was a conversation or how it came to be, where we realized we're talking to people in menopause in our book. And they don't want sugarcoating. They don't want fluff. They just want to hear it straight. And so, you know, we're in this very delicate dance of really speaking to that need for someone who's in menopause, you know, just like cut to the chase, just give it to me, versus we all have fragile, delicate egos. We are vulnerable, deep feeling humans. and it's a lot you know so in that moment I think and we're tired yeah and we're tired yeah I mean speaking of the book maybe I can walk us into this conversation with this quote from

the beginning of wise power can people hear my dog in the background i heard a little whimper he's also weary and you know feeling things so there's a lot of deep feeling so we'll just let him be present because he needs to stay in the room with me right now okay so it begins with endings for a while you dying. Your everyday socialized self bites the dust, dragging some of the architecture of your life with it. You may find that you want to abandon everyone and everything for a while, including your nearest and dearest. You may feel that nothing is it and have a desire to destroy, get rid of or walk away from some or all of it. As death seeps in, you'll need to retreat like a caterpillar going into its cocoon.

You'll enter a darkness that will scramble all your usual ways of coping and managing life. It's as if, like the caterpillar inside its cocoon, you've turned to mush. You may feel lost or abandoned or simply want to step off the world for a while. You might wonder, is life really over or what was it all about? So you're dying and everything may feel like shit. This is normal. Weirdly, it's the effect of more light, the new life, new knowing, expanded consciousness activating your system. So take heart. You'll have to hang out with discomfort for a little while. Your everyday self, your ego can't cope with this light. It's new. It's too much information, blinded by the

light, if you like. But your deep, holy self knows, knows what's happening and what's needed and that all is just fine. A well of inner peace lies quietly present inside, waiting for you to find it or to find an ever surer line to it. What does that evoke for you today? Am I allowed to be moved by my own words? 100%. Yeah. Every word of what's written there is true for me and what I know about what menopause is really about. Yeah, that's what I'm serving that knowing that recognition in each woman each person going

through menopause and it's what i was present to in this room of women at various stages in the menopause process but that there definitely were women there who were in this dying phase who were in this is life over what what is this all about identities being dismantled um this feeling of yeah betrayal that they are um lost lost you are lost for a while. And it was a very profound moment. And actually, Shani, thanks to her day one energy, who was sort of plugged into this deep, deep energy, just paused me because, of course, I kind of get on a roll when I'm speaking about this.

And she put her arm on my knee and sort of slowed down. And just to really mark the moment, to really acknowledge, because it was strong stuff that we were saying. But it must be said because there are very strong experiences that people are having today going through menopause, real life-death stuff. Yeah, I'm thinking of a couple of examples from women that I've spoken to on this podcast.

So we have an interview coming up with Shamali Ardar, who's the founder of the Awakening Women Institute. And it's actually the third time we're speaking to her about her menopause process. It's a conversation that we published in a couple of weeks, but her experience of betrayal was multi-layered. She tragically lost her son. She went through a divorce and she went through a total dismantling of her sense of self, which as she speaks about,

as she will speak about in the conversation, left her on the bathroom floor, you know, just sobbing, utterly bereft and lost. Luckily she had support of people around her to hold her through that experience. And she shares in the conversation what it has alchemized in her and created in her a new capacity for inner mothering and kindness. Yeah, I'm really thinking of her right now and just how wretched this can be. yes i think i want to walk us into this with a little bit of framing as a kind of holding so menopause is an initiation and initiations require a challenge and what what an initiation

is doing is taking you to a more expanded level of consciousness and therefore responsibility so you can't just turn up with your same habitual self in this new consciousness it would fry you you you would yeah you wouldn't be able to handle it. So we have to go through a workout, a test. And it is on a deep existential level that this test happens, where our very core, we have to really meet our deepest um shadow if you like of ourselves and and and uh um create or claim or step into a new relationship with ourselves. So this is a big deal. And it's not named in our culture. Menopause is not valued as a rite of passage.

It is largely just seen as a biological phenomena that we go through and it is largely pathologized and so there's no kind of there's no recognition recognition so therefore there's no holding for us in this because it's a real sacred rite of passage and um also um there's been no recognition of um proper recognition of what how our menstrual cycle is caring for and serving us because in fact menopause is the final chapter in a process that you stepped into at your very first bleed so you have been through your menstruating years you have been building to this moment of readiness and um to meet this challenge. And this is what's to my mind is meant to be happening.

But of course, the menstrual cycle is not valued and cherished and so on. Although it's starting to be now. You know, this is the good news. We are making dents, dents, dents in the culture. But basically people and women are turning up at menopause very undereducated, if you like, in the deep psychospiritual forces at work and unprepared. And I mean, really, that preparation at its most basic level is,

well, they're turning up exhausted and stressed and not nourished in themselves. And it's a kind of perfect storm of not knowing about what's happening and trying to maintain life as normal. And life today is so demanding and stressful. And so we're turning up stressed and exhausted. And often there are other things that come in here, which is that we're dealing with parents that are aging

and we may suddenly have a whole new responsibility there that comes in. It's extraordinary. So these forces all come together. And then we hit the menopause death moment. It's not good. Yes, that's all I can say. And then there's one other element I just want to name, which is that it's extraordinary how life seems to conspire with throwing other things at us, like other dramatic life events happen. You know, suddenly our partner, our relationship suddenly ends.

Now, sometimes we will catalyze that going through menopause but it may be that our partner catalyzes or something extreme happens i know it's shamily's story her son dies and we know someone else's son died right she came to menopause it sort of feels like suddenly a whole lot of other elements seem to go belly up in one's life and quite extreme stuff. And yes, all that comes together in this great perfect storm that we call betrayal. So this death moment in inverted commas that you're talking about, Alexandra, is of course not a moment. It's a phase. It's the first phase of menopause and it can go on for quite some time. I'm just going to read what we've written in Wise Power, which captures something of what

you've been speaking to, Alexandra, that this first phase of the menopause initiation is the big one. This is the phase that may hit you most. So for some, the impact can be overwhelming. For others, it might be more subtle. In this phase, you're undone. You moved past all your usual habits, defenses, and distractions to experience what's been suppressed or what is unconscious. And the purpose of this phase is to meet and feel all that is erupting and truly experience the reality of yourself in this moment. And actually, I might go on a little because this

takes us to the next piece, which is really important, because this is, of course, an initiatory challenge. And the challenge is to let yourself be undone without annihilating, in other words, rejecting yourself, or rejecting anyone anyone else or without annihilating your entire life for that matter, in the face of not fully knowing what's going to replace that which you're letting go of. So it's about how to meet this great betrayal and not let it undo you completely, but instead turn it into a radical opening of self-acceptance and self-responsibility. That's no small task, but the rewards are great. For this dark ocean of unknownness contains freedom and fulfillment. It contains the profound opportunity to experience deep belonging to yourself and to life wow so the fruits are

enormous and the challenge is enormous yeah yeah they go together i'm sort of feeling humbled in the face of this fitness and i think it's really important to name and we shani said it in that piece which is that each of us will encounter this phase in our own way you know for some it really is utterly shocking especially when it's accompanied by death of, you know, or separation from partners or whatever. And also, if you are not well resourced, and, you know, it's resourced in the sense of materially in your life, or physically resourced you're exhausted so it's just it's just so important to understand and recognize and accept and respect the context within which you sit and so it's

crucial you do not compare your experience of menopause to any other being on the planet but to meet the conditions of your life and the great task is to dare to trust that the complicated messiness and the imperfection of the life you have lived to date, the highs and the lows, that somehow all of that is the perfect alchemical mix for really stepping into who you are. Now, this is a very, very big ask, but I feel this is utterly foundational for coming to meet this moment of betrayal that you do not condemn yourself even as you are condemning yourself you know you are judging yourself and you're judging your life and it's all shit it's like you have to almost hold a meta mind in the background now that sounds very grown up and you, and you may have glimpses of it. And actually, this is why we need allies as well.

These are people, they can't do the work for you, but they hold you in the dignity, the bigger picture. They're a reminder and i mean this is the work that postmenopausal women can really really do be the witness the holder the container and the educator you know this loving loving educator so um but knowing about this dying, just and that's why our book is so important because we wrote our book. Think, didn't we, Shani, thinking of it as a companion as you're going through these phases of menopause so that you can keep coming back to it and reminding yourself because you're going to forget, you're going to forget and you're going to fall into the darkness um uh all right that that and in saying that i also want to say in that darkness in that breakdown even even as you're facing this uh onsught of negativity, perhaps with yourself or seeing all the negativity in the world,

which is what happens, you know what also happens is you also get flashes of freedom. You get flashes of possibility. It's like you sniff something on the wind, but it's utterly unstable at this time. It's like being slightly drunk almost, I think. And so it's really, really, really crucial with betrayal to slow everything down and to bring as much presence as you can to what you're encountering and to

just give it space you need time and space with yourself just to really meet the reality of what you're experiencing and do you know i i mean i even think just journaling, just journaling the shit out, giving it a home, just rather than just bottling it up and then just reacting to everybody around you. Create some sacred practices for yourself, you know, time out of time where you can just write and just write it out or scream it out or, you know, go for long walks and yell to God, whatever it takes. But in a way that is sort of honoring of yourself, holding of yourself. I mean, it's not tidy. It's not tidy. And what happens at menopause, at betrayal, is key to all the goodness that menopause is trying to deliver you to. I'm going to pause our conversation for a couple of minutes to invite you to join

Alexandra and Sharni for their upcoming course Menopause the Great Awakener. It's for you if you sense there's more to menopause than the collective story dictates and you're feeling called to reclaim the power of the menopause initiation. So wherever you are in the menopause journey whatever you're experiencing you're welcome. As Alexandra and Sharni share they invite you to bring the fullness of who you are and the fullness of your experience however messy complicated confusing uncertain unknown it might be all of your experiences hold at their heart a deeper story of power if you'd like to know more please join please join Alexandra and Sharni for their free event on Wednesday, the 23rd of October called How Menopause Awakens Your Power. You can register

for free at redschoolmenopause.com. And if you're feeling a yes for the course already, you can also join the course right now with an early bird offer at redschoolmenopause.com. You're stirring in me another real life example that we know of a woman who I'd say she's coming out of betrayal now, but had a very profound experience of betrayal. And she was there at this workshop at Heart of the Rose. It's Claire Dubois from Tree Sisters a mutual friend and she had a real burn the house down moment it was actually quite a funny moment of the workshop because she said it was only after I'd burnt the whole house down when I read about what you say about make sure that you don't burn the whole house down because in in Claire's betrayal moment she left everything that had been deeply important to her for the previous decade like she left her role at this organization and it was a huge very challenging and messy process

but that can happen here too right there can be a desire to just cut away everything and just burn the whole thing down, right? Yes. So what menopause wants to do is to take you away from the world. I think of it like Hades seizing Persephone and pulling her down into, no, hell, but down into, no hell, but down into the earth. It's like metaphors are saying you're coming with me.

And so detaching yourself from normal life. And that detachment is what is sort of behind this. It's a combination of this detachment and then suddenly all your defenses are falling away and you you're sort of exposed to some kind of bigger forces that you have no idea about and you know you can't handle yet and and your process of menopause is learning to handle this bigger dynamic that's trying to come through you. So this combination of just feeling utterly detached and exhausted and these big forces coming through, it just seizes you in the moment and you just want to go.

You just want to get out of here and and it's this walking away from all responsibility and this is so key that you are responsible for nobody and no thing and and and um when it's not understood and when it's not supported and therefore you're not pacing it, it can seize you in a very almost violent way where you just say no. You just you wake up one morning and go, I've got to get out of this job. And you write your letter of resignation, a letter of resignation. But you have this kind of devil may care energy that comes in that really wants to get rid of everything and no wonder this provokes immense suffering because if we look at the context of our world and the culture that we're all living in right now so there's a cost of living crisis going on so many most if not all people cannot

leave their jobs right now just at the time when they need space is the time when everyone's possibly needing to work more like you mentioned parents getting older needing more care maybe children dependents that are also needing care bills to pay mortgages to pay um plus all of the things going on in our society for marginalized communities and the extra obstacles there are to rest and care and support. So this is a complex situation. You know, we are unsupported on multiple levels to do exactly what our deep soul is calling for and screaming for and yearning for right exactly sophie exactly because we can't walk out and um it's that pressure of um and and then we're not taught

about how about this sacred route of passage we're undergoing yeah we just think we're going mad and we condemn ourselves for not coping because it completely won't cope you know it's too much um um so and so this is the pressure cooker that people are in and so no wonder there's so much suffering going on and um symptoms physical emotional yeah and back to a key piece of the quote that you read Sharni um and now I'm on page 125 of wise power um chapter 16 where there was just a whole chapter about betrayal where you go there's a summary at the beginning where you go through the purpose the self-care practice the initiatory, the alchemical capacity and the gold. So maybe we can walk through those.

But what I'm being drawn to right now is this initiatory challenge of being undone without annihilating yourself, others or your life. So somehow inside this pressure cooker, we need to not abandon ourselves. So, oh, authors of wise power, how on earth do we not abandon ourselves in this darkest hour? How do we do that? What do we lean on? What do we draw on? Cooking in me is that I'll let you know once i've been through it yeah and uh in all seriousness i think that is there's something very um um good about that to note for ourselves is that we are all having to discover this for ourselves on the job in the moment you can't be like prepared for this and you can't know how until you discover your way that's actually what makes this initiatory is that there's no theory or kind of

guideline that is going to be it for you. It is utterly about you and your, we could say, your relationship with yourself, actually. And i think we've all whether we've been through menopause or not i think we've all experienced these moments in our lives where we are facing the impossible and it's at those moments where we discover discover something like holy and new in ourselves that we really dig deep and like claim ourselves or take our own side or just dignify what we're going through. I think that goes such a long way, whether you can change the outer circumstances or not, that's one thing. But the territory we always have sovereignty over is our own, our own inner life and ourselves. And that's actually where the big work is happening when it comes to initiation is, you know, am I going to bring kindness to myself in this moment?

Am I going to claim myself? Am I going to choose myself? Yeah, and that I don't think any of us know whether or not we can or will until we face those moments. Yeah, and perhaps the truth is sometimes we can and sometimes we can't. Yeah. Part of the rocky road, because like you said, this is a phase. This isn't a moment. This is weeks, months, year, years.

Yeah, that's a very, very good point. We're actually inside a process. And the good thing about that is that we have time to kind everything we've known and loved is being kind of stripped back we're being de-armored we're letting go of the roles and identities we've had and and where that leaves us is in a very very unknown place like we don't know who we are we don't really know what we care about anymore or what we're even doing or why we're even doing it and you can hear how that can create a such a cesspool for like doubt and self-loathing and shame and you know real self-criticism um yeah but uh but the unknownness of it and the fact that you're swimming in it for quite some time at least gives us time to acclimatize to not knowing. And I think that's one of the great

blessings of menopause is because it happens over such a long, sustained amount of time, like our psyches have time to sort of process what's going on. Yeah. And perhaps we have time to practice these brilliant self-care practices that you've laid out in this map of a territory that can't be mapped in this book you know because for each of the phases you share the purpose the self-care practice the initiatory challenge and so on and the self-care practice that we can work with here is to say no to the world and yes to your own needs I am so glad I asked you to answer that question Shadi because what you shared is actually I would have gotten practical and I will and you know this is something practical but what you shared is really profound actually there is this the truth

is it's not this is this thing of i can't give you the um the cast iron steps to handle betrayal You actually have to go into it, you know, into the unknown and meet it for yourself and call up yourself. And you said what's been tested is your relationship with yourself. And that, of course, is a process. And you really emphasize time shani and um so i'll come to what you've just said in a moment savvy uh but i do remember my own experience of this space and, uh, uh, God feeling so much anger, but, uh, anger towards myself, you know, anger towards life, actually, I just felt like a fricking victim. And, um, but really seeing only what I had not done and, you know, didn't happen overnight, process of uh of settling into myself and um and and so it is a process this you're being tested in your relationship with yourself to

ultimately take your own side and um the the really important key here to allow this it's a kind of alchemy it's an alchemical process but for that alchemical process to get to work you have to say no to the world and yes to yourself as more and more and here is the wonderful thing about metaphors. You just organically have this superpower that emerges. Well, you have two. One of them is the power of no. Honestly, your capacity for saying no will know no bounds it'll be a no to everything it'll be out of your mouth before your brain is kicked in your sort of or your pleaser or your whatever you know what does you have responsible part of you whatever it's out of your mouth now it's those guys are not in charge anymore.

There's another force that's bigger that's in charge, and you are going to just be going, no. And you will come across possibly as negative and reactive, possibly, especially if you're not sort of pacing yourself enough. And, you know, who is pacing themselves enough? None of us. Yes, but you do have an ally on your side. I really want to emphasize that because what that no is doing, what's behind that no is you claiming space, time and space for yourself.

And in this space that you're claiming, that you're searching, that your deep self is searching for, in this space is no responsibilities, responsibility-free time so that you can start to feel yourself again. It's actually betrayal is waking you up. You are actually coming back to life. Even as you feel you are dying, you are actually waking up. Wow. are actually waking up wow I feel like that's the kind of sentence I would want to write down and put on my pin board when I'm going through menopause even though you feel like you're dying

you're actually waking up because that's the kind of bigger knowing that I think we all have, and yet we can become so consumed in our own pain and suffering that we can forget that. So I think having that on your fridge or on your notes board or on your mirror in your bathroom would probably be very, very helpful, very helpful. And actually, Alexandra, what you were saying there about the self-care practice made me realize that it's also very helpful just to remember and this was in that first piece of reading that you did Sophie Jane is that when we enter menopause we're actually being sort of taken into a cocoon. In other words, we're being kind of called into a retreat from the world in order to go through this initiation. So that's a very important piece to remember that menopause is a retreat time.

We talk about it as being an inner winter. And so everything that's happening in this betrayal phase is going to be supported just actually with you knowing that, knowing that your place right now is not in the world and serving the world and being there for others. Your place right now is tending to yourself and being present with what's erupting and stirring and happening in you. I think just knowing that is really, really helpful, having that kind of piece of permission and recognizing that's right and as it should be because coming out of our younger years actually we've all been in a mode of looking after others and being there for others so this is a real gear change it's sort of a real shift in consciousness but now is the time to make that shift and when we first used to teach about the phases of menopause, we actually called this phase, this first phase separation.

And in many ways, that's a very helpful name because it talks about this need to say no to the world and to separate so that you can create more just psychic space for your own inner life. And in the end, we decided to go with betrayal because it really captures the initiatory power of this phase. And in fact, whenever we talk about betrayal, the question that always comes up is like, why do you call this phase betrayal it's like and actually maybe that's something we should speak to now because I think it's uh um it's quite a shocking word and um it's a very very strong word and I think a lot of what we've said now will maybe just kind of be contextualized a bit it's a very good point Shani um I hesitated for a long time but betrayal would not betray me

it was very insistent I realized I had to step up to the plate and really it actually it was menopause I suppose speaking to you say you've got this is you know this is holy work menopause is holy work and for this holy work to happen here this word betrayal is profound and so what do we mean by that word betrayal? Well, in the dying, there's betrayal happening on all sorts of levels. You are going to, you may feel things like being betrayed by life, you know, the promise of your life, the things that you thought would happen

like perhaps you always you wanted children and that never came about or you know you wanted a certain kind of job and that you know a path or a relationship that was never fulfilled and by the way you can still have relationships although you can't have relationships post-menopause, although you can't have children. But in that moment of menopause, it does feel like your life is over and the things that you had wanted that haven't been fulfilled or happened, it really hits you and it can feel like you're betrayed by life. So you do feel like a victim of things. It's like you're feeling really sorry for yourself. You are at the effect of something.

Something else has not delivered for you. And so you're feeling betrayed because of that and um you can feel betrayed by uh the institutions you believed in because you know i mentioned this superpower of no we have another superpower that kicks in at menopause which which is sight. And you suddenly see through things. And an institution you believed in, you suddenly go, oh, no, there's all this shit going down, you know. You will feel you might have, you know, held hope that the government might still deliver, but you're now realizing, no.

You suddenly discover there are no freaking heroes coming on white charges to save you. So institutions are going to fall off their pedestals. People that you had elevated, oh, my God, are they going to crash and burn around you. Absolutely. Friendships are going to end. Relationship that you thought was good. You may feel betrayed by your partner because they may go off.

They're not willing to stay in with the menopause initiation and go through their own change to step up to a new relationship with you. So it can happen on all sorts of levels. Also, your body, it may feel like your body is betraying you. Your body that you took for granted, that always, you know, you always slept, you always had energy, you could just get up and go and you could push, push, push, regardless of, you know, how much sleep you had. Suddenly your body goes, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that.

And suddenly, poof, that goes from underneath you. leap you had suddenly your body goes no no no no no i'm not going to do that and uh suddenly that goes from underneath you um so you're encountering all these betrayals where you know you're at the effect of something so you're feeling powerless and um you can't yes you're feeling powerless and there's and this is the work of menopause of course to turn this around um can i can i also add in because uh this is also really key for many people is feeling abandoned by the divine or yes yeah well keep going shirley yes no you continue well there are two more things i want to say, which is that, and this really, and this is, I think, the toughest thing.

And I remember it. I remember, I can remember where I was sitting, where I suddenly experienced it, where I felt like the gods and goddesses abandoned me. I'd always had a sense of grace, of something holding me. And then suddenly it was not there and I felt the utter nothingness of my life no and that gave me it gave meaning it felt I felt like I was held by God divine or something yeah um and that abandoned me and And that, I think, is almost the bleakest moment of all, actually.

Thank you, Shani, for bringing that in. And then there's one other element here. So you feel, and this is the sort of sacred task, really, here. This is the heart of the heart of the initiation of menopause which is that uh you feel that all even god has abandoned you now the big question is are you going to abandon yourself? And abandoning yourself looks like, oh, it's all fucked. I'm fucked.

Why bother? There's nothing. It's hopeless. There's nothing. And by the way, you will feel all that. Actually, you will pass through all that but it's whether you choose to stay there or not and that's the great work of menopause of uh and it takes time and then we talk about that there's a kind of repair phase you have to go through where you just need loads and loads and loads of rest and you need your brain to shut down and you just need to do nothing

and just rest rest and then and then something starts to shift so that you're starting to alchemize this betrayal so it doesn't happen overnight really hear me on this folks really really really really hear me um so you do pass through that it's all shit and i'm shit or a version of because i hope you do have some modicum of holding of yourself that is my dearest hope that when you come into menopause, you have done some good inner work, whatever it's been, of care for yourself and feeling some sense of pride in who you are and sense of achievement in who you are. And just, yeah, kind of yes towards yourself.

That is my greatest hope, that that is happening for you before menopause so that when you hit this betrayal moment in menopause that there is some modicum of something that can bring you back to yourself i just want to throw in here a sense of humor really helps too because the great sacred work of menopause is not to abandon yourself. And in that act of saying yes to yourself, a whole new cosmos can really take root in you, can really have purchase inside you. The new life, the promise of what you're deeply about can be fulfilled the meaning of your life with all its messiness because you know i didn't have much to

you know say about my life before i gave it a menopause you know yeah there were things yeah um yeah but yeah shani come in just um to pick up from that alexandra so part of this betrayal that you're flirting with in menopause is self-betrayal which shows up as your own inner critic you know that part of you that wants that is judging and shaming and criticizing you so you're really standing on this knife edge of hearing and meeting that in yourself and I just want to read a little paragraph from Wise Power on page 141 that speaks to this knife edge moment. So this is a pivotal and dangerous moment. Do you give into this criticism and just let it maul you or do you dare to challenge it, question its black and white position and its obsession with success and failure? Do you abandon, that is betray, yourself?

Or do you finally claim yourself in the face of this criticism? Yeah, that's the work. you know in the in the zen tradition there are those sentences that you sit with and meditate with and reflect on like a koan this really feels like one of those because what i find myself wanting to do is say can you wrap a bit more language around what that could look like but you know maybe i'm just, I'm just grasping at straws. And actually, it's just, it's an intimate process inside each of us, this claiming of ourselves. It's got different language for each of us. Yes, I think it has, Sophie. And I think there's, I have two positions I hold around all this with menopause.

One is that I want you to be wrapped around with kindness and recognition. I want you to have the information and for the experience to be dignified and for you to understand this process. You're going to intellectually have something. And I just want to hold kindness. And then the other position I have is of real detachment and a kind of, I want to say, a sternness, you know, because I remember someone asking me, a dear, she's a colleague and a dear friend, saying, you know, when she was in the bleakest hour, the bleakest,

because she had really extreme stuff to confront along with the menopause. And it almost brings tears to my eyes now, thinking about that moment with her. And by the way, she's thriving now. And even as there is this shadow of the loss of her, death of her son in the process of menopause, I remember sitting with her in silence. I just had to be with her, but I could not up with any words with any they would have felt like platitudes i i could not i didn't want to i mean she felt my love i hope presence but um

there aren't words there's um this is you know i'm sitting there thinking when i meet you know when i'm with women in this place of i hold them in a place of dignity and uh deep witness and it requires a lot it's a discipline you have when you're post-menopause that you bring that you don't have before menopause, that can hold the sacred space within which they might dare over time to turn to themselves and say yes. Yeah, so what you're really speaking to there is that this is a right that each of us must go through on our own yes even as we must have companions a community people who witness us in it ultimately it is our work to be done yes we absolutely need a circle around us oh and we need a circle just a mouth off to cry and to rage and to oh we

need all that we need the whole gamut and speaking of community we have a community invitation here for anyone at any phase of the menopause process um to come and join us for the great awakener which is we run this every year alexander and sharni hold an incredibly potent space so potent that people have come back year after year after year after year so lovely there's lifetime access to the to the live rounds and the group um and it's what i mean maybe you can share a few words about it but it's be holding you by the hand and walking you through these five phases in you know starting with betrayal which we've explored deeply here and then the four further phases of menopause together with a community with the support of others who are courageously diving into this initiatory experience yeah and honoring and dign a combination of I would say actually just being in circle with others going

through this experience and having it held in the way that Alexandra and I are talking about is in and of itself priceless you know a very rare thing to find and just, I feel, what we all need. So there's that piece, but then there are the teachings that give context to your experience and just having your own experience named and recognized brings a huge amount of soothing and ground to what's happening. But we are also very practical in this program. And this is where we teach and practice the self-care practices for each phase. And we mentioned the one here for betrayal. But what I find really good about this is that whilst this whole experience of the menopause initiation is somewhat nebulous and unnameable and everyone's having their own unique experience of it. Actually, if we all know what we need to do and how we need to care for ourselves, we're creating the conditions to allow the process to work us in the way that it wants to.

It's almost like we're allowing what wants to happen to happen. And these self-care practices are not like pie-in-the-sky magical thinking stuff. Even a little bit of this goes a really, really long way. You just start to apply these in small ways, you will immediately feel yourself actually being held by menopause. And that is a very different experience to what, you know, many are having.

Yeah, they're inside something now that's guiding them. And coming back, because you can come back multiple times, basically the course travels with you through menopause so you kind of harvest deeper layers of meaning and then what's really lovely is your witness to the people who are just starting out and you can say yes i remember that and this is the place i'm in now so there's this kind of sharing of experience and and hope for others you know she's yeah I well I just had to rest and rest I couldn't get enough of it it just seemed to go on forever and ever and you know now I'm here it did it did end and the permission that gives yes to all the others in the space okay well if she's claiming that much rest then

what can I what what can I create in my life and actually to to bring us to a closing here I wonder if we could end on something that you named Sharni that rang bells for me which is the you spoke about the shift that we need to to make the and you gave permission for those of us in especially in this betrayal phase to prioritize you over all else and it feels like a really important place to to close and just such an important point to reiterate yes yes and yes to that point that is absolutely key and core to this okay thank you so much you two we're going to carry on having lots of conversations about menopause over the next few weeks on the podcast and i'm really looking forward to it and to being with you again soon thank you Sophie thank you

thank you for listening thank you for being with us all the way through to the end today I'm sending love and support to you as you navigate whatever menopause is throwing at you at the moment. And if you'd like some like-minded company, come on over to redschoolmenopause.com and take your seat for Menopause the Great Awakener or join Alexandra and Sharni for their free event, How Menopause Awakens Your Power on Wednesday, the 23rd of of October you can find out all about it at redschoolmenopause.com 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