Transcript
So what is menopause?
We have a medical definition for menopause, which really says you’re in menopause when you’ve had one entire year of no menstrual cycles.
No menstrual cycles consecutively for a full year.
The average age of menopause is generally 52 to 53 years of age.
The normal age spectrum that most women could expect to become menopausal is between the ages of 45 and 55.
If you go into menopause between the ages of 40 and 45, we would term this early menopause.
And if you go into menopause before the age of 40, this is what we call premature menopause.
But when I think about the medical definition of menopause, I always have a little chuckle because it is just so not encompassing of the experience we go through as women.
So it may certainly be a time where we don’t have periods for a full year, but as many of you out there know, we’re experiencing a whole bunch of other symptoms.
So we’re going through periods of profound change in the physical body.
Changes like hot flushes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, changes to our mood and mental health, sleep, irritability.
It’s so much more than just one year of not having periods.
But on top of that, it represents such a time of incredible transition and challenge for so many women because emotionally and psychologically, we’re contending with so much.
We’re contending with the changes of our bodies, bodies that are not familiar to us anymore.
And so many of my patients come in and say to me, Simone, you know, I just feel like this is not my body.
I feel like an alien in my own body.
Who is this?
What is this body that I’m in now?
So we’re contending with all these changes, which is really hard.
Change is hard.
We’re having to let go of what was and step into new versions of ourselves.
And this very much applies psychologically as well.
It’s often a time, because of all the change, that women stop to take pause.
They stop to reflect on their sense of self, their sense of self-worth, what their lives have held up until this point.
As we enter into the midlife or even the the dusk of our lives, there is the sense of needing to reflect on the life we’ve lived and to look forward to what we have left in terms of redefining purpose and meaning.
So it’s an incredible time of physical, emotional and challenge and opportunity and redefinition.
And as we navigate through these changes, we find ourselves in an experience that can often feel quite helpless.
When changes happening to us, when these changes are happening to our bodies, to our mental health, one can feel quite helpless.
And I certainly see this all the time, where women feel stuck.
But at the same time, it’s so important that we transform that sense of helplessness into one of empowerment.
So instead of this is happening to me, we need to sometimes flip the script on perspective or flip the lens of perspective into something like, well this is a normal part of life.
Every single woman is going to go through menopause.
And yes it’s tough and it’s challenging, but within that challenge there’s incredible opportunity.
Opportunity for me to explore how I need to balance my body.
So seeking out medical treatments and physical supports to support the physical changes you’re going through.
But to use the opportunity from a psychological point of view and a pause point of view as you re-evaluate who you are, what matters to you, what your purpose and meaning mean for you.
To step into a space of empowerment and becoming in fact more of who you are.
