Archive for the ‘Menopause’ Category

Nurturing the Feminine Inside

September 27th, 2011 by Michele

Have you heard? Menopause is a spiritual transition.

It is a grand and sacred occurrence that demands deep self-nurturing from within. During this phase of life, women, and the men around them, are asked to journey into unknown inner terrain and embrace feminine energies in an unusual way. At the very least they are guided to find a balance of both masculine and feminine energies inside themselves.

On the surface, menopause is still often defined as a sort of temporary state of being based on a hormonal shift.  And in concert with its superficial design, not in deference, it is time to remember the deeper mysteries of the body as they reflect the constant flux and re-balancing of humanity and spirit, yin and yang.

Unlike its centuries-old predecessors, or even its pre-1990′s representatives, menopause no longer inspires visions of old gray crones on rickety limbs, old maids or even granny-hood and retirement. Youthful, vibrant and wise women are instead the ambassadors of this passage. In Goddess circles, there is a new term for those in this particular cycle of life: they are Queens!

Pretty much all women in any stage of menopause will tell you–whether it be pre, peri or post–this is a time of incredible growth and multidimensional change, especially if it is navigated naturally. One physical symptom can encourage a thought or an emotional response, which if given the least bit of attention can lead to moments of great inspiration and epiphany. In reverse, acknowledgement of that same creativity and connection can be traced back to an uplifting sense of physical warmth and well-being, and an aggravating hot flash, depending on the person or the moment.

Whether a conscious voyage or not, menopause will almost always call on the deepest forms of inner strength and stamina, self-worth, inherent confidence and capacity for sometimes excruciating inner expansion, even when hormone replacement therapy is the preferred method of management.

There’s only so much a false floor can hold.

Certainly an appropriate word when applied to any attempt to control menopause (as with HRT or even herbal support), management can potentially make the ride a bit smoother for a while. Yet, there is another option. Mastery, an essential practice of curiosity, self-compassion, positive outlook, intriguing emotional balancing acts and deft juggling, physical health, as well as a focus on spiritual connections, or devotion.

Truthfully, we all eventually realize there is no controlling much of anything in life, much less this wondrous cycle in spite of its many unmarked capillaries to denial. The creative power of menopause is unfathomable, and that is no exaggeration. Women may as well look upon this as a transcendent event because it will take them into the shadows of the unknown whether they are ready or not. Mastery–skill, understanding and virtuosity among other definitions–is proportionally a much more accommodating vein through which the grander energy currents can move and flow.

Unfortunately, menopause is not really seen by the outer, non-menopausal world as anything beyond some sort of middle aged, physical event or, strangely, a day marking the end of menstruation. It’s different now. Consider this: 11 years ago, out of approximately 281.5 million people, there were 32 million women in the US between the ages of 35-49. That’s over 11 percent of the total US population.

Today those same women are now between 46-60 years old, in some part of the menopausal cycle. Along with that incredibly large and influential portion of the populace, we can thank Dr. Christiane Northrop for its current state of visibility. Since the publication of “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom”  in 1994, many interesting and informative books have been published about menopause, it’s physical, emotional and even spiritual aspects. They are filled with personal stories, information about how to alleviate symptoms and the management of life during menopause.

No one yet, has written a book about truly the mastering energy of the female body during menopause. There are several key sections & chapters in a book about mastering the energy of menopause:

1. Acceptance

2. Gratitude

3. Enjoyment

4. Amusement

5. Trust

6. Self-compassion

7. Self-empowerment

8. Self-observation

Meanwhile, here are some questions to ponder in present time or for future reference:

-How do women take practical command of their own spiritual journey during menopause?

-How do they find mastery here, and then help to guide the next generation through this incredibly demanding and magical time in life?

-What if some day down the road access to herbs and supplements, not to mention pharmaceuticals, were denied to the average person?

-What if there were no more candles or bathtubs filled with sea salt, CD’s and ipods, chamomile tea?

-What if there were no more external substances and outside remedies to ingest?

-What if we were asked to find a way to communicate with the true God and Goddess of our hearts, as opposed to some fluffy ideal that makes us feel good…temporarily?

-What if, humanity was one day fully blessed with remembrance and guided toward a gateway into the deepest most inherent part of our beingness?

-Would we know the way? Would we have the courage to step through the gate, to embrace the truth of our inner sanctuary and essence?

-Would we be willing to nurture ourselves enough to find that gate and to sustain that once beyond it?

If you’d like to be part of a menopause survey and study, please join the Queen of Fire Community!

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Emotions of Menopause

June 2nd, 2010 by Michele

Part Two: Please refer to the May 30 blog post for Part One.

With all that, is it any surprise that women currently navigating the rushing rivers of menopause and all it’s secret tributaries, might have a few words, hand gestures and an emotion to express, or two or three? With social oppression the norm, the resulting self-suppression and a bit of research, it seems as though some of the more common emotional grounds are the very acceptable and masculine energies of anger, frustration and rage, except when it comes from a woman.

And here we are mostly in our 50′s, proving we are capable and powerfully outspoken, saying it like it is!

When women claim they are unmotivated, depressed, apathetic and feeling hopeless, underneath that is victim-related anger. Beneath that is deep sadness and grief. When women say they are worried, filled with apprehension and anxiety, this is often another manifestation of suppressed anger and aggressiveness. When women act out passive-aggressively, there is hidden rage at its roots. Even when women complain, judge, or act petulantly, they are often expressions born out of something long forgotten and buried deep inside the psyche. Suspicion is the mouth of what has been suppressed our whole lives and its vessel floats, adrift and moaning on the river of self doubt and fear.

Although these states of mind and being are shared by all humans, they seem more prevalent and visible within the demographics of menopausal aged women and they can be restrained no more. Like the suffragettes, we are driven by this cellular sense of imprisonment and yet we are actually the forerunners of change in our world right now, if only for the exposure of the common shadow and condition of humanity. With so many women living inside the symptomatic house of age-related projection, and whose spiritual charge, as they say, can light up a small city, we cannot dismiss the contribution middle aged women make to the evolution of our planet.

These are not just symptoms of physical menopause, or at the other end of the spectrum, a state of spiritual enlightenment. They are symptoms of growth, presence, change, transmutation, transformation, soul completion, attunement and healing. Menopause not only triggers deep changes in women, it evokes the gifts of humanity. If we can just breathe through this tiny sliver in eternity, embracing the full gamut of emotions, consciousness and compassion for ourselves, we can change the world, creating a planet filled with cooperation, love and respect for every facet of our human being-ness, and all that exists here.

Please visit Energetic Connection for information on podcasts, online courses, and our monthly newsletter, “Quickening the Rhythms of Change.” the Energetic Connection offers courses for men and women on the divine feminine and masculine, in relation to the integration of elemental energies; balancing fire and water, Sun and Moon.

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Journey into the Shadows: Emotions of Menopause

May 30th, 2010 by Michele

Emotions are part of the process.

It is written, someplace in a book by Suzanne Somers or Christiane Northrup, or maybe it’s in the Akashic Records. Unresolved emotions flare up in middle age with great intensity, particularly during menopause. If you haven’t read about it, you can certainly see it in “Sex and the City 2,” when one of the girls becomes overwhelmed with her 52-year-old menopausal symptoms. Without giving away the story, the frequent rawness of menopause is brilliantly portrayed by the incredible and colorful character, Samantha. As always, she enacts what many women have wanted to express at some point or another yet have been reluctant to expose that level of angst and urgency in themselves until the gift of uncensored spontaneity was offered up during menopause.

Much like a long Saturn Return, menopause humbles us by reflecting to us what society has held true for much of the known time line: our mortality and our limitations. It forces us to acknowledge and create boundaries; we even become more effective and reactive. We begin to consciously excavate emotions we thought had long since disappeared; and if we don’t do this consciously, it comes up anyway. Not everyone experiences this emotional phenomenon–maybe women who choose HRT; women who aren’t in a state of expanded awareness, soul completion and heart opening; women in total control, or women who were born before the baby boom era–so yes, there may be a concentration of these a-symptomatic women who don’t have emotional symptoms.

And, they must be living on Mars.

On the other side of things, there are also very tender, loving and powerfully vulnerable states of being that well-up during this cycle of life. It’s a time of heart opening and self-acceptance, a time to learn about unconditional compassion as opposed to the ungrounded and spun-out sensations of the overly sweet and the caretakers of others.

Over the last several years, I’ve spent some time polling and interviewing women about menopause, and according to that pack of facts, one thing is clear, many women experience emotional surges and heat surges simultaneously. The only way to live through a dance with one of these beasts is to breathe, open shirt collars, drop any attachment to image, and drum up the courage to fully expose our brightness and the shadowy side of ourselves.

I am one of those women.

Some say old, stagnant feelings are expressed through the heat as it flushes upward and outward. Some say the heat itself creates the fiery emotions of anger, frustration, rage and irritability. Some say they are excited about being outspoken and are simply less tolerant to inanities and social mores. Others take no prisoners and feel the communication swords they carry not only weed out those who aren’t actively seeking transformation and personal truth, they quickly cut off any ties and energy drains with people who want a free ride. No matter what the source, or causes and effects, it certainly makes sense that emotions and actions formerly relegated to basement living now want to come up for a bit of sunshine, and at times rear their ugly heads when everyone in the world is watching.

If you are currently flying under radar or are loathe to expose any part of your secret self, you might want to turn back the clock, re-entering as a man or a reptile this time around. You also could become a hermit, or, you could just sit on your virtual veranda all afternoon fanning and sipping wine disguised as mint julep tea, happy you weren’t born in the deep South before 1860.

Women in menopause, at least a large percentage of the 6 million U.S. baby boomer women who are now in menopause, were raised with some built-in guidelines for acceptable female behavior and femininity. More important, there were very clear social rules of acceptance, things you do, and things you don’t do. Standing in a market, surrounded by men, yelling and stripping off your clothes while in a panic of hot flashing would have been on the “don’t” list 10 years ago; now, who knows, it might be respectfully applauded.

Are any of these circumstances familiar?

1. Children were to be seen and not heard, and girls were made of “…everything nice.”

2. We were encouraged by our mothers to never go out unless we looked good and we definitely had to be good. Many of our Mom’s stayed at home, wore pearls, tight-waisted skirts or dresses, corseted upper bodices, and heels all day long. My Mom posted a label on the refrigerator; “think thin,” it said.

3. At the onset of our menstrual cycles we began to keep everything a secret, especially hiding our new status from our Fathers and brothers. If we were lucky enough to have a conversation with an elder about this part of womanhood, we weren’t quite as surprised when it showed up that first time. Usually it was very embarrassing to be a young girl whose life suddenly wound out of control becoming bloodied with the inner war of puberty.

4. When we were young, we focused on what was most important: to be sexy and acceptable to men. Some of us even went away to college just to meet a man, or 20.

5. We were dismissed right along with our emotions as non-human and often untouchable, especially when we had menstrual symptoms. Messiness and rogue emotions were at the top of the list.

6. As we started working, being a woman was still second to men and we fought to obtain higher paying jobs. Once we got those jobs, we suppressed our feminine sides to play in the male paradigm. What else is suppressed within that basket of masculinity?

7. Only victim states were acceptable and notable. We often used this state, sandwiched between tears, to manipulate our circumstances.

8. Menopause was never discussed and our Mothers often said they didn’t notice anything unusual nor did they have any symptoms. At least they didn’t want to share these things with us, creating yet another secret for the lineage bearers to keep.

This is our foundation, for the most part, and it is our life’s journey, our soul mission to clear this piece of our lineage.

Part Two coming soon.

Please visit Energetic Connection for information on podcasts, online courses, and our monthly newsletter, “Quickening the Rhythms of Change.” the Energetic Connection offers courses for men and women on the divine feminine and masculine, in relation to the integration of elemental energies; balancing fire and water, Sun and Moon.

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Raw Food Vibrations

May 7th, 2010 by Michele

Eat heavy foods, feel heavy, get heavy and then get sick. Eat light foods, feel light, be light, and so many other wonderful experiences begin to arise and open. When we eat foods that bog down our systems on any level, we spend more energy fighting to digest and assimilate, wasting precious time and energy that could potentially be used for the greater good; for ourselves, our work, our community and the planet.

With improper nutrition, we live at a survival vibration, the victim of our own compulsions and addictions, rather than living at our highest creative and spiritual potential. Women in menopause can give this careful consideration because we can be so preoccupied with the amount of heat moving through our bodies; it is definitely the biggest distraction I’ve ever experienced. Each one of the symptoms identified below is increased ten-fold; no exaggeration.

Think about the times when you go out for that special meal, or travel and eat differently, when you take in a bit more sugar, drink a little more wine or stay up later than usual. In all these situations, especially if you aren’t accustomed to it, the body’s natural rhythms are disturbed and have to work at least twice as hard for the same result. Napping or falling asleep early, then waking up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, or tossing and turning with digestive fire burning through your pj’s and sheets is common with this type of food and drink indulgence.

Waking up is often accompanied with a head or stomach ache, fullness, constipation or diarrhea, all accompanied with general feelings of toxicity and sluggishness. I’m sure you’ve had at least one of these symptoms and promised never to do “this” again. I imagine some of you have even used magic little over-the-counter pills to push away the symptoms too!

I used to think these awful feelings were all related to alcohol in the good old party days. Then I stopped drinking and found that my symptoms were the same with certain kinds of food and was the harbinger of these terrible maladies. The feelings always changed my ability to think clearly, feel emotionally stable and practically productive. One thing leads to another.

Most important, and this is a retrospective, I was irritable and my heart was coated with an odd layer of protection. I think it was stress; a physiological imbalance which led to mental stress and ultimately cut off the connection to my heart. It often pumped harder and sometimes even missed a beat here and there. I just didn’t want to be near anyone feeling this way.

What happens to our bodies is always a precursor to what takes place in our minds and emotions, eventually stopping our ability to engage with our soul, and other people’s souls as well. We are just too busy with our digestion, running to the bathroom or remembering to breathe, so we have no space to engage in an intentional, conscious, spirit to spirit connection with another human being.

And while this may be redundant, I will simply state that food creates physiological stress, which creates mental and emotional imbalance, which leads to hiding our hearts and focusing on our own survival needs. We have no room to be of service to our planet because our vibration is so low. A survival vibration is as close to dead on the scale of relationship as we can get without actually dying, because we are in a constant state of managing our base level needs.

We have no time for these cro-magnon cycles anymore!

For me the answer has always been in keeping everything very clean–house, car, paperwork, colons and mind–or suffer the consequences. I will also venture to say that if you haven’t ever committed to a clean diet, you may not quite understand this idea because you have no comparison. And although I’m speaking to the benefits of eating only raw vegan foods here, if you haven’t explored beyond your own backyard, you might want to ease into this journey, testing the waters and allowing your body to adjust slowly. Just a suggestion.

Raw, whole, organically grown foods have the highest nutritional value of anything grown, anywhere. They are easiest to digest and assimilate because their enzymes are fully intact and they aren’t toxic or genetically modified. When grown and sold by local farmers or grocers who support local trade, they also carry the highest vibration of all the possible food choices we have in our world at present because the people who grow and handle these foods are carrying a higher, more caring vibration.

I don’t know how you feel about all this and the choice is obviously your own; your body will tell you how far to go with anything you ingest, whether it be air, energy or food. At this point in my life, I’d rather eat a raw diet, feel easy in my body, open my heart more and be present for a bigger game plan than to hide because I can’t digest my food or my life.

And wow! Does it ever help with menopausal symptoms, especially that heat rising!

The Energetic Connection hosts a series of online course which focus on the divine feminine, seasons on the Wheel of the Year, intuition and balancing the elements. Please visit Heart of the Mystic for more information.

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Cooling Down in Menopause

May 6th, 2010 by Michele

Heat expands. Cold contracts. Heat rises and cold falls. The behavior of these elements act similarly in our bodies, laying foundation for a formidable challenge against the forces, especially during menopause. Hot headed and cold footed, many of us move through our lives feeling irritable, drained and overwhelmed. When the nature of an element like heat goes against the grain of comfort and model health, it seems only natural to desire a way to rectify it and “feel balanced” again.

For me, one of those solutions is through the food I eat. Because I’m curious about the symptoms and energy of menopause, I’ve done a bit of inquiry with other women. In an effort to resolve hot flashes and other niggling health issues, many of those interviewed have changed the foods they eat. Some no longer drink alcohol, some have stopped all refined flours and sugars, others have cut way down on animal protein or have become vegan.

I went raw.

Is it our best interests to change what our bodies manifest naturally? I don’t know. I just know that when I feel hot, my hands and feet swell, right along with my emotions and thoughts. When I’m cool, everything returns to it’s normal size, and I feel balanced again because I’m in my comfort zone, or health zone. And maybe this food control is actually a reasonable response to what my body is calling for, ever so loudly.

Comfort, as I’ve contested many times, is not the most ideal place from which to jump onto the responsibility trampoline bouncing upward. It’s often a place of denial and unconsciousness. And I beg to differ here, if you are calling the kettle, it is just not so with this situation. Sometimes we need to discern when comfort is an act of avoidance and when it’s an act of consciousness. I wasn’t entirely certain, so I put it to the test.

First, let’s lay some groundwork. According to many nutritionists, Ayurvedic practitioners, Five Element Theorists and anyone who monitors personal body functions, some people digest certain foods differently or more efficiently than others; certain climates are more ideal for some people where others do not thrive; our best diet contains foods grown indigenous to the area in which we live; and even more so, we are best suited for the foods of our genetic or cultural heritage.

To live or eat outside of those parameters could mean a decrease in life force and ultimately ill health. Have you ever noticed where and what suits you best?

The best locations for me are Britain, Ireland, the Pacific Northwest and the Bay Area during it’s fog season. I love the feeling of cool, breezy moisture on my skin. I feel alive and I thrive in those locations. The wind is cleansing, wild and motivating, almost enticing. When the Sun appears, it is not intense; water surrounds everything and softens the edges of my passion and enthusiasm; and the soil is rich and dark, almost always moist even in the driest times of year. Unlike the angry, edgy wind in the dry, dusty Southwest, I really like the soft and rounded curves of the elements in those misty climes.

For years, here in the Southwest, I’ve been itchy and irritated, living with the least desirable kind of weather I can imagine. I dread the coming of Spring because the high winds carry intense allergens from every known tree and plant in the kingdom. Toward season’s end, the heat magnifies and the rains haven’t arrived yet to balance out the fiery energy of heat, wind and dust.

In wetter weather I eat differently indulging in heavier, warmer foods; that doesn’t work as well for me here in the Southwest. When I first arrived, almost 15 years ago, I ate mostly local cuisine with lots of green chili. I’m not much of a drinker anymore, yet when I do take a glass of wine, it affects me differently than it did at sea level, 7,000 feet down from here.

It all tasted really good, yet eventually I started feeling bogged down, tired and overheated. I gained weight, more than ever before. My joints started to ache, my muscles lost flexibility, my mouth and throat were constantly dry and equally, my skin lost elasticity. A Naturopath soon told me the climate was too dry for me and it would be a good idea to move back to the Bay Area or up to the Northwest, otherwise I would suffer from extreme dryness and loss of lubrication in my joints and skin.

It’s all true. When I eat like I used to eat, that’s precisely what happens. Now let’s add in one more factor here. Menopause exacerbates all the aforementioned conditions: heat, dryness, joint aches and irritation, roseacea, dry eyes, mouth and throat–in fact all the mucous membranes become dryer during menopause. At least that’s how it works for me. How about you?

Even with all that dryness in the air, this can be rectified in the body with food. I was loathe to change my diet too much because I love food, all kinds of food. On the flip side, I have been a vegetarian-yoga-avid cleanser-meditation-type my whole life, so whatever transitions were needed, I was game.

Even though the geographical factors are present and constant, I still really wanted to find balance and the only aspect of my life I could control for the desired result was the food I ate. No amount of water, supplements, exercise, meditation, visualization or positive thoughts, humidifiers, lotions or facials changed the picture.

And menopause was quickly encroaching. The first few months of “real” menopause where agonizing. I did jump out of my skin and hit so many emotionally chaotic moments I thought I would expire from the fire in my head. An Ayurvedic specialist suggested I eat more cooling foods, so I did. A nutritionist suggested I eat more legume-kinds-of-protein, so I did. My Taoist teachers suggested I eat more warming foods to stimulate my kidneys, so I did. Each one of these eating plans worked for a time, just long enough to get a brief positive result and then each one slapped me in the face with heat and puffy symptoms three months later.

Finally I began to eat a 100% raw food diet. It worked and I stayed on this program for one full year. It was miraculous. I lost weight, I felt strong, I felt light and balanced while remaining grounded, I was clear headed and my emotions flowed, passing through with ease. Every aspect of this food plan worked; I experienced no allergies and the heat of late Spring was a breeze.

Then several traumatic experiences domino-ed through my life and I began traveling away from home often. Partially out of convenience and partially out of respect for those who wanted to feed me, this situation led me back to many of the cooked comfort foods I loved before. At first it was just a little fish, then it was some pasta, a sugary desert or glass of wine here and there.

Eventually I created an extra 2 inches around my middle and all my jeans are too tight around the waist. My skin is dry again and my joints are creaking, cracking and popping. Emotionally I’m mostly okay, yet I get regular flashes of heat that charge from my mid section into my head, burning my brain cells after every meal. I feel slightly stressed mentally as this fire in my head brings pain and negative thoughts which create an imbalance in my emotional state.

Last Saturday, May 1st, I started back on raw foods again. So many symptoms have already begun to dissipate: no allergies, loss of belly bloat and fat already, joints aren’t perfect, yet definitely less achy, and my energy is on the rise. I still have quite a bit of healing to do after my near year of relative indulgence, yet feel confident I’ve made the right decision. Comfort in this case eases many of the physical distractions so I can once again focus on and raise my vibration to grow my soul rather than fighting my body’s signals just to fit in, or to pretend this level of health and honor for my body was a problem.

RAAWWWW!!

If you are interested in hearing more about other women’s stories, ideas and answers to research questions, go to the blog archives for 2009; each month listed has different topic matter. If you are interested in taking your menopausal symptoms out of the physical realm and into spirit, please check out our online courses at Heart of the Mystic.

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