MENOPASSAGE: a holistic approach to the menopausal years
MENOPAUSE: we help you make it a great part of your life
Part 2: what you can do…
For some women, menopause and the shift of hormones that happens around that time can be quite destabilizing, giving rise to a lot of emotional turmoil and need to reassess the direction in life. At the Helios Academy, we offer guidance and support to help make these years the Passage to great new potential – we call it MenoPassage…
Referring to the tremendous inner creative act that can occur around menopause, Christiane Northrup MD writes:
“What you are changing into is the powerful, luscious, fertile, ageless goddess you were meant to be—an expression of the divine, feminine life force unencumbered by cultural expectations that keep you small, overly cautious, and afraid to upset anybody.”
Unraveling this creative life force is a clearly a process. It may seem far away, as you may feel that the ground under your feet seems is getting shaky, your mood swings seem ever more intense and the rest you wish more than anything is harder and harder to find, when the ship seems to have lost the its rudder, it may seem daunting to figure out what to do first. And yet all of this instability can be harnessed to unfold a new creative impulse. Luckily, there is a well proven roadmap that can guide a woman through this maze of symptoms and emerge as a woman with great new strength.
This midlife madness is really no different than any other challenge in life. It is perfectly feasible to regain control of health and happiness by identifying and tending to all the areas of life that are calling for attention: menopause symptoms, nutrition, fitness, beauty and – perhaps most importantly – the emotions.
First, address the menopause symptoms. The most important lesson here is: we are all different, and no one recipe fits all. You will probably want to work with a healthcare practitioner that can guide you through your specific constellation of personal and family history, your accumulated stressors and how they have affected your body and how you can best release that burden to minimize symptoms. Of course, the discussion of hormone replacement, herbal support and various forms of complementary medicine such as acupuncture also come into play here.
Address everything, the most basic habits, eating, sleeping, exercising, breathing, relaxing, taking time to smell the roses… Leave no leaf unturned, it is time to take deeper care of yourself. Whether it is dieting and exercising or working with a practitioner that can help you sort out the deeper imbalances that make this such a challenging time, you have a great chance to discover your own uniqueness not defined by youth.
Secondly, it becomes essential to hone into your deep quiet place in a new way, allow yourself plenty of quiet time to address the big questions that inevitably arise: “Who am I? What is my purpose?” It’s a great time to embrace the Unknown. As Joseph Campbell says, “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” This is precisely what makes MenoPassage such a fertile ground for transformative change.
As you do this, you may well unearth a load of past hurts and stressors that are now coming to the surface as the hormones are retreating and your brain chemistry is changing. This is where it becomes particularly beneficial to learn about simple tools you can use for yourself to release these burdensome emotions, as well as possibly getting some deeper counseling.
Most importantly, DON’T LOOK BACK, there is no need compare yourself to your younger self and other younger women. This bad habit of fantasizing about the youthful past while simultaneously worrying about the future will most certainly sabotage any efforts to live in the present.
You actually get to redefine yourself, what you think you ought to look like, act like, be to others, and take a leap forward into being something real for yourself. You get to redefine what beauty is to you, not what the media dictates. You get to make peace with the very personal history etched into your face, every wrinkle tells a story and the inner glow of your smile brings your face to life in a whole new way.
Most importantly, practice a positive attitude, it is the greatest secret weapon. You get to see the positive in daily challenges so that you can make adaptations. You may be able to start doing things you always dreamed of doing, as well as celebrating a new you that can live from a place of deeper peace.
All this will definitely take you out of your comfort zone. You will most likely wish to have a support system to keep you on track, compassionate friends and new friends who are also going through menopause. Having a nurturing group of friends to call when you are having a tough day can be the most helpful thing to keep you on this side of sanity.
“You are in the process of discovering your ageless goddess self, and she has many ways to express her creativity and experience the pleasures in life, from feeling good in her body and rediscovering her sexuality to beginning a new relationship, project, or way of living.” ~ Christiane Northrup
At Helios Academy, we offer to guide you through this process step by step, offering you expertise
– in supporting the challenging changes in your body with both Western and Oriental medical approaches
– in helping you release the burden of stress and hurt to access greater love for yourself beyond all else
– in accessing amazing resources that can help you feel great, look great and move forward into an even more creative You, for you to emerge into this new phase of life.
You don’t need to do this all by yourself. We will guide you and also invite you to join a group of peers undergoing the same journey.
We are holistically-minded doctors, counselors, and educators. We bring decades of experience to this area and love to guide women going through “the Change” to the core of their own well-being.
by Angela Ingendaay, MD
