Most of the women I see with hormonal issues have relatively small wishes. They want to be free of the debilitating symptoms the have dogged them, for years in some cases. They want to have a safe, natural menopause and want to get out of the zone of the ‘blahs’ they have been living in since it all started.
What I want for them is much bigger. I want joy, relaxation, sexy times, laughing and peace. I want them to feel as they felt when they were young. I want them to be enquiring, interesting and interested, and happy to explore the universe that is before them.
Alas the symptoms of menopause are so insidious that they creep up on you before you really know what has happened. Suddenly you’re not really looking in the mirror any more as you don’t like that grey hair or sagging jaw. You don’t stand naked in front of the long mirror either as that flat belly you used to have has gone without notice and not coming back. Months of gym work ahead of you and you can’t cope with the idea of fitting in even one more thing into a frantic life that leaves no time for yourself.
If you get a health scare on top, like a lump where there shouldn’t be a lump, or a pain where there shouldn’t be a pain, then it may seem that life as you know it is over. Everything has taken a down turn and there’s no going back. So easy to believe, isn’t it?
Once when I was very young, I was given a book called “The Screwtape Letters” which was a series of letters written by a senior and very experienced devil to his nephew who was a young demon in training. The letters described how to take advantage of the creeping negativity that some humans (or all of us at some time) are prone to. How to get into their heads and tell them how to relax that discipline, tell themselves that little lie about themselves, get into their confidence and sap it away. In such a mental space it is so easy to distract them into sin, minor sins at first and them bigger ones later.
Well, if we don’t take care of ourselves, mid life hormones can do that to you too. The trick is to see it coming and recognise it for what it is and deal with it while it is still under our control. Out of control? You’re not alone. Most of us feel out of control when we are sweating like a pig, pushing off more and more demands on our time and emotions, and we can’t seem to get a hold of the reins any more to re-direct our thinking.
This is where I step in and reassure those women that they can take back control. They can make decisions for themselves and they can feel again as they used to feel. So many women past the age of menopause have just accepted that they are now old, now less attractive, now less interested in sex or flirting, that they have settled for a diminished life, with less personal delight and less personal satisfaction. We start with your hormones, but the best work is done with your mind.
The whole world is waiting for you out there. You only need to take the steps towards those wishes you have forgotten about. You only need to take a stand against your own thinking, to realise that now is your best time. Now you can wield the power you have been developing all your life. Now you can become whatever, and whoever you want! Really. It takes a few steps into the void in the belief that there is more waiting for you than this life you currently are not enjoying. So, wish upon a star!
If you were talking to a child and telling them about how amazing the universe really is, you would describe the wonder of it all, the un-expectedness of how things work, the simple beauty of small things, like a flower, a star, or a moth. When we grow up we make adjustments to our wishes that match the reality we experience around us, and it is good that we do. The practical realities of the world do not let us fly simply because we jump off the garage roof. But by damping down our wishing ability, we forget how to wish really big, really well.
That is why there are so many jokes that start with “…You have 3 wishes…” What would happen if just once you really had 3 wishes? What would you wish for? Ok, so we want world peace, loving motherhood etc but I am talking about wishes for you. What would you wish for yourself? What you think, you create, what you feel, you attract and what you imagine will be. So, go on, what do you wish for? Make it big, then, make it bigger.
Find a place in your head that would be so fantastic that the realisation of that dream would blow your mind. Then find two more things that would blow your mind to make happen. Things for YOU. Spend time with those wishes and those thoughts and see them gradually appear before your eyes over the next period of time in your life.
But what is more important than their realisation (what could be more important, I hear you ask) is the space you create to do that wishing or dreaming. That space inside you is where the delight of childhood resides, where the “What if”s” are found, and where you can bring real joy into your present reality.
When Nelson Mandela was in solitary confinement for all those long years, he was able not only to cope, but to develop, to be happy, to find a place inside his head where he could actually dream into being a new South Africa. He had plenty of time to clothe his dreams in full wondrous actuality. He emerged from prison a free man, but he was always free, in that space in his head.
If you give in to the grimness around you and allow the junior devils that exist inside all of our heads to take over, they will drag you down, they will frighten you and they will make you cower in the cave at the back of your own potential in case you make anything happen to disturb your world. Tell them to go back, tell them you are free to imagine whatever you really want, there is no cost to dreaming, there is no disturbance, only freedom.
Life is glorious. You only need to wipe away the frustration, the clouds, the timidity of yourself to see it. Go on, you have 3 wishes…..
Love
Maura
