Rites of passage

If I believed my instagram feed, midlife is all about muscle loss, weight gain, dry vaginas and peeing ourselves. We need to get the correct HRT and take vaginal oestrogen, sauna (but not cold plunge), lift heavy, eat at different times of day, do our kegels (and maybe insert an egg…), take creatine and five zillion other supplements, do HIIT training - or avoid it at all costs. And above all, avoid stress. I feel stressed just writing this list!

And look — it’s not NOT those things. And yes, I do a good number of things on that list. But I am tired of the messages that keep us locked into seeing midlife as a collection of problems, instead of as a very significant rite of passage that carries with it an invitation to fully step into our power as sovereign women.

I’ve been having lots of chats about midlife recently, and it’s so much more than something happening in our bodies. It’s one of the great developmental shifts of life. Like menstruating for the first time, emergence into adulthood, becoming a mother. There are physical markers, yes, but these are markers of something deeper that’s going on. Identities, priorities, ways of seeing ourselves and our relationship to others — all shifting.

I can honestly say that midlife has been the happiest chapter of my life. Because I feel at home in myself. And in the driver’s seat.

And yes, the pathway to that state was a lot of stuff breaking. The 30 year old marriage. The flooding bleeding. The inability to keep tolerating the intolerable. The professional identity that no longer fit.

You know what that reminds me of? The transition to motherhood. The most fulfilling role of my life, and also a breaking apart of what came before. A remaking of me.

What if we had proper rites of passage that honoured the vital importance of these transitions? Normalised the breaking open and reforming.

So often, what gets pathologised or feels like a personal failing, is actually a normal part of our development as humans.

So yeah, if you’re hitting perimenopause, get those hormones checked out and get a great women’s health medical check up. Eat real food, use your body, take rest seriously.

And … know that you are in one of the great shifts of life. And are being invited to step into Queen Mode.

Come on in … the water’s fine!