Pause. Part Five.

I Just Want to Celebrate

At times there doesn’t feel like there is much to celebrate when it comes to the hormonal tsunami charging through your body as you age. At times it can be all consuming, tiresome even but then I remind myself that I am not stuck in this moment; it is a moment that comes and goes much like the waves of the ocean.

One of my greatest understandings through meditation is that you are never stuck in anything; that everything changes, nothing remains without change – impermanence. This is my word of past few years. My mantra.

This month I did have something to celebrate; it was a quiet celebration of the official PAUSE – MENOPAUSE. 12 months without a period, a bleed, a flow throughout the body. Maybe celebration isn’t quite the right word to use; for it now means my body is no longer fertile, it is showing the signs of being dried up and unable to produce (although I never had this option in my life, but that story is for another day, another journal).

Over the past 6 years I have embarked on my greatest ultra endurance race; the race towards menopause. Perimenopause I can say as a collective wasn’t overly kind to me but that is more due to me resisting the change as opposed to accepting and moving with it. Resistance causes unnecessary conflict, and I felt like I was in this phase for the past 5 years at least. I couldn’t see the forest through the trees as they say, I was blinded by my inability to pause with insight and understand truly what was being experienced in this container of mine.

Practice acceptance

It takes a lot of acceptance, practice and insight to understand where you are at in any given time of your life; generally, we have our greatest insight when we have a retrospective view – looking back allows us to see where we have come from and where we want to go. We never see where we are even in the present moment (this is where we all need the Power of Now).

I wouldn’t say I counted down each month to get to a year, but it was certainly something I was mindfully aware of.  There were a few false starts, namely the introduction of HRT in December 2023 which took me on a 3-month period of deep dread, fear and concern about my irrational behaviour that seemed to come from nowhere but made quite the entrance when it was holding the floor. My irrational nature of mind concerned me before anyone else, the rapid flip flop between thoughts that grew into an argumentative conversation were fiery and completely unacceptable really.  As I made the decision to cease applying HRT patches and recognise that they were not my ‘magic patch’ per say here to save me from hormonal unrest I had a few bleeds that reset the ‘menopause’ back to the start. This I was able to deal with to have my sanity back (my husband would say the same).

Now that the year has passed and I can say I am officially in menopause, once again there has been no grand moments of feeling like I have crossed the perimenopause finishing line marking the smooth transition into menopause. I still have the perimenopause hangover of symptoms:

• Thinning hair
• Weight gain
• Steamy hot flushes
• Crawling skin
• Inflammation especially in hands and feet
• Brain fog
• Speech impediments
• Disrupted sleep
• Low libido

I am human

Despite all these so-called human flaws, I recognise that I am human, and it is a privilege to recognise and feel these symptoms track in and out of the body. OK standing in the line of a store and sweating like I have just come out of a hot pilates class isn’t attractive or welcomed but it is just what happens when you are a human and I’m happy to say, I experienced it – I looked at it head on and I got through it. Everything passes and changes, nothing stays the same.

I am changing all the time; it’s just that some changes are more pronounced than others. It’s the ones that knocked me off balance that got noticed more – its like someone shouting, you suddenly start to pay attention. You see, the body had been whispering at me for quite a while before I started to really pay attention. Maybe some of the distress that I experienced could have been alleviated if only I had recognised that was going on earlier, or maybe not.

Now that I have more agency and acceptance for what my body has been through (thank you retrospective thinking) and where it is taking me, I am kinder, more forgiving of the waves that move daily in my container. Sometimes a tsunami hits, other times its just a ripple barely moving the surface but daily I am practicing to find stillness amongst the storm that sometimes rages around me and will continue to do so for the remainder of my lifetime.

There is no finish line when it comes to being a human. Being a woman while I am breathing on this earth. I am more accepting of where I find myself and thank my lucky stars that I see and live each moment with kindness, insight and acceptance.

I am now living a paused life.

PLANTED LIFE COACHING

If you need support and guidance to help navigate your running journey, coaching spots are now available. Email me to learn how my coaching services can enhance your running and working it in with the ‘pause’.