Which version of menopause do you value and want to serve? Any model that considers the laws of nature with its cyclic rhythms is highly versatile. The Work that Reconnects is not the exception. Let’s explore how it can become a guide during the transitional phase of menopause.

Menopause: The Great Turning

Joanna Macy calls the great turning a transition, something we do instead of the collapse, something that can guide us through all the unrecognized destruction of our society and world. Menopause is a great turning too, is a period of deep inquiry and reflection to set up the stage for the years ahead. We take action in our diet and lifestyle to adjust to the new physiology of our body, we equip ourselves with tools to develop a strong character to witness in pure awareness the psychological transformation that is happening in the ground beneath our feet, we turn inside for genuine connection with our spirit. It is a journey of experience, learning, and evolution.

How are we going to go through this? The question takes us to commitment and vision to move away from the negative narrative around menopause and instead leverage our body, mind, and spirit to transcend the discomforts to ask deeper questions like: Which version of menopause do I value and want to serve?

“Everything has to dissolve, the identity becomes apart and then new values and norms self-organized and it become something with greater capacity, sensitivity, and great reach something more realistic, including listening from within” JOANNA MACY

During our menopause, we realise that the voice within wants to live. It becomes even more imperative at this time, to find a space where we can be listened to, so we can release and experience the turning from being simply passengers to being the ones who are, the ones who see our real identity and understand our real nature.

How to Go Through Menopause?

The “work that reconnects” unfolds as a spiral journey through four stages: Coming from Gratitude, Honoring our Pain for the World, Seeing with New/Ancient Eyes, and Going Forth. Each of these stages leads naturally to the next. Applying these stages to menopause, we start with gratitude. 

Gratitude for the 4+ decades we have lived in full freedom and realisation. For the freedom to choose to start a family, to be a wife, to be a mother, or to be single. For all the people, family members, friends, and colleagues who have been part of our lives. For the opportunities that we have as modern women, the options to study and build professional careers.

Then we honor the pain that menopause may bring. Being physical, psychological, emotional, or spiritual. Honoring the pain entails taking intentional steps to find those spaces of listening, of sharing, of guidance. The space where the unhealed wounds from the past find a balm. The space where the collective wisdom offers sustained and person-centered options for the hot flashes, the irritability, the dryness, the gain or loss of weight, and joint pains. The space with compassion instead of pity. The space for digging our inner landscape.

Gradually we start seeing with fresh eyes. We move from “restore to re-story” menopause. Our eyes can see our inner wisdom which we were not able to see before. Here we understand in our guts that we are going through a transformation and that leads us to develop higher self-regulating and intuitive capacities to be very attentive to everything that is unfolding. We don’t complain about the manifestations of menopause, we give them space and meaning, we look for support and we value silence and solitude to listen deeply.

Finally, we go forth with the tools we have, with our gifts and limitations, with our current situation and possibilities. We embark on what we firmly believe, where we can fully express ourselves and be energized. We pay particular attention to getting nourished by our encounters with family and friends, by the work we do, by our participation in our community, and by our projects. We know there is no time to lose in meaningless actions, we only engage in wise-woman actions. We also know the cycle will start again, taking us all the way through a new spiral to be grateful, to honor the current challenges, to see with new eyes, and to go forth.

In part 3, the last part of The Kitchen that Reconnects, I share how you can turn the kitchen into a playground to practice the “work that reconnects” during your menopause.

Before moving to the next page, inhale gratitude…exhale knowing. Then, keep curious about the work that reconnects.