BY THE TIME A WOMAN REACHES PERIMENOPAUSE, there has often been a watershed period when all that had been ignored, put away for another day, or not dealt with on an emotional level seems to have washed up on the shore. The bones of her past have been laid bare for her to sift through and decipher, and she can no longer deny some of the more difficult past occurrences to her body, her psyche, and her heart.

In a way, her past has begun to catch up with her. Her body has lived through girlhood, menstruation, perhaps pregnancy and motherhood, and now she is on the threshold of another major transition. If she has been busy working or child-rearing, what may manifest at this time is a level of exhaustion.

Women’s bodies are regulated by cycles throughout this whole process. But the modern woman lives a linear life, continuing with her “doing” and taking little rest at bleeding time or before menstruation, which is essential for nourishment and replenishment.

Women often have much that hangs in the balance as they juggle satisfying the needs of all those around them. Because their natural tendency is to give, they may find themselves drained by responsibilities.

Women’s bodies are soft, vulnerable, and yielding, and at the same time resilient and powerful enough to go through childbirth. In generations long gone, and in traditional indigenous societies, a tribe or village supported the elders and the young. It was not the sole burden of one woman to support her family.

This relative isolation has placed huge stress on the delicate hormonal balance of the modern woman. If a woman’s parents are still alive, they are aging too and she may have to step up to care for their growing needs. If she had children in her late twenties or early thirties they will be in the demanding teenage years and need a lot of guidance and attention.

Therefore by the time some women are in their fifties or sixties, they may feel “sandwiched” by the demands of looking after elders while caring for the young. It can be a demanding and intense period, especially if there is prolonged illness or disability. For the woman who has chosen to have children later in her life, there are the high demands of parenting smaller children while going through the transition of menopause. And women who have been unable to have children, or chosen not to for various reasons, may be dealing with grief or sadness. Life stressors take their toll and cannot be avoided.

All of the above can easily intensify a woman’s emotional world, creating a cloud that hangs as a layer of tension over her whole body and infiltrates her being, affecting her mental capacity to handle even the simplest of things. Layer on top of that the brain’s scrambling to draw estrogen from the adrenal glands and elsewhere, causing increased anxiety, hot flushes, and so on, and a lot is happening.

If there has been no opportunity in the past to really deal with some of the more challenging times, buried memories can emerge during this menopausal stage. If you are willing to allow any arising feelings, this can be a precious gift that invites you deeper into your heart and your being, and that will nurture your growth and maturity. When things start to filter to the surface, it is a time to clean up the debris of the past and find the hidden treasures within.

It is time to reveal and heal. Addressing the past is imperative because when ignored, these tensions have an impact on your emotional world and can have disastrous effects on relationships and the physical body. Some women may not be aware of this aspect, or it may not be relevant; however, many women we speak to have reported a surge of memories and associated feelings at this time.

A Turning point

At some point, most women who have been or are going through menopause could probably pinpoint something, a time or incident that became so devastating, so heartbreaking, that they felt the need to lie low. It may have been a marriage or relationship breakup, a health wake-up call, the unexpected death of a loved one, a crisis within the family, or some other thing that made her stop and question, stop and reflect.

When this occurs it can feel like a deep dive into the female under-world, the depths of the feminine psyche, and may demand attention as a matter of survival. Whatever the event or trigger is, it will ultimately give rise to a new understanding of a woman’s self, her life, and her body.

Only she has the opportunity to tend to her emotional under-world and clean up her past to make way for her own heart to heal, shine through, and continue forward with grace and power. When a woman closes her heart to past pain and wounding, not only do her loved ones never get to share in her radiant beauty and love, in the end it is she who suffers most. In closing herself down she denies herself the very thing that can help her heal.

It’s natural after some very big hurts to guard and protect yourself against future pain. Although putting up a shield may stop unwanted future pain, it also limits your ability to receive love and open to this powerful center in your body. When a woman closes herself, love can’t find its natural expression. She has shut down the one thing that will lead her back to aliveness: a happy heart.

When a woman’s heart is armored or closed down, it can cause all manner of body manifestations, such as illness, accidents, misery, depression, loss of sexual interest, and general low self-esteem. Love in all its aspects—including forgiveness, compassion, and gratitude—has the potential to melt the wounds of the past.     

-Excerpted from Tantric Sex and Menopause. Practices for Spiritual and Sexual Renewal

As a woman who has been menopausal for 25 years, and as a seasoned psychotherapist and facilitator of women's work for as long, my specialty is guiding women gently through the unconscious emotional underworld, where your hand is held so you can step sensitively, with awareness, into those waters. And then leading you back onto the safe shores of your own tender heart and your own wisened body.

Womantime Retreat is the pathway. Through guided introspection, experiential immersions through movement, art, gentle female-focussed yoga, understanding your own presence, and unique flavour of woman, all of these gently leading you into the body, slowly, slowly, you return. Sometimes to a place that you may have never known before, but in your heart, you know it is YOU. Your soul. Your spirit. Your LOVE.

Ladies, I invite you with all my heart to join me for the next Womantime Retreat, Ancient Wisdom for the Modern Woman 13th-16th August, The Ridge Maleny, Queensland. Click here to read more and book.