A Tranformation of Life- Part IV

“Whenever a woman is finally able to think of her own needs after years of being primarily focused on those of her children, family, relationship, or career, she moves into the third great mystery of her life cycle (menopause)”.

“Having fulfilled her worldly responsibilities to her family, the dark moon crone (aka: menopausal woman), could once again live for herself and pursue her spiritual path. A span of her life opened whereby she could now devote herself exclusively to fashioning her retained blood of life into mental and spiritual rather than physical children”.

~Demetra George

Despite my anguish over my discovery that I’m entering the third phase in my life (the other two in case you diden’t know, is being a youth and mother), the above quotes made me feel a bit more at ease about life. How true it is. Women truly deserve to find or renew ourselves again at this particular point in time and especially in this day and age. A few years ago, I watched my grandmother as she lay in a coma, leave this world absolutely exhausted. She literally worked for everyone else and never asked for anything in return because of her upbringing in a staunch Euopean household told her, that it was her duty to serve the man, family and God. Despite her soft complaints that she was “so tired” as she was going through her perimenopause, no one listened. No one obviously understood (or cared). No one gave her a break.

I will never forget what my grandmother had to go through. I will never forget the pained, greyed face of a woman with so much potential but never had the opportunity to know or discover herself. I will never forget the stories she told me of constant regrets. A child, I obviously had no idea what to say. She knew this which is why she was comfortable talking to me. I am incredibly grateful that I was not raised in her day and age, in a time when women were coralled by dogma and societal rules that implicated that all women must serve until death!

Christiane Northrup comments in her book, “The Wisdom of Menopause” that:
“The clarity of vision and increasing intolerance for injustice, inequity, and lack of fulfillment that accompany the perimenopausal changes are a gift. Our hormones are giving us an opportunity to see, once and for all, what we need to change in order to live honestly, fully, joyfully,and healthfully in the second half of our lives. This is the time when many women stop doing what I call “stuffing” – stifling their own needs in order to tend to everybody else’s. Our culture expects women to put other’s first, and all during the childbearing years most of us do, no matter the cost to ourselves. But at midlife we get the chance to make changes, to create lives that fit who we are- or, more accurately, who we have become”.

It is a miracle, I think, how our bodies innately know what we need to do if we are able to put aside temporarily, the post-menopausal symptoms in order to listen within. It’s really hard. Like the preverbial onion from hell, if we peel the firm layers off one by one through the agony and tears, patiently tending to each change or symptom within our bodies, we eventually find the true and tender core of who we are. It is a huge frickin struggle, but it can be done.

For almost five years now I have been carrying with me a mental and physical garbage can, tossing anything out that no longer serves my mental or physical health. This includes painful partings from long-time,old friends that no longer serve my growth, revamping diet and excercise and re-structuring priorities. It means clearing the clutter in my basement, the attic, and in my mind. It means exploring new alternatives to care for body, mind and soul. And, in general, I am slowly and with both pain and joy, slowly re-creating myself.This has been frightening because I have a tendency to find comfort in routines and consistency. It is a gruelling challenge because I have an Autistic daughter who’s whole life revolves around routine, consistency, same-ness. So, I am used to nothing else. I have been, when I thought that I had it all figured out, slowly sifting through the layers of a large pile of dirt of a some-what painful child-hood. This has been the worst pile of garbage I have ever had to sort through. Years and years of heeding to and feeding into my parents negative, co-dependent and unjustifiable fearful habits really messed me up. I am lucky though- years of reading and then slowly piecing myself back together by listening to what my heart & common sense (and telling everyone around me who attempted to tell me what to do, to f-off), has saved me hundreds of dollars worth of therapy. I’m still not finished my inner-work. Our lives are an endless journey until death. Old insecurities and issues will always continue to arise and we will always have to deal with them. I am reminded of the move: “A Beautiful Mind”, one of my all-time favorites. The connection for me is, how John Forbes Nash, a brilliant man and professor, was able to re-train his paranoia schizophrenic mind without taking any medication. Schizophrenia remained with him always but he learned how to deal with it without loosing himself in the process (medication would have taken his genius away). Because I’m highly sensitive, stress is effecting me greatly now that I’m going through peri-menopause and my doctor wants to put me on medication. The emotional changes alone are alot for me to handle. When things become harrowing, I remember the movie A Beautiful Mind. Like Christiane Northrup said, peri-menopause for women is a gift. But we only see it when we start to remove or peel the layers off with patience and care by taking care of ourselves. We can do something, even if its only a little bit. Something is better than nothing! I have learned to turn my thinking around about peri-menopause and all the hell that it brings. It truly is our only ticket to self-renewal and freedom from extreme burden. Burdens however, will never go away, but with good choice-making, they do become easier to manage.

Simplicity and the importance of aloneness.

It has been recommended and modelled by many saints, monks, and highly spiritual peoples throughout time. However, we women in North America are inundated with so much responsibility, with so many “needs and wants”. How do we do this? How do we find the time?

Anne Morrow Lindbergh in her book “Gift from the Sea”, states:

“If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping exedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it- like a secret vice!

Actually these are among the most important times in one’s life- when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out this thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves”.

She goes on to state:

“Solitude, says the moon shell. Every person, especially every woman, should be alone sometime during the year, some part of each week, and each day”.

And,

“By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class”.

I cannot stress enough, how every woman on this “Earth”, should read this book. Its such as easy read. I faithfully read it once every summer. Anne M Lindbergh’s musical and inspiring words always uplift me greatly. The wife of the infamous Charles Lindbergh, Anne is an amazing, classy, yet down to earth woman who’s reflections on youth, age, solitude, love and more, are penned down with great inner reflection and beauty, spirituality and observation.

It is one of the most elegant books I’ve ever read.

To be continued.

Poetry

Can you love me without judgement

and love me with full presence alone?

Can you love me with not even a touch

and look at me with eyes capable of transforming

my soul?

Can you love me with an intensity that transcends any kind of earthy love?

Of course you cant.

Your human.

A Transformation of Life- Part III

Anywhere I’ve written about the Dark Goddess (Archetype) or Crone, it should be understood that I’m talking about peri/menopause.

When I first began experiencing peri-menopausal changes, it seemed that everything around me started to appear more vivid, more colourful and there was a heightened emotional connection to everything around me. Sounds wierd, I know. It occured to me that I could fully understand how my Autistic students “felt” within thier world. Sensory wise, it feels like my nervous system is in over-drive. Everything I read, there were reports how women when experiencing peri-menopause, experience huge emotional and sensory changes.

One day, as I was driving on my way to work, I had this over-whelming feeling of fearing death. The feeling was so intense, I was shocked to find tears running down my face. Memories suddenly surfaced of me standing next to my grandfather’s death-bed, watching him die from a lethal dose of morphine. It turned my body into ice due to intense fear. The reality of my own mortality suddently hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember my grandfather dying with incredible courage and calmness. He was very much aware of what was going on when he asked my mother, “how long will it take?” after the doctor administered the morphine. Visualizing myself in that situation only intensified the reality and fear that I was in no way prepared for death like I thought I was. I could not help but ponder that I have not investigated the nature of death enough. For weeks thereafter, I would have these intense feelings about death. The fear and confusion, led me straight into a depression.

I have read:

“Menopause is a time for confronting death while there is still time to live….Fear of natural menopause, fear of the (archetypical Crone), translates into a dread of death. And so society’s blackout of menopause and its rejection of older women are directly related to our fear and denial of death.”

- “Fear of death is basically fear of the unknown”

- “In the modern psyche fear of death is related to fear of change”

~ Demetra George, Mysteries of the Dark Moon

It is frightening how the subconscious and the body communicates to a person that a change is occuring within.

So. Menopause is a marker then, a ruler of time for women, indicating when it’s time to take charge of, or change thier lives. It is the proverbial slap in the face telling us not to forget our own needs and wants after years of marriage, child rearing and taking care of career. When menopause manifests, it is calling all women to themselves. This realization for me, helped snap me out of depression (along with the help of St. Johns Wort). Menopause even though the hormonal transition is difficult, in the end it makes us stronger cognitively. It helps all women to prepare for the second half of our lives. It is a time, when being authentic to yourself is begging to be heeded. So menopause has two faces: The cessation of the menses (the death of the first part of our lives) and the begginning of the last half of our lives (rebirth).

It is interesting. I think about the death card in the tarot. If the card comes up in a reading, a persons first emotion to feel, is fear when looking at the skeleton on the card. But when we calm down and put the fear aside, we realize that the death card is not what it appears to be.

The card in itself represents death and rebirth. It is the card of “change”. Angeles Arrien in her book “The Tarot Handbook, Practical Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols”, tells her readers that the card represents: “The Principle of Letting Go and Moving Forward. It is the card of Release and Detatchment”. She goes on to state:

“It is through letting go that we are able to give birth to new forms. Cutting through old binding patterns allows us to let go of the old and give birth to the new or unexpressed parts of ourselves. And,

The skeleton (on the card), is the inherent structure within our body that allows movement and change within our self-expression. The bones of who we are represents our ancestral lineage and our present commitment to grow and evolve through repeated death/rebirth experiences. This symbol facilitates the process of letting go and moving forward”.

Going through menopause is truly one of life’s test for all women. Can we? Will we be able to move forward with so much death around us? Our youth? Our relationships or marriages lost because of menopause? Our health and more? All these deaths cause us to grieve horribly for the old life that has been lost. I think meditating on the message of the death card at this time would be helpful.

“As the crone confronts the changes in her body and transformations in her lifestyle, she realizes that her old identity is indeed dying”.

“The (archetypical Dark Goddess) is the mistress of transformation, and she exists everywhere there is change. She absorbs the outworn in order to reshape it for rebirth. The (Dark Goddess archetype) within us demands that we discard all that is no longer necessary in our lives, our relationships, worldly possessions, and life structures that have fulfilled their purpose in our growth possession and development”.

“Change is the process that allows us to continue living. To not change is to stagnate and truly die”.

~ Demetra George

So. With all this, it is important for me to care for my body, mind and soul. It is important for me to listen to my body, mind and soul. It is important for me not to fear, for it would only hinder me from the necessary change of growth that would be responsible for my future happiness in life.

To be continued.

A Transformation of Life- Part II

After reading Christiane Northrups book and looking up various things about menopause online I came to a conclusion: it was time to visit my family doctor and ask for a full check-up and bloodwork. “No, no, no” he kept telling me. “Your way too young to be experiencing this yet” he said to me. I insisted that I have my cholesterol, thyroid, sugar and hormonal levels checked. He insisted that since I have no history of any other women in my family who experienced early peri-menopause that it must be something else. After the check-up, he handed over the form for me to get the blood work done at the lab.

He was convinced that the stress I have suffered over the past 18 years has caught up with me. “My problems” were most likely stress related and I needed medication for stress, anxiety and depression. Deep down inside, I knew different.

I was nervous the following week when I went back to the doctor to get my test results. My cholesterol, iron, thyroid and sugar levels were all normal. My hormonal levels were high. I was indeed peri-menopausal. Incredibly frustrated after hearing the news, I burst into tears. A talk with my doctor ensued for about a half hour. I had told him that it was in Christiane Northrups book that I discovered that extreme stress can bring on peri-menopause early for a woman. I was incredibly angry and frustrated that my body and mind was not allowed a break. I had watched both my grandmother and mother go through peri-menopause and it was anything but easy for them. My mother went through peri-menopause for 15 years and though her menses have now ceased, she is still suffering from hormonal fluctuations. I cringe at the thought of this happening to me.

My physician figures that I’ve been going through peri-menopausal symptoms for approximately 6 years. I went straight home and lay down in my yoga room to do some meditation and reflection on all this. For a long time I had not been feeling well or right at all. Mentally, emotionally or physcially. Thinking of Christiane’s diet, supplement, and emotional plan, I had two choices: I can either continue the current routine I was in and continue to feel horrid and turn into some freak or, I can completely modify my lifestyle and try to lessen the symptoms and retain some sense of normality. I have a background in health and nutrition. My doctor wanted me to try the Hormone Therapy drugs. Common sense told me differently. Knowing me, since I was eight years of age, my doctor knew my answer. Absolutely no drugs- not unless I was going into some nut-house first. Believe me, I was feeling pretty unstable emotionally- its bloody scary what hormone fluctuations can do to someone. Especially if your highly sensitive.

Change. That word again. The thought of it at this point exhausted my already depleted body.

Being Finnish, my blood would not let me give up that easily. I would do this the natural way if it killed me. For 25 years I have been a huge advocate in alternative health and supplements. Faithfully, I take a small handful of vitamin supplements- I only had to add a few more, omit some others and change dosage on a few. I completed a full course of Acupuncture treatments (approximately 12 treatments) once a week. Then I went once a month for follow-up. My acupuncturist, a chief medical doctor from China told me that next month will be my final appointment and I only need to come back once or twice a year. She recommended that I go on American or Canadian Ginseng and take two cups of tea a day. It was important she told me, to go and buy the root and have it sliced up (its fresher, I was told). Because its a root, you make a decotion by letting it sit in boiling water for 10 minutes before you drink it.

Acupuncture helped relieve and take the “edge” off my peri-menopausal symptoms. I felt an immediate balance within my body after treatment. However, acupuncture does not provide permanent relief throughout the proccess of peri-menopause. After a course of treatments, it is necessary to follow up once a month or once a year (the acupuncturist will recommend which).

Peri-Menopause causes deep depression in some women. I have never been a “depressed” individual outside suffering from harsh PMS once a month, but I was suffering now, horribly. My doctor recommended medication. Immediately, I said absolutely not. I went straight to the health food store and purchased something else I knew that was better for me. I cannot stress enough, how St. John’s Wort has helped me. It truly has been my saving grace. More later on depression.

That was step one for me. Step two consisted of looking at my diet. Being a lacto-ovo vegetarian, it became important for me to listen to my body more than ever since I don’t eat meat. And in the last year, I’ve been craving it alot. Reading more in Dr. Northrups book, she talks about the importance on increasing protein in the diet to at least 81 grams a day. If you can divide that, it would be approx. 27 grams per meal. So, I blend and drink a protein shake that consists of one cup of chocolate soya milk, one small container of dessert tofu, two tablespoons of soya protein powder and 4 tablespoons of organic yogurt. Sounds disgusting, but with the chocolate soya milk, its actually really good. It grew on me. I do eat meat now because I believe that listening to my cravings is my body’s way of telling me I am lacking something. But I supplement my diet with alot of foods that also give me protein so I can lessen my meat intake somewhat.

Step three: I drink no coffee, no alcohol. I used to be a social drinker but no more. Alcohol no longer makes me feel good or relaxed. Instead, it created a monster of me. More on my experiences with alcohol later. I don’t smoke, so that wasn’t an issue for me. I may have 1 cup of regular tea in the morning. Dr. Northrup recommends finding de-caffinated green tea and to have a few cups per day. So that’s what I do. Actually, I really like the flavour of it. I get all my anti-oxidants without the caffine. Being Finnish, we Finns adore our coffee and I was no exception. I used to drink 3-4 cups on a normal day. Sometimes up to 5 cups. However, coffee was creating heart palpitations and anxiety. Two weeks of hell due to caffeine withdrawls and eventually I came to realize how much better I felt without coffee. It’s a matter of re-training your mind really. Like any addiction, if you can do 21 days without something straight, mission pretty much accomplished.

Step four: Make a committment to exercise. I love Yoga. And power walking. However, extreme, extreme fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s something I’m still fighting big time. It doesn’t help that my stress caused by peri-menopause is compounded by everything else around me. My sensitivities are suddenly over-sensitive and in over-drive. Dealing with this is issue is frustrating and it angers me because I feel like crap “all the time”. I am always tempted to try something that “boosts” my system. If its not healthy, I have to remind myself to just grin and bear with things. Yoga has been wonderful and yet frustrating because I find myself yawning almost non-stop during practise. It’s a real catch-22 because I feel really good after practise.

To be continued.