3 minute read
Re-discovery v’s discovery
Imagine for a moment a life without change, only stillness. Imagine for a moment a life without thought or feeling. A life so plain sailing, without a change of direction. A life without choices, chances, and opportunity.
Imagine, just for a moment.
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Now. Imagine a life without challenge, disagreement, obstacles, illness and hurt. Imagine, just for a moment. Now, imagine a life without love, joy, ease, and excitement. A life without passion, without recovery, without success, without achievements.
Now, if this life we live was void of all of the above, that wouldn’t be much of a life, if this life was void of just those parts that we find difficult, life would never consist of the remaining parts. This life is a contradiction, full of opposites, this life is all of the above.
LABELS
Imagine menopause without a title, symptoms without association. Friends, colleagues, and loved ones are sympathetic to your experiences, your aches and pains without judgment or question. Generationally women have lived through this changing season by ‘simply getting on with it’, they did this so well. We do not have to ‘just get on with it’, nor do we need to be defined by it.
RE-DISCOVERY
According to science, women are more likely in the future to live as many adult years postmenopause as they have premenopause. This is not the time to become washed into the kerb, to simply sit on the side-line and wait for what the tide brings in. Many women through this time feel that they have lost touch with who they are, who they once were, and worry about what will be left. In my work, I help women to rediscover themselves, but more importantly for many, to discover themselves for the very first time.
Together we can change the narrative from ‘What will be left of me?’ into ‘I am excited to meet the women I will become’.
With the growth in knowledge and awareness around menopause, we have information at our fingertips. We are more empowered than ever before, we are learning to become more fearless, building the courage to reach out and ask for help, but it is still a lottery as to what you will experience personally as you enter into this time. It is also up to you how you choose to move through this time.
MENOPAUSE Re - discovery v ‘ s Discovery
By Jayne Little
Founder of Odd Socks Yoga
Is there a new way of approaching perimenopause & menopause?
Yes, I do believe there is. A way that gives rise to a rebirth of a newly discovered you. You are, after all, transitioning not withering, it is and should be nourishment that calls you forward, not punishment that holds you back.
This is another moment for change, and old cycle renewing, you have after all been transitioning your entire life, from birth to toddler, from young child to teenager to womanhood, your entire life has consisted of a million firsts, many lasts, newness and filled to the brim with memories. There have been pains, aches, regrets, perhaps moments of shame and denial. You have gone through every stage step by step with a mindset for growth and healing.
Look around you, women are moving through the ages, more brilliant, beautiful, and sexier than ever before. Achieving greatness in this world. You are not losing who you were, you are finding who you are.