menopause month- ha! if only!

I'm not sure if Hallmark has gotten a hold of all of our calendars, but it seems that between all things that are assigned their honorific days or months, we are supposed to celebrate and honor, different foods, medical diagnoses, presidential and cultural icons’ birthdays, religious and secular holidays, everything now has to have its own day, or month, or moment!

Menopause Month. The phrase itself is an oxymoron! How lucky would we be if menopause only lasted a month? How amazing would it be— or perhaps how traumatizing it would be— if all of these biological changes happened over 30 days?

Of course, the women in your tribe would have to cohabitate for two or three months before this scheduled month of menopause, so that all your cycles could regulate— so you could all go to the tropical island together and go through the transformation in community.

Maybe it would be a good thing? Maybe it would be such an intense 30 days that all women would be mandated to spend those 30 days on a tropical island, being pampered, and attended by informed physicians, massage therapists, physical therapists, nutritionists, funky yoga instructors, psychotherapists, comedians, and world-renowned chefs. Women would gather with their tribe away from the world and certainly away from men.

All kidding aside.

Menopause waits for all women. It is a rite of passage experience for those who are lucky to live long enough. Menopause is having a moment. There is more in-depth, accurate, supportive information available to women about menopause than ever before. There are best-selling books, Instagram accounts, Facebook accounts, and YouTube accounts. We can all educate ourselves and make informed decisions on how best to move through this physical transformation.

And yet, despite all of the information on menopause, including nutrition, supplementation, prescription drug therapies, and exercise routines, the secret that no one is talking about is that women's midlife is much more than menopause.

Women go through a triple transformation during midlife: one is physical, one is psychological, and one is spiritual. So yes, let's celebrate the fact that menopause has come out of the closet in a tight red dress with big hair, or in a T-shirt and jeans, or without a bra and girdle, or in a bikini, or wearing an “ I don't give a fuck” T-shirt, but let's also realize that her sister Psyche may still be suffering, wandering in, what at times feels like, a spiritual wasteland.

So,  yes, let’s celebrate our newfound freedom to talk about and treat menopause. And, let’s not forget to prepare and listen to the messages from soul about the rest of the changes ahead.

We are living in a cultural zeitgeist that has no respect for aging women. Menopause is not the last bump on the road of reclaiming ourselves and the power of the archetypal feminine.

Namasté,

Dr. A.