Ep 70 The Midlife Awakening: Embracing Your True Self and Letting Go of Stagnation

Meegan Care: In my experience of midlife and menopause, this time has been a massive catalyst for awakening. I’ve seen it in my own life. I see it in so many of the woman’s lives who come through the course, who I talk to on a daily, weekly basis, that there is More than just a psychological shift happening.

So we know that there’s a physical shift happening, right? But of course we are never just our body. We’re never just our physiology. We’re always evolving in conjunction with body, mind, spirit. Whatever that means to you. So on the podcast today I’m going to talk about why this is a prime time for awakening. And bear with me if you’re rolling your eyes going, I don’t want this fluffy staff talking about awakening. What are you talking about, Megan? I am going to get really practical with this, because I’m not just talking about a spiritual awakening or becoming more spiritual.

In fact, for me, the reverse has actually happened, somehow, the more awake I’ve become, the more mundane and connected to everyday life I’ve become, but from a very different perspective. And I’ll speak to that soon. So hormonally, nature has opened the doorway for a really big change for you.

We know the hormones are changing, estrogen, progesterone going down, decreasing, in peri menopause. They stabilise post menopausally. While you’re in perimenopause and somewhat early menopause, your brain is actually going through an upgrade. And there is some research that has been done around very positive changes that happen in our brain. After the shifts of perimenopause. That once we’re on the other side and in that postmenopausal place, because our hormones are now steady and even, albeit lower, whether or not you’re on HRT it doesn’t make any difference. The way your brain functions is different and the way your emotions are driven are now not so much from hormones and what I mean by that is, is that because estrogen is that nurturing hormone, that’s dropped down and we might say that that we over nurture, we people please, we fawn as women because that’s so much of our conditioning.

The push from nature through our hormones for that has now lessened. So we actually become free. and postmenopause. You are now not driven by your hormones and if you’re in the big flux of perimenopause right now, bear with me because I’ll tell you it does get so much better postmenopausally when things start to settle down.

You become free to decide how you want to show up in life, who you want to be, and what your focus and your values are going to be for this next chapter. And so that is why this time of change through perimenopause and early postmenopause Early menopause is like the prime time for change, much like when we were a teenager and we were developing our identity, we were pushing away from our family of origin to some extent, exploring new behaviors, taking risks.

This time of midlife is a time where you are awakening to, it could be a whole new identity for you if you choose to. Take that journey. And part of that must be that we examine our identity, our self identity. That we look at our labels. Mother, whatever your role in work or business is. Your education. Partner.

even your gender, how you show up as a woman. There is so much conditioning around it. Because there’s so much conditioning throughout our life, we might come into midlife and we find ourselves being just our labels. We’re just being the partner, or the wife, or the mother. Or the friend, however that friend has shown up. Perhaps she’s an over giver. And what I see for women is that there creeps up on us a dissatisfaction with the status quo. And we can perceive that as being negative and it is disruptive, but it’s also incredibly empowering if we allow that dissatisfaction, that feeling of things have changed. Just got to change. I cannot keep going on like this.

If we allow that to be a stimulus for change and awakening and we get real with ourselves around what are these roles that I’ve Just been embedded in, because that is the conditioning of our culture, and what do I want to step out of? And some of those roles will change, even when we haven’t asked them to change.

As a parent, my oldest child is not a child anymore, they’re an adult, they’re 23, they’ve left home, they’ve established their own life. They don’t need me in the way that they used to need me. And of course that’s been changing over the years, but if I’d been so embedded in that role as mother and wasn’t awake to myself in any other capacity, then the very natural grief that happens when your child leaves home would have been so much worse and compounded because my identity was so embedded in being parent to that child.

Now, come and see me in a couple of years because we’ve got our second child who’s still at school and hasn’t left home yet. So, we’ll talk then because then we will be totally empty nest no doubt, I’ve got a lot to learn as that no children at home transition takes place. But what I’m saying is that we go, we come into midlife and we start to feel really constrained with the way things are.

And one way to shake that up is to look at our labels and the identities that we carry. And that doesn’t necessarily mean ending a 20 year relationship. For some women it does. For some women, they awaken and they realize, I don’t actually like this person I’ve been married to. And now that the kids have left home, there’s no reason for me to stay with that person.

And I think it was my supervisor talked to me many years ago about relationships, going through death and rebirth and death and rebirth. And I’ve certainly seen that. In my marriage, in my intimate relationship, and just that knowledge of that it’s actually okay if there’s a death kind of phase happening for us right now, because there’ll be a rebirth.

And for me, in my personal circumstance, that rebirth has happened within the marriage and within the partnership. For some of you, that rebirth has happened where you’ve stepped away from the marriage because you realize that you’re no longer aligned. Well, maybe you weren’t ever aligned and you’ve woken up to the truth of that.

So this awakening that can happen and does happen for so many women, like all awakenings, starts with discomfort and a feeling like there’s the box you’re in just doesn’t fit you anymore, right? And there’s too much pressure there, and you’re wanting to break out. That is not a nice feeling. It is not comfortable in any way.

But now that I recognize it for what it is, I celebrate it because there’s many moments along this midlife journey where you awaken to a new self. And I think if we look at midlife as an evolutionary journey, And we move away from thinking, I just have to get this. perimenopausal stuff done. Once I’m on the other side everything will be fine and I can just carry on as normal.

I just don’t think that that is what nature is offering to us. That this is an offer of being able to really awaken to the truth of ourselves. And I’ve sort of had a Backwards, it’s not backwards, but a different evolution in terms of my spiritual self as a post menopausal woman, whereby for whatever reason, early life trauma, my own personal karma, my soul’s journey, I don’t know, but I’ve always been.

a very spiritual person and interested in growing my psyche, myself and my connection spiritually. And that has been a really big part of my life. What has happened that has felt very strange for me, is that I’ve kept evolving through this phase of midlife. But my need for the up and out or the very mystical spirituality is not there anymore.

The drive is not there anymore. And in fact, I can see how much of it was an accessory to my life. It certainly was something that gave meaning to my life, but the more I awaken to myself and my truth, the less I need those accessories. If you ask me what my spiritual practice was right now, I don’t know what it is.

I think it’s just being human. Being wholeheartedly present in this moment and living my life the best way I can, knowing that it is going to be over at some point, later hopefully, maybe sooner, I don’t know, and coming to terms with that in the best way that I know how. And then also feeling that wider, deeper connection with my community.

And so that’s what I mean by this awakening process for me has been Has sort of, I’ve come much more down to earth in terms of my spiritual self and there is no spiritual seeking anymore. And that has been a very strange thing for me to understand because that has been a part of my life from from when I was a young adult.

From very early on, I strove to make meaning out of life through a spiritual lens. Perhaps it’s now that the spiritual lens has been integrated into my being that life is life and being in this moment is wholeheartedly all I need. I don’t know. It’s been an interesting ride though, that’s for sure. So the happier I get and the more open I get to life, the less I’ve needed those spiritual attachments or accessories that felt so important to me in the past.

That’s been my awakening journey. Your awakening journey might be very, very different. But what I want us to understand is that If we can find joy in the truth that There is no done. There is no end goal for us. Of course, if we’re in the, the flux of perimenopausal symptoms, our end goal would be to manage those symptoms and stabilize, whether it’s through HRT or natural means, or we’re writing it out and waiting for that postmenopausal time.

And if I was to offer advice around that, I would say go for it. Get some help on board because it will make that ride a lot easier for you.

If we can relax into this undone ness of life and the fact that our caretaking hormones have turned off,

then what is available to us is much more flexible because our blinkers have now been taken off and we can see so much more around what makes What brings you joy? What brings, what lights you up? What awakens your passion for life? It will mean getting uncomfortable. It will mean changing behaviors, and it will mean going out and doing things that you might feel a bit cringy about, you might feel awkward about, you might feel shit scared to do.

But by trialing these things and doing these new things and connecting out, you’re creating a bigger life. And that is the antidote to what happens to women as we age, wherein our life gets smaller and smaller, more contained and more contracted. So that’s our invitation as a woman in perimenopausal midlife, is to awaken to your most authentic, joyful, playful, whatever the quality is for you. Life, if you’ve meditated your whole life, maybe you dance, maybe you lift weights, maybe you do something different. If you’ve been a very physical person, maybe you try meditation, maybe you try breath work.

If you tend to isolate yourself, maybe you take a step into those connections and those community groups and risk and be brave.

Because this, when we’re doing this, we’re stepping into the slipstream of nature, of this particular chapter of our life.

Because my friend, this is,

this is not an ending. This is a really powerful beginning. A beginning of a chapter. Where you are free to choose your path in life. You are free to choose what you value and to go after that with all of your heart, body and soul and make it yours. Yeah. We need to get uncomfortable to be able to do this, but if we keep trying to.

Maintain that person that we were 10 years ago or 5 years ago before this midlife shift. We’re going to find ourselves stuck because you are not that person. You are not the person you were 5 years ago. You are not the person you were 10 years ago. You are evolving into your most authentic self and she is different to me and we are different to other women in our community. And that is so, so important in this life. You have so much more to give, to create, to be in the world and the hormonal and perimenopausal shifts that you’re experiencing on that level of awakening, once we get the physical symptoms sorted, To even, like, 80 percent sorted? Very huge gift this change that’s happening because you’re recreating yourself Do you remember that when you that feeling you had when you’re a teenager when you were like who am I going to be in? The world what am I going to be about?

What path am I going to go down? academic, creative. Maybe you didn’t think about that either because you were bearing up under trauma or difficulties within your family or you just couldn’t see, so maybe that wasn’t your experience. But this time of your life is where you get to Reset, change those connections, change your self identity, unlock from all of those labels and all of those identities that have been cast upon you from society, family, life itself.

It’s very normal. and discover who you are and what is important for you in your life. It is honestly my greatest joy to help women find this for themselves or just to sit in conversation with women because you will find it for yourself if somebody can hold that space for you. I hope that this has been so helpful.

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Until next time, go well and we’ll talk real soon.