Menopause Support, Counseling & Education
Menopause is a transition. A growth spurt. An evolution.
Menopause and perimenopause are so much more than hormonal changes. Menopause is a transitional time of life.
Your entire being is affected; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
The 40s and beyond are the time of ripening and reckoning. Awakening and reforming.
But for many of us this reckoning involves outgrowing: outgrowing relationships, jobs, communities, roles and ways of living that were once integral to who we believed we were.
What once felt fulfilling and satisfying may now leave an empty murmur. Perhaps a lifestyle that you struggled so hard to build leaves only an empty chasm?
Many of us notice the sensation of not feeling ourselves anymore…
Menopause isn’t a time for maintaining the status quo. It’s a time for leaning into deep knowing.
- What is your body longing for?
- What does your heart want?
- What is your soul hungry for?
- When allowed the totality of your appetite – what would you indulge in?
- What would you cast aside to make room for something new…even if you didn’t know what the new was yet?
Instead of doubting your dissatisfaction with the status quo, instead of telling yourself to stay small, and tolerant, understand that this is a time of great expansion. As your inner-world changes alongside your body and your relationship to yourself, so too will your external desires for love, community, connection and meaning.
We were lied to that this time of life was about playing small and decay.
You are not declining. You are evolving.
There’s a lot of info going around about menopause hormone therapy including estrogen & testosterone for low libido which is great...but, hormones alone are not enough, here’s why....
Menopause is a life transition.
Yes hormones change, but so much changes around 40 and beyond, including our relationships with ourselves.
If you’ve spent a good chunk of your life in service to others, menopause might not only change your hormones, but also serve as a wake-up call.
Far from the ‘autumn’ of our lives, many of us finally find the power and courage to face the beasts within.
Menopause is about passion, power and prioritization.
This can also affect your sex life.
The tips & tricks posts we see about spicing up your sex life tend to not work well. If they did we’d all be doing them, right?
Generic sex advice is awful for most people, but it’s especially awful for menopausers because it’s about so much more than just getting horny. It’s about reckoning with:
- why sex matters, if it even does,
- who it’s for &
- why we should (or shouldn’t) put in the effort to go there.
Perhaps the sex you were having before was OK but is now just not. Something has changed. Yes it’s your hormones, but many also feel called to know more about who they are and what they want from the next 20 years of living.
Perhaps you’re longing for a deeper connection with yourself - you want to know who you are sexually, separate from the life you’ve been living...
This can feel scary. Especially if it means rediscovering parts of ourselves we left behind, or looking for parts we never had the chance to meet.
Sometimes our relationships start to shift as we start to shift. Shifts are exciting. Excitement = desire. But shifts are also uncertain. While hormones can help with issues around sensitivity & arousal and generally feeling good, they won’t tend to the shifting sands within.
Yes hormones are great (I am a HUGE fan), but complicated parts of desire are ours to traverse with open hearts and open minds.
So how do you want sex to make you feel?
Many of you tell me you have devoted, generous partners who would do anything you ask - if only you knew what that was - to keep the spark alive. But would your partners tolerate a change to your relationship structure, if that’s what was needed? Would you?
- Would your generous partner consider types of sex that didnt center them, (especially if it always used to)?
- Would you?
- Would your generous partner allow you the freedom to find who you were, if it meant changing the way your relationship functioned?
- Would you?
A time where masks come down, nests empty, but so too do the old ways of doing things, and values and erotic longings are reassessed. And sadly no hormones are able to assist with that kind of self-inquiry (believe me, I have tried).
For many of us sex becomes something we no longer feel like, or not in the ways we used to. As desires change, so too do the questions we ask ourselves about what gets us off. What sex means to us? And why we even do it?
What used to hit the spot may no longer have meaning. Perhaps the validation from orgasm that once gave us a kick, feels empty now. What happens if we won’t allow ourselves to go there? Menopause is a time of action, not fading away. It’s a time where your wisdom goes into overdrive and you no longer take anything (including low libido) lying down.
