Continuing on my thoughts on the Menopause, especially the early stages of fatigue, memory fuzziness and erratic hormonal behaviour!
Meg Matthews, Rock Chic and former Mrs Noel Gallagher was on the TV the other morning talking about how she labelled all her moods and did a spreadsheet for the family, it made me chuckle at the time, but what it really is, and this is powerful; it is Acceptance.
"Don't fight that your body is changing... accept it, and learn to work with it... it's the easier path through life!"
Acceptance isn't giving up, it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it - and she found a way.
This is a positive way to use your energy moving forwards as you're going to be like this for a few years, so as soon as you have 'realised' you're at 'The Change', whatever your age or stage in life - accept it, and get on with living with it positively.... even if that's a spreadsheet or a cartoon layout for the family - whatever works for you, so that you can breathe and feel you're dealing with it.
You may not know that in Eastern theory the same energy within you can create Anger or Creativity, think about the likes of Van Gogh! Since I've learnt this I've put it to good use; if I'm especially wound up I can clean windows, ok its not a work of art, but to me its very useful!
If you're spending your time NOT accepting that you're entering the very early stages of this huge life change, it means you spend energy trying to hold it all in, or ignoring it or trying to hold it together, and battling your own mind and body, and this can be angry energy ... and guess what happens to the energy in your body when you do this - it heats up!
Now I'm not saying that you're going to get Hot flushes just because you're not talking about the Big M, what I'm saying is that energy that you use trying to avoid things is not only wasted in the wrong direction, but if you feel any level of angry, and this includes:
frustration, irritability, resentment, verbal self-abuse, righteous indignation, volatility, bursting into hard crying - the red-rimmed type....
If you're feeling any of these regularly, you need to recognise it for what it is; for example:
"I'm so frustrated, I don't normally forget things like that!"
This is a level of angry, its an emotion you're turning in on yourself, and its got its own heat internally; and we don't need to be making ourselves any hotter than we already are!
The first big hurdle is putting all the pieces together and realising you're on your way (see attached chart), then when its sunk in (the acceptance bit!) , put plans in place for dealing with, even if its a white board with 'Remind Mum here!' or 'I need a one hour soak in the bath... Dad's making dinner tonight!'
"It's perfectly acceptable to watch my favourite romcom for the 100th time - it's rebalancing my hormones!"
Last week I was discussing with a GF about cooking the evening meal for the family, when actually cooking is only a small percentage of the mental stress involved in getting the food to the table: deciding what to eat, then when to buy, then when to eat with diary juggling, and then finally the cooking, oh, and the washing up.... so no wonder you can be on the knife edge of bursting into tears if your husband grunts about it, or the outburst that can follow, which then triggers 'you're always snappy nowadays....'.
So, end these scenario's now, take a few days to think on, make up some plans at the weekend, then hold the family conference on how things are going to change, after all, use all that pent up energy to be creative with how you and your family are going to manage over the next handful of years, and tell them its perfectly acceptable to watch your fav romcom for the 100th time and to cry, as you're beneficially rebalancing the hormones in your body ; and this can only be a good thing for them!
