I sigh, long and slow. Recounting my ancestors' stories - women who, in my mind, have an almost mythical quality to them, is poetic and beautiful. They make me feel positive about my story. The kind of beauty that comes from imaginary tales, like those of long-lost loves, bravery, and a fight for the kingdom. You know they have harshness, but somehow, they are still filled with adventure and heroes.
But my life is not just a manifestation of beautiful heroines; it is full of real women who survive with grit and determination, through darkness and madness.
I desperately want to move through my time of Madhya with grace and wisdom and lay the demons to rest, letting go the muck, the detritus that my subconscious carries.
A Fragile Inheritance
So now we must move closer to home, to the women who I directly descend from, who have had the biggest part to play in my experience of life. I sigh again... it is not going to be easy; it is fraught... and complicated. But I must examine this, turning it over in my mind - like a rare gemstone, rough and unpolished, with many cracks in it, cracks that have been mended with weak sandstone that, at any minute can erode, revealing pain, hurt and ugly truths.
And I must tread carefully. I don't want to hurt anyone, because, you see, the load is a heavy one... so we will tiptoe lightly. The players are all on the stage, and one tip of the candle could cause the whole stage to burn down.
We do the best we can with what we have at the time. At least thats how the saying goes. And I must attest to this reality because I also did the best I could with what I had at the time. But sitting here, with the power of hindsight, I know I could have done better. Much better. I flog myself with the emotional whip regularly, and this is one of the reasons I need to lay this to rest. I am killing myself with this whip.
Growing Up in the Shadows of the Past
Like so many children, I had dreams - of becoming a doctor, lawyer, or journalist. I lived in a world of the 70's and 80's, raised by hippy parents - a father who had travelled through India, Israel, Afghanistan and Pakistan, regularly regaling us with the stories of his travels (as chronicled in his book Indelible Images), when he got home after a night of sharing beer and tales with his friends at the pub; and a mother who was much younger than my father, a tough woman with a tortured past, who threw everything she had at being the best mother she could for her three young children - supported desperately by adopted Christian beliefs, lapses of hippy behaviour and frequent lightening bolts of trauma from her own difficult childhood.
My childhood was infused with the ideology of the time. A sensitive child, I soaked up the fear of impending nuclear war like a sponge. I embraced all the messages of unity, and the collective coming together to help those less fortunate. I was there front and centre for the announcement of the number One song each week and watched the transition from two channels of television to three, black and white to colour and twelve o'clock closing to all night rubbish. The mythical to the magical, and the ideas of a future we truly could not conceive of.
I grew up in the age of freedom - a freedom not afforded to our children anymore. A freedom that saw us leave in the morning and come home at night - hours spent building huts, riding bikes, climbing rickety playgrounds, tormenting the local store owner with the cheekiness of children secreting chocolate bars out the door, and smoking cigarettes we had carefully taken out of our parents' packets. We were truly the last free generation.
The Invisible Cage
I was also a child of the latchkey era, when children were given many responsibilities at a very young age, when discipline was routine, both in and out of the home, and where women still did not have a voice. It was her fault. Period.
My hometown was a one-way in and one-way out kind of place, filled with quarter-acre sections, young families, and social housing. Marijuana wasn't just a graduation from the 70's; it was a way of life. Growing up with hippy parents and Rastafarians next door, led to us smoking the peace pipe long before we understood what the peace pipe meant.
Our mouths were filled with mercury, cigarette smoke filled every corner of every space, and leaded paint and petrol leached into every pore. But we also had a father who had worked in Kibbutz, and maintained a vegetable garden for fresh produce throughout the year; and a mother who regarded the Nutrition Almanac as another version of the Bible. And while our religious grounding, with God as our powerful overlord, ready to condemn us to hell at any given moment, was a supporting constant in our lives, it was also a subtle source of pain, reminding us that retribution for the smallest mistake was never far from our reality.
Breaking the Cycle
The early years were relatively stable in a way that only adaptability and predictability can bring. By no means was it peaceful and easy - peppered with traumas, dramas, and the changes of the time, it was a rollercoaster. but it was steady.
However, unbeknownst to me, a rot was setting in. Like a mouse in a cage, I was running through the exact same maze that my mother and grandmother had before me. The instruction manual that I inherited from my maternal family was strong, and the die had been cast for genetic expression and destiny to boldly rear its ugly head at the exact same ages that it had for my elders.
I didn't learn this until much later, as was the way of the time, there was much secrecy surrounding the past - a few stories and throw away comments but no real understanding of what the winding road, for the women in my family, had been. My parents emigrated from the UK to NZ in the early 70's and we had no family here to greet us, this meant the stories were only those retold to me by my parents, and consequently were distorted and missing vital clues - they changed many times and even now, at 50 years old I hear a version of the truth that I have never heard before. I will never know how much of a difference the truth would have made, but there I was... walking a cobbled road, with a blindfold on.
I find myself remembering the child that I was, full of hope, unwittingly walking a path that was not mine, but one that was carved into my DNA via genetic threads. Experiencing similar traumas, at the same age as my mother and grandmother, and responding in the exact same same way. I was furious when I came to this realisation, was anything original, was my experience my own?
What kind of sick joke has evolution played where we are walking through life stuck in grooves we are not even aware of. How very angry I was, but what is the point of being angry at something you cannot change, and favouring solution-based thinking I ask - how can I make this better, break the generational curse, and help my children see the pattern sooner.
Now, you might wonder, how is this relevant to Menopause? A process that relates to the gradual decline of oestrogen, and the demise of the fertile years - what has a story rooted in the past got to do with hot sweats, sleepless nights and weight gain? The trick here is, that it has everything and nothing to do with Menopause, but absolutely everything to do with Madhya.
Embracing Madhya: A Time of Transformation
Our journey as women, from birth, through puberty, into the fertile years and finally landing at the menopausal gate, starts with the coding of DNA - the transcribed information passed down from mother to daughter through generations. This is not the only part of the fertility puzzle, but it is a large part. And it is only now that we are beginning to understand the role that the shared experiences, patterns and traumas play in our journey through life.
Madhya is the pause, the time between times. And when this time comes, it triggers a release - of memories of the past, the story of your life. The declining oestrogen receptors in the brain and the effect this has on the nervous system, may cause you to question EVERYTHING. From start to finish.
And here is where we find ourselves. In a state of realisation, and release. To walk forward we must look back and let go of all that no longer serves us. But also cherish it as part of our story - giving ourselves merit where it is due, walking with our heads held high, with the wisdom of untethering ourselves from the muck and leaving it behind.
In all my years of clinical practice this is one of the recurring themes that I have seen, over and over, the load that women, approaching and journeying through menopause carry, the weight of trauma, scars that are unseen, but energetically palpable, that fester inside, manifesting as illness and contributing to sadness, depression, anxiety and fear about the years to come.
Now is the time, to ride the wave of spiritual and physical evolution, to find the key that unlocks the code. To heal our generational trauma. So, let's get on board together, and ride that wave, let's flip it on its head, pull out all that has been kept in the shadows and dissolve it in the light.
Namaste X
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