It’s Menopause Awareness Month, and most of what you’ll see this month is about symptoms. Lists of them. What to take, what to track, what to fix.
I want to talk about something quieter.
Red School call perimenopause The Quickening. I love that name, because it says something that “perimenopause” doesn’t. Something is speeding up and asking for your attention.
Your menstrual cycle might be shifting. It comes early, then late, then not at all, then twice. Your sleep goes. Your moods arrive bigger than they used to. Your energy does things you can’t plan around. You go looking for the pattern you’ve relied on for years and it isn’t there any more.
Your breath does it too. It climbs higher into your chest. It gets shorter, faster, catchier. You might notice yourself sighing more, or holding it without meaning to, or waking up at three with your heart going.
And this month you’ve probably seen the average ages and symptoms, and you might be saying ‘yeah that’s me’ to some, and ‘huh?’ to others. A quick reminder that those averages do not usually speak for people in black or brown bodies. And studies are still ongoing, as we know women are chronically under studied
Now here’s something I’ve been sharing
This summer I was in a session with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli at Medicine Festival, and she said something that’s stayed with me ever since.
She doesn’t need to tell women what’s going on in their bodies. We already know. We know it intrinsically, in the body, underneath all the language and the lists. We just have to stop long enough to listen.
This is what I also know and I would love you to know.
Everything is telling you that you’ve lost the plot of your own body. And you haven’t. You just can’t hear it over the noise, and there is so much noise. The symptom lists. The podcasts. The woman on your feed who has it all worked out. Your own busy, loud, exhausted week.
So this is where the breath comes in
Your breath is the one part of all of this that’s with you every single minute. It doesn’t need an app or a chart or a regular cycle to work with. It doesn’t care whether you bled this month.
When you slow it down and drop in, become present, two things happen. Your nervous system settles, which helps enormously when your body is doing things you didn’t ask for. And you get quiet enough to actually hear yourself. You come into presence with yourself
That’s the rooting. Not fixing anything. Just a few minutes where you stop being pulled about, and you find out what’s true for you today.
Some days what’s there is tiredness. Some days it’s rage. Some days it’s a clear instruction you’ve been ignoring for weeks.
You already know this stuff. You just need something to help you listen.
Where to start
This is exactly what I made The Breath & Cycle Check-In for.
It’s a ten minute guided breath practice and a monthly calendar. You breathe, then you ask yourself three questions. How do I feel? What energy is in my body? What do I need today?
That’s it. No tracking app you’ll give up on in a fortnight. No needing a regular cycle, which is rather the point in this life stage. Just one steady thing to come back to while everything else moves.
Your body has been talking to you this whole time. This is somewhere to sit while you listen.
The Quickening, and the inner seasons framework I work with, both come from Red School.