A year of learning to love my (post-menopausal) body
This is written for women in midlife who aren’t gym bunnies or yoga goddesses. This is for women who haven't ticked off another half marathon or swim every day in the ocean. This is written for women who have fallen out of relationship with their physical self under wondering how even if it is possible to reset their relationship with their body.
How do we fall in love with ourselves? In midlife it can feel like everybody’s needs come before your own. We rush about. We work hard. We stumble our way through the menopause transition. Children may fly the nest. Partners may leave. Parents may require the care today that once they gave us as children. We may be running our own business, toiling, toiling, to try to get the wind beneath its wings so it can fly. We may be working hard to realise the ambitions of other people’s dreams.
But in quiet moments we may find ourselves wondering what about us? But what about me?
I'm in my mid 50s and I officially passed through the menopause transition a few years ago. However, I think that beyond the cessation of periods comes a time of assimilation. It's like body, mind and spirit needed to catch up with the physiological being. As I was navigating my menopause transition, I had also moved country, started a new relationship and then married. both my parents grew ill, needed care and then died. I wrestled with grief and I struggled with the panicky sense of trying to get my business and life back on track. None of this is particularly unusual. We are all just there at the coalface of living life. So, I’m guessing that you too can probably fully understand that sense of just getting So. Darn. Tired.
I feel that over the past decade I just haven't given time to look after me. I was last on the list. And unfortunately, this became habit that got hard to break. While I did not treat my physical body harshly, I didn't invest time in treating it well either. I got increasingly unfit. With menopause I put on weight. I hurt my knee, my joints ached.
I feel that over the past decade I just haven't given time to look after me. I was last on the list. And unfortunately, this became habit that got hard to break.
I'm sure that this is something that many women can relate to. I've decided that for me I want to reset the relationship I have with my body. I want to nurture and nourish it and get to know it in a way that enables me to help it feel healthy and function well.
I have decided to write, podcast and video about this resetting of relationship with my body because I feel like I'm starting from Ground Zero and I figure there are lots of other women out there who feel like this too. Not only has my body expanded and weakened and creaked and groaned with the lack of care and focus over the past menopausal decade, I also started 2023 by getting COVID! This really makes me feel like I am truly starting from scratch and have to rebuild myself to be able to move forward well. You can read about how I worked with my covid fever in my recent blog Catharsis.
I've written in other blogs and spoken about it in podcasts that I believe that when we move through menopause we enter a new way of being with ourselves. I feel like we are given an opportunity to consciously think about how we nurture and nourish our inner world. And when I think of this, my mind naturally goes first to our intellectual, creative and spiritual life. It’s just how I’m wired. But this is all housed within my body. So I believe that in that idea of caring for oneself, there is an opportunity to nurture and nourish my body as well.
“I am going to nurture and nourish and reset my relationship with my body.” There. I said it out loud. Such simple words but when fitness isn’t second nature they are so challenging, so confronting. But I’m a little bit excited too and I'm curious to see where this will lead. And I hope it will offer some companionship to others who may also be on this journey.
“I am going to nurture and nourish and reset my relationship with my body.” There. I said it out loud. Such simple words but when fitness isn’t second nature they are so challenging, so confronting.
Another catalyst in beginning this process of nurture and nourishment of my physical self is that I am currently training with a place called the Onespirit Foundation in the UK. This is a two- year training in interfaith spirituality and counselling. This is not about preaching from a pulpit, but rather it is about exploring different spiritual paths and finding connection, inspiration, and maybe even a sense of peace through this. It's funny because I feel I have a bottom up approach to spirituality: I first found my sense of connection and spirit in my relationship with nature. Nature helped me heal from childhood trauma (which btw has contributed to my not-great perception of my body) and gave me a sense of connection, belonging and mystery that enriches my life to this day. It was through that enrichment that I started to find the touch points with various spiritual paths and their relationship with nature, and then it has been the work I have done with people at the end of life that has led me to where I am now.
Anyway, one of the key assignments we have to do in this training is to document our journey through doing something that challenges us. Something that takes us out of our comfort zone. I realised that tending and caring to my physical self as well as my intellectual, creative, emotional and spiritual self was a huge challenge. And so here I am.
So this journey that I'm going on is going to weave those other strands of self-care into the care that I hopefully can show my body, afterall everything is connected. My hope is that my body will feel better and healthier and will lose some of those creaks and groans and aches and pains, but also in doing this it'll be a nicer place for the rest of me to be homed within. I’m hoping I’ll fall in love with it for the ways in which it enables me to experience the world. I'm hoping that by documenting this journey it might help others too. It might help those of us who feel intimidated by the gym bunnies and yoga goddesses of the world. None of us are perfect and sometimes it just helps to hear someone’s honest journey of imperfection.
I’m giving this a 12-month focus. I'm not sure how regularly I will be posting but I will try and be as regular as I can, but I do hope to give you a candid honest description of this year of coming into right relationship with my physical self. Wish me luck, let me know if this resonates for you, and I look forward to connecting with you along the way.
Georgina xxx