Catharsis – fever, initiation and menopause as a rite of passage

 How has the start of 2023 been for you? For me the year got off to a roaring start. January 1, I launched my new website and it felt like such a great way to set intent for the year ahead. January 2, I celebrated my birthday and then a week or so later came down with covid. Bummer! I’m through the worst of it now and testing negative again but oh so tired!

During the couple of days in which I felt really unwell, the word catharsis kept floating into my mind. The word catharsis comes from the Greek katharos which means pure or cleanse. Plato used wrote about how catharsis was a process to cleanse and purify the soul. So I started to imagine the fever burning up any emotional or habitual junk I had lying around in my interior world. I pictured covid as the force that was clearing away the things that get in the way of getting on with things. Clearing out things like self-doubt, self-criticism, procrastination and so on. Every time I started to feel miserable and frustrated, I would make myself think of the illness’s function of catharsis and to be honest, this helped me just go with it, rather than waste energy trying to fight it. I reset my relationship with it as a force for good, and realised that maybe, just maybe that resting now at the beginning of the year will help me achieve all the things I want to do with the year.

Plato used wrote about how catharsis was a process to cleanse and purify the soul.

And this of course got me thinking about being a woman in midlife. It made me recall the feeling of a hot flush coming on, and how, rather than fight it, I would try to surf its incredible power like a wave. That idea totally shifted my relationship with hot flushes and I grew to love the way they showed me how amazing the human body is.

As far as menopause goes, and according to the textbooks, I’m pretty well through it. I’ve been blissfully period-free for a good few years now. But I think there is more to the menopause transition than just symptoms. I think this transition has three phases, maybe more (I’ll tell you when I find them!).

I’ve come to view perimenopause as Phase One - the liminal space between our fertility years and what I like to think of as our ‘wisdom years’. With all its unpredictability and shifting changing hormones, perimenopause is like a passage of initiation we have to go through. Throughout time and across cultures, initiation rites have tended to be challenging. They’re not meant to be easy. They do raise questions at deep emotional, spiritual and intellectual levels about who we are and what we make of this thing called life and they have moments where one questions whether the initiation can be endured at all. They are also a form of catharsis, of cleansing and purifying as we move from one state of being to another. I think that viewing perimenopause in this way raises it up to something life-affirming and even sacred as it burns away the accoutrements of fertility to prepare for something new, something powerful.

Throughout time and across cultures, initiation rites have tended to be challenging. They’re not meant to be easy. They do raise questions at deep emotional, spiritual and intellectual levels about who we are and what we make of this thing called life.

Then Phase Two kind of sneaks up on us. It’s that phase where to be honest it can be hard remembering exactly when your last period was but coming to the realisation that it was ages ago. Hoorah we say. That’s it. I’m done with menopause. But I don’t think it is that simple. Periods cease once hormone levels have dropped, but I see this like an iceberg. We see the obvious i.e. no periods, but there is still a whole lot of things going on under the surface. Hormone receptors are throughout our body and brain and so while periods may be done and dusted, other things start to shift and change like brain fog, weird menopause hair texture, changes to our vaginal and vulval tissues and the rising feeling of wondering ‘where to from here?’ This phase can be incredibly challenging. I look back on my journey through this and only now I see how easy it is to read the signals wrong. Depression, fatigue, these things get tarred with circumstantial evidence that they are the result of the daily grind, yet they can be directly related to our changing hormones. And when we realise that we are able to do something about it.  For increasing numbers of us (me included), this can be when we make the decision to go on HRT. Which from the outside can look odd if it has been a few years since a last period, and may leave one thinking why now? But in terms of ‘iceberg management’ I think for me, it was one of the best decisions I’ve made and I wish I’d made it sooner. It helped turn the lights back on, which leads nicely into the Third Phase of menopause, assimilation.

I think after the initiation of perimenopause and the iceberg that moves on slowly after cessation, there is a period of assimilation in which finally body, mind, emotions and spirit all start to settle into this new postmenopause normal. Just think back to going through puberty and how long it took to go from getting periods as a girl to becoming in every sense a woman. Well, just because our periods have stopped doesn’t necessarily make us an overnight sensation in the wise woman elder stakes either!

There is a period of assimilation in which finally body, mind, emotions and spirit all start to settle into this new postmenopause normal.

The assimilation phase is a settling period. A bit like making a fabulous vintage of wine and then cellaring the bottles to let them settle and deepen into something even more wonderful. Through this time there can be a sense of settling into oneself. I have found this period to be the best part of the menopause transition so far. It can bring with it a sense of confidence not felt in younger years. A friend of mine said she felt it has brought her a deep sense of ‘no more Fear of Missing Out anymore’. She said she doesn’t get fazed by things like she used to. She finds it easier to have boundaries; to not let oneself be eroded by the demands of others. I have felt a tangible sense of power arising. Other women I have spoken to have talked of how it makes them look at who they are, what they have achieved, what they are grateful for and how they want to live moving forward. Many speak of how this phase is a time to embrace the idea of nurturing their emotional and spiritual life. Some start to appreciate their bodies in a way they never could when they were younger, as those younger days brought with them so much pressure about how one was ‘supposed’ to look.

It takes time for a fine wine to mellow and deepen. It takes time to go from being a young girl to becoming a mature young woman, and it takes time to navigate the initiatory challenges of perimenopause and the realisation that the cessation of periods has come, to letting the power of menopause settle at a soul level. This menopause transition is in its own way a form of initiation and catharsis, a fever burning away that which is no longer needed, making room for the wisdom years to take root and blossom.

And after this rite of passage is travelled, just look how beautiful this wisdom garden grows.

For live online events that support you in perimenopause and celebrates postmenopause visit the Archeus Academy.

For natural products to nourish, nurture and support your body through the menopause transition check out our NatFem Botanics Collection.