Art by Betty Dodson
No one is paying me for this compilation. I’m just sharing my bumbling around and what’s worked. I hope you find it helpful. I also don’t necessarily agree with 100% of what each source preaches. Please also take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. These resources are overall empowering and supportive.
Feeling Our Feelings and Building Energy:
In our culture, especially if you have a vulva, we’re taught to suppress our anger and spin every emotion into relentless and potentially bludgeoning positivity. Hormone changes make this ruse harder though, and in menopause we can let this nasty habit go. I don’t remember where I heard this, but some wise sage called estrogen the “give a fuck” hormone, and remarked that as it diminished she could no longer muster the self denial to martyr herself into making sure everyone else’s needs were met at the cost of her own. Menopause provides an opportunity for us to feel our feelings. Anger and rage are logical responses to many things and refusing to feel them can make us sick.
Another sage once said that when we feel anger, what’s arising is the fierce protection of something we care about: anger is us defending something dear. It’s also a signpost that our boundaries have been crossed.
For balance cultivation and positive transmutation of anger, qigong is very effective. Among other things, it can help us feel what we’re feeling and restore our emotions to their rightful place of importance.
I practice with these two qigong videos regularly and both are very good:
- Qigong for moving anger and grief
- Awakening the Soul qigong
To learn how to grieve and express emotions consider attending a grief ritual with Grief Tending Northwest or Sacred Groves. I’ve worked with both of these groups and they are wonderful.
Hot Flashes:
Hot flashes don’t have to run your life. Since experimenting with the below herbs they’ve ceased for me:
- My acupuncturist recommended An Shui Wan to build and support yin. Herbs are usually something you need to take for a while but the first time I took them I slept through the night after many nights of not sleeping.
- Jing tonic by Superfeast. It’s not for hot flashes explicitly but is an general nourishing blend that is truly amazing. Energizing and uplifting, it helped with the hemorrhaging and yin depletion. It makes a yummy latte or yogurt topping.
- Black Cohosh is absolutely amazing for hot flashes and a host of other things related to having ovaries and a uterus. It has however, been overharvested to the point of becoming endangered. My admonition is that each of us grow a patch of it ourselves in our yards and community gardens. If you don’t have either of those, try guerilla gardening. Black cohosh is easy to grow and quite beautiful. These two videos are very good, and you get to enjoy two knowledgeable old wizards, one of each coast of the US: East coast growing, West coast growing. I ordered my seeds from etsy.
Media:
- The book, Rest is Resistance, changed my life. Menopause is an opportunity for us to take stock of how we’ve lived so far and do it differently if we want. This book isn’t about menopause but rather how to choose something other than being a cog of grind culture and feeling guilty for resting and restoring ourselves. It is about rest and restoration and uplifting each other. Since reading this book, I’ve been trying to remove the word, lazy, from my speech and thoughts. Reverend Tricia Hersey, author and founder of The nap ministry, is absolutely amazing. I can’t say enough about her body of work.
- The Menopause Manifesto by Jen Gunter. This book is correcting the misogyny in the medical system. It’s a lot of facts and studies but very good information from a gynecologist.
- I recently watched The M Factor, a short but validating and well-informed documentary on menopause from a Western medicine perspective.
- Hagitude by Sharon Blackie. Yes please, bring on the hagitude and bring on the hags!
Podcasts on Menopause:
- Roni Edlund Second Spring on Superfeast
- Sex with Emily with Wednesday Martin. I like this episode. Emily and Wednesday refer to menopause as a “medical condition,” which doesn’t feel accurate to me but I appreciated their information and conversation.
- The Dr Tyna Show. This article is great. Dr Tyna has lots of information both on her site and her podcast about maintaining health and physical strength during and through menopause.
Herbs and Herbalists:
- A nourishing herbal infusion is an awesome way to ingest the benefits of herbs. Below are two of my favorite menopause supporting herbs but in general, you can use any edible herb that doesn’t contain volatile oils, ie. doesn’t smell. My other faves are burdock root, nettle, comfrey leaf, chickweed, dandelion root (very bitter), marshmallow root (super good for digestive support and nourishing the joints), and red clover.
- Oatstraw is amazing for vaginal dryness. It will put a slick snail trail in your panties before you can say, vaginal dryness. In truth, you’ll want to drink a quart per day for a week or so, or until you notice a change.
- Red Raspberry leaf for hormonal balance. The taste of red raspberry infusion is elegant and exquisite.
- Kava kava for overall calm. On her podcast Susun Weed suggested making a quart of kava infusion, then opening the lid slightly and leaving it on the counter to ferment for a couple days. I’ve tried this many times. It tastes great and is excellent for pain reduction.
- Susun Weed’s body of work. Susun Weed is an excellent resource on health. She has a podcast and many books, Down There is my favorite. She has specific books on menopause but I haven’t read them yet. Her personality can be challenging for me, but her information is very good and she’s an elder with lots of lived experience whom I respect, so I take what works and leave what doesn’t.
- The Herbalist. If you find being able to self diagnose and self treat your various common ailments, welcome home. I’ve treated all manner of things over the years from strep throat to bacterial vaginosis using their medicines. They make their own tinctures and teas, and they ship if you don’t live in Seattle.
Sharing Our Stories:
We have an entire genre of coming of age tales for puberty and my dream is to see a genre of women and AFAB’s tales of their Second Spring. I ache to hear all the expressions of process and shedding of who we were for who we needed to become in order to age well. Aging isn’t for the faint of heart and all of us post-menopausal humans are here for a long time weaving the tapestry for the next generations. I long for the crazy stories, the boring stories, and the adventure and heartbreak of us navigating this time and figuring out how not to do it alone, finding the information or creating it because it needs to be out there.
I’ve been mulling over the following question: What wisdom is available to me now that I’m in this transition? Please see my other two menopause pieces for my answers to this question. And please write your own and share.
I’ve written two other pieces on what’s helped me during this journey so far. Please follow the links below to read them:
Lincoln
Lincoln is currently in training as a Bodysex Coach.
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