Mid-life crisis or transition?

It's funny that often we hear about men having a mid-life crisis - going out to buy a little red sports car, or leaving their wife of 25 years for a buxom 25 year old, but when it's a woman, we often use the term mid-life transition.

I'm sure there are women buying up little sporty convertibles and racing around looking to pick up younger men, (and more power to them), but the transition from ages 40 to 50 is really an opportunity for figuring out what we want to do with the rest of our life, and gaining more self-knowledge. Like any transition, it can be fraught with difficulties - especially if the hormonal picture is unbalanced. Not everybody experiences hot flashes, night sweats and feels like they're going crazy; some women breeze right through with nary a symptom, but enough women are blogging, writing and talking about these symptoms, that we immediately think of the physical hormonal upset when we think about mid-life and menopause.

For myself, in writing the book The Tao of Turning Fifty, I discovered that the biggest thing women had on their minds was not so much the physical discomforts, although insomnia can drive you around the bend, but more about finding themselves in a place without any markers or road maps.  It doesn't say anywhere that turning fifty will make you question your whole life, or send you on a quest to find your passion, but it does seem to play out that way.  It's like one phase of your life (the fertile, child-bearing, nest-building, career building part) has finished, but the next phase isn't immediately clear. You're in the hallway, having come out of one door, and the next door hasn't materialized yet. It is called The Change.....

My greatest need in my late forties, was the need to get away, to redefine myself aside from the roles of wife, mother, poet, volunteer organizer, etc. To look at what I'd been doing for the past twenty years, and reassess. Some women want to go back to school, some have enough degrees, they just want to learn how to do cranio-sacral massage, reiki or to throw pots on a wheel. The creative or right-brain side often comes to the fore. We rediscover our love of creative play - painting, photography, writing, weaving. It's as if the uterine and ovarian energies need to be channeled into creation of a different sort. Many women want to give back, and this time has also been called The Guardian years (Joan Borysenko).

So welcome this challenge, this change, this period of transition. There are hidden gifts, much growth and learning, if we can allow ourselves some down time, some interior reflecting time, some away time alone, some time to share heart to heart with other women. I urge you to pay attention to this inner calling and find out what more is on the other side of 50.

New Release: If it's all too much for you, listen to some soothing music and centering exercises on the new Musemother Relaxation CD, $12.00 available from me by email, info@jenniferboire.com, and soon to be available for purchase through paypal on my website www.jenniferboire.com

namaste,
Musemother/jenn
ps Best article on confusion surrounding Menopause; offers sound advice about choices in healthcare for menopausal symptoms: http://www.womentowomen.com/menopause/endingconfusion.aspx?

Women's Wisdom at Fifty Gets Better

New evidence from a survey done recently shows that women ages 50 - 65  feel the happiest and most fulfilled at this stage in their life (from author Dr. Christiane Northrup, in the introduction to her new Wisdom of Menopause; see her facebook page for an excerpt).

Why does this not surprise me? Somewhere in your fifties, your kids grow up and leave home for college, or if they live at home become very busy in their own lives and need their mother's less; women in our age group are mostly well-educated and have kept a foot in the world of academia or business by either working part-time or volunteering; and women in this age group finally feel empowered enough to speak up and say "Enough" when something doesn't suit them. And now they have the time to explore their own interests without feeling selfish.

We grew up in a different world, where children were meant to be seen but not heard; where often we are encouraged to not toot our own horns or be boastful. We were taught to be good girls, to serve others before ourselves, to think about waste and share, giving the best cut of meat to the person at the head of the table. Some of us were practical, and put aside our dreams to earn a living. We didn't talk back to our superiors and obeyed authority - well, ok, some of us did. I admit that although I was supposed to be a good girl, when I hit the teen years the urge to kick against the pricks (whoever I thought they were at the time: school principals, unfair parent's rules, French teachers) kinda took over.

But many of the women in my Creative Journaling classes nod their heads when I talk about the good girl upbringing, and many of them are just becoming comfortable in their forties and fifties with the idea that it's their turn to speak up, and with taking time for their own projects or for self-care.  In class, we do all kinds of exercises to empower ourselves, to find our Voice, to shut up the Inner Critic,  to speak our own truths. Because our women's wisdom is not whispering anymore, she's practically yelling - this is how I feel. Listen to me! It becomes imperative for women at mid-life to listen to their own intuition, to stand on their own two feet, to express how they feel, to speak their truth, to be true to themselves.  And if it feels very empowering to do this in your journal, it is even more empowering to do this in a group of like-minded women.

I see the same thing in my Women's Circle: we need allies, we need to be heard, we need to believe that our voices matter, our feelings matter. And this is what loops back to the feeling happier and most fulfilled - if you can believe in yourself enough to switch career paths, or go back to school, or use your talents in a creative project - publish a book, send out some poems, take an art class, become a teacher and leader of younger women, it makes your heart Sing. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - it makes a woman very happy when the Self is fulfilled, when her voice is heard, when she gets to do what really turns her on, without worrying that she might be taking up too much space, or not doing enough 'good deeds' for others.

So get out the drums, sing your song loud and clear. The world will be a better place when you explore what makes you truly happy - find what makes you feel fulfilled, and watch even your health and well-being improve. Women in their fifties and sixties are changing the world - Welcome to the best years of your life!

happy self-exploring
Musemother/jenn

Am I crazy or is this just menopause?

Midlife and menopause is about so much more than hormones, although that is a potent part of the mix. It’s a spiritual quest, a search for self, a psychic shift as Alexandra Pope says on Women Quest website, a deeply unnerving seismic rumble from deep underground. We feel the tremors, we want to run for solid ground, but it’s unclear how to find that. Everything we know about ourselves changes. We become highly sensitive, over-reactive, at least I did; teary eyes, enraged easily, anxious, full of butterflies and palpitations, we melt down into bug soup before our beautiful wings can grow and fly us up and out of this mess. In Ayurvedic medicine they believe the more health issues a woman has, the more trauma and illness in the body – the more stronger the symptoms of menopause, and that makes sense.

I believe all the baggage left undealt with, unopened, uncared for, swept under the rug, surges to the surface to throw us off balance. It’s a huge wake-up call for self-care. I had a lot of drams with overflowing toilets, filthy public restrooms so dirty I couldn’t go in there – and dreams of basements piled with boxes or undergoing renovations, cleared out, or storm surges flooding the house or highway, tsunamis of inner emotion flooding my consciousness in dreams. I can’t say I read all the symbols correctly, but I did feel that I needed help to stabilize my body and mind.

What helped? Lots of meditation, physiotherapy, cranio-sacral balancing, some Reiki and energy medicine, talk therapy. I have visited more health care workers in the last ten years (in lieu of going on drugs for depression, anxiety or hormones) – partly because I broke a leg, then got shoulder bursitis, and arthritis in my neck, calcifications in the shoulder – probably too much computer work catching up with me, but it did allow me to heal some of the inner issues as well. And receive some tender loving care.  I have always been a striver, a people pleaser, a get things done Type A person, but since menopause I cannot multitask anymore, I can’t work long hours without regular breaks for food and sleep. I can’t burn the candle at both ends like I used to, and I nap often to rest not only my body but my overloaded brain.

Is it a product of a damaged childhood, or too much stress? – perhaps. But whether it’s karmic or genetic, it has forced me to my knees more than once, forced me out of my shell, also, to find the friendship and support of other women. I joined a women's chorus,  I started my own women’s circle/group, because there was nothing out there, and now, I find myself turning around and sharing the knowledge and resources I found, that helped me. I am not an expert on anything, but I am a good researcher and reader, and began blogging to share the information that helped me. Which is a godsend actually, that I not only kept a record in my journal, but now have links to the resources. (check out the tabs on the right, and ms menopause blog)

Actually, it began with a birth journal when I was pregnant, that helped me tremendously when I was gobsmacked with emotions and hormones during that volatile time. The anger that surged when my kids were little and I felt like I was raising them alone (in spite of a supportive husband, I was the one they always seemed to call for in the middle of the night, see poem Women’s Stories on www.wisdomforwomen.blogspot.com), I was also hardwired to do it all myself without asking for help, until I broke my knee skiing and was forced to include my husband in the daily chores of child rearing. So in retrospect, being able to write it all down has had its advantage. At least I have a record of how crazy I felt (and how bad a mother I felt I was).

Now, at 56, I finally feel balanced, and ‘real’ again, maybe for the first time since having children 21 years ago.  I have time for me, I do work that I love – writing, teaching, leading retreats, and the hormonal shifts finally seem to have faded away. My son is studying architecture, and right now is in Thailand learning how to meditate with Buddhist monks, and my daughter is a gorgeous, artistic, balanced 19 year old on her way to university.  Now, if I can only get my shoulder issues to ‘unwind’ a lifetime of tension, I’ll be flying high. (I’m working on it, believe me).

What has helped besides journaling, and women’s circles? Yoga, meditation, Reiki, but overall, the companionship and friendship of the women close to me, friends I’ve made along with way, (thank you all!) who have shared my journey, speaking their truth, allowing themselves to be seen and heard, who make me feel a lot less alone.  If you can’t find a group to belong to, create your own women’s circle, seek out the like-minded women on-line or in your community.  It only takes one or two others to begin.  Ask the universe for help in finding them, ask your guardian angels, write affirmations, open your heart, and do take a step to reach out in trust and faith.

And stay tuned to this blog, because I will always be writing about these kinds of issues.  It makes me feel less alone to know that you are reading, and nodding your head and going, it’s not just me. I’m not the only crazy one out there.

Nameste,

Jenn/musemother
Now a chapter in the book, The Tao of Turning Fifty, What Every Woman in Her Forties Needs to Know
http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Turning-Fifty

Friends Encouragement

Blogs are more than a personal diary, at least for me, the blog is a place to share information, reach out and touch someone with interesting facts or insights, and even make new friends. I especially love getting feedback and hearing from readers.

A friend wrote me this week to say she had visited the blog, browsed it, and found it chock-full of information and resources.

That encouragement is so helpful! thanks Sylvie for writing to me with your feedback.

I will never feel the need to 'tweet' about what I'm doing every minute of the day, because that is too much minutaie for anyone to be interested in. But today was not an ordinary day! I had a colonoscopy for the first time. Every person over 50 is supposed to have one, so I finally accepted my doctor's advice and booked one. It didn't take long, and the day before was more of a bother, what with emptying the colon all day.

However, if they offer a sedative, take it. I tried to be tough and go without it, but there was some discomfort and pain as they tried to reach all the way to the end of the colon, turning corners and helping the instruments along from outside as best they could.....won't go into more detail, but it was definitely easier once they put the drugs in an intravenus needle... I am so much more afraid of needles than of pain, that I put it off till the last minute, and now the Demerol is still wearing off.

Here is a quote from Conversations with God:

"For most of your life you've lived at the effect of your experiences. Now you're invited to be the cause of them. That is what is known as conscious living. That is what is called walking in awareness....

Be patient. You are gaining wisdom. And your joys are now increasingly available without pain. That too is a very good sign.

You are learning (remembering how) to love without pain; to let go without pain; to create without pain; to even cry without pain."

enjoy the new sun and warmth,

musemother

Imagine a Woman

by Patricia Lynn Reilly
Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honours her experiences and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who believes she is good.
A woman who trusts and respects herself.
Who listens to her needs and desires, and meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who has acknowledged the past's influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through the past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and her wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her own image and likeness.
Who designs her own spirituality and allows it to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates her body and its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honours the face of the goddess in her changing face.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use precious energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

Happy belated women's day,
jenn

Knowing what you know as a woman

I find this book so comforting. It's a companion book to the Circle of Stone by the same author. There are times when we are beginning to birth something, a new idea, a new book, an essay or work of art, or even just a new phase of our life such as menopause, when we are unsure. And it's tempting to have someone else tell us what to do, what to think, where to go. It's easier to rely on outside authorities to shore us up.

But as Duerk says here, if we always rely on someone else, someone with 'authority', someone else will author our existence. We want to be our own authors. We want to spread our own wings, and for that, we need mirroring from a positive source. Often, in our birthing, we need the support of other women.

from I sit Listening to the wind:

"How might your life have been different, once, long ago, when you had worked very hard to know what you knew inside, and were ready to bring it forth....but were suddenly filled with fear and guilt and unable to express yourself...and you felt utterly alone? If there had been a circle of women waiting to receive you, eager to listen to your understanding of life.

If the women had known, from their own lives, that whenever a woman dares to bring forth the deepest meaning from within, she will be attacked by an old force inside, whose only purpose is to keep things as they are ...and the fact that those women existed made you feel less lonely.

And if the women had helped you, supported you with their warmth...and by the wisdom and daring of their lives, given you the courage to speak.

how might your life be different?

Judith Duerk

So, dear women reading this blog, take heart, take courage, and find that circle of women, in your community, in your city, or in your on-line community.

Women's Stories (a letter)

the ones we tell each other,
late at night or early in the morning
over coffee & a cigarette,
more than one if it's a story we've told
over and over like chain smoking, like
dirty laundry soaking in the tub, stains
evoking lost memories of teething, cut
lips, blood on the sweatshirt where
you held his head & he bled all over you

& you want to speak about this love
you have for other women who listen
intently, with their own pain showing
& many cigarettes to carry them
through the telling.

a compassionate voice or ear,
the closeness we feel yet cannot say
because we're afraid of a label
but what we really want, I want,
is someone fearless, a weaver of words
or truthteller, someone who's not afraid
of hurting while resetting a bone.

to talk about the helplessness of being
stuck in a house with a sick child,
the boredom that strikes,
the complaining we do, being called martyr
when all I really want is to tell someone
how unfair it is that I'm the only one
they call for in the middle of the night
& it's my ears hear them coughing
at 3 a.m. & I can't just lie there.

how to find out what our own needs are
& how to take care of ourselves,
not just wait for him to come home, take over,
pick up the toys and the pieces, mop up our spills,
how to find a quiet time, time alone,
time to think & write.
our need to be replenished with each other,
filling up our bowls with sugar & coffee
so we can tell our stories

not just talking over fences in the backyard
but actually getting out & seeing women
doing the same hard work,
no pay, no thanks, just their little faces
when one least expects it, smiling & asking
me to sing a song about I love you

or making up a song about superman
all by himself in the living room.
he says, go away mom, don't talk (meaning
I have to do this alone, don't listen
cause it might not be perfect the first time).

I send you this in guise of a letter
because that's the way the words are falling out
of my fingers. in my mind I hear
the tapping on keys and it comforts me
at least I can listen to myself talk
without talking out loud (for that's
what crazy women do).

so I keep on writing & dreaming
trying to live truthfully
with my emotions, in my body
and I hope you do the same.

from Little Mother, published by
Hochelaga Press 1997

Soul Purpose: making the unknown known

I made this promise to myself at the Taos Writer's Spa, in the closing circle, that I would help make the unknown known. Once a clairvoyant friend had also told me that my goal in writing was to make the invisible visible.
What does it mean to me? I wondered after I spoke it. What is the unknown? Actually it's simply whatever we do not know (yet), what is not visible to the seeing eye, but definitely visible to the seeing heart. We have all felt Presence within us - at special moments, at our daughter's wedding or the funeral of a dear friend or parent; watching a sunrise or a sunset, contemplating the multitude of stars in the night sky while camping, visiting a wilderness spot in the mountains or just sitting in meditation or doing yoga - glimpses of the unknown are rare, but they do happen.

What does it mean to make it known? For me, it is to write about my own experiences, as a young person thirsty for self-knowledge or meaning, as a mid-life quester seeking answers, the “who am I” phase that has dogged me all my life. The heart is the doorway to the unknown, where feeling masters intellect, another way of knowing.

In Taos, I found the voice of encouragement I was seeking, in the persons of Suzanne Falter-Barnes (howmuchjoy.com) and Jennifer Louden (comfortqueen.com), two marvelous facilitators who helped me believe in me, and gave me the courage and encouragement (courage: comes from Coeur, heart) to manifest on the outside what I was looking for, my soul purpose.

My three main projects were already in infant stages, but I was stalled, waiting for confirmation of my talent or something outside of me, I don’t know what. There, I discovered that the themes I have been working on a long time are still the right ones for me: women’s cycles and spirituality. I ask the circle of friends from Taos to pray for my continued learning and the courage to spread my wings.

I get it now, I have lots of work to do and I also need to pace myself. I left a lot of sadness and old aches behind me – a rebirth of sorts occurred in view of the Sacred Mountain of Taos. I thank the goddesses of creativity and the women who have touched my life, and my generous husband, for the learning I brought home and the continued learning in the future.

follow your heart,

jenn

musemother