These last couple of days I took some advice from a friend and disengaged from social media. My friend and I were chatting on the phone and she said she could hear in my voice that I was running way too fast and it was time to regenerate.
As soon as the words came out of her mouth I knew she was right. I also felt, in a way, that I could now give myself permission to unplug with good reason. She reminded me of how important it is for our overactive minds to rest and generate new ideas. How creativity expands when we are quiet and we allow ourselves to sit with our thoughts and with nature.
We also had a heavy conversation about the hottest topic in my life right now, perimenopause. Ha ha! My friend looks at this time in a woman’s life as a gift. Okay, I sense the eye rolling, my eyes rolled too. What she explained though, made a lot of sense.
In our western world, when we don’t feel well we are often advised to distract ourselves. Take a pill, think about something to make us happy, put on some upbeat music. Whatever will help us to get back to feeling good. In the eastern world however the philosophy is the complete opposite. When a person is feeling unwell it is best advised that they retreat and sit with their feelings, meditate and not judge their experience. It’s more of an acceptance where one allows their thoughts to come and go without resisting them, observing them instead of trying to resolve them.
Back to the perimenopause, this can be a time for a lot of women where inner struggles do come up and once a month they seem more amplified. This is where the gift part comes in. If we can look at these awakenings as a gift and take this time for some self-care, the answers will come and we can take action in the parts of our life that we want to change. We have that power within us.
I’ve read that once women have gone through all of these hormone changes and reach menopause their lives change for the better. They learn to say no and start putting their own well-being first. They have a new lease on life and want to explore new activities and experiences that perhaps they did not have time for before.
I think this phase of life so far is the hardest but with each month that passes I come out feeling more clear and more certain of what living a happy, fulfilling life means to me.
Life is a gift and ladies, if we have to go through these ups and downs I think it’s important to accept them as part of that gift.
Resistance is futile! (for all my Star Trek friends)
Now, back to nature.
Monica XO
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