On mothering myself into menopause - Part 3

How creativity, sobriety, space and service have helped me get through

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

In this final article of a four part series on menopause, I delve into creativity, sobriety, space and service as tools to support body and mind through this often-times overwhelming and immensely rewarding journey, where we get to move closer to our true selves. If you’d like to catch up with the other articles in this series, you can find them here:

Intro - My personal instant journey into menopause

Part 1 - How coaching, sabbaticals, therapy and meditation help me navigate the menopausal journey

Part 2 - A reflection on the benefits that I found in HRT, activity and community

Part 3 - The importance of creativity, sobriety, space and service to help get me through

Creativity

It’s so easy to abandon creativity when we live in a productivity obsessed world that rewards work and work alone. So it feels subversive and countercultural to start engaging in creativity purely for the fun of it later in life, but it is something that we desperately need to cultivate in order to bring more balance, joy and more peace into our everyday.

Creativity reduces anxiety, depression, and stress… And it can also help you process trauma. Studies have found that writing helps people manage their negative emotions in a productive way, and painting or drawing helps people express trauma or experiences that they find too difficult to put in to words.

~ Forbes

I was such a creative kid (as pretty much every human is, until they have it ground or shamed out of them at school!) and I have found that coming back to doing hands on tactile work with fibres has been brilliant for my brain, hands and heart, particularly after being stuck in anxious-mind for so long after my insta-pause. It’s incredibly absorbing and with both hands busy I can’t get into any of that bothersome doomscrolling.

I did my first online weaving workshop during lockdown with Kathryn Tsui which inspired me to investigate weaving more, then I did a fantastic weekend workshop with Prem Tyler which I highly recommend. It’s a very human, ancient skill that is really addictive in a good way. The intersecting of separate threads to create something new is appealing to me and a rather apt metaphor for moving into this next phase of life. Now I see weaving inspiration everywhere, especially in nature, so it's a lovely lens to look at the world through. It’s also a great excuse to buy some kit and scour the op shops for secondhand wool!

I’ve also completed The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron several times over the years, which is so fantastic for shifting perspectives, getting all sorts of self sabotaging rubbish out of our subconscious and making space for ourselves to engage in creative acts, which we always deserve to participate in but especially when we find ourselves in a liminal space like peri-menopause.

Space

I have been an ‘active relaxer’ my whole life, from a kid frenetically darting from sports practice, to ballet lessons, to friends sleepovers, to musical theatre rehearsals, then being a grown up with eight different projects on the go, travelling around the country to work, volunteering for numerous roles and throwing some tertiary study on the top…. you get the picture. It’s partly wanting to experience all the amazing opportunities that life has to offer and partly being addicted to the busy busy and not wanting to slow down to actually assess what’s going on underneath all the achievement and noise.

However, over the past few years, my energy levels have decreased precipitously and I cannot make myself do it all anymore. I’ve also been craving ‘space’ - a term that keeps coming up over and over again in my journaling, yearly planning and values work. Space is a foreign concept to me and at first it felt so luxurious, indulgent, wasteful and selfish. This is exactly what capitalism wants us to feel, as it would rather have everyone and everything constantly producing to uphold the machine and keep us too busy to question the system.

But our bodies are not machines and they cannot keep producing at unsustainable levels. Contrary to popular opinion we cannot DO IT ALL or we will burn out. And we are all burning out at record levels. In order to find more space, I’m inspired by Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry who talks about rest as resistance, and the work of Jenny Odell who interrogates big questions around time, space, energy and attention. I’m also starting to get into naps… I’ve never ever napped in my life so this is a very welcome and spacious discovery!

Come to think of it, is active relaxing simply another term for a busy addict?

Sobriety

Speaking of addictions, this is a biggie. Alcohol use during menopause can worsen symptoms and increase a woman's risk for serious health conditions, like heart disease and osteoporosis. Niki Bezzant also writes about the social aspect of alcohol and how it becomes a cultural and conversational lubricant that can be exceptionally difficult to abstain from in the face of ‘you’re no fun anymore’ and ‘go on, just have one’.

I had a very difficult relationship with alcohol for many years due to unresolved trauma and a family history of addiction. It got to the point where I gave up drinking completely in 2010, moved from London to a very remote very small town on the other side of the world and spent a year fixing myself up with the help of two very special people. I spent the next eight years very happily sober and undistracted by the time, money and energy that alcohol insists upon.

However, in 2018 I did some “research” while overseas with my partner, not wanting to miss out on the “*full experience” of the work trip that I’d so carefully planned, convinced after many years that I could start drinking reasonably again. This research period rolled along relatively moderately until 2020 hit.

The pandemic years turned into a blur of cocktails to cope with the never ending lockdowns and repeated disappointments that we faced in our business as project after project got cancelled. Then when I had to go into the emergency department in 2021 and came out in a completely different phase of life, I thought that this would be the ideal time to call time on the open bar. Unfortunately my intake ramped up even more as I tried to self medicate my way into blanking out the dark thoughts that had descended on me.

There’s a horrible double bind where significant life changes, such as menopause, can often lead to an increase in drinking but the tolerance for processing alcohol lowers significantly. All you want to do is escape the symptoms with something cold and numbing, but the demon drink makes them even worse!

I woke up one day and thought I cannot do this anymore and that was the last day that I had alcohol. I got myself a counsellor specialising in recovery who identified that I actually needed to address the underlying issues that were causing me to drink and I’ve been in therapy and practicing meditation ever since. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself and I’d recommend hunting out this type of support if you need to question your interactions with alcohol and the role that it plays in your life.

* NB: it’s entirely possible to have a “full experience” of life without the booze, in fact I experience life more fully now than when I was trying to drink my sadness away.

Service

Extending out from our own self-protecting but ultimately ego-centric shell to be of service to others is an essential part of humanity. We need interaction in community like we need sunlight, water and food. And we need to continuously invest in connecting with other humans in order to participate in the earthly exchange of being part of this world. It is essential and it is also so goddamn tiring!

Menopause is an inward facing time, where we have to dissolve our old selves and put energy towards transforming into our new form. This takes so much energy that it often feels like the cupboard is bare and there is nothing left to give.

But I have found that there is a paradoxical phenomenon where if I am being of service to others, at a pace that’s sustainable for me, it actually gives me more energy than if I simply sat at home on my tod. I decided to rope my dog into being of service as well, which she was delighted about. Bene had been the most amazing therapy for me and our family over the past few years and I felt that I needed to share her with others, given that she is such a captivating soul.

We signed up to volunteer with the St John Pet Therapy team and have been visiting children and young people who face mental health challenges. Not only has the confidence of the young people Bene visits increased (their parents have reported that the can’t believe the positive progress that they have made since becoming part of the programme), she also gets to cause a commotion in the playground and receives a serious amount of attention which suits her just fine and I get to slow down and just be present in those moments. Service is the antithesis of the rushed way that life is normally lived and I’m so grateful to participate in this community exchange. If you’re interested in participating in or receiving a visit from the St John Pet Therapy team, click here.

In conclusion…

This four part series was intended to offer people a personal insight into my experiences of navigating my way through surgical menopause and what tools helped me to get through. Fortunately most people won’t be thrust straight into this phase of life, as peri-menopause can last anywhere from 1-10 years and symptoms will come on gradually, so I sincerely hope it won’t be quite as jarring and immediate for others as what I went through. However, I believe that all the tools and services that I’ve listed will be helpful for anyone whether you go through an insta-pause or an extended-pause!

As hard as this experience has been, I am so grateful for all of the lessons that I have learned and insights that I’ve gained. Menopause is a bright brilliant fire that burns away anything extraneous, leaving you to focus on what matters most. In fact when I look at all the things I do now to look after myself, I could have benefited from doing them my whole life! It’s good to say goodbye good girl and even better to say hello to healthy living with some treats on the side.

If you are on your menopause journey and you feel like you need some support, I’d be honoured to hold space for you while you navigate your way through. You can book a free mini coaching call and have an initial chat to find out if coaching would be a good fit for you.

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