I just finished reading Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer’s new book Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging.
Written by the founders of Red School, a leadership training program to help people realize the power of their menstrual cycle, it’s a follow-up to their book on that subject, Wild Power.
There is, as far as I can tell, not one single reference to menopause hormone therapy in this book and I’m sure it’s by design. They don’t even like to use the term perimenopause, and if I could sum up that sentiment, it would probably be that while we need to know something is going on, we don’t need to be preoccupied by putting a negative label on it.
Their ethos is that by the time we get to this transition, the entire sum of our life experiences needs to be processed and reckoned with so we can move forward with purpose and peace. Those who have done work to understand and embody their Wild Power will have an easier time, because menopause is essentially a macro version of what we’ve gone through monthly.
And if you never did any work to understand your menstrual cycle, don’t worry. If you, like me, were popped on the birth control pill at the first sign of irregularity, and never learned to lean into the ebbs and flows that come along with your monthly cycle until it was already retreating, this is no time for regret. (The authors mentioned this just as I was being seized with regret, funny enough)
The main message is that now is the time to process the grief that is layered deep within us; those traumas and adverse childhood experiences we have all had. To allow for the rest that we so deeply need each month, the turning inward. One of the most important things we can do, they write, is face up to the inner critic that can get loudest at those pivotal days in our monthly cycle – and indeed in menopause – for once and for all.
“A failure to attend to your inner critic during menopause could leave you living a compromised life, caught in a painful cycle of recrimination, regret and bitterness,” they write, in a line that punched me in the stomach.
It’s the work I’ve been doing, and not even knowing it, for the last 10 years. And it’s that work that I credit for the new snatches of steadiness and peace I feel as I lift upwards through perimenopause – even as my brain power seems to have shifted abruptly downward and with it, my energy levels too. Maybe a drop in estrogen, for good measure.
Either way, this book has reminded me to lean in, that all of this is temporary.
“Few of us have been taught about the power of the menstrual cycle, hence the debacle that occurs for far too many when they enter menopause,” Wise Power tells me. “It’s the fallout of not being told about the extraordinary possibilities and gifts of your menstruating years for building health and wellbeing and developing a sturdy anchor into your own authentic self.”
The essence of Wise Power? We need to understand everything that’s got us here, to retract, rebuild, receive, recover, rejuvenate and rest, for god’s sake, just rest. Like any good hero’s journey – you’ve seen it in all the films you’ve watched and the books you’ve read – menopause often involves a never-easy inciting incident that forces us to pay attention. The call to action. Answering it leads us places we thought we would never go, it gives us more than one dark night of the soul we didn’t think we’d make it through, and in the end, taking us to a much better place.
“In fact, as you claim your Wise Power, you may just step into the most creative and satisfying period of your life,” they write. “It’s this newfound depth of moral courage and love-fueled creativity that sets you up to be a leader – a humane compassionate and embolded presence in the world.”
I wrapped this book up in a week when the New York Times Magazine dropped an astonishing amount of space to Women have been misled about menopause, an almost-exhaustive piece by writer Susan Dominus.
It’s a remarkable and important piece, and I encourage you to read it. However just like Wise Power doesn’t really address hormone therapy, this article doesn’t even acknowledge Wise Power. (I’m fascinated about what Dominus thinks about that, and I’ve just asked her on the podcast to discuss it further, so fingers crossed).
This is the gap that I obsess about, women on one side desperate to fix the upheaval they feel, boiling this down to a transition of the body and brain, and women on the other calmly (and often with a lot less in the way of issues, it would seem) going at it from a soul level. It’s where all the rest of us live, buffeted around by the latest terrifying symptom, but also beset by a deep and gnawing knowing that even if we manage to find an understanding, North American Menopause Society certified doctor to write us a prescription, there is still some larger, less tangible work that needs to be done to get through this optimally.
If menopause was all about “correcting” hormones, then women would experience it the same way around the world. They don’t. Adverse childhood experiences, socioeconomic status, race, stress – our very attitudes about menopause – wouldn’t impact how we experience it, but we have studies showing they do.
This book reminds me why I started Hotflash inc, and why I can’t stop countering narratives that boil this down to a deficiency that can be rectified and a disease that can be controlled. Why I need to keep reminding people that this is an experience that transforms us to our core. And that is ultimately going somewhere good.
I can’t recommend Wise Power enough. If anything, it felt like a bunch of puzzle pieces clicking in to place with turn of almost every page. It’s the book we all need.
Please, if you can, make some room for it in your life. And follow me on Instagram, because I love it so much I'm going to give away a copy or two.
5 hot flashes out of 5
MINI REVIEW: The Netflix documentary Pamela, a love story hit me like a two-by-four.
It’s a masterclass on dealing with midlife, reckoning with the past and finding the courage and strength to face the future and take on new challenges when everyone else is telling you it’s too late.
I was so taken by it all: how Pamela Anderson is dressing for herself now, in loose, flowing material. How she retreated to her parents’ house. How she is feeling the need to go through things, to get rid of things. To her side of the story, to tell the truth. How some things are clearly still just as painful as they were, even though decades have passed since they happened.
How she rested, then became restless, and now is rising. Figuring it out as she goes.
Wise, and still wondering. (It’s like she took the template from Wise Power, actually)
There’s not a person in their 50s who isn’t reckoning with all this stuff — in their own way. Pamela Anderson took care of herself. Then she went to Broadway.
I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Question for the perimenoposse
One of my favorite girlfriend sayings came years ago from a younger friend.
When I asked her what she thought about dating two men at the same time, she said: “Of course. We don’t put all our eggs in one basket.”
I was reminded of that conversation this week when I caught myself mulling over a romantic situation in my mind and realized that I wasn’t obsessing about the outcome. I came to this long-sought-after but elusive conclusion: it (and I) will be fine either way.
Now, this is not not caring. I definitely care, a lot. This is about not hanging anything on it. This is caring right now, for now – with no attachment to outcome.
I started to realize that not only had I not put all my eggs in this particular romantic basket, as I have all the previous times, I didn’t have any in there. I’ve also felt this way recently about a work situation and my finances (don’t get me started on those years of drama).
This kind of feeling has eluded me all my life. This feels good.
And so I’m asking you: Is it possible that as I am physically running out of eggs, as in my ability to give life to another, that I don’t have many emotional, aka metaphorical eggs left either?
Click, watch, read, follow, explore
• Australian neuroscientist Dr Sarah McKay asks again Is your brain safe from sugar? (Alternate title: there’s a reason people are calling dementia Type 3 diabetes) Dr Sarah McKay
• Andrew “#Huberdaddy” Huberman takes on female hormones, all 2.5 hours of it: Dr. Sara Gottfried: How to Optimize Female Hormone Health for Vitality & Longevity Huberman Lab
• What I Wish I’d Known About Menopause Before it Hit Me With A Bang Vogue
• Here’s a rare article quoting an expert who says that often, progesterone is all you need in menopause… Average Menopause Age: When Does Menopause Start? Forbes
• Another helpful and balanced piece: 17 menopause symptoms Forbes
Editor’s note
This would have had science news but that will have to wait because I have conjunctivitis and I.just.can’t. Is that a perimenopause symptom too? Sorry for the typos! Onward. AMx