Nir Levi helped me through menopause

It takes a village and this man has been one of my elders

Photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash

This is an occasional series about all the people who helped me through perimenopause and menopause over the last 12 years, even if they – and often me – didn’t know that’s what was happening. Nir has a clear takeaway that should be easy to do, but isn’t. I challenge you to try.

To Nir Levi, it’s simple: many of the problems and systems we face today are the result of a relatively newfound ability to make up stories about what is happening and the way things should be.

This tendency to live in the past and future, and get caught up in our fears and insecurities, the downside of imagination, is often our undoing mentally. And that often means physically, too, because the mind and body are one.

I met Nir a few years ago when I was lost in my late perimenopause wilderness, a rollercoaster that was almost as bad as my early perimenopause wilderness, except with all different issues. And at least I knew what was going on.

He visits Seva Experience in Dubai several times a year from his home in France, and I was invited for a treatment in my work then running a health and wellness website. Nir, who can best be described as a sort of psycho-corporal therapist, makes a pretty good argument when he points out humans are the sickest animal in nature.

“We can fly to the moon and Mars soon, but every fly, frog and snake outside is much healthier than us.”

Although he’s calm and patient, Nir has never had much time for my talk about perimenopause and hormones. He’s seen it all, and in most cases, it’s about something called “bio-subjectivity”.

Nir Levi

Nir made a major shift in life more than three decades ago, moving from the diamond dealing business to the healing arts field. He’s been a physical bodyworker and therapist for the National American surfing team, he’s worked with abuse victims, and with actors and others in the Hollywood film industry. He’s been involved in founding and opening three schools, and travels to offer treatments and training courses around the world.

The Nir Levi Method incorporates practices developed thousands of years ago to deal with what was already emerging then: masses of people living in chaos, stress and pain. Those include a blend of Taoism, Buddhism and Ampuku, which is traditional Japanese abdominal acupressure; the 5 elements theory (in Chinese medicine, the basic elements of the material world are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water). His approach is exploring and attempting to restore the tight connection between humans and nature – a connection that grows ever more precarious.

The imagination Nir speaks of, our “bio-subjectivity”, has created all of the useful and beautiful and terrible things that surround us today: think the Burj Khalifa and Beethoven. And polarity in politics and war. What’s this got to do with menopause and midlife, you ask?