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Thankful For Menopause

By on November 21, 2007 in After the Pause, Life Changes & Stages, Positive Changes

It’s Thanksgiving already – time to take stock of things that inspire gratitude. I find that I have so much to be grateful for: family and friends, the beauty outside my window, cats, sunsets, Jimmy Buffett songs, art projects, home renovation that is FINISHED, rain, boat rides, and cheeseburgers. The list goes on and on.

And strangely enough, I’m also grateful for menopause. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I’m not wild about hot flashes, weight gain, dryness, or hair thinning. I am an incurable optimist, but I’m not crazy! (Yet). I’d give up the physical changes, emotional rollercoaster and mental derangements in a hot minute.

I’d be less anxious to give up the unexpected side benefits of the big M. I love this newfound feeling of comfort in my skin. I’m enjoying dabbling in art and dance and other "electives", since I worry less about looking foolish. I give more out of genuine desire and less out of obligation.

I don’t do things anymore just because I always have or because I should. My husband suggested that we go out for Thanksgiving dinner this year. I loved the idea and made reservations right away. There won’t be a turkey roasting in our house this year, but there also won’t be a menopausal woman (moi) roasting. How great is that?

So yes, I’m grateful for menopause for startling me into questioning just about everything. I don’t have any answers yet, but I sure am delighting in the inquiry. Most of all, I’m grateful for my goddess sisters who are accompanying and supporting me on this journey. Thanksgiving blessings to you all!

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Fill Yourself Up – Start Your Own Menopause Goddess Group

By on October 14, 2007 in After the Pause, Life Changes & Stages, Menopause in Community

The Venuses just finished their fifth annual goddess gathering. We literally look forward to our midlife women’s weekend all year long. We know that we’ll pick up where we left off: commiserating, consoling, and caring. We also know that we will have to report our progress or lack of same to each other. We look forward with anticipation to plotting a course for the year and our lives to come. And this year’s meeting? If there were one word to describe our time together, it would have to be FULL.

Full fridge (see photo of our stockpile of food and wine – especially wine), full hearts, full glasses, full tear ducts, full-throated laughter, full bellies, full-on fun, full disclosure, full acceptance.

After a weekend that felt like a wonderful month of concentrated girlfriend time, we left each other full of renewed purpose, energy, and empowerment. Most important, we found ourselves FULL of gratitude for our Venus group’s wit and wisdom, facilitating our "coming of age".

Our advice to all our sister goddesses out there? Start your own Venus group and fill yourself up! (A full chapter is devoted to "How To Create Your Own Venus Group" in the upcoming book "Venus Comes of Age, The Wit and Wisdom of Menopausal Goddesses". However, if you need advice now, email us with your questions and we’ll do our best to help you get started.)

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Time For “All About Me”

By on October 4, 2007 in After the Pause, Life Changes & Stages, Positive Changes

I’ve just returned from 2 1/2 weeks vacation running the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. No phones, no email, no distractions save beauty beyond my wildest imaginings. Slowing down to geologic time is gloriously rejuvenating. (Yes, I’m aware that there were blog entries while I was out of touch – I wrote them before leaving technology in the rear view mirror and my magical webmaster, Bill, posted them for me.) While I have been lucky enough to float the Canyon 12 times so far: I never tire of it. My husband and I were married years ago in one of it’s beautiful side canyons.

One of our honorary Venuses is a river guide extraordinaire for Grand Canyon Dories. (www.oars.com) Ote Dale (short for Coyote,but that’s another story) has been rowing a wooden dory boat down the Colorado, sharing her love of botany and the glories of the Canyon with others for 30+ years. She manages to snatch precious, solitary moments on each trip to indulge her passion for painting, creating fabulous watercolors of the place she loves most on this Earth. Her paintings sell as fast as she creates them.

Now at age 50+, Ote is planning a private trip down the River. (During her off-time, of course.) All her friends and family have asked if they can come along. "Sure," she says. "As long as you realize that this trip is "all about me". I’m not working this trip around any other preferences, needs, or wants other than my own. If I want to paint all day at a place and only travel four miles downstream on a given day, that’s what I’ll do. If I want to make a long day pushing through to one of my favorite canyons, that’s also what I’ll do. If you can deal with just coming along for the ride, you’re more than welcome."

For the first time, Ote is going to experience the Canyon on her own terms, without guiding, caretaking, feeding, or helping anyone else. Sound selfish? Not to a midlife woman, who has spent much of her life focused outward on others’ needs and desires. Suddenly, with the advent of the Change(s), she realizes that if she is ever going to indulge her heart’s desire, the time is now. The granting of her fondest wish has been put off for far too long. Coming to grips with the reality that our time on this planet is finite, we menopausal goddesses all need to create a guilt-free time and space that is "all about me". Ote, thanks for leading the way!

To see some of Ote’s watercolors, click below or visit http://web.mac.com/otedale

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From Menopausal Nightmares to Midlife Dreams

By on August 25, 2007 in After the Pause, Life Changes & Stages

Theresa-Venus and I have just returned home from a fabulous, rejuvenating few days at the Spa at Squaw Creek Resort near Lake Tahoe. Greeting our mates warmly, we proudly trot out our latest "vision". In the spirit of reinventing ourselves, we’ve come up with a new career path.

"Spa Slut – that’s not a real job," protests Theresa-Venus’s husband. "Not yet," we tell him. "But we’re workin’ on it."

Okay, maybe we won’t ever make our living going from spa to spa, experiencing and critiquing various hot stone massages, aromatherapy wraps, and salt scrub treatments. So far, we only manage a weekend or two a year and we have to foot the bill ourselves. But we can dream……… And we do.

Midlife is the perfect time for creating new visions and indulging our fondest wishes. As our focus shifts from career building and family raising, we ask ourselves, "What will the rest of our life look like?" We begin to dust off old desires and discover new endeavors we wish to try.

Among the many losses of menopause and aging, we’ve lost some things worth losing: perfectionism, fear of making mistakes, having to be good at everything we try, and the image of Superwoman. Thankfully, we can now stretch our wings (the ones growing under our arms that are visible when we wave) and dare to dance with our dreams.

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Menopause Good News: The Awakening

By on July 25, 2007 in After the Pause, Life Changes & Stages, Positive Changes

Menopause is a rude awakening for most of us. It’s not your garden variety rude either. We’re talking Animal-House-frat-party, Fat-Tuesday-drunken-reveller, ginormous-SUV-riding-your-bumper-at-75-mph type rude. But the good news is: it IS an awakening.

Thrown light years out of our comfort zone by the physical, emotional, and mental changes of menopause, we begin to question our lives in general. Who are we? More important, who do we wish to be? How do we sustain and enrich our relationships.? What do we want to be when we "grow up"? What legacies are we leaving behind?

The examining of these questions is allowing the Venuses and their menopausal goddess sisters to WAKE UP and cultivate more joy in our lives. We aren’t waiting for "someday" to delight in new ventures, to explore our creative impulses, or to lavish affection on those around us. Someday is today. We are awake and ready! And we’re grabbing life by the throat and planting a great big smooch on it’s kisser!

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From Hot Flash to Creative Fire

By on April 13, 2007 in After the Pause, Hot Flashes, Positive Changes

I remember hearing in the distant past that fire is necessary for growth, that redwood seeds are ignited to grow when fire moves through. Perhaps our hot flashes have germinated the creative seed that lies within each of us. Or maybe I’m just trying to find SOME good reason for the enervating bursts of heat that inflict us menopausal goddesses.

No matter the reason, all the Venuses have felt the creative urge increase in intensity as we poise on the brink of the midlife that menopause signifies. The desire to ‘make’ something, to create, collage, or cultivate an artistic endeavor feels like an itch that we just have to scratch. We take up beading, musical instruments, knitting, photography, painting, calligraphy, pottery, gourmet cooking, poetry, handmade books, fabric arts, dance, stamping, and scrapbooking. Rae-Venus and I began creating one-of a kind art cards. They sell in the Moloka`i Fine Arts gallery. (a sample of today’s work/play is the photo for this blog entry.)

Giving in to our creative urges, in whatever modality or art we choose, is a nurturing, fulfilling process. Schedule an "art day" soon, alone or with a best girlfriend. (adapted from our upcoming book "Venus Comes of Age".)

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Time Out for Menopausal Goddesses and Midlife Women

By on March 23, 2007 in After the Pause, Emotional Menopause Symptoms, Menopause & Emotion

What do midlife, menopausal women want most? Not jewelry, not flowers, not fame, not even a romantic dinner. We want TIME!

For the majority of goddesses, our fondest wish is for "time to ourselves". Having spent so many years being nurturing, attentive and productive, we now wish to spend time with ourselves. Alone. We want to revel in time, to bathe in it, to pour it over ourselves like honey. Unstructured time. Quiet, contemplative time. Time to read, sew, paint, daydream, listen to music. Time to listen to our own inner voices.

I’ve just returned from a mini-vacation on my own island. I don’t know why I never did this before! I left phone and computer behind for a couple of nights at a resort, where people took care of my every need. Days stretching lazily before me, luxurious with hours uncommitted, were treasures without equal in my experience. I may still be "hot" (as in flash, not as in sexy), but I now feel like a new woman. I urge every menopausal goddess to go away for a tiny retreat. It will truly result in re-creation.

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Shades of Gray – Aging Gracefully

By on February 7, 2007 in After the Pause, Life Changes & Stages

"I’d just like to age gracefully," so many women I know have said. What exactly do we mean by that? Does it mean being completely ‘natural’, leaving our hair uncolored when it loses its pigment? The Menopausal Goddesses discussed ‘shades of gray’ hair in one of our meetings. We realized that while most women we knew (including ourselves) waxed rhapsodic about the beauty of allowing our hair to go gray as a sign of graceful aging, these same women all colored their hair. When queried why, they responded that silvery, moonlight hair is beautiful, yet so many of them/us ended up with a muddy or yellowish gray. And that’s a color that we just don’t want to see in the mirror looking back at us!

Does aging gracefully mean celebrating our wrinkles, without intervention? Well, hardly. We run the gamut from merely tolerating them to trying to smooth them out with creams, emollients, injections, or lifts.

Upon reflection, maybe aging gracefully simply means being comfortable in our own skin, whether wrinkled or smooth. Perhaps aging is graceful when you like yourself enough that you’d enjoy having yourself as a friend.

Unafraid, unashamed, unapologetic – most of the time anyway. For the other times, we have our girlfriends to help us through.

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