tuolumne river afternoon © lynette sheppard

During the worst of the menopause transition, we goddesses crave silence. The slightest noise can be an irritant, causing our shoulders to raise up to ear level and our jaw to clench hard enough to crack fillings. The cat breathing, the husband chewing his cereal, the freaking neighbor blowing the lame-ass leaves off his STUPID DRIVEWAY,.. where was I? Oh yes, noise irritation.

As with the majority of the travails of this passage, hypersensitivity to sound passes. We regain a semblance of auditory equanimity, although we may still be fans of quietude.

Still, there is something important to be gained from these annoyances that can serve us in the search for vibrance in our second adulthood. I’m talking about contemplation.

No, I’m not advocating naval gazing or oming or pillow sitting although these are all valuable practices. And good on you if you already avail yourself of these.

Mostly I’m talking about carving out time and space in a busy lifestyle to slow down, to listen, and to hear our own voices calling out from the silence. So many of the questions of midlife and second adulthood might only be answered with purposeful, contemplative breaks in the action.

Questions like: “What is my passion?” or :”What are my passionettes?” “What does it mean to me to age gracefully?” “How might I give back, what legacy shall I leave, if any?” And perhaps most important, “Who am I becoming?”

I just returned from a “vacation” in the High Sierra where Dewitt and I were able to contemplate literally all day long. Wandering aimlessly, appreciating, and photographing the natural beauty of the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River each day renewed and refreshed us. The rushing white noise of the river and the turtle speed pace allowed my inner voice to surface.

It’s easy to slow down and listen in such an environment. Still, I’d like to make contemplation a part of my everyday life, even more than it is at present.

Reading is a meditation for me. As is photographing. Sometimes, though, the story or artful subject is so compelling that I get lost in it and no longer am hearing my inner voice. How then, might I craft contemplative time, even if only in bits and pieces?

Years ago, I bought a couple of small, powerful books. I just pulled them off the shelf again. Being Home by Gunilla Norris with photos by Greta D. Sibley is a series of meditations having to do with everyday life. Her little vignettes/prayers deal with such weighty subjects as “making the bed” and  “taking out the trash”.

Approaching housework as meditation can create the same open receptivity as sitting by the river. It’s a matter of intention and focus. I have the intention – these little mantras provide the focus. I’m going to avail myself of at least one each day until it becomes ingrained, as natural as the flowing of water. I suspect that it might take a while, but creating a delicious second adulthood is a process not an endgame.

My other little hardbound manifesto is called The Art of Doing Nothing by Veronique Vienne, photographed by Erica Lennard. This little guide to rest an relaxation boasts tiny chapters on the arts of yawning, procrastinating, lounging, napping, and more.
I plan to indulge in at least one of these practices of “being:” in the midst of all my “doing” each day. Perhaps as I bring these gifts more into my life, I will realize that they are not indulgences, but necessities for growing myself.

I’ll keep you all posted on my “progress”. I’d love to know how each of you incorporates contemplation in your life, how you connect with that inner wisdom, and what you have learned. The synergy we create with our sharing leads to exponential growth and positive change. Just ask the Venuses! I don’t know what I’d do without them. Or without all of you! Just sayin’….

red maple leaves, Zion NP © lynette sheppard

The first menopause book I bought when I first started into perimenopause languished on the shelf for a couple of years. It was…Ginormous. Gargantuan. Encyclopedic. Just lifting it was too much effort to expend in my then fragile state. Besides, I boggled at the commitment I’d be undertaking to read its 500 or so pages.

So I left it in the bookcase as a placeholder.

When I finally managed to garner enough fortitude to tackle it, I found it pretty good. Yes, I know, damning with faint praise. Still, it was a decent treatise about the change with some great stories from real women going through it. The author wasn’t shy about sharing her own journey of menopause and subsequent divorce.

Here’s where she lost me (and many of the Venuses). She posited that many of the emotional symptoms were caused by unresolved life issues; problems unattended to prior to the Big M. Indeed, she recounts her own story and that of other women to back up her premise.

While that is an authentic experience for many women, it is not the only one. A number of us in the original Menopause Goddess group had worked hard to resolve life and relationship issues and were pretty happy, content, satisfied when the Change hit. Wham. End of equanimity. Enter emotional maelstrom. Out of nowhere. For no freaking reason other than the soon to be ubiquitous “it’s hormonal.”

Christiane Northrup MD makes a really important point in her book: any important life issues that you have not dealt with prior to The Big M are going to loom larger than any elephants in the living room. You will be compelled to notice them.

However, sometimes there is no large unresolved issue to be dealt with. It just feels that way. The Big M can make you so uncomfortable in your own skin that you feel like shaking everything up: work, relationship, friendships, where you live, you name it.

So how do we know? How do we know if we actually have an unresolved life issue; if we need to make major changes before we move ahead with our second Act, or if we are just caught in the tornado effect of the Change?

Good question. One that each woman will have to answer for herself eventually. But, one thing the Venuses have learned over the years of meeting, sharing, learning, and growing together. And this is the most important advice we can give regarding any and all aspects of Menopause.

TAKE IT SLOW.

Do Nothing.

Feed your soul and your spirit in gentle, caring ways without major upheaval. Elsewise, you may end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We live in a “Do something” world. This is our time to slow down and contemplate. Sure, try new things. Always wanted to be an artist? Don’t quit your day job just yet. Explore art. Make things. Do it just for you. If it grows into something more (like a new career) great! If now, you have a nurturing passionette to fill yourself up to overflowing. Not a bad deal.

Mortality, that other “M” word that overtakes the Scrabble center squares at this time of life, steamrolls us with urgency, too. Not only are we feeling emotionally jittery, depressed, anxious and pissed off; we suddenly feel the press of time.

If not now when? When will I travel the world, become a famous chef, move to the country, find my soulmate? While the Venuses would be the first to say, “You go, girlfriend. Follow your dreams and live boldly,” we’d first say this: take it easy. Wait til you start to come out the other side of Menopause. Yes, you’re mortal but there likely is time.

Imagine making huge life decisions at fifteen, in the maelstrom of puberty. Sheesh, we’d never let our kids do that. When in the midst of the hormonal sh*tstorm, they are rarely able to make those choices. Things change in a heartbeat.

Well, Menopause isn’t much different. Except it’s bigger, kind of like puberty to the 10th power. And we have driver’s licenses. And responsibilities. And we think we know better, because we are adults and have life experience. Hormones The great equalizer.

So go ahead, reevaluate your life. Dream your biggest dreams. Imagine who you would like to become. And then, do nothing for awhile. If hormones are causing turmoil, it will calm in a year or two. If there really IS a life issue that you need to address in a big Change, it will still be there. we guarantee it. You can work on it then.

For now, go slow, go safe, go inward. And most of all, go with girlfriends. They will keep you sane, and hopefully keep you from making any big life moves that you’ll regret.

I feel like I’ve inadvertently applied for citizenship in a new country – the Procrasti-Nation. Oh, I’m still keeping my US passport and all the freedoms we enjoy. But since the Pause, it seems I’ve adopted a whole new cosmology. Why do today what you can put off ’til tomorrow? Or forever? Why not do something frivolous or fun instead of my chores or commitments?

Our national anthem here in Procrasti-Nation might be “Feelin’ Groovy”. Or “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Instead of the lofty Latin “e pluribus unum”, our motto could be “I’ll Do It Later.”

Our national pastime: cloud watching. Far more entertaining than baseball, I think, and you don’t have to keep track of stats or wear jerseys.

So here I sit, writing my weekly blog entry at the last possible moment. I was going to write more about the Goddesses’ caregiving insights at our annual gathering, but I just couldn’t marshall my thoughts. The topic is so important that I’ll have to do it later.

That’s what happens when you live part-time in Procrasti-Nation. The important stuff waits while you do something less pressing, maybe even downright trivial. Like untangling your ‘ball’ of necklaces or reading your Facebook news.

Although I don’t “accomplish” as much when residing in this new place, I have to say that I’m a big fan of procrastinating. I spend more time petting the cats and dog. I’m more present to my friends when they drop by. And I’ve found a lot of stuff takes care of itself if you just leave it alone.

I’ve also fallen into some fun new projects because I was avoiding those items on the top of my prioritized to do list. Case in point: I was at a women’s writer’s retreat with Venus Karen Leland and a host of other wonderful, creative goddesses last summer. We were writing, reading, and critiquing one another.

One day, when we were supposed to be working on our various projects, I found myself taking a yet another unplanned vacation to Procrasti-Nation. One of my passions (passionettes, actually) is digital photography. Since all of us were engaged in the big living room with our laptops, I had to look busy. On the spot, I created a photo blog that I named “The Digital Diva”.

Weirdly enough, it took off. Enough so that my husband, Dewitt, asked if we could do another blog like it to just showcase our iPhone art. So Digital Diva / Digital Dude was born. We’ve taught classes and just written an article about creative iPhone apps and photo art for Outdoor Photographer magazine (it’s due out in a few months.)

Most of the time I spend in Procrasti-Nation does not lead to new blogs or much of anything save untangled silver chains. Like they say on the weight loss commercials, actual results may vary. Still, it feels like a gift that menopause has given me: an actual pause in my busyness and frenetic doing. And that’s why I’ve decided to emigrate there. Every now and then.

“I LIKE it but I just don’t know if it’s my PASSION.”  Finding a life’s passion was a theme for some of our early (and recent) discussions at the Venus meetings. Our dissections of this topic have had an urgency to them. After all, we are now officially in the second half of our lives and we don’t want to waste a single second. We spent a lot of time in the first half working and building career and family life.  Now we want to “find our passion.”

I’ve been musing more about this lately.  And it seems to me, we don’t need to find our passion, necessarily.  Passion sounds huge, momentous, important and weighty.  We had questions galore about the passion quest: Where do we look for it? How do we know when we’ve found it? How much of a commitment do we make to it.

A passion should by definition be GRAND.  Or should it?

What if we just had a lot of little passions, small pastimes we enjoyed and delighted in like gardening, biking, and wine-tasting (in Beej’s case) or photography, hula, and golf in mine. More like passionettes. That would sure take the pressure off – finding the ONE special thing that we not only are in LOVE with (read passionate about) but are willing to abandon ourselves to and actually become good at doing or performing. How about we just fall in like (and out if that’s how it works.)

If we were to allow ourselves full access to our delight in our small “likes” rather than that one great LOVE or passion, might we then be able to relax into pure joy and contentment? And in so doing, discover that our real passion is LIFE?

I’m not sure, but I feel so much more comfortable and “full” when I look at my passionettes in this way.  I’ll likely never be a good golfer, but I really like it. I don’t want to golf every day or obsess about my score.  I just want to get outside, breathe fresh air, hit some pretty shots and maybe break 100 now and again.

I love hula – it’s my spiritual practice as well as a dance. And a crossroads has opened before me – do I want to go further and become a teacher? And the answer would likely be yes if it was my ONE PASSION. If I’m honest with myself, I’d have to say it is not. I can go to church and worship without needing to become a minister.

This past week, I’ve been indulging in my photography passionette.  Jack Davis (of the Photoshop WOW books) taught a class here on Moloka`i, Hawai`i with my handsome hubby Dewitt Jones. I’ve been reveling in taking photos with no real goal or endpoint in mind -  just pure pleasure

In fact, now that I’m no longer looking at photography as something “serious” or my passion, I’m experiencing way more fun and freedom. And my favorite camera?  My iPhone – because with all the cool apps, I can shoot, collage, and push the creative envelope to my heart’s content, no holds barred. (Check out my Digital Diva and Digital Diva / Digital Dude iPhone art sites.)

So I’ve given up looking to find my PASSION.  When I have family, good friends, and my small but vibrant passionettes, nothing is missing.  Nothing at all.