Menopause Resource Center
Wise
Woman Ways
Menopausal Climax Years
by Susun S. Weed
The menopausal climax years include
the year or two before and a year or more after your
very last menstruation. The
average age of a woman in the midst of her Change is
51. But women come
to their menopausal climax in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, as well. Some
achieve menopause by surgical means, some by way of
chemotherapy or
radiation, and some just naturally arrive early. (Menopausal climax
before the age of 40 is considered "premature.")
During this 2-5 year climax period, the bones refuse to take in cal-cium and
bone scans will show growing osteoporosis; flashes, flushes, and night sweats
may be frequent; palpitations, emotional sensitivity, and sleeplessness are common.
Depending on the individual woman and her circumstances, other physical and emotional
changes may come with the Change, or she may experience next to nothing.
Take time
for solitude. Although many women feel enormous satisfaction in tending
and nourishing others, as our reproductive years come to a close, it
is appropriate to turn away from care-taking. Hot flashes, sleeplessness,
moodiness, and the like are easier to recognize as allies of wholeness
when you are free to follow your own needs without concern for others.
Take one day to be totally by yourself, or a Crone's Year Away, or
anything in between.
Experiment
with eggs, meat, and butter in your diet. Some women find these foods,
especially if from organic sources, decrease menopausal symptoms. Some
practitioners insist they increase menopausal distress, especially
when from commercial sources.
Relax and
enjoy your hot flashes. Ride them like waves, feel them in your spine,
ski the edges of your flushes, honor the volcanic heat of your core.
Like labor pains, hot flashes are the outward sign of metamorphosis.
Like labor pains, they are worse when resisted. Herbal allies help
those with unrelenting flashes relax and enjoy, too.
Spend time
with a journal. Buy a blank book and write in it, draw in it, paste
articles in it. Visions and dreams are particularly vivid and intense
in the menopausal climax years; keep your journal handy so you can
record them. Your emotional energies are readily available during the
menopausal climax years; draw them in your book. Memories abound during
these years; cherish them in your journal. Write your autobiography.
Plan your
Crone's Crowning. As months pass and the moon waxes and wanes without
drawing forth your menses, you pass through the second stage of initiation,
death. Your identity as Mother dies. Let yourself break all the rules.
Be someone totally different than you thought you could be.
copyright © Susun
Weed
