Perimenopause and the Menstrual Cycle: Navigating the Last 10 Years Before Menopause (Episode 526)

Full Transcript: Episode 526

Today I’m sharing a brand new episode with two guests, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer. They’ve been on the podcast before, but it has been quite a few years. They were previously in episode 150 and also episode 333.

In today’s episode, we are touching on one of the topics in their most recent book, Wise Power, which is a follow-up to their first book together, Wild Power. And what we’re talking about today is we’re diving into this period of time that leads up to our last period. So we often refer to that period of time as perimenopause or premenopause. And it is different to actual menopause, which refers to your last official period.

And one of the things that I love about this conversation and other conversations that I’ve had with Sjanie and Alexandra is that we talk about this phase in a positive way. We talk about it as a natural stage of the life cycle. When you are a woman and you’re of reproductive age, eventually we’re all going to stop menstruating. However, it’s not a bad thing. It’s actually part of what is supposed to happen. It’s part of the natural flow of things, if you will.

So I really enjoyed today’s episode. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And let me just share a little bit about Alexandra and Sjanie, if you’re not yet familiar with their work. Alexandra and Sjanie are the co-founders of Red School and co-authors of the iconic and hugely celebrated book from Hay House, Wild Power, and their latest book, Wise Power. They are pioneering the new emerging field of menstruality, creating a new lexicon and approach to women’s health and well-being, creativity and leadership, and spiritual life based on the power of our menstruality consciousness. Between them, they bring over 60 years of experience, and today they teach worldwide on the psychospiritual process of maturation that unfolds from menarche to menopause and beyond. They’re committed to training the menstruality leaders of the future. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode.

Lisa: I’m so excited to be back here on the podcast with Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer and Alexandra Pope, the authors of Wild Power and Wise Power, their newest book. So excited to have you back on the show. Welcome.

Alexandra & Sjanie: Lovely to be here, Lisa. We’re just so up for this and ready to talk to you.

Lisa: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we just had the most incredible session in our Fertility Awareness Mastery Mentorship Program. I was sharing with you this morning that everybody really loved it, and I think one of the reasons is because as you both know, I’ve really focused my work on the very physical aspects of the menstrual cycle. And so I’m deep into that biological stuff, right, which is important. But the emotional kind of realities of it are equally important. And they really inform our understanding. And so the feedback that I had from our practitioners was just — it really makes it full. You know what I mean? Like it really completes the thought.

So we were chatting in our little discussion beforehand and one of the topics, similar topic that I wanted to kind of jump into today is just this lead-up to the main event, which is menopause. So I’d love for you to just jump in and share the difference. We were just talking about how so many people don’t even know that they use the word menopause, but they don’t realize that there are distinct stages. And I’d also like to just dive into the whole topic of what that lead-up is like — what we’re told about it, what we’re told it’s going to be like, how many people dread it versus what it could be like if we were better informed.

Sjanie: I just want to set it up by briefly naming what happens at menopause — the transformation — just to put the lead-up in context. And before we go there, just to come to the bit about your work, Lisa, which is so focused on the physical aspect of being a cyclical being, and then our work, which is focused on menstruality — all about the psychological, emotional, and spiritual layer of that experience. And how necessary both of those pieces are. As you said, it gives this fuller picture. It’s like two slices of the bread in the sandwich — this physical layer which builds body literacy, and this psychological emotional energetic layer which builds emotional literacy. Together they make this wonderful kind of sandwich of what it means to be a cyclical being and actually how to live in deep alignment with our cyclical nature — for wellness, for emotional and mental health, and for creative fulfillment. So that we’re really being held by the intelligence of our bodies.

I’m going to hand over to Alexandra to speak about menopause, because she is of course postmenopause, and I myself am in my late 40s — 47 — so I’m in the kind of lead-up to menopause, what you’re calling premenopause. So we’re holding different places within this journey. And I know, Lisa, you’re a little bit younger than me but also entering this decade of life before menopause happens. And it’s a whole journey that beautifully starts at our first bleed — it starts with menarche — and there’s a very rich and precise unfolding that happens through the different stages of our lives, culminating at menopause. So if we take menopause out of that context, a lot of what happens at menopause doesn’t make sense and can be very easily misunderstood, misconstrued, and mishandled.

Alexandra: The destination of our menstruating years — on an emotional, psychospiritual level — menopause sits on a continuum. And the way menopause is portrayed in our society is like a phenomenon floating out in space that one day you crash into. Whereas it’s the final stage of our menstruating years. And when you are connected into the biology, the physical aspects of your cycle, and then this next layer of the emotional — when you’re really embedded in that, charting and following that — you unfold into menopause. And what happens at menopause psychologically speaking is that you’re actually going to go through an enormous — and it’s quite melodramatic — death and rebirth. You’re coming to the end of something; you’re coming to the culmination of a journey that you have been growing into.

At this emotional level of work, the cycle is deepening you into yourself. It’s helping you to get to know yourself more and more and what you’re really about. And each decade of your life there’s this lovely refinement that goes on, and then something comes to a head at menopause in a very big and very powerful way. We call menopause an Awakening — we actually call it a spiritual awakening. It is profoundly that. And it’s going to demand something of you. But the thing is, you are prepared for that moment when you are rooted in your cycle.

That awakening involves you having to examine all aspects of your life — to examine what is in and what is out. So it’s a time of real psychological house cleaning and transformation in which you are actually going to literally — it’s like your whole psyche is being rewired for a whole new life postmenopause. And this postmenopause life is you utterly aligned with who you are, what you’re about, what you’re here to serve. So you’re stepping into something very powerful postmenopause. But to get to that place, you have to go through a psychological rewiring. And when we’re not prepared or taught about this rewiring, it feels like all hell has broken loose. It actually feels like the end.

And thrown into that is this fact of getting older — in inverted commas — and all the hideous negatives around being particularly an older woman, and the feeling of no longer being relevant, having the same kind of power. So there’s a whole lot of other things mixed in there. But at its heart is a rewiring of your whole being to set you up for a very aligned, powerful, very creative, and very productive postmenopause life — if you want that.

Sjanie: And what’s happening physiologically is underpinning all of this. We’re going from being cyclical and being held in a fertile body to suddenly having all of our hormones shift, our chemistry change at such a fundamental level — coming into this place where we are no longer cyclical in this way. And so there’s a real shift of power that happens within us from being these fertile reproductive beings to now having this very other kind of power, which Alexandra is describing as real creative power, a sort of worldly authority or leadership that we can’t access before we hit that stage of our lives. And if you know any really happening older women — as I do, case in point Alexandra — there’s a certain kind of authority that postmenopausal women have which you just don’t want to mess with, in my opinion. They really do know how to kick butt. So it’s a very significant gear change and life change that in a way brings us into just a whole other way of being in the world.

So much of the cultural conversation is just about menopause as being a health condition and a health crisis, without any recognition of what is unfolding — and that it isn’t a medical condition. It is a natural organic shift that is allowing for us to step into a new life phase with a new kind of alignment and power and creative capacity.

Lisa: One of the things that strikes me the most, especially for someone who might be a newer listener, is how positive we are speaking about this topic. In this day and age, you almost never hear anybody talking about this stage of life in a positive way — talking about how the shift, once you’ve kind of gone through that transition, adds to your life. It’s only talking about what it takes away. But Alexandra, you are talking about what it adds to your life.

And you know, I always joke — when I actually am postmenopause, watch out. Because I’m already fiery. What it’s gonna be fun. I mean, I think whenever you do interact with women who’ve really embraced this stage, they just lose their filter. They’re not afraid to say things anymore. They’re just so much in their power, which is I imagine why you so rightly titled your book Wise Power.

So I’d love to get into some of those symptoms. One of the practitioners made a really interesting comment after your wonderful presentation for us, and she drew a parallel between the menstrual cycle and how prior to menstruation — your Autumn — and then the Winter being menstruation — how energy changes. She mentioned she had struggled with quite severe PMS symptoms, and she felt that you had made this comparison in a much larger way to the premenopause stage as similar to that Autumn. And as we cycle naturally, we do have to learn to negotiate that stage and learn the difference between the natural emotional shifts that are not problematic but that do shift — versus what is problematic.

Alexandra: It’s a very very good question. I think we’d possibly need to back up a little to unpack something here, because there’s not a blanket answer we can give. It’s very much about each person coming to know themselves, learning to listen to their body, their needs, what’s changing in them, and how to tend to that. Where symptoms tend to happen is where we are not cooperating with our changing energy, our changing body, our changing needs.

If we just take the menstrual cycle as a really good little template for what’s happening in the larger cycle from menarche to menopause, that’s going to help shed some light. As you described, each phase of the menstrual cycle is likened to a different season: menstruation is your inner winter, pre-ovulation is your inner spring, ovulation your inner summer, and the premenstruum your inner autumn. We can then zoom out into our menstrual arc and see that those seasons play out in much the same way throughout our 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s.

Alexandra: Our late teens and 20s are very much in our springtime of our menstruating years. Into our 30s, we crest into the summer season. And our 40s are that sort of turning point — from summer to autumn — where the energy shifts. The energies of our 40s are a little bit equivalent to the energies of the autumn of our menstrual cycle. The kinds of experiences that come up in the premenstrual phase will be echoed in our 40s, depending on health and well-being. And then when we come into menopause, that is the ending — it is the winter of our menstruating years.

I always like to think that in your 20s and 30s there’s not a huge amount of difference because there’s a fair amount of energy in the bank — that quality of invincibility, that sense that you can keep going forever. But when you come into your 40s — a bit like coming into the premenstrual phase — when you suddenly notice your energy drops, you start to get irritable, the shine comes off everything. That bubble of invincibility is gone.

And so much of the distress that starts to happen for people in their 40s where they then begin to say, “Oh my God, this is menopause” — I want to say no, no, no. You’ve got your whole 40s. What it is is you are just discovering you’re not invincible anymore. You cannot just push, push, push and ignore your body, your needs in the way you could before. And there is a price to pay for just getting away with it in your 20s and 30s. You pay that price in your 40s. That is actually when the bailiff comes to collect the debt. We receive the report card in our 40s.

Sjanie: There’s a moment where we shift — and the shine goes off things. Instead of going, “Oh my God, this is menopause,” I want everybody to go, “Oh wow, I am changing. My needs are changing. I’m coming into a different life stage, and I have to respond to myself differently.” So my body is now speaking to me about something deeper — about my needs, something about my overall health, how I’m doing and what’s important to me. So it’s like this marvelous little reality check moment.

And if you can meet any difficult or troublesome things that show themselves — not that this is carte blanche, because we’re all singular and unique — but if you are encountering challenges, meet them. Ask yourself: what’s needed here? What care do I have to give myself? What am I asked to look at and examine? And if you can meet that and adjust to the person you’re becoming — where you suddenly find you can’t pull an all-nighter, you can’t work late and then have to get up at the crack of dawn and head off again — and you could start to recognize that, you come into a new pattern or rhythm with yourself. You come into the flow of the 40s.

Lisa: I want to draw a parallel. From the end of your 30s into your 40s, your hormones do begin to shift. There is a very gradual incremental hormonal change happening, which culminates at menopause. Just as in the menstrual cycle you are changing through the premenstruum but then there is a very distinct relief — the bleeding that happens at the end — which is menstruation, your inner winter. But there are two very distinct things going on here, and it’s really helpful in terms of self-care and self-understanding not to combine or confuse or mush those things together.

This life phase of the 40s — many people refer to this as perimenopause. But equally, many people seem to be using the word perimenopause to also mean menopause. And it’s our understanding that these are two very, very different psychological and emotional experiences. Menopause — the physical marker is the cessation of periods — but around that time, for like two to five years around the end of bleeding, you are going through this death and rebirth process, this inner winter. And then in the lead-up to that, you’re going through this inner autumn — this gear change — this preparation for the winter that’s coming.

Our body doesn’t metabolize stress in a way that it could or did in the previous life stages. We all understand how stress affects us physically, mentally, emotionally. We could say that stress underlies all health conditions. And so if we aren’t cooperating with this changing life phase, we are really living in a state of survival — in a stress state — and the kinds of things we experience from emotional reactivity, overwhelm, anxiety, physical health conditions, even irregular disrupted cycles — those things are connected to the stress and the not cooperating with what our body is asking of us.

Sjanie: I feel fantastic in my 40s. I really do. I take care of myself. I said to Alexandra this morning — if the me of my 20s could see what I do today to look after myself, I would not believe it. I’ve taken self-care to a whole other level and it’s paying off. Not only in terms of how well I feel physically, but emotionally I have many days where the base note is joy and creative pleasure. I’m really living my calling, I feel very fulfilled. The challenges that I’m up against are also bigger than I’ve ever faced before. But the difference is I have a newfound maturity with them.

When I first hit my 40s, I really wobbled — very much like coming off the high of the inner summer into the inner autumn. It’s hard to break the momentum of that fast living. But then, gradually and incrementally, I have found my flow with it. And this is also true of the premenstruum — if you respect your inner autumn and your needs in your inner autumn, that disturbance is turned into power. I’ve really felt my authority, my capacity for love expand, my creative capacity expand. That’s part of the flow of coming into your 40s. But it takes inner work and a huge amount of self-care.

Alexandra: There’s this amazing work of acceptance of yourself that goes on in your 40s — just growing in your recognition of your own nature, and loving yourself more and more. Growing a greater confidence in your own voice, your own authority. I often talk about Mastery — I think the 40s are about coming into a real sense of mastery with yourself. Feeling capable, confident, at the sort of peak of your game in terms of your work. And with that mastery comes a relishing of yourself — really good, healthy ego. And you want to build that healthy sense of ego because at menopause it’s going to get dented a little, and if it’s not a little bit sturdy, that denting doesn’t feel quite so great.

Lisa: Based on my anecdotal experience with clients — in my humble opinion — when a woman has been on birth control for her entire 20s, 30s, and 40s, that really doesn’t set you up for dealing with this stage. I’ve seen women who have been on birth control most of their lives, and when they come off, all of a sudden they’re cycling — but this is like the first time they’re cycling as adult women. It just takes them out, because they just don’t have the experience dealing with this cyclical shift.

I feel like those of us who have cycled all these years — we were in the boat. The waves didn’t necessarily need to be catastrophic because we were able to navigate while they were still kind of small. I just came off a very, very stressful couple of years of my life. During that time there were shifts in my cycle. I had one cycle that was really long and another where I had spotting, which is not something I normally experience. For me, that was like the boat going a little to the left. And for me that was kind of like: okay, back to the self-care. When you are cycling with literacy — tracking, understanding, seeing the changes in your luteal phase, being aware of how they tie into how you live your life — that is teaching you.

Sjanie: I also want to add — this isn’t just about preparing for menopause. This is actually about setting yourself up for postmenopause life. Because self-care actually goes up a notch again. You really want to get your health house in order as best you can within the context of your life. Having this knowledge and really building and holding a positive vision about menopause is actually setting yourself up for a very aligned, healthy life postmenopause.

Alexandra: What happened for me — I actually suffered with severe health problems for a lot of my life, and I had developed really strong healthcare practices. What was interesting was coming into my 40s, I went through menopause maybe around 53 or so. But I never at any moment used the word menopause. I just was staying with the experience I was having — my cycles started to become longer. I had had insomnia back in my 30s. So in my 40s, where everything was improving, I was happy, getting some sleep. I actually did not have any symptoms like hot flashes until I was coming out of menopause — and I had just moved countries. I had shifted from Australia back to the UK and completely changed my whole life. It was quite demanding. And that was when I started to get hot flushes. But that was the only thing that was really problematic.

What I’m really speaking to here is: I was someone with poor health, but I had grown very strong self-care practices. I was very disciplined about what I needed to be well. And it turned out those were all the things I needed to be well going through menopause. So yes, you can really take charge of something here. You don’t have to be at the mercy of this. I never at any point felt at the mercy of something. I also felt ready. I had that moment where I thought — I’ve done with the cycle. It’s over, and I feel very ready. I felt emotionally prepared for this new chapter, and that just quietly unfolded.

Lisa: If you allow it, if you lean into it, if you let it wash over you, if you don’t fight it, if you learn yourself better and you learn that you have limitations and you try to lean into that — generally speaking, you just can’t do all the things. You can’t stay up all night, you can’t drink all the coffee, you can’t do all the exercise with none of the food. And when you do that stuff, you see it in your cycle. It just magnifies during that time. Whereas before you might have gotten away with it, in your 40s, she’s not putting up with it anymore. But I feel that this conversation is the tip of the iceberg. Even in what we’ve talked about, I feel it’s such a wonderful experience for anyone who has been worried, nervous, or scared and thinks that this stage of life has to necessarily be awful. What we’ve created today is at least an alternative vision for that space — and what it can be.

Sjanie: For anyone still currently cycling, the practice is menstrual cycle awareness — really learning how to care for your changing needs through the menstrual month. We have an upcoming course on the 21st of June — a six-week online course called Cycle Power, which is a really good deep dive into this, into the inner seasons of the cycle and learning the cyclical self-care practices. And then for anyone in their late 40s or feeling like they’re edging into this initiatory territory of menopause, we have a course in November this year — and every year — called Menopause: The Great Awakener. That’s a six-week online course where we go through the five phases of the menopause initiation. And then we have a lovely free offering called the Love Your Cycle course, which is at redschool.net/love. And on Instagram, we’re at red.school.

Lisa: I will make sure to link all of the places that the listeners can go. I just want to thank the two of you. Every time we have a conversation I love it — it’s always like my favorite conversation, and then every new conversation becomes the new favorite one. So thank you for creating just such wonderful discourse around this time that causes so much grief and misunderstanding for so many women.

Alexandra & Sjanie: Thank you, Lisa. I bloody love what you’re doing. I love that we’ve connected over many years now. It’s so good, across the globe, across the ocean. Yeah, I just love it. I love what you’re doing. I love this conversation. Such fabulous work.