We are told over and over that menopause is deeply delibilating, not just for the woman herself, but for those around her who have to put up with her moods, hot flushes, irritability, and being an old bag or an old hag. I mean, take your pick.
And it goes on and on: forgetful (must be onset of dementia), brain fog (clearly confused and obviously inefficient), gets angry at the drop of a hat (what happened to Ms Nice), talks back and raises her voice, not easy on the eye anymore ('getting long in the tooth' - this works both ways, thanks very much). This woman needs to step aside and make room for someone younger, fresher and sweeter. Is this really a story about loss, or a skillfully orchestrated one written by governments and pharmaceutical companies manipulating half-truths into problems, and then miraculously discover solutions, to those manufactured problems that they made up in the first place. Cunningly boosting economic profits by preying on women's unfathomed insecurities.
But aside from all of that, when it was simply known as 'The Change of Life', it was for a great many women - a blessing, a fortuitous change that they could leave all the busy, crazy, endlessly exhausting decades of children, partners, domestics, working and simply surviving all of this. The truth is, it's called The Change of Life because women have the opportunity to move into a different phase that is more independent and gives way to a rising energy of discovery and a spiritual makeover. That's worth hanging around for, I think.
A Different Kind of Clarity
There is a reason why women experience less of the hormones she's used to carrying. She doesn't need them as much. Done with babies (if she had them), done with periods, done with a lot of her dependents like children and elder care and maybe she's discarded her partner along the way too. She's experiencing a freedom she hasn't felt in years and years and years.
Even though the hormonal shift of menopause reduces the hormonal makeup of a woman, she starts to notices things around her differently. She begins to build a different narrative, and this time, centring herself at the middle of it, rather than on the peripheral edges. Oestrogen, for much of her adult life, primes women toward the accommodation of others primarily: reading the room, smoothing tension, and keeping the peace. As it recedes, so does some of that instinct. What's left, for many women, is a sharper read on what she thinks actually matters, and considerably less patience for what doesn't.
This critical redefining of your new sense of self puts you at the midpoint of going somewhere new and different. It may not be strictly geographical, but in another sense, on the inside, the direction is forward and out there. This is the new you throwing out the accumulated debris - the kids school reports, long ago Mothers Day cards from school days, baby clothes you hung onto that are now stained and unwearable. No amount of sentiment will render them fresh again. Clothes from your 20s or 30s or 40s. Chuck them out and start again. A personality change is definitely being recalibrated as you experience your change of life. All that well-practised diplomacy and biting your tongue you spent decades perfecting is still there, but it's no longer running the whole show. Time to park that and speak out how you are really feeling after all of these years holding so much of it in.
Reclaiming Authority After Years of Caretaking
Decades of caretaking children, ageing parents, colleagues, a partner and the endless dramas of running a household will weather a woman well. There will have been plenty of moments when you have wanted to jump ship, get in the car and keep driving, dream about going to some bar but never going, and just be generally well over your family fullstop. Your leadership was based on what your family needed or what you may have looked for from others.
Menopause fortunately, mostly happens when these roles start to ease up. Children grow older and more independent and parental needs resolve one way or another. This can open a space when many women start to wonder what life will be like after the kids? Or maybe even thinking further into retirement? We tend not to think hard about these changes until we suddenly arrive at them, or changing circumstances force us to think about them.
We tend to think of leadership as what someone else does, your boss, a head of the company or organisation, a government, but we mostly don't apply it to self-leadership and for women, to consider themselves as leaders is often a tall task. Yet, decades of running a family is all about leadership. As all women approach and experience The Change of Life, the question to ask is: What do I want to build for me? This is a deeper kind of thinking putting you in the focal point of claiming that right and the space to do it. Questions of what's needed to move this forward are built upon decades of your pattern recognition and behaviours of family members, work colleagues, friends and others, hard-earned judgement, and a now much lower tolerance for nonsense. It's no coincidence that so many women create their most ambitious work in their late forties and fifties. You, unsurprisingly already have that capability, but now you have the space both in your head to think it, and in your desire to move it forward and make it happen.
What Gets in the Way
Of course, none of this arrives automatically. Workplaces, society and women themselves, have been trained to read (societal and cultural brainwashing) menopause as a decline rather than a transition, which means you need to see The Change of Life differently, as a change worth pursuing as opposed to a ball and chain holding you back. Let's see what get in the way:
A woman often apologises for her symptoms. She feels bad, and vulnerable when her body fires up out of her control in public places, particularly at work. She feels weak and a victim of her femaleness. Nothing to do with your ability to run a meeting, a project, handle confrontations or any of that. It's a physiological event, and it will pass, leaving you a little hot and bothered, and likely to return, which means practise makes perfect for next time, and the time after that.
Waiting to feel "back to normal." Many women hold off on stepping forward until the transition (the 'great change') settles, expecting to return to an earlier version of themselves. But the version on the other side isn't a return. It's a new you, arriving on its own unpredictable timeline. This new you is likely to be more decisive than the one who came before.
Mistaking bluntness for a loss of warmth. The new directness can feel jarring at first, even to the woman experiencing it. "Did I just say that, in that tone!" There's still warmth in the tone and delivery, but with fewer filters. Let the 'tone' wars begin.
Stepping In, Not Waiting It Out
Leadership in menopause is accepting this extraordinary Change of Life as an invitation to you, to build a more independent, exciting and deeply fulfilling next phase of your life.
You already have the necessary qualities for right leadership in your life: lived experience, life skills, clarity, judgement, low tolerance for waste and nonsense, self-worth and a genuine sense of what's worth your remaining energy.
If this is your season, not called The Second Spring for nothing, the invitation is to rise up and and ask yourself what you want your life to be about now, and let yourself be the full embodied leader for your own life. No-one knows that better than you.